Nashville

22 April 2014

What a day this has been. We had an appointment for 7:00 AM at a tire company to get the front tires trued and balanced to hopefully get rid of the vibration in the front of the bus. When we raised the leveling jacks one of them "popped" and the bottom separated from the cylinder. While recycling them, the one that had lost it's foot impaled itself in the ground. Darn! we couldn't move, -period!. A call to Good Sam ( same as AAA but only better--more RV oriented)(NEVER get AAA for a RV--they can't service you properly) got a a service person rather quickly. Meanwhile Tommy (the campground owner) and I  used a long  pry bar to dig under the cylinder and pry it upward while having the system try to retract it.We got it part of the way and then the Good Sam service person showed up and finished the raising and got the foot back on. We finally got to the tire company around 10:00AM.

While the bus was being worked on we visited with John and Katheryn Smith. John and I were stationed together in VF-101 in Key West  from 1963-1966. I checked into the squadron on November 23, the day President Kennedy was assassinated. John and I were both 2nd Class Petty Officers(AO2) and we both got promoted to First Class (AO1) while there. John,  and I were quite close friends. In fact, John worked part time for Sears when they opened their new store in Key West. Someone turned in a broken bicycle (box was damaged in shipment) and instead of throwing it in the trash, he gave to to me for my oldest son, Bobby. Katheryn was in a  Concentration Camp in WWII in Bulgaria and was one of the fortunate few to survive. She wished she had had time to tell us of her years in the camp. She mentioned she had two photo  albums, one of the horrible time and one of her family.

Boomer met some of his own kind today. John's neighbor had a couple beagles and they all met at the fence and barked and howled. Hope the video posted here comes through. It's a "growl"

We also had a phone call from my two sisters, Anne and Darlene in Virginia. How wonderful it is to talk with them. We miss them a lot and they are in our thoughts and prayers every day. Talked with son Demp Jr (Jack) and he and his mom are  doing well also.

Springtime in Tennessee is a  beautiful time of the year. The White and the Pink Dogwoods are as gorgeous as in Virginia. The air is fresh and sweet, the fields are lush and green and the pastures are full of horses and cows.grazing the sweet grass. All the trees are budding and flowering  Every where you look you can see the beauty of what GOD created for all of us  to enjoy. The past few  days have been sunny and clear as well as warm. Just plain beautiful.