COnfessions of a MAD Antique Dealer

I called this morning VAN DYKES nursing home in Hawthorne and asked them what time they expected me to give a lecture..or my version of the antique road show. They had no idea of what I was talking and after then minutes of searching the person on the other end said maybe it was in the RIDGEWOOD LOCATION> Well, I didnt know that they even had a Ridgewood location...(and a MONTCLAIR AND RINGWOOD one too).. I called Ridgewood and the woman again had no idea what I was talking about. I insisted that she check further..and said oh yes, its tomorrow TUESDAY....Oh, HELLO, Miss Thing, today IS TUESDAY>>> Oh it is...well, Miss Dyslexia somewhere had lost  a day...She finally said  OH yes today....I asked for her location, and she told me it across from the hospital. (VAL)

After driving up and down a few hundred times, and not finding it .....we called and got the address...it was more than half a mile from the hospital not across the street....I was ten minutes late...CHRIS brought up the boxes of things I brought..incase the people didn't bring enough stuff.  Now I have address Seniors clubs before, but never within the confines of a nursing home. More than half of the men and women were inwheel chairs. Some weren't even coherent...and a few of them, who seemed alert and healthy, when they started to speak, spoke in tongues,..they made little if any sense at all  and the nurses went to calm them.  IT made me very sad, but sadness and pity was not on the menu. They didn't need that. They needed  an hour of putting their attention into something  but their own condition.  My eyes met a few of theirs, and they new...I knew how they felt.. There was a communication that is inexplicable...and there were a few , when I looked at them, I was able to see the child, the teen and the young person and how they must have looked growing up. It was almost like in a nightmare, some realization would want you to scream out loud in horror...but no sounds would come out. The realization, is that I am in that process...and time my enemy might at any moment put me into a wheel chair and be brought in to join them, awaiting the final curtain of the play, that I didnt finish.  There were people there younger than me!!!!

I invited all of them to the store..I said, get into a bus and come down, I will make you cofee tea and cookies, and if your diabetic, I will get sugar free cookies.....and our aisles are ADA approved, our elevator accomodate wheel chairs, as do our bathrooms and wide aisles and ramps.....My invitation and caring....was appreciated. They all wanted cards.....and said they would come and vivist. They enjoyed the hour and half presentation.....it was supposed to be an hour,,,but since they enjoyed it, I just continued......HERE, I learned that I was able to make jokes without sexual connotation, Bad mouthing BUSH, but I was able to make references to things they could and would relate to and I had these people laughing....some of them in their 90's......I brought an old OAK wall telephone, and some people remembered them.  Then we talked about party lines......then I took out my  cell phone....and said, "how amazing how far we have come along....and this one takes photos, movies, can access the Internet, get email, text messages(had to try to explain)...the only thing it cant do is wash the dishes.....

After it was over, I took out some like items that I had explained and gave them an oral test...and they enjoyed the participation....After it was over, the nurses, orderlies, came in broke down the seating arrange ment and pushed the people in rows, to sit lonely again...and you can see their faces, went back to their old expression..Before I left I said, if you enjoyed today, maybe I can come back and visit and we can "play" again....and they applauded...YES, the entire group applauded, even those that I wasn't sure if they were even paying attention.....They even bussed some people in form another location......

Did you all know that BILL GATES of Microsoft and I have something very in common. We both have a mindset to do charity work. Well even though charity begins at home, I really have always wanted to do some good stuff to help people, in different walks of life.

One of the top things in the news today, is a man reported eating a deep fried mouse in a bag of potato chips....MMMMM good and crispy..Isn't this great news...This is considered top News by AOL....and they removed a tumor of a guy in CHINA..This poor hunch backed soul, had a thirty pound tumor on his face..he didn't look human...more like a WALRUS, but you couldn't even see his eyes, nose or mouth...it was abunch of flaps of fatty skin. I am not making fun at all. Rather, making this statement, that if you see this, and I will try to send a ling to a video, none of use should n<SPAN id=sp-26 title=" deer, ever, Denver, Dover, defer, diver, sever" style="BACKGROUND: url(undefinedimages/bg_spellingErr.gif) yellow repeat-x left bottom; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2px; COLOR: #000" _backupTitle="null"> again feel sorry for ourselves. I wonder if he will even have a face reconstructed after the operation.....Its a living nightmare.  I guess we can consider this news, because we can learn to be happier in our lot in life, when we see people like this.

I just reread this blog and had to erase a few lines that made no sense at all, and I didnt type them in...there were these words that indicated some kind of computer programming technical words....that came out of no where....how they got there I do not know...nor udnerstood what there were refering to.?? DID anyone notice them? But then again, only if you are now rereading the blog can you answer that..

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