Written Thoughts are unlocked Treasures of the mind…
Author: Leonas Lines
A born and raised Midwesterner who traveled to Oregon in 2006 via the Oregon Trail route, fell in love with Oregon and now call it home.
I am retired and pursuing my life long dream of becoming a Freelance Inspirational Writer.
“I wot not who hath done this thing: neither didst thou tell me,
neither yet heard I of it, but to day.”
Free Verse
According to NaPoWriMo’s Day 14 Prompt: Grab a book that is nearest to you. Start the poem with the second sentence in the book and then add the 15th sentence from page 24 somewhere else in the poem
So the book nearest to me at the time was my bible and so this poem Is based on:
Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 21:26
The words in parentheses are mine, the others are from the Bible and are italicized.
It’s kind of interesting how these two sentences fit together. 😊
NaPoWriMo Day 11–Prompt: significance of flowers, but I chose to write about the leaves instead as they are what are most prominent now, since many plants aren’t blooming but are leafing out.
I grew up in a time when people rarely ate out, at least those I knew. My family always ate meals at home around our big Formica kitchen table where conversation was shared along with mom’s wonderful home cooking.
I learned to cook and bake from my mom and aunt, most of my friends did also. It was just an ordinary part of life back then.
High School had Home Ec classes and Shop classes as part of our learning experience, to prepare us for living as adults.
There were some restaurants, but our family rarely ate out. A treat for us was to occasionally eat a light supper out on a Friday night shopping trip downtown at Woolworth’s lunch counter. We would order toasted egg salad sandwiches with pickles on the side and potato chips. As we waited for our food we would watch what was called the “dumb waiter” open and close as it carried food up and dish tubs down as the kitchen was downstairs from the counter above.
So cooking my meals at home during this time of quarantine has not been a big change for me at all, as that is what I usually do anyhow. I feel it tastes better and is less costly to do so, although I do occasionally like to order a pizza or sub sandwich at a local restaurant as a treat.
But many people during this time of virus, are having to learn to cook as they stay home in quarantine. It is a new experience for them as they were accustomed to frequently eating out. They are now sharing recipes and pictures of their dinner creations on Facebook. The family dinner table is being restored, and ordinary things like ovens, and mixing bowls, are being used again.
That is the good I see coming out in all of this. That is the part of this I hope has some lasting effect, as immediate families grow closer together and spend more quality time at home, and life slows down to bring appreciation of ordinary things.
An imaginary conversation between my cat Naomi and my dog Trixi.
“Sorry, wasn’t my fault!
I really didn’t mean to bite!”
Naomi meowed loudly.
“She pushed me right at you!”
“She only wanted to
Make us be friends” said Trixi
“Then why did you growl,
And snap at me? It scared me!”
“I wasn’t feeling friendly then”
“But now you are?”
Naomi indignantly hissed.
“Yes, we owe her that,
Don’t you agree, Naomi?
After all, your bite
Could’ve locked up her jaw!
We could have lost her!”
“Yes, but It still wasnt my fault!
Cats don’t want dogs for their friend!”
Double Choka
NaPoWriMo Day 7–“Prompt: “How the other tells it”
Remember an encounter with an animal.
Write a poem about the way the animal describes the encounter to its friends.
When I was about six years old I made the mistake of trying to make my newly acquired cat and my older dog to become friends.
I was holding my cat and put her up close to my feisty rat terrier dog thinking I would get them acquainted, and then hopefully they would become friends.
Just as my mom yelled at me to stop, the dog growled and snapped at the cat. The cat got scared and instead of letting her jump away free to run I held on to her and she turned on me and bit me on my cheek close to my ear.
This resulted in a very quick trip to the doctor who was a 30 minute drive away and me getting a shot of penicillin. The doctor said if mom hadn’t gotten me to him right away I might have gotten lockjaw and possibly died. This was in 1950.
I learned a hard lesson that day which I never forgot. Don’t try to force friendships on anyone, especially animals!
I was 4 years old, and it was my delight to have grandpa ask me if I wanted to come inside his old country kitchen and knead his package of margarine for him.
As a treat, he would reward me with a bottle of sarsaparilla from his refrigerator.
During World War II there was a shortage of butter in the United States, and oleomargarine (later called Oleo) became popular, except the dairy farmers banned the artificial colorings put in it that made it look like butter, therefore it was not yellow looking like butter, it had a whitish un-appetizing look kind of like lard. So to get around that law and enable a change to its looks, to make it more marketable, margarine makers created a capsule of yellow dye and placed it inside inside the plastic package of margarine.
After purchasing, the consumer could break the capsule that was inside the package, and then knead the package to distribute the dye, thus turning the margarine to a yellow color.
Around 1955, the artificial coloring laws were repealed, and margarine could once again be sold colored like butter.
That is when Oleo became very popular and was banned in many dairy states across the US.
I grew up in Lake County,
Illinois, just one mile from the Illinois-Wisconsin state border.
In Illinois Oleo was legal, in the dairy state of Wisconsin, it was not legal.
During the early 60’s there was a lot of illegal Oleo buying going on across state lines. People would come from Wisconsin into Illinois to buy cases of Oleo.
Many of the Truck Stops and gas stations along the border would sell Oleo and thus “Oleo Wars” took place as businesses would compete with each other to have the lowest prices.
Leonas Lines--Poetry Plus 