National Corporations and Magical Thinking

It's astonishing to me that large corporations ever evolved.  They really stink when it comes to efficiency, flexibility, and common sense.  For instance, the old Helena Cable TV was bought by Bresnan which was later bought by  Charter.  There are underground lines for Charter cable TV in the ground a stone's throw from my house.  But do you think I can get cable?  Nope.  Someday, if the cable company decides to expand 150 yards down the road to my place,  I can have cable.  I'm not sure what the deciding factor would be for this business expansion.  Does a committee back East somewhere sit down and consult with an astronomer to see if the moon is in the right phase?  Or does a decision to expand 150 yards have to do with the CEO getting his favorite Java at Starbucks in the morning?  This is a mystery.

I don't know much about cable TV, but I am reasonably certain that if the old cable TV company were still in operation, they would have run the cable to our house.  That business was run by people with reasoning ability.  They probably didn't spend their days gazing at computer generated sales models, but they possessed a modicum of common sense.  If they knew I wanted cable, they would have worked something out because they would see me as a person and a customer, not a statistic. A small company had the flexibility to make decisions on a case by case basis. They wouldn't crawl through a chain of command starting in my home town and ending up in Los Angeles to figure out whether or not to give me service.

Department stores that decide "one size fits all"  in the name of efficiency are another example of corporate stupidity.  A radio broadcast that mentioned J.C. Penny's had dubious sales reports didn't surprise me.  I used to buy a lot clothes at J.C. Penny's.  Then, the Corporate head decided to take the decision of what individual stores stocked out of the hands of the local store manager.  An employee told me that every store everywhere has to stock the same merchandise.  This decision decimated our local Penny's formerly excellent lingerie department, so I had to shop elsewhere.  Then came the spring when I saw the store stock numerous spring shades of men's sport coats in lilac, pink, yellow, and robin's egg blue.  I knew a huge sale on sport coats would be coming soon.  Sport coats in those shades may have been real sellers in Baltimore, but anyone who lived in my hometown would tell you that you couldn't give those jackets away here.  They had the sale, but the men shopping in my town decided to save 100% when it came to those jackets.

Call me a bird brain, but shipping merchandise thousands of miles only to ship it back again when it doesn't sell, doesn't seem like a way to make money.

It seems like when businesses get big, they lose contact with the the basic principles of commerce. Most people don't buy what they don't want, no matter how catchy the ad campaign. Big businesses kid themselves into thinking that what is easy for the business is the best course, and that the business can magically get customers to buy whatever the store decides to sell.  Earth to corporations:  we may live in the sticks, but we don't buy stuff we don't want.

Preparing for the Arrival of Small Children

While other grandmothers prepare for the arrival of grandchildren by removing the porcelain figurines from the end tables or locking the glass display case, I am rounding up my rocks.  My rocks have been stored in two boxes and a metal can in a bottom cabinet in the kitchen.  They are some of my most prized possessions, and my grandchildren are every bit as fascinated with them as I am.  Sad experience has taught me that children lose rocks and some rocks break.  That is why I now shove them in a box on my bedroom closet shelf when the grand kids come.

Other women buy Precious Moments figurines, vases from Italy worth thousands of dollars, and sapphire earrings.  I collect plain, unaltered rocks. Usually, the only thing I spend for them is time.  Obviously, my husband encourages this kind of collecting over jewelry and figurines.  My rocks are not necessarily interesting or valuable to anyone except me.  When I am hiking, I love to take a rock home to remember the hike.

Then, I have the rocks I inherited,  My grandmother, Maude Brodock Robertson, was an enthusiastic rock hound, according to my father.  She found the shark's tooth pictured above on a mine dump in Oregon Gulch.  I have three big seashells from her collection. I'm guessing she bought them on a trip to California for a religious convention.

Besides my rock hound grandmother, three or more of my ancestors were gold miners.  I guess you could say they liked rocks -the right kind of rocks.  Watching my grandchildren, I gather that a love for rocks is an inherited trait.

Sometime during the children's visit, I will bring out the rocks for an hour one day, and the grandchildren and I will all admire them.  We will celebrate our fascination with rocks.  I wouldn't trade my rocks for all the artistically created jewelry and vases made.  My rocks are more interesting and a lot less stressful.

