No, I’m not enamored with personally experiencing the Kubler-Ross stages of grief, or with picking out coffins. What I revel in, rather, is the natural and almost always occurring stage of “telling a humorous story involving the dearly deceased” – an endearing ritual that usually takes place once people are convinced that their loved one has in fact died, and they’re going to have to deal with the situation.

In my last post, I mentioned I’ve been cleaning out my attic and paralled an old post card discovery to the V.C. Andrews “Flowers in the Attic” series. The second book in that series was entitled, “Petals on the Wind.”

Many folks I know detest flowers at funerals because they feel they are a waste – that they are simply money spent for a brief time, the flowers dry up, and are subsequently tossed into the garbage. The metaphor of Petals on the Wind, then, fits such that the quickly used beauty spent on a moment in a funeral just as suddenly blows away and is gone.

Unless…those petals are from written flowers, prepared by those who knew the deceased.

(left: Me and my uncle W.C. on my wedding day, August, 1985.)

Enter the “Memories of W.C. Yates at his funeral on May 24, 2002 read by Pam Nesdahl.” Pam in my cousin, W.C. is my uncle, and here are some of those petals I revisited this past weekend:

On nicknames he garnered

“Mom said that when dad was a little boy the kids at the school called him ‘Frog’ because he liked to jump from desk to desk. In his later years my mother affectionately referred to my dad as ‘Sparky,’ because he kept catching the pasture on fire.”

On his sense of humor

“One day the wind was blowing from the southwest. Mom remembers sitting with grandma and my dad, and grandma asking, ‘W.C., where do you think the wind comes from?’ My dad profoundly responded, ‘Amber!’”

“My dad liked to kid around with everyone. So, one day he decided to pick on Dean. He called Dean and said he ‘needed a new carburetor for the diesel backhoe.’ Dean had a lot of equipment that was always in need of various repairs, so this was a common issue to him. Dean said, ‘Okay, well I guess we’ll have to work on it Sunday afternoon.’

My dad then started laughing and Dean got irritated; the more irritated Dean got the harder my dad laughed. Finally, dad was laughing so hard he had tears running down his face and gave the phone to my mom saying, ‘I’m sorry – you’ll have to talk to him.’

Mom asked Dean what was going on, but Dean was so mad he hung up. Dad thought it was hilarious that he got Dean so caught up in the fact that the backhoe needed a carburetor that he failed to realize that backhoes don’t have carburetors!”

“Just last Monday he was lying in the hospital bed. He had to share a room with a nice man who had a visitor with an annoyingly loud voice. This nice man must have been tired of the voice as well, because he asked the nurse where the remote to the TV was.

Well, my dad sat up and started looking for his own remote. He found it tucked under his sheets and then  immediately volunteered it to his roommate in order to help the situation.”

On his impulsivity

“Back in the early 70’s, we were having a gas crunch that was so bad, you were lucky if you were 10^th in line at the filling station. My mom and dad went out for a bag of potatoes and they came home with a motor home. Now you didn’t have to be very old to realize there was something wrong with this picture. Us kids just looked at them like, ‘What are you DOING?’ So, for the next year or so we went everywhere in the motor home because it was our only vehicle.”

On his storytelling qualities

“When I was very young, I asked him why the dirt was so red, and he told me it was red from the cowboys and Indians fighting…and was stained with Indian blood. The problem was that when he told stories, he always forgot to go back and tell you the truth later. So about three or four years later I was riding somewhere with my mom and one of my friends. I decided to share my wisdom. I proceeded to tell my friend about the history of the cowboys and Indians. When my mom overheard me she said, ‘Where in the WORLD did you year that?’ I replied that ‘dad told me.’ She was not surprised.

His grandkids, on the other hand, are not nearly as gullible as us kids or my mother was. When Johnny was about seven, my dad went off on one of his stories and Johnny said, ‘Yeah right, grandpa, and I saw Elvis!’ Dad loved it!”

On his parenting qualities

“My dad was a great disciplinarian. My mom would send him into mine and Kim’s bedroom at night to spank us for talking instead of sleeping. We had an agreement, he would hit the bed and we would cry.

My dad never had to discipline us kids, because he was so sweet we didn’t ever want to disappoint him.”

On his narrative

“When my dad knew he wasn’t going to see you for a while, he would hug your neck, hold your face in his hands, kiss you and say, ‘See ya in the funny papers!’”

“He always called the girls in his life ‘baby.’”

