My Weekly Update

5-09-08

Mon, 12 May 2008 04:40:42 GMT

This week the big news is that Michaela tripped over a roller skate on the back stairs leading from the deck. She did a serious ankle sprain and needed professional care. She got a splint and they had to go buy crutches at DI. That’s Deseret Industries.

Curly was irritated that the clinic didn’t give them crutches so she asked her doctor about a pair. She told them they sell them at DI. They were reasonably priced so they got them. Michaela is almost to the point now that she doesn’t need them unless it’s for extended locomotion by foot.

She told me she has to write a book as a school project but I don’t think she meant exactly that; and she asked if I had some transparent slip covers which I had all kinds of and was glad to assist. Yesterday she and Mykena came over to watch and help me put the finishing touches on my cart. They said how nice the cart is and were enthused about helping out.

If I had bought a wagon at Lowe’s I could have gotten what I need for less money but I didn’t count the cost before I started the project; and it turned out to be more expensive than I anticipated. But I have something home made and it has kept me busy for awhile.

Yesterday Curly took me along as she went to Sam’s Club so I bought a few things I need while she picked up her prescriptions. She is excited that her doctor has taken her off a couple of the most expensive ones and substituted others that are way less costly.

Jennifer is on her way out of town for a breather with a friend. They are going by air for an over nighter and then they will return. I don’t know how many flight miles or air trips she has made so far but they are numerous.

We had rain today. I got rained on when I went to the store on the bike but I didn’t melt. The bike will need a cleaning to get the grim off. We’ve had some warm days too and I’ve taken the cover off the air conditioner so it’s ready to turn on when it’s needed. Jennifer and Lady will be happy for that. I don’t know if it makes any difference to the cat.

5-02-08

Sat, 03 May 2008 16:09:17 GMT

Tactility of In Law Relationships

I’ve been so busy today that I forgot the news until just now. I had a strange clairaudient message from Alan’s mother saying that he needs me. I wonder if I should think of it as a freak occurrence and ignore it.

Curly has been in the dumps all days and doing plenty of crying. Her food stamps didn’t come in and she was told she didn’t qualify for the full amount. She’s having trouble with the power and gas companies too. She asked me if I would go up to the Seven Eleven and get her some smokes. I couldn’t tell her no so I got them. If nothing else she’ll have her smokes; they are a lot of consolation to people who use them.

I went over to a couple of hardware stores and got some wheels and materials to build a cart so I can get more food brought home when I go. I can watch for the specials now and take the cart and load up on bargains. In all the running I did today, I must have traveled about six miles--at least that.

The weeks go so fast that I don’t have time to remember much or else it’s my aging brain that doesn’t want to put out the effort to remember. Wayne stopped by yesterday to see Jennifer. He got a new job working for Kennecott and makes 17 something per hour working in their warehouse.

His last employer changed his status to salaried and piled on long hours so Wayne decided he was getting used and abused and he quit. This job should be a good one for him. I hope so.

Ray has been out of town so no news has come from Omaha and Wahoo for a few days. Everyone there has shut down for the time being and no one’s doing the e-mail as usual. That means we don’t get news about Grandma Bonnie.

A lot of the kids in the neighborhood are off track so Mykena has been over a couple of times. Yesterday she came over and was so hyper active she couldn’t talk straight. I had a hard time understanding her. She must have drunk something highly charged with sugar.

The little girl named Natalie saw me outside yesterday and called a hi to me and waved. She is the cutest girl and she’s a great little person. Michaela came over yesterday and helped pull out some weeds and told me about a school project on the mistreatment of chickens. They get their beaks snipped off when they’re little and they are mistreated by their handlers.

She had a picture that showed a caricature of Col. Sanders holding a chicken with a knife in his hand ready to kill it and he has blood all over him in his white uniform. Michaela said she’s not going to eat chicken any more. She showed me pictures of a few of her favorite male celebrities. She keeps them in her note book with her school work.

The weather out here has been up and down with wide variations in temperature and we’ve had some gusty wind some days. It’s the kind that is a nuisance and makes the cold seem that much colder.

4-25-08

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 21:19:32 GMT

My high lite for the week has been digesting the meaning of my visit with Rhonda and her children. I got the call to come up to the hospital just before 11:00 AM so I rushed down to the bus stop and got to the 33rd South Trax Station and headed down town. Because of the Marathon in the valley we had to get off the train by the court house and walk toward Gallivan Center and get on the University Line. It took just about an hour and a half to get from home to the hospital.

When I arrived I was informed that Ms Richmond was there visiting and that I would have to wait until she left. I mentioned to the attendant that she could be there for hours--maybe I should get on and head back out. She said that wouldn‘t be necessary--that Ms Richmond was leaving soon and as it turned out she did; so my wait wasn‘t long.

After the visit was finished I left the room and followed the exit signs until I came to a staircase but the door wouldn’t open; so I retraced my steps back to a desk and asked for directions to the exit. “Take the first left”, I was told. I thought to stop for a restroom break but I passed it by thinking it was on the first floor but when I got down there I couldn’t find one; so I left.

The train was waiting at the station and I didn’t want to miss it so I didn’t try to figure out how to buy a ticket. I got on thinking I could get one down town but when I got there the machine looked so complicated and a train was coming so I didn’t fool around with it.

I got on the train and headed to fourth south. Then an announcement came on that proof of purchase of a ticket would be required if we were checked beyond that point so I got off and figured out how to buy a ticket and waited fifteen minutes for the next train.

When I got back to 33rd South I got the Magna Bus and headed home so I went over seven hours with out a bathroom stop. For an old man that’s not bad.

I got an e-mail from Rhonda that said Kendra is back home and doing well. On Sunday when they got her ready to come home she didn't want to leave. She wanted to stay and play. Can you imagine the aggravation? I think I would have wanted to pop her on the butt but that might warp her sensitive little personality. I better not try being a dad any more.

But that isn't really true; I would have been very consoling and considerate of her state of mind. She needs the best attention she can get and she deserves it. We have to be especially consoling and mild in cases where so much is at risk. Rhonda has done very well and so has Nathan.

The grass got long so I got out the mower and changed the oil in it and sharpened the blade; then I went up to the gas station and bought $8.88 cents worth of Unleaded Regular. It took me five minutes to get the pump to work because I wasn’t following the instructions when I put in my debit card. I kept with it and finally got it to work.

I came home and fired up the engine and it started quite easily; so I got the grass mowed and then watered the flowers with Miracle Gro plant food. The tulips have flowered and are beginning to lose some of there blooms already. That’s when they have to be trimmed. Only a few have been trimmed so far. There are ten on the east side of the yard that haven’t bloomed yet but they’re showing sings that they will soon.

The Irises are growing and look healthy; a lot of them have come up and look like they will make it well this season. They bloomed way before Memorial Day last year but his year I don’t know if they will make it by then.

We’ve had some light rain this week which is helpful; it even stormed at last one night and we had thunder and lightning activity. Nick will see some real thunder storms in Missouri if he hasn’t already. Wyoming gets its share too. That’s where Alan was part of this week.

Jennifer is either in love or she’s on a mission to rescue a little boy who needs a mother. I don’t have enough information to make a definite conclusion. From what I’ve seen they seem to be compatible but Jennifer is definitely the more mature and I think the more aggressive. Don’t draw any conclusions from what news I send.

As soon as wedding bells ring I’ll need a new place to live. Love should be taken care of and nurtured with care and every encouragement should be applied with no negative connotations attached to make it positive and successful so that a healthy conditions comes about. The two respondents should be good for each other though; if they aren’t they will help each other to a large dose of hard ship that will come on them at an ever accelerating pace.

4-18-08

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:33:05 GMT

We have made a change in the visit time with Kendra. Rhonda was handed some orders at work that have made us decide on tomorrow morning as a better time to go.

Things here for the week have been quiet. We've had a few windy days. More of the tulips have bloomed and they look beautiful.

Michaela washed their car yesterday with a squeegee type thing and didn't have a hose to rinse it off with so it is all streaked and looks like a work of psychedelic art.
In case any of you didn't know Debbie Mitchell and Uncle Bob made the trip to Omaha and are back home now.

4-18-08

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:31:23 GMT

I expect to go to Primary Children’s Medical Center this afternoon. RhondaI sent an e-mail from that she will be going there this afternoon for Kendra’s nest chemo treatments. So I don’t have much to say this week until that’s over. Everyone be praying and hoping for the best.

4-11-08

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 03:54:10 GMT

Last Saturday was so long ago as it seems in my mind but yet the week went so fast that it has been like a day. How does one explain such a paradox. I find that inquisitiveness is such a dangerous exercise that I’m hesitant to make an attempt to analyze the situation and I let it ride leaving it alone as is.

Three of the girls in the neighborhood came one late afternoon asking, “Neighborhood do you have any work we can do to earn a dollar or anything?” We looked around the yard and saw some trash so they picked that up and earned a $1.21 each. That was the last of the change I had on hand but when I went to the store the next day I got some more and got a hair cut.

The cosmetologist did an excellent and efficient job; it was all done in no more than ten minutes. But I did have to wait while the previous customer was worked on. The radio was playing and an advertiser did a routine about a cream that’s guaranteed to increase the size of the female breast by two cups.

If you go into a man’s barber shop all you get is football and the ads that go alone with that kind of show. They might be about athletic wear or insurance and muscle cars and what not. Games are a boring subject for me and most of all the ads but the breast enhancement cream was a bit of a humorous thing.

Yesterday I went over to Lowe’s on the bike and bought a porch light for the back door way. The old one was one of those flash on type that turn on when someone approaches it at night. It just wore out a few weeks ago. It was always on and was expensive to operate. The bulb in it was a high power flood light.

This one doesn’t have the automatic turn on feature; it just uses a standard low power light bulb and can stay on all night on a minimal amount of energy. I put a thirteen watt florescent bulb in it and hope that won’t make Jennifer unhappy. She doesn’t like those bulbs for some reason.

Speaking of bulbs Jennifer brought home forty tulip bulbs from Holland and 39 have grown up above ground now with a total of five of them in bloom. They have a nice yellow flower on them and are so pretty.

I’ve been getting e-mails from Alan, Nick and Rhonda giving me news that’s good to get. Jennifer has a project going to raise funds for patients with Multiple Sclerosis. Her good friend Cher has the disease. It’s another issue of poignancy to us. As I understand now the best that can be done is administer medicine that controls symptoms but doesn’t cure.

The grass is coming in with not too pleasing effect. It needs something but I don’t know what; some of the area is overgrown with a strange wild flower and other parts are covered with undesirable growth. The neighbor next door has a hideous lawn full of the same stuff and dandelions. To replace the lawn at great expense when that’s the case seems ludicrous to me.

We’re having a windy day that has been unpleasant to be out in. The temperature is just low enough to make the wind sharp and biting so I’m inside doing not much waiting for the garbage to be picked up. They are later than usual today.

Everybody have a nice weekend and remember in your prayers: Kambra, Kendra especially and all the rest of God’s creatures. Even say one for Lady and the cat.

4-04-08

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 18:21:15 GMT

Well out here it’s time for saturnalia as the conference of the church
gets underway. The faithful won’t see it that way though. They will be
in a reverent attitude and unaware of the party atmosphere that
accompanies solemn events as one sector gets serious about God and the
other goes rampant over carnality of pleasure seeking.
I’ll hang in there through it though and I suppose Alan will be busy at
work, but I don’t know Nick’s weekend schedule. The last I heard the
Taurus was acting up so that had to be fixed. That’s his car in case you
don’t recognized the word Taurus.
Rhonda I suppose will be attentive to the conference proceedings and I
have overheard Jennifer talking about it. I expect them to be attentive
to what transpires regarding the latest church business. It seems to me
that a new president will be sustained by the attending elders in
conference.
Tuesday I tore down the dog house and cut it into little pieces and put
in in the garbage so Lady won’t be spending nights out there any more;
and the memory of it will soon be gone. By now it’s in the landfill. If
someone had a wood burning stove it would have been good kindling wood
but I knew of no one who could use it that way.
Yesterday I made a trip down town to visit a credit union. I got on the
bus and went to the city center of West Valley City and when I arrived I
couldn’t do the transaction I intended because I don’t have a current
driver license or any other picture ID. Since I couldn’t do that I had
to obtain cash in order to proceed.
I looked for a teller machine but couldn’t get it to work so I got back
on the bus and went to my usual shopping place and got the money I
needed and went back. On the way I wondered if something had ruined my
check card but it worked at the store. It took only an hour to do that
and it wasn’t that bad an ordeal It was nice to do business with the
pleasant personnel as I finished my purpose and it got all done in good
order.
On the way home a woman got on the bus and sat close to me and struck up
a conversation that was basically a call to get involved with the
Jehovah Witnesses. I don’t know why she picked on me; I was sitting
quietly and enticing no attention from her.
As it turned out she was on her way home from a car shop where she took
her car earlier to get repairs. Not only was that the case, she got off
the bus at the same stop I did and she walked the same direction for
half a mile as I did.
By the time we were finished discussing biblical topics on the bus we
were friends or neighbors enough to walk together. But it was difficult
because the side walk is so narrow. I finally stepped off and walked
along the curb.
It was an interesting and pleasant visit although I did worry a bit
about her capacity to make the rigorous walk. It was uphill and she
commented about the fact. She had already walked a considerable distance
from the shop to the bus stop where she boarded.
She told me she had stopped at a Mexican restaurant to get a new
sandwich they offer but it didn’t please her much; the cost was too high
for the amount of ingredients it contained. The taste wasn’t all that
great either she said.
She insisted that I take a tract so I took one that amounted to an
invitation to attend a bible study group. She lives fairly close to here
but I don’t plan on responding to the invitation. It might be too
demanding on my time and attention.
She was 72 years old and showed every bit of her age. I wondered if I
looked as old as I am to her. She gets a good discount on medicines that
she takes for high blood pressure and cholesterol. She does a lot of
walking as she visits door to door and attempts to proselytize new
church members she said.
She mentioned that it can be hectic; they found out there it a known sex
offender in the area she works. She used to be LDS but got out of it she
said. Then she asked me about my church experience and why I had quit
all those different churches. I told her there wasn’t anything to them.
That’s when she insisted that I take the tract. We parted amicably when
we arrived at the corner where I went straight and she turned right and
headed toward her house which is near Orchard Elementary School. She
mentioned earlier that her children grew up and went to school in Magna
before Orchard school had been built. They took the bus.
We’ve had cold night with a couple as low as in the low twenties and I
worried about the flowers; but they look OK. Some of the tulips are
getting close to blooming but the Irises look like they will be taking a
long time to do that. Days have warmed up into the fifties. Today the
weather forecasters predict 64 degrees.

3-28-08

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 23:28:25 GMT

We ran into computer trouble that started yesterday and hopefully got fixed today. I had to re run the router software and got good results but we’ll know if the problem is fixed when I try to send this e-mail. I was all over the place with worry as to what happened; these computers are an essential now days. If they go down we go backward to the stone age.

I’m almost convinced these days to make sure and not complain to any one about how they treat me and I’m working on being good to the dog. I don’t leave her out too long on these cold night because she’s old and suffers from the cold in her joints. And I’ve forgiven her for pooping on the floor.

