The yard sale, the pearl street house, other stuff
On Saturday, October 8th, Donnie and I drove down at 6:00 am to help Sherry get ready for our yard sale. I always get anxious about yard sales because I can't organize myself to make them look like the sales I go to. Sherry had priced some things but mostly we were just going to have people ask us for a price. There were a couple hispanic males that bought my old karaoke machine, and a record player. I asked if they wanted an amplifier so I went to the front garage and dug out my old peavey 100 I bought when I sang with the Country Revolution back in 1977. I sold it to them for $10. They were our best customers. I stood out front with all my old records on the tailgate of Daniel's truck. The more I looked at them, the more I decided I could get rid of 80 % of them. It hurt, but I had to do it. After the sale there were several books we did not sale. I only saved 10 of them. I am letting the rest of them go also. We were all tired. I had had only 4 hours of sleep. Sherry had had even less. We just wanted a chance to sell our junk before we gave it away. It was a bad day to have it because it was the second week of scenic drive. But we were running out of time. Dad wanted Sherry to move out on October 15th. Sherry works all weekends so we asked Dad if she could stay until the 19th and he said yes but he was calling the Carpet man to come and pull up the carpet on the 20th. Dad is very anxious about all of this, but I really can't blame him. I forgot to make mention that he turned 80 on the 3rd. The announcement was in the newspaper on Friday. This is what it said:
W. Harold Perry Friday, October 7, 2005
KNOXVILLE - W. Harold Perry, 102 S. Park St., observed his 80th birthday Monday.He was born Oct. 3, 1925, in Hardin County, Ky.
He married Audrey Marie Johnson on Feb. 6, 1949, in Grace Lutheran Church of Knoxville.
He is the father of Steven H. (and Roxann) Perry, Cypress, Texas; and Cynthia (and Donald) Anderson, Bettendorf, Iowa. He has four grandchildren.
He served on the USS Manila Bay in World War II, and returned home and received his high school diploma in 1946. He moved to Illinois on March 8, 1948, and met his wife of 56 years by chance at a dance that year on his birthday. He worked on a farm outside of Knoxville for a few years, then worked at Brown Specialty and Admiral's before he became a salesman for Sears in 1959. He left Sears in 1980 and went on to work as a maintenance man in the Knoxville School system. He retired in 1986, and has spent much of his retirement years playing golf.
My brother, Steve, has been helping Dad do little projects. They had stored a bunch of wood in the back garage so Steve can build Dad a workbench in the garage. I also haven't mentioned that Bob Coffey and his crew started putting a roof and siding on the house on October 4. Luckily, they did not leave a mess when we had our Yard Sale Saturday. We were worried we were going to clash. They were going to store the siding in the garage, but they decided to store it behind the house instead. They have the roof on now and all the siding on except for the front. A tree trimmer guy came on Tuesday and trimmed the tree out front. We wanted it cut down but they said it was a healthy tree. Life is going to be different in just one week. The phone number I have had since 1976 will be retired.(unless Dad takes it over). Dad's phone number he has had since 1980 will be retired. He will be moving out of Mom's home. She will never be there again. That is the sad thing. I wish there was a chance she could go through her stuff one more time. She seems well enough now. I might bring this up to Dad. Jake is coming for supper tomorrow night. I asked him if he wanted hamburger and fries or spaghetti and he said he wanted cheeseburger Macaroni. So that is what we are having.
