ozma914 | Entries tagged with family

Some of you are already aware that my Dad was stuck in the hospital over Christmas after suffering a heart attack. He'd actually gone in for a severe sinus infection, something I also had at the same time, but they found the more serious problem there. Later he also tested positive for the flu, so we'll see how well Emily's and my flu shots hold up.

Today (Thursday) Dad had angioplasty, and they put two stints in. Blood had found a way to flow around a second blocked artery, so they left that alone. A third artery was also partially blocked, but there were complications with the procedure, and the doctors decided not to proceed due to his age and health problems. At 86, sometimes the best thing to do is not to do the thing.

By the time you read this hopefully he'll be home, where my sister Traci should get extra credit for taking care of him.

By good luck Uncle Ishmael was up visiting from Alabama, and stopped in to see him. That's Ishmael in the middle, and of course me on the right. The other guy would have to be Dad, or else we really confused some other patient.

Meanwhile, on Monday night, at another hospital in Fort Wayne, my youngest daughter Jill gave birth to her third child and first son, Zander Repine.

I think he looks kind of grouchy--he had a rough day.

He was a little jaundiced so they kept him an extra day, but he and Mom are home now. Including the step-kids, I now have eight grandchildren! I think. That's awfully high to count.

So this is how our December calendar goes: Zander's sister Willa has her birthday toward the beginning of the month. Then Emily's birthday is on the 21st, Zander's is on the 23rd, pretty much everyone knows what happens on the 25th, and Jill's is on the 27th. I believe I'm missing something.

Close enough to a Christmas baby!

Then comes the 31st, and we start the whole darned thing over again.

Personally, I think we should have spread things out a bit more, but a lot of this stuff tends to schedule itself.

Oddly enough I'm exhausted, despite having very little direct involvement in everything.

Please order some books--I have presents to buy!

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Every new life is a potential new reader.

Tags:

In the above photo you can see a Christmas decoration that depicts Emily and I kissing. This year we shared not a kiss, but coughing and hacking. (We're much better now, although there are other family members who would use good vibes.) Last year we shared Covid. Basically we didn't feel up to putting up the tree and decorations either time, so we didn't. However, I do have a Gilmore Girls "Luke's Diner" Christmas theme on the TV, so there's that.

Emily's birthday will be about the time you're reading this. She got her present early, but of course I wanted something to give her something that day, which seemed like a good idea at the time. Now I have reason to believe she's going to hate it. If I disappear, check in the big freezer in the garage.

She'll appreciate the effort, though. I hope.

Here's Emily with our house guest from earlier this year, Watson.

Between my Seasonal Affected Disorder and the way my brain naturally freezes when it comes to any kind of present shopping, added to the bronchitis/sinusitis thing, I have no confidence that I'll recover when it comes to the gift giving business, I'll try! Meanwhile, maybe I'll cook something for her. Or maybe that would just make things worse.

In any case, this will probably be the last blog from me until after Christmas, so I hope everyone has a great holiday. Our family get together might not come until after the New Year--but we'll still be together.

There's a nice Christmas tree at work, anyway!

Don't forget, we've got Coming Attractions and two other books for free until the end of the month on Smashwords:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

We and our books can be found ... everywhere:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Reading is a great activity for Christmas break, especially if the kids are busy with their new toys.

Tags:

A week ago I wrote here that Mitch Fiandt was fighting cancer, and now he's gone.

Just like that.

That's Mitch on the left, still in his dispatch uniform pants. Yeah, that's me on the right. We were so young.

I've had so many friends fight and beat cancer, at least for awhile, that it never occurred to me he wouldn't. But Mitch died just short of fifty years as a volunteer firefighter, having started at Orange Township Fire before he was even eighteen, back in the days when you could do that kind of thing. Cancer takes a lot of firefighters, especially the ones were around in the days when breathing protection was a mild suggestion. He told me once he breathed in some particularly bad stuff off the hot side of a burning house, back before he moved to Albion and joined our Department.

That old lung damage was one reason why he usually drove the fire trucks and ran the pump, rather than going inside--not that I didn't see him go in, more than once. And yet, when we had our annual lung capacity test, he always passed and usually ran circles around the rest of us.

There's not much I can say that isn't in his obituary, here:

https://www.harperfuneralhomes.com/obituary/Mitch-Fiandt?fbclid

If memory serves, in addition to being the Albion Fire Department Chief Engineer--a kind of honorary title acknowledging the fact that if we needed an apparatus operator, he was there--he also served as Secretary and Treasurer on the AFD.

He was also my boss for several years in Noble County Communications, or the 911 Center, or Dispatch, or whatever people will call it next year. He was there for 35 years, which did not bode well for his sanity, and was 911 Director from 1999 until he retired in 2015.

Here Mitch and John Urso, also a combo firefighter/dispatch, present me my 25 year dispatcher award, along with a certificate for a free psychotherapy session.

