Dot Hatfield

First Person Limited

  • Subscribe to Dot’s blog
  • Home Page
  • About Dot Hatfield
  • Dot’s Books
    • Worth the Candle
    • Did Anyone Read My Story?
    • An Ordinary Day
    • R.I.P. Emma Lou Briggs
    • To Find a Home
    • The Last To Know
    • Every Day a New Day
  • Contact Dot
Even More Fun for Movie Fans

Even More Fun for Movie Fans

March 25, 2020 Leave a Comment

Wow! Yesterday’s quotes were kinda hard, huh. A couple were pretty easy, but the other three not so much. Here’s the answers for Day 2: 

6. The Babe Ruth Story  (I would have guess Lou Gehrig.)

7. Beverly Hills Cop

8. A Streetcar Named Desire (I didn’t know this was the last line.)

9. The Princess Bride

10. The Wizard of Oz  (You really should have known this.)

Here we go with Day 3 questions:

11. I now pronounce you men and wives.

12. Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

13. No prisoners!

14. Wanna dance, or would you rather just suck face?

15. Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.

Good luck.  Be sure to let me know how well you do.

More Fun for Movie Fans

More Fun for Movie Fans

March 24, 2020 1 Comment

The answers from yesterday: Congratulations to Helen Choate who got all five. (If anyone else did they didn’t tell me.)

  1. A Christmas Carol
  2. My Fair Lady
  3. The Shawshank Redemption
  4. Gone With the Wind
  5. Casablanca

Okay, here’s five more:

6. His name will live as long as there’s a ball, a bat, and a boy.

7. I know the perfect place, you guys will love it. Trust me.

8. Stella! Hey, Stella.

9. As you wish.

10. There’s no place like home.

Just got a little harder didn’t it?  Good luck.

Fun for Movie Buffs

Fun for Movie Buffs

March 23, 2020 Leave a Comment

For the past few months I have been streaming NCIS on Netflix.  The original with Mark Harmon.  I love the character Anthony DiNozzio, played by Michael Weatherly. Tony is a movie buff, finding similarities to a movie plot in many of the scenarios NCIS is given to solve.

Many in my family are movie buffs, and I can barely keep up. But just for fun, while we’re at home, see how many of these exit lines you can match up with the movies they came from.

Answers tomorrow.

  1. Merry Christmas, and may God bless us every one.
  2. Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?
  3. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope.
  4. After all, tomorrow is another day!
  5. Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Have fun!

Breaking News

Breaking News

February 29, 2020 3 Comments

Heard on the 5:00 news: Someone has invented a soft, pink, pad to fit the icy, steel plate on the mammogram machine. The intent is to lessen the discomfort a patient (woman) might experience when taking the test.

Whoop-de-doo! After 50 years of using this instrument of torture, science has come up with an idea to make it easier on us. The technician being interviewed said some women might actually avoid their annual check-up because they are afraid of experiencing pain.

While I think it’s great to minimize the trauma of this procedure, most women are fairly familiar with discomfort. Can you say endometriosis? Or menstrual cramps? Child birth? Not to mention nursing a baby who is teething.

But, I guess that little pink pad is a step in the right direction.

About 30 years ago, I was scheduled for a needle biopsy. I arrived at outpatient registration about 8:00 a.m. — fasting. AKA no morning coffee. Three hours later, still fasting, I was taken to the lab for a pre-biopsy mammogram.

I had a raging caffeine-withdrawal headache and the technician seemed unfamiliar with her surroundings. I stood in front of the machine and “leaned in,” the best position for a good picture.

As my bare body touched the plate which had probably just come from the freezer, I felt a familiar aura.

“I’m going to faint,” I told the technician.

“Wait a minute,” she said.

Wait a minute? This is not a good time for you?

Sorry, I could not wait. When I woke on the floor, she was asking if we might try again. Success on the second try.

The fluid in the cyst was “suspicious,” which called for a lumpectomy. I consider that I survived a close call.

So, go ahead, women. Get that yearly check-up.

They have a soft, pink pad waiting for you.

I Know Something Good . . .

I Know Something Good . . .

February 17, 2020 2 Comments

Was J.Lo’s dance Oscar worthy or pornographic?

Was Kobe Bryant a sports hero/role model, or a rapist?

Should Oscars be awarded on the basis of a politically correct rubric, or on talent?

Let’s argue.

Now, beginning the third decade of the 21st Century, adults have as many things to argue about as children do.  And we are just as good at calling names.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

That never was true by the way. Our mothers may have quoted those words to us hoping to help us cope with the playground “teasing” (now correctly termed bullying).

The New Year 2020 finds adults acting like children on the playground … only with graphics. Dig up an old video or catch someone on a hot mic. Let’s bring down a celebrity. Just for sport.

Get the media involved and the results are often ruination. Something to celebrate? Or perhaps were some of the words tweaked a little or twisted a lot?

Lately I have been visiting the past via a box belonging to my mother, who died in 1985. She was a fan of the poetry columnists seen in most newspapers back in the day. I found this poem written by Louis C. Shimon in 1935.

