October 14, 1944

A couple of months ago I stumbled upon a packet of letters that my Dad wrote to my Mom during WWII.  Dad was drafted in the middle of the war.  At first, no one wanted him because of his bad eyesight.  But as the war progressed, he was put into service.  In spite of his bad eyesight, he scored at the top of the enlisted men for marksmanship.  Evidently, growing up at York and hunting helped him develop some useful wartime skills.   He told me once that they gave him an IQ test and he tested at 130.  The Army Air Corps found a place for him in a unit keeping track of troop movements. The unit used primitive computers with punch cards.  As his time in the service progressed, he was soon supervising the work of other men in the unit.   I can see why he was valuable.  He was slow and deliberate, but I doubt if he missed many mistakes.  The unit received a commendation for their accurate work. Here is a the first page of one of the letters.  If you click on it, you should be able to see the entire image.

Women Rule

In order to promote world peace, all male leaders should replaced with mother and grandmothers of two children or more.  Mothers and grandmothers do NOT like to see their children get hurt.  This objective of keeping everyone safe would lead women to stamp out all war.  If two countries disagreed, their new female leaders would quit speaking to each other instead.

These mothers and grandmothers would ensure that everyone played nice and shared. Nasty, dangerous armaments would all be shot into space where no one could grab them and get hurt.  Instead of a world conference on anything, we women would institute a world service project and actually get something done, not just talk about getting something done.  

Since there would be no war, we would have more time and resources to put into raising crops.  World hunger would be a thing of the past.  The raising of crops that produce food and fabric would prosper, as well as soap producers.

Any other ideas about what the world would be like if we put these women in charge?

Wanted: Grandchildren

Duties include:  catching frogs. four wheeling, swimming in the lake, helping grandpa light the campfire,  helping grandma fish, looking for flowers and interesting things while hiking, and telling stories around the campfire.  Apply immediately.

Mossy trees 

View from a hilltop when fourwheeling

Wilbur and Prairie Smoke

Reverently fishing prior to church on Sunday

18 inch trout that flipped over and ditched the hook

Baby frogs on the bank in the lake

Butterfly that looks like tree bark

Hells Angel

Gentian

Nature made a face on this rock we found while hiking

Goldenrod

The lake we aren't telling anyone about

Keeping Peace in the Family

I believe harmony in the family is of the utmost importance, particularly with the SILs (Sons in law) and my only DIL (daughter in law).

To refrain from annoying my DIL, Shelley, I have decided not to ask Orville if he wants me to send him his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pillowcases.  No, Orville, they will NOT look great on your bed.  To avoid from being a prime irritant to Petunia's husband I pledge to NOT come for a month long vacation, even though traveling to their house takes three days.  In order to keep peace with Boris, I pledge to forgo mentioning to Eglantine sales involving stuffed animals.  I solemnly swear not to tell Flash's kids how fun I think running a marathon would really be.   And Hermione next time you leave your purse at the Staggering Ox, I will pretend something like that has NEVER happened before.


So when I irritate you, just remember that I don't mean to, and I am trying my best.  From the book of Prairie Smoke Chapter 5:3 "He who hath never irritated anyone, let him first cast a stone."

A Day in the Tobacco Roots

If you will all swear yourselves to secrecy, I will tell you where we went yesterday.  No telling until I get an oath because I'm not telling anyone else but family.

We four wheeled to about a half mile to a high mountain lake.  It's elevation was close to 9000 feet.    

Before arriving at the lake, we investigated a high mountain meadow with elk hoof prints and flowers.  The importance of this meadow is that it was there I discovered that I own a macro lens for my camera.  For seven years I've owned a lens that said super wide angle on one part and macro on another.  I could easily tell the lens was a wide angle.  The macro part made zero sense to me.  Who ever heard of a wide agle macro lens?  Yesterday, knowing it couldn't possibly work,  I put my camera about two inches from a flower yesterday and found that the macro part was for real.  This is superb!!!

