Cold Wind In My Face

Cold Ron at the end of his walk

Brrrrr!  A cold winter wind bites into my face. 


I just got back from my daily walk in the development behind me.  It's sunny out today but still cold at 29 degrees with a brisk wind.  Someone told me (one of my blogger buddies) that walking in the cold burns off more calories than walking in the warm.  So I gritted my teeth and as soon as I bounded from Significant Other's Jeep (we had just returned from perusing two local thrift shops - I bought a bowl and saucer that I DID NOT NEED), I told him "I'm taking my walk!"  And off I went, cold wind at my back.  Coming back, I got the cold wind full force in my face.  And here I sit, rosy cheeks (facial) and all.


Since the cold descended on these coastal plains of southern eastern Delaware, I haven't been taking my daily walk.  The seven pounds I lost this fall when I was tromping daily on the boardwalk in Rehoboth? GONE!  My weight is back up to 165 lbs.  Granted, at 6'3" most would probably consider that a good weight but I'm more comfortable in the 155 to 160 range.  I have the proclivity to add the excess poundage right around my waist.  I've already moved up one belt notch and my size 33 waist Eddie Bauer jeans are feeling a bit snug these days.  Not good.  I usually wear size 32 waist (36 length) for the snug fit.  Size 33 is for the loose goosey feel, which is what I am most comfortable with lounging around the house as I do during the winter months.  In the summertime I'm in baggy shorts.  I may look like hell in those shorts with my skinny legs but hey, I'm comfortable and that's what my life is all about now in these, my Golden Years.


So, if I want to finish off that egg nog pie that has my name on it in the refrigerator, I better gear myself up to more walks like I just did today.  That five pound bag of sugar that I'm carrying around my waist?  That will be gone in two weeks. You can mark that on your calendar.

Walmart Photo Shoot

So how did my photo shoot go yesterday at Walmart?  Great!


I had a suspicion that would happen.


Every year I try to have an "official" portrait photo taken of myself for posterity.....and my profile pictures on Blogger and Facebook.  


Back in my cash flush days (when I worked at a major Philadelphia bank), I would spend up to a $1,000 to have pictures taken of me and my Pomeranian dogs for my annual Christmas card mailing.  After I lost my job at the bank I couldn't afford that particular extravagance any more.  


Fast forward to today.  Now that I have my mortgage paid off I can indulge.....a little bit anyway.  I can't put out $1,000 for my annual vanity photo session but I do have some disposable income to indulge myself.


Last year I had my photo shoot at J C Penneys at the Dover Mall.  It didn't go well because I was distracted and stressed because of two little girls screaming and chasing each other while the photographer was taking my pictures.  I have a hard enough time smiling on command (I'm a spontaneous smiler) but it was obvious that my smiles were forced as I listened to the piercing screams of the two little girls running around.  


Significant Other and I shop a lot at Walmart.  I've noticed while I'm in the checkout line the Walmart photo studio on the other side of the checkout lines.  Knowing Walmart, I suspected that I could get my photos taken at their photo studio but I didn't want to join all the moms and kiddies who were usually packed into the photo center.  But this summer I noticed two gay guys (my gaydar was working) enter the photo center and there were no moms or kiddies around.  I thought to myself "Now this will take some investigation." 


If a couple of older gay men were willing to use the Walmart photo studio, why not me?  The only thing was I had to time it just right.  I had to arrange an appointment for a photo shoot when the moms and kids weren't around.  I don't need any distractions.  


On Friday, when Bill and I were stocking up on Walmart's low priced goods, I noticed NO ONE at the photo studio.  After checking out I walked over to the girl at the desk.  She was making telephone calls to former customers offering them a discount to drum up business.  Hey, this was a good time.  The Christmas Rush was finished and it was before the Valentine and Easter Rush.  A good time to have my photo session!


