A Few Good Men........

Not your average Saturday night.  Er, for me anyway.

Have you ever just had it and decided to take the bull by the horns?  Sometimes that can lead to kind of crazy stuff.

I decided to go out looking for a few good men, so my friend Katrina and I set out tonight, accompanied by my 1911 pistol Michael, and drove all the way to Kansas City on a quest.

We had to brave the Paseo, and we truly did make some sacrifices, mostly to our adrenalin systems, but we have gotten a fine start.  So fine in fact, it's going to be pretty hard to top.  But take heart, for I always did love a challenge.

When I said a few good men, I wasn't messing around.  

I have proudly supported this man since 2008.  No matter what life has thrown at him, he has stayed the course. 

"You cannot bring a good man down", how many times have you heard that?  However many times it has been, look around, and I am pretty sure you will find that it's true.  Every time.  And when I say "look", I mean actually find out for yourself.

Those with eyes to see in these times will tell you not to lose hope, because we have good people everywhere.  They are there, steadily pursuing the course they have set, undeterred by the ways of the world.  They are aided all along the way by those who volunteer their time or send in whatever small amount they can spare.   

Col. West spoke to us of our history, and asked us to go out, speak up, talk to people.  Many of us have been raised to be "polite", and that is a good thing.  But being polite doesn't mean being silent.  Politely speak what you know to be true.  

The way I look at it, we are fighting a terrifying enemy.  It's easy to feel hopeless about the future, especially if you have children.  But therein lies the key, and it is our greatest strength.  It's not a new kind of drone, it doesn't cost a dime, and everyone can do it.  We are fighting an enemy that does not value life.  Not even the lives of their children.  Frankly, I do not know how they got to that low point, but here in America, to the best of my knowledge, there is no more vicious enemy than one who is defending their child.  

Imagine going to a fight between a large man who believed that if he died in the fight he would rewarded with 72 virgins and a mother who knew that if she lost the fight her baby would be raped, sodomized and beheaded.  I'll concede the fact that the odds would favor the big guy, but I'd still put my money on the mother.  Even if I only had a dollar left to my name, and even if most of the bets were being placed for the big guy.  LOTS of people would, I believe.

I see real leaders all around, despite the results of "elections".  Real leaders.  Leaders that people respect and are willing to listen to and serve, despite any cost.

If you can't think of one right off the top of your head then I seriously advise you to start paying attention.

This world is not going to fix itself.  We've been "at ease" too long.

Oh, and did you know Col. West proposed to his wife Angela at KCI?  Well, he did!

The Empty Dollar Shop...

I recently went to one of my favorite places on earth only to find that it had closed.

I am in mourning and so came up with this as a memorial to that most wonderful of all places:

Ode To The Dollar Shop

Oh, Dollar Shop, I will miss you so.

We have been through so much, through the years.  There is no way I could have ever done it without you.  When I felt alone and overwhelmed, you scooped me up and set me down in a wonderful, quiet, warm place full of wonders the likes of which I never even knew existed, and I knew I was not alone.

All the stocking stuffers, you never let me down.  Every Christmas was full of wonderful stocking stuffers one simply could not find just "anywhere".  The incense burner inscribed with AC/DC that my oldest son actually liked, the little manicure sets and the Christmas cups.  My kids all got one every year.  You might think those would add up but don't worry.  They all chipped real easy and usually needed replaced every year.  Who cared?  Not me.  They were all $1.

All the pairs of sunglasses.  I wish I would have stocked up better.  I just never thought there would come a day when you weren't there.  The last time I spent over $1 on a pair of sunglasses was around 1997.  Same year the twins were born.  Your timing really was impeccable.

You were the first stop I always made when the kids got money for a gift.  You never disappointed them, either.  The shot glass that said One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, FLOOR with the little red light that lit up on the bottom?  The knives?  The jewelry?  

Decades of gift bags of every size and for every occasion, all $1.  I want to weep, even though I still have a lot of them.

