Dear KAG: 20211123 Open Thread

Well he arrived safely after a fairly harrowing journey. Hopefully no serious weather for his return trip for the end of the week but he’s got snow “chains” (whatever they’re called now) to get him through Vermont’s winding “mountainous” trails if needed.

His brother’s home is a remote paradise, so he’s loving the environment. Hasn’t seen his other brother yet, who decided to tackle some random home improvement project while his own wife is out of town. I wondered if his brother would end up putting him to work again like when he was in college & his bro was a contractor instead of a retired orthopedic surgeon 🙂

While traveling in the Cleveland vicinity he had people point & laugh at him when they saw his Michigan plates, hours after the Lions’ humiliating defeat by the Browns. Oh & he Hates dealing w/ the toll roads, something we don’t have in our home state!

Yes. Snow is a joy & a pain. Every year I “re-learn” snow driving in a parking lot to practice the conditions AND my specific vehicles tolerances. I trust myself in hazardous driving conditions but other motorists not so much. People are pretty stupid on the roads, especially the first couple snowfalls every winter.

Getting older I’m also leery of slipping so walk fairly gingerly in icy conditions. My boots have good soles which help. My grandpa used to put galoshes on over his shoes & had something akin to mini-crampons at the ball of the foot so he never seemed to worry about falling.

If you ever make it to the Carolina you hope to move to depending on the elevation you may actually have to contend with some snowy conditions. I bet Gail Combs could speak to what you might encounter.

I grew up in metro Detroit & have been back here almost 2 1/2 decades after a decade in OK & half a one in Northern Michigan. People in OK drove me nuts in the rare snowy conditions, they didn’t see it enough to learn how to drive in it. Northern MI absolutely took heavy snowfall in stride (we had 250 inches the last winter I lived Up North). Now downstate it’s pathetic how much the weather weenies (reporters) whine about AND significantly exaggerate snowfall. What a bunch of babies. We haven’t hardly had a serious winter since I’ve been back, though there have been long cold spells where the snow stays pristine white because it doesn’t warm up enough to turn road grime slushy to splash up everywhere & dirty up the winter wonderland aspects of the state.

Thanks Gail!

My brother is now in the Dallas area after living for decades in Tulsa. I found Tulsa depressing in its lack of four seasons, fall was Awful (leaves are brown & they’re on the ground). I would about die in TX heat too!

Nice. War wounds, but you survived childhood!

I was doing genealogical research in collateral family lines from my mom’s birth family & found a death certificate for a grade school aged child’s cause of death that was listed as “didn’t learn”. It makes one wonder…

You were so incorrigible they needed a padded room for you Before being committed 🙂

Yes. Lots of old documents are a real treat, especially when they provide clues on someone you have little to no info about.

I once found a relation on that (forget the term for died the year before the census so some type of death index) death registry. It turned out that Many people died in that small community of cholera in a short period of time. Without that one document of all those year before the census deaths I’d never have realized that such a community tragedy occurred.

I was looking up family death certs in Northern Michigan & ran across consecutive death certs for a large family who all died in a house fire. Very sobering tales of tragedy can be unearthed in seemingly dry documents.

LOL Unlikely I was the Only Mom in the birth unit when my oldest son was born (his B-Day was yesterday, the 30th anniversary of JFK’s assassination) but I still had to call the nurse to get my pain pills. Come on, I was their Only patient AND I was in lots of pain after being shredded to kingdom come down there!!!