Home, And there is a list..

On the road there is always a small list of ‘TO DO’s’.  At home the list grows because we have more responsibilities here. We own several properties here and there is always something to repair.   Repairs will have to wait, FIRST something Important:

Miss Stella the latest Great Grand Daughter.

Stella was allowed to pick the place to go eat, I know you  could never guess so I will tell you.

McDonalds (of course)

Great Uncle jack came down to sit and visit .

He is one of the serious ones, he is on a 40 day fast, so he did not eat with us. Today was a free cone of ice cream for cats…. Soooooo

So as big as anyone else, there she is ordering her free ice cream… (With uncle Luke close by to make sure all goes well)

            

Sooo tomorrow the list will start… Water problems first.

So I assume you have figured out, we are home, the RED warning light stayed out as long as I kept it below 55, that is good news.  The filters are not here yet, but there is plenty to do until they come in.

Thanks for stopping by.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

We arrived and our place looked good and ready to park.  Nice to be home for a few weeks… B we do hope to be in Florida the first of Oct…

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This is two or Shirl’s Studebakers above is the 1938 President below was the 1956 Power Hawk.

Both were beauties….. She down sized, no more car collection.

My death, continues to the end.

Pat was saying,

I buried a box of money at the rear of the  last service station I owned before I died. Pat told me how to recognize it. He gave me a couple incidents that only he & Jamie knew, to prove I was real.

I was to retrieve the box he had hidden there and remove the top envelope in Jamie’s presence. I was  to remove the cash and burn the envelope and the remaining contents. He said somehow Jamie would know the money from the envelope was my expense money. I was to hand over the box of cash to Jamie.

I asked how do you now I am going back? He said “Everyone that has lived in that house leaves and goes back,” he said that like I should know that.

At no time did I feel cramped in the small space, but completely at peace. The conversations were amazingly peaceful even though no sounds were made. And for what ever time I was there, I was not anxious. I had a feeling everything was all right.

At some time I knew the box (house) was opening. I was taken from the ‘house’, again, gently by the nap of the neck (I had a feeling like a loving mother dog was carrying one of her puppies), and so I was carried over to my body. I could see me still on the hospital bed no life support hooked up. I was placed on my own chest and seemed to just melt in. Then I was me again and started to get up. A startled nurse said you have been in a bad way we thought you were dead, you should lay back.

But I couldn’t lay back, I had to get up and go to the bathroom, because I was back here in the motor home. There was no hospital bed nor nurse, so I felt my way back to the toilet.

Now If I could just remember those two addresses and the instructions. Shucks, now Jamie will have to find the money himself. I hate I cannot destroy the ‘whatever’ when he does. I also wanted to meet Ms Husung.  Well maybe tonight I will understand it better.

Thanks you for listening to the most interesting dream I have ever had, strange, I normally do not remember a dream.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

The dream has given me a new perspective of the here after. I have been thinking, how big is a spirit?

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This is a new wrinkle in my horn, I have never seen a ‘57 Chevy Hearse.

I died last night, it wasn’t bad at all.

I have had night mares that I woke up with my heart racing, but last night I woke up very calm. I haven’t decided if it is because I am older or I  am slower.

Anyway I died, I knew I was dead, I had the feeling of folks crying, I liked that cause I wanted folks to miss me. AS I left I felt like a puppy, something or someone having me by the back of the neck and lovingly carrying me. I did not feel fear, just sort of a peace. I was placed in a little box about a foot square, I guess spirits (ghosts) don’t need much room, I did not feel closeted. While looking around in my box the next door neighbor introduced himself. He was from Japan and had died there a long time ago. He really couldn’t explain how long since time meant nothing now.

We didn’t speak verbally I don’t think, it is just that I knew what he was saying. I also could not see him, but I couldn’t see myself either. His name was Husung. He had a ‘thought’ accent, but it came across as English. He had enjoyed an interesting life, wife and family. He had been a successful fisherman. His family really missed him (I never learned how he knew that). He wanted me to tell his family he was doing well. I asked why can’t you tell them. He said, “You will understand that later. You are not permanent.”

Pat, My neighbor on the other side joined in. He was from Pennsylvania and had been a business man. There was something urgent in his voice or thoughts. We also discussed childhoods, he did not know Husung, but had heard of him many times. (My impression was you only knew the ones adjoining your box.) He said (thought) “when you go back you must go to my home in Pittsburg and tell Jamie my son you have news from PAT”. They are having it rough and need some money. I did not know how short my time was and just before my death I buried…..

Thanks for reading this but it is too long. I will continue tomorrow.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

Of course it was a dream, but very real and very comforting, strange….

