Buffalo Gal

Prairie Woman has blogged beautifully earlier today about the Celtic origins of what we call Halloween (Samhain to the Celts).   I am obviously having a hard time taking my "hiatus" and have a couple more blogs to get out of my system before I go completely " hiatic".  I did promise a few faithful readers of Buffalogal that I would occasionally share some of my writing for my kids and grandkids during this time of letting up on the daily blogging.

Tonight is Halloween (short for "Hallow’s Eve")   This afternoon we took a drive to see the new southwest Fargo Walmart on 52nd Ave SW.  It is HUGE and slightly different from the traditional "big box" Walmarts.   I didn’t get to look at the entire store because I got tired out and nearly dizzy by the vast array of merchandise in that big, not-quite-a box- store.  My husband said he read that there are about 300 new jobs due to the opening of that store. The candy shelves were being mobbed by many customers in preparation for the Trick or Treaters who will be out tonight.  We called ourselves "Halloween-ers" in my day.  We only went to a few places like the near neighbors when I did that schtick so long ago.  Tonight there is a full moon and that would be satisfying to my kid-soul as I recall going out under a full moon and imagining I would see a black witch and her cat flying on a broomstick silhouetted by the big full moon.  I only imagined it.  I never saw such a thing but I was an imaginative little girl and it almost seemed like I SAW a real  witch on the full moon.  My small paper grocery trick or treat bag usually had a lot of "candy corn" in it when I returned home after the "Halloweening".  The bag also had popcorn, crackerjacks and homemade fudge and divinity…good pickings in those days!!!    

  I had to do some research on candy corn because today I looked for the familiar Halloween candy when I was in Fleet Farm and could find no bags of just the traditional candy corn; all I could find was a bag of mixed salted peanuts with some candy corn in the mix.   

I must now confess that I LOVE candy corn!  Always did and always will.  The candy corn has been around since the 1880s when a man named George Renninger made the first candy corn for the Wunderlee Candy Company.   The ingredients in candy corn are very simple….sugar, corn syrup, honey and just a bit of salt.  The traditional colors of yellow, orange and white are added before the corn candy is shaped to look like a triangular corn kernel.  Nowadays there is also what is called "Indian Corn"….it is brown, orange and white and to me—-not at all satisfying.  I am a candy corn purist!   Also nowadays, other candy corn is made for other holidays which seems almost sacriligious to me;  Reindeer Corn for Christmas (red, green, white);  Cupid Corn for Feb 14 (red, pink and white) and Easter corn (pastel colors).  The true orange, yellow and white candy corn is the only kind I would eat….purist that I am.

Each year over 35 million pounds of candy corn are made.  That must compete with the real corn crop in some areas of the country!!!!  The first candy corn was made by hand but later, technology came up with a way to put the candy into the recognizable molds for the triangular kernels.  It would have been fun to see the hand-made candy corn.

So tonight, little kids and big kids will be out trick or treating but probably are not hoping to get any candy corn which I think might be as despised by the younger generation as orange jelly slices or the banana flavored hard-marshmallow "peanuts" candy of my youth.  The only thing I could despise more than orange slices or banana "Peanuts" now… (I loved them in my youth)… is the Easter Candy called "Peeps".  Years ago when I used to follow the daily musings of the "Backfence" in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (written by Fargo native James Lileks)  he wrote each Easter about "Peeps" and asked his readers to e- mail him about other uses for "Peeps"… other than eating.  I cannot recall what was offered, but I remember laughing til I nearly choked over the originality of some ideas about using "Peeps"  for things beyond eating them at Easter.

I wonder if there are any other candy corn devotees out there?   Or lovers of "Peeps"??? I would like to know where you are and why you share my passion for candy corn… are there any others? How about orange slices (jelly candy) or "banana peanuts"??

By the way I have gone totally nuts this afternoon over candy.  I always buy a couple of bags of the little candy bars "just in case" some kids stop at our country home.  They never do any more..we used to see the little neighbor kids who were preschoolers and even more years ago some friends of one of my sons but no trick or treaters have darkened our Halloween nights for a long time.  So guess who eats the candy?     Since this morning I have had several small butterfingers, one small Reese’s peanut butter cup, and more small Mounds and Almond Joys than I care to ‘fess up to.  I also sampled the salted peanut and candy corn mix that I  absolutely had to buy at Fleet Farm.  It just reached out and grabbed my right arm when I was walking by it…..no lie!!!   It was in my shopping basket before I knew what had happened.   No lie!  (But I feel my nose growing longer in a Pinnocchioesque manner!)

I have my little  ceramic jack o lantern candle lit.  I did not even go to the upstairs closet and find the electric Wal Mart jack-o-lantern this year.  I am getting slow in my dotage.

With the burgeoning high-tech ways of communicating, ie. cell phones, texting, facebook, twitter, even e mails……we are slowly but surely losing one of our greatest treasures in families and even for our national history.   I speak of the art of letter writing….those missives written by hand on penmanship paper or stationery paper.  Real paper envelopes with real people’s handwriting on them…real return addresses in the left hand corner….old stamps from days long gone.

Many books have been written with old letters as sources. Think of the books about John and Abigail Adams!   I have read two biographies of the Adamses and both of them are based on their letters to each other during the times when John was gone for long periods of time from their Braintree (now Quincy) Massachussetts farmstead.  The letters are marvelous moments in history caught in old handwriting.  One of my favorite books ever…"Those Days" by North Dakota native, Richard Critchfield, is largely based on old letters and pages from old diaries.  He could not have recorded his family’s interesting history without those letters that had been saved by his family members.

I have just finished reading a book….a novel titled "The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society".  The entire book is written as letters to and from characters in the novel.  The story covers the time period on the channel island of Guernsey from the end of World War 2 in 1946 when a London writer goes to the island of Guernsey to record the islanders’ experiences under the Nazi army occupation during the war.  The letter format of the novel is exceedingly clever and revealing.  The story is wonderful.      It seems like fictional letters are almost as interesting as real letters saved in familes.  Fortunately, I had an Aunt who did not throw away letters and I now own the letters written by my father in the period between 1920 and 1924.

