Hard as it is to believe, October is almost gone. Halloween is in a week and spooky season is done for another year. Now, it may come as a surprise, but I don’t really like October much. The tenth month has historically been hard on me for various reasons.

First, when I was eight years old, I got a promise in October that was supposed to be life changing. I waited for forty years, but the promise never came. I still think about it every now and then, but I’ve long since resigned myself to it having just been a pipe dream. I would have been nice though. I’ve lost several people in October, too. Papa John died in October. I’ve had some former students pass in October. It’s been just enough bad stuff for the month to put a sour taste in my mouth.

It’s a shame really, because it’s a beautiful time of years. The temps start dropping, the leaves start changing, and the sky takes on that hue that reminds everyone everywhere that God is a University of North Carolina fan. Granny Wham loved October. When I was little, we used to go to the mountains in October and see the leaves changing. We’d pack a lunch and stop beside the road to eat fried chicken.

This October, though, hasn’t done anything to move up in my esteem. It all started with my first hurricane experience. Hurricane Helene hit Greenville right square in the mouth. Back in 1989, we thought Hugo was going to hit either Greenville or Charlotte. It looked like Greenville, but, as the unpredictable storms will often do, it turned at the last minute and devastated downtown Charlotte. Not this year though. We took wind and rain right on the chin. All around us, people had monster trees down in their yards. Roads were impassable for days until trees cleared out, and power was a thing of the past.

Bad as we got it here, however, it was nothing compared to the devastation western North Carolina and middle Tennessee took. They were hit with landslides and flooding. Several small towns are just gone — wiped off the map by raging floodwaters and mudslides down the mountains. Parts of the city of Asheville just washed away. Major highways aren’t there anymore, having washed down the side of the mountain. Life is pretty much back to normal for us down here, except for some cleanup, but up there, places still don’t have power or water.

We were blessed and cursed in the storm. The actual storm caused extremely small amounts of damage to our home. We had a yard full of sticks and leaves, but none of our trees came down even as homes all around us lost trees enormous in size, some of which still haven’t been cleaned up because of the backlog of work tree companies have as well as the prohibitive cost of cleaning up a huge tree.

We also had some bad stuff happen to us though. The second night, we were without power and it was stuffy in the house so we raised the porch window all the way up to let maximum air flow in. Bob, our biggest, if youngest, cat took the opportunity to blow through the screen and run out into the night. That was bad enough, but he did come back a few hours later and hop back in the window and announce he wanted breakfast. Unfortunately, for reasons only she knows, our timid little girl Mavis followed him out the window. She was the last of our brood we would have figured to do such a thing, but she did, and she has not shown a hair since that night. She has a full set of claws and teeth and is an excellent hunter based on how well she stalks and catches mice in the house, but she only has one eye. We are slowly loosing hope that she’ll come back and it’s especially hard not knowing what’s happened to her, but we do have friends who encourage us that cats are funny and she may still turn up. We can only hope.

Just about the time we got power back from the storm, I started to feel a tingling sensation in the heel of my left hand. A bump rose up and I thought it was just a pimple, so I took a razor knife to it. It didn’t disappear, however, and was joined by several more lesions that looked more than anything like chicken pox. They also burned and ached like fire. I went to the urgent care center and got the bad news — shingles. I’ve dreaded shingles ever since I turned fifty because I knew I was a prime candidate for them, having had a massive case of chicken pox in first grade.

By the end of the week, I had lesions on both sides of my hand, up my fingers, and in the spots between my fingers. It looked pretty gnarly and the pain and ache went all the way up my left arm. The urgent care doctor gave me Valtrex anti-herpes drugs since shingles and herpes are in the same viral family, but she didn’t give me anything for pain, since, God forbid someone actually need pain meds. Oh no! It’ll always lead to opioid addiction. I had some oxycodone from a back strain and Budge had some from her facial pain back in March so I limped along on those. I’m pretty much back to normal now, but my left index finger is still as numb as novocained teeth. The lesions are drying up and disappearing. I have to wait 90 days to get the vaccine, but guaranteed, I will. I wouldn’t wish these things on my worst enemy.

That’s my thoughts on October, but before I go, I’d like to talk to y’all briefly about the blog. I know I don’t put out the amount of content I once did. It’s hard for me to come up with ideas I think y’all want to read about. I don’t get many comments — maybe one every six months. So I’ve started to wonder if maybe 12 or so years is long enough and maybe it’s time to shut ‘er down. What do you, my readers, think? Is there a reason to keep writing? Is there something you’d like me to visit or even revisit? I’d love to know.

So until next time, love y’all and keep your feet clean.