27 October 2017

Notes - Dad H. / no cover up as in JFK film / ghost story 1



       Afternoon and you are about to head to Potbelly's for lunch. Carol has been doing housework and clothes washings/drying all day. You suggested bringing her lunch but she just wants to get out of the house. Meanwhile, you hate the taste of the steroid pills before meals and at the end of the day. Your rash continues to grow like the steroids are helping the cause. You can't take any separate medicines for the rash on left leg up onto left hip side until you complete the steroid pack. It takes six months to see a group dermatologist. That's where you are at the moment. Later. - Amorella

       1412 hours. I'm not even hungry.

       After lunch and a Graeter's you are waiting for Carol at Kroger's on Mason-Montgomery Road, after a stop at the bank then home. - Amorella

       1537 hours. I wonder how these descriptions of everyday life are going to be when we move back to Westerville. We'll still be less than four miles to Potbelly's. Maybe we won't eat out so much, or maybe we'll just have company some of the times, mostly Kim and maybe Cathy and Tod once in a while. Lots of people shopping today. There is hardly a time during the daylight that Kroger's isn't busy.

       After reading about the warning call to the local Cambridge, England paper some twenty minutes ahead of the JFK assassination released last night, conspiracy theories run back up into your head. - Amorella

       1543 hours. I wasn't thinking about that consciously but you are right. That was a surprise announcement. Ever since I read that on BBC this morning I have been trying to remember Carol's dad's discussion after seeing the movie on the conspiracy. Dad was at a meeting with Robert Kennedy when it happened and there was something telling about Robert's immediate reaction that told Dad that Cuba didn't have anything to do with it. He never went with any of the conspiracy theories because of the reactions he saw of people in Washington that day, that is people in the State Department where he held a high but nonpolitical post. There had been several high officials in the room with Robert Kennedy.. The way I remember it the sense the Cuba had something to do with it was taken as a diversion. We had the discussion after seeing JFK, the Oliver Stone film about the investigation of the assassination.

       You are at Home Depot on Tylersville for a special furniture polish recommended for the dining room table as Kroger's did not have it, then the bank before home. - Amorella

       1614 hours. I wish I could remember Dad Hammond's story. He talked about how it was the remainder of 1963 and 1964 in the upper halls of State. Lots of talk about the rumors and reality of the assassination. Dad didn't go back to an Asian post until later when he was posted in Saigon and took the family with him. In Saigon he was also connected loosely with CIA operatives and they had their own stories on 22 November 63; theories that had been checked out and were discounted. (1623)

       Why don't you check out the blog searching for JFK or Dallas? Perhaps you told the story already. - Amorella

       1625 hours. I have repeated so many stories over the years, I'm sure. I'll have to do this at home. Key words of JFK or Dallas should be easy enough for the machinery to note.

       You are afraid to ask me to do this for you, for what reasons? - Amorella

       1628 hours. Number one, it would be weird and two, it would be unorthodox and three; it would be impolite.

       One more stop at Lowe's across I-75 on Tylersville, then the bank and home. Post. - Amorella


       1753 hours. I did find something on Dad's story on JFK. I'll drop the post in from the beginning to keep date and context.

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31 JULY 2012

Notes - thoughts in variety


           Almost noon. Today is your father-in-law’s birthday, Dr. Grandville Harry Sharp “Scotch” Hammond was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1917, a year before his wife and your mother and father. Here is what you have in your ‘Reunion’ genealogical software:

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‘Scotch’ grew up in New Philadelphia, Ohio and worked his way through Otterbein College. He met his wife at Otterbein. He spent the war in the Pacific Theatre in the Navy Sea Bees [the Navy Sea Bees are similar to the Army Engineers] at island air bases. He taught at Westerville High School and Otterbein as he worked on his Masters and Doctorate at Ohio State. He was a principal at Plain City Schools and eventually became superintendent at Alliance City Schools in Ohio. From there he worked for the Agency of International Development (AID) with the State Department in Washington. He was a professional (rather than a political) diplomat in the Upper Education Division of State in Korea, Vietnam, India and Thailand. When he retired he played a little golf and gave well-received lectures at Sun City Center, Florida focusing on ‘the World Future Society social and economic issues’ and on the workings of the Agency for International Development programs. Dad died 25 December 1993. (Reunion 9 software)
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         It is not right not to include my favorite mother-in-law in this. Dorothy Jean Cook Hammond was born 10 October 1918 in Westerville and died 13 January 1994 at Sun City Center. She had been a Latin schoolteacher in the States and Overseas. 

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Mom graduated from Westerville High with my parents, then she went to Otterbein and graduated in Home Economics and Latin. She was a gracious and fun loving hostess as well as a wonderful cook! She was the very kind and organized wife to her husband and a fantastic mother to their four girls, Carol, Mary Lou, Gayle and Linda. She and Scotch loved their usual many social events and affairs as well as square dancing in their retired years, The family gathering at Christmas always seemed to be Mom’s most special time of the year. Whether cooking for two or for over fifty, Jean’s roast beef and potatoes and many other main and side dishes and creative desserts were out of this world in presentation and taste!   (Reunion 9 software)
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         I miss them both. Dad had many stories about his work. One of the best was when he and others were in a meeting with Bobby Kennedy when John was assassinated. Later, when the film JFK came out (1991) Dad said that it was very clear to him that no one in that room (of several very high officials) and later through personal witnessing of officials in the Department of State that he could ever believe there had been a government cover up as hypothesized in the Oliver Stone film.
. . .

