OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD

Off the top of my head, things to write about: . My Grandparents, mother and dad, my brother, my childhood, Trips on ships, the depression, school, inventions, writing, Anything that comes to mind!
My grandfather on my Dad’s side was William “Bill” Nelson.He was a common laborer that worked in the building hit mgof railroads across America. Laying ties and rails was his work. An extremely strong man who was said to have been able to whip any man who challenged him. (I think that I inherited my amazing strength from him.). In his later years, he had a small grocery store that carried basic needs on its shelves. Coffee, bread, sugar, cornmeal, salt, etc. and just little of these items. During the depression one could not afford to carry a large stock of any thing.
He liked for me to shave him when he stayed at Mamaw,s hotel. He died at the age of 86 in Denver, Colorado at my dad’s sisters home. Her name was Elona.
My grandmother on my dad’s side was Ida Henderson Nelson. Said to be related to colonel Henderson who hired Daniel Boone to guide settlers into Kentucky and Indiana. She made a living doing various things, such as running a small cafe in one half of a duplex building. 25 cents for all you could eat of simple food. She lived in the other half of that building. Then she managed a small two story hotel across the street from her abandoned cafe. It had one bathroom on each floor. I helped her take care of it, cleaning, etc. during the summer of 39. ‘“Mamaw” and I used to play dominoes almost every day. if I got behind on score, she would say “You’re sucking hind tit”. I remember a small circus came to town that summer. I got a free ticket to the main show by helping the men set up the big tent. My aunt Esta ( dad’s sister) sold tickets at the small movie theater that was in Sunray. Times were hard during the depression. She got a dollar a day for that job.
Just north of Sunray, there was a prairie dog town. Jackrabbits were everywhere. We ate one once, kind’a tough meat. They were easy to shoot, because they were not afraid of humans. They had not seen enough of us to know that we could kill them. I learned to shoot with my grand dad’s 410. Also, we used to swim and bathe in the low areas that had buffalo wallows near the prairie dog town when we had a good rain.
Fran and I went to Sunray in 2010. The town had not grown much and the prairie dog town had been killed off.
My grandmother got me a ride home that summer of 39 in a pick-up truck. Parents and baby in cab, me and their son and daughter in the open truck bed. I got sunburned on the way home (300+ miles). The brother and sister shared chewing a piece of gum. Offered it to me to chew, but I declined. It was during the Great Depression, so not much gum was purchased at that time. My grandmother, Ida, also died in Denver, Colorado at the age of 86, at aunt Elona’s house. GRAND PARENTS on mother’s side:.
My grand parents on my mother’s side were Hans Pas Blom and Sophia Blom. He was in the shipping business. Mother, Norman and I made our first trip to Norway in 1933 on one of his ships called The Memir. Norman and I had stepped out of the main cabin, not knowing how rough the seas were. A wave caught Norman and was about to wash him overboard. I was strong for my age and caught him by his wrist until the ship tilted to the other side in time for him to grab the bar railing and hold on. We never told mother about that close call. That ship was sold to mother’s sisters husband, Martin Thorvic, his first ship. Hans and Sophia had a beautiful home that overlooked Oslo Fjorid. Norman and I learned to swim in the water below their home in the summer of 1933.
My grand father carved two beautiful sailing boats out of two solid pieces of Mahogany for Norman and one for me that summer. Each about 14 inches long. Bestimor made the sails. Bob has Norman’s, Lee has mine. I Remember Bestifar shooting a squirrel from his front porch with a 410 pistol. Legal in Norway. He let it lay where it fell. I said “Aren’t you going to eat that squirrel? He said “We don’t eat tree rats.” Meals were always served as a family at a long dinning table. After eating, Children were required to go to the head of the table and thank Bestifar for the food. “Tak fo matten.”
In the winter of 36, mother and I went to Norway to see Bestifar before he died of cancer of the stomach. He ate too much smoked fish. He died two days before we arrived. He was 86 and was cremated.
