Flying High

We really have some good news today. Jane,who has been dreadfully ill since last May has finally made a good turnaround. She has been hospitalized all of this time. she was in Denver in the early days of her illness and then was flown by MedVac to Louisville to the Baptist Hosp, then to Jewish Hospital. She has been on a respirator all of this time. She has occasionally been moved to a rehab facility that is housed in Jewish Hosp but always gets an infection that is serious enough to send her back to ICU. Two weeks ago her condition had deteriorated enough that she was placed on Dialysis. After a few days of that she rallyed and once again they tried weaning her off the ventilator. she has continued to improve to the point that they determined yesterday, after doing a swallow test, that she could eat food without the worry of some of the food going down into the lungs. She can breathe on her own now and does'nt even need the oxyogen in her nose. She sits up in a chair for hours at a time and can talk with the aide of a Passy-Muir button for her treac. She had her first meal yesterday and was served roast beef, potatoes and gravey and a few sides of vegetables! Her first food of any kind since last May! They moved her out of VCU today and she now has a room on one of the other floors at Jewish. They will continue with the therapy that she has been getting there in the hospital until she is able to move into a full re-hab facility. Mike was visiting some of those today in an effort to get the best he can find. With two people assisting her she can walk a few steps with a walker so she is on the road. It is remarkable!

Doc is doing OK. He was able to come home to visit for a few hours yesterday. Gregg and Paul brought him. He really enjoyed getting out. He said today that he was very tired when he got back to Klondike. He was particularly glad to see Fergus and Fergus was equally glad to see him. We do take Fergus to see him occasionally. Fergus entertains all of the residents. He visits any one that is in a wheel chair and basks in the fuss all of the personel make over him.

I am at school every day and have some great kids this year. They behave well, no bullies, no problem kids, just kids that seem to want to learn. We have had a few incidents that were unusual. Two weeks ago we had to evacuate the school because the odor of gas was pretty strong in one of the upstairs halls. LG & E came to check it out and said even though we have no gas coming into the school it could be somewhere in the neighbor hood and we could be in danger.

Our "safe place" to go is about a mile and a half away from school so we all had to walk there until the firemen, and LG&E issued an all clear. The safe place is The Melborne Heights Baptist Church on Taylorsville Rd. The kids loved it! The fire trucks passed by (as we were walking to our safe place) going to our school and blew their horns and the police cars flashed their lights and did their siren thing, while the kids yelled and waved. Other motorists joined in the fun and honked their horns and waved. It was quite a sight. There are two hundred or so students and of course about 45 staff members. We were all very amused by the fact that two of the sixth graders (that are on the bowling team that bowls after school) took their bowling balls with them. When one of the teachers noticed them about half way to the church she asked ,"Why!" One of them said," Those things cost money!" They took them because they didn't want them to blow up. The principal told them the next day that she stayed at the school and she would have watched the balls for them. When it was time to go back they sent the secretary to pick me up so that I didn't have to walk back. I must admit, I was very glad to see her because I was expremely tired!

A few days later there was a hot air balloon race at Bowman Field and one of the balloonists that had landed on our playground last year called and asked if he could come and visit us again. He said he would let the kids help get the balloon ready to go up and teach them all about ballooning. He said he would take any of the teachers up for a tethered flight that would like to go. Of course he couldn't take the kids because that would require permission slips etc.One of the teachers that I traveled to Italy with a few years ago and had taken a chair lift ride up to the top of the Isle of Capri with, asked me if I wanted to go up in the balloon with her..It was one of those, If you go I will, deals. I went up and it was fun. Getting into the balloon was a chore but with a little help I made it. I have lots of pictures to verify my flight!

I hope Dollberry, abbygus and others soon get out of their slump and bring us up to date. We can't let T. carry the load for the rest of us.

Birthdays comming up on the 22nd, 24th, and 25th. H.B to all!

It's Hot,Hot, Hot

When I was a child and would spend time at my grandparent's house in London, Ohio, I would study the titles of two framed pictures that hung in their entrance hall. One was a picture of an old man walking through the deep snow at dusk with a jug of molasses. His arm hung down at his side and his finger was grasping the curved handle of the jug. He was dressed in a slouch hat and a heavy overcoat and the picture was from the rear. Trailing behind him was a visible stream of molasses dribbling out of the earthenware jug into the snow. Up ahead quite a distance away was the farm house that was probably his destination. The caption read," IGNORANCE IS BLISS." Another picture was of a few people struggling along with their bodies bent against the blustery wind. One hand on their heads to keep the hats from blowing away and the other hand clutching their coats to their bodies.The trees were bent against the wind just as the people were. The caption on this one read, "THE WEATHER'S THE WEATHER, WHETHER OR NOT." On many occasions I would ask my grandpa what those pictures and their captions meant. He would make an attempt to explain them to me, but his words were never sufficient enough to let me think that I fully understood these conumdrums.

Today is October the 12th. Columbus Day, the leaves have not turned the rich, fall colors this year the way they usually do by Columbus Day. The Oak leaves are brown and crisp, as they fall to the parched ground. The grass, no longer green, not from an early frost but rather from the drought that has us in its throes. The temperature today is 92 degrees and has been in the nineties for much of July, August, September, and thus far in October. It is no longer difficult to convince us that Global Warming may be a problem for mankind. The Native Americans tried to teach us to take care of the Earth by setting examples for us but we ignored the suggestions they made and bowed to the pressures of the easy way out life style that we've adopted.

As I think about the two picture captions that I mentioned above I am still wondering what they mean. Grandpa tried his hardest to teach me but... Now I wonder are we being blissfully ignorant of the role we are playing in the warming of the globe? Are we responsible at all for this weather? Did we have anything to do with it? Or is the weather the weather, whether or not?