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       1757 hours. That is a definite statement on Dad's part in terms of a government cover up as shown in the Oliver Stone film. I'll continue researching the blog later.

       Post. - Amorella


       Upon checking the home phone Carol discovered that Kroger's pharmacy had called because Dr. M. had sent you a new prescription. Upon reading you have decided to wait until tomorrow after you call Paul about the side effects, especially since you are taking the steroids through Sunday. Tomorrow you have to have blood work (A1c +)  done because you have an appointment with Dr. B. Tuesday morning. - Amorella

       2147 hours. At least I have the med to take on Monday for the fungal rash. The only fungus I can ever remember was athlete's foot in public school and college. How I picked up a fungus I'll never know. Well, once I did have something of this sort but it was from being in a rain forest setting near the Paraguay River. Probably when we flew into the Iguazu Falls region from Argentina.

       You have no idea, a better choice was in the rain forest up on the mountains surrounding Rio de Janeiro. It was a fungus affecting your right forefinger and right little finger. You still have minute scars.  - Amorella
      
       2158 hours. That I do. Amazing. It was misdiagnosed once but I forget with what. It must have been on and off active for at least twenty years. I remember I thought it was like a curse for bringing back home a native human finger bone from the cemetery area atop Machu Picchu. That's what I thought once in the deep of night with a more than active imagination. I think I took the finger bone back the second time we visited the place because I felt guilty taking it in the first place. I didn't really know it was a finger bone until my cousin David S. and Bob P. rather verified that it was. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I took it back and placed it pretty much where I had dug it up. Why am I even thinking about this? (2206)

       Probably because it is nearing Halloween which has always been a trickster for you because of all your research focus over the years on the Druids . . . and see the stories that suddenly come to mind. - Amorella

       2220 hours. I remember one of the stories in the orndorff geneology that goes back to a famous druid that we may have been related to. I remember that when I read about that I was spooked out for a time. Just the idea of one of our ancestors could have been a real druid was cool to contemplate until I began wondering about theories of genetic memory and the spookiness picked up a science oriented root to grow some fascination on. This is how I went on to invent the Grandma Stories in the Merlyn books. I conjured them out of the concept of genetic memories telling the stories. Isn't that funny. (2227)

       Why don't we end tonight with one of those 'ghost-like' stories told by Grandma from the Merlyn's Mind trilogy. - Amorella

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Grandma’s Story 1


         One  ancestor of many of you readers, another shaman of about seven thousand years ago, in the area of the Black Sea, stood by the fire one cloudy dark night in summer and said, “I have a new story. This is one about a man who can be in two places at once while he is still alive. He can be standing here like me, telling a story, and,” he pointed to his north, “be in the woods at the same time. How do you think he accomplishes this?”

         This invited the listener to give herorhis own plausibility and in the process the shaman discovered he could be enormously entertaining at the same time as being instructive. It became an unsolvable mystery that everyone in the clan and nearby clans could not decipher. How is it possible for a person to be telling the same story in more than one place at the same time?

         This story was so popular that shamans all over the world were soon telling it to their neighbors wherever they were. The telephone hadn’t been invented of course, but the major world trade routes had been set into motion because people wanted goods from far away places. People wanted something valuable to keep for security, for peace of mind, and also just for the pleasure of having something they did not already have. Storytelling past the time on the journeys from Asia to Europe and Europe to Africa and from Africa to Asia. Some of the stories even made it to the Americas via early combinations of land and sea routes.

         The storyteller had created a mysterious set of runes or written characters that allowed the story to be carved onto a tree. Others, like himself, could read the runes, so it was possible for someone to be reading the story in one place at the same time it was being told some other place entirely. No one could believe such a thing was possible, yet it existed at the same time. Grandma sashayed and did a little dance in her solid bare feet, threw her hands over her head, and twirled while she clapped three times. She smiled warmly to narrow the distance between herself and the reader then she whispered a secret, I just love this brief story because it’s real enough to be true even in a book such as this.

© Merlyn's Mind trilogy by orndorff

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       2243 hours. It is a rather silly short story looking back on it.

       Let's do the first five Grandma Stories, one each posting through Halloween. - Amorella

       2245 hours. Five silly stories.

       But when they were written, boy, Grandma did the writing not you. - Amorella

       2246 hours. You, the Amorella, did the writing, this is the truth and you know it.

       The truth is, from your perspective that you punched the keyboard but someone else did the writing. - Amorella

       2249 hours. I would not have had the imagination or the guile to solidify stores in such a marked tone.

       Tis true, young man, you alone would not because it might be considerate impolite to mock the Dead through such a character as Grandma. Post. - Amorella

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