The Wall

     One of the things Kay and I enjoy doing is to roam the countryside looking for festivals, antique stores, historic sites and just about anything that grabs our attention. Usually we go on these outings on Sunday afternoon but today is Friday and Kay found out that the Traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial would be in Lincolnton this afternoon, so we went.
     Lincolnton is about an hour and a half away and as I drove I wondered what my reaction would be to something that represents such a big part of my life. Being a Vietnam veteran I had long wanted to see the memorial but at the same time I have wondered if I was deserving of the Honor. True, I did serve two tours in the Vietnam war in the late 1960's and if you have read my previous stories about those times you would understand my doubts - I was there, I was willing and I came home when so many didn't and I wonder why.
      Over the years I have seen many war memorials in every town and city I have ever passed thru, memorials for the American Revolution, Spanish American War, The War of 1812, Civil War, WW1, WW2, Korea and others. These memorials represented events before or shortly after my birth and my only personal relationship to them was the fact that my father, uncles and ancestors were involved in them and I was proud of them for it but I don't think I ever really understood what that meant.
     Upon arrival, I saw a scaled down replica of the real memorial in Washington, D.C., it was accurately assembled across the outfield of the local baseball field. There were American flags attached to the chain-link fence in the background and there were smaller American flags at various points at the base of the memorial - these were placed there by people who knew someone whose name was  engraved on the wall. There were vehicles from many Georgia counties and several from out of state, there were buses from senior centers and churches, cars, pickup trucks and motorcycles filled the parking lot. Most of the people were in their seventies like me, others were older.  They walked with canes and sat in wheelchairs, they were bent over with age and stood tall with pride, they had grey hair, they were bald, they were overweight and thin but they came to this special place to honor the memory of someone special to them from long ago.
     There were volunteers to help you find the one name, out of the more than 58,000 names engraved on the wall, that meant something special to you, maybe he was a loved one or maybe a good friend. I didn't know of anyone who was killed in the war except for my second cousins' husband but I didn't know him and have forgotten his name so I just wandered around. We looked at the exhibits and pictures of young men who never grew old and will never be forgotten.
     My thoughts went back to the 1960's, it was a turbulent time and the Vietnam War was unpopular to say the least, I remember hearing the stories of soldiers returning home and being spit on or called baby killers. It didn't happen to me but it did happen.
     There were several times that my outfit was told we would be going into combat only to stand down at the last minute, we were scared but we put up a front for each other because we were still just kids who didn't want their buddies thinking bad of them. Years later I would wonder what it was like to be in combat not knowing if the next bullet whizzing overhead might have my name on it. I developed a deep respect for the men who were "in country", I remembered watching tracer rounds cross the night skies from afar, those men in the darkness were probably scared but like me they didn't show it for fear their buddies might think bad of them, so they did their job and scratched another day off their short timers calendar in the morning.
     So here I was walking beside a black granite wall with over 58,000 names engraved on it, the names of Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, men and women many no more than teenagers who never had a chance to grow up, others were older but not by much, all were gone way too soon. War is an old mans game, young men are the pawns. I was over whelmed with sadness for these strangers, I tried to hold back tears as I gazed upon row after row of names of young men that I could proudly call my brothers and wondered why me and not them, why did I get to grow up, raise a family and grow old - why ?
     As I walked around Kay was beside me, she held my hand or touched my shoulder and for a while as I drove away she sat quietly. We have been on many day trips around the state, usually I drive and ask Kay to pick a direction, she has picked well. Today was different, I knew beforehand where we were going, I wasn't sure I wanted to go and once I got there I was filled with sadness for what the memorial meant and joy for what it meant to men and women of my generation especially those of us who were there.
     Thank you Kay for taking me on a journey to the past, thank you for loving me.

