Monday March 22, 2004
7:00p
     Spring happened on Saturday, but that was mentioned before wasn't it?
     On Sunday afternoon my afternoon ride around lead me over to Berea. There's a building there on the left of 183 after you pass Berea. It's a Mexican resturant now. I have passed it many times over the years when going to Greenville and the airport and other places in the East. But this time I stopped and parked in one of the nearby parking places. I just sat there and stared at the building. Going back in time some 40 years. Trying to make it register with me that I was in that building that many years ago. It was one of the first McDonalds in Greenville then ... back when a hamburger was 15 cents and fries were a nickel.
     That's seems to be what I've done for the last serveral years ... always trying to make connections with places in the past. I've seldom lived during the present. The future always seem too gloomy to think about. But then I've always thought the future would be better than the present. Something to do with hope I guess.
     That never happened either.

Wednesday March 24, 2004
6:10a
     Drove up town to the post office after supper. Mailed in the tax forms. I filled out schedule D this time. I guess the last time I used that form was back in the late seventies when I sold the Fedility mutual funds. I went through that form three or four times trying to make sure it was done correctly. Each time my refund got smaller. When one reaches a minimum value for a refund then it must be correct. Of course if you owe more taxes when you reach the maximum value is when you know it's done right.

5:10a
     TurningTables has started blogging again. He's been corresponding with RiverBend also, she was glad to see new entries at his webspace.
     I've probably gone a month without making entries before. I guess my life has gotten to be such a bore it even bores me to bore myself with writting about it.
     I sent Vlenin an email weeks ago too, after a really long no send period. Then it is me going silent again.
     I've thought most every morning of writing email, of making Journal entries. But then I read the news sites, occassionally the boards. Then it's time to get ready for work.
     My head doesn't hurt like it use to. It did for a couple of weeks the first of the April. That problem has cost me 1,100 dollars with insurance paying another 2,000 dollars.
     Brother Daniel was here last week. He and his lady friend are now on that motorcyle ride he's been wanting to do for years. His motorcyle stayed here during the Winter. Now his car is parked beside the house. Frances is suppose to come down this weekend to move it to her place.
     Haven't heard from brother Robert in a while too. I think it was January or December when he called. I guess everything is going like always with him and his family. He's one of those I at least think about writing email to. I think a lot but never seem to do much of anything about what I think of doing.
     The war in Iraq has turned more ugly this month. The worst is yet to happen. Such a sad, sad state of affairs.
     Who would have thought my generation would see the beginning of the end of the Great Experiment. What use to be the essence of the States has been sold and bought many times over. It looks like it's been bought for keeps now by the new american century, also know as, the new one world american cooperate empire.
     And there are no rebel jedi heading this way.

Monday May 3, 2004
4:05a
     Saturday morning about 5:20 I was already awake when I heard the thump and noise. I got up and got dressed and walked down the hall without turning the lights on. I called out to Mom to see if she was all right. She said she had fallen and then I turned the lights on to see her crawling to the bathroom. She had left her oxygen thing on the bed and wanted it so I got that. Then I went to get a chair from the kitchen for her to use to get up off the floor. I tried to help lift her as best I could. She eventually made it into the bath and then I went back to the front bedroom to finish getting dressed and the spreads folded up.
     So much for the first thing I did on my birthday.
     I did the usual morning things of washing clothes and hauling off the trash. Then I laid back down till almost 11:00 when I went to get the groceries.
     DM came up that afternoon. I sat and listen to him and Mom talk some. I had printed out my notes about businesses in Pickens a while back and I took that copy down to him earlier this past week. He said he was enjoying reading through it and seeing names he hadn't thought of in 200 years.
     I drove over my house for a little while later in the afternoon but didn't do anything.
     Sunday Leander Susan and Chris drove up to Lejuan's and I went up there to met them. They had called the night before and wanted to go out to eat. So that was about 1:00 o'clock when they arrived and we stood in line for 30 minutes. It was after 2:00 when we finished and left. A rain storm came by while we were eating. They went on up to Mom's for an hour or so before leaving.
     So that was the first weekend of May of 2004.
     I haven't been sleeping well again. I quit taking those pills the last doctor prescribed for the head pain problem. They were only keeping the pain away I think and not really fixing the problem. I think it was them that had been letting me sleep soundly for the last few weeks. But the pharmacist says there's not in them to do that. So now I have to get use to waking up early again. Except it's more like just barely dozing and waking up every few minutes. It seems like I woke up dozens of times last night.
     Robert called yesterday evening too. He had sent a long email the other day and I still haven't been able to write one back. But then my would only be a few sentences long anyway. He's still taking work home and doing the job there. He's thinking about taking a long trip too now and may "winter over" here.
     Daniel is a couple of weeks into his motorcyle trip. Sometime this week he went through Hughes Arkansas, the same place I went through and Dad and Mom and I also in 1970 when I was at the Middleton navy base.
     That's all for now. Maybe I can eat and finish doing the morning things and lay back down for a while.

