Wednesday.  I’m going to edit today.  The publisher wants me to do a book on the Vietnam era.  Truly a horrible war.  We had no real reason to be there, and so many young men died.

Ken only got hit once.  He took a 50 milimeter through the cockpit--which looked like smoke when the canopy  disintegrated.  He said he leaned forward to pull back on the stick or it would have cleaned the earwax out of both ears.

Sounds like something he would say.  The only other bad thing he had was being burned all over when he was doing his post flight check.  The plane had been shut down, but as he walked around the tail, the plane “belched” fire and he got it.  They threw him in water which probably saved his life.  Almost 60 years ago, but some memories don’t fade.  I thank God he made it home.  So many didn’t.

I walked around the block again at 7 this morning.  As long as I do that I give myself a pass for the rest of the day to sit and watch TV.  I don’t actually do that, but I could if I wanted to!!!

I have been watching the Olympics.  The men’s gymnastics has been obscured by the women’s team for so long that it was exciting to see them medal.

The newspaper is the most exciting event of most days.  But they have a new crossword person who likes to ask for the name of current figures in movies etc.  That really isn’t fair.  Who cares.  I need real stars like John Wayne, Heady Lamarr, Bette Davis, etc.

It’s no fun anyway when they ask for names instead ideas and definitions.  But it still gets me out of my chair to go outside and get the newspaper.  Unless it’s raining...then it’s a toss up.

Yesterday’s lesson was about Deborah.  A female Judge for Israel.  Obviously she was before her time.  Being a female “anything” during those times (and these times) was a rare occurrence.  She sent the Israel army to fight a group that was much larger than they were. Also the enemy had chariots.  And she went with them to be visible as the appointed voice of God.  They won the battle.

I read in the newspaper a few weeks ago that one of the largest denominations in America was going to make a rule that a woman can’t pastor any of their churches.  I’m sure that will cause a split--especially among predominantly black congregations since many of their pastors are female.

I can’t imagine what higher boards of denominations are afraid of--that women are a threat???  There were four different female judges over Israel back then.  They survived it!!  

 I spent all of my time today cleaning up my kitchen floor.  I dropped a quart of sweet pickles in sugar juice all over the floor.  I can’t even describe the mess.  And the floor will still be sticky for ever I fear.

I have kept walking around the block this month at seven in the morning before it gets hot.  Missed once when it was raining.  I hope it helps me get my strength back. I’m so non-mechanical that it took me two weeks to figure out that the walker handles could be adjusted up and down.

I’ve been eating mashed potatoes for breakfast.  “Idahoan” brand.  I have a hot water tap at my sink...so it is instant.  I love things that are instant!!! Food is my biggest problem.  It is hard to cook for one person.  And my mama taught me never to throw food out---which is impossible anymore.

My publisher came by yesterday.  We are trying to get my next book on the market.  I sent an e-mail copy to my brother Bill, and he found over twenty mistakes--that’s after I had edited it myself over and over.  I can’t find my own mistakes because my mind reads what I “want” it to say.  July is almost over.  Where has this year gone?!!?  

The aging process is a enigma.  You never know where you are.  In your 80’s, you realize that time is not on your side, but on any given day, you feel great...and then next day the you don’t.  And you ask yourself, “Is this it?”  I think I am doing everything a person can do to stay healthy,  but my body sometimes doesn’t agree with my mind.

You don’t dare complain.  People don’t like to hear complaints no matter what your age is.  And you really don’t know if you have something going on that you should complain about!!!  Maybe it is just a bad day.

My dad lived to ninety-four and the only complaint he ever made was once: he told me about the plate of leftovers I had set on the table for him.  It was something he didn’t want to eat.  So I fried him an egg and he was happy.  I wish all of us could be satisfied so easily.   

I joined a group named “Rusty Keys.”  Women who learned to play an instrument in their youth, got married, had kids and got “rusty” playing their instrument.  I had been so sick this last year that I had quit going.  But today (I’m better) I played the marimba for them.  My marimba had been in the trunk of my car for a year.  It comes apart into six or seven pieces.  And for the first time in my life (I got the thing when I was fourteenI) of playing it, I flubbed up.  You can’t leave something in your car trunk for a year and expect to take it out and be fantastic.  The redeeming fact is that everyone there played an instrument  and flubbed up.  I think that’s where the group got the name “Rusty.”  They are a fun group.

