This Old House

The history, charm, and character of old houses
is great. I can't imagine not living in an old
house. My house was built in 1924. Unfortunately,
I know next to nothing about the history of this
house. I am pretty sure no one ever died here
because I've never gotten the heebie-jeebies here.
Not that I believe in ghosts, because I don't.
However... at my old house there was one bedroom
that always gave me the shivies. I always thought
it was all in my mind, until... when I sold the
house my real estate agent told me that she didn't
like "that blue room". She "felt a presence" in that
room. I had never mentioned how I felt about
that room to anyone, so I thought it was a little
strange when she said something about it. Then
I had a cleaning lady come in and she refused
to clean that one room. She said there was
someone there and it scared her so she wouldn't
go in the room.

Yeah anyway, this old house of mine is falling
apart. The porch steps were really bad. The porch
decking was squishy.

I'm having new steps and decking built as I write this.
Sigh. All my dreams of any sort of vacation in the
near to somewhat near future have flown out the
door. I was hoping to go to Paris and Barcelona.
Humph. C'est la vie.

I built a lightbox. http://www.ourmedia.org/node/253481

Willy loves it.



I've had a bit of fun with it.




Have you ever wondered about the origin of "heebie-
jeebies"? It seems pretty certain that it was invented
about 1923 by the American cartoonist Billy De Beck. Its
first appearance, in a slightly different spelling, was
in one of his Barney Google cartoons in the New York
American on 26 October 1923: “You dumb ox — why don't
you get that stupid look offa your pan — you gimme the
heeby-jeebys!" De Beck is also known for coining other
slang, such as hotsy-totsy and horsefeathers.

This got me thinking about the words that have been
used and coined by The Simpsons.
D'oh!
Meh.
Okily-Dokily.
Yoink!
Jebus.