Today I didn't feel like being around people at all but I forced myself to go grocery shopping. On the way out I noticed a guy that looked over at me and as I walked outside he started talking about the weather. I stood there and chatted with him for a minute or two which is odd for me. Most of the time I just speak and go on but this time I actually stopped walking and talked for a few minutes. I was glad I did too. I also got 5 gallons of kerosene for my old heater in case the power goes out. There's already a couple inches of snow on the ground and it's supposed to be around 0 degrees F tomorrow and when it's that cold, trees start to freeze and when the wind hits them they snap and fall over power lines. I also got some propane for the Coleman camping stove in case we have to resort to cooking on the thing. I hope the power stays on but I want to have a plan just in case. And today Kimmy's mom called and said they'd be back in two weeks. I should've just adopted the kid when they left. She ain't any trouble to keep but good grief already!
This is not a journal! Or a diary!
- Thread starter jc972
- Start date
Kimmy and my daughter woke up and came in the living room where I am and asked "if it snows, like...a lot...will you take us driving in the snow if you don't go to work tomorrow?'' Then they both went back to their rooms. If the roads are too bad for me to go to work tomorrow I plan on taking them 4 wheeling in the snow in the old blue truck. There's a bare field at the edge of town that'd be perfect for it. That Kimmy is a sweet kid, she reminds me a lot of my daughter. Even though there's a 10 year age gap between them they act like best friends, painting each other's nails and doing their hair and stuff, it's cute.
I been thinking about my dog a lot lately. I really miss him. Cold, snowy nights like this we'd head for the mountains and go coon hunting. I have a lot of memories of us hunting or just riding around with him in the cab of the truck with me and sharing my beer sometimes. And this here cold snowy night would be perfect for heading up into the Starr mountains and hunting. On my days off from fire fighting if I didn't have a date, me and the dog would ride around on the dirt roads drinking beer and listening to old country music. The real stuff, not the junk they've been making for the last like 12 or 13 years, I mean like the stuff from the 80's. I have a lot of fond memories of him being with me. All those trips he made with me he never chewed on anything inside my truck, at least not after he grew out of that puppy stage. Before he was a year old, I was afraid the coyotes would eat him if I left him outside so he slept in my bedroom every night, at the foot of my bed. The only time I made him sleep somewhere else in the house is when girls spent the night with me. To me that'd be like having a human friend in the same room with that going on, it'd just be too weird for me. His first night with me he was 6 weeks old and when I went to bed I could hear him whining and crying so he slept in the bed with me for a few weeks, like how you'd do with a baby. That's what he kinda was to me, like a child/pet/hunting dog. I miss having him around, he was really this man's best friend. With his pedigree and the fact that he was bred from champions, he was worth around $4,000 and there were several other hunters that tried to buy him from me. I'd just laugh and tell them there wasn't enough money in the world for me to sell him. That'd be like me selling one of my kids. In the last years I stopped hunting him, he was just too feeble and I didn't want to risk anything happening to him. When the wife was pregnant with our first two kids, when she was 8 or 9 months along, the dog would put his nose up to her belly and kinda push at it and then he would wag his tail and bark like he was excited, like he understood. I'd never seen an animal do anything like that before. I just miss him. :sad:
GraybeardGhost
Well-known member
That was a beautiful elegy. I'm sorry for your loss.
