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| Wallace in his MJ jacket |
Wow, I feel great today. You really don’t know how wonderful something is until you don’t have it. Maybe I should try one of those oxygen bars one day, not now, probably too germy for me. My body is working hard right now to build back up my counts, mainly my white blood count. After being on chemo last week, It takes about a week for my counts to hit basically 0. I still have a lot of learn about this chemo treatment and how it works. So I get knocked down, get up again, get knocked down, get up again, really? Damn, I’m going to super strong when all this is over. Makes me scared of what God might have for me next.
There was some confusion and well now we have a huge pile of mulch right in front of our house. Dear Jonathan, I can’t help him put it out and it can’t just stay there. Luckily, Mr. Frank is going to scoop up the mulch with his bobcat, not Bob the bobcat it a bulldozer looking thing, dump the load into the back of the golf cart, where Jonathan will then proceed to drive down the narrow ally between us and our neighbors, then dump it in our backyard. One time, Jonathan and I shoveled 8 tons of gravel into the back of the golf cart, then went through all that. Let just say that someone ended up with a wrist brace for a week and both of us were exhausted. Husbands listen to your wives… they are really smart.
This evening before dinner I was able to go fishing with my next door neighbor Mr. Jim. I love this man. Two days ago, he pulled up in front of our house in his golf cart to come show me the wild hog he just shot here on the farm. My step mom said that she saw it out in the yard and had named it just before he was shot. Chocolate Mousy Pig. The name fit. Well, now he is curing about 25 feet from me and I think he is going to taste pretty good. One week ago, Jim comes to the back door to show us the HUGE catfish that he had just caught. Don’t ever try to eat a really big catfish unless you are starving, they really don’t taste good. Stick to the 2 lbs and under however when they are caught here we still have to take them because they eat the good fish. Someone ended up eating that fish, I think it might have been Mr. Frank.
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| Water Dog |
When we first got on the lake, Jim pointed to the sky and said “There’s a water dog.” “ Huh”, I said. He didn't hear me. “What you say Jim?” “Sorry my ears been all clogged up” he said. “ I’m used to repeating myself.” He didn't hear me. So I looked at where he pointed and saw a white cloud and one side of it was yellow, like the sun was behind it, only it wasn't, the sun was way over to the right of the cloud. So I asked Jim again and he heard me. He said that the sun was shining through the ice crystals and that the old people used to call it a water dog, he doesn't know why. Well, I want to know why…. Anyone know? We didn't catch any fish, or didn't even get a bite for that matter, but I could care less. I have not been out on the lake since summer and haven’t been out with Mr. Jim in too long. He taught me to use a new outfit. It’s a strange looking fishing rig that I can’t describe so I took a pic. Also in the picture, are mine and Jim’s awesome MUCK boots. I taught him about MUCK boots and now he has a pair. Jim mentioned how great Jonathan has been through all this and I told him I wouldn’t want to go through this with anyone else. He said that Jonathan sure was a good one and he loves me and Evalyn so much. Who said I didn’t catch anything?
We talked about the barn owl that he saw yesterday , I told him about my father just moving to town, and then we started talking about Farmers Hardware. The old Hardware store was in that weird corner building, if you know Athens you know what I’m talking about, that is at that intersect of Thomas, Broad and Oconne. It’s now apartment buildings and my brother’s old roommate lives there.The subject come up because my Poppa Bill told me a story about Farmer Hardware (FH) on Monday. FH used to have a red box with a padlock on it sitting right outside on the curb. This red box was full of dynamite that anyone off the street could come and purchase. I was surprised at that. Poppa Bill says that we didn’t have as much evil back then and people could use the dynamite to blow up stumps. Poppa then showed me some brick work that he did on a building on Prince Avenue. It’s so neat to think something my Poppa did 50 years ago is still around. So I tell Jim this story and he had even a bigger story. Just like an old fisherman to try and show me up.
Jim said the owner of FH was a man named Benny Mize. Benny had given his Dad a rifel in the 40’s that is still in the family. During WWII there was a ration on certain types of materials. Well, Benny, somehow got his hands on tons of this material and would store it out at his farm where locals could come purchase it when needed. Jim said that it was like the black market and he came in on trains. Some dummy told on him and he was charged with a $50,000 dollar fine…. In the 40’s! I wonder how much that would be in today’s money. Jim got that crooked grin and his face and said “Benny said he still came out alright.” He also said that they were good people and would do anything to help anyone. I wonder if that story got passed down in the Mize family. I wonder if anyone wrote it down.
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| Gone fish'in |
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