And again welcome to ” NTOO”. I can not tell you that I remember every stupid and dumb thing that I have done in life, but some of the more epic ones, can just never be completely put to rest. On all accounts that is probably a good thing , because it should keep me from making the same mistake more than once, but not so much! This journey called life has been fun packed, with some heart ache mixed in along the way. I think life is like most things, we get out of it, what we put into it. The principle is reaping and sowing. If you choose to live your life on the sidelines, then life will pass you by, and when you get to the end, you will wonder where all the time went too. And the other extreme is true as well, if you burn the candle at both ends, you may burnout rather quickly. I want to say that I’m mostly in the middle, but I can tell you that there was a time when I lived really hard. A little bit of an adrenaline junkie. Yes , I use to prescribe to live hard, die young and leave a good looking corpse behind. I really didn’t think I was going to live to see forty. So what I have learned since then is that you take the first forty years and live rather recklessly and you will spend the next forty years doing damage control, and hoping that the old body will just hold together, and I have multiple surgery scars to attest to that fact. Some how your priorities change and family life comes along and you want to be around for the milestones, such as first steps first words, graduations, and of course the walking down the isle part, and believe it or not, now I’m pappy to three terrific grandsons. Ok , we will get to the circle part, but truly it has flown by. Let’s back track a little. I remember getting spankings before it was considered child abuse 😀. My mom didn’t play, she was notorious for saying I brought you in the world and I can take you out, and make another one that looks just like you, and nobody will miss you. And since there was six of us, I believed her, she had credibility 😀. So…if you are thinking of calling child protective services, just go ahead and pack your bag, because it was going to be a one way trip. She was tough, but she kept us all on the straight and narrow. Here is one for the archives, when I was in my early to mid- twenties, I was a restaurant manager, and I was recruited away from a full service restaurant to a fast food chain, felt like a fish out of water. Ok, so when I finished my training for this fast food joint, the training manager always threw a party at his place for his trainees. This is no lie, my one and only time ever having grain alcohol, moon shine, white lighting, or whatever you know it as. They mixed it with one of those frozen flavored ice things that you usually pour soda over at a kids party. It was so smooth, but to this very day I have no recall of that night. I woke up in a room full of naked people. My brain immediately went to what the hell happened here? . Then as I scurried around to find my clothes, I thought to myself, how many other people woke up before me with that same thought process that I just had. My head was throbbing, not good when you are on a motorcycle, and yes, swore I would never do that again, and yes stuck to it. Some how I got the feeling this wasn’t their first rodeo for that , but it was definitely my last. It became the thing to never be mentioned ever, ever again. I sometimes wonder if I’m going to be old on my front porch rocking in a chair and the events of that night will come flashing back at me, probably not , we loose memory as we get older. If you have been around for a while then it is no mystery that the older you get the faster time rolls by. When we were kids, it took forever for Santa to come, and now every time we blink , it’s Christmas again. There was a song, and I don’t know the name of it, but just remember a few lines and the chorus. It stated that the young become the old and mysteries unfold, and it’s kind of a brief description of life. There were so many things in life that I was just clueless about when I was younger, and I was absolutely fine with that, but as we live life it comes with certain understandings and knowledge. I remember being a kid, and then I had kids, and now my kids have kids, what the heck!!, and it seems as if it almost happened overnight. I remember my daughter riding on my shoulders as a toddler, and I also remember feeling something really warm, and then it wasn’t, I sure hope that pampers are more leak resistant 😀. And now it’s some what comical to watch her and her husband navigate parenthood. It’s comical because, I’ve been there, done that, brought a T shirt, and wish not to go back there again. What is it with little kids having to potty at every new location they find themselves at?. It kind of reminds me of dogs, marking their territory. And when you take them to the restroom, they have to touch everything. Oh, and one of my favorites, they have to pee, but their pants have to come all the way down to their ankles come on, its time to step up and teach the young lads how to just whip it out 😀. I think I’m chasing a rabbit down a hole again. I’m the oldest of almost fifty grandkids, and so for me I got to spend a lot of time with my grandparents when I was growing up. I loved my grandmother, but she was like my mom, she didn’t play, but became very sweet later in life. My grandfather was like my best friend and we were really close and he did his darnedest to spoil me rotten, just like I needed the encouragement 😀. He use to refer to me as M& M, yep, sorry to bust your bubble if you thought the musician that goes by that name was an original, nope it was me, and yes, I know that he spells it differently, can’t infringe on the little talking candies trade mark. Any how mine stood for Mr. Mischievous. I once remembered getting a spanking for something that I didn’t do, and when the truth came out, there was no apology, they just said chalk it up to something else that I did do, that they just didn’t know about, so yeah, I was probably do.