Jingles and Joining

Hey, Y'all,
Well the first subject beginning with a "J" is Jingles. A strange one, you say. Yeah, I guess you could say that. It is just an anecdote from the 1930's. That was when there were a lot of contests for writing jingles to be used in radio advertising. Ladies (and gents, too, I guess) all over America put on their thinking caps and came up with little short poems that were put to music and inspired people to buy the product. I remember several of them, but I won't recite them for you right now, maybe another time.

Anyway, getting back to the family anecdote...my mom was one of those women who entered the jingle contests. Back then the postage stamps were about 3 cents each, but that was a lot of money when you were poor like we were. The prizes were anything from a year's supply of the product to some amount of money - a cheap way for the company to get ads for the commercials. My mom had written a jingle that she just knew was going to win, and my brother, Hugh, who was 4 and 1/2 years older than I and was probably about 7 at the time, wanted to lick the postage stamp. My mom, being the sweet woman that she was, let him lick the stamp (pre-self sticking stamps) and then she put it on the letter. Well, you know that little kids always have a lot of saliva, and he really licked it good. It was the last stamp we had, and she feared that he may have licked it too well. However it was still sticking to the envelope when she mailed it. Of course, she didn't win, but always claimed that she thought he had put too much spit on the stamp being the reason she didn't win. My family members may or may not have heard this story before, but it is true.

Joining:
We are, by nature, mostly social beings. Very early on, we join into groups that have like interests. Just think about it. When we are yet babes, we see another baby and recognize it as being "one of us". If you don't believe this, just observe two babies that first see each other, and what do they do? They begin smiling at one another, and communicating by whatever means they have.

These days, mothers have these little groups where they meet and arrange "play dates" for their children to have someone to play with. When we are taken to church, as children, if we are Baptist, there are groups of children in different organizations, like Awana, or GA's, or RA's, and the children join in the group. At school, there are also organizations like 4-H, that children are encouraged to join. We all have choices that we make, either to join, or not to join. Usually the choices are based on if we have similar interests or not.

There are also gangs that children often join. Sometimes they join because they don't fit in to other groups, or they join for protection, or they join because they want to be looked up to or feared. We as adults join a political party or choose to be considered an independent thinker. Face it folks, unless we choose to swim against the stream, we join with others so that we will be in a group and protected.

When a person works at a job, there are choices one must make about working where there is a union or no union. Unions protect jobs and workers, but are not necessarily always a good thing. I am speaking neither pro nor con, just stating the facts, ma'am.

I doubt there is anyone out there who can say that he has never joined with another group of some kind that has a common interest of his. We are joiners.

Well, that is it for right now. I look forward to reading the other blogs. I am preparing supper for us and our next door neighbors today, so it will probably be late tonight before I get to read and catch up on the other entries. This is Blabbin' Grammy signing off for today. Much love to each of you, and thanks to all those who comment on my postings. Bye for now.