I would give the marimba away ( I have another one in the family room) if there was some child who would like to learn and stay with it.  It was used when I got it and I’ve been playing it for 70 years.  It’s time for someone else to play.

I’m ready for the election to be over!!!  I can’t get anything interesting on the television.  It seems like every channel has been preempted and you have to sit and wait for the show continue.

I’ve been watching old movies.  It’s amazing how TV programing has changed.  And with playback, I have learned how many minutes of a show are used for advertising.  Over half of the time--for some channels.

I like Discover, Shark Tales, and anything nature or science.  Back in the “good-old-days,” we only had three channels, and news once in the evening.

The weathermen predict the worst possibilities all day long, so you really don’t know what the weather is until it happens. Everyone tells me to pay up for ad-free TV.  I would if someone would do it for me.  I don’t want to learn how to do it--and end up owing someone a million dollars. I’m a perfect scam target.

When I write, I edit it constantly.  And when it is finally ready to print, I give it to Bill to read.  That’s when I find out that it isn’t ready to print!  He has already found over 25 mistakes.  It is so helpful to have someone do that for me.  I can’t catch my own mistakes.  

My publisher is supposed to bring me a contract this week.  I hope so.  I’ll give her all of my brother’s corrections and be done.  “Done.”  Becky says “done” is her favorite word.  I agree.  

And now that it is “done” I have started writing again.  Something fresh and new.  My mind if freed up to start inventing another story.  I am not particularly a writer, I am a story teller.  My girls say, “Give mom one fact and she will turn it into 300 pages.”

 I walked around the block early 7:00 AM this morning.  It is so hot here by 8:00 that you can hardly breath.  The tip ends of every plant and blade of grass are brown. 

My water bill was over $200.  I got the bill yesterday.  I immediately turned my sprinkling system off.  The grass and shrubs are going to have to make it on their own.

Pryor, Oklahoma is a cheap place to live.  Edmond isn’t. I have an old paper the lists Pryor one of the most economic  places in the USA to live.  

Edmond is one of (if not the) most expensive places in Oklahoma.  I wish I had never left Pryor--I did because both girls live close by here.  I had been ending up in the hospital over and over and they wanted me closer to where they live so they could take care of me. I’m so independent, however, that I just take care of myself.  I wish I had stayed in Pryor.

 

 

I walk around the block every morning and meet all of the neighborhood dogs.  I remember the dogs names  but can’t seem to recall the owners  names. 

 I have to get myself a  dog.  I just don’t know where to go to get it.  I don’t want a puppy.  I can’t do that again.  I want a female that is small and doesn’t shed.  No more males.  Squig ruined the skirt on my loveseat--I could never catch him in the act.  I can clean up the floor if a dog makes a mess, but furniture is impossible.  Iv’e tried all of those products that they advertise.  They don’t work.

Bill (my brother) is editing “The Corsair Pilot” for me this week.  I can’t do it for myself.  I can’t see mistakes. Carolyn will give the book another read and edit as well. I want this thing out of here!!!  Once I’m done....I’m done.  I’ve started on another book.  But I haven’t gotten my mo-jo back yet.  All I want to do lately is eat Cheetos.

 I think I have found the draft of The Corsair.  It took me all day yesterday.   Thank goodness for “Finder.”  I will have to read every page all 300 of them to know for sure.  I need a better filing system!!...which means I don’t have a filing system.

Today I go to breakfast with Ann.  She will be her in a few minutes.  Then I get my hair done, come home and eat lunch   and start reading, reading, reading.  I hope I have found the right manuscript.

I finished the book “Killer Angels,” last night.  Pulitzer prize winner.  But hard to read.  The version in the history books about Gettysburg don’t tell the story at all!

I wish I could go back and look at the field again.  “Little Round Top,”  “Big Round Top” and Seminary Hill.  Oh well, I probably wouldn’t know much more than I do now because I am not a warrior. 

