SS CLASS JAVA PARTY

Yesterday due to the ice on the walk going to the garage, Nancy and I almost decided to cancel the party, but I used ashes from the fireplace mixed with salt and found that I could hammer the ice and it would flake off the walk. After about 30 minutes we decided we could walk on it. We moved the food to the van, got to the church by 11 and Nancy started cooking the chicken. She was up at 5 in the morning processing the veggies. We decorated by putting up table cloths and the ocean scenes. I put up the palm trees on the walls to create the Java ambiance for the Java dinner.

I went to Kiwanis to hear a great talk by Dale Bishop's son Wayne who reviewed his more than 30 year career with 3M in Brownwood. That plant specializes in reflective paint systems like license plates and highway signs. He told about the continued invention to develop new reflective systems. He mentioned that 3M makes adhesives used in aircraft and I commented that I designed wing panels for the B-58 where the outer skin was only attached by adhesives.

Back at the church we decorated all afternoon. Finally sat down for 30 minutes. Started the party on time at 6 p.m. with a prayer by the pastor. We could have called it a Lord's supper. Good thing our SS class is named the Disciples class. We had one table with 12 persons eating together. 27 had originally signed up. Three had told us they wouldn't be there so there was more than enough food.

Nancy had created a contest for four weeks of questions about the Methodist presence in Java and missionaries. Two of our members had called the Central Texas Conference office to bug them for the answers and now they know about Cross Plains and Java missionaries. The pastor and I had the job to judge the entries and pick a winner. We came up with a tie and had a drawing to pick Diana Miller as the winner. Susan Hunter was disappointed but I am not sure she would have appreciated the prize monkey that has a fit when you take the banana out of his mouth. We had bought it from Debi Bennett at Dollar General and she was delighted that we took it because it was driving her nuts every day. It was a great party and different from any before.

The temperature never got above freezing and we had problems with the van doors frozen shut but we managed. Slept late the next morning.

SNOWY DECEMBER 5

This morning at 1 a.m. I saw one flash of lightning and heard one roll of thunder. Then at 1:40 a.m. the power went off. I got up and opened the fireplace to the living room. I called in the report of of the power outage. When we got up at 7 we set an old coffee pot with water by the fire and it got hot enough for tea with our cereal breakfast. As we started reading our devotionals the power came back on. Here are some photos.

 

Bob and Yvonne Hightower / Nancy and Charles Rodenberger

FROM THANKSGIVING TO CHRISTMAS

Yesterday we celebrated Thanksgiving with Nancy's two grandsons. One, Brad, made an apple pie and his favorite dish, macaroni and cheese. Nancy cooked a ham because Cliff's heritage turkeys that were the original goal for Thanksgiving still need some weight on their bodies so they are now scheduled for Christmas. We had German green beans, and candied sweet potatoes along with the apple pie and I had bought some chocolate iced brownies on the markdown rack at Walmart.

Tonight Bobbe and Yvonne came for a glass of wine and some leftovers. The candied sweet potatoes became sweet potatoe pie. We then went to downtown Granbury for their annual Christmas parade. Sponsored by the alliance of churches, this year's theme was Jesus Christ- Celebrate the Gift. They had some unique floats. The Baptists and First United Methodists had floats. A unique one was the Roller Derby float preceded by women on roller skates skating around the float. Minature horse driven carts. A number of Christian themed floats. The parade was led by the Granbury marching band that had three red flags in front. Of course the last one was Santa on a firetruck. It was the first parade that I have seen that did not have an American flag in the parade. Of course the theme was Jesus so that figures.

The parade started with my theme "Let there be light" and the string of lights from every corner of the court house came on. I have decided to try to write my tome on God creating light that was used to form all matter and publish it on Amazon. That may be a couple of months, or years from now. We will see. I still can't post on my creation blog from this computer but I am working on that problem.
Charles

Getting ready for Thanksgiving

We have planned the menu and will shop tomorrow. No goody is left behind. Charles has been working all day and only took time to drive to the post office for mail and get gas for the car. Yesterday I used the quiet time to put together a cabinet for the back screened-in porch. It looks nice but still needs the handles put in place. All the directions are in three languages and even English is 'fasten A to Aa, etc'

I needed to use the big packing box from the cabinet for the decorations at our Sunday School Christmas party, and we have laid the Christmas party decorations out on the dinning room table and need the space for Thanksgiving.

This year for Christmas we will focus on missions. Our choice was Java. The world is in such turmoil and we wish the spirt of Christmas for everyone.

Bradferd said he was going to cook an apple pie like his mom. I asked him if he had the recipe and he said, "my mom is the recipe". She makes great apple pies. I gave him one of his great grandma's cook books and wrote her name in the front. She was a wonderful cook and pies were her speciality, and what she made for her church at every occasion. Like most older great cooks, she didn't use recipes much. Once when she gave me her favorite pickle recipe, I read, "make a brine strong enough to float an egg". I had to call her to get an explanation on what brine was and did I break the egg on top of the water. It's an old family story now.

Holidays happen too fast and we will have to put Christmas away until after Thanksgiving time; eating, football, and thankfulness. Have a good day everyone.

WAPLES UNITED METHODIST CHURCH

This morning we went to the Methodist Church closest to Nancy's home in Granbury. Waples UMC is closer than FUMC Granbury. One reason is that it was the church served by Harris Worcester before he came to Cross Plains. I think he had Waples and Tolar. The current pastor, Alan Munger, has Cresson and Waples. It is a good thing we called because he could have preached at 9:30, but luckily for us he comes to Waples at 11. The church averages about 20 members. Except for one middle-aged couple every one looked about our age. We were disappointed when a person listed in the bulletin as finishing the Methodist 101 course online was not present. She was a person that Nancy met when she took the course online.

The pastor was the champion shot-putter from Fredonia, KS and looks like a shot-putter. Like me he attended the Univ of Arkansas. He said he only went one year when I told him that my first year was there. He gave a good sermon based on the scripture of Christ healing the ten lepers and only one, a Samaritan, returning to thank him. They don't "pass the peace" they hug each other! One couple asked us if we know the Hightowers. They live next door to them. We told them we had breakfast with them Thursday and he said he and his wife had breakfast with them yesterday. So it is a small world.

We ate at Neister's for some German food and I indulged in chocolate cheesecake for dessert after trying their German meatloaf, that looked like no other meatloaf I have eaten.

TAKING SUE FOR TREATMENT

Today was a busy one. We ate breakfast, read our devotionals and left at 8 to go to Dallas to take Sue for her radiation and chemo treatment. Mandi had to work today and couldn't take her. She had her radiation treatment that only takes a few minutes. She has had 24 hour chemo all week using a portable pump and was able to take it off today. She is showing no ill effects from the treatments and led us trying to keep up with her as we walked to the different treatment places and rooms. She looks great like a Mary Kay gal ought to look.

We then stopped to eat at Subway near her hospital and took her back to Mandi's. She will drive home to see Ike this afternoon. She has to be back next Monday for radiation all week, except Thanksgiving and Friday after but has to go for the weekend. She will meet with her oncologist Monday morning.

Nancy had to stop at the Party Warehouse to gather more decorations and dishes for the SS party she is working on. A Javanese dinner.

I am behind on my work as a result and missed my nap today. Arg.

Hello

Charles gave me blog privileges. So.... now I can tell you all about him!! He's wonderful and makes me happy. More later Nancy

BEHIND

I thought that when I finished Kiwanis president and got someone else to do the Flame that I would have time to work on my creation science project, but I can't seem to find time. Does everyone feel the same way? My blog is not letting me access the dashboard so that I can go to my other blogs and that is frustrating. I found that I could use my desktop computer to post to my Creation blog today but when I tried to defrag this computer it told me I didn't need to and refused to defrag. Sometimes I think computers think too much.

I have invited Nancy to be an author on this blog. We will see how that works out.

