grandkids

It's kind of strange, last night I was wishing that Lianna would leave me alone so I could play on my computer. Sophie kept wanting to be in my lap, typing with her feet. Then tonight, Lianna is at her cousins and Sophie is out with her mom to visit the other side of the family. And I miss them.

Much to quite, I keep wondering what they are getting into now. My sons are home, each in their own world safe in their rooms, using their computers. I can't find any online friends online at this time.

Sophie is growing so fast. I can't believe how she loves to play games with me. It is so much fun, sometimes she pretends she picked something off the floor and puts it in her mouth. I go get it out and she didn't have anything and then she laughs at me. Not bad for a one year old.

Lianna is getting ready to return to school, and she always wants me to play school with her. She lines up all her dolls and I suppose to have roll call and give a lesson. Everyone one of them has a name. From Lickly Lickly Lala to Married man. Better get the names right too.

I miss them, I hope I never forget that and say something dumb like "leave me alone"

What the....?

I don't recall the date other then it was 1961. It was either sometime around the Bay of Pigs invasion or in the fall of the same year.. Tenisons were at a high level with Cuba. We had been in the area around Cuba for some weeks, training and conducting war games.

One day, as we sailed around close to some island, the general alarm went off. Bong, bong, bong. No words just the alarm. It was the first time I had heard the alarm without the words, "Now hear this, this is a drill, this is a drill. All hands man your battle stations". then the alarm, Bong bong bong, would keep going till someone in charge turn it off.

In shock, I ran forward to my battle station, high in the upper deck, to man my Target Designator Transmitter, or TDT. As I ran forward I couldn't help but noticed that our guns were swinging out as I ran forward and up. I could see, in my mind, our missile lanchers receiving their missiles and swing to face the targets. Hatchets were being slamed shut, dogged (locked). Sailors putting on helmets and life jackets. Lookouts scaning the sky.

I felt a strange kind of pride. We were doing everything just as we had done during our countless drills. But this time, live ammo was being loaded into the breechs. Just as I pluged in my headset the captain came on the 1MC. He told us it was a mistake, someone had pushed the alarm button. He told us he had been getting a hair cut when it went off and that he was still wearing a sheet around his neck. The alarm was canceled and we went back to normal duties.

Later we found out a new crewmember had been polishing the brass in aftercon. After control is where the ship can be controled if the bridge gets wiped out. Anyway, wanting to do a good job he pushed the lever covering the brass plate out is his way and that lever was the general alarm. I bet his officer got chew out and I bet he chewed out he person in charge of the new guy.

But what I saw and felt confirmed to me that "we" were ready. If Castro came at us we would respone. No Pearl Harbor for the USS Canberra. We were a team, trained, and ready to respone. No panic, no wondering what to do. We would fight as we had trained.

Sleep well America, our armed forces are trained and ready.

Life

Life. It is a mystery to me. Some people cling to life beyond my understanding. Others seem to give it up to willingly. What is it about life that some of us want to keep on going and others are finding so hard?

I wish to be able to see my grandkids grow up. Finish high school. Not so high a goal you may say but life is not mine to grant. I am pass my mid sixties. I have no idea how much time I may have left. I find joy in watching Sophie learn little things that most of us have forgotten that we knew.

I was playing with my grandkids and Lianna and I were tossing a ball. Sophie wanted to play so I threw her the ball. She picked it up and tried to throw it back. But she didn't know how to get her hand to open at the right time. The first time she tried she drew back her little arm and flung it forward. The ball didn't fly out. She had not opened her fingers. She knew how to drop things, if fact, she loves to make grandpa pick things up for her. A great game that babies loves to play. But throwing? Why is that ball sticking to my hand? After Lianna and I had a nice laugh we tried to teach her how to open her hand. After a little bit, she could throw. No major leauge pitcher YET. But she knew about opening her hand and she loved it. The ball may not go where she is looking but it goes. She has learned a lesson in life.

I smiled.

At her age, life is not a mystery, it is just what is, que sera, sera. Learn to walk, learn to talk and learn to think. I love watching my grandkids think. I have watched over the cover of a book as they look at things, turn them over and wonder "why?" Lianna knows how to use a screwdriver and other hand tools. Sometimes I wish I had not shown her. but she loves to learn what is inside of things. Once she came in to my den holding a little white box. She announce, "this is the talking box." It had been in one of her talking dolls.

Life, so much fun at times, so hurtfull at other times. This week I heard that a friend of mine had a "mini stoke" while at work. They rushed her to a hospital and they kept her for a few days. She is home now, with orders to rest. This prompted me to start thinking about life. Our bodies are so special, so complex. We have lungs to draw in air, a heart to pump our blood throughout our bodies. Blood brings oxygen and food to our cells, and then carries away waste where our livers and kidneys help us get rid of it and then the lungs release "the bad air" out so they can draw in "good air'. Our brains control this complex system without us even thinking about it. Did it learn this in the womb? Bit by bit, line upon line?

