All that shit I wanted to have finished before Midnight?

I'll see if I can remember where I left off when I wake up.

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💤

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/Z@X

Another brother suffered a Heart Attack

Two years ago, around 3:00am on this date, January 10, my older brother (by two years) suffered a non-survivable heart attack.  For some reason or another back then I was still awake into the early morning hours at the time when the phone calls came in regarding Wayne's fatal attack.  

At 3:00am today, the anniversary date, I was again awake, recalling his passing and other related things as I worked late on domestic stuff. I finally forced myself to clear my head and I hit the sack at 4:00am. I slept until just before noon.   

When I crawled out of bed and settled into taking care of business I saw that I had a text message from my brother Gordon (4-years younger than I am).  He said he had suffered a heart attack around 3:00am, was in the hospital and he was under good care.  He was surprised when I mentioned the coincidence of his heart attack being near the same time of day and on the same day of the month as our oldest brother's heart attack two years earlier.

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/Z@X

It's that season again!

 

I'm ZERO vaxxed and luckily have had Covid only once so far;  I caught it when I had to take my Covid infected youngest brother to a hospital emergency room full of infected COVIDIANS during the first year of the USA pandemic. I'd prefer not to catch it again but I'm unconvinced that the vaccination prevents anything. 

Another of my brothers says that he has had ALL recommended vaccinations / boosters over the years and has been sick and tested positive for Covid a total of nine times.   

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Plagues and politics seem to be bedfellows.

😎

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/Z@X

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL Y'ALL!

 

Stay safe and healthy!

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😎

Peace!

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/Z@X

A 1955 Chicago Christmas

 

It was authentically Fire Engine Red!

It was the sole Christmas gift for the both of us to share (obviously my share was the very back of the rig). At that time, Wayne was ~5 1/2 years old and I was ~3 1/2.  The youngest offspring at that time (Jeff) was ~15 months old and not in this photo. Mom was pregnant with child #4 (Gordon) at the time of this photo and he was born in August just after we had moved to a suburban town far north of Chicago. Child #5 (Raymond) was born 2 years after that. 

Anyhoo, a single moment after Mom had shot the photo she said that we couldn't play with the firetruck in the apartment.  She said it was for us to play with once we moved to our new house "in the country" where we could play with it on the sidewalks. Subsequently, she managed to hide it where we couldn't get near it until after we moved to the 'burbs.  A scant few days after we arrived at our new home that beautiful toy was parked in a niche in the garage where it languished for many years thereafter. Ya see, our sidewalks around the Eisenhower era ranch house proved to be too short and narrow for us to ride the engine on and the gravel driveway and our neighborhood roads weren't yet paved.  Further, Dad fretted about what the firetruck's wheels would do to his lawn. Sooooo Pops went and bought Wayne and I bicycles (mine had training wheels) for our upcoming birthdays and we learned to ride on the gravel roads.  I tell ya, Mom and Dad both wanted their children to have the gifts that they never had during their austere childhoods.

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Anyhoo, the aforementioned photo holds a great deal of memories for me.  The TV and antenna were purchased secondhand by my maternal grandfather so he could gift it to Mom, Dad, and us kids.  That makeshift sofa-bed pictured behind me also was secondhand.  Older bro and I would watch Superman on that TV then we would tie bath-towels around our necks as capes and take turns running and "flying like superman" onto that old sofa.  Well, during one such playtime episode I managed to bounce off the sofa and smashed the back of my thick little skull on the radiator.  BLOOD WAS EVERYWHERE (scalpwounds tend to be very leaky) and I was scream-crying like a wounded animal!  Mom ran into the room and she screamed "SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE!"  The landlady ran upstairs and she screamed to my Mom, "GO DOWNSTAIRS AND CALL FOR AN AMBULANCE!"  Mom ran downstairs and the landlady proceeded to TIE A TOWEL AROUND MY NECK AS A TOURNIQUET AND THEN BEGAN SCRUBBING MY HEADWOUND WITH ANOTHER TOWEL. Mom then returned from downstairs proclaiming she could not call an ambulance because she had no change for the payphone just as she noticed my face had turned blue from the landlady's first-aid efforts.  

MOM:  "WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME ARE YOU DOIN?!"

LANDLADY: "I'VE STOPPED THE BLEEDING!  I'VE STOPPED THE BLEEDING!"

Mom forced the landlady to release me. I caught my breath and ran like hell to get away from the lunacy of those two women. While they argued I took shelter in one of my secret hiding places and decided it would be best for me to just suffer in total silence. After they were done shouting at each other, they noticed that I had VANISHED! They ran downstairs and then back upstairs, then back downstairs and up again.  Fortunately for me, Uncle Thomas (only about 6 or 7 years older than I was EDIT: he was only 4-years older than I was and he was just as home on the streets of Chicago as he was in the wooded hills of Tennessee) came by for a visit. He figured out what all the screaming and confusion was all about and quietly suggested "Just follow the blood trail."  He then traced it to my hiding place, smiled at me and said something akin to "You can come out now."  Mom and the landlady again put me into panic mode with their diatribes of getting a doctor to sew the scalp-wound closed.  Well, for the sake of brevity, I'll just end this story by saying that, somehow or another, after the bleeding had stopped, everyone finally calmed down enough to decide just to let my scalp wound heal naturally.  Yes, it did leave a lifelong scar on the back of my noggin but nobody notices it unless my hair is cut "crewcut" short.

