A friend sent this to me and I want to pass it on. Bet not many of you have ever heard this.

COPY THESE DOWN SO YOU WANT FORGET, COPY THEM DOWN ON YOUR SHOPPING LIST.
I am going to watch those bar codes a LOT more now… I am busy reading the ingredients.. 

Boy.. shopping is a full time job!!! 
ALWAYS READ THE LABELS ON THE FOODS YOU BUY–NO MATTER WHAT THE FRONT OF THE BOX OR PACKAGE SAYS, TURN IT OVER AND READ THE BACK—CAREFULLY!

With all the food and pet products now coming from China , it is best to make sure you read label at the grocery store and especially Walmart when buying food products. Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is  located.
It is important to read the bar code to track it’s origin.
How to read Bar Codes …. interesting!

This may be useful to know when grocery shopping, if it’s a concern to you.

GREAT WAY TO ”BUY USA   &  CANADA “ AND NOT FROM  CHINA!!

The whole world is concerned about China-made “black hearted goods”.
Can you differentiate which one is made in Taiwan or  China ?
If the first 3 digits of the barcode are 690 691 or 692, the product is MADE IN  CHINA.
471 is Made in Taiwan . 
This is our right to know, but the government and related departments never educate the 
public, therefore we have to RESCUE ourselves. Nowadays, Chinese businessmen know that consumers do not prefer products “MADE IN CHINA “, so they don’t show from which country it is made.   However, you may now refer to the barcode – remember if the first 3 digits are:
690-692 … then it is MADE IN  CHINA
00 – 09 …  USA   &  CANADA
30 – 37   FRANCE
40 – 44  GERMANY
471 …  Taiwan
49 … JAPAN
50 …  UK

BUY USA & CANADIAN MADE by watching for “0″ at the beginning of the number.
We need every boost we can get!  Pass this on to everybody on your E-Mail Contact List!! 
If the government won’t help us, we MUST help ourselves. 

I have been spending a few days, so I can stay in out of the heat, working on my family tree.  There have been times when I thought I was going to give up when it came to trying to figure out which George or which Catherine was the child of which George and which Catherine.  I have decided that people in the 1700s and 1800s had no imagination when it came to names.  Everyone has the same name as someone else in their family or should I say a “bunch of someones”?  There has to be a hundred of George, Sarah, Joseph, William, Elizabeth, Mary, Charles, Martha, Richard, and Samuel. I even have one Samuel who is a “IV”!

Then there are the “unknowns” that pop up every now and again.  That’s neat, no one knows who so and so’s mother or father is.  Or there is just a first name of a spouse so you have no idea what her maiden name is, lovely…  I have a few who have first names that you would expect to be a last name,  or vice versa, i.e., Wilson, Dennis, Clark, Myers, Presley, etc. Then you can get into a mess if someone leaves off part of someones name by looking at  Mary, Mary Agnes, Mary Gladys, Mary Jane, Mary Kate, Mary Ann, Mary Elizabeth, Mary Catherine, Mary Kathleen.

Now we have weird names such as Marmaduke, Barnet, Welborn, Ewing, Uuren, Vane.  These are my family names and I’m sure I would have loved all of these people, but gosh they could have been a little more original.  Then you can giggle a little when you see the names that were definitely popular during the time period they were born.  For instance, Ethel, Willie, Jacob, Ada, Jane, Mable, Martha.

I paid a fortune for a years worth of Ancestry so I can do some world searching. You can find someone who you think, this has to be the person you’re looking for. Of course this person has 11 children so you spend three hours adding 10 of them and then find out this is the wrong parent anyway. The number of children can also drive you crazy. Seems they had enormous numbers of children, some lived and some didn’t. There are some who make Octomom a novice. One of my relatives had 20 children. Gives me a headache just thinking about it.

It is really sad when you come across the names that are just “Twins” or “baby” and I had one just called “Boy”. There were several big epidemics that killed so many people especially babies and small children. We are definitely lucky to have the miracle medicines and vaccines that we have today.

My uncle had started all this with a roll of architecture paper and he drew an hour glass form of tree and filled in all the names by hand. Then there was the cousin who had hers done on those family tree forms, and the relative that found bunches of papers in an old shoe box. I know one thing for sure and that is you MUST have a back up when you are doing this kind of computer work. Holy Cow what a mess if you lost a limb or two from your family tree.

A friend sent me this and I think you will find it VERY interesting….

What it took to get an 8th grade education in 1895…
Remember when grandparents and great-grandparents stated that they only had an 8th grade education? Well, check this out. Could any of us have passed the 8th grade in 1895?
This is the eighth-grade final exam from 1895 in Salina , Kansas , USA . It was taken from the original document on file at the Smokey Valley Genealogical Society and Library in Salina , and reprinted by the Salina Journal.
8th Grade Final Exam: Salina , KS – 1895
Grammar (Time, one hour)

1. Give nine rules for the use of capital letters.
2. Name the parts of speech and define those that have no modifications.
3. Define verse, stanza and paragraph
4. What are the principal parts of a verb? Give principal parts of ‘lie’, ‘play,’ and ‘run.’
5. Define case; illustrate each case.
6 What is punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of punctuation.
7 – 10. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.

