Last Weeks of May, 2010

Final Week of May, 2010

After receiving my first treatment with Dr. Young, I was excited about the procedure known as UCC (upper cervical care). Although my pain wasn’t totally gone, it had dropped in its threshold level considerable. Dr. Young with his staff of Mary and Shirley are very professional and nice individuals who make you feel right at home. He put an Atlas machine at the base of my neck turning it on; it sounds as if it’s a small machine gun. Ra-ta-ta-tat, Ra-ta-ta-tat at intervals of what seemed like five or six minutes at a time for 30 to 45 minutes. All the while he made sure I was comfortable and checked up and down on my neck and spine alignment. After the procedure was completed more X-rays were taken to assess the correction to my Atlas.

They told me, they were going to try and get my head on straight.

All I could say to them was, “Good luck with that!”

I received my certification for dispensing LP-Gas and fixed a mail flag on the mailboxes to let the residents know that the mail has arrived and in their box or that it’s in the office for pick up. It was my mailman mentality coming to the surface. We went to work just before the Memorial Day weekend expecting a lot of things needing to be done. We weren’t wrong. We stayed hopping getting things readied for the weekend. One nice thing that happened was my oldest daughter Kimmy called and invited us up to the lake house for the upcoming weekend.

We left for Ellston, Iowa at 8 a.m. We put our clothes and personal hygiene items in our traveling bags getting ready for the trip. We had to get Sadie’s stuff ready too, since she would be traveling with us. I also put two sets of golf clubs in the truck; my old set for Riley and the set Rocky gave me for Luke. Arriving after about six hours, only Kimmy and Mike knew I was coming for the weekend. Everyone was out on a boat ride when we pulled up. We waited until they pulled into the dock area and surprised everyone. It was a good feeling seeing everyone. Now I was waiting on Katie and Ally to drive up to surprise them too.


Brady (my #5 in the line of 7 grandsons) caught his first fish ever on our first day at the lake house. I didn’t get a picture of it, but his dad did. Mike took a bunch of us out on the boat giving us a tour of the nice homes around the lake.
He stopped at a location where he takes his family so they can swim and have fun when he has the boat anchored down. We then watched as my dare-devil grandkids went tubing behind the boat. Rhonda, Sadie and me took the opportunity afforded us by Mike to jet-ski for the very first time. It was a blast. I was able to take Ally and Brady out on the jet-ski too.

The sleeping arrangements were a challenge for Kimmy. But somehow she always seems to work her magic and makes it work for everyone. I have to say this has been one of the best weekends I’ve had in a long, long time. It’s not surprising that it happens when I’m with my kids and grandkids. They are my world now. I’m going to be a little sad because it’s coming to an end faster than I wanted it to.

It was the last day of the month and last day of being at the lake house. I was up before anyone else and went out on the deck to read a book I brought with me. It started sprinkling so I had to retreat to the car to stay dry. After everyone was up and the noise level was too, breakfast was fixed by Kimmy. We had a great breakfast of sausage and biscuits, scrambled eggs with everyone pushing away from the table completely satisfied. We said our goodbyes and left the lake house around 9 a.m.

On our way home we stopped in Iola, Kansas for a Mexican lunch before arriving home at 3:45 p.m. We weren’t home but a few minutes when Sheila, our boss called asking when we thought we would be home?

Rhonda replied, “We are home.”

Along with the other two couples we were invited to a dinner that Sheila and Keith were providing for us. It was very sweet of them. We had a great time with everyone in attendance. Now it’s back to work tomorrow and starting a new month.

The video below is of my grandsons, Mikey, Luke and Griff. Watch as Griff right at the end of the video tries to jump from one tube to the other. He almost, I say almost makes it.

Last Weeks of May, 2010

The Third Week of May, 2010

I checked this journal/blog and realized I haven’t written for a long, long time. I’m not sure whether it’s pure laziness on my part or I’m just tired and let it slip by me. No matter the reason I lose so much by not writing like I should. One thing I accomplished this third week of May was finding an acupuncture doctor recommended by Frank & Sondra’s daughter. I hope Dr. Michael Young will be able to relieve some of my pain and headaches which seem to be a constant thing for me. I filled out the informational sheet for my appointment with Dr. Young and now look forward to seeing him. He is the first acupuncture doctor I’ve gone to since 2006.

Dr. Young took X-rays and checked some pressure points on my body. He’s going to try something called an Atlas treatment on me. I liked his approach to my problem and his staff of two, Mary and Shirley.

