{"id":3241,"date":"2025-02-21T06:05:45","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T14:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=3241"},"modified":"2025-02-19T10:41:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T18:41:55","slug":"this-little-piggy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2025\/02\/21\/this-little-piggy\/","title":{"rendered":"This Little Piggy"},"content":{"rendered":"

This little piggy went to market.
\nThis little piggy stayed home.
\nThis little piggy had roast beef.
\nThis little piggy had none.
\nThis little piggy cried \u201cWee, wee, wee all the way home.<\/em><\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve reminded you of that little ditty, we\u2019ll get back to it eventually, but first we\u2019ll take a small detour.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m at live events and meeting people for the first time, someone is bound to approach the signing table and say, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you were so tall.\u201d That\u2019s not surprising. Photos on book covers are usually head shots. In those everyone\u2019s the same height. Nonetheless, that observation is true\u2014I am tall. I have always been tall. Back in elementary school in the fifties school pictures were always group shots with kids from each grade level standing in rows on three-tiered risers. I was always in the middle of the back row, usually with Mike Marusich on one side and Harley Heitt on the other. It wasn\u2019t until seventh grade when school photos switched over to head shots.<\/p>\n

In Bisbee, Dr. Roberts, the local optometrist, was on the school board as was a local dentist, Dr. Tuell. Once a year each of them went through all the school buildings giving every student an eye exam and a dental checkup. That\u2019s how I ended up wearing glasses by the time I was in second grade. I hated the eye exams because each year\u2019s exam was worse than the one before. As for the dental exams? In those pre-fluoride days those were a cavity-filled nightmare. That same day there was always a nurse on hand to chart height and weight. There were no HIPPA protections back then. When I was in seventh grade and the nurse, called out aloud, \u201cSix feet,\u201d in front of all my classmates, I was humiliated. I\u2019m sure pretty sure some of the other kids had the same reaction to someone making public announcements concerning their weight.<\/p>\n

Between seventh grade and my senior year in high school, I gained at least an inch. That year, while helping Miss Holt order caps and gowns for graduation, I was surprised by how many boys claimed to be six feet tall when they weren\u2019t. How do I know that? I was much taller than most of them.<\/p>\n

At age eighty I\u2019m still six one. It sometimes seems as though I\u2019m taller than that because whenever I reach down to pick up something up from the floor, it seems to be a whole lot farther away. I\u2019m still getting my steps, though. I recently passed the 39 million steps mark, and I\u2019m currently at clocking in at 18,442 miles, but that\u2019s been a real challenge recently, because six weeks or so ago my left foot started killing me. <\/p>\n

It felt as though a tangle of nerves both on top of my toes and under them were on fire. Every damned step hurt. Last summer I believe I reported on my ill-fated ballerina act on the front porch. When my foot pain began, I assumed it was lingering damage resulting from that. I\u2019ve become a fan of a reasonably recent analgesic spray called TIDL. It works well, once you figure out the secret code to make the sprayer work\u2014it actually just takes a twist of the top. Seeking relief, I began spraying my toes\u2014top and bottom first thing in the morning, before putting on my shoes, and the last thing before going to bed. And when it came time to do my steps, I\u2019d give my toes another splash of TIDL. Doing that made walking doable.<\/p>\n

As mentioned above, I\u2019m tall. That means my toes are a long way away, even when I\u2019m sitting down. As a consequence, I don\u2019t spend a lot of time examining them. Last week, however, I took a quick look at my toes while sitting on the dressing bench in the closet. That\u2019s when I noticed a very angry looking corn on my next to little toe\u2014that would be the one designated as The Little Piggy Who Had None.<\/p>\n

At that point I remembered, that the last time I had a corn was back when I was in high school. My mother went straight to Warren Drug and came back home with a packet that contained a bottle with an evil-smelling clear liquid in it along with some little round bandages with holes in the middle. She put the bandage around the corn and then dabbed some of the liquid in the hole. Eventually, after two weeks or so, the corn went away.<\/p>\n

A week and a half ago, on other very day I spotted the problem, I took myself to the nearest Bartell’s and bought a packet of corn remover. Naturally, the childproof packaging was equally grandmother proof. I finally got it open with the help of a scissors and a paring knife. In the process, I shredded the directions. I had to drag them out of the trash and piece them back together. They were surprisingly simple. Apply the bandage and then apply a drop or two of the clear liquid. You’d think that in the intervening half century they could have made the stuff smell better, but I instantly recognized the obnoxious odor.<\/p>\n

Within moments of applying it the first time, I was healed\u2014or maybe I should say toed. I\u2019m sure part of that relief was due to the cushioning on the bandage protecting the top of the corn from my shoe. I\u2019m applying the liquid twice a day as directed and am almost half way through the recommended fourteen-day treatment. And guess what? I\u2019m actually enjoying getting my steps again.<\/p>\n

So here I am, twenty years after my mother\u2019s passing, still benefitting from her wisdom. With that in mind, it\u2019s only fair to let Evie Busk have the last word. This happens to be a verse from one of her oft-quoted bits of poetry.<\/p>\n

Can you sit in the shade of the palm of your hand?
\nOr beat on the drum of your ear?
\nCan the calf on your leg eat the corn on your toe?
\nThen why not raise corn on your ear?<\/em><\/p>\n

Happy Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This little piggy went to market. This little piggy stayed home. This little piggy had roast beef. This little piggy had none. This little piggy cried \u201cWee, wee, wee all the way home. Now that I\u2019ve reminded you of that little ditty, we\u2019ll get back to it eventually, but first we\u2019ll take a small detour. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-Qh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3241"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3242,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3241\/revisions\/3242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}