Personal Inventory - What the hell happened over the last 7 years?

I have been contemplating it ever since I first became aware it was going on, and I am going to share a few insights into what I think happened. I am not sure even now that I completely understand why it happened, but maybe my putting it down into my Tumblr blog will allow me to see it in perspective.

What I'm talking about is this: I started a health, fitness and weight loss journey back in the summer of 2013. No formal diet, just get in some good exercise and eat healthy foods, lay off the fast food and carbonated drinks, make it a lifestyle change instead of a diet or a quick fix. For four years it worked: I went from a weight of 290 (almost certainly more than that before I started weighing myself weekly) to weight in the neighborhood of 215-225 lbs. I got fit enough to take bicycle trips to small towns 20-25 miles distant. In the scheme of things I added running to my journey and completed a number of sanctioned 10K's. 2017 started out as a banner year for my continued progress. And the, midway through the year, it turned downhill. My weight went up into the 220's then the 230's and then the 240's in the space of just four months. I still rode my bike and ran regularly, but all the progress I'd made with my weight loss just kept reversing itself. I found myself giving the whine of so many people in weight loss programs, "But I'm doing the same thing I've been doing for months [in my case,years], how come all of a sudden it's not working anymore???"

I had been through so much in those four years. I was enrolled in my local YMCA in 2014, and when I reported that I'd lost 45 lbs in the course of the year they did a blurb about me for their online newsletter, "Another Y Success Story". In the summer of 2015 I rode my bike to the small town of Clearwater, KS, some 17 miles from Wichita (a feat that my granddaughter Savannah was quite proud to tell her friends about). Just before Christmas of 2015 a car ran into my left leg in the Walmart parking lot; I had to take time off to heal but then got right back into the journey. Three months later a lowlife jerk ran over my left leg while getting away after robbing me of my change purse (with all of $6 in it). Again, some time to heal and then I was back in the swing of things. I rode my bikes hard and long, and rode them until they fell apart or were trashed. My response was to go buy another bike and get right back onto the road.

So what could have happened in mid 2017 that would make me lose all that progress and then eventaully put the whole journey on hiatus?

I am pretty sure this is at least part of it.

On June 2, 2017, near the end of a bike ride, my mother called me to tell me my father had died. This was the day before I had planned to run the 10K River Run, an official part of the Wichita River Festival, and (ironically) the day before what would have been Mom and Dad's 65th wedding anniversary. Dad had been in failing health, so the fact that he would die soon should not have been a surprise, but the news was still a shock to me. I told the desk clerk on duty at the hotel I manage; she was pretty good friends with my son Travis and called to tell him, and he suggested to his son Jordon that maybe Grandpa needed someone to be with tonight. So that evening Jordon joined me at the hotel and we were together that night and in the morning.

I have detailed the 2017 River Run on this blog and also on my Facebook page, and I will come clean about something here that I did not say on either site: I was wracked with guilt over the whole thing. I wrote about how Dad was very much a family man (which he was) and how I was honoring his memory by taking part in the River Run and River Festival with my grandson. The truth was, I was trying to cover up my feelings of, "My Dad is dead and my Mom just lost her husband of 65 years and I'm galavanting through downtown Wichita with my grandson playing Soccer Ball Billiards and chowing down on overpriced pizza and lemonade." I had been a notorious no-show at family get-togethers and holidays; part of that was I was so busy at the hotel that I didn't take time off for anything, but another part was Wichita is pretty near 1000 miles away from Knoxville by the preferred roads of travel and I was too broke (or too cheap) to afford the air fare or even the bus fare.