Broomfield: The Town No One Calls Home

A not very good picture of one of Broomfield work-type buildings

So here I am for my 4th day in Broomfield trying to find my way around.  I ditched my Denver area map in favor of the local chamber of commerce map.  The Denver area map had so many streets that finding anything was comparable to sifting through my flour bin in search of one granule of flour.

The chamber of commerce map asserts that Broomfield is a planned community.  I am beginning to think the plan was to push visiting drivers to the brink of insanity.  Either that or the community does NOT like to waste names.  As we are driving around, we encounter Interlocken Loop, Interlocken Parkway, Interlocken Cresecent, and Interlocken Boulevard.  There are several street  names used over and over with a different suffix attached.

Driving all these streets with the same first name coupled with the community plan of having streets loop and circle around each other reminds me of square dancing instead of driving.

Since we don't know the area, we find ourselves asking questions such as, "Do you know where there is a laundromat?"  etc.  Nine out of ten times the response is, "I am not from here.  I just work here.  I don't know."  So here we have Wal Mart employees, gas station attendants, business customers, but none of them are from Broomfield.  Here are some of my questions:  where do the people from Broomfield work, shop, and hide out?  Are babies born and raised in Broomfield, or is the common method to import people to inhabit  the town when they reach age 21?  After the imports move in here are they advised to shop in other cities?

In spite of my frustrations as a visitor without kith or kin to advise me, Broomfield is a clean, new, nice community.

Greetings

Yesterday we arrived in Broomfield, Colorado for my  knee stem cell procedure.  So far it's been an interesting experience.

We reserved what we thought would be a nice hotel room.  Note to self:  if the hotel policy is that they are going to charge you, even if you don't take the room when you arrive and decide to stay somewhere else, you probably aren't going to like the room.

The hotel is kind of run down.   I thought a room on the second floor would be the quietest.  When the owner showed us the second floor room and started the heater/air conditioner it sounded like a bulldozer was waiting to plow through the exterior wall.  I almost started crying. He relocated us to a downstairs room that has a quiet heater/ air conditioner. We can't open the windows because they are old and cruddy.  The room smells like, well like an old hotel room.  I chose this hotel because the man assured me it was quiet.  Well, it is quiet, has space around it, and has Direct TV and Wifi.  Sometimes I wish I didn't have such a super sniffer.

This morning at 10:00 am I talked to the doc.  I think they schedule too much time for the initial visit.  The doc chatted on forever about the Paleo diet, why the China Study isn't accurate and the author is biased. I guess we had to find something to talk about for an hour. To my way of thinking the Paleo diet is nothing but the Atkins diet with an organic foods twist to it.  I saw in the 1970's and again a few years ago that the Atkins diet is no good.

For the procedure, I was a pin cushion.  A Physical Therapist did a form of acupuncture, I had blood drawn, and then platelets were re-injected into my knees.

This clinic has state of the art ultra sound.  The doc looked at my MRIs and then did an ultra sound.  When he re-injected the platelets, he had a ultrasound device that showed him exactly where the tears were and exactly where to put his needle to inject the platelets.  I could see it on the screen too. It was cool!

More tomorrow about street naming practices of Broomfield, Co and how to dutch oven there.

Emergency Preparedness

A few interesting things I learned from attending an Emergency Preparedness Seminar yesterday:

1) If you need to store oil but are tired of it turning rancid before you can use it up, store Crisco.  It will store indefinitely if unopened and kept in a cool, dark place.  If it melts, it doesn't store, though.

2) Studies show that people who are "sick"  of a food, will starve rather than keep eating it.  This is called appetite fatigue.

3)  Liven up food storage meals with : Mapleline, white flour (making sauces), bacon bits (3 year shelf life).
Parmesan Cheese ( a shelf life of a few years), Processed cheese , e.g. Old English Processed cheese spread).

4) Look for PETE on the bottom of plastic containers of food you buy at the grocery store.  If the bottles have screw on lids, you can use them to store food after they have been washed and dried.

5)  Learned from Hurricane Katrina:  Make a card for each family member with : a) their picture, b) name, birthdate, address, phone, parent's names (for children) c) family meeting place in and out of state, d)edical conditions and allergies.  Laminate the card and attach it to a lanyard.  Wear it inside your shirt in an emergency.