Today’s letter from home is written on March 26, 1924.  The "26" is double-underlined by my father….it is his birthday on the day he wrote and he was newly 19 years old.  He wrote to his sister Mabel (Meb) to let her know about his considerable progress as a young man.  He gets right to the subject:    "Dear Meb,  I don’t suppose you realize  that the baby of the S—fambly is 19 years old today.  Well I am and I am much bigger now than I was 9 years ago.  I am 6 feet  4 in. now, if I stand on a box 1 foot high.  I celebrated my birthday by buying a new suit, a swell one too.   $ 25.00.    O gee, O gosh, but I am glad you are coming home.  If anyone will hoot and holler it will be me. I did it when I heard you were on the way.  Grandma thought you would be home in about 3 weeks. She is sick today.  got a bellyache..hehehehehehe!  {their grandmother who lived with the family was  very bossy woman and was hard on her gentle daughter- in- law before she died at the young age of 52}  Is there going to be a little one, Mabel?  hehehehehe!   I was just wondering.     "Noi" is coming home this Friday and is going to buy a motorcycle and help maintain the road.  I guess he is tired of school.  He says school was all right but there was  some d—–fools at the head of it.  They tried to collect $6.00 from each of the kids for hospital fee. and you know they had paid five dollars when they started school. Noi said they weren’t going to pay it tho. {school refers to the Northwest Agricultural School at Crookston}            We butchered a pig today.  jeg skut den saa den trile jeg gut.  {he writes a phrase in Norwegian at  this point and I wish I knew its meaning}     I live on a farm so I have to tell you all I know.  For one thing, my calf has got the s—- I mean the skoers (faulty spelling of "scours")  I think my pig is due next month.  We will be starting on the field next week if the weather holds out.  Our west by town they have started seeding.     Won’t you be a happy pippil {slang for people}  when you turn in on the Hans S. yard?  Won’t I tho! {this is underlined two times}   You’ll find it the same as when you left it only I’ll be a lot better looking of course.   It is hard to be better looking than I was…he ha. 

Then he gets on a more serious subject. He speaks of "Alma" who is his older brother’s wife and she is suffering from an "abcess".  Whatever she had, it eventually took her life ( it was probably tuberculosis as that disease took so many young people back then.  An older brother in the family had died of TB at the age of 20 and a sister would die of it at the age of 32 leaving the family in deep grief)      He writes,  "They had to lance Alma’s abcess again so now she has three tubes and it is draining good now.  She eats quite a lot and she sleeps good.  So I hope she’ll get better.   but we can’t tell as she is awfully weak.  Muriel is so cute {this is the young daughter of Alma and their brother and she is only about one year old as this is written.)  She got a awful lot of hair and two teeth one on top and one on the bottom. She is always laughing.  Gee but I hope Hilda can come home too.  They will go to Shevlin again I suppose but not until they have been here about a hundred years I hope.    When Hartvig (Mabel’s new husband) builds his house I am going to keep burning it down so you will have to stay at home.  Tell Hartvig to eat a lot of coconut will ya? {Meb and Hartvig have been in California}     We are going to have a basket social at school on Friday.  I am going and I am going to get dead drunk.  Can you imagine me being that way?  I guess I won’t though. {the family were all serious teetotalers}   Being it was my birthday I kinda thought I would get a Ford or sumthin in the mail but it was delayed or something. Gee but isn’t getting tired a nusince {nuisance}   I am getting tired so I will have to quit.   Hurry up and get home.  Good by now.   from the best looking kid in the S. family."

His quick jumps from subject to subject show a desire to share the news with his beloved sister.  He does not bother to use any correct paragraphing but just goes on from one sentence to another with his lively thoughts and gentle joking that was so common in this family.   When my father was a small boy, he was outside playing by himself and was walking on a fence when he fell off and landed hard on the ground.  His sister Hilda heard him say "Uff, I think I b-uoke a b-uone in my tummy."   She told that story so many times over the many years she lived (to the age of 90).  The three sisters…Meb, Hilda and Emma spent a lot of time with their littlest brother, my father, and it was small wonder that he loved them so much and they him.

He once told me that he and his brother Noi (Norman) often stayed by themselves at the farm if the rest of the family went off to a Luther League or church activity.  They were the two young ones and often they stayed home to take care of the cows and other animals while their older brother and sister went to sing a duet at some "doing".  They were all muscial in the family.  Noi and my Dad invented a game they played called "Duck on a Rock". They gathered up two stones…one bigger one and one smaller one..the smaller one being the duck and the duck sat on top of the bigger rock.  Then the two of them would take turns with other stones trying to knock the duck off the rock.  Their simple games and fun served them well.  The remained close friends to the ends of their lives.  Noi who was two years older than my father died first and when the news came of Noi’s death my father became ill with a high fever.  His grief was terrible to see.  When he was delerious with the fever, tears poured from his eyes for hours even though he was not aware of them.  Noi was 86 and my father lived on for about 4 more years til his own death at age 87.

This family of 3 brothers and two sisters….the ones who survived and did not die from tuberculosis  or diptheria at a young age….were close and loving.  They never got together without sitting close together with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders.  Each Christmas we would have a family gathering and there was much joking and much singing around the piano as their children also loved music, quite naturally.  We always had a big "program" of music and when the kids were young, we had to say our "pieces" from either school or Sunday school.  We usually went to the older brother’s home which had a fireplace and I remember standing in front of the hot fire in the fireplace singing lustily with my cousins.  My Aunt Meb had a ringing soprano voice and her brothers all were mellow tenors. I never heard Hilda sing because her family moved to California in the early 1940s and were never home at Christmas.

One of the most tender times I remember was a gathering when all the siblings were well into their 60s and 70s.  We met at Uncle Carl’s lake cottage and when it was time to go home, everyone was sad because Noi was going back to California too (he moved there in the 1940s also to work in the war plants in CA)    The brothers refused to show the sadness so instead they played "last tap".  Whoever got tapped last had to be "IT" for the years in between visits.  I never had seen my Dad run fast and he ran like a kid that day so he would not be tapped last!   I cannot remember who got to be IT that time but they wanted to send Noi back to California being IT for at least a year or longer.

What tender memories endure about my father and his brothers and sisters.  Those memories are ever with me.

