carbon paper

I think if you were to ask kids today what carbon paper is they would be baffled. I certainly knew what it was....got my hands all messy...if you put it in the typewriter wrong side out...it just didn't work!

Why am I thinking about that now! I had a dream last night that I had just gotten my job at the radio station.

This little skinny girl who knew nothing...and boy when I was hired...I was all fired up....thinking I was somebody.

I must have been pretty boring in those days because all I could think about and talk about was that station.

What kinds of music we played on the 33 l/3 rpm's....who was running the board...who was writing the logs....and just who was...

I recall going into our big studio...our Stephen Collins Foster studio with a magnificent piano. Our bookkeeper could really play...and my boss had a fantastic tenor voice.

I just couldn't get over my good fortune....and so I enjoyed it for 9 years when I became very pregnant with Jeff.

I knew then that was a chapter closed in my life....but a better one was to open.

It was no competition!

My job was parttime program director and writing all the commercials....hence the carbon paper.

I had never heard of a Zerox...or for that matter an electric or electronic typewriter....or a word processor. Didn't exist in 1944. How primitive it was and I didn't even know it.

Leni who is sooo smart!

Going back about 7 years in my life, I was introduced to a new medium in my life...and a new lady!

Both shot up my adrenelin and added such a bonus to my life.

The chicken or the egg...I don't know who was more important...Leni Cohen who runs a school for webtv...or the webtv itself.

Truth to tell ...they ran together...a winning team.....and I joined it.

I threw away my encyclopedia...my dictionary...and my telephone book...it was all contained in this little gadget....but Leni taught us how to use it.

If I had just walked into Best Buy and bought it myself....I know that I would not have gotten the same effect of it.

Her enthusiasm was so contagious that I couldn't wait to enter her classroom that was originally held in Weight Watchers building.

Then I discovered Pagebuilder...and I became published. Me....hilda...a published author.....wow! In my little schettel here, I was important.

Well, today, I saw Leni once again....and the magic was back. She exudes love of anything she's involved with...be it her dog...family...technology....or health insurance.

Today is a good day!

When is it enough!

It's June in Florida and this is when I enjoy it most.

The 'snowbirds' have fled and have gone back to either the house they left or smooch off some of the relatives for awhile.

Years ago multi-generational homes worked because the world was a different place. Families ate together and sat around and enjoyed each other's company. Dementia and senility weren't as frequent as they are now simply because folks didn't live that long.

Same as with hips, knees and backs. Surgery was a rarity because of life expentency.

So...is this good! I don't really know. I do know that it scares the heck out of a lot of us wondering what's going to become of us.

Life is good.....God meant it to be good......but have some of us reached the satiation peak.

I say again to my kids....no heroic measures. I've lived one heck of a good life.....and whatever fate has in mind is fine.

I'm not being morbid....just factual. Thank you my loved ones!

Serenity

This is a most unusual face...beautiful...like she's very comfortable in her own life.

Virginia has carved her own life every bit of the way...and it shows.

She's a very good person...I believe the kind that our G-d had in mind when he created womankind.

She's kind, compassionate and will go out of her way to do a good deed for which she likes to remain anonymous.

Her kids are very lucky they have her as their 'mom'.

Monkey See--Monkey Does...speaks for itself!

Meet Virginia on the left, the kind friend who writes generously in my blog almost everyday.

My support!

Then her first cousin Nancy and Virginia's daughter Joey.

It's a fun picture and I was trying so hard to get a picture of Virginia...and she's a monkey! What do you call this????

Anyway....thanks, Virginia!

A l little family I'm so proud of!

These 4 people are very important in my life. They are Gary, Arthur, Alek and Sue.

Gary happens to be the son of my best friend in New Kensington, who passed away.

However, through the years, Gary and I have always kept in touch with one another.

Sue is a nurse and also, I might add, is very beautiful and was voted "Miss Kittanning" in Pennsylvania.

Gary from the time he got out of college was interested in newspapers.

He started out in classified in Leader Papers. He graduated many times and I believe that now he might even be in publishing.

I live in Florida and I was going to Virginia to visit my kids. When the Siegel family heard this, they said they were coming also to visit.

I was thrilled and excited....they really wanted to see me and my family....stay at a hotel and drive a lot of miles.

Before they came Gary told me some news about Alek, this darling boy who just graduated.....he has some autism.

Oh my....I felt so badly. I could never tell by all the pictures he had sent over the years.

When I first met Alek in his hotel, he asked me how old I was! I answered kiddingly that I was 1000 years old.

