Fatty, Fatty. Two By Four. Can't Get Through the Smokehouse Door.

; Obama visited Asheville recently. His first stop after the plane landed was at 12 Bones Bar-b-que Smokehouse to get some ribs. They should have named the place 12 Bones and a Million Flies. It's an indoor/outdoors kind of place and the flies do love the ribs. My wife said she doubted if the President and the First Lady ate any ribs since they are so opposed > to fat...and fat people. She thinks they stood at the door and chanted, "Fatty, fatty. Two by four. Can't get through the Smokehouse door." Maybe, but they probably would have been beaten up with naked bones by the Smokehouse loyal customers. I can attest to the fact that they are good ribs even if you have to share them with lots of flies. When you order and get your silverware, you also get a fly swatter. But these savage flies don't just buzz around your face...they land on your lips and try to eat the meat off the bones before you can. So you really need to smack yourself in the face with the fly swatter, and who knows where the flies go? The Obamas moved on to the Grove Park Hotel, a luxury place where no flies are allowed. Before they left Asheville, they went to see Billy Graham who > lives not far away at Montreat. He's 91 now...he greeted Obama with "Did you bring me any ribs, Boy?" Billy's too old to worry about fat. Or calling "tan" people "Boy". They prayed for each other, Billy's son said. > > Billy has been chums with a lot of Presidents, mainly Republicans. I remember a couple of years ago, my wife and I were listening to an interviewer talking with Billy Graham. The interviewer said, "You're getting up in years, Reverend Graham. It won't be long until you are sitting in Heaven with God." But Billy objected. He said, "I'm not sure I have done enough to sit with God." I turned to my wife and said, "We are in deep doo-doo, honey. If > Billy doesn't think he's getting in upstairs, we'll never make it." But she said Billy was probably worrying because he was palsy-walsy with Richard Nixon...probably afraid he will go to Hell and have to play golf with Nixon. Besides, she felt confident that she would make it because she polished brass at church once a month and thought there's probably a lot of brass in Heaven. I told her I was not interested in going if there was work to do, especially polishing brass.

Lifestyle Article for May

YOU CALL THIS A SPA?

I wasn't born yesterday, but apparently the Spa Movement in America was. It seems like there are spas everywhere...but they are girly things where people go to have facials...mudpacks on their faces with cucumbers on their eyes.

When I think about Spas, I think of The Greenbrier Resort and Hot Springs in

West Virginia. To my mind, those are real spas and not just because George

Washington came to The Greenbrier and drank that awful sulfur water. It tasted

so bad, I spit mine out. They assured me it was the smell and not the taste that

turned my stomach. But how are you going to get the water past into your mouth

without going by your nose?

A friend and I took the famous "treatment" at Hot Springs. We signed up one afternoon for an appointment the next day. I had the attendant "walk" us through what we would be doing because at that time I had a hearing aid and wanted to make sure I would know what was coming next since I would have to store my hearing aid with my clothes. He was kind enough to give us a tour.

The next day we arrived on schedule and the woman at the desk asked, "You boys here

for the Treatment?" We told her we were so she buzzed a mountain man from the back.

Our first stop once we got naked was to the soaking tubes. And they were tubs literally.

The water there is a constant temperature. The tub looked close to full...when I stepped in I could feel the water rising...and as I sat down, the water really rose...right over the top. I

yelled "My goodness, the water is going out of the tub." But before I could panic, the attendant said it was suppose to. The tub had fresh spring water coming in constantly so one's body temperature didn't cool the water too much. They had not told me that part the

day before so I was greatly relieved because it was like a waterfalls once I got all the way in the tub.

Our next stop was into a steam room. The attendant gave us each a wash cloth and, at first I thought we were going to have to wash one another. I was planning to draw the line

there, but the steam was filled with eucalyptus so as the room filled up with steam, he said we might have to put the wash cloth over our faces. (Did I mention that we were paying handsomely for this?). The room filled rather rapidly with steam and I told my friend, "If you have anything to say to me, say it now because I'm not going to be able to read your lips once the steam rises." I was about to break out of the room from the smell just when the

attendant told us our time was up.

Next we went to have a rub down with rock salt...we were stretched out on a marble slab that seemed like what they might use for dead bodies. Actually the attendant was rubbing

(and not gently) dead skin off our freshly steamed bodies. After he got us rubbed down, we went around the corner to a huge tiled room. He had me stand against one wall and he was on the other side with a fire house. He was yelling something to me, but I couldn't read his lips across the room...then he started doing hand-signals by putting his hands across his crotch. Finally I realized that he was saying, "Cover your privates." When I did, he turned on the firehouse and the power of the water almost knocked me down. He was rinsing off the rock salt and the dead skin but there must have been a better way to do it.

