Wakes, Dead Ringers & Chewing the Fat

A New Year

 Christmas, 2010
                           was very strange and to be truthful, I am glad to be done with it.Dawg had surgery December 16th.  Surgery was scheduled for that morning and that morning brought a level 2 snow emergency. The surgery itself went well.  Out patient is was...go home..deal with the awful pain after the nerve block wears  off.  Rotator cuff surgery is a hard one.

           ...God is a very present help in time of trouble...

I wish I cold still see well enough to drive.
Thank  you kind neighbors for the ride home!

Christmas Eve brought astounding news that I am content to just let lie. Again giving credit where credit is due.  The Lord always does things so perfect.

Theser are INTERESTING.....



They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken & sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor"
But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot.......they "didnt have a pot to piss in" & were the lowest of the low

Sometimes in the old days, they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Bread was divided according to status.. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey... The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,someone could be, saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer...

Wow! You would have ever guessed