WOW.....make that TWO DAYS IN A ROW!!!!!

OMG.......it was even better outside today than yesterday!!! Just absolutely spectacular!!! The temp was perfect, the sky was perfect, the lack of humidity was perfect.........incredible!!! Hope it keeps it up.......HA. THAT much of an optimist, I'm not!

This morning was not particularly great for me, personally, as I had awakened about 5am with the damn little guy pounding and beating his hammer inside my head. At least, I had the presence of mind to get my very saggy hulk out of the bed and go get some pain meds, which I quickly swallowed......and then went back to the bed. BUT........I didn't go back to sleep, so around 6:15 I just got up so as to not awaken the 1st Lady. Went into the study and laid on the sofa there......and was still there when she got up around 7:45.

I just sort of crept around, making my Fr. Roast coffee, and then heading outside and plopped down in one of the patio chairs and sipped the coffee while sitting in the sun. By an hour or so later, I was once again among the living, and not disabled as I had been for a few hours. By a bit after 10, I was on my way to Farmington to get an oil change at the place where we have had change the oil in the Park Avenue since 2002. I also had the transmission fluid changed out....it had been 50,000 miles.....and then hit the SuperCenter for a few items.

Back at the stick and brick, we began to re-organize the shed we bought a few years ago and began to get things re-arranged coming from the garage out to the shed. That took most of the afternoon.............and then I loaded up the items that we didn't want and took them to the garage of one of the officers of the county Democrat Club, which is going to have a garage sale soon.

This evening.......a light supper on the patio as the sun sank below the trees in the west.......and with the head pounder I had, my dark red medicine was not called for this evening.........

Chapter 5:

Well........in 1974, we moved to Eldon, my hometown, where I took the position of vocal/choir instructor for the Middle School. I also was given the position of Asst. Band Director as my high school director was still teaching in the HS. We moved into a small salt box of a house.........renting it from a friend of ours who was a minister there in Eldon. The 1st Lady did not have a teaching position as there were no openings in the Science Dept. there.

Michael was in the 1st grade and Michele was in the 3rd grade, and Jeni was about 8 months old at that time. During the month of August, we received word that the 1st Lady's first husband had been diagnosed with a very, very rare and fast-acting cancer.........and on October 26th he passed away. At that particular time, Michele was quite ill with a bad cold, a very high fever of 102-103, and body aches........the flu was diagnosed. Well, we left her with my parents as we headed to Bloomfield, MO to the funeral, taking Michael with us......even though he didn't remember his father(he had never ever taken him to spend time with him since the divorce when he was 1.5 years old.). We were gone for two days.....and upon returning Michele was still very sick........and three days later, on Halloween, the 1st Lady called me at school and said that Michele's temperature was 106 degrees!!!!!

I told her to get her in the tub with ice water, I called the doctor, and left school in the middle of my class. Getting the temp lowered to 103, we bundled her up and rushed her to the hospital in Jefferson City, 30 miles away. They immediately put her in cooling blankets and began to run tests. There was no change....and three days later, the medical staff threw up their hands and said we needed to get her to the Univ. of Missouri Medical Center in Columbia. We drove through a blizzard for those 30 miles and they began testing when we arrived... which was late at night. By the second day, I went back to Eldon to bring Michael up to see her, thinking that would cheer her up, however..........she was "out of her head".....the temp not getting below 103 degrees. By late the next day, Thursday, the doctors called us in for a conference.......and they said that there was nothing they could do......her organs were beginning to shut down and it was just a matter of time. The 1st Lady collapsed and had to be put into a bed in a hospital room herself.

The family gathered at the hospital........and by 11 the next morning, at the age of 8years old, Michele had left us. Stunned, shocked, out of reality totally the 1st Lady and I went to the hotel room of family members and laid down for a couple of hours. Then......we made the terrible trip back to Eldon......not knowing how we even got there. From then on, the weekend was a horrible, dark blur of just not believing that we were actually going through all of this..........

Neither one of us remember the services.......I guess the body, the mind, has a way of shutting down in times such as those were.........words cannot describe those days........and, the days that followed the funeral. After two weeks, I returned to the classroom........still in a foggy daze......and not really comprehending where I was or what I was doing.

Time went by....the 1st Lady was in a very dark time of her Life.......and the only saving grace was that she HAD to get out of bed to take care of little Jeni! Our family and our friends surrounded us with support, with love, and with assistance in day to day living.........The 1st Lady continued to slide downhill....and by spring I insisted that she get up and out.....and so I pushed her into getting out and doing some substitute teaching at the school. THIS did help her.........but, obviously only Time can help in times like these. And it was several years before she became more like herself again.

It had been a double tragedy for the kids' grandparents on their father's side.......losing their son and then 10 days later, losing his daughter/their granddaughter. Michael began to have nightmares and then stomach problems, so he was given some meds to help with those problems. I thought it best to get out of that small house, so we found a wonderful 100 year old house that was in wonderful condition.......and we purchased it and moved in that next summer.
Autopsy tests were totally inconclusive........no way of determining what the problem was then.

Fast foward several decades and we now know that she had Rhyes Syndrome. The doctor had given her aspirin and penicillin ........and now it is known that aspirin for young children with high fevers should NOT be given.........but it was a long time ago and we didn't have that knowledge then!

And sooooo, the next year, the 1st Lady was requested to return to Lincoln University, where she graduated from in '71, and to begin work in a Laboratory and do some teaching in chemistry and biology....her double major with a straight 4.0 GPA!!

Those next three years seemed to fly by.......we traveled some and in 1977: on April 26th, Jeremy was born, again in the same hospital in Jefferson City where Jeni and I were both born.
By the time we returned from our 1978 summer of travels in the same camper/truck , I was notified that my high school teacher had decided to retire.......and I was asked to take the head band and choir directorship. Exciting........happy to make a change.......and with a great deal of anxiety at replacing my teacher who was known all across the state for the outstanding music program she had developed while teaching there for 34 years.!!!! Hmmmmmm.........you might say I was concerned about my abilities..............

And so......not having wanted to divide these "Eldon years" into two chapters......I believe that this is for the best. It was another four years of my Life.......and another real change did occur in my Life at that point in time!

1978!!!! And soon........another new and varied chapter was to begin............it had been a rough four years........a very dark time in our lives, a time I hope very few must experience, however some....at least one.....of my readers(and a former student of mine) has experienced this herself. She was in the same class as Michele and they were friends.......and she has only recently lost her own daughter in a horrific car accident. Hmmmmm........Life does throw us some very, very challenging times, but the only real cure for these times is.........Time itself.

However......Life does go on.........and even after all of this and some other deep valleys......

LIFE IS GREAT......and I hope it is for all of you, also!!!!!