Ohiofarmgirl'sAdventuresinTheGoodLand-where ya been? whatcha been doin

[abifae]

I LOVE getting rid of stuff!!!!

Stuff I don't use, I mean lol.

I need to go through all my things this winter as I start to pack to move. I like nice leisurely packing over a month with lots of time to sort and get rid of

 

[Denim Deb]

I"ll be doing a lot of sorting this year myself. And, I think I'm planning on asking my son if I can have a yard sale at HIS house. I live on a dead end street. People don't come there. He lives more in town, about 1/4 mile from a busy road. And, anything that doesn't sell, I'll take to Good Will, or the Salvation Army, or something.

 

[Henrietta23]

Best tag sale we had was just a few weeks ago, the day before Irene hit. I was with DS at the fair and DH and my mom stayed and ran the sale!!! I only had to deal with one weirdo. She showed up at 7:04 for a 9am tag sale in van that looked like it was held together with baling twine and chewing gum. And sounded like it too.... Okay, so people come early, I get that. People drive what they can, I really get that! What got me was the fact that she parked in the middle of the road, on a blind curve. I went out to warn her that the paper delivery guy was likely to shove her car half way down the street since he skips our house and guns it to the next one.... she looked stunned, like who the heck would drive down this cruddy street??? Whatever. She said she'd be back but wasn't.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Just read your 9-11 blog post - most excellent post!

And I'll tell you where I was here, because blogger is NOT cooperating with me.

I was 22 years old, working at Walmart, had a handsome hubby, and 2 beautiful children ages 2 and 6 1/2 months old. We were living what we thought was the "good" life and we used to crack a lot of jokes about how my mom was always stocked up on everything. (trust me, this beginning is important).

On September 11, 2001 I reported to work at 7 am. I was so stinking excited to start work EARLY because that meant I'd only be working until 2 pm and I'd get to go home. Sometime a little after 9 am, as I'm mechanically ringing up my cash register and trying to figure out why we're slammed with customers buying things from economy packs of diapers to excess amounts of water, bread, and coffee, a customer tells me, "The trade towers are gone." I asked her what do you mean they're gone? She then tells me that two planes had crashed into the towers.

It wasn't something I comprehended right away, and my first thought was, "This is what mom was talking about when she said God told her to be prepared!" I think I said something along the lines of "there goes the stock market" and the customer looked at me like I had 3 heads. Seriously, my first thoughts were someone has economically crippled us on purpose to make us vulnerable, and my first thoughts were I was not prepared. In that moment, I knew I wanted to go home and just hold my babies, so I asked my CSM and she said no.

A little while later, a lady whom I remember spending Sunday's with after church comes through my line.
"Mitch is somewhere in Pa," she is obviously worried. "I don't know if he made it through or not."
I reply, "Did he have a run in Pa?" Not sure why she's so worried.
She gives me this paranoid look and says, "He was driving right through the area where the third plane went down."

That's as close as it came to touching me personally that day. Right after she left, I knew I was going home no matter what. The head jerks of Walmart were blasting messages across our intercoms, the t.v.'s ect and were telling store managers and other people that were "in charge" to be respectful of employees and to be considerate that some would choose to go home to be with loved ones. Our store manager walked by right then, and I used that intercom message as my ammo. I said, "Mr. Joliff, I want to go home. I need to go home." He said, Ok, finish these customers, and go home."

So I did, and when I shut off my light the head CSM comes running over and yells at me. She refused to let me leave. I told her Mr. Joliff said I could, and she said she hadn't been told. Few minutes later Mr. Joliff comes back, and I'm still running my register. He says, "I thought you were going home?" I told him the CSM wouldn't let me. He found another cashier to take over my line, and escorted me to the time clock! He said, "Go home."

and I did. I flew home. I walked into my mom's house, where my kids were, and she was shocked to see me. By now it's almost 11 am, and she had not had the t.v. on all day. She was shocked to see me home, and as I scooped up my kids, she asked if I had been fired. I said no mom, New York was attacked.

Then she turned on the t.v. and we watched the footage all day. I had also called E at his work to see what he knew, if anything, and I begged him to come home. He did, too.

And I spent the next several days, weeks, and months waiting for the other shoe to drop, completely convinced that this was The Event that would push our country into it's Second Great Depression Far Worse than the First Great Depression and I was not prepared.

eta: Our friend, Mitch, was just fine. He had literally passed through the area where the third plane went down 30 minutes before, so he was safe!

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

thanks for sharing your story, QA... is it ok if i post it on the page? i'm gonna put everyone's stories up b/c not everyone reads the comments..

but of course i'm late for church so i'll do it later today - but only if its ok. i think its important that everyone tells their story.

here's the post.