The next weekend I went to Knoxville to join my brother David and his two adult sons to visit Mom; it was the first time any of them had seen me in person since my sister Carol's wedding in 1993, and in fact David's sons were 2 and 4 years old then. A running gag was that every hour or so my phone would ring, I would look at the caller ID and roll my eyes and everyone else would laugh. The people at the hotel were blowing up my phne because it was the first time in over a decade I wasn't there to put out the fires and answer questions: "Steve, where do we keep the light bulbs for those new lamps James bought?" "Steve, this guy has a reservation for two nights but he only wants to stay one night. What do I do?" (The laughs were a lot quieter when I got a call from an irate guest at 1:30 in the morning.)

I discussed my feelings of guilt with my sister Carol later on. She confessed that, the weekend I got together with Mom she was scheduled to take her recent high school graduate daughter Rachel to Colorado to apply at the Air Force Academy (not the sort of thing you can bail on or reschedule) and she was wracked with guilt that she didn't join us to visit Mom in her time of mourning.

Anyway… In 2006 I responded to my 27-year-old daughter's death by throwing myself into my work. I was salaried then and so I worked ridiculous long hours, at least once working over 1/2 the total hours in the two-week work cycle. I was running on fumes and fighting off exhaustion. So in 2017, in response to my father's death, I made the (I see now) stupid decision to just go on with my life like nothing had happened… "life goes on" and all that.

I made the mistake of not dealing with my father's death. The problem was, I had no idea how the hell to deal with his death. What was I to do? Sit down and talk with a friend or counselor about my feelings, maybe regularly over time? Go to a rock quarry with a sledgehammer and smash a lot of rocks? I suspect (it didin't seem this way at the time but I am very good at deceiving myself) that I self-medicated with food a lot more than I realized. Remember that "whine" I mentioned at the end of the second paragraph of this post? Truth was I was slipping back into my old habits of eating at fast food places and hydrating with fizz.

My father's death was just the start: Two years later my mother died, almost two years to the day of Dad's passing. I got the call from Carol the morning of July 1 as I was preparing to run the 2019 River Run 10K.) Of course 2020 was the year that damn COVID-19 shut down the world. Then in October of 2021 my ex-wife Teresa (with whom I'd been on good terms since our divorce) died of COVID. And then in February of 2022 my son Travis joined his sister and mother in death. I'd like to say he died of liver failure, but the plain truth is he died of too much whiskey. (As his mom's next of kin he had to tell the hospital not to resuscitate Teresa, and even though that was what his mother had told him her wishes were, he was despondent with guilt over it and medicated with alcohol.)

I was still exercising with the bicycle, but in the time after Mom's passing my weight climbed into the 250's and then into the 260's to 270's where they stayed for a couple of years. Then in mid 2022 my weight went over 280, was consistently there until the start of September when I for some reasom lost interest in recording my weight anymore.

It's been a year and a half since then. My bicycle had two flat tires and a rusted out drive train. My finances (or maybe I should say my priorities) wouldm't allow me to get another bike until just recently. My weight is now in the mid 260's… maybe I did something right between the Fall of 2022 and now.

But I still have to ask: Was the death of my father, and the deaths of other family members, the real reason my health and fitness journey was sidetracked? And if it was, have I REALLY dealt with it? Or like a chiming electric clock that no one replaces the batteries to, has the issue just grown fainter and fainter with time 'til it's at the point I just don't notice it now?

To anyone who took the time to read all of this: I welcome any insights or advice into what might really be going on here and how I might effectively deal with it.

March 17, 2024 - The comeback is on!

In this blog I have made many references to what was my favorite bicycle shop in Wichita,, KS, and that wasTom Sawyer's Bicycle Shop. Well, in the latter part of last year (2023) the owner decided to retire, and rather than turn over the reins to someone else he closed the shop. Tom Sawyer's had been a Wichita institution for decades, and when it closed the news was reported on the evening news.

Wichita has quite a few excellent bike shops, and when I needed my bicycle repaired (the tires had gone flat some months earlier) I took it to Bicycle X-Change, the longest-standing bike shop in Wichita. (I think that may have been true even when Tom Sawyer's was still in business.) The conscientious worker I spoke to brought to my attention that the drive train was also rusted out, and in order to make the thing rideable it would cost about $189. This was one of those $120 Walmart mountain bikes, and clearly doing the repairs was not cost effective.