Rhonda and I checked out the Goodyear Tire Store on the price of tires for the motor home. The tires cost $347 apiece. To mount and balance them was another $53 per tire for a total of $400 per tire, times six. That’s a lot of money for the rubber hitting the road. My paychecks are going for the six new tires.

Last Weeks of May, 2010

The Second Week of May, 2010

We had to work on Mother’s Day which wasn’t bad; in fact it was nice staying busy on this day. We only had to work until 5 pm thanks to Sheila the owner letting us close shop to attend a little get-together with the other workampers and John and Donna Beddie a couple residing in the park. We had snacks but most of all we had a great time just talking amongst ourselves.

We had set up a date to go out to dinner with the Beddie’s on Monday, May 10th. Late in the afternoon around 3:45 p.m. sirens started blaring warning of tornado sightings in our county. Residents staying in the park started showing up to enter the storm shelter. I took Rhonda and Sadie to the shelter for their safety. Frank, Mike and me escorted the residents that were showing up to the shelter. Our dinner date with the Beddie’s had to be canceled until a future date. Once it started raining pretty hard and the clouds turned a dark black we all went down inside the shelter. Approximately 25 to 30 people along with about a dozen dogs went down inside the bunker type shelter. Everyone handle themselves with courtesy and dignity. It was a first for Rhonda and me to be evacuated to a storm cellar. Okay I just have to say this – “I think we are in Kansas, Toto (Sadie).

Toward the end of the second week we had a little excitement with a customer who’s RV was put in the storage area because he owed Sheila a lot of money (rent, electricity). This customer was a young and arrogant man with a bad attitude. His appearance put him probably in his mid-twenties or late twenties. He brought along a buddy as back-up. Sheila didn’t take any guff from him. She told him how much he needed to pay – and he did. He rolled his eyes and gave a few disgusted looks to his buddy, but in the end he paid up. I stayed in the office with her the entire time because I didn’t trust the young man to be there alone with Sheila. Keith (Sheila’s husband) came in shortly afterwards. We took them back to his unit. The young man backed his pickup truck toward his 5th wheel and made a mess of it. Dropping the neck down onto the bed of the truck missing the hitch altogether. He then got out and went to his door on the RV with his buddy pointing and making comment about, “how they broke into his RV.”

Keith had had enough. Now I want you to picture in your mind the Incredible Hulk. Keith turned into one but instead of turning green he turned beet red. Stepping up directly in front of this arrogant kid, Keith stood a good foot taller than him. Keith went into a rage. Spewing out a mind-numbing amount of profanities at the young man. This young man was initially very arrogant in his attitude but lost it quickly with Keith. Finally I stepped between them and placed my hand on Keith’s left shoulder asking him to calm down. The young man was thankful for my action and the voice of reason and calmness settled everyone down. In fact the young man’s voice took a softer tone with me and he thanked me. I just told him the best thing to do was to hook-up and get out of here as soon as he could. They finally were hooked up and he came over to where Keith and I were sitting in the golf-cart. He stuck out his hand, I took it in mine and he thanked me. He just looked at Keith and said nothing to him.

I turned to Keith and told him, “I don’t think he wants to talk to you.”

Keith said, “I don’t have anything to say to that #”?*##.”

I just winked at him and said, “I’m just messing with you.”

He just had this little smile on his face.

It was another paradise day in the state of Kansas. I didn’t get home until close to 7:30 pm. We then took our trusty golf-cart out to do our nightly check.

Another exciting day happened the very next day. I was awakened by a knock on our door a little after seven in the morning by a gentleman a few sites down from us. In fact, I had taken him to his site a couple of nights ago. After the torrential downpour of rain last night he informed me his jack’s on his fifth wheel had sunk into two sinkholes. I told him, I would be right down to inspect the situation. What I found when I arrived was something I hadn’t seen before.
I immediately went to Frank since he owns a fifth-wheel to ask his opinion and help concerning this situation. We then had to call Sheila since we knew she would have to be involved too. No one had ever seen anything like this before. We all had seen jack’s on a fifth-wheel sink a little into gravel, dirt and even blacktop, but nothing like these jack’s being buried so deep. Even though it was the 5th wheel owner's own stupidity for not putting blocks under their jack’s Sheila was required to pay the wrecker service to winch them up and out according to her insurance company. Everyone is in agreement that if they had taken the necessary precautions it would never have happened to them. It’s a sad commentary that the campground was considered liable, when it had no part in setting up this disaster of stupidity by the owner’s.