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On May 15, 2008 my brother-in-law passed away at age 85. His name was Floyd Lee Brown. He joined the US Coast Gaurd in 1942, and was discharged in 1945. His job was driving one of those landing craft boats which took the troops from the ship to the shore. He was stationed off the shores of Sicily.

He came home after he was discharged and went to work, got married and raised a family. He was born to a couple in Harnett Co. who were farmers, and he never minded hard work.

I knew him for 22 years, and I had never thought about how I would miss him if he wasn't around, but I really do miss him. He was a good husband to his wife of 61 years and a good father to his 2 daughters who are wonderful people themselves. He had 3 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren who all loved him dearly. He had also been the eldest of 6 siblings who looked up to him.

I saw something on the N&O website last week that made me angry. The article about the man who had city water, but wasn't supposed to water his grass as much as he wanted. So, he had a well dug and now is using up the ground water that, we, who have a well depend on for all of our water. My husband and I have tried to conserve in every way we can, even to the point of taking Navy showers and catching the water in a bucket that runs out before it gets warm enough to shower and using that to flush the toilet. I was surprised at how much is wasted down the drain before it gets warm. We use paper plates and cups, plastic forks and spoons to keep from running the dishwasher so much.

When I was a child, I had the most wonderful grandmother. She taught me so much about life and how to live it. She told me Bible stories every day, and I wondered how she could remember all those stories. She didn't read them to me, but told them from memory. She read her Bible a lot.

She also could cook up with some of the tastiest dishes from anything she had in her pantry. Some of my fondest memories are of her standing at the kitchen table stirring up a cake or pie or some kind of pudding. Never knew what a recipe was. She made bisquits two or three times a day, and if it wasn't bisquits, it was cornbread. 

You know how sometimes in your email you get those that talk about what one misses about the good old days. Well, here are a few things I don't miss about the so-called "good old days".

I don't miss having to go down that little path to that little building at the end of that little path every time nature called.

I don't miss bringing in buckets of water from the pump outside and setting them on a shelf on the back porch; then having to break the ice the next morning to wash your face and hands.

I don't miss having to stand by the heater in the kitchen to take a sponge bath, because that was the only room in the house that was warm.

Recently, my husband, our grandaughter and I drove across the country to Wyoming. I am 71 years old and had always wanted to see "Old Faithful", so off we went. It was truly the trip of a lifetime, but that's what I said 14 years ago when we went to the Grand Canyon. We also saw Mt. Rushmore, which was totally breathtaking.

We went through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota and Wyoming. We came back through Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and finally home to North Carolina. I loved seeing all the difference in the landscapes from state to state, and even from one section of a state to another.