The Forties

I sometimes think of the forties when I was still in school.  That was a different time and I think it was a better time.  Of course the forties was also the time of the Second World War and that caused lots of sadness.  Many young men in our community was gone and when they came back, it was to a hero's welcome.   Our community didn't have electricity until 1948.  So of course there was not TV or any of the things that keeps children occupied these days.  We made up our own games and we played outside.  It was cooler under the shade tree than in the house with no air-conditioning.  I remember my grandchildren saying they were bored.  I never remember being bored.  There were books to read on a rainy day and inside games to play and of course there were chores to do, since we lived on a farm.

Most all families went to church back then, now there's families that have never gone to church.  Sometimes
the Preacher was there for  Sunday dinner and we always had fried chicken on those days.  Sometimes neighbors would drop in to visit, unexpectively because there was no phone to call and say they were coming.   Well, time marches on and times keep changing but when you're old sometimes it's hard to change with the time and there's some ways I don't want to change.

Memory

When you get old, memory is an important thing.  I guess it's really important no matter what age you are.  When you're in school, you have to remember your lessons.  Now that I'm old it's the everyday things that I can't remember.  Common words that I use everyday but sometimes they just aren't in my brain at the time I'm trying to say them.  The thing that really baffled me is the things that I don't won't to remember are the the things that stay.   I'd like to wipe out some memories.  Why is it the hurtful things that seem to stay? 

I can't understand memory. 

Old Age Driver

I can't believe the problems I'm having, getting my license renewed.  If this is going to be every two years maybe I'll just retire.  Go into an old folks home and let someone else drive me around.  The eye doctor failed to fill out something and no driving test again.  A drive to Cape and the doctor was on vacation.
Is this supposed to tell me something?  If my mind is going this is not helping it, it's just helping the going
along. 

I'd think with all the trouble they've caused me they wouldn't give me much of a test but I don't think that
will happen.  They marked a x accross the paper the doctor had filled out and gave me another one.  Now
he's got to start all over.  His office could have looked up the information and finish filling it out but now I
have to wait and wonder "Am I going to pass that test".  I only have to the 28th of this month.

I haven't seen better on the right side for years.  If I couldn't see it on the left, I just said it was on the right.
Maybe I should not have been honest this time around but then maybe I'm getting paid back for not being
honest all these years.  There's got to be an end to this eventually.

Driver's Test

I have to go and take another driver's test.  I just took one four years ago and after this one expires
I'll probably have to take one every two years.  I can remember driving without a license but I'd be
afraid to do that now but I did it a long time before I got my license.  When Bill was playing in bars
in the Quad-Cities sometimes it was safer for me to drive home without a license than for him to drive
with one. 

One day he bought the second car and most of the time he left the new one at home, drove the old
one to work.  If I wanted to go to the store or to the laundermat, I just got in the car and drove with-
out a license.  I must have had more nerve then than now.  I would not do that today.  If I don't pass
my driving test, I'll be stuck back in the boonies.  I'll have to sell this place and find a new place to
live. 

High School Reunion

Saturday I went to a Joppa High School Reuion.   It was for anyone who had gone to school there.  There wasn't many there that had gone the four years I had gone.  There was only  three others that had been in my class.  It made me think of all the ones that are no longer living and they were so much a part of my
life in those four years.  Even though the school is sitting on the same ground, it is not the building that I walked across the stage to receive my diploma. 

I remember the laughter the friends, the teachers, the lessons.  Was life really that simple back then?
It really was a different age.  I have a lot of good memories of my high-school years.  I remember the
way we were back then, good friends and good times.