9 June 2023
Yesterday was better than the day before. The day before wiped me out and even after 12 hours of sleep, I was pretty lethargic. I really don’t have an appetite but I force myself to eat something and always back it up with an Ensure.
I now know what they mean by joint pain associated with chemotherapy. I went to bed last night around 8:30 pm and around midnight I waked with joint pain in every conceivable joint in my body. It was like someone was stabbing me in the joints. Around 1 am I took a couple of Advils and it mitigated it somewhat and over the night the pain abated. Strangely, when I got up this morning, the pain was gone.
On a brighter note, Eric and Jose showed up yesterday. Eric was making a supply list of what is needed to complete the job and Jose put a primer coat on the drywall in the vestibule. There’s still a lot to do: stucco the outside wall, paint the drywall (I chose the color celery for the vestibule), frame the jamb of the front door, put in baseboard, wash and seal the tile floor, paint the paneling outside the house, clear out the utility room, spray fungicide, and put down either indoor/outdoor carpet or water resistant linoleum. Once they put everything back in the utility room, that will pretty much be it.
It was April 12, 2023 that we had the massive flood in Fort Lauderdale, so if they finish up by the middle or June, three months is not bad for getting everything repaired.
Jimmie and I, on our Sunday FaceTimes, love to reminisce about our childhood. One thing that stuck out to both of us was my Dad making what he called an army tank but what most people call a tractor. I found a video on YouTube on how to do it (I long ago forgot how to do it). I do know that instead of an end of a candle, we used a piece of crayon with the paper removed. You need something that will “grease” the way past the wooden spool and candle wax or the wax of crayons is perfect. The big problem is to find a wooden thread spool these days. I did find one and made one that worked OK. Dad was a master at it.
We were fascinated he could do this with such simple materials and we had a lot of fun “racing” tanks and having them climb over things. When we were kids, there wasn’t a lot of money and you entertained yourself – like build tree houses, blow up crawfish holes, eat Aunt Eddy’s King Leo peppermint sticks, and make toy tanks. Then there was trying to outrun Mrs. McCoys bull in the pasture.
Some of the simplest toys brought the greatest pleasure. At Chadwick’s 5 and dime, you could by a tin click beetle (pained on top to look like a beetle) that underneath had a spring you bent back into some tar. When you placed the beetle on a surface, eventually the tar would give way and the click beetle would flip into the air and hopefully startle someone you were trying to trick. It was only later that I learned there really are things called click beetles and they really do flip in the air to escape predators.
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Another favorite toy was the gyroscope. This was in the late 50’s and early 60’s and I suppose the space race was going on then. You wound the string around the central column in the gyroscope and you could balance it on a string strung between two supports or balance it on your finger.
Then there was the famous slinky. My cousin Jimmie had one and she had what seemed like a hundred steps from the ground to the second floor of her house. We spent hours letting the slinky “crawl” down the steps.
Her Dad mad walking stilts. There were two sizes: stilts about 1 foot off the ground and another set that seemed 3 feet off the ground (we were kids so they could have been much shorter). To get on the tall ones, you had to prop yourself up on some lower stairs at her house and lean into the arm pieces of the stilts and hope your feet hit the stirrups. As you fell forward you would have to catch your balance or you keep falling forward.
Anyone remember roller skates with a key? Jimmie and her sisters had them and it was always hard to get the key to turn the clamps to your shoes hard enough. You could adjust the length of the skate as well as tighten the clasps to your shoes.
That memory made one of Melody’s songs my favorite, “Brand New Key.” It’s more than slightly dirty if you listen to the lyrics. Every time I played that song I thought of roller skating.
Where I grew up (Morton, Mississippi) a lot of the schools in the outlying areas closed and consolidated with Morton Attendance Center. That left a lot of empty school buildings, auditoriums, and gymnasiums. The gyms were often turned into roller rinks and we would beg either Mom or Aunt Mable to drive us to the rinks for a night of skating.
I’m sure I’ll have more nostalgic rants before too long.
Stay tuned!
