maddash

I spent my early years in a small house directly behind “Great Grandma” Neukom’s house on Penn Street in Decatur, Indiana. I lived there from from the age of 1 to 8 years of age. I remember Grandma Neukom had a huge garden that she seemed to tend daily while wearing either an old fashioned bonnet or straw hat.   She was a small feisty old woman to me and didn’t seem to show affection towards many people. My father (Charles) said he had helped build her house when Christian, her husband died. It was a small bungalow-type house with a small basement loaded with canned fruits and vegetables. It was always immaculate and Grandma Neukom was especially proud of her flowers and garden.  She allowed me to go down there occasionally.  All I remember is jar after jar of sauerkraut. It always seemed to me that she was mean-spirited towards my grandmother (her daughter, Edna). As a young boy I didn’t realize she did this to perhaps make her blind daughter strong

I sincerely believe the world is going mad. I see it every day. People do things that are meant to shock and awe. There is no limit to their actions or dress. Yesterday, a young girl pulled her pants down to show us all her new butt tattoo. There was not one shred of modesty in her, that I could see. She was proud and barely eighteen. I think this all started about twenty years ago when everyone my age started dressing like Willie Nelson. Don't get me wrong, I love Willie. I just don't want to look or act like him. He is not my idol. His stature as the "ultimate outlaw" started a trend. I wonder if he is proud of that fact. I have pretty much stopped watching any television. Movies and books are my source of recluse. I can escape the madness for a short time.

Our tiny seaside town. Technically, we live in Ozona, Florida.  It is a seaside town of about 300 souls.  When we moved here in 1982, most of the roads were crushed seashell and it was not uncommon to encounter dogs sleeping in the middle of the road. We have a tiny post office that seems to be threatened every year with abandonment from the Federal bureaucrats.  There are two employees, a post master and helper.  They do not deliver our mail to our house.  We have to go to the post office and pick it up.   I am fine with that. Ozona is changing.  People are buying perfectly good homes, tearing them down and building what I would call a McMansion.  We had one built right next to us.  After twenty years of a beautiful eastern view from our front yard......we now cannot see the sun come up in the morning. Ozona is still paradise.  It's just that everyone wants to live in paradise.   Then it slowly becomes something else.