Rain, rain, go away!

JFK Park

Sandbags on creek just before park

bridge
near campground

culverts

culverts

creek below school before railroad tracks

The Move

We moved Hermione from the west to the east this weekend. With the invaluable help of some men at church, we loaded Hermione and trekked east. Fortunately some helpful guys were waiting on the other end, as we hauled stuff up three flights of stairs to the new place.

The drive from the western place to the eastern place was eight hours, so we broke our journey with a stop at home for the night. Home was halfway.

From west to east, we drove along bank full creeks and rivers. A few were out of their banks, but we were lucky to avoid flooded highways. Last week one of the interstates was flooded.

Flooding is a rotten deal, but every thing is REALLY green around here. Hopefully as June ends, the over abundance of moisture will too.

The World of Fashion

I need more laughter in my life, so I’ve decided to take up fashion design. I see in my mind’s eye a group of designers laughing themselves silly around a conference table saying, “I CAN’T believe it. We actually got them to wear it!” A thirst for giggles is the only reason I can come up with for the styles in women’s clothing the so-called sophisticated people create.

For a while, the world of design tried to camouflage all women as safari animals. Attendance at any formal event resembled a day at the zoo with woman attired in zebra stripes, leopard spots, and orange giraffe blotches.

The dress up theme has now changed from women on safari to women at the beach. At the most formal party, funeral, or wedding, flip flops prevail. I have been sternly lectured by my daughters that I may no longer refer to this foot wear as “thongs” because, ahem, that is reserved for a type of underwear.

Ah yes, thong underwear. The fashion gurus must be in stitches about this. At first, I thought thong underwear was a movie creation. You know what I mean: the producer for some inexplicable reason craves a PG-13 rating instead of a PG rating. What better way to do that than to get film footage of some woman’s rear end hanging out? Thus appeared thong underwear. I never thought real-life women would be demented enough to actually wear it. In which circles does it make perfect sense that the entire back of a garment worn on one of the largest parts of the body is composed of a one to two inch wide strap? These circles are undoubtedly made up of people who watch the skies for the arrival of aliens and periodically go on radish and lemonade diets. If the discomfort of thong underwear didn’t discourage women, surely, I thought, the groadiness would. I misjudged a few members of my sex. Burned in my brain is the work training meeting I attended. Call me nit picky, but I think a sixty year old woman wearing white pants that expose her tan thong underwear is not a good look.

After the introduction of bizarre underwear, tight fitting jeans and short shirts became the order of the day. Suspenders anyone? The prevailing school of thought for these creations must be that women look terrific with their stomach flab hanging out. Do you suppose those in the field of medicine who provide liposuction financed this foray into belly flab?

Eventually, the fashion for shirts became longer, but we are still supposed to pour ourselves into tight fitting, slim leg jeans. These dismally unflattering pants have the ability to any woman, no matter how underweight, look fat.

I have a question. Is Paris still the fashion capital of the world, or are they borrowing fashion ideas from houses of ill repute located in the remote corners of the world? One Christmas, I stumbled into the department store to find the fashion world latest offering for the plus size women during the winter time party season: halter tops with inch in diameter spangles beneath the bust. Halter tops in January may be perfect for a New Year’s Eve party in the Congo, but spangled halter tops on obese women in Montana in January? Better get those designers a brown paper bag. The laughter must be causing hyperventilation by now.

Next time I’m feeling blue, I’m crashing a fashion design buzz session. I have no doubt that a million hysterically funny ideas and rattling around in the designer’s fertile brains. Heaven knows I could use some belly laughs now and again.

Dad and World War II

This Memorial Day Eglantine and I are going to spend some time at the Veteran's Cemetery where Mom and Dad are buried. Dad's service in WWII qualified our parents to be buried there. Below is some information about Dad's WWII service. I found the information on the cassette tape I discovered and transcribed last winter.

"Dad: Then I got drafted into the Army.

Becky: Which thrilled you, I’m sure.

Dad: Which thrilled me. So then I went to…

Becky: How old were you then?

