Five things my Mother never taught me.

My last post addressed "Mom Blogs" and my mother's comment nearly turned my "Man Blog" into a "Mom Blog". So I would like to take a moment to write about my own Mother.
In fact I would like to write about Five things my Mother never taught me.

1. My Mother never taught me to backbite.

All of my life watching my mother interact with other people I cannot ever recall hearing my Mother say anything bad about a person behind their back.

2. My Mother never taught me to steal.

When I was a very little boy, I worked a few funny jobs for my mom and collected every bit of loose change that I could find so that I could buy a Stomper. I don't know if anyone remembers stompers but it was a little truck a bit larger than a matchbox car that took a AA battery. The stomper had a switch to turn it on and it would slowly creep across the floor. The stomper's headlights would light up and the stomper usually came with two sets of tires, foam and hard rubber. If I remember right, the stomper usually cost around a dollar twenty.


After scrimping and saving for a period of time the day finally came that I had saved enough change to buy the stomper, I placed the change in a small plastic sandwich bag and asked my mother if we could go to town to buy a stomper. My mother told me that later that day she was going grocery shopping and that we could go then.
I remember waiting and pacing for what seemed like forever until my mother, with a smile said; "Bubba, (that's what my mom calls me)are you ready to go?"
Before she could get an answer I had my bag full of change and was climbing in to our old Ford Torino.
My mother stepped into the car and we took off to the store. Our first stop was Lin's Thriftway. My mother had some grocery shopping to do so I followed her with my change bag in hand as she loaded the cart.
In my stomper excitement I took a little detour and walked passed a shelf with whole peanuts that you could buy by the pound. I loved peanuts and didn't think much about it and decided that I would like to eat one, so I reached up and grabbed a peanut.
As I walked back to my mom, I cracked open one half of the shell and ate one of the delicious peanuts. It was wonderful. When I arrived at my mothers shopping cart, she looked down and said:"Bubba, what is that?" "A peanut," I said. "Bubba, where did you get that? I pointed to the large stash of peanuts. "Did you pay for it?" My mother asked. "No", I said.
"When you take something without paying for it, that is stealing," My mother said. I knew what stealing was, but it was just a single peanut. "But mom, it was just one peanut," I said. "It's still stealing, so you will have to pay for the peanut that you ate." My mother said in a kind voice.
So my mother walked with me to the checkout line peanut shell in hand. She lifted me up to talk to the cashier.
"Tell her what happened David." My mother said.
"I stole a peanut over there and would like to pay for it." I sadly said.
The cashier looked at us kind of funny as I handed her the empty peanut shell, she pushed a couple of buttons on the cash register and said, that will be seven cents.
I slowly reached in to my plastic bag and handed her a nickel and two pennies.
The cashier took it and put the change in the register. I looked down at my bag of money and new I didn't have enough for the stomper.
I told my mom of my concerns hoping she would give me 7 cents. She just smiled, gave me a hug and told me I would just have to save more money.
I felt pretty bad that day but that lesson stuck with me deep for a long time, at least until I was a teenager.
One day as teenagers my older brother and I went shopping with our mom.
We were in high school and a little rowdy to say the least. While shopping with our mother something caught our eye, it was a the dry ice cooler. My brother and I loved dry ice. Not only because it was neat, but because you could make bombs and get into a lot of trouble with it.
As my brother and I walked closer to the dry ice cooler, temptation got the better of us. We walked over to the cooler and opened the door. Steam lifted off the white gold as it beckoned to us to take it. Off to the side were a couple of chips of Dry ice a little smaller than a golf ball. My brother and I couldn't take the temptation so we each reached into the cooler and each took a chip of ice. We shut the cooler about the time my mother was getting the groceries rung up.
We played around with the ice, putting it in our mouths and rolling it on our tongues, pretending we were blowing smoke from a big cigar, burning each other, and just having a good time.
As my Mom walked out of the store we followed her and the bag boy to the car, all the while playing with our new toys of frozen gas.
While the bagger was setting the groceries into the trunk of the car he looked at my mom and said (and I swear these are the exact words): "I don't want to be a narc, but your boys took that dry ice without paying for it."
My mother looked at him and thanked him. She shut the trunk of the car and marched her two teenage boys to the cashier. Almost automatically my older brother looked at the cashier and said: "We took some dry ice without paying for it and would like to pay for it." I followed up with a quiet "yeah."
The cashier looked at us funny as we placed our small dry ice chips on the scale. The total bill was 17 cents. My older brother was kind enough to pay my part of the bill.
I don't remember what was said on the way back to the car, I don't think there were any Ill feelings, and my mom may have possibly called us little shits. But that was that.
We new our mother loved us and expected more from us.
My mother never taught me to steal.

