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Posts Tagged ‘family’

Wilcox Side of Things

Posted in genealogy, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2025| 1 Comment »

I paused my research on my maternal side of the family to scan photos and documents from the paternal side. My father took the time to identify and label most of the photos and that has been a great help, but there are still a few unknowns waiting to be identified.

Speaking of identifying things: Dad identified more with his mother’s family than he did with his father’s family line. He told us how he was Irish, and he could even remember a few words of Gaelic when he was younger.  Sadly, the knowledge I have of his family ends with the first emigrant to America who sailed from Northern Ireland and who was Presbyterian by faith. My own DNA registers no Irish ancestors, but tracing ancestry by DNA is only as good as the pool of people (relatives) who also have their DNA tested.

I have a lead that might be my Irish ancestors, but it bears more research. If it pans out, they were originally from south Ireland and migrated to the north, possibly due to religious differences (again, the family was Presbyterian, not Catholic). Traditionally, Northern Ireland is Protestant and Ireland is Catholic. Orange vs. Green despite both colors being in the national flag.

Whatever the differences, the Cusick (possibly Cusack misspelled at some point in time) side of the family identified as Irish Nationals who emigrated across the Pond.

John Timothy Wilcox I

Dad’s immediate family was riddled with tragedy and not a little bit of mystery. He was a Wilcox, descendant of John Timothy Wilcox I. JT as I believe he was known, had several siblings but I never heard a whisper of cousins on that side of the family until I got into genealogy. As far as I knew, JT was an only child (he wasn’t). JT married Azema Kimmey and they had two children: Fred Orson “Fritz” and Mary Elizabeth. The latter died within a year or two of her birth.

FO “Fritz” Wilcox

Fritz, or Gramps as I knew him, was married three times. There may have been some affairs in between wives, Dad was never very clear. What Dad was clear on was that he very much resented his father, Fritz. A cousin recently told me why: apparently Fritz would come home drunk and then beat Dad for no reason. I think the marriages after the death of Dad’s mother had some bearing on the estrangement as well. But I am supposing and Dad is gone so I can’t ask him anymore.

Sylvia Cusick Wilcox

Fritz’s first wife was Sylvia Cusick, daughter of the Irish. All the photos I have show a very happy family. Oldest born was Mary Elizabeth (for Fritz’s baby sister) and then John Timothy Wilcox II (Jack, or Dad – to me). Sylvia contracted necrotizing faciitis at the age of 26 and passed away before my father was 2.  Today I am choosing to concentrate on this core family of four; more were added over the years through different marriages.

Mary E. and Jack 1929

Mary was the eldest, always. Dad was next. All the step and half siblings were younger (and are still a part of the family story). They were not a happy family, but they were a family and bonds were formed. Sadly, after Mary married and had her own first child, she was killed in a tragic drunk driving accident. Mary was barely 21 years old. Her death reverberated in my Dad’s heart and he named his third born after her: Mary Denise Wilcox.*

Dad had a half-brother and three step siblings. I have a little of the genealogy of Uncle Mike’s mother (Dad’s half-brother). I knew his step-siblings as Aunt and Uncles, and Gramps’ third wife, Thelma, as my Granny. Gramps and Granny were fixtures in my childhood despite my father’s ambivalence toward his father.

Jack Wilcox, Mary Wilcox, JR Bromley, Peggy Bromley, Mike Wilcox, Dick Bromley (Top to Bottom)

Top-Bottom: Jack Wilcox, Mary Wilcox, JR Bromley, Peggy Bromley, Mike Wilcox, Dick Bromley

*Deni died in 2000 just shy of her 41st birthday, but that is another story. Of note is that she died of necrotizing faciitis.

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Who Are They?

Posted in genealogy, tagged , , , , , on December 9, 2025| 2 Comments »

Today’s post is about unlabeled photographs. Please label your photos so people in the future will know who the heck is in the photo.

I think these are from the Wilcox side of family, but they could be on the Melrose. I have no clue. And I’ve held onto these photos most of my adult life. I should have asked my parents while they were still alive. That would have been too simple. I know they are family, but how I know that is now lost to me through the haze of decades.

I probably snagged them when the Wilcox family heirs were busy tossing all the old family photo albums and my sister, my cousin, and I sat and saved photos, mostly of ourselves but also of some ancestors. My cousin, Reisa, my age, kept all the embarrassing photos of me and I, likewise, kept all the embarrassing ones of her. My sister got whatever we two didn’t want being younger than the pair of us older bullies.