Anyway, back to the outing.  The high lake had flowers, fish, and rock slides.  I mentioned to Wilbur that the map showed other lakes above the first lake we hiked into.  Being slightly deranged, I suggested to Wilbur that we take the short way to the higher lake:  around the lake, across the rock slide, up a hill that was a pile of rocks with a stream running down it that is almost a waterfall.  The hill was only a breath away from needing rock climbing equipment.  

In the middle of the rock slide, I decided I made a big mistake.  But having talked Wilbur into it, he insisted we continue.  Two hours later, we arrived at the higher lakes.  They were smaller, but even more fabulous!   

Dreading the trip down, we walk a little to the right and found an old road that was not very rocky. Using this road, it took only fifteen minutes to descend to the lower lake.  Next time, I'm investigating more before picking a route, particularly in country filled with mines.

I am posting a few picture here.  There are more on my hiking blog.

On Perfection

There is a lady in my social circle who irritates me because I think she abuses any authority she thinks she has.  Recently, she called up several sisters and told them that, contrary to the General Handbook of Instructions, a phone call or letter was no longer acceptable and would not be counted as visiting teaching. Hence forth, only personal visits would be counted.  This individual is not the RS President but has some involvement with Visiting Teaching.   Later, I got a phone call from a person in the Presidency informing me that phone calls, emails, and letters would be counted as Visiting Teaching.  I guess the word got out about the unauthorized policy change, so the RS President had to repair things.

Since I've been hot, tired, and cranky, I was stewing about the gall of this authority-abusing person.    "Who  in tarnation does she think she is?"  I fumed.  Then, I thought about how often I've been mortified in retrospect with my own actions.  I shake my head and wonder, "Was I crazy?  Why did I do something so ridiculous?"  I'm sure my goofy behavior has afforded an abundance of entertainment for others.

I started to laugh as I thought about the humorous aspects of the current situation and other situations involving this person.  I contemplated a perfect world with perfect people.  Holy Smoke! How dull!  There goes half my entertainment!  I guess I'm not ready for perfect people or a perfect world yet.

Fourth of July Visitors

The whole thing is very illogical, but maybe I don't have all the facts.  We have had several years of very dry winters and miserable fire seasons.  Fourth of July fireworks have never been banned, even when I thought they should be.  Maybe because of a late June fire a few miles to the north, or maybe because officials are wising up, we could not have fireworks this year.  Permitted professional fire works shows could take place, though.

Our fourth of July visitors attended a Parade in Great Falls and showed up here in the afternoon with flags and fans.  We drove our truck to a tall hill and put lawn chairs in the back while we watched a fabulous fireworks display in a town five miles away.  It was terrific!

Then Boris prepared to go to some training.  When I go to training, I sit in the conference room of a hotel try to stay awake for six hours.  Boris' training is a little different than that. 

On Saturday, Eglantine, Peanut, Casper, and I shopped at the farmers market.  After Casper's nap, we played on a sandbar in the creek with buckets and shovels until a flash of lighting and a crack of thunder directly overhead scared the living daylights out of us. We ran for it!

Sunday we attended church and had our tradition chili for lunch.  During lunch, Peanut imparted following information about his sister:

Peanut:  Our baby will want a costume.

Eglantine:   What kind of costume do you think she will want?

Peanut:  She will want a batman costume!

Hope everyone had a great 4th!

Fishing Excuses

We floated the Blackfoot yesterday and I made the mistake of attempting to fish.  I am the kind of angler you see once in a century.  I lost two lures, one right after another.  Then, I ran out a 150 feet  fishing line off Wilbur’s reel and into the river.   I wrapped line all the way around the raft twice and around the oar and oar lock when the raft went into a spin and I couldn’t reel in.  Let’s face it, I should only fish under Wilbur’s strict supervision.  And he’ll only supervise if I bribe him with cookies. Dave caught a fish near the end of the trip, so we know there are fish in the river.  

Below are only a few of the reasons we came up with for not-so-great fishing.

1)  The moon is not in the right phase.


2)  All the fish are on the other side of the river.


3)  The water is too clear.

4)  The water is too muddy

5)  It's too early in the day.

