As many of you know, there has been much interest of late in the elusive and reticent Mr. Ornery, particularly in what he looks like because he is so unwilling to share a photo of himself.

He is extremely self-deprecating about his appearance calling himself things like a "green cyclops" and other demeaning terms which had lead Little POH to either think that he truly was a green cyclops like he claimed, was outright lying, or had been through some childhood trauma related to such

(similar, possibly, to Little POH, only hers was in the area of her weight which led her to eating disorders in a day and age when nothing was really known about them, nor did they even have a name).

As I got older I became aware that I was not as unattractive as I had always felt I was, and after God instantly delivered me from my eating disorder at 23 years old, He proceeded to spend the next 20 years delivering me from the "mindset" that brought me to that place to start with.

I relate this to say that it is my opinion, if mine only, that something similar happened to Mr. Ornery, even though as far as weight is concerned, his was on the other end of the scale. He was quite thin as a child and young man and according to what he has shared with us on his blog it would appear that he is still on the very slender side. He's just one of those people who has a metabolism that we love to hate because he can eat anything he wants and not gain an ounce.

I hope I am not violating Mr. Ornery's confidence by sharing that he was traumatized about his appearance throughout his childhood. When that happens at an older age it might be easier to process, but when it happens to a young child and even into young adulthood, it is, in his own words, "a wound that has not fully healed". Just as POH is, to this day, still insecure about her weight, even though she is by no means obese, Mr. Ornery has his own insecurities resulting from early childhood memories, even though he is not as unattractive as he seems to believe he is.

It hurts POH that he would feel this way, especially after finding this photo which bears a striking resemblance to a young Mr. Ornery, among her own scrapbooks.

"This man" in the picture is a very special man to Little POH and is not related to Mr. Ornery, but certainly is to Little POH. He is amazingly similar in many ways to the pictures of a very young Mr. Ornery that I had the privilige of viewing this past week at the home of his lovely parents.

"This man" bears some striking similarities to Mr. Ornery, however, no one EVER ridiculed him. In fact, he was looked upon as "the catch" of the Southern Tier back in his day.

Whereas Mr. Ornery bore a distinctly uncomfortable look in most of his photo's, "this man" does not, in fact, he looks quite comfortable in his skin, doesn't he?

Little POH attributes that to the fact that he was the only male child his mother bore and as such was treated like the "Little Prince" all the years he was growing up. He is not wearing glasses in this picture but wore reading glasses from a relatively young age and bifocals after that.

In other words, it is the opinion of POH that should Mr. Ornery have had a different birth order, and a few other tweaks in his formative years, the issue of his appearance might not have been such a formidable obstacle for him to overcome later on.

Allowing for differences in generations, hair styles, etc. "this man" about 22 years old in this picture, definitely bears some resemblance to the young Marine Little POH saw in the photo albums several days ago. The Marine most people on the blogstream know only as Mr. Ornery.

The blonde hair is about the same color, the skin tone similar, even the shape of the face, with the elongated chin line (minus Mr. Ornery's ever present facial hair) and the small mouth, is very, very similar. The eye color which is not noticable in the picture, is blue.

"This man" looks like he could easily be closely related to Mr. Ornery, possibly his father. Even the weight looks about the same. The biggest perceivable difference that Little POH notices is that "this man" is much more comfortable having his picture taken and is SMILING, which is something Mr. Ornery seems to avoid doing in pictures.






By the way, I should tell you that "this man" is Little POH's father, Hobart H. Rockwell. This picture was taken circa 1938 on the campus of Dartmouth College near the occasion of his graduation from said institution. Shortly after this picture was taken he returned to Elmira, New York. He joined the FBI shortly after college and worked in the espionage unit from the late 30's through WWII, after which he came home and settled down to bear five daughters, one of whom you have come to know as prisonerofhope.

Who knows whether given a different set of circumstances if Mr. Ornery could not have been Little POH's long lost brother, hmmmmmmmm?

I felt comfortable posting this picture and comparing it to Mr. Ornery only because NW Matters has already done photo doctoring and trying for a similar look to Mr. Ornery and he did not get upset with her. I am hoping he will take this in the spirit of fun and sincerity that POH intends.

Sherry, just so ya know, whether Little POH ever gets her little fingers on some real photos of Mr. Ornery or not, I could never bring myself to violate his confidence by posting them publicly. Yet I will tell you that "this man", if you add some spectacles and facial hair, and remove some of the hair on his head, this one does bear some resemblance. I wonder if Bodacious would agree, we can ask, right?

