If you can dream it, you can do it!

You must see what you want to do in your mind before you can make it happen. At least that is how it works for me. I must see the map in my thoughts. Only then can I make whatever I am planning happen. When I built the shed with playhouse on top at the other house I had nothing on paper. I just visualized  it in my mind. When I built the playhouse here it was the same thing. It was all in my head how it would look before I started. The playhouse does not look too bad for being thirty years old. You can see the fireman pole for sliding down, and the skylights in the roof.You can also see where we sit under the porch. And the wood and coal storage space under the house. I wanted the kids to have a fun place to play like I did growing up. Alas I don't build much anymore. My body is not up to all the heavy lifting and carrying of heavy objects like when I was younger. All good things must come to an end!

I am dreaming about my businesses now, and how Mary and I will enjoy our retirement. Someone else has taken over the work I used to enjoy so much. We still keep busy, but in not such a labor intensive way!  We have learned a very painful lesson about not stretching our muscles like we did when we were young and nimble. We have learned to pace ourselves to fight another day. But we still see the things we want in our minds. Like the back porch Mary loves so much. She knew what to do to finish it inside and saw it in her mind and made it happen. We are so different in many ways, but knowing what we want out of life we both see clearly in our minds what we are going to get out of this life. We are a team and carve out a good life for us and our family.

And we both at 65 won't let anyone push us around either. We stand up for our and our families rights. We will stand pat and enjoy our life. Just not as fast and limber as when we were younger.LOL                                               

The longest I have owned one cycle!

I bought my 650 Honda in 1982. It was a present to myself when we sold a building lot we had for an investment. I put 25,000 mies on it by the time I had it 25 years. With a family I could not ride a lot. For a couple years I did not ride it at all. I kept it for a reason at the time I know not why. I just did not want to sell it. Then Jeff our younger boy asked if he could get his cycle license and ride the bike. I said sure as long as he took the riders course and always wore a helmet. So started his new adventure, I had no idea would take him so far. He got his license and I told him a few pointers I learned over the years. Like ride as if everyone is out to get you. And watch loose stones at intersections from the winter salting. When it rains be careful till the water washes away the oil and gas on the road. Things like that my Dad told me. My Dad rode, and his Dad rode, so Jeff was a fourth generation Biker! I told his better half that, and she remarked that makes her one too. LOL

Before Jeff met Heather he made three trips on the cycle. Twice down to Mississippi and Louisiana. The one trip he volunteered to clean the flooding mess after the levi broke. He stayed in a hotel that had the high water mark at 29 feet. I did not know the water was that high. And one trip down to the pan handle of Florida. Jeff was taking the trips I never got to make. Mary and I started a family soon after we were married and could not take long trips on the cycle till a couple years ago when our family was grown.

Jeff now takes Heather cycling when he is home. She had never ridden before and fell in love with it right away. It is something about seeing more, smelling all the roadside smells. Being free not like in a cage.Experiencing nature to the fullest. Sure there are dangers, but there is in everything we do. You can't be afraid to take a chance now and then. It is a calculated risk and you must be careful. 

When I sold the 650 in 2012, I had it thirty years. Jeff was riding the Nomad that he was unsure of before. Yes it is 800 pounds but it is all balance. Once you are moving it is easy to balance. My nine hundred Honda was easy to ride too. For a couple months when I bought the Nomad, I had three cycles. The garage was full.

 The Honda that's been in more states than I have!

Branded as "HOSS"!

The year was 1966, I just graduated from high school. I had my whole life ahead of me. I got a job, and was running the loop route in town every night. My license plate on the cycle started to crack from the vibration. In later years the tail light and license holder would be rubber mounted to stop the license plate from cracking and falling off. I kept bending the plate till it broke. I knew you did not get a temporary plate till your new one arrived in the mail so I threw it in the trash so I could ride around without a plate. I went to the JP and filled out the paperwork for a new plate. It was four weeks till the plate arrived, so I put a backing plate I bought with lettering I picked up at the hardware store with Hoss on the back because I liked Dan Blocker"Hoss" on the TV show Bonanza. Most of the guys had nicknames and on the show Hoss was a mountain name for a big guy with a big heart. It fit me to a T. I also got a plate for the front of my car when I got a car in about one and a half years. I wanted people to know my name.

When the replacement plate came in about four weeks I threw it in the trash and went to the JP again so I could go longer without a plate on my cycle. He did the replacement paperwork and it was six weeks this time till my new plate arrived. The cops of course stopped my the second week I had the Hoss plate on the back of my cycle so they could get my information in case someone gave my license number as Hoss. It worked, I rode ten weeks without a license plate. Everyone wanted to know how I got away so long with no plate. Then they started doing it too. I guess it happened other places too, because they passed a law that you got a temporary plate right away. But I was a rebel for all those weeks. I started another fad. It was a game between the police and us to see how much we could get away with. For a while I was the talk of the town, and helped brand my nickname to me.

