A LONG HOT SUMMER

During the winter of 2001/2002  I  concentrated on ways to make my retail sales grow. It was taking me to long to set up and tear down after shoots. The business Had grown to much for me to be able to travel around the West, Mid West and South East as I had done in the past.

I decided to open permanent retail stores in gun clubs, with the gun club personal handling the sales. Initially I opened  3 stores in the Central Texas area. I knew when I did this that it meant I had to stay in Central and South Texas in the summer. My only escape would be a trip or two to Amarillo and one to the Grand American in Ohio. 

I think someone must have been slipping Magic Mushroom powder in my Mountain Dew. Whatever possessed me to think I would be able to handle that heat and humidity in Central and South Texas in the summer time day after day,I will never know.Or maybe it could have been I was thinking with the wrong head.

 

Above and below was a typical store set up

  

  

One exhausted Redhead 

I though I might get some relief from the Heat and Humidity when I left Texas  August 1 for the Grand American trap shoot in Ohio. No wayJose, it was  hotter than it had been in several years and the humidity was worse than Texas. 

On the way back from the Grand, a motor mount on ole winne gave up the ghost. I was on the outskirts of Joplin,MO. I found a shop and they were in the process of replacing the motor mount.

I checked in the Upoc groups and Jeanie had left a message in group. Her voice was not the same, I sent her a text message asking if I could have her phone number. When she sent it to me, I called her to ask what was wrong. She said it was a family problem, as we talked she told me she was divorced and that day  her husband was moving out. It had never occurred to me to ask her about her marital status because we had both married and single people in the group and I was in a relationship.I ask her for her address and she gave it to me. I walked across the street to a flower shop and sent her a Bear hug mug of flowers. She was always such a ray of sunshine in the group I thought that was the least I could do.

 

This is the pic Jeanie sent me  in  Nov 02

In the late summer or early fall of 2002 is when I decided that Texas, year around was just not going to work. The next problem was that If I went back to traveling as much as I had before then I was only going to be able to do a shoot every other week. The set up and break down time didn't give me enough time to travel between the major shoots in the summer time  or the chain shoots in the winter time. Winnie was already way past due for retirement,but still going strong.

Then I found ole Blackie, that would solve part of the problem. I thought about a new vendor trailer but I had never seen one like I would need. I decided to order one custom built to suit my needs and then do the final work myself.

  

Blackie

When I got Blackie ready to roll I gave Winnie to a Homeless guy , who helped me on occasion

Tomorrow Turkey day In California.

 I plan to have a great day I hope you will Join me.

Rojo

LIFE IS GOOD

We left off yesterday as Jeanie was buying her home in California, we will rejoin her later when the roads come together.

I was in Idaho, that week, at a Trap shoot doing Gun fitting and selling shooting related accessories for competition shooters. Between Skeet, Trap and sporting clays competition shoots, I  was in a Different venue each week.

 

Skeet shoot in San Antonio

 

Rojo in the shop

The Winnie and the shop trailer

 The shop open for business in the early days.

When I first started the business it was quick to set up.I would back the trailer in put the jacks down unhook the winnie, open the doors and go to work. 20 minutes tops.

I need to clear up something before we go any further with this story. I am not a gun nut. I don't even like guns.I was there because the money was excellent, to say the least. In the words of Forrest Gump " And thats all I am going to say about that"

I will be Skipping around here a bunch and it may be a tad difficult to keep up with,It would be for me If I had not lived it. From 1997 to 2005 it was SOSDDDV.( Same ole stuff, different day, different venue.) for me as it had been for some time.

The business  grew every week and over the years It became more than I could handle by myself.By 2001 It was taking me 12-16 hours to set up for a shoot and the same amount of time to tear down after a shoot. I had to hire people with some knowledge of the shooting game to handle the accessories tents. I usually hired someone from the gun club or a relative of a shooter.

 

Grand American Trap shoot Vandalia OH 2002

 

The accessories tents

 

Inside the large accessories tent

 

The whole set up from the back side 

The load had become to much for ole Winnie also. She had been a good and faithful ole gal for many years. Winnie had carried the load like a champ from coast to coast and border to border.

In Late summer 2002 I bought "Blackie" a cab over Freightliner with a refrigerated box. with a little modification the box became my new living quarters.

 

Blackie had a shower, toilet, 2 burner stove, hot water heater, holding tanks and I called it my Boar's nest. I ordered a new vendor trailer that would cut my set up time down to almost nothing again. Life was good.

Now it is time to jump around some more, Remember at the start I told you this story had more arms than a train load of octopus.

