CIRCLE OF FRIENDS

I hope that all who read this have a complete circle of friends as follows.

C… This is for your cherished friends, those that you want to be your friends no matter what happens. Those who have seen you through some rough times and still remain close.


I… These are your indispensable friends. The ones you think that if they weren’t your friend you don’t know what you would do with yourself. These are the friends that if you call them in the middle of the night for help they will be there, no questions asked. These friends are few and far between. Count yourself very lucky if you have even one of these type friends.


R… This is for your religious friends, you know, those friends you only see at church. Your only contact with them is usually on Sunday. They might visit you if you are in the hospital or pray for you when you are sick. Don’t get me wrong these are important friends to have.

C… These friends serve a dual roll in your life. They are not only friends but confidants. These friends you tell your deepest dark secrets to, knowing full well that they will go to their deathbed with out telling the information.

L…These are your lasting friends. The ones that you have grown up with or have known for many, many years. You sometimes have someone that may also be a friend,but they just don't fit into lasting friends.

E…This last letter could stand for everyone. If we could live our lives to consider all we meet to be a potential friend. Think how our circles might grow.

I am hoping as you read this you thought of some of your cherished, indispensable, religious, confidant, lasting friends or maybe you just thought of everyone!

Alas my circle of friends is not complete, but I am still working on the list. If yours isn’t keep trying!

Remember that friendships are like flowers, they need a little work and nurturing once in a while. Call today what you might consider a long lost friend. They may be the one that will help you complete your circle of friends!

HOW IN THE WORLD ?

Did you ever ask youself this question.

I was walking across my yard the other day. I came upon a little pile of rocks. I wondered, how in the world did those get there. Now these rocks weren’t any that matched any rock within a mile of my house.

I picked them up and threw them out in the road so that the lawnmower would not get them and sling them who knows where.

Now this is not the first time for rocks and a lot of other strange little things that I have picked up in my yard.

This stuff went on for awhile back about 25 years ago. Suddenly it all just stopped.

Now it has started again in the last 5 years.

I never knew what I might have found 25 years ago, and I am still surprised by some of the items I find today.

Some might think that I have gremlins visiting my yard at night.

I believe I have a better explanation, CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN!

When my 3 girls were younger I was always saying out loud HOW IN THE WORLD DID THAT GET THERE! I now say the same thing because of my grandchildren, but now I just mumble to myself.

Just try sometime to explain to a little one with a play set of golf clubs, why they don't have any little white balls (that hide in the grass) to hit.

As best as I can estimate, I still have about 10 years of finding unusual things, and chopping up something, (no matter how hard I look) when I walk across or mow my yard.

How in the world will always be used around my house inside and out

I can hardly wait for my Great Grandchildren!

VISITING A DENTIST, UGH!

I HATE DENTISTS! Well I don’t really hate the people who practice dentistry, just what happens every time I visit one.

I got my first toothbrush when I was about 5 years old. It was given to me by a Fuller Brush salesman. Some of you probably never heard of those guys, except maybe in a joke. This little brush was yellow and had black bristles. If I still had it today I could sell it on e-bay. I used baking soda to brush my teeth, we never had any toothpaste. You have to remember this was in the country in 1951, things were different then.

I tried to take care of my teeth most of my life but I never had much luck. Don’t wait till you are grown and try to get them all fixed then because it doesn’t work that way. I have had just about every procedure but caps done to me at one time or the other. Some of my worst experiences were a root canal, a dry socket, and a partial that was done by an old man that called himself a dentist.

I thought all these were as bad as it got till yesterday! I went in to have one little front tooth pulled at 10:00 am. I got home at 3:00 pm. The dentist said it would take no more than 15 min. to pull the tooth. That was the first dentist! After almost 2 hours he gave up and sent me to an oral surgeon. His assistant said it would take about a minute, thirty min later it was finally out. My whole jaw is so sore that I can barley stand it. It feels like the surgeon sowed my lip to my front gum line!

If I ever get another toothache I am going to go to a bar, get drunk and call the biggest guy in there a sob. .Then I will just stick my face out real far and let him do his work. It sure as heck won’t hurt any more, and probably be a lot cheaper too. The one good experience I had was when I was about 7 or 8. I was one of the first peopl in West Virginia to be put to sleep for a dental procedure. I still have a little card proclaming me as a pioneer something or other.

My upper teeth are now like the stars. They come out at night! Even if you take care of your teeth now, do it better! They are the only ones you will ever have. I know that I have brought most of this on myself because of my like of attention to my teeth. But I still don’t like going to the dentist even if it’s just to get my teeth, (what’s left of them) cleaned. Later.