This blog is especially for my children and grandchildren but I choose to share it with others as well.    I am the fortunate person who has a series of letters written by my Dad when he was in his late teenage years;  born in 1905, he wrote these letters from 1921 to 1924. Most of the letters are to his sister, "Meb" (Mabel) who was away from home at the times he wrote to her.  He missed her terribly as his mother had died at age 52 in 1920 after she had suffered with the terrible flu of 1918.  It left his mother with damaged kidneys and in those days, there was no such thing as a cure for failing kidneys and she slowly wasted away and died in November of 1920 when my father was only 15 years old.  My Aunt Meb once told me that my Dad lay on the floor after his mother died and cried and cried til he couldn’t cry any longer.  His grief was terrible for him and for those who had to watch him.  After the death of the mother, his sisters, who were older than he, were not always at home, making him terribly sad and lonely for them.  The oldest sister Hilda married and moved to Shevlin, Minnesota the town where her husband grew up.      Sometimes "Meb" would go and stay with Hilda and help her with the considerably large load of housework women had to do in those days. At any time my Dad was alone at home…not alone…but without brothers or sisters he loved so dearly, he would write letters from home….a mixture of longing and his particular brand of humor.  He also wrote to his brother "Noi"  (Norman) who was attending classes for a term at the old NWSA in Crookston…the Northwest School of Agriculture, which has become a branch of the university of Minnesota in latter years but in its beginnings it was a small rural agricultural school for students from the rural areas to gain more knowledge, mostly about farming.  While "Noi" was away at school, my Dad and "Meb" sent him some homemade candy but unfortunately, the candy had been booby-trapped, and every piece of candy contained part of a bar of soap so that "Noi" was foaming at the mouth when he tried to eat it.  Meb and my Dad thought that was a really good joke to pull on their brother (who probably had it coming because he was such a rascal himself and no doubt, had pulled such farmlife- type tricks on the other siblings in the past.) 

My Dad once told me that all three brothers (him and the two other brothers who lived beyond babyhood) had to sleep 3 in a bed in the cold upstairs of the old homestead house that had been built by their paternal grandfather and grandmother.  The 3 brothers all jockeyed for the place in bed that was nearest the window so  that brother could put his bare feet on the icy cold window pane and then put those cold feet on the nearest brother’s warm back. Such was life in the household my Dad grew up in…much love and much humor and much laughter—-until their mother died and then sadness took over for a long time.

My Dad, writing to his sister in June of 1921 when she was visiting her married sister in Shevlin, MN  wrote of the hot days that led to others in the neighborhood going swimming, in the lake nearest the farm.  My Dad was unable to go swimming as he was still recovering from a serious illness which nearly killed him at the age of 15…a burst appendix which was treated with bedrest and other non-antiobiotic means in 1920.  He was transported to the hospital in Fergus Falls in the bleak midwinter by train but the appendix had burst before he got there and he was in the hospital for the rest of the winter. He somehow, miraculously, survived the infection.  In those days, all that could be done was to drain the infected area and hope for the best.  But the other friends were going swimming on that hot day that he wrote to Meb.  He was incensed with a neighbor named Art N.  My  Dad referred to him as a "D—–fool and told how Art tried to attract attention to himself.

"Gee but that Art N thinks he is smart.  Last night Carl N was over here and he brought Hilda and Helen with him (neighbor girls).  He (Art N) had to go around  "hitten" ( hitting) us with sticks so we would notice him.  Big Fool. And then when we got down to the lake, me and Melvin didn’t go in but we went out in the boat.  And here that big fool of an Art  came out and splashed water all over us so we got "soaken"  wet {spelling was NOT my Dad’s forte)  and today I can feel the results.  I got such a bad cold I can hardly keep my eyes open." 

Dad suddenly changes subjects and goes on to report "you might be surprised to  hear that Norman and me have joined the Tansem band. (The township had their own band back then).    Jorgen has joined too.  We all got altos (some type of beginners’ horn, I presume) and we will get cornets later.  Sam Anderson is helping us along." Then in another sudden change of topic my Dad says that  "Carl (his older brother) has been working on the road every day.  He has made 124 dollars this month already.  Oh but it was hot yesterday. I almost croaked.  Say by the way I wish you would " symetize" with us. {Dad’s spelling of "sympathize"}  We aint got no name for our colt yet."   {Dad was not a great grammarian either!)    Then he suddenly switches to a topic dear to his heart…his first nephew Charles, Hilda’s son.   "How is Charles? Gee but I wish he was here.  If Charles don’t come down here this summer, me and HIlda will mix. (I take it he is saying his sister and he will get in a bit of a set-to)   Now take this as a warning and come down.  {his love and loneliness for his sisters is evident}   They say I am awful when I get mad.  We are all waiting for our little dalink {little darling, I guess}.  Well goodbye and greet everybody. From your beloved kid brother Ed.  P.S.  I should greet you from Carl. Aint I good who will write to you? "

In another letter sent to his brother "Noi" who is at  NWSA in Crookston at the time, my Dad begins with a bit of what he thinks is pretty smutty humor for him.  He greets his brother with "My Dear Constipated Brother"  and goes on to ask  "How does your digestive organs cooperate with the A– end of your constitution?"     (later in the letter, he reports that the housekeeper, a lady named Regine, has peeked over his shoulder and seen the opening paragraph.  There is fear in his writing when he thinks that Regine might report his letter writing to his father who is away from the farm for several days on business!!!)  The he goes on to tell his brother about his cow.   "My cow has had a confinement case.  The cow is up and around again and the calf is doing nicely although it " hasent" got a tail. The Nelson kids were here last night and we sure did raise L.  {apparently a reference to "raising hell"}  You see Pa went to Erhard Saturday and is coming back today so its just Regine and me at home. That darn Regine sneaked up behind me and read the first part of the letter. I read Dora’s letter (another neighbor girl) the one you sent to her and I seen you were intending to come home during show week {an annual animal show event which still is observed at the Crookston school). I had sort of planned on coming up there for that week. I guess I won’t.  As soon as you come home, I am going to knock L out of you.  How is your music lessons coming?  Fine I hope.  Say D——- you… you write to Mabel P.D.Q.  Her address is Long Beach California, general delivery.  Yours truly, Pink" {his family nickname}

Imagine being able to send a letter to someone in Long Beach California in care of the general delivery.  The letter was written on January 21, 1924 and I guess back then you could send a letter to Long Beach at general delivery and it would get to the person.  Amazing.

