Finnish Cousins Galore

This has been the warmest week, not only of the Fahrenheit kind, but also as in company of the warmest kind. This very day we had two sweet sisters that exchanged Finnish immigrant history with me. We reminisced about the elderly immigrant Finns that settled or homesteaded with our grandparents. Gone are the days when children dressed up and went visiting with their parents, to be seen and not heard. But always welcomed with the adults at the coffee table.

These two drove a long way to attend the two day professional bull riding event at Omaha's Quest Center; only girls that grew up on a ranch with rodeo stock, cowboys, and boots in their lives, would do such a thing.

Two days ago we entertained seven cousins and a friend at our own coffee table and later on at our dinner table. Every Finnish American is a long lost cousin of our hearts...but two of these actually were cousins. They gathered here from five states. There is is a whole lot of laughing with a group of retired women on a trip. The beautiful daisies were a gift from them!

But the big surprise was when I was contacted by a woman who I believe is truly a cousin, one who I never knew existed until I got the unexpected and delightful email query. Yes, I was a Buffalo, SD Sacrison. Her grandmother was a Finnish immigrant Kyro-Sacrison to Lead, SD.

It is Fahrenheit warm as well. The old fashioned lilacs in the planters are beginning to bloom. That makes me very happy.

Pictures are Worth a Thousand Words

It is a pleasure to obey this kind gentleman.

The Power of the Printed Word

A grandson was here from California for dinner on Maundy Thursday. On Good Friday and Saturday He Who Must Be Obeyed had a manly-man garage sale of machines and large equipment. Men of all sizes and descriptions drove up in vans and pick-ups. Men do love a manly garage sale and every one was lonely and talkative, or so I was told. I felt sorry for the ones who wanted a little something to buy that didn't cost them an arm or leg. Next time I am going to have a table of those extra hand tools that seem to reproduce themselves, filling up every shelf and nook in the garage.

One lady drove up and waited till 8:00 and then asked "Where are "Willo's things?" She should have been invited in to pick out what ever she fancied. I was flattered, even so. Maybe I will have to set up a table of the things that multilpy in my kitchen drawers and on my book cases; such as the lonely lead crystal swan who lost her mate in the last house cleaning episode. He lost his head with one swat of a long handled duster and crashed to the floor.

Yesterday He Who... went to a funeral while I had my quarterly visit to my Nurse Practitioner. My blood pressure fluctuated in the office and I was told to take it at home several times before Thursday. It fluctuates here as well and my pulse races from 83 to over a hundred. I don't know what that is all about. It seems to occur with a whirling bout of vertigo.

Maybe I am just giddy over our recent computer crash. We purchased a new tower that wasn't compatible with our printer. It is going back to the store as I type. The old tower is being updated and the data has been recovered. It is not exactly like 'the same old w____ in a different dress,' but more like the same one with different underwear. I rather like shiny new things; but then new "underwear" is always nice too.

We are now reading "Frederic Remington's Own West: Written and Illustrated by Fredric Remington." Remington is as gifted with the pen as with the brush and we are enjoying his ability to describe his surroundings, the people he rides with, and the bloody incidents with the buffalo soldiers. TV violence is a poor comparison to our own bloody past with those that first peopled our land.

We are ever aware of the power of the printed word.

A Beautiful Boy

How Blessed with babies we are!

The Blue Hazzard

Could you speak louder, please? Very good.
“Lima, that must be Peru? Not Peru? Oh, India."
“Take the case off. I need my book to see how.”
"Willo, I need a flashlight."
“Do you mean the Rim, the Rom? The Ram? It is silver colored?”
“I removed the one closest to the battery.”
“There are silver cords all over.”
“The third one is the second from the battery.”
“The first one from the battery, right.”
“I have this thing plugged in, should I unplug it?”
“O.K.”

“I think I am connected."
“I need to shut the computer off and then unplug it.” I am laying it on its side again and opening up the case.”

“Should I push Enter again?"

“Who will do this?”
“OK, A local service guy that will charge me? Uh huh.”

“Do you have a service guy in Omaha? You are in India? You don’t know service guys in Omaha?”

“Alright, Alright.” “A local tech?” “Thank you. Bye.”

Learning Life Skills

Life is one great experience after another!

Life's Little Pleasures

Diddle, diddle dumpling, my son John,
Went to bed with his stockings on;
One shoe off, and one shoe on,
Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John.

I was reminded of this Mother Goose Rhyme as we drove home from the shoe shop. No not shoe shopping, shoe repairing. I took in a pair that needed a seam resewn, and upon looking down at my ancient leather Ked on my right foot, I was reminded where my big toe had pressured it into holiness last summer in the garden. "Yes, I can fix it," the butcher-sized fellow behind the counter said,"but I will have to put a patch on the inside so the hole will still show on the outside. "Bring it back when you pick up the one with a ripped seam tomorrow."

He Who Must Be Obeyed told him I would leave it right now, thus saving us the gas for an extra trip. He followed me to the Wrangler and took it back into the repair shop. Hence the Diddle, diddle.

Shoe repairing is a fascinating business. I have always thought so. It started with me leaning on my elbows watching my dad slip one of my shoes on the iron last bolted to his work bench and hammer on a new heel, or paste on a sole. Some tasks take on a pure and holy demeanor; polishing shoes, same thing. My dad polished my mother's, mine, and his own; a Saturday night ritual, while I was having my weekly bath in a little tin tub off the kitchen.

One of our dear friends, Fritz, a hero from the Grand Generation, had a shoe shop in South Dakota when he was just back from WWII and starting his family. In my small home town, Mr. Zoldie, a Jewish immigrant in that land of Finnish, Norwegian, and Irish immigrants, owned the shoe shop. If a job got too complicated for my dad, our shoes went to Mr. Zoldie and I had the opportunity to listen to his lovely Yiddish accent. He reminded me of Geppetto, a cobbler, in the Pinnochio book my Aunt Olga gave me for Chistmas.

He was found in his shop hanging one day, no family, no synagogue, he was alone in the hinterland; probably lonely, hopefully not hated.

Cow-Boys and Colonels

Reading, reading, reading. The weather and our colds have prompted reading overly much. We used to interrupt our busy days to stop and read a while. It has almost gotten to the point where we interrupt our reading to do a few household chores.

Our reading Black Hills of South Dakota history has been enriched from the standpoint of Lakota women, Josephine Waggoner and Susan Bettelyoun; from that of a distant shirt tail relative, Ed Lemmon, who had a government contract to deliver beeves to a couple of Indian Reservations in the 1800's; and from notes, diaries, letters and stories from the miners, immigrants, and ranchers who lived there in the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Most of it has been written with utter seriousness. Presently, we are reading it from the angle of a French Baron, Edmond de Mandat-Gracey who had been schooled by Jesuit Fathers in Paris. The Baron was writing it to excite readers all over France with his one month day-by-day adventures throughout the Black Hills with his traveling companions, Monsieur de Bouverie; in Rapid City they joined Gifford Parker who acted as their guide for the visit.

