1-10-11. We are into 2011. It’s already going fast. I appreciate the Douglas County Herald for the nice article they put in there for me being the correspondent of the week. It made me feel good. I graduated from Ava High School and still think of Ava as being my home. It doesn’t look like I’ll ever be able to live there again though. Both of my kids were born in the Gainesville, MO. Clinic with Dr. Beard being my doctor. That was when I still lived in Ava. We then moved to Iowa when the kids were 1-1/2 and 3-1/2 years old. Some people thought it was cute the way my daughter, Anita, had a southern accent at 3-1/2 years old. That was after we moved to Iowa.
I have good memories of my school years in Ava and working at Davis Café. I think I just got thirty minutes for lunch during school, so I would run down the alley there to the café and work a few minutes, then wolf down a hamburger, then run back to school. I think that’s why I couldn’t gain weight because I was always running.
I got a call from friend, Kay, in VanCouver and she said her blood pressure had got up really high. I think she said 245 over ??? (another high number), so her son took her to the hospital. She said she couldn’t talk or anything for a while. She’s out of the hospital now, but she said she takes spells with shaking and doesn’t know what causes it. She said her son is working in Cedar Falls, Iowa now, that’s right by Waterloo. She said she’s decided she won’t be able to come over here though, because she gets claustrophobic when she flies and I’m sure she couldn’t drive now with the health problems. I’m going to suggest maybe she can get one of her other kids to drive her over here. It would be great if we could see each other again after all these years. We’re supposed to get a snowstorm starting tonight. We plan to go to the Quad Cities one day this week, weather permitting. I still have some Christmas gifts to deliver while we’re there. I have to go to Tipton today to pick up some prescriptions before the snow gets here. The landlord is still here so he will plow the lane again, but it depends a lot on the wind and if it blows right back on the lane. Last Wednesday we made our regular trek to Muscatine to do our shopping. We ate with Lisa again. She said Carrie had a small birthday party for Jared. It was a surprise and he had to work late. Lisa said it was just Jared, Carrie, Zoie, Lisa and Joe and Anita who attended. We don’t go anywhere at night. They just said on television that the driving conditions around Des Moines, Iowa and west of there are really bad with a lot of wrecks from the snow and it’s coming this way, but it’s less than seven weeks until March and we all know how fast the weeks go.
Four retired guys turned into a Naples, Florida place called “old Timers Bar – all drinks 10 cents.” They think this is too good to be true. The bartender asks, “What will it be gents?” In short order he serves up four martinis on the rocks. “That’ll be 10 cents each, please” They can’t believe their good fortune and order four more. Same price, 40 cents for the round. Finally one of them asks, “How can you afford martinis as good as these for a dime?” “I’m a retired newspaper man and I always wanted to own a bar. Last year I hit the lottery for $125 million so I opened this place with cheap drinks. Every drink is a dime, wine, liquor, beer.”