Mitch and I both served at various times on the Albion Town Council and the Albion Plan Commission, and he was in about a hundred other things as well, being the type who was always helping out. Even with my writing gig, he stayed busier than me. He was the first to tell me I should write a book about dispatching, which I will, as soon as the statue of limitations runs out.

The last time I saw him was at my grandmother's funeral: He had a part time gig with Harper's Funeral Home here in Albion. I don't believe he ever had a job or hobby that wasn't, in one way or another, about helping people.

And if that it's the best thing you can say about a person, I don't know what is.

Tags:

It was baby shower day for my newest grandkid, and the cake was good. Don't tell my doctor.

Jill explained to me that it's not Xander, because she doesn't want people to call him Alex. I predict people will call him "Zee".

The soon to be parents again. Could they have any more diapers? Yes, and they'll need more.

It's helpful to know if it's a boy or a girl. Due date? Late December. Just like half the family.

Including steps, we've got five granddaughters (and soon three grandsons) ... and do you think we could get them all in one photo? That mop of hair on the left is Distracted Willa.

So I just took another photo, and there's Willa in the center!

Five older sisters. I kinda feel sorry for the kid.

We and our books can be found ... everywhere:

· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter

· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Surround a kid with books, and chances are they'll read.

Tags:

Grandma Nannie had, by any standards, a challenging life.

She was raised in rural Tennessee during the Great Depression. She worked as a nurse and watched her husband go off to Europe for World War II. He was, she's told me, not the best husband ever.

After he passed she remarried, but eventually he passed away, too. Nannie had to go through the deaths of all her children, a grandson, and two great-grandchildren. Eventually she had to leave her home and move into a nursing home. I can tell you everyone was great there, but just the same, she was reduced to having half of a room to herself, after being independent for so long.

After all that, she made it to age 99. Her obituary is here:

https://tributearchive.com/obituaries/33226387/nannie-bricker/albion/indiana/harper-funeral-homes

I was not a good grandson. I didn't go to see her nearly as often as I should have, although thankfully Emily and I did have a nice visit with her a few weeks ago. The last time we stopped in, just a few days before her death, she was sleeping so soundly we couldn't bear to wake her. Now we wish we had. Emily and I were hatching a plan to take her to my daughter's baby shower, but considering the logistical challenges and how much she'd fallen in recent years, maybe it was for the best.

And yet when we'd show she was unfailingly chipper and happy to see us. Her mind was sharp right to the end.

It was a call I'd expected for some time, and I handled the news more badly than I'd thought I would, more badly than I should have. You see, Grandma Nannie was ready two go. You can have your own opinions about religion, but arguing with her about it would have been a very bad idea. She knew where she was going when she died, with complete confidence. If you knew her, you wouldn't doubt it. She was ushered through the Pearly Gates into the open arms of God, and right now she's hanging out with all the loved ones who went before her.

We can grieve, but we can't be unhappy for her. Her pain is gone. Her body is no longer frail. Her medical issues are in the past. She is loved.

Tags:

We dogsat--um, sitted?--for a friend's canine last week, and enjoyed it very much. As many of you know, our own dog, Beowulf, passed away last July.

Watson resembled Beowulf quite a bit, actually. Watson has had a hair cut, but I saw photos from before and it really was uncanny. Both are rescues, and came from further south of us, so I suppose some relation is possible.

Watson is more solid, though, for want of another word. One thing in common: So darned cute.

He wouldn't get up on furniture unless invited, and even after he'd been on the couch and bed he still wouldn't climb up again without an invitation. A very well behaved dog.

I was surprised that at ten years old Watson still likes to play hard. He tired me out pretty quickly.

He also loves to snuggle. Yes, I did call him Beowulf several times, but he didn't seem to mind.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Pets love booklovers; they can snuggle while reading..

Tags:

As a kid, I had to use my imagination. No cable, no video games, no Anarchist Cookbook on the internet. If I’d tried to buy the ingredients for a bomb, the store clerk would have been on the phone to my parents before I reached the door.

Then I’d have to cut my own switch, ending my bomb-making aspirations.

Instead I wandered, literally, over hill and dale, made dams in the creek, plodded through swamps. I had a handful of favorite toys, dogs for companionship, and imagination. Any place was a playground, any object a toy.

Every now and then I still check out the toy aisles, but today’s toys just aren’t interesting. You can’t play with today’s toys. You sit and look at them while they play themselves.

I'm old enough now that grandkids and pets are the best gifts. Not that I'd turn down 60s era Marx toy soldiers.

Oh, you might press a few buttons, but they do all the rest. They make noise, flash lights, speak to you, move around, until they need recharged. I’m not talking just about video games, which at least give you hand-eye coordination. But on that subject, what do the game makers brag about most? Better graphics and sound, and realistic cut scenes.

Heaven forbid you should imagine any of that.

