When I turned into a grocery store date checker is anyone’s guess. It’s certain I didn’t get it from my Momma when I was a teenager. First of all, back then I doubt they put dates on milk bottles, but may have on meats, or other perishable items, back in the mid-to-late1950s.

Now I reach past three bottles of milk in the store to find the one that will give me just one more best-if-used-by day.

It’s hard cooking for just one now, and I even had a difficult time when it was the two of us.

Bill, my late husband, used to say I didn’t know how to make stew, or chicken and noodles, without making enough for “Cox’s Army.”

Just now I Googled that saying, and found out that it’s actually: “Coxey’s Army.”

Also, I must have misunderstood Bill, who knew, and loved history.

So, I learned Mr. Coxey’s 1894 army of unemployed men “were protesting the economic depression of the time.”

Nowadays it seems that someone, or some group, is always protesting something in America.

Hey, I get it: Freedom of speech is one of our many rights as Americans.

Protests are currently going on in other countries, too, and some aren’t exactly known for being “lands of the free.”

I am thankful for our country’s Bill of Rights that include these freedoms: * Freedom of Speech: The right to express yourself without government censorship.

* Freedom of Religion: The right to practice any religion, or no religion at all.

* Freedom of Assembly: The right to meet peacefully with others * Freedom of the Press: The right to publish, and express news and opinion * Right to Petition the Government: The ability to ask the government to make changes, or address problems * Protection from Unreasonable Search and Seizure: Limits on how the government can search your property * Right to a Fair Trial: The right to a prompt, fair trial by jury, with legal representation * Due Process of Law: The right to fair legal procedures before the government can take your life, liberty, or property.

Those rights don’t allow us to go out and shoot someone because we disagree with them, and/or their politics. But we do have laws that allow us to deal with people who break our state and federal laws. I don’t remember dealing with all these issues that we have today.

Although, I can remember exactly where I was Nov. 22, 1963: I’d just turned 19 two months before a United Press International wire service teletype operator ran down the hallway at work. She yelled that President John Kennedy had been shot, and killed, in Dallas.