Neighbors and other drivel.......

I’m back. Actually I haven’t been anywhere. I just haven’t had much to write about and my mood has been kind of blah anyway.


I’m starting to think that retirement next June may not happen for several reasons. The house might not be ready to put on the market by January. Even if it is the market around here will probably still be sluggish.  Credit is tight on primary residences right now, imagine what it is on second homes.  No one is sure what effect the health care law just passed by congress will have on our health plan.  As it is right now I can insure both of us for less than $400 a month but it is reasonable to assume that will change.  Add to that the unknowns of how much more damage the current administration and congress will inflict on the country and you can see why I am starting to doubt my retirement date.


Not much has been going on around here. I was inspired to clean the garage by Rick of rickpaulettervjournal.blogspot.com a couple of weekends ago when he cleaned his shop. Connie helped me and it’s a lot better now that I can find tools and such. The trick now will be to keep it that way. I keep calling it the garage but it hasn't really been one since Hurricane Ike.  The garage door end and both sidewalls were destroyed.  When I rebuilt it I just put a wall and window in to replace the doors.  It is now a twelve by thirty shop/storage area.  I keep working on things to get the house ready for marketing but it doesn’t seem like I’m making any real headway.  Weeding out and getting rid of "stuff" has proved to be more difficult than I first imagined.


GOOD NEIGHBORS:
Last week our neighbor’s teenage daughter left for an eight day trip to Stavanger, Norway with her ballet troop. The trip is part of a cultural exchange program between the sister cities of Galveston and Stavanger. We gave her a little gift of some spending money. She was very appreciative as were her parents. I don’t care how much money you take on a trip you can always use a little more.


We have had some strange neighbors over the last thirty something years but we got real lucky when we bought this house. Forrest and Amy bought their house at the same time. I don’t remember who moved in first but it was within a week of each other.


They only had Kyle at the time. I think he was a little over a year old.  He just recently voted for the first time so he has turned eighteen.  Forrest is a teacher at a high school on the mainland and Amy is a stay at home mom who home schools the kids.


Kyle has graduated and will be attending college this fall. He works a lot so I don’t see too much of him anymore. Before I got the Kindle I passed my books on to him.  Ava, the ballerina, is about fourteen or fifteen and enjoys swimming, kayaking or jumping on the trampoline as well as ballet. She is very athletic. She also loves animals and has taken care of ours occasionally over the years.  Grant is the youngest at about ten. He is always on the trampoline or swimming with his sister. He also is a climber. He scares me sometimes when I look over and he is climbing the staircase or the side of the house. I think they have him enrolled in a rock wall climbing club in Houston.  I see a very cold, tall mountain in his future.


These three are bright, well behaved kids who renew my faith in the future of the country.  Forrest and Amy have done a great job raising them and should be very proud of their kids and of themselves.


STRANGE NEIGHBORS:
In the early eighties we lived in Pasadena and the couple next door seemed very nice.  It was a husband and wife and a preschool daughter.  Joe was from Hungary and a great cook. We enjoyed visiting with them and seeing pictures of his homeland.  He had worked on freighters in Europe and had lots of stories about traveling around behind the iron curtain.


One day something snapped in Joe's head.  He came home in the middle of the day, loaded his family into their van and drove to Chicago.  He left the family with his in-laws and returned home a couple of days later.  He told me that the world had ended while he was driving to Chicago.  He had seen the "Big Flash" as he called it.  He told me we were in a transitional period where Jesus and the devil were battling over our souls.  He was constantly reading the bible.  I tried to talk him into getting some help but he refused and kept telling me to get right with God.  He left after a couple of weeks.  The house remained vacant for months and eventually the bank foreclosed.


Flash forward two years.  We had moved to Sugar Land, about thirty-five miles away.  Joe showed up at our door one evening and asked if he could spend the night.  I let him in and we talked for an hour or so.  It was evident that he was still over the edge of reality but he seemed harmless.  I took him to the grocery store with me and it turned into the shopping trip from hell.  In the middle of the store he started yelling at various people about having red eyes. He told them they were demons and they didn't fool him.  On the way home he told me Connie had red eyes but that he could save her.  I told him he was in bad shape mentally and needed help.  He argued with me and told me I just didn't understand because demons were trying to overpower me.  We talked into the middle of the night when he finally fell asleep on the couch.  I stayed up all night out of fear for my family.  The next morning I told him he had to go.  I tried to get him to go for help and even drove him to a hospital but he refused to get out of the car.  I ended up dropping him off at the bus station and gave him a few dollars.  I have never heard from him or of him again but think about him every once in a while.


Saturday is Jackie’s birthday so we are going to be going to Texas to spend some time with her, Dana and the kids. It’s been a while so I am looking forward to it. They live just under an hour away but sometimes it seems like it’s the other side of the country.  We also have to make a coffee run to Nana's Attic.


Jackie and Dana are going to New Orleans to celebrate her birthday next weekend so Connie and I are taking the kids camping. We're going to Martin Dies Jr. State Park.  We haven't been there before so it will be new to all of us.  It’s been quite some time since we went camping and I really can’t wait. I think it will be just what the doctor ordered to get me out of the doldrums I’ve been in.


Since I don't have any current interesting pictures here are a couple from the past.....

Megan enjoyed her first birthday cake.

Nana just told Chase a fish story.

Adios for now, enjoy the day.

--Rod