My friend was laughing...but his turn was next.

Finally after these ordeals, we were ready to towel off and get dressed. The female attendant out front asked cheerfully, "You boys want to sign up for another treatment

tomorrow?" I said, "I've had all the treatment I can stand in this lifetime." She said that

some people have the treatment every day.

Real spas are in the Black Forest in Germany...palatial buildings with extravagant pools,

etc. And needless to say, extravagant prices. These are where Kings and Queens and rich South Americans come to relax. We had planned a trip there one year with some friends. Normally I would have felt too fat to get naked in one of these places. But in

Germany, the richer you are the fatter you are. Rich industrialists, you know, so I was

actually looking forwrd to parading around with them. Unfortunately because of a terrorist

attack (not on the spas), our trip had to be called off. Now I'm too poor to go. But I have a

sweat lodge under my house at Lake Sheila. Close your eyes and it feels like a European

Spa.

April Lifestyles Article

Learning to Budget

Back in the days before credit cards, people had to learn to budget. It's a good lesson to learn.

When my wife and I got married more than 50 years ago, we really had no choice. We had to

budget. I was in the Army in Germany. I only got paid once a month. And my wife got a small

allotment. Together I think we got about $l40 a month...and we had to make it last a month. When we got our checks, my wife had a group of envelopes marked: groceries, rent, gasoline,

entertainment, savings, misc. There was hardly ever anything in the misc. envelope. Essentially we had about five dollars a day.

I know you'reprobably thinking that things were cheap back then. Well, they were a lot cheaper than now, but they weren't that cheap.

We lived in a two-room apartment upstairs in a German family's house. We were lucky. It was a

beautiful house. Their son was learning English in school so a German friend of mine convinced them he could learn faster if they had two Americans living upstairs. He did learn faster and he learned to speak with a Southern accent (which baffled his teacher).

Our budgeting envelopes worked quite well. If we ran out of money in the gas envelope, we

walked. I walked 5 miles to the Army hospital where I worked anyway, so I didn't mind walking.

One month, we ran short of money in all the envelopes. My wife had been at the PX when a new shipment of records came in and she couldn't resist buying an album which took all of our money for 3 or 4 days. We listened to music by candlelight while I considered whether I should

eat her fingers.

When we ran short, we would search the car and our pockets to see if we could find some extra

German coins. Then we would go to a German meat market for some wursts and to a German bakery for some hard rolls. They cost practically nothing because they were the main food that a lot of Germans ate.

I was fortunate because I worked at an Army Hospital and I could always eat for free in the cafeteria. But I didn't dare put food in my pockets to take home to my wife. She lived off of peanut butter and jelly on hard rolls.

I have to admit that I supplemented our monthly income by selling stuff to German civilians.

Every month I would buy a gallon of ketchup at the PX. I re-sold it to a woman that worked in

my office. She took it home and put it in ketchup bottles...then re-sold them individually to her

neighbors. I also bought and sold Jergens Lotion and Old Spice. I don't know what their fascination was with these products. Of course the Germans were eager to buy cigarettes, but

they were rationed and we used our coupons to get smokes for ourselves. I made enough off

my blackmarketing so that we could take a month's vacation all around Europe before we returned back to the U.S. We had a budget of $10 a day...that was for gas, hotel, food, peanut butter and jelly. Some days like when we were in Paris or on the French Riviera we had to use more than ten dollars...but then we made it up when we were in Spain and in Italy where it was so

cheap. It pays to budget.

My wife still pays the bills and I'm fairly certain she still has envelopes for the various expenditures.

March Lifestyle Article

 

 

THE WORLD'S BEST BAR-B-QUE COOK

 

Seems like everybody claims their Moms are the best meatloaf cooks

or the best country fried steak cooks.  And my mother was good at both those things.  But her real claim to fame was her Bar-B-Que.  She was known far and wide for her bar-b-que.  And it wasn't even her recipe. She may have stolen it.  We don't know how she got it but it came from one of the best bar-b-que places in North Carolina.

 

When we moved from N.C. to Washington, D.C., my mother said she wasn't going if she couldn't get the bar-b-que recipe from RJ's Cafe.

We figured we would have to leave her behind because RJ guarded it

like it was the secret to the atom bomb.

 

She said she would do anything to get that recipe.  After a couple of trips to the cafe, she finally came home with her note paper and the recipe.

 

"Did you get the cole slaw recipe, too?" my Father asked.  "Bar-b-que

isn't the same without the special cole slaw."  He didn't even ask how she got the recipe.  But she got the cole slaw recipe as well because he's right...at least if you are from North Carolina.  Cole slaw goes ON

the bar-b-que and they both go on a bun.

