Sybil Bruncheon’s “Seeing Is Believing… or is it?”...

Which of these is the correct explanation for this photo?

1) On the plant Gzzoolxton, naughty children are sent outdoors for a “time-out” as punishment. Interestingly, the term “time-out” is literal because the child is left outside for one of the interdimensional flying saucers to come by and take them to a parallel universe for several centuries… although they will still be back home in time for dinner… and a spanking.

2) Eugene Carpathy suffered from koinoniphobia: Fear of rooms! Yes, there IS an actual phobia for rooms! Can you believe it?... Oddly, Eugene only “developed” koinoniphobia after his uncle Frank asked him to repaint his four bedroom house… Frank got suspicious too when Eugene struggled with pronouncing “koinoniphobia”. He said “going-onion-phon-onia”.

3) Citizens of Badel-Badel, Hungary have a very compassionate health care system in place. No person is ever denied medical attention no matter what the malady or their financial situation. On the other hand, sometimes the treatment for various illnesses might be very similar. Fear of heights, caffeine withdrawal, willful sullenness, and chronic depression are all lumped under one “cure”… the patient is seated on a steel plate near a copper antenna rigged with yards of wire to wait for the next lightning strike… happily, there is only a nominal copay…

4) In San Souci, France, the Existential Festival on Albert Camus’ birthday was a time of yawning, sighing, staring into space, and the reciting of poetry that didn’t rhyme, usually by oneself or possibly while looking into a mirror if one wanted company. The promoters thought about marketing the weekend “Camus-Con”… but wondered… what’s the point?

5) Filbert’s incessant and deafening yodeling had completely emptied the town… Pastor Helgar dropped by to say goodbye before he left on the bus for Akron.

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Fascinating and Funny Phenomena!"...

A cephalophore (from the Greek for "head-carrier") is a saint who is generally depicted carrying his or her own head; in art, this was usually meant to signify that the subject in question had been martyred by beheading. One of the most intriguing aspects of stories of beheaded saints is that they all continue to live and carry their heads much to the horror of their executioners and witnesses. They speak at length, walking about, visiting various places, quoting scripture and invoking all sorts of reactions from onlookers. Interestingly, headless people walking and talking predates Christianity and has occurred for centuries in cultures all around the world!... is it surprising that many of them have happened to perfectly ordinary persons in everyday life? Here are a few examples… 

1)   Princess Alexis of Heinen-Swizeisis – 1140 AD. At eleven years of age, she was accidentally beheaded during an axe-throwing game at her birthday party. She abruptly stood up, and, to ease the obvious discomfort of her guests and their parents, declared that it “was time for cake”!... Of course, unable to blow out her own candles (though she tried for several minutes) she invited everyone “to make a wish”. Afterwards during the gift opening time, she bravely tried on a charming bonnet and scarf set, tying a rather fetching bow just under her chin…A good time was had by all… according to the manuscripts…

2)   Sister Maigretta Alspeth Yonzagreeve of the Perpetually Forlorn Lamb of Woe Nunnery – 1213 AD. Sister May (an acronym of her initials) was head harvestress among the nuns in the abbey… at 6’7” she swung an energetic scythe when gathering the grains in the Fall. Sadly, a novice under her tutelage, carelessly swooped when she should have swiped, and her untrained blade took May’s head off cleanly on a sunny October afternoon. Despite the horrified shrieks of her sister-nuns, May briskly picked up her own head, cradled it into the folds of her habit, and firmly but lovingly admonished the ladies to continue their work as the day was coming to a close. The last of the grain was cut, gathered, and tossed into a wagon, and all the sisters retired for tea and biscuits before their evening prayers. Sister May made a brief report to the Mother Superior although she attached no blame to the young novice. She went to bed and slept well… tucking her head into a drawer by her bedside so as not to roll over it in her sleep. She was scheduled to conduct the morning devotional, but bowed out due to a sore throat.

