Mortality

Another one of my classmates from highschool died this month.  It's so much fun getting email from the alumni website.  It's either news about a get-together for all of the people who have kept in touch over the years and still look like their 18 year old selves or are rich success stories, or it's passing on obituaries of classmates who got to the end of the road before the rest of us.

Now mind you, I went to school in Houston, TX at a NOT SMALL AT ALL high school.  Hell, there were 954 seniors that graduated in 1973 (as opposed to my husband's 1967 senior class of 30 people in Mansfield, LA.) 

And of course I did not know all 954 seniors, just mainly the people in my daily classes.  Actually, my senior year I hardly knew anyone because my group ran with the older crowds that had already graduated.  No, I spent the better part of the 1972-1973 school year riding around smoking pot with my friends who liked to skip school. 

When it came time to graduate, it was not my grades that almost cost me a walk across the stage.  Kirby (Iselt, the principal) told Nancy (my mother) that I had not legally attended school enough days in the school year.  But then Nancy pointed out that Kirby would have me for another year and he quickly signed my diploma.

So another classmate died.  We're all around 57 now.  Not a good dying age.  But then some of us have been ridden hard and put up wet....and some are just innocents.  Me?  I'm the former.  Taking inventory of my 57 year old self, I'm giddy with laughter.  God I couldn't have done a worse job had I scraped the concrete the whole way down the road of life.

Ulcerative colitis, Osteoperosis, COPD, Arthritis, High Blood Pressure, and GOD AM I DEAF. 

Another part of my body falls off every day and I just put it back on with either duct tape or super glue.  Lord I shake my head at that 20 something beautiful woman and want to go back and ask her, "Why were you so insecure?  You had it all.  Why couldn't you just boldly go out and conquer the world?  What were you thinking?"  And then I think: "You could not pay me to go back."  It's such a long way and I'm sooooo tired.

Andy Rooney signed off from 60 Minutes a couple of weeks ago saying he didn't want to quit his job or die.  Mr. Rooney, You get to lay down and rest when you're dead!

Olabelle

I listen to Imus in the Morning most mornings while getting ready for work.  I like the chatter between Imus and all his crew.  You don't really have to watch, you can just listen. They're funny.  Of course don't use me as a guage because I also listen to Opie and Anthony in my truck on the way into Shreveport.  They're filthy and hilarious.

Back to Imus.  He has guest singers sometimes and he has good taste usually.  Of course he started as a disc jockey a hundred years ago so he knows everyone in the business.  He has Levon Helm on alot.  Mr. Helm was a vocalist for The Band back when I was a teenager in the 60's/early 70's.  They sang Up On Cripple Creed and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, to name a couple of their songs.

Cut to the chase...Levon Helm's daughter was on this morning with her band and they are so good.  I went and downloaded a couple of their songs.  You have to hear their rendition of Down By The Riverside. She is second from the right.  They are super and I don't listen to "come to Jesus" bands ever. It is fantastic....take a listen.  Click on the arrow.

Riverside

A Hero

JR Martinez is on Dancing with the Stars.  I don't watch Dancing with the Stars but I did watch All My Children (until ABC Grrrr! cancelled it) and JR Martinez was on All My Children.  Evidently the stars did a dance interpretation of their most memorable year last night and his brought the house down.  Once again I don't watch that show but I read the article about him dancing last night on the Daily Mail , which I read every day (they have good pictures.)

So I wanted to know more about him, hence I looked him up on lunch break today and found his website and a documentary he is a part of.  His website is www.KnowJR.com and below is the trailer for that documentary.




His story is fascinating and he tells his story all around the country to lots of folks.  Now I will say that his first appearance on All My Children stunned me but immediately I thought Oh he must be an Iraq veteran.   In fact, he is.  And I'm so used to his appearance now and his subsequent surgeries have made him a handsome man.  I went straight to the Wounded Warrior Project and donated.

After watching the trailer for this documentary and reading his story, once again it makes you look outside your everyday drudgery and say, Hey, my COPD and my arthritis aren't so bad, girl.  Buck up.

Thank you for your service JR and all veterans.