adventures of a 70 yr. old man on the dc beltway friday night christmas holiday

 Hi friends.   I've been a chatterbox recently.  Mostly just talking to myself.  And to my wife.  Because, as you know I have shut myself off for four years or so now.  Maintaining  "Radio Silence".

Happy New Year by the way!  It's still ok to say Merry Christmas as we have not yet reached Twelth Night.  I could talk a lot about being a shut- in hermit.  But I'm not going to.  I want to talk about a few days I had during Dec. that picked me up and threw me out into the world.   On Dec. 14th I got a text from my nephew George the twin  He told me via a text to my wife that dear friends had invited me to a Christmas party the following night.  At their house on the Western Shore.  They are not really just friends.  They are my second family that I love as much as my own family.  I asked my wife  "How can I do this?  I can't drive at night.  D.C. traffic even in broad daylight ... my heart rate....my insulin, my leg, I need a bathroom and my meds near.  and I...  well... I would love to go...but..  My wife said that it is rumored on face book that Paul and Johnny will be there.  "What! I said.  You see I had had a bit of a falling out with Paul although I love him like a brother and always will.  And Johnny had a battle with cancer that was ongoing and life threatening and I had been praying extra hard for him for some time and I had heard from wife that he had gone into remission a couple of months before with some off the chart recovery  with ahead of the art chemo.   Johnny will be there.   I had no time to think about this if I was to go tomorrow.  My wife was shuffling her schedule already for that Fri. 15 tomorrow.  Since I would not be available to take care of horse and other animules.  I hardly slept that night before,  thinking of a small overnight bag,  my little travel guitar,  a small bag of meds, insulin, emergency candy.  I seemed to be more alive.  More positive.  Happier?  I had made a reservation at the Hilton where RT.1 meets the Beltway in College Park my Alma Mater town.  I had to get there before dark and Fridays on the Bay Bridge can be log jams.  Corolla topped with gas,  bridge traffic but no delay.  I check into the Hilton and my friend Kevin picks me up and we head for the party.  As we drive through College Park I realize a town can change a lot in 40 years.  At the front door admiring classic Christmas trim,  the door opens and there is Paul to meet us.  He is smiling. Gleaming. And we are shaking hands and we don't let go.  Johnny steps up to me and we hug and I've lost it by now and the party crowd was talking and visiting and they paused and looked our way a moment and sent out a communal ahh!           There's a lot more I can say.  My outlook opened to something.  Christmas spirit?  I had many more adventures through Advent and Christmas and like the Grinch my heart was growing.   Love you readers!                                                     LLITTY    :::::+:::::                                         

