This morning Layla sent me an e-mail that really got my attention and I want to share it with everyone, so I’ve summarized its content as follows.

“This Christmas season I will be making a conscious effort to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. This is one my ways of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ! So I’m asking everyone that if you agree with me, please do the same.

By doing this maybe we can prevent another American tradition from being lost in the sea of “Political Correctness”!

Remember, JESUS IS THE REASON FOR THE SEASON!

Our sick friend and his wife asked us to get them another doe, so this past Tuesday, Mickey Donahoo went out on my ranch and complied with their request. This one was another nice, mature, white tail.

For the first time since last week, I hunted Wednesday evening, but didn’t see a big one. This chilly morning, thirty degrees, Paul and Wesley are out trying to Get Wesley his first deer. Who knows?

Today, Layla and I will have a house full of folks. The count, currently, is twenty-one with two more coming tomorrow. Anyway, family and friends, that’s one of the things that Thanksgiving is all about! The most important thing is thanking God every day for his blessings; His Grace, our family, our jobs our health, our friends and our wonderful Country!

We wish everyone a very, happy and safe Thanksgiving!

President Woodrow Wilson designated November 11, 1919 as the first Veterans Day honoring our troops that helped to end, WW I, “the war to end all wars”. My family has served in almost all of our Country’s wars before and after WW I and we have generations of veterans all the way back to The Revolutionary War!

All of us were proud to have served our Country, but I, for one, am now concerned at the track that we are on. Unending wars in the middle east; appeasement and apologies to our enemies, a terrorist attack at Ft. Hood being called a tragedy. Hurricane Ike was a tragedy.  This was murder by an enraged, radical, terrorist!

When, are our leaders going to wake up and right the ship of state? Will they ever? Do they want to? While our current regime is busy tearing down the capital structure of our Country, our enemies are clappin’ their hands and stompin’ their feet! Today, our country is on a very, slippery slope! When are all of us going to wake up, or is it too late?

Have a thoughtful, Veterans Day!

My PC will be fixed today, but I can’t get down to San Marcos to pick it up until next Tuesday, so I’m still “limping along” on the old PC.  No telling how many e-mails I have?

Last Thursday I went over to Scott & White Hospital in Temple and had the stent removed from my bladder and, just like my doc said it would, it healed up fine!

Then, the next day, Friday the 11th at 12:30 PM, I went back over to the dermatology clinic to have a small cancerous spot, about a quarter of an inch in diameter, removed from my nose.  To go after this one, the doc was using the Mohs Procedure.  This procedure entails removing the cancer in slices, freezing the slices, then, to be sure that all of the cancerous cells have been removed, observing the slices with a microscope.

To observe the progress of the operation, I was provided a mirror, but after the first cut I quit looking and then doc told me to get as comfortable as possible because this one looked like a long one.  Long it was!  At 7:30PM, after seven iterations, the doc finished and announced that all of the cancer on my nose had been successfully removed and that the cancer hadn’t grown into the cartilage!  The skin graft and bolster holding the graft in place was ready and the resident docs assisting attached both to my nose and I was on my way home.

My instructions were simple; do nothing for one week, don’t get the bolster wet and come back on the 18th and have the stitches and bolster removed.  By tonight I’ll see how my nose held up and what it looks like.  The doc took “before and after” pictures and will send them to me, but I tthink That I will decline to post them.

This past week has been something; no going to football games so the rain, we have been blessed with, won’t get the bolster wet, no dove hunting, no work, no morning walks, nothing but sitting around reading and watching Fox News.  It has ceased being “fun”!

As I mentioned in my September 7 post [“Limping Along”], if obamacare passes I would have been told, “Just go home and wait for your nose to fall off.”  I’m still in the process of getting everything fixed before it’s too late!

My September 2nd post said that I was going to Dalton, Ga. to play in the Softball Players Association, World Championships, September 3rd through the 6th, but plans have a way of changing!

Starting off, the disk on my PC crashed on August 27th and since then I have been limping along on a very old, IBM ThinkPad, model A20p.  This was one of my old PC’s years ago before I retired. Randy, my Son, almost has the new PC fixed, but I’m really limping along now.

