I am near midpoint in a class for office career/ training, refreshing skills I have not used in a while; we are taking a test, I finished and think I aced it, but time will tell. It is strange remembering the things you did not know you forgot, and working with the few things that do not transfer from XP to Vista, they seem to function a bit differently and Vista docs do not seem to transfer back to XP smoothly when you send them out.
I have read and completed the assignment for today and have completed the assignments for Section 1 in the book, so here I sit with time on my hands.
I pass an interesting house when I travel to and from class. the street signs are flash from the past, the sixties to be sure, there is one faux pas, the sign that says Hippies use the side door, or something like that (I hope it all shows well in the pictures), They did not call themselves hippies sin San Francisco during that time, in fact they disliked the term and buried the hippie in effigy, complete with funeral. Unfortunately the individual signs do not show well enough to read, I will try my hand at zooming, no promises though.
Here is a better picture.
Winter is taking a bit of a break here in the upper Midwest. For us at this point the lower double digits feel like a heat wave, and some people are becoming a little lax with the outer wear. I have to admit I am one of those culprits. sometimes carrying my coat to the car, I made sweaters and option and sometimes just layering and not using a coat. Heaven forbid I get caught unawares, or would that be caught aware?
I have found myself thinking about Dad again, and how sad and dis-jointed I was before he passed away. Having worked in nursig homes and group homes you see the signs, the person is aware and you become confuzzled in feelings, at times pulling back, worrying too much, profoundly sad and even though you know it is coming you are completely captured in grief, missing the person at times even before they are gone.
I was thinking on my way to class today how much my neices and nephews do not know about our parents and grandparents. I met a woman last night who is writing a memoir of her parents, based on old letters they had kept, which were passed to her by various methods and relatives. Sadly, we do not have that for my parents and grand parents. To rely on memories, which fade and are not always processed the same between people, we have poorly cut puzzle pieces.
I tried a few years ago to get my siblings to write their favorite memories, not a success I might say, I may have more success with a couple of nieces, they seem to miss dad a lot.
Grandpa (my dads, dad) police officer, and then went to work for Hormel's, where he retired from. He would drink coffee all day if he could and eat straight ketchup by the spoonfuls. He was an avid fisherman and could spend all day in a boat fishing, it seemed to be his favorite hobby. Grandpa was a great cook, it is his stuffing recipe that has been passed down, definitely no stovetop here!
It is also Grandpas side of the family that heart disease came down through, he had atherosclerosis and had a few heart attacks. I remember one time when he was in the hospital, tired of being there and wanted to leave, I cannot remember the specific reason, a smoke or a coffee? anyway he went into a stair well and got locked in, he did not get out and could not get back in, he was found while they were conducting a search for him.
Dad had atherosclerosis as well, he had several heart attacks and two triple bypass surgeries at least. When he was at The hospital in Austin, he would end up with the nurses in his room playing chess or some board game during slow times at the hospital. He had a great sense of humor, he would tell wild stories to the neighbor hood children when we lived in Ramsey, he and my uncle Bill would be laid off from road construction and they would tell these wild tails together, about being cowboys, being shipwrecked at sea and riding back to shore in a whale, using it for food on the ride back.
In the summer dad would always manage to start water fights, he would begin with a small squirt gun hidden in his hand, we would feel a spritz of water seemingly from out of nowhere and move on to buckets and the hose out in the yard. Dad loved to fish, he was not as avid as grandpa, he would take anyone that would go, fishing with him. The cutest was when he took his grand nephew and god son BJ fishing and BJ caught a fish, dad was helping to reel the fish in, BJ was about six maybe and when he saw the fish kind of fight and jump he got scared at how big it was and began to run, dad had to call him back, reel the fish in and calm BJ down. When they got back to Zel and Bills, they took a picture of BJ with his fish which was about as long as BJ was tall.
I will make a file of these and other memories as they come up, I may have mentioned one or more of these stories before, but when you loose a parent these things come up now and then, you need to acknowledge them when they do.
Dad had a heart murmur which kept him out of service, he was a preemie that was not supposed to survive, his head was not deformed from the birth process, he was born at home as were I believe all of his siblings. The doctor gave him a slim chance of living through his first night, grandpa took care of him that night and he did survive, of course we would not be here if he had not.
Grandpa had a lot of home remedies for things, mustard and onion plasters were a couple of the things.
I wonder if My dads sister Zel would spend time with me and tell me the things she remembers about her parents and mine. I will call and ask, I would like to see and visit with her again; I will ask my sisters for input again as well. I think it would be easier to record these sessions.
A cropped photo from a scan of my dad.
Happy Stitches and Trails.
No comments:
Post a Comment