:Family Matters

There was a skiff of snow on the driveway when I went out to the mailbox yesterday afternoon around 5 p.m. which I found myself eying suspiciously as I dread the thought of stepping on a patch of ice and instantly becoming intimately acquainted with the concrete below me–which has happened before. By 10 p.m. we had received 16 inches most of which fell straight down where it built up to form a topping not unlike whipped cream on a dessert.

I am glad the appointment with the dermatologist was yesterday morning when the roads were clear and the parking lot dry as MGH had a long awaited appointment to check out what I felt like were suspicious looking lumps and bumps. We spent an hour cooling our heels (he told me I had to go with him to point out all the places I was concerned about) before being admitted to the inner sanctum where we waited another hour before the Doctor came which I spent reading the book Marie gave us for Christmas and MGH finished off his cross word puzzle and then told me he had read every word in that section of the paper which being the Daily News wouldn’t take more than 10 minutes on a good day including the advertisments. Not being one to waste time he hunkered down in his chair and went to sleep.

The result of the visit was liquid nitrogen being sprayed on over a dozen spots on his head and three areas having tissue removed to check for malignancy. All of this couldn’t have taken more than twenty minutes not counting the three weeks we had to wait for an appointment. So goes life in a retirement home. . . .

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We lived in the small city of Mesa, Arizona for eight years. We lived there long enough to put down roots with many friends in the church and community as well as extended family close enough to visit on a regular basis. At least you would visit them; the extended family that is, if you were my mother and quite independent, thank you, which she was. She quite often made the forty mile, trip to Casa Grande to visit her mother and aunts and uncles sans dad as he was often tied up with his work as manager of Western Milling Company and couldn’t break away to go with us. She would load us up in our small black car and take off on her own which was something that not many women of her day did.

As a little girl I used to think the trip took forever but in actual fact we were probably not in the car much over an hour. I used to amuse myself by teasing my sisters in such a way that they looked like they had started it which is an art many older siblings have honed to perfection. When this got on mother’s nerves which usually occurred within minutes of the start of our back seat ritual we were told to separate with each in her separate corner of the car and an imaginary line drawn down the middle which was not to be crossed and to keep our mouths shut until we could say something nice to each other. Darlene, as youngest was up front by mother. Once that was taken care of the drive usually proceeded in relative calm as we became immersed in the rhythm of the journey passing thru Tempe and on into the desert with its giant Saguaro cactus standing sentinel straight and tall with their prickly arms pointing stiffly at the sky ever on the alert that all the school children of the state loved to place in their art work in lieu of trees.

On any long drive there comes a soothing, perhaps somewhat akin to the counting of beads as the rosary is said, as certain places are passed indicating that one is that much closer to the end of the journey. One such place for me was the giant feed lot that stretched on and on with its castle like house and distinct ‘odour’. I used to wonder what kind of people lived in that house and how they made enough money to be able to build such magnificence not realizing that what I was smelling was ‘money’ and that there was a reason they built their house ‘upwind’. Of course there were other things that I watched for as the miles rolled by, none of which are there today as the area has exploded with housing and roads leaving most of what actually sustained life in the early days of the state gone with the winds of time.

Speaking of wind I can remember traveling in some pretty good sandstorms on those trips. They were not much fun to be in as the car was buffeted and visibility was cut to zero. Mother must have had nerves of steel in those storms—we always got where we were going and safely as well which was in large part due to her skill and grit. Of course I had no appreciation of what she was facing but it was still quite scary to be a passenger and caught in the middle of Mother Nature throwing a temper tantrum. The hardest part for us was to run from the car to the house trying to ignore the tiny grains of sand that were flying into our eyes and stinging our skin like small biting insects. Perhaps memory is painting this into a worse scenario than it actually was but my hat is off to my mother for her courage and care in staying the course no matter what it was that she undertook.

Another memory that I have of those trips is of needing to get from one side of a ‘wash’ which is a natural drainage ditch where water runs to the rivers which can rapidly change from being almost non-existent to raging torrents during one of the infrequent cloud bursts that inundate the area from time to time. I can remember on one of our trips coming to a wash where there were several cars stopped on either side because of the water flowing through. The storm was over and the sun was out so the danger of more water seemed to be over for the moment but no one wanted to try and cross for fear the water was too deep. It seems like there was some talking that went on back and forth for a little while and then it was decided to try and cross which the first car did with the others standing buy to tow him out if his engine stalled or there was a problem. When that car made it through successfully then the car from the other direction went through and so on until all were where they needed to be and able to continue on. All the drivers waited and were courteous to one another making sure everyone was okay which was the way it was on the highway at that time which made it a kinder, gentler time to travel.

