Taking the good and the bad.

July 30, 2012

From Richard

We have had a good weekend in Willcox.    Leona is recovering remarkably well and she is getting better every day.    Peggy and Patty Jo and Marty , Dale and Ray, John, Loretta and kids, Megan and Jason were all here this weekend.      

  

I have been there for 40 years minding the store.    I will be 88 this year and we are getting pretty decrepit.    (Leona says, call me decrepit but be sure to call me to dinner.)     The future is always uncertain and this is no different.   

Its nice here.   It has not been too hot and has been raining on and off.   Lots of good food and good family relationships.   

 

Lightning n the clouds.

 Patty joking by being on her knees in the water over the street. 

 August 5, 2012

I am always talking a good talk about Willcox.    I won't do that tonight.   One of the worse things I can think of about Willcox is that a couple of days ago a big chasm,  a crack, happened close to the road north of town.     It is about 4 or 5 foot wide and several hundred feet deep.   It’s pretty long….  I didn’t see it so I am making that up as I go.  They have put several dump loads of debris in there so far and still haven’t filled it up.    The water from the subterranean area has reduced and caused the land to be disrupted.   It is kind of scary especially since the city water comes from near by there.   But so far so good.  Everybody has water problems somewhere.    But I don’t like it here!   

Fissure north of Willcox 

Its nice that everybody from the family is here taking care of me and Leona.   We are spoiled rotten.   Marty and Peggy and Patty Jo.    I just can’t have it any nicer than that.   

And they are going to go before long and that is bad.    Marty will go back to her boat in Florida.   Peggy will go back to California to be with Mark her husband.   Patty Jo has to go back to school teaching school in Willcox before long.     

Is that enough bad news?   So it is time to do some changes again.  

All of our businesses in Willcox are getting less.    The tourist business is off considerably partly because of the forest fires near by.  And automobile expense has hurt our motels and our eating places, filling stations and everybody who is associated with that is hurting too.    We hope that things are getting better but so far they haven’t revived to any great extent.     

Patty and Drew, her boyfriend, have been up in Cloudcroft with brother John this weekend.   I expect them back before long.    Loretta and kids will be back next week.     Marty and Dale and Ray are staying another week here.   They are getting their boat repaired in Florida before they sail again.  

Leona is getting better every day…   (that is not pessimistic)  but she still isn’t taking care of me.    

This is Dick Seidel on historic Railroad Avenue

Willcox influx

July 24, 2012

From Richard

Just keep it up and we will have more people than the party in Florida has.   Megan and Jason , her new husband, have now arrived.   He is Jason Friend.   The Friends are friends.  They are a wonderful couple.   Megan says when you are married to a Friend you will have a wonderful relationship.   

Marty, Ray and Dale are expected in from Florida on Saturday.    My son John from New Mexico will be here Saturday as well as Peggy and Patty.    I haven't figured them all in yet.        

Leona is back from the hospital yesterday.   I think she has had a successful operation on her spinal stenosis.  We are sure glad to have her back.   We are glad that Patty and Peggy are here to help with her.   They have been exceptional helpers.  

I hope you all have a good time in Florida.  

This is Dick Seidel on Historic Railroad Avenue 

Arizona Monsoons

July 15, 2012

This is Richard.    It is pouring down rain on Railroad Avenue.   I have my dog inside and I am inside on my new recliner and I am comfy.    

Peggy will be here tomorrow.    I guess she is going to take good care of us cause Leona will be in surgery the next morning.     Joe says she will dance but I don’t think she will the next day.     But if she walks straight without pain, without falling down we will be happy about that and our surgeon is very encouraged that he can do it.   It looks kind of complicated to me so I won’t try to explain it to you.   

The next couple of days will be busy with Leona and so on.    Too bad you can’t hear the rain pattering on my patio.   It sounds pretty good.    Monsoon season is just getting started good.   Peggy will be happy cause she likes to hear the thunder and lightning and rain.   Mya the dog doesn’t like it.   The Lightning is so loud you can hardly hear me so this is Dick Seidel on Historic Railroad Avenue.   

PS from Leona,    Thanks for your good thoughts and encouragements,  Love.  

Midwest drought

July 8, 2012

This is from Richard.  Everybody is complaining about the dry area in the Midwest.     I remember back in 19….    1936 was a dry year.    It was soooo   dry…   Dan and everyone says it is dry now but you could have seen it then.    It was blowing up all the ears of corn as if you had popcorn.    It was my first experience with farming.   My dad gave me 10 acres if I would help him out.   I had soybeans and it didn’t make anything.    I made about $30 off the ten acres and that was all the summers work.    They had dust bowls in the west and they had dry bowls in the Midwest cause it never rained.   But it did  get better by 1937 we had the best wheat crop so far and so that brought it us out of the Hoover depression.  