The music.......a blend of 70's soft rock and one hit wonders that made me laugh out loud and sing along on many occasions.  ..........Sometimes we made it a group event.  If you have never had an unplanned flash mob around the song Don't Pull Your Love Out On Me Baby by Hamilton, Joe, Frank & Reynolds, I mourn for you.  At least I will always have the memories, oh Dollar Shop.

The books.  THE BOOKS!!!!!  SOB!  Hard back good books!!  OK, some bad ones too, but that's how it goes, and you only wasted a dollar!!

The Christmas ornaments!!  The $1 teachers gifts!!!

The commercials!  "Can't decide whether to buy that item or not?  Don't forget it's a dollar.  Every item in this store is a dollar.  All the time."  They made my heart sing out and I laughed out loud as I threw whatever was in my hand into the cart! 

I never worried there!  

I also rarely spent even $20!

I don't know what I will do without you, Dollar Shop.  I don't even know if I know who I am now.

The bathrooms!  There was never a line!!

The underwear for teenage girls who only wanted thongs!  I simply cannot abide paying good money for bad underwear.  Not even underwear as I understand their true purpose......but that's another post.

The flowers for graves!  Twice a year at least and sometimes more often, depending on what you offered and one time.....those sparkly iridescent pom pom ball things on sticks?  Well, I don't really know what those were supposed to be for but my mother's grave has never been so blinged out before or since and now, I guess never will be again.  Oh!  The agony!  I'm pretty sure those things were the talk of the town for a while there.......

The dog collars!  Shadow kept me running over there on a regular basis until I got smart and took the collars off.  It would have never went on for so long without you, Dollar Shop.  Life just will not be the same without you.

The shampoos and conditioners and lotions that teenagers always "have" to have but are mainly made up water anyway?  So what's the diff?  Especially if it comes in the actual packaging?  For a DOLLAR, people......

It's going to take a while.  I don't know if I can do it.......say goodbye to you, Dollar Shop.  I know I will find another, but it won't be the same.  You were near me.  And now, you are not.  

You are empty.  Abandoned.  Utterly desolate and dark.  

I feel the same way.  

Oh, I will rally.  I will make the trip to find another one.  But not for a while.  Not for a good while.

I must go on, but I don't know if I will ever get over this.

RIP, Dollar Shop.  I only wish you had a grave I could visit.  If I did I would only with I could afford to buy you a little statue for your grave.  But that won't be happening now.  

You were a great store, and I loved you.

America, America, Wherefore Art Thou?

If you are a conservative, you have just been dealt the worst blow of your life.  This country just re-elected Obama, and if you are like me, you practically went into shock.  

There are some of us still left who see America as a place of freedom, a place where you can come for equal rights, a job, freedom to have a family, and to live your life without being controlled by anyone, least of all the government.

All I can say is, it's time to wake up and smell the coffee, should you still be able to afford any.

I watched this election very closely, and thought that this election would show us how many Christians were left in this country.  Now, it is possible that a lot of them did not vote, and that is what I hope is true, but I think we need to deal with reality here.  America is in dire straights, infiltrated and destroyed from within.

Apparently, America is no longer the place where you sacrifice everything to come to and find a job, but the place where you sacrifice everything to come to for the "benefits".  Gone are the days where it did not matter where you came from, you were American now.  Now, you are some kind of hyphenated-American and should make America honor your own culture.  We simply are not all on the same side anymore.  There used to be two sides, easy to pick one.  Now there are just many shades of gray, the identity of America is not so easy to recognize these days.

Apparently, America is no longer the place where, if you are a member of the armed forces, you can believe that you will never, NEVER be left alone to fight until you die.  No longer can you really believe, if you are a member of the armed forces, that the might of the Red, White and Blue will without a doubt show and "bring the rain".  Now, you may or may not be ordered to go to the aid of your brothers.  The days where the good guys won may be behind us forever.

