Sunday January 1, 2006
4:42
Forty five years ago we moved into the new house on Fox Squirrel Ridge.
Rode through the old neighborhood on New Year's day again.
Sunday January 8, 2006
1:15p
My back problem is mostly over with I hope. I've been taking only 1/2 pill each of the two medicines for a few days so maybe the medicine isn't covering up much pain. There's still stiffness and it feels like the muscles are not like they use to be. My right front hip feels like it will give away sometimes. That's where the nerve was cut when the hyernia operation was done so maybe that's all that is. I have been taking magnesium supplements for my migranes and I just read on the label that you're not suppose to take that stuff with muscle relaxers. Oh well, it's too late now so whatever's going to happen will happen.
Robert called a few days ago. He and Mom talked some and then we talked. It was mostly the usual thing about family, jobs, work and the grandkids. He's going to have one of his hips replaced in two weeks. He will have to be careful about bending over and stuff like that for 6 or 7 weeks. After we finished talking he called back. He wants me to get together those letters he wrote back in the late 1980s. He wrote some to uncle DM too and wanted those if he still has them. He plans to scan them into some computer file format to pass around to his family.
There's going to be a special Monday morning meeting down at Anderson tomorrow. No one's saying what it's about. Maybe a public firing or shaming or something. More likely just a talk about what the new year will be like, cut backs, layoffs, jobs moving to China or else just a pep talk about the booming business.
Have be corresponding with Randy again after a couple of years of not keeping up with each other. He still has his faith to keep him going. I told him I wish I had his faith and trust.
It's nice today, upper 50s and sunshine, and it's January. I guess I'll just go outside some today. Should find something to do to exercise my back muscles.
January, February, March 2006
Some times which I don't remember.
These are the things that happened during the rest of Winter and Early Spring.
The first two or three weeks of January were mostly typical I guess. It's been too long ago to remember anything, except work related stuff. The weather was pretty good, not really cold, cold and there were no more ice or snow storms. It must have been just the regular, weekly stuff to do: work, go by my house, wash clothes on the weekend.
The stuff at work was what really got to me. There was this one engine rotor that the chief engine engineer wanted anlayzed. It was done over and over and over with little changes. That went on and on and on for three weeks. It was all for some improvement in the design. I learned that later because I thought it was breaking during high spin test.
They, he and another group of engineers wanted a new engine design analyzed too. That started just before the rotor thing. So I was trying to keep both of the projects moving along. I was really wanting to work on the new engine since it needed lots of work. The chief engineer down there wanted to design for extra high gas pressure which made all the loads on the parts extra high too. We normally design for the given loads and then calculate a safety factor for any extra loading or under estimating of strenght.
Oh well I really don't want to go into all the details. The really bad part was I me getting stressed out and some bad communications with the the engine people. It's was hard to get them to respond to my emails. But anyway I needed some geometry changed or explained why it wasn't what I was expecting. Sent out an email about that, it got ignored and unanswered. The analysis wasn't done but the vp down there wanted a meeting anyway thinking it was all going as planned. He was one who didn't read my emails saying it wouldn't be done. He got all mad because the work wasn't done and no one was communicating with each other. Yet he was one of them too.
So blah, blah, blah. It was a bad scene, the vp proved himself to be the self centered vp jerk he is but yet he still gets away with it. I was upset for days during it all and now I don't care about doing any good work for them anymore.
End of that mess.
Went through the yearly review thing during March. My boss and his boss tried extra hard to get me a promotion and big raise. It didn't work out. I got passed over again but did get a bonus, about half of what the promotion would have gotten me. But I had already told my boss I wasn't expecting any change in attitude from the chief vp down there in Anderson. He's another one of them self centered self important vp types. So anyway it's just another reason why I don't care what kind of work or not I do there anymore. I do my best, my boss knows I do extra good work, Earl knows, but it doesn't get me anything extra.
During March Dan and his lady friend visited with Mom. They spent a week here then went out on their motorcyle riding for a week, then another week here, then they left. Mary did lots of cooking while they were here, it was something new every day sometimes. Jackie came over the last Sunday before they left so she got to see Dan and Mary. The first week I told Jackie they were here and she came over that Sunday, but Dan and Mary left on their ride that day too. The Sunday Jackie came over we were out riding around Pickens and up next to Table Rock. Dan and Mary still talk about buying a place down here to have a place to stay a few months of the year. They looked at all the expensive houses and lots.
Mom wasn't feeling well while they were here. After they left she finally decided to go see the doctor. She had pneumonia again. So April was spent with her recovering from that.
Back in February I got a cell phone, partly to have if/when we get moved to Anderson so I will have something for Mom to always call me with while that far away and on the road. I've used a little, last months bill showed 16 minutes of useage. It doesn't cover the Highway 11 area which is where I spend some time on Saturdays and Sundays. So I guess I will eventually have to get a new service later. Should have known I would get something I wouldn't be satified with.
Brother Robert had his hip replacement thing done. That started back in January too. He sent an email yesterday and I got it this morning. He said everything is ok and the doctor said he could go back to doing his normal things. He still has to exercise it more to get it back into shape and he's already talking about having the other one done is a few years. He's already been talking about doing a hiking trip too.
Oh well I guess that's all to write about now. I've already forgotten most of what's been happening the last few months. It looks like my entries into this Journal are getting fewer and further apart. Instead of doing a book by the four seasons I'll just have to make one book for the whole year. My life just isn't worth writting about anymore.