Childhood memories

These are some of my childhood, through my twenties, memories.
One of my daughters can tell you the color of the doctors shirt and pants when she was delivered. Alas my memory is not that good. But I want to record here some of the best and some of the not so great memories, for me to look back on if nothing else.
My earliest memory is around 4 or 5 years old, I was playing on the little stoop off our front porch. The sun was real warm as I waited for my brother to come home from school. I lay down on the wood and it felt nice and cozy and I promptly went to sleep. My brother came in from school, stepped over me and let me sleep for the next two hours. This was around 1951 or so.
Around 1956 I was in school at George C. Wymer Elem. I don’t remember what I did, but the teacher would not let me go to lunch with the other kids when we were supposed to go. When she finally did let me go, the cooks had already cleaned up all the food and I didn’t get any lunch that day. When I got home I told mom what had happened. She went to school with me the next day and was going to whip the teachers butt, but cooler heads prevailed and the teacher apologized to me, but we never did get along the rest of the school year.
I went to six different grade schools and three junior high schools while growing up. Needless to say long lasting friendships were never to be had by me.
At one elementary when we had recess there was one little girl that no one wanted to play with, just because she was real small even though she was the same age as the rest of us. Being the new kid in school (as often was my plight) I went over to her and asked if she would like to go down the slide, I remember how her eyes lit up and her big smile. She was so small that she could barley get up the steps, but I stayed right behind her so she wouldn’t fall. I also had to lift her up so she could swing. We became buddies on the playground. I’m sorry now that I can’t remember her name, but I will never forget that big smile she had.
I was around 7 and my brother Bill and I were going to the chicken coop to gather eggs. We had to go up a steep path and I was behind him. Both of us slipped on the mud at the same time. I put my hand down to catch myself and he stepped back to catch himself. The heel of his shoe came down right on my little finger. I stood up and my finger was pointing straight up from my hand (only dislocated we thought). When they had it x-rayed all the bones were crushed flat. The doctor told mom that I would never be able to bend it again. At that time in my life Liberace was one of my heroes. I wanted to play the piano just like him. I just knew that with a stiff little finger I would never be able to play anything. I remember how popular I was at Spring Hill Elem, while I had the cast on my arm, clear up to my elbow!
To shorten this memory, with determination and a lot of pain I can bend my finger just like anyone else can today. Thank you Liberace. Never did learn to play the piano though, bummer.
I went to a school on Smith Creek that had two rooms. In one room they taught 1st through 6th grade. In the other it was 7th, 8th, and 9th grades. Sometimes I would get to carry the coal in from the coal house, and at the same time dust all the erasers on the tree outside, that was a lot of fun.
I wore my shoes then till they were completely worn out. The soles would be flapping up and down with every step. A lot of the kids in that school wore shoes just like mine. One day mom and Dad came to school and I had to go outside to see what they wanted. Lo and behold they had a new pair of boots that they had ordered from Sears. When I went back into class you should have seen all the attention my new boots got, everyone said I was just soooo lucky to have new boots!
Around this same time period my Dad brought home two old beat up bicycles that a man had given him at work. They may have been old but to my brother and me they were wonderful! We had to put patches on the inner tubes. We didn’t have a pump so we had to push them real slow, stopping every so often to pull the valve stem back through the rim. We got to Clarence Adkins house which was over a mile from our house and he wasn’t home! In those days you carried your pump in your car with you. Not being ones to waste a good day we started to play with the Yellow Jackets that were all over the apples that had fallen and started to rot. A Yellow Jacket with a full belly is a lot of fun to play with when you live in the country. Well in about an hour Clarence showed up and after about 15 min we were both in heaven riding our bikes everywhere. These were what were called 10” bikes. I’ll never forget the first time I rode a 14” bike. It belonged to Clifford Hartwell. I felt like a king on that bike. This memory is just as fresh as if it was yesterday.
Speaking of Clifford, He was a neighbor. His dad drank real bad and his Mother had leukemia or lung cancer. We were out playing one day when Clifford’s Dad came to the door and yelled for Clifford like I had never heard anyone yell before. Clifford ran into the house and we didn’t see him for a couple of days. Turns out that his mother had died that day. This is the first time I can remember knowing someone that died. Oh I new people died, but I never knew them.
As I stated before about the number of schools I attended this means we moved a lot! I remember the washing machine falling off the truck during one move. Another time on April 12, don’t know what year, it snowed so hard that you could barley see the road. If that wasn’t bad enough my brother and I were riding in the back of the truck!
During my early teens Mom & Dad started to drink more, especially on Thursday and Friday nights. My brother and I started going to the movies. We didn’t care what kind of movie was playing we just wanted to get out of the house while they were drinking. Dad would take us to the theater and come back to pick us up. Most of the time he showed up on time.
Once we went up to the West Theater on Charleston’s west side. Now this part of town has never been a place to hang around on the streets at night. Anyway Dad didn’t show up till almost two hours after the movie was over. Believe me my brother and I were scared half to death! Then there was the time in late November that he left me waiting four an hour and a half. It was cold enough that I was spitting on the sidewalk and I wrote my name with spit and it froze! He said he had dozed off. Unlike today’s kids who would be screaming at there parent for being late, I just said I figured it was that or the car wouldn’t start.
Speaking of being cold. My friend Neal and I were out in our yard one day when his Dad came by and asked if we would like to go fishing. The next day was the opening day of trout season, and they were going to a lake in the northern part of the state. Neal and I were wearing jeans and t-shirts because it was about 70 or so around here. We left at 3:30 AM the next morning and got to the lake at 5:30 AM. We had to drive up a hill to the lake and there was about 4” of snow on the road. Neal and I decided then that this might not have been such a good idea. It snowed over 6” before it stopped. Neal and I didn’t even bring jackets to wear. We were cold but it wasn’t that bad. Then the wind started to blow. I don’t think I got warm for the next two weeks. Last time I ever went trout fishing also.
The first fish I ever caught was a sucker 11” long. The creek that went by our house was usually about three inches deep. But the river got high and backed up the creek to about 10 feet of water was flowing in it. My uncle Douglas said this was a good time to fish with the water standing still that way. I got my pole and some worms and in about 15 minutes I had caught my first fish. I cleaned it and put it in the freezer, but I never did eat it, I guess Mom got tired of it being in her freezer and threw it away.
One time my brother David and I were up at Little Creek Park. We were probably in our early twenties. We were over at the soap box derby track and found an old Hot Wheels trike. We started taking turns riding that thing down the track and we had a ball. Oh, I forgot to say that the front wheel had a big flat spot on it and the faster you went it about shook your head off! What fun!
It is a wonder that I am still around after some of the things that I did as a country boy growing up in rural West Virginia. I may get into some of the details later in another blog or two.
I just wonder what memories today’s kids will have. Like how many levels I got on my Nintendo. Or how long I survived on my x-box game.
I grew up in a time that was a lot simpler. But the one thing that we didn’t do back then was, we didn’t forget how to use our imaginations and our limited resources to have the most fun ever!
If you have children please make sure to stimulate their imaginations now and then. Every now and then play a game of imagine with them, believe me they will remember someday.