On his adventures and accident-prone life

“One day he came in and asked mom for some money. She asked, ‘What do you need money for?’ He replied, ‘Well, I went to Kerr McGee yesterday and pumped some gas, went in and paid for it, visited for a while, went back out to the car and left. But, I forgot to remove the nozzle from the car and ripped it out of the pump.” Believe it or not, his happened twice!

“Another time my dad and Uncle Dean went to ‘Dean’s work yard.’ It was about 100 degrees outside and they needed to use a 5-gallon drum of tar. This tar had gotten very hot from sitting in the sun. They were struggling – trying to get the drum open and my dad was helping my uncle lean it over to get a better grip on the cap. When it finally came off, it kind of burst and Dean tried to recap it…causing it to spray all over them instead of just shooting straight upward.

Dean goes running over to the gas pump and has my dad pump some gas so he can wash out his eyes. Needless to say, this caused additional pain. So, Dean said, ‘Dub, let’s go to the hospital!’ Now dad was always very good at going with the flow…so he let Dean drive (the one who couldn’t see) a huge dump truck with a trailer attached to the back of it – - to the hospital.

The hospital gets them all cleaned up in a mere three or four hours, and gave them back their clothes in a bag to be disposed of. So, if you can picture two grown men in boots and hospital robes… And of course, Dean always wore a cowboy hat; the two walked to the truck and climbed in.

They drove the truck back to our house where, of course, the whole stinking neighborhood finds interest in what a huge dump truck is doing in this nice little residential neighborhood. Our street was a dead-end with an empty field at the end that flooded every time it rained. So, as Dean tries to turn it around, he gets stuck.

My mom is so embarrassed she gets in her car, drives down to the end of the street, and makes Dean get in the car. At this point, saying no to my mom wasn’t an option! She takes Dean home and he changes his clothes, or actually just puts some on, so he can finish what he started. When my dad walks in the house he has been so cleaned up and wearing a hospital gown, our little dog didn’t recognize him and she bit him!”

On Providential Safekeeping

“The Lord was always watching out for my dad.

He worked in heavy construction and was sent out to pick up a big truck for a job somewhere. The brakes had been worked on the night before and apparently the job didn’t get finished – because as he was approaching an intersection equivalent to NW Expressway at rush hour, he just laid on the horn and traffic stopped as he sped through the intersection. He coasted to a phone booth and called his employer where the truck was, and that he quit.

He really and truly believed the Lord cleared the way for him.”

On the humor in their marriage

“My dad met my mom while he was serving in France. My mom and her girlfriend were sitting in a café, and my dad and a friend of his came up to them asking if they could sit with them.

My mom said, ‘Sure! We were just leaving!’

Anyway, to make a long story short, my mom thought she didn’t like my dad, but he kept being so nice to her she just couldn’t resist him. I often heard him refer to her as his ‘French Okie.’”

“One time when he and mom lived in Norway, my mom wanted them to go to a friend’s house to visit but he said, ‘No, I’m going ice fishing.’ She was a little miffed, but – you know how men can be about their fishing.

About 45 minutes after he leaves – he’s back. She knew what had happened when he started using the downstairs bathroom to take a shower, but didn’t say a word to him until he brought up his wallet and then emptied it out so everything could dry.  Evidently, he had fallen straight down into the hole he cut, then come back out of the water with his hat still on.

She looked at him, just smiled sweetly and asked, ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’”

I planted my peppers and tomatoes last Saturday, and Mick promptly dug them up and stored them in our garage last night! Why? Evidently storms are coming: thunder, lightening, rain, hail, possible tornadoes and ice? Yes!

While outside surveying what plants we were willing to gamble on this upcoming craziness, I pulled/cut four ingredients for the kitchen:  chives, green garlic, cilantro and asparagus.  I just turned them into a truly dandy meal I’ll call “Cheesy Spring Green Grits.”  Prep time, five minutes.  Cook time, 5-8 minutes.  Eating time, [you fill in the blank].

Bring 2 1/4 cups of water to a boil.  Then…
Add 1.5 Tablespoons minced chives, two medium spears of asparagus chopped into bite-sized pieces, 1 tsp. ground pepper, one clove green minced garlic head (this is just new garlic, use regular dried bulbs if you don’t have any) and 1/2 cup quick grits.  Stir occasionally so that it doesn’t boil over.  While this is cooking, wrap 1 or 2 slices of bacon in a paper towel and microwave for 1.5 minutes.

Once the grits are done to your preferential thickness texture, turn off the heat and stir in 1/2 cup of shredded cheddar cheese.

