“Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn’t any propeller, and it wasn’t any coral reef, and it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark!”
Arthur passed by closest to Nantucket but dropped on us inches of rain and heavy winds. My deck is covered in oak leaf clusters, one of the heavy clay pots fell and broke and the chimney candle holder which had been clamped to the deck also fell but luckily didn’t break. Later I’ll have to clean up all the debris on the deck and the ground. I’m waiting for the sun before I venture outside. It is still cloudy, damp and chilly. I lost electricity last night for all of ten minutes, but the timing was bad. Gracie was just coming up the steep deck stairs when it went dark, and I heard her trip, but she was fine when I checked her.
When I was a kid, I got fifty cents allowance every week. It seemed like a king’s ransom. My father, the only ant in a family of grasshoppers, wanted me to save it for a rainy day. I never did. Sometimes I’d buy a new book for 49 cents, no tax back then, or I’d shop Woolworth’s for something I didn’t know I needed. On the way home, if I had money left, I’d stop for a vanilla coke, ten cents. Wealth was counted in pennies.
Nobody I knew worked summers during high school except for my friend Maryalyce. She had bought an old car, a really old car with the start button on the floor, and needed insurance and gas money so she worked weekends and summers. We were college roommates one year, the only year Maryalyce lived away from home, and she worked long hours as a waitress to pay for school. The muscles on her right arm were huge from carrying heavy trays one handedly. I talked to her not so long ago and she is still working. I wasn’t surprised. She didn’t seem surprised that I wasn’t.
My sister baked sugar cookies for the 4th using the cutters I had sent her. One cutter was a woman with her leg bitten off, another was a surf board with bite marks and a missing piece and the third was the shark who was responsible. My sister used red sprinkles around the bite marks on the missing leg and on the shark’s teeth. She said a couple of the woman’s arms had broken off but that was okay. The shark probably got those too. One cookie lost its head. It was like Hooper finding Ben Gardner’s boat. When Ben’s head appeared, Hopper and the rest of us jumped. It is still one of the scariest scenes in Jaws. I love the headless cookie.
I watched Independence Day for the umpteenth time last night, but I still had to watch. It is one of my July 4th traditions not at all dependent on the weather.
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This entry was posted on July 5, 2014 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Musings. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: allowance, clutch buttons, college roommates, cookie cutters, fifty cents, hurricane Arthur, Jaws, rain and wind, sharks, summer jobs, summer work, working
Both comments and pings are currently closed.16 Comments on ““Well, this is not a boat accident! And it wasn’t any propeller, and it wasn’t any coral reef, and it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark!””
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
July 5, 2014 at 12:44 pm
Hi Kat,
Only a couple of the woman’s arms broke off? Lucky she had more. 🙂
One good thing about baking shark-ravaged cookies is if pieces break off, it looks normal.
I don’t recall getting an allowance, as such. I got money but not regularly and I did work for it.
Woolworth’s was a favorite destination to off load my funds. Usually I would buy a ceramic animal. Preferably one that had fake fur glued onto it. My mother saved most of them and there may still be one or two that survived the Great Clean Up.
Later on in high school I worked nights. I got $25.00 a week and thought I could live forever on that huge amount of money. My first purchase was a handmade leather handbag. Possibly it cost my entire check but it lasted for many years so a bargain.
It’s sunny and lovely here now. The dogs and I did go out earlier in the rain. They weren’t happy so I gave up and waited until it stopped to have a decent walk. Much better results. 🙂
Enjoy the day.
July 5, 2014 at 12:54 pm
Hi Caryn,
My sister made the cookies a little thicker than usual so they wouldn’t break. Few did. They did look great according to my sister.
I had a couple of things I had to do but I don’t even remember what they were. My brother emptied the trash and complained all the time so that I remember.
I didn’t work until the summer after I graduated. It was Woolworth’s for part of the summer then the post office where I worked every subsequent summer and every Christmas until I left for Ghana. I made good money there.
It is now sunny here so I am going to head to the deck and do some clean-up.
Have a great day in the sun!
July 5, 2014 at 1:38 pm
Christer,
She head two arms and one leg. The other leg had been bitten off.
