Prudentia Sit

I was walking down the gift aisle at Wal-Mart the other day and saw these watch/wallet sets.  I looked at a couple of different ones and saw one with a really big dial that would be easy for a person with poor eyesight to read so I picked it up and put it in the cart thinking about how nice it was to have picked out a present for my dad already and how I would be able to get it sent off in time this time.  Then it hit me, right there in the middle of the Wal-Mart store like an unexpected punch in the gut.

Sorry gang.  Something more chipper later or tomorrow.

HT

Before I say anything else I just want to thank all of you, my friends, for your kind words, prayers, e-mails, comments and nice thoughts my way.  I appreciate it.  It is an interesting community that comes here and while some of you I know and have met, some of you I know but have never met you personally and maybe never will (although we all know strange things happen in life).  I am blessed by you all.  Not only do I have the most intelligent readership on the net, I also have the best, most compassionate.  You guys are awesome.

I plan to go out bloghopping in the next couple of days and try to catch up where everyone is at.  I may not read every "back-issue" as I usually try to do, just so I can get around to everybody.

There is something I want to reflect on "out loud."  When I came back from Wisconsin

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I had sent this in an e-mail to a few select people after I came back from my trip to Wisconsin.  I decided to share it with you all in an un-watered down version.  Part is new and part is from the e-mail I sent out.  Dad passed away yesterday.

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My mom.
Dorothy Jean "Dot" Thiel
6/19/38 - 8/16/06

(I wrote this at almost the same time my friend Two Dogs was writing his comments on the last entry which ended in the statement, "But, pick up the pace on posting, dude."  And that is really the crux of my problem.)

Sometimes I get in a writing slump and sometimes I get in a web-working slump and when I get tired of petty public officials and mid-bracket bureaucrats and just don't even mess with my own site.  This costs me visitors, because there have, at different times, been a number of people who have expressed interest and made complimentary remarks where my writing is concerned.  I promise and promise to try and do better and work harder all the time on keeping it consistent.  So-called "writing prompts" can occasionally be a source of inspiration and often come from unexpected areas.  For instance, on the tagboard today Angela McCaskill asked a seemingly innocuous question, "How is the weather in your part of the world?"

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Everything is status quo. I am grateful to everyone that has been visiting http://miracleali.org and hope that if you can’t afford to donate you would be so kind as to include a link on your own site. Most of my readers are not (that I am aware of) independently wealthy, but maybe some of yours are…One never can tell, can one?

Abby Normal asked about the picture on the header. Well, the new software I am using allows the use of pre-made “skins” which makes it a lot easier to work with when getting started. This one is from a guy named Andreas Viklund, a 27 year old web designer from Jokkmokk, Sweden. I went to his website and contacted him and asked. He said,

"The picture is an edited and somewhat manipulated photo of a snowy street in the small town of Porjus, northern Sweden (see www.porjus.se for its official website or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porjus for the Wikipedia article).

The town has a population of about 400, and it is where I lived the first 20 years of my life before moving to the larger town Jokkmokk, 45 kilometers south of Porjus. The photo shows the main street, the tourist information center and a café - and the same building as the café (the right house) was where my mother Yvonne worked as a hairdresser and stylist for more than 10 years. Mom died at age 43 in year 2000, so to me the photo is a tribute both to her and to the beautiful village which I grew up in.

The event shown on the photo is the small "christmas market" in the beginning of December 2004, an annual village event which usually draw 80-100 persons out into the cold to meet and get into the christ. That was a cold day, probably around -25 degrees Celsius [ about -13 Fahrenheit ht] - and the afternoon light and the cold air gives a really beautiful effect to the image.

Also note the power lines in the sky, which lead to the powerplant that Porjus is mostly known for."

This made me think of my hometown and surrounding area, which reminds me that I should update you on my dad. He had his gallbladder out on the 31st and doesn’t feel like he can have any more surgeries. He didn’t like it and he’s “too old for all that.” Now, since he has his own experience and has decided this, I can accept it easier than when I knew his arm was being twisted by many different sources. Fortunately for him he’s still got a pretty strong arm. *sigh* I haven’t met anyone yet, with any experience or knowledge, who thinks he would truly benefit from chemotherapy and I really don’t know, myself although not being there I could not have much influence anyway. Well, that’s cheery. Sorry.