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My dear children and grandchildren:  this is a taste of your maternal grandfather and great grandfather when he was just a young man in his teens.  His good humor and love for his family shines through his somewhat crude letters.  There will be more to read later.  Your Mom and Grandmom loves you all more than she can say!!!

I have been at this blogging on Areavoices for a long time….there were others before me and there are many more bloggers at present.  I just looked at "my stats" and discovered that I have entered 938 blogs since May 11, 2006 (first time) til now.  I have been "at it" for 1267 days.  Those numbers amaze me….time flies when you are having fun and blogging on "Buffalogal" is definitely fun…pleasant, exciting, challenging at times….many adjectives could describe the experience.

Now I am think more and more that it is time for me to take a break….a hiatus….a blogging vacation…..a sabbatical….whatever one wants to name it.    

I have a long-unfinished project that I need to complete.  I began recording things I want my sons and grandkids to know about us…my husband and I, and our past histories that extend pretty far back to pre-world war 2 (by one year).  We have lived through a lot of things in our time….mostly good things but like everyone’s life, there are always the trials and tribulations that come inevitably.  I have a memory that just will not stop…like my own Mother, I can remember details of things long past….and while I still have that ability I think I better get serious about recording it all for my family members.  I know they would all like to read these recorded memories.   

I have also been moderately gifted as one who can— and loves to write.  I might just as well make use of the gift I have been given…for the benefit of those who will live on after me.    I have one more thing I want to blog about and it will be a part of the recorded memories that I want my kids and grandkids to have.  I have some old letters that my father wrote to his sister when he was still a teenager and she was married and had left the home their family loved so much.  My Dad is lonesome for his sister and the longing comes through in his short letters in a most poignant way.   He is the only one left at home with his own father and a housekeeper…who had to be hired after the death of his mother in 1920.

I may not be able to keep myself from blogging every now and then…..it is in my nature to write the blog now after so many entries and such a long time.  But I am going to concentrate on the writing for my family.

It has been such a pleasure to be "Buffalogal" in the time I have been an Areavoices blogger. I know I will keep reading the other blogs I so enjoy….way too many of them to even mention… but I have made so many blog friends over these past years, and all of them are precious to me…even those I have not met personally.   Blogging on Areavoices has become a most important part of many people’s days and reading the blogs must be one of the most read of all the things that appear in the online FORUM on a daily basis.

So until I blog again…..I will say "Adieu" …..at least for awhile til I get that family book written and printed.

 A wonderful weekend has been concluded with the last red taillights going down the driveway as the last "kid family" left for home this afternoon.    We have spent time together since Friday night with all three of our sons and their wives and children. The only grandchild we did not have with us this weekend was the oldest one…going on age 21 in a few weeks and in college in Chicago.  The rest of us whooped it up in various ways.

We started with a meal together on Saturday afternoon.  Our oldest grandson has a job in one of the restaurants that serve good food and he can get us a discount if we come with him so we did just that and enjoyed the food and even more, the fellowship around the food….for about an hour and a half.  Fortunately we could occupy our place for that long as we went at an un-busy time.  In our family we have 3 late October birthdays and in November we have three birthdays close together; and one more on Dec 1.  We are all bunched up in one time of the year with scattered winter ones (5) and 3 summertime birthdays.  So we try to get together in late October to cover as much as we can birthday-wise.

Then we were off to the Bison game at the Dome—–disappointing again because the Bison lost their seventh game and did not look like the Bison usually look on the football field. There are too many injuries and too many young  and inexperienced players having to fill in positions they are not quite ready for at this stage of their development…but play they must.

By the time we got everyone sorted out at the Dome (there were 16 of us to keep track of) we all went home, tired, full of popcorn, nachos, sugared almonds and various kinds of soft drinks.   Nobody went to bed right away and when I got home, later than the rest did, they were making fun of things they had found in my refrigerator.  It was an absolute hoot to discover a jar of horseradish that had an expiration date of 1994, it seems.  (I actually do clean out my frig but I have ignored some bottles and I never think of looking at the expiration date on things like horseradish).  They had found other things and my third son must have a food fetish of some sort because he never let up on me well into this morning about my expired foodstuffs in the refrigerator.  It is not fun to come home unless the boys can get right back into their tormenting of their mother….I am used to it so I am not at all sensitive.  I will get all of them back in due time…mark my word.   Do not mess with me, you will not win, is my motto where the sons are concerned.  I have taken too much parental abuse from them over the years, as all three of them have highly- developed senses of humor, bordering on wackiness.   Two of them knew my fears about their driving places and would refer to "fiery crashes in ditches" so I would hear it.  I used to bite like a chump on every ruse they threw at me but no more!     I don’t like to be reminded about the summer the youngest one was recuperating from a spinal fusion and could not do much of anything.  We discovered that if we had him sit in a lawn chair by the garage door just inside the shady strip, I could bounce him a tennis ball and he could bounce it back to me. The tennis ball seemed to be taking a lot of crazy bounces that sent it out into the grassy lawn where the sun was hot and miserable and I had to run after it.  Not til some years later, was I told that he had deliberately aimed for a big crack in the cement so the ball would take those crazy bounces. He had accurate aim and I did what he knew I would do…run after the ball in the hot sun and behind my back he laughed and laughed (silently) and would sober up as soon as I returned for the next  "dumb- chump bounce".  This went on for weeks and weeks into the end of summer and I never caught on; it gave boy # 3 endless pleasure to make a monkey out of his mother for so many long weeks.

Now some of the grandsons have taken after their fathers and are pulling the same kinds of tricks on their "Gramma"   I have been scared nearly witless by hiding grandsons who pop out of dark places at me when I am least expecting it.   I have repeatedly told them they better know how to do CPR just in case I collapse from their scare tactics…..that… or be prepared with a mop and bucket to clean up after me when I get that suddenly frightened.  They think that is hilarious and laugh riotously at the mere thought of such an occurence.