I learned to ski and ice skate that winter in Norway. I remember skating on a lake with mother wth a full moon above. Their were skaters all over the lake. It was about seven PM. Night came early during winter in Norway. MY FATHER: His name was Eitel Allen Nelson. Norman and I called him Daddy but changed it to Dado in later years. His birth place was in Hiltonville, Lawrence County, Indiana on 3/7/1892 on highway 58, 9.5 miles ENE of Bedford, Indiana. Dado’s father was William Nelson, mother was Ida Henderson Nelson. I had a “mutton head”stone from a creek in Hilltonville that Dado and Mamaw picked up there during a trip they made together Mimi, my mother, used it to put pressure on a pot lid when cooking various items. I gave it to Bob for Mary to use in that way. Dado died due to a piece of plaque lodged in his main artery of his heart due to smoking. Dado was the conductor of the first symphony orchestra in Wichita Falls. It fell apart during the depression due to lack of money to support it, or people having money to pay to attend concerts.
Mimi’s (Sonja Blom Nelson) birth place was in Stavarn (Fredriksvern)Norway on 6/20/1899. Her father was Hans Pas Blom, mother was Sofia Blom. Sonja, my mother, married in 1922 to Eitel Allen Nelson. Our home phone number on Hayes Street was 4095 which we had to contact the phone switch board to make a call. I lived there all of my childhood life. Norman lived in a different place before our home was built. Norman Allen Nelson, born5/6/25, then Frederick Blom Nelson, born 1/4/1927. Both Eitel, (mother called “Eddie Boy”)and mother are buried in Wichita Falls Texas in a large cemetery south side of Wichita Falls.
I did not have a name until I was six years old. They had not picked a name for me when I was born, so they called me “Baby”. When mother, Norman and I went to Norway in 1933, I had to have a passport with a name on it. Mother named me after her brother, Frederick Hans Blom. I became Frederick Blom Nelson at that time. I was glad to get rid of “Baby”!
MY CHILDHOOD:
My earliest memory as a small child was eating wall paper off the bed room wall. My baby bed was next to the wall, and there was a piece of torn wall paper on that wall. I pulled it off and ate it and continued peeling and eating. Wall paper glue was made of water and flour. Not bad tasting, thus I ate as far as I could reach. Must have been hungry! Another of my earliest memories is mother standing me on the toilet seat to dry me off after she gave me a bath. I also remember Mocking Birds singing from the top of our chimney on full moon nights. Made it hard to go to sleep!
During the depression, money was scarce. Norman and I did not have many toys other than those we made for ourselves. The one store bought toy that I remember was a small camel that had wheels attached. You could sit on it and walk around with it under your body. It was given to Norman and me by the Donnels, close family friends. They also gave each of us, when old enough, a pair of roller skates. When they were almost worn out, we took them apart and nailed them to a 2X4 to make a scooter. An apple crate as the body with a piece of wood across the top as a handle.
Raymond Stanfords parents had a large long grape vine that grew on a long overhead trellis or arbor that the grape vines grew on, some growth runs were dead, so we would cut dead pieces from that part and smoke them. Our “cigars”. Rather dry, but served our purpose.We did not inhale!
At about five,Whit Fraser had been given a set of toy garden tools, rake, spade and hoe. We were in Whit’s back yard trying them out. Whit and I were side by side, me with spade, Whit with the hoe and Norman a few feet away with the rake. Whit swung his hoe several times, and his last swing hit me on the top of my head. This cut a gash in my scalp that made me bleed like a stuck pig. Mrs. Fraser walked me home with a rag held on my head to help stop the bleeding. Meanwhile Norman went screaming toward home saying “My little brother has been killed”. This was a shock to mother and dad. They met Mrs. Fraser coming down the walk way with me, very relieved to see that I was not dead. I still have that scar on my head. Took twelve stitches.
Our home was about two blocks from our grade school, named Crockett, so we always came home for lunch. A leg of lamb sandwich, a table spoon of Cod Liver oil and a glass of orange juice. Mother was very health conscious. She had a degree in Pharmacy from Norway, but never used it in the US. We had leg of lamb, because it was not expensive. She cooked that almost every Sunday. So there were left overs for making our sandwiches for lunch. We carried our lunch in a paper bag when we went to junior and senior high. On rare occasion, she would buy a round steak and have it ground up. VERY little fat in the meat. I liked to eat some of it uncooked. I loved the taste of it. Still do!
