Probably the most unrestrained White House reception in history followed the inauguration ceremonies of President Jackson on March 4, 1829. The mansion had been thrown open to the throng of people who had come to the city to see their hero sworn into office. The dignity of the occasion disappeared under the rabble, a mob of "boys, Negroes, women and children, scrabbling, fighting, romping." The damage of several thousand dollars was done in the crush to get at the refreshments. . It finally became necessary to carry out the punch and food in tubs and buckets to supply the crowd estimated at 20,000 persons. It was such a scene of confusion that people were climbing out windows and even the President escaped through the kitchen. Other dinners were described as brilliant, elegant etc. One such recollection was given by Jessie Benton, daughter of Senator Thomas Benton. " The whole stately house adorned and ready--great wood fires in every room, immense numbers of wax lights everywhere, stands of camellias and laurentia banked row upon row. After going through this silent waiting fairy-land, we were taken to the state dining room where the georgeous supper table shaped like a horseshoe, covered with every good and glittering thing French skill could devise, and at either end a monster salmon in waves of meat jelly." When the President retired to the Hermitage a steady stream of visitors began anew. When a regiment of Texas volunteers 900 strong arrived to pay their respects to the General, sheep, beeves, and chickens from the plantation were hastily prepared for the unexpected guests, in such quantity that every fireplace on the plantation was pressed into service and a wagonload of bread had to be purchased in Nashville as the Hermitage ovens could not bake that much bread on short notice. According to White House Historians Jackson served a 1400 pound wheel of cheese at one party that was said to be consumed in two hours. ____________________________________________________________ It seems that CHEESE wheels were pretty common back in those days.

Well, that certainly changes things. Romper could still use a kitten her own size to play and socialize with, since the adult males may not want to play with her or may play waaay too rough. However, Romper will learn lots of important feline social skills from the adults, and that's a very good thing! As far as introductions are concerned, young kittens are generally very easy to incorporate into a household. You will, however, need to keep them under constant, close supervision until you are certain that the males have accepted Romper, because some males will kill kittens. Even with young kittens, some adults may get their noses out of joint for a while. They may even be afraid of Romper and hiss, run, and hide from her. But this will pass as they realize that she poses no real threat. If I were you (and I have certainly been in your position), I would just start letting Romper out into the rest of the house and stay very close by as she makes her own introductions. As long as neither of your boys make any physically aggressive moves toward her, ignore any hisses and growls and just let them do whatever they feel they need to do in order to deal with the "situation". If Romper is afraid, however, hold and comfort her. She's just a tiny baby, after all. Don't make a huge fuss over her. Just hold her so that she feels protected. If she'll play, try to distract her with some type of toy so that she can associate being in the boys' presence with a source of fun. If Romper is anything like the kittens who have been abandoned on my road and/or shown up on my farm, she'll be a lot more fearful of your dog than she will be of your other cats. But as she watches your cats interact with your dog, she'll quickly learn that the dog is no threat, either. Don't force interactions on any of the animals. Let them all figure it out in their own ways and at their own paces. Just keep Romper safe and separated from the others when you are not able to directly supervise until you know that they are all accepting and comfortable with each other. Having written all of that, I feel compelled to tell you a tragic story of a kitten who was briefly a member of my family many years ago. I had two adult female cats and three dogs at the time. The dogs had all lived peacefully and happily with multiple cats their entire lives. I adopted a young male kitten who was a real pistol, as male kittens will be. The adult cats would have absolutely NOTHING to do with him, so he had no same-species playmates with whom to expend his youthful energy. Of course my ex and I played with him as often as possible during daylight hours and before bedtime, but his need for play was insatiable (again, as if often the case with young male kittens). One morning I awoke to find the kitten with a broken neck, dead, under our bed in the exact spot where our old lab always slept. Since the lab didn't have a cat-aggressive bone in her body, all I could imagine was that the kitten had decided he wanted to play and pounced on the lab in the middle of the night. I'm guessing he woke her out of a sound sleep with all those little needles on his feet, and she woke up snapping without even realizing what she was doing. His death must have been instantaneous, because we heard absolutely nothing. Needless to say, we were heartbroken. The moral to this story is to keep your kitten and your dog separated when you're not around to supervise until your kitten is old enough to have learned some manners, because tragic accidents can happen in an instant. Laurie

