prune picker

This is the blog of a prune picker. (Native born Californian) Retired oilfield. I am an old man. I blog a lot about my body and getting old. As I approach death life gets more interesting. More interesting is not good. I still drive. I attend sports, music, and civic events. I am writing my memoirs. I attend swim class three times a week. Some of my blogs might be interesting. A lot of my blogs are silly and trivial. None are very long.

Friday, April 17, 2015

Lincoln Parish Sheriff's Senior Citizen Expo. 2015.

I attended and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was like a nice visit with Sheriff Mike Stone and all his staff. The affair moved fast, with good information and entertainment. I really enjoyed lunch. It was nice to see many friends in the audience.


Sheriff Mike Stone.


The Mayor of Ruston.





The Sheriff drawing for door prizes. He remarked that we keep our gambling fair.



Lorie Hamlin. Tips on identity theft.



John Roebuck, table mate.


Kristi Crowder Hardaway sang for us.




Grambling Police Chief Tommy Clark spoke on home security.


Ray Ramsey spoke on Medicare.


Brothers in Christ closed the program with several gospel songs. 

Thursday, April 16, 2015

I love Ruston, Louisiana!

What a nice place. I am very fortunate to able to live here. Ruston is charming. Ruston is full of nice friendly people. They put extra syllables into most words. I am able to understand them most of the time. Altho, paragraphs will go by that I only catch a few to half the words in the paragraph.

I live in my fifth wheel trailer. It is parked in the nicest RV park in the world. I am parked in my daughters front yard. About 25 steps between our front doors. Kerry and her husband John are great company and are so good to me. I am so grateful to them for letting me park in their yard.

For eight years I have been attending an aqua exercise class at Louisiana Tech. Tech is a big part of my life. I have attended several dozen lectures and musicals at Tech. For a nominal fee of $54 a quarter I have a student body card that gets me into all Tech athletic events. I never had a chance to be a real sports fan until these last eight years. Now I seldom miss a local game. I have learned some basket ball rules and fine points. Also baseball, softball, volley ball, soccer, and football. There is a track meet every year.

I have always liked bluegrass and every kind of music. I belong to a bluegrass club in the nearby town of Arcadia. Also a charming place. The club has a musical once a month.

John and Kerry have two daughters that live in the area. I see their families often. Three great grandsons and a great grand daughter. The great grand daughter will be six on July 4th. She is my youngest great grand child. I am close to a lot of family.

I go to lunch at the senior center twice a week. I go to morning coffee most every morning. Usually at a local convenience store. I have been going to these affairs for years. I also attend the local VFW meetings. The VFW has a luncheon meeting every month and a breakfast meeting every Tuesday morning. I look forward to all of these meetings.

As I write this I can look out five back windows of my trailer and see nothing but trees. John's property of several acres is covered with woods. The house is surrounded by woods. Mostly hard woods but some pines. I take a water pill every morning. By noon I have urinated two dozen times. It is handy to have trees every where to pee behind. It seems to be more satisfying to pee outdoors, don't you think?

It is great entertainment to watch John enjoy his retirement. (a year now) He is a fantastic gardener. Both vegetables and flowers. He has planted a lot of fruit trees. He has built a treehouse. A 200 foot zip line. And rabbit hutches and and a chicken coop. There are critters in all of them. Two does just had litters of 8 each. Five hens lay five eggs a day. I was just sitting in my backyard and the chickens came to tell me hello. They do this often.



They walk up talking to me. I try my best chicken speech back to them. I think that we have bonded. I am really very fond of the chickens. They are handsome chickens.

John and Kerry have a nice black lab and three house cats. A stray cat from the woods has recently gave birth under the deck. We are all counting the days until the kittens come out.

There are many civic functions that I attend in the city of Ruston. Many involve food. This must be the fried fish/chicken and boiled mudbug capital of the world. Friday the Sheriff is putting on a breakfast/speeches/lunch affair. (free) With door prizes. The speeches are educational. Maybe I will post about the Sheriff affair.

I would like to repeat how much I love living in Ruston. What a beautiful place. What a charming place. What charming people. A great place for me to await the call of nature (death) when I will join my wife Jackie. Altho she is with me every day.

Please don't tell anyone that Ruston is a nice place to live.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Hearing Aids for the old prune picker?

My hearing was tested by the VA in Monroe on Monday. April 13.


I thought my hearing was pretty good. But the test indicated that I had poor hearing in some ranges of sound. Particularly in the range used for consonants. I would hear "tamp" instead of "camp". Today a person said "chicago" and I heard "china"? I had thought that I would not get hearing aids, but I guess that I should give them a try. The hearing test professional thought that I would benefit from the use of hearing aids.




96 days to 90th.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Fish Fry. Tech Adult Fitness Class. 2015

What a nice time. It was exciting seeing fellow swimming class members in clothes. Here are some photos of the action.

















Rhonda said that she had been in the Adult Fitness program for 29 years.








We topped of the affair with the traditional tap dancing.

97 days to 90.

Monday, April 13, 2015

The mother cat from the woods.

She likes me! I give her treats. She has delivered a litter under the deck. About a week ago. We are waiting to see them. We are excited. She visited me in the gazebo.







98 days to my 90th birthday.

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Jessie's Pearls

Jessie's Pearls is a the memoir of Jessie McCormick. Jessie grew up in North Louisiana in the Monroe area. Born in 1920 she lived through the great depression and the flood of 27. Her family was very poor. The memoir spans my life.


The memoir was presented today at the meeting of the NLG&HS. Or some call it the Northeast Louisiana Genealogical and Historical Society. Her son Gary and daughter in law Martha discussed the book and read parts of it. It was very interesting. Some of her youth was spent in Swartz, Louisiana. We all know where Swartz is, huh?

 Gary


Martha


The book. Gary and Martha sold me. I bought a copy.


In 99 days I will be 90.

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