August 2010 News from the Days

September 6, 2010

NEWS FROM THE DAYS:

Our whole family spent 3 days at Lava Hot Springs in Idaho. We have gone there almost every year over our married life, and it was fun to spend time swimming, visiting, celebrating Cole’s birthday one night, golfing, and just relaxing. Jackie/Wiggins and their kids along with Cole/Jessica and Emry stayed later Sunday and went tubing down the river. The kids always love the trains that come thru town about every half hour and blast their whistle. Sarah in particular (Steph’s 4 yr. old) is a Thomas train fan.

We came back from Lava to find that our manual turn on sprinklers wouldn’t turn off all the way, and so we had an automatic sprinkler system with a timer installed. Kind of like getting a self propelled lawnmower…a little bit of heaven.

Linda’s sister Jaelyn had a daughter, Tori, get married and we enjoyed going to the wedding/reception and seeing everyone. We also got to see Jamie, another niece who we hadn’t seen since she was about 10 yrs old. She is Clint’s daughter (Clint is Linda’s little brother), and came up to see family for a week. She lives in Las Vegas.

I attended the funeral of Bob Smith who lived just down the alley on Hollywood Avenue. I used to pal around with Tom Smith growing up. We had attended the funeral of Tom’s little brother a few months ago. It was good to see the family and I visited briefly with Janie Perkins, one the speakers (Bob was her uncle). The Perkins lived on Redondo. Our bird, Charlie, died this past month. He was one of two we got right after Linda’s mom passed away 6 years ago. The other bird, Dixie, died about one year ago.

Linda and I saw Garrison Kiehler in concert at Red Butte Gardens. Other than the rain and cold that particular night, it was GREAT!!!!! He is tall, and dressed in a white suit, he came out into the audience and wandered all thru the crowd seated on the grass while telling stories and singing. Annette originally turned me on to Garrison, and I have enjoyed his weekly program (Prairie Home Companion) on PBS radio for years and years. He also writes a syndicated column that is published nationwide every Sunday. His tales of Lake Woebegone are classic, where all the men are good looking, the women strong, and the children are all above average. He’s a modern day Arthur Godfrey, but loves music and sings too. His humor is dry, down home, and he’s a classic.

Remember when Linda, Danny and I left D.C. last year and the airline messed up our flight home? We got some credits from Delta as a result, and they expired at the end of this month. So Linda and I decided to use them to fly to Vegas for our anniversary on Sept. 2nd to celebrate our 43rd year of marriage. We just got back and thoroughly enjoyed the 3 night weekend. We stayed at Treasure Island, and saw a performance of Linda’s favorite TV show, The Price is Right at Bally’s, stopped and saw Jamie (our niece who came up for the wedding three weeks ago). She works at Harrah’s in one of their restaurants. We made the mistake of agreeing to go see a timeshare presentation which wasted one morning, but it gave us free tickets worth $300 to go see Cher at Caesars Palace the next night. And believe me, it was worth it. She puts on a great show!!! We took the gondola ride at the Venetian one afternoon, and enjoyed swimming (even though the entire pool was filled with young people drinking and dancing to the loudest music possible played by a poolside DJ).

Christopher flew into town for a quick weekend after arriving back to the States from Bahrain (where he was stationed in the army the past year). We got together as a family and had a nice lunch with him. He is now stationed back in North Carolina.

I finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird and another book Linda gave me for our anniversary, Driven (an autobiography of Larry H. Miller – who passed away this past year). He owned the Jazz, about 40 automobile dealerships, and a host of other businesses that his wife and sons now manage.

Danny is going to spend Christmas with us this year, as we finally have a year where Christmas falls on the weekend, and Linda and I both have jobs where we have weekends off, something new in our family. I told Danny to arrange Thanksgiving with one of you if possible. Danny has finally been put on a medication to help him with his heartburn, and the stress test he took was borderline, so we’ve decided to have him see a cardiologist as a precaution. His work schedule has been reduced to two days per week, primarily because the new company that bought out Albertsons (Fresh Market) isn’t doing the level of business that Albertsons was. But with Danny’s age (he’ll turn 67 in December), this is probably a good alternative to Danny not working at all.

Linda’s knee is really bothering her, and I’ve been trying to get her to see a different orthopedic doctor to get some help. I got my Medicare card in the mail and am eligible starting next month (yee gads). I’m going to continue working until we are both on Medicare. It’s too bad a healthcare bill didn’t pass years ago so I couldn’t be denied coverage or charged such an outrageous monthly fee ($1300 per month) that it was unaffordable.

We’ve enjoyed some fruits of our labor from the garden – corn, squash, tomatoes, sugar pea pods, green peppers, radishes & cucumbers. Where did the summer go? It can’t be September. In fact, where did our life go? We can’t be in our sixties, can we??? When Linda and I got married, we drove to Vegas for our honeymoon on State highways – no freeways. We entered Vegas on Fremont Street and Las Vegas Boulevard, where it was so bright with casino lights (The Golden Nugget) that it was as light as day. And we stayed for 4 days and 3 nights at the Sahara (Linda says it was the Stardust) for $89, and that included a dinner show to see Nancy Wilson, and another show without dinner. We drove down in our 1959 VW (without air conditioning), and on the way home, the car broke down and we pushed the car 200 miles across the desert in 110 degree heat (OK, I made that part up).

And that’s the news from the Days.
Love, Tom & Linda