Birthing A New Generation

     Way back in the annals of civilization families were large and women had their  babies at home and if they were lucky they had the help of neighboring wives to assist them. The families were large because the labor force that was needed to work the farms most people lived on, women gave birth at home because there were no hospitals to go to and few Dr's if any to attend to them. Giving birth was often difficult and many babies and mothers didn't survive, I have visited the grave of my Great Grandmother who had previously given birth to five kids, the sixth baby ( a girl ) died a month after birth followed a month later by her mother and in the same graveyard is my Aunt who died at birth.
     Well times have changed thru the ages, families have become smaller mainly due to the cost to raise a child to adulthood  ( about $250,000 in 2015 ) and the labor requirements are no longer needed to run the farm as few people live on farms now days. Today women give birth to their babies in hospitals assisted by a host of doctors and nurses, even Dads are a part of the process. Though modern science has made many improvements in birthing as far as the medical aspects go nothing has changed in the process itself. There are easy births and difficult ones, some go on for hours while others are over with in mere minutes and they still say that the first one is the most difficult.
     Take my own birth for instance, bear in mind this is all hearsay because I don't remember it but I was reminded many times of the difficulty my mother had giving birth to me. I was the first of five kids in my family, the year was 1947, the hospitals were few and far apart, the doctors still made house calls and birthing at home in your own bed still occurred. In my case there was no hospital but there was a sanitarium which was a kind of scaled down hospital that had Drs and nurses so I was born in a sanitarium a few miles north of Gallatin, Tn.. I am told the labor was long and painful and in the end mom not only had a bouncing baby boy she also developed something called pleurisy an ailment she never let me forget about. That is about all that I can say about my birth except that after my birth my other four siblings were a piece of cake.
     Fast forward about 33 years, after trying to get pregnant for the past 13 years Linda and I were successful. Linda was as happy as any expectant mother could be, she beamed with pride, I on the other hand was scared to death. Her pregnancy was somewhat uneventful, she went to work every day, came home, ate dinner and went to bed. Being pregnant is not an easy task for a woman, it takes a lot out of them and Linda was no different. I used to joke and tell people that she slept for the whole nine months - I wasn't too far wrong. When the time came for Danny to greet the world Linda and I were watching t.v. and she kept getting up to use the bathroom and after about the third trip she came back in saying she thinks her water broke. Now when the water breaks it usually means it is time to get in the car and go to the hospital but rather than rush into anything Linda calmly went and packed a small bag of clothing and then took a shower, we arrived at the hospital about 45 minutes later ( the hospital was only two miles away ).
     They took Linda in to the preparation room and called her Dr who happened to be Hungarian and spoke with a somewhat heavy accent. Soon after his arrival he came out to the waiting room and started telling me that there was a minor problem, it took me a few minutes to comprehend what it was he was trying to tell me. At last he held up an x-ray picture which showed that Danny had at the last minute flipped back upright and was not in the correct head first position and no amount of persuasion was going to turn him around so they were going to have to perform a Cesarean Section. I didn't know if he was just telling me or asking me for permission, all I could say was OK, fathers like me were the reason the delivery room was off limits. About 30 minutes later the Dr returned and told me in his heavy accent that I had a baby boy, he pointed to his surgical gown to show me a rather large wet spot and explained that all of Danny's parts were working. My firstborn arrived in this world July 10, 1980. After seeing my son thru the window of the nursery I walked beside Linda as they rolled her to her room from recovery, still a little groggy all she wanted to know was " is he beautiful ?" my answer was " of course ".
     There is a sidebar that needs to go along with this story. Danny was the only boy in the nursery and he had a head full of thick black hair long enough that the nurses wanted to tie a blue ribbon in it. The next day I returned to see my family and was talking to Linda when one of her friends came in, I took the opportunity to look in the nursery to see Danny. There was an older couple looking thru the glass at there new granddaughter who was obviously upset about something as she was loudly crying and kicking the air, they were marveling over how pretty and precious she was.  The nurses rolled Danny next to the little girl and he laid there sound asleep, and not meaning to brag, he was the most beautiful baby there. The older couple now turned their to Danny and started saying how precious he was. Moments later their son walked in, they told him how beautiful their granddaughter was and how much they adored her and how happy they were, they shook his hand and hugged him proudly, then the lady told her son that she wanted him to get started on another one and she wanted it to look just like this one ( she was pointed to Danny ). As proud as I was I couldn't help but say something so I put my hand on the other guys shoulder and told him good luck, it took 13 years to get this one right.
     Two years later we found ourselves in the family way again. Linda didn't get much sleep this time as she had a toddler to take care of but she didn't seem to mind, she was devoted to Danny. Things were going well until about seven or eight months into the pregnancy. It was one of those times when life jumps up and throws a wrench into the works, I got word that the company was shutting down my operation but had acquired another company in California and wanted me to transfer out there, in retrospect this was one move I should have turned down - but I didn't. I went to California and got the job and even went back to get acquainted with the people and that is where I was when Linda went into labor, by the time I got home the next day Clay had arrived.
     Once again this is hearsay but it was Linda who told me and she never lied. To preface the story, Linda had a Cesarean Section with Danny and due to her age and and the prior c-section she would have to undergo another c-section with Clay, she was prepared. A date was set for the procedure and life went on normally until one night her water broke and a neighbor took her to the hospital where the nursing staff took her to be prepped for a c-section. During the preparation the nurse looked down and saw that Clay had a foot sticking out which was not a good sign. Linda was rushed to the delivery room, it was too late for a c-section, Clay was going to be a natural breech birth, the boy was going to come out feet first which he did on August 24, 1982. It was a hard birthing for Linda but I think she would have done it all over again for Clay, he was her baby and held a special spot in her heart.
     I must confess that in the beginning I wanted a baby of my own but for various reasons it did not happen, I was even told that I could not father any kids because of a low sperm count. We or maybe just I resigned myself to not having kids, I had nieces and nephews and friends who had kids and that seemed to be enough. Linda on the other hand looked into adoption  and was on the verge of telling me that we were next on the list when she found out she was pregnant, the news while welcoming  struck fear into my heart. I was too old to be a new father, to set in my ways for any change but by the time Danny was crawling I was putting him on my shoulder walking him around the neighborhood showing him off to all we met.
     Now I have Grandchildren of my own, they are growing like weeds and change every time I see them. MJ and Matthew were both c-section babies and I expect their mother will someday regale them with her stories.
     I am sure modern medicine will continue to evolve in the future and make giving birth completely safe for both mother and baby but the birthing process will be the same as it has been for thousands of years, there will be difficult births and easy ones, some will last for hours while others will be over in mere minutes. The fathers will be proud, the mothers will smile with happiness as the circle of life goes on.
   
