giant grass. In case I'm not home when they come tomorrow, I want to give them a heads-up on what to skip. We need to give the magic elixir of death enough time to get down to the roots and kill them, so we need to leave both weeds alone until we see what survives and what still remains to be killed. Eventually I want the banks weed-free enough to be mowed without having to deal with the weeds. And what else did I do today? As on any other day I deleted a lot of crap email. Much of it is just advertising. But sometimes it's a scammer using the name of somebody I really know. A look at their email address usually confirms that. Don't click on the link. DELETE.


Saturday, June 8, 2024

What a day! Lori and Donna came to work on the place while I went to town to check out an auction. I hoped to find a good shop vac to replace one I have, because the motor is going south on me. There was an awful lot of stuff, but no shop vac that looked suitable. But there was one item that caught my eye and induced me he stick around until it came up for bidding. It was a blasting cabinet, ideal for blasting small items without setting up all the equipment for blasting outdoors. I made the winning bid of $75. That's not cheap, but it's better than the price of the same thing new (twice as much, or more). When I measured the thing, I found that it was slightly too big to fit in the trunk of my car. No problem, I thought. I could go home and get the Suburban. I got home between 3:00 and 3:30 and found that the girls had made great progress. They not only mowed, but also cleared away weeds and small volunteer trees in front of the house and on the east side. Unfortunately I didn't supply them with a bottle of Tordon, so the trees will grow back. But for now the place looks great, and will still look great for the reunion next week. But how about that auction purchase? When I tried to start the Suburban the battery was dead. So for the next hour I tried three different chargers and two different extension cords before I finally found a combination that worked. I decided to leave the charger on all night, hoping that the blasting cabinet wouldn't grow legs and walk away before I could fetch it. While I was home Zack showed up and helped with putting things away, including some of the jobs I can't do without help anymore. By the time all the cousins left, about 5:30, I was pretty wrung out. I had spent most of my time at the auction sitting around and people-watching, but I tire easily now and I was pooped. My Saturday Treat Night was dinner at the Chinese buffet followed by a second viewing of Ezra. The movie didn't start until 10:00, but I was awake and engaged all the way to the end. Bobby Cannavale as Max carries the film, and William A. Fitzgerald as Ezra  is wonderful too. This second viewing gave me a chance to appreciate the first-rate performance of Robert De Niro. Ezra is the best movie I've seen in a long time.


Sunday, June 9, 2024

I don't know if it's my age, the TBI, or both, but I'm too stupid now to change my Facebook home page from public to private. I thought I had done that, but apparently the page is still public. It's crazy. I can maintain my website, and even do some very rudimentary HTML editing, but changing my Facebook settings has me up a row of stumps. I'll phone my friend and see if she can walk me through it. Today I phoned the auctioneer who sold me the blasting cabinet. He said he was too busy with something else today, but would see if it got safely locked in one of the buildings. If not, I spent $75 for nothing. So did I do anything useful today? I suppose so. My depleted supply of fresh sox made this a laundry day, and I washed sox and bedding.


Monday, June 10, 2024

This is getting scary. Writing on Tuesday evening, I don't remember what I did Monday.


Tuesday, June 11, 2024

But recalling today's adventure is easy. I went to court. In May I got a ticket because I was driving with an expired tag. There are two possible reasons: I never got the renewal notice in the mail;  2 I got the notice and lost it, and forgot about it. Reason #2 is most likely. I never got as far as standing before the judge. When  the prosecutor saw that I had valid insurance, and wasted no time getting the registration up to date, she dropped the charges. All the adventure cost me was a couple of hours observing the proceedings. I can live with that.


