Awake

"Show me the country where the bombs had to fall.

show me the ruins of the buildings once so tall.

And I'll show you young man, with so many reasons why.

There but for fortune ...  Go you and I.

LLITTY   ::::::+::::::

I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now

 Hey Shipmates......long time. me gone... since June.    Today has been a good day.  Good day/bad day        has been a mental roller coaster last few years.  But I know today must be a good day-  because I find myself writing to you.  How can I feel cheerful enough to type?   A bunch of stars have to cross and numbers align. And remedies taken.  And rest.  And dreams that are soft  and memorable.   This morning I awoke thinking very sentimental, romantic,  and childlike.  That hasn't happened to me in years.   I got up and headed down the hall and there was my wife sitting as she often does on the couch with her cat named Jewel on her lap.  Jewel is old and near the end of the trail and liking the kind of attention she is getting.  Wife's dogs are Mia and Roxy and they are lying around quietly.  Wife and I greet each other with a           "morning"  After 34 years of marriage there is electricity between us.  My blood glucose level is OK,         but getting close to low.  I fix a coffee mug full of dry cereal.  The cereal is called "Magic Spoon".  Wife asks me to fetch her glasses and let the dogs out.  She can't get up because she is "Kittenapped"  on the couch.  I go back to bed.  I do not turn on TV or computer.   I check my blood sugar quick and easy with a sensor glued on to my upper arm.  I pull the comforter up to my ears and lie still, not fully expecting to get to sleep.  Sleep exactly 2 hours.  Get up feeling O.K.  I drink an Atkins shake. I take my daily meds and insulin. I ask wife to make some coffee.  I head to the shed and take out some paper bags with paper trash and some cardboard boxes and burn it all in my 55 gallon drum.  I go back to the house.  Check glucose level.  I nuke 1/3 of a cheesesteak,  take it to my bed and TV.  I eat the sub with a fork and bypass the bread.  I watch about a half an hour of a Halmark movie.  I get up and head back to the shed.  Where am I getting the energy?  I usually do one thing a day.  And my arthritis is not bothering me.  I drag a big box out of the shed.  It's heavy and work it up into my truck.  It's a xmas tree.  New in the box. 7.5 ft. pine.  Been sitting in storage for years.  I took it to Goodwill.  We just never got around to setting it up.  After Goodwill I went to McD's for a burrito and coffee, which I took to a place called TS Smith Orchard where I had my burrito and coffee and watched the sunset.   OMG.  There had been a misty fog all day and now  the entire sky had turned blue dappled with pink and orange.  It was getting darker and lighter at the same time.  Enjoyed the short ride home.  Wife was back with Jewel and reminded me the trash can was to go out.  Another thing to do!  This is the most productive I've been in years.  Will I ache tomorrow ?  I went to my bed and watched another Hallmark and made a shake out of Carbsmart Bryers Vanilla.  I did not doom scroll on the internet.  I did not watch TV news.   Yes this was a good day.       

Addendum:          To the Pro's from Dover:   I owe you both greetings and fellowship.  We have the finest aviation club in the world.   I can't keep up with you guys....but you are family and I know we all love each other and have for 50 years.  Tailwinds and sweet dreams and shout outs to your wives and all the fams.           LLITTY    :::::+:::::         You are not what happens to you. You are the space in which it happens.

Nylon Capital

 G'Day Friends

I have to write a post that doesn't mention my medical challenges. And now I guess I just mentioned them.    A few weeks ago I was trying to unclutter my bedroom closet and I had a few rifles from days gone by.  Just .22's.   They were stored safely but not properly.  They were not valuable.  But one was kind of interesting.  It was a .22 called a "Nylon".   I had bought it years ago because when I was a young tyke my father had come home with one of these and we kids were amazed.  The stock was nylon.  The color was green.  It was like a toy.  We got to shoot the rifle and my father was really ratcheting up the safety rules "this is not a toy!"   The Nylon that I bought years later was the color of wood.  I took the Nylon and another vintage .22 to a pawn shop in Seaford De. about 9 miles south on good old Rt. 13.  The folks at the pawn shop were nice and they rejected the old bolt action .22 as it needed a minor repair.  But the Nylon they were keen about.  They said "you want to pawn or sell it or what"  just like the guy on the reality show.  I said sell and we had a deal.  The guy writes up my receipt and says:  Do you know about this rifle and where it was made?  I said not really.   He says  "The Dupont factory two miles from here was built for the purpose of manufacturing these rifles."  Seaford is known as the nylon capital of the world and Seaford is all about the Duponts.   When I was flying light twin airplanes out of Baltimore on charter I used to fly some of the Dupont family members.  Also the Dupont farm and summer cottage at Horn Point ties into my aviation life and career.  I could write many a chapter about Horn Point my fond memories of the fly ins there.  I'm digressing. 