6)  Learned from hurricane Katrina:  buy a money belt and wear it around your waist.  The not so nice people in New Orleans, stole back packs.

O.A. Robertson Obituary

This week I was fortunate enough to find my great grandfather's obituary on page 8 of the Great Falls Tribune, June 9, 1926.  I don't know who wrote it, but it would be fun to find out if all the information is true.  When you read the obituary, you will understand my post about the family tales of lost treasure.

FUNERAL RITES CONDUCTED FOR O.A. ROBERTSON

Early Day Freighter, Miner and Rancher Dies at Advanced Age

Oscar A. Robertson, resident of Montana since 1964, who sluiced more than a half a million dollars worth of gold from the famous gulches of the territory and who later freighted and finally became a rancher, was buried Tuesday afternoon in Highland Cemetery.  The services were held at the W.H. George chapel, the Rev. S.C. Williams of the Presbyterian church officiating.  Mr. Robertson died June 6 at his home at 2007 Seventh avenue north [sic].

Norfolk, Va., was the native place of Oscar A. Robertson. [This is inaccurate. Alexandria, Virginia is the place he was born, according to O.A. himself.]  He was born September 20, 1843.  When the gold rush began in Montana he drove a six mule team from Omaha to Denver, then to Virginia City, arriving July 9, 1864.  He had a claim in the famous Alder Gulch from which was taken out $300,000 in gold dust.  In the spring of 1866 he went to Last Chance gulch, [sic] the present site of Helena.  Then he moved to Diamond City, east of Helena, one of the most productive camps in the west, and then to York gulch, north of Helena, where his placer operations brought him $25,000.  Also he acquired a mining claim at French bar near York, where he was in partnership with Samuel Hauser, an early day governor of the territory, and T.H. Kleinschmidt of Helena.  From this claim he took a large amount of gold dust.

February 8, 1872, Rose Byrd of York became Mr. Robertson's bride, and from this union two sons, O.D. Robertson and J.B. Robertson of Helena, were born.  Mrs. Robertson died at French Bar, March 17, 1878.

Following the mining operations, Mr. Robertson was engaged in freighting from Corrine, Utah to Helena and from Helena to Fort Benton, having several  16 mule teams engaged in this business. He later obtained extensive interests in quartz mines in the York district and in other mining camps.

In 1887, Mr. Robertson moved to the Smith river country, settling near Millegan, where he went into the cattle and horse business.  April 12, 1913, Miss Jennie B. Johnson was married to Mr. Robertson, who resided with him on the Millegan ranch until they recently moved to Great Falls.

In his freighting enterprise Mr. Robertson had an experience as an Indian fighter. This occurred in a canyon in Idaho when the redskins attacked his wagon train.  As a follower of mining, he participated in the stampedes at Sun River, Karabo, Yogo and Virginia City, Nev.  In the Sun River stampede the temperature dropped to 40 degrees below zero and several men were frozen to death.

Mr. Robertson was the proprietor of a meat market in Helena in the early days.  The market adjoined the old Gazette building near where the R.C. Wallace store now is.  He also had a meat market at York from 1871 to 1872.  He is survived by the widow and two sons.

O.A. Robertson's Meat Market  in Helena between Watson Brothers and J.H. Curtis businesses.  Although the picture date is 1865.

Cayuse Mining Company.  Not sure of the significance.

Critiholic

I am Montana-Native Endangered Species, and I am a recovering critiholic.  My problems began with my upbringing in a critical home.  However, taking responsibility for my own thoughts and actions is the first step in breaking the addiction cycle.   Therefore, I know my upbringing is no excuse for stigmatizing people as pompous bores when they run meetings over the time allowed.

One way I am trying to improve is refraining from murmured comments about driving that I find annoying.  My standard mumbled comment to a driver who cut me off or waited five seconds to proceed through a green light used to be, “Are you drunk or something?” This practice of murmured comments seemed harmless enough until I made a driving error. When I goofed, I vividly remember little Prudence asking me, “Are you drunk or something?”   I couldn’t help but wonder then if the cultivation of a little more patience and a little less criticism might be in order.

Now that I’m older than the hills and twice as dusty, as the saying goes, I’m giving myself permission to let up on my own blunders a bit when it comes to criticizing.  Leaving a cup of sugar out of the cookie recipe and feeding an entire spool of thread onto the vacuum cleaner brush enough doesn’t precisely qualify me as an idiot…I hope.

