Do you remember when...

The mail was delivered twice a day by someone with a heavy leather bag strapped over their shoulder? And you knew his name?

The newspaper came twice a day? The Mirror, the Herald express, the Daily News? But never ever a Los Angeles Times! That was a Hearst paper and my mother would never allow that paper in her house. The Daily News and Mirror were morning papers while the Herald was the evening paper.

News Magazines were popular? We would get the Time and the Life magazines. Mother always said that Time was for people who couldn't think and Life was for people who could not read.

Story Magazines were common. Such as Colliers, Blue Book and etc? Even Cosmopolitan was a literary magazine at the time, filled with short stories...Yes, I read them all and I went to the library whenever I could. Why? Because reading is learning and that is why some people would ban some books.

Here it comes (revised)

I believe that today is the first day of Summer. And I read that we will see our first day of 100 degrees or more in about a week from now. After that there will be no holds barred and I would bet that 100 degrees will be the new daytime low temperature for the next 90 plus days. Depressing isn't it?

I imagine that is going to be the new normal for us. And I am so glad that we have solar power, even though it is an older system; we began leasing it about 5 years ago. At that time, there was no option to include battery storage and that would be the first thing I would like to add to improve the system.

So, I decided to check into the possibility of adding a battery to the system. I  went to the website of my systems operator and found a lot of interesting things to read but nothing about how to add an item to an existing system. But, I was told to get the latest app. OK, first things first...I went to the app store (Android) and tried to do just that. No luck. Remember, I am 82 years old and my fingers don't fit onto the small keyboard of a phone. I tried for 15 minutes without success. I can't use the Help Line as I am unable to talk on the phone and be understood. What to do? Easy, I give up...I will look elsewhere.

Genealogy

Yes, I am one of those...obsessed with my ancestors. I use one of the largest genealogy research companies to help me flesh out my family tree. I have begun keeping it as a 'Private' tree because I have made some mistakes on all of the branches. Now I am busy with correcting as many mistakes as I can. I could find more mistakes if I would just use the higher priced information that is available. But, it's a substantial amount of money and I am not certain that I could keep myself focused on the work to get value for my money. 

The TV program, Finding Your Roots has been helpful for me as it shows me what kind of infomation I should be searching for. It's also a very interesting program; always entertaining.

For instance, I had no idea that 'work houses' were so common. And yes, I have ancestors that had to spend time in one of them. Some of my ancestors were committed to 'asylums' and others were 'transported', which was a common sentence for murder, to the crime of stealing sheep. Transported meant life long banishment from England by sending the convict to Australia. Some times it was banishment to the American colonies or to the tropics where the convict was forced to labor in the sugar cane fieldshose. I also found some relatives that owned 'black slaves' in the South. All of these things are shameful now, but in those days, it was the 'norm'.

Americans have a long history of abusing their fellow humans. The Native Americans were the first in our recent history to be 'punished' because of their appearance.(they weren't white) and their culture. At one time, a reward was given for for the death of a Native American. California had a Chinese Exclusion law. Then there was the round up and imprisonment of Americans of Japanese descent in the 1940s. Also the theft of the Hawaiian islands by the concerted efforts of white Business men. I could go on and on but there is no end to it, any century or any place in the world, people were abusing people because they were different. Murder and theft were and are part of the human genome and it continues today.

Of course there were exceptions to the murder and mayhem. Luckily. And most of this history is simply history. 

What to do?

 I have a walker. A red one. It is my only method of transportation. But not for long, as I am getting stronger every day. Right now I have adequate walking strength but by 3 PM it starts to fade. I walk outside about 5 times a week and that walk is usually a mile long. Then it's time for an indoor and seated set of exercises (20 minutes) where I try to strengthen the muscles used for standing up and balancing. I do these exercises 6 times a week. At the same time, my voice is improving. 

Sure, I have COPD and that is what I will die from. But that doesn't mean that I'm ready to do that. I have a birthday coming (9/1) and I will be 83 and hoping to make it to 84.

Our granddaughter is staying with us right now as this year she is a coach/counselor at the Ability First camp at Chico State. (https://abilityfirstsports.ohisrg/ ) She has been a camper 3 times before this time. The camp has trasformed her! She is starting her 3rd year on the Women's Adaptive sports (wheelchair) Basketball team at the U of Arizona in Tucson AZ. If you ever donate to an organization, look at Ability First.                

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay

 

Let's get it out in the open. I have an Opinion about the South and it's not a pleasant one. That opinon is probably due to the fact that I had been stationed in North Carolina in 1960 - 61. Jacksonville to be exact. Being from Southern California, segragation  made no sense to me. Why would it matter that a drinking fountain had been used by a human of a different color? Or waiting for a bus in a separate room? Then sitting in the back of said bus? Why? As a Navy Hospital Corpsman, I already knew that all humans look alike without their skin. What was the matter with these 'chuckleheads'?

Later in my life, I went to NC again, but to see the head of our IT dep't. That was in Charlotte NC and I didn't see any segragation in places I visited. That was probably due to the fact that Charlotte had become corporate headquarters for many large corporation and the employees that had come with them didn't appear to have any problem with integration. Also NC had become a Wayback State...for those in the Northeast that had found the deep south to be less than welcoming. NC was a good place to settle on their Wayback north. 