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😎

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/Z@X

INFLATION ON STEROIDS!

 

Year 1974 Illinois Minimum Wage $  1.40 per hour

Year 2024 Illinois Minimum Wage $14.00 per hour

Money (U.S. Dollar and foreign currency) is simply a time dependent unit of measure.  

I wonder where we go from here; a Doge Coin buys you a popsicle?

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😎

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/Z@X

Just clearing out the remains of my Open Borders stuff

I've often wondered about many powerful die-hard-conservative politicians who are (or were) in positions to actually do something about our border problems. Aside from making long winded speeches, they did nothing. It's as if they didn't want this issue to vanish; it's too important of a plank in their political platform.

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😎

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Z@X

Just clearing out the remains of my Kamala stuff

 

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I'm seriously gonna miss her.

She was pure entertainment.

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😎

You go girl!

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/Z@X

Dad's first car was a Nash Rambler Station Wagon

 

This photo is NOT of Dad's car; it is a photo I found on the web and is as close as I could find to match what I can remember of those early years. The color is (likely) different but the luggage rack, trim, and shape are pretty much the same. Dad's car had a manual column-shift (AKA 3 on tree) transmission instead of an automatic. Dad's car was probably a lightly used 1956 but the vintage could have been 1955 - 1956; we moved to the suburbs around May / June of 1956.  My older brother had gone to kindergarten in Chicago but Mom was insistent that her three kids (and a fourth on the way) would not be raised and schooled in the city.

For our few years in Chicago's Hillbilly Haven (actual moniker used by the Chicago media) Dad either walked the distance to Bell & Howell in Lincolnwood or he and Mom would empty their respective pockets / purses to scrape together enough "bus money" for him to take public transit during cold and / or rainy weather.  I recall one conversation when Dad wanted to take the bus and Mom said there would not be enough money left for her to buy milk for the kids. Times were tight back then; if there were any public assistance programs available for low income families they didn't know about them.  My folks skimped and saved and made due, but I tell ya that, even as a toddler, I could feel their anxiety; it was palpable.

They managed to bank enough money for down-payments on the car and a suburban Eisenhower era ranch home (the first experience Mom and Dad had on applying for credit).  

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Mom and Dad

😎

I promised you both that I would not forget

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/Z@X

Final haircut for this year

I only make time for a trim 'bout seven times a year.  I prefer old school barber shops that remind me of those from the 1960's and 1970's and I also prefer to keep my hair as long and unkempt as I did back during that era (I don't own a comb or hairbrush and I never did any hair-color shit).  

On Thursday I stopped by Mel's for a trim and she (yes, a female and the sole barber & owner) was busy playing checkers with another old customer soooo I told her to finish the game while I entertained her two large guard dogs.  Once Mel and her opponent decided to finish the stalemate on another day, she took a photo of the board so they could restructure it for that continuance then ushered me into the sole barber chair and gave me my preferred scissor trim.  

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😎

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/Z@X

The most honest thing I could say about me being a blogger is - - -

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😎

Yep!

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/Z@X

 

She feels naked and defenseless without her rifle

Happiness is a warm gun in the right hands.

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😎

Just sayin'

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/Z@X

That half-decade went fast.

 

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024

2025

2026

2027

2028

2029

In ~ a month and a half we will have completed HALF of the decade of Y2K+20!  Overall, (IMHO) there’s been equal measures of roaring-times and snoring-times.  

Thank you Elon Musk et al for feeding our dreams of what the future may bring.  

Ad astra!

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😎

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/Z@X

The end of year 2024 draws nigh and I have been to the shooting range only 4-times for the entire year

My 1st range trip was a warmup for my concealed carry qualification with my Glock 26.

My 2nd range visit was the requisite CC qualification shoot with my Glock 26.

My 3rd rang trip was with a .357 / .38 revolver.

Above is my 4thrd range visit, which was a fun-time session with a very old Argentine Colt 1911.

I'm not at all optimistic about finding time for any more range visits during the remains of 2024.

There are too many obligations to attend to.

 

Good wishes to all y'all.

Good health!

Be safe!

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😎

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/Z@X

Elon Musk in charge of eliminating government inefficiencies?

Can he engineer Artificial Intelligence enough to replace Genuine Idiocy?

The man did wonders in the private sector.

Can he help rein in the trillion dollar waste in government? 

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It's party time!

😎

Pass me the whiskey.

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/Z@X