In our family the front seat next to the driver was reserved for the very young or the very old or a parent and that meant that Barbara and I rode in the back most of the time. We considered this a place of honor as that is what dad told us it was and to this day I still do not mind riding in the back seat of a car. Barbara was another matter who quite often managed to mar a drive with her propensity to get car sick. Her, wailed, “I don’t feel good”, meant a rapid stop by the side of the road where we all waited with bated breath to see if she would throw up. Once that crisis was over she was ensconced in the front seat where she was told to start counting telephone poles or the stripes on the road or fence posts as that would help her ignore the moving sensation that was causing her grief. With Barbara in the car we all spent a lot of time counting, but it seemed to work—and considering the alternative we were quite enthusiastic about the whole business.

Those were the days when gas stations were few and far between and Dad had to remember to fill the car up with gas on Saturday as there were no stations open on the Sabbath as well as holidays if a drive was planned. Almost everyone traveled with a canvas water bag hung on the hood of the car in case the radiator should boil dry—a not infrequent occurrence. One of the favorite stories told in our neighborhood was when our next door neighbors went camping and their radiator sprang a leak in the middle of nowhere. They were stranded with a car full of children and no help in sight. This had the potential for real trouble but the problem was solved by temporarily patching the leak with bubble gum and pouring a can of tomato juice into the radiator which allowed them to make it to a garage—good old American ingenuity at work.

The road to Oak Creek Canyon, which was one of our favorite places to drive both to camp and to visit dad’s good friends the Pendley’s who dad had worked for in the summers to earn money to attend college, had a good steep climb up Yarnell Hill which was exciting to drive not only for its tight curves but also to count the cars that were pulled over waiting for their engines to cool with their car hoods raised and radiators steaming. It always gave me a sense of immense satisfaction to be in a car that was able to keep on going up that steep road. One of the fun things to watch for was a large rock close to the bottom of the climb that some driver had painted to resemble a frog. Oh how we liked to be the one to see it first! The feeling was somewhat akin, I suspect to an Indian counting ‘coup’. I suspect that whimsical ‘frog’ has long sense disappeared as the road has been widened and improved but it did give us something to look forward to and helped us avoid the dreaded “How much longer?”, which has been known to drive even the most patient of parents into madness after being in a confined space with their offspring for prolonged periods of time. Mainly I remember the games we played together and the careful way our parents tried to help make the time pass quickly as we traveled the beautiful desert country of Arizona.

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And so we come to that time of year when dark outlasts light and we shiver, at least I do when I go outside, at the cold as it presses down upon the earth. The plants by the door have ‘given up the ghost’ and what is left of summer’s beauty waves its skeleton fronds stiffly at me as I leave the house and hasten quickly the mailbox to claim the mail, riffling quickly through it as I hasten back to the warmth of the house. The neighbor across the street has hung long streams of white light from the eaves of his house while a metal deer sparkling with more light lays quietly on his front yard and watches serenely as the traffic goes by. Another Christmas is almost here which reminds me that I have seen sixty-six of them come and go. I marvel at how quickly they arrive now. As a young girl Christmas took forever to come but then I had nothing but time in front of me and now that time has disappeared and little is left but the last dregs of sand in the hourglass allotted to me, even if I should live as long as my father it still is draining far too quickly.

Lately I have found myself thinking about the best Christmas gift I ever received and to be honest I can’t really even remember very many for which I apologize heartily to those who have been so generous through the years. Like Christmas wrapping gathered up where it lays scattered across the front room floor and quickly crumpled up to fit into the trash with a finality that immediately dismisses it from mind, all the many gifts so carefully wrapped have also fled my recall. What is left then, is a sense of family, of the excitement of being together, of rejoicing that all was well as we gathered to hear the Christmas story read on Christmas Eve whether in the home I grew up in or later in the home I married into.

