Word Play

This is the stack on my desk.

I've been co-writing a biography with Dee, and since Christmas I've tried to write a few hours each day. It's getting close to our deadline, so this week I've been pushing it. Today I sat at my computer from 10 am until 6:30 pm with only an hour's break! (Some of you work for a living so you're probably rolling your eyes in sarcastic sympathy. I'm a newbie.)

Factual writing is much more difficult for me than my usual off-the-cuff ramblings. I'm sure you've never noticed, but I generalize a lot, and take my own opinions pretty seriously. I can't use those techniques in these biographical chapters.

I'm working from transcriptions of twenty oral interviews, each about ninety minutes long. Separating everybody's recollections into topics, and then weaving them back together has been mind-boggling. It would help if people talked in well-written sentences. In reality, there's lots of repetition and backing up, restarting a story and lengthy searches for the right word. We change tenses and get stuck on certain phrases, and jump all over the place. Quoting a person is difficult when they haven't planned a pithy, concise answer in advance. Writing about an event where several different people have commented and have various versions is even harder.

I enjoy editing and re-writing, polishing and tweaking, finding the perfect word. Starting with a blank page and telling the story of a person's life, knowing they will read it, is very intimidating. I want to capture the essence of the personality, and demonstrate the concerns, challenges, and accomplishments of the individual in an entertaining and accurate way. It has to be told in context, with the memories of family members and friends included. It has to be long enough to convey the message, and short enough that someone will actually pick it up to read.

With a contract and deadline, waiting for inspiration is impossible. Clients don't understand terms like writer's block, or waiting for my muse. In Dee's world those phrases mean unemployed. So I just sit down and start typing and eventually my mind gets into motion again. (Someone said that the real art of writing is applying the seat of the pants to the chair.)

My point is that my brain and my fingers are cramping, and my shoulder is stiff from moving my mouse. I write to relax and unwind, but the same activity has me all wound up. I'm not used to working with words. I like to play with them!

These are accumulating on my shelf, waiting for me.
Can I be a writer and a reader?

What is overwhelming you right now?

Got the Red, White and Blues?

I did this...

Felt like this...

Got this...

Added this...

Enjoyed this...

Found this...

Bought this...

Felt better!!

Privacy Act

Micah was three. One day he volunteered to say the blessing on the food. At the close of his little prayer, he added, "And I'm thankful I don't steal anymore."

After the "Amen" I asked, "So, what was that part about stealing?"

He answered, "Mom, it's private when you repent."

Searching for Ghosts

Me, near Heart's Content, Newfoundland, 2005

Some of our best friends are ghosts. I don't mean Halloween ghosts. I mean people who have died. Our job is to bring them to life again by telling their story.

One particular ghost had died in 1780, and Dee was hired to find more dates, the names of family members, and other details; to flesh him out, so to speak.

We started with the name of a cemetery in Heart's Content, Newfoundland. Driving along the rocky coast north of St. John's bordering the Atlantic Ocean, we passed tiny fishing villages called Old Pelican, Cupid's Bay, and Come by Chance; small communities built right on the water. The town we were searching for was minuscule, but we followed the road signs until we saw church spires. That is usually the location of a cemetery, too.

As we got closer, we could see that the cemetery was on a very steep slope plunging down into the bay. The parking lot of the empty church was walled for safety, and there wasn't an entrance to the tiny grave yard. We had come a long way to get the information on the headstone. We had to get inside! It was October, and the rocky ground was very wet, and spongy, with slippery moss, thistles and tiny flowers everywhere.

I told Dee I would check it out. The guardrail was too high to climb over, so I went under it.

Carbonnear Cemetery near Heart's Content, Newfoundland 10/05

It was misty and cold. I could imagine myself slipping on the soggy grass and rolling off the cliff into the icy water, but I hiked around until I found the surname I was looking for.