The family was a disaster: my father and his sister’s daughter, Dad’s half-brother, and two step siblings all vying over the paltry belongings of Gramps and Granny. It was chaos and sometimes it was downright ugly. Dad’s sister died young and her sole heir was her daughter. One step sibling never made it to the chaos, but the other two brought their spouses. They even argued over the sheets. THE SHEETS.

But they threw away the old photo albums.

Luckily, we three teenage girls were on the scene to filter through the albums and rescue some of the history. And, for the most part, the photos I walked away with were labeled with names and dates.

Then, there are these two. If they are Wilcox family at all, and not on the Melrose side of things.

A battered sepia-tone of girls, apparently twins(?).

And this beauty in a stylish hat.

The embossed seal in the lower right corner is all I have to go on.

The Wilcox side of my story spent a lot of time in Chicago. The Melrose side stayed in Wisconsin, for the most part.

For now, I will set these two aside and hope that I will find clues or an outright answer later on in my research of my ancestry.

Heck, I might even discover the Hiram Walker land deed is from the Wilcox side of things as well.

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Sprinklers (and Sprinkles)

Posted in gardening, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

Here we are, less than 24 hours from a massive rain storm and I am writing about sprinklers. It’s not like we’ll need them for the next eight to ten months as all the water will be coming from the skies. Well, tomorrow they say it might be coming in sideways with gusts up to 60MPH (that’s 96+ KPH for my friends who use the metric system, or 52+ knots per hour if you speak nautical). It’s going to be gusty and very, very, very wet.

We collect vintage sprinklers. One of those is homemade – can you identify it?

They aren’t worth a lot according to Google Lens, but some of them (and they aren’t all shown here) are worth a little bit of money. I doubt we paid more than $5 for any one of these and some were outright freebies. As to whether or not they work… Well, some better than others.

Those are the ones that don’t work well. Bad design, just old, or they don’t work in the space I have. The one on the top row that is heart shaped can be found on eBay or Etsy selling for around $65.

Nope, doesn’t work. Homemade, just didn’t make the cut.

These are some of the best sprinklers we have. The green one (top left) sells for around $30, center top row for about $20, the older yellow (top right) for around $10 (and it work so-so). The yellow one on the bottom row is one of my favorites and I found it selling for $20. The owl-eye sprinkler works in small spaces and I found it for around $30. The pot metal with brass center works quite well but it pretty much worthless as a resale item, plus I broke one of the points.

These are the last three. I never use them. Modern technology has given us better hand sprinklers although modern technology has given us spray wands that break easily and dies after a couple years of use. The two on the outside of this trio still work and will work for years to come. The red one might be worth $10 – $15.

The middle item is the most interesting to me. You may have already noticed it is not a sprinkler, but is a siphon. A heavy duty brass siphon that sells for around $30. I think I paid $0.50.

There you have it: our sprinkler collection (sans the all metal yellow oscillating sprinkler which was probably in use when I was busy taking these photos).

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Garden Buddy

Posted in gardening, tagged , , , , , , on March 20, 2025| 2 Comments »

I am deviating from writing about gardening today. I have a post that will come up Saturday or Sunday (depending on how the Native Plant Sale goes) but I want/need to write about my Garden Buddy.

A Wirehaired Pointing Griffon.

The dog. The dog loves to help garden. When I dig up sod, he picks up the pieces and shakes the dirt out of them (everywhere – I’ll be picking up pieces of sod and dirt after he’s finished). He steals weeds out of the weed bucket. He walks in front of me and places his nose in whatever hole I am digging. Or he drops his purple indestructible ball in front of me and wants me to throw it. He also walks through all the little wire fences I put up to KEEP him from walking through tender plants.

Sometimes (a lot of the time, really), we play “Hot and Cold”. He can’t find whatever toy we’ve tossed for him and we tell him if he is “hot” (near) or “cold” (wandering away. He knows the difference and often zeroes in on what was right in front of his nose all the time. It’s funny.

We also play “Squirrel!” where we point to where a squirrel is on the fence or in the yard and Ruger looks the other direction. We have come to the conclusion that certain squirrels are paying him off to not chase them. And, sometimes, he lands right under the fence after them, chasing the length of the fence after them – often in the opposite direction of the squirrel. He’s an Idiot.

Or so we thought.

What he is, aside from being epileptic, is brilliant and blind. And we did not know he was blind until his neurologist came into the exam room and looked at both of us and asked, “You do know he’s blind, don’t you?”

