Pop goes the memories

 I am drinking a 7-Up and thinking of the Kennedys

    No, not the president, senator, or the faux Kennedy running a government office into the ground.

    I am thinking of the Kennedys I knew.

    Up until about sixth grade, we lived in a 1 bedroom apartment on the third floor of my grandmother's building.

I shared a bedroom with my brothers Carl and Dennis.  My parents had a Murphy bed in the front room.

    If you don't know what a Murphy bed is.....It lifted up and went into the wall.  Then you closed some doors and it looked like a cabinet.  I think they are pretty darn cool and a real plus for small apartments.

    Across the street from us was a family with Kennedy as  a last name.

    My parents were friends with them

    When Mr Kennedy died, the kids, all adults, decided to sell the house.  My parents bought it for $17,000.

    We all had our own bedrooms!

    Mr. Kennedy's funeral was in their house.  I remember (and it may be a false memory) looking down from our apartment into their living room and seeing him in a coffin along the wall my parents would later put a couch.

    Fast forward a few years.

    I had a newspaper route.  It was actually in a factory and I sold the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago American.

    But I also delivered a paper to Marion Kennedy, who moved from 1472 W. Belle Plaine to a house on Berteau, 2 blocks north.  

    Marion worked for the city of Chicago water department.  Her sister, Timothea, was an actual sister in a convent in Iowa.  Her brother Jack was a priest and her other brother Phil was a Monsignor.  I don't know exactly what that is, but my parents felt it was a pretty important position in the Catholic Church.

    Father Jack would often visit Marion.  If I delivered the paper while he was there, he would always insist on talking to me.  We talked about what I wanted to be in the future, how school was, what my day was like....stuff like that.  In fact, he even made me a bet on grades.  If I got an A, he would give me $1.  A B was worth 50 cents and a C got me nothing.  If I got a D I owed him 50 cents and an F would cost me a dollar. 

    I was always glad to show him my report card.

    So how does 7-Up fit in all this?

    Marion would always give me a bottle of cold, cold 7-Up to drink during those visits.  I remember how refreshing and great it tasted.  My parents didn't buy much pop, so it was a treat.

    They are all gone now.  

    I often wondered why Marion was the only child not to enter some type of service to her church.  I remember she was a faithful believer, unbelievably kind, soft spoken, and drank 7-Up.

    I have commission papers and photos of Captain Kennedy  from 1896.  They are another one of those items I don't know why I have, or what I should do with them.

    I have a FB friend from those days, and she lived next to the Marion on Berteau.  I wonder if she enjoyed 7-Up too.

    The house?  My mom sold it in 1978 or so for $57,000.  A few years ago it was listed for somewhere in the $800,000 territory.  But it did not look like  my boyhood home.

    Funny when memories pop up.  

Peace and Love

Sometimes Beth just wants to see what is going on from a different angle.

Good bye 25!

 And good riddance

    Hopefully 2025 will be a much better year for all of us.

    Less hate, more love.  Less war, more peace. Less division, more unity. Less blaming, more cooperating.

    Ah, what a wonderful world that would be.

    The dog treat mystery was solved.  Emily left them Christmas Day!  That means for a whole week I never noticed them until last night.  

    And while they are made in Delaware, you can buy them in our area.

    In years past I would get up early, watch the parade, watch some football.  But I seem to have lost interest in the parades.  And I am not much up to date on college football.

    I didn't even watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this year.  

    I may catch a glimpse or two, but I really don't care if I watch or not.  Same with college football.

    Hope you all have a healthy, happy, safe 2026.

    And although you will hear this a lot, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

    (Pretend you hear cheap toy horns blowing)

Peace and Love 

what the......

Pardon my typing mistakes tonight 

    I have an injury.

    Somehow I got a wood sliver under the nail on my left hand ring finger.

    It hurts like crazy.

    Jackie tried to dig it out using a needle, I tried a tweezers, and neither worked.  Nor did sucking on my finger or soaking it in hot water and then squeezing it.

    So the s w and x keys are hard to hit because I put a bandage and Neosporin on the spot.  

    Many of you know how unobservant I am.  

    Tonight when I went to take my 3698 pills, I noticed a bag of dog treats in front of my pill suitcase.

    I swear, it was not there this morning.

    There are 2 delicious looking treats in the bag.  Nicely decorated, soft like Beth likes, and how they got there I don't know.

    Lisa, our morning helper, said she did not bring treats for Beth today.  I would think she would have said something if she had left a bag.

    The kicker is:  the treats come from a place in Delaware!

    How they got there puzzles me.

    Delaware is like, well, far away!

    Our nice was here yesterday and she is from Delaware OHIO!  I know she did not leave them because I would have seen them before tonight.

    And for my latest trick, during supper prep I knocked a bowl of puppy chow onto the floor.  Not puppy chow for puppies, but the puppy chow for humans.  I swept and vacuumed up the floor and Beth spent a lot of time sniffing and looking for parts I missed....but I don't think I missed any.

    That's my life.

    Unobservant, sore, and clumsy.  Sounds like a comedy group in a retired actors home.

Peace and Love

Bad dad

 Sometimes I am not a good dad

    I let Emily's dogs out yesterday.  She has crates for some of the more rambunctious ones.  For some reason, I let Kingsley out of his crate, but when I left I put Fiona in a crate.

