Nature Seems To Come To Me

   I sat in silence today in a folding lawn chair no sounds other than the leaves that had fallen from the trees and were being swept here and there and gathering in clumps in the yard and along the fence lines. I was sitting there thinking to myself many thoughts of nothing really just random blips of this and that all jumbled up together in my mind. I was relaxed and for the most part in my own little world. The farm fields have all been harvested around me leaving behind open fields and other than a corn stalk here and there that had been missed by the machines the fields look so bare. The trees around here have just about dropped all their leaves and look like nude soldiers standing guard at the edges of the fields. It is not warm out today but it is not cold it is just right the temp hovering around 45. I look up at the sky and the grey and white puffs of clouds cover as far as the eye can see just small spots were the sun shines through in streams of light reaching down to the ground. In my own little world I do not notice what is going on to the right of me I am focused on the sky and lost in thought.

   I am brought abruptly from my little world with the sound of something scampering through the leaves. I turn and watch three squirrels darting back and forth chasing each other up a tree and down again. I watch as they jump from branch to branch like little trapeze artists. I find it amazing how they can move so fast. I watch them for some time as they hunt for acorns and fight each other over them. I am not sure how long I had sat there and I had even dozed off for a bit it was just so relaxing and calm. My cat nap was interrupted by a snorting sound coming from behind a large tree that borders the south side of my yard. I turn my head to see five dear slowly working their way along the property line. I had just a few days earlier dumped a large bag of apples in that area for them to eat. I check each day to see if they had found them but everyday there they lay in the same spot I had placed them. This was a strange time of day for them to be moving around and I was surprised to see them.

   They had found the apple pile and were munching away as I watched being very still as not to spook them. As I sat there one of the deer became curious of me and started to inch its way closer and closer to me.  In the summer they would often hang along the property line and watch me as I did my gardening and my movements etc seem to not bother them. I had assumed they had gotten so used to me being in the yard that they had determined I was no threat. It is not uncommon for them to be as close as eight feet or so to me while I am in the yard. This one deer seemed very interested in me and kept inching closer and closer  until it was about two feet from me. I was thinking how cool it was and tried not to move just as it was inching a bit closer a car went by with a loud muffler and sent them all darting and running in a panic. In no time all I could see of them was their white tails bobbing behind them as the ran into the woods at the edge of one of the fields. I sat there in awe and wondered to my self  just how close that deer would have come if not for that damn loud car going down the road. 

   I must not have a threatening vibe it seems animals sense something in me and are not afraid of me. About 10 years ago I lived in a trailer park and would sit in the small back yard and watch the birds and squirrels. I started feeding them peanuts and had them so used to me that they would take them out of my hand. There was one I called Buddha Mamma because she would eat and eat until her belly stuck out then climb up the tree and sun her self on a branch. One day I was feeding them and a cat was in the yard so they all ran up the tree. The cat was batting and pouncing on something in the grass so I walked over to see what it was the cat took off and left what ever it was laying there in the grass. At first I thought it was a mouse but when I got closer I could see it was a chipmunk. It ran over and perched itself on my shoe and and looked up at me as if to say thank you. It stayed on my shoe even as I started to walk. It at last leaped off and scurried away. With the cat gone I started feeding the squirrels again. I felt a twinge on my right legs and I thought it was a muscle spasm but as I reach to rub the spot I felt something furry on my hand and it startled me. When I looked down it was the chipmunk I could tell because it had a distinct marking on its head. I must have startled it as it had me it let out a chip and took off.

   Not to long after I caught a glimpse of the chipmunk popping its head in and out of the grass. It was picking up the peanuts I had tossed out for the squirrels. It did not take long until this little chipmunk had me under its spell and I could not sit outside without peanuts or she would chirp at me until I went in and git some for her. She moved in under my trailer and each morning would sit under the area where my bed was and chirp until I got up and got her some peanuts. She lived under there for a few years and would climb all over me and often fall asleep on my shoulder when I was outside in the lawn chair.

   After a few years living with my little peanut hoarder I found a house and was moving. When I removed the skirting from the base of the trailer I found mounds and mounds of peanut shells. She had shells stashed in the cinder blocks and the ground underneath was covered with them. I hated to leave her but knew if I trapped her and took her with me she may not like the new place or be harmed not knowing the dangers of the new area. The last day when I pulled the trailer out of the park she sat on a stump and chirped at me as I pulled away. People who did not believe me about my pet chipmunk I would just put in the movie I have of her climbing on me and collecting peanuts, they then become believers.                    

Hints on Family History

   So my last post I talked about researching family history. I am still at it and have made some great finds. By joining some of the many Facebook pages that have groups of people related to or from the areas that my ancestors came from I have been able to see photo's of faces and get info I may have never found on my own. I had joined a few of the pay for sights years back and although it was helpful I found many of the people on those sights to be very stingy with their research.I can understand some of their feelings as many people who did research for profit were accessing their info and then selling it. I have found the Facebook pages to be much more like a family sharing our ancestors and their info. I have also found that I get stories about the people from those that knew them or have a parent uncle aunt etc who knew them. I find I am getting a much better look at who these people were from these groups than I ever did with the pay sights.

   Find A Grave is a new free sight that has tons of info.photos,obits and locations of burial paces. Also on this sight there are links to others like wife,parents, and children. It is a great sight to check out if you have not heard of it before. The sight covers graves all over the map Europe,USA etc and i was able to find some graves in England I would have maybe never found else where.

   I have also had luck with a new trend called found photos that have many sights and blogs popping up. These blogs and sights are where people load up pictures they have found in the trash, garage sales,flea markets etc. Some of the photos have info written on the backs others have no clue as to who the people are or where they where taken. They post the photos in hope a family member will see them and be able to put a name to the face. I found two ancestors by scrolling through these sights one photo at a time,

   I have also found that if I have a name and a birth date etc I have had luck when entering that info into google and was surprised the info that would come up on said person. I have also lucked out with google finding photos of people by just entering their names in and looking around at what comes up in the search area.

   Never underestimate the hord of pics etc that Mom Grandma Uncles Aunts have stashed away. If you ask they may share and often you can find a wealth of info hidden away in a box. Also never forget to ask the older people in the family to tell stories about the ones they knew often they will give you a hint that can unlock info for the past.

  Many people do not understand my need to know who I came from and I find it hard to put into words to those that do not have the same addiction to delving into the past that I do.I am sure they have hobbies or things they like that I just can not fathom why so I tell them the same way I tell people bungee jumping you have to try it before you knock it.

      

Wow 1984 Was That Many Years Ago?

   A few months ago I received a notice on my Face Book page that my 30 year High School reunion was going to be on July 25th. It was to be split into three different venues one on the 25th was a BBQ at one of our classmates houses the second was on the 26th and more formal and took place at a rented banquet type place. The third and last was a coffee clutch in the Town we grew up in at the Court House lawn. My first thought when seeing the notice was wow has it really been that long? so many years and it feels as if I walked out of that High School for the last time just yesterday.

   I was not sure if I wanted to go at first but found that many of my good friends were going to be there so I fired off my check and my RSVP for the BBQ not the formal I have in the past few years developed a sort of claustrophobia in large groups inside buildings. If I am in a store like Wall Mart and too many people are in the same isle I have to get the hell out I feel closed in. Not sure what that is about and could be some effect from medications or maybe I am just a bit cracked either way I just do not do well in those types of situations. I planed also to attend the coffee on the 27th because that was also an outside in the open venue and I could deal with that.

   This would be my first time attending the reunion because I was in the Army for the 5 year and was on the missing list for the 10th. I was living in Pittsburgh Pa for the 15th broke and going to school I could not afford to make the trip home. I was back in Michigan and living in a town nearby but I was not able to get time off from work for the 20 year and then was battling cancer for the 25th. I had been lucky enough to reconnect with many of my classmates via my Face Book page and could share in their lives on the keyboard but had not seen many since the day we tossed our caps into the air. Once I got on Facebook and reconnected I found many lived still in and around the town we Graduated from and I found it funny that we shopped worked played etc in the same town yet never ran into one another.  Over the years after we graduated I would see a few people now and then but I had lost touch with so many people that were very important to me back then and I always wondered how they were doing etc.

   Once I reconnected on Face Book I found it strange that they had kids and grandchildren I mean I know we are all older but in my mind they were still those 18 and 19 year old kids from the graduating class of 1984. I had known many of them since kindergarten so in many ways they were like an extension of my family some I felt so close with I called them my brother from another mother and my sister from another mister well that was not a phrase back then but you get my meaning I hope.  Many I only knew their Mothers name as Mom and that is what I called them also and they called my Mother Mom. In our Town everyone knew everyone in some form or fashion through church, sports, school, work etc. Someone always knew someone who knew someone who knew someone so it was not easy to get away with much growing up unless you were very careful of who saw you in town. I once was walking in town skipping school and smoking a cigarette before I got home my Mom had been informed probably by someone in a car passing by and mind you this was before everyone had a cell phone.    

   When I graduated all I wanted to do was wash the dust of our town off of me and I had it in my mind once I got away I would never want to come back. It was not that our town was a bad place its just I wanted to see the world and become something and felt my small town would only hold me back from my dreams.  I find it so very funny how I saw things when I was younger compared to now.

