A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever

It's been a long time since you came into our lives, but all of the memories that matter, since then, are good ones.  When you were born, we had just moved from Nebraska.  I had no job, and things were pretty grim. 

All of my negative feelings disappeared the first time I saw you.  You filled our hearts with love and wonder, and have been doing that ever since.  Within 3 weeks of your birth, I was working where I spent 37 years, and things have been improving steadily ever since.  You've constantly filled your Mother's and my hearts with joy.

You, your boys, and your husband never fail to lift our spirits with your great attitude, and a personality that makes every one who meets you love you.

Sandra Joy, you truly are.

Happy Birthday.

Brain Static and White Noise.

There are a lot of things going on around the homestead this weekend.  We're blessed with a 4 day visit from Violet, The Empress of the Known Universe, also known as our 2 year old Granddaughter.  She's currently in the living room playing with a doll house and the Hoosier Cupboard that was rescued from my Mom's basement.  The cat, on the other hand is cowering in the den.  He's not a big fan of two-year-olds.  Wally, the Weather Dog, on still another hand, has taken up his post by the storm door to repel boarders.

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The weather is supposed to be sunny with seasonal normal temperatures this weekend.  It will be a break from the Snow of the Week we've had for the last few.

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Congress is busy.  I wonder what it's going to take to make them stop.

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The news media are busy.  I've put wedges under the left side of my TV to slant things back to the right.

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For some mysterious reason, God is busy trying to break third world countries into gravel.  Haiti and Chile have been shaken, stirred, and submerged by earthquakes.  It's a shame there's not a fault line under Washington, D. C..

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Crazy people are busy shooting things up.  Unhinged whackoids have fired on Army bases, The Pentagon, and Universities.  Conventional "wisdom" would demand that we take all the guns away from law abiding citizens to ensure that only people with no regard for the law will be armed, and we can all be in the same peril as those who work and learn in gun-free environments.

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Why do home schooled students consistently out-perform those who attend public schools?  And why are we striving for "Excellence" in public education when we should be struggling to get public education up to mediocre?  (Thank you Thomas Sowell.)

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Why is our President so insistent on completely destroying the best health care system on the planet?  It may have a few problems, but if Universal Health Care (like Canada's system) is so great, why did the Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador come to the USA for heart surgery?  Our health care problems can best be solved by getting Government out of the health business, not by nationalizing 1/6th of our economy.

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Why can't I think of anything cheerful and upbeat to write about?  I think I'll go play with the Granddaughter.

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Stay well.


Footnote:  Playing with a 2 year old is good for the soul.  I feel much better now.

Heaviest Element Yet Known to Science Discovered

This is stolen without the slightest remorse from "The Patriot Post".

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.
The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.
Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Happy Valentine's Day

To my Grandchildren: Violet, Sara, Sam, and Tyler. You're a joy to be near and a constant source of amazement.  Continue to grow into the strong, Christian young people who will lead us through this century.

To my Children:  Jon, Gretchen, Sandy, and Bob.  You make me proud to be your father.  You've given me more joy than I could ever imagine, brought new and interesting people into the family, have provided the world's best grandchildren, and keep me from taking root in my den and turning into an old person.

To my Mom:  I love you and miss you a lot.

And finally (recycled from last year, because I can't think of a better way to say it) To Marilyn:

The title of Trisha Yearwood's album, "Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love" pretty well sums up the last 40 or so years of my life.

In the fall of 1967, I was attending a small junior college in a smaller town in the Midwest. One of the highlights of life in that town was the annual Fall Festival, a kind of County Fair/Oktoberfest held in September when the weather was still decent enough to be on the street without a parka after dark. Since there was a) little traffic, and b) no place to set up a midway, the main street of the town was blocked off and sprouted carnival rides, food vendors, craft displays, and a stage for the country music performers.