Parker took them to a hoped for spa that he intended to create out of a piece of land at Cascade which is South of Hot Springs. He described how excited Parker was at showing him his intended layout, "making us galop (sic) over the plain in every direction, for to please him, we must see everything. The Americans in speculation have a kind of blind, habitual enthusiasm which becomes contagious, and in the long run, one no longer has a very clear conscience with regard to what is actually a fact, or what is merely in the inchoate stage of a project." "Here is the stage station, here is the depot, the bank will be here and the hotel there."

I myself, have seen that very enthusiasm for some cockamamie idea from the men in the family that I have married into.

He explains "a special malady of the American brain, developed particularly in the West, where there are few men who do not manifest these symptoms. It's diagnosed in an irresistible desire to take in the left hand a piece of wood, and to reduce it to morsels the size of a match by a gentle and regular movement of the right hand armed with a pocket knife, a razor or a bowie-knife."

His telling that the proprietors of hotels provide their guests a block of wood to whittle or they whittle up the benches on their porches. This is a wonderful humourous history as seen through the eyes of a French Baron.

Short Toes and a Hefty Gluteus Maximus

Endurance running proponents believe that being able to run for extended lengths of time is an adapted trait, most likely for obtaining food, and was the catalyst that forced Homo erectus to evolve from its apelike ancestors. More to the point, a distance-running legacy happened when 26 markers developed on the human body, including short toes, a hefty gluteus maximus and Achilles tendon, springy tendon-loaded legs, and the little-known nuchal ligament that stabilizes the head when it’s in rapid motion.

I can understand the urge to run. There was a time that I could run a fair distance at a pretty good clip. I could jump the horse pasture fence, sprint to a small grocery store/post office and race for home leaping a couple of fences on the return trip. That was during the idylic couple of years in the middle of the Black Hills in a small community of 45 folks.

So what happened, I wonder, for I still have short toes and a hefty glute. I couldn't run anywhere let alone leap a fence. Maybe someting happened to my nuchal ligament.

Unequal Equinox

The word “equinox” comes from Latin and means “equal nights.” Around March 20, sunrise and sunset are about twelve hours apart everywhere on Earth. Because of that, a lot of people think that day and night are of equal length on March 20. But actually the day is a little longer than the night on this date. There are a few reasons for that. Sunrise occurs when the top of the sun (not the center) is on the horizon. But the sun actually appears to be above the horizon when it is in fact still below it. That’s because Earth’s atmosphere refracts or “bends” light coming from the sun, so we see the sun a couple of minutes before it actually rises over the horizon. If you add the daylight that persists after sunset, you’ll find the day on the equinox is several minutes longer than the night.

That is a mouthful. My mother taught me that Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox. And who was I to question that?

I almost went googly-eyed when I 'Googled' both spring equinox and Easter. I like my mother's explanation for the different dates for Easter much better. What brought this on was looking at the icicles on my header and thinking it is time to have a more positive image up there. I am keeping my eye out for the ferns to lift their fiddle heads.

Faith vs. Fear

So what is to be fearful of? I could list a lot of thing that make me personally fearful, but that exercise would only emphasize those very things I find distressing.

I read that of all the Biblical instructions to "Fear not" is the most common. That is reassuring. On reading Amazing Love The writer states that there are 366 "Fear Not" instructions.

It was always faith that enabled me to do the things that needed doing. Over the years there were some seemingly insurmountable obstacles to a few personal endeavors I took on. Was any of it just dumb luck? I don't think so. Maybe it was a combination of prayer and Finnish Sisu.

At any rate I did accomplish a few little things. Learning to read music and play the cello when I was 65 comes to mind. The truth of that matter was to see if a TIA that ripped out some vision from both eyes, also ripped out the rest of my brains. The rest of that silly story is that my vision returned and now nearly 10 years later, I have parked the cello for a weekly dusting.

As the days pass before my eyes and in and out of my hearing aid, I do not fear this unsettling time in our world. My America is as beautiful as it was when I was being formed in 1945. Yes, I heard a lecture in which the premise was made that people form their values, their viewpoints, and their personality when they are ten years old. The perceived events, both personal and national, are held throughout life. How thankful I am for my own and the extended family that molded me as they shared their beautiful world with me.

Dow Falls Below 6800

According to the Wall Street Journal stocks on the DOW are down 52.25% from its high on Oct. 9, 2007. Does it make me want to go upstairs and throw myself from the window there? Not yet, probably never. Our Oracle from Omaha entertained his stockholders this past weekend. That poor guy lost billions on a long shot on oil which is down to around $40 a barrel today.

There are ways to hold on to the loose change in our pockets and the bill$ in the bank. My Grandmother would be proud of us baking bread every week, making chicken soup, and eating beans. Well, to be honest, I sort of wish that my cook, HWMBO, would add a few more recipes to his menu. My Mother would not believe that we are eating oatmeal for dinner. No not instant. Yes, nearly nightly.

This is a personal challenge and as it is self imposed, not unpleasant...yet. Good thing for all those grocery savings, my dental bill this week is close to a thousand. Old teeth can be a pain in the pocket book. We are loving this financial challenge.

I listened to the best interview on C-Span last night. "Info: Our guest is Matthew Continetti who writes for The Weekly Standard. His most recent article "The Age of Irresponsibility" outlines his thoughts on political and moral corruption. He writes, "There are moments when it seems as though every figure who waltzes across the public stage is a cheat, a fraud, a liar, or a failure."

What a remarkable mind 27 year old Matthew Continetti has. I thought maybe his kind were extinct. He did not fall for the University teaching of what he called "Liberal Speak," but he knew he had to use it to get grades. Imagine that, a young man that did not fall for the myth. I could hardly believe my ears. He is reviled, satirized, and denigrated by the liberal left.

The Imposition of Ashes

Lent, the season for somber reflection; will I give up something that will remind me of the Passion of our Lord? Or will I take on something that will also cause me to reflect on the Passion for 40 days. It began yesterday and will continue for 46 days until Saturday, April 11th.

Lenten Activity
Make a resolution to do something during Lent which expresses a different set of values or priorities than that of the culture. It could involve your use of time or money, the way you relate to people, the way you act at work, the way you recreate.
—Living God's Word: Reflections on the Weekly Gospels, Year B

Last night we went to the 7:00 p.m. service at Holy Cross an hour early to go to our pastor's study prior to the imposition of ashes. Later on the Circle group which I belong to will serve one of the Lenten Wednesday night meals.

Challenges

I suppose one always is faced with challenges in life. We falter if they come in twos and threes. As I worked on my biography project of my Great Aunt Elizabeth day before yesterday, I hit a key and every page became enlarged, center justified, and in some script font. Before I could find out the easy and simply way to undo the unwanted edit, I had it so messed up in the attempt, that I saved it as it was, and walked away from the computer. How is that for dealing with a challenge?

Tomorrow I will attempt to repair the damage, nearly finish the text and start inserting photos. One would think that this would get easier with a new little lap top and a new MS Word '07 Vista. It isn't. However, it is still just as much fun and as interesting as can be. Probably a learning experience as well. Something for old brains to enjoy.

