OK, I know this series is only two years old. Like me, you will remember it as if it first appeared yesterday. That’s how two years seem at our age. Still, I enjoyed telling this Christmas story, and I enjoyed it again when I reread it this morning. I reason that if I enjoy it, you might, too. I hope I’m right. Now, if you will excuse me, I have Christmassy things to attend.
The Aluminum Tree
By Jimmy Johnson
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120 responses to “The Aluminum Tree”
I am going home Monday with a wheelchair, a portapotty, a reach and grab. Ghost had bought me walkers before I broke my leg. He has bought me other Christmas gifts related to my home equipment too.
The goal is for me to establish an almost independent life style that closely follows the one here i have thrived here. I met another 86 year old lady who did not want to leave today. She loved it here.
Need to get dressed before Christmas lunch. Still in bed but lots of visitors! Giving jewelry to as many staff as I can reach out to.
Poor Ghost is home trying to get front three rooms of house cleaned and emptied to make room for my wheelchair and walker.
The reason this may be a permanent arrangement is not my broken left leg which I expect will recover. It is my right leg which is bone on bone and unrepaired. Yesterday it went loudly crunching (audible to staff) twice and I just started falling!
Before I broke my good leg my previous orthopedist had recommended I use walkers and a wheelchair to avoid falls and fractures. I just don’t see that changing in future. If anything, the “bad leg” has worsened due to being the “only leg” now.
Positively this facility has gotten my diabetes, heart, digestion and all health issues totally corrected. I am ready to go home and implement what I have learned!
Jackie, the way you’ve taken so much positive benefit from your experience, learning how to handle your diabetes, heart, digestive, and other health issues so much better than before, is very inspiring. It reminds me that the chronic health problems I so often curse can actually teach me how to live more wisely if I will just shift my perceptions. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us.
Merry Christmas to all the Villagers. Hope you and your families have a great and safe day.
Merry Christmas & may His Blessings be upon all!
Merry Christmas! And just to broaden your musical horizons, here’s a new-to-me Christmas song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8qu8ftwz5o
We have a white Christmas here in southeast Ohio. The first time in 10 years! It is beautiful, but so cold I have not yet stepped a foot outside.
Merry Christmas to the Village! And I pray for God’s blessings on all in the coming year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USllUrm-7xA A traditional song with a very non-traditional performer. Enjoy!
As an old friend with a certain sense of humor said today:
[Deity or higher power of your choice] bless [or otherwise bestow something good/happy/positive] us every one! *
*void where prohibited
Dawn, clearly I have no idea where in Stouffer Pl. you were, but our building 3 was the one in the most extreme SW corner of the then-campus: tucked into the corner of Iowa and 19th Sts. It was about as far as one could be from any academic buildings. I did buy a bicycle once, but, while the ride to Malott was OK, it was a very long uphill on the way back, whether or not by road. I always ended up walking it back. Subsequently, I always rode with my MBH or alone (for evenings). Most of my lab work was composed of reactions which took a day or so, and each kinetic study ran from about 7:30 a.m. to the following 2:30 a.m. Needless to say, I took the rest of the ensuing morning off so as to sleep, and was thankful for our car rather than bicycle.
Ohhhh yeah. I’m oriented now. We were in a unit that faced east, just down the slope from the main entrance off 19th into the complex. There was a big empty field between us and the road that led north into the main part of campus from 19th — a road that went uphill past the computer science building to the roundabout by frat row to the north and the geology building on the south. There were a couple more Stouffer Place units to our northeast. But mostly we were on the eastern limit. When the Bicentennial Wagon Train came through town on its way to DC in ’76, they drew up their circle and camped in that empty field near us and I went to visit them. Imagine my joy in discovering the team from Arizona were friends of the cowboys I had known there! We hashed over old times and various horses we’d all known, and I felt so much less homesick! They wanted me to ride on their wagon with them in the parade that was held the next day, but my then-husband wouldn’t hear of it. And I was so young I thought that was something I had to listen to. At any rate, those were still the days of mini-skirts, and one of my clearest early memories in Kansas is of walking from Stouffer to class, climbing that steep hill to Geology, heading north, in my short skirt and too-thin Arizona “winter” coat as the wind pelted me with icy snow “sand” and I tried not to slip and go all the way down the hill on my kiester. I don’t know which thing was more of a surprise to me: the grade of Mt. Oread in a state I’d always heard was flat as a pancake, or the ferocious bite of winter just one state north of Oklahoma (whose weather was familiar to me and a good bit less intense). But I loved KU. I guess once a Jayhawk, always a Jayhawk. 🙂
Re 12-25-20 real-time cartoon: Anyone else remember the last scene of the season finale or “St. Elsewhere”? Beside perhaps JJ and me?
