A Reunion of Sorts

Some of my fondest memories are of the family reunions of my youth.  Great-grandpa and grandma Ridnour had three children who lived to adulthood. (Their eldest, Freddie, died at age six.) Next in line was my grandfather Joseph, then Florence and lastly, Lottie. 

My Grandpa Joe and Grandpa Delphia Ridnour had three daughters and sixteen grandchildren - my first cousins. Great Aunt Florence and Great Uncle Tom Haley had nine children and 26 grandchildren. Great Aunt Lottie and Great Uncle Guy Inman had five children and 10 grandchildren - 36 second cousins for me to know and grow up with (on that side of my family). And when we all got together for a Ridnour Family Reunion it was a blast, i.e. wild fun.

Families took turns hosting the annual reunions. The farthest I remember going was to Parnell, MO to Fern and Edwin Mitchell's home. 

In 1957 my family hosted the reunion on our farm south of Corning.

Pictures of each family grouping were taken that day. This one is of my Mom's older sister Evelyn and her family.

Left to right: Glen, Janet, Uncle Howard, Lila, Glenna, Larry, Mary Lou and Aunt Evelyn. 

As first cousins we spent a lot of time together.

Pictured here at the same 1957 reunion is the family of Mom's first cousin Esther and her husband Lloyd and their children Shirley, Jenice, Russ and Ron. (The little girl in front was photobombing before that was a term known to photographers.)

Travis's were our neighbors - lived the closest to us and went to the same church we did. Mom was probably closest to Esther as any of her girl cousins.

As we grew up, married, moved away, had families of our own and the elders were no longer around, we didn't see our first cousins as often as we once did and saw our second cousins hardly at all - usually only at a funeral. But I never forgot the good times we had together.

I've been sorting through pictures and trying to return them to family members. Some I've scanned and sent via e-mail or FB messenger. In cases where there were many photos I've taken them to cousins nearby or invited them to pick them up.

Yesterday afternoon one of my 2nd cousins did just that.

I hadn't seen Julie in ages, probably not since her mother died in 2012 and I attended the visitation.

So it was a real delight for me to see her again and spend time catching up with one another. 

There is a French word for how I felt: Retrouvailles - the happiness of meeting someone very dear to you after a long time.

I wish that my children, and grandchildren, could experience the pleasure of being close to their cousins like I was - and some of them are. Maybe they will look back years from now with the same nostalgic feelings I have.

Happy 80th Sis

 

Betty, do you remember how Grandpa Joe used to call you and me and all his other six granddaughters Sis? 

I always thought it was a term of endearment but maybe he just couldn't remember all our names. 

I wish you could be celebrating your 80th birthday with a big family gathering as I did mine.

Instead you only lived another ten years after your high school senior picture was taken.

The Autumnal Equinox occured on the 22nd this year though often it fell on your birthday. Blue was your favorite color because your birthstone was a blue sapphire.

I wish I could remember what we were dressed up for when this photo was taken. I bet you would remember. It must have been the last one taken of the two of us - at least it is the last photo I have of us together.

I will never forget the details surrounding your death. Mom's call telling me you had a cerebral hemmorhage and that you were in the hospital in Omaha. Being there with other family members, being so scared. Taking turns every hour when we were only allowed five minutes in your room. Having to go back to work then hearing that you were getting better, making the trip back to Omaha only to be told when I got there that you had died. Three weeks after your birthday. Two days after your daughter's 5th birthday.

I haven't talked to Kristi in quite awhile. Last I knew your granddaughter Jesse was going to school to become a lawyer. So when I went to her FB page this morning a saw that she now lives in Louisiana I was surprised.

But they were back for Balloon Days this past weekend because I saw this photo of your granddaughter Jesse and great-grandson Boston.

Here's another of him celebrating his 4th birthday which was the 21st, just two days before your's.

I'll always wonder what your life - our lives - would have been like if you had gotten another fifty-two or more years.

Would we still be jealous of one another? Sibling rivalries or best friends? 

I'd like to think we would be enjoying being in one another's lives - living in the same town.

And bragging about our great-grands.  😊

Looking for Autumn

The Autumnal Equinox occured an hour ago. It is officially Fall even if it doesn't feel like it. 

