Thursday, March 24, 2005
JULY AND AUGUST.....1989
On the fourth of July, Dale stopped in on his way home from aunt Beulah’s. She had not been feeling very well and he was concerned. He called when he got home to let us know he made the drive safely home with all of the holiday traffic. Other than that the fourth was just a day off work and a time to get things done and enjoy a good meal in the evening. Mom, Becky and Jennifer were here to enjoy the day.
Summer was setting in with heat and humidity. We had the little kitty neutered and de-clawed….he was pretty quiet for a few days but soon was busy investigating everything in the house. Life was routine, Bear ran all of the errands during the week and I worked. It was at this time we began hearing about a CDL license that would be Federally implemented around the country to end the individual State’s laws. This way a trucker could haul coast to coast without having a bunch of different laws to conform to, State by State, across country. It would greatly simplify the books for truckers as well as the scale personnel who made their life miserable.
The weight of the changes would fall to the DE’s who would have to test every trucker and prospective trucker on the roads. The changes were to come in 1990 and it was a giant task looming in the not-so-distant future. We began getting information on it with a lot of contradiction while rumors flew fast and furious. Anyway we looked at it there was going to be a lot of new material to learn…and fast.
Friends kept us in fresh fruit and vegetables all summer. Many would come ready to cook….stemmed and cleaned. It amazed me that even friends would go to this amount of work to make it convenient for me. A testament to small town living. We no longer had time for a garden. After Bear lost his leg, we gave it up. Thankfully we could still enjoy home grown products from generous people. I even had enough to freeze or can in some instances.
George arrived on a Friday night the first part of August. He certainly helped us out with some needed maintenance at both mom’s property and ours. On Saturday he swept the garage roof clean of pine needles and twigs that had fallen from over hanging trees, then came and did ours. The problem at mom’s place was the moss that had grown under the shingles, making it tedious to clean. We picked and picked and helped some but nothing like it needed.
Jennifer’s seventeenth birthday was on the 3rd of August. We celebrated with a pizza supper at West Plains but planned for her party on Saturday. I made her favorite cake….confetti angle food with a boiled icing, fluffy and pink. I also made a fresh cherry cobbler for Bear and George, which was their favorite. It was pretty good eating……nothing like home grown tart pie cherries.
A Nebraska cousin, Janet and her family came to visit on the 10th of August. They had been to see mom earlier and were here when I came home from work. I fixed supper for all of us and after a good visit, bedded everybody down for the night. To keep our Morris from prowling among the beds we kept him in our room with the door shut. That was just enough to make him think sleeping with us was much better than his box. By morning we found him curled up, sound asleep at our feet. From then on, three of us went to bed. In the morning I fixed breakfast for all before I left for work. We said our good-byes at the door and we were off in different directions.
As sure as a thunderclap out of a blue sky I was faced with a terrible shock at the end of the month. Louis called and told me it is almost certain he had lung cancer. They were to run tests very soon but they pretty well knew what the answer would be. There are no words to describe my sick feeling. First dad, mom with all of her health problems and having to live her life out in a nursing home, now Louis. I’ll have to confess, I wept when I got off the phone….big sobs of self pity. Now I’m losing my only brother? There had to be a cure….a mistake…something that would make the demon go away. But the devil is always in the details and I knew it was not only possible but very probable.
A big brother is irreplaceable…..and I had no other. As self serving as my pity was, in the midst of it, I thought of our mother. The realization hit me that I would be the one who had to tell her……
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
Summer was setting in with heat and humidity. We had the little kitty neutered and de-clawed….he was pretty quiet for a few days but soon was busy investigating everything in the house. Life was routine, Bear ran all of the errands during the week and I worked. It was at this time we began hearing about a CDL license that would be Federally implemented around the country to end the individual State’s laws. This way a trucker could haul coast to coast without having a bunch of different laws to conform to, State by State, across country. It would greatly simplify the books for truckers as well as the scale personnel who made their life miserable.
The weight of the changes would fall to the DE’s who would have to test every trucker and prospective trucker on the roads. The changes were to come in 1990 and it was a giant task looming in the not-so-distant future. We began getting information on it with a lot of contradiction while rumors flew fast and furious. Anyway we looked at it there was going to be a lot of new material to learn…and fast.
Friends kept us in fresh fruit and vegetables all summer. Many would come ready to cook….stemmed and cleaned. It amazed me that even friends would go to this amount of work to make it convenient for me. A testament to small town living. We no longer had time for a garden. After Bear lost his leg, we gave it up. Thankfully we could still enjoy home grown products from generous people. I even had enough to freeze or can in some instances.
George arrived on a Friday night the first part of August. He certainly helped us out with some needed maintenance at both mom’s property and ours. On Saturday he swept the garage roof clean of pine needles and twigs that had fallen from over hanging trees, then came and did ours. The problem at mom’s place was the moss that had grown under the shingles, making it tedious to clean. We picked and picked and helped some but nothing like it needed.
Jennifer’s seventeenth birthday was on the 3rd of August. We celebrated with a pizza supper at West Plains but planned for her party on Saturday. I made her favorite cake….confetti angle food with a boiled icing, fluffy and pink. I also made a fresh cherry cobbler for Bear and George, which was their favorite. It was pretty good eating……nothing like home grown tart pie cherries.
A Nebraska cousin, Janet and her family came to visit on the 10th of August. They had been to see mom earlier and were here when I came home from work. I fixed supper for all of us and after a good visit, bedded everybody down for the night. To keep our Morris from prowling among the beds we kept him in our room with the door shut. That was just enough to make him think sleeping with us was much better than his box. By morning we found him curled up, sound asleep at our feet. From then on, three of us went to bed. In the morning I fixed breakfast for all before I left for work. We said our good-byes at the door and we were off in different directions.
As sure as a thunderclap out of a blue sky I was faced with a terrible shock at the end of the month. Louis called and told me it is almost certain he had lung cancer. They were to run tests very soon but they pretty well knew what the answer would be. There are no words to describe my sick feeling. First dad, mom with all of her health problems and having to live her life out in a nursing home, now Louis. I’ll have to confess, I wept when I got off the phone….big sobs of self pity. Now I’m losing my only brother? There had to be a cure….a mistake…something that would make the demon go away. But the devil is always in the details and I knew it was not only possible but very probable.
A big brother is irreplaceable…..and I had no other. As self serving as my pity was, in the midst of it, I thought of our mother. The realization hit me that I would be the one who had to tell her……
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
