:Family Matters

Joy was just a wee bit upset with her fellow family members for not writing and she let us know this in no uncertain terms several weeks ago. She tries hard to keep our rather disconnected family connected and I, for one, appreciate it, but also realize that it is pretty much an uphill battle. I really have no excuse for my lapse except to shrug my shoulders and mutter, “It’s not my fault, it’s in my genes, all the Gano girls are this way. We inherited it from our father who told us that he was born with a broken hand and he passed this trait on to us, well maybe not Kathy, but the rest of us anyway. This is the absolute truth. I was talking with my sister Barbara just the other day about this very subject and she told me she had saved every letter Dad had ever written her–all two of them.

No, what really happened was that I promised myself this past New Year that I would get some of my unfinished projects completed, hopefully while I was still alive, or know the reason why. This has taken such great dedication and effort on my part that it has necessitated giving up one of my favorite pastimes, Free Cell, which tells you how seriously I have taken this challenge.
I would also have to say that I am doing it for the same reason people climb mountains–because they are there; not to mention the fact that I have no more room left in the inn, so to speak as every closet, bag, box nook and cranny is full and in some cases bursted at the seam. I am particularly aware of this when I open the closet in my sewing room and release the anquished wails. From one pile a voice cries, “Here, here am I, finish me.” While its neighbor begs, “No, no, do me first, I’ve been here longer. Not to mention that the project on top of them both simply oozzes over the edge and slithers out across the floor until I can’t find a place to put my feet without stepping on something I don’t want to step on. Let, me tell you, Sally the Washerwoman had nothing on me when it comes to making trails. “Yeeeeahhh”, (think of the scream Howard Dean let out on his ill-fated run for the presidency and you will begin to have an idea of the frustration I have been feeling.)

Reaching my goal has required great sacrifice not only by me but also MGH as meals have consisted of pizza on weekdays and for variety macaroni and cheese on Sundays . Dishes have gone undone, newspapers lay where they’ve fallen, spiders merrily spin their webs which I consider a 3 dimensional art form so on second thought maybe they don’t count, and clean clothes were treasured and valued because they became so rare. More than once MGH has gently inquired if there were a clean pair a garments for him because if there were a shower might be nice.

It hasn’t been pretty–but has it been worth it, I hope so, though some might disagree but they better not do that where I can hear them that is if they want me to finish the projects/s I have been saving that have their name on it.

What have I finished? Let me name their names: The crocheted 30″ doily I meant to give Kristie for her wedding April 29, 2005. The birthday present, a quilted pincushion, for my sister Kathy that I bought the materials for 5 years ago when Hurst’s had their going out of business sale and everything was reduced in price so how could I resist? The bonnet and booties for my neighbor next door that were a shower gift that I got to her three weeks late but since the baby was late as well maybe that was okay. Brooks’ quilt which I worked on cutting and piecing for a month and a half and is now awaiting machine quilting and when that is completed then all I have to do is sew the binding on and hopefully have it ready for him to take back to Michigan when he comes to visit in June. Thank you cards to our eleven children for the Christmas present they gave us three months ago. Quilt blocks for a Humanitarian project we are working on in RS. Two classes, one on card making and one on iris folding (please be kind enough not to notice that they spawned ‘new’ piles of their own.) I still haven’t recovered from that and if anyone knows what I did with my paper scissors please let me know as I am lost without them and they are compromising the safety of my sewing shears. . . . Marie’s heirloom doll that I crocheted a dress for and meant to have finished a year ago for her birthday but became distracted and never got the wings starched. (The doll morphed into an angel somewhere along the line.)

Charlie’s quilt. I apologized to him for not getting it finished and he just laughed and said, “Aw grandma don’t worry about it. Mom had me pick the material out when I was a Sophomore in High School so I’ve already waited a long time. I can wait a little longer.” He is such a fine young man. I really enjoy being around him. Patience is such an excellent virture don’t you agree? There is a symmetry about his quilt. He selected the material, blue of course, when a sophomore in high school. He received the finished project when he was a sophomore in college for a total time between beginning and end of six years. Neat huh.
Well that’s about all I’ve done so far and I must admit that it is nice to have surfaced and rejoined the human race, at least for a little while. The next thing on my list is to get the downstairs taped and painted–its only been waiting ten years. . . .