She has a hard time getting up the back steps so I let her in at the front door. I’ve thought about building a ramp for her but she’s probably not smart enough to use it instead of the steps. I know without a problem or doubt when she wants in the house because she scrapes her claws across the front storm door; my only problem is knowing when she wants to go out.

I walked to the store twice this week to get the exercise of walking instead of the exercise of biking. The walking takes a lot more patience but I think it’s better exercise. The one trouble with it is that I’ve encountered dog attacks on my walks in the neighborhood. Those dogs are too aggressive toward strangers.

Speaking of dogs, last week I tossed a basket ball into the yard behind us thinking that it belonged there. It turned out that it belonged to Michaela and Mykena so when I found that out I went to retrieve it. The house is behind us and the two lots are separated by a fence but to get over there it’s a long walk around the block and into a cul-de-sac.

When I got there and knocked on the door I didn’t get a reply except for a dog barking on the inside so I went to the gate that leads into their back yard. Then a full grown Rottweiler with an angry growl came walking down off there elevated back porch and gave me the routine.

I tried to be polite to it and asked if I could come it but it wasn’t amenable to my enquiry; so I saw that the ball was against the fence just a few feet away from me and thought that I might be able to take a couple of sticks and pick it up.

When the dog saw me pick up the sticks it went back up on the porch and watched quietly. The method with the sticks would not work but it did work to take one of the them and roll the ball over to the gate which I could open far enough to reach in and get it.

One of the sticks I picked up had a bunch of little branches coming off of the end of it so that it looked like a scraggy spatula or even a hand. I think that when the dog saw that it might have been a little impressed at the ominous sight of it and decided to back off.

The Rottweiler remained calm during the procedure but as I left it went off on a barking frenzy as though to say I had done some wrong on its territory. I went home and returned the ball to Mykena. She was playing with Aimee at the time.

The tulips today didn’t look like they appreciated the cold we got last night; I hope they are OK. Lady broke the leaves on one of the Irises and that put me in a little tizzy with her. She wants for some reason to walk among the flower and in the mud instead of on the pavement and grass.

At the store I always walk into the entry and grab a hand wipe that the store management provides for germ control and I wipe the hand rail on the shopping cart too. When I got to the check-out the cashier looked in the cart and saw my backpack and asked, “Is there anything else in the cart?” Like am I a thief?

I said, “No” and went through the rest of the check out routine. The helper at the counter put my items in another shopping other than the one I brought up to the check out stand with me. As I walked away with my cart I didn’t notice that I had no groceries in it. The people at the stand must have thought I was asleep or something. They called out, “You got the wrong cart”--both the sacker and the cashier!

I didn’t catch on the first time they tried to tell me so the helper walked up behind me with the cart he loaded and I noticed then; so I reached in and transferred my things into the cart I brought in with me and thanked him and left. After the whole scene I went away thinking it wasn’t I who had the wrong cart it was they. I had personalized the cart I was using by wiping the handle off with the sanitary wipe.

I usually notice little things like that and get a bit perturbed--but not so much that I would turn around and hit someone or get highly caustic about it. I usually want to leave the store with the same cart I came in with. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Some of the family are going to Disney Land on the fourth of April. Deanna, Mike and Taylor are going and maybe Debbie, Denise, David, Darin and Megan will make the trip. I hope they can get together for a fun time.

The return from Milan, Italy (Milano to the Italians) must have been grueling. Jennifer and her friend stayed the night, previous to their flight, at the airport in Milan because accommodations were all booked due to Easter. From the time they left Venice until they returned to Salt Lake, they were put through a thirty or more hour ordeal trying to get rest without beds.

3-21-08

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 04:58:18 GMT

We used to say, "Hang in there Friday's on the way." Then I got into
asbestos removal and that saying had no meaning. It was ten hour days six days
a week and a lot of times it was out of town--just like Alan's doing. But we
didn't gripe we got paid good and didn't have anything else more constructive to
do with our time.
I cleaned out the shed yesterday and used the new vacuum cleaner on it. It
performed well and since it's so big I left it out there instead of in the
basement where it will just be in Jennifer's way. I'm doing some more on the
shed today.
The dog which I stuck in the dog house for the night got taken to a friend's
house. A woman named Helen was supposed to come over Sunday afternoon and get
it but instead a friend named Cher came; I was puzzled but it was nice to see
Cher. She politely took the dog home. She even said she would take the cat but
I kept her; Cher has enough to do.
On Monday another woman, presumably Helen, came and I saw her get out of the
car she was driving and come up to the front door as though she were on a mission of anger to
do malice to me. She was heavy, raw boned and looked pregnant but didn't show
any of the decorum and beauty of a pregnant woman as she hot footed it up to the
door to make her mission statement.
She made her statement that started in the declarative mode and ended as an
interrogatory statement. "I'm here to get the dog?" and she spoke with a gruff
voice. I told her where the dog was and she showed her disdain for the fact
that I didn't make plans for the dog before Jennifer left. Then she said, "If
you were my dad, you wouldn't be living here."
I paid well in terms of maliciousness repaid for having put the dog out of
the house that night. The cat was quite somber for quite a few days and has
been confused as to what happened to Jennifer and Lady, but I think now she is
beginning to adjust and might even like having the dog gone. She can move
around the house and be less intimidated by the presence of another animal that isn't her kind.
Next July/August it will be seven years since Jennifer and I started this
joint enterprise of helping each other manage the vicissitudes and trials of
life and answer such needs as housing and sustenance; now after all that time
it's the right time to make a change. Things need to change and other options
must be looked into so I'm ready to move.
The weather has been nice enough to get some things done around the property;
the tulips and irises are growing but not blooming yet. It will be a while
before they do that--maybe into the middle of May or sooner.

3-14-08

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 18:42:43 GMT

The week included a trip to Sears at 3500 South and 5600 West to pick up a
couple of attachments for a new Craftsman wet and dry vacuum cleaner; it has a
five horse motor and can blow a stream of air at 160 mph. It sucks like a
tornado. That's the good kind of suck and it was reasonably priced.
I'm somewhat happy with it; I can get the basement floor cleaned up really
well and get rid of lint, spider webs and dirt. I am thinking that I can even
take it outside and clean the leaves out of the basement window sill with it.
The one outside my room has a few in it; so I'm going to take it out and give it
a try to see if it works.
If there were too many leaves the vacuum would be overwhelmed but this job
doesn't appear to be too heavy for it.
I needed to get a more suitable brush for the carpet because one of the kind I
need wasn't provided with the machine; but I got a coupon that allowed me 20%
off on purchases of attachments.
And the machine sold on sale when it was purchased. Actually I asked Jennifer to pick it up for me when she was close to Sears last Saturday.
She did a fine job and now I'm happy with it.
In case Jennifer gets this e-mail and reads it, the dog and cat are OK. Lady
bedooted on the floor the first day after Jennifer left; well I didn't rub her
nose in it but now I'm making her sleep in the dog house and stay outside. She
barks like a maniac but I ignore her and don't let her upset me with her noise.
The two cars are OK to this point and I 'm hoping that no one vandalizes
either one of them. The garbage cans were emptied with no problem. We got a
new garbage program in West Valley City at the beginning of this month.
Everybody is doing the recycle program now. We got a new blue can for
recyclable articles and the old green cans are still in use for garbage that
goes to the landfill.
Spring is in the air; that's how it looks around here but the groundhog saw
its shadow in PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa on February 2nd so the rule goes that there will
be six more weeks of winter from that day. The six weeks are just about up so maybe we'll get
the Spring weather. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6898095/
The tulips Jennifer brought home from Holland are doing really well. Almost all
of them have sprouted and are above ground looking healthy. Some of the Irises
are doing well too but a lot of them are not making it. This little bit of rain
we got helped a lot and more is possible. There's a 40% chance of rain or snow
tonight and a 50 % chance tomorrow and tomorrow night. Night time temperatures
will be just a degree or two below freezing and day time will be in the upper
mid forties.

3-07-08

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 22:06:35 GMT

I got e-mails this week with some good news. Alan worked a few days out of town in Price, Utah. Rhonda brought us up to date on Kendra, and Nick expressed hopes that your grandma will do well at her new home.

There has been concern about her eyes; since she fell the last time, she has had double vision. We don’t know what has caused that , but she is due to get checked so we can find out.

Aunt Elaine is taking care of your grandmother’s dogs, and it has become a problem. One of them gets noisy at night and wants to sleep with her. She put an electric collar on it that gives the dog a shock when it barks. In the morning when she took it off the dog bit her. Too bad she didn’t leave it on. She said she won’t use it anymore. The dog has won a victory against her.

When anyone goes to visit your grandma she wants to know about the dogs and her house. She misses all of them. But I don’t foresee her going back to the house. That’s not going to work anymore. She has a nice place now and plenty of activities to keep her occupied. She needs to recuperate and learn to adjust to her new accommodations.

We just don’t live this life any old way we choose to; we have to obey the rules we are given to go by. We don’t own ourselves, and when we get to the point that we need more help from others to function we have to take that help and be done with it.

This week; actually it was yesterday. I went over to the store and left the bike unlocked, and someone stole it. So I had to walk home with the back pack on my back. The distance according to Google’s distance checker is 1. 14 miles.

I started to think maybe it would be best to walk over and back to do my shopping, but man that’s a boring way to spend time. Then I thought about an old rusty bike in Curly’s yard--maybe I could get it and put it in good enough shape to use it. So I asked her about it.

She said, “You want a bike; I have a bike.” Then she took me down to her basement and showed my this new bike that hadn’t been ridden more than a mile, but it had a blown out tube; because her husband over inflated it. It blew the valve stem out so there’s just a round hole in there about a quarter inch in diameter.

She talked me into taking it, and I told her if he comes back, I’ll bring it back to her. He left with another woman a year or so ago and didn’t take anything with him.

I asked Jennifer to pick up a couple of inner tubes for me at Walmart; so she got those and I fixed the bike and am riding it when I need to go anywhere. The old bike was getting in need of repairs. The derailers were hard to adjust because the cables are stretched, and one is an assembly that doesn’t really fit the system.

It’s from another manufacturer. I got it to work when I changed it sometime more than a year ago, but a few days ago when I put new tubes in the tires and replace the back wheel, I couldn’t get it to adjust right so that I could get it in all of the gears. Whoever stole it stole a bunch of problems.

I was thinking about replacing the cables and levers, because it’s still a good bike with a lot of miles left in it; but now with it gone, that’s not going to happen. I feel a bit timid about taking this new one over to the store; it might get stolen too.

I fixed up a chain and got a padlock for it and will lock it up when I go; so hopefully no one will want to wrestle with a chain and lock to steal a bike. It could still happen. Someone in a pick up could jump out with a pair of bolt cutters and have that bike loaded in a matter of seconds.

I’m still toying with the idea of taking that old bike Curly has and getting it running. It’s such a dog that I don’t know who would want to bother taking it. Right now it loaded with cob webs and rust, and the seat it off of it and sitting on the ground.

The cables hardly work; they won’t spring back like they should, but that all might be fixable enough that I can get to the store and back. That’s only 2-¼ miles. I’m highly tempted to give it a try.

Jennifer will be leaving for Italy on Wednesday. She has a friend from work to go with her. So things have been moving a long in that direction here. Florence, Venice and Rome are the cities she will see. Her aunt Cindy will take them to the airport when they leave. They have to be there around 6 in the morning.

The weather was favorable this week. I watered Jennifer’s tulips today; a bunch of hem are coming up through the ground. I never know how much water to give anything. Maybe I didn’t need to give them any, but things look so dry. The lawn is a fright.

**edit**
I forgot to let everyone know that last week Alan bought two pounds of dates for me and told me where I can get them. I appreciate that very much.

2-29-08

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:58:10 GMT

The main news this week is that Grandma Bonnie has been transferred to a care center for seniors at Wahoo, Nebraska, and Uncle Ray has been hopping to keep up with all of the involvement going on with it. She fell at a neighbor's house last week and fell again at Aunt Elaine's; so the change in residence was considered the appropriate course of action.

At least a couple of us agree that she can no longer occupy her house and fare there by herself even for a few hours. A lot of her personal mementos such as pictures have been moved with her to decorate her new room. And her house needs some major fixing up that can�t be done as long as she�s there.

She is the first person to occupy her new room, and a few finishing details need to be done to get it finished; that's how new it is. She asked Uncle Ray if she would be staying there permanently; he said yes, and she said it's better for seniors. So maybe she will adjust.

That problem and the dogs are the two main issues. She misses the house and the dogs. Aunt Elaine took the dogs out for a visit, but they didn't relate to Grandma as they usually do. They must sense that a change has come about, and they are adjusting to it in there way.

Prince stood back from her and seemed not to acknowledge her, and Teena who always jumped up at her to lick her face didn't do that; she just sat by and shook the whole time. Some of the residents enjoyed petting prince; but Teena, I guess is a more shy type and avoided association with anyone there. Now Aunt Elaine is their caretaker.

I went to the store again this week at Smith's and asked about dates; the produce manager told me with usual polite concern and sympathy that they don't stock them. Where do you go to get dates in this valley?

Maybe some middle eastern grocery outlet? I guess I'll just do without.

Figs are the same; I couldn't find them. What's the matter with these people in Utah; don't they know such fruits exist? Or don't they sell enough that it pays to stock them? I don't have much mobility; so I won't be getting around to check out any places except Walmart, Smith's and Rheams.

Costco, I doubt has them. Jennifer is going to take me there tomorrow; I can check then. I'll probably have to settle on prunes and apples. Maybe I should try some peaches once in awhile. I like grapes and cherries too, but the cost is way more than I want to spend.

They and bananas go fast when I buy them because I sit and eat them all within a day or two. A half a dozen bananas won't go more than two days. I can be more moderate with apples and prunes. That's why I buy them and avoid the others. I'll check on some other fruit tomorrow at Costco and see what I can find.

Aunt Jean's good friend Carl has cancer; they just found out--in his esophagus, at the base of it; so they are doing more scans to check his liver and see what else they find. The doctor was quite concerned when he found out. We don�t know what it will mean for Carl; he's in his mid 70s. He has children, and one of his daughters lives in West Jordan, I don't think she's LDS.

Alan had his 34th birthday this week. It makes me stop to think and wonder where the years all went. We've covered a lot of territory and have seen a lot over that time. One thing I know, there are a lot of people around who are glad to have a good honest time with us. All we have to do is go find them, but that takes some depending on God. We can�t do anything all on our own without his help and approval.

The weather hasn't been too crabby this week; we had a couple of really nice days. I was thinking I should get out and do some exercise on the bike, but the only use I got out of it was to go to the store.

March looks set to come in like miniature lion; we'll see how it goes. If my vital statistics page and arithmetic are correct, Dakota will be a teenager tomorrow. Kendra Isabell will be 3 in a few days. I may never get to know her this side of heaven, but she a charm girl to me, and I can always say that a part of me is in her too. It may not be very much or maybe more than we realize.

Never the less it's nothing for speculation; the Lord is in her more than any of us, and he is the maker and finisher of all of us. Happy birthday on each of those!

2-23-08

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 22:18:59 GMT

As I sit down to write a few points of interest that occurred during the week. I remember some e-mails from Alan that pertained to a foolish chain letter about lemon slices in drinks that came from aunt Jean. Now that really got a going over. A flawed study was done on lemons and a conclusion was made that didn’t square up with proper scientific analysis.

