July 27, 2007

July 27, 2007

6:40AM
Celina, Ohio

Thought for Today:

What the heck am I doing, starting a personal diary blog at 58 years old, and how will I keep it up?

Lake Festival Weekend Begins

Up early with daughter Anissa, Ness is handicapped and an early riser, so letting Patricia sleep in, and I'm getting ready to shower. Will leave at 8:15 or so, heading to Dayton to pick up oldest son Sam...he is on his way back from dropping a RV off at the Baltimore docks for shipment to Italy, no cheap airfare from Maryland, so he is "Busing" it, nasty way to travel, but sometimes in the RV delivery work a necessary evil. I do it as seldom as possible, usually on Southern California trips, I will grab a bus to Vegas and fly out of there....but avoid them otherwise....nasty, nasty, nasty, way to go.

Usually avoid the Lake Festival for the most part, the festival started back in the 1930s, was stopped during the war years, then around 1960(just before we moved here) it was kicked into service again, always the last full weekend in July. This year, I may walk the 2 blocks to the Celina Insurance parking lot to view the classic cars, other than that, I plan on heading out to the Tiki(old Lakefront Racquet Club) Bar and have a beer with Wulfie after the parade, which I will avoid at all costs.

We have had a very dry summer, almost drought-like, but the past few days have seen some rain showers, although Celina has gotten less than the rest of west central and northwest Ohio....with a 60% chance of thunderstorms tonight, the planned fireworks on the western waters of Grand Lake could have some extra lights.

The right ankle sprain I managed to put on myself last Sunday(just after my final umpire gig for the season) is still swollen, but getting better, with just 2 weeks left before the start of football scrimmage officiating work, I need it to be better than it is now...at my age, it's hard enough to get up and down the field, especially since I really have slacked off my workout routine, something else that needs to change...although my days of lifting heavy weights are probably done, more reps, less pounds is the goal....also once the ankle is healed, I need to get back on track and do some decent walking.

So this is it, the blog/diary begins.

40 years ago today
_______________________1967 was called "The Summer of Love", the Hippies and Anti-War Nuts were in full bloom, for me, no love, just the summer after graduation from Celina High, that I spent paying off mom, after wrecking my brother's Dodge.  Mike had headed off to Thailand, and let me use his fine 64 push button 318....Rick Pearson, Phil Schmidt, and I headed up to Cedar Point Amusement Park on July 4th, we made it home July 5th, after a night in the Wood County Jail...the Dodge followed a few days later. Wrecked it on US 6 coming back from Sandusky, of course I failed to tell the folks that I was taking it that far. Anyway the roll job cost about $600 and my freedom for the summer, no I wasn't grounded, I was already out of school and 18 years old, but being 18 I was also pretty damn broke, had to borrow the bucks from mom, and spent the rest of the summer giving her my Huffy paychecks to pay the repair bill. The next 9 months before joining the Air Force went well(despite another wreck with the Dodge, this one not my fault), but "The Summer of Love" was not, at least for me.

prh

27 July 2007