3)   Duke Dragomir II of Eastern Rumelia – 1479 AD. Notoriously handsome and an able athlete, Dragomir was especially fond of contact sports enhanced by obstacle course challenges… the more risky, the better. His own personal favorite invention was the infamously violent Obstacle-Course Cross-Country Croquet Tournament. It was in the final quarter of the Montenegran Open during an overtime penalty when Dragomir was struck from behind by an opposing team member with his mallet. It certainly gave the term “sudden death” a whole new meaning. Dragomir, however, got right up, searched for his head which had rolled down a hillock (but was tossed to him by a jolly team mate), and being a notoriously good sport, invited everyone back to the clubhouse lodge for ale and mutton-pops… with skittle-beetle chips.

4)   Peter Gallego – 1929 AD. A nice family man and self-employed plumber in Queens, NY, Mr. Gallego built his small hands-on business from scratch after immigrating to the USA. Opportunites came his way in the sleepy and safe neighborhood of Broad Channel, made up of houses built on piers and separated by canals. It was during a particularly foggy morning in June that “Leaky Pete” (his nickname from affectionate neighbors) forgot to duck as he was speeding to a house call in his small outboard motor boat. Passing under the timbers of Wesauckett Walk and Breakers Blvd. his head was lopped off cleanly and sailed 40’ into the rolling wake. A passing lobster skiff saw what happened and scooped his still spluttering head up in a net, coughing up some sea water, but none the worse for wear. Indeed, Gallego invited the lobster crew back to the Giggling Mermaid for beers. It was there when several patrons saw what had happened that Gallego’s career changed completely. Obviously unable to continue plumbing, a friend connected to the Vaudeville circuit, suggested that Pete meet a comedian-ventriloquist named Señor Wences, whose puppet/dummies included a little boy named Johnny. When Wences met Pete, he immediately came up with an idea for a disembodied head in a box named “Pedro”… and the punchline for jokes when the box door would flip open?... “S’ALRIGHT”… Leaky Pete made a fortune and became a star on the Ed Sullivan show. 

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Our Little Peoples' Library"...

Hello, Boys & Girls! Do you like to read?... oh, I hope so! It's very nice to let our imaginations help create the stories we hear, as opposed to sitting like dumb-ass Uncle Alf, or Drunky Cousin Julie, (or maybe even your parents and let the TV do all the thinking for the day!) Here are three books that are currently in your school library, but don't let the titles fool you! They're a good deal more interesting than they sound!… and Mummie will tell you a few more fascinating details about each of them, but don't worry! I won't spoil the stories or the surprise endings...

THE ADVENTURES OF JERRY MUSKRAT: Published by the Bedtime Story Books Co. and written by Thornton W. Burgess (later tried and convicted of espionage against His Majesty's Royal Navy). Jerry, though a rodent, proves to be extremely clever and even infernally brilliant at tricking various other animals in the village of Little Puddle-Wink into mischief, mayhem... and finally, murder. Fully illustrated including this cover of Jerry giving a ride to Mayor Tim-Toad Terwilliger across Lake Loon. Unfortunately, toads are not very good swimmers, and Jerry has fooled Mayor Tim Toad into playing "Let's Ride A Submarine"... can you guess who's the submarine... and who isn’t?

THE PIE AND THE PATTY PAN by Beatrix Potter: An early story by Miss Potter, long before she found her fame with much more wholesome characters like Peter Rabbit and his bunny family! She had started her career not with animals but with inanimate objects that had become living, talking, anthropomorphized beings, often wearing clothes, holding jobs, and even engaging in questionable “adult practices”. Her first stories were directed at young girls and their education in housekeeping, mothering their dolls, and “lady arts”. THE PIE AND THE PATTY PAN sounded at first like some sort of story about cooking and dessert, but within a page or so, the Patty Pan revealed its desire to fiercely spank a perfectly innocent and trusting Pie… and in a fiery oven fully illustrated as a 9th circle of Hell, complete with demonic rolling pins and other kitchen utensils waving red hot forks over their heads. This book is NOT for the faint of heart… or for diabetics.

