Christmas Holidays 2007

Dec 2007 - Jan 2008:Made it through the Christmas holidays with even more stress than usual. Had the issues with the funeral, closing down the house, setting up the estate accounts, and then all of the activities of the holidays... The Hudnell Christmas letter was late -

Dad - Hospital and Problems

November 2007: It has been a long time since posting. Was called by the hospital in Roxboro that Dad had fallen in the back yard, had been seen by someone from the National Guard Armory, had been taken to the Roxboro Hospital by the EMT team, and asked what I wanted to do... After a lot ot thinking and some discussions with Sonny and Carolyn, the decision was made to take him to the hospital at Duke. He was admitted and we (Carloyn, Sonny and I) spent the first week of November driving from our jobs to the hospital to sit with him... He seemed to progress well and at the end of the week, Duke Hospital released him to go back to an assisted living facility. We considered several but decided on the Roxboro Nursing Home since it was in the same town and since his next door neighbor, Mrs Crabtree, had recently moved in the same home. Dad did not want to go to assisted living and it took a lot of convincing. I picked him up at Duke and drove him to Roxboro, by Mom's grave site for a few, last minutes of togetherness , by the house for a very short visit ("to make sure everything was okay"), and then to the nursing home. He seemed fine when I left, but the home called later to say he wanted to leave. Went back to the nursing home that weekend to spend some time with him and convince him that for the near future he had to stay at the home. Meanwhile, I was looking in to the Veterans Home in Salisbury, thinking it might be better for him to be with fellow veterans. Early on Saturday, December 1, we got a phone call that Dad had a suffered a serious stroke early that morning. Chris and I drove over to be with him - he was unconscious with no reactions to touches. The Roxboro Hospital advised that Duke would be a better place for him to recover if that was a possibility at all, so we had him transferred to Duke that afternoon. Visited with Dad on Sunday at Duke, and as before no reactions... On Friday of that week, Sonny, Carolyn and I met with the medical staff to be advised that he would not recover from his stroke and would have to be fed through a tube for the remainder of his life. We made the very difficult decision to have the tube removed, and then have him transferred back to the Roxboro Nursing Home for his last days... Chris and I went over the following Saturday to spend some time with him. Dad passed away early on Sunday morning, December 9th, and we decided to have the funeral on Sunday, December 16th. Lots of friends, family and Rangers from Ft. Bragg attended. A tremendous loss for me, Sonny and Carolyn...

Andy's Cow Pasture

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon after several days of cloudy skies and lots of rain - which we desperately needed. A great day for football... Pam and Michael invited us to go the UNC vs. Wake Forest game here in Winston-Salem, and we gladly tore ourselves from yard work, school work, house work, and work work to go the game.

The UNC team huddled well - and they lined up on offense well. Do they ever look neat and precise! They even lined up on defense in a very neat and orderly pattern ready to defend their goal from those dastardly Demon Deacons. Unfortunately, for most of the game they were stuck in place as if they truly had tar on their heels. Only two of the team's most loyal fans were able to bring some of their friends together to celebrate the team - and reminisce Lee's memorable words, "God bless the Tar Heel boys."

The Winston-Salem paper was not as kind to the boys from Chapel Hill.

Share the Road - Ride the Air

Spent the weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday at the American Trucking Association conference and exhibition in Orlando, FL. The show was less than spectacular in attendance and news. Small number of fleets came to the show and those that came only had depressing news.

But I was able to pick up a
free Mack bulldog for grandson Davis - and, yes, I am still considering getting that Geico car insurance. I was also able to take a quick bathroom break and then go outside the convention hall with some other non-productive trade show folks to see the space shuttle take off from Cape Canaveral - about 45 miles away.

It's a small, small world...

The Good and The Bad

Some great news from Kevin this week in that he has been accepted in to the UNC Study Abroad program (Burch Foreign and Domestic Policy) in Washington, DC for the Spring Semester 2008. I guess Washington, DC is considered foreign - maybe it should be...

Anyway, Kevin had been semi-sweating this one due to GPA requirements and competition from other students who might also be applying. But he was accepted and sent us a cryptic email about us now being a few thousand dollars poorer - as if that was about to start now!

Now the bad news is that the program this year may not be as popular as he predicted, so the program may not be run for the Spring Semester after all. I did see on their web site that the deadline for application submission had been extended to October 31st. Not a good sign. But we are keeping the fingers crossed as Kevin has very ambitious plans for the Spring Semester followed by summer school work at Georgetown if possible.

You want The News?

"You want the news? You want the news? You can't handle the news!"


Sorry, watched "A Few Good Men" last week and I just really like Nicholson's line about The Truth. And I had to twist it around when I was requested this past week to keep my blog more current...


