Past, present & plans: 12-17-16

 

Past

 

I’ll start off reminding you of the Crazy Eight Club, that ended up to date as The Final Four. The first to die was Ronnie, he was the oldest of Ronnie and Dean. The next was Ray, he was the youngest of Clyde and Ray. Then my brother George, he was the youngest of Jim (me) and George.

 

Remember, all of us were within three years of age. After George, there was only one remaining pair, it was Keith and Ernie. So far we had an older and two younger’s die, so that meant by the numbers the remaining eldest should have gone next. Although, it didn’t happen that way, only God’s plans are executed.

 

Dean was the next to die in March of 2009, meaning one pair was gone all together. However, he did not die of an accident or suicide. He died from a disease called Amyloidosis, Amy for short.

 

Amy is a rare disease, where an abnormal protein called Amyloid, attacks any tissue or organ and eventually will break that body part down, till the patient dies. Often the demise can be very painful. There is no cure for it, but it can be slowed down with the right treatment.

 

A number of Dean’s siblings have died and/or still suffer from this devastating affliction. Please pray for the comfort of Dean’s sister, my cousin, Cheryl.

 
Present

 

Two nights ago the temperature dropped to 12 degrees and last night the lowest was 28. Today we had freezing rain till noon. I pretty much hunkered down in my boat going on three days now.

 

Plans

 

Move south, 😊

 

Past, present & plans: 12-13-16

 

Past

 

In 1985 my brother, George, was part of the remaining group of male first cousins, known as The Sad Six. I have wrote about George extensively and probably will not stop. He was the next one to leave The Crazy Eight Club, when he took his life by suicide.

 

 

My soon to be second wife, Diane, two sons and I were up from Norfolk, Virginia, visiting family in October of 1985, when tragedy struck. We were sleeping in mom’s living room the second night there, when George came in late. I said, “Hey,” he drunkenly grunted something half under his breath and went back to his bedroom.

 

George use to load his own ammo, so he could have easily design a shell to be as quiet as he wanted. Later the police thought, he might have waited till the nightly train came by, to pull the trigger.

 

 

Mom woke me up in the morning and asked me, “Jim can you look at George, I think something is wrong? We might need to call an ambulance.”

 

I walked to the opened door at the end of the hall and saw him laying in his bed across the room. I knew he was dead and yelled to mom, “Call the morgue.” Don’t know why I said it like that, guess I was in shock. I should have closed the door, went back to the kitchen, hugged mom and called the police myself.

 

I took a couple of steps toward the foot of his bed and noticed the dried streams of blood that had flowed down his cheeks. One from each eye, one from each nostril and one from both sides of his mouth. I stepped to his right, my left and saw his 357 Magnum revolver by his side, laying in his right hand.

 

Then we were, The Thirty Something Five.

 

Present

 

I had three doctor appointments today. The first two went off without a hitch, but as I was standing in front of the receptionist for my third appointment, she asked for a referral that I didn’t have.

 

By the time my family practitioner’s office faxed it over to my lung specialist, I was sitting at the local Starbucks and had to make another appointment for next Monday. I seem to be breathing much better in the cooler weather.

 

I was enjoying my tea, when I found out that I spent more money, than my checking account had in it. Crap, that’s going to cost me!

 

 

Plans

 

I believe I’ve told you guys, that I sit on the board of the local CHRISTmas in April organization.

 

 

Today another member and myself will look at four houses, that are in need of repair. The applications and our suggestions will then be submitted to the board for consideration. All that are approved will be remodeled on one day in May of 2017.

 

 

We looked at one the other day, we will look at four today and then two or more tomorrow.

 

 

It’s a good feeling to help those in need, especially with a trade I can no longer physically do, because of my COPD.

 

Past, present & plans: 11-27-16

 

Past

 

I told you guys about my first cousins and that we were known as, The Crazy Eight Club. Then Ronnie died and at that point we were considered, The Somber Seven. We really weren’t known as neither of these, but for the sake of my stories I will count us down.

 

In July of 1983, Ray was the next cousin to die. I’m not sure who or how many people were with him, but they were horsing around, when he fell to his death in Mountain City, Tennessee. Ray slipped on some loose gravel at the top of a cliff, that was about a hundred feet above a water filled gravel pit. The pit was ninety feet deep, which made it difficult to find and bring him to the surface quickly.

 

 

That left us with The Sad Six

 

Present

 

Over the last few months I’ve had three separate dreams, where I had a boat stolen from me. A lot of times my dreams will start out sensible, then go totally haywire.

 

I saw a pontoon boat for sale, that I really liked at a boat yard. After I bought it, I hung out for awhile, then went down the dock for some bait and water. When I came back the boat was gone and so was the guy I bought it from. A little later I saw them in the cove leaving. No one was around, so there was nothing I could do, but watch my boat float away. I woke up pissed off and embarrassed, that someone took advantage of me.

 

The second one took place at an island. I beached my boat and went ashore to find some food in the woods. When I came back, the boat was gone. I was stuck on the island, but I did have a grocery cart full of food from some store.

 

 

In last night’s dream, the third boat was stolen from me. It was in a diagonal parking spot on the other side of the road. However, it wasn’t on a trailer and there wasn’t any water around at all. I was at a cook out, where everyone was staying in tents in a wide median between two roads. We were all friends and everyone liked me.

 

Slowly people started to leave, then all of a sudden everyone was leaving. I turned to look at my boat, then realized, I had to go to the motel room and get my luggage. I came back and the boat was gone. I guess I knew I was dreaming, because I kept looking away then back, thinking the boat would be back when I turned around.

 

I stood there and watched everyone leave and when they were gone, I asked for help. All of a sudden no one was there. I woke up and again I was pissed and embarrassed. It took an hour for me to realize that I was pissed off at a dream.

 

I live on a boat, so I hope no one steals it.

 

 

Plans

 

I don’t have money to buy any CHRISTmas gifts, so I think I’ll get lost on the eighteenth and come back out of hiding on the twenty sixth.

 

 

Jesus is the reason for the season. Merry CHRISTmas everyone and please be safe.

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.

 

 

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.