Reader Contributions: Seniorwriter's Challenge

Here is an update on what my readers have written in response to my journal assignments. Most were previously buried here in the comments, where they were hard to find. Please write more. You may send them to me via email, as I suggested earlier, but it it's easier, just add your contributions as comments under the corresponding assignment. I will find them and move them.


Assignment III: "What would you Do?"

A Gift with Strings (and Wheels) II

Oh boy, my dream has finally come true! I have been interested in purchasing a sauna steam bath for years, but I never could bring myself to spend the money on something just for me. However, now with this gift I can have my steam baths. I believe that a steam bath would detoxify my body and help me look younger, not to mention add quality years to my life.

Now that I have received a gift of $5.000 with criteria attached, I definitely would not purchase one at this time. Under the stipulations given with the gift, I would hire a limo to drive me to the Youthtopia Med Spa in Alpharetta, Ga. That is the nearest spa to where I live. It is about seventy five miles from my home one way. I could read and relax every mile of the way and would not concern myself with the traffic.

I would also hire a masseuse, one that is licensed and must possess extensive knowledge of muscles. I would prefer a female masseuse. I don’t believe that I could relax completely with a male giving me the massage. I would request a total body massage after each steam bath. Or should I do it before the steam bath? I would need to check that out.

I believe that with all this body work being done, I would definitely need to update my wardrobe afterward with at least two very nice sexy outfits including shoes and purse to match.

I have read that steam baths not only detoxify the body but makes the skin glow. I would continue the steam baths until my $5,000 was spent down to about $1,500. Then I would find the sexiest dress shop, most likely at the Galleria Mall in North Atlanta. I know of a specialty boutique shop there that specializes in sexy clothing and accessories for petite women. At this point I might not have enough funds to purchase but one outfit. I would spend approximately $500 for the outfit. I believe I could choose one that would compliment me for that amount of money.

That would leave me one grand to spend on an evening out to dinner. And I would definitely get a complete make-up makeover. At the Youthtopia Med Spa, they have a chaperon service. I would use the thousand dollars to hire an evening chaperon to dine with at the most elegant restaurant in Atlanta, Ga. I would not buy his meal and would explain to him that I had to buy my own. I would not dine with just anyone. I would have to interview several applicants before choosing just the right one. This gentleman would have to be debonair with a capital D, and if at all possible, look very much like Clark Gable. We would dine and dance until dawn.

My relatives have left me nothing so far as I know, but I feel really lucky, so I will go out tomorrow and buy a few lottery tickets!

By Mollie Mercer Hewitt, 2007


Assignment VI: "Names and Nicknames"

1. I hated the nickname Dottie. It made me feel as though I was a spot on the blackboard, which someone could erase. Now there's a comment to be analyzed. Place that with dyslexia and I could be a case for a psych book.

I made it through, and here I am, successful in commercial real estate and blogging at night with Grammology. This for the hope of bring grandmas back to their families, sharing their wisdom and experience with parents and children.

Consequently, don't call me Grammie; call me Grammie Dorothea. I made that up. I love the sound.

A name is personal. Don't you think our name should be temporary, until we are old enough to approve the one given, or choose another? Stop by my site, http://grammology.com/.

By Dorothy, 6/29/07

2. I once taught a memoir class at the South Side Center for the Chicago Department of Aging. What a hoot! I loved it. We had a lady in class whose family called her Jim--a nickname for Virginia.

Barrel was the closest thing I ever had to a nickname--Cheryl Barrel. Try living with that!

The other sort-of nickname came from my gym suit. We had to have our first initial and last name stiched across the yoke. There was very little space between C and the Hagedorn place, so my friends began calling me Shagedorn or Shaggy.

By Cheryl Hagedoen, 6/29/07

3. I always wanted a cool nickname, even wrote about in on by blog. Buzz or Jake or something.

I was named after General Mark Clark. Well, not really, but that's the guy that had the name when my parents decided they liked it.

Yeah, I was called Markie too. Big Whoop!

My uncle used to call me stinky. My aunt always had a fit.

Oh well, I survived.

By Mark at goinglikesixty.com, 6/29/07


Assignment X: "Family Tales"

I became interested in my own family genealogy after starting what I thought would be a long, maybe impossible, quest to find my partner's birth family in England. He had been adopted by an Australian family as a baby. With the power of the Internet it took me but two days to find his extended family.

My own quest is harder in the Irish records were destroyed in a fire, but a tree of names is not so important to me anyway. It is the stories I have uncovered that bring the tree into bloom, giving it the richness and life and creating vivid pictures of adversity and the power of the human spirit. One of my favorite stories sent by a previously unknown relative:

After taking a ship from Ireland to Scotland in 1893, he walked to Glasgow and found woirk at a hydroelectric power station. He then walked to the North East of England, working as a labourer digging docks in Middlesborough. Once this project was finished, he walked south to Hull to dig new docks there.

Knowing that all the navvies and labourers on these projects were from out of town and needed somewhere to live, he was saving up little bit by little bit to buy a boarding house.

He finally achieved his goal, buying a house in Hull and opening his boarding house. He charged out of town dock workers 4d a night and sharpened their shovels to help them dig faster. Most of his eleven children were born in this house.

One of these children was my father.

By Sueblimely, 7/20/07