"On the Road with the original florida kid" Week 50

"On the Road with the original florida kid" Week 50
Hello again fellow truckstars! It's Week 50 and....
....you're on the road with the original florida kid....

Grandma, Barbie, Pup the Wonder Dog, Tommy Boy, JT, Neil Ray and the whole gang here at the ranch want to give a big cowboy howdy "HEY " and wish one and all a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

KITCHEN TABLE TALKIN'- Come on in! Hang up your coat by the door - and close the damn door! Looks like winter is here in a big way! This time of year we kind of hold our breath around here when we think about all you drivers out there on the road...all of us here want you to know you're in our prayers...day and night.

Grandma's been a bakin' fool all week, she gets in the mood every year...she's doin' her best to keep her spirit's and her chin up...Barbie and me too! How 'bout you?
I was thinkin'....about everything goin' on in our country, the economy, work and all that, and something dawned on me that I want to tell you about.
It was somethin' Grandma said the other day...she was talkin' about how things were when she was a little girl in the days after the "great depression", and how the headlines seem the same in a lot of ways, now, like they did then. Lots of folks were out of work, businesses shuttin' down, that kind of stuff. Hard times.
I was sitting in my chair totally bummed out about my bad knees(the UPS thing didn't work out, I blew out both my knees on day 7, they crunch when I try to walk..), wonderin' what I'm going to do NOW......Barbie's workin' 2 jobs killin' herself...things are tight...real tight...
She sat down next to me, runnin' her fingers through my hair like she used to do when I was little, knowin' I was upset about somethin'...
"Even in those days, people were still people. We had the same hopes and dreams and we wanted the same kinds of things. It was so easy to get caught up in the struggles of life tryin' to keep our land under our feet, clothes on our backs and food on the table. For your Grandpa and me it wasn't about cars, credit cards and keepin' up with the Jones's, we had no choice but to try and learn to be Thankful for what we had. Each other. When the smoke clears at the end of the day, the things that really matter...God willin'.....will still be there."

She told me the story of her and Grandpa's first Christmas together, as man and wife, and how Grandpa had to hike out to the road in the snow to catch a ride with Tommy Boy's Grandad to the mill over in the next county every morning, and how they were havin' a bad winter that year. She would take care of the animals on the ranch, keep the house clean(which she's still doin'...almost 70 years later...) and make sure supper was on the table when he got home.
"Well, Christmas was right around the corner and times bein' what they were I knew it would be, well, kind of a 'poor folks' Christmas. So, on Christmas Eve, I cut an extra load of firewood, got supper ready and while Grandpa was eatin' and I went into the bedroom, lit a few candles, dolled myself up, got buck naked, tied a red satin ribbon around my waist and waited for him. Wonderin' where I had got off to, and why I wasn't answerin' him, he eventually made his way through the house lookin' for me. He gets to the bedroom door and stops cold in his tracks when he sees me layin' there."

Laughin' like a school girl she said, "You would have needed a shovel and a block 'n' tackle to get his jaw up from off the floor! Grandpa couldn't get his clothes off fast enough and of course fell right on his face with his pants down around his ankles, tryin' to get his boots off. I thought he knocked himself out cold, he just lay there! So, I jump out of bed to help him, and playin' possum the whole time, he reaches up and grabs me, and, well, we spent the night, Christmas Eve, on the floor in front of the fireplace."
(She was lookin' at Grandpa's picture over the fireplace while she's tellin' me this.)
"I'll never forget that Christmas! Love, the greatest gift of all...was all we had to give each other, and so we did.
Love gives birth to faith and faith gives birth to hope....and nine months later I gave birth to your Daddy!"

We were laughin and cryin', both of us, by now, and truckstars, I wish you were here to see the light in Grandma's eyes while she's tellin' me this story...pure love...and nothin else...

I'm kind of thick headed when it comes to learnin' "life" lessons....but.. Thank God I've got enough sense to look around myself and see the true blessings I have. And no matter what's goin' on in this crazy ass world, when the smoke clears at the end of the day, the things that really matter...God willin'.....will still be there....
....and I'll be Thankful for them!
We’ll be on our knees in prayer and thanks!
So truckstars........from our house to yours..from our hearts to yours.......

Don’t forget the reason for the season!

MERRY CHRISTMAS !