Old pictures... fond memories...

This is a picture of Rick and me from probably 1987--the year we moved to Massachusetts. It was taken at one of his sisters houses during a visit home. I think it was after he went there but before I went. He made 2 trips home during that period from March to July. He really worked hard when we moved to Massachusetts. His job with GM lasted the longest of any he had during our time together. During his last ten or so years he was retired from GM, and mostly gardened, fished, and cut wood, the chore he was doing when the tumor was found. Don't get me wrong--HE WORKED! When I say he gardened, I don't mean a few rows in the front yard, I mean acres and acres of beans, corn, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, and many other things. And he would double and sometimes triple crop some of the rows. We sold vegetables from May until October every year. Then firewood season came in and he sold hundreds of loads of wood. He didn't cut wood for a leisure activity, it was a fall money maker just like vegetables all spring, summer and early fall. Even his fishing wasn't leisure. It involved all 4 of us to get ready, then he and Norman would go set their lines, fish for bait, bait their lines and then run them in the early mornings. Then they would spend all day cleaning and putting up their catch. THEN we would have a big fry with fifty or sixty people here. He enjoyed that so much and we would have fry's 3 or 4 times a year every year. He wanted to have a fry before he passed away. He just got so sick and had to go to the hospital before that could happen. The picture of the garden was from May of 2009 and was only one section of many. What is represented in the photo is less than only about 1/4 of his garden and the pans you see here are from one days catch with Norman and his brother. They cleaned fish for about 4 hours that day. These fish then had to go into quart size freezer bags after soaking in salt water over night. You would not believe how many bags his portion of this bounty was. We still have about 10 or 15 bags left. I don't eat fish, so I probably need to get them out and give them to Norman. In 6 days it will be the one year anniversary of finding the tumor. I miss him. I wish I would wake and find out that this has just been a nightmare. I know that won't happen, but I can wish. I smelled his cologne yesterday while I was driving. I do that sometimes. I look at the babies and wish they could have known what a good man their papaw was. And how much he loved them. I love you all.

To be continued........