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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 15 January 2000 (Week 3)

Friday, 21 January 2000 22:35

Sporadic reflections that recount the events of my life

wpoison

Saturday, 15 January 2000

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I decided today I would write a little Barbara and sports dialog since I spent the day at the NASCAR preview here in Winston-Salem at the Coliseum. I don't do the driver autograph thing but instead enjoy seeing the new car paint jobs and the drivers at a fairly close distance. The vendor area is pretty cool with lots of freebie samples and racing promotion stuff. This year it was a little more organized with the souvenir trailers outside to allow more room to move around inside the vendor/sponsor building. I have sort of started collecting the driver information cards that they hand out, some signed, some not. But, I have quite a few good ones. 

I have been a big sports fan since I was a little girl. Back when it was just black and white TV and three channels, my dad and I watched all the football, baseball, golf and racing that was covered. I loved ABC's Wide World of Sports, which back then ran maybe the big races at Daytona and Talladega and the major golf events such as the Masters and U.S. Open. I loved to watch the winter Olympics especially the skiing stuff. My dad and I had season tickets to the local college football team every season and attended the local AA baseball games, etc. I went to all my college basketball and football games, even ones that were.

Participating in sports has always been a big part of my life too. I have played about every major team and individual sport popular to the U.S.  for fun or competition while growing up. In high school it was basketball and golf which I won a few trophies for as well as softball and volleyball. We won several championships in those sports. I went on to play one year of college basketball for Appalachian, then switched to coed intramurals which I played all the way through graduate school. My dad wanted me to go pro golf but I wanted to be a librarian instead and stuck to amateur competitions.

So, how did I manage to marry a man who hates sports and exercise. They say opposites attract and we fortunately have a lot of other things in common. Now that I am forty-five years old about the only sport I actively participate in is golf. I don't even shoot hoops any more, though I have done so in the past few years with our friends' son Andrew.

About all I watch on television is racing, golf, tennis, and the winter Olympics. I got disgusted with the salaries of the professional ball players. They might as well pay the college players too instead of pretending they go to college to get a degree, though a small minority do get an education and do something with their lives.

Even racing, golf, and tennis are getting about big money, though the participants in those sports still have to perform individually to make it to the top. The majority of those athletes stay pretty clean in the media and do make good role models for young people to aspire to. 

I love to read, do jigsaw puzzles, and other  less active type activities, but I still need to work out at the gym several days a week and play golf and watch my favorite sports on TV. It's in my blood and always will be.

Sunday, 16 January 2000

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Monday, 17 January 2000

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Mondays are always busy, even when you work at home. I had to do an early gym trip so we could take Kerry for his sixth shot. We both go so we can take all three dogs for a ride. 

I then spent the day answering CBCR e-mails and trying to get a prescription filled for Lenore. The drugstore was out of her medicine and she only had one left for today. I ended up having to go over to the doctor's office and get some samples until the drugstore gets some in. 

The only reason I was worried, is they are calling for bad weather to hit here tonight and tomorrow. Having lived in Winston-Salem all my life that may or may not mean anything. It is very hard to predict the weather here because of the mountains. It effects the way the moisture and cold hit the atmosphere in the Piedmont so much that it really is a crap shoot when they forecast anything. 

Modern equipment and radars really do not make a difference. I have seen in the last five years a forecast for two inches of snow and we get 25". Or they call for "significant accumulation of ice" and we get a little bit of frozen rain. I love snow, but here we get a lot of ice and sleet rather than just a good snow storm. I quite getting excited when they call for anything any more. 

Now that I work at home it  really doesn't matter. When I worked for the library it was a pain. The county manager has this policy that we never close. I went to work one time after we did get about 15". The driveway to the library had not been plowed and the front door was frozen shut. I sat there and worked all day, but no patrons came in and maybe we got one phone call. I find it utterly ridiculous for library personnel to open library facilities and risk life and limb for a nonessential service. That is why we have always owned at least one four wheel drive. Being a branch manager I was responsible for getting my branch open during bad weather. Reason number 25 on the list of why I quit my job.

So, we will see if we get anything. Lenore has her medicine and we have plenty of provisions should we loose power. 

In between other interruptions I did manage to get some data entered in my new genealogy software program and added another page to my family web site. 

Tuesday, 18 January 2000

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As you can see, the Piedmont did get the promised weather event. However, they predicted a dusting to 1" and we got 4" to 6" instead. So, like I said yesterday, they usually miss it one way or the other. 