That’s a cause for concern among people who have been apprised of proper scientific observation and scrutiny. Well the result was that aunt Jean put herself into a tizzy over the whole matter, and then it all blew over and has quieted. Jennifer had a bit to say on the issue too. That’s good. I always like to get what people send via e-mail as their reaction to events.

Thankfully the garbage got put out in time for the pick up, and it looks like the recyclable can will make it until next pickup which will be next Friday. I worried about getting that out ever since I forgot it on the previous pickup. It had me that worried.

The mail wasn’t delivered one day because of President’s Day, and a few US Flags went up around the country I’m sure. We saw one right next door to us. The neighbor has a contract with the Boy Scouts to put up a flag on the holidays that represent patriotic occasions.

The Red Cross called this week and asked me to tell Jennifer they called. I could grumble about someone wanting my blood, and I could look into the program the Red Cross operates and with scrutiny that probably wouldn’t be according to established scientific procedure, come to a conclusion that the whole operation is a sham.

People in high places at the Red Cross make great salaries off of money and resources including blood that they beg from the people. High grade or savvy pan handling, I could call it if I were so disposed. But that wouldn’t make anyone feel better than they do. It’s a free country, and freedom does as freedom finds self rewarding.

Michaela caught a hideous case of what appeared to be pneumonia; I walked over to hand a treat to them, and as I got there, all of them came out the door to get in the car and go to the doctor’s office. Michaela went into cough spasms that sounded terrible and made her wretch terribly. The air was markedly high in content of exhaust fumes from cars and home heaters--not a good condition for someone with pneumonia!

I made a couple of trips to the store to get grocery items. Yesterday I went, but first I called to see if they had dates and was told, “They should be here in the grocery section.” When I got there I looked all over among the fruit and saw everything imaginable, including all kinds of dried fruits with a high price and loaded with sugar and high fructose corn syrup.

So I got a bit irritated at having been set to high hopes and finding nothing. When I got to the cashier, I was ignored at what I had to say, but the cashier asked a sacker on the next aisle if they had dates. He was a large fellow as in large of obesity, and he had an Arian Supremacy hairless scalp.

He looked over like he didn’t want to be bothered, and he asked, “Dates?” and gesticulated as though to say, “What are those?” Man! He looked dumb and slow moving. He had made up his mind that he wasn’t going to be bothered with dates, and the cashier figured it would just slide if it and I were ignored. But I asked, “Are you going to check it out?”

The cashier got on the phone and called but got no response there; another passing worker got asked about dates too and was told, “You’re the sweets man.” He walked off somewhere; so I went ahead and paid for the other item I was buying and walked over to stand awhile out of the way and see if anything would be done about finding dates or letting me know they don’t stock them.

After standing there a few minutes I decided to give up and leave. On the way out the clerk at the courtesy counter was busy; so I didn’t stop to find out anything there. So I don’t know if dates are available at that store or not. I tried to be polite about it all, but I might have come across as a bit hostile. Now I wonder how I will be perceived the next time I go there.

When I had previously called the store, a Mexican speaking broken English couldn’t answer the question, and acted as though dates were an unknown item; so I was told to wait on the line until another more competent person could take my message.

It reminds me of the time Nick and I were on our way to Washington D.C.; and we were a little late. I decided to stop and call the hotel and leave a message for Darlene. A receptionist who couldn’t speak or understand the language very well or couldn’t handle my mid western accent answered and spoke in a very crude attempt to speak English.

I couldn’t tell if the party was Mexican or Asian. We struggled for a bit of time to communicate, but I couldn‘t get anything across and thought the receptionist was becoming either angry or frustrated. Then all of the sudden the line went dead as though I had been hung up on. I thought that had been the case, and it was done by a mad operator; so I called the telephone company and raved about what had happened, and the operator said he couldn’t hear me. “Go a few miles to the next phone.”

When I did that he got my message and relayed it to the hotel for Darlene. She was sick when we got there because she had forgotten to bring her medicine with her when we came to town from where we were staying. Because she wasn’t up to going anywhere, she decided that we would stay in the hotel over night.

Before we found Darlene at the time we arrived at the hotel, we had searched around and waited in the parking lot by the car thinking that she would come out and we would all leave together and go back to where we were staying. But she never came.

Finally we went into the lobby, and she was lying on a couch. The manager of the hotel wanted to know something, maybe about what had happened or why we were so late or something, but no issues about it were brought up.

We had very little snow this week, but some fog came up. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen fog. There’s some out there right now waiting to go away. We have a very slight chance of snow, but right now it’s lightly raining. We could get more of it this week. Temperatures for the coming few days look to be from the high twenties to the mid forties into next week.

2-16-08

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 05:03:38 GMT

We got some snow that amounted to more than I‘ve seen in a long time, and I did some shoveling. The sad thing is I didn’t wake up in time to help Jennifer get off to work that morning. She had to get out and clean the snow off her car, and she could have used help to load a platter of salad she took to work for a doings of some kind.

Last night she went to a concert, and I went to a clinic and Sam’s Club with Curly and the girls. On the way home we stopped at La Frontera and had Mexican food. That was good. The girls helped me carry the things home that I bought.

I got side tracked and didn’t get the trash cans out for pick up yesterday; I hate to have that happen. I jumped on the bike and went over to Smith’s to get a few things that I get every week. The snow and ice were off the streets; so I didn’t have any problems with that. It was nice and sunny too, with a slight breeze; so that went well.

Lady got me irritated by barking out in the middle of the night; so she got picked her up by the scruff of the neck and brought into the house. She’s been moping around much of the time and doesn’t move very fast or energetically when she’s told what to do, but she gets it done or gets in trouble, and that’s a strain on my blood pressure. I don’t know if dogs have the same blood pressure issues as humans do though.

She’s slowing down with age too; she couldn’t climb the back steps the other morning. I had to let her come in the front door, and she had trouble getting up those steps. She was showing signs of old age for sure.

The cat has been pretty good; she hasn’t been too messy with her litter box for a long time now and uses it the way she should. She still gets cat litter in the water bowl, and I have to change it twice a day or it gets too messy, and I don’t want her drinking dirty water. She seems to get to it right after I change it too. She must know when it’s clean or not.

Omaha news hasn’t been eventful Grandma Bonnie can get around on her own two feet sometimes without the cane or walker. They want to do some fixing up on the house to repair things that have deteriorated over the years.

The front door and storm door are in bad shape. Maybe some of the wood framing is too. Ed said it’s all rotted. He knows about such things; wood is one of his topics of interest. He and his wife will be taking a cruise on the Caribbean.

Their daughter Melissa is pregnant, and when Ed and Sandy visited them the last time, their grand daughter(Brian & Melissa's girl, Raya) was a bit timid around Ed, but she warmed up in time and cried when Ed and Sandy left.

Ray and Carol went to a wood carver’s convention in San Diego and are due home on February 20th.

Jean and Elaine are taking turns meeting the needs of Grandma Bonnie who turned 91 on January 18th. She can remember her age with no difficulty, and she remembers a lot of other thing and events; but she's pretty well incapacitated on a good amount of other times, issues and facts.

There isn’t much reason to fear about anything here, but I do have a bit of it in me--not that it’s going to do any good. Plenty of good will come about, and so will bad.

Nick is finishing his psychology period of training with practical experience working with Iraqi veterans and basic trainees. Soon he will study eye disorders.

Weather in Missouri has included a severe winter storm. He gets out with fellow church members for activities; so he’s active with others. That’s good.

Jennifer stayed away overnight. She’ll be pulling soon I expect. The dog and cat are going along as usual. If I get in trouble I hope it won’t hurt anyone but me and it’s something I deserve.

All of you have a good week and remember the kids in our prayers.

Nghbrhd

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:59:53 GMT

The final installment of a

A day the following January of 1965, Nghbrhd told his mother about her habit of pouring left over coffee in the sink and how it stains the porcelain and bothers him. Of course he knows and acknowledges that it was unwise to speak that way and that he had no right to tell her that.
She told him forcefully not to talk that way to her, and she walked over to him and slapped his face; so instead of turning the other cheek, he raised his hand and lightly slapped her back with an attitude of I won’t put up with that.
Parents in their recalcitrance to one another precipitate ill behavioral habits on their children, for it had routinely been a course of action by Nghbrhd’s parents to argue vehemently on many points of contention.
Often he had imitated his mother’s actions without realizing it. She once out of anger toward her husband, Nghbrhd’s father, threw a plate of food over and across the table onto the floor and stomped out of the house and was gone for several hours.
Nghbrhd once threw a book out of the window at school when the teacher was away from the class room--a case of blatant imitation without knowing that to be the case! The plate/book comparison and the slap exchange, which are not subjects for pride in performance, are a case of immature kid taking an example from an immature adult--a case of imitating a bad habit.
When Nghbrhd was about three or four years old he heard his mother say, "Oh shit", and he repeated it without hesitation or consideration of any consequence. At having said that, he was surprised at himself and expected a sharp reproof, but it didn’t come.
She ignored the situation perhaps because she felt that she herself had passed over the edge of propriety by speaking that way in front of an impressionable child. What could she say? Speak as you’re told--not as I speak?
He dealt with his problem at school in the same way his mother dealt with hers at home. Jacob supplanted his brother Esau by following the teaching of his mother. Cain slew Abel not because of an example his father displayed in his presence but rather because he listened to the devil as his mother had done in the beginning. Parents need to be aware.
Some contemporary progressives relegate Biblical accounts of womanly errors as mythical tales that don’t merit inclusion as appropriate discussion in this modern age and insinuate that they do not apply to women today; that’s hardly worth arguing.
Nor is stereotyping genders a realistic way to define the condition of mankind; culpability attributed to some ancient and modern women doesn’t imply that all women are less virtuous and should be less cherished.
Women of today as of all ages have striven meritoriously to keep the progress of man on schedule and in order such as it is. It is fallacious to consider their behavior as being apart from surroundings and as detached from that of men. Their behavior is inter active with the whole environment just as much so as anyone else’s is.
Yet it is considered to be that mothers do pass bad as well as good habits onto children, and they appear to have more influence over them than men do. Certainly gravitate to mothers more than to fathers, and fathers don’t excel at raising children as well as mothers do.
His father never slapped or smote his mother, but on that occasion involving the coffee stains and the ensuing slap, he wasn’t as mature as his father was. She told him to leave her house and spoke other words which are not remembered; so he told her to let him go in peace. She said, “I don’t know how you can.”
It is not the purpose to have made these previous revelations concerning Nghbrhd as a writ to impugn the character of those involved rather than to show that both parents, children, males and females, have committed impasses and heinous acts through out the long history of human kind. It stands now to make clear the fact that truth in its beauty and the righteousness it makes possible for us to accomplish is the aim of this account.
Clearly right cannot be found apart from error, and right doesn’t come about until a discussion of error is brought up and dealt with forthrightly so that correction of flagrant deeds can be made.
To Nghbrhd there seemed at the time to be no other recourse than to get out quickly with no time to gather anything to take along; so he left with no other clothes than what he was wearing and a light jacket that wasn’t adequate for cold weather, and he hitch hiked 1,700 to 1,800 miles making the trip in a total of around sixty five hours.
And having eaten no more than a sandwich and a bowl of cracked wheat cereal arrived in the morning at a densely forested area where he couldn’t, in a sense, see the forest for the trees. Luckily the weather remained mild in the colder states and through out the rest of the way.
He worked and lived with a logger until April until he could no longer be useful there. They had worked in forests clearing land and sending logs to be milled for lumber or used as pulp for paper.
He was in need of more than the people who helped him could give. The logger and his wife had talked him into calling home after he had lived with them three months so his mother and family would know where he was. They thought she should know.
When he called she cried and apologized that things had been so bad, and he left the logger and went south around five hundred miles where he visited a friend and applied for a job, but that was fruitless; so he went to stay with a cousin who lived around forty miles away.
An acquaintance of the cousin hired him temporarily to work on building fences in the area where they were and where fences were a necessity for privacy which people craved as much as was possible to provide. There was and still is a lot of fence to build in that area, and it’s hard work, but he was capable of it.
Eventually it was a hardship on the cousin’s wife to have Nghbrhd live in their home, because she was pregnant and needed room for her mother to move in and help her; so she asked him politely and explained her reasons, and he moved several miles away and stayed a few days with one of the other employees at work and then got an apartment near by.
Not long after that the job ended because the employer had a family member who needed work; It was only inevitable that things were to change; they always do.
He had been living alone with nothing to do but go to work and back home to a solitary state of existence that had people around him wondering and worrying about him.
The tenant above him at his new location was an elderly man who had moved in from out of state after he retired, and then pursued a strange hobby or craft of keeping miniature dolls that, to Nghbrhd, seemed to be Voodoo dolls or pawns of some sort of spiritualistic involvement.
Nghbrhd never asked or got interested in what was going on there, but was congenial toward the man, and the man in return was the same and never at anytime appeared to have put a hex on him.
On a weekend the man’s daughter with her two teenage sons came out from his former home to visit. Nghbrhd who was usually a solitary person decided he would like to stop in and say hello and find out about the visitors; so he knocked on the door and asked if he might come in for a few minutes.
He was graciously received, and stepped in and was introduced and invited to sit down. The boys were seated close to one corner of the room as Nghbrhd sat on the sofa and the man and his daughter were in chairs on the opposite side of the living room.
She had a package of cookies in her hand and took out one for each of her two sons and Nghbrhd then smiled and tossed one to each of them--each catching his own with dexterity and a show of appreciation and thanks, but she didn‘t offer one to her father. He must not have been into cookies for dietary reasons.
After a short but cordial visit Nghbrhd was impressed that it would be polite and proper to say goodbye and leave at that time so they could continue their family reunion. He left feeling grateful to have met them.
Another tenant was a World War II veteran who seemed to have not readjusted to post war life. His wife and daughter were both beautiful and outgoing persons showing neighborly friendship to Nghbrhd, and they had a young boy who was around five or six.
Nghbrhd would like to meet them again and compare the ways they went after their brief friendship at the apartment complex.
The veteran talked about his experience in North Africa with nostalgia, saying that being at war had an endlessness about it that he liked. Things just kept going on and on with no sense of boundaries or end. That appealed to him he said. It’s easy to believe that if he loved that kind of experience, it would be difficult for him to come back to the civilized culture of everything running according to the time clock.
He had commented to his wife once when she saw Nghbrhd lying beside the swimming pool and said to him, “Isn’t he beautiful?” He said back to her, “He needs a psychiatrist.”
Nghbrhd over heard the two comments and reassured himself that he was still ok. He knew he had seen a psychiatrist and was told by him that he wasn’t crazy.
He was under a lot of tension because he was worried about work and being productively earning an income and wasn't completely satisfied that he belonged anywhere. Where could he go? The friend and the cousin were not an alternative, and he had no transportation; finding a job under conditions like that doesn’t happen. His only alternative was to return home.
The man upstairs with the dolls might have divined something with his wisdom and magic, but Nghbrhd out of a sense of indefinable integrity kept his distance from that.
He looked for a clinic to get a physical evaluation and found one a couple of miles away to which he walked. He had walked and hitch hiked so much in that huge multi ethnic, racial and lingual area that the pavement began to seem like sand paper sanding his brain away.
When he arrived, the doctor who assisted was a woman and told him that they specialized in treating over weight patients and that they couldn’t take him. As he heard her speak and looked at her eye to eye there was a pause as they faced each other, briefly and strangely but pleasantly a spiritual resonance connected them for a moment, and she told him he could come back at 8:00 o’clock that evening.
In that brief encounter with the doctor, the inexplicable impulse that came with exchanging glances gave him assurance that he didn’t need a physical check up and that he was ok. Nghbrhd had strange occurrences such as that at times and meeting her was an instances that brought about one of them, and it was exceptionally beautiful. He for that reason didn’t follow up on an appointment. A few days later he was told there would be no more work.
The veteran’s wife had gone on a trip to Chicago with their son and left their daughter with him. Nghbrhd told him and the girl who was fifteen that he was leaving and that he would fly home. He quickly replied, “Let me call in the reservations.” he loved to talk on the phone about things like that, and Nghbrhd thinks that a chance to talk business with a female would be a chance for excitement for him.
The girl was so lovely, and Nghbrhd had become very fond of her and treated her with all the elegance he could manage and he found himself thinking that he wished he could remain and watch her grow up as a friend. He was too pragmatic to think of her as a potential lover and was careful in the way he treated her.
He made arrangements with the veteran to pay the paper boy who had delivered papers for a few weeks and had not collected yet.
On his way to the airport he stopped at City Hall and took the elevator to the look out deck to see the scenery. He soberly reflected as he sadly looked out and into the air and saw spherical gaseous clouds of fossil fuel exhaust hanging lowly in the sky not a whole lot higher than the observation deck he was standing on.
They were huge in dimension and appeared to him as large enough to shadow several city blocks, and they were hanging suspended like ominous signs of perdition on the way to devour the earth.
He returned home by plane making his connections on time and with no trouble and was fascinated by the scenery. After the plane departed the busy air port and was in the air a few thousand feet, the ground was hidden by a thick layer of brownish yellow smog impossible to see through. Nghbrhd marveled at the sight.
It was as an apocalyptic vision causing Nghbrhd’s comprehension of the gospel and the foretold plagues mentioned in it to rise to the forefront of his mind. He loathed the idea of ever returning there as he noticed it with abhorrence and a sense of concern for those he left behind.
After arrival at his home city, he walked carrying his luggage several miles from the airport to his grandmother’s apartment. She seemed to fret that he had come under such conditions, but she let him in to stay over night. The next morning he walked several miles to his parents house.
He was idle for a few months until his uncle asked him to help renovate a house he bought. Later after his mother’s contrition had worn off and she was back to her old self, she derided him for flying home when he could have taken the bus and saved money.
Nghbrhd and his uncle had removed the weather beaten exterior siding from the north wall of the house and uncovered a colony of cock roaches that was six to seven feet in diameter. He had never seen anything like that and hasn’t since.
His uncle who had worked as an exterminator procured a gallon of diazinon and sprayed the property liberally with it to kill the cock roaches and termites that had made a large destructive impact on the house.
His father came around to the project and showed doubt about the worth of fixing that old house up. He’d look at something that had been done and criticize it or make mockery of it. But his son and the uncle weren’t bothered by that.
There had been a difference between those two brothers; they both had heart disease, but the father sought medical advice to deal with his, and had encouraged the uncle to do the same.
The uncle went to the doctor’s office and sat there for awhile and considered the worth and expense of medical treatment and became disillusioned with it left never to return or deal with his problem professionally.
Nghbrhd’s uncle had only the option of paying out of pocket for his medical treatment, but his father had good medical insurance. It’s quite probable that his criticism of the work progress was his way of showing his fear for the health and safety of his brother.
His concern for his brother’s involvement in that kind of work at his age with heart disease surely must have supported his apparent expressions of doubt in the worth of taking on so much work.
His own heart disease had become a factor of fear a few years earlier as he was engaged in a similar project on the property his wife had purchased ostensibly with the insurance returns on the death of her daughter’s first husband. Nghbrhd knows that events can certainly be made to look ugly.
He and his uncle closed the project for the Christmas season, and the first week in January were ready to reopen it, but on the night previous to their first planned work day his uncle died suddenly; so the project ended, and the house was condemned by the local community council.
His wife came to town to settle his estate, and Nghbrhd drove her back home in his uncle’s car which had become her newly acquired by her and returned by Greyhound bus.
In Salt Lake City he checked out a few Mormon exhibits and got talked into becoming an LDS church member, and that starts the beginning chapter in the saga of another more than a few years of Nghbrhd’s life.
At the end of this narrative, as a matter of opinion presumably harbored by Nghbrhd owing to the way he remembered and recounted events, the black man at the county hospital was a wonder and a peculiar man who has God’s good marks and a certain affection and rapport with troubled humanity.

