So much in life escapes us.
We do not,
Nor cannot understand why
Things happen.
If I have learned anything in my short time circling
Our star,
It is that there is no need to lament ‘things that happen’.
Of course it is human nature to worry,
To try and plan for events and contingencies,
But in reality and in ALL my experiences,
I’ve learned that
If you make a plan for something more than a few days in
The future,
Something inevitably happens to change the
Plan,
Usually in ways so that it is unrecognizable from the
Original.
No, it is best to live life day by day,
Rolling with
What happens as it happens and enjoy the ride.
You will most certainly meet some interesting
People this way.
And if you keep your eyes
And your mind open,
You can usually
Spot the bad apples before they
Can spoil the whole bunch.
Keep your life open to New things.
Learn,
Experience new Things, and you
Will not grow Old,
At least Not in Spirit.
“What I have learned”
but can't quite put into practice,
yet
by
Jerry E Smith
©1/4/16
Typewriter Photo source
Originally posted here
To some, this post may now seem to be me making myself out to be some sort of 'godling' or angelic being that HE would go to such trouble on my behalf.
I really don't think I am anything special, but when I look back on my life, I realize that I REALLY should not be here.
So I have come to show/delineate/describe why I think I've lived such a blessed life.
A. I was born in 1955. My mother had been told 8 yrs earlier after the birth of my sister Linda, that she (mama) could no longer conceive. So for eight years, mama and daddy "played freely" without worrying about another pregnancy.
She went to the Dr to see why she was gaining weight. The Dr said:
"Why Margaret, you're Pregnant!"
I can just hear her now, "But you said...😡 "
The whole time she carried me, she never stopped having her monthly period, the last 3 months she had to stay in bed with the foot of the bed propped up. (gotta remember, mama was 39 yrs old and had already given birth to 6 children, she'd lived through the great depression and had lived a relatively hard life, so for her age it was uncommon, if not dangerous for her to get pregnant)
When I was born FULL TERM, at 6 lbs even, the Dr told mama:
Margaret, I've seen many women have LESS problems than you have had carrying their child and LOOSE IT, so for Jerry to be born full term... well lets just say,
The Lord Wants That Baby Here for some reason!
I heard that all my life.
B. At about the age of 2, I got the ORIGINAL 'live virus Polio vaccine'
Apparently they didn't quite kill it, because I developed Polio, and for two weeks my right side was paralyzed.
But my god given immune system overthrew the weakened virus. I was told I had a lifetime immunity to Polio.
C. a few weeks after getting over that paralysis, (I'm still a baby remember?) I got up from a nap, and went looking for mama. My sister Linda was supposed to be watching me, but she was on the phone, doing what a 10-11 yr old girl does, TALK.
I went out the back door of our kitchen (we lived above a gas station my daddy owned) and started down the steps to where mama was working in the office of daddy's mechanics shop.
My weakened right leg gave out, being so small I went UNDER the railing of the stairs and fell from a second story height, landing on my head on a bunch of scrap metal (daddy was a master welder as well)
8 stitches, lot of blood. But it was really a superficial wound after all.
But I changed (I'm told) overnight, from a baby who was good natured, not fretful, ate well and slept through the night,
to the opposite.
A whiny, cranky, crying all the time child with intestinal problems etc.
I can remember (they say I shouldn't be able to, but I do) not being able to sleep unless I was in a fetal position on my hands and knees.
Mama took me to all the Dr's she could, no one could find any cause for such a sudden change, one of them gave her a prescription for tranquillizers.
Mama (who had trained as a nurse) could not in good faith, give a 3 yr old child those drugs, so as a last resort, she took me to a Chiropractor who had just opened a practice in our town.
He took xrays of my spine, and said:
"There's the problem, his spine is jammed, there is virtually no space between his vertebrae"
I hated going to him at first because it hurt so bad, but after a time,
I looked forward to it.
I got over all that cranky colicky baby bit, but I remained a runt.
Just as I was beginning to get the prepubescent growth spurt, I started another round with him, and I grew rapidly for a few years.
I had stretch marks in my groin and armpits from the rapid growth of my arms and legs.