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Several weeks ago the smoke alarm in our bedroom reached the point where it could no longer function and being the faithful servant that it has been programmed to be it announced this fact with the most annoying high pitched chirp , which most of you have probably never heard as you remember to change the nine volt battery required to run it on a regular basis.
Alas, we are not among your rank and so I was awakened one morning by a sound I’d been hearing in my dream, a single note produced, by a chinese gentleman clad in ceremonial robes, hitting a metal pipe or rather a whole room of these pipes which he seemed to be checking to make sure their pitch was true. For some reason I connected him with Joy–a friend from her musical training, perhaps? To my dismay, the sound remained after the the dream ended. I laid there trying to figure what it was. Then I groaned as I realized with a sinking feeling, “Oh, no, not the smoke alarm”. I knew that nothing I might wish would put it out of its misery except taking it down and even then the chirp might continue. I knew this because years ago we had one that did just that. I finally wrapped it in a towel and hid it in the linen closet. It just wouldn’t stop. I even took the battery out and it still kept chirping. Of course, the easiest thing would have been to replace the battery but there wasn’t one on hand and when I would go to the store the sound couldn’t follow, sort of an out of sound out of mind thing you might say so I never remembered to purchase one. At any rate I knew what I was in for and fully intended to bring up the wooden ladder that has taken up permanent residence downstairs, and get the problem taken care of as I now had a battery which I purchased several years ago that I keep tucked away between the cannisters on my kitchen counter so I will have it for just such an emergency as this.
The day wore on and I never got the deed done, other things claiming my attention. By night time I was much too tired to tackle the ladder so I prepared to sleep on the couch as I knew full well that ‘chirp’ and I could not possibly share the same space and both of us come out alive in the morning.
At breakfast that morning I had mentioned to MGH, “Houston, we have a problem.” To which he gave his usual reply from deep inside the Deseret Mourning News, “I’m sorry to hear that.” With a sigh I then returned to my own perusal of the Daily News. I had reported and been responded to.
As for sleeping on the couch, which I have done on more than one occasion, sleep eluded me. I longed for the comfort of the mattress that Dawn’s hard work at the Boulevard had earned and she had generously given us. Around two in the morning I finally decided that I was going to spend the rest of night in my own bed even if it meant lying there in agonizing suspense waiting for the next ‘chirp’, at least I would be comfortable in my misery.
To my surprise the room was silent with nary a ‘chirp’ even though I lay awake for a long time waiting. . . The next morning I told MGH that ‘chirp’ seemed to have disappeared. He chuckled and told me that the night before he had, with great difficulty used the wooden desk chair to climb up and remove the smoke alarm. I have been greatly touched by this.
I know what true love is. While flowers and candy and romantic dinners might be part it is not the whole. True love is climbing on the wooden chair in our bedroom when 78 year old legs don’t want to rise higher than the first rung but continuing to try until finally you have managed to heave yourself up so you can disconnect the smoke alarm whose battery has dwindled to the point of being on the point of failure but is programmed to let you know that you have lost your early warning system. You do this because it keeps your sweetheart from sleeping. You do this even though once you have completed your task you discover you can’t get down because the drop to the floor will cause major damage to your knees when and if you make it to solid ground. So you stand on the chair and remember how easily you could have once completed the same task and then you figure out what price you will have to pay to be successful. You do all this and never say a word to your wife who had planned on sleeping elsewhere that night because she had gotten too tired to drag the wooden ladder up the stairs. You do this even though your hearing doesn’t allow you to hear high pitched sounds so the chirping doesn’ bother you. You do this because you love your wife and want her to be happy. That is love