Mother always poured her heart and soul into Christmas, but then I don’t know why that should surprise me as that is how she approached everything she did. The tradition in the family she grew up in was to have a meal consisting of oyster soup with little round oyster crackers which I always liked much better than the soup but mother, being mother, always required us to eat at least a spoonful before we could go on to the other delicacies also on the table. She always set the table with her best dishes and silverware and it seems like she prepared decorations to beautify the whole event, as well. After the dishes were done we all went into the front room where the Christmas tree was laden with decorations and the floor under it covered with gaily wrapped packages. This is when we would read the beautiful story found in Luke telling of the birth of the Christ child. Then came the best part of all as we opened our presents with great excitement before being sent off to bed, a tradition that mother grew up with in her Nebraska home and which she carried into her own home. This continued until her death in 1965 at the age of forty-eight when Dad reverted back to his childhood tradition of opening gifts on Christmas morning but by that time I was married. I must add that I rather enjoyed being able to find out a tad early what those mysterious packages held. It was also nice to be able to sleep that night and not feel the need to get out of bed at some unholy hour the next morning to find out what we so contentedly already knew.

The one Christmas that I seem to remember best occurred when we lived in Mesa, Arizona. I am probably mixing up the details of several Christmases but I remember that Darlene and perhaps Barbara, as well, were sick, really sick, with measles that year. I had already had them and so was able to feel rather superior to them in their misery and noting, in my big sisterly way, what it was that they would be experiencing next and how awful it would be—or at least I did until mother got wind of what I was doing and told me in no uncertain terms to “cut it out” reminding me as well that Santa kept a ‘list’ of the good and bad things each child did and a naughty child would get nothing but a lump of coal! I still had to run and fetch for them which is probably why I made sure to keep them informed in the first place. I remember my parents carefully bundling them up in blankets and gently placing them in the car so that we could go look at the decorations that had been put up around Mesa which was also a family tradition. Mother was hoping that it might cheer them up a little but I think mostly they were too sick to really enjoy it.

That was one Christmas then the one that was the most fun came about a year later or it could have been all the same year—it’s just been too long ago. Dad asked us if we heard something outside. We said, “No”, and then he suggested that it might be a good idea if we went and checked things out quickly as a certain visitor was expected at any time and we wouldn’t want to miss him especially as he had a great many children to visit and not much time. This sent us scampering off to the front door which we pulled open in great haste and peered out into the darkness to be greeted with nothing but silence. Greatly disappointed we returned to our parents only to find that while we had been looking for Santa in one direction he had somehow managed to come in the other way and placed a new bike for each of us under the tree. What fun! How quickly Dad must have had to move to get them into the house while we were not looking. My bike was a blue Schwinn. One of the old fashioned kind that had balloon tires and were made with lots of metal and were therefore very heavy and took lots of energy to pedal so very unlike the slender 10 speeds that became popular a few years later. It had only one speed and the brakes were controlled by pushing backwards on the pedals. I loved it.

Of course the fun part came the next few weeks as I learned to ride it. I can remember taking many a tumble in the process while managing to acquire quite a few scrapped knees and elbows. Once I had it mastered I was able to ride it to school. Thank goodness the road was level and smooth there in that small desert community. What freedom to be able to ‘soar’ along carefully putting my left arm out straight to signal that I would be turning left or bent at the elbow with my hand pointing up to indicate a right turn. I was so proud of myself to be able to balance and steer one handedly. When I learned how to ride with no hands at all I thought I had reached for a piece of heaven and gotten a slice. I was just like all the other kids on the block—I belonged! That bike got hard use while we lived in town but when we moved to the farm it mostly just sat and gathered rust and cobwebs. Riding a heavy old bike on an up and down Iowa gravel road takes a lot of work and is no faster than walking, if that, but still it broke my heart to see my faithful ‘ride’ be so neglected.

On the farm money was always tight. With both Barbara and me away to college at BYU the strain on the family finances must have been tremendous. Mother had become certified to teach Special Education, which was in its infancy at that time, making her one of the pioneers in the field, in order to keep us in school. She never complained about what it was costing her physically or financially but I got a hint the year we returned for Christmas and found instead of the usual purchased evergreen a small cedar tree which she had found in the pasture and had Dad cut and bring in for our tree. She was rather apologetic about it but I thought it was beautiful. She even managed to provide the usual amount of carefully bought gifts for each of her girls. It seems like that was the year that she got Barbara and I small make-up cases complete with lipstick and finger nail polish which was her way of telling us that we had her approval to begin wearing make-up. What love went into our Christmases then—how little I realized it.