FUMC 125TH CELEBRATION

The Cross Plains First United Methodist Church celebrated its 125th anniversary October 16. When we went to the Texas State Fair, it was the 125th year for it also. They asked us all to wear 1886 costumes. This was as close as Nancy and I could get to the costumes. My suit is a cowboy suit I bought for our wedding. I bought a string tie at a Western store at the Fair that Nancy tied for me. On the Methodist Facebook site there are a lot more photos of all of the congregation who came to the Fellowship dinner in their costumes.

CELEBRATING NANCY'S BIRTHDAY

Nancy asked me to post this photo of the bouquet from Tim's Floral celebrating her birthday. We are looking forward to more celebrations with her children and grandchildren tonight.

STATE FAIR OF TEXAS

Nancy and I went to the State Fair yesterday. We got off late and it took longer than we expected but we got there about noon. We started at the livestock exhibits. I intended to look for examples of computers being used at the Fair, but also wanted to see what the farmers and ranchers were exhibiting. We saw the cattle and boer goats. I asked where the milk goats were because I raised them as a teenager. They said that they were here last week. Later we found the Angora goats being exhibited and I was surprised at the ranch from Boyd showing their multicolored Angoras. I asked how many colors they had. All of the colors of the rainbow was the answer. I told the young lady to read THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED especially the last chapters on how the Angoras saved the ranch.

It was a day of eating. By 2 p.m. we were starving. First we ate Southern Fried Chicken. Each of us had a large portion, Nancy the thigh and me the breast. It came with french fries, pickles and jalapenos. Then we had to have Nancy's favorite, funnel cake. Then I found me a chocolate ice cream cone (like frozen yogurt) and went in search of the number one pick of fried foods at the Fair. Hans Fried Kraut balls. They were good. I ate all of them but Nancy tried one. I am not big on fried food. I sure didn't want fried bubble-gum. They also had fried cheesecake, pb&j, #2 autumn pie, pineapple upside down cake (one couple said that was to die for), walking taco, buffalo chicken in a flapjack (rated 6th but the choice for the best tasting, why that isn't the best baffles me), 7th was El Bananarito and 8th was Deep Fried Texas Salsa.

We then went to the creative arts and looked at all the quilts as well as jillions of creative art work, listened to the Marine Corps Drum and Bugle concert at 4, went thru part of the automotive displays, visited the Texas Hall of State, watched the parade at 7:15 and left during the light show and fireworks about 8:30 and got home at 10:30 and to bed by 11. The weather was perfect for the day. It was Senior's day and we got in free and rode the tram free. There were jillions of old people with a lot of powered scooters, wheel chairs and walkers. The Marine Corps concert was full of veterans, many older than me. It was a perfect day for the Fair, and we both were satisfied with our ability to walk that much and enjoy everything.

A DAY FOR PRAISE

Today we went to church to thank God for his blessings in the form of rain. It started raining here yesterday at 4 in the afternoon and came some good showers. My electronic rain gauge quit on me and I never could get out in the rain to look at my rain gauges. It quit raining at 9 as we left for church. This morning the one at the garage was leaning and was full. When we got back from church I looked and all three gauges are 5" gauges and were all running over, so over 6 inches is a good guess. Others at church reported 6 inches or more. I even had a little water running down the creek this morning. It had stopped when we got back but I am hoping it will keep running out of the hills. However the ground was so dry it absorbed most of the rain. But this is a great answer to our fervent prayers for the last several months.

I was devastated today to read that one of Lou's students at Levelland who came to her funeral died of cancer September 17. He had been in chemo since Lou's death. I thought he had beat it, but he had throat cancer and it kept coming back.

Winding Down

Like I said in the last post we have been too busy to post to the blog. As we enter October we are looking forward to winding down. September was really busy. I was in the Library play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL, where they cast me as Doc Rodentburger who is experimenting with guinea pigs to produce more meat for my McRonald's franchise I am going to open in Crossed Plains. The murder victim is found with one of the napkins from my booth at the fair and I had made a threat against him so I was a logical murder suspect, as were all the other cast members. Four of the Library Directors had fun writing the script. Nancy enjoyed painting the scenery for the play, but we were tied up for months. That was Saturday Sept. 17. I was serving my last term as President of Kiwanis and officers change in October. We moved the last meeting Sept. 27 from noon to 6:30 at my house with Eva Fleming catering a BBQ supper. We had 20 people attend and Nancy did a great job of decorating tables. Bob Pipes brought 16 folding chairs to seat everyone.

Saturday Sept. 24 was the wind-up of the Cross Plains Centennial. We had a Kiwanis float, a FUMC float and the Library float had Nancy's scenery for the back drop. So we decided to watch the parade and were fortunate to find Sue who had brought Ike from the nursing home to watch. He had had a pharmacy in CP for over 50 years before he retired so he had a place there. We were sitting across the street from his old pharmacy. I forgot to bring my camera and video so don't have anything to post.

I also could have worn my American Legion vest and cap and participated in their flag raising ceremony. Instead we went to Lawrence Farm and Ranch Supply looking for parts for Nancy's cabinet construction project. We then came back to town where they were celebrating the opening of the new Clinic, had hamburgers prepared by Amber Thomas for the Senior Citizens Center, visited with friends, bought one of the Cross Plains history books that I had submitted info on the Halsell family with photos. We then went to the church parking lot where we gave Roy Hunter all of Nancy's old fishing gear to help develop a "fishing for men mission project".

Then that night at the Chamber of Commerce dinner, I again acted in the Centennial Players reconstruction of the 1911 auction of town site lots. I played the part of one of the Township committee members, H. J. Cureton, who was a real person. I wrapped up the play with my little speech about making CP the most prosperous town on the Central Texas RR.

Getting back home they delivered the scenery to the Halsell House where Nancy plans to dismantle it and take it to Granbury to decorate her garage.

To spend more time working on my project on showing how God created matter from light I asked to be replaced as the Flame editor, and now that I am not Kiwanis president I plan to get back to work on the research.

And maybe I will be able to post more often.

KEEPING BUSY

We are keeping too busy to post to the blog. August 25 we left Dallas DFW Marriott in a chartered bus for our trip to Galveston for the Kiwanis Convention at Sea on the Carnival Ecstacy. We left in a light rain, drove all the way to Galveston in cloudy, rainy weather hoping that it would move west of I-45 but it didn't. We had a great time on the cruise. The video shows our dining partners that we ate with every night. It is a great way to meet new people. The cruise spent a day at Cozumel, but we stayed on the ship and enjoyed the Swedish massages at the spa. Our window was just above one of the departure landings and we watched the many photographers taking photos of those departing the ship.

After the cruise we came back for a Johnston family Labor Day reunion in the Arbuckle mountains of Oklahoma near Turner Falls to accomodate the Johnstons from Olathe, Ks as well as those from OK and TX. Nancy wanted our families to get to know each other and Jim Wilcox's family was able to come. Kathy and Keith have season tickets to Aggie games and went to the SMU game Sunday night. Jim took his family to visit Turner Falls and Brent came back saying the Falls went drip, drip, drip. The boys with their cousin, Cody had a great time with water balloons.

Nancy and I came back to Granbury in two hours, napped for a couple of hours and came back to Cross Plains Monday. Tuesday I got two weeks of mail, went to Kiwanis at noon, and went to a play practice Tuesday night. Today I went to Abilene to have a tooth filled after seeing a dark spot on the Xray when I had them cleaned. I haven't had a filling for over 20 years. It took 30 minutes and was painless. I asked how long it would take for the filling to set. He said 20 seconds. I feel great this afternoon after a nap and meal.

ANSWERED PRAYER

We have been praying for rain for all of Texas and the drought-stricken West. Yesterday it started raining and looking at the weather on the TV it looked again like one of the random showers. Then an hour later it started raining a second time and we were ecstatic. Then all night it thundered, lightninged and rained and continued all morning for a total of 3.5" of rain here. The rain washed the caliche road somewhat. We also had a lot of high wind that knocked down a lot of my dead limbs in trees. The cottonwood trees both had large dead branches removed. The radio reported that it was raining in the metroplex and everywhere in between. We knew that God was in charge of rain, not the meteorologists. We had been reading Job where God told him that he was the One who was in charge of rain, hail and lightning.