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March 29,2006

Because of his church calling in the University 3rd Stake MGH (My Good Husband) often attends several sacrament meetings there on Sundays. Since the chapel the various wards meet in is nestled next to the SUU campus he drives and I walk to church which is really no hardship as the church is barely a hop skip and a jump away from our house. Even on a slow day I can walk it in under two minutes. However, since he quite often doesn’t get home until after two o’clock and I am finished at 12:30 it has become necessary for me to take a key on some Sundays, which is where the rub is, or face the consequence. This then is the salutary tale of how mother locked herself out and experienced being homeless.
Two weeks ago the RS president and I exited the chapel at the same time. She asked me if I would like a ride home which was kind of her but would mean that she would have to go at least a block out of her way so I thanked her and was about to start home when a dread thought came to mind—could I have possibly forgotten to bring my house key with me? At the look of alarm on my face she asked if there was a problem. “Oh, nothing”, I replied, “its just that I think my house is locked and I forgot my key”. She then offered to take me to get a key from MGH but being my father’s daughter I couldn’t possibly accept help from anyone, could I? She then asked if I would like her to come help me get in through a window–a feat which she had accomplished several times necessitated by her own failure to remember her house key. Our pres is a single gal who runs marathons and snowboards and has a bike rack on her car which she actually uses so if she says she knows how to do something you know that she does. Still I, in my best ‘rather be drownded than done’ mode thanked her and said I thought I might find an unlocked door at the back of the house.
Of course there wasn’t a door unlocked anywhere which left me rather half heartedly attempting to open windows. I even removed a few screens but nothing budged which led me to plan B. Plan B was to visit daughter Robyn who lives in an apt about a five minute walk from us. One of her Sunday chores is to “check on the parents and make sure they are okay” which she does faithfully. Since turn about is fair play I thought I might return the favor and check on her and in so doing have a comfortable place to stay until MGH could rescue me. The only problem was that I couldn’t remember what time she got out of church but decided that nothing ventured was nothing gained, so off I went with naught but faith to quide me.
I needed to lighten the load so I left my scripture bag out of sight on the air conditioner compressor. Not wanting to appear on her doorstep empty handed I grabbed the Sunday paper which was still in its fluorescent colored orange bag because the weather had been spitting snow when the carrier dropped it off which made it easier for me to carry.
Alas, no one was home. I found this out when the door wasn’t opened after both ringing the bell and knocking repeatedly not to mention putting my ear up to the door to see if I could hear any movement from inside just incase she had fallen asleep on her recliner. It was then that the realization came to me that I needed to move on to Plan C as her entry way while out of the wind was still way to chilly to spend much time there.
By this time I really needed to make a pit stop as it had been a long time since I left home. The solution was obvious–I had only to stop at the church on the way back to my house. After all, I was still in my Sunday best the only thing that would seem a little strange was the newspaper I was carrying in its orange bag, in lieu of scriptures, and my, by now, bright red nose. The newspaper I could conceal under my pink coat but alas, my nose as always would have to stand out in all its glory but since that has always been the case therefore I let need govern my choice and continued to overlook the nose problem. That being decided I hurried into the church. Ah, what a relief it was to be warm and dry marred only be the fact that I still had an hour to wile away before needing to be home. Quiet as the proverbial church mouse I tip-toed quickly to the furtherest chair in the corner of the lobby seating area and hunkered down for the duration.
Hoping not to attract attention in my choice of reading matter I eased the Sunday paper out of its bright orange bag, which I then quickly hid in a pocket, and began to read. I thought I was fairly safe in not being noticed as the one ward was in classes while the other was in Sacrament Meeting which meant hardly anyone was in the hall.
But no, I just couldn’t do it. My dratted conscience wouldn’t let me read anything other than the scriptures in church on the Sabbath. Besides, the young deacon would soon be coming out to pass the sacrament to the strays of his ward who had arrived to late to find a seat in the chapel before the sacrament prayers were said and while I might be a stray for the moment I was not a stray from his ward and I knew that he would know this and that he knew that I knew that he knew that I was from the wrong flock and so I knew that I had to leave.
Plan D was about to go into play. It was that I would go home and sit on the front porch steps and read the paper there. That didn’t last very long as the steps were icy cold as well as hard making it very difficult for me to get comfortable–not even the funnies could cheer me up. The idea of getting a window open was beginning to look better and better to me so I began to think about what it would take to get the job done.
Ah ha, what I needed was something slender enought to poke where I couldn’t get my fingers, but where was such an object to be found? Then I remembered that behind the house were some gardening tools left out since summer including my digging knife which I quickly retrieved. With that in hand I once more approached my nemesis (the recalcitrant window in case you were wondering) and began pushing upward. I was rewarded with the window rising up just enough to slide the point of my knife in and then I was able to jack the edge up enough to get my fingers underneath and from there it was easy.
Oh how good it felt to be rewarded with the warmth of the inside air on my face. I quickly saw that in order to complete the next phase successfully I was going to need to get the curtain out of the way as well as get the blind pulled up which was acomplished in a flash, comparitively speaking. With supreme confidence, after all I had gotten this far hadn’t I? I swung my leg up and to my horror failed to reach the window sill, it wasn’t even close. My 65 year old body didn’t respond to a request for that kind of maneuver anymore. Darn, maybe I hadn’t gotten the hardest part over with after all.
Okay, here’s what I figured I had to do. I had to teeter on the very edge of the step and swing my leg higher than previously and I only had one chance for success because if I failed I would likely find myself between a rock and a hard place, so to speak. Hiking my skirt up, which was thankfully a full one, otherwise all who chanced to pass might have gotten a peek at the great behind, this time I put forth enough effort to get my foot through the window and then I was able to shimmy my way on into the house.
I’d done it. I’d successfully broken into my own house! Once inside I quickly closed the window, replaced the curtain and pulled down the blind. I then unlocked the front door, retrieved the Sunday paper and with a sigh of relief sat down on the couch to enjoy the fruits of my ill gotten gains. At this point the garage door opened. MGH was home. So ends the tale of how I managed to be homeless for several hours with this advice for you all –always remember to carry your house key with you and keep a window unlocked just in case and no this isn’t The Twilight Zone it’s a Retirement House.
Love to you all

