In every life a little rain must fall…no, I’m not talking about the weather.  As we age, we begin to have little aches and pains, but, for the most part, we are usually able to press on.

 

Then, unfortunately, some of us reach a point where we know something is not quite right and must consult a physician.

 

I have reached that point.  I have an appointment with a surgeon in August. Not life threatening, just life adjusting.

 

Along with Covid, dealing with all this has made me dwell on doctors in general. Take, for instance, the old country doctor.  You remember Doc, from Gunsmoke, whose name on the show was Dr. Galen Adams. (I confess, I googled for that).  He was just Doc to the millions who watched him save, and lose, lives each week. He was loveable, sometimes grumpy, but always doing his best for his patients.

 

I remember having the German measles when I was seven. I woke early and didn’t feel well. So, like most little ones do, I crawled in the bed with my mom, which of course woke her up, while I drifted back to sleep. She woke me later to tell me that she had made pancakes and that I should get up while they were warm.  I rolled over and said I wasn’t hungry. That was her first clue that something was wrong.  She turned on the light and immediately started laughing. Needless to say, I was offended and started to cry. She brought me a mirror and I could clearly see why she laughed. Yes, I was covered in spots.   I remember a doctor coming to the house and checking me over.  A couple of weeks and I was fine, forgetting all about my first and last house-call from a doctor.

 

Back in the old days, (anywhere from 1700 to 1950) your whole family would see the same doctor for years.  Such was the case for the Hinton family in A Heart Made for Love. Doc Walters had delivered Mae and her younger brothers. He grieved when he was not able to save their mother, as she struggled with another birth.

 

Knowing Mae from the moment he brought her into the world enabled him to understand how to help her when she was raped. He knew the best bedside manner to use to soothe her and assuage her fears.

 

Doctors today are very specialized. Even your General Practitioner sends you to surgeons, or cancer specialists when necessary.

 

Does this mean today’s doctors are less knowledgeable? No, obviously medical knowledge has grown exponentially.  But it does show that in the old days, a good doctor was worth his weight in gold. Or chickens, or a pig or goat.

 

Have you ever had a doctor that you really loved, and they either retired, or you moved, and you had to find another?

 

Leave a comment and let me know.

 

Rainy Day Random Thoughts

 

It has been raining today, off and on, but sometimes very hard. Rain does several wonderful things for us. But, for me, it causes my mind to wander. When that happens, it is often surprising where it goes.

 

Have you ever read a historical romance and the couple had quick, amazing sex?

Well, let me tell you that did not happen!  Amazing, quite possibly, quick not so much.  Do you have any idea what it took for a woman to get into and out of those many items of clothing they wore? Just saying…

 

Oh, and let’s talk about bathing! Just how attractive can that man be after all day spent working in the fields, or fighting in those jousts?  Hauling water, even cold water, was quite a chore. And unless he was a “little” person, it took at least fifty gallons of water to fill a good-sized tub.  Unless you had a house full of servants, you know who got to haul all that water? That’s right, the little woman of the house. And he’s going to expect her to have enough energy left for sex? I think not.

 

Dishes.  Nowadays you load that dishwasher and push that button and walk away.

Can you imagine washing dishes in the old days without a bottle of Dawn?  I don’t remember what my grandmother used (and that was only sixty years ago) but I do remember there being bubbles.  In the really old days, think Saxons and Norsemen, they used vinegar and sand to scrub and polish their armor, so it stands to reason they would have used it to clean any cookware.

 

I could use a couple of new, light-weight summer blouses.  I might run to Walmart or Target and check out what they have to offer. Not so two-hundred years ago.  Most items were made from linen.  Linen is made from flax fibers. The flax was grown, soaked in water, stripped into fibers, the longest of which can be up to twenty centimeters long. Those fibers are then spun into yarn and eventually woven into fabric. If you wanted a new blouse this Spring, you had better have been working your behind off last year!

 

The next time you read a historical novel pay attention to some of these little details and see if the author has given enough thought to just what the everyday life of a woman entailed.

 

It has quit raining now. I can hear the thunder becoming distant. Time for me to gather my wandering mind and decide what’s for supper.  Any Suggestions? Thanks for stopping by!

A very GOOD explanation.

The following was sent to me as an e-mail. There is no signature, therefore, I cannot verify the validity of the writing or the statement that it was written by a LEGAL immigrant living in

Arizona. But the explanation is so spot-on perfect that, in either case, it needs to be shared.

