Memories Memories

A Yearly Thought:

Having the opportunity to express one’s thoughts and get some kind of feed back from those who hear, or read it is a treasure. It helps one to refine their thinking.

The ability to improve ones knowledge is a blessing and also a treasure and knowing how to accept criticism and make adjustments is what separates success from failure.

Many of us will never achieve success as we measure it but we may reach some level that gives us a modicum of pleasure that satisfies.

I think I may fit in that category. I think so simple because I have always wanted to write and doing so here in a blog may be as close to being a writer as I ever get. So, I enjoy some minuscule of success. As a famous fat guy used to say “How sweet it is”

To be a writer, to think of being successful no matter how small, I believe one has to be willing to dream and also willing to express one’s feelings on paper to the point that the reader has and shares a connection.

As an avid reader, I read everything, I find some writers do this so well that as I read their writing I find myself right there in the book with the character, seeing what the character sees and feeling what the character feels. To me that is the enjoyment of reading but it is also a learning experience and an inspiring desire to imitate the writer.

In saying all this, my attempt here is to tell you a little story, a story about my experience and give you a little insight as to how I come to think the way I do. You see we are governed by our experiences.

Life is full of experiences and one that I always remember is when I was very young, we, my parents, my sister and I lived in a farm house and we had a goat, and a rooster. The goat was mean and I could not go out into the back yard unless the goat was tied to a tree or something.

The rooster owned the back yard too and he was just as mean as the goat and I was always watchful of him and running back into the house when he reared up at me even though he was tied to a tree or stake.. So between the rooster and the goat I shared the back yard only when my parents were out and watchful or when both the goat and the rooster was not around.

Now I was as I said very small, but my sister was a couple of years older and she always kept an eye on me too so I had help avoiding the goat and the rooster.

Yes there were a few times when I almost got caught by either the rooster or the goat but thanks to my sister and the fact that my parents kept the goat tied and the rooster in a pen most of the time I was spared any injury.

Shift forward to a few years and I’m much older, ridding a bicycle and in elementary school with friends to shoot marbles, run and play cowboys with. Those were the good years of youth.

It was doing these early years that I learned that friends would not always agree and sometimes they expressed their feelings with their fists. Being always a quick learner I learned to either talk fast or fight fast but sometimes I needed help.

Help came again in the form on my big sister again. One thing about my friends, all boys, they knew better than to hit a girl so again I escaped being injured as we, us boys got into fights and meaningless scrimmages.

Now I need to qualify the fights, they were never violent or dangerous just as what we call tussling or kids having a good time. However to me at the time it was a fight and you had to win. To win meant getting the other guy down and holding him until he gave up.

Moving forward to being an adult I wanted to see all the US and the as much as the world as possible so I traveled all over the place in the military and after on the jobs I held. When I would come home guess who was one of the first persons I had to check on, yes, my big sister.

Now don’t misunderstand, by now I had another sister at home and other brothers and came home from one of those trips and found another new sister, my baby sister too. What a surprise that was. My brothers and I were always close even the one we teased the most. He passed a few years ago and yes we all miss him too, his great smile and willingness to help others and to participate in everything.

Another thing that may be of interest is that my big sister and I lived with our grandparents and in some ways shared a special bond but we were never far from our parents and we all were kind of one big family. It was like having two families.

I always remember that my parents always had a birthday party for my sister and I being our birthdays was only a day apart and I always gave my sister a card and she always gave me one. No matter where I would be a card would arrive on my birthday and I came to expect it, a simple card that said Happy Birthday was the yearly gift that kept us close.

The card doesn’t come any more, you see my sister passed away some years ago. It is on this day that I always remember her fondly and the many memories we shared together, memories that only a sister and brother can understand, memories of playing in the sand and mud, memories of defending each other, memories of hard work, study and long talks, memories of support and helping each other and making sure that we always care for others too.

So now you may know something about me and just maybe I’ll learn to write too.



Happy Birthday!!!!