There was a area called “the hills” on the north side of Wichita Falls. Our home was only about three blocks from there. (We lived on the so called outskirts at that time.It is all built up for a couple of miles from there now.) It was a low area with washed out gullies and underground washouts that became a rather large tunnel, some about seventy feet in length. One of them had a caved-in hole in the middle. Bob Grininger, Whit Fraser, Raymond Stanford and I were throwing clumps of clay at each other. As I stuck my head out of that caved in hole, a chunk hit me above my nose and between my eyes. It knocked me out and cut a one and a half inch gash in that spot. There was a crew of men working near by. My friends got one of them to check me out, pulled me out of the “cave”, still unconscious. I came too and he drove me home. It required six stitches to close the cut. I still have remnants of that scar. Dad was out of town, so Mrs. Elliott, our neighbor, took me and mother to the hospital. Eyes were very swollen, black and blue for awhile. That hills area also had many washed out small caves. Us kids would try to see what was in them. It’s a wonder that a rattle snake did not bite one of us! There were lots of snakes to be found.
That gulley ran into the Wichita River were us youngsters spent much time. We would go there to spend much of our free time during Spring, Summer and Fall, camping, swimming, fishing, catching crawdads, etc. The river was about a half mile from our house. We walked there very often.
There were many Tumbleweeds that grew in the flat areas on the outskirts of town. They would come loose from the ground when they became mature. The wind blew them in all directions, even into our neighborhood. Us kids collected them and would build a tumbleweed igloo out of them, big enough to accommodate all the kids in our gang.     We would have our gang’s “secret “ meetings in one those “igloos”. We would build a big fire out of the “igloo” when we got tired of it. After it rained, that spot became a good place to shoot marbles, flat, cleaned off and roomy. We’d dig a small hole for the marbles to be shot in to. If you knocked another kids marble out of “the ring”, a circle in the dirt, it became yours. We all lost them that way. You could buy a small bag of marbles at Kresses (a general goods store back then) for about fifteen cents. Did not have to do that very often, because we were always winning each other’s marbles.
Most of our toys were hand made. Sling shots, “Nigger shooters”, rubber guns, pea shooters out of bamboo, wooden pistols, etc. We did have marbles and did a lot of “shooting” with those. We also used a double bladed Knife to play mumbledy peg. A knife was a boys prized possession, usually a Christmas present. We usually could afford a top or yo-yo. They were only 10 cents each. We saved enough money to eventually buy a “cap pistol”, thirty five cents! We also played hop-scotch with Marilyn and Jane McCarty, our neighbors, on their driveway. They had a younger brother named Dick. He was about five years younger than me. We would go to “the farm” on Red River with his aunt and uncle. They were his real aunt and uncle. We called them Aunt Inez and Uncle Milton. He was a well to do medical doctor. They more or less “adopted” me, so I went with them to their farm on the river every week end from Friday until Sunday afternoon for about a five year period. I helped “Uncle Milton” with all the chores that were there at the farm with a beautiful house with a fireplace that he had built at the mouth of a small creek that emptied into the Red River. A tenant farmer took care of the 700 acre main farm. There was a beautiful five acre I orchard of peach trees that bore delicious peaches. Aunt Inez would say “ We are gonna’ eat what we can and can what we can’t”. Both Aunt Inez and Uncle Milton influenced my life significantly. All of the time we spent hoing the garden patch, he talked about the various aspects of life with me. I listened and learned.
When I was about thirteen, I started mowing other people’s lawns in the summer week days. I got paid 25 cents for each lawn that I cut with a push mower. Gas powered were not around yet.
During the winter, my allowance was 25 cents per week. On Saturdays, I Used it to go to a movie now and then. I walked to town and back, because a bus ride was a nickel each way! For a quarter I got into the movie for 10 cents, got two hotdogs for nickel each and a big RC Cola for a nickel. A nickel could buy a lot in those days. Now, in 2022, a soda cost as much as two dollars, hot dogs are around two plus Dollars. Looks like we might be using dollar bills for “toilet paper” in the near future.
My first hair cut by a barber was in the summer of 33. I had bobed hair with bangs until then. We were preparing to go to Norway. Dad walked me over to the barber shop on Monroe Street to have it done. Ten cents for a child’s hair cut, twenty five for adults.The barbers name was Mr. Stone. As we walked home, Mr.Bullington, our neighbor, was in his back yard by the walk way. When he saw me, he said “Hi Fred, I see you’ve had a hair cut. I replied “Yes, I’m not a little girl anymore.” One kid, Whit Fraser, teased me about my long hair before I got my hair cut. I stopped that by whipping his ass. Word got around. No more teasing! I was a tough little kid, very strong. If anyone picked on Norman, my older brother, I’d whip their ass. Not heavy, just enough to make them leave him alone. Norman thought I could whip anybody.