Lady of the Harbor Don't Cry Most of Us love you

 Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless tempest tossed

To me.  I lift my lamp

Beside the golden door

I'm not Coming out

My memory,  short term anyway,  has been going away with my hair and lot's of other things.  I search       for my reading glasses and find them on my nose.  My grocery list is missing the one thing I needed to buy.  I go to the bathroom every few minutes it seems.  I have forgotten what this post is supposed to be about.  It doesn't matter because my posts are just geezer rambles anyway.  My son told me a dad joke:       "There is a restaurant on the moon.  The food is great but the atmosphere is lousy"                                          I lie in bed a lot to rest and think and try to plan my next geezer activity.  I get tired and rest after jobs like tying my shoes,  walking around the house.     This morning while thinking I had an epiphany.              You know the expression  "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder"   It's a true and nice thing.  It made me think.   Wait:   Everything is in the brain of the experiencer.  Thats all life is.  It's just millions of human brains working.  Maybe nothing material actually even exists.   I think I'm special and unique (just like everybody else!).  Things that have been troubling for me for  the last eight years, like politics, and the last 40 years like religion have seemed to be  back burnered a bit when I push back.  I don't have to push back directly to my lost friends.  And the politics is much the same as religion.  The respect of truth is important and critical to this line of thinking.  I'm doing fine closing myself off from mostly all my sociogram and this epiphany is telling me all I have to do is push back in my mind.  Why not?  Thats where the trouble is.  I'm an atheist and have been for over 50 years.  Way back in the day I used to argue with friends about religion.  God, I was immature and insecure!  ( Oops I said God).  Now if the topic comes up in my tangled mind I just remember that no one ,  not Billy Grahm ,  not Al Sharpton,  not any TV evangelist,  not Bart Ehrman and I can just smile because on some level they know that no one knows what happens to you when you die. Their castle is straw.  Sorry my brothers....  it's horsehockey.   Now to this last eight years of dystopia which has been hard on my irregular heart.  But my heart actually broke when I realized that half of us are aching and starving for an authoritarian to rise as a dictator.  I am so disappointed in my fellow man .   Just because you are unhappy you want to blow up the separation of powers and take away help to the homeless,  starving, sick, needy ,   refuged, amnesty seeking,  uneducated etc.  and burn books?  Stop the peacefull transition of power and worship a king?  So I'm disappointed and tired from the 8 years.  Starting now I'm not going to fret over it.  I have to tone down politics and religion because my heart can not take it.  Physically or mentally.  Years ago I created a religion of my own.  I pray very hard every day.  I pray for the underdogs.  I pray for lives lost to serial murderers.  Innocent lives.  The loved ones who now will suffer in pain and sorrow for the rest of their lives.   I refuse to carry this insane violent  behavior around on my shoulders.  I can't stop it but I can ignore it just like everyone else is doing.  It's in our brains.  I'm done with everyone in the outside world. Like during the pandemic, I'm sorry but I don't have time to try to figure out who is virtuous among my fellow man.  Over the years I guess I will come out slowly in the world if it exists.   If you are yearning for an autocracy and want to tear down America, you are in with a big powerful group.  If you want a dictatorship I would caution you with an old sage advice.  Be careful what you wish for.                           LLITTY         :::::+:::::

Thank you Billy Ed Wheeler

 Now that our mountain is growing

with people hungry for wealth

How come it's you that's a-going

And I'm left alone by myself

We used to hunt the cool caverns

Deep in our forest of green

 But then came the road and the tavern

And you found a new love it seems

Once I had you and the wildwood

Now it's just dusty roads

And I can't help from blamin' your going

On the coming, the coming of the roads

Look how they've cut all to pieces

Our ancient poplar and oak

And the hillsides are stained with the greases

That burn up the heavens with smoke

You used to curse the bold crewmen

Who stripped our Earth of it's ore

Now you've changed and you've gone over to them

And you've learned to love what you hated before

Once I thanked God for my treasure

Now, like rust it corrodes

And I can't help from blamin' your goin'