FRISKY SQUIRREL’S STORY: … by someone named Amy Prentice; The title, the cover art, the opening page… it all claimed to be a merry little children’s story, but the more you looked, the more dry, ordinary, almost banal it was. Indeed there was nothing frisky about the title character, his cohorts, the prose, the so-called plot and adventures… nothing. Cover to cover, it read more like an FBI dossier except with furry forest animals and their vegetable and flower pals; Mr. Howard Badger smuggled his next door neighbor Blackie Raven out of the basement with a briefcase full of hollow walnuts, Mrs. Gertrude Stoat confronted Fred Weasel about their history overseas in a petting zoo reserved for Ferrets and their associates, Lipshitz Lambkin escaped his pen disguised as an artichoke at three in the morning and informed the Bulb Council that a tulip was hiding in a bed of daffodils… possibly armed with a fully loaded carrot…

Just as each chapter would end, instead of a resolution there would be a short addendum claiming “More Information Is Pending.” Within a week of publication and release to Children’s Book Stores, there were claims that government officials, intelligence agencies, and foreign embassies were deciphering all sorts of top secret “intel” hidden in the remarkably dull tales. And code breakers by the hundreds were assigned the task of figuring out anagrams from the characters’ names. The best they could come up with included “Queer Pooterzj”, “Commy Pinqbottum”, and “Haz Coootie derr”.  Even the name Amy Prentice only turned into “May Pet Nicer”, or “Meant Pricey”, or “Prince Meaty”… whatever…

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Ordinary Housewives & Their Extraordinary Adventures!'... Millie and Jane...

Isn't it strange how sometimes a seemingly innocent afternoon chore can suddenly, oh so suddenly veer into quite a different thing?... for instance, my bridge pals Millie Jankowski and Jane Plynth were asked to check out the county fair's amusement park rides for the Safety Committee at our PTA. There had been the usual breaches of licenses and certificates that one expects from circus and carny persons, especially when they show up at the town bureau in stained tank top t-shirts (I believe they call them "wife-beaters"). I'm sorry, but soiled hands, grimy fingernails, and too many tattoos of anchors wrapped in thorns, skulls smoking cigarettes, and words like "Mother", "Git Lost", and "Be My Beezle-Bubba" are NOT the sort of thing one should be displaying at the Town Manager's desk... especially at 8am.

Anyway, Millie and Jane along with several other of the concerned mothers went down on the opening morning of the Radnor County Fair to inspect the novelty booths, the concession stands and their foodstuffs, the amusement tents and their performers and inhabitants, and of course the rides! Each of the ladies was given her own clip board and a several page questionnaire to evaluate and either praise or criticize each aspect of the fair... on a scale of 1 to 10. Interestingly, the food concessions placed rather high in the scales; hot dogs were actually kosher and fairly pricey, cotton candy was spun in sterile and hygienic hoppers, popcorn was freshened every half hour, all dairy products (ice cream, etc) were kept safely at ice cold temperatures, and soft drinks were provided only by reputable corporations and not bottled in out-of-the-way locations like Borneo, Chad, or Buttpoke, Wisconsin.

Even the rides all seemed to pass inspection; bolts were tight, levers reliable, ratchet chains unrusted, wheels, pulleys, and rails all clean and shiny!... only the Devil's Delight Roller Coaster seemed to be problematic... you see, at one point on the ride, on the way down from the first major hill, there stood an arch under which the train would hurtle, carrying the screaming passengers! The arch was elaborately (and luridly!) painted with a smiling Satan, nearly naked and ferociously handsome and muscular, surrounded by dozens of leering imps, gnomes, elves, quanta-bobbies, and oblong garden vegetables all dancing , laughing, and making rude gestures at the passengers below. Flames, smoke, pitchforks of various lengths, and the usual "You're Going To Hell" paraphernalia were also scattered about in the mural... along with a tinny recording of raucous laughter, terrifying shouts, roaring thunder, tuneless organ music, and barnyard sounds.

