Recap for the week

 This week was pretty good.  I had a phone appointment with the VA about my treatment.  It went very well.  My numbers are very good.  I am switching to a primary care doctor in Goldthwaite TX.  I am hoping to be back at work before Christmas.  I will be changing from direct insulin shots to a pill that almost does the same thing but slower.  The technician that I talked to said I should start testing my sugar every other day and at different times of day.   That will take some getting used to.

Yesterday I went to a luncheon for Veterans day with Dean and Tish.  It was enjoyable, lots of good people there, several of the folks from the Senior Center are Veterans, and the director is the Widow of a Veteran.   Also for the first time I was at a Veterans event and not everyone was if leathers.  The Goldthwaite Lions Club did great, the student council of the Middle School served lunch and when the roll was called they delivered carnations to all the Veterans, and Widows of Veterans.  I have not done many of these, but I enjoyed it and if able will do it again.

One of the presenters was there to promote a book she wrote called "Lest we Forget". It is about people from Mills County that lost their lives during WWII.  There were about 43 of them, and one was a Woman flyer who died in North Africa.  The reason that the book was written is that one young man who died was forgotten about when the county built a memorial to those who fell during World War II.  The book is $25 and I believe I am going to buy it.  All the proceeds go to the museum in town (Unless you buy it on Amazon, then they only get $11).  But since I am here I will buy it at the museum.   I will report on the book here after I read it.

Theses are a few pictures that I took with my phone at lunch

This is the photographer who took pictures of everyone that got a carnation.

These are Dean and my carnations.  He got a red one, I got a white one because they did it alphabetically by last names, and H and T are just far enough apart that we got one of each color.

So it has been a good week, I am getting healthier, and really want to go back to work.  If I can't drive, I will try to get a position that I can do from home, and of course I will need to actually find a place to live at that point, status here is just temporary.

Thanks for reading.   Comments are encouraged.  I do still moderate them, but all will be posted.   I am working on an interview that I did on Wednesday with a lady that came to the Senior Center to talk about organ donation.   I have notes, and pictures but that will be a seperate post.

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and story

Dave  (Bounce) Talley

Tomorrow is Veterans Day

 America has generally forgotten the meaning of this day.  On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the "War to end all Wars" ended.   November eleventh is set aside here and in Europe as a special day to commemerate the end of World War One.   

World War One was fought with machine guns, large machine guns.  The casualty rate was listed at over 40 million. There were 20 Million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 10 million civilians.  (Information found on Google).

Of course these numbers do not include the mental injuries, Post Traumatic Distress was not really considered a wound in the 1900 to 1920 time frame, but there were many many men women and children that suffered from that malady too.

I am a verteran, of what you wonder?  The cold war, Operation Desert Storm and the start of anti terrorism.   Unfotunatly, 9/11/2001 was not the first terrorist attack either in Europe, or the United Stated, or the Orient.   Many of the people that I trained with over the years died in either accidents preparing to fight terrorists, or in actual terror attacks.

When Desert Storm happened I was not allowed to deploy because I had Permanent Change of Station (PCS) orders.   My Unit deployed and I stayed behind.   After I moved to my new Unit, I deployed to Turkey for Operation Provide Comfort.  This was really part two of Desert Storm.  Incerlick Turkery was considered a combat zone.  (Initially the military pulled all the dependents out of the base. After the Iraqi's surrendered the dependents were brought back. But it was still considered a combat zone.)

I spent almost ten months here.  It was really only a 45 day tour, but because the base I was at Bittburg AFB Germany, was slated to be closed I was left in Turkey as a continuity person for deployed security personnel.

While there we were shot at at least once.  This was not an attack, but poachers that were using hot reloaded ammo.  We could see them on Thermal Imaging.  We actually watched local police catch and litterally beat down several teen age poachers.

The point of all of the above is to explain the following thoughts.

I never know what to say when someone thanks me for my service.  I enlisted because I needed a job and my wife at the time was pregnant.  The Air Force wanted me, they offered me a great job that paid four times what I was earning to start.   I missed my daughter being born (I was there for my son and second daughter, but I was in Technical School in San Antonio in May of 78 when my oldest was born) and because of that wonderful job I was deployed a lot of the time that my children were growing up.

So when folks thank me for my service I thank them for the compliment, but what I really want to say is "It was a job like any other.  I both hated it and loved it."   I am not any sort of a hero.  I have many friends that are actually heros. Two of them have the Congressional Medal of Honor.  Those guys are heros, they were actually in war.   My brother Bob (aka Bob the Computer Guy and if you know anyone in Colorado Springs that needs their computer repaired they should call him) was in Vietnam and many other hostile events, he is a hero. Me I just had a well paying job and attended college.  I actually have a degree in Industrial Security and about sixty hours of paralegal studies. With all that I drive a truck for a living.  But I would do it all over again if I had to.