Jaws dropped. Denial set in. Surely, she didn’t know our Ruger, a dog who was on his second Vet visit of the day and who had wowed everyone he came into contact with, the dog who just had his Rabies vaccination completed and didn’t run into a door or any object in the first vet’s office. Surely, she hadn’t just watched him leave our side to go with the Vet Tech to her exam room, confident and pulling at his leash?

Then she asked how long did we think he had been blind? Did it coincide with his first epileptic fit in April of 2024? Had we noticed anything before then?

And were we willing to shell out another $5,000 for a doggie MRI to see if he had a tumor in his brain or not.

They did more tests. The inside of his eyes are “normal” according to the doggie ophthalmologist onsite. The blindness seems to stem from his brain, confirming (to the neurologist) that he probably has a brain tumor. We really should just borrow the money from Care Credit and pay for the MRI.

So we asked questions: if he has a tumor as proven by this Very Expensive procedure, what would be the prognosis and treatment? Quality of life? If we refuse that test, what is his prognosis?

Honestly? They’re the same. Steroids (prednisone) and more pills and lethargy for a very active doggo. We’d just be out the five grand and however much money it costs to keep pumping him with drugs to feed out need to have a companion and beloved dog. And we’d be making huge credit card payments on top of our HELOC and Mortgage, all with our Social Security income and static pension. And the bigger question:

Would Ruger even know if we denied him the MRI (a test that would stress him further)? Does he even know he is blind, or does he think that this is just the way things are? He navigates just fine, he jumps on the bed and off the deck (and occasionally falls off the deck), and we have already banned him from coming up to the second floor because he has a tendency to go too quickly back down the stairs, losing his footing, sliding into the wall of the small landing and crashing into the pantry at the foot. Which has a mirror.

This is so much to absorb and come to terms with. I have already decided that the first person to Troll us for deciding against the MRI can pay for the MRI (not a loan, but a gift of $5000). I expect there will be those people who think we should “spare no expense” for our fur baby, but – Hell – we’ve buried a human child which is a pain unlike the loss of a beloved fur baby (and I don’t mean to dismiss that pain – I still cry for a cat I lost 30 years ago).

The gist of this tale is this: blind animals don’t know they are blind. They navigate by senses so much more attuned to the world around us that they can hide their blindness for years. Ruger has no idea he is “handicapped” by a lack of the ability to blink when a flashlight is shined into his retina. We had no idea we were dealing with a dog that plays “Hot and Cold” because he can’t SEE the object he is hunting for. Or that the reason he looks the wrong way when we point is because HE DOESN’T KNOW WE ARE POINTING. He only knows there is a squirrel out there, somewhere, and it’s up to all his other sense to “find” it – even if it runs the opposite direction than he does (along the fence that he never seems to run into).

When I told the neurologist that I think he’s been blind a LOT longer than a year, she felt there was some hope that he doesn’t actually have a tumor. He’s on a regimen of prednisone to see if any of his sight can be recovered. He’s on a regimen of Phenobarbital to stop him from having epileptic seizures (which could also be a brain tumor, but we aren’t going there – not yet). He’s going to be dopey and stumbly for about a week, but then he should just be his normal adjusted-to-downers self.

He’s four years old. We got him a month before we buried our son. He’s been a therapy dog without knowing that is what he is. He’s beautiful and has these deep (unblinking) brown eyes that stare into your soul (probably his nose smelling your soul, but – hey!). And he still likes to help garden.

And – PS – if you don’t like our decision to not pay for what we cannot afford, I take PayPal or Venmo. 🙂

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Saturday, June the 17th, 1995

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 16, 2023| 1 Comment »

Twenty-eight years ago. I remember some things clearly, but other things are muddled. For instance, I remember the fight down to Reno and where I sat on the airplane coming home from Reno. I remember my father, my brother, my mother, and the hospital, but I don’t recall much of my brother’s family (or the fact that I stayed with them and slept in the living room – that’s all a blur). I remember where I was when we got the call, and much of what we did over the ensuing two days. Father’s Day, the 18th, was a road trip for three of us.

I flew down in an MD-83, if I recall correctly. The series of airplanes had been grounded for several months following a deadly airline crash that had been determined to be a fault in the plane itself. They had only recently started allowing the model to fly again. I figured I was in a safest airplane around since it had been thoroughly worked over, right? I remember I sat in the tail section going down and coming home; coming home I didn’t even have a window, only the roar of the engine in my ear.

I don’t remember when I arrived in Reno or much of what happened that first night, was it Thursday or Friday? I don’t recall. My brother might: the events of Saturday the 17th impacted him as hard as it did me. We lost our best friend and family advocate that horrid Saturday.