Where are the all the lovely yellows, oranges, golds, crimsons and rusts of autumn? They're not here yet, but it won't be long and I'm ready. Fall is my season.

I did spend a little time this morning driving around looking for any sign of color. About the only I found were the buffs of bean and corn fields and the whites of fall grasses.

The dredging continues at Lake McKinley. Much progress has been made but they are still only about half done.

You can see the 'bluff' in the background. That is how deep the lake is being lowered. I guess I did find some color after all - in the abundant, dying, weeds.  

"Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells."
-   John Keats - To Autumn

A Tea Pet for National Chai Day

If not for my e-pal Leslie, I would not have known about tea pets. From the website of TEASENZ: "A tea pet is a traditional craft from China which is usually made from yixing clay (also known as zisha) and ceramic. It's a tea lover's practice in China to nourish the tea pets by rinsing them with tea liquor."

They advise regularly pouring tea over your pet and in time your tea pet will absorb the scent of the tea that you drink. If I do as they suggest, mine will smell like bergamot from my favorite tea - Ahmad Earl Grey. Below is a photo from their website of what I consider the cutest of the tea pets.

I also like the Toad and the Faceless Buddha tea pets.

And I know my daughter Kari would absolutely love this one - the Octopus.

Another thing she loves is Chai Tea which she may be drinking on this National Chai Day.

And just as I would not have known about tea pets, I most likely would have missed National Chai day without Leslie's gift of this tea pet and tea bags.

I don't drink much chai tea but I always have it on hand. If I feel a cold coming on it is my remedy for warding off the illness before it takes hold. 

Today I'm drinking this English Tea Shop chai from the tea bowl I got at the Mad Potter Studio in Weston, MO.

The National Chai Day Calendar recommended adding milk and sugar to the tea.

I tried it both ways and much prefer it plain.  The additions diluted the chai flavor too much. 

Happy National Chai Day and thank you Leslie for my cute, as yet unnamed, piggies. 

A Golden Hour

 

I recently saw this painting by Florence Fuller online and immediately was drawn to the romance of it - a couple strolling together during evening's golden hour. A Golden Hour is the name of the painting done by Fuller in 1905. The location was in the Darling Ranges of Western Australia. Fuller was born in South Africa in 1867 and migrated with her family as a child to Melbourne Australia.

A golden hour reminded me of when I used to refer to something perfect happening as one of my golden moments. It could be a feeling of accomplishment, making a real connection with someone, having fun with my children, enjoying a glass of wine with a best friend, or knowing something I had done had helped someone else. I've been reading one of my journals from the early 80's looking for some golden moments I had written about then. I did find a quote from my therapist as we concluded my last session. He reminded me to "Enjoy the moment." After that I wrote "And my Golden Moments."

Later....I still haven't found any golden moments in my old journals. If I do I'll add them later.

New Year, New Millennium?

Remember December 31, 1999 and the worry about all the things that might not work after midnight because the computers didn't recognize the year 2000? What a relief when the lights were still on and we ushered in a new millennium on January 1st.

Wait a minute - it was a new year but still part of the last century. The new, third, millennium did not begin until January 1, 200l - the year of our 40th High School Class Reunion. To my knowledge there had never been a designated planning committee for a class reunion. Often it was the same few who took care of location and time and date notifications. Eventually those few, I assume, got tired of doing all the work and just quit doing it. I was living in West Des Moines at the time of our 30th and can't remember if I went to that one or not. By the time of our 35th I had moved back home. Ellen, my best friend from high school, my cousin Harrison (known by his middle initial, J) and I got together and did all the planning for it.

Then the year for our 40th rolled around - the actual first year of the new millennium - 200l and the same thing that happened with those lights in 2000 happened with our class reunion. Nothing. No one did anything about a class reunion. (As I recall the same thing happened to our 20th reunion - there wasn't one. We celebrated a 21st class reunion the following year.)

So in 2002 I decided to plan a 41st Class Reunion on my own. Some questioned why we would have a class reunion in the traditionally rival town of Villisca but I had heard good things about a new venue there. The original bank building at 400 S. Third Avenue had been turned into a space for catered special events known as The Bank.

Upstairs was a room for a social hour which included  tables and chairs and a bar.

This photo was one I took of some of the classmates that night.