Spoon into ramekins or other serving bowls, and top with crumbled bacon and chopped cilantro.

I ate mine while I was typing this post.  Bon apetit!

I thought about that book series as I stared at a 6 cent FDR stamp postmarked 1968.  I’ve been cleaning my own attic on and off for the past month.  As I was going through a box of childhood keepsakes, I came across a postcard sent to me by my Aunt Virginia.

Aunt Virginia loves flowers, her back yard is full of them.  When I visit her, I usually end up with a few cuttings or bulbs.  From her flower beds to mine, she shares her blooms, and they keep giving color to my yard year after year.

The back of the postcard was yellowed, and her message had been written in pencil.  The faded handwriting was a stark contrast to the Oklahoma travel photos on the front.  A 1960s black and white reel-to-reel news voice popped in my head as I read the description of the photos:

The front of this card shows only a few of the natural and man-made attractions which make Oklahoma a vacation adventureland. (Compliments of Southwestern Bell Telephone Co.  Not to be sold.)

As I read through her message, I realized she had written a poem and included me, her daughter (my cousin Julie) and my brother in the lines:

Dear Kelly,

I raised my head and looked at the World

And there was Kelly, a nice little girl

We played and ate ice cream and had lots of fun

Although cowgirl Julie was wearing a gun,

You got out the dolls and the dishes for a tea,

While Julie and little Quentin were running free,

Be a sweet little girl and always act nice

And the next time I see you I’ll kiss you twice.

Aunt Virginia

I re-read the poem a couple of times and thought, “I have my own flowers in the attic.  They’re from Aunt Virginia, given to me when I was five.  And now that I’ve found them, they’ll keep blooming – just like the perennials from her in my flower beds – adding color to my soul, year after year.”

With my chin resting in my hand, elbow propped on the counter I stared at my tomato seeds.  Had they made progress since I looked at them four hours ago?  Maybe.  Maybe that little seed in the middle is now entirely upright…maybe.

I’ve been thinking about tomatoes for several weeks now.  And it’s not just because I love them, and not because I’ve been patiently waiting until all signs of frost are gone in order to plant them.  It’s because tomatoes pose big questions for mankind.  The kinds of questions that keep me up at night because I have a limited amount of space in my Little Victory Garden.

They’re the kinds of questions that drive me crazy.  Do I plant all heirlooms and just truly enjoy their goodness when I am graced with their presence?  Or, do I take advantage of modern agriculture and plant hybrid strains that will have greater yields, albeit not quite as much dense and rich flavors? And, if I compromise and plant “half and half,” what halves of what kinds should I try?

Every year I go through this angst.  Last year, I opted to only plant heirlooms.  I was semi-richly rewarded:

We had the most delightful salads, BLTs, fresh tomatoes, and even a few sauces.  But I never had the massive quantities I needed to put up tomato sauces in the freezer or to can.

The year before, I planted Big Boys…or Better Boys…or Even Really Much Better Than The Other Boys – can’t recall, really.  And although it was terribly hot, we did eek out some lovely fruit.  But they were missing something.  Something that I can only get from a Green Zebra or Sunburst or Purple Cherokee.  They were missing the “taste of the origins of earth.”

So, somewhere in the middle of this mental debate two weeks ago I received a package.  It was from my friend Cathy.  I opened it to find three packages of heirlooms and one hybrid.  Ah, there it was.  The answer to my problem.  It’s not “half and half.”  It’s “one-quarter, three-quarters.”  She even included the page from the seed catalog so I could read about what she sent me.

I love my friend.

And, I love my little seedlings that are now sprouting upward, looking for sunshine.  I know that soon, I’ll have mostly goodness and one-fourth “bounty” – - but more than anything, I’ll always have my friend who blesses me and my debating brain by sending me packages of love.

It is all so simple.  You can learn from an ordinary bamboo leaf what ought to happen.  It bends lower and lower under the weight of snow.  Suddenly the snow slips to the ground without the leaf having stirred.  Stay like that at the point of highest tension until the shot falls from you.  So, indeed it is: when the tension is fulfilled, the show must fall, it must fall from the archer like snow from a bamboo leaf, before he even thinks it. ~ Zen in the Art of Archery, Eugen Harrigel (1953/1971)

Sometimes change needs to happen.  However, in whatever way, for whatever reason, that change could be put off by those needing to make it.  The “putting off” is part of the “adding of” tension, like snow accumulating on the leaf of a bamboo.  When enough tension has accumulated, however, change happens – sometimes almost instantaneously, before we have a chance to track our own actions.

