Thursday, December 22, 2011

Back in our Ruffing it Days



My Grandpa Lockwood lived with us when we were growing up. Or I think I should say we lived with him, since he is the one that owned the house. He must have been permanently depressed. I don’t remember ever hearing him laugh. Or maybe there was nothing to laugh about. It was his house and his wife had passed on and sometime after that we moved in. There was my Dad and Mom and three brothers and myself.  That was no laughing matter. He was extremely deaf and if somebody did happen to say something funny he wouldn’t hear it.  He kept the fire going. He sat in his rocker, which sat as near to the stove as possible. The stove was a pot bellied wood stove. He fed the stove wood almost constantly. He would bring wood in from the woodpile each day and he would split the wood and stack it and whatever else you do with wood. That was his job. I think he assigned it to himself. When it rained he would get up and go to the front door and open it and turn around and say, “It’s raining”, and go sit down again. Ten minutes later he would get up and go open the door and turn around and say, “It’s still raining”. Out side of giving us a weather report on a regular basis and taking care of the stove, he didn’t have much else to do. In decent weather he would take a long walk each day. He walked with his fingers locked together behind his back. He walked all over the farm and when he returned he would lie down under a shade tree on the hard ground and take a long nap. He lived to be 89 and that was a very long life in 1941. He never went to the doctor that I knew of. Except one time when he was chopping wood the ax head flew off of the handle and hit him in the head. It caused a large gash and much bleeding. Dad took him to the doctor and he came home with a large bandage wrapped around his head. I hope he got pain medicine from the doctor. Nobody went to the doctor unless you were seriously ill. For one thing doctors didn’t have the medicine or tests for everything then as they do now. We gripe a lot about our medical care and those things, but we still are much better off now than back then. In those days if you were ill a family member would go to the doctor and explain the ailment and if there were a medicine for it, the doctor would give it to you. I am not positive about this, but I think the doctor kept medicine in his office instead of writing prescriptions. I guess I could have researched that, but I don’t have time. I’m busy writing this for the blog. This is all for now. 



Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pain Killer


When everything goes wrong and you can’t stand the pain anymore go to the hospital and they will take care of it for you. My DIL fell and hurt her back. The pain was so bad she went to ER. They took care of the pain and gave her pain medicine that made her so sick she had to go back and get something to stop the nausea. They tried so I give them E for effort. 


Monday, December 12, 2011

Life as I know it

This cartoonist said his cartoons are free. Since he used my  picture in this one, I thought I would use it. I went to the doctor today. When you get my age going to the doctor is like being on a treadmill. It just goes on and on. I need a secretary to keep track of my appointments.
Mother nature decided we need to be cooled down a little. It was 8 degrees when I got up this morning.
Nothing new in my world.


Friday, December 9, 2011

So Be Good

Even Snowmen have something to protest.
For so many years life ran rather smoothly, but that has all changed. All you hear are price cuts, cutting back, raising rates, tax increases, lay offs, bankruptcies and all those negative things.
 
Keep your smile smiling, a white-bearded plump man in a red suit is coming to town and he may bring gifts if we are good. 





Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Remember Pearl Harbor







War and destruction never ends. Loss of life and a million tears shed. Most of the Veterans that survived this have now passed on.  New wars and more tears. It never ends. I was 13 years old when this happened. I had a brother age 19 that was in the middle of it. He was reported missing in action, but the report was a mistake. He was later reported okay. He has now passed on.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Dancing Leg to Leg

I once attended a dance when I was young and agile, and a man in our group asked me to dance. I told him I didn’t know how and I was just watching. He grabbed my arm and said, “I’ll teach you how.”  We went out on the dance floor. He pressed his leg into mine and said, follow my leg, and away we went. We went everywhere his leg said to go. I am not kidding you by the time that dance was over I knew how to dance. I had just never tried before. It was a two-step or a waltz, depending on the music. Sometimes there would be a couple that knew how to do the ballroom dancing. I wasn’t one of them.  At another dance I was dancing with a man who was extremely tall so I made a comment about how tall he was. His answer, “I was born in Texas.” So I said, “ I bet you’re glad you were not born in Rhode Island.” He said, “How come?” I said, “Oh, I’m just making small talk”. I think only one of us was sober and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t him.  I don’t dance anymore. I do well to get to the mailbox and back.
I don’t know how or why I thought of the dancing after all this time. Right now I am going to dance off to bed.  

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Great Grands


It's just another day. I have my therapy behind me. Nothing to look forward to but a blood test and another doctor appointment. That is what happens when you reach the golden years. There is nothing gold about it. Here are pictures of my two little Great Grands.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habit.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.
~Author Unknown~