Un-Haunted House

now inhabited by the not quite a believer David L Lewis

Halloween has been around for more than a thousand years in various forms. Originally it was a Christian (Catholic) observance, All-Saints Day, celebrated on first day of November. It became increasingly secular over the centuries until its religious trappings all but disappeared. Today Halloween is considered a ‘holiday’ for dress-up and fun, especially for children, and is best time of year for candy sales.

Growing up in St Louis during 1950’s All-Saints Eve was a big deal. Bigger in part because our Catholic friends got the next day off school, and we were in a really Catholic town. There were goblins and ghosts running around everywhere. When we were ‘little’ our big brother went with us Trick-or-Treating across the whole ‘neighborhood’. Our neighborhood being half way up and half way down the street we lived on. Terry knew our neighborhood and the people, how far we could travel and get back “in time”. He knew who gave best and worst treats, and didn’t bother with the few houses with no porch light on.

When we first came to Indiana in 1996 our home was next to Clearview Cemetery, about 100 yards up a private drive off State Road 340W. In the 10 years we lived out there we might possibly have seen more ghosts than Trick-or-Treaters. Would not have seen anyone on Halloween if we hadn’t had grandkids still young enough to be dragged out to grandma’s house to show off their costumes. Unless, of course, some recently departed “late” neighbor came over unseen from Clearview.

In 2006 we moved into town, on a major through street. If you’re keeping score at home, that would be seventeen All-Saints eves. In the early years we had a lot of visitors in all kinds of costumes. And, although a bit older, the grandkids had less distance to be dragged (Kay always had a special bag of sugar-high junk for them),

Time, as it is inclined to do, gradually reduced the numbers of neighbor children who were still, well, children. And, with all the fear aroused about not knowing your neighbors, and alternate activities created, year-by-year the number of visitors declined. Last year I think we might have had two, if that. Just don’t think the ghosts and gremlins seen today even remember the 1950s. Kay, as always, bought a lot of candy. It took us until Christmas to force-feed it to our grandkids.

Plan for this coming All-Saints Eve is three-fold: (1) Don’t expect any ghosts to visit our house, (2) hope Kay buys just enough candy I like so I can eat it all myself, (3) go out to Clearview and see what comes up!

Anyhow, do watch out for any goblins who may come your way,

theUnHauntedDaddy!

 

Hospice Hostage Journal

by the very definitely not yet ‘late’ David L Lewis

Updated October 21 2023

At the instigation and insistence of my personal Registered Nurse (who is also my favorite red-headed niece) I was officially enrolled for in-home assisted living care by Hospice of the Wabash Valley. One would hope this does not mean demise is imminent. Rather, merely that death, as it is with all that lives, remains both random and inevitable.

Not sure about all the fuss. Don’t know why simple problems like having ‘symptoms’ on slightest exertion is taken so serious. Sure, my heart has been problematical for some time, and right bad here lately. Yes, several medical types have left me believing my heart is weak, ‘badly’ damaged, and has total blockage of a significant artery. And, there is that business about if they did try to do something, odds are the procedure would more likely kill me than do any particular good. But, hospice?

So, this is what happened my very first week of being 80...

Saturday 10/14/2023

Eightieth Birthday! Just threw that in to garner empathy for my cause.

Monday 10/16/2023

Favorite red-headed niece Jen drove 3-hours from Missouri to take charge. Taking charge being the nature of good nurses. Something about e-mailing her when I didn’t know what to do about sudden new ‘issues’. Lifeline calling her the previous Thursday may have been a factor, too. She had already plotted with our other children on what to do, and first of these to-do’s was arrange in-home care for uncle David. [Frankly, somebody should have warned my sister and I about raising caring kids. Who knew we’d reap what we’d sown?]

Tuesday 10/17/2023

Case Manager Brittney arrived with a lot of paperwork to deal with. Then my new nurse, Brooke came. For some reason I had moments when could not remember how to sign my name to all this, and had my nurse-niece sign. With four woman in room talking about me, it was time for a prudent man to get out of way and let them determine my fate (which they were going to do with our without me). I blame those womenfolk for my light-headedness – and that nitro patch thing.

Wednesday 10/18/2023

Brooke came for a 24-hour later follow-up. Recommended new drug. Told her Jen gets all med decisions. Brooke conspired with Jen (which is what women do), so I got new drug ordered. Brooke also left a bunch of medical Swag we don’t know what to do with. May try to get sick so we don’t waste it.

Thursday 10/19/2023

Young man showed up at front door with a shower chair and new oxygen generating thingee. These people do seem to be on top of their game.

Social Worker CJ came to see if me and wife of soon to be 58 years can get along in life. Think we were able to bamboozle her on that one.