I was surprised by a package from a sister-in-law yesterday. She sent a couple of books that I opened and read of few pages of each immediately. They are so inviting. One is "Pioneer Years in the Black Hills" by Richard B. Hughes. This is a wonderful history by a pioneer newspaper reporter. His diary entries of 1876-1877 are in an Addendum. This book is beautiful, it feels at home in my hands, it is as useful as can be with so much information and best of all it is indexed. I can hardly keep my hands off of it. I am so thankful to get them. The other is "God's Promises for Women" and is just what I need for the faith and hope I wish to keep alive.

The Honorable Grands

I have added a link, that of a grandson, one of the twelve Grands that we honor and cherish. He shares lovely hours with us during his Christmas visits to Omaha. I could call them the twelve apostles, the literal meaning is 'one sent.'

They have been originally sent from the loins of He Who Must Be Obeyed. Each one is gifted in a particular manner as were the Apostles of Christ. However, none of us had a choice in this matter. Harking back to the old saw, "You can choose your friends, but not your family." We have been especially blessed by this generation.

Having twelve, six of each, is rewarding in itself. Without the Internet, it would be almost an impossibility to stay connected, but not quite. They are aware of my presence and I of theirs. Being separated by great distances, they are not often present at our table; when they are, we cherish the moment and the memory. And best of all we know them by their blogs and family email.

So, I introduce you to Bryce Andrew Boe, one of my bloggers of consequence.

Temporary Dental Work

This morning my dental appointment took an hour and a half, more than was expected; but then there was much to do. To exacerbate the situation at hand, my dear dentist, his assistant, and myself had a little visit about the mortgage mess we are in here in the US of A. Each of us got a bit worked up until the dentist said, "when your dentist has steam coming out of his ears, maybe it would be a good idea to drill on another day." He was kidding, but we were all a little worked up over the situation.

Before he started working on the task at hand, I told him I felt a little hook behind one of my front teeth which he cleaned out and put in a temporary filling before the real work began. That will get fixed properly in a couple of weeks.

The old molar crown came off in two sections, half of it flew down my throat to be either pulled out with forceps or by some good belting coughs on my part; which kept the jagged metal out of my digestive system. Then the amount of decay was horrifying for them. I never experienced a tooth ache, nor was it showing up on the x-ray to that extent, and of course with my mouth jacked open and I couldn't see anything. Maybe the steam was coming out of my own ears by then.

Prayer can never hurt anything, so with a three hands in my mouth as well as most of the tools in the room, I did a fair amount of having a word with God. After the "knockting" with a hammer to get the crown loose made me wonder if a person could get a concussion this way. Jack hammering comes to mind.

God are you listening? As I was getting the temporary crown, Doc said, "the situation is this: In a few days you could get a very bad toothache, and if you do, call immediately and I will give you a root canal."

I asked him if I should get Dental Insurance. "No it is a waste of money."

A Knockt on the Head

We had a perfect 8 inch snowfall on Valentine's Day. As I didn't get my Christmas wreath put away, I was a little startled by my icy valentine the next morning.

We are reading (and listening to) a most amazing book. "History of the Indian Wars by Samuel Penhallow" tells of the bloody conflict between the English Colonists and the French, Jesuits, and Canadian Indians. The time period is 1702 to 1723. It is written in Old English Script, many of the s's look like f's. Nouns of all sorts are capitalized within sentences; and proper names are italicized and in subscript. I am reading words that have been out of favor for a hundred years or more. I am experiencing a great deal of brain push-ups. All the while folks are getting 'knockt' on the head by the dozens; some are suffering fates worse than death...and then there is that too.

"A fecond was a Child of Mrs. Hannah Parfons, of Wells, whom the Indians for want of Food had determined to Roaft alive, but while the fire was kindling, and the Sacrifice preparing, a Company of French Mohauks came down the River in a Canoo, with three Dogs, which fomewhat revived thefe hungry Monfters, expecting to make a Feaft upone one of them. So foon as they got afhore, the Child was offer'd in Exchange: but defpifing the offer, they tendered a Gun, which they readily accepted, and by that means the Child was preferved."

Valentine Snowfall

He Who Must Be Obeyed came home from a quick trip to Aldi's with a bouquet of red roses. While he was gone, I stepped into the snow in both the back and front yard. Omaha is snowed in. All area schools and daycare centers are closed and were announcing that fact before one flake of snow fell. Obviously the predictors were accurate. Since I took the photos, another three or four inches of snow has fallen.

Roses are lovely as is a cozy day inside while the city quiets itself for a snowfall. I truely do like winter.

Saturdays & Sundays

We were with friends last night. All four of us had gyro's then came here for dessert and more visiting over coffee. Laughs with friends are good for the soul.

My friendship with H is my link to the Jewish community in Omaha. Most here are Ashkenazi, having been sponsored from Russia by a very active group here. In the Hebrew Bible, Ashkenaz first denotes a grandson of Japheth and great-grandson of the patriarch Noah (Gen. 10:1-3; I Chr. 1:4-6). Albert Einstein was Ashkenazi, one of the German Jews. Many Ashkenazi Jews later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in non German-speaking areas, including Hungary, Poland, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere between the 10th and 19th centuries. With them, they took and diversified Yiddish, a Germanic Jewish language

My friend is a Shepardic Jew. Her family left Egypt, spent time in a refugee camp in Paris and came to America when she was 14. Her life story is wonderful.

These folks were expelled from Spain in the 15th Century. Those Sephardim who were forced to convert to Christianity during the period lasting from the 1391 massacres in Spain to the 1497 forced baptisms in Portugal. As time passed, many made their way to more tolerant lands, where they openly returned to Judaism, ending their double lives. Many Sephardic communities were decimated in the Holocaust, and others were depleted by emigration to Israel and elsewhere.

In the literature we Finns, the Basque, and some Jews are linked by DNA evidence.

In Need of Chocolate

I don't get here as often as I would like to. Why? Who knows? My days are so predictably uneventful, but nonetheless comforting in their sameness. I sometimes wonder if everyone has the same morning routine, lunch preparations, and dinner down and out. In between? Work on Aunt Liz's biography, exercising, walking, reading, a bit of television. We gave up digital cable and are back to the basic 28 channels which are all I need; a little news, a little information, a little entertainment. Simple needs for a simple person.

Today we went for groceries. We frequent our Aldi store not far away. To our surprise one of our son's friends is working there and was very enthused over his new job, great salary, great benefits, great groceries. We think the greatest prices.

This is where our Seattle son gets Austrian chocolate. One year we mailed him 50 pounds of it. Doesn't that seem crazy! To tell the truth, I wish I had gotten some today.

Opposite Attraction?

"Easter had always struck Fogel as a holiday without real punch, though there was, among the more vivid of his childhood memories, a magical peep into a big sugar egg; it had been at his aunt's house, in Connecticut, where the houses seemed cleaner than in New Jersey, the people wealthier, the daffodils a brighter yellow."

Wen I got to the bottom of the first page: "Fogel was sixty-two, and felt retirement drawing closer. In the daily rub he discovered all sorts of fresh reasons for irritation..." He Who Must Be Obeyed asked me "Do you really like this?" There was a sting to the question and I knew there was no right answer. I thought for a while before I said, "Yes." It was apparent that he had no time for such stuff. I find my own fresh reason for irritation. I thought to myself, I will just keep my reading skills to myself. Elder bonding be hanged.

