Friend Peter's struggle with severe flooding in England

My "mate," Peter Bryenton and his Partner Jane, live in the small village of Birlingame, Worcester, England. Over the past several days, the waters of all rivers in central England have flooded and produced devastation, the likes of which haven't been seen in generations. Peter maintains communications and here is his letter to me today:

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers, Curt. Be assured we are both safe.

Jane and I manage the risks we take, making carefully considered choices. We are warm, well fed, dry and have clean drinking water with electrical power. We have plenty of dry provisions and tinned goods, with a multi-fuel stove on which we can cook, and an oil lamp for the power cuts.

We are reaping the fruits of successive governments under-investing in our national infrastructure since 1947. Thatcher's privatisation of the public transport and utilities was a death blow to the warp and weft of our social fabric. Blair spent five billion pounds on a pointless war in a far away place, but not even one tenth of that amount will go to renew our Victorian sewers and storm drains, in spite of massive house building programs over the decades. Our fields have been made ever larger, for more profitable yields, but the hedges and ditches which have traditionally drained England's agricultural systems for centuries have been filled in, against all the advice of those who know better. We put up new homes on flood plains, but do not construct adequate defences, if any. All of our leading civil engineers are now saying "We told you so, but you wouldn't heed us". They were right in their prophecies.

Well, there are one hundred and fifty thousand domestic dwellings without power and water only ten miles from us, in Tewkesbury, where the rivers Severn and Avon meet. Jane and I have driven out to survey the countryside this evening, in deceptively cruel sunshine, but some of the roads are still under deep water, where the usually tiny brooks are still swollen. Abandoned cars litter the roadsides, reduced to scrap value in a moment by their inexperienced drivers, have either been dragged or shoved out of the way by tractors and lorries. These oversize 4WD (SUV) vehicles are merely fashion items, and not at all the off-road dream machines peddled by the marketing people. This is a tiny country, with narrow lanes. I have no idea why ordinary people feel the need to drive a 4.5 litre Jeep or Chrysler. You would need a military spec snorkel system with waterproof electronics to survive this lot, plus plenty of common sense, training and some sound mechanical aptitude. It's about greed.

The disaster has polarised citizens. We now have two distinct classes: the selfish and the selfless.

Cheers,

B.

Peter Bryenton
www.brypix.com

A letter I sent today to a fellow myasthenic who characterized herself as "ill."

I have MG and it has been so severe at times that I couldn't walk, talk or eat. I almost died from it last year. What I have is a simple (though buried under some very complex biochemistry) electrochemical disorder - as do we all who suffer from MG. Not for one moment, though, have I ever considered myself "ill." Ill is where someone needs to stay at home in bed or be in the hospital.

My symptoms have been far worse than a great many of the people in the forum (an English on-line forum for MG victims) and I still don't consider myself "ill," and never wiil (at least not with MG). The condition has not caused me time off from work from my stressful job, even when I couldn't talk (I used e-mail for communication). When I couldn't eat, I drank protein shakes (and lost 50 pounds from malnourishment). And, when I couldn't walk, I took a bus.

I'll I'm not.

Regards and best wishes for the future!

Curt

Church on the hill - Weston

Old Homestead and carriage barn - Weston

Looking up the road to Landgrove - Weston

"A river runs through it" - Weston

New-to-me 2004 Harley-Davidson XL883C - Sportster, on the showroom floor. 6,700 miles on its gorgeous chrome clock. The bike is beautiful and in mint condition. It has all the farkles on it I wanted on one of these and it save thousand$ over new.

Stockbridge (Mass) at Christmas. Every year on the first weekend in December, the villasge of Stockbridge invites antique car owners to come into town and host an afternoon of festivities where all the shops are done up as in Norman Rockwell's iconic picture that covered the Saturday Evening Post back in the 1950s.

Here is the obituary for my brother's wife, Chi, who was killed when she crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic on Route 32 in Cornwall-on-Hudson and struck two cars head-on. She was ejected from the car but, apparently, the car was in unsurvivable condition. Tragic.

MARIANNE "CHI" WILSON-MILLER Salisbury Mills, N.Y. Marianne “Chi” Wilson-Miller of Salisbury Mills, died tragically in a motor vehicle accident on November 15, 2006 in Cornwall. She was 49. The daughter of John L. Wilson and Mary Kissick Wilson. She was born and raised in New Castle, Pa. Marianne received her Bachelors in Science from West Virginia Wesleyan University and her Masters in Science from Virginia Tech. Marianne was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Washingtonville and President of their Women's Association, the American Dietetic Association, Daughters of the American Revolution, Order of Eastern Star, Former member of V.F.W. Ladies Auxiliary, Keyport, N.J., former den leader in Pack 717, Washingtonville, former member and Secretary for Blooming Grove/Washingtonville Rotary Club, she received the Girl Scout Gold Award. Survivors include her loving husband, Robert T. Miller of Salisbury Mills; son, Kelson S. Miller; stepson, Kevin S. Miller; father John L. Wilson of Salisbury Mills; brother, William L. Wilson of Pittsburgh, Pa.; sister-in-law, Karen E. Miller of New Windsor; cousins, Leah Kissick of Pa., David Updegraff of Ohio, John Updegraff of Conn., and Kurt Updegraff of Ohio. She was predeceased by her mother, Mary K. Wilson. Visitation will be on Sunday, November 19, 2006 from 2–6 p.m. and on Monday, November 20, 2006 from 2–4 and 7–9 p.m. at the David T. Ferguson Funeral Home, 20 North Street in Washingtonville. Funeral Services will be on Tuesday, November 21, 2006 at 12 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Washingtonville with a burial to follow in the Washingtonville Cemetery in Washingtonville. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to the National Kidney Foundation of Greater New York, Attn: Jessie Thompson, 30 East 33rd Street, New York, NY 10016 or the First Presbyterian Church of Washingtonville. Funeral arrangements under the Direction of David T. Ferguson Funeral Home.

Big deal!? You bet. Last Thanksgiving, I was so weak I wasn't able to walk more than fifty yards without needing to stop to hold my head up with my hands because my neck was so weak it couldn't support my head. I had periods of double vision and couldn't chew or swallow. I had lost about 30 pounds and lived on milkshakes.

This Thanksgiving, I was able to do all my yard work, clean up my garage, level the dirt floor and lay down plywood for a real floor. Yeah, it's a big deal, and I want to thank the likes of George Bush and Rush Limbaugh - undoubtedly two of the greatest minds of the 21st Century - for their compassion and vision in their support for the type of medical research responsible for the minor miracle that has given me another chance: stem cell research. From now on, my medical consultant, Mr. Limbaugh, will help me adjust and time the doses of medicine that help me live so well. Michael J. Fox and I take our hats off to you, Rush!