35 Years and Counting

July 12, 1976 was a Monday and I can almost remember every thing about it. I was twenty years old and never really been away from home and to come to Pascagoula was to say the least a very big thing. I had just taken a job at Singing River Hospital as a 3rd shift Computer Operator. Back then Computer Operators had to run the computer not just sit and watch a status board like today. Back then everything was on punch cards and it was our job to load the cards (data) into the big old slow machine to post charges, cash, payroll, and all that. Once the reports printed we had to walk them out to each department. There was none of this assigning the reports to a department printer and having it print there when finished… hahaha





It took a lot of hard work and being stabbed in the back many times, but after nine years trying to prove myself I was able to break into Programming and I never looked back. Now for over 25 years I’ve been writing reports and I must say I’ve enjoyed my job very much.


Now thirty-five years later --- I have 3 grown daughters, 3 grandsons, and 1 little princess and news of another one in February. I guess people could call me lucky, but the only lucky thing was I knew someone to that helped me get my foot in the door… it was my hard work and the willingness to go the extra mile that has gotten me to this 35 year pin.




I came to the hospital 35 years ago and didn’t know anyone--- today I can say I can’t go anywhere in the hospital without stopping to talk to a now “old” friend. Yes, God has been so good to me and I thank my Mom and Dad for being my role models for my work ethics and Jim Hatten for believing in me 35 years ago and walking out on that thin limb to help me get this job. Jim, I owe you big time.. and I thank you so much.

July 19, 2011 I received my 35 year pin from Singing River Health System and what made it for me was the fact that my little girl, Melissa was able to be there with me... I wish the Lauren and Mary could have been with me, but with 2 little ones Dad understands.. Melissa works at the hospital also.

Adventure-- Well you tell me

Middleton, WI
Sunset 07/13/2011

There’s no place like home… I got to spend almost a week in Middleton, WI last week. The weather was great and wish I would have had time to get out with my camera and just walk and shoot. I didn’t take my camera because I knew after being in class all day I would be dead tired and that was pretty much the case. The bike paths they had were great.. I wish we had the same down here and as much as possible the land was left to grow kinda wild-- the grasses and wildflowers along the paths. The trip was fun and nothing happened that would make a story… but when I got home--

 We got back in to Gulfport about 12 yesterday and to my surprise it had been raining. That was a very good thing. I had to rush home to be at Noah and Gage’s birthday party at 3:30 in Ocean Springs… No problem… so I unpacked and put my things in the washer so I could have them drying while I was at the party. Good idea.

Well when I got home I went to put something away in my bedroom and then I saw it… A SNAKE on the floor next to the wall… First thing that crossed my mind was OH NO… I’ve got to get Cody and Lucy out of here so maybe I can do something about this BIG problem. It didn't matter to me if it was a Black Mamba, King Corba, or just a Garter snake... I didn't care.. all I saw was a snake.. 


While getting them out I was looking for something to help make this snakes journey into the after life a easy trip.. if you get what I mean.. haha… when I got back there… well you know what I found.. NOTHING… he had eased off into hiding.. OH MY GOD… now I was dead tired now… I woke up at 2 Sat morning worrying the test I’ve got to take on the class and thinking about getting to the airport on time… so as you can image I was in NO mood for this… and to top it all off my air went out… I was hot and tired and was in no mood to play hide and seek with a snake. Jonathan came over to look at my air and I told him my little snake story… He helped me look under the bed, in the closet and around the room.. NOTHING… He told me just to keep the air down real low (laughing the whole time) … LOL… said I would ok… but when I asked if he would sleep in there he kinda said NO WAY… Son-in-laws… haha…


I was feeling better and had kinda made my mind up that everything would be ok.. but just to be safe I wanted a barrier around my bed… the bedroom has a tile floor thank God… so I came up with this idea… we had pulled the bed away from the wall so we could look all around.. so what I did was to get my pail and put pure bleach in it and mopped all around my bed… there wasn’t anything going to cross that line I promise… Well the bleach was so strong I had to let it dry and kinda air out before I could go to bed… I was sitting here on the computer reading Facebook updates and looking up how to get snakes out of your house. Did a lot of that….