Mom was hospitalized due to yet another round on pneumonia and the impacts of the disease on her weakened lungs. Mom had emphysema (they call it COPD nowadays). I don’t know how many times she had been hospitalized in the past because our parents were very good at concealing things from us kids. Sickness was only one of the many things they hid from us and we had to find out from other sources that something huge had happened, like our sister’s pregnancies.

I remember how she looked, lying in that hospital bed, tubes in her nose and oxygen doing the breathing for her. Morphine made it hard for her to pay attention to anything or respond to us. She pulled at the tubes in her nose, irritated. She held my hand for a moment.

There’s a moment in your life when you have to make a decision you don’t want to make. The nurses pulled me aside, the last of the family members to arrive (my sister couldn’t be there: she was pregnant and I didn’t know she was pregnant until then). Did I agree with my brother and father to take my mother – my best friend – off of oxygen and all other life support? My heart screamed, “NO!” but my mind knew what Mom wanted.

Dad said he couldn’t do the “death watch” – he’d done it too many times before in his life and Mom was the love of his life. We were going to go out for lunch, away from the hospital. I held Mom’s hand and spoke to her, telling her that I didn’t want to let her go or lose her, but – in the end – “you will do what you want to do”. I knew the Scots’ blood in her would stubbornly go down the road she wanted no matter what the rest of us felt.

We were looking at some “art” car on the street when we got the call. Mom had made her decision. In the elevator, Dad seemed shrunken and old. He pounded his fists on the wall. My brother entered the room first and gently closed Mom’s eyes before Dad or I could see her. Not that she was there. A shell was there, a fragile casing that once held my mother. I had the strange feeling that she was still in the room, in another, happier, dimension. Somewhere we couldn’t see into, but which existed parallel to us.

That night we sat in Dad’s motel room doing – what? I don’t remember. What I do recall is my brother was on call with the Washoe County Sheriff’s Department and he got an emergency call. How Dad and I managed to tag along, I don’t know. Terry had to hitch up the trailer with the flood lights and we headed north on SR-447 in the dark. A trucker hauling cardboard for recycling had rolled on a corner north of Gerlach.

Once, on the loneliest stretch (and that is a lonely highway), Terry briefly turned on lights and sirens for us. We made jokes. Dad asked Terry about the afterlife. It snowed. Dad and I pretended we were undercover cops and “real bad honchos” while we stayed out of the way. We felt sadness, too: it was a fatality and the trucker had family somewhere in Texas.

Father’s Day. We loaded up in Dad’s Buick and took a road trip. Terry and I argued about the wildflowers we saw along the way. We stopped in Portolla, California, at a family friend’s house. Dad wanted to speak to them alone: old friends from our early childhood, and a mortician by trade, Dad needed reassurance and advice on how to go forward. From there, we circled over to Donner Lake. Parked about the azure lake, One of them asked, “What is that blue out there?” Eager to prove myself an expert in wildflowers, I peered out the window.

“I don’t see anything blue,” I complained.

“I think it’s called ‘Donner Lake'” one of them dead-panned. This is how my family pranks each other.

We laughed most of the day. I was the butt of more jokes, but that is the only one I remember. It was a jab at the fact I live in a state with plenty of water and they lived in Nevada – and I am no expert in wildflowers. We ate somewhere in Truckee, California. Mom would have loved the day: all the expensive little shops to wander through and browse. It was bittersweet, full of laughter, and one of my favorite memories of family.

*Photo of Mom with a lampshade on her head. 1952

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Beginnings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on January 2, 2023| 3 Comments »

The year was 1977. I was on a solo trip across America via Greyhound bus and a six-week pass. One of my first stops was a private school in the mountains of Utah where my younger sister was enrolled. My sister and I had a tumultuous relationship, but we were sisters with a sister bond and I was not surprised to be welcomed with her arms open. I met her friends and her boyfriend. We spent a weekend together. It was a wonderful time. I attended their Senior Prom where my sister posed with this man she thought she would spend the rest of her life with. She wore a long blue dress.

I returned west in time to see her walk across the podium in our hometown to receive her high school diploma. She had earned all her credits elsewhere, but she was granted her request to graduate with the people she had known since 6th grade. She was radiant and expectant. I mean, really expectant.

I moved to Oregon over the summer, and we exchanged letters. She was distraught about the future of the child she was carrying in her womb. There was pressure to end the pregnancy with an abortion. Neither my sister nor I could condone such a move. The father was supportive but only to a certain point. My sister felt all alone in her decisions.  In the end, she gave the baby up for adoption, but the act marked her forever. She wanted her baby, and she mourned him.