I arrived yesterday right on time.  Vanessa was my photographer.  After filling out my information on the sheet of paper she handed me she asked me if I wanted my first picture taken on the floor?  Say what?  Uh......I don't think so.  I think she had me confused with the little babies who usually come in for pictures.  And, the "floor" she was talking about was a nasty looking, faux white fur rug.  Perchance did she think I wanted one of those nude baby photos showing my butt cheeks.  OMG.  No one wants to see that!  I answered "No" of course.


Then everything went uphill from there.  She had some wonderful suggestions for poses with the result being I got my  best portrait photo ever!  Who would've thunk?  


I don't have the finished product yet but what I can say is that Vanessa performed magic and she captured the essence of Ron!  She performed a miracle in making this 69 year old, gray and grizzled, skinny prospector type of gay guy look good.  I knew it! I had a gut feeling that Walmart would take the best picture.  And I got the whole package of pictures, including an 11" X 13" that she threw in for free (I'm such a charmer) for just over $50!  


I don't have the finished pictures yet (January 12th they will be ready) but be prepared for a fantastic new profile picture of me on this page and my Facebook account.  


More proof that you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a good product.  


I love Walmart! 

Smile!

Ron - Yearbook picture 1959

Today at 10 I have an appointment at the Milford Walmart for my annual portrait photo.


Who is that above?  That is me, my yearbook picture, sans smile.  I remember clearly when this picture was taken.


 I was 16 years old.


I was petrified .


I was shy and backwards.


I was too tall and too thin.


I had very low self-esteem because up until this point in my life I had been constantly reminded by my father that I had a big nose.  His nickname for me was "beak." Maybe he didn't mean anything by it, but his lack of respect for me was a big part of my life at that time.


Of course the other big part of my life was that I knew I was gay.  In 1958 gay wasn't a word to describe homosexuals.  Queer was the word of choice.  I was heavily in the closet.  No one must know.


So add all that baggage on this young man's head and this is the kind of yearbook picture that is produced - a sour faced, frightened, self-conscious 16 year old.


Like so many teenagers, I hated my yearbook picture.


Fast forward to some years later, when I had some disposable income, I tried to right this wrong.  Over the years I periodically went to a professional photographer to have a portrait picture taken.  When I couldn't afford a professional photographer, I would get my picture taken in one of those cheap photo booths.  By the way, whatever happened to them?  I though they were the coolest contraptions.


Last year I had my "official" portrait picture taken at J. C. Penney's in Dover.  It was a somewhat traumatic experience because of two little screaming little girls who were doing cartwheels behind the photographer while my pictures were being taken.  The strained and annoyed look showed on my face in my photos. I didn't want to go through that experience again. 


I was racking my brain this year to decide where to get my annual photo taken.   Last month I checked a Rehoboth Beach photographer called "Images in the Sands" or something like that.  Two lesbians own the company.  I liked their photography but as is too often the case with gay owned businesses in this area, they are very expensive.  A minimum of $175 just to walk in the door. Since I'm not a retired government worker collecting a near six figure retirement pay (many of the gay retiree Rehoboth residents are retired government employees), I couldn't afford them.


I do know an excellent portrait photographer but he lives in Scotland.  His name is Kim Ayres and he is one of my favorite bloggers.  Kim is my first choice but unfortunately I can't afford to fly to Scotland or to fly Kim here to Delaware.  Meeting Kim and having my portrait photo taken by Kim is one of my Bucket List items but until then I had to find another place have my photo taken.


Yesterday Significant Other and I were shopping at the Walmart in Milford.  As I was checking out I saw the young girl who runs their portrait photo studio leaning over her desk, making phone calls, with an empty studio behind her.  I was quite aware that Walmart has a photo studio but I had ruled them out because the studio is almost always crowded with screaming kids of the lower socio-economic order.  Yesterday that was not the case.  Why?  Oh, it was after Christmas and before Valentine's Day and Easter.  Time to schedule my appointment!


