I intend to start with my relief at getting home from Adak. Then, my thoughts turned to what I found upon returning: my wife had moved our family from the B-side of the duplex on Falconer Court, FT Meade, to the A-side.

From an unknown trigger, my thoughts turned that she had to have the freezer moved, as well as the other appliances. I wondered who helped.

The exciting thing about the freezer is that we still have it, and it is in our garage, performing as well as ever for over thirty-five years. We had bought it at Ward’s. It was a display model with a minor dent. That hasn’t affected its performance, though.

The point of this aside is new is not necessarily better than old.

I admit to a period of stupidity. Our dryer stopped warming, so no drying. Instead of calling a repair man, I suggested replacing it, since it was slightly over twenty years old.

I must have been really suffering stupidly when I bought the replacement. The replacement sounded tinny when closing the door, while the replaced unit sounded brick-solid. There is no difference in drying choices, so we could have put in a new heater and kept the old one.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Have a great day.

Bear (11/1/2012-08/25/2021) crossed over the rainbow bridge to doggie heaven this afternoon. There he joined other dogs we have had—Sandy, Misha, Bailey, and King.

How we got him

Bear was a mixed Labrador born in Ohio and brought to Maryland by a local rescue. The rescue posted his story on Facebook, where my daughter, Tiffany, saw it. She knew we had lost our golden retrievers a few years before and thought it was time we became dog people again.

Tiffany went to work on her mom and eventually convinced her to visit the puppy’s foster home. Mom dragged me along and, after a long drive, we arrived. The puppy scampered in and out of the open door, showing off. His antics softened our hard-hearts, and we took the little bundle of energy home with us. Little did we know how he would affect our lives.

Bear was black with white markings on his chest and paws. When adopted, he was a skinny runt that couldn’t have weighed over five pounds. However, he was not a runt but just needed the correct tender care to change.

Bear’s medical problems

I noticed blood in his stools one day. It took two trips to the veterinarian to find out he had worms. These were very small and required specific treatment. He responded well to the treatment and soon grew to be an 80 lb bundle of joy.

Bear blessed us with many beautiful memories when we remember his favorite things.

Favorite things

He loved to play catch and fetch in the house. He had several rubber balls and would bring one, usually, to my wife. Then, he would bark until she threw it across the room. Moments later, he had retrieved it and tossed it in her lap for her to do it again. Sometimes he aggravated her when he wanted to play, and she was on the phone. Many callers have heard his bark in their ears.

I am sure many dogs like to play this game. But what made it special for us was Bear’s ability to toss the ball to her. He would stand near her chair and propel the ball into her lap with a toss of his head.

Sometime years ago, we gave Bear a sponge-like ball that he dragged outside one day. It was softball size and blue. Whenever he and I were out, he would search until he found that dang ball. Then he would toss it at my feet and wait for me to kick it. He was so funny—his head stretched out and eyes locked on the ball like a soccer player anticipating which way the ball would go. I tired of kicking the ball before Bear tired of chasing it.

Weather Dog

Bear didn’t like loud noises and especially disliked thunder. So when he was younger, he would try to climb in one of our laps at odd times. We didn’t particularly mind when he weighed a few pounds, but when he grew to be over 80 pounds—No Way! Then one day, we realized he did this before a thunderstorm arrived. So we began checking the weather when he became agitated. Sure enough, he was predicting a storm’s arrival. So we nicknamed Bear “Our Weather Dog” and found him as reliable as any TV weather reporter.

Bear loved to take walks beside our other lab-mix, Duke. The two of them, both near 100 pounds. They demanded, and I complied with walks regardless of the weather. So you could see them walking me down the street in rain, snow, or sunshine.

This reminds me that Bear loved playing in the snow. We have videos of Bear on the back deck doing snow angels.

Bear, we miss you and your antics, but are relieved that you are no longer suffering. Truth, there were few antics over the past two weeks. It was time to let you go and to take solace in the memories you gave us.

Winter weather where I lived in Illinois as a child was unpredictable, especially near Christmas.  I don’t remember once taking a family vacation during Christmas vacation. But, I remember the inches of snow to build snow forts, make snowballs, and shovel during that vacation.

The vacations I remember occurred during the school’s summer vacation. My Dad was in the Navy, and he tried to arrange his annual leave for the summer months. It allowed him to spend part of it with family in Kentucky or Indiana.