I Know Something Good About You

Wouldn’t this old world be better if the folks we meet would say, 
“I know something good about you!” And then treat us just that way?

Wouldn’t it be fine and dandy If each handclasp warm and true
Carried with it this assurance, “I know something good about you!”

Wouldn’t life be lots more happy If the good that’s in us all
Were the only thing about us That folks bothered to recall?

Wouldn’t life be lots more jolly If we praised the good we see?
For there’s such a lot of goodness In the worst of you and me.

Wouldn’t it be nice to practice That fine way of thinking, too?
You know something good about me! I know something good about you!

Wisdom from another generation.

I’ll explain later

I’ll explain later

May 19, 2019 Leave a Comment

While cleaning out a desk drawer, I came across this note from my youngest son: “I’m over at Alex’s. I’ll explain the fire extinguisher later.”

Now, 15 odd years later I don’t remember what that was all about, but it brings back memories that make me smile.

Back in the Seventies, my other son called me at work one day to tell me that he had “Good News” for me when I came home.  I was curious (and a little apprehensive) of course, but no amount of coaxing would move him to tell me anything other than it was “Good News.”

I worked 18 miles away in the city and I have to admit I drove home with a little trepidation. I remembered the day a few weeks earlier when I found a 7-foot cross in my living room. While striking the set after the praise musical, the youth director had asked, “Does anyone want this cross?” Of course Steve did.

So, on this day, I could not fathom what he might consider Good News. As it turned out, it was a copy of the Good News Bible, just recently released. Rather anti-climactic actually, after I had allowed my imagination go wild.

My boys have thus entertained me over the years. Soon after Phillip had moved out on his own, he told me, “You know, if I keep my dirty clothes in this duffel bag then when it’s time to do laundry I don’t have to gather it up.”

Had I never mentioned that?

Or, “If you squeeze out the kitchen sponge it won’t get all smelly.”

My sons have two older sisters and some day I’ll tell you stories about them. But, here I have to say having them first in no way prepared me for the boys that came after.

The end of an era

The end of an era

May 1, 2019 Leave a Comment

I got the letter yesterday. When I saw the return address, I knew what it was. I knew that inside that envelope was the announcement of the end of an era.

They call it modernizing, cutting costs, streamlining services. Of course that translates into deleting jobs and discontinuing certain services to the consumer.

Sometime in the next few months, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette is going “paperless” across the state. Beginning this summer, they will be almost completely online. The only issue published and distributed will be the Sunday Edition. The cost for delivery of that one newspaper? $8.00 per week. Wowzer.

But take heart. We who have supported this newspaper through our adult lives are not left without a solution. ADG will loan (or rent) us an iPad.

Every morning I can curl up in my favorite chair with a cup of coffee and the rented tablet. I can scroll and read to my heart’s content. I can cut out a recipe … whoops, maybe not. Probably can’t work the daily Soduku or crossword either.

Nope, it won’t be the same, which makes me a little sad.

Like I said, the end of an era.

Lent 2019

Lent 2019

March 14, 2019 Leave a Comment

“What did you give up for Lent?”

Those of us who observe the discipline of the 40 day journey from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday and Easter Sunday are asked this question about as often as we hear “Are you ready for Christmas?”

It’s not a rhetorical question. Folks really want to know.

Lent is so much more than “giving up something”, but okay, we can talk about that. It’s a tenet of the 12-step program that one should replace the habit that is abandoned with positive behavior. It is also scriptural (Luke 11:26). Giving up a time waster? Read a good book.  Leaving off chocolate? Eat a salad.

When we compare the small sacrifice we make to what Jesus has done for us, it seems ludicrous.

He gave his life — Can I spare an hour? He fasted to the point of near death — Can I do without dessert? He has taken care of me for 85 years — Can I donate to the Little Free Pantry?

It’s not about what I “give up”, it’s about Him and His sacrifice.

“Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain.
He washed it white as snow.”

The Little Free Pantry sits at the far corner of the First United Methodist parking lot, 302 North Main, in Beebe. Take what you need. Leave what you can.
facebook.com/beebelittlefreepantry/
« Previous Page
Next Page »

My Books

  • Worth the Candle
  • Did Anyone Read My Story?
  • An Ordinary Day
  • R.I.P. Emma Lou Briggs
  • To Find a Home
  • The Last To Know
  • Every Day a New Day

POST Topics

  • Living my Life
  • Movies
  • Reading List
  • Somewhat Current Events
  • Television
  • Too General to Define
  • Writing

Pages of Interest

  • Reflections from Dorothy’s Ridge
  • Charles Prier
  • Pat Laster
  • Freeda Nichols
  • White County Creative Writers
  • The Looking Glass
  • Talya Tate Boerner

Recent Comments

  • Linda on Between All Hallows Eve and Christmas
  • Amber Bass on Between All Hallows Eve and Christmas
  • Dorothy Johnson on Between All Hallows Eve and Christmas
  • Gary on Don’t Worry
  • Linda Quade on Don’t Worry

© 2017 Dot Hatfield.