The Forestry Forum

I love older folks.  

I have tried to make time in my schedule to spend time with them.  It's for my benefit as well as theirs.  They are a world of knowledge and BS.  I try to listen and not impress them with my ability to talk. (my ears don't work good when my mouth is open).

My circle of older friends is made up of Bee keepers, bowl turners, cabinet makers, machinest, AC engineers, mechanics, pilots, electric motor rewinders, sailors, loggers, pulp wooders, paper mill workers, preachers, carpenters, farmers and painters. After retirement they find themselves more and more alone.  Their friends die off and the hustle and bustle of today's world leaves them to entertain themselves.

When I can arrange a Tue. with an open lunch date I eat with a bowl turner.  On Thur. I eat with a Fuel oil salesman/sawmiller.  I try, at the end of a day, to visit one when I am in the neigborhood to see if there is something I can do to help him with a project. They are too proud to ask for help but I've found that they really appreciate it if some just happens to show up.

It makes me feel good that they accept me and I learn so much.  I have enough older friends to have quite a party one day.  That's an idea.
 ;D

Tom, er I don't know how to tell you this, um, I looked at your profile, you are older folks. ;)

And yes, you are exactly right. There are things that they know, that we never will, unless we take the time to learn from them. And without fail, I think most are glad to teach.

I agree with Tom. My neighbour, is one of the older folks, the kind you have to program the VCR for etc.
But whenever I'm doing something he's always there to help, and whenever he has a major project going I make sure I help as much as I can.
We sometimes get to-gether in the back yard on warm summer days or in heated garage in the winter and have a few wobbly pop and make plans for the fall hunt or for a fishing trip or whatever.
They are a vast store of knowledge and if you take the time to listen its amazing what you can learn.
Bill

Jeff, down here I am a youngster.  Age is relative I guess. Those that I admire are in their 80's.  Can you imagine going into the woods with a two-man cross-cut and a hewing axe to create cross ties there and haul them out finished?

I'm too young to be knowledgeable and not old enough to be respected.........yet. :) :)

>>>My neighbour, is one of the older folks, the kind you have to program the VCR for etc.<<<

Hey! Careful, now! I'm one of them-there "older folks you have to program the VCR for." :o

I am please with myself that I can manage to put a video in and get it to run.

Well there are a few other things that he's uncomfortable with  as well but I didn't want to mention them here. :D The VCR thing just seemed to be something most people can relate to.


 8) 8)
Bill

Bill,
The unfortunate thing is that they once didn't have trouble with simple things. That gives us something to look forward to.

I was helping two of my friends last week with a metal lathe.  One rewinds motors and wanted a shim made to tighten up the bearing.  He measured it and said that it had to be "2 1/4 and a little bit". The other is/was a machinist and kept trying to put a set of calipers on the housing to see how big it should be.  I thought there was going to be a fight.
Then the Machinist tried to true up the motor housing in a 4 jaw chuck and was almost in tears because he couldn't do it.  The rewinder kept goading him which didn't help any.  Finally the machinist said "let old tom do it. He can see better than I can".

So I did it.  I didn't know what I was doing but I knew that I had to get it in the middle and did.

There is apparently a procedure for centering a 4 jaw chuck and he couldn't remember how to do it nor could he understand which way the chuck was moving when he tightened or loosened one side.  He was embarrassed that he couldn't do it and, like I said, was almost in tears.  The rewinder thought it was funny. A year or two ago he would have realized that he was hurting his friend but for some reason doesn't anymore.  He has become rather obnoxious.  

I'm glad I was there to help smooth it all out.

I'm thinking today as I write this that I hope there is a younger fellow that will hang with me and keep me out of trouble one day.  When I put my coffee cup in the refrigerator instead of the microwave or can't find my glasses only to realize that I have them on, I realize just how close it may be. .....not there yet.....not there yet! 8)

Yeah,  it's a shame so many people don't take the time to speak with the older folks.  Just returned from a week in the woods,  ye Gods it was 29 degrees last night!  Was cutting some posts at my landing,  and one of my best friends showed up.  This fella was married to my father's cousin,  and recently lost her.  He's 86,  and still working in the woods.  He came out to bring me a really nice cedar sawlog that was "just in the way",  where he was cutting some maple.  It was a gesture of friendship,  but also an excuse to have a can of suds and shoot the bull.  I stopped in at his place on my way home today and helped him re-wire his boat trailer.  My wife works in a nursing home and always listens and tells me the stories the older folks tell.  If more people would listen,  and learn,  there would be far fewer bums and hoods around today................

People all need someone to listen to them. It works for kids as well as older people. In fact, that is just about the only thing that will stop some of my chronic chatterers in my third grade. I tell them, "Just a minute please, I'm listening to so-and-so."
They stop and wait for the other child to finish.

Older folks really need it.

That's good that you do that Rav.  Something that has been lost in our society is patience and respect.  Children butt in and dominate because they are excited and want attention. Somebody has to make them acknowledge that others deserve time on the floor too.  That's the kind of teaching that is as, or more, important than the 3 "R's".  In the past the 4th R was taken for granted.

Hey Beast, How do these guys keep on keeping on when they are in their 80's. They amaze me.  My elec. motor rewinder friend just decided to learn how to do it about 4 years ago and now has a business in his back yard....(another business!!)

Shortly after my dad died 6 years ago, we came across what appeared to be the start of his autobiography. Dad was not able to get very far with it, but I treasure what he did write.

I never knew any of these stories before reading this.

http://www.timberbuyer.net/dad.htm

Jeff,

There's got to be more!

I wish. Nobody knew that existed until we were getting things in order after his death. The original was dated about a month before we found out he had a brain tumor. Dad died 1 month after brain surgery having never woke up.

I have read it hundreds of times thinking the same. There has got to be more...

Maybe it's time to clear the cobwebs from your mind and try to remember some of the storys he told you; or pick the brains of some family members.  

If you were to follow the "to the point" and concise format that he started with you could make an interesting tribute.  You could call the rest of it http://www.timberbuyer.net/mydad.htm.  I would read it.

I'd read it, too! People are too important not to be remembered.

I lost one of my older folks recently.  He was a real practical joker and would travel for miles to find my mill set up and visit, giving me and the customers a bad time for an hour or two.

His favorite trick was to unroll a 25 or 30 foot rule and fold it up in his hand.  Then he would find someone not paying attention, walk up behind them and turn it loose.  It made enough racket to give you a heart attack even if you knew he was doing it.

God's going to have trouble with him for awhile :)

I sawed for a friend of a friend last week.

In the mail this evening I got this little envelope and inside was a $20.00 check.

His wife included a note that reads:
"Paul really appreciates your sawing the cedar and said that it was worth more than you charged so here is a check for the rest of it".

                         "Thanks Paul and Sandra"

Aren't Older folks great?  It's a different world.

What a sweet story!

I am touched watching my father adjust to his new life as a widower. He's been buying his own clothes. I think he's bought more stuff on his own in the last month than in all the years Mom was with us. After she had her stroke five years ago, the sibs and I just kind of pitched in and kept him in boxers and shirts for his birthday. Mom always liked giving him pants and pajamas, so I was always going out to get them for her to give to him for gift occasions.

He stopped at a garage sale this afternoon and picked up some gee-gaws - a little red wagon that says "It's a boy!" (just in case my sister's next child is male) a little toy china cabinet (I'm not sure about that one) and a muffin tin for 6 muffins.

They just don't make guys like that any more.

Isn't that a fact!

I wish I had known years ago what I had in my granddad.  I had to grow up to understand and by then time was short.

Your dad is lucky to have you spending this time with him and acknowledging his existance.  I would imagine he is a lot more lonely than he would let on.  Mine would be...retired marine and all that...chin up, chest out.  We are all pretty vulnerable when we are by ourselves.

The only thing that touches me more than an older person who is trying is a younger person that is trying.  They don't make many of those anymore either.

Thanks, you made me feel good tonight.

I am so lucky to have my Dad with me. (And, he is lucky to be with me, too!)

We both miss Mom, but we had five extra years with her that the doctors didn't think she's have. And, we both have no doubts that we did that best we could for her.

It was a great run.

I never had a relationship with my father.  We didn't even know each other until just before he died.

There was one sobering instance in his life that makes me want to live mine to the fullest and acknowledge those I love.

Going into his last surgery he asked the doctor to "please get me out of this, I have a lot of unfinished business to take care of".

He didn't make it and its a shame because I think he realized what he was missing in the families he had created.

That's something to think about the next time you go fishing and leave your kid standing in the door.

Tom I'm sorry to hear that story. My father has also passed on as well. But I can say this about him he did live life to the fullest. It was fun growing up because there always were trips.

His first love was sailing, he had a 36' Choy Lee ketch. I sailed through the Bahamas' one winter. One spring we sailed to Bermuda seven days of sailing one way. A few of the great lakes as well. Not all five though.

He died from what he worked with in his earlier years asbestos. Mom and I often talk about some of the tight spots he got us in, but always managed to get us out.

Here is one story when we were leaving Grand Bahama Island heading toward Bimini. It was a beautiful day for sailing. The dolphins came up and were playing around the boat. Jumping , swimming under the boat and jumping up in front of the boat. It was really neat a day I will always remember. Just as quick as they came they were gone.

I went up front and went to sleep. Then all of the sudden very loud BAM sounded. Dad and mom said my feet never hit the floor from the v berth to the cockpit. What happened was a side stay broke and it dismasted the boat. So we pulled the mast back on board and fold the sails. Then motered back to Grand Bahama Island.

No sooner than we got back dad headed to town on the bike. Came back with some bolts and plated steel to fix the mast. We made some saw horses and went to drilling and plating the mast. One of the dock hands walking down the dock said "you ain't never gunna fix that mun.

A couple of days later the mast was fixed and we were ready to leave again. The same dockhand walked by and said I didn't think you would ever fix tat thin mun. That fix done in the boonies lasted the rest of the season. Didn't look so spiffy buy it worked.

Then there was the time Dad got the station wagon stuck on the logging road. Man was mom mad that day.

Then there was the time dad got the car stuck in the snow taking an unplowed short cut. Hitchhiked back to the farm got the backhoe started plowing us out and the backhoe ran out of gas.

I could go on and on and on But I can say he loved live and lived each day at the fullest. After writing this the memories start flowing. Sure do miss that man.

Gordon

I can understand why Gordon.

That was great story.  I'll bet the others are too.  Hope you let us enjoy them sometime as well.
It's funny how accurate our minds eye is after so many years.  Beats any computer made.

   Tom, it's beyond accuracy. A picture perfect memory of the occurances without the memory of the feelings would be technically 'accurate', but it would be so empty. We have the benefit of the factual and emotional memories, plus the mellowing effect of reminiscences over the years. These may blur the sharpness of the facts a bit, but add deeper significance. Like your favorite hunting stories. The facts may be more than a BIT blurred (embroidery? poetic license?), but the embellishments and re-telling are part of the experience.   lw :) :)

I am really bummed out.

Charlie left me a note that Chet Atkins died today.

He has been my Guitar Idol since the middle 1950's.

In 1969 I was working as a newspaper photographer in Ft. Pierce, Florida and Chet along with other popular singers and much of the Hee Haw gang came to the relatively new Golf Club in the relatively new Port St. Lucie.  I had the opportunity to photograph and visit with Chet, Boots Randolph, Floyd Cramer and a young unknown I later found out was Jerry Reed.

I followed them around the golf course and back to their villas.  Chet invited me in to visit in the living room and have something to drink. It was awfully hot.  I had a friend with me who was a legally blind piano tuner.  We sat in the living room and visited for the better part of two hours and Chet got his flat top out and picked off and on most of the time.  He just sat in his chair, picked and smoked a big cigar and I tried to permanently imprint the occasion on my mind.  I just knew I would never be in this position again.

The next time Chet came to Port St. Lucie, the newspaper got a phone call and low and behold I was in his shadow again.  I guess he just liked me because pictures, stories and advertising never came up.  We just visited like old friends.

I think that was just how Chet was.  He was never above anybody and had a way of making you feel at ease as if you had known each other all your life.

I will certainly miss him. :'(

Chet Atkins was also one of my heros. I was given an electric guitar at the age of 10 and the guitar has always been a part of me since. Chet was the master.

I think I will try to find a version of "Frog Kissen" One of the few vocals that Chet did that gets air play around here still on our old country station.

If you never been a frog kissen...
you don't know what you've been missen
there's an opportunity under every log
 
You can be a charm breaker...
You can be a handsome prince maker...
just turn around
bend down
and kiss you a frog.

I like that song too.

Chet said that he never had too much money until he finally made it big with his first recording.  He and his wife tried to think of something to do that would show that they were in the money

His wife finally came up with the idea of carpeting the bathroom.  That would definitely show they had money.

So they did.

Chet said they liked it so much  "we run it on into the house."

                           (https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/benandhistree.jpg)

My old buddy Ben called me tonight.  He was proud as a hound with puppies.  Seems he has bought some Tilapia to put in his farm pond.  He has bought an aquarium, pump and all the fixin's to give them a head start.

Now Ben is a fine fellow, 76 years old and strong as an ox.  Only about 5 feet tall but goes like he was 30.   I have had him show up at a job and off load the sawmill just because he was bored.

Ben's mouth never stops.  He can talk the paint off of the side of a barn.  I just prop the phone to my ear so I can say "uh-huh" everytime he stops for a breath.

Well the story tonight was about the fish.  He checks the pond out regularly to run off any duck that appears,. "Ducks cause disease",  and snakes,  "Snakes eat my fish" and turtles..........
"yep, I been sittin' at the pond all day long with my shotgun.  One of them turtles, he was just a little one, stuck his head up and I shot at him.  He went down but I don't know if I got him or not.  They'll eat all the fish you know.   Ain't going to eat my fish.   I got to get that pond cleaned out of turtles before my fish get here..  Sat there all day lookin' for'em.  That one little one is the onliest one I saw an I don't know if I got him or not; Those pellets bounce right off of the water and he's just under it.  He went down though...................................................."

I think I went to sleep.  He got a call-waiting beep on his phone and the interruption  woke me up.  He had to go answer that call, thank goodness.  They have a friend who calls a bunch of them on conference at about 7pm every night and they have a prayer meeting.  His wife wouldn't miss it, so he had to go.............would talk to me tomorrow.

My ears are still ringing.  Gael said I almost missed supper......... can't believe he's going to try to shoot all the turtles in the pond.  It's about a half acre.

....sure love these guys. :)

I stopped by one of my Older friends house yesterday on the way back from town.  His wife wouldn't have it any other way but that we sit down and have a slice of watermelon.  

While we were talking she and I got on the subject of War and she decided that she could shoot somebody if she had to do it.

Her Husband, who had been sitting quietly at the head of the table, said "I killed three men once".

Things got real quiet.  

I had never seen him look so serious before.

He sat there for a minute, studying, and then said. "I ran one of them to death....I was in the lead, the other two died laughing."

  

An 88 year old widow of one of our local successful dairymen looked from her porch, out across the field and said, "I used to watch A_ _ _  milk cows out there and now I just milk them warehouses".     :D  (Before her husband died he created an industrial park.....that dumb ole' farmer.)

   I was just reading up on the old(er) folks- and it occurred to me- 'now I are one'. Turned 50 on 9/5/01. Still no clue why they always tell me I'm old enough to know better :D :D :D

LW,

I got told that too, but I've found that things have really been great since I was "over the hill".  It first happened at 30 and I was really worried......things just got better.  Then at 40 my office was decorated with black ribbons and .......things just got better.  At 50 I wasn't even aware anything had happen.....probably out in the canoe or something.  Now I'm waiting for 60 and still can't find time to do much work because I'm to busy having fun playing at what others complain about having to "work" at.  (not supposed to end a sentence like that....I know.)

My idol was old Mr. Miley who at some past 80 year told me he was having the time of his life hugging and kissing all the girls in the office.  They would chase him down to give him a hug and he would just beam.  "I couldn't get away with this when I was a young man", he would say.  :D

HAPPY BIRTHDAY  8)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LW!!] 8) 8) 8)
You ain't old 'til ya get up to Tom's age, then your mind will start going as is evident in Tom's note. Nothing to worry about though. You won't notice a difference........but others will. Life will get blissful and carefree.;D

One of my older friends' brother-in-law died last week from old age and a bad heart.  He was well known in N. Jacksonville for riding his bicycle and carrying his fishing poles.  He loved to fish and spent most of every day at one or two of several fishing holes within an hour of his house.  His health failed and his daughter took him to the west coast of Fla. where he spent his last days happily visiting with new friends in an "assisted living" facility.

In WWII, Tommy, that was his name, was a carpenter and was stationed aboard a maintenance ship, which was a converted LST.  

When the USS Missouri, The Mighty Mo', was appointed as the location for the acceptance of Japan's surrender, Tommy was one of the carpenters who built the platforms and stages on the deck of the ship for the ceremony.  He then returned to his ship and watched McArthur preside over Japan's humility from a distance.

Those moments move further and further away with the loss of each and every serviceman, regardless of his job or celebrity.

When you look across the sea of markers at the VA Cemetery you realize how fragile the memories of those individuals are as we pursuit our goals in life.

Tommy was a smart man who did his job, protecting our country, by driving nails and sawing wood.  He loved his God, his country, his family, his fishing and now he's gone.

I heard once that a person is only important as long as he is remembered.  Do you suppose that is true, or do we all carry a little bit of the faceless and nameless with us throughout our lives because of their selfless deeds?

   Well- I do know this. On our place is a graveyard of parents and children dating back through the 1800s and maybe further (it's dark right now and I'm not going down there to shine a light and get total accuracy)- but they are dead and gone, and those who knew them are gone. So- no specific memories. But- the gravestones tell a touching story of the parents buried side by side, and then the little gravestones of babies and young children all dying within a short period- evidently one of the diphtheria epidemics or like that.

   As I stood there one year reading the stones and trying to figure it out, I suddenly realized that they were my neighbors. Whether dead for 100 or 200 years- it didn't matter. I grieved for the loss and felt for the parents as if they were living and standing beside me. I had never before felt that kind of a connection.
  
   I feel that memorials help. Truly my spiritual sensory abilities are not acute enough to pick up this information in the absence of the gravestones 'telling' me. But once I realized- the connection was real.
  
   Some people believe that the only reality is what we perceive- that it doesn't exist unless there is someone there. (solipsism) I don't buy that. Some people believe that collectively we shape reality with our perception. I think that's a slippery one- cuz if you share a delusion, you all go off into the dark together- like at Jonestown in Guyana.

   I think we do best when we each try to discern truthfully, and then work together to understand.

   There is a lot of that going on right now- and it's important.

   As we get older our memories get richer. Share them with others, because you are a treasure trove (OK, so your kids don't buy that- they will, later).

   These newsgroups give an extraordinary opportunity to share perceptions. I love it!        (I need an icon of the rabbit rolling over in the grass, laughing and kicking up its heels. of course it's clover, donchaknow..) :D :) :D :) ;)  lw

At my workplace, I've seen people put more than 30 or 40 years of hard work, long hours, worry, stress, etc, etc. Then they retire and within 2 years, maybe less, only a few knew they existed. So, if you think you are not expendable, think again. Story telling is extremely important to keep the memory of the young men and women that gave their lives for our liberty ongoing. Otherwise, we are going to have graveyards full of crosses that have no meaning. It is important for us to educate ourselves and to pass that education onto others so they will know. It is important that we stress the importance of the message so our children will continue telling the stories so they won't be lost. It is so important for the younger generations to listen to the older generations. There is a lot to be learned. Lessons abound. But when we are young, we're too busy and too smart to listen. Once we realize how important it is to listen.....sometimes it is too late.  

Some 25 years ago I had delivered some logs to my Uncle Chick's sawmill up the dirt road for my place.  I stopped in one Friday evening after work to see if he had them sawn up yet.  He said "Be here at 7:00 in the morning and we'll get started on'em."  O.K.  I hadn't figured it that way but I could do that - not exactly being a stranger around logs or sawmills.

Drove up in the driveway/front yard/log yard at the appointed time.  Stepped out of the pickup right into a swarm of beagles.  It was already about 90 degrees and the sun was just burning the heavy dew off the grass. Promised to be a scorcher.

Uncle Chick steps out on the porch dressed in his khaki pants, tank-top style undershirt and house slippers.  The pack of beagles stops barking and rushed to him for attention.  He had a big porcelain coffee mug in his fist - heavy enough to pound in posts.  Even though he was well in his 60's he was a big and powerful man – well over 6' tall.  

He greeted me by saying: "The Homelite is down at the engine,  cut us up some dry slabs and build a fire in the engine.  I'll get my shoes on and be out directly."  

I went down and proceeded to cut up about a half pickup load of slabs about 3 foot long and built a fire in the Case 16 steam engine.  He got out there and started working some levers and turning valves on the old engine.  Kind of reminded me of the Wizard behind the curtain in OZ.  

While the fire was heating the water,  he got the old Allis WD 45 with a home-made loader – single action cylinders on the lift,  manual trip on the manure bucket – manual steering.  He picked up a black oak butt cut log and put it on the skid blocks.  Then cant hooked it onto the carriage and dogged it down – using a combination of blocks at hand to toe the little end out from the knee.

Said: "Check the gage and see if she's got 80 pounds yet."  Did that and declared it did.  He made a pull on the long stick hinged to the frame on the mill.  At the top was hooked to a length of clothesline connected to the throttle on the engine. "PaChunk" came form the engine and nothing happened.  He grumbles and goes back to the big four-foot drive wheel on the side of the engine and puts his knee against it and pulls on the top with both hands.  The wheel turns and the engine goes '"Chunka, Chunka, Chunka".  I'm standing at my "slab technician position" next to 80 foot long by 8" wide belt - inline with the blade that starting to turn.  The blade wobbles about an inch as it slowly turns.  "How in the hell is this going to work."  I'm thinking.  

Uncle Chick returns to the command position and pulls the stick again.  The engine goes "Bang, Bang, Bang – Chunka, Chunka, Chunka",  behind me.  The belt and blade start to pick up speed.  The blade continues to wobble until it reaches some point where it straightens right up and ran true. Uncle later explained that the blade "stood up" when it got to 540 RPMs.

A pull on another lever and the carriage with the log on it lurched about a foot – then started its chattering and jerky way down the track.  It reminded me of an empty Radio Flyer wagon being pulled across a gravel driveway.

To be continued... 8)

The log hit the blade and nothing exploded as I was expecting.  The chips started to fly off the bottom of the log and the slab fell clear in front of me.  The carriage chatters back and drags  past the blade as it wobbled and clawed at the face of the log – thus changing it's rough complexion from nested arcs going one way to a crisscross set of arcs going both ways.

Uncle Chick pulls on the lever that indexes the log out the proper amount.  Just to make sure,  he checked the section of rusty carpenter's square bolted to the block with stove bolts and his pointer made from heavy wire.

Another pull on the stick and the "Bang, Bang, Bang – Chucka, Chucha, Chucka" process is repeated.  Followed by the scream of the teeth ripping away at the log.  About halfway down the log something else happens:  The blade looses RPMs – ran out of steam "literally".  The carriage is stopped until the blade catches up RPMs.  Then the carriage pushes forward again.

I expected to catch the flitch (even though I didn't know it was called a flitch then),  but Uncle Chick stopped the carriage with just the last top corner of the flitch hanging. He reversed the carriage, dragging the flitch back with the log.  He grabbed the flitch at the bottom edge and gave a great pull,  breaking it free from the log and stacking it behind him for later edgeing.

Another flitch or two was produced the same way then the log was tuned 180 degrees and the other side flattened.  And so on it went.