We have gotten a little bit of monsoon, not much.   A little bit yesterday.    Nothing that covers the streets with water yet.     The rains are just starting but it is coming.     If you hurry you can see thunder and lightning and rain.     

This is Richard from Willcox Arizona…  Historic Railroad Avenue

William Max Seidel

June 24, 2012

Peg asked me to say something about my dad and I can do that.

This is Richard talking about William Max Seidel

He was like my grandson who is named after him.   He is smart and likes to talk.    Our grandson asks Leona…   “Lets talk awhile”….   “What do you want to talk about?” Leona says.   He says.   “Pick a category”.    So if he gets a category he can talk for a long time.    But my dad was pretty smart too.    He knew a lot of different categories to talk about.   

He never did go to the army but he did go to the CMTC which is the Civilian Military Training Corps.   It was in Battle Creek, Michigan.   It might have been 2 or 3 weeks.     He would talk about his experiences at CMTC till I got tired of it after a while.    

He started out as a chicken farmer.   He would send his chicken’s white eggs to a New York market.   We probably had 400 or 500 chickens.  Every chicken had a band on its leg and Dad kept track of which chicken was laying eggs.   He would write down the numbers and it took him a long time.   Even if it took him all day he would still do it.   But during the depression they couldn’t afford to send them to NY anymore so he went out of business as far as his chickens were concerned.    The depression was his business misfortune.

He was pretty handy.  He would rather work a half a day than go to town to fix something.    He was more handy with machinery and tools than I was cause he could do  things so quick that someone else wouldn’t even get started fixing it.    He was a hard worker.    Only problem was that he couldn’t utilize his time very easily.    I would want to go to the field to farm and he would still be working on the tractor or something or the other.  

I suppose most of my siblings remember him having this loud voice all over the neighborhood calling the cows or horses or when he got mad.  (at me).    But most of his tantrums were about his tools or his equipment.  He had a good hollering voice.     But he was nice to work with.  He was a hard worker and he knew how to do things faster, better and quicker than anybody else.    I would work pretty hard with him most of the time.    He never talked deep about anything with me except when he took me to the Y for me to go into the army and he wept before I was picked up.    He told me later when he was older and in Florida that he still remembered that and that he was afraid he wouldn’t see me again.    Lucky me,  I made it back.    Sometimes I used my intuition and sometimes I used my training but it got me back.        

This is Dick Seidel on Historic Railroad Avenue

Happy Fathers Day

June 17, 2012

This is Richard the honored patriarch of the week.   It has been a nice fathers day.   Patty is here,  Peggy called and Marty talked to me from Florida.   John is here too.  

This is my fathers day present…   a recliner, it’s new and I have been sitting in it ever since it got here.        It is a nice recliner.    It automatically shifts and does everything for me since I am too lazy to get up.   

Thank you Dan for the check I got yesterday from my wheat.    It was a nice fathers day gift too.   I hope you get  lots of good rain during July so we will have a good corn crop.   

It was good to hear from Dale and Ray on the phone today.   I have been kind of lonesome for them as they have been on the ship for quite a while.    

We got our first monsoon yesterday.   It didn’t amount to much but a little lightning and a little rain.    It is just a start.    

This is Dick   on historic railroad avenue.   The oldest father around.   

June

June 3, 2012

It’s hot here.   Warm Arizona.    It is cool inside though because the low humidity makes my swamp cooler really cold.   They work really good till it gets really hot and humid in July or August.  

My mom’s and my mom-in-laws birthdays are this week on the 6^th.  Thelma was born in 1905.   Martha was born in 1909 I think.

 Thelma   1905 - 1986

 Martha 1909 - 2001

I have to write something because I would like to hear from everybody.   First thing in the morning I read my email and hear my markets.  And Leona reads them to me every day.     Bless her heart.    I like to hear from everybody by usual and unusual methods such as somebody visiting in the store saying “Joe says hello Richard” from somebody in Atlanta whose kids were students of Joe.   That was good that I got to hear from him that way.   

Leona and I are content to just sit down and watch the TV and the computer.   We are getting older.   Someone on the street said ‘being old is in your mind’.   I am not sure of that… I think it is more in your body and bones than in your mind.   Maybe I have used my bones and body more because they are worn out and my mind is still good.  

I am bragging pretty much to say that.   

I may have to get a new recliner.    Me and my dog have about wore out the old one.   

This is Richard Seidel on historic Railroad Avenue