Last edited:
The other day when I got to work my boss told me I'd be making a road trip that night in the big rig. This was the night that it got below zero around here...yay 
h: So I had to go to Kentucky and pick up a machine and bring it back to the plant. Somebody had already hooked up the trailer to the truck and backed it in the shop and they had 3 men checking the tires, belts, fluids, etc. so the old tractor trailer wouldn't break down in the cold. Apparently they'd been planning my trip for me for a couple hours. So at 4:30 pm I climbed in the old tractor trailer and fired her up and set out for Kentucky. Before I hit the interstate I filled both tanks up with diesel fuel and checked everything the other guys had already checked (they wouldn't be the ones possibly driving it on ice, across the Jellico mountains, in the dark, with a load of machinery pushing them down the mountains...) and the truck is over 30 years old and stuff is wore out so I like to be safe and check it over before a trip. Luckily, the heater works in the old rig and so does the radio, which made for a better trip. So, around 9:30, I had made it to the place and had the machinery chained down on the trailer ready for the trip back down south. Everything had been going smooth so far... Before I got back on the interstate going home I decided to consult the road map and take a shortcut to the mountains and on this dark, icy, deserted highway is where it happened. Now most of the time I drive decently fast and this trip wasn't much different so I'm in high gear and I'm screaming down this deserted road, and up ahead I see somebody with a flashlight in the middle of the road motioning for me to stop. So I brought the old road tractor to a deafening stop with the jake brake and it was a young guy standing in the road. He said his car died on him and he couldn't get it started and it was halfway in the road. So I pull the tractor up close to his car to jump it off with one of the truck's batteries. We wound up melting his jumper cables with just one of the truck batteries connected but unhooked from the 2nd truck battery. I told him it'd happen but he said his girlfriend and infant son were in his car and they were freezing and nobody else had came by them until he seen me barreling toward them. I didn't have any jumper cables in the tractor trailer, and one of it's batteries would melt the car's electrical system if I gave it to him and we hooked it up. I stood there in the cold and looked at his old lady holding their son in the stalled car - they were shivering, and seeing that just tugged at my heart. Nobody had cell phone signal. I told him we'd push it safely off the road and I'd give them a ride to somewhere warm, against company rules to give rides like that but job be damned! I wasn't about to leave them there in the middle of nowhere in all that cold and darkness. I got the three of them squeezed into the old truck and we took off. They really seemed like good people but looking at the car and at their clothes I could tell they didn't have much money. Said they were on their last bit of money because he had lost his job recently. So at the interstate, we stopped at a restaurant and they said they'd call a family member to pick them up there and they didn't live too far away. During the meal the guy tried to pay me the last of his money for picking them up, and I absolutely refused to take it. After dinner was paid for, and almost done eating, the guy headed off to the bathroom and I told the mom I needed to hit the road and I dropped a $100 bill and a $50 bill into the mom's purse when she wasn't looking and said a hasty goodbye and headed for the parking lot. I sure hope they made it alright. I know they were warm and had eaten when I left them. I'm so thankful I took that shortcut, if not they would've had to walk and it down below zero and a wind chill way below zero and with a baby and that would've been bad. Wasn't no way I could just leave em settin' there on that empty road with no houses or other cars in sight, out there with just a flashlight. No, sir. So I finally found an interstate going south and made it home but it did get kinda tricky before I got off the mountains. I'm glad, looking back on it, glad they sent me north on that trip. I told the wife about it when I finally got home. She said she was thankful I had to make the trip and that they accepted a ride from a stranger. I hope that gets back on their feet.
h: So I had to go to Kentucky and pick up a machine and bring it back to the plant. Somebody had already hooked up the trailer to the truck and backed it in the shop and they had 3 men checking the tires, belts, fluids, etc. so the old tractor trailer wouldn't break down in the cold. Apparently they'd been planning my trip for me for a couple hours. So at 4:30 pm I climbed in the old tractor trailer and fired her up and set out for Kentucky. Before I hit the interstate I filled both tanks up with diesel fuel and checked everything the other guys had already checked (they wouldn't be the ones possibly driving it on ice, across the Jellico mountains, in the dark, with a load of machinery pushing them down the mountains...) and the truck is over 30 years old and stuff is wore out so I like to be safe and check it over before a trip. Luckily, the heater works in the old rig and so does the radio, which made for a better trip. So, around 9:30, I had made it to the place and had the machinery chained down on the trailer ready for the trip back down south. Everything had been going smooth so far... Before I got back on the interstate going home I decided to consult the road map and take a shortcut to the mountains and on this dark, icy, deserted highway is where it happened. Now most of the time I drive decently fast and this trip wasn't much different so I'm in high gear and I'm screaming down this deserted road, and up ahead I see somebody with a flashlight in the middle of the road motioning for me to stop. So I brought the old road tractor to a deafening stop with the jake brake and it was a young guy standing in the road. He said his car died on him and he couldn't get it started and it was halfway in the road. So I pull the tractor up close to his car to jump it off with one of the truck's batteries. We wound up melting his jumper cables with just one of the truck batteries connected but unhooked from the 2nd truck battery. I told him it'd happen but he said his girlfriend and infant son were in his car and they were freezing and nobody else had came by them until he seen me barreling toward them. I didn't have any jumper cables in the tractor trailer, and one of it's batteries would melt the car's electrical