The girls had their fun today when a daughter- in- law practiced her Mary Kay presentation on them.  They became so beautiful with the use of subtle makeup skills that I told them they should be wearing ball gowns.  Grandpa told them that all his granddaughters were beautiful, with, or without Mary Kay makeup on their faces.  But they had a good time doing it.  I got a foot fix from my daughter- in- law who knows how to massage feet and hands and I am still walking on air. I oredered some Mary Kay stuff for foot fixes.  I need that, I discovered.

The "boys"…the old ones and the youngs ones…were occupying the space close to the TV set and they died with the Vikings.  One son was nearly in an apoplectic fit and had to go outside and run it off by throwing a football around in the yard.  Later he was getting relief by riding on a 4- wheeler but he is the one who takes the Vikings most seriously and he was in bad shape when Pittsburgh took the lead and it began to look bad for the Vikes.  We all discussed the possibility of the entire family having to put him through some sort of de-programming to ease him out of his snit- fits every Sunday when the Vikes play their games.  It won’t be easy but we are thinking about it.

Now it has gotten so quiet…all the books, the homework notebooks, the myriad of special blankets and pillows, a dog kennel and the dog dishes, the jackets, the many pairs of shoes in the hallway, the bags and suitcases, a loaf of bread sent home with grand daughter Number 5 (she loves Hornbacher bread toasted) and all the things that families have to bring along when they visit….all of it is gone and the hall is once again empty.   The cat who has been in a hidey hole since Friday night (except for when she walked across sleeping son # 1 and meowed him awake about 2 a.m.) can come out and resume her normal cat-life with the two of us.  She is still in hiding but will realize sooner or later that she is not hearing the clicking of dog claws from her enemy, Jobie, the nervous-Nellie- Dachsund grand-dogger, on the first floor surfaces…nor can she hear the hoots and yelps of the grandkids having so much fun together…or the adult shouts during the Vikings game or the constant conversation of the past 36 hours.  One of my favorite Gary Larson cartoons is still on my frig. door..it shows a Dachsund standing on its hind legs on a chair by the kitchen counter and he is making a pot of Espresso.  The caption says "How nervous little dogs start their days"  and that is Jobie, for sure.  He must drink highly caffienated coffee when we aren’t watching him.

Everything is just fine—-til Thanksfgiving weekend!!!    I need a nap.  The recliner is calling my name.

There is always an abundance of people who could be tagged "thin-skinned whiney crybabies" as in parents who whine when their teenagers do not get to play on starting lineups.  Small children…not all of them of course…are often thin-skinned whiney crybabies when they first go to school and discover that they have to do what their teacher says or when they cannot have it their way at all times or when they do not get what they want in a store they are scouting around in.  But when the thin-skinned whiney crybabies are in the nation’s White House—the seat of the presidency—–it gets perplexing for citizens who have not seen the likes of such behavior at anytime in the past history.   Oh, all presidents have a love-hate relationship with the "Press" as we have seen exhibited time and time again in past presidents…but I cannot recall any President who tried to shut down an entire news network as President Obama has done….he and his close associates in his White House at present.  The Nixon years "enemies list" came somewhat close but the Nixonians never tried to shut down an arm of the Press.

Last Sunday both Rahm Emmanuel and David Axewlrod went on national Sunday news shows and clearly aired out the White House attitude toward one, and one only…news network….FOXnew.  If it weren’t for their seriousness about this issue, one would  think some sort of Halloween humor or early practical joke for April 1 was being pulled on the American public.  But it is no joke.    White House aide Anita Dunn, who largely manages the press affairs of the administration, shot off the first cannonade against FOX when she preceded the Sunday talkers a week ago.  Clearly, FOX has the big Bulls’ Eye on its logo of "fair and balanced" news.   News, I said—-the evening lineup, like that of networks like MSNBC and CNN—are very partisan and are definitely in the category of commentary—MSNBC has Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and "Thrills Up My Leg" Chris Matthews.  CNN has Anderson Cooper and others. FOX has Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck, most notably.  Mike Huckabee’s weekend show is  also clearly partisan but none of the above-mentioned on any network tout themselves as giving out the news….every single one of them has a definite slant–either conservative or liberal. So first off, singling out FOX as the only "bad" network that needs to be either ignored, not copied or totally shut out—is pretty juvenile and most disturbing when it comes to our First Amendment issues which are the best in the world as far as I am concerned.  Should MSNBC’s and CNN’s commentators also be threatened?

We all know that in communist regimes…like the former Soviet Socialist republics and the current dictatorships like North Korea, Iran, China,…control of what networks say and broadcast is the standard for a dictatorial regime.  But the United States President acting like he wants to be a dictator of what a news network airs is almost incomprehensible to Americans who cherish their right to free speech and the excercise therof.

Much has been written and spoken about this blatant attack by the White House on FOXnews; one of the tenets of both Axelrod or Emmanuel last weekend was that none of the other news networks attempt to "follow FOX"…that is, they should not be allowed to pick up on any stories that first appear on FOX or do anything that slightly resemembles any FOX news coverage.  Incredible!!!!  I have wondered if there is some sinister design behind these seemingly juvenile attacks by the current White House.  Others have speculated (in writing and in speaking) that there is a design.  The other option considered by me and others. is that it is the result of a terribly inept and inexperienced administration reacting to coverage they do not like or any truth that has come out from some serious research and fact-checking.  Or, could it be that our president and his closest advisors are so incredibly thin-skinned that they cannot take one bit of analysis or criticism regarding their policies or proposals?

I am thinking more and more that it is the latter.  During his campaign President Obama issued some veiled threats against news personnel who did not give him adoring coverage at all times; several newsmen/women were barred from the presidential airplane over things they had written about him that he did not like.  Could it be, that in his entire life, Obama has been used to being adored by those around him and those who write about him.  Seeing the fawning coverage of his campaign and early presidency by major liberal news networks makes one think that this might be the root of the problem.  As he began to govern, things were noticed about him that had not been noticeable in the campaign.

I must quote from the opening paragraphs of an op-ed that appeared today (Oct 23) written by one of the staff at Realclearpolitics.  Tom Bevans authored a pieced titled "Obama vs. the President He Said He’d Be"     In it, Bevans opines thusly:    "During the campaign, Barack Obama vowed that he would be a different kind of leader who would move America beyond ‘the smallness of politics’. That inspired promise was not an insignificant part of why he was elected last November.  In his inaugural address Obama told us that ‘the time has come to set aside childish things’.  He promised to bring ‘an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for too long, have strangled politics’. Not only has President Obama failed to live up to those promises so far, it appears that on a number of occasions he’s made a conscious decision to break them."