   
     

The Last One

                                                             The Last One


     Getting older means change, change in your life style because you are not as good as you once were and change because some things are just not as important as they used to be or some things become more important than others. Whatever changes Linda and I were experiencing in the spring of 2005 had come to a head, we had reached that point in our life that we knew we needed to make one more change. We had a 15 year old house that needed a lot of work and it still would not be the house we wanted so the obvious answer was to sell it.
      Over the last 38 years of marriage we had owned seven homes and accumulated some 27 + addresses so a condition of sale was that the new house was to be the last house we would own, the one that we would be carried out of feet first. So in June of 2005 we found a new home that would be the last one.
      We bought a house that Linda liked, it was smaller, one level and had trees in the yard. It was just the two of us and one loud and irritating bird that Linda loved so we downsized. The bird got sick and died suddenly so we rescued Licking Lizzy, a black Lab / Cocker mix. Lizzy was one of the first projects that I undertook in our new home, we used to laugh and tell people she was our $3000 dog, the rescue group charged us about $50 but I had to install a chain link fence around the yard, lay 13 pallets of sod and install a storm door with a doggy door, Lizzy is now working on 13 or maybe 14 years old and she may yet out live me. Over the next few years Linda planted shrubs and flowers and I built her a covered deck on the back so she could sit and watch the birds, squirrels and Lizzy. It was her domain, her kingdom, she was deserving of the happiness it brought her.
     We had good times there and many memories were made, things were as they should be. We were happy but then life caught up with us and kinda got in the way. Turns out this was Linda's last house and after she passed the house took on a new feeling so to speak, nothing was the same anymore and though Linda was no longer there the memory of her was everywhere.
     Once again my life changed, I had been kicked in the gut and didn't know which way to turn so I sought the help of people who were walking down the same path.
     I met Kay in a grief support group, Wayne her husband of 35 years had passed away from cancer a week before Linda. Over time we became close and fell in love and eventually married, some thought it was too soon for that but then they were not walking in our shoes so they had no understanding of our feelings and would not until the time came for them to walk their own path of loneliness and despair.
     Kay had similar feelings towards her house that I had for mine so she sold it and after a long search we purchased a fixer upper that took us about a year before we could move in to it and we are still putting the final touches on the inside. The main thing is that it is "our" house and though we still think of our loved ones often the memories we make now are ours.
     Now it was moving time, a time to let go of a life that will never be forgotten only moved in to the shadows of memories from long ago. Just as Kay did when she sold her house, I cleaned out things that wouldn't fit into the new house, things that no longer fit into my life. I decided to give the kids the things that belonged to Linda that I was holding as an inheritance and then we moved into our new home.
     Well, I sold the house on Solomon Dr. the other day. It was hard to leave it behind but somehow I don't think Linda would mind.
     Ironically this new home is also the last one , the one they will carry us out of or at least carry me out seeing as how I am older than Kay. Until the final day comes for either of us to be carried out we will make a new life for ourselves. It is our life now filled with memories of the past and hopes for the future. Past memories occasionally rise up giving us moments of sorrow or happiness but we have each other to love and hold on to.
     To the naysayers I say - one day you may find yourself in similar circumstances, I hope that you find a pathway that makes you happy.