This is a natural process, and a self-sustaining healthy progression of a developing human being.

So, next time you know change should take place, and you’re feeling the tension at greater and greater levels, rejoice! Change is near, and will feel wonderful when it happens.

***

“Zen” quote pulled from a chapter in “Aesthetics of Change,” by Bradford Keeney

For example, every Tuesday we have a faculty meeting that begins at 11:00 a.m.  At noon, we leave the building but keep the meeting going through lunch.  By the time we’ve eaten and are back in the office, we’ve covered just about all we can (or should) manage for the week.  Oh, and one other thing.  The rule is that a different faculty member buys lunch for the group each week.  Notes about “whose up next” are kept fastidiously in the breast pocket of one of the doctors who happens to be the least organized.

So last week was my turn, and since I had taken the gentlemen to my favorite deli, cooked lunch and brought it once, and then taken them out once to the Charcoal Oven I thought maybe I should splurge a little.  So I said, “I’d like to go to Outback.  How about we eat steak for lunch?”

They all looked at each other. One said, “Um, is it open for lunch?  I just thought it was open for dinner…”

I blinked.  “Well, I don’t know.  I’ve never really had the chance to go during lunch.”  All four whip out their smart phones and within seconds the bad news was confirmed.  Outback was only open for dinner.

“Fine,” I said.  “I was kind of in the mood for a small steak.  I wonder where else we can go?  Where do they have steaks like that for lunch, other than…uh…Cattlemens?“

“Let’s go to Cattlemens!” responded one of them way too quickly.  I made eye contact with him and he was grinning.  There was something behind the smile that was way over the top.

“Uh, okay – it’s gonna be about 20 minutes to get there, isn’t it?”

“Nah,” he replied.  “We’ll be there in 10 minutes flat.  I’ve got the Suburban today.  I’ll drive!”

The rest of the faculty were still looking at each other as we followed his gung-ho-ness down the hall and piled into the ‘Burb.  And, he was right.  We were there in EIGHT minutes.

We checked into a really crowded entry area and put our names in.  It was going to be a twenty-minute wait.  A quick huddle and consensus determined we would stay.  I looked at the buzzer in my hands.  “Hey, can someone hold this?  I’m going to run across the street to look at boots…”  I looked around.  The guy who drove was gone.  I quickly handed the buzzer to one of my colleagues and ducked out just in time to see our driver heading to the same place I was going.

I caught up with him and heard the story:  A “big white cowboy hat” is given to all the outgoing presidents of the Oklahoma County Medical Association.  He had been presented with one a few months back, but it was the wrong size.  The association had made arrangements for him to just go into Langstons at his leisure, get sized, and they’d get him a replacement hat.

So, the mystery of the big motivation to come to Packing Town had been revealed.

After the story, I excused myself and headed toward the women’s boot section.  The only pair of cowboy boots I have are a tan suede set of Justins I bought when I was in high school.  They’re still in great shape.  I wear them often. But, c’mon…it’s been thirty years!

So I looked, and sauntered down the aisle, and peeked through the sale rack.  Then I saw these.  They were the “go all the way to your knee” kind of boots.  And, they were beautiful.  I coveted.

I coveted BIG.  And, I did “go home” after lunch that day without the boots.  But I have pictures. And, I’ll be back when the time is right.

After all, Red Dirt Kelly could use some…Red Dirt boots.

Somewhere under this blanket of ice are several new veggie sprouts!

This morning I was awakened at 5:50 a.m. by a text message tone: “Be safe. Get to work when you can. Late is okay. Jeans ok.”

My blurry vision sent the message to my tired brain.  This was followed by my body bolting upright and me running into the bathroom to grab my robe. “Get robe, get robe, get robe…okay, get slippers, get slippers, get slippers…”

I was still tying the belt on my bathrobe when I made it to the window in my office and peered outside.  Thunder, lightening, rain, snow and sleet.  As I identified each type of precipitation coming down at the same time I was thinking, “Cool.”  Then I thought, “Oh No!  What about my teeny tiny little sprouts?”

I’m pretty sure I have beets and lettuce coming up, and possibly radishes.

Into my head flashed this vision:

I could hear the creepy narrator voice saying, “Who knows what evil lurks beneath the layers of ice?  Only the Shadow knows…BWAH-HA-HA-HAAAAAAaaaa!”

I hastily posted a Facebook message (paraphrased):  “I sure hope my little sprouts come through this!”