Maybe it is too much winter. I am desperate for something to divert my mind and get it off of my Lumbar Spine. Last year's histories do no do it right now. "If you want me to read to you, you choosed a book." John Updike's Short Easter was not his cup of tea.

Teaching Old Dogs

Photo: Caleb Jones for NPR


The time marches along.

I am sad about John Updike's death. I have found some news articles on him. I am listening to National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" and they are going to replay some interviews of him previously. The nice thing about the Internet, one can listen to them on the computer as well. I found a couple audio links to him this afternoon. He was a funny fellow...and eloquent. I wish I had read more of his work. His last book will come out this spring. I wish Kurt Vonnegut had not died either. But people die and we miss them when they are gone.

I suppose a person should purposely decide to appreciate those we admire before they die. I have a lot of folks that would fit that description.

The new trick I am trying to learn is a switch-over from Word 2000 to Vista. It would be nice to have a text that I could dog ear. As it is I attempt to decipher the on screen helps. I find my vocabulary is sadly lacking. In over an hour I learned one thing. I had inadvertently locked my document and had to find out how to unlock it to work on it. I reminded myself not to become discouraged and to keep my enthusiasm for the task.

A New Day

We are now on our way to peace and prosperity! So say the new faces in our capitol. It would be a good thing if they are correct in their assumptions. As optimistic as I am, usually, I am not holding my breath for a couple of years while the gears of government get new grease.

Actually, it will be a huge relief not to hear the continual vilification of Former President Bush. His genuine kindly behavior to the Obama family was another testament to his core values.

Aren't people always disdained for their core values? I recall a time well over 50 years ago when my high school friends and I were called the "Goody-Goody Girls." It stung then but rather amuses me today. We weren't all that good; but maybe it was ok to give some people our own age that impression. So, I will let my better angels guide my thoughts and words when at all possible.

The Prayer Service yesterday morning at the National Cathedral was my idea of a proper beginning. It was inclusive, with top notch music and a thought provoking sermon by the Rev Dr. Sharon Watkins. The Cherokee fable she used as an illustration could have been a parable with its thought provoking moral lesson.

Not Shoveling Coal

No, we are not shoveling coal. We woke up to a cold house this morning. When I got up the first time about 6:30, I turned up the heat, went back to bed, but the gas never came on. He Who...fiddled around with the thermostat and turned the fan to 'on' instead of 'automatic' so we assumed our trusty ancient furnace had come on and we would be eating breakfast in comfy accustomed warmth. It was not to be.

Here we are, nearly noon, and with more thermostat fiddling and the fan back to 'automatic,' the gas is finally burning and the house is again over 60 degrees. "Maybe we need a repair man," I suggested. "Messing with the thermostat is easier than shoveling coal," was the reply to my suggestion. One can over-do the frugality, methinks.

While Waiting

A fair amount of our time is spent in waiting. Over the past decades I have waited in hospital waiting rooms while the man in my life endured various surgeries. Waiting for the doctor's exhausted news, waiting for a good outcome, waiting with anxious anticipation for his return to health.

I have waited for many pregnancies to come to fruition. Only the first wait was one with real anxiety, the rest were just what they were, a long wait. And then the wait until each one was out of diapers, could tie their shoes, for school to start or end. Children each come with a lifetime of waiting.

Today I await the return of He Who Must Be Obeyed. Either his cell phone does not work or it hasn't occurred to him that I might be waiting with a little bit of anxiety. Traveling this region in winter can hold the surprise of icy or blizzard blinded highways.

I wait for the end of a seemingly unending financial burden. I pray we are relieved from it. Some say be careful what you pray for and I have experienced a prayer answered in a way that the first situation was actually easier to live with than the resolution. Of course there is the old saw, "God helps people who help themselves." So I act with impunity and pray (again) that I have done the wise thing.

During a wait yesterday, a somewhat disheveled woman asked me point blank "Are you having a Happy New Year?" It took me aback. I don't know why I found it so completely startling. Everyone else sat in a silent and properly buttoned down wait. "It is only the 5th," I told her. "Well," she said, "I have won $27!" How lucky.

Ghost Dance

"Today is the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee, which took place in South Dakota in 1891. Twenty-two years earlier, the local tribes had signed a treaty with the United States government that guaranteed them the rights to the land around the Black Hills, which was sacred land.

But in the 1870s, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the treaty was broken. People from the Sioux tribe were forced onto a reservation, with a promise of more food and supplies, which never came. Then in 1889, a prophet named Wovoka, from the Paiute tribe in Nevada, had a vision of a ceremony that would renew the earth, return the buffalo, and cause the white men to disappear. This ceremony was called the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance scared the white Indian Agents, and they moved in to arrest Chief Sitting Bull, who was killed in the attempt.

The next leader they focused on was Sitting Bull's half-brother, Chief Big Foot. He was leading his people to the Pine Ridge reservation, seeking safety there. But it was winter, 40 degrees below zero, and he contracted pneumonia.

Big Foot was sick, he was flying a white flag, and he was one of the leaders who had actually renounced the Ghost Dance. But the Army didn't make distinctions. They intercepted Big Foot's band and ordered them into the camp on the banks of the Wounded Knee Creek.

The next morning, federal soldiers began confiscating their weapons, and a scuffle broke out between a soldier and an Indian. The federal soldiers opened fire, killing almost 300 men, women, and children, including Big Foot.

One of the survivors was the famous medicine man Black Elk, who told his story to John Neihardt in Black Elk Speaks (1932)." From The Writer's Almanac, December 29, 2008

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

This is the way of life. If you see something that appeals to you, you'd better memorize it because it is quite likely not to be there a moment later.

Fun with Ice

In Finland and perhaps in some places in the U.S. people place candles beside the graves of their loved ones. It must be a beautiful sight on a quiet dark night under the fir trees. Ice Candles are lots of fun when it gets so cold one cannot stand it.

Ice Candles

Merry Christmas To Each of You!
It is Christmas Eve. We have six large glistening ice candles. Five by the front door, one on the table. Candles are much better than solar lights. The frugal, creative Finns on both sides of the Atlantic have a very good thing going with these wonderful candle holders. On Christmas Eve in Finland they put them in their churchyard cemeteries. It must be a beautiful sight for people going to candle light services.

We too, will go to the seven o'clock services at Holy Cross Lutheran Church. The Living Nativity was canceled due to the -17 degrees. The person who has the animals, refused to have them out for several hours in that cold night. I suspect the Bethlehem crowd was relieved, especially the bare legged Centurion and the beautiful choir of angels.

May each of you have a Holy, Blessed Christmas!

If You Want to Feel at Home, Stay at Home

We are about as traditional as we can get. We are baking Finnish Cardamom Braids and freezing Ice Candles. It is supposed to get below zero tonight and I am counting on two more buckets of ice. A son told me that instead of candles in them, he used those little solar lights and they work well. I suppose sometime in the morning hours as the batteries are about dead they even flicker.