D. Being the youngest of 10, meant that by the time I was 11, everyone was long gone, married and had their own families, which in turn meant there was more money to be spent on me.
I got braces to straighten my teeth, I got piano lessons etc...
At age 16, I had my FIRST solo trip to Savannah Ga (60 miles away) on the way home I had a wreck. It broke my lower jaw, not the ear-to-ear mandible part, but that ridge of bone that sticks up where the roots of teeth grow. (This was LONG before seatbelts)
The wreck happened at night, my friend and I instinctively crawled out of my family car in the dark (we were in a ditch)
They told me that if I had not had those braces on, I would have spit out that chunk of bone and flesh, and lost those teeth.
As it was, the wire kept it all in my mouth, and indeed the oral surgeon used that wire and one he inserted as a sort of 'cast' to hold things in place as it healed.
E. I had the "Mumps" at age 17, normally a child hood disease. It is an infection of the salivary glands at the back of the mouth, usually just a sore throat for a child, but there was a danger of high fever the older you were.
I was in bed, delirious with fever for about 8 days. I SHOULD have been in a hospital, but we didn't have one then. Besides, mama was a nurse, she could call the Dr and Pharmacist and say "I need this" and they would give it to her.
Mama had moved me back upstairs to the room next to theirs while I was sick. Kept a light on in my room.
I remember waking up, totally without energy, thinking, "I'm gonna throw up" and I didn't care.
I lay flat on my back and vomited. Went back to sleep
Some time later I woke up again with a little more clarity and rolled over.
Mama, with that "Mama Radar" that is so uncanny, woke up, found me, rolled me over to change the sheets and clean me up.
I should have died then, aspirating my own vomit, but I didn't.
Another blessing, I didn't enjoy the bags of ice mama kept in my groin, hoping to keep me from being sterile (the fever)
Jumping forward in time
F. after many years of drug and alcohol abuse, and finding myself alone in the house (mama had left the house to me, and left me to move in with a sister)
I tried to commit suicide. I drank a bunch of booze, smoked the last of the crack cocaine I had, took some pills I thought would be the end of me, and laid down to die.
I didn't want to go without getting some forgiveness, so I started calling various pastors.
Long and short of THAT story was that I was taken to the ER at our local hospital
(NOW we had one)
They had called a suicide counseling service at an inpatient rehab facility in Statesboro (about 20 mi away) and while waiting for that person to arrive and evaluate me, the pulled the curtains, dimmed the lights so I could rest.
Druggies ain't stupid.
I pulled out my IV, went to the drug cart which (GASP) was unlocked, and went shopping. I drank down a whole IV bottle of liquid Valium, and anything else that LOOKED like it might be an opiate.
The last thing I saw was this SMALL vial, that read "NARCAN"
I'd never heard of that, but I reasoned that NARC was for Narcotic, and since it was such a little bottle, it must have been POWERFUL.
~
It was the ANTIDOTE to everything I had just taken!!
They now pass it out as a Nasal Spray to save people in overdose situations.
§
WHO do you think guided my hand to the ONE bottle in there that saved me?
still I kept using, and in November 2006, I weighed 123lbs.
I was riding my bike 20+ mi a day in search of drugs, work to buy drugs and/or places I could sleep and stay warm, usually in or under abandoned buildings.
But I was never abandoned
G. After I began my recovery in 2007, I was trying desperately to make amends and STILL keep on the path. I lost my way a few times, but since 2007, people have GIVEN me
G/a. a brand new electric Yamaha keyboard
G/b. a whole set of dishes, flatware, coffeemaker, toaster oven
Microwave, lots of new clothes,
one opportunity after another to help both myself and others.
G/c computers, microphones, mixing boards, tools for yard work
G/d furniture, and now after much trials and stress, I have a decent income from my disability, therefore I now have my own home, I can buy things when I want/need to.
Yes my friends,
I have been and remain blessed
For which I am forever grateful.
A life filled with Blessings
by
Jerry E Smith
©01/04/2022
Images sourced, or original
here @queenstarr
We do not,
Nor cannot understand why
Things happen.