Wednesday, June 12, 2024

This morning I spent a lot of time restoring my internet service. Both Computers in my office told me the router was working, which indicated it wasn't getting any signal from the cable modem. My first phone call to Cox for "help" resulted in  a text message giving me a link to a website. Perfect. A link to a website when I have no internet. On my second try I managed to get past all the automated phone bullshit and speak to a real human person. She was able to reset my modem and restore my internet. I think the whole exercise took over an hour. The afternoon  was more mundane. I paid the dentist's office, stopped at the barbecue joint and ordered food for the reunion this Saturday, and drove to Winfield. My aim there was just to pay taxes on the antiques vehicles. But I remembered the good service I used to get at Corner Bank before it was taken over by RCB. I decided to try it. I went in and got cash to pay the caterers Saturday, then applied my test. I asked for $100 in twos. The teller didn't even have to go anywhere. She had a $100 bundle of twos ready to go. Those will last quite awhile. I use them for small things like movie tickets, restaurant tips, and other minor amounts. Delighted, I pressed my luck and asked for two rolls of dollars. She came up with those too, with no trouble. The last time I asked for a roll of dollars at a branch in A.C. the teller thought I meant single $1 paper bills rolled up. She had to search to come up with a few dollars, far short of a $25 roll. I'm glad to know the service in Winfield is just like the old days. I'd rather drive to Winfield occasionally than waste the time scrounging from bank to bank in A.C.
       

Thursday, June 13, 2024

I used to get impatient after my dad got old and took forever getting ready to go anywhere. Now I fully understand. Today it took me well over an hour to get through a shower, shave, brush my teeth, trim my nails, and put on fresh clothes. Being so slow and fumble-fingered clumsy gets infuriating, but I don't know of any way to shed five or ten years. I've been putting off as much credit card spending as I could, but now all the charges through Tuesday are next month's bill, and whatever I charge now will be on the July bill. I'm what the credit card companies think of as a deadbeat. I have my account on auto-pay. That means I pay it off every month and never have to pay any interest. And what went on the card today? I bought an owner's manual for my 1950 Allis Chalmers WD, and a manual for the loader mounted on it. I need to relearn operating both. I want to use the loader for moving heavy objects and for pulling unwanted small trees out of the ground. There are a lot of volunteer trees that are in my way and need to go.


Friday, June 14, 2024

Some of my most treasured memories are from the summer of 1944 here at the farm, when I turned three. I thought of that today while I was watching the youngest cousins at Day 1 of this year's family reunion. Some of the folks thought we had a good turnout this year, but I remember a time when we had twice as many show up. That was when a lot of the folks now gone, who were kids here and loved the old place, were still with us. It's the way of the world that younger generations are less invested in family history and tradition. Yet it was a joy today watching the youngest relatives experiencing the joy of being kids at the farm. The youngest (maybe a year old?) was not only the cutest, which a lot of babies are, but it was wonderful just watching him watching everything going on around him. What an alert little guy! He won't remember today, but I hope it will be one of many days he gets to be here and develop a love of the old place.


Saturday, June 15, 2024

In previous years I would have been busy with my camera, but this reunion was different. I left the picture-taking to others, and spent my time conversing (listening to myself blather?) with people I have known  all their lives. It was wonderful. Pushing 83, I was the oldest person here.  A cousin is 82, and another is about to turn 80. We were the three oldest and everybody else was younger by a few years to several decades. A lawyer says it will be in my financial best interest to live at least five more years, so I will try to do that. An incentive is that it will let me enjoy more reunions. My cousin Lori took a lot of excellent pictures which I have snatched off of Facebook. I hope I can put them all together on this website so I can email a link to all the relatives who couldn't make it here this time.


Sunday, June 16, 2024

I spent way too much time online today without anything to show for it. But Dean and a couple of other Model T guys are touring southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, and he is posting pictures on Facebook. I'm following the adventure and loving it. My heart aches to see The West again. Not the cities, but the Real West. Even if I never get back out there, the memories are golden. This afternoon Lori and Donna came to get the chairs and tables from the reunion. Jennifer and her kids came too, and brought Susie with them. Susie and I sat on the porch and reminisced about folks we know who are no longer with us. Some of the memories bring a tear for what is gone, and some bring a smile or a laugh over some funny incident from long ago.