Gov. Perry also had a prayer service asking God to bring rain and to heal our country and we see some response. Perry announced a run for president today and I supported him because I think Texas is always better off when we have a president in office. It will be an interesting campaign.

Nancy has been working hard refinishing our wood floor. She cleaned and then got on hands and knees to apply paste wax. She brought her buffer from Granbury. I hope she isn't too stiff tomorrow. Our SS class is still in Psalms and Psalm 88 is a real downer. But 139 is a refreshing Psalm.

DENTAL CARE

Monday our plans were completely changed by a phone call saying that they could clean my teeth at 10:45 moving it up a couple of months. I had missed an earlier appointment a month ago. We drove to Abilene. They said it was time for Xrays. I normally resist but after a year decided to go ahead. Of course the Xrays showed a bad spot on one tooth and scheduled a filling. I can't remember the last time I had a filling. Must be at least 20 years.

We celebrated by eating at Schezwans for my Chinese treat. We were in Nancy's van so we got it washed. An Abilene policewoman was waiting next to me. I told her about Ed Walt's book at Texas Star Trading post and our former policeman pastor at Cross Plains FUMC. I teased her about wearing high heel shoes and running down the bad guys. She said she could do it. I told her she could do a lot of damage with the heels.

Then we stopped at Walmart to stock up like I said yesterday. Today we attended Kiwanis and drove to Granbury seeing a temperature of 112 on the car and the recording thermometer at Nancy's said a high of 123, but we wonder about it. Anyway you measure it, it was hot!

BUNCO

Nancy left me last night for a "Girl's night out". Our church started a Bunco party for the girls. I have always wondered about what that is because my daughter has been involved both in Tomball and San Antonio. I found out that it is a dice throwing game used to raise money for charitable purposes. Now I know.

We are fighting the drought. I have been keeping my cottonwood trees alive by watering. Something I have never done before. I am deep watering my new crepe myrtles in the front yard. The deer keep eating the leaves off of my new rose bushes.

Yesterday we added food to our larder that we could use in the event of a financial breakdown of the country. Nancy asked me what we should get and I told her we needed to call a Mormon to find out what they use in their cache. I don't think that will happen in spite of all I read but I do think we will spend a few more years in a 1930's style of depression with a lot fewer jobs. Although the Internet is providing a new source of jobs that we didn't have back in the 30's that I went through. 200 million cell phones is a new opportunity that didn't exist then.

I got ought of shape the other day watching CSpan. The house was debating the debt bill and time was down to one minute when Nancy Pelosi shows up, takes over and rants for about 10 minutes about how we were attacking the government that is taking care of everyone. Later another woman Representative spoke and was cut off rudely at her one minute limit. Not Nancy. They didn't call time of limit her at all. They need to be fair in Congress.

NANCY PAINTS SCENERY

I made these photos of Nancy working on the scenery for the play that I have a small part in. On September 17 the Library is having a play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL that they wrote and are producing as a fund raiser. They created a character called Dr. Rodentburger and gave me the part. I am trying to learn my part. Nancy helps me with that.

These photos show the scenery that depicts the Crossed Plains Library for the play. Nancy drew the shelves, put books in and with the help of Library directors Michelle and Judy they put a label on every book, using real and family names. There are at least 100 books.

NO AC LAST NIGHT

Last night our air conditioning quit working and the outside temp was 94 when we went to bed. I opened windows and doors, turned on the exhaust fan, and increased the speed on the ceiling fan in the bedroom. I actually slept better than when we had AC. I lucked out last night when I called Allen Barnett. He said he would come this morning. When he got here he found that the large capacitors on the motor had burned out. He had to go to Abilene to buy new ones but jury-rigged it so that Nancy and Michelle had a little cool while working on the scenery. I went to Kiwanis where Judge Roger Corn spoke to a small crowd. When Allen got back from Abilene late tonight he also added coolant and it is cooling a little better tonight. He said that the capacitors are a major failure this summer.

PRAYING FOR RAIN

We came back from Granbury Monday and have been busy in Cross Plains all week. Nancy is painting books on the shelves of the backdrop for use in the Library play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL scheduled for Sept 17. She has the long plastic sheet on three long tables in the living room and Tuesday I picked up a load of donated paint cans at the Library.

Wednesday our church scheduled an afternoon prayer service for rain with a sign-up sheet for an all-day prayer vigil for rain on Thursday. We signed up for the 10:30-11:00 time slot and found out we were an hour late for the Wednesday service. My fault for not paying attention to the time. I was thinking 6:30 and it was 5:30.

Thursday we went to the prayer session following Theresa Morgan and followed by Diana Miller. We went by the Review office to look at photos they had without stories for Kiwanis. I had emailed my story and photo for this week and the photo didn't get there so that they could use it. I printed it on my laser printer and took it for them to scan. I identified the photos and gave them one story I had sent to Kiwanis in my weekly email. I identified the other photo and came home to send the story on that one. I then went to the bank to sign a complaint about a charge on my Visa card. Saw Ginny and Curt Hoskins in the waiting room. Curt said he was still writing.

This morning I woke up and found my eyeglasses looking badly bent. They felt broken so we made a trip to Abilene to LensCrafters. Found out that I had bought lens for old frames and they didn't have a frame that fit the lens. They sent me to Sears to see if they had frames. In the meantime Lenscrafters made me a new pair of glasses in 2 hours. Sears didn't have frames. I think I bought them at Midwest. We spent the two hours eating for an hour at El Chico and shopping the mall. Nancy found a shop that had clothes she liked. Amazingly she didn't buy any now. I got the new lens and found that the old ones could be pushed back together for temporary use.

A note on books. I am working through a bedside book. At the Texas Folklore Society meeting Nancy thought I ought to have a book named Callahan County and she bid in the silent auction and bought a book for me called CALLAHAN COUNTY by Brenda Black White. I rarely read poetry and don't like much that I do read. The first one was a free verse and I was skeptical. Later I read further and found some delightful short poems that had rhyme and most interesting little stories. I am about half through and found some very sensual poems. I remember Brenda from TFS meetings many years ago and remember her in a power wheel chair. I also have always identified a home on FM 2228 where I thought she grew up. The poems are about farm people that would live in Callahan County.

BOOK REPORTS

I have not reported on books I have read. One of the most interesting was Christopher Dunn's THE GIZA POWER PLANT. This is his many years investigation of the Giza Pyramid and his conclusion that the Egyptian society of the time were much more advanced than we give them credit for. He makes a strong case for the concept that the pyramids were built to harness the earth's vibrations as Nicoli Tesla wanted to do. His concept was that the pyramid tapped the constant vibration in space of the hydrogen atom and amplified it using the construction of the pyramid so that it acted as a MASER amplifying the input and outputing high power. He is not sure how they used the power but his suggestions are interesting. I have another book on the same subject, Egyptian technologies, that I haven't read. Dunn accepts others who have argued that previous civilizations were very advanced to the point of having nuclear energy. Looking at how far we have come since our nation was organized and knowing that ancients were not stupid, it is a reasonable argument. The argument has been that they destroyed each other with atomic energy and destroyed their libraries wiping out the knowledge. Interesting.

I read one of Elmer Kelton's novels written under the McElroy nom-de-plume that Nancy had finished about a troop of Texans coming back from being defeated at Glorietta Pass during the Civil Way. I think the name was A LONG WAYS TO TEXAS. Great story. Nancy has been working her way through Elmer Kelton and is reading one every week.

