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A Little Trip

4/23/2016

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Yesterday I took a little trip – back to the past - to a better time. Don’t you worry that we do this too much? I don’t, because I understand “why.”
I went back about 37 years to a time when I lived on Folly Beach, an island off the coast of Charleston, SC. I had a little beach shack, worked as a teacher in another county, travelled 45 minutes each way to work, was cold in the winter (very little heat in my shack), and absolutely had a wonderful time. That is why I went back there.
I live on the Gulf Coast now, as many of you know, but as beautiful as it is here, it is not the Atlantic Ocean. Oh, and let me tell you I was not born on the coast, I lived in Memphis on the mighty Mississippi River. But when I experienced that ocean I was hooked.
Well, yesterday, I went back there. It was to a Sunday routine that I loved. I bought day old bread on Saturday at a discount bakery (you remember those?) and drove on Sunday to the beach. I walked out to a groin in the water and sat, waiting. I put out some bread and the seagulls arrived – really they swarmed. I had them on top catching bread that I threw, I had brave ones come right up and take it out of my hands, and there was always that “mouth” who sat far away from me and made a lot noise. I would try to reach that bird with a pitch, but many times another seagull got it.
If I was lucky, and the tide was out, I would see dolphins feeding right off the coast, really close since the water crashed right at my feet. I felt closer to God that I ever did in a church.
Just visiting there yesterday (in my mind) gave me a peace I do not have now. That is why we go back. If you are like me, retired, not as fit as you used to be, and in a situation that is not really happy, you go back to a time that was happy and relive it.
We, as seniors, are lucky because we have so many years behind us that we can find a happy time to remember. Our youth are just foraging ahead and will create those moments. They will not know, at the time, that they will remember these days fondly in the future.
BUT, I am intent on still creating some special moments now so that I can remember them at some time in the future (perhaps in my 90’s). Will you join me?
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Another test

4/6/2016

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Another test to see if link to Facebook works.
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test post

4/5/2016

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This is a test to see if this will post to Facebook
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Surviving the Times

4/5/2016

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For years I have had an Excel spreadsheet to monitor my expenses and budget. It usually extends for one year. I have the actual budget part where I list the monthly expenses subtracted from my income and any carryover from the previous month. I also monitor, at the bottom, my credit card balances with payments, charges, and interest each month. As I have gotten older, this has proven extremely helpful in keeping an eye on what it costs to live.
As my income lessened, my budget has become extremely important. I always have another budget in which I project what it will cost to purchase something I want or to make another move to a city or new place I want to live. Many times, this budget has plotted a way for me to get away from an unpleasant experience.
The names of these other budgets vary depending what I want to do. I have had budgets entitled “Moving from NC,” “Leaving Memphis,” “Moving to Florida” and such. Lately, none of the budgets has projected what it would cost to “buy” something I want. Right now there is no alternate budget. There is just the one called “Surviving.”
Many of you seniors who read this blog will understand the title of this last budget. Surviving is about all that we can do with our present income. Things have gone so well with the US that we did not even get a small increase in our Social Security. This increase rarely bumped our income up significantly, but it helped with cost of living.
Since there was no increase this year, my surviving is a bit harder. Food prices have gone up 20% in the last six months; my rent was raised $40 in the “senior” apartment where I live. (We have not received many of the services promised when we were lured into this place, and the service one year later is practically non-existent.) Gasoline did go down for a while, but now is climbing at an alarming rate. Luckily, I am now so poor that I can qualify for some benefits. They, however, do not allow me to live as well as I did one year ago.
So this is the plight of my fellow neighbors and me. We all worked hard and for many years; many of us had “retirement” savings that have fallen away due to illness or unexpected events. We are now living on the “compliments” of our government and they appear not to like us very much. Some even want to eliminate Social Security. These people are pretty wealthy, being Congressmen and all, so they do not understand how we seniors live.
If I were to live another 20 years, I do not know what will happen to me. I have no family to take care of me, and the way it looks now, no one else will provide any care. At times in my past I have jokingly said I would take my dog and live in a box on the beach. This might actually be my future, but I am sorry to say, I will not be alone. Many others will have to join me if things do not change.
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    I am a retired teacher and IT trainer who has travelled a bit and learned many life lessons.

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