North Carolina was the first of the 13 British colonies in North America to vote for independence from the Crown. On May 20, 1775, the colony's authorities authorized its representatives in the (North American) Continental Congress to express their resolve by so voting.
The N.C. Provincial Congress, meeting in the town of Halifax near the Virginia border, issued the following statement:
“It appears to your Committee that pursuant to the Plan concerted by the British Ministry for subjugating America, the King and Parliament of Great Britain have usurped a Power over the Persons and Properties of the People unlimited and uncontrouled and disregarding their humble Petitions for Peace, Liberty and safety, have made divers Legislative Acts, denouncing War Famine and every Species of Calamity daily employed in destroying the People and committing the most horrid devastations on the Country.”
The second date on the flag, April 12, 1776, marks the signing of a document known as the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, pre-dating by a few months the more famous Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson and published on July 4 of the same year in Philadelphia. Mecklenburg County, N.C., includes the town of Charlotte, which is now the biggest city in the two Carolinas.
The photos here show the view out of my mother's bedroom windows.
The retirement complex where she lives backs up to a salt marsh in Morehead City.
The marsh is full of birds, mammals, fish, and shellfish. Not to mention insects...
Above shows you what the retirement complex looks like. There are apartments for 100 residents, who have to be at least 62 years old to live here. Sometimes I wonder if I might end up spending my final days here... but I'll most likely stay in France to the bitter end.
The retirement complex looks interesting. And I think setting is very interesting near the nature.
ReplyDeleteI hope your Mum has a good pair of binds and the necessary guide books!!
ReplyDeleteDespite the insects, that does look a good place to retire to....
And how is she?
For "binds"....please read "binos".....damned smellchequer tried to do "binds" again there!!
DeleteI love your Mum's view! It would be enough to keep me occupied :-)
ReplyDeleteTo think I grew up in Charlotte and I am learning more about the place on here than I did in all those years :)
ReplyDeleteThe complex looks very nice .. I think if I had the choice though, staying in France to the bitter end is more appealing.
I never knew about the view in the back- so much better than most. Your Mom lives in a comfortable setting and has many friends there. We all hope to be independent as long as we can, just like MA is doing. I like the idea of community rather than isolation when I'm older. That is available here and in France. The food will always be better in France lol.
ReplyDeleteI would stay in France...who knows the bitter end may not be bitter, and it may be a long way off, lol.
ReplyDeleteSometimes I wish we had stayed part of the Commonwealth. They seem to be doing pretty well. And they have real health care.
The British people I talk to aren't thrilled with their country's health care system. They say the hospitals are in sad shape. I wonder how true all that is.
DeleteVery....my best friend is an ex-consultant....Pauline has had her unfair share of both UK and French hospitals....the ones in Birmingham [UK] are really dire....Heartlands especially....in the Royal Orthopedic Pauline had to transfer from one ward to another....via an old system of corridors and outside walkways....in winter
DeleteI have not experienced either...but am about to....I've just been diagnosed with a very small tumour in my prostate....thanks to the French insistence on blood tests....no actual symptoms visible. In the UK NHS System blood tests are extremely rare, they don't have the facilities....I wouldn't have been diagnosed in the UK until symptoms were well developed....unless I was a private patient under some sort of medicare system such as BUPA....they do annual MOTs for patients under their schemes.
One thing you can't speak against in either system are the workaday nursing staff and helpers....they seem to work very hard under extremely demanding conditions....and it is getting worse in the UK.
Sorry to hear about your troubles, Tim. I wish you and Pauline all the best. Be happy that you are living in the country that reputedly has the world's best health care system.
DeleteI'll be flying back to France on Weds., arriving Thurs. MA seems to be improving daily, I'm happy to report, though she is still pretty tired after the surgery and the mysterious pain episode. My sister, who does both remunerated and volunteer work, is busy but will be able to check in on MA daily for a while.
Maybe they need to see some US hospitals to compare, lol. World Health Organization does rank England well down the list, but still ahead of US. France is ranked #1:
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization_ranking_of_health_systems_in_2000
I won't want to live in any of these retirement communities. My grandma-in-law lives in one of those, and these communities all look the same. I have to visit her there all the time and I always hate it because these communities are usually in towns where there are no nice looking hotels, have no fast access to a hospital. One time I followed the ambulance that took my grandma-in-law to the ER, it took me 30 minutes' drive and I was literally at the tail of the ambulance. The lack of good hotels, lack of restaurants other than bland diners and fast food chains, discourages young relatives from visiting. These can all be put up with but the lack of hospitals nearby is a big no-no... 30 minutes drive in May can turn into a longer drive in the snowy days. These are cheap condos and they are cheap for a reason, for my grandma-in-law's case, I found out that her community was actually built on and near a toxic dump site that was on the EPA's national hazard list before.. but was cleared to be safe for senior housing. It explained why the water in her community stinks so bad even for showering, and I am not kidding. My grandma-in-law is so used to the water she can't tell, but for me and my husband who come from a town with clean good water, we can't stand her stinky tap water, even for showering. We are trying now to move her to an assisted living here in Southern California so we won't have to go to visit her in her village which is far away, boring and look very lifeless (like a ghost village). It's more expensive where my husband and I are but you get what you pay for. My grandma's retirement village just looks too depressing for me, and reminds me of the barracks on World War 2 Documentary, I just don't like this kind of row houses....But they are cheap and if that's what people can afford....
ReplyDeleteFor me, I will die where I am.
Goodness, I'm so sorry for you and your grandma-in-law. In my mother's case, she is in a well-maintained, affordable environment with many friends and neighbors nearby. She's been here for 10 years and loves it. It's only two or three miles from the house she lived in for 54 years and where I grew up. This is a resort town with many good hotels and restaurants within in five or six miles of the retirement complex. I hope you soon get things sorted out.
DeleteNY State has some very nice nursing homes and retirement communities. Of course, it is the way everything is everywhere .. the prices are high and it depends on what you can afford as to where you get to go.
ReplyDeleteBut on the other hand. . my poor little mother in law was ancient and completely unable to recognize people or objects and needed a facility where she could live rather than a hospital or stay at home.
A regular nursing home in New York was perfect, clean, light and the people that worked there were close to being angels.
She eventually fell into a sort of coma , but they told us she could still hear us .. one day we went to visit and walked in to find a nurse, sitting in a chair next to her bed, reading to her from one of the nurses children .. a childrens story.
She said my mother in law was restless and the storybook always calmed her.
Sometimes it seems to be just luck.
My mother's place is not an assisted living facility. She has her own apartment and kitchen. She cooks her own meals. She drives her own car. Living here instead of in the house she lived in for 54 years and sold in 2005 gives her two important benefits: she has neighbors who have become friends and is not longer isolated and loney. And she doesn't have to worry about home maintenance and repairs. Plus she has all the comforts of home.
DeleteYour mother's neighborhood sounds very appealing. We went through the whole range of apartment-to-assisted living with my mother, and a lot of it is just dumb luck. However much you may research, the entire system is so uneven that you can't always know ahead of time.
ReplyDeleteThat said, an American friend married to a French citizen recently had her first child in a Paris hospital. She said that despite certain costs and regulations involved, to an American it looked like a nearly perfect system.