And it was there just as they passed that an unexplainable phenomenon would occur! People would suddenly feel their undergarments groped, yes! GROPED... and even pulled up! Rather ENERGETICALLY! For men, there was the discomfort of having their "personal parts" suddenly mashed into their underpants, not so bad if they were wearing boxers, but with briefs, the sensation might be quite uncomfortable, eliciting bellows of anger and pain... or shrieks from men of a more... um... sensitive nature!

The ladies on the other hand, did not find the experience at all disquieting! In fact, they responded more often with yowling laughter... When asked afterwards what they felt under the archway as they hurtled by, they often blushed, looked nervously at each other and down at the ground, straightened their rumpled dresses, and retreated quickly to the foot-long hot-dog counter... with extra-spicy mustard!

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's Hollywood's Hysterical Histories... Theresa "Tootie" Smith...

As a very young child, Theresa Smith (born to Alonzo and Anna Smith of St. Louis, Missouri, and nicknamed "Tootie"), began her career singing and dancing even in the cradle. Her first public performances were for friends and neighbors of her family often for holiday occasions where she would team up with her siblings doing impressions and various Vaudeville songs about exotic places or disreputable persons involved in piracy, white slavery, bootlegging, and even cannibalism.

Though seemingly humorous, there were dark undertones to these little showlettes, and frequently little Tootie would end up in some sort of altercation or violence, often in alleyways behind a theatre... or her nursery school. At the tender age of 7 she almost wed an indigent character actor from a local dinner theatre before her parents (usually absent and uninterested) interceded with local authorities to stop the marriage ceremony literally at the altar just before the groom could say, "I do!"... Little Tootie then descended into a bizarre nether-world of carny-shows and cult-films and political scandal... before she finally disappeared from all respectable society.

(Top row L to R: 1) Little Tootie singing with her older sister Esther whom she later hooked on heroin and marijuana and abandoned in a Women's House of Detention. Her brother Lon is seen accompanying the girls on his banjo. He was later drugged, abducted, and sold into white slavery by Tootie's 3rd grade boyfriend, possibly to Arabia, Madagascar, or somewhere in Akron. The banjo was never found. 2) Tootie at the age of 5 rescued by police from her agent (pimp?) after being robbed of her night's salary at Bluestein's Bimbo & Burlesqueerie in Poka-Ma-Hola, Arkansas. 3) Tootie with her almost husband, Edward "Big Ned" Bunsterston seen in this photo just after she pinched his bottom. 4) Tootie photographed with her doll/ventriloquist dummy Madame Shahtzi, a German fraulein known for her suggestive cabaret songs and off-color limericks about sailors and long voyages at sea without women-folk. Bottom row L to R: 5) Tootie with Mr. Ruffski, one of many animals from the local pound that she did cult-films with as the only human in the cast. Eventually church authorities interceded, and many of the animals were rescued to good and loving homes. 6) Tootie at the birthday celebration for the MGM studios. She was told by the secretary to LB Mayer, that if she would wait in his office, he might come by with a piece of cake and she could sit on his lap! 7) Tootie broadcasting as Wee Tootsen Stroodlehoff, the Nurnberg Nightingale, during World War I when she may have been a double-agent for the Kaiser. 8) Tootie reduced to being a hobo when she returned to the United States and was only partially cleared of sedition charges. 9) A photo taken in the 1940s of acclaimed Dr. Mary Edwards Walker... or a stage magician named The Magnificent Mr. Majooski, either of whom may or may not be Tootie disguised to conceal her true identity.)

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's Holiday Reading Sizzlers!...

Hey, Folks! It's Holiday time, and everyone's asking Santa for some nice new books for the New Year! Are YOU???

...well, Mummie found some reading suggestions for you from a place called Porny Place Publishers, and they're exactly the kind of books that will get you noticed at the next meeting at your book club!... maybe even by that Amway heiress from Omaha... or a European count from a postage-stamp principality!... Yay!!!

