The World of Grandpa Don  

While sitting on the swing Tuesday afternoon just breathing and dreaming, ... I do both of those a lot, ...  the A1 Concrete Leveling truck pulled up in front . Jeff inspected the previously caulked joints while his partner began stuffing the joints with the foam "rope" that they had missed on their last visit . When Jeff came into the yard I showed him the holes in the two joints in the patio. He found another that I didn't see and told me there were two more in the driveway joints. Soon they were caulking and when finished they waited and re-inspected to make sure that the repairs were not seeping down and the newly caulked joints were holding well. They came over to where I was sitting and we talked a while and they made a final inspection before getting on their way, satisfied that all was well. I was satisfied too. As soon as I went in the house I went on line and authorized payment of the remainder of the bill. If your concrete is sinking and uneven, do not hesitate to call A1. They do miracles and it is a lot faster and less costly than breaking an re-pouring.

In her later years, when I would question my mom about something she said that was somewhat dubious, she would often retort, "Well, they said it in the newspaper."  As if that must be true! In my time at IIT one of our assignments was to read an article, "How To Read the Chicago Tribune". (The newspaper was suing the professor for making it required reading.) In it the author quoted a story from the paper and added footnotes pointing out the inaccuracies, omissions and lies in the story. Every sentence in the story had one or more footnotes. Only one short sentence had a footnote that stated "This statement is entirely true."  But my mom would remark that they couldn't put it in the newspaper if it wasn't true. She applied that to the advertising as well as news stories. Some people apply that same logic to whatever comes into their in-box on their computer. I had one come to me which was very critical of the government. Not that the government doesn't need criticism but I thought that this particular issue was a bit outlandish and it struck me that no government body could be that stupid. Digging a bit further, and that is not hard to do with computer searches, I found the item to be quite bogus and also discovered that the originator had the reputation of being a blatant hate monger. Come on guys ... let's be more responsible in what we forward to our friends. For myself I do not wish to be identified as a gullible individual, maybe a bit senile, who believes everything I read as being Gospel truth. And I certainly do not want to be seen as identifying myself with a known hate monger. As a knight of the Order of St Isidore of Seville, I am dedicated to "Using the Internet Responsibly". Won't you join me and at the same time not be identified as part of the rabble that is the target of the "rabble rousers". After all, they try to use the uneducated and easily deceived to further their dubious agendas. Do you want to be identified with that bunch? I certainly do not!. Oh yes, ... I often refer to my time at IIT as my "unsuccessful college year". In retrospect, it was very successful if I only learned that one lesson. I also learned that you don't need to know everything, you just need to know where to find the answers when you need them, and, oh yes, ... you can't push a rope.

I do not wish to imply in the above tirade that some of you are actually gullible, senile, uneducated or part of the rabble of followers of hate mongers. If you were, you wouldn't be reading this web site. However I do want to point out that by forwarding some of this junk indiscriminately, one puts himself in danger of being labeled as such. Just think before clicking the "Forward" button, and be careful. 

I have been spending too much time trying to find more information on our Shepard Packard (my 2nd great grandfather) and his elusive parents. I occurred to me that I should be able to start with the originator of the Packard family in America, Samuel Packard, and follow his line downward. There has been much recorded about him and the first generations. But in those days every family had about a dozen children and with the mothers dying of exhaustion and second marriages, sometimes there were even more children. There were soon more Packard families than I can keep up with. Then, to make matters worse, I got sidetracked and went off in entirely new direction. First I must tell you that my father was a Copeland and his mother was a Thayer. On my mother's side, my grandmother was a Packard. All three of those families date back to Plymouth Colony in the 1600's and beyond.. Well, believe it or not, Thomas Copeland (1654  -1706), who was my 6th great granduncle, had a daughter, Mary Copeland (1692-1773) among his his 6 children. Mary Copeland married Ephraim Thayer (1694-1780). They had 9 children, one of whom was Mary Thayer (1728-1833). Mary married James Packard (1724-1824) They had 11 kids. Ephraim Copeland lived to the age of 86. The Copeland, Thayer and Packard families were united in the early years of this country and then I came along to unite them (in a way) again.

There is another interesting note. Thomas Copeland's father, Lawrence, is reported to have lived from 1599 to 1699, 100 years. James Packard is also credited with a 100 year life span.  Mary Copeland Thayer had an 81 year life span And ... Mary Thayer Packard tops the group at 105! How did they do it? In the early 1700's the average life expectancy in America was about 25 years. By 1900, however, the average life span had increased to around 48. Now, at the turn of the Millennium, the average American can expect to reach almost to the age of 80. I am shooting for better than that.