Dad: I was 26. Well, 1942. I was 26. June 5, 1942, I was inducted into the Army and went to Salt Lake. Wound up in the Chief of Staff’s Office there at the headquarters of the 9th Service Command. I was there for about six months, and then I was transferred over to the IBM unit in the Headquarters of Fort Douglas. Then I met your mother and we were married in ’43. I was there 26 months in Salt Lake before I...

Becky: That’s two years. Over two years.

Dad: Over two years. Then after I met her.. See, I went in as limited service because of my eyes. Then they decided that you were either in or out. And they re-evaluated everybody and decided that I was good enough I could go overseas. So then I was transferred to this 50th Mobile Machine Records Unit as the head of the coding section.

Becky: Seems like you never tried very hard. But it seems like you always made it to the top anyway.

Dad: So..I was a T-5 at that time. That’s the same as a Corporal. Then when I was ..when we made that up..and then just before we were shipped out, I was promoted to a T-4. Then since we were being assigned to the Air Force, who didn’t recognize a technician…Then they made me a buck Sergeant. Well at T-4 is the same thing as a Sergeant. You have the three bars, you know. The three Vs. It was a four underneath. [something about a fourth]

Dad: But anyway, then I was sent overseas to… Well, we went down through California, through Camp Stoneman. We were there. We took our overseas training at Ft. Douglas [something about the unit – kids noise interfered]. Then we had a couple a weeks of further training at Camp Stoneman. Then we got on a...this boat, the U.S.S. Republic which had been a former German ship captured in the harbor during WWI. Confiscated by the United States and was made into a luxury liner during the period between the two wars. Then it was turned back into a troop ship for WWII.

Becky: Boy, it must have been on the old side.

Dad: It was a big old ship, German made ship. But it was a good ship. It was 1080 ft. long. It was longer than a football field.

Becky: Boy, that’s hard to imagine. Did you get sea sick?

Dad: First day out of San Francisco I got sea sick on those ground swells. Everybody on the ship was sea sick. I felt nauseous, but I never did throw my cookies. And the next day I was alright. I had no further problems with seasickness all the time that I was on board. We went unescorted on this big, old, slow boat. We went down south of the ..took the great circle route way to the south and came up through..


Dad: I never heard it called anything but the circle route down way south and came into Finch Haven, New Guinea. We were 21 days without the sight of land. We got off the…Well, they unloaded a lot of mail and stuff at Finch Haven, New Guinea but we weren’t allowed off. Then it was five days..we were several days there and then a couple of days on up We were on board a total of 31 days before we got off the boat up at Hollandia, New Guinea. We were put into a reception center there. We stayed there over night and the next day. Then we went out with the Headquarters of the 13th Air Force which is where we were sent to join.

Becky: Did you ever wonder about getting attacked? Did that worry you much?

Dad: Well, no, it didn’t worry too much. We were at the headquarters, weren’t right upon the front lines. Then we went to, since our equipment was delayed, come on other boats, you know from the ones that we were on. Why, then we came, we were sent, and we flew C-46s without parachutes, unescorted in the war zone from Hollandia, New Guinea down to Laie [pronounced Lay].

Becky: That’s in Hawaii?

Dad: No, Laiea, New Guinea. Actually, Nadzab[sp?]which is about 30 miles Laie, but it was the closest airstrip to Laiea. Then they met us with trucks. They took us from there down to Laiea with the Headquarters of the 5th Air Force. We worked with them on their equipment.

Becky: With computers? Is that what you were doing?

Dad: IBM equipment: computers, personnel accounting by punch cards.


Becky: What were you doing? Keeping track of who was where?

Dad: Yeah. We kept track of the force, of the men in every unit in the Headquarters of the 13th Air Force, by unit.

Becky: Wow. That sounds like an overwhelming job.

Dad: Well, it was a very particular job. It was…everybody had to have FBI clearance before they were transferred into there.

Becky: The FBI probably never even heard of you.