Downstairs was the dining area with a small stage to one side.

The evening turned out to be a huge success. I received many compliments and no longer felt like an awkward country bumpkin as I had in high school.

Another picture from that evening. This one in front of that small platform I mentioned. It was there I nervously stood and read the following invitation - one that had resonated with me then and somewhat still does.

The Invitation

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul; if you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it's not pretty, every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you, from the inside, when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

The Invitation was written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer - the name she went by at that time. (1999)

As I read aloud her prose, I met the looks of various classmates. I don't know what they were really thinking but they were attentive.

Rereading this as I typed it out, it doesn't impress me as much as it did twenty three years ago, but some of the lines still resonate and cause me to consider my responses.

September 2011 we did manage to have our 50th High School Class Reunion in the right year. It was well attended and great to see all the ones who came. It was the last class reunion I attended.

Country Yesterday, Today Rock

From the time we began dating in 1981, I knew Bud and I had a huge difference of opinion about music. I favored country while he was all about rock. He changed my mind somewhat but I never changed his.

Along with Pink Floyd, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin, he was also a fan of Bob Dylan's.  In August, 1990 Dylan was appearing at the Iowa State Fair as part of his Never Ending Tour. Bud, his step-son and wife and I were there. They loved it; I hated it. I knew none of the songs and couldn't even make out the lyrics. It sounded like he was singing with a mouth full of mush. To further exacerbate my evening the girls behind us were blowing soap bubbles which kept landing in my hair. My companions had a wonder evening, I had a disgusting one.

Seventeen years later I learned that Dylan had written a song To Ramona which was on his 1964 album Another side of Bob Dylan. Up until then the only song 'about me' that I knew was written by Louis Wolfe Gilbert and Mabel Wayne for the movie Ramona. It was the first theme song ever written for the movies. (My favorite recording of the song was, and always will be, Al Martino's version.)

In all my recent sorting of pictures and papers, I found a copy of To Ramona lyrics I had printed off in 2007.

To Ramona By Bob Dylan

Ramona, come closer
Shut softly your watery eyes
The pangs of your sadness
Will pass as your senses will rise
For the flowers of the city
Though breathlike, get deathlike sometimes
And there's no use in tryin'
To deal with the dyin'
Though I cannot explain that in lines

Your cracked country lips
I still wish to kiss
As to be under the strength of your skin
Your magnetic movements
Still capture the minutes I'm in
But it grieves my heart, love
To see you tryin' to be a part of
A world that just don't exist
It's all just a dream, babe
A vacuum, a scheme, babe
That sucks you into feelin' like this

I can see that your head
Has been twisted and fed
With worthless foam from the mouth
I can tell you are torn
Between stayin' and returnin'
Back to the South
You've been fooled into thinking
That the finishin' end is at hand
Yet there's no one to beat you
No one t' defeat you
'Cept the thoughts of yourself feeling bad

I've heard you say many times
That you're better than no one
And no one is better than you
If you really believe that
You know you have
Nothing to win and nothing to lose
From fixtures and forces and friends
Your sorrow does stem
That hype you and type you
Making you feel
That you gotta be exactly like them

I'd forever talk to you
But soon my words
Would turn into a meaningless ring
For deep in my heart
I know there is no help I can bring
Everything passes
Everything changes
Just do what you think you should do
And someday maybe
Who knows, baby
I'll come and be cryin' to you

I don't remember why I saved the lyrics but this morning I listened to Bob Dylan singing them. I'm still not a fan. Give me Willie and Waylon and the Boys or Kenny Rogers and Dottie West anyday.

(Tomorrow something else I printed off years ago - and presented at a class reunion.) 

International Country Music Day

Today is International Country Music Day, established in 1950 and held each year on September 17. FYI, National Country Music Day is July 4. I was not aware of either. Everyday could be Country Music Day for me as long as they were playing tunes from the last half of the 20th Century. 

It would be impossible for me to decide a favorite singer or song - there are too many. It was quite some time after Patsy Cline made Crazy a hit in 1961 before I learned that Willie Nelson wrote that song. When he began recording songs not just writing them, I became a big fan of his especially during the late 70's and into the 80's. Good Hearted Woman was a favorite, as were Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys, and On The Road Again but my favorite was Always On My Mind. 

