midnight musings

It has been a busy week here at our humble abode what with the get together on Saturday when almost every attendant came down with the double barrel flu-if you know what I mean. Rachel, Josiah and Annika are here from Stuttgart until Saturday when they start the trek back to Germany via the Cities etc. Everyone keep you fingers crossed that they are all feeling at the tops of their game when the plane is boarded. Today we had Thanksgiving or should I say that Jan had Thanksgiving here. My Mom is still not feeling well and now Eli is upchucking as well so rather than 11 people we were short a couple of guests. Now we have the curse of lots of leftovers to eat through, but no pumpkin pie, we killed that off the other day. My recovery seems to be moving along finally. All of the sudden the trach site healed up and everyone keeps saying that the swelling is getting less in my jaw area although I would be hard pressed to see the difference from day to day. The bone harvest area on my calf seems to be getting some better but is progressing veeerrryy sslloowwllyy. I have had a couple of stitches come to the surface lately so I guess that is a good sign.

Yesterday I had an early get up to drive to Spicer Minnesota for a Patriot Guard mission. It was for a Viet-Nam vet and close friend of one our group. The day was quite nice with low winds and sunshine.. They had a large turn-out for the funeral at a church in Spicer and the internment was at a cemetery on a lake in New London, I think. Afterwards we had a get together at the Legion in Spicer for a little ceremony for one of the guys honoring his Purple Heart. Rumor has it that he may have a Silver Star in his future for actions in an ambush in Viet-Nam 40 years ago. It is fun to hear these guys who actually spent time with people that were actively trying to kill them in any manner possible laugh about some of the goofy things that happen in war. Although at the time they weren't so funny. People that lived through that share an extremely special bond, that I envy some times. Back in about 1968 I thought about enlisting in the Army but with my electronic training in the Air Force I would probably ended up in a technical job but maybe I would have been there instead of just flying over it. I have had a few troops tell me that the B-52s saved their bacon in Viet-Nam on occasion so that is gratifying.

Back to the title of this blog, while lying awake at midnight I have more thoughts about things, things that are important to me, like my wife and family among other things. I should keep a note pad handy or get out my recorder to record my thoughts. This being Thanksgiving a list of what I am thankful for would include my wife Jan, daughters Rachel and Genevieve, son Eli. My sons in law Hans and Steve and daughter in law Lindsey. Then comes grandchildren Josiah and Annika, Samuel and August, Leah and Aaron. I am thankful for the country that we live in, men and women that are willing to sacrifice all in defense of this country. I could go on and on but you know what I mean and who I mean. I will throw in a couple pictures also to give you the reader an idea of the festivities here. Sleep tight, I know I won't, tomorrow is Black Friday.

As`a post script here while looking at pictures to upload I remembered that Saturday night we had Aaron's baptism at Long Lake Church. It is a small church in the country near Ormsby and this all happened before the scourge hit us, so it went very well. Now I'm done for now.

Visitors from Germany

Jan has been after me to do another post, so I will do one today. I guess that a lot of things have been going on here lately so I need to bring the one reader up to date although she does live in the same house as me. About a week ago Eli gave me a ride up to Lake Crystal on his way to work in Mankato. It had rained all morning but broke around noon so I grabbed my gear and got the GS out of the shop in the afternoon. I had a nice ride home on a round about route through Hanska and Godahl. So I have all the bikes back under the same roof.

Sunday afternoon Rachel, Joe and Annie dropped in for a stay after spending a few days with Gen, Steve and the boys ( see tatertot hotdish). Later on Sunday evening Eli, Lindsey and kiddos came over to see Rachel and family. As you may imagine with three youngsters things got a little crazy for awhile, luckily Aaron isn't mobile yet or it could have been nuttier. Jan was holding races down the steps with the three eldest. They were sliding on their tummy's on the carpet. I was figuring on carpet burns but everyone survived, maybe laughter insulates you?