Apparently, America is no longer the place where, if there is a terrible natural disaster, any government agency will show up to help you.  They now are unable to operate in bad weather conditions.  That's not completely true: they will show up. With photographers, for photo ops.  It's after that you will be on your own.

Apparently, America is no longer a country where the picture of a "family" consists of a father and mother who are married.  It would be crazy to get married and have to pay for that yourself.  Utter lunacy.  

Apparently, the idea of saving up to purchase anything, starting with a car of your own, much less a college education, is no longer an idea that America can get behind.  Just make sure you can "make the payments" and if that doesn't work out, hey, there's always bankruptcy.  Try not to focus on the fact that we ALL have to pay that off too, it makes it a lot easier.  As long as you got yours, well, that's all that matters, right?  Should other people be stupid enough to pay that off, well, it sucks to be them.  Right?  Right?  Still with me here?

Apparently, America is now a country with citizens who have no problem with lots of "Czars", paid for by us but with no supervision or accountability to anyone of us, and multiple executive orders written that bypass Congress, which is our only hope of even finding out what they are before they are passed, let alone getting the chance for a vote of any kind.

Apparently, the idea that the government now has the power to tell us we "have" to buy something and that's just fine and dandy with a majority of us.  

Apparently, in America, the country we fought to build out of sticks and stones now has a legal system so corrupted that we think it's just fine that it be put to use with cases involving people stupid enough to spill hot coffee on themselves.  Oh, and we don't mind our tax dollars being spent on court cases to protect various animals and/or plants, because we believe they have rights too.  Why should we make it hard on a spider even if it would make us energy independent?  Independence is over rated, and mean.  A tired idea that the old white men just can't give up trying to sell to us.  When will they die off, anyway?  They are such a draaaaggg.  Yawn. 

Those dreams you had of your grandchildren being free?  The ones we have always taken for granted in America?  It's time to either commit completely or let those dreams go.

The outlook is bleak, I must admit.  What is a Christian to do?  Hide in bed with the covers over your head? Move to a place where you are more comfortable with your neighbors having the same moral outlook on life?  Stock up on ammo?  Pray more?  All of the above?  I'm going with all of the above.  

In America, we love our children.  Like the South, we have mistaken "loving" for "spoiling".

Have you missed the fact that we have raised generations of kids who never had to earn money for their first car, let alone a college education?  Who grew up with the idea that instead of saving up to buy something you could just charge it and worry about that later?  Whose parents loved them so much they did not want to see their children struggle to buy their own house, especially without an SUV, even if they lived in town?  

How many hours are spent by adults and children combined in front of a television?  Whether you are watching what passes for the "news" or playing video games has never mattered less.  For those of you who can remember Pong it is easy to look back and see how easily it started.  We would have never guessed where that first, seemingly innocent step would take us.  Did we? I certainly never saw Mortal Kombat coming in those days.   I missed it.  It did not look like a slippery slope to me.  Well, there you go.  That is exactly how it happens!

We now see what our love has wrought.  We spared the rod and spoiled the children.  Not just us, the government got into the action too.  Now we are dealing with people who are very good at spending money without ever worrying about paying it off.  Apparently there are more of them now than we who work to contribute to the tax dollars that pay for it all.  How long can this last?  The good news is, not much longer.  The bad news?  Also not much longer.

Apparently,we have a deficiency in knowledge of basic economics.  Four more years of this could actually fix that, for all the good it will do.  The hole will be so deep by then that I am at a loss as to how we will ever get back out again.  It would probably not be amiss to brush up on your choice of a Chinese dialect.  There are plenty to choose from.

If you read the Bible, it will never tell you that life as a Christian will be easy.  In fact, it will tell you just the opposite.  We must rededicate ourselves to helping those younger than us to understand not only economics, but the value of freedom. 