That was a few weeks ago. I got paid this past Friday - lotsa overtime on the check - and so yesterday I went to Bicycle X-Change's east location to get a quality used bike. (Even with overtime I don't make all that much money.) I found this great 7-speed bicycle that suits my needs just fine, and so now I am back on the streets again!

I rode my bike home from the shop on E. Central Ave., about 7-8 miles I reckoned, and maybe I didn't set any speed records but I got some great exercise and took a few more steps in getting back into the swing of health and fitness. In fact I like the bicycle, and the feeling I get when I ride it, so much that I rode it to work yesterday evening.

What with the nicer Spring temperatures, I anticipate the people of Wichita are going to be seeing a lot more of the old guy in the orange t-shirt and the blue bicycle in the coming weeks and months.

I AM BACK (and Inspector 12 concurs)

Anybody else remember Polly Rowles? She was an actress whose most memorable movie roles were back in the 1930's in flicks like West Bound Limited and Springtime in the Rockies (both 1937). She had some minor roles in movies into the 1980's and also roles on soaps such as Somerset ad The Edge of Night. I regret to say she passed away in 2001.

But most people nowadays who remember Polly Rowles remember her as the no-nonsense Inspector 12 from Hanes clothing commercials in the 1980's. I am one of those people who remember getting a new pair of pants, reaching into a pocket and finding a slip of paper reading "Inspected by #17" (the number would vary). Apparently someone at the Hanes' ad agency thought it would be interesting to build a commercial series around one of these inspectors and show just how demanding they were and how good the clothes must be to get passed by them. Rowles' catchphrase was, "They don't say Hanes until I say they say Hanes!"

I have been thinking about that commercial a lot as I have started my 2024 resolution to renew my health and fitness journey. Yes, I slacked off. Yes, my health and fitness suffered for it. My weight is at an unhealthy level and I have lost a lot of the stamina I had before about 2022. But I am back now.

I have gotten in a few good-sized runs since the beginnig of the year. My speed is not going to set any records, even in my age group, but speed was never exactly my strong point even in my earlier runs. I am getting back to eating healthy and laying off the fast food and the fizz.

People who have read earlier posts of mine may know that I have lived with a lot of naysayers in my time. I am all too familiar with those who would tell me, "Come off it, Cobert! It's been two years! Who do you think you're kidding, thinking that you're still on any health or fitness journey? Get real and go back to your couch and your Bic Macs and fries! It's over!" It's that kind of talk that reminds me of Inspector 12 and inspires me to reply, "It's not over until I say it's over! And I damn well don't!"

You watch.

You'll see.

April 4, 2023 - No. I have NOT fallen off the Earth! (Yet, anyway)

Followers of my blog (who, I understand may have gotten a bit fewer in number over the past year or so) have probably noticed that my posts have gotten quite few and far between. Like I posted a Labor Day post last September and haven't posted anything in the seven months since. Some of my followers may have stopped following me, and I can't say I blame them. For those of you still following, perhaps you are wondering, "This guy was so gung-ho about his health and fitness journey. What the hell happened?"

I'll be frank: I think I've been kind of depressed over the past few years. I have slacked off on my exercise journey pretty badly, and my weight has gone up to nearly as high as it was when I began my journey almost ten years ago.

Many years ago, the Hanes clothing company had an ad campaign that I think was called "Inspector 16" Inspector 16 was a tough, no-nonsense clothing inspector, and her catchphrase was, "They don't say 'Hanes' until I say they say 'Hanes'!"

I feel the same way about my health and fitness journey. Yeah, I've been sidelined. And maybe I've had some issues. But, dammit, my journey isn't over until I say it's over! I've come back from getting hit by a car in the Walmart parking lot, and then three months later getting my left leg run over by a guy who robbed me. I shall come back from this, too.