We are expecting a son, daughter-in-law, and their daughter who is a young woman already; they will be here for an early lunch, which is actually a main meal. He Who.... went out and came home with a standing rib roast. That is a first time and it is a pricey piece of beef to practice on.

This year Omaha will have snow for Christmas. Maybe even a blizzard tomorrow, who knows? That is an exciting prospect now that we are retired and still have the sense not to lock ourselves out of the house without our coats, or wander off and not find our way home. I think that someone can make a fortune when they put GPS with voice directions into those nifty little hearing aids that they sell these days.

Yes, after nearly a year, I still love my little hearing instrument. I found out that when I lock down the battery and if I get it in my ear fast enough it plays a little tune for me. Nano technology is really wonderful. I think I can get a little MP3 device to play music through it. I am serious, the nice lady told me it is available.

Christmas Eve in Omaha 2007

Don't you love winter scenes! Snow and ice capture one's imagination. Unless of course you have to work outside. I found last year's Christmas Eve photo. I am going to be happy with it. But we could be a little more cheerful than we are.

Our childish dependent 28 year old disregarded all of my darling's advice and expectant requests of the past many warm weeks, so last night and today in zero weather he drove halfway downtown to check the antifreeze in her car. With cold fingers he dropped the cap from the reservoir, couldn't find it and is there again today in a -20' windchill to get the car towed to a garage to have that fixed among other things.

A wise pastor that I read daily wrote in his meditations that only when a child gets their own car and place to live and pays for both can she be considered an adult. So HWMBO pays for it in many ways. I was written out of the picture when she was 15 as was my philosophy of raising children to be responsible and respectable adults. It is easy for me to sidestep the parenting guilt; but being spat at, cursed, with hateful words, are harder to duck than a size 10 Iraqi shoe.

Caught in the Act!

He Who Must Be Obeyed loves vegetables; and he likes them the way he likes them, blackened with herbs and seasonings. A few summers ago the chunks were larger and skewered for the grill. This Finn likes hers bare with butter, haven't seen that for a long while.

Is it Christmas yet? Where is the snow? Time to get out the Carols on CD's. Our street is alive with lights once it gets dark.

Chihuly to Russell and Remmington

Dale Chihuly exhibited in Omaha a few years ago. It was during the years that I volunteered in the Joslyn Art Museum Library. The opening was mind blowing.

We just returned from Oklahoma City and enjoyed the art in their Museums. Downtown we saw American Impressionism and they purchased the entire Chihuly traveling exhibit.
The glass and lights are spectacular



Then we amost ran through the Cowboy section of the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum as it was getting late and nearly closing time. The paintings and sculptures were amazing. I recall my dad buying Charles Russell calendars and books when I was a child.

Guess who was very happy to see Ed Lemmon's name on the Cowboy Hall of Fame!Yes, Oklahoma is cowboy country.

WhiteHouse Ornament from Nebraska

NEBRASKA
"The sun rises over land
that has long rewarded
a hard day's work."

I looked over a few States
ornaments. Marty Amsler
has created beauty from the
inspiration of our citizens.

Every State has submitted an
ornament to the White House
tree.

A Hiring Guide

Our own Oracle of Omaha has written a book and his 47th bit of advice for business is this:

In looking for someone to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. But the most important is integrity, because if they don’t have that, the other two qualities, intelligence and energy, are going to kill you.

There are a lot of folks out there looking for jobs. It goes back to what parents are teaching their children apparently. Intelligence and energy come with the bundle of joy without too much coaching from the adults in a child's life. Integrity. We all want it. We all want it in the people around us.

I want it because it enables me to trust, to love, to experience the joy of being human. When the integrity of a people is nonexistent, it destroys the structure that holds up a society. If the integrity of even one member of a family is lost, cohesiveness of the family is jeopardized because of the breakdown of trust.

Camryn and Me

Much to be thankful for.
Sweet baby, great granddaughter.
Her grandmother, best cook ever.
Beautiful Christmassy home.
Her mom, a pediatric ICU nurse.
Her dad, a charmer.
Her grandpa, my darling son.
Her aunt loves her.
Her uncle does too.

Her family is amazing.

We are a part of it
Though far away.

CaringBridge

What a helpful website Caring Bridge is! I can't get into it except by www.daleboe.com
Then click for current updates. I feel like a doofus when my links don't work.

When you get to the welcome page, check out "my story," "journal," and be prepared to be blown out of the water with the "guest book."

Omaha is in a quandry over the many shootings we have had, seven in seven days, and purse snatching all over town, some which are dangerous as well. The state of Nebraska isn't much better as the 35 youngster was dropped off at a hospital due to the Safe Haven Law. Our Unicameral met this week and changed the age to babies a month and younger. But it is obvious that families with older children are not finding help for them if they are mentally ill or have behaviour problems. My heart goes out to them all. Two teens figured out what their mother was up to and when she drove up to one hospital emergency entrance they bolted and one still hasn't been found.

But as for our family, one brother sounded good on the phone so the lung surgery apparently went well. Dale is still on a ventilator and in a coma in Chile'. The CaringBridge organization is wonderful in this type of emergency.

Faith Trumps All

One of my brother's in law and his wife, along with groups of volunteers from different churches and SD School of Mines and Technology students, are building an orphanage in Chile'. They were alone on the mountain seventeen miles above Vicuna near the grape orchards and the goat herders when our beloved D became paralyzed with Guillian-Barre Syndrome a week ago today. He is hospitalized in Coquimbo, a town about 2 hours from the building site.

For a time he was in a coma and paralyzed from the neck down. Their daughter flew down to be with her mother during this frightening and difficult time. Another daughter has set up a CaringBridge website to keep the family and many, many friends informed about his progress toward being stabilized in order to be flown home for a lenghty rehabilitation. This is a free website and has been invaluable for those of us who await news from Chile'.

The latest Vocations for Orphans newsletter is online at http://www.vfo.org/newsletter/vfo_newsletter_fall08.pdf We are amazed and proud of this remarkable family and their endeavors worldwide. http://www.vfo.org/video.htm is from the VFO web site.

He Who Must Be Obeyed is the fifth of ten siblings. Another brother, flew home to Wyoming from Mexico and during a physical discovered he has lung cancer. Yesterday he had surgery in Montana. Until we get the news of the pathology report we pray it was confined to one mass in one lobe and was completely removed. Tomorrow the report from the lab is expected.

Today, sunny and warm, has coaxed us outside to rake again and do a final yard clean up before we get the same kind of winter our neighbors to the north have had.

My Readers are Treasures

Today I checked out my sitemeter, which tells me how my readers stumble on to 'willoboe.' One person, always anonymous and identity ever protected by sitemeter, found me through a search for "Cave Hills Lutheran Church." I then clicked on some of the hits he/she got there and found a diamond. It is an article, or an audio source to Prairie Public Radio and it takes me home once more. Thank you dear reader for your interest and your hit on the Cave Hills!

