I was lucky enough to be rewarded with a job for the last 7 months here in Ellijay. Closest sizable job in 30 years in this business, and it was a real joy to be able to come home each night. Was privileged to build an impressive bank for some hometown folks and leave a thumbprint for my kids and kin for the future. Guess the best compliment I got was from my sister Kay, when she commented that Daddy would have been proud. On weekends, Susan and I got to do a lot more camping this year as we invested in a weekend home on wheels and made jaunts to here and there. One memorable trip was one with all the kids and grandkids to Mammoth cave. Found out what intestinal fortitude really meant when Susan enjoyed a ham sandwich furnished by the concessionaire 2 miles from exiting the cave, and had to hike her way out with food poisoning. Needless to say, she has not desired any more ham sandwiches since.
Susan is still pecking away at the puter doin her medical transcription, and enjoying the ability to turn a little corner of our home into a profitable zone instead of a chasm to pour money and sweat into for upkeep. Ah, the joys of home ownership….
Speaking of home ownership, our OLDEST daughter Melissa is now our next-door neighbor as she and Keith built their home just down the hill from us here in the “Lowlands”. (This in reference to a high dollar development just up the road that call their gated high fallutin place “The Highlands”.) Their place turned out really nice, and now we can carry on the practice of borrowing from our neighbors just like when my parents lived below us, and we would go and raid their cupboards when we didn’t want to drive to town to get some sugar or such. Came home last night to a note stuffed in our door, “Borrowed some syrup”…we assumed it was Melissa??? But then again the possums tend to be less adept at spelling and the note was put high on the door…
Keith has a position with Duke Power and has aspirations for Homer Simpson’s status someday, where you sit back with a jelly doughnut with the controls to an entire nuclear plant just one drip of jelly away from oblivion. Melissa has decided she would like to join Mom in the home employment venue, and is about to start training on transcription too, so as to save on wardrobe expenses. She and Susan can go to the buy one get one free sales at the house shoe emporium and sweat pant store (Dollar General).
Our younger, but still aging, daughter Carrie is still enjoying her position at Gilmer County Bank observing our less than sterling population, who attempt to outwit the financial institutions out of their and our money. We here in the hills take our thievery seriously, and use high tech methods such as printing money with Ronald Regan’s Picture on a $1000 bill, with Bear Bryant’s picture on the other side with a rebel flag in his hand. And we always ask for change in Jimmy Carter silver dollars. But Carrie and her associates caught these scaly-wags as they made a critical error of using the camera lens as a mirror to check that their curlers weren’t showing from under their hair net. Busted!!
Ryan is still placing concrete during the days and weekends but is taking martial arts classes in the evenings and getting very proficient as I hear. Time will come when we might need his services at Wally World when a sale is in progress and we need to clear out some of the flat-landers who think they can bully us hill and crickkers (a term used to describe those who live along a brook or stream) around when there is a bargain in the dry goods isle to be had. Our own personal Arnold (The Gov).
Now for the lesser in size but greater in portance category of the grandkids…Kyle is still taking gee-tar lessons to fall back on if his pro football or baseball doesn’t develop as we all hope it will. (So we get better rooms at the home for ol' hillbillies and crickkers). Since Garth has retired, Kyle sees a need for more country twangers. Although the loss of several teeth has taken her temporarily out of contention for the corn on the cob spokesperson and model, Madison still has a plan for the future as she continues with her cheerleading, with a fall back in the soccer legions. Rachel is also pursuing the soccer venue, and has Girl Scouts as her fall back so she might go into mass-market sales…cookies come to mind. Sarah makes the third of ours in soccer and the tallest, with of course the most shin to get kicked also, but leading toward interior decorating, as she is spending a good bit of time researching just the right ambiance to create for her new room… early teenager/mayhem…but with class. All in all, the kids and grandkids are all doing great and are doin us proud, as usual. I believe both Susan’s and my parents are smiling down.
Once again the year has flown by and I have missed you all as I tend to get so wrapped up in daily life and attempting to keep my “to do” list from getting too lengthy. But just know that there are those times when coming over the mountain and seeing a sunrise or sunset, with colors unmatched on any artist pallet, that a sense of what is really important comes over me…and you ALL are there. So even though you may not here from the Tidwell’s often (once a year basically!) just know you are more than a name on a list of friends and family to send Christmas cards to each year. When the tally is finally totaled, it won’t be an accountant’s ledger with a dollar sign to the left, but it will resemble more the friends and family and the impression left to remember one by.
Susan and I and all the Tidwell clan wish you all a Very Merry Christmas and in the very truest sense of the phrase…..A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!