He didn't like that answer. He said ...' is that the truth'. I had to confess and then I realized he doesn't like to be teased.

Anyway, I received this picture today....and I am so thrilled and so proud...and so would Sonja Gary's mother.

Whatever Alek will do to finish growing up....I know that his parents and brother had a lot of Faith....and so do I......so good luck!s

The person riding this bike is my nephew Paul!

I'm so proud of Paul. He rides for enjoyment...for his health...and just for the well-being of the earth around him. HE enjoys seeing the trees and the bike trails....and he concentrates on his breathing and feels that all's well with the world.


Paul has participated in bike marathons and rode 100 miles for MS and I can't even imagine it.

Even when I was young!

When I was 9 my father bought my sister and me a used powder blue thin tired bike. That's when everyone was riding with balloon tires.

Anyway, I fell in love with that bike and kept it long after I was married....so I really got my father's money's worth!.

It took me everywhere. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, there are lots of hills and when I would be riding upstream it required quite a bit of strength from a skinny little girl.

There were no gear shifts....you just pedaled.

I did have an upgrade though that I was so proud of...a rear few mirror and sometimes I think I looked behind me more than I looked ahead.

Very fond memories...and I'm proud of you, Paul.

Is he just stubborn or is he right!

He was just released from prison yesterday and has had a lot of time to think.

What do you think????

Unrepentant ‘Dr. Death’ still favors right to die
Dr. Kevorkian also asserts other physicians help ill patients commit suicide
NBC News video


Jack Kevorkian: Death is a 'natural right'
June 5: In an exclusive interview with TODAY's Ann Curry the doctor talks about being a free man and if he'd do assisted suicides again.
Today show


Web extra video

Kevorkian walks out of jail
June 1: Jack Kevorkian walks out of a Michigan prison and gets into a vehicle.
NBC News Web Extra


People on
iVillage: The new Weddings channel!
An iVillage Exclusive Q&A with Maroon 5
Quiz: What's Your Erotic Personality?
Condoleezza Rice: You Asked, She Answered
Stars Behind Bars!
By John Springer
TODAYShow.com contributor
Updated: 11:20 a.m. ET June 5, 2007
Eight years in prison hasn’t changed physician-assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian’s opinion that legislatures can prohibit doctors from helping chronically ill patients end their lives, but no man-made rule can ever take away a person’s “natural right” to decide whether they wish to live or die.

“It is one of our natural rights that we are born with, the right to control the circumstances of one’s own death,” Kevorkian, 79, told TODAY’s Ann Curry on Tuesday during his first live television interview since being released from a Michigan prison last week.

“It can’t be controlled by external forces and be a right,” he told Curry. “The law can block your use of it. That doesn’t mean they destroy the right.”

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I happen to agree with him....he's right!

interesting picture

x

ain't he something!

This is Paulie my nephew who rides a bike everywhere.

He just loves it and he takes all these bike trails and sees nature at it's very best.

He rides for hours and doesn't ever seem to get tired.

I have to add that Paul is a diabetic but he keeps it under control by riding.

He doesn't need to take shots. He does it the pleasurable way. This man is sooo special to me...he's my sister's son and I dote on him.

When he came to visit he set up a whole sound system for me and he also burned a lot of cd's and tapes so that I never run out of the kind of music that I grew up with.

Thanks, Paul!

Delray mom, daughter to kick off first leg of 40,000-mile bike trek -- for fun

By Mike Clary
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Posted June 7 2007


Delray Beach -- In search of exercise and a little fun, Rosemary Taugher and her 22-year-old daughter Chelsea plan to head out Monday on a bike ride. They'll be back in three years.

Between departure and return, the pair expect to pedal some 40,000 miles, roll up and down the coastlines of the United States and Mexico, zip through Central America, do the length of South America all the way to Tierra del Fuego, and then island hop through the Caribbean on their way back home.



LocalLinks

It's an adventure so ambitious and arduous that even friends shake their heads in disbelief.

"Rosemary knows that I think she's nuts," said Kathy Whalen, a close friend of the Delray Beach family. "But that's Rosemary. She has grandiose ideas. But unlike most of us, she follows through on them."

Indeed, last summer the pair warmed up with a zigzag cross-country trip to California. Over three-and-a-half months, they racked up a total of 4,280 miles as Alex Taugher-Dias, 19, Rosemary's son, drove ahead in a van with their clothing and camping gear.

Their route took them from St. Augustine to Louisiana, then north to Illinois and west across the middle of the continent to San Francisco.