It's past 9:00 o'clock now and we got our first log done.  Uncle shuts things down and picks up his coffee mug and tells me to put some more wood in the engine to get the pressure back up.  He goes to the house to return in about 10 minutes with a full cup of steaming hot, black coffee.  It's up to about 98 now – degrees and humidity. (good thing they hadn't invented the heat index back then)

He says to get on the WD and put another log on the skid blocks.   I'd driven a number of tractors but not this one but I finally got it started.  "The steering is broke!"  I thought.  I had to be..  I couldn't turn the wheel and I hadn't even pickup a log yet!  How did he do it?  I gave it all I had and finally the wheel rims moved a few degrees but the tires where they met the ground staid where they were.  When the tractor started to move,  they came along and I was able to direct the beast to the log and managed to get it on the skid blocks.

We get this log sawn and the edging done and most of the morning was done.  Is I lived just on down the road,  I went home for a bite to eat.  Uncle Chick said to be back up about 1:00 to build up the fire again.

I got back and he was sharpening and swedgeing the teeth.  Gave me directions on firing the engine.  By the time he was done sharpening, the pressure was up again.

In the heat of the day we got the last of the 4-5 logs sawn and quit.  We'd probably sawn 3-400 board feet that day.

Have a great weekend everyone!  8)

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Yesterday I had lunch with two of my old timers again.  The one  that I have described before here who was a farmer/sheet metal worker/roofer/air conditioner technician/bulk oil company owner/bee keeper/bowl turner/electric motor rewinder/marathon runner has just purchased a metal lathe.  He is so proud of it.  It wasn't working when he bought it, the cross feed didn't work. He dismantled it and fixed it. He says.......

"only cost me $100.  The man said it was called a gunsmiths lathe......I never made a gun before"

What do you reckon is in this old codgers mind now.  Lord knows, he's not afraid to try anything and anything he tries he has to study.  He has already used the lathe to turn shafts on electric motors he is working on but I can see the glint in his eye when he says "gun lathe".

Oh, I forgot..........

The other one who is a retired AC technician/machinest/cabinet maker who suffers from the initial symptoms of Alzheimer, has just gotten a new set of hearing aids.  They don't work the way he says they should because he can hear but can't understand. We told him that may not have anything to do with the hearing aid.  It took him a few minutes to understand the joke but he laughed a few munutes later when we were in another conversation. We went through a long rig-a-marole to figure out what he was laughing about...........anyway..

His aids don't work so good and when he talks he yells.  What he says has nothing to do with what is going on.

"TOM, EVER HEARD THE ONE ABOUT THE GUY THAT JUMPED OUT OF THE PLANE"

"No, I don't think you ever told me that one."  I say knowing I've heard it at least several times."

His name is John and so is the other friend.  He'll look across the table and say "TELL HIM JOHN, THAT'S A GOOD ONE".

"John, you tell him, it's your joke".

"WELL I CAN'T SAY AS I CAN RIGHTLY REMEMBER HOW IT GOES"...............WHEN DO YOU RECKON THEY CHANGED COOKS..........THEY FORGOT TO PUT ANY SEASONING IN THESE BEANS WHEN THEY DUMPED THEM OUT OF THE CAN"

"Yeah John, sometimes its better and sometimes its not....try the squash, they're good.

..............................................WELL THE COPS MUST LIKE IT.........THERE'S ENOUGH OF'EM IN HERE TODAY...........THE DONUT SHOP MUST BE CLOSED........I'LL BET THEY COME IN FOR A FREE MEAL..........DID YOU GO TO CHURCH SUNDAY, JOHN?...

"No, we didn't make it this Sunday John.....did you?"

"...........................................WELL I DON'T REMEMBER.....I THINK I DID......."

"Well what did the preacher say?"

"OH.........SAME OL STUFF, I'M SURE..... ........UH......UH.....DID YOU SEE THEY'RE TAMPERING WITH THE MARKET AGAIN.....GOING TO MESS UP THE INTEREST AGAIN.........ETC...ETC.....

I just have to sit back and listen.  It is really interesting listening to all this disjointed conversation.  One a man who, in his old age is sharp as a tack and his friend who is losing it and knows it.  It makes my emotions surface when I think of these two fellows being friends for all these years and caring for one another as if it were a marriage.

As the new kid on the block here,  I am extremely proud Ihave found such a site.   You gentlemen are the heart of what makes America what it is.   No one can ever tell me that logger and mill operator have no sense of giving and receiving of what this ol' world is all about.  Thank you for sharing so much of yourselves.  I hope one day  I am able to give to  this site the kind of justice you have since it began back in June, some time.   When I visit the old (er) folks I have on my route I am going to begin to take notes and record what they have to say.  Thanks, Guys.   Frank Pender :) ;)

Hardly anyone realizes how very lonely many older folks are.  Very few have any time or interest in talking to older folks much less listening or learning.  The old apprenticeship programs for learning a trade also taught respect and made the participants aware of everything that they could learn from their elders.  I think that the day that I can't or won't learn is the day I begin to die.  Shipping the elderly off to the handy nursing home the moment they become inconvenient or the slightest bit annoying is nothing more than mental euthanasia.   >:(  I've learned more from my older friends and neighbors than I ever did in college.   :)

   I had a similar thought a few days ago- driving by one of the assisted living facilities- seeing 2 white-haired folks in the parking lot (still walking and driving- YES!)- and I had a flash of seeing no one but other oldsters- never seeing the young- and I thought- I don't want to go there! Granted that part of the task of turning any living facility into 'home' is the transition of making 'there' become 'here'- still, it was a powerful moment in terms of turning me toward the value of keeping the elderly in a central position in society, rather than isolated by their need for special services.    lw

When Charlie and I were little boys, we were visited by my Grandmother's older sister, our Aunt Mattie,  who would stay for weeks at a time.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/auntmattiechas.jpg)
We loved Aunt Mattie who whiled her time crocheting Afgans, lace and telling us stories.  She and Grandmother were raised in a time before mass media and and their entertainment was by word of mouth. We were so lucky to benefit from the "spill-over" of this age of society and I would like to share one of the things she would repeat to us.

Old Jeremiah jumped in the fire,
The fire was so hot,
he jumped in the pot.
The pot was so black,
he jumped in the crack.
The crack was so high,
he jumped in the sky.
The sky was so blue,
he jumped in the canoe.
The canoe was so deep,
he jumped in the creek.
The creek was so shallow,
he jumped in the tallow.
The tallow was so soft,
he jumped in the loft,
the loft was so rotten,
he jumped in the cotton,
the cotton was so white,
he jumped out of sight,
and that's where he stayed all night.

You may think that this is just a meaningless dity from an ignorant backwoods country girl but quite the contrary is true.  Education and religion in those days rode hand-in-hand and if you look up Jeremiah in the dictionary for spelling, you will find this: one who is pessimistic about the present and foresees a calamitous future.  Along with his being a prophet, the lessons to be taught were numerous.

Charlie and I  would sit at her feet on the front porch having the Gee Whilikers scared out us and hoping for another story rather than being sent to bed.  They were short and to the point stories that left your imagination to run all night.  

Uncle Willis was a sleep walker.  One night he walked out of the house, down the lane and awoke, knee deep in the ford of Sweet Water Creek, about an eighth of a mile from the house, with a panter (panther) screaming.

It scared him so bad he never sleep walked again.

(and neither did we.

Today I was sawing at Mr. Tommy's.  You remember him, don't you......the fellow that built the little house out of one tree?

We were sawing Pine for him to refurbish the old house that can be seen in the background of these pictures.  One of his friends came to help and brought his 93 year old father who wanted to watch.  Elliot, the father, used to be a sawyer.  You could see the light in his eyes and the smile on his face every time we did anything.  We would pick up a cant hook, he would smile.  We would roll a log, he would smile.  When we began sawing he would grin so big he could hardly hold his pipe.

                                         (https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/Elliot02opt.jpg)


Well, as many times happens, he was made comfortable and left in a chair to watch while everybody was busy tending to business.

We broke for dinner and all he wanted to talk about was his days sawying logs.  They had a lumber yard and apparently he could really put the boards on the ground.

About 2:30 in the afternoon he was getting tired and I was afraid a little bored and had moved himself out of the sun into the car and was watching from the front seat.

I went to the car and offered to put him on the porch out of the sun, but he said he was comfortable so I left him.

As time wore on I imagined him running his mill and imagine that he was imagineing the same.  If it had been me I would have wanted to open up a log.  I figured he had resigned himself to the fact that he was old, living in a nursing home and would never saw a log again.......I couldn't stand it.

                                   (https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/Elliot01opt.jpg)


"Would you like to saw a log", I asked?
"I sure wish I were able to", He said.

"Well come on, lets go saw that big one over there..I'll help and we'll saw it together",  I said.

So we did.

(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/Elliot03opt.jpg)


He was as happy as a 5 year old kid.  He got to load the log and level it, saw off the slabs, turn the cant and ended up sawing 14 inch boards, about 14 or 15 of them.  

                                         (https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/Elliot04opt.jpg)

His son figured it was time for them to go after we finished the log and he got in the car, all smiles, and they drove away.  

I'll bet he has a story to tell his friends at the nursing home tonight.

I'll hope it's not, but I'll bet I saw him saw his last log today..

Tom! What a great story! Your thoughtfullness made the old man's day. I bet you felt pretty good about it too. :)

He was alive again.. not just living.

Your a CLASS ACT Tom. I think that says it all.

Gordon

  Sometimes some of us think we are pushing the age envelope sooner than we really are and at other times the opposite is true.  I have NEVER FELT myself as getting older or younger until a few weeks ago. :D  I will let you folks decide that issue for me.  Here is the setting.  One of my grandsons is 18 years old and a senior in our local high school.    He was looking for additional $ to go on a trip to Canada to do some snowboarding.   He had asked his Gma for a job and she had none.   Sshe then suggested asking me.   Well, he knew me well as he had been one of my students in the 7th grade and realized I was a task master.  He finally asked the question and I gave him a job.  I said that it would start at minimum wage and go up if he proved worthy.   He showed on time and did very well.  He stacked lumber, wood, cleaned up around the mills, shoveled sawdust.  All this was after school for several days until it was so dark he could not see well.   He earned his money to go snowboarding and then some.  I did raise his pay a dollar an hour.   ;)  His Gma reported to t=me that he had told her the following:   "Grandma, I thought that grandpa was an old man.  He works like that all the time?   I got so tired that I could not eat dinner one night, when I got home.  He can really work."   Question: Is time and age a "relative thing"?   I leave that answere to each of you to decide. 8) 8) 8)

Frank,

I think time and age is a relative thing.  

My relatives call me "Tommy"...... but my customers call me "Mr. Tom.

Hmmm  sounds like an old  rock song . :D

Tom, That was a very honorable and kind thing that you did for Elliot! What is a society made up of , other than the individuals that are in it?  I am glad to know that folks like you are in ours, even if you are 1000 miles away. Good job , Tom ;D

  :) :) :) :)  :D ;D        I can testify to the story about Elliot--  I frequently see Mr. Tom collecting and gathering his workers @ the nursing homes in the area.   He generally starts about 30 minutes before daylight in the visitors section of the parking lot with some newspapers, hot coffee , and jelly donuts. Then with the aid of a low voltage cattle prod he eases them onto the work bus and off to the mill site. :D :D :D :D :) :) :D

Experience, Bud Man, experience.  I'm always on the lookout for experience.  You have to go to the nursing homes anymore to fine it. :-[ :-/ ;D

That's right Tom

They may be half as spry,  But they're twice as sly!! :D

seriously though, I see a lot of college age kids up here for the summer, and for a lot of them it's their first time working at a job where they're expected to produce, and do it all day.  It's kinda fun to see the ones who get "sick" regularly, and the ones who start "enjoying" the work.  It can be fun to see the look in their eyes when a fat old man like me gets down off my forklift and shows them a new trick or two to make their lives easier.

Work smarter, Not harder. 8)

Bruce

I run into the same thing Bruce and it makes me feel good to teach them something.  Some ooh and aah and some don't pay attention.  It's not just the high school age though, I run into some in their 30's who will continually try to lift a log and carry it rather than roll it.  I never quite understood why because it is obviously round. Just never been confronted with the situation before I guess. :-/

I have sawed logs of small size for people who are just before renting a large front-end loader and taking the fences down to get them out of the backyard when they could be handled by hand or pulled with small car.  

I have learned most of my labor saving tricks from watching these "old-timers" who have more time and sense than horse power. :D

I grew up in the woods - literally.  My dad was a tie hacker, stave cutter, logger and a great tutor.  :P I've witnessed him do all kinds of things without power equipment or using brute force.

One of the first sawing jobs we did was for my brother-in-law.  He worked construction of all types so he was in good shape and should know how to move things.  But normally they had heavy equipment to do any real heavy work.  

We had one log that wasn't aligned with the mill.  He started trying to lift and push it and was asking for help.  I let him struggle a while and then asked him to step back.  I threw one cant hook on the ground about midway the log and rolled the log up on it.  Then I pushed down on the high end and pivoted the log around.  I jammed the end of the cant hook in the ground at and against one end of the log and asked him to hold it.  I then rolled the other end of the log - thus moving it parallel to the mill. In a few easy moves,  I had the log in place.


He was amazed and clamed I had advantage with my engineering background.  I told him it wasn't my engineering experience but years of watching my dad and uncles work with logs without power equipment. ;)

Hey Tom! DanG it, I think you treat other workers better than you did me. You never taught me no tricks to offloading 2" X 12" X 16' green pine and you never cut 'em round so's I could roll 'em either! >:(  The only lesson I learned was......I don't like offloading ;) ;D  I'm starting to think you're gettin' back at me for stuff I did to you over 50 years ago......   ::) :)

[/b]

  You two guys, I'll bet you both a can of peas that posting with the two pevees was how you youngens often got along?   I was justa wonderin'. :D :D ::)

Tom's story about Elliot reminded me of my Uncle Chick. Some of you may remember my post a good while back about helping my Uncle Chick saw on a circle sawmill powered by a steam engine.  He's in the nursing home now.  I hope he can come out when the weather warms up and see us run our new Wood-Mizer LT40HDE25-RA.  

Here are a couple of pictures taken of Uncle Chick and Aunt Nellie probably 40 years ago.  I've got to check with his son to find out for sure.  I know they are sawing out a new house for himself.

(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/UncleChick2.JPG)
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/UncleChickAuntNellie1.jpg)

Tom, that was a great thing you did for ol' Elliott!  Your story really warmed my heart. :'(

I just got one little bone to pick. You said he "used to be a sawyer."  I just think that "Sawyer" is a title that, once earned, never goes away. It's sorta like "General," or "pilot." Once you earn it, it's always with you.  

Now, I'm not a sawyer...I've only ripped up a couple of lil' ol' logs, but I hope to call myself one, someday. :P

by golly you're right, Dan.   I'm remiss........Mr. Elliot is definitely a sawyer and after the other day has passed his rejuvination course.  I'll accept that you are a sawyer as well.  Heck, there is not a rule that says that you have to have years of cutting wood to be a sawyer.  I'ts as much a state of mind as it is a state of being.  You sawed a log and were in the right frame of mind........you're a sawyer. :D

Thanks for that, Tom, but I'll decline to accept the title, until I can stand before the likes of you, and Jeff, and Ron, etc, and KNOW that I can hold my own. For now, I will relish being a mill owner, and look forward to being a Sawyer when I earn it.

that would be sawyer :D and not lawyer? :D :D :D

DanG,
I never been a mill owner. Tell you what, give me your mill, you can work for me, and I will call you a sawyer and that way I can be a millowner. 8)

That's a DanG generous offer, Jeff. I'll have to take it under consideration. You need to know, though, that I don't work for peas.  Beans are much better for the heart. ;D

My two cents

DanG, you tasted the sawdust, that counts.

In the firework trade (hobby) we have a saying.
"He who hath smelled the smoke is never again free"

I think the translation is obvious

Ps.  *&^^$%^&* I'm not even a millowner yet!!!

Being born in 1950 puts me in the Baby-boomer crowd I guess.  But I've always thought I've re-lived the Great Depression.  I still hear stories about that era from my folks and their peers.  

Every winter Dad tells the story of the winter all they had to eat was turnips and pork belly.  -  A farmer had let them live in an old farm house in exchange for clearing some ground for him.  After clearing the ground,  they planted a large truck patch of turnips.  In the fall, they dug a pit and buried the turnips.  The farmer also gave them a big old sow, probably too old to have pigs again.  So that was their diet for the winter months.

These experiences must have left them with a sense of frugality we can't understand.  I could fill a book but here are a few examples:  

A few years back, Cousin Bruce was helping his dad replace a carrier bearing in his old truck.  They took the old one to the parts store and the clerk found a new one.  It was $8.00.  Uncle Chick didn't want a whole bearing set.  He just wanted a few bearings to replace the ones that were completely chewed up.  Bruce just put the money on the counter,  picked up the bearing and walked out.

My dad gave me an old IH industrial loader to use around the sawmill.  He had used it for 20+ years in his logging business and it had been just setting there after he retired.  I was using it one day to clear a fencerow and ran onto something that broke the valve stem on one of the front tires.   I took it to town and had a new tube put in it at a cost of $12.00 - tube, labor and all.  Dad was upset.  They should have been able to put a new stem on the old tube for about $2.00.  DAD!  The tube was 25 years old and had been patched a dozen times.  

But victory over wasteful spending was his another time he worked a week super gluing, splinted and clamped a little plastic part to a toilet bowl valve.  He had gone to Westlakes to get the single part but they tried to sell him the whole assembly for an outrageous sum of $7.00.

My sons come home and stumble over an old broken microwave oven and say "Dad, why haven't you thrown that away?"  "Well,  sure as I do,  I'll need a cord off it or something."
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/WardenFamily2.jpg)
Turnips must have agreed with the Warden family.  I'm the baby in the middle of the picture.

When they put the "new Interstate Bridge" across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon to Vancouver, Washington, there was a toll; one few for walking and one for a vehicle.  My father and his friends could not afford the toll to even walk across the thing let alone drive a vehicle across.  What the did was, wal a mile and a half down river and cross on the RR trussle to save the the 5 cents they did not have to save in the first place. I reckon I come by my "tight ways" naturally.  About twenty 23 years ago my two boys and I wanted pizza for dinner.  I did not have the $ to buy the meal, so, on the way home from the woods we picked up enough soda and beer cans to buy the meal.  They still talk of the fun we had in scrounging for our dinner that night.  Was it worth the effort, darn right.  I would do it agian today even though I can just about afford the pizza. :D :D

Bibeyman, I can relate to the depression mentality.  My Granddad raised my Mom, Aunt and Uncle on fish during the depression and the job was passed to me after the depression and I was to keep four families in stock with fish.  It's hard to do that today because the authorities, in their wisdom, have put limits on most fish that we caught and you can't harvest enough during the "run" to last til the next run.  I guess they figure that if you aren't selling your catch to a fish monger then you are just playing.

Frank,   Good story.  I can relate to that as well, although the money was more than a nickel and we were out of the depression by quite a few years. :D  Grandad, when we were travelling, would stop and examine as many as 6 or 8 motels and hotels every night to find, not only one that was clean, but one that charged no more than 4 dollars a night.  You should have heard him talk (for miles) about the one that cost $12 per night, "we just want a place to sleep, I dont want to buy the place". :D

My Grandpa always fixed his own tires.  Break 'em down patch the tube etc.  At 75 Grandpa Bob was still fixing farm tires himself.  He'd spend an hour breaking it down and patching the 30 year old tube that already had 10 patches on it.  He just didn't think it was right to take the rim and tire to town and have a new tube put in it or if the tube was only 10 years old  :) have it patched.  He didn't like it when I made the comment that I didn't fix tires when I could have it done for five bucks. ;) and didn't like me taking a tire in to have it fixed.  It cost too much.  He had one tire apart four times in as many days before he finally broke down and bought a new tube for it.  Of course he installed it himself.  I enjoy taking the tires to the local tire place, BSing with owner, who I went to school with and don't mind spending the five or 10 bucks to have it done.  It's well worth it to not have to deal with aggravation.  I hate doing tire repair myself.  Self sufficiency was a trait of the generation that grew up during the Great Depression.  They did the best with what they had which wasn't very much.  Grandpa grew up on the farm next to the one I live on.  They raised beef cattle,  pigs and chickens.  They ate pork and chicken.  The beef was too valuable to eat themselves.  Just one beef animal would pay the property taxes.  Raising cattle today wouldn't be so bad if it only took one to pay the property taxes.  

Uncles.  I could probably come up with a hundred of them.  My dad has six brothers and a sister.  My mom's mother was married and widowed three times,  had 16 children with them and two were widowers with children when she married them. So mom has 23 full, half and step siblings.  All the sisters were married so there were uncles by marriage too.  Then add great uncles to the count.  Also, I have a number of "honorary" uncles. As I grew up in a rural farm community, most families were interrelated somehow so it appeared reasonable that an uncle of a cousin was also my uncle.

Some of these uncles lived nearby and  I saw them about every day, some often, and some lived far away and I only saw them at major family gatherings.  

Uncle Elmer (dad's eldest brother) didn't fit any of the above. He worked for Caterpillar from before the War to retirement in the mid-60s. While he lived near Peoria, Ill,  he came to visit us often during the summer months -sometimes with Aunt Alma, sons Buck and Jerome. But often he would come alone - especially later when the sons grew up and left home and Aunt Alma passed away.

Of all my uncles,  Uncle Elmer was my favorite.  While other uncles talked to me,  our interaction was more "directional" in nature - as in "Fetch me that hammer." or "You boys stop throwing the barn cats over into the pen with the coon dogs!"  Uncle Elmer talked "with" me.  He'd ask about school. We'd talked about the latest Hopalong Cassidy or Gunsmoke episode.  He always has some jokes to tell me and I learned to have a couple to tell him when he came to visit. He was sharp at wit and always fun to be around.

I went fishing and squirrel hunting with Uncle Elmer.  He even tried to teach me how to play the guitar.  He could play about any stringed instrument you could put before him.  He even tried to teach me how to drive his car when I was about 10. But the power steering, breaks, automatic transmission and the power of his 59 Buick Roadmaster was too much for me to handle.

He passed away about the time I completing college, just got married, and starting a family so it didn't impact me as to what I'd lost.  It's been only the last few years I've been reflecting back as to how Uncle Elmer had an influence in my development.  Just as I was thinking about writing this story,  I remember summer before last when I turned 50,  I went out and searched for an "old man's" car - a creampuff 94 Buick Roadmaster as a birthday gift to myself.

Thanks Uncle Elmer for all you've done for me.

(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/Bibbyman%20and%20Uncle%20Elmer2.jpg)


Uncle Elmer and his "sidekick" - 1955.

Living next to my grandmother these past few months while my house is being put back together has inspired me.  The other night we searched through weat pennies.  We would pause alot and discuss what happened on different dates.

My grandmother was only 8 years old when she crossed the Oregon Trail.  She still has her hair they made her cut for the trip.

Sure love my grandma.

I love mine to, Bruce.  She's gone but left a little book of some of her stories for us to read.  She planned many more but didn't write them.  

She made really good biscuits to. ;D

Gone now but I love her still.

Well, folks, I ain't had a very good week. We've been inundated with problems at work, due to a new computerized dispatch system, and the pressure has been incredible.  The week did have a bright spot, however.  Thursday is pork chop day at the Wayside Farms Grocery, Deli, and Fish Bait Emporium, and I managed to be there. I got my platter of 3 chicken-fried pork chops, okry & t'maters, collard greens, and cornbread, and joined a group of "regulars" at the big table in back. I was introduced to an older gentleman, Mr. JD, and was told that we needed to talk, 'cause he was a sawmill man. Well, talk we did!  He is 80 years old, and ran a milling business just west of Tallahassee for 25 years. His "niche" was keels and ribs for big shrimp boats, and other wooden vessels. He ran a Frick "aught one", with 150' of carriage track, and 2 carriages. He did the whole number, from "stump to delivery," as he put it, with one helper.  He had "arrangements" with the "rich folks" that own the plantations up around Thomasville, Ga, to harvest pines that were too large for the local mills to handle. He also traveled to N. Ga, to harvest "Mountain Oak", which he later clarified as white oak, to make the ribs from. He is proud of the fact that he regularly shipped keels over to Japan.

