Choice Morsels

The Mama Kat challenge today is, "What's better? Being a kid or an adult? List 10 reasons for your choice." Photo from Pixabay When I was a kid, getting to be "grown-up" seemed optimal. Now that I'm a grown-up, I see many advantages of being a kid I didn't fully appreciate at the time: 1)  Less to worry about. The biggest worry I had as a kid was whether or not I was liked well enough for someone to want to trade papers with me. It seemed huge then, but, looking back, it was trivial. I just didn't have the judgement to know it. 2)  I didn't have to earn money. My whole profession was going to school and learning stuff for free. 3)  Related to earning no money is having no bills. 4)  Being a kid was a life with minimal demands. I did have a few household chores to be responsible for, such as changing my bed or helping hang laundry outside and taking turns washing dishes with my sisters, but really my time was my own the ma...

The best thing my Dad ever taught me: An amusing picture of Bette Davis from Pinterest During the nearly 5 years I was in the Air Force, I never owned a car.  Once I got out of service, returned home and was planning to go off to college in the fall, then I needed one. So I finally bought car. Before I was going to go driving off to live on my own, though, my Dad wanted to make sure I knew all the basics of car care: 1)  How to Change a Tire.  He made sure I knew where the jack and lug wrench were stored in the wheel well, how to properly place the jack plus block another wheel and how to use the lug wrench. (I had already purchased a 4-way lug wrench because I felt it would provide me better leverage for the task, should I ever be called upon to do change a flat.)  2)  How to Check Fluids.  He showed me where the oil dip stick was and how to check it. And the transmission dip stick. (I had a manual transmission, but they have dip sticks...

T he Mama Kat writing challenge today is a "College Memory." After 4 years in the Air Force, I decided I was ready for college, so I was older then most of my fellow students, who were right out of high school. My first semester of college was in the fall 1980. The year John Lennon died. That alone sent a memorable wave of grief over the school population. I was enrolled in a 2-year Commercial Art program. It was a small country college. The class wasn't big. Maybe 20 students in my graphic art classes. I remember this one guy was obsessed with the band "KISS" and, anytime he could, he made them the center of his art. He was apparently great at drawing KISS; less great at anything else. My instructors were both commercial artists who'd worked in the field before becoming college teachers. Brad Rock was one of them. He was new that year. A blond, forty-ish guy taking on a room full of greenhorn artist wannabe's. One day that first semester,...