Cider House Rules

Sometimes I hear something that is so sweet it never leaves me. It comes back to mind over and over; I can hear the inflection in Michael Caine's voice as his Dr. Larch tells the orphan boys before they go to sleep, "Goodnight, you princes of Maine. You kings of New England." I wonder if I had read the book Cider House Rules, by John Irving first, would it have had such a profound and memorable effect. Every boy should go to sleep with words like that in his ears.

When I saw the movie, I wasn't aware of the fact that Lasse Hallström directed it and that Charlize Theron was in it. It was a wonderful movie, sad, memorable, full of angst. Just like life.

I don't go out to movies much anymore, but the following ones I have enjoyed on television have been directed by Hallstrom: "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," "Chocolat," "The Shipping News." According to Oprah today we should all go see "Seven Pounds" when it comes out soon.

Good night you princes and princesses of America, you kings and queens of North America. You are loved.

The FinnFlyer

The finnflyer was here for lunch today. There is always a bright spot in life. We were going to pick him up from the airport where he landed and tied down the plane he was piloting and take him to some lovely Omaha eatery. It was not to be as I am again in the midst of the vertigo and staying close to the walls, or the couches. He Who Must Be Obeyed picked him up and brought him home where we had a nice visit with lunch and without the clatter of restaurants, or a mad rush to get him back again for his flight to California and home. Pilots have a lot of fun in life, see places and people one only imagines, have close calls with weather, and live out of a suitcase or a flight bag. He barely survived a plane crash and was on the Air Force Radio station in Thailand during the Viet Nam war...our conversation drifted that direction for a little while.

We are both emigrants from our home town, a part of the Harding County, SD brain drain, the pilot and the librarian left to make the world a better place. There are times that I wonder what my life would be like had I never left there. I cannot understand why that place has such a pull on my heartstrings. Cosmic loneliness is once again oppressive and I long for the thin place where God is close and I am content and breathless from sheer joy.

My days are dizzy, somewhat downhearted, I can't eat and my steel trap mind has turned to mush. I am readying myself for a disappointing day tomorrow as I remind myself that God uses broken people as well as the 'right minded' ones. The question is just which broken duo is the American public going to choose? I think I know but it won't stop me from being a good citizen. Young Citizen's League, YCL, taught us what it means to be a good citizen.

212 °F

Sometimes I wish we could just put a lid on it all. Politics USA and the everlasting commercials which have now become infomercials, the yo-yo stock markets world wide, the Nebraska Safe Haven Law which resulted in 24 children, some mentally ill, being brought from far and near by parents and care givers, our fractured family, all of the things that go bump in the night have come out of Pandora's Box and clutter the floor of my life. It is all almost too much to bear.

I am not keen on socialism, have never liked television commercials, arguing is awful, mental illness is horrible and we are getting it in spades both in the family and in Nebraska as the Safe Haven Law gets more national press, as far as things that go bump in the night...we haven't seen anything yet. Halloween is only days away.

Of course the only thing left in Pandora's Box is Hope. Even Hope has a slippery handle. Maybe I will crawl into the box myself and snuggle up to Hope until everything under the lid boils over and puts out a few fires; or maybe till hell freezes over.

A Time for Burning

Too long gone, but back once more. Life has a way of slipping by.

Our adjustment to moving here from the Black Hills, SD, included my own first experiences with racism. Riots and burnings, marching and murder were the headlines those first few years. "The Education of a WASP" was the first book I encountered after we settled in. Omaha was not the quiet little Midwestern city I had imagined. It was frightful.

It very well could erupt with racial violence again, given the political, economic, and cultural situation today.

Not too many years ago I attended some Lay School Ministries sessions at Augustana Lutheran church on the edge of the black community known as the near north side. There I enjoyed a group of people that discussed topics of the day with someone knowledgeable about the particular topic. For instance we studied the Human Genome Theory when it was a theory. One of our discussion leaders was a medical ethicist from Creighton University Medical School.

A Time for Burning is in the Omaha news again. The film explored the attempt of the minister of Augustana Lutheran Church in Omaha to persuade his all-white congregation to reach out to neighboring black Lutherans. A Time for Burning, a 1967 Oscar-nominated documentary about the interactions between two segregated churches in Omaha, Nebraska, during the height of the civil rights movement, will be screened at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ "Monday Nights with Oscar" on Monday, October 20, at 8 p.m. at the Academy Theater in New York City.

The young black barber featured in the film, will be a part of the on-stage panel discussing it. Ernie Chambers, completed law school and was elected Senator to the Nebraska Legislature in 1970. By 2005 he had become the longest-serving state Senator in the history of Nebraska.

1925 Malcom X born in North Omaha.

• 1966 The documentary A Time for Burning is released and nominated for an Academy Award.
• 1966 On July 5 the National Guard is called to quell two days of rioting among African Americans in North Omaha.^[17]
• 1968 Riots erupt in North Omaha in response to assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr..
• 1968 Robert Kennedy visits Omaha in his quest to become president.
• 1969 Riots erupt on June 24 after an Omaha police officer fatally shoots teenager Vivian Strong in the Logan Fontenelle Housing Projects.^[18]
• 1970 On August 17 a bombing occurs at a house at 2867 Ohio Street, killing one policeman. Black Panther members are implicated.

Nebraska's Safe Haven Law

Last night an Iowa teen was dropped off at the Omaha Creighton University Medical Center. It was the first time an out-of-state youth has been left under Nebraska's unique safe haven law. This child is the 18th to be left at a hospital, or in one case, at an Omaha police station by a parent or guardian intending to use the law, which went into effect July 18th.

The law protects people only from being prosecuted by Nebraska authorities for abandoning a child at a hospital in the state. Because the law sets no age limit, most of the children being dropped off are teenagers or preteens labeled uncontrollable by their parents or guardians.

The Legislature's Judiciary and Health and Human Services committees have scheduled a hearing at 1:30 p.m. on Nov. 13 in Room 1113 of the Capitol.

Among topics expected to be raised are the current use of the law, possible amendments to it, and services availability for children living in crisis.

Nebraska was the end of the line for many children on the Orphan Trains out of New York City starting in 1854 and for seventy-six years thousands of homeless, neglected poor children were moved west to rural towns and farm communities. The plight of children has had a long and sad history. Even those of us who, hoping to do a good thing by taking a child into our home, has ended up wondering if we have done more harm than good.

Changes

Politics, finances, even the day to day mundane events change. It is bewildering sometimes.

The once contentious political debates seem to have taken a turn to the polite. It was nice to watch Palin and Biden as they exchanged ideas without raising their voices. Being the INFP that I am, I have an aversion to that verbal combat. It was great to be able to spend 90 minutes watching the word match the other night. Even the moderator seemed polite. Why is it that a civil debate is so amazing? I suppose because for years one expects every conversation to feel like a Sunday morning network news show.

Here in Nebraska, parents, guardians, and care givers drop wayward wards off at hospitals instead of do battle with out of control teens. A father of ten in Omaha took nine of his children to a nearby hospital to give them up to the custody of the State. Only the oldest, an 18 year old daughter, escaped his desperate decision. His wife had died, the youngest was a baby under two years old. I am sure he was overwhelmed. Safe Haven Laws were perhaps passed too quickly. Meant for newborns and desperate mothers has now become a social service for parents and caregivers who have come to the end of their wits.