"If you had tickets to a sports event, concert, Disneyland, or for an airline flight, and when you got to your assigned seat you found someone else was in that seat, what would you do? You would call for the person in charge of ticket checking and have the person in your seat removed. You would properly be asked to show your ticket, and you would gladly and proudly do so, for you have bought and paid for that seat. The person in your seat would also be asked for a ticket, which they wouldn't be able to produce. They would be called "gate-crashers" and they would be legally and properly removed.

Now, in this huge stadium called the USA, we have had tens of millions of gate crashers. We have been asking "security" to check for tickets and remove the violators. We have been asking to have better control of checking in at the door. We have asked security to lock the back doors. SECURITY HAS FAILED US. They are still looking the other way. They are afraid to ask to see the tickets. Many people say there is unlimited seating so what does it matter. It matters because no one should be allowed in for free when the rest of us have to pay full price!

In "section AZ" of "Stadium USA", we have had enough of the failures of Security. We have decided to do our own ticket checking and properly remove those who do not have tickets. Now it seems very strange to me that so many people in the other 49 "sections", and even many in our own "section" do not want tickets checked, or even to be asked to show their ticket. The only reason that I can imagine anyone objecting to being asked for their ticket is that they are in favor of the gate crashing, and all of the illegal activities that go with it, such as drug smuggling, gang wars, murder, human smuggling for profit, and many more illegal and inhumane acts that we are trying to prevent with our new legislation.

Is that what I am hearing from all of the protesters such as Phoenix Mayor Gordon, US Rep. Grijalva, or President Obama? If you are not in favor of showing tickets, (proof of citizenship, passport, green card, or other legal document) when asked, as I would do proudly, then you must be condoning those illegal activities.

Now, it doesn't get much plainer than this folks. And if the Bureaucrats in Washington who are going to sue "section Arizona" can't understand this, then they obviously are not educated well enough to hold the positions they have been elected to and need to be replaced in the coming elections......and that is where YOU come in. We all have a duty to this great Nation. A duty to take a long look at our leaders, decide if they are truly capable of, and willing to, represent the MAJORITY of the American public, and then either keep them, or VOTE them out!

Great News

Are you one of the thousands of Americans who have steadily been losing hope for our great Country? Do you listen to the evening news and think, “It’s just too much, there’s no way we can pull out of this sea of self destruction”?

Well, if so, STOP IT!! There is HOPE! Under our very noses, unreported by the secular media, a significant group of your elected officials are working tirelessly to build up America’s number one resource for strength, growth, and the freedom this Country was built on.

In a room, in the Congress building, a phenomenal thing is happening. Senators and Congressmen and women are praying. Yes, actually getting on their knees and asking God for guidance before making those monumental decisions that affect yours, and your children’s, lives.

Surprised? Amazed? I know I was when I first heard this. Beau and I have been listening to a set of DVD’S called American Heritage. We purchased this set from a website called www.wallbuilders.com . They have been produced by a man called David Barton. Barton is a Christian historian who has taken the time to chronicle the beginnings of our Country, and the tremendous impact that belief in God, Jesus Christ, and the Church had, on the birth of this nation. Barton has taken years, and goodness only knows how much of his own finances, to amass an unheard of collection of the original documents, personal correspondence, and books, written by our original leaders. By being in possession of these ORIGINAL documents, he cannot be refuted when he tells the world that the founding fathers were, in fact, almost completely made up of God fearing, Christian men, who believed that the Bible was the backbone of our strength as a Nation. And these men went on to craft the Constitution based on the teachings of this same BIBLE!

It was thru David Barton that I first learned about www.findroom219.com .

Room 219 is the room in the Congress building that is being used by these brave men and women to actually seek God’s guidance before performing their duties as YOUR representative in our government.

Okay, now you know. So what are you going to do? Just be glad that someone is finally on the right track to healing our ailing nation? If so, shame on you!

This is YOUR country. Your family members have served in our military, have given unselfishly, sometimes their very lives, to defend your right to worship freely and be governed by HONEST men and women.

There is bound to be something that each of us can do. This letter to each of you is MY beginning. I challenge each of you to find something to do to give aid to these brave men and women in Congress. If nothing else, take a moment to visit these websites. Pick just one name of one elected leader and write to them, telling them how you feel about what they are doing to improve your country’s government.

Ask your church leaders what they are doing to help our government. Tell a neighbor about prayer in Congress. DO SOMETHING to get out the message that hope is not lost, that this country is moving in the right direction! Obviously the news media is not going to shout this from the rooftops, but we as citizens can do our part to spread the GOOD NEWS that God is alive and active in our government.