    Well back to the reunion. As the day got closer I felt a mixture of excitement and a bit nervous about going, almost like that first day of school each year when you have been away from most of your classmates for a whole summer. The difference this time is I had been away from them for many summers and winters so much had happened and changed in my life and theirs. I wanted to attend but every thing I do in my life now depends on my health and if I will feel well enough or not is always a toss up. It always seems when I make plans to do something I get sick and have to miss out on what ever it is. So I made sure I got lots of rest and watched what I ate etc so I would be up for going. I am not able to eat while away from the house and have to eat at least five hours before I plan on going anywhere so I make sure I use the rest room before I leave. Long car rides are hell so I rarely venture far from home. So the day of the BBQ on the 25th that started at 5 I ate breakfast that morning and nothing else the rest of the day so I would not have any problems while catching up with old friends.

   As the day got closer so many memories rushed into my mind of times we had had places we had gone teachers,janitors,pep rallies,sports, tests, music,clothing,bus rides my mind was reeling. I would bust out laughing at some memories that popped into my head and the people around me would look at me like I had lost it. I tried to explain what I was laughing about but most of those times was a you had to of been there type thing so it was lost in translation for them. It would be so great to be back with those that had been there and understood me in a way no one else could. 

   I got myself ready and loaded my car with things I wanted to give friends and some vegetables from my garden also the items that I was asked to bring for the BBQ. And soon I was off still feeling a bit nervous not sure why just the unknown I guess for some reason I work things up in my mind and often its the worst scenario. But I was also excited to be able to see people face to face and catch up. I got there early and hauled all the goods I had brought with me up to the spot were a tent had been set up with tables and chairs. I was met by my classmates wife and gave her a hug and chit chatted for a bit. My classmate and his family were gracious enough to have the gathering at their house and for some reason I had flash backs of some wild parties I had been at back in our school days not that I thought this would be that wild but the thought did enter my mind none the less.

   The party was a lot of fun and it seemed time went by so fast. I wanted to have more time to talk and catch up but its hard to cram 30 years into a few hours when you have 60 or so people talking all at once. I was able to catch up with a few people but as I say I wish I had more time. It got late and too soon it came time to leave so I said my goodbyes and piled back into my vehicle to drive home. As I drove home I laughed to myself at myself for thinking the night could or would be anything other than a fun night.They had a banquet night planned for the next day but I was not going to be able to attend that. Over the years I have become very uncomfortable in large crowds more so in inclosed areas. I seem to be fine outdoors but if inside I feel claustrophobic. So needless to say I did not attend the second party. 

   I am glad I went and look forward to the next one. Sadly we have lost a few people over the years and it was hard not to see their faces there and I pray I see all the ones from this year return and hopefully more will be able to make it to the next one.  I do not care what anyone says I know the CLASS OF 1984 ROCKS!!!!!!!!!

Getting Back to My Friends

   I recently had a chance to visit with some friends that I had not seen since we graduated from High School. Even though so many years had past it felt as if we just picked up were we left off or as if we had seen each other a few days ago. It was great to talk to people who knew what I was talking about and shared many of my memories of the past. I never really thought about it back then but my friends were and are a part of my family even though we may not share blood we share memories of what at the time felt like the most difficult time in our lives. We grew up together maybe not always as close as we would have liked but they were the faces I saw everyday in the halls and in the classes I attended. Back when I was in school our town was small and everyone seemed to know everyone else in some way or another. We came from different backgrounds and social standings but none of that seemed to matter or at least it did not to me. I was the type person if I liked someone I liked them not for what they wore or what their social standing was and once I made a friend they stayed always in my mind a friend. I may have gotten angry with them at times and we may have fought but I still felt they were a friend. As we moved from grade to grade I would make new friends but I never forgot  those friends I had made before.

   We started out in Kindergarten and depending on the area you lived decided on what grade school you would attended. We had about 5 grade schools at that time with two Kindergarten classes in each  and we would for the most part attend those schools until 4th grade unless someone moved to a different location or moved away the school you went to would be the group of people you spent the next four years with growing and learning. After those four years came to an end we would move on to Middle school which our town had two and once again depending on were you lived would depend on were you would attend school. The one school had been built many years ago and at once housed the High School students and was later turned into a middle school after a new high school had been built. This would be the school I would attended and it was a very old three story brick building that was in for the most part neglected and in need of repair. It had plaster walls and lots of real wood doors and wood molding and the wood floors would creaked when you walked on them lets just say there was dark stained wood everywhere framing the doors the windows etc. We did not have air conditioning a slight breeze was seldom on hot days given by an open window. The other Middle school was newer and more up to date and modern and had air conditioning. After three years in that Middle we all moved to the newer school for one year. In that move we were combined together with the people from that school and we would spend the next five years together. Twelve years of my life spent of people coming and going friendships built and as I said before they were like my extended family. There are points about those days I miss but there are also many that I could have done without.     

   Later in my life I seem to do most of my communication either in my blog, by phone or through other social media on the computer so I seldom get the chance to talk to people face to face theses days. It was nice to catch up and actually talk but I fear I in not talking for so long monopolized the conversation something I have a habit of doing. I tend to start talking and then can not shut up. I have found and reconnected with many people on Facebook and enjoy being included in their lives. Seeing their children their homes pets etc. I think once I left high school it was like I lost a large part of my family and it is so nice to reconnect with them.

   I have heard some say they feel as though some people on Facebook brag about how well they are doing. Hmmm maybe some do but I have to say I am proud of my friends and my family for the things they have accomplished and  enjoy hearing about the car they bought or the trip they took or their new Grandchild. I do not see it as bragging I see it as me sharing in their good fortune like I have said many times before I think differently than most I guess. While I was going through my cancer treatments those stories and sharing was my only contact with the outside world. Like many other things in my life I became addicted to Facebook and would wake in the morning and check to see what was going on. I am trying to cut back on my Facebook time and have started slowly doing so but still feel withdrawal now and then.

   I like to know how and what makes people tick such as what is their high points and what they would consider their lows. Most people share more about their highs for fear people will think they are winning in some way if they discuss the bad things in life. Hell I know I have days I feel like shit and am grateful to be able to post it and get feed back, love,prayers etc. I am less and less private with my life as I age I think because I become less and less fearful of what people think. I know when I first was dealing with my cancer I was not going to let anyone know about it. I am so glad I wised up and shared this with my extended family because without them and their support I am not sure I would have gotten through those real rough days. And I will or can not forget the input on how to deal with all the things that come up while going through the proses of chemo and radiation. Helpful hints from others who had been through it or were dealing with it at the time. And by sharing I found out about a support group that I would otherwise not have known about.

   I went through a few years after I left High School thinking I would just leave that life in my past or that I did not need those people anymore. When I first got online back well more years than I care to admit I started spending a lot of time in chat rooms and those people, people I did not even know became my go to persons to talk to. Those were some of the loneliest years I have ever spent in my life. I had stop drinking and drugging so I had cut ties with friends because they were still doing those things and I could not handle being around it. So I worked came home and sat at my computer talking to people who probably were not what or who they said they were but I for some reason put my trust in them and considered them my friends.  That went on for about three years until I moved up north living in the sticks and had no internet. It was hard at first but I soon replaced that time I would spend online with walks with my dogs and talking with neighbors.

   I lived there for about two years and loved it but there was no work and I was forced to move back down and moved a few towns over from were I had grown up. I had been away long enough that I had lost contact with just about all my old friends and they had gone on with their lives moved to other states etc. I just figured it was how life is, people come and go, and you deal with it.

   Back to my story of seeing friends. I guess I did not realize just how much I had missed those people and how much they had meant to me. Just seeing them again made me smile and feel better than I had in a long time. I felt comfortable with them and free to be myself  and say what ever the hell I wanted. It was great that they remembered the same things I did and talking with them sparked memories I had forgotten about. Looking back at those High School days I truthfully can say it was not all sunshine and roses but I did get to know some great people and am glad to have them back in my life.  

Blank Canvas

  I often wonder why when I see a blank white sheet of paper or a blank canvas I feel the urge to write on it or paint it. What is this need inside me to express some sort of emotion or feeling and then to have others see it? Am I looking for attention? am I missing something in my personality? is it the only way I know how to reach out to others? Or am I just a stones throw away from needing to be placed in a rubber room? I look back on some of my paintings and think WOW! was I really at that place in my mind? or I read over old writings and think how the hell did I make it out alive or ever get through that time of my life? I would like to think I did it on my own, just all me, no help from anyone or anything. I know looking back this is not true because I had help along the way, someone always seemed to be looking out for me. Not everyone sees it this way but for me God or my faith that there is something greater than me has kept me going. I am not sure of much but I am sure something has been guiding me and helping me along my path.


   If it is true God is everywhere and in all things then those people who were there for me were in a sense God. I often when looking back forget those people who were there when I fell, those that extended a helping hand or a shoulder to cry on. Why do I do that? why do I feel like the only way to feel I accomplished anything is if I did it all on my own? or that it makes me somehow weak to admit I had help along the way. I am a person who as they say wears his heart on his sleeve and care deeply for those people I let into my life. But for some unknown reason to me I have a hard time letting those people know just how much they have shaped my life and helped me.

