Oonagh

Thinking back, I did my great great aunts a disservice in last blog. One day when I was about 16, I was helping my Aunt Thel (my great grandmothers sister) stir gravy in my Grandmother's kitchen. She did it right, very slowly over low heat. I was complaining about my big bottom, big legs, and everything else. She gave me a little swat and said not to worry, that I was just fine. That got her to musing about weight, and she wondered why people went to so much trouble to come up with euphemisms for fat. "Now take me, for example, I am just plain fat. I have been ever since my babies were were born and I'm going to be fat till the day I die. I don't mind being fat, and nobody else minds me being fat either. What really irritates me is when people call me silly names like plump, chubby, or heavy. I am just plain old fat and fat is all I'm ever going to be. The one I really hate is "Fleshy"-- call me fat any day, but I don't ever want to hear you calling me fleshy. It just isn't nice".

The other disservice I did is to even mention those strong, amazing women while whining about my life. They had a couple of rules they lived by-- Respect and Love God, work hard, have the best sense of humor possible, and never, never,never complain about anything. These women (5 sisters and one no account brother) all went out into the world as frontier teachers at the tender age of 15 or 16.. They traveled far from home and lived with strangers a week at a time, built the fires, scrubbed the schoolhouse, helped at the homes wehre they boarded, taught everbody from little bitty kids to great big old boys older than themselves, and used a switch on those boys when needed. They all married farmers and worked hard all their lives, laughed hard, loved hard, bore hard trials with humor and prayer, and laughed at themselves. They were unvarnishedly truthful. All except for the skinny one, who was the baby and spoiled, they all got fat and dealt with it gracefully and with humor and beauty. No whiners among em. The next generation was just as tough. I am going to try to be more like them again, but I'm still going to lose this weight, because I don't think I'm gonna make it to be a tough old great great aunt without it.
Keep up the fight ladies~!