Saturday, May 9, 2009

6

HOM - Addenda & Ramblings
Somewhere I have (had?) a sheet where Mom listed birth/death dates for the family, and other important dates. Can't find it!

So, here are a few dates & other stuff I did dig up:

Grandma Streit: born 1/1/1880, died 1972.

Ian - data taken from his 6/30/1937 hunting license: 5'9", 175#, brown eyes, dark hair, occupation of rancher. (Me: 5'11, 210, hazel eyes, brown hair)

Mary: born 1/12/1909, died 2005.

Grandpa Streit died in 1956. I think Grampa Handcock died in 1953, Grandma Handcock in 1950 or 1951. I rode to the hospital with Mom when she took Grandpa Streit there the last time. He told me I could have his old rod & reel then. (Later on, I asked Uncle Rudy if he would fix a loose guide on the rod. He took it & I never saw it again.)

Grandma didn't drive. She did at one time, but when the old truck veered off the road into the ditch, she hauled back on the wheel and yelled "WHOA!" It didn't stop till it hit a fence post and that ended her driving - she preferred the days of buggies and horsepower that obeyed voice commands..

That old Ford Model T truck is the one they rode from Alabama to Montana in. When I got acquainted with it in the 50's, it lacked doors and most of the floor. Uncle Bill was able to drop his empty beer cans by his feet as he drove and they would land on the road below.

Uncle Bill, by the way, always referred to the compartment in the dash of a car as the "whiskey drawer". The rest of the family called it the "jockey box".

Drinking. Like most of their rural generation, the Streit boys were drinkers. Beer & whiskey and sometimes wine were the mainstays at family get-togethers, and Grandpa always had a bottle of Seagram's 7-Crown in the cupboard. During prohibition his brother ran a still in the cellar of the house, which upset everyone else because the fumes were obvious on the main road.

I learned at a young age that if I asked each uncle separately for a sip they would usually say yes, but if I repeated the request too many times I got in trouble.

Another ploy that backfired was when someone gave Mom a bottle of . . . brandy? Not sure! Anyway, she put it in the bathroom cupboard. I found it, figured she would not notice if I just took a little sip once in a while. The problem was, she didn't look at the bottle for some weeks, and when she did, it was pretty obvious that it was over half empty & I was the culprit. The funny part was, she thought I had just drunk it, and broached the subject by asking me if I felt a little dizzy. I didn't, but I did feel kinda pained pretty shortly.

Mom's idea of punishment, by the way, was a leather razor strap applied to my bare bottom. Nowadays that would be child abuse, but back then it was the common cure for juvenile crime, and was quite effective.

Grandma's youngest sister Ellie and her husband Oscar made wine at home, but I remember the mess when they sealed the jugs before the wine was done working and several of them blew up. To make matters worse, the jugs were all in the living room...

Grandma got a recipe for wheat wine, so she mixed up a big batch in a five gallon crock. She didn't want uncle Bill to get into it, so she kept it by her bed, but she also kept a ladle there so she could taste-test it whenever she wanted to. What little was left when it "matured" was pretty good.

Uncle Bill never left the farm, never married, and Grandma was always after him for drinking, so he stashed booze all over. He used to be more open about it, but one winter day Grandma threw all of it she could find in the house out into the snow so he had to go out and dig through the drifts to find it. Forever after, the family teased him about trying to plant a beer tree in the winter.

They raised chickens & sold eggs commercially, and he kept chicken feed in a big old trough in the old log bunkhouse, so he started burying his beer in it. Cousin Glen & I found a whiskey bottle in the barn with an inch or two of booze left in it, so we topped it off with an extra inch or two of body fluids for him. I think he poured it out, though, since he didn't trust us for some reason.

Glen. My closest cousin in age, the son of Mom's sister Margaret (nicknamed Toots), my cohort in summer mischief, lived in California & visited in the summers. (Toots, by the way, is my last surviving aunt & lives in Cottonwood, AZ.)

I remember Grandpa Streit telling us to gather a couple of buckets of fallen apples and throw them to the pigs. Somehow, we interpreted that as throwing the apples AT the pigs, which got us into trouble.

