Life in the 50's and 60's - the Century Before This One

I think my sister Lana wrote this - it actually sounds like her words and it is very well stated.  Since I don't copy and paste in Facebook I took it on myself to copy and paste it here... all except for the copy and paste lines.  Lana - very well stated and oh so true!

I grew up in the very small town of Montezuma IA and went to school at Montezuma in Montezuma IA. Iowa. During a time when most everyone treated each other like Family. We went outside to play, we got dirty.... We bought chips, soda & candy and baseball cards from the corner store. We played "Red Light, Green Light", marbles, jacks, Simon Says, "Hide and Seek", Dodge Ball, Red Rover, Baseball, Softball, and Football. We could ride our bikes to the store, or the park, or down a country road and stay all day. We even swam in the creek and the river when we had the chance. Walked home from school and stayed by ourselves. We ate beans & hot dogs, mac and cheese with peanut butter sandwiches at the school cafeteria. We walked or rode a bike everywhere and never worried about safety. We never thought to lock our windows or doors at night. And we had chores to do around the house. And we helped clean off the table after a meal and ate our meals as a family at a table together. We weren't AFRAID OF ANYTHING, 'cept our parents. If you fell down you would just get back up. We challenged each other everywhere...King of the hill. If someone had a fight, that's what it was...a fight. Kids weren't afraid of fake guns when I grew up. Real guns were just a part of life, and we respected them as well as our parents, our teachers, the American flag, the principal AND God. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer everyday we went to school. We left our houses as soon as we could in the morning and right after school till our neighbors would yell out for their children as a reminder to get in the house for the night. If one kid was called for dinner then we all knew to go home. But definitely when the street lights came on.
We watched our mouths around our elders because we knew if we DISRESPECTED any adult there would be a price to pay and we had manners and respect otherwise someone else's parents put you in your place. I would not trade anything for the childhood we had, for we had enough and we had love and all that made us the adults we are today. "Those were the best of Times"
...t with your town if you're proud that you came from a close knit community and will never forget where you came from!!♡....o. Not everything needs to go back to the way they were, but something's really do. Sometimes simple is just better. Hope everyone has an amazing New Year celebration and may 2017 be your best ever!

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Just happened to think this morning that I have not posted to my blog site for some time... turns out it is about 6 months ago since my last post.  Maybe of been busy playing golf, bowling and, well, lots of other less identifiable things.

I have made some life changes - I now have a part time job!  Yup, I'm working at Saddlerock Golf Course in Aurora - so, I'm sort of a civil servant - although I did discover that golf course in Aurora are self supported and do not use any "tax payer" funding as is provided for the other Aurora Recreational services.  I do enjoy the occasional days of work.

I also stepped down as President of the Fitzsimons Men's Association.  I did that in support of a friend who was forced into an either or situation over a seemingly silly disagreement.  To me it was a mountain made of a mole hill thing.  Never-the-less my friend was pretty much forced into resigning his position on the board.

We have bowling today, couples league, 4 person teams.  My average has improved significantly since the start of this season.  I don't or haven't done as well in the Monday night league, but this Monday I bowled my best series of the year with that league.  Maybe I'm not feeling quite as intimidated any more.  Why the perceived intimidation?  Most of the guys have averages between 190 and 230!  It is not so much intimidation as it is a feeling that I should be doing better.  I think I need to make it more like golf and "compete" against myself to score better!

All I really know is that I am enjoying life and I am a happy person!  Be happy, enjoy all of your moments, we only have so many - !

Not Sure Where to Start

We got our "Urban Farm" - "Square Foot" gardens put in:  https://goo.gl/photos/DvJTWbXgg5PB1aoDA  This is the link just in case you are interested.  Besides this, our beautiful Rhododendrons are in full bloom - I'm not quite sure how to share that picture with you - but, I will figure it out.  Sometimes automation is not so good.  So Google Photos automatically uploads from my phone - but then I don't have the photo on my hard drive.  It seems that what I need to do is share a link when I'd much rather show you a picture here.

It seems I've made a proper mess out of my eggs again.  Damn!  Oh well, they still taste pretty darned good.  Ever since my big computer crash I've been typing manually again.  I did grow to really like Dragon Naturally Speaking.  It spoils one a bit!

I'm now thinking "what is a blog without at least one picture".  I'll fix that!

I took this picture of a picture when we were at the 5 and 10 store in Branson.  I've been looking for a metal model of this airplane for years.  I still haven't found one.  I got a red one for Christmas back in '58 or so.  This airplane is a thing of beauty!

Right now I'm listening to one of Clive Cussler's Oregan Files books.  Makes for a pleasant morning.  

Enjoy your moments I know I am enjoying mine!