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Hey Family! Where’d you go? This website’s only fun when we all post stuff and make comments etc… what’s happening in your world? I want to know! Love ya!
Your Little Sis, Joy

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Sunday, March 12, 2006 Introducing herself and her topic while giving a talk in Sacrament meeting, Mom tells people if she puts them to sleep, she hopes they have a great nap and wake up refreshed. After the meeting, Mom’s friend, Melody LeFevre says, “Great talk, Sylvia. It’s always nice to be refreshed.”

It’s David’s turn to teach the lesson in his Sunday School class. It has become a class tradition to play hangman (or some variant thereof) to guess the lesson title, which today is “Follow the Living Prophet.” Because the students take turns being teachers, they all have access to the manual and it is easy to read ahead and familiarize oneself with the upcoming lesson titles. This happened to Jonathan LeFevre last week, when Mitch Gillins guessed “Love One Another” on the second turn, knowing only the placement of the letter “T.” Determined to avoid a repeat this week, David uses a thesaurus to throw his classmates off track, and spends the rest of the class time encouraging them to “Pursue the Animated Seer.”

The BAD Family has been holding “Family Home Afternoon” on Sundays. Bryan is conducting. Dad provides a joke from the Highlights magazine he and Franklin were reading before church this morning. He has Franklin start out by saying, “Have you heard about the new sidewalk?” “No,” says Dad. “It’s all around town,” laughs Franklin. Mom opts for a song instead of lesson. We sing all nine verses of “Follow the Prophet,” a bright, bouncy marching tune, to coordinate with David’s Sunday School theme. Franklin is happy for the first two verses because he knows the words, but then during verses 3-9, alternates screams of frustration as he dashes to his bedroom, with leaping and dancing by the piano during the choruses. David distributes the (outdated) candy windfall obtained at church for the treat, and Franklin picks the movie “Clue” for our activity.

