Random thoughts: favorite place in Maryland (true story)

 

Me and Raymond like to play games with people. So on the way back from Virginia, we stopped off at a Maryland Visitor Center to play one. We pretended we were from Idaho and never been to Maryland before. The center was closed, but we had the opportunity to talk to a very friendly man, that had some kind of job there.

 

Raymond asked him, “If you had a chance to see or do one thing in Maryland what would it be?”

 

The man kind of ignored the question, but he did give Raymond a couple of magazines. Raymond then told him, “We stopped at a Virginia Visitor Center and asked a lady the same question.”

 

Our guy said, “Oh?”

 

“She told us, she had no idea, because she just moved there from Wisconsin.”

 

I said, “Yeah, that was funny.”

 

A little later we were sitting at Twin Kiss, Raymond got a Strawberry Sunday and I got a medium slow cone. We started talking to some other locals and we asked them the same question. One guy said, “Annapolis is nice.”

 

The other guy said, “We just left Mallows Bay.”

 

Me and Raymond realized if we were put on the spot with the same question, we would hesitate a little also. Raymond thought we are famous for our Blue Crabs and I mentioned Ocean City.

 

Where is your favorite place in Maryland?

Random thoughts: Depression (true story)

 

Four years ago I fell into a vast crevice of depression. The reasons why, are not important to this little story. Although they are important to me.

 

I always had these rainy day blues, but didn’t know it was depression, until a couple of years ago. There would be two or three days, where I would completely shut down and do nothing. Typically, only people who are depressed or have battled this affliction can understand with any degree of compassion how it feels.

 

I had a plan. I was going to the corner of the woods sit down and pull the trigger. I didn’t, because of my sons and my sister.

 

My brother committed suicide in 1985, so if I did the same, it would have devastated my sister. She saved my life and doesn’t even know it.

 

It’s not a physical pain. It’s not like a head ache or back ache. There was not one particular reason, I just didn’t want to BE anymore and I wanted the pain to stop.

 

I lived on a farm with no one around, but still peaked out the window. If someone knocked on the door it scared me to the point I would hide. I did not want to answer the phone, door or window.

 

It has taken a lot of work with one therapist and she has become very important to me.

 

Depression is not to be taken lightly.

Random Thoughts: the garbage man (true story)

 

The other day I was pulling out of my development, when I saw a normal sight to most of us. Something that often goes undetected, it was the garbage man. He was on my side of the street getting ready to pull over to his side. He just picked up my neighbors trash and was heading to the next can. As we passed I threw up my hand and both the driver and the man hanging off of the back of the truck waved at me. They did not nod or give a little wave like motorcyclist do when they meet on the road. They both put up their hands and smiled, very vigorously I might add. They seemed to be so happy just to be noticed.

 

I’m a talkative friendly person and the older I get the more outgoing I become. I tip the mailman at Christmas and he seems to be very grateful for that, but when I wave at him I barely get a nod. I wave at my neighbors that are strangers and they either just barely put their hands up or don’t acknowledge me at all. I wave at my immediate neighbors and people that work at the marina and they barely do the same as my stranger neighbors. I admit sometimes people might not see me for whatever reason or their minds are on more pressing issues.

 

I have one friend that works at the marina and he goes out of his way to say hi to me, even yell it across the empty or busy compound. I’m sure he has no idea how grateful I am for that. To know people with a nice humble outgoing nature is one of the great pleasures in life. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that the more a person has the less sociable is the standard. Some people might think low of the garbage man, they work doing a job that most of us wouldn’t consider doing. They do it with a smile, while paying their bills.