On the headstone was the information we needed:

John Ghost
Born whenever
In someplace, Ireland
Son of Mary and John Ghost
Husband of Annie Jones Ghost
Father of Many Little Ghosts

There were crucial dates listed as well. Surrounding his grave were other graves that matched our names, places and dates, obviously his wife, children and grandchildren. We copied it all down, took a bunch of pictures, and slithered under the guard rail to further explore the village.

Libraries often have small unpublished histories written by local historians. Sometimes they are handwritten in an old-fashioned script, others are in scrapbook form, or they are printed in booklets. A librarian goes down to some dusty vault at Dee's request and brings up the applicable volumes.

Dee in Library Petersham, MA 10/05

Flipping through the materials, we find old newspaper clippings of births, deaths, marriages, land purchases, etc. and search them for any mention of our ghosts. There might be a listing of town meetings and who spoke, legal issues over a cow, notes about property boundaries or wells . . .whatever. When we spot a name we recognize, we match the rest of the facts we've discovered, and add a piece to the puzzle.

Collecting information about the area during the ghost's life is very important. That can be pieced together with a more general history of the larger community. The ghost starts coming to life! It's great to find the name of a shop owned by our ghost, or the location of his farm. Copies are made of the research, and we set out to photograph the vicinity.

Dee in Belfast, Maine 10/05

Ghosts hang out in used book stores and so do we, looking for old drawings of the neighborhood landmarks, and stories of his contemporaries.

Eventually we love our ghost. When all the findings are compiled into a book and turned over to whomever is paying for the history, it's a little scary. Will he just be put on a shelf? Will anyone else realize how real he is? People can be so insensitive to ghosts, it's spooky! We'll remember him, though. He can come and haunt us anytime.

"Attics and Basements"

Corn Market in Ledbury, England

I'm feeling nostalgic and grateful today.
Dee received advice from a wise man twenty years ago that changed our lives.

(I need to give some background first.)

Dee decided to change careers in 1985, yada, yada, yada, and we moved to York, England for a year while he got a master's degree in Historic Preservation.

During that time, the Mormon Church was preparing to celebrate 150 years in the British Isles, and a professor at BYU knew we were living there. He was writing a book, and searching for some particular historical sites in England. Memorable events and locations were detailed in diaries written 150 years before (by Heber C. Kimball and Wilford Woodruff,) however the places had disappeared from modern maps.

Farms, churches and landmarks mentioned were called Hilltop Farm, Castle Frome, Benbow Pond or Job Pingree's Mill. Although the names were well-known to LDS historians, the actual places were lost in the "depths of the country." Dee was asked to follow the journals to discover appropriate locations where the Church could place historic plaques, hold celebrations, and even purchase property for the British saints to enjoy.

Yorkshire Countryside

Over several months we traveled the length and breadth of England's tiny, crooked village roads, using 100-year-old ordnance maps, and collecting information from local folks. Church members had immigrated en masse to Utah in the 1850's, and their important places weren't important to the people now living in England.

Most of the modern Mormons didn't know the history of their earlier counterparts who had left, and were unfamiliar with the church sites themselves. (This was the reason for the celebrations, plaques and book in the first place.) Without the aid of a computer, satellite map, or GPS, we felt like real-life explorers gathering a bit of information here and there for a basic primer the saints could study.

Ours was an unpaid position; we actually paid all our own expenses, too. It was a hard time in our life to go a second year without income. But we discovered that we loved gathering history and assembling the pieces together, like a puzzle. Until places, facts and human stories are compiled and put into written form, they are inaccessible. Students can't easily learn what the information is until it's organized into a book. We wondered if anyone would pay for this kind of on-the-ground research. It was valuable, necessary and we were getting good at it.

Using a magnifying glass to read the old maps, we found markets, lodgings, and ponds, and then transposed them onto modern maps. Sometimes the roads were gone; often we had to climb out of the car and peer through high hedgerows to see the ruins behind them. Luckily things don't change too quickly in England and we eventually sent our author friend directions from a cemetery in Llanelli, Wales to a home on the Isle of Man, to a stone wall in Downham, Lancashire, with many significant farms, chapels, and rivers in between.