In order to do this, as far as I can see, we will have to figure out a way to make it look like there is a benefit to saving money and for children to have the stability of a home and both of their parents.  How we are going to compete with the government and their seemingly endless Santa's sack of benefits will not be easy.  But just remember that nothing worth having ever is.  I've heard the stories of how many benefits they get and how it actually would be "stupid" of them to get married or get a job and give those "up".  Trying to explain that those "benefits" are not "free" is like having a conversation with a 13 year old.  Full of all the confidence in the world that they are "right", riding fast toward a hard fall that you can see coming and do not want to see them go through, what's a normal person to do?  This is a situation every parent has faced.  

Until now, parent's have had the ace in the hole that they can control the child's "world" in order to teach them these very basic and vitally important lessons.  Now parents are faced with kids who, if they are 18, can thumb their nose at their parents, sign up for benefits, and continue much farther down the path toward their own destruction.  I hate to say it, but it' looks like it's out of our hands.

How do you take over a country?  Get control of the kids.  Brainwash them into little cookie cutter units that never learn to think for themselves and will follow the program that you set out for them.  It's actually the easiest thing in the world, once you get the parents out of the way.  If you can talk them all into going to work in order to afford the cool SUV, all the better.   In any case, offer them free child care under the guise of "pre-school" and you're are pretty much in, womb to tomb.   Should you discover any of the units that can think for themselves and rebel, offer them a position of control and bribe them with more "benefits".  Tell them it's for the children.  Who would have the backbone to fight that?

If you are wondering why conservatives are in mourning, I will tell you: it is because they have seen their vision of what America is die.  Now when they consider the possibility of what the Supreme Court will look like in the future, their possibility of holding onto that idea is now gone for the rest of my lifetime.  (I am 47 years old)  Now in order to ever turn it around, it will be up to our children and grandchildren.  I fear America as a whole has lost the idea that we are the greatest country in the world, able to help other's because of our freedom to make money and control what we do with it.  We know that our country is on a train going 120 mph toward a cliff.  We thought we could put the brakes on that train with this election.  We thought we could stop the train and still be able to dig our way out of this debt and still have an America left.

We were wrong.

Trying to tell my children what their "rights" under the law were was confusing a few short years ago.  In the future it may be quite a bit easier if only because there will be so few left! 

If you are a young person, I urge you to put forth the effort to find people who will tell you the truth, fight for your freedom, hold you responsible for your choices and help you do better when you make mistakes.  Yes, you will make them.  We all do.  How do you think we learned these painful lessons for ourselves?   I would urge you to learn what you need to sustain yourself and take care of your family in whatever way you can without anyone, especially the government, ever telling you what you "have" to do. 

But you know what?  It's not going to be easy.  America, I pray for you, I still believe in you, and I know that God wins in the end.  It's the spiritual battle that is getting me down, and on my worst days, I fear we are losing this battle.  On my good days, I renew my strength to fight it at every turn,  It's all I can do.  I pray that it is enough. 

I see America on her knees.  Why would she be put in this position, I wonder?  The only answer I can see is so she will get up and FIGHT.  This is not her first rodeo, and she still has many brave defenders.  This is not the time to give up.  So we fight.  We pray.  We watch for those small steps (think Pong) and we guard against them ever getting a foothold.  We may not win, but we must not ever stop fighting.

The ability to deal in the "now" is what separates people who survive extreme situations from those who do not.  Dealing in the "now" is dealing what is, not what we wish was or how we think things should be.  I will admit it's ugly.  I will never admit it's too ugly for me to fight.  It's the American in me.  You should be so lucky. ;)

It's not much, but it's all I got.  I still believe.  I still choose to believe.  I will choose dying for freedom over living in slavery.  It's time we all decided for ourselves, at least those of us who are still able to think for ourselves.  I just hope it's a majority of us.  If not, then I will fight and I will die gladly, for I know where I'm going.  I am not worried about that part at all.

Take time to grieve, but then gird your loins and rejoin the battle.  I beg of you.  I cannot promise you any benefit from it in this world.  That's why it is called sacrifice.  We just have to believe the sacrifice is worth it. Choose to believe.

