Carp Circles   These here are the newsletters I write on an incontinent   inconsistent basis.   Current Carp Circle     Ho..ho..ho Ho Ho Ho….here we go….where we land we do not know. Hi yall dern? Haven’t done one of these Carps in a long time but I got up early and put the garbage out by the curb, washed the dishes from this past week and now I’m sittin here in this sweaty plastic seat and it dawned on me, write a Carp Circles in time for Christmas. Yeah, that’s it. It’s bean a rather eventful year in my life and many of my friend’s and other’s throughout the world and I figured I’d sneak one of these in before Santa goes on his rounds or somebody calls out the hounds. The bad news is my sweet mother, Elizabeth had a stroke back in July which destroyed half her brain and left her paralyzed on one side and unable to speak or swallow. They’re having to feed her and administer drugs through a tube that goes into her stomach at the rehab nursing home up the street. It’s bean real traumatic for our family and friends who know her and her kind disposition. I go to visit her as often as possible, hold her hand and keep her company. It’s painful to see her so helpless but there’s not much anybody can do at this point. I’m glad she’s still alive and just hope she isn’t in pain. It’s hard to tell sometimes but I know she feels lost and confused, a condition I’m quite familiar with at times. Sometimes, I put a walkman on her ears with some of her favorite old music to help soothe her and take her back to other happier times. The nurses and aids at the place have bean real good and keep her clean and tended to real good. She has another roommate who had a stroke and can’t speak either. They just sort of lie there and look into space or the TV on the wall. I was hoping to fix the living room up like a hospital room and take care of her here but she requires more attention than I originally thought. It’s bean real lonely not hearing her voice or cookin those fine meals for her like I did the last several years but I know a lot of you have probably gone through something similar in your own families. It’s never easy for anybody. That bean said, my days here at this beloved house are probably numbered. This is the house I grew up in and it pains me to think it’s nearing an end. We’ll probably have to sell it to help pay for her care at the rehab place. This is the very room I used to sleep in and do my homework while looking out the back window. I can still hear the AM radio guy saying ‘here’s a new group from England with a different sound called the Beatles’……and yes, I’m still suffering because of it. Not hearing the Beatles but listening to the radio when I should have bean studying. I’m still poor for it. It’s a small house but it’s packed full of good memories. I’m trying to clean the place up and get it organized after all the recent troubles. I really meant it when I said it was packed full. At any rate, I’ve got to find a job and get my life in order pretty damn quick. It was a full time job tending to my ma all those years and I neglected myself health wise and financial wise to a sad state of affairs. But, I’m always optimistic in the deepest bowels of hell and will come out fine even if I just have a pencil and paper and a pair of flip flops. Or a fishin pole and some worms, maybe. Sorry to bore yall with this but I thought I would just let you know what’s bean going on. Like I always say, Forgive me Lord of my sins and thanks a heap for all my friends. I couldn’t have gotten through all this without the great support and encouragement from those fine humans…I feel really lucky to have em around. Most of them have bean thru this stuff and know how it is. With all this stuff going on, it’s awfully hard to get in the Christmas spirit but I’ll go into a more cheerful subject to get thangs moving a bit. The dead for instance. Yes, with all this family stuff going on, I’ve bean getting into genealogy type stuff online and at the library or wherever it leads me. I went thru the Peachtree Baptist Church cemetery looking for my great grandad’s grave about a month ago. I never did find it though. I know I saw it a few years ago but it was nowhere to be found this time….I don’t know what’s going on with that. Then, me and Kirby Hockett went over to the Hardman cemetery nearby on the Emory University campus. Some of the earliest settlers to this county are buried there. One of em lived at the house behind me before the civil war. I want to check out the Decatur cemetery soon, too….they’ve got graves going back to the revolutionary war. It’s fascinating to read the old inscriptions on the markers. Trying to imagine their time and what they did and such. And it got me to thinking one day while I was sittin here listening to nonstop Christmas music on one of the local radio stations. Why not write a song remembering the dead at Christmas? They’d probably like to be home, too. Maybe it’s bean done, I don’t know. I guess it’s just bean on my mind and I’d like to keep them in my prayers and thoughts. It would have a sweet melody like the old classics. ‘I’ll Be Bones for Christmas’ or something to that effect. All I know is we need to enjoy our time here as much as possible before we end up out there in the field with them. Speakin of which, I’ve had high blood pressure troubles myself and am lucky I haven’t had a stroke. I’d hate for somebody to find me lying here in this mess unable to move. It would be embarrassing to say the least. So, that’s another issue I’m workin with and not having any medical insurance. I need to go downtown for a Grady card soon. Anyway, I hope all you folks have a hassle free Christmas this year. I miss sittin around the pines with yall and hope we can do it again soon. The only thang that never changes in this life is that thangs are constantly changing. I’m happy here and don’t want to go anywhere but that may change and I’ll have to adapt the best I can. I hate apartments because you don’t have much privacy and you never know if your downstairs neighbor is heating his place with a hibachi or a BBQ grill until your standing out on the curb with em watching the place burn down.. I guess I ought to find a little warehouse somewhere for all my junk. Bean a packrat takes up plenty of room and that may be the ticket for this old fart. I’ll certainly miss all the beautiful scenery around here and the trees too. The sound of the drums coming from over at my old high school and the backyard critters waiting for a handout all have been a great time. But it’s a big ass world and there’s plenty of places to put it in so come what may tomorrow’s another day….yall have a great xmas and a happy new year……Later…….Hollywood Mail Carp Communications to Hollywood!