no socks, please

I've always enjoyed walking around barefoot.  I generally don't wear slippers around the house and I run around outside shoeless.  My mom had a hard time keeping socks on my feet when I was a baby.  Here I am sitting on the floor of the living room in the Brookside parsonage with my bare feet exposed and my socks are dumped in a pile on the carpet in front of me.  I look very happy with myself.  Bare feet rule!!

more sisters

Our mother and her sister were confirmed into church membership together on June 7, 1936.  Here they are on Confirmation Sunday standing next to each other in their lovely white dresses.  Our mom, Helen, is on the left and our aunt, Gertrude, is on the right.  This is what Mom said about being a member of the same class as her sister.  She was upset.  For whatever reason Auntie Anna held Mom back a year so that both of the girls would be confirmed at the same time.  Mom always wanted to be in the class with her own age group but she obeyed Auntie and stayed back a year.  It bothered her though.  That, and a few other instances, gave Mom the idea that when she had children (particularly daughters) she would make sure that they were treated as individuals and had their own opportunities for growth independent of each other.  And, yet, because my sister and I shared the same bedroom all of the years as we were growing up, we grew close in other ways.  Caring and respect developed between us and that has continued all these years.  I think our mom was wise to watch us grow together, but separately.  Different personalities have led us in different directions but we always find the time to be there for each other and we always will.  Thanks, Mom.  Thanks, Sis.

sisters

There's something about having a sister.  In my case I always knew I had a sister because we are so close in age.  We also shared a bedroom as we were growing up.  And that means we shared time, space and conversations in the dark.  We built one level doll houses on the floor of our closet by neatly arranging our doll furniture into "rooms".  We shared a dresser (three drawers down for Susan, three drawers down for me).  Half the closet was hers and half was mine.  There was a bar hook that marked the halfway point.  No clothes ever jumped the line either.  Our dad had two sisters, too.  Those two sisters were Aunt Ruth and Aunt Blanche.  I hope they were as close as my sister and I have been.  Both Ruth and Blanche are gone now.  They both passed away in the last couple of years.  So, that makes Susan and I the oldest aunts now.  Oh, did I say that?  Yes, I did.  But getting back to the sisters part, I'm very thankful I was given the BEST one ever.  The older sister protects the younger sister when they are children.  The younger sister looks out for the older sister when they are adults.  That seems to be how it goes.  Thanks, sis.

grandpa's are father's, too

Here are pictures of the boys with their grandpa in about 1985 and again about twelve years later.  Oh, how they loved him and he loved them, too.  Grandpa's are the best.  They show interest in everything you do and they brag about all of your accomplishments to their friends and to anyone else who will listen.  Grandpa's give good old fashioned advice with a short story attached for clarification.  They stand back amazed at how technologically advanced their grandkids are and, again, they tell all their friends about how wonderful it is to have their own personal computer technicians on hand when they need them.  Mostly though it was about their food connection.   This grandpa loved to watch the boys eat especially when they got to be teenagers.  He'd make sure that he took them to an all-you-can-eat buffet whenever they visited.  He enjoyed telling them to eat all they wanted.  His way of saying it went something like this.  "Now that you've filled up one leg, go back and fill up the other one."  He joked that he, too, could eat like that at one time.  He was also very good at passing along words of wisdom.  I know this because he was my father and he dispensed plenty of wise thoughts in my direction throughout the years.  Happy Father's Day to all the father's and grandfather's who left a positive legacy for their kids and grandkids.  This one sure did.

how I spend my days off

Me?  Riding a snow mobile?  Indoors?  Ya, sort of.  Actually this is a very good representation of what I do almost all of the time since most of my days are "off" days now.  I go sightseeing.  I do a lot of cross country traveling these days and I just happened to visit the Arctic Cat manufacturing plant a year ago in June.  I was in Minnesota with my partner in crime (only the good kind!!), Susan, and we stopped over in Thief River Falls for a couple of days. We decided to tour the facility and we lucked out and got the very chatty tour guide that gave us the two hour tour and we enjoyed every minute of it.  I can see me on one of these things.  Well, actually, I DO see me on one of these things in this picture taken inside the showroom.  Look at me having fun.  Go get 'em, cowgirl.

tired people

Don't we all look tired?  I haven't figured out where this picture was taken, yet.  We were visiting in the home of the woman who is seated in the center of this group of rather tired out people.  The wallpaper pattern is rather distinctive.  (random thought)  Nice cowboy shirt, Keith.

another Confirmation Day picture

I came across another picture that was taken of me on my Confirmation Day in April of 1962.  This photo was taken while I was standing in the chancel of the sanctuary.