2008 in Review/September-October

The weather is continuing to be "Not Bad"....reached 50 with wind and sun yesterday, getting me a chance to walk, and also with the cold finally improving(although not 100% yet) a chance to head to the basement weight room and do a little lifting....not sure how much good it does at this age, but what the Hell?, I'll keep at it as long as I can.

Hal has been home for the past couple days, working for Celina Moving(Atlas) before heading back to school and teaching at Fairborn next week...today he is back near Cincinnati for a loading/unloading job.

Ok, today on we move back to the fall of 2008..............
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September-October

2008

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September began and stayed warm...and pretty dry, I think the entire football season, I only had to wear the long "knickers" pants one time...the rest I could enjoy the weather(albeit sometimes too hot) and shorts. The best thing about the football season, unlike last year, was my back held out the entire season...a few minor aches and pains(who doesn't have those at 59?), but it held out for the season. My gig at the Honda Satellite plant in Greenville ended..it had been a great run, $60 an hour for doing a couple hours a week of spread sheet and inventory work, way too good to last, but I enjoyed it for 18 months...it got me off the road from my RV travels, just when that started to tank. So, what to do next for a part time gig for this semi-retired one?

I was already doing 80+ baseball games a year as umpire, 40 or so football games...should I take on basketball? The hard court is definitely the most strenuous of the 3 major sports(and hardest on feet and back)...I had also officiated soccer, but really couldn't get back into that, since it went up against football, which I enjoyed way too much to share with soccer....so Sam already decided to do round ball, and I would take the classes starting in October and join him in getting my license....I would not have visions of doing Varsity though...I can do baseball and football, but no way I can keep up with the boys running up and down that fast hardwood...Jr High and Freshman, with a few JV games thrown, in was what I envisioned....and so far it has worked out.

September also saw the heating up of the Presidential race, with McCain and Palin getting trashed by comics and of course Obama's Lap Dog Media, lead by Charlie Gibson and a few others.....the American Media has become a Marxist Joke....but if you didn't already know that, you are one yourself, or completely zoned out. The media and the left were so damn afraid of Sarah Palin(a True Conservative) they would do anything to trash her....they are scared shitless of the Alaska Governor.

I have been doing family genealogy for 10 years now, have written a family book, and researched the Houseworth Clan back to my GGGG-Grandfather Jacob Hauswirth's arrival in Philadelphia on the "Ship Janet" in 1751. I have put much of that on another blog:

http://israelhouseworth.blogspot.com/

In September I did some more work in Paulding County and Blue Creek Township, in October I would head to central Ohio and visit the family roots in Waldo and Millwood, 2 small towns steeped in Houseworth History. Millwood was founded in part by my GGG-Grandfather Israel Houseworth(who changed the name from Hauswirth), Waldo is where he died and many of my direct ancestors are buried in the Town Cemetery...Waldo is also home of the very best Bologna Sandwiches in the world...bar none! The weather was great that day I traveled 100 miles south. and east....I didn't find much in new family nuggets, but enjoyed the travel and food none-the-less.

Football finished up for me in late October, and before the month ended, Nick Hromish and I headed for the Au Sable River in northeast lower Michigan to try our luck at Salmon fishing between the river and Lake Huron....It was the first time we had done that in 24 years.....we had varied success.

Also in October my old drinking buddies from the 1990s at the Lake Front Racquet Club came back to Celina....

Dick Finke now lives in St Peterburg, Florida, while Tom Friedly trains trotters and pacer ponies near Columbus in warm weather, and at Spring Garden Ranch in the winter, at DeLand, Florida. We got together in mid month, along with Dick's son Ross, the Celina lawyer, for a few(or more) beers at the Moose Lodge and Smedley's....the meeting was only a few hours long, but we had a great time reliving our recent past.....I miss those days at the Club with those guys...but don't miss the money we spent on beer and raising Hell....boy did we drink beer in that 10 year time period! Both Tom and Dick are settled in sunny Florida for the winter.

Late October saw things cool down, and I will look at the final 2 months of 2008 tomorrow....Thursday we head for rural Auburn, Indiana, for our annual New Years Day food/football fest.

back later>>>>>>>>

photos-Top is the winding AuSable River from our October Salmon Run....below that me with a couple we brought back from Michigan. Then a September Sunrise out our upstairs window, one of the baby squirrels on our back fence...the neighborhood cats took care of a few, but I believe 4 survived and can be seen daily in our back yard fighting the birds for the feed. My Great-Grandad Nelson Houseworth(1832-1887) Civil War gravestone in the Blue Creek Cemetery in Paulding County, Ohio. The Koskoing River flows outside Millwood, Ohio, a town that Israel Houseworth lived in and help found back around 1825. G&R Tavern in Waldo, home of the Houseworths beginning in 1850-until WW2 when Civil War Vet Maish Houseworth passed away at the age of 98 in 1944. One of the hugh sliced Bolonga Sandwiches from G&R....great with a beer. And bottom photo Ross and Dick Finke, Tom Friedly, and me on our 'day outing' in mid October.