CNA Amanda came to help with by-now much needed shower. Not too much trouble with the heart (or hip) thing, just more problem than Kay could be trusted with.
Friday 10/20/2023

The new drug arrived at front door. These people do seem to be on top of their game.

Got call from Hospice Chaplin Mike, apparently standard part of protocol. He’s coming Monday, when I otherwise would be Home Alone! Should be interesting, assuming my ‘graduation’ is not more imminent than protocol prescribes. Plan to give Mike copies of two of my blogs, one old and one unpublished:

Death Takes a Holiday https://blogsbythedaddy.blogspot.com/2023/04/waiting-for-god.html

This “Walk” I’ve Been On draft copy on request

Can’t wait to see what next week brings!

theGoodHeartedGrandDaddy!

 

80 is the new 80!

What A Year To Be Born! birthday wishes From David L Lewis

If you were fortune enough to have been born in 1943 you would be among the few, the enduring, the still young who reach Eighty years of age this year. If this is you, Happy 80^th Birthday! Here are some birthday greetings you might want to review:

• “Life expectancy for male born in 1943 was 72 years.” U S Census Bureau

• “You know, you’re eighty now, and no one lives forever.” Discharge doctor at Union Hospital

• “We really need to look into hospice care for you.” Jennifer Kruger, RN

Having had reason to review above ‘greetings’, I recognize one of these days someone will be asking me how I’d lived so long. Memory being what it is, therefore, this seemed a prudent moment to summarize 15 life-rules learned ‘by mistake’ which any young reader may be well advised to retain.

Three Rules For Living To Be 80

• Finish what you start

• Don’t start a fire until you know how you’re going to put it out

• Never forget “This, too, will pass away”

Three Rules for Staying Out of Trouble

• Don’t throw rocks

• Don’t play with doors

• Don’t hurt girls

Three Rules For Understanding The Human Experience

• Follow the money

• All Rules have reasons

• All Signs have stories

Three Rules For Any And All Things

• We only know in part. There is always more to the story.

• Most people, most of the time, believe most of what they believe mostly because they Like the Teacher.

• There always arises “a new generation which knew not” what had gone before. They will not understand the world that existed before them, nor will

Three Rules Written In Stone By the Sands Of Time

• Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.

• You Reap what you Sow, but what you reap will not look like what you sowed.

• He who remains ignorant of the history of what came before is forever condemned to repeat it.

One last thing: Everyone knows we’re getting older; but, nobody believes it.

TheNotYetOldMan!

29,213 Days of Our Lives

As told to, sorta recalled and/or lived through by David L Lewis

“History is not about dates or even events. History is the story of people, situations they faced, decisions they made, and consequences of those decisions. In order to understand those people we have to learn dates and events.”  (American History professor at Lincoln Christian College, 1974)

ATTENTION! THERE WILL BE A TEST AT THE END!

It’s funny how the older you get the more you remember of really insignificant days, and how much you’ve forgotten about really important dates. Over the 29,213 days of this life some important things have happened which changed course of history, but never touched me. And, some things which seemed so important at the time which now cannot quite be recalled in detail. These are some of the days of my life which were sand through an hourglass.

They tell me...

• October 14 1943 war raged across the earth, America alone mustered 6-million men to arms, with no home untouched, and patriotism carried the day.

• August 6 1945 the Atomic Age began.

• May 14 1948 Israel declared a free and independent nation.

Do sort of remember…

• June 25 1950 the Korean Conflict began.

• January 20 1956 first public use of video tape was shown on NBC.

• October 29 1956 Israeli army pushed into Egypt toward Suez Canal.

Definitely sat in front of TV when…

• February 20 1962 “God speed John Glen” was prayer of all America.

• November 25 1963 the nation stopped to watch funeral of President Kennedy.

• August 2 1964 President Johnson announced Gulf of Tonkin incident.

• August 2 1990 President Bush announced invasion of Kuwait, and having no idea where Airman First-class Kenneth A Lewis was in all that.

• September 11 2001 did I see the second tower fall, or was it the reruns?

• January 6 2021 demonstration turned to riot turned to what Federal courts have ruled was attempted insurrection.

Then there are events clearly remembered, but not exactly when:

• My brother trying to convince employer to install a radio-phone in his car so he could be contacted while driving across Illinois.

• First rocket to launch something called communication satellite exploded on launching pad. Wondered how they’d ever recover the $500-million cost?

• Being told by my father “there’s no future in computers”.

THIS IS A TEST!

1. What story of people of last 29,213 days, the situations faced, decisions made, have consequences on the days of our life yet to flow through the hourglass? And, no, Elijah, I do not have enough days to have known Socrates.

2. What story of people of your days, the situations faced, decisions made, have consequences on the days of our life yet to flow through the hourglass? NOTE: If you want to know how many days have run through your hourglass try https://planetcalc.com/274/.

