Grandpa Likes The Old Fashioned Kind (Wordless Wednesday) and Words for Wednesday

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Linking up with Wordless Wednesday and Sandee at Comedy Plus.     

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Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and has become a moveable feast of word or picture or music prompts to encourage us to write stories, poems, or whatever strikes our fancy.    

This month, the prompts are being provided by Charlotte/Mother Owl.    

The words this week are:

rivers

heavy

shell

mischief

searchlight

yell

and/or

arm

east

fruit

languages

voice

thought

 and/or this photo

"Mom, mom!" Sal and Brady came running in to where their mother was at her loom, weaving.

"No need to YELL children, I'm right here!" mom smiled at them brightly, but they didn't smile back.

"Mom, Jerry is missing!"  Sal was breathing heavily, like she'd been running, and she gasped the words out but that didn't hide the fear in her VOICE.

"Well, he's a good dog, but he does like to wander out a bit.  Remember the last time you thought he was lost, he was just ignoring your calls because he was chasing a porcupine..." mom started, but Brady interrupted.

"No, mom, you don't understand.  With all the HEAVY rain lately, the RIVERS are all swollen, and we were out by the EAST branch when I saw Jerry slide down the bank, and we lost sight of him, and now we can't find him anywhere, he won't come when we call!  He's gone!"

Mom stood up and said, "Okay, both of you, take a deep breath, and go in the kitchen and each grab a piece of FRUIT from the basket.  Neither of you have had a bite since breakfast, and no one can think on an empty stomach.  I'm going to get dad and and you two try to remember exactly where you were, we'll start searching."

A few minutes later, mom and dad were heading back up to the house where the children waited.  Dad was muttering about the dog and children always getting in MISCHIEF when there was work to be done, but the looks on the children's faces convinced him they were truly distraught and were sure their dog was gone.

Sal clung to her father's ARM as they all headed out.  They went down the rough driveway made of gravel and SHELLs, then across toward the water, which dad always said sounded to him like it spoke all the LANGUAGES of the world at once.

They arrived as nearly as they could tell to the place where the dog went missing, and started searching, dad and Sal going downstream, mom and Brady heading up.  They hoped he hadn't fallen in, but had just ignored their calls to go chasing some critter, and hoped it wasn't a porcupine this time.

They'd only been out there about a quarter of an hour when Brady and mom smelled that odor that told them a skunk was in the area, and it wasn't happy.

"Oh, no," mom said, and Brady responded with, "Please don't tell me..."

Sure enough, Jerry came running toward them, having obviously tangled with what dad always called a "polecat."

"Stop, Jerry, stop!" Brady called out in a futile attempt to keep the dog from jumping on them.  Wrangling him into the leash mom had brought, they headed back downstream calling for dad and Sal, who finally heard and came running.

On the way back to the house, dad said he'd clear out a pen in the yard to keep Jerry in until he was fit to have back in the buildings, and mom talked about tomato juice and how they'd probably have to burn the clothes they were wearing.

Just as they got back to their own driveway, dad said, "Well, this is bad, but not as bad as the porcupine incident."

"How is it not as bad with all this stink?" mom asked.

"Well, first, it isn't night and I didn't have to get out a SEARCHLIGHT to find him, and I don't have to run him to the vet."

"Mmmph," mom muttered noncommittally.

"And," dad continued, "now the crazy dog knows what a skunk does, maybe he'll avoid them the way he avoids porcupines."

"We can only keep a good THOUGHT" mom said, shaking her head.

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Today is:

Big Snow Day -- remembering the 15 inch snowflakes that fell on in Fort Keough, Montana, on this date in 1887

Chocolate Cake Day

Day of Remembrance for Victims of Nazism -- Germany (anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz)

Day the Netjers of Heaven Receive Ra -- Ancient Egyptian Calendar (date approximate)

Family Literacy Day -- Canada

International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust

Iroquois Mid-Winter Ceremony -- Iroquois Native Americans (for the continuation of all life-sustaining things; a multi-day ceremony and feast that begins around this time of year)

Listen to Classical Music During Lunch Day -- in honor of Mozart

Mozart Day

Punch the Clock Day -- internet generated, and no reason for it given; this has to be one of the more baffling ones

St. Angela Merici's Day (Founder of the Sisters of the Order of St. Ursula; Patron of the disabled and ill; against bodily ills and the death of parents)

St. Devota's Day (Patron of Corsica; Monaco)

Thomas Crapper Day -- death date, in 1910, of the perfector of the flush toilet mechanism

Tu B'Shevat -- Judaism ("New Year of the Trees", begins at sunset)

Anniversaries Today:

Founding of the National Geographic Society, 1888

The first sorority, Kappa Alpha Theta, is founded at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, 1870

The University of Georgia is chartered, the first state university in the US, 1785

Birthdays Today:

Julie Foudy, 1971

Jennifer LB Leese, 1970

Patton Oswalt, 1969

Alan Cumming, 1965

Bridget Fonda,1964

Cris Collinsworth, 1959

Mimi Rogers, 1956

Mikhail Baryshnikov, 1948

Nick Mason, 1944

Mairead Corrigan, 1944

James Cromwell, 1942

Troy Donahue, 1936

Donna Reed, 1921

David Seville, 1919

Skitch Henderson, 1918

Hyman George Rickover, 1900

Jerome Kern, 1885

Samuel Gompers, 1850

Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), 1832

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756

Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Laverne and Shirley"(TV), 1976

"Tarzan of the Apes"(Film), 1918

Today in History:

Trajan becomes Roman Emperor, 98

The Rashidun Caliphate ends with the death of Ali, 661

Song Dynasty General Yue Fei is wrongfully executed, 1142

Dante Alighieri becomes a Florentine political exile, 1302

The trial of Guy Fawkes and other conspirators begins, ending with their execution on January 31, 1606

The first American lime kiln begins operation in Providence, Rhode Island, 1662

Mustafa II becomes the Ottoman sultan in Instanbul, 1695

Czar Peter the Great sets the first Russian state budget, 1710

Abdication of Stanislas, the last king of Poland, 1736

The US Congress approves the opening of Indian Territory for settlement, which led to the forced relocation of Native Americans on the "Trail of Tears," 1825

Manitoba and the Northwest Territories are incorporated, 1870

Thomas Edison is granted a patent for the electric incandescent lamp, 1880

The National Geographic Society is organized, in Washington, D.C., 1888

"Tarzan of the Apes," the first Tarzan movie, premiers, 1918

Apollo 1 – Astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee are killed in a fire during a test of their spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center, 1967

More than sixty nations sign the Outer Space Treaty banning nuclear weapons in space, 1967

Through cooperation between the U.S. and Canadian governments, six American diplomats secretly escape hostilities in Iran in the culmination of the Canadian caper, 1980

The pilot shaft of the Seikan Tunnel, the world's longest sub-aqueous tunnel (53.85 km) between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, breaks through, 1983

American-born sumo wrestler Akebono Taro becomes the first foreigner to be promoted to the sport's highest rank of yokozuna, 1993

Germany first observes International Holocaust Remembrance Day, 1996

Western Union discontinues its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services, 2006