Oh yeah. Rumsfeld, Cheney, PNAC, Bush, and all those other neocon America destoryers go to that really, really, really bad place and burn.
Saturday May 6, 2006
I don't remember the time.
I've been going up to Holly Springs cemetery for a couple of years now. Mostly to sit and think and look at the mountains, clouds. There's a grave right next to where I park, it's Woodrow Beal Chastain's, he was killed in Vietnam. I'm sure I called Dad and Mom one time in late August or early September back in 1971. I asked about what the news was and Dad said Chastain had been killed. Didn't really think much about it, it was the Nam war and those things happened and we were use to it. But it was kind of strange when I started looking at the headstones and saw his name. So my sitting there in the cemetery and thinking about the Nam and Navy years was what I ended up doing most of the times. Last October I wrote up what I remembered from August 1971 and some things in later years, made a copy of it and along with a picture from an old slide of me standing outside the apartment I lived in at the time, put the two papers in a plastic bottle along with some quarters from 1965-1971 and left it all at the grave. It stayed there till about a month ago. In the meantime I would look up what I could about Chastain and his unit in Nam, asked around about finding out what happened in the fire fight he was killed in but never learned anything. But anyway, this Saturday they dedicated a bridge to him. It's on Highway 178 just north of SC 11 and between his grandparents and parents homesites. His grandparents house is now the club house at the golf course at Gauldy Falls. There was a nice crowd at the dedication. I really wasn't sure if I should go to it or not, feeling out of place among mostly strangers. A lady came up and shook my hand but never said anything. I think she was a sister to Chastain and may have been the one who came up to the grave a couple of weeks after I left the bottle there. Some man did too and said he was in one of the other classes during high school. During part of the dedication a bird sat on top of the cross on the church steeple. Just sat there and chirped away while the pastor spoke. I thought that was nice, especially when the pastor said Woodie was probably looking down at us gathered in the church yard. I thought yeah, his spirit is up on the cross churping along.
Monday May 29, 2006
2:50p
It seems like since the end of March there's been nothing to work on at work. The days and weeks go by without any new projects to work on. I've tried to start some fill in type work projects but I just can't get my mind into it. It seems so pointless when I don't know what will be useful to do and some things I've thought about might be useful but still can't get started on them. It's slow for the other two analysts also but they still get something to keep busy.
Two or three years ago a couple of the engineers had gear designs to do. One of them was trained by the other to take over from him when he retired. But then the new guy went off to China to teach them how to do gear designs. Now they don't get any new designs for new products to do.
There was an email sometime back to the chief analyst, it was from China and they were wanting to know if the finite element modeling and analysis was done correctly. It was something the Chinese engineers had done. So we're not getting much stuff from them anymore either.
The parking lot down at the plant looks really empty in the afternoons. There may be only 5 or 6 cars left when I leave. There's nothing be re-work going on in the plant now, and that's not all the time either. Some days I walk through the place and there's not much going on.
So it's looking like the end of the ride down there. I'm even beginning to wonder if they will let us go before moving us to Anderson, if that were to ever happen anyway. I'm mentioned it to one of the regulatory lab who's been there since before I started in 1976. We tell each other it looks like the end of the bus ride.
I got an email from someone one day this past week. It was to my lonehawk address for my website and it was about the Cryptology 101 webpage. He was wanting more clues to de-code the page. I wrote back that it was done a long time ago and I've forgotten the en-coding method used. I did spend a few hours late trying to figure out what I had done 9 years ago. I wrote a program to count the letters in the coded text and then made some comparisons to the letter count for a couple of webpages, the Campfire one and the Talk to Me Wall one. It's the second one and was done without alphabet substitution, only the matrix diagonal coding method. But I still haven't figured out the matrix dimensions.
It was interesting how that page has been up on the internet all this time and only one person has ever asked about it. I had thought it might draw some attention after the terrorist attacks in New York and DC. But for all I know the man who sent the letter was from one of those secret agencies and they had given up trying to decode it. Ha, ha, as if they were even be interested in anything like that anyway. Still the Terrorists page did get looked at in August 2001 before the event happened in September. They may have been looking for clues about terrorists and terrorism then too.
Mom's health is still getting worst. She can't do much of anything without getting out of breath. Her arthritis is really bad, one of her legs sticks out sideways and I'm scared it's going to give away on her and she'll fall one of these times. The weather is hot already, she doesn't turn on the fans or air conditioner, she doesn't turn on the lights anymore, she spends most of the day in bed, she sleeps most of the day too I think. But when someone calls she does seem to perk up and talk with them for a short while then it's back to the other normal ways.
Bob Hayes brought Vicky and Elizabeth up yesterday for a short visit. They stayed about an hour. Bob and Mom can't hear well so they had a hard time talking to each other. Elizabeth goes back to California today or tomorrow and Vicky leaves about the 6 or 7 of next month.
DM and Mickie seem to be doing there normal routines. I haven't been down to visit with them but about 2 time this year.
I've been getting depressed or more so the last couple of months too. The work thing or lack of work and thinking about what might happen with Mom. Of course there's the State of the States thing with all the politics and wars and stuff. It just doesn't look like a nice future anymore.
It's been dry this year already. The grass doesn't grow but the weeds do and I've cut grass maybe 3 times only. I started watering the pecan tree last night. One of its limbs fell this week after a wind storm. I figure it's become too dry and brittle which is what happened last year too.