3. Did you keep record of your really important days, or are they specks of dust slipping through fingers?

As my father said, “Date everything. You think you will remember, but you won’t.” Sorry, don’t remember when he said it.

theWould-beHistorian!

 

 Most Blessed Big Brother on Earth?

by David L Lewis - who has some experience with that question

Last week my favorite brother-in-law, Bob Wheeler, brought my baby sister Diane for a visit. It is curious how she is getting older and Bob and I are not. Maybe it’s because we don’t see each other often anymore, and miss changes the passage of time inflicts. Fortunately for me we live near Rose-Hulman, where their grandson’s team played “football” on the soccer field. Question: When that kid graduates will I never see her again? Just asking.

As it is with us old folks, we siblings spoke of health and hospitals, children and grandchildren, and of childhood happiness and adventures of which neither Bob nor Kay knew.

As I have admitted in other venues, It is unlikely I would have survived childhood and adolescence without the blessing of having Diane in my life. Maybe that’s why the morning after their visit an old Sunday School song was brought to mind:

Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your blessings, see what God hath done;
Count your blessings, name them one by one;
Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.

Counting ‘Di’ there have been many more blessings in my life than I can count, and certainly more than I realized in the course of life as the sun rose, the sun set, This is my ‘working list” of God’s blessings on my life –

1. Someone once said the only thing by which a man can be judged is whether he did what he honestly believed God gave him to do. This I have done in my meager attempts to serve Him. Whether successful or failure in this service, the Lord has blessed me and mine.

2. I have loved and been blessed by my wife Kay since the day we met, never looking to the right hand or the left. After all these years I still wake up and wonder how I’d get though the day, how I would live at all, without her.

3. We had five children of whom any man could be proud. They not only know their parents love them, they love and accept each other. As I once told a neighbor, I know from experience that if I needed my eldest son he would drop everything and come. The neighbor replied, “I envy you.”

4. We live in a house which truly has been made our home (mostly by the woman in my life). There is always this-n-that to do I suppose. But, we are safe in “the hallow of His hand” from dangers others face in forest fire, flood, or hurricane.

5. At this point in our life we have no debt, no expensive vices, no unmet need. Our lives are quiet (okay, boring), but we have each other and having food and raiment are therein content.

6. In all the journeys and struggles of my life it seems like there has always appeared an “angel unaware”. This, however, is subject for another day.

7. Last of all, health. Yes, the vicissitudes of life exact their pound of flesh. And, my general health must be listed as on down side of ‘as good as it gets’. However, none of diseases now affect this body such as brought down my father at 50, or my brother at 65. Given two more weeks I’ll make it to 80, still alert enough to write what you just read.

All in all, today I consider myself the most blessed big brother on face of the earth,

theBlessedBigBrother

Hereby Is Proclaimed A

'Bill of Ought to Be'

The never-ending efforts of David L Lewis to make civilization safe for civility

In 1958 to ‘graduate’ from 8^th grade in Missouri we had to pass test on United States Constitution. Earned a whole $10 bill all for myself when I got an A+!  

So, as one who got an A+ on it 65 years ago, I’ve anointed myself an expert on American Constitution. Therefore, herewith, to wit I hereby proclaim the following Bill of Ought to Be (things which ought to be in Constitution but ain’t).

BILL OF OUGHT TO BE

1. Ought To Be Voting require passing Citizenship Test “to determine if applicants have an adequate understanding of the English language, knowledge of US history, government, and civics.” Making everyone know enough to be a citizen of country in which they vote even if they still don’t for who or what they are voting.

2. Ought To Be requirement everyone who wants to run for any office undergo a ‘72-hour psych hold’ to determine if they are sick as a dog, crazy as a loon, or dumb as a rock. If they are any or all three they’d probably still get elected; but at least we’d know what we got.

3. Ought To Be implanted in every candidate a Lie Detecting Defibrillator to shock heart every time they tell a fact-checkable lie. A shock strong enough that anyone within 1000 feet would know it. Assuming, of course, we can find politicians with a heart.

4. Ought To Be elected for each office both a Campaigner and a Functionary.

   1. The Campaigner would be handsome/beautiful, hypnotically eloquent, and preferably war hero. He/She could make any promise, tell any lies. He/she would have no real duties other than occasional ‘rally around the flag’ speeches to insure re-election of their Party.

   2. The Functionary, on other hand, would be somebody who could just quietly do the job, on time, under budget. As they said when I was in grade school, someone to “make the trains run on time.”

5. Ought To Be Full Disclosure of donations totaling over $100 to any Party, PAC, or politician. This info could be posted for all the universe to see who’s buying who and how much each politician cost so we could get into the bidding to buy ourselves our own politician.