😀. My grandfather always had butterscotch lifesavers in his pocket, they became my favorite and even to this day, it reminds me of him. I was so cool, he let me drink coffee with him when I was around five years old. I have so many great memories of him. Oh, and then there was this one later in his life, when he was loosing his marbles . He went outside to cut the grass in his boxers, with just a pair booths on, not a great look, and not his finest moment. One last one before I scurry along. As far back as I could remember, my grandparents always slept In separate bedrooms and they also went to separate churches. I couldn’t wrap my mind around it since they had nine children together. I’m not going to get into it, but I will just say, when people pass away, all of the little dirty secrets come to life, or maybe that is just in my family. Life is a circle because I had a grandfather and now I am a grandfather. And when you are young, you really do believe that you are bullet proof, or at least I did, and I see it in my son as well. And of course I’m not speaking of actually being that, but just believing that a lot of life lessons don’t apply to you. I remember running around without coats or shoes in the winter, high metabolism, never giving arthritis a second thought , bad call on my part😀, that is just one example of dozens that I could cite . I loved my grandfather and spent a lot of time with him, but I don’t remember hair just growing from all sorts of weird places on his body. My ears have a mustache, and hair growing from your nose, and don’t even get me started on those crazy gray hairs in my eyebrows, going any and every way they want to. It’s almost a full time job, just keeping hair from places it shouldn’t be. My mom is in her eighties now and seems to be getting frailer by the day, which is a shame, because she has always been independent and had her crap together. I have seen first hand that growing older is not for the faint at heart. The changes that our bodies go through is criminal. I didn’t start wearing glasses until I was forty, and it was just the beginning. Around forty is also the time that my body decided that it wasn’t going to play nice with dairy products any longer as well. Some of you older ones in the audience, may remember that TV show back in the 70’s , called “welcome back Kotter”. Its the show that put John Travolta on the map. The teacher in the show, Mr. Kotter, use to talk about the noises that old people made as they got up around, I always thought it was hilarious, until I became the old person, with all of those noises. And guess what ? , its true my body makes all of those noises and then some. I’m not going to complain, because I’m pretty blessed compared to some individuals my age. Sometimes people live hard, such as in smoking, or laying out to much in the sun. The whole thing with genes, can be a blessing or a curse. My friend up in Ohio lost her husband to a massive heart attack, and he was in really good shape and was a runner, but couldn’t escape the family genetics. And sometimes the genes keeps people from looking their age, it can over all be a crap shoot. Ms. Annomuis works in the health care field dealing with people who have memory loss, and issues with dementia. She sometimes tells me sweet stories about older people caring for one another after a lifetime together, but there are also horror stories as well. Speaking of horror stories, I will throw this one in here for free, and no, I’m not trying to make a case for assisted suicide. So a little background. My ex wife, nor myself were raised by parents who were forthcoming with information about sex and life, I believe it was just that generation. They either handed you a book, or they sheepishly , thought oh, they will figure it out on their wedding night….yeah right it was the seventies. If I recall correctly the montra of the seventies was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Anyhow, so we wanted to rectify that with our kids, because they can get a lot of bad information from their peers. Ok, so we basically did a one – eighty from what we were raised with. We wanted our kids to be able to come to us and feel free to talk about anything and we would be straight with them. I’m not going to tell you that was a flawless plan, but for the most part it accomplished what we were hoping for. Ok, so now fast forward some twenty odd years and our 30 something daughter still communicates with us in that same fashion….awkward, and way to much information sometimes and guess what? , she’s passing it on to the next generation. I know that girls have girl talk, but somehow , I’m included in that as well, so the conversations she has with her mom, I get as well. She isn’t perverted so she is not sharing graphic details about her love life, but some stories not far removed from there. And so this is where this horror story originates from. And if you are squeamish, just stop reading now because you have been warned. My daughter has been helping her mom take care of her ninety year old grandfather, who is pretty much where my grandfather was with the combat boots and boxers while cutting the front lawn. Well that’s not exactly true, because he is in a little worse shape. I always loved my ex father in law, but he has always had health problems, and I gave him a shout out in the post about trauma, go back and read if you missed it. Ok, so he is in an assisted living facility, mind kind of going and he needs help going to the restroom. So , he’s overweight and remember he’s ninety. So my daughter is giving me the scoop about her grandfather being uncircumcised and how men’s penises shrink from lack of use, ok enough said, you can feel in the blanks. I love my daughter, she is a super blessing in my life and we are pretty close, I believe it’s fair to call her a daddy’s girl, but sometimes I just wish she would hold back a little. The truth of the matter is you want that closeness, and I have no idea how to back track from here without her feeling that she can’t share honestly and has to pick and choose, what to say to us. Her mother and I created this monster and since her brother shares very little to nothing, I guess its a fair trade off. Again, I’m a bit long, but I think you get the point about how life is truly a circle. I think one of the saddest things is how my daughter tells me he sits around with a glazed over look, like he’s ready to go be with Jesus. Life can most certainly be rough at times. I want to say and believe that people have more useful information about how to take better care of themselves, so that the golden years won’t be so tarnished. When I was younger, much younger and played sports, we use to have to spend a significant amount of time getting in shape for football condition. I hated those two a days. That is when you practice in the morning before it gets to hot out, then come back in the evening and make another go at it, I’m getting exhausted just thinking about it. The point being, now with better information, it makes better sense and cuts down on injuries if you just condition your body year round, instead of going out and working a summer job, bringing back memories 😀 . So if our parents are getting rickety, there is a possibility that will be our summary as well, because life is truly a circle and things come to full term by the grace of God. This further means that we become our parents and then magically become our grandparents. I guess if I’m going to be cutting the lawn in my boxers, then I should probably work on my tan, so my legs aren’t to pale. 😀I almost shared about the similarities of child birth between my wife and I, and then for my daughter, but I don’t want to steal that title from my daughter of being the queen of TMI 😀.
