You know the old saying; Want to make God laugh? Just make some plans…:-)

RE: MY ‘plans’…In radio, one only gets 10 days (in-a-row) off if they’re:

* Unemployed

* Dead

* All of the Above

…So, imagine my happy surprise at being told ‘TAKE TEN DAYS OFF” (without the being fired / dead part!)…Would get into all the exciting plans my family and I made. Visions of Beach Blanket Bingo with the wife, surf, sun…and a call on the hotline exactly one hour before the ‘freedom fest’ began. I could tell by the first breath my wife drew (been married long Wills?…:-) that ‘Houston – we have a problem!’

Indeed.

My 88 year old father (a Pearl harbor vet no less) had gone into a coma, was in ICU – and nobody knew how to contact us.

Also, nobody knew if his pets were starving or worse.

To the BATMOBILE we go…blazing a trail through the night to Ala-Bummer (my home stare, I’m allowed). Father, eventually better and finally out of the hospital. Pets? Well, aside from being a bit hungry and BEWILDERED…were Okie-Dokie. My brother (complete with his tumors!) somehow made it down there from Oregon. And my uncles (even older than my dad – all WW2 combat vets, you can’t kill these guys off!) were glad to see us as they had bore the brunt of this drama for those intervening days.

As I see it; there’s two ways to look at this. Either complain that my great swath of idle time was a big hoax from the universe – or – be Thankful that as FATE would have it, that free time was already in the chute – at just the RIGHT TIME!

On the other hand, next Thanksgiving – I’ll ‘PLAN’ on working some 30 hour days, etc!