I told my wife if she does not put Hoss in my obituary most of Lancaster county will not know it was me! I worked six  months at Charles Chips as electrician when I was working at the owner's house and he asked me what my real name was, because he only knew me as Hoss. I was called over the intercom at a lot of places I worked when there was a breakdown and there was a lot of Bob's or other names but there was only one Hoss. They knew I was wanted when they called Hoss over the intercom. Yes Mary never called me Hoss. Even though her nickname was Snug in nursing school. Yes Hoss and Snug paired up to raise a family. A few of my close friends call me Randy, but most know me as Hoss. I had Hoss on my business cards and had….Hoslectric….on the front of my truck for my electric business. I use Randal"Hoss" Caldwell for my buiness name now too. It will help me in searches when people look for a business. There is a lot of Randal Caldwell's out there. I need to brand my name to my business. The Caldwell clan came over from Ireland and Scotland in the early 1800's because of the potato blight and settled up and down the east coast. There is even several towns named Caldwell on the east coast. I have a charge account at the local hardware store and sign my slips Hoss Caldwell. The one lady at the cash register always says hi Hoss, sign here.

Yes I have had a blessed life so far. I just hope I will be Hoss for a lot of years to go. I am not ready to give up the living years for a long time yet! I will keep fighting Mother Nature, and building my businesses. And loving and caring for my family as best I can.

This is the bike I am talking about, with the Hoss license on the back. It served me well for three years. I wish I had kept it but you guys know how you tend to think of things you should have done too late.

Our Dreams!

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them! I am starting to believe my dreams will come true if I try hard enough and pursue what I have wanted for a long time. I want to have a good retirement that Mary and I can do some traveling in the 50 states of this great country we live in. See the sites that we never had the time to travel to before, just take our time and see what this wonderful land we call home has to offer. We raised our family, and now it is our turn to do what we want. The golden years might not be as golden as we have hoped, but we will enjoy them. Our aches and pains flair up, it is not so much fun growing old, but it beats the alternative. We have reached the time in our lives when we are not bound by a nine to five job anymore. A business from home gives us the freedom we have longed for.

And we have talked about renting a motor home and do some traveling. Be able to stop and see the sites we could not before, because we had to be home to go back to work. We don't have to tour with the kids and not stop when we wanted to. We can take the grandkids to see the sites when we want. And we even get senior discounts. A lot of places give senior discounts, but you must ask for them, they are not advertised. We worked hard all our lives, and it is our time to enjoy life as we never could before. I never thought about being retired as I was living life to the fullest. Working hard and doing what I had to. Keeping the yard nice, and fixing up the house. Running the kids here and there. Doing what was expected of me as a father and husband. Now as a grandfather my responsibilities are different, but I still do them as best that I can. When my daughters Durango was kept overnight for inspection I took the granddaughters to the bus stop in my van because the temp was about four degrees and I did not want them to be out in that cold for long. My daughter takes them when it is cold. They walk about two blocks and must stand there and wait for the bus. I know I am a softee when it comes to kids.

Yes the end of the year when Mary retires a whole new life is opening up for us. We are planning on a bigger garden, and to do the yard work more often. Keeping after weeds, and the flower beds will look nice again.

Yes spring will come again, this terrible winter weather will be gone. The world will be renewed and the nice weather will be here! We will be complaining about the sweltering heat instead of the cold and snow. Instead of blowing snow, I will be complaining about mowing the grass and pulling weeds. I will be working in my businesses and keeping busy outside again. All will be good with my world again, till next winter. I will do battle with Mother Nature again, and be raving about something, what ever comes up. My big mouth will keep these pages full and I will be doing whatever I find to take up my time. Evermore!

Flower beds bordering the woods.

Flowers taking over the playground.

MOTHER PLEASE give us a break!!

Yes Mother is angry again. The weather guy says freezing rain or snow tomorrow again. And cold coming down from Canada again. It was 65 degrees today, I went for the mail with no coat on. Tomorrow with the wind chill it may be near 0 degrees. Talk about a swing in temps! I can take the freezing temps as long as It knocks the snow south of us again like last monday when we got 2 inches of snow when they said up to 12 inches forecast. Mary had one window on the porch open this afternoon it was so warm on the porch. She took her laptop out on the porch and was helping her younger sister do her taxes. Wi Fi is great, she can sent to her printer, and my desktop can do the same. Yes we are getting into twenty first century technology whether we like it or not. The only person I know of without a computer is Bruce.

Suicide Driveway!!

The driveway has a lot of sand on it yet so if we get snow or freezing rain it should blow off with little effort. Since Mary has off tonight and tomorrow night I don't need to prepare the driveway till it gets light. No fighting in the dark at 5 am. I worry about being out in the dark because if I fall no one will see me right away. I carry my phone whenever I go out, but it is still on my mind about getting hurt. 