Well Cody, my little dog, kept on wanting to go to bed… and I did also… I figured the smell had pretty much gone in the bedroom so I put him down and I saw something… OH YEAH.. my bleach done burned the old boys eyes also… I eased up and got Cody and Lucy to go outside.. all I needed was for them to see him and run him back into my room… Well when I got them out I got my good old Sears shovel… these are some good shovels … the handles must be very good OLD OAK… because I put it to the test.. I think I hid the snake so hard I busted my slab… hey at that point I didn’t care… If I could have gotten to my gun I would have shot him… but it was in the closet and I wasn’t going there… hahaha


Well let’s just say I got a good night’s sleep and I’m afraid there’s one less snake in the world today. The truth of it is – if I had seen him outside I would have never messed with him… but when he came into my house… OH NO… that was going just a bit to far for me….

Emptiness

We are always getting ready to live but never living.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

This one statement pretty much sums it up for me. I’m always making plans to do this and that-- yet the days turn into months then years and I’m still thinking about it.

I can’t explain it … it’s like a deep emptiness within me and each day it expands. I don’t mean to be so negative, but when I write it helps.


3:40pm -- update...
You never know what blessing God has for you or how it will come do ya???  Guess I worry to much about things I should not worry about... there's times I just let the emptiness over take me... I shouldn't let it... Yes God has been very good to me and I know it will all work out...  

Words Hurt

My Little Charlie is a month old today and I’m very happy to say he’s growing like a little weed I think. Lauren told me the doctor got on to her for holding him so much…. I never knew you could hold something you loved that much too much… He is loved very much by his Mom and Dad. I’m happy to say that all my grandkids are so loved and well taken care of.



Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled. ~Horace


Words... (The term word may refer to a spoken word or to a written word, or sometimes to the abstract concept behind either. ~ Wikipedia) - what it doesn’t say is how “words” can hurt one. I was always taught if you can’t say something good – well then maybe it’s best to keep it to yourself. I don’t like being told how things should be done because of the fact that’s the way it was previously done …. We are our own person and we do what we feel is right within our own self. Others I’ve talked to don’t seem to have the problem or maybe they are nice enough to keep their feels to themselves. People that live in glass houses really shouldn’t be throwing rocks at others. I feel we all have a lot of glass around so what do I do it just take it and let if fester because I don’t want to hurt anyone. Yet, I hurt the most important person of all when I do this don’t I. What do I do? Well I try to forget, but for some reason my brain just loves to pick at that the scab on my heart… just like a when we were kids and we would get scraped knees… we knew if we picked at it, it was going to start hurting again, but what did we do??? Same way with my heart… it really made me feel bad to hear over and over had this wasn’t right and how it should be done. There are times I wish I could just disappear and leave all my worries and hurts behind, but this would mean leaving the things I love most, my children, and that’s never going to happen. All this just because someone couldn’t do what I was taught many years ago and that is if you can’t say something good… don’t say anything. It’s best at times to keep your ideas just to yourself.

It's just one of those days when you try to look forward and there's very limited opportunities if any… and I start to question myself… what’s it all about – what’s it all for? I’ve done everything I can and still I feel like I’m being left behind.  There are some things I never expect people to understand and maybe this is just one of them.  

 

What More Could I Ask For?

June 19, 2011 ~ Father’s Day

I don't care how poor a man is; if he has family, he's rich. ~M*A*S*H, Colonel Potter

No truer words have ever been spoken… Friday I sent the day with Mary and McKenna, yesterday Gage was with me and today Melissa and the boys took me to eat that the Olive Garden. That’s where Gage wanted to take Paw Paw and that was just find with me. This afternoon I got to see Lauren and she told me all about Little Charlie. What more could a Dad ask for?


Having lost Dad in March I knew this was going to be a hard day for me, but I got to thinking of how Dad wouldn’t want me to be all down and upset. More than anything in the world he wanted us to be happy. All morning I did want to pick up the phone and call him as I always did… and he would tell all about the birds that had been coming to his feeder. It’s the little things that seem so insignificant that we remember the most. He did enjoy watching the birds and when I would talk to him he just love to tell me all the different kinds he was seeing. With this in mind this morning when I got up I went out the bayou and shot the sunrise and listened to the birds and remembered Dad…. The picture posted on this entry is from this shoot.