How did these people live so long when the average life span was so short. Well, we shouldn't confuse average life span in any one era with the natural life span of humans. The mortality rate for children was high to begin with. That alone lowers the average. There were wars with England, France, and of course, the Indians which shortened the lives of many.  But even more of a contributing factor was the lack of medicines, competent doctors, and medical knowledge in general. In the event of an accident, heart attract, or other serious medical problem, one could not pick up the phone, dial 911 and have paramedics attending in minutes. Early death was often the result. There were no vaccinations or other medications for viral infections and cuts often resulted in infection and death. Cancer, and other diseases such as diabetes were always terminal. No exceptions! Medical treatment in general was often, if not always, a matter of treating the symptoms, not the cause and cures were rare. All of this contributed to a low average life span. But what accounts for rare longevity? People lived a healthier lifestyle. They were more active and did a lot of walking. They got plenty of sleep, going to bed at, or near, sunset and getting up at sunrise. They did not have preserved and processed food, eating what was fresh and in season ... food which was not grown with chemical fertilizers and was free of insecticides. . You had to be very rich in order to overeat. There was no junk food, none! Even candy was a very rare treat, to be savored on special occasions. So if one survived war and pestilence they could live "normal" life spans ... or beyond. Maybe they weren't the "good old days but  there were redemptive aspects. Now, with all our diagnostic technology, curative knowledge, healing powers and rapid response to health problems, if we could go back to eating, sleeping and exercising right, we could all live to 105 or even longer. But then, how would we support all those retirees?  And how would we feed, clothe and house them? Another question for another time! ... My, ... how my mind wanders!

Dan asked, "Do you remember?"

Indeed I do Dan. In '48 I was a sophomore in high school. All the features in that travelogue were familiar to me and many still exist today, now dwarfed or obscured by new and grander construction. A trip down the "Outer Drive", now called LSD (Lake Shore Drive), gave a beautiful view of the "loop" from the south. We had our senior prom at the Edgwater Beach Hotel but when LSD was extended north and cut it off from its beach, it declined and is now gone. The retail dominance of State Street declined with the introduction of huge shopping malls in the suburbs but was revised on North Michigan Ave, in the Magnificent Mile centered on the old Water Tower. Indecently, it was never a water tower as such but housed a tall stand pipe to absorb fluctuations in water pressure from the pumping station which was next to it, now gone. Marshal Fields is now Macys and Carson's, The Fair Store, Montgomery Wards and the Boston Store are now gone. The Main Chicago Library building is now the Chicago Cultural Center and there is a new Main Library on the South end of the loop. It was interesting for me to "travel" back in time to familiar places. By the way, for non-Chicagoans, our downtown section is called the "Loop" because of the elevated railway tracks (the "EL"), branches of which come from all directions to bring people to the downtown stores and offices,  make a loop around most of it to return from whence they came.

It had been my practice to have a sandwich for lunch almost every day. My Jewel store has been packaging single serving salads with the greens in the main container and dressing, and other fixin's in separate compartments of a piggyback container. They come in about three varieties and are delicious. I have found that my pre-dinner blood levels are always high if I have a sandwich for lunch and are in the normal range if I have a salad. When I went to the store Thursday, bread and lunch meat were not on my list but I purchased 6 salads. I should have gotten 7. I have no bread in the house for the first time ever. I have switched to an orange juice that has 50% less sugar but that seems to still be too much. When I run out of my present supply, I will not buy orange juice. I take a vitamin C pill every day anyway.  I have eliminated my prepared breakfasts (except for Sundays) and have gone to cereals. This week I went to the drug section for special ones for diabetics since all the regular breakfast cereals have too many carbs. Dinners, of course are another problem. I usually use the single serving Lean Cuisine dinners but will need to be more selective, making sure to get ones with low carb content. Either that or look for something else.

Another family member has serious problems with glucose control. He had been prescribed diabetes medicine but stopped taking it because he didn't feel he needed it. A recent exam reviled his glucose levels to be ridiculously high. That is the problem with diabetes. There are no visible symptoms until the damage is done and it eats at you from the inside out. Suddenly the eyesight is damaged, wounds wont heal, the liver is damaged, the nerves become dead to the touch but are unexplainably painful, and more. Until all this happens, you feel great. He needs our prayers at this time because he is in for a radicle lifestyle change in order to beat the problem.

Others need our prayers also. There are many with problems, medical, financial, family, that seem insurmountable. We pray, first of all, that they have the strength to cope with the problem and do not loose hope. We pray for them to find the right direction to take to eventually resolve the problem or to find a way to live with it. Faith doesn't mean wishing for miracles wherein problems magically disappear. Faith is working with God who will support us in our struggles and subtly point the way. It is up to us to trust and follow His voice, ... our good instincts. We pray to Him and He answers in whispers. We need to learn to listen. Sometimes we need to just leave it in His hands. That is not giving up, ... it is Trust and Faith. Sometimes we need to acknowledge that this is something I must live with and in doing so, making it a part of our life, simply do the best we can, calling it our "normal" and move on. Soon we find that it is not the life shattering thing we thought it was.

A man recently went into a health club and started shooting, killing and wounding and then took his own life. He apparently was obsessed with himself and his problem. Life, for everyone (he thought), was all about him. He deserved (he thought) to be loved and instead he was rejected. His happiness was all he cared about and of course, who could love such a person? He was on a self destructive merry-go-round, its speed building on itself. One of our responsibilities in life is to think of others. Dale Carnegie told us that in order to make friends and influence people we must be genuinely interested in them. Carnegie was not just speaking of salesmanship but of life. The operative word there is "genuinely". He was unintentionally (I think) a great religious teacher. Become selfless to become lovable. It is the only way. When we only think of ourselves we are, in effect, inbreeding which has been proven to destroy the species.

It has been another busy and interesting week. Time really flies when you are having fun. The fun is in the satisfaction that in spite of troubles all around us, things in general are on a positive note. There is nothing going on in my life that God and I can't handle. There is no doubt ...

Grandpa Don Plefka

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Free JavaScripts provided by The JavaScript Source	Anne wanted everyone to be 'Nice'. This button was in one of her dresser  drawers I cleaned out in August of 2004