Friends hastily responded: “They’re Okies, they’ll do fine.” And, “They’re safe under the blanket of ice.”

I took a deep breath, sighed, tried to relax. For about 15 seconds…

Then the voice of THE NARRATOR came back: “Who knows if the encouragement of friends makes any difference for your garden??  Only the Shadow knows…BWAH-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAaaaa!”

Next year, I really really need to exercise more patience before planting early seeds.  The suspense is killing me!

Tonks stands guard of my little sprouts during the winter weather…

“Um, I think I missed that Park-and-Ride lot, babe.  Are you SURE it’s there?”

“There” meant “on the north side of N.E. 122^nd, across from the Shell truck stop, but not yet over the I-35 bridge.”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s still there…”  I could tell he was using his patient voice, and I deeply appreciated that as I did a U-turn, drove along the shoulder facing oncoming traffic, waved at most of the cars as I passed, and headed back to the mystery place.

“Oh, THERE it is!” I said as I suddenly spied a brand new thing I had never witnessed before.

I pulled into the parking lot while telling Mick goodbye.  “Hey, there are my friends. Thanks sweetie, gotta go!”

There they were: Katie, Rose, and a Full Day waiting on us to get started.  In no time flat, we were packed up and headed back to I-44, this time driving the proper direction down the on-ramp to the turnpike.

We were headed to Drumright, Oklahoma to check out the Tidal School Winery.  Armed with our “Living Social” Deals printed on clean white paper, we chatted about stuff (and by “stuff” I mean girl talk…and by “girl talk” I mean, well, stuff) until we hit the Stroud exit.

I thought our trip would be 1:45 to get to Drumright.  We got there in an hour flat.  And we were hungry.

“Joseph’s” provided us a diner-style meal with a Lebanese flair, and was right across the street from the vineyard.

From the “Joseph’s” parking lot, I stood alongside my car looking at the old building and prepared to cross into our vineyard tour phase. My mind replayed the first thing I said when we started our trip: “I have to be honest with you guys…I really, really don’t like Oklahoma wine.”

I felt like a traitor when I said it.  Disloyalty burned through my veins, but it was the truth.  I’m just not sure that our vineyards are quite mature enough to match my personal wine preferences.

If I’m going to buy a bottle of wine, I want a good one.  A DRY one. I usually buy Chianti, Syrah, Petit Syrah or Shivaz, Cabernets, or an occasional Merlot.  And, I also like my whites dry. And, I don’t usually – ever – buy blends.  And, I really can’t stand sweet wines at all.  And, according to the winery owners who host booths at the farmer’s markets, “Oklahomans have a sweet-preference palate, so that’s what we sell.”

I took a deep breath.  I was bracing myself for another tasting of sweet wine, extra-sweet wine, and the top-shelf sweet.  We loaded into the car, drove across the street, got back out of the car, then walked the steps into the Schoolhouse and headed indoors. I think I was dragging my feet.

Interestingly, the majority of the items in their tasting inventory were…sweet! But they had three dry choices and we all got to work requesting, tasting, and deciding whether to buy or which to buy.

Wine tastings, in some ways, remind me of the home product sales industry.  Friends hang out, look at what their other friend (in this case, my “friend” was Oklahoma) has to offer, talk while they are checking out the products, then decide on at least a limited number of items to purchase.  Perhaps because they really like the product, but more likely because they like their friend…or in this case, home state.

That process describes me to a “T.”  “Made in Oklahoma” means I’ll probably go to the party, and I’ll probably buy something.  Or two somethings.

And I did.  I found a frozen peach wine blender mix that I genuinely thought might be good for a backyard party this summer.  I bought two bottles of wine I was “okay” with (it was like a bonus Tupperware buy – I didn’t really need them, but I hadn’t really spent much money either).  We went on the tour, I fell in love with the history about the building, we checked out the grounds, talked to another group of women hanging out on the deck (beautiful deck) then left.

These two photos show a crepe paper school dress, and the photo of Odessa Cargill (donor)

and her class wearing them at the Tidal School in 1938.

On the way home we stopped at Territory Cellars to make sure stones hadn’t been left unturned.  Come to find out, they had.  I turned over the “bottled Muscadine grape juice” stone and got my treasure of the day.  It was delicious.

As I deftly pulled into the “Park and Ride” lot at the end of our trip, I noticed something about my friends.  They had the car unloaded in one minute flat.  They easily said goodbye, jumped into their cars, and shouted about ideas for another trip on their way out of the parking lot.