I never paid as much attention to songwriters as I did the artists who sang the songs until Kris Kristofferson.  When Janis Joplin's Me and Bobby McGee became a hit I had no idea it was written by Kristofferson. One of my favorites of his was Loving Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again).

But my very favorite of his was/is this one:

Help Me Make It Through The Night

Take the ribbon from your hair
Shake it loose and let it fall
Layin' soft upon my skin
Like the shadows on the wall

Come and lay down by my side
'Til the early morning light
All I'm takin' is your time
Help me make it through the night

I don't care who's right or wrong
I don't try to understand
Let the devil take tomorrow
Lord, tonight, I need a friend

Yesterday is dead and gone
And tomorrow's out of sight
And it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

Lord, it's sad to be alone
Help me make it through the night

Lord, it's sad to be alone

Just as Patsy Cline made Willie Nelson's Crazy a hit, Sammi Smith's version of Help Me Make It Through The Night helped solidify Kristofferson's song as a classic and remains my favorite version.

I'm sure some ot the current country music is great but I'll stay in the last century with the memories those old tunes evoke.   ♫❤

Having A Positive Attitude

 

 

(The skies this morning when I was hoping for rain.)

Things Work Out By Edgar Albert Guest

Because it rains when we wish it wouldn't,
Because men do what they often shouldn't,
Because crops fail, and plans go wrong-
Some of us grumble all day long.
But somehow, in spite of the care and doubt,
It seems at last that things work out.

Because we lose where we hoped to gain,
Because we suffer a little pain,
Because we must work when we'd like to play-
Some of us whimper along life's way.
But somehow, as day always follows the night,
Most of our troubles work out all right.

Because we cannot forever smile,
Because we must trudge in the dust awhile,
Because we think that the way is long-
Some of us whimper that life's all wrong.
But somehow we live and our sky grows bright,
And everything seems to work out all right.

So bend to your trouble and meet your care,
For the clouds must break, and the sky grow fair.
Let the rain come down, as it must and will,
But keep on working and hoping still.
For in spite of the grumblers who stand about,
Somehow, it seems, all things work out.

Perimeter Patrol*

*AKA - what's going on around here? First of all, you will notice a change in the Chances R picture. It is of the clematis and was taken five years ago today. This year for the first time it did not bloom. Neither did the poppies nor iris. I don't know why. 😕

As summer begins fading into autumn, the sun moves along on it's southerly slide. (Photo from last evening.)

This morning I ran the furnace for a few minutes, mainly to take the 5:00 a.m. chill out but also to check that the furnace still works. 

Outside the deck is getting a much needed straightening and shoring up. 

In the past HD has taken on this task. This year we hired the experts and they are doing a very professional job.

Next spring/summer - time to paint it again.

Of course everything had to come off the deck with the table, chairs, etc. going on the side deck and the pots of plants on the patio.

These few items are in the corner at the top of the stairs.

I didn't do it on purpose, but I think it makes a pleasing, if temporary, arrangement.

This is on the north side of the house where Bud (Hubby Dearest) got a head start on the fall clean up by mowing off all the flowers there.

The snow-on-the-mountain had completely taken over and was looking very straggly.

It will all come back next year and look more orderly if I get a few things dug and moved closer to the house - mainly the ferns.

The peonies won't get cut back until after the first frost - which just might be earlier than usual this year if the forecasters are right. 

The one volunteer sunflower I let grow is doing its cheerful sunflowery thing. 🌻

All the pictures of the big sunflower fields are beautiful but I'm happy with just one stalk.

At the bottom of the right hand corner is a glimpse of the bird bath that was here when we moved in. It had a crack in the basin part so I asked HD to get rid of it. He was going to put it on the curb with a free sign but the neighbor said he would take it. A little tube of concrete repair, a little paint, and it will be as good as new. 

This pink Rose of Sharon (hibiscus syriacus, part of the mallow family) is beautiful this year. The pink and white one next to it blooms first and then this one.

This one is my favorite.

I mentioned that all the deck plants were on the patio now, but this planter, the old mailbox that was on the farm since I was very young, is always here, next to the steps on the patio. 

Planted in different flowers each year and most oftenly herbs, this was the year for goreous pink, glowing, impatiens.