We generally got toys twice a year, for Christmas and birthdays. My parents never bought me toys because I got a good grade, or cleaned my room, or avoided juvenile hall. I did that stuff because if I didn’t, I’d have to cut a switch. Getting a switch used on me was bad; having to take that long walk out to the bush to cut one was much, much worse. I’d rather pull my teeth out with pliers and use them to chew off my own ear than get sent out to the bush.

Don’t get me wrong, I got some great toys, it's just that I played with them.

I got a scale model of the Starship Enterprise. I didn't push a button to make it fly: I held it out and whooshed it past my imaginary planets. How did my Enterprise make that “whoosh” warp sound? By me saying, “Whoosh!”

I had to use my – say it with me – imagination.

I've had this fire truck for fifty years; it never moved on its own once. If it did, I'd freak out.

Have you ever played World War II video games? The realism is amazing, and if you’re not playing with someone, the game console itself moves the other characters around.

I got a Marx "Battleground” play set. Plastic tanks, cannon, flags, landing craft – and get this, landmines, wounded soldiers, and stretchers. I had German, Japanese, British, and Confederate soldiers from several wars. You can’t have enemy troops these days, because the soldiers of Politically Correctness would pitch a fit. You'd probably get in trouble for pitching things, too.

Eventually I learned war is a terrible thing, even when made necessary by various bad guys, but I still loved my play set. My parents, you see, taught me the difference between fantasy and reality. For example, fantasy was seeding my battleground with firecrackers; reality was them finding out and sending me to cut a switch.

Fake battles led to my lifelong love of history, and I've never invaded Russia once, so I think I did okay.

I had a few remarkably “real” guns, meaning they were my size. No one imagined using one to rob a bank, or being mistaken for a gang member. My favorite was a Thompson machine gun, with which I defended our barn many times. No computer program was needed to produce my attackers – they came from my – wait for it – imagination.

Another favorite gun was my Kentucky rifle, a muzzle loading weapon used in the Revolutionary War. My mother called it her mop handle.

But with the mop taken off, it was the perfect size and shape to win our independence. I fought off entire regiments of Englishmen with that rifle, alongside a company of Minutemen that was very much real to me and my imagination. I’m sure I looked ridiculous in the field behind our house, stabbing with the bayonet on my mop handle, getting hit and falling to the ground, then getting up to defend Lexington and Concord yet again. What did I care?

My favorite toy gun. If it was good enough for both Sgt. Rock and Sgt. Fury, it was good enough for me.

Not that fake warfare was my only interest – not with Frisbees, Matchbox cars, and paper airplanes available. My single speed Schwinn bicycle doubled as a spaceship and police car; walkie-talkies were useful for spy missions; and a beach towel was sufficient to make a superhero costume.

I could go on and on (as my regular readers know.) Two chairs and a blanket made a great tent; small sticks and stones could become a city, waiting on an attack by Godzilla; and oh – what we could do with a cardboard box. The possibilities were endless.

I can’t help thinking today’s kids are missing something important … and I’m not talking about the switch.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Books make great bases for your toy soldier battles.

Tags:

I'm not even sure how to start when it comes to Covid. As a writer I'm a professional smart-ass, but with this I got my ass kicked, and didn't feel too smart about it.

Illness or injury traditionally accompany our vacations: Last December Emily and I came down with the flu when we were supposed to visit her family and friends in Missouri. This year we decided to head down on a Thursday.

On Wednesday we started to feel a little ... off. By Thursday morning we had to call it--we couldn't risk giving her father whatever bug was now traveling with us. It wasn't until Friday night that we began to suspect the modern medical boogieman, Covid. We missed the trip, we missed Saturday's Holiday Pops concert, and I felt so bad I couldn't even write. By the time it was done I had to contact my editor at History Press to push back our deadline for the Haunted Noble County book, because I'd planned to use half of my vacation to work on it.

The only question left: Could I turn it into a funny blog?

It doesn't LOOK like 102 degrees.

No. No, I could not.

The only thing we did was marathon the TV show The Expanse, and unsuccessfully try to listen to Good Omens on audiobook. (We kept having to go back when one or another of us fell asleep.)

You know, watching TV and reading books wouldn't be such a bad vacation. The problem is that for the first couple of days we were unable to enjoy anything, and in fact we were too sick to sleep. You heard that right. Over that first weekend I, who can't function on less than eight hours of sleep, stayed awake for twenty-fours straight. Even Nyquil wouldn't put me out.

Then, for a week after that, we were too sick to stay awake. That was the period during which we kept having to go back and decide what we remembered last from the audiobook.

"It was Agnes Nutter and the book, wasn't it?"

"No, it was Adam and the Them meeting the dog."

(We were both wrong: It was Crowley terrifying his house plants.)

I took this photo of Emily at the same time the one above of me was taken. She's in there, I swear.