Audrey joins the Red Hat Society
On Monday, October 3rd, Donnie and I came to Knoxville to see Dad and to take Mom to her Red Hat Society meeting. My brother, Steve, and his wife went around on the weekend and bought mom some red shoes with purple hats on them and they also bought her a white bear with a purple boa and red hat that played the song, Girl's just wanna have fun. They also bought her a bracelet that has red hats on it. Steve was very anxious about me taking Mom to the meeting. He called up Sunday and asked what time I would be there. I said I would be there at 1 p.m. to take her to the 2 p.m. I ended up being there at 12:30. She was already dressed and waiting in the front room of the nursing home. I went back to her room to get the bear and when I came back I found out the meeting was in the garden room. When I went in there, there were several other women. The regular leader wasn't there but another lady led the meeting. She had brought some silky purple and gold pajamas, a bag full of unclaimed clothes from laundry, a premade straw paper pumpkin which had a red hat on it and a wheel chair. She had the ladies roll the clothes up in a "jelly roll" to fit in the arms and legs and slowly but surely, a scarecrow was made out of the pajamas and the head. There was one lady there that was partially paralyzed. She kept saying she wanted to do something and one of the ladies said, "You can't do anything Nancy (Gustine), you can't use your hands." Well I went over to Nancy and I rolled some clothes over her hands while standing behind her. She seemed to enjoy participating in some way. Mom sat there untangling some beads to put on the scarecrow. She made herself at home. I wanted to thank you for sending the clothes to Mom. We received them yesterday and last night she was wearing the pant suit when we played dominoes. Barb Perry, Ramona Stickell, Menona Moorehead, Donnie, Mom and I all played. It almost made me cry to be able to play a game again with Mom. Especially after how bad she was just a month ago. I hope you were able to view the photobucket pictures. If not, let me know and I can send regular pictures.
I had so much fun at the Red Hat Society Party. I got to see some people I hadn't seen in years. My 5th grade teacher, Dorothy Larson was there. For roll call they asked everyone their name and asked if they could remember a special halloween costume they wore when they were a kid. Most could not think of anything special. When they got to Mrs. Larson, she didn't remember any special outfit. I had to tell everyone she was my 5th grade teacher and I remembered what I wore for halloween when I was in her class. I dressed up in a box as a color TV set. It was back when RCA Victor came out with their jingle about Wow! we've got color TV.... in our home there's color now. It was one of my favorite outfits for sure.
I really enjoyed myself. Violet Wadham Hudson was the secretary. Her husband used to work with dad at Sears. After he died, she ended up marrying Aunt Barb Perry's brother, Bob. He has died also. Anyway, for roll call they asked people if they could remember a special outfit they dressed up for at halloween. Most could not remember anything special. When it came Mom's time to speak, she had me show the bear to everyone around the room. After that My 5th grade teacher, Dorothy Larson was introduced. She didn't remember any special outfit. I had to tell everyone she was my 5th grade teacher and I remembered what I wore for halloween when I was in her class. I dressed up in a box as a color TV set. It was back when RCA Victor came out with their jingle about Wow! we've got color TV.... in our home there's color now. It was one of my favorite outfits for sure.
Later they served ice cream and I went around delivering napkins. I was picking up on people's names as I went around. They decided to have a door prize drawing so the leader asked me to write down everyone's names to put in a hat while she went to get Mom and another lady (Cynthia) their red hats. I told the ladies I felt like I was on Romper Room. I was able to go around the room and name each person. " I see Shirley and Sharon and Martha and Cynthia...." The winner of the doorprize drawing was Violet. Then the leader came over to Mom and presented her with her choice of 3 red hats. Someone had bought several of them when they were on sale at Walmart one day. How nice of them to do that! Soon the meeting was over and I rolled mom back to her room. She was tired and decided to get ready for bed even though it was only 4 p.m. Donnie had waited outside during all of this. We went back to dad's for a while. Earlier Dad had told us that we were invited to go play the marble game with Mom and Barb at 6:30. When we called her at 5:30 she said she was already heading out there. She asked if we could bring the dominoes out. When we got there, Ramona and Menona were playing the marble game. I went to look up the pictures of the red hat meeting I had put on photobucket earlier. Their computers are a little slow. I bearly found the pictures before we had to start playing dominoes. I did get to show barb some pictures.
Anyway, all 6 of us played dominoes. I lost big time. I would jokingly whine when Mom would play a tile right before I could play it. Ramona took my whining seriously. But that was O.K. It was fun to be playing dominoes again with mom. She did very well with her plays and counting up her tiles. Of course, she always had low scores and didn't have to count too high. She ended up winning.
We went back to dad's and spent the night. Donnie and I went to see Mom in the Morning. She didn't look as well as she did the night before, but she was still with it. We took her out by the animals. We sat out there for a while and then came back in. We didn't stay much longer. We decided we would leave before noon. It was a good trip. Gas is fluctuating now between $2.99 and $2.79. Our favorite gas station on river drive going out of town has closed. I am filling in from the 13th. I will write more later.