With another pot of them on the table between the chairs.

The water can has developed a fine patina.

The little turquoise bead is one Bud picked up on his walk and brought to me. I may have aforementioned his likeness to a jackdaw. 😍

Not a recent photo - one I took a two or three weeks ago after the a/c ran during a very warm night.

At first I didn't know what was going on in the top left on the outside of the window.

Then I realized a spider had made its web; condensation did the rest. 

I'm also remembering, and missing, my dear friend Kristina. Today would have been her 78th birthday.

Bud and I were reminiscing about the wadi behind her home in Tucson and how much we both enjoyed it. Him running through it, me walking and picking up rocks - lots and lots of rocks.

On this date in1783 the Treaty of Paris was signed which ended the American Revolutionary War. Strangely enough, the book I began reading yesterday is about the start of the American Revolution.

It's late afternoon now. Their job is done and the workmen have gone. Much of what was on the deck is back on the deck.

It is unbelievable how solid and straight the deck now is. What a difference - time for a late summer deck party?

August '25 Books

 Another ten books month....

The Monuments Men by Robert M. Edsel is about the men and woman who worked to retrieve and save the European artworks stolen and hidden by Hitler during WWII. George L. Stout, an Iowan from Winterset, was extremely instrumental in their successes.  

Mean Streak, Low Pressure, and Blood Moon by Sandra Brown are three more of her books that I've been reading. These pretty much all follow the same formulaic - romantic suspense, action, intrigue - eye candy for the mind.

The Listeners is the first book I've read by Maggie Stiefvater. It is based on true happenings during WWII. I never knew that diplomats from Germany, Italy and Japan who were in the US when war was declared with those countries, were confined to large luxury hotels until they could be exchanged with the U.S. diplomats in their respective countries. As I've said before, I really enjoy novels based on true historical events.

South of Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver is the latest in his Colter Shaw series. It is a race against the clock to save a flooding town from total disaster when the protecting levee begins failing. 

The Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters is the first book I've read by this author and the first YA book I've read for some time. The setting is San Diego in the middle of the 1918 influenza epidemic. 

The Last Midwife by Sandra Dallas takes place in a small Colorado mining town in 1880. It follows a respected midwife as she cares for mothers and their babies until she is accused of murdering one of the newborns. I have always liked books set in previous times. The surprise for me in this one was that I thought I had read all of the Sandra Dallas books at my library. Now I have.

Zero Days by Ruth Ware is about a husband and wife team who are hired by companies to test their security systems. When the wife finds her husband murdered, she is the prime suspect. Before she can be arrrested she works to stay ahead of the law while trying to find the real killer. I didn't care for the first book I read by this author, The Woman In Cabin 10, but I did like this one.

We Are All Guilty Here is by one of my favorite authors - Karin Slaughter. This is the first new book of her's that my library has gotten since 2020 and the first in her new North Falls series. Set in a small town where everyone knows everyone until two teenage girls are murdered and they realize they didn't know their neighbors at all. As much as I enjoyed her Will Trent series, I think this new series might be even better. 

Until next month, wishing you all a Happy Labor Day.

Perseids Meteor Showers

Did you catch any falling stars during the Perseids meteor showers earlier this week? Perhaps - if you are a night owl and younger than I am. It's been a long time since I put down a blanket, laid back and watched for the annual show. But there is this:

Nocturne II By W.S. Merwin

August arrives in the dark

we are not even asleep and it is here
with a gust of rain rustling before it
how can it be so late all at once
somewhere the Perseids are falling
toward us already at a speed that would
burn us alive if we could believe it
but in the stillness after the rain ends
nothing is to be heard but the drops falling
one at a time from the tips of the leaves
into the night and I lie in the dark
listening to what I remember
while the night flies on with us into itself

The Details You Learn From Reading

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good

She was very very good,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

My mother used to recite as well as sing this little poem to my sister and me. She could have changed it to boy if she wasn't concerned about it rhyming, as both my brothers had curlier hair than Betty and I. 

The amazing, to me, fact is that this wasn't just a little ditty made up in the 30's or 40's, it was a poem written by none other than Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And I didn't know that, would probably have never known that, had it not been for the book I am currently reading. 

