Posted on 01/19/2005 9:51:40 AM PST by Mo1
Yes, we had some progressive, post-Vatican II nuns who enjoyed playing guitars and teaching us folk and rock songs.
No ruler to the knuckles?
The ruler was in 1st Grade. 2nd Grade we had a great nun. Later years the verbally abusive nuns and molestor lay teachers came back...
The pic I post every now and then with Kearen crossing her paws, she was 24 pounds when that pic was taken.
She's got a Diva's attitude, and actively tries to keep her weight up despite all attempts to bring it down.
My previous cat was 22 pounds but didn't look it as she was all solid muscle and long fur.
'morning...
It's morning?!
Yes, I saw the picture you posted. I just thought I'd add an appropriate caption.
I see that the Chicago Convention Riots of 1968 were caused by Republicans. Unlike Mr. Steadman, I was old enough then (and not doped up on drugs) to actually remember the events.
Hmm.. "zero dark" there..
Of course, I'm here.
Women, unfortunately, often choose footwear for style and fashion rather than for fit and comfort.
What's happenin' this morning?
Yes, I'm sure you are right; I never realized that phenomenon was so wide-spread. For someone my height and shoe size though, I've just about never been able to wear shoes for style and fashion - they don't make them for mutants like me :)
The real Max Schmeling was a gentleman of the ring, writes Greg Stoda in Miami.
Max Schmeling is dead. There was a time when those four words would have been likely to set off celebrations around the world, because the hatred for what Schmeling was assumed to be by so many people ran so deep.
Angelo Dundee remembers something else.
"Max was always a gentleman," said Dundee, a legendary boxing trainer who was a teenager in south Philadelphia when Schmeling twice fought Joe Louis for the world heavyweight championship. "You hear things people said, but you don't know. Max was a good person. I'm sorry to hear he's gone."
Dundee recalled when Schmeling, a German and a huge underdog, knocked out the unbeaten Louis, a black man and the reigning champion, on June 19, 1936. It was a result the Nazi regime determined in those years before World War II as proof of the superiority of the Hitler-inspired Aryan nation.
"I listened to that fight on a radio at the firehouse on Morris Street just down from our house," Dundee said during a telephone conversation when he was informed Schmeling had died on Wednesday at the age of 99 in his homeland. "It was where we hung out. I couldn't believe anybody could stop Joe Louis."
Schmeling's triumph in that meeting in New York's Madison Square Garden set up a propaganda-filled rematch two years later as the Nazis continued their portrayal of Schmeling, who had refused to join their party, for their purposes while US President Franklin Roosevelt called on Louis to win the second fight. Louis did so with a first-round knockout in Yankee Stadium.
"Joe jumped right on him the second time," Dundee said. "[Schmeling] was a right-handed banger. Slick. Smart. But he never got a chance to get going in that second fight."
And here, according to an Associated Press report, is how Schmeling reacted decades later:
"Looking back, I'm almost happy I lost that fight," he said in 1975. "Just imagine if I would have come back to Germany with a victory. I had nothing to do with the Nazis, but they would have given me a medal. After the war I might have been considered a war criminal."
He was anything but. According to Associated Press, Schmeling refused to fire his Jewish-American manager, Joe Jacobs, and divorce Ondra, a Czech-born film star in 1938. Schmeling also hid two Jewish boys in his Berlin apartment during Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) as Nazis burned books in the city's central square and set synagogues on fire.
The Nazis lost interest in Schmeling almost immediately upon his loss to Louis, but they did draft him into the army.
Schmeling accumulated some wealth after the war, and frequently provided the less fortunate Louis with money throughout a genuine and long friendship. Schmeling even paid for Louis's funeral in 1981.
"I knew Joe a lot better than I knew Max," Dundee said. "Joe could be friends with anybody. It turned out pretty good that he made friends with Max.
"You know what I say? I say there are people who'd complain if an angel came down to earth, because they'd say the wings weren't right."
In a manner, Schmeling turned out to be something of an angel for Louis.
The city of Detroit, Louis's hometown, has an oversized sculpture of his fist downtown. Someone should consider placing one of Schmeling's next to it.
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT WOMEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. She is not a "BABE" or a "CHICK" - She is "BREASTED AMERICAN."
