Lot of the good the bad and the ugly

Lot of the good the bad and the ugly

It been a while since I posted anything. As you know life can hand out a number of problem for you to get through. I have had my share. In a nutshell the good the bad and the ugly. On the bad side was trying to keep my home, a battle that it seems I could not win, the loss of income made it even harder. After a long talk with an attorney, family and friends I let the mortgage company have it and walked away and sought relief from the bankruptcy courts.  Living there I had daily reminders of my wife’s death, and the deafening silence of loneliness. Where laughter echo an empty house and one’s heart reels in pain and the clouds of sorrow form and it rains a thousand tears. It been eighteen months and I find the weather has many more storm for me to weather.

 The ugly serpent that slither through the canyons and valleys of my mind seeking out my fond memories of the fun times to torcher me. It’s called loneliness, he will not win. In a crowd of friends and family someone will ask “how are you doing” I answer I’m ok, hoping they won’t see the ugly viper squirming inside of me poised to strike and start a storm of tears. It hides when someone give me a hug and maybe a kiss, but he is still there.

On the good side of things an old friend form my youth decided to semi retire from his semiretired security job and recommend me for the job, he is still working on call. So I am now working as a security guard. That has aloud me to buy a mobile home it is a handyman special and need a little fix up here and there, but I own it outright. Working has help me put a rope on the loneliness, but it is still a problem I hope to hang it from the nearest oak someday. I hope to be able to get back to writing more often. My life now is finding some order and the future looks good. I am working on my novel and hope to finish it in January that is a tall order but I am going to try.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my blog. And as always God Bless

lot of mud

High country lone ranger

an adventure with Pete and Zeke from the spiltmilk ranch

There was a man and his young son out riding an ATV up in the high country fifty miles from any help. They came a crossed a mud hole and thought that it would be fun to blast threw it splashing mud everywhere.

 They did and it was deeper and thicker then they thought. There machine sunk in the mud to the handle bars, it was stuck good. They made their way to the dry land, and tried to think how they would get the machine out of the mud so they could go back to camp, and it was fifty miles away. The sun was getting high in the  sky and they had little water and food and a long walk, if they could not get their ATV out of the mud and if it  would still run. The man was getting worried because he knew no one would start looking for them till 

supper time six hours from now and it would be getting dark , so it would be morning before any help could arrive. 

A couple of hours pass with no luck at getting it out. 

Then a cowboy on a big white horse showed up. He said howdy and ask what the heck were they doing out here all alone on foot. The man explained how they got there and how they got stuck. The cowboy  scratched his head and squared his hat, and ask where is this thing you rode up here on. The man pointed at the handle bars sticking out of the mud.

  The cowboy ask how big is that thing. The man said it a 350 quad runner,  the cowboy said that don’t mean a thing up here, is it as big as a cow. The man said maybe a little smaller about half as big. Well the cowboy took out his rope and shook out a loop and rope the handle bars and said it kinda like roping a steer. The he took a dally around his saddle horn and said hi ho sliver let’s get where  we ain't. That ATV pop out of the mud like a cork out of a whiskey jug on Friday night. The man was very grateful and offer the cowboy a twenty for his troubles. The cowboy said that all right there is no place up here to spend it, just glad I could help. 

The man cleaned as much mud off  the ATV as he could and started it up, he and his son head back to camp via the safest route. His son said dad do you know who that man was, his said no, the boy said dad that  was the lone ranger.

The cowboy met up his partner Zeke who ask what the heck were you do down the in that old bear wallow, and he said well the were some flat-landers stuck in the mud, I help them out. Well you got out of there just in time there comes that old mama grizzly and she is not happy , I think she got a load of buck shot  form the sheepherder over there, she headed strait for the wallow. Hey Pete I can drop her from here with this 45-90. Naw Zeke let her be she the only one left up here, kinda like us and she don’t bother the cows and she get them stinking sheep ever now and then. Hey Pete what was it that kid call you. He said something about  the lone ranger, heck i ain't no ranger. Hey Zeke lets get back to the shack them beans should be ready by  now. OK  keno sabe.

thank you for stopping by and god bless

Lot of thing happen

The year was 1964 and I was off to the US Navy boot camp in San Diego, I did not know boots camped, school and graduation, I did not go to graduation, was behind me. It was a time of great excitement for me; I was on my own, for the most part. All my friends and family were left behind. I did not know it at the time, but it was the last time I would see most of them, family not included.

 Well boot camp was going fine, something new everyday. It was about two weeks and we were all standing in the clothes god gave us in this big hall, and the doctors were looking us over. They came to me and ask about the surgical scar on my knee. I told them about the surgery and they ask if they could take x-rays of it, as if I could have said no. Now I was a reservist, I was supposed to just go through the eighty day boot camp, and then return home. They ask us if there were any of us that wanted to volunteer for a two year tour of duty in Vietnam. Now as I really did want to go back home, I was having fun, so I raised my hand. It was my choice and I did not have to ask mom or dad for permission, I was going to sea and the world.

Well a couple of weeks went by, and I was aboard ship waiting to ship out, we were to have our tech schooling on our way to Vietnam, we were an electronic maintenance group. The shore patrol came and took me back to Balboa naval hospital. I had left my sea bag on-board ship, thinking I would be back. The young doctor there told me I had some growths on my knee he believed it was caner and they were going to discharge me and send me home.  Well my plans just went up in smoke; I was a little scared of what he told me.  I was going to fly home in a space-A (space available, I form of hitch hiking in the military) navy transport plane it was a Beachcraft Aero Commander L26, prop job,

I was setting in my seat and they were starting the engines. I look out the window as the right engine started to turn the prop, then I heard a loud pop and the prop fell on the tarmac, guess I am walking.  Well we got off the plane and were give train ticket to get back home. Now all this was giving me a little bit of worry about my future, would I live to see 21.