3. My mother never taught me to overlook those have been overlooked.
I have never seen a kinder person to the elderly than my mother. Throughout my life I have watched my mother spend countless hours listening, talking to, and helping the elderly.
Rarely an evening went by at our house that my mother didn't get a phone call from an elderly lady that just needed someone to talk to. She always listened and always genuinely cared about what they had to say. I don't think that we ever had a Thanksgiving or a Christmas dinner that my Mother didn't invite an old widow that lived down the street to eat with us.
I have never seen my Mother belittle anyone no matter who they were, and it's impossible to not feel like a million bucks when you are around her.

4. My Mother never taught me to throw my hands in the air and give up.
When I was younger, the trucking company that my dad worked for went out of business. So my dad did everything he could to provide for us. That meant a lot of hours during the day doing odd jobs and driving a mail route through the evening and all night.
With my Dad gone it left raising four fighting boys to my mother for the majority of the time. Many, Many times my brothers and I would really get out of hand only to find my mother patching things up and really trying her best to help us all be happy. Every night and every morning my Mother made sure that we all as a family took time to pray together. Looking back, I know those times had to be extremely difficult for her but she was always strong and I never saw throw her hands up in the air and give up, when I believe most people would have.

5. My mother never taught me what it was like to not be loved.

In my whole life, there has never been a time that I have wondered if my mother loved me. Growing up and especially in my high school years I was kind of a rascal. I did a lot of things that at the time I didn't think warranted love from anyone. But no matter what I did, no matter what the circumstance, I always knew that my mother loved me.

I just hope that no matter what, my Mother knows that I will always love her.