A little news on what's going on here in Wichita: At the beginning of March, the owner of Tom Sawyer's Bicycle Shop (a business I have revferenced many times on this blog) decided to retire after 60 years in business, and the bicycle shop is now permanently closed. There are other good bike shops in Wichita, but I will miss Tom Sawyer's. On a more personal note, about a month ago I had my sleep tested and discovered I have severe sleep apnea. The test revealed I stopped breathing (with a "stop" lasting 10 seconds or more) on the average 63 times every hour. The same test showed I responded well to a C-PAP machine, so I am in line to get one soon.

In the past week I have gone out on a coule of short bicucle rides to get back into the swing of cycling. Today I biked the mile and a half to Sedgwick County Park, rode the 4-mile perimeter route and then biked home. A stiff southerly wind made the ride home a bit of a challenge, but I did complete the ride. Tomorrow they're predicting rain and colder temps so I'll probabl take a rest day. But I am coming back: I've done it before, and I'll do it again.

Labor Day 1972 - The Man Upstairs Did WHAT?!?

This Labor Day marks a most interesting anniversary that I wanted to commemorate (or at least write about) this year.

Fifty years ago, 1972, I was 17 years old and living in the Bible Belt state of Tennessee. During Labor Day weekend of that year, on and off I would tune into the Jerry Lewis Labor Day MDA Telethon to check out the entertainment amd to see how much had been raised to fight Muscular Dystrophy. The telethon itself was not without controversy: a number of people took issue with Jerry's very public ways to raise money for the cause. Also, many kids with MD, and their families. took issue with being called "Jerry's Kids". However, as my nephew Dan Cobert brought up in response to one of my Facebook posts, the Telethon at least meant Labor Day was here for SOMETHING and not just because "we need a major holiday between July 4 and Thanksgiving".

In 1972, though, the MDA Telethon had a special bit of notoriety all its own.

In the course of the Telethon, Jerry referred to kids with muscular distrophy as kids that "the Man upstairs goofed when He made them". (I personally remember Lewis saying it a couple of times Saturday evening going into Sunday morning. The timing of the comments probably didn't help matters any.))

The phones at the local (Knoxville) TV station carrying the Telethon were ringing off the hook with religious folks (mostly Christians, I'd guess) expressing their indignation at Lewis' sacrilegious and blasphemous comments. I remember when the show cut away to the local station, the local hosts were trying to keep the 1972 Telethon from turning into a disasteer. I recall local personality Carl Perkins saying something like this: "If you were offended by what Mr. Lewis said, we have the address to the Muscular Dystrophy Association here at the station; you can write to them and Jerry Lewis will get your letter. But PLEASE do not refuse to donate to the MDA or decrease your contribution because of what Mr. Lewis said. If you do not donate this year, you will not be hurting Jerry Lewis, you will be hurting children with muscular dystrophy who need the services and research that your contributions make possible."

I don't remember that controvery ever occuring again during a Labor Day telethon. I suspect there was enouugh of an outcry across the nation that MDA officials probably asked Jerry to cool it with the "Man upstairs" comments in future Telethons.

Incidentally, Jerry's comments came about 9 years prior to Rabbi Harold Kushner publishing his book, "When Bad Things Happen to Good People". Dr. Kushner was inspired to write it after his oldest son, Aaron, died from progeria, a rare disease that causes children to age rapidly and usually die in their early teens. Obviously (no pun intended) more orthodox than Jerry Lewis' emotional comments, Dr. Kushner uses the book of Job in the Bible to try to explain that in this world some things happen that God did not do and cannot or will not prevent. (It seems to me that conclusion is almost inevitable in a world where God has given His creations Free Will.) I know for fact that at least some Christians were quite vocal in their disagreement with Dr. Kushner's conclusions.