On the coming, the coming of the roads

:::::+:::::    LLITTU

Warning: Geezer Talk About Medical Issues

I've had diabetes over the last 21 years.  I've had an irregular heartbeat for the last 19 years.  Over the last five years I've had what are called "carries" from cancer damage.  The damage is from the disease itself,   as well as the treatments.  I'm not going to talk about my former suffering other than to say I am very lucky and the last five years have been bonus years and I treasure them as much or more as earlier years.  The "carries" are a burned out jaw and mouth and saliva glands and taste ability,  and swallow ability,  voice deterioration and on and on.  Used to be able to yodel a bit and use falsettos.  Listen to me.  I'm whining.  I have no right to complain at all!  I'm mostly healed up.  I have a thing called "Barret's esophagus".  According to the cancer center's shrink I have PTSD.   Ok, but I don't belong on any shelf with men and women in the armed forces and law enforcement or those with serious disabilities. I see nothing compared to them .  I salute them.  And the children I saw during my treatment days  So braver than I.  And their parents whom I cried for.  And prayed for.    Why am I telling you this?  It's not the half of it.  But over the last five years I've been taking current events in the world too much to heart.  My solution to the sadness and anxiety was to shut myself down socially.  Last summer I had some heart trouble.  When I was recovering from that I realized that after the cancer I was weak and way underweight and the doctor said I could not have my feeding tube or my IV port removed until I was gaining weight for a certain time.   The short story is,  I never came all the way back from cancer.  I'm pretty sure nobody does.  Again,  I am lucky.  Huge thanks to Cancer Center in Easton.  So this heart thing last summer had me doing nothing all day.  Lying in bed,  sitting at desk, trying not to raise my heart rate.  I'm naturally lazy anyway.  When I saw my family doc for a check up,  he said "Lloyd. you are six ft. one.  You weigh 136 pounds"  And I had dizzy spells.  And I already had a syndrome called Proximal Positional Vertigo.   So I mowed through the summer and layed low through the fall.  Something happened to me about a week ago.  I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.   The Endocrinologist had hooked me up with a thing called a Continuous Glucose Moniter.  The dietitian had told me to eat more.  "Your too light.  Eat more."  So about a week ago I started to learn that if one has diabetes and needs to GAIN weight there is a vacuum of advice on that.   The search engine takes you to weight loss.  Most diabetics need to lose weight.  A week ago I walked a mile.  And every day another mile.  Now I'm at day six.  I feel better.  Next I wanted something like the protein power powder the body builders use.  I learned that GNC had closed up most of their stores and I got little help from Walgrens and wasn't sure if that powder was OK for my heart.  Wife reminded me of this little store in Easton called Muscle, Inc.  I went there on a rainy Saturday and the nice trainer lady there told me about weight gain without mentioning weight loss!  It was like I was on another planet.      I got the whey powder huge bucket.  I got pills that make you hungry.  I got vitamins that "support" weight GAIN.  The lady showed me some geezer exercises like vertical push ups and stretches.  I drove the forty miles home in the light rain thinking I don't need no stinkin' Walgren's. I feel a bit Wokened  up about all of this.  Oh yes and wife bought me some walking shoes over the internet of course.  I can barely get them on.  They are my size 10.  I figure they are too small but my toes have room.  So I go out on the concrete and walk.  I can feel my feet in contact points all over the shoes.  The arch is crazy thick.  I'm sure they're going to be too uncomfortable. I force myself to walk.  One lap is 500 ft.  After the first lap I am not thinking about these sneekers.  I'm thinking about my stride and the arm exercises.  I complete the mile, ten laps.  Now six days later my feet haven't a single rash, blister, or mark.  So it's another tool found.  Oh, and wife got them on sale.  Retail $220  on sale $140.  Ever heard of Hoka?      I know I'm a geezer.  The way I look in these shoes proves it.  Thanks for reading.  Love  :::::+::::: LLITTU.

Can't Help but Wonder

       It's a long and dusty road,    It's a hot and a heavy load                                                                               

       And the folks that I meet ain't always kind                                                                                                  

       Some are bad; some are good                                                                                                                            

        Some have done the best they could                                                                                                          

        Some have tried to ease my troubled mind                                                                                                

        Nail my shoes to the kitchen floor                                                                                                              

        Lace 'em up and bar the door                                                                                                                                              

         The answers I know I'll never find                                                                                                                

                                                                                                      :::::+:::::LLITTY         peace friends

Times I've Had

Hi guys.....    I'm remembering a lot now about civil unrest during my young years.  I think about  violence  and I guess we as species,  just can't evolve past it.  Half of us just aren't able to handle disagreements very well.  Some folks are, in this day and age, dead against helping the poor and the homeless, and the ill and disabled and those seeking refuge .   How could anyone. Anyone-  be against such help? This is what drives me to my hermitage........among many other things.

But here's a blues lyric I found back in my College Park memories:

"There's a lotta people talkin' bout a comin' war

Some of 'em rich,  and some of 'em poor 

They talk about it like a Blackjack game  ...

But win or lose ...

You can't play again.                                     Be safe my friends.      Love you.      LLITTY  :::::+:::::

