lora and cliff

Lora and Cliff have been married 23 years this spring. Cliff is a good husband and a good guy. I am glad to have him as part of the clan.
Tonight Lora called: "Dad, I wanted you to hear my voice."
We visited for a while.
She is doing fine, sore and with some pain, but not too much
She won't see her doctor for another 3 weeks, which will give her some healing time.
She sounded good and reassuring.
It was so good to hear her voice.

the trooper and I

The other day I got stopped by an Oregon State Police Trooper.

I was driving legal, but I had one fear.

Now the Trooper was driving a Ford extended cab pickup. Unmarked from front or rear. His flashing lights were inside on the top of the windshield, so there was nothing to know it was a Trooper.

Sneaky those Oregon cops.

I once got stopped (and fined) while driving very fast in a Lincoln I owned. I passed this little 56 Chevy Biscane going along at a bit below the speed limit so I went around and kicked it up to 85, and the little chevy turned out to be a policeman. I paid for that one.

While we were camping a few weeks ago, my friend David said: “Dave, your license is expired on your pickup.” I looked and sure enough the tags were last years. I looked in the glove box and there was the current registration and the place where the sticker tags had been.

I still have not found them.

But that was not what the trooper had in mind. “Started drinking already.” It was about 10 in the morning. “No.”

It seems we had been driving along the columbia river and people were sailing in the water. The wind was good and they were having a good time. Sail boards, a few kite flyers, the whole works. I was looking at those, and not staying exactly in my lane.

And that is why he stopped me. I was not wondering into the other lane, but, he said, I was over the fog line too much.

So I will be more careful, and no, he did not give me even a warning, but he sure could have!

lunch

Lunch time on our first bicycle tour. Food tastes so good, water so refreshing after a long hot ride. Linda left, Miriam and Deanna.

bicycle tour

It was 30 years ago this summer that we made our first bicycle tour. We traveled 500 miles in two weeks. We carried all of our food and camp gear.

Miriam and I were 42, Dea and lora 15 and 16, Linda 11.

Some of the gear we use now, we bought for that trip.

When I think back, it was an awesome project.

We once lived in the top right corner of Oregon for a few years. Up where Chief Joseph was promised a home and protection, but got neither.

So we decided to ride up there for a weekend. We could have taken the main highway both ways, but we decided to go the back roads.

The first day’s ride was about 40 miles. With full packs (25 to 40 pounds) and a lot of bicycles tires to collect roadside debris, that is not a bad day’s run. That was pretty much flat land. The temps were in the high 90’s.

The 2nd was a ride uphill. We gained several thousand feet of elevation, then gave it all away in about 12 very fast miles. That night we camped along the Snake River at the Oxbow dam site.

The next ride was back gaining elevation, a lot of elevation, but we had also left the good roads and traveled almost all day on gravel. That night we stopped at a wide spot in the road and slept hard.

The next day we made our goal of Wallowa Lake. We had been told that there was a motorcycle group coming in and we were expecting noise, but it turned out to be a group of BMW bikes. They are quiet, and the riders were very interested in what we had done and how our bicycles worked.

We had family met us for the weekend and we rested well. The way home was by way of the highway and even freeway at times, not my idea of a good tour, but there was no other road.

One day coming back, we had a couple thousand feet of elevation to loose, which we hoped would make up for some of the long hard uphill runs. But, horrors or horrors we had a head wind and had to peddle to go downhill!

One memory is that there were a LOT of grasshoppers that summer, and as we rode along they would jump into our wheel spokes and make an almost guitar like ping.

It was a hot trip a grueling trip. But it was fun.

Boy did we get some sun.

From Arline our oldest daughter, who lives an hour from Lora.

Got a call from Cliff... She's out of surgery and should be going home in a couple hours. All is well. They didn't find anything in her lymph nodes. I'm sure she'll write soon.

A

I think that is all good. Thank You God.

good kids

Lora and Cliff's children. Brianna 14, left, then Alan 18, Andrew 16 and Amy 12. They are really good kids and I am exceedingly proud of them.

support

Yesterday I went to the monthly AD support meeting.

I have been part of this group for 4 or 5 years and this time we had a guest speaker.

The guest lady had been an administrator of a series of nursing homes and Alzheimer’s units and had a lot of insight into dealing with behavior issues.