I remember the two of us screaming for help as a joke on Grandma. When she came running out she switched us from laughter to real screams with about two swats.

Glen & I walked from Grandma's house to mine, and we took his Dad's bow & arrows. By the time we covered the mile between the houses, we were out of arrows, and I have often wondered how much farm equipment got flat tires from those lost arrows.

We used to shoot the arrows up to see how long it took them to come down. I stopped doing that the day I fired one straight up, and almost took too long figuring out why I couldn't see it coming down. I jumped, and it buried itself between my foot prints where I had been standing.

TBC.
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Saturday January 12, 2008 - 10:46pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
I Forgot...
to add, Mom kept me stocked with comics while we were in Yuma. When we left, she made me leave them behind. There was a stack 6" to 8" high, most of them Walt Disney comics. I wish I had those comics today, in like new condition....

(I read comics, many of which I subscribed to, while the price went from ten cents to twelve cents, but when they hit fifteen cents I quit. Don't remember if that was my decision or Mom's.)

Also, wearing tennis shoes in Yuma in the summer, I blistered my feet with the heat from the pavement.

I remember the sidewalk vendors there, Indians or Mexican, selling stuff from colorful blankets spread out on the sidewalks. I had Mom buy me a rabbit's foot from one for luck. I wasn't logical enough to realize that the foot had been awfully unlucky for the rabbit.

We stayed in a little rental somewhere, and I remember it had a real ice box instead of a refrigerator. It was (and is) the only one I have ever seen, and I remember the ice man putting a big block of ice into it while I was there.

There was a boy there, too, that I met. David?? We played cowboys & indians together.

A distant relative named Damon Reed met us when we got to Yuma and arranged the place for us to stay. He lived in Truth Or Consequences, NM, later on, and perhaps then too. I think we must have been in Yuma for a couple of weeks.

We visited the old Territorial Prison, but all I remember of it is the old punishment cell, and in the museum a pair of fleas dressed in wedding garb that were displayed under a magnifying glass.

I guess I forgot to mention Grandpa was a model maker, with his own lathe and shop setup. He built a model railroad and a clipper ship model that for a time was displayed in the old John's Hardware store here. (John's had the walls layered with antigue guns and other things on display.) I think that after the store closed, the ship was donated to the state historical musem in Helena. All I have of it are some old photos. I think it was a model of the famed Flying Cloud.
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Friday January 11, 2008 - 08:44pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 1 Comment
Mo Me....
Fill-ins and add-ins, things I forgot, and a little incoherent new junk.

Dad died at home, on the couch in the living room. (Mom's desire was to die there too, but the all-wise folks in our FUBAR medical establishment would not let her.)

Rory (Bus) ran a power shovel on Going To The Sun road when it was built, but was killed a few years later, in 1937, over by Phillipsburg in the Rock Creek Cut. His foreman sent him in right after the blasting was done, over his objections, and the rock wall collapsed onto his rig. He was not killed instantly. I have some coins he had in his pants pocket, and they are bent & twisted.

Grandma Handcock died quietly in 1950 or so, in her sleep, napping in her old rocking chair. When Grandpa tried to wake her up, she had already gone.

Grandpa Handcock started going to Yuma, AZ, for the winters, and fell there, breaking a hip. Mom & I took a bus to Yuma and I saw him briefly there through a window - the hospital would not let me in to see him. He died of pneumonia.

I was given my first hangover by Grandma Handcock, who let me sip beer till I was drunk, much to mom's anger. I remember sitting on a yellow jacket in the car when we left Grandma's after a visit. I complained about my butt hurting, but I didn't cry till I found out it was a bee sting.

Grandpa Handcock used to fill me with tall stories about side hill gougers and other mythical beings. One day after he finished a story I told him he was lying to me and he got upset. Mom had to intervene for me. He also took me up to the roundhouse in Whitefish where he had worked and showed me the tools & trains. I remember he put a coin in a massive old power hammer which flattened the coin with one blow. I wish I still had that coin.