I also finished Condalezza Rice's first book that gave a fascinating insight to growing up in segregated Birmingham showing the separate culture that existed in the black world that few whites are aware of. She had the problem that many have of choosing a degree in college. She changed her Junior year and picked Russian history due to Madelaine Albright's father who was teaching at the Univ. of Denver. Due to affirmative action she was chosen as an incoming professor at Stanford Univ where she bloomed and used the position for many assignments in Washington that led to her being chosen by the Bushes as an advisor on the collapsing Russian government, leading to her eventual choice as Secy of State. I was most interested in her being chosen as Provost at Stanford from the position of professor to provost without any experience as a department head or dean, almost unheard of. And she did a great job during a time of cutting budgets and student unrest. She documents how her mother and father died and her feelings. After her mother died her father remarried and I can relate to how she reacted to that fact. I am looking forward to reading her next book about her life as Secretary of State.

FULL DAY

Today we got up early. Took the garbage to be picked up. Left at 6:45 to take Vicky to her office so that she can pick up her new automobile tonight. We stopped on the way at Office Depot where I replenished my ink jets that I used up publishing the Flame for the church. I also picked up a cheap publishing program to look at for the church directory we are planning.

We then visited Vicky's office and met the people she works with. She is near a Valero station that was selling gas for $3.35 and next door was a Kwik Lube. My Avalon was overdue on service so we got the oil changed.

I realized that we were in North Richland Hills where Madge Kite lives. I didn't have my DayTimer so I called her to get her address. Nancy put it in the GPS and we got there in about 5 minutes. Madge said she had been praying that someone would come see her and her prayers were answered. Nancy and I both greatly enjoyed having her give us a tour of her downstairs and all the antiques. Unique furniture starting with a piano made in the early 1800's, her wood inlaid coffee table, art, statues, candles that Mark collected, paintings, rubbings, a wine bottle from the F-16 wine bottling that Lou and I got to help with when we were visiting them in Belgium plus many more things. What she was most proud of was the huge bargains that she has bought at Goodwill. She had three leather purses that she bought for $1 each plus all kinds of great looking things that she had bought for very little. Nancy felt like we were wearing Madge out and we didn't go upstairs where she said she had a lot more than downstairs. As we were leaving a friend of hers drove up to take her to a Methodist church garage sale, so we felt good leaving her. I told her that I had come to pick up Ashley's wedding gift and she said I should have come 5 years ago. She has it somewhere in the garage and has no idea where it is. I do need to get there more often.

We drove back through town on 377 and Nancy said it was a nostalgic trip because she had worked in some of those neighborhoods many, many years ago. We were approaching 11 and got to looking for somewhere to eat. We turned off I-20 on Hulen and Nancy saw Central Market. That was another adventure. I had never been there. I kept looking for Judy Alter because she is always shopping there. You can graze all around the store. We bought all kinds of goodies and ate in the cafe area on a long stick of black pepper bread with olives, tomatoes, guacamole, pesto. I bought a tuna salad sandwich and a chocolate mousse cake. We had enough left for supper tonight.

As we drove out of the shopping center I said I had to go to the New Balance store. It is the only store in the world that has AA shoes that I need. I have been having trouble the last few weeks since I was diagnosed with neuropathy and my big toes hurt. So I bought two new pairs of 11 AA in place of the 10 1/2 AAs that I have had for 50 years. They feel great and I wore a pair home.

We were looking for Costco and never found it but got home in time for a nap before I got to work on my computer. I got my Kiwanis email out but still need to write my Livestock Weekly column.

Tuesday

Today I decided to leave a small fountain of water going on the north cottonwood tree. The other one is looking good after watering it for a week. Today Lydia came to clean. While I was chairing Kiwanis Nancy shopped Cross Plains and said it felt good to shop Dollar General without someone bugging her about leaving. We had a good Kiwanis meeting with Rick Austin's son Aaron who is also a Church of Christ minister telling about bringing youth with him from Moore, OK to do mission work in CP while helping with the VBS at the CofC.

We drove through Stephenville and got to Granbury in plenty of time to get Nancy's new tooth installed. She then had to shop Lowe's to buy paint for her scenery painting project. We then stopped at Braums for a sundae. I have started the sprinkler on Nancy's lawn. It is as dry here as at home.

END OF JUNE UPDATE

I plan to update more often, but feel compressed by other obligations. I got behind on publishing the Flame and worked until almost 11 p.m. Friday night and felt that I did a poor job. Saturday I thought of other things I should have added to the news of the church. We came home yesterday and I printed copies of the Flame for those who don't have internet. Today we had our new pastor, Kevin Morton, preach and I served as worship leader. Nancy made beans for the Fellowship dinner to honor the new pastor and his wife, Lee Anne, who joined the church today. She also attended my SS class.

We have had interesting deer interactions. A couple of days ago we were driving down the highway in Eastland County when a doe and fawn were in the road ahead of us. The doe was in the road and the fawn on the East side. I slowed and the doe ran back but the fawn decided to cross the road. The doe followed and vaulted over the fence, but the fawn had to find a hole that he struggled through. And then here at home Jeff Ramey planted two new roses on either side of my walk. A pair of young bucks with little mossy horns came to eat corn under the feeder and one came up into the yard and started eating the leaves off the rose bush. Because I was watering them, the grass was green and I first thought he was just grazing the grass but then I watched him eat leaves from the rose bush. I opened the door and scared him off, but now there are virtually no leaves on either of the new bushes.

I let the cottonwoods go without water until they lost all their leaves. I normally don't irrigate but I gave in and now run a little sprinkler water on the trees and the leave are coming back. I will have to keep watering to keep them alive. Last Tuesday we went to a meeting a Judy Luter's. She invited us to a special presentation at the Callahan County Historical Commission on the WWII places in Texas. I was familiar with some of them having been in the Army Air Corps where I took basic training at Wichita Falls after starting in San Antonio at one of their air bases. Later I came back to SA to be assigned to a base in Utah where I was separated because I had qualified for aviation cadet and wasn't sent to training. A lot of veterans came to bases in Texas as well as a lot of prisoners-of-war and Japanese and German internees. I hadn't realized that Germans were interned along with Japanese.

We drove to her house into a rain storm. It was raining with pea sized hail as we got there. We got a little wet even though we drove up close to the house. It rained and hailed for at least three hours while we were there. We drove back 5 miles north to my house and we had had almost no rain. Cottonwood got 2 inches and I got 0.3". It helped my grass a little but I am having to water my roses and new crepe myrtles.

Nancy volunteered to help paint the scenery for the Library play MURDER AT THE BARBARIAN FESTIVAL that is scheduled for September 17. I play the part of the mad scientist. Nancy is working on large background scenes and of course I have to help with that So we will be busy the next many weeks.

I had gotten off Facebook but our new preacher plans to use it and Twitter for communicating with the church so I got back on today. I still have trouble navigating the site. I would rather use blogs but realize I need to post often.

CROSS PLAINS WEEKEND

I put out an email about the events going on in Cross Plains the weekend of June 10-12 about the Robert E. Howard fans, the Barbarian Festival and the international rocket launching contest. My grandson, Jim Wilcox, who teaches engineering at Devine High School and inherited the Rocket Squad this next year called and said he had to go to the rocket launching. My daughter, Kathy, had already said she was coming with my two granddaughters, Valerie and Vanessa. Vanessa backed out when she decided she needed to study for her RN certification exam she takes on the 17th. Kathy brought her friend Carol Thormer and Jim brought his two sons, Christopher and Brent. They got here just before the Friday night dinner.

Friday night we had six but released one seat at the Robert E. Howard dinner. Sue Neal joined Kathy, Carol, Val and me. We sat next to Carol and Wallace Bennett where Kathy got some good information on possible future jobs from Carol Bennett who works in the rehab business. The two speakers told about the development of the REH Fanzines through the years and how interest in REH has grown since REHUPA (Robert E. Howard United Press Association) was formed in 1986. There were old photos of the first BBQ on Saturday night held at our place here on Halsell Hill. That brought back some memories.