Bevans also continues later in his op-ed:  "..promises of transparency have fallen by the wayside.  The reform the President promised would be fully open to the public is now written by a tiny cadre behind closed {and locks-changed} doors on Capitol Hill, and Democrats in Congress are resisting a rules change that would allow a bill to be posted online 72 hours before a vote so the public might have a chance to see exactly what its elected representatives are voting on."

Resisting a rules change for complete transparency!!!   The major party of Congress does not want American citizens to see what is going on in the House or the Senate and they dare to call us OUR elected representatives!!!   How far from true representation have we meandered??? 

All these factors enter in to the decision to attack FOXnews because it is considered to be "not a real news network…or in Obama’s words yesterday when an NBC interviewer tried to get him to give his view of what his minions are doing to FOX, he finally said the FOX news was akin to "talk radio".   It is not just Anita Dunn, Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod or Robert Gibbs who are doing the dirty work to get FOX demonized…..the President who had so far denied any connection to his spokespersons on the FOX issue finally came out with it on NBC….it is a talk radio operation at FOX!!!   But later yesterday, reporters in a White House "pool" were going to interview one of the Obama Czars but the White House excluded FOX from the pool.  All the other reports, much to their credit and defense of first amendment rights, refused to interview the man unless FOX was included.  The President relented and the FOX reporter joined the Press Pool.  That is a brave act for the others to have done. They fully realize that if this exclusion is allowed to take place, all the others could be next on the list.

In one more op-ed about this subject writer Jeffrey Kuhner sums it up rather well.

"FOX is despised by the Obama administration and its leftist media allies in part because of its success and profitability.  Moreover FOX is feared because its growing power stands as an indictment against the dessicated media establishment……the emergence of FOX news is a sign many Americans no longer trust the political or media class.  It is part of a large populist revolt that is shaping our society. The American people crave governmental accountability and transparency.  Moreover, many in the heartland  rightly sense that something has gone terribly wrong.  They are slowly losing their country to global progressives who no longer share any attachment to traditional America."

Some powerful opinions on this new wave of attacks against a new network that seems to be a great threat to those in power in Washington DC who do not like the way a huge part of America thinks about what is going on in the nation’s capitol!!!!!     I thought this was a big part of what our Founders put into the Constitution…that American citizens have the right to freedom of speech without fearing the government will censor or try to destroy that right that was guaranteed to us by James Madison and the other founders who wrote the Constitution. 

I am MORE than puzzled by these attacks on the First Amendment.

Enter your blog post here…

Before I went on my little vacation last week, I read two things that reminded me of this time of the year—both items concerned pumpkins, that all -American fruit (yes, it IS a fruit) we love to put on our porches, carve for a "lantern" or bake as filling for a good Fall pie.

The first item was about there being a shortage of pumpkins this year due to cold wet springs in many spots in the northern parts of our nation where a lot of pumpkins are normally grown.  I know I planted my "Cinderella Pumpkin" seeds this spring and nothing even sprouted….I have no pumpkins grown in my garden but I did buy one somewhere so I have at least one big orange pumpkin sitting on my steps as a decoration.  I have always loved carving jack-o-lanterns too so who knows?  I may carve this one into a lantern on or about Oct 29 or 30!  I always got a pumpkin when I was a kid in my parents’ home and I would carve the jack-o-lantern face with the traditional triangular eyes and nose and then go on to decide if I would have a smiley or a frown-ey pumpkin, but always with jagged, missing teeth.  Then an old candle would be installed in the bottom by lighting it and dripping enough hot wax to make a holder for the candle piece.

The second item I read about was the annual "punkin-chunkin" or pumpkin-flinging contests in various parts of the United States.  Does it ever sound like fun and like something I would love to see done.  The pumpkin chunkers or flingers have a lot of rules about their "sport". The opening sentence in an article I found says this:  "Will a pumpkin, as it nears the speed of sound, turn into a piece of pie in the sky?"   The chunkers and flingers have gone to great lengths to perfect their pumpkin flinging… using catapults, medieval models of the wooden trebuchets that used to fling huge rocks at castle walls in order to knock the walls down so the invaders could go in and finish off their enemies.  Now in modern punkin-chunkin’ contests, even air cannons are allowed in the pumpkin flinging festivals.  Two I read about take place in Delaware and Vermont.  The article I read was posted from Illinois so the pumpkin throwing contests are wide-spread.   As far as I could glean from what I read, the pumpkins to be used in the chunkin’-flinging contests are to be no bigger than 10 pounds.  No recording of the record – breaking 1000 pounders that appear at fairs around the country being used in the chunkin’ contests…I imagine one could not build a big enough catapult to throw a pumpkin of that size and if anyone was down the line from such a fling….that big a pumpkin could be a fatal weapon to anyone it landed on.  That would be an embarrassing epitaph…"He was killed by a giant pumpkin, squashing him like a beetle."

The article from Illinois declares Morton, Illinois to be the Pumpkin Capital of the World.  In a machine shop in Morton, a team of pumpkin chunkers has been working on their invention since March of 2009 to be used in a punkin- chunkin’ contest soon.  Their invention is an 18-ton, 100- foot cannon made of 10-inch diameter plastic pipe, powered by compressed air and mounted on an old cement mixer.  It has been named the Aludium Q36 Pumpkin Modulator and it has already set a record for speed of pumpkin flinging at a velocity of more than 600 miles per hour.  It has flung a pumpkin 2,710 feet.  These are serious pumpkin flingers from Morton , Illinois;  they plan to enter the contest at Lewes, in coastal Delaware on November 1, when they will defend their title as World Champion Pumpkin Chunker.

There are different divisions in Pumpkin Flinging contests:  flingers can be man-powered, catapulted or trebuchet-ed or put into the new and more powerful air compressor cannons. One year, one of the contestants set up "two telephone poles with a huge rubber band between them and fired his pumpkin in the "Paul Bunyan-esque" slingshot" with the bands being pulled back by a power winch…and tossed the pumpkin 493 feet!