He sent me a bull-fighter's fancy little uniform from AZ, but it was too small. It might still be out at Mom's, if Dad hasn't gotten rid of it. He also sent me a few books and a piece of ironwood.

I think I got my love of gadgetry, machines & tools from him as well.

Once again, TBC!


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Friday January 11, 2008 - 04:12pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 1 Comment
Rick . . .????
Say it ain't so....


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Friday January 11, 2008 - 10:35am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
History of me, Shrouded in Fog
This is going to be like Montana weather, a bit hazy & scattered. Sorry.

Ian Handcock started dating Mary Streit sometime in the 1930s, dated her for over ten years, and married her in 1945. I was born in 1946 and he died in 1948, so I never knew him, and the only memory of him I have is holding on to the foot of the bed & jumping up & down, and Mom telling me to stop because Dad was sick.

Since he was 47 & Mom was 36 when I was born, I was an only child.

I guess a lot of what I am came from him. Grandma Streit always told me I looked like him. Mom said he used to hold me and do a show/tell of pictures in sporting magazines. I guess "duck" and "dog" were two of my earliest words. I know he loved books, and I still have some of his.

I know that when he was young, Dad pulled a shotgun out of a boat muzzle first. It went off, with the charge tearing up his arm. Mom said he was around 16 then and that he was still picking shot from his arm till the day he died.

Dad died of Hodgkins disease, a form of cancer that is quite treatable now. He went to the Mayo Clinic but nothing helped. mom said the disease started after a severe tooth infection.

His last words? "Oh. God, Mommy, I'm dying..."

Dad stories, gathered from neighbors. . .

Dad always liked to date younger women. Like most of his contemporaries, he was a heavy drinker, and was known to leave the bar and pee on the door handles of the Conrad bank when nature called and his mood was right. He liked to rough-house, go up to buddies and poke them in the belly and ask how they were doing, though that slowed down a bit when a "buddy" walked up to him at a dance, asked how HE was doing, and slugged him in the belly hard enough to put him on the floor.

He farmed with horses, of course, but while most farmers walked behind the implements or rode on them, Dad trained his saddle horse to follow the teams so he could ride it instead.

He loved to hunt, and always had a dog around, but his last dog, Nig, always resented me and after Dad died, Mom had my uncle Rudy take him away.

Dad bought the farm where I grew up from Emory Emmert, and paid for it with the crops from a single year's harvest. (Farmer were MUCH better paid in those days.) He and Buck Weaver, a neighbor, wired the farm for electricity when it became available.

TBC!

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Wednesday January 9, 2008 - 01:15pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Zena
is apparently not a Husky cross, but instead a Shiba Inu.

There must be a mix of "other" in there as she is a little large, but the breed description sure fits.

One of my customers who trains dogs clued me in on this. The more I looked at the Shiba Inu description and at Zena, the better it fit her.


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Monday January 7, 2008 - 09:00pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Worth Reading
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

"Andrew Olmsted, who also posted here as G'Kar, was killed yesterday in Iraq. Andy gave me a post to publish in the event of his death; the last revisions to it were made in July."

-----------------------

Not a bad idea, this "to be opened in the event of my death" monologue.I am not sure what I'd say - probably something along these lines:

"Don't cry for me. I have lived a happy life, rich in friends and experiences, and now that I am heading into the final quarter I look forward to the finish line. I have been blessed with love & friendships and good luck that I do not deserve. I have a wonderful daughter that has made me proud, though I really think she did so well despite me rather than because of me. I want to thank all of you for your patience and caring. You made me very rich in everything that matters."

Well, either that or just take "Hold my coffe and watch this..." as my final words and ignore the above. Whichever, don't cry!






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Saturday January 5, 2008 - 01:58pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
MMH
MORE MINDLESS HUMOR!!



























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Saturday January 5, 2008 - 09:40am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
History of me Miscellany
Streits & Handcocks.

I guess I know more Streit family tales because I listened to them for years, but I know more specifics on the Handcocks because Mom drummed them into me. I am the last of that line in many ways.

