Icewind's Ramblings

Rainy Day Musing It started raining yesterday afternoon just before nightfall set in.  Soft drizzly rain began falling at first, as I was putting out the corn for the eight deer that arrive each day around sunset.  I finished putting the corn kernels out in the four or five spots where they gather to eat, play, and listen for anything that might harm them.  I go back into the house for birdseed for the four feeders scattered around the yard as the rain droplets fall in bigger size.  My hair is now wet and the sweatshirt is damp before I can finish my chores for the day. The water droplets fall like they simply cannot think of anything better to do. There is a laziness about them, as if they can barely be bothered to conform to the will of gravity.  When I hold my bare arms out, the water droplets splatter on my outstretched arms and fingers, glistening them moist instead of being dry like while reading a book in front of the fireplace.  They grow l...

Sniffing, sneezing, coughing, aching, and overall yucky feeling Since Christmas I have been feeling under the weather so other than a few trips to the store and the RV show in Atlanta last weekend I have stayed around the house resting and trying to get rid of a nasty bout of sneezing, wheezing, and coughing.  They call it the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine and oddly it’s true.  I’ve felt like crap, take some Nyquil and hopefully feel better.  It may have taken a few days but at least it seems to work.  This cold & flu has lasted over two weeks but finally I’m starting to feel better.  I also burnt my left hand pouring hot coffee but it has finally blistered and started healing so I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. During this down time I haven’t felt like working on a couple of projects I have going on right now but I did get in a few hours here and there.  I do feed t...

Adventures not realized . . . Life got in the Way In high school and beyond there were many more adventures planned and others that I wanted to write about but did not have a chance to put them down.  One was motorcycles, as we both loved them in our youth and with another friend David rode them together many times over the several years before I left for the Army.  There was the weekend getaway to Panama City Beach, Florida which turned into a several month odyssey trip all the way to the west coast.  Conversations went like this; “We have never been to Mobile and there is the USS Alabama battleship in port, let’s go see it.”  Then the next day it was . . . “Never been to New Orleans what do you think?”  It went on and on till that trip ended.  I remember getting to California that first time and seeing the sky turn brownish in color and looking like it was going to rain.  After a couple days and as we approached Los Angeles we stopped for ga...

Triple H Skydiving Club Locust Grove, Georgia Also Greene County Skydiving Club McDonough, Georgia – I-75 After my discharge from the U.S. Army I returned home and Johnny and I resumed our adventures.  While I was in the service Johnny had married my first cousin Debbie after she graduated school and moved to Atlanta to work for GMAC.  They reconnected and as they say the “rest of the story” is their history together. Johnny was skydiving with Triple H skydiving club in Locust Grove, Georgia and invited me to go along.  I went through the ground school training that morning and made my first static line jump.  After all the static line jumps (5) were made Johnny, Debbie and I spent almost every weekend the weather was good at the drop zone. There was another drop zone close by just off Interstate 75 in McDonough called Greene County but that drop zone was within the Terminal Control Area (TCA) of Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport so many of the ju...

Aunt Betty Gone on Ahead My Aunt Betty, who Johnny and I visited many times in our adventures passed away yesterday in north Florida.  It was a cold but beautiful morning that she never realized was happening around her.  For the last ten years Alzheimer’s had stolen the beautiful woman that I knew in my youth.  It took from her the spirit and funny person that our family knew.  It stripped her of her pride and I’m sure her vanity over these last years, AZ is such a terrible disease. In passing she is survived by brothers and a sister (mama), sons and daughters, grandkids, nieces and nephews (me).  The shell she became is gone but I will remember Betty as the fun loving and funny aunt that I took the Southern Crescent train to Florida each summer to spend time camping on Pensacola Beach, exploring Perido Key and having fun with my cousins. Ice