Here are a couple of pieces that are attributed to Jeff Foxworthy, http://www.jefffoxworthy.com/homepage.shtml but which came from floating around in cyberspace and eventually e-mailed to me by Carter. I did a cursory look and couldn’t find out one way or the other. If he’s ever been to Wisconsin then probably some of these are his.

ON WISCONSIN

(Attributed to Jeff Foxworthy)


If you consider it a sport to gather your food by drilling through 38 inches of ice and sitting there all day hoping that the food will swim by, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you're proud that your region makes the national news 96 nights each year because Park Falls is the coldest spot in the nation, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you have ever refused to buy something because it's "too spendy", you might live in Wisconsin.

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from November through March, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you instinctively walk like a penguin for five months out of the year, you might live in Wisconsin.

If someone in a store offers you assistance, and they don't work there, you might live in Wisconsin.

If your dad's suntan stops at a line curving around the middle of his forehead, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you may not have actually eaten it, but you have heard of Head Cheese, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you have worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you have either a pet or a child named "Brett", you might live in Wisconsin.

If your town has an equal number of bars and churches, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you have had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialed a wrong number, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you know how to say Oconomowoc, Waukesha, Menomonee & Manitowoc, you might live in Wisconsin.

If you think that ketchup is a little too spicy, you might live in Wisconsin.

If every time you see moonlight on a lake, you think of a dancing bear, and you sing gently, "From the land of sky-blue waters....", you might live in Wisconsin.

YOU KNOW YOU ARE A TRUE WISCONSINITE WHEN:

1. Your idea of a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor on the highway.

2. "Vacation" means going up north past Hwy 8 for the weekend.

3. You measure distance in hours.

4. You know several people who have hit deer more than once.

5. You often switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day and back again.

6. Your whole family wears Packer Green to church on Sunday.

7. You can drive 65 mph through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard, without flinching.

8. You see people wearing camouflage at social events (including weddings and funerals).

9. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

10. You think of the major food groups as beer, fish, cheese and venison.

11. You carry jumper cables in your car and your wife or girlfriend knows how to use them.

12. There are 7 empty cars running in the parking lot at Mill's Fleet Farm at any given time.

13. You design your kid's Halloween costume to fit over a snowsuit.

14. Driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow.

15. You refer to the Packers as "We."

16. You know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction.

17. You can identify a southern or eastern accent.

18. You have no problem pronouncing Lac Du Flambeau.

19. You consider Minneapolis exotic.

20. You know how to polka.

21. Your idea of creative landscaping is a statue of a deer next to your blue spruce.

22. You were unaware that there is a legal drinking age.

23. Down South to you means Illinois.

24. A brat is something you eat.

25. Your neighbor throws a party to celebrate his new pole shed.

26. You go out to fish fry every Friday.

27. Your 4th of July picnic was moved indoors due to frost.

28. You have more miles on your snow blower than your car.

29. You find minus twenty degrees "a little chilly."

30. You actually understand these jokes, and you forward them to all your Wisconsin friends.

So, that’s it for now, remember, the Good Book says, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die[…]A time to weep, and a time to laugh…”

After much gabbling and jaw-jacking and being told, “Well, at least I’m here taking care of business, I don’t see you anywhere around,” the end result is that Dad is going to have his gall bladder out on the 31st and the rest is going to wait. Apparently the doctor has told him something to the effect that he is too old to have too many operations at one time and my dad wants this one done because he hates having to deal with the drainage bag. He has a nurse come in a few times a week and she changes the bag for him and

“Sometimes she gives me a sponge bath. But that’s okay, because there’s no funny business, she’s a NURSE and she just gets things done and helps me out.”

“She’s very professional, then?”

“Oh yeah, she knows a lot. And she doesn’t fool around either. I don’t mind so much since she’s a NURSE, Herby.”

“That’s the kind of work Margaret does.”

“That’s good work, to go and help people like that.”

I didn’t share the rather ungenteel comment that one of Margaret’s nurse friends made which was to the effect that basically we are all the same. Nurses and people in that field have strange senses of humor, sometimes. Anyway, I’m glad he likes his nurse. I called and talked to Dad’s pastor who spoke with him about the other comments, but since the doctor doesn’t seem to want to either, well, I guess we will have to wait and see. There is little more I can do than I have done. *sigh* I am weary.

I’m excited about the new website software. I think it has a lot more potential and flexibility than the previous one did. Of course there are always things to get used to with any of them. I didn’t delete the previous one, though. It had your comments on it and that always means a lot to me. When it comes to comments, sometimes I reply to them, sometimes I don’t. I don’t really have a hard and fast rule about it.

