Hello on Veteran's Day

Dear Friends,



Wednesday was a quiet day for the Curley’s. I did complete the clean up my “Man Cave”. Linda spent most of her day doing load after load of her clothes.

I did squeeze in an afternoon nap so that I could watch the Boston Bruins Hockey game while Linda was at Panera Bread with her knitting group which meets a 6 PM, and socializes for a couple of hours.

My Bruins entered the third and final period of the game behind by a 4 to 2 scores against the Pittsburgh Penguins. They scored 5 goals and won by a 7 to 4 margin. The game was played in Pittsburgh.



Speaking of Pittsburgh, my friend said that he did not drive from Pittsfield to Pittsburgh to see the Bruce Springsteen concert. That would have been a 12 hour drive from the Berkshires. He went by commercial airlines.



I just got back from Retro Fitness. The grunter was there as well as the usual 4:30 AM crowd.



Social Calendar – Linda has a body maintenance procedure and her monthly book club dinner meeting at a friend’s home tonight. I am not socially engaged, but I have a garage that is out of control. The shelves are a mess. My workbench look like it has been hit by a tornado. This means that I have enough to keep me busy. The Bruins are playing again tonight so I will get my dose of watching sports.

I do have to fill out a football pool and drop it off, and make a run to our Resource Recovery plant to drop off some grass clippings.



Weather – We are in a pattern of day time highs in the 50’s, and night time lows in the high 20’s and low 30’s. During this stretch of multi day weather reports, the forecasters said that we will be having abundant sunshine.



Linda and I were so excited yesterday when we were asked to baby sit our North Tewksbury grandchild. Max will be with us from December 5 through December 12. He will be attending two children’s Christmas Parties, one at the ITAM, and another at the Italian American Club. We are also taking him to an adult party if it is okay with the host. The last time that he was here, our house was in turmoil.

It looks like now that we won’t be able to visit our Kansas grandchildren for a while. Linda is still looking for some bargains flights at weird hours to help make a trip to Kansas workout financially.



Next Thursday, the carpet guys are booked in to do the living room, and dinning room. We are so happy that the rooms will be done before Max arrives.



We also have to find some time to decorate for Christmas, and childproof the house somewhat. Linda said that she is mentally set to do less decorating since neither son or their families will be with us for Christmas. She said that I only have to put lights on the bushes closest to the front door. This will be a time saver for me. Last year put up a real tree since both sons and their families were with us. We haven’t decided what we are going to do this year.



I washed another electrical device in my gym shorts the other day. I went to use some ear buds at the gym since they have televisions attached to some devices like the tread mill. The ear buds came out very clean in the washing machine, but only one ear piece worked. Luckily, I buy the cheap ear buds.



Food – We ate leftovers from the Tuesday night meeting / party on Wednesday. There are more to keep me happy today. I did forget to mention that one person from the Tuesday night crowd brought Vodka, and Tequila Jello Shooters. A couple of the seniors at the party had no clue what they were. I still have 6 left to help keep me happy.



Veteran’s Day – Another year has gone by, and it is time to give thanks to all the men and women who fought in the multitude of wars and conflicts. I first would like to thank my Uncles, one of whom is buried in Arlington National Cemetery; my Marine brother who died of a service connected disability from the Vietnam era; a cousin who I grew up with in Lee who is a Vietnam Vet; our son Michael who is currently in his 15th year in the military as an A -10 Pilot; his wife who flew missions in A 10 Thunderbolt in Iraq before she decided to be a “Stay at Home” mom at least until her children get a little older, my nephew who is on disability from the Marine Corps. I also have so many Baby Boomer friends, some of whom never made it out of Vietnam. Even though I have no military experience, I realize that the good life that Linda and I are enjoying right now is because of the sacrifices which these men and women have made, and continue to make.

Pittsfield still does have a Veteran’s Day Parade, but it is not attended and viewed by the large numbers of people who used to be lined up on the streets when I was growing up.

The latest generation thinks that wars are only on video games. They don’t realize that real wars are not a game. When you get killed in a video game, you can reset the machine and start over. In a real war, dead is dead!



Have a great Veteran’s Day.

It is perfectly okay for all of us to shed a few tears on this very solemn day.

Talk to you soon. The Curley Lad