The Mountain Eagle
WHITESBURG WEATHER

Don’t laugh at old sayings




Did you ever just sit down to rest awhile and find yourself concentrating on something you have seen or heard in the past?

A lot of the sayings and beliefs you heard seemed like a bunch of rubbish at the time, and may well be such. But the people involved take the matter very seriously.

If you want to offend someone, just laugh at one of their sayings or beliefs while in their presence. You will have a hard time living it down in order to regain their trust.

Many people believe a body will have seven years of bad luck if they break a mirror. If that be the case, I won’t ever get out of debt to Lady Luck because I wouldn’t even try to estimate how many mirrors I have broken during my lifetime, especially shaving mirrors.

As I have stated on previous occasions, I am and always have been as clumsy as an ox in a china shop. Sometimes it seems as though I have five thumbs and all five are on one hand, either hand.

Some people believe it is bad luck to close a knife someone else has opened. There may be something to that one because it is a health hazard to me to handle a knife or a hammer because I will either cut myself or mash a finger or two, whether I am opening or closing the knife or not. Maybe I am that way because I am ambidextrous, or whatever you call it. Anyway, I can do most things with either hand, which was an advantage when I had carpal tunnel surgery.

Some people believe you’ll have bad luck if a black cat crosses your path. If a black cat crosses your path and you are driving, the cat is the one most likely to have bad luck, and not you.

I went to a house one time, back in the ‘60s, and a woman came out and sat down, and she had a birdcage with a silver dollar in it as if she thought her silver dollar would escape.

Although I was more than a little bit curious, I had the courtesy to not ask her about her odd bird. I learned later that the dollar in the cage was to keep evil spirits away. Maybe she thought I was an evil spirit. I may have looked like one, but I had no evil intentions.

Then there is the belief that, if you kill a toad frog, old bossy will give bloody milk. Then there is the one where the blood from a black chicken will cure or prevent something.

There are many others, such as if you handle a toad frog you will get warts on your hands; if you get bitten by a terrapin it won’t let to until it thunders, and there are drivers who will run onto the shoulder of the road just to kill one of these critters.

First of all, I’ve never heard of the lowly terrapin biting anyone, and secondly, the shell it lives in will slice a tire like a razor blade, and third, a critter that will walk for a week or longer to get a drink of water is something to be admired instead of killed.

Now the ugly and grouchy old snapping turtle is a horse of a diff erent color, and it doesn’t need an excuse to bite you, and likely will take off a finger in the process.

Then there is the belief that if a green snake bites you, you will laugh yourself to death. There is not too much worry there, because the green snake is all but extinct.

I’ll leave you with this parting shot:

A salesman stopped at a farmhouse out in the country where a little boy was playing in the yard. He asked the little boy how many people were in his family, to which he replied, “Mom, Dad, me and my sister.” He asked where his mom was, and he replied, “Don’t know.” He asked where his dad was and he replied, “Don’t know.”

Then he asked where his sister was, to which he replied, “In the outhouse.” The salesman asked why he knew where his sister was and nobody else, to which the little boy replied, “Because the mail order catalog is gone, and she can’t read.”

And that’s all from the funny farm until next time.


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