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