In a couple of hours I will be sitting at the Walmart photography studio getting my 2011 portrait photo. Hopefully there will not be a gaggle of screaming little girls doing cartwheels in their velveteen, crinoline puffed dresses when the photographer says to me......"Smile!"

Ron smiles 2010

An Old Man's Fear

And yet another year is gone.  Welcome 2011,  another year closer to the QUESTION. 


Each year, as I get older, I note with some alacrity how fast the years speed by.  All of a sudden here I am 69 years old, my youth but a distant memory of the past, and my main goal in the future is to stay out of a nursing home.  I have to face reality that I am no longer a young man, full of vim and vigor ready to take on the world.  I don't like to drive at night.  I like a warm and comfortable home.  I don't like change.  I don't know the who most of the people are in People Magazine.  All sure signs of OLD MAN.  


Another year and I am staving off the inevitable march to the Old Folks Home where I would probably spend my days propped up in a chair in the nursing home day room (with the TV blaring and no one watching it) with my fellow drug induced old folk.


Oh I know all to well what happens when you live too long and are put out to pasture, so to speak.  Sometimes the family has no choice.  My dear Aunt Jeanette (my Mother's older sister) has been in a nursing home for the past seven years.  My aunt has dementia and lives in a special unit for dementia patients.  She is well taken care of.  If there is a saving grace for dementia, it is that my aunt doesn't know where she is.  But is that a life that I want for myself?  Been there, seen that, no way.  


My brothers and I promised our Mom we wouldn't put her in a nursing home like her sisters.  Thank goodness we were able to keep that promise.  The last year of Mom's life she was slipping into dementia like both of her older sisters.  Mom had another older sister who developed dementia shortly before she was placed in a nursing home.  That sister only lasted a few months in the nursing home before she died.


So this is my worry this new year as I take another step into Old Age.  To be quite frank about it, I never expected to live this long.  I was sure I would be dead and gone by 60.  I almost checked out when I was 17 years old when I had a botched surgery and developed a staph infection.  But I survived that brush with mortality and have lived another 52 years old to cause havoc (and hopefully cause some happiness) with family, friends and strangers.  I would like to live at least another 10 or 15 years of still stirring up a ruckus wherever I happen to plant my feet.  One thing I can say about my life, wherever I am, people know it.  I do not go quietly into that good night.  


Some friends of mine have taken out insurance policies for Long Term Care, which I supposes means that the policy will pay for their stay in a nursing home.  Others have a policy for at home care.  I have no such insurance policies.  The only "policy" I have is Significant Other.  But Significant Other is 82 years old.  Oh he's doing fine but the odds are that I'll out live him and then where am I?  I'll be by myself, that's where I'll be.  Oh, I can live with myself quite easily.  I'm the best company I have.  In fact that is Significant Other's main complaint about me and our relationship, that I don't have time for him.  I plead guilty, I am a Solitary Man. But I do love him and we have had a very compatible, synergistic relationship for the past 46 years.  I often kid him and threaten to check out before he does.  He doesn't think this is funny.  I do.  


I try not to get myself all twisted up in knots worrying about this developing situation of what will happen to me if I live to be 80 or 90 years old.  If Significant Other predeceases me I plan to get a cat or two (he hates cats) to keep my company and provide me with love and adoration in my senior years.  But cats won't be able to shovel the driveway or take me to my doctor's appointments (which are occurring with increasing frequency the older I get).  And I certainly don't plan on replacing Significant Other.  I'm way too set in my ways to go through training another Significant other to tend to my wants and needs.  Besides, who would subject themselves to that fate?  I have to be realistic here.  I cannot live with anyone nor could anyone put up with me.  God knows I am difficult.


So what's to be done?  My answer is I DON'T KNOW.  I have four nieces and one nephew.  While I respect and care a great deal for them, they have their own families and I would never dream of putting the burden of taking care of Uncle Ronnie to them.  Besides, I cannot imagine any of them taking care of me.  Then there are the grand-nephews and grand-nieces.  I hardly know them and again, I cannot imagine any of them taking care of me.  I mean no disrespect to any of them but I really wouldn't want any of them to take care of me.  


