The Emerald Rose

Ok, this is the imfamous 500th blog. At one hour per blog a day to write one, that’s 20, 24 hour days of continuous writing, (or reading on your part) That’s a bunch of time!

     I’m going to mix this 500th up with different styles and formats I’ve seen and enjoyed reading in the “blogasphere”.  Ready, let’s begin;

    One of the regular blogs I follow is called “Irrepressible Angst” she did a really neat “time” blog, so I am stealing her idea and applying it to myself. (hers is shorter because she is significantly younger than “moi”)

     50 years ago – I just turned 14 and rushed to the City Hall to get my “working papers” for back then you could not work if you were under 16 legally unless you had them. (Hmmm, I’d already been working for a year and a half! Guess that makes me an ” illegal”, of sorts. If I only knew then what I know now and how all the benefits are better now, than they were then,  for illegals because no one gave a damn, you work hard you get paid better than the lazy ones” GO team Righteous!!”

    45 Years ago – Well been in the U.S. Navy reserve for a year after quitting college. Was loving playing a “Contra-bass Baritone” Bugle (much like a Tuba) in a drum and bugle corps, working full time at the A&P Supermarket, chasing girls, and buying old clunkers that even Obama’s program would not have honored! (Already had my first car crash, totalled a 1959 Renault Dauphane,….bummer! But no one hurt, just my pride)

       40 Years ago – Well served my country for 4.5 years active duty and two reserve left. Already married for two years, #1 son already here for a year, and I’m making a whopping $99 a week salary working in a major Boston Bank in the Mutual Fund back office operations. Oh yeah, my wife is “carrying” #2 now (no ambiocentisis back then, the key word in the delivery room was  “surprise”, no unwrapping the gift early)  Ok so a few “blue” blankets were used on an otherwise “pink” baby, but I’m betting she was not “scarred for life” by it.

       30 years ago – already started my first part-time business making Lobster Traps, with my buddy George,a full time lobsterman, in my basement in the evenings, piling the finished ones up in the yard,” building up inventory”. Oldest boy in High School, wife and I are looking to “get into a full time business of our own” (two years later sold the house for $65,000 CASH, twice what we paid for it eight years before, moved to Maine and bought a virtually bankrupt business selling medical supplies to business and industry. Because I saw a potential (and was ready to “work my ass off”) Oh yeah got my Associates in Arts degree after five years of night school, and then going for the Bachelors three evenings a week for the past two years, but have to drop studies to pursue business.  

     25 years ago –  Well #3 son aboard the “family train” now, number one son in the U.S. Air Force, number one daughter kissed off a full scholarship to the University to become a Mommy (Grand-daughter #1 on the way) Oh and the old broken down business, I did turn it around and it was now doing over a Million $ a year in sales, just won a brand new (first year they were announced) Datsun 300ZX, been to Hawaii twice on vacation, built a dream house on six acres of cleared farmland in Maine, and loving life,….but getting itchy again.

       20 Years ago – Kids all out and about except #2 son, but he’s in a private school, never ice skated in his life and now on the JV Ice Hockey Team, wife and I celebrating 22 years of marriage, “monster” 42″ projection TV, New hot Tub and pool at the house,..life is good,….but I’m gonna sell the business, I’m getting bored with it,….time for something new and different.

       15 Years ago – Boy, sort of a toughie. I tried to remember, but no lightbulbs, then I subtracted the years,….Bingo!!! It was the “end of the beginning era” as I liked to call it. Started a Country Western Night Club, part of it morphed into an Irish Pub (God I loved that place!!), more of it morphed into a “Blues Bar”, and I was beginning to understand the word “desperation” up close and personal.  A year and a half later my Attorney would look across the desk at me and say, “You know what your biggest fault is?” To which I said “No”, and he replied, “You just don’t know when to quit.” Well nobody ever told me the Captain never REALLY went down with the ship! Apparently prevailing business principles said “Take whatever you can get for money, pull it out and make it disappear,….to hell with everyone else.” (Sorry, wouldn’t be the first time I cared more about my people (read as employees) than myself,…oh well, a valuable life lesson,….but I still sleep better than most bankers, traders, and “in-the-know” business dudes whose allegiance is to their personal bank account first and foremost

        10 Years ago – A whole new life had begun, had a full time stable (not the horse and cow kind of stable) job, was in the process of trying to overcome a bad credit report (from the bankruptcy of ten years prior, business and personal of course,…never go half-way I always say!) plotting and doing anything I can to get my name on a mortgage and a deed to our own place again. My wife and I finally did it the next year, and despite a couple of jobs for both of us, officially we are on the road to regaining our sanity, making a “cross country” type move, and are assimilating into a new community where folks “talk funny”, you know the “Y’all’s and the “fixin’ to” ‘s, and what the hell is NASCAR? Now I can say I really know what my grand-parents felt like getting off the boat from Ireland in this strange new country,….but I’m a pioneer as well. The kids are scattered to the winds, Utah, Texas, and New Hampshire, we are almost having a second honeymoon. Both my wife and I know what “Paradise Lost” means now,…believe me!