I truly hope all of you, along with your families and friends, had the most merry of Christmases.
*of “St. Elsewhere”*
If you like playing with words and reading about unusual expressions, here’s a site for you: https://www.alphadictionary.com/index.shtml
Happy Boxing Day!
A Christmas Miracle, Just One Day Late: In the midst of reconfiguring the house so Jackie can maneuver around in it in her chair next week, I walked into the kitchen this morning to fix a bite to eat. I flipped on a ceiling light, and FLASH, the bulb shot. Tripping a breaker and taking out the kitchen, hallway, master bedroom and master bath. Oh, and the central heating unit. No problem, right? Just reset the breaker. Weeeeeell…
The breaker box is behind the refrigerator. A very large and heavy double refrigerator and freezer combination. In an alcove. Barely larger than the refrigerator. As I recall, the last time it was moved out, it took two men and a boy. And a lot of military-grade cursing. I could certainly handle the cursing, but I’m just one guy.
“What to do?” I pondered as I stood looking at the stainless-steel monstrosity. Then I noticed a door magnet Jackie had placed on it: “No one can stop you but yourself.” Well, awright. Ten minutes later, I had worked the SSM out of the alcove, a half inch at a time. and I was behind it, resetting the breaker. Five more minutes, and the SSM was back in place and the lights were on. Mission accomplished.
“My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is pure.” 😀
Your breakers must not go off very often! I’d now be looking at ways to make that easier the next time you need to access it. You know it’s going to happen eventually so you might as well plan for it.
Yep, we’d planned to have the entire house re-wired and the box relocated a couple of years ago, but stuff happened. The current location was more from necessity than from planning when the house was remolded many years ago, as I understand it. Also, the refrigerator was never supposed to be that large, but the seller sold the one Jackie bought and delivered the SSM instead. Since it was larger and nicer than the one she bought, she decided to keep it.
Or, you know, maybe you were Christmas-infused by the infamous “strength of ten Grinches plus two” !! 🙂 (Not saying you are a Grinch, to be clear. Saying this was a related phenomenon, given that the darned circuit tripped and took everything out the day after Christmas while you were fixing things up for Jackie to come home — which is a pretty darned Grinchy time for the circuit to trip!)
I’m glad you were able to move it, Ghost. I recall dealing with that when the fridge it replaced died. Since the entry foyer is just the other side of the wall next to that alcove, maybe the breaker can be relocated there where it will be easily accessible. From what Jackie told me, that house was built piecemeal from what was originally a fishcamp for lake visitors, which is why getting repairs done is such a nightmare. And while it is a nice country home, that also plays havoc with appliance repair/replacement, and finding anyone who will come that far out to do remodeling work.
Oh, and I always thought it would have made more sense to have the fridge in that huge laundry room instead of crammed into that alcove in the kitchen. If it was there, there would be no need to move the breakers.
I am passing all the required physical therapy and occupational therapy tests Getting to go home Monday!
Yay!!!
Glad to hear it, Jackie!
I especially enjoyed the 12-24-18 cartoon. I encouraged Dickens to say something Christmas Eve, even bought him a bag of puppy treats, but he didn’t say a word. It reminded me of the story of the little boy who never spoke growing up. His parents took him to developmental specialists and speech therapists, but nothing worked; they couldn’t get a peep out of him.
One morning at the breakfast table, when he was six, he looked up at his mom and said, “You burned the toast.”
“Johnny,” she exclaimed, “you can talk! Why haven’t you been saying anything?”
“Up until now, everything was OK.”
Dawn: I’m putting this here because earlier entries are now distantly above.