 

So with the recipes hidden in my mother's purse, we were packed and

ready to go to Washington, D.C.  She had promised the cafe owner

that she would never under any circumstance reveal the ingredients

or how to cook the slaw or the bar-b-que.  And she stuck to her promise.  She wouldn't even tell us, her own family.

 

Like others that came to Washington, we moved to North Carolina Avenue.  We thought that's where we were suppose to live since we

came from North Carolina.  And like good Christians, we joined the

North Carolina Methodist Church.  The women's group usually did a

fund raising dinner once or twice a year.  When the time rolled around, my mother suggested they do a bar-b-que and she would do the cooking.  They usually fried fish so this was a new twist.  They took her up on her offer.

 

She cooked a pile of bar-b-que and buckets of slaw.  She wanted no help from the other women other than serving since she was guarding

her recipe.  The dinner was a huge success and my mother was a star.  Every year she would be named to cook her bar-b-que, and she

was elated to do it.  People begged for the recipe but she would only

roll her eyes and say, "If you had any idea what I had to do to get these recipes, you wouldn't ask for them."  That always made my father and myself nervous but the food was too good to worry about it.

 

When my Mother cooked her bar-b-que, people lined up around the block waiting to get in and served.  She made herself a red and white

checkered blouse and a pair of pedal pushers out of denim colored material.  She felt that kept with the theme.  Once people were served and eating, she would walk among the crowd, smiling like a queen.  If

she saw anyone that had taken the slaw off the meat, she would chastise them and explain that they had to go together.  Some people still believe it but only in North Carolina.

 

My mother kept her annual bar-b-que event going for years.  Finally these sold the church because members were moving to the suburbs.  
 

The congregation that bought the church had heard of the bar-b-que dinners and tried to get my mother to come back.  But she only wanted to cook for Methodists.

 

When my Mom passed on, we seriously considered putting Bar-B-Que Queen on her headstone.  But since she was a Methodist and they aren't showy, we decided it would be inappropriate.

 

I'm happy to say that when we went through her stuff, the recipe was in a little cedar chest.  So I have it and once a year I cook it.  I do it for my family and friends....usually on the 4th of July which also happens to be my birthday.

 

                                                                                        

Saluda Lifestyle - February Article

A WIFE WHO MEANS WELL

 

Having been married to the same woman for more than 50 years, I know that my wife means well.  She is determined that I get completely over the stroke I had a couple of summers ago and she doesn't want to see any back-sliding in the process.

 

She's forever clipping little articles from newspapers and magazines about what people older than me are doing with their lives...or things like "l0 Tips For Getting Rid of Belly Fat".  She leaves them next to the fattening meals she prepares for me.

 

The other morning there was a newspaper clipping about a 90 year old

widower who had flown across the English Channel standing up on the top wing of a bi-plane.  Can you imagine?  I couldn't.  I assumed my wife was trying to encourage me to be more adventuresome so as soon as I

finished reading the article, I yelled into the kitchen: "Call the airport in

Hendersonville.  Get me a bi-plane.  I want to fly over Lake Sheila on the wings."  She said: "What are you going to wear?"  I told her I would probably fly naked if the pilot doesn't fly too low.  She thought I should wear my pajamas. 

 

"Are you going to use your walking stick?" she wanted to know.  I told her that I wasn't walking anywhere...that once they got me up on the wing, I would just be standing there while the plane flew.  I might take my cane for balance but I wanted to have at least one free hand so I could wave to my friends and neighbors.

 

Before she called the airport, she wanted me to know that she thought I as crazy.  But she's the one that gave me the article about the man who flew over the English Channel.  She tried to tell me that it was just

for my general interest and she didn't expect me to fly on the wings of a bi-plane.  It gave me a perfect opportunity to say: "What about the

belly fat article?  Was that for general interest?"  She said "No...that

was a How-To article in case you decide to shed it." 

 

I think I would have a better chance of flying across Lake Sheila standing on the wings of a bi-plane than losing my belly fat.  I know they have a bi-plane in Hendersonville because I went to see the couple that have it one day.  But I also know that I am much too fat

to stand on the wings of the thing...I'm sure I would go straight through

to say nothing of how I would get up there in the first place.  But in case we can figure it out, keep your eyes to the sky as the crowd

yells, "It's a bird.  It's a plane.  No darn it, it's Joe Adams standing naked on the wings waving like crazy.  Which he is.

 

 

November Lifestyles Article

"Let's Go Octobering".

I had a friend when I was younger who loved autumn. She would
call and say, "Let's go Octobering." It meant she wanted to go for a
walk somewhere she could kick leaves. Or even roll in them. That was
50 years ago but I'm sure she is still "Octobering". She's probably
given up rolling in the leaves.

