Miracles for Easter

Easter Sunday 2007. He Who Must Be Obeyed went to celebrate at Holy Cross without me. I was hopeful at 6:30, but the occasional relief didn't occur, so I thought I might just have a pity party alone under the down in our bed, which has become a little too familiar since spine surgery in January.

It was "Grace Matters" on the radio that gave me hope this morning with a stern lecture about clinging to dirty sheets to savor ones own painful pitiful self. It was just the thing I needed to realize healing is moment by moment right now. So I got up and enjoyed a few miracles.

One was in our Omaha World Herald on the front page. It was about an Ashton, NE man who has rang the bells at St. Francis Catholic Church nearly every day since about 1960. "He is 66 and has had a knee surgery...in spite of all of that he has climbed the 17 steps up the loft, consulted his pocket watch and pulled the rope to ring the "Angelus" bell at 7 a.m., noon and 6 p.m. for three minutes, as part of a Catholic tradition calling the faithful to prayer." I learned seven paragraphs into the article that the faithful bell ringer is developmentally disabled. God chooses people that are weak and imperfect and calls them by name. Sometimes if I turn off the televison, and pull the ear buds out of my ears, and set the radio aside, I can hear even my own name being called.

The second miracle was an email from a relative on my maternal great grandmother's side of the family. He has discovered through history going back to the 1600's that we are also related through my paternal grandmother. It makes me happy to find another distant double cousin. And it makes me happy that in genetics mothers matter.

Safe Places

On March 29, Bernie Hunhoff of the South Dakota Magazine wrote about the book, "Montana 1948." When I first read it a few years ago it both mesmerized and bewildered me. I couldn't put it down once I started on it. It is true that we bring our own experiences to that which we take in, be it film, books, television, or a story told one more time by He Who Must Be Obeyed.

"Montana 1948" dredged up many of my own small town memories of the way things were that year and until 1953 when I graduated high school and moved on. I was going to say 'moved away.' but I have found that I never really moved away.

I had two Great Uncle brothers who were Sheriffs of the county over those years. We thought everybody knew everything about every one. But of course we didn't. After I sent a book about my dad to the then editor of the local newspaper did I learn how much I didn't know. This august editor and my dad had served on the first township board when my hometown was organized. In a letter he shared some of the events of that town board, and a later one that he served on with a cousin. These events included a car bashing and an arson that could have been intrepreted as an encouragement for some members of the board to comply with one group's issues.

Small towns may not have always been the safe places we like to remember of our childhoods.

Heartbreak

I read once that love and hate are so closely linked in the mind that each emotion can come on the heels of the other in seconds. When the hearts break close to home it breaks our own hearts. When one of our own goes through a divorce, we find ourselves divorced from a family we have grown to love.

Our broken hearted one sent this to me over the Internet this morning from work.

"People are often unreasonable, illogical and self centered.
Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Suceed anyway.

If you are honest and frank, People may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building someone may destroy overnight.
Build anyways.

If you find serenity and happiness they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anway.

Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see in the final analysis it is all between you and God
It was never between you and them anyway."

Stomping on the Clock

In other words, I am still killing time. It isn't that I don't have a dozen things I could do right now but I wait for pain meds to kick in again; I am keeping quiet as we have a sleeping baby in the house; I can't get out and do the yard things I would like; and I am flummoxed as to how to get a handle on the Lutheran Women Today Bible Study for March...which I lead on Tuesday. Mostly, I am the world's champion procrastinator.

So I poked my nose into SOMA, The Society of Mutual Autopsy, and read around in their links list where I found a couple that I subscribe to. Being so incurably introverted it wakes me up for a while and certainly gets my mind off of everything going on in my world. To give you an example of what is uptop today: "Jesus Christ Ass Kicker" by John D. Spalding got my attention. Just when I was commenting to He Who Must Be Obeyed that our pastor conducts a lovely worship service I read this: "get to the part where the Lord goes ape in the Temple. Now that's a man for Men, or more specifically for GodMen, a growing group of Christian guys who believe that traditional church services are too feminine and sissy, explaining why less than 40 percent of churchgoers today are male."

To tell the truth, I like a sissy church service. I know a few others who do also.