I leave the pawn shop with a new used set of binos,  Bushnell.  Well, right next to the pawn shop there is a music store which I have been going to for 30 years.  I stroll in there.  I ask them about mini guitars.  Minies are often 3/4 scale guitars.  For a child or someone acting like a child.  I wound up buying a "Yamaha Jr." in "like new" condition.  It is cute I love it. It had about the same value as the rifle I had just sold.

As I drove back north on Rt. 13 for home, a phrase kept running through my mind   Their swords into plow shares,  or something like that.  Is it from the bible?       Does my life have to be a metaphor.            I said goodbye to a firearm and hello to a cute little guitar.

"They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.   Nation will not take up sword against nation.   They shall study war no more"     Isaiah 2

                           LLITTY      :::::+:::::

The Binary Irony of Cell Phones......A Geezers Lament

 Hey folks.........   it's a Sunday and my wife is at a dog show.  I'm at home relaxing with a dog and cat and 2 barn cats and a slew of hummingbirds   I want to write a post about cell phones and the ironies of it all for me.  I've had heart trouble Afib for 18 years.  But in the last 3 months or so my heart condition has gotten worse.  I'm wearing an 8 day ekg monitor as I type.  And I have an echo sonogram coming up.  I spent 10 hours in the ER at Nanticoke to get my pulse rate under control.  My goal in life right now is to stay calm. And stay alive.  What has heart trouble to do with cell phones?  As I sat down here a few minutes ago and thought about relating my story my heart rate was going crazy.  It's because the cell phone topic causes me anxiety.  It turns out I don't really want to talk about cell phones.   So I will change my format here and just make random statements and some of you readers may identify with me, probably not,  I'm solo on this rant!        

Verizon started the problems for me out of the clear blue

They said they can no longer support my old flip phone

I had just put a brand new battery in my old flip phone and it was working great

I had no choice but to get a new phone.

So I got an Android Galaxy Samsung  Verizon AO3s smart phone.

It had GPS and Music and of course a thousand other things...Apps   Apps Apps

The Verizon Store would help me switch the number over from flip to smart

It's very difficult to even make that appointment.  Long story too long for now

I had the phone 3 months and it was frustrating me.  Long story  too long for now

I ordered a new flip phone that they would support.......Long story

Dealt with Verizon a lot more  Long story

Wait Mr. Lloyd:  you want to upgrade back down to a flip?  Are you sure?  BIG long story!

My heart is acting up thru all of this....Long story  Big long story

Finally get my new little flip phone   and keep the Android aside without a number

I still after 3 weeks or so have trouble learning the new flip,  but not frustration

My heart is fluttering just thinking about this

The Android makes me anxious and sad

The TCL Flip makes me happy and not worried about cell phones

I had a bag phone called a "car phone"  in 1995 and cell phones from then on

100% of my sociogram thinks I am a stupid ass for getting the flip.  They are right!

Readers,  the longest day approaches ..  it's windy and warm today and sunny and I'm glad the ER fixed me so I can see and feel these things.  Instead of day by day I'm takin' life hour by hour.  Nature is real,

life is in the mind.        Peace                LLITTY        :::::+:::::

  

  

 

I Come and Stand at Every Door

 Hi friends...    