Saturday we started at the new art museum run by Kim Cunningham, who is the daughter of Chad Cunningham, who is the brother of Brad Cunningham who owns the huge homes behind me. They built a new fence and took out mine when they developed their place. Kim take photos but sells art from other local artists like Mary Barton. We went next to the REH museum for the tour. Nancy and I had gone to the Library and museum Friday afternoon. At the museum we saw our next Methodist pastor and his wife. Also Carleton Stowers came in with friends from the Metroplex. He is the nephew of Tom Stephenson, whose wife Arlene was working at the museum and as president of Project Pride was the MC of the dinner last night.

We then drove down the road to the park where the Festival had the old auto show, old tractors, and all kinds of booths selling all kinds of stuff. We ran into Susan Hunter who said that the rocket launching was supposed to be over by 2:30 so Jim, his sons and I grabbed some food from Bubba's food booth and headed out there. The women stayed to visit the Library on the way home. We went to the International rocket launching contest to get there just as they broke for lunch. They had not launched as many rockets that morning as they planned. About 1:30 they started launching again and we got to see 3 launches before we left. The rockets were about 6 feet tall and carried the students experiments in the nose cone that seperated from the rocket on the way down. The experiments were a parachute holding an egg that had to survive along with instrumentation that sent GPS data back to their computers on the ground to help them locate their package to see if the egg survived. The rockets launched so high that they went out of sight so we didn't see the rockets or the parachutes with our eyes. One team had recovered a package from the morning launches. Their egg didn't survive. The teams were from Instanbul, India and a number of US colleges. None from Texas. They generally had 4-6 team members but one team was one person. The site was out in a large pasture with a lot of cactus and other rough places to walk. The temperature was around 100 degrees. We came home and took a nap.

Sunday Jim and Val helped me teach my SS class. We just started a study of the Psalms. Jim had just completed a study and helped me a lot. Everyone else came to church where our pastor gave his last sermon before moving. His wife Julie gave me a good report on the resolution against the Methodist stand on teaching only evolution. I had presented a resolution last year and Rev. Jim Senkel had his this year that received a lot of discussion with many saying they wondered what we believe. Jim had sent me an email saying that 30% supported the resolution but that 100% of the young people voted for it, so we agreed our future lies with the young people. There will be more resolutions presented to the General Conference to reverse the action of the 2008 Conference. Hopefully more Methodists will ask themselves what they believe and that creation science should be taught as a possible theory along with evolution.

Today we went to Abilene to have a wedding portrait made. I left my hearing aids to go back to the factory for reburbishment and will get them back in a week or so. It is good that I can hear fairly well.

WATCHING STARS

It is June already. Wednesday night Nancy and I sat in her swing and watched the stars come out. It stays light late and they were slow to come out. I finally saw the Big Dipper and waited until more stars showed up. I was looking for satellites or the Space Station, or even one shooting star but none came into my limited vision.

We are back on our schedule of being in Cross Plains on Saturday to get ready for SS and church and staying through Kiwanis when we go back to Granbury. Nancy spent yesterday morning mowing her lawn and even mowing some new paths through her forest. We walked those paths this morning looking for the limb clippers she had lost off the mower yesterday. Found them along with two golf balls back in the trees. This place was a deer lease when it was a ranch and I guess it was used for golf practice.

We are going through the process of getting a new preacher for the Methodist church. I will serve as Worship Leader for the 19th when we have Bonita Horton, our own lay speaker preach and for June 26 when our new preacher preaches his first sermon.

I went to the Brownwood District meeting to explain the Central Texas Annual Conference and they mentioned that there would be two resolutions, one that is Jim Senkel's resolution to teach creation science as well as evolution. I commented to the group that their vote was important and left some hand-outs that I prepared arguing against evolution and for teaching creation science. I was greeted with blank stares and only one person commented that he supported me. Last year my resolution that was more strongly worded was turned down. Jim is toning his down to argue that both are theories that should be taught equally. I hope that his approach works but the committee recommended denying the resolution. We will see what happens. At least we are making them think about their vote.

See my creation blog for a new post.

VANESSA GRADUATES FROM A&M

Friday Nancy and I went to the graduation services for Vanessa Wilcox from the Nursing School. This was the fourth class of nurses to graduate. Only about 34 graduates. The ceremony was in the Presidential Center at the George Bush Library at A&M. Most of her family was there plus a lot of friends. After the ceremony we went to C&L BBQ in Bryan where Keith had a large room that filled up, mostly with friends of Vanessa from Tomball. She listed her home town as Tomball although she hasn't lived there for 8 years. Sue and her daughter, Diana, came in to celebrate. Her brother Jim couldn't make it, but Mandi came in unexpectedly with Faith and Brent. Faith was the hit of the show as she retrieved loose balloons from the ceiling.

Saturday we went by Vanessa's apartment where Keith and Jon-Marc were loading all of her furniture into two pickups to take to San Antonio. Ness will live with her sister Val while she applies to hospitals in San Antonio and Seton Hospital in Austin. Ness gave me a certificate like the one she gave her mother, thanking us for support during her education.

We then drove up 36 that I had driven on for the last 60 years. They finally finished the highway in Temple so that you can drive straight through to the loop. We stopped for lunch at the steakhouse in Gatesville and got home by 3 in time for a short nap. I only had time to look at my Sunday School lesson that I taught this morning. This afternoon after a nap I wrote my Livestock Weekly column so I am caught up with the week.

It rained a little with the storm and hail going by north of us. We got some pea size hail but just a few stones. Only got less than .2" of rain. Looked like they got a lot north of us.

EATING CHINESE

For the last two Fridays we have eaten at China Cafe in Granbury, a great buffet of Chinese cuisine. Last Friday our friends Bobbe (pronounced Bob, his mother spelled Bob as Bobbe) and Yvonne Hightower treated us as a wedding gift. Bobbe came in telling about having a tooth pulled after the wedding and the problems with driving with a toothache and finding a dentist that took care of him when he got back to Granbury. Sure enough Nancy had a tooth break off during the meal. It left a gap in her teeth and she refused to appear in public for the weekend in Cross Plains. She made an appointment with a dentist Tuesday afternoon so as soon as Kiwanis was over we headed back to Granbury. She took an antibiotic an hour before the dentist prepared a short replacement tooth that she couldn't bite with until the permanent replacement is ready later. She has switched to my insurance and it is working for her.

Today we met her grandson, Clifferd, to eat again at the restaurant and to give him a rocking chair for his new house. To thank him for his work during the wedding with the food, Nancy gave him a coupon to help with the cost of gasoline for the trip.

Today I called the doctor's office to get my report on the blood tests. My chlosteral and triglicerides were down. I don't have the results from the tests the neurologist wanted, but they haven't called with any dire results. Yet.

Phyically I am back to completely normal except for the neuropothy in my feet, and it doesn't bother me. Just an agravation I will have to learn to live with. Another problem of aging.

Tomorrow we go back to CP for SS, church, Kiwanis and the Admin Council meeting Wednesday. Then back to Granbury Thursday for some routine doctor tests for Nancy and looking forward to the Nursing School graduation in College Station Fridayfor Vanessa who has earned her RN degree and as soon as she passes the certification tests will become a full-fledged Registered Nurse. Right now the prediction is for more rain that weekend.

We have had good rains in Granbury and I got a report of 2" south of Cross Plains. Don't know about the rain on Halsell Hill yet. Find our tomorrow when I get to my other home.

IDIOPATHIC NEUROPATHY

I love this name for my new disease. I didn't want the disease but this is the name for the odd feeling in my feet that feel like they are bound in duct tape. I had a complete analysis of my leg nerves today. An EMG was new to me. They start with small voltages running between electrodes attached to your leg and toes. The voltage is increased and although it is millivolts at the high end of the test it feels like medival torture. But it doesn't last long. A technician ran tests on both legs to test the conduction of the nerves. Then the neurologist came in and used needles to test the muscles in both legs. I am really pleased with this neurologist. He is very thorough. He had looked at the MRI of my brain and said he found nothing abnormal. The Radiology Associates had to find something to justify the scan and the ventricles were a little large but normal again for my age. He explained that the brain shrinks with age. And I am getting older. There are several around who thing my mind is shrinking, but they don't believe the Bible and believe in evolution.