Part of it--let's face it--is that I'm no spring chicken pox. When I was in my early 20's I once rode the back step of a fire engine to a mobile home fire on the edge of town--while running a fever.

This truck, specifically. What an awesome truck.

A couple of years later I rode a different engine to Kendallville, to a tire fire so big it could have been seen from the International Space Station, if there'd been one at the time. I was coughing up junk that looked like it belonged in an alien invasion horror movie, despite never getting into the smoke. Yet there I went, for twelve hours. Our Chief later ordered me to go home and go the hell to bed.

No more.

It's not just that Covid is bad. My normal temperature runs around 97.6, and by the time it hit 100 not only could I not go to a fire, I couldn't pick up the TV remote. (Thus the marathon of one show.) It reached 102 at one point. My skin kept trying to crawl away to somewhere cooler, or so it felt.

Emily was running about a day behind me, so I had the pain of knowing what she was about to go through. She's still got a terrible cough weeks later, while mine is just awful. We were like the grandparents in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, just laying there in a lump. Christmas preparations? Hah! We'd bought a new, pre-lit tree, but we never even got a chance to fluff out the branches, let alone decorate it.

I kinda like it like this, though. Yes, it's black.

I was so sick--brace yourself for this--I lost my appetite.

I can count on one hand the number of times I've completely lost my appetite, and I was in the hospital for most of those. I dropped six pounds. This is not a recommended diet.

The moral of this story is, of course, don't get Covid. We didn't mind at all being quarantined, at least not until the chocolate ran out. (Everything tasted salty or metallic, except chocolate.) Other people in this area passed away from it, so we count ourselves lucky now that we're feeling 50% better.

Yeah, I'm exhausted all the time, but I work nights--I was already halfway there, anyway.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember, books aren't effective as masks, but they're great for quarantine.

Tags:

Good riddance, 2023. To paraphrase "True Grit", "the love of decency does not abide in you".

The problem is, I said the same thing at the end of 2022.

That being the case, I no longer make noises about the next year being better than the last one. 2023 started out with losing a nephew, paused in the middle for the death of our dog, and ended with my wife and I both down with Covid. Those are just the highlights. We also had to replace our car, and oh, yeah--our microwave caught fire. Again. (It was just smoke.)

Then there was the sinus surgery which, it turns out, doesn't prevent Covid. Emily had to face the death of one of the horses she worked with. We didn't get a new book out in 2023, and had to push back the deadline on the one we're working on. Oh, and I had a biopsy on my TONGUE.

Surgery or virus? You decide.

Could 2024 be worse than that?

Yes. Yes, it could. I mean, it's an election year, so there's that all by itself.

This year a third of the people are going to pick a candidate to fight a different third of the people who the first third hate, and the second third is going to pick someone who they hope will be horrible to the first third, while the middle third do their best to ignore all of this, even though they're the ones who'll suffer the most.

It's politics as written by Joseph Heller. We'll call it "Catch 24".

(Hey, I just had an idea for a new novel!)

There's not much we can do about a lot of this, including the elections, once the graveyard votes are counted. So what are we to do about the world's current state of affairs?

Laugh.

That's right, you heard me. Laugh, even if it scares people.

Now, that's scary.

I'm going to make an extra effort in 2024 to make people laugh. I'm not going to guarantee health, or that my appliances will keep working, or that Congress will start acting responsibly. (See, that last made me giggle right there.) I'm fairly certain at this point that the Presidential election will be a farce regardless of who wins, so why not poke fun at it, too? Maybe, with luck, in the coming year I'll have another exploding lawn mower to talk about.

Okay, I don't want to go that far. Again.

But laughter often is the best medicine, at least for your brain, and I'm going to work on turning it into an epidemic. The laughter, I mean. Because we can't change a lot of bad things with the exception of politics, so we might as well feel better about them.

Maybe we'll even sell more copies of our humor books.

Okay, let's not expect too much. After all, it's still the 2020s.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember, it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown, and we're all tired.

Tags:

What do you get for the woman who has everything?

Or more importantly, what do I get for my wife? She certainly doesn't have everything, but I can't afford a winter house in Hawaii, and the whole hiding a horse in our garage thing didn't work out well at all.

Or even something like a horse.

I can't even get her another dog, because it turns out I'm allergic to them. Not as much as I'm allergic to cats, but these lungs are getting old.

I can't get her another car, even though in the long run they're less expensive than horses. That's usually not a problem with us, but with only one car we can't exactly split the shopping chores.

Maybe I should get a star named after her, like in the commercials. Oh, it might not be official, but what are the chances someone's going to go there and change the name anytime soon?

Emily and I have been married for so long that by now she knows I suck at little things like gift shopping, special event planning, romantic surprises, cooking, knowing where I left--anything, and a lot of other stuff. It helps that I do a bang-up job of washing dishes. In fact, I can load the dish drying rack with seven times its normal capacity, which gets me very close to a national record.