Moving forward… Have you ever read a book and without realizing it you were reading the words, but yet you were putting your own twist to the story? I’ve got to say I’m so guilty of this, but in life. I’ve got to read the story the way it is and not the way I think it should be. I just had to put this out there tonight… hoping I wasn’t the only person that those things like this.

Going to close tonight with a funny that wasn’t so funny at the time….

I kinda keep strange hours.. I tend to wake up around 3 or 4 each morning and most of the time there’s no going back to sleep… well this morning I did go back to sleep and had a crazy dream… In the dream I was going to shoot a wedding for my cousin… no problem… my friend Debbie, who I shoot wedding with all the time was there to shoot with me… Well I opened my camera bag and no camera… where does things like that come from… all I remember was thinking Oh S****!!! I wish I could just open my mind and let all the crazy stuff fly away… LOL

All and all it has been a great weekend… and I plan to go see little Charlie tomorrow so things are just going to get better.

Bigger Than Life

The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man. ~Author Unknown


This is a follow-up from yesterday. Remember in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy, the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow were all afraid of the great Oz and then Dorothy’s little dog, Toto, pulled the curtain back and exposed the Great Wizard of Oz. Well this is kinda what happened to me. I had this picture of something made up in my mind and then when I confronted it; to me it was like the curtain being pulled on the Wizard. I think sometimes it’s best to let the curtain stay closed and let the dream stay alive… for me when I saw behind the curtain, I was like Dorothy, but in her case she had nothing to fear from the Wizard… he was just a man who used smoke and mirrors to make himself bigger than life. As for me, it was me that had made this to be much larger than it was and now that idea is gone forever.

Sometimes our lives are like this vine....

Disillusion

I guess one could say I tend to live in a fantasy world or maybe a world of dreams may be a better way to put it.  I’ll be the first to step up and tell anyone and every one that I’ve got so much to be thankful for.  Little Charlie is doing well and I hope he will be home soon.  It’s my take on me and how I feel about me.  I hate it, but I can feel myself sliding right back into my dark room again and it’s not my “darkroom”.  The room I’m talking about is one that just sucks the energy out of you.  I think this goes hand and hand with the dreams I dream -- only to watch the seconds tick by and along with the minutes so goes my dreams.   You think one thing and look so forward to it and then it’s nothing it was all just an illusion of sorts.  I just feel like I’m second string in everything only getting to bat when there’s no chance for a win so they let me in just to try and make me feel better.  I was telling myself I wasn’t going to write things like this anymore, but it’s my only outlet…      

My Unseen Path

The past few weeks my path has been anything but smooth. I think of my love ones and all the pain and hurt rushes back and my heart is torn apart once again. Maybe I should find another way to try to deal with my hurt, but photography is the only outlet I know and with the use of old pictures I’ve done and ones I’ve scanned I sit here and work hours on end to put my feelings into a slideshow. It’s all I know what to do and in a strange way it helps me re-connect with what I’ve lost. What’s so funny about it, I’ll probably be the only person to every sit and watch them and this weekend I’ve watched the newest one a lot. No matter what I do I can’t get over the feeling I’m having and just feeling empty.

I’ve started to question what kind of Dad was I -- what kind of Dad am I? More than anything I want my girls to know that I love them so much and all I’ve ever wanted was only the best for them… and yes even Dad’s hurt at times and there’s nothing that can be done. Sometimes Dad’s hurt with a hurt that there’s no words to describe other than just to say my heart is heavy.


