It All Started

 It All Started

I’m running late in posting this morning. Why? It all started last evening while at church for evening revival services. The need to use the bathroom was a necessary interruption. After church at home, my stomach began to rumble and grumble, bubble and boil. The sounds sounded like dead souls took up residence in my gut. The groans and wails soon drove me to perch on the commode. More and more often I became glued to the commode. My stool became looser and looser until it was a fountain of colored water being expelled.

While on the nest, I had a hot flash and pulled off my shirt. I had put on a heavy shirt because I had felt chilled. The hot flash quickly became nausea making my mouth water; soon to follow was the violent emptying of my stomach. Time after time, the nausea turned into vomiting. I grabbed the nearby trashcan instead of having to clean the bathroom after my perch of the john.

The trash can soon contained my stomach contents from the day before, my toe nails, and the calluses from the bottom of my feet. Wave after wave of intermittent diarrhea and vomiting swept over me. Now comes the trifecta. Muscle cramps made it nearly impossible to move without agitating the sharp painful pains.

I’ve survived. Not feeling well yet, but alive.

Slip Slidin' Away

 Slip Slidin’ Away

Sliding boards were fixtures in the playgrounds of my youth. Schools and parks had sliding boards, see saws, swings, “monkey bars,” and the “roundabouts’ or merry-go-rounds. These weren’t the rubber covered, plastic playground items like the playgrounds of today. These were monstrous, man-made objects with metal-pipe bones, rusty-chain sinews, sawdust blood, and concrete pads for feet. There were no safety rails for climbing up to the top of the eight foot tall or taller metal sliding boards. The exposed metal was sun baked in the midday sun waiting to sear any bare flesh that dared to come in contact with it.

If someone would jump off the seesaw the other end would plummet hitting the ground so hard that teeth would clatter shut. The “monkey-bar,” jungle gym rose from the playground like a skeleton of a naked high-rise apartment building. Often the rungs were wet with dew or rain allowing fingers to lose their grip and kids drop onto the hard earth below or ricochet off another iron pipe. Fingers would often be pinched in the rusty chains of the swing, tempting fate with the possibility of incurring the disease of lock-jaw or tetanus. And I haven’t mentioned the merry-go-round yet. There was nothing merry about that spinning disc of death. That spinning saucer was a risk every time a kid climbed aboard when there was another “friend” there. That friend would do their best to spin the thing as fast as possible hoping that someone would fly off to their death or become dizzy and vomit. Aw yes, the wonderful playgrounds of my childhood. They were definitely not OSHA approved.

My first sliding board memory was one on the playground in Sheridan, Illinois at the park of my Uncle Fred and Aunt Cora Miner Hyatt’s town. That metal monster seemed to be at least ten feet tall, but it did have metal handrails to assist the climber to the top. The flat metal slide would clutch at bare legs and arms, giving brush-burns to an unwary child.

There were other slides that I helped lubricate with sheets of waxed paper. The waxed paper minimized the drag and sped up the descent. The last slide I rode was the double humped metal camel at Mammoth Park, Pennsylvania. That beast was about one hundred feet long with a man-made bump near the middle. The steep descent would cause the rider to often lift into the air as he or she hurtled down the metal chute. The rider would shoot off the end of the slide into a muddy landing that could injure legs, arms, or butts. This amusement wasn’t for the fainthearted but for youthful daredevils.

Places I Have Been

 Places I Have Been

Before my stint in the Navy, the only places that I visited were with my parents. My dad Carl Beck was even more frugal than I am and we spent his vacations visiting relatives. The longest trip was to Florida to visit my aunt and Uncle Helen and Jake Stahl in Orlando. Shorter trips included visiting my aunt and uncle, Cora and Fred Hyatt in Sheridan, Illinois and to see my aunt and uncle, Ina and “Nicky” Nicholson in Millersport, Ohio.

For the time while in service to my country, I started basic training and Naval Corps School at Great Lakes training center in Illinois, spending the winter there. Then I was sent to Orlando, Florida from the chill of the north to the heat of Florida. My next assignment was to Keflavik, Iceland and travelled from the hot humid south to a chilly 60 degree weather.

