So Glad We Had This Time Together

 

Whether Carol Burnette was "bumping up the lights"; acting out a sketch with Harvey Korman, Tim Conway or Vickie Lawrence; or belting out a Tarzan yell; you just knew that you knew that you knew you were going to laugh hard for the next hour!

Carol Burnett was born in San Antonio, Texas in 1933 to alcoholic parents.  She and her younger sister, Chrissy, moved to a Hollywood boarding house with their grandmother to escape a volatile home life.

Blessed with a talent for the imaginary, Burnett graduated from Hollywood High School and then attended UCLA, working her way through bit parts on television.  Her aspirations to act were discouraged by her mother, who thought she could write.  Carol’s mother died before seeing her debut.

In the 1950s, Burnett was noticed for a comic novelty song and appeared on the Paul Winchell Show in 1955.  She also appeared in a short-lived sitcom with Buddy Hackett and as a regular on the game show, Pantomime Quiz.  Burnett married Don Saroyan in 1955, but the marriage only lasted seven years and produced no children.

Carol’s first success came in 1959 when she appeared on Broadway in the musical “Once Upon a Mattress.”  She also became a regular on The Garry Moore Show that same year and continued until 1962.  She won an Emmy in 1962 for her performance on the show for portraying a number of characters, including the cleaning woman that would become her alter-ego.  This led to her performing as a headliner with Julie Andrews at Carnegie Hall.

In 1963, Carol wed Joe Hamilton, a TV producer and divorced father of eight.  Carol and Joe had three daughters together before divorcing in 1984.

Comedienne Lucille Ball took an interest in Burnett and had her as a guest on The Lucy show several times before offering her a sitcom produced by Desilu.  Burnett declined, deciding on a variety show instead.  So, in 1967 the Carol Burnett Show debuted and was a huge success.

The Carol Burnett Show included cast members Tim Conway, Harvey Korman, Lyle Waggoner and Vicki Lawrence.  It ran for 11 years, garnered 22 Emmy Awards and numerous additional Emmy nominations every year of its run.  The sketches were comical and memorable, including spoofs of Went with the Wind and As the Stomach Turns.  One, Mama’s Family, was eventually spun off as a series for Lawrence.

The variety show kicked off many Carol Burnett trademarks, including her famous Tarzan yell, performed during many shows, and the closing of the show with an ear tug – a message to her grandmother that she was doing fine.  Her grandmother died during the show’s run.

Carol starred in other works while doing the variety show, including Pete ‘n’ Tillie in 1972.  She also appeared in Friendly Fire, Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice, The Four Seasons, Annie, and Noises Off.

Burnett also kept her contact with theatre appearing in I Do, I Do! with Rock Hudson and in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.  She also continued her television work, by guest starring in Mama’s Family and Mad About You.  She has most recently appeared in Desperate Housewives.

In 2001, Burnett married Brian Miller, a drummer in the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra who is twenty-five years her junior.  In 2002, she lost her daughter Carrie to lung and brain cancer at the age of 38.  Burnett and Carrie had collaborated on the playHollywood Arms, based on Burnett’s memoir, One More Time.  Mother and Daughter also played mother and daughter in an episode of Touched By An Angel.

In 1998, Burnett served as Grand Marshall of the Rose Parade; was a recipient of the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors; received the Medal of Freedom from President Bush in 2005 and was the subject of an American Masters profile in 2007.
                                                                                                                      ~  Carol Burnetts

Carol Burnette Quotes

This has been one of the best times of my life,
to meet you and spend time
in the town my grandmother told me so much about.

People invite me to dinner not because I cook,
but because I like to clean up.
I get immediate gratification from Windex. Yes, I do windows.

It will be fun. I just think it's so campy.

But I didn't ask to have somebody nose around in my private life.
I didn't even ask to be famous.
All I asked was to be able to earn a living making people laugh.

Comedy is tragedy plus time.

When someone who is known for being comedic does something straight,
it's always "a big breakthrough" or a "radical departure."
Why is it no one ever says that if a straight actor does comedy?
Are they presuming comedy is easier?

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away.
Everything goes away.

I wish my mother had left me something about how she felt growing up.
I wish my grandmother had done the same.
I wanted my girls to know me.

Giving birth is like taking your lower lip
and forcing it over your head.

It's also selfish because it makes you feel good
when you help others.
I've been helped by acts of kindness from strangers.
That's why we're here, after all, to help others.

Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me

My grandmother and I saw an average of eight movies a week,
double features, second run.

Well, I don't know how astute I am,
but I did want to be a journalist when I was growing up.

We don't stop going to school when we graduate.

Adolescence is just one big walking pimple.

When you have a dream,
you've got to grab it and never let go.

Words, once they are printed, have a life of their own.

Because nobody goes through life without a scar.

You have to go through the falling down in order to learn to walk.
It helps to know that you can survive it.
That's an education in itself

I have always grown from my problems and challenges,
from the things that don't work out,
that's when I've really learned.

I think we're here for each other.

I don't have false teeth. Do you think I'd buy teeth like these?





The funniest scene in comedy - Carol playing Scarlett O'Hara
in a DRAPED dress designed by Bob Mackie



We used to hoot out loud
when Carol would play the silent movie star
with her eyes WIDE open



There was a little bit of all of us in the washer woman
who would dream ...

Tim Conway Quotes

As a kid I was short and only weighed 95 pounds.
And though I was active in a lot of Sports
and got along with most of the guys,
I think I used comedy as a defense mechanism.
You know making someone laugh is a much better way
to solve a problem than by using your fists.

Carol [Burnett] is a wonderful, giving person;
she had a personal interest in everyone around the show,
including the stagehands and the ushers.
And then we didn't do a lot of rehearsal,
so the material stayed fresh.
It was really a lot like doing a live show. 

Both Harvey [Korman] and I like to keep in touch
with Carol [Burnett].
We try to see her at least once a month,
because she's got a drive-Up ATM window at her house.
And we like to go and pick up some cash.

Don Knotts was a really big influence,
especially on the Steve Allen Show.
I mean, look at the guy, his entire life is in his face.

I don't watch a lot of TV anymore.
A lot of it isn't the kind of thing you can feel comfortable
with watching with your kids.
And I still feel that way even though,
now, my kids are in their 30s.

I like to work a lot with wood. I make furniture that falls apart.
I also sew.
I love doing my own material.

I've never really taken anything very seriously.
I enjoy life because I enjoy making other people enjoy it.



Harvey Korman Quotes

Funny is when you're serious.

I got canceled in the middle of making the pilot.

 

You have to have a certain persona to be a star,
you know,
and I don't have that.
I'm a banana.

So I've got a reputation for being the straight man,
and I've worked with the best.

Although in Abbott and Costello, and straight man was first.
That's a very interesting concept.

 

And I'll tell you somebody else who was a straight man
and considers himself a straight man and
describes himself as one, Cary Grant.

Don't - those writers used to love us.
They would write these little plays,
and we would take care of the comedy.
It really seldom was joke jokes.

FROM THE CAROL BURNETTE SHOW ...

Carol Burnett can do it all. She sings and dances, she does comedy and drama. She endures.

The long running Carol Burnett show had some standard bits. Carol and the guest star would come out first and answer audience questions.

Then there would be the marvelous sketches. Who can forget Carol Burnett and Harvey Korman sitting on the porch in their rocking chairs wondering what went wrong in life. Or Carol and Harvey bickering with and about their daughter played by Carol Lawrence.

They made fun of TV and movies. My favorite sketch was the "Gone With the Wind" spoof where Carol comes downstairs with a drapery rod across her shoulders and drapes hanging from them. Another popular one was "As the Stomach Turns," a parody of a soap opera.

Carol Burnett is perhaps best remembered however, ending the show by tugging on her ear.

Carol Bradford:
When we were first married you wanted my meatloaf five nights a week.
Roger Bradford:
When we were first married there were a lot of things I wanted five nights a week.


as Thelma "Mama" Harper: [Vicki improvises a line that was not scripted]
You ain't right in the head, Eunice. I think somebody blew your pilot light out!
as Eunice Harper: [Carol is caught off guard and quickly turns away trying to compose herself and not fall out of character]
That's a *new* one, Mama!
as Thelma "Mama" Harper: [without missing a beat]
Well, you just wait, there's more!
as Eunice Harper: [clasping her hands over her face to hide her laughter]
Oh, no!
as Thelma "Mama" Harper:
You've got splinters in the windmills of your mind!