I remember something my cousin Jackie (my Mom's oldest sister's son) said to me last year.  We were discussing this very subject and he told me that he didn't want any of his children or grandchildren taking care of him either in old age.  He said he would rather be remembered as "Big Daddy" than as a slobbering, helpless old man, mouth agape,  who needed his diaper changed.  He said he didn't want to "go out" that way.  I agree with him.  Jackie (older than I am by two years) always did know best.


So here I am another year old and another year closer to the Final Exit.  I'm trying not to worry my increasingly gray haired head over my eventual fate as I fearlessly enter 2011.  


Perhaps I'll be lucky and go like the comedian James Coco.  After a large Thanksgiving meal he told his wife that he was going to lie down on the couch for a short nap.  As it turned out he took a LONG nap.  He never woke up.  


Now that's the way to go.  

Rambling Beard Award

What a way to start the new year!

Ron, Mickey and Aunt Mabel at Disney World 2000

I won the "Rambling Beard Award" for 2010!


You say you never heard of the "Rambling Beard Award."  Then I say where have you been?  My God, just WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?


The Rambling Beard Award is awarded by Kim Ayres of Scotland.  Kim is the author of one of the best blogs on this planet.  His blog is called "The Bearded One."  


I discovered Kim's blog a few years back when I happened to stumble across "Blogs of Note" while I was exploring the settings on my blog.  The title of his blog caught my eye, "The Bearded One."  As regular readers of my blog know, I am partial to beards.  When I saw the word beard a trip sensor immediately went off in my head that I may want to check out THAT blog.  Might be someone of interest. 


Well folks, I wasn't wrong.  As I read Kim's blog I realized that this was a man of exceptional writing skills.  Whatever he writes about he makes interesting.  While I tend to gravitate towards blogs with gay authors,  here was a straight blogger that I found interesting.  


Kim and I have little in common except perhaps our love of writing and photography.  Photography is yet another natural talent that Kim possesses.  Kim and I also have similar views on religion, we're both unapologetic skeptics.  Other than that, we have little in common.  Yet I have enormous respect for this good hearted family man who is kind to so many with his generosity.  


This was a person I could learn from.  All my life and to the end of my days, I constantly strive to improve myself.  Whenever or whatever opportunity I see that I can learn and become better as a person and my skills, I will seize those opportunities.  The more I read Kim's blog posts I knew that I wanted to improve my writing skills to be on the par with Kim.  Kim makes it look easy.  


All my life I have been impressed with people who have natural artistic and writing talent.  I do not have those natural talents. Certain talents are something you are either born with or not.  I was not born with the natural talents for art , writing or music. Thus my lot in life was to learn those talents.  


From Kim I have learned how to improve my writing skills.  


I love to write.  I feel like something is released within me when I write.  I would be less than honest if I didn't say that I would like to have a large following of my writing.  To have many people enjoy my writing is called reenforcement.  


Every one needs reinforcement in our life.  We all need affirmation that we are needed, loved and appreciated.  We need to know that we matter.


Anyone who does anything from laying bricks to driving a race car to running for political office.  They all want reinforcement which can come in many forms from praise, money or winning.  I am no exception.  I'll take the praise, thank you.


Kim , by awarding me one of his coveted (first time in three years!) "Rambling Beard" awards has just given me a HUGE reinforcement!  The last time I got a huge reinforcement like this was when I won "Best Guest Services Representative" (a fancy title for a hotel front desk clerk) in 1999 from the Hilton Hotel Corporation.  At that won free four day trip to Disneyworld for two.  Yes, that's right.  I actually said "I'm going to Disneyworld!"  just like those hunky football player Super Bowl winners.


I can reassure Kim that I will not rest on my laurels this coming year.  I plan to have an even more exciting, interesting and thought provoking years of blog postings in 2011!  