We have a friend who experienced a similar thing as a toddler. He and his brothers were taken to an orphanage after his mother died and his own immigrant father could not cope with the ramifications of child care and making a living. His hell began when his dad remarried, brought his children home again and our friend endured the wrath of the evil step-mother.

It all sounds like a Dickens novel. It is too sad for words.

"Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Twenty years ago, I took my high school television new crew downtown to the Vice Presidential debate between Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentson. We were set up in the lower level of the Civic Auditorium in the spin room with all big shots. This was the real deal. Beside us were the CSPAN guys. Large monitors gave us a view of what was happening above us. The crowd was so out of control that Judy Woodruff stopped to admonish them more than once before Bentson let fly his zinger of the century.

According to the Omaha World Herald, David Karnes, an Omaha lawyer, sat beside Marilyn Quayle and remembers not wanting to look at her when Bentson delivered his body blow that is remembered by a little news crew and their teacher. Two of the Karnes girls were in my classes.

We heard the gasp from the auditorium. The spinners spun out of control. In spite of it all, the zinger didn't cinch the election. I was proud of my students, who had captured an important event for our city-wide broadcast. We were part of a little bit of history that unfolded around us.

The Wild West

The Rapid City Journal features a couple of videos of the annual Custer State Park buffalo round up. It looks like great fun.

http://videos.rapidcityjournal.com/p/video?id=2233501

Making Things

I have decided that when I never make any thing, I feel useless and stagnant. It seems as though my entire life is devoted to cleaning things that other people have made. Just think about it. A few days ago I made some whole wheat bread. I discovered that I could use a bread machine to mix up the dough and then I could roll it out flat and make a facsimile of my grandmother's Finnish flat bread. She used to bake hers on the floor of the old wood/coal stove so mine never replicates hers in either taste nor texture. It is barely o.k.

But making something, doesn't mean food. I mean objects out of cloth or wood, even paper would count. I have always wanted to make stepping stones from concrete, never have. Or carve a rock. I am not much good with tools as I have so little hand strength. So my life is lived away by cleaning the things that other people make.

I am certain that I broke a bone in my hand a couple of days ago; I was cleaning as usual. As I was pushing a couch off of a rug I heard a sharp snap in my right hand and ever since have experienced some swelling, discoloration, and pain. It hasn't affected the use of my fingers for which I am thankful. If I get careless, I am reminded that everything isn't quite right in my hand.

It is probably a miracle that we don't break bones in our hands more often, considering how much we do with them. Obviously I am not going to be making anything of consequence anytime soon.

Cave Hills Lutheran Church

A cousin's friend sent this photo the other day. They had spent some time in the Cave Hills and shared some photos of this hallowed ground.

The organist who played the little pump organ just celebrated her 95th birthday at the senior center. Tyyne's family is now planning the party for her 100th.

The church was officially closed a few years ago. The last service I attended there was a memorial service for my mother officiated by a cousin who she was so proud of.

In the cemetery to the left of the church lies four of my grandparents, my dad, my brothers, aunts, uncles, a cousin, and most all of the Finnish speaking neighbors of a time gone by. Tyyne's parents donated the land, the neighbors collected the money and helped build the church. Her father, killed in a tragic accident during those homestead days, was the first person buried on the land he gave, and with the help of loving neighbors, her mother raised five little babies alone and farmed the land.

The two Bryces and I sat on the church steps one balmy autumn evening and watched the stars take a whirl for a couple of hours and enjoyed a couple of shooting stars.

Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight.
I wish I may, I wish I might
Get the wish I wish tonight.

Mercy Me, A Maytag

To quote a grandson: "YES i am actually washing clothes in it. it works Great, about 6 min with the suds, 6 min rinse, and then run it through the rollers. funny how something made 78 years ago is faster than today's units. the only downside is no TV time between loads it requires your full attention. "

Another Undecided Voter Decides

My son, the writer of "Abandon the GOP" to the right of this has finally written again. He keeps his dad, Who Must Be Obeyed, on edge with his politics. I had to hold my own breath reading his last post.

Another Friday

This week has been enjoyable. The Harvest Moon has been noticed and enjoyed as we swim again. I wonder if our perfect days are simply a short reprieve before fall lowers the temperatures permanently and we celebrate the autumnal equinox in a couple of days. I saw the first of the falling maple leaves on the driveway this morning. If I look closely across the city, I see a few yellow leaves.

I am learning to use a new computer on which I can access the Internet through a wireless connection. To tell the truth it made me happy to be able to configure that myself. I did have to go out for a mouse, as my clumsy arthritic fingers were like using clothes pins on the device under the keyboard. It used to be called a roller ball but now it is an unmanageable little flat disc. This machine is fast. Do people still call their computers a machine?

If I was on the other computer, I would show you what a grandson is washing clothes with. He has a 1930's washing machine that he bought for the motor...and his automatic washer shorted out. I recieved a few photos from him and it looks like something my mother and I used in the '40's. I was too small in the 30's to be of any help and would have probably run my short little arms into the wringer. He said there was no time to watch television between the washing, wringing, rinsing, wringing and whatever he does to dry them. There wasn't much time for anything in those olden days but trying to keep children alive and fed.

Like father like son. His dad, our son, was inventing welders in the third grade by finding an old cut off power cord, plugging it in and then putting the two bare wires together. It was a welder all right! I just about had a coronary when I discovered him. A mother could easily kill a boy's curiosity trying to raise them to adulthood, or even getting them to the sixth grade. I must not have yelled too loudly, for his curiosity never diminished and he can make or fix just about anything made of mineral. He is pretty good with animals and vegetables also. He has people under his spell as well.

Roald Dahl Day in Cardiff

In May of 1996 my high school friend, Carol, and I accompanied a choir tour group of college people to the United Kingdom. One of our stops was Cardiff, Wales. She and I hiked over to the Norwegian Sailor's Church founded in 1868 to serve the thousands of Norwegian sailors that were employed in the Norwegian merchant fleet.

It was a place for sailors, where they could read newspapers and magazines from home, where they could relax and chat with friends. The church's exterior was corrugated steel and had been constructed in Norway, dismantled, shipped to Cardiff and reassembled there.

Without maintenance the building fell into dis-repair and was vandalized. In 1987 the Church was carefully dismantled by the Norwegian Church Preservation Trust and re-opened in 1992.

Today, on the 13th of September, 1916, Roald Dahl was born of Norwegian parents in Cardiff. His family worshipped at the Norwegian Church and he and his sisters were christened here. To honor him a party is held for children within the church every September.

From the Writer's Almanac today. " He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with 11 chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like. Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

Roald Dahl also wrote James and the Giant Peach. In the olden days when I worked as an elementary librarian, I read it to a group of third graders during a few minutes of their library time. Yes, I had heard that a person should never read a book to children cold. A section of it struck me so funny I got the giggles and just about fell off of my tiny little chair. Soon the children started to laugh and would have fallen off their tiny little chairs had they had them.