Dad: Well, I understand there were inquiries made in [town he lived near] by the FBI on me. I didn’t find out ‘til after the war.

Becky: I hope they explained why, so people didn’t think you were getting crooked or something.

Dad: Well, I don’t know. Anyway, that was part of the deal. Anyway, we got over there. We did then the 13th Air Force accounts. We would take the morning reports and we would code them: all new men in and out of every unit every day. We’d code them and it’d go to the typist who would type up IBM cards and punch cards. Then they would run them through a translator which would print on the card what was punched into it. Then, we had to verify everything. And if it was garbled, then we had to check the punch card to see whether it was punched correctly. We could tell by the punches, you know. Because, you see there is 13 punches in a column. No, there’s only 12 punches in a column. A high punch and a 1 was an “A.” See, there was an “x” and an “0”, and a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, in every column. The high punch or the X punch was a high punch and the 1, that was an A. A “B” was a high punch and a 2 and a “C” and so on down.


Becky: Didn’t I hear that your unit got a medal for …

Dad: Well they got a Presidential citation for putting the most accurate report out. They had a special report that went into Washington D.C. that we had to put out. The Captain in charge of our unit…they had some bad reports go out... Along with my other duties as head of the coding section, I had to check every one and O.K. it before they went out to see there weren’t any garbled stuff on it.

Becky: Oh. That sounds tedious.

Dad: Every month, plus the special reports, plus the other work. I kept busy, out of mischief.

The reason a lot of these other units didn’t get it..They had a code for everything. A lot of the units when these report forms came in, they wouldn’t fill out everything if they didn’t know. Instead of putting the code down saying, “unknown,” why they would just leave it blank. When we came in, we filled everything out.

Spring Thaw

Against our better judgment, Wilbur and I went camping Friday. We started out in a driving rain, but it was a balmy driving rain. We camped at around 6000 feet and it was even raining, not snowing, there. We stepped a month back in time at that altitude because the leaves were not out and the grass was not as green. After it rained all night, we ventured out the next morning and explored some of the back roads. When we reached 7000 feet or the north side of a hill, we were blocked by snow. With the warm rain, the snow was slushy and water was running in every gully.

When we broke camp and arrived home, it was if we were in another world that was warmer and greener. I usually like to be high in the mountains but not in the spring when I have to retreat from spring into winter.
Wilbur has equipment to start fires that is the envy of all other campers.

Yellow bells are just coming out at 6000 feet.

The camera couldn't do justice to the views.

The creeks were bank full and water was running everywhere.

Right after the snow melts there are these funny loose dirt trails everywhere. They look like creature trails, but we don't really know.

We ran into one drift after another until...the end of the road.

On one road we found a group of three or four old cabins. There is probably a mine nearby.

Mother's Day Quotes

Motherhood is NOT what was left over after our Father blessed His sons with the privilege of priesthood ordination. It was the most ennobling endowment He could give his daughters, a sacred trust that gave woman an unparalled role in helping his children keep their second estate. Motherhood is as divinely called, as eternally important in its place as the priesthood itself.
J. Reuben Clark Jr.

If we really want to make a difference, it will happen as we mother those we have borne and those we are willing to bear with.
Sheri Dew

Men and women have complementary, not competing, responsibilities. There is difference, but not inequity...In the woman's part, she is not equal to man; she is superior! She can do that which he can never do; not in all eternity can he do it.
Pres. Boyd K. Packer

The grass isn't greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it.
a guy named Mel from Intermountain Sprinkler

Hiking Scratch Gravel

Today my friend Eloise and I hiked Scratch Gravel. A couple of years ago a local man published a book of hikes within twenty milers of here. His "hikes" do not necessarily include trailheads established by the National Forest or state. The book frequently uses old roads as routes, advises us to travel cross country, "choose" a route, and directs us to climb up hill tops and travel cross country. The names of many of the gulches and hills are names we never heard before. There are times I suspect the book's author is purposely trying to lower the area's populations by helping hikers get lost.

