mothers day

Part of the bouquet of flowers that came in from a couple of wonderful daughters.

time to go

It is time to go home.

It is wonderful to visit grandkids and their families. In the last few days we have seen 3 or our daughters and 8 or our 11 grandkids. Not bad for this time of year.

But I finished reading the book I brought, and I have written as much in my journal as I can, and I have done a good bit of internet research.

So, obviously it is time to go home.

It is spring, the garden is growing but the weeds grow a time or two faster than the veggies. The weather has been cool so the plants should be in good shape, but still it is time to go home.

Sooner than I might wish it is going to be time for some of us to go to the big home, tht is not a day I look forward to.

Each year my grandkids get older, I seem to get older too.

It has been 9 years since Miriam was diagnosed. I was thinking that one day that it would be so nice to be closer to one of our daughtes, but at the rate we are going that will be when we are old and infirmed, and it is possible that those little grandkids will be gone off to live their lives.

So, it is good to go home, I think.

Alan the graduate

Someone asked: Where did Alan get his brains. I answered quickly: From his grandfather. They all laughed.

home school graduation

My third grandson graduated from high school.

The oldest one took his GED and went to college, the next has serious learning disabilities, so Alan was number one.

He has been 12 years in home school, and the graduation was of 6 students, all home schooled. Some of the grads had not met each other before.

It was a good service. The kids were amazingly talented. Grandson gave a good speech about Thomas Edison who was a home schooler, and how quoted him as saying all you need to invent is a pile of junk and imagination!

One couple, parents of a graduating child, are our age, early 70’s. They birthed a family, raised them, adopted a second family and raised them and this girl, who they adopted when she was 12, is part of the third generation of their children.

Imagine such people. Super good people who are doing well with these kids. I was astonished and pleased. Older adoptions are tough, but this girl, and her parents, seemed confident and well adjusted.

The church where the service was held, (the pastor’s daughter was among the graduates), was full with a couple hundred people honoring these kids who finished their tasks at hand.

Afterward their was a good meal. Three of our daughters were there, it was a small family reunion.

I was so pleased with it all. Good kids, great parents, and a fine afternoon.

age 5

My hair naturally parted on the right side. Hitler was in power when I was young, and he parted his hair on the right, so my father insisted that my hair be parted on the left. It was that way until i decided to change it.

candles

Today is my birthday.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You can sit down now, please. Thank you.

Today marks the 71st anniversary of my mom’s giving birth. I was her first child, the experimental one, but she did her best, and who am I to complain. She was a good little mother.

I have outlived both of my parents as well as my step father. My grandfather had a heart attack when he was younger than I am, then went on to live another 30 years. On my fathers side, my aunt Ruby is 93 this year. She is not going strong, but she is still going.

I have always been a bit introspective, and as I get older I am more. My head spins with ideas and wonderents and joys on a good day. On a bad, that same brain is full of dread and sadness.

We will travel to see family today. Tomorrow, grandson #3 graduates from high school. He is a real good kid. I am very proud of him. And it is always good to visit family.

We each have a lot of control over our lives, but not ultimate control. Still, we have more than we use. That is true for me at least. I often wonder about the ways I migt have made life better.
Anyway, I am glad to be here. Last year my oldest daughter sent me a box of 70 of her home made chocolate chip cookies for my birthday, this year my sister gave me 72, then ate one herself, so it would come out even!

Thank you each for making my life more enjoyable. Maybe 71 isn’t so bad after all.

I love you.

promise

We had a late, cold spring, with temps in the low to mid 20's after apricot bloom, but amazing, we have a bumper crop.
Go figure.

knees

I spent much of my life on my knees

It is the life of someone whose life seems to be on the floor. Tile, linoleum (remember the good old stuff?), carpet.

I even garden on my knees, it seems comfortable some how. There is a tool that is illegal to ask anyone to use now, it is a hoe about 24” long and to use it you have to bend over in a back breaking position.

People used to spend all day in that position using that little instrument of torture. Well, I use one (it is a good old forged iron model that has long gone off the market) and use it while I am on my knees. It works.

The other tool I seem to use a great deal is small stainless steel trowel. Made by a maker of razor blades, it is a superb tool. It is not made any longer either. I am afraid this says something about the quality of hand tools we buy nowadays, but that is a different subject.

Anyway, as I garden on knees, I get a better look at the plants. From that perspective weeds and vegetables have a different appearance. A bit of bug damage, or an individual insect is easy to see as well.

The down side at this age is that the getting up and going down is a bit more awkward than it used to be. I do fine on my knees, but it takes a bit to get reoriented when I get up again.

But, for now, at least, the old knees are doing pretty well.

coachmen

I rebuilt the insides a few years ago thinking I or we might live in it some time.
We will take it to Washington State this fall. Christmas will be with everyone there, and this will be our home!
And a very comfortable one it will be.

plan b

Plan B.

In the AD world unknowns outnumber plans and options.

We will live in our little house on our acre as long as we can. That is Plan A. Maybe that can be most of the journey and maybe not. There are no declarations on that one.