When we returned home, Dee served on the committee that prepared the historical markers. He also put together a private preservation trust and raised money to purchase and rebuild some of the buildings we had found in ruins. There are guided tours in Britain designed around these sites today.

Gadfield Elm Chapel

The next year we went back to England for a month to set up displays in town halls and libraries around the country, and transport the plaques to their destinations. When it was all over, it was time to find a real job.

Dee had a chance to interview Gordon B. Hinckley during this time. He was a counselor in the 1st Presidency. He asked Dee about his career plans after the Sesquicentennial was over and Dee told him he was considering a job in the church archives.

President Hinckley recognized some characteristics and talents unique to Dee. He said this:

"Dee, history is not just in the archives. Most of it is in the attics and basements of everyday people, waiting to be discovered. You tell those stories."

Dee in his office.

And so, Dee decided on a career of Gathering History. There wasn't much of a job description for his made up profession, but over the years he's gathered those pieces, too. Offhand Words of a Prophet: Dee took them to heart and figured out how to make them applicable to himself. Now he spends weeks in attics and basements all over the world finding treasures, and giving life to long dead heroes.

And his assistant couldn't be happier.

Me in library Amesbury, MA

Paris, 1969

Sher (left) and Me (right)
Thirty nine years ago today.

"The trip and the story of the trip are always two different things." (Lorrie Moore)

Salt Lake City to Paris, France is a long way for a 19-year-old girl. The plane stopped in Boston and again in Gander, Newfoundland to refuel so I was pretty giddy by the time we landed twenty hours later. Our hotel was an enormous old railway station, (which was later closed and reopened as the Musée d'Orsay.) It took us ten minutes to walk from the lobby to our room!

Even though we were exhausted we took a bus tour to see the highlights of the city. I was overwhelmed and underwhelmed. I was expecting a Disneyland type atmosphere in Europe; Paris was crowded with grimy, narrow streets and buildings all crammed together. I'd only been to cities in the western USA, places where everything is spread out, you can see for miles, and the sky is big. Nothing had prepared me for the claustrophobic feeling of being unknown and unnoticed in a vast city with millions of people.

I ordered an omelet in a cafe because it was the only dish I recognized. The waiter didn't speak English, and we didn't know how to get our bill. When it came, even the numbers were written differently, so I just let the aloof cashier take the unfamiliar coins out of my hand.

Everything smelled funny. Salt Lake City wasn't settled until 1847, so I'd never been inside an authentic antiquated structure of any kind. The ancient, musty Parisian buildings and exotic, unusual aroma of French food gave off a unique scent, inside and outside.

I was used to cold, crisp mountain air, with bright blue sunny skies, even in the winter. Paris was cold and damp and gray and oppressive. I was let down.

Our room was large with a big old bathroom. I didn't realize at the time how deluxe it was for students on a budget. But it wasn't at all like the Travelodge motels I'd stayed in before, and I found that disconcerting. The tub had separate hot and cold water taps, and I couldn't figure out how to wash my hair. The furniture didn't match. There was just one dim light bulb in the fixture that hung from the extremely high ceiling. I wasn't sophisticated enough to realize the moldings and furnishings were ornate and classic. They just seemed old-fashioned to me.

Excitement carried me through the first day's activities, but I was close to collapsing after dinner. My bed was very soft and uncomfortable. I was scared to stretch my feet down to the bottom, under the covers, for fear I'd touch something strange. I don't know why, because the hotel was very clean. It was all just so foreign. After falling asleep about 9:pm I woke up at 6:am, and it was still dark outside. Breakfast wasn't until 7:00, but by then I had fallen back asleep, and jet-lag kicked in. I didn't wake up again 4:30pm and it was already dark again!