A New Roof

We have almost completed the new roof.  The angel agreed to do it and offered to pay the twins to help him.  The twins were thrilled at the idea of earning money, but had no idea how hard they would have to work to earn it.  I had a good idea how hard they would have to work but was thrilled for them to get the chance to learn a life skill from the very best.  They are almost 15 and as big as full grown men.

They started Friday morning and worked till dark.  By the end of the night they were so tired they could hardly lift their arms and had a hard time getting the energy to even take a shower and go to bed.  The third time I told my Oldest baby he better get to bed because he had another day ahead of him, he barely moved his lips, mumbling "I know, Mom, you don't have to keep telling me."

I said "You're right.  You did the work of a full grown man today, so that means you get to start making some of your own decisions."  It wasn't 5 minutes before he hauled himself up from the floor and headed to the bathroom, but I thought I detected a little swagger in his walk that hadn't been there before.

Saturday morning started early, and neither of the boys showed much energy or enthusiasm.  The angel showed no mercy, and kept them  moving, moving, moving.  The nice thing about doing a roof is that you can look at any moment and judge your progress.

I worked at picking up the stuff on the ground, moving it onto tarps, which the boys would then gather up, drag to the dump truck, take up a ladder about 10 feet in the air, and then dump into the truck.  This was the job they did when they were "caught up".  I tried to avoid them, as they tend to give me mournful looks that seem to say "I'm about to die, mom!"  When you take care of yourself and your property and do it right, you will spend days thinking this, but you have to just keep going.  You won't die unless God decides it's your time, this is one thing I have never doubted.

When it came time for them to carry the shingles onto the roof up the ladder, I made myself go to the other side of the house.  I can talk the tough talk very well.  Actually watching them do this tends to give me heart palpitations, though, to I just didn't watch.  I don't want to say it was harder on me than it was on them, because I know it wasn't.  It's just that it is painful for any mother to watch her children doing anything so hard and dangerous without worrying about falls.  Real men scoff at danger.  That's what I told myself.  They made it just fine, and ended the day just as tired as they were the first day, although with better tans and considerably more muscle tone.

During a break we were all sitting around, the twins hanging onto every word the angel spoke as usual.  At one point we were talking about how he had gotten to where he is in the world.  I told the boys that I wanted them to look at him, at his house (which is beautiful and maintained to excellence), at what he had (everything in proper working order and several rental houses), and think about where he had gotten in life.  Then I told him to tell them how he grew up.

This is a true American story.  He grew up on welfare, without even a loving family around him.  By the time he was 14 he was digging graves and maintaining cemeteries for money.  He learned how to feed himself, protect himself, and he learned that his reputation may be all he had, but that a good reputation was enough to ensure a sterling life if he was willing to put in the work.

He worked on the railroad for years, which was good money but had a cost because it took him away from his family.  He learned how to be a carpenter, plumb, wire, put in windows, everything it takes to maintain a house, and bought rental properties.  He kept his marriage together, missing only two weekends at home during the railroad years, no matter how far he had to drive to get home.  He is blessed with a wife who is a true partner and always willing to work with him, as opposed to a wife who contented herself with spending money to keep up with the Jones', if you know what I mean.

35 years later they have a family and a life where they do not have to worry overly much about debt or disaster, because they can take care of themselves.

He also told the boys that the reason he is so picky is because there are a lot of people out there who don't know what they are doing.  Added into that was the fact that when you are working for yourself you are well advised to make sure you do it right, because if you get a bad reputation you are sunk.  Not that you can't redeem a bad reputation, but it takes a long time and even extra work.  All the advertising in the world cannot bring in as much money as one good testimonial repeated 3 times.  If you do good work, word gets around.  That was why after working 14 hours he made them clean up their mess before they quit.  You can put it off, but it will just make more work in the end.

We are ready to put down shingles on the third day.  If you are not impressed by the fact that one 56 year old man and two 14 year old boys accomplished that in 2 days, I would lay money that you have never put on a new roof.