   I wonder if this stems from my upbringing and of my Fathers constant push that I should never show weakness or never let the other guy think you need help in anyway. My Dad had a rough way to go growing up and somewhere along the line he made up his mind he would never show any weakness to anyone. I saw my Father cry only two times in my life, once was when his Father passed away the second time was when my sister passed away. Both of those times I could see although he was crying he was also angered by the fact he was letting his emotions show. Funny I am so different from him in that I am very emotional and have no problem crying or having anyone see me doing so. I never saw it as a weakness but I also never or tried to never let my father see me cry. I think of myself as a child starting out as a blank canvas and the people I have met along the way have helped to color me or paint who I am.  

   Both my parents came from large families and although they may have not wanted for much they were by no means rich. They knew what it was to not have things and wear hand me downs or second hand clothing. They wanted more for their kids and worked hard to try and make their kids life's better. I would hear my Mom talk about growing up and you could see in her eyes the love she had for her Mom and Dad and even when she talked about the hard times she did so with a gleam in  her eye, almost laughingly. My Dad did not speak of his growing up much but when he did he mostly talked about his Dad. His Mother left when he was very young just walked out one day, and I think that did damage to him that effected him the rest of his life. I tell all this just to show I understand why my parents did the things they did and why they brought me up the way they did and that I am not bashing them in anyway.

   Both my parents had an attitude that you should not ask for help and that if you were going to make it in this world you were going to do so on your own. Call it pride or what ever but to me they seemed to have this need to try and do everything with out help. Although they had help along the way very seldom did I hear them admit to that fact. I am not sure if it was something they were taught or because of being what some would call poor they just felt ashamed to ask or let anyone know they needed help. OK! I am rambling I know but I guess I am just trying to make sense of my need to do it on my own.

   While I was in treatment for drug addiction one of the counselors gave me a piece of paper and written on it was a problem or situation that I had to give an answer as to how I would deal with it. The situation was as follows........You are in a store and you are buying a 70 pound bag of potatoes there are no carts in the store so you must carry them on your back.  When you reach the check out the lines are long and not moving very fast the sack starts to become very heavy. What do you do? I said I would set it down and pick it back up when the line started moving. The counselor said you can not sit it down and you have to have them so you can not just put them back and leave. Every answer I gave he said was wrong and I started to get pissed off and the fact he asked me this question on a day my family was there made it even worse. I ended up getting so pissed off I walked out on the session and was saying under my breath some real nasty things about the counselor.

   I would stay pissed until the next day when he asked me the same question again. I told him there was no answer, and this made him smile which pissed me off even more. I got so mad I yelled at him (WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST TELL ME THE BLANKING BLANK BLANK ANSWER!)? Get this answer he gave me............are ya ready for it............ the answer was to ask for someone to help you. Well that just pissed me off even more and made me feel stupid but I could not understand why it pissed me off so much. It would be days before I would have any break through or understanding and see that I was so pissed off because I was unaccustomed to asking for help or accepting help for that mater. I would see that I was in fact carrying around all my emotions like a sack of potatoes and afraid to ask for help in any shape or form. I may have started out with one potato/emotion but over time the sack got full and started crushing me under its weight. I know to some that little story will have no meaning but for me it was a bit of a wake up call . I would have to learn to express my feelings and share them some how and ask for help when I needed it or they would build and build until I would be crushed under the load. And the fact I was no longer able to run to a bottle of booze or pop a pill to deal with them like I had in the past made it a difficult change to make. I had become so used to using substances like pills and booze it became the only way I knew how to deal with life. And God forbid I ask for help or showed I was not superman able to do it all with no help.           

   So have I gotten better at asking for help you may ask? to that question I would answer  somewhat but I still try to do it on my own because I am stubborn and find old habits hard to break even when I know they are doing me harm. So when I see a fresh piece of paper I want to write on it or a blank canvas I want to paint on it I guess its just my way of emptying the potato/emotions to lessen the load. So if you have been there for me in the past and I did not say thank you it was not because I did not appreciate it it is that I did not know how to say thank you or that I was too ashamed that I needed your help at all. As I read over this I am thinking maybe the rubber room is the best answer after all. 8-)         

Facades

   So many of us wear false facades. We fear letting others see our true selves so we go through life putting out an image we think others will be comfortable with. I started thinking about this as I sat in a coffee shop a while back watching a group of workman taking a false facade down from a building across the road. The building had been covered with large pieces of metal shaped in large squares and covered with a grey ceramic coating giving a look of sterility or modern office building look. As each piece of metal came off it reviled another section of the brick that was hidden underneath. As I watched the ugly flat surface disappear and the beautiful brick revealed from underneath I wondered who's bright idea it was to cover up all that beautiful brick work? It was so very stylish and ornate not like the box buildings they build nowadays it had character and style and was unique from the other buildings. You could see the brick masons had taken pride in their work and in many ways it was a form of art. The old windows had once been arched at the top and outlined in ornate brick work. You could see that the arched windows had been modified over the years and the arches had been covered over with plywood probably for cost reasons when replacing the windows. The doorway had been moved from the center of the opening to one side  and once had been inset about a foot or so from the sidewalk now was flush with the front of the building. As each piece of the sterile looking facade came down you could see the many changes the building had gone through over the years, each change taking away from the original vision of the building.  

   This made me think of how I have gone through so many changes and built up facades and torn them down over the years. So many of us cover up our true selves hiding behind facades and often not knowing we are even doing so. I remember a time when I was younger running and playing back when I did not care what people thought of me, a time when I was free to say and be what I wanted. A time my dreams had no limits in my mind I could fly if I wanted it bad enough. I wonder why or when I lost that ability to just be me, when did I conform and start wanting to emulate others instead of being an original?

   There have been times over the years I did not like the person I had become or the person I was trying to be because I thought its what people wanted of me.  I am finding as I get older I am returning to that way of thinking, getting back to that not caring what people think about me and getting back to being me. Funny there was a long period of time I was not sure who me was and also a fear of letting people see even a glimpse of the real me for fear they may not like what they saw.   

   All that time wasted putting up facades, time I could have spent just being who I wanted to be. I guess I can chalk it up to learning experiences like trying on clothing to see what pair of pants fits best or what style you look best in. I have become comfortable with who I am or lets say I am on my way to that point. I guess you would call it casual, yep that's my personality just laid back like jeans and a T shirt sandals and white socks or an old comfortable pair of sweat pants no frills,bells or whistles just me not giving a shit what people think.  You may see me on that sight people of Wall mart  looking like I just rolled out of bed and ran to the store and I admit there was a time that would have bothered me but alas I just do not care so sing it with me........ it's my life... and its now or never...... I ain't gonna live forever........I just wanna live while I'm alive. 


                                            ITS MY LIFE! 

Digging In The Past

   A few years back I started getting into family history or genealogy and digging around to find out where and who I came from. It was fun at first and I was able to beg and borrow some great info and Photos from older family members. Some times it was easy and other times very hard as many people felt I was messing around in areas that were better left in the past. When I first started in this little hobby I had dial up internet service so I would have to borrow pictures and paper work to scan the items at home and then return it to its owner at a later time. Many people do not like parting with items for fear they will never get them back so often it was very hard to convince someone to loan you precious bits of the families past. I found by my raiding family photo albums and boxes of old papers I found information that I could never find on the internet. It was like a hunter hunting for prey or shopping tell ya drop type feeling. It quickly became an addiction as many things do with me and in no time it was all I could think about I would spend hours on line scrolling through file after file and picture after picture searching for bits and pieces trying to make each person from the past whole again. With dark circles under my eyes and a numbness in my ass I had to take a break from my hobby because I had let it consume me and become not a hobby but an addiction.

   It has been about ten years or more since I put all my family info I had gathered into a large plastic bin and stashed it away in my basement and there I forgot about it for a time. The past few years I have lost some people who were and still are very special to me and the loss of those loved ones made me remember that plastic bin hidden away in the basement. Thinking of those I had lost I decided to dig that bin out of storage and opened it up with the notion of just adding the obituary info and photos of the latest family losses. As I opened the lid and thumbed through the piles of info the memories of people from the past flooded back. Memories of my Grandfather and the couple of years he lived with us and all the things he taught me. My Grandmother and how she would cry when it came time for us to leave after a visit. The houses people had lived in the cars they drove the holidays we had all spent together and Oh! so much more.  I had dug that plastic bin out only to add a few bits of info mind you but sitting here two weeks after I opened the lid I find myself with stacks of info spread around me and I am once again consumed with trying to catalog all this info so that the people from the past will not be forgotten and the people from the future will be able to make some since out of what I have gathered.

   I only wish the people from the past would have made little notes on photos as to who where and when the photo was taken. I guess if they had made it to easy for us who like to dig in the past it would somehow not be as much fun but sometimes it can be frustrating. I do know that it is like no other type of high when you at last are able to place a person in the family tree with info to back it up to anyone who wants to dispute the fact they belong there.