While she did not have a lot to say that I had never heard before, she put a point on it and made the process a lot more logical.

“They never loose their intelligence.” They may loose their memory, but their intelligence is still there. It may comes out but seldom, but it is there. Do not treat them as children.

Our reality, the one we think is the right one, may not be their reality. We have to bend to theirs sometimes. I remember when my step dad was in the hospital, not long before he died. He was hallucinating and he said to my brother who was visiting him: “Ben, look at those big green bugs on the ceiling.”

Ben carefully looked at the ceiling and said: “They sure are pretty, aren’t they Dad.” There were no bugs but Ben was into Dad’s reality.

Of course every AD person is different and she kept saying: “Give it a try.”

Some of us have attended this group together for a good while, but there are always people who come for the first, and often the last time. We who attend regularly feel bad that we cannot help them more.

Today there was a visitor, a lady who was very angry. She was angry at her siblings for not doing their part caring for their mother. She was angry because they did things behind her back. She was angry with her mother, who has dementia, because Mom would say hateful things to her. She was angry with herself.

I just imagined two angry women, mom and daughter really going at each other. I suggested a bit more humor, but I don’t think she was capable of humor now, if ever. Suggestions were made on diverting mom’s behavior. We tried to remind her that what mom was saying was the disease talking, but in the end I don’t think anything pierced her anger.

She did not find a solution she could live with, indeed I am not sure there is one.

She was just one ball of anger. I felt sorry for her and her family.

But I am glad I went.

A very decent painting done by my Grandpa Howard, circa 1960.

surgery

At 7 am Pacific Daylight Time, Thursday, daughter Lora goes in for cancer surgery.

I know all will go well, but I also know there are no guarantees.

She has good doctors, is in a good hospital. One of the nurses promised: "Lora we will take as good care of you as you do for us."

Be with them all Lord God.

grandparents

This is 3 of my 4 grandparents. Howard and Minnie on the left (my mother's parents) and TK on the right, my father's father. They were about 80 when this picture was taken. TK and Minnie both died a few years later. Howard lived another 15 years to be 98.

grandparents

I had all of my grandparents until I was well into my 40’s

Most of the time we lived in the same town. It was a good.

My mothers parents (Minnie and Howard) were from Nebraska and Washington State. My fathers parents (Sally May and Thomas, but known as TK) both were born in north Texas. TK’s mother was also born in Texas though her given name was “Tennessee!”

I went to undergraduate college in the town where Howard was born and to graduate school in the same county where TK was born. We did not know all of that until we were about to leave Texas.

My father’s family moved to Oklahoma early in their marriage and their children were born there. Then they got caught in the dust bowl and the whop-la about California. Their story is remarkably close to Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath.”

When Howard and Minnie had been married about 40 years, grandpa had a heart attack. Fearing that he would not live to see their 50th anniversary, Mom put on a party for them. Grandpa fooled them, he lived to be 98, and they celebrated their 60th anniversary.

TK and Sally May divorced the year I was born. Each remarried, but I only met TK’s 2nd wife once. Sally May married a guy who was a plastering contractor, back when that was big business. He was called “Mud.” He was an interesting man.

For the next few days I want to do a few pieces about my grandparents. This will be the introduction. My kids and grandkids need to know what I remember. Memory is not always accurate, but it should be honest.

I will do my best.

Miriam's flowers

Daughter 1 gave Miriam this planter a few years ago, I have kept it full of flowers each summer.
Miriam keeps it watered.

that is better

Dinner tonight was good. Most of the meal came from the garden. Ahh, summer is here.

And I roasted it all again! This time I did the potatoes first and when they were getting close I put the peas on to cook, and put the Zucchini in the oven.

It worked out better and the timing was good. I will keep working at it. That roasted thing is pretty good.

Red potatoes
Zucchini
Onion (nice 3 ½” one)
Sugar snap peas, shelled
Lettuce for salad
3 small carrots, just for the fun of it!

Miriam helped with the green salad with a tomato and I put some slivers of red pepper in with the Zucchini. I also took two cloves of garlic, chopped them in my new little chopper, and then spread on top of the rest.

Later when we came back in the house it smelled of garlic. Miriam cannot smell at all any longer (part of AD) but it was good. I liked it.

In the evening, Miriam goes frenetic and I sit and stare.

