Update...

For the folks that return here, I have two tidbits.

Keith is home from Iraq and acclimating nicely. Chrissy had the baby and both are doing well. For pics of both, tune to the new blog listed in the prior post.

Byeeeeeeeeeee

2293 readers later.... I'm outa here!

This post ends this blog. It doesn’t however end my blogging days. Through the comments and emails I received (and a couple of job offers too!) I was encouraged not to quit ranting. For those of you that visited daily and enjoyed this farce into the psyche, thank you. I’m glad I was able to make you think occasionally and smile even more often than that.

For more rants and raves please tune to:

http://opinionatedsobintn.blogspot.com/

After many naming tries (it’s not easy coming up with a new name with all the blogs out there), I settled on Opinionated S.O.B. in Tn. All three parts fit me to a T. It may not always be a daily blog but several times a week at the least. There you’ll be able to keep up with Chrissy and when Aliya comes into the world.

For my fictional side, I’m going to be publishing a novel that I wrote several years ago. Friends and proofreaders have been the only eyes to see it up until now. So on this page I’ll give you “HER”.

http://betterthanasharpie.blogspot.com/


I invite you to join me on either or both of these pages. This blog has been fun at times, horrid at others. I remembered a lot about myself that I’d forgotten. Thanks to those that dared me to do it 3 months ago.

Thanks to Chrissy it was a pretty good day. I’ve said before and will say again that any day you can spend with friends is a good day. She and Patty, Jim and Bobby managed to keep me pretty much occupied to the point of not thinking a lot about what today starts. Good laughs and fond memories of other days made the day worthwhile.

Birthday E cards played a part in putting both a smile and a disappointed look on my face this morning. I won’t share the sentiments here of the one from my better half other than it was very surprising. The one I didn’t receive that I expected to kinda disappointed me. I thought it would be there. Oh well...

Thanks guys for a good day. You made the start of the 2nd half century bearable.

It's said that being over 50 does have its advantages...

1. Kidnappers are not very interested in you.

2. In a hostage situation you are likely to be released first.

3. No one expects you to run into a burning building.

4. People call at 9 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"

5. People no longer view you as a hypochondriac.

6. There's nothing left to learn the hard way.

7. Things you buy now won't wear out.

8. You can eat dinner at 4 p.m (at a discount!).

9. You can live without sex (but not without glasses).

10. You enjoy hearing about other people's operations.

11. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.

12. You have a party and the neighbors don't even realize it.

13. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.

14. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.

15. You sing along with the elevator music.

16. Your eyes won't get much worse.

17. Your investment in health insurance is finally beginning to pay off.

18. Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the National Weather Service.

19. Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.

20. Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.

21. You know the words to all the late night "Golden Oldie" record infomercials.

22. All your favorite old songs are backgroud music for TV commercials.

23. You can't remember who sent you this.

People amaze me. I used to enjoy just sitting and watching interactions between them. I enjoyed that as much as talking to and dealing with people. Today I watched a drama play out that involved a couple that belong in a marriage as much as oil and water in a bottle. Two abusive personalities trying to survive in spite of each other. It sickened me to see it. As always happens, the woman was playing the victim even though she has chosen this lifestyle. I say chosen since this has happened to her in the past. It’s not been but a few months ago that she carried a shiner around for at least 2 weeks.

She had the workings of another one today. Sorry folks but if it happens once and you try to help yourself out of it, I’ll do what I can to help. Once you make that decision to stay and it happens again... it’s all on you. You make your bed, lie in it.

Less than...

48 hours to go to 50. Less hours to go than I've spent years here so far. It is bothering me less and less every day though. I'm sure I'll still cringe a little Sunday when I realize my 40's are gone. I may stay in bed all day.

Just to let you guys know, the shower went great. Lots of neat stuff except diapers and we'll solve that before she gets here. It was a good time with lots of family and friends. I'll post a pic or two as soon as I download the camera.

