And when you are making plans, life happens

Once again I’ve been distracted from writing about FDR and Eleanor’s beloved island Campobello - who knows if I will ever get back to it!

One of our “words to live by”, “Our plans are like jello, very flexible” took on a whole new meaning last week when we received a call telling us that the grandson we helped raise was in a one car crash and was pretty banged up.  Since we are in Maine we couldn’t have been further away from Fresno, California when it happened and because of HIPPA privacy laws we were unable to get very much information about his condition over the telephone.  Husband Gary had flight reservations made for me almost before the news had fully registered and I was on my way back to California.

Jorden was wearing his seatbelt and definitely had his guardian angel (us in the family think it was our nephew Michael who was taken from us too soon) in the car with him when he fell asleep, hit a guard rail, flipped, rolled down an embankment, hit a tree and is not only alive but, after only seven days, was released from the hospital and healing.  He has a compression fracture to his L1 disk for which he is wearing a back brace for about three months, a broken nose with lots of stitches to repair the skin and which will have to be re-broken and set when swelling is gone, a bruised lung, concussion, all of which, whew, will heal with time. For now his goal is to rest and recuperate.

I won’t show a photo of Jorden but here is what remains of his Honda:

On Thursday he and I joined Gary back in Maine. We flew from Fresno to Phoenix (unbeknownst to us barely missed another haboob, one of the huge dust storms Phoenix has been experiencing this year,) then on to Philadelphia where our flight to Bangor was delayed due to weather.  While waiting for our Bangor flight we had four gate changes. Thank goodness for those electric carts that ferry those who need them!  And we were safely at home at 3:15am.

Our 49th anniversary happened while I was in Fresno, only the second time we haven’t been together on August 17th!  The first was way back when Gary was in the US Air Force stationed in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Here we are back in ‘62.

We are now watching hurricane Iris to see if it truly makes its way all the way up the East Coast as the Weather Channel say is possible.  If so, our plans will again be like jello and we will point the truck west pretty quickly --- our fifth wheel prefers not to ride out huge winds!