The In-Laws

                                           The In - Laws

     There is an old saying about relatives - "you can't choose your relatives ", it pretty much means that you are stuck with the family you are born into, you can run away, disown them and even tell everyone that you were adopted but in the end they are still your family forever.
     Now to paraphrase the above saying  (or maybe I am coining a new saying ) " you can't choose your in - laws " opens another subject that is talked about almost as much as blood relatives. Depending on who is doing the talking there can be much disdain about in - laws or praises. Let's take my in - laws for instance, they were at times a barrel of laughs and at other times caused me to cringe and repeat over and over " I love my wife, I love my wife ".
     When I first met Linda I was not interested in her family, she was the object of my desire and in that I wore blinders. Linda was the oldest of three girls, Eileen was three years younger and Vicki at two years old was fifteen years younger and after all these years I still say that I not only had the pick of the litter I got the best of the litter.
      Linda's mom 's name was Gladys her maiden name was Wagner and she was from upstate New York, I called her mom. She was nice and easy to talk with, she kept a clean house and the girls were always clean and neat, she was fun, considerate and caring. The house and kids were her domain and she took both seriously seeing to it that they went to school and church on a regular basis. Mom was a quiet woman, she went about her day cleaning, cooking, sewing - all of the things a housewife of the times did on a daily basis. She played the guitar and sang. I liked her from the start and enjoyed her company.
    Mom was always a deeply religious person, she was raised a Lutheran and attended a Lutheran church when I met Linda but some time in the late 1970's something changed. The Lutheran church no longer satisfied her needs so she started looking around. She settled on the Pentecostal church and although her beliefs were strong she became born again to the point that she would sometimes frighten Linda. She softened some when Danny was born, he made her smile and laugh.
     Linda's Dad was definitely a horse of a different color, there was a television sitcom back in the 1970's called All In the Family, the main character was Archie Bunker, we used to jokingly tell people that they used Dad to form the character of Archie.
     Tom Dingman was a man among men as they say, he was king of his castle and all who entered therein, the world revolved around him and him alone. What can I say about Dad, oh where to start, how about his politics or his strange sense of humor, his views on hippies, Jews, Germans and Negroes (as they were called then) could create a discussion lasting into the wee hours of the new dawn.
     Dad was a patriot who served as a Navy radio operator in WWII, he never saw any action but was involved in the search for the missing planes that disappeared into the shadows of the Bermuda Triangle off the east coast of Florida. In later years he twice served as Post Commander for the American Legion. Dad was also a benevolent person and gave freely of his time to many civic organizations such as the Masons, Kiwanis club, Shriner, VFW, American Legion, Lions Club and was a founder of the local Ham Radio Club who would help out with communications in case of an emergency. He was also a racist who had strong opinions about people who didn't think like him, in particular the previously mentioned Hippies, Jews, Germans and Negros, add to the list Catholics, Orientals and Republicans.
     Linda loved her father but at times had difficulty understanding him. Once when he was ranting about the Jewish race she asked him if he didn't believe in Jesus, he quickly stated his belief in Jesus  but continued his rant on Jews so Linda said but Daddy Jesus was a Jew, he had no answer for her. Another time his rantings were about Germans and again Linda interjected and asked him why he married her mother for she was a German, again he had no answer.
      The night we announced our engagement he drove me back to the base, Linda rode along with us. Nothing was said on the trip to the base but Linda told me later that on the way home Dad told her how he thought she should stick around after high school, get a job and help out the family.
     Dad was big on family alright, especially his brothers and sisters, he was close to his brother Raymond who had taken over the family bottled gas company. Raymond was a playboy, he had a couple of ex wives and several young girl friends, he was always dabbling in new adventures and businesses. Dad took after Raymond in the world of business when he was laid off from his job at Cape Kennedy, he started a company that cleaned and installed phone booths for Bell South in So. Florida.
     His business venture into phone booths led to buying a bottled gas plant in Interlachen, Fl. which Mom operated as she raised Vicki. He would play games with Raymond over the gas company, Raymond required cash when Mom needed more gas so Dad would write him a check which quite often bounced - he would laugh loudly when he would tell me about it. The phone booth business actually did pretty well and the income afforded him the opportunity to do other things such as buy into a service station, become a half partner of a shrimp boat and start up a rent a wreck business. I don't know what happened to the businesses but they didn't work out. One thing I do remember is that he was contacted by the U.S.Secret Service about one of his rent a wreck cars, seems the man who rented the car drove it to Washington and threatened the life of the president, the car was impounded.
     The man was always thinking, coming up with new ideas, new ways to make money. Most of the ideas were off the wall and even the best of them didn't work out, the phone booth business was the most profitable but Dad had a way of letting his money slip thru his fingers.
     Some time during the 1970's Mom and Dad sorta went separate ways although they never divorced, for the most part he lived in West Palm, Fl. and Mom and Vicki lived in Interlachen, Dad would come to Interlachen and or Jacksonville a couple times a month but for the most part though they were still married it was pretty much in name only.
     Dad and I had a some what odd relationship, we sorta tolerated each other. He was the one who got me into the phone booth business, had I followed his lead I would not have stayed with it. Years later as he lay on his deathbed I heard him tell Linda that he thought I had turned out to be a pretty good guy, until then he never complimented me on anything and we were often engaged in discussions where we expressed strong opposition to each other.
      Linda's parents were like many of their generation, the greatest generation that ever lived. They worked hard, carried on traditions, didn't accept change very well and raised the next generation just as their parents did before them and Linda and I did after them. There are other stories I could tell and maybe someday I will. Although we clashed every now and then I remember them with fondness, I liked them and was proud to call them Mom and Dad.