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December 9, 2006

If I were ever to write my life’s story I believe that I would title it, “Cobwebs in the Corner”. I decided that this would be an appropriate summary of my life as I sat on the couch sans book/newspaper/handwork the other day and noticed the cobwebs accumulating in the corner over the stairway. I sighed as I realized what this would mean in my life and the life of my loved ones as I faced the hard fact that something would have to be done about them for having once noticed I could no longer in good conscience ignore them. I was after all a Gano before I was an Andrus and there are certain habits, whether by nature or nurture, I acquired as a result.
In the home in which I grew up we always had pets, often more than one at the same time which included usually a small dog, cats and even a bird or two when Grandmother Waddington came to live with us. I can remember the day she acquired her first bird/s. We were living in Mesa at the time and she, having built a house next to us in order to be close to my mother, became much more involved in the life of our family as we lived side by side. I don’t remember ever seeing Grandmother drive a car and must honestly admit I don’t know if she ever did but at the time I am telling about Mother chauffeured her most places that she wanted to go.
I remember that on this particular day we all headed off to Apache Junction where there was a place that raised parakeets’ big time and you could select just the right one out of a cage full—there must have been at least a hundred. At that time the drive took us into the desert countryside surrounding Mesa and it was also the way to reach Superstition Mountain which we could see in the distance from our home. I thought this added a certain fillip to the whole adventure as I was fascinated with the story of the Lost Dutchman Mine and had fantasized about how fun it would be to be the one who would discover this fabled place, if I could only just get there. There was a rumor that at various times prospectors had found a vein of gold that would make them rich as Midas but when then returned to work the claim they couldn’t find it. I, of course, would be the one to find it for good and eagerly made mental lists of how I would spend my wealth. Ah, youth—when dreams were simple and uncluttered with reality.
Once there Grandma picked out, to our great delight for we had been quite generous with our opinions as to what her choice should be, not one, but two little birds a green one and a blue one. They turned out to be a male and female and because of this we harbored hopes of being able to breed more little parakeets which did not happen even though we provided a clever little nesting place inside one of the cages—I mean we tried, we really did, to encourage the desired result—but then maybe we weren’t the ones that needed to do the trying. We also bought books on bird care and how to teach your bird to sit on your finger or the Holy Grail and most sought after of all TALK. I quickly envisioned our little birds greeting us and vowed to never ever teach them naughty words like some did. (Fat chance of that ever happening as both our parents heard every word uttered by us with the parental ears hidden on the back of their heads.) I can remember sitting in front of the bird cage saying over and over “Hello, hello, hello”, in hopes that they would repeat the sound back to me, but it never happened. Oh how I longed for a recording to replace me as I thought surely that would do the trick as well as relieve me of the tediousness of sitting there endlessly reciting my mantra of “Hellos”.
They did get so that they would sit on a finger but it was Grandma’s patience that accomplished this as she gently inserted her hand into the cage and waited until the little bird would allow her to stoke its soft breast and then with a bit more encouragement and ignoring the tendency to nip the bird would climb onto her finger. I always flinched when the bird would reach down and nip at my fingers which usually resulted in catastrophe that eventually led to a complete lack of trust between the two of us. Perhaps the event that I recall best about the birds is the excitement that resulted when one would get loose in f the house and we girls were called on to catch it. This required a delicate touch because to much force could cause an unfortunate and early demise of our small feathered friend.
Our preferred method became a lightweight towel which we used like a net once we got close enough to the escapee to toss it quickly over her/him which pretty well stopped them from flying away. Then came the part that required us to find just where the bird was so we could safely carry it back to its cage. This was always a fairly noisy procedure as we shrieked,
“There she is, behind you. No, No, not that way. Quick, stop her before she gets in the kitchen.”
We would then race, our towels flapping as we attempted to capture the loose bird. Grandmother, of course, would be cautioning us with lots of “be carefuls”, and “watch what you are doings” which we mainly ignored in the excitement of the chase. We never lost a bird so we must have done something right, more likely we were just lucky.
That same trip we all fell in love with the beautiful little Pomeranians that were also for sale at the bird farm. I am guessing that we were within a hairs breath of bringing one home but Dad had to be considered in this and I think it was decided that two birds were going to be enough of a shock, as it was, for him and a new puppy would have to wait for another day. Dad and MGH(My Good Husband) are a lot alike in that they both believed that animals belonged outside. In their old age they both reached their life time goal and there were no more pets in the house.
Along with the joy and companionship that go with pet ownership comes the responsibility for caring for them. It seems like, from this distance that we all took our turn although some more reluctantly than others in feeding and cleaning up after our ‘critters’. The hard and fast rule was that the first person to see an ‘accident’—wet or dry on the floor or elsewhere was responsible for cleaning said ‘accident’ up. This often translated into instant blindness with an amazing recovery on the part of my sisters who managed to walk over and around many a ‘pile’ with grace and ease. I, however, as eldest was not allowed this luxury and therefore became the unofficial cleaner upper of all things left behind by our furry friends unless I caught my younger siblings in the act of avoidance, which I tried, believe me I tried, to do. I would then exert all my authority as oldest to see that someone else cleaned up.
So now you know why I tell you that if I see something that needs to be done then that means that I have to do it for I learned this lesson well whilst in my childhood. However, I pretty well keep my eyes on the middle of wherever I am and so I manage to miss many a thing that could use some attention. Some might say that this is a good thing and call me ‘centered’ which has a nice New Age sound to it. All I can say in my defense is that when I have learned to look beyond the middle perhaps I will leave my comfort zone and try for the edges. As for those pesky cobwebs—if I could only find where I left my vacuum cleaner. . . .