Nghbrhd

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 04:57:19 GMT

The second of three installments of a

In the first quarter of that same year 1964, in the month of March Nghbrhd was forced to take a four month hiatus and began a rigorous period of examinations and rehabilitation at a state psychiatric patient‘ unit.
Mental condition, consequent behavior and failures, lack of work and income, an often times hearing of, “We don’t have any jobs at this time”, and the period of living in a rooming house with little to eat pretty much reduced his will to keep going; his loss in weight was from 160 to 137.
His condition of mind became listless as he became indifferent toward living, and his stomach felt as though it had been torn in shreds, but in spite of those conditions, he felt a sense of well being and that he could go on in that condition indefinitely. Depending on God’s help o keep him.
He had become so degraded in appearance that his mother worried terribly and sought help from her doctor instead of from the clergy; so he recommended institutionalization and told her where she could take him.
On an afternoon as he was listing in physical/mental and emotional incoherency to the physical world, she invited Nghbrhd to get in the car with her and her mother, and they went to a psychiatric institution where they entered, and he was interviewed for a few minutes and was substantively diagnosed as being seriously in need o medical attention.
It didn’t take them long to arrive at that prognosis for him; next came their determination to find out the whys and hows they needed to fix the problems. They got the law involved to help them do that.
His mother was highly embarrassed by what Nghbrhd said to them as they encouraged him and praised him for what he had to report, but his grandmother took it all in with a sense of skeptical humor as though she put little stock in or appreciation for the staff and their accomplishments in the field they worked and as though she had seen behavior typical of Nghbrhd’s on occasions before in her long fife and lengthy memory of experiences. She had no doubt seen his kind or similar conditions right at home or in neighborhoods she had lived in and frequented over years.
Nghbrhd described a fantasy he had going through his mind about a transient fellow traveling by railway boxcars through Turkey and was apprehended as an undocumented alien and castrated for no reason understood by Nghbrhd.
All of this talk was going on right up front at the main desk and was not in whispers but was spoken out loud and unabated, abridged or ashamedly by Nghbrhd at the psychiatric institution as the office personnel were looking on and listening.
To Nghbrhd’s surprise the interviewer was especially complimentary and encouraging toward him as a result of the castration story. Nghbrhd didn’t pay attention to how any others reacted at the time of the interview; he took it as though he were on center stage playing an act to its fullest.
After the talk ended and it was realized that he was not willing to remain as a patient, The staff member in charge asked them to remain in the entry way to the building where there was seating, and as they were waiting, Un be known to him, the police were informed of the urgency of his condition and asked to detain him and relocate him to the county hospital psychiatric unit.
As they sat down to wait, Nghbrhd had no suspicions as to what was about to happen and didn’t question why they were sitting there; but at that time he began to show abnormal behavior that was markedly more pronounced than any he had displayed previously. The situation had gone to his head--all the attention and the interview were a bit much for him.
As they waited, Nghbrhd sat down by a young adult girl and stared fixedly at her and watched as he saw what appeared to be dark clouds of strange smoky like substance hanging around and on her.
It didn’t seem to him that she was aware of or bothered as he stared, in fascination at what appeared to him as shades, or more rightly smoky or fume like apparitions of a blackish aura, and as he was intent on trying to understand what they meant.
His mother told him to stop staring at “At that girl”, but he continued his study and said, “She doesn’t see me”, and turning to her asked, “You don’t see me, do you?” She timidly replied that she could. Then Nghbrhd stood up and walked out the door, That’s when the police got him.
On the way to the county hospital he went into a tirade about god damned son of a bit chin’ bastards who were wrecking’ the country… Though he wasn’t aware of why he lashed out that way, he is now.
He had decided to let it be known how he felt about the psychiatric institution and how he had noticed the mock attention his grandmother had displayed and how other people in her realm of believers in divinity considered it to be pseudo science and dregs from the bedevil.
but the Policemen were considerate and didn’t smite him for his reckless oratory or reprove him on anywise; they were quite consoling and polite in their duty and perhaps a bit amused. They must have been trained to handle the Nghbhds of the community.
When they arrived at the hospital he was asked to remain in an examination room with medical apparatus such as a sink, tubes and rubber bulbs and an examination table upon which Nghbrhd flung himself with a jump and a flop.
His mother and grandmother had followed the police car to the county facility, and as Nghbrhd lay in the examining room they and the police had a consultation with the hospital entry personnel. Then he was escorted up an elevator to the ward for male inmates and remanded into there custody.
The police went there way presumably to their usual work as far as Nghbrhd knew. Perhaps they stopped for a cup of coffee to take a breather and recoup their own sanity.
He was taken by staff personnel to a small office and ordered to remove all possessions he carried and leave them at the desk. A squatty middle aged negro in white dress whose title or position isn’t known, said with a bit of affected jocular timidity in his voice, when he saw the pocket knife, “Uh um! Dey all’s has one o’ dem.”
Judging by his demeanor, general appearance, and linguistic style it surely seemed to Nghbrhd that he matched or exceeded the most representative types who were patients on the ward, but Nghbrhd considered him to be likeable and entertaining in his unusual personality and the way he conducted himself.
It is also note worthy and important from the standpoint of Nghbrhd to state that he had short stubby fingers with matching hands and a very powerful physique.
After being taken to a room no larger than a cell and made to undress down to his under wear and lie on a cot, Nghbrhd was strapped by wrists and ankles to the edges of it so that his arms were extended out to the sides and his leg were fastened to the bottom edge.
He gave them no refusal to cooperate, because he had recognized that they were in control at that time and he was intelligent enough and in control of his faculties to realize that it would be of no use to be obstinate or resist; and as well Nghbrhd was not a violent type.
The group of several people dressed in white stood by as one of them conducted an interrogation. He began, as the others silently and soberly looked on, and he asked, “Do you believe that you are God?” “No”, answered Nghbrhd; and after a few other questions which he had done his best to answered as compliantly and as politely as possible, the interrogator said, “It’s dangerous when someone claims to be God and talks to others as though he is.”
Obviously they were looking for signs of drug abuse such as needle marks or other indications that occur in people who are addicts, but they found no marks from hypodermic injections. He might have had many of the other signs, but there were no needle marks or bruises from them; he had not used drugs--either from street vendors or from a pharmacy.
Later at a psychiatric session at the psychiatric institution, he was asked about use of drugs and was regarded with skepticism by the psychiatrist when he said he had never used them. The last of any drugs he used were administered when he was in the army.
The discipline of salvation he accepted as right precluded the use of drugs, and he was unhappy about using the ones that were prescribed at the institution, but he took them to be in compliant with the program which he was afraid to resist.
The men left leaving him bound in the leather straps and closed the door which was think and heavy and had a small window in it. He lay there for the rest of that afternoon, the evening and night until the next morning after sun up.
The only times someone entered was in the middle of the night when an attendant came in with a urinal to see if he needed to pee, but he motioned for him to leave him alone. He was so dehydrated when he left home the day before that he didn’t have any excess fluid in him.
During the hours he lay on the cot he tried to get a comfortable position by turning his torso from one side to the other but couldn’t turn onto his stomach. He’d lie one way for awhile and maybe fall asleep and wake up and turn again.
Much of the time he was awake remembering past event that came into his mind and at times had a surreal impression that his great grandmother whom he remembered from early childhood was in and out of the cell like room to check on him and make sure he was ok. That’s how it seemed to Nghbrhd during his ordeal on the cot in the cell at the county hospital psychiatric unit.
Later someone came in while it was still night and gave him and injection of something in the leg, and a few hours later the straps were removed and he was allowed into the main area where a crowd of patients who elicited Nghbrhd’s fullest sympathy and compassion, were milling about displaying many appearances of dejection, morose facial expressions, and strange displays of gaiety as well. The negro was back on duty for the day and said to Nghbrhd: “Nghbrhd, you a good boy.” (are or is omitted)
He stood around for awhile watching the surroundings and mildly embellishing his vision with tinges of hallucination as sometimes the disorder he was experiencing causes. His field of vision was at times enhanced by vivid coloring of the background or areas around people, and at other times he saw strange difficult to describe effects that were etched around and on what he was seeing as he looked at people.
It was the same as was the case of the girl on the previous day.
He had also experienced effects of that type at previous times, even when he was still in the tenement house and at home. He enjoyed them as though they had been heaven sent.
Those effects apparently accompany starvation and add the sense of well being which some compromised persons may experience as they slip into loss of consciousness of what is normal and usual into the state that becomes paranormal or meta physical.
A man of very earnest deportment came up to him apparently knowing that he would be leaving soon and gave him the phone number of his wife and asked him to call her and tell her that he loved her and didn’t want her to leave him and that he felt bad about things he had done. He gave no details of them, and very little of his brief conversation has been remembered by Nghbrhd.
Soon two deputies from the county sheriff’s office arrived at the main desk, and one of them picked up the personal items which Nghbrhd had brought with him. The inventory included a wallet, the knife and some change; they had been put in an envelope, and when Nghbhd saw it he asked the deputy what was in it. With good humor, he said, “Scratch” meaning money.
Then they three went out and got in an unmarked patrol car and went to the psychiatric institution. Nghbrhd was a whole lot more compliant by that time. He knew he couldn’t say no anymore.
It must be emphasized here, as Nghbhd would have it, the authorities were very considerate in their manner and the way they related to him. They showed toleration, sympathy and kindness and followed their procedures according to standards they understood and capably represented their service with skill and tact for one who was so ill.
Several weeks later he called the wife of the man who had pleaded with him to take a message to her. She thanked him and told him that he was back home.
It was difficult for him to make that phone call because of the unusual nature of it, and because she was a stranger. But it played on his mind and he was glad he called; he would surely have felt guilty today if he had not.
What he received at the psychiatric institution as protocol was far different than the methods used by church men and their rulers. There were no prayers, allusions to hell fire or exhortations about church attendance and paying tithing. That seemed alright to him. The psychiatric institution didn’t need tithing, it had support from taxes the people paid, and besides that the patients were in no condition to give tithes or offerings.
But to Nghbrhd, the program didn’t seem to promote any reform or offer guidance to much of an extent or to have much aim. It was more like a do it yourself society where what was tried either worked or didn’t and no one was there to take anyone by the hand and lead on to the proverbial plain of all understanding and bliss.
Although many were highly trained specialists; and he knew it, there was no one with a stand up and show everyone the way attitude, and no one was a dictator demanding servitude. No debate raged; anyone of the patients or staff was allowed to speak openly and be considered.
Each week a meeting of all persons in the institution was held and anyone who wished to could make a statement. Witnessing that was a new event for Nghbrhd. The effect on him was that he went away with the attitude that no one knew anything but was rather trying to find out whatever there was to learn. The fact is, they were smart, quiet, observant and very non opinionated.
Nghbrhd cannot to this day say that he is as well adjusted as any them and a competent participant in normal society. He’s not a church attendee any more mainly for the reason that he’s divorced and reasons that people in the league of the broken and irreparable campers are not qualified to congregate with happy well adjusted families.
Now in his agedness, he’s pretty much of an outcast and loner--somewhat of a forlorn one too, but yet he has a sense of success about himself--strange as that may seem.
He never gets enthused about functions like groups for the elderly or participation in political parties, church attendance, or that thought of going back to school for continuing education, dance clubs therapy groups or any other such functions that any aged people take pleasure in.
He doesn’t spend time in senior citizen centers either. They’re all about eating, dancing, romancing, tax consulting, collating political ideas and clout as well pursuing a lot of plans and projects designed to enhance the aging process which is nothing more than what leads to the grave one way or another.
Death’s whispered insulations are oft’ on the lips and in the heart of a wise and just man what so ever gender the man might be. A few projects and studies at home are sufficient to keep his mind satisfied. He hopes he can keep those occupations going until the end. Others have; maybe he can too.
But though he professes a strange cast off sense of success he knows success is only operable as long as success leads to success, and Nghbrhd has not attained the ultimate by any means.
He reflects back and realizes that the experiences of psychiatric help and other rehabilitation he received at the county hospital and the psychiatric institution have become part of him--just as much as his home environment, schooling, military and vocational experience have. Those all are components of a way of life. His are peculiar and unique.
He has more praise for a way of life that those parents who have been able to avoid such places have sustained and passed to their children. Nghbrhd’s didn’t have that way. Had he remained cloaked in the shroud they gave him to wear he would surely have waxed away in failure of hunger, fatigue and aimlessness, bouts of self pity and numerous other negative factors and would have died under a bridge or in a shelter for homeless or a psychiatric institution.
When his mother tried to revitalize him after she brought him home from the tenement house, she had brought trays of food to him on occasions to feed him and restore his appetite, but he turned away from them with the result that she became aggrieved and perplexed.
At the psychiatric institution twice daily his blood pressure was monitored, and he was given a daily intake on prescriptions that were vitamins and a couple for anxiety and nerves. Along with that he received well balanced meals three times per day, a comfortable sleeping place and means to maintain hygiene.