Canning Grape Jelly

I woke up to noise and chaos. It was the kind of chaos that happens when a person is about to embark on a project. During this project I am the helping hand, never in charge of anything but stirring and clean-up. Everything was ready, the sterilizing, the measuring, the utensils laid out as if for surgery, the beautiful purple mixtures in two tall heavy bottomed kettles ready for boiling.

As I stirred the boiling mixtures, I wondered if my grandmother had good help. It would never have come from my sheep ranching grandpa, but as long as they were on the homestead she had sisters and children. The last beloved child was in his teens, and would have been great help, when they sold and moved to town only a couple of years before my grandpa died of TB. Her jelly was wild plum and buffalo berry, the reluctant to jell chokecherry was made into syrup.

Helping is good as stirring stirs up such good memories of smells better than back yard concord grapes. A mouse click on the picture might surprise you.

Two Weeks of Late Night TV

My goodness gracious. We were mesmerized and entertained by the extravaganza in Denver with the democrats a couple of weeks ago and this week we lost sleep with folks in St. Paul, Minnesota. About the time I thought that nothing could ever beat the theatrics at the Bronco Stadium, the Grecian columns from some theater supply house, the fireworks and the promises; then came that dynamo from Wasilla, Alaska who woke up the republicans, young and old. Maybe woke up or shook up more than the conservatives. We will see.

I didn't have anyone to "talk" to about it. "I am listening" was my standard answer even during the commercials; which were almost non-existent on PBS and C-Span. Even I, who usually dismiss such speech making as repetitive and not terribly interesting, was quite moved by a lot of it. I have a couple of cousins that would have been great fun to visit with these past days.

Did you too, enjoy the humor, the sincerity, the promises, the contrasting of personalities and life experiences, all the children with their imperfections, the flummoxed journalists who were vilified by the VP candidate who was one herself by college degree. What was not to like and enjoy? Even the late night hosts had some funny new material. No all the snow is not in Alaska...a lot of it was in the audience in St. Paul.

Wasn't it fun. I am glad it is over though, now we can get some sleep before midnight again.

The Sweetest Language

"Friday, May 9, 2008
Nothing can be softer or more harmonious
The Finns still retain their own language where their geographical situation cuts them off from frequent communication with the Teutonic and Cimbric races. "Both the Lapland and Finnish languages," says Dr. Clarke. ''are pleasing to the ear, and admirably suited to poetry, owing to their plenitude of vowels. They constantly reminded us of the Italian; and we might cite several instances of words common to all the three. Acerbi, as an Italian, sometimes understood words used by the natives of Finland. Nothing can be softer or more harmonious than the sounds uttered by a Finland peasant, when reciting his Pater Noster. It is full of labials, nasals, open vowels, and dipththongs, and is destitute even of a single guttural.''

Edward Isidore Sears: The National Quarterly Review (1863)
Posted by Kaisa Kyläkoski at 12:35 AM From Kaisa's Virtual Bookshelf, virtually a treasure trove!

Yoked Together

Carhenge

Driving through Nebraska on I 80 last week we veered off into Alliance on our way to Crawford to visit a son; on the way we stopped along the road to take a couple of photos of Carhenge. This is a humorous task a family undertook on a family reunion. I think it took a couple of years to complete. I liked it. Sometimes a person can look at art and not find anything funny about it. Wikipedia does a good job of explaining it and names the family responsible for constructing it. Now, I have seen them both. The real deal in England isn't funny.

The Reader and the Read To

Yesterday in Bernie Hunhoff's southdakotamagazine online gem he wrote: "On This Day: August 19 In the summer of 1931, Nebraska poet laureate John Neihardt accompanied Oglala holy man Nick Black Elk to the top of Harney Peak, where Black Elk re-told of great visions he had seen during his lifetime. That conversation, and many more that continued into the spring of 1932, would form the basis for the famed Indian spirituality book, Black Elk Speaks. In his visions, Black Elk told Neihardt that he had met the guider of the universe. Reports vary, but it is believed Black Elk died on this day in 1950 at the age of 86."

On our quick four day trip to the Black Hills I read "Pirate, Pawnee and Mountain Man: The Saga of Hugh Glass" by John Myers to He Who Must Be Obeyed. Somewhere in the text Myers wrote of John G. Neihardt having acquired some information on Glass. Neihardt's "The Song of Hugh Glass" 1915, and the "The Splendid Wayfaring" 1920 are listed in the Bibliography. Myers' adventerous tale took us across two interstate highways, and two states which ate up most of two days on our own four day adventure.

Being so steeped in the history of our own childhood home lands, one thing leads to another as it always does in life. When we recovered from our rigorous travel I poked around in my various book shelves and found a book I bought at the Chadron, Nebraska Museum of the Fur Trade a few years ago, John G. Neihardt's "The Mountain Men: The Song of Three Friends-The Song of Hugh Glass-The Song of Jed Smith." New and unopened, I was delighted to find a drawn map of Hugh Glass's trails beginning at Ft. Atkinson a few miles north of our home on the Missouri River and ranging along rivers and streams to the headwaters of the Missouri and down the Platte. How I longed for a map as I read on the road.

I had always thought that Neihardt was too hard for me to read, especially to read aloud. The first chapter was lovely and of course I can read it! The rest will be saved for our afternoon recovery periods and maybe, as HWMBO suggested, take the place of evening mindless television.

Wagon Trains to Deadwood

Bull Train Up Staged by Plumber


Been Gone/Back Again
"Going Home" never means exactly that. It is putting our feet on the soil of West River South Dakota. We did precisely that last week.

The culmination of the event, besides visiting a grown son and daughter, In-Laws, friends and a cousin, we situated our lawn chairs across the street from the famed Franklin Hotel in Deadwood and watched the wagon trains from Cheyenne, Sidney and Ft. Pierre meet in the street in front of the hotel with yippies, excited yells, and some speeches from wagon masters and city mayors. MC-ing the event was a nephew of a friend.

I couldn't figure out how to get these videos here but they are both well worth watching. One is from Fort Meade on the way to Deadwood and the other in Deadwood.

http://videos.rapidcityjournal.com/p/video?id=2078950

http://videos.rapidcityjournal.com/p/video?id=2083513

The event had not happened for the last hundred years. As the locomotive replaced the horse and wagon in that area, goods came by rail instead of wheel and it connected our pioneers and homesteaders with places outside of this hinterland, as one of my college professors called it, when I went away to school in 1953.

Up to our Necks in Cleome

I left the air conditioned house to take a few photos. The heat and humidity were so thick that the camera lens immediately fogged over.

This is sometimes called Spider Flower and is currently taller than I am.

Tomorrow is a grandson's 28th birthday. He was our first grandchild and born on our wedding anniversary. Tomorrow we celebrate 54 years of wedded bliss.
The birthday boy's dad, our son, is in a hospital in California. We far away old parents are concerned and wish we lived close to help with his post op recovery.

I still long for the days of generational close proximity and the security that it provided every one, young and old.

Leaving Nothing to Chance

Proverbs 22:6 (New King James Version)
New King James Version (NKJV)


"Train up a child in the way she should go,
And when she is old she will not depart from it."