Edd's Gatherin' Place

Ok folks last day of the year 2005 and all is well or not well depending on how you view a half glass of water. If you view the glass as half-full then you are an optimist and all is well. If you view the glass as half-empty then you are a pessimist and not all is well.

All is well at this “old home place” this morning – the first morning in three years I’m not awake with a buzz from barbequing a hog overnight with the obligatory male bonding ritual of standing by the fire, checking the temperature on the hog, throwing in more wood or adjusting the gas, and all the while holding the standard bottle or can of beer in your hand. Today we were heading over to the home of the brother of my brother-in-law for barbeque around 2 o’clock this afternoon. They cooked the hog last night – the length of time varies with the weight of the hog but generally, it is between 8 and 12 hours for a good size hog.

The wife is not going because of the fear of infection from being outside and then around so many people. Although my immune system is shot to hell I’m going – gave up worrying about the trivia details of life, well, yesterday, maybe. My daughter, grandson, and a friend of the family are also going though. My sister and her husband are down from West Virginia visiting with his family.

We are not heading out to celebrate New Year’s but will watch it on the big tube – Hmm, tube’s out of date these days I imagine. Shows you just how old this man is…

My friend and grandson worked most of yesterday getting the four-wheeler back into operation. Same four-wheeler I drove buck naked, about 8 years ago, through the 50-acre farm field behind the house with 8 inches of “SNOW” on the ground! No one was around although there was a helicopter flying over. Just got a wild hair and did something crazy in my life, AGAIN… They eventually restored life into the old machine and spent up into the early evening hours four wheeling through back farm roads, woods, and mud. A 36-year-old man and one very, very excited 10 year-old having nothing but fun with not a worry in the world.

If you don’t hear from me again today then you will hear from me next year. Have a safe and enjoyable New Year…

See you soon…

The wife, at the begging of her family made some more of Peggy Shorter's, a friend of the wife's at school, Christmas Mix. The only thing I'll say, "IT IS ADDICTIVE!"

3	cups	Cheerios (plain or honey nut)
3	cups	Rice Chex
3	cups	Corn Chex
2	cups	pretzel sticks
2	cups	dry roasted peanuts
1	bag	Christmas bag of 12 oz. m & m's
		white chocolate

I buy the 1.5 package of blocks and use 10-12 blocks of White Chocolate. Melt white chocolate in microwave --- be careful not to burn it. I usually set the microwave for 2 minutes, stir the chocolate, and then for 2 more minutes. Pour chocolate on dry ingredients and mix making sure it is all covered with white chocolate. Pour this mixture out on wax paper until chocolate hardens. Then break up pieces and put in a bowl.

Recuperation is the new gal in town. Jane’s surgery went very well and amazing, as it may seem she is in very little pain - nothing that 650mg Tylenol tablets cannot take care of. Although if someone from Social Services would make us a visit, they would haul my skinny behind off to some isolated jail for wife beating.

The anesthesiologist came, explained his part in the operation, and then went on to tell Jane what she could expect in the operating room. After asking her numerous questions, Jane told him another anesthesiologist told her after a difficult operation on her elbow that she had a very narrow airway. He began examining her mouth and throat and said she needed to wear a medical alert bracelet and then nonchalantly asked her if she wanted any more complicated surgery done today. He then began saying that if she did it would make his day because she would be a challenge! His name was Dr. Lee and was oriental when Jane’s doctor dropped by Dr. Lee told him Jane wanted him to make her eyes look just like his. I immediately liked this doctor and his humor.

Jane’s eyes look better this morning than yesterday afternoon and she is even feeling somewhat better. Our 10-year-old grandson came late yesterday afternoon to live with us and Jane and he are in the den watching The Karate Kid while he also assembles a 500 piece 3D puzzle of the solar system. Tonight the sky should be clear because I promised to go outside with him and look at the constellations. He about knows the name of each one and can locate them with only the help of a chart giving you the time and general azimuth in the sky.

Time to check on Jane and finish my morning meds so I’ll see you soon…

It is time! Jane’s surgery is today and I am petrified. Patsy will take us to the hospital’s new Outpatient Surgery Center this morning. Jane must be there at 8:00 o’clock this morning. Surgery will take a little over two hours then recovery is scheduled for about the same length of time. Jane must be awake during the entire period of surgery because they must check her vision during each cut on the eyelids.

