Category: Family and Friends

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The visiting of family grave sites

Yesterday was such a nice day for a change, the heat has been most unpleasant as of late, keeping most people inside and in the air conditioning of their homes or businesses, so having a nice for a change was a pleasant change of pace, and required some time of outdoor activity to enjoy it all in.

The wife has been wanting to visit the cemetery that most of her people are laid to rest in, I can’t blame her, it is good to go and pay your respects from time to time, good for the soul. So we went ahead and spent a good portion of yesterday’s afternoon doing just that.

We were pleasantly surprised to see how well maintained the graves were, last time the place was a mess and my wife was very upset about it, enough to call and complain upon her return home from her last visit. Upon our arrival we noticed a man on one of the John Deere lawnmowers, was busy mowing the grass to a bristly green stubble that tickled our kneecaps when we knelt at each grave site.

The granite markers all looked good, their blue-gray color still as peaceful and strong as the day they were placed in the earth. The stones feeling cool and smooth as you trace your fingers over them and feeling each letter and number that is etched in each person’s headstone, telling the names and dates of the deceased.

I’m glad to say that the wife held up pretty good through out the whole time, as we wondered from grave site to grave site, after grave site, her only regret was not bringing enough flowers to put on each and every grave of all of her relatives that we found. I promised that we would be more prepared at out next visit, which hopefully won’t be for another year or two, or three…..

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Gone Fishing

I’ve been out fishing for the past week with an old friend from my high school days. We packed up our camping gear and went deep into the hills of Cherokee Canyon in southern Virginia, to our old fishing hole, which to our surprise looks pretty much the same as it did some thirty years ago when we used to go there as kids. Needless to say, for a mans vacation geared towards relaxation it was a huge success.

Although the fishing itself was not as big a boom for our collective freezers, we did manage to come away with some forty or fifty good sized fish. We caught a few trout, some spot, sunfish and both small mouth and bigmouth bass.  Nothing of record breaking size, but we were pleased just the same. We had our best luck on the fourth day there when the bass starting biting. We got rained on quite a bit but it was more fun than a hindrance of any sort. As a matter of fact, except for the one time the tent fell in during a downpour and soaked us to the bone, it was a very relaxing experience.

We spent most the evenings dining on our days catch and reminiscing about the old days. On my return home my wonderful wife told me I smelled like a fish market on a hot day! But she was happy that I’d had a good time. She herself had a wonderful week as well from what she’d told me and mentioned that next time she would like to accompany us along with a couple of her friends she Iearned also enjoy fishing, although they prefer fly fishing above other styles. One of her friends even offered to teach me how to tie flies. Looks like the next fishing trip is going to be a real hoot, I just hope the girls don’t show us fellows up to bad when it comes to fly rod fishing.

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Grandmother is at it again.

The wife and I have been discussing grandmothers latest decision to stay where she is at rather then to move in with us. She says she has been on her own since she was knee high to a grasshopper and doesn’t see any reason for me to worry about how she’ll be getting along. It’s a good thing we’ve relatives nearby or I’d have grandmother really ticked off at me for moving her out of where she is now and into a guest room at our own home. Sometimes what we think is the right thing to do isn’t right at all for the concerning party.

Grandmother is a hardheaded old woman with strong opinions about how things should be. but she did promise that if it got to the point where she can no longer take care of her own personal needs, she’d give me a call before she’d ring my sister because she believes sis is just out to get the family land or some such thing. She told me every time she confides in sis about something the girl gets, “all whacked out” about everything! Grandmother is a hoot at times and I must agree with her about sis’s overreacting to nearly everything these days. The girl does have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion to say the least.

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Kid found a link to the past

Our oldest girl called us from California where she and her college roommates have rented a place on the beach for two weeks while they’re on school break. She was excited to find that their neighbor actually knows me and her mom very well. Turns out  they had rented a small apartment on Mission Beach right next to an old friend of ours from back when we traveled around the country.

Now I’m sure that me and the Mrs. will get to here all about what our friend tells our daughter about us in the old days. She was never really very enthusiastic about stories of our past when she had to hear it from us, but she seems really excited about finding out that we really did have a life before kids from someone else. Maybe it’s because she’s three thousand miles away and ran into someone that actually knows her parents that she’d never met before and totally by accident.

Kids, they can be amusing.