An older lady was lonely and decided that she needed a pet to keep her company. So off to the pet shop she went. Forlornly, she searched. Nothing seemed to catch her interest, except this one ugly frog. As she walked by the barrel he was in, he looked up and winked at her! He whispered, "I'm lonely, too. Buy me, and you won't be sorry." The old lady figured what the heck, as she hadn't found anything else. So, she bought the frog and went to her car. Driving down the road the frog whispered to her, "Kiss me, and you won't be sorry." So, the old lady figured what the heck, and kissed the frog. Immediately the frog turned into an absolutely gorgeous, sexy young prince. Then the prince kissed her back, and you know what the old lady turned into? The first motel she could find. (She's old, not dead!) *********************************************************** Mildred was a 93 year-old woman who was particularly despondent over the recent death of her husband, Earl. She decided that she would just kill herself and join him in death. Thinking that it would be best to get it over with quickly, Mildred took out Earl's old Army pistol and made the decision to shoot herself in the heart, since it was so badly broken in the first place. Not wanting to miss the vital organ and become a vegetable and a burden to someone, she called her doctor's office to inquire as to just exactly where the heart was located. "On a woman," the doctor said, "your heart would be just below your left breast." Later that night, Mildred was admitted to the hospital with a gunshot wound to her knee. *********************************************************** Have you heard about the guys who drove their pickup truck into a lumberyard? One of them walked in the office and said, "We need some four-by-twos." "You mean two-by-fours, don't you?" the clerk said. "Let me go check," replied the man, and he went back to the truck. "Yeah, I meant two-by-fours," he said, returning a few moments later. "Alright. How long do you need them?" The customer paused for a minute to think and then finally said, "I'd better go check." After awhile he returned to the office and said, "A long time. We're building a house."

More Stuff: 1. Clothes lines (Ever run under one while riding your bicycle? Gives a real meaning to the term, "clothes lined.) 2. Monday laundry day with the Maytag Washer powered by a small gasoline engine. (The engine could be cantankerous.) The washer sat outside with very little protection from the weather. 3. Introduction of the safety wringer. The safety wringer became necessary once the wringer became powered by a motor. Too many horror stories happened when the lady of the house got her hair or sleeve caught in the wringer. This safety feature came in two styles: 1) When an object got between the rollers that spread those beyond the normal diatance, the mechanism was tripped and literally came apart to disengage drive power to the roller. 2) A trip bar was placed in front to the wringers. When something got drawn into the trip bar, the mechanism came apart. In an emergency, a person could hit the trip bar to stop the wringer. 4. Fence stretchers. Used to intall barbed wire fencing. 5. Home made kites using weed stems for light weight sticks and newspaper for covering. (We had access to big, woody weeds called horseweed.) The paper was held by home made paste made of flour or corn starch. We raided the 'rag bag' for material to make the tail. 6. Rubber band powered model airplanes. (Not very effective.) 7. Cap pistols and Roy Rogers and LOne Ranger outfits. 8. Hand and foot operated air pumps for inflating tires. 9. Daisy BB guns. 10. Manual shifters and clutches - no automatic transmissions. 11. Hill holders - Kept the car from rolling backward while stopped at a traffic light on a hill. Ever try to go from keeping the car from rolling backard and shifting into gear to go forward on a hill? And do it smoothly? You needed an extra foot. 12. Brake light swithces were pressure switches plumbed to the hydraulic brake lines. Occasionaly, one would leak badly or the diaphram failed and caused loss of brakes. That's when the manual 'parking brake' became an emergency brake. In fact, in Model-A Fords with mechanical brakes, that little lever was called the emergency brake and it as needed. I know from personal experience. 13. Before combines, there were mowing machines, hay rakes, binders, and threshing machines. 14. Autos running without air cleaners could expect to need new rings every 20,000 to 30,000 miles. 15. Road draft tubes. Fumes from the crankcase was vented underneath the engine through an open tube. The end of the tube was cut on an angle. The air flow over the end of the tube induced a weak draft to help purge the crankcase. Where did the stuff go? On the road and the underside of the car. Look at photos of highways from the 1940s and you can obvserve an oil streak in the center of the lane unless the concrete was very new. This oil streak was a peril to motorcyclist when they leaned into a turn and happened to creep into this oil slick especailly if it was bit wet. 16. Steam engines on railroads. I remember the phase out of the last of these on the Balitmore and Ohio railway. 17. Hobos. 18. Huckster Trucks. During WW2 when everything was rationed, county grocery stores ran a panel truck route to their customers homes bringing basic items like bread, canned goods, sugar, spices, salt, etc. The made two runs per week. If an item was not on the truck on Monday, you could place an order and it would be delivered 2 to 3 days later on their next run. The huckester truck was given a gasoline alowance, but most farmers had only enough gasoline for their tractors and very little 'ration stamps' for tires. Autos remained parked for days on end. The national speed limit was 45 mph for private vehicles. 19. Bell bottomed trousers. 20. Pant leg clips - to keep pant legs out of the bicycle chain. - very necessary with bell bottoms. 21. Schwinn was a big name in bicycles. It no longer exists. I beleive that the tradename is still emplyed.