Here it is almost evening and I had forgotten to write today

 TERRY

Terry is about the same.  Taking a shower is a BIG deal and I have not been good at getting that done for her but we did make it happen today.  She said she felt so so much better afterwards and of course one would if you had been in bed most of the time and not had a shower for a couple of weeks.  I am so so bad I thought it had been longer than that but Terry felt it had only been two weeks or so.  It actually is a BIG deal as it is a walk in shower and of course when it was put in there was no idea that one day it would need to accommodate a wheel chair.  We do make it work but it does take some doing.  Anyway as I write she is enjoying the Hallmark Channel on TV.  I did make a corn beef with cabbage and potato dish for dinner.  OK, I kind of cheated as I purchased it at Costco and just needed to heat it up BUT still it was a tiny bit of work!!!  If I were to rate it on a scale of 1-10 I would give an 8.5 so not bad.

So I have a confession to make.  For some unknown reason I have not gotten help in after Sonia left last July.  That means I have been going to alone for perhaps almost 6 months.  I KNOW that is not smart and yes I am beginning to feel like a barn cat that got stepped on by the milk cow.  Well not really but you get the picture, maybe!!!  Today I have felt drained down to the last drop of whatever.  I do not like to take much of a nap as Terry then thinks I will not sleep well at night.  But I am dragging today and I know it is ALL my fault.  I do need to get some help in and the sooner the better.  Enough of feeling sorry for myself.

I think I do NOT have tennis for the next 3 days.  Well usually I do not play Saturday and Sunday but I did get knocked of the court Monday so 3 days to rest up.  I do NOT need that but it is what it is.

IT WAS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH OF 1956

Joan, Dave, Helen and I stool by the mailbox as we saw the yellow bus round the curve by Ricky's farm and head the half mile to our mailbox.  This was the very first day of TOWN school.  As I walked down the driveway to the road I had fear, sadness and regret all at the same time.  No more walking to school where we could throw stones at the fence posts, try to hit gophers while throwing stones and just having fun as we walked the mile and a half over the last 3 years.  Woodlake School was no more.  Now it was town school in Cayuga and I had seen the school building which was a big 3 story building made of brick. As the bus approached I wondered what I was in for.  

It seemed like the bus made stop after stop after stop after stop.  By the time we arrived in Cayuga it was full.  I knew nobody but I soon found out that two of my classmates were on the bus.  Tom and Orville were also in the 4th grade and they just lived a few miles away.  

Anyway the bus stopped in front of the school and I was NOT in a hurry to get out but as it emptied I had no choice and where should I go?  There was a lady standing at the front door asking what grade were were in and then telling us where to go.  I said I was in the 4th grade and she looked at me as if I was someone who knew not what grade they were in.  Well I was big for my age but anyway after a hesitation  she pointed to her left and said, Your classroom is down the stairs!  What the heck I thought.  At Wood Lake School I could look out the south windows and there was grass, a water pump and the play ground that consided of swings etc.  Now here I was going DOWN into the basement of a big brick building.  Anyway down I went and the to my right was a big room.  I entered and it seemed like everybody stared at me as if I was some kind of alien so to speak.  I quickly counted, I was good at math, and there were 24 kinds in the room and it showed over the door that this was only 3rd and 4th grade.  Last year at Wood Lake we had 12 kids and that was all 8 grades.  It looked like our bus was about the last to arrive as almost all the desks were full so I sat second from the front in the row by the wall.  

So started my "town" education.  I found out that there were students who were kind of nice and others who were not so nice.  Some seemed pretty smart and some it seemed did not have a clue as to what they were to learn.  On the very first day the teacher handed out a sheet of single digit math problems like 8+7 and I guess the entire sheet was the addition facts 1-9.  I looked at the paper and thought I did this in 1st grade and here we are in 4th!!!  The teacher said she would time us and as everyone had pencil ready she said "go".  I finished mine and looked around to see some struggling with line two or three.  I thought is this really the 4th grade?

As the year went on it seemed that going to town school as OK.  I became friends with Larry who I, to this day, consider my best friend ever.  We had a few students who were OK but they I just could not understand some of the boys were so so not good in school.  Actually 3 or 4 of them kind of went year by year and did not go to high school.  I do think that by the time I finished 8 grade I was 14 and some of my classmates were 16 or so!  

By the time we were in 7th grade Sargent Central came into being and there was NO more Cayuga High School.  To this day I can tell you about the teachers I had.  Mrs. Askerooth was 4th grade, Mrs. Fox was 5th and 6th and Mrs. Odenbret was 7th and 8th.  There actually is very little to think back and say that was fun.  Well I do admit, not very nice, that it was kind of fun breaking the second store window in our classroom with a home run ball!!  It was fun, as an 8th grader, to read 15 books and hand in the book report for each.  I did go though a very very difficult time in 5th and 6th grade as I was a big time strutter during those days.  In 7th and 8th it was almost gone and by the time I was in 9th grade no more stuttering.  I am thinking getting a girl friend in 9th grade helped!!!!!!!  No No and actually in later years I looked back and said to myself that girl friends in HS are not a very good idea BUT during HS I felt it was a good thing!  

So here I am today.  I am tired.  I am kind of down and for some odd reason life is just kind of a bummer at this time.  No big reason, just that some times life deals you a winning hand and sometimes a losing hand!

Enough for today.  IF I keep going I may feel sorry for myself and that is a downward spiral that one does not need to entertain.  I had my FP this morning before tennis and still lost!  But I did have fun.  Now I will see if Terry is up for watching the news as it is 6:00.  She has been watching TV a lot so IF she wants to continue with a show I will just watch the news in the living room.