Sunday, June 6, 1999 - Memorial Day

We recently got some honey from Tim and Malinda Tucker, who have several beehives. You’ll recall, they are the parents of little Melody Joy. A couple of weeks ago, one of Tim and Malinda’s roosters attacked Melody as she was outside playing, knocking her down and scratching and pecking her face and head. One scratch was altogether too close for comfort to the poor little girl’s eye. She has recovered, but still wants her Mama with her when she goes outside. Poor little sweetie! {And, yes, that rooster found himself gracing the family’s dinner plates that very day.}

We always think Tim and Malinda’s honey is extra good because of the field of wildflowers near the hives.

By the way, I was mistaken about Dorcas’ car being one of only six in the USA; it is one of only six wrecked ones in the USA. There are lots of whole ones. Larry acts like I’m not too terribly bright, having made a blunder like that; but I’ll have you know!!--I only repeated what I was told! He thought I should’ve been able to figure it out. And I think he should’ve been able to figure out what I thought he meant, by the way I acted so surprised and queried, “Only six?!”

Did you know, there’s a big difference between being dumb, and being stupid: Dumb is a lack of knowledge. Stupid, on the other hand, is the inability to learn. Therefore, I plead guilty only to being dumb.

So that explains why parts are so high.... there are hardly any used parts.

George Orwell’s Animal Farm was required reading in 10^th-grade English. We even watched the film. I didn’t like it; I never did like allegories, and the scene where the poor, cute, fluffy yellow ducklings tried and tried to get up the steps and never could gave me nightmares. (I always was a milquetoast when it came to seeing animals suffer.) I got so involved in my indignation over the treatment of the animals during the filming of the movie, that I totally lost track of the deeper meaning. In any case, those stories were too morbid and unreal to suit me. I couldn’t even stomach Alice in Wonderland, Pinocchio, or Mary Poppins.

Monday, Memorial Day, Hannah, Bobby, and Dorcas left early to first have Dorcas’ picture taken with her class at Frankfurt Square in the middle of town, with all the veteran’s flags flying in the background. Then they went to