Red Onions

Thank goodness the sun finally came out and warmed us up at least a little bit. Even though it was shining, when I had to meet someone at a property this morning and while standing outside speaking with a client, I was actually getting chilled from the wind. We had to cut our conversation short because we were both getting uncomfortable.

I shared my bedbug story with another today, and when telling it, I could see he was getting very uncomfortable. What likely got him, was when I mentioned how bedbugs follow a person’s carbon dioxide trail from breathing, and if they’re hungry enough, and all the many of them, they’re able to drop from ceilings onto clothing, unknowingly get carried home, and then their nightmare residencies begin.

My grandmother who used to tell stories of happenings from back in her youth, and mentioned how some people would be so paranoid about getting them in their beds, that they’d place jar tins under each leg of their metal beds, and fill them with turpentine so to keep them from crawling up those legs and end up in their bedding. She also said that if someone would discover they had them in their bed, they’d strip the sheets and pillow cases and boil them in a copper boiler on the stovetop so to make sure the bedbugs and their eggs were destroyed. They would then have some sort of mineral-based soap they’d use to scrub their pillows and , and lastly, they’d take a rag soaked in turpentine and hand clean every spring on those once popular (open) bed springs.

It makes me smile when thinking that nearly all in our younger generations have no idea what those bed springs look like because they’ve been replaced by box springs generations ago. When I was very young, I actually slept on a bed with those types of springs, and for sure, every move you’d make, those springs could be heard. I’m sure today’s youth haven’t a clue regarding how much fun it is to jump on one of those beds because they were almost like springboards. And yes, it was always time to get a good scolding if caught jumping on one. Today’s mattress box springs definitely don’t offer the “bounce” the old ones provided. Yes, a good high jumping on a bed was always helpful when ones spirits needed a good “lifting”.

Almost miraculously, the title work came thru on the closing I’ve been fretting about, and after having rushed to get my sellers’ closing numbers emailed to the buyers’ bank, it looks like we’re on track to gittin-er-done on time. We’re waiting on one last document from the sellers, and when it arrives, we’ll have everything needed. Alas, my worries have greatly lessened with that transaction, and likely because I’ve rarely ever worked with the bank that’s issuing the loan. Next time I don’t think it’ll be so fretful.

Having discovered Our Savior’s Lutheran Church was having a luncheon today, I decided to drive out and have a salad. I didn’t pay any attention to the cost because we were given payment slips that were used for notations just in case we purchased other things that were being sold, and after the final tabulation of cost, I’d say their luncheon was quite the value.

I was glad to see there was a good crowd, and most certainly more than enough food to choose from. The plates were larger than normal and the selections even bigger. Yours truly loaded his plate with some exceptional varieties of salad, and without a doubt, that church luncheon was the best I’ve had in years. I’m convinced these smaller Congregations are all the more particular about putting out a “good table”, and you can be sure I thanked and praised them immensely.

Before I walked out, I checked out the fresh produce, and what caught my eye, were the boxes of potatoes, peppers, onions, and various other types of Fall produce that were being sold by the pound. To my surprise, I learned that those vegetables were grown by one of their members who must be quite the gardener because those three pounds of red onions I purchased were the largest I’ve ever seen grown in our area. Back when we used to grow vegetables for market, we could never get the red onions to grow that large. The yellow ones we grew were giants, but the reds seemed to always appear stunted. If I ever have a chance to visit with that grower, I’ll be asking him how he does it.

I was greatly surprised there weren’t more people buying their produce because they were exceptionally low priced for how good they looked. Now where can you buy big red locally grown onions for 50 cents a pound? I have a feeling they were not being promoted as they should have. You can be sure if my mother were alive and in charge of such a stall, all of that produce would’ve been sold out.

There wasn’t much else happening today that was noteworthy enough to share other than the normal setting up of appointments and responding to emails that had arrived over the course of the day. I have another late afternoon appointment out of the City tomorrow, and hopefully I’ll arrive home before darkness falls.

Tonight’s one-liner is: Nothing so much needs reforming as other people’s habits.

Joe Chodur

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