My roommate and I decided that, being Friday, and seeing that we were tired of watching mildew grow on the grout in the dormitory bathroom, we would see what was happening downtown (a 3 minute walk from the dorm). (I told you it was a small town). We wandered around for a while, and he met up with a girl he knew. Marilyn was with her, and was the most beautiful young woman I had ever seen. The fact that she found the skinny, bespectacled, nerd that I was (and probably still am) interesting was icing on the cake. I was immediately smitten. I still am, and always will be.

So, you see, Marilyn and I are probably the only people you will ever meet who can say that they ran into the love of their life in the middle of Main Street...on foot. :)

Nearly 43 years have passed, filled with triumphs, tragedies, gains, losses, children and grandchildren. Every event has been a blessing that has caused us to grow, but the one constant has been Marilyn and our love for each other. I don't want to contemplate life without her. This Summer, we will celebrate our 41st anniversary, and I'm planning on at least 20 more.

Marilyn, I love you, and always will. You make life worth living.

Bob

Happy Birthday Marilyn

You've been the center of my universe for over 40 years, my right hand, my solid foundation, my friend, lover, mother to my children, and loving grandmother to theirs, and I would not change a minute of it.  The luckiest day of my  life, was September 19, 1967 when I met you at the Concordia Fall Festival, and it has just been getting better ever since.

I love you with all of my heart, and wish you the Happiest of birthdays.

Bob

OK, I've been gone for a while.

You may wonder just what the heck I've been up to.

The past week has been spent getting to know my siblings (4 sisters and a brother) again as we cleaned up my Mom's house.  Mom moved out a couple of years ago to convalesce from hip replacement surgery first with sister Nicki in Warrenton, Georgia, then with another sister Amy in Saline, Michigan.  In her absence my brother and at least one sister had been living in the house.  Lack of income and inclination to maintain it left it a mess, and a bunch of the 5 bedrooms were being used to store "treasures".

The basement had been Dad's shop, and in the 18 years since his death had become a purgatory for items nobody wanted to throw away.  Nicki, Amy, her friend Randy, and I spent the best part of the week schlepping stuff out of that mold farm into the back yard and eventually into a 40 yard dumpster.

This:

Came from here:

...And it was a LOT of work.

Many thanks to my children Bob, Gretchen and Jonathan, my brother and sisters, Randy, niece Joanna, nephew Donald and friend Donald for all of the hard, (almost) volunteer work.

The plan is for Randy, who is a contractor, to return in a few weeks with my brother to get the house in shape to sell.  Between Randy's expertise, my stash of tools, my brother's more-or-less free labor, and the help of whoever we can hire from the Home Depot parking lot, we should have about a month's worth of work to turn it back into a potential home.

In the interim, my sons and I will return to finish reclaiming the back yard from 20 years of wild growth, and falling pine limbs.

With a lot of hard work, and more volunteers, we should be able to give Mom a reasonable nest-egg.

Again thanks to all.

Stay well, and stay warm and dry.  It's raining, again, here.

An Interesting Weekend

We had a nice visit with the youngest this weekend.

Our youngest granddaughter was here spreading joy and toy kitchen accouterments around like snow in Cleveland.  She ran non-stop all day offering everyone tea, cookies, and just about anything else she whipped up in her little kitchen.  The picture is her and her daddy in a down moment watching "Peter Pan" in the den.

The other youngest was Shelby.  She's a husky mix, and belongs to Gretchen, my youngest daughter.  She seems to be a pretty smart little pup, whines at the door when nature calls, and enjoyed playing with Wally, who tolerated her presence like the veteran he is.

After all the excitement of the last week or so, the house is terribly quiet now that everybody has gone to their respective homes.  The good thing is that it will all happen again soon.  I'm blessed with a family other people can only dream of.

Stay well, and stay warm.

New Year's Resolutions

OK, it's New Year's Day, and I've renewed some resolutions.