Here is the set I bought:
http://kiwicakes.co.nz/kiwi/product_info.php?cPath=290_31_350&products_id=11755&osCsid=eighji2imqe0ejohhlcn4ns8s3
Click and when it is bigger you’ll see all the gory details.
July 5, 2014 at 1:20 pm
Yes how many arms did that poor woman have from the beginning 🙂
July 5, 2014 at 12:55 pm
You dodged a bullet with Arthur. We used some of my Hilton points and stayed at an Embassy Suites hotel where we watched a fireworks display from a distance and went to bed late after watching several reruns of Diners, Drive Inns and Dives on the Food network.
When I was a kid my fifty cent allowance was a king’s ransome. In those days some middle class families lived on as little as $5,000 a year. Like you I spent half a buck on either a book or comic books along with some candy. Sometimes I bought one of many balsa wood rubber band powered airplanes. The one’s that were guaranteed to break by the third flight. That’s if it didn’t get it entangled in a tree on the first launch. 🙂
We are looking at clear skies and low 90s today. We havn’t gotten to the century mark yet this year.
July 5, 2014 at 1:42 pm
Bob.
Yes, we certainly did. Some places off cape had microbursts and huge trees came down. New Bedford had 8 inches of rain and much of the city flooded.
I just came in from cleaning up the deck and retrieving what fell. I have one thing more to do, but it has to dry first.
I loved having what I thought was a pocket full of cash. I loved those planes. Woolworth’s always sold them. I bought some a few years ago for my adult nephews. They loved them for the short time they lasted.
We have sun and very little humidity. It is a lovely day.
July 5, 2014 at 1:26 pm
I did get an allowence and mostly I did save for something. I started to collect return bottlea quite early and had a real job during the summer and all school breaks and also every weekend the last year in high school. I needed to if I wanted to get that drivers license. But I liked the work so I had fun all the time.
It wasn’t that warm here today to be honest but it felt like it reached the 90’s. The humidity is awful and a strong wind hasn’t helped at all. But it did keep the flies away most parts of the day. I was however pleasantly surprised when we went out to the bog where the wind didnä’t reach us, there were flies but they just hovered above us and stayed away from nose, ears and mouth. Perhaps, perhaps their season is over now?
Thunder is in the air but they say it won’t arrive until tomorrow afternoon, so Iwouldn’t be the least surprised if it starts tonight 🙂
Have a great day!
Christer.
July 5, 2014 at 1:45 pm
Christer,
You were a worker far more than I ever was, but I did save any bottle I came across so I could supplement my fifty cents. We have a bottle redemption law now so I save my cans. I brought bags and bags of them in and got $78.00.
Today is a lovely day. The humidity is gone and the sun is bright. My deck is now pretty much cleared of debris.
We didn’t get the thunder, but my sister did. She said it was so close her house shook.
Have a great start to your vacation.
July 5, 2014 at 1:41 pm
Thought about this song when I saw today’s selections. Wait’ll you see the video I found that goes with it!
July 5, 2014 at 1:46 pm
im6,
I checked, and I had posted it twice already or I would have posted this as I do love it.
This video is so out there it works. I love the sense of humor of the poster.
July 5, 2014 at 1:43 pm
As long as I was at YouTube, I looked up another song I was reminded of by today’s theme. I struck gold with this one:
July 5, 2014 at 1:51 pm
im6,
This is the first time I have ever heard this song by other than Neil Young. What a great cover this is!
July 5, 2014 at 2:47 pm
An explanation for the missing arms:
http://bums.oneuponedown.co.uk/jokes/23.html
July 5, 2014 at 3:44 pm
That’s funny, Birgit! I laughed out loud!
July 5, 2014 at 11:52 pm
Couldn’t watch “Jaws” when it first came out. At the time I was living a half block from the beach on the South Jersey shore! It was very popular at the local cinemas, however.
Remind me to never order cookie cutters from your E-Bay shop!
July 6, 2014 at 8:55 am
Jay,
I love the cookie cutters. My sister had great fun with them and her red sprinkles.
Jaws was the best movie around that year. I remember jumping at a couple of scenes, the suddenly appearing head being one of them. I have a friend who saw it once and won’t watch again. She said it would keep her out of the water. Given how scarce shark attacks are, her car on the road is more deadly.