In an earlier post I talked about having too many things to pray about and feel so sad about.                         And how Dylan had decided a big storm of thunder and lightning could seem to be as church                       bells tolling for the underdog and forsaken .  There's just too much trauma and terror every day.                  The recent killings of children hit me very hard.  I have a heart condition and I'm always trying to               tamp down.  I wound up in the ER last week with a surprise spiky arrythmia.  So I guess my heart               is twice broken now.   I can't wrap my head around the cruelty .  I've stopped asking "why?"  "why?"         There are lots of poems about peace and protest.  This is the one we all need to hear right now.                                                                                                                                                                                              ' I come and stand at every door.  Though none can hear my silent tread.  I knock and yet remain unseen       For I am dead  For I am dead.   I'm only seven although I died in Hiroshima long ago..I'm seven now as I was then... when children die      They do not grow.

My hair was scorched by swirling flame    my eyes grew dim my eyes grew blind    Death came and turned my bones to dust    and that was scattered by the wind.

I need no fruit I need no rice.  I need no sweets nor even bread.  I ask for nothing for myself.                    For I am dead.  For I am dead.     All I ask is that for peace,  you fight today you fight today                    So that the children of this world may live and grow and run and play.                                                 

                                  LloydLou ITTY             :::::+:::::

"Be My Baby"

 Hello friends.     I've been dormant for three months.  Even while dormant I had to move around a little.     Twice a month I resupply hay bales,  get shavings for the stall,  other horsey supplies.   I also feed and water the horse when wife is busy,  at doggie school,  at an event, etc.  Mostly I stayed in bed last 90 days for no reason.  Wait...there was a reason...I just don't know what it was.  As best as I can remember  I spent day by day watching cable and reading.  And that's OK.  So what?   The trouble is that gradually I lost interest in everything.  Spring came and I got the mower out and spooled up.  Somehow that made me feel stronger.  Then I had a Dr. appointment and I had to interact for that and it went OK.  Now that I am closer to normal I may be able to move around more.   Enough geezer gripes.  Just stay thankful.       Next:  2 different songs   "Be My Baby"  and "Don't Worry Baby"

I have home made oldies CD's for my car that my wife has made for me through the years.  I had lost one for a while and forgotten it and it's a strange one.   The CD had about 9 selections and 3 of them were a song called "Don't Worry Baby"   I had the original Beach Boys version which I used to play over and over to try to learn the song.   I had the cool cover version wife pulled off internet.  It was Laurie Morgan and it was excellent.  The vid has Laurie in the studio with the real beach boys as back up.  It looks like each of the Beach Boys is in love with her.  The third version was "Don't Worry Baby"  by none other than Ronnie Specter.   The Ronnie Specter version is amazing.   When you hear her voice you know who it is and it just makes me smile every time.  I had my wife print up a 1964 B&W 8x10 head shot and an 8x10 of the Ronettes.  Ronnie is on my wall.   After doing some surfing the net I found out all about Ronnie and Phil Specter and the Ronettes   And I found out that Brian Wilson:  the leader of the Beach Boys and the writer of Don't Worry Baby:  wrote the song for Ronnie Specter.  

Ronnie has passed away this year in January.  She was 78.  

I just read her auto- biography.  It's an easy read and the music memories and stories are very charming when they are not creepy scary.   She had a very interesting life.  The session pros in the studios called her "the voice"   Her first and biggest hit went to no.1 on the charts.  It was "Be My Baby"   She was      seventeen. Phil Specter promised her his world but denied her own world.  Quite a story                           Happy Spring and Summer.                   LLITTY       :::::+:::::