Everything came out normal except the neruopathy in my feet. He said it was normally a result of diabetes or alcohol. Since I don't have those conditions he said when they didn't know they labelled it idiopathic. That sounded good to me. The part I didn't like is that it doesn't go away. I will have to live with it. My other problems have been going away every day and today I was almost completely normal in my gait and walking problems. After a year of testing I am normal and for my age I guess that is surprisingly good.

God is good. I prayed today for the lab technicians and the doctor and my prayer was answered.

NEW NEUROLOGIST

I found a new neurologist in Granbury. Fortunately he was able to move my appointment up from late in May to April 28. I was extremely pleased with him. He used a hammer to check all my reflexes, a needle to see where I felt it and every check of my reflexes. He had me walk down the hall, walk on my toes and heels, looked at the report of my MRI record and told me that I didn't show any of the characteristics of the disease that the cisternogram would be needed forand would suggent I cancel. I agreed with him. He said that he would look at the actual MRI before recommending cancellation and the MRI of my lumbar region to see if he can find the problems with my leg nerves. He also scheduled an EMG to evaluate my lower leg nerves. That was what I went to him for in the first place. He had talked to Dr. Kuban and originally agreed with the MRI report about the ventricles in my brain and Kuban's recommendation for a cisternogram. I am glad he reevaluated my situation. I wasn't looking forward to three days in Fort Worth taking tests.

Today we went to church in the rain. We went to the FUMC in Granbury and saw Chuck and Pat Herndon. Don't think Chuck recognized us. The service was fascinating with someone acting like Peter giving the sermon by walking down the aisle in costume with a staff and telling his life story with Christ. The Children's sermon and the Bible verse was the time Christ asked Peter if he loved him three times, telling him to Feed my sheep. An interesting performance and service. Looking at the report, their church is having the same problem as my church with cash flow. More going out than coming in. I have to give that report to my treasurer.

San Marcos

A toast in front of the cake.


Walking back up the aisle, married.

We had to extend our honeymoon by going to San Marcos for the Texas Folklore Society Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We enjoyed renewing our relationships. Nancy had attended the meeting last year in Abilene and had to renew her new friends. She was in pain last year. This year we even walked fairly straight. One of the papers was on the flu epidemic in Sherman in October 1918. We returned home to find that a 52 year old son-in-law of Mary Schulle had died after having pnuemonia for a few weeks, much like the flu victims.

We enjoyed the food. Even drove over to TSU campus to eat lunch Friday at a Thai restaurant with the students. I have to admit I missed one session by sleeping thru my nap Friday.

I only had a couple of photos of the wedding on my camera, but got a bunch yesterday when Kathy emailed her photos. I am waiting for Mandi to send me her photos of Faith and Jeremy. Kathy had one photo that was out of focus of Jeremy. I have posted a couple of photos. More later.

WEDDING PHOTOS

Nancy and me at the head table with our angels singing in the flowers. Note the placemats made by the church women. They were signed by Nancy and me in turquoise ink.


Harris is signing the marraige certificate to make it legal.

I know that a lot of people took photos and maybe they will share some with me later.

I AM NOW MARRIED

April 17, Palm Sunday at our church service, Nancy Johnston and I were joined in marraige. Her sons presented her for her family. My best man was my grandson, Jim Wilcox. His sons served as ring bearers. All of us men wore turqouise vests to brighten up the wedding. I wore my turquoise bolo. Nancy set up turqouise and red as the colors. The lunch tables had our signed placemats with turqouise napkins and forks.

I have to thank everyone for helping us. Nancy's kids were great. Her daughter, Vicky, took care of the cake preparation. Her grandson, Jeremy, played the piano during the dinner and my great-granddaughter, Faith, helped him by playing a few of the notes and he put them in his playing. Nancy's other grandsons took care of the flowers and distributed them to all who needed a flower. Nancy's son, John, unloaded the van of the beds and set up the Halsell House where a lot of Nancy's family slept before the wedding. Three had to sleep in cars. My house was filled with Kathy's family. Valerie brought two of her girl friends who got up Saturday morning to run 8 miles preparing for a marathon. I have good roads to run on. Up and down hill is good exercise.

My best man, Jim had to take his students to a contest in Corpus Christi and as a result missed the rehearsal and got here at 11 p.m. Saturday. But he was there for the wedding. His three kids were a great part of the wedding.

Friends came from everywhere. My brother, Robert, his wife Tommie came with his son Bob and wife from Oklahoma. Chuck Herndon brought his wife, Pat from Granbury and Barbara Majors from Fort Worth. Craig Hansen, his wife and son came from Fort Worth. He works for Lockheed and was a student I helped at A&M in the 1970's. A lot of my Cross Plains friends also showed up. We filled up our church with people. Had about 100 eat at the dinner. A lot of Nancy's friends came from as far as Ruidoso and Granbury.

I can't thank enough all of the church members who helped us with the meals. My daughter Kathy prepared the rehearsal dinner and fed everyone lasagna, bread and salad plus chocolate cake dessert for me. The church members prepared the tables and cleaned up. They were great.

We left to honeymoon in Abilene at Elegante Hotel. We were given four complimentary drinks but only had time to drink one. We were near Outback where we ate a flatbread apetizer and missed the other free drinks. We enjoyed the hot tub and slept late. We ate the complimentary breakfast and enjoyed the TV before coming back to Cross Plains to put money in the bank for the income tax hit. We had tried to deposit checks on Friday afternoon but found the bank closed due to the fire burning north of CP and the town was on pins and needles that the fire would come in again like in 2005. Everyone was watering their yards and reducing the water pressure the firemen needed. They were able to contain the fire and keep it out of town, unlike in Eastland County where they moved everyone out of Gorman and burned Kokomo again. It has been worse at Possum Kingdom and in the area north of Abilene where thousands of acres have been burned.

Today I had the County Agent speak at Kiwanis to a very small audience. Our grape producers were in California buying more plants to add to their grape acreage. Others had other excuses, but I am feeling a lot better and walking almost 100 percent. Maybe 99.8% anyhow.

The temperature got high today and will be warm tonight. Just hope the fires stay away.

TURKEY DAY?

Today for the first time this year I saw two turkeys walking through. It isn't Turkey day yet though. I got a call that my information for the County needs photos of the wildlife. I see them go through but don't photo them. I will get married this Sunday and maybe then things will calm down. I got a call from a doctor yesterday reporting on the MRI of my head. Can't find anything but wants me to meet with a neurologist after the wedding to try to find why I am having balance problems. Yesterday I drove to CP for bird feed and Library business and made it OK. Nancy vacuumed the Halsell House and washed off the front porch. Today I Kiwanis and I will be busy there and with Meet The Author tonight.

SPRING IS HERE

I can't believe I have waited this long to post to the blog. Due to the physical problems I have been having with my head, my fingers don't work well on the keyboard and I am just now beginning to feel normal. Every day I say tomorrow I will be normal. I am getting better. The last post talked about the snow. It did take it several weeks to completely melt. Nancy is hearing from friends in Nebraska and they are still having snow. Today we read 95 degrees on our car outside temperature as we drove back to Granbury. We will be here all week. I think my problem is related to the nerve problem that started in my leg. I think taking the steroids took care of the pain but caused some of my problems with my head. I can feel the steroids leaving. My legs are not as swollen. I have been taking stretching exercises that have solved the pain in my legs and if I can get rid of the wobbly head problem I will be back to normal. Nancy and I got our marriage licence last week and it got in the local paper, so at the restaurant after church we had a lot of people congratulating us. Even got the threat of a Shivaree from Don Clark. We are leaving on a Honeymoon and don't intend to be home for a Shivaree. Nancy has a lot of plans. I am glad that we will have the marriage ceremony as part of the church service. That will simplify things some. Today one of my Sunday School members became a member of the church which pleased me. She is a recent retiree from the USAF with her husband and is building a home in the Cottonwood area. We were glad to get her. She is a great addition to the Sunday School Class. I served as Worship Leader this morning but due to my wobblyness didn't help serve Communion. Tomorrow my head will clear up and I will be better!