After completing my nursing curriculum at the Fayette campus of Penn State, I was assigned classes at State College, Pennsylvania. After graduating, I found employment at Monsour Hospital then at Frick Hospital. After my marriage to Cindy Morrison, our next trip was to visit her relatives in Jamestown, New York. We also made a short trip into Canada before heading home. Cindy felt ill while we drove home. It was our introduction to parenthood. Cindy was pregnant with our first. Only my craving for greasy hamburgers alerted us to our later two pregnancies, but that’s another story.

Family vacations included Sea World, the Knoxville World’s Fair, a visit to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and to “The Wilds” church camp in North Carolina. The next major trip for me and the family was to “the Wilds of the Rockies.” It was part of the tenting trip out west with seventeen teens, seven adults, also touring multiple National Parks for seventeen days.

My next major trip was to Newfoundland/ Labrador Canada, driving most of the way then riding a ship to Nain and returning to Newfoundland. A trip to Cottonwood, Arizona for my son Andrew’s wedding to Renee Largent was next. Later my son moved to Amarillo. That was my next long distance travel.

I joined a friend on a trip to Elkins, West Virginia to ride the train to the ghost town of Spruce. I travelled with the same friend across the southern border of Pennsylvania, up the east side, back across the northern counties, finally returning home along the western border of our state. Fifteen days of waterfalls, battlefields, and hotels wore me out. I’ve been pretty much a homebody since then. I’m just wondering it’s time for another escape vacation.

Since then, I flew to California with that same friend to visit her aunt and visit sites in California. Now my travels are to a nearby Walmart to shop.

First Sleep

First Sleep

First sleep was a term that was used commonly until late in the 19th century. It was a biphasic sleep pattern where people slept in two distinct separated by one or two hours of wakefulness known as the “watch.” People would sleep roughly from 9 p.m. until midnight, wake to read or work for a few hours, then sleep again until dawn.

First sleep began shortly after sunset. It was characterized by several hours of deep and restful sleep. The interval, “The Watch” was a period of time that was used to read, pray, talk, or tend to chores. It faded and finally disappeared from our vocabulary, our pattern of speech, and our lifestyle with the rise of electrical lighting, industrialization, and a push by society for a consolidated 8-hour period of sleep. In summer’s impressive heat, the night cooled and created a time where it became more tolerable to complete tasks and the person was strengthened and refreshed.

If there is a first sleep, it follows that there was a second sleep. That was the return to slumber-land until rising again in the morning. In the past the time to rise was just before dawn when animals needed fed, chores needed done, and breakfast needed to be cooked. It was a time of sleep that completed the cycle of rest.

What also popped into my head was a trip taken with 17 teens out West tenting. We drove by a city in Wyoming called Ten Sleep. It was named by the Crow nation referring to a 10-day mid-point travel between Big Horn Mountains and Fort Laramie,

Lately I have fallen into a first sleep pattern getting drowsy in the evening after a strenuous day of small chores and watching television. My allergies cause pressure to build behind my eyes making suggestions to my brain that I need an evening of napping. Recently I have succumbed to that siren’s song and fallen into bed for a few hours of slumber. The midnight hour will tease me into full wakefulness and I am compelled to wake, rise, read, write, and pray. For some reason I am not drawn to go downstairs to sit in my recliner to watch some late night program on the boob tube. I don’t need to be rubbed the wrong way by some Leftist comedian who thinks that he or she is funny. Their comments have become political parodies that hurl only barbed insults at anyone who opposes their singular view of reality.

So after an hour or so of putzing around, I decide to go back to bed and sleep for another five or six hours before rolling out of bed to face another day. 

Follow Up

 Follow Up

I forgot to mention from my llast post. I was docent st the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society this past Saturday and as I started my car to drive home, the “low tire pressure” light on my dashboard was iluminated. I Climbed back outsside and made a tour of my tires. None looked low and the light still glowed saying that one tire had 15 pounds pressure, I thought it might be a faulty sensor and drove home to use my handheld gage and add air if it was needed. I haave an electric pump and a bicycle manual pump. I tried to use the electric and couldn’t get it regulated then retrieved the hand pump. To my dismay, the hose had dried and was broken.

I placed a call to James Prinkey, my son-in-law who lives close and asked him for help. He’s a whizz with tools and if he was available he’d come over and rescue me. James came over and whipped a battery-powered pump from his tool box. While it was pumping, he made rounds checking my other three tires. All of them were good. As he checked them, I slid my hands ocer the surface of the low pressure tire, only tto find a thin, flat wire about two inches protruding from the tread. Even with my limited mechanical knowledge, I knew not to try to remoovee it. Similarly as a nurse I was taught not to pull an impaled object from a chest wound.