system if I gave it to him and we hooked it up. I stood there in the cold and looked at his old lady holding their son in the stalled car - they were shivering, and seeing that just tugged at my heart. Nobody had cell phone signal. I told him we'd push it safely off the road and I'd give them a ride to somewhere warm, against company rules to give rides like that but job be damned! I wasn't about to leave them there in the middle of nowhere in all that cold and darkness. I got the three of them squeezed into the old truck and we took off. They really seemed like good people but looking at the car and at their clothes I could tell they didn't have much money. Said they were on their last bit of money because he had lost his job recently. So at the interstate, we stopped at a restaurant and they said they'd call a family member to pick them up there and they didn't live too far away. During the meal the guy tried to pay me the last of his money for picking them up, and I absolutely refused to take it. After dinner was paid for, and almost done eating, the guy headed off to the bathroom and I told the mom I needed to hit the road and I dropped a $100 bill and a $50 bill into the mom's purse when she wasn't looking and said a hasty goodbye and headed for the parking lot. I sure hope they made it alright. I know they were warm and had eaten when I left them. I'm so thankful I took that shortcut, if not they would've had to walk and it down below zero and a wind chill way below zero and with a baby and that would've been bad. Wasn't no way I could just leave em settin' there on that empty road with no houses or other cars in sight, out there with just a flashlight. No, sir. So I finally found an interstate going south and made it home but it did get kinda tricky before I got off the mountains. I'm glad, looking back on it, glad they sent me north on that trip. I told the wife about it when I finally got home. She said she was thankful I had to make the trip and that they accepted a ride from a stranger. I hope that gets back on their feet.I've not been sleeping good at all for the past two nights. Every night I have nightmares about past experiences, pretty much the same ones every night and I've learned to just accept it, as bad as that sounds. But the last two nights (days, whatever) have had me waking up in cold sweats and the nightmares are more vivid than usual. More graphic. I always shower before I go to bed but today I woke up for work and had to shower again before I went to work to get dirty again, just because I sweated so much, I felt icky. It all stems from the stuff I seen as a fireman, I know that much. It's the same burned up dead faces talking to me and I still hear the screams of the dying but it's seemingly worse lately and I'm a bit confused. This has went on for years now and has progressively got better, until a few days ago. I can't function on 2 hours of sleep between shifts, I know that for sure. I almost fell asleep driving home but I don't want to go to bed because what if it's worse this time?
GraybeardGhost
Well-known member
Has anything else changed in your life recently? Medications? Diet? Stress at work? Man, I hope you can get this figured out. No one should have to be afraid to go to sleep.
Nothing I can think of. Worried about my father in law and his health problems though but surely that couldn't trigger something like that. But maybe it could. Last night was even worse, dream wise. Even more graphic. Like I could smell burnt flesh and burning houses and cars. Maybe things will get closer to normal sooner rather than later. Thanks for the reply
I always have a box fan on while I sleep. I'll try more noise though. Thanks for the tip, Hoppy.
I didn't work Friday night, when I got home Friday morning my daughter was in my bed and when I picked her up to move her to her room I noticed she was hot so I took her temperature. It was 105 degrees. So as soon as the doctor's office opened she was there. Turns out she has a bacterial infection and they gave her a shot. We came back home and me and the wife bleached the whole house and disinfected everything. Took her back to the doctor today for blood work and it has dropped a lot thankfully. Tonight I got a call saying there was a fire at the plant and the family felt like getting out for a while so we went to my work so I could check on things. There had been a gas explosion in the main building but nobody was there so there weren't any injuries but some machinery got burned up. I'm curious as to why there'd be an explosion/fire when nothing was running and the power to the manufacturing side of the place was supposed to be off. Kinda odd, huh? ... Yeah, that's what I said. Kimmy's parents will be back tomorrow and she'll be going home. I've got to like her quite a bit, she's a neat kid, full of dreams and smiles and happy stuff, it's been nice having her around. The wife has been teaching her how to cook so tonight she made dinner for us. She made corn bread and fried potatoes and steak with gravy. Her skills have improved to the point that I had two plate fulls Last night I went to bed early at 3:00 a.m. and immediately had a nightmare so I got back up and went to the living room to set for a while, apparently Kimmy heard me get up and came into the living room and sat down across from me and said "You don't sleep good do you? Is something wrong?" I just told her that I never sleep good and left it at that while I stared off into space. She persisted... "Well do you want to talk about why you don't sleep?" she said. I studied her a minute and said "You're a sweet kid, and I appreciate that you care, but what keeps me awake is stuff that you don't need to hear and shouldn't think about. You have too much happiness in your heart to be bothered with bad stuff." She was looking rather intently at my half empty glass of vodka on the small table next to my chair and finally said "I just want to help." I said "I know, and thanks for wanting to help. It means a lot to me." I didn't want to drink in front of her so I asked her if she wanted to eat ice cream and watch a movie. Of course she did! Girls love ice cream and movies! So while fixing two bowls of ice cream I finished my drink and we watched a movie while eating ice cream. We watched No Country For Old Men. Great movie, by the way. One of my favorites. Thankfully the subject of my sleeping problems never came up in conversation again but I got a hug and a smile before she headed off back to her room. I finally went back to bed and slept ok, maybe it was the ice cream? Well, maybe not ... I love the stuff but I'm lactose intolerant so I paid for it shortly after eating it. But it tasted so good!