1.  Be a better husband.  I've never lived up to the standards I set for myself, and that's probably a good thing.  It keeps me trying.
2.  Be a better father and grandfather.  Tyler is 14, Sam and Sara are 12, and Violet is 2.  I'm running out of time to play.
3.  Get the shed built, and 90% of the crud out of the garage and trailer.
4.  Spend more time working on Tyler's truck.  I've only got 18 months to get it ready to turn over.  (How did I wind up with a 14 year old grandson?)
5.  Landscape the front yard.  Gas line replacement, too many vehicles using the lawn as a driveway, and 2 years of drought followed by a very wet year have left more places to plant grass than I can count.  It's ugly, and Marilyn deserves better.
6.  Spend more time chasing trout and camping with my sons, son-in-law, and grandsons.  I've got the gear and the time.  Just need to get them all together and do it.
7.  Keep up with this blog.  I've neglected it for a lot of reasons, none of them very good.
8.  Exercise.  Maybe I need a new dog to take me for long walks.
9.  Stick closer to my diet.  The holidays have been heck on my eating habits.
10.  Back up my photo directory.  I was going to add "more often", but considering I lost a year's worth of pictures with the hard drive, I guess it was better to leave it off.
11.  Be more active politically.  Liberty really took a hit in 2009.

I know this was nothing profound, but it's good to use the keyboard as "mental floss" and clear out the plaque.

I sincerely wish every one of you a happy, prosperous, and free new year.

December 31

It's New Year's Eve (Day) and what would have been my Dad's 89th Birthday.

He has been gone for a long time, and I still miss him every day.  Aside from teaching me which end of a gun is the dangerous one (no, it's not the one with the little hole in it, it's the one with the operator attached) he imparted a lot of wisdom about family and life in general.  Any of you who know me have heard most of this before, but I thought I would impart a few gems, derived from the other things he taught me, as a way to ring out the old year.

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There are only three things you need to do to successfully raise children:  Love them, love them, and love them.  Of course, you will need to deal with the inevitable "You did what?!" moments, but one of the three things listed above will equip you.

A father's main job is to provide his family with a safe place to learn how to deal with all the crud that life will throw at them.  His secondary job is to impart what his father taught him, and what he learned while coping with being an adult, to his children. 

Girls will mature faster than boys.  Actually, girls will mature, boys will remain 12 years old at the core until they die of old age.  The inner Peter Pan keeps old men from being lousy grandfathers.

If you want to learn how to love your children or your spouse, listen to your dog.  He does not know how to not love unconditionally.  You may have to make a few course corrections, but unconditional love of your family will give you a map to a happy life.

Government is like a laxative.  Unless you are really lucky, you will need it every once in a while, but you will be up to your neck in effluent if you rely on it too much.

God will not throw anything your way that you cannot ultimately deal with successfully.  You might not enjoy the trip, but arriving at the end of the problem will be worth the grief.

Life is like the little kid who dove into the stable full of horse crap because he knew there was a pony in there someplace.  It may be unpleasant, but there's a reward at the end.

Never trust a cat.

Never pet a stray dog.  Make him your friend first, but keep your fingers away from his front end while you're doing it.

Engage brain before operating mouth.

Y'all get the general idea.  Life is a blessing, and how you deal with its little "opportunities" is entirely up to your own outlook.  You'll be happy if you look at the good side of events, and Ebeneezer Scrooge (pre-ghosts) if you don't.  It's your choice.

Thanks, Dad.  I think you taught me well, and I pray that I'm up to the task of passing it along.

Stay well, and make the best of your opportunities in the New Year.

Christmas Wishes

⁶For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.
<sup>Is 9:6 KJV


11</sup>For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
 ¹²And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.
 ¹³And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,
 ¹⁴Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.  Luke 2:11-14 KJV



Just a quick note to wish all who see this a blessed Christmas full of wonder at the gift we celebrate on December 25.  Do not forget the reason for the celebration.  We are saved by the gift of Christ, entirely undeserved and given by a loving God.  Isaiah foresaw it, Luke reported it, and I am blessed to have known it.

Merry Christmas from the Road Less Traveled