Smiley Anders for Oct. 12, 2009

• By SMILEY ANDERS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Oct 12, 2009

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I learned of the death of Lorraine Exner, just short of her 89th birthday, when I returned from my vacation.

For many years she brightened this column with her witty verses and quips:

“You know you’re getting old if you’d like to remain indignant about the news but you can’t remember it.”

“If you always know your way, where’s the fun of exploring?”

“Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.”

And about child-proof lids:

“The latest bane of my existence
Is containers with built-in resistance.
Just hide the medicines from kids, and give us user-friendly lids.
You can picture my less than saintly prose
When things say ‘Open’ but only close.
Each time I struggle with jar, can or bottle,
I think of folks I’d like to throttle!”

At her funeral service, her grandson Ben, who evidently inherited her poetic skills, offered this remembrance:

“Well, now she’s a white-water rafter;
(there’s no arthritis in the great hereafter).
But she’ll be here again,
And you’ll know she’s here when
You find yourself filled with her laughter.”

Speaking Southern
Dr. George Bourgeois of Opelousas adds to our seminar on Southern accents:

“I have noticed a tendency in parts of the South, not so much south Louisiana, but north Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia and other places, to make single-syllable words into two syllables.

“An example is the sales lady in an Atlanta store who waited on us.
“Commenting on the weather, she said it certainly had been ‘wahwum.’ ’’

Multilingual dining
“Papa Bear” says he and his wife were delighted when some of the new Filipino teachers now working in the East Baton Rouge school system offered to prepare a home-cooked meal  as a way of saying thanks for the warm welcome they received when they first  arrived  here:

“When they asked if I liked Filipino food, my wife responded for me before I could open my mouth.