Deni died in 2000. She contracted a bizarre autoimmune disease known as “necrotizing faciitis” or “flesh eating bacteria”. It is a staphylococcal infection that makes it way into a body through an open cut and begins to work on the flesh and internal organs of the infected person. Doctors need to be trained in identifying the infection and most small-town doctors (read: rural doctors) are not. Deni was in sepsis within 24 hours of the first symptom. The hospital was flummoxed and she was loaded onto a Life Flight helicopter to Reno, a several hour flight from Ely, Nevada.

My father called me with a desperate prayer request. I sent it on to my prayer lines. My nephew loaded his little sister into a car and drove to Reno, a five hour drive.

Deni died before morning at what was then Washoe Medical Center. She was surrounded by her husband of a few months, her son and her oldest daughter. She was never to know what had become of her oldest child, the boy born in Ely and given up for adoption at birth.

That haunted me. It haunted my father. Dad gave me all the information he had (Nevada is a “closed” adoption state). The birth date, the sex, the hospital. There was really no hope in finding the baby boy.

In the years since my father’s death (where he made me promise I would continue to search)  I have become close friends with adoptees and adoptee advocates. I know there is no way to open closed records. I favor open records. There may be a lot of pain involved in “reunions” but there can also be a lot of unanswered questions answered. Unresolved adoption trauma can be addressed. I have heard both sad stories but also a lot of wonderful stories of adoptees who found their birth family and managed to resolve both birth and adopted family history.

It doesn’t always work that way. I get that.

My “foster” sister hunted down her own birth mother and had a successful reunion. Her birth mother was present at her wedding where my father gave her away. She reunited with siblings, aunts, uncles. She created lasting relationships. We were all blown away (sorry for the 1970s language) by the resemblance between her and her birth mother: the way they held cigarettes, waved their hands while talking, walked, or expressed themselves. It was uncanny.

My father died in 2011. He felt guilty about my sister’s first born. He made me promise I would continue the search. But what can you do with closed records? I put it out on a few Nevada adoption sites but there’s really no hope.

Then comes new DNA research. I spit into a tube and sent my DNA off to two sites: Ancestry.com and 21andme.com. And I left it. It was enlightening as far as my genetic history: the Irish is minimal, the Scots is somewhat minimal, but the British and Germanic are strong. There’s even some Finnish and Norwegian. I’m basically a melting pot of Caucasian countries. White, oh so white.

I left it there. If my nephew – should he be out there – might eventually take a DNA test. My niece took one, but I knew we were related. My other nephew took one, but I knew we were related. And years passed.

November, 2022. A man in the Midwest took a DNA test for other reasons. He k new he was adopted. He did not expect to find his biological family, much less to find out that that family had been hoping and searching for him for decades. He knew there was an off-chance of finding things out. Still…

I start 2023 with my nephew. My oldest nephew. The one my sister mourned. The one my sister gave up for adoption. The one I didn’t really search for but the one who drove me to take my DNA and make it public so if he ever came searching for his family… he would find us.

Welcome to the Family, John. You have been loved, watched over, and mourned. I’m thankful for your adoptive family. They were angels. I know they loved you. I honor them this day. And I look forward to a year of learning about you and making you feel like one of the very large family you come from.

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3 Lessons and a Grizzly Bear

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on August 25, 2015| 1 Comment »

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1967. Badlands. The little girl on the left dressed meticulously in her favorite colors: pale blue with matching shorts. She was between Fifth Grade and Sixth Grade and the summer was the only pleasant part of those years.

She weighed 64 tons that summer. Yes, I wrote 64 tons. She bragged about it in the car as the family traveled from Winnemucca, Nevada, to Durand, Wisconsin, for the oldest cousin’s high school graduation (and first Melrose Family Reunion). No amount of crying “No, no, no, no! I meant pounds!” (through fits of giggles) would ever change that weight. It was recorded by the kid in the middle. 64 tons.

That little girl got out of the Worst Year in School (so she thought) early. Family vacation. Trip to Wisconsin. “We’ll make it educational.” Her cousins wouldn’t know that she peed her pants in the 5th Grade because the teacher wouldn’t let anyone, no matter how desperate, use the bathroom during classroom time. (That teacher was lucky to keep her job after the little girl’s parents found out that their daughter had been humiliated in front of the entire 5th grade.)

Lesson #1: how to advocate for your child. Notes taken.