I think it is called sun-downing with her, with me it is old age.

I used to envy those who did head work for money and came home rearing to go out and shovel some dirt.

My work was always pretty physical and when I came home I was beat. Now in the evening when I am tired and want to sit and stare at my toenails, Miriam is up dithering. I am glad in many ways, because I know this will pass and what comes next will likely be more unpleasant.

It is summer, today was hot and my doc reminds me to be careful with this heat thing. I work till I am dripping and then I sat in the shade and rested.

My kids were never allowed to use the B word (bored) and yet here I am as bored as can be.

Maybe tomorrow?

my bus

One of my favorite vehicles was a 1969 Volkswagen bus.

Under powered, noisy, unreliable, hot in summer and freezing in winter, but what a package. I built some cabinets and a bed into the back. Miriam and I happily napped and slept there fairly often.

But it was an absolute bomb.

Most hills were climbed in 3rd gear with the engine screaming with a ground speed of 45 mph. I could live with that, it slowed down my heart beat. On a real good day it got 21 mph. My big dodge pickup will do almost as well and it has AC and a heater.

But the worst thing was that the engines did not work well as hard as we were working them, and they had the bad habit of freezing into one hunk of metal or flying into a whole bucket of parts, and doing that without a bit of notice.

I never seemed to get many miles out of a $600 rebuild.

One day I was in Boise at the best VW garage in town. It was noon and the mechanics were sitting around eating lunch. I asked them what they drove. Most said VW busses. “How often do you rebuild the engine?”

“Every year.”

“Are you aware that there are Toyotas with 250,000 miles that have not had the head off the engine?” The nodded in rueful understanding.

I went home and sold all my VW collection. The bus, a car or two, spare parts, the whole bunch.

Once in a while, when we are going somewhere and I see a VW bus of that vintage I get this romantic dream. But then I turn the radio up, adjust the AC and I get over that nostalgic thing quickly.

crowd

Compare this photograph to the one below!

we could do better

This is the 4th of July weekend.

It is a time to be thankful and to be proud. Unfortunately it also a time to listen to a lot of jingoistic nonsense.

America is a great country. I am glad to be a member, but that was purely luck, nothing brilliant on my part. America does good things and we do awful things. We are generous at times and stupidly stingy at others.

We are so sure that our system of government / economics is “god’s will”, that we have allowed unchristian greed to almost destroy our country. I wish I could say “Thank goodness, change is here.” But it is not.

For every thing that would benefit the country as a whole, there are people who would have their golden moment foiled and so they block change. It has been said that California is ungovernable, and the US is not far behind.

We have given up our idea of what is the better good for all, and replaced with what is in it for me.

In my short life, I have known a relatively few non-americans, but the ones I have met were fiercely loyal to their countries, even if we think they were horrible. In my travels around America, I have stopped in the most awful places you can imagine and found people who thought they were right in the middle of paradise.

Most of that is good. The Big Book talks a lot about contentment (and condemns covetousness routinely).

I am content to be an American, but just as I am embarrassed to be called a Christian at times, I am sometimes embarrassed to be an American.

We could do a lot better, but I fear we won’t.

simplicity

In a world of RV camping, it is easy to forget the joy of tent camping, thinks I.

Our tent is a pretty roomy, about 120 square feet of floor. There is room to stand up and move around. Room for two cots and two chairs, plus gear and the porta potty.

We have slept in the tent in downpour rains and been dry and comfortable. It has decent ventilation, for most of the time, though if it is very warm we got somewhere else!. We have slept in this tent during wind storms that threatened to flatten the whole thing, but it stood up to it all.

In the morning it is often quite cool. It gets light at 5:30 or so but the sun does not come up until around 8. I want Miriam to sleep as much as possible, so when I get up I try to be quiet and not wake her.

Usually I heat some water and make a big cup of tea and then if it is cold outside, I sneak back into the tent, read and write and sip my tea.

We have stuffed out tent, cots, sleeping bags and pillows, a small kitchen and cooler (plus a lot of other gear) into the trunk and back seat of our little Cavalier. It is pretty nice going camping at 30 mpg!

But, tents are a bit time consuming to set up so when we tent camp I like to stay a couple of days, at least.

This last trip was a tent trip, though we took the pickup, and got 19 mpg. But the next trip will be just us and our little car.

Maybe next weekend.