 Well the train ride went smooth and I may say I did not care much , I was drunk on old Mr. Boston sloe gin  and 7up that a fellow recruit , hi Don where ever you are,  that was head home also had got before we left the base. I got home and my dad set up an appointment with our family doctor. When we told him what the navy doc said he just laughs, and said”you have had those bone spurs all your life at least as long as I have been your doctor and their nothing to worry about.” 

Two months pass and we got some mail from the navy, I got a letter with my dd214 and my dad got a letter from the war department saying I was MIA and presume dead.  The fellows I was to go with to Vietnam were all killed on August 24 1964, there was a paper work mix up, and I was listed as one of the missing they found my sea bag.

Over the years I have had a number of things that could have been my end, but it seems someone has been watching out for me and pushes me in another direction.  This last year when my wife pass I would have ended it all cause I felt like there was nothing left for me in life, but the month before she died an old and very close friend that I believed had died, I had read a obituary of what I believed to be him, came walking up my driveway, Richard that was a shock. Then  few days later, I was on Face book and someone posted something that I new about and I new their name, it had been fifty years since I had heard their name and had to check it out, they were part of a Face book group called “Remembering Ogden, Riverdale and beyond”. I joined and found many of my friends and school mates that I had not seen or heard of or from in fifty years. I have reunited with many of them and it has save me from doing the unforgivable.

I have had many surprises in my life and few that I have seen what could have happen to me, if it had not been for something or some being pushing me down a different road.

Has any thing like this happen to you???

Thank you for stopping by and reading my true story.  God bless

Lot to remember

It has been a while since I wrote any thing. I have had a lot going on in my life my recovery from my total knee replacement was a little rough and there have been problems I had to deal with, the loss of my wife was not something I was prepared for and it been rough dealing with it. Learning to walk allover again you would think I would have down by now being I have had to learn to walk four time this being the fourth. It been a little over two years and there is still a little soreness in the knee joint, but it is getting better. The biggest problem has been taking care of my wife and her death.

This is how my late wife lived the last five years of her life. It is hard if not impossible to know what a person is thinking or know what is going on in their mind. Having live with her for forty six years I can make a best guess as to what she was thinking. I know she was afraid of everything around her. She almost daily would set and cry, I would ask her what wrong, but she could or would not tell me, when she did all she would “it’s all wrong” all I could do was hold her when she would let me.  If you can, try to put your self in her mine. Just imagine going to bed and then wakening up in a different place with different people and nothing is as what you remember.

You have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s/dementia an “illness affecting memory. a serious illness affecting your brain that makes it difficult for you to remember things and becomes worse as time passes” , along with it you  have the depression that comes with it “a psychiatric disorder showing symptoms such as persistent feelings of hopelessness, dejection, poor concentration, lack of energy, inability to sleep, and, sometimes, suicidal tendencies”.  The place you remember is the home and family when you were very young.

You went to bed last night; you took your meds so you could sleep. You just woke up, and the room is unfamiliar, but some where in the back of your mind you hope you at home.  You find someone in your house, who are they? you don’t recognize them. You are hungry so you try to cook something, but you don’t remember how to turn on the stove.  The stranger fix’s you your breakfast. How do you use the fork or spoon to eat with? You don’t know. 

The thing you have done all your life you don’t know how to do them any more. The door bell ring or the phone and you go hide in the closet. Your world is a strange unknown place. In many ways you are six years old in your mind and the thing you remember no longer exist. You look in a mirror expecting to see you’re self as you were when you were six, but the person looking back at you; you do not recognize. You watch a rerun of a TV show and it is new to you, you watch the move you watched last night and it is new to you but you have watch it a hundred times in the past month.

 At present the medication for Alzheimer’s only slows down the progress of the dementia, like the brakes on a runaway big jig going down a steep grade, they will not stop it. There is some evident that suggest that it is heredity, in my wife case she has two brother and a sister that all have been diagnosed with it and one brother pass two years ago because of it.

All though she was diagnosis six years ago, in hind site she was showing sign of it fifteen years ago.  We all forget some things over time, and for the most part it’s normal, and with a little prodding we do remember some things, with my wife she would forget going to someplace, or knowing someone. Some friends drop by and wanted to go bowling my wife love to bowl. Honey “You remember Sue and Mac they were on our bowling team?” she could not remember being on a team or them. It had only been a year since we were last together.

I don’t know how a person with Alzheimer’s feels if they hurt or are in pain, I do know it was terrifying for my wife. For me as her care giver it has been a nightmare.  At times my wife would say there is nothing wrong with her and I and the doctors were making it all up. I am still trying to understand the illness.

Well this is just the high points of the past two years, things are getting better. I had to give up my house and have been on a hunt for a new place to live. Life goes on.

Thank you and god bless 

lot of opportunity

I have heard this more time than I can count “why dose god let it happen” or “what is the propose of life”.  Well if you really want to know, think about this, how many times have you have been given the opportunity to forgive like Christ, how many time have you had the opportunity to love unconditionally like Christ? How many times have you been given the opportunity to have faith like Christ? How many times have been given the opportunity to be charitable to the needy like Christ?  It may be that life is a school of hard knocks, but there are lesson to be learn each time. I did not forget hope for Christ hopes we will learn. In school you can always ask for help form the teacher, we are in school.

I am hoping to be back to posting every day soon. Thank you and God bless