What Were We Thinking

                                                   

                             What Were We Thinking

     A little over a year ago Kay and I started looking for a home of our own. We went on the internet and found listings that might be interesting and then we would do a drive-by to see if the place would generate more interest, we looked all over five or six counties for five or six months. The problem was more than just finding a new home, there were other issues to consider - price range, size, location, new or old, move in ready or fixer upper to name a few.
     After several months and much discussion we finally settled on a little house in Statham  just four miles from where we were living in Winder. Let me preface this to say Statham is a nice small community built along side the railroad. Founded way back in the 1800's, as a mill town it has seen it's ups and downs but most recently is has been experiencing a minor growth spurt while still maintaining it's old downtown charm with quaint restaurants and antique shops. Many of the homes along the main street were built around the turn of the last century or before.
     The home we found seemed to check off all of the considerations we had i.e. location - one block from downtown in a nice little community, size - it was a little small at 854 sf with 7 ft. 3 in. ceiling height but we could fix that, built in 1964 it was old - not as old as some of the homes, price - probably more than we should have paid, and last but certainly not least, it was not move in ready.
This house to say the least was a fixer upper, everywhere we turned there seemed to be something else that needed to be repaired, replaced or added. Did I mention that two contractors suggested that we bulldoze the house and build a new one?
      Being old enough that we had time on our hands and the skill and knowledge to handle most of the jobs required to refurbish the house we bought it and last September we started making plans  about what we wanted and how we were going to go about getting there and at this point a phrase comes to mind - "what were we thinking ? ". In all honesty we thought this ordeal would not be a problem, after all we had been watching the DIY and HGTV channels for sometime, they rebuilt homes in one hour. So off we go on our new and exciting adventure.
     First things first, we had to decide what we wanted done which was simple - add 15 ft onto the back of the house and raise the ceiling height to eight feet. This required a contractor so we got quotes from a few and settled on one to start work in October. The contractor was to add on the addition, raise the roof to give us 9 ft ceilings and stub out the plumbing and replace the windows - piece of cake.
     We had decided that we could do a lot of the remodeling ourselves and save money. So before the contractor started we had to tear off the brick on the back of the house, remove the old paneling and insulation and sheet rock, carpet, fixtures and etc. Well we did all of those things and more and went home every day covered in dirt, grime and grease, our bodies filled with cuts , bruises and splinters which later turned into scars which fit in with those incurred thru a long hard life. I should note here that my retired fishing buddy John offered to help out and I took him up on it, I will be buying his lunch and paying for his pool  league dues for some time to come.
     Everywhere we turned something popped up that usually created more work and / or expense. We found out that the framing was on two foot centers, the electric had no ground wire even though there was a new 200 amp panel, under the carpet there was tongue and groove pine flooring but it had to come up because a few of the floor joist were rotted or broken , that was when we found out there was no sub floor, behind the brick siding there was painted wood siding, there was cast iron drain lines and rotted duct work for the air handler. Maybe we should have taken the contractor's advice and bulldozed it. Bad as things looked we charged ahead tackling each problem as it came up.
     Then came the contractor problems. Things started out pretty good but it didn't take too long for them to go haywire. The crawl space for the addition was dug and the blocks for the foundation were laid and the carpenter was called in ( now things are going to start to move - Ha Ha ). the two man carpenter crew shows up the Monday before Thanksgiving to install the floor joist, he discovers that the block was laid in wrong and he had set up a transit and take measurements every six inches and cut shims for each, that took all day and after showing up about nine in the morning they quit work about three. The next day they came back again about nine and started installing the joist and got down to the end and found they were one joist short so they went home early. The third day they arrived with the missing joist and installed it and the spacers and were gone by lunch for a long holiday weekend.
