Harbor Pilots

Hi Cadre. Good morning. It's 11:00am in Erie, Pennsylvania, next to beautiful Lake Erie. I'm Kathy Joy and I was waiting for my cuckoo clock to finish singing. It's so good to see you here on the chyrosphere. So in the chat I put up a little chart that says, take what you need. Maybe you'll go in and find that. If you need resilience, take that. If you need rest, grab that. It's kind of like one of those pull tabby things that you see at the grocery store. When somebody wants to dog sit for you or babysit for you or do household chores for you, you tear off their little phone number.

This is a little tear off chart. Take what you need. Perseverance, flexibility, courage. So that's in the, the chat. What I'm prepared to talk to you today about is the jumpers, the male jumpers of Lake Geneva. That's in Wisconsin. And this is a thing, you guys, and it's so cool. I don't know if I can show you this picture or if it'll be backwards, but there is a male jumper and it's usually a teenager because they're quick on their feet, strong and agile. So you can see it's a pleasure boat, It's a tour boat.

And this young lady is jumping off the moving boat onto the dock to deliver the mail for that little town along Lake Geneva. Mail. Jumpers. Who knew? I came across that when I was looking for things. Oh, the mailbox is on here. Let me see if I can make it bigger. Right there. See right there is the mailbox. Not a big mailbox. I was telling my friend that I'll be speaking about mail jumpers on the Cadre today. And she's like, what about packages? Well, I don't know about packages. I'm not sure what they do in that case.

This is probably partially entertainment for those on the boat to watch somebody hopping off the boat while it's moving, getting within, you know, inches of the dock. So there has to be a good person at the helm running that boat so they don't go into the dock. Then the, the young person jumps off, runs to the mailbox, runs back to the moving boat and everybody claps. I have a couple videos I watched as well. And then there were some older people, older responsible adults who value their lives, unlike some teenagers that I know who are a little more, I shouldn't say reckless, a little more daring.

So these adults, probably passengers on the boat, decide they're going to try mail jumping and some of them end up in the water. All that to tell you Cadre that my mom, who I caregive and who is 93 years of age, has a ministry of cards. And she writes these cards. She sends them off to people she loves. And we're talking not only birthdays, anniversaries and holidays, but we're also talking just thinking of you and how you doing. And sometimes she'll want to enclose a letter as well. I would say in the last six, nine months or so, because of Mom's low vision issues, she's not writing.

She can't see very well to write her own notes, so I write them for her, which is my pleasure. I enjoy that. I'm a card person, too. I love receiving and sending cards out in the mail, so I wanted to read this one to you. This is a card from her friend Mary, and it blesses my socks off as a caregiver because it's written to me. Mary usually writes lovely cards to mom, and she usually sends them in the mail to mom, whose name is June. Mary and June have been friends forever. Mary sends cards to mom about once a week.

This one's to me and it says, dear Kathy, I thought my name was Speak Wonder. Ha. What a delightful surprise on a very ordinary day to have my phone ring to tell me the FedEx man had a package for me. Thanks for your help in sending me the tasty fudge, the gift from your mother. Little sidebar here. My mom and I went to the county fair back in August and she bought a box of fudge for Mary and she said, I'm going to mail it. Oh, translation. I, Kathy, get to go to the FedEx store and make sure it's wrapped properly and mailed to her friend Mary with a note that mom dictated to me because she's not writing either with her arthritis.

So Mary is thanking me for being the. The broker, the go between, between the package and her for my mom. Thanks for your help in sending the package. Thank you also for all you do for June. Last Monday, June and I had a nice long phone visit. She loves telling me about what a wonderful time the two of you had at the fair. She also told me of the amazing surprise gathering you arranged for many family members, including Oliver, the new baby. You are truly a gift to her at this difficult point in her life.

I always enjoy your articles in the Silver magazine. I write for a senior magazine called Silver. Mary's one of my fans, so that blessed my heart to receive, first of all, a real article of mail in the mailbox. That's kind of rare lately, I think, for everyone. Not throwing shade on it, but we send and receive most of our greetings in email or memes or text messages. I mean, there's so many fun graphics that we can use and they're wonderful, very meaningful and they're immediate and there's a lot to say for that.

But there's also a lot to say for a real piece of paper mail in your mailbox. Just the experience of opening the envelope, seeing what's inside, reading, reading somebody's handwriting, somebody that took time to write it out, I just love that. And that's something my mom values and treasures. And so as long as I'm able, I will be her scribe. I will be my mom's faithful scribe. I will write notes and if she wants to put money in there for her great grands, I find some cash and put it in there and mom can sign her name and she would love to write the whole letter, but it's become really beyond the realm for her now.

That's what I have for you today. A little bit brief. I think we're under 10 minutes. That's a first for this girl right here. A light hearted moment in a. In a time when we're all thinking a lot about Florida. And I just wanted to mention the victims of the latest hurricane. Milton and Helene just came in. Milton on the heels of that one. I hope you've checked in with your loved ones if you have some in Florida. I did, I have cousins and the one in Ocala, Florida is doing fine. She had a tree come down in her front yard.

No damage to the house. Thankfully. Another cousin who lives there is living in a hotel room. She evacuated and it's a good thing because her house was destroyed. Now. That was Helene, so. So that was three weeks ago. My brother and his wife own a great big camper trailer and they decided to get in their travel trailer and leave the West Palm beach area. And they're fine. I think they're somewhere, I want to say Georgia or some part of Florida that was not affected. But saturating the panhandle like that, wow.

So our hearts and prayers are with them and the relief efforts that are going forward for sure. A lot going on politically. There's a quality to the air that's palpable of tension between folks, which I wish that wouldn't be so, but it is. So if we can just bring some light into that and encourage each other. That's why I put that poster in the chat, you know, take what you need type of thing. So what I want to leave you with is a challenge to send something in the mail. You know, maybe that's not your thing.

Try it. It's just a really cool feeling of satisfaction when you put that stamp on and we don't lick them anymore. Adhesive. You put that postage stamp on, you put it in the mailbox. And in my case, I mail it from my driveway. So I put the little flag up. Even that's kind of fun. And that sense of expectation, knowing that that letter or card or greeting or get well note or sympathy card will land in somebody else's mailbox, and they'll open it and have that tactile experience of. Of looking at a card in my handwriting.

So if you could do that for someone, that'd be swell. And if you've received a card, I'd love for you to put that in the chat just to tell me what that experience felt like. This is caregiver day. There's some more Cadre speakers coming to you live. And always you can play it on replay. You can play this on replay or share it with somebody. A lot of times I get so busy, and even though I've scheduled all the live Cadre speakers, I'm not always available in the live moment. So I replay, and it's always tremendously worthwhile.

Be well, be blessed, and I'll see you next week.