By the time I was up and dressed I was starving. This time I had a crepe from a sidewalk stand. The streets were busy with pedestrians going to cafes and jostling for buses and taxis. For a girl from the suburbs, it was fascinating to see so much activity, and frightening to be unable to understand anyone. Young men in groups flirted and teased, and then laughed as they walked past, and I had butterflies in my stomach, wondering what they were saying.

I had planned and saved for my semester abroad for three years. Culture shock was something I hadn't expected. Now that I had arrived, I was exhilarated and eager, but panicky, and fearful that I might not like it. I hadn't yet heard this excellent travel advice: Expect the unexpected, for those who travel rigidly will find much to distress them. I did.

I've been back to Paris seven times since 1969. It is one of my favorite places now; I love the smells, the crazy drivers, the bridges and churches. The sun shines in France and the sky can be blue, but even when it's raining and chilly I think the atmosphere is intoxicating. In spite of my first long day in the dark, I agree that Paris is The City of Light.

Have you ever pinned your hopes on something that didn't turn out the way you planned?
What was your experience the first time you went away from home?

First Dinner Party

October 1969

The lovely sterling silver serving pieces looked a little out of place on the tiny table that came with our furnished mobile home. They were wedding gifts, and it was their debut. Mine, too. Our Tyrolean tablecloth, Blue Danube dishes and entertaining skills were on display for the first time. Mom and Dad were coming for dinner.

It was cozy; so cozy that Dee had to stand up and move his chair so I could open the oven. I garnished the Barbecued Spam Roast with lovely green sprigs of parsley and nobody mentioned that the rice was so crunchy we were in danger of breaking a tooth. The peas weren't done until it was time for dessert.

I discreetly crumbled the sunken Bundt cake into my new parfait glasses and spooned ice milk (the less expensive brand of ice cream) over the chunks, so that it appeared it was supposed to be served that way. Mom was very complimentary and Dad's claustrophobia subsided long enough for a nice visit in our humble home.

I received my thank you in the form of a care package. Three years before, my brother Tom had shot a very ancient deer. After the first obligatory meal, my folks had stashed the venison downstairs in the freezer. Since then the meat was thawed out only for the dog when her regular dog food was in short supply.

Now, after all this time, Dee and I were the lucky recipients of several packages of freezer-burned deer steaks, accompanied by a note from my dad which read, "After a delicious meal we can see that this meat needs only the special touch of a gourmet cook."

The next time they came to dinner, guess what I served?

Classified Information

Illustration by Judy Love

"I think I've discovered the secret to life...you just hang around until you get used to it." --Sally

Talkin' Trash

All I did was empty the trash.

(This is a tutorial where you'll learn what I should have known.)

Whenever I download photos from my digital camera onto my iPhoto program, the photos end up in a room called the Library. Everything I scan goes into my library, too. With a little help from my Cool Mac Apps book, and my iPhoto for Dummies book, I have set up albums. I've organized my new digital photos, and scanned and added my old film photos. I've made a bunch of slide shows. I've even used the Ken Burns Effect, and added soundtracks. But I got a little too savvy, a little too clever, a little too cocky. I forgot that the computer is smarter than me. I shouldn't have let down my guard.

The other night my computer seemed a tad slow on the photo uptake or download...whatever. It was 2:00 am, I was clicking swiftly along, and I got impatient with it's sluggishness. I decided I had filled it up with too much stuff. (I don't know about these things, but it made sense to me.) Looking over my iPhoto albums I saw a lot of photos that were in two or three places. Lauren's picture could be in the Grand Grandkids album, the Halloween Parade album, the Christmas Memories album and so on. It was redundant.

Why not, at 2:00 am, start a major cleaning out project? Nothing better to do...the sleeping pill hadn't kicked in yet, so I had a little time. I highlighted and clicked, and dragged duplicates to the cute little trash bin at the bottom of my screen.