I don't want to jump ahead too much, so I am just inserting the disclaimer here for convenience.
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Friday January 4, 2008 - 12:10pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
History of me II
I am much hazier on the maternal side of my family.

Grampa Rudolph John Streit was born in Switzerland, and I think migrated to the states in his early years, perhaps in his teens or earlier. Tradition says he got seasick on the voyage and fell into a tub of dishwater.

Somehow he ended up in Alabama, and married a widder woman named Emma Isch with a souvenir daughter from her marriage. The daughter became my aunt Caroline, who was followed by Bill & Julius & Rudy & Minnie & Mary & Margaret & a couple of others that died in infancy, & finally Paul, in 1920. (Mary, later, will be referred to as "Mom" in this series.)

I have few family history stories from those early years, though I do remember the story of Rudy & Mary fighting over Granpa's pipe, which they had stolen & wanted to smoke. They broke the pipe, buried the evidence, and helped Grampa search for the pipe he "lost". Years later, the truth came out at a family reunion.

I also remember story of Mary throwing a pair of scissors at Minnie, which stuck in her back, and uncle Julius (called "Tommy Doolittle" for his lack of work ethic) being accused of dropping a burning coal down a hole in the floor at school, with a tattlletale sayingf "Julius dropped a coalie down the holey!" And the time at the fair when grandma grabbed little Paul when they were ready to go home - but it wasn't Paul, it was some other little boy....

There was also a story of a barefoot Rudy stepping into a bucket of broken glass, and another Rudy story about his trying to pee on an old gander. Unfortunately the gander thought that little white worm was edible. The result was a screaming tug of war from which Rudy had to be rescued.

Then there was the time the other kids and hired hands kept telling Rudy how sick he looked, till he finally DID feel sick, stopped doing chores, and headed into the house to tell his Mom he was ill. It took about 30 seconds of her wrath to cure him completely after she found out what was wrong.

Bill. there are a few Bill stories too. Getting peppered with rocksalt fired from a shotgun when he got caught stealing watermelons. Ending an after-dark foot race by running into the side of the car and knocking himself out. Seeing the old Tom cat crouching by a hole in the side of the barn waiting for a mouse, and pulling a "joke" on the cat by sticking his finger out of the hole in front of it. Then he got mad at the cat for biting & clawing his finger....

Tom (Julius) trying to throw a hatchet while standing under a clothesline and nearly scalping himself... Tom playing with a revolver & pointing it at his sisters, pulling the trigger and yelling "bang" - till he pointed it out the window and the "bang" was real. Close!

In 1929, the Streits moved to Montana, following some of Grandma's family. They bought a farm in Lower Valley, coincidentally next to the Handcock farm.

Once again., TBC.
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Wednesday January 2, 2008 - 06:20pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

BookSleuth®
BookSleuth®



A new service from ABE!



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Wednesday January 2, 2008 - 04:39pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
More Good Medicine
I love Darkgate!






























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Wednesday January 2, 2008 - 11:30am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Happy new year!
Happy new year! magnify
Zena & Ali on Christmas eve at Lum Owen's house.

The new kid is doing well, a hit with customers, friends and family. She is smart, playful & affectionate.

I miss Woof, but Zena is a great companion, and her compact size makes her easier to accomodate.

(Accomodate - as in, she is able to sit on the console beside me when she goes for a ride, sleeps by my feet and takes up a much smaller footprint in the office chair, which leaves room for me...)

I hope all two of you that read this blog have a great new year, and that 2008 is the best ever for you.

Peace!

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Tuesday January 1, 2008 - 10:28am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Perfection!
Why mess with it?


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Tuesday January 1, 2008 - 08:32am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
History of me
History of me magnify
Since my memory is getting "brief", I suppose I should jot down some of this before it is gone for good or distorted beyond recognition.

Don't know much about maternal sides of the family, but paternal Gf Lionel Stratford Handcock, born in 1871, came over from Ireland to Montana in the 1890's. He was supposed to become an Irish doctor, but really wanted to be a cowboy. Family tradition says he attended a medical school in Edinburgh but was washed out after he did a tonsillectomy. He cut the tonsils loose, told the patient to swallow...