TRUE SHADOWS AND THE FUTURE

I want you to take a second and look at the picture of me and my grandson Isaac. We both have true shadows. What the heck is a true shadow you ask? I like to think of it as one that if you could somehow freeze the shadow and then lay down upon it, it would be the exact same size as your body. The sun has to be just right to give you a true shadow, believe it or not.

The length of the shadows of each of us represents how long a past each of us has had. The older you are the longer your true shadow. As there is no shadow in front of us this would be our futures, nothing there to tell us if we will have a long future or a short one. This is true from the day we are born.

I would expect Isaacs’s future to be a lot longer and much more exciting than my past has been. Although I wouldn’t change very much even if I could (once written etc.).

I can just imagine what he can look forward to when he becomes my age in 2056. Hopefully no more wars, no internal combustion engines in automobiles, solar power used in ways we can hardly think of today. Maybe the expanded use of nuclear energy in safe ways.

His future could also hold the use of a nuclear device in this country. Or some type of health pandemic that could cause numerous deaths. These are things that we try to put out of mind but they are always there.

He also could become some one famous for some new discovery that would benefit all mankind. Some would add that he could become President, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I have used Isaac as my model but the same is true for all my grandchildren. I just want a world where they all have an equal chance to become whatever theit future holds.

As for my self I am making a list of things I would like to do or accomplish before my shadow disappears. I am not going to list them here except for one. I want to be famous for something someday, and this is in the bag. If I do ten things a year on my list I will be famous because I will have to live to be 155 years old!

Lets all hope for a bright future for all and try to do our little bit to ensure the same. Here is hoping that you all end up with a long true shadow and a future filled with joy and laughter.