Winter Spring Downsize

 We got a foot of snow here about a week ago.  Our second snow of the season.  No sense in trying to shovel it.  I'm a 72 year old geezer and the driveway is 300 feet long.  We have a nice neighbor who told me all I have to do is let him know and he will come over with his loader and get us out.  Thank you Bill!   But we didn't call him.  My wife's doggie class was cancelled and we were stocked on groceries etc. and it was nice.  We have a little gas log in our little great room in our little house.  We,  like everyone else, are quite used to staycation by now.   My only fear of the blizzard was a power failure event.  We have a Generac but not the kind that comes on line automatically and is fueled by natural gas or LP gas.  We've all seen their infomercials on TV.  Something like that would be great for us old folks.   However,  when we bought this little downsize house in the exburbs,  we right away bought a portable Generac and the set up is halfway to that Automatic system.  We haven't had to use it yet fortunately,  and we've been here 3 1/2   years.  Now that groundhog day is over,  I can finally allow myself to think of the promise of spring:  It started in Scranton....it's now number one....The Pennsylvania Polka!  about 3 more weeks of winter.       Mostly I do nothing but sleep, watch cable, doom scroll on desktop, and read.  I never write as you can see by my blog.   Playing my guitar is splotchy.  I go a couple months playing almost every day,  then a couple months- nothing.   When I start back up playing my calluses are mostly soft and it's hard to play.      And I forget how to play and sing etc.  And here's the weird thing:   When I first go back to play it's all I can do to get the thing in tune.  And my throat damaged by cancer treatment has my voice thin.  I kind of give up.  But if I can stay interested a bit,  around night three of back at it,  something happens and I do not just a bit better,  but I start to click and it's crazy fun because it seems so fresh.  Because I haven't heard the songs in two months.  I play better than ever. At least for me. (my better than ever is just a hack...I'm a duffer)    No one hears me anyway.   Wife is at the other end of the house and I'm in the garage.   Our house is a1900  sq.ft.  rambler or rancher,  one floor (good for old folks),  they call it a railroad house one hall from the garage back to the bedrooms.  Like I said it's a downsize.  From our farm in Dorchester Co. Md. where we had 89 acres with a one hundred year old farmhouse which was a money pit.  My wife had horses and other pets and I had airplanes and other toys.  I kinda miss the 20X40 in ground pool,  the 2900 ft. airstrip and the his and hers outbuildings.  My 40X60 hangar with a poured floor and a man cave and a loft.  Wife's 36X48 7 stall barn and tack room.  We couldn't have it forever anyway.  Nobody can have anything forever.  Wife and I love our downsize.  I call it the enchanted cottage.  I shall write a post about that some other day.  Our Delaware downsize is only 23 miles from our former  Maryland farm and we have moved across the Mason and Dixon Line!  No wonder I'm so politically confused!

Thank you readers.  I love you.                   LLITTY         :::::+:::::

Twelfth Night

 It's still Xmas for 3 more hours.  The Twelfth Day of Xmas.  12 Drummers and the Apostles Creed.              On Monday we had a one day Blizzard on Delmarva.  The snow is still on the ground and on the roofs.      We were snowed in.  Wife made pancakes.  I employed state of the art staycation.  On Tuesday we woke up to a white thick Xmas.  Wife ran her garaged 4 wheel drive up and down the driveway.  You park on a driveway and you drive on a parkway.  I shoveled narrow walks to the sheds.  And cement patio, porch and sidewalk.  We stayed home, but not snowed in.  Then Wednesday I cleaned snow off my little white car and my little blue pickup.  Ran Corolla to wawa for fuel,  then to p.o. Seaford-- then to Taco Bell and on way home Tractor supply for couple of bags of feed.  Took a long coffee break--Then the truck to wawa for fuel  then to Trac Supply again for 8 bales of hay.  Then home and another coffee break.  A cat nap and it got dark.  The days are getting longer.  How can that be.  Back into the car which is ready to go.  Over to Bridgeville 3.5 miles away.  McDs and home. On Thursday.... that is today.  Insurrection Day-  it's another big staycation day.    So in a few hours the holidays are over.  I had my phone off all day.  I didn't doom scroll TV or desk top.  I didn't feel like following the anniversary of the Capital riot.      But I checked in tonight on CNN etc.   No huge street armies fighting...or bombs....  No burning of the Reichstag.  A lot about Covid.   I'm kind of glad I'm not up to date.   Groundhog Day in about 4 weeks.  Snow still on the ground slowly melting.  They are saying another east coast storm hits here tomorrow.  I've been in the now of activity last couple of days.  Concurrently, I haven't had the blues.   The sea changes and red crazy sunsets have given me a charge maybe and the soreness from shoveling  too.  Do it all again tomorrow.  Thanks readers.........be safe..     they say Omicron will peak in about a month.   Maybe.                                                                                          LLITTY