Wednesday May 5, 2004
5:10a
     Well it's back to restless nights. I've been wakeing up and rolling over every hour every night for a week or two now. Just skimming the surface of sleep.
     And I'm back to spending time reading the news sites and message boards instead of writting in this journal. It's time to go get ready for the rest of the day now too.
     The States occupation of Iraq stepped into a really deep mud hole last Thursday or Friday. "What a really, really big mess you've gotten us into this time," said Ollie to Stanley.

Thursday May 6, 2004
3:25a
     It's been another restless night of almost but not quite like sleeping. Quater dozing off, waking up, rolling over and repeat every thirty minutes. So now I've got my breakfast cereal eaten, I'm going to finish getting ready for the day and then lay back down and do more of the almost sleeping thing.

Monday May 17, 2004
5:20p
     Had a cold Saturday through Saturday of last week. I didn't go to work on Monday and Tuesday. On some days during the week May 3 through Friday May 7 I started moving boxes out of the middle back bedroom at my house. I think sturring up dust and germs that hadn't been distrubed for five or six years is what started the cold. Then there was that dead animal stink that was in that room last Summer, Fall and Winter. Still haven't found where that was comming from yet either. It may have been one of those stinking snakes that hibrenated over Winter there. But anyway last Saturday before the cold really set in I did get part of the floor cleaned in that room.
     Mom has the cold now.
     Went down to the head doctor on Tuesday. The cold let me know that my head pain problem is always lurking about. He wanted me to try some pepper derivative that some man has put together. It's on the internet. He said he would buy back what I didn't use if it didn't work. I thought that kind of odd, a doctor promoting some internet medicine man pitch. I doubt if I will get any.
     I've been trying to smoke less now too. Yesterday I smoke 6 cigs and today it's been 5 cigs but I've got to finish the evening first. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. I'm beginning to wonder how much smoking is causing my head pain problems. It's making me cough up flim and it's the coughing that makes my head hurt.
     The news for last two or three weeks has been about Iraqi prisoner abuse and the terrorists beheading one of their captives. It's all about visual aides. All that stuff has been happening from the beginning of the Iraq occupation. But as long as it's only words on paper there's not much uproar about the horrors of war. It's only when images are seen that the people get upset. That's the real obscene and repulsive nature of the visual aides, or rather the lack of them. Out of sight out of mind.
     Robert's computer got that latest computer virus. That happened the end of April I think and I guess he still hasn't got rid of it yet. Sometimes I wonder if my computer has it. The internet explorer causing an error a few seconds or a minute after I close it. And I re-did the hard drive and software not all that many weeks ago too.
     It's really strange, or it's getting stranger, the way the States has gone for the last three years. There are always those little signs and clues that the great satan has taken over the country. He's in the process of taking over the rest of the world as well. And the general public really doesn't see it happening either. Maybe they just don't want to see.

