View from the Mountain

We had our first close brush with winter yesterday on the NC coast. http://www.crystalcoastnorthcarolina.us/content/ready-some-more-rain

The hardest goals are sometimes the best

I consider myself a child of the fifties.  One of the things that brings with it is the memories of the great space race and in the next decade the race to the moon.

My childhood memories can still take me back to the times I spent in the yard looking for spacecraft.

One of my best memories is of Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon.  I was camping on Ocracoke Island that week in the summer of 1969. 

I ended up checking into the only motel on the island at the time so I could watch the first steps on television.  I still remember the excitement.

Going to the moon and winning the space race were collective goals for our country.  I like to think that was back in the day before our country was taken over by people so political that their only real goal is staying in power.

Over my life I have faced some tough goals.  This next year I have given myself some new ones which are a real stretch. I know that the biggest challenge in making them will be keeping my commitment level high.  I plan to give it my best shot.

At the same time I am disappointed that the worthy goal of universal health care is viewed as little more than a political opportunity by one of our major parties.

Anyone who really cares about making our country and its businesses competitive ought to be  fighting hard for some form of health care that levels the playing field.

My three children were born in Canada, so before you start saying it cannot work, I know it can from personal experience.

Just maybe we will achieve that goal of health care reform so our country can proudly say health care is a basic right.

Thoughts of snow in Roanoke

Our Thanksgiving holiday in Roanoke was a memorable one.  All the kids made it home, and we got to spend a few days with our granddaughter.  By Monday most of the leftovers were gone.

The whole east coast just got whipped a little by the first storm in a December which Accuweather has decided to call a "December to remember." 

There is even a hint that Roanoke might get some snow this weekend. That would not be a surprise.  We even had snow on the ground before Thanksgiving in 2005.

It is hard to say if this will truly be a December to remember, but the talk of it brought back memories of November & December 1989.  It was our first year in Roanoke.  We moved from our temporary apartment housing to our home in early October that year.

While we were living in an apartment waiting for our home to be finished, Hurricane Hugo blew through Roanoke.  I can remember accusing my wife of sending the kids outside to play in a hurricane.  It was that night when we were watching the TV news that we figured out that the home which had been slightly damaged by Hugo was our home to be.  A tree had been uprooted by the hurricane.  It had fallen into the screen porch of our new home.  A man hired by the builder had been hurt while cutting the tree.  They had to haul him out of the ravine behind our house on a special stretcher that could be pulled up a hill. A video clip of the whole thing made the 11 PM news.

It had rained so much that summer, that our "backyard" had washed away three times. The ravine behind the house just swallowed it up.  Some homes built that summer had to have their hardwood floors replaced because all the moisture caused them to warp.

The snow that 1989 came just before Thanksgiving and stayed a few weeks.  We thought we had moved back to Canada. We were entertaining our first visitors from Maryland.  It was so icy and snowy, that we thought our visitors might end up as residents until spring.  After the snows came some ice.  It got to the point that all the neighbors got together and chipped a tire track down the hill.  We bought chains for all four wheels of our then new AWD Little Limo which just went to the auto graveyard.

We had lots more snow that year and a White Christmas I believe.  I wonder if this December will turn out to as memorable?