One of the links on SOMA was the Martin Marty Center. I have subscribed to "Sightings" for over a year now and always like it when Marty writes. He starts his March 12, 2007 essay, "Getting Religion Wrong" this way: "In 1970, as remembered in a story I've (too?) often told, for my sins I became associate dean at a Divinity School. Dean Joseph Kitagawa, scholar supreme and human being to match, did not like to raise money — so he equipped me with a tin cup. As I headed out on the trail, I posed this question to a colleague: "Given all the world's problems, on what grounds dare I ask for money to fund the graduate study of religion?" Answer: "On the same grounds as those for undertaking college-level sex education. Sex, if you get it wrong, is very dangerous. So is religion."

My question is what if you don't 'get' religion at all? This March study is how we see God in our suffering. There is something in me that doesn't much want to associate God with suffering. When my neurosurgeon tells me in the kindest way he possibly can, "you will have pain the rest of your life," where is God in that? Now, dear reader, where is God in all of that? Not only my own 'suffering' but all suffering, all bad stuff, the damned ungodly people that mess up lives in spite of liking sissy church.

All of that responsive liturgy, sung or not, the sitting up and the sitting down and kneeling when we had kneelers, the standing up and the standing down, (sic) just the getting through it all and the anticipation of the deep intellectual, down to earth sermon and finally the Holy Communion, is that SO SISSY? The older I get it almost seems intellectually and physically athletic.

A 2007 Immigrant Story

Night before last a friend held a going away party for our friend, now a naturalized citizen. Actually all of the eight or nine there, myself being an exception, had been fired by Tutu, who had cleaned for them at one time or another. She has a bit of a problem with American ways and who fires whom in these relationships.

My mother introduced me to Tutu, who was working at New Cassel, a retirement center, where my mother lived for four or five years. One afternoon as I was entering the front door, Tutu met me as she was leaving. "Your mother is so ill," she told me, "I will do anything you would like me to. I will spend the nights with her, help her with her bathing, wheel her to meals, anything." "Weello, I love your mother so much," she said. I went up to Mother's room with her mail to find she had died during her afternoon nap.

My friendship with Tutu began as did my education about her childhood in Calcutta, India. This darling young woman's marriage had been arranged by both sets of parents when Tutu was 15 and Harry was 19. She was schooled by Catholics so had a fair grip on English but Bengali was spoken at home. She had been taken to see Mother Theresa with her grade school classmates. Both sets of parents remained in Calcutta.

Harry invited Bryce and I to his father's one year death anniversary. Father Tiegs at New Cassel circled the five of us and another resident on chairs around a candle in front of the chapel altar and conducted a memorable honorary service for this Hindu father of Harry. A few years later Harry invited us to his graduation dinner.

She went to church with me for almost two years. I offered to read English with her. She would read to me until it exhausted her and I would finish the chapter. We were well into "The Diary of Anne Frank" when she told me she didn't think this was going to have a happy ending and that was the end of that. So she worked at New Cassel and cleaned for the women that honored her before she and Harry move away today.

Harry graduated with a MBA from Creighton University, Tutu worked, they purchased a house, two cars, she studied and last summer at her Naturalization Ceremony had her photo taken with President Bush and our Nebraska Governor. She battled breast cancer in the fall and now she an Harry will go to Dallas where he will be a Bank Vice President and while they are in temporary housing, Tutu will have a maid.

Why We Are the Way We Are

Everything below comes from Virtual Finland: People or The Finnish Way of Life.
It seems to be how it is, coming from four Finnish grandparents, three of them immigrants to the US before the 1900's.

I used to wonder why my matriarchal elders were so spotted. If you notice the second thing that makes Finns happy is sunny weather. None of us spent any time indoors when the sun was outside. Sunscreen in those days of wicked sunburns was a long sleeved shirt. I was 23 before I discovered I would never burn if I took the sun in small doses for a week or two. After that I could spend all day in it without burning. Now that I am well aged, I am spotted from my head to my toes just like my mummu, her sisters, and my mother and her sisters were.

It made us happy, almost as happy as cleaning house which is number six. I notice that He Who Must Be Obeyed doesn't get so happy over a clean house as I do; especially if he is the one pushing the vacuum cleaner and picking up the piles that accumulate around his favorite chair. But then he is a Norwegian and I am not certain just what makes them happy. Maybe nothing. I jump to that conclusion from spending time in the National Gallery in Oslo. There are some very grim paintings there.

