Makes a Fella Ponder

I'm not convinced that which we claim as progress has always made life easier. I remember back in the 1940's, my grandmother, Mary (Mammy) Bennett operated a neighborhood grocery store that Grandpa E.V. Bennett had built along with adjacent rental property. E.V. did not work in the store. Grandpa E.V. had more pressing things to do...like whittle and ponder. One should not confuse whittling with carving. A carver has some image in mind as he removes chips & slices of wood from a block. A whittler, on the other hand has absolutely nothing in mind as he runs his trusty pocketknife across a twig or block of wood. Actually, most whittlers want their mind free so they can 'ponder.' Grandpa E.V. was a master whittler and a seasoned ponderer.

One little whittle moment E. V. engaged was whittling Mammy's soft-lead pencils to a precise point desired. Mammy kept individual receipt books on every customer who shopped her store. Some patrons paid cash immediately while others due to financial restraints 'ran a balance.' If Mammy discovered a family had 'hard circumstances,' she'd absorb a loss and tell the customer to one day help others when they could. (Note: This was of my early Christ-like teachings). I can close my eyes today and 'see' Mammy take one of those receipt booklets out from under the counter, turn to a page and lick the point of that soft-lead pencil before entering a payment made.

Last week, I was at a Church youth meeting and noticed a young teen boy on crutches. The crutches had no rubber tips at the end. The crutches would mark up floors to be sure and posed a slipping   danger to the lad. I went to Ace Hardware and bought four crutch-tips. Two were 7/8" size  and two were 1" size. I knew one pair would fit and thus I'd take the other pair back for a refund. That's what I did last Saturday. I was 15-minutes there speaking to three different managers as they finally figured out that the reason my return item code did nit jive with my receipt was due to the cashier scanning the item code I kept and then just hitting the Times 4-key.

I then went to County Market were my purchase totaled $25.06. I wrote a check. The young cashier  put the Check into a machine and that machine immediately mutilated the check. I stood in that line for 11-minutes and watched two different managers attempt to enter various numbers to complete a sales process.

In both instances, I stood patiently...but y'all don't want to know what I was 'pondering!'
(Touch)
Things Gone Crazy