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and last updated September 2nd., 1999.
WELCOME TO MY DAY..
IT IS NICE TO HAVE YOU SHARE IT WITH ME...
A lot of If Only's today....
HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI,
US OF A !!,
If Only that nice person hadn't sent me a basket of flowers so big it took up almost all my desk space..
If Only he hadn't left all that beer in the 'frig...
If Only my younger son hadn't been flying into Atlanta from Malaysia for a few hours...
If Only I hadn't logged on that one extra time to send him a picture of the car I had hired to go meet him..
If Only Hampton Inns provided glasses instead of styrofoam cups, which tip so easily...
If Only I had known exactly what to do with a wet laptop keyboard.....
Lots of If Onlythoughts but only one CULPRIT, and now Hattiesburg economy is some $US600 better off, since the callout fee for emergency computer work is $US180 per hour...
Guess I'm a TAD surprised to find myself still in Hattiesburg..have postponed New Orleans twice now..
For example, I've eaten chilli at one of the big truck-stops, where 40 or 50 Double B's were lined up with engines revving to keep the air-conditioning alive..
And agreed to write a review for the truckie-turned-poet, who plans to write four more books of romantic poetry...
But, strangely, Hattiesburg is making it easy for me to see American places and things I had been missing in the big cities.....
Guess the sound of his tyres on the road inspires him...
Saturday night I slept on Dobbin Air Base and had two drinks at the Navy Club Bar there...kind of sad place..hundreds of chairs in several rooms, with starched linen and polished mess silver---and 2 (TWO) customers chatting up the barmaid...
Guess what they need is a good war!!
And I've shopped in the most amazing PX's and BX's..more like sophisticated department stores than military providers..and checked out Air Force Base Pharmacies...and noted how, gradually, the privileges of military retirees are being gradually rescinded, as America scales down the enormous expense of its military commitment.In fact, I should not be at all surprised if John finds himself actually reduced to using normal commercial air travel some time in the very near future!
I've visited a lively quadriplegic in hospital here in Hatttiesburg, and taken a good, hard look at how the hospitals here set up the rooms so that the VISITORS are catered for..a convertible couch instead of armchairs, for example...and flowers on sale 24 hours a day
And a little bus that picks up from the carpark and drives right to the front door...
And a terrace for patients, staff and visitors set up more like a beer-garden, that helps to make one forget one is actually in a place of suffering and trauma...
And I've been in one of those TV-type situations where the surgeon gestures dramatically to the XRays and says something like.."There is no gentle way to tell you this but John needs a new head..".
And I was able to give my sophisticated World-Traveller son , en route to his hotel, a quick tour of Atlanta, one U.S. city I know quite well, and which he had not yet visited.
Actually, it was only(?) three new disks he was prescribing,and three months off work after a full day of surgery, the date of which was to be chosen by John, but since I had promised to either stay and help care for him, should surgery be necessary, or come back for the same reason, his neurosurgeon seemed anxious to "put me in the picture" so to speak..
And he assures me that John will be taller after the surgery..
Which will work out around $60,000 an inch, on my reckoning!
Wonder why noone ever told John about cowboy boots...
I've waited in the section of Atlanta airport reserved for military personnel and their families...and played cards there.....and won!
It was really thoughtful of John to teach me to play, and I'm sure my grandfather . who taught me a harder version of that same game back in 1945,( he with his war-wounded leg needing rest, and his little granddaughter the only available opponent), would have approved of us passing the time thus!
WE had almost six hours together, time which should have been longer but frustrated yet again by the unpredictability of United States Airtravel, which had John and me meeting one plane Dave hadn't managed to connect with, and waiting three hours for another...while he had been cooling his heels, ( and spending his expense account dollars ) in Los Angeles.
It wasn't long enough to get his online setup configured, since his ISP steadfastly refused to give twoway communication, despite MY great experience in these matter, and John's encouragement...
But it was long enough for John and I to have a swim in the hotel pool, and for John to take a nap, and for me to see pictures of the new baby, and the magnificent maternity accommodation in Kuala Lumpur, and hear details of the gruesome labour, and discuss his sister's travails, all five times, and mine, with him..secrets to which he, as a new father, could now be exposed..
But he is a proud and loving father, and will make a good parent, I think...and a better son, for now being a parent, himself, of course..
And it is kind of nice when family life gets to the stage where the son can take the Mom and her friend out to dinner!
As a Muslim father, he had been obliged to follow the religious practice of shaving the baby's head....since a baby born with a good head of hair is considered a great blessing, and so half of the weight of that hair must be given to charity. To a born Softie like my son, this was a horrendous task, and one which has quite changed the little girl's appearance.
And I have been missing a kitchen, as I knew I would,so the idea of going to keep house in Cleveland for my son, who had a serviced apartment for a week was a very real temptation, though we both agreed that the amount of disruption this would entail for me, for a five day stay, was probably not warranted.
I hadn't had a kitchen since the Downtown Atlanta Residence Inn, and that was too small to count...so John took me home to dinner with him and his wife, Diane,and I cooked one vegetable course, since John had brought things in from the garden, and SHE offered the run of her kitchen , since she doesn't much like to cook, especially not for John, these days, not since he has developed the habit of getting onto ICQ right before dinner.
And she likes the idea of having someone in the kitchen who shares her love of vegetables and salads , (she is English), since John is of the breed who thinks lettuce is rabbit food and garlic is what you use to keep vampires away!
And anyway, with HIS love of food, and his need to eat often, and a lot, he is going to have to learn to cook if he wants to eat....so we are starting lessons at once!
But I'll keep you posted!
NEXT BULLETIN STILL ABOUT HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI !!!
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©Robin Knight, 1999.