Franklin is snuggling with Daddy and Mom is working at the computer when the thunder begins to boom and the whimpering begins. Mom brings Franklin back into his room where the boombox is set up to play lullabies. The two of them are soundly sleeping when Bryan gently shakes Mom’s shoulder. “There’s a tornado warning,” he says. “Shouldn’t we go down to the basement?”
Mom groggily thanks Bryan and watches as he lifts his sleeping brother and carries him to the basement. Eventually, we all find our way down and wait out the warning, which lasts until 10:50 PM. Franklin insists that even though he didn’t hear the siren right away, he was awake the whole time. As Mom soothes him to sleep again he asks if Mom is prepared for another tornado. “Will you hear the siren?” “Of course,” says Mom. “Well, you didn’t hear it this time!” he accuses.

Monday, March 13, 2006
David and Bryan have been playing “Who’s the favorite child?” Bryan mentions casually that securing the safety of his mother and the rest of family might carry a little more weight than merely shoveling snow or fixing popcorn, as David did last week. (Editor: This is a great game. It’s even better than the “Silent Game.”)

(Editor (teasing): I see you conveniently forgot the part about thinking we had died?”) [Reply to Editor: After the kids are in school, Mom reads in the Yahoo headlines that the University of Kansas has closed today due to the stretch of bad storms that swept across the Midwest last night. Concerned about their safety, she immediately calls Wendell and Jenyne. “Thanks Mom, we’re fine. We attend Kansas State.”]

When Mom checks with Franklin to see how he is doing with the Band-Aid he got from the cupboard, she finds that he has successfully wrapped it around his sore tore (infected from Franklin pulling out a hangnail, rather than clipping it). “Wow,” says Mom. “You did that all by yourself!”
“I’m a big boy,” says Franklin confidently.
A few minutes later, after visiting the bathroom for a pee, Franklin comes to Mom with a difficult snap. “I think you’ve outgrown those pants,” says Mom. “Maybe its time to give them to other little boys.”
“It’s not that,” protests Franklin. “It’s just hard to snap.”
Mom smiles into his wide hazel eyes with their long dark lashes. “I thought you told me you were a big boy.”
Franklin smiles back. “I’m 49% sure I’m a big boy.”
“Don’t you mean 99%?” asks Mom.
“Well, being a grown-up is 100%,” replies Franklin.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006 Fighting huge gusts of wind on the way to the van after school, Franklin tells Mom, “I had a bad day.”
“Why was it a bad day?”
“We made jungle animals. I don’t like jungle animals but we had to make them. I took so long deciding which one to make that when recess came I had to sit in the office. It’s a good thing I finished before recess was over.”

Bryan is awarded his academic letter. He stays up late finishing a personal narrative for 7th hour.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006 Bryan’s 7th hour class takes turns reading their personal narratives aloud. Bryan chose to write about a Scouting cold-weather camping event called the Klondike Derby. Here are a few excerpts. (E-mail the BAD Family if you’d like to read the narrative in its entirety.)
“When I started the night my sleeping bag was folded in half in the normal fashion, one half being underneath me. However as I turned in the night it eventually slipped out from underneath me…. My meager understanding of thermodynamics at the time consisted of the fact that heat rises. So after several failed attempts to remedy my slippery sleeping bag I logically deduced that it did not matter because my body heat could not escape downward, and thus decided to use it as a blanket instead. I must say, I had a very cold night that night.”
“In the morning…we found three thawed patches of ground where I had slept. Each of these patches marked the positions at which I lay as my body heat was drained into the freezing earth. It was this discomfort and the resulting sleep deprivation that made that particular campout one of the most enjoyable times I’ve ever had. It just wouldn’t have been fun if everything had gone right. Since then I have never forgotten to bring proper insulation when I go camping.”

Volleyball at the church for David and Bryan. Mom and Franklin go to Woodland Christian school for another of the lecture series on the Book of Revelation. Franklin makes a butterfly.

