Love and Commitment, Commitment and Love.

Today is Tuesday, March 3, 2015 and I bid everyone a hearty welcome. I like a good story as much as anyone. Here's a very recent one that is probably not seen very often: Couple married 67 years dies holding hands By SCOTT SMITH, Associated Press | February 26, 2015 FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Floyd and Violet Hartwig's marriage spanned 67 years, but their love for one another appears timeless. Sensing that the couple was close to death, their children pushed their two hospice beds together and gently placed their father's hand in the mother's palm. Floyd, 90, died first. Violet, 89, followed five hours later. They had a good life and died Feb. 11 at home, just as they had wished, the family said. "They wanted to go together," their daughter, Donna Scharton, said Thursday. "It was meant to be that way." The two knew each other as children, growing up in the Central California farming community of Easton. Romance sparked at a local dance hall one night when Floyd, a decorated Navy sailor, was home on shore leave. They were married on Aug. 16, 1947, and Floyd showered Violet with affection from afar through love letters that the family still cherishes. Returning home for good, the two raised three children on their small farm, growing cotton and raising turkeys. Violet helped on the ranch and kept the house. She prepared breakfast early each morning for her husband, seeing him off to work as a ranch foreman and delivering eggs. "They were dedicated to each other," Scharton said. "Even other people who met them said they had that connection." The two, who had four grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren, remained active until recently. Around the holidays, the family noticed that Violet's dementia had turned for the worse, and in late January a doctor said Floyd's failing kidneys gave him two weeks more to live. The family moved the couches from the living room of their ranch house, making space for the hospice beds. Cynthia Letson said that after her grandfather passed, they told her grandmother, as she faded, that she could go too. They told Violet that Floyd was waiting for her. Letson said her grandparents are a positive example at a time with too many broken marriages. "It would be nice if the world got back to the core of marriage," Letson said. "I don't think people realize that anymore. They need to go back to the basics that marriage is forever."

True Fan

I tried to watch NASCAR this past Sunday afternoon but my driver was having a bad day. When he has a bad day, I have a hard time watching. The Rockets were playing the Cavaliers and I was switching forth and back between the two and also keeping up with one of the Beat Bobby Flay episodes on the Food Network. I may have lapsed a time or two for a brief nap. The wife taking her siesta in the bedroom said things got awfully quiet a few times in the family room. Meaning: She didn't hear the channels being switched. I've been told that not watching the race when my driver is doing poorly makes me a less than committed fan to the sport itself. Hello? Surely I don't have to take some kind of loyalty test. Do I? The Rockets game was bruising. The tension could have been cut with a knife. Towards the end the wife joined me in watching but she said it was too intense so I switched to Bobby Flay and alternatively finished the last 15 laps of the race. Just another afternoon of letting my fingers do the walking/switching at our place of tranquil abode. (The Rockets did win in overtime 105-103.)

I agree. It would be easier if I had that feature to put multiple screens up simultaneously. I think my TV is capable of that but I'm not sure I have whatever it is that causes it to work. That would be almost too easy. I know I could easily keep up with four at a time, and maybe that should be a consideration next time we do a TV upgrade. I did my diabetes check up last Friday. I must have had on some really heavy clothes because that scale they use, well, it has always been very unfriendly to me. I do have a great primary care physician. He is young, articulate, and he specializes in the disease that dogs my steps on a 24 hour basis. Now we await the all important lab results. It was the last day for the lady technician who drew my blood. That can be either good or bad. It was good. She was excellent at sticking a large needle in my vein. Folks were dropping by to give her their farewell and best wishes. She will be working in a doctor's office closer to her home. I did have one little mishap. My doctor is in a brand new facility. Very nice. I knew about the new address. I looked it up. I even looked at a photo of the building on Google Maps. However, I drove to the old address anyway. I was on the elevator and it stopped on my floor. Yikes. You needed a card to swipe to get off on that floor. It then hit me. Wrong place. (The new facility was at least 15 minutes away.) This caused me to have a slightly elevated blood pressure reading and when I explained my little diversion that almost made me late, my doctor told me not to worry about it because it is nothing more than brain memory running on auto pilot. Did I tell you I liked my doctor? Have a great rest of the day and may God bless us all. Amen. .....More later.