Monday, June 17, 2024

The biggest job of the day was preparing reunion photos to go on  the website. Preparing means making copies and resizing them to fit, and arranging and numbering them in the order I want to post them. Nearly all were made by Lori. She wanted to give credit to the camera. The technical quality of the photos shows that it's better than most phone cameras, but it's the photographer's eye and skill that make good pictures. My next job in  that department will be making web pages and uploading the photos to fill them.


Tuesday, June 18, 2024

I may have opened a can of worms, in the form of more work than I need. In recent conversations with relatives some of us have discussed the importance of keeping family history. Today I wrote a biographical sketch of my uncle, Lester Parker, and posted it on Facebook. My idea is to use it in an online collection of family history where all the relatives can contribute. I remarked that those who went before us deserve to be remembered, and I hope many in the family will tell stories of Old Timers they remember or have heard about. There's a small book of family history some of the relatives put together in the sixties, and there hasn't been a lot since. It includes the reminiscences of folks who have been gone for decades, telling about people they knew or heard about. I hope we can keep that going.


Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Well, here's another nice mess I've gotten myself into. Of course I have no clue how I did it, but that's par for the course in This Modern World. This morning I received an email informing me that my Facebook account is suspended and blocked until further notice. This may last a day or more, or it may be permanent. The only way to appeal was to submit a picture of myself, which I did. The page saying I have appealed includes a chat box, that is supposed to be good until Saturday. It's a lie. There is no chat. Apparently there is really no appeal. I'm fully confident that my "case" is being reviewed by the same robots that suspended my account, and I will probably be deleted permanently. This whole adventure is evidence that no humans are involved in running FB. I believe the entire operation is totally automated, incompetently. Somewhere, I think there are a few actual humans, smugly assuming that they have designed a fair and reasonable operation. Being human, of course they are wrong.


Thursday, June 20, 2024

Well, that was a pleasant surprise. When I checked this evening, I found that my banishment from FB is over. Apparently the new picture of me that I submitted was evidence to someone (or something) that I am not a crook. Today I called the cousin who made a lot of phone calls after my wreck last fall, trying to find out what was going on. We discussed the various options for what to do with the farm when I reach my expiration date. Next week some of my other cousins and I will go to a lawyer to put everything in writing. Today's conversation underlined my observation that humans often act on their suppositions that they know what somebody else is thinking. Sometimes they guess right, but often they don't. I'm reminded of Lum & Abner, one of my favorite radio programs of the thirties and forties. Lum Edwards and Abner Peabody ran the Jot 'em Down Store in  Pine Ridge, Arkansas. They were often prompted to worry and act on what they supposed somebody else was probably thinking or meant to do. The fact that they were always wrong never seemed to cure them of the habit. Tonight I went to my first band concert of the season. The Arkansas City Municipal Band, now in its 154th year, has concerts in Wilson Park during May and June, usually on Thursday evenings. Tonight's offerings included Lift Every Voice and Sing, one of my favorite old tunes. They played it slower than it's often played, but it was a lovely arrangement and they did it beautifully. Many times amateur bands have trouble keeping everybody together and in tune. There was none of that this evening. These people have their act together.


Friday, June 21, 2024

Auction day. The place was nearby, south of Winfield. Seeing a couple of good things, I stuck around. Three or four hours later I left with two items. One was a case of silicone lubricant for $17.50. A dozen cans for $17.50 works out to $1.46 a can, a small fraction of the store price. At my age a dozen cans is probably a lifetime supply. The other bargain of the day was a Ridgid 6HP 14 Gallon vacuum for $22.50. If it works properly, it should be a good replacement for the Shop Vac that sounds like it's going south on me. I hope that I'll never pay full retail for another vacuum. That's an item most people have, and it often turns up for sale at auctions. Often you can get a good one for ½ or ¼ of the store price (or less). I love auctions.


