Winding down 2011.....Here comes 2012 like a thief in the night....

Now that Christmas is fini' we can look down the road a week and get ready to dive head-on into 2012....a year that IMO may not be that far off the Mayan Predictions.  Not so much as I believe they had super physic powers, but because only a fool would believe that the direction this once great Republic, note once, is taking.  As the last great hope of mankind, the USA has fallen into a heap of misery...not because we are starving or are living in the streets, but simply because as a society we expect too much, too much help from the Government, led by a foreign born interloper and Marxist, named Barry Soetoro, Barack Obama, or whatever the Hell this Kenyan born, Indonesian raised Islamic worshiping bastards real name is.  It is safe to say the majority of the people living in this country are now wards of the state....the freeloader, and government workers of all ilks, and their families are now in the majority.  Those earning a living from work and the Capitalist system are now in the minority.  Toss in 20 million illegals, and you have a recipe for disaster, a disaster of Biblical proportions, that cannot likely be reversed.

So 2011 is ending on a downer....2012 will begin on the same course.....if the likes of Obama and those that follow his lack of leadership are allowed to be re-elected, and in control,the end of the Republic as we know it is a certainty...there will be no turning back from this course....the end times, whether it be the one predicted in The Book of Revelation or the Mayan Calendar cannot be denied for long....it will indeed come, and the people that continue to demand of their government and the taxpayers that make it possible, are, along with the political hacks they elect, 100% to blame.

Those dire predictions aside, 2011 was a great year in retrospect for PRH and his world....so for the next few days of this week we will look back and enjoy those memories, while waiting for the other shoe to drop in 2012, because unless I miss my guess, it will be a disaster, not only for America and her people, but for all of the western World, and the freeloaders that live off the fruits of those that work day in and day out, in this land of last hope.

So, the post Christmas, "legal" Holiday is here....back tomorrow with a beginning look at the year past, and forward to what may indeed be the worst year in any of our lifetimes....

back later>>>>

Photos-As 2011 winds down, I will take a look back at the year in review this week, and a look forward to what I believe will be a year of disastrous consequences, Mayan, Biblical, or something else, if we continue on our current direction.

Graveyards, Snow Blowers, and a little nonsense....

Running late today, and I'm 90 minutes or so away from heading over to the local middle school to officiate a Girls JH double header between Celina and Fort Recovery.  I spent the morning at a local engine repair, lawn mower, and snow blower, dealer in Coldwater.  With winter arriving ahead of schedule we figured it's time to get a snow blower for mom's place.  She doesn't have that much to take care of, but my machine is way too heavy to drag over to her place in the back of the Jeep...to heavy and too big.  As luck would have it, they were out of the smaller 5 HP types, but they did have a trade-in that they had just gotten in.

A local church had just traded in a nice 2 year old Toro, 2 cycle(the type you mix gas with oil, not my favorite, but....), 5HP machine, that I could lift in and out of the back of the Jeep...although it's better on the back, with some help.  The price new, $699...the price used, $279.  The things runs like new, and looks the same, with very little use.  So hopefully both houses are set for the coming cold winter...snowy as well?  Time will tell.

The way the birds and rodents(Squirrels) are packing away the seeds and food, I gotta believe they see a long, cold, winter in this age of that fake science, called Global Warming Bullshit!

Whistling Past another Graveyard_____

Graveyards are a great place to work on family genealogy, that's how I first "met" my Great-Grandfather, Nelson S. Houseworth(1837-1887) in the Blue Creek Cemetery in Paulding County, Ohio.  Also all the Houseworth men that served in and survived the Civil War, are found in various locations around central and western Ohio.  But there are other graveyards that have nothing to do with family genealogy...today I took a short trip to one of those, between runs to the Snow Blower dealer. This one to one from my early years living near Montezuma.

I first noticed the Long Cemetery while hunting in my teen age years...it hat several old trees and a passel of old stones that were lying around in no particular semblance or order.  Not knowing the history, I am assuming it was the Long Family plot...in the 45 years since I first came across it while Squirrel hunting, it has been taken over by the township and now the remaining stones are in order, the weeds cut, and most of the trees taken down...to where there is just a single walnut tree today.

Old cemeteries that were abandoned were prime targets for teenagers, such as myself, to play pranks in...today those pranks seem stupid, even though most of the perps meant no harm.

I remember one Friday or Saturday night in the fall of 1967,  around Halloween probably.  My brother Mike, who was off in the Air Force, best friend David "Kim" Deeter, and a couple of other guys I knew, were riding around with in my 1962 Ford Falcon, when we stopped by the Long plots.   Many of the stones, as I mentioned were laying loose on the ground of the neglected family bone orchard.  Kim, who was to become one of 58,000 victims of "my" war, was just a couple of months away from his draft date with destiny...he would be KIA, in Vietnam with the Army, in April of 1968.  Anyway with innocent mischief on our hands, Kim picked out an abandoned stone that had the words "Son of Rachael" in scripted on it...the dates and other things I don't recall, but it was old, as are all the graves in this bone orchard are.  We put the stone in the back window of the Falcon, turned on two flashlights to shine on the it, and drove around Grand Lake and the Montezuma/Celina area for a couple hours, showing it off during the Hallowen season...then we returned the stone to the spot on the ground where we found it.