I had planned a move to SE Washington, long before this. I think that could have been very rewarding. But it didn’t happen. Miriam would not hear of it, and I didn’t want to force the issue.

But eventually, something will change.

Since I have no idea of how well and how long I can care for my Miriam, I am not ready to make a call on that one. If this process takes as long on the 2nd part as it did for the first, all sorts of things could change.

But, after AD, if I am the one who survives, some things might change. That is what drifts through my mind at times.

I must say I am a great fan of small space living. This house is considered small at a bit more than 1200 feet, but I designed it for 6 people and now just the two of rattle around in it.

We have a smallish but very comfortable travel trailer. I gutted it a few winters ago and completely rebuilt the interior. Same design, but all new inside: cabinets, floors, walls, insulation, an so on.

It would make a comfortable place for one person, providing belongings were pared to the minimum. It could be parked at one of two daughters who live 45 miles apart. I would like seeing my daughters more often.

Let’s see. Miriam was diagnosed 8 years ago. If this goes on another 8, our youngest grand child will be college age. That is scary.

Then there is another space on the back of this property. Some neighbors told me they thought it was an old haunted house. Actually it is the back side of my shop, but it opens into a small closed in courtyard. There is some very nice space there.

So, I make notes in my journals, occasionally, I draw a design idea, and I wait.

Tick tick tick tick.
Did any one ever tell you that it is very boring listening to the clock?

Tick tick.

Linda

I love you Linda. Professionally she has shortened her name to Lia, but she will still allow her old dad to call her Linda.

Linda and her proud papa

I know I have used this picture before, but not too many of the old film photographs have made it to digital. This was taken in Yellowstone Park, on the way home from a long trip east for my brothers wedding.

happy birthday Linda

May 14, a long time ago, our 4th daughter was born.

This was before fathers were allowed any where near the delivery room, but the doctor was a pretty good friend as was the nurse, so the rules were bent.

At the proper time, they signaled and I stood in the door and took pictures of the delivery. I was a seasoned photographer, and it was not a difficult assignment. My Leicas were certainly up to the low level light, but I am not a medical photographer. I get quimish easily.

And so Linda entered our life. She has been a good daughter. She is extremely talented, works hard and is a good mother to Emily. I have loved her from the time I knew she was on the way. This was long before we had the ability to know the gender of a baby until they was born. My guess was that doctors enjoyed the: “It’s a girl” call.

Emily looks enough like her mother for us to confuse them in pictures. When Linda was born Deanna was 4, Lora 5 and Arline was 9. She was a source of constant amazement to them.

I had no idea we’d have a whole batch of girl babies when Miriam and I started this adventure. My desire, I remember, was that they be healthy and I was richly rewarded.

Linda, I know you didn’t have any choice of who your parents were or when you entered this world, but I love you for enriching our lives all these years.

We’ll see you next weekend.

mom, my sister and I

1943 two years after dad was killed. Here mom is 27.

mothers day

Today is Mothers Day.

I will wish Miriam a special day, she is the resident mother here at my house. I’ll do something special for her (cash is short, so it won’t involve much money), and our daughters will all call and wish her a happy day.

But, I will be thinking of my mother.

Mom was a widow at 24. She was short, but she was tough. Before Dad was killed mom delivered 4 babies and buried two. She was a survivor. My memories of mom are universally good .

Mom was a pillar of strength. She was consistent in her judgment and good advice. She loved Miriam and my daughters (we spent her last decade living a couple of blocks away). When Lora (daughter 2) was just getting the hang of reading, mom gave her a kids picture dictionary. She wrote in it: To Lora, the girl who loves words." Mom noticed.

She dreamed of going to college. After they were married she went to college one semester and loved it, but dad wanted to move on to something else and she dropped out. She talked about her dream of going back to college after she retired. She was a lifelong learner and a pragmatist, but she never got back to college.

She studied accountant, took a correspondence course to increase her knowledge and usefulness. she had the accountant’s interest in details. My artist brain and her accountant brain did not always mesh, but we always got on well.

In his NYTimes column this morning, Thomas Friedman talks about his mom and what she went through, ending with a story of the legendary Bear Bryant, who changed a planned television commercial for the telephone company from: Call your mother; to Call your mother, I wish I could call mine.

Friedman wishes he could call his mom, who died this last year, and I really understand.

I talk to Emily and Jessica about how much my mother would have loved them, and how much they would have loved her. Mom was tough as she needed to be, but she was soft and cuddly too. She would have been a wonderful great grandmother.

Mom made it through one daughter's wedding and a high school graduation or two, was cut way short by cancer. She retired as an accountant for the state health department, and about a year later she was gone. She was just 65.

Each day I think of mom and what a classy woman she was. Every day I wish I could talk to her about this or that. And frequently I imagine a conversation where mom would ask me about that black thing I carry in my hand.

“It’s my telephone mom, I can get calls almost everywhere I go.”

Amazing, she would say in pre-computer wonderment.

Today I will remember mom and I will hug my Jess and Em’s grandmother.

I love you Miriam, I am so glad you are the mother of my daughters and a wonderful grandmother to my grandkids.

But, I really really wish I could call my mom.