Hey! What was I doing? I could Select All and get this project taken care of quickly. Then I realized that ALL the photos in my library were duplicates of the ones in the photo albums. See?? This is why I studied all those computer books...I just needed to use the shortcuts I'd read about. I moved my arrow up to Library, clicked on Select All, and sent them to the trash. The number 1,780 was replaced by a zero.

Ahhh...I felt just like I do when I've cleaned out all the drawers. Organized, uncluttered, tidy. Just then I noticed that the cute little trash bin was overflowing. Not in my house! My mother had taught be better than that. I clicked on Empty Trash. A pop-up asked if I was sure. Sure I was sure. (I'd have this computer whizzing along in no time.)

I clicked on Yes. Suddenly I noticed a zero next to each album! There were zeros by the slide shows, too. I grabbed the mouse and started clicking NO! NO! NO! I cursed, jumped up, ran around my office screaming "Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!" and ran back to my desk. It was true! I had just deleted ALL MY PHOTOS!

People run into burning houses to rescue their photographs. I actually lit the match and tossed it in. Naturally, my sleeping pill was starting to work. The words on the screen were moving around, and I couldn't focus. I stared at the empty albums with their cutesy names, and imagined images from the slide shows called England Revisited, Thanksgiving Blessings and My Easter Bunnies floating in outer space. The Ken Burns effect allowed each picture to slowly focus and artistically fade through my mind.

Dee found me asleep at my desk. As he led me off to bed I tried to explain the trauma of the experience, but it came out in a mumble, just a lot of trash talk. I remembered the nightmare the moment I woke up.

In the light of day, I've realized that it's just a personal loss. All my kids have zillions of photos of their own. I've even got many of them saved on Shutterfly or my blog. In this age of digital cameras every event gets recorded by everyone there. I'll never be at a loss for a picture of a certain grandkid at age two. I emailed pictures of our trips to the guys, as well, so I can get most of them back and recreate the slides shows when I want to.

It's just that I lost all those hours of cropping, editing, tweaking, scanning and organizing. I have to start again from scratch. Oh well, I always have a little time at 2:00 am.

Tonight's lesson summary is:

1. Everything is stored in the Library.
   
2. Albums are just categories; nothing is really in them.
   
3. Never think you know as much as the computer.
4. Forget what your mother said, and don't empty the trash.
   

A Man of Wisdom

Gordon B. Hinckley
1910-2008

A great man died last night. He was the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We Mormons consider him to be a prophet of God, like the prophets of the Old Testament.

President Hinckley has been the head of our church for 13 years, counseling all members at least four times a year in General Conferences, women's meetings, and youth meetings, as well as speaking in smaller congregations regularly as he has traveled all over the world. We read his monthly messages in a magazine called The Ensign, so he's left us an abundance of wisdom to reflect on. He has been a beloved leader.

I particularly remember a talk given to women and teenage girls called Rise to the Stature of the Divine Within You. It encouraged me, and I'm listing ten things he said that might encourage you.

1. "Educate your hands and your minds. Get all the education you can. Train yourselves to make a contribution to the society in which you live. Almost the entire field of human endeavor is now open to women, in contrast with difficult restrictions by society that were felt only a few years ago. Equip yourselves. Whether it is applied to earning a living or not, education is an investment that never ceases to pay dividends of one kind or another."
   