Bruce called me tonight and harassed me about riding my motorcycle. LOL Yes it was a good day to ride. I have to save up and start my insurance again. This summer I hope Bruce and I can ride our cycles together like old times

Well I am going to sleep about 12 o'clock tonight I hope?  I need to rest up to see how much I must fight Mother tomorrow. I hope we do not get much snow or ice, but whatever we are given we will put up with it. We cannot control Mother Nature, just repair what she hands us.

ME TOO! ME TOO! Yea Right!

I was never one to do what everyone else does. I have to be different. I don't dress in the latest fads, or even drive the same car as everyone else. This is a picture of my second motorcycle I purchased in my senior year of high school. The black frame with grey fenders was the only color the super hawk came in in 1966. The second picture is my "Quarter Hawg." It was in to name your cycle then. After I had it six months and had over 10,000 miles on it I lost my license for fifteen days and stripped the frame and back fender and tank and painted it corvette blue, and installed the chromed front shortie fender. I took the Honda emblems off the gas tank and installed Maltese cross emblems in their place. That was the first year so I had the megaphones on the exhaust because they were free flowing and when enriching the carbs I got a lot more power. Also it made a lot more noise. Thats a male thing too.  I got the megs because I was rear ended by another cycle and it bent the one muffler, so it was a good excuse to get better mufflers for looks and performance. When I sold the bike  two years later I had over 40,000 miles on the bike. Of course we turned the odometer back 10,000 miles. Now you get arrested for doing that. Yes they had just started inspection, but you did not need motorcycle license either back then. When you bought a bike they said the gas is here, the shift here and the brake here, and good luck. You were on your own to learn how to ride.

 I even customized my cars so I would be different. When anyone saw my vehicles they knew it was mine. I wore bluejeans and t-shirts before it was the in thing. I used to ride all winter in a blue jean jacket and sweat shirt. When you are young you have good circulation. I did not get a car till I was out of school a year and a half.

Dave laying on BMW in 1968. Dave liked to be different too.

Not many guys on BMW's back then!

My stock super hawk in spring 1966

Dave on BMW  1966

My Corvette blue "Quarter Hawg"with blue leather seat, and chrome shorty front fender.

In fall of 1966. One of the few customized bikes in Lancaster at the time.

Mary in her zone!

Mary got home from work about a little before six this morning, her regular time. She went to bed as usual. When she woke up about one the sun was shining and the outside temp was in the high fifties. The sun shining in the big porch windows facing the south side had the temp up to almost eighty degrees in the back porch. Mary had her wake up meal in the porch as she does whenever it is warm enough. In fact she and the grandkids ate out there last night when they stopped over for supper. I am glad we finished the porch and got larger windows. The solar heat coming in the open sliding door raised the temp in the house two degrees. Free heat! I'm glad Mary has a nice private place to eat and read the newspaper. She needs to unwind from her hectic job.

Lots of times over winter when the sun is out the porch warms and we open the door and let the heat in. The cats like to lay on Mary's plant bench and soak up the sun too. It is Kyler's favorite place to play too. Not every three old has their own play room at grandma's. He did not want to go home last night. He wanted to stay and play. He fought his mom and dad to stay here. The kids spend a lot of time here. They have a good time and usually don't want to go home and back to school. That's kids, they like to be away from mom and dad to grandparents where they get away with more than they can at home.

I'm glad we did not sell the house about ten years ago when Mary wanted to move to a smaller place. I did not want to leave. Mary is glad now we did not move either. We built this house with things we wanted, and spent a lot of good times with the kids here. Since we put the new heating system in, and the new windows our energy bills are a lot less expensive. And Mary loves her back porch, the gardens and the ten acres of woods behind us that cannot be developed. We are here over thirty years already, and expect a lot more. Mary says when we can no longer walk up and down the driveway, we will drive it in the car!

Mary started growing some plants for the garden already on her plant bench. We got McDonalds salads Friday night and the dish with clear top is a great place to raise baby plants. The sun coming and hitting Mary's plant bench is a great place to start the growing cycle. Like my fortune cookie paper says:  It is not the outside riches but the inside ones that produce happiness.  It is nice to have some outside riches too, to make the inside ones possible.

I'm not telling you it is going to be easy!I'm telling you it is going to be worth it!

Those are the famous words of someone who was right! If it is worth it, it is worth doing it right! Not a whole lot in life is easy, but a lot in life is worth the trouble to do it. If you want a good life you must work at it. I practiced motorcycle riding when I was racing. I would go on the back roads and practice taking off at full throttle so I could launch the cycle when I was getting ready for a race. The same with the car. I would practice everything I was interested in doing well. Right now I am practicing how to build my business. Everyone must try to do what they want to be good at. I need a lot of practice at learning to use my mac computer, it is totally different from my pc. But I will keep at it till I learn enough to do what I need to do to make money from home. I am bullheaded and will keep trying till I get it. With Marcy's guidance I will master the computer. I will get it, I hope. No I know I will!