This afternoon I drove the truck down to Gwinn's Tire in Easley to get new tires. The tires shop in Pickens where I usally went is closed, it was bought by the Ford dealership next door to it. I hadn't seen Cooter since high school I guess. His older brother Roger is preacher at the old church across from Alice Manufacturing on the Easley highway. He and my brothers were good friends back in the late 1950s. One of the tire workers came out to the office while I was paying the bill and talking with Cooter. Between the three of us we were seniors in high school for the years 1966, 1967 and 1968.
Obviously I haven't been keep up my Journal like I use too. The entries have become lots fewer now. I guess there's been stuff to write about but I just haven't felt like writing about them. Seems like I wrote a long time ago making Journal entries is like re-living bad times all over again.
Monday July 3, 2006
9:20a
Last Monday it rained. It rained a lot, a whole lot. It started about 5:30 or so in the morning and it stopped about 1:30 in the afternoon. It rained a little over an inch per hour.
I went on to work a few minutes to 8, I don't go in early anymore and haven't for a long time. It was just a hard rain when getting from the truck to the front door of the building. During the morning it would rain so hard I could hear it on the metal roof of the smoking area outside my office window.
There was one time I was outside smoking and saw a group of 3 or 4 standing underneath umbrellas at the corner of the bulding. I figured the storm drain had stopped up and the water was making a pool at the loading docks around the corner. I had seen that once before. Later I walked out there to look too. It was up to the axils on the trucks.
There's a dike or level that runs alongside the front offices. I looked out one of the back doors and you could just barely see the water level on the other side.
About 12:00 the boss was walking around and he was seeing about if the plant was going to be shut down. I looked through the windows in the conference room next to the front door. At the low point on the dike next to the drive way enterance the water was flowing over and into the front lawn. There was pooling starting.
I go back to the office and start shuting down the computer and getting stuff off the floor. Go back to the lab area and see if there's anything there to do but there wasn't much. By the time we got ready to leave the water in front was about two steps from the top of the porch at the doors. We had to leave through the corner door at the personal offices. Some people were taking off their shoes. I just took quick look at the water at the steps and went on through. It took three steps in over the shoe water to get to higher pavement.
It had mostly quit raining hard by then but still got wet because the wind was blowing the rain under the umbrella. I drove out to the back bridge and looked at it. Water was up to just at pavement level with some rushing over the leading edge. I could have drove over it but didn't, some other did. I went back across the parking lot to the front enterence. Some people were wading to the cars where the water was flowing over the dike. Some were taking pictures too.
I turned left onto the highway and go down to Holder's Bridge road. Turn there to get a look at the old bridge where we use to play when we were kids. It was lake and there were several vehicles stopped at the edge. I think they may have been tring to get people out of the house that next to the creek and bridge. I get turned around and go up Trotter Hill and the Ridge to get to Mom's house.
After eating lunch I spend a half hour using my old blow dryer to dry out my shoes. Then I spend another half hour or forty five minutes taking it apart to trying fixing a part that was loose and had been for a really long time. That lead to cleaning it up while it was apart. Getting it back together was difficult, the two halves would snap back together easily. I had to just force them together out on the porch.
Next I drove around some to look at the waters. Went back down to in front of the Ingles place. Most of the water had gone back down by then. Went back over the Holder's Bridge by the Runnymede road. It was still flowing over the road on the Pumpkintown highway side. It really looked like the bridge had become a dam because the water was low on the down stream side but still high on the upstream side. I started to go on out Runnymede road but it was blocked off. In fact all the roads leading to the bridge were blocked but I went around one off the barriers.
Drove out to the Flea Market. It was a lake and people were gathering on the sides of the road to look at it. Drove on out to the Corner's Market about 4 miles then turned around. Went back through town and then north on the mountian highway and then Gravely road out to my house. The water was still going under that bridge. The trailer that sides next to the road was partially under water. It looked like it was up to the porch there. That was the place I stopped one time to let the owner know his horse had gotten out of the pasture and was in the road. That must have been during the mid 1980s.
At my house the water was flowing over the rock falls and down the drive way. There was lots of leaves and branches washed onto the driveway. I just drive up and get turned around and then leave again. I did start to make pictures with the cell phone camera. Stopped and looked at the water comeing down each side of the rock falls for a while.
Next I went to Meece's Mill. There was one lady pulled over to the side next to the dam and was making pictures. I drive by slowly and keep on going, but decide to go back and make some pictures too. I get in the parking area and there's a truck right in the middle of it. When I backed up to get turned around I back into the rock bank and bend the bumper up. So that kind of spoiled the rest of the drive but not as much as it would have years ago. I've gotten to where I expecte bad things to happen and now I don't really care anymore. I make a couple of pictures of the water under the back porch of the mill and comeing of the dam back through the trees. Then I leave.
It's on up the mountain highway wondering where to go next. Get up to Holly Springs and make a quick look-see at Woodrow's Bridge. The water there had already gone back down and you really couldn't tell it had rained hard. By this time I've already decided to go out to the Sliding Rock #11, now offically called Long Shoals.
When I get there the parking area in empty. I get my walking stick out of the back. While there I try letting the gate down but it would go because of the bent up bumper. First I go down the steep side to get near the water flowing over the normally dry rocks. It's strange seeing that much water where there's usually none. It looks like a water falls in places. I get a couple of pictures then walked back up to the parking area.