6)  It's too late in the day

7)  I brought the wrong pole.

8)  I brought the wrong bait.

9)  The fish are napping.

10)  Jehovah's Witnesses are tracting the river, and the fishing are hiding out.

Sound of Silence

The last of my children and grandchildren just left.  The silence here is deafening.

The Rest of the Summer

The fun crowd is leaving.  What will I do for the rest of the summer?

The Rules of Pro Basketball Viewing

Here are the rules of pro basketball viewing according to Wilbur:

1)  Any game in which the Lakers are the losing team is a good game.

2)  Pro basketball has TV viewing precedence over other programs during the finals.

3)  The phone will not be answered during the last half of the fourth quarter.

4)  Upsets are fun!

Values

Henry Byrd

Born 29 Aug 1849, Smithville, Platte County, Missouri

Died 18 March 1923, Millegan, Cascade County, Montana

A friend was telling me about some of the language and expressions used in her family as she grew up.  While my family was far from perfect, I felt grateful that crude language and expressions would not have been tolerated in my family.  My Dad, uncles, and grandfather were particular about what they said when women were present.  As I reflect on it, I believe both my Mom and Dad came from people with class. Below is family history recorded by Nellie Byrd who knew Henry and Robin Byrd (my father's great uncles).  Punctuation is as recorded in the document.

Uncle Henry, who was 56 when I first remember him, was even then gray-headed.  In Southern families the oldest son was always the head of the family when the father was gone.  All our lives Uncle Robin and Dad always consulted Uncle Henry about everything.

Uncle Henry was slender, probably about 5'8" or 5'9", tall and walked with a slight limp, as he had a broken leg when young and it healed shorter than the other leg.  He was a kind and loving man and very proper.  He had been raised very properly and expected us to uphold the Byrd name.  He always felt responsible for the rest of his family.  I asked Daddy why he never married and he told me that once Henry was very much in love with a young woman and had given her a ring.  He was gone during the summer, herding his cattle in the mountains, and when he returned, he found she had been unfaithful to him.  He went to see her and confronted her with it and she admitted it was true and returned his ring.  Dad (John Byrd Jr.) remembered seeing him come home and he threw the ring in a manure pile.  Anyway, he was never close to any other women.

He had large blue eyes that twinkled and smile wrinkles around them, lots of soft gray hair and mustache and chin whiskers, kept trimmed.  He rode like cavalry man.

His word was his bond and he expected everyone else to be the same.  He lent people money, which some did not repay.

An Important Lesson I Learned from My Mom

I was probably about thirteen years old when our phone rang one day.  Our main phone was a black dial telephone with a curly cord mounted to the wall in the kitchen.  Mom was in the kitchen when the call came in.  The call was for me.

 My recollection is hazy at best, but I seem to remember that it was a call from one of my Young Women Leaders.  The leader wanted me to to do something for mutual.  I can't even remember what she wanted, but I remember clearly that I  did NOT want to do it.  To avoid excuses or conflict, I agreed to do what was asked and hung up, fully intending not to follow through.

Mom turned around from her work at the counter and asked, "Are you going to do that?"

"No."  I replied.

Then, came the lesson.  Mom explained to me, "If you have no intention of doing what she asked you to do, call her right away and tell her.  Then, she can find someone else to do it.  It is very poor character to agree to do something when you have no intention of doing it.  "


This probably seems like a no-brainer, or an insignificant episode, but it was an important lesson to me about keeping my word and honesty.  The fact that I remember it so many years later highlights it's importance.

(Mom is the third nurse in from the right in the picture.)

Gardening

Good gardening gloves are important

Grandkid Quiz

Guess who:

1)  LOVES the movie Cars
2)  Has a sword as his favorite toy
3)  Wanted a Hermione costume from Harry Potter outfit for Christmas
4) Spearheaded an illegal effort chop branches off my Mountain Ash tree (now deceased - the tree, not the kid).
5) Has green as a favorite color and blue as a second favorite color.
6)  Aspires to be a nurse because nurses rock babies.
7)  Builds huge towers with magnetos
8) Attended her parent's graduation (two answers to this one).
9)  Birthstone is a pearl.
10) Was born on a holiday (two answers to this one).
11) Made paper airplanes and tried to sell them to the neighborhood instead of operating a lemonade stand.
12)  Replaces dolls with crayons and  dresses the crayons.
13)  Helps her father get ready for work by handing him his razor, contact lense solution, and toothbrush.
14)  Will live in a townhouse.