Ed: [playing the game sorry and Eunice is losing]
Slliiiiiide!
Eunice: Oh, will you shut up!


Housekeeper: [After the Cunningham's have entered a scary castle]
Go away. For three hundred years, no strange person has been inside this castle.
Mrs. Cunningham: You wanna bet?


Hallaba: You're going to be bitten by a verevolf.
Mrs. Cunningham: A verevolf?
[Screams]
Hallaba: Yes. Bevare the volfman will bite you tonight. Oy, are you gonna get it.
Mrs. Cunningham: Oh, no! Is a verevolf bite painful?
Hallaba: It's about the same as the bite from a wampire.


Reginald: [To Gwendolyn]
Now listen to me, you little fool. As far as everyone is concerned, father's death was purely...
Ms. Marble: [Ms. Marble in the background] Murder!
Reginald: [Nervous] Murder? Murder, you say?
Ms. Marble: [Comes into the living room]
Murder, murder, murder. Bloody, bloody murder.
Gwendolyn: You mean to say our father was murdered?
Ms. Marble: No, I mean to say my girdle is killing me.
Reginald: Ms. Marble, I really must insist you stop snooping around. I simply will not tolerate a busybody.
Ms. Marble: Busybody? Busybody, you say? My body hasn't been busy in over 40 years.


Audience Member: How old are you now?
Vicki Lawrence: I dunno!
Harvey Korman: I’m 77, and I can still go to the bathroom by myself!
Tim Conway: The amazing thing is, he’s doing it right now!

Mama's Family was a spin off starring Carol Burnett as Eunice and Vickie Lawrence as Mama 


Naomi: And just what is wrong with the way I dress?
Mama: Well, good Lord! If that blouse was any lower, it would be a skirt!

Mama: I'd be uncomfortable, too, if I were dressed in that get-up.
Naomi: Just what is wrong with my attire? I've always found this outfit very suitable for religious occasions.
Mama: That's 'cause you got to pray to God it stays up!

Naomi: Wait a minute now, I've told you repeatedly that this check stand is ten items or less.
Mama: Well, I know that, but look--I got bread, milk, fruit, meat and vegetables. That's five items.
Naomi: I know, but you got six kinds of vegetables here, and each one counts as an item.
Mama: Well I've also got a loaf of bread--you gonna count every slice?
Naomi: The point is, this is the express lane.
Mama: Well quit expressing yourself and start checking!



I really tried very hard to find scripts or snips of some of those wonderful skits ... I wish I could have found one of Mrs. Hwiggens ... or just one of Tim Conway cracking Harvey Korman up ... or the other way around.

Update:  I did find two YouTube Videos ... They are in the comment section.  I especially like the one with Tim Conway as the dentist.  I'm still looking for Mrs. Hwiggins!

If you ever have a chance to watch an old video or catch a late night rerun or even a commemorative, stop what you're doing and take the time.  You'll be so glad you had the time together ...

Tags: Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman

King of the Cowboys and Queen of the West

 

It was the time for cowboys and every kid dreamed of "the old west".  Every little girl hoped she marry a man just like Hoppy, Roy, and Gene (Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry) someday and every little boy wished he was one of those cowboys. 

I didn't know a kid who didn't ask for a palomino like Trigger (Roy Roger's horse) every Christmas, even though most of us knew we wouldn't get one ... it never hurt to ask.

My Dad was an auctioneer so he wore cowboy hats and boots.  We knew our dad was a good guy so one of us kids asked him one day, "Dad, were you a sheriff in the old West?"  The memory of it still makes me smile today.

COWBOY QUOTES

Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear,
or a fool from any direction.

Don't squat with your spurs on.

Don't judge people by their relatives.

When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

Talk slowly, think quickly.

Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

Live a good, honorable life.
Then when you get older and think back,
you'll enjoy it a second time.

Don't interfere with something that ain't botherin' you none.

Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

It's better to be a has-been that a never-was.

The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm.

The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.

If you find yourself in a hole,
the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.

It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.

The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with
watches you shave his face in the mirror every morning.

Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence,
try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

Don't worry about bitin' off more'n you can chew;
your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.

Always drink upstream from the herd.

Generally, you ain't learnin' nothing when your mouth's a-jawin'.

Tellin' a man to git lost and makin' him do it
are two entirely different propositions.

If you're ridin' ahead of the herd,
take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.

Good judgment comes from experience,
and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

When you give a personal lesson in meanness to a critter or to a person,
don't be surprised if they learn their lesson.

When you're throwin' your weight around,
be ready to have it thrown around by somebody else.

Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back.

Always take a good look at what you're about to eat.

It's not so important to know what it is,
but it's sure crucial to know what it was.

The quickest way to double your money is to
fold it over and put it back into your pocket.

Never miss a good chance to shut up.

  


ROY ROGERS - "King of the Cowboys"

• Born: 5 November 1911
• Birthplace: Cincinnati, Ohio
• Died: 6 July 1998 (heart failure)
• Best Known As: Star of TV's Roy Rogers Show

Name at birth: Leonard Slye

Roy Rogers was called the "King of the Cowboys" during his long career as a folksy singing hero of movies and TV. He was an original member of the cowboy singing group The Sons of the Pioneers, and in 1937 he signed on with Republic Pictures, replacing their departing star Gene Autry. He starred in more than 80 westerns with titles like The Arizona Kid (1939) and In Old Cheyenne (1941). He often co-starred with cowgirl Dale Evans, whom he married in 1947. Rogers's famous horse was Trigger, a Palomino stallion with flowing white mane who became a favorite with Rogers's fans. In the 1950s Rogers moved into TV with the The Roy Rogers Show. His theme song with Dale Evans was the gentle and cheery "Happy Trails to You."

Rogers was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame twice, as an individual in 1988 and with the Sons of the Pioneers in 1980... His is no relation to the blues guitarist Roy Rogers... It's true: after Trigger's death, the horse was mounted and put on display at the Roy Rogers Museum in Victorville, California. The museum (and Trigger) moved to Branson, Missouri in 2003... Rogers lent his name to the Marriott Corporation for the successful Roy Rogers chain of fast food restaurants; the first outlet opened in 1968.

QUOTES:

We were so far back in the woods, they almost had to pipe in sunlight.

You couldn't beg, borrow, or steal a job in 1931, 1932, ...
It was really tough.

I did pretty good for a guy who never finished high school
and used to yodel at square dances.

People are always asking me why they don't make Westerns like they used to.

The world changed. Hollywood changed.
I think we've lost something, and we don't know how to get it back. 

Today they're making pictures that I wouldn't want Trigger to see.

Give a lazy man a job, and he'll find a lazy way to do it. 

We'd put some zip to it, add some character, some identity.

"They'll have to shoot me first to take my gun."

 Cowboys weren't allowed to kiss girls in pictures,
so one time I gave Dale a little peck on the forehead
and we got a ton of letters to leave that mushy stuff out ...
So I had to kiss Trigger instead.

We make up most of our history around here, ... Codger.

When my time comes, just skin me and put me up there on Trigger,
just as though nothing had ever changed.

If I could teach the kids to identify and appreciate their natural environment,
then they will have a sense of place and care about Weston.


RIDER'S RULES by Roy Rogers

1. Be neat and clean.
2. Be courteous and polite.
3. Always obey your parents.
4. Protect the weak and help them.
5. Be brave but never take chances.
6. Study hard and learn all you can.
7. Be kind to animals and take care of them.
8. Eat all your food and never waste any.
9. Love God and go to Sunday school regularly.
10. Always respect our flag and our country.


Until we meet again, may the good Lord take a liking to you.