We talked for well over an hour(don't tell my boss), and agreed that he should come out for a visit when I get my mill operational. He also wants me to come see the old sheds that he used to mill under, and a few old pieces of his work that never sold. He says that his biggest piece was a 12x12, 74 foot keel.  Now, that's a big ol' board, in anybody's book!

DanG Dan, you can't miss a visit like that.  I'll bet he has a story for every board in the building and every hole in the roof.

Well, I ain't plannin' to miss it, Tom. I just couldn't go over there right then. He got all fired up, and was willing to leave his pork chops on the plate to take me over there, but duty was calling. I see him in that place on a regular basis, but didn't know who he was. We'll get together, soon. He laid several stories on me, including how he hauled that big keel to St. Augustine, then helped set it on the ways. He also described how he, and his Sawyer, would put those big ol' logs on those two carriages, set them to center the heart, then take them off to turn them after one cut.
He also took an interest in seeing my mill in action. I told him he could help me saw some stuff, but he said he was too old, and would just watch. Whatch bet he ends up with his hands on it, before it's over?  :D

Yeah, he will.  You'll have him sawmilling again in no time.  Old Timers who still have a quest for life are more fun to be around than a room full of puppies.  Age doesn't make'em smart but experience makes'em interesting and they are full of books worth of knowledge.

Most folks in today's society show them little respect and offer them little time. It's our loss.  They yearn for attention and are the happiest when they can tell you something you didn't know or do something that they thought had passed them.  They will take you under wing and become a good friend and mentor.  I wouldn't swap my bunch for the world. :)

Just returned from trip working and learning along side of Macurtis (Sawmilling Course 101).     Met local old seasoned sawmiller  who was dripping with knowledge and experience's that he shared with Macurtis and I.     What a wonderful opportunity to bridge our vacuum search for knowledge and his lifetime of sawmilling experience's together.    I don't know who was  happier,  Mr  Welch's  teaching and giving and sharing of his knowledge or Macurtis and I for having the opportunity to listen and learn.                                              Along with his years of experience he shared,  he told us a tale of : " A Forester Returning To The Forest He Loved ".   There was a Forester that spent his entire life serving  the surrounding counties  with  Mr Welch.  The Forester  had unquestionable intellect and unlimited Forestry knowledge and was forced into retirement as a result of alzheimers sp.. As alzheimers works he soon lost all short term memory and had to resort to utilizing his memories of days gone by.  Mr Welch because of his lifetime friendship and association with his  Forester friend visited regulary and was saddened by his friends regressioning backwards spiral.    The Forester had a longing desire that he repeately made known to Mr. Welch, and that was a desire to return to the forests that he loved , that alzheimers had robbed him from being able to return .  Well one night in the middle of winter the Forester wandered out of the retirement home and : "Returned to The Forest He Loved "..................It was a trip and a story I won't forget !!

Older folks are a precious commodity.  I think they are great.

We are looking forward to a detailed account of your trip and Mike's experiences with his sawmill. Get your pictures ready. :)

Thanks, bud Man.  Your story of Mr Welche's friend remineded me of my own Grandfather.  He too had worked in the woods all his life. He demise was much the same.  My Grandmother could always find him after he had wandered off, out in the forest on the property.   I do to understand the need to be a part of tha kind of relationship with such a close part of once past and present.   :)

It'd be cool to see Mr JD's mill in operation.  Is it still there or has it been disposed of?  I'd love to see pics of it.  
  My Grandfather farmed and worked in the woods his whole life.  It was my Grandma's fear that one day he wouldn't come in for lunch or supper and she'd have to call me to find him.  That would have been much better than the cancer that killed him :'(.  He would have been doing something that he truly loved and enjoyed.

No, the mill is gone. "Went to Tampa", as Mr. JD put it. All that remains is the sawing shed, and a few old keels and ribs that never sold.  He does have a small collection of old sawmill paraphnalia, some of which may be sold to someone that he deems to be in the right frame of mind.
There is another mill that he once owned. It is a smaller rig, 50" blade, with a 471 diesel, that may be for sale. JD bought it after he retired, just to play with. He sold it when he realized that you can't "play" with stuff that's in your blood that deeply, and still be retired. He sold it to a local contractor, who never used it, and, in turn sold it to someone else. This guy pushed it a little too hard through some live oak, and messed up the blade. He has given up on it, and JD says it just needs hammering. "No one does that, anymore," says he, and I said that I know a saw doc on the internet that does. He seemed pleased that folks like Jeff Lesak are keeping the art alive. :)

Frank -- Mr Welch is at an age and comfort level within that he has no inhibitions. When he came over to the work site the second day he saw my Forestry ring which has a Pine Tree inlaid in the center, he just kinda reached out , turned my hand to examine the ring, and asked what kinda ring is that and smiled and the conversation flowed to the Forester story. It was a soft spoken story at the end of which I noticed a watery eye. :'(

Bud-Man, your openness, and willingness to listen, touched his heart. Now, in turn, he has touched ours without even knowing it. That's kinda special.  Thanks.

QuoteWhen he came over to the work site the second day he saw my Forestry ring which has a Pine Tree inlaid in the center, he just kinda reached out , turned my hand to examine the ring, and asked what kinda ring is that and smiled and the conversation flowed to the Forester story.

   I'd like to hear more about the ring too. Was it something you got upon completion of Forestry school or like that?
                                                  lw

LW  --The ring is a graduation ring but It also was a moment of celebration for obtaining a degree in Forestry.  When I told my Mother I was going to pursue a degree in Forestry she told me that my Father had wanted to pursue an education in Forestry but was unable to because situations out of his control (WWII).  She had never told me that before (Nuddernudge). When I approached graduation and time to order a ring she suggested I get a tree inlaid in the ring  for both my Father and myself.  It wears well !!

   It gave me a strong nudge as well when I read about it. Reminded me immediately of a masonic ring, but of greatly different significance. Thank you for the story behind it. If you ever decide to post a photo of it, I should love to see how it came out.   lw

Bud-Man, please thank Mr.Welch for me for his story.  I forgot to mention it in my previous posting.   :-[

L. W.  I thought of the same idea in the ring discription, as I often wear the emblem of the three levels of the Order.  What a wonder deeply convictioned people Jeff as accumulated on the Forum.  For the level beyond The Hat recognition,  I would be in favor of helping support with $ a "Forum Ring".  What do you all think of such a thing?   ;)

Frank, I like the idea, in principle, but it would take a lot of work and money. I think we would have to be more organized to pull off something like that. However, the way things are going, lately, it seems that it may be possible in the not too distant future. Of course, Jeff is going to need some help, financially and otherwise, if this thing continues to grow, and becomes more than just a well organized group of kilobytes on the Web.
That being said, I would be more than proud to own and wear one, if, and when I met the qualifications to do so. Those qualifications should be well considered, too, if the ring is to have significance.

   It certainly strikes a strong chord in me, which is why I ventured to speak up. This'll sound kinda numb- altho I'm 50 I still like the look of ink (tatoos) and had toyed with the idea of getting some done- couldn't come up with the right idea..I thought at one time about using my arm veins as the stems of a vine and doing leafs along them...needless to say I have not gotten that done, but it was as close as I had come to something expressing my direction.  :)  lw

The Tree that Jeff has chosen, I would  think, should likely be a portion of the design.  If Jeff would be willing, I am prepared to send him a hundred dollars to begin a fund dedicated to such a venture.  Jeff, you could put the money in an interest bearing escrow account until such time as the funds would allow for the design and creation of the rings.   I hardly know where to begin for a designer for such an item.  But the journey begins with the first question.   Does anyone out there have any ideas of where to begin such an adventure?  I will begin such a venture in my part of our backyard.

I aint ignoring this line of conversation here, in fact I am floored and flattered that you guys would consider this. I really don't have anything to add, other then I would want to figure out another way of doing it rather then taking peoples money and saving it. I hate that kind of responsibility. :)

If we all were to contribute to something like that, wouldnt it be the same as buying a ring ourselves? So with that line of thinking, we would just need to find a design and a source and a price, and the forum would just have to decide who and when someone would be eligible to get one.

Thats just my musings

My thought's are along participation.  Best post of the month per category, or most new members brought aboard--something like that  -cause the more interesting and the more participation --everybody wins and it wont take an act of congress or an accountant to keep up with and it'll happen sooner and more often.

All this chatter about Certification blended in with this thread of older folks reminded me of a story by my dearly departed Mother In Law. Got her Teaching degree from Georgia State College for Wowen in 1927 at the age of 17 and got here first and only Teaching assignment (lasted 50 years) In Ft. Meyers, Fl.. One day she she was at the Ft. Meyers, beach and a plane circled a couple of times indicating it was going to land. The folks cleared the beach enough for the plane to land, and In the rush of the beach goer's up to the plane, everyone was so excited to inspect, nobody but my Mother In Law noticed who got off the plane. Happened to be three uncertified folks by the name of :    Henry Ford - Thomas Edison - CharlieFirestone.  "What a Think Tank of Uncertified And Uneducated"

Having gone to school hardly 1/2 Mi. from jesse, (aka )GSCW, (aka) Georgia State College for Women, I spent quite a bit of time at the dormitories on their campus.  That has got to be one of the central points of collection for the prettiest girls in the Southeast.  My memories are so pleasant that roll my eyes and smile every time I think of the place. ;D

Yep Yep    Those dormitories  ;)   attracted more Drone Bees than Tupelo Honey.  Mother In Law's younger brother (Dan Spears) was Teacher and Head Master at the military school you've mentioned in previous post's for many years - does the name ring any bells ??  Dan's now retired living in Orlando, Fl. Dan also has a nephew (Joe Spears) that lives in Jacksonville Fl.(small world)  Wife's mother and pedigree comes from Jeffersonville and Milledgeville, Georgia area.

Spears doesn't ring a bell.  I would be interested in the years.  My envolvement was from 56-57 to 61-62 school years. 

What a historical area that is.  Milledgeveille, capital of Georgia,  Eatonton, Uncle Remus'  "home".

We had to learn the Capitals of Georgia and the memory trick we were taught was to remember Alma.  Alma is a south Georgia town and we were taught that it's letters stood for Agusta, Lakeland, Milledgeville and Atlanta. Capitals of Georgia in their correct chronology.

Well That's some useless trivia for most of you folks but it sure helped me get through school. :D

Uncle Remus.  I sure do miss those stories.  It's a shame we have developed a society that has criminalized such intertaining stories.  I used to hang on every word. :-/

I had kinfolk around Milligeville, too. My Great Uncle, Lenwood Owens, owned a dairy farm there for many years.

QuoteAll this chatter about Certification blended in with this thread of older folks reminded me of a story by my dearly departed Mother In Law. Got her Teaching degree from Georgia State College for Wowen in 1927 at the age of 17 and got here first and only Teaching assignment (lasted 50 years) In Ft. Meyers, Fl.. One day she she was at the Ft. Meyers, beach and a plane circled a couple of times indicating it was going to land. The folks cleared the beach enough for the plane to land, and In the rush of the beach goer's up to the plane, everyone was so excited to inspect, nobody but my Mother In Law noticed who got off the plane. Happened to be three uncertified folks by the name of :    Henry Ford - Thomas Edison - CharlieFirestone.  "What a Think Tank of Uncertified And Uneducated"

   Good point! It's not the certification, it's the dedication to learning and using what is learned that determines the value of the contributor.  Learning is a lifelong pursuit, and the sharing of both the knowledge and the learning experience  make life much richer. It is hard indeed if you have an enthiusiasm that no one around you shares. To encounter like-minded persons, and those generous in sharing what they have found to be of value, is what makes this forum so great! 8) 8)  lw

Went to the surplus yard today to check out the winches the ol' boy told me about.  I'd expected to be talking to a descendant of the original proprietor, but NO. The self-same old codger that opened the place a few centuries ago is still in charge. He told me a lot about different ways to power winches, and rigging pto's, and hydraulic motors. He has a collection of equipment that just can't be believed. If you ask him about something, he will take you on a hike, roll out the piece and quote the specifications, then give you advice about how you should use it, or if you should, or not.

I got to talking with him about my sawmill, and he started telling me about an old friend of his, who used to saw specialty timbers for shipbuilders. I interrupted, and said "JD Robertson!"  And he says, "Well, yeah, that's him. You know him?"  "I had lunch with him two days ago" says I.  His eyes went to twinkling like a Christmas tree!  "How's he doing?"  He was really pleased to hear that Mr. JD is doing so well, and asked me to say howdy for him.  I told him that Mr. JD was coming out to see my mill when I get my act together, and it'd be nice if he could come over, too. He says to just let him know when, and he'll be here.  I got a feeling that's gonna be a real special day. :)

DanG it  Now that's really  8)  You'll have a great time when you get those two together.

I would bet $ to doughnut holes that between those two fellas you will have the best winch in the county.  8) I would also higher a fella with a video camera with sound to record all that is doen with them two in your company.  ;) I would not want to miss a syllable of what they had to share and learn about. I would also have their favorite for lunch available. 8)  The  longer you can have them there at one time the wiser you will become, Dan G. :P 8) 8)

DanG  Send me a copy of that tape too or take some good notes.  :P.   If they nod off just lightly nudge em and say --Whad U Say, I missed that last part-  Prime The Pump Every Once In a While --And Let Em Rip  ;)

I'll keep notes. Neither of them seem like the movie star type. Ain't gotta worry about no nodding off, either. When I got to the surplus yard Sat. morning, Mr Parramore was crawled up under a Suburban, changing out the rear axle. By the time I stomped around his place for an hour or so, he had it done. When he took me to look at some 24vdc motors he had under a shed, I had to walk quickly to keep from losing sight of him. :o :o

DanG  They seem to have one speed --Full Steam Ahead , Reminds me of my Mother. She had a head of steam up when her feet hit the floor in the morning. Never sleep more than 3 or 4 hours in a night in her life that I knew of and could make most folks tired and wore out if they tried to just watch what she did in a days time. Enjoy the visit and count yourself fortunate for the encounter, please follow-up and share the visit with the rest of us, wish I could be there for the encounter !! ;)

Well, I'm fixin' to lose another one.

I have been on the phone with a fella that has been a good customer for about seven years.  He just got out ot the hospital where he was diagnosed with bladder cancer.  He was already run through the mill for prostate cancer and now they want to see if it has progressed to his bones.  He is hoping for the best but says the doctor told him the prognosis was dim. They are scheduling him for a 7+ hour surgery to remove his bladder but the "scan" may cause them to cancel it.  

It's hard talking to a friend who is terminal.  It makes me feel good that he thought enough of me to call me.  He hasn't too many acquaintances that he would call and I feel kind of special.

I just have to get by his place and visit.  He wants to stand in the garden with me and eat blueberries.

Well Tom , something's gonna get us all if we live long enough, but at least you've had the opportunity to meet and enjoy a lot of folks.( Ben, Elliot and many many others )  Sincerity is a traight that is probably the most difficult to fake and falseness stinks to high heavens. I'd agree with you that you ought to feel pretty special-- I hope the Blueberries are the best you ever eat and your visit in the garden takes place on a beautiful day. Enjoy the moment !

I don't know this fellow but thought y'all might find it interesting. I read it in tonights newspaper in a section called Odds and ends

John Kirner of Sequim, Washington, has been logging so long that he has memories of the arrival of a revolutionary piece of equipment---the chain saw.

"I was up in Sequim, and I heard a great, big noise behind this building," he said.  "The chain saws started to come in, and boy I was happy to see them."

Kirner, 97, began cutting trees 80 years ago, and he's believed to be the oldest active logger on Washington state's North Olympic Peninsula.

Through the years, Kirner has watched the trade change from a backbreaking physical industry for only the strongest men to the less strenuous but still demanding work it is today.

"The new loggers do a lot more in the way of accomplishment, but none of them worked harder than we did," Kirner told the Peninsula Daily News. "You couldn't just stand there and look at the logs, you had to get out there and work."

Before chain saws, Kirner used the crosscut saws, called "misery whips." After hearing his first chain saw, Kirner knew he needed one and worked out a deal to buy it the same day.

"It was a good saw, too, better than the misery whips," he said, "but it was nothing compared to what we have now."  

Under a recent post about Mercury "piston"chainsaaws, I told of an experience my Great Uncle Amos had with early chainsaws.

I loved to hear Grandad and his brother Amos talk about logging and sawmilling in the old days.  They came from a family of 21 children and worked in the family sawmill at early ages.  Uncle Amos was getting the itch to see other places and get away from the mill when WWI came along.  He volunteered and was sent to France running a sawmill.  Grandad loved sawmilling so volunteered as soon as he was old enough thinking he could serve his country and sawmill too.  He had lost a couple of fingers to a cut-off saw.  The army said because of that he was restricted in what he could do.  He spent the duration of the war in Virginia in the Quartermaster corps.
    They both spent their entire life in sawmill and lumber related business.  Note my post under chainsaws "Remember Barker Saws"

We slowed to a stop at the top of the rise in the gravel road to talk to Mr. Wainscott who had stopped there.  It was one of the first warm, dry days of spring and he was on his way over to his brother's farm to plow his brother's garden.  

The reason this picture has stuck in my mind for 45 years is that Mr. Wainscott was setting in his high wheel farm wagon with his sulky plow hitched behind.  He had stopped to let his horse and mule "blow" a while.  The horse was 28 and looked like an old worn out carpet clinging tight to a skeleton.  It's sad head was drooped and it was breathing hard.  The mule was 31 but still looked in good shape.  

Mr. Wainscott didn't look much better than the horse.  He looked like a shrunken man with no teeth and loose cloths on.  The only part of him that continued to grow was his ears that looked twice the size as normal and were garnished with tufts of white hair.  Despite his appearance and the need to hold a bony hand behind his ear to hear,  Mr. Wainscott was active and clear of mind.  

Dad and I had been cutting logs on a farm just down the road and had cut logs on both of the Wainscott brother's farms.  Dad always took time to talk to him.

The story he told that day was one about the Murphy place where we were now cutting logs.  He said up that valley were some stones where an old church had been.  Said one summer a circuit preacher by the name of Howard came to preach and teach Sunday school.  Said the man carried two handguns in shoulder holsters in a cross draw fashion.  One of the Cave boys witnessed Mr. Howard ride standing in his stirrups at a full gallop up the same road we were now on and fire his handguns at each fence post on alternates sides of the road until all 12 shots were fired.  None were missed according to the story.  Said one of the Caves still has a chunk of one of the post with a bullet in it.  

Howard was a common alias of Jessie James and was known also to take up preaching as a dodge.  Although Callaway County was occupied by Union troops during the "War of Northern Aggression",  many of the menfolk had joined in the Confederate cause - either in the regular army or "irregular" militia.  After the war,  many men continued to fear prosecution for their wartime activities.  Jessie James often found refuge among the many friends he had made while riding with them during and after the war.

Another story Mr. Wainscott told was of he and his brother when young men working in the Missouri River bottom to clear land for the farmers.  Said they cut many a huge walnut tree and rack it up with the pecan, butternut, burr oak, cotton wood, and sycamore and burn them.

He also told of his trip to Fulton, the County seat, to report to the draft board for induction into the Army for WWI.  Although Fulton is due-north about 15 miles as the crow flys,  his dad hitched the team to the wagon and drove them 5 miles south to Tebbetts.  Here they waited for the passenger train on Missouri Kansas and Texas railroad to take them to Cedar City just across the river from Jefferson City.  There they waited over night for the Chicago Alton train that ran on a spur track from Fulton to Jefferson City.  24 hours later and a wide tour of the county, they arrived at the courthouse in Fulton.  

Although I remember seeing the Mr. Wainscott's younger brother often with him,  I can't remember him ever speaking.  He'd normally set there in his brother's old International PU and appear to be listening.  I don't know if he had some health problem or impairment that prevented him from joining in or not.  Both men maintained their own homes on farms about a mile apart.  Is far as I know, neither were ever married. I have no recollection of their passing.  Just one day it they were gone.

Mary and I will be coming up on another wedding anniversary here in a couple of weeks.  December 21 - I can always remember the day but have to think about the year.  It was 69.  She was 17 and I was 19.  The time always reminds me of a little mini-drama that I whitened before we got married.

When we were going together and then engaged,  we doubled a lot with her best friend and my cousin.  We were going out to supper one evening and then to a movie.  We liked to eat at The Popular Tree restaurant - a truck stop out at the intersection of the two main highways.  

We all attend the same school and Mary, Karen and Rich were in the same class so we had lots to talk about.  But I've always enjoyed just watching people.  Not in a perverted sense but just as an interest.  

There were an old couple setting in a boot not far from our table and in view of me.  They were typical enough.  But she was dressed in her "Sunday go to meetin'" best with big bright earrings, necklace, makeup, and her hair done and probably the nicest dress she had - even though it was 10 years out of style.  He was clean-shaven and had on clean work shirt and pants but still had his work shoes on.   He never took off his feed store ball cap that was a little dusty and dingy.  It looked to be a part of him.

Through the time we were there,  I noted them setting quietly eating - never a word passing between them.  I think she had the fried-chicken plate but I remember him having a big bowl of chili and coffee.  After they had finished their supper and the waitress cleared their dishes this common man reached across the table to meet her hand and they hooked fingers.  He leaned forward and said in a low voice; "Happy Anniversary Dear."  She said; "Thank you.".  Then it was over.  They got up and left as quietly as they had set and eat.

I guess I'm still puzzled by the event.  To be together for so many years and not have anything to say - especially on a special occasion. Maybe they didn't have to say anything? Maybe they said it all already?  Maybe there was just nothing left to say.

I think thay just dont need to talk to enjoy echother.   My wife and I have been so long togather in the cabs of trucks and cars that we are like that.   If I'm out at night without her I dont feel neer as comfortable as when she is there.
Andy

Bibbyman - I got hitched Dec. 20th, 1969. It was a Good year, we were both 18. Still with her and have no regrets.  8)

QuoteNot in a perverted sense but just as an interest.  

Sure am glad you clarified that. :D

Thats when you know you fit, when you can sit there and not have to say anything in comfort.

geart stories everyone.... Old folks are great... Hope when we all get old the younsters feel the same about us.... I started my work career young  age 11 working for the old farmers in the neighborhood.One could be a cranky old fart but,  he taught me alot and looked out for me as I grew.. he passed away a couple of years ago and I really miss the times that I spent talking with him as we worked he was one hell of a guy...

 Boy writing it down really makes ya think, had to walk away for a bit the screen was getting blury  :'(  Too many folks that made a great impression to write about all of them here. Maybe its time to write a book about all the great old folks that helped me along the way....Im only 37 so I hope that there are still quite a few good old folks to pass along their knowledge

Amen to that !!!!!!!!!!

I have been working around old farts/old timers since I was 16.They didn't take any guff,and I have no doubt in my mind that some of them wouldn't have hesitated to punch the information into our brains if we gave them any guff.The ones that were quick to laugh,were even quicker to lose their temper.

There are over a half a dozen that shaped how I worked(my Dad,and Uncles included),and taught me to take pride in logging and it's past.Two of the men that we used to refer to as old farts,I realised recently,were 39 and 44 years old when I was calling them that name in 1980.
All of them welcomed me at there homes on weekends or weeknights,to help me with a problem I might have with at work.Lorne Crocker,the 39 year old helped me improve on my splicing,in his back yard.Sonny VanHorlick is still helping me at 67,as he was at 44.Sony taught me patience,and order(that is ongoing,I still don't have much of either)

Most of these men are still around,and we talk once in awhile,not as much since I moved away.But lately,since I have been messing with the mill,I have gotten a lot of help from guys 10+ years younger.Good,solid,much appreciated information,and advice.

These young guys will make excellent oldtimers one day.I have know doubt.

