Day 4

I’m looking forward to distributing Senior News. The rain is mild and I can get out and walk while enjoying the feeling of rain on my face. Yesterday was OK. The senior center was busy and pleasant in spite of the band playing. It does seem to ramp up conversational volume. Kevin sent information about a way to get more interest than the bank gives. Joyce Melton called and we talked for an hour! Caught up with the news.

Senior News article

Come Back Town was a name coined by KPOD radio owner Bill Stamps. It gives a picture of the spirit of Crescent City after the tsunami in March 1964. The four waves took the lives of eleven residents and destroyed twenty-nine city blocks. The downtown area was covered with logs, broken buildings, wrecked cars, store merchandise, debris and lots of trash. Governor Pat Brown said, “This is appalling. One must see it to believe it.” The Army Corps of Engineers immediately began to demolish, burn, and bulldoze the damage toward the bay. A sixteen foot sea wall was constructed from quarry rock, broken cement, foundations, floors, and other appropriate materials from the demolished buildings. The badly damaged swimming pool that was under construction was started again. The area from the sea wall to Front Street became Beachfront Park. 176 acres of this parkland were donated by the family of Henry Sause, a pioneer in tug and barge transportation of forest products. This is an area well used now for recreation, including Kid Town, horse shoe pits, disc golf holes, and picnic areas. Many events take place in the park such as Fourth of July celebrations and Sea Cruise car show.

Later that same year, Christmas time 1964, the area was drenched and flooded by torrential rain and melting snow. The entire Klamath town site was destroyed by the 55 feet of flood water in the Klamath River.  The Del Norte County spirit showed itself again with this catastrophe. The hero that emerged and has been remembered was a 900 pound bull. Once named Bahamas, the bull was swept from his barn into the turbulent river. The river was filled with logs, branches, broken limbs, whole tree trunks and the bull managed to cling to a raft of debris. The distance from Klamath Glen to Crescent City harbor is about sixteen miles of flooded river and raging ocean waves. The bull stayed on board his raft until he became part of a ten acre mass of floating debris in the harbor. He was spotted and a group of fishermen went to his rescue. They dug him out of the mess but after hours of tugging he was taken to a nearby gear shed. He was sick with pneumonia and on Christmas Day, he began to improve. He was a symbol of stamina and had earned a right to live. His inspiration brought him attention and a new name, Captain Courageous. He was allowed to live out his life of 23 years in comfort.

An afternoon in the research room at Del Norte County Historical Society museum is a treasure hunt. A great way to spend a rainy Monday in March.

Day 3

Yesterday was frustrating. I couldn’t do anything except make mistakes, messes etc. Finally gave up and sat in front of mind draining TV reruns. Some days are like that and I want more of the ones that feel like it’s a joy to be alive. Today is Senior Center duty. The band will be there. It will be noisy. The rest of the day is mine and I will attempt to get the blog address and signature lines corrected.

Day 2

 Rain. Refreshing feel and smell. A good day to stay inside and catch up on house chores and paper work. I’m so relieved to have the documents in Jeff’s hands that will show the IRS that I don’t owe them $30,000. That was a kick in the stomach. Now, he says, don’t worry. No other agenda today. I enjoyed seeing Philomena with Hollie yesterday. We had the whole theater to ourselves like a private showing. Today I will progress.

Day 1

This is the tenth year that I have started the day with a writing discipline that uses my number of years in words. There are days when I wouldn’t write anything if I didn’t have this date with myself. It is the reader’s digest version of my personal history and helps me keep track of activities, events, people, and my health. Happy New Year to me as I enter my 79^th year. May it be the best one yet.

PS

My 79^th birthday began with a beautiful morning. I stepped outside to pick up the paper about 5:30 to enjoy the moon, the stars, and the 57 degree breeze. Good start. The mail arrived early and brought birthday greetings from friends of many years. Checking Face Book and e-mails brought more greetings and I felt acknowledged and happy. The good news in the mail was a packet from my money manager that shows the transfer of funds from the Hartford account to the Valic account. That is important because last Friday I received a bill from the IRS for over $30,000! That rocked my world. After I opened it, I couldn’t read the whole thing for an hour. Then I settled down enough to understand what happened. I called my CPA, the sender of the check, the receiver of the check without a call back or returned e-mail from them. So, I was dithering about that all weekend. Monday morning I talked to all three of them and was assured it was fixable and not to worry. Now the documents are with my CPA and he will take care of it. Both of the other two blamed each other and that didn’t help my upset. Chris came over and helped me get the 78 word blog into a book. She is a gift that I treasure. Then Hollie came and we went to see Philomena. It was a great movie. Judy Dench proves that wrinkles don’t detract from beauty.

Looking back over the year, there were few good days. For me a good day means the people were interesting, the activity was fun, and my energy lasted long enough to enjoy it. Beginning in May, after the last blood donation, when my health really went downhill, finally finding the cause for years of waning energy, and beginning the building process, took up most of my attention. At last I can do something that has the promise of healing the depletions, the bone loss, the lack of strong immune response, and hopefully my breathing will improve too. The biggest damage has been to my self-confidence. As soon as I found out that I brought all the problems on myself the self-doubt, double checking, second guessing, negative self-talk took off rapidly. Images of every mistake in judgment, wrong answer, missed appointment, all of the misses and losses pop up in my memory to reinforce that I’m dumb, don’t know enough, can’t get it right etc. Nasty way to live.

New year and my resolution is big. Forgive myself and keep working on fixing the damage. In our family, the mess wasn’t important, cleaning it up was all that mattered. I tell myself, See, today is better than yesterday. Healing is happening now. With the beans, greens, grains, and protein diet, wearing weights, walking, keeping busy, all contribute to a good 79^th year.