JIM D. and ME pt3

That same year he was chosen as "Young Man of the Year" by the local

 Junior Chamber of Commerce and received a plaque which hangs on our living room wall. 

He was re-elected, without opposition, in 1959.

All this time I had to lift him in and out of bed.

When he became to heavy for me to handle he invested in a mechanical lift which saved my poor aching back. Later the other leg would be amputated due to poor circulation. (His feet and legs never grew like normal children.) Then we had to devise ways to make him presentable as he was constantly

going out with his numerous friends. We obtained two legs off store manikins, put socks on them and inserted them into oxfords that were fastened to the step of the wheelchair. (Remember we were on a tight budget.) Then his trousers could be pulled on over the legs and he was set to go. He always bought nice sport coats, shirts and ties as he liked to look well.

In the fall of 1960, while still Alderman, he ran for State Representative but was defeated. He ran again for Alder-man-at-large in the spring of 1961 but was defeated. By this time he had taken to signing himself as Jim D. and that is the way he is known to most of the people around town.

We managed to buy a home and he was always buying me something. When some of his brothers married and had children he enjoyed his nieces and nephews, doing fun things with them.

The sac grew and grew and soon filled the width of the wheelchair. This made the tire of the right wheel rub on the sac and cause an open sore. I was alarmed and called my doctor. He told me to wash it with soap and warm water. I did this and it healed to our relief. After that we were forced to fill in the sides of the wheelchair with metal plates so as to avoid such a

thing recurring. His seven year old business has grown and he now has a complete home improvement deal: windows, doors, awnings, canopies and even siding of aluminum as well as steel doors and windows. He does income taxes for others during the months that his home improvement business is slowest: January, February, March and up to April 15th.

Through all the ups and downs he has experienced he has always kept his head and remained a very friendly and witty personality. My husband had died nine years ago and since then I have depended on Jim for a lot of

advice and counsel when i had problems to solve. Jim is now thirty three years old and the sac fills the entire width and depth of the wheelchair causing him to sit at the front edge. I do not know what the future has in store for us nor do I want to know. I certainly cannot complain about the past. I think God has been very good to Jim D. and me. As anyone can plainly see, things could have been a lot worse.

tune in next week for the conclusion...now get off my dress!

JIM D. and ME pt.2

He managed to finish the eighth grade in the country and then we moved to town. We were not very well off financially so we all tried to do things to help out. My husband held a very low paying position as a maintenance man.

My son was always innovative and he started out making little plaster of Paris dogs, painting them and selling the same. Jimmy was at home most of the time and did taxidermy work to pass the time away and to make a little money. We tied tags for the Easy Washing Machine company and my wheelchair bound son could outdo us all. 

He would tie a tag and carelessly throw it aside on the table, later on putting them in order, while i would fit the tags neatly in a pile. Needless to say his method was better.

We then stuffed envelopes for various companies. We did not realize that we could have used a sponge to moisten the flaps so at lunch time we did not savor our food too well due to the taste of the glue on our tongues. If i remember correctly, we received $6 a thousand for the tag tying and we did thousands and thousands.

Gradually boys started stopping by to talk to him on our front porch and before my husband and me knew what was happening, he was being

taken places by these same boys. Soon after we moved to town my husband died.

Over the years we had accumulated eight boys and one girl. My son decided to go to business college getting there under his own power as the college was only a few blocks away from our home. He finished a course in

 bookkeeping and soon had a job working for a beverage concession. He became a great baseball fan. One summer he took on the concessions at the ball park and with the money he made there, plus $1500 he borrowed, he decided to go into business for himself. He was working as a bookkeeper yet but he figured he and his friend who co-signed with him could do this new business part time.

He was unusually bright and went into business with a friend selling combination windows. His friend contributed the use of his garage and the two of them made up aluminum windows and sold them. When this friend was transferred to another town, a fellow bought out his share and he and Jim kept up the business. They did well at that and he then branched out into aluminum siding. After a while the friend too left and Jim bought him out and continued to operate the business. He had to hire men to put the windows on the houses but he did the selling himself, being driven around by various fellows who had a little spare time and wanted to make a little extra money.