 Elwood Lee Fisher, 85 years old, Passed away September 24th 2002. "Uncle" Elwood was my Fathers neighbor and best friend all his life and probably the 3rd face I ever saw. More than one person has stated that I got my sense of humor from him. That is quite a complement. He always had a twinkle in his eye and the ability to tell a joke as if it had just happened to him. He was a surveyr and as a young man spent WWII surveying roads such as the Pan American Highway. His stories about South America and Panama were captivating. One example is this. "I was sent on a troop ship to South America to continue survey work on a railway line. I got off the ship and onto a train and took it to the end of the line, then got into a jeep and was driven to the end of the road. We continued on mules to the end of the path where a few tents were setup for the survey crew. I went into my tent, sat down and cried." "At one time I was lost in the forest, I came out into a small town that had a bar/brothel. They got to know me well"

 Uncle Elwood gave me an 11' piece of Yellow Pine 8" x 12", It was a main beam in a building in the Laurel Racetrack that was built in 1911 and torn down in 1945. Elwood scavenged the beam before it went to the dump and stored it in his barn for 56 years! He gave it to me in 2001 and asked that I use it in my house in some way. With any luck I will break ground on the house this spring. He also gave me a 6' section of chestnut house gutter. I believe I will make a mantle out of the beam and some sort of a shelf out of the chestnut. Elwood was the first person to tell me about the ghosts in the woods, referring to the American Chestnut trees that had died and stood for years. There is one in his woods that still grows to about 3" across before dieing back and then growing back again.

That must have meant a lot to him to store it for 56 years.  You must have meant a lot to him for him to give it to you. It makes you wonder if they know the time is nearing when they start giving away there cherished possesions to their cherished friends.

I spent yesterday with three of my old-timers.  One in good health and I took one with the beginning of Alzheimer's to lunch, then we went to visit another with Alzheimers's or dementia in a nursing home, then worked on the first one's chainsaw for a while.  I got home after dark and, thinking back on it, had a wonderful day.

Well, I drove past the home of the old-timer I discussed a few months ago, the one diagnosed with bladder cancer.  The house was closed up and everything gone. I called his number which, I found, had been changed and reached his senile wife who is in a hospice care institution now.  It seems that Gerry died Sept. 25th, no more than two weeks after I saw him last.  I thought he was looking pretty good but his wife says that it all happened very quickly.  

He had wanted to sell me his chainsaw but I didn't want him to sell anything.  Sometimes having treasures is as important as using them.  I could have bought his entire shop but wouldn't have felt good about it. I figured that his sons would use the stuff, but you know what happened?  They had an auction and sold everything including the wifes collection of books. I'm glad I missed it.

I never met his family. The whole time I new him the only time any of them showed up at his house was just before died and I think they were inventorying.

For some reason I'm one of the few that his wife recognizes now so I guess I've someone else to visit.  She was a legal secretary by trade and reads anything that has words printed on it. Just a tiny, slim, little bit of a women, she is and you've never heard the likes of the crusty words she uses.  I've met sailors who cuss less.  At this age I suppose it's acceptable but a little shocking.  I think she knows that she is shocking me and enjoys it. :D

Well Gerry was a good man.  No hero, no politician, nothing really special but a good man. He was a retired Hi-way patrolman from Pennsylvania, and loved to tamper with anything mechanical.  He could make anything broken, whole and any engine run. He loved to make wind chimes and thoroughly enjoyed my sawmill.  If he weren't sick I'm sure he would have visited me often.  He was always looking for trees that he could get me to saw up.  He liked it so much that I'd almost saw his logs for free just to see him be so happy.  

He used the wood to rebuild his landlady's old two story ranch house and added a room on the back two years ago. To hear him talk about the challenges he ran into because of the out-of-square construction and settling of the old house was really funny.  He could describe most every nail he ever drove.

He rebuilt the tractor barn just so he would have room to put the wood that I sawed.  Nobody could crank the old international tractor but him.

Always "inventing" something, he was proud of his sprayer.  He had scavenged an old water tank and mounted it on his lawn tractor.  He attached a hose with a nozzle and sealed up all the openings but one that he attached the hose from an old 12 volt air compressor.  You know, the kind that you can get from Wally World for 25 dollars.  He would fill the tank with herbacide, pressurize it with air and ride along the fence lines spraying weed and grass. When the spray became weak he just added some more air.  When he would tell me about it, quite often I might add, he would grin like a cheshire cat.

He liked WWII airplanes and had models all over the house.  most were static but some had engines. That was one thing that he didn't do very well.  I don't know why because he made everything else look good.  But, his model airplanes looked like they had been constructed by 5 year old.  He was awful proud of them though and I would have never criticized them to his face.

He loved his gardens and had a blueberry patch as big as his house.  He grew some of the biggest and prettiest vegetables I've every seen.  Out on the end of the garden where everybody could see it was a sign.  It was a 2 or 2 1/2 foot piece of 1x10 that he had nailed onto a head-high pole. The pole was leaning and the sign was nailed, intentionally, at a jaunty angle.  He painted it white and wrote on it with a 1" brush, in black and in an illiterate hand, the words "Grow DanGit!"

The barn he built for his neighbor to house his horses still stands and contains 20 inch boards that he was as proud of as I was.

:Another neighbor has a garage full of pine because Gerry talked him into sawing some trees that were taken down in a backyard several miles away.  As it turned out, Gerry took the trees down. :D  Dang that old man. ???

His workshop is empty, not even a nail to be found on the dirt floor. All of the junk lawnmowers and lawn tractors that he scavenged from trash on the side of the road and had running are gone.  The cables, ropes and metal roofing that he was always acquiring for free somewhere are gone. The garden has been mowed, most of the blueberry bushes have been taken and it won' t be long before all that is left of Gerry is the memory.

He was cremated and wanted his ashes put in the trash can and placed beside the road for the garbage men to pick up. He thought that would be a cool way to go but nobody would do it. :D :D

I'm going to miss him.

Tom,

Thanks for introducing Gerry to us. I'm glad he is now a part of our group.

 Johnny Senior, 83 and Johnny Junior, 62 came by this weekend and brought some Poplar for me to resaw for them. Johnny Senior makes hobby horses using Poplar, Red Oak and walnut and does exceptional work. I get the idea they brought me the boards just to watch the bandmill work. I know I enjoy it. They noticed some standing water on my pad, it has some low spots where water lies, some day I will build a roof over it. Johnny Jr. loaned me his concrete saw to cut relief's in the mill pad through the low spots for drainage. I used the skid steer to move the mill, that was faster than putting the trailer kit back on. When it was time for them to leave Johnny Senior wanted to pay me. I told him I had already been paid by the loan of the saw and the debt had been passed to Johnny Junior who just grinned and said he would add it to his account.

Yesterday was one of those odd days where all kinds of little memorable things happen. The main focus for the day was the funeral I was going to. Earlier in the week my Aunt Lena died. She was my Dad's oldest sister and the oldest sibling. The only one of the kids left now is Uncle Ron who is the youngest at 76. I thought Lena was 99 but at arriving at the funeral I found she had turned 100 on November 30th.
 
Because of the distance to the funeral, about 90 miles to Clio, I was to pick up my brother-in-law who would meet me in Clare, we would go on to North Bradley and pick up my Mom and my sister Lynda who is staying there right now.
 
As I was getting off the Clare exit to pick up Pete I noticed a grinding noise start from the rear of my truck. Not loud but noticeable. Sounded like a break but other then the noise no other symptoms. I picked up Pete and proceeded for Mom's. By the time I got to Mom's house, every time I stepped on the brakes the noise got worse. Figured I must have lost a spring.
 
I picked up mom and Lynda and proceeded for Clio. We mentioned we were all hungry and knew we would be staying to eat at the dinner that was to occur after the funeral. Out of the blue I said,  "all they were going to have was Egg salad sandwiches". Pete said, "yea, probably". I don't know why I picked egg salad sandwiches other then I thought it sounded funny. We did laugh.  
 
We arrived about an hour early for the service but a lot of family was there and we had a chance to visit with some. I got a scolding for not hunting opening day at the old farm this year from cousin Gary and was told I DanG well better next year. The atmosphere was more like a reunion then a funeral. Aunt Lena had lived 100 years and had suffered only the last 6 months. We knew where she was now and knew she was having the time of her life visiting with Uncle Elmer and my Dad, and her other sister and brothers, Gramma and Grampa, and other friends that had passed before her. It was not a sad day, it was as the minister said, a celebration at the death of Lena Varner. That may sound odd, but in truth we were celebrating the way she lived her life and the place where she surely is now.
 
This was a funeral that I call a good funeral. The service revolved around Aunt Lena and her walks in life and with God. I have been to funerals where you would not know whose it was if you missed the first 5 minutes. All scripture and preaching. Instead of leaving feeling like you have said goodbye you leave feeling either guilty or with only a sense of loss.
 
It was apparent that the minister spent much time in the last 3 days talking with family about Lena from the stories that he related to us. The first story came from a cousin I did not even know existed till just before the funeral. She was one of my Dad's brothers older children from a first marriage. What caught my attention was it began that Suzie remembered visiting her aunt Lena in Flint on many occasions and that the favorite thing she remembered were the egg salad sandwiches that Lena made for her while she was there. Makes me wonder where my earlier quip about egg salad really came from. I don't remember ever having them there or for that matter anywhere where Lena may have been. All I know is that Aunt Lena had now touched me as she had Suzie with a simple egg salad sandwich.
 
After the funeral we went to the local VFW for the dinner. No, there was no egg salad, but there was lots of food. I forgot to mention what Lynda said as we left the funeral home that made me burst into laughter.  We were already outside and she said, "wow, its good to stand up and let some fresh air in". I guess I think differently then normal cause I found that wildly amusing to her disdain. She loves me so much.
 
Lynda said something else at the dinner that caught my attention, that of course I had to play up. There were many more unknown relatives at the dinner. My cousin Gary, who had already scolded me about hunting was pointing some out to me that he knew and he knows them all.( Gary is a decade older them me and sort of the family historian and about the same age as Lynda) Lynda walked up and Gary said to her "Lynda, why don't you take Jeff around an introduce him to some of these folks" Lynda replied, "well, I really don't like to do that." Huh? O.K. Sis, I'm real proud of you too. :D  
 
Later on we were sitting at a table with my cousin Rita and her friend Bob. My Sisters and Rita were discussing Christmas shopping, and a store called Bauners (sp?) in Frankenmuth Michigan. It is known as the biggest, all year round, Christmas store. Rita said. "The best time to shop at Bauners is on Halloween. The store is almost empty" I said, "Rita, can I go with you next year? I think I would like to go trick or treating there dressed as Jesus" She gave me a horrified look and said that deep down I must truly be evil and twisted. Man, it just seemed to make perfect sense to me.
 
Aunt Lena had been an old lady all my life. My earliest memories of her were her arrival at our home every year with Uncle Elmer just shortly before Christmas. She bought me a single pair of socks every year until I was 14. As a kid I always thought "what a cheap gift". Aunt Lena always wore one of those old hair nets. You know the kind, you don't see it until you get close and then when you do it looks like an onion bag. She was dynamic and animated and the head of the Brokaw clan. She was there for Christmas to check on her family, one of her brothers, to make sure his family was O.K. during the holidays. She did this with all the brothers and her sister. As I found out yesterday, Lena had been doing this for all her years. When she was married to Elmer and left the farm during the depression, She always came home to make sure the family had what they needed. Uncle Ron said there would have never have been Christmas presents on the farm if not for Lena.  
 
Aunt Lena was a fixture at the old Farm. Even though she and Elmer lived in flint, it seemed when ever we went to the farm as I was growing up they would be there. Lena would be pumping water outside at the well for cooking and cleaning, Elmer would be on the roof patching with another old piece of rolled roofing of a different color or cutting up deadwood for the wood cook stove or the potbelly stove in the center of the old house. When you drove in Aunt Lena dropped everything would throw her hands up in the air then gather up her skirt and rush the car. She would grab both sides of your head and kiss you then let go just long enough to gather you back up and hug you. Then she would say "Are you still smoking? Its going to kill you!"  Actually she only said that to me later in my life as I would drive over to hunt. She still grabbed my face and gave me that hug even when I had reached adulthood. I was still one of the younger Brokaws that was under her protection.  
 
 I forgot to mention. Aunt Lena was ALWAYS there for opening day of hunting. The house would be open and the food plentiful especially the sinkers, Aunt Lena's doughnuts, or fried cakes as she called them. Simple plain doughnuts that I miss so much. They didn't taste that great and many times were a little old but they were made for us. As I think back and picture myself at the old table before daylight with my family from around the state I can't remember ever seeing Lena sit. In my minds eye I still see her flitting from place to place talking and doing and taking care of the family.
 
In recent years Lena's Daughter, Edna, has taken the job of overseeing the old house and is there every opening day of hunting season. She was always there before but now it is she who grabs my face and kisses me and then steps back and says "Are you going to church?" She gathers me back up and hugs me and then walks me to the old house. Edna is in her 70's. She has always seemed like an aunt to me instead of a cousin because of our age difference. She talks of Family and of God and of the old memories in the Brokaw house. Aunt Lena continues to take care of the Brokaw clan through others. Through her we have learned the importance of family and god and how to touch one another where it counts. the heart.  
 
On the way home from the funeral I started talking about suddenly remembering getting socks till I was 14. Lynda said if it wasn't for my younger sister Jill I would have stopped getting socks at 12. I said "what do you mean?" Lynda is 11 years older then I and the last youngest child in what is referred to as mom and dad's "first Family". Anne then Connie then Lynda. Jill and I make up the "Second Family", basically started after the first litter had grown up. Lynda told me that Lena always bought them presents as kids too.
 
 Lynda always got a hairbrush that a comb fit in. The other older girls got half slips. She always wanted a half slip like the other girls got but always got the brush and comb. On Lynda's 12th birthday she got a half slip. She remembered Lena saying you are old enough now. The joke with the girls was that Aunt Lena was to cheap for a full slip. The year of Lynda's 12th birthday was the last year the girls got presents from Aunt Lena. As it turned out 12 was the limit, but if there were other children they continued to get gifts till the youngest was 12 so as not to exclude them. We did not know at the time even through two sets of kids that these gifts were not cheap. They were worth more then gold. Aunt Lena did this for every one of her brother's and her sister's families. She continued to make sure that even after the depression that all her family and each of its members got a gift for Christmas till they were old enough to understand that the gifts were not what was important. That it is the birth of Christ and the part he holds in her family that is important.
 
I dropped Mom and Lynda off in North Bradley amid the shrill of my truck brakes then Pete in Clare, and reached home about 7:00  
 
All and all, for a day at a funeral, it wasn't to bad. I started today in a 15 degree wind-chill putting new brakepads on the rear of my truck. The one break pad had its lining separate from the pad, hence the growling and scraping sound that was really bad by the time I got home. It wasn't really a job. I spent most of the time with my face in Aunt Lena's hands and thinking about having egg salad sandwiches for lunch.

I like Aunt Lena too.

Jeff, thank you for sharing your Aunt Lena with everyone.  We all have those memories that are more valued than any gift or treasure that may have belonged to a dear friend of acquaintance.  We all too, have the memorable items of one sort or another.  I have made it a point in my live the acquire bit a pieces from the Lenas, Elliots, Gerrys and Johnny Seniors or our worlds.  
I have begun collecting logging/cutter items of dear friends to hang on the walls of the Sawmill building:springboards, caulked boots (3 pairs), tin hats (5), pike poles for ponding and raft riding  (4), firefighter backfire torches, branding hammers (12), hand felling and bucking saws (32), twin horse logging tongs, spike hooked whiskey bottles (to lube the felling and bucking saws, etc. Each has an owner and a story.  Most owners are gone now but they gave me a part of themselves to share and display for others to see and know about.  Someday, who will know and care beyond those of us who have done the collecting?   I do know that I will find  someone to share them with for another generation or two.

A couple of weeks ago I got time to go up and take some pictures around my Uncle Chick's old circle sawmill.  In another couple of years,  I think it would take a metal detector to find it.

I posted the pictures on a page on my website if you would like to see them.

Pictures of Uncle Chick's Sawmill 2003 (http://wardensawmill.members.ktis.net/pageucmill.htm)

Here is a link back to one of the first post I made on the FF telling how I helped Uncle Chick saw on this mill some 25 years ago.  

Fist Cirlce Sawmill experiance (https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=988820434;start=20#36)

A little later on are pictures of the Uncle Chick and Aunt Nellie working the mill in same area where it now stands.

Uncle Chick and Aunt Nellie working the mill (https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=988820434;start=40#59)

A'm trying to gather more info on the mill and engine before all the sources are gone.  My cousin says the mill is a Fisher Davis but that's all he knows.

Bibbyman,

Thanks for posting the pictures of your Uncle Chick's sawmill. As a fellow who grew up around circle mills I always like to see other folks outfits, even if they are growing up weeds. Here in PA there are a lot of fellows restoring the old steam engines and sawmills and exhibiting them at antique tractor shows. Within forty-five minutes of me there are three fairgrounds set up permanently for antique farm equipment shows, all with sawmills. Two of them run off steam, one is a 00 Frick set up like your Uncle Chick's. Maybe someone in your area would be interested in your outfit. It's not worth alot where it sets, but in the right hands it might come to life again.

Frickman

Right now, there is not enough gold in California to buy this engine and mill.  Uncle Chick would find some way to break out of the retirement home and club somebody with his walker! >:(

10 to 20 years ago old mills like this were on about every 10'th farm and sold for scrap prices at estate auctions.  There are still a few around yet today but and very neglected and incomplete but the families won't sell them.

They didn't arrive in a big shiny custom bus followed up by a semi rig full of stage equipment and enough electronics to launch the Space Shuttle.  They were just four men and one woman who's combined age would surely exceed 300 years. They sat on café chairs aligned against the back wall of the little restaurant and picked and sang Ol'time County tunes. (I asked Mary if she could identify any of them from the lineup as her Ol'Fart customers.  She said they are all beginning to look alike.)

About two months ago Mary had spotted a small ad in the local paper. It was a simple invitation to come try out 'Connie's Corner Café" – now under new management. One cold Sunday morning we drove up to the little town of about 800 gave it a try for breakfast.  Looked like the lady running the place also ran the grill.  Her husband still wearing his MoDOT (Missouri Department of Transportation) uniform and ball cap bussed the tables. The food was good and the crowd was small.  We returned a couple more times in the following weeks.

Friday night a week ago we had a chance to get out 'on the town' so we headed up to the café.  To our surprise,  there was a band playing against the back wall (that was only about 30 feet from the front wall).  They didn't hit every note or make every change up just right but their sound was very "authentic".  Took me back to the mid-fifties when I remember falling to sleep to the music my family played at someone's home about every Saturday night.

About 6:30 they had to fold up and leave as the one couple had to get home and baby-sit their grandchildren.  But we heard them talk it over with the management and decide they'd get together again then following Friday evening.

We made a point of freeing up our schedule to get back up there this evening.  They had the same setup against the back wall.  They really didn't have a program – it was more like a jam session.  

They did such tunes as - Wedding Bells, Room Full of Roses, Ol' Kentucky Waltz, Pretty Paper, My Pretty Fraulein, Honky-Tonk Angel.  When they sang several early Willy Nelson, Red Folly, and Hank William songs, I started hankering for a $3.00 pitcher of draft and nachos.  But then they did a medley of gospel song including – I'll Fly Away, This Little Light, Walkin' on the Water, and I saw the light.

They followed the gospel medley with "Folsom Prison Blues". They ended their session with "Send me the pillow that you dream on".  We'd finished our steak dinner about 20 minutes earlier so we got up to the register to pay.  The speaker for the band announced that they'd be back next Friday evening.  I bet we will be back too.

That's where we would be Friday night too,if we lived close by.I love that kind of music.

Good story Bibbyman.

One of my favorite old-timers died during the past year.  His name was Tommy Medlock.  He worked at a sawmill that my g-grandad ran near here and later sawmilled for himself for the rest of his life.  He was one of these guys that could raid his extensive junkpile and come up with all kinds of laborsaving doodads for the farm or sawmill.

I mentioned on another thread about building a house and having three carpenters that had a background in hunting and trapping,  picking music and sawmilling.  Well they all got a lot of their background from Tommy Medlock (who picked the banjo) as all worked at his mill,  two of them being his grandsons.  

We got to reminiscing about Tommy during 'bean time'  the other day.

Some of the mechanical marvels at his mills were the powerunit from a car with an automatic transmission that I mentioned on another thread in the past.  An old lefthanded mill that he once had that was powered by a rear mounted bus engine that ran backward (which eliminated setting the power unit ene for end and running a shaft to the other end of the engine).  In later years his innovations allowed him to continue milling with a weakened body and failing eyesight.  One was his carriage receder.  Originally you twisted the handle on the lever that advanced the blocks and the blocks receded by means of a heavy coil spring.  Tommy changed his so that when you twisted the handle two car starter motors powered it back.  His scale got to where he couldn't see it due to size and deteriation.  One of the carpenters told how he had ridden his bike to see his grandpa at the mill.  Tommy asked him "Son,  you don't ride that bike much anymore,  do you?"   The next day Tommy had a new large scale.  It was made with a bicycle wheel and turned by a bicycle chain and sprockets ;D


Tommy's sons ,  grandsons,  and neighbor boys have for the most part turned out to be honest,  industrious,  and good natured.  They are outstanding hunters and trappers and can get together (and do about every Thursday night)  and pick some outstanding bluegrass.  You can sure see and feel Tommy's presence in them.

Uncle Chick passed away early this morning.  He was going on 91 in November.   He was able to visit with his sons and daughters just yesterday.
(https://forestryforum.com/images/YaBBImages/userpics/UncleChick2.JPG)

I've wrote about Uncle Chick and his steam engine powered sawmill a couple of time here on the forum.  Here are some links back to them.

Circle mill experience: Part 1. (https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=988820434;start=20#36)

Circle mill experience: Part 2. (https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=988820434;start=20#37)

Uncle Chick and Aunt Nellie (https://forestryforum.com/cgi-bin/board/YaBB.pl?board=general;action=display;num=988820434;start=40#59)

Link to picture taken of Uncle Chick's sawmill last summer (http://wardensawmill.members.ktis.net/pageucmill.htm)

Aunt Nellie prceded him in death about two years ago. Uncle Chick was the last of the three uncles I had that ran sawmills.

Bib,

Sorry to hear of the passing of your uncle.
By his age, he lived a long life. Lots of sawmill heritage in your family.
That ol Case Steamer needs to be put up and or kept up. They are gettin to be a rare find.
Again, sorry to hear of your loss.

That's too bad, Gary.

It's a good thing he had you to immortalize him.  :)

Sorry,  Bibb.

Our older relatives are sure missed.  With them went knowledge and skills that are gone forever.

I'd like to think I picked up some things from him.  At least a gift of gab.  He would have fit right in here.

Is that where you got that from? :D

Sorry for your loss Bibbyman. I know there are thousands of questions I wish I had asked my Dad before he passed away. Sounds like you got some good stories,ideas and memories from Uncle Chick.....thanks for sharing with us.

Sandmar

Bibbyman, I'm sorry for the loss of your Uncle. It's never easy losing family even when it is expected.  

Thanks for your thoughts at this time.

But you know what?  I can't say I'm really sad for Uncle Chick.  It's hard to explain but any sadness I feel is for myself and for his sons and daughters, etc. he left behind.

Uncle Chick's old body just wore out on him just like his old steam engine.  They both had continued to go a long ways after their time had passed.  Uncle Chick's daughter-in-law said to me last evening that he had said a number of times of late – "I don't mind dieing,  it's just the struggle it takes to get there."

When I was a kid, every family get-together included all the men folk congregating around the stove,  or under a shade tree (depending on weather) and telling stories.  These men were kids during WWI, lived through the Great Depression,  read the daily headlines of Bonny and Clyde,  and fought in WWII.  They told stories and accounts that had been handed down to them from the first settling of Missouri, the Civil War, and the outlaw times of Frank and Jessie James.  

Now I only have fragments of these stories rattling around in my head and I wish I had them recorded somehow.

Thanks for letting us get to know your uncle Bib.

