Thursday, August 13, 2009

LEARNING THE HARD WAY, BY DOING

8-12-09...LEARNING THE HARD WAY, BY DOING

I've heard it said that we learn by doing. That is true to a certain extent but only goes so far. I think it's more like 'You learn the hard way'. Yep. I learned so many things the hard way.
Even as toddlers no matter how many times someone says 'Don't touch that, it's hot' , do we really learn that till we actually touch it? Heck no. We are born with that, 'I'll do it myself' right in there.
When I was in grade school and all the way to about my eighth grade, girls were not allowed to wear pants to school. We didn't really think much about it, that's just the way it was.
I think I was in the eighth grade when it was announced that girls could wear jeans to school on Friday's. Just one day a week we could do something that had been forbidden. Wow! Now that sounded great to us. We discussed it in school that day and we were very excited.
I told Mama when I got home, “Mama I'm gonna wear jeans to school Friday they said we can”. Well Mama burst my bubble real quick like when she said, “Clydene how can you wear jeans to school when you don't have any jeans to wear”? Well good grief I hadn't thought it through that far. It was Monday and I had till Friday. I guess I just thought a pair of jeans would materialize out of a big puff of blue smoke or something. Heck fire I could and I was gonna! Yeaw sure I was.
It was two weeks before Daddy brought me a pair of red jeans when he came home from work on Friday night. Oh My Gosh I was in hog heaven, floatin' on a cloud, sittin' on top of a mountain, I mean I couldn't wait till the next Friday.
The next day was Saturday and I got up and put my red jeans on. Mamma told me I better take them off so I wouldn't get them messed up before school the next Friday. I vowed I would not get em' messed up. Shoot I wouldn't even go outside today.
That was one time I learned a very hard lesson in a very hard way. YEP!
I did stay in most of the day but I got bored around noon. I didn't know what to do with myself cooped up in the house trying to not mess up my red jeans. I should have just took them off and hung them up. But heck no, Not Me!
Grandma was sewing something. I picked up her scissors and started messing around with them. I was told to put them down but I was as stubborn as a barnyard mule. I started just opening and closing the blades while holding them on my leg. Mamma said, “Clydene put them scissors down before you cut yourself”. I opened and closed them a couple of times before I put them down, just for good measure ya know. Then was when the hard lesson started. I looked down at the leg of my new red jeans and saw two uneven cuts. Oh My Gosh! I had cut holes in my new red jeans and I was devastated. Mama was livid! “Clydene I told you to take those off this morning before you messed them up. Then I told you to put those scissors down. Now just look what you've done”!
I started bellering like an old bull. “Grandma fix em. You can fix em' cant you?” Mama said, “Yes Clydene your Grandma is gonna fix em. She is gonna put a green patch on em' and your gonna' wear em' like that”. Oh Gosh, Oh My, now what was I gonna do? I couldn't wear red jeans with green patches to school. No, I just wouldn't do that. Nope! When I told Mama I wouldn't wear em with a green patch she said, “Oh yes you will Clydene. You will wear them to school Monday”. I bellered and bawled for the whole time Grandma had the jeans fixin' them but true to her word Mama handed me my red jeans later with the biggest green patch you ever saw right in the middle of the leg. I ran outside and told Daddy on them two by golly. He will help me I thought. Yep I thought. Well he didn't help me after he heard the story.
They gave me a couple of hours to stew on this before Mama handed me the red jeans. The green patch was gone. Grandma had indeed fixed them almost good as new with her small stitches. The tares were hardly visible. Seems Grandma had just basted that green patch over the holes in my jeans. They were ready and OK to wear and I was grateful.
I learned this lesson by doing and I learned it the hard way at the same time. Yep! It took a lot sometimes to penetrate my hard head. My Parents knew that and they were more than up to the challenge. YEP!