Part 2 the birthday party was great too. A good friend and lots of laughs. We even got a chance to freak out a visitor to our fine city at the bar. (Making mental note to take her back there for her birthday after the baby's born). Just remember the reply when asked if you're married is "Not to each other!"

All around it was a good day. The kind that memories and future laughs are made of.

The time has come....

Well the time has come. I’ve put it off now all these days with you guys and years as far as my head goes. Let me start by saying that I was taught as a youth to respect my elders. I have always attempted to do this whenever possible. However, I’ve always believed that to get respect, you have to earn respect.

I do not believe that a title or position earns anyone any certain amount of respect. In my mind this is the way it is regardless of whether you are my friend, my boss, my president or my mother. It is the last one that this post will concentrate on. It is time to knock down the fortress door of that castle.

My mom and dad divorced when I was four years old. If any parents or future parents are reading this please pay attention here if you read nothing past it.

IF you aren’t with the other parent of your child, DO NOT EVER down that person in front of the child.

My mother in the 14 years I was around her after my father split up never passed up an opportunity to down him. Her favorite saying was, “He wasn’t worth a damn.” She would then in either that conversation or in other conversations state about me, “He’s just like his father.”

DUHHHHHHHHHHHHH !

Didn’t she think for one second that I would at some point in time put 2 and 2 together. If he’s not worth a damn and I was just like him, I must not be worth a damn. This, I believe to this day, formed my lifetime relationship with my mother.

To be best of my knowledge, she is still alive. As of this writing I haven’t spoken to her since October 29th, 1991. As a child, I had to put up with her domineering ways. As an adult, I made the decision not to. I have only seen her one time since then. In a Hardee’s restaurant one morning a couple of years after that. She took her tray to a table passing me as if I was a stranger on the street. It was at that point in time that I decided to quit punishing myself for divorcing myself from her.

**************

I believe I have stated here in other entries that I was not a model child. I wasn’t a terror by any stretch but certainly not an angel. I wasn’t the perfect student either. Looking back I feel I could have done much better in school if I’d realized then what I know now. If I’d taken one minute to analyze the situation of my childhood, I’d have done great in school just to piss off the ones that wanted to brand me a failure. Instead for years, I let them convince me of it.

I do not remember anyone except 2 teachers in my first 12 years of school that urged me forward. The first was my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Wattenbargar. The second one was my homeroom teacher in my sophomore year of high school. Both of these fine ladies prodded me to higher levels. The other teachers and my supposed role models at home offered little to no motivation at all.

I could bring home great grades yet my mother would concentrate on a lower conduct grade and bitch all night about it. She was more determined to keep her new marriage together than showing love to her children. As a busy working mom she may not have been able to spread her feelings around to a new husband and 2 kids. As a result, I was left out. I became a loner. Being a Leo, this was completely abhorent to what I was destined to be. It was years later that I finally broke out of this shell. Some of that shell was still present when I started this blog. After this post, the shell will be gone. I am tired of living two lives. My public persona of the ‘closs clown’ only to come home and barely speak 10 words the rest of the day are gone. Somewhere there has to be middle ground.

The bitterness that I have felt for this woman all these years has transferred to most every relationship I’ve had with women in my life. Every female I deal with first has to pass my mental test of “Is she like my mother?” If I see any indication that she might be, I have nothing to do with her. I’ve always hated myself for putting up this barrier immediately. I’m sure I’ve missed out of meeting great ladies because of it. The women in my life that I have had the honor of calling friends, lovers and wives are all great ladies. I treasure them all. I used to hope for the day when I could look at my mother and say the same thing. I do not think that day will ever come. That used to hurt deeply. It doesn’t anymore.

4 days left...

and another blank page facing me. Since I’m avoiding the one subject that I know I’ll have to face there’s not really a lot to say. I’ve dodged talking about my mother because it infuriates me so much. I’ll dodge it today too and change the subject right now.

Chrissy had a good checkup today. She’s at 34 weeks now and looking sexier than ever. I know she doesn’t feel that way most days (probably no days... lol) but she is! If she were single and I was 20 years younger... lol...