I have no doubt that vanquishing criticism will be good for my character.  But the problem of what reaction I should have to annoyances and irritations remains.  For example, how would be the best way to deal with someone who is constantly making me wait.  Should I paste a false smile on my face, go on tranquilizers and lie, “No problem at all.  I LIKE waiting in the foyer of a restaurant for 20 minutes.”  Should I be honest and convey in a kind way that my enthusiasm for waiting for the chronically late is equal to my enthusiasm for bread mold?

One coping strategy I have created has entertainment value.  Keeping with the example of the chronically late, it would be amusing to tell the person to arrive a half hour before I actually plan on meeting them.  Then when they arrive fifteen minutes after the appointed time, I could conceal myself and observe their novel experience as they wait for me. Instead of being irritated, I would gain satisfaction and enjoyment.  

As everyone knows, change is hard.  Now I am realizing that it could also be fun.

Fashion Sense, Western Style

I was looking through some of my grandfather's old pictures.  They depict what cowboys REALLY looked like in the 1800's and early 1900's. My grandfather should have known.  He was one of them.

One of the biggest differences is the cowboy hat.  Notice how the hat has a broad brim and is round, not turned up on the side. Wranglers wanted protection from the sun. Seems to me that the hat being turned up on the sides is probably a Hollywood creation.  My guess is that the side needed to be turned up on the side for movie shooting purposes - getting a good shot of the movie characters.  Here are what early cowboys actually looked like:


Grandpa wrote on the back:  Bill Moodry, champion rider and roper.  The photo is by Kirkland, Cheyenne, Wyoming.

This is a photo of branding by Huffman, a Miles City photographer.  Grandpa had these thumb-tacked to the wall of the kitchen.  He knew some of the people in these photos.

The back of this photo reads:  Beckwith & Bowen, Helena, Montana  The woolly chaps might have been warmer in the winter.

This is a picture of a famous roundup. According to a cousin,  Grand dad gave the original of this one to the museum.  The museum gave him this copy.  Charles Russell, famous cowboy artist and  a friend of Grand dad's is in this picture.  Grand dad also wrote on the back:  Dunc Robertson (grand dad), Highwood Hank, Wallace Storley, Grarz[?], Jerry Philpn, L.B. Taylor.

As you can see, what cowboys actually looked like, differs from the Hollywood version.  

Goodbye Max

Today I had to say goodbye to the best hiking partner I've ever had. He always had room for me in his schedule. He never complained on a hike, and he always wanted to go.

Max was either thirteen or fourteen.  I could never be sure of his age because I "adopted" him from the pound.  I had to pay his bail to adopt him.  Before I took him home, he was a regular at the pound.  After his former family had to pick him up from the pound four or five times, they left him there.  That's were I found him.  I saw him outside, taking air with the other dogs.  He pleaded with me to take him home.  I knew somehow that he was the dog for me, so I adopted him.

The pound workers were disgusted with his former family for not keeping him home.  After I had him for week, I couldn't be critical of the former family anymore.  Max was an escape artist. I think he had claustrophobia too because he hated a fence, a rope, or a closed room.  After being shut in my garden, a pretty good-sized area, he climbed out over the eight foot wire fence and walked down the wood pile.

Max was a favorite with the grandchildren.  I remember my granddaughter Stacy writing a letter to Max.  I didn't get a letter, but Max did.  I could trust him with my grandchildren.  He put up with loads of attention from children and babies, even when he was old.

 Max loved to run. He loved to be completely exhausted. I like to remember his first hike at Nary Time Gulch.  Talk about the joy of living, that was Max on that hike.  Afterwards, he jumped into the truck, dog-tired and happy.   During hikes, he would tear into the trees and across meadows, just for the joy of running and jumping.  Although, there were times when he came sprinting back to me, and I was seriously worried about what was chasing him.  And an encounter he had with a moose once, had me worried about my continued existence on the planet.

I distinctly remember twice when I was hiking and lost the trail.  He located it again for me. His finding the trail made the difference between turning back and continuing on.

Max loved children. He loved attention.  He loved the outdoors. He loved  going wherever we were going.  Goodbye, Max.  Until we meet again.

