A LESSON FROM LIFE

                                                            A LESSON FROM LIFE

A couple of weeks ago, I fell and broke my hip while walking my dog. I have over the years been seriously hurt many times but this time seemed to be more egregious and mainly I think it has to do with my age. I have known other seniors who have experienced a similar injury who had trouble recovering from †his in a timely manner. I hope that I am an exception to that. I know that underlying health issues are often to blame and although I’m not the gold standard for health, I am doing pretty good.

Sometimes something like this is a wakeup call for some of us who haven’t seen old age taking bits and chunks of our vitality. You can take care of yourself as well as possible but when accidents happen, healing seems to be something the young will always excel at and we will continue to suck at, every day we age. Anyway, I have chosen the road called recovery and I hope it’s a smooth one. My prognosis is good, my attitude is good and Pat is as committed as I am to get through this in a timely manner.

Shortly after my injury, as I lay in the hospital, I temporarily climbed aboard that pity train that seems to be all too often your first resort but then not wanting to get caught up in that I tried to take stock of all the good things the good lord has done for me. First of all was the ground swell of love and support that began flowing in from friends and family. “Ah ha” I thought, “they do care for me.” Pat, my daughter and her husband just took the ball and ran with it Fixing my bathroom with handicap devices. My youngest daughter sent me a new Kindle reader because she knows how much I love to read. My granddaughters came to the hospital with treats and corny jokes. Neighbors back home were walking my dog for Pat and from the depths of despair came this over flowing cup of love and caring. Nothing is more meaningful then a video from my granddaughter of my three-year-old great grandson saying, “Get well Papa.” 

I have so many friends right now, whose health issues seem to put my own issues into perspective. People fighting cancer where the odds don’t seem to be stacked in their favor. Yet they say, “Just give me a chance. I’ll invoke modern treatments, knowledgably doctors, the will of God and my own tenacity-- and you know what? It has worked before for others and just maybe it will work again for me.” 

It is so easy to take life for granted. To get up day after day and do whatever you have to do, or want to do, to make life work for you and hopefully for most of us that is the norm. But every once in a while, life throws you a curveball, when you were looking for a fast ball and at least for a while you were fooled. But you come out of it older and wiser and knowing your loved and what more could anyone want from life then that. I start each day with a prayer for my sick friends and neighbors. I end the day with a prayer of thanksgiving for the good times the lord has blessed me with and lets hope for many more for all of us.

GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD

                                               

When I was kid my parents had a huge garden behind the house. We lived on the outskirts of Staples but we were still pretty much in town. My father wanted to grow as much food as he could, so to supplement the garden he had, he renting a acre of land on the other side of town, where he could plant those crops that needed a lot of room like corn and potatoes. My mother got her eggs and butter from her sister who did live on a farm near Motley. One of her other sisters lived on an orchard in Wenatchee Washington and she would send us boxes of fruit that mom canned along with the vegetables that wouldn’t keep in the root cellar. When I say root cellar it wasn’t one of those earthen buildings outside but it was about half of the cellar under the house where dad brought in sand and made bin’s for storing vegetables in.  Mom baked all of her own bread and rolls, so all we had left to buy was meat, macaroni, matches, milk and spices. Oh yeah, we did get corn flakes or oatmeal. I was sixteen years old before I ate store bought bread. Didn’t like it then and still don’t. Dad was proud of being self-reliant. He cut all the wood to heat the house and encouraged us boys to fish and hunt and work for the neighbors when we could.

There were no food shelf’s, Medicaid or food stamps and had there been, Dad would have turned his back on it anyway, because he had little money but a lot of pride. There was also no free food from the schools. You paid or brown bagged it. There was county welfare for those in need but it was nothing like what we have now. The only homeless people I knew about, were hobos that rode in on the trains that went through town. Most of them would gladly work for a meal or some groceries.

I listen to some of the proposals being put forth by political people and can’t help but think how wrong it is to promise people free stuff for their votes. Our country is twenty-two trillion dollars in debt right now. They are purposing many more trillion dollars in health care, free college and forgiveness of college loans, but they are short on ways to pay for it, except enact more taxes. Most of it a Robin Hood type scenario of taking from the rich to give to the poor. The moderates on that same left where this is coming from, see this as fundamentally flawed, as do the Republicans who oppose it.

We need to get back to people helping people and people helping themselves. We need more people standing on their own two feet. This country has millions of unfilled jobs because there is little incentive for entry level people to work and coupled with a broken health care system and an unpopular President, who has caused a lot of turmoil, we could be in for an expensive ride. History tells us that once free programs get in place; they are hard to get rid of. Someday when this country does go broke, and believe me, it will, you are going to have a lot of people, in a lot of trouble, dependent on a government that is failing all of us badly-- that will by then be powerless to help anyone. 

I hate to take sides in politics and I’m not now. I’m no fan of either party. The right has no good plans either but it shouldn’t be about the right or the left, it should be both of them coming together in a bipartisan effort to solve this countries problems.