How's the View?

Laws are tightening up about talking and twitter and messaging while driving. We can't drink. It's not good to eat a meal. Changing clothes is, well, do-able, unadvisable. Where does taking photos fall? No one has passed a law or even brought it up to the radio talk show hosts.

I'll keep on snappin'. Once in awhile I follow an interesting rear. Here's one. A farmer with a sense of humor, driving crop to the Thursday night Farmers' Market at the fairgrounds no doubt.
Look at the bell pepper box! Hot Darn! Or as they probably say at their home, "El's Bells, Maw, close the barn door before the horse gets out."

You know, one of the things we rarely address is how our car looks from behind. And yet, think about the number of people who see that and get to know you, just a little. Perhaps it is a sensitive issue to some of you. It can be touchy. Just the other day husband told me my tail pipe seemed a bit loose and before I was too enraged I figured out he meant on my car. :-)

Grandpa, How Did You Know?

Long ago and not so far away, my grandparents lived and farmed. Grandpa, whom I never knew, participated in a plan offered by Modern Woodsmen of America. Today is my grandfather's birthday, a fact I didn't know for decades until one day I told my mother that July 9th is my favorite day of the year - something good always happens on July 9th. Along the way he was given a certificate and what appears to have been a huge calendar or print.
Regardless of what this last item started out to be it is dated 1898 and was framed at some point so it now is mounted above our fireplace, with the certifcate affixed to the back of it, keeping like items together, not a common practice in this household!

Today one of our foster dogs, Serena, who lived here from January thru March 2008, came to stay for a few days and it was like "old home week" for her and her then-foster mate, Sally. Sally is ours now. Upon her arrival we made small talk with her owner. I congratulated him on being appointed head basketball coach at one of the private religious high schools nearby - a very competitive rival for other schools. It had to be a plum of an appointment. I indicated I'd read about him in the newspaper and am just now am saying congrats...but I just said "job", nothing specific.

He looked puzzled and asked which job.

I replied "...head coach..."

He announced he'd just taken a new job, two weeks ago and was wondering how it made the paper already! Obviously it had not.

He is involved in opening up an office for Modern Woodsmen of America, back in this area, as they have been gone for a long time.

The world is small in so many ways. In just a few minutes we spanned over 100 years and matched up one person's family history with another person's family future. All this, of course, came about because of a dog.



Happy Birthday, Grandpa. I wish I had known you.

Snowy Day

SNOWY DAY is the title of a children's book - by Ezra somebody...award winner. The title is the only thing the book and the blog post have in common!

But I have stayed inside most of the day, sorting items for the March APL Upscale Sale. It's best to get an early start or I'll miss the event altogether. Sorting includes going through the end of the photo boxes my mother had stored, bless her heart. Where did she keep all this STUFF?

Needless to say, amidst the tossing of her 8th grade spelling bee award, her English themes from high school, the sample of my dad's baby hair, their honeymoon pictures and post cards, I have been down memory lane.

It occurs to me that my parents really are gone. I can't ask any questions again about who is who or where something was taken or what is the story behind this or that thing. Hmmm. It's been a month since my mom died and what is said about losing someone is true - after everything settles down the loss becomes real for those left behind. Ed and I still think we should figure out who is going to visit her on what days!

Just the same it is fun to go through these items one last time. As I sort I am tossing and selecting those which need to be sent to relatives. I thought I'd sent all I had once but alas, such is not the case. So there's a second mailing to go out someday soon. I take a break now and then to pick STUFF that can go into the sale. Some of the old frames, a plate picked up while on vacation. The curling iron that was heated on the gas stove stays. So does the key to the old house. So do some treasured photos. So do the echoing laughs and other memories.




At my grandmother's 80th birthday party - just about the whole family on my dad's side was there. I was almost 8 or 9 I think.




My favorite cousins on my mom's side were these two guys who clearly had some mixed ideas about what we were playing...was it Cowboys and Indians and one thought Cowboys meant football Cowboys? Who knows. I just went along with it...not so much anymore though!