 

[colowyo0809]

I've been told my views on 9/11 are too controversial and to not talk about them, so I won't. but for you anyways and everyone else that was affected by this day 10 years ago.

on the tag sale! I enjoy going to these sales but SO doesn't and I don't like going by myself so I haven't been to one in over five years. I used to go with my mum when I lived back home and that was fun We'd embarrass my stepdad so badly eventually he stopped going with us and honestly, it wasn't anything we were doing. It was things like getting upset because someone backed their car into hers, left several scratches, and just took off without leaving a note or anything. It was things like the day we had gone to MickyD's for breakfast after a morning of Garage Sailing and listening to the conversation from the next table. OOOh that one pissed off my mother and me. We had my half black half not niece with us that trip, and that bit of fun started with the old men at the big long booth shooting us glares and such and mumbling barely audible comments about "black blah blah blah". Then it progressed to some woman who knew one of the men walking over and saying hi and then proceeding to tell everyone within range of her rather loud voice that the police should run this 80 year old man out of town because he was a pervert and a menace and you can't even let your young daughters walk door to door selling girl scout cookies because they will get molested and whats this world coming to and its horrible and he needs to die a horrible death.... My mother has worked in nursing homes my entire life (30 years thank you) and I worked in them for 3 years. There's a pretty good chance, based off how she was describing this guy that he wasn't a pervert, at least not a pedophile, he was senile. He didn't need to be run out of town, just placed in the nursing home with a little compasion. So, the old men really pissed me off because I'm protective of my family, and the stupid lady pissed my mother off because she's protective of old people. As we were leaving I took the trays, emptied them, and then slammed them on top of the tray holder and when everyone from that table, including that woman, stopped to look at us I smiled as big as I could, waved and said "We are leaving now. Please feel free to force more old, senile men out onto the streets where they will die this winter. Also, we are taking our disgustingly filthy black baby with us so you can feel free to disinfect the area she was sitting", waved again and walked out. They all stared at us out the windows until we left, and my step father was very disappointed with me and my mother both. He ended up sleeping on the couch that night and still has no idea why Sorry, didn't mean to jack your thread, just started remembering that morning Tag sales are fun YAY!!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

thanks for sharing your story, QA... is it ok if i post it on the page? i'm gonna put everyone's stories up b/c not everyone reads the comments..

but of course i'm late for church so i'll do it later today - but only if its ok. i think its important that everyone tells their story.

here's the post.

Yes, that's fine.

 

[framing fowl]

Thanks for the post OFG. A day to remember when Americans linked arms and didn't quabble of political ideology, money or religious beliefs.

We were Americans and that was enough.

I was working at a Budget RAC counter at an airport when they announced over the loudspeaker that the airport was now closed. WHAT? Everyone was panicking because no one knew what was going on. People were lining up right and left to get cars so they could get back home... where ever that was. I was the only employee on a normally slow shift. I called my boss and he came in to help. We ended up waiving mileage fees and offering the lowest rates possible just so people could drive back to NY, DC, CA and everywhere in between. After the wave of renters were gone, there was silence. Airport employees were talking in hushed voices. The doors didn't open or close. The baggage belts were stopped.

All of the sudden, the silences was shattered. A fighter jet came screaming in from Great Falls AFB. I'm not sure I have ever been so scared in my life. I ran outside to see what was happening and then felt a small measure of comfort to see one of our own landed safely. Apparently a bunch of FEMA heads were at a conference in Big Sky so they were loaded up and flown back to DC to take care of business.

My folks were up in Canada and they said it was amazing how people treated them. Strangers just put their arms around them and cried together or would walk up and shake their hand and offer silent sympathy. They finally ended up getting home by being offered rides by several strangers and truckers who wanted to help.

May we never forget.

 

[FarmerJamie]

Thanks, OFG, for the posting. You seem to have a knack for always having the right balance of respect and levity. I appreciate your contributions!

I'm not going to go into details, but the company I worked for had a lot of people in the tallest building in the Midwest between Chicago and NYC. I'll just say that there was a lot of concern for their safety until the Flight 93 tragedy finally ended.

 

[freemotion]

This is what I was doing a few days later......at Ground Zero. It was bad there. What they showed on the news.....was footage shot from tall buildings with high-powered lenses from as far away as Brooklyn. What I saw was not on the news. No cameras were allowed within the barriers, and it was a federal offense if you snuck one in. It would be confiscated and you could be arrested. It was a federal crime scene crawling with police, FBI, Secret Service, National Guard, etc. We had to hose off our shoes and wash our hands at stations outside the respite buildings. The firemen pointed out that we were washing off the remains of their fallen brothers. I could write a full length book of my experiences there, some traumatic, some uplifting, all very interesting. Here I am with the FEMA SAR dog I massaged, which was yet another life-changing experience for me. I went from terrified of dogs to NEEDING a dog in the space of a few minutes. My first dog, Gunnar, was named after this dog, Gunner, with his owner John.