Okay - what did we do this past weekend? Well, as you may remember I got a grape vine cutting from GrandDaddy's back yard after I heard an inspirational Sunday School lesson by Barry Miller about cutting back the slow-growing sprouts in early spring. This is to be done so that only the strong shoots live for the next season. My first vines had no problems on cutting back in that they did that ever so naturally - in only two weeks all growth had been cut back and everything was dead. So I started over with two really healthy vines one for Julie and Reggie, and one for us. I have been nurturing this vine through the hot summer with frequent watering and fertilizer, and it continues to live in a too-small pot.


This past weekend, Mom had her rehearsal and performance in Charlotte and I had some project time. So I started planning/buying/building a trellis for the grape vine. Everything went well with buying and cutting. When I began the temporary assembly to sort of get it in place, one of the very large boards fell and hit me in the back of the head. Only a little bit of pain until our new next door neighbor warned me to have my head looked at because blood was pouring down my neck. Then the pain really started, and everything was a blur. Mom finally got the blood stopped but it was messy for a while. I have the beginnings of a really nice trellis - which Mom has continously said that we do not need. What I do not need is the new headache. The trellis only looks crooked in the photo. I must have been standing on the side of a hill.


I also planted more grass seed this weekend on that small strip of dead grass between our natural area and the new "Becker's "driveway. I am convinced that with constant care, water, and fertilizer that I can develop an area that will need cutting every 3-4 days. What is wrong with this news?


As mentioned, Mom had her rehearsal and then performance in Charlotte this past weekend while I was working and Julie/Reggie/Davis/Kevin/Pam/Michael/Clint/Kathleen were pushing UNC to a hoped-for victory over USC. (It was a great game even though our Carolina did lose...) Mom knew that she would also be going to Gaffney, SC (Just past the Big Peach on I-85) on Tuesday night for a second concert. Good for the money but not for the schedule. So I agreed to go down with her as the dummy passenger in the car so she could go at break neck speed in the Odyssey. Unknowingly, she changed the route after my agreement so she no longer needed an auto dummy (after I had practiced this role for two days.) So we went Winston-Salem ->Hickory->Gastonia->Gaffney and got there in about 3 hours. Listened to concert # 4067, and was really pleased to hear the back-row talk about the small lady playing the violin with the straight-back, front-of-the-chair posture. I thought I knew who they were talking about - the one in black. Got home in about 2 hours - go figure. Mom got to do seating charts, rehearsal schedules, lesson plans, key words, etc. I got to practice my dummy driver role. More later after I get my head re-checked and calibrated.

The Emperor and Empress Have No Clothes

Saturday, October 6th - Parents' Weekend at UNC

Went over to Chapel Hill to take a load of stuff and visit with Kevin. Not sure if he really wanted us or the items that we took over... On the way, we had to stop in Graham, NC to find a Bank of America to make an urgent deposit to keep the family home in Spruce Pine in the family. Just kidding - had to pay the tree guy to cut down some major wood before it landed on the house... With the all-encompassing availability of information on the Internet, found a branch office in Graham that would be open when we got there. Eisenhower would have been proud of the planning! Got to Chapel Hill early so naturally had to stop at Talbots to see what clothes were in inventory at size_ _ _ _ for Chris.

Unsucessfully finished that shopping trip, found a parking place right in front of Kevin's dorm (not easy on a home game weekend!), then found Kevin. Either he wanted to take us on a typical school week walk to his classes or we forced him to take the march (forced march). If you could see his sandals, you would think he has been walking across the world's worst gravel pit! The photo does not do justice to those untreaded shoes. Anyway, we saw the buildings and got a great feet feel for distances and times.

Went to eat at the Mediterranean Deli where all had great Middle Eastern food washed down with Middle Eastern Sprite. Of course, Middle Eastern ice cream followed from the local yogurt shop.

From there it was a frenzied clothes shopping trip for Kevin and then Chris and then Kevin and then Chris. You get the picture... We did conclusively determine that Kevin is about .75" too short for a regular sport coat and about .75" too tall for a short sport coat. This was confirmed at Macy's, Joseph Banks, Belks, etc. And we

determined that Chris is too short for most of the clothes that are

available at most of the women's stores at the SouthPointe shopping mall. And we proved once again that I am too short in patience for a lot of clothes shopping...

Following the shopping we ate at Big Jim's Barbeque to see if we could correct everyone's size problems. It is called Big Jim's for a reason. Large portions but the correction was not completed. We made a great start. Delivered Julie's 10-year unused bike to Kevin under very strict contractual terms. And then a very tired trip home. Clothes shopping by definition just plain wears me down... The emperor did find a sport coat and is now ready for fall events. Empress found nothing but do not tell her.