Her girlfriends at school got their ears pierced (YUCK!), started dating (double YUCK!), and some girls even started wearing nylons. Not panty-hose – those hadn’t been invented yet: you had to wear a garter belt to hold up the nylons. She still wanted to grow up to be a wild horse and her best friend was two years younger than her.

Vacation was wonderful. We pulled a camp trailer to Wisconsin, but we also stayed in motels and swam in motel pools. When we got to Wisconsin, all the cousins had gathered. Cheryl was the Belle of the Ball, graduating from High School (she was SO Old). Pegi was almost too old to be bothered with us little ones and at one point, she locked us all out of the house. Patti and Terry conspired to torment the rest of us. Janis and I were close. Valerie and Deni. Then the little ones who got locked inside the house with Pegi: Wendy and the Holy Terror, Vicky, who ran around saying “Shit!” and “HAHAHA that’s MY — (insert name of item)”.

We ran next door to the Dairy Queen and scored on free Dilly Bars. Make mine lime.

The trip home was a denouement. The car started over-heating with the trailer. We couldn’t go to St. Louis to see the Budweiser horses. The Black Hills were out of the question, with the visages of four presidents. We managed the Badlands and the memorial for Custer’s Last Stand. I was already a nerd: I knew how the battle happened, that the united Sioux Nation was retaliating for earlier murders, and the only survivor of the U.S. Cavalry was a horse named “Comanche” (ironic, eh?). I was fascinated to see the lay of the battle – Custer wasn’t on top of the hill, but his men were spread out on the side of the hill. The Indians came over the top and swarmed them. Mutilations were mere retaliations for earlier mutilations committed by the 7th. I was only interested in the horse that survived, and we drove by his museum without stopping.

In Yellowstone, Dad embarrassed the entire family by pulling up behind someone feeding the bears and laying on the horn. Other people just stopped and took photos or drove around the bear feeders, but not Dad. He had to make a scene out of it. “Gee, Dad, why’s that guy waving at you with his middle finger?”

We had magazines at home like “Sports Illustrated”, “Field and Stream”, and “Outdoor Life”. Recent articles on grizzly bear attacks in Yellowstone dominated the articles. DON’T FEED THE BEARS was a huge campaign. Dad was a federal Officer on vacation and he used his clout (the horn) to save many a tourist from an unprovoked bear attack. Yay Dad.

The 1964 earthquake shook up the geysers, Old Faithful was off schedule and only rose to a mere twenty or thirty feet in the air. Bust. (Years later, when we revisited Yellowstone, the geyser was back to herself – impressive!)

We camped in Yellowstone. There was this bear. It was huge, cinnamon colored, and hump-backed. It dragged a bag full of trash behind it as it ambled through the camp ground and people took photos.

Remember the little girl in the photo? She was a budding environmentalist. She happily followed the bear, picking up the trash, humming to herself about what a good little environmentalist she was. When the bear settled in a small grove of trees and started to munch on its treasures, the little girl continued to blissfully pick up the detritus. Cameras clicked.

Out of nowhere – and I mean NOWHERE – the vacationing Forest Ranger appeared. He was moving at speeds that would put Superman to shame. He grabbed that little girl by the waist and tucked her under his arm before retreating – quickly – back to the camper. He didn’t say a word, didn’t spank her, didn’t have the breath to speak. She cried because she picked up on the fear.

That night, the family lay snug inside the camp trailer, listening to the same grizzly bear toy with the huge logging chain on the garbage can that was buried in concrete and locked down. In the morning, the garbage can, lid, and chain had all been pulled out of the ground.

Lesson#2. Grizzly Bears are real. Grizzly Bears are superhuman. Dads are faster.

The family returned to Winnemucca, unscathed. The little girl was disappointed about all the missed horses (Clydesdales and Comanche). She called her school friend, Trudi, to tell her all about the trip. And that was when she found out about the rest of the school year that she’d missed – fortunately.

That 5th Grade Teacher was so strict and so mean, but she made one mistake. She allowed the students to “grade” each others’ workbooks. Workbooks were passed front to back or back to front, where a friend usually sat. And said friend would “miss” some of the mistakes on a test, thus ensuring a higher grade. Of course, if it was an enemy who sat before or behind you, all bets were off.

