tears to my eyes, it brought

and chuckles from my chest.

Most of you know that I do have a good sense of humor, but don't generally laugh out loud {"LOL"}. I don't pepper my writing with rotflmao and other such fillers. When I type "grins", I'm really grinning. And when I type snickers, chuckles, chortles, snorts, and chokes; you can expect that I'm really convulsing on this side of the screen. Most times, I smirk a bit but rarely to you find me experiencing a good belly laugh over reading something humourous. But dudes, I gotta share this with you because it really did make me laugh so hard, my eyes teared up and I ended up having a choking coughing fit which disturbed Shaddow's serious rest.

It is no secret that I love my local public library (even tho I've referred to it as the friggen' local public library ~~ see My FLPL linkee on the left), finding most of the women that work there to be very admirable, witty, compassionate, and truly in love with their work. Laura has developed a wonderful children's room over the last five years. Anna has created the Young Adult programs, carving out a good niche this year. Patricia, Andrea, Kimberly, and Amanda woman the front desk, always cheerful and interested and interesting. Most everyone there has given me wonderful suggestions for audios, movies, and books for whatever mood I happened to be in that day or week or month. The Friends of the Library hold their first Monday of the Month sales and sponsor brown bag author lunches and lectures, as well as so many other activities that benefit the coffers of the library. I could go on and on about this fabulous place and the many community oriented programs and the coalition and consortium and ... but I won't. At least not here and now.

I will tell you about this one aspect alone. The children's librarian {Laura, whatta setta pipes on that lovely!} and the efforts of others have produced a CD of local stories and music called "Once Upon A Long Ago Night...", for sale at the circulation desk for a mere six dollars; all proceeds benefiting the children's section at the Starkville Public Library, here in Starkville, Mississippi. Today, I bought one and listened to it tonight.

It is very enjoyable, a good mixture of poems, songs, and stories. One in particular is a remembrance of Mike Goree's. I'm sure his son is hanging his head in shame, but he ought to be grinning from ear to ear. Let me share with you this Mississippi State University's instructor's particular tale of Christmas Eve 1989, when temperatures dropped below zero here in the fair South.

First you must meet Mollie. She was their dog, a much loved pet who was large, sloppy, and very misbehaved. Even tho it was so bitterly cold out, Mollie was banished to the patio, for misdeeds beyond mention. She had a tongue "a foot and a half long and slobbery".

The door between the patio and the den was a twelve paned french door with ice frozen in sheets. In the den, the entire family was spending most of their time over those cold nights, gathered around the gas fireplace. However, at the start of this scene, we find only the middle child sitting in the den.

He was changing clothes and to give him privacy, the rest of the family left so that he could have the warmth of the gas logs. When he got down to his underwear, he kicked them off. The garment flew in a lovely arch across the room, over the fire fender, onto those gas logs; whereupon the elastic waistband shriveled and shimmied and popped and curled in all sorts of amazing ways.

The boy hollered for his father, "dad, dad come in here, my underwear's on fire!!" The father rushed into the room, saw the flaming underwear, and knew immediately what to do {as all fathers must know what to do in any crisis a kid creates}. So he ran into the kitchen, grabbed up the metal dustpan, returned to the den, scooped up the flaming underwear which was burning bright, and held it aloft {striking a pose much like the Statue of Liberty hoisting her torch in victory}.

Mollie, in the meantime, heard the commotion and jumped to her feet, springing high into the air, adding her rulfing rulping barks to the din and sending slobber thru the cold clear night air. She was rather klutzy and misjudged her distance from the door; and on one particularly high jump, her long slobbery tongue extended and struck the icy window pane at the very top of the door. Immediately, her tongue froze to the pane and she hung there, four paws scrabbling for purchase and tail just a beating on the door frame.

The father, thinking quickly {as all fathers must when faced with a kid/dog created crisis}, thrust the metal dustpan of burning underwear near the pane and melted the ice, releasing Mollie's tongue and allowing her to drop to the patio in a sprawling mound of fur and yelps. Flinging open the door, he hurtled the burning underwear onto the lawn, where they fizzled out.

I mean to tell you that by the time I get to the end of the tale, I couldn't even catch my breath. I was hacking and coughing and all but spitting with laughter. Mollie the mutt had nothing on me.