And, btw, Little POH defies ANYONE, including Mr. Ornery himself, to call her father a "green cyclops". So there, Mr. We Love You Just As You Are Ornery. NOW will you shave that big ol' beard so we can see your face, Mr. Ornery? POH will grudgingly buy a pair of jeans if you do.

If you met me last January when I first came on then you probably saw this Christmas card that we sent out last year. We didn't get it together this year to get one out so this is the most recent picture Little POH (as you can now see, this is why POH is being facetious when she uses the word 'Little'.....can I help it that the teletubby named POH is called "Little POH"?) has of her family. Some of the newer blogstreamers have asked about my family so I thought I would repost this.

Mr. Hope and I are in the center holding our granddaughters who are now approaching two years old. Our biological daughters are next to us and their husbands in back of them. Our biological son is behind me and adopted son (it is interesting that he has red hair just as one of our bio-daughters does) is behind Mr. Hope. The girls in the front are adopted with one of them being twins with the boy. I'll leave you to figure out which one it is. After paying for two weddings so far, I quipped to Mr. Hope that we should have adopted five boys instead of five girls! The little boy in front is our oldest grandchild and he just turned five this month.

This is for you, AZRON, six out of eight of those kids still live at home not including Carlene and Gabriel. I'm still waiting on ya to come help me with dinner one of these nights!

Back in 1991, Upstate, New York had a beautiful, horrible, memorable, excruciatingly difficult Ice Storm.

The small town where Little POH lives was only without electricity for about 36 hours. That was bad enough. Especially when you consider that I had many children living in the house at that time.

The large city that I live near was hit much worse. Their electric company is different and some people there were without gas and electric for several weeks. Their memories are of a bitter and cold time.The ice storm did tremendous damage to many trees in the area and even 16 years later we have not fully recouperated the huge loss of the beauty grown trees lend to an area.

Our loss felt personal as in 1974 when Mr. Hope and I bought our house it was brand new. We didn't have a lot of money then and what we had went straight to the bank to pay the mortgage. We were what is known as house poor. We didn't appear poor because of the quality of our home and the middle class standard of living we mostly enjoyed but money was tight and we didn't even have enough for small things like eating at McDonalds or going slightly over our grocery budget. For that reason we did whatever we could think of to do to fix our house up ourselves.

The yard was something that a lot of people in our neighborhood hired out for but we did not. From the grading of the soil and the planting of Scotts 'Playground' seed (even then, with only one child so far, we knew that we were destined for many children), to planting an inexpensive privet hedge, another only slightly more expensive forsythia hedge and some yews that were so tiny at the time that they could hardly be seen from the road, we did it all.

As we grew up in a neighborhood that was covered with trees that were always sprouting babies we were invited by old neighbors we had grown up with to come and dig up saplings from their yards. That we did. Carefully we brought home five or six 6' trees and carefully planted them around our yard. Little POH was diligent with the watering. Everyday, everyday, everyday, she would stand soaking those little trees.....................and they grew. Boy, did they grow.

There was one tree though that POH liked the most. When we dug it up we were unaware that it wasn't just any old tree but that it was a Norway maple. It grew a bit slower than some of the other maples we had brought home but what a wonderfully beautiful tree it was. The trunk grew strong and had wide, dark leaves that not only brought shade but added beauty and value to the yard.

I loved that tree. It's probably the only thing that's not a person, that I can say I truly loved. We didn't know when we went to bed that night what would await us in the morning. About 4:30 am Little POH heard a very loud cracking sound unlike any sound she had ever heard before. Then there was a swishing noise and a low thud. She shook Mr. Hope awake and said, "WHAT was THAT?" He didn't hear it so he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.

I went downstairs and looked out the window. Ice, the most beautiful, extraordinary ice I'd ever seen, covered every living and non-living thing that was outdoors. Even the outside of the houses were encased in ice. Cars were covered from top to bottom, the road, the sidewalk and the branches of every tree glimmered in glow of the streetlights. My mouth dropped open in the awe of it. I went to the front door and tried to open it. At first it wouldn't but but as I gently kept pushing at it, I heard the cracking of ice and it opened.

When I stepped out on the front step in my slippers I immediately saw what had made the loud cracking noise. My favorite tree, the Norway maple, had cracked all the way from the V in the middle of the tree to the ground. Both sides of it sat on the ground as if a lumberjack had come along with his axe and cut it smack down the center. The little wooden swing, the one with the bar that went across for small babies was on the ground, crushed underneath the half of the tree that came down upon it.