From there he went to a motor firm and it was while he was there he bought his first panel truck and hired a young man to drive him. He had to stay in

 the wheelchair even when in the truck and he did not attempt to drive himself but it seemed he never wanted for drivers. Of course he had plenty of brothers if no one else was around. They were more than glad to drive Jim (it had come to Jim by now) and could go most any place he wanted to go.

He made several trips, one to the World's Fair in Canada. His sister and her husband went along to take care of his needs. He made friends easily and always had a bevy of young fellows willing to help him.

He even had run for Alderman-at-large and was elected to the Council in our fair city of 25,000 in 1957. He held that job several years.

I neglected to mention that Jim had developed a tropic ulcer on the side of his right leg and in January of 1958 the leg had to be taken off above the knee. He was laid up for a little over a month and then was back in the harness again.

tune in next week for part 3...now get off my dress!

JIM D. and ME part 1

the other day as i was clean'n out my aunt's closest...

i came across a piece of history that sucked me (no NOT that way this time kittens) into a time warp...that was written by my grama Viola...pre-blog world...in her own words...that gave me a sense that some treasures are worth more than the pot of gold...this is a 4 part series

early on march 1, 1929 our third child was born.

It had been a very difficult birth. I was still groggy from the sedation so all the nurse told me was that I had a 9lb. 10oz. son then wheeled me back to my room for a much needed rest.

My mother and husband came in to see me and i remarked "You both look as though you have seen a ghost." She replied that she supposed they were tired from the long vigil and for me to try and sleep.

They were spared giving me an answer as later the head nurse came into my room, put her arms around me and said "There is something wrong with your baby."  She explained there was a sac at the base of the spine and mentioned the term Spina Bifida. I had never heard of the word. I was young and did not realize just what she was telling me
(how ignorant one can be at 24).

I figured it was some small thing that would be outgrown in time.  She explained there was an opening between two vertebrae and that the spinal fluid pushed out into a sac at the base of the spine. I remember asking her if it would be more noticeable as he grew up. She replied that it would not. I know she was trying to spare me feelings and in a way I am thankful she did not make me realize the seriousness of the defect.

Later when my son was brought to me I peeked down the back of his diaper

and saw the sac, about the size of my closed fist. We took my son home at the end of my stay in the hospital but first we had him baptized in the hospital chapel as our doctor advised, saying that sometimes these children did not live long.

We had a fifteen months old boy at home (we had lost our first baby, a girl) and realized he was paralyzed from the waist down. For some reason I did not panic but took care of him as i had my other child and things went along from day to day much as they had before. We had named the new baby James Donald but from the first, he was Jimmy to everyone.

At first the sac was the size of my two fists and did not present too great a problem when he was carried about. As he grew older the sac grew so we made several trips to the Mayo Clinic with Jimmy hoping something could be done but the answer was always the same "good home nursing" and each time the doctors there would advise us to "postpone the operation".

As he grew the sac also grew and soon it became more cumbersome. I then devised a harness and binder of muslin to enable the weight to be taken up by his shoulders and this worked out very well. His legs had been paralyzed from the start and could not be in any but a sitting position. Jimmy started pushing himself around the floor on his little bottom with his legs held out in

front of him. This gave me an idea. I figured out a way for him to get around and my dad was able to carry out my idea. I designed a sort of cart which we called the kiddie car. It was in the shape of a horse shoe but with a solid center.

My father made a low cart, just inches off the floor with swivel castors at the back and an axle with two 8 inch wheels at the front, this enabled him to wheel himself around the floor. This developed his arm muscles so he could scoot around amazingly fast. Jimmy could wheel himself around the floor faster than his brother could walk.

We always had to be on the lookout that he was not injured as it would not

take too great a blow to rupture the sac. The years went by and eventually he graduated to a wheel chair and soon it was time for Jimmy to go to school. We lived in the country the first fourteen years of his life and i was able to wheel him to school as the schoolhouse was on our property. He attended school just afternoons and I would push him there and then go get him. The neighbor children offered to push him over but i was always afraid someone would tip him over on the rough ground. He did fine in school and made a lot of friends.