Here you go!... "Homosexual Train"… is followed by "Gender Reassigned Tramp Steamer", "I'm Bi On My Tricycle", "Daughters of Lesbos 18-Wheeler", “Tranny Trolley”, “Homo Hobo Highway”, and "Queer Studebaker"... the final books in the series are... "I Became A Eunuch On A Unicycle"... "Wimp Wagon Weenies"… and "Man-Lady On Roller Blades!"…

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon’s Tales for the New Year!... A New Year’s Gathering of the Bingham Lake Spinsters… for LADIES ONLY!

Boys and girls, did you know that in olden times, it was considered wrong, just plain wrong for a single lady to go out into the world without a man to “escort” her? The excuse made by men like your grandpa was that the lady might be attacked, robbed, or even pinched on her bottom… but there was also the reason that a lady by herself or with only other ladies walking around or eating lunch in a restaurant might be a naughty lady who wanted to make friends with sailors in an alley for money, or jewelry, or chocolates, and that would be wrong, just plain wrong!  

So… in those old days, there were special clubs or “societies” where single ladies could go and be protected together without the bother of men annoying, bossing, or pinching them. This Bingham Lake Spinster’s Retreat was one of them. Here the ladies are visiting together on New Year’s Eve of 1898 for a lovely celebration. The ladies had come from all over the country to be with “their own kind”. (Photo courtesy of the Pinella “Pinky” Thompson Studio) 

They are from left:  

1) Miss Lilia Cermunkle (Detroit Lakes, Minnesota) Interpretive dance instructress to local children (girls ONLY!). She made quite a reputation for herself by staging recitals and plays without any dialog, only dance. She produced her annual Christmas Nativity stories with children dancing the roles of the Holy Family, the three Wise Men, the Heavenly Host, the grumpy stable owner and his snarky wife, and various sore-afraid shepherds, villagers, tradesmen, and barn animals. And no one ever seemed really concerned that these were all-nude performances. 

2) Miss Aganantha Flunce (Junket Corners, Ohio) Proprietress of the Junket Junk & Treasures Shoppe, a local charity store of antiques, housewares, pre-owned clothes and personal hygiene items to raise money for the Junket Corners Frisky Foundlings Petting Zoo. She was personally responsible for building the special pavilion for abandoned Easter bunnies, ducks, and chicks as they grew into adulthood. 

3) Miss Penny Pertwalter (Hobb, Iowa) Creator of the revolutionary Penny’s Penny-Wise Pounds-Away Diet Plan. In a time when people barely discussed weight control of any kind, Pertwalter actually studied the unfolding sciences of food chemistry, meal scheduling, specialized exercising, and anatomical and hereditary predilections to obesity. Her conclusion?... regular vomiting. 

4) Miss Cynthia Tialor (Hudson, New York) Owner of Tialor’s Tailoring Temple; a couture level dressmaking and alterations establishment that earned such an exalted reputation among the wealthy that they would send their clothes and place their orders from as far away as New York City, 120 miles away! Eventually hiring 11 assistants from the local Thimble & Thinking Craft College, “Miss C”, as she was lovingly known by her devoted staff, actually became the go-to costume builder for New York theatre and Vaudeville impresarios and producers like Florenz Ziegfeld, George M. Cohan, Eddie Foy, and Morris Seidelmann. Her musical Noah’s Ark immortalized her. 

5) Miss Prudence Hamblin (Palm Desert, Maine) Hamblin was a local odd-jobs and home-care lady who supported herself as a seamstress, cleaning lady, house-keeper, baby-sitter, jams-and-jelly maker, and as-needed marriage broker. She was particularly successful at match-making among the young persons in Southern Maine, having a perfect, no-divorce-needed reputation for over 52 years. She claimed her “woman’s intuition” was the reason, but secretly, she admitted it was Tarot cards, tea leaves, and “her magic kitty, Madam Zorina, who told her who should marry who!”…  

6) Miss Katey-Ann O’Flummery (Chatham, Massachusetts) A life-long resident of Cape Cod, O’Flummery had been raised by a large family of fishmongers dating back to the Pilgrims and Plymouth Rock. She was the president-for-life of the local Daughters of the Mayflower and the Daughters of the Revolution, and she wielded her power as both with a firm fish-smelling fist. Though infamously frugal and outwardly shabby, her immense (and hidden!) fortune came from her “Cap’n Casper’s Canned Clam Chowder” Corporation… “jes reheat ‘n’ sehve!”… a million housewives coast-to-coast, had no idea a woman was Cap’n Casper from Cape Cod. She remained the wealthiest woman in New England for the last two-thirds of her life. 