     One of the problems with the carpenter was that he would only bring enough material for that days work rather than ordering up everything for the job. Later on he ordered the trusses too late to get them in before Christmas and he came up short one truss. The windows were installed but not caulked or sealed.
     It was about this time that we found out after many serious discussions with the contractor that he was not really a contractor but rather a "Project Manager" meaning that none of the people were his employees they were subs so he had very little control over their comings and goings.
     The brick layer we started with also had some problems showing up when we needed him and twice we found he was laying brick that didn't match so he was replaced with another brick layer the contractor found. The one that really drove us crazy was the plumber.
     The contractor had a plumber who owed him money so he made a deal with him to install the plumbing in exchange for his debt. The first plumber to show up was a woman and two guys one of which was her daughter's boyfriend, oh and because they had no transportation the daughter drove them to the job in her Jeep Cherokee where she sat talking on her phone the whole time. They had no idea what was going on and the few supplies they brought were useless so they started tearing things out, one of those things was the water line to the meter. They started digging with picks and shovels and after getting so far along they hooked the exposed line to the jeep with a tie down strap and tried to pull it out of the ground, that didn't work so I loaned them a chain and they wound up damaging the Jeep's bumper, they left swearing to return the next day with everything they would need. We never saw that particular plumber again but there were others that showed up from time to time but never the same ones twice. A couple of guys showed up but didn't bring any tools, another arrived but didn't have any material to work with, often we would get a call saying they were on the way to work but they would never show up. Over about two months we went thru seven different plumbers before I said enough. Then one day the contractor comes in with a plumber that he had run across and the guy was looking over the job. He was a nice guy who had a game leg and  his nephew as a helper. They worked hard and were very friendly, we even got a business card to pass along to a neighbor and that is when Kay noticed something strange so she went home that night and discovered that she and the plumber were distant cousins - small world but if you need a good plumber he's your man.
     Things slowly progressed and we finally saw the last of the contractor sometime in May. Although we were happy to see him go it was not a happy ending, we will not be inviting him over for a cook out or send him a Christmas card.
     During the contractors time we had things to come up that was our responsibility, tear our the old flooring, add studs to the wall to put them on 16 in centers, replace floor joist and add about 36 more to put them on 16 in centers, insulate and lay down new sub floor. When the contractor left we built interior walls, installed insulation in the walls and ceiling, ran the wiring, installed a new hardwood floor, painted trim and caulked it, the list of completed projects is endless but they are done.
     What started out to be no more than a six month project has taken a year and we won't even mention the cost but despite all of the pain, aggravation and frustration aside we are moved in. We started with a two bedroom,  one bath brick home with 7 ft 3 in ceilings and 854 sf, at one point we were down to three walls standing, exposed floor joist and no roof, people would ask if there had been a fire and when we planned to tear down the rest. We now have a two bedroom, two bath ( one yet to be finished) brick home with 9 ft ceilings and just shy of 1400 sf. There are still projects to complete ( finish three accent walls with wood, finish master bath, roof the deck, build counter tops and build a bar to name a few ) and they will not get done anytime soon but they are manageable.
       If you were to ask us if we would do it all again we would probably say this was one we should have walked away from or we should have bulldozed it. From time to time we asked ourselves - what were we thinking - well we were thinking of our future together, the making of our own memories while holding on to the memories of the lives we had in a not so distant past. It's like juggling balls in the air - too many balls from the past clouds the future, too many balls from the future clouds the past.  We think about us and remember those who went before us, that's what we were thinking.

