Los Cuatro Ojos

A Fertility Goddess?… I’m A Believer… Chao Mae Tuptim’s Shrine

20 years ago…After a 10 year childless marriage… And after having been told that I could never father children (courtesy of a little nuclear reactor incident)… I made a request at this shrine… And Lo and Behold!!… #1 son will be 19 soon… We had offered Chao Mae Tuptim a gift of oranges and a little wooden elephant if we had a son… Less than 2 years later, She came through. 4 years after that… we made good on our arrangement and asked for another one, please. 6 years after the first one … #2 son showed up. Best deals of my life. Straightforward…Simple… Sons for sacks of oranges… Payable ASAP… Now… as a father of 3, all of whom arrived relatively late in my life… Chao Mae Tuptim is still spoken of quite reverently around my house.

My friend Alf from over at Corkscrew-Balloon.com asked whether I wanted him to take pictures of a few spots in Bangkok for old times sake… So naturally, I asked him to stop by Chao Mae Tuptim’s Shrine and take a pic or two. He came through like a champ!

Yes… Those long things are what you think they are! They’re called linghams… But they represent penises. Madame Tuptim likes them… A lot!! But what do you expect at a fertility shrine? I couldn’t imagine going to get a big wooden or stone one (although apparently there’s a market for them)… So we went the wooden elephant statue route along with the sacks of oranges.

Someone was VERY, VERY grateful!

All pictures courtesy of Corkscrew-Balloon.com

There are lots more pics over at Corkscrew-Balloon... Along with a little bit of stuff Alf dug out of his archives that allude to another era in the life of TheFourEyes.

I’ve asked for and received permission from the Mama Bear to write up some reminisces of the Old Days before she took over my life. She’s gotten to the point where the memories of this high mileage old fart don’t irk her as much as they did when I still had the will to try to relive some of them! I’m working on one that maybe Alf will post while he’s still in Bangkok.

Seen On A Tee Shirt

And my favorite…

The Magnetic Man (Liew Thow Lin)

Believe it or not… My Father -in- Law can do something like this. He does it with spoons…. My wife does not have this “gift”… We’ve never checked the kids.

Liew Thow Lin, a 70-year-old retired contractor in Malaysia, made news for pulling a car twenty meters along a level surface by means of an iron chain hooked to an iron plate on his midriff. He says that he discovered he had the amazing ability to make objects stick “magnetically” to his skin, and now he’s added car-pulling to his repertoire. After reading an article about a family in Taiwan who possessed such power, he says he took several iron objects and put them on his abdomen, and to his surprise, all the objects including an iron, stuck on his skin and didn’t fall down. Since this “gift” is also present in three of his sons and two grandchildren, he figures it’s hereditary.