Thursday, March 16, 2006
It is cowboy day for the kindergarten. Franklin is up early to dress in his jeans, T-shirt, scarf and cowboy hat. He asks, “What are we going to do about boots?” Mom tells him that since we don’t have any he’ll have to wear his sneakers. Franklin takes this in stride, but after breakfast comments, “I didn’t dream about cowboy boots.” Mom wonders if this is a case of “No means yes, Yes means no” that Franklin has scrawled on his whiteboard.
As school time approaches, Franklin grows uneasy about his scarf and hat. He takes them off just before putting on his coat. Mom, thinking he might change his mind, tucks them into his backpack. Sure enough, when she picks Franklin up from school he comes running out with his hat on, just like most of the other 50 or 60 kindergartners.
Franklin’s six-month dental cleaning and check-up goes well. Two new molars way in back, plus four loose front teeth.

Friday, March 17, 2006 David is teasing Mom as Bryan hops into the van to go to school. “You’re not wearing green,” says David, pinching her arm. “Oh, crap,” says Bryan, who dashes back into the house. “Neither are you,” says Mom. “Am too. My watch glows green. If you don’t think so, just look at the reflection of the light in my wring.” Bryan reappears wearing a button-down shirt (blue, of course) with a green polo pony embroidered over his heart. “You’re not wearing green, Mom,” says Bryan. He pinches her arm.

Franklin brings home the orange construction paper hobbyhorse named “Beautiful,” who takes up residence on our broom. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asks, stroking the mane made of yarn. “And look at the pattern: orange, orange, blue. Orange, orange, blue.” (Editor: It’s St. Patrick’s Day! Why isn’t the pattern green, green, green?)

Saturday, March 18, 2006 The house is a whirl of activity as David and Bryan run down Mom’s list of things to-do to get ready for both tonight’s Youth Service Auction and the arrival of Wendell-Joe and Jenyne this afternoon. Floors are mopped. Rugs are vacuumed. Beds are moved. Dad washes up dishes and runs laundry up and down stairs. Franklin watches the clock, “When are they going to get here?”
David comes across an item on the board. “Uh, Mom? About this fiscus tree we’re supposed to wipe down?” Dad wipes his hands on a dishtowel and comes to examine the board, “Uh-oh.” David continues. “Is that the same tree we loaded up in the van last week when we made our junk run?”
Is it possible to look nervous and sheepish and unrepentant all at the same time? Must be because that’s what Tom does, hanging his head a little, looking to see how mad Syl is. Mom remembers this junk run. She left instructions on the board, but was gone to a stamping activity at the time in question. “Yeah,” David says, “Tom had us take it with some other stuff that was in the back porch.”
“Other stuff? What other stuff?”

Standing in line for the potato bar before the Youth Service Auction, Tom comments quietly to Syl, “Do you think I’m going bald? Both Joe and Jenyne came up independently and told me I was going bald.” Syl, being slightly deaf in one ear asks him to repeat this, only a little louder please. Jenyne, just ahead in the line, overhears and bursts out laughing. “I told Joe to go ask.” (Editor: Yes, that was real funny.)
Tom successfully bids for a jar of June Davis’ homegrown and homemade raspberry jam that Syl wanted. (Editor: Yeah, like I had a choice.) David slices his finger, his second injury in as many years rolling the round tables back to their closet. Back home, applying antibiotic and Band-Aids, Mom reminisces about youngling David and his many many skinned knees, when he was small enough to fit on a countertop.

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This is a picture of Charlie as his medieval persona, Charles the Blue. He is holding a replica of Aragorn’s sword from Lord of the Rings.

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So Brooks and/or Joy–how do I get pictures posted?