Tomorrow is her baby shower. Hopefully it’ll go great and she’ll get some neat stuff. I’m not sure about the combo birthday thing that we talked about. Not really in the birthday party mood lately.

I did set up two new blogs yesterday. One will be for daily rantings on whatever comes out of the keyboard and the other for a story that’s been floating in my mind for years. It’s been on paper in different forms for about 10 years. It’ll see the light of day for the public for the first time there. I’ll publish the addresses here on the 22nd.

36 years ago today...

the greatest meeting of musical minds met on a farm in New York. It was Woodstock. Three days of peace, love and rock and roll.

The preformers were: Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tim Hardin, Incredible String Band, Ravi Shankar, Richie Havens, Sly and the Family Stone, Bert Sommer, Sweetwater, Quill, Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Jefferson Airplane, The Who, Grateful Dead, Keef Hartley Band, Blood, Sweat and Tears, Crosby, Stills & Nash (&Young), Santana, The Band, Ten Years After, Johnny Winter, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Joe Cocker, Mountain, Melanie, Sha-Na-Na, John Sebastian, Country Joe and the Fish, Paul Butterfield Blues Band.

Three of us piled into Wayne's yellow 1967 Plymouth Convertible and were gonna crash the party! At 14, I was the youngest of the trio and I think Gib was only 15. So Wayne would have done all the driving. We might have had $20 between us. Of course in 1969, $20 probably would have been enough gas money for the round trip!

We made it as far as Johnson City, TN about 100 miles up the road. We visited with Gib's cousin whose side of the family got the looks. She had a friend come over and it was a pretty cool night. Not Woodstock but not bad for three teenagers in Tn.

Don't stop thinking about tomorrow!

It seems like yesterday that all this started. I used to laugh when the “old folks” talked about time flying but damned if it isn’t true. We spend the better part of our youth wishing that we were this age or that age.

At 5 I wanted to be 6 so I could go to school.
At 7 thru 12, I wanted to be a teenager.
At 13 I couldn’t wait till 16 so I could drive.
At 16 I wanted 17 to get here so I could graduate high school.
At 17 it seemed 18 would never get here so I could legally drink.
At 18 I joined the Army and all of the sudden I could drink, drive and go out on my own but there were people wanting to shoot at me!

From 18 to 26 is a blur sometimes. I remember training at Fort Devens and Fort Rucker and an airfield in Vietnam (for the last 5 minutes of that fiasco). Then it was back to Rucker, then Korea a couple of years later and back to Rucker again.

At 26 my eyesight went south on me and suddenly talking to aircraft for a living went to hell. It seems the FAA doesn’t like their controllers having a minor problem like double vision. They pulled my pilots license the next year after the paperwork caught up with me.

Prior to leaving the service at 26, I’d managed to get married, have a son and get divorced. It seems she had no sense of humor about my second job as a DJ in that topless nightclub.

Seriously my faithful readers, from 26 to my current stage of almost 50 is a blur. Twenty-four years gone and nothing much to show for it. When I look at the things others have accomplished in this amount of time, I’m really pissed off with myself.

I thank god everyday for what good health I do have. I’m glad I have the friends I have. I’m thankful that I had enough sense to stop associating with those that harbor hateful thoughts of the past. I’m thankful for my faithful readers here. You don’t know now what this has done for me but you will soon.

The 50+ return visitors I have on a daily basis have proven something to me that I’ve known for a long time but never capitalized on. Sometimes we just need the validation of others to pursue our dreams.

One week to go...

for this blog and till my 50th. Not sure how I'm going to celebrate it or if I will. We're having a baby shower for Chrissy this Thursday and she asked me if I'd like her to make her world (well ok... locally!) famous chocolate cake. Now even though I'm diabetic, I'm not turning that down! A few of us may drift over to where D is working now for a drink or two (none for me thanks...lol) I'll be the designated driver for some if I have to. Other than that and maybe a small thing here at the house on Sunday, I doubt much fuss will be made. Which is fine with me. I'll be here daily with some astute observation.