Public Education

This is probably a damnable heresy, but I am starting to doubt that public education is a good idea. This week, a friend discovered from her 12 year old son that the art teacher had a showed a U-Tube video during class that dealt with the art work of Salvador Dali. In my friend’s view, the art and the narration in the video were about as appropriate for her son as it would be to release rattlesnakes into the classroom for a study of zoology.  

The crux of the problem is widely divergent values that have taken root in our culture since the 1960s. Our nation has lost the moorings of a mostly Christian/religious ethical base. Our morals are rocking like a canoe in a hurricane. As this happens, what's a teacher to do? And what's a parent to do as schools hire teachers from this value vortex? There are parents and teachers who have an established moral code, and they can tell you what the code is. There are parents and teachers who are disciples of churches that teach Hollywood principles, "Do anything you want, and we'll make you feel good about it." There are parents and teachers who advocate anything legal if it promotes achievement, regardless of morals and ethics.  And there are and parents and teachers who simply don't care what goes on as long as no one bothers them. 

With such a wide split in values, morals, and ethics, some young teachers enter the classroom with no more notion of what would be appropriate for children from different value-structures than I have of quantum physics.

Add to the value vortex the artsy philosophy that anything called “art” has merit and therefore is above criticism and the mess gets gooey.  My friend's experience illustrates this values clash.

There are an abundance of people who are desensitized to what used to be a moral “no-brainer.” For instance, when my son was about eleven, we let him sleep over at a friend’s house. He and his buddy spent half the night watching R rate movie after R rated movie.  It never occurred to me that a responsible parent would rent R rated movies for eleven year olds.  It never occurred to them that anyone would object to the movies.

Over the past two decades, this value separation is growing more pronounced.  Case in point:  no ever thought of homeschooling when I was a child.  There were some children who lived on ranches so far from a school that the kids stayed home and took classes over the radio, but that was the extent of homeschooling.  

I don't see how public education can work when those with decided values are mixed with those of shifting values.

The Relaxed Days of Summer

As a kid growing up  in the 1960’s and 70’s, there really wasn’t much to do in our Montana town.  We had no soccer, gymnastics, Grand Street Theater etc.  We didn’t let the lack of organized activities stop us from having fun, though. Without any direction or permission from adults,  the neighborhood children planned and executed  hikes up Mount Ascension, baseball games, tennis (in the street) and kickball, to name a few of our sports.  Neighborhood children worked together to produce plays, using the Hooper’s front porch as our stage.  The play production never achieved fruition, but we had a fun time “writing” and “rehearsing.”  Whenever we liked, we took to the hills and made two armies to play “war.”  We hid behind rocks, trees, and drew maps in the dirt to illustrate our strategies.

 I remember an idea we culled from the movie Swiss Family Robinson that kept us occupied for a morning. My friends and I dug a hole in the empty lot next door, covering it with branches and twigs.  Next, we lured someone’s little brother to walk over the camouflaged hole.  Little brother fell into the hole.  Fortunately since we grew tired of digging at about 15 inches, the fall wasn’t far.

From the time I was six until I was eleven or so, we spent almost every summer evening, playing hide and go seek, or kick the can at Larson’s house.  They had a large, open lawn for running.  Summer evening fun always ended when the street lights flickered on.  That was the signal for children to go home. If you didn’t go home, parents in those days would call you – not by phone.  Any time your parents wanted you, they would holler for you from the front step of your house.

Kids’ sports for eight to eleven year olds were limited in those days.  There was Little League for the boys and City organized softball for the girls.  Little League was always held in the evenings.  Parents would sit in their cars and honk their horns when their team got a hit.  Girls’ softball was held in the afternoons at a field that doubled as the City ice rink in the winter.  Parents did not attend the girls’ softball.  I suppose I should have been highly offended, but I never thought about it, so I was never insulted.  I just had fun. 

Since we lived in town, our parents didn’t give us rides very often when I was a kid.  I walked to swim lessons (held in June at the YMCA downtown.)  I walked to softball games and practices.  I also walked to school unless the temperature was below zero.