It was at that moment I realized what wine I did like sweet:  the full, sunset colored, glass of friendship.  THAT, my friends, is something Oklahoma can’t sell because she already has the market cornered.  And, it’s priceless.  And I’ll order it again, and again, and again.

P.S.  Bonus photo below…evidently these are “the original urinals installed when the school was built.  I wonder if the plumber had any idea they would be a featured tourist attraction when he tested that first flush?

I was wondering if you might be in the mood to till my garden?  It’s almost time, ya know.

Hey, so what exactly would need to be done in order for you to till my garden?  Do you need oil or spark plugs or anything?

I was thinking…if I got the rototiller out of the shed and pulled it up to the patio, would that help you with tilling my garden?

A gal can only wait so long.

So what if it’s still two weeks before I should really be planting my early spring veggies?  And so what if I have to go out to the garden every few evenings in February because my seeds have germinated, my tiny sprouts have started, and a cold snap is in the forecast?  And so what IF every brain cell in my head knows that I really should wait just a bit more before feeling the soft earth in my hands and obsessively spacing my tiny seeds just so?  Like Rafiki said to Simba in “The Lion King,” - It is TIME.

Therefore today was the day that I got down on my knees and worked every nook and cranny of My Little Victory Garden.  No weed had a chance; they were all pulled up, every single root.

I paid homage to the grasshopper skeletons I found. I apologized to the cricket family for disrupting their home while thanking them for the reworked soil.  I pulled as many oak leaves from the ground as I could find so as not to induce my seedlings with too much tannic acid.  I carefully dug up the last three carrots and the four green onions, moved my purple sage, and transplanted my Gilly flowers. And then I smiled…and went to find my husband.

And this is what he did:

So I could do this:

Mmm. Soft, cool, rich – it just smells so incredibly good.

And then I did this:

I thought. And chose. And planted. And watered.  And when I was finished, I had almost covered half of my garden with seeds.

In 30, 60 or 70 days I’ll be sorting through beets, turnips, radishes, parsley, endive, two kinds of lettuce, spinach, chard, and broccoli. And in 90 days I’ll be pulling carrots.

But until then, I’ll be watering, and watching and protecting My Little Victory Garden because I love it, and I love the good food it gives me.

So now I wonder, for those of you who have gardens…when is it “TIME” for you?

Over the past four years, watching TV was a non-topic for me.  I just didn’t.  If I started a show, that meant a paper that wouldn’t get written, a chapter would remain unread, or a lesson would go unprepared.  I exercised delayed gratification as much as possible, then when I needed a break I would watch something on Netflix about once a month.  That’s it.

2012 was different.  I had finished my coursework, was ticking long on my research plan, and needed to say “hello” to my husband.  So I began to join him once a week for “The Big Bang Theory.”  Thirty minutes a week was heaven.  The show was incredible, and I became hooked.  So I added another:  Bones.  The show was frustrating because it was occasionally great, frequently cheesy and occasionally just flat-out bad.  So I cut back on Bones.

And then I added Downton Abbey AND Duck Dynasty.  So I’m watching a full four hours of TV per week now. FOUR hours!  But in some ways, I feel like Downton Abbey and Duck Dynasty are two extremes of the same show, so I’m going to give myself a break and say I’m really just watching three hours weekly.  Why?  Because…

1. They are both shows about people of means, but whose lives are filled with human conflict, humor, drama and more drama.
2. They both have older characters in the show who are quotable above most all quoteables. Violet Crawley and Si Robertson keep my giggle box full.  For example, a classic Violet quote: “Don’t be defeatist, dear. It’s very middle class.” And Si: “Whether you’re talking about bees, dogs or women, PAIN can come upon you quickly.” In other words, the eldest characters are endearing because they speak the truth as they see it.
3. The communities in which they lived are enriched because of their influence and philanthropy.
4. They are a tight-knit bunch, family comes first, and there are plenty of rules to learn if you become part of the family.
5. Their children put up with quite a lot simply by virtue of having been born into the family. But they are given much as well for the same reason.
6. The men profess to be in charge, but the women can make or break a situation every single time.
7. They wholeheartedly embrace their culture, initially resist progress, but then usually adapt.
8. They can get into trouble with other community members based upon their own belief systems, and have to sort things out with said community members from time to time.
9. They both eat like kings.

I’m sure we could “contrast” these two TV sensations as well as compare, but I simply haven’t the time to do that.  Downton Abbey will be on soon, and I cannot miss it!