I moved to Dover, Minnesota in Oct. 1996. At the time I was working 12 hour days at IBM. One evening, after a huge snowfall and a long day at work, I was driving home dreading the thought of having to shovel out the driveway. When I got home, the driveway was clear of snow right down to the concrete. Later I found out that Pete, a retired man who lived across the street, not only cleared my drive but the other neighbors too. Over the years, Pete pretty much kept the neighborhood's driveways clear of snow. Well, this Winter, Pete started stumbling and moving real slow. He was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. All the neighbors kept his driveway clear of snow and we all visit him often. Pete moved to a hospice last Sunday. I went to visit him today and I could tell he recognized me even though he can't speak and is pretty much paralyzed. He hasn't eaten since Sunday and the doctor is giving him 2 more days. DanG I'm gonna miss Pete. The whole neighborhood is gonna miss him. One thing for sure though. The neighborhood will make sure his wife will never have to clear snow from her driveway and will be there whenever she needs help.  It's been hard watching him decline in health. But I just can't imagine what he's gone through the past few months.  One of the best neighbors I ever had.

What a great neighbor!!

Yes Ron, Pete's a great neighbor.  The heck of it is, he never told anyone when he cleared the drive or mowed their lawn. He just quietly did it, year after year. I went to see him again today. He can't talk and can only move his left arm but I could see a gleam in his eye when I joked with him. He hasn't eaten or taken fluids since Sunday, so I don't know how much longer he has. Yep, Pete's a great neighbor.

Pete passed away July 4th.  My neighborhood lost a DanG good neighbor, but he will always be remembered by those that lived by him.  I'm gonna miss ol' Pete.

Sorry, Charlie.  I know you will miss him.  Take care of his family.

I Love you

His wife, Mary, will be well taken care of by all Pete's neighbors.  She'll never have to clear snow or mow her lawn, that is for sure. And anytime she needs something done around the house, it'll get done no problem. :)  

You're a good man, Charlie.   .....to be such a little twerp. ;D :D

 :D You're just trying to get back at me. You'll never get even though.  

Pete's going to be a watching you now.  Don't you boys be playing any practical jokes around Mary's house, ya hear? :D
(https://forestryforum.com/images/03_21_04/tom-seesaw-opt.jpg)

I lost a good friend a few days ago.  He was one of my "Old Folk" friends.  About 5 or 6 years ago, I received an e-mail from a woodworker that lived in Crestview, Florida. He had seen my name on a woodworking forum and was just curious if I knew any Cadenheads in his area since one of them built his home.  From that e-mail, began our friendship.  Warren was then about 79 and a very accomplished woodworker. He not only helped me with advice but also instilled in me to always put forth my best effort when creating something from wood.  He was a child from the depression and if he could make it, he would not buy it.  He made his own wood inlays, he bought brass ash trays and candle holders from Goodwill to make brass pieces for his projects.  He built furniture and he also was a woodturner. Not only was he a craftsman but was a very giving person.  Once, he found out I was making 10 spinning tops, for my woodturning club to be donated to Toys For Tots.  I sent him my plans and he also turned 10 spinning tops like mine and mailed them up to be donated. Each top took about an hour to make, so his donation was no small gesture.  He also sent Donna a beautiful inlayed cherry jewlery box one time.  The tray pops out and all the brass pieces (hinges) used to be an ash tray.  :)
Warren was a veteran of WWII, serving as a Radarman on a salvage ship in the Pacific, around Australia and New Guinia. His ship did the repairs on the battleships damaged in the war.  He lost his hearing when the Japanese bombed one of our ammo dumps and he was just a little too close for comfort.  He was proud of his service to his country.
In March of 2003, I made a "Old Folks" trip to visit people in my life that might just not be around much longer.  One of my stops was to visit Warren and his wife Martha and I'm so glad I made the effort.  Warren let me sleep in "The Presidential Suite" ;) at his home.  Warren is gone now, I miss him and I'll never forget him, his humor or his giving nature.   
     

He sounds like a good man, Charlie, one that any of us would be proud to know. Thanks for sharing a little bit of him with us. I am sorry for your loss.

Sorry you lost your friend Warren,Charlie. I find that as I get older the more I learn from older folks and the more there loss affects me. May many Warrens cross all our paths in life.

Sandmar

Thanks Patty and Sandmar.  It seems strange not being able to receive his humorous e-mails or to discuss woodworking problems.  But he did leave me with some very good memories. My prayers are for his wife and children for they were the most important thing in his life.

Sorry for your loss. I hate it when the old ones go. the truest of friends I have had were the old folks that I have known, and the hardest to let go of.

My girlfriend works in an assisted living facility, and I try to spend time up there as I can getting to know some of the residents. Lots of "children of the depression" left,a nd several retired engineers, lawyers, and some really crafty homemakers who have it together still. Most of these folks come and go as they please, and I get a kick out of it when the "help" tries to tell one of them what is "good for them, and they give them the rundown of how the "help" might need their diapers changed.....hahahaha.....nothing funnier than fiesty old folks.

I watched one who is in the locked unit help a couple of the workers with thier college algebra like it was nothing. It seems this particular one was a principal in a school somewhere at one time, and while he can't remember what he had for lunch he can still remember the old days and how to be quite the gentleman.

I love old folks!

Doc

Sorry for your loss.

On one hand, I'm happy for the good people I have known who have passed over because I know where they are and what could be a better eternal future but I can't help the feeling of sadness and grief for those who are left behind.  My Dad is on his way soon and I have been reading the series of "Reminiscences"  which he has written and sent to all the kids over the last few years.  Times sure were different in the first 40 years of the last century.  My memory isn't the best and it is so very good to have his notes.  He is the sort of guy that I wish I had as a friend while growing up too bad I was born too late to be childhood chums.

That dosen't make much sense as he is my Dad but Oh well.

Last Wednesday, Walter passed on.  It was in his sleep and they say it was peaceful and painless.  "They" always say that.

I met Walter in 1984 or '85.   I had just bought this place and he lived way up toward the head of the road on the other side of the County Prison Farm.  He was a small, slight built man who had lost many of  his fingers.  I never know how.  I always thought if funny that his wife was missing hers too.

He had worked at the ship yard  years ago and finally ended his working carreer as a carpenter, dabbling in concrete from time to time until his health made him stop.

Walter had problems with Arthritis.   His hips and knees were worn out.  To get his exercise, he peddled a bicycle the length of our 6 mile road every day or so.   That's a 12 mile trip if he did the whole thing.  Walter didn't just ride, he had a stick with a nail in it and would pick up aluminum cans and larger pieces of trash that Litterers threw out of their car windows.   He probably spent more time astraddle of the bike and walking than he did peddling.  Everybody got to know Walter.  Walter would stop and talk, and talk,  and talk.  He had a speech impediment as well as poor diction.  I could catch about one out of a hundred words he said, but he didn't let that stop him.  If you were to speak very softly and try not to move your lips or tongue, you could get an idea of what a conversation with Walter would be like.

Walter grew a big garden.  He and his family of cousins live in a sort of commune and share the garden plot.  Some of us would get vegetables like corn and collards, brought to us by bike.  He was always offerering for anyone to stop by and get some at his house.  I think he was really starved for company. 

His family is close and I found that his oldest son was married to the sister of my friend Chester, who lived across the road till his death in 1995.

The marriage didn't make it, but there were two children that kept all of the folks together. Josh and Laura visited a lot on this end of the road and I guess that is one reason we saw so much of Walter.

I sawed Walter's barn twice.  The first time was to replace a shed that he used for firewood that  he built 10 years before.  It was rotten and termite ridden.  He bought enough stuff to build a 20x 40 pole barn with wings and had his son put it up.  I took the mill to his house and cut up a big pine that went into it too.

Walter's economic mind was stuck in the '50's and I was the only venue he had to buy for what he thought was a fair price.  I gave him a lot of stuff and "sold" him stuff for 15¢ and 20¢ when the going rate was 50¢ and  $1 a board foot.  What the heck, I thought.  He's a neighbor, fixed income and I like the old coot too.

The second time I sawed the barn, was after a storm blew over a big pine tree year before last and crushed the back 1/3 of the barn.  I resisted his requests for help with the tree for a long time.  I didn't want to get involved in  sawing the metal that I knew was in it and, shucks, I'm not as perky as I used to be either.  Finally, I did go saw the log up.  Walter like to burn stuff, so he started a fire on the stump, split the logs with his splitter and kept a fire going on that stump for the better part of a year.  He would take one of those plastic white chairs out there, sit by the fire and wave at folks as they drove by.

I accumulated enough stuff to give to him to repair his barn and he got someone to fix it just before he died.

I felt so sorry for  him in his last days.  He would say to me, "I eat and eat and still lose weight.  The doctors don't know what is wrong.". 

Well, I did.  Remember James Hill, my friend from Folkston? He did the same thing and died from cancer.  I figured that poor old Walter was in the same fix.  I was right.

His son got messed up with a guy that had a roofing company and they ended up being partners, or something.  The guy got put in jail and Walter's son kept on building roofs without permits and using the other guy's license.  It wasn't long before he was in jail too.  All the company trucks and equipment were parked in Walter's yard along with an old airplane hulk.  Walter called me several times, at his wits end, to buy some trucks or dig a hole for him to bury all the old roofing in.   I refused.  Walter didn't understand why there would be a problem with burying all those old shingles behind his barn and then he could get rid of the trucks easier.  I didn't want to got to jail too.

He got worse and worse.  I would always honk and wave as I went buy, whether they were in the yard or not.  Have been doing it for years.  I waved last Sunday as I brought the mill home.  they were standing by the back door talking with their son.'

Wednesday he left us.  They had a viewing at the house from 6 to 8 Friday and the funeral yesterday.  I went to neither.  His yard was packed with family and well wishers.  He was a long-time Lutheran and charter member of the local church.  I'm sure there were enough people. 

I'll still be around though.  After all the hullabaloo is over, his wife will be taking care of that place by herself.  I figure I'll be worth something then more so than a face at the funeral.

He was seventy-nine.  They say he looked good laying there.  They always do.

Walter had a couple of persimmon trees that he planted next to the road that will bare to the point of destruction every year.  He and I loved persimmons.  He was always waving me down or calling me on the phone to come visit and get some persimmons.  I'll picture his tiny frame and hear his garbled voice every time I pass those trees from here on.  Walter's persimmons will probably end up in my refrigerator again.  He has left me with a lot.

Great tribute Tom, I can picture Walter. Thanks for sharing that.

Tom
Thanks for sharing. Reminds me of my 'old' neighbor. Still keeping his place up and can barely move. Very bad heart, and just before Christmas he called me. Said they turned off his heart fibrilator as it was just overworking his very weak heart, and he told me someone else was holding his hand now. In so many words, he was saying good-bye. Then in a few days he called again. Kept calling and now he calls when he has a question about getting the lawn equipment started. He's picking up sticks, mowing lawn (about 5 acres at least), and yesterday roto-tilled his garden with a walk-behind tiller (goes to the car to puff some oxygen in between passes across the garden). I don't know how he even pulls the rope to get the engine started.
He has yet to figure out how he will plant the seeds, as when he gets down (like the other day when a bee stung him while removing old stalks from his pussy willow bush and he fell over backwards) he cannot get back up unless he crawls over to a fence. He is a tough hombre' to say the least. Mind still sharp, and has will power to be active that won't quit. Makes me look like real piker in comparison. But he is leaving his mark and will be proud when he gets called.
I was very sad and cried a bit when he called me in December, that I would lose and miss this good friend.
But he keeps on keepin' on.  :)
And I will have good memories of him, like Tom has of Walter.

It sounds like Walter was quite the character and a good man but unaware of the complexities of our current society.  Maybe that is a good thing.  I'm sorry that you lost a good neighbor Tom and I'm sorry to see another "Old Folk" pass.  Somehow though, they all seem to leave a little bit of themselves with us.

I was visiting with Dad the other evening.  He mentioned,  "I've got the clock in the bedroom figured out.  When it says 10:45 pm its 3:30 am."   

That reminded me of an incident some 20 years ago.  See, Dad refused to go on Daylight Savings time.  He had been self employed most all of his adult life so he kept his own time anyway.  But one day I saw him down in the lower field fixing fence.  I went down to give him a hand.  We worked at it a while and then he looked at his watch and said,  "It's 9:15.  I've got to go!  Your Mom wants to go out for supper."  I was a bit baffled because it was in the middle of the afternoon.  Well,  no only did he have to compensate for the Daylight Savings time but his watch was also off by quite a bit.  He just knew how much and adjusted for it.

I guess it's a way to exercise his mind and avoid the hassle of setting those pesky digital clocks. 

My grandfather kept two watches to cover the daylight savings issue, I do the same. Only problem is when the wife moves my watches..........

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsoldtractor2006.JPG)

Home again after a fifty year absence. 

Dad's old Farmall has been parked up at my uncle's farm for as long as I can remember.  I don't know why it was there but I suspect dad just quit using it in the mid-50's when he got an IH Cub Super C. 

It's home again now because yesterday my cousins started clearing around their dad's old farm and I was up there when the track loader pulled the old Farmall out of the tangle of thorn trees that had grown up around it.  The loader and track hoe was rowing up all the old machinery and junk that covered a couple of acres – all overgrown with brush and thorny locus. 

Lucky for the old tractor the track loader didn't do too much damage.  It got it by the rear hitch bar and a couple of teeth under the rear axle and brought it out pretty much otherwise undamaged – except it bent up the hitch bar pretty bad and broke the seat spring off.

There are a good number of parts missing but it's amazing what's still there.  Mom even picked up the crank handle that fell off in the road when I drug it home with the Terex.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsoldtactor1949.JPG)

Here is Dad and sister Dorothy Lee on the tractor in 1949 (before I was born).  Our house is now setting on the hill right behind Dad.  Our sawshed is now on the skyline to the right edge of the picture.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsunclechickshouse2006.JPG)

Here is the track hoe working around my uncle's old house.  A couple of hours later it and the old barn and other outbuildings were gone.

I sure am happy for you that you got the tractor.  Lots of people just see old iron.  I see memories and sentiment.   Even if it never runs again, it's as much a part of your life as the picture that you posted beneath it.  What a shame that the buildings had to go.  I'll bet there was a lot of living in that old house.  A metal detector run around it might find all manner of family history. 

I found a fork from my Grandmother's old homestead.  It had been destroyed and planted in pines, but my Uncle showed me where some of the buildings were located.  I gave the fork to my Uncle and wish that I still had it.   It is now long gone.

What are your plans for the old tractor?

Quote from: Tom on August 31, 2006, 08:18:22 PM

What are your plans for the old tractor?

It'll probably sink into the ground there in the next 50 years and have trees grow up around it. 

Maybe my granddaughters will someday find it again and remember it belonged to their Great Grampa George and the time their Grampa Gary drug it home and left it under the hickory tree.

Bibby
Is that an F-12 Farmall?  Hand brakes for each rear wheel? 

Glad you got it back 'home' and even if it becomes a planter, it will be home.
Fortunately you have the picture too.

My Dad started farming with a 39 M.  This spring we took it to a fellow who restores tractors as a kind of hobby.  Dad came in the mill one day all smiles and said, "I heard something I haven't heard in a long time this morning."  "What is that?"  "I heard my old M run today!"  You wouldn't think an old tractor would tickle a man so. :)  The old tractor is getting new tires, a paint job and decals, and pretty much everything restored to original equipment.  I hope it will be parade ready by next July 4th.

 Sentimental value indeed !  :)

I know the feeling.I have my Father's 1954 NAA Ford tractor.I used it a few years after he passed away to mow the fields with the sickle bar mower.Brings back alot of memories to smell the grass being made into hay.Now it needs some carburtor work to make it run better.It is in a building,with junk around it.Looks just the same way it did 20 years ago.I would like to restore it someday.Need that working garage some day.

Quote from: beenthere on August 31, 2006, 10:32:42 PM
Bibby
Is that an F-12 Farmall?  Hand brakes for each rear wheel? 

Glad you got it back 'home' and even if it becomes a planter, it will be home.
Fortunately you have the picture too.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsoldtractor200602.JPG)

I didn't get a good picture of the hand break handle(?).  I only seen one on the left side.  But I'll look again.  I bet there was one on the right side too.  My uncle was a great cobbler-upper of all manor of junk and probably borrowed it for some project.  There is only one foot peddel on the left side. 

It's got some kind of cable and pulley system that runs from the back axel area connecting to the shaft to the breaks to the front that's connected to some kind of swing arm.  I suspect it's in some way intened to raise and lower cutivators or something. 

I'll have to interview Dad on the tractor.  He does not know I brought it home yet.

That's bigger than the F-12.  I'd say a F-20.  The rear axels on the F-12 go strait out while the F-20's and 30's dropped down on a geared stub axel.    The cable affair is an automatic braking system.  When you turn the wheel all the way,  the brakes are automatically (via the cable) on the wheel on the side you are turning toward.  This was especially handy in cultivating 8)

We've been watching a lot of "Everybody Loves Raymond" reruns on the Dish lately.  In an episode the other night Raymond bought his dad Frank a stack of CDs with old jazz music on them.  They were a gesture to replace the vinyl albums Raymond was accused of destroying when he was a kid.   Frank was really not interested in the CDs and proclaimed he didn't have anything to play them on.  Raymond reminded him that he'd given Frank a CD player for Christmas. A search found the CD player in the basement covered with a tarp along with all manors of electronic gifts they'd received in the past few years.

As the show progressed, Raymond insisted on Frank listening to the jazz music on the CD.  But Frank didn't want to listen to that "c...p".  Meanwhile Robert had searched and found some old vinyl albums and played one on the old turntable.  It was scratchy and the sound poor.  But Frank proclaimed,  "Now that's music!"

I told you that story so I could tell you a real life parable. 

My folks are getting more sedentary and set in their ways.  Not much entertains them.  Dad watches Fox New and the Weather Channel when he's not watching the country music shows or local new and weather.  (He's got a schedule where he switches from one to another local channel to get the same weather.)  Dad has controllers arrayed around his chair. Mom has no input or control of the TV or other devices.

The other day I was visiting with Dad and mentioned I'd got a DVD movie with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon named "Out to Sea".  He sounded interested in seeing it so I told him I'd bring it up. 

I've brought movies up before and they will just set there on the table in front of him for months until I asked him how he liked it and he'll reply "I haven't had time to watch it. Here, you want it back?"  But this time I Mom saw me give him the movie and asked about it.  I offered to put it in and start it but Dad said the news was coming on so they couldn't watch it now.

On the next visit I asked if they got a chance to watch it.  They did but had quite a struggle getting the combination DVD/VCR on the right mode to get the DVD player to work.  Then they stopped it to eat lunch.  When they returned they couldn't get anything to work.  Mom got on the floor and poked buttons on the DVD player while Dad poked buttons on all of his four controllers.  They finally got it to play. But then they couldn't figure out how to get it to "rewind".  But the finally got the door to open so they could get the DVD out.

Dad was glad to give me the evil DVD back.  I told him I had another couple Walter Mattheu and Jack Lemmon movies – Grumpy old Men and Grumpy old Men II.  Dad announced that he didn't want to fool with any more DVDs.

Mom's birthday just passed and we had quite a struggle finding something for her.  Dad's birthday is coming up and we have no idea of what to get him.  And then there is Christmas.  I don't know how much stuff we've got them that they just leave in a box and store up someplace.

I give up..

Quote from: Bibbyman on November 01, 2006, 09:07:33 PM


I give up..

Don't give up Bibbyman, just keep on living and  in a few years we will be the older folks and our children will complain that we don't know how to operate the new fangled things. ;D  I don't know how to operate some of my  gadgets now, but don't tell my kids. ::)

Bob getting older one day at a time

Bib I feel yer pain. I had a hard time doing things for my mom and birth mother in their later years, they either didn't want anything or had no place to put it but you know what, I really miss the arguments.  :(

My grandfather is 93, sharp as a tack and does not consider himself old folk. I visit with him on the phone a couple times a week and go to visit every couple weeks. He still lives at home by himself does his own cooking and washing. Can't see very well. Yesterday he was telling me about the snow fall we had sunday, bout three inches cleared a third of his (huge) driveway with a shovel, had a snooze on the couch. After the snooze he decided to get out his old snowblower yank it to life and headed out.... the neighbour boys had done the rest! He was pleased in a way but was really looking forward to throwing a little snow. Age is a state of mind I think, he refers to 70 year olds that are whining or Danging him off as old bsterds. I love him to no end and will miss him when he goes. I wish I had made a record of all the things he has told me of over the years, the changes he has seen are unbelieveable. He has often said that the time in history he has lived likely are the best that the human race will ever experience.
sawdust

Bibby
I wouldn't push him. My Dad was set in his ways, and I didn't try to change him. He had his schedule, and I made conversation talking about the things that were in his world, if he wanted to talk about them. Buying him something was a negative, and I believe twas because he couldn't reciprocate (much as he would have liked to do that).

Now, I have children who think that I have lots of time and would like to (or should like to) read books. The last book I read was one I picked out, and read. Not one someone else thought I should read. Maybe they think I spend too much time on the 'ol computer (might be true, but I enjoy it when I do). :)

I enjoy deciding for myself what I want to do, one minute to the next. I enjoy some old re-runs of Becker and Seinfeld on occasion, but there are not many others that I find entertaining. If your Dad can get Fox News and the Weather Channel, I'd think he could also get the old movies that you mentioned getting. I've watched Walter Mathau on several occasions in movies on the satelite TV.

But I'm probably a grinch, as I refuse to go to movies at a theatre. I'd rather watch a sport activity that isn't pre-planned such as are the sit-coms, movies, reality TV, antique auction, etc. etc. etc.  See, I fit the Old(er) Folks thread to a T.   ;D ;D

But I think it is good that you have your folks interest at heart and can visit with them.   

And I miss my Dad and Mom. Wish I'd a been able to spend more time with them. But they retired and moved to Arkansas, which was a 15 hour drive one way.

Bibby,

You could try what I do for my mum with these electronic things.

I write her a set of instructions.

SIMPLE ones, with the obvious stuff stated, for example:

Turn DVD Player on (press red button on remote, top right corner).
Open Disk Tray (Press "Eject" button, top centre of remote).
Place disk in tray (GENTLY, with the shiny side facing down, the colourful side up).
Press "Eject" button again to take the disk tray back into the player.
Now make sure the TV is on the AudioVisual channel (describe how).
Press the Start button (in the middle of the remote, the triangle)
Press start when you're asked questions in the DVD, use the up and down buttons to move around the screen if you need to.

If you need to pause the movie, press the   ||   Button.

When the movie is finished, Just press 'Eject" and take the disk out.

REMEMBER DVD's do not need rewinding. And they cannot be bent. Also make sure they're put away directly as they scratch easilly. If you need to handle it, try not to put your fingers onto the shiny side if you can help it.


See?

Try that, maybe it'll help.

I print them out in BIG WRITING and then laminate them.

asy :D

Dad will be 89 in a couple of weeks.  His mind is pretty good but his knees have been blown for years and keep getting worse.  Now he just "ooof, ooofs" around in pain.  His hearing is shot too but there is no why he'll admit it.  Now his eyesight is going.  I figure it's why he watches Fox News and the Weather Channel so much is because he can read a lot of it - either on the screen or on the ticker across the bottom. 

It's impossible to get him to watch an old movie.  I've tried.  He'll say, "I've seen that one."  Yea,  back in '37 when it came out!  Same with old re-runs.  The Beverly Hillbillies are out on DVD and the girls just love them.  But Dad won't watch them because he's seen them. 

Last fall all Dad talked about was some kid named Church that was like a great grandson of Hank Williams and could do his songs.  He listed off the old songs he sings.  I looked for a CD of his music but couldn't find one.  But I did find a CD collection of Hank Williams so I got that.  At Christmas, he pretty much pitched it aside in disappointment. I figured the real thing would be better than some kid trying to sound like Hank.  But no, he wanted the version the kid did.  I'm sure he's not even listened to it.