2. She is not a "SCREAMER" or a "MOANER" - She IS "VOCALLY APPRECIATIVE."
3. She is not "EASY" - She is "HORIZONTALLY ACCESSIBLE."
4. She is not a "DUMB BLONDE" - She is a "LIGHT-HAIRED DETOUR OFF THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY."
5. She has not "BEEN AROUND" - She is A "PREVIOUSLY-ENJOYED COMPANION."
6. She is not an "AIRHEAD" - She is "REALITY IMPAIRED."
7. She does not get "DRUNK" or "TIPSY" - She gets "CHEMICALLY INCONVENIENCED."
8. She does not have "BREAST IMPLANTS" - She is "MEDICALLY ENHANCED."
9. She does not "NAG" you - She becomes "VERBALLY REPETITIVE."
10. She is not a "TRAMP" - She is "SEXUALLY EXTROVERTED."
11. She does not have "MAJOR LEAGUE HOOTERS" - She Is "PECTORALLY SUPERIOR."
12. She is not a "TWO-BIT HOOKER" - She is a "LOW COST PROVIDER." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HOW TO SPEAK ABOUT MEN AND BE POLITICALLY CORRECT:
1. He does not have a "BEER GUT" - He has developed a "LIQUID GRAIN STORAGE FACILITY."
2. He is not a "BAD DANCER" - He is "OVERLY CAUCASIAN."
3. He does not "GET LOST ALL THE TIME" - He "INVESTIGATES ALTERNATIVE DESTINATIONS."
4. He is not "BALDING" - He is in "FOLLICLE REGRESSION."
5. He is not a "CRADLE ROBBER" - He prefers "GENERATIONAL DIFFERENTIAL RELATIONSHIPS."
6. He does not get "FALLING-DOWN DRUNK" - He becomes "ACCIDENTALLY HORIZONTAL."
7. He does not act like a "TOTAL ASS" - He develops a case of "RECTAL-CRANIAL INVERSION."
8. He is not a "MALE CHAUVINIST PIG" - He has "SWINE EMPATHY."
9. He is not afraid of "COMMITMENT" - He is "RELATIONSHIP CHALLENGED."
10. He is not "HORNY" - He is "SEXUALLY FOCUSED."
11. It's not his "CRACK" you see hanging out of his pants - It's "REAR CLEAVAGE."
MONTGOMERY - They're roaming all over the lower grades at Trinity Presbyterian School, little barefoot children. Toes smack the linoleum floors. Heels hit carpet.
In music class, in the computer lab, in kindergarten circled around their teacher as she reads aloud about the wonders of the letter A.
Poor kids, it's 40 degrees outside and raining.
Poor, hardly.
Trinity, a private school in East Montgomery with tuition of $7,000 a year, allows children in kindergarten through third grade to go barefoot. All year, rain or shine.
The late Montgomery pediatrician Dr. Robert Parker promoted the practice in the 1940s and'50s as a way for children to avoid sickness, and it's survived through generations.
"I'm the one he experimented on," said Bob Parker, 64, the pediatrician's son and a retired veterinarian who lives in Millbrook. "I went barefoot, and I can honestly say I never had a cold."
His father's theory was that mothers bundled their children up too much in cold weather. The children would sweat, and that made them sick.
During the fall and spring, more than half of the Trinity youngsters go barefoot. In the winter, it drops to about a third, said Headmaster Brian Willett.
Trinity, with an enrollment of 972, adopted uniforms three years ago. The pupils wear variations of khaki, navy, red and white. Sneakers for the older children must be solid white, none of those $150 metallic jobs. But the barefoot rule survived the strict overhaul.
"One of the first things that parents asked, `Is the policy going to change about going barefoot?'" Willett said.
Even Wednesday, one of the most miserable days of the season with temperatures below 45 and a constant drizzle, several children in each class were following Dr. Parker's advice.
While the tradition survives, the reasons behind it appear lost on this crowd.
Pick your reason:
"I really don't want to get blisters," said Abby Franklin, a barefoot kindergartner with a smudge of lavender polish on each toenail.
Cole Brown, a small boy with a fringe of brown hair, has a different set of issues with footwear. "When you wear shoes, first you have to get somebody to tie them."