What a wonderful send off for the New Year.  Thank you Kim.

Happy New Year 2011

 

A  very happy Lucy New Year to everyone!


Tonight balls will be dropping all around the country bringing in the New Year. 


Everyone will be celebrating the onset of the New Year in his or her own way.  


These are my plans:

As I sit here at my computer on this sunny, cold Friday morning on New Year's Eve, I think back to the past year and wonder in shock and awe at how fast this past year flew by.  

Each year as I get old the days, weeks, and months and even years fly by like the pages of those calendars in an old Forties movie.  That's my life flipping by folks!  Wow.  Time is running out.  This old hourglass is almost out of sand.

So did I have a good year last year?  I certainly did.  Every day I can get out of my bed and put both feet on the floor and have my wits about me, is a good day.  And last year I was able to put feet to the floor for 365 days!  Yes indeedy, it was a good year.  And for that I am very thankful.  Thank you oh Great Spirit in the Sky.

This year, for the first time in a several years I will not be working at the hotel.  So I invited our dear friend, The Retired Banker (no names please), to join me and Significant Other for a New Year's Eve repast.  I have been cooking all morning.  

What's on the menu? 

• Beef Vegetable Stew 
• Green Bean Casserole
• Corn Bread
• Stuffing
• Egg Nog Pie (made with real egg nog and HEAVY WHIPPING CREAM - sans the diets tonight)

The Retired Banker and I will probably imbibe in some spirits from the vine.  Significant Other will drink his Diet Pepsi (a gourmet diner he is not).  


For conversation we will:

• Catch up on the latest gossip
• Whine about our latest medical conditions
• Tease each other with gentle insults
• Discuss our plans for the New Year

Around 8 o'clock Significant Other will retire and go to bed.  He usually goes to bed around 7 pm (he gets up at 4 am) but will stay up "late" when his good friend The Retired Banker is over for dinner.

Usually The Retired Banker and I continue our discussion into more serious subjects in the hour or two hence when Significant Other goes to bed.  I'll ask him if he wants to stay up late and watch Dick Clark gargle through another Rocking New Year's Eve .  This year I want to check out CNN where Anderson Cooper is teamed up with D List Star Cathy Griffin.  I want to be there when Cathy finally outs Closet Case Anderson.  Maybe The Retired Banker will want to stick around for that spilling of Anderson's beads.  However, if he does he knows he will probably be subjected to me repeating some of my old War Stories again.  I'm not sure if that's a price he want to pay to stay.  Probably not.  I won't be offended if he doesn't stay

Right after this posting I'm going to take my first walk in about a week.  This cold Artic weather has been holding me back from stretching my 36" inch long legs for at least a week now.  Snow is still piled by the roadway but I do see a path for slapping my size 12 feets to the ground.

My best wishes to everyone who reads this blog and I hope you all have a very happy and prosperous (you get a lot of money) New Year!


I hope you get everything that you deserve.

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Fate

Fate:
the universal principle or ultimate agency by which the orderof things is presumably prescribed; the decreed cause ofevents; time: 


About four o'clock this morning as I lay in bed as I was arousing from my deep nighttime sleep I got to thinking of how much the course of my life has taken by chance circumstance.


I am not a religious person.  Even though I was raised as a Christian in the Baptist faith, I was quickly dissuaded from that belief when I was about ten years old.  That was when I realized that the formal church had damned me for eternity because I was homosexual. I knew something was wrong because that was the way I was born.  Thus, at only ten years old I lost faith in "man made religion".  


However, I do believe in Fate.  Some may call Fate a Guardian Angel.  I do believe that my life has been Guided.  By whom or why, I don't know exactly why.  Maybe I'll find that out when I die.  I doubt it though.  I think when you die you enter a giant Nothingness.  The only thing that makes halfway sense to me is reincarnation but that's another whole blog posting.  In fact, that subject is a book.


