Month: September 2014

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I was greeted by an overcast sky without the possibility of any rain for the day. When the skies get overcast and last all day it makes me a little sad. I always enjoy the sunshine and I enjoy the rain. But when there’s no sunshine and no rain it’s just a gloomy day. I will spend this day completing many of the small tasks that must be done either inside or on my computer. It is been a while since I have produced a blog. One of the reasons is that my wife has been gone visiting relatives for several weeks. What this means for me, when I wake up I get started immediately by taking care of the dogs and going outside to start my project. When she is not here I do not take the time to sit down and drink my coffee and watch the news.This means I do not sit down and write a blog.

I have been going fishing in my new boat. I told you in a prior blog that if I got the boat I would let you know. It is not a big fancy bass boat; it is that basic Tracker aluminum bass boat. Originally, I struggled with the idea of borrowing money to get this new toy. But I received a lot of encouragement from my family and my friends, like Frank in Sacramento. Frank’s statement that, we are not getting any younger and we should enjoy our life, really pulled me through.

I think one of the issues I was feeling is that I was being selfish and spoiled for buying this boat. The retirement funds that I live on are finite. Each time there are large amounts of money spent on an item, there is a realization that that money is gone and will not be replaced. Sometimes it feels like I am between a rock and a hard place. I know that I need some kind of activity to look forward to which will keep me busy and active. For me, that is fishing. Even though I normally do not eat fish, it is an activity that takes all my concentration. When I go fishing I do not think about any of the issues surrounding my life. I solely concentrate on the fishing, while enjoying the view of sitting on the water. I do not know at this point that in five years I will still say that I am enjoying the boat and fishing. But I can say that right now it feels great. I also enjoy the fact that I can do this alone without the help to get the boat in and out of the water. The aluminum boat is very light and easy to launch and recover.

There’s another thing about fishing, it doesn’t matter what the size of the fish is. It is the thrill of casting out the line and waiting for the strike. Even after the strike, it is an effort to get the fish in the boat. I fish for largemouth Bass and many of them, even after I think they have been hooked, fly into the air and the hook is released from the fish. I usually call that spitting the hook out. I am always amazed when a very small fish attacks a lure which is barely larger than the fish itself. I practice catch and release. So when I get home and I am asked about the fish that I caught, I can only tell a fish story. Not a bad hobby.

I look forward to my trip on the lake and fishing. But I also do not want to do it every day. I still enjoy working with my hands and riding my tractor. I imagine many seniors like me still want to diversify doing new and different things. The challenge is to keep those new and different things within a fixed budget.

I do not want to run out of money before I run out of life. But I have no idea how long my life will be and I have to face the fact that I can do things now that I may not be able to do in 10 or 15 years. If I’m lucky and I turn out like Frank in Sacramento who is 92 and still active, I will truly be lucky.

I want to mention a few other things in this blog. One of the reasons that I write this blog is to help me deal with my PTSD. I do not like even mentioning the fact that I have PTSD. But it does affect my life and I have to deal with the ups and downs that it brings me. For some reason, I have recently been a little down. Buying the boat itself helped me climb back up out of the deep hole of depression. I told my wife recently that I was feeling a little lost. I’m sure that many people, who retired from a job that took all of their attention and effort, now feel some of that sense of loss. It is not that there are things to do; it is like starting all over again. But this time it is less clear what the goals are. For all of us the goal is to enjoy life. But that leaves a lot of wiggle room as far as defining a goal. I’m blessed with a lot of people who support me in my retirement. And I really have no reason to even get depressed. But it happens and so far I have beaten it. Back to my opening statement, overcast days make it a little harder to feel bright and perky.

As a proud man, I find it hard to share in any of the above thoughts. I believe I’ve always been strong and now I do not want to look weak or frail. I’m not asking for sympathy nor do I want it. But as this blog is a way for me to handle some of my issues with PTSD, I’m going to let a few things go out.

Pops

As I walked out on my front porch this morning, coffee in hand, I stopped and witnessed the down pouring of rain. It was a beautiful site and I know that it will help the trees and fill the pond. Even though the rain kept me from working outside, it gave me time to work inside the shop and clean it up.

