2008 A Year of Blessings

This wonderful year continues...and so on this most wonderful of seasons when we celebrate the birth of our glorious Savior, Jesus Christ, I want to send to you, old friends and new, a wish for the happiest of Christmas times filled with lots of Joy and especially the blessedness of good health and loving family.

Pat and I will spend Christmas Eve. with her son, Trevor, and his family plus another 12 or so friends having dinner at one of our favorite Italian restaurants here in Jacksonville. Christmas day pat and I will rest for a while then go for a light dinner in the home of Jack and Erin Daniels, a wonderful young couple just recently married who have sort of adopted us, Kinda cute really.

Last year Pat and I spent Christmas in Canterbury, England enjoying some wonderful Choral music provided by the Boys choir of the Cathedral and then services at the Cathedral Christmas day. We went with a small group from the Smithsonian Institute. After services we had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with the Archbishop. Then to cap it all off we were served a wonderful old English Christmas dinner of Christmas goose and of course Plum pudding. What a scrumptious meal it was.

In the afternoon we watched the Queen deliver her Christmas message to her subjects throughout the realm. In it she included film of her first Christmas message delivered in december of 1952, 55 years earlier. This was especially moving for me because I remember watching that message while stationed in Korea during the Korean War. I was attached to the 67th. Tactical Reconnaissance Wing of the 5th. Air Force flying in B-26 light bombers taking aerial photographs of North Korean targets. We were the Blackbirds and our flights were at night. Also attached and using the same runways at Kimpo Air Base was the 77th Aussie Squadron of Flying Sargeants flying their Meteor Jets. A great group of men, some of which were great friends. That Christmas I watched the new Queen speak while a guest in the NCO club with the 77th. I had no idea that 55 years later I would be in England again listening to Queen Elizabeth.

My sons will have Christmas with their children and Grandchildren as it should be. I now have 7 and 3/4 Great Grandchildren (my Grandaughter Brenda will have her third). Some of the most beautiful kids you ever want to see. Sound biased? Of course I am, just as you are. My newest Great Grandson, Grayson White, sent me a picture to die for. He has to be the cutest kid ever...looks just like me! Not!

I will miss seeing them all at Christmas but such is the way of life when you get old. The older we get the less our families need us and the less we see of them. It is not because they love us less, it is just that the cycle of life moves on that way. The day will come when my sons will become less important to their children simply because they will be spending more and more time with their children and even their own grandchildren. At least we have memories, the precious jewels called memories. Every once in a while I just sit back and let my mind run over these memories, like a slide show, and enjoy once again the sights, sounds and even aroma's of years gone by. God has been so very good to me.

God bless, GW. Stokes
Firstcoastmusings

I've been away too long!

I'm Ba'ack. I have really been away too long, but I want to explain. The year 2008 has been such an exciting year for me, actually starting in December of 2007, I've simply been tremendously side tracked by all that has happened.