What I think of is how drastically different my life would have been if not for some chance happenstance.  


I'll give you an example.  My life was pretty routine for the oldest of three sons of a truck driver father and office cleaning mother during the Fifties.  We were poor but so were many of my peers.  My life and circumstance wasn't a whole lot different from most of my classmates except that I was homosexual (even if I didn't know what that meant at that time).  However this blog posting isn't about my homosexuality.  It is about how my life took a life altering turn down a road due to what seems now like an accident of time.


After I graduated from high school I decided to join the Navy.  At that time I knew I didn't want to get drafted into the Army because I didn't want to shoot anybody or get shot at.  Also, I wanted some control over my fate.  And, I liked the Navy uniforms.  Such is the thinking of a 17 year old straight (well I wasn't "straight" but I lied) out of high school.  


A few days after graduation in June of 1959 I make the trip to the Post Office in Coatesville, Pennsylvania and go down to the basement where all the service recruiters each had a desk.  I was asked who I wanted to see. Without hesitation I said "Navy."  


There were four desks in the basement room.  One for each branch of the service:

Army

Marines

Air Force

Navy

The Army was out.  I would have to learn to shoot somebody and be shot at.  Definitely a "No!"

The Air Force was out.  I didn't like their uniforms.

The Marines was definitely out.  I took one look at the bulldog faced Marine recruiter and knew without a doubt that I DID NOT WANT  TO GO THERE.  I surely would break my fingernails.

The Navy was IN.  It was safe, and they had cool uniforms.  Plus, I love the water.  

So I sit myself down at the Navy recruiter's desk and we begin the process.  About an hour later my papers are completed and a date is set for me to return and sign my final enlistment papers  Ron was going to join the Navy for four years.  I left the recruiting station at the Post Office to take this news home to my family.  

About a week later I get a phone call to come in and sign my enlistment papers for the Navy.  I make the trip to the Coatesville Post Office again.  I arrived around noon at the Navy recruiter's desk in the Post Office basement.  He wasn't there.  I was told my the Army recruiter (who sat at the desk across from the Navy recruiter) that he was at lunch.  

While I sat waiting for the Navy recruiter to come back from lunch, the Army recruiter started a conversation with me.  As I remember he was a handsome, friendly man.  Of course he had my full attention.  He asked me "Why are you joining the Navy?"  I told him "I want to see the world."  I didn't want to tell him that I liked their uniforms.  I knew he would think that was a silly reason and I didn't want him to think I was that shallow (even though I am and still am to this day.) However I did him that I didn't want to be in a combat unit, which was absolutely true.  I faint at the sight of blood.  Wuss that I am.  If I was in combat I would be like those fainting goats.  I would not be a good combat soldier

He told me that the Army had a program that I could join that is "99% guaranteed" that I would "see the world" plus I would only have to serve three years.  And..........I wouldn't have to serve in a combat unit.  Well, this sounded pretty good to me.  Only three years?  No combat.  No shooting or getting shot at.  Sounded good to me!

By the time the Navy recruiter came back from lunch, I was now sitting at the Army recruiter's desk having a new set of enlistment papers filled out.  The blond haired Navy recruiter gave his friend the dark haired Army recruiter a friendly, chagrined look that said "Okay, you won this time."  I sensed that this wasn't the first time that this has happened.  I felt a little guilty but I also felt that I had made the right decision.  

Thus, by this purely chance circumstance I choose a road that would forever change my life.  

If not for the Navy recruiter being out to lunch that day and the Army recruiter persuading me to join the Army, I would not have the friends that I have today.  I would not be with my life partner of the past forty-six years.  I would not be living in Delaware.  I would never have worked in the banking industry for almost forty years.  In fact, I probably would not be alive today.  

On that warm June day in 1959 my life changed forever just because the Navy recruiter was out to lunch.  

Pure chance?  I think not.  Maybe an angel was watching over me.  

My guardian angel.

Private Ronald W. Tipton 1960