If I have learned anything in my short time circling
Our star,
It is that there is no need to lament ‘things that happen’.
Of course it is human nature to worry,
To try and plan for events and contingencies,
But in reality and in ALL my experiences,
I’ve learned that
If you make a plan for something more than a few days in
The future,
Something inevitably happens to change the
Plan,
Usually in ways so that it is unrecognizable from the
Original.
No, it is best to live life day by day,
Rolling with
What happens as it happens and enjoy the ride.
You will most certainly meet some interesting
People this way.
And if you keep your eyes
And your mind open,
You can usually
Spot the bad apples before they
Can spoil the whole bunch.
Keep your life open to New things.
Learn,
Experience new Things, and you
Will not grow Old,
At least Not in Spirit.
“What I have learned”
but can't quite put into practice,
yet
by
Jerry E Smith
©1/4/16
Typewriter Photo source
Originally posted here
To some, this post may now seem to be me making myself out to be some sort of 'godling' or angelic being that HE would go to such trouble on my behalf.
I really don't think I am anything special, but when I look back on my life, I realize that I REALLY should not be here.
So I have come to show/delineate/describe why I think I've lived such a blessed life.
A. I was born in 1955. My mother had been told 8 yrs earlier after the birth of my sister Linda, that she (mama) could no longer conceive. So for eight years, mama and daddy "played freely" without worrying about another pregnancy.
She went to the Dr to see why she was gaining weight. The Dr said:
"Why Margaret, you're Pregnant!"
I can just hear her now, "But you said...😡 "
The whole time she carried me, she never stopped having her monthly period, the last 3 months she had to stay in bed with the foot of the bed propped up. (gotta remember, mama was 39 yrs old and had already given birth to 6 children, she'd lived through the great depression and had lived a relatively hard life, so for her age it was uncommon, if not dangerous for her to get pregnant)
When I was born FULL TERM, at 6 lbs even, the Dr told mama:
Margaret, I've seen many women have LESS problems than you have had carrying their child and LOOSE IT, so for Jerry to be born full term... well lets just say,
The Lord Wants That Baby Here for some reason!
I heard that all my life.
B. At about the age of 2, I got the ORIGINAL 'live virus Polio vaccine'
Apparently they didn't quite kill it, because I developed Polio, and for two weeks my right side was paralyzed.
But my god given immune system overthrew the weakened virus. I was told I had a lifetime immunity to Polio.
C. a few weeks after getting over that paralysis, (I'm still a baby remember?) I got up from a nap, and went looking for mama. My sister Linda was supposed to be watching me, but she was on the phone, doing what a 10-11 yr old girl does, TALK.
I went out the back door of our kitchen (we lived above a gas station my daddy owned) and started down the steps to where mama was working in the office of daddy's mechanics shop.
My weakened right leg gave out, being so small I went UNDER the railing of the stairs and fell from a second story height, landing on my head on a bunch of scrap metal (daddy was a master welder as well)
8 stitches, lot of blood. But it was really a superficial wound after all.
But I changed (I'm told) overnight, from a baby who was good natured, not fretful, ate well and slept through the night,
to the opposite.
A whiny, cranky, crying all the time child with intestinal problems etc.
I can remember (they say I shouldn't be able to, but I do) not being able to sleep unless I was in a fetal position on my hands and knees.
Mama took me to all the Dr's she could, no one could find any cause for such a sudden change, one of them gave her a prescription for tranquillizers.
Mama (who had trained as a nurse) could not in good faith, give a 3 yr old child those drugs, so as a last resort, she took me to a Chiropractor who had just opened a practice in our town.
He took xrays of my spine, and said:
"There's the problem, his spine is jammed, there is virtually no space between his vertebrae"
I hated going to him at first because it hurt so bad, but after a time,
I looked forward to it.
I got over all that cranky colicky baby bit, but I remained a runt.
Just as I was beginning to get the prepubescent growth spurt, I started another round with him, and I grew rapidly for a few years.
I had stretch marks in my groin and armpits from the rapid growth of my arms and legs.
