Tuesday, January 24, 2012

"Where have all Ya'll Been"?

Some of us “old timers” remember a popular song by Johnny Rivers with which we ground a lot of cornmeal  into the hardwood floors of various Texas “honky-tonks” during the 60’s and 70’s.
I hadn’t thought of this old favorite for many years until I was looking for a topic for my return to the “blog-us-fear”.  Most have probably not noticed but I have been a little slack in keeping up with my posting and commenting on all my favorite blogs, but those of you who may have notice my absence, I figured I would kind of fill in the blanks of “how come”this has been.
Christmas is noted for being a time for surprises.  We had a great Christmas day.  I cooked a dressing and “The Boss” and I added all the extras and took lunch to her 92 year old Dad, who still lives at home.  We had a grand time.  The girls were going to gather at our house later Christmas day, so we returned home and started the “dressing routine” all over again. My goodness, the grandkids were a joyous bunch.  Squealing and a hollerin’, jumping, riding in the new John Deere sideboard wagon, American girl doll sleigh riding, cap guns along with a long list of other gadgets. 
All tuckered out, the kids, and some adults hit the hay pretty early.  The Boss and I usually stay up with the bunch that likes to talk and visit.  This is always a pretty good size group, but finally around 1:30 am everyone finally gave in to weariness.  That cool sheet on my bed felt great.  The Boss takes longer to get her list covered so she was still up around 2:00am, when I woke up.  No need to cover all the technical parts of my self-diagnosis, but I will jump to the part where I said, “Boss, meet me in the van, I need to go have my blood pressure checked.”  With little commotion, I told my youngest daughter, “don’t wake the others, I am going to have my BP checked and we will call you.  You can explain if anyone wakes up.”
Skipping over the details of the tubes, wires and vampire visits from the ER room, the next morning the cardiologist visited and said we would do the “dye routine”, but he thought he could treat the heart attack with just medicine due to the fact that I had immediately take a couple of aspirins on the way to the ER and fast reactions in getting to the hospital, damage seemed to be less than usual. A second option would be placement of one or more stints, or a less likely would be a bypass operation.  The next morning, we did the ”dye routine” and surprise, surprise I won what was behind door number 3.  He showed me the picture of the procedure’s results and he didn’t have to do much explaining.  Friday, I took a three- four hour nap while I received a triple bypass for a late Christmas present...
And you are thinking, ”What the hell does that have to do with Johnny Rivers?”  The next day, The Boss was showing me the “dye” picture again and I pretty much knew that at some point I would be writing this blog and out of the blue came a line of the chorus from this old Johnny Rivers song.  The publishers are just going to have to sue me for changing the words, but these changes reflect perfectly with what I thought at that moment.

                        So ta-ack a goo-ud look at my face

                You see my smi-ile, it’s back on my face

                Now look closer, it’s easy to trace

                “The tracks of My Years”...

(not actual pic,  The Boss has the real one somewhere,,lol)