Today we tried a seven mile route. If we walked one step of the route we were trying to take, I would be surprised. It doesn't matter. We had a great time! We saw our old friends: the phlox were in full bloom and we saw our first Early Townsendia of the season. Max fully approved of our choice of activity.

Great Talk

We had stake conference this weekend. Several talks were really important for me to hear. But I want to tell you about the talk a member of the stake presidency gave about pride, how prideful we are sometimes because we are members of the church. We sometimes think we have all the answers and are not humble. We sometimes discount the way other people of other religions worship because we are a little smug or even arrogant. I loved his emphasis on knowing that other people in other religions have qualities we each would do well to emulate.

This concept was brought home to me as I grew up. I remember growing up and hearing school-mates talk about weekends at their family's cabin at the lake, holiday celebrations, and fun traditions they had with their family. I felt like I shouldn't envy them because I had the gospel. But I did envy them. My family of origin was troubled, gospel or not. I would have loved to have had the experiences with my family that they had in theirs. I have nothing but admiration for a co-worker at FWP. She was a devout Catholic and all around admirable person. I loved hearing how she celebrates Lent and other holidays and how close she is to her brothers, sisters, and parents. I liked hearing her stories about how long ago her Dad and his friends had the assignment to ring the bells at the Cathedral when the person who usually did it was on vacation. And when the anti-Mormon movie The Godmakers came to town, who was one of the first people to speak out against knocking the Mormons in this way? One of the Catholic priests in a letter to the editor.

I have often wondered why I am not better than my Baptist neighbor since I have a fullness of the gospel while she doesn't. She never says anything negative about anyone and is not contentious, while I....... Well, I'd rather not get into it. It would take WAY too long and I'd never get through a catalogue list of my faults, even if knew all of them. Below is one of the stories the speaker read to us. It was very powerful to me as he read and not so powerful for me when I read it for myself. Still, I wanted to share:


http://www.the-exponent.com/2011/02/02/a-thousand-ways-to-pray/

Wish list

Because I have mentioned once or twice or 20 times that Wilbur never gives me a clue about what he would like for his birthday, Father's Day, Christmas etc., he was giving me gift ideas a couple of days ago. Here they are:

1) A suit like Iron Man's
2) A plane like Iron Man's
3) A Leer Jet in lieu of a plane like Iron Man's

And I have said once or twice or 20 times that anything the man really wants, I can't afford to get him.

Mining Claim

Yesterday Dad and I went four wheeling to the mining claim where Grandpa R spent a lot of his childhood. We found the site of the house, barn, and garden. We also saw part of the entrance to the old drift mine my Dad referred to on the tape he made. We found a few "artifacts" like an old coffee can with holes cut into the bottom, tin, and parts of old logs where the barn had been. We should go on a picnic out there this summer. Wilbur could bring his metal detector and we could see if we could find anything else. Interestingly, some guys who were panning for gold also drove by while we were out there. I guess they must think there is still some gold. My grandfather found some, but over all my Dad's family was dirt poor.

Time with Prudence's Family

Jumping rope with your grandma has one big advantage: She turns the rope all the time and doesn't have to have a turn jumping.

The party.

Playing with a natural boat at the park.

Hugging a big tree after seeing the "witches."

Speedy with his parachuting guy and cuddles staying warm.

Trip Out

Idaho mist a hop, skip, and a jump from Hermione's place

Swans

Overlooking the Columbia. The sign in this area said watch for rattlesnakes. We did. See blog post about scary things.

Whales

Today I went to the beach for a few minutes with Prudence and family and Hermione. There was a cool breeze blowing. To my surprise a large whale made its way through the bay. I heard whales migrate this time of year, but I never thought in a million years I would get to to see one. It was so cool.

Mining is NOT in My Blood

When considering our family history, I've noticed we have quite a few miners in the past 150 years. My Mom's father's family mined coal near Lanark, Rutherglen, Scotland. My Dad's grandfathers came here for the purpose of finding their fortunes extracting gold from the mountains.