The epitaph on his gravestone:
The Cowboy's Prayer
Oh Lord, I reckon I'm not much just by myself.
I fail to do a lot of things I ought to do.
But Lord, when trails are steep and passes high,
Help me to ride it straight the whole way through.
And when in the falling dusk I get the final call,
I do not care how many flowers they send--
Above all else the happiest trail would be
For You to say to me, "Let's ride, My friend."
Amen
Roy Rogers
(Sunset Hills Memorial Park, Apple Valley, California)

DALE EVANS - "Queen of the West"

• Born: 31 October 1912
• Birthplace: Uvalde, Texas
• Died: 7 February 2001 (heart failure)
• Best Known As: Partner of singing cowboy Roy Rogers

Name at birth: Frances Octavia Smith

Dale Evans was a movie actress who starred with wholesome singing cowboy Roy Rogers in a series of 1940s westerns. The two were married in 1947 and from then on appeared as a popular pair in movies and on TV. Evans wrote the song that became their very popular theme: "Happy Trails to You." Evans's movie horse was Buttermilk, the counterpart to Rogers's horse Trigger.

Buttermilk, like Trigger, was mounted after death and put on display in the Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Museum. The museum was originally located in Victorville, California, but was moved to Branson, Missouri in 2003.

QUOTES:

Christmas, my child, is love in action.
Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.

Every day we live is a priceless gift of God,
loaded with possibilities to learn something new,
to gain fresh insights into His great truths.

Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.

I lay in the bed at the hospital and said, 'let's see what I have left.'
And I could see, I could speak, I could think, I could read.
I simply tabulated my blessings, and that gave me a start.

Happy trails to you, until we meet again.






For More:  
Happy Trails Forever™ - Honoring the *King of the Cowboys* & *Queen of the West*, Roy Rogers & Dale Evans - Home
Welcome to The Official Roy Rogers - Dale Evans Website

Tags: Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Cowboys

May God Bless Red Skelton

"If by chance some day you're not feeling well
and you should remember some silly thing I've said or done
and it brings back a smile to your face or a chuckle to your heart,
then my purpose as your clown has been fulfilled."

~ Red Skelton,   1913 - 1997

Born in Vincennes, Indiana, Skelton was the son of a Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus clown named Joe who died in 1913 shortly before the birth of his son. Skelton himself got one of his earliest tastes of show business with the same circus as a teenager. Before that, however, he had been given the show business bug at age ten by entertainer Ed Wynn, who spotted him selling newspapers in front of the Pantheon Theatre, in Vincennes, Indiana, trying to help his family. After buying every newspaper in Skelton's stock, Wynn took the boy backstage and introduced him to every member of the show with which he was traveling. By age 15, Skelton had hit the road full-time as an entertainer, working everywhere from medicine shows and vaudeville to burlesque, showboats, minstrel shows and circuses.

While performing in Kansas City in 1930, Skelton met and married his first wife, Edna Stillwell. The couple divorced 13 years later, but they remained cordial enough that Stillwell remained one of his chief writers.

Skelton caught his big break in two media at once: radio and film. In 1938 he made his film debut for RKO Radio Pictures, in the supporting role of a camp counselor in Having Wonderful Time.

Skelton was hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to lend comic relief to its Dr. Kildare medical dramas, but soon he was starring in comedy features (as inept radio detective "The Fox") and in Technicolor musicals. When Skelton signed his long-term contract with MGM in 1940, he insisted on a clause that permitted him to star in not only radio (which he had already done) but on television, which was still in its early years; studio chief Louis Mayer agreed to the terms, only to regret it years later when television became a serious threat to the motion picture industry.

Skelton was drafted in March 1944, and the popular series was discontinued June 06, 1944. Shipped overseas to serve with an Army entertainment unit as a private, Skelton led an exceptionally hectic military life: in addition to his own duties and responsibilities, he was always being summoned to entertain officers late at night. The perpetual motion and lack of rest resulted in a nervous breakdown in Italy. He spent three months in a hospital and was discharged in September 1945. He once joked about his military career, "I was the only celebrity who went in and came out a private."

In 1945, he married Georgia Davis; the couple had two children, Richard and Valentina. Georgia continued in her role as Red's manager until the 1960s. In 1951, NBC beckoned Skelton to bring his radio show to television. His characters worked even better on screen than on radio; television also provoked him to create his second best-remembered character, Freddie the Freeloader, a traditional tramp whose appearance suggested the elder brother of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus clown Emmett Kelly.

Many of Skelton's television shows have survived due to kinescopes, films, and videotapes and have been featured in recent years on PBS television stations. In addition, a number of excerpts from Skelton's television shows have been released on home video in both VHS and DVD formats.

Besides Freddie the Freeloader, Skelton's other television characters included Cauliflower McPugg, Clem Kaddiddlehopper, the Mean Widdle Boy, Sheriff Deadye, and San Fernando Red. Sometimes, during the sketches, Skelton would break up or cause his guest stars to laugh, not only on the live telecasts but the taped programs as well.

Skelton's weekly signoff -- "Good night and may God bless" -- became as familiar to television viewers as Edward R. Murrow's "Good night and good luck" or Walter Cronkite's "And that's the way it is".

Quite literally at the height of Skelton's popularity, his son was diagnosed with leukemia. In 1957 this was a virtual death sentence for any child. The illness and subsequent death of Richard Skelton at age 13 left Skelton unable to perform for much of the 1957-1958 television season. The show continued with guest hosts that included a very young Johnny Carson. CBS management was exceptionally understanding of Red's situation and no talk of cancellation was ever entertained by CBS president Paley. Skelton would seemingly turn on CBS and Paley after his show was cancelled by the network in 1970.

Red and Georgia divorced in 1971, and he remarried. In 1976, Georgia committed suicide by gunshot. Deeply affected by the loss of his ex-wife, Red would abstain from performing for the next decade and a half, finding solace only in painting clowns.

Skelton was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1989, but as Kadiddlehopper showed, he was more than an interpretive clown. One of his best-known routines was "The Pledge of Allegiance," in which he explained the pledge word by word. Another Skelton staple, a pantomime of the crowd at a small town parade as the American flag passes by, reflected Skelton's essentially conservative, rural, Americana tastes.

Skelton frequently used the art of pantomime for his characters, using few props. He had a hat that he would use for his various bits, a floppy fedora that he would quickly mold into whatever shape was needed for the moment.

Skelton returned to live performance after his television days ended, in nightclubs and casinos and resorts, as well as performing such venues as Carnegie Hall. Many of those shows yielded segments that were edited into part of the Funny Faces video series on HBO's Standing Room Only. He also spent more time on his lifetime love of painting, usually of clown images, and his works began to attract prices over $80,000.

Red married for a third and last time in 1983 to the much younger Lothian Toland. She continues to maintain a website and business selling Skelton memorabilia and art prints.

Near the end of his life, Skelton said his daily routine included writing a short story a day. He collected the best stories in self-published chapbooks. He also composed music which he sold to background music services such as Muzak. Among his more notable compositions was his patriotic "Red's White and Blue March."

When he was presented with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' Governor's Award in 1986, he received a standing ovation. "I want to thank you for sitting down," Skelton said when the ovation subsided. "I thought you were pulling a CBS and walking out on me."

Red Skelton died in a hospital in Palm Springs, California of pneumonia on September 17, 1997. At the time of his death, he lived in Anza, California. He is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

In 2002 during the controversy over the phrase "under God," which had been added to U.S. Pledge of Allegiance in 1954, a recording of a monologue Skelton performed on his 1969 television show resurfaced. In the speech, he commented on the meaning of each phrase of the Pledge. At the end, he added: "Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools too?" Given that Constitution advocates were arguing that the inclusion of "under God" in a pledge recited daily in U.S. public schools violated the First Amendment separation of church and state, Skelton suddenly regained popularity among religious conservatives who wanted the phrase to remain.

The Red Skelton Bridge spans the Wabash River and provides the highway link between Illinois and Indiana on U.S. Route 50, near his hometown of Vincennes, Indiana. The Red Skelton Performing Arts Center on the Vincennes University campus was constructed in 2006. A non-profit group in Skelton's hometown of Vincennes, began renovations in 2006 of the historic Vincennes Pantheon Theater, and the stage will be named in his honor.     (from Wikipedia)

I live by this credo: Have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness instead of sadness. Laughter had always brought me out of unhappy situations. Even in your darkest moment, you usually can find something to laugh about if you try hard enough.

 

God’s children and their happiness are my reasons for being.

 

There are three stages of life; youth, middle age and "Gee, you look good!"
 

 

I don’t want to be called ‘the greatest’ or ‘one of the greatest’; let other guys claim to be the best. I just want to be known as a clown because to me that’s the height of my profession. It means you can do everything-sing, dance, and above all, make people laugh.