At the age the twins are now, I am so thankful that they have this guiding light in their lives.  It is hard to trust anyone with your children when you are a mother.  Even if it's someone who is like a brother to you and who you would trust with their lives.  Ironically, their father basically abandoning them has actually worked out for the best, thanks to a little help from my friends.  Well, a lot of help.  Help that I could not offer them, being a woman.  

Again I urge you to go outside, look around, and pick one of the children that you will undoubtedly find wandering around doing nothing, and get to know them.  Teach them what you can.  Listen to them.  Look into their eyes and get to know them.  Don't judge them by anything you think you might know about them, let them show you what they can be.  We can save the world this way, and you can never have too many kids who respect you.  Kids grow into adults very quickly, and we all have a stake in how they turn out.

Everybody starts out with a good reputation.  It's up to every individual to keep it.  Simple as that. 

Medicate, schmedicate......

Even though it is January and still not winter yet, I have a plan.

My great uncle, Wayne (Dobby) Hamilton, at the end of his life, recorded tapes for our family of his life.  Just what he remembered, little stories we would have never known if he hadn't taken the time to record them.

He did these tapes before his death in 1999.  They were recorded on cassette tapes, and we all made copies and laughed and cried as we heard about who we really were.  Then we all put them up and kind of forgot about them.

For Christmas, my brother, who is pretty quiet and does not often talk about emotion, (this runs in our family, on the Hooker side ;)) made me another copy of these tapes.  True to form, without a word he handed me the one thing that no one else could and that meant more to me than anything else I can imagine.  I believe his exact words were "No big deal.  But I can't find tape #3".  This caused a ripple effect throughout Missouri as me, my aunt and my uncle all started searching through our boxes of memorabilia for the elusive tape # 3, which beckoned to us like a mermaid to a sailor over the waves. Going through your boxes is a good thing to do at least every 5 years, especially if you don't move.  You might want to block out some time, as about 2 hours in you will have torn apart your attic/basement/garage/closet and the entire room will be laid in piles that you will not want disturbed for (possibly) quite some time.  You will not be able to call that progress, but you will justify it in the name of History.  You will be doing the right thing.  Get busy.

So happy and excited was I that I dared listening to them again, even without Tape # 3 .  This time I took notes, and it quickly became obvious to me that these tapes needed to be put down word for word in permanent form.

I found a man here in town, a musician and sound man, to put these tapes on CD for me and am going to transcribe them.  If you have anything like this, I strongly urge you to contact John Thomas Productions in Brookfield, Mo.  You can find him on facebook.  I cannot tell you what it will mean to you to have it in a form that you will be able to keep safe for generations to come.

Today I got the elusive tape # 3 from my aunt Linda (way to be a pack rat Aunt Linda!!) and dropped it off along with the family tree that my grandmother completed in the 1970's to be put on a CD also, and picked up the CD's of the tapes we have so far.  I have them downloaded onto my computer and am going to start transcribing them word for word.  I also have a rubber trunk full of old pictures that have come to me down through the generations.  Mostly, I must say, because no one else was interested and not even polite enough to pretend to be interested.  That is all right.  That is actually normal.  In my experience you have to raise a couple of kids before you start to care who you are, let alone wonder where you came from.  This is called "maturing" and it will happen to you, probably in your 40's, but I personally believe everyone has their own time line for this.  It's all written out in God's plan for your life.  You will have to take my word for this.

This brings me to the MEDICATION headline for this post.

There is a tendency in this country to over medicate ourselves, in my opinion.  There is also a malady called Seasonal Affective Disorder, or SAD.  It's real.  I have it and so do other member's of my family.  It's from not getting enough Vitamin D, that's what the Doctor will tell you.  Anyone else will tell you that winter is very hard and depressing to get through.  It is all the same thing.  They make medication for it and I do not fault anyone for taking anything that helps them, as long as they have paid close attention to the side effects.