   I do have to say it has become so much easier now than when I first started or those who started before me for that matter. Those that started before me would have to physically go to the court house or grave yard to retrieve info. I am very lucky to be able now to access info just by entering the right phrase into my internet search. Pictures are downloaded and obits are there for the taking if you know where to look. My Aunt Letha my dads sister started the Thomas family Genealogy many years ago, back when she had to do leg work and use snail mail to get the info. She compiled a huge amount of info that she left to a cousin of mine leaving her with the daunting task of sorting through boxes and boxes of info putting it into a blog she started so she could share it with the whole family. She has done so much work loading photos and such to the blog and it is wonderful to see faces of people I have never met and those I have bringing them back to my thoughts. Many of those old yellowing cracked photos I would swear were me or other family members who came way after those people in the photos were long gone. The resemblances can often be scary in a way like looking at your reflection in a mirror but 20 years before you were born.

   Dead ends can be hard to deal with. A dead end is when you have a family member that you can not find any info, such as their parents or where they came from or how they got here. I have a few dead ends that haunt me as I dig and dig to find just a thread of info on their past and come up with diddly squat. Some lines of my history have been widely research by others making those groups of people easy to put in the family tree, but there are some branches that seem to be or have big secretive pasts like they were beamed down from outer space and just appeared one day and started a family. With people so adamant to come to the new world some stowed away on ships or lied about who they were. Many did not speak English or could even write  their own name so they had to tell someone their name and that person wrote it down. Many mistakes were made and many families names were changed or altered because of this fact. Framer is a name in my family tree that has been butchered many times over the years. The Framer line of my family came from Germany and with broken English I guess it must have sounded strange to those who did not speak German. In my research I have found it spelled Foramer Fromer Frymer Frimer etc.  It can make it hard when digging in old manifests and files to be sure it is the person I am looking for. Often one small clue like another family member listed with them helps to prove it is the person and I am on the right track.

   In digging and finding out how those brave people from my past came to this country often with only the clothes on their backs  just astounds me and the many reasons that brought them here. Some came to gain fortune some came to escape governmental tyrants politics,religion, even to escape prison terms each had their own reasons and motivations for making the trip. Some came as indentured servants serving 10 years or more basically as slaves to the person who paid for their passage on a ship. Not all came first class and many came with nothing more than a dream of some sort. I know what a hassle it was for me to move from state to state  or from place to place but my moves although problematic were nothing like what they dealt with and many were not spring chickens when they did so. I have found members of the family in their 70's and 80's making the trip. I think about the women pregnant and having children in the bowls of ships with the cargo. How unsanitary it must have been or them having to deal with that time of the month. Having to be often packed in like animals with little to eat of drink. Many died on the trip over and never made it to their destination. Those brave people traveling many days to get here and not knowing what to expect or what would meet them at the shore. 

   I find a great deal of pride knowing I came from such people who had a dream of something bigger and were willing to suffer the hardships to achieve that dream. They came form all over the map and their blood runs through my veins. I am German I am Scottish I am Nordic I am English I am Jewish I am Italian I am a melting pot of people from many lands and I want to know as much about them as I can. I am trying to not let this little hobby become an addiction again as it was, am I able to do that you may ask? all I can say to that is time will tell, time will tell.  
  

Need To Get Back To Teaching and Not Passing The Buck

   I have noticed a lot of people complaining as of late about the abundance of miss spelled words on social media and the lack of punctuation. I am guilty of this myself not the complaining but the fact I often misspell words and rarely use punctuation. I have learned to use spell check and rely on it often in my writing. I do not think this problem is a new one I think it is just noticed more now with communication being mostly in type and not spoken word. 

   I have my own opinions on why this is becoming more and more common and as I always do I am going to spew out my thoughts on this epidemic as I have seen it called . The first part of this problem I feel has been caused by quotas and the need for schools to show a certain body count each year at graduation to keep founding money coming in. The government funding is very important to each school no matter how big or how small and if one dollar of funding money is lost it could mean cutting back on school programs for the next year.  So many students are shuffled along and promoted from one grade to the next even if they are not prepared or have learned the basics to do so. I am a product of this quota system as I never grasped mathematics but with a D in a class I would be promoted to the next grade. In many instances I should have been given an F and held back until I was able to grasp or learn but to fill the body count or quotas I was passed. I feel this does a disservice to the student and does not prepare them for the world they will enter once they graduate. 

   I also think the money given to run schools is often misused and squandered on programs that are not as important. The need for these small towns to build a new school every ten years or so baffles me. There once was a time the school and the church and town hall were all in one building. Those days are a thing of the past and I understand there is growth in towns and villages and the need for more class rooms and space is needed but what is the problem with expanding the building or updating what is already there?  Do we really need to spend money on a new school and not just a school but they have to be an expensive Frank Lloyd Wright style building? My small town has grown since I was a child and many of the schools I attended have been torn down and new ones built. Some of the schools were closed and sat empty for many years while they built new ones. My small town built a new High School before I graduated in 1980 and I attended that school after one year in the Old High School. The Old High School was deemed to small for the growth of the town but instead of expanding on the existing school building they built a new one. A few years ago I see that they have built yet another new school to house the students and within a few years after it was built it was deemed to expensive to run and the students were moved back to the old High School. Money wasted as far as I can see.

   My point in all that babble is that why is the money not spent to teach the children properly and assure they are ready to go out into the world with the proper knowledge? Having an impressive stylish building seems more important than teaching the children from what I see.

   Overloaded classrooms is the next problem I see. A teacher has 30 or 40 kids in a class and no matter how outstanding a teacher they are they do not have enough time in one day to give special assistance to each child, so many of the students fall through the cracks and are allowed to do the minimum and past to the next grade.  

   The new technology has not helped the problem with the new phones and texting being the main way to communicate. Texting has caused people to use abbreviations like cuz for because 4eva for for ever. It is a form of short hand but I feel by using this to communicate will and has caused spelling problems. I can only speak for myself but I know my spelling has improved by actually spelling the words out I may be completely off in my thoughts on this but as I say I can only speak for my self. I have dyslexia and that fact did not come out until I was in the military many years later that could be the reason that I never grasped mathematics and struggled so much in school to mentally hold on to information.

   The cure for this? I do not have one I have ideas as I am sure others reading this do I do feel it is only going to get worse in the future if something is not done. I feel we need to put more effort and resources into teaching our young properly and make them the priority in the education system something I am not seeing.        

The Voice Chapter One

    This was a book I started writing a few years ago but never finished this is a small part of it hope you enjoy it.

   Marching band practice had ended and a group of kids gathered setting in a circle on the curb waiting for their parents to arrive and take them home. Sarah and Chris best friends since 2nd grade were right in the middle of the group they were laughing and having a good time. On the outer edge of the group sat Patty just setting very quietly listening to the group looking so very out of place. Patty, Sarah and Chris had been very close friends about 3 years before but Patty had become very distant and had wild mood swings and seemed she wanted to be alone most of the time. Jenny and Chris noticed the change at fist but it was so gradual that soon they just accepted it as a fact, and after a while they drifted farther and farther apart until they rarely talked at all. Patty had changed so much over the last three years her appearance for one thing, she had once been very conscious of her appearance never a hair out of place and dressed very stylish. The past few years she came to school looking very disheveled drab clothing and her hair looked as if it had not been washed or combed in weeks. She shied from large groups where she once thrived at being the center of attention.

   All the other kids from band had been picked up by their parents leaving Patty sitting on the curb alone. The sky above had started to darken and a rumbling of thunder could be heard off in the distance. Patty sat alone clutching her books to her bosom and her head down staring at the ground watching some ants in a line following each other. She reached down and ran her fingers through the middle of the trail the ants were traveling changing the scent of the trail and thus confusing the ants. As she watched the ants started to bunch up and become confused with the loss of the trail scent they had been following. It seemed to mirror what was going on in her own life how she had been on a path that for some reason had been changed and thrown her into a confused state running in circles trying to get back to the path but the will or the scent was gone.  A flash of light and sound of lightning broke her out of the daze she had been in as the sky let lose with a down poor of rain. Patty sat not moving as the rain drenched her and sent a chill up her spine. She sat frozen as if she did not notice the rain at all and focused her attention on the ants.

   Patty had become so engrossed watching the ants scurrying around in the rain trying to find their way back to the original path she did not notice the car pull up in front of her. The window rolled down and a voice broke her trance, Get you ass in this car right now! the voice screamed at her. She rose slowly like an old person and as she did her books fell and scattered on the ground. As she tried to gather them before they got wet in the puddle that had formed on the ground the voice rang out again making her wince, you are so clumsy and worthless move your ass I do not have all day! Once in the car the voice kept at her about how stupid she was and the fact she was getting the seats all wet and how she was more of a bother than she was worth. Patty kept her head held low and tried to deflect the barrage of insults that spewed in her direction.

 As the voice went on and on the whole drive back to Patty's home Patty in her mind had gone to what she called her Nother World.  Her Nother World was a place she would go inside her mind when the life around her got to be too much. In the Nother World she was running in fields of clover in a pretty white dress and a slight breeze blew making her long hair trail behind her as she ran through the field twirling and spinning without a care in the world completely free of worries. The voice became only a buzzing in her head like the bees that flitted from one clump of clover to the next collecting the nectar from each flower. Just as she reach a small coral in the Nother World with a black horse she called Slate she was jolted back to reality with a hard slap across the face. The voice could be heard again invaded the Nother World and pulled her back, you stupid little bitch have you heard anything I have said to you? worthless  you are just worthless. Patty could feel the tears well up in her eyes and threaten to run down her cheek even though she fought them back one lone tear ran down her reddening cheek with the imprint of the hand that had delivered the slap. The voice came at her again belittling her making her feel so small (YOU ARE WEAK!) (POOR PATTY!) cry baby Patty.