    Kingsley created quite the mess.

    I feel bad about it, because it was my fault.  I should have paid more attention to what dog was where.

    I have dog duty this weekend and I guarantee Kingsley will be in a crate when I leave her house!

    I don't always pay attention to the details...the "fine print" in life.  That has been a problem all  my life, or at least as much as I remember.

    I did notice today that our Nest thermostat had a "low battery" message.  I did not even know it had batteries!

    So I did the modern thing, Googled it and found a video on replacing batteries.  Took me about 2 minintes and I did not yell, scream, or drop anything.  That may be a first.

    Our niece  Laurie stopped by for a few minutes before heading back to Ohio.  Her mom, our sister in law, is in a rehab facility in Rockford but may be moved soon to one in Byron.

    It was hard on her, and on her brother, to come here and then have to leave Mom and head back to their families and jobs.

    Just hope SIL Ruth makes a speedy recovery and can join them out east.

    Dang cold today!  Currently 15 but it feels like 0.  I can attest to that every time Igo to with the dog.

    Winter.  Love it or leave it.

Peace and Love

 

Bear Down

 I am looking forward to tonight's game

    Bears vs. 49ers.  Two teams with 11-4 records.  Something has to give.

    Unfortunately my favorite team is playing a team with one of my favorite players.  I love the Brock Purdy story; last guy picked in the draft, not well known when drafted, the butt pf jokes by being named Mr. Irrelevant and then thrust into a starting role and bingo!  A star is born!

    Kind of reminds me of me.  Well, except the football player part.  And being cast into a staring role.  And doing real well.

    But he has 5 letters in his first name, just like me!

    I can't believe I am saying this:  I have had my fill of cookies!  Good grief, I have eaten a lot!  I need some real food for a couple of days.

    The last pennies were recently minted.  The mint folks  put a set of 3 coins together....a penny from Denver, a penny from Philadelphia,  a gold coin, and sold 232 sets of those at auction.  Why 232 sets?  That is how long the penny has existed.

    The last set, 232, sold for $800,000!

    And folks think the rich should not be taxed more than they are.  People who can spend that much on a coin collection can certainly pony up some coin in taxes.

    Speaking of taxes, I have a taxing problem!

    I am assuming the ground squirrels are the culprits in this....not sure what else would be in the yard.  That would explain why the hawk hangs around so much.

    Oh oh.....gotta get ready for the game

    Where did I put my orange paint?

Peace and Love

These critters have dozens of holes in my yard!  And there are highways between them!!

My train tree

I hope you an read the poem

Hard to believe it is Christmas time!  Where's the snow??

White Christmas

 Jackie and I love White Christmas

    That is one of our  movies to watch  for the holidays.

    Today we went to see White Christas at the Paramount in Aurora.

    The stage version is a little different than the movie, just because you can do things on a movie set you can't do on stage.

    I think we all liked the show.  It was interesting to me to see the ways in which they differed.

    For one  thing, I was always bothered by The General's  granddaughter.  Why was she living with him?  What happened to her parents?  In the stage version, someone says that Susan is visiting from California. That explains her presence.  Next time I watch the movie that will be in the back of my mind.

    We ran into some former Rochelle folks and spent a couple of minutes with Amy, Russ, Baxter and Nikkos.  It was great seeing them.

    Anyway, we had a pretty good day.

    Problem is, I can't remember what day it is!  The Packers are on, which means it is Sunday, right?  But NOOOOOOO!  They are playing Saturday night!

    Not going well for the Pack.  There was an early snap that hit the QB in the head and I thought he was going to be knocked down!

    A  Packer loss helps the Bears.

    The weather here is pretty crappy.  Foggy. Windy. Chilly.

    Oh wait, it is December.

    And tomorrow it will rain.

    Go figure

Peace and Love

Early to bed....

I went to bed at 11 last night 

    I was really. tired.  

    I heard the cuckoo hit the half hour, then midnight, then the half hour und I finally fell asleep.

    No caffeine yesterday.  A happy day to recall.  Screen time lessened.

    What in the hell is wrong?

    I am going to try a little Bailey's before bed tonight.  Maybe that will help.

    Anyway, today was pick up day.  

    I finally got the dishes mostly done, stuff is put away, sort of; 2 loads of laundry done..... I am just a little busy bee!

    Yesterday during supper we had visitors in the back yard.  5 deer were out there, grazing around the bird feeder.  I did not see them nibbling on trees, but I will go out eventually and check.  I would have done it today, but I want to wait until the temperature is in the single digits and the wind is howling out of the north.  Makes life more interesting.

    We n ever found the 2 missing presents.  I know they will show up somewhere, but the question is where?

    To show you how my mind works, I opened Jackie's sock drawer for a pair of socks and found an empty toilet paper roll.  In with the socks.  Why did I put it there?

    If we find that answer, we will find the missing presents.

    And yes, I recycle the toilet paper rolls.  Years ago, when I volunteered at Brookfield Zoo, I would save them for craft projects in the play zoo.  It has carried over to putting them in the recycling bucket.

    Tomorrow we are going to Aurora to see White Christmas at the Paramount Theater.  I am looking forward to it.

    Usually we watch a lot of Christmas movies, but I have only seen 2 and have not yet watched "It's a Wonderful Life."  I must be slowing down in my old age.

Peace and Love