Father's Day

Today is Father's Day. I've heard from my two daughters today. One was at church with us and shared breakfast. The other lives near Memphis, works in retail sales and had to work today.

My wife and I drove to McComb to spend a few hours with her father. He's in his late 80's. He's a great guy and I love him as I would my own father.

My father died of cancer just over 30 years ago. I think of him often and miss him dearly. On the trip back, I tried to vision what I would be doing with my Dad if he were still alive. He would be 89 years old.

I can imagine we would get together and I would grill him a huge T-Bone steak medium rare (more medium than rare), give him a loaded baked potato, a nice green salad, some fresh French bread and tea to drink. Then we would have dessert....most likely banana pudding.

Growing up I never knew there was any cut of steak except T-Bone. I was grown and married before I found out about the other cuts.

Perhaps,Dad and I would talk and remember our times together in the Army Reserves, or perhaps hunting or fishing. And somehow he would manage to make me laugh....he was a natural at getting me to laugh.

It would be a fine time together. When the time came for him to go home, I'd shake his hand. We didn't hug, we shook hands. I guess it was just a guy thing. When he died in bed at home, the last thing I did was shake his hand.

I miss my Daddy.

Changing Technology

I’ve been admiring a computer set up I saw several weeks ago while we were visiting at Sam’s Club. It was a HP with 8 gigs of DDR 3 memory and 1 Terabyte of hard drive with a Windows 7 operating system. It had a Blu-ray player, a speedy AMD Phenom II 945 Quad-Core processor, a very good video card and a good sound card. And it had a 27 inch HD 1080p monitor and was configured for wireless internet. Since I first saw it, I searched the internet looking for the same set up for a lower price.

In the meantime, my wife’s old Dell desk top was showing its age and had slowed to a crawl. As much as we tried, we just couldn’t get it to speed up. I sort of knew what I wanted to get her. She spends a lot of time downloading embroidery designs and creating new ones. So I knew it needed a fair amount of memory and a good monitor. But she really doesn’t care about listening to music or watching videos on the computer.

Last evening I went to the local Office Depot to see if they had a specific computer I had identified as being ideal for her. They didn’t have it. I had them check the other Jackson stores and found nobody had one in stock. Then I found it was a model that isn’t being made any longer. So this morning I headed out for one of the Office Depot stores on I-55 North. They had a computer that looked interesting but just didn’t quite fill the bill.

Next I went to Best Buy. All of a sudden I saw an HP with the same configuration that I had seen at Sam’s. The only difference was this one had a 23 inch monitor in lieu of a 27 inch. But the price was a couple of hundred dollars less than at Sams. Then I looked at the computer next to that one. It had the exact configuration I was looking to get for my wife. Plus, it came with a 23 inch HD 1080p monitor. And both packages included an inexpensive HP desk jet printer, scanner, copier.

The sales clerk had been talking to a lady who was looking for a desk top for under $200. Best Buy didn’t have one that fit the bill. When she finished with that customer, she came over to me to see if I needed any assistance. Pointing, I told her I want that computer and I want one of these computers. In short time I was headed out to the car with two carts holding two computers, two printers, and two monitors.

When I got home, I realized it would be quite a task to transfer files from one computer to another. So I purchased a small external hard drive that copied off all my files in about an hour. At least it transferred all the documents and photos. Goodness I have several hundred hours of music downloaded to the computer, and I guess I’ll just have to put it all back on the new computer as I get the time. Lollie has had an external hard drive for about a year that backs up everything on her computer each day. So I put her new machine in service while backing up my old files.

When I finally got around to installing my computer, I came across the realization that my old HP Laserjet 4P printer will not connect to the new fangled computer. So I am glad to have one of those inexpensive printers for the time being.

I did hook my computer up using the wireless feature. It’s working just fine. I have watched a couple of television shows through the set up and it hasn’t skipped a beat.

She’s happy and I’m happy. Once again we can sit at our adjoining desks and send each other emails while grinning and winking at the other. And in spite of being couple of older folks, we are managing to stay current with computer technology.

Humph, I remember when I purchased an IBM Selectric Typewriter that replaced the old manual typewriter I had been using for years. Times do change and progress continues.

No Way

It’s just one of those things I refuse to do. It stems from experiences which happened over 40 years ago. That experience has stuck in my memory for all these years and causes me to have nightmares.

You see, I served on a hospital ship in Viet Nam. Hospital ships are wonderful institutions. They save lives by the thousands. But in war, our service personnel also die by the thousands. I encountered death every single day and handled more than my fair share of bodies; probably more than the average funeral home handles in a couple of years. And they weren’t pretty. They were dead and they thoroughly looked the part.

When I flew home, I flew on a plane with three other service people and a whole load of bodies. We landed at Dover, Delaware. I was to report to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for out processing. How did I get there? I rode in a truck loaded with bodies.

Today when I go to a funeral, there is a body present. My mind has a hard time processing the information in a civilian light. And usually, in the evenings following a funeral, I dream about bodies, lots of bodies.

That’s why I will never have a funeral. My body will be cremated with my ashes spread at sea….in the blue water of the deep sea. The Navy will do it for veterans or my wife can do it if she wishes. I will not have a funeral. I will have a memorial service which hopefully will celebrate my life. But there is no way anybody is going to stuff me in a fancy box and cart me all over creation loading and unloading me and requiring a dolly to set me in the right place and then smothering me six feet underground.

No, I want the open sea with clean air and deep blue water and I don’t want to make a big deal about it.