Not feeling well on Sunday, Aughst 30th, I stayed home from Church and to be a good husband, made our Sunday dinner.  By the time I had finished preparations, my left to side began to hurt, didn’t stop or lessen, only increased and by 3:30 PM I was flat on my back, on the way to the hospital in Hamilton, Texas.  I was really limping along!

A CAT scan showed a large kidney stone, 1 cm, lodged in my urethra and by then, because of its size, it wasn’t going anywhere.  Early Monday morning I was transferred to Scott and White in Temple, and prior to the removal of the stone, a stent was run up into my kidney.  Thursday was set for the doctor to go in and “blast” the stone with a laser.  Amazing what docs can do now!  Just think, if obamacare becomes the law, I would have been given pain pills and turned out to die!  I’m getting everything fixed that needs fixing as soon as I can!

Obviously no softball tournament, no morning walks and not much of anything else for me, except that dove season opened on September 1st.  Missing the morning shoot, to give time for all of the drugs to clear my system, Mickey Donahoo and I drove down to San Saba and after a very hard hunt with a lot of stooping and bending over to pick up the shotgun shells and doves, I called it quits early.

Here’s Mickey heading out to his shooting spot.

All of this with a stent in my kidney and needless to say, my doctor wasn’t impressed.  He did ask how we did and I told him that we got a mix of sixteen white wings, mourners and ring necks, using only twenty-five shells.

There is a big size difference in the doves.  The ring neck is on the bottom, white wing in the middle and a mourner on top, graphically showing their sizes.Last Thursday the doctor “blasted” the stones, but to promote healing, kept the stent in for another week.  My PC is still out so I’ll be limping along with the stent and old PC for a few more days

.About The Texans, through the round robin phase of the big tournament, they were seeded number one, however they returned to their sloppy ways and quickly lost two games and were eliminated.  As the old softball saying goes, “Oh and two and barbcue!”  They are limping along back to our fine State now and will try to salvage the year in Phoenix, in October.

Being a good Texas boy, my only exposure to Mexico had been to the sleezy border towns and now to see the budding metropolis of Mazatlan, its traffic, 500,000 inhabitants, beautiful harbor and recent awakening to Gringo tourists, was a real eye opener.

My first trip’s accommodations were at the Playa Mazatlan, the “primo” spot in town. Right on the beach, clean rooms, but no air conditioning and once you got past the night sounds of Mexico, music, horns, laughter and the roaring surf, you slept like a log.

Sleeping in the first morning “south of the border”, getting up and renting a “Yeep”, a Volkswagen Monster, we headed south from the Playa Mazatlan to the harbor to set up a fishing trip. On the way to the harbor, on the left, as we rounded a slow curve, there, on the corner of the first floor of a multi story building, was “El shrimp Bucket”. “I’ve got to stop there,” I shouted, did a “uwey” and parked right in front.

There was a big patio inside the building, like the atriums we have now in our prime office spaces, and to the left was “El Shrimp Bucket”. Little did I know that the patio was part of the restaurant, but twelve years later I would witness a very strange display in that very patio, which is, as they say, another story.

Entering and picking a booth with an ocean view, I checked the menu. A bucket of shrimp for $4.95US and since it was 10:45 AM, why not eat an early lunch. Lunch was served and mine was a full bucket of fried shrimp, not as good as Christie’s in Houston, but probably the second best. Fried onion rings and Guacamole was brought out separately and washed down with Margaritas, was a true feast!

As we were leaving, I noticed a picture of John Wayne hanging over the door and he had signed the picture, as best I remember, “Best shrimp ever! Duke”.

El Shrimp Bucket became my headquarters in Mazatlan too, but I never saw “Duke” there

This past Tuesday morning, my Son, Brad passed away. His Son, Bradley, was holding his hand when he peacefully slipped these earthly bonds and went to be with the Lord. Brad’s faith and strength in handling his malady are a guide and a pathway for all of us. Now he is pain free and will be with Jesus! Praise the Lord!

He had visited M.D. Anderson in Houston on July 3 and his docs told him that he wouldn’t survive the massive surgery required to remove a tumor from the front of his spine and that it could not be treated with direct radiation because he’d already had his lifetime maximum dosage of radiation. He was also told that these tumors were growing rapidly and that they had spread from his lungs to his other internal organs. The docs told him that it would be all over within two months.

Brad understood all of this and his faith, strength and attitude were awesome to behold!

