The Mother of all Winds

Last Thursday Omaha had a windstorm that brought the city up short. Our power was off three nights and two and a half days. The calm came both before and after the gale. With no electricity the house was blessedly quiet. About four in the afternoon, I went out to take a few flower photos and before I was done the tornado sirens began to blow. In less than a half an hour the wind began to blow. It was mesmerizing to watch the limbs fly off the big maple tree in the front yard and sail down the street.
Here is what the back yard looked like before the petals flew off the flowers.

More Sofa Saga

This morning while I was in the dental chair, HWMBO was checking on the progress of the sofa. Our skilled craftsman thought that perhaps by the end of the week he could have it back to us. I will have had enough furniture rearrangement to keep me happy for some time to come.

Louis L'Amour,General Custer, and the Inkslinger

A dear and dedicated "Inkslinger," once the owner and editor of my home town newspaper, The Buffalo Times-Herald, now lives in Arco Idaho and writes a column in the paper there. His sons carry on the dedication of their father.

Not long ago he wrote the following:
"Among the good books loaned by friends is a magnificent book on hunting experiences in areas like Arizona brought by Glenn Phillips, and one in particular by a daughter-in-law, the early seafaring stories by Louis L’Amour.

L’Amour, a native of Jamestown, North Dakota, became one of the very leaders of all the writers of western pioneer life, and it was a fortunate day some fifty years ago when the old Inkslinger had the opportunity and the honor of assisting him in gathering on-the-scene history of the exploration of the Custer Expedition in what is now northwestern South Dakota, where the old Inkslinger had spent every available spare weekend day following and tracking the historical expedition which led to the claiming of the Black Hills of South Dakota back in 1976 and starting one of the famous gold rushes in the country.

In the North and South Cave Hills in Harding County, back in the late 1930s and 1940s, it was discovered the Custer Expedition had left their names and initials and dates carved in the scoria of what was known as Thumb Butte and in the Ludlow Cave, as well as other evidence of their journey, and the petroglyphs carved by the Sioux Indian Tribes in the sandstone rimrock of the Cave Hills. Much of this early history, of course, had been destroyed or defaced over the years by other initial carvers and vandals.

Louis L’Amour was a very interesting man to visit with and was an avid student of the building and “taming” of the American West.

The Inkslinger had always known L’Amour’s stories of the West, but this latest gift book was the first we knew of his life as a seaman and a world-wide gold hunter."

Thanks for that interesting bit of information, Mr. Cammack.

Family to the 4th Generation

Travelers with a Camera


















Ethan Axel Olson and Mommy

Washington Wedding

A Beautiful Bride and Her Parents
The Happy Couple

Thanks to the aunt and uncle who attended the wedding and emailed the photos!

1946

Original Oil by J. Axel Sacrison. 1946. 18 1/2" x 42"

Sofa Saga

No, not a tornado, just the first stages of work on our antique couch.

The Sound of Sirens

Last night we went to bed to the sounds of sirens and rain/small hail on the roof and the news that a tornado had hit the Little Sioux Boy Scout Ranch. Before we switched off the television we knew that four youngsters had died but we didn't know all the details until this morning.

Last fall He Who Must Be Obeyed drove over to that campground and we saw the beauty of the place. The company he worked for had designed all of the facilities. When we first came to Omaha, he was an assistant Scout Master for the troop that met at our children's elementary school. Some time during the early '70's he took a group of Scouts there to earn orienteering and other merit badges. When I saw the Google Earth pictures on CNN I realized how terribly rugged the terrain was. Today the Nation shares the grief of those young boys, their leaders, and parents.

The first few years we were married he took Rapid City Boy Scouts out for a winter survival in the Black Hills. One year they got snowed in and endured living off the land in a blizzard. Survival is just that. Some of his boys requisitioned a couple of chickens from a ranch nearby, leaving money on the table as no one was home. Be Prepared.

Uranium!

Our in house Geological Engineer has a job with a fine salary offer and wonderful benefits. From famine to feast and feast to retirement. He has 20 years to put together a retirement and he is glad he is so close to the Black Hills that he can think about land and a permanent home.

We have a small home and with three adults, none of whom think alike, we have restrained ourselves from behaving like trapped animals. Today we are all on the same page, rejoicing over his employment. His salary package is almost too good to be true. Today I am thinking on the spring day I dropped him off at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology for a meeting with the Registrar, a kind man from my home town.

His career began with the Homestake Gold Mine near Deadwood calling him to do surface gold exploration for them. His experiences over the years between then and now are what have him anticipating ending his career with a Canadian Mining Company working in Nebraska.

We are so very happy that we don't even think about radiation exposure. Dangerous Duty Pay? At least he won't have to think about land mines of the explosive kind.

Allegiances

Helsinki, Finland, Sibelius Park Sculpture, 1980, Photo of the Day, National Geographic. How amazing that I was on lying on my back on the rock outcrop under the same sculpture that same summer. I would love to dig out my own photo for a comparison.

Some of us who were raised by two generations of women with fierce love for their country of origin, feel as much allegiance to it, as to this adopted land we were born into.

I found a wonderful web site of national anthems and was dismayed to find that Finland had adopted the music of their infringing neighbor, Sweden, instead of Sibelius, their own fierce composer. Biafra used the familiar "Finlandia" tune by Sibelius.

One of the retired pastors at Holy Cross wrote words of the Lord's Prayer that go with the music of 'Finlandia.' His men's choir sang it it services one week and it drew me to tears. He generously shared the sheet music with me a few weeks later.

A Day in June

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days;

Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, and over it softly her warm ear lays;





Whether we look or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten;...

Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how, Everything is happy now, Everything is upward striving,


'Tis as easy now for the heart to be true As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

'Tis for the natural way of living. " James Russel Lowell

Center of the Nation

We all like to be the in the center of things. This beautiful photo is from the New York Times. There are a few more where that came from. The photo is captioned: "Where the Grass Meets the Sky." The article is titled "This Land
In the Middle of Nowhere, a Nation’s Center." Someone coming from that high plains area might contest that statement. I think on it as the middle of everywhere and I am honored and pleased to have come from the center of it all. I love this land and there is more than might meet the untrained eye here.