Author: Patty Jones

Originally published Nov. 23, 2011.

By Patty Jones

I want to share a family secret with you – one long held in the Jones family holiday tradition – on the accepted method of “flipping the bird” at Thanksgiving.

Many years ago my mother stumbled through her early morning Thanksgiving ritual of prepping a huge turkey for the afternoon feast. Before her first cup of coffee she dropped the bird in the roasting pan and shoved it into the oven. A couple of hours later she opened the oven door and she realized she had put it in the pan upside (or breast-side) down.

By Patty Jones

I want to share a family secret with you – one long held in the Jones family holiday tradition – on the accepted method of “flipping the bird” at Thanksgiving.

Many years ago my mother stumbled through her early morning Thanksgiving ritual of prepping a huge turkey for the afternoon feast. Before her first cup of coffee she dropped the bird in the roasting pan and shoved it into the oven. A couple of hours later she opened the oven door and she realized she had put it in the pan upside (or breast-side) down. At this point the huge bird was too hot to handle so she basted it, tented it and shoved it back into the oven. The resulting bird has lingered in mouthwatering memory…

Author’s note: During the last few days I have come to know and develop a deep respect for a man I have never met. I do family history as a hobby and have been doing research on Frank’s uncle, …. What follows is what I have discovered, and what has brought me to tears a few times while collecting it all, here, for Memorial Day.
Lawrence Edward Webber, USMC, MIA – POW – KIA
Lawrence Edward Webber was born in 1920, in Malden, Massachusetts, the son of Frank Webber and Elizabeth Benson. He was the youngest of four children. He had one brother, Frank Webber (long-time local businessman and owner of Ocean Beach Camera, in the Newport Avenue area) and two sisters, Mildred and Dorothea (mother of our own editor, Frank Gormlie).

As a young man Lawrence moved to San Diego, where his siblings also lived, and enlisted in the Marine Corps on May 2, 1939 at the age of 19. He was stationed in San Diego until December 1939 when he was transported to Shanghai, China.

There may be a period of time when our site appears to be down. Rest assured it will be temporary but it could last anywhere from a few hours to a full day. Word needs to spread across the globe about where we are located. When you arrive at the new host there will be a welcome sign.

If you feel like it’s been too long for us to be out of commission try doing a hard refresh of your browser window by holding down the Control key and pushing the F5 key. If that doesn’t work, you can do a DNS flush. Since everyone is using a different operating system go to Google and search “flush dns cache” followed by your operating system. For example: flush dns cache windows 10.

We’ll see you soon!

Frank is taking a much needed break and won’t be posting much for the rest of the week. Keep posting…

Check out this fabulous view of snow in Mt Lagunas – taken from the parking lot of where Patty Jones – the tech girl for the OB Rag – works in Lakeside.

Just a heads up…

We have been sharing resources with our sister site, the San Diego Free Press and it’s time for us each to have our own place, our own space, so we can both continue to grow.

There may be a period of time when our site appears to be down. Rest assured it will be temporary but could last anywhere from a few hours to a full day. Word needs to spread across the globe about what our new address is.

While having a conversation about the upcoming Presidential debate I asked a coworker if he was going to be voting. He replied, “I wish I could, but I’m on probation.” Whoa… This was a moment in a busy shop, that is normally filled with Mitt Romney and Ron Paul supporters, where two like minded people had a few minutes to chat. The young man I was talking with is quiet about his political affiliations and before I could respond to his statement we were surrounded by republicans, once again.

Once I was back at my desk I did a quick internet search and printed a page from the Northern California ACLU website that I handed to him later in the day. He thanked me with a big smile on his face.

Pagan religions believe there are three stages to a woman’s life; the Maiden, the Mother and the Crone. The Maiden is mostly concerned with her own life and thinking about what the future holds for her. The Mother centers on caring for the family, children, partners and parents. The Crone (once a dreaded word that conjured images of the crazy cat lady who lived on the edge of society) has “been there, done that” and can refocus on herself and then, if she’s a mind to, the world at large.

A Very Personal Journey

You know, I never really had an issue with getting older. That was until, one day, I starting feeling older. Every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror or in a photograph… And I’d think, who in the hell is that old woman? She looks like my mother!

It’s been an interesting week here at the OB Rag admin desk with three major bouts of downtime. I’ve spent a good number of hours deciphering error logs, tweaking settings and chatting with tech support.

It seems one major concern for us is the amount of comment spam that hits our server at regular intervals. We have excellent spam filters (Akismet) that keep 99.9% of this crap from showing up on the site where you, dear reader, can see it. But that doesn’t keep it from reeking havoc behind the scenes.

Who doesn’t want a chance to be in the OB Holiday Parade! We contacted Patricia Hume, who was mentioned in the comments of the OB Holiday post we put up last night, and received an enthusiastic reply from her when we asked if we could help promote her idea of having an “Occupy the North Pole” contingent in the parade this year.

This opportunity is open to anyone, particularly Occupy people, just remember to stay in the theme of the Holiday Parade and in the realm of the North Pole.