ANOTHER GREATGRANDCHILD

Today the Rodenberger side of the family made me a great grandfather. Mark's daughter, Ashley Pagenkopf, gave birth to a baby girl. I will wait until I get the proper spelling of her name to report it. She and the baby are doing great from the report from Mark. I hope to see them soon.

FROM SNOW TO PEACH BLOSSOMS

Saturday morning after having breakfast with Bobbe and Yvonne in Acton, we went back to Nancy's house. Cokesbury called to tell me that my Sunday School books were in, so I called my granddaughter Ashley and her husband Ross to meet us for lunch at Hedary's in FW. As we left the house I looked at Nancy's peach tree and it was in full bloom. I said that there was no way my peach tree would be in bloom. Today as we came back from church I checked my peach tree and there it was. One full blossom! I heard Neal Sperry say that there was a 99% chance for another hard freeze in the DFW area. We haven't had our Easter spell yet so I know that these blossoms will have to live, or die, in another freeze soon. Of course it hit 84 degrees today so what do I know?

We enjoyed our meal with Ashley and Ross at Hedary's. Ashley and I love the tabbula. She and I had the baked chicken while Ross and Nancy had the ground meat on rice special. Ashley looks great as they wait for their first baby to be born.

We announced our wedding date of April 17 in the February Flame newsletter and I reaffirmed it from the my position as worship leader in church today. And Nancy figured out how to comment on the blog today, so we may be hearing more from her. I will give her rights to post to the blog if she wants.

WEDDING BELLS

I can't believe I haven't posted for a week. Sunday we checked with Pastor Worcester, he looked at the calendar and said that Palm Sunday would be an acceptable date for our wedding. We wanted to have it immediately following church. I made the announcement by email to both of our families, with a copy to our SS class. We immediately got responses from the SS class, and the next day from Nancy's family members. Nancy has already proposed a menu for the church dinner after the short wedding service because everyone will be hungry. Our church members have all offered to help because it will be the first wedding in our new church building.

Yesterday I got a workout with my legs. I have spent a lot of time sitting and when my AC repairman came to check out the AC at the Halsell House, I walked down there and stood around watching from 2 till after 5 and last night my legs let me know. But my exercises are keeping no pain in my legs, so I am happy. Allen Barnett is an electrician and found a lot of squirrel chewed wires that he repaired so now all of the outside lights work.

I chaired Kiwanis today after getting a hair cut and having my pickup inspected. We had a good program with Connie Kirkham telling about Project Graduation that she has run for 22 years. We had a good board meeting after and are looking forward to our Pancake Supper March 10.

Nancy and I are looking forward to April 17.

NEW GREAT DOCTOR

Today I made the appointment I had to cancel due to bad weather. When Dr. Dan Munton found out I was an aerospace teacher at A&M he had to return a call to a local doctor that graduated from A&M in engineering, worked for NASA and then went in to orthopedic medicine. Turns out he was there after I left and I didn't know him. Dr. Munton showed me the MRI and explained how I have spinal stenosis with some nerve pinching and explained what they can do if it gets bad. Right now due to the exercises I have been doing I don't hurt and he said that by keeping up the exercises I will remain pain free. He sent me over to the West Texas Rehabilitation Center where a great physical therapist looked at the exercises and gave me new better ones.

We then went out to celebrate Valentine's Day at Lytle Land and Cattle Company steakhouse. We both had the sirloin special and enjoyed it. After a stop at Walmart to buy gas and hearing aid batteries, we got home about 4:30. With no nap I plan to go to bed early tonight, and try out my new set of exercises.

Nancy liked the doctor so well that she made an appointment for herself to get advice on her back and spinal stenosis she has been diagnosed with. We have to go back to Granbury to pick up all of her MRI records for him.

He also teaches SS class at a Baptist Church in Abilene. He asked how I knew and I told him I had read his bio before making the appointment.

FREEZE IS OVER

If the freeze is over why do I still have stretches of ice on my road? And there is snow left all around the well house. This morning I found my faucet at the well house was frozen. I had covered it but I guess four days below freezing got through the insulation. After a couple of hours with the sun shining on it, it worked with nothing broken.

Last night I again performed in the Centennial Players reconstruction of the land auction 100 years ago. This time we had a small audience at the Chili Supper sponsored by the Senior Citizens Center. The Centennial Singers performed two songs. The newspaper story left off that the play would be performed. The big thing was they were scanning photos for the record for the Centennial. I took photos of Carl and Mabel Halsell and one of Mabel and Katie Lou her sister. I will send info to the person creating the record about the Halsells and their teaching in Cross Plains and Cottonwood and Cedar Bluff.

I have been doing great with the exercises keeping no pain in my back and leg. I have been preparing my medical history on the computer to take to the new doctor Monday.

STUCK AGAIN

About 1 this afternoon I finally decided to leave the house and try to get the mail. There was still snow on the sidewalk. I walked very carefully. The upper part of the walk and garage pad was clear. I took the pickup to the mail box. The road had some clear spots on it, but in the shaded areas the snow was still heavy. I was able to cross the creek and barely made it up to the front gate. I got the mail and got back to the Halsell house, but there I couldn't make it up the hill. The wheels just spun. I backed and tried but finally left it there and walked back to the house. The snow was not icy. I walked very carefully and made it without falling down. Every year I have done this and always took a tumble.

When we got up this morning the temperature was 40 and rising. But it takes a long time to melt this much snow. Nancy is from Nebraska and assures me that she can drive in these conditions and will drive around the pickup to get to church tomorrow. The forecast is for more snow tomorrow afternoon but no accumulation. I hope to get the pickup back up the road tomorrow because it is supposed to be above freezing all night which should help clear the road.

I had one pipe freeze upstairs, but it thawed yesterday and I see no evidence of broken pipes.

PRAISE THE LORD, THE POWER STAYED ON!



Because I had used all the wood on the porch I was worried that another power outage would leave us too cold, we thanked the Lord when we didn't even have a momentary power outage all day yesterday. I had one big log in the fireplace and it produced heat into the afternoon. I still have a few small sticks of wood it the event that we had to produce some more heat. The temperature got above 32 about 11 this morning and things are beginning to thaw a little but I am not planning on walking on the icy walk to the garage to go get the mail. I talked to Sue and she told me that Nancy and I are in a photo in the Cross Plains Review this week. It is still in my mail box.

POWER OFF POWER ON!

This morning I got shaved and entered the closet to dress when the electricity went off at 8. I had kept the fire going all night so I opened the fireplace and started bringing in more wood. We ate cold cereal when we had planned hot oatmeal. We used our snuggies and spent the morning catching up on reading. As the house cooled off I built a fire in the stove upstairs to help keep it from freezing the pipes. The low temperature was 8 this morning, the high 17 and it is supposed to hit 5 tomorrow morning and not get above freezing until Friday. Today we didn't get below 55 in the house so we were comfortable.

The power came back on at 3 but continued to have short outages all day causing interruptions in the internet and TV that was aggravating. I was able to get some work done. I also brought into the house all the firewood on the porch so tomorrow I will have to face the problem of bringing wood down from the driveway. I haven't put my foot on the snow because I know it is ice and I will fall. I have every year. I may solicit my neighbors' help to move some wood down. They have offered to help. They were in worse shape that me because they only have electrical heat and were bundled up today. They also haven't gone to the mailbox or tried to move on the ice.

The great thing was watching the song birds. We had gold finch, purple finch, two painted buntings, doves, and several cardinals showed up. I can't open my back screen door to add feed but there is still feed in the feeders that they scatter on the ground. I wonder what they do for water. Do they eat snow?