So below is the happiness factors right off the Internet:

What makes a Finn Happy? "Very recently, one of our big circulation, middle-of-the-road popular magazines, entitled Seura, meaning roughly (good) company, commissioned a big survey to find out where happiness lies. The magazine used a wide sample of 1,015 individuals, who were each given 678 questions to answer. That produced a massive 688, 170 items of information. Well, I'm not a statistician so let's just get to the point, which is to set before you the Finnish nation's top ten happiness factors.

First on the list was home sweet home, a home of one's own - expressed in Finnish by the proverb "Your own home is as precious as gold." Then came the weather. This is not as surprising as it may seem, since Finland has four very distinct seasons, but one of them is too long. Thus, the second feel-good factor was sunny weather.

Now we move into the Finnish soul. It never takes long in a country where people on the whole lack a small-talk culture, but are ever ready to open a seminar on "Why are we here, where are we going?" So, happiness factor number three in the poll was an honest relationship, and number four was so closely related as to confuse the unwary. It was a trusting relationship. Number five reveals something of the Finn's innate independence of mind, and it is simply the freedom to be oneself. No mention yet of money or worldly possessions - apart from the initial roof over one's head.

Feelings beat materialism

No, instead of materialism we're in for more relationships, but not before number six, which is a freshly cleaned home. It would be truly interesting to have on hand a comparative survey covering countries both far from and near to each other. I wonder which ones would replicate the Seura people's replies from seven to ten, which were: friendship, gestures/words in a relationship, friendship, actions in a relationship, fidelity in a relationship and security in a relationship. The survey findings go on in much the same vein.

People are obviously content with simple, honest pleasures such as the smell of newly washed laundry, falling in love or walking in the countryside. The first direct reference to money appears at number nineteen and it is that great feeling: "there's more money in my account than I remembered".

Icicles

This is the view from the west window in the living room. Icicles are always a brief and lovely phenomena. I suppose they are creating a problem in the roof gutters but what is one to do but enjoy the sparkle.

He Who Must Be Obeyed taught me a little trick yesterday. He said if he double clicked, or clicked depending how your system is set up, that the photo would enlarge to huge! I didn't know that.

New Rights and Old Wrongs

This morning as I waited for my meds to kick in, I watched Book TV from the cozy comfort of my down quilt. The topic was the Japanese Internment Camp from a fiesty lady who lived those drastic times and measures. Following my usual routine, I logged on to the Internet and had a Google Alert on "South Dakota." Among the hits was one to the blog, "South Dakota War College." The entry indicated was Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007, titled "This one will leave you silent. More on the Clinton/Obama South Dakota Connection."

I keep track of South Dakota politics a bit. They have been in the news since Dakota Territory days. I thought the Janklow jailing was justified but damning; I heard the other side of Janklow this morning. The story and audio link on the South Dakota War College blog, described as "South Dakota Politics, Campaigns, Personalities, Elections, Political Advertising, and a bunch of rambling nonsense from a smart aleck Republican," was interesting to me. The audio clip was a Public Television archieve from a Feb. 1, 2001 press conference.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has at one time been a little too willing to chase Omaha garage sales but like I once described, I am drawn to glass sparkling in the sun and the anthropological interests I find, HWMBO is always on the lookout for another tool. To get to the story here, we once bought a few bar glasses from a former Omaha Court Reporter who played poker with local FBI guys. One of them, he said, was in a wheel chair as he had gotten shot in the Wounded Knee confrontation of 1972.

Back to Clinton, Janklow, internment, empathy for ethnicity and fairness, and the Leonard Peltier pardon issue. According to Janklow, he was instrumental in President Clinton not pardoning Peltier the month he left the office. It is a first person oral history that I found very interesting. Maybe it explains some of the bizzare politics of my beloved home state.

As the old court reporter wrapped the heavy bottomed glasses in newspaper for us, he said that a generous jigger of burbon and a couple of ice cubes in one of these glasses was the beginning of a nice afternoon.

A Love Affair

"The Boy With the Willow Flute" 1889, Christian Skredsvig

G.K. Chesterton said "Let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair."

My forever friend, now on the other side, once gave me a little flip calendar called "Voices: Words That Shaped Our Souls." It is daily wisdom for a new century. The gift was just right for me, as I am one of those people with the attention span of an ant and my favorite things to read are quotations, Proverbs, and short meditations.

