MAN THAT’S HEAVEN

I hope your Memorial Weekend was enjoyable.
Mine most certainly was. Friday after my 4:00 PM checkup with the surgeon who rebuilt my shoulder, we high tailed it to our little redneck getaway in Nashville IN.
We had several family members coming in from all parts to gather for what has become a traditional get together of camping and celebrating moms birthday.
This year was special with mom hitting her 80th very spry birthday.

Before we left the house I told Jojo A. K. A. Nurse Ratched that my incisions should be sufficiently healed as to allow me to swim (float around in a raft like a wounded manatee) in the lake. Jojo insisted that it was not an option and it was too soon to do that 2 weeks out of surgery. I confidently told her I would allow the good doctor to be the final arbiter.
After the doctor had gone through the preliminaries of what he found and what he did to fix me up I hit him with the lake question. He had a sheepish grin and said I was the forth patient to ask him with that question today. His answer was not what I had hoped for.
I asked him to factor in the holiday weekend and the very high expected temps, to no avail.
I did make it to the water however in a raft that would allow me to keep my shoulder above the lake water. That is until the seat of the raft broke and I was left with one arm slinged trying to make it to the dock before I became fish food.

Most of the family stayed at the Brown County Seasons hotel that is only 5 minutes from the lake. We had some takers of our offer to camp with us.
The hotel is really nice but we saved the 500 bucks and communed with nature running back and forth to the hotel as needed. We had a wonderful birthday dinner for mom at the hotel Saturday night and everybody came to the lake Sunday for swimming, paddle boating, fishing, burgers, dogs and the race and a great time was had by all.

The weekend was made more special with the addition of my cousin and his family from Huntsville Alabama joining in. Jim AKA Shaver, Sharon, Jordan, Ethan stayed at the hotel one night and camped with us the 2nd night.
You can't help but have a great time when the Bama crew is in town.
If you were going to start this planet over again, these are the people you would want as prototypes.
Monday as the weekend is winding down I think of what Memorial Day is supposed to be about. We all get caught up in the rat race of ushering in the good times of the impending summer. If we didn't have brave service men and women we could not enjoy weekends like these.
We would all be slaves of the state in some dystopian shit hole world dictated by the likes of a Hitler, Castro or God forbid a disgusting Islamic Sharia type theocracy.

I realize if you are not a family member or weren't there this weekend, this post is about as exciting as being invited over by the neighbors to watch an 8mm film or Kodak slide show of their vacation. Sorry bout that.
Laying here in the hammock reminds me of the nap my grandson Trenton and me took Saturday afternoon.
My bro-in-law Bob who is married to Rita of An Ordinary Life,
when we talk about our respective grandkids, he just says times like these, rides on lawn tractors, fishing, naps on hammocks, anything done with grandkids, anytime spent with them he says "man that's Heaven isn't it?"
Right you are Bob, right you are.