Trees, Birds, and Feeders!

 Well, this is interesting.  Usually when I would write, I would do so on a word document.  HOWEVER, it seems my word does not exactly work. Seems this "new" computer came with a limited version of the da** word thing, so, will try this "note pad" and then see if it transfers to my Blogger satisfactorily.  If it does, Microsoft can take their "Word" and stick it where the sun don't shine!

Sitting on my couch, looking out my livingroom window, I see three bird feeders.  One is where I place grain feeds, and I get those birds that like that the most.  Next to that is the pine tree (which was fairly small, like 6" in diameter, when my family moved in, but now is about two feet in diameter at my eye height.)  A pretty good pine, I'd say, and it covers about a quarter of my front roof with its droppings, adding to the insulation we have in our attic.  Pretty good.  I suspect if I had about 6 more like it spaced properly around my house, I just might have a much cooler attic in the summer, and a much warmer one in the winter.  And my shingles might last a lot longer for the pine's assistance.  No biggie, though.  What I do have on that pine is a suet dispenser (on its nearest side) that brings in woodpeckers like crazy (which I like to watch!) And finally, hanging under my front roof's overhang, is a hummingbird feeder, a feeder which is usually surrounded by the little things awaiting their turn to take a sip.  None today, though, until just now.  One did drop by, I'm guessing an out of town visitor on its way South, which, I think is where those who counted on getting their daily nourishment drinks or quite a few, that is, through the course of the day, and which used to be virtually lined up for their chance.  None, though, other than that one, for the last couple of days.  Guess the locals all began their annual trip South.

That being the case, will see them again in about 6 months.  Hope they all find safe passage with the larger birds across our Gulf of Mexico!

And that one that dropped by didn't stay long.

Hope he makes it too!

Who, Me? A singer?

😇  Well, that's about it!  I didn't really think about it much, but looking at my youtube activities, I wonder who might find any of my work there useful.  Lady Antebellum, perhaps?  I think some of what she might find might be attractive--perhaps the best might be "Our National Song," but "Shark Teethers",  https://www.youtube.com/c/StephenVGeddes ,  has a bit of something about it that some might like too!

Well, anyway, that's about it!  Have a good day, all of you!

Oh, God-Help us all!

 What has happened, America?

Once upon a time I heard a quote from I do not even know who (or whom?):  "Send us your poor, your downtrodden, your heavy laden...etc,?"  

Who said this, and why, and when?  And when did our America cease to be anything like it once was?

What has happened, America?  Where did we go wrong?  Is there no comfort for those who need help, for those who have nothing, for those who are seeking something, anything, any single something that might allow them to pursue that one-time American dream?  

Today, this morning watching "GMA3, What you NEED to KNOW" on my local ABC channel 6-1WJBF Augusta, I am seeing people, real people wading across our border river with Mexico,  hoping to share in this one-time American dream, hoping against hope that the dream may still be alive.

Well, when the border patrol shows up, it is pretty much a done deal.  The American dream is, today, a pipe dream.  We no longer are a welcoming people.  We are. if anything, just the opposite,

The question I have is: "Is there anything that can be done for these very real and very needy people?"  Real people, at that, people just like you and me and our own children?

What can our America do for these poor, desperate people that come to us for whatever help we might be able to give. help that we are, obviously, denying?

Is this our America?  Where else can they go.  Where else can those of us who would hope the first sentence in this sad tale were still something to be hoped for, something that should be making us hate our own country for what we have, obviously, become?

Where can any of us go today?

Alzheimers a problem?

Plan, plan--who, me?

Ok, so I have this problem.  Doc says it's Alzheimers, and, having read just a bit (well, everything I could find on the subject), I totally agree with the Doc,  That's just what it is.  So, on sitting around for a number of months, getting little done (darn near nothing,) I am going to try to do just a bit to change all this.  Question is:  What to do?  And, how to do it? 

What to do is pretty simple.  I need to develop a plan for the rest of my life, regardless of how much, or how little time that may be.  That's what this is all about, and my hopes are that I will benefit and also that others who find themselves in my situation might benefit too.  So--where to go from here?  (Pretty obvious, right?  How about that part two, "how to do it?")  Much easier to ask the question than to come up with the answer here.

OK, so here goes.

    How about a list:

1)  The first thing is that list.  Start with "1" and continue (so, there is my "1.")

2)  Now for the questions:  Where am I today?  Well, with Alzheimers, I'm a bit bewildered.  This is something I would like to do, but can I?  (Assume "yes.") (May need quite a few "assumptions" here.)

3)  Of course, as we say, the Devil's in the details.  Devil time, I'd say!

4)  List continues with, well. what do I do now?  (I really don't know.)

Maybe this is what Alzheiners is all about.  Memory is gone.  If not gone, it is highly attenuated to the point of having difficulties doing what we really want to do.  Like writing a list, for instance.  If you don't believe me now, go back to the beginning of this short article and reread it.  Go ahead--do it now!

Charlie Brown said it best:  Good grief!

Any questions?

Comments?