   Once the voice was done grinding her into the ground she was told to go to her room the voice said I do not want to look at you anymore the sight of you sickens me. Patty ran up the stairs and dashed into her room and closed the door. As she closed the door behind her she placed her back against it and slid down to a seating position on the floor happy to have the thin wood door between her and the voice. Partly using her body as a barricade and feeling emotionally drained she sat there for some time. She could hear the voice yell out now and then but the thin door muffled the sound.

   Patty gathered her strength and arose from the spot she had been and walked over to the open window. She was still soaked from the rain and could feel a bit of a chill as she closed the window. Then she spotted the rain on the floor from the open window and felt an overwhelming fear come over her as she ran to get something to clean up the water that had gathered on the floor under the open window from the rain. Whew she thought good thing she caught that before the voice noticed it. As she cleaned up the last of the water she glanced out the window to see Chris and her Mother pull up in front of their house that sat directly across the street. They must have gone shopping on their way home from band practice and they had a lot of groceries she could see in the back of the mini van.  She could not hear their conversation but they were smiling and laughing as they unloaded the packages and took them into the house. Patty stood in the window and watched as  they hurriedly emptied the last of the packages from the van trying not to get wet from the rain and watched as door shut behind them leaving the neighbor hood looking as though it was abandoned. Not a soul was on the side walk nor did a car come from either direction as if the rain had washed all the human inhabitants from view. Patty stood in the window for a long time staring at the closed door of Chris's house. She remembered at one time she had been in and out of that house many times and was welcome there.

   Soon it was becoming dark and she could see lights coming on in the windows of the houses up and down the street the rain had stopped and people were moving about again some hauling the trash to the curb and there was a person going by on a bike. Patty had been staring so hard at the closed door of Chris's house she had barely noticed the people coming out of hiding from the rain.

   Patty felt a shiver come over her and she realized she was still in the rain soaked clothing as she turned from the window to find something to change into. She peeled off the wet clothes and dug in her closet digging out a sweat outfit and put it on. The sweat outfit seemed comforting and warm and for the first time in days she felt a small bit of joy and an almost safeness like a child wrapped in a warm blanket straight out of the clothing dryer. The sweat outfit was a left over from her former life when she was on the track team that life seemed like so so many years ago now. The Voice had said track was a waste of time and the Voice said there was no time to be hauling her sorry ass around to this or that so the voice told her to pick one school activity and Patty had chosen Band. She had given up Volleyball Track and a few other clubs all things she loved but at the time band seemed more important because both Chris and Sarah were in band. She had chosen band over the rest so she could spend time with her best friends. Funny how that choice would eventually cause her to lose her friendship with them both.   

   Patty could hear the footsteps of the voice coming up the stairs and she rushed around the room to tidy it up before the voice reached the top of the stairs. Patty sat on her bed and opened her school books and waited for the door of her room to open. With much relief she heard the footsteps of the Voice pass her door and go down the hallway then the sound of a slamming door. Patty waited for a while then went to the door of her room and slowly opened it and crept down the steps to the kitchen to get something to eat. The house looked as if it had not been cleaned in days piles of dishes in the sink dirty clothing piled in clumps on the floor half eaten food on plates setting all over the place. Patty trying to be as quite as possible started to clean up the mess thinking to her self why she even bothered because it would look the same the next day when she came home from school. But she cleaned just the same so as not to give the Voice another reason to attack her.

   As Patty cleaned she picked up a plate and tears welled up in her eyes as she held it in her hand. The plate was one of the few items left from her old life the one she lived just a few years ago. The plate had been part of a set her father had bought her mother for Christmas one year. The plates had happy farm scenes on them of a farmer in a field a woman taking bread from an oven etc, they were blue with a white background. Patty's Mom had kept them in a china cabinet and only used them on holidays or special occasions. The china cabinet was long gone with most of her mothers belongings discarded by the Voice. The the voice had broken most of the set one night while in a rage tipping over the china cabinet so only a few remained. Patty at one time had smuggled a few pieces up to her room and hidden them to have something of her mother to remember her by a cup and saucer and a sugar bowl that had survived the night of rage and the toppling over of the china cabinet but the voice had found them and smashed them into tiny pieces all over her bedroom floor.

   Patty gathered her thoughts wiping the tears from her eyes and returned to cleaning the house in silence trying not to make a sound. Once everything was picked up and the house looked clean once again Patty went into the kitchen to make herself something to eat. She opened the refrigerator to find it almost empty except for a few half empty wine bottles  a few beer cans and four Styrofoam boxes of half eaten molding take out. Patty closed the fridge door and went to the cabinet that housed the food the Voice allowed her to eat only to find it also empty. This was no surprise to Patty she had come to expect this sort of thing. She looked through the other cabinets to see if she could find something to eat that would not upset the Voice if she ate it. She found some old stale cookies in the cookie jar on top of the microwave and just as she started to put one in her mouth she felt a presence looming behind her and she shuddered.

   Patty felt someone grab her arm and pull it knocking the stale cookie out of her hand and making her drop the cookie jar on the tile floor breaking it into what seemed a thousand pieces. The voice started screaming about how Patty was eating too much food and how sloppy the house was. The cookie jar was now spread out in broken pieces over the floor Patty had just mopped and cleaned. The Voice got louder and was now right in Patty's ear. Look at what you have done I clean all day and you mess up my clean floor you worthless little bitch. Patty felt a hand on the back of her head forcing her down so she could view the mess she made then Patty felt the  full weight of the Voices body was on her pushing her face down on the tile floor. The Voice was smashing her face into the floor and grinding the broken cookies and the pieces of the cookie jar into the side of her face. Patty felt a red hot rage rise within herself and she pushed the voice off of her with such force the voice landed flat on its back with a thud and toppled over the small breakfast table making a load noise as it hit the floor on its side. As the table hit the floor everything that had been atop of it spewed across the floor clanging and banging as it spread out over the tile. The Voice lay there for some time but then recovered and before Patty new what was happening the Voice lunged at her grabbing a hand full of her hair and started banging her head on the tile floor.

   That red hot rage in Patty returned but this time ten fold it seemed to come from her toes and worked its way up to her head. She felt a rush of heat come to her cheeks and her eyes blurred with anger. As the Voice was slamming her head into the tile Patty reached to find something to defend her self with as the Voice was much bigger than her in size and try as she might she could not get the Voice off of her. Patty felt something cold in her hand and she swung it towards the Voice it made a slush sound and the Voice let up on its grip and let out a gurgling sound as the Voice pulled its hand away Patty could see a sizable clump of her own hair still clutched in the Voices hand much of it pulled out by the roots. The Voice tried to stand only making it to its knees and then started flailing its hands around like one of those tube men car lots use for advertising at grand openings. The Voice seemed to be trying to reach its back. The Voice turned away from Patty still on its knees and that's when Patty saw the Knife in the Voices back and the red blood soaking into its house robe. The Voice let out a gurgling sound as if it was trying to say something then fell on its back forcing the knife farther into its back as it hit the floor. Patty sat exhausted with her back against the wall her rear end on the floor and her legs sprawled out on the cold tile trying to make sense of what her eyes were seeing. She became frozen unable to even blink as the blood from the Voice started to ooze out over the off white tile floor the grout lines becoming rivers of blood running towards her bare foot slowly at first then like a flood the blood rushed across the floor getting closer to her. She found the strength to move her leg just before the large pool of blood reached her.  Everything suddenly went black and Patty felt as if she was falling down down down into a black hole.

    Patty awoke to the sound of her alarm clock beep! beep! beep! she got out of bed and hurriedly put her clothes on grabbed her school books and slowly opened her door wanting to get out of the house before the Voice woke up. She quietly went down the steps and out the front door closing it behind her and thinking how happy she was that the Voice was not up yet. Patty walked to school feeling a bit happier today for some reason she could not understand why but it was like a huge burden had been lifted off her shoulders.. The day at school was uneventful for the most part and as the last hour came around Patty felt that old familiar dread and the fact she would soon have to go home and face the Voice again.


   She went to her locker and gathered her books for homework and started the walk home. Upon turning the corner just down from her house she noticed the car was not in the driveway this was strange because the Voice never went anywhere and was usually passed out by this time or just stirring from the hang over from the night before.  Patty walked slowly bidding her time and somewhat enjoying the warmth of the sun. Soon much too soon she found herself slipping the key into the front door of the house turning the knob and opening the door thinking to her self what new hell awaits me today? It was very quite inside no TV blaring soap operas from the front room as was usual and as she went up the stairs she glanced back noticing the house was still clean from the night before. She went to her room and shut the door wondering were the Voice had gone not in a worried way but more of a relief that she did not have to deal with it.

