Pete Bungum's BLOG - Day 26,117 in my journey through life.

Today is Tuesday, May 22,2012 - sunny with highs in the 80s. We need rain more than ever. I'm grateful again for another day of "I'm HIV."

This morning I did yoga, the exercise ball and walked 45 minutes = 2.5 miles for a May total of 51.3 miles. My weight was 162.2 pounds.

TODAY IN HISTORY: This one caught my eye when reading the Today in History column this morning. "After a reign lasting nearly 30 years, Johnny Carson hosted NBC's 'Tonight Show' for the last time on May 22, 1992." I can't beleive it has been 20 years since Carson went off the air. When I was younger and could keep my eyes open past 10:30  I would watch him a lot. And my Mom, in her later years, would faithfully watch Johnny every night. After raising 9 kids from the time she was 23 until Mark, the last one, left home home when she was age 60, that woman deserved some time to herself to just stay up as late as she wanted and enjoy Johnny Carson. She didn't have to worry about  crying babies, sick kids, or teen-agers doing stupid things - she could just relax and laugh along with Johnny.

She had some pretty good years in her 60s and 70s but by the time she hit the 80s her health began failing. In her 70s she had had both legs amputated below the knees due to diabetes. She could get around with prosthetic legs but it was a struggle. When she would go to bed she would take off her artificial legs, set them beside the bed, put on a hair net and keep her coke bottle glasses on to watch Johnny. I asked her once if she was ever afraid that someone  would break in the house and rob her. She said, "If anybody came in here to rob me, they'd take one look at me with no legs and these thick glasses and they would run away real fast." Even with the condition she was in she still had a good sense of humor. She went into the nursing home around age 80 and lived  until she was one week shy of her 87th birthday. She died on November 20, 1991 - it was my 51st birthday.