Other patients were present; so he lived in a varied company without being solitary so much as he had been. He was given the chance to witness problems that they had; so he could realize he wasn’t the only one around who was troubled.
He put the lost weight back on and started to look healthier; he progressed in the rehabilitation of his body. That stage of his recuperation was fairly easy to complete. It was his mental outlook that had to be reckoned with, and that was difficult for him.
He still had to grapple with the issue of the future he faced. How he would do that perplexed him because he was so convinced of his own worthlessness. Among the insinuations Nghbrhd received at home from his parents was the idea that he was worthless.
His parents will never admit or even understand how it was that they made Nghbrhd regard himself as useless. Intelligence regarding such matter passes over the head of many people and never comes to lodge in their minds, and it’s basically because they were never exposed to the source of wisdom.
For all he knew he was locked into the hospital system then and worried that he would never see a clear exit door from the psychiatric institution. How misfortunate his lot had been.
All patients were watched and cared for by numerous professionals, who held various discussion sessions and evaluations, and they were discouraged against directing conversation toward group monitors--but were asked to direct their comments to the group when they convened and if they spoke.
Patients didn’t all have the same illness or disorder, some had epilepsy, psychoses, neuroses, schizophrenia, congenital abnormalities and some conditions that Nghbrhd’s degree of knowledge and imagination could only define as maladies that require some super cure that may never come about.
It would be fair to make it known that the patient population were screened so that harmful persons were not interred there. Nghbrhd never witnessed serious harm such as brutality one toward another. Nor was any such administered by staff personnel.
A man who had come in contact with high voltage and was harmed by it became subject to seizures that occurred so quickly that he nor anyone else had any warning that they were about to happen. He had one while he was in the kitchen with a group and was holding a guitar.
He sprang backward off the stool he was sitting on and hit the floor on his back while the guitar flailed around but didn’t hit anyone fortunately. The incident was over so quickly that got right back on his feet and seemed not to be harmed.
Another patient was a woman who had been in a near fatal collision with a truck. Why she was there Nghbrhd never knew. He had talked to her several times, but he made it a point not to ask personal questions or why she had come there.
Sessions of group therapy at which patients of the same or near age were gathered and were conducted by a counselor to help participants inter act among themselves and share conversation about their particular experiences to gain support from those present or simply make small talk with the counselor’s moderation.
That was an opportunity for the counselor to gain clues into what might be going on in inside the minds of those present; and as well, he had bits of information to add that he considered useful to them as they were there to learn from him too.
Aside from that there were regular personal interviews with a personal psychiatrist and plenty of physical activities as well as down time for leisure. Some times there were parties with refreshments and dancing, and there were the ping pong table and basketball with a gymnasium to go along with it.
There was a small library for the use of patients with books provided by donors, but there were no books that interested Nghbrhd; they were mostly novels for teenagers and children. He was more interested in technical subjects on an adult level.
The institution also had a wood working shop that was equipped with a variety of power tools for sawing, planning and joining wood. It was locked at all times, and Nghbrhd saw it only through plate glass window.
He looked longingly through those windows at times but never thought or questioned if access would be available to him. As for his contemplations concerning the shop, for all he knew it was there as a show piece to impress visitors who would see how the psychiatric institution looked but would never know how it operated.
Each afternoon most of the patients gathered in the kitchen for a drink of their choice of beverage which included Pepsi or Coke; Nghbrhd doesn’t remember any others unless it would be Seven Up. One the outpatients, a slender black kid, got a thrill out of serving the drinks; Nghbrhd reasons that today he might be a bar tender.
He was always the first one to grab the job as though his name were written on it, and nobody else could get to it before he could; such was his alacrity in jumping to his status among the inmates.
His style was to whisk the bottle up and open it with a dexterous flair and tip it completely upside down over the glass. It all came out in the usual fizzing and bubbling way, but it never overflowed so as to make a mess on the table. The whole operation was well put together as the kid was a master. That for some reason sticks out in Nghbrhd’s memory.
Generally times were good, but to mention again, Nghbrhd had intermittent bouts of longing to get away from there and fears for his future that precipitated anxiety concerning whether he would ever be released.
Patients who showed indifference, improper compliance or no signs of recovery might be sent to another more stringent facility for those considered too intransigent for the methods employed at the psychiatric institution.
Student nurses came from a highly rated local medical school to work with and visit the patients to gain insight and experience for their profession; two nuns were among them too and wore white habits instead of black.
They were a bit reserved and seemed strange to Nghbrhd; he never got very close to either of there. To him they seemed as in a league of their own with no mental or spiritual connection to the psychiatric institution as he perceived it.
One of them was very timid as though she were afraid of conditions the patients lived with and seemed especially anxious around Nghbrhd. Several times too, friends and pastors from churches came to visit Nghbrhd, and they were a great resource for encouragement, and were well appreciated. Nghbrhd thanks them.
The tending psychiatrist for him was quite far out of touch philosophically, ethnically, socially and economically with Nghbrhd, although at times he was looking for someone to talk to about his own state of mind and experiences; he didn‘t always put on the apparel of a scholar with his brains in the medical books and journals or present himself strictly as a detached physician.
He sometimes showed that he too was human with the attendant weaknesses of humanity. He explained that he wasn’t always able to talk to other members of the hospital staff with comfortable dialogue.
He asked Nghbrhd frequently if he had dreamed anything; he never had that he remembered, but one night he had a really vivid and blatant dream: He was on a train in the middle of his home state going east bound until it stopped at the scene of an oncoming train that had been approaching on the opposite track coming west and had been involved in a terrible collision.
It was a hideous sight: everything was charred black including twisted metal parts and upholstery of the cars and bones of victims. As Nghbrhd was witnessing the sight, an aged gentle and compassionate appearing country doctor appeared, and Nghbrhd got out of his place to assist him, but all they had was a bucket of water that that to Nghbrhd seemed to have a quality about it that made it living water.
When he recited the dream, he didn’t mention the fact that the water seemed to be living water. He didn’t think it would have meaning to the psychiatrist, and it might have given cause for personal embarrassment or ridicule and undue inquisitiveness by his listener. He thought it best to be still on that subject.
The psychiatrist didn’t say anything in response. Later Nghbrhd thought he might have taken it personally and as offensive, thinking that it compared him to a less qualified country doctor.
At interviews the psychiatrist usually sat back and lit up a cigarette and started the questions; one day Nghbrhd asked him saying, “You’re a doctor and you smoke?” His reaction was one of surprise with a reply of, “Thank you.” He quickly brushed it aside and made no other comment about it.
In another interview he became mildly hostile and told Nghbrhd that he could send him to the main hospital of the state run system and that he would remain there if he didn’t show more positive response start doing some talking during sessions. That scared Nghbrhd.
His usual composure at sessions had been as though he were in a world apart, that whole issue of psychiatric session was of no interest to him and that he didn’t wish to pay attention, and it bothered the psychiatrist to be presented with that kind of approach.
He took himself and his time more seriously than Nghbrhd did, and because Nghbrhd had nothing or little to say at his enquiries and put forth the impression that he would rather be somewhere else, The man was apparently irritated.
He had been a practicing physician and psychiatrist for twenty-one years and seemed by his account to have gained considerable status and satisfaction in the medical and psychiatric professions. He let it be known that he expected compliance and due respect as he made sure to present himself as an authority figure and assert preeminence over Nghbrhd. Or so it seemed to him.
Nghbrhd knew enough about his own non verbal giftedness and intellectual subordination to a seasoned psychiatrist; so he tended to be defensive and on the alert for some unfamiliar idea or challenge that would cause a wound to his ego.
He knew he was in the presence of an authority with definition and power with who knows what kind of intentions operating in his mind. Seemingly he read the meaning of Nghbrhd’s reticence and lack of conversational skills as an indication of unwillingness to open up to others outside his little circle and cooperate.
He was very willing to cooperate at that time; he grappled in his mind for anything to say, and out of the blue he spoke the first thing to come into his head, even though it was irrelevant to the time frame and general meaning of the session. He had been made to be afraid.
When the psychiatrist left sessions it appeared that he took only hopelessness with him and that his visit had been unrewarding. Nghbrhd now supposes that he as a professional could look for clues and signs of rehabilitation and leave on a positive note that Nghbrhd didn’t detect.
He could observe only the psychiatrist’s appearance and seeming failure with the kind of evaluation he did because he was far less informed about the work of a mental health expert.
At the time he could only leave sessions with the--“I came for no good reason I’ve left with nothing meaningful or that I understand. The psychiatric institution has the meaning and the understanding; that’s how they make their living, and it’s a well paid living.”
He remembered the threat of being spirited away to a deeper meaning of psychiatric incarceration and thought hard about it, and on the next meeting told the psychiatrist it didn’t matter if he were sent away for permanent detention; it would relieve of him of the problem of going out into the world and fending for himself.
The psychiatrist told Nghbrhd on another day saying, “You are afraid of your own anger; I am not your father, and I’m not afraid of your anger.” Nghbrhd didn’t understand the statement afraid of his own anger.
But certainly he understood the father thing and agreed wholeheartedly with him on that, although he didn’t say so; he merely looked away and retreated into his defense and said nothing.
He has thought about fear of anger much since then but still isn‘t sure what that doctor meant. Maybe it‘s just mental institution cliché that has meaning to workers there, or it means one is afraid he’ll do something rash or dangerous because he can’t control his anger.
The state or county social service branch was apprised of the condition that Nghbrhd had been reduced to and started an investigation to know the reason/s and went after some answers.
They called on his mother and father for interviews, and the psychiatrist told Nghbrhd about them. He said Nghbrhd’s mother was ashamed and remorseful and that his father was defiantly uncooperative with the case worker, Nghbrhd concludes that his father used a barrage of abstract language and evasiveness to questions and refused to take responsibility for any wrong doing.
Nghbrhd also has conjectured an evaluation of each parent over years and has concluded that the human mind and will are very fickle and supple in dealing with on the occasion dilemmas that people may come along and press them with. As soon as the danger of each has been negotiated and filed away the creature is right back to the same old forms of behavior and habits.
There’s no point in being confused; behavior is ingrained and stays the same except for random displays of it that are warped into nice momentary appearances that are contrived to fool an onlooker who might think that good is present when it isn‘t.
Nghbrhd concluded that the psychiatrist had little respect for his father. He had told him how his own father had been abusive and non supportive in a moral sense and how his mother had given him the encouragement to accomplish his career in education and medicine.
The atmosphere at the psychiatric institution was liberal. Tobacco was allowed, and under aged patients were not reprimanded for smoking cigarettes if they chose to.
During a period of several days it became a fad among some of them to scorch a spot or two or several on their arm or arms with a cigarette and show it as if it were a kind of accomplishment.
Nghbrhd didn’t witness any other body members such as legs, backs or faces being subjected to the strange ritual, nor did he take part in it; neither did he smoke; and he asked the psychiatrist why they subjected themselves to such pain.
His answer was that they were making a statement to impress on others that they hurt. It was their way of saying, “I hurt”--meaning the general conditions of their lives were painful to them. Nghbrhd wasn’t sure he agreed but kept silence at that answer. He now wonders if the doses of drugs administered to them made them insensitive to the pain or at least dulled it.
The psychiatrist made it a point at one time in a session to mention Nghbrhd’s hatred--that he had too little love; Nghbrhd decided that was an unrealistic assessment but didn’t argue the point. He, as usual, slid limply away into his defense posture and held his peace as he listened. His tendency when he heard adverse statements was to gather himself into a state of withdrawal as though slipping into a hiding place such as a cavern or fortress until the atmosphere changed and it was safe to come out again. The psychiatrist wasn’t happy with that; he must have wanted more antagonism and fight from Nghbrhd.
He was pretty good at that slipping away into affected obscurity in order to avoid confrontation with threatening invective or convicting verbal statements that would make him feel low or insulted.
It is true he had hated many things from the time he began to comprehend more of the world than just his instinct to suck and reach for the things he saw and examined to see whether they could be eaten.
There grew a list of these things he hated, and it had become fairly extensive. Yet to be told that he was hateful was somehow out of character and repugnant and not accurate. That didn’t settle as a true assessment of his nature as he considered it to be. It was criticism that missed mark for sure--he thought!
Finally the day of a hearing came, and Nghbrhd was called before a board of doctors, psychiatrists and staff and presented with a number of invasive questions. The one he most remembers was: what are your goals?
He told them to get a job and that he had no other goals in mind, and he mentioned that he doesn’t make goals. Even though he had said he doesn’t make goals, they asked, “What other goals do you have?”
All that time Nghbrhd was apprehensive and pensive thinking that perhaps more interment might have been considered if they didn’t recognize a favorable condition concerning his release back into the normal world.
They were apparently satisfied that he was ready to leave in good faith and released him with no hand shakes, challenges or demands presented and without statements of goof luck or goodbye, and he went back home where he remained for almost half a year.
For those four months at the institution the cost was in the neighborhood of $1,100. Compared to costs today that is a very low amount.

