Posted by Ed Kiser on May 03, 2002 at 14:51:19 from 205.188.195.48:
In Reply to: Re: 'Summit register'- Ed Kiser posted by Prue Eckett on April 28, 2002 at 20:41:00:
What may appear to be a mountain in one area would appear to be only an insignificant hill in another, as it is the relativity of its height to that of the surrounding area that makes for its distinction.
Here in South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale area) there are some rather imposing mountain that provide a delightful break to the normally totally flat horizon. These mountains are usually found somewhat near to population centers (but not TOO near) and each goes by the somewhat generic name of "Mt. Trashmore". These are man made consisting of the materials picked up from the curbside from the assorted trash cans placed there by the residents. Being the only thing of any significant height, they do have their pleasing effect upon the eye, when viewed from a respectable distance.
These can be ascended quite easily. The view from the top of rather spectacular, there being nothing anywhere near to that height to block that view. So marvelous to see the Atlantic Ocean far out there to the east, and the allmost as featureless expanse of the Everglades stretching to the horizon in the other direction. The aroma of that location also adds to the overall effect.
So let it not be thought that South Florda does not have its mountains; indeed we do. We put them there, bag by bag of garbage. What a treasure trove for some archeologist of the next mellinium to excavate and find such artifacts of a by-gone primitive age.
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To diverge upon a more personal topic:
It was with great surprise that I found my name popping up on the Tarboard, with a degree of curiosity or perhaps even concern as to what had happened to me. That such was of interest to the faceless names that gather in this spot on the Internet I found to be most gratifying.
But to try to answer that question - I was hospitalized on Feb 6 with a massive hemmorage (took TWELVE units of blood to recover). This was found to be coming from a TUMOR in the large intestine. It was a cancerous growth. But since for the past three years I have been trying to live with the stress of ANGINA (chest pains), it was felt that that the heart part of the problem had to be resolved first, so on Feb 18, I had quadruple bypass heart surgery. Took some time to recover. Finally on April 26, I went into surgery again, this time to have that tumor and a significant part of the containing pipe removed. The surgeon's report was that he felt the "he got it all".
So I am one big incision from adam's apple to my right ankle, now in the process of trying to recover from this latest invasion. I'm sore.
Muscles are no longer attached all that well where they used to be.
I am 49 pounds lighter (which was sadly and greatly needed anyway - now to KEEP it off...) No chest pains however, no more strange lump in my gut. I am black and blue, with blood tests taken just about ever day for the past 3 months. But from here on, I an eagerly seeing only progress to be made. Each day, in some way, it is BETTER, and better...
So finally I get home (ah, so wonderful!) and got to go back to my favorite spot on the Internet, the Tarboard, only to find my friends there expressing their concerns about me. To someone that has almost died several times recently, it was very moving and touching to see those concerns expressed on that medium. It was the best of "get well soon" cards I could ever have received.
My thanks to all of you - because you cared.
I never thought my love of all things Ransome could have produced such benefits.
As a matter of re-introduction to those newcomers to this forum, I am the one that has the strange method of enjoying Ransome by TYPING in his books. It is tedious, but a labor (I know, LABOUR) of love. The
works done so far: SA, SD, WH, PP, PM of the lake stories, and CC, BS,
WD also completed, with SW well moving towards completion. These files consist of plain ordinary TXT files, one file per chapter, suitable for running the simple DOS FIND command on them to discover certain words or expressions. By actually TYPING in these works, I have discovered so much that somehow I had missed on previous re-readings, as such sometimes turn out to be more SCANNING than READING. It has greatly enhanced the depth of my awareness of the world of Ransome's characters.
Then, re-reading my typed files, hopefully very carefully, checking on punctuation and spelling to catch those typo errors, produces an enrichment of that awareness. As I type in each story, I have maintained a related file with notes of language usages, strange words that I really
do not understand. From time to time, I have posted these observations and questions to this forum, with a wealth of responses from you all trying to straighten out this poor colonial American who seems to want to learn the Queen's English. What a marvelous difference our two cultures express through our own distince usages of what at one time was a common language. It has definitely pulled me closer to my
heritage, to my English Roots, to the Mother Country. Thanks to Tarboard!
And Thanks to You ALL!
Ed Kiser