Such a post title doesn’t quite get it. Nothing was ever really wrong; Kathryn, 91, is fine. But for a little while, I was afraid. I was deep in a book when the phone rang and I saw it was a number I did not recognize; it was the medical alert people telling me Kathryn had activated her pendant. Just this morning when I called to check on her, she had mentioned an earache. But I didn’t remember that last part until I was out the door. At that point I also remembered that I didn’t have the key and ran back to the dining room and the china cabinet to get it.

Almost tripping down the steps, I ran across the lawn, across the street, down the sidewalk and around to her back door. And I am thinking, “What am I going to find?” I am steeling myself . . . Maybe I will wait with her on the floor holding her hand until the EMS get there. Maybe I will be stanching the flow of blood from a scalp wound.

I lunged in through the back porch door, wrestling the key out of the lock as I it opened and then stuck the key in the inside door. Then I looked up and Kathryn was looking at me through the window over the sink. She looked surprised. I didn’t know what to think.

I stumbled into the kitchen, asking, “Are you okay? Are you okay?” Her alarm had gone off accidentally, probably from pressing against the counter. At this point I was leaning against the counter, catching my breath.

Three police cars, two volunteer responders and one EMS crew later, I was back home . . . but a little too keyed up to read.

I want to go HERE. I want to go here on April 26 and hear the bagpipe people.

We have a piper who practices by walking up and down our streets, but he doesn’t look like Wilford Brimley, the way this gentleman does

Must use great strength . . .

OR, maybe I should stuff myself at the National Cornbread Festival in Tennessee – South Pittsburg.

More to the point, where will you be the first weekend in October – Apple Festival weekend? You have been coming here and I have loved, loved, your tin mugs with the choices of beverages drawn from kegs. I always get cherry wine and it is so good with the clear ice floating in it. But your schedule does not show you coming.

Bayou Billy, you are letting me down.

I have a table of the BB events and am going to attempt to add it:

Continue reading Bayou Billy . . . where are you right now? →

I saw the little green car yesterday; I went down to Vorderman’s to pay them for the last bit of work they did on it before we discovered the brakes were just not worth the money to repair, given the rust on the body . . . not to mention the duct tape on the driver’s side headlight bezel.

You know what, though, its little heart, its powerful heart – its engine – sounds so great – purring and and giving me that wonderful wake-up scent of diesel in the morning. It always wanted to run fast and smooth.

“You and me, AmeliaJake . . . You and me,” it seemed to say. I could hear it in the rhythm – in the controlled thunder of its chug.

A lot of people wouldn’t have had it – too old, dents, some rust; but I knew it was solid and upright and of good character.

But it is time to let it go and I wish I knew someone who could use the engine with its new fast start glow plugs. Somebody who has an old 1976 pristine 300D body that has been tucked away in someone’s garage. A car that looks so perfect, but harbors an engine that has also been let to sit. I’d say, “Here, take little greenie’s engine.”

Wait a minute! Maybe I’d say, “Sell me your chassis and little greenie and I will chug again, free as the wind . . . well, with maybe a little scent of diesel in the air.