Saturday, June 22, 2024

On the other hand there are auctions like the one this morning, with no reason at all to stick around. So I came home and got a brief bit of work done. That was  crawling under my truck with a flashlight and looking for brake fluid leaks. Finding none, I filled the master cylinder to the top and put the cap back on. I know the fluid is leaking out somewhere. I just need to find out where and stop the leak. It's not useful to get out on the public roads without any brakes. This evening I went to Wichita to see a movie that I don't expect ever to see down here in Podunk. Thelma is about a woman in her nineties who falls for a scam. She gets a phone call from a crook posing as her grandson, and she sends him $10,000. The rest of the movie is about how she plans to get the money back. June Squibb as Thelma is wonderful, and Richard Roundtree as the friend who helps her is excellent too. Someone compared this to Little Miss Sunshine, which was a hit at film festivals and made a splash in theaters too. I hope this one will follow that pattern.


Sunday, June 23, 2024

For most of my life I was no good at conversation because I would run out of things to talk about. No more. Now that I'm old, with a lifetime of memories, that's no longer a problem. Get me started, and I don't want to quit. Today I had a phone call from a friend, and we blathered for a couple of hours. If we hadn't run out of time, I probably could have gone another hour or two. People I've met, things I've done, and places I've been are all grist  for the mill. Another thing I did was to go see a relative and ask if he's heard why his mom is mad at me. He said he doesn't know. I'm on her enemies list and she won't tell me why. It's been a long time since I was in high school, and I'm not used to this kind of drama.


Monday, June 24, 2024

I'm too damn old. This morning I was whimpering like a little kid over things I used to do without thinking about it, but are now a struggle or impossible. Herb says a word I need to learn is acceptance. I believe a better word is resignation. I can't accept the way I am, but I'm resigned to it. I used to think I had a pretty good chance of living past 90. The way I feel now, making it to 85 (two more years) would be a surprise. This morning I lost all internet service. Both of the computers in my office claim to be receiving a signal from the router, but none of the websites I try to get will appear on the screen. I phoned "help" at Cox, and the first agent did a remote reset of my modem. No change. The second agent thought the problem was with the router, and he scheduled a service call for next Monday, July 1. Meanwhile, I have no email. I've received nothing, not even the usual spam, since last Thursday. Of course, any company I call for help wants to send me a "security code". By email. The more I exist in The Digital Age, the more  depressed I get.


Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Feeling a little more "normal" than yesterday, I set about investigating my loss of internet service. I started with the fact that both computers in my office show that they're receiving a signal from the router. That suggests that the router is sending a signal to the computers but it's sending a signal that has no content. Why would there be no content? Either it's getting no content from the modem, or the cable is bringing content from the modem but the router is failing to use it. Maybe he was right. The second agent I talked to yesterday suggested that both computers are too far from the router. The problem with that is that the distance hasn't changed since I set up the router several years ago. But just to be sure that the distance from the router to the computers wasn't the problem, I took the laptop into the house to see if that made any difference. Nope. The computer showed it was receiving a stronger signal in the house, but that signal still had no content. Another check of the router confirmed that it's sending out a signal to the computers, but the little lights show no content coming in from the modem or going out with the signal to the computers. Is there a break somewhere in the cable from the modem to the router, or is the problem in the router itself? I hope the technician scheduled to come next Monday will have the equipment to show what's going on.What else did I do today? Had a nice visit from  my cousin Wally. Thirty years ago he suffered serious injuries falling onto concrete and has suffered aches and pains ever since. Now that I have one foot in the grave, we have a lot in common. This evening I went out to the mailbox to fetch today's mail. The surprising items were TWO issues of Vogue. What the heck? About the time you think you've seen everything, along comes something like this, thrown to home from deep left field. I hope somebody didn't spend money they needed to buy me a subscription. Those go into a box of stuff that will feed the fireplace next winter.


