Summer 2013 July 9

79 degrees this morning, perfect day for the patio this morning.  

Really hectic day yesterday, had to spend most of this morning catching up, so don't have time to write much right now, hopefully tonight.

I promised myself I would always write "Something" every day, so I will.

Something.

Evening, Tuesday, July 9:  Sitting out on patio, really first evening out here.  It is nice, shady and a light wind keeping the bugs away.  

Life can change suddenly.  A friend was coming over to pick up Aliene for a meeting they were going to, and she hit a mail box and smashed up her car.  That moment when you wished you could take back 5 seconds and you know you will be spending a lot of time etc. on details.  Fortunately she was not injured and the car is drivable, but she is still facing the hassles of car repairs etc. Monday and time for nothing, with time being the most expensive.

The summer seems to be speeding by.  Soon it will by my 66th Birthday.  I hear that and turn around looking for my Dad.  I can't  be 66, I feel too young, I have to many things I want to do before I grow up!  Actually, Daddy would be 113 this year and Mama would have been 101.  Time passes whether we are ready for it or not.

Soon we will be going to the Courter/Wherry reunion.  Returning to the basic roots of my childhood each year is a strange journey, each year my daughter and granddaughters (and Aliene and all my brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, Nieces, Nephews etc.) getting older also.  Sometimes I go out the the farm and Holton, Kansas where I developed some of my earliest memories.  I see towns I remember when I was a child, such as Circleville, Whiting, Wetmore, Downs, Netawaka, etc. and I realize many of my memories, even now, are routed in this area.   When I vision a town square, I envison Holton town square (as it was almost 55 yeas ago now!!!!! and a jail, the Holton Jail etc.  I still remember walking around the courthouse and fining a dime, so I made a point to walk there every time we came to town.  (I never found anything again.) The memories rush in, even when I am rooted in the present.  

Strange things such as the "new highway" when I was a child, now almost 60 years old!  Of course, the farmhouse I grew up in is long torn down, as is the school building I went to the first 4 grades at (literally a "one room" school with a teacher (Miss Porterfield) who taught all 8 grades.  

I can remember looking at an ad showing a group of four people playing cards as the car drove itself down the highway.  I really thought that would happen by the time I "got old" at 30 or so.  Maybe soon, it will be a reality.  

I remember buying the fist transistor radio.  It cost $20 and I put down .50 in layaway.  I think Vincent got it out, since I would never have had that much money!  (My friend got .50 per week allowance and I remember thinking, if I could get .50 per week, I would never need anything more!  He still lives in the same house by the way, with a family of his own.)