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Not every nativity has a real live camel as a part of the cast, but ours did. His name was Max. He made the long journey from his home in Park City via a horse trailer pulled by a white pickup along with two ‘handlers’. He was under contract with Cedar City to be onstage at the Heritage Theater for eight minutes on each of the three nights that the Nativity scene took place as part of the Christmas Show which is the brain child of our mayor who has invested much time and money, his own in some cases, in producing what is known as “The American Children’s Christmas Festival”. This event begins on Thanksgiving with Fireworks and an opening ceremony and includes two parades with real balloons, (think Macy’s Thanksgiving parade in New York), that are cartoon favorites of children including Noah’s Ark. So you can see this isn’t some rinky-dink parade with decorated lawn mowers and convertibles driven by the local dealerships with pretty girls sitting in back tossing out candy which they can’t do now anyway as UDOT has declared it an unsafe practice and since main street is owned by the state of Utah the city pretty much has to jump when they are told to or they can’t close the street off for parades.

Our good mayor is attempting to bring in tourists during a part of the year when the local tourism industry is pretty well shut down after the Shakespeare Festival close and the near by parks see a big drop off in visitors as mother nature refuses to cooperate and snows and blows until the roads become impassable. His is, indeed, a noble work even if still unprofitable as the whole project is still in its infancy and is pretty much running on hope and our good mayors unclaimed pay of $18,000.00 a year which he puts in a slush fund to bank roll projects that the budget doesn’t cover. I am not against this but one of the unintended consequences is that our Fair City has been DISCOVERED and we have people who come for some activity and decide they want to stay. I know for a fact that it is not for a job as the median wage is around $10.00 an hour so they are in all likelihood refugees from Las Vegas and California who have sold their homes and can afford to build a BIG house here and buy up two or three “used” homes with the money left over to rent out. Arrgh! We are rapidly losing our small town charm for the wonders of ‘art by graffiti’ and traffic snarls. Ah well, if that is all I have to complain about, I guess life can’t be too harsh.

For years MGH (My Good Husband) and I have sung with a group known as the Heritage Singers under the direction of Dale Sessions. It has been a delightful experience even though it means practicing at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday evening for an hour and a half every week. We have made many friends with this group and I have learned a lot more about vocal music than I ever thought I wanted or needed to know. The group was disbanded about a year ago because Dale was commuting to Salt Lake for his work and found it impossible to keep the choir going at the same time. About six months ago he was transferred to work in the court system in this part of the state and so sent out the word that if there was enough interest he would start the choir up again. To no one’s surprise on the appointed evening there we all were eager to begin work on the pieces we would sing for our Christmas Concert December 3, very happy to be back together. Somewhere in there, the mayor invited our choir to sing Christmas Carols for the Nativity scene. We were to be in period costume and they were not to be your run of the mill bathrobe type but real professional- made- by- a- seamstress, as yet unknown, in Cedar City. Wow! What fun. Since the songs we were singing were Christmas carols we all knew and loved there wouldn’t be a problem memorizing music. There were promises of measurements being taken to fit each person’s costume properly, both vertically as well as horizontally but that was changed to vertical only when someone realized all the costumes were loosely fitted so nothing else was necessary. We were told to be prepared for this at the next practice or the practice after that which soon melted into a month of nothing being measured. Then the word came that the seamstress couldn’t be found to do it and the mayor was pursuing other avenues for the costumes. As we were now into November with the program only two weeks away we couldn’t help but wonder if it was to be plan B with bath robes after all. Then came the walk through at the Heritage Center and lo and behold there were costumes waiting in the ‘green room’ purchased by our ever so resourceful mayor on the internet. Granted they were one size fits all and by the time MGH and I got ours there were only shepherds left. Oh well, mine only dragged the floor by eight inches which I easily remedied at home. Perhaps the hardest thing to give up in the transformation of our 21st century selves were our glasses as they were unknown when Christ was born. That was a real rush for most of us who have grown dependent on them—it quickly became apparent that the seeing would have to take the blind in hand if we were to get ourselves on stage in any kind of order—who would have thought that something as simple as a Nativity scene would require such sacrifice—certainly not me. (I won’t even go into what we had to wear on our feet in order to be authentic—Brrrr.