After the twisting mountain roads of Tennessee and the heat and wheat field expanse of Kansas in August, Chelsea Taugher-Dias admits she entertained the notion of never climbing on a bicycle again. But once home for a few weeks, a daily jaunt up State Road A1A to the Boynton Beach Inlet seemed too tame.

"We got addicted to the travel," said Rosemary Taugher, 57, who with her daughter makes a living as a business management and Web site consultant. "On the road we meet new people. Every day is a new beginning, each day somewhere different."

Jim Sayer, executive director of the 42,000-member Adventure Cycling Association, said the Taughers are part of an explosion of interest in bicycle travel. "It's a great activity that people are becoming more aware of, from young people to the Boomer generation," he said. "But three years is an extraordinarily big plan."

Eleven years ago, any mother-daughter adventures for the Taughers outside a hospital room seemed improbable. While living in the Czech Republic, then 11-year-old Chelsea nearly died after being overcome by carbon monoxide from a faulty heater.

She was on life support for weeks, suffering brain damage that showed up in loss of motor control and short-term memory along with debilitating headaches. After the family moved to South Florida -- an older sibling, Paul Mahoney, lives in Fort Lauderdale -- Taugher home-schooled her younger children while both she and Alex worked with Chelsea on her rehabilitation.

Now completely recovered, Chelsea said, "Brain injury no longer defines me."

For this cycling trip, no one is following in a car or van. Alex is staying home. Both women will pull about 50 pounds of belongings, including a laptop computer, in Burley Nomad trailers behind their Dolce bicycles. They will keep working from the road.

The first leg will take the pair from Key West to Bar Harbor, Maine. From there the Taughers plan to rent a car, drive to Vancouver, British Columbia, and then continue cycling down the West Coast into Mexico and Central America. They expect to be at the Mexican border by November.

The budget for the trip is about $2,000 a month for expenses, including food and occasional lodging. Along with working online, the pair hope to sell photos, video and articles along the way. Taugher is also writing a book on the virtual office.

Following detailed U.S. road maps produced by the Adventure Cycling Association, the Taughers plan to stay most nights with friends or camp out. With five or six hours of peddling, they expect to average about 50 miles a day.

Once out of the United States, the bike routes are less clear, and general information on safety and support sketchier. But Internet sites such as crazyguyonabike.com serve as clearinghouses for cyclists who travel the world.

"As the site has grown," said Crazyguy founder Neil Gunton of St. Louis, "it has allowed people to realize what can be done. You don't have to be Superman, but you do have to have perseverance."

Mark Carrera, a cyclist who became friends with the Taughers three and half years ago when he worked in a Delray Beach sporting goods store, said he has concerns about two women on the road for such an extended time.

"But the adventure side of me says, `Go for it,'" he said from his home in Dover, N.H., where he is a student. "And when Rosemary says she's going to do something, then get the hell out of the way."

"We are doing this to celebrate life," said Taugher, who will blog about the trip on her Web site, www.compassroseint.net. "I would love to be an inspiration to anybody, women especially.

"We're not bionic. There is nothing special about us. We just get up every day and go ride."




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My 80th...old lady!

I couldn't get over it then...and I can't get over it now...I'm an old woman!

Time is such an abstract. I think it's divided in 4 segments....wonderful childhood...your career and I had a wonderful one at the radio station...your married life and giving birth...and raising offspring....and then when you're alone again to face "The Golden Years"

But Allen had a few good years in Florida and he just loved our little house and the pool....so I'm very grateful for this.

So this is my little family...and I adore them all. P.S. I wasn't always this short...time has a way of altering our height.

This picture was taken at a very exclusive woodsy restaurant and it was such a privilege to dine there.

Emypty nest syndrome

When the chicks have flown the coup....but the Burger's realized this before, so they got these two adorable pets before.

Baby is the black and white dog and keeps them very busy wanting them to throw his toys so that he can retrieve.

There's a small opening in their door so the dogs can do what doggies do and they're very happy until 5 p.m. when they remind Barbara that it's dinner time. Baby actually starts to shake.

Greta the brown one is old by people years..91 to be exact and is really starting to slow down.

Paul and Barbara bought a set of stairs so that the pets can climb more easily into their bed at night...so all four sleep together.

Barbara thinks it's so adorable when Baby snores..that she phones me from Va. to Fl. to listen to this great symphony.

I can be in the middle of the best tv show...but she makes me listen. When she reads this she will laugh out loud.

Anyway...I'm jealous. I just wish we were able to have pets here. It would make me much happier...and actually slow down my blood pressure....so they claim.