As I capitolized the word, proverbs, I wondered a bit about why these little bits of conventional wisdom are called: pro verbs. So I hunted around for meanings and proverb is literally "before action or state of being."

"After the verb to love, the verb to help is the most beautiful verb in the world," Bertha von Suttner (1843-1914). From Answers.com

I have a good friend who calls her deceased friend, her "Dead Friend." I prefer to think of my forever friend as not dead, but somewhere else, because everywhere I look she appears to me in the books she gave me, a counted cross stitched picture of the Bath Cathedral we visited together, letters she wrote with handwriting so small I nearly had to get out a magnifying glass to read them, the His Essance candle made in SD of the scents of Jesus time, book marks, two beautiful kitchen towels I hang rather than use, memories of our Saturday phone calls.

I have a framed print of "The Boy With the Willow Flute" by Christian Skredsvig 1889, waiting for me when I go home to SD again. Perhpas I was too bold when she was near death and asked me if there was anything I wanted. The print was an internet hunt, inexpensive and came to her in short order from the Skredsvig home/gallery. She fussed over the mat and framing and changed it at least once. Of course I wanted it. She and I spent an amazing month in Norway a few years ago. I am lonely for her on Saturdays especially.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is a pleasant break in the long dark winter of the Midwest. He Who Must Be Obeyed gave this child bride a bottle of Chanel No 5 on our first married Valentine's Day. It was so unexpected, so expensive, so thoughtful; a gift remembered forever, if over 52 married years is forever.

Today we celebrate with lemon meringue pie which we will take across the street to share with our elderly neighbors, shut in with our -20 below wind chill of earlier this morning. We picked it up at Village Inn on our way home from my appointment with my neurosurgeon. (If I am careful, I can start using the treadmill.)

This morning's happy discovery is that of a young man in Astoria, Oregon, who is creating a web site for those of us interested in learning the Finnish language. The article is in the Daily Astorian. "The site contains a catalogue of more than 4,000 words divided into dozens of categories such as family, food and arts and literature. It also includes grammar help, quizzes and an "inflection engine" giving a word's proper conjugation."

I learned that Tolkien used Finnish as a model for the elfin language in "Lord of the Rings." The language is that beautiful and that mysterious. I am ready to try to learn it and I thank Khan Gorlewski for providing this huge help. A click on his 'Articles' takes you to some very interesting methods of memorization. Retrieval is the key, and it needs to be practiced.

Life Outside the Box

A son told me he disliked technology. I was taken aback, as I recalled the Montana cabin dweller who hated technology so much he set out to make life miserable for so many it got him life in the penitentiary. What is to hate?

In my past life as a library/media specialist I was kept up to date on the latest and the newest technolical wonders of the world. I miss that. My own attitude was bring it on and show me how to use it. Life as a teacher had many rewards and that was one of them. It all started in with a summer class called "Electronic Information Systems." All of us in the class were given our first Internet accounts through the university and we went online in those early exciting days of the WWW. Good Bye to the sturdy solid Card Catalogs that did not alphabatize themselves. Welcome Brave New World.

I still have email friends from the early days of listserves. I am a part of a group of retired people from every walk of life imagenable and many continents. From them my world view is enriched and my personal life is enhanced through email.

It is good to challenge oneself, I think. It is easier to do and at the same time more difficult then you might first think. Why do you think I have linked "Simplicity" to my blog? There is really nothing simple about this writer from MIT. Salt is far from simple. If theology today interests you, this Rector's reading and thinking will challenge you. St. Bartholomew's home page is loaded with information.

Today I found a link in Artic Finland regarding the Aurora Borealis that would take a few college classes to get my head around. Who knew that we not only have a Geographic Longitude and Latitude, but also a geomagnetic latitude? Somewhere on that site is a live web cam to watch the aurora as it happens.

But a person can't mess around on the computer all day. I am going to get back in my safe little box and soak in someone else's thinking while I read.

A Finn Knows

What is "Sisu"?
Sisu is a unique Finnish concept. It stands for the philosophy that what must be done will be done, regardless of what it takes. Sisu is a special strength and persistent determination and resolve to continue and overcome in the moment of adversity…an almost magical quality, a combination of stamina, perseverance, courage, and determination held in reserve for hard times.