7) Miss Malvina Planck (Grenville Acres, Arkansas) Inveterate and unreconstructed Confederate who never believed the Civil War had come to an end. She claimed her entire life to be the secret bride of Robert E. Lee (though never consummated!). She raised sheep and used their wool to make a large and highly saleable sweaters, scarves, socks, and mittens, sold nation-wide in sundries shops. Secretly, she also spun her high-grade wool into kersey, the fabric dyed grey and used for Confederate uniforms. She had over three hundred uniforms of different classes hidden in her attic at the time of her death in 1929. 

8) Miss Kelendra Grantworthy (Baltimore, Maryland) Kelendra (aka Madam Kiki and her Komedic Kock-a-Toooos) performed on the Morris Seidelmann Celebrity & Silliness Circuit throughout the eastern seaboard, from New Hampshire to Florida. Her parents, a very nice couple (he a plumber and she a 3rd grade teacher) had no idea their daughter had become, technically, a “hootchy-kootcher” employing exotic birds, balloons, and cake frosting in her “musical monologs” where she danced, told ribald stories, recited limericks, and dropped items of her fanciful costumes as she strolled around the stage in front of hooting and cheering crowds of traveling salesmen, sailors, and as-yet unmarried college boys and ruffians.  

9) Miss Deborah Heismann (Crumble, New Mexico Territory) Heismann had the distinction of being the first single Jewish woman to own and operate her own business in the as-yet-to-be-admitted-to-the-Union territory of New Mexico. Her shop, carefully situated next to the train station, specialized in Native American pottery, textiles, and jewelry. In a way, she was at the forefront of the budding “local souvenir industry” before it swept the nation as a gigantic money-maker from the newly created mobile American tourist. An extremely savvy marketer, Heismann opened a café adjoining her shop, and commissioned all the restaurant china to be patterned in the same Indian geometric designs as the Zuni and Hopi pottery. Sadly, her idea for a kosher Yiddish menu didn’t succeed quite as well, and she went back to cheese burgers, milk shakes, and bacon and egg breakfasts for the travelers…  

10) Miss Mabel May Millbister (Fairy Wells, Maryland) Millbister was the extremely private and understated heiress of the Dr. Millbrewster Knee & Elbow Liniment fortune, estimated at close to $8 million at the time of this photo. Her family changed the name of the liniment in its little metal tubes from their own to keep fortune hunters, charlatans, loan-seekers, and pan-handlers from their doorsteps. Mabel herself was heard to snap at people when they would ask if she was any relation to the liniment company, “My name is Mill-BISTER, not Mill-BREWSTER! Can’t you read the damn label?!”… Needless to say, over time, people gave her a wide berth…

 11) Miss Elspeth Charmondely (Kelp, Rhode Island) A pie and cake judge at county fairs in over fourteen states. Believe it or not, there was actually a paid (highly paid!) profession in pastry-judging in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. Charmondely made so much money presiding over county fairs, scouting jamborees, and ladies’ home-arts conventions that she had the distinction of being the first woman in the country to actually purchase an automobile and drive it for herself. It was a completely hand-made Miselmann Mütorvagen Cabriolet (1894) imported from Austria-Hungary. She needed it to travel to the fourteen states’ contests at a moment’s notice, always made a grand entrance into the towns driving her bright sunshine-yellow and chrome car, and paid the unheard of sum of $17,000 for it!!... and in 1894!! 