   Patty did her home work and then tiptoed down the steps to check out why things were so quiet. There was no one to be found in the house she looked everywhere and was sort of surprised and relieved to not find anyone. It seemed a bit eery as the Voice always seemed to be there looming around every corner. The Voice is not here I can take a shower she thought to her self but I better hurry in case the Voice returns. The Voice did not allow Patty to use the shower or bathtub on the 2nd floor and she was only allowed to use the toilet on the first floor. The first floor had just a toilet and a sink so she did all her bathing with a wash cloth and washed her hair in the sink when and if she could get passed the Voice to do so more often than not she skipped bathing and hid in her room. It had been forever since she was able to shower at home or take a long soak in the bath.  

   Patty had intended to just take a quick shower but ended up filling the bathtub and climbing in to take a nice soak. She had just gotten in the bath when she heard a sound she sprang out of the tub and ran down the hall to her room. Standing in her room fear washed over her as she realized she had left the tub full of water. She stood silent for a long time frozen in one spot listening to hear if she could hear the Voice.An eery silence was all that could be heard and the tick tick tick of her clock next to her bed. Patty stood frozen for a long time listening but no movement could be heard. At last she broke from her frozen state and went back down the hall and climbed into the tub. After a nice soak she dried off and crept down the stairs to the kitchen to forage for some food. She was starving and her stomach was grumbling. She flicked on the light in the kitchen and as she did it was like a bolt of lightning struck and some strange images of the Voice laying on the floor popped into her head.

 
   Patty shook her head and rubbed her eyes she felt dizzy and braced herself in the kitchen doorway. I must be hungrier than I thought she said almost out loud looking intensely at the spot on the floor she had just seen or thought she had seen the Voice laying when she turned on the light but there was nothing there.  Patty noticed that the kitchen was spotless as she passed through the doorway she had been bracing herself in cleaner than she had seen it in a long time. She opened the fridge to find it clean all the molded food gone and in its place there was an abundance of food there was fresh fruit,sandwich meats,cheeses.milk,juice more food than she had seen in that fridge for years. She found a fresh loaf of bread near the toaster and hurriedly twisted the tie off and took out two pieces of bread. She quickly made herself a sandwich and pored a glass of milk. She then added water to the milk jug to make it look like there had been none taken then put everything back in its place so the Voice would not notice she had taken anything. She gathered the sandwich turned out the light and hurried quietly up the stares and into her room. As soon as the door was shut she ate the sandwich like a starving animal almost choking herself gulping it down. She was so very hungry but also did not want to be caught with the ill gotten goods. Patty did her homework in silence as she always did but something was different on this night there was no movement or yelling or loud TV for background noise just sweet silence.



   After she finished the last of her milk she hid the glass in a dresser drawer under some clothes thinking to her self I better not forget that or the Voice will be sure to find it. Patty then slipped into bed and in no time fell fast asleep. A sound woke her from her slumber and as she awoke she glanced at the alarm and noticed it was two in the morning. She lay there half awake listening to hear what the noise was that had awakened her. No sounds once again just the tick tick tick of the bedside clock.  Something is wrong she thought and then laughed to her self thinking not so much wrong strange maybe but not wrong. It seemed right to have quiet for a change no yelling or stumbling around noises coming from down stairs, yes it seemed so right. Patty lay back down and went back to sleep.

Language Dialect and Slang

   Language is a funny thing and can cause more havoc than one would think. I have stated many times in my blog I was stationed in Germany for almost 7 years and that I had traveled through Europe after graduating High School. I never thought about how language can separate us until I was faced with trying to maneuver my way through Europe and make sure I was on the right train heading in the right direction or trying to order food at a restaurant. Most of the time this language barrier could be worked out but often it took a lot of playing a game of charades or drawing stick figure people on a napkin. I have to say in most of Europe people speak a bit of English and most speak or understand a bit of a few different languages. 

   I think back to my teen years in the 80's and how we as teens made up our own words often bastardized words that already existed or words we took and added or subtracted from and often just made up words. Spazz,Gross,Totally,tubular,gnarly to name a few. Those words could be dropped randomly in to a sentence to make it our own. The words sprang into phrases many borrowed from the California surf culture and the Valley Girls. Gag me with a spoon.Barf me out!, Not Even! and one of my favorites Whats your damage man?. I know this is nothing new and teens had been doing this for years but the 80's stands out more for me because it was the time I grew up in.  

   As a kid we would visit our cousins and family in West Virginia only a few states away and if you were not used to the way they speak could be something a culture shock.  In West Virginia they drop letters off the ends of words or take them out completely You all meaning a group of people becomes Y'all white is pronounced wite, night is nite, light is lite emphasis on the letter I. Now this will also depend on what part of the state you live in the more north you go the less of a country twang will be heard the farther south you go the more of the twang will be heard.  It is called dialect and dialect can change from state to state depending on if it is northern state or southern western or eastern. When I was about 13 I was taken to Nebraska to visit my sisters husbands family. I did not notice a lot of differences in dialect or language but one thing they said stuck out and at first confused me. If someone was going to the store they would say (you wanna go with? or you want to come with?) a shortened down version of do you want to go with me to the store.


   Most of the time I could hear and comprehend and just go with it but there were times dialect got me into trouble. The more a person travels the less the differences becomes a cultural shock.  On such instance was when I was around the age of 10 and my father who was from West Virgina born and raised had always said things with a W.Va accent or dialect and for the most part I was used to it. He would say things like winder for window and piller for the word pillow. There was however one day he came up with something I had never heard before and almost got me a good old fashioned ass whoopin drop the (G) as he pronounced it. He had told me to go out and do trim work around trees after the mowing was done. We had a gas powered push mower so it was not back breaking work but it was hot work and time consuming. We lived on ten acres and our house sat about in the middle of that ten acres and we had a lot of trees and flower beds etc that needed trimmed around so it was not a job that could be done quickly. We as a family often joked that it seemed we no sooner got the lawn mowed and trimmed and it was time to start all over again. I digress so now back to my little story. I had been out trimming around trees one day and came in the house to get something cold to drink. My father asked me.....get ready here comes the saying I did not understand and caused my father to want to beat my butt for what he though was me being disrespectful. He asked me (So how much do you like mowing the lawn?) Now I took that as do you like mowing the lawn? so I said I do not like it but you said I had to do it. His eyes got big and I could see he was angry but I could not for the life of me understand why. He asked again (How much do you like mowing the lawn?) and I came back with the same answer. This went on for a while and my Mom hearing this from the other room came in laughing her ass off. My father seemed to become even more angry that she found what he thought was my disrespect funny his face turned red and I just knew he was going to give me a whoopin drop the (G).

   So that you are in on the funny part of this to my father the sentence (How much do you like mowing the lawn?) Meant how much more mowing do you have left to do?) and as I said I heard it as (Do you like mowing?) I had never heard the term before and it had thrown me for a loop. My father calmed down after my Mother explained to him the miss interpretation on my part and we would laugh about it later when we spoke of it.      

   While stationed in Germany I picked up some of the German language and was able to order a drink, find directions and converse with people in a slip shot manner of mixed English and German. About four or five months after my arriving in Germany and thinking I had mastered the basics of the German language I went out on my own and stopped in a small local bar and ordered a drink. After I ordered the people in the bar within ear shot brook out in laughter making my face turn red as a beat. You see many words if not said right can mean something very different and what I chose from my dictionary was totally the wrong word . The funny part of this story is I wanted a rum and soda water the word I used from my English to German dictionary was I wanted a Rum and urinate in my glass.  The bar got such a kick out of my screw up that I did not buy a drink the rest of the night so it turned out to be a good screw up.

   Even in countries were English is not the native language they have different dialects and different words that mean the same thing. In most cities in Germany they speak what is called high German or what we call proper English but each city still has its own dialect. The differences were not so noticeable to me because my German speech was very limited but to a German speaking person it is much like a person from Michigan going to Texas the language is still English but there is a certain difference in pronunciation that is noticeable to a person who is not used to it.


   I remember many of the new soldiers would speak loud and very slowly English to a German person who did not understand English like that would help them understand better. It is like giving hand gestures to a blind person or screaming at a deaf person to get a point across. The funniest thing I ever heard was a guy from the southern states learn German but he kept his southern English Drawl even the German people got a kick out of hearing him speak.

   I know this whole slang, dialect, language thing has been written about before many times before and probably much better than I have but it was just something that popped into my head and I wanted to share. I think what made me think about it was a post on a friends wall on Facebook. They had mentioned that many people add an s to things like stores that do not need to be there. For instance Walmart if a person says they are going shopping at Walmart they say Lets go to Walmarts as if they were going to more than one Walmart store. I was guilty of this for many years saying I am going to Krogers the proper way of saying it is I am going to Kroger. I do not know how or why this (S) adding was started but many (peoples) are guilty of this one.

   The differences can make you laugh like knockers in England means something on a door to announce you are at the door like a door bell. Knockers in much of the United States means a woman's breast. Knocked up in the US means pregnant in England it means you went calling on a person and knocked on their door. I remember the first time I heard an English accent and heard them say knockers I as a young kid of 9 or so laughed and laughed.