The serious pumpkin flingers have gravitated to the cannons using compressed air to power their pumpkin shots.    For the past 11 years, pumpkin flingers have dragged all manner of contraptions to the Lewes, Delaware pumpkin- chunking contest.  The categories include human-powered;  catapulted; centrifugal and cannon-powered.    In the 1994 contest the first air cannon appeared and flung the pumpkin more than 2,500 feet.  Then a cannon christened "Mello-Yello" beat that record in 1995 by flinging a pumpkin 2,655 feet but lost their title to the Q36 from Illinois last year.

"The Q36 when erected, resembles a crane.  It is hand-loaded from the rear, aimed using  hydraulic cylinders and a turret made from an old cement mixer, it is fired by the push of red button which releases the compressed air.  Painted military green, the gun was named after a weapon used by Marvin the Martian, a pint-sized alien in a Warner Bros. cartoon."

The sophisticated punkin-chucking contests of today have been proceeded by the pumpkin used for food by Colonial Americans who adopted it as a food source after learning from the Native Americans who used it for food and even wove mats out of dried pumpkin strips.  The word "pumpkin" comes from a Greek word for "large melon"….which is "pepon".  That morphed into the French "pompon" and the English change to "pompion".  The American colonists changed it into "pumpkin" and made the first pumpkin pies by cutting the top off a ripe pumpkin, cleaning out the seeds and pulp, filling the pumpkin with milk, sugar and spices and baking it in their fireplace ovens.  Colonists and Indians alike, also made soup and stew from pumpkins.  The last thing on their minds would have been the modern punkin-chunkin’….they would have considered that a sinful waste of good food.

Pumpkins are believed to have originated in North America with seeds from related plants being found in Mexico dating back from 7000 to 5500 B.C. So if you have a "pompion" sitting on your steps or are going to bake one for the bright orange flesh used in making pumpkin pies….you can think about the first pies from the Colonial fireplaces and the 8-10 pound pumpkins that are going to be "chunked" in that contest in Delaware on November 1, 2009.

Our last week’s trip to the far south end of Missouri (Branson is only about 10 miles from the Arkansas border) made a distinctive impression on me this time.  We have gone to this   music/entertainment town on four occasions, always in this part of October because we get tickets to the "Down From His Glory" concerts that run in Branson in mid-later October.  At this time of the year, about the only people you see in Branson are the Retired Crowd….the Seasoned Citizen Crowd—-the gray/white-haired men and the almost always "dyed red, blond or brunette" women!!!     I am always amazed at the couples we see…..all the men’s heads are normally gray or white but the women!    They mostly have dyed or bleached hair and I have a hot news item for those gals—–your faces are giving your ages away in spite of your dyed hair!!!!    Wrinkled apple faces and red/brown/blond/black hair just DO NOT go together!!!   Oh well, it’s not up to me what other women do with their hair—-it is just funny…. that is all I can say.  Each morning our friends— and we—would go to a breakfast buffet at a restaurant called "Dockers".  It is built like an old fashioned river boat from the 19th century and a lot of the Seasoned Citizen crowd goes there for breakfast because they have good food and the price is still reasonable and you can take as much or as little as you like from the outstanding buffet of breakfast dishes.  But there was a huge difference from the last time (2 years ago) that we ate at the Dockers (or "The Boat" as our pal David calls it!) You can tell that the economy of this great country is Re-Cessed and De-Pressed…..there was about half the size of the usual breakfast crowd at the Dockers this year… a very noticeable loss of numbers each day we went there. 

There were also far fewer cars and hardly any traffic on the main routes each day compared to two years ago…. Two years ago we always had to drive in bumper to bumper traffic on all the routes in town.    I had to conclude that there were a lot fewer people coming to Branson in this time of year which is a very nice time to visit….nice mild weather and usually sunshine every day.  But there were not the numbers of people around at any time of the day..morning, afternoon, or evening.

I am sure the numbers at the many, many Branson theaters are down also.  Some of the theaters had noticeably no long ticket lines and  many parking places in the huge parking lots surrounding those buildings.

One afternoon, we were at a high overlook above town and talked to a local man who has a business there.  He spoke about the definite recession in Branson now…..he knew of many condos and time-shares sitting empty….motels are suffering from vacancies as well.  And the restaurants are seeing fewer customers.  As a result there have been many layoffs among those who work in these venues—-all of them–theaters, eating places, condos, motels, time shares.  With job losses you soon get people who do not have money to live on and there is an upswing in homelessness.  Any time the economy goes down, so do local businesses everywhere and Branson’s recession or near-depression was all too obvious this October.

The continual building and development that normally goes on all over Branson and in the outlying areas has come to a near- halt also.  Many sites are sitting idle after getting started but the downturn in the economy has left them sitting there, half-built or not even started. We saw a number of big areas that had been dug up and leveled out (in the Ozark mountains which dominate the entire town, leveling a lot is big-time and necessary before any building goes up)—–but no construction had begun.  Strange to see these phenomena in so many places in that usually bustling and crowded town.

One thing that was different that had nothing to do with the economy, were  the open sluice gates on the big dam that holds back the White River and forms Table Rock Lake.  The whole area has had so much rain this summer and fall,that the pressure on the dam had to be relieved by letting a lot of water out through the gates.  We have never seen even one gate open when we have been there before but all 10 of them were pouring out the white foamy water from the big lake behind the dam.  The result was a much wider river…it had been a mere creek-like trickle in past visits, but it was rushing and foaming through a much bigger river bed this time.   When we were standing close to the bottom of the dam with its rushing gates letting out water, we thought about what would happen if such a dam were to burst and let ALL the lake water come rushing out into the valley.  Branson, or much of it, would be totally flooded, all except for the highest hills in the northern part of the city.  That would be an event equal to the Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania in the 19th century when many towns and an entire valley were wiped off the map from the broken earthen dam in that area.