Sometimes in the winter the snow presented a problem and I would tie a rope onto the front of the wheelchair and two of his brothers would pull while I pushed through the drifts. Clothing also was a problem as he was incontinent and I had to figure out a way to avoid the soiling of his trousers. I ripped the back seam of the pants down and then cut over to the side seam making sort of wings on the sides of the pants. He sat on a large cushion with a thick pad under him. His belt went through the loops of the pants and held them in place. He always had a large pillow across his back to protect the sac and to give his back some support.

to be continued next week...now get off my dress!

jingled jollies

it's that time of year again...fer all the holiglazed classics done right...

by the one and only...thee most hilariously underrated holiday hater out there...MISS JACKIE BEAT in her latest installment "WHITE MEAT OR DARK?...which sells out annually and at the same time...it boggles my mind that she ain't got her own tv special...YEARLY...SERIOUSLY....HELLO HBO!!!

speak'n of...with her recent twisted lyrical genius to Adele's "HELLO" titled "JELLO"...makes me absolutely bummed i'll be miss'n her latest installment this year but it made me reflect on the last time i caught her in Oprahville a few years back with a couple of friends and how i wish i'da worn my bejeweled colostomy bag…cuz she absolutely bedazzled the crowd in her annual tra-la-la event...serve'n up the ho-ho-ho classics…her way

there wasn't a dry eye in the house from what i couldn't see…so if you ever get the chance to catch her MISS JACKIE BEAT live fer the holidaze…YOU MUST!…TRUST ME...you'd be mad not to

how much holipraize does one person really need?...so on with MY story...

the follow'n day apparently i decided to find some locally socially retarded crypt keeper to take with my vitamin D and B-12 and a glass of freshly squeezed misery…cuz there i was on the corner of pity avenue and desperado junction at a place called Melrose…

at 10 am on a very brisk morn'n…after spinn'n the roulette wheel of casualty encounters off the informational highway...otherwise known as whoreville

to his credit…he was visually appeal'n from his photos he sent me…and i'm sure he totally looked like that…15 years ago!...but unless yer gonna hop on yer time machine trike to meet me in some parallel universe...but why do i always have to lather my cornea's with petroleum jelly just to watch you walk away?

age has NEVER been a problem with me…well unless yer a first grader or got a foot in the grave…but keep yer chin up…cuz i'm sure someone…
somewhere out there…would find you completely magically delicious

instead of call’n him out from the obvious…i decided i would do my last charitable act of the year and entertain my headache…i'd usually leave out his name as to not embarrass or endanger his non existent mentality…but he has nothing to worry about…as i don't even recall what his name was…and ya know what…

i might have to send a gift to the guy would invented the delete button feature on my cell phone…cuz i got plenty of good use outta it this year

so this crypt non keeper…from the very get go…even before i had...

a chance to take off the carcass wrapped around my neck...spewed out about some X that he used to go with to this restaurant but left him fer someone 10 years younger after 10 minutes

REALLY…ya don’t say? he left YOU fer someone 10 years younger?...stop me if i'm wrong...but would it have anything to do with you being so fuck'n socially retarded?...the only time you open up the X box...is when you've been invited to that uncomfortable forgy

either case...pity party…table of one…yer table is ready!

though this arthritic ape was narcissistically delicious…

turns out he had shit fer brains!

i was trapped in a homo coma from hell fer the next hour…this post party boi relic had the emotional commitment of an amazonian fruit fly

cuz ALL he talked about was his many X's that he had consumed over the past 20 years…and how he wants to stay with one person now…who doesn't wanna do "a lot" of chemically induced recreational vacations…or have the desperate need to go to every white…black…pink hearts…yellow moons…green clovers or blue diamond circuit parties anymore…or feel the need to become a wall flower at any given non heterosexual bar on any given nite of the week

as the bill appears…mr. anal wart calculates down to the last % the amount that is my portion…not that i have a prob pay'n my share mind you…even if he did ask me to have breakfast with him…but this guy alone could keep a therapist in a penthouse suite

ya know what...you walk'n cliché?…go tell Oprah…she cares!