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Unique, a 1955 Pontiac Hearse

Rainy Night in Georgia

(but we are in North Carolina & rain too)

Funny how my mind works. I am writing what I call a ‘filler entry’. A blog entry to use when I draw a blank.  Today as we sit here in eastern North Carolina, it is raining ‘cats and dogs’ as the saying goes.

When you are in the middle of a dark cloudy, rain filled day you do get the feeling that ‘Brook Benton’ expresses in the song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr5djzzeA3M

Hoverin' by my suitcase, tryin' to find a warm place to spend the night
Heavy rain fallin', seems I hear your voice callin' "It's all right."
A rainy night in Georgia, a rainy night in Georgia
It seems like it's rainin' all over the world
I feel like it's rainin' all over the world
Neon signs a-flashin', taxi cabs and buses passin' through the night
A distant moanin' of a train seems to play a sad refrain to the night
A rainy night in Georgia, such a rainy night in Georgia
Lord, I believe it's rainin' all over the world
I feel like it's rainin' all over the world
How many times I wondered
It still comes out the same
No matter how you look at it or think of it
It's life and you just got to play the game
I find me a place in a box car, so I take my guitar to pass some time
Late at night when it's hard to rest I hold your picture to my chest and
I feel fine

(minor scat) But it's a rainy night in Georgia, baby, it's a rainy night
in Georgia I
feel it's rainin' all over the world, kinda lonely now And it's rainin'
all over the
world
Oh, have you ever been lonely, people?
And you feel that it was rainin' all over this man's world
You're talking 'bout rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin', rainin',
rainin', rainin',
rainin', rainin' rainin', rainin', rainin'

Songwriters
White, Tony Joe

Before I posted this I was talking to Shirl on e-mail and she reminded me Ray Charles done this well also.

There is not a time that we do not sing ‘Georgia on My mind’ when we see the Georgia state line as we are driving through.

I am at an age that driving at night is no fun with the lights reflecting and glaring. It has rained this whole day long. so I will post this in the morning.

Nite Shipslog

PS:

And then when life turns on you, and it is raining in your world, you gotta tell yourself, BUT SELF, the sun WILL SHINE again.

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This is a 1906 Mason jar car.

NORTH CAROLINA, The Tar Heel State

Carolina,Carolina, heaven’s blessings attend her, While we live we will cherish, protect and defend her. Hurrah, Hurrah, the Old North state forever!

Did you have state history in school? In NC we did. Above was a song we learned, more verses of course. Then there was the Poem:

Here’s to the land of the Long leaf Pine,           The Summer land where the sun doth shine, Where the weak grow strong and the strong grow great, Here is to down home the old North State.

We learned NC had Coastal, Piedmont and Mountains. It was impressed on us, not every state has all three. NC has 100 counties and we had to memorize all of them.

The Cardinal is our Bird, The Dogwood is our flower.

We were a diversified state, Tobacco and cotton down East. Cotton and Cotton Mills in the Piedmont, and Moonshine In the mountains. Of course they did not teach about the moonshine, but everyone knew it.  The mountains produced great apples, cider and pulpwood.  We had paper mills in the mountain area. Linda’s Miss Kitty looks out at the NC Mountains, as the ‘watch cat’.

We have lost the cotton mills and thousands of jobs.  We are more paper pushers now. We boast of becoming a Finance and banking center.

We have an area called the Triangle area, around our Capitol at Raleigh. That area is becoming known for Technology and banking.  This stuff is off the top of my head so I could be wrong, maybe about one thing….

Sherry and tobacco in Virginia. Below is the edge of a field with some leaves stripped and already in the tobacco Barn. Remember in Pennsylvania The tobacco was already YELLOW (weeks ago,being more north).

 

Being down East, I am surprised at the remaining large tobacco and cotton fields. Nothing like the Heydays, but still pretty big.

The country is beautiful on a drive, I love the lonely roads. But Below is one crop we ‘ain’t’ proud of, Kudzu. A vine that covers everything when allowed to:

This from the net but everyone in NC has seen this or something like  it. There is a cabin under the Kudzu, wanna explore? Not me.

I love old barns and old houses.

I cannot help but wonder the stories held in these walls.

In our trips here we see the roads lined with this yellow flower. It looks like a yellow daisy to me. Or something like the parson in the pulpit?  (maybe a brown eyed Susie)

Anyway we aren’t home yet, but this is North Carolina. Bonnie of the blog ‘organic discourse’, is from this area…

Nite Shipslog

PS:

We see so many places that would be sweet to live, but when it comes down to it, we migrate back to North Carolina.Roots and kin of both families are here.

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Filling up the 1958 Chevy

Mevely317 of Respice, Prospice Said yesterday they were just at a station that still filled the tank and checked the oil. I thought Hemmings in VT was the only one left.

The water report

Most folks have traveled enough that you have been in places where you did not like the water. We do run into that problem a lot.