Up until that trip we took last week, I have not observed the effects of the general economic recession quite as clearly as what I saw in Branson last week.  We are noticing it personally with the rising cost of living, higher gas prices, and the freezing of social security funds for those who have earned it—there will not even be a cost of living adjustment this year and one begins to wonder how that is going to affect lives around us …and ours as well.  I shudder to think of the generations coming up to retirement…there is a high likelihood that they will not even SEE the benefits from the social security system into which they have been paying their entire working lives.  It is crushing to think about…..what has happened to this once-great nation of ours?    Have our elected politicians foolishly spent away the future of those they represent?

Being Re–Cessed or De–Pressed is not much fun at all.

 An old song replays on the tape that runs constantly in my brain….."Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home."

When I was a young girl, I got asked to sing at things like wedding anniversaries, church programs and other celebrations.  I remember singing the above song at a 25th anniversary gathering for my Aunt Mabel and Uncle Harvig. I was about 12 or 13 and my mother had sewed an aqua colored, moire taffeta dress for the occasion and I remember standing on the front steps of the family home (my Dad’s homeplace) and singing the song for the assembled crowd and in those days, anniversary parties were BIG DEALS for the folks who came and for those who reached their 25th or 40th or 50th wedding anniversaries.  I also have a vivid memory of my older cousin Duane, their son, singing "Bless This House" and I determined right then and there, that I was going to learn that song because he sang it so beautifully. That same afternoon, after the "program" which was always a big part of the anniversary party, lunch was served by my Aunt’s friends in her church "circle" (I suppose) and the kids gathered to have some "real" fun.  That day it was to be a ride in my cousin Curt’s restored old Model T "truck"…it may not have started as a truck, but it had a wooden "box" at the back of the old two- seater open roofed Ford.  My cousin could only drive it in the fields and it was September then, and the field we went to was in stubble.  At least 8 kids piled in..all of us all dressed up for the anniversary party, and my cousin took us riding in the field. I remember sitting right beside him in the front seat but there was at least one more in the front and three or four in the back seat and Roger and Arlen were in the wooden box perched on the back of it.  As Curt shifted to go up a hill, and floored it so we could make it up the stubble hill, the rest of us suddenly saw Roger and Arlen go somersaulting backwards off the truck box and roll down the stubble hill in the dry field dust.  Of course we laughed hilariously but they came back to the "ride" with looks on their faces that I remember well…both of them had been rolled and scratched by the stubble and pulled up their shirts to display their scratched and dusty backs to the rest of us.  When my family got home that night, my mother cried out in horror to discover that the carefully- covered blue taffeta buttons she had worked so hard on, had the taffeta fabric totally rubbed off and the bare buttons were visible.  So much for our great adventure in my cousin’s old Model T but I remember it to this day as one of the best times I ever had with those other kids at ANY of the future family parties.

I have really taken the "long route" to get to what I was going to blog about….but we have just returned from the "Pleasures and Palaces" of a trip, to once again visit our dear friends who invite us to spend time with them at their "time-share" place in Branson MO every October.  Our main reason for going at this time is so that all of us can experience the "pleasure" of 4 wonderful concerts each October in Branson which are sponsored by the Music and Evangelism Fellowship of Colorado Spring, CO.  This organization brings in the best artists of Christian music anywhere. They combine their talents to do the four concerts on 4 back- to- back days of glorious music in the presentation which is titled "Down From His Glory".  We always return filled with awe at the muscial talent and wonderful concerts done by this large group of singers, instrumentalists and, often, a large orchestra from a nearby college in Springfield, MO.  I am still "walkin on air" from hearing once again, Huw Priday…a concert and operatic tenor who lives in Wales.   I know that Wales has produced so much fine choral and solo singing over their history and Huw Priday is an example of Welsh music’s finest.  I also appreciate the piano talent of Joseph Martin and the amazing talent of harpist Greg Buchanan.  All the artists should be singled out for their excellence but I named my personal favorites.  This years’ concerts featured two sopranos (Carolyn Reed and Sue Martin) whose voices are almost beyond belief for their beauty, grace, and amazing musical ranges. In her younger days, Sue Martin played "The Little Mermaid" at the Forida Disney World.   All the featured male soloists were glorious tenors including 88- year old Russell Newport who can still sing like an angel at his age.  One night, a clip from an old Ed Sullivan show was played, showing Ed Sullivan introducing a much- younger Russell Newport who was then the premiere performer among Christian soloists.   Also each night, Jeanette Clift George was featured as a guest artist….she is the actress who played Corrie Ten Boom in the movie, "The Hiding Place" which hit the movie world in the 1970′s. Ms. George is also in her 80s but the power of her monologs belie her true age…she was marvelous also.

If anyone goes to Branson, I would highly recommend attendance at the Sight and Sound theater, only two years into its existence in Missouri.  We saw the Noah’s Ark muscial and play and I cannot adequately describe that theatre other than to say in the second act, the whole theater became the inside of Noah’s Ark with about 6 levels of the animals cages surrounding us…and filled with the animals!!!!   Many of them were "animatronic" creations but the horses, goats, sheep, donkeys, and some of the birds were real and so well trained I stand in awe of those who can teach such animals to "act".  The favorites were a pair of St Bernard dogs who were so obedients and amazing as the Noah family’s personal pets. The scene where the animals entered the ark is especially unforgettable and the amazing sound effects of the first rainstorm on earth was so stunning that it cannot be described.  There are two other Sight on Sound theaters in the United States and both are in Pennsylvania.  One family has built these amazing theaters and sponsored the productions presented in them. At the front entrance of this amazing theater building, there is a sculpture of a lion and a lamb lying beside each other that is so life-like one thinks that the lion will yawn at any moment.

After a 12- hour road trip yesterday, we arrived at our own "be it every so humble, there’s no place like home" last night after dropping off two dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts to our Fargo grandkids who still miss the Fargo Krisy Kreme place.   Krispy Kreme is alive and well in the South!!!

I am so  bone-tired from the fun we had in the far south of Missouri amid the majestic Ozark Mountains and the delightful envrirons of the beautiful rivers, lakes and forests which surround the once-small town river landing called Branson, Missouri. (I still love the old part of Branson the best of anything there) It is going to take a few days of "home R and R" to get back to my real self again.  But being home again does wonders for weary travelers…it always has and it will again, this time.

The chorus of the old song, "Mid Pleasures and Palaces" goes like this:  "Home, home, sweet, sweet home!  There’s no place like home, no– there’s no place like home."

And it is true.