Excuse me, my friend, but I can't remember your name!
When the labels fall off
Jim Porterfield, September 10, 2018
Doing cartwheels…
It was raining that February day in 1967 in the little town of Girard, Texas. The 90 or so 1st-12th grade students in Girard Public School where I was a 4th grader were having after-lunch recess in the gym. For some odd reason I decided to do some cartwheels. A couple of other boys decided to play chase. There was a head-on collision and I went head-first into the floor. It took me a few moments to get back up but none of the teachers seemed to notice. The bell rang. We went to class. The teachers were in a training session, so our class had a substitute. A few minutes after we were seated I became very nauseous. When I told the sub, she told me I was fine and to sit down and be quiet. Next came projectile vomiting – at which point she did relent and send me to the nurse. The nurse did a preliminary check and called my parents who took me to the emergency room. I was hospitalized overnight with a severe concussion. I was released the next day and told to take it easy for a few days.
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- Written by: J.Rob Porterfield
On Hawaiian Ti plants and a mobile life
Have you ever had one of those Hawaiian Ti plants? Remember those? They’re supposed to be good luck. I have one. After graduating from college in 1978, I moved to Thousand Oaks, CA and shortly after purchased one of those Ti logs and stuck it in a pot. If it had only known…
My move to Thousand Oaks was moves #12, 13, & 14 for me (I lived in three different homes over the 3 years I lived there). Growing up in a preacher’s family, we had lived in 9 homes from the time I was born to the time I graduated high school. I was born in Ukiah, CA while my family lived in the kitchen of Hopland Baptist Church in Hopland (home #1) - so, yes, I've been in church from the time I was born. From there we moved to an apartment (#2) and eventually a house (#3) in Fort Benton, MT, followed by a three bedroom log house in Forest Green, MT (#4). One of the most traumatic moves of my entire life was the move from the Forest Green logging camp, over a mile high, in Montana to Lubbock, TX (one of my least favorite places on the globe.) I thought I had died and gone to that other place that no one wants to go (other than Lubbock). We lived in two different houses in Lubbock (#5 & #6) before moving to Girard, TX (#7), Marfa, TX (#8), and finally Monahans, TX (June 1969) (#9).
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- Written by: J.Rob Porterfield
Productive Parsing
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- Written by: Jim Porterfield
Good Day for a Drive
It’s a Good Day for a Drive!
So today is a beautiful sunny day, wonderful weather, clear skies. Great day for a drive, even though my drive is to the church. But first I have to stop by Sears to get blades for a Craftsman grinder – they’re not like all the other grinders, you know – they take special blades. I’ve not been to Sears since we moved here, but I’ve been by one several times.
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- Written by: Jim Porterfield