Playing Janga with dishes isn't very romantic, but no chore is perfect.

Emily was born on the shortest day of the year, as I've mentioned before, and that means something to me. From that moment, the days get longer. This time of year I go to work in the dark and get home in the dark, but spring will come again. Emily symbolizes my life getting brighter.

Which reminds me: I think last year, 2022, I promised her that 2023 would be better. Well, that didn't pan out, did it? I guess I have a lot of work to do in 2024.

No matter what I get her--and I do have something in mind--I know that she knows I love her, and that's something. In fact, I tell her that every day: "I love you! Don't go looking for someone better ... you'll probably find him".

I will never, never ask if she loves horses more than me.

Tags:

As all fourteen of my regular readers know, I've always had this thing about putting up Christmas decorations, or in any way mentioning Christmas, before Thanksgiving.

By "thing" I mean seeing anything Christmas related before mid-November would send me into a murderous rage. That's how I got banned from Wal-Mart.

I thought, and still think, starting Christmas while people are going down with heat exhaustion cheapens the holiday, and makes it overstay its welcome. I was okay with putting outside lights up early, mind you--as long as they weren't turned on until Thanksgiving weekend.

So I asked my State and Federal representatives to open a new hunting season: Any lit (or inflated) Christmas decorations seen before Thanksgiving would be open season. Shoot to darken!

That's how I used to feel.

Not this year. This year I'm a happy little friggin' elf.

Why? Because 2023 has been crap. In fact, it's been the crappiest of the 2020s, which has been the crappiest decade of the century. I know we're not that far in, but let's face it: A stream of horrible years doesn't make the most horrible less horrible. Someone get me that on a t-shirt.

Deaths, health scares, politics, extremists, the Kardashians are still around ... our dog died and our car broke down. That's a country song, man.

So, as the song goes: We need a little Christmas, today. Get started. Brighten up everything--make those electric meters spin. We need the color, the lights, the cheer, even the songs. Yes, I know Christmas is too commercial these days.

But so what? You don't have to be commercial. I mean, yeah, you should buy books to give out as Christmas presents, but otherwise don't worry about it: Just kick back and relax some between now and the 25th (of next month). Make the time. Watch a Christmas movie, curl up on the couch listening to Christmas music (ahem--while reading a good book, or one of mine), do whatever it takes to bring down the stress level a little. There's no law against it. I know, because my Representatives wouldn't return my calls.

Merry Christmas! Party early, and keep those lights on after the holidays, right up until the Santa Mafia shows up to get you committed.

The Santas are just grumpy because they have to work through the holidays.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Remember: Every time a book gets rung up, an author gets his wings.

Tags:

No one knows where Beowulf came from.

The above is one of the first photos I ever took of him. Beowulf was found wandering the fields around Huntington County, Indiana, southwest of Fort Wayne. To this day no one knows where he came from--he wore a collar so rusted it couldn't be unbuckled, and had to be cut off. Clearly he'd had a rough life for awhile.

He was very serious, and also very curious. I suspect he was mistreated by his former owner, because he would whine instead of bark, and was a little jumpy when touched. We did our best to make him feel at home, and I think it worked: One day he got off his line in the backyard, and when I started a panicked search I found him patiently waiting at the front door.

Gradually he relaxed and, as will happen, became family. He never chewed on anything unless he knew he was allowed to, and when someone passed by he would bark at them for one reason: He wanted us to let them in so he could make friends. (Having said that, he saw any animal smaller than him as food, giving us some insight into his former life.)

He loved every kid who came around, and most adults--unless he detected alcohol on their breath. Then he'd start to growl and become protective, which perhaps gives us another look into his past.

Like us he loved to travel, but he also loved to get home.

But he got old, as dogs do, and people. Neuropathy, hip dysplasia, hearing loss, cognitive problems. We were okay with him sleeping a lot--heck, I sleep a lot. But wandering in circles, steering himself into corners and just standing there, whining when he should have been comfortable ...

Sometimes there comes a time when you have to consider if you're keeping them around for their happiness--or yours. We got him about six months after Emily and I were married. The vet's estimation of his age meant he was around sixteen years old. It was time.

In the last photo ever taken with the three of us together, Emily and I were smiling, kind of. I think I can speak for both of us when I saw they were forced smiles.

I'd like to give a shout-out to Line Street Veterinary Hospital in Columbia City, a place we'd gotten more and more familiar with in recent years. You don't have a pet for eleven years and just let him go with a "he's just a dog". They understood that. They let us in through a private door, set out last treats, and gave us all the time we needed, which was a fair amount. We fed him Hershey's Kisses because, as the jar they were in said, no one should pass away without tasting chocolate first.