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We’ve had March Madness this past weekend and I’m not referring to the basketball excitment that has been building up either. No, what happened is that we got snow! What you ask is exciting about that white stuff that falls in the winter and happens whether or no if the temperature is cold enough? Well, its just that we haven’t had any this winter. After record amounts in the mtns. last winter which we had been praying mightly for and which were answered by the aforementions storms and the resulting flooding that occurred in St. George where homes were literally washed away in the the wild torrent of the Santa Clara River that is normally so small one can step over it with out even getting ones feet wet. (I’m taking this on hearsay as I have never actually tried it but those in the know, mainly the ones that built their homes in the flood plain reportedly passed this bit of information along to the flood of reporters who appeared like vultures circling a kill when said homes began disappearing into the maw of the usually quiescent trickle.)
I am of the opinion that having prayed so diligently with such spectacular results we all gave that pursuit up as redundant in the current circumstance. Then the totals began to come in for this years’ water year and they were dire even if one is normally an optimist. We were once again threatened with the fear of wild fires raging out of control in the mountains that surround us as well as the sage brushy desert in between.Timers on our showers seemed like a sure thing so that just like Joy in boot camp we could have 40 seconds to bathe and then the water would shut off leaving us where ever we happened to be in our cleansing routine not to mention the thought of not being able to flush the toilet when we needed to get rid of a spider or too. Wait maybe I am confusing this with the population growth that this area is experiencing and the threat that if we don’t get water piped up from Lake Powell we will dry up and blow away back to the time when the iron mines closed and Cedar almost became a ghost town. At any rate we all began praying again and by golly the miracle occurred–20 inches of snow Friday night and Saturday. Whoo–ee.
We are delighted of course. MGH(my good husband) has reached the point where he is quite content to be storm bound figuring that the sun would come out and melt the snow before we ran out of food. Fortunately, we weren’t forced to test this theory as the neighbors and a grandson, Dakota, came to our rescue with shovels, snow blowers and even a back hoe.
Hope you are all well. We love you all. Mom

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I don’t exactly remember when, but it was long before Sho ever learned to do a double axle. (In fact he still has yet to pass the step test for that particular jump). But I asked him to try and show me what a skater goes through in a normal practice. So there I was this 45 year old ,arthritic dump out on the ice with my oldest son. He was just practicing on his own so there wasn’t the normal screaming from the rink side that he is so used to hearing from his teacher. Now, I can make the thin blades move on the ice under my feet reasonablely well enough to not have to hold on to the side of the rink. And I can even skate backward….slowly that is. But the truth be known, when it comes to the real McCoy I know absolutely nothing about the sport. So he had me out there pushing myself off from the edge of the rink trying to do ’s’ patterns with both feet at the same time. It was excruciating mucsle and ankle pain from the begining. Then there was the spin to practice. That was a headache. And now that we were through one half a practice. I decided to take a small breather i.e. break. Big mistake. Because I hadn’t realized how tired I had really gotten. I ended up quitting for the day….week….well I ain’t been out on the ice since. It cured me of that.
Skaters have to wear special ankle sponge gel pads in their boots. Of course, I was not wearing those and I got some heavy duty blisters for the questioning. They usually tape up the sinsitive parts of the foot too before putting on boots for practice.

I needn’t tell you all but you’re probably aware of the new Jackson skate boots built kind of like a ski boot that soak up about 40% of the jumps skaters do into the akle area rather than the knee and hip that the force is usually pummled to. But we noticed on the internet no price was listed which probably means in the 1000’s of dallars. Yeah….well , Sho wants those boots. Hmmmm…..
Want, want, want!

Sho recently participted in the annual Kushiro Junior High/ High school competition finishing 2nd in his catagory. He skated a lot better than last year. And no ,I don’t think we’ll be seeing him on the ice for the Vancouver olympics. Would that I was wrong about that. But his skill did get him into a good high school without having to go through the nighmare of the entrace exam. But another truth be known WE payed/are paying through the nose for such. But we don’t want to get me prattling on about the entrance exams in Good ole’ Nippon…..deffinitely a disgusting set up. Saving that one for a rainy day.

Have to admit the recent gold medal won in women figure skating by Shizuko Arakawa has been inspiring to a lot of skaters here in the skating world. She skated from the heart. It was very touching. It cost a tremendous amont of money to put each olypian figure skater in the running. The teacher costs a mint to start with. Then as they get better you finally have to get sponsors. We are almost to that point. It’s like they say, “When the candy’s gone, the party is over.”

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