Nation's Center News, Buffalo,SD

The Internet is a great thing to have in retirement.  I will never tire of researching every little thing that piques my curiosity.  Cruising around, I decided to Google my hometown newspaper, The Nation's Center News,  and did an image search.  I was startled to see my own photo.  I was a bit  taken aback when I clicked on my photo.  Anonymous, one is not.


A classmate retired in our hometown; he spent 20 years teaching in Saudi Arabia and was in the Peace Corps prior to that. Now he upholds the community with Lion's Club projects, prodded the locals to beautify the town for our centennial celebration, is active in our church, and writes a column for the hometown paper.  His column has been a source of information about topics from the Mid-East, old cowboys, to the town dogs of his childhood.  They were my town dogs as well.  Kids in small towns know the dogs as well as the people, probably better.


Last week his News and Views column was a review of my latest book:   "One of my favorite Christmas presents this year came to my mail box a few days before Christmas and was totally unexpected.  It was a book edited by my old friend Willo Sacrison Boe...about Willo's great aunt."  He did not miss a thing.   "I once read that no book of non-fiction is ever written without the comfort, moral support, and tangible aid of others.  Willo fully acknowledges this and that is why the title page says "Edited by Willo B. Boe."


Thanks for your kind review, Delbert.

Lie to Me

I became so single minded that I thought about nothing else than getting my "Aunt Liz" work re-edited and printed; the task kept me from nearly everything that normal folks do.  Now the book is in boxes in the living room and I am happy to have it finished, imperfect as it is.

It still eats up a lot of computer memory as it is full of old photos. I have saved pieces of it under the strangest titles so it is taking some time to get it all deleted.  It ended up nearly 150 full pages in three sections, both making tables of contents and pagination were much more time consuming than writing the book.

When one takes so terribly long to finish a book project it courts problems.  I used two computers, three MS operating systems, and as many MS Word programs.  I was not about to let those things get me down even if it was a constant steep learning curve.  My Aunt Elizabeth was a kind and amazing woman.  I pray I have done her justice.

I certainly have a goodly number of things to be thankful for as we think about Thanksgiving coming up so soon. A kind reader called me on the phone to see if I was o.k. because I had been so absent from here .  A note to him: your photo in the South Dakota Magazine on page 83 is one of my favorites and I used it last year as my 'wallpaper' or whatever it is called for a long time.  I am thankful for you readers, very thankful.

The article "My Father the Painter" is still featured in the on line past issues.  Speaking of my dad, a son gave me an enlarged photo of him in his blacksmith shop behind his anvil.  I am going to have it framed and take it to the Harding County Museum in Buffalo, SD next time I get there.  The photo is a little close to my raw emotions and a tear blurs my sight when I think of him teaching me to weld when I was a high school girl. He was such a kind, quiet, unassuming man.

This is beginning to sound a little like "Dear Diary" so I am going to stop right here and do some other normal thing.  I do not intend to use this as a diary.  Up to now, though, I have not told an untruth here that I can think of.  I have been filling this up since 2004.

 There are times I wish I could write a novel and fill it up with a pack of lies.  That would be a change from history and biography.