Today’s comics use four-letter words as a shortcut to thinking. They’re shooting for that big laugh and it becomes a panic thing, using four-letter words to shock people.

Mom used to say I didn't run away from home my destiny just caught up with me at an early age.

REFLECTING ON HIS LIFE ...
 
I'd have avoided some of the pain if I could. Anyone would. But I wouldn't have missed knowing any of the people—even the ones whose leaving hurt most. In fact, the only thing I'm sorry about is that I didn't meet one particular guy, a clown named Joe Skelton. You know, he sure picked the right profession. I mean, a clown’s got it all. He never has to hold back: He can do as he pleases. The mouth and the eyes are painted on. So if you wanta cry, you can go right ahead. The make up won't smear. You'll still be smiling. . . ."
"All men make mistakes, but married men find out about them sooner."

                    (from "1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said," )

 

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE by Red Skelton

Red Skelton’s presentation of the Pledge of Allegiance recently on “The Red Skelton Hour” on the CBS Television Network produced thousands of letters and phone calls during the week following its broadcast. The public’s reaction was unanimous in congratulating the comedian for one of the season’s most memorable moments.  A transcript of Skelton’s recital follows:

 

PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

Getting back to schools, I remember a teacher I had. I only went through the 7th grade in school. I left home at ten years old because I was hungry. I'd work in the summer and go to school in the winter. I remember this one teacher. To me, he was the greatest teacher, a real sage of my time. He had such wisdom. We were all reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, and he walked over. Mr. Lasswell was his name…Mr. Lasswell. He said: (Red Becomes the Old Man) “I've been listening to you boys and girls recite the Pledge of Allegiance all semester and it seems as though it is becoming monotonous to you. If I may, may I recite it and try to explain to you the meaning of each word:

 

I – me, an individual, a committee of one.
PLEDGE – dedicate all of my worldly goods to give without self-pity.
ALLEGIANCE – my love and my devotion.
TO THE FLAG – our standard, Old Glory, a symbol of freedom.
Wherever she waves, there is respect because your loyalty has
given her a dignity that shouts freedom is everybody’s job.
OF THE UNITED – that means that we have all come together.
STATES OF AMERICA – individual communities that have united into 48 great states, 48 individual communities with pride and dignity and purpose, all divided with imaginary boundaries, yet united to a common purpose, and that’s love for country.
AND TO THE REPUBLIC – Republic…a state in which sovereign power is invested in representatives chosen by the people to govern. And government is the people and it’s from the people to the leaders, not from the leaders to the people.
FOR WHICH IT STANDS. ONE NATION – the nation…
UNDER GOD – meaning, so blessed by God.
INDIVISIBLE – incapable of being divided.
WITH LIBERTY – which is freedom and the right of power to live one’s own life without threats, or fear or some sort of retaliation.
AND JUSTICE – the principle or quality of dealing fairly with others.
FOR ALL. – which means, boys and girls, it’s as much your country as it is mine.

 

And now, boys and girls, let me hear you recite the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands. One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Since I was a small boy, two states have been added to our country and two words have been added to the Pledge of Allegiance – “under God.”

Wouldn't it be a pity if some one said, “That’s a prayer” and that would be eliminated from schools, too?

 

ABOUT FREDDY THE FREELOADER:

I get asked all the time; Where did you get the idea for Freddie the Freeloader, and who is Freddie really?

Well, I guess you might say that Freddie the Freeloader is a little bit of you, and a little bit of me, a little bit of all of us, you know.
He’s found out what love means. He knows the value of time. He knows that time is a glutton. We say we don't have time to do this or do that. There’s plenty of time. The trick is to apply it. The greatest disease in the world today is procrastination.

And Freddie knows about all these things. And so do you.
He doesn't ask anybody to provide for him, because it would be taken away from you. He doesn't ask for equal rights if it’s going to give up some of yours.
And he knows one thing ... that patriotism is more powerful than guns.

He’s nice to everybody because he was taught that man is made in God’s image. He’s never met God in person and the next fella just might be him.

I would say that Freddie is a little bit of all of us."

(from Red Skelton’s Funny Faces video)

 

 

I only come to life when there are people watching.


I'm nuts and I know it. But so long as I make ‘em laugh, they ain’t going to lock me up.


Our principles are the springs of our actions. Our actions, the springs of our happiness or misery. Too much care, therefore, cannot be taken in forming our principles.
 

His death was the first time that Ed Wynn ever made anyone sad.
 

No matter what your heartache may be, laughing helps you forget it for a few seconds.
 

I personally believe that each of us was put here for a purpose - to build not to destroy. If I can make people smile, then I have served my purpose for God.

"Have a little laugh at life and look around you for happiness
instead of sadness.
Laughter has always brought me out of unhappy situations."



The time has come to say good night,
My how time does fly.
We've had a laugh, perhaps a tear,
and now we hear good-bye.

I really hate to say good night,
for times like these are few.
I wish you love and happiness,
In everything you do.

The time has come to say good night,
I hope I've made a friend.
And so we'll say “May God bless you,"
Until we meet again

 

 

Tags: Comedy, May God Bless, Red Skelton, Clown, Freddy the Freeloader, Clem Kadiddlehopper

Taking A Break To Remember Mayberry

 

There's something about Mayberry and Mayberry folks that never leaves you.  No matter where life takes you,

you always carry in your heart memories of old times and old friends.
~ Andy

 

Do a good day's work and act like somebody.
~ Andy

Well, Winken'll tell Blinken, Blinken'll tell Nod,

Nod'll tell Barney ... and Barney'll tell you.
~ Andy to Opie


If you eat any more you'll swell up so tight your freckles will fall off!!!

~ Andy

Bet you a quarter she forgot a brown paper sack

full of sandwiches.

I've never been on a trip before

that I didn't have to take a

brown paper sack full of sandwiches. 
~ Andy

Andy's Southernisms:
(about Barney)
That boy is as nervous as a cat in room full of rocking chairs.
(about something frustrating)
It was like trying to sew buttons on custard pie.

(to Aunt Bee)

Aaain't Bea, you are the button in the Cap of Kindness!


Ain't we pickin our peaches 'fore they're fuzzed up good?

~ Andy

And that's also the biggest crock of nothing I've ever heard!!
~ Andy


Barney, I don't believe that dog could find his own food dish.

~ Andy

If somebody ask you to marry them,

the polite thing to do is marry them back.

~ Andy


(Talking about Barney while

Barn was trying to set Ange up with a new girl)
Whatever I did to deserve all this attention from him,

I ain't never gonna' do it again.

~ Andy


Barney:  You wanna be taken over by women?
Andy:  I wouldn't mind
~ Barney & Andy


When his time comes he aint gonna go like other people,

he just gonna nasty away.
~ Andy


That's a fine system you got there Barney.

You ought to write a book on it - call it

"The Barney Fife Subconscious Prober Primer."
~ Andy


You beat anything, Barney, you know that? You beat anything!
~ Andy




Barney: I don't look too Ivy League do I?
Andy: Oh, no ... you're in a league all by yourself.
~ Barney & Andy


Oh, you're funny, aren't you!?

You ought to get a cane and cigar and work at a carnival!! 
 ~ Barney

You just wanna rile me so you can see that vein stick out in my neck!

You like that don't you!
~ Barney


You know Andy, there's no better feeling

than knowing you were perfect.
~ Barney


Fly away buzzard, fly away crow,
way down south where the winds don't blow,
rub your nose & give two winks
& save us from this awful jinx
~ Barney


My mother, your mother, lives across the way.
Every night, they have a fight and this is what they say:
Icka backa, soda cracker, icak backa boo,

icka backa soda cracker, out goes you!

~ Barney (Jumping Rope)

(Postcard from Barney,on vacation in Raleigh)
Having fun,but money sure doesn't last long.

Been here three days and already have gone through $10!

~ Barney

You got to understand this is a small town.

The sheriff is more than just a sheriff-he's a friend.

And people in this town,

they ain't got a better friend than Andy Taylor!

~ Barney

I'm a deadly weapon.
~ Barney


Well ... it ain't a whim anymore

if you put on clean underwear. 