   
 

The Traveler

                             The Traveler




     When I first met Linda she had just turned seventeen, she was not only the most beautiful girl in the world she was also widely traveled. Her father in the mid 1950's worked for a defense contractor charged with some of the work on the ICBM missile silos that were put in place all over the country as a deterrent to the ones the Russians were installing over their country side , Dad worked in supply.
      The company relocated the family all over the west from job to job and when they did Dad was given per- diem for each member of the family to cover food and expenses, he also received an allowance for the miles he would have to drive to the next job and he was given travel time to get there. Bear in mind that in the mid 1950's the hi-way system in this country was severely lacking in good roads, in fact if the road was two lanes wide and paved it was considered a major hi-way. About this time President Eisenhower had approved the construction of the interstate system but that was going to be several years away, in fact while driving to Tennessee on our honeymoon in 1967, Linda and I were on and off of parts of the interstate all thru Georgia and Tennessee.
     So to give you an idea of the difficulties, from Atlanta to Nashville is about 300 miles and takes about four hours to drive, you take interstate 75 north out of Atlanta to Chattanooga where you get on interstate 24 west to Nashville, simple. Back in the 1950's this was probably an overnight trip as you passed thru every town, city or wide spot in the road while circumnavigating mountains, rivers and deep valleys. Oh! and don't forget the slower speeds and no passing zones.
     Getting back to the story, Linda's Dad decided this would be an opportunity to see some of the country. When plotting his course to his next job going a direct route was out of the question, Linda told me that they were headed to Denver on one trip and wound up going into Mexico three times to get there.
     Over the course of the next few years they lived in California, Colorado, Idaho, Washington state and Arizona to name the few I can remember.
     Linda and Eileen were in and out of schools as many as three times in a year but the big thing was that Dad made sure they saw everything of any importance that might be within a hundred miles of where they were. They saw old Tombstone in Arizona, Pikes Peak in Colorado and Crater Lake in Washington. While passing thru Jackson Hole in Wyoming Linda fell into an open manhole and injured her leg, Dad never one to pass up an opportunity threatened to sue the city and settled for fifty dollars, Linda said he didn't share it with her.
     They traveled around in a pickup truck with a truck mounted camper on the bed, Linda and Eileen would lay own the bed over the cab and watch landscape as it passed by. Often Dad would pull off to the side of the road and camp by a stream, Dad would catch fish they cooked over an open fire while the girls would play in the water.
      Dad had promised Linda that they would move back to Florida when she started high school and he kept his promise and that's where I came in.
     When we were dating and planning our future Linda would tell me the stories of her travels and how she wanted to show me all of the wonderful sights, we made plans to visit all of the places she had seen and more. We were going to camp by mountain streams and drink the clean clear waters. Our vacations were planned out for the next tens years or so but then life got in the way, our priorities changed and then changed again. Every time we saved a little money something broke and had to be fixed or replaced, as I said - life got in the way.
     Recently I opened a drawer or dug into an old box and came across a few pieces of paper, one was a printout of names from her high school alumni, another was a page from a letter from one of her cousins or aunts, it gave information on some graves for her great grandparents. The last piece of paper was a small page torn from an old notebook about 4 1/2 in. x 6 1/2 in.. The paper was water stained, yellowed and faded and had notations in several colors of ink.
     The notations were the month, year and the address of every place Linda lived over the years since we were married, there were twenty five addresses. Looking back over the list it seemed we didn't stay in one place very long although we did live in our first house for four years, we rented a house in Sacramento, Ca. for five years and we lived in Auburn ,GA. for almost fifteen years and next month will make ten years in this house in Winder, Ga. still there are a lot of addresses for forty seven years of marriage.
     We never did get to see the Grand Tetons or the bears of Yellowstone but Linda did show me the Pacific Ocean, the Rockies Mtns. and the Grand Canyon to mention a few places and we did take short trips to Gatlinburg, the Mammoth Caves and one year we went to Akron ,Ohio. We also saw Disneyland, Disneyworld, Sea World in Ca. and Fl.. My work took me to places all over the country and I saw many sights that Linda had talked about including Alaska which was one place she wanted to go.
     Linda used to complain that when we went on a trip I drove like a bat out of hell to get to our destination and in doing so I passed up a lot of great places to stop and see. She was right, that was the way I was then always in a hurry, it was many years before I learned to slow down and enjoy the view. The last fifteen years or so we took several spur of the moment trips to destinations we pulled out of the thin air and we took hours to arrive.
     I look back over the list of addresses and can't help but wonder what Linda had to put up with being married to me, she rarely complained and no matter where we were she made us a good home filled with memories. I wonder how many other women would have been willing to uproot themselves every few months to chase a dream that always seemed to be just over the horizon.
     She was truly my better half and more than I deserved.
    