nghbrhd

Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:47:15 GMT

The first of three installments of a

Short Story of A Man Called Nghbrhd

Nghbrhd (pronounce neighborhood) had separated honorably from the United States Army on August 18th 1962 and had returned to his home city and state and has settled in an apartment close to the church he was a member of and had after several days made a trip to the state employment office to apply for work and unemployment compensation and was referred to a position of mentoring a group of children with Down’s Syndrome.
He didn’t know that sort of job, but went to the location and talked to one of the mothers, who represented other mothers who were impacted by Down’s Syndrome, and was scouting for competent help with her work. It seems now as though she knew from the beginning that he was no candidate for that employment, and possibly wondered why the office had referred him, but she talked to him as she conducted an interview; and he soon forgot what they had discussed.
She removed from the scene leaving Nghbrhd alone with the children to give him a chance to interact with them while she looked on from a distance. From her place she observed and by observing ascertained that Nghbrhd was unqualifiedly out of his elements.
As Nghbrhd tried to make some kind of meeting with those children, their sole topic of discussion was fascination with their personal and one another’s sex drives. The boys had their moments of rowdiness too which caused Nghbrhd an awkward struggle and put him in a quandary of helplessness as for what to do to restore calm.
To his relief, the mother returned after a grueling time for him that seemed longer than it was, and politely dismissed him not making any mention as to whether he would be asked to return; so he left with little thought of returning there, and the employment office never notified him either; so he was relieved to consider that vocation as one that he would not pursue.
A few days later his sister came to visit out of concern for him and convinced him to move to her house where she said he would be able to stay, and he could help do some renovation work on the front porch. Not long after the work was done she and her husband decided to move out of state.
He moved to his parent’s house and later drove to California in a 1948 Oldsmobile, he had bought while in the Army, and visited friends and a relative and his family and later returned to spend an idle winter, until with help from the church pastor he got a several months long job working for a brick layer, that yielded little gain for himself in either money or experience, but never the less was useful and appreciated.
And he went right onto another job working for a paving contractor doing heavy labor with concrete working on basement floors, side walks, floors above ground and roofs until the Fall of 1963--a few days after President Kennedy was assassinated.
He tried to make another trip to California, but a few miles out of town a fan belt broke which he was able to get replaced; and then the front end shocks began to go out. He had to turn back.
Fortunately he had gone only about fifty to seventy miles at the most. On returning home, he parked it on a side driveway next to, but not on the lot of, his parents new house with intent to fix it for his use; but his father didn‘t want it around. So Nghbrhd sold it to a wrecking yard.
He was now somewhat disheartened with no work or car and no incentive and plenty of doubts about his self worth. The church organist lived in that area; so she kindly gave him rides to and from church which was about ten miles away. Nghbrhd had given others rides to and from church when he was able; so to him that seemed to be a fair return for charity he had given. He showed thanks and appreciation for that.
Close to the Winter that followed irritation became his father’s troubling response to Nghbrhd’s presence, as he became resentful and argumentative about the problems of having him around and his not showing an effort to get on with a normal life and ordered him out of the house.
That evening after starting an altercation out of the blue which neither of them could settle, he threatened to call the police and had picked up the telephone receiver to call them and have Nghbrhd removed by force. At that, Nghbrhd said to his father, “Give me twenty dollars and I’ll leave.” He pulled out twenty dollars and practically threw it at him.
Nghbrhd’s father was always challenged by muscles and for some reason of vanity thought he had to prove his own against the other man’s. That’s what he was basically doing with Nghbrhd, although neither one of them knew it at the time.
Taking the money, he went to a cousin’s for the night arriving late in the evening after a long walk to the bus, then a ride to a transfer location downtown and another ride back out to an area of between five and six miles away plus another long walk.
It was dark and cold when he left with a lot of dispiritedness as he walked and rode on the buses to the cousin’s and explained the situation when he arrived there. The next morning he found a room to rent and stayed a couple days and went back home.
An accurate account of what he did for the next few months isn’t possible to reconstruct nor is it expedient to the story, but his sister had moved back to town and became aware of the trouble between Nghbrhd and their father; so she invited him back to her house.
It should be stated in all fairness that Nghbrhd had problems of his own that made him a hard person to be around at times; it wasn’t only his parents who were callous. The whole world is savage at times, and all are participants and partakers in and of the outcome of that fact.
And sometimes his innerving sister in her attempts to help got, as it were, bitten on the hand by Nghbrhd whom she had sought to help in his moments of crises. It isn’t the purpose of this story to imply that Nghbrhd is a perfect angel or example of innocence by any means.
It had been cold weather, and Nghbrhd had used their car to get back and forth to church. Later he was able to buy another for $35.00 and move to a rooming house where rent was only $6.50 per week; so that wasn’t hard to pay, and he began living there after the new year started and stayed for around two months.
In fact, he seems to remember that it was New Years Eve that he moved in. The manager was alone, or seemed to be; it could have been that her companion kept out of sight during the first visit between her and Nghbrhd.
He had hoped to find work, and the manager mentioned that she would be watching for anything that might come up, but nothing came of that. He might have made or thought to make a couple of calls to apply but didn’t really try hard and soon gave up on searches and determined to go on the prospect that something always comes along in time.
Why he didn’t go back to the unemployment office for help isn’t clear, except that he most likely didn’t want to find work at that time, or was simply glad to continue his church attendance and let everything else slide for awhile, thinking that God might invite and call him up to a miraculous ministry. His simple mind allowed for such possibilities.
Because he had invested in the love of God and fellowship with others who are of like mind, he believed that something better than the employment office would be available for meeting his need for sustenance.
It’s clear that Nghbrhd placed neither confidence in the methods of the bureaucratic atmosphere of the employment office, nor did he have love for it; but after many years of reconsideration of a lot, he now knows that all institutions and programs of state have a purpose and meaning that can be useful to people of good intention.
On Sundays and at prayer meetings on Tuesday evenings he didn't consider how he was perceived by the people at church, but they must have noticed that he was bearing some kind of hardship as a burden. However no one said anything to him concerning fears they might have had about that. Apparently everyone figured that he was another person ably pulling his load.
… until one Sunday when one of the presiding women of the church board of trustees approached him and broached the subject of getting married and asked, "Wouldn't you like to have someone to love?"
Nghbrhd said back that he had all kinds of people to love, he realized she had a different interpretation of love in mind than the neighborly type, but he didn‘t want to open a can of worms on that subject with her; that would have been a bit much for him.
The incident put his mind in an awkward state since he didn't feel qualified to get married because of his poor sense of self worth and the host of problems that plagued his mind. It was also Nghbrhd’s contention that marriage wasn’t really necessary as a show of love of God. His honest conviction was that he wasn’t meant to get married or prosper in the world. How he was to pursue a way wasn’t clear to him, and he didn’t take any thought for it.
As for romance he was timid around girls, and at being questioned about his solo pursuit of life he became mildly defensive and felt singled out, and from then on had mild doubts about his ability to be in character with and acceptable among some of those people of pious behavior.
His sense of welcome became a bit awkward, and he felt at odds with at least that woman, and began to wonder about his moral compass and how she viewed it. He continued to slide physically into a state of day to day existence and awareness of self diminutiveness. He accepted his slide as characteristic to the fact that a man aware of God no longer has self to depend on; God is the one to depend on.
He didn't quit going to church, but a strange wall of irritation, so to speak, arose between him and that woman as they awkwardly encountered each other until the end of his membership there.
His slight antipathy toward her didn’t diminish the consolation he continued receive from most of the other membership and was profiting at least in his soul by fellowship with them.
Several years later after Nghbrhd was resituated in church work;
he and a companion worker chanced to run into that woman at a grocery store; so he approached her with a hi and introduced the friend and told him in a passing manner how she had approached him on the subject of marriage and her hint of how marriage would be so good for him.
She showed a bit of embarrassment, when Nghbrhd told his friend that; and he replied back to the effect that she had been correct. He told her and Nghbrhd that Nghbrhd should be married and that it was right for him. Nghbrhd remembers that with a good sense of humor although he wonders still if marriage to any woman, man or other creature is right for him.
On an occasion the pastor invited a traveling evangelist to help revive the church and stir up the faith of the congregation to good works and reinvigorate their zeal, and Nghbrhd was impressed to go up front to the altar nearby which stood those in the prayer circle and ask for a blessing from the Lord.
As he stood with those who were gathered there to minister and hands were laid on him, he was admonished concerning his fears and was counseled concerning them, and some persons present were impressed to say that Nghbrhd had received a mighty out pouring of the spirit of God and that God had done a great thing for him.
He had been touched by the spirit of God so that a great thing had been done for him by the Lord. Later he went out that evening from the church feeling satisfied that he could expect special goodness from God.
After a several week period of loneliness and isolation his demeanor and presence of person hinted to others that he needed some help beyond his own capacity to put him on a healthy track.
His family noticed and his mother managed to get him interred in a psychiatric unit, where he remained for four months and there decided that he would put church attendance on hold for a while, and he remained out of contact until more than a year after.
It wasn’t that he lost faith or despised church, He believed within himself that it was time to move on to something more in accord with what truly stirred inside of him.
Independence with the Lord was Nghbrhd’s affinity without reliance on anyone else’s light from above . Maybe that was more than he had a right to expect, but scripture seemed to imply to him that he had that option and that it is right for him.
Now after reflection and hind sight, he considers his errors and that the enquiring woman might have truly been challenged to help him find more comfort by sharing his life with a mate. She perhaps had noticed his dilemma and believed that marriage would help him.
Whatever her case was, her idea of marriage as the solution for Nghbrhd’s troubles were to him a dream far out of his reach. There were so many problems going on in his head and heart that he couldn't think of himself as a realistic candidate for matrimony, but he didn’t have the skill to come to an understanding with her.
Before Nghbrhd’s mother had come to take him out of the tenement house his depletion had waxed from serious to critical. While he had been living there his mother, to whom he had sent money while he was in the service, gave him back a little of it to use for rent and a few groceries.
Today she would deny that he had ever given her money, but never the less he did send money home from the Army all the time he was serving. His mother has a, not altogether- but near, nefarious way of accounting for money, especially among her family members. She puts prevarication and money management in the same hand bag and sets the onus of being wrong on those she transacts business with, and she seems to have a wit about her that shows her whom she can deal with in that surreptitious manner.
A very meager amount it was too that she gave him. He drove to the store once a week and bought what food he could and still pay rent. It isn’t certain, as he can’t recall, what he ate; and he really didn’t know how to make the best distribution of what little money he had for food, rent and transportation.
Medical bills were out of sight/out of mind. By his standard of wisdom today, he would have rid himself of the car and bought a bicycle.
The manager was a woman who had worked as a professional interacting with the public on a verbal basis rather than as one who does manual labor, and she had a peculiar affinity for things of the spirit.
She talked to Nghbrhd when he moved in and asked where he had lived and who to contact in case of emergency, which was impressive to him; he considered her enquiry as concern and responsibility, and he had not experienced that show of care at anytime he had previously found housing. She told him on later occasion as they visited that her house was the haven of a ghost named Zillah.
For some reason that didn’t trouble Nghbrhd with any misgiving but rather seemed to be a point of excitement to him, and he found himself enthused about meeting Zillah, but that never happened; at least to his knowledge it didn‘t.
The old tenement building has been demolished; so where Zillah gravitated to will be a mystery to him unless she looks him up at some time to let him know. Maybe she went to the next place the manager moved to, and they are friends for eternity. At any rate, Nghbrhd wishes both of them well.
The manager seemed kind to Nghbrhd and once in awhile gave him a piece of pie or some dessert; her concern for him surely was on her mind, but she never expressed a point of fear or doubt about him. She expected Nghbrhd to make good sooner or later.
She had told him that she had one son and that her husband had a traveling occupation that required his being on the road for long periods. There had never been a circumstance whereby Nghbrhd had met or seen him. There were two other upstairs rooms besides his room that were occupied by men who were more elderly than he, but he never chanced to meet them either.
His mother was timid when she and his grandmother met the manager and explained who they were and why they had come; so his grandmother did the talking. Then they took him away leaving the old car parked out front. His grandmother afterward remarked that the house seemed to be a nice place with a peaceful and reverent atmosphere.
Her assessment may have been evoked by a small inauspicious decal on the door at the lower left hand corner of the window pane showing a portrait of Jesus and having a caption that stated: “Respect his name.” Her own reverence was easily psyched up by that kind of depiction as she approved highly of art work like that.
Nghbrhd wasn’t in arrears wiith rent; so there was no problem on that wise, nor had he caused any damage to the premises; so a peaceful departure was made. When his father came home and saw him he was typically disappointed and fretted saying, “Get him out of here”, and made Nghbrhd stay in the grandmother’s little place that was adjacent to theirs. Later he and one of his other sons fetched Nghbrhd’s car home.
Many months later after Nghbrhd had recuperated by means of help he received first from God and at the hospital and psychiatric institution, he stopped at the tenement house to give the manager a brief visit and message personal to them alone. After her acknowledgement and show of appreciation they kissed and parted. A reunion between them can be possible only in the next plane of eternal existence.
The place the grandmother occupied was a three room cracker box, meaning a small house; it included a bath and shower. And it was located on the quarter of the acreage next to the main house. It had been the original to the lot when Nghbrhd’s mother bought it.
Later she and Nghbrhd’s father built next to it. Actually when she talked about buying an acre, he was unwilling to discuss it; when she got the acre and started talking about a house for it, he became even more somber.
He knew the amount of work it would take, and he had a diseased heart, but she prevailed, and the contracting began. His trailing along with doubt and reluctance to get involved, availed him nothing; she convinced him to do as she wished, and he did it as according the saying, “Man chases the woman until she catches him.”
Any flaws or shortcomings in workmanship were quickly detected by him, and he came down hard on the workers to make it right. He didn’t approve of the brickwork in one of the window sills; so he tossed the brick out onto the ground and demanded a remake on the work. Later he occupied the new house with the proud posture of a Lord of the Manor.
Nghbrhd’s sister who had brought him to live at her house claimed for the remainder of her life that money she had received as a benefit from the death of her first husband was taken by their mother and used to buy the property and never repaid.
It was a certainty that through a slick kind of parental hegemony their mother took control over the mind and will of Nghbrhd’s sister in so far as her insurance benefits were concerned that she might, with intent of overseeing how the money was spent, make sure that no disapproved use was made of it.
It is also known that her mother often feared that the man from, whom she purchased the property on a land contract, would jump at a chance to foreclose if she didn’t get the debt paid or if she failed to make a payment on time.
But there is uncertainty about his sister’s claim as she presented it to Nghbrhd, because he knew she was, as was her mother, at times unreliable in her assessments and memory of events because of mental incapacities she suffered.
Whether or not their mother used the money to pay off the mortgage and failed to pay it back in good faith is a matter for history to make known. Truth will out concerning all interactions and events.
Nghbrhd remembered his grandmother telling him on occasions, “Nghbrhd your mother doesn’t need that big house. It had three bedrooms a large living room and equally large kitchen with two bathrooms--one off the master bedroom, and a fire place upstairs and in the basement.
The exterior had a brick veneer, a hip roof and an attached two car garage; and the basement had been finished with the addition of a bar. All of that was too large and opulent by the grandmother’s humble standard.
It should be noted too that it was out of character with the rest of the neighborhood; every house for square miles around was at least half the value and much smaller in size.
It was the only brick house in all of that area too--kind of a palace among tents. To find a similar dwelling one had to go over to Dundee or out to “rich haven.”
Nghbrhd remembers times he sat in that finished basement enjoying the solitude it afforded after his return from the rooming house and prior to his entry to the psychiatric institution; he remembers a time that his mother brought a tray of food nicely prepared and looking pleasant as though meticulous and talented effort had gone into preparing it, for his mother understood the value of making food appear decorous as it was served.
Nghbrhd only looked at it and refused to take it making his mother retreat--doubtlessly with a feeling of grief and wonderment at what she had done wrong in the days of her life to deserve such indifference.
Without doubt assessment of past deeds attributable to him by his conscience operating within him as it kindles the memory, that argues back and forth with it, has brought remorse to his table to consider as a staple of the inevitable remunerative diet he has been served as what goes around comes around.
Nghbrhd’s grandmother had spoken several times to him about what he should do to begin his career in life. “Go get a job washing dishes”, she would say, “that’s good work”; “Later get a trailer with four acres and a cow out in the mountains.” Other times she told him to sit at the bus terminal and watch the people come and go or “Walk around downtown to have something to do in your life”.
Nghbrhd always surmised that those alternatives were flawed and out of range of his interests and ideas of feasibility; so he never acted on any of his grandmother’s advice, and has seldom conjectured about what might have become of him if he had. However, if he had, he might be a rich man today by reason of her wisdom. Who knows?
He continued at his grandmother’s not eating much with pretty much no will to eat, and he slept on the couch. She had a parakeet that flew onto his shoulder once in awhile and perched there while he sat in an arm chair.
He sat there one day and heard a strange and baffling whirring and fluttering noise around his head but he remained there mute as a statue with a wondering brain inside of it, and the bird landed on him as though either to make a friend or acquire a comfortable perching spot.
It became the bird’s random occasion to give him a visit in that way, and Nghbrhd never felt a moment of distress or sense of invasion about it. He didn’t know if the bird wished to be friendly with concern about his condition and wanted to tender some consolation or had simply found another but interesting place to stop and view the world.
He didn’t think about it all that much at the time since his mind was on holier matters, and now after many years it’s only one among thousands of after thoughts which he might attempt to use for small talk.
The pastor from church came to visit, and another one from a different church came to pray for him. A few family members also visited. One of the brothers in law stopped by with his boys and gave him a hair cut. The boys seemed to be amused at Nghbrhd’s condition and acted as though they wanted to laugh, but they held it back.
His sister who had brought him out of the first apartment visited one day with a burden on her mind to tell him that the Lord would bless him if he would get out of his parents house. Amen to that!
Nghbrhd’s grandmother took it on herself to fill his mind with stories about the rude nature of his father, especially at times she had traveled with him and Nghbrhd’s mother. Those were times that Nghbrhd’s father was challenged by his diseased heart and travel fatigue.
The grandmother didn't mentioned heart trouble or fatigue. She had never been educated to such points of knowledge. “He was impatient with waitresses who didn’t serve him the kind of service he demanded”, she intoned. “He got up and walked out on one who slighted him on attentiveness”, she said.
And another time he had been acting selfishly with his candy and pop corn. Nghbrhd doesn’t remember the complete story on that one. She had a few other things to say that had hidden meaning that Nghbrhd didn’t infer at the time but now interprets to mean that she was telling in a round about way that he should get away from his father and that house and stay away.
Nothing else of pertinence to this story is necessary to be included from that time period, but his mother prevailed on his father to bring him back to their house where there was a room for him. Surely the grandmother must have been as glad to get him out of her house as his father was bothered to get him back.
It’s notable to mention also that Nghbrhd must have become insensitive to pain; he rubbed Ben Gay (an ointment to relieve sore muscles) in his eye by clumsiness, but showed no signs of pain
while his grandmother looked on and gasped with great consternation. It seems something like that should hurt, but maybe it doesn't; it didn’t hurt Nghbrhd. No sensible man would try it to find out. His grandmother thought that an act of God had prevented the pain.