Yesterday I went on the first Patriot Guard mission that I have been on in a couple of months at least. It was for a local man that had served his country in the 50s. We met in Butterfield for the briefing and social time prior to the funeral. I am not sure what the temperature was but I was glad that I was all leathered up cause it got pretty nippy before the funeral got started, at least we got to hang out in the basement during the actual service and get a cup of coffee in. Then out to the cemetery for the internment, what with the wind etc. people did not hang around for long. The honor guard policed up the brass and headed back to their van asap and the family was gone 15 minutes later. It sure felt good to see the guys again after missing most of the Fall missions.

I have been going to PT a couple times a week lately and the PT guy says I am doing just great. I am always a little suspicious of his encouragement, being a natural pessimist at heart, although the site of the tracheotomy is finally shrinking to a small point and not drooling down my chest. Now if the swelling in my neck would just go down and the right calf would heal up I would feel better. I admit that I seem to walk without much of a limp anymore and I have more energy than before but now the problem is trying to sleep nights, man if it isn't one thing it's another. Anyhow I will throw some pictures in but I am not sure what order they will show up as.

On the Road Again

The top two are from a couple of reunions that I participated in over the weekend. Upper left is at Mom's house with the five of us. Next is at my cousin Kay's home in Fairmont with the majority of my first cousins on the deck. It was tough to get all of us in one shot unless you have a wide angle lens. To the left now is me after a short run on the GS (Fritz) on Sunday I think. With the weather as nice as it has been it was pretty difficult to sit and look out the window and listen to the bikes running up and down the streets. I had to borrow a line from Willie Nelson for the title today that about sums up how I feel. My recovery, even though the therapist says it is going great, is not moving fast enough for me let me tell you. It doesn't help, I guess that I am reading a book by Neil Peart about his ride around North America after his families death. The things he writes about out on the road are the things that keep most riders ready to turn right around and go again, the smell of fresh hay, onions or garlic around Gilmore, even a slight wiff of cow manure isn't so bad. Anyhow where was I? Oh ya, the reunion was a lot of fun again. It seems as if this bunch always enjoys the company and the potluck dinner would attract strangers off the street if we would let them in. It is fun catching up with what has been going on in other people's lives even though they are much more complicated than they were 50 years ago. We have been a pretty lucky bunch come to think of it, as we have only lost one of the original cousins, correct me if I am wrong. We, the immediate family got together on Sunday for lunch out in honor of Mom's 88th birthday. I'll admit it was over a month late but Kathy was here now to sit in. Yesterday (Tuesday ) I ran the GS up to the dealer in Lake Crystal to have a couple of recalls worked on and except for the high winds the riding was great. I just hope that when they get done it isn't snowing, which it could do real easy in this part of the world. I appreciate the replys to my last blog, the witty repartee is more fun than the blog itself. Take care and please stay in touch.

Thanks for the Replies

If you wish to refer back to yesterday,s photos, I will give a little explanation. Evidently MamaD4 spent too much time rolling her eyes when she was younger as I scrolled through my slides. The top two and a lower one are taken from the I.P. position in a B-52D of another B-52 refueling from a KC-135 over the South China Sea on our way into South Viet-Nam, I think in May of 1966. I did a couple of ride alongs on combat missions over the South. I made one flight to the Danang area and one west of Saigon around Tay Nihn. I think that I was included in these missions in case the EWO had trouble with our equipment (electronic warfare equipment). As it turns out there isn't too much I could do anyway because 90% of our black boxes were outside the pressurized compartments of the aircraft anyhow. I got to admit that training missions in the States were much more fun, with lots of low level (200ft) through Wyoming and North Dakota badlands etc.. I even got to ride in the right seat and run the throttles at altitude once and view the Cascade volcanoes at sunset as we headed west, great fun all in all. I hope that this clarifies some things.