Starved Rock

The only trip not to family was to Starved Rock State Park in La Salle County, Illinois. As the story goes, in 1760, a group of Illinois Indians was attacked by Potawatomi and fled to a 125-foot sandstone butte. A park ranger told us how the Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians surrounded the butte and remained there until the Illinois Indians died of starvation. Hence the name Starved Rock.

Granddad Harris

Most of the trips to Granddad’s Harris’ place were unremarkable. He had a small house that we made smaller, filling it with an extra six warm bodies. My parents shared a spare bedroom, and the children slept on blanket pallets in the kitchen. Grandfather led prayers every evening. Sometimes we listened to mystery shows or the Grand Ole Opry on the radio before bedtime. We kids spent the day outside playing with our cousins living next door.

But…one vacation, we were at my Grandfather Harris’ house out in the country. I played in the yard with my siblings when my grandfather called us to get in the house. He was frantic that we obey. I shepherded my sister and brothers through the front door but stopped to wait for him.

He ran to his car, a 1940’s something, and backed it up several feet. He left it and entered the house, dragging me with him. Granddad had us lay down, and we listened as something sounding like a freight train passed. When the noise stopped, he led us outside. His car sat between two fallen trees. It escaped damage because of the few feet he backed it.

Another trip to Granddad’s

We arrived on another trip to find my Granddad had a dog he kept chained to a doghouse. I think it was an Alaskan Huskie. One night after we went to bed, there came a sound, unlike anything we kids had ever heard. My grandfather said it was a bobcat or cougar. Anyway, we settled down when it didn’t come again.

The dog was gone the next morning. Granddad said not to worry because this was nothing new. The dog had figured out that it could get on the flat roof of the doghouse and leap off, breaking the chain. (I never understood why he chained it if it could get away whenever it wanted.) He said the huskie likely went after the cat. Sometime later, he came back a bit worse for wear. It appeared he found the cat.

I saw a bobcat or cougar on the way home from his house one trip. I was lying on the ledge before the back window. It was dark, and I was staring out the rear window when a big cat jumped out of a tree and ran across the road. One moment it was there, the next gone from sight again.

Grandmother Knott

Some trips to Kentucky were to visit my Grandmother Knott, who lived in Owensboro, Kentucky. Her husband died when I was less than two-years-old. She shared her house with my Uncle Carl, who took care of her and the house’s needs.

My brother, Cletus, and I spent some time with them one summer. That was the summer one of them gave us some steel-tipped darts. Hours of playing pretend-dartboard left the front porch marred with tiny holes. Grandmother was unhappy with the damage, but my Uncle Carl more for he had to sand and repaint the porch. The next time I saw real darts, I was a First Class Petty Officer in the Navy, far from porches.

There were a few brief excursions to see other families before I left home after graduation to work in a foundry located in Skokie, Illinois.

More

We spent a couple of days on one trip with my Uncle Albert and his family. My uncle had lost an arm in a farming accident. I remember I was uncomfortable as I tried not to stare at the empty shirt sleeve.

Sometimes we visited my father’s sisters, Aunt Imogene and Aunt Merici, but nothing stands out in my memory.

Everyone is gone now, but I have the memories.

Dwane’s Grandparents and Parents

A long time ago, Elizabeth Midkiff and James Frederick Harris had a beautiful daughter named Mary Ruth in Owensboro, Kentucky. The date was 23 January 1927. Almost two months later, Johanna Mae Elder and Hilary Oswald Knott had a handsome son named Francis Leo. It was 17 April 1927, and the place was Browns Valley, Kentucky. Mary and Francis, who everyone called Leo, are my parents.

Mary and Francis married on 17 August 1946 in Owensboro. I was born in October the next year. My brother Cletus James was born on 9 June 1949 and the twins, Mary Paula and Joseph Paul, on 3 December 1952. The four of us born in Owensboro. Early in 1952, the family moved to Peoria, Illinois.

We lived on NE Adams street in an apartment until my parents bought a house on Vohland Street in Beverly Manor, Illinois. We moved in the summer of 1953, in time for me to begin first grade at St. Patrick’s Elementary School in Washington, Illinois. Cletus and the twins followed when they reached school age.