Me, I am petrified. Ever since I became ill, Jane has always been there. Through three heart attacks, operations with more operations, six angioplasties with stints, hospitalizations because of petit and uncontrollable grand mal seizures, the atrocious and staggering attacks of pain and bleeding from my CAA. But just as important those times when I become confused and do not know who I am or for that matter whom anyone is.

Last night was long with very little sleep and a CAA headache most likely brought on by nerves. The night before was no different. Jane is up washing a load of clothes, doing dishes and otherwise acting as if today is but yet another day. In fact she is now calling me telling me my breakfast is ready. She makes me eat because I have no appetite and watches over me because I have swallowing problems associated with CAA.

Jane is going about this morning as if it is a normal everyday occurrence and that is because she does not show her fears or emotions until highly provoked.

Time to go.

See you soon…

Why oh why did I go back to bed? What a dream, although if I can remember some of the details it may make a good short story, a dream about a young boy and girl discovering a colony of Aliens living in a small Midwestern College.

I will try to sort the details out later but the headache is worse. Cannot, cannot go to the doctor’s one day before my wife’s eye surgery. I imagine having a dream about aliens serves me justice as having been a part time writer in my past life of Science Fiction!

See you soon but it is defiantly going to turn out as a rough day indeed…

This morning has been a total B-h! Actually, most of the night’s been that way too and after so many, many years the cause is again quite obvious, a possible small bleed into my brain from my old nemesis, Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy (CAA). See, I do know how to spell the name but most of the time chose not to. It is a disease although rare when diagnosed in a 53 year old man similar to Alzheimer’s disease but with its own peculiarities. Along with memory loss, it is more prone to cause a stroke at any second, minute, hour, day, week, month, or year. And did I mention it is also incurable.

My health during childhood was up and down with a disease around the age of ten shortly after having the measles and mumps. I was in a coma for approximately three months, which left me with a lifelong problem with epileptic seizures. Medication from that point on helped me live a perfectly normal life that is until the diagnosis with CAA in which they intensified. My doctor at the Mayo Clinic believes the disease, CAA, is genetically inherited. And may well have been causing memory problems somewhere in the neighborhood of two years of being diagnosed.

A major heart attack in 1996 virtually put an end to a twenty-three year career of public service working in the design, oversight, inspection of major domestic and industrial wastewater discharges to the nation’s water bodies, and teaching the basics of the math surrounding the design and operation at a Community College.

Am I feeling sorry for my self this morning H-l yes! It will pass as it always does but it is most depressing when it hits. Today will be one of a constant headache with bouts of possible confusion though not always on the confusion part.

I do not mention this often but Word Prediction software is a blessing and one I must use so if some of the above is slightly stilted I apologize.

See you soon…

Jane has eyelid surgery on both eyes this coming Wednesday. She suffers from a genetic condition that allows both eyelids to drop over time eventually causing partial blindness. Jane has already lost complete peripheral vision and night vision in her left eye and the same is beginning on her right eye.

As Jane is my primary Caretaker, I am scared to death. Normally it is me in the hospital with seizures, heart attack, or my CAA brain disease and not Jane. She has been incapacitated only two other times in her life. Once when she was very little and contracted Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (she came close to dying on that one), and when she fell and broke her elbow several years ago.

Since I no longer am allowed to drive, Jane’s best friend Patsy is driving us to the hospital and back. I’ve taken my med’s for tonight and already feel dizzy.

See you soon…

Wake up sleepy heads!!! It’s Christmas morn…. Yep, Jane, Kristin, and I are awake before our two granddaughters. The granddaughters are having Santa here before their mother must take them to their father at 11:00 AM to travel to Florida. There they will have Christmas with another set of grandparents.

Yes, we are a typical American family!

Christ saved man on the cross but was born on this Christmas day for all... Have a Merry Christmas

See you soon… Coffee is waiting!

Season's Greetings

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May' new-fought mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.

Yep, fell four feet onto my left hip, back, and head today out of Pecan tree! Now you might want to ask why an individual with a seriously bad heart and other major heath problems was doing in a tree. And that’s exactly why I DID NOT go to the ER – no way was I going to tell my three doctors why I was in that tree! But by everything holy, there is NOT one place on my body that doesn’t HURT…

A grandfather must do what he must do – after hearing a shrill scream coming from outside, I found my 9 year-old granddaughter stuck about 13 feet up in the pecan tree. Not waiting to think and running right pass a ladder my body bounded straight up that tree. She was saved and this ole boy fell on the way down.

Of course, the admonitions began right away from my daughter and later from the wife. Lucky for me she was in town shopping when my little escape happened. When she returned home and found out it was one tirade after another. She even had the audacity to tell me if I had broken my hip I would spend the holidays in a nursing home ALONE!!!

It’s back to bed with four Advil!!!

In his Advent message of today, The Reverend David A. Oppold, Pastor of Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church, 74 East Kings Highway in Mount Ephraim, NJ, brings us a true message on faith and trust:

December 18, 2005
Fourth week of Advent
Faith and Trust

In a sermon from 1527, Martin Luther referred to today's reading from Luke as a "happy and charming gospel." Indeed, the prelude to the events of this coming Christmas season all find their fulfillment in the annunciation to Mary by the angel Gabriel that she will bear a son and name him Jesus.

Today's gospel story has been the subject of many a renowned painter, sculptor, stained glass artist, poet, and composer. This story has spiritually moved generations of Christians who have wondered at Mary's faith, obedience, and readiness to be the chosen vessel of God in the mystery of the incarnation. Mary's permanence in the communion of saints remains. She is a model of faith and a woman whose example inspires us for all times.

Very soon Christmas will be here, and we will celebrate the truth of this biblical narrative. In the joyful observance of our Savior's birth we will not forget our faith and trust in the word and promise of God to us. This faith is rooted in the gospel story of the annunciation itself. Mary's faith and trust allowed her to welcome the angel's announcement, strange though it was. She could not understand at first how and why God had chosen her. The conception that was to take place was beyond her senses. Only God's gift of grace enabled Mary to believe and to offer herself willingly to God's service.

Mary's gift of faith and obedience was not hers alone. We, too, trust in the word announced to us. This gift of wonder and this sense of a holy task before us are available to all who humble themselves before the manger of Jesus Christ. This "happy and charming gospel" is ours forever.

The wife spent all day yesterday, a raining, cold, and ultimately a very dreary day, doing what she loves most wrapping Christmas gifts. Me, I did absolutely nothing but sit in the lounge chair watching Christmas movies on the ABC Family channel and listen to the wife Cooin' and Ahin' with each gift.

After having wrapped each gift, she listed it under the grandchildren’s name to make sure that each one had the same number of presents to open. She followed the exact procedure for our children when they were younger and does even to this day.

Now, if you believe I sat in that chair without EVER getting up you may just be wrong. This bad boy was traveling back and forth to his trusted on-line companion checking out more goodies from Amazon, Discover Store, and a select others to see how he could complicate matters just a little more.

You may also be correct in your assumption that I may not be alive to see another Christmas when the good woman finds out…

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, Only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.



If you are alone you belong entirely to yourself....If you are accompanied by even one companion you belong only half to yourself, or even less, in proportion to the thoughtlessness of his conduct; and if you have more than one companion you will fall more deeply into the same plight.

You may want to first travel over to Alexandra von Maltzan’s blog, All Things Beautiful. She is a superb writer and researcher and covers this topic with extreme clarity and conviction as a Christian in her post, The Declaration of War on Christians. Read the entire post and link to the many other bloggers writing on the same subject. You will come away with a much through understanding of those forces out to suppress Christian beliefs and traditions.

I am a Christian. As a Christian, I am appalled at the encroaching shadows of “Political Correctness” or the “Criminalization of Christmas,” these days. Individuals, groups, and judges demanding the removal of nativity scenes, taking down a plaque of the Ten Commandments, and even trying to take the word God out of our Pledge of Allegiance are daily occurrences. No major retailer wants to say, “Christmas Tree,” anymore now that political correctness dictates it as a “Holiday Tree.”

Instinctively drawn to the birth of Jesus Christ, Christians view this season not in sadness but one of hope. Jesus Christ is the man who came into our lives to shine the eternal light, to brighten the corners of our lives, and to show us the road to salvation.

Isn’t it strange that the world could view a man who raised the dead, made the blind see and the deaf to hear as being offensive? Christ offers us the kingdom of heaven but the others would have the kingdom of the earth. Martin Luther put it best when he said, “For the highest wisdom and sanctity of the hypocrites sees nothing but temporal honor, carnal will, mundane life, good days, money and wealth, all which must vanish and cease.”

A post several days ago on this very same subject stayed up only about fifteen minutes after I decided to pull it. The email response was vicious, hateful and even threatening. No rational debate, no rational discussion, from any group leads me to believe that those who oppose my views are themselves intolerant and ignorant of our county’s history and constitution.

If I am a firm believer in our Constitution, which I am, then I recognize the right of the opposing side to protest the use of religious articles in public places. Historically, our Founding Father built this country on religious freedom. They them selves were very religious individuals using the Ten Commandments as a foundation for our modern laws and the First Amendment supports my right to practice religion. We, to this day, have a Congress that begins each session with a prayer and has a resident Chaplain.

The history of our country is one of people coming here to exercise their belief in God. The Puritans escaped from the Church of England to set up a new experiment in America. Putting this out of public places is to deny history. Even the former Roman Empire allowed display of Religion. Are we so stupid to think we can suppress all of it?

Up and walking this morning… Talked the wife out of taking me to the doctor because I’m breathing better not because I’m feeling better. I feel like the midnight possum out on the interstate trying to kiss Mack trucks! All run down…

Wasn’t doing much yesterday in fact I slept all day and night. I’ve never slept that long at any one point in my life.

The morning ritual of showering, etcetera, is done and the body does feel somewhat better. Now it’s time to track some UPS packages coming this way. As I cannot get out much, I rely on e-commerce for my Christmas shopping.

See you soon…

That’s right folks I have the walking crud. By Monday morning if my backside isn’t better, my doctor will have me the hospital. He was nice enough to prescribe a potent antibiotic for me to start taking over the weekend.

The wife and daughter are in Florence, SC, doing a little Christmas shopping. I asked her why don’t they just do their shopping on line, her answer, “We just like to get out among the crowds!”

Well, I’ve had lunch, a hotdog cooked in the microwave and on a bun with ketchup and mustard. Now it’s time to hit the shower, take med’s, and get back in the bed.

For good news, my son has finally agreed to take my 10 year-old grandson to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, this coming summer. The Mayo Clinic in Rochester is the premier hospital for children that suffer with Tourette’s syndrome.

See you soon…

Got a nasty Cold... I'll be back as soon as possibe.

See you soon...

The following is a small recycled part of a post I made on December 1, 2004 - today is most appropriate for all of us to hear the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ again:

However, let us not forget the real reason we celebrate Christmas the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our Lord who came among us as a man taught us the “lowliness of mind and unselfishness of spirit” (Author unknown) not only with words but also by action. Before the Last Supper Jesus washed and dried the feet of all his disciples even to include the one who would later betray him.

Jesus then asked his disciples, “Do you understand the meaning of what I have done to you?”

“You call me your Teacher and your Lord, and you are right, for I am both Teacher and Lord. Well, if I, who am your Teacher and your Lord, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other's feet. I have set you an example, that you should do what I have done to you. I tell you truly, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sends him. If you know all this, you are happy if you do them.”

The next time you see that small red kettle and bell-ringer let us all remember Christ’s so humbling action and place a donation inside. Those pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and more may help wash the feet of one person in so much need physically and spiritually.

John 13:1-20.

I promised a future post when my anger died off after seeing two inane Comments left on another fellow blogger’s Blog. After slowly calming down over several days, I came upon a post by Jeff Harrell at his blog site The Shape of Days. His post puts my thoughts as I would like to have said them so it is my pleasure to send you to, Part of being an adult is knowing how not to be an ass.

I am a strong believer in First Amendment rights that after reading some word or opinion articles my blood begins to boil over. Read Jeff’s post and if you have a different opinion let him know or let me know and we can “reasonable” sit down and discuss or debate the issue. Nevertheless, be assured, if you come here with the emptiness of pure vitriol and no coherent arguments to support your opinion you will get no sympathy from this court.

See you soon…

Mountains of Creation

I long to go here...

And when the Creator of the universe had compounded the whole, He divided it up
Into as many souls as there are stars. And allotted each Soul to a star. And
Mounting them on their stars, as if on chariots, he showed them the nature of the
Universe and told them the laws of their destiny.

Plato (c. 427-347 BC)

A future post is coming after my seething anger rescinds itself to a more manageable level. Yes, I have a temper and it’s a good one – you can compare it to the best. Normally it stays under control but after reading two anal retentive and disparaging comments from two other Bloggers left on another bloggers site, the bad ‘ole boy erupted.

The wife always councils me to count to 100 before speaking or writing - that I have done and more – at 1,000 the counting stopped. The anger is still great so the post will wait. The post will concern “What it Means to be an American” and the United States Constitution and the First Amendment.

See you soon…