April 29, 2022 - Been too long

For those of you wondering, no, I did not fall off the earth. (Yet, anyway.)

The above is a selfie I took towards the end of a bicycle ride I took this afternoon. I rode to my bank to make a much-needed deposit, then rode around the neighborhood near the bank for a little bit, then back in the direction of home, stopping for a moment at the Kwik Shop (where I took the above pic).

My health and fitness journey has taken a beating in the last five years or so. Shortly after my father died in 2017 my weight started creeping back up. What I didn't understand was, it semed to me I was doing everything just the same as I'd been doing them since 2013: I was getting lots of exercise, watching what I ate -- okay, my eating habits werem't the best, but it didn't seem to me I was eating all that much more -- and I was losing all this ground I'd fainted in the previous four years.

This past Winter was another Winter of Our Discontent.My exercise has pretty much been riding my bike to work and back. Better than nothingm I'll concede, but considering my job is all of one mile from where I live, it was a far cry from day trips to Goddard or Maize. Plus, I missed a lot of days when it was so cold I opted to get a ride rather than brave the elements.

I think it's at least possible I am clinically depressed and haven't acknowledged it. A health care provider suggested it during an in-home visit a couple of months ago. I have a few friends at work who have told me they see the signs of it in me.

I have also had friends suggest that perhaps I have not dealth with the grief in my life. I lost my father in 2017, my mother in 2019, my second ex-wife (with whom I'd bee n on good terms) in late 2021 and my son (my only surviving child) in early 2022.  I have been challenged to examine myself and see if I have been dealing with the grief or just going through the motions and then covering up my feelings. My problem is, it's so hard to see the whole picture when you're in it. "Sometimes the very thing you're looking for is the one thing you can't see."

I'd like to think that, with my ride today, I'm ready to start getting back and regaining ground that I'd lost. But, as always, time will tell.

I actually posted this photo her on my blog back in April of 2020 on the occasion of my family helping me move to my new apartment. The man on the right of the photo is my son Travis.

It is with deep sorrow that I must announce that my son, Travis Atwater of Wichita, KS, passed away this morning of liver failure. He was 37.

All prayers, good wishes and positive energies for his family would be very much appreciated.

One of my favorite underplayed Christmas songs.

I posted 58 times in 2021

39 posts created (67%)

19 posts reblogged (33%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 0.5 posts.

I added 101 tags in 2021

Longest Tag: 41 characters

#zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance

My Top Posts in 2021

March 20, 2021 - Dear Tumblr:   I  AM  BACK!

I don’t have all that many followers, but I suspect a few of you were wondering why my posts have been sort of few and far between for the past eight or so months. Here’s what happened.

Back on July 1 of 2020, I rode my bicycle over to Towne West Mall here in Wichita to rendezvous with my granddaughter Savannah and take her shopping for an early birthday present. When we got back to the entrance, I discovered something funny: My bicycle, which I’d locked up with a cable lock, was gone, and a less expensive Huffy bicycle was standing there unlocked in the space I’d put mine. I don’t know if this was the thief’s idea of a joke or what, but I was not amused: I called the police and filed a police report, and also called Tom Sawyer Bike Shop (where I’d purchased it) and reported it stolen. I also got in touch with Mall security to ask if there was camera coverage on the bike rack (there wasn’t). So I made my way home and sort of stewed.

I do a fair amount of cross training, and in fact in the months following the theft I did a good deal of running. But cycling is my first love as regards fitness, and I will admit I was in a bit of a blue funk after my two wheels were stolen. This, incidentally, was shortly after my local Walmart had re-opened after its initial Covid-19 closing. I bought another bike from Walmart and it pretty much fell apart on me after less than five miles of riding. I took it back and got my money back and bought another one: same story. (I think the guy who usually assembles the bicycles hadn’t been called back into work yet.) I was in no position financially to purchase another high-end bicycle from a bike store, so I resolved that I’d have to do without and get a bike later.