Mom just turned 79.  She's in frail health in a number of ways.  Her mind is slipping pretty bad.  But she can see and hear great.  She used to do all the women's crafts things like knit, embroidery, quilt, etc.  But she won't even try being interested in it now.  Says it make her too nervous. 

A couple of years back she showed some interest in sewing.  She'd had a couple of new sewing machines over the past 10 years and couldn't get along with them because they were "too fancy".  Mary went out and bought her a simple unit.  She was so pleased and had it set up right in front of here in the living room for a couple of years.  She never used it once but was always going to – after she got her glasses fixed or her hand quit hurting, or her doctor's appointment on Tuesday.

She used to read, at least magazines and tabloids.  She use to love crossword puzzles and find the word games and we'd load her up at birthdays and Christmas with these items. They made great gifts from the girls.  But she won't do these now. 

All she does now is obsess over insurance papers and doctor's visits and appointments and her ailment of the day. Her big activity is talking on the phone.  She'll even listen to and argue with recorded messages. 

She lives for to see the girls in the morning when they're dropped off to get on the bus and in the evening when they get off the bus.  Dad has a snack waiting for them right beside his chair when they come in.

There are still a number of older folks in the neighborhood that are old friends and relation to the folks.  Many years back they all attended dances together and then later had a card party at someone's house every week.  But now they won't even visit with these people – even to talk on the phone. The only time they'll see them is at their funeral.

Quote from: Bibbyman on November 02, 2006, 05:05:45 AM
A couple of years back she showed some interest in sawing. 

Freudian slip???  I couldn't for the life of me think of what your mum was doing SAWING at mid 70's (well, not for the FIRST time anyway!).

Sounds sad Bibby, but I guess so long as they're enjoying themselves, in their own way, it's good :D

asy :D

I to have aging parents  Mom is 81 and Dad is 83

This has been a very tough year for my Mom she has halftimes  and it is a brutal disease ! To be sitting in your own house and have the feeling of wanting to go home .... thinking of a house that she grew up in or maybe her first apt.  She has stopped what I called her wanderings  when her hip went bad and come to find there is not much left of her hip. She is using a walker but I want her in the wheel chair  for fear of her falling down and breaking bones.

Dad has not been able to hear in years and does his TV reading from the words on TV but still insists on having the TV at Full volume.  He does some light cooking but I handle most of their meals because I don't think they can live on hotdog's and tuna fish .

Anyhow it is tough but I dread the day that I have to drive up the driveway of a nursing home and that will have to happen   but not today .

I also have a yellow lab that is 9 years old  so he is aging too and another character in our household .

This forum is great both for sawmill info and good people

have a great day

RED

RED, I cared for my mother until it all got way over my head and I couldn't provide the care she needed.  I found an organization that I contracted with that would send a person over as often as I wanted (I had her come half a day, three days a week), to handle non-medical things such as bathing, cleaning her rooms, washing and visiting with her. They became very good friends. As mom's health continued to decline, I was worried because I didn't want her in a nursing home. The social worker assigned to her (and she was a good one) found a Foster home for mom. She moved into this young ladies house who also had one other patient. It was sad for me to have to move her from my house but it turned out well. They really took care of mom in ways that I could not have and mom was very happy there. Believe me RED, there is help out there for the elderly. It's difficult to find out what is available in each locale and best if you can tap into the Social System, but it's there. Even with help, the burden is still on your shoulders but a lot more bearable.

We tried to talk to our folks about looking into an "assisted living" apartment in town.  Of course,  they don't need assisted living.  That's for old people.  They just have my sister and BIL take them to most of their DR appointments and run out prescriptions and stuff every other day.  I take care of most of the house maintenance and we back up on DR appointments and drug runs – plus a hundred other little errands.

Mom just had another breast surgery two weeks ago and has a health nurse come out about every other day.

Dad was able to mow the lawn and bring the trash down to the dumpster at our place.  But the last time he mowed the lawn it aggravated his chronic bronchitis so much he's not mowed the lawn since.  He's also stopped bringing the trash down in the Mule when it was hot in the summer. But it's been nice weather for the past couple of months and he's not resumed that task. 

When Mom was in the hospital this spring,  Mary went up about three times a week and washed cloths, dishes, cleaned house.  Each time she'd throw out a bunch of junk. (Like Mom collected all the bed pan and accessories from each hospital visit.)

They have an entry room on the side of the kitchen that's about 8x10.  Its two steps down so now they don't use it except to pitch the trash into.  I'll go up and visit and they'll mention the room is getting awful full.

I've built them a ramp to the front porch and have added grab rails and handles everywhere they could need them.

Dad and I go together to get haircuts now.  He really looks forward to the event. Mom really gets jealous that he gets to do something without her.

But they don't need assisted living.

Thanks Charlie 

we have had people in the house and it is a very difficult thing for my parents  so this is working for today ....  I also have a brother  that has come to visit 3 times this year 

Anyway  I  have known  their  Dr for almost 30 years and we are in agreement that this is the best situation for  today   we have a few plans for each situation that may come up

I like to say that they did for me when I was a baby   
now I can do  as best I can  for them 
But  when I was a baby I did not have a credit card to order anything from TV
or keys to a car ....  so unfortunately  they dont have them anymore either

the circle of life
have a great day
RED

My wife and I each have our Mothers in assisted living facilities, her's after a series of mini-strokes, mine after a very bad stroke.  It's not necessarily the best solution, but both are warm, dry, well fed and comfortable.  In each case it was about the only solution at the time.  Both, at 89, are doing as well as can be expected.

The thing we try to remind each other and others of is what we see every day.  Trying to make sure we plan ahead,  have some idea what we intend to do when we reach that point, stay conscious of the things we will won't do when we are unable to live on our own.  And often times remind ourselves that it isn't entirely the same person in there that we have know the rest of our lives.

The road to our farm comes through my late Uncle Chic's estate.  The farm is broken into three parcels now.  The largest of 80 acres is jointly owned by three cousins.  This summer they had a large track-hoe and track-loader come out and work three days pushing out brush that had grown up around a junk yard of old cars, truck and farm equipment.  They also pushed down the old log house, barn, and other outbuildings.

This past week I've spent some time up there helping the cousins (who are older than I and live a good ways away) clean up some of the rack heaps and smooth some of the ripped up ground.

Although they had a guy come in a haul scrap metal off for a week,  there is still a lot of junk laying around. 

Here are a couple of interesting items I recovered.

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsdeeremansur200611.JPG)

I took note of this planer box with Deere & Mansur on the cast iron lid.  I looked up the history of Deere and found that Deere & Mansur produced planters and maybe other equipment from around 1860 to maybe 1900.  Probably some JD guy can tell us more.

The wetstone I found by Uncle Chick's mill. (they didn't scrap it – not yet anyway)  I remember him using it in some step in sharpening the blade.  He'd spin the blade and lightly brush the stone against the teeth. Note the 1/2" facets worn across the face of the stone worn by the teeth.  I now have it hanging on the wall in my sawshed.

I  have posted before about my parents

My Mom has Alzheimers  82  my Dad  83 just  began tests at the hospital  to find out about something going on with his stomach/colon

Yesterday  I began the process to get Mom into the nursing home  it truely is one of the toughest decisions  I have ever had to make . But I know it is the right decision .

I have learned so much about life and trying to take care of  both my parents sometimes I joked  about it  in the early stages ,  2 years ago    that  it is like having twins  that are 2 years old    But  these 2 yr olds  have credit cards to buy anything off of the TV   and can get into the car  and disappear  for hours    those were very hard things to stop  and  I wish I had done it earlier

Of course there are some very special moments  like yesterday talking with Mom and she knew  she just had a birthday  but she did not know how old she was
I told here she was 52  and she said  yes I am 52    it was great

another story I like is  a few years ago  they were settled in for the night I was outback with my yellow lab   all of a sudden  I see the lights come on in the bedroom, the hallway , the living room , kitchen ...hummm whats up now
I go inside  and both of them checking their  Lottery numbers for some Big jackpot
they were like 2 excited teenagers that time     that just maybe they won the lottery

thanks for listening  and this is a time of year  for giving thanks
I am very thankful that up until now Mom has been at home in her own bed and now things are going to change

RED

Good luck to you red.  You are very lucky to have been able to spend time with your mom and dad and to be able to take care of them. I think that alzheimers is one of the worst things that can happen to a person.  You have made your mothers life as good as it can be. 8)  Good for you!
   Have a happy thanksgiving and continue to count you blessings.

Yep, Red, you are lucky to have the opportunity to help your parents through this tough part of life.  They are lucky to have a son like you to watch out for them.  You can take solace in the fact that you have done, and are doing your very best for them.  I, for one, admire you for sticking by them.  Others around you do, too, though they may not quite know how to tell you that.

I'll be praying for your continued strength and wisdom.  Hang in there, my friend! ;)

  My grandpaw died at 93 years old and he too had alzhiemers.If grandma would get up to get a dish she had forgotten to put on the table,gramps would ask the blessing again.He didn't remember he had already blessed it once.
  although his memory was gone ,he still knew who to thank for providing the meal.
We would always respectfuly bow and let him  return thanks as many times as it took to get through the meal.  ;) ;)

Overall a good thanksgiving

Mom had a great time looking at all the sale ads
and wants to buy all kinds of things   for other people
she is just not sure who the other people are  :)

recently Mom thinks she is 52 years old  and I love that
esp since she was 39 the day after she had me ... kind of unheard of in 1963
I have been told many times that I am lucky to be here

Dad is hanging in there too
  the weather was very nice yesterday so he was able to get some fresh air

we are counting our blessings
by the day  hour and minute sometimes

Have a Great Day
RED

I just had a wonderful day.  We held an open house in celebration of my parents' 50th Anniversary.  Lots of old friends and family and photos.  A life time isn't very long, is it?

Just thought I'd mention ...

With this cold weather hanging in for such a long time it would be a good idea to check on the old(er) folks in your neighborhood.  They sure get lonesome for company plus I bet if you asked, they'd have something you could do for them.

I don't spend as much time with my folks as they'd like but I see them most every day and about every time I need to replace a light bulb, tighten a loose door knob, put salt in the water softener, take out the trash, or change a filter.  Lately we've made sure the walkways were clear of snow and ice. 

I try to get my granddaughters involved when they're handy.  It's a lot better all the way around than letting them grow into the couch watching TV.

I'm just a young feller soon to be 68.
Since I got this puter thing, not mastered but sorta halter broke. I have been writing down some of the stories that Dad used to tell. I find that most of it is going into local history as many of the stories involve other much older folks all of them no longer with us. The stories are about the way things were done and the way they did them. Many have to do with industrys that no longer exist and people that lived on old abandoned roads.
I have been asked about many things that went out of bussiness years agoand given pictures of these places many of them 100 years old.
Just hope that i live long enough to get most of it on paper.
                      Junkyard

Well then Junkyard.. 

If you got some interesting stories about some real characters, please share a few with us...  Right here is the place to start.   :P

BIL, the Dentist decided to take early retirement at age 79 few months ago.  He could pull a tooth and you never felt a thing.  Put a crown on and you could eat steak that night.  Always service with a smile and you couldn't beat his prices anyplace.  His practice was slightly different from the norm.  Dark and dingy waiting room.  Antique tools, along with a few duck tape patches on the chair.  The office was in the oldest building in town on the third floor.  The building had an elevator but it only ran part time as it was manual.  The building owner was always behind on repairs due to the extremely low occupancy rate. 

In BIL's early days he ran a circuit to a lot of the small towns in the vicinity...everyday a different town.  I'll have to ask him if he used the barbers chair for his work. ;D

But all that is behind me now.  I found a new Dentist with a shiny new building, parking, state of the art tools, and you ought to see the reception area...it's outta this world nice.  I won't bore anybody about the pretty and friendly receptionist he has hired.  So on my first visit he takes a mouthful of x-rays and proceeds to tell me I need a new crown.  Hands me this computer print out with all the details and cost...tell him I gonna have to seen the banker to pay that bill.  But no problem says he...I can put it on my credit card. :(

So...this took place two weeks ago...my jaw still hurts and today the temporary crown fell out.  Think I prefer the dingy waiting room at the BIL's place :'(

   Oscar was an old bachelor who lived on the Second Road, when I knew him.
   He was born at Castorland New York in one of the houses that Climax removed to make room for an addition. He then moved with his parents to Beaver Falls The house where I believe Ron Beck now lives. Then to the Buckingham road across from the Croghan Town Office. Finally to the Second Road Where John Honer now lives. And the last move to the home on the Second Road between Honer's and my place where he lived when I knew him.
   His tales ranged from school and growing up at Castorland then hunting and fishing the rest of his life.
   Hopefully I can recount them as he told them. Oscar has been gone near thirty-five years so I hope my memory is good.
I talked with Donald Roggie a few days ago and he helped refresh some memories.

Oscar
and the
Steamboat

Basselin's sawmill was one of the biggest in New York at the time 6 or seven million feet sawed in 8 months.It was on the Black River in upstate New York. Fouty miles of the river was part of the Black River Canal. Basselin had a fleet of canal boats to ship lumber to New York City.
        Nigger Creek was the boundary line of the samill property. on with the story.                                
   Oscar and his buddy Tim Roof were fishing at the mouth of Nigger Creek now politically correctly  called something else. Maybe Negro Creek
   They had fished most of the morning without much luck.  Time went easy for the boys during summer vacation, after their  chores were done, laying in the grass, watching their bobbers and the occasional passing of one or another steamboat and there string of Canal boats headed down river to Carthage or upriver to as far away as New York City or Buffalo. Now and then checking to see if the bullheads had stolen the worm off their hook. As Tim was throwing his line back in the water, he some how got the hook caught in his thumb.
   The hollering , dancing  and carrying on caught the attention of the captain of a passing steam-boat. The Captain sent the fireman to shore with a row boat to see what was the matter. When the fireman hit shore, he saw what was needed and loaded the boys in and rowed back to the steamboat. At the steamboat the Captain got a pair of pliers shoved the barbed end of the hook through the hide and cut it off. Then backed the hook out    
   With some salve and a piece of rag wrapped around his thumb the boys were taken  back to shore.
   Sadly this ended the fishing for the day as each boy only had one hook. I can hardly imagine the excitement of being on a Steamboat. When I later showed him a picture of the T.B. Basselin  he was exited to see the boat again. Remember in the early 1900s  there were very few cars and none of us can remember how big the steam boats were other than they were bigger than the locks at Boonville.
;

The following is out of an email today from my 89 year old Mother to some of my cousins who grew up in the same area in Minn.:

"Ruth, remember how Donald and "Buddy" used to sit on the back steps on summer evenings and identify - by sound - every car that drove by - and who owned it.  And likely, where they were going!"

Tom

I just clicked onto this thread and saw that those "old guys" are people that I'd love to hang around with in my golden years.  They have the skills and experience that I'd really enjoy talking about.  Too bad I couldn't have had them around when I was just developing my technical skills so that I could have done the community some real good.

You're blessed to have such knowlegeable buddies and I envy you for it.

Been reading and enjoying tales/stories on other threads and was challenged to tell some of my own................we all like happy or funny stories best, but this is neither.  My heart goes out to children, the helpless, the elderly, etc, but when I see the able-bodied sitting with their hand out.........well,................... anyway. 

This is about the post-reconstruction South.  My mother was the 11th of 12 children.  The 4th child and 2nd daughter was my Aunt Edna.  She (Edna) was born in 1907 and married 2 weeks after her 16th birthday.  In 2007, we would say her husband was an alcoholic and he would have all kinds of "rights" because of his "disease".  In the 1920s, he was a drunk.  To earn a living, they "made a sharecrop" for various landlords, often moving each Winter in hopes of bettering themselves.  They never owned a car, never owned livestock, had only a few clothes and rudimentary furniture.   In the late 20s, they had 2 little boys, about 3 and 5 years old.  The husband "Fate" was off on a drunk and had been gone for days.  They lived in a tenant house sitting way back in the field; they almost never had company, but if they did, they could see them coming for better than a mile.  Edna and the two boys had run out of food, except for some cornmeal.  On this day in the Spring, they had spent the morning gardening, including planting some Irish potatoes which they had earlier eaten the heart out of and left enough potato on the skin/eyes that they would germinate and grow.   About mid-morning, they were resting on the front porch and looked way off across the field to see 2 people coming on foot.  I don't know how she knew it was her parents; maybe because they were the only ones who would be visiting.  She knew they would be there for dinner (lunch) and that there was nothing to eat but cornmeal. 
She was ashamed for her parents to she how poorly she was getting along, so she and the boys went out back to the garden and dug up the freshly planted potatoes; for lunch they had cornbread and potatoes.  She eventually divorced Fate and she and the boys moved to Coos Bay, OR. in the '40s, where she became a LPN and the boys worked in the lumber mills.  Edna had a hard life and died at age 53 of breast cancer.

I've told this a time or two to friends when they get to crying hard times.  It never fails to choke me up, when I think of Aunt Edna and those 2 boys digging those seed potatoes up for dinner...........

Mmmm Mmmmm Mmm!  At least she was a go-getter and got her kids raised. It's a shame anybody has to be that poor.

Dad has to have turnips for supper at least a couple of times every winter.  You'd think he'd be sick of them.  I know they make me sick just smelling them cooking.

When he was a kid growing up in southern Missouri, his folks moved from place to place living in someone's empty house.  Dad was one of seven boys with one sister. They'd work for a nickel a day hoeing corn or hacking ties for 10 cents each.

He tells a story of a time when his dad and the older brothers had cleared some "new ground" for a farmer and planted it in turnips.  When fall came,  the farmer gave them a 600 lb. sow that Dad figured was too old to have pigs again as a bonus. They dug the turnips and buried them in a pit.  He said that all they had to eat that winter was turnips and fatback.

When you tell the younger generation(s) stories like this, you might as well be talking about something that happened thousands of years ago.  Someone who pays $5.00-7.00 for a "meal" at McDonald's just can't get their mind around someone working for a nickel a day.  We're only 2 to 4 generations removed from hard times and the genetics/bloodlines are the same, but I wonder if the species would survive if something similiar happened again.  Your Dad's generation was tempered by their experience;  no wonder Tom Brokaw (Jeff's cousin?) called them the greatest generation.

I'm gonna guess that your Dad doesn't dwell on/talk about his childhood very much and doesn't regret living like that;  it was just the  way things were..............

I guess I'm an old(er) folk.  At least I am to our granddaughters.  We were touring the museum at the School of the Ozarks last week and I was pointing out all the antiques they had on display from pioneer life – especially the ones I also have in my collection.  I spotted a broad-ax and explained I have one in the sawshed that Grandpa George (my dad) used many years ago to make railroad ties. 

They also had an original small log cabin set up inside the museum.  It was about 10 by 12 feet.  It had just enough room for a bed, a fireplace, a table and a spinning wheel.  I explained to Brooke that my grandmother lived in a house like this when she was growing up.  She thought it was "cool".  I bet it was – in the winter.

Thought I would bring this back up with a story of my experience today.

The local radio station has a call in thing in the morning for either a birthday or to answer a question for a gift certificate. My wife won once and my son also won previously. Both got a gift certificate for a lunch worth up to ten dollars at a local chain hotel restaurant. Since one of the certificates was about to expire, and because we have had so much rain lately there are lakes in the fields, and since today is our 46th anniversary, we decided to use the certificates today.

We got to the restaurant and the trouble began. Seems the buffet on Sunday was a "brunch" that cost $10 and our certificates were for "lunch" that only cost $8 so we would have to pay the difference in spite of the fact that the certificates were for up to $10 and the cost for senior citizens was only $9. So, no big deal, I paid the $4.32 difference.

So I went to the salad bar and got my usual tossed salad (been dieting like many others) with lots of cherry tomatoes. Then before I put the dressing on, I noticed the tomatoes still had the green stems on and some had rather soft spots and one even had a hole in it. So no big deal, I just pulled the green stems off and threw them, along with the bad ones back in the pot and got the dressing.

After I finished my salad, I asked my wife how everything was. She said the ribs were excellent but the mashed potatoes and gravy tasted like gasoline, but they had a prime rib that looked good, except it was not sliced. Since I am dieting you know, I was going to skip the gravy anyway, not a big deal. So I went up to get my plate and the first plate had something stuck on it but I just found another one that was clean and headed for the prime rib as the barbecued ribs were all gone. Someone had sliced the prime rib pretty thin so I took two slices along with some peas and carrots and a little bit of stuffing, dieting you know. The meat was cold but the peas and carrots were good.

Then we headed for the desserts. They had just two wafer thin slices of cheesecake left and we took both of those and I topped mine with waay too much soft serve ice cream. On the way back to the table, I noticed the ribs were gone, the prime rib was gone, the tomatoes were gone, and the ribs were replaced with some mystery meat patties. No big deal as we had enough to eat already.

After we finished our desserts, I decided I was not coming back to this buffet again. Even though we were somewhat disappointed with our meal experience, the worst problem was the place was filled with "Old People." The three older couples at the next table were discussing their recent colonoscopies. They were talking about the gallon of crap you have to drink, whether the doctor or technician actually did the test, how many polyups they had, and how long it took, you know that if they take over 18 minutes they do a better job.  Yuk, Yuk.

Now please, not while I am eating. The smokers have now been banished from most restaurants but now I guess we should ban "Old People" that talk about their medical procedures. Now certainly my wife and I qualify as senior citizens, but we are planning to skip the part about being "Old People." Not real sure just how we will accomplish that, but we will sure try. Shouldn't be too hard as I hate Bingo anyway and we will just avoid the self-feeders where those Old People hang out.   ;D

Your story reminded me of the time Mary and I were coming back from a Wood-Mizer open house down in Mt. Vernon, MO. 

It was getting pretty late in the evening – maybe 10:30 or so – when we were getting close to the Lake of the Ozarks.  I, like usual, was starving to death so I insisted we stop somewhere for supper before every place was closed.  I had spotted a sign for a restaurant up ahead and got Mary to pull in.  (I don't see well driving at night. Anyone else have that problem?)

Anyway,  I was afraid the place was closed as the parking lot was empty but they were not and we went in and were seated.  It turned out to be a much nicer place than we normally stop at.  The place wasn't empty as the parking lot indicated.  There were about 6 old couples seated at a long table.  They were pretty wound up.  They were loud, and talked awful raunchy.  But we got food and we didn't bother them and they didn't bother us other than be loud and raunchy.

As we got ready to leave I told the waitress that checked us out that we normally avoid fast food places and chain restaurants as they were full of noisy kids and now it looks like we're going to have to avoid places were old folks hang out.  (The table was still going strong.)  She explained that the restaurant was on the backside of a bar in the same building and these old folks were spillover after an evening in the bar. 

We had to add that to the list of thing to watch for when looking for a restaurant.     :-\

I'm building my "Cabin in the Mountains" on the same property that I was raised on.  The house had no insulation, we heated with coal and wood, the water well was 50' from the house and the outhouse a like distance.  Dad didn't work much in the winter so the summers were taken up with gardening and canning so that we could eat during the winter.  We raised chickens and hogs and heated water in a tub over a wood fire to wash clothes in a wringer washing machine in a shed 75' from the house.  The road from the main road to the house was dirt and totally impassable when it rained or when not frozen during the winter. Dad never owned a good car or truck and they were forever breaking down. But I really don't have a memory of feeling like I was deprived.  Most of our friends and family were in, or had been in, the same situation and I guess it felt kind of normal.  Except for Dad's drinking, my memories of life back then are good ones. But don't talk to me about the "good old days"...being poor today is a whole nuther thing than what it was when I was a kid...not much welfare back then.  And life was even harder for my parents when they were young.
Quinton

A little history.   A couple of years back Mom spent a couple of months in a rehab center recovering from some health problems.  While she was in there the TV at home went out.  Dad went out to Wal-Mart and bought the cheapest TV he could get.  It's a 15" model and I think he paid $100 for it.  He could have got a 19" for a $119 but couldn't justify the added expense.  (My folks come from humble, depression era time but they are not destitute.  He could have afforded any TV he wanted.)