   The internet has brought forth a whole new group of words and phrases used in chat rooms, texting, and tweeting. I do not even want to go there LOL  TTFN  

Sunrise Brings Back Memories

   When I bought my house there was a large deck on the back side of the house that I built a metal roof awning over to keep the rain off me while setting on the deck and working on my paintings. The plan was just an awning over a small portion of the deck leaving the rest of the deck so I could soak up some sun now and then, the small awning grew into a large awning and before I was done covered the whole deck. I was very happy with this until the winds started blowing and making it impossible to paint on the deck were I live I have open farm fields all around me with no trees as wind breakers the winds howl through often and hard. So my little awning that grew into a large awning soon became an enclosure with windows all around or as many call it a sun porch.

   I mention all this only to give you an idea of my surroundings when I awoke very early this morning to find I had fallen asleep crunched up on the small couch on the sun porch last night. It was still very dark and I was not sure of the time so I went in to the kitchen to look at the clock and it was six in the morning. I put some wood in the furnace pored myself a cup of coffee and made that morning stop in the bathroom then walked back out to the sun porch, I pulled up one of the shades and flipped on the outside light to see if it had rained last night to find out in fact it had. The rain had drenched everything and was pooling up in some areas and was still raining.

   I opened up the rest of the shades and as I was pulling the last one open I could see the sun had slightly lit the sky just enough that you could see the outline of the trees on the far side of the open field. It still seems strange to see the fields bare of the rows of corn that once stood there only a few months ago. As the warmer weather starts to be more prevalent it warms my inner self to know soon the flowers will bloom and the trees will be full of leaves and the humming birds will return to buzz around the yard flitting from feeder to flower then buzz of to some unseen nest to start a new group of the little dive bombers. If their feeders get empty they buzz my head as if to say HEY! buddy you need to refill the feeders and now would not be soon enough.      

 I watched the sun rise slowly making the sky red and orange with a blaze of color. I realize how lucky I am to be living were I am and to have the chance to view such beauty. I look for my camera to catch it only to find the batteries dead and by the time I find some new ones the colors are all gone. I set and ponder to myself how fast life passes even when we are unable to notice. This brings my mind to people who have passed through my life and brings a smile to my face remembering so many good times. I have been blessed in my life to have had many good people to spend moments in my life with. I hear many say people only remember you when they want something. I feel just the fact they need me is a blessing but. knowing the fine line between being needed and being used is the conundrum.  Life happens and people get busy and are trying to live their own lives they might not be right by my side but they will always be in my heart and i hope when they think of me a smile comes to their face and lightens what ever load they are dealing with. 

   And I owe all those thoughts to the beautiful sunrise that was provided for my viewing.

My Strange Claymation Stop Motion Dream.

   I have to say I have not seen a claymattion or Stop Motion movie in many years. I think the last such movie I saw was Mysterious Island and that was stop motion and had to have been ten years ago. Last night I had the strangest dream in a claymation motion stop style. The dream started out normal LOL or what I call normal I should say. I was in a hurry to get someplace and had overslept so I was rushing around gulping coffee at the same time I was putting on my clothes and that's when it happened like the music video from the 80's Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel suddenly I had four arms and one was buttering toast another was making my second cup of coffee another was brushing my teeth and the last was picking out my wardrobe. After each appendage had done its job it shrank back into my body.

   I soon stood ready at the front door of a house I have never seen and my car pulled up by itself and I got in. At first the car was like a Flintstones Shleprock car so I revved up my feet Flintstones sounds included and away I went. I stopped at a red light and the car changed to a 1966 Mustang and when the light turned green I dropped it into gear and left the cars behind me in a cloud of smoke from my burning rubber. The scenery around me was all claymation and looked like something out of a Doctor Seuss book. The road signs had strange sayings like {You can find magic wherever you look just sit back relax all you need is a shnook. I was like what the hell is a shnook? that seemed to make me angry that I did not know what a schnook was.

   I turned to the left and the car started to spin around and around everything in sight became a blur. The car slid to a stop as if parallel parking and I found myself in a large traffic jamb. All the cars were made of clay or a nurf substance. The people got so mad that the traffic jamb was not moving that  they started smashing into one another and that made them bounce off of one another and the whole scene changed into a huge Pinball Machine nurf cars bouncing around in every direction lights flashing pinging noises, bells ringing as the cars bounced off the Pinball bumpers and each other. My car was heading for the huge pin ball paddles but I swerved to miss them and passed them by thus sending me down the hole and inside the dark inner belly of the machine. I could hear the song from Pink Floyd playing soft at first but it became louder WELCOME TO THE MACHINE.

    My car was being bounced around inside shinny silver tubes turning right then left faster and faster then suddenly I could see light and my car now turning into an RV tour buss shot out of the pinball machine and I landed on route 66 and everything around looked like the 1950's I laughed at the gas price listed it was like 25 cents or something very cheap.

   There were people dancing all up and down the road doing the jitter bug dressed in 1950's garb and for some reason I started running them down with the RV and laughing like some deranged nut job and saying that is 50 points as I marked kill points on a chalk board. People were flying in the air as I hit them with the RV. The ones I hit turned into zombies and started hanging on the side of the RV trying to get in. I speed up and soon was on a section of the road that was like a desert nothing but Sun,sand and pavement could be seen for miles. All the 1950's zombies lost their grip and had fallen off bouncing on the road as they hit.

    The RV turned into and Army deuce and a half and the shifter was stuck so I was grinding the hell out of it to get it in gear.  The soldiers in the back were yelling at me (if you cant find it grind it) that pissed me off so I hit a lever and it lifted the back up like a dump truck and sent them all sprawling on the road I could see them in my side mirror jump up and start chasing after me. I got the deuce and half in gear and sped off flipping them off as I left them in the dessert.

  The vehicle went back to a Flintstones car  and was going very fast I could see ahead the road had collapsed into a large sink hole so I put my bare feet down on the road trying to stop but the pavement burnt them and I could not stop. The car and I dropped into the sink hole and I could feel myself drooping.

   I woke up just as I hear the voice of Ray Harryhausen or what I thought was his voice say CUT! that's a wrap! thank you all for your help, this motion picture is in the can.  I woke up and thought What the hell was that? and the dream has stuck with me the rest of the day. It seemed so real even though it was mostly claymation and nonsensical. Proof I am crazy? Maybe or the fact my creative juices are backing up?  maybe my cold has infected my brain? What ever it was it was just down right strange, very strange!              

BFF

   The phone rang and awoke Mike from a deep sleep. He glanced at the alarm clock and could see it was 4 in the morning, thinking to him self who the hell would call this early? He found his cell phone in the dimly lit room and answered it. He could hear the voice crying on the other end saying, can you come pick me up? He recognized the voice on the other end and it was one he had not heard in a long time, it was the voice of his BFF Pam. He blurted into the phone were are you? are you OK?. Pam replied I am at the Four Corners Bar and I need a ride the battery on my phone is almost dead. Again he asked if she was OK she just said come get me please I will tell you everything when you get here and the phone went dead.

   Mike jumped out of bed and dressed as fast as he could throwing on what ever was laying on the floor and ran outside to get in his car. As he drove the 6 miles to the Bar he wondered what was going on, he was hoping it was nothing serious. He could not help but be worried because of the tone in her voice, he had never heard her sound so upset. He was also wondered why she called him and not her boyfriend Ben. Mike and Pam had been friends for 14 years they had met when they both were 18 while doing their AIT Army training at Fort Dix NJ and had become fast friends and after had ended up stationed on the same post in Germany. They had been almost inseparable until Pam met Ben three years ago, Ben was not crazy about their close relationship and that was causing a rift so to keep Ben happy they started seeing less and less of each other until they just stopped all together. 

   Rain started coming down hard and made it almost impossible to see the road in front of him as Mike was driving as fast as he could. It seemed to Mike like it was taking forever to get to the destination. Finally in the distance he could see the lights from the sign that hung above the bar and in the dim light given off by the sign he could see a silhouette standing in the rain. Mike pulled in to see Pam standing in the parking lot drenched and shivering and she smiled as he pulled up next to her. Mike swung open the door to let Pam in the car and as he opened the door the rain abruptly stopped and he rubbed his eyes in disbelief. He rubbed his eyes in disbelief because the parking lot was suddenly dry and showed no signs that it had been raining not even a puddle. The parking lot was empty Pam had just vanished in thin air. He got out of the car looking in every direction yelling her name but she was no where to be found. He could not make sense of what he was seeing before him knowing it had been poring down rain just moment ago and now the parking area was dry as a bone.  The parking lot suddenly turned to sand and the bar melted away all he could see for miles was sand and he could feel the hot sun beating down on him. He looked at his clothing and it had turned red.

    Mike threw back the covers and sprang  out of bed drenched in sweat and reached for his cell phone. As he looked at the phone once again the realization hit him as it had night after night for many months,  that the phone had not rang and there was no call from Pam. The call from Pam was just in his reacquiring nightmare that haunted him night after night. Mike could feel the tears well up and soon burst forth and he fell sobbing uncontrollably balling up in a fetal position on the floor. And then the truth the real the now would hit him as it would night after night he could feel it in the pit of his stomach making him feel like he would throw up. 

   Pam did not call could not call and would never call again. Then the flashback would play like a movie in his brain blurring the lines of what was real and what was in his mind. The movie would play in his mind and the sound would be turned up so loud it hurt his ears. The movie in his mind would started as it always did Pam setting behind the wheel of the supply vehicle and she was laughing at a joke Mike had told. Suddenly a loud BANG! that echoed inside the vehicle and Mike could feel something warm on his face, he reached with his hand to touch his face and as he pulled his hand back he could see his hand was covered with something red.