6. Ought To Be Term Limit of two consecutive terms in same office, with lifetime limit on how may years a person can hold elected offices. At some point they’d all have to get real job and work for a living.

7. Ought To Be Keep-It-Simple-Stupid requirement on all new laws. No Bill could include junk thrown in with absolutely nothing to do with anything. As it is now, God Almighty could personally walk into Congress with a 20-page Bill that would solve every problem on earth and cost nothing. By time it got to the President it would have become 5,000 pages of gibberish which would solve nothing, please no one, and increase national debt by several trillion borrowed dollars.

8. Ought To Be repeal of two laws for every one passed. Sooner or later we’d get down to original ten.

9. Ought To Be 1776 style ‘tar & feathering’ for violating an Oath. Seems in the past it was assumed everyone would put “duty, honor, country” ahead of all else. Many Laws and all ‘customs and norms and ethics’ assume people who’ve taken an Oath would simply be honorable. I’m all in favor of making America that way again, But, in meantime maybe some swift and certain public shaming might come in handy.

10. Ought To Be repeal ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. That way no matter what happens nothing bad will come from worthless promises we hear, lies we are told, or even how really dumb and/or greedy our representatives are. We’d might just make America great again if only the Constitution included this one Ought To Be.

Just proclaiming solutions for some future generation who don’t take an 8^th grade Constitution test.

TheOldtimeHistorian!

A fight for ‘right’ form of government by David L Lewis

Happy 236^th Constitution Anniversary Day!

On September 18, 1787, the last day of Constitutional Convention, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin, “Well, Doctor Franklin, what have we got. a Republic or a Monarchy?” Obviously the lady didn’t check her e-mail. The long hair, white guys who wrote our Constitution had more than two options. There were at least four kinds of government to chose from. And, how hard it would be to get a Stop sign depended on what they chose.

#1 Democracy comes to us from the early Greeks (doesn’t everything?). Following their model, if I were to want a Stop sign installed at the end of our street I would take my request to a meeting of all free, male citizens of the town. We’d all vote on it, and if a majority approved I’d get my Stop sign, paid for from the public treasury. Unless, of course, the thing dies in Committee.

However, all Democracies fail, usually because the majority want the money spent on something other than Stop signs. Alexander Tyler (1747-1813) put it this way:

“A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a Democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a Dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years…”

Again following the Greek model, in time one-man rule arises to save the minority from the plague of democratic placement of Stop signs. Someone who “alone can fix it”. In Greece the man was Alexander the Great.

#2 Republic comes from the early Roman Republic (which also gave us The Gladiator). For some time ancient Rome was ruled by a Senate made up of ‘entitled’ long hair, rich white guys who made the rules as they went along, and used money to secure political power. Republics fail, failing mostly because nobody who wanted Stop signs got to vote for those Senators, or the thing dies in Committee. When Republics fail one-man rule arises to save the minority from the lack of Stop signs. Someone who “alone can fix it”. In Rome it was Julius Caesar, and a long list of dictators who followed until the whole Roman Republic idea collapsed.

#3 Democratic-Republic as I was taught to understand it in grade school (think early 1950s), this form of government was mostly what writers of America’s Constitution compromised on. The people could elect representatives who would decide where and when to spend money on Stop signs. Unless, of course, the thing dies in Committee. Whether this will work in long run is yet to be determined and seems to depend on how many Stop signs we really need and which Party is pro-Stop sign. Whether a Democratic-Republic can survive more than 236 years is un-tested. But, there are more than one potential leaders awaiting to be they who “alone can fix it”.

#4 Monarchy (aka Dictatorship) usually arise throughout history because a minority determine it will take someone who “alone can fix it”. Sometimes they are elected by a Democracy, sometimes appointed by a Republic, sometimes they just take power by force. In Italy it was Mussolini, in Germany it was Hitler, in Cuba it was Castro. When we get us a dictator who “alone can fix it”, if I pledge fidelity to him I might just get that Stop sign (dictators rarely wait on Committees).

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

History leaves hints to warn of coming events, and those today paying attention see hints of pending failure of this Democratic-Republic form of government. If the idea of a Democratic-Republic fails, and all history hints it will, would over time a one-man ruler arise to save the minority from the plague of Stop signs? Someone who “alone can fix it”? Would some future generation, ignorant of history, not recognize that history, as Mark Twain said, rhymes?

Of all the words to dread and to fear

most naive are these, “it can’t happen here”

This is not intended to be a well-documented, researched white-paper. Based entirely on memory of things taught me, this is merely one observer’s attempt to once again ‘write to find out what I think’ about Stop signs. If any reader be Liberal, Libertarian, or Lawyer, please feel free to present a better way to get me a Stop sign.

Just fighting for some future generation needing a Stop sign,

TheOldtimeCitizen