Regardless of family history, mining is not in my blood. The idea of crawling into a shaft in the ground for any reason makes me crazy. If any of my ancestors made any money mining, they must have buried it somewhere. My Dad gave me some of his reminiscences about his mining days. These are only a few:

Me: Well, what did you think about mining? Did you like it?

Dad: Oh, well, mining is hard, dangerous work actually. Then I worked for Ed Webber up Ten Mile. They had a Ten Mile above Rimini, up there, sampling one summer.

Becky: Bet you had to just stay because it probably was far…

Dad: Oh yeah we stayed there. They furnished us.
Herb Schwabe (sp?) and I were working together up there digging holes down in bedrock and sampling, and they weren’t too deep holes. We dug a number of them. Kept a ledger of what the dirt was like all the way down and a pan to show if there was any colors to speak of, which there weren’t. Most of that stuff had been worked out, you know. We did that for most of this one summer. And then up ‘til…well the first day of hunting season which was the 15th of October, we got a big snow storm. I went hunting that day, it was a Sunday, I think. It snowed all day long. I didn’t see a thing. I got back that night. It snowed about, oh, a foot and a half that day. And the next day, when it quit snowing then, it was so deep, we really couldn’t get out with our truck – with that little ole model A Ford truck. And we walked up over the hill. He had another outfit that was settin’ up a washing machine rig up under the head of Colorado Mountain – up near Chessman reservoir up in there. So we walked up the hill in the snow, through the snow, got into snow clear up to here coming up through there. Walked up there. Then we stayed there a few days. Then the snow melted, and they brought us around in the truck and back up. We got the other truck and came back around and up there. And then we worked with them the rest of the fall until Thanksgiving up there. They got that washing rig set up.

Me: What’s a washing rig?

Dad: Oh, a machine, actually it’s just a glorified mechanical sluice box. They had a drag line, you know, that’s what they call these dirt shovels. It was an old one only they had a real long boom on it. They’d bring this drag line bucket out and they’d take and turn it loose and swing it and it’d drop out and drop down in and then they take and drag it full and it get the bucket full and pick it up and swing it over and dump it into the top of this washing machine into the hopper. And the the water was pumped up through there and would wash it. Then they throw the ole rocks in it. Had sort of a trammel that would run the big rocks out and the fine stuff would take and go down and wash through the washing machine and catch in the riffles below. They run that through. They’d clean up every few days. And in that month they took out about.. Well. they had a quart jar and they had about that much gold in it.

Me: About a half or a third of a quart jar?

Dad: Well, about a third of a quart jar of gold. They figured about $2500 at the old price of gold

Me: Did they figure that was worth it?

Dad: No, it wasn’t.

Happy Birthday Eglantine and Hermione!

Life would not be as rich without you in it!

Wherein I Attend a Writers' Group

Over the years, many family members have encouraged me to write. I like to write, but I don’t know if I have enough talent to go anywhere with it. Last week, Prudence encouraged me to think about writing again, in the name of putting together a retirement. The next day the radio blared out that a writer’s group meets once a month at the Library. Was this coincidence? Or was it encouragement from another source? I decided I’d better check out the Library writers’ group.

Now, I’ve always been a little leery of artist groups of any brand. The stereo-typical artists’ group as portrayed by the media always consists of a few brooding members of humanity that spew out dark and profound works in attempts to garner respect from the art world. Their motto seems to be: Let’s find out how disgusting we can be. I am not a “serious” writer. I get nauseated easily, and getting grossed out and depressed listening to a pack of brooding artists seems like a lousy way to spend an evening. However, I decided to put my stereo typical conclusions aside and give the writers’ group a shot.

By the time the third writer began reading his work, I realized being shot would be easier that giving this group a shot. The first writer was a Michael Moore look-alike. Michael Moore is the whiny director who seems to feel habitually ill-used and therefore nit picks at our country. In fairness, the first writer seemed like he had a much more class than Michael Moore. He shared with us his idea for a screen play that he has ostensibly written, along with a letter to Steven Spielberg asking Spielberg to read the script. I didn’t like to say so, but the idea sounded remarkably like the series Stargate Atlantis’ final season.