I went down the old road way next and there's a vehicle there backed up to some trash cans. There's a couple out on the edge looking at the waters. It's a big pond area now with tree trunks floating toward the outlet area. Exchange a few comments with the couple then get my pictures and start to leave. They are back at their vehicle and the man is getting the trash. I ask if he's Dennis Chastain and he say's yes. Told him I figure it would be since he would be the only person picking up trash from wild areas. Told him I appreciate what's he's done for the upper part of the county too.
So now it's get on back to Mom's house. I go the old way back by Big Rock and my house. When I pass Reece's Mill again the cell phone rings. While tring to press the button to answer I press the wrong one, still don't quite know how to opperate the little gadget. But it rings again and I get it answered. It's Mom and she's saying the power has gone off at the house. I can't talk and drive yet so I pull into some one's driveway. Told here where I was and would be back in a two or three minutes. She says don't rush.
Just as I drive into the carport it rings again. She said the power came on then went off again. Told her I just drove up and she thought that was funny, being on the phone talking to me in the carport. She was talking on the phone with neighbor Hunt by the time I get into the house. I get her connected to the small oxygen tank then go outside to walk around to see if any of the power lines were down. But I didn't see any. Later I drove around a bit and saw some utility workers next to the big water tank on the ground. But anyway the power came back on about an hour or so.
Saturday and Sunday were pretty much normal weekend days. Did the usual chores. Didn't ride up to Holly Springs are go anywhere Sunday. Just sat out in the truck to listen to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me. Fixed some tuna and egg salad sandwich stuff for lunch.
Saturday night the new neighbors started shooting off fireworks right at the time we go to bed. Mom had already gone to lay down. I thought she might be a sleep so I didn't mention anything about what the noises were. Before I get laid down on the floor she comes to the door asking me what was going on. I tell her and then she goes back down the hall to her room. So I should have just went ahead and said something when I went to bed.
The elderly couple that lives on the old Woods lot, the ones whose's house burned down about 5 years ago. The old man died about three or four weeks ago. There was a young couple, the man who cuts their lawn and his wife, had been staying up there for days before this. He, the old man, was getting into bad shape and they were helping his wife take care of him and her too. But anyway, one day I drive by after work I think and see the corner's vehicle up there. Some time later one of the neighbors called and told what had happened. He just finally passed away.
The neighbors took some food up one day, the day before the service. I was to fix some rolls so that's what I did for Mom and me.
Went up to the visitation at noon time, on the following Monday, the wife spoke with me shortly. There were a few people there and I didn't expect to see many. They had the service afterwards but I went on back to work. One of the neighbors told about the service many days later. It was an Eastern Orthodox type and the priest's came from down in Georgia. She said they had to wait for them to arrive and it was a long formal service too. But she did mention that there were lots of people there, well more than one would have thought since the elder couple mostly stayed to themselves.
He was buried up around Philidelphia where his parents were buried. She went up there and stayed a week.
But this past Friday I think, she called and wanted to come down to visit with Mom. I went around front and walked with her to the back porch. When every she or her husband came they always brought something. She did this time too. She and Mom talked a while. She mostly told about what happened up north. The lady she was staying with had a heart attack, the neighbors up there were young and noisey. Something about travel adventures and meeting someone. Then she left and I walked her back up the road.
So what else has happened? Mom had another fall but didn't break anything. Brused side and elbow and a small cut on the elbow. She doesn't know what happened. She just sat down in the den floor after getting her breakfast tray to her chair. That was the morning when I decided to trim the hedge next to the metal building. And while doing that I thought about being away from the house and wouldn't be able to hear her if something happened and she called. So when I get back inside there she is sitting on the floor. Just another one of them thought-happening events.
So this is enough for now.
Sunday October 29, 2006 (1st Entry)
6:00p EST (Again)
This is a letter I wrote to my next older brother. It had been a while since I wrote to him and talked about the recent past. Like it says in the first line ... I've about given up on writing anything. But it does catch up on the happenings during the Summer and Fall seasons.
Thursday September 21, 2006
It seems like I've given up on writing anything. Everthing is the same routine day after day and I've just gotten out of the habit of writing.
I have taken this week off from work. It's like the last few vacation weeks, just do some extra stuff around the house and make a couple of day trips somewhere. Even those are to the same places I've gone to.
Yesterday I went east on highway 11 to north Spartanburg and Cherokee counties, Cooley farms and Cowpens national battlegrounds. It was mostly to get to Cooley farms and get some cider and whatever else they might have that looked interesting. I got some muskiedine cider but it doesn't have much of a muskiedine taste. And I got a jar of blackberry perserves too. While at the farm and walking around looking to see what I wanted, one of the hired help, a Mexican, kept following me around with a plastic bag ready for whatever I wanted. But I was just looking around to see what they had and make up my mind. It got kind of annoying after a few minutes.
This Cooley farm place is mostly a peach tree place. I guess it's been there for a really long time. They also have something called strawberry hill and have lots of American flags in it and a flower bed like the American flag.
At Cowpens I didn't do much but drive around through the park. Stopped at the really old log cabin place and ate an apple. It's the Scruggs place and was there in the early 1800s.
I really wanted to go to Tryon NC so that's where I went next. Drove back on highway 11 till I got on the west side of I26 and Landrum. It's not very far up 176 to Tryon and drove along side the railroad. It's almost like being in Landrum SC and then just driving from one city limits to another in Tryon NC. It really changes from mostly flat land to mountains in a hurry too.