I found a way to see the old Stouffer Place before razing – maybe you can use the method, too. Go to Google maps and get to Lawrence, Ks. Go to street level view somewhere on 19th not too far from Iowa. If you look about, the old Stouffer Place is mostly gone and newer 5- or 6-story buildings under construction. The old multistory dorm which was along Iowa is also gone. HOWEVER, if you move on 19th to the entrance to old Stouffer Place which is Ellis Drive, you can then proceed north on Ellis and scan about to see all the old buildings. Go to the next intersection (Bagley, if I recall) and turn left. The old buildings as well as that huge dorm are clearly visible. If you then proceed (left) on Bagley, you can get all the way to our building 3 (which, by then, was not still called “3”) – it is the last one on the right (west). We had the apartment on the R end of the top tier. In those days, they had 6 apartment on each level, but that was reduced to 5 or 4, probably to accommodate more marrieds with kids. Hence, our number was “12”. You can discern where the former door to “11” was bricked in.
I wonder how much of the older campus can be viewed by such a method.
“older” being only about 4 or 5 years herein!
Go to Google Earth and download it. In the row of buttons up top there is one that looks like a globe with an arrow circling counterclockwise over the top. Enter the address you want to see, then click that button, and you can go back on most to aerial images as far as 1997. At least that’s as far back as I’ve found.
Seems to be one from late 1991, though the resolution leaves a lot to be desired. Thanks for the idea.
You’re welcome. And like you say, you can use Google Maps Street View to see things at street level. I don’t know how far back they started that, but I know some places I’ve looked at had rather old images, say 2013 instead anything newer.
OK, CEP and Mark: I have copied out these instructions so I can “get ‘er done” as the fellas used to say on my tractor repair message board. I will report back when mission is accomplished — which will take longer than it ought to. I am, er, well . . . Google and I have a bit of a contentious relationship. Or maybe it’s my laptop and I. Or the internet and I. But whichever, it’s their fault. Not mine. Nooo, this has nothing to do with my inability to handle computer stuff. LOL OK, so. And meanwhile, I can’t *believe* they tore down that gigantic dorm at the top of the hill too! Sheesh! Urban renewal gone mad. I get the Geology newsletter to this day and they’ve moved into a new building now somewhere. Hope this doesn’t mean they tore down the old one. Sigh.
So tired tonight I could only eat part of dinner, asked to be helped into my Christmas nightie and fell asleep before 6 p.m. I may not be exciting to have home.
The hospital starts early here and keeps patients working all day. For instance taking shower, washing, drying and styling my hair, getting dressed is occupational therapy. Brushing teeth, personal care all counts. I have to have someone for movement security but I am supposed to do things for myself.
Some here refuse to try or cooperate. I feel sorry for nurses and staff who try so hard with each patient. I saw a very young female uncooperative patient today, wondered how she arrived here? They treat every case you can imagine including drug overdoses, cancer, heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, head injuries, hip, leg, back, arm fractures.
Idea is to return you to functioning either at home, in assisted living or even in skilled nursing home.
Amen Arlo and Jimmy! Going home for New Year’s and 2021 with a different attitude and a new plan, new life. Things will be different and better.
We didn’t choose the way things have happened but we can choose how we react .
“We didn’t choose the way things have happened but we can choose how we react.” Absolutely, Jackie!! ::clapping::
Re 12-27-20 real-time cartoon: Marko Kloos, an author I follow, had a similar sentiment the other day on his site regarding 2020…“Stay safe, stay healthy, and let’s shank this year in the back with glee.”
A while ago, I asked if anyone knew of the A&J in which there is a reference to Janis’ “I.P.O.” [“initial public offering”, in stock market talk] and her reply. It just happens that I saw it yesterday. The cartoon is from August 20, 2000, if you care to read it. IMHO, it is quite subtle in the way it implies affection.
I have been reading the strips from month of December (only) have made it through 1999.
Interesting where Gene’s girlfriend shoplifts in one arc, another year Janis trys to trap Arlo flirting online with her coworker.
My idea was to see what Jimmy dealt with in Christmas season in the past?
In December 3, 2000 Arlo and Janis are waltzing but Arlo has brown hair, almost red. The next Sunday December 10, 2000 Janis has silver gray hair. Creative colorist?