As a reward for getting out in the latter afternoon yesterday on the four-mile round trip hike to purchase three dozen cans of beer which I had to tote home, I rewarded myself last evening by consuming two of those beers.
I am 'out of shape' where alcohol consumption is concerned, so imbibing the two strong (8% alcohol) brews left me with a wee bit of a hangover. This adversely affected me by probably reducing my quality of sleep during the latter evening, even though I did rise very early into the midnight hour when I heard my younger brother go to his bedroom for the night.
My wife was still up, but she was to have a full work schedule today at her friend's Thai restaurant with an 11 a.m. start, so she soon enough retired to our bedroom to get what sleep she was able.
I remained up and got a fair amount of work done here at my computer, and returned to bed reasonably soon after 4:30 a.m. However, in all the while that I was up, I felt below par. My eyes were troubling me, and I always felt as if a vague headache might set in.
My morning today began shortly after 8:30 a.m. when I rose, still feeling poorly slept. In fact, when I later joined my brother around 10 a.m. to watch T.V. and get the invitation to put our Android TV Box into action, it was not long before I recognized the beginnings of a migraine aura in the lower right field of my vision that shimmered annoyingly for possibly as much as a half hour.
Even before it manifested, I was noticing trouble seeing T.V. ─ the right portion of my vision seemed indistinct or darkened.
As I age, I find myself less and less thrilled about being a fleshly being prey to all manner of ills.
As I have reported in the past, back around my 10th birthday (I am 71 now), I badly burned my face and my eyes with a package of a type of fireworks that were essentially dice- or sugar cube-sized portions of the sort of explosive powder that is behind what makes fireworks 'go bang' or flare.
I sort of recall that the package was maybe shaped something like the kind of container that popcorn used to come in at a movie theatre, and the product might have been called "Surprise Package".
It also seems to me that my younger brother inspired me to do what I did to cause the accident.
He and our father were off to check for eggs in a chicken coop we had at the time, and my brother had flippantly suggested that I stick a lit punk into the container and see what happens. Normally, a person would just take out one of the cubes and touch it with a lit punk, and the cube would practically burst into a glorious miniature volcanic display.
Well, I was curious. So I decided to touch the lit punk to just one of the uppermost cubes in the package, and I bent close to get a good look.
I remember watching the glow of ignition quickly spreading across the cube from the contact with the punk, and then of course all of the neighbouring cubes became engulfed ─ and the entire contents virtually flared upwards into my face.
I'll not go into a description of that aftermath. But I was in the hospital for what seemed like a number of weeks, initially with my head all bandaged up like the head of a mummy. At first, I could only take in nourishment through a straw that was carefully placed between my burned and blackened lips.
I can remember when my face had begun scabbing over as the injury dried, I would sometimes feel cracks in the scabbing open up and very warm and rather noxious-smelling fluid would flow forth and wet my hospital pillow.
My young brother would not even come into the hospital room after he first saw me all bandaged up ─ he turned and ran off. He woldn't visit after that.
Anyway, my right eye got the worst of the burn, and my vision was always akin to trying to see through a frosted or fogged glass. Early on, at least one eye specialist suggested that it was probably best for the eye if I resisted ever getting eyeglasses ─ it was felt that the best thing would be to always force the eye to work as best it could without any weakening aids.
And so I never got prescription glasses.
Fast forward through the years, and around 1997 I had to undergo a physical examination for workplace pension plan purposes ─ I was going to buy back previous employment as pensionable service over something like a 20-year period, and the physical was to ensure that I would live to reach the end of that time span. The reason for that was because if I was to die before the service had been paid for, all remaining costs would be forgiven and any spouse I might have would then be able to collect the widow's portion of my eventual pension (which was 50% of what I would have gotten) for the rest of her life without any cost to her for the extra service that I had been buying.
I forget now, but I think I was having something like $75 deducted from my Pay every two weeks. And that was to continue for 20 years.
Anyway, the eye exam got me a verdict from the doctor administering the physical that I was legally blind in the right eye.
In other words, vision was diminishing over the years. And now it is so bad that I am unsure if I can actually distinguish someone's features with the eye enough to be able to discern their identity.
Coincidentally to this, just two days ago I stumbled across two mentions in one of the local newspapers about my accident. I do remember a reporter asking some questions, even though I was unable to see him.