It also gave me time to get the forms together to register my old boat. I bought an old boat and I have spent a lot of time fixing the leaks and getting the engine to run. Now came time to register the boat and so last week I went down and got the forms. In Texas when you buy a boat you have two forms to fill out a title for the boat and one for the boat engine. Having not done this before, I started out thinking that it would be a routine task. I had the two titles signed by the prior owner and the two forms filled out and signed by the prior owner.

So filled with hope and with a smile I drove down to the local courthouse to present the titles and paperwork to the court clerk, so that the boat would be registered and titled in my name. Well on my first visit the young clerk looked at the titles and informed me that the titles needed to be signed on the back as well as the front. So I went back to the prior owner to have him sign the back of the title at the location that the young clerk pointed to. The prior owner signed everything without hesitation and said that I was lucky to catch him as he and his wife were headed off to another part of the country for the next six months. At that point I felt lucky and happy. So I took the two newly signed titles and the forms back to the clerk’s office at the courthouse. This time I was met by a senior clerk, who quickly looker at the two titles and told me that they had been signed on the wrong line. She told me I would have to go back to the prior owner and have him sign the titles again. Then she glanced at the two forms that I had presented with the titles. She quickly told me that she would be unable to accept those forms because I had made a cross out and a correction (I used a pen to darken in a number that I placed on the form ) this meant that the forms were no good and they would have to be replaced with new ones and signed again. I was told by the clerk that the Parks and Wildlife Department would not accept any kind of crossover or mark over of any kind on the form. The form had to be perfect. Well at this moment my heart just sunk to my feet because the prior owner had told me that he was going to work at another location in the country and would not be back for six months.

All of a sudden I felt like I wasn’t going to get the boat put in to my name. And if that was to happen I might as well just put the boat at the back of the property or use it as a prop on the pond. When I got home and told my wife what happened she said it was okay and that we could wait for six months, not to worry. Even though in my mind I knew the guy was already gone by now, I went to his house and found the place locked up. So I left a note on his door (I put the note in a plastic baggie so that the rain would not destroy it) and I taped it to the door. My hope was that the note would survive any bad weather and the man would find the note when he got back home. I also wrote a letter to his address hoping that it would find him wherever he ended up. I had failed to get the prior owners cell phone number the first time.

Luckily for me the man’s company decided not to send him to the other location and he went back to his house and found my note. He called me and I made an arrangement to get with him later. So I went back to the senior clerk and got some new forms and asked her for directions on what should be signed and where it should be signed.

I bring all this up because I’m sure that if you’ve ever owned a vehicle, a boat or a motorcycle you had to deal with the same procedures. I am sure you have had the same problem as I when it came to filling out a form. And I’m sure you felt the same frustration when the front desk clerk tells you that you’ve done something wrong and the court would not accept the form that you have presented. I know that when I lived in California and had to deal with the DMV it was always a negative and ugly experience. Especially when the clerk at the desk, who seems to hate their job and appeared not to really want to talk to you and then looked at you with disgust and disdain only to tell you that you’ll have to go back and redo the form. That usually meant you also had to go back to the end of the line. Fortunately living in the rural community there are no long lines and the clerk actually seems like they want to help you before they tell you that you have to redo the form and the signatures over again.

It is during these times that you realize the power of the front desk clerk. That person who is the gatekeeper who may or may not allow you to proceed with the lengthy and sometimes confusing forms that you must fill out perfectly to become registered and titleholder. If you have a trailer that goes along with the boat it will demand that you go to a different agency and a different set of forms to register it. I know that each time that I go to get an inspection sticker for my vehicle I go and face the clerk. And even when they tell me I can’t get there from here I still say thank you and smile as I walk away, I do not want to piss them off.

Now, most things can be done on a computer and through the Internet. But there are some things that are still done the old-fashioned way which demands that you humbly go to the courthouse or the DMV and hope that all your forms are in proper order. For me it was a plus to have that clerk be pleasant but it still felt bad when I had to turn around rejected.

I still do not have the titles or the forms ready for another run at the front desk clerk. This time I’m going to wait and have my wife help me fill out the forms in the hopes that between the two of us the form will be perfect.

Pops