Journal

  Do you all remember what they are, and how they seemed to either drain you, or refresh you? They have to be carefully planned out, to avoid family and complications that will cause you stress.
  I have been sticking to places not far from home, that I am vastly familiar with and have found visiting these old sights a strong feeling of Dejavue and excitement, and now appreciate the places that I once took for granite, I am lucky to still be able to visit most of  these sights, for they remind me of youth, and the days when all was well. I not only could bask in the sun, but bask in the old memories as well. It was so very refreshing, and my status as an actual trival member of the zuni clan, granted me access to places of shear desolution. Places where no one goes, so remote that you can hear the wind up in the sky. The sacred Navajo Mountain in Northern Arizona along the shores of Lake Powell is a place that gives one a feeling of being haunted by the those who have come before you. It is more than frieghtning, it is terrifying. (Excuse my spelling, it has gone to grap), you can feel the power of the place, and cannot wait to get the hell out of there. I don't know if it was the ghost stories of youth, or the desolution of the place, and the wind howling thru the nearby deep canyons of the San Juan River. I went our there to be alone, and was so scared, I left and went to Bull Frog Crossing, and place packed with tourists from every state.
  They all were friendly and seemed so eager to find out who everybody was, where they were from, and why they were there. 3 couples quickly found a way to drag out the information that I possessed about the area, the uranium mining, the reason the dam was built, all the ghost towns destroyed by the lake,  how it was so desolute in the 60's before they paved the road from blanding, 226 miles to the east. I found their nerve and activities rather strange for people from the east coast, and people of upper class. Cooking moonshine, distilling beer and wine, in a Federal Park! Smoking pot right out in the open, and wandering around looking for indian artifacts, a law strictly enforced, and an activity strickly forbidden, with signs up describing the prison terms and fines that could be levied for such violations. I did have a great time though, no computer, no television to speak of, and no door bell. it was great.

  After 7 long painful years, I can say with great relief that my level of neuropathic phatom limb pain has begun to decrease. I have now begun to get out and do things, pick up the hobbies and fun stuff of the old life.

  It is a great relief and a lot of amputees, told me that it may take up to 10 years for pain to subside, and I find that they are correct in there description of how the pain will begin to decrease and how much self discipline will be required on my part to just keep taking the drugs because I enjoy them or feel that I am entitled to them. Well I never did enjoy them because over time, I became immune to any kind of joy, and I know that is the wrong description, but the head injury and the side effects on ones brain, because of taking class III, opiate based narcotic pain killers for several years, can have on your memory, and spelling skills, just to mention a few of the damages the drugs cause. I just read the last sentence and it doesn't even make sense to me, and I wrote it! See what I mean, it is the long term side effects of the drugs, and the pain.  signing off Jim