I haven’t been around visiting much lately because I wanted this installation to go smooth, which it pretty much did. I am still unhappy with the shoutbox. I don’t want one that is hosted offsite, but this one is not too bad. More of the spam filters seem to work with it, but not all of them. I don’t think shoutboxes are a big priority to people who make these sites. One cool feature about this one is if you click it without filling anything in, it gives you a quote. Most of the pre-loaded ones are from Star Wars (it was written by a computer nerd, you know, so go figure) but I can add some, too. Maybe I will put some of my Louis L’Amour quotes from my original site in there, too. I might just install a second one and tweak it a little into a random quote generator. That would be cool.

Tabitha has started some pet websites for our critters with some pictures on them, they are:

Bagheera

Cookie

Feefoe

Fraidy Cat

And of course the dog

Boston Blackie

This new software, which is an open source product, has a cool gallery attachment that may replace my current gallery as the new one will allow FTP uploads and automatically generate thumbnails. Pretty nifty.

Anyway, I apologize for not making my usual rounds, I will get back on track and try to catch up on everyone. I have been having trouble displaying blogdrive Blogs though. I will try again after a while.

Remember, The Good book says, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them…”

When I was growing up and even to this day when I am around certain relatives and people who have known me since I was young, and some elderly folks, I bore the moniker, "Little Herbie."  Man, I hated that.  I hated to be called Herbert, too, because there was NObody even close to my age that had a name like Herbert!  What were my parents thinking to name me Herbert and allow people to call me "Little Herbie?"

Okay, now that the giggling, laughing, chortling, chuckling snorting and outright guffawing have simmered down I will tell you.

My dad used to talk about his brother all the time.  He often tells the story of how, when he was a little boy, growing up on the farm with 11 brothers and sisters, his older brother, Herbie, bought him a train set for Christmas.  In the 1930s, times were tough, you did not have a lot of money, and you did not get many "things."  You had to use your imagination to play games, there was no Nintendo, no TV and you might get to listen to the radio if you finished your chores and didn't have something more fun to do.  My dad cherished the toy train and valued it so much, that when other kids would come over to visit, he would put it away in his closet so they wouldn't see it and possibly wreck it.  He cherished his brother even more.  His brother was a hero to him as well.

My dad wanted to sign up for WWII, but his hearing was bad and he was a little young and they wouldn't take him.  My German grandfather wanted to fight, but the Army told him, as politely as they could, that he probably needed to be home with all those kids.  That's when my uncle volunteered.  He went down and signed up and the whole family, the whole town, really, was very proud of him.  It appears from what little I know of it that Herbie was a popular fellow in the town of Saukville, WI and he was a hero before he even did anything.  That was how it was in WWII and how small towns were and are.  The town's American Legion post, Landt-Thiel post #470, is partly named after him.

A new guided missile technology used by the Germans made a deadly hit on the boat and killed over a thousand troops (1015) and the government feared there would be panic if the news got out that the Germans had this rocket-powered technology.  This was almost as many American troops dead as Pearl Harbor, but while the USS Arizona and the USS Indianapolis were becoming household words, the poorly manned, British-owned, Indian operated HMT Rohna, was being swept under the carpet.  The maritime disaster of the HMT Rohna was not covered by the news at the time and actually appears to have been suppressed by the government.

There were many heroic deeds done that day and my dad still chokes up after all these years every time we talk about his brother, but there is one thing he points out with every telling.  My uncle wanted to do the right thing.  He knew joining the military and serving his country was the right thing for him to do, but he also had a secret.  He told my dad that he would go and do what he had to do, of course, but he really did not want to kill anyone and had prayed he wouldn't have to.  His prayer was answered.

The link I am putting in this story, which I hope will work, is to a web page about my dad's hero, http://marsss0.tripod.com/rohna.html  The link to the creator's e-mail is broken, but I am thinking it was done by one of the many cousins I have not stayed in touch with.

Here is the link to the page about the disaster itself http://www.rohna.org/

I hope the links comes through as such and you don't have to "Cut & Paste" to see it, but even so, I think it's worth it.

So, anyway, I have learned that I have a name to be proud of and when my Grandmother and aunts and uncles would call me "Little Herbie" it was an honor I didn't understand.  And no, don't you even try it, because I might find some way to "honor" you.

Remember, as the Good Book says, "If you pay an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth the world will be full of toothless blind people."