         5 Years ago – Been managing a retail store for almost seven years, talk about a burn-out mode. Retail is like the “rain-man” of careers, doing the exact same thing day in and day out and expecting different results, (more sales) every day. (I think Dustin Hoffman wrote the “executive management Guide for  Annual Sales” !!) Oh year, and the real estate market has started to crumble around here already. I decided to move on and get into Condominium and Homeowners Association Management, for no matter how bad things got, they could not go away , and were presenting brand new “impossible” tasks (my favorite kind!)

        1 Year ago – Waiting for the damn silly results from the life screening tests my wife and I took. Hers are back and she’s fine,…where the hell are mine?

        6 months ago – “Good Morning Mr Guinness, I’m a cardiac surgeon, and you need a triple by-pass, like immediately.” “But what about my carotid artery blockage?” …….and as the title of my new book (aiming for publication at the end of summer in time for the Christmas Holiday Shoppers) says, the next day I woke up, and thought…”Ok so I’m still here,…now what do I do?”

        3 months ago – August 2009 finished my last “pipe cleaning” exercise, carotid artery cleanout, now time to kick myself in the ass and get to living again. Sure we are all going to die, but I am thinking “later” rather than “sooner” at this point. Attitude is adjusting, outlook on life is changing, outlook on the importance of “earthly things” and friendships shifting, all things change except a couple of “pints” a day and good conversation with neighbors.

        1 Month Ago – Ok coming together pretty good, let’s push the envelope,…”Hey honey, did you see this entry application for the 5K race up in Niceville?…..Let’s do it!” So I’m in training now, 4.2 miles a day and breathing exercises to keep the old “ticker” under control. Done 18.5 miles in the last four days,….damn I’m good!!

         This month, rounded up all my stats on the “walking regimen” I’ve been doing for the last four months and here we go:

         November 2009   –  70.25 miles

         December 2009    –  53.25 miles   (damn holidays slow you down)

         January  – 2010     –  76.25 miles

        Today – finishing off my 500th blog, although I still have a few more to go, so this will stay in draft form until then.

        Scientific discoveries made relative to aerobic excercise and caloric usage;

         #1 It takes four miles a day, at 3.5 miles per hour to not gain weight from three pints of Guinness.

         #2 Skinny people may be among the “beautiful people” in todays sick society, but they sure as hell get colder a lot faster, ….or in the local Pub vernacular, “don’t cuddle a popsicle, go for a teddy bear”.

        #3 With enough healthy food (read as “salads”)  you occasionally find yourself  “lusting” for a lush green field. (Maybe that’s what the Bible talks about in the 23rd Psalm,…”..he maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” (only my opinion, get over it, that’s why I’m not a priest or bishop!)

        #4 The committment to a bottle of wine is directly proportional to your ability to consume it. (Always date a skinny chick, most of them can’t get past three glasses of wine 😉 HOWEVER if you want to have fun the “pleasingly plumper” girls (simply meaning those girls not obsessed with being thin enough to slide through a straw like it’s a water slide) know far better how to party and not act like little porcelain dolls, aghast at every off color remark.

         #5 Life is fleeting and it seems the older you get the harder it is to get all you want done, as often or as fast as you want to do it. For those under forty or so reading this,….kick it out man and follow your dreams, if you wait too long they become bad dreams or in some cases nightmares. (and NO I’m not even close to considering bunjee jumping for my birthday!)

         #6  Try and stay current with life. I get the biggest kick out of old folks who have made no attempt to “get with the program”  literally and learn about “blogging”, e-mail, facebook, twitter and the rest. I’ll be the first to admit “it ain’t easy to teach us old dogs new tricks” but if you don’t make the attempt the only trick you have to look forward to performing is “roll over and be dead”

        WEll that concludes my “500th” ramblings, and I leave you with a huge THANK YOU to folks like Lucy, R.A.T., sims, coffeepot, sanity optional, miss devylish, mental meatloaf, bear, jordan, and of course irrepressible angst. We truly do see to each others souls when we write and just hit the send button. It is truly a very small planet, and I urge everyone to go see it. People are great, God is Good, and working for a living is a necessary evil!

       Live, Love, and Enjoy, …the train only stops at this station once!

      AND the 22nd of February marks the world tolerating my presence for 65 years! So I timed the 500th for the 65th.

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P.S. – As a 500th Blog present it looks like I have to go shopping for a new car for myself. Mine blew the engine yesterday,….totally fried,…kaput,…tout fini. For a 1999 model GM Jimmy with 134,000 miles on it I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

        Oh faithful (,..ahem,.. formerly faithful) Jimmy, I have enjoyed our time together, but alas,….thou has left me, (cast me to the cruel cold  Southern winter, since your heater coil passed away this past fall), and despite careful loving care, new tires, a new serpentine belt just yesterday morning, a full four wheel alignment last spring, no bruises from careless parking,…..you are gone.

     They tell me you can have a heart ,er….engine, transplant for a mere $3,000, …BUT offer me no specific life expectancy after that for your transmission, rear end, CV joints, or brain (master computer). So I have no choice but to sign the “DNR” form, (DO NOT RESUSITATE), and know they will fond you a nice section in “Al’s Junk Yard” , overlooking the pulp factory, and from titme to time someone will come and visit and harvest any of your “good” organs (parts).

      Rest in piece old friend!  😦

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