Funeral arrangements will be provided by:

Crawford Bowers Funeral Home
211 W. Ave. B
Copperas Cove, Texas 76522

Phone 254-547-1275

The full military funeral will begin at 10:00 AM on Saturday, July 11, 2009. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the American Cancer Society. Donate by phone or by mail, if you prefer, using the following contact information. Call 1-800-ACS-2345 or mail your donation to American Cancer Society, P.O. Box 22718, Oklahoma City, OK 73123-1718.

There won’t be any posts on this blog until July 15th.

For the past two months Brad has had very bad pain in his back and is under medication for it. In early May, Brad’s oncologist, believing that the pain stemmed from the growth of a tumor on his spine, changed from his routine of taking weekly antibodies, back to FU5 and Taxil. Previously, this combination had made Brad very ill, caused him to loose weight and left him unable to eat. The doc said he didn’t think that a smaller dose, administered continually by pump, would affect him. But, before one week passed Barad became sicker than the first try with the two drugs. He returned to the hospital and told the docs to take out the pump, which they did. He has not been under any treatment, except for pain medication, since mid May.

Now for the good news!

Brad was referred to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and for the past two weeks has been undergoing tests with them. Hopefully, within the next two weeks he will find out what treatments and procedures they will recommend.

About M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, recognized as the premium cancer treatment center in the world, it is an unbelievable place and words don’t provide a true picture of it. First off, it is huge and still growing, by far the largest treatment facility in the Texas Medical Center! It is like a visit to the United Nations, one moment you may see a Muslim woman attired in her burka; a teenager with a skateboard, a business executive or pass by folks speaking a strange, unintelligible tongue. But, these folks all share a common bond, they are cancer patients and are here for treatment.

Brad is at the right place and we pray that it is the right time!

Please keep praying for Brad!

Today we take time to remember and recognize our troops who have died while defending our way of life. In the North, tradition was that Decoration Day began in New York in 1868, but it really started in Virginia as the Civil War ended.

Now, enter my Great Grandmother, Linnie Ross Sanders Wallace, born in 1866, a “Civil War Baby Boomer”, a “Rebel’s Daughter” and a true Texan! Her Father, Levi Sanders, had spent four years fighting with the 6th Texas Cavalry across Indian Territory, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia. She made sure that I knew what “Decoration Day”, now known as our Memorial Day, was and just what it meant.

Within a month of the end of the Civil War, May 1865, ladies in Winchester, Virginia, formed a Ladies Memorial Association, (LMA), with the single purpose to gather fallen Confederate soldiers within a fifteen mile radius of their town and provide them burial in a single graveyard. Once that task had been done they hoped to establish an annual tradition of placing flowers and evergreens on the graves. There were Federal troops buried along with the Confederates and they received the decorations also. Within a year, ladies across the south had established over 70 LMA’s.

In the first year, these LMA’s had assisted in the recovery of over 70,000 Confederate dead! The ladies of Lynchburg chose May 10 as their Decoration Day. This was the day that Lt. General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson had succumbed to wounds. The Richmond LMA had chosen May 31 because that was the day the populace of that town had first heard the guns of war.

Vicious Reconstruction laws not withstanding, by 1867, Decoration Day flourished across the South and it was a day that southern spirit and pride surfaced. Alabama, Florida and Mississippi celebrated it on April 30; North and South Carolina on May 10 and Virginia finally compromised on May 27.

Then in 1868, in the North, May 5 was officially designated Memorial Day. This was later changed to May 30, because no significant battle was fought on that day. In May 1968, at Waterloo, New York, Pres. Lyndon Johnson “officially” recognized Waterloo as the birthplace of Memorial Day. Still later, our government intruded and made the last the last Monday in May, Memorial Day, a Federal holiday.

LBJ, who began his career as a history teacher at San Jacinto High School in Houston, should have studied his Civil War history a little closer.

The boys over at the Dirty Boot, outside of Paris, Texas, were caught honin’ their ridin’ skills after Wesley’s base ball game was rained out again!

Wesley is atop ole’ Dude and ridin’ toward the food trough.

Will got into the act and looks real comfortable on Dude.

Pretty soon these fellows will be able to reach the stirrups! For now, all they have to do is squeeze their knees together and hold on to the saddle horn!