The first time through I was looking for a place to eat but didn't find anything and was looking for a restroom place too. Ended up driving back to Landrum and out toward I26 to a burger place. Seems like I always end up at a burger place on my trips. But anyway I ate a chicken sandwich and got relieved and rested some. There was a lake outback of the place too. Also off in the distance a piece was the biggest, most loaded cell tower I had seen.
Drove back into Tryon and found a place to park and then walked down the main street. Went into an old, antique book dealership to look around. He had lots of old books, 1800s some 1700s. One set was from the Yale library. There was a set of Great Books like Daniel had 30 years ago. And he had two volume Oxford English dictionary like I have too. I got that in the late seventies or early eighties I guess, I don't remember. The man had been in the book dealing business for 50 years but that was down in Greenwood. He had moved to Tryon about 6 years ago.
On down the street was an old building converted into a mini shopping mall with upper and lower levels. Looked around in one of the gift shops for a long time looking for something to get for Mom. Ended up getting a small straw basket. Started talking to the man about the building just as I was leaving. He owned it and another building somewhere in town. He said is was a supermarket before and was built about 50 years ago. I told him about the two or three buildings in Pickens that were late 1800s and early 1900s.
After that I walked back up to the truck. There were a group of buildings on the very end of town there were build on the side of the hill. The back 2/3 or 3/4 of the building was on really tall steel beams. A single story building but was about 3 stories from the ground in the back.
Then it was just drive back to Pickens. I did see a really big bird on the way back. It could have been a buzzard but the feathers looked greyish but then the sun was behind it too. I don't think the wings looked right for a buzzard either. But anyway it could have been a really, really big hawk.
Frances was here this past weekend. She got here Friday evening and left Sunday morning. She fixed some pasta meals which were different. Mom called it strange food later. She and Steve are both not working a regular job. Steve got a grant for to finish his book and Frances has decided to be a stay home mother. I guess you know she and Steve are expecting a boy but maybe you didn't. It's due the end of November I think.
Mom's stomach got to feeling bad Monday and Tuesday and she mentioned not having good urination yesterday after I got back from my road trip. So it just never seems like a good time to be on vacation and not go much of anywhere. Yesterday while out riding I had thought again about trying to make it down to Mrytle Beach. But now that I'm back here I just don't know. Can't seem to make myself just get out and go anymore.
The past 5 weeks at work I've been trying to come up with a way to predict if a miter saw will tip over. It's one of those saws that you pull down to make the cut and it's spring load to return to its upright position. There's been older models that will tip over backwards if the saw handle is released and it goes back on its own
It's been an interesting problem but the testing and measuring hasn't matched well with what we calculated. We can measure the velocity just before it hits the return stop pin, did that with a speed trap and high speed video. But the equations I use says it suppose to be faster. We spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out why. The return spring in one of the test units was binding and not quite centered. The CADD model and some motion software that goes with the CADD system would simulate the test. It was calculating the same velocity I was and would tip over. But then again when I used my equations and made it go slower it would not tip over. So it's been a real problem.
Also the new saw that started all this analysis has a spring design that I calculate would not even make the swing arm of the saw return to its upright position. I emailed the man in charge of this project who passed it on the the vendor in China and that's the last I heard about it before I went on vacation last Friday. I've been checking email from here and there's been nothing else about it. So it's turned into another furstrating problem at work.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing any good at all down there. Every project I've worked on this year has turned into nothing accomplished. Not that I'm suppose to know anything about mechanical engineering anyway. I did get to write a program to do all the tip over analysis on the saw though. Started out going to Clemson to learn about computers and programming back in 1967. All they had then were a few courses in writing code and computer systems. There wasn't any major in computers then and I had to take an Applied Mathematics major just to get them. Almost forty years later I've missed out on all the computer related work and don't understand anything about today's computer technology and code writing. When the computer or some applications messes up at work, or home, I have to find someone else to fix it.
It's like you wrote, I was too young to go to the lake when Clifford drowned. I don't even remember Dad or DM going. Don't know which of the houses you talking about. They lived on Dubar Street on the east side of Plesantburg drive (use google map to see where) till after Clifford died. Leander moved to Sweetbrair not far from the old house and closer to Pleasantburg drive before 1967. I know the second house had a fire place but I'm not sure if their old house did. Clifford worked for Coca Cola for some years (late forties I think) before he started managing the Wade Hampton Motel. I remember playing in the pool too and we use to spend the night that once in a while when visiting them in Greenville. That was exciting for me then, being in a motel in the big city. Leander moved into an apartment, still near the same area of the old house I think, sometime during the 1970s. I think Dad was still living then and I sort of remember he, mom and I would go visit her there. I may have still been in the navy too. But she moved to her last house down in Pelzer before Dad died.
I think Leander was suggesting to you that she didn't want you smoking cigars in her house.
You know the woods in front of Mom's house, Vickery owned them. Sara Martha, one of their daughters, and her husband had them cut down this Summer. I don't know if it has been mentioned before but Mom had invested money with Mr Vickery, ever since Did had died and she got that insurance money. That was the only place she had invested money and had been getting interest quarterly on it for all these years. In January of 2005, after Mr Vickery had a stroke, and Daniel went on that first long motorcycle ride with Mary, she decided to ask for all the principle. He couldn't pay it and a few months later filed for bankruptcy. I went to the first court hearing, that must have been July of last year, ...
oh never mind, I wrote about in my journal June 19, 2005 enty. But anyway, we thought maybe the Vickery kids were having the trees cut to pay back some of the money but that hasn't happened yet. I had written a letter to the bankrupcty court but they wanted me to ask for specific documents and pay a search fee. I wouldn't have known what to ask for or understand what it was when I got it. I went up to see an attorney I know, Murray Hughes, a couple of months ago, to see if he could find out about the status. He said the debits have been discharged and that's the end of it legally.
