July 28, 2011
Today is the last night we will be in ISRAEL.
We arrived in Tel Aviv last night after 2 weeks in Israel. Jennifer called Helene's cousin Debbie who lives here and told us she would pick us up at the hotel and takes us to Jaffa which was about 30 minutes away. We walked around the city for over 2 hours and she was a wonderful guide. It was wonderful to walk around such an old city and remember some of the historic events that occurred there. It also was exceptionally clean.
Today is Thursday and we are on an El Al plane to New York. It is a 10 hour flight and it is definitely the cleanest plane I have ever flown on.
I am thinking about going to Oregon by myself and do some serious writing--ie; not just events but putting them into a 'writers story. This is not just for my family but for me to improve my vocabulary and sentence structure in order to keep my brain functioning so I don't sound like a babbling idiot. I have been thinking about my visit to Israel in 1974 and try to compare it with what I have seen and feel about it today: 2 absolutely different countries (that is definitely my conception) - the boys and girls in the Army look so very, very young and then I think to myself that I am getting close to 80 years old and my brother Bob is almost 90 years old and looks and feels better than I do. I must wake up and change my attitude--in other words - get in shape mentally as well as physically. Don't talk about my cancer or heart stint to anyone in the future unless it would be helpful to them. I MUST remember I feel great - no further explanation needed. Today is the first day of the rest of my life - I will live and rejoice in it. Every morning growing up I would look outside and see fog almost every day and complain and my Daddy would say "Thank God you have eyes that can see it!" What a wise father! I love him so very much.