In the past Finns were obliged to struggle against nature and against foreign intruders. Despite all of the drawbacks along the way, the struggle gave a lot of strength. The early settlers found inspiration in the Finnish landscape, sky and in mythological heroes who taught them that it was possible to overcome obstacles. In more recent times the same sources have been the basic source of inspiration for athletes, artists, designers and architects who have made Finland known to the world.

When she was alive, my mother reminded me of sisu with pride and regularity. As a kid, I learned early on that to go on an impromtu picnic with my parents took a fair amount of sisu. They would go at the drop of a hat, at the change of the weather, at a need for another look at thier Earth; and with an artist father one looked at the Earth a lot.

But back to sisu and thier idea of a picnic; they would slice some homemade flat bread, pack a tin of sardines, fill the thermos with coffee and off we went to some place or other to look at the Earth. Not liking sardines a whole lot was where the sisu came in for me. Everything else about it was "a picnic." I do eat a sardine occasionally and it always reminds me of a windswept Dakota prairie picnic.

Spiritual Literacy

The sub-title of the book, Spiritual Literacy is "Reading the Sacred in Everyday Life." A friend came to visit and brought it to me with a printed interview by Martin Marty of "Grace Matters" with Mary Ann Brussat.

The Introduction states that "Spiritual literacy is practiced in all the world's wisdom traditions. Medieval Catholic monks called it "reading the book of the world." I am very anxious to get into the body of the book. Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat co-authored this book, in order that we readers might find the sacred in our own culture today.

I once went through a 'God Sighting' experience with the St. Timothy congregation. We became aware of God in our everyday life. That was when I put away the terms, luck and coincidence. If we think of God in our happy unexpected events, does that mean that God is micro-managing the bad stuff? I choose to think not. If we are loved by God, can we think that the serendipitous delights are put in our path to make us more aware of Him? It is all so mysterious.

If you wonder where I have been lo these many days; I am home healing from a back surgery last week, actually on my birthday; less pain is a gift. We in Omaha, are blessed with excellent medical care. My chosen Neurosurgeon is skilled and concerned; he performed a laminectomy on the 4th lumbar vertebra. This is my second second spine surgery in less than four years. My post surgery instructions are excellent: sleep late, take a nap, go to bed early. Sit up for 15 to 30 minutes at a time. I have exceeded that so it is back to my comfy, warm bed and my new book!

What is it All About?

The world we live in is too much. The super markets are bewildering, the new housing is obscene, wars are worse than ever before, every thing is over the top. I can't make any sense of any of it.

Art Buchwald died, he knew he would and he wrote a column to be published after his death. He said some things I agree with. He said his mind keeps turning to food and he has found it hard to pass up a banana split. That makes sense to me.

He thinks it is egocentric to believe that someone is put on earth for a reason. He would like to think his last column might wind up on a cereal box or be repeated every Thanksgiving Day. If anything I ever wrote ended up on a cereal box, I would hope it would be "Eat your vegetables."

It would be a good thing if we were here for a reason other than to make love and war. Making love in the 50's gave me a reason for being here, five to be exact. The eternal question for me is what about after all that? The five, or six, or seven are off with their own reason for being here. After working and saving for a rainy day, or in my case my old age, then what? More precisely, NOW what?

Buchwald ends his posthumous column, "What's it all about, Alfie?"

Bad Calls

My wake up call was from a South Dakota pay phone. I thought pay phones were a thing of the past. The first words that rattled my ear drum was a blast of profanity. "Are you really so stupid." "Where is my twin?" "Your name is ruined." "The FBI and CIA and Hillary Clinton are all on to your evil schemes." I am flummoxed with the profanity. I should have known better than to answer it.

Novels pale when one's real life is besieged with the dark mind of the mentally ill. The hatred has become predictable over the past 20 years. It is not easier, however. For the moment she is safe and so are we, it would be a relief if it lasted a while, but nothing ever lasts.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has been gone for nearly a week picking up the pieces again. He calms me with frequent phone calls, his own quiet acceptance of difficult days, and kind warnings against picking up the profane calls.

R. is in the South Dakota Mickelson Center for the Mentally Ill after a week in jail and some time in the hospital. Why, I wonder, do they allow their patients to make harassing phone calls? She is "protected by the FBI and CIA and they are on to our evil ways." "The Eye in the Sky is watching your every move, you know." "Hillary Clinton has taken over your computer. Did you know that, or are you so stupid you don't know that either?" "I know the entire Kennedy family, even the one they hid away in a convent." "Why did you name my twin the same as me?" "Why are you so f***ing ignorant?"