Wednesday, June 26, 2024

A choice faces me. Do I gamble that the reason I have no internet is a bad cable, and spend the dough for fifty or sixty feet of new cable? Or do I wait until the technician comes Monday morning and hope he can diagnose the actual problem? Despite how dependent I've become on internet service, I think I can do without it four more days. An indication that I haven't yet totally gone 'round the bend is that this afternoon I actually remembered my appointment with the eye doc, and even showed up for it a few minutes early. Whoopee! I remembered something! The outcome was nothing new. My eye pressures were still pretty good (9 & 10), and no new problems turned up. I'll go back in four months to see if I need a change in medicines.


Thursday, June 27, 2024

I think this morning's experiment showed why I have no internet. Thinking that maybe the cable bringing a feed from the modem to the router was damaged and not able to deliver, I went to town a bought a short (7') cable. When I got it home I brought the router down from the attic, plugged it in, and hooked it up to the modem with the new cable. Turning on the router brought me no internet. The little indicator lights told me a signal still goes out to the computers. But the internet light was still out, which tells me that the modem isn't sending any content to the router. The signal is still reaching the computers, which both of them indicate, but that signal contains no internet. Nothing is a 100% slam dunk with modern technology, but it seems the lack of content is due to a problem with the modem. I hope the technician scheduled for Monday morning will fix the modem or replace it. Until then I will get along without any internet except for whatever time I can spend using one of the computers at the library. Und mein Gott! What a mess that is! Nothing but Windows machines. Windows and I never got along well, and I think now it's worse than ever. I did manage to find the movie schedule for Saturday evening, and I wrote down the titles and showtimes. I didn't spend the time and effort to Google the pictures and find out anything about them. Maybe I'll get to that tomorrow. Tonight being Thursday, Shorty and I went to the band concert in Wilson Park. It was actually the Arkansas City and Winfield bands combined, and they did fine. Last week was the first concert I've attended this year. I was struck by how well the musicians played. I've never heard the AC band sounding so good, and they carried off tonight's combined concert very well also. My favorite piece last week was Lift Every Voice and Sing. They played that grand old song a little slower than it's often heard, and it was beautiful. Tonight's blast from my past was Leroy Anderson's Blue Tango, which I remember being a pop hit about seventy years ago. After tonight's concert I spoke briefly with Chris, the band director, and suggested a couple of titles to look up. Everybody's heard Charleston, but James P. Johnson  also wrote a lesser-known song just as good, An Old-Fashioned Love. I also suggested the wonderful Gospel song, Precious Lord Take My Hand. I would love to hear the band play both of those. I'm sorry to end on a sad note, but after we got home this evening I saw one lightning bug. One. In my life there have been evenings when there were hundreds, and sometimes thousands. Tonight there was one. What we have done to the planet, and what we continue to do, is depressing.


Friday, June 28, 2024

Saturday, June 28, 1941 seems like a long time ago. I have no conscious memories of the first two years, but beginning in the summer of 1944, when I turned three, I have over eighty years of memories. For most humans, I think, the world where they grew up is normal, and the changes have been strange and good, or strange and not good. The world where I grew up is gone. Books, movies, and recordings can hint at aspects of that world, but nothing can recreate how it felt to live in that world. A recording of Don McNeill's Breakfast Club can tell you  how it sounded, but nothing can tell you how it felt to be five years old and marching around the breakfast table with Don and the gang. In that world real radio, big time and small time, was the dominant and ubiquitous medium  of entertainment. Newspapers were still an important source of information and entertainment. Trains pulled by steam locomotives were the norm. Freeways were rare, and there were no interstates. In the United States traffic circles were called traffic circles, and most Americans were unaware of the British word, roundabout.  I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
   In a world I find increasingly hostile, I've been feeling increasingly down. This afternoon I phoned Four County Health and got information about talking with a therapist before I go from depressed to despondent. Maybe bending somebody's ear with my blather will be the cure for what ails me. After I hung up the phone, I carried on a soliloquy. Just sitting here yakking to an imaginary person seemed to help a little. With a head filled by the last eighty years, I can go on and on.
   I'm adding this last little paragraph late at night to tell about my evening. I was planning to go to the band concert in Winfield, but I didn't make it. After a larger dinner than I should have had, I felt I should pay a visit to the bathroom. As I started to cross the kitchen I felt dizzy. I got so dizzy that I went down. I wriggled into a more comfortable position, lying on my back on the floor and passed out for about a half hour. When I came to I struggled to my feet and wobbled back to my chair in the living room. After a  brief rest there, I wobbled to the front porch and lay down on the swing. At that point I had a decision  to make. Do I call 911 and pay for an ambulance crew, or do I call my cousin for a ride to the hospital? I called Donna and she took me to the hospital, where they got a blood test, took a couple of X-rays, asked questions, gave me an IV, and let me rest. When I seemed stable enough to move on my own, Donna brought me home. Now I'll see if a few hours' sleep gets me back to "normal", whatever normal is when your age starts with eight.