~ Barney


I don't know, ya try, and ya try, and ya try,

and what do ya get HEARTACHES

~ Barney

One thing about Gypsies though, they're moody!

~ Barney


Nip it. Nip it. Nip it in the bud. 
~ Barney


Nothin but dogs Andy,

why, if you flew a quail through here

every woman in here'd point.

~ Barney

 

A penny hit by lightnin' is worth six cents. 
~ Opie


Barney: Where you goin'?
Opie: I'm leavin'. You're a sight.
~ Opie


Opie: Pa what are we having for supper?
Andy: You and Aunt Bee are having fried chicken,

and I'm having crow.

~ Opie & Andy

Past the hand holding stage and ready to set the date.
~ Aunt Bee

Oh, fibbertigibbet!
~ Aunt Bee

(trying to calm Aunt Bee after she sees the broken rose)
Now remember Aunt Bee,

we've still got our money and pep,

and lots of good weather ahead!
~ Andy


Put that in your soda and sip it!

~ Miss Ellie


It's just a haircut, it isn't a brain operation

~ Floyd

Floyd: Love just happens. Two people just fall together.
Andy: What do you know about love!?
Floyd: What do I know?!! What ... about ... Lov ...

You can't cut hair for 30 years without learning SOMETHING!!
~ Andy & Floyd

Andy, take that thing away from him before he kills us all!!
~ Otis


Andy: Otis, you feel up to face the world?
Otis: Yeah, but I don't know if the world is up to facing me!
~ Andy & Otis


Barney: He got the drop on me!
Andy: He had a gun?
Barney: Well, he has now!

~ Andy/Barney

during our lifetime we travel many roads some
big roads some little roads rocky roads and
smooth roads dirt highways and improved highways
~ Barney to Gomer




Miss Bee, three cuts of pie is my high water mark. 
~ Briscoe Darlin

Gomer: You might be mashin' down too hard

on your acceleration, an' floodin' 'er out.
Barney: I'll handle this Gomer.
Thelma Lou: I think Gomer's right, I smell gas.

Do you smell gas, Andy?
Andy: I smell gas.
Opie: I smell gas.
Gomer: I smell gas.
Aunt Bee: I smell gas too.
Barney: ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT!

You smell gas! Of COURSE you smell gas!
What do you think this car runs on, COAL?

~ Barney's new car

 

 

 

Remembering Simpler Times

The Andy Griffith Show debuted at 9:30 on the evening of Monday, October 3, 1960, and ran for 249 episodes, 90 of which were color. Its spin-off episode was on The Danny Thomas Show where Danny was arrested by a sheriff in a small town in North Carolina. The Andy Griffith Show has not been off the air since it went into syndication a quarter of a century ago.

 

Mayberry Trivia

Number of times Barney wore a dress: 3.
Number of times Barney accidentally fired his pistol: 8. 3 into courthouse floor, 1 into courthouse ceiling, 2 into the air, 1 into Andy's front porch, and 1 into a tire on a squad car.
Number of panes of glass and/or windows broken by someone: 23.
Percentage of that glass broken by Ernest T. Bass: 78%.
Things wrong with the car Barney bought from "Hubcaps" Lesh for $297.50: plugs, points, bearings, valves, rings, fuel pump, starter switch, ignition wires, water pump, oil pump, clutch, clutch bearings, clutchplate, brake lining, brake shoes, radiator hose cover, sawdust in the transmission. And it could stand a good wash.
Number of stoplights in Mayberry: 1.
Number of miles on Aunt Bee's car: 145,000.
Number of steps up to the Taylors' front porch: 2.
Number of steps up to the church (which isn't air-conditioned): 6.
Number of jars of Miracle Salve delivered to Andy's house: 946.
The squad car is a Ford Galaxie.
Visiting hours at the jail are from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM.
Andy doesn't own a lawn mower - he borrows one fromhis neighbors, the Wilsons.
Barney once frisked his mother at a roadblock. This is the only time she appeared on the show. She had one line: "But Barney, I'm your mother!"
Barney bought his parents a concrete, steel-reinforced septic tank for their anniversary one year.
Andy and Barney are cousins (sometimes anyway).
Barney's landlady is Mrs. Mendelbright (pronounced "Mrs. BrendelMright"by Barney once when he was gassed).
Barney the realtor thinks he can sell the Taylors' house for $24,000.
The bank vault has a back door (the real door hadn't been opened in 15 years because they lost the combination and the company that made it went out of business, although a crook once opened the door).
Barney was the town band's standby cymbalist (they had no regular cymbalist).
Aunt Bee wears glasses when she does sewing and stuff.

 

Tags: Mayberry, Andy Taylor, Barney Fife, Aunt Bee, Opie, Floyd, Otis

Middle Aged Crazy

 

Middle Aged CRAZY

 

 

There is a thing that happens in middle age ... It's not a secret and it's not profound.  It just is the way that it is.

Most of us at middle age, look at our lives and have strong feelings about the disparity between who we thought we would be and who we are. 

Books and movies have been written about what happens next ...

Some people attempt to self-correct, choosing a new career or working extra hard at the one they already have, but what happens after you have a wall full of degrees and awards and you still don't feel validated?

It doesn't always end badly.  IT's never to late to become what we might have been.  I knew a Dr. who quit his medical practice and joined a medical missionary team and loves what he is doing now.  Colonel Sanders was in his 50s when he started Kentucky Fried Chicken.

 

Some people get divorced and look for someone new to help them feel those "fresh" feelings, but what happens after the "new" wears off and you find yourself feeling bored with this "soul mate"?  I can't even begin to count the relationships I have seen come and go in the land of Middle Aged Crazy!

Some people choose to embark on an adventure.  I have an uncle who retired and spent the next few years, traveling around in a RV.  I have another uncle who sold everything, but what he could fit in a van and traveled around, buying and selling antiques for a living. I knew another woman who sold everything she had and bought a Harley Davidson and rode it across country.

Some people make a geographical move ... thinking they might find more inspiration in living by the sea ... or the mountains ... or North ... or South ... or East ... or West, but what happens when they realize that all they really changed was their geography?

Some people make little changes ... plastic surgery: a nip or tuck ... quit smoking ... quitdrinking ... change their diet or their exercise routine.  They look better and feel better physically, but there's still something missing.  What could it be?

 

Other people just go PLAIN CRAZY ...

 

I've been crazy too.  If you are feeling a little "crazy" yourself, this article might be helpful to you:
 

Is midlife a quest or crisis?

Midlife Crisis? Bring It On! - TIME 

What does a female midlife crisis look like, anyway? A big face-lift, a little red car, an overdose, an affair, an escape to the Galapagos Islands? Or none of the above?

 

It is both a stable truth and an unsettling one that our lives loop and twist from age to age. The baby toddles into childhood, the child erupts into a teen, then a woman, who by the time she has passed 40 is long overdue to shed her skin again. That shedding can be traumatic, treacherous, born of sorrow or stress; but to hear the prophets of personal reinvention tell it, it may also be an unexpected gift. With that endearing sense of discovery that baby boomers bring to the most enduring experiences--like growing up or finding God or burning out--women are confronting the obstacles of middle age and figuring out how to turn them into opportunities. Thanks to higher incomes, better education and long experience at juggling multiple roles, women may actually discover that there has never been a better time to have a midlife crisis than now.

 

Sue Shellenbarger was 49, living in Oregon and writing her "Work & Family" column for the Wall Street Journal, when in the space of two years she got divorced, lost her father, drained her bank account and developed a taste for wilderness camping and ATV riding that left her crumpled up on an emergency-room gurney. "People around me thought I'd taken leave of my senses," she says. A few months later, "I was in a sling, trying to type with my broken collarbone, on the phone with one of my editors, and we were laughing about it." At that point, she says ... 

"I realized a midlife crisis is a cliche until you have one."

 

Fast-forward two years: this spring she published The Breaking Point: How Female Midlife Crisis Is Transforming Today's Women, which suggests that the national conversation is about to have a hot flash. The passage through middle age of so large a clump of women--there are roughly 43 million American women ages 40 to 60--guarantees that some rules may have to be rewritten and boundaries moved to accommodate them. That was part of the inspiration for Shellenbarger's book.

"I thought I could help other women see this coming in their lives, and not only avoid doing damage to others but capitalize on it."

