Getting Old Sucks!

 I have decided something...Getting old sucks! I'm only 66, but that's about 50 more than when I was happiest. Give or take a few years. I must say that I am a young 66, in my eyes. I feel young. I get around like I am not! The heart attack nearly 7 years ago made sure I would never be able to do the things I used to do for myself. Gone are the days when I could bend down and straighten up quickly. Today that would cause me great concern and a possible ER run! I bend down gently and stand up slowly. Even then it is an experience!

"Frustration" is the name of the game these days. I feel useless around the house. I want to mow the yard and weed eat it. Mowing is not the problem. Edging the yard is a thing of the past. I just can't do it without almost dying. Litterally. "Serious bidniss", my friends. I can't even work part time anymore. I worked from the age of 12 to my retirement at 59 1/2. The longest I was without a job was 2 weeks! After I retired I took a week off and decided that was for the birds. I went back to work selling cars like I had for ten years before I started work for the Sheriff's Office. Five weeks in I was just getting the hang of it again when the afore mentioned heart attack struck. That ended things...LOTS of things. (It nearly ended me!)

I was feeling great after my bypass surgery when, to my surprise, the Cardiologist said I was 100% disabled. Uhhh...Come again for big daddy? 

He said I would soon begin to understand. He was right. My ability to do the simplest of tasks without getting majorly out of breath was a surprise to me. I still do not understand it. I have tried asking the doc why it happens, but he has no answer (or at least he gives none). I still feel like I CAN do stuff. That just doesn't translate to actually doing stuff. Makes my butt want a dip of snuff! (As my grandmother used to say.) I get out of breath just walking from my car to door of Wal Mart. I did manage to get one of those hanging placards for handicap parking. I STILL get out of breath. 

So...getting old is not for the faint of heart or the weak of knee! 

However, it does beat the alternative. 

Oops! Sorry Big Dude!

 So the other day I was driving to the store, or so I thought. I had gone about a mile and a half when I realized I had left my wallet at home. Can't buy a Coke with my looks, so I had to turn around. That's where it got tricky. 

The road between my house and the little store I frequent is a two lane farm to market road. Not many places to turn around. I saw an indention on the side up ahead and decided to use that as a turn around. Now I saw the big rig 18 wheeler coming way down the road. No problem, I thought. He was a considerable ways from me. I whipped into the spot and threw it into reverse. Still time. No hurry. I backed out onto the road and put 'er in drive and I heard this air horn going off. It was obvious the driver was upset at me for being in his way. How he got to me from where I saw him in such a short time leads me to think he may have been traveling at above the posted limit! I don't guess I could blame him for being upset. I WAS "sort of" in his way. He could and did easily go around me, blaring that stupid horn.  I had my window down so I heard him loud and clear. 

What's funny is I am friends with the guy! I recognized him. I knew the truck and where it works out of. I had to laugh. Next time I stop by the guy's shop I'll apologize for getting in his way...IF my ears have stopped ringing from that blasted horn! 

Know what? I want one of those for my car! That or a train horn! Yeah, a train horn! That's it! THAT'S the ticket! Then I can answer when someone gets mad and blasts me with a big rig horn! PLUS I can scare the bejeepers outta slow moving folks in the hammer lane! 

I can hear it now...

Just An Old Bike

 It wasn't much, just an old bicycle made from several older bicycles. It was like a hand-me-down bike from people I never met. Daddy baught it for me one day at a garage sale and I was crazy about it! My very own bicycle! My brother had worked odd jobs to purchase his bike. A cool blue one with the banana seat and hand brakes! It was awesome! Mine had the banana seat but lacked the hand brakes. Not a problem.  Now we'd be able to ride together, and man did we ever?! I painted mine black with a can of spray paint, and even though the paint job was not perfect I didn't care. It didn't make a difference in "the way it ran"! 

Together we rode. We rode around and through the neighborhood. We rode to the Handy Dandy Grocery about a mile from our house. We rode with the kids, Billy and Anita, from one neighborhood over. We rode with John, the kid next door who's dad seemed able to fix any and every problem with our bikes. In the summers we rode with the kids who came to stay with our neighbor Mrs. King. Simply put...We. Had. Fun. Full speed we rode through alleyways and between houses. If you were a seasoned rider, like we were, you could ride full throttle down the road, hang a right at the Arnold's drive and blast through the low hanging limbs between their fence and their garage! We had a full two feet of space! We even formed a "biker club". We were, drumroll please..."Heck's Angels"! I don't know which of us came up with that, but it was the 60's so you have to overlook the ignorance!

Once my cousins came to spend a summer day with us. My brother challanged my cousin Becky to a race. He was on his and Becky rode mine. First one to the concrete slab on our oil top road wins! I, along with my other cousin, stood at the slab slash finish line and yelled "GO!" The race was on and it was a close one! My brother won...sort of. He reached the slab a second or two before Becky but in doing so he hit a one inch rise in the edge of the concrete. He and the bicycle were launched high in the air. They flew over our heads and landed about ten feet beyond the other edge of the slab. We went home, broken arm and twisted metal and all to report the accident to my aunt who was babysitting the lot of us. She was asleep and rather than wake her, we walked to my mother's office about a block away. Off we went to the ER! Mama was MAD, to say the least. Not at us. She was mad at my aunt. I didn't blame my aunt. It was us who decided to race. If anyone was at fault it was us, and I really don't see a case to be made for that. The arm was in a cast for about a month or two then all was well. John's dad fixed the bike  and we rode again like nothing ever happened. For the record, that was the first, last, and ONLY race we ever had!