We moved on to writer Number 2. This man’s countenance reflected that he was a very good, kind man. I think he must have been lonely, or health problems might have fogged his thinking. He wanted to help us all become published. He shared with us his published works: letters to the editor. He had several tips for getting published – in the letters to the editor section of the newspaper.

And then contestant Number Three shared. He was a nice looking blondish, artsy man with cubic zirconium rings on one hand and turquoise rings on the other and a necklace. He was writing a book in the style of Genet and some other off-beat writers. I looked up Genet later to find that Genet was thrown in prison for life at one point being a habitual offender. Genet’s history put Number Three’s offering into context. Even with this work in context, plugging my ears and breathing to drown out his voice was the only way I could get through the ordeal. After hearing that work, I conclude that the F-word is the most versatile word in the English language. It can be a noun. It can be a verb. And it can be combined with any other word in the dictionary to form a compound word.

Meanwhile, the Library staff member assigned to lead the group is acting as cheerleader. And she just LOVES everything!

After a college student read an unexceptional, but difficult to understand, short story he was working on, the last group member unveiled his work. He was a short, slim man with longish dark brown hair and brown eyes. He had played the part of expert, in a kind way, throughout the workshop, giving with dramatic flair suggestions and tips to everyone. Unlike some of the others, I could understand his writing. But it was awful writing just the same. A few parts made me wonder if I had stumbled into the eighth grade boys’ bathroom.

I don’t believe I will be attending that writers’ group again. The moral of the story is: A writers’ group could be a good idea, but not the one at the library!

Sking at Seeley

We went Skiing yesterday at Seeley Lake. It was fun! The snowpack looks good for this year.

Scary

Here is my top ten scary list:

10) Being at the top of an extremely steep road that is on a side slope inside a boulder field. There is snow and ice. You husband is waiting at the bottom for you to follow him down. You wonder if he has insured your life for a lot of money

9) It is winter and night is falling. You have cross country skied all day long and are exhausted. You realize there is no way you can ski back to the trailhead.

8) The Bishop says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” The nursery leader position is open.

7) You have to venture into your High School student’s room because there are no more clean towels in the house.

6) Flying over the ocean.

5) The Kirby vacuum salesman.

4) Your teenager says, “Will you love me no matter what I do?”

3) You are hiking. Down the trail you see several warning signs: Watch out for Rattlesnakes.

2) You are in the grocery store and can’t find your four-year-old.

1) The biggest gossip in the entire stake has discovered Facebook. She wants to friend you.

The Miracle of the Kitchen Cupboards

Tonight, I started to write about the miracle of the kitchen cupboards. But all the details of the story took up too much room for a blog post. I haven't thought about the miracle of the kitchen cupboards for years. How ridiculous that I allow myself to spend so much time dwelling on negative events, but let years go by and don't think about some of the wonderful miracles and blessings I've had in my life. Here are just a few of my miracles:

1) The kitchen cupboards on Diamond Springs
2) Eglantine's surgery
3) Getting out of debt
4) Miracle blessings from having missionaries on missions
5) Tender mercies associated with Stacy's death
6) Becoming friends with a woman my distant cousin converted while he was on his mission in our area. This ended up being quite a story.

This week I resolve to spend some time everyday writing down some of these stories and thinking about these miracles.

The Skiing WAS Great

My friend and I went cross country skiing Friday, just before the winds were scheduled to hit 30 or 40 mph. The skiing was wonderful. It was even more wonderful that I got new skis. When I took my old skis into be waxed, the technician told me I had worn all the edges off them. Actually, I don't think those skis ever had good edges. Anyway, no edges accounts for difficulty stopping. I learned an unorthodox way to control my speed: put all my weight on one ski while putting the other ski in front and using it like a plow to stop me. I will teach this technique to anyone with edgeless skis. Although, I recommend skis with edges over stopping this way. I love being able to do a normal snowplow to stop and slow down!