You and Your Pussycat Eyes

 Greetings friends!   Our Kitty Cat,  a barn cat whom we brought from our farm 4 years ago is named Jewel.   She's kind of in kitty hospice now.  I mentioned this in a previous post.  Wife after lots of diagnosis back 5 months ago knew Jewel was at the end of the trail.  A day came when Jewel seemed sicker and wife took her in for a planned putting down. I was sadder about it that I expected to be.  But something happened.  Wife and Jewel get to the vet's.  The regular vet was off on a call;  the other vet was to put Jewel down.  He handled the cat.  He talked to my wife and decided to run some vitals on Jewel. Yes she had lots of problems.  But he felt she could have some time left and we could watch her carefully.  This was about 4 months ago.  So we still have Jewell!   On that day that she came home alive wife had got Jewel fed and medicated and she carried Jewel to my bed where I was lazying under the blankies.        She layed Jewel on top of me.  Jewel was getting her bearings with almost no sight.  She put her nose right up to my face.  There were these two green, big, beautiful eyes  giving me a staring contest.  What a wonderful gift for an old mortal like me.  My mind had been filled with the hate in the world.  Wife and Jewel have fixed me at least for today.  Something had happened (again) and I was laughing and crying at the same time.                      LLITTY    :::::+:::::

everything is smaller and slower; no more driving at night

 Hello readers . Been maybe 4 months since I logged in to post.   I know I wasn't too busy to post.  In fact I have plenty of free time.  There was a time when "free time" was something I longed for.  Now I have the time,  and I have to remind myself that I'm lucky.  I find myself watching the world.  My country,  my region, my state, county , town.  Our town.   I see the folly in men over and over.  I'm very disappointed in my fellow man.   I guess I've lost or forgotten almost all of my psyco-social coping skills.  It's hard to just let things go.  And now after seven years or so my anxiety  has settled into  a defense reaction.  It's simple. I go nowhere.  I see no one.  I do nothing.  This used to be called "shut-in depression".  What I experience in isolation used to be called a "nervous breakdown."   I'm not entirely an island. I have a loving wife who understands.  I travel out where stores and people are all around.   I must do that to function and provide.    I wear a mask inside the stores.  When I see someone else with a mask I know they've had a nervous breakdown too.  When I wear the mask some people hate me for it...and some folks love me for it. Isn't that strange.

Last month (Feb) at some point the weather media was talking about a big snowstorm in January.  They kept saying "next week"  A daily threat which seemed to me to just be "click-bait".  The media just has to have a big story.  And they simply create the whopper if needed.  Now I assume everything I hear or read is a lie.  So instead of being lied to....I just avoid the liars.  And I do self help to counteract so I can laugh rather than cry due to frightening future scenarios. So here is what I did on Groundhog Day:   I read an article on the scroll about geezers shoveling snow.  Yes yes.... we all know :  heart attacks and stokes.  But part of the free advice was helpful.   Elders should not work shoveling too long at one time.  It's not a race.  Work 20 minutes,  rest ten or 15.   Shovel during the snowstorm so the accumulation doesn't get ahead of you.  Use a plowing shovel so you are not lifting;  only pushing.         So I find myself going to Seaford.  Phil,the GH saw his shadow and the day was sunny.  I went to a store called Big Lots.  I found a plow shovel that suited me.  At the check out I talked with the nice lady.  I told her 4 geezer things:   1.  "Sorry about the mask but my Dr. says I am crazy high risk."   2. I am buying the shovel now and I'll take it out to the car and come back in for more shopping because   I don't want to risk forgetting the shovel!  3.  Everyone in Sussex county owes me thanks because by buying my brand new shovel I have insured that I won't need it all via Murphey's law.    The cashier got it and laughed,  but this couple behind me was like "wait, what"   4.  Happy Groundhog Day!

