Our Story from Start to Beyond the Grave: Memories of my Jace*—- as a boy (45)

Since I’ve meet you, my love, I have started to listen to Country Western Music. When I asked you if you listened to Country Western Music you laughed and said, “You mean cut my arm and make me sad songs? No thanks. I did when I was younger, when country was real, with artists like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, you know the old timers. It was on quite a bit at the house. Hee Haw every Saturday night, Grand Old Opry and the like.” I laughed, here was my cowboy from Texas and he didn’t like county? Well, that didn’t stop me. Funny, he liked all kinds of music, classical, jazz, rap, the music my kids listened on the radio. Lucky for me I knew my kid’s music for when we drove in the car, I would sing along. He would always smile at me singing with the tunes.

Today, as I was driving to work, One More Day by Diamond Rio came on, which always makes me miss you even more came on. But this time, our date of our visit together has been set. As of last night’s, phone call, you gave me the days you are able to have off. You would fly in to LAX on September 13^th, 2003. So today, I will set things into motion. As my Mom would say, “I won’t let any grass grow under my feet.” Let’s get our trip to Mammoth planned so that I can have some Jace*—- time. After all it is what gets me through this life. We are both excited and just can’t wait. I know that he will love Mammoth. It will have everything he loves. Wild life in numbers, beautiful outdoors, and of course his favorite fishing. I will love being with him in his aliment.

He will be here in about a week and a half, so I have a lot of planning to do to get ready for our trip. Some of our plans are to go fishing, which means bringing a fishing rod. I plan to take him up to see the sky lifts, show him the lakes and take him to Yosemite Park. I’m even going to take him to see the San Andreas Fault. We will be there about 5 days. I hope we will have enough time. If not, we can always take another trip there some other time.

Meanwhile we have been talking about our day to day lives. I’m pretty sure, since the kids I am a nanny for will be coming to an end as the oldest one is going into Middle School. So, I will be putting in applications after I come back from our trip. Work is going well with Jace*—-. Happy that he is feeling comfortable with his job. He enjoys and trusts his employees, which always makes for a good working atmosphere.

Then he started in on his stories, which I always find very entertaining. Jace*—- was once again going back to his childhood. This time he was talking about his adventures with his brothers and friends. I may have mentioned that Jace*—- and his brothers Jon, and Jim where known around the neighborhood as the Shelton Boys. They were constantly being active, adventurous, and came up with some of the boys will be boys’ activities. Like how they use to play that they were knights jousting against Jon, their oldest brother who was a knight on his skateboard. Yep you read right, Jon’s mighty stead was a skateboard. The idea was for Jace*—- and his bother Jim would run towards Jon with broom handles and try to knock him off his skateboard. There were more than a few causalities from that game.

Or the time that the Shelton Boys decided to go hunting with bow and arrows. Now let me explain these were not professional bows, but ones that kids got at the local store with rubber suction cups at the tips. One exception was they got bored with the target that they came with and the boys much preferred to take the rubber tips off and sharpen the wood end by running it across the concrete. Out and ready to go on their adventure, they aimed at all sorts of objects from critters to yep each other. Jace*—- got the bad end of the arrow literally when it went into his calve. It was in pretty deep, but the boys were not about telling their Mom about this mishap. So big brother Jon, pulled out the arrow and helped the limping Jace*—- home. There the boys cleaned Jace*—- up, dressing his wound, and had him but on long pants. They managed to do all that just in time before their Mom came home from work. Luckily, no infection came about and he healed nicely. His Mom was never the wiser for what had happened.

But there was the one time that the Shelton Boys played against some of the neighborhood boys in a friendly game of touch football. It soon became a free for all, tackling included. They where playing on a neighbor’s lawn that was on a hill. Jace*—- went for the football, got to close to the edge, and fell down the hill, hitting his head on the sidewalk. He was knocked out. Some of the kids never seen anyone knocked out cold before ran to his Mom’s house and told her what had happen to Jace*—-. She got into her station wagon, drove to the scene, picked Jace*—- up and placed him in the back of her wagon. Off they went to the emergency hospital where they x-rayed him, finding that he had a concussion. He luckily, came to during his visit and was able to go home. But he was out of the loop for a while, which did not hold well with him.

The many adventures of my man. Believe me they never stopped until the day he died. In saying that he still is pushing the envelope as far as he can in heaven.

Next, Jace*—- is loose in Hollywood and Beverly Hills. Now that’s an adventure.