Mom got home from the rehab and was upset to find the new little TV.  Suggestions were offered that they just buy a new one.  But Dad wouldn't budge.  He said it was "good enough.  If you can't see it, get up closer."  This is all ridiculous as at 80 and 90, all they have to do is watch TV. 

Well,  last evening about 6:00pm I get a call from Mom.  She had to whisper because Dad was asleep.  Now Dad is almost totally deaf and wouldn't hear it if a jumbo jet fell in the front yard.  But anyway,  what she wanted to talk to me about was Dad's 90'th birthday coming up in a couple of days.  She said Dorothy Lee (my sister) had spotted a 32 wide screen flat TV in at Wal-Marts for $326.00.  (Right off I'm suspicious – the prices are coming down but not that much)  And she suggested that we could go thirds in buying the TV for Dad's birthday.  Second clue.  "My third would only be $175.00."  Well, that simple math didn't add up.

This evening I called my sister to see what was up with the TV story.  I didn't get her but left a message.  While I was out she called back and talked to Mary.  NO! She had not made an offer to go thirds on a TV.  In fact,  Mom had called her and said that I was going thirds on a new TV for Dad for his birthday.  And her part was only going to be $90.00.

Now mind you Mom had old age dementia and can't remember her kids or grandkids names and she has to run down the list. And she sees strange animals in the yard that know one else has seen.  But she can still connive to get a bigger TV.

Dorothy Lee said the whole seed to this plan started last weekend when her husband David said he'd seen a 30" color TV (tube model) in Wal-Mart for $295.00.  There was no implication made that they were going to go in whole or part in paying for the TV.  If they did anything, they may help haul it out and set it up for them.

Well I'd have to tell you not to worry too much about mom YET.
she seems to be using all her faculties at this time. So are you guys going along with her plan?  :D

Quote from: logwalker on November 28, 2007, 09:00:34 PM
Well I'd have to tell you not to worry too much about mom YET.
she seems to be using all her faculties at this time. So are you guys going along with her plan?  :D

Not exactly.  My sister and brother-in-law are both retired and have not planed wisely.  In short, they have no money.

Before I got a chance to talk to my sister, Mary and I went out to Wal-Mart to check out the story of the $329 32" LCD TV on sale.  No such animal.  We did get to talk with the manager of the department and she had a couple of discontinued high end tube type TVs that she could lower the price even further just to get rid of them. 

Mary and I returned this morning and bought a 30" high definition digital flat screen TV with regular tube for about half the price it retailed for.  We have it in our Durango.  Tomorrow is Dad's birthday.  I think my sister said she was going to take them out for lunch at the local café.   Mary and I plan to go up there and set up the TV while they're gone.

It will be Dad's birthday and their Christmas gift.

Thats great Bibby, I am sure your mom and pop deserve whatever you kids do for them. I only have my mom left and one uncle. In that generation anyway.

You probably don't know this but I was born just south of your area in Arkansas. My grandad had a nice spread that he carved out near Ravenden Springs. His name was Argo Rush.  He had an old mill that he and my Dad ran for a while. We were slowly starving so he took us back to the Portland area where grew up. One of the other forum members's dad knew Argo well. Used to work on his old worn out farm equipment. I think it was Skypilot.

I went down to work with him in 1971, just a couple years before he died. Learned more practical knowledge in those two years than at any other time in my life. Seems like it was last week.

I hear you refer to West Plains occasionally. We had a second cattle ranch for a couple years in Dalton. Got up to West Plains a couple times a year.

When I hear you talk about the Older Folks it brings back many memories. I always read these posts first. Keep them coming, Friend.

Would you wish your folks a happy Holiday season for me? Joe

My grandfather had a small TV and the only use he had for it was the noon stock report. He complained if anyone turned it on at any other time about it wasting thier time. He would be setting on the front porch on the porch swing while he was complaining about the TV.

I can remember after my Grandmother passed away he was washing dishes and for some reason set some tupperware too close to the old wood cook stove and melted it some. He hated tupperware after that.

i just finnished reading the entire thread, at times with tear filled eyes. had to walk away once. all i can say is thank you all this is a great read.

my grandmother on my mothers side was born in 1907 march 3rd she passed march 6th2005. cassie was born in the canadian river bottom where lake eufaula now stands in oklahoma. she told me of a story about when she was 8 or 9 and they had cleared the trees from the bottom to plant crops and before the trees were burned you could travels the lenthg of the bottom(about 3 miles) on tree trunks without ever getting on the ground. she said most of the trees were walnut trees and were at least as thick as she was tall.

later in life when she was 13 and on she worked in sawmills and her family owned a mill or two in their day. she was always proud when i talked to her about making lumber on my sawmill. she spent years working crops and cannerys in california. awesome woman with more stories than we have time. my last garndparent and she is missed.

Hang on to the memory, Ely.  Pass it on.  Don't you feel enriched for listening to her?

Birthday update.

I was a bit mixed up on the dinner plans for today.  I'm sure my Mom told me that my sister and her husband were taking them out to dinner.  Turned out,  my sister came out and helped Mom make dinner and we were invited up.  We were to eat at 1:00. 

We were in the house ready to go up about 12:30 when a log truck pulled in.  We had to unload him.  Fortunately it was the owner of the logging outfit and not the paid driver. We visited a good short visit but he excused himself and we were released to go to dinner. 

Got there at 1:10 and set down and had dinner. My sister even had a fancy decorated birthday cake with candle 90 on it.  We sang happy birthday to him.  He was as happy as a 6 year old.  He said, "I want to say this.  In all my years this is the first birthday party I've ever had on my birthday."  He said when he was a kid he'd ask his mother if she was going to make him a birthday cake and she would tell him it was to close to Thanksgiving.

We got done eating and retired to the living room while sister and Mary cleared the table. 

A bit later I backed the Durango up to the front door and Mary and I carried in the TV.  Dad was shocked.  Still he claimed he didn't need a bigger TV.  We unloaded it and replaced the small one with this one and got it fired up.  Brother-in-law took over the core of familiarizing him on the use of the controller.  Praise the Lord!  The TV programmed all the available local stations by itself and Dad could figure out, with a little instruction, how to switch from regular TV to the satellite and how to control the sound.  He practiced a couple of times and then got it on Fox News and he was all set.

 8) Life is now good.

See? That's why this place is far too cool.

It's the respect for all that really abounds through the forum, starting with respect for one's elders and one's family which is so often lost or seriously battered throughout the world.

Bibby, you guys should be proud that you cared enough to not only give your Dad something that even HE didn't know he wanted, but, also cared enough to spend time with him and show him how to use it.

It's just cool. That's all.  8) 8) 8)

asy :D

 (https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/ws_grandpas_90th.JPG)

Here is a picture my sister took.

Alex and Brooke get off the bus at my folk's house.  Mom already asked if they could stay and eat turkey and have some birthday cake.  Son Gabe got home a little later and we were at the sawmill.  I told him his girls were still up at the folk's house.  As it was getting dark, he went back up to get them.  He visited and got some food too.

The girls said Grandpa was realy happy.  He said it was his best birthday ever.

Bibby,

It looks like that you come from great stock ;D. 

Quote from: WDH on November 29, 2007, 11:52:10 PM
Bibby,

It looks like that you come from great stock ;D. 

(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/archives/historic2/WardenFamily2.jpg)

That's dad in top center with the Dairy Queen topknot!  That's mom holding me in front of him and my sister in front row with bow in her hear. My grandma to far left.  The rest are all uncles and their kids.  About half the family at that time.

You think we had a rough life.  Dad was born in a dirt-floor cabin in '17.  His folks were basically share croppers that moved a couple of times a year.  He had six brothers and a sister.  They worked on farms, hacked ties with broad axe and crosscut saws, fished and hunted, his dad made moonshine, and in short, did with it took to make a living. His dad was a "rounder" and liked to drink and party and be gone for a week at a time.  His mom was a devout Jehovah Witness who didn't stand for drinking, dancing or doctors. He was schooled to the 7'th grade. As a young man in the depression, he went into the CCCs and worked in the Oregon Mountains building roads and fighting forest fires.  Then he was drafted in WWII and spent the duration +6 in an Engineering Battalion in the European theater. He returned home and bought the 140 acres that is now part of our farm and started farming with horses and mules.  He married my mom that had a daughter from a previous marriage.   I was born in '50 when he was 33 years old already.  To supplement the farm income, he cut ties, cedar posts, then staves, logs, etc.  Got to where he was logging more and farming less. When I wasn't helping him, he logged alone. He retied from logging when he was 65 but still cut firewood as a sideline for another 10 years or more and then cut only his own firewood up until a couple of years ago.  He'd never been to the optometrist or wore glasses until he was in his 70's.  He never wore hearing protection and lost most of his hearing years ago and getting worse but refuses to admit it.  His knees needed worked on 30 years ago but he refuses to admit it. He is a quiet, gentle, and honest man that wouldn't take advantage of anyone – even to get even with someone that's taken advantage of him. He has one surviving brother and his one sister. He an mom still live at home and get by the best they can with help from us and my sister.

Thanks for sharing that. My parents and my bio mother are gone and their stories with them.

My sister was visiting my Mom last week at her new apartment-style senior's home. At 84 Mom is still in pretty good shape but she says "I am going to die in 5 years."
Sis says "Oh no! What's wrong?"
Mom says " I did a budget and that's when my money runs out."  :o

So my sisters got together and  fixed the budget. Mom can live as long as she wants now  ;)

A'm trying to gather more info on the mill and engine before all the sources are gone.  My cousin says the mill is a Fisher Davis but that's all he knows.
[/quote] if the right people found out about it--it would be put back to running condition--and the case engine would be first--near impossible to find--and you wouldnt believe what they resurrect---

Quote from: Sprucegum on December 01, 2007, 07:57:29 PM
So my sisters got together and  fixed the budget. Mom can live as long as she wants now  ;)

That's so funny!!!

What did she think she was going to do? Once the bank balance hit Zero she was gonna hold her breath!? 

I'm pleased she said something now, rather than in 4 years time, while there's still time TO fix the budget!

asy :D

  :D That woman has never held her breath in her life! She was a teacher in a one-room school in a backwoods logging/farming community. She earned their respect with a dictionary in one hand and a yardstick in the other, gettin' hit with a dictionary adds a new meaning to a lot of words  ;D

It was just her way of telling the girls she had a financial problem without a solution she could manage on her own.

Quote from: Tom on May 02, 2001, 10:20:34 AM
I love older folks.  

I have tried to make time in my schedule to spend time with them.  It's for my benefit as well as theirs.  They are a world of knowledge and BS.  I try to listen and not impress them with my ability to talk. (my ears don't work good when my mouth is open).

My circle of older friends is made up of Bee keepers, bowl turners, cabinet makers, machinest, AC engineers, mechanics, pilots, electric motor rewinders, sailors, loggers, pulp wooders, paper mill workers, preachers, carpenters, farmers and painters. After retirement they find themselves more and more alone.  Their friends die off and the hustle and bustle of today's world leaves them to entertain themselves.

When I can arrange a Tue. with an open lunch date I eat with a bowl turner.  On Thur. I eat with a Fuel oil salesman/sawmiller.  I try, at the end of a day, to visit one when I am in the neigborhood to see if there is something I can do to help him with a project. They are too proud to ask for help but I've found that they really appreciate it if some just happens to show up.

It makes me feel good that they accept me and I learn so much.  I have enough older friends to have quite a party one day.  That's an idea.
;D

That first post in this thread will tell you more of how I feel about these guys than I could write.
This morning at 3:30, Henry Higgenbotham, the Thursday lunch date, passed on to where-ever these good folks go.  He was a farmer, businessman, sawyer, furniture maker, raised and ate rabbits, goats, his own cows, pigs and made his own syrup from his own Sugar Cane.

He has been suffering from a weakened heart the last few years and even had a pacemaker installed. The last 3 months he just had no stamina and the last couple of weeks Hospice brought in a hospital bed.  He reared a good family.  His oldest son and wife passed before him, but, his daughter took up the housekeeping, cooking and took care of Henry. There is a passel of grandchildren and great grandchildren that will be missing him, along with his friends, of which I consider myself one.  Thursdays won't be the same.

It looks like the dinner bell is on the shortlist.  I've only one left who is able to motivate.  He, John, and Henry were good friends most of their adult lives.  They each owned a gas company in neighboring towns.  Being almost the same age, their birthdays being only about 3 months apart, one would be older than the other until the birthday caught up.  When John became the oldest, Henry would call him "Mr. Shippey", until his birthday caught him up.  It's little jokes like that in a man's life that the general population knows nothing about.   I was so lucky to be accepted into the inner sanctum of their friendship.
(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10026/Henry-H-2-opt2.jpg)
Henry was a WWII Vet.

Sorry to hear about your friend, Tom

Thanks so much for sharing this story with us, Tom.  Sorry for the loss of your friend Henry.

Norm

It's hard to loose a friend , I am so sorry to hear of this , please accept my deepest sympathy Tom .

  One never has enough time to spend with them . I have stopped my mill many a time to chat with gentelmen like your friend Henri . They where for the most part woodworkers of many forms , some sawers some cabinetmakers , some where retired from the hard life as they called it . All of them had some interesting little thing to add to any conversation . Most had never seen a band mill up close , most had not ever cut a board on one , made a point to try to get them to cut at least one . Its fun to see theres eyes light up when offered to "work"  . Most of them would decline the offer , not wanting to hurt or break anything ... But where able to be convinced to the contrary and have a go at sawing a board.
  These "old farts " are the back bone of our neighbourhoods our industries and our respective countries ... we should be taking good care of them . 

  One that comes to mind is that fellow at wich we stopped at you and I Tom , near Jeff's huntin'grounds...  I am the worst for names , but that visite was worth ...  well was priceless .  :P :) :) I am sure that if we where to drop in again he would start off right where we left him last summer   smiley_gossip   
I will always have an extra chair for any that ever stop in.  smiley_peace
   

My sympathy for your 'old friend' loss as well. I have lost several that I had a lot of respect for, and who are greatly missed. 

Now, we (some of us) are becoming the 'old friend' and need to leave our legacy and footprints, in hopes that there will be those who miss us, just as much.

Tom,

It is sad to lose a good friend, but you are honoring him, and that is what we have to do.

My crazy Uncle Ishim.

Every family has one.  He's got the loudest voice in the room and always has to be the center of attention.  At the dances, he danced every dance and with every woman from age 8 to 80. 

Uncle Ishim is one of mom's older brothers.  Time and space is not available to tell all the crazy things this man has done.  I'll start with this one and you'll get the idea.

Uncle Ishim was a veteran of the War in the Pacific.  When the war was over, he rode home from the west coast on a troop train.  He had a buddy in the service that lived in Denver was on the same train.  So Uncle Ishim decided to stop over and spend a couple of days with his buddy and family. 

The buddy had a younger sister, Mary Lou.  Uncle Ishim wanted her to go to the drive in movie with him but she was engaged to marry a service man that had not returned yet.  The family encouraged her to go to the movies with him.  The story goes, that at the movie,  Mary Lou was very coy.  She didn't want to have anything to do with him.  But he was apparently persistent and persuasive and....  (I'll just leave this part out.) 

The next morning Uncle Ishim had an awful pain in his abdomen that turned out to be appendicitis. They rushed him to the hospital and it was removed.  Mary Lou came into his room after the operation and told him he was going to marry her.  I guess he tried to come up with some alternate plan but Mary Lou pressed on his incision until he agreed.  A few days later they were married and on their way back to Missouri on another troop train.

They arrived at the family home in mid-Missouri sometime after dark.  This girl that was raised in the suburbs of Denver found herself in hillbilly central.  The conditions were more like the Beverly Hillbillies before they struck oil – no electricity, phone or indoor plumbing, etc.

After introductions and short visit,  Uncle Ishim wanted to visit with his brother Roy that lived across the valley.  The shortest distance being a straight line through the woods. All the farms had a network of foot paths between them back in the old days.   So off they went.  Uncle Ishim, Aunt Mary Lou and mom's younger sister Abby headed off for the mile tromp through the hills and across a valley to Uncle Roy's house.  Abby led with the flash light followed by Uncle Ishim and then Mary Lou trying to keep up.  She said, "All of a sudden Abby just disappeared,  and then Ishim.  It was dark and I had no idea where I was.   I stopped and called out.  Turned out there was a ledge rock with about a 6' drop in the trail.  Abby and Ishim had just came to it and leaped off."   She asked how she was going to get down.  Uncle Ishim told to jump.  She said, "I can't jump." He said, "You'll jump or well leave you here."  She jumped.

They arrived at Uncle Roy's house and visited with him.  Uncle Roy had recently married Aunt Ruby.  She was apparently shy as Aunt Mary Lou said, "She just hid behind the wood cook stove and giggled. She wouldn't come out and talk.".   

One could imagine the alien feeling Mary Lou must have experienced.  There are more but I'll leave it here.

They buried Bud Ferguson on November 20, 2008.  I say buried as I'm sure his legend will carry on for at least a few more generations.  I don't expect anyone will write about this man.  I think I owe him this much.

If you go south of our place about four miles and take a county gravel road west off State Route PP,  you'll go straight as a string over a couple of hillocks, each a little higher in elevation, until you reach the summit of the ridge.   There the road continues straight for about 1/4 mile with a steady incline into a shallow valley.  You'll notice from this vantage point two houses, one on the left and one on the right.  Both appear to be of the same model as Dorothy use to a ride to OZ in.  As you get closer, they look like they're in such neglect for so many years as to be uninhabited.  Then you start to note all the junk that fills the yards.  Some is recognizable, and some things maybe you can make a guess what it once was but there is a lot of it that's just pure junk with no recognition.  Think Ma and Pa Kettle's old homestead but much worse.  I don't think there is another farm as junky as Bud's.

I rode the school bus most every school day from 63 to 67 and we picked up and dropped off one or both of his two kids.  Mary's folks had bought a farm adjoining Bud's in the fall of 67 and I started dating Mary within the first week of them moving in.  At that time Bud and family lived in the house on the right side of the road.  But later, for some reason unknown as one looked as dilapidated as the other, moved to the house on the left side.

For many years we passed by this place so I got a good look at it.  It was normal practice to have to run the gauntlet of hound dawgs, hogs, chickens and any manner of other live stock that free roamed in the yard, road, and on down to the open ford at the creek. 

Bud was a frequent "guest" at Mary's home – normally about meal time.  And I'm sure returned an offer for them to come and dine with them.  Mary's mom took them up on one occasion and came down for lunch.  The inside of the house was filled pretty much like the outside.  The table and everything, everywhere else was full.  They cooked on a wood cook stove.  Remarkable was that the legs of the stove had fallen through the floor and the belly of the stove rested on the floor joist! Mary's mom, being a gracious guest, had brought something as a gift like a fresh killed and dressed chicken or something. She was directed to put it in the freezer. She was a little shocked to find a complete antelope that hadn't even been field dressed in the freezer.  Our area is hell and gone from anywhere you'd find an antelope but someone had given it to them and they were waiting for some occasion to thaw it out and butcher it.   After a long visit, it became apparent that no food was coming.  The couple of kids with Mary's mom started to complain of hunger.  So Mary's mom found some bread and lunch meat and mustard and cleared a corner of the table and made them sandwiches.

You would think this man would be a hermit but quite the contrary.  He was well traveled and always was in attendance at any major public gathering be it a county fair, community pick nick or farm auction. You would find him in a small crowd, mostly always men, visiting. 

So what was so remarkable about this man?  He was average enough looking with steel gray eyes.  He was of average height and I never in my life seen him with any excess weight.  I also never saw him clean shaven even though he didn't sport a beard of mustache.  I could never figure that one out – how over the hundreds of times I've seen him, he was never clean shaven. He generally wore work worn bibs and long sleeve work shirt. 

Anyone that visited with Bud would have to say he was very intelligent and quite well read on many topics. He had a passion for the WWII battle in the Pacific, local history and legends, and numerous other topics that he could expound endlessly – including dates and names and statistics. 

Bud had a photographic memory.   He said you could give him a date and he could recall everything he did and saw that day and include anything that happened that day that he had latter come to know about that happened elsewhere on that date.  I believe him.  He'd get onto some battle in the Pacific and name the ships, the commanders and notable individuals, dates, times, events, etc. in much detail. 

As an example of Bud's travels and expertise on many subjects, I offer this story related to me by a friend who collects antique bulldozers and restores them.  He said he had attended a bulldozer equipment swap meet in Wisconsin a he was shocked to see Bud there.  He was followed by a small crowd as he went up the row of antique bulldozers and called out each and gave detail information about them.

I could relate many stories about Bud.  Everybody that knew him had at least one.  But here is one I'll bore you with.

Mary and I started construction on our new house in the early 80's.  I had dug the foundation for our earth contact house with dad's small dozer but had ran into an outcrop of sandstone that the little machine could not bust out.  I only needed about 1' of thickness removed from an area of about 100 square feet.  Bud happened to have an explosives license. We found him and he'd come over and pop off the sandstone.  He arrived in his mid-60' Chevy PU that was in every bit as bad a shape as his house and anything else he owned.  The topping on the cake was the cables that ran from under the hood, over the cab and to the battery that was in the bed.

We poked a few holes under the seam with a punch bar and stuck in a half stick here and whole stick there and managed to remove about half of the rock needed.  The trouble was,  the seam ran downwards and we kept getting a bigger face.  We'd need two things, an air compressor and jack hammer to drill holes, and more dynamite. 

Bud said if I'd drive him up to Macon (about 100 miles to the north) he'd get another case of dynamite.  So we arranged a time after work my the next week to set off to Macon.

I picked Bud up in my Cavalier wagon at about 5:00 pm.  We rode that hour and a half trip in constant conversation.   My only part was to add an attentive "un-hua" every so often.  He rambled on with one story connecting to the end of the other until we got to Macon. 

(Here I have to make up names and such because I don't have a photographic memory.  But I don't think it'll matter to the story.)

We arrived at Margret's house to find her not at home.  Margret was the dealer in explosives – haven taken over when her husband passed away.  I wasn't any too happy but there was little to do about it.  But Bud remembered a high-school classmate and knew his address.  Although he hadn't seen him since school some 50 years ago, we went to look him up.  We found his old high school mate's house in a little suburb and Bud went and knocked on the door.  They re-united and we were invited in.  They talked and talked and Bud got around to asking about Margret the dynamite lady.  This old school chum knew her well and said she was likely at some church function and should be home shortly. Thankfully, these folks had the foresight to try calling Margret and they got her shortly after sundown on that summer's day.

So we go over to Margret's house.  She's an elderly lady and she and Bud had to visit and talk about her late husband.  We had to wait as her son, none too young, had to come over and take us out to get the dynamite.

The son arrives and it's now completely dark but we follow him out of town a couple of miles on some blacktop road.  We stop and the son opens a regular looking but locked farm gate to and field overgrown with large brush.  Here we passed to find a few grail bins here and there among the brush.  The son opens one bin and produces the needed case of dynamite. 

By now we've been five hours on this 3 hour journey and are just now starting for home.

We got about 30 minutes towards home and Bud actually paused his line of storytelling to ask to stop for something to drink before everything closes.  He'd already calculated that Moberly coming up would have a McDonald's open right off the highway.  I thought he couldn't possibly run into anyone to talk to there at that time of night.  We stopped and went in.  He got a cup of coffee and I got a Coke. 

The only other customer in there was an old man of typical description – maybe reminded me of Grandpa Jones.  Bud turned towards the man and in a gesture of politeness commented to the old man, "Hot weather we've been havin'?"  OH NO! Here we go!  The guy returns he'd been down to the grain elevator in Shelbina and talking to the other farmers about the weather, etc.  Bud asks,  "Does Jim Moore still run the elevator?  Let's see,  he'd be 87 come March 10."  "No,  Jim died some years back."  "Well, is his wife Sarah still living?  She'd be 83 come January 21."  "Yes,  she's still living but in a nursing home."  (In between each comment is a lot of other conversation I'm leaving out.) "Well, they had three kids."  Then he rattled off each kid's name, age, birthday and occupation and any other details need to expound fully on the Moore family history. 