The Reunion

     Growing up back in the 1950's was quite often a family affair, seems like every weekend we went over the proverbial river and through the woods to Grandma's house where we met up with our Aunts and Uncles who had the same idea and of course there were cousins - ten on Dad's side of the family and about eighteen on Mom's side.
     The memories of those times are about all that are left, Mom and Dad as well as both sets of Grandparents passed away long ago and the only Aunts and Uncles that are left are Uncle Paul Wade, Uncle Henry Warren and Aunt Jean Wade and they are in their eighties and nineties. Once the Grandparents passed away the get together's became fewer and often occurred because of happenstance or funerals if at all. Like the four winds, many of us have scattered to all points of the compass and years have gone by since last we met.
     In every family there are always one or two people who are the self proclaimed keepers of the flame, they know all  the family history and keep tabs on those of us still walking around. Lil' sister Vickie and cousin Madeline Ruth are the ones who are the high priestesses of family legends and folklore, they have combed archives and graveyards in half a dozen states and have personal contact information on all cousins, their spouses, children and grandchildren entombed in  their cell phones.
     Not long ago Vickie and /or Madeline decided that a cousins reunion would be in order as we are all starting to get old and may not be around too much longer. Lo and behold they were able to put the reunion together and so that is where  Kay  and I spent our day last Saturday.
     I was looking forward to the reunion as it had been many years since I had seen most of the cousins, in a couple of cases we are talking 37 years, for Kay it would be a first as she had only met Vickie and brother Clint.
     It was great to reconnect with family and meet new cousins who are the children and grandchildren of my first cousins. Counting Uncle Paul and Uncle Henry there were four generations of Wade offspring in the same house, I can see the smile on Granny Wade's face - she would be proud..Cousin Sally was the hostess and when I arrived she introduced me to her daughter as her oldest cousin which is actually true - I am the oldest of the cousins and when Uncle Paul passes away the title of family Patriarch will pass to me. Actually, I am not sure if that is true and none of us were to sure about the succession of the title cousin, we got the first cousin down OK but the confusion started after second, third and twice removed.
     Memories of the past were in abundance, many stories were told even though they had been heard before but the telling of stories is what families do when they get together, it is how the next generation learns of the past. New acquaintances were made as our children and grandchildren mingled with each other and our spouses met some for the first time. Having met most of Kay's family she has been eager to meet mine and this was a prime opportunity.
     MJ and Matthew were in kid heaven as there were several kids their age to play with and an abundance of toys which were quickly scattered around the floor. It was good to see them surrounded by family they had never known, maybe they are old enough that they will remember their first reunion. Kay was talking to cousin Sally at one point when MJ walked up and said to Sally " this is my Miss Kay ", talk about putting a smile on someones face.
     My Aunt Jean for years would call Linda and I on our birthdays and this year she failed to do so, I hesitated to call her not knowing if she had passed away or not and as I was talking to Sally she said Aunt Jean had passed away years ago - now I was confused. Uncle Paul came to the rescue when he called her on the phone for me, it was good to hear her voice, she turned 90 this year and I guess she just forgot - I can only hope that I remember my name if and when I get to be ninety. When I told Sally that Aunt Jean was still alive and well she looked at me and said " I wonder who did die years ago ".
     Kay and I had come up the day before and spent the night with my brother Ronnie and his wife Mary, when the reunion was over we returned to their house one more night and even went to dinner with them and my nephew Lance and his wife Cassie. Our waitress at Long Horns was quite energetic as well as young . Ronnie, Lance and I ordered mixed drinks and the waitress asked for ID as proof we were old enough to drink, as she left to fill the order I commented " wonder if she could do the math by looking at our drivers license ", later when she came around to take our meal orders she told Ronnie that she would start with him first as he was the oldest - Lance laughed and said that should answer my question ( Ronnie is eleven years younger than me ).
     To finish up our long weekend, we left Ronnie and Mary Sunday afternoon and went to see an old friend of mine and Linda's. Emily Joslin as she is known now was married to Jim Phipps, the four of us were great friends and Jim was my best friend till his death in the mid 1980's. Later we went to see an old school friend Donnie Odum and his wife Wanda, they put us up for the night and Donnie regaled us with more stories of my youth.
     Thru out the weekend I took Kay to various places that meant something to me from my life in Tennessee - first school, several places of residence, Grandpa Riggan's farm.
     Overall it was a good weekend filled with family, friends and memories of a lifetime from long ago, memories worth holding on to.