They Did It!!!!!

We now have a Mathematician and an Electrical Engineer in the Family.  These new grads will even us out since we had so many Language and Speech grads.

A Grandchild of the Depression

I am still coming to grips with the death of my toaster. My sister-in-law gave us the toaster as a wedding present over thirty years ago. Deep inside me, a voice insists that a decent person would need only one toaster in a lifetime. If I had cleaned old bread crumbs out of it daily and taken it in for routine check- ups, the toaster would still be alive and well, burning toast in my kitchen. Trashing that toaster suggests a lack of character and a degree of moral depravity in me that I am loath to face. I am a grandchild of the depression.


While eating strained peas in my highchair, my depression-raised parents imprinted the idea in my little brain that possessions should never wear out if you take proper care of them. An iron, a living room couch, and a crock pot, are lifetime investments. Just like a piece of real estate at the lake, they should never wear out. If they do well…. there is no stronger evidence of low character than an appliance that checks out before I do.

As a grandchild of the depression, I was thirty before I was spendthrift enough to purchase a store-bought dress. It took all my resolve to do it. I was squandering money on a department store dress when I knew I could make a dress that looked half as good for 1/3 the cost . My guilt didn’t quite kill me, but it was a month before I could shake the feeling that I needed to confess this dark deed to my ecclesiastical authority.

When I first married I unwillingly inherited many of my parents’ possessions that fell into their category “too good to be thrown away.” These possessions had burned out electronic tubes of enormous proportions, were full of rust, or had dinosaur scales from the Cretaceous period. I knew if I kept this junk around my home would look like a cross between a landfill and what is left in the wake of a killer tornado. Since I didn’t want hate mail from Goodwill, I couldn’t take the stuff there. And I felt a little an evil corporation that goes to the woods, clear cuts a thousand acres and leaves the timber to rot on the ground if I hauled these mill stones to the dump.

Fortunately, the man of the family utterly tuned out my Depression Era parents’ scruples. No advice about how he had an obligation to fix a swing set my parents bought in 1964 swayed him. He just wanted the pile of rust gone. And he handled the forthcoming inquisition about what he did with the junk with aplomb. A Saturday morning, a pickup truck, and he made short work of any junk my parents couldn’t handle throwing away. No wonder I like this guy.

Dad Stories

A month ago on March 9 was my Dad's birthday. Here are a few stories some stories about him.

Dad worked for a surveyor one summer during the Great Depression. Rest was in short supply. Darkness falls late in the summer anyway, and the surveyor had to stay up until the North Star was visible. He set up his surveying instruments using the North Star.

During this summer, Sunday was the only day off for the surveyor, Dad, and one other man employed by the surveyor. One Sunday the surveyor drove Dad and his fellow employee to a picnic area to spend Sunday. Dad and the other employee made friends with a group of Italians from Butte who were having a picnic. Dad and his cohort were having so much fun they decided to stay when the surveyor left to drive back to their camp for the evening. Night fell and Dad and his fellow employee had to walk all night long to get back to the camp. They arrived the next morning just in time to start work.

When Dad was in High School he and his brother Gene were regulars at the “Broadwater Plunge,” a swimming pool created after the prestigious Broadwater Hot Springs went defunct. Since they didn’t have any money, they worked as life guards and cleaned the pool area for swimming privileges. I remember my Aunt Win, Dad’s older sister, heatedly recalling how Dad and Gene would leave her home with dishes to wash while they slipped off to swim.