Even 43 years or so later, I can remember that night like it was last evening....those old stones are still there, now in better shape, as is the graveyard, than ever before...Sadly, David "Kim" Deeter is inscribed in a tombstone of another variety...The Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC:
http://thewall-usa.com/search.asp

Tomorrow, if I can get up the energy...I'll comment on the traitorous workings of a sorry little Private in this new Politically Correct Army, and his dealings that have led to the Wikileaks fiasco.

back later>>>>

Photos-The Long Cemetery, one of my early discoveries...The little snow last night, was not enough to fire up the Snow Machines...and most was melted by the time I visited the cemetery this afternoon.  Some of the stones are very readable...some not so much, but the death dates as far back as the 1820s and none more recent than the 1870s....

1975-Time in a Bottle!

The rains continued yesterday and as I look out this morning, it is coming down, after a brief dry spell overnight. Our games were rained out, and I expect tonight, and possibly tomorrow's will be the same. League schedules, and Sam and my Sectional Tournament, have already been changed. Speaking of poor Sam....here he is a big time Columbus Blue Jacket fan, gets tickets tonight for the first ever Jacket home hockey game, and boom! The stomach/flu virus that Patricia, then me, had, gets him....he was scheduled for a mid-term today at OSU-Lima, then was heading with a buddy to Columbus this afternoon. He missed the mid-term, e-mailed his prof last night(or early this morning about 3) after getting up and visiting the "throne", something I got used to for a few days while I was in my battle with the bug. I know, with $110 invested in tickets, he will make an effort to get to the game tonight, but that 2 hour drive each way and the 3 hours at the arena, will not be easy....he's young however, and at 27 he might have a chance to recover in time...maybe.

Weather wise, I guess it could be worse...Wisconsin is getting pounded by 6 to 9 inches of snow and winds....now I remember why I left Wausau in the north country after living there for 2 winters....those winters never seemed to end.

1975_________

I got up this morning, saw Patricia off to work, and sat down at the computer, and checked the e-mail....I had been writing back and forth with my old buddy Rick T(pictured with me above at last years 40th RD Reunion) whom I had not seen since the "Red Door Reunion" last April. This Saturday will see another event at the Door, and I was asking him if he was going to make it.

His answer hit me as to how life ebbs and weaves at times....he said he was going to try, he needed a break and would try. Several things were on his plate however....His mom was in the Lima Hospital after undergoing double by-pass and was not responding well. I had just talked with her last month and she seemed fine, but apparently not that fine...Rick said she was struggling. Then on an even sadder note, he mentioned his 15 year old grandson was in a fierce battle at a Columbus Hospital, with leukemia, after a bone marrow transplant. I told him Patricia and I would pray for both, and hopefully he could get away for a night, if not, I would toast him with a drink Saturday night.

I then wrote another e-mail back to him and typed in: "I'm sitting here thinking about your mom and grand kid, I sit here and wonder...Don't you sometimes wish it was 1975 again? I'd like to freeze that time in a bottle, and be sitting there at the Red Door, getting stoned without a care in the world and money to match the cares(none). Our only cares were whose asses were we going to have to kick or get kicked by that night at work, how much beer we could down after we closed, and how soon we could start?

Sad to say Rick, the world doesn't work like that, but sometimes don't you just wish it did?

Later Buddy"

Rick and I tendered bar at the infamous Red Door together from 1973 through the fall of 1975....we were the 2 constants there...I was the so-called manager, he was my right hand man....those couple of years are forever etched in my mind(and his as he wrote back) as the bell weather days of our transportation from youth to adults.

I worked 6 nights a week(Monday nights off) while Rick filled in when I was off and worked Thursday through Sunday. Without exception we would close down the place and either drink at the bar or head to my place, or Jim Olson's, or somewhere else to get our evening "party" started...few nights did we make it home before dawn, or if we did, it was just to hang out. It was one Hell of a 2 year run...something I will never forget or look back at badly for the rest of my days.

Rick drove a little red AMC Gremlin with "Levi" seats...I had an AMC Hornet with the same interior...we took those damn things everywhere. Reds games in Cincy, to beer runs to wherever...those were our fun mobiles, along with my 63 Ford Econoline Wagon, and both of us had motorcycles as well. I can see us tooling down I-75 passing back and forth with each of our cars filled with bodies and beer on the way to Riverfront Stadium. It's a wonder any of us survived...but survive we did, and are still here to talk and write about it.

Don't get me wrong...Patrica and I have been together since my Red Door days, so she knows what I'm thinking. I love my family, I couldn't go back and do those things again if I had the time. But those days, the year 1975 in particular, just before college, marriage, kids, bills, and the aches and pains of getting "mature" and older, are in fact, the days I would put in a bottle if I could.

In the meantime, say a prayer for Rick and his family, especially that young Grandson of his.....

back later>>>>>

photos-top left: Me and Rick at last year's Red Door Reunion/ The others from 1975, views from 303 North Brandon(just a block from where I live today), my first home bought. Me with Jake the Red Tick hound and my 1974, 250 Kawasaki in the background/and my 1973 AMC Hornet, complete with the Levi Package, in front of the house.

Below: Standing in front of the well used Econoline at Daytona Beach in June 1975, and a 1974 Kaw 250 similar to the one I used both on and off the road.