 

In fact, the very word crisis, while suitably dramatic, seems somehow wrong for this generation's experience. Unlike their mothers and unlike the men in their lives, this cohort of women is creating a new model for what midlife might look like. Researchers have found that the most profound difference in attitude between men and women at middle age is that women are twice as likely to be hopeful about the future. Women get to wrestle their hormones through a Change of Life; but however disruptive menopause may be for some women, the changes that matter most are often more psychic and spiritual than physical.

 

Talk to women about what happens when they hit midlife hurdles--whether divorce or disease, an empty nest, the loss of a parent--and very often the response is a surprise even to them. They may first turn inward, ask the cosmic questions or retrieve some passion they put aside to make room for a career and family and adult responsibilities. Take a trip. Write a novel. Go back to school. Learn to kite board. But then, having done something to help themselves, they have a powerful urge to help others. Best of all is when they can do both at once.

 

Among the growing ranks of female entrepreneurs are many who have sensed a massive Midlife Marketing Opportunity. Women are natural marketers, even of their worst fears. Their instinct when they get in trouble is to talk about it with other women. So once they have weathered the crisis, they are ready to become crisis managers. The hospice nurse opens a consulting firm to help women handle their aging parents. The escrow officer becomes a personal trainer specializing in older women. The Harvard M.B.A. with three kids opens a temp agency specializing in placing part-time manager moms. Or in the Extreme Makeover version, Martha Stewart emerges from prison kinder, gentler and declaring,

"Our passion is and always should be to make life better."

More and more people see not a crisis but a challenge--even an opportunity, observes Deborah Carr, a sociology professor at Rutgers University. "How are they going to spend the second half of their life? They know they're going to have lots of healthy years, so I think it's a period of making choices to live out one's dreams that got put on the shelf during younger years."

When Canadian psychoanalyst Elliot Jacques coined the term midlife crisis back in 1965, he was not talking about a man who, upon turning 40, wakesup the next morning afraid he is going to die, goes in for hair plugs, buys a Porsche and runs off with a cupcake. He was studying creative genius and found that for many artists productivity began to decline as they reached middle age and wrestled with their own mortality. Never a legitimate clinical diagnosis, it was more like a handy way of describing the perfectly predictable process whereby every so often people looked around at their lives and asked, often in loud and expensive ways, "Is this it?" 

 

Or at least, men did. That was around the time that Betty Friedan was writing about "the problem that has no name," after she surveyed several hundred of her Smith classmates and found that most of them were unhappy in middle age. "If they had a midlife crisis, they didn't talk about it," says Jane Glenn Haas, founder of WomanSage, a nonprofit group that supports midlife women. "Women today realize that their mothers never had a sense of their options." Haas, now 67, shocked her family when she left her first husband 27 years ago. "They said to me, 'Why are you doing this?' I said, 'I'm not happy.' My mother said, 'Who told you that you were entitled to be happy?'" 

 

The present generation of women tend to bring different expectations to their middle passage. "To the extent there is any midlife crisis, to women it does not come as an enormous surprise," says Tace Hedrick, a University of Florida associate professor of women's studies. "Men wake up at 45 and realize, 'I'm not 18 anymore.' But women, their biological clock is ticking. They are constantly reminded that they are aging." The regular reminders of fertility are replaced by the insistent signals of menopause. Anthropologists say male status is typically tied to money and power, which explains why the standard male midlife crisis is triggered by a career crack-up. 

 

Women's turmoil often reflects events in their personal lives as well as the accumulated stress of years of ladder climbing, multitasking and barrier breaking.

 

 

WOMEN VS. MEN: HOW MIDLIFE IS DIFFERENT

Maybe the male midlife crisis stereotypically took the form of nifty new wheels because most men didn't grow up idealizing work. It was a means of putting food on the table and showing who was boss; actual happiness and satisfaction usually had to come from someplace else. In contrast, professional women, having fought so hard to break into fields that were once closed to them, often expect more from their jobs. If they are unhappy at 45, disenchanted with corporate politics or discouraged because they are not making a contribution to some larger good, they are typically willing to think of trying something completely new in a search for greater flexibility or challenge or satisfaction. 

 

So while some women may follow the classic male model in certain superficial ways--buying motorcycles in record numbers (up 34% in the past five years) and getting divorced (two-thirds of divorces among people 40 to 70 are initiated by the woman)--many realize that a new toy or a new lover can do only so much for one's sense of well being over the long term. Researchers have found that women tend to take a hardheaded look at how their lives are unfolding and where they want to be 10 or 20 years down the road, when they are more than twice as likely as men to be living alone.

Surveys find that middle-aged women think they will stay healthy longer. There is a kind of virtuous cycle created when women feel more confident about their coping skills.

The psychoanalyst Carl Jung explained how in middle age people tend to drop the roles they were playing, outgrow their pretenses. Some women become more willing to take risks as they grow less concerned about what others think. Women who submerged their identity when their children were young may feel a sense of liberation once they are older. Even the death of a parent, while painful and a frequent trigger of midlife depression, can free women from the burden of expectations, as they ask, Who am I doing all this for anyway?

The dream for many women involves starting a business of their own. When they do the cost/benefit analysis of staying in a job they dislike or taking a leap of faith, more and more women are ready to jump.  I think part of the elixir is the learning. Part is the control. Part of the reason is just the idea, I better take control of my own nest egg because no one else is going to. 

 

THE NEXT GOLD MINE: MIDLIFE AS AN INDUSTRY

From coast to coast, women of all backgrounds are essentially opening up the Great Midlife Lemonade Stand, taking the bitter taste of aging and making it sweet, satisfying. This is both noble and shrewd. Women like helping other women, and as it happens, just as women reach their moment of self-doubt, they also ripen into the perfect market segment. "You can make a ton of money," agrees Shellenbarger. "Let's face it. These women with their fat pocketbooks approach the age of 50 and lose their inhibitions. Imagine that! That's a lot of spending. The other thing that research shows will open people's pocketbooks is sadness, and for a lot of people, midlife crisis can be quite sad. And if you strike out in new directions after your crisis, you spend. If you are pursuing a dream, your primary focus is not going to be frugality. You're going to be out there buying stuff." 

 

For entrepreneurs with a smart answer, these are gold-rush days. "Anybody who is making pants with elastic waists is cleaning up," laughs Sharon Hadary, executive director of the Center for Women's Business Research in Washington. Curves International, a women's-only gym franchise aimed at the over-35 group, is the fastest-growing franchise of any kind in history, including McDonald's. Ninety percent of the franchise owners are women. "We lower cholesterol, blood pressure, help them lose weight," she says. "Some of these people, I don't know where they'd be if they hadn't started a program." 

 

THE BEST ESCAPE ROUTES

When women find a key to solving their own midlife mysteries, they often want nothing more than to help other women do the same. That typically involves some kind of journey, often a literal one.

The notion that the way to launch a spiritual journey is to take an actual trip is fueling the adventure-travel market, especially since many adventure travelers are women in their 40s. Half the women who sign on for her trips are married, but their husbands aren't interested in taking cooking classes in Italy or visiting gardens in Savannah. "He likes the fact that she is safe, traveling with an escorted group and comes back happy because she has fulfilled her travel dream," says Golden.  It's self-serving for me to say that Gutsy Women Travel does that. But some of these women have never been on trips on their own, without children and husbands. By the end of the first night, women are hugging each other and telling their life stories. You remember when you were young and had a pajama party? Well, we're only taller." 

 

GUIDES FOR THE INNER JOURNEY

To serve women in need of ongoing support and guidance, there is the growing army of life coaches who, once again, are often women looking to turn their midlife experience into a career. Debra Engle, 48, and Diane Glass, 57, both high-powered corporate marketing executives in Des Moines, Iowa, had done focus groups with a financial-planning firm interested in offering workshops for midlifers struggling with retirement planning. In their focus groups, they had found that many midlifers didn't want to spend all their days working at something they disliked just so they could finance a 20-year vacation in their golden years.

Plus, there was the "Oprah factor," as they call it, a growing emphasis on women nurturing themselves and helping others recharge and reinvent themselves, often by finding spirituality.