Finally,  the poor old man gnaws his leg off and escapes and we make it out of the building.  On the way to the car Bud says, "No matter where I go I run into someone I know or someone that knows someone I know," while shaking his bowed head like it was a curse.

We get in the car and head south again,  now after 11:00 and we have at least an hour to go.  Bud fills me in on how he came to know the Jim Moore and family.  His dad had been in the VA hospital in 1953.  Jim Moore occupied the bed next to his dad. Bud had collected all this information from visiting his dad and had stored it away for some 30 years!

I expected to pay for the case of dynamite as we had already used a number of sticks already and would need at least more but Bud would not hear of it.  I tried to settle up with Bud when we got the rock shot.  But he said he hadn't figured it up yet.  I was uneasy about leaving it open ended like this and a number of times over the next couple of years I tried to get him to settle up.  Each time he's say he couldn't find the receipt, or had some other excuse.  I came to the conclusion he just wanted to contribute his effort to helping us build our house and left it at that.  Or maybe it was his way of paying Mary's folks for all the meals he ate there. I'll never know.

Bud was one unique individual,  I'll give him that.

   Great story, Bib. Thanks for sharing. Now get some sleep! ;D

Mark

I don't have any stories like that to share. I like to read about people like that.

It's folks like Bud that provided us with the history of the world.  Stories and genealogies passed for centuries, by word of mouth, from one generation to another, through the mouths of friendly, congenial, interested and interesting people who had the gift of gab.  Thank goodness for Bud, and his ilk, or the story of the Garden, the Ark, The Exodus or Jim Moore's family might never have be known.

My grandpaw turned 85 in October. He made a living farming, logging, mechanicing, hauling shine and driving a coal truck. With a life spaning that many careers there is no shortage of good stories, like the time he almost ran over a Tennessee highway patrolman that was trying to flag him down by standing in the middle of the road and waving his arms. George Cain the man he worked for would not get the brakes fixed on the coal truck my grand paw drove and he said "I missed that Tennessee son of a b**** by a frog hair".
Thats just one of the many stories of his long and interesting life. Oh yeah he is still going strong, He can nearly work me down, I hope I age as well as he has.

Bibby, I know what its like to be spoofed into getting a new piece of household equipment without really knowing it. My mom was visiting us in Ohio in 2005, she was telling my wife that her cook stove was about to die(she makes cakes and pies for people). Remember this was in august, so my wife said "maybe Santa will get you a stove for Christmas". We thought we would talk to my sister and brother-in-law and share the cost. The middle of september my brother-in-law calls from Sears and informs me my mom has found her cook stove($649) and wants to know how I want to pay for it. Personally I ask him what the h*** he was talking about, as I had not be informed of my wifes discussion with my mom yet. Needless to say my wife got the phone and my mom got her stove courtesy of "US", my sister had decided already not to spend quite so much. :D :D  The moral of the story is never forget CHRISTMAS can come at anytime. ;D

My crazy Uncle Ishim  ... Part II

I wrote about Uncle Ishim a couple of posts back.  He's pretty old now and has been in declining health for many years.  He's been in the nursing home for about a year now. 

Mom called down yesterday to give us an update on all the family's ill health and such.  They had put Uncle Ishim in the hospital for some tests.  They found spots on his lungs and heart. (I wasn't aware you could get spots on your heart but ... O.K.)  Then she said that Monday they were going to do and "autopsy" on him. 

That don't sound right.. I don't think many people recover from an autopsy.   :-\

My DW (dear wife) got her Red, White, and Blue, guvment burthda card yesteda, reminding her that 65 and Medicare is just around the corner...... :D

I thought I was older...

guess not no more...

About the time I turned 50,  I started getting advertisements in the mail offering funeral plans.  They weren't addressed to "occupant" either – they were after me!   :o

Quote from: Magicman on September 20, 2009, 04:17:35 PM
My DW (dear wife) got her Red, White, and Blue, guvment burthda card yesteda, reminding her that 65 and Medicare is just around the corner...... :D

My Bride got hers yesterday too, MM.  She is Jan, 10.  When is yours'?

Quote from: DanG on September 20, 2009, 11:12:38 PMMy Bride got hers yesterday too, MM.  She is Jan, 10.  When is yours'?

Jan 13th.  Then both of us will be packing heat, errrrr cards..... :)

I got a chance to stop in and see Bud today. I've been meaning to tell you all about him for a while now. Bud wired the new barn my parents built in '73, so his affiliation with the family predates me by a little bit. :D Bud was a lineman that saw an ad in the back of a magazine for a new kind of sawmill just about 25 years ago. He hemmed and hawed a little about it and after a little while a bright orange Wood-Mizer showed up in his yard. It was an LT-30 with a little gas engine on it. He's been sawing on that for about a quarter century now. He does have another mill, a neighbor bought a '98 LT-40 Hydraulic, and left it with Bud so he could put belts on it and get it operating condition, as it had been sitting. Bud likes hydraulics. ;D

I've wanted a Wood-Mizer for about ten years now. and every time I need to talk sawmill, I drive down to his place and go down back and see if he's out by the mill, or maybe feeding the chickens. We usually spend an hour or two talking, and some of it about milling even. ;) I'd say Bud is mostly responsible for my continued sawmill addiction. He has always strongly advised mill ownership, along with the occasional mental health checkup.

When I got there today, he was unloading some pine boards he had been drying in the yard and putting them in the shed. We talked for an hour and I helped him finish unloading. He had a good battery in his hearing aid, so we kept the shouting to a minimum.  :) He's got a few piles of logs from the ice storm. A lot of red oak that he's going to saw up. I asked if anyone was buying oak anymore. He said he didn't think so, but that wasn't going to stop him. :D It's always fun to go and talk to Bud.

And, we all need to stop and take the time to talk to a Bud.  There are several Buds that I have questions for, but alas, I waited too long.... :'(

Alas, time and tide waits for no man.

A proverb we all find too late.  :)

Old saying;" it's later than you think".  Sad but so true!

An old friend (past 70)who had a truck leased to the same company was talking about his dad one day. He said "Dad told there will be an old man at my house someday but I sure didn't think he'd get here this quick"!!   I miss old Emmit. He  had  an amazing memory of places, events, politics, mechanics and people. He liked to talk  and upon meeting him at first I thought he was full of it but came to realize what a wealth of wisdom he was.  We burned a lot of diesel together. . . .

Which goes along with the "Motto" that I use on my profile:

Before you die.....Take time to live

pick and shovel today....

what a reminder on how old is old...

Here is a scene from a Parking lot today in Lake Worth. Our Snow Birds are starting to come back for the season. :)


(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/13635/Parking_at_a_Grocery_Store.jpg). 

Dat your car in the center  ::) ::) ::)


"bout time they left here.
;D ;D

Evening all. I flew in last week in the middle of my hitch to visit with my adopted grandmother. Went in Wed. came back out Thursday. Told the boss I had lost to many friends in the 30 plus years I had been offshore. I chose to spend time with her as opppsed to meeting people at the funeral. As it turned out I went home a week later and she died the following Friday. I drove down with my 83 year old dad, had a good visit with him (not always easy) and were able to talked to my adopotive grandfather for a long time. He is by far the smartest 3rd. grade educated no reading and writing man I know. House full of kids , carpenter and shrimper ( built his own boats) by trade and owns half of Golden Meadow, La. Married to miss Bell 72 yrs. and 5 months. All this said to show what a heck of a lot of respect I had for this lady and her woderful family. I would go on to say it helped shape my attitude about family and responsibility to each other.

Sorry for the wind but she will be greatly missed and I have made a point in getting back down there after every hitch. We don't have a lot of these great folks around now.

It happens in threes for us and I lost 2 other older friends and mentors  also on this trip home.

Okay I'm done, had to share. Chuck

Don't ever apologize for showing respect and giving a bit of time to your elders, Woodchuck.  Good for you that you were able to bring a little pleasantness to the life of someone reaching the end of life.  You join a small and select group in this world that still has some time for others.  Makes me proud.  :)

There's no such thing as long windedness when it comes to this subject.

Write some more about her.  I'll read it.  ;D

I am sorry to hear of your loss, Chuck but I am happy you were such a good family member and friend.

Quote from: Tom on May 02, 2001, 10:20:34 AM
I love older folks.  



;D

reread this thread....

very good...

best part is there are no old(est) folks...

Dad turned 93 yesterday.  We went up and had turkey dinner with them yesterday.  My older sister did the cooking.  She is somewhat of an amateur writer and had written up a story for the local paper to publish.  But instead of publishing what she'd written, they sent out a reporter to interview him and take new pictures.  They printed it front page, center.

Fulton man turns 93, recalls WWII

http://www.fultonsun.com/news/2010/nov/29/fulton-man-turns-93-recalls-wwii/



(https://forestryforum.com/gallery/albums/userpics/10034/wsgrandpa93.JPG)

Dad's body is about used up.  He can hardly get around. But his mind is still pretty good.  He's starting to slip a little in his short term memory but he seems to recall the past well.

Over the past 60 years I've heard many of his stories over and over.  Every once in a while he'll come out with something else he's not spoken of before.

I think he had a good day even though we couldn't find any way to light the 93 candles on his birthday cake.

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful part of your life.  Listen closely, ask questions, and visit often.

Sometimes, when I think I'm having a bad day, I remember the opening scenes of "Saving Private Ryan" and remember men like your father.  It helps me put things into perspective.  God bless your dad and thank you for sharing this.

Your Dad is a hero.

You cant be anything but proud to have a Dad like him, take care of him, I believe he is a keeper, bg

Thanks Tom for reminding me about this thread. Really makes me laugh at times and others times makes me think and other times makes me appreciate all the older folks I know. Not enough time today to read  all this today. Tom and Bibbyman really have some nice friends and stories.

Bibbyman, if your Dad has 5 Bronze Stars, you are very lucky that you are here on this earth.  I suspect that there are a lot of stories that he will not or cannot tell.  Serving as an engineer on the Normandy Beachhead, the Battle for Cherbourg, and the Battle of the Bulge, he came through some nasty fighting.  I hope that the US Army Historical Center's Oral History Project has interviewed him as well.  If not, you might want to check with them.  My degree is in history, and I focus on military and naval history.

Quote from: Dave Shepard on September 26, 2009, 09:39:16 PM
I got a chance to stop in and see Bud today. I've been meaning to tell you all about him for a while now. Bud wired the new barn my parents built in '73, so his affiliation with the family predates me by a little bit. :D Bud was a lineman that saw an ad in the back of a magazine for a new kind of sawmill just about 25 years ago. He hemmed and hawed a little about it and after a little while a bright orange Wood-Mizer showed up in his yard. It was an LT-30 with a little gas engine on it. He's been sawing on that for about a quarter century now. He does have another mill, a neighbor bought a '98 LT-40 Hydraulic, and left it with Bud so he could put belts on it and get it operating condition, as it had been sitting. Bud likes hydraulics. ;D

I've wanted a Wood-Mizer for about ten years now. and every time I need to talk sawmill, I drive down to his place and go down back and see if he's out by the mill, or maybe feeding the chickens. We usually spend an hour or two talking, and some of it about milling even. ;) I'd say Bud is mostly responsible for my continued sawmill addiction. He has always strongly advised mill ownership, along with the occasional mental health checkup.

When I got there today, he was unloading some pine boards he had been drying in the yard and putting them in the shed. We talked for an hour and I helped him finish unloading. He had a good battery in his hearing aid, so we kept the shouting to a minimum.  :) He's got a few piles of logs from the ice storm. A lot of red oak that he's going to saw up. I asked if anyone was buying oak anymore. He said he didn't think so, but that wasn't going to stop him. :D It's always fun to go and talk to Bud.

I just found out we lost Bud on May 22. I don't think anyone could say they were worse off for having known him.

And Bud lives on.  :)

Quote from: timerover51 on April 24, 2011, 12:04:18 PM
Bibbyman, if your Dad has 5 Bronze Stars, you are very lucky that you are here on this earth.  I suspect that there are a lot of stories that he will not or cannot tell.  Serving as an engineer on the Normandy Beachhead, the Battle for Cherbourg, and the Battle of the Bulge, he came through some nasty fighting.  I hope that the US Army Historical Center's Oral History Project has interviewed him as well.  If not, you might want to check with them.  My degree is in history, and I focus on military and naval history.

Dad never told stories of any gruesome detail or of being in any direct combat situations.  I think the veterans of the WWII era came back and just shut out their memories of the war.  Being in an engineering outfit – attached to the 101 Airborne,  I think,  his outfit following up right behind them and thus not in directly in the front lines. 

I know one odd thing about him;  he would not allow whistling in the house or around him.  Any time I'd whistle in the house,  he become very agitated and snap at me to stop and that was very unlike him.   I asked my mom way whistling bothered him and she told me it was because it reminded him of the artillery being fired over him.

Dad's slowed somewhat over the past year.  But he's not stopped.  He and Mom still live at home but it's a struggle for them.   A couple of weeks past I built yet another ramp for them.  This one so they would not have to take one small step down out of the front door onto the porch.  I built a platform in front of the door that came up to the bottom of the door threshold and then a long ramp down to the porch level.   There is a ramp from the porch down to the drive with hand rails.  I installed yet another rail along front of the house near the door.

Dad still gets a number of magazines – among them Car and Driver.    Earlier in the year they had a review of the new 2012 Ford Focus.  He was determined to own one although we all tried to convince him he didn't need it.  Long story short, we helped him trade his 2006 Chevy Cobalt with 12,000 miles on it for a new Focus.  He's had it over a month and driven it one time up the road a few miles and back.   He even insisted that we test drive it and drive it home from the dealership. 

Quote from: Bibbyman on May 28, 2011, 09:55:42 PM

  Being in an engineering outfit – attached to the 101 Airborne,  I think,  his outfit following up right behind them and thus not in directly in the front lines. 

That is not always true Bibby. If a mine field is encountered the engineers move forward of the infantry and clear a a path. Sometimes a bridge has to be built before the infantry can cross a river. You are correct in that engineers are generally not on the front lines, but are just right behind the lines.

Well in October of 09 I shared with you guys about my adopted grand mother from south Louisiana passing away. Have managed to see my grandfather 3 or 4 times a year since she passed and thought he was doing as good as expected giving his age. Last week the daughter called me off shore to tell me after a short stay he had also passed away. He knew I was at work so didn't want to worry me so as a result I wasn't there when he left. His last wish was to go soon so he could be with (Momma) A great pair have passed out of my life and I realize that as I get older this is going to happen more often. They were the best and most generous people I have known. I will miss them beyond words. If you have people this special in your life drive over today and visit with them. Stay safe.

My condolences to you for loosing your loved one.  In time you will look around and realize that you are actually the oldest one.  I have.  :-\

Mom (84) and Dad (94) are still living at home.  My sister and brother-in-law are retired and help them out with the house cleaning, grocery shopping and doctor appointments.  Mary and I run a lot of "pick up my medicine" errands and keep up the maintenance work.

Both have told me a number of times that the other needs to go to the nursing home.  But they themselves are getting along find at home.

About a month ago Mom said she wanted my opinion.  She had called a local retirement community about an assisted living unit for her and Dad.  Dad can hardly hear but he caught wind of our conversation and blew up.  He's not going to no nursing home. "They'll make me eat stuff I don't want to eat." Was his ultimate argument and final word on the subject, waving his arms like an umpire calling an out at home base.

I check on them about every day.  If I don't, there is always something I have to come take care of anyway so I may as well find a need to drop by.

The other evening I walk in and Mom is in her recliner as usual.  But Dad was up and about.  He was in the kitchen cookin' supper.  He had fried up a couple of pork steakes the size of a large footprint,  had a serving bowl heaped up with fried 'taters, had "whap" biscuits in the little toaster oven on the counter and was sturring up some white gravy in the skillet.  Looked like he was enjoying life to me.

You brought a smile to my face this morning Bibby. 

You will find that the WW2 vets that were in the thick of it won't talk about it,the typewriter jockies have many tales. Frank C.

caregiving can be extremely tough then the next hour rewarding. . .I did all the legwork looking for a facility and then made appt for my brother but he never showed up . . take your Mom to just one and she will understand Home is fine . .for now

Quote from: Bibbyman on March 02, 2012, 05:31:43 AM
Looked like he was enjoying life to me.

That is the key, Bibbyman.  As long as they can enjoy some aspect of life, do whatever is necessary to keep them at home.  Red is a voice of experience.  He took care of his Dad at home the hard way...alone.  I'm doing the same, but the easy(easier) way, sharing the burden with my two sisters.  One of us is there with my Mom at all times.  My shift is from Friday evening until Wednesday evening, every other week.  We have done this for two years now, starting when my Dad became too much for Mom to handle alone.  When he passed away, we decided to just keep it up for her, as she has never been alone for any time in her life.  She is doing well for 90 years old, but has a little trouble realizing her limitations.  Spending that time there is a bit inconvenient at times as all of us live about 50 miles away, but it has become just a part of the routine.  Not only is it one of the most rewarding things any of us has ever done, we all enjoy the peace of mind of knowing that someone is there with her when we are away.  I encourage you to gradually increase the time you spend there, if you do nothing more than just visit.  Let your Dad feel like he is still the top dog as much as possible.  Ask for his advice on things, even if you don't want or follow it. ;)  There is nothing worse for an old guy than to feel like he is useless and unwanted.  Just spend time with him and let him tell you how it is.  You will be really glad you did, one day. ;)

This is a great thread, with many wonderful stories!

I always told my boys, both grown now, one 40 the other 38 with kids of their own, "respect your elders, you will never have more than you have right now"!

Once in a while, I'll hear one of them tell their own kids the same thing I told them!

Chuck, just the other day my Mom said, "I don't have to worry about respecting my elders anymore.  There aren't any."   :D :D :D

My favorite "Momism" is:  "You know you're getting old when your kids are on Medicare."

Not long ago she was telling me about some social thing she went to one time, and how miserable she was there.  She said, "As soon as I got there, I realized I was wearing my sit down shoes and my stand up girdle."   :D :D

DanG, I saved that to bring up to my Mother next week.  She is 94, will appreciate it!

DanG, that's sage advice.

My Uncle, my mom's older brother, served in the Marine's 4th Division in WWII (He also was in the 5th during Korea).  He was in the battle of the Tinians and Iwo Jima and I think Saipan and others and carried schrapnel in his body to his grave.  For quite a few years now I've been on a quest to try to understand what my Uncle went through during his service in the Pacific.  I don't read very many books by historians, but read books written by men that were actually in the battle or books by historians that were based on interviews of the men that were actually there. After reading about Iwo Jima, I just don't understand how anyone could have survived that battle with their sanity. My uncle was not in Okinawa but I read a book called "With the Old Breed" by E.B. Sledge that was very graphic and showed me exactly what every Marine who fought in the front lines of the Pacific went through.  It isn't pretty, but I understand fully why veterans don't talk about their war experiences.  To maintain their sanity they've had to tuck them way back into the silent parts of their memory. My quest to understand what my Uncle went through has served to increase my admiration for our veterans who've seen battle in any of our wars.   

I know I've posted about it before but my uncle died a few months back, he was in the 101st airborne in WW2 and helped liberate the concentration camps, he did a lot of public speaking about it, especially on memorial day.  He contracted polio while in the service and by the end of his life it had absolutely wrecked his body but he was able to stay at home with his wife and the last few years took a lot of extra care from a lot of special people, my wife and I live just across town from them (pop. less than 2000) so we got called on a lot, kind of special circumstances there, my wife is a nurse and also had a long standing relationship with a quadrapeligic, I wasn't much help usually.  We were there the morning he passed away, in his own home.  It is worth all the effort to do anything possible to keep them at home safely, I hope someday someone will do the same for me, gotta make it that far first though  :).  Last week 2 friends and I went to see a guy we all worked with for years at the local salebarn, he's a veitnam vet that found out he's got cancer about 6 months ago, nothing they've used on him has worked so far, they were trying a new chemo this week, I just wish he could get his appetite back, not much left of him right now.  I know this thread isn't about veterans but the last posts got me thinking about them, he has talked a few times to us about what he went through and saw in veitnam, there's a reason they don't say a whole lot when they get back home.

BIBBYMAN......Your Dad at 94 fixing a good hot mill for his "sweetie"......I love it!

May God Bless you all. YOU GO DAD!  8)

I'm glad to see response to this old topic. 

Winter time is hard on old(er) folks for a lot of reasons.  It's hard for them to get out and they don't get a lot of company.   Getting young folks to visit with them brightens their day.

I recently learned about Horticultural Therapy and it is great for anyone but old timers get set in their ways and so new seeds like Burpees 4th of July tomatoes really throws them for a loop and March 18-24 is NHTW nat horticultural week

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDi4hBWsvkY#t=177

I saw this on the news Jeff. Once the song was put to music......they said the i-tune downloads for this song was going through the roof.

Good share and it is a touching song.

Christy and I took our Aunts and uncles out for dinner Sunday evening, great time! all are in the 80's, and two have Alzheimer's, it was a blast, Olive Garden at its finest, never a dull moment,  both  uncles are VFW's  lots of genuine stories,   david

Tell me ....  what is the meaning of VFW   ??? :P   educate me some about abreviations....   :-\

Quote from: isawlogs on August 27, 2013, 08:00:43 PM
Tell me ....  what is the meaning of VFW   ??? :P   educate me some about abreviations....   :-\

VETRANS OF FOREIGN WAR.

Uncle Bob and Uncle Jess, who was my best man, (not saying Dad isn't, Jess has no children) was in WWII, and Korean wars, Uncle Bob was In WWII, both were sailors, Jess is a very technical minded soul, Bob a comedian, a real hoot, hard on waitresses, if you know what I mean ;D  Jess is 89, Bob 83, they are brother in laws, God Bless Aunt Opal and Aunt Margaret!  they are Saints!    david

I can tell you unequivocally Mr. Tom would have loved this story.

Yesterday I spent the entire day with my, as they will tell you, "adoptive parents" Lou and Catherine. Lou is 85 and Catherine is 81.  When I am up north I spend a lot of my time doing what I can for them and just plain visiting with then as I enjoy them.  About 9:00 Lou called me up and asked if I could drive them both up to Sault Ste Marie for some medical appointments.  Catherine took a fall two weeks ago and is pretty sore and Lou is seeing double for some reason, so neither were fit to be driving. I said sure and headed over. We didn't get back until about 9:00 last night after the last MRI test for Lou.

The first thing on their agenda yesterday was to go to "The Great Wall" before the doctors,  a Chinese place they like to eat at. So we did. After the meal, as is customary at Chinese restaurants, they brought us 3 fortune cookies.  Catherine, says "Ooo! what fun! Jeff will you please read them for us?" Now remember Catherine is 81 years old. She then added, "But at the end, you must add these three word." "In The Bedroom"  I smiled and said, okay. I did this, and poor Catherine was laughing so hard she was almost crying from either the laughing or the  pain caused from the laughing and I may have hurt myself from laughing too.  I'll let you add the "three words"

Lou's Fortune:
You will find a new Challenge this week.

Catherine's fortune:
You are contemplative and analytical.

My fortune:
Someone is looking up to you. Don't let that person down.

  :D :D

I love those two people  :) :)

you a "gooder" man for it

That story warmed my insides.  ;)

They sound like a sweet couple. "In the bedroom"! What a hoot. I'll remember that.

Oh my so funny!!!!  :D

Tom would approve!   :D :D

Great story, Jeff! :) :)
Great older topic that was resurrected.  smiley_thumbsup

Now my innards hurt from laughing, great story for sure!  I hope everything turns out ok for Lou and Catherine.

 :D :D Wonderful people, you are very fortunate to have them as friends.

Thanks for the reminder as well as the chuckle.   :)