It is true that I never had many of the opportunities that children have now.  Upon reflection, it seems that kids now don’t have some of the opportunities I had. I enjoy thinking about the times I had playing with neighborhood children as we created our own fun and organized ourselves.  I suppose every time in history has its pros and cons. During that time, our parents let us participate in sports just for the fun of it.  Parents didn’t seem to be driven to raise college athletes or Olympic “hopefuls.”  I am happy with the opportunities I did have.  I am grateful to have grown up in a time that was more relaxed.

Skiing at Seeley

Great snow, great company, great scenery, great fun!

Wilbur: Art Aficianado

Until now, Wilbur has never been a fan of art.  Usually his remarks about famous paintings he sees are something like this, "My grandkids can paint better than that."   Since Melissa completed the family tree painting all that has changed.  This is a painting with merit in Wilbur's mind. Here are some reasons that have led me to the conclusion that he loves this painting:

• He wanted me to have it framed as his birthday present
• He brings all of his employees into the house to admire the painting
• He tells everyone we meet, from the slightest acquaintance to close friends, about the painting and invites them to drop by and see it.
• Any person who comes to the house, including the Fed-Ex delivery man, is invited into the house to admire the painting and walk through the genealogical information it contains.

Yes, he loves it.  I love it too.

Uncle Les

When I first moved into my house and painted it peach, for some unexplainable reason I kept thinking of my Uncle Les and Aunt Myrtle.  I told Mom about this random thought that kept wandering around in my head. Turns out Uncle Les's house was painted peach when I was young.   Memory is such a funny thing.

My Dad's second oldest brother was named Leslie David Robertson.  I assume he was named David after his grandfather, David Brodock.

Win, John, Les

Uncle Les was short, dark, and wiry.  I remember him smoking cigarettes and dropping the ashes into his pants' cuff.  When I was around six, he shot questions at me about people in the Old Testament.  When I could not answer who was the oldest person in the Bible, he informed my Mom that our church wasn't teaching me anything.  I guess that was his argument to support why we should join the Jehovah's Witnesses like he did.

When Uncle Les was fifteen, he ran away from home.  He was the oldest student in the school at York.  I gather from talk that I heard that the teacher viewed him her own personal servant.  Since he was the oldest, she had him hauling water and chopping the wood for both the school and the teacherage.  I imagine the older students had responsibilities to help out with wood and water, but this teacher pushed him to the limit.  One day he informed her, he would be happy to help out in any
way, provided she would sleep with him.  Fifteen year old boys.

Apparently, the thought of what was going to happen to him at home scared him a lot more than leaving home and shouldering life's responsibilities.   Uncle Les hit the road.  His travels took him the the South where he served on a chain gang.  He was found guilty of vagrancy.  He hated the South after that experience.  He swam in the great Salt Lake.  When he got salt in his eyes, an old man helped him by rinsing his eyes out with water.  He eventually found work with the circus and then on the race horse circuit. He met and married Aunt Myrtle and helped her raise her son.  He became a baker and returned to Montana.

Les on right

After working as a baker for some years, the dust from the flour began causing damage to his lungs. Nowadays, I'm sure Les would be expected to relax and let the government support him as he lived out his days.  In those days, people weren't trained to think of the government as a benefactor to help them out of every tough spot.   With money he saved, Uncle Les bought a dump truck and went to work as a contract truck driver for Helena Sand and Gravel.   When that truck wore out, he purchased another one.

He was interested in horse racing all his life, although he was savvy enough with money not to get involved financially when he got out of that business.  He and Dad had some in depth discussions about race horses.  I particlarly remember how impressed they were with Secretariat, the triple crown winner in 1973.

I remember riding in the dump truck once.  That was a pretty big thrill for a little girl.  I remember him telling me to listen and pointing out that a robin was singing his "rain song."  I recall that he gave me five dollars when I graduated high school.  When my grandparents had birthdays and anniversaries, he made the most beautiful cakes for them that I have ever seen.

Uncle Les had his faults. He was "owly" when it came to money. I imagine that being

Les, Winifred

hungry and sleeping on park benches could make a person tight with a buck. When he died of a stroke in his 80's, everything he owned was paid for, and he had over a hundred thousand dollars in the bank. One regret I have is not taking the time to ask him about his own life.  I wish his adventures would have been recorded for posterity.

Les, OD Robertson, Maude Brodock Robertson

The Art of Relocating

If you relocate to a new place and think you might need help moving again soon, follow the steps below. You will have people lined up to help you move.