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

Still Xmas Part 2

Winter Greetings and Happy New Year.  HNY.  Happy New York.  A few days ago at my last post I thought I would post every day for the twelve days...but of course that dinna happen.  I was busy staring into the abyss.  Wallowing in self pity.......Wafting between daydreams and actual sleep 24-7.                      That post dealt with the day of and days after Xmas.  But I'm not done with the thread  yet.  Right now on New Years Eve I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas!  It's still Christmas while the  Magi  are enroute!  It's still Xmas and I want to send some late xmas cards.  I'm not sure why.  I never send Xmas cards.  But all the stores have already gotten rid of Xmas cards and the Valentines are up.  What happened to all the Xmas stuff being at least 50% off?  The day after Xmas is Boxing Day in the U.K.  Oddly I need an unboxing day.  We have lots of empty boxes as I am sure you do to.  We have a recycle cart can so I cut up the boxes and they pick up .  I was way behind on getting the boxes gone.  On Boxing Day I got to work but it's not done.  The day after Xmas is also The Feast of St. Stephen.  "He who would help the poor shall yourself find blessing"   So today is New Years Eve.  The 7th day of Xmas with 7 swans representing 7 days of Creation.  January 6 is the 12th day of Xmas.  Twelfth Night.  Jan. 6 .  Wait. Jan. 6  Hmm sounds familiar?   Twelve Drummers represents 12 points of doctrine in the apostle's creed. " Holy Catholic Church,  Forgiveness of sins, Life everlasting, etc.           I took that oath when I was about 13 yr. old.  OK all this stuff is after Xmas day.   Now let me opine      on the lead up to Xmas day.  The lead up is "Advent''.  The 4 Sundays before Xmas.  Fasting at different levels. Special Sunday worships. Traditions, etc.  But the Advent is really no fun leading up to Xmas. Advent Calanders  have come back in style.   Over the years we have supplanted Advent with a huge commercial endeavor that lasts from Halloween through Thanksgiving to Xmas and ending on Dec. 26.    It's a situation where there is a rat race to find gifts,  spend money we don't have,  look forward to Yuletide, and dread it at the same time! Retailers claim that they make most of their profit in the last two months of the year.  So Advent is way more important to our culture than the Twelve Days  after.

I've always pushed back against the gift exchange except for children and adults that act like children.    There's a really cool song pushing back a bit on Xmas  Goes back to maybe 50's or 60's.  The guy that wrote it,  Sammy Cohn,  was so prolific that after a thriving career in tin pan alley in NY city he wound up in Hollywood and wrote a bunch of the theme songs to sit coms etc.  He was so successful that there is an award in the music industry named after him "The Sammy".  I'll just give you a few lines of my favorite Xmas song-  think bluesy beat:   "The jingle bells are jinglin',  the streets are white with snow, the happy crowds are mingling,  but there's no one that I know,  you'll know the way I'm feelin',  when you love and you lose....I guess I got the Xmas blues.  May all your days be merry....your season full of cheer--but 'till its February I'll just go and disappear  I hope that Santa brought you some stars for your shoes,  but santa only brought me the blues..........those brightly packaged tinsel covered Chris- mas-blues!   I love you readers.  Stay safe.  Happy New Year and   Merry Still Xmas!

LLITTY.........       ::::::+::::::

It's Still Christmas

Hello readers.  I'm still here.  I think. It's Dec. 28 and the 4th day of Xmas  The fourth day represents the four gospels of the New Testament.   So it is still Xmas until Jan. 6, Twelfth night So:  "Merry Christmas!"  I'm not religious as you folks know.  But I was raised as a Christian and I am a cultural Christian.  I love Christmas.  I push back a bit on parts of Xmas in many earlier posts. I stand by all the things I said then.   But due to the anxiety, anhedonia, and depression, that about a third of America feels,  I am trying to cherry pick some wisdom and joy that comes from my inner child and my imagination.  The twelve days of Christmas.  So goofy a song that you can't get it out of your mind!  So iconic that when somebody is telling you a long list of anything:  you can reply back sarcastically "And a partridge in a pear tree!"   This season I had remembered that the two turtle doves represented the old and new testament.  Three French hens are faith, hope and charity.  You can look this up.  Eight maids a milking.   I used to grab the new testament and just open to a page when I was worried or challenged or blue and 9 times out of ten there was an answer there for me.  And to this day I get bible inspiration  if I need it from Ecclesiastes Chapter 3  King James.       Eight maids a milking are represented by the 8 Beatitudes.  (Yes, there are twelve) .Christ's Sermans talk about us people.        In the times we are living  everybody needs to read and think about what Christ is saying when he describes us.  We have lost our way.  The way back is love, kindness, virtue  C'mon people we can do so much better.  Evolve to end starvation and homelessness.  Live for the planet and all humanity before the Tribe!  Nothing wrong with the tribe,  it's just 3000 years too far back in our reptile brains to be useful.   Hate is strong and mocks the song of "Peace on Earth Good Will to Men"   Thank you readers.     LLITTY    :::::+:::::                                                                                                                        