So when he arrived in Miles City he worked as a cowboy, a mail carrier, maybe some other jobs. He took a trainload of cattle back to Minneapolis to sell and must have been impulsive because when he came back out west a few weeks later he was married. May Kruse became May Handcock.

My father, Ian Stratford Handcock, was born in 1898 & was followed by a little brother a few years later named Rory Stratford Handcock. (I told ya Grampa was Irish!)

After failing to find a good homestead in eastern Montana, he came here to the Flathead in 1906 & bought a farm in Lower Valley.

I am not sure of dates or reasons, but Dad became a farmer, uncle Rory, who was known as "Bus", became a heavy equipment operator, and Grampa became a machinist working at the Great Northern roundhouse in Whitefish until he retired sometime after WWII.

(to be continued after some fact-checks!)
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Saturday December 29, 2007 - 10:28am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Personal Creativity Still Vacationing
So I had to use OPC again.





















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Wednesday December 26, 2007 - 10:47am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
OPC!
Other People's Creativity! Mine is non-existent this morning.

So - Being Frank!


Being Me!


And me again!


Being.... Huh, I have no idea! Ironic?


Being the Christmas Spirit?


And being Happy!


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Monday December 24, 2007 - 10:19am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Branching Out A Bit
Good Question!



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Sunday December 23, 2007 - 12:09pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Tis The Season
For the reason.



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Saturday December 22, 2007 - 02:48pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Zena
She is doing well, adapting to her new environment and befriending everyone.

She is very smart and she is quick to learn, and being with her is a joy. Today is her fifth day in the store and she has the new routines and new commands down pretty well.

She goes into the office on command, knows "Other door" means to switch directions when she is being let out, and "bed" means hopping in the office recliner. She is learning to not hog the very center of my bed at night too . . .

Yep, she is being spoiled. She disdains the back of the pickup and rides in the front when she can, has dibs on my bed, the couch and the chairs and is quite persuasive when I have any food. (I left a biscuit for her on my desk and left my office. When I came back in she was sitting in my rickety desk chair staring at the biscuit from a six-inch range but not touching it.)

Each day she has settled in a bit more, showed less worry & been less hyper. She has gone from barking if I was out of sight for even an instant to anticipating my every move so she could precede me to just keeping an eye on me from "her" recliner while I work.

I am grateful to the folks at the Shelter for cooperating with me so I could get her, and very grateful to Lorrie at Tailwaggers for the work she put into training little Zena. I am blessed.



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Saturday December 22, 2007 - 01:55pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Personal Creativity Still Vacationing
So I had to use OPC again.





















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Wednesday December 26, 2007 - 10:47am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
OPC!
Other People's Creativity! Mine is non-existent this morning.

So - Being Frank!


Being Me!


And me again!


Being.... Huh, I have no idea! Ironic?


Being the Christmas Spirit?


And being Happy!


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Monday December 24, 2007 - 10:19am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Branching Out A Bit
Good Question!



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Sunday December 23, 2007 - 12:09pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Tis The Season
For the reason.



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Saturday December 22, 2007 - 02:48pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Zena
She is doing well, adapting to her new environment and befriending everyone.

She is very smart and she is quick to learn, and being with her is a joy. Today is her fifth day in the store and she has the new routines and new commands down pretty well.

She goes into the office on command, knows "Other door" means to switch directions when she is being let out, and "bed" means hopping in the office recliner. She is learning to not hog the very center of my bed at night too . . .

Yep, she is being spoiled. She disdains the back of the pickup and rides in the front when she can, has dibs on my bed, the couch and the chairs and is quite persuasive when I have any food. (I left a biscuit for her on my desk and left my office. When I came back in she was sitting in my rickety desk chair staring at the biscuit from a six-inch range but not touching it.)

Each day she has settled in a bit more, showed less worry & been less hyper. She has gone from barking if I was out of sight for even an instant to anticipating my every move so she could precede me to just keeping an eye on me from "her" recliner while I work.