In December 2000 I got a new unlimited ATT cell phone and ran on to a new social network for cell users called "UPOC"

I joined UPOC and several of the UPOC social groups. UPOC was a forerunner to MYSPACE  and FACEBOOK. I noticed that a person"GEANIE" was in some of the same groups I was in, but so were several dozen other people.

It was a lot like any other group, some people you feel a connection with and some you don't. This Geanie person and I never communicated on a  one one one basis, it was always a few dozen of us in "Group". Group was very similar to  status on Facebook.

On December 1 2001 I founded a group on UPOC called "SINGLE NOMADS" it was for single people who made their living on the road and people who wanted to get to know them. I had about 400 members in the group in short order. The only time I was seeing this Geanie person was  in the over 40 group and that was the only other group I had time for.

Every morning I would go into the over 40 group say good morning to the group, read a few GM'S and back to Single Nomads. We had a lot of fun in those groups and a lot of not so much fun ,just like in Facebook.

I noticed that Geanie would be posting about the same time as I posted every morning and it was always a positive thought or comment. Some of the folks in the group just couldn't handle the positive stuff and called her "Little miss sunshine". 

 I  spent that winter in South Texas. As far north as San Antonio over to Houston, Corpus Christi and south for the shoots. Corpus  was my base for the Winter.

I was in a brand new relationship and work was booming,a lot of guys who don't shoot much in the winter get their gun work done then.Between the new relationship and work I was hopping  like a frog in the freeway. I didn't have a lot of time for upoc.

I went in to the over 40 group one morning and Geanie had just been there. She had posted

"What a beautiful day it is to make hopes and dreams come true........ for others".

I really didn't know this person who had sent that message but I thought to myself,"How unusual that someone is thinking about making someone else happy", I answered back "And in doing so wouldn't it be wonderful if some of our own came true".  I sent her an invitation to join single nomads which she did. I didn't know  it then but that was the beginning of a lot of dreams coming true.

Geanie was a regular  adding her sunshine to the group on a daily basis. She was always so bubbly and positive everyone in the group look forward to seeing her messages each morning. After 3-4 months we had voice messaging added to our group and her voice messages were as bubbly and positive as her text messages.

 Tomorrow : A long hot summer

I plan to have a great day,I hope you will join me

Rojo

A CHANCE TO SECURE THE FUTURE

Yesterday, we left Jeanie in the hospital recovering from a wheelchair accident that had left her with a crushed thigh and knee and a severe head injury. She was now having seizures and could not read. 

Her Doctor put her in speech therapy although she could speak fine. She just couldn't connect the dots when reading, this has improved over time. She has never regained  the ability to read as she did before the accident.  She can read and has found other things to occupy her mind and use as a " Diversion for  Pain".Jeanie now plays games on the computer and listens to Willie's Place and old time radio on her XM radio

 Jeanie was able to get back  in her wheelchair after about  four month bed recuperation time. She did not want to leave the house and found that to be quite odd for her. Jeanie and Ray made excuses for her not wanting to leave the house.

 She was having Panic attacks, the two things that she had counted on most had failed her, her mind and her wheelchair.The wheelchair was a loaner, while her new wheelchair was being built. She did not want to admit to her friends and family  that her mind had defeated her. Jeanie started the Baby Steps again. She would drive her wheel chair into the garage and stay as long as she could. Her heart would start to race and she couldn't catch her breath, she would turn around and go back. Later  that day or maybe the next day or the day after that she would try to go a little further.

It took several months for her to go to the end of the Block going a few feet further each time and turn around and run back to the house as fast as her wheelchair would go.Jeanie was still having seizures everyday and at times several times each day. After about a year she was able to go  the short distance to town alone in what she describes as the fasted trip she ever made to town. She was still having seizures from once to twice a month.

 

Jeanie continues to improve even after all these years. she can read much better now  but she does not enjoy it the way she once did. She has no problem recognizing  and pronouncing the words. It is  impossible for her to read and retain, she becomes very frustrated with this. She has learned from her  blind x- husband to listen to the books read on the radio or other audio books, She  enjoys that very much.  Memories from the past return now and then and she has a sparkle in her eye as she recalls parts of her life what had been lost.Once they come back they are back to stay.

The tragic accident  did not take away her intelligence  or ability to reason,it only took away lots of memories and the ability to read as she had previously. When the wheelchair company settled with Jeanie she knew that this was her one chance to secure her future. She started looking for a home to buy where she would be close to Doctors, medical facility, pharmacies, food stores and other shopping. Jeanie knew that at some point in her life she might become bedridden. She did not want to be looking at a blank wall out of a window from a bed in an care facility. She searched until  she found and bought a three bedroom home in 1997 with a large master bedroom that had a huge window over looking a beautiful greenbelt with trees and birds.