I had written a book about Ken, (The Corsair) and the publisher wanted a different ending.  That was last year...so I spent months rewriting it  ... she wanted Vietnam included with the first part which was about Korea.  

Yesterday, she came to see me and said she had been wrong. And she was sorry.  She said adding another war made the book too long.  So “Let’s go back to the original,” and write another book about Vietnam.  I haven’t written anything in months because I couldn’t figure out what to do.

Ok.  I was so happy.  That’ what I wanted all along.  It should be out in the fall!!!.....But after she left, I opened my computor and couldn’t find the original.  It has to be somewhere...but where??? I’m going to spend all day looking and then probably take it to Craig and hope he can find it.  He says it’s in the cloud wherever that is.  But....I am energized.  And so happy.  I liked what I had written in the first place and it’s hard to please someone besides yourself.  I’m so, so, so, relieved.

We lived in Virginia for three years, right across the Potomac River in Woodbridge.  And Ken was fascinated with the Civil War and wanted to go walk every battle field within driving distance.  I knew very little about that war. But he knew every detail.  Especially the battlefield layouts and the men on both sides.  Where they were positioned and how they advanced.

He took me to Gettysburg and went over the positions of Lee’s army, Longstreet, and the northern generals.  I was unable to understand what the ridges and positions meant, but I tried!

I am now reading a book about that battle.  Each general.  Each tactic.  And after 62 years I am starting to understand how uncertain the outcome was, and how much the personalities played a part.  And how our nation’s future was at stake.  I have never been a history student; math was my field, but this book is very interesting. I wish I had been able to play my part better.  He would stand in a position, tell me which general I was supposed to be, and of course, he adored Lee.  It wasn’t about the north and south, but the character of General Lee. 

 The fourth is over.  There weren’t as many fireworks here as ususal...maybe because it rained.  And it rained again yesterday.  In July!!

 

I’m eating Cheetos for breakfast.  My daddy used to eat cookies, so I guess it is OK. I have never liked eggs.  Or milk.  Which makes breakfast hard to do.

Tomorrow, my publisher is coming at 1:45.  I pray she does.  She has cancelled the last four times.  The book I have written about Ken is ready to go.  I read the letters he wrote me from Viet Nam to find things that he said about the war while he was in the middle of it.  From 67-68.  I hadn’t read them again in all this time. It was sad.  So many deaths.

I’ve been reading my way through the New Testament again, and finally got to Revelation.  Tough reading.  Everyone has an opinion and I got to hear the very best of scholars in the late 1940’s.  My pastor was Ken’s dad and he had huge linen bolts of fabric, hung from hooks in the ceiling at our church.  They read from left to right, with very artistic colored pictures that depicted the prophecies of both Danial and Revelation.  And in the years since, I have heard and read many differences of opinions.  But my go-to guy on the subject now is my son Scott.  He’s who I call when I have a question--which I did last night.  In one of the Revelation prophecies there were 45 missing days and I couldn’t figure out where they went.  I won’t go into it, but he answered my question and in the discussion said, “You notice that Dan is not included in the twelve tribes of Israel in Revelation Chapter 7.  He was cursed as a serpent in the Genesis 49, and Judges 18--because he led his tribe into the worship of idols.”  Well, no.  I didn’t remember that and had never noticed it when I read Revelation chapter 7.  Scott has become a Bible guru on details like that.  I guess we can learn from our children.  

Monday...and it is July.  I don’t know how that happened.  I still don’t know where January went.  Time is passing faster for me than ever before in my life.  And I’m accomplishing less!!.  As Ken would say, “I get up every day with nothing to do and go to bed with it only half done.”

We had a wonderful discussion group yesterday in our Sunday class.  As we have been together for eight years now--we know each other really well, and instead of me being a teacher, I just throw out questions and we search Scripture.  It is a much better way to do class.  We just stay in agreement with the word of God.

Most of the classes I have taught in the past have been filled with people who didn’t study  their lesson very often.  This group always comes prepared.  I look forward to Sundays.