Malcolm was a little hesitant at first, but then plunged right in. He ran around diving with his snout under and coming up covered in snow. He and Duncan raced around and around. It is 10:45 a.m. and they are both whacked out taking naps. I have some pictures of them playing on my BC page if you want to take a look. http://www.ttgnet.com/bft/border_collies.htm.

As I mentioned yesterday, I always had to make it to work in any kind of bad weather. Today, with four wheel drive it would not have been too bad. But, I am enjoying being able to stay home and not have to go anywhere. I called and checked on my folks to make sure they had everything they needed as far as basic necessities.

I plan to spend the day working on various projects and playing in the snow with the guys. 

Wednesday, 19 January 2000

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Well, today is one of those days. Body and brain seem to both be dragging a bit. It seems to happen periodically and when it does I tend to listen. I take vitamins and exercise, but when the body says no gym today and I am brain dead at the computer I don't fight it. I think spending most of yesterday chasing dogs, tending mother-in-law and trying to work on my genealogy project did me in. I am a pretty high energy person, so when my level is down, it is down.

Today is my normal shopping day, but with the snow yesterday and more in the forecast for tonight and the weekend, I was not sure I wanted to brave the grocery store. For those of you not familiar with the south, the first forecast of the winter creates some run on the bread and milk. But those who do not heed the first warning and get a surprise like we did yesterday, go wild at the next warning. I have seen people with five loaves of bread, three gallons of milk and 6 lbs. of hamburger. It is vary rare that we get enough bad weather that we cannot get out to get to the store at least two or three days after even a major snow storm. The exception is we do get ice storms down here and can loose power from anything to a day to a week. But, the roads usually clear up to get to the store.

Anyway, Lenore needed library books, so what the heck. Since I did not feel like working out at the gym I just went on to the library and store. The lines were not too bad yet and I was able to find my normal weeks shopping items. 

While in the library I spied this new book on home electrical wiring. Now, Bob is a good husband. But, sometimes he just does not rush in getting something done that I think is important. We remodeled the bathroom at least two years ago. We had a combination outlet/switch by the sink. When he went to replace that receptacle with a new one, he could not get either the plug or the switch that controls the fan to operate. It has been hanging out of the wall since then. He did make one effort last fall while I was away on vacation. He and a friend were going to hook up a box for our generator and fix the plug. For some reason after I friend managed to fry himself trying to do the generator hook up, he would not help with the bathroom plug. 

So I very cleverly brought home this home wiring book hoping Bob will get the message. I keep threatening to pull the thing out of the wall wires and all, but so far have not. Check back in another week or so to see if that did indeed happen. It still may. If he can't fix it, he should at least put a box cover over it and the next family that owns the house can make the fan work and have an outlet to plug things into.

We'll see if we get more snow. They are forecasting a change of anywhere from 5" to 10" so we may get none or we may get 20" Who knows.

Thursday, 20 January 2000

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At least today all was back to normal. After breakfast and dog activities I took off for my morning workout at the gym. It was not very crowded when I arrived, but an hour and a half later, it had gotten pretty full.

We did not get the promised snow. It went north of us. We got a small dusting on top of the previous Tuesday 5" and that was all. The real kicker is tonight. We have winds of 15 to 25 mph with temps in the 20's. The wind chill by morning will be below 0. Readers up in Maine and Minnesota don't laugh, it just doesn't  get that cold here very often. I love cold weather and suffered high wind and below freezing temps and wind chills when I was Appalachia State back in the '70's. We have winters where the temps get into the single digits, but again, not very often.

Weather predictions are for us to get hit with another round of precipitation on Sunday. That brings to everyone's mind over the age of 45 trying to remember the year we got snow every Wednesday for three weeks. I can remember, because my sister was born March 10th, right after the last one. There was about 16" on the ground crusted over with sleet and freezing rain. An ambulance had to take my mom to the hospital and they had to carry her down the drive. I was five, but I remember it like it was yesterday. And even though she was present at the event, my sister does not remember it, but has heard the story many times in her soon to be forty years.

A much more fond memory aided by photographs, is my dad and I built a fort in the front yard with blocks of snow. Back then women stayed in the hospital longer after having a baby, so I lived at the next door neighbors. Dad took time out from hospital visits and work to help me build a three sided snow fort that was about 3' or 4' high. It was so cold it stayed up for weeks for all the neighborhood kids to play in.

I forgot to thank Matt for sending the map to the Netwidows of the geographical locations of all the Daynotes Gang. That was very interesting for me, as I enjoy the human interest side of things, it was fun to see where we all live.

Friday, 21 January 2000

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