A lot of the things my mother had hanging in my home in Callicoon Center, I've kept just as she left them and I've added a few of my own. In the kitchen she had one that I think is a Pennsylvania Dutch saying that I've saved - The Hurrier I go The behinder I get.

I bought her three hot plates at Sullivan Surplus in Liberty one year that had paintings of birds on them.

She hung them on the wall next to the refrigerator. I hung some pictures on that refrigerator that were online of animals such as dogs in funny poses and cats and dogs sleeping together.

A cartoon which my mother cut out of a newspaper and hung up shows a doctor telling a woman in a hospital bed, “We're sorry Mrs. Jones but we had to remove one of your livers.”

I was laughing at a plaque I saw in a shop in Roscoe which read, “My house was clean yesterday. Sorry you missed it.” A friend who was staying with me bought it for me and I hung it in the kitchen.

Hanging on the enclosed front porch were two ceramic plaques. One was the Lord's Prayer and the other The Ten Commandments. The Lord's Prayer turned into a two part prayer because I broke it, which was better than breaking the Ten Commandments.

I had two cats before TJ. One was Morris who looked just like the Morris that was seen in TV commercials at the time. He wasn't very bright. When a door was open a little and he wanted to go out, he would push on the wall instead of the door. His picture is hanging over my washing machine and I added the caption: When you're this handsome, you don't have to be smart.

The other cat was Al Capone, who would sleep on my bed with both paws over his face so the caption I added was “I get so embarrassed when she gets undressed in front of me.”

One should be careful about what to hang up. One time my dad stopped in to see a friend in Callicoon Center who had relatives visiting him. He didn't have room for them to stay overnight at his house so they were about to go to a motel in Liberty. Then my father came up with a better idea. Since he had plenty of room at his house, he invited them to sleep there. The couple staying with him happened to be black.

Now my father's last name was Krantz and he had towels with just his last initial on them. I was hoping he didn't have three of those towels hanging together because if he did that couple may have took off for Liberty after all. The quote may have crossed their minds. “Give me Liberty or give me death” and I'm sure they would have chosen Liberty.