Yesterday couldn't have been any more perfect to be at Pammel State Park, one of my favorite parks.
While the professional photographer was taking pictures, I was also snapping some.
These are just a few - mostly some fun ones with the younger ones.
Later, back at the house....
I'll post more of the family groups in the next few days. 😎
Almost fifty years ago this month this photo of Douglas, Kari, Preston and me was taken at The Little Brown Church in the Vale near Nashua, Iowa.
I've used this picture a couple of times in my blog posts and at least once on Facebook as a 'Throwback Thursday' or 'Sentimental Saturday' along with that quote on the church steps.
I would have sworn that with more than 2000 posts I had also used the poem from which those words were taken. A search of my blogs shows otherwise.
Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911) was a New England librarian and poet. Here is his poem The House By The Side Of The Road:
Watching CBS Sunday Morning is a tradition for us. One of the segments this past Sunday was: Starstruck: The public's one-sided bond with celebrities. It explored the reasons we commoners feel so thrilled about meeting someone famous.
Bud's brush with a celebrity took place in the summer of 1968 in the enlisted mens' club at Camp Eagle near Hue.
He was sitting at the bar drinking beer when Sebastian Cabot came in. The two greeted each other. Cabot sat down and ordered three beers. Bud said Cabot drank them all quickly in succession. Bud asked: "Are you thirsty?" Cabot replied something like: "No. You ought to see me when I am really thirsty."
I found this picture online of the star of "Family Affair" (1966-1971) when he was in Vietnam on a USO tour.
In the Autumn of 1994, Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood were filming The Bridges of Madison County. Eastwood was reported as favoring a certain bar/restaurant in West Des Moines. I would much rather have met him and even thought about going to the place, but I decided not to. I figured he had enough starstruck people bothering him.
I did see the author of the book the movie was based on, Robert James Waller, at the Valley Junction Arts Festival (West Des Moines). He was sitting in his wife Georgia's booth. I thought about going home, getting my copy of his book and asking him to sign it. Again, I decided not to bother him. Maybe I wasn't starstruck enough. 🎭🌠
One of the things I dislike the most about getting older is that the synapses don't 'snap' as quickly as they used to. It happens most frequently when I try to say someone's name and can't think of it or when I am trying to think of a particular word. It's frustrating.
I have always loved words; learning new words and what they mean and using them correctly as well as discovering their etymologies. If I try to pinpoint the reason it most likely goes back to learning to read - the sense of achievement I felt with each new word I learned and understood.
After reading came spelling and learning that words weren't always spelled the way they sounded. I remember when I was in fourth grade in our one room country school asking the teacher how to spell a word. She told me to "look it up in the dictionary". "How can I look it up if I don't know how to spell it?, I asked. She told me to "sound it out". I did. And I found the word. (Now I'm wondering what that word was.)
Being sent to the dictionary helped teach me self-reliance but it also opened up a whole new world of words. You've heard of people reading the dictionary? I was one of them. I might go to the dictionary for the spelling or definition of a word but then get lost in it discovering a whole slew of new words.
We concur that it was a 1950's-60's Webster's.
Now when we want to know the meaning or spelling of a word, it is at our finger tips online.
But I still keep a dictionary by my chair if I want to look up a word while reading or I jot down words on a of a piece of paper to look up later.
The empty house next door is being cleared/cleaned out in preparation for listing for sale. A lot of things are just going into the dumpster which is where Bud found this - did I want it?
Yes. Do I need it? No. But it is hard for me to see books thrown away. Especially a book I have always valued greatly.
To paraphrase Tennyson's Tears, Idle tears - Words, idle words, I know not what they mean - thanks to the dictionary, I can find out. 😊
The Ringgold Trailway in Poe Hollow County Park, Mount Ayr, Iowa.
I took this photo October 10, 2020.
"I will cut adrift --
I will sit on pavements and drink coffee --
I will dream; I will take my mind out
of its iron cage and let it swim --
in this fine October." (Virginia Woolf)
How quickly the months pass, taking with them the seasons. Autumn is upon us now, my favorite time of the year; only six books read this month.
The Invisible Hour is one of Alice Hoffman's latest books. I really like her books of magic realism. This one is about a young girl born and raised in a strict commune located in Western Massachusetts. Reading books is not allowed but she discovers the library in the nearby town and its nurturing librarian. She finds a very old copy of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and travels back in time to meet the author.
Something Worth Doing is by Jane Kirkpatrick, a new author for me. I have to admit, I was mixing her up with a different author, but I did like reading about Abigail Scott Duniway (1834-1915) "the pioneer Woman Suffragist of the great Northwest".
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd is a book now more than twenty years old. I know I read and liked it when it first came out but I had forgotten the storyline. I decided to read it again and liked it just as much as the first time.
Death At The Sign Of The Rook is Kate Atkinson's sixth novel in her Jackson Brodie series and the first one since 2019. I was so glad to see this one. He is one of my favorite characters.
The Women by Kristin Hannah is a novel about the women nurses who served in the Vietnam war. It covers a side of the war which wasn't well known and shows how the men weren't the only ones to suffer PTSD. I was especially moved by the closing of the book when the main character and two of her fellow nurses finally feel recognized when they attend the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. in 1982.
I took this photo of it when we were there in 2008.
Alan Bradley and Kate Atkinson are two of my 'adopted authors' at Gibson Memorial Library in Creston. Not only do I pay for the books, I get to read them first. I hope it isn't another five years before they have new books to enjoy. 😊
This poem really speaks to me because, like the author, I am in love with words.
Words By Anne Sexton
Be careful of words,
even the miraculous ones.
For the miraculous we do our best,
sometimes they swarm like insects
and leave not a sting but a kiss.
They can be as good as fingers.
They can be as trusty as the rock
you stick your bottom on.
But they can be both daisies and bruises.
Yet I am in love with words.
They are doves falling out of the ceiling.
They are six holy oranges sitting in my lap.
They are the trees, the legs of summer,
and the sun, its passionate face.
Yet often they fail me.
I have so much I want to say,
so many stories, images, proverbs, etc.
But the words aren’t good enough,
the wrong ones kiss me.
Sometimes I fly like an eagle
but with the wings of a wren.
But I try to take care
and be gentle to them.
Words and eggs must be handled with care.
Once broken they are impossible
things to repair.