David Riddle Blog

So, I have been thinking a little about this whole blog thing. It's kind of an interesting phenomenon.
I like to click on links from friends and family's blogs and even read blogs of people that I don't even know.
I think the majority of the blogs are "Mom Blogs" which usually consists of the family name with a picture of the family in the title while a mom tells heartwarming adventures that she has had with her family that day or week.
I think the Mom blogs are nice, and It seems like Moms have nearly taken over blog space. It's kind of a nice way for families to keep other family members in touch with each other.
The only problem I have with "Mom Blogs" are the comment sections. Rarely do I read a Mom blog with a rude or smart @$$ comment. For the most part, "Mom blog" comments are almost too sweet. I know women are meaner than that, so why not write what they really feel. Instead of, Oh how sweet is that or that is the cutest thing, why not say what you really feel like. Why not write the comment you made out loud as you looked at and read the blog. If you said, "Oh how darling!" Please write it, but if you said "Oh gag me!" write that. If the kid isn't cute write it, they need to know. Throw something out like: "yeah, your kid is cute if you are into giant foreheads" Ya know something like that. There is no need for other bloggers to be under a distorted perception of reality. They would be better off knowing the truth.
If I go to the doctor and have cancer, I want to know if I have cancer, I don't want him to smile, give me a hug, and tell me that I'm pretty. I want to know what I have so I can fix it.
I think I have a pretty good idea of what is going on inside the mind of the Mom bloggers and I guarantee that 90% of the comments are a little off of what they really feel.
This is the Internet. When you put something on a blog, anyone in the world can read about your personal life. I think when someone creates a public blog, they should welcome public comments even if they cause hurt feelings.
There you are telling the world how your kid is the cutest and best kid in the world. You better expect to be compared to the whole world, and sooner or later someone with a cuter and smarter kid is going to come across your blog, look at your kid and say: damn, that's an ugly kid, and possibly post it. Ive done that before to random strangers, and I don't do it anonymously, not to be mean but because I think they need to know.
I think it is funny when I see a "comment deleted" in someones comments, I try to imagine what was written because I know somewhere deep there was something that would have been much more entertaining than "Oh how cute, that was to die for!" Somebody had the cajones to say something and I just wish that I would have read it before it got deleted. Maybe I would have agreed and maybe I would have disagreed.
I have never deleted a comment from my blog. I do not think that I ever will.
If I was that worried what other people said I would privatize my blog. If you are worried about what someone says or thinks privatize yourself, because weather you know it or not your site probably gets hit 25-80 times per day, not just by strangers but by people that know you that are just bored and wanted to see what you were up to. Most people don't comment because they think that you might think they are weird for just randomly checking you out. Hell, I randomly Google people all the time, some people I like, some people I don't like, and some people just to find out if they are in prison or not. It's pretty entertaining and I'd be willing to bet that we all have at one point and time been on someones blog that we wouldn't want them to know that we were there.
When I surf blog world I usually just surf the friends links of friends links of friends links because I don't dare push the "Next Blog Button" in fear of what I might come across.
When I first started blogging, I got a phone call from my little brother, he said that he pushed the next blog button and got some kind of porn blog. This is how the phone call went:
Dave: Hello?
Gregg: (in a disgusted voice) Dave, (pause, pause,pause) What the hell?
Dave: What?
Gregg:Bro. I pushed the "next blog" button on your blog and it took me to a porn site!
Dave: (Laughing.) You did?
Gregg: Yeah, What the hell? (Now stuttering mad.) Really bad stuff. What the hell?
Dave: I'm sorry bro. I have pushed the next button once and got something bad too, I just don't push the next button any more.
Gregg: What the hell? Why are you linked to a porn site?
Dave: Gregg, I'm not linked to a porn site, it's just random, and I think that since they started letting videos get posted a bunch of sickos came out of the wood works. I was going to put a warning on my blog but I figured everybody would start pushing next just to see if it was true.
Gregg: Oh, that stuff made me feel bad.
Dave: Sorry bro. don't push the next blog button any more.
Gregg: I won't.
So needless to say I try to avoid surfing blog world by pressing the next blog link.
You may have your friends or friends friends come up to you and ask who is dave riddle? He left a crazy comment on my blog.
Yes, I leave random crazy comments on peoples blogs. Even people I don't know, and yes sometimes I say something rude if I think they need it. Nothing too rude, I may tell them their kid looks like he has an Afro with a chinstrap but only if he or she does.
I think that most people are sensitive when someone talks behind their backs. If they hear about it happening, it usually is accompanied by hurt feelings. It shouldn't be. Everybody talks behind everybodys back, and for the most part it isn't out of malice it's just conversation.
If you are honest in your blog comments, it will come as no surprise to someone who hears you said it to someone else and you won't make them feel as bad.
I'm not proposing that every one tap into their inner mean self. I'm just proposing that everyone make their posts a little more real. Then I would really enjoy blog space.

The rest of the rest of the story postponed

So, I guess I'm going to step away from the Rest of the story until I finish the rest of the story. I think the rest of the story takes me too long, and my blog has gotten too spotty because of it. It's easy for me to take five minutes to throw out little funny stories, but when I get into "The rest of the story" I have to write it and then have my Lawyer look at it and approve it before I post it. So I have decided to finish it and then post it all at once.
Sorry but I guess me keeping you hanging isn't new. Not that I will be keeping more than about 2 people hanging.