Though the initial impulse for many women seems to be to do something for themselves for once, the renewal that follows seems to draw them back toward caregiving. Four out of five women over 50 said having a job in which they help others is important to them, according to a joint study by the Simmons School of Management and Hewlett-Packard. "All the studies on spirituality and religion in America show women have a much higher rate of participation in religious and spiritual activities, and they rank service to community as more important than men do," Shellenbarger argues. "You're going to tell me that's really sexist, but I show that research has documented it. No one can exactly explain this, but religion and spirituality compel one to reach out to others in service." 

 

There is no telling the impact this generation is going to have as it reinvents what it means to get older and applies its many blessings and ingenuity to the pursuit of health and happiness.


"As we age, everything for our generation is going to be different," says Susan Johnson, 54, who quit her job as a Washington lobbyist to become a consultant to families with aging parents and complex medical problems. "We're staying in shape. We're eating healthier. We're Internet savvy. As we start to get into our golden years, we'll be on the Internet, investigating drugs and protocols. And we'll seek help when we need it. If we need a consultant, we hire one. If we need a coach to teach the latest exercise in Pilates or whatever, we hire people. We are a generation that will continue to invent. We won't just accept what's laid out ahead for us." Now that many Americans, according to a survey, think that full-fledged adulthood begins at 26, there is room for multiple midlife crises. There is the "quarter-life crisis" that hits at 25, the traditional one in your 40s and still another 20 years later. We are living too long and too well to stay settled even in a contented state for more than a few years at a time. And with experience, each new life-cycle crisis stands a better chance of looking like just another chance to start all over again. 

 

With reporting by Melissa August/Washington, Amanda Bower and Deirdre van Dyk/New York, Jeanne McDowell/Los Angeles, Siobhan Morrissey/Boca Raton, Betsy Rubiner/Des Moines and Leslie Whitaker/Chicago
 

I don't know if you or someone you know is nearing mid-life CRAZY, but if you are, there is no need to be afraid.  We have already experienced some gains and losses, successes and failures ... that got us to where we are now.  Life has been preparing us and equipping us for this time.  Whatever crazy thing we find ourselves in, trust that everything happens for a reason.  We are being challenged by the one person we can't run away from:  ourselves.  We are asking questions and demanding answers of ourselves, and we can find them if we are willing to truly look ourselves in the mirror, take a moral inventory, change the things that need to be changed and accept whatever we see, wrinkles, gray hair and all.

Come grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be!

Tags: Middle Aged Crazy, Mid-Life Crisis

Knoxville

We started out for Knoxville headed into fog and rain.



We were looking forward to seeing our friends.



And happily surprised with the spring colors along the way.



There wasn't a lot of traffic and the views were spectacular.



There are purple flowers that bloom all along the highway in Spring.



The countryside in Knoxville was so GREEN.
We went down in a cave with an underwater lake.
We visited a winery with a view.
We drove through the countryside,
looking at the neatest old barns
and green fields full of cattle or horses.



Too soon, it was time to go home!



We watched the sun set five or six times as it we drove in and out
of the mountain shadows.



More flowers ...



There is a mountain behind that cloud!



We took a short detour to try to get a good picture of the river.



We saw the strangest thing.
These are actually dozens of buzzards on a radio tower.
I hope this wasn't nature's comment on my driving!



There were places that almost looked painted.



We promised ourselves we would come back to go rafting
on this river.



Our last look at the sun before ...



We were home.

It was the nicest weekend.
Nothing like Good friends - Good fun - Good food!
We arrived home feeling refreshed
and ready for the week!

Saying Good-Bye

I packed up the last of it today, reminders of an old friendship.  While I packed, I wondered what would happen to my friend.  I wondered if I could have done more.

We met a few years back in a victims forum.  Laura (not her real name) seemed mostly through her healing.  She had a fun sense of humor and an unusual zest for life.  Laura's outlook on life could have been called inspiring.  We talked about being survivors and even about working on a few projects together.

Laura shared bits and pieces of her story with me through the years.  Some of her story was familiar to me.  Some of her story involved abuse that I hadn't even heard of.  I felt hurt for her and wondered how anyone could ever be so cruel, especially (in her case) to a child.  I listened and tried to find some kind of meaning in it all.

Then, Laura told me that she had multiple personalities.  Today, it's called Dissociative Identity Disorder.  I'll get to the "medical description" in a minute.  Before we talk about the "science", I want to say that my old friend (and anyone else who suffers from DID) wasn't and isn't a bug to "study under a microscope".  She's real.  She's been through a lot and come a long way.  Laura, and people like Laura, don't need our criticism.  They need our understanding and our compassion. 



A Dissociative Identity Disorder: Merck Manual Home Edition says:


Dissociative Identity Disorder and Childhood Abuse

About 97 to 98% of adults with dissociative identity disorder report having been abused during childhood. Abuse can be documented for 85% of the adults and 95% of the children and adolescents with dissociative identity disorder.

 

Although childhood abuse is a major cause of dissociative identity disorder, that does not mean all the specific abuses alleged by people with this disorder really happened. Some aspects of some reported experiences clearly are not accurate. In addition, some people were not abused at all, but rather, suffered an important early loss, such as the death of a parent, a serious physical illness, or some other very stressful experience.



What I came to believe is that inside all of us, when the pain is too much for us to bear, God gave us an extreme coping skill where we can bundle up all that pain and place it in the care of a tiny part of our self.  Then, that part of our personality simply breaks off to hold the memory until we are strong enough to take the memory back, if we are ever strong enough.

I felt compassion and concern for Laura.  I worried because I saw how some of those personalities interfered with her daily activities ... like the "five year old personality" coming out to play while Laura was driving the car.  I was on the phone with her at the time.  I tried very hard not to panic and remain calm, but inside, I felt the same way anyone would feel if a five year old were driving down the freeway in rush hour traffic.  I didn't know anything about multiple personalities, but I thought I better learn if I was going to be able to support my friend ...



Dissociative Identity Disorder

In dissociative identity disorder, formerly called multiple personality disorder, two or more identities or personalities alternate.

 

Dissociative identity disorder appears to be a rather common mental disorder. It can be found in 3 to 4% of people hospitalized for other mental health disorders and in a sizable minority of people in drug abuse treatment facilities. However, some authorities believe that many cases of this disorder reflect the influence of therapists on suggestible people.

 

Dissociative identity disorder appears to be caused by the interaction of several factors. These include overwhelming stress; an ability to separate one's memories, perceptions, or identity from conscious awareness; abnormal psychologic development, and insufficient protection and nurture during childhood.

 

Human development requires that children be able to integrate complicated and different types of information and experiences. As children learn to achieve a cohesive, complex identity, they go through phases in which different perceptions and emotions of themselves and others are kept segregated. These different perceptions and emotions become involved in the generation of different selves, but not every child who suffers abuse or a major loss or trauma has the capacity to develop multiple personalities. Those who do have the capacity also have normal ways of coping, and most of these vulnerable children are sufficiently protected and soothed by adults, so dissociative identity disorder does not develop.

 

Although childhood abuse is a major cause of dissociative identity disorder, that does not mean all the specific abuses alleged by people with this disorder really happened. Some aspects of some reported experiences clearly are not accurate. In addition, some people were not abused at all, but rather, suffered an important early loss, such as the death of a parent, a serious physical illness, or some other very stressful experience.



What all that meant for Laura was that even though she is very intelligent, her perceptions and emotions swung way out of control sometimes.  I would try to sooth and calm her the same way I would any adult, but in reality, those out of control moments were probably one of her more immature personalities.  

I couldn't always tell when there was a shift because whatever was happening on the inside of her always looked the same on the outside.  I could have a whole conversation with "one personality" and the others would have no memory of it.  I think now that one of the mistakes I made was trying to "normalize" those moments by thinking that "she just forgot" or "maybe, she's in menopause too".  I'd shrug it off and repeat myself.

The first time I saw Laura "be another person" was surprising, only because she "became" a "five year old in a woman's body" in the middle of a gift shop full of breakables.  Her face changed.  Her voice changed.  It was kind of like having a severely retarded adult "appear" out of nowhere, but I have volunteered with retarded adults before ... No problem, right? ... Except, I remember wishing my friend was there to help me cope with the person she was ... It doesn't make sense to say it that way, but it is how I felt.