However, it occurs to me that everybody is "depressed" because we have such easy lives now.  With all these scenes from the depression running through my mind, it occurs to me that depression is something that is actually a luxury to have.  Don't you think that during The Great Depression people were "depressed"?  "PROBABLY!"  the voice in my head yells, "But when you are spending all your energies on just surviving another day, they didn't really have the TIME to be "depressed"".  Believe it or not, it was about the least of their worries.  Were there some alcoholics?  Oh hell yes!  But the point is, depressed or drunk, they still got up every day and did what they had to do.  They did not have the option of being "depressed".  Good thing they didn't or we may never have gotten as far as we have in this country.

I think the voice in my head is dead on.  With 4 children I have always said that I had a nervous breakdown with my name on it, and as soon as I got time I was going to take it.  I was serious, but guess what?  As usual, God had other plans, and since I didn't ever find the time to have the nervous breakdown because every day I had exactly what I needed to do right in front of me, what do you know?  I made it.  I made it without having a nervous breakdown.  This is partly because of my practically famous stubborn streak, and I am sinfully proud of it, and I think I have the right to be.  It has always worked for me.  "Work" has always worked for me, and it turns out that this may indeed be in my genes.  You are going to be amazed at what my ancestor's lived through, and I am pretty certain you will be surprised what yours lived through too, once you start digging.  Get busy!  This is how people survived before they made a pill for that!!

There is a pill for everything now.  Please, please pay close attention to those side effects.  They can kill you.    I'm pretty sure this is actually the plan now, so that trial lawyers can glean huge settlements after you die, giving every person who is still living $29.95 each, while the trail lawyers made several million dollars.  No, I am not paranoid.  Check it out.  You will be disillusioned and possible terrified, but you will no doubt live long enough to be both of those things as long as you take the bait.  

I think our world has had it so easy for so long that we have forgotten how to be tough and keep going.  I think this is NOT an aspect that we can survive without.  I don't blame us, but I think we have almost forgotten why we have been so lucky.  I mean, everybody has a house.  We flip a switch and have light.  Hot water has been taken for granted for, what, a hundred years?  There is central heating and air.  We could all donate at least 100 pounds of clothes or household goods and NEVER KNOW THE DIFFERENCE.  Are we lucky or what?  It takes a lot of nerve to be "depressed" when you think of it this way.  Start thinking, and you can just go right ahead and count your blessings, because you have a lot, especially if you live in America.  If you travel to other countries, you already know this.  If you don't travel to other countries, take my word for it.  Or go ahead and travel, just be prepared to be "depressed" and there could be a fair amount of shame there too, because you did not even know you had it so good.

Look around at the old people you know.  Have you ever noticed how long most farmers live?  I think they live so long because the have to GET UP, every single day, rain, shine, blizzard, whatever (!) and keep going.  They have no choice, and this gets them through.  Staying in bed is not an option they would ever consider unless they are so sick they cannot get out of bed.  This is the key, I think, just do not entertain any other notion, because once you let yourself get down, somebody will probably take care of you and while you may need that for short periods, if you don't hang on to your will to be independent, you just may not have that option anymore.  By then you will be on a pill, which may or may not help, and if you give up they will keep you on those pills, plus more, and it just goes downhill from there.  When I die, I plan for it to be from natural causes, which to me will be God's will.  With medicine these days, it is unclear to me where the line between science and God's will is, so I just try to avoid science (!) whenever possible, whatever "science" has come to mean these days.  You need to be an investigative reporter to figure that out, and I have other things to do.

So, this year, if winter ever gets here, and I am sure it will, I have a plan.  I am going to be transcribing my family history and putting it together and scanning pictures until I doubt I will even know it's winter unless I go outside.  It's my plan, and I'm sticking to it. 

Yeah, I'm stubborn, it's the way God made me, plus I come from a long line of fiercely loyal and independent people, who no matter how hard things got, kept on a keepin' on.  In the end I think it's all anyone can do.  Good luck, and get busy!! Your kids will need to know this someday and you may not still be here to tell them the good stuff!!