Said teacher discovered the cheating during the last week of school and a riot act was read. Hearts sank into stomachs. Grades couldn’t be changed, but a loss of trust was just as devastating to some of us. We actually idolized that teacher (for reasons still unknown to me, except she was pretty and young, and she had her nice moments). Caught red-handed (or not, because I couldn’t bring myself to succumb to the cheating), we all felt this huge wave of guilt…

Funny – as an adult, I think it was her just desserts, but at the time… I just felt shame and more embarrassment than when I peed my pants in class. Maybe it was because the teacher really tried to make that up to me after she nearly lost her job over it. Maybe it was because it was her first year teaching and she didn’t know what to expect out of a class of 5th graders. Maybe it was because she was pretty and young and my school friend, Trudi, adored her.

Lesson #3 – Cheating never pays. Even when the teacher brought it on herself.

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Joyeux Noel

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , on December 26, 2013| 1 Comment »

Christmas is gone and all we have to deal with is the aftermath and presents that still have not arrived at their destinations. Presents are not a big deal: they are material and fleeting. We felt terrible for the Fed Ex employee who made a last-minute delivery at our house in the middle of the day on Christmas. Really, it could have waited one more day. Don knew it was coming and he was happy just knowing.

But thank you, anyway. And we hope you made it home in time to be with your family to enjoy the treasure of their company.

A coworker asked me today what I got for Christmas. I drew a blank. There were a lot of nice things, and I got exactly what I asked for (a squirrel feeder, not your average feminine gift if you believe all the jewelry commercials at Christmas. In fact, I once warned my husband that I’d kill him if he bought me anything with diamonds for a gift. I meant it. I have one diamond and it is on my ring finger. That’s all I care for).

So what DID I get for Christmas? A lot of Christmas cards from friends and family, some of whom I did not reciprocate (I’m sorry! I’ll do better next year!). The company of Chrystal & Brian (and we forgot to take that family photo!). Fen came over and was so happy to see his grandpeople. (He was also very happy with the kibble he got for Christmas. Dogs are so easy to please.)

We Skyped (that is a new verb, isn’t it?) with our son and his three little tornadoes. He has been separated from his kids for a few months due to the military and he grinned the entire time we were on Skype and his minions were running in circles, screaming, and showing off their favorite Christmas toys. Justin’s favorite gift this year was the one from us. I can’t honestly remember Micah’s: he showed us so many. Kori kissed the phone.

We Skyped with our oldest. Zephan was too busy playing with his Legos to spend much time talking to us. Javan’s favorite gift was the airplane we sent him. Eli was too busy showing us all his toys and everyone else’s (he’s the same age as Micah). Verity just wanted to taste the phone. Arwen laughed the entire time, shaking her head at her children’s antics.

Family. Isn’t that what it is all about? Don called all of his extended family. I still need to call my brother.

We got some cards this year that went over the top, into The Best Christmas Cards Ever category.

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The guilt-laced greeting from 5-year old Zephan. Ninjago is the set of Legos he wasked us to get him. He was more than pleased that he received a set (which was why he couldn’t Skype very long with us. Gotta build, build, build). He wrote his own name, bless his heart!

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Javan decorated both sides of the card he sent us. You can click on the image for a better view, but I’ll just tell you what his mother’s note is: “A big net”. That’s a big net over the Spongebob crew.

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He decorated the flip side with “mountains”.

Tell me my grandsons are not competitive. This is Eli’s card:

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“Spiderman’s web over Spongebob”

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“Lots of mountains by Eli”

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Our youngest has taken up art, again. She gave us an 8.5×11″ hand drawn card.

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Click on the image to read the note. I can’t write it out. It makes me all sniffy-nosed and teary eyed.

I love my kids. And by “my kids”, I include those who my children have chosen to spend their lives with.

It was a wonderful Christmas, made possible by Skype, the telephone, automobiles, and the U.S. Postal Service. We are so blessed to live in this day and age. It was *almost* like having them all here in our tiny little house.

Except we could say good-bye, turn the phone off, and the sugar-high elves were someone else’s problems. 1476352_10152134603217392_67138169_n

Korinne, shortly after we said good-bye to her. (photo by Levi)

I feel so blessed.

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Give Thanks, Pigeons

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on November 26, 2009| 5 Comments »

Our Thanksgiving Day was pretty quiet. The babies were up too early and the men slept in. Arwen fed children and prepared yams. I got up and poured myself a cup of coffee. Walking across the kitchen, WHAM! – my back went out. Just like that. Major spasms in the upper left quadrant that abated slightly when Arwen massaged it, but which have not yet left.

The kids were not planning on eating here today. They have friends (imagine that!) who do not have family nearby and they wanted to hang out with young people who share similar goals and who have small children as well. So by 11:00AM, we were left alone with the dog. Or the dog was left alone with us.