2. "Stir within yourselves a greater sensitivity to the beautiful, the artistic, and the cultivation of the talent you possess, be it large or small."
3. "Enlarge your minds and broaden your understanding through the reading of good books. How marvelous a thing is a good book! How stimulating to read and share with a great writer thoughts that build and strengthen and broaden one's horizon."
4. "Keep yourselves alive and vivacious in activities which will bring satisfaction into your lives while associating with others who are vigorously pursuing lofty objectives."
5. "You are not helpless, a victim of fate. You can in large measure master your fate and strengthen your self-worth by reaching out to those who need and will appreciate your talents, contributions--your help."
6. "There is much of evil in the world and too much of harshness. Do what you can to rise above all this. Stand up. Speak out against evil and brutality, abuse, and oppression."
7. "To those of you who are married, make of your marriage a partnership. God does not love His daughters less than He loves His sons. A wife walks neither ahead nor behind her husband, but at his side in a true companionship."
8. "Walk with prayer and faith, with charity and love. Our Father in Heaven has endowed His daughters with a unique and wonderful capacity to reach out to those in distress, to bring comfort and succor, to bind up the wounds and heal the aching heart. Marvelous is the power of women. I think it is part of the divinity within you."
9. "Mothers, nurture and treasure and train your children. Enjoy their laughter, and thank the Lord for them. Teach them to pray and walk uprightly before the Lord, and to love and serve one another."
10. "In making these suggestions I do not ask that you reach beyond your capacity. Please don't nag yourself with thoughts of failure. Do not set goals far beyond your capacity to achieve. Simply do what you can do, in the best way you know, and the Lord will accept of your effort."

He was a down-to-earth man with a heaven-sent message. I will miss him.

Advice to Parents

"I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want to do and advise them to do it." Harry Truman

Why Keep a Diary?

Diary of Anne Frank

"I hope I will be able to confide everything in you, as I have never been able to confide in anyone, and I hope you will be a great source of comfort and support."

This is the first entry in Anne Frank's diary, June 12, 1942

From the date of her 1st entry until August 1, 1944, when the Nazis discovered her family's hiding place in occupied Amsterdam, this diary unfolds as one of the extraordinary documents of the human spirit.

She received her diary for her 13th birthday. Over the next two years, she described her Jewish family's life in the secret annex. She died in Bergen-Belsen, of typhus. Her writings were published in 1947.

In her second-to-last entry she wrote,

"It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart."

Anne Frank

Play it Cool

Do the cool kids know who they are?

Remember the popular kids in Junior High School? We all knew who they were. They sat with the other popular kids at lunch. When I sat with them, I felt a little unsure of myself. I mean, what if they suddenly realized I wasn't part of their crowd? What if I said "Hi" to the wrong person and gave myself away?

Here are some ways I could tell a girl was more popular than I:

1. Her mother didn't make her wear socks, even when it snowed.
2. She wore a two-piece gymsuit instead of the one-piece blue jumpsuit.
   
3. Her hair was in a perfect flip.
   
4. She wrote notes to all the cute boys.
5. She knew to take cold lunch.

I felt very unsure of myself in those days. I was short, flat-chested, and my mom still cut my bangs. I didn't have an older sister to advise me on music, dancing or plucking my eyebrows.

To top off my nerdiness, I have an old-fashioned first name. In 7th grade when the teachers called the roll on the first day, I was too shy to tell them my nickname, so throughout Jr. High I had an un-cool name.

I walked to school with a popular girl who was a year older than I. She didn't have to wear a coat--all winter! What was my mother thinking?

I occasionally walked home with two of the popular cheerleaders, and I couldn't bring myself to swear, emphasizing the fact that I was a complete dork. (I can't remember the 60's word for dork.)

Over my almost sixty decades, I have talked to numerous people who also went to Jr. High. They have the same recollections of the popular kids. My own children recognized them immediately, and immersed themselves in books called How to be Popular With Boys, and Advice for Teenage Girls.

So where are all the popular kids now? Does the same crowd just hang out in the cafeteria laughing and tossing their hair forever? Did they become the movie stars or the country club set, rich and famous?

I recently ran across one of the girls I envied in Jr. High. She was beautiful, and knew to shave her legs. The smell of Jergen's lotion has reminded me of her throughout my life, because she put it on every day in Mr. Neff's history class. It's interesting to find out she's got insecurities of her own.

A boy who was the dreamboat of the school turned out to be a regular guy--in fact we share some grandchildren!

There are a lot of folks who think they are pretty neat, who really aren't. And there are a lot more who don't realize they are. I wonder if Jr. High made the difference.