  

VietNam remembrance

 A little something I sent to the newspaper, our AikenStandard.  Published May 10.  Thought I'd like to have it here, too.

Dear AikenStandard: 

 

Thank you for your article on the moving of the Vietnam war memorial that used to be in front of our police department and our main post office.  It was appropriately placed there at the time it was created, and now is, again, in an even more appropriate place for all to see and, for some, to understand.  TET of 1968 (TET being a local important holiday in Vietnam) was a difficult time for troops in Vietnam.  It was a time when North Vietnam’s leader, “Uncle Ho,” really “Ho Chi Minh”, decided to show us he could hit us anytime and anywhere he wished.  He decided to do it, and his troops, mostly part-timers from the civilians in the area who supported his hopes for their country, did it.  Those who were at one of our largest American bases, Tan Son Nhut, a facility collocated with the Saigon airport, along with most, if not all (I just don’t know) bases with American troops, were provided with a sample of what “Uncle Ho” wished us to see.  I was there as was, I believe, Kenny Lail, a friend and Aiken HS Graduate from my class who also was assigned to service in VietNam at the time. 

 

Twenty-six defenders of this base had the opportunity to return home a bit before their year was up.  They returned, as did many others, each in one of those aluminum containers provided for each and every one of those 29,000, +/- Americans who were killed in that war.  Many who were able to see the flatbed trucks taking their loads to the cargo planes designated to return these troops to their homeland gave them their last “in country” salute.  Not something they wanted, for sure, but the only thing “we the living” (thanks, Ayn Rand) were able to do for them at that time.  And, yes, I was able to give my salute to them as I walked to my duty assignment after that incident.  A few months later, I was able to join them with my return home, without that aluminum covering, though.  Glad I was able to return in the preferred manner, as were my parents, relatives, and friends.  This was the end of my full-time military duty.  I mustered out at a facility near, I think, San Francisco, or possibly Los Angeles, where the Tech-Sergeant who completed the necessary paperwork advised me to leave by a back gate, there being a crowd of protesters at the main gate.  I did as he said, and, afterward, wished I hadn’t.  I wish I had passed by those protesters, with or without the spit that was, seemingly, their thing for Americans who had been tasked with the assignment I, an Airman First Class, had been tasked with.  Oh, well, that’s just the way things were in those 1968 days.

 

Glad to be home today.  Thanks, again, for the memories, AikenStandard.  And thanks to all who created and finalized this remembrance to those of our military, some of whom preceded me in my return, one of whom was a personal friend of my daughter.

 

And, I, of course, do appreciate the monument that we have to those we lost in that war.  They were good people, doing a thankless job.  They deserve the monument, even if many of the rest of us do not deserve one single thing for what we did, or were doing, at the time.  And, as for those spitters, I, personally, would be happy to return the favor to one and all of them.  They, not we, our country’s military assignees to the war, they are the ones who should have been spit on, by damn near every other proud American.  We might have been wrong to have supported some of the VietNamese who were running their country at the time, but our military personnel were not to blame for that—not one bit!

 

Stephen Vaughn Geddes

A1C, at the time, SMSGT, Ret’d, SC Air National Guard

Aiken

WJBF--WHY?

 Watching my channel 6 (WJBF- Augusta, in my viewing area) this morning, I find when they go to their commercial blah blah's, they, the station controllers, often (?) increase their volume transmission.  Guess what, stupes?  I set my volume to where I want it.  Tell your commercial people what they do by increasing your volume is me changing my volume from whatever you might be sending to "OFF!"  And, everyone I know will read this and maybe emulate this TV user by doing the same.  If that is what your commercial payers want, that is what they will get--from more and more of us users.  Like it?  Try it!

It's a dog's life

 

Nighttime is a time to remember things.  Tonight I’m remembering things like those oversized chairs they had in the movie theater in Orangeburg when I was growing up there.  John Quincy Duke chairs, (or John Henry Duke chairs, not really sure here,) after a pretty large man who could go to the movies and have a seat that would fit him.  At least that’s the way I remember it.  Could be that middle name and the death of a beloved dog of a friend of mine who lives a couple of streets away and who writes very well for our paper, among other things, brought back a memory from my youth—the memory of that chair in the movie theatre in Orangeburg.  And why, pray tell, is that?  I haven't the slightest!

Her best friend, perhaps, she called “Q” for Quincy.  He left us so suddenly—I remember hearing him bark at Stella and me as we were taking our walk a couple of days ago.  I, too, am sorry to see him go.  His leaving reminded me of our sweet dog Tobi—or TobiJuan, you see!  I remember how we loved TobiJuan and sometimes would call him by his full name, TobiJuan Kenobi (Geddes.)  I wonder how many people today would recognize that name—part of it, anyway!  Tobi left unexpectedly one day a little over two years ago.  It took us a year to even consider replacing him with another, and then darling daughter Lara brought Stella by and suddenly we were no longer dogless.  Strange how things happen sometimes, and how that change changes much in our lives.  While we did so miss Tobi, we are so very happy to have Stella.  Sorry about Q, though.  Sorry for our friend, too.  So very sorry!