• Call up those who have lived in the new area for most of there lives.  Complain about the shopping, the schools, and the people.
• Tell everyone how superior your previous place of residence was and elaborate on your negative feelings about coming to the area.
• Drop names.  Tell everyone about your friend the celebrated author or your niece the movie star.
• If you notice that those in your new area have a regional accent, correct their word pronunciations that differ from yours.
• When you are addressing a group, tell everyone about your horror and shock when you found you would be living in the area.  Tell the assembly that you thought only cows lived here. Say how relieved you were when you found out that the area was inhabited with people who were normal.
• If your former place of residence is within driving distance, tear back there every weekend. Don't get to know anyone in your new area.  Moan about having to return at the end of the weekend.
• Don't wait for an invitation to tell everyone all about yourself.  Tell them about your uncle the senator, the elite boarding school you attended, your $25000 handbag, your advanced university degrees, and your prestigious, lucrative jobs.  Don't ask anyone you meet about themselves. How interesting could a bunch of ignorant hicks be anyway?
• Show up at community meetings and demand changes in the way things operate.  Tell everyone how things were done in your former community.  Insist that this community operate exactly like the place you moved from - you know, the place moved away from because you didn't like it there.
• Make fun of the natives in the area where you moved.  Portray them as a bevy of backward hicks with subnormal intelligence.
• Show everyone in town how a real urban dweller drives.  Honk at everything, no matter how minuscule.  Call up the radio station program that takes public comment and whine about how people in the area use their turn signals or complain about some other driving fault.
• Forget that you moved here because you were sick of city life.  Decide that the opportunity to increase your wealth is irresistible and more important than the peaceful lifestyle you sought.  Buy up land and start developing it the same way you did in the city

The Pranksters

I suppose some people might think it is random, but I don't believe it for a minute.  All of the last six of my grandchildren have been born on or next to a holiday or family birthday.  My knowledge of these little pranksters leads me to the only rational conclusion:  they had a Bon Voyage party before they left on their earthbound journey and decided to be born as close to holidays and birthdays as possible.

This is the ringleader  She was the first of group to arrive.  She entered the world on Christmas Day.

Modern medicine interfered with his planned Veteran's Day arrival.  Since he wanted his own birthday, he arrived the day after his Great Uncle's birthday and the day before his Great Grandmother's birthday.

The next jokester to arrive picked Valentine's Day to take the plunge into mortality.

This comedian didn't want to share a birthday with her cousin, so she arrived December 26, Boxing Day.

Next, this rascal kept the prank going, arriving on Labor Day.  Very funny, kiddo.

The latest rascal kept his mother waiting for 11 days so that he could keep the holiday arrival  agreement.  He arrived on Thanksgiving about 7:00 am, weighing in at 9 lbs 11 oz.

And what lies in the future for my impish grandchildren?  I'm betting the next scamp checks in on Martin Luther King Day.

Because of Them

Robin Byrd

John Byrd

Helena 1860's

Whenever I think life is a little too tough and I can't stand it one more day, I hang on because of all those that came before me. I owe it to their name to be courageous, honest, and decent.  I remember Emeline Owens organizing a wagon train and leaving war-torn Missouri for the gold fields of Montana.  I remind myself that I am her descendant.  I have those genes.  She expects me to be courageous, honest, and decent too.

There are times I feel anxious, even terrified because the economy. I wonder how the income from our business, struggling the past five years, will ever pay for things such as our skyrocketing health insurance costs.  When life seems too precarious to handle, I remember Emeline driving an ox team west with only her children to accompany her.  She passed a burned out wagon train that had been attacked by Indians, but she couldn't go back.  I must press forward too.

When I lost my oldest grandchild to a brain tumor, I had the example of those that came before to lean on. Maude Brodock, my grandmother, watched her baby die slowly through several months from a bowel problem that could probably be cured with pro-biotics now.  She got on with her life, so I knew I could get on with mine.

When I worry about what others think of me, I remember Robin Byrd.  He ranched, he explored, he mined, and he put in a stint as a Federal Marshall.  He was busy living his life. I imagine he made his mistakes.  All people do. He had no time to wallow in chagrin from his mistakes.  From what I've heard of him, I'd bet money he didn't give a hoot what anyone else thought either. I don't want to disappoint Uncle Robin by cowering before public opinion.