860 Columbia Lane

September, 1969

We were homeowners! Our trailer was 8 feet wide and 35 feet long and cost us $1,800. Fuel oil tanks on the front provided our heat and our first purchase was a tiny cooler that sat on top. The rent for our space was $11 a month. We were thrilled! Dee gave me a tiny hand painted locket on a chain with a key to his blue VW bug, and the key to our front door as a wedding present.

Christmas, 1969

The trailer came furnished, except for a bed. This is the front end. Across from the couch we built a bookcase from cinder blocks and boards covered in burlap. Dee's homemade collection of reel-to-reel tapes with all of Churchill's speeches sat in the honorary position on top.

If you turn around you'll be in the kitchen.

Old Trailer, 1969

Notice the real pine paneling. We loved it. To the right (out of the picture) was the heater. It had to be lit with a match and was probably very dangerous. The oven was also lit with a match, as were the burners.

The wall next to the stove is actually a sliding door leading to the bedroom, which was exactly as long as our double bed, with a little space on one side. There was a built-in nightstand next to the bed, and we added an ornate green glass hanging lamp, made by my friend Susie Dee as a wedding present. There was one tiny closet in the whole house, and only the cupboard space you see here.

Between the kitchen and the bedroom was a tiny hall with two sliding doors. When the doors were closed, we were in the bathroom. We sat on the toilet to brush our teeth since the sink was just inches away. From that same perch we could easily reach to turn on the water for a bath. It was very convenient.

Three days before our wedding we did the interior decorating. With three dollars I bought a green and blue flowered shower curtain, and some powder blue plastic flowers to stick on the floor of the 2' x 3' tub/shower. Dee painted the kitchen and bathroom blue. We were so pleased with the results that we held an open house!

Mom and Dad came with another couple in tow, to tour our new digs. They had to walk through individually because the hall wasn't long enough or wide enough to accommodate more than one person, (unless it was a couple who were young, skinny, and madly in love.) My dad was so claustrophobic that we had to stand outside by the car to eat the cake I made for the occasion.

Ten months later we put a bassinet in the living room, and welcomed our first baby into our little home.

Baby Makes Three

The stars in our eyes that first year of marriage were so dazzling, it was impossible to see the clouds, and storms that were coming down around us. We loved our new life together, our little home and family. Mom complained that we didn't seem part of her family anymore... we weren't. We'd started building our little kingdom and that's where our efforts were focused.

Without a TV, money, or an extra car we were all we had for entertainment. We popped popcorn, and purchased chips with expensive dips for our New Year's Eve celebration. We borrowed an individual slide viewer from Dee's dad, and spent hours looking at our Salzburg slides individually as part of our celebration, remembering the magic of our first days together, reviewing the miracles that had brought us to this point.

We were overwhelmed by our blessings and couldn't believe our luck at having a home of our own for our little family. The amenities were never discussed. We had the two of us and the Lord to discuss decisions with, and a baby to give purpose to our future, and we lived and dreamed, "after the manner of happiness."

Advice: Take pictures of all the rooms of the house you live in, and every house from now on.
Collect evidence of your life so you'll be able to prove your stories aren't exaggerations.

All Aboard!

The Station

by Robert J. Hastings

Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We're traveling by passenger train and out the windows we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat. of flat lands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hillsides, of city skylines and village hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.

But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true; so many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a complete jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering...waiting, waiting, waiting for the station.

'When we reach the station, that will be it, we cry.' Translated it means, 'When I'm eighteen, that will be it...when I buy a new Mercedes Benz, that will be it...when I put the last kid through college, that will be it...when I have paid off the mortgage, when I win the promotion, when I retire, that will be it...I shall live happily ever after."

Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.

Sooner or later we must realize there is no one station; no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.

It isn't the burdens of today that drive men mad; rather, it is the regret over yesterday, or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.

So stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we travel along. The station will come soon enough.