He wasn't just a dog. He was family. Now he's crossed the rainbow bridge, to frolic with the family members who came before him (as Emily told him to at the end). There aren't any words to describe how much he'll be missed.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

Willa turned one, and I turned a camera (phone) on her. See what I did, there?

The big question, of course, was whether she would like her cake.

She did.

Presents!

Big sister Lilli was there too, of course, and she also seemed to like the cake.

Okay, I didn't take a whole lot of photos. As I get older, I've started appreciating being there more, and worrying about later ... well, later. Which doesn't mean I'll stop taking pictures.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

I'm not okay.

Sometimes we have to admit that. Not to others, although that's fine--but to ourselves. Pretending you're okay is not okay. Being not okay is okay, which doesn't mean you should want to stay that way.

On April Fourth my teenage nephew killed himself. My post about it is here:

https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/2023/04/rest-in-peace-christian.html

There, now I don't have to go through writing that again. (Meanwhile, about a week later an apartment complex in a neighboring town was shot up by a man who used to be married to my ex-wife. I never particularly cared for him, but my daughters are good friends of his kids, and they're wonderful people. This helped no one's stress level.)

Christian's. A 16 year old with a lot going for him.

I didn't see Christian as often as I would have liked, which is no one's fault but my own. Still, it hit me as hard as my brother's death two years ago. Has it been two years? I'm not over that, either, although I told myself I was.

The reason I'm writing this is because my next blog--unless something else happens--will likely be another humor attempt to cheer up everyone's lives a little, as I'm wont to do. Yes, I did use that word correctly, look it up. I do this because so many of us are going through difficult times, and could use the cheering up. Making people laugh, or at least smile, lightens my own day. Since I suffer from depression and anxiety myself, what helps others helps me.

But that doesn't mean I'm all right.

Remember Robin Williams? Funniest guy alive, everything to live for. Killed himself.

Please try to remember that even if someone seems fine--even if they insist they're fine--you don't know what's going on underneath. You don't know what the person next to you is going through. Maybe they don't know. My wife always figures out I'm having a bad day before I do.

So support mental health awareness, fight the stigma, and ... laugh a lot. Keep your spirits up. Get help if needed. The world may seem a hard and depressing place, but it does you no good to dwell on it. Worst case scenario, I'll be there to make you smile ... or at least try to.

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

This has been the hardest blog I've tried to write since my brother passed away two years ago. So I didn't write it. This is my sister's original post about my nephew's death:

It is with broken hearts that our family is announcing that early this morning we found our son and brother Christian had committed suicide last night/early this morning, by swallowing a massive amount of prescription pills. We had a call from one of his teachers at approximately 9am, who had been alerted by some of his classmates that he had left some posts on Instagram at around 4am. We went to check on him, and unfortunately he was already gone. The only good thing is we were told by the coroner he went peacefully in his sleep. We aren't saying suicide is the way. Just that he went peacefully. We love him with all our hearts and will always miss him. Please pray for him to be at peace in heaven with Christ. One of the last things he posted was that only Christ could save him now. You are with Christ now. Be at peace. We love you! Fly high Squirt!!!

Here's the obituary:

https://memorials.fairhavenfortwayne.com/christian-rog-ers/5170272/index.php?fbclid=IwAR2974qglEKWpPEwQzfFnBMd0LLZnZxeRRPKK0tiTwWdZU_EFgc_HdL_E7k

I think I'm having more trouble dealing with this than I did with Jeff's passing because my brother had a six decade life, while Christian's life was just beginning. Also because I DO understand, to an extent: My teenage years were more horrible than not, for a variety of reasons. That time of our life is difficult for many of us. And that's why it's all the more important that we do our best to keep this tragedy from happening to others.

There are many resources available for suicide prevention. Here are just a few of them:

www.in.gov/issp/

https://youth.gov/youth-topics/youth-suicide-prevention

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/health-issues/conditions/emotional-problems/Pages/Ten-Things-Parents-Can-Do-to-Prevent-Suicide.aspx

Rest in peace, Christian.

Tags:

I went down a few rabbit holes while we were sick over the holidays, and found some examples of the Christmas decorations I grew up with.

I don't recall a lot of specialized or homemade tree ornaments. We had these shiny things, some of them globes and some bells, large and small. As a result, plain and simple ornaments can make me nostalgic.

I loved the color wheel! We had a black and white TV at the time, after all. My recollection is that ours had only three colors, green, blue, and red, but I might be wrong. After all, I also remember my very detailed and realistic toy Apollo Moon rocket with a capsule that actually shot into the air--and it turns out it wasn't very detailed or realistic.

(On the subject of toys, I did indeed get a bb gun, and I never shot my eye out.)

We had a green aluminum tree, which was all the rage in the 60s, and it looked just like the one on the left. After Christmas the branches went into paper sleeves, and it was all neatly boxed up. As I recall, my Grandma Nannie had a white one.