Being able to read, enjoying doing so, unimaginable what my life would have been without those.

From KRNT to KCCI - A 70th Anniversary Celebration

From the time I moved to Des Moines in 1968 until moving back to SW Iowa in 1995, I was a staunch Channel 8 viewer. So this week I have been enjoying the "Where Are They Now?" clips of former KCCI staffers as they come back to help celebrate the station's 70th anniversary. 

This morning I watched part of Eric Hanson's "This is Iowa" 60-minute special featuring clips from the past and interviews from then and now. 

Dolph Pulliam hasn't changed much but I did not recognize Mary Brubaker in this picture. I attended many Drake basketball games in '68-'69 where Pulliam helped lead his team to the Final Four. Later I watched him as a broadcaster on KCCI.

I also watched The Mary Brubaker show where she interviewed local and national celebrities and featured medical, political, home improvement, and fashion news as well as cooking segments.

I was once a very nervous guest on her show but for the life of me I can't remember why. I certainly was not any kind of celebrity and I wasn't a good cook with some new recipe. I vaguely remember wearing a jumpsuit on the program. They were popular at the time and I had sewn several for myself. Or was it for a makeover or a new hairdo? Maybe some day I will recall the reason. In the meantime, I'm going to watch the rest of Eric Hanson's special. 

July '25 Books

 Ten books read in July.

Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is the first book I've read by this author and a Reese's Book Club pick. I don't think of myself as an Anglophile, but it does seem that English movies, books and TV programs are smarter - better story telling than American fare. This was my favorite fiction read of the month.

All That Life Can Afford by Emily Everett is also a Reese's Book Club choice.  A Smith College scholarship graduate from a working class background moves to London to pursue a master's in literature. She falls in with the upper class. Billed as a Jane Austen inspired 'coming of age' book

Sting and Overkill are two more of the books by Sandra Brown that I'm reading my way through.

We All Live Here is the newest novel by Jojo Moyes. When I saw my first book by her, I didn't think it would have much substance. I realize I was basing that entirely on her first name. I'm so glad I read that book anyway and many more since. She is a great writer. The 'all' living in a house that is in need of much repair includes her two daughters and her step-father - then her wayward, absent for thirty-five years, father shows up. This is such a fun, serious, thoughtful read about what it means to be family.

Isola is by Allegra Goodman a new author for me. Not only a Reese's Book Club pick, it was one Bud picked that he thought I would like - based entirely on the cover - a woman standing high upon a cliff. It was a good read, inspired by the real life of a sixteenth century woman.

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil is by another new author for me, V.E. Schwab. It tells the stories of three young women living in different centuries. It is not a book I would have read had I not been so far into it before realizing it was about vampires. However, it was well written and interesting and I hate to give up on a book once I've started it.

Friction is another of the many Sandra Brown books I've been reading.

Remember Us by Robert M. Edsel begins with Hitler's invasion of the Netherlands May 10, 1940 and follows the lives of twelve main characters over a six-year span mostly set in the small rural province of Limburg. This is my favorite non-fiction book this month barely edging out....  

Taking Manhattan by Russell Shorto - a book of The Extraordinary Events That Created New York and Shaped America. Also non-fiction, but not quite as well written as the previously mentioned one. 

What totally got my attention on the first page was the footnote: *There are many names for the Indigenous people native to the region, including Lenape, Munsee, Munsee Lenape, Lennie Lenape, Delaware.

Lennie Lenape - that was the name of the tribe my 7x great-grandfather was a chieftan of - which made the book even more interesting. And there he was on page 94 - Lenape chief Lapowinsa - the same photo, but in black and white, as the one I pictured on my April 27, 2024 blog "Meet My Native American 7xGreat-Grandfather".  This book was more about the Dutch and English than the native tribes but just finding this familial link made it more interesting to me. 

Incidentally, Bud picked these last two books for me, too, which reminds me - I should listen to him more often and I should be reading more non-fiction. 

It is time to head back to the library. I wonder what my August books read list will look like. 😉

Place to Be

How quickly July has passed - one more poem before August arrives:

Place to Be By Robert Creeley

Days the weather sits
in the endless sky,
the clouds drifting by

The winter's snow,
summer's heat,
same street.

