This week has been pleasant in Florida, with temperatures being typical for a Florida Autumn. The highs have been in the high 70s to low 80s, lows in the upper 50s and low 60s. Pleasant breezes carrying air that is, for the gulf coast, rather low in humidity.
It has triggered some strong, pleasant childhood memories. I remember most vividly a fall day spent watching my mother decorate the house for fall with expanding paper pumpkins and other assorted fall and Halloween decorations, the windows open and cool fall breezes blowing through the house as dinner cooked in preparation for my father coming home from work. It is one of the more pleasant memories from my childhood. I still fondly remember those decorations to this day, 50 years later.
Now, the child is gone. My mother and father are gone, the paper pumpkins are gone. The country that I grew up in is gone. All that remains are the memories of a time that no longer exists in the head of a man who now is old enough to get free coffee at Denny’s and has grandchildren who are older than I was in those memories of an autumn long gone.
I had a tough week at work. Because the weather has been so mild, people haven’t been coming in to the ED for the stupid reasons that they usually do come in for, so we haven’t been as busy as usual. I have been in the critical zones, and my patients have been truly sick. More than half of my patients have been admitted to the ICU, and that makes for a heavy workload and a lot of thinking about life and death.
Combine the battles with death and the upcoming anniversary of my mother’s death and father’s birthday, and you have what I suppose is the reason why I am feeling a bit- nostalgic.
My wife, without even knowing the memories and thoughts in my head, has decorated the house for autumn. It makes me content. I don’t think of myself as an old man, yet. I’m not old enough to be a boomer, but I still feel older every day.
It’s a perfect metaphor. I am in what is probably the October of my life, and missing the time when I was a child. I can feel the chill of an approaching winter, can you?
15 Comments
Michael · October 21, 2024 at 6:30 am
Timely post as I’m drinking my morning coffee after awakening to a dream I came home to a ransacked home and just texted my beloved as she’s in the hospital under conservative treatment for bowel blockage.
I want her home, it’s too quiet around here.
We the people have allowed much to be taken and more WILL be taken sooner than later.
What’s that song, “You never know what you lost until its gone”.
Winter is coming.
Rick Flurer · October 21, 2024 at 6:32 am
You have not written about the grandson who had viral encephalitis in some time. How is he doing?
Divemedic · October 21, 2024 at 6:57 am
He has completely recovered and is now doing all of the things that an 8 year old boy does.
Michael · October 21, 2024 at 8:20 am
Awesome news!
SmileyFtW · October 21, 2024 at 7:03 am
More often than not your posts are timely and a pleasure to consume. Sometimes poignant, sometimes informative… always well done. Thank you for today’s trip down memory lane.
1952 boomer
TJ · October 21, 2024 at 9:25 am
On the gripping hand … “You should never complain about old age. Many people wanted to experience it and did not get to.” Growing old with the wife of my youth is not at all what we thought it would be. But I can’t imagine doing it without her. 51 Boomer, USN, nuke, CVN65.
Tree Mike · October 21, 2024 at 6:48 pm
Smiley and TJ, roger that!
Good to hear yer hangin’ in there. Thanks for the bloggeries.
“51 boomer, USAF, Crew Chief, 1 and 2 engines, fighters.
JimmyPx · October 21, 2024 at 9:33 am
Whatever happened with the situation with your greedy Ex Father in Law and his scheming daughter after your Mom’s death ?
Divemedic · October 21, 2024 at 11:23 am
My sister and I put my brother in charge of that particular problem. I advised him to get a lawyer. He chose to ignore that advice and decided to try and talk his way into a win, telling me that because he owns a business, he was smart enough to get what he wanted from a 23 year old who didn’t have any real life experience. My mother’s husband and his daughter hired a lawyer and soundly kicked his ass by going to court and getting the judge to award my mother’s estate to him as the sole heir- less than a month after my mother had died. They won, and received all of what remained of my late Father’s estate before my brother even knew what was going on.
Last I heard, she was living large on what remained of my parents’ life savings. She got a new car. A Lexus, if I am not mistaken.
Nothing to be done about that now. It isn’t like I needed the money, but that little gold digging tart didn’t deserve it, either.
If you are ever in a situation where you think you might need a lawyer, you need a lawyer.
SiG · October 21, 2024 at 12:32 pm
And from a guy older than the boomers (Frank Sinatra) and “It Was a Very Good Year”…
But now the days are short
I’m in the autumn of the year
And now I think of my life as vintage wine
From fine old kegs
From the brim to the dregs
It poured sweet and clear
It was a very good year
Barry · October 21, 2024 at 12:50 pm
I hear you about the season getting late…spent this past Saturday at a family reunion in what we call Deep East Texas at a little missionary church called Weeks Chapel outside of Jasper. We were first to arrive, total silence miles out in the Piney Woods wondering how my ancestors survived in that place. I have a copy of the February 1842 grant of 640 acres of land near the chapel to my ancestor with the seal of Sam Houston, President of the Republic of Texas. The reason my ancestor rode to Texas? He was wanted for beating a man to death in a drunken fight in September 1837 in Cross Plains, Indiana. (Never thought I would be grateful a man escaped justice but his escape is the reason I’m here.)
Visited graves of family members in the chapel graveyard, swapped stories and family history with the older folks (Sheesh, now I’m one of the older folks!), then went up the sandy road to the old Hardy Cemetery at the top of the hill. Only sound was the wind in the trees as I walked the cemetery; five graves with headstones, two graves with carved rocks, 22 more marked only with large iron-ore rocks for headstones and small rocks for footstones so we have no idea who is buried in which grave. Far too many of the graves very, very small. The death rate for the young back then is sobering to think about.
I’m grateful for the opportunities this country has given me and the success with which I was rewarded. There are times I feel like using my GI Bill to return to college just to pop the bubbles of some of the youngsters there who think life is hard…
young at heart · October 21, 2024 at 3:01 pm
That’s why I like reading BCE and Arthur Sido. They have adopted the irrepressible Alex and his droogs as their image. Very far from old age.
Bear Claw · October 21, 2024 at 10:02 pm
All we can make are memories. I have explained this to my kids when they were young. I have forgotten more than I can remember but that’s okay.
Rick · October 21, 2024 at 10:47 pm
Friend*, get yer shit together.
Recognize that your parents, who had lived through FDR’s extended romp, seen WWII for real, knew threat of nuclear MAD, dastardly high mortgage rates, low wages, even a ‘freeze’ on wages, stupid foreign entanglements, and sky high prices, were trying like the Dickens to provide the very best for you.
The taffy pulls at home, the raisings of backyard vegetable gardens and pet livestock, campouts without adults, the strings of candied corn and paper pumpkins were, while full of genuine good cheer, a distraction. The world is more than glum, it is horrifically wicked.
All was designed to protect you, sweet child, from knowing the evils.
We owe a deep and profound, long lasting homage to all who sought to protect us.
Now, seeing the evils with our own eyes and knowing it’s strength, which compasses us about, we fight. We fight in their names, to the honor of our most treasured memories, for them who granted us a peaceful upbringing if only for a time. To preserve that heritage, to their prosperity, we fight.
*Not just Dive Medic, but all of us
Princess Cutekitten · October 23, 2024 at 11:49 am
I had the honeycomb-paper (or whatever it’s called) turkey. A colleague accidentally ripped it and I was never able to find a replacement.
Guard your pumpkins with your guns.
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