This wonder of God, our life hangs by a thread. My friend had a leak in a blood vessel in the brain. Just a small one, if it was under the sink in the kitchen it would be sometime before we saw it. Be it was in the brain. She tells me, her arm went numb as she watched it but she could not control it. It was such a small leak. She told, mumbled to be honest, her boss to call 911. He did and they rushed her to a hospital. After 3 days she was sent home where we hope, honest again, I hope she recovers with no after effect.

Point of this story, life is what it is. We don't know how long we will be here so lets take time to let each other know what we feel. The worse thing in the world must be to believe that no one in this vast world gaves a damn about you. I know there are people here that like me and care. There are many that I care about. I pray they know, that I have told them. So if I tell you again. smile. And remember God loves you.

So if anyone still reads this blog, I am thinking of many of you, Lisa, Sally, Lammy, Angelheart, Brandi and Kevin (see Brandi, I didn't add the e) Maren. There is KJ as we use to call her.(makes me wish I was a young man), Fred and Wendy, Dewman and Nicole even nienie whom I have never hear from direct but has encourgaed me to keep going. Dawn and Jen over at ourcopd plus all the others over there. Carol and Jamie, to name a couple( the other already have names (LOL). There are other, of course but I didn't make a list. I write on the fly.

Life is short, but it can be great. Life is hard but it does teach. I keep you all in my prayers and thoughts. I hope I am in yours.

Esta la vista, dear friend

A black day in blog land. I read today that the person whose blog I took as a model of what a blog should be is not longer going to blog.

I shall miss reading about her kids, I was there as they grew up, got their license to drive. I was there when one had her accident in the family van. I was there when her son became a deacon in the Church.

I will miss your blog Lammy. I wish you the best and even if I am not there anymore to laugh with you, cry with you, worry with you, I will be thinking of you and your sweet family. Maybe some day you will blog again. If you do, drop me a line. Till then, Vaya con Dios.

The Wall

I remember back to my youth, 1961. It was a good summer to be 18 years old. The girls were out of school, my ship was in drydock, and I could go to town often.

Then one day, without warning, the Russians built a wall. At first it was just wire around parts of Berlin. A funny wall, made not to keep things out, but to keep people in. In time the wall grew to be a concrete monster. It had broken glass embedded on top. Soon people found that some building were built right along side the wall. People would go the upper floors and jump out the windows into West Berlin. The Russian than bricked up all the windows. I remember pictures of a woman who had jumped out but as she jumped one of the guards caught her arm. People on the outside, standing in West Berlin, grabbed her legs and a tug of war started. The managed to get her away and she was free.

An ugly thing, the wall. Keeping family apart, sons from parents, sisters from brothers, husbands from wifes. People build many things to get over the wall, balloons, armored cars. Some dug under the wall. Other took the chances and climbed throught the wire and over the wall. Many were shot as we in the west watched. Attacked dogs patrols along the fence, no one was allowed near the wall.

It breaks my heart to see the monster we are building along our southern border. it is an ugly thing. Many feet tall, with a wire fence a few feet from the wall. Dogs in the area between, aircraft and electronic sensors watching at all times. We take pictures of the area in the morning and in the evening. If something is different it meants that someone or something has crossed the strip. A footprint, disturbed grass. We say it was because of 9 11. We say it is to stop drugs. The truth is it is to stop Mexicans.

The only terrorist that ever crossed our borders, that we know about, came in from the north. Across Canada. The others came in on visas. Legal entry and over stayed there visa. Drugs? Do we really believe that a wall will stop drugs from entering the U.S.? With all the money the durg cartel have they will bribe someone to put it in a diplomate pouch and get it here, no problem. They have many ways to get it here, as long as there is a demand, it will get here. Just as whiskey was in the 1920-30.

I agree, we should control our borders but the fence or wall will not work. Make the wall 30 feet hight, someone will make a 35 foot ladder. People yearning to be be free will find a way. People wanting food will find a way. Why do people cross the border? Most to work. Want to stop them? Stop the businesses that are hiring them. Not just a little slap, but a hugh fine and perhaps close them for a set amount of time.

Commit a crime? Do the time or send them back where they came from to serve their time. If they reenter, give them hard time. No parole, no TV, no AC.

But please, let's be honest about why we are building the wall. We don't want them here. Even if we had a treaty, the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Signed at the end of the Mexican American war. We got the western half of what is how our country and in return we agree to let those Mexican that lived in what had been Mexico become citizen of the U.S. And they would have the right to cross the border at will to be with or vist their families. People still in Mexico would have the right to cross into the U.S. and visit or stay with family that were on our side of the border. Somewhere along the way someone canceled that part of the treat.