Time passed and the bicycles gave way to cars. Billy got into motorcycles and rode a chopper for a few years until he accidentally drowned at 18 on a family outing. I lost track of the rest of the kids. 

Those were the days. I wish I had kept that old bike. I really wish we could have kept riding and being kids. 

Where Did They Go?

 I was scrolling through Facebook when I heard a kid singing a song from way back when. I was immediately transported through the years, back to a simpler time. A time when kids could be kids and could be trusted to stay out of serious trouble. Sure we pushed the envelope, but we stayed out of jail. 

Where have those days gone? Now days you can't take your eyes off your kids at the park for fear of some pervert snatching them up and taking off. As I listened to the song (Girl Made In Japan) I let myself drift back to those times. Elvis was the Big Kahuna as far as show business. He made movies like GI Blues, Change Of Habit, Kissin' Cousins, and so many more. Wholesome movies with an actual story line! Man I miss my childhood! The 60's were great times, and the 70's were a wonderful time to be a teenager! The cars were hot and the girls were even hotter. The music of the 70's has never been matched. Not even close. 

Now we have rap and crap like that. Even country music has gone down the sewer pipe. I have been listening to Talk Radio simply because I am sickened by what passes for "music" these days. I long for the days of Dr. Hook and The Medicine Show, Bob Segar, Styx, Bread, Journey, George Jones, Conway Twitty, Elvis, and so many more. Today's music is all about promoting sex, violence, disrespect for women, and hate for authority. How many rap "artists" have we seen in the news going to prison in the past couple of years? How many murders in the name of record labels? It's no wonder kids are out of control and always in trouble with the law. Teen suicide is on the rise. I attribute that to the message of their music.

Where have the good old days gone? They aren't really gone, just tucked away in the backs of minds of folks like you and me. Triggered back into the present by a song or an old movie that shows up unexpectedly. Thank God for those memories. They may be the only thing keeping some of us sane. 

Outta The Way!!

 This morning I had opportunity to go into Greenville, Texas for a minute. As I entered the city limits I found myself behind a red pickup with Oregon license plates and several bumper stickers. One sticker simply read "FDT" while another said "My dog is a democrat." 

Reading the second one told me what the first one meant. I will not say it on here, but if you know, you know. The dog one is more telling than some understand. I am sure this person's dog is in fact a democrat and I am furthermore certain it probably voted, along with several of their dead relatives, in the last three elections! You see, I do not trust democrats. ANY democrat. The ones that run for office, or the ones that blindly follow them and vote the sorry devils in. 

I sat there behind the truck at the red light and waited semi-patiently, for the light to turn. When it did the guy took his sweet time moving. I believe I may have yelled, "GET OUTTA THE ROAD!" or something to that effect. I know I said something and motioned with my hand for him to kindly move along. I am not normally the kind of driver that makes hand gestures while driving, but this idiot was already on my bad side from jump street. I'm not sure if it was the democrat bumper stickers or the yankee liscense tags. Perhaps it was his lack of consideration for me and the good republican folks he was holding up with his slow acceleration, but he is not on my Christmas card list! 

Why do we let these people in our state? What good are they? What purpose do they serve?! Always democrating up my Texas! As my dear old grandmother would have said, "Makes my butt want a dip of snuff!"

Y'all have fun, and don't give them stupid democrats an inch!

We'll holler atcha.

Bureaucratic BS Strikes Again

 Isn't it great? Isn't it just wonderful how the government gets involved and screws up a good thing? I have been working with my doctor for months in order to begin using a type of medication to lose weight. Good news and bad news. The good news is that there is a new program to assist people in keeping the cost down on these medications. Some can cost in excess of $1500 a month. The new program caps the cost at $50! Now the bad news... You have to qualify, or in my case not have a disqualifying condition. Never mind that I need to be on the medication to help me lose about 100 lbs. so that I can live a little longer. I am automatically disqualified because I have sleep apnea. Not that the sleep apnea would interfere with the medication or even the effects, no it's because the sleep apnea is covered by medicare part D and they won't cover two conditions. 

The government at it's finest, folks. They will cover a crack head and all their meds for FREE. They will provide FREE methadone for hard core users. But they will not allow me to pay a cheap price for a medication that can save my sizable butt and extend it's duration for a few extra years! 

Would You Pay?

 I have spent over 30 years of my life searching for a way to become a decent caricature artist. I have a library of books, tapes (Remember tapes?), and CDs. I have watched hundreds of hours of YouTube videos. I am determined to learn the art of caricature!

Would you pay a fella ten bucks to draw a funny picture of you? All you gotta do is sit down for about 5-7 minutes! I know some folks that can't sit still for 5 minutes if their life depended on it, but they aren't my target audience! I have a better idea...How about you send me a good, clear photo of your head and I will try to draw it! If I can do it I will do it and email it to you for free! Just send it to my email at dwmeeks@gmail.com and let's see what happens!

Be the FIRST!!