From the Foothills of the Ozarks

Entry the 11th

6:28 pm central time zone
Saturday
computer room at my grandma's house, mountain home, arkansas, that one state beneath missouri, you know the state where bill clinton was from

Spam Count: 360


I'm 27, and all four of my grandparents are still alive. My dad's dad fell and broke his hip this week--he's 95 years old. We weren't sure he was going to get through it. His circulatory system is about what you'd expect, I guess, and it was looking iffy. Thing is, his morale was really low, even before he fell. He's been talking a lot recently about how he's ready to go. He was an engineer in the navy in WWII, and he told my uncle, "No sailor has any business living this long."

He was forty when my dad was born. I think my grandmother was in her early twenties at that point. They met in Birmingham, where both of them were working at a big radio station. She was the new secretary at the station, and he was an engineer. I guess he was about thirty-eight then; he had already been married once. He asked around, and the guys he worked with told him she was "in her twenties". She was exactly twenty. By the time they both realized how much older he was than her, they were already serious.

He's always said he attributes his longevity to the late age at which he started his family. I think there's something to that.

Anyway, it seems like he'll pull through this one. From some of the things he's been saying, I think his ordeal has kind of refreshed his interest in living a little longer.

I was going to go on and talk about losing family members, but you guys probably already think I'm a total emo-kid as it is (I sort of am), and anyway, I kind of like the high note this wound up hitting, so nevermind.

unequivocably,
fiasco joe

"I'm gettin' too old for this shit."
-Gandalf the Gray