Last night I went to bed early at 3:00 a.m. and immediately had a nightmare so I got back up and went to the living room to set for a while, apparently Kimmy heard me get up and came into the living room and sat down across from me and said "You don't sleep good do you? Is something wrong?" I just told her that I never sleep good and left it at that while I stared off into space. She persisted... "Well do you want to talk about why you don't sleep?" she said. I studied her a minute and said "You're a sweet kid, and I appreciate that you care, but what keeps me awake is stuff that you don't need to hear and shouldn't think about. You have too much happiness in your heart to be bothered with bad stuff." She was looking rather intently at my half empty glass of vodka on the small table next to my chair and finally said "I just want to help." I said "I know, and thanks for wanting to help. It means a lot to me." I didn't want to drink in front of her so I asked her if she wanted to eat ice cream and watch a movie. Of course she did! Girls love ice cream and movies! So while fixing two bowls of ice cream I finished my drink and we watched a movie while eating ice cream. We watched No Country For Old Men. Great movie, by the way. One of my favorites. Thankfully the subject of my sleeping problems never came up in conversation again but I got a hug and a smile before she headed off back to her room. I finally went back to bed and slept ok, maybe it was the ice cream? Well, maybe not ... I love the stuff but I'm lactose intolerant so I paid for it shortly after eating it. But it tasted so good!After Kimmy went back home earlier I cleaned out my garage. I need to put in more lights so it ain't so dark in there. And I need to find a big fan to get it cooled off inside in the summer. The fan ain't a big deal but the lights are, I can deal with heat to an extent but I can't see in the dark. Last summer I tried to talk the family into going without air conditioning but they didn't want to so it stayed on. I'd rather have the windows open and a fan drawing air through the house. It makes the house smell good and I believe it's healthier than having the doors and windows shut all the time. Maybe I can get them to go along with it this year. One thing I've noticed over the years is that if I live without a/c and get acclimated to the heat, I do better working outside. I don't get hot and tired as quick as I do when I walk out of a cool house and start mowing the yard for example. Maybe I'm just weird?
It's almost time to go to bed but I don't want to. I'm still downloading music onto my mp3 player. I really love not having to worry about CDs anymore. I put a retro looking radio with a USB plug in in the old blue truck and it looks original but there's the mp3 thing plugged into it. I should've done that upgrade years earlier. My older son saw a commercial for a monster truck rally that's going to be happening this coming weekend about 50 miles from here and he wants me to take him to it. I always wanted to go to one of those but never got the chance. I'm looking forward to taking him to this one but at the same time I'm dreading the huge crowd of people that will be there. Just thinking about all those people makes me want to throw up. He wants to go and I will take him but I might have to pull over several times to get sick on the side of the highway. Just talking about it here makes me nauseous. mg:
mg:So it was a boring night at work so I left early. A text message from the wife helped make the decision and it was nice to have some time alone without interruption. Then I went to the store to grab a few things and fill up the kerosene jugs in case the power goes out, gotta love backup heat! The only gas station open this time of night don't sell kerosene anymore, what's up with that? It's around 5 degrees outside tonight and I'm sure glad the old pickup has a good heater in it! The next door neighbor has pneumonia and has had a fever all week so I've been feeding their dog and stuff all week. I woke up today and was getting cleaned up to go to work and I see him through the bathroom window outside in his yard trying to cut up a tree that had fell down a few days ago. So I went outside to try to talk him into going back inside and letting me cut it up. After a while he went inside like I told him to and I made an honest attempt to cut it up with his chainsaw but it just didn't have the power. So I went to my garage and got my biggest saw, it cut through that maple tree like it wasn't even there. In the end I walked into work smelling like 2 stroke gas and exhaust fumes and sawdust all over my pants. Truth be told, though, I'd rather be running a chainsaw in 20 degree weather than 100 degrees and 90% humidity any day or the week! I'm lucky to have neighbors like them, they're very good people and he'd do the same for me, we've helped each other quite a bit since we've lived next to each other. Hard to find neighbors like that.
