Frances Ellen Speaks!

Archive for the ‘Seniors’ Category

One evening a Cherokee elder told his grandson about the battle that goes on inside people’s heads.  He said, “My son, the battle is between the two ‘wolves’ that live inside us all.  One is Unhappiness. It is fear, worry, anger, jealousy, sorrow, self-pity, resentment and inferiority.  The other is Happiness. It is joy, love, hope, serenity, kindness, generosity, truth and compassion.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf wins?”

The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

Someone sent this story to me months ago. I liked it so much, I thought I would share.

Does this Representative from Georgia have nothing else to do with his time? Like, maybe he could consider thinking about a resolution to help bring back a robust economy. Does he not know we are hurting out here? Click here to see the idiocy.

For the past few months, in an effort to encourage travel within the United States, I’ve been writing about cities I have enjoyed while on vacation.

This year in particular, it’s a good idea to spend your vacation dollars right here in the good old U.S.A.

Have fun, while stimulating our economy.

1. Niagara Falls, NY
2. Grand Canyon, AZ
3. San Antonio, TX
4. Philadelphia, PA
5. New Orleans, LA
6. New York, NY
7. Memphis, TN
8. Orlando, FL
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Savannah, GA

This is my short list of favs. I’ll share some more with you in the near future. If you have a favorite that is not included in my list, please let me know. I’ll try to add yours to my next list.

Golden Gate Bridge

When I travel I like to visit places I have read about in a book or magazine. I become the ultimate tourist. My intent is to take the words off the page and experience them in real life. San Francisco is a prime destination where you can do just that.

For one thing, a lot of stuff you’ve read about is within walking distance of each other. You can visit the sea lions, listen to their loud grunting, and watch them splash and play off the end of Pier 39. Other things the Pier has to offer: a marketplace, restaurants, street performers and loads of shops.

You won’t want to miss Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s only one or two blocks away from Pier 39 and the walk along the Bay is lovely. You’ll see picture perfect views of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. Just seeing the Golden Gate Bridge will give you a warm, fuzzy feeling. It’s a man-made phenomenon.

Tours. You want to take a tour? There are all sorts of tours: Seqway Tours, Motorcoach Tours, Bay Cruise Tours, Double Decker Trolley Tours, Culinary Tours, Alcatraz Tours, Submarine Tours, Chinatown Tours and Ride the Duck Tours. If you can dream it up–San Francisco’s got it.

So, right about now, you’re wondering how you can ride a duck, aren’t you? Well, the Duck is a W.W. II style amphibious landing vehicle, so you tour the city by land and by sea. Pretty neat.

Of course, you can’t visit San Francisco without riding a cable car or trolley. They’re everywhere. Hop on.

And by all means, never visit a city without sampling the local cuisine. In San Francisco, the sour dough bread is not to be missed. Make sure you eat some in every restaurant you visit, because you’ll never taste anything like it ever again (unless you go back to San Fran).

If you’re traveling with the kids, there’s an aquarium at the bay and a carousel smack dab in the middle of Pier 39. The kids will also love the live entertainment and the street performers.

San Francisco has all the other things you’d expect to find in a big city: museums, theater, opera, symphony orchestra and sports.

It’s all good!

Since I’m encouraging vacation travel on a budget, I’ll rerun part of a previous post I wrote a while back.

If you’re looking to hear the blues, Memphis is the town.

Looking to savor the sweet taste of BBQ? Memphis is a good choice.

A word about Beale Street–I was expecting something similar to Bourbon Street in New Orleans, but Beale Street is much shorter, only extends about a block or two. Therefore, it doesn’t have as many shops, but what it lacks in shopping, it makes up for in good food and fantastic music. The entire time spent on Beale Street is a party for the senses.

There is one important fact to know about BBQ, it comes “wet” or “dry.” At the Pig On Beale, you can order your ribs with a dry rub. Take it from me, if you’re ever at the Pig, dry is the way to go.

The final Memphis highlight that I will touch on has a lot of “soul.”

photo from

We only had time to visit one museum and, boy, did we make a good choice–STAX. Museum, with just the right mixture of history, made for a memorable visit.

There are bus tours galore that will take you to Graceland, if you yearn to see the King’s home. We ran out of time.

Back in the day, Halloween was sheer delight. No one worried about razors in apples, or the safety of the streets. Parents stayed at home and gave out candy. Kids went door to door showing off their costumes. (most homemade using a bit of ingenuity.)

Every year, after the trick or treating was over for the younger set, my mother circled around to the back of our house and returned through our front door dressed as a ghost, screeching and making sounds that I guess she figured a ghost might make. My father and I  always made quite a fuss until the ghost disappeared out through the back of the house again. A few minutes later, my mother would reappear, usually coming up from the basement steps. (Sheet stowed away for another year.)

We didn’t receive mini bars of candy, either. Full-size candy bars were the order of the day.

And nobody frowned about teenagers coming around for treats later in the evening. If people ran out of candy, they dropped nickels in the bags. Neighborhood stores stayed open and gave out great treats, and when I became one of those teenagers, my friends and I always stopped in at the local bar. We thought of it as “hitting up the drunks” (My mother would’ve passed out if she knew.) But the drunks handed out some A-#1 largesse. They’d take change off the bar, usually a lot more than a nickel, and drop it into our bags. They actually liked being included in the fun and asked about our costumes and laughed and joked with us.

Those were the days.