cuz i sure as shit didn't…NEXT!

later that nite…i headed out to the local intoxication establishments in homoville with my non heterosexual entourage of 4…

we stopped at Sidetrack…the gayborhood hotspot to wash away our holidaze with some holiglaze amongst the sea of eye candy cold sores…but it was chilly out...so pick'ns weren't all that slim but let's just say if i were a fertile woman…i'da bore my 6th bastard child on the way to the powder room…but i left with my purity shield in tact thankfully...cuz i wasn't in the mood fer side of penicillin with my pancakes in the morn'n

next destination stop...the Lucky Horseshoe fer new visual stimulations...

to see the professionally trained drugged induced "exotic dancers" show

my vacational friend who came with to the windy city was like an explode'n atm machine towards 2 of the professional trained dancers one night stands who were as entertain'n as a box of newly opened crayons

until ya started peel'n away the tragic wrapper that was their backstory that you were forced to listen to...while make'n meatloaf fer the porcelain god

as nite followed morn'n and morn'n followed nite…it was rinse and repeat all over again…the second nite ended where it all began...at Hydrate

but tonite was all about flesh for fashion and though i'm not ashamed of the work i put into my body…i don't feel the need to justify my existence or acceptance by putt'n myself in some narcissistic display case in a room full of desperadovillians

(way'duh'minute...how did this one get in here? *snicker*snicker*)

everything was fine to until my local friend…who just oops'd himself into the overrated category…tried ripp'n me a new A double snake hole just cuz i gave a $2 tip on a $11 bill to the hot bartender Paul from the nite before

jesus christ on a cracker!

ok…i've worked in the wait staffed industry in the past and by all means that was NOT bein' cheap…regardless how hot he was…but of course my friend…now drunk…but still coherent enough to see what i tipped

threw a bitch fit over my less than 50% generosity…and demands me to give him a bigger tip…which in turn i told him he's more than welcome to…which ended up being another 6 bux thanx to him

though quite generous on his drunk part…this does not all of a sudden turn you into a viable candidate to make it to the bartenders bedroom...

that's his job as a bartender...to bat his eyelashes at any drunk atm machine barely stand'n before him...but gurl puuuhleeeez!...this is not proposal paradise ya freak!

i've been friends with him fer 20 years…and he…at times…reminds me how i said to him 20 years ago…how i would never work out when we first met while he was doin' it daily…well…if i knew 20 years ago…that he would turn into the bloated bitchfest barely stand'n before me now 20 years later…i would've never returned his call…but i guess people change…sometimes fer the better…sometimes fer the bloated...i'm just say'n

all in all…i was glad i came…and due to popular demand…i did…twice!

but on my next visit…would the overrated PUHLEEZ...
get off my dress!

ps...but to leave on a happy happy joy joy note...how cool is that...my blog has hit over the 200,000 mark after 5 short years...i'm have'n a total...

ra-ma la-ma la-ma ka ding a da ding de dong

shoo-bop sha wad-da wad-da yipp-it-y boom de boom

chang chang chang-it-ty chang shoo-bop

dip da-dip da-dip doo-wop da doo-bee doo

boog-e-dy boog-e-dy boog-e-dy boog-ed-y

shoo-by doo-wop she-bop

sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na yip-pit-y boom de boom

ra-ma la-ma la-ma ka ding-a de ding de dong

shoo-bop sha wad-da wad-da yipp-it-y boom de boom

chang chang chang-it-ty chang shoo-bop

dip da-dip da-dip doo-wop da doo-bee doo

boog-e-dy boog-e-dy boog-e-dy boog-e-dy

shoo-by doo-wop she-bop

sha-na-na-na-na-na-na-na yip-pit-ty boom de boom

a wop ba-ba lu-mop...a wop bam boom moment now...thanx kittens!