Friends have made me happy with food and girl talk.

There are worse calls than those from telemarketers.

Start the Year With Humor

NOAH: If the few remaining polar ice caps melt, are we in danger of another flood that would cover all the dry land?

TLGA(The Lord God Almighty): When is the last time you read Genesis 9:11-17? I thought you had some new questions to ask Me. If My Promise doesn't satisfy you, calculate the volume of water required to bring mean sea level over the top of Mt. Everest, and then see if there is that much water in your entire planet. More than half of your habitations may be flooded, your expensive vacation homes may be demolished, your insurance rates may rise beyond what even the wealthiest of you can afford. In the worst-case scenario, your best farmland may be flooded, and two thirds of you may starve to death. But there will still be dry land. You aren't ALL going to die.
By the way, before the polar ice caps totally melt, a corrective mechanism will be invoked, but you won't find it comfortable. It is called an Ice Age – kicks in every time sea level goes above a certain point. Might be good for you.

When I read the WittenburgDoor and laugh at the absurdity, does God laugh with me, or is he wagging his finger at my boorish behavior? God is probably too busy with this godforsaken, no pun intended, world to give a snap about what I laugh at. If he did, I could keep him busy. I find way too much humor in my world.

Happy New Year, my dear reader. If that sounds like a joke to you, maybe you need a laugh or two right now, also.

Alnitak, Alnilam, Mintaka

This is a December occurance. It is the Astronomy Picture of the Day for today, 2006 December 29. I use these beautiful images often as my computer wallpaper.

Mintaka comes from the Arabic word for belt. Alnilam means "a belt of pearls." Alnitak means the girdle. All three are Super Giant Stars and are 35,000 times greater than the Sun in brightness and 20 times the mass of the Sun.

Turning Off Lights

The photo exemplifies our existential Christmas Eve. It is our dearest A, and her darling Z. A to Z, thank you for being ours. A California grandson can attest to the fact that it happened. The more I think about it the more wondrous it is in my memory. I love our family so much I feel gushy.

More of our family spent the afternoon of the 27th with us. We have grandsons from California that I think of as our Gentle Giants. B is 6'4: and his brother D, is 6'3". It makes the rest of us feel like shrimps; well maybe not their uncle, B, who is about 6'. People of height are noticed when they come into a room, when they walk in a mall, when they sit in front of you at church or in the movies. They can reach things. They show up in family photographs. Their height alone marks them.

He Who Must Be Obeyed has an ancestor that was seven foot tall or more. It is in the family history written in Norway. The work starts out with the giants fighting in a field near Laerdal, a municipality in the county of Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. His great grandmother was married in the Borgund Stave Church there.

What is this all about? I started writing about wrapping up the Christmas lights. That is how my morning started. He Who Must Be Obeyed was winding up the light strings from the front bushes and the little row of White Spruce in the front yard. I don't think Christmas is over until after Epiphany. I am not turning off the lights inside until January 6th. Speaking of epiphanies, that A to Z was mine this morning. Yes it is a web browser too.

The Boe Barn

A son and grandson built this beautiful barn. Last year about this time he added trout to the pond; they all had to be taken before the water got too warm in June. Fly fishing in ones back yard is as good as a Black Hills stream; closer to the freezer, too, or the grill.

I suspect my daughter in law took this photo last December and emailed it to me. I think it is lovely. Thanks J. for sending it on.

In the olden days when we lived in Nemo, SD, a neighbor boy would often knock on the door with a string of trout just caught in Box Elder Creek. They were cleaned and pan ready, ten cents apiece. My own children swam in the creek but I don't recall very much fishing going on. One caught a trout in his hands that had spilled over a dam behind our house.

There is More Than One Way to Skin a Cat

The above maxim is strange but the meaning is true. I have spent three days trying to get the sheep picture below uploaded. It was just too large to handle so I emailed it to myself from my picture file. That was an automatic jpg.

Our eldest son is in Italy for a month. He had to leave his family to take on a task for Boeing. He tells me he might be able to go to Rome for Christmas. That is very exciting news. It is good it is him instead of me as I would surely die of the moment.

I love getting his email. I hope he writes about every little detail of his experience there.

We in Omaha are getting rain instead of snow. Every city is beautiful in a snowstorm.