Joe is beginning to get his routine down for the 12-hour work shifts. He is tired when I pick him up from work. During his workday he walks 15,000 to 20,000 steps and bends and pulls more than he is used to. He is not complaining and is keeping his eye on the growing funds in his machine equipment and pick-up truck bank account.
I worked at the thrift store a bit more this week. In addition
to the three hours on Monday and on Wednesday, I went in for 2 ½ hours on Tuesday
evening to help with Christmas merchandise. Three hours and I need a nap. Come to
find out this is common. I attribute it to age. I am building some arm muscles
from the 6 hours a week of removing items from bags and holding them up to
inspect them, and then folding them. I also get a lot of steps in as I take the
clothes to the appropriate bins to be stored. Tagging and hanging is another
phase of the process and requires movement including lifting my arms to hang
clothes on a rack. My end game is that in 5-10 years my bat wings may be gone.
Today my lofty goal is to finish the Jonathan Kellerman book
I’ve been reading over the past week. Pre-children, I could read five books a
week. Now it takes me a week to get through a book. I read a chapter and then
feel compelled to putter around finding something to do.
My hip has been feeling better. Until this morning. I notice
on cold mornings my body aches in general for the first 20 minutes I am up
moving around.
This morning I discovered that the school bus picks up Charlotte
and Caleb at 7:10am for an 8:00am school start time. The school is 5 minutes
away from us (8 minutes if there is a traffic jam). It reminded me of when I
was in 4th through 6th grade, our family lived about 5
minutes by car from the school. We rode the bus as well. We were the first
picked up in the morning and the last dropped off in the afternoon. Each school
day that meant 90 minutes of bus time. I didn’t mind as I loved reading on the
bus. I also thought it was cool that I knew where everybody lived – I guess I
was an information stalker even back then.
Our grandkids getting on the bus reminded me of how much my
brother, Jeff, loved the bus. He was too young for school (he is 6 years
younger than me). Every morning he’d be happy when the bus came and again in
the afternoon when we were dropped off. It wasn’t because his siblings were
home from school. Eventually my mom got permission for Jeff to ride the bus one
day and then she picked him up at the school. He was ecstatic.
When Jeff was finally able to go to school himself it was a
short-lived bus opportunity. He developed a health condition which resulted in home
schooling (the teacher came to our house) for kindergarten and first grade. Two
years were shaved off his bus riding years.
One of my dad’s two surviving brothers died yesterday morning.
My Uncle Paul. Paul, at 86 years old, was the second youngest of dad’s seven
siblings. Dad was a year older than Paul. My dad had a strong bond to his other
siblings, not so close with Paul. When my dad was dying, Paul came to the
hospital and prayed with my dad. My dad would tell people his idea of church
was fishing on Lake Erie. That he felt closer to God on a river than he ever
did in a church. My dad was not an atheist nor an agnostic. He just didn’t like
organized religion and open displays of religion. He believed our actions were
more important than professing Christianity. The last time I saw my uncle Paul was
in 1989 at my dad’s bedside. If he came to dad’s funeral (I am guessing he did
as he was a gracious man), I don’t remember, but I was feeling heartbroken that
day.
I am sad for my cousins, Ann and Holly. Losing a beloved dad
is hard stuff.
I don’t think I have ever met Ann and Holly. Maybe at a
Karnes family reunion once but they would have been children when I was in my
twenties. I think. Again, the families were not close to each other. I can only
say that I see how much Ann and Holly love their dad and the things they have
shared over the years to know that he was loved and loved them so very much.
Now my dad’s family is down to my Uncle Dick, the baby of
the family at 81 years old. Dick takes good care of himself, and I pray he
stays around a long while more.
Yesterday, I was researching the birth order of dad’s
siblings and came across two photos of my dad’s mom. Her name was Vivian
Tussing before she married my Grandfather. In the first picture she is five
years old, and the second photo was taken in 1942 when she would have been twenty-nine
years old. By then she had given birth to all seven of her biological children
and had a child die in infancy. My dad’s
oldest brother’s (Dewey Jr. known as Junior) mom died when he was a baby.
I did not like my Grandma Vivian. I saw her as mean. As an adult, I can look at the fact that she was married to an alcoholic, 13 years her senior, and had seven children by the time she was twenty-nine. It’s a wonder she didn’t kill my grandpa in his sleep. Seriously. My grandpa outlived her, which was probably a blessing for her - she finally got to get out of the marriage. Of course, I am projecting all of this. What I do remember of my grandmother (we called her Mom Karnes – no grandma title for her) was that she loved to dress up and go to Bingo. I remember her getting dressed in her finest house dress and putting on her makeup with bright red lipstick. She didn’t drive so she would go with one of her daughters-in-law (my mom would go on occasion), or a neighbor woman and they would make a night of it. She was very happy when she won. I remember she gave us new socks every year for Christmas which was a luxury to have a new piece of clothing that wasn’t handed down. I remember she was nice to a neighborhood man who was physically crippled and unable to speak. He would walk to my grandparents’ home and sit in their backyard with them. Not much got said, but they could sit together in peace.
When I try really hard, I can think of my grandmother’s good
qualities. Mostly, in hindsight, I can admire the energy it took to birth and
take care of all those babies!
Available photo's of my dad and some of his siblings:
We all & I speak for my siblings that Mom Karnes was mean! We dreaded our visits as there was not much to do there. Remember playing in the backyard.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy the backyard. I liked the swing set, the trumpet like flowers we could put on our fingers, and the berries we could pick and eat as they ripened. It was also more fun when cousins would show up and we could all play together. I loved my Karnes cousins so much! Mom Karnes and Dad Karnes were not kid people that's for certain. They weren't nice to their own children, let alone the grandkids!! Mom Karnes used to hit us with her fly swatter. Once, in an emergency, my folks left me with Mom and Dad Karnes. I was four or five years old. When my parents picked me up, Mom Karnes had cut off all my hair.
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