Since then, my weight and my fitness have, uh, sort of suffered. (Perhaps you noticed from the photo.) I tried to keep up the running but I missed cycling terribly.

So this past Wednesday I got my stimulus payment. I decided to make getting a new bicycle a priority. So this past Thursday I went back to Walmart and picked up the Roadmaster mountain bike you see in the photo above. I’ve ridden it a fair amount and it hasn’t fallen apart yet, so I guess the guy who knows how to put bikes together is back at work. I feel hella better and plan on riding it every chance I can.

I didn’t report the theft here on Tumblr because I didn’t want to come across as a whiner - Let thy discontents be thy secrets as Poor Richard’s Almanack says - and besides, I was sort of hoping the original cycle would be recovered. But anyway, look out world! I am back and I plan on staying back.

(One footnote: It looks as if I am going to have to build up the mileage again before I do any on my “touring”. Even as much as I rode my bike, I lost a pretty fair amount of my long-distance training in the eight months I was without a bicycle.)

12 notes • Posted 2021-03-21 05:38:04 GMT

June 27 - July 3, 2021: Year's half over now

Here's what wemt on this week.

Sunday, June 27, I biked home from the hotel after an overnight shift. I stopped at Kwik Shop on the way home to get some drinks. Then I biked to Scooters to get another white chocolate iced mocha and caramel muffin, and then biked home to get some rest.

Monday I was up quite early to get another WCIM and muffin from Scooter's for Becky, and then to bike to the Howard Johnson. I didn't have to work that morning, but there was a new clerk there doing her first shift completely on her own, and the owner wanted me there in case she had any questions or something out of ther ordinary happened. (Everything went pretty smoothly so I rested for the most part.) Then I biked home.

Tuesday was a rest day.

The month of June ended on a bit of a sour note. On Wednesday I got a call asking me to come in and work the afternoon shift. So around two, I carried the bike outside to ride it to work. Then I realized something: the front tire was flat! So I got it back inside and pumped it up; it seemed to hold the air, so I rode it to work. I worked until eleven that night, and as I prepared to go home I checked my tire and (as I was sort of hoping wouldn't be the case) the tire was flat again. Just my luck, I had a slow leak. So I walked my bike home.

Thursday was the first day of July and I really wanted to start the month with a weight training workout. I was thinking of running to the Y, but Becky asked if I could go to Scooter's for another WCIM. So I aired up the front tire, biked to Scooter's for the WCIM and delivered it to the apartment, then headed to the Y for weight training.

It's been awhile since I posted a selfie so I thought I'd take one and post it. The yellow sunglasses were a gift from my son that I recently found: I like the style and color of these, and I don't really need the sun-blocking of the really dark glasses of my last selfie. Anyway, I did my weights that afternoon, and when I got done my front tire was still aired up enough that I could ride home.

Friday I was scheduled to work the overnight shift, but I got a call from the afternoon clerk telling me she didn't feel good and could I work that shift for her. So I aired up my front tire and rode in to work in mid-afternoon, taking my air pump along with me.

Saturday morning I got off at seven. The front tire needed air, so I aired it up and rode home with a stop at Kwik Shop for food and drinks. Then that evening I rode back to the hotel with the pump in my travel bag to do the overnight shift.

There's a saying that, if it's important to me I'll fid a way, if it's not I'll find an excuse. I guess riding the bicycle must be important to me becayse I'm not letting a silly little thing like a slow leak leep me from riding. I get paid the middle of the month, so I'm sure I'll be able to get the thing repaired then.

13 notes • Posted 2021-07-05 07:58:00 GMT

Sept 23, 2021 - Yesterday I finally got my shit together

Literally!

In mid August my MD decided I needed to be screened for colon cancer. They arranged for the makers of Cologuard to send me a kit to get a stool sample and send it to their lab in Madison, WI. It got to be a month and I hadn’t received my kit yet, so I called  them and they told me that for some reason it had been delivered to a CVS pharmacy a few miles from where I lived. So last week I went out there and picked it up.