I muddled through getting the bread dough ready, the turkey stuffed and into the oven (missed my brother’s call but he talked to Don) and then I came down with an ocular migraine. I rarely have the headache (although sometimes I get a rebound one within 48 hours of the ocular migraine), but the little halo lights are disconcerting and blinding. This one was a particularly bad one (brought on, I think, by the spasms in my back).

I’ve talked to a lot of people who experience ocular migraines and everyone describes the halo differently, so I wonder if it isn’t different for everyone? For me, they lights start as a pinprick, then slowly become a semi-circle of lights that blink like the neon lights on a ferris wheel at night, seeming to move. I lose about a third of my vision and have to stop whatever I am doing if it requires reading, typing, or driving. A dark room helps, but it doesn’t make the lights go away. In fact, they can be more intense when I close my eyes and am forced to focus on them. Such was the case today.

I was beginning to think the day was a bust all around! But the migraine finally abated and I was able to relax a little and dinner came together as planned, on time.

When the meat thermometer reached 160-degrees (F), I set the table. Out with the fine china and crystal dishes. I opted out of digging out the fine silver flat ware because of my shoulder/back issue, so we used the Oneida flatware. That also meant I did not dig out the Thanksgiving cloth napkins, and paper was the order of the day.

There’s something very relaxing about tradition and even if it was going to be just the two of us, we both wanted some trappings of traditional Thanksgiving Dinner with fine china, crystal and my mother’s antique turkey platter.

When the thermometer beeped at 180-degrees (F), the turkey came out of the oven, the sourdough bread and home-made candied yams went in. I’m really not much into cooking at any time of the year, so I confess that Thanksgiving staples around here have to be simple to make.

The stuffing comes out of a box (I sauteé onions and add them, but the giblets go to the dog. Can’t stand the giblets). The yams are amazingly simple to make: boil whole for 15-20 minutes and they just pop out of their skins. A little brown sugar and butter and bake at 375 for 30 minutes (or so). The marshmallows go on top  for the last 5-10 minutes. The jellied cranberry sauce comes out of a can as do the olives.

The sourdough probably takes the most preparation. I have to feed the started the night before and mix the dough in the morning so it will rise at least once before I form the rounds.

This year I bought a handful of brussels sprouts and nuked them in a covered container with just a little bit of water, then drizzled a mixture of butter, basil leaves, salt & pepper over them. Yummy.

We added a bottle of 2007 Bogle petite sirah to the table and dinner was ready. The turkey was yummy.

We even had company.

The band-tailed pigeons showed up right as we sat down to dine. There are about six of them in the feeder (you can see five) and one sentry in the limb above, and five or more that are not in the photo because they were on other limbs, waiting their turn at the feeder. We’ve seen as many as nine on the feeder at once, with another ten or so hovering n the branches of the lodgepole pine and the trees across the street, or sitting on our eaves. I had to shoot the photo through the window because they fly off the moment the front door is opened a crack. They are very shy dinner guests.

When I started ProjectFeeder Watch, I wondered if I would get feedback when I entered the number of pigeons at our feeder at one time. I did: “That’s an unusually high number of band-tailed pigeons at once. Are you certain?” Oh, yes, I am certain. These beautiful game birds have been coming to our feeder for about three years now. Sometimes cars stop on the street out front and people stare in amazement. I’ve seen pedestrians pause.

We are the only people in the area that I know feed birds and I think our feeder is easy to get to. The band-tailed pigeons love the forest-like feel of the neighborhood where we live and nest here during the summer. In the winter, they flock up and we see them once a day or so. They come in, take over the feeder, fill their craws and fly away to roost and “chew” the bird seed (pigeons peck small bits of gravel which passes through their system, chewing up the seeds in the craw since birds do not have teeth). (Jaci’s Simplified Explanation.)

So we dined with the flock of pigeons outside the window, Murphy curled up on my feet (why my feet?) and no children to share our day with.

Clean-up was simple and the dishes are now done, the turkey carves and refrigerated, and everything put away.

All we need is for the kids to bring us home one of the pies they baked and took over to their friends’ house. In my pie pans.

I’ve called my son and wished him Happy Thanksgiving; Don has called his parents and his brother; my brother called and talked to Don. I need to call my dad in a few. I talked to Chrystal yesterday (she had other plans today as well). So we’re good in the family department.

Thankful for a quiet day since my shoulder still hurts like a son-of-a-gun and I’m a little more than crabby. Hopefully whatever I did to put it out will resolve itself over night. Because tomorrow is Christmas Tree Day.

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