When you're down and out

Hi My Darling,

Where's my bridge? Why there it is. When you're Weary, Feeling Small, When Tears are in your eyes, I'll dry them off.

I am so sorry to hear you are going through such a difficult time. I can’t imagine. I was writing to you yesterday when the phone started ringing, then a buyer came in and off I went to show property – 3 houses, and we stopped in Washburn Store, which is a delight. Anne fixed sandwiches for us, lunchmeat, and cheese, with lettuce, mayo, mustard on thick white bread. Anne is Ed and Catherine’s daughter. Bessie Smith rang us up, you’ll see her on the video.
On Monday night we got together at the Golden Valley Community Club for dinner, you may have seen a post on facebook. I sent out a newsletter, and generally post them to my blog at GoldenValleyNC. You might want to see the Bottle Cap Bear – members of the community saved thousands of bottle caps for the project. I didn’t get my caps turned in, so I’m saving for Ranger Randy’s next project. You’ll like this.

Tuesday night, I didn’t much feel like it, but I’d signed up for a class in spreadsheets at the community college – so I went. It was a little over my head, but that’s how I learn, by trying to do things that are difficult. I got home too late to return phone calls.

I’m working up a couple of new listings, I’ll be working up YouTube Videos for them next week.

Mickey McLaughlin the captain of the Cherry Mountain Fire Department stopped by with a walker and a potty chair for my convalescence, he thought it was THIS month. Ah, how blessed I am to have friends like Mickey.

Speaking of friends, I called and talked to Miss Barbara last night on my way home from school, she and I have been trying to talk for about a week. She’s been on the road for 7 weeks straight. Said she’s telling her dispatcher that she’s heading home for the weekend and she’s taking 4 days off, and her Grandson “Little Stevie” is graduating from high school – that’s her oldest boy’s son – anyhow she’s going and that’s that.

After she and her husband, Steve Allen, split up she was all depressed, I told her that when I was all depressed I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do, take SCUBA diving lessons, even though I was bummed and didn’t feel like it. I asked her if there was anything she ever just wanted to do and she said since she worked at Cummins Engine in SC that she’d always wanted to drive a Big truck. She never dreamed it would become the way she makes her living. But there you go. You never know when something will take you somewhere totally unexpected.

While we do get depressed, and we suffer the consequences of our actions, that doesn’t mean we have to dig a hole and wallow – although there is a time to wallow and sing the poor-poor-pitiful me song. I do, however think, that if you’re going to sing it, you should learn the words. Poor Poor Pitiful Me – Linda Ronstadt.

I heard a speaker one time, he was a Toastmaster Golden Gavel Winner and I don’t remember his name, but I do remember the Mike Cross song he quoted – oh yeah, his name was Sonny Dixon, but I digress, here’s Mike’s Song:

A Groove is a rut,

A hole in the ground.

You get in the rut,

Go around and around.

That rut’s a ditch,

Before too long.

A ditch is a grave

With both ends gone.

You’ve gotta look out for that Groove.

Now Miss Barbara and I have discussed this at length, and we’ve decided there are traps in life. Yep, life is booby-trapped, and people blunder down in those traps and sometimes they just stay down in there wallowing in the mud. I sort of see it like life’s a road we travel on, and there are folks off in the side-ditches here and there, and they’ll call out to you as you pass. You can stop to visit, sometimes you can extend your hand and pull them back up to the road, but mostly they want you to come down into their “cave” (a cave started as a wallow, then grew to a hole, and now it’s perfectly finished and furnished, a comfortable cave and they want you to come down and hang out with them while they show you their collections of nasty shit that’s happened to them, and you feel very sorry for them and they get off on that energy which feeds their enthusiasm and they start sharpening their tools. After you leave they’ll expand their cave using the energy they got from you). You’ll notice how tired you are and realize you’re going to have to watch how much time you spend with them. They’re kind of like master vampires, they lure you in.

Mama used to put it another way, she said, “Misery doesn’t love company, it demands it”. We have a neighbor who was, well is, a dear friend. His son married a girl he didn't care for and he just can’t accept her. I guess they’ve been married nearly 8 years and have three beautiful children but Grandpa, well he sits outdoors, smoking, and drinking, and thinking about how much he hates the way things are. You can almost feel the energy rising when he gets on his soap-box, and starts sharpening his tools with his anger, while you’re sitting there. He tells you the latest, she did this, and he runs the whetstone down his blade, and then she did that, and he runs it down again, and you know after you’re gone, he’s going to dig that hole a little bit deeper.

There is a point – and it’s that you can’t change anyone but your own self. You can help a friend or fellow out of the side-ditch, but you can’t do anything about the ones who have built a cave except not to fuel their fires.



You have all the tools you need to build a cave. Being laid up, hurt, miserable, and in pain without much to do besides think, is a recipe for disaster. It is for you, same as it is for me. Plus, I don’t know about you, but about 6 months after I have general anesthesia I tend to get depressed. If I ever crawl into a side ditch, don’t come in after me, pass me by and whistle a happy tune. No body can help me, but me. And if I hear you whistling down the road it might make me mad enough to come out of there.



Here’s another hit by Linda, When Will I Be Loved. Sorry – I couldn’t resist. Linda Ronstadt had it rough, or at least her songwriter did. But let me leave you with this one Long Long Time. ‘Cause I’m going to love you for a long, long, time.



And on an entirely different note – we have kittens! They are SO cute.



And here’s a Mike Cross song: Whiskey ‘Fore Breakfast – just so you have an idea of who Mike Cross is.



LOL, Lots Of Love, k