I went back inside and cried loudly for Mr. Hope to come and see. My mind could hardly process the horror of the moment. I felt my eyes tearing up and then when he came back in the house with his stunned expression I just let it go. "My tree!" I cried. "My best tree!" That tree in 1991 was 17 years old.

As the days moved into weeks and the reports of other people's problems were written in the newspaper, the loss seemed small in comparison. Still, when I made my scrapbooks a few years ago, I included a page of pictures we took of our yard and of "my best tree" and I titled it "The Day I Cried For a Tree".

These past two days have seen a similar sight in our Finger Lakes and surrounding area. Memories of March 1991 are still a little bit too close for comfort. We have not had the same devastation and we lost nothing this year, not even our electricity, but we were reminded this past weekend that even in beauty there is pain. The beauty of the ice hanging on the branches of a tree can mean it's destruction. The beauty of the rose does not diminish it's thorns.

Let's see, is this a rant, a vent, or just a stream of consciousness as my blogstream buddette NW Matters would say? I thought Wayfarer had the corner on streams of consciousness but maybe I can have one? Just one, or can I go on forever and ever?

I am living my life in my GEO Prizm at the moment. I did that once before, when my five year old grandson, who lives over almost an hour and a half away, was little and needed Nana to take care of him. I didn't have to do it as there was a very good day care available but Little POH just has serious issues with daycare. I don't really care how good it is, it's not Mommy, Daddy, a grandparent or other close relative like an aunt. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, like dysfunctional families where an outsider is preferable to a family member, but those are exceptions. I've done enough in-home day care myself to know that I can't love the same as the mother either.......and I have alot of love.

Anyway, this stream is not going in the direction of the pros and cons of day care.

Just sayin'.....that's why I drove three hours a day. As tired as I got, and believe me I got seriously tired, I still remember it as a good time. I would roll my 48 year old (at that time) body out of bed at 5:30 am every morning unable to think straight.....sometimes I would even cry first thing in the morning at the beginning thinking of the long commute. Then suddenly it would occur to me that I got to see my baby that day. Something took over then......motivation maybe?

Ooooo, all I can say is that there wasn't anything I would rather have done at that time. Is that the crux of an enjoyable life? Doing something that, no matter how hard it is, is something that you wouldn't give the world for? When I pulled up in that driveway, baby, and that little boy peeked out the bay window at me and went running to the door to greet me...............is there anything better than that? Sure I spoiled him a teensy bit, but only with attention, not with junk food or television.

Anyway, driving alot isn't all bad....I get to listen to music that I only listen to in the car, and if I am by myself I spend alot of time singing (loudly) to the Lord. At that time I listened to a whole set of books on CD and talked and listened to the Lord. God spoke many things to me during that time. I even received prophetic words for a couple different people, called them on my cell phone to tell them, and was spot on with it. Yeah, it was a good time.

This time won't last too long. Maybe just till the end of the month. I am quickly learning where wireless zones are (we gotta talk Judy!), and how to access them when they don't want to connect even though it says unsecured site. I am finding that the best zones are at the public library in whatever town I am in. Monster told me to go to McDonalds and I did......hey, I even bought a egg mcmuffin so I wouldn't feel like a moocher. Oh, okaaaaaaaay, I confess, I only bought it because I could eat an egg mcmuffin everyday for the rest of my life if there was a McDonalds next door to me, and I just used the whole thing about a wireless zone as an excuse to buy an egg mcmuffin. I still couldn't get the wireless zone there, Monster. The library is like a no-fail zone.

I gotta talk to Bookworm about that though cuz when I was a little girl I remember there being a rule about no talking and EVERYONE, even the library people talk now. In normal voices too! What's up wid dat? Whatever happened to whispering anyway?Well, tomorrow is another "on the road again" day. I will go mall-walking in the morning (are we still doin' that Sherry?) and do as many rounds (1 mile each) as I can in an hour and 15 minutes. That's normally 4-5. Little POH is purty speedy when she gets her pace going! I did pull something, unrelated to the walking, on my backside this morning, but I took the Infla-zyme and feel like a new woman now. Whoo-hoo for me, right?

After that I will drive Carlene to her appointments which will take the rest of the morning and the first half of the afternoon. We are getting along very well, in case you were wondering. Everything is going spectacularly well. There is going to be another meeting this next week about Carlene moving in but she is pretty much staying here now and everything is running very smoothly. It is a joy to see the relationship that she and Gabriel have.

Okay, I think I'm all consciousnessed out......does that mean I'm unconscious? I hope not, cuz I gotsta make dinner for eleven people tonight..........so goes a normal day in the life of Little POH. I am hoping to get around to visit with you tonight. Love ya!