The Rest of the Story Ch.5

After the old man had finished telling his story, I looked over at him and could see in his eyes a bit of relief. I asked him if anyone else knew about the grave sites and what had happened. He told me that I was the only person in the world that new about any of this. He said that he tried to tell his late wife when he was younger, but the deeper he got into the story he could see that his wife was really getting worried, so he told her he was just telling a story, and left it at that.
It was getting later in the evening and the air was cooling a little. The cool breeze felt good after such an intense hour of stories.
I had a million questions running through my mind but for some reason didn't ask any of them. I just stood there with the old man looking at a small pile of brown sandstone rocks. Part of me wondered if there really was a body under the rocks, but given the circumstances I was pretty sure there was.
After a minute of silence the old man looked up at me and asked me what I was going to do about what I had heard. I paused for a minute and asked him what he meant. He said, "Well, are you going to turn me in?"
I hadn't really thought about it, but it dawned on me that this man was making a confession to a murder. Or was it a murder? Was I under the obligation as a responsible citizen to turn the old man in?
I paused for a few seconds and looked at the old man and asked him what he thought I should do.
He kind of smiled and said,"Why don't you keep it under your hat until I die. I've only got a couple of years left in me and would rather not spend them in court or in jail."
I looked at the old feeble man and in my mind decided that I would keep the story under my hat for the time being.
I told the man that he didn't have to loose any sleep over this and I would keep quiet. The old man smile and said; "Good. Lets get back to your truck, I have got more to show you.
As we walked back to my pickup truck about mid-way I let the old man take my arm because he was visibly struggling with the walk. I joked with him about him hanging in there because I didn't want to have to dig a third grave. He stopped and looked at me and got a serious look in his eye and said: "You mean a fourth grave?" In my mind I thought, Oh crap, this guy has killed more people. The old man then smiled and said "I had you going there." I saw that he was joking and felt relieved that there were no more graves.
After about five minutes of walking, we arrived at my truck and I helped the old man into it. I shut his door and walked around and climbed into my side. It was warm in the truck and the old man struggled with the window as he manually rolled it down. I did the same.
"Where to boss?" I said.
The old man smiled and with a little more life in his tone said: "To the good stuff!" and pointed to the area where I had seen the black circle in the side of the hill as I stood positioned on the stone with the crazy markings.
"Can you get us close in this truck?" the old man said. I looked at the old man and nodded. "I can get you anywhere in Big Red." I told him, referring to my old Red Chevy 4x4.
The old man reached behind him and struggled with the seat belt until he got it around him. I left mine off.
As I started driving the old man broke off into another story.
"After I buried that guy I was so sick that I just wanted to lay down, right in the rocks and die. I was partially covered in blood and dust and even a little vomit. I felt not only dirty on the outside but dirty on the inside. I decided to try to get home and cleaned up before my family came out looking for me. So I headed back. It was the most miserable walk I had ever taken. It was after noon and the son was high and hot. Flies started buzzing around me and I was smelling pretty bad. As I passed the creek I stopped and jumped into the deepest whole I could find. I even left my boots on because they needed cleaning. I scrubbed everything in that creek. I hadn't realised how much blood I had on me until I noticed that the water was visibly holding a red tint. I pulled my pants off and scrubbed until I couldn't see anymore blood.
After I finally got to where I felt clean I climbed out of the creek and walked the remaining quarter mile back home only to walk in sopping wet to Sunday dinner.
Every one was sitting at the table My Mom, Dad, and little sisters. My dad was the first to ask me where I had been. I just stood there and didn't say anything. I knew that I wouldn't be able to talk without crying. I looked at my Mother and little sisters and the innocence in their eyes and that made me want to cry even more. So I just stood there. I wanted so bad to just say everything to tell them what happened. I wanted my parents to give me hug and tell me it would be alright. I would feel better if I just let it out.
Just as I was about to say something my Father stood up and said "Boy, don't think that because you wanted to fake sick and to stay home and go swimming that you can sit down and eat Sunday dinner with us. You go get some dry clothes on and go out and start cleaning the corrals."
Without saying anything I went to my room, changed my clothes and went out to clean the corrals.
I was glad to not have to sit down and try to keep my composure. I was especially glad that I could get into some dry clothes and have a little time to think.
As I shoveled manure I decided that no matter what I could tell no one. I knew that if I really wanted to keep a secret I could trust no one with it. So I locked it up.
That night as finished up the corrals my dad came out to inspect the job. He told me to go in and get a bite to eat and go to bed."
After the old man finished telling the story, I watched him as he stared out the window. I could tell that he was reliving the old days over in his mind so I didn't say anything. I just kept driving to the hill side.