Ask Granny
June 14th, 1998

06-14-98

Hello my friends, I wish you well - Have you been wondering why you haven’t heard from me? Well it’s a long story and it would take much too long to tell it. My friend Vivian said if I’d come down there to see her she would fulfil a lifelong dream of mine and take me to see the ocean. Said we’d leave her home in Augusta, GA. and go to this beachfront home of a friend to pick up shells then we’d go to this great place in North Carolina to get some driftwood. I had told her it wouldn’t take me long to look at the ocean- water is water, right? I gave it a lot of thought and couldn’t come up with that much energy. Riding the bus sounded mighty tiring and I would have had to change planes in Atlanta if I flew. Been there, done that Wore me out, and that was about 15 years ago.

Well, Vivian generously agreed to drive up here for a visit—as she has been doing every year or two for that 15 years. She’s my once-in-a-lifetime-friend. We had a great time even though I felt bad - since she doesn’t expect to be treated like "company". We went wildflower hunting, and to flea markets, antique shops, yard sales and lots of restaurants! Bear just kind of hung in there the best he could, and enjoyed talking to Viv whenever we were home when he was here. I think Richard put a picture of me and my pal on the "net" in case you want to meet her. She’s the one wearing red.

This isn’t turning out to be too short a story, is it? Well anyway, I went from not feeling good to active pain one day and have been going the medical route every since. So far we’ve ruled out kidney stones and Lyme disease. I felt better for a few days but it’s back, whatever "It" is. The Grand Kids have been on vacation all through this deal so I haven’t had that distraction. They’ll look like they’ve grown a foot taller, I’m sure. Now I’ll have some help picking the blueberries, and red and black raspberries, won’t I? When they were little it was very hard for them to understand that some berries were picked when they got red, some berries had to turn from red to black and some berries were ripe when they were blue! A few of the tame blackberries are ripe, also. After the Lyme disease scare I don’t know if I’ll be wallowing in the wild blackberry patch very much or not!