I will confess to some reluctance in taking the test. I mean, I really don’t want to hear, “The disease has spread so far and is so virulent that we have to cut out most of your lower digestive tract and hook you up to a machine for the rest of your life, oh and you can forget about riding your bike or going to the gym or...” But anyway, yesterday I got up early and prepared to take care of business.

One instruction that gave me a little pause was the directive to not provide so large a sample that it wouldn’t fit in the collection bowl. I had to think, “Ya know, none of us knows how big it’s gonna be until it comes out. How the hell are we supposed to regulate something like that?” But, luckily, my “sample” was pretty much just the right size.

Then I had to do some other stuff like scrape the side of my sample with a little toothpick-sized stick and screw it into a test tube. Then I had to pour preservative solution on the main sample, screw the lid on the bowl nice and tight, prepare labels with my name, date of birth, and the date and time of the sample, uhhh... “manifestation” I suppose is as good a word as any. I had to put it back in the box it came in, seal the zip-up plastic bag (I’m sure the UPS drivers don’t care for the contents of these kits leaking out), seal the box and then take off the original delivery label to reveal the return label.

I was gonna have a family friend take ne to the UPS Store but that fell through, so I called UPS and they arranged for a pickup at my apartment building that same day. (This sample has to get back to them pretty much the nect day for the tests to be effective.) I set the package outside my apartment building, and a few hours later it was gone so I am confident it’s on its way to Madison.

I suppose I’ll be hearing from my health care provider soon enough if the tests come back with anything I need to be concerned about. I listen to a local Classic Rock station, and they regularly run commercials for Cologuard; one of the lines in the commercial is “Colon cancer is more treatable if it’s caught early.” I still have these underlying feelings of, “I shre hope I caught it early enough.” But then, I’m sure procrastinating and playing the game of “ignorance is bliss” would have been a lot worse in the long run.

13 notes • Posted 2021-09-24 05:09:42 GMT

Teresa Calton, Wichita, KS: 1946-2021

This photo is of Teresa Calton of Wichita, KS. We met in 1988, and in 1989 we married. I regret to say that, as seems to happen so often these days, our marriage did not last and we divorced in 2001. Even after we divorced, we were still friends and visited each other.

I was thinking about it and today, October 21, 2021, is the 20th anniversary of the day we divorced. Which makes what I have to write now a bit bizarre.

Teresa was admitted to Wesley Hospital in Wichita about a week ago with COVID-19. Even four days ago, she was getting up to use the bathroom, eating and talking with people. Then she took a serious turn for the worse. This morning our son Travis received word that she had been moved to the ICU and was on oxygen and feeding tubes. Then at 1:45 this afternoon the doctors called him to say he nneded to come in right then to make his final farewells. It was just before 5:00pn Central time that he contacted me to tell me she had passed away.

I find it this side of unthinkable that, after so many deaths, people still think that this damn virus is some hoax or conspiracy. Yes, Teresa was 75 years old and was not in the best of health. But this disease is real.

Rest in peace, Teresa.

19 notes • Posted 2021-10-21 23:16:34 GMT

20 notes • Posted 2021-07-02 21:30:17 GMT

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November 6, 2021 - I guess being old has its privileges...

This morning I got a ride to a parking lot just west of downtown Wichita. I had made an appointment to get my COVID booster shot, and my flu vaccination, that morning. My local health clinic was sponsoring the event, and the requirements were it had to have been six months since I’d gotten my first two shots, and I had to be 65 or over. I passed both criteria, so we rode out there around 10:30 in the morning.

Predictably, there was a pretty long line of vehicles snaking through the big parking lot. It was a little before noon that I finally got to the front of the line and got my shots.

I just wosh more people were getting (and had gotten) these shots.