I am grateful to the folks at the Shelter for cooperating with me so I could get her, and very grateful to Lorrie at Tailwaggers for the work she put into training little Zena. I am blessed.



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Saturday December 22, 2007 - 01:55pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Love
The most important emotion, undoubtedly the most rewarding, and maybe be the most painful.

Love means eventual loss unless it beats the odds and you die together. Going into a loving relationship means you need to stop and calculate whether the rewards will be worth the pain.

A relationship with another human usually slips up on you and love develops before you realize what has happened and is unplanned; getting a pet means going into it with both eyes open and aware that four legged friends are very ephemeral.

I get the question from others every day, and ask myself the same one - am I going to get another dog?

Quick response - I don't know!

Any dog will give me love and enjoy mine, but I think it takes more than love, intelligence and respect are needed for me to enjoy any companionship. Dogs radiate love & forgiveness but they are like people - some are smarter than others. After ten years of the daily companionship of Woof's above-average intelligence I am going to be very critical of my next companion.

Woof, as i said before, was serendipitous in the way he came into my life and I guess I am looking for Karma to strike again. Today's Interlake caught my interest for that reason.

I don't know what I want. (To be continued, I guess.)



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Thursday December 13, 2007 - 09:19pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
This is Awful
Terry Pratchett has a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's!

----------------------

Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".


We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)


Terry Pratchett


PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 02:20pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
OH MY!!!
They warned me they were going to do this, but I didn't believe them!

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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 01:22pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
More Reflections Of My taste
PUNS:




AGING
:




SLAPSTICK:




PUNS: (did I mention them already?)


OFF-COLOR: (When they apply to my experiences)



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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 09:58am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Spree Prevention


Here is one thing that works: Mass murderers who encounter armed citizens.



Actually, it worked yesterday.



And the idea of denying all publicity to killers who decide to go out in a blaze of notoriety has been around for decades. Deny them their Warhol Moment and a big factor in their choice of suicide method is eliminated.



Unfortunately, the press thrives on violence and bloodshed. The desire to publish the "facts" and the public's "right to know" have always shot down any attempt at cloaking such shootings in secrecy. The fact that the press encourages copycat crimes with lurid headlines and max airtime makes it obvious where they draw the line between financial gain and social responsibility. As in all things, the Dollar wins.

WOW! Great idea!!

"My first recommendation is that every state pass a Conceal Handgun law; one that requires not only a full background check, but also a significant amount of training. In Texas, I feel the training requirement (10 hours) should be doubled. But every state should have a similar law.

Then, if any business (except bars and clubs) wants to enhance security very cheaply, all it has to do is place very large, prominent signs near all entrances with the following, then abide by its contents:


All Concealed Carry License holders Are Welcome!

Show your Concealed Carry License and Receive 5% off!

This will be looked at by the gun control types as asinine, but it’s not. Do you think for one minute someone looking for victims would try anything in such a place? Nearly every person who makes the effort to obtain a Concealed Handgun License is an upstanding citizen and take the responsibility very seriously. Many of the anti-gun types would be shocked of how few gun owners actually do get a CHL (or whatever it’s called in any given state); In Texas, one of the most pro-gun states around, only 1% of the population has gone through the process. And many do not carry most of the time; a sign like that would increase the tendency to carry more routinely. It’s enough to be an intimidating, unknown force."












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Holiday Cheer
The challenge



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Thursday December 20, 2007 - 11:03am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
YES!
This is cool:




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Thursday December 20, 2007 - 10:13am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
For Nath & Poofy
Or any other gaming couple...


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Wednesday December 19, 2007 - 12:31pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
NotWoof
Woof has been gone twenty-two days. This weekend I poked a bit online and looked at Malamutes. When I realized I was looking for a twin to him, I decided it was a bad idea. There was no way I could get an exact replacement and if I succeeded in finding a physical twin I would probably expect it to be an exact replacement - not possible!
So, I looked at other, possibly smaller, dogs. Huskys interested me & I know from experience how good mixed breeds can be so I searched for Husky or Malamute crosses. I found a Malamute in Idaho that was smaller and brown instead of black but in the same pattern as Woof, but he was taken, so the search continued.
I wanted the Woof look, but in a smaller package. I wanted an easier-going temperament so I looked at females.
When I looked at Zena's photo on the local Animal Shelter web site:, and then read the description, I stopped...
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Entry Date: 12/14/2007 Impound #[12-7-1415]
Description:
Husky X , Color: black/white. Female spayed, 1 Yr
OWNER TURN IN
Notes:
Zena has been in foster care. She is a very pretty, playful and happy young girl. Zena loves to play with other dogs, and is great with kids and cats. She is crate trained, has basic obedience, rides well in vehicles and is affectionate. Spayed, less than 2 years old and about 45#, Zena is content to veg on the floor or furniture with you, and enjoys a good run She will need a high fence or secure containment when she cannot be in the house or with family.
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Fence? No problem - we use a cable run. All the rest of the specs seemed ideal: Ok with cats & other dogs, housebroken, good in cars, basic trained, obviously friendly, a definite possibility.
OK - I needed a serendipity factor. I sent an enquiry email to the director, using Undersheriff Pete Wingert as a personal reference. She replied Sunday night, called me Monday afternoon, and we set up an appointment for this morning. The serendipity factors were there - being allowed in two hours before the normal opening time, the director leaving instructions to give me an exemption and allow me to adopt with full return privileges, and the director being a bookstore person...
When I walked in and leaned over the counter, Zena hopped up and licked my face. At that point it was a done deal.
(Kathy was with me, and she fell in love with Zena too. I was NOT surprised)

So here she is, Zena, the bookstore puppy.


Enough like Woof to remind me of him in a good way, but not so much like him that I expect her to BE him. She is settling in now, and at the moment is sacked out in Woof's favorite chair. She met Kathy's Sam & Rocky without a problem. She greets customers enthusiastically. All is well so far.
Wish me luck, and come in and meet her!
(OK - another Woof-like attribute: separation anxiety. Hopefully she, like Woof, will outgrow it.)

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Tuesday December 18, 2007 - 01:49pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Life, Health & Predestination.
Life, Health & Predestination. magnify
I had this brief discussion with daughter Rebecca last night about sedentary lifestyles that resulted in a bit of philosophical thinking this morning.

Looking back from the viewpoint of my 60+ years at all the people I have known, the line between those that are alive and those that are dead seems to have been drawn in a random manner. If I leave out the ones over 75 or so, the manner of departure varies a lot.

Accidents and illness are the general categories, and they can be broken down into cancer, combat, car wrecks, murder, lung disease, suicide, aids, heart attacks, strokes, and probably a few miscellaneous causes.

It doesn't seem like their conscious lifestyle choices made a lot of difference with the exception of the AIDS, combat & suicide victims, and perhaps with high school classmates who drove too fast and died in crashes.

Three of the fittest, most health conscious guys I knew died in their forties of heart attacks, while one who lived into his 90's was a chain smoker. Another died in his late fifties of smoking-related lung problems.

My maternal aunts & uncles were a mixed bunch as far as vices go, but the nonsmoking-nondrinking uncles and the lifetime pack-a-day smoking drinkers all died at around age 70, while the women all lived into their nineties with the same vices.
A number of folks I knew died simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, where a few seconds either way could have left them unscathed, and I am sure that some of the folks I know were spared by the sames seconds-long margins. I know that I am alive after several situations where I would have died if I had I been mere seconds earlier or later.

One acquaintance died pulling into his own driveway when a car topped the hill at an extreme rate of speed and hit him. One friend, though not killed , was severely injured when he was out jogging on a trail. An out-of-control car left the road a distance away from him, bounced down a hill, went over an embankment and landed on him. An old GF was killed a block from her home by a speeder that ran a stop sign.

Death has seemed so random that I really believe that when your allotted days are up, you die, and what you do or fail to do doesn't affect the date. (Within reason. Using drugs or letting yourself get grossly overweight falls into the class of suicide, IMHO.)