 

Jeanie's view from her bedroom window.

 Jeanie and Ray when they moved in their new home.

  Jeanie and  her husband Ray lived there until the marriage ended in 2002. Jeanie continues to live there when she is is in California. 

Tomorrow we are going to leave Jeanie for a bit and go visit the road I was traveling. The road that would meet with Jeanie's road and become one road that we traveled together.

I plan to have a great day, I hope you will join me

Rojo

IN A FEW SHORT SECONDS

Yesterday we left a very sick Jeanie at her 40th birthday party. 

Jeanie had started taking Reglan,a medication for nausea, in early 1992. She began to slowly go down hill. In July of 1993 she was in the Hospital again. She was so weak that she could not set up or feed herself. She grew even weaker and could not chew her food or lift  her arms. The Doctors told her Husband to notify the family that she was not going to make it.

Her family all gathered for a "Going away party" at the Hospital. The Hospital where she had spent so much of her life since she was about 10, agreed to let the family have a party on the patio outside.They rolled her bed out to the patio and the party was on. Jeanie thought it was a big waste of time.

 

Jeanie and her parents and siblings

Jeanie and the Clan

 She knew that she was not going to die. She knew it was not her time but she could not convey the words. She never gave up and she was wishing she could eat some of the food, because it smelled so good. Jeanie was also sad because she could not tell her Family that she was coming back and for them to quit crying. A few days later a new Doctor that specialized in medications came in to visit Jeanie. He ask Ray ,Jeanie's Husband, what medication she was put on last. Ray told him Reglan. The Doctor took her off Reglan immediately. Within 36 hours she was in her wheelchair. She was better ,even if she was tied in with a sheet. When her sister showed up, Jeanie ask for a cherry Coke... She was on the way again. Yea For Jeanie!!!!!

  On October 31,1994 Jeanie was in her wheelchair on the way to do some grocery shopping. The wheelchair was a belt driven type and had no brakes. When you let off the joy stick the electric motor stopped, stopping the wheelchair.  The sidewalk was sloped to the right toward the street and slightly down hill.

 

The drive pulley and belt circled in Red.The wheelchair had one on each side.

The belt on the right side of the wheelchair broke and the belt on the left side was loose and would not stop the wheelchair.  Jeanie in her wheelchair rolled off the curb crashing into the street with Jeanie landing on her left forehead and left knee in the first lane of traffic near the gutter.

Jeanie was terrified that a car would run over her and kept pleading "Move me don't let them run over my brain". Jeanie's back was to the oncoming traffic and she  could hear the cars rushing at her but she could not see them. She was terrified.

A unknown man saw the accident happen and stopped to help. Jeanie pleaded with him to set  her wheelchair up and pick her up and  set her in it because she didn't want to be run over. The man  was afraid of being sued and reluctantly gave in and as soon as he accomplished her wishes he took off at her request. 

 Jeanie had severe injuries to her head, and left knee and thigh. She was in the hospital for a month. The first week the Doctors ordered parts to put her thigh back together. On the third day she had a grand maul seizure.

 When the parts came in they were to big and had to be reordered.  The doctors kept her under heavy sedation because she was in extreme pain.

At the end of the second week they did the surgery to install the plate on her shattered thigh. She had 3 more seizures in the next 2 weeks before she was released. 

 The scar from surgery on Jeanie's left thigh and knee.

It was " Baby steps" time in Jeanie's life for the second time. She could no longer read. Reading had been one of the most important things in her life.  Before the accident Jeanie would set in her wheelchair and travel around the world, go back in time,and solve mysteries all in her beloved books. Now they were just a pile of words that she could no longer put together. She couldn't follow  the three simple steps on the box  to bake brownies.

Tomorrow: On the way back AGAIN


I plan to have a great day, I hope you will join me

Rojo

UP UP AND AWAY

Jeanie's JRA had done about all the damage it was going to do by the time she had finished high school or early in her College years. She spent very little time in hospitals except for the normal everyday stuff that we all do.

She was married and in her own home and life was good.It was time for Jeanie to enjoy life a little more.

 

Wheelchair snorkeling in Hawaii, with her seat belt on to keep her from floating out of the chair. She loved watching the fish have a play day weaving in and out of the spokes of her wheelchair and squealed like a little girl when they nibbled on her toes.

Glider ride  Over a volcano in Hawaii, with pillows under and behind her so she could see out. The pilot did a little extra for them because they were the last flight of the day.