The other day my friend and neighbor Bandon Reynolds at Lake
Sheila arrived at my house in her golf cart, She insisted that I
needed a ride to the top of the world...or at least the top out this
way.

I'm not too mobile since I had a stroke a while back, but she
managed to get me stuffed into the golf cart. She said it was going
to be cold, and it was. You could feel the temperature dropping as we
went higher and higher up Tanglewood Drive.

We parked when we got to the top because you have a panoramic view of Lake
Sheila below and the countryside. It was a blaze of color and a
magnificent view.
I decided years ago that I was the kind of person who wanted to live
down below by the lake looking up and not the kind who wanted to live
high up, looking down.

I was happy to get my "Octobering" in before I had to turn the
calendar page

I usually have a few pumpkins around to remind me of the season.
But since I have to walk with the aid of a cane now, I still have not
figured out how to carry a pumpkin and walk with my cane. I can
barely get my groceries from the car into the house.

I remember fondly taking my children---and then my
grandchildren---to the pumpkin patch to get our Halloween pumpkins.
The first year I took my two granddaughters, Michelle who was five
said, "These pumpkins don't have faces."
I had to explain that the faces didn't grow on them,,,you had to take
a knife and cut the eyes, nose and a toothy smile.

She was quick to answer, "Our Mom doesn't allow us to have
knives." Her sister said, "We can draw faces on them with Magic
Makers. So that's how we did it. The pumpins weren't nearly as scary
but there's enough scary stuff in the world already. Don't you agree?

Fwd: October LIfestyles Article

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe Adams <americaohyes@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:55:36 -0400
Subject: October LIfestyles Article
To: Cathy Jackson <cathy@cathyjacksonrealty.com>

SOMEBODY LOVES YOU.

I am deaf so I am very, very dependent upon e-mail and my computer for
communications. It's my primary way of staying in touch with friends,
family members, etc. Of course I'm not always that happy to be in
touch with the "etc.'s"

If you've got a computer, you know that people send some very strange
things I have 218 e-mails right now that Google thinks are SPAM. Or
the computer version of Junk Mail.

But every once in a while I get an e-mail forwarded to me that is
absolutely priceless. I want to share one with you. I'll have to
paraphrase it but it was from a guy in Atlanta who
said:

I was watching television on Sunday morning...a church
service...thought it would save me from having to go out to church.
They had a guest speaker, a 93 year old former pastor
who had retired. He was asked to come back so they could honor him.
They asked him to tell the congregation about the most important
lessons he had learned over the years. They were expecting a
full-blown sermon.

When he was introduced, he got up from his high-backed chair and
walked slowly to the pulpit. He carried no notes or papers. As the
applause died down, he held onto the pulpit with both hands to steady
himself. Here's what he said.

"Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible tells me so. Little
ones to him belong. They are weak, but He is strong. Yes...Jesus
loves me. Yes...Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so."

With that, he turned to walk away. The congregation was so quiet, you
could hear his shoes move on the carpet as he shuffled back to his
chair.

It's a great story. I don't know if it actually happened but I hope it did.

We have to remember that even in our darkest hours and in our deepest
periods of loneliness, we always have a friend. YES, JESUS LOVES
US! We are never truly alone.

Bless you all.

Joe Adams

Fwd: John 3:16

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Joe Adams <americaohyes@gmail.com>
Date: Jul 22, 2009 4:45 PM
Subject: John 3:16
To: Roff Graves <graves@gravescountry.com>

We've been Presbyterians for hundreds of years on my Father's side so
my first experiences with church was at a nearby Presbyterian place.
The woman next door to us would take me to church. She had a Ford
Coupe Convertible with a rumble seat which she would unfold and where
I would ride. I have to admit that the ride to and from church was
the most exciting part of Sunday mornings.

One Sunday we studied John 3:16. As an only child, I tended to talk
more than I listened. When the lesson was over, the Sunday
school teacher looked at me and said, "Joe, why don't you tell us what
you have to do to go to Heaven?" I was stunned into silence.

I gave it some thought as she impatiently waited for an answer.
Finally I said, "Love Jesus."

She went nuts! "No, no," she screamed, "You don't have to love Jesus.
That's not what John 3:16 teaches us. You do NOT have to love Jesus.
You have to believe. That's what it says."

I truly wanted to cry. She was so mean. But finally, with my lips
trembling, I said, "Well I don't think it would hurt to love Jesus a
little bit."

She threw her Bible on the table and ran out of the room. Some people
shouldn't be kindergarten teachers.

I got my first Bible by learning to say John 3:16 by heart. But it's
not me that's writing John 3:l6 on walls all over America.