Saturday, June 29, 2024

On my first full day of being 83, I got up at eight. After dressing I had a leftover apple turnover for breakfast, then lay down on the front porch swing to rest up from the effort of getting out of bed and putting on clothes. Getting out of bed is when I noticed the back ache. It's on the right side, below the shoulder and arm. Apparently the X-ays yesterday evening didn't find any broken ribs, but I felt it when I went to bed and I still feel it. It seems that when I passed out I hit a piece of furniture on my way down to the floor. I'm hoping that without any serious damage I'll get over it soon. About 9:20 I drove to Winfield to check out the Defore auction. I think Dan Defore is younger, maybe around 70, and apparently  he's aware of what happened to me last September. He said he was glad to see me up and about, and I told him I was glad to be up. Then I bitched a little about being so damned old. I need to break that habit. Listening to an old man griping about being old must get tiresome pretty quick. Nothing for sale at the suction grabbed me, so I headed home. I stopped at both Walmarts, Winfield and Arkansas City, to look for sox. I've been wearing OTC (Over the Calf) since the eighties. I prefer sox that come up above the tops of my boots. It seems nobody else cares about that. Both stores had nothing but crew length,  ankle length, and below the ankle, for God's sake! Both stores had plenty of the wrong sizes in several different brands. Online shopping for the right sox will have to be the answer (plus shipping) if I ever get internet service back, and if OTC sox still exist. I hate inconvenience, and the world continues to become more and more inconvenient by the day. There I go again. If I seem sorry for myself, it's because at this point I am. But I have a plan that may solve the problem. I'll get to that next week.
   Saturday Treat Night was dinner at La Fiesta, followed by Kevin Costner's new flick, Horizon. Actually, it's Horizon Part 1, with Part 2 to follow this summer and parts 3 and 4 next year. Is it worth all the effort? We'll see. We know Costner believes in the project, because he put up a pile of his own dough to help finance it. The Western is a double-edged sword. You have the travel and possible inconvenience of location shooting on the one hand, and on the other less spending for elaborate sets that other genres demand. It it any good? I would say yes. It won't make us forget The Searchers or High Noon, but it has a good cast doing good work, along with good directing by Costner. His choice of camera positions does exactly what it should — tells the story without distracting flourishes. It's not an instant classic, but I will go to see part 2. I may even go see Part 1 again if it's up against stuff that doesn't appeal to me.


Sunday, June 30, 2024

Rain! After a few weeks of very occasional sprinkles, there was fairly heavy rain when I came out of the theater about ten last night. A lot of the drive home was considerably slower than usual because of the poor visibility. When I went to bed about eleven it was still raining. When I got up this morning a little after eight it was raining. I doubt that the rain was continuous all night, but maybe there was enough to soften the ground for good weed-pulling. I had a run-in with an old foe today. That is the bad habit of setting things down and forgetting them. A lot of my troubles are related to age, but not this. I've always been this way. I got home from town and noticed that I didn't have my cane with me. I left it in a shopping cart on the Walmart parking lot. I was lucky. I phoned the store and the woman I spoke with at the service desk told me it had just been turned in, and I could pick it up tomorrow.