When today's influential people want me to shift my values to conform to whatever popular philosophy they have decided is now correct, I cannot do it.  I have too many people behind me who paid too high a price to worship as they please and live the values they knew in their hearts and minds were right. Leaving behind family, home, and property, my Puritan and Mormon ancestors sent God, and me, a message that they weren't joking when they determined to follow His course. They trusted Him. Can I do less?

Whenever I think of my children, I know sometimes their lives are going to be tough. Our family stories  remind us of those who went before.  They were courageous, honest, and decent. They are part of us and we are part of them. We owe it to them to honor their names.

Why this Week Will Be Fun

Entrepreneurs Are Safe

Sometimes I worry about the small entrepreneurs in the business world.  I wonder how they can possibly compete with the big retail corporations.  Then I think about some of my experiences with some chain stores, and I know the entrepreneurs will survive without any problem.

There must be something about a business becoming huge that makes logical human thought and feeling seem unimportant.  Here's a question a CEO might want to consider before approving the next plan to get us all to spend at the store:  “Would I, as a normal human being, like to be treated this way?”  From experience, I’m pretty sure promotions people for large companies must think customers are about as smart as earthworms and expect ethics on par with horse traders from Dodge City.

For example both Scheels, a sporting goods store, and Appleseeds, a clothing catalog store, have offered me significant discounts on my purchases if I would sign up for their credit cards.  After taking my time and personal information (including my Social Security Number), both companies informed me my application was pending.  A pending application meant I could not have the promised discounts.   Instead, they very generously offer me a handful of coupons for the next time I shop in the store.  Like there is going to be a next time.

I’m sorry to say I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed.  Still, since I have great credit, it seems plausible to me that the Corporation President’s wife is probably one of the few people whose application will not be “pending”  and qualify for the discounts.  Now after this experience of gathering my sensitive information and tricking me by offering discounts they evidently never intended to give me, why would I want to shop there again?  My appearance in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated is more likely. I sent the Scheels credit card they mailed me (even though I told them to forget the whole thing) through the shredder and every Appleseeds Catalog adorns the trash before I even enter the house.

Note to large companies:  Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.

A Novel Idea

Even though it is November, I have a novel idea:  Let's Celebrate Thanksgiving -  at least until  Black Friday.  It seems the retailers cannot wait to get our minds thinking about buying from them.  Since our major Thanksgiving purchase is only a turkey, Thanksgiving doesn't exist in the retail world.  Retailers and Advertisers jump from Halloween directly to Christmas.  I'm not jumping with them. I want to make the most of this month of prayer and thanksgiving.

 A whole month devoted to gratitude.  Think of it!  I want to celebrate Thanksgiving with all my heart.  I want to remember a courageous people who boarded a small vessel, braved the fall storms on the Atlantic Ocean and arrived in a new land all because they were determined to worship in their own way.  They didn't want a monarchy to shove the state religion down their throats any longer. They were truth seekers and seekers of God.  They proved their commitment with their lives. Half of them died the first winter of starvation and sickness.  And they didn't go back to England when the first winter turned out to be a pretty rough hop.  They stayed here and stuck it out.  For us.  They wanted us to have freedom too, and many of them were looking toward building Zion, even though their concept of what Zion was might not have been very clear at the time.  They laid the groundwork for the restoration of the full gospel.  

Here was a people who lost half their number the first winter.  Instead of whining or giving up, they established a day of Thanksgiving.  I want to be like them.  As a talented whiner, I want to replace complaining with thanksgiving.

I also want to remember the Indians.  They stepped in to save a people that had no notion of how to survive away from civilization.  They rescued a people who had no clue about hardships to be endured establishing a civilization from almost scratch.  I like the Indians' smarts about hunting, farming, tracking and surviving without leaning on other civilizations.  I am astounded at their willingness to help a people they could have just as easily exterminated. I was excited to learn of clues that point toward having First American ancestry on the Brodock side of the family.  (And, no, I'm not calling them Native Americans.  I've heard too many Indians make fun of that term.)

I might need to think a little about shopping and Christmas this month, but  for me 90% of November will be about giving thanks and being thankful for those who sacrificed everything so that we would have so much to be thankful for.