We also had the cardboard fireplace. In January one year, quaking with terror while doing a speech in front of the class, I related a tale of the cardboard chimney once falling on me, and got some laughs. It never happened. When my kids were little I bought another one, and it lasted several years.

Santa assembled our main toys for us, and left them in front of the tree. Once I got a model Starship Enterprise that lit up. Another time there was a train waiting, and once my brother and I awoke to find a Hot Wheels track winding its way through the living room. The best was probably when Santa dropped off two bicycles. Mine was a five speed with a banana seat.

Wait--maybe our tree is in a photo somewhere. And maybe you want to know what I looked like back then. I hope so, because it took me some digging to find this:

That's Jeff on the left, Delbert (Dad) on the right, and me in the middle. You want to know something odd? I remember those shirts.

And as usual, find all our books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Remember, any time you don't buy a book, my pine allergies break out.

Tags:

Let's face it: 2022 sucked.

Don't get me wrong: In no way am I suggesting 2023 will be any better. That's the mistake a lot of people made at the end of 2020 and 2021. Just the same, 2022 seems to have been, overall, the worst year of the 2020s (so far), and that's going some.

I'm sure some people had a great 2022. Arms dealers, for instance. No matter how bad a time period is, there's someone who was happy--as an example, Hitler had an awesome 1939.

On the other hand, Vladamir Putin thought he was going to have an incredible 2022 but, like many of us, he'll hit the New Year shaking his head and saying, "What the heck just happened?"

I don't want to turn this into a Rodney Dangerfield routine. Or maybe I do--Rodney understood the value of comedic complaining. But it wasn't the best year in the world from a personal standpoint. Emily and I have been sick so much the CDC pitched a tent in our back yard. In twenty-five years, I've only had the flu once--this time came a few weeks after our flu shot.

The above is a picture of downtown Fort Wayne I took from Lutheran Hospital. You know what that means? Yep--visiting my Dad in the hospital. Worse, then we got sick and couldn't visit him.

As I write this Emily has lost her voice. At first it was cool, because I walked around the house telling puns and singing Christmas songs loudly. Then she summoned enough strength to start throwing things at me. On a related note, I suffered a head injury this year.

Even the dog kept getting sick. He's 98 in dog years now, and as a result of old age he doesn't know if has to, um, drop a deuce until it's already happening. I mean, you can't get mad at him, and I'm all set for a future career in carpet cleaning.

"Watch your step."

My knee going bad from early arthritis, that I expected. Getting a case of Trigger Thumb? Did not expect. (What is it? Well, it's like trigger finger, except in the thumb.) I spent most of 2022 in one of two braces.

We also seem to have started our next round of having to replace stuff. The couch broke, and the toilet broke. We could have managed without the couch. Also, the car's now running rough because the service people are unable to remove an old spark plug, which is stuck because radiator fluid is leaking around it.

I had no idea that could happen. It used to be I'd call my brother for help with these things, but, well ... the 2020s suck.

Rodney Dangerfield could have done all this better, but you get the point.

In 2022 the world population reached eight billion, and two out of three got one of the three pandemics that hit this year. The third got trigger thumb.

Inflation hit its highest level since the early 80s, a time I remember as being as bad as ... well, the early 2020s. Come to think of it, so far this winter reminds me of the early 80s. Oh, and get this: Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the biggest European war since WWII. Also, the Queen of England died, after being in that position for so long nobody remembers who she replaced. (I think it was "King Something".) So far as I'm aware, none of these are related.

There's lots of other stuff, but I'll just end with: Monkey Pox.

Rodney would have had a blast with Monkey Pox. "My doctor said I should get vaccinated. I told him I wanted a second opinion, and he said 'Okay: You're ugly, too'."

"My parents took me to a dog show--and I won."

I miss Rodney. He'd know how to face 2023.

You can find all our books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

Who's a proud grandpa? I'm a proud grandpa!

We were down with the flu all week, so I'm just now getting a chance to post some photos from Lilli's 5th birthday party. Also, I didn't take all that many photos--I was busy eating pizza. But it was great, because all four of my grand-kids were there in the same place, and I don't get to see that very often. Also, cupcakes and ice cream.

Birthday girl!

When you're five, people your own age start getting interesting.

Also attending, of course, Lilli's sister Willa, along with Willa's Dad James.

So far they get along!

Grandpa's mission: Get Willa to smile. Mission accomplished.

Lilli has been, thanks to her mom Jill, getting into The Wizard of Oz. So Emily's and my gift to her was a volume of L. Frank Baum's first six Oz books, including the original illustrations--I read the books to her Mom, now it's Mom's turn.

Oz: The Complete Collection: (Illustrated First Edition) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvellous Land of Oz, The Woggle-Bu

Find Our books here:

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

We were only up in Michigan for two nights on our summer vacation, but I was looking forward to seeing the sunset over Lake Bellaire. The second night it was okay. The first night? Well, I left these photos un-retouched, so you can see for yourself. (Click on them to make them bigger, I hope.)