12) Miss Berenice Funge (Brooklyn, New York) Funge became a yodeling champion at 3 years of age learning on one of the last pig and sheep farms in the metropolitan area of New York City shortly after the Civil War. Public health and zoning constrictions forced her family to relocate their livestock outside the city limits to a place called Sayville somewhere out on Long Island where barnyard sounds (and smells!) were not only allowed but were to be expected. And little Berenice stayed behind at a friendly Aunt’s home in Sheepshead Bay (what a coincidence, huh?). Her schooling had begun, and so had her local reputation as a child-wonder in the yodeling world. Billed as Bellowing Bibi, she made a veritable fortune onstage at church picnics, veterans and masonic halls, and at Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital demonstrations for intern and resident programs. 

13) Miss Ruth Nickerson (Calumnet, Indiana) The Nickerson family was huge and widespread with highly visible branches throughout the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest states. They had made fortunes and built dynasties wherever their generations landed and were a vital part of the Gilded Age bourgeoisie that anchored American society from the 1800s on… How strange to have Ruth become a so-called “black sheep” with her petty larceny and misdemeanors reputation which she had to out-run from state to state through most of her life. Her crimes were mostly simple shop-liftings and pick-pocketings, usually of ridiculously unimportant items like chewing gum, pencils, and lint. Luckily, most of the arresting officers dismissed her with a mild scolding or a shaken head and kindly smile. 

14) Miss Roberta Reynolds (Perrysburg, Ohio) Roberta, know to her many, many friends as Bobbie-R, was a girls’ school gymnasium instructor and ladies’ sports referee. She had always been extremely athletic herself, able to outwrestle and eventually out-BOX her six brothers and various cousins. For a short time, she moon-lighted as a bouncer at the Commodore Perry Hotel Tavern until she was forced to quell a bar room brawl of several military persons from both the Coast Guard and the local Navy yard and the 6th Firehouse Company. According to police reports, she bravely waded into the thick of the mêlée with only a roll of nickels and her rolled-up sleeves and “settled everyone’s hash once and for all!”… 

15) Miss Pamela Hudgins (San Garande, California) Hudgins and her family back four generations had been part of the Gold Rush in the Western states, most successfully in California and the Alaskan territories. Pamela, specifically, had no trouble spending hours in all kinds of weather panning for gold or chiseling through craggy hillsides and gullies searching patiently for the occasional fleck of gold. That patience though, on the part of her and her family, resulted in a fortune in gold bullion, which they kept in assorted safety boxes, suitcases, trunks, and jelly jars. They could never quell the rumors though that some of the Hudgins ancestors had been either survivors or meals at the Donner Pass. 

16) Miss Ethel Marie Watts (Pympley Falls, Wisconsin) Miss Watts was an unassuming and mildly respected geography and sewing arts instructor for grades 3 through 12 at the Pympley Falls Girls and Young Ladies Institute. For over twenty-seven years, she always got moderately flattering evaluations from pleasantly appreciative administrative staff, followed by dozens of “yes, isn’t she nice”, mumbled over smiling, nodding heads. She got the perfunctory raises to her salary, but no promotions or offers of transfers and increased responsibilities; sort of a C+ career to match her C+ life… devoid of any drama or tragedy if only because it was devoid of any risk, adventure, or transcendent joy as well… It wasn’t until 1930 and her passing that police persons found three bodies buried in her root cellar with no apparent explanation or identity. 

17) Miss Christina Darlington (Sneeden’s Landing, New York) Miss Darlington was always fairly imaginative and creative, even as a child. She started drawing and painting strange devices, vehicles, machines, and unidentifiable objects starting at two years of age, always very colorful and completely filling any piece of paper or canvas she was given. In adulthood, she applied for over 75 copyrights and patents for various inventions including a pair of lady’s stockings already attached to a panty in one piece. She sensibly named it “The One-Piece Darlington Dainty”. In this photo, you can clearly see her holding one of the stockings she was about to sew into the prototype to be submitted to the patent office later in the month. The photography session for the ladies had interrupted her in the sewing salon at that exact moment and she came out on the front lawn with her fellow spinsters. (postscript: it was later rumored that Darlington may have actually been a man all along.)

