All Nurses Go To Heaven

All nurses (and dogs) go to heaven. Well, the nurse ward upstairs received a new member yesterday as my mom passed on. She wasn't a very religious person besides the 'love' portion as she had a lot of that to give. With that, there won't be a service/eulogy so I'm throwing mine out here; easier written than said sometimes.

A full time nurse while a mother of three, one child being a diabetic pretty much since birth, she came home from caring for the sick to taking care of her own sick. A wife to a husband who enjoyed a good real estate deal so the family moved a handful of times. A new hospital for her with each move, sometimes working the midnight shift. 

She had so much love to give that she thought the cell phone tag 'lol' referenced "lot's of love" so your text string with her would be:

Me: That is sad about Grandpa, eh?

Mom: It is, LOL.

Another example of love is her last pet, Cosmo. Cosmo was a rescue dog who I believe was with a handful of other families (and returned) before my mom got him. A cute, lap dog that LOVED my mom but had issues with everyone else and proved it via some very sharp, fang teeth being pressed into your feet if you weren't paying attention. My mom was not going to be denied though and tried everything, including a dog psychiatrist, to help but it was not to be. She never returned Cosmo, we just learned to work around his craziness when visiting.

I don't recall my mom getting mad mad too much but when she did, look out. She would shake her finger at you. It wouldn't last though. 

It did last a little longer one time, however, when my mom was hoping for a new refrigerator and my dad brought home a crappy, used one. She was not happy.

During the salad days of the 1970's, my mom delivered phone books for a few extra bucks. She was driving a smaller car as I recall and that back bumper pretty much touched the ground while we threw these behemoth books onto porches.

One Easter, my mom threw a curve to us kids and advised that costs were tight and that there wouldn't be any celebration that year. That Sunday morning, we awoke to a fireplace adorned with three easter baskets and kites. 

Another surprise came about a decade later as I was getting ready to leave for Spring Break and my mom, making crappy nurse wages, slips me an envelope and advises not to tell your father. It ended up being one of the funnest experiences of my life.

Not the athletic type, that didn't stop my mom from rebounding for me while I searched for my shot on the side basketball hoop.

Thank you mom.

Trail Head

Return of Super Bowl Ice Fishing

While it wasn't the same as Super Bowl Sunday morning ice fishing days of the past with my fellow downstate brethren sipping Old Crow, telling bad jokes, watching house dogs run for the hills, doing snow angels, ice grilling, arranging prop bets, hanging and hurling before noon, but it was ice fishing still the same as there was no ice to speak of the past two Super Bowls. 

I stayed north and was the lone party on Betsie Bay after quite a bit of activity out there on previous weekends. Walking on top of a 10 inch snow base was a workout but got through it. My fishing story is you should have seen the perch I caught last weekend as nothing to speak of today. My downstate peeps advise of a few pike on Dunham but none worthy of the cameras.

Trail Head

New game: "What did Bird chew?"

I've created a new game based on some recent occurrences at the homestead with dog Bird. A few months back I found a black knob with chew marks at the back door. I couldn't place it but it had to be part of something I owned so I put it aside and moved on with life. A few weeks later my two year old dishwasher started leaking at the bottom. Mechanically declined Tim did a thorough inspection of where the leak was coming at and turns out the black knob found its home. Chew marks aside, the knob went back in and no more leaks. 

That solved that mystery, however, I have the attached two chewed up orphans that Bird brought in that need homes. "What did Bird chew?" Hopefully not gas related knobs of some sort or this could be my last post.

Trail Head

Assemblies

The way back machine takes up back to the 1970's and 80's to a time when school days sometimes had an hour tucked in there from time to time for education, entertainment and/or a reason for kids to cut out early for the day. The assembly. They evolved from exciting gatherings in elementary/junior high to "let's cut out and head to Kensington" in high school.

Elementary school assemblies as my pea brain recalls were some form of puppet show in the kindergarten era. I was too young to know what was going on within the Watergate hearings so I doubt they had those on for us. I recall one of the space landings being televised at school but no details besides that.

The assembly entertainment value was kicked up a notch in junior high as I recall a talent show in 6th grade where an 8th grade girl (Janine Perry?) was doing the robot to "Runnin' with the devil" and I was in awe. Puberty was just starting so that might have had a bit to do with it as well. She rocked it though.

Another junior high assembly happening was the intermural basketball league championship that was played in front of the entire grade class. My team took the title in 7th grade and that was one of my funnest experiences of youth. 

We had a cover band come through in junior high who nailed every tune they played and have tried every avenue to try and remember their name without success. I even contacted the classmate who introduced the band at the assembly and she couldn't recall either. Un-named band, you played well.

The assembly process turned a bit weird in high school; some good-weird and some just weird.

Every high school, big and small, has the pep assembly, usually during homecoming week. Our school mascot was the Redskin (now Maverick) and our principal used to don the war paint each year and get the students (try to get the students) excited for their crappy football team. He tried, I'll give him that. The football team usually lost.

The Christian youth group Campus Life used to put together an assembly and recruit some new members. I recall some enjoyable music within their presentation but just wasn't into the scene as I was too busy being afraid of women at the time.

The last enjoyable assembly in high school was a basketball trick shot shooting elderly man. I don't recall him making that many but he had the crowd on his side so the rare makes were reason for a celebration.

From trick shot shooting grandpa, the scared straight assemblies took over. High school might be a little late for it but the administration did try and warn of the uses of illicit drugs via the assembly. The only thing I took from the first guy was Busch beer's tag line of "head for the mountains" was subliminal for "get high." Boone's Farm had no subliminal tag line but like Busch, it was cheap so we didn't need a subliminal message. 

The second scared straight assembly was in the form of a former New Jersey detective who did quite well yelling at his crowd. They even bussed everyone from my school to the cross town school (and sardined us in the gym) to hear him yell. He made a few examples of kids not paying attention and kicked them out but looking back, the kids he was kicking out were the ones he should have been trying to help rather than trying to set the tone.

Trail Head

Cursive Writing Dinosaurs

A dying breed those cursive writers. We used to spend many hours in my youth working on the craft in school but most states have dropped it. As you can see from my (very sad) cursive sample below, I am a printer.

the finger indention wound seen by many grade-schoolers
in the 1970's after cursive practice

I had to look up a few letters on my
attached writing attempt.