Whimsies

Last Saturday when I was writing about my "interesting" Friday, I forgot one of the most important things I allowed to happen to me that day. Because of the blessed RA, I have large callouses just behind my toes in the center of my soles, and they at times become infected. Three years ago, I paid a pod surgeon $200 to lance the one on my right foot and while he was doing the procedure in his office, Carolyn was paying very close (I hope) attention. Since then she has become my defacto callous surgeon. On Friday morning I could barely hobble to do the things I had to do and after the lab work, she stuck my sore left foot into a bath of very warm water and made me soak it for nearly 30 mins. She then reached in my pants and whipped out my pocket knife, located her bottle of iodine along with a couple of tissues and went to work. For about 10 mins. she carved, cut, and peeled the tender knot, and finally it let go of its bounty of congealed corruption which was a bit thicker than toothpaste. It came rushing out of the callous like a little worm on a mission, curling and twisting this way and that and generally causing a stink.¹ She then put her thumbs to work squeezing more of the foul mess from my sole and when she finished, I could again put my weight on the foot without discomfort. If my foot doesn't become infected even worse from her spur-of-the-moment surgery, she will have saved me $200 or more. Although she isn't painless, she also does ingrown toenails and ingrown hairs, cuts hair, and to boot, she makes house-calls!
----
Friday at dusk I am going to the creek for my long awaited spring bath. If you care to join me, I will be in the first hole you come to just past the place where I had my autumn cleansing. Just bring your skin; I have plenty of lye soap and the water is free.
----
This diet I've begun makes me feel like I am a victim of dreaded tabefaction². I've cut back to two spoons of sugar in my morning caffeine fix, and I'm no longer using extra sweetener on my delicious and nutritious Sugar Bombs cereal which is an important part of a balanced breakfast. Says so on the box.
----
If tabefaction doesn't consume you, have a Tom Terrific Tuesday.
----
¹For some reason that sentence causes me to think of George W. Bush.
²tabefaction n wasting away; emaciation
----

Impatience

My wife has zero sense of humor. Back in the dark ages before there was a local Wal-Mart, we did much of our shopping at K-Mart. Once when one of our kids had a bad sprain, I drove Carolyn to the store so she could find a hand-held massage unit for him. She had never used one before and was a little confused as to what to buy, so she asked me what she was supposed to get. I tried to explain just what it was she needed, and she finally said she would ask for "one of those vibrating things". I was becoming impatient and said "Yes, just ask for a vibrator and they will know what you are talking about." She went into K-Mart and in about 15 minutes she returned to where I was parked. I noticed she was not toting a shopping bag, but she did look like she was carrying vengeance in her heart. I also saw that she wasn't going around to the passenger side to get into the truck, but her eye was evil and set directly on me. I had sense enough to lock the door and roll down the window just a bit to be able to talk through it. After trying unsuccessfully to get to me, she calmed enough to put her mouth in high gear. When she is riled, my precious is one of the premier world experts at using four-letter words to get her point across. Seems like she went in and asked a male clerk where they kept their vibrators and he offered to take her to the stockroom and show her. That's when it hit her that she was supposed to be asking for a massaging machine and exactly what it was that she had asked for. All this was blamed on innocent me. It is one of those times that when we are talking about the good old days, I do not mention. I hope she has forgotten it, but I feel that some day and some way I am going to pay for my impatient mistake.
----
I am overcome with such an enormous empty feeling on Christmas Day each year. All (most) of the online retailers have stopped their daily cramming my email inbox full of "last minute gift ideas for under $100" ads. I have a special email account set up for this kind of stuff, but some always finds their way to my other addresses where I have most of them diverted directly to the spam folder. Tomorrow I will again catch capitalistic hell.
----
Father Christmas in the photo was painted by my friend Steve just before he suffered a stroke and was forced to give up creating his art. He died a few years later.

Bah! Humbug!

