Jerry Eddleman died last week. His service was live streamed today from Naples. It was a great service along with military honors.

Based on his service, I found out there was a heart procedure that he was unable to receive. So I guess his heart just gave out. But Jerry was a fantastic guy. He was a big part of my sobriety in Naples. Most people either loved him or didn’t. I had my moments with him, but mostly I loved him. I was looking back on an old blog about my motorcycle Ciera and saw that he read a poem at Steve’s service.

Jerry E read it at Steve’s Memorial:

The Touch of the Master’s Hand

‘Twas battered and scarred, and the auctioneer
Thought it scarcely worth his while
To waste much time on the old violin,
But held it up with a smile.
“What am I bidden, good folks,” he cried,
“Who’ll start the bidding for me?”
“A dollar, a dollar. Then two! Only two?
Two dollars, and who’ll make it three?””Three dollars, once; three dollars, twice;
Going for three…” But no,
From the room, far back, a grey-haired man
Came forward and picked up the bow;
Then wiping the dust from the old violin,
And tightening the loosened strings,
He played a melody pure and sweet,
As a caroling angel sings.

The music ceased, and the auctioneer,
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said: “What am I bid for the old violin?”
And he held it up with the bow.
“A thousand dollars, and who’ll make it two?
Two thousand! And who’ll make it three?
Three thousand, once; three thousand, twice,
And going and gone,” said he.

The people cheered, but some of them cried,
“We do not quite understand.
What changed its worth?” Swift came the reply:
“The touch of the Master’s hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune,
And battered and scarred with sin,
Is auctioned cheap to the thoughtless crowd
Much like the old violin.

A “mess of pottage,” a glass of wine,
A game — and he travels on.
He is “going” once, and “going” twice,
He’s “going” and almost “gone.”
But the Master comes, and the foolish crowd
Never can quite understand
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the touch of the Master’s hand.

Rest in Peace Jerry E. You will be missed!

I did a little project the other day. Jack puts all of his hotrods in frames on his wall in his office:

So I did this:

I started thinking about that when I did my last blog about the history of my RV life through the rigs I’ve had. I think I’m done with it now – although I saw a really nice rig the other day on YouTube – $170K – WOW! Makes my Chateau seem like a bargain!

So now we’re going to put the new pet door in for the kitties!

Ziggy is the best one so far to use it. This morning, Zena went through it. Metaxa had one in Florida – I got her one in Benson, but she didn’t use it – remember this?

I thought she would use it from inside the house and then use the cat condo to get inside from the porch. Never happened! Anyway, our Arizona room gets very hot now and we’re hoping the new kitty door will eliminate some of that heat. Time will tell!

I have 4500 pictures on my computer for the BLOG. I guess that means that I’ve put at least 4500 pictures in my BLOG. As I searched for the picture above I gave up after scrolling through 2500 pictures. At least now I know I can always have pictures to remember my life by in my computer. They are mostly in order. My phone has all of the pictures also and organizes them by date. That is another way to reminisce. But I could lose my phone one day. Not anticipating that however! I think I’ll go out to the Arizona room and do some biking on my Sit-N-Cycle. Jack is sleeping in! It’s his BIRTHDAY today. June 23, 2024 – he is 74 years old!

I love watching the birds while I ride my Sit-N-Cycle. The doves are sometime very mean to one another. The hummingbirds are always adorable! And yesterday I shot this video of the Quail Family:

Found this video on an old blog and I thought I would share it here. It’s while I was living in Daisy next to Barry in Site 203 at CTRV:

Today is Monday, June 24, 2024. Jack’s birthday was yesterday and we went to Black Angus for dinner. It was really good. Today starts the diet – it’s serious now. We’ll see how it goes.

I thought I’d repost this video. It was after I “made her my own”.

It is REALLY HOT today. I warned you I would be complaining about the heat here. I’m not sure what I’m going to do about it. I may want to travel up north to Flagstaff at some point. I did find a different place to stay up there rather than the KOA. I’m going to check the temps up there. It might be something I want to do in July, but I bet it will be hot up there in July also. I’m going to Show Low in August and I sure hope it’s cooler there then.

Starting this again on Tuesday, June 25, 2024. I’ve begun re-reading my posts on this blog. I read the one for Christmas 2014 and found this:

“I’m having trouble with the other picture.  There it is.  I just had a “computer freeze” and lost some of this post….now where was I?  (I got distracted and saw that you can “print” this post now and when I tested it, my computer froze and I had to reboot).  Anyway, I was talking about my Chandelier “Tree”.  I now have the 2 ornaments that Suzanne gave me on it.  Also I have a little “Dutch Girl” hanging on it that was given to me by my mom’s friend “Babs” when I went up to Clearwater to close her condo after she died.  I love that little ornament – the legs swing on it.  Babs also gave me a cute little kitty on a pillow and when you pick it up, there is a fish under the pillow.  So sweet.  Then I hung a seasonal “Santa” on it.  I got that ornament from my boss at The Registry when I worked there.  It was funny.  They were Jewish and for the 2 Christmases I worked there, I received a Santa Claus each time.  The one I hung in the kitchen was the cutest one.  The other thing I have hanging from the chandelier is the sweetest little wind chime.  I think Jennifer gave it to me on one of our “Beaches” weekends.  Anyway, it has the most delicate sound and when I get up from the kitchen chair and hit it with my head, at least it has a nice “twinkling” sound.”

I still have all of those things that are mentioned in that. I hang them on my bookcase now rather than our chandelier. The wind chime is hanging out on our front porch! It’s amazing how comforting all of those things are for me.

We had a hawk in our backyard today on the fence. I tried to get a picture of it, but ended up getting it “on the fly”.

It was this type of hawk – this was taken at CTRV:

So last night we had the first of many, we believe, Monsoon storms. This is what we woke up to this morning:

Just as I was texting Sue about her tree, she was calling me about it. Dreamland Villa had already contacted her about it. So now she needs to get it fixed from where ever she is up north. We gave her the name of the guy that took down our Saguaro – Jose Knows Trees.

This is how the tree looks now. Much better!

Found this on YouTube about Taylor Swift. I’m still amazed by her and this 60 minute video is pretty good:

This is 3 hours of her EROS Tour:

https://youtu.be/PadFoMa7je4?si=qeLYnYROKFWbK-BO

Today is Thursday, June 27, 2024. Ziggy is 11 months old today and Zena is 15 months old today. They are such good kitties:

Zena in her favorite place:

You can see where the little kitty noses have been on this window and every window in the house!