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When I first began writing, most of it was of a poetic nature.  I was hurting, and I expressed it by writing about it.  I wrote hundreds of poems, most of which were very personal to me, although they weren’t very good.  Many of them were never seen by anyone but me and have long since been discarded.

As time moved on, my poems did too.  They became more varied, and at least in my opinion, occasionally better.  Oh, I still wrote some trash, and most of them were very frivolous, but every now and then I’d come up with something that I wasn’t embarrassed to have other people see. 

After a fashion, I grew thicker skin and wasn’t so embarrassed to have people read my stuff, even though some of it still barely qualified as trash.  

Speaking of time moving on, I wrote about that too.  The poem that follows is one that I considered to be a ‘keeper.’ 

TIME
©R.L.King2014 – From the book Wanderin & Wonderin

Time is not the enemy, but it’s often not your friend,
although time is often cited as the cure, your heart to mend.

Time is very precious, but can’t be saved for a rainy day.
At times we’ve all had dreams, that time has stolen away.

Time is often generous with the wisdom it will share,
time can be our tutor, teaching us to care,

Time isn’t free, but it certainly can’t be bought,
you cannot put a price on the lessons time has taught.

Time creates opportunities, time can take them away,
time can be the culprit, or time can save the day.

Time is never stationary, time keeps moving on.
Time can never stay, it’s here and then it’s gone.

When our time is running out, it cuts us like a knife,
yet time is but a measure, used to quantify our life.

Time waits for no man, it just keeps moving along
time to mend your fences, time to sing your final song,

TIMES   UP!!!

********

Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #501

About: Speaking your mind

“Sometimes saying nothing
… says quite a lot.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please check us out at:

http://www.amazon.com/author/richard-lee-king/
amazon.com/author/donnachandler

Back in 1991, when I first moved to Florida, I lived out on Hutchinson Island.  For those who are not familiar with the area, it’s the barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and The Intercoastal Waterway.  As the term barrier island indicates, that island more or less protects mainland Florida from the ravages of the ocean when it gets mean. 

I had a good friend who lived in a small trailer in Windmill Village, a small park located on the banks of The Intercostal.  It’s a place that caters to small trailers, most of which have a Florida room built onto them, as was the case with his.  It was also situated so that he could step out his back door onto a patio overlooking a really nice canal.  From that canal you could enter the Intercostal waterway, and go all the way out to the Atlantic Ocean.  For all intents and purposes, it was a perfect set-up for him, inexpensive, yet allowing access to all the things he loved, swimming, boating and fishing.

In those days, I had a 24-foot pontoon boat, which my friend allowed me to dock at his trailer.  We spent a good many hours traveling up and down the river on that boat, fishing and partying.  Although we never attempted it, we could have taken that pontoon boat up the Intercoastal all the way up to Vero Beach or all the way down to Jupiter, probably even further in both directions.

My friend was single and lived a pretty carefree lifestyle.  He didn’t work, having been injured on the job, and was living hand to mouth off from a small Workman’s Compensation settlement.  He spent nearly every day fishing or just lollygagging around and, to be honest, I’ll have to admit that I shared a good many of those days with him.  The following poem was a product of those days.

GETTING BY
©By: R.L.King – From the book Memories & Time ©2017

Storm clouds rising in the eastern sky
pleased with the way he’s been getting by.

Afternoon delight at the dawn of the morn,
enjoying the calm before the storm.

Lunch on the veranda, anything he can grab,
though at times he holds out for lobster or crab.

The fish are biting, his dinner’s supplied,
she’ll stop by later, for their afternoon ride.

Afternoon “punch,” wonderful weather,
a beautiful sunset, spooning together.

Ancient remedies there for the asking
a loner’s life,,,, multi-tasking.

A full moon rising in that same eastern sky,
still pleased with the way he’s been getting by.

*********

Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #266

About: Life

“Every endin,,,
begins somethin new.”

********

EDITOR’S NOTE:  Please check us out at:

 http://www.amazon.com/author/richard-lee-king/
Amazon.com: Donna Hale Chandler: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

By: Donna Hale Chandler

My husband and I were excited to finally retire and move to our little condo in Port St. Lucie.  We had no qualms about leaving Michigan weather behind and were looking forward to sunny winters.  Our trip south to our new home began Labor Day week-end, 2004.

We were floating on clouds as we pulled into the condominium community where my mother had lived happily for several years.  It had been a long drive and we had lots of boxes to unload and unpack.  Our bodies may have been tired but our minds were still traveling a mile a minute as we saw a new future on our horizon.