I guess with Lauren having problems and being in the hospital this weekend hasn’t helped any. When you become a Dad it’s a life long job and one I wouldn’t take anything for… it’s just when your little girl and she’s carrying your grandson you just feel so helpless. If we can keep her blood pressure down for 2 more weeks… last time the doctor was telling her -- if we could get 2 more months…


This brings me to something else that has really meant a lot to me and here again no one will ever know of this and really that’s not a bad thing. Over 37 years has passed since high school and there’s been a lot of water under the bridges. Back in high school I was just one of the many… I didn’t stand out… I was shy and had only a few close friends and all of them were younger so I really didn’t have any class friends. Fast forward 37 years or so and enter Facebook. I’ve become friends with so many classmates that I knew, but back then they didn’t have a clue about me. We’re all grandparents now--- and we do enjoy talking about the one thing we love most of all. It just makes me feel good to know that today I’m “somebody”. Someday when my photography takes off, there are a few friends I plan to give prints to just because they got to know “me” and believed in what I wanted out of life. In these past few weeks they have lent me their shoulders to lean on and never knew it, but sometimes just a simple “like” on a picture or a comment can mean so much.

“Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things. “ ~Author Unknown 

Memorial Day, A Day To Remember

“And they who for their country die shall fill an honored grave, for glory lights the soldier's tomb, and beauty weeps the brave.”  ~ Joseph Drake
How many nights do we go to bed afraid that during the night our homes will be stormed by troops from another nation? When you go to town meetings and question our leaders in government are you afraid that you will be thrown in jail? When you get in your car and drive across state lines and sit with you children and watch the sunrise or sunset on some beach, do you worry about having to have the right papers to cross from one state to another. If you’re like me you never think about all this… we just take it for granted. What we have and enjoy didn’t come without a very high price and there’s also a high price to keep what we have.


I remember my first war…(the Vietnam war) I was just maybe 10 or 12 and I remember every night on the world news the would give a count of the number of soldiers killed in a way I understood, but yet I couldn’t get my arms all the way around it. I didn’t understand all the protest at the time and I for sure didn’t understand why people were so mean and ugly to our soldiers coming home. This part I still don’t understand and I’m 55 and for the life of me there’s no way I could ever do or say to a soldier what these did. Right or wrong these boys did what they were ask by their country. They left as boys and came home old men--- young men, but well beyond their age in years.

Today we have brave young men and women fighting today… most or young and maybe never been outside their state… You know they are scared and afraid, but they do what has to be done… and I so many times never think about them and how they must feel. We need to and we need to show out support… I don’t like war and the hurt that comes with it, but until there are no humans on this Earth there’s going to be battles.

It wasn’t until I lost my Dad in March at I heard something that will forever be in my mind… as the funeral director folded Dad’s coffin flag and handed it to Mom he said ‘On behalf of a grateful nation, Thank you’… just how grateful are we… these few words has played over and over in my mind these past 2 months… on behalf of a grateful nation… I’m afraid most never think about our soldiers and what they and their families go through. Most would just as soon forget them and the ugly they are told to do… This isn’t right… and I think God we have men and women that will take on the job, but you let something or some one try to come take something away from one of these ‘I don’t care’ they would be one of the first ones to cry for the military.

To our military—THANK YOU SO MUCH for what you do and for what you stand for…. I am only one American, but you have my support… May God Bless you and your family.

How Great Thou Art!! Oh really??

Well here we are at the end of May… I cannot believe how fast this year is going by.

I got to shoot a wedding with my friend this weekend and as always we had fun and I know we did a great job. Little bride got off to a bad start… problems with her dress and a few other little things, but when it all came time it all came together and she was beautiful.

I guess at weddings, preachers just have to belittle people that had problems in a marriage and no longer can stay together. It’s not something I like either, but as we all know things happen, people change and for those that has never been down the road to pick up rocks and throw at people that’s traveled this road of hurt is just wrong I feel. If anyone thinks I like coming home each day to an empty house I’ve got some nice ocean front land for sale just north of I-20, but who am I to know anything… he’s “THE MAN” he knows everything about everything. I really think some preachers and lay people need to go back and read their Bible again… and this time maybe read John 8:7 "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her." I really don’t like being looked done upon for things that have happened… and until you’ve walked in someone else’s shoes you really need to keep your comments to yourself. "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 7:2 … With this verse I’ll close for today, but one more thing… BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU TALK ABOUT OTHERS… as I’ve heard my Mom and Grandma say “The chickens will come home to roost”. Just think about this a bit…

Like this sunrise from one day last week.. the even the darkest clouds can't keep the sun from coming through.   This is just my take on it...