TWO THANKSGIVINGS

Today is Thanksgiving 2007 . It has been a great one for me and my family. One Phone call of many today was one we had hoped to get before now. I had prayed it would come today and it did. It made my wife really happy as it was from one of her sisters who had not called or contacted her for a long time. If it makes my wife happy it makes all of us happy. It even inspired me to call my two sisters. I know for others calling someone on the phone is no big deal. Well for me it is a big deal. The only person I ever call is my mother but most of the time she calls me. My mother calls me every Sunday at 9;45 a.m. So I know it is her and will be sure to pick up the phone. I avoid talking on the phone whenever possible. Why? Whenever I answer the phone it always seemed it was really bad news. Even when my mother calls I like for my daughter or wife to answer first. Howevr they have been disappearing of late about 9:30 am every sunday morning. Just coincidence Right. Well even I can put 2and 2 together most of the time. [lol] I have to know a little about women. No brothers two sisters and a dad who was not around much and most times he was you did not want to be around him. Poor mom if I had not been the {baby] youngest things would have been better or so I like to think. Actually it probably would have made things worse. Back to Thanksgiving like I said today was one of our best.

Thanksgiving 2005- About all I can remember of it was feeling miserable and in a lot more pain than usual. I did not eat as much turkey or macaroni salad as usual or so my wife tells me and she claims she knew then something was wrong. She probably did because she can read me like an open book most of the time. She also knows that it only upsets me more when she asks If I am feeling okay. I toughed it out as long as I could as not to spoil Thanksgiving for the rest of the family. about 10:00 p.m I headed for bed thinking maybe some how I could get to sleep. Never happened finally about 2:30 I woke my wife up and told her I was going to emergency room. I was going to drive myself .No way was I going to pay for another ambulance ride. I knew what was the matter. The last time I had driven myself I could do it again. So what that I had had to pull over 3 times to puke. Of course my wife said no way you have a son that can drive you if you insist on no ambulance. He did and I made it all the way to St. Frances Hospital in Peoria before puking on the floor while trying to fill out the blasted admittance forms. For some reason they then decided they had all the information they needed.[lol] It turned out to be just what I knew it was kidney stones. But did they pay any attention to me no they decided I did not know what I was talking about. They treated me for a heart attack . Me protesting all the time. Finally I persuaded a nurse to check my records I had been in that very same er room two other times for guess what. Yes kidney stones! Of course by that time it was about 4 hours later and they had yet to give me anything to relieve the pain. It may have been longer cause I had actually blacked out from pain at least twice between pukings. I remember very little after that until they gave me a second dose of morphine. They did show me the two kidney stones I had passed and said as soon as we get your pain under control we will send you home to pass the rest of them. Yup that was [I hope] my worse thanksgiving ever.

THE FIRST TIME I SAW HER FACE

It was another saturday night and it had started out like countless others. There I was at another dance standing by myself knowing I had only a half hour.Thirty minutes more and another completely wasted night would have passed. I had not as yet summoned up the courage to ask any girl to dance. I had actually decided to leave and spare myself the agony of watching most of the guys on my dorm floor file past me with their steady girlfriends or worse yet with some girl they had met for the first time that night. Suddenly some very faint spark of hope began to build . I had spotted a nice enough looking girl standing alone by herself could it be this was the chance I had been waiting for. I started across the dance floor toward her halfway across a guy friend cut me off. It was the floor geek. He wanted me to come to his room to have a pizza with him and talk about military history. I had forgotten I had promised him that I would do something with him after the dance was over. I tried to think of some reason not to. Aha! Itold him quickly that if the girl I was headed toward said no when I asked her to dance I would but if she said yes I would probably ask her to go out instead for pizza . I do not know if his feeling of rejection was more painful or mine when she said no to my offer of a chance to dance.[to be continued]

A LURKER, A MEMBER, A USER, A POSTER ,A BLOGGER

It all started when relatives made the mistake of mentioning Peoria.Com when I was in the room. Yup! Little did they know then they had lured a different fish than they were fishing for into their new boat. It even took them a while to realize this fish by the user name of Mr. Collector was on the boat .

[ 1 ]Joining up as a member and [2]picking a user name was easy. The hard part after [3]Lurking about was trying to do something I had been warned by others not to do. Actually make a post. ] The reason a certain member had already scared away 3 family members after they dared to make posts. It was only a matter of time before he would notice a newbie's presence. Not just a newbie to Peoria.com but a virgin to messages boards or forums . [getting late time to stop.]

First Times

They say there is a first time for everything. This is my first blog so I decided to write about my first times. Not every first time! Some I prefer to not tell to everybody. Wait come back. You might find some of my other firsts interesting. Like the first time I saw Peoria!

The first time I saw Peoria it was from the middle of the Illinois River. It was also the first time I had drived anything with a motor in it. Well actually it was an outboard motor on my uncle's racing boat. My dad was not happy when he found out but since he was not there to prevent it I was having a great time leaving the barges in my wake . I was having a blast so the skyline of Peoria made little if any impression on me a mere lad of seven. The fact that I was sitting on three life saving seat cushions rather than my uncle's lap had me higher than a kite. Well high enough to see where I was steering . I will always remember my uncle for trusting me with one of his very favorite things. It was the first but not the last time my uncle would provide me with a first time.

The next time I saw Peoria was 13 years later. I was in my first car { a double barreled 283 dark blue 57 chevy] headed for my future wife's house to meet her family for the first time. On my way to her house I had my first car troubles. I had stopped to get a room at the Pere Marquette as I planned to spend 4 days visiting in Peoria. However the price quickly changed my mind. Little did I know that just a few years later I would be hired to manage the hotel I could not afford to stay in. But That is a story better saved for another time. {to be continued my supper awaits me.] Besides I want to see how this first blog looks when I hit the publish button.