D. Being the youngest of 10, meant that by the time I was 11, everyone was long gone, married and had their own families, which in turn meant there was more money to be spent on me.
I got braces to straighten my teeth, I got piano lessons etc...
At age 16, I had my FIRST solo trip to Savannah Ga (60 miles away) on the way home I had a wreck. It broke my lower jaw, not the ear-to-ear mandible part, but that ridge of bone that sticks up where the roots of teeth grow. (This was LONG before seatbelts)
The wreck happened at night, my friend and I instinctively crawled out of my family car in the dark (we were in a ditch)
They told me that if I had not had those braces on, I would have spit out that chunk of bone and flesh, and lost those teeth.
As it was, the wire kept it all in my mouth, and indeed the oral surgeon used that wire and one he inserted as a sort of 'cast' to hold things in place as it healed.
E. I had the "Mumps" at age 17, normally a child hood disease. It is an infection of the salivary glands at the back of the mouth, usually just a sore throat for a child, but there was a danger of high fever the older you were.
I was in bed, delirious with fever for about 8 days. I SHOULD have been in a hospital, but we didn't have one then. Besides, mama was a nurse, she could call the Dr and Pharmacist and say "I need this" and they would give it to her.
Mama had moved me back upstairs to the room next to theirs while I was sick. Kept a light on in my room.
I remember waking up, totally without energy, thinking, "I'm gonna throw up" and I didn't care.
I lay flat on my back and vomited. Went back to sleep
Some time later I woke up again with a little more clarity and rolled over.
Mama, with that "Mama Radar" that is so uncanny, woke up, found me, rolled me over to change the sheets and clean me up.
I should have died then, aspirating my own vomit, but I didn't.
Another blessing, I didn't enjoy the bags of ice mama kept in my groin, hoping to keep me from being sterile (the fever)
Jumping forward in time
F. after many years of drug and alcohol abuse, and finding myself alone in the house (mama had left the house to me, and left me to move in with a sister)
I tried to commit suicide. I drank a bunch of booze, smoked the last of the crack cocaine I had, took some pills I thought would be the end of me, and laid down to die.
I didn't want to go without getting some forgiveness, so I started calling various pastors.
Long and short of THAT story was that I was taken to the ER at our local hospital
(NOW we had one)
They had called a suicide counseling service at an inpatient rehab facility in Statesboro (about 20 mi away) and while waiting for that person to arrive and evaluate me, the pulled the curtains, dimmed the lights so I could rest.
Druggies ain't stupid.
I pulled out my IV, went to the drug cart which (GASP) was unlocked, and went shopping. I drank down a whole IV bottle of liquid Valium, and anything else that LOOKED like it might be an opiate.
The last thing I saw was this SMALL vial, that read "NARCAN"
I'd never heard of that, but I reasoned that NARC was for Narcotic, and since it was such a little bottle, it must have been POWERFUL.
~
It was the ANTIDOTE to everything I had just taken!!
They now pass it out as a Nasal Spray to save people in overdose situations.
§
WHO do you think guided my hand to the ONE bottle in there that saved me?
still I kept using, and in November 2006, I weighed 123lbs.
I was riding my bike 20+ mi a day in search of drugs, work to buy drugs and/or places I could sleep and stay warm, usually in or under abandoned buildings.
But I was never abandoned
G. After I began my recovery in 2007, I was trying desperately to make amends and STILL keep on the path. I lost my way a few times, but since 2007, people have GIVEN me
G/a. a brand new electric Yamaha keyboard
G/b. a whole set of dishes, flatware, coffeemaker, toaster oven
Microwave, lots of new clothes,
one opportunity after another to help both myself and others.
G/c computers, microphones, mixing boards, tools for yard work
G/d furniture, and now after much trials and stress, I have a decent income from my disability, therefore I now have my own home, I can buy things when I want/need to.
Yes my friends,
I have been and remain blessed
For which I am forever grateful.
A life filled with Blessings
by
Jerry E Smith
©01/04/2022
Images sourced, or original
here @queenstarr
by
Jerry E Smith
©01/04/2022
Images sourced, or original
here @queenstarr