Monday May 31, 2004
6:45p
     I have been taking one of my two vacation weeks this week. I never really made any plans to go anywhere or do anything. But that is what I normally do for my days off anyway.
     On Monday I cut down the holly bush at the corner of the carport. It had lots of dead limbs on it for the past year or may two. It looked like if I trimmed them off there wasn't going to be much left anyway. So it's all piled up along the shrubs next to the carport now. I will have to haul them over to my place and dump them next to the driveway. I will have to make room for them since I've already picked up fallen limbs around part of my house a month or two ago. I will try and do that tomorrow.
     On Tuesday I drove over to Chattoga River where US 76 crosses into Georgia. It's where the rafters and kayakers put in or get out. Then I went on to Clayton and Tallula gorge. It was couple of the places I went last October on vacation. I did more driving around than looking at the site. Mostly trying to find a place to eat lunch in Tallula but it is more of a community than a town. I just went though the visitors center and down to the overlook into the gorge. I stopped at on of the old tourist shops on the edge of the gorge too. I got a bottle of apple cider and one of raspberry cider. It's not strong like I remember from when we were kids. I got a small bell for mom as a souviner.
     Wednesday I went back to the Chattoga River and spent the day there. Just sitting on the rocks and watching the rafters go by. There were two groups, one at about 10:30 and another one about 1:30. Inbetween the rafters there was only me for a few minutes before others came down there. I sat in the truck at lunch time and ate some granola bars and drank some grapefruit juice. Then I went back down to the river for part of the afternoon. Other than that it was just a ride over to the river and back to my house. I sat around in the truck over there for an hour or so.
     Thursday I went over to my house early in morning time and got the white truck. I leave the battery disconnected so the first thing I have to do is connect it back up. I will let the motor turn over a few times and then I just let it sit for a few minutes. It usually cranks easily after that. So that's what I did. The brakes are always sticky after it sits for so many months. I sort-of slid down the drive way. They would stick and skid just about every time I applied the brakes. Did that all the way back to Mom's house. I put a load of the brush from the holly bush on the back and hauled it over to my house. Dumpped that and two other loads in the same place as the other brush. The last load was the limbs and trunks. Those got stacked high next to the driveway. I really need to try and do something with them rather than let them decay away. That holly bush had been at the parents house since 1957 when the house was built.
     Friday was spent at the campfire ring. I burned most of the oldest pile of limbs and brush next to the campfire. Some of it got cut up into fire place lengths of wood and stacked next to the ring. I guess some of that wood had been laying there for 20 years. Underneath the leaves I found some small pine limbs; seems like those things never decay. There may have been some snakes and rats and other things under all that pile too. But I didn't seen any. I did see a frog though. There are some molding planks over there too. They are from when Mom had vynale siding put on her house. I don't remember when that was.
     Friday night I went up to Oolenoy community. For a couple of years I've heard they play music there every Friday night. So I finally made myself go. I got there about 7:30 I guess, there were several people there already. One I know from work was outside talking to somebody. We greeted each other and I went on into the old school house. I didn't know anyone else, except later I saw another person from work. The music was typical country-blue-gospel type. The muscians, about 20 or so I guess, were sitting in a big circle at one end of the big room. The benches and chairs were for the listeners in the rest of that room. I say sort-of by myself and just looked and listened.
     After a while I saw others going into the next room, one was the person I know from work. So I went over there and listen to them play. They would stand around in a group and everyone was just picking chords and runs. Then two of them would kind-of connect and start playing then the others would gather around them to join in. After they all or someone decided it was enough they just quit and went back to tuning and picking chords and runs till it happened all over again. It was really interesting to watch that happen.
     Saturday afternoon I got my old guitar out from behind the couch where it's been for 10 years or more. I cleaned the case and then cleaned the guitar too. Got some of my music books and notes together too. I've started trying to pick my tunes again. The first one to come back was Red River Valley. Maybe this time around things will start to happen.
     Sunday I finished cleaning the floor in the middle back room of my house. That was something I had started 5 or 6 weeks ago (more like 8 weeks, the first week of March before I went to see the head doctor) when I got a cold. Now I get to spend the after work time for the next couple of weeks putting all that stuff back into that room. I should sort-of sort through them boxes and toss some stuff but I won't. I'll just shove them all back in there and try to forget about them for another 10 years.
     It was raining and storming this morning. I left about 8:30 to try and find something to do or some place to go. I ended up at Sliding Rock #11, sitting on the big rock under an umbrella. I stayed there about 45 minutes and then left to ride through Eastatoe valley. On the ride up and out of the East end I thought about the time I walked that road with my brothers and their friends back in the early 1960s. Where else would I ride expect where I've been hundreds of times before? Then it was go sit in front of Table Rock for a while and then back to Mom's house.
     This afternoon I went down to DM and Micky's for a visit. They are doing like aways and we talked about the usual things, the deteriation of the state of the States.
     So that's how I spent this vacation week. Didn't go anywhere far away like the beach of mountians of somewhere where I have not been before.

Tuesday June 22, 2004
4:44a
     The Journal entries are getting fewer and fewer, are they not? I think about the need to make them but I do not. I just can not find the motivation to write. I know, sort-of, it is because everything appears to be doom and gloom ahead.
     The States has become un-controllable by its own citizens. The New American Century (that basically means New America Empire) has begun. The internal systems are beyound repair and too few seem to care. I think eveyone has accepted their fate at the mercy of those who are in power.
     Uncle DM has always said that the best times are behind us now. The world's Greatest Generation produced off spring who wasted away most everything that had been gained. Well, maybe it was their children's children who have made a really big tash heap of civilization.
     Life here is nothing but working and staying around Mom's house. Just doing only what is absoultely neccessary and not one iota more. I just don't care anymore.
     The HomeGold executives have bought their way out of civil suits, most likely with the money they stole and squandered away from Carolina Investors. So the new American way has prevailed again, steal other people's money, live well, and buy a get out of jail card with the stolen loot if you get caught.
     At the plant they are doing a major re-arranging. The factoy floor is practically empty of machinery and assembly lines. They are going to turn it into a refurbishing plant, re-build the tools that use to be made there. I got the lab's camera and walked through the place to make pictures. So much empty floor space. I guess the last time it was like that was when the change from sewing machine cabinets to power tools happened, the change from Poinsett to Deihl.
     They are replacing the wooden block flooring with concrete, or what was left of the old floor. The whole lower end machining has been done and the last section was being taking up. I got some more of the blocks from there too. Every now and then I would think of granduncle Addison working there and walking on the wooden blocks.
     Well, that's all for now ... probably for another three weeks too ... there's just nothing happy to write about.