But I hate the wall because it reminds me of the Berlin Wall. It is ugly, it divides the land. It cost to much and people lost their land so the wall could be built. It saddens my heart when I see it. I am ashamed of it. It makes us prisoners in our own country. When it doesn't work and people keep crossing are we going to post solders with orders to kill? A young sheppard boy was shot and killed while tending his family's sheep. Because a marine though he was crossing the border. He had been carrying an old single shot 22 rifle to ward off coyotes. But he is just as dead as if he had been crossing with out a visa.

Remove the reason for them to cross (jobs) and they will stop. But please, Mr. Obama, tear down that wall.

I;m back!

Where does the time go? It was been some time since I updated my blog. I keep meaning to do so but life gets in the way. Hard to believe that Lianna has finish PreK and is ready for Kinder. I recall her first day, Halloween parade, her first Christmas play and her PreK graduation. It seems as if it was all done in one week.

Sophie is one year old! No way! I see her walking and when her dad comes to get her for bedtime. She runs to me, she doesn't want to go to bed. I try very hard not to laugh.

Robert has started working at USAA and is learning that money doesn't go as far as one expects. He is so glad that he was able to land a position at USAA. In his home town, close to Mexico so he can visit his love on weekends. He was in Mexico during the 3 day July 4th weekend.

I would post my passport picture but the bright light does nothing for me. Maybe after I work on it. Add some hair, touch up my face. no, I'll just not post it.

I have been keeping up with my friends blogs. My friend's LisaM blog is full of great news the last few posting. I am so happy for her and her family. It makes me glad to know such good people.

My friend Maren, what a great story she has to tell. From being home bound last spring and then after many years she is able to find a doctor that worked with her and got her into rehab. Now she is working in the garden, driving and having fun with her son. She is finding joy in picking up after her husband, Jeff, and son. Way to go Maren.

Maren introducted me to a bloger named Nienie. That is a very inspiring story. she was in a private airplane crash. Burned but lived. To this day she fight to regain her life. Having visited a burn ward to administer to someone, I know how hard she must of fought. I have no way of letting her how much she has motivited me to keep trying. Makes me ashame of my bellyaching over my "minor" pain of my rehab. I pray for her often. She posted that she doesn't look as she did before but I can see her true beauty shining. I am sure her husband and family see it too.

My friend Lammy. When I started blogging I wanted to be like her. Tell it like it is. Share my thoughts and feeling honestly. Take it or leave it, this is how I see it. Thanks Lammy, I miss it when you take time off from posting.

Brandi's blog reminds me of when I first became a father. Enjoy it Brandi and Kevin. It will warm your heart in later years.

I will try to keep this blog up to date but from time to time I know life will get in the way. I know that somedays I just don't feel like writing. Makes me think of Wendy, another blogger that is also a writer. I would hate to write a book and then have to rewrite the begining. But it must be harder to put up with her husband Fred. AKA busdriver Fred.

I was going to write about other things when I sat down but I followed my feelings and did this instead. Look for more real soon

happy

It has been a warm week in south Texas. Lianna got a new water slide and so their dad set it up in the front yard the other day. They sure enjoyed it. I was surprised how Sophie took to the water spray. She seems to love it. Lianna has always loved playing in the water. Only a few more days of school left and next Aug. Lianna moves into Kindergarden instead of PreK. I must say she learned a lot in PreK and it has changed her a little. Not always for the good but learning just the same. Am surprised by how much they do teach in PreK. She can read just a little and colors better then I ever did.

Sophie took her first unaided steps today. She was watching a bunch of kids danceing and swaying to music on some kids show and she started to sway and move up and down with them. When the music ended she started walking away. I was so surprised as she had only taked a few steps from table to chair and things like that. But then she remembered "Hey, I can't walk." and sat down. I think she will be walking before the end of the day. Some days it's great to be a grandpa!

Didn't go to church today. Woke up very early, took my shower, shaved but my shoulder was aching very bad. I took an ice pac and went back to bed. When it was time to get up and leave I was still hurting to much and didn't want to drive in traffic with just one arm. So I stayed home. I really expected this shoulder thing to be over by now. I start rehab in one week. So I guess the doctor expected it to last for awhile. Two weeks ago he told me to rest my arm and then go to rehab. Guess I have been doing to much. I did remove the wheelchair ramp from the front door, chopped down some catcus that were encrouching on my driveway and felt good afterwards. But not now.

So went my week. Renewed contact with some old online friends, always glad to know they remember me. All in all, it was a good week to be me.