Do You Believe in Superstitions?

Do You Believe in Superstitions? Remember the childhood ditty, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back”? And what about wondering if the black cat that crossed your path had any white on him. The fortune cookies at a Chinese restaurant influence a lot of superstitious people, to say nothing of the astrology forecasts in newspapers. My mother used to match people for compatibility according to the month they were born in! One “superstition” if you can call it that, should be convincingly wrong is water witching. The very name indicates an involvement with spiritualism which is very real. Water witching is done in different ways. Sometimes a forked stick is used, or a wire or two. The person holds the wires while walking over an area of ground. When the wires or stick point down on their own, that is where there is supposed to be water. Sometimes there is and sometimes there isn’t. One family I know had a water witching done at their place. When the person holding the wires walked over a small creek, the wires forcefully pointed down. The family’s older son noted all this, and after his father and others had finished their water witching and gone into the house to talk, he decided to test things out for himself. Quietly the boy slipped out of the house, picked up the wires that had been used and walked across the same creek. Sure enough, the wires pointed downward. Then he prayed to God that if this were of Satan that it wouldn’t work and proceeded to walk back over the creek with the wires. Nothing happened. Very impressed, the lad later told his father about the incident. Jokes are made about graveyard happenings where a person falls into a newly dug grave and can’t get out. As he sits there wondering what to do next, a second person falls into the same hole. The first fellow quips, “It’s no use, you’ll never get out.” And the second guy is out of the hole in no time flat. We laugh, but need to beware that spiritualism is very real and very evil.

The Family Bike Trip

The Family Bike Trip – Clara Mae Watrous It was 1945, and Mama and Daddy decided on our taking a family bike trip from Jacksonville, FL, to Orlando, FL. We were too poor to own a car, though soon after the bike trip, the folks purchased one from my brother-in-law who was a used car dealer in Pennsylvania. My junior size bike and their adult bikes soon hummed down the cement block highway single file. I can’t remember if I was first or in the middle, but I do remember that 25 blocks equaled a mile. When we landed in Deland, FL, people were shouting, bells were ringing; the second world war had just ended! We stopped overnight at a bed and breakfast, where the dear old lady teasingly told us she was 38, but she was really 83. In Orlando, we visited the zoo. The beautiful doe eyed lama apparently didn’t appreciate my sweet talk and promptly spit in my face. Yuck! Needless to say, I’ve never gotten too close to lamas ever since. On the way home, a car zoomed past us, swerved across the oncoming lane and rolled over twice in an adjacent field. Miraculously, all three passengers and the driver were able to get out of the car and walk around. Right after that incident, we noticed a perfect double rainbow, symbolic of the miracle we had just seen. When almost back to Jacksonville, a pickup truck offered us a ride, but Daddy politely refused for the sake of being able to say we completed our bike trip without assistance. He must have told the local newspaper, because they printed an excerpt about our unusual family bike trip.

Why So Many Shootings?

Why So Many Shootings? It seems we see news reports of shootings every day, even here in America, the home of the “free and brave”. Why? Some say it’s because America’s citizens are allowed to have guns, and they cry, “Do away with all firearms!” Then when a gun toting robber or maniac wild shooter wields their gun (and they always find ways to have them) the innocent victim has no defense. Back in the days when this country was founded, the people usually had a rifle. It was a necessary “tool” for hunting and for protection from wild animals or people. Children were taught about guns and about being safe with them. So why do we now have so many more incidents of shooting innocent people? I maintain it goes back to what they watch on television. You can hardly see any program that doesn’t have killing episodes. Even the news glories in crime scenes. And then there is the home life, or lack thereof. Many children have only one parent who must work to support the family. What do they do between the hours they get home from school until the weary parent returns home? Usually they watch television. Another thing that contributes to a lack of respect for life is the video games the children are mesmerized with. Most of them are based around killing. After while the youngsters get hardened to scenes of crime. They lose the value of life. Shooting others is like a game. I say let’s spend quality time with our children. Plan with them for some fun things to do together. There are ideas aplenty in books and magazines available at the library. Also, another need, as I see it, is to discipline ourselves as well as our children to only watch television that is wholesome. Or just get rid of the one eyed monster all together! It’s a well known fact that we become like what we behold.