In high school gym class I could take any boy in the class down with one hand behind my back. Broke the push-up record by doing 750 of them in fourteen and a half minutes. That made the headlines on the sport page of the newspaper. One thing I remember about school; high school was about ten blocks from our house. I had to walk home , even in very cold weather. No school buses back then. When I got home, mother would always warm my hands under her arm pits. She was a very loving and caring mother....
Norman and I were both required to practice on the violin for an hour from age eight to fifteen or so. We hated it, because we could hear all of the kids in the neighborhood playing outside. In the winter time the sun set early, so we did not get to play at all. Norman nor I ever touched the violin after we left home! That hate ran deep!
Whit Frasher came up with the idea of having a side show. He charged a nickel to see it. I was a part of the Show and was called “Tarzan”. I had a good build for a young boy. The show never went over to well. Another of his wild brain storms. In high school we had an obstacle course. It was during WWII, so the idea was to have all high school graduates in good shape. I could run that course faster than anyone in the PE classes. I think today “What happened”.
In grade school, we had what was called recess. Most of that time was spent in playing softball. We did that at lunch time too, but by the time I went home for lunch and back to school, there was not much time left for me to play.
At the corner of the school ground, there was a guy who got some of us kids to sell magazines door to door. We were given a little bag to carry the magazines. I knocked on doors, but mostly on neighbors I knew. Sold some, But that did not last very long. Ran out of customers pretty fast. In the sixth grade I had a crush on a pretty girl. I remember her name Barbara Cannon. Trouble was, her family moved out of Wichita Falls. Poor me!
. In the summer of 33, mother took us to Norway. Norman and I could not understand why we were put to bed with the sun still shining. We did not know that Norway was the land of the midnight sun. But we got used to it. Uncle Fred had a small cannon that he loaded to fire, but with no projectile. He fired it from Bestifar’s house overlooking Oslo fjoird. Norman and I were impressed.
There was no toilet in the house. You had to go outside to a beautifully designed “outhouse” to have a BM. It was a two holer. It had a latched opening in the back to remove the containers when they were about halfway full. Norman and I got in trouble by poking Ingermaria, our cousin, with a stick and in the butt via the latched door while she was on “the pot”.
There was a nice house across the street from Bestifar’s. Two boys, Noman’s and my age lived there. We made friends with them and spent time walking down to the water where we learned to swim. We picked up seashells or any oddities we ran across. They had not yet learned a lot of English, so much of our communication was with “sign” language. But we managed OK. Their names were Hans and Neil.
I had several inventions that were successful and profitable. The Mud Hammer was used to free deferential and key seat stuck drilling pipe. The Spiralizer was used for cementing casing after the well was drilled. A squeeze job was seldom needed if you used the “Spiralizer”.
The Nelson Reaction Timer was very successful in medicine and athletics. The Nelson Outdoorsman’s Clock was used in fishing, hunting and human behavior to determine best times to fish, hunt, bird watch or discuss sensitive issues with your spouse. Sold them all over the world. Did all of the shipping myself, so eventually tired and lost interest in promoting it.
In the summer of 48, I was counselor at camp Woodland Springs, a camp south of Dallas. It was decentralized with four separate camps in different parts of the woods. Each camp had two counselors for eight boys. I can’t remember my co-counselors name. It we took the eight boys on hikes south of Dallas. One time we came upon a large dam by the side of the dirt road. We and the boys decided to climb to the top to see its purpose.. when we could see what it was, it was a disposal tank for sewage. To our surprise, the entire surface was covered with floating condums. Some of the boys knew what they were and explained to those who did not know. Most of them learned something new. My co-counselor and I did too.
I sent each boy home with a tanned copperhead skin, they were very plentiful. One boy got bitten and had to taken to the main camp and then to the hospital. His leg swoll up to almost twice its size. His name was Billy Waters. I had one very large tanned skin that was beautiful. The Dallas museum wanted it. Stupid me refused. It was stolen by one of the boys out of my locker which was in my tent.

 We taught the boys many well known camp songs. We would sing them every night around the camp fire.