The Pittman's who live across in front of Mom's house had been wanting to cut some trees down so they could have a view of Pinnicle and Table Rock. Mrs Pittman would call and ask the Mr and Mrs Vickery if they could and they said it would be ok. But a few days later Sara Martha would call and tell them not to, they had plans for the land. So anyway she and her husband have the greater part of the trees cut but leave some just behind the Pittmans to still block the view. The Vickery kids haven't turned out like their parents.
Mrs Pittman was taking Mr Pittman to a haircut appointment, this was Thursday two weeks ago. Mr Pittman had been in bad health for a long time and needed a walker to get about. She had gotten him up to and into their van parked in front of the house. She went back to close the doors but when she returned to the van, Mr Pittman had died. I had seen some cars down at their house when I got here from work that afternoon. Mom had said Mrs Austin, another neightor, had called to ask if she had heard about Mr Pittman. But Mom got confused and thought she was asking about him instead. After eating supper I walked down there to learn what I could but I already suspected something had happened to Mr Pittman. I went to visitation that Sunday night, there weren't too many people there, a lot less than I would have thought, but it was Labor Day weekend. There was a man there who aske if I was a Hughes. He was a Welborn who lived in the big two story house on Railroad Street, the house by itself on the east end Pickens Mill Village. He remember grandma Hughes and the thread and stuff she sold. I was really suprised he recognized the Hughes in me. I went to school with his youngest sister Clove. I went to the funeral that Monday. Mr Pittman was a member of the American Legion and they lined the enterance after the service. I drove on back to the house after the service.
When Dad was doing his gardening he would give the neighbors some vegetables. I think I remember him giving Mr Pittman some along with a small piece of cornbread wrapped in foil. A few days later Mr Pittman came up with a bigger piece of foil and told Dad that he had thought he had run out of foil because the cornbread was so small. At least that's what I think I remember.
This past July Lucille Stone was visiting Mom. She had mentioned hearing that Rodger Hinton had died. He was a classmate and friend of mine during junior and senior high. I called another classmate to see if he knew anything, he said it was some liver problem that came about because of an overdose of medicine he was having to take for mental problems. I had seen Rodger a very few times over the years, kind of like maybe 3 or 4 times since high school. He was with his father down at the bank a couple or three years ago. We talked just a few minutes, gave him my email address and he gave me his business card. I wrote him a couple of times but he never wrote back. He said when we were at the bank that he didn't correspond much or any. So that was the last time we talked. He lived in New York city for years, he was an architect, but had moved to Charolette a few years ago. I think he had left New York before 2001 but maybe he was still there then. So a couple of weeks later I went over to Hillcrest cemetery and found his grave site. His mother had died just a month or so before he did. Mr Hinton is in a nursing home and has not been well for a long time either. Actually for a while all three were in an assisted living place down in Easley for several months.
Ok so when I have a morning during a vacation week I do write a lot. Just catching up on everything since the last time.
Sunday October 29, 2006 (2nd Entry)
6:15p EST (again, again)
This is another letter I wrote to a friend from the Singer years. It repeats some of the events above but may have a few more new details.
This past couple of months at work I've been working on predicting if a new table miter saw design would tip over if the user let the swing arm return on its own. It's been some of the more interesting work to do in months. We had to do lots of testing and measuring. I used the normal accelerationa and velocity equations to get the swing arm's angular velocity. Earl showed how to get the whole saw's velocity and use that to predict the lift height. I guess I've done all I can on it. Recommended the vendor add weight to the front and extend the rear of the base. This all came about because the legal guys down in Anderson don't want us to sell any more saw that might tip over if they're not bolted to a work table. All the previous saw designs have a tag on the that says the user should bolt the saw down. It was for a China or Tawain vendor. Their original return spring design was too weak to cause automatic return and I tried to get them to verifiy the design for a two or three weeks. Finally had to point out to them what the problem was. But anyway that job is finished now.
Seems like there's never much else to write about except bad news.
This past July one of my high school best friends died. Some sort of liver failure caused by an overdose of medicine he had been taking. Some kind of anti depressant and he must have gotten confused over how much he was suppose to take or just messed up and took too much for too long. He was in the high school band and I just tagged along with the band most everywhere they went. Never did learn to play an instrument. He went to Clemson too and then on to some other graduate school. He was an archetic, lived in New York for years, then in Charlette for the last few years. Don't remember if he was in New York during 2001 or not. He had been helping his parents this past year. All three were in one of those assisted living places for a while. Apparently he was in bad shape himself by then. I had to call another high school friend to learn all this. Went to see where he was buried a couple of weeks later. His mother had died the month before and his father is still in a nursing home. Sad end to a family.
My aunt, Mom's only sister, died about the second week in August. She had had bad health for a few years and it got worst this past year. But she would still get out and do things and go visit relatives. One day, a Tuesday I think, she started having difficulty breathing. She collapsed in their living. Her daughter had already called EMS but they could not do anything for her after they got there. I went to the funeral over in Greenville, she had worked for the funeral home years ago. Her son and his family have been missionaries in Spain for several years. They had only been back here for a few weeks before she died. The daughter works at a school in Greenville, one of the low paying type jobs, not a teacher. I don't know how she will manage without her now since she can't afford to rent a place on her own. She and her son lived with the aunt.