So, is it fate, blind luck or predestination? What is your opinion?

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Monday December 17, 2007 - 11:44am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments

Love
The most important emotion, undoubtedly the most rewarding, and maybe be the most painful.

Love means eventual loss unless it beats the odds and you die together. Going into a loving relationship means you need to stop and calculate whether the rewards will be worth the pain.

A relationship with another human usually slips up on you and love develops before you realize what has happened and is unplanned; getting a pet means going into it with both eyes open and aware that four legged friends are very ephemeral.

I get the question from others every day, and ask myself the same one - am I going to get another dog?

Quick response - I don't know!

Any dog will give me love and enjoy mine, but I think it takes more than love, intelligence and respect are needed for me to enjoy any companionship. Dogs radiate love & forgiveness but they are like people - some are smarter than others. After ten years of the daily companionship of Woof's above-average intelligence I am going to be very critical of my next companion.

Woof, as i said before, was serendipitous in the way he came into my life and I guess I am looking for Karma to strike again. Today's Interlake caught my interest for that reason.

I don't know what I want. (To be continued, I guess.)



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Thursday December 13, 2007 - 09:19pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
This is Awful
Terry Pratchett has a rare form of early-onset Alzheimer's!

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Folks,

I would have liked to keep this one quiet for a little while, but because of upcoming conventions and of course the need to keep my publishers informed, it seems to me unfair to withhold the news. I have been diagnosed with a very rare form of early onset Alzheimer's, which lay behind this year's phantom "stroke".


We are taking it fairly philosophically down here and possibly with a mild optimism. For now work is continuing on the completion of Nation and the basic notes are already being laid down for Unseen Academicals. All other things being equal, I expect to meet most current and, as far as possible, future commitments but will discuss things with the various organisers. Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)


Terry Pratchett


PS I would just like to draw attention to everyone reading the above that this should be interpreted as 'I am not dead'. I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think - it's too soon to tell. I know it's a very human thing to say "Is there anything I can do", but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry.

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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 02:20pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
OH MY!!!
They warned me they were going to do this, but I didn't believe them!

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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 01:22pm (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
More Reflections Of My taste
PUNS:




AGING
:




SLAPSTICK:




PUNS: (did I mention them already?)


OFF-COLOR: (When they apply to my experiences)



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Wednesday December 12, 2007 - 09:58am (MST) Edit | Delete | Permanent Link | 0 Comments
Spree Prevention


Here is one thing that works: Mass murderers who encounter armed citizens.



Actually, it worked yesterday.



And the idea of denying all publicity to killers who decide to go out in a blaze of notoriety has been around for decades. Deny them their Warhol Moment and a big factor in their choice of suicide method is eliminated.



Unfortunately, the press thrives on violence and bloodshed. The desire to publish the "facts" and the public's "right to know" have always shot down any attempt at cloaking such shootings in secrecy. The fact that the press encourages copycat crimes with lurid headlines and max airtime makes it obvious where they draw the line between financial gain and social responsibility. As in all things, the Dollar wins.

WOW! Great idea!!

"My first recommendation is that every state pass a Conceal Handgun law; one that requires not only a full background check, but also a significant amount of training. In Texas, I feel the training requirement (10 hours) should be doubled. But every state should have a similar law.

Then, if any business (except bars and clubs) wants to enhance security very cheaply, all it has to do is place very large, prominent signs near all entrances with the following, then abide by its contents:


All Concealed Carry License holders Are Welcome!

Show your Concealed Carry License and Receive 5% off!

This will be looked at by the gun control types as asinine, but it’s not. Do you think for one minute someone looking for victims would try anything in such a place? Nearly every person who makes the effort to obtain a Concealed Handgun License is an upstanding citizen and take the responsibility very seriously. Many of the anti-gun types would be shocked of how few gun owners actually do get a CHL (or whatever it’s called in any given state); In Texas, one of the most pro-gun states around, only 1% of the population has gone through the process. And many do not carry most of the time; a sign like that would increase the tendency to carry more routinely. It’s enough to be an intimidating, unknown force."


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