Yay!!
I have two hundred post on my blog, From my Head to Yours, in five and a half months. Minus fifteen from our guest bloggers.
Two hundred post on WordPress
Two Hundred Post
Past, present & plans: 12-7-16
Past, present & plans: 12-7-16
Past
On November 27th, I told you about the Crazy Eight Club. It included first cousins; Keith and his younger brother Ernie, Ronnie and Dean, Clyde and Ray, then me and my younger brother, George. We were all within three years of age.
It’s now a half a century later and the first to die was Ronnie. All of us were a several years into drinking and drugging when Ronnie caught the train and left us.
He huffed glue on a regular basis and one or two other cousins did too. This is one of the few mood and/or mind altering substances that I never tried, so I don’t know the actual effects it has on the mind.
On one particular evening it effected the family in an extremely ugly and gruesome way. At one time we all lived in Kentland, Maryland and just north were some train tracks. These were not the slow moving locomotives, they were the speedy moving Amtrak trains.
It was found out later, that Ronnie was high on glue, when he tried to catch the single head light on the fast moving train. Of course this killed him instantly. There were pieces and parts of him all over the train and tracks.
The people in charge knew it was Ronnie from finger prints. One of his thumbs was found further up the tracks.
The Crazy Eight Club was then known as the Somber Seven.
Present
The water pump went on my van last Friday night. Luckily there’s a very good mechanic that lives on the corner and for some reason he gave me a price break. While he had it up on jacks, he fixed many other issues that have been plaguing me for quite a while. I’m very grateful for his friendly efforts.
I think I have told you guys, that I get very little money from the government every month, but thankfully I was able to pay for these parts and labor in full.
Plans
I was going to try and get a used camera this month, but now that can wait. I do have a 13 megapixel camera on my phone, which takes adequate pictures. In fact, very good pictures.
Nikon D3300, digital SLR
As of late, while researching cameras, I found out that the higher priced camera’s consist of the body and interchangeable lens. The plan is to find a used name brand camera with a fixed lens, then at a later date get a used body so I can interchange it’s lenses.
Eventually I could hang the single fixed lens and the body with a different lens around my neck, that way I could easily go between landscape lens and DSLR lens.
Your three words, my little story: Earlene’s words
Your three words, my little story
Earlene’s words: proud, humble & sunny
It’s a beautiful SUNNY afternoon, but it didn’t pan out to be a good one. John was cruising along at sixty miles an hour and his car just died in the middle of the road. Everything stopped working; the radio, the dashboard and the power steering.
He’s never been a HUMBLE man, but when you can’t even roll your window down, anyone would feel powerless.
Luckily John’s son, Burt, is a mechanic. After fifteen minutes of turning the key with no results he called him. Burt said, “Dad, why don’t you take a walk and smoke a cigarette and let’s see if the car starts when you come back. If it doesn’t call me.”
“How will a cigarette help?”
“The cigarette won’t, but sometimes a car needs a little time to reset.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll call you one way or the other. Love you son.”
“Love you too dad.”
After burning a couple of smokes, he slipped back into his seat and turned the key. He was amazed when it started. His son knew exactly what to do and he wasn’t even there.
John always wished his son would work with wood like he does, but now he knows they’re both, good at what they do. That’s something to be PROUD of.
Guest blog: Learning to Drive by Gwyn Warren
Guest blog: Leaning to Drive by Gwyn Warren
I could have gotten my driver’s license when I was 16, like all my friends, but Mother put her foot down, “No!” I would learn to drive, just like she did and take the written and driver’s tests, just like she did. (We had a State Patrolman at the time who really loved young people and would see to it they got their driver’s license without passing either test.)
As a result, I was 21 years old before I finally picked up the nerve to try for my license. I had been using my learner’s permit for six years; now, they wouldn’t renew it again. If I hadn’t learned to drive in six years, they figured I would never learn. Actually, I had been driving, even on long trips; but, when I thought about going for the tests, my palms got all sweaty, and I had trouble breathing. But, if I ever wanted to drive again, I had to go for it.
The written test was first. I had just about memorized the Driver’s Handbook, so I aced it. The patrolman was very impressed. “Are you ready to go drive, little lady?”
As I approached the traffic light on the square, the patrolman said, “Doesn’t look like there’s any traffic, so since I am in here with you, you can go ahead and cross against the light.” I declined and he was amazed, telling me that was usually when most people failed their driver’s test.