Catching a little sun on the beach at Hanauma Bay  Hawaii.

 

View of tow plane as The Glider was getting airborne.

 

Auda, Ray and Jeanie on  Lake Havasu AZ.Notice how tan she gets. Her girlfriend Auda is Puerto Rican and Ray, her Husband, is Hispanic. She is darker than both of them

 

Lucy and Ethel Impersonators entertaining Jeanie at Universal Studios,CA. Jeanie is truly a "I love Lucy Fan"

Jeanie at her 40th Birthday party.You wouldn't know it by looking but she was one sick puppy. That is one of the sidetracks I told you about at the beginning of this series.

Life  was not done testing Jeanie yet. In spite of all the pain and suffering she had endured,  Jeanie had an incredible  positive attitude. In just a few short seconds her life was about to change. One of the things most important in her life would be lost forever..... More on that Tomorrow.

I plan to have a good day, I hope you will Join me.


Rojo

MOVING INTO AN APARTMENT AND MOVING ON

Jeanie moved into an apartment about 3 months after she graduated from High School. Her sister moved in with her to be her attendant. Jeanie was preparing to enroll and college and get started with her future.

 

Her first Apartment

 

When Jeanie entered collage her goal was to be a psychologist or social worker. She wanted an opportunity to help troubled people. She had so much fun learning about so many different things. Lots of handicapped students need note takers. She took the class, with them,  and took notes for that person even though her hands are bent and twisted. She was able to do what she liked best help people, and she also got credit for the class. She learned about so many things, nursing, science, police science, law, astronomy, pharmaceutical, sign language, she took advantage of all they had to offer. She loved to read and learn.

 

Some of the Handicap Club members on a  cruise to Catalina.

 

Organizing  Handicap Club candidate for homecoming Queen. 

Jeanie's  met her two best life long friends in the handicap club

 

 Auda who passed away in August 2004

and

 

Sandy, who is AB (able -body) and visits with us regularly.

 Jeanie served as president of the HANDICAPPED STUDENTS CERRITOS COLLAGE CLUB.

There she met her future husband, Raymond Esquibel, a blind student.Their marriage lasted 25 years and they are still friends, with a great deal of respect for each other.Jeanie could help Ray and Ray could help Jeanie. They both have hundreds of stories, some funny some sad some about trials and tribulations and some of victories.

Jeanie and Ray on their wedding day.

Jeanie had a lot of good times along the way and I will show you some of those tomorrow

I plan to have a great day, I hope you will join me

Rojo

MY SUNSHINE GIRL

Jeanie is a ray of sunshine on a dark dreary day, a candle in the dark of night, the most positive person your mind can conceive. She says that each day she wakes up breathing is a blessing. She was not suppose to live to be 15,  she will be 57 April 24th. She says a little pain reminds her that she is alive. She lives with pain every minute of her life. The joints in her hips , knees, ankles and feet are fused. She has some movement in her shoulder, neck elbows and hands. Complaining is not something Jeanie knows how to do and she appreciates everything that is done for her. She is never short with "thank you" and her favorite saying is "Just because I can"

Jeanie  has suffered  an incredible  amount of pain in her life. One of those times was when they were taking water off her knees. She had tears running down her cheeks but she uttered not a sound. She totally disconnected from her body and to this day she says she don't remember the pain. She still uses pain management in the form of breathing and imagery today.It has become even more important since she was diagnosed with Dystonia in 2007 but we will get to that later.

She wore  body cast day and night for about a year to try to stop the advancing scoliosis. She was used as a test case for every new arthritis medication that came out.

Jeanie did not attend public school until the 4Th grade.Before that she had a tutor that came  2-3 times a week. She was an outstanding student and eager to learn. Even after she started to the handicapped public school she was in and out of the hospitals. She finished the last half of her 8Th grade year in the hospital.

 

Jeanie at her Sweet 16 Birthday party in her first custom built portable wheelchair that really fit. She was fitted for this wheelchair at 13 when she could no longer walk with crutches. We still use this chair on some occasions today.

 

Jeanie at High School graduation in coyote 2, her second electric wheelchair. 

Jeanie started and graduated high school with the age people that she should have been with,  which is a testimonial to her dedication and determination to learn. She was very shy and  said she always felt like an odd duck in high school. When she got around her peers they were always talking about things that were so trivial and she was talking like a doctor. She always felt best when she was helping someone with a problem. She enjoyed tutoring some of the other disabled students as well as some of the football players so that they could pass and play.

Tomorrow its  find and apartment and off to college.

I plan to have a great day, I hope you will join me

Rojo