Another good start.

4/16/07 Monday
That was a crappy way to end a good day. It was a mercifully short slowdown, only lasting a couple of hours but, looking on the bright side it wore me out as all these seizures do so I slept well. Hey, there’s always a bright side if you look for it hard enough. I’m doing fine this morning other than a little pain. I’m used to that and it’s a result of my getting so much done yesterday. Even feeling good comes with a small price but it’s one I am glad to pay.

Today we will go to the tax appraisers office. There were ads in the Martin County newspaper regarding programs designed to reduce the amount of property tax that apply to us. Besides that we are the new owners of this farm so it would be a good idea to get involved with the whole property tax thing.

Cherie is working on all the details that come with her flying home to be with her mom and family. Of course she’s worrying about me as she is prone to do so I reassure that I can take care of myself just fine. Hang on while I go back and see if I talked about her going home previously in this journal. Yep, I did so I will avoid going through it all again. Just a note here - Perseveration is a word used to describe the tendency of those with short term memory loss to repeat the same story over again because they don’t remember saying it before. That’s why I like writing cause I can always go back and check.

So that’s the start of today. God willing I’ll be back to tell more later. By the way, when Cathy (Cherie’s sister) saw the compost thing she just cracked up. She’s got the degree in agriculture so she knows about this stuff. Me, I just guess at stuff and try whatever zany ideas come to mind. There’s lots of zany locked up there in this brain. If it breaks out there’s no telling what will happen.

These kind of things just keep happening. Don’t know what to think. When we were at the Old Sorehead Days we met a guy who had a booth there. He is a coin dealer as well as the pastor of one of the churches in Stanton. I had forgotten we had my grandfather’s coin collection that we had recovered from my brother. That’s a story in itself and what the hey, I’ll tell it.

When our mother died grandma paid my brother Larry to recover her property and bring it to her. He recovered it all right, just forgot to bring any of it back. That included the two trucks, one of which he forged her name on the title and sold to a towing service. The other he still drives though the tags will expire soon. Amongst the things was this coin collection, which my mother had taken with the promise of selling it for grandma.

Understand my brother didn’t let me know mother had died till four of five months later and only then by accident. At that time he said she only had a bunch of junk and he threw most of it away. Then grandma told me she wanted me to have the coin collection. That’s the first I’d heard about it. When I called him on it he claimed she said he could have it and used the same line he would use every time it suited him. “She’s old and doesn’t know what she’s saying”.

Cherie and I went to St. Louis to get my clothes and confront Larry about this and the many other things we had discovered he had taken. Backed into a corner he surrendered the coin collection. There were other things he had hidden in a back basement room that we found. “Oh, I forgot about that” he claimed. Who knows what else there was. It’s sad to learn your brother is a liar and a thief but even sadder when it’s family he’s stealing from. I’ve known many criminals in my journeys on the wrong side of life but even in those circles one who steals from his own is viewed as a low life piece of crap. So we got the coin collection.

So I asked “Preacher Bill” (That’s what’s on his business card) if he would come look at this collection and buy it. Of course he would. That’s what he does. Anyway he came out this afternoon. Great guy as far as I can see. He was efficient as he ran through the books and boxes of coins. Long story short we got a chunk of change. Eighteen hundred dollars. Being spiteful I put the price here with the hope my brother will see it. Yeah, I know that’s not right but…

So here we are in a pivotal time where bills have piled up and Cherie is flying to Toledo where she will celebrate her and her mother’s birthday as mom recovers from open heart surgery. Her being able to fly home is another thing that came out of the blue. I so want this to be a great time and just two days ago, when we met pastor Bill at the Sorehead Days, we didn’t buy hot dogs cause money was that tight. Now we can catch up on bills and Cherie will have a few dollars to spend while she is visiting.

Like I said at the beginning of this “These things keep happening”. Every time things get tough with no hope in sight something comes out of the blue. Something totally unexpected that meets a need. No luxury but needs are met. I pray all the time “Is there a God? Where are you?”. I still don’t know but have to wonder about this. Keeps me thinking.

So the rest of the day was a pretty good one from the standpoint of my mental acuity. I stayed fairly cognizant and again got things done. Finally planted a flat of seeds, mostly peppers and tomatoes. Other than a headache I’ve been fine. Regardless we are blessed. Night all.