At first it didn't look like the sunset would be all that special, but I was able to sit in a chair while the grand-twins made hot dogs and s'mores over the fire, so who was I to complain?

Then the sun broke out and started shining on the underside of a cloud layer.

It turned out to be one of the greatest sunsets I've ever had the good fortune to witness.

No, that's not a funnel--I suspect it's virga, rain that evaporates before it hits the ground. There were thunderstorms far off and to the right in these images.

I've mentioned before that many of the scenes from my novel Radio Red take place near, by, or on this lake. I don't remember if I described the sunsets, but words can't really do them justice, anyway.

Find our books at:
http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Tags:

When hamsters came into my house years ago they had little plastic balls, so they could run merrily all over. (Humans now have those, too. You’d think we could just walk.) We did have to close the door to the basement while they were out. I thought it would be kind of funny to hear the “thump-thump” of a rodent taking a ride, but the kids thought the hamster wouldn’t appreciate an E-ticket at Disneyland.

One day I found one of the balls in the kitchen, sans hamster. The lid had popped off. This triggered a panicked search, which was about as successful as panicked searches usually are. The hamster – Ranger, named after a slippery, hard to track character from a Stephanie Plum novel – was gone.

My daughters were very upset. I looked at it as a challenge … but before you congratulate me for my attitude, I should point out that I hate challenges.

After a time – a long time, during which I could have been doing more important things, like nothing – I found a little white puff ball behind the oven, as far back into the corner as he could possibly get. I could have done a few different things, but I didn’t have a gun on me, and in my experience napalm is dangerously unreliable. So instead, I tried to entice the furball out with a handful of his favorite snack, which looks suspiciously like shreds of colored paper.

Ranger instantly disappeared into the wall.

He’d discovered what I, in ten years, had not – the hole mice use to get into my house every fall. (They stopped coming after we got the pet snake, but that’s another story.) It led behind the cupboard and from there to – who knows? A rodent superhighway, perhaps, or a mouseport, or a hamsterteria.

The next morning, I found a very old mouse carcass on the floor outside the hole. I’m talking mummified. Ranger had not only made himself at home in the former mouse house, he’d even dug up the cemetery.

“Yeah, I’m bad, I’m bad–you know it.”

Now what? Offering amnesty wasn’t likely to help. There is a homemade trap you can build, making steps out of books that lead to a trash can. Water and food goes into the can, and once inside, the sides are too steep for the hamster to get out again. The problem is, Ranger is afraid of heights. Seriously. It took him a week to climb down out of the upstairs apartment in the hamster house.

I considered leaving him in that hole, until the squeaking started.

The only time they made noise was when they started fighting each other. Every now and then they’d get into a quarrel over who gets the best piece of trail mix, or who controls the remote. Then they’d squeak like crazy until they were all squeaked out, and ten minutes later they’d be happily sitting together again. And yes, it reminded me of my daughters.

The conclusion was inescapable: Ranger wasn’t alone down there. Hopefully we weren’t hearing loud rodent sex.

“You should have sent me in, coach–I’d have those rodents for breakfast. Literally.”

A few days later we found the little white furball, huddled behind a bookcase that turned out to be an excellent place to trap him. I was never so happy to be a book packrat. Or is that a bookrat? Ranger was none too happy, and who can blame him? He’d had free run of the house, so it was like moving out of the Taj Mahal and into a one room trailer. He was in a foul mood, and proved it with a couple of knock down – drag outs with his old roommate.

I never found out whether his mouse friend kicked him out, but later that day I saw the mouse trying to fit an entire soda cracker through its doorway. Eating for two? How friendly they were, I don’t know – can hamsters and mice cross breed? Was I in danger of being overrun by white mice, bent on freeing their dad? I’ve had a few disturbing nightmares.

All I know is, after his brief escape Ranger was awfully squirrely– if you’ll pardon my rodent-themed pun. I feel like I’ve separated Rangero and Julie-rat.

Tags:

Slightly Off the Mark

The Good, the Bad, and the Baby

Happy Birthday/Christmas!

R.I.P. Firefighter / Dispatcher Mitch Fiandt, a friend

Baby Shower Photos ... spoiler: It's a boy!

Grandma Nannie Bricker, R.I.P.

A Visit From Watson

A Toy Soldier Story

Covid Keeps Quarantines Coming

Looking To 2024 With Fear and Trepidation

I have an awesome wife (who may read this)

Let's Start Christmas Right Now. Seriously.

Beowulf Has Crossed the Rainbow Bridge

Willa's Birthday Photos

I'm Not Okay, and That's Okay

Rest In Peace, Christian

A 60s Christmas

2022: After-Incident Report

Lilliana--granddaughter Birthday Pics

Michigan Sunset Photos

The Great Hamster Escape

Profile

Syndicate

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags