Edd's Gatherin' Place

Most likely will be away for a while…

See you

A planned Trip cancelled so it is back to the same ‘ol grind each day. Get up and eat breakfast at 6:15 AM – it is either EAT or receive substance through a D-N feeding tube. I prefer to eat if my swallowing is not impaired too much although in actuality I have NO appetite. If it was not for the wife’s insistence, I imagine I would forgo eating altogether.

At 6:50 AM, it is one set of meds and then I try to visit a few of my favorite blogs by 7: AM when the meds begin to kick in. At around 7:30 AM it is a mandatory sleep until around 10:00 AM when I take my second set of meds. By then I am either violently sick or not – I think it is my meds causing the problem but it does not happen everyday.

I normally try to stay up except during those times that I am ill and then it is back in bed. By noontime if I can eat, it is generally a half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It is then into the shower and by the time one o’clock rolls around it is back to bed until around three or 3:30 PM.

By this time, one or two more meds are taken depending solely on how I feel. Never during all this time is my nitroglycerin far away. When the three grandchildren arrive around 4 o’clock and begin their homework I disappear to my little cubbyhole in the back with my computer and books.

At the mention of books, I am now having smaller publishing houses sending ME books for review. H-L, I can hardly get through my own books that I normally read but they are offering small amounts of money but with my health as precarious as it is and as much as I would absolutely love to, I well have to say no. The letters are already typed but I have yet to send them off. Why now? Why not when I was well and capable of this type of activity?

It is past time for my nighttime meds, actually, I have already taken the eleven o’clock pills and now only lack the two pills that control my brain’s neurological function during sleep. I normally go to bed between twelve or one o’clock at night because on the average I can average between 4 to 6 hours of sleep a night. When I awaken, I may get out of bed and get a cup of coffee and just sit in my lounge chair or at times look at the news on the computer. At one time I was a big news junkie but being an emotional jerk the pressure of yelling at ignorant politicians became too much. Afterwards I will lie back down but never fall into a sleep mode and will arose when my wife calls me for breakfast.

This is the most I have said about by self other to mention occasional mishaps with my illness and actually, I am not that so sure I will actually post it. Maybe.

Today, well today has been a good one - one of the best in quite a while. My previous post had me humming the melody to Amazing Grace and now it is the melody of Swing Low Sweet Chariot. Somewhat of a conundrum, wouldn’t you say?

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Chorus:

Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home;
Swing low, sweet chariot,
Comin' for to carry me home.

I looked over Jordan,
And WHAT did I see,
Comin' for to carry me home,
A band of angels comin' after me,
Comin' for to carry me home.

Repeat chorus:

If you get there before I do,
Comin' for to carry me home,
Tell all my friends I'm comin' too,
Comin' for to carry me home.

1 a : the power or process of reproducing or recalling what has been learned and retained especially through associative mechanisms b : the store of things learned and retained from an organism's activity or experience as evidenced by modification of structure or behavior or by recall and recognition

The above definition, according to Merriam-Webster, is as you can see for the word memory. What does memory mean to you? Is it a memory of events from long past or is it simply of what happened two minutes ago, this morning, or even yesterday? A cosmic question might be, “Does memory define who we are?”

If you were told you would progressively lose your memory over time, “What would your reaction be?” If you were told you could experience mini stokes the rest of your life, “What would your reaction be?” If you were told, you could suffer a fatal or debilitating stroke any second, any minute, any hour, any day, any week, any month, or any year, “What would your reaction be?”

After you ponder the above questions I will try to explain what it takes to keep your heart pumping 24/7 365 days a year after a major heart attack and two minor. Moreover, the heart condition is completely separate from the above. Oh yes, there is one similarity, both conditions exist in the same body.

One last question I do not even know the answer to, “Why, during the entire time it took for me to write such a simple post, have I been humming Amazing Grace?”

Amazing Grace

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
His word my hope secures;
He will my shield and portion be,
As long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
And mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
A life of joy and peace.

The world shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun refuse to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Shall be forever mine.

When we've been there ten thousand years,
Bright shining as the sun,
We've no less days to sing God's praise
Than when we'd first begun.

Three hundred years ago today, January 17, 1706, Benjamin Franklin was born. The one man who I firmly believe had it not been for his presence and his innate ability of common sense we would not have survived as a country much less one with a solid core of democracy.

“Ben Franklin: A great democracy, he said, depends on compromises.” With the virtual collapse of the Constitutional Convention, Franklin intervened and convinced the delegates that each side would have to give into some of their demands.

Walter Isaacson wrote, Ben Franklin: An American Life, quotes Ben Franklin as saying, “Compromises may not make great heroes but make great democracies.” Mr. Isaacson adds, “he also believed it was up to each of us to exhibit tolerance. Someone who came along to preach and practice tolerance today would be a hero.”

In my most humble opinion, WE need Ben Franklin or someone like him TODAY.

See you soon…

Sorry to say, I am not dead yet... After last week you would not have guessed in a million years that I would be here writing today, albeit, the words come slow.

I'll be back shortly...

Never should I have drunk wine with my meds last night! Other than having a terrific headache this morning, dreams kept waking me up most of the night. The surviving grace, if one can call it that, I remember most of the dreams [all science fiction] and are now committing them into summaries and outlines.

Either me or someone else may be able to convert them into short stories and possible a novel on one in particular. It is at these moments that I begin to feel self-pity at my failing health and memory.

Never should I have drunk wine with my meds last night! Other than having a terrific headache this morning, dreams kept waking me up most of the night. The surviving grace, if one can call it that, I remember most of the dreams [all science fiction] and are now committing them into summaries and outlines.

Either me or someone else may be able to convert them into short stories and possible a novel on one in particular. It is at these moments that I begin to feel self-pity at my failing health and memory.

Again it is time to repeat D.H. Lawrence’s poem on self-pity:

SELF-PITY

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Drinking a little wine tonight and rereading Paul Theroux's, Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Capetown - just relaxing after a rather uneventful day. You can smell the hot sands of the desert, see the magnificent and beautiful landscape, and feel the overwhelming poverty.

Next on my reread list is Bernard Lewis', The Crisis of Islam - a must read if you are to further your history of the Middle East. Afterwards, it is back to the genre that brought America out of the Classics: Science Fiction.

I have already two books lined up by Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon and Broken Angels - two books in the twenty-fifth century series of Takeshi Kovacs.

[Just had to get up and take some meds that do not go well with alcohol but H-L who's worried not me]

See you soon...

The wife and grandson are at Sunday School and Church this morning. It would be nice if I could attend church but the organ and its high notes triggers seizures – I’ve flopped around for the last time in the church pews!

The grandson worked on his scout material yesterday and soon I heard this little argument going on. The wife was trying to help him with the Scout Oath, etc. when all of a sudden I hear the wife say, “You have to repeat the words in order and not random.” The response was, “Grandmother, is that the Grandmother Scout Oath?” Finally, he acquiesced because when he came out to repeat all of the Oaths to me they were correct and the words were as printed and in the correct order.

This being a parent again at age 59 is going to be a challenge for sure – for the grandson and the grandparents!

See you soon…

Sorry, there has been no posting lately on my behalf. Friday morning was spent with me having to go to the hospital for blood work. Of course, that meant nothing to eat or drink before the tests and that meant no D-N coffee Friday morning not a pretty site!

The nurse stuck me twice before finding a decent vein in my right hand – all my veins are all about shot from the many hospital stays with IV’s and more and more blood work.

The wife took me to get breakfast and then home where I slept most of the day away. Occasionally I would get up, wander out to my computer cubicle, and surf my favorite blogs and then head back to bed. This cycle went on the whole day until the wife roused me and took me out to dinner with two other couples who are extremely close friends of ours.

I’ll be back later to talk about today.

See you soon…

Tired and worn out from chasing baseballs with the grandson.

He’s working with an old glove but doing better each day.

I think it is time to make a trip to Simpson’s and have him fitted with a proper glove.

Why my GOOD friend thinks he has to send "The Wife" and me jokes on aging I'll never know but here are a few of the latest (these are about women but after asking "The Wife if she thought they demeaned women in any way she said no):

--- I feel like my body has gotten totally out of shape, so I got my
doctor's permission to join a fitness club and start exercising. I
decided to take an aerobics class for seniors. I bent, twisted,
gyrated, jumped up and down, and perspired for an hour. But, by the time
I got my leotards on, the class was over.

--- Reporters interviewing a 104-year-old woman: "And what do you think
is the best thing about being 104?" the reporter asked. She simply
replied, "No peer pressure."

--- The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your
own Easter eggs.

---Just before the funeral services, the undertaker came up to the very
elderly widow and asked, "How old was your husband?" "98," she replied.
"Two years older than me." "So you're 96," the undertaker commented. She
responded, "Hardly worth going home, is it?

--- I've sure gotten old.! I've had two bypass surgeries, a hip
replacement, new knees. Fought prostate cancer and diabetes. I'm half
blind, can't hear anything quieter than a jet engine, take 40 different
medications that make me dizzy, winded, and subject to blackouts. Have
bouts with dementia. Have poor circulation; hardly feel my hands and
feet anymore. Can't remember if I'm 85 or 92. Have lost all my friends.
But, thank God, I still have my driver's license.

--- An elderly woman decided to prepare her will and told her preacher
she had two final requests. First, she wanted to be cremated, and
second, she wanted her ashes scattered over Wal-Mart. "Wal-Mart?" the
preacher exclaimed. "Why Wal-Mart?" "Then I'll be sure my daughters
visit me twice a week."

---My memory's not as sharp as it used to be. Also, my memory's not as
sharp as it used to be.

--- Know how to prevent sagging? Just eat till the wrinkles fill out.

---I've still got it, but nobody wants to see it.

---I'm getting into swing dancing. Not on purpose. Some parts of my body
are just prone to swinging.

---It's scary when you start making the same noises as your coffeemaker.

---The good news is that even as we get older, guys still look at our
boobs. The bad news is they have to squat down first.

---These days about half the stuff in my shopping cart says, "For fast
relief."

---I've tried to find a suitable exercise video for women my age, but
they haven't made one called "Buns of Putty."

---Don't think of it as getting hot flashes. Think of it as your inner
child playing with matches.

---Don't let aging get you down. It's too hard to get back up.!

--- Remember: You don't stop laughing because you grow old, You grow old
because you stop laughing.

---THE SENILITY PRAYER : Grant me the senility to forget the people I
never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the
eyesight to tell the difference.

"Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me." (Ps. 69:15)
The 13 coal miners trapped Monday in the explosion at the Sago coal mine in Tallmansville, West Virginia need our prayers. I went to college with a young boy from, and I believe this is correct, Leviasy, West Virgina. He was the only one of his nine siblings to attend college.

I pulled out of college after two years, returning later when much older, and ran into Van at the Student Union building one day. That day he told me his father died the year before of Black Lung disease and later on I heard Van graduated with honors and later received a Master’s and Doctorate degree at MIT.

Today we can only pray for the 13 miners now trapped with an uncertain future ahead of them and the thousands of coal miners still toiling in one of the most dangerous professions in the word. We who benefit from the electricity provided by coal or the warmth need to humble ourselves today not only for those in peril today but for all that gave their lives in the past and for all those miners that put their lives at risk each day.

See you soon…

Taking the grandson into town for breakfast… Since he only eats three plates of hash browns, I think I’ll have three eggs sunny side up, a slice of country ham, two slices of bacon, grits with salt and butter, and a double side order of buttered toast, and numerous cups of black coffee.

Do you think this small meal will affect by blood work Wednesday morning for my heart doctor?

See you soon…

According to TruthorFiction.com the following e-mail continues to circulate since 2004. A friend sent me the e-mal late last night and as I always do before posting an e-mail with this type of message, I check the Truth or Fiction Web Site. First the e-mail:

This has a thought provoking message no matter how you believe. Does evil exist?

The university professor challenged his students with this question. Did God create everything that exists?

A student bravely replied yes, he did!"

"God created everything?" The professor asked.

"Yes, sir," the student replied.

The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are then God is evil."
The student became quiet before such an answer.