As soon as word reached my mother that we had arrived, she was at our door, spitting orders about hurricane supplies that must be gathered right away.  I must admit that I was rather annoyed with her.  After all we had serious boxes of ‘stuff’ to put away before thinking about batteries and water.  She seemed determined to dampen our good mood with lists and more lists of what needed to be stocked.

At last, we relented and ventured out to the stores for water, batteries, canned food – you know, Hurricane Supplies.  We were sure that we were wasting our time but it made my mother happy so how could we refuse.

During the night of September 5, Hurricane Francis came screaming ashore.  As power was the first thing we lost we could only listen to the howling wind and pounding rain.  The next morning, it appeared we made moved to hell.  It was hotter than hot.  Helicopters were in the sky watching for looters.  As we moved slowly from day to day, we began to wonder if we’d made a wise decision moving to No Electricity Land.

We learned a lot as we suffered through the aftermath of Frances.  Not only did we learn how important those Hurricane Supplies were, we learned that you cannot make a cup of instant coffee over a candle, we learned that MRE’s taste like the Food of the Gods when you’re hungry and of course we learned the importance of water – cold water was in small supply.

About the time the lights came back on and the a/c began to cool our upstairs condo, Hurricane Jeanne came barreling through, throwing us once again into the darkness and the heat.  Again, we were lining up for ice and water from volunteers with the Red Cross and other organizations.  Again, we were checking on neighbors that we’d barely met and instantly bonded with over a cup of coffee boiled on an outdoor grill.

Years later I can look back and laugh at the fact that my mother had to drive me to the water/ice lines as I had no proof of residency.  It became quite a joke that I finally was old enough to retire but not old enough to go out after dark without my mama.  As I look back on these memories both my husband and my mother have passed away but back in 2004, we were quite the team as we stood together again Frances and Jeanne.   

It’s been years since my sweetie and I first met and I’m sure I’ve forgotten a lot more than I remember about those early days of our relationship.  One of the things I do remember, however is that we were constantly having moments when we were both thinking the same thing at the same time.  I might say something and she’d say, I was just about to say that, or I was just thinking the same thing.  Lots of times we’d both start to talk at the same time and it would be about the same thing.  I’m sure lots of other couples have those same things occur, but it just seemed like it happened a lot, for us.  We started to call those moments GEMA’s.  That’s our abbreviation for GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE. 

Over the years, we’ve continued to have those GEMA moments and it still surprises us how often it happens.  One evening, during those early years one of us brought up the fact that we had been saving all sorts of little household hints that we had been clipping out of the newspaper or magazine articles.  GEMA!!!!   Me too, came the response.

As we discussed it, we found that we both had a file, (mine was a manila folder, hers was a shoebox) with dozens of those little tips randomly stored in it.  As we continued to discuss it, we both complained about the fact that saving them was almost useless, because you could never find the hint you were looking for when you wanted it.  That, plus the fact that most of the time you couldn’t even remember that you had a tip that would be useful for whatever your need might be at that particular moment, frustrated the both of us.  At that point, one of us asked, “Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a book or a computer program that would allow you to access exactly the hint or tip that you wanted, when you wanted it?” That question led us to the conclusion that we should do something about it.

After lengthy discussions, we decided to attempt to categorize them and alphabetize them so that we’d be able to find any tip on a moments notice.  After working on that for a few weeks, we come to realize that there are lots more tips and hints out there, if you take the time to look for them.  So, we did. 

After we’d spent a lot of hours researching, categorizing, alphabetizing and typing them into our computers, we found that we had around 1700 of them and we finally had them set up in a useful format.  We then decided that we had something that others might find useful too. Of course, by that time, each of us had already written several books, so we turned them into our first collaborative effort and published a book titled THE HINTS BOOK ALMANAC.  Shortly after we published that book, Sweetie discovered more hints stashed away somewhere in her files.  A lot more.  And we started thinking that there might be even more of them out there someplace.  Eventually we came up with roughly 1000 more of them that we hadn’t included in that first book.  More categorizing, alphabetizing and typing ensued, eventually leading to our second hints book publication, titled: THE HINTS BOOK ALMANAC II

EDITOR’S NOTE: Please consider checking out the Amazon pages of the authors of this site, by going to the addresses’ shown below.   Kindle versions of their books are available at only 99 cents.

http://www.amazon.com/author/richard-lee-king/
Amazon.com: Donna Hale Chandler: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

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Gramps use’ta say
©R.L.King2012 #244

“Friendships & secrets
ain’t never been compatible.”