I carefully drove to the local NTB store to have “professionals”” pull the wire and replace itt with a plug. The technician was skillfully able to repair the hole and I was able to go on my way. They didn’t charge me anything, but was able to get tem to accept a small gratuity. I was very thankful that the technician was able to get me out of my dilemma.

The coincidence was astounding. The week before I went to NTB to replace my marine battery for my sump pump in my basement and hit a curb on my way into their facility. I’d bought that battery there and it was still under warrenty. However, NTB had stopped selling marine batteries. The curb had sliced the sidewall of my tire. I had to buy a new tire.There was no way I clould leave, so I had no choice but to buy a new one and have it mounted so I could leave.

Frustrating Friday

 Frustrating Friday

Friday morning wasn’t indicative of the rest of the day. I washed, hung clothes out, brought them in and folded I put them away Saturday. It’s rare I do both on the same day unless I feel the need. Since it’s only me in the house, I get lackadaisical at times. I knew I was to attend my youngest granddaughter Hannah Yoder’s high school performance of the musical “Frozen” later. Somewhere about noontime, things changed. I couldn’t find my cell phone and thus came the search-party safari. For several hours I retraced my steps. Outside, upstairs and downstairs, I retraced every step that I had ever made. I even executed several detours through spaces that I knew I knew I’d never traveled, “Going places where no man has gone before.” I became so frustrated that I finally gave up and defaulted to the old man reserve position. I showered and took a nap.

I heard my daughter Anna Prinkey come in the front door. She and I were going to the musical together. I had messaged her earlier that I had lost my phone. She dialed my phone number, but I keep it on vibrate so I am “running silent,” and the vibrations let me know that I got a message. While she was searching I got dressed to go to the musical.

She made the usual tour of my house and then decided to recheck my car. She tried dialing my cell again several times, listening for a vibrating sound. After several times, she heard a chattering on the rear floor behind the driver’s side. The phone had slipped from my pocket and her dialing vibrated from its hiding place in the seat.

The musical went well and was glad to get home to take my meds and climb into bed. I was tired from jogging up and down the stairs.

Saturday I had volunteered to be docent at the Chestnut Ridge Historical Society. There are only three members who are willing to carry the workload. It is hard to keep up. The numbers of workers have decreased due to old age, death, and illnesses. More and more volunteers are harder and harder to find. Historical societies and other smaller agencies are pressed to stay open. The preservation of the past is essential. It’s essential to keep our history as a foundation for the future.

Saturday evening I met with several other men who gather to pray for a revival in ourselves, our church, and in our country. Mt. Zion Community Church at the top of Kreinbrook Road begins s week of revival services the week of April 27^th. Everyone is welcome to attend. Services start at 7 pm. Thursday is special. It’s visitor’s night with a dessert fellowship to follow. Pease come.

Drained Brain

 Drained Brain

Have you ever woken up and thought “I don’t wanna? I’m not hungry. I don’t wanna eat. I don’t wanna read my Bible and pray. I don’t really wanna go to take care of chores. I don’t wanna get out of bed.” The only reason you stir at all is nature calling and your bladder is full almost to overflowing then you stumble half awake into the bathroom. Now that you’re up, what are you gonna do?

That’s what I felt like this morning. I was have no appetite, especially for breakfast foods.

When I feel like this, what do I eat for breakfast? The thought of frying an egg makes me want to head back to bed, pull the covers over my head and hide, but I’ve already taken my morning meds and I have to eat something so my blood sugar doesn’t hit rock bottom. Sometimes I pull oped the refrigerator door and study the contents in the dim light of the 25 watt bulb that resides there. Then I must make the decision, will I eat leftovers so I don’t have to cook anything, but the mashed potatoes and two chicken drumsticks leftover that I see for some reason that menu doesn’t seem too appetizing today.

I managed to sort through my refrigerator to finally find and consume a container of yogurt. I decided it would be the least offensive to my indecision and queasy stomach. At last I am able to sit in front of my blank computer screen and try to wring out today’s post. This is it. I’m sorry if it’s not up to my usual dribble, but it is what I have left in me. Maybe I can think of something better for my next post. If not I may shuffle back down stairs to search for somethin else to eat. I know I have Rice Krispies, a couple of bananas, and milk. Anyone want to join me?