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Strange Stories From Suburbia"…

… it had been a fairly mild Summer… well, until that final week of July and the beginning of August when the "weather gods" decided that it was time to get down to business. The air thickened and thickened day by day until even the nights were fog-bound, but with steam!!!… heavy rolling steam which clung to one's clothes and lungs like a suffocating blanket. Literally, it was hard to breathe, even if you tried to cool off with a midnight stroll by the water's edge at the ocean. There was no breeze, no air, no relief, no escape!!… well, unless you escaped inside your own mind…

Is that what Miss Polly Bernbundle did? Such a polite and responsible young lady…until the neighbors reported that in full view of little Stacy Plunkett's 8th birthday party, Polly decided to recite various passages from Edith Hamilton's famous Anthology of Greek & Roman Mythology. It wasn't just that she was reciting the stories, but that she was shrieking them at the top of her lungs as if she was the Oracle at Delphi… long, strident and stentorian tones bellowed out over the white picket fence through which all thirty-seven of the children and their stunned parents stared. And then, then the biggest shock of all! Miss Bernbundle decided that it would be most effective (and educational!) if she re-enacted each myth in full… beginning with the "Birth of Aphrodite"… and it only involved the garden hose and the small wading pool she had gotten for Mr. Rollo, her Jack Russell terrier who barked incessantly as she "rose from the waves"…

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's Summer Reading Sizzlers!...

Hey, Folks! It's July, and everyone's barbers, therapists, and acupuncturists are at the beach! Are YOU??? ...well, Mummie found some reading suggestions for you from a place called Porny Place Publishers, and they're exactly the kind of books that will get you noticed at the next meeting at your book club!... maybe even by that Amway heiress from Omaha... or a European count from a postage-stamp principality!... Yay!!!

Here you go!... "Homosexual Train"… is followed by "Gender Reassigned Tramp Steamer", "I'm Bi On My Tricycle", "Daughters of Lesbos 18-Wheeler", “Tranny Trolley”, “Homo Hobo Highway”, and "Queer Studebaker"... the final books in the series are... "I Became A Eunuch On A Unicycle"... "Wimp Wagon Weenies"… and "Man-Lady On Roller Blades!"…

[Want to read other fun and funny stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]

Sybil Bruncheon's "Aren't People Fascinating?... Muriel Desatnick..."

Muriel had always taken care of her entire family even as a child. At six, her domineering mother taught her how to do the laundry, wash the dishes, polish the silver, and to scrub the floors ("Don't forget the baseboards, Muriel!… THE DAMN BASEBOARDS!!")...

When her friends were out playing after school, Muriel was just starting some housekeeping project or another, then cooking and serving dinner, and then to bed to finish her homework before falling asleep in her pillows and school books. Week after week, semester after semester, year after year, the grades slipped through her rough, red, dish-water hands and wrinkled fingers...

Time passed, and first her grandparents, and then each of her parents passed away as well... until finally, she was alone. Blessédly alone.

At 58 years of age, she had spent nearly her entire life taking care of her family's needs like a maid, a common maid. Was it any surprise, once the last funeral had been arranged and attended, that Muriel's first solitary night in the house was a restful one? The guests for the wake had left, the dishes were in the sink, the leftovers were on the counters, glasses and cups on the side tables... Muriel looked around and breathed a sigh of relief. A sigh of relief that had decades of baggage and heft behind it, and deep, deep subtext running through it. Her sigh contained a level of release and gratitude that few people would ever experience... or even imagine. And then, slowly and almost imperceptibly, these years too began to slide by... but this time, with a simple quiet joy, too quiet and simple for other folks to notice or understand, but rich and lovely enough for Muriel. Colored, and vivid, and flavorful for Muriel. Each moment a celebration of peace and fulfillment and... well... life!

And NO, to answer your question, she never, ever cleaned a single thing again in her long, long, long life. Not a single thing.

[Want to read other stories here on SybilSez.com? Just enter any topic that pops into your head in the "search" window on the upper right! Who knows what might come up?...and feel free to share them with your friends!]