Shades of Johnny Horton

Greetings earthlings.  Are you keeping your stick on the ice? Are you walking on sunshine?  Feeling the Moonshine?  Hello lamppost.  Smell the roses.  Stop!  and smell the roses.  Third star on the right.   Sometimes I want to vent and rant because we people are so divided.  Why can't everyone just see things the way I do?  No matter what I do ..or don't do.....  I am hurting someone somewhere.   You can't be on the "right" side of everything.  That's what religion has tried to set up for thousands of years.  It don't work.   I think of myself as a "good guy".  I don't cheat on my taxes.   I don't cheat on my wife.  I believe in kindness and tolerance .. and the golden rule.  Yet in some cases I am a "bad guy".  Lloyd you don't believe in God?   Correct.   Ok Lloyd,  you don't believe in religion, but everybody believes in God!   No I don't.  But Lloyd do you believe in something bigger than yourself?   Yes.  Very much.   Let me think of an illustration :   Ok.  I pick guitar a bit.  Just a three chord strummer.  Always acoustic,  always steel six string.  I'm having trouble getting to my point.      You plug in a Fender Telecaster, tune it,  and hand it to me.  I'm gonna smile and feel the now,  and I'm gonna play an A chord.  Not up the neck.  Ballad style.  A second fret, one finger, master bar,  A.     I will play and sing one of two songs:  "From a Jack to a King"  or  "The Battle of New Orleans".           "In 1814 we took a little trip.  Along with Col. Jackson down the mighty Mississip.  We took a little bacon and we took a little beans and we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans."            The song is about Andrew Jackson and a battle that took place at New Orleans. Col. then General
Jackson had defeated the British and the war was already over for two weeks!  I still haven't made my point.  I've been singing the song for 59 years.  Jackson became the seventh president of the U.S.          When I was 11 years old I used to get Jackson-  "old hickory" confused with  Col. Francis Marion- "the swamp fox"   of the  earlier Revolutionary War.  Another song:  "Swamp fox,  swamp fox, tail on    his hat.  Nobody knows where the swamp fox at!  Swamp fox, swamp fox ridin' through the glen.  He runs away to fight again!"   A Disney series I think.  Still I can't get to the point.

Andrew Jackson later in his career when he was in fact President was responsible for the infamous and barbarically cruel relocation of the Cherokee Tribe from their legal homeland. A 1000 mile death march of men women and children.  4000 Native Americans died.   Growing up I never knew about this.  Sheltered life.  Or poor student.  Or both.  In 1973 with the Wounded Knee uprising and Indian affairs resolutions I became aware of what President Jackson had done in 1838.  And the last Indian Wars battle was in 1890.  Somehow I didn't connect it to "Old Hickory" where they ran thru the briars and they ran thru the brambles!  So now the protesters want to take down the statue in D.C. of  "Ole Hickory".   My hero from 11 years old until I was about 20 on the green pastures of the University of Maryland.  I'm sorry but my old hero Andrew Jackson is a bad guy.   And  many of our Founding Fathers owned slaves including Patrick Henry and George Washington.  In their case I will just say that for blacks those were bad times and to blacks they were bad men.   No men are perfect.  No political system is perfect for all.  Still have yet to make my point.  So for 400 years in North America,  Blacks and Native Americans have suffered severely at the hands of the whites. And it still goes on.  Ok here's my point and you've heard it before.   I love America from sea to shining sea.  I love the flag.  The Constitution.  Thine alabaster cities gleaming.  The lady of the harbor welcoming the tired and poor longing to be free.  The star spangled banner in Triumph Shall Wave.  O're the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.   America is not great.  Never has been! She's a noble experiment.  The Fathers knew that!  We all know that! That doesn't mean she can't be great!  She's only as rich as the poorest of the poor!  Only as free as an iron prison door!  Only as strong as our love for fellow man!  Only as tall as we stand!  Stand beside her and guide her!  Beauty that words cannot recall!  Her power shall rest on the strength of her freedom!  Glory shall rest on us all!  On us All!                       Thanks readers.. I love you..        LLITTY        :::::+:::::