One of the most important instructions we received was how to behave when Max came on stage. We were to make no sudden movements or loud noises. We were anxious to comply as we did not wish to be the one singled out by an irate camel who could relieve his anxiety by ‘spitting’ among other things best not mentioned here. We were also cautioned to watch where we stepped as most animals are not potty trained which is why the sheep they used the first year weren’t invited back. If Max should happen to decide to leave unexpectedly we were on our own but whatever we did we were to do it quietly and swiftly.

The first night Max came on stage and was a complete gentleman kneeling down on command and eating up as fast as one of his trainers, in costume, could feed him the grain that had been discreetly brought in a small bucket. The other trainer, also costumed, held the reins and tried to look serene as if having a camel on stage in the middle of a nativity scene was something he did every day and I would imagine praying quite hard the whole time that all would be well.

The big rock where Mary, Joseph (not their real names) and their 2 month old baby held court, complete with a palm tree, was in the center of the stage also featured the three wise men as well as assorted other choir members who were there for reasons of infirmity or just to fill space to balance the scene. This included MGH who was only about three feet away from Max much to his great enjoyment. That night the choir sounded good but the people in the audience had trouble seeing Max so on Saturday we were instructed to sit or kneel on the stage. This time Max could be seen but the choir didn’t fare as well, I think we were a little ‘flat’. From my vantage place on the floor I could watch Max look us all over as if trying to make up his mind if it would be worth the effort to stir things up a little. The one sound that caught his attention was when the baby cried briefly. He regally looked in her direction with an intentness that was quite curious but then a pacifier comforted and quieted ‘baby Jesus’ and Max went back to eating.

For our last performance on Monday our exasperated director told us that his choir wasn’t made up of potted plants to be moved here and there like pieces of scenery. He then told us that we could sit or stand which ever seemed most comfortable to us and suggested we sing out as we had lost about 15 members of our choir for that performance because they couldn’t get down and once they were down they had an even harder time getting up so they would solve their dilemma by staying home.

I don’t know how the choir sounded but most of us tried to stand as discreetly as possible around the edge of the scene. True this was also out of sense of self preservation as Max had had a bad day having had a great deal of unexpected ‘company’ from those in Cedar who had never seen a live camel and decided to do so while one was available and as a result was not in the best of humor. Because of this it was decided that he would only be on the stage for five minutes but be on the stage he must as he was ‘under contract’ for three nights and if he gave his handlers problems we could exit as appropriate which I thought had a rather ominous sound to it. All the dire warnings turned out to be unneeded as Max was fine, as greedy as ever. He never even looked up from the grain he was gobbling as quickly as his handler could get it to him. Not even the soprano who sang “Oh Divine Redeemer” with its very high notes got a glance her way let alone the Heritage Singers scattered all around him on the stage being as discreet as humanly possible while singing ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’ at the top of our lungs and a’ cappella to boot—what a hoot! We must not have sounded too bad for we have been invited back next year (not everyone was).

I can hardly wait for that day to arrive with a camel that went for a very long drive to kneel on a stage at half past eight; it’s in his contract you see. While singers implore on their feet they remain because anything else brings too big a pain while singing praises to Sweet Baby Jesus asleep on his Mother’s lap. With eye glasses tucked safely out of sight there won’t be much we can see so trusting as lambs we go to our fate and hope that Max has had a good day and his trainer brought plenty of hay!

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Thanks Mom for Coco’s tribute.
You know ahh, Bone and I used to go for a run every morning on the trails behind Poynette. This is when he would have to be alone in the evenings while I worked. I would try to tire him out so he wouldnt bark.
There is a clear rushing stream next to the trails we followed. On the way back home he would always jump in and swim upstream for a ways. I never seen him so happy as at these moments during his swims. You could see it in his eyes.
He had that same look when he got to see Kim and Brauke after missing them for 6 months.
Thanks to everyone who helped with Coco.

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