Lori’s Grandparents and Parents

A long time ago, a beautiful daughter was born on 27 July 1933 to Mary Elizabeth Neubauer and Robert Joseph Green in Donna, Texas. They named her Virginia Louise. James Alexander, Jr, a handsome boy, was born to Margaret Sarah Sherlock and James Alexander Cameron, Sr on 31 July 1929 in Minot, North Dakota.  Virginia and James Jr. are my wife’s parents.

Virginia and James met in Corpus Christi, Texas, and were married there on 29 July 1950.  They had three children born in a Corpus Christi hospital. Colin James was born 24 July 1951,  Flora MacLeod (Lori) in January 1954 and Heather Jenny in November 1967.

Virginia and James bought a house on Rosedale Street sometime before Colin was born and lived there all their lives.

I hope you enjoyed the brief glimpse into our family history. Questions or comments are appreciated and enjoyed.

Be safe in this trying time.

Happy New Year!

The refrain rang around the world as the clocks struck midnight locally. Millions attended parties to celebrate the start of a new year. Some celebrated the start of a new decade, while others celebrated the start of the last year of the decade. Whatever your feelings, everyone cheered at the stroke of midnight.

My wife and I celebrated the ball drop on 2019. We look forward to a great 2020.

Today is a day of remembrance for those who knew my wife’s father, James Alexander Cameron, Jr. He passed thirteen years ago, 1 January 2007.

Kiliane, the protagonist in my novel, provided a wish for the coming year in an interview by yours truely. “I wish for everyone to be safe in 2020. I know It is a vain wish for it is not the nature of the world. Some will suffer from a disease, others accidents, and some will be victims of crime. Still, it is my wish you and your loved ones remain safe this year.“

Does anyone else remember an old man representing the passing year, and a baby in diapers the new year?  I missed them this year.

Use the comment form if you remember them or want to enter the debate on whether 2020 is the end of a decade or start of another. I look forward to hearing from you.

Some days are remembered by something that happened on the day. People think of D-Day on June 6^th and the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7^th.

Sometimes I remember King, my Golden Retriever, passing when we celebrate Autumn’s birthday. Autumn is my daughter’s next youngest. King suffered a stroke late in the evening of her first birthday.

Ozzy

Christmas Eve, 2019, will be remembered as the day my granddaughter’s Scottish Fold cat, Osbourne  “Ozzy” McKay, passed.

Ozzy was an orange and white fur-ball. He enjoyed a lot of attention from the four grandchildren. One of his favorite hangouts was a chair near Bradley as he played on his Xbox.

He sometimes sought out a rub from Elizabeth or Autumn. Teddy reluctantly accepted his game play interrupted when Ozzy demanded his attention.

My granddaughter and son-in-law shared the grief and will miss him.

Christmas Eve, 2019, is a marked day in their lives.

One of joy shared with grandparents and great-grandparents in the evening, but one of sadness in the late morning.

Musing, let see what is flitting at this moment.

I just finished bowling in the Monday Seniors League. Friday night in the Friday Early Birds I bowled a 728. The first 700 plus series in two years. I was concerned this morning that I would follow the exceptional (for me) series with a bummer series. Low and behold, I had a 641. Relief!

Someone came up to me during the league and made a comment about the Impeachment Inquiry. I try to minimize politics there and here. I listened and only added that I wished the House would leave him alone and get back to doing legislation to benefit Americans. Let the election next year decide whether President Trump should stay or go.

I lost an uncle recently. It made me think about everyone lost. My mother in 1996, my father in 2002, one brother in 2001 and the other in 2002, and my sister in 2011. All of my mother and father’s siblings are gone. So many to mourn.

I am considering taking part in NANOWRIMO this year. I skipped last year after taking part in the previous two years. It might be the break I need from the novel I am editing. Need to either commit and prep an outline or just jump in on November 1st. I would make faster progress with an outline.

Many other thoughts flit too fast to collect and relate here. They note computer processing speed in advertisements. Well, I contest none yet can match the human brain for speed.

Do you agree? Use the comment form to let me hear your opinion.

My uncle, Donald Ray Harris, died on 10 September 2019. Saying it sounds so clinical and in no way reflects my sorrow.

Some favorite memories of my uncle.

Memories

The first was of him visiting my family after we moved to Beverly Manor, a subdivision of Washington, Illinois.  He was moving to a job at Caterpillar Tractor Company and would work with his brothers, James and Robert.

I found it interesting, funny to a preteen, he married my best friend’s sister, Helen Jeanette Emhoff. They lived in Beverly Manor a couple blocks from us. That is until they built a house in a new subdivision of Washington.