That summer we took the boys to Lake Dallas to camp for several days. The spillway and dam were about a mile and a half from our camp site. The water was calm, so I decided to see if I could swim across to the dam. The co-counselor and the boys followed me in two canoes. I made it OK to the dam and decided to swim back. When halfway, all of a sudden the lake became very rough. A sudden storm. Before we realized it, the canoes could not be controlled. This left me out in the lake, half way from getting back. Fortunately the canoes were blown into a boat camp at the end of the lake. The co-counselor told them that I was out there in the storm, in the middle of the lake, and a number of boats began searching for me. I could see them, but they could not see me due to the waves and whitecaps. I kept swimming, mostly under water. When I got to about fifty yards form our camp site (the closest point) they spotted me. They wanted to pick me up, but I refused. Being this close to shore, I wanted to finish the swim. I was VERY tired, but made it anyway. The joints in my knees bothered me for several years after that swim (frog kicking) but they finally healed. The boats brought the canoes and the boys back to our camp. Lessoned learned!!
While attending The University of Texas, I was in good physical shape and on the gymnastics team. Austin had a physique show, and I was encouraged to enter. Not really interested, but I became the first “Mr. Austin” by being in first place. A week later there was a “Mr Texas” event being held in Houston Texas. I had very little surplus money, so felt I could not afford to make that trip. Raymond McCaulley, my “runner up” in the “Mr. Austin” contest, did go and he won in that show and became “Mr. Texas” of 1948. After I won the title of “Mr. Austin”, word got around. Thus I was asked to be a model by the art department at the University of Texas. All I had to do was stand in a pose for the art students to look at me and draw or paint me on their pallet or canvas. It paid well for that day and time, $20 per hour. Thank goodness for that job, because my GI bill money had come to an end. It helped pay my way through much of college by paying for my tuition, housing, and food. I made enough to even buy a Harley Motorcycle. A Harley 125. I used it to go everywhere, even up to Wichita Falls to see my parents and former high school friends. I went for Christmas one year. Had to get back to Austin and college after Christmas. Talk about a chilly ride back. It was in January, so I was so glad to get back into the warmer weather of the Austin area! Stopped at service stations along the way back to go Inside to warm up a bit.
While at college, my room mate talked me into joining his fraternity, Delta Chi. They wanted me as a member because I was “Mr. Austin”. Being a member was not my thing, so I did not participate in the fraternity activities very much. During initiation and the final get together before becoming a member, I was asked to put on this “robe”. Then I was asked by the “head” a lot of stupid question that I did not know the answer to. He would tell me to go over to “the scribe” for more instruction. After walking over to the scribe three times, he asked me another question that I did not know the answer to. All of this was planned. I said “ I don’t know and don’t give a shit. Where are my clothes, I want to go home! I guess they knew they had pushed me too far. My room mate came running up to me saying you’re OK, you’re in! They had never had any pledge do such a thing before. So I was at that point made an immediate member. Did not participate in any of their doings. It was just not my thing.
As I was growing up, our neighbor’s son was Wallace Masters. He was a fencer. I got interested in what he was doing, so he began teaching me about that skill. I later taught fencing at UL. While doing so I came up with a new move that helped our team win tournaments. I called it the Twist disengage. It was a move that made it very difficult to stop a hit when my students used it. We won meetings with the well known New Orleans team by using that move. They did not understand how we were scoring on them so easily. You would have to understand fencing for me to explain it here. I loved teaching fencing.
I have often wondered how or why I have been somewhat creative during my life. Thomas Edison saying “ There is a better way to do it, find it”, has stuck with me ever since I read it. The Mud Hammer, The Nelson ReactionTimer and the Outdoorsman “clock” are good examples of that idea being applied. I had to buy a new best time to fish and hunt every year every year. I figured that there had to be a pattern for this to be. After some thought, I came up with the idea o a perpetual outdoors man “clock”. After each full moon, the best to be afield is when the moon is over head. I looked up the full moon dates on my computer and found that I could come up with a “calulator that would indicate this consistent pattern. Thus the Nelson Outdoorsman “clock” was created with some thinking on my part. I had it on a adjustable ruler, Ed Dugas, my very close friend, suggested a circular ruler. That was easy to change, so I made the circular version. It has been purchased and used all over the world.
Most of my ideas for inventions or poetry have come to me while driving. Some ideas never materialized because my thoughts went to other things as I drove. Wish I had had a pencil and pad to write them down. I keep that with me now.
The Nelson reaction timer idea came to me while taking a class at LSU. They had a device called The Decon performance analyzer. It measured eye/hand reaction time to the one hundredth if a second. Having been a physics teacher, I thought of the formula for calculating the speed of falling objects. I went home that night, got a piece of lattes wood. Did the many calculations, put the results on the lattes and had the new way to calculate eye hand reaction time. It is considered the most accurate reaction timer in the world. It is now in a one thousandth of a second model.