So to all the folks I know that have served thank you for your service, to those that have enlisted since 2001 realize you are welcomed home and appreciated by this country.  If anyone gives you a hard time about your service find either a guy like me, a cold war vet, or a guy like my younger brother, a Vietnam vet and let us explain to those folks that the only reason they have the right to protest or tell you  that you are evil, is friends of yours, you and friends of ours sacraficed their lives, and body parts to make sure that this is a free country.  Don't get me wrong. People have a right to protest, we all veterans worked hard to insure those rights, but having the right to do something doesn't automatically make you right.   Let us old guys take care of your light work and you guys just enjoy your lives.  

Bounce is done for today.  More tomorrow with pictures of the Veterans day Luncheon and more pictures from the Senior Center.

Life in the slow lane about to come to an end. Work calls

 For the last three months I have been on short term disability.  I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 13 September.  I have been doing a lot but not what I want to do.  In truth I want to go fishing, but 50% pay just covers some of the bills.  I am not sure what I am going to do.  I don't know that I will be cleared to go back to work.  I have lost weight, gotten my blood sugar under control, my blood pressure is way down.  If I can lose another 20 pounds I may be off blood pressure medicine all together.

What I have been doing since the first part of October is volunteerring at the Mills County senior center in Goldthwaite TX.   I help cook  (Full disclosure I can cook, and I enjoy it, but I am not a cook.  I have helped cut things up.  I know that involves using sharp objects, but I did it carefully and I still have all ten fingers and toes.  <that last part is for my son.  A few years ago I cut my finger so bad using an exacto knife I needed stitches, so every time he hears that I am using sharp things he tells me to "Step away from the razor blade old man">.)

This time washing dishes, and helping cook and serving food to the seniors, and many of them are thirty years older than I am so I am honoring my Mother by being very polite and respectful to them.   They like to have fun too, so it has been a very enjoyable time.  I try really hard to not talk like a truck driver.

 Folks getting ready to eat lunch

Laura's amazing banana pudding

Laura and Ann on Ann's last day before retirement.

Me, Lynn and Ann in kitchen

Desert being served  (apple cobbler and ice cream)

Laura and Lynn

Laura and Lynn preparing deserts

MS Billie chatting with seniors before lunchd

Above are pictures taken by me and others during the last two weeks.   Some of them are in other posts.  These folks here are awesome.   They seem to enjoy the work I do and talking with me.  I thought I was going to go completely nuts while not working.  I did for the first week or so, now I have a great reason to get up, make my bed, and get to work.   I am really not sure what will happen at the end of the month.  If I do not go back to work at Stevens, then I don't.   I love working there, and I would like to keep working there. The Covid-19 pandemic sort of eliminated some of my chance to move into an office job there, but I plan to send an email to the  Vice President of driver relations and see if I can work with new drivers.  I do this a lot anyway becasue I give my phone number to Grad drivers any time I am on the Dallas Yard.   Many call me or text or email me for help.  I gladly give it to them.   True story, when I started we did not have cell phones, and email was available but hard to use on the road.  I literally quit every week for six or seven months.  Sometimes I quit every day.  If I would have had the communication devices I have now I probably would not have been with Stevens for 24 years.

Ok here are some pics from today

Laura is a volunteeer here at the Senior Center

She was showing me her red apron, and yes she voted.  She makes awesome deserts, and she is a nurse too (a very knowledgeable and good nurse).

Well this was pretty long. Thank you for taking the time to read it. Hope everyone enjoys the pictures.   I have comments set up so that I moderate them.  But please feel free to enter them.  I will post any and all comments, just some of my freinds write like they talk and they talk like soldiers and truckers, so I have to moderate comments.

Thanks, I will be posting a lot more.  I will keep everyone up to date on my work status too,

Dave Taley

aka Bounce

,

 I really miss good old Clyde the motorcycle.   He and I have been to a lot of places together,   In the good old days I used to write things that he saw too.   Sometimes that was a little goofy.   The good news is that I plan to go get him and Big Red soon.   Along with my clothes and some furniture.   I have a trailer that   I can load the bikes onto, and as soon as I can get it registered licensed and insured, sometime around the 8th of November, I am going to go get that stuff.   I have to pay for the work done to Clyde, and storage for both bikes but I will have that money too.   I want to give Clyde to my son, because I can't ride two bikes.  But I might have to give him Big Red instead.  Both are paid for, so it is just a matter of me deciding which one I want to ride.

I wrote the above last week and this week I am registering the trailer, but I may not be going to Wisconsin until the end of March.   Will contact Troy my mechanic and let him know.  I have to go back to work.