Gianetta Palmer

As with almost anything you buy these days, affixed somewhere on the product is a sticker that says Made in China. That got me to wondering as I sometimes like to do and I came up with this question: Are the Made in China stickers made in China? Since I don't know anyone in China to ask I did the next best thing: I Googled the question. It seems that there is a fan page on Facebook devoted to this exact question and over 14,000 people have liked it. But, it didn't give me the answer. Next, down the list on the Google search page was a company called ULINE from Pleasant Prairie, WI, and they do make the Made in China stickers. What about that? The product may be made in China, but the part that holds everything together (the sticker) is made right here in the good old USA. And they say Americans don't make anything anymore...

With the Presidential election just around the corner, political conversations are becoming a hot dinnertime topic. The following conversation took place recently when Brother, Mom and I sat down to dinner. I won't tell you who belongs to each party, I'll let the conversation speak for itself. Ind: "Ha! I was busting your buddies' chops the other day about Romney's speech at the RNC. They were like all happy and thrilled to have such a strong candidate." Reb: "They're right. Romney and Ryan are gonna put this country back on track for us freedom-loving Americans and repeal Obamacare." Dem: "I would have thought, heaven forbid, that you of all people would want to keep it. You got about every preexisting condition there is and even some that haven't been invented yet." Ind: "That's true." Reb: "Well, somebody needs to stand up and make these people start paying for some of these government programs. It's going ...

..."Mom?" "What did you say," Granny asked with a questioning look. "Did Diddy (my dad) ever tell you about the world's longest fart?" Without even hearing a word of the story, granny's shoulders started to shake, a grin spread across her face, and looking toward my dad, "No, I don't think he did." "A few weeks ago, in through there, we had went over to John's and I had got my usual, the Rainbow trout. Lora, didn't you get the Ribeye? Well, the lady said they had a new cook and instead of having, in through there, the usual green bean almondine with the trout, in through there, they was trying to make things healthier and cooked broccoli with it. It was all right, in through there, and I also had some of the new chili. Lora, did you get some of the chili?" "Yes, I had the Ribeye and tried the soup too. I think that was the problem." "Right. It wasn't too long and I started to get the belly ache. Yo...

Margaret Jane Shutt Keiber Stephenson was born in northwestern Ohio, around Wapakoneta, on December 22, 1908. She was my maternal grandmother and one of the most spiritual women I have ever known. To many people she was known as Margaret, but to me and my large group of cousins, she was simply known as Granny. Granny was small in stature but big in heart. For years, when her kids (seven girls and four boys) would come to visit they would always be surprised by how little she had. Questions of "Mom, what happened to your coat?" and "Why don't you have any groceries?" were common. She would just smile in her own way and with a soft voice reply, "Well, I think the good Lord told me that somebody else needed it more than Tommy and me. My uncle, Tommy, was physically challenged and lived with my grandmother until she was well up into her eighties. Even though Granny was a highly spiritual woman, she had a wicked sense of humor. In her case, the more gross and di...

Today, August 15, 2012, would’ve been Julia Child’s 100th birthday. If you do not know who she was; she was the forerunner of all of the TV chefs that you see today. She was the Emeril of the 1950s and the Rachael Ray of the 60s, 70s, 80s, and the first part of the 90s. She made cooking cool. With an ever present wine glass and a jovial Bon Appetit, Child would send her viewers away with a taste of French cuisine and a love for the finer things in life. It seemed that Julia Child might have also been a spy. According to just released reports from the 1940s, Child worked for the OSS, which was a precursor to the CIA, during World War II. She had tried to enlist in the Navy but was deemed to be too tall. She was 6’2”, which in those days was considered huge for a woman. Still wanting to help out in the war she turned to the OSS, and listed herself incorrectly as 6’; I guess a little white lie never hurt anyone. She started out in the typing pool, but was quickly promoted to work directly...

I'm a huge sports fan. I like sports of all sorts and will watch basically any sport on television. Back in the day, on Sundays, Dad and I would watch ABC's Wide World of Sports. That's where I learned to float like a butterfly, a` la Muhammad Ali, and do a running commentary, a` la Howard Cosell, of our boxing match which usually occurred in the living room and ended with me getting knocked in the head by my brother, with me trash-talking, "THIS IS HOWWORD COSELL, LIVE FROM the living room. WHAP! Down goes Palmer, down goes Palmer." "You kids better stop that," mom would always say with the over-the-glasses look. "Somebody is going to get hurt." I always liked to watch winter sports on television. My favorite sport was the ski jump and it was always exciting waiting to see if anyone was going to crash on landing. I tried to imitate those jumpers out back on the big hill but landed straight in the creek on more than one occasion. I have been wa...