I have written more than 500 poems. There is a collection of 210 in my latest book “Life and Love - its joy- it’s pain”. The book also has 85 of my thoughts and sayings in the back portion. I hope that it and I become well known in time. We all have a bit of ego in us!
I’d like to speak a word about the start of our countries involment in WWII. Us kids were playing touch football in the vacant lot next to Whit Frasher house. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Mrs. Frasher came out and told us that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. That broke up our game. Norman and I went home and found Dad listening to the radio. It was all news about the attack. We were both to young to be in the military. I was 14, and Norman was 16. I remember that we received coupons for rationed gasoline. The coupons your family received were very valuable. If you did not use your quota, you could sell your surplus coupons at a good price. People were so desperate for gas that their was siphoning going on late at night by people who stole your gas while you were sleeping. The news paper said a few got shot during that time period for stealing gas.
As soon as I graduated from high school. I volunteered to join the Navy. My physical was so good that I was put into the combat air crew branch of the Navy. Most “boots” were trained at NorthLake near Chicago or San Diego , California. We were trained at the Naval air base in Millington, Tennessee. I was trained to be an aviation machinist mate combatcrewman at the air base next to Oklahoma University. However the war ended before my training was complete. So I never saw any real combat. But I did fly in a Dauntless Dive Boomer. I was honorably discharged at Terminal Island by the point system. I Received a little over two years of college paid for by the government for my time in the service.
The Germans took over Norway early in the war. My mother’s family was involved with the Norwegian underground during the war. They would have been shot if the Germans had know of their involvement. My cousin, Ingermaria, skied to Sweden to let the underground there know that there was a German battleship in Bergin Fjord. The English flew there and sank it.
Today I’m looking at a picture of a group that my dad organized and called “The Louie the Fourteenth Court Fiddlers”. A Group of 23 violinist with their violins and all in Wichita Falls dressed up in costumes of the period of Louie’s rein in France.Who paid for those costumes, I Don’t know?
What he did with that group, I do not know. It was dissolved when the depression hit in 1929. I was too young to be aware of it. But I’m sure it was one of his dream creations like we all have in our journey through this life. We all want to do something significant so as to leave our “foot print” in some way,shape or form. That had to be one of Dad’s efforts. Destiney influences our lives more than one can imagine.
Dad formed the first symphony orchestra in Wichita Falls, Texas. Our house was built with a large living room and I remember all the members of the symphony coming to our house to rehearse for some coming performance. It was a bit crowded, but they made do. That to was dissolved due to the depression. People did not have enough money to attend the performances. Dad taught violin, and many students were from families that could not afford the lessons. It was a rough time for our family during those years.
I remember that the krotengers son was taking lessons from dad. The krotengers were farmers, so they paid for their sons lessons with milk, eggs and butter. I remember how good the cream was that always rose to the top of the milk jar. Mother made a lot of whipped cream out of that cream.
Speaking of the Krotengers, they let me, Norman and Dad hunt dove on their property. They had a pond that drew a lot of dove. I learned to shoot with a 410 shotgun. Dad always told me how to shoot on the wing. Swing your gun from behind and at a bit faster than the bird. The but, bird, beak, bang and follow through approach. I got to where I seldom missed a dove or duck. Hit 49 out of 50 on the Navy Combat Air Crew skeet range. The instructor could not believe it! I think I would have brought down a few Jap Zeros if I had been in combat as rear gunner. Thanks that it never reached that point. The war ended before I had the chance.
In growing old there is one thing that becomes a major loss in one’s life, companionship with one of the opposite sex that you truly love and care for and that loves and cares for you. There is a wonderful feeling in being able to feel the embrace of such a person. I miss sharing life with my spouse more than words can say. I could never become a hermit or want to live alone with, out female companionship. There is an emotional loss in not having that special someone with which to share life. Movies or any entertainment that we watch on TV is much more enjoyable if shared. Just walking out on the property is far more rewarding if it is done hand in hand. You will never know that loss until you experience it. It leaves such a void in life. If two really love and care for each other, there is nothing that can take its place. I hope that those of you that still have each other will make a point of sharing more while you are still able to do so. Pay attention to this simple advice! And too, stop when out walking together and embrace each other. Do so often! It will always strengthen the bond between you. Nuff’ said.