Pete's Revised BLOG - Day 5.

Today is Tuesday, March 13, 2012. This is my 26,014th day on earth and it is an absolutely beautiful one. The sun is shining and it is 72 degrees. I'd love to have 364 more days of this.

My accomplishments today are all good. I maintained my weight at 163.6 pounds, did my yoga, walked 45 minutes for a 2.5 mile hike through the mobile home court. I'm on schedule to make my 60 mile monthly goal - today I hit 27 miles for the month of March. And I cut down Ruth Ann's old mums from last year, raked them up and got them hauled to the city garage where you can dump yard refuse. And I even took a few practice swings with my old rusted 7 iron in the back yard - I don't think I've made much improvement in my swing from last fall.

First, I want to finish my salute to my high school teachers. Some others I'm grateful to are Alyce Bernatz (junior english), Maxine Swiggum (personal typing), Curt Petersons (band), Bob Toppin (social studies), Mrs Verchota (biology). They were all good teachers and I'm grateful I had them.

Unfortunately, elementary teachers seldom get mentioned as having much influence on their students. But I disagree - they are the ones who taught us how to read, how to add, subtract, divide, multiply, how to print and then write, how to compose a sentence and a paragraph, and how to behave and treat others the right way. I can remember all my grade school teachers and I want to express my gratitude to them. In grades 1-3 at Mantorville I had Mrs Morrisett for first and second and Mrs Boyum for third. In grades 4-5 at the country school in Dodge Center I had Mrs Musoff, and in 6th grade in Dodge Center town school I had Mrs Ness. And you know what, I've nothing but good memories of all four of them - they were all good teachers and I owe as much to them as I do to my junior and senior teachers for the person I turned out to be.

There are quite a few teachers I've left off my gratitude tribute. It is not necessary for me to elaborate because the reason should be quite obvious.

And I want to express me gratitude to the medical profession. In May, 2007 I had prostate cancer surgery. My prostate was removed and the lab said it was 15% cancerous - which means that out of every 100 cells there would be 15 cancerous ones. It was originally diagnosed at a 5% level. I've been having PSA tests every several months since 2007 to see if the cancer has returned. Well, I had my latest check-up last Wednesday. I was apprehensive as I always am when I go for my check-ups but it was nothing to fear. My PSA showed no evidence of cancer - in fact, my reading was 0.0. I was one happy dude when the nurse led me into the exam room and said, "Peter, you had another perfect score." I was happily relieved to say the least. Dr. Richardson came in and said things look so good I don't have to see you for a year. Again, I'm grateful for modern medicine and to the intelligent professionals who practice it.