I completed the route and got back to the courthouse when he told me to parallel park. I knew there was no way, so I was honest with him. He told me I could pull past the intersection, and back into the last parking space in the first block. If I could do that okay, he would accept it as parallel parking. Thank God for “curb feelers”. (Does anyone remember those?) I executed that maneuver perfectly.
When we got inside, he had given me a 98 on the driving test. He explained he couldn’t give me 100 since I couldn’t parallel park; so, he knocked off two points because I seemed extremely nervous driving. I could have hugged him right there.
The block in which I parked had about an 18″ rock wall that ran along the inside of the sidewalk. When I turned right to go back to work, I somehow managed to get up on the sidewalk and scrape that rock wall the full length of mother’s car. I looked at the damage when I got back to work and just knew Mother was never going to let me drive again.
As soon as I got back into the plant, I went upstairs to the department she supervised and told her what happened. She and the other ladies who worked for her thought it was hilarious, and I was in tears.
After work, she let me drive out to my grandmother’s. She was not in very good health, so Mother went by every day to check on her before we drove on home. It was dark by the time we left; but, Mother insisted that I drive on home.
About two miles from home, in a long stretch of road, a cat dashed across in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes. The car spun around twice and we wound up in a ditch on the opposite side of the road heading the wrong way. Mother said, “Kill us if you have to, but, for God’s sake don’t kill that possum.”
“Possum?’ I questioned. “I thought it was a cat!”
“Possum or cat, what difference does it make? We could have been just as dead either way.”
She got the car out of the ditch and drove the rest of the way home. I wish I could say that was the last time I ever did something that stupid, but it wasn’t. I dodged a group of dogs one night, spinning the car around and ending in some man’s yard going the wrong way. Another time I approached a dead end road going too fast and put us in the ditch. She was always as calm as a judge when I did these crazy things.
I think God gives parents’ nerves of steel when teaching their children to drive. When my daughter was learning to drive, I decided to let her drive on the interstate thinking it would be a lot safer than crooked country roads.
Once she pulled over to the side of the road to let me drive and I told her she could drive for a while longer because she hadn’t scared me at all. When she got ready to start again, I told her to turn on her left signal, check her rear view mirror to make sure it was clear then pull onto the highway. As she pulled out, I heard the distinct horn of an 18-wheeler and my blood froze.
“Mom what am I supposed to do?” she cried.
I answered, “She asked as she pulled in front of a tractor-trailer.” We both then got tickled and I explained that she was supposed to have waited until the rig passed us before pulling out. After that, I was a nervous wreck trying to teach her to drive. In the end, I turned that chore over to my brother-in-law and husband.
I appreciate now, more than ever, the patience Mother had when I was learning to drive. If she hadn’t taught me, there would have been no one else. She didn’t learn to drive until several years after Daddy died; so, I think she realized how important it was for both her girls to learn to drive.
Random thoughts: Psyche, part three
Random thoughts: Psyche, part three
In part one, I wrote about the different deaths of my immediate family. In part two, I told you about my inability to get back on the diet and how disheartening that has been. The combination of part one and two promptly led to depression.
Part three: Depression
Over the years, I have fallen prey to what I used to call, “A funk.” These funks weren’t often and they didn’t last long, but looking back on it, they were a major part of my life.
Sometimes, when friends would ask me to join them, I would decline saying, “I’m in a funk.” Or I would makes excuses of why I couldn’t hang with them. Maybe these cop-outs were because I didn’t understand what was happening in my life, concerning depression.
During these funks, I would be paralyzed with fear and immobilized behind closed and locked doors. If there was a knock at the door, I would peek out of the tightly drawn curtains in fear of having to talk to someone. I would have no reason to hide, but I would bury my head in the sand anyway.
At times, my best friend Raymond, would be the only person I would let in. When I say let in; I’m not talking about, letting him in the door. I mean letting him into my crippled state of mind. It never registered all these years, that I falling prey to depression.
Several years back, I had four unrelated issues hit me all at once. One or even two at the same time would have been tolerable, but I wasn’t able to deal with all of them on my own. So I sought professional help and it’s a good thing I did, because my thoughts weren’t drifting to self preservation.
With the latest Thanksgiving holiday and the diet failure it was a forgone conclusion that depression would soon set in and it did.
This is not a call for help, but it has helped tremendously to write about it.
The Houseboat Poet 