Dear Smiley: Years ago, we (I) decided to add a potbellied pig to our menagerie. We named her Penny, and she had the run of the house. She was litter-box trained and got along well with the dogs.
She was always looking for attention and wanting to have her belly rubbed.
One day, the technician from the security company came to install new sensors on the dining room windows. Penny was right there trying to get his attention.
He ignored her as best as he could. When the installation was over, he gave her a look and said, “Oh, that’s a pig. I was thinking that was the ugliest dog I had ever seen.”
DEES VECA
Kenner
Grand opening?
Dear Smiley: In 1999, my wife and I drove to Conway, Arkansas, to visit our son. Knowing Faulkner County was dry, we packed our own beverages. (How a county named Faulkner could be dry is a complete mystery.)
Upon checking in to our motel, we discovered the caps to our beer bottles were not twist-off as we had thought.
Although Conway seems to have a church on almost every other street corner, finding a “church key” proved to be an elaborate undertaking.
ROGER WAGGONER
Lafayette
Chilly memories
Dear Smiley: When I was a young boy, I remember the iceman carrying a 50-pound block of ice from our house’s front door, through the living room to the kitchen, where the ice box was located.
I acquired an old ice box years ago by salvaging it from a garbage dump on the side of a highway.
I completely restored it, and even had the brass hardware redone in New Orleans. It must have been a deluxe model Snowflake, because there is a tap below the ice bin where the melted ice would provide cold water.
I also have an ice pick from the Assumption Ice House, with telephone number 23 and the slogan “Save food, flavor, money with ice.”
TONY FALTERMAN
Napoleonville
Sam who?
Dear Smiley: Rather than asking for an ice pick at Walmart, I found it interesting to say to an employee, “I heard Sam Walton was in the store today.”
The older employees will give a smile, and a response that indicates they know Mr. Sam is no longer with us.
The young ones mostly respond with, “Who?”
JEAN HAYDEL
River Ridge
For good measure
Dear Smiley: My grandmother cooked rice every day in the same pot for 60-plus years.
She measured the amount of rice by sight, but she measured the water by putting her index finger to the bottom of the pot, measuring up to the knuckle.
DIANE T. MARTIN
Morgan City
One good turn
Dear Smiley: Speaking of driving in other countries:
My then-husband and I were on a bus in Mexico City. I knew we were supposed to turn right at the next corner, but we were in the left lane, with five lanes of traffic to our right.
I turned to my husband and said, “We must have gotten on the wrong bus.”
With that, the bus pulled across the five lanes of traffic and turned right.
No one seemed surprised, except the two of us.
SUSAN HUNT
New Orleans
Drive like a grandma
Dear Smiley: In keeping with your driving stories:
In the early 1960s, my grandmother decided to visit her sister in Port Arthur, Texas, after her husband died.
She left Opelousas and turned west on Interstate 10, going 35 miles an hour.
She was soon stopped by a State Police officer for going under the minimum speed of 45 mph.
She rolled down her window and listened to the officer tell her about the minimum speed.
She replied to the officer, “Well, I never heard of that.”
She rolled her window up, put the car in gear and drove off. The officer let her go.
ED WYNNE JR.
Lafayette
