35 YEARS AND COUNTING!!! Number of years I have been ruminating on the past years goins ons and let you know we are still kicking....but making sure there is somebody close by to pick us up now....
Just returned from our annual big family get together in
Pigeon Forge and going to Dollywood to see the lights and show. We plan these
things about a year ahead of time and currently there are 14 adults, 2 children
and 2 infants making the trek north. I usually use this trip as a boost to get
into the season spirit, but this year seems to be a challenge, but I’ll do my
best. I really enjoy seeing the Tidwell clan all interacting, especially the
little ones that are discovering so much minute by minute.
I turned 71 this year and Susan is a year behind me and I have
found that I have lost some of the spring in my step that I use to have say
when I was an apprentice carpenter working on building Cumberland mall and
could walk the length of the mall jobsite pretty quickly when required to when
pouring footings or such. I remember climbing up ladders and scaffolding to the
just topped out Westin 70 story hotel in downtown Atlanta with a buddy of mine
that worked there at the time. I was working just down the street building a
new Hilton Hotel. Now Susan get’s to hear most every day what job I was working
on in my mind overnight......all mythical jobs I make up apparently but wake up
just as frustrated, by weather, lack of subs or me unloading trucks with my forklift
all night long........Gezzzzz. It was bad enough in real life but I now have to
make stuff up.....just shoot me!!!
Susan has adapted quite well to retired life and now has an
Etsy business selling quilts she makes and other sewn items. I don’t think she
had fallen into my nightmare dreams of work as of yet. Also for someone that
once told me she was just fine with her very old cell phone she had for MANY
years, she seems to be enjoying the new Iphone I got her for our 50th
anniversary last year. She had left me way behind in how to communicate with
the family group as she and our daughters and granddaughters have formed a
group and gossip on the old party lines like we had when we first built here in
the hills had NOTHING on the instant sharing of into and pictures amongst the
girls now....
Our daughters and their families are doing well and we feel
very lucky to have them both living next door to us, one down the hill and the
other in the holler behind us. My sister lives just up the hill above us, my
niece down at the creek, my grandson and his family just below us on the
property and our youngest granddaughter and her husband have just broke ground
on having their house built just below us here on the Tidwell compound as we
call it now. My parents truly blessed us when they bought this parcel of
property the year I was born in 1953. A well spent $2500 I think.....and at
this point all the property is still intact, just divided up amongst family
members.
Susan and I still enjoy taking our pull behind camper out but
haven’t taken any extra long trips this past year. The longest was back to a
Florida state park down near Apalachicola that was just reopened after it was
wiped out by a hurricane several years ago. Very nice. We now vicariously take
trips through several Youtubers we follow and at the end of the day have
enjoyed the trips with no wear and tear on us or our camper....win, win!!
Since retiring I have found a rhythm and a pace that feels
right to me. Prior to retiring folks at work asked me what I was going to do to
keep busy. I would knowingly smile and tell them I had LOTS to keep me busy,
and I did for the first couple of years with projects I had never had time to
do when having to travel the country working and only had a weekend now and
then to piddle on MY projects. Now I have family that have found I have some
skills that come in handy at times and I get the call now and again for
“advice” which means, load up the truck with tools and take my advice to their
job they have in mind. I have a purpose.... And when I am between family
projects, I have found rocking on the porch with Susan and our Kindles for a
spell is quite rewarding...watching the traffic on the road and our kids
walking their dogs by the house and stopping in to rock in our extra rockers we
keep on the porch just for such visitors....and the dogs enjoy the treats they
know we keep for them also. On a warm summer day, we might jump on the
4-wheeler and head down to the waterfalls back on our property and maybe take
some fold up chairs to set at the creek.
So my Christmas missive that I shared for the past 35 years
has changed in that originally, I shared mine and Susan’s travels that our jobs
took us to, the adventures of raising a family on those job-related trips, but
now life has led us to a slower pace. But it is more rewarding in ways of the
time spent with extended family that didn’t exist 35 years ago. And I think
Susan and I are quite happy with where we are at and the many blessings, we
have with family living so close, with communication so easy between us
all....even to literally standing on the porch and hollering down the
holler....if the notion strikes us...
If I was to go back and make a prayer and wish for a life with
rich blessings.......I would say between the family we have and you, the friends we have made over
the years I would be astounded today by how much more I have than I would have
even thought to wish for back then....
MERRY CHRISTMAS DEAR FRIENDS AND MAY YOU BE BLESSED DURING THE
UPCOMING YEAR! Love Ya...Buddy and
Susan