When Golf is Cancelled

Darn it -- what's a little rain.  Maybe the course won't allow carts.  I don't use a cart anyway.  Maybe I'll check it out and go play even if league was cancelled.  I'd better check my hourly forecast.  AccuWeather.com  - that's my phone app!  Nope rain ends in 20 minutes, then mostly cloudy the rest of the day.  Doesn't sound all that bad to me.

I'd promised to treat Carolyn to a breakfast burrito at Tin Cup II.  Well it'll have to be LePeeps instead.  She likes LePeeps  (www.lepeep.com)and they do make a really good breakfast -- although last time I was disappointed with their Peasant Potatoes.  I'll have to come up with a new plan for the activities of the day.

I think it will include some weeding and gardening, garage cleaning, bookkeeping, ancestry and photo stuff and a lot of "House".  I didn't think I'd like that show, but I like that show so I'm watching it from the pilot to the end.  I've also picked up on "BOSCH" - a show about a an honest cop that has a true set of values that he actually lives by - whatever the consequences.  Hayfever, the worst in years! OMG I'm sneezing all the time.

I am trying a new remedy called AllerFlex - so far so good but it seems to take a bit longer to kick in than that under the tongue Claritan!

The picture is from Eunice's garden.  Beautiful, delicate poppy plants. The blossoms are huge. The snowball bush in the background is bountiful as well.

I think we are ready to head for breakfast.  Enjoy your moments, I know that we surely enjoy each and every one of ours!!

Family Stuff

It is the season of continuations graduations, parties, weddings, fishing trips and discovery.  For instance I discovered that blogging is more for me than journaling (I guess this is a new adjective because the dictionary doesn't recognize the word - I love the "add to dictionary" function).  There goes another misspelled word!

If you want a reason for liking blogging better - well simply that it is better backed up than my journal!  A computer crash proved that to me.

I've started working on family again.  Making progress by documenting hand written family records and of course, Ancestry.com . I must, of course, watch the membership so I don't get carried away. As I've been going through thousands of photos I've discovered hundreds of wonderful family stories and a few adventures of my own tat I had forgotten.  It has been a blessing to share those memories with family and a blessing to discover some of the not so rich family background, but very interesting to me anyway.  We can't all come from kings and Pharaohs.

My next task with photos is to get them in date order - at least as close as possible.  It is very much like being a detective.  By using context, places lived, relative ages and such one can get a fairly accurate timeline.    Bottom line it keeps me busy and out of Carolyn's hair between rounds of golf!

Have a great day, enjoy your moments.  Happy Birthday John, Steve, and so many others - have awesome moments on your very special day!

On Journaling or Blogging Once Again

It seems I have not really advanced that much on this subject.  I'm not very consistent in either effort.  I think, in the final analysis that both have their pros and cons.  Journaling is definitely the choice if you want to keep your thoughts private.  Blogging is the chance if you feel you have something to contribute socially - even something that you think might be of value to others.  So, I guess I'll continue to do both even if I do them both infrequently.

Well, we've had the two significant snowfalls that I predicted we would have - I told John, a couple of months ago that we had two more big snowfalls before spring really started in earnest.  Unfortunately this last one was big enough that the golf courses are taking awhile to recover - tree damage cleanup and such - so, I'm letting my beard and hair grow until I get back out on the golf course again.

I've decided to join several leagues this year and a senior inter-club group.  Bottom line I hope to play competitive (for the fun of it) golf on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.  That's a lot of golf, but it should be a lot of fun.  Hey, maybe I should put a link here to Google Photos of some of the Myrtle Beach outings!  We did play some really beautiful and challenging courses there.

Lots of birthdays this month - so, it is a month of reflection and celebration.  I'm learning a bit of both by going through some 28,000 photos and cataloging them and putting them in albums and such.  Google+ Photos is helping me do that.  I've got so much duplication due to moving files around and backing them up at different times that it really is a chore - but also very reflective.  I'm enjoying and being challenged almost every moment!

To all my friends out there - this project has also given me the opportunity to think about and in some cases prompted me to make renewed contact - even if just through the social media.

Be joyful, enjoy all your moments and have a truly awesome day!

Journal or Blog or Both - From an Absentee of 5 Months

Interesting.  I'm reading a new book 52 Small Changes for the Mind .  So, it has started me journaling.  Journaling is much different than blogging - much.  One is for public consumption, maybe because I think I have something of value to offer - whereas journaling is private, totally private and for reflecting.  It is, at least for me, a bit of a personal discovery.

Person of Interest is an excellent show.  Makes one think about the benefits and, well, drawbacks of technology and government "oversight".

I'm golfing better!  Carolyn and I are bowling!