I think I laughed when he told me they were moving to live in a basement. Who lived in a basement? They did while he and his brothers built the house and garage. I am not sure but I suspect his older sons provided help with the construction.

I had left Illinois when he retired from “CAT” and sold the house. Uncle Don and Aunt Jeanette moved to Texas where he lived for several years before moving back to Washington, Illinois. He bought a property close to where my parents now lived and built another house.

Illinois couldn’t keep him or my Aunt Jeanette. Soon, he sold their house, and they settled in Alba, Texas. It was home until both of them passed, my aunt in November 2017 and he this month.

None of this tells how soft spoken and kind he was. I don’t remember hearing him yell, not even in frustration, or curse. He had a distinctive chuckle and was quick to laugh during our last times together.

There are many more memories, but the most recent was this summer. We were returning home in our RV and stopped for a few hours to visit. As we had for the past two years, I pulled our 32-foot RV into his driveway. When it was time to leave, he told me to back into his yard and then pull out.

He warned not to back into a tree he had planted. Two years ago, he stood by it and guided me. This year, my wife stood by it. Uncle Don stood in front of me while I backed into the yard. He stopped me once because I was not turning quickly enough. Finally, I had the RV where I could pull out.

Last Memory

He was standing waving goodbye as I pulled out of his driveway. A memory I will always have.

The comment form is for your use to tell me anything you want me to know. I look forward to hearing from you.

The Ship

I received a black and white photograph of the ship David, and his family traveled on to the states.  The family was unable to provide the ships name. The picture shows several decks. The higher deck David referred to is one of the top two in view.

He named the ship as a USNS ship. I couldn’t remember the name until I was searching databases of Army ships transferred to the Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS).  Here I found the USNS Gen Alexander M. Patch and remembered it was the name he gave.

Remembered

I told David I had never heard of the Patch. He named it again, and I googled the ship. After being acquired by the Navy in 1950 it made runs between New York, Bremerhaven Germany, and Southampton, England. It made runs bringing military dependents, among other persons, back to the United States. I learned this from a posting on the Naval History and Heritage Command site.

Have you ever couldn’t remember something until you saw it in print? Tell me of it using the comment form.

My wife, three of my grandchildren, and I visited with David while we were in southern Texas. We were there as part of our RV excursion.

I had the pleasure of spending most of one day alone with him. During our time, he told me of his time in the Air Force. The stories unfolded as he moved back and forth, all around, in his electric motorized chair. More on the chair in a moment.

He told most of the stories in broken parts. David was having trouble remembering what story he was telling. But, with prompting, he quickly returned to the subject.

David goes overseas

I learned that the military planned to send him overseas, but changed the destination several times. With one set of orders, he traveled to a base in the states where he would catch his transport. There, his orders changed, and he remained the winter stoking fires in the barracks. He told me someone had to keep the fires burning, and he was handy.

Finally, he went overseas, to England! A fortuitous occurrence for there he met his wife, Marian Freegard. They remained life mates for 66 years.

Returning to the State

A story he repeated was about his return trip to the states. He was of low rank when it came time to return from England. As such, he was not entitled to transportation for his new family, only himself. (This was common in my early days in the US Navy also.)

I got the impression that he bought airline tickets for the family, but he would travel by sea transport. Before anyone traveled, David was told to cash in the airline tickets. He and his family would travel by sea on the same ship. He told me the name of the ship, but my memory fails me.

David chuckled each time he repeated his family was on the upper deck and ate in the wardroom with the “higher ups.” He found it funny that he was allowed to spend much of each day with them, including eating with them. He has a wide grin as he said “them higher ups down below” were angry about this.

The men of higher ranks he referred to were quartered on lower decks. They were not permitted to spend the same amount of time as he was with their families on the upper decks. I was not clear if his special treatment was because he was being returned home to leave the military. Whatever the reason, this made a good story, and he worked it.

The chair

I mentioned his chair. I don’t think it ever stopped moving while I was there. He worked the controls to take him forward and back, around furniture, in and out the door, and up and down the handicap ramp. Conversation while in motion was his forte.

I enjoyed the time I spent with this octogenarian. David J. Green was a funny, spunky man who seemed to take every challenge with good grace and a smile. That was the man I spent the day visiting.

I would love hearing from you.