Friday February 8, 2008

Sat, 09 Feb 2008 08:58:08 GMT

Jennifer and I took a trip to Harmons on 40th west and 3500 South--back in the old neighborhood. She had come home and left the gate open; so I asked her if she would be going somewhere. She told me she might go grocery shopping. Then I asked if I could go, and she asked me where I would like to go.

I had Walmart in mind, but the word Kmart came out and startled her, because that was not any place she wanted to go. Then she said, “You mean Walmart?” With embarrassment I told yes; my dementia had kicked in on me, but then I said it would be best for me to go where you would like to go.

She always preferred Harmons; so that’s where we went. When we pulled into the parking lot, we parked next to her friend Cher who was on her way home, and we didn’t see her, but she saw us and unbuckled her little girl and came back in the store to say hi to Jennifer. She didn’t come in to say hi to me, but on the way out I saw her and called out hi to her.

Harmons had everything I needed, and they were heavy items that wouldn’t be easy to carry home on the bike, and some of them are not available at Smith’s where I do most of my weekly shopping; so that went well, and I was thankful.

The next day I made a bike trip to Walmart to get a couple of things, and I wanted some isopropyl alcohol; so I searched the pharmacy but didn’t find any there. So I gave up and came home. The trip home is a little more arduous than going, but it went ok. There’s a lot of uphill going when coming back home from there. I had only one icy stretch, but that went well. Those knobby tires on the mountain bike do pretty good on traction.

While I was in the pharmacy, it was crowded. People were waiting in line for their order to be processed, and the personnel in the service area were looking swamped with work. People were checking out the aisles too. One woman was looking for the Ibuprofen.

I saw all the familiar items on the shelves: Fleet products, mineral oil, band aids and so much more--but no alcohol. I came home and got to thinking how much we are tied to drugs. We can’t live without them.

Several days ago Sabrina from across the street came over with details on a fund raising scheme for the school. The kids earn credit for how much they walk and try to persuade someone in the neighborhood to sponsor them and pay so much per mile.

That didn’t sound too bad although it was complicated, and I still don’t understand the details completely. I told her I’d just give her something to take to school as a donation and leave it at that. The school is always looking for cash for one thing or another and have the kids out scrounging for it.

I guess the tax money they collect doesn’t please them enough. The kids feel rejected if they don’t get something, and their personalities suffer.

Today she and Aimee came with a cat that Sabrina has to get a new home for, or it goes to the pound. They have had three dogs and two cats; so someone must have gotten a bit tired of their pet population and is down sizing it.

I had to tell them no. We have Lady and Tess and plenty to do to keep up with them. Lady poops and pees on the floor if she isn’t watched very closely, and she stinks hideously. Tess sheds hair all over the furniture and is always on the kitchen table so she can perch of look out the back window. I can’t sit there and eat because of that. I don’t intend to share the table with the cat.

Curly’s toilet plugged up; so they had to arrange some portable potties, I guess using bucket; but Mykena came over and used Jennifer’s once. Jennifer told me they must have a problem. When I went yesterday to take out their garbage can, I checked in with her.

She told me about it and that she had poured acid into it but that didn’t help. I went back home and got the plunger and worked on it for a few minutes and was getting quite concerned. They need a toilet, then I gave it another try and it all went down with a rush.

How glad we all were! Mykena and Curly both cheered. “Now we can use the toilet”, Mykena said with glee and clapped her hands together. I guess maybe acid had worked somewhat on the clog so it finally went down after a few tries with the plunger. Curly’s plunger isn’t designed for toilets; so she may have lost out there too.

Michaela was absorbed in some home work she was doing and seemed not to notice the good news about the toilet; she asked me if I know any science projects she could do for exhibit, but I had none and could only suggest that she try the Internet. She had gotten a tip from school for a site on that.

There was a goodly amount of snow to shovel this week; so I was put to that a few times. Good work! I hope it doesn’t take me down with a heart attack That would be embarrassing, and I couldn’t do well on the bike anymore.

I’m close to releasing a short story about a man called Nghbrhd (pronounced neighborhood). It is about the time after he left the Army and covers a few tormented years of his life and ends with ambiguity. Be watching for it. I hope it isn’t boring reading or too melodramatic.

2-2-08

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:27:35 GMT

Saturday seems to be associated with satiation, satisfaction, satire, sat which is the past tense and past participle of sit and so much that implies taking it easy and having fun. It’s the time for us to have a good time, or at least it seems that it should be that way to me.

Saturday has always been what I consider the fun day. If we’re lucky and love fun, we can sleep in on Saturday and go to the show later and out to dinner. And why shouldn’t it be that way. We work for something during the week so we can enjoy life on Saturday. Why not?

We can blow off steam and start the rigors of life again on Sunday and Monday unless we’re at war or so engrossed in acquisition of worldly goods that we have to forego the bliss of Saturday. We seem to have little choice sometimes though as we get encroached on by the demands of the life style we are often compelled to live.

Maybe some day the world as a whole will get all things together and resolve to make a good life that will capitalize on the days of the week only and promote Saturday as the day of satisfaction over the good we did during the week.

Even the people who work on Saturday could be set free by a horde of robots and vending machines that could replace the workers so they could enjoy the day too. That way we could shop, watch movies and everything else that Saturday implies, and it could all be prepared during the normal workdays of the week.

Perhaps we could minimize the work of the mechanical sector during the work week, and pull routine maintenance on it’s components to keep them in good working order; and add to them the duty of tending holidays so that the needs of people aren’t over looked on those important days of reflection and relaxation.

Is it workable? Well everything has a glitch here and there; so we’d have to be prepared for disappointments once in awhile, but if we learn to take disappointments in stride we can survive with little struggle or annoyance. It’s all in the attitude and heart.

And too it can be remembered that there are some who take glory and pride in nothing more than work. Those workaholics can be counted on for filling in during pinches; they would love that and the extra money they would make on the over time.

Now the kill joys, I don’t foresee any good outcome there, but by the time we get that advanced, I’m sure there will have been a solution thought up by some enterprising soul that would protect the status quo and keep us at a high level of satisfaction.

Even the handicapped could forget their misfortune and consider themselves as important in the race to achievement as all the rest. They could realize that their brain and heart are the center of activity in the body and not the body itself. Their capability of output would not be any the less impressive than the next person’s.

The last Sunday I spent here is now only a figment of imagination for me to conjecture on. You might call it a singularity. Unless my memory goes into a usable mode, that day is gone--gone like an escaped bird from the cage.

One of the days this week Alan came by for a visit to pick up a book, and the same day, Wayne B. stopped by in the evening to visit Jennifer and show her his new violin. He’s intent on learning to play it. I think he will manage to get that done. He’s resourceful.

Later in the week, Alan e-mailed me about the book he picked up and gave me some insight on it that I hadn’t realized before. He said something like it might be other than a pleasure to get on through it after his disillusionment with the beginnings of it.

He also sent several e-mails concerning Grandma K and enquired about how she’s doing. We are concerned about her eating intake, as is everyone else in Omaha. We’ve concluded that she chooses her diet rejecting what she will and eating what she will. Coffee, Zebra Cakes, chicken and bacon are her staples of choice. She’s just as concerned about what her dogs eat as what she eats. Thanks Alan.

Rhonda sent a very informative and eloquent e-mail about the progress and possibilities concerning Kendra’s outcome as she continues treatment for the coming year. Right now those notes of information are very welcome and appreciated. Thank you Rhonda.

Nick sent a few e-mails concerning his short visit to Utah. When a man is in such important transit as nick was at Christmas time he has to put first things first. When he was a missionary he learned that the mission comes first--even before mother and father, sister and brother. Things have to be that way to please the Lord. Thank you nick.

Today I’ve been invited to go to Sam’s Club at Jordan Landing with Curly; so I’ll be getting ready for that in a few minutes. I’ve just about filled in the week’s events and a few rants and raves I’ve experienced and an impractical solution for them.

I got out and shoveled some snow this week. My neighbor Tara dressed up in her snow suit and got out to do some too. I felt sorry for her she either didn’t have gloves or she chose not to wear any. I asked her about her hands if they were cold or not, which was dumb of me, I guess; she said no they were numb.

The wind got high and blew the garbage cans over in the back yard and caused me concern about putting them out on the curb where they might get blown over and cause a mess in the street. It remained windy through the night before pick up day But everything went ok. The wind didn’t get them that time. So most of the week was windy and cold--icy cold wind!

1-18-08

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:23:08 GMT

I’m sitting here trying to remember the week. Last Saturday Aimee came with her sister Shannon to sell Girl Scout Cookies. You have to buy those to help out the kids. They don’t deliver until March. I’ll give them to the kids next door; unless one of you come to visit after they arrive. That sweet stuff isn’t good for an old man.

I shoveled a bit of snow several times for a cleaner walk and some exercise. If I can just keep my lower back straight and not over do it, I’m ok. It sure makes a mess for walking on when it isn’t kept off the side walks and drive way.

We’ve had small outputs on garbage and trash for the last several months, and what the reason for that is, I haven’t figured out. Even at Christmas we had a small amount. We must not be buying so much.

Jennifer gave me a copy of Animal Farm and 1984. Both by George Orwell. I got those read; so now I’m a bit more informed on those two classics.

I’ve been working this week on my own literary endeavor and am calling it History of an Outcast. It’s a non-fiction work which means it’s an expose’ on events as I experienced them. It may turn out mediocre and boring to the average reader, but I’m not asking a lot of people to read it. That way I can’t be disappointed by the failure of it.

Curly, my next door neighbor called and said she had a leak in one of the water pipes in her basement and that she had tried to get our neighbor who is a plumber to fix it, but he was gone. I left him a note about it, and he got over today and fixed it. That makes me happy; if I had needed to I could have fixed it myself, but it’s nice to share such neighborly responsibilities.

Jennifer might go out with some friends tonight; I can only wait and see. I just got back from the store with a few groceries. I saved $9.06; that was nice. Earlier today I got on the bike and headed over there, but I got a couple of block and the back tire went flat.

That’s the third flat I’ve had within a couple of weeks, and they’ve been caused by worn out tubes. They get old in time and need to be replaced; cold weather probably is a factor too.

I walked down to South Fork Hardware and bought a couple of new ones. They’re on the bike now and are going. That’s how I just got to and back from the store. Good exercise! I feel as though I got in my weekly amount; I can breath better and feel better about myself.

I have Rhonda’s baby on my mind a lot and hope she’s progressing and they are all holding up under the load. A child who pulls through what she has deserves some extra breaks in life. I’d like to see her get some favorable considerations later to give her an added boost and help her out.

Nick maybe has become aware of his movement to a different echelon in society and doesn’t rate himself as equal to the level I’m on. A man has to do what a man has to do; if he gravitates to a different field of awareness, he has to deal with it and let the others take care of themselves.

It has been cold; our night time temps have been below the teens, while day time ones have kept below freezing. The streets have cleared off and are mostly dry. I put on dark glasses for glare protection when I went out to the store earlier, but the second time I went I wore just clear lenses for safety purposes.

