Describe your Hometown...

My previous description was where I was raised on the Texas Gulf Coast and lived until I was about 30. The next 40 years have been in a much different place. I now live about a hundred and twenty miles from that place.

I now live outside of a tiny town in the woods. The BIG city is about 25 miles away and has a little over 40,000 people living there. A few thousand of them are not living here voluntarily. There are 7 or 8 big prisons in the town and country. The prisons and the University are the backbones of our economy so it is pretty stable here. There are always kids that are going to the university and convicts that need prisons to live in.

Working for the state is not the highest pay but the benefits are outstanding and you have great job security. My wife worked in the maximum level prisons for lots of years and on death row for about half of her 25 years. She liked it a lot. It is nothing like what you see on TV and the movies. She never had a single bad experience with any of the inmates. Once most of them dry out and are off drugs they become pretty human. The animals that don't settle down, stay locked up. Lots of them live in trustee camps with a 3 strand barbed wire fence along the boundaries more as a marker than any effort to restrain them.

We are sort of between a couple of lakes and a river so the fishing is great here. I love the outdoors and spend a lot of time fishing and walking in the woods. I live on three fenced acres with my wife, daughters, and my granddaughter...and five dogs in two houses.

My wife is a retired dental hygienist, One daughter works in the prison in sales, the other one has a business doing interior and exterior house painting. The BOSS is my 10 year old Granddaughter Danni. She runs back and forth between the houses and I see her every day.

I am very happily retired. I now spend my time fishing, woodworking, and a half dozen other hobbies along with going to softball games to watch my Baby play ball. She is home-schooled this year but will probably go back to school next year. Until my health got bad last year I was only sort of retired. A lot of my customers over the years had become friends and I still worked for them fixing appliances, AC/Heating and such. I am getting stronger again and am thinking about doing a little on a volunteer level for people that need a little help but can't afford it.
 
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My previous description was where I was raised on the Texas Gulf Coast and lived until I was about 30. The next 40 years have been in a much different place. I now live about a hundred and twenty miles from that place.

I now live outside of a tiny town in the woods. The BIG city is about 25 miles away and has a little over 40,000 people living there. A few thousand of them are not living here voluntarily. There are 7 or 8 big prisons in the town and country. The prisons and the University are the backbones of our economy so it is pretty stable here. There are always kids that are going to the university and convicts that need prisons to live in.

Working for the state is not the highest pay but the benefits are outstanding and you have great job security. My wife worked in the maximum level prisons for lots of years and on death row for about half of her 25 years. She liked it a lot. It is nothing like what you see on TV and the movies. She never had a single bad experience with any of the inmates. Once most of them dry out and are off drugs they become pretty human. The animals that don't settle down, stay locked up. Lots of them live in trustee camps with a 3 strand barbed wire fence along the boundaries more as a marker than any effort to restrain them.

We are sort of between a couple of lakes and a river so the fishing is great here. I love the outdoors and spend a lot of time fishing and walking in the woods. I live on three fenced acres with my wife, daughters, and my granddaughter...and five dogs in two houses.

My wife is a retired dental hygienist, One daughter works in the prison in sales, the other one has a business doing interior and exterior house painting. The BOSS is my 10 year old Granddaughter Danni. She runs back and forth between the houses and I see her every day.

I am very happily retired. I now spend my time fishing, woodworking, and a half dozen other hobbies along with going to softball games to watch my Baby play ball. She is home-schooled this year but will probably go back to school next year. Until my health got bad last year I was only sort of retired. A lot of my customers over the years had become friends and I still worked for them fixing appliances, AC/Heating and such. I am getting stronger again and am thinking about doing a little on a volunteer level for people that need a little help but can't afford it.
Dan you have a great life with your family there. You have done things right it sounds like. I hope your health is getting better.
 
I'm doing a lot better now and returning to my more normal habits. Modern medicine has allowed me to live a fairly normal life. I have kidney failure and am on dialysis. We do it for me at home and that allows me to live on MY schedule and not a clinic's schedule. Last year I had a bowel hemorrhage and spent almost a month in and out of the hospital. I was down and almost out for several months and that is what I am recovering from. I actually feel really good. I am fortunate in so many ways. I have my family around me. The things that I love to do the most are little affected by me getting old. We have three shops each devoted to different crafts and things so I can make things and work in my shops at my own pace. I also love to read and can now read all that I want. I often read all night and can go a couple of days without sleep. My wife likes to read to so she is nearly as bad about it as I am and that is good.
 
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I'm doing a lot better now and returning to my more normal habits. Modern medicine has allowed me to live a fairly normal life. I have kidney failure and am on dialysis. We do it for me at home and that allows me to live on MY schedule and not a clinic's schedule. Last year I had a bowel hemorrhage and spent almost a month in and out of the hospital. I was down and almost out for several months and that is what I am recovering from. I actually feel really good. I am fortunate in so many ways. I have my family around me. The things that I love to do the most are little affected by me getting old. We have three shops each devoted to different crafts and things so I can make things and work in my shops at my own pace. I also love to read and can now read all that I want. I often read all night and can go a couple of days without sleep. My wife likes to read to so she is nearly as bad about it as I am and that is good.
You are making the best of it! You can live a long time with the Dialisis. God bless ya Dan.