Mary is going to retire in 2015, and take a big cut in salary. She plans to work part time, but I want to take up the slack so she does not have to work so much. I know I can do it, I just have to learn how to build my business up enough to replace her salary. So much Mary and I have tried has worked out good. We will give this chapter of our life the same determination we did everything else we have tackled. We will figure out this chapter of our life. Together we can beat anything we tackle together. We have done so much together that I believe we can accomplish whatever we put our minds together to do.

Yes we have developed an attitude that if we can think it, we can do it. We will try to do something, and we just attack it. We will study what we need to so we can master whatever we are doing at the time, and it works out great, so far. I don't know what we will tackle next, but we will accomplish it somehow. I surprise myself sometimes in what I can figure out. And Mary sees what I cannot and leads me in the right direction. We accomplish what we set our minds to do. The human mind is a wonder. That we can imagine something, and make it happen. That is how we get so many new inventions, someone thinks of it and the mind makes it happen. IF YOU CAN THINK IT, YOU CAN DO IT! is what the mind was made for.

The difficult we can do immediately; the impossible will take a little longer!

When is winter over,PLEASE!

Yes I am raving about winter again. When I took Mary to work tonight, she said three more weeks and winter will be a thing of the past. I hope she is right. We are all tired of cold, ice and snow. We want at least 40 to 50 degree days again. I know they will be here soon, but we cannot wait much longer. Yes we can it just seems like we can't. I want to break out my nomad and two wheel again. I get relief from all the grief of life when I am on my iron horse. The tension flows out of my body, and I feel like a kid again. I don't have to go far to feel better. It is my release. I don't need to see a shrink when I ride, all is right with my world again. You never see a motorcycle in front of a shrinks office. There is a reason for that! I know why Jeff and Heather like to ride my bike too. It brings couples together, the feeling of being one with nature, the sights, the smells the sounds and the adventure of experiencing every thing you miss in a car. When you are in a cage it is not the same as being out there. All you riders know what I am talking about. There is even a couple of services that take your casket on its last ride on a motorcycle. That is the way to go in style.

Yes winter is soon over, I change the snowblower on my tractor for the belly mower. We start the garden again. Have picnics in the back yard, and the kids play on their playground again. Mary goes out daily and picks something from the garden for her salad. Just going outside in the fresh air to enjoy the sights is great. Mary picks fresh tea to drink. Renewed life is here, including the ever prosperous weeds. We have not found a way to get away from weeds yet. We don'l like to use weed killer either. We usually just rip them out. It is one more thing we have learned to put up with in life. I see life as a tradeoff of the good and the bad. You put up with some not so good things so you can have the better things in life. All life is a trade off. You just have to pick the good things you want and make them happen!

Every BIG DOG was once little puppy!

I get mad when I forget how to do something for my blog and must ask Marcy again, what I am doing wrong. She says everyone must learn how to do it when I get mad, it is not only myself that forgets. But I try hard to learn the first time. With my learning difficulty I must do it several times and burn it into my brain, then I am usually O.K. Till I do not do it for a while, then I can forget again so I keep notes to refresh my feeble brain bucket. She is right, no one is born knowing everything. We must learn it. I see it in my grandson Kyler, those little wheels in his brain I see turning to absorb something when he watches me do something. He is 3 years old, and he already knows how to use the computer mouse. He is like my kids, he will go far in life, just like his sisters.

I must not hit on myself for making mistakes. It is part of the learning process. I am in the declining years of my learning. I have a limited amount of years left. Maybe 20 or 30 years left to progress in my doing and accomplishing something in my life. I am 65 now, and still learning. I will learn as long as I can breath. When I can no longer draw a breath, then I will let the younger race take over, I have done what I was put on this earth to accomplish. I have passed my genes on to the next group of human beings to take over the reins of life. My DNA is carried forward in my children, and their children! And I have left a story of the Caldwell line for future people to learn where we came from.     If you don't put it on paper, it will die with you!    Well I have put my share on these pages. My future people will know this ancestor, my thoughts and actions will be here for them to learn about their crazy ancestor. This BIG DOG will be known in the future, whether good or bad. Good I hope they take away. Write down what you want future relatives to know. I wish I had something my Dad wrote. I just have second hand stories of his exploits. And the Love he showed me when I was growing up. Thank you Dad for all you gave me! I know I am raving again, good this time. Thank you Marcy for reminding me no one is perfect, especially an old dog trying hard to learn new tricks!

If you want to learn a good new trick, visit    s6pt.com.randal