In 1990....

[Buckrub]

This was the night I spent in a hospital bed in Baptist Hospital in Little Rock. Heavy sleet prohibited a nurse shift change. They were crotchety. The guy in the next room died, loudly.

I was there on emergency surgery. Could have been much worse than it was.

Thank you, Lord.

Since then, been back in once...........even worse.

Made it through both.

Thank you, Lord.

Merry Christmas to all you guys and gals. I hope Santa gets stuck in your yard and dumps the whole load tonight.

[Big Muddy]

Glad you made it, Buckney.

On this night in 1998, we experienced the worst ice storm in the history of our area....wife and I laid in bed until 3 am, and listened to a huge number of our 50-60 year old red and white oak trees break in two behind our house....sounded like Abrams tank rounds, when they hit the ground....shook the entire house....took a full day for us to cut the trees oughta the way, just to open the road enough to get to my parents house....we had no power or utilities for 10 days, and you know what???....we made it just fine....we didn't even riot, loot, cuss the gummit, or shoot anybody.

[Thumper]

Dang Buckster ... I can relate. On this night in '09 I was in the ER with hoses, tubes and wires running into me in a bazillion different places. I understand the family was told I "may not make it" ... but all worked out okay.

I guess we all can think back through the years and come up with some major event we can be thankful for. It's good to still have your crotchety old butt around this joint.

Edward, this marks the 25th anniversary of the "Christmas Freeze of '89". It started on the 23rd and lasted until Christmas Day. It changed our citrus industry forever. Many, many citrus growers were put out of business and a ton of packing houses actually closed up ... never to open again. Many growers plowed their (now dead) trees under and sold the grove property to developers who built houses on the land. It was a devastating blow to Florida's citrus industry. I remember we lost power and the power company had their men working non-stop through the holiday. On this night in '89, we got power back on around midnight just as things got so cold, we were contemplating checking into a hotel.

Big contrast ... it's been in the low to mid-80's here, but a "cold front" is moving in. It just started raining here ahead of the front and it's supposed to drop down to the mid-60's tomorrow! (I can live with that!) ;)

[Buckrub]

Glad I made it too. Gladder that y'all made it.

Merry Christmas.

P.S.
I got all of y'all the SAME thing I got you last year...........but in a bigger size.