The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a question professor?" "Of course", replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor does cold exist?"

"What kind of question is this? Of course, it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody and every object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body or matter have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat; all matter becomes inert and incapable of reaction at that temperature. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have too little heat.

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?"

The professor responded, "Of course it does".

The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir, darkness does not exist either.

Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally, the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?"

Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. "These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is not like faith, or love, that exist just as does light and heat. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young mans name --- Albert Einstein

Truth or Fiction’s title is Einstein Proves God? and they label the author as false - part of their account is as follows:

This is an account of a classroom encounter between young Albert Einstein and a professor who was arguing that the Christian faith is a myth…

He made reference to "God" on many occasions but also said he did not believe some of the stories in the Bible and did not believe in a personal God…

As an admirer of Einstein’s work and the man behind such great achievements, I would myself agree that it is highly unlikely the author is Albert Einstein.

After reading the account, many times, I must agree true or false the message is indeed “thought provoking.” Whether or not the author is true is entirely up to you and you alone but the message...

See you soon…

Let’s see, I have just finished reading, The Man Without A Country, by Dr. Edward Everett Hale for the – I simply do not remember the number of times I have read this most patriotic story of moral and spiritual truth.

Can anyone give me the definitive secret behind the initial and long-term appeal of this short story? What genera of literature do you enjoy reading?

Many of my friends know or maybe they do not know that since the age of 26 or 27-I read at a minimum 15 minutes - could be longer but no less - of Shakespeare every night. Currently, The Tragedy of Macbeth is the read for again the unknown number of times - I am now in Act IV, Scene II, and Line 70. As you can tell, I have only recently just begun reading Macbeth again.

In the back of the house through the kitchen sites my computer desk holding my computer essentials, books, and assorted paraphernalia. Also in this 6.5 x 8.0 foot area are two five-shelf bookcases loaded two rows to a shelf with books - two and three rows of books sit on top of each bookcase. Just to the right of my little space sits the furnace and laundry room (according to “The Wife,” keep my D-n books out of her laundry space!

The wife’s formal Living Room has a five-shelf bookcase also loaded with books but arranged in a much more orderly fashion as well as the den. The mantle holds a plethora of smaller books held in an upright position by two elaborate bookends. The bedrooms also contain books but no more than the grandchildren’s although those bookcases also contain their books.

My archival boxes with my collections are stored in a special section of the attic. Also in the attic are more and more boxes of books and papers all protected by archival wrapping and lesser books just normally stored. A Book Inventory program that I have managed to keep running since the early, early days (yes, I broke the code and rewrote the program years ago prior to any illness – give you any idea of a previous “hobby?”) helps me keep track of my books and there locations.

Man, did I get off track but that is nothing new to me. We will get back to discussing books in another post and I’ll give you a smitten of book titles I can see from my chair.

Until then,

See you soon…

Southern New Year’s Day cooking was the norm at our house today. The meal consisted of Ham (freshly cured); Collard Greens cooked using a ham hock, Black Eyed Peas and Cornbread. Beside the traditional meal the wife cooked her famous, at least to us, Brown Rice and Green Bean Casserole and her tasteful Pork Chops.

Tradition says that the Collard Greens represent paper money, the ham a time for looking forward and not backwards (a pig can only look forward), Cornbread represents gold, and Black Eyed Peas represent coins or silver money.

We have this meal every January 1. Coming home from the drug store earlier we stopped by a friend’s house and the wife’s best friend was preparing this same meal for her mother, father, husband and herself.

Whether the premise is true who knows but most if not all southern families have this traditional meal to start the New Year off with a feeling of comfort.

See you soon…

2006, I believe a year with new and unknown experiences ahead for you and me – the unknown, the FUTURE! Possibly the future foretold by one of our most eminent science fiction writers of our time Robert A. Heinlein.

Heinlein gave us the future in stories that have already come true but also showing us a glimpse of what may be in stories such as Let There Be Light, The Roads Must Roll, The Man Who Sold the Moon, and Requiem.

May 2006 be your year of promise and prosperity and may your cup always be seen as half full…

See you soon and goodnight…