Author: dickking44

MILESTONE BIRTHDAYS
©By: Richard L. King

 Sixteen was a great birthday, maybe his favorite of them all,
he got to start driving,,,, meeting with friends at the mall.

Thirteen was also nice, a teenager at long last
and at eighteen he would graduate, putting high school in the past.

At twenty one he was legal some might say he’d come of age.
After that they’re all downhill, you just turn another page.

That’s the way he always thought, until eventually he hit 65,
then he really started believing that finally, he had arrived.

At 60 he got social security, thinking, “the governments paying me,”
after years of paying in, seemed he was getting money free.

He was drawing widower’s benefits, seemed more like a loan,
then he hit 62 and started drawing on his own.

But at 65 he really had it made, as he qualified for Medicare,
with the money he now saved, he could travel most anywhere.

Living in the best of times, he was like a pig in slop
and for the foreseeable future, he’d be viewing life from the top. 

BUT THEN ONE DAY . . . . 

Sweetie got a Jury Summons, causing his greatest exaltation,
cause he’d just turned 70, that’s no longer a part of his equation.

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Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #440

About: Management  

“Ain’t never seen an effective boss
who didn’t ruffle some feathers
every now and again.”

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By: Richard L. King

Several years ago I had cataract surgery on my eyes. Wow! What a change! Wish I’d have had that done years sooner. The only time I need glasses now is to read and if I’m really pressed and the lighting is good I can read without my readers.

After they performed the procedure on my right eye I knew before I left his office that I wanted the left eye done, but the doctor refused to do both eyes at the same time.   They scheduled me for follow up visits for the next 6 or 8 weeks, probably 4 or 5 visits in total. And of course, they charged my insurance company for every damn one of them. Each time I told him I wanted to have the second eye operated on, but he wouldn’t do it yet.

The biggest problem during that time was that I no longer needed my glasses for my right eye, but everything was blurry out of my left eye if I didn’t wear them. If I put my glasses on the situation was the same in reverse. I’m an avid reader, but reading for any length of time was going to cause a nightmare headache.

Then after about two months my doctor agreed to do the other eye. Now the whole damn process is repeated with 4 or 5 more follow-up visits, each for which they bill my insurance company.

It’s a racket, I tell ya. There is absolutely no damn reason he couldn’t have done both eyes within a few short days and saved half of those follow-up visits which my insurance company was on the hook for.

The worst part though was that 6 to 8 weeks before I could see out of both eyes with the same clarity. Even if he wasn’t bleeding my insurance company for every dime he could get out of them he was torturing me unnecessarily.

In the end however, it was all worth it and I highly recommend the surgery. I’d shop around for a good surgeon though and I’d get a handle on just how soon he’ll be willing to do the second eye.

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #439

About: Troubled Times

  “Even the worst of storms
eventually blows over.”

THE JOURNEY
©By: Richard L. King

a poet, a prophet, a pauper with a pen?
someday we may discover,,, can’t be sure just when.

words flow like magic, leading him home,
destination a mystery,,, traveling alone.

first, from loneliness, ink starts to flow,
describing the journey,,, to where we don’t know.

mind filled with worry, pockets nearly bare,
hoping he’ll recognize,,, when finally he’s there.

fun times, sad times, times filled with pain,
each time his pen gets busy again.

mission accomplished? not yet it seems,
one day maybe,,, for now he still dreams…..

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Gramps use’ta say
R.L.King2012 #442About: Life’s Lessons

 “Teaching rather than preaching
generally obtains the best results.”

By: Richard L. King

I don’t rightly recall which birthday it was, but I was real young and I had that jackknife for a good many years. (It was never just a knife, always a JACKKNIFE.)   I remember makin homemade slingshots, usin the big blade on that jackknife to do the cuttin. I’d whittle them down to size, then using the small blade I’d cut an old inner-tube into strips for the slings. Using my jackknife, I’d cut apart a pair of old worn out boots to get the leather for the stone carrier. If they had nice tongues, one pair of boots would give you enough leather for about 6 sling shots. Not that you’d need that many cause once ya had one ya liked ya stuck with that one till it wore out, but a good slingshot made a valuable trading item. Ya might even be able to trade for another jackknife or maybe a whetstone. If you used your jackknife much, you needed a good whetstone.

I also remember pickin up cigarette butts to tear apart and use the tobacco to roll a cigarette usin the thin pages of the Sears Roebuck catalog for papers. I’d use my jackknife to cut the page to size, but other times I’d smoke them in a homemade corncob pipe. I’d use the big blade on my jackknife to cut a corncob down to about an inch and a half and hollow it out usin the small blade of my jack knife. I’d use that jackknife to scrape the outside of the cob to a smoother surface. Then I’d stuff the bottom with some clay from the creek bank. I’d poke a hole in the side with the leather punch on my jackknife then, using the big blade, I’d cut a golden rod stem down to about 5 or 6 inches and poke a piece of haywire through it to make it hollow. I’d stick that into the hole in the corncob and seal it, once again using clay from the creek bank.   It made a nice stem for the corncob pipe.

I remember ridin my bike 7 or 8 miles to Pleasant Lake and back and occasionally “coonin” melons at “the old log cabin” then usin my jackknife to cut them up. No matter where I went, I always had my jackknife in my right front pocket and a few stones in the other for use with my slingshot which was always in my right hand back pocket.

Sometimes I would climb to the top of the maple trees in the back forty. It seemed like you could see for miles from up there. I’d light up my corncob pipe and sit there for hours enjoying the sights. Then I’d use my jackknife to carve my initials as high up in that tree as I could possibly get.

Sure was a lot different back in the days before smart phones and You-tube….

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Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #348

About: Attitude

“Bad attitudes lead to bad decisions,
but bad decisions lead to better stories.”