Arithmetic (Time,1 hour 15 minutes)
1 Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft Deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. Wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3,942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1,050 lbs. For tare?
4. District No 33 has a valuation of $35,000.. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6,720 lbs. of coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per metre?
8. Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance of which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

U.S History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U.S. History is divided
2. Give an account of the discovery of   America by Columbus
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton , Bell , Lincoln , Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.

Orthography (Time, one hour)
[Do we even know what this is??]
1. What is meant by the following: alphabet, phonetic, orthography, etymology, syllabication
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u.’ (HUH?)
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane , vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.

Geography (Time, one hour)
1 What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas ?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia , Odessa , Denver , Manitoba , Hecla , Yukon , St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each..
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.

Notice that the exam took FIVE HOURS to complete.. Could you have passed?
Gives the saying ‘he only had an 8th grade education’ a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?!
No wonder they dropped out after 8th grade.  They already knew more than they needed to know!
No, I don’t have the answers!  And I don’t think I ever did!
Have fun with this…pass it on so we’re not the only ones who feel stupid!!!

See the lady in the center of the photo with the bouquet of probably 30 or 40 black balloons.  She has just given up on trying to get them in the tiny silver car you see behind her.  Of course the wind is blowing at gale force and her balloon bouquet is bigger than her car.  Finally after someone tried to help her by pushing the balloons in on her, she gave up, got out and went back into the grocery store where she purchased the balloons.  She has decided to let the person driving the tiny car, go get a bigger car so she and her balloon bouquet can go wherever she was planning on going.  There was a time when she was between the tiny car and the store, that I waited for the wind to pick her up, balloons and all and whisk her off to Kansas.

I have to pass on something that I saw happen on Monday.  My grandson is attending a baseball camp at our local ballpark along with lots of other kids.  Just before leaving on Monday, the first day, the Director of the camp called all the kids down to the diamond and told them that he wanted to explain something that was very special to him.  He told them to put their toes at the foul line, put their legs together, stand tall, put their left hand behind their back and take their ball cap off and hold it over their heart.  He said when the National Anthem played they were to have all eyes on the flag and to stand still.  What a wonderful thing to see.  It is so seldom we see real patriotism and those kids will never forget where they learned about paying respect to the flag.  Thanks Mr Mayberry!!! (who took his hat off when the music started)

Well I have to talk about something that I saw last week.  My daughter had some surgery in one of the big hospitals in Oklahoma City because there was no one here in our town who had done the procedure very many times like a doctor in the city.  The day of the surgery we were in one of the waiting rooms.  They had two next to the part where my daughter was.  One with a tv and vending machines and another that was a Quiet room for those who wanted to just read or whatever.  We went in and sat in the tv room.  I immediately noticed a stack of blankets and pillows over in the corner.  By stack I mean it was about 3 feet high.  Also along the window ledge were lots of personal things, a laptop, drinks, books, sacks from restaurants, etc.  I did find out the two ladies who were sitting there in the recliners were members of a family who were “living” in the room while some relative was in a room in a comma. That day was day “10″ of their stay so far!  I find it hard to believe that the hospital was allowing this.  The room had an odor of too many people in too small a space, and of people who were probably taking a “spit” bath in the restroom sink.  They were from a small town a couple of hundred miles away.  I thought to myself that they surely could have gotten an “extended stay” room in one of the hotels across the street from the hospital.  They cold have bunked in together and split the cost and would have been able to bathe, eat and rest there and take turns waiting in the hospital.  They were in control of all the recliners, the remote to the tv, and the chairs facing the tv.  It was as if they felt the rest of us were intruding on their space in a public place.  I wanted to watch something on the tv for a few minutes and had to ask for the remote from the lady who had it under her blanket, I am sure hiding it so no one would change the station.  I am sure if one of my family was in a comma I would want to be near by.  I noticed the staff were finding relatives of sick people all the time to report on conditions.  Their living in the hospital waiting room was certainly unnecessary.  One of my family noticed one morning that the cleaning staff had to sweep and clean around those sleeping people in order to make the room half way decent.  I blame the hospital for not providing written rules prohibiting such things and I blame people for not thinking of others in a time of stress for everyone.  I do hope their relative gets well and they can go home, after all there are a lot of others who would like to sit and watch tv awhile to get their mind off their problems.

P.S. my daughter is fine and we came home after 3 days.

This article was in the paper yesterday and I wanted to share it.  Jeff is one of my favorite coumnists here for our local newspaper.

May 19, 2011

The end is near: Or maybe it’s not

By Jeff Mullin, columnist Enid News and Eagle