Christmas 2019 in Hickory, North Carolina

12/23/2019

To my kind and gentle reader,

I am writing this note from Hickory, North Carolina.  Karen and I have been here now 3 days after an 8 and 1/2 hours drive from Birmingham, Alabama about 450 miles.  I am still recovering from this long ride, being 81, I cannot decide which hurts more my hips or my knees.

After talking with Juanita until almost 2:00am,  it is sleeping until 9am the next day.  After breakfast, Karen and her mom have put together a 6 stop shopping list.  Everything from Grocery store, filling station, drug store, ABC store, Barnes and Noble, Aldi, and one other no one can come up with.

There is a honk of the horn and the sound of a garage store closing, I am up and running helping bringing in many sacks from the truck and body of the car.  I told Karen how I seem to feel someone has just arrived.  I think it is women are first to hear a baby cry, and a man hears the first unusual sound of a car engine, or the sound of an electric train transformer being left on over night. Funny thing I was told by an ear nose throat doctor that I had some hearing loss from taking a drug called Topamax.  Go figure.

Pause right now and i'll pick up a little later.