Today I woke up and went to get kerosene and more 2 stroke gas for the chainsaws and a new part for my old truck. It was so cold out the whole town was deserted looking and it was nice. After I got back home I got bored and the older kids wanted to go outside for a while since I ain't let them go outside in a few days. So I decided to go over to the neighbor's place and finish sawing up his downed tree in their yard. So with the kids bundled up with heavy coats and scarves and gloves and ear muff thingys we emerged from my garage with me carrying my newly acquired Stihl chainsaw (it's about as old as my truck (1970s) but it looks and runs perfectly), my daughter carrying a 2 gallon jug of 2 stroke gas, and my older son carrying a jug of gatorade. We walked to the tree and I made them stand where I could see them but well away from where I was going to be working for obvious safety reasons. I also made them wear ear plugs under the ear muffs but instead of being for warmth, their purpose was to protect their delicate hearing from the noise of said chainsaw, I removed the baffles and spark arrestor from it's exhaust and turned up the fuel mixture a bit, lots more raw power but way too loud. It took me over an hour and a couple tanks of gas but I got it cut up and piled the smaller limbs up separate from the big wood and the kids seem to enjoy watching me work for some reason. They helped me pile the limbs and my son would bring me the drinking jug when I'd take a short break. Some neighbors get work done when I get as bored as I did today ha ha. When we got done doing that we went back home and I needed a shower to rid my carcass of the sawdust and exhaust smell. Then the wife told me the monster truck show had been sold out already. That sucked. So the wife and a friend of ours and a new friend to them were going to a comedy club and since all the kids were staying the night with my mom and one friend of theirs backed out on going to the thing with them they asked if I wanted to go. First we went to a nice restaurant for dinner and their new friend really impressed me, the girl is 18, very pretty, and she is funny and witty and just easy to be around unlike some of the wife's other friends who have personalities like that of a brick. Turns out that I went to school with her uncle and me and him used to go hunting together and we know some of the same people which was nice. At the comedy club we had a good time but it wasn't as good as the first time I took the wife there but it was ok anyway. Back at the house the friends stayed and visited a while and I realized how down-to-Earth the wife's new friend is. She was every bit as funny as the show we'd just watched, she made us all laugh. I hope the wife brings her around more often, and in my mind, any girl that has her own horse and hunting dog and drives her own 4x4 pickup to my house has is awesome in my book ha ha ha. Turned out to be a pretty good day after all.
GraybeardGhost
Well-known member
Used this on the neighbor's tree. Love this thing. Sadly they just don't make em like this anymore.
Can't see it. Can't see nothin' at all. :idontknow:
Had another hard time trying to sleep today. Seen the dead, burned faces talking to me again. Ain't they got nothin better to be doing besides annoying me? This time in the dream I was chasing one trying to grab it and punch it in the face for some reason. I woke up to the wife shaking me by my neck and I had a clenched fist when I woke up. She said I was screaming at somebody in my sleep and cursing them and punching the bed. That was embarrassing. I told her I forgot what the dream was about. I ain't about to tell her anything about them. I got up and got dressed and pulled my truck in the garage and changed it's engine oil and adjusted the carburetor. She came out there and was hassling me about it again while I was sitting under the truck hood turning the fuel/air mixture screws and I kept revving the engine up trying to drown out her nagging questions and she finally gave up and went back inside. Maybe she got the point that I ain't talkin about it. Went back in the house for something to eat and she starts in with the questions again. So I went back outside and fired up the tractor and bush hogged the property lines even though it didn't need it, I had to get away from the questions. When I got cold and put the tractor up, the old neighbor man walked over and asked me if I'd have a look see at his old kerosene heater since his electric heat went out and this'n won't light. So I went and got it and brought it in the house and set it on the kitchen table and took it apart, sure enough the ignitor doo-hickey ain't firing right. I finally got it firing and cleaned the points in it and put fresh batteries in it and took it back to him. Set it down in his living room and hit the button and it started right up. It gave me something to do for a while anyway. Once I got back home I jumped in the shower to avoid her and because by this point I needed one. When I got out, I set her down and told her that I appreciate the concern but I ain't in the mood for talkin about it, so just get shed of that idea. We watched The Crazies with the older son and the other two kids were asleep and he set in my lap the whole time and it made me happy. My kids can always make me feel better and they don't even know it. What a day. Time for a beer.