FEBRUARY FREEZE

The weather forecasters were right on. Yesterday we went to Abilene to run errands and were lucky to get out of town just before the rain blocked underpasses there. I called to cancel the doctor appointment for Tuesday morning and got rescheduled for noon Valentine's Day so we will celebrate with a nice meal after the meeting. We went to bed with thunder and rain got up this morning to find .4 inches of rain in the gauge, a temperature of 16 degrees and about two inches of snow on top of my firewood on the porch.

We had

I called to cancel Kiwanis. I tried to feed the birds out back but the screen door was frozen closed so I put some sunflower seeds on the walk at the end of the front porch. Lydia called to cancel coming and told me to sweep the front porch to get firewood. Even though it was cold the snow could be swept off. The concrete was still warm underneath. But immediately some light snow covered where I swept. I lit the fire and started bringing in some more logs. I will burn everything on the front porch before it gets back above freezing Thursday. I didn't even think about getting the mail. We have had a snow event every winter and I usually walk to the mailbox and every time slip and fall. With the pain I have been fighting I didn't want to chance it so I only walked three steps off the porch to sweep snow off the internet satellite.

I started the stretching exercises several days ago and have had no pain in my leg since Saturday. I served as worship leader again Sunday and had no problem on the risers. No pain in the trip to Abilene or today. We are thanking the Lord for having electricity service! Hopefully it will stay on during this spell.

MRI AND FERAL HOGS

Tuesday I had an MRI of my lumbar area and today they called with the results. Seems that I am collapsing in my lower spine as happens with aging. They mentioned disk problems, some spinal stenosis, and nerve damage. I have an appointment with a spinal doctor in Abilene for next Tuesdaymorning. He is located next to Rehab Center and uses their equipment. I looked him up before making the appointment. Dr. Munton teaches SS and has a good bio. I am certain that with proper stretching exercises I can regain my mobility. I have started exercising with the ones that my PA gave me when she reported on the Xrays.

This afternoon I saw some movement past the pond and saw a small pig and one larger one. They wandered back off into the woods. I am going to have to get a bigger gun than my 410

At church last Sunday Eddie Walt the retired Dallas police captain told me he had published his book on the largest shootout in Dallas history. I looked it up on Xlibris. Named The Hall Street Shootout it describes is an excellent well written true story that sounds like a Clancey novel. I bought an ebooks copy and tried to download directly to Kindle, had to download to the computer and transfered it to Kindle but still haven't been able to read it on Kindle.

I scheduled Ed to give a book review for the Library on March 15. He and his wife, Carol, are having a book signing at Art Walk in Abilene February 10 and he is selling copies of his book at the Library and Barber Shop.

This is a photo of the Centennial Play cast. I am in the white hat in the back. They told me I couldn't wear a cowboy hat, but I argued that John Stetson was making hats in 1911 so they let me and Bob Golson in the black hat wear ours while the others wore the little beanie hats.



I am in the spotlight on stage during the play. Photo courtesy of Nancy.


NANCY IS GREAT NURSE

During Nancy's three operations I helped her put on her shoes and now she has been helping me. My right leg has been hurting like mad when I try to bend it so putting on a shoe is impossible. She has been doing that for a couple of weeks. She has been chauffeuring me. I missed my appointments this week. Tuesday I spent the day in bed trying to rest what was diagnosed as bursitis, and missed my Kiwanis meeting. Wednesday I spent the day in the recliner and got some relief and missed the Methodist Administrative Council meeting where I usually take the minutes.

Thursday I went to the doctor's office to get the report on X-rays. They said that the lower spine disk looked a little collapsed and think it is a nerve problem rather than bursitis. She had injected the hip bursis with a steroid last week and it didn't help. She ordered an MRI for next Tuesday. And she gave me a prescription for the steroid pill that was the only thing that has helped. None of the pain medicines did anything for me except constipate me. I started the prescription last night and feel better today.

I am posting photos of the Centennial Play at the top of the blog. I still haven't figured out how to get them where I want them.

FULL DAY

We have had a full week with normal activities including Sunday School and praying for our friend Teresa who was thrown from her horse and suffer extreme damage to her spine and rib cage that punctured her lungs. She has been operated on and is doing better but facing months of rehabilitation. Her prognosis is that she will have full recovery.

Today was full. We got up at 6 dressed, I drank a glass of orange juice, we read our devotionals and left at 7:15 to make my 8:15 doctor's appoinment because my bursitis was really hurting my right leg for the last couple of days. She gave me a steroid shot in the hip bursitis and sent a prescription to Walgreens and ordered X-rays of my hip and spine. I then made my 9:15 appoinment with my dermatologist who for the first time since I have been in his office did not spray me with liquid nitrogen. That gave me time to go back for four X-rays. I was out by 10 and Nancy drove us to Walgreens. They said they hadn't gotten the prescription. We stopped for breakfast at Subway and went back to Walgreens. Still no prescription so we asked them to send it on to Walgreens in Granbury and headed for the house.

I called Arlene on my cell phone to tell her I would be a few minutes late for the Centennial Play where I had a part. I got home and quickly changed into the new Western suit and vest that I bought on Monday when we went to Abilene for my Dental appointment. We ate at Olive Garden and bought the suit at Farm and Ranch Western Wear. They couldn't hem the pants so Nancy had to use her sewing skills to get the suit ready for the full dress rehearsal Tuesday night. I presided at Kiwanis Tuesday noon.

Back to today I got to the rehearsal at 12:08 and wasn't too late to run through our skit. Then at 1 the program started with the School Band playing three tunes. Then the mayor read his proclamation of the Centennial Year followed by our skit. We had about 20 people participate in a reenactment of the selling of the lots to start construction in Cross Plains on January 12, 1911. My role was one of the Directors of the Township Company formed by the railroad who owned the property and had built roads and a water system. Our local auctioneer acted as the land auctioneer with an assortment of costumed citizens doing the bidding. Then at a Freeze Frame I summarized the process of the bidding and what businesses came from the start. After the unfreeze I completed the program encouraging the citizens of Cross Plains to support the effort to make the town more than a small town but a center of commerce.

The program then had a performance by the Centennial Singers to complete the program. It was now 2. Nancy drove us to Granbury where we had the second meal of the day at the new Hoffbrau House in Granbury. She had a sirloin and I had a small ribeye. Very good and not too expensive.

I called Walgreens when we sat down to eat at 4. They assured me the prescription was being filled. At 5 I got to the store. The prescription was not ready. While waiting I used their photo service to print a couple of photos that Nancy made of me in a President Lincoln high hat that I borrowed from Rev. Ron White who wore it in the skit. I have posted one of the high hat photos. I had to wait until 6 to get the prescription filled. It was a mad house. The woman in front of me demanded that they give her all of her prescriptions so she could take them to another pharmacy and stormed out when they told her the prescriptions were sent in by the doctors and would have to come from them.

We got to Nancy's home in time to watch the memorial session on TV and are looking forward to a night of rest after one full day.

NEW YEAR ANOTHER BOOK

I finally finished Beck's BROKE. My contribution to his plan is to work on a resolution to my church to get out of encouraging the government to spend money and let the church take responsibility for helping the poor. Our church has offices in Washington to lobby the congress and President and offices in New York to lobby the United Nations. Our social creed asks that the government provide jobs and union membership for all. And then they announce that they support legislation that our members are against. I downloaded the Discipline on my Kindle and have been reading and book marking it. It is a long book. I have also started reading the second book in Chuck Etheridge's trilogy about living in El Paso. It is called Desert after Rain. I think he is a good writer. Nancy lived in El Paso and I gave her his first novel to see what she thinks of it, but she is reading Laura Bush's autobiography. I have loaded several things to my Kindle. I check the Abilene Reporter-News every day. I bought Sir Isaac Newton's commentary on the prophesies of Daniel for the Kindle.

We saw wildlife in Nancy's back yard. The white-tail deer here are a lot smaller than at my house. You may be able to see the buck and the doe to his left. Then this morning two doves came in to feed under the bird feeder. They were about half the size of my doves in West Texas.