Medicine anyone?

Let me say right off that I don't like taking medicine. As you grow older it seem to become a fact of life. With todays mass marketing's of everything coming and going, it's hard to keep up with what will work and what won't. A couple of recent "news" reports have me wondering if it's worth taking anything or not.

Case #1: Glucosamine. I spent almost $40.00 dollars on a bottle of this stuff because an orthopedic doctor told me it was what he used. The day after I purchased it they are telling me on the Today show and Good Morning America that this stuff doesn't work any better than a placebo. I went ahead and took the rest of the bottle and I believe they were right - I don't see a significant improvement.

Case #2: Advair Disc. I know that this medicine works, at least for me. This little disc got me off 3 or 4 other asthma medicines. But again I was watching the two morning "news" shows and lo and behold Advair Disc medicine could kill me! I am not going to stop using the disc. It may end up doing me in but at least my last breath will be a good deep one! I think that how you believe a certain medication will work has a lot of effect on how it will work. Maybe I just need to change my viewing habits as far as "news" shows go.

Case #3: Aspartame. The latest study by independent scientist has determined that it won't cause cancer. This study is better than the ones paid for by the artificial sweetener industry, and the one sponsored by the sugar industry. That's what we need is more independent studies by people who are not predisposed to their findings.

Enough for now, have a nice day and don't forget to take your medicine, even if it kills you!

HERE GOES SOMETHING!

PLEASE DON'T WRITE ME AND TELL ME TO NOT USE ALL CAPS. I CAN SEE WHAT I AM TYPING EASIER THIS WAY. MY DAUGHTER C. FIXED ME UP WITH THIS BLOG OUTLET. I PROBABLY WON'T USE THE RIGHT SPELLING OR PUNCTUATION, BUT I WILL TRY TO BE AS CLEAR AS I CAN. RIGHT NOW I HAVE A FEW IDEAS AS TO WHAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT BUT I WILL PLAY IT BY EAR MOST OF THE TIME. SOME OF MY LOVES ARE AS FOLLOWS. I LOVE MY WIFE AND CHILDREN, 3 GIRLS. I ALWAYS WONDERED IF A MAN COULD LOVE MORE THAN ONE WOMAN. BELIEVE ME, SINCE MY GIRLS ARE NOW GROWN WOMEN I LOVE THEM EVEN MORE THAN WHEN THEY WERE LITTLE. SOMETIMES MY WIFE OF 35 YEARS REALLY GETS TO ME, BUT MY LOVE FOR HER CONTINUES TO GROW EVEN DURING SOME DRY SPELLS. I LOVE MY 4 GRANDCHILDREN SOMETIMES SO MUCH IT HURTS. I DON'T ALWAYS AGREE ABOUT HOW THEY ARE BEING TREATED OR RAISED BUT I AM SLOWLY LEARNING TO KEEP SOME OF MY INSTRUCTIONS TO MYSELF. SOME TIMES I STILL THINK OF MY DAUGHTERS AS MY GIRLS AND TRY TO TELL THEM HOW TO DO THINGS, I FORGET THAT THEY ARE MOTHERS NOW AND THEY ARE REALLY IN CONTROL MOST OF THE TIME. TWO OF MY DAUGHTERS HAVE MARRIED, AND THE THIRD ONE IS STILL LOOKING. AT LEAST I THINK SHE IS STILL LOOKING,IT'S OK IF SHE ISN'T, THERE ARE A LOT OF GOOD THINGS ABOUT SINGLE LIFE TO! I LOVE MY TWO SON-IN-LAWS ALSO. I DON'T SEE HOW MY GIRL COULD HAVE DONE ANY BETTER. THEY ARE BOTH GOOD WORKING MEN AND I AM PROUD TO CALL THEM MY SONS IN LAWS. I KNOW MY DAUGHTERS WILL READ THIS TO THEM SO I WILL ADD THAT ONE OF THEM IS A LOT BETTER LOOKING THAN THE OTHER. I DIDN'T THINK I WOULD FALL INTO THE GRANDPA TRAP. BUT IF YOU EVER MEET ANY OF MY GRANDCHILDREN YOU WOULD JUST HAVE TO LOVE THEM ALSO, THEY ARE ALL 4 SO SWEET, EXCEPT DURING TANTRUM TIME. THEN YOU COULD HAVE ALL OF THEM! WELL I GOING TO STOP NOW, HOPE I HAVEN'T BORED YOU. THIS IS MORE FUN THAN I EXPECTED! MORE LATER.