See?  I'm doing it again.  Even now, I am trying to put it into a "normal" context, as a way of explaining it.  It's not "normal", but shoot, who of us really is "normal"?

I still choose to believe that it was God's way of saving that precious soul all those years ago and the journey back to herself will be harder than some ... easier than others ... but I ask God to be with Laura all along the way.  Amen.

 
 
Symptoms

 

People with dissociative identity disorder often describe an array of symptoms that can resemble those of other mental health disorders as well as many physical disorders. Some symptoms are an indication that another disorder is indeed present, but some symptoms may reflect the intrusions of past experiences into the present. For example, sadness may indicate coexisting depression, or it may be that one of the personalities is reliving emotions associated with past misfortunes.

 

Dissociative identity disorder is chronic and potentially disabling or fatal, although many with the disorder function very well and lead creative and productive lives. People with this disorder are prone to injuring themselves. They may engage in self-mutilation. Many attempt suicide.

 

In dissociative identity disorder, some of a person's personalities are aware of important personal information, whereas other personalities are unaware. Some personalities appear to know and interact with one another in an elaborate inner world. For example, personality A may be aware of personality B and know what B does, as if observing B's behavior; personality B may or may not be aware of personality A. Other personalities may or may not be aware of personality B, and personality B may or may not be aware of them.

 

The switching of personalities and the lack of awareness of one's behavior in the other personalities often make life chaotic for people with dissociative identity disorder. Because the personalities often interact with each other, people with dissociative personality disorder report hearing inner conversations and the voices of other personalities commenting on their behavior or addressing them. They experience distortion of time, with time lapses and amnesia. They have feelings of detachment from one's self (depersonalization) and feelings that one's surroundings are unreal (derealization). They often have concern with issues of control, both self-control and the control of others. In addition, people with dissociative identity disorder tend to develop severe headaches or other bodily pain and may experience sexual dysfunction. Different clusters of symptoms occur at different times.

 

People with dissociative identity disorder may not be able to recall things they have done or account for changes in their behavior. Often they refer to themselves as "we," "he," or "she." While most people cannot recall much about the first 3 to 5 years of life, people with dissociative identity disorder may have considerable amnesia for the period between the ages of 6 and 11 as well.



The switching of personalities, lack of awareness, memory gaps and overall behavior really got confusing.  I'm sure that life is confusing for my friend, but it is confusing to be her friend too.  I am pretty accepting of people and their stories, but what if their stories keep changing and you can't call them on it because depending on the person you talk to, the person who did it might "not be home"?

Twice, Laura drew me into her personal conflicts by making me feel like she was really being hurt.  I'm a Mom, a Grandmother and a recovering co-dependent so "rescuing" isn't a big leap for me.  Twice, I jumped in to the middle of a fight, looked around and realized that there was no fight.

I began to look at Laura differently ... I realized that she didn't see herself even close to the way she was.  In her mind, she sees herself as an artist, a writer, a photographer, a totally in charge businesswoman who loves life, but it's just a mask.  I think on some level, she knows it's a mask, but I'm not sure how aware she really is.

I started to listen to Laura's stories and heard contradictions I hadn't noticed before.  It wasn't that she was intentionally lying.  She really believes the voices in her head.  She really doesn't know the difference.  It is impossible to argue or debate with someone who has four-five internal conversations going on at the same time.  Inside, even after years of managing the voices, she couldn't really hear me.  Outside, I never really knew who I was talking to.  Laura argues in a rigid point by point way ... saying she learned to talk/write that way in management training ... but I believe she argues that way to keep all the voices straight, even if the facts get muddled.

I have never been through the kind of pain Laura has suffered.  There is no way that I can really understand what she goes through on a daily basis.  I know it's a struggle just to get up in the morning and go through her day, acting "normal".    

Diagnosis

 

To make the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder, a doctor conducts a thorough psychologic interview. A medical examination may be needed to determine if a physical disorder is present that would explain certain symptoms. Special questionnaires have been developed to help doctors identify dissociative identity disorder.

 

Interviews may need to be prolonged and involve careful use of hypnosis or drug facilitation (see Amnesia and Related Disorders: Treatment and Prognosis). Hypnosis or drug-facilitated interviews may make the person more likely to allow the doctor to encounter other personalities or to reveal information about a period for which there is amnesia. However, some doctors feel that hypnosis and drug-facilitated interviews should not be performed because they believe the techniques can themselves generate symptoms of dissociative identity disorder.

Treatment and Prognosis

 

Some symptoms may come and go (fluctuate) spontaneously, but dissociative identity disorder does not clear up on its own. The goal of treatment is usually to integrate the personalities into a single personality. However, integration is not always possible. In these situations, the goal is to achieve a harmonious interaction among the personalities that allows more normal functioning.

 

Drug therapy can relieve some specific coexisting symptoms, such as anxiety or depression, but does not affect the disorder itself.

 

Psychotherapy is often arduous and emotionally painful. The person may experience many emotional crises from the actions of the personalities and from the despair that may occur when traumatic memories are recalled during therapy. Several periods of psychiatric hospitalization may be necessary to help the person through difficult times and to come to grips with particularly painful memories. Generally, two or more psychotherapy sessions a week for at least 3 to 6 years are necessary.



My friend has been in the process of integrating, but maybe, it's a little like cleaning an office ... It gets worse before it gets better.  

During therapy, Laura got much closer to her pain.  She became more rigid in her interaction with her closest friends, getting angry if we didn't do what she wanted us to do or say what she wanted to hear.  Sometimes, it felt like she expected us to read her mind.  Her other personalities knew what she wanted without having to ask.  Why didn't we?  I saw her get frustrated with people and just write them off, refusing to even talk to them.  She was really cold about it.  Ice.  She would talk about them in the cruelest way and then, later, say that someone else said it.  She used me to hurt someone and to this day, claims she had nothing to do with it.

I tried to talk to her several times, but if I got too close to something she wasn't ready to see, she said I was throwing it in her face.
If she thought I was telling her what to do, she said I was being controlling.
If she felt like I was too direct, she said I was rude.
If I spoke too softly, she said I was being condescending.
If I didn't give her a good enough answer, she said I was cold or uncaring.

I think that's probably when I gave up the friendship.  How can you be a friend when you aren't "allowed" to talk?

Laura asked me several times to describe love to her.  It's possible that because of her abuse, she really doesn't know what love was.  Who can blame her for that?  Not me.  It becomes exhausting to be her friend when she wants/needs/expects me and anyone else close to make up for the love she never had.  Most of us have family, extended family and friends ... but how would it be if we never had a REAL family or a REAL friend?

I feel sad because I couldn't be that friend.  I would have liked to have been, but who could ever make up for a lifetime of lost friendships?

When Laura realized that I wasn't that ONE GOOD FRIEND, she turned on me the same way she turned on the others.  Where I once was this "amazing, awesome, wise and wonderful friend" (I never really was amazing, awesome, wise and wonderful by the way ... sure, I have my moments ... but I am quite human), I now was everything she hates in the world, and believe me, she has a lot of HATE stored up.

How do you be a good person and a kind friend to someone that is swinging at the whole world?  I don't know.  The truth is, even though she is out there saying really ugly things about me, I am grateful for the distance. 

It's a relief.  I am grateful for the rest.

Of course, it hurts, but I won't defend myself.  I know the truth.  I know who I am.  I can't defend myself without telling her story and I won't do that.  I don't want to add to her hurt.  She has enough hurt to last 100 lifetimes.

Of course, it helps for me to talk about my friend.  I miss her, even if she was wearing a mask.  It was a really nice mask.  I don't want you to feel sorry for me or my friend.  I don't think she would want that either.  I am hoping that our story will help you be more understanding as you move through your day. 

We never really know how much pain the person we meet is carrying, because some of the worst pain is invisible.  There is a lot of hurt in the world.  People don't need our fear or our anger.  They need our compassion and our kindness ... as much as we have got to give.

 

Disclaimer:  My friend will probably read this.  If she does, she should know that her secret is safe with me.  If anyone on the internet thinks I am talking about them, you are wrong.  If anyone else reading this, attempts to guess at who I am talking about, you are missing the point.  My point is that it helps me to talk about it.  Like everything else in my life, I believe that awareness and understanding can lead to mighty miracles ... and I am hoping for a miracle for Laura.