what a drag it is to look in the mirror

Yesterday Jan and I went for my weekly PT and encouragement session here at the local hospital. He says that I'm doing well and so does Jan and the site on my right calf that looks like a hunk of raw meat is coming along nicely too. I'd show you all a picture but I'm afraid it would gag some people that have sensitive stomachs, like Eli perhaps. Anyhow, we, wife, sister,brothers, sister in laws, grandchildren, Mom and Mom in law all drove to Rochester last Saturday for Sam's birthday party. It was a pretty good time to say the least. I don't recall, but did I blog about this already? Judging by the replies that I am getting on this blog my wife-Saint Jan is the only person reading this account of my life and I can talk to her at home, although she will say there is damn little of that either. I think that I am getting more cranky all of the time, with the glacial rate of recovery that I am experiencing. Day after day I keep hoping for some sign of improvement but it just seems to be the same morning after morning. Man, I just started re reading " Ghost Rider" by Neal Peart. He is the drummer and lyricist for the band "Rush". He lost his wife and daughter in less than a years time and took off on his BMW and rode all over North America trying to cope with his loss. The book is from his journal while he traveled around. It is interesting reading but it can be depressing in places. I also started scanning in some of my slides from my Air Force days and that has not been going well. Scanning 4 at a time, sometimes gets all 4 and the next batch comes out as one picture or only half of the slides are scanned in. At one time I was going to scan in all of my slides-6000+-but at this rate I don't think that the project is feasible. I need to figure out what is going on with that scanner and I suppose that it means a call to tech support in some third world country. I'll throw in a couple of slides here to show what I have started out to accomplish.

Back on the PC

Me and the grand kids, well anyway 1/3 of them. Leah and Aaron stopped over on Sunday for a visit before they went for a walk with Eli and Lindsey. Jan had been busy with outdoor stuff, planting the mum that I got in the hospital and surprisingly enough a straggler that has survived several winters next to the kitchen foundation. We moved it out to where it should have a better chance of getting some moisture. We also unwrapped the trailer and winterized it with lots of anti-freeze. Yesterday-Monday- was my first day at PT and it was pretty much exploring what exercises I need to do to keep the ankle loose and stretching my jaw out. We also had a misunderstanding corrected. I had thought that the doctors had removed a section of the fibia to repair the jaw but the therapist showed me that the bone is still in one piece. Evidently just sections were transplanted. Now I need to make out a chart of some kind to keep track of my exercise routines similar to the one that I made up to keep me up to date on meds.This weekend we will be running back to Rochester but this time it will be for Sam's birthday party. My sister Kathy is flying in from California today and Jan and I will be picking her up in Mankato later this afternoon. Well, that's about it for now, I'll post more in the future. Bye

one of these days

Just a short post here. I will bring you up to date on the goings on here, or lack there-of. I have pretty much been devoting my time to getting better, although from point of view it is going way too slow. I must listen to the professionals who tell me that I am ahead of the curve, but maybe they just say that to keep my spirits up. This week I have been eating my meals with a spoon out of the blender. Every time I run up a can of soup etc. I look at the blender and think of Linda Ronstad- think about it- it's a Waring blender. Anyhow, Pastor Johnson stopped by Friday for a short visit and Mom and I went cruising in the afternoon. We went the usual route to Mt. Lake, down to Bergen and cross country through the windmill farm back to Ormsby and St. James. She brought me over some home made soup of hers which went through the blender and down the hatch for supper. As usual it has the commercial brands beat hands down. I have also been limping around the house without the walker more lately too and it seems to be going well but awkwardly. Today Jan and I are going to run up to New Ulm again for some shopping. Other than that it has been a quiet week here in St. James. Oh ya, I start PT on Monday so we will see how I am doing a week from now. Just think 3 weeks ago I was just out of surgery and wondering if I would live to see Sunday. The curve has definitely been steeply up since then. I don't what I would have done without Saint Jan at my side the last weeks, literally.