So here are those two accounts, a day apart:
Monday, November 2, 1959
G***** B******, 10, of 5920 Rankin [Road], Cloverdale, may lose the sight of his right eye as a result of an explosion in his home Saturday night. He mistook a can of black powder for sand and stuck a lighted punk into it. The boy is in good condition in Royal Columbian Hospital.
Tuesday, November 3, 1959
A 10-year-old Cloverdale boy whose eye was injured in a Halloween explosion, is not expected to lose his sight, his doctor said Monday. G***** B******, 5920 Rankin [Road], is in fairly good condition at Royal Columbian Hospital. A can of black powder exploded in his face Saturday night when he mistook it for black sand and dropped a burning punk in it.
Obviously the brief report was not entirely accurate ─ I knew what the small carton contained. My brother and I had previously ignited some of the cubes on an independent basis.
The home we were renting back then is long gone, and I never knew exactly where it was when I travelled past the area in subsequent years as an adult, but now I have its actual address even though no such property would exist there today ─ I have no doubt that the whole area is heavily developed. We had what seemed like 'wilderness' at the back off our yard that stretched all the way to any properties abutting our side of 152nd Street (Johnston Road). Nothing like that would be there today.
Back then, it was a boy's Adventure Land. Incidentally, Rankin Road is now better understood to be 148th Street.
This Google Map shows the apparent location of that old home. None of those small streets riddling the area today existed back then. There was no road between 148th and 152nd Streets; and none between 60th Avenue and 56th Avenue, if I am remembering correctly. So virtually, we had almost a full square half mile of what was almost forest.
Every boy deserves that sort of geographic background to develop in.
But once again, I have far digressed from that which I meant to blog about ─ i.e., my day.
After I had joined my younger brother for some T.V. this morning and then put our Android TV Box into use, I tuned in a May 27th Dr. Mercola video: COVID-19 Vaccines- Interview with Judy Mikovits, Ph.D., and Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D.
Even my brother has come to recognize those two ladies, for we have seen videos featuring them both before, albeit never together.
The video was an hour and 18 minutes in duration, and very technical in that it was chock full of terminology that only a serious biomedical researcher would have any comfort with. However, my brother never adversely commented ─ a most encouraging sign. I think he is coming to recognize that only through exposure to such material is he ever going to at least come to some acquaintance with such terms.
Unlike me, he is unable to use a computer to inform himself, so he never gets to read the various health-related articles that I do throughout each and every day. And if not for our Android TV Box, he would not even be able to watch videos like the ones I share with him because he is unable to operate the Android TV Box himself.
The only other show we watched together thereafter was the penultimate episode of the current season's Line of Duty ─ it is such a fabulous series.
The season's main guest star is Kelly Macdonald, and I have grown to become quite a fan of hers. The character she plays was finally imprisoned in this episode ─ I just hope nothing bad happens to her there and that she gets released somehow, for I want to see a lot of her in that coming season finale my brother and I will be watching in a couple or so weeks.
Prior to joining my brother for T.V., I had managed to sneak a couple of different brands of bottles of Scotch to the coffee table in the living room while he was dealing with a load of laundry. Today is his 69th birthday.
I did not manage to get him anything else, not even a birthday card (I forgot).
I texted my wife while she was in the bathroom freshening up for her departure to work, letting her know of his birthday, but she must not have read the text. She left here without saying a, "Happy birthday!"
She only responded to the text at 3:18 p.m. ─ much later on ─ with a simple "OK". So I am hoping that maybe she will at least get him a card; and maybe she will alert her two sons, for they might also wish to become involved in any possible gift.
My brother sought some bed rest around the midway point of the noon hour, but I resisted, despite needed a nap. Unlike the previous two days which were overcast until at least the mid-afternoon, today became sunny early, and I knew I was not going to be able to skip sunning myself without a bad conscience.
And so after my brother had left for the afternoon ─ he expressed that he was confident that he ought to be getting at least a couple of free drinks in honour of his big day ─ I eventually began over an hour of sunning at 2:52 p.m.
Certainly it was a later start than I had intended due to becoming involved in some things here at my computer, but at least I got the exposure.
Then I finally had my day's first meal, which overloaded me enough to finally put me back to bed to nap it off.
I never got back out of bed until at least 6:10 p.m. And the first thing I was then to do was to put a can of that strong beer into the fridge icebox / freezer ─ that treat is now not far off.
Anyway, that seems like a pretty good cue with which to take my final bow from today's blog post.
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