Then, in the 90's, I was an instructor /programmer and I had to go to deepest GA to ply my trade at one our branch offices. Oh oh, it was a flashback to the 1960's! And it was always unpleasant to have to board that airplane on a Monday morning, knowing that I would have to spend the rest of the week in GA.

Now I know that there are plenty of very nice people in the South. But I have not met many of them. I hope I have a chance to do that. At the same time, I know that there are lots of Southerners that really dislike (hate?) CA. Go ahead, I can take it.

 

NCO club

Pogey Bait. 

Geedunk – candy, gum, snacks or a cafeteria

Slop chute

I'm still here

It's been a few weeks since my last post but I have excuses. Good excuses.  One, our granddaughter arrived for a 2+ week stay and then my sister and brother in law arrived for a much anticipated visit. Even during the best of times, I am not a good communicator. And this was one of the best of times and I tried, but failed. But, it is a new week and I can attempt to do better. And that I will do...

It has been more than two weeks since the first of June and Summer is upon us...sort of. We haven't had a lot of hot days. We might have had one day where the temp exceeded 100 degrees. I am not a good 'gauger' of temps anymore and with a dependable AC unit in place, we keep the temp inside at 79 degrees and I am rarely outside. I do enjoy going out onto the patio as a breeze seems to whisper through there most days and the scenery is lovely at this time of year. Flowers are everywhere and the greens are greener than at most times. But, we have been told that this is an "El Ni~no" year which seems to mean nothing specific, as it all depends on where you live. We are located near the dividing line of Northern and Southern California and that means we will see a hot summer or a cool summer, a wet winter or a dry winter. And that is as accurate as as it gets.

Above is a bit of memoribilia that I discovered awhile ago while browsing. The story behind it begins in 1945 and that is when we had moved to Manhattan Beach and I had begun to explore my new surroundings. Part of those suroundings were the immense sand dunes that were on every vista of our little beach cottage on Pacific Ave. 

I had to explore those dunes so off I went to climb to the top, and almost at the top I saw a locked door to some sort of cave; truth was, it was 4 caves. And along a leveled off portion of the dunes there were small tracks, like you might find in a mine, and the tracks ran from one door to the next. I walked along that line of blank doors and found the last one was unlocked and open. It was dark in there and so I didn't go inside, although there was just enough light to see that there was nothing in there.

The caves had lost their appeal for me. Still, every once in awhile I would look again to see if anything had changed. It was always the same, until one day I saw that every door was open and some had been removed. I looked into all of them but there was nothing in them? The next time I came by, the tracks had been removed. The time after that, the caves had disappeared altogther. Over time they became a memory...until I ran across these government drawings.  

These days, even the dunes are a memory as Manhattan Beach sold all of the sand. Some of it even went as far as Waikiki Beach where it replenished the sands of that tropical isle. 

Good News

 Our youngest granddaughter is coming to spend a few weeks with us. I like to think she is coming here just to see us. That may be part of the reason for her visit but the reason she made a very long trip from Tucson AZ is the fact that she will be coaching and counseling at the Summer camp put on by Ability First. "Ability First Sports supports youth and adults with physical disabilities to thrive through involvement in sports, recreation and leisure activities." Our granddaughter is not disabled although she may have to use a wheelchair to get around. She is going to the Univ of Arizona in Tucson where is now entering her third year of study and the third year of being on the Women's Adaptive Sports Basketball team.

Short story; when she was released from UC Davis Hospital and Shriners hospital she was given a scholarship from Shriners to attend an Ability First camp being held on the campus of Chico State University. With some misgivings, she decided to try it. Well, Ability First made her a very different young woman. She made friends, she played Basketball, Rugby, she learned to waterski and a dozen other activities, she received a scholarship to have a Box Wheelcair made for her, and was invited back to help counsel during next years Camp. Since she had a year before next the Camp, she continued to challenge herself by joining the Track team at her high school where she did the Shotput and Discus throw. Upon graduating, she received a full ride scholarship from the Univ. of Arizona Tucson plus a full ride scholarship to play basketball with the Women's Adaptive Sports Basketball team. She went to Kentucky where she set a world record in Wakeboard. She also went to the Olympic tryouts in Colorado Springs but didn't make the team...this year. 

She is not through...there is plenty more for her to do!

How did that happen and when?

With nothing better to do I started going through some of my 100,000+ photo files. The files are not all portraits or family photos, some images, such as those of cars and boats, Art and Artists, etc are included in the number. I have a collection of selfies as well and all dated. Those photos are the most troubling as I can see myself aging in those photos. But, that is not what really scared me, it it's the fact that I can't remember when these photos were taken. Yes, they have dates, but the date is meaningless to me. I can't remember back to February of this year but from that date back to mid year of 2021 is gone. 

I used to be able to use my daily journals to remember things that didn't come to mind right away. But I stopped my journals at about the same time so there was no help there. I still remember bits and pieces of the missing 2 years, but they are too shallow to help me capture the whole memory of what was happening that day. At some point I lost the ability to balance and now I depend on a 'walker' to keep me upright. It's also obvious that I lost a lot of weight during those years. How did that happen and when?