Nomad News-Vol.5-No.113

OH, MY ACHING BACK:
     For years, I have suffered from back discomfort.  I believe the problem really started when I was eight years old.  One summer, my brother picked green beans at Mr. Osler's farm.  Joe was paid 50-cents a bushel or a 5/8-bushel (I forget exactly which it was).  In any event, Joe paid me 10-cents a bushel to help him.  At the end of the second day my back hurt and I saw that I could pick beans nearly as fast as Joe could.  I asked for a pay raise.  It was refused so, I quit my first job.
     Now, fast forward to my middle sixties.  We were still in New Jersey when I visited a neurologist.  The first thing he said was:  "I wouldn't suggest an operation because you don't have that much time to live."  Nice fellow.  He then made an appointment for me to come to his Philadelphia office.  There, he hooked me up to a thousand little needle-like electrodes.  At the end of the test and the results tabulated he said:  "What would you think of making an appointment with Dr. I Forget His Name, a neurosurgeon,  for an appointment.  I replied: "Not much." and put my shirt back on and escaped from that den with my my back and my back pain still intact.
     Through the years I have been able to live with the discomfort, helped considerably with Nikken magnetic products for which we were distributors. Several months ago I started waking up in the middle of the night with pain in my left foot instep. I would rub some CM Complex Cream (a Nikken product) on the area and the pain would disappear, magically, almost immediately.  Over time the pain increased and the Cream became less effective.  I mentioned this to my podiatrist and he told me the foot pain was coming from my back and recommended changing my sleep position and putting a pillow between my legs.  This worked but I have been sleeping on my right side all my life and changing position was uncomfortable.  On the next visit to to my chiropractor, he advised placing arch supports in my shoes and rolling my foot over a frozen plastic bottle of water for five to ten minutes each night before retiring.  I used a combination of the two suggestions and after about a month, the report is in.  I am sleeping all night without any discomfort.  When I had some pain, I just rolled over on my back for a minute or so until the discomfort disappeared, roll back on my side and continue to sleep the rest of the night.  As of this writing, I have slept four nights in a row, undisturbed by any pain or discomfort.
     I'm just passing this along in case it might help someone  in a similar situation.   (Copyright 2014 by Andrew M. Dolan)

Nomad News-Vol.5-No.112

ARMY AIR CORPS, FIRST IN GERMANY:
     I believe I wrote about Jay Shumway, now a deceased member of VFW Post 5025, here in Crossville, but I couldn't find where.  In any event, Jay was a Pearl Harbor survivor and went ashore  on Omaha Beach on D-Day 1944.  Jay constantly lamented that when he got to Paris, the Army Air Corps was already there.  I constantly reminded him that we were tired of waiting for the ground forces to break out at St. Lo, so we just hopped over them and proceeded to Paris.
     What Jay didn't know was, we bypassed him and had planes taking off and landing in Germany before the first ground units crossed the border.  This came about when we departed Belgium and proceeded to Venlo, Holland.  The airport at Veno straddled the border between Germany. .  Maintenance and administration were located in Holland but the runways were in Germany.  Consequently, our pilots were operating in Germany before the first infantry troops crossed.  We never thought about it at that time but, we could have taken a stroll over at our leisure.  That would have been kind of neat.  (Copyright 2014 - Andrew M. Dolan)