I remember that Dad did not like Irishmen much. He wasn’t one to speak ill of anyone, so I was startled when he told me Irishmen were a bunch of drunks. At work, Dad had a man named Flanagan he supervised during one period of time. From phone calls I overhead at home, I gathered Flanagan was a complete idiot. During Flanagan’s employment Dad received phone calls at home often because Flanagan was always dropping off or picking up mail in the wrong place. It was the only time I ever remember Dad getting work calls at home. Perhaps Flanagan led to Dad’s disdain for the Irish.

Maybe Dad didn’t suffer fools gladly because he was a very smart man. His army IQ test was 130 or more. He read constantly and loved buying books on birds and animals. When he stayed with us during his illness, he loved reading an archeology magazine I bought for the kids' band fund raiser. He LOVED reading books by Louis L’Amour. I can’t think of any topic he didn’t know something about. He loved the outdoors and went hunting and fishing often, usually near York where he grew up.

I am glad I asked him about our family history because Dad was not normally very talkative. If I hadn’t asked, he never would have told me.

Uncles Les, Dad, Uncle Gene at my grandparents' house

Smoke and Basketball in the Butte Civic Center

March madness basketball coupled with a trip to Butte for dinner with friends resurrected some memories about the Western Divisional Basketball Tournament when I was in high school. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Western Division tournament was always in the Butte Civic Center. The Butte Civic Center was only place the boys played basketball where smoking was permitted. It was a smoking free for all. Smoking was allowed any time and any place in the civic center. It seemed like every adult in the place was a six pack a day smoker. Since it was a divisional basketball tournament, the building was packed. We would watch boys dribbling, shooting, and running through a blue-gray haze of cigarette smoke. One team had oxygen for its players. I remember seeing a couple of the team’s players pulled out of the game for an 15 minute oxygen break. Even as a high school student, I was appalled that adults in charge were OK with this situation.


During that same time period, my Mom and Dad decided to take in a divisional basketball tournament game in Butte. They brought my little sister who was not yet in high school. Mom, a nurse who worked with people dying of emphysema, was horrified to see the basketball players physically exerting themselves in the thick cigarette smoke of the Butte Civic Center.

To understand why this story is memorable, you need to understand my parent’s personalities. Mom was a pistol. She was a champion of good health, especially when it came to the drinking and smoking. She did not tolerate abject stupidity. Mom didn’t respect authority just because it was authority. When authority sanctioned stupidity, compromised safety, or endorsed what was harmful, she had no compunction about raising Hell.

Dad was another story. Dad was 6’2 with a solid build. He had big, thick hands and feet, a barrel chest, and a placid disposition. He had more tolerance for people’s foibles and if he thought someone was an idiot, he merely ignored them and avoided them. I rarely remember him saying anything unkind about anyone. I never knew him to start an argument or provoke a scene of any kind.  He was a humble, church-going man.

So these two diverse personalities and my sister, Colleen, sat watching a basketball game through smoke-filled haze of the Butte Civic Center. A couple of spectators seated themselves in front of my family and proceeded to light up. This misguided couple picked the wrong seat to enjoy a quiet smoke during the basketball game. My Mom asked the couple how they thought those kids playing basketball court were supposed to breathe in a building reeking with cigarette smoke. The couple flung down the gauntlet. Their position was that smoking was permitted, they were going to smoke, and there wasn’t a thing my Mom could do about it. Never one to meekly accept defeat, Mom, accompanied by Colleen, stood up and grabbed their winter coats.  They created the civic center's newest ventilation system, using the coats as large and visible fans to blow the smoke away from them. Every smoker in the entire Civic Center must have had a view of the proceedings. The man of the smoking couple turned around and threatened my Mom. Where upon my quiet, peaceable father raised his huge, anvil-like fist and let it be understood that if the smoking spectators disturbed my Mom in any way, Dad would settle the matter in the traditional Butte manner.

Evidently, the couple thought better of pressing the issue. Aunt Colleen would have further details about the couple’s subsequent actions since she was there. Not long after, smoking in the Butte Civic Center was prohibited.

I'm Brilliant

Peanut and I were at the park.  We were running our cars down the slide when I suggested, "Let's race our cars and see which one is fastest."

"That," he said, pausing for emphasis, "is a brilliant idea."