   He was stunned that he was laying on his back on the ground and as he panned his eyes over to his left he could see a small pile of twisted metal and smoke pouring from a large hole in the road.  He tried to stand up, and as he did he could feel a sharp lightning bolt of pain shoot up his back. As he lay there in pain he started to realize what had just happened he started calling out Pam's name but could not see her and could not hear her voice calling back. Soon he felt himself being lifted and heard voices saying you will be OK just stay calm. His helmet was being removed and his head fell to the left and that's when he saw Pam's twisted mangled body laying in the sand. He yelled at the people helping him (take care of Pam) but it seemed his voice fell on deaf ears. as they loaded him in to the truck his last memory before he slipped into unconsciousness was Pam's lifeless twisted body laying in the sand.

   He would awake with a start in a hospital bed and his first thought was he hoped it was a bad dream, a cruel nightmare he could awaken from soon. He could not shake the image from his mind it was burned there like a hot ash burns into the carpet and even after it is extinguished it leaves a dark black melted area behind.  A nurse came into the room and was happy to see him awake and smiled. He asked about Pam and was met with a blank stare from the nurse as if she was trying to think of what to say. It hit him then that it was not a dream and he was not going to wake up and find everything back to the way it was. 
   After being released from the hospital and being sent home, he tried to get back to living the life he knew before. Try as he might nothing seemed real to him he moved he ate he worked but it all seemed like it was happening to someone else and he was being dragged along for the ride. He had an emptiness, a large emotional void like he had never felt before and he felt nothing. Mike slept less and less because every night he would have that same dream of the ringing phone and his mad dash to reach Pam and save her from what ever it was that made her call. And every time he would find himself standing in the desert alone and covered in something red only to awake drenched in sweat and crying in a ball on the floor.                   

Why Was My Name On The List?

   I feel much guilt for the fact I survived my fight with cancer. Winning can be very bitter sweet leaving you to wonder why me and not them? It may sound strange to many but after my treatments were done and I was told they had gotten the cancer I felt a loss much like the loss of a friend and a deep depression. I had not felt I had a purpose in my life for some time and when I was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer suddenly I had something to fight with and I had a purpose. Once treatment was done I felt left out in the cold and wondering what now? even though I went into it with a survive it attitude I think the possibility you may not make it is in the back of everyone's mind. You try to not think that way but you also know it is always looming in the air. Maybe the way I lived my life knocking myself in the head and doing everything the hard way prepared me for the fight I was about to take on.

   Once again the loss of a cancer fighter has brought a wave of feelings and revisiting my own situation. Not that I mean to make their passing about me but it brings up many feelings and what If's. My family has also lost yet another to cancer as it has many others over the past few years. I am sad for many reasons first and foremost I am sad for the loss of the beautiful souls who fought for years against cancer and lost the battle. I am sad that I am not able to rush to the side of their family members and console them and be with them. I am sad for those left behind wondering why?

   Being given the news you have cancer forces you to look at your life and that can be very scary. Thinking of people you have wronged or just lost touch with. Thinking of people you wished you had taken more time to get to know many feelings and thoughts go through your head. When I hear someone else has been given the news or lost their battle I wonder if I was worthy of being able to win and live on. Why was I chosen to have another day and they are taken. Maybe it is like survivors grief I am not sure but although I am happy to be here I still can not help but ask why me?    

   I have never been really afraid of dieing but find it funny that when you know you may have a short shelf life or get an expiration date stamped on you, you start to see life in a whole different way. I my self felt at ease and more at peace being that I was able to be more myself than I had ever been in my past. I was able to say things to people and show my affections in ways I feared before. I have always been a hug type person when I see someone its my first reaction to give them a hug and in the past had shied away from that. Knowing I may die tomorrow made me feel braver and less fearful of letting people know I loved them. Kind of sad that the possibility of dieing helped me to feel more comfortable showing people affection.

   I hurt deeply when I hear that someone who had very young children has been taken by cancer. I think about all those moments the kids will miss out on Daddy Daughter Dances, Prom Night, playing sports or in the band and looking in the stands to see that empty spot because they are not there. I feel deep hurt when I hear a young child has been taken by cancer and can only imagine what a parent feels watching their child slip away. I feel deeply because I can not help but think maybe it should have been me and they should have been able to live on. There are some I would have gladly given my spot on the list if I had been given the choice. For some reason God put my name on the list to stay so I will try my darnedest to make the best of the gift I was given. I can only hope that I make those that did not make that list feel that I was the right choice to live on. God bless my sisters and brothers that are fighting now, won the fight, and to those who have lost. I send you a hug and my LOVE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>   STAMP OUT CANCER!!!!!!!!!! 

The One That Got Away.

  
   As the Old Year 2013 closed and the New year 2014 was just around the corner I started thinking of New Years celebrations from the past and of the people who had come and gone over the years. I sat in front of the window alone sick with the flue and watch as the snow flakes drift slowly to collect on everything piling up making everything in sight white and sparkling in the moon light. There was a time on New Years in my past I would have been in a club or at a party drinking and whooping it up overindulging to the point of becoming very numb. I wonder to myself did I do this because it was fun and I was celebrating the coming year or was it that I secretly feared what it would bring? Was I making myself numb to forget the year that was slipping away or numbing myself for what was in my future? Do not get me wrong I had fun and have some great memories of those New Years Parties just wonder why I felt the need to get so wasted and feel so miserable the next day to ring in the New Year?

   I can not speak for everyone but in talking to most people I hear them tell a story of the one that got away. When they speak of the one who got away they are not telling a fishing story they are speaking of that one person from their past  that either things did not seem to work out or the fact they messed up in the relationship or possibly the relationship never was because they were to afraid to take that first step.What ever the background story everyone I think has that one person in the past they reflect back on now and then and wonder what if?

   I have to say I have more than one what ifs or the one that got away stories. I also have to say most if not all those stories if told truthfully would not paint me in the best light. In looking back although I know relationships take two to make it work I have enough clarity in my life at this time to know I was more to blame for my losses than those I was with. I had a habit of wanting love but not knowing how to return it. I feel I am a very caring person and would give anything for those I care about including my life but in the past letting someone in completely to my world scared the hell out of me.The closer a person got and the more they became part of my life it seemed the more I would push them away. I at the time had no clue that I was pushing them away and in my mind thought I was giving my all to the relationship. I also had the habit of once one relationship ended I would jump head first into another. I am sure this did not show the person I was previously with that I cared when I could seem to forget them and just be with someone else so fast. The fear of being alone was strong but also wanting my own space was very confusing.

   There was one relationship that was strong and felt right and I felt I was able to give my all too but circumstances of life worked against it and in the end I let go because I felt it best for the other person. I would often wonder what if? or if I could only go back to that day when it all fell apart could things have been different? I have been lucky enough to reconnect with many from my past and explain and apologize for treating them the way I did and hopefully letting them know it was not them that was the problem. I also wanted them to know I did not do the things I did with malice or because I was an evil person just messed up and broken in ways I could not explain at the time.

   I have one friend who told me a story of reconnecting with their what if and told me they wished they had left it in the past. This person they had built up in their mind turned out to be just human and not the super fantasy person they had made them out to be. My friend told me it was a let down to lose that fantasy because it got them through some rough times thinking that maybe that super relationship was out there just waiting for the day they needed it. The reconnection dashed the fantasy and left them feeling lost in the fact their back up plan had been lost. I think we each have a fantasy life or love that we mentally go to when things get bad or not going as we wish giving us hope to go on at least I know I do or did I should say. I have figured out over the years that I needed for myself to drop the fantasy and live in the now not to say I do not fantasize because I do. I just do not compare my fantasy life to my real life I found that to cause problems in that my real life could never live up to my fantasy life. Fantasy life got me through some very rough times in my life but it became a problem when I lived in that world or tried to more often than to put effort into what was real.

   So yes I have some The One That Got Away stories and like I say looking back at those stories I find I am to blame for most of them. Getting passed the blame game was very hard for me in that I found it easier to point out all of their faults but I could not look at my own. Looking into a mirror at the person looking back can be very hard because the view you see is not always that of what others can see. I remember back in the days of my heavy drug use I had taken a hit of acid at a party and went to the bathroom to relieve myself. After I had finished I started to wash my hands and looked at myself in the mirror. I could see lines in my face of course intensified by the drug but there none the less. I could see things that I had never seen before because I would when looking in a mirror just glance and never really looked that close at the reflection looking back. I do not want to indorse the usage of drugs this is just me telling my experience. I stood there looking in that mirror for longer than I had ever looked before and I swear I could see my personality staring back at me and I did not like the person I was seeing. 

   That experience changed something in me and opened me up to the fact I needed to improve myself if I ever wanted to be in a relationship and not endless dating or another one night stand. If I had wrote a One That Got Away story a few years back I am sure it would have come off as, it was not my fault and would probably have laid the blame on the other person that was much easier than looking at who was really at fault and that was me. So to those I encountered along the way it wasn't you it actually was me.