Wisdom is that intangible understanding which comes naturally to the old, is admired by the young, and appreciated by no one.
~ kwa
----
We now have a Christmas tree! It is our first in many years and hopefully it will last as long as we do. It is a small, plastic, pre-lighted tree and seems somewhat Charlie Brown-ish, which adds to its charm. It stands in front of the office window somewhat blocking my view of girl's house across the street. Folks, I've never seen a child's eyes light up the way Carolyn's did from the time she removed the tree from the box and got it up with the lights shinning. She got up this morning and began putting our meager decorations out for people to see; a couple of Santa throw pillows, a music playing Coca-Cola bear, a few figurines which were hand painted by my friend Steve whom passed away a few years back, and a few other whatnots.
----

New Model Time

Male pine siskin


Today I took Carolyn to see her new doctor for the first time as the one she had been with for many years retired. She seemed to like her, and she is in with several others in the old Nance building. They have their own lab and pharmacy, so it is pretty much one-stop shopping.
----
Speaking of the Nance building, when I was little, my dad loved Buicks and Oldsmobiles. The local Olds dealer was Nance Oldsmobile and Cadillac located just out of downtown on East Main Street. It had huge neon signs on the front of the building that read Nance Oldsmobile and under that were letters just a bit smaller that read Home of the Olds 88. Every year in the early 50's, we would pile into whatever jalopy my dad had at the time, and drive to town and see the new 88's and 98's when they went on display in September. Look was all we could do, because new cars were way out of the range of wages paid in this part of Appalachia. In those days, the new car unveiling was a huge event for dealerships. A model would keep the same basic appearance for three straight years with only cosmetic changes, then the outer skins and inside trim would change completely, and each time there was usually more horsepower under the hood. Gasoline was less than twenty-five cents per gallon, so most working people could afford it. Every year, the dealerships would have searchlights, free ballons and refreshments, and later on in the decade, live entertainment which consisted anywhere from a hillbilly music band to a carnival guy with no arms that played a mean guitar with his feet and toes. The Chevrolet dealership was owned by Roy Faircloth and was a few blocks away from Nance. It always had the best entertainment and most refreshments. A couple blocks west of that was Norton Arney's Pontiac, Buick, GMC sales. Arney was pretty much a cheapskate, and didn't offer much at new model time except a hillbilly band, which in turn had a weekly half-hour tv show that was sponsored in big part by Arney Motors. The band was named Bonnie Lou and Buster. Besides Bonnie Lou and her husband Buster, other members of the group from time to time were Lloyd "ding-dong" Bell, and Chuck the Carolina Indian, along with Buster dressed as a fellow named Hump-Hyphen-Hammer with baggy pants, a too-big and too loud sport coat, and Craucho Marx eyeglasses, rubber nose, and a brush mustache. Novelty stores still carry them. Turkey in the Straw and Play me some Mountain Music were imbided upon at nearly every show and appearance. Not far from Arney was the Ford showroom, Tennessee Motors. Like Arney, they weren't big on giving anything away.
----
A dose of nostalgia does me good from time to time ...

Part Eight...

The next Friday, I collected a full paycheck, which came to well less than $500 after state and federal taxes, dues, and assessments. But that wasn't the big thing for that day; my family was waiting on me when I got to the motel from work and the bank. My dad and mom loaded up the Chevy and brought my two (at the time) kids and Carolyn to visit. They even smelled like home, and that was a very pleasant scent for my senses. We knew I wouldn't have much time to spend with them, because of the hours I was working, and I couldn't afford to miss a minute.

Saturday morning the Bird wouldn't start. My dad hauled me to work, went back to the motel and finally got it started. He took it across the street to the Esso station, where they replaced the spark plugs that had been in it since it was bought new.

My folks and kids left for the hills on Sunday and left Carolyn with me to stay a week as I was to go home myself the following weekend. It may have been for Easter, but my memory fails me here. We spent my off hours exploring around La Plata and vicinity, finding the best homemade root beer I ever tasted, even better than my grandma's. It came in gallon jugs, and a couple of them returned to Tennessee with us.

The Lilly brothers from around Beckley, WV were staying at the same motel as I, and they told me of a shortcut through Virginia that would bring me to I-81 near Staunton. The route took me through Fredricksberg, Orange and several Civil War battlefields, and finally to Charlottesville and across the Blue Ridge mountains, saving more than an hour of driving time.

It would be an understatement to say I was happy when I crossed the Tennessee state line.
----

Left photo is the Morgantown powerhouse
Right photo is the White House Motel
Ariel photos from and © by Google Maps.