Nothing changes
but the faces, the people,
all the things they do

'spite of heaven and hell
or city hall—
Nothing's wiser than a moment.

No one's chance
is simply changed by wishing,
right or wrong.

What you do is how you get along.
What you did is all it ever means.

Iowa's "Blind Pig Soap"

This morning a Facebook page about Iowa towns and their histories, which I follow, shared an old 1898 newspaper advertisement for Pearline Soap. I don't remember that laundry soap, but.....

.... it did prickle a memory of this soap, a bar of which was left behind on the basement shelves of the rental house we moved into near Des Moines in 1969.

I never used it, but knew the P and G stood for Proctor and Gamble - which led me to a 1917 ad for "P and G the White Naptha Soap" and an article that included part of a song written by Newfoundland folk singer.

Oh, you women folks of Newfoundland,
attend to what I say,
I mean to make it easy for you on washing day;
And when you use your washing soap,
I want you all to see,
When you’re taking off the wrapper
that it’s stamped with a “P G” 

The Proctor and Gamble Company was based in Cincinnati. In 1920 a resident there had just returned from a trip to Iowa. He reported that: "In Iowa, grocers say they sell more 'P-G' soap than any other kind. Iowa citizens call it Blind Pig Soap." Mystified as to why such a strange name would be given to the soap that made Cincinnati famous .... "because P-G soap has no I (eye)."

This 'Blind Pig Soap' story was new to me. It is the kind of factoid that I find informational and get a kick out of. 

It is also somewhat ironic - the first pig I raised after moving back home in '78 was Rupert. He really was blind.

Family Before Fireworks

We have two great-grandsons whose birthdays are June 30, Greyson, 10, and July 1, Ayden, 11, which makes them both ten years old for one day. 

Because their birthdays are close to the 4th of July celebrating them and Independence Day is usually combined.

It is always such a joy to see the little ones and mark how they have changed. Great-grandson, Henri, here with his mother, Kathryn, is the whose growth is most apparent. Last time we saw him he wasn't walking, now he is. And he just gets cuter and more personable each time we see him.

Henri's big brother, Louis, and his Dad, Travis, were enjoying some age appropriate fireworks.

Louis not only showed me his 'poppers', he shared one with me.

They didn't have to be lit, only thrown on pavement to POP.

Ten year old Greyson, always ready with a smile and hug.

 Ayden and Greyson playing in the water.

Louis and Henri doing the same thing. The slip and slide was new and they were all making the most of it.

The high temperatures and sunshine were perfect for their play.

Then Aunt Dominique got in on it.

I think she had as much fun - or more - than the boys did.

While all the fun was going on outside, Dominique's husband Ian was working away installing new ceiling tiles in his in-law's dining room.

I don't think there is much this guy can't do, and he does it willingly.

I think the young ones were going to move the fun to a pool, but it was time for the old folks to go home.

We live close enough to McKinley Lake/Park to see the fireworks from our deck.

Neither of us are big fireworks fans, see a few and that's enough. 

I took this picture through the window. 

Another birthday and 4th of July celebration in the books. 

Using Water To Make Pudding

I planned to take a couple of salads to the family 4th of July gathering tomorrow - my cauliflower and pea salad and lemon jello with crushed pineapple and mandarin oranges. Monday I bought what I needed. Yesterday I put together the pea salad except for the cheese because that doesn't get added until shortly before eating.

This morning I made the jello so it could partially set before adding the fruit.

While the water was heating, two boxes of jello went into a large bowl. I poured in two cups of boiling water and began stirring.

That's funny, the jello is already beginning to thicken.

 

That was when I realized I had purchased lemon pudding and pie filling, not gelatin.

At least I hadn't opened the cans of pineapple and oranges yet. 

Yes, I could have gone back to the store and gotten Jello gelatin, but didn't. I had said I would bring a salad or two. So one it is. Sorry kids.

In the meantime, I tasted the pudding mixture made with water instead of milk. It wasn't bad at all; edible in fact. Good to know in case I want pudding sometime and am out of milk.

I've known for some time now that I need to check and then double check everything I do before doing it. But really, those boxes look much alike, don't they? 

Hope you have a happy and safe 4th. For certain no one will be putting me in charge of the fireworks!   🎆🎇