The Lisp Runs In The Family?

It is a well known (and well made-fun-of) fact from my past: I had a pretty horrible speech impediment when I was a tyke. It was so bad, they had me in the lowest level academic classes my first 2 years of school. Not joking.

So when my kid can't say his "S" or, rather, at this point, is TOO LAZY to say his "s", I feel for him.

I really do!

But it's gone too far. I suppose someone may have been  making fun of his baby talk, a la Buddy Hinton. (Come on, you remember, repeat with me!: Baby Talk, Baby Talk, It's a wonder you can walk! Seven silver swans swam silently seaward.) But he's now channeled Peter, not Cindy.

Yesh, he actually ish talking like thish.

And I am making fun of it by saying "Porchopsh and appleshaush, that'sh shwell."

Just call me Buddy.

~~~~~

We had an interesting day yesterday. I just got out of school this week. Was supposed to take my mom up to my sister's for the summer swap, but had to take the family roadster to the shop first. It wouldn't go more than 40 miles an hour before it started shaking. There was apparently a problem.

So, 2 days and $1500 later, the car is fixed and road ready! But my brother had already absconded with my mother, leaving me free to go to the family picnic.

Now, first off, I must give props to my family. Every branch of my Dad's family, be they Smiths, Vannesses, Gramentos, or Hathaways are all universally accepting and friendly folks. A better bunch of people to hang out with you'll not find anywhere. But I HATE driving. So I wasn't looking forward to the trip, which is 2+ hours one way.

On the drive home from the shop, I had felt some "squishyness" in my breaks, but thought it was just me being a nervous, bad driver.

John agreed.

So when it felt squishy again at the beginning of the trip, I told myself I was being stupid.

Of course, I drove UP the turnpike (the family farm is up in the mountains, so it's uphill the whole way) I kept thinking about having to go DOWN the big hill on 115. There are all these "runaway truck" ramps. I really, really don't ever want to find out what they're like!

So, I exit, and the brakes are feeling MIGHTY squishy, and then all the sudden... THEY'RE NOT THERE! The brake light went on and I rolled into a parking lot, right at the top of the big hill on 115. I hadn't really put any gas to the engine, so it wasn't too bad stopping with almost no brakes. But it scared the LIVER out of me. Of course, my kick @$$ family came to the rescue. One of them even had a trailer and towed me and fixed the brakes.

Pretty lucky, eh? Or blessed, I guess?

~~~~~

Speaking of the Appalachian Mountains (my family is in the Endless Mountain section - or was that just something they made up when they split the middle school houses?) (Again, repeat with me, you TAMS graduates: ENDLESS MOUNTAINS! (susquehanna)). I always wondered WHY the mountains are still there! I mean, they're from the original protocontinents. They're linked with the Atlas mountains in Africa. But they should have eroded away by now, as they've been extinct for hundreds of millions of years!

They once were the size of the Alps and the Rockies. But wind and water took them down.

So why aren't they shorter? Why are they still mountains?

Geologists think that there's a reason they're still around. It seems that erosion actually helps a mountain find its most stable structure. The unstable stuff gets weathered away, and the strongest mettle is left behind.

In other words, that which does not kill us makes us stronger?

And that's my deep thought for the day.

Don't step in it!

(*)>