The Tablecloth....this is beautiful!

This was a great story I received from a friend, given the time of year I think you might like to read it. What I don't understand is why The Hallmark Channel hasn't picked this up for one of their movies:)! Betty



Understand that things happen for a reason

The brand new pastor and his wife, newly assigned

to their first ministry, to reopen a church

in suburban Brooklyn , arrived in early October

excited about their opportunities. When they saw

their church, it was very run down and needed

much work. They set a goal to have everything

done in time to have their first service

on Christmas Eve.



They worked hard, repairing pews, plastering walls,

painting, etc, and on December 18

were ahead of schedule and just about finished.



On December 19 a terrible tempest - a driving

rainstorm hit the area and lasted for two days.



On the 21st, the pastor went over to the church.

His heart sank when he saw that the roof had

leaked, causing a large area of plaster about

20 feet by 8 feet to fall off the front wall

of the sanctuary just behind the pulpit,

beginning about head high.



The pastor cleaned up the mess on the floor,

and not knowing what else to do but postpone

the Christmas Eve service, headed home.

On the way he noticed that a local business was

having a flea market type sale for charity, so he

stopped in. One of the items was a beautiful,

handmade, ivory colored, crocheted tablecloth

with exquisite work, fine colors and a Cross

embroidered right in the center. It was just

the right size to cover the hole in the front

wall. He bought it and headed back to the church.



B y this time it had started to snow. An older

woman running from the opposite direction was

trying to catch the bus. She missed it. The pastor

invited her to wait in the warm church for

the next bus 45 minutes later.



She sat in a pew and paid no attention to the pastor

while he got a ladder, hangers, etc., to put

up the tablecloth as a wall tapestry. The pastor

could hardly believe how beautiful it looked and

it covered up the entire problem area.



Then he noticed the woman walking down the center

aisle. Her face was like a sheet. "Pastor,"

she asked, "where did you get that tablecloth?"

The pastor explained. The woman asked him to check

the lower right corner to see if the initials, EBG were crocheted into

it there. They were. These were the initials of the woman, and she had

made this tablecloth 35 years before, in Austria .



The woman could hardly believe it as the pastor

told how he had just gotten "The Tablecloth". The

woman explained that before the war she and

her husband were well-to-do people in Austria .



When the Nazis came, she was forced to leave.

Her husband was going to follow her the next week.

He was captured, sent to prison and never saw her

husband or her home again.



The pastor wanted to give her the tablecloth;

but she made the pastor keep it for the church.

The pastor insisted on driving her home. That

was the least he could do. She lived on the other

side of Staten Island and was only in Brooklyn

for the day for a housecleaning job.



What a wonderful service they had on Christmas

Eve. The church was almost full. The music and the

spirit were great. At the end of the service, the

pastor and his wife greeted everyone at the door

and many said that they would return.



One older man, whom the pastor recognized

from the neighborhood continued to sit in one of the

pews and stare, and the pastor wondered why he

wasn't leaving.



The man asked him where he got the tablecloth on

the front wall because it was identical to one

that his wife had made years ago when

they lived in Austria before the war and how

could there be two tablecloths so much alike?



He told the pastor how the Nazis came, how he

forced his wife to flee for her safety and he was

supposed to follow her, but he was arrested and

put in a prison. He never saw his wife or his home

again all the 35 years between.



The pastor asked him if he would allow him to

take him for a little ride. They drove to Staten

Island and to the same house where the pastor

had taken the woman three days earlier.



He helped the man climb the three flights of

stairs to the woman's apartment, knocked on

the door and he saw the greatest Christmas

reunion he could ever imagine.



True Story - submitted by Pastor Rob Reid


For all of you that read my blog, have a great Christmas Season.
Merry Christmas, Betty/Juniper Berry

Interesting History

They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families
used to all pee in a pot & then once a day it was taken &
Sold to the tannery.......if you had to do this to survive
you were "Piss Poor"

But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't
even afford to buy a pot......they
"didn't have a pot to
piss in" & were the lowest of the low


The next time you are washing your hands and complain
because the water temperature isn't just how you like it,
think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about
the 1500s:


Most people got married in June because they took their
yearly bath in May, and they still
smelled pretty good by
June.. However, since they were starting to smell . ..... .
Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.
Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting
Married.


Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man
of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then
all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the
children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so
dirty you could actually lose someone in it.. Hence the
saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!"


Houses had thatched roofs-thick
straw-piled high, with no
wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get
warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs)
lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and
sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof...
Hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs."


There was nothing to stop things from falling into the
house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs
and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence,
a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top
afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into
existence.


The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other
than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt
poor." The wealthy had
slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet,
so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their
footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until,
when you opened the door, it would all start slipping
outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way.
Hence: a thresh hold.


(Getting quite an education, aren't
you?)


In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big
kettle that always hung over the fire..
Every day they lit
the fire and added things to the pot.
They ate mostly
vegetables and did not get much meat.
They would eat the
stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold
overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew
had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence
the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas
porridge cold, peas
porridge in the pot nine days old.

Sometimes they could
obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When
visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show
off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home
the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests
and would all sit around and chew the fat.


Those with money had plates made of
pewter. Food with high
acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food,
causing lead poisoning death. This
happened most often with
tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were
considered poisonous.


Bread was divided according to status.
Workers got the burnt
bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests
got the top, or the upper crust.


Lead cups were used to drink ale or
whisky. The combination
would Sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days.
Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and
prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen
table for a co uple of days and the
family would gather
around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake
up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.


England is old and small and the local folks started running
out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins
and would take the bones to a
bone-house, and reuse the
grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins
were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they
realized they had been burying people alive... So they would
tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the
coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell.
Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night
(the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus,someone
could be, saved by the bell or was
considered a dead ringer.


And that's the truth....Now, whoever said History was boring!!!

So...get out there and educate someone!

As a side note; I recieved this from a co-worker and thought to myself "this is pretty good". If you took the time to read it I know you will learn a thing or two, and as we all know that doesn't hurt us one bit. Have a great day, Betty

Now what is he up to?

Yesterday I was getting a box of Christmas decorations out of the garage and this "thing" fell on my head. I was startled at first not knowing what hit me in the head but after I picked it up to examine it I discover this "thing", which I still did not know what it was.

I brought it into the house to show Monica and ask her if she knew what this was used for. Monica just started laughing and asked me what I was doing. I explained it hit me in the head and it was something that her dad had made to use for ??? Then the laughter began, I told her that this was prime blogging material.  As you can see this magnet is held in place with electrical tape onto a 6 foot PVC pipe. What in the world would Glenn be doing while he made this?

Here is the side profile of this "thing" that hit me in the head. I just can't write this enough, "what do you suppose he was up to when he put this contraption together"? Only one person knows that that is Glenn:).