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Family…

Been kinda busy last couple of days. I’m getting ready to take a few days off work to go see Grandmother and maybe see if it could be possible to have her come live with us instead of having to stay in such a place as a Nursing Home. Wife and I are still discussing the pros and cons of the possibility especially as to what her medical needs may be or develop into.

Family means a lot to me, even if it is my adopted family, they are the only family I knew growing up and did well by me. It is not like my people to put away our old where they cannot be seen or heard. We are connected to our past through the elders and it is our heritage itself we pass along with the wisdom only gained by experience and what we learn from them must be taught to our young and them to their young. Only in this way can a people survive the onslaught of time. We must do right by those who have done right by us, we owe them that. We owe ourselves that.

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Independent aging Grandmother being sent to nursing home

Received a disturbing phone call from my sister today informing me that they have placed my grandmother, of 98 years of age, into a nursing home. There is no doubt in mind that she absolutely hates being kept there. She has always been very independent and does not like for people to have to fuss over her. I’m much like her in feeling the same way, I do not like people to fuss over me unless I’m sick then it is OK.

The whole family has been like that since I can remember. From the top to the bottom a feisty very belligerent bunch to say the least. I will go out to Oklahoma to see grandmother at some point soon, something that I have been putting off for too long and now the time has come where I must, and I will.  I need to see why she was placed in a nursing home and if it is a permanent thing or just until she gets better.  She did have a bit of a fall but I thought she was fine.  Guess I better start making plans to check into this and soon.

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Sky Dogs

I do on occasion have a few friends and family members come by for brief visits time to time. I enjoy the children that are brought along and  I do have a way with children. My house is full of interesting and unusual artifacts that it doesn’t take long to get a kid interested in a certain piece or a collection of the various Native Americana items that are so fascinating and hold many interesting stories and myths inside them.

I even have a few books that I enjoy telling them stories from, for some of the ones they can sit down long enough to really pay attention and listen too.  One of my favorites just so happens to be about my own people of the Indian nation and it is called, “Sky Dogs”, and was written by Jane Yolen.

When horses first appeared to the Blackfeet people, they thought the strange animals were large dogs sent as a gift from the sky – from God, creator of all things.

It’s a good story, if you run across a copy I urge you to pick it up and give it a read. It is a short story of our people and how they came to know of horses.

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When President’s Lie

I have always enjoyed reading, I can’t remember ever there being a time in my life, that I didn’t have at least one book that was holding my attention and I find that I’m usually in the middle of reading several books at a time, I read depending on my mood.

I am very interested in early American history and have many a bookcases overflowing with books on this subject, and I am very proud of some of these treasurers, and am always looking for new ones to add to my growing collection.

I picked up a book by the name of “When President’s Lie” which is a History of Official Deception and It’s Consequences, by Eric Alterman, which is a little bit off of the beaten path of what I usually find myself interested in, but a buddy of mine read it and was talking so highly of it, that when I saw it at the Dollar Store for only $1, I decided to give it a try. I hope that I won’t be disappointed, I’ll let you know what I think of it in a week or so.

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More men die in floods

I was reading in an article from Time magazine, that men are more likely to die in floods than women.  The article says that men are more likely to die in thunderstorms, too.  The attempted explanations theorize that the reason for these situations could be because men take more risks than women do, and/or it could be simply because men tend to spend more time outdoors than women do, so they are exposed to the risks of being killed in situations like that.

This made me think about what I would do if my friends or family was in a serious flood and I felt that I had to try to rescue a family member.  How much of a risk would I take?  I wonder how many of those flood related deaths are because of men trying to rescue someone else?  Interesting information that someone took a lot of time to gather and put together for us to contemplate and hopefully discuss with others.

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Block Party ends nicely

I was at a neighborhood block party last night and met some new people that I had not met before. Not that its much of a “neighborhood” being as our closest real neighbor is at least ten miles away, we still got to town though, as do many of those who dwell in the mountains here. But when I go to the town-wide neighborhood street parties, I go with some reservations. You see, I don’t usually like to be around people I don’t know.  You never know what kind of person they are or what they are capable of.  However, I do like going to the street parties to hobnob with the few that show up that are my age and share my interests and see what’s going on in their lives that might actually be of interest.

So it was with quite a bit of surprise that I met a woman about my age who shares the same musical interests that I have, likes the same kinds of movies, television shows and books that I do, and shares my love of animals. So we spent quite a bit of time socializing and she told me to check out her blog when I got home and had a chance to check it out. I did, and I was glad that I did because now I feel like I’ve gotten to know her a little better. I hope we can keep in touch!