Elsewhere in Montgomery, it's not uncommon for youngsters to attend church shoeless. "When my daughter was growing up, she went barefoot until about the third or fourth grade," said Sharon Self, music minister at First Baptist Church downtown.
Residents say the older, well-established Protestant churches have the most bare feet in Sunday school. What used to be a sign of poverty is now a mark of privilege. Mothers will spend hundreds of dollars on a hand-smocked dress, then bypass the patent leather Mary Janes.
"They look at them and say, `There's a Dr. Parker baby,'" said Alice Berry, Parker's daughter.
A tenderfoot now:
Until her father retired in 1975, even children in public schools went barefoot, on his advice.
"Back then, you could do anything you wanted to do," said Berry, who still lives in Montgomery and still goes shoeless often, though not in public. "My feet are too tender."
In the heyday of bare feet, her brother was a crossing guard for Cloverdale Elementary School. He stopped traffic barefoot, prompting strangers to ask if the poor little child needed shoes, Berry recalled.
Bob Parker said he once went 700 days barefoot. "You talking about feet getting tough," he said. "My big fun was I could sit there and get thumbtacks and stick them in my feet." This was preferably done with an audience of properly disgusted girls.
`Never get sick':
Trinity's campus contains several buildings connected by concrete stairs and covered walkways. Layne Williams, a third-grader in long pants, red turtleneck and navy fleece jacket, nonchalantly walks barefoot on wet concrete to music class. Otherwise dressed for winter, Layne looks like a child who forgot something.
She is not looking forward to fourth grade's shoes rule. "It's going to be hard," she said.
Her teacher, Jane Harrington, has been watching this trend 20 years, and was skeptical at first. Not anymore. "Those kids never get sick," she said.
Walking through the lunchroom can get a little dicey, according to a group of third-grade girls at a lunch table.
"She stepped in chewed-up pizza once," Mori Wallace said, pointing to a classmate.
One stepped in ketchup once.
All in all, they said, the freedom and comfort of going barefoot outweigh the perils and the hassles of tying shoelaces.
Skepticism:
Homewood pediatrician Dr. Tommy Amason was a patient of Dr. Parker's in the 1940s. He wore shoes to church and school, but otherwise grew up barefoot.
Amason, however, does not advise his patients against shoes.
"I've always laughed about the barefooted deal," Amason said. "He felt like it was a boost to the immune system. ... if you keep exposing these children and their bare feet to all the elements, it will toughen their immune system."
But Amason and a partner in the Mayfair Medical Group, Dr. Richard Huie, don't recommend it.
"I don't think there's any health advantage to going barefoot, in the winter, specifically," Huie said.
And in the summertime, there's a risk of parasitic infections entering through the feet, he said.
However, both pediatricians said they know that Parker was revered and an excellent doctor.
"Everything else he told the parents must have been so absolutely wonderful. Why else would they follow this idiot routine of going barefoot?" Amason said.
His wife works in the portrait business. She's told him that in fancy, ornate portraits from south Alabama, the richly dressed children usually lack shoes. "If it's a barefoot child, you know it's from Montgomery."
Small 'scandal' at a military camp where some young ladies and some guys had a bit of 'girls gone wild' going on where the ladies were 'mud wrassling.'
The usual people who had said that nothing liek this would happen in the services are now saying this is embarrassing and people should be punished.
I'd said that this would happen and have been waiting for it.
*snort*
My point ot the screamers was that if you're going to accept women in combat, you'll have to accept poor personal group judgement.
Oddly, no-one understands that except those getting slammed for being 'immoral.'
Same here. Although I do find nice shoes at places like Nordstrom, I don't buy shoes with very high heels. I buy low heels - the highest ones I ever buy are 2" for special occasions. And I always look for shoes with plenty of room in the toe box. So, I've never gotten bunions. My oldest sister, on the other hand, suffers from bunions. She always wore the high heeled pointy toed shoes that were in style when she was in high school and college, and in her early years working in an office environment.
There's just something oddly alluring and intimidating about women taller than I with 'large' feet.
*shrugs*
I dunno, weirdness on my part I guess.
Not much.
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