I Have Just the Place for It

Linda at Write from the Heart has kindly bestowed upon my blog a lovely green award. How did she know that green is my favorite color?  I will now foist upon you seven facts about myself. Pay attention. There might be a quiz at the end of the quarter.

7 Facts About Val

1. For a year, I worked in an insurance salvage store. The bookkeeper later said she hired me because I looked clean. My work ethic impressed her so much that she gave me a nickel raise after the first month. Which did not fly well with the other employees, them seeing me as not yet having paid my dues. The place was rife with illicit affairs, backstabbing, power struggles, theft, embezzlement, revenge, hazing, unrequited love, trade secrets, off-site socializing, and attack dogs. A fictionalized memoir could practically write itself. I have no plans to write it.

2. I was once stranded on an Alaskan island, and had to be rescued by a four-seater plane that landed on water.

3. My idol is Dolly Parton. I find it amazing that she was born a nobody in the middle of nowhere, and made herself into a 950 million dollar force to be reckoned with. Did you know that Dolly dabbles in dinner theaters and amusement parks? Even if she was not a performing artist, she could make a healthy living off the rights to songs that she has written. Did you know Dolly wrote I Will Always Love You, and that the Whitney Houston version alone made her six million dollars in royalties? Or that Dolly provides free books for kids in certain communities each month from birth to the age of five? Or that when Porter Wagoner fell on hard times, Dolly bought the rights to all of his songs, and then sold them back to him for one dollar? I don't care how many people make fun of her most obvious attributes, Dolly is a class act.

4. Since childhood, people have told me I'm a funny gal. I'm hoping they mean funny ha, ha, not funny peculiar. Do you buy into that opposites attract theory? Because I seem to have married a man born without a funny bone.

5. My grandpa worked in the lead mines, and raised hogs on the side. It was not uncommon to spend a summer Saturday running barefoot in his yard, tossing hedgeapples into the sinkhole by the driveway, and poking at the severed hog head sitting on the concrete-block wall of the carport.

6. I have two grown stepsons and two growing sons. I pride myself on the fact that the toilet seats have always remained down. If Momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

7. I would rather be a follower than a leader, but when I am in a group, people expect me to be the one to speak. Customers in various stores accost me as if I am an employee, even though I wear no uniform, or even clothing that matches.
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I would like to extend this award to any of my followers or commenters or readers, without pointing a specific finger. It's too good to keep to myself, on the mantle of one of my three electric fireplaces. Go on. Help yourself. It's free! You know you need a chance to tell your deep dark secrets, or brag that you can put your feet behind your head and walk across the floor on your buttocks. All you have to do is link back to me, tell seven things about yourself, and give the award to seven more people. Kind of like a scratch-off lottery ticket chain letter, but without the chance of winning cash.