(Sulfur or hard water results to an appliance)

Once  when I was a lot younger we were driving down A1A, the highway that goes closest to the ocean on the East Coast.  We were in Florida and there was a park on our right. I saw an inviting public fountain. I pulled over and ran out to the fountain. I bent down and before I tasted it I smelled ‘rotten eggs’ but I went ahead and tasted it. Sulfur water. OUCH! nasty. (Unless you are raised on it.)

Much coastal water is like that.  When we moved to Biloxi, Mississippi, the one thing we had to get used to was the water, and we did.  When we get to a new RV park my jobs are outside, Sherry takes care of the slides and interior.  When I walk into the motor home after my outside jobs. I announce, “Well we are home”. 

My girls first announcement is the water report, up on the Potomac and here, she said, “The water is good!”

We seldom do bottled water, but there are times we must.  Yuma, Arizona is definitely one of those places.

But water makes bad coffee and one cannot have that in the USA.

I feel so sorry for the folks in the parts of the country that are short of water. Texas, California and Nevada has been hit terribly hard the last few years.

(I’m standing on Hoover Dam, that is Lake Meade, The white on the mountain walls shows where the water was in 2013, it is now lower than that.)

Not too many years ago the largest river in NC was down to creek size, I thought it would never get back, but it did.  When we were out in San Antonio last year Medina Lake was down 74 feet.

We were actually walking in the Medina lake bed, there should have been 50’ of water here.

Speaking of lakes, we were in North Dakota one year at Devils lake and it was mysteriously  rising over a foot a year. When we were there it had already permanently flooded at least one town.  The Indians there said the lake was responding negatively to the name the white man had given it, ‘Devils Lake’. The Indian had called it ‘Spirit Lake’.

(Actual pictures around Devil’s Lake)

Water is so important to our existence, we get scared when it becomes scarce…

Thanks for coming this way.

Nite Shipslog

PS:  (sermons by folks who lived them not preached them)

Today, as my father, three brothers, and two sisters stood around my mother's hospital bed, my mother uttered her last coherent words before she died. She simply said, “I feel so loved right now. We should have gotten together like this more often.”

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This is labeled ‘41 Ford, but all I see is a ‘50’s Chevy????The hood nose actually looks Ford but the overall shape?

At this age, if you think or plan, it is in months NOT YEARS anymore

I have probably mentioned this before if I have, here it is again (not knowing is another sign of age).

Brother-in-law  Dick and I were having a talk when he turned 73. We were leaning on my Pickup truck between our two motor homes. “Jack, I think Kat and I can drive the Motor Home until I am 80, then we will have to hang it up.”  His mother was still alive, driving and healthy at 90+.

Sister Kat and hubby Dick

Dick had Rheumatic Fever as a child and previous to this conversation at my Truck, he had developed an erratic heart beat. After a thorough exam the Dr. said, “YOU need a heart valve. I am going to suggest a mechanical one because if I put a pig valve in, you will be back in a few years needing another, you will wear it out. You have the arteries of an 18year old.”

He went into detail about how they would spend their last years in their condo with folks he knew from Guyana, They would take care of them until the passing. The the Guyanese couple would inherit  their home. Dick was a very thoughtful man and the plan sounded very good to me.

Sadly this healthy specimen was in the ground within the year leaving my sister a grieving widow.

Do you have a family member that you feel will bury the whole family then live out their life fishing or golfing? Dick was one off those & Jim, Shirl’s husband, another. Both of them as healthy as horses. Both stayed active. The very picture of health and both ate fairly healthy. NEITHER had a problem with ‘cholesterol’. Blood pressure was always good  and no sugar problems. A stroke took Dick and Esophageal CANCER took Jim.

Sister Shirl and hubby Jim

I think about that often when we make sort of long range plans, will I be here to see them through.  We want to take the entire family on a Caribbean Cruise on our 60th wedding anniversary. BUT what if I am not around to enjoy seeing them enjoy the gift.  SOOOO then I start thinking of maybe doing it NEXT YEAR on our 59th.

If that works, I already have the 60th figured out. A cruise for ME ‘n Sherry.  I will start an exercise program to get myself ready.  THEN a trip to Victoria’s Secrets for my girl some ‘stuff’. Then we go to sea and relive that first night!!!! ……………… You ain’t supposed to be laughing,  I have always said, “A man is nothing, if he cannot dream!” 

Nite Shipslog

PS:(I hope you live forever!)

Now a sermon in life:

Teacher Debbie Moon's first graders were discussing a picture of a family. One little boy in the picture had a different hair color than the other members. One of students suggested that he was adopted. A little girl said, 'I know all about adoption, I was adopted'. 'What does it mean to be adopted?’ asked another child. 'It means', said the girl, 'that you grew in your mommy's heart instead of her tummy!'

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1941 Studebaker, Stud Museum in South Bend