A neighbor of Mom's across the street died about three weeks ago too. He had been in declining health too. His wife was taking him to a haircut appointment and had gotten him into the van. He needed a walker and wheel chair to get around. She went back to the house to close the doors but when she got back to the van he was slumpped over and not responding to anything. She drove on to the hospital instead of calling EMS. We to the vistiation and his funeral. He was in the American Legion and they were the honorary pall bearers. They lined the enterance to the church after the service. He was a well respected member of the Pickens community. Seems like when Dad was doing his gardening and growing veggistables he would take some to him. He took a small piece of cornbread with them one time wrapped in foil. A few days later the neighbor brought back a big piece of foil and told Dad he could make a bigger cornbread next time.
Mom's joints are hurting her more and she is doing less now. Spends most of the day in bed. She won't take any pain relief medicine, says if it won't cure it she won't take it. It's getting more difficult for me to deal with it all. But then it doesn't bother me as much as it use to either. I guess maybe I'm just accepting nothing will change for the better.
Sunday October 29, 2006 (3rd Entry)
6:20p EST (Did I mention it's real time time again?)
Last Christmas, 2005, I got Mom a vanity for the pink bathroom. She had always wanted on, I learned sometime last year. I had intended to have it installed sometime during this past Spring after the weather warmed up. But for some reason or another I put off getting it done ... the weather, visitors and Mom got to feeling bad.
Summer came and went ... it was too hot and other things kept happening.
Fall came and I finally started making calls to plumbers. I guess it was when I saw Mom trying to take off the leaky faucet handle that I knew she really wanted something done. When we had plumbers here about March 2004 (or was it Fall of 2004?) to fix the leaky faucets she mentioned about waiting till it was costing more money before fixing everything. I started doing this during my vacation week.
The first plumber I called said he would be out one day the following week. That came and went. Called him again. The next day came and went. Still no plumber.
Dan and his lady friend came for a week after that. A week after they left I called another plumber. He was one who came to fix stuff 2 years ago. So he looks over the job and says he could do it this past Friday.
I got off work early morning and came here to get things ready. Stopped by the hardware store to get some molding for spacing behind the vanity. When I looked at the cabinet and basin the night before it looked like the basin would stick out over the back of the cabinet. After I got back here that morning I looked again the the basin moved so that everything was flush in the back. So like usual I buy stuff and more stuff that I didn't really need.
The plumber got here about 12:15 and we started to work. Rather he started to work and I was just being a plumber's helper. It didn't take him long to get everything disconnected. And he lifted the basin off the wall and front legs. I had thought it was bolted to the wall. It's sitting out on the backporch now. I guess I'll eventually get it over to my house. But then maybe I'll just put it in the storage room or green house or metal building.
The basin was installed in 1957 ... removed in 2006.
The new vanity has to sit off center from the mirror but it's not too bad. I had thought it would be really strange to see something new in that bathroom. After all it had been like it was for almost 50 years.
Mom hasn't put anything in the drawers yet. Maybe she never will. But she does have more surface space to put things. I don't know if she really likes it or not. She's been in such bad health now she just doesn't seem happy anymore about anything.
While Daniel was here this time, after another cris-cross country cycle ride again, he went to his high school reunion, their 47th, making plans for the 50th I think.
I had been wanting to clean out the space next to the back porch, underneath the flat roof overhangs and where the ladder and wheel barrel stays. Sometime in the distant past some seashells had been scattered there. I put a fishing net I picked up while in the navy there too. But all that had gotten covered over with dirt and stuff. So that's what Daniel and I did one day.
Went down to a materials yard down in the flats on the way to Easley. Got six buckets of sand. Then we started cleaning out the dirt and uncovering the shells and other stuff. I had sort of forgotten about the fishing net. Also shoveled up some ash and then remember dumping ash there way back when we use to have a fire in the fireplace, probably during the early 1980s. Of course we just kept on uncovering sea shells.
I got a wire frame thing I made when the septic tank was replaced to try and sift out the shells. That didn't work out because there was so much trash.
We got them mostly washed off and the space smoothed out and squared up with the back stoop. Then we poured out the sand and smoothed it out some. Used some two by fours that use to be part of the shelves in the greenhouse for edging. Some more stuff from when Dad had used them. And of course we spread out the shells. They just about covered up the sand.
The next day, a Saturday, we went down to get more sand and some landscaping timbers. We went to Home Depot for the timbers. Got there and asked where they were ... off down at the other end of the building. We thought they were inside but didn't find them so we walked back to the garden end of the building to look. Found some different kind of borders but they were too much for what I wanted. Aske directions again and was told they were at the first end of the building we went ... and outside. Must have missed that part of the directions the first time.
Some of those sea shells are from when we went to the beach the first times back in the late 1950s. Some are probably from other trips to the beach over the decades. I think the last trip Mom made down there was during the 1980s with Leander. But I'm not sure.
There are a couple of fish bowls in the living room with seashells and a couple of wooden bowls on the porch and two really big conch shells on the porch too.
Tuesday November 21, 2006
8:40a
Sunday November 12th was Mom's 85th birthday. Her brothers came up for a visit about noontime. They sat around and talked some then we had some cake. Mom and I ate a little lunch type food too since we usually ate about then anyway. I made a couple of pictures with the cellphone camera. They stayed about an hour and a half.