1-19-08

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 17:41:17 GMT

This week Curly needed help to get her prescriptions filled; she was so sick, she couldn’t get out of the house to do anything. I looked at her the other day and was compelled to ask her if she needed hospice care. She said no she isn’t that bad yet. Jennifer took the two girls and me to Sam’s Club at Jordan Landing and picked them up.

We had to wait for about twenty minutes; so Michaela looked around in electronics to check out the wares there. She likes things like cell phones, iPods, MP3 players and other state of the art devices for entertainment. Mykena was a hyper active dervish like thing the whole time. She took her blood pressure on a machine and started her routine and took the blood pressure again; it had jumped by thirty points. That made her wonder until I explained it to her.

Jennifer got on her phone and talked most of the time; I went looking around too to check prices and bought an aluminum pan made in China. Now that I have it at home I’m wondering if I did a smart thing or not. Aluminum is rated as toxic cook ware by some studies.

We didn’t get all of Curly’s meds because the pharmacy had a low supply on one of them; so we got only part of the order on those. We got out of there and came home. Then Jennifer took off for the evening and didn’t get back home until around between 3:00 and something like 3:30 in the morning as I remember. I was in the kitchen fixing something when she came in. It looks like a lot of these people in Utah like to party in the middle of the week and what they do on the weekend, I don’t know. It seems to me that a schedule like that doesn’t make for a good work week.

It was finally confirmed to me that Nick got to Missouri. I retrieved a packet from the mailbox that he had sent to Jennifer; so by the return address on it I found that out.

We had a bit of snow this week; there are still un-shoveled side walks, but I don’t have to go to the store this week--no need to worry about that. I fixed the flat tire on the bike; so I’ll probably be able to use it when I go next time.

1-11-08

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:20:22 GMT

This week Curly, the two girls and I went to La Frontera Café and had Mexican food. After leaving there we went to Sam’s Club at Jordan Landing for her prescriptions, and I bought two black ink cartridges. My printer is a Canon, and the ink price for it is very reasonable. I have been happy with it for several years now. The next day I walked over to the store to get some grocery items. It was very windy and hard to walk because the sidewalks had not been shoveled for at least half the way. There was a good buy on Yogurt and hot dogs; so I bought a total of seventeen pounds of those--ten hog dogs and seven yogurts. Then I bought a several pounds of apples and loaded my back pack and came home. I also got a bottle of chili powder. It was a tough walk because of the weight, the wind and the ice covered sidewalks. I had thought to use the bicycle, but the front tire was flat and still is. It’s a good thing I didn’t take it; the ice on the roads and the wind would have been too much. Each week I have taken the bike to the store to get some of the things I need. That gives me necessary exercise and saves someone else the burden of transporting me. If I can’t get out and do that on my own, I don’t deserve to eat. Jennifer took me to Costco too this week so I could get supplies that I need. We have done that commodity shopping once a month since she came home from Logan. It used to be Sam’s Club; now it’s Costco.

The news of Kendra has caused me to hope for her recovery and also to hope for a good future for her, but her suffering over the past few weeks or months causes me compassion and sorrow. The Lord promised us comfort to supplant our distress, fear and sorrow. Comfort is what we should expect.

The snowfall accumulated enough to warrant shoveling, though it wasn’t very deep, but it was deep enough that failure to removed it would cause packed snow that turns to ice and sticks around for days and makes a difficult passage for pedestrians.

Jennifer came home from work very tired and went right to bed. She has to work in the morning because the two holidays caused a back log of work that didn’t get done.

I have a list of a few words to remember from the year 2007:

Yet oft you chose the wiser choice,

And made you cause for to rejoice,

Twixt dismal loss and small success,

But outcast you are none the less.

As well for me friend, as for you,

Hauling baggage as you too,

To leave as sin and escape from,

Successful outcast I’ve become.

Therein pilgrim counts success,

That wisely evades trouble’s stress,

And heals the pain of failures past,

Upon foundations right and fast.

________________________

We in an age of change and insight,

May walk through the night with through the night light.

_____________________

You do not belong to me, nor do I unto you,

____________________

We share we exchange we give away,

_______________________

Let us see the best existence from the past and now,

__________________

Aimee with long sandy hair,

Wind swept and classic Gaelic fair,

Homeward bound from school that day,

To me she’d not a word to say.

_______________________

For the while the time we there,

Embrace each other as we share,

Each our pulse--two in a stream,

We two together fill a dream.

___________________

Speak glad tidings for each day,

That each gifted pilgrim may,

Take from thee their wonted fill,

And vow, “God make me know thy will.”

_________________________

Small blessed concessions granted o’er time,

Strengthen each step for faith’s ladder to climb,

And faithful’s the giver who tends at the cot,

And knows the sage truth little things mean a lot.

__________________________

Faith is the key that opens the lock,

Of the door of grand eloquence that no man can mock,

Reach out for the faith look up to the show,

Aired so the just, meek and humble shall know.

_________________________

They don’t take it with them when this life they part,

No need to enter there pulling a cart,

_____________________

Night time will never be the single,

One most span for loves to mingle,

But at the climax of the day,

To blissful moments truth speaks, “yea.”

________________________

Aside from the windy day that I walked to the store for exercise and groceries the weather hasn’t been that bad. I haven’t suffered severely over it. For ski conditions see: Ski Utah

mems/past

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:14:26 GMT

It was the year 1959 on New Year’s eve; I had gone to downtown Los Angeles to meet David Christian, Gordon, and Ron. We had decided to attend a gospel tent meeting either in or near Anaheim.. In those days evangelists held large gatherings in circus like tents, and people from various congregations of fundamentalist groups such as Assemblies of God or other interested parties gathered to hear charismatic leaders of their particular choice. This evangelist was named Faye Spencer. He was a hell fire type who could interpret dreams, cast out devils, heal the sick and preach on topics from the Bible and generally hold audiences at attention to what he had to say.

We departed from David’s apartment which he shared with a couple of other devotees to the ranks of fundamentalist worshipers; they had various differences with main stream church beliefs such as why Christmas and Easter which have pagan origins relate to the gospel. David was a preacher in his own right from boyhood. He had begun to preach in the Assemblies of God as a boy and had gained a reputation as a divider of the word well able to expound on the scriptures and give men liberally of the bread of life. When he grew to adulthood, he was drafted into the Army and had serious problems adapting to military life and ultimately deserted and went on the road as a free lance preacher with aspirations of becoming an evangelist of the stature of Faye Spencer or even greater. I learned from reminiscing on those times and by adding experience to my knowledge that those people who experience the high calling in the ministry are very tacit in what they stand for and don’t waver from the pursuit of the goal they have set upon, for they are wholeheartedly convinced that they are chosen vessels of the Lord with a calling to achieve the status of the high position of an apostle bearing gifts of the Spirit.

We walked over to Sister Rothie‘s apartment, and she walked with us to the commuter train* that ran out of L.A. toward the south. As I remember the cars on the light rail system, they were shabby and rough riding, very un-appealing in appearance and as a means of getting from one place to another, but we managed with them until we got to our destination. We entered the tent when we arrived, and the people of great devotion who were there were already singing and praising God with clapping hands and dancing in the spirit and shouting hallelujahs. We were just as glad to join in and enjoy the experience. Brother Spencer stood up and preached a sermon on Joshua in the days that Israel was delivered out of Egypt. The proceeding of the meeting was that after the main sermon was over the ministry to the attendees began. People were invited to come up to the front of the assembly and make their requests for help be made known. There was a body of other luminaries at the front too. They held callings of ministry from prophet to pastors and other titles common to churches. I was in great need of spiritual succor at that time; so I went up there and sought the help of the Lord. I donated a check to the fund and was told that since I had been obedient, I would tread on serpents. Literally he said, “Because you have been obedient, you shall tread on serpents.” Now I restate that was in the year 1959 on December 31st New Years Eve.

We returned back to Los Angeles and left Sister Rothie at her apartment and proceeded to David’s. It was after three in the morning of New Years day, and I decided to go back home by bus rather than stay the remainder of the night. What a time I had getting back home. As I was walking toward the bus stop a cop car pulled from the rear and stopped on the opposite side of the street and the cop shone his spot light on me, but I kept walking with my eyes straight ahead just like I was taught in the Army. They turned off the light and drove away.

I got on the bus and got down to Western Avenue and Slauson Street and found out that the buses departing from that location were no longer running at that hour; so I was stranded at more than sixty blocks from home. I began to walk and tried hitchhiking, and a fellow in a new Cadillac pulled up and opened the door, and I said a bit loudly, “Praise God.” He was a little shocked but we drove a few blocks, and he asked where I was going and said he was going past there; so I really felt good at that. Then he opened the glove compartment and pulled out some pornographic pictures to which I showed my disinterest; so he stopped the car and asked me to get out. Later a black man stopped and said he going looking for women and asked if I would go along, but that was not the way a man of the gospel spends his time; so he let me out, and I walked all the way home. That was my eventful New Years eve and morning of 1959-1960.

The following link has a picture that shows the type of cars we rode on to and from the tent meeting.

*For sixty years, the Los Angeles area was served by a vast network of electric railway lines operated by the Pacific Electric Railway. Affectionately known as “Red Cars”, the Pacific Electric’s trolleys and interurban cars blanketed the Los Angeles area on more than 1000 miles of rail lines. The last remnant of the system was abandoned in 1961 Red Cars

12-29-07

Sat, 29 Dec 2007 16:10:42 GMT

I’ve received negative feedback on my most recent e-mails which I’ve entitled nsweekly. It has been my intent to air: my near misses with catastrophe, misgivings about happenstances in my life, people’s calumnious behavior and my own, how weather and I relate to each other and all the rest. But I’ve come to the conclusion now that what I’m glad to write about isn’t what people are glad to read about. So I’m not going to onerously push myself to keep up the task of sitting down each week and delivering a few keyboard strokes that spell out my boasting about how I deal with all these things. So there’s no more for this week.

12-22-07

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 18:21:11 GMT

I talked to B. Kaufhold, the woman who served as mother on the team that helped me into the world. She had called a few days previously and got ano answer from me; so she left an angry message on Jennifer’s answering service. I received a birthday card from her a few days later; so out of appreciation and respect I called to thank her. The first mistake I made was that I called on Jennifer’s phone. It wasn’t a minute before she asked, “When you going to come visit”? “Is Jennifer treating you good”? “Are you healthy/are you sick”? “Are you working”?--All such strenuous questions--most difficult to answer is the one about how Jennifer treats me. She offered a smorgasbord of mendacity in other parts of the conversation. I guess I must say that was due to her elderly forgetfulness.

But still, I must say in sobriety that I have concluded that she has spread A hefty layer of prevarication on her slice of strategy for personal defense and acquisition of goods in the material world. Whether advanced aging has caused that or if it was always there seems a device of question I can't answer except with uncertainty. My tendency is to think that it was always there. Never the less I describe her openly as somewhat red handed, and I don't intend to be in denial about the red nature that has colored the works I have accomplished at times, after all I was born human and travailed over many rocky points on issues of right and wrong. Gentlemen ought to be informed and always aware of the power that works on the will of the fairer sex and take precaution lest an occasion arises that might persuade one to fail of integrity and truth and turn unto the broad road that leads to destruction. Sons of destruction they become in many cases because they misconstrue their proximity to women and other natural creatures and turn aside from the right ways of truth. I took a pretty onerous lashing on that phone call concerning how I should think and behave. After this I might return courtesies by way of a note through the mail instead of by Jennifer's telephone.

I told Mom that Rhonda has become a scientist. She reiterated with a sound of amazement in her voice saying, "She is?" Rhonda wrote by e-mail that she is volunteering for a psychology group and is learning how to give various assessments and will be able to do those assessments on people who participate in the study. Her words were to the effect that it will be wonderful experience and make her resume look good.

Since Dakota was born March 1st, I asked her if he came in like a lion or a lamb. She wrote, “I think that Dakota is a trooper and he came in like a lion. Very quiet, as a matter of fact I remember watching him as he opened his eyes for the first time and looked around. It was like he was assessing his new surroundings. I have never seen a baby look so calm, and intelligent before.” She wrote also, “Elisabeth was my hardest. she was my largest 7.8 lbs and my epidural was not working right because the catheter had been pulled out of place.” She wrote also concerning her children, “Each is so precious that I hate to think any of them would not realize their own worth, however, I know that it is common in our society for people to put themselves down and others as well. I just know that God said "the worth of souls is great" and I believe that. It is nice to see them play and smile because then I think that things will be ok.” Also, “Kendra has a bump on the top of her head that I noticed last Friday. I had a bad feeling about it from the get go. We watched it for a while and it hasn't gotten any smaller. Yesterday Nathan took her to the pediatrician who recommended she get x-rays up at primary's. So he took her up and they said that the bump is not bone which I guess is supposed to be a good sign. They gave us a number where we could call and get her in where they can do more tests. I just hope it isn't anything too serious.”

Getting to what Rhonda said about putting ourselves and others down, I get in on my share of that:

I’m a little too this and a little too that,

And it all adds up to a little too little,

I don’t ever ask I’m too proud for that,

I’m timid as a mouse stared down by a cat.

Self effacement is a virtue if not carried to extremes. I try not to overdo it. I wrote of the team that brought me into the world, I want to emphasize that no one person accomplished the act. And no one should arrogate more than due and proper participation either in the birth or the rearing of the offspring considered. Parents are supposed to cooperate with other persons who are experienced and can provide valuable insight and direction so that the best opportunity for development will be available. God owns all of us we do not own ourselves or any one else. We were all told to serve him and no one else.

Here's another nghbrhd rant:

Forty Years

I’m sixty-nine now and have a creased brow,

So forty years hence that won’t matter no how,

With time flying fast a forty year span,

Seems like a sizzle of grease in the frying pan.

It won’t mean a thing as I lie in the grave,

To me a dead man nobody can save,

With hands not stretched out like a branch of a tree,

There’ll not a farthing be there for me.

They don’t take it with them when this life they part,

No need to enter there pulling a cart,

There’s nothing you do in this mortal sphere,

To stop your departure when you get the call clear.

It’s on to a place where this one can’t go,

They don’t have restaurants and a movie show,

You’ll bide your time in a way we’ve not known,

There’ll be nothing there that anyone will own.

Fears there will cease if there’s any thoughts there,

They’ll be gone to silence as piercing the air,

Times here will change after struggles and tears,

But to me 'makes no difference after forty more years.

Kenneth Leo R.
December 15, 2007

We got a fair amount of snow Thursday night and Friday morning; I shoveled several inches off the walks and driveway. The neighbor doesn’t shovel his; so his wife has to wade through snow to take out the trash and get the mail. Pedestrians walking by don’t have the convenience of a clear walk either; so this morning I shoveled over there too. It makes the muscles and joints ache for only awhile. It’s the kind of honest ache that the working man experiences at the end of his honest productive day, and God blesses him for it. The lazy doldering person knows no such goodness. He loves to go to sports games and expend dynes of energy proving that he can out do the other at that, but he won’t get out and shovel the snow away to show consideration for the wife and citizens who pass by his property. Something isn’t up to character there.

Merry Christmas