The day before I baked a cake. We usually get a cake from the store, which never seem to taste good, so I decided to just bake one. One of the church ladies came up that Saturday also while the cake was baking. She brought a pound cake. Robert called Sunday and played back a recording of when she sang happy birthday to him. Daniel and Frances called on her birthday also.
Robert called a few days before the 12th and we talked. It was mostly about the usual things, family, work, weather. He's not doing email anymore and has started writting regular old fashion letters. He's still wanting to get out and do the hiking thing even after the hip operation and now his other hip is getting worst. We must have talked some about the politics and election. That wasn't much more than telling how bad the republicans, new conservatives, Rumsfeld, Rove, Cheney and all are.
I'm sure we talked about other stuff, probably good stuff, but it's gotten to were I can remember things anymore.
My boss came to the office door a couple of weeks ago. He handed me a piece of paper, I had to ask him what it was about. It was a promotion and raise. Back in March he and his boss tried hard to get me one then. But some VP said no. The VP left at the end of October and it was only a week or two later that my boss was showing me this paper. So I'm moving up some now after 2 or 3 years it seems like. I think they will get me another promotion and raise next March too. At least a couple of higher ups know I'm worth more.
It's always been strange how one bad VP can hold up everyone else's advancement. Seems like it's always been like that for me.
At work I've been hassling with a finite element model that won't run right. Well it runs and solves like it suppose too, it just won't save the results. It's one of those hurry up and get it done jobs that's really important. So what else is new? If it wasn't important there wouldn't be any problems with getting an answer. It's been on of those problems with bad geometry to start with which I have to try and fix too. Someone in the CADD group was suppose to remodel the part but they're over worked and behind too.
Yesterday I went in to check on the latest model and see if it finished running right. It didn't. I try not to think about it but I do. Such is the way I spend my last vacation days, with my mind still at work.
Yesterday I raked up the leaves. Got the ones in back raked up along the property line bushes; and there's one pile behind the metal building. The others on the east side are raked up around the pecan tree and the cedar tree. After I got that done I cranked up the mower, didn't know if it would since it was acting like the battery was low the last time three or so weeks ago, and cut grass one more time for this year ... and mulched up some of the remaining leaves.
Lots of leaves from the pecan tree blew onto the elder lady's yard, the old Wood place. So I drove the mower up and down some of her yard to chop up the leaves. Still ended up raking them back onto Mom's side of the road. But anyway ... maybe that Fall season chore is over and done with.
The elder lady fell several days ago, maybe that happened about two weeks ago now. She broke something in her shoulder and had to have it operated on. She had pins put in an those are suppose to come out this week. It doesn't seem like they've be there long enough to do any good. Some young lady and her husband are helping her get to doctor appointments and such. I think it's the one who's been doing the yard work over there. But it's not the same couple that helped them when her husband died this Summer.
She had recently got a dog and I would see her walk it around the circle. During all the confusion with her falling the dog got out. It ran around the neighborhood for a week I guess. I learned it had been abused before and was really shy of people, especially strangers. I left some food and water out one evening but it was never eaten. During one of the raining days the carport doors were left open up there and the dog was hanging around just inside. I haven't seen the dog out since then so maybe it's back in the house or garage up there.
It must have been last Thursday morning I was in the front bathroom doing my grooming, washing hair and shaving, when I noticed the water was extra hot. It was almost steaming hot. The thermostat went bad and stuck on. After I finished I went into the laundry room where the circuit panel is and turned it off. I eventually remembered we had a meat themometer and used to check the temperature. It was about 160 degrees. Fortunately the over hot cut off thermostat still worked and had turned it off sometime during the night. I've been using the circuit breaker to turn the heater on and off as needed. It was that night when the water wasn't heating back up that I checked the upper element and found the reset button.
Sunday I drove down to Home Depot in Easley and got another thermostat and element and element wrench. I guess I'll try and replace the thermostat first and hope that's all I have to do. I really don't want to try and replace the element, it's probably stuck in there and hard to get loose.
I've been checking the temperature at the laundry room sink and turning the water heater on and off as needed. Been getting more use out of that meat themometer measuring water temperature than cooking meat.
I just walked around the house a few minutes ago. Thought of something else to write about as I was coming back in. Now I've forgotten what it was I wanted to write about.
On yeah. I was going to work one morning, have been driving out the Fox Squirrel Ridge road and Trotter Hill road recently. Got down to the plant and into the parking lot. There's a speed bump next to the front corner of the building. The front wheels went over it like normal but then the back wheels made an extra hard bump. Thought I ran over something but didn't see anything big that would have caused that much of a bump. I looked in the side mirror and saw a tire laying near the speed bump. How could I have missed seeing that? Then I realized it was the spare tire from underneath my truck that had fallen loose. I stopped and got it into the back of the truck. The tailgate wouldn't go all the way down so the tire had caused the big bump and the bumper to bend up too close to the tailgate.
Well I guess that's all for now. Hope it won't be the last for this year's writting. I'll work on the water heater today and go down to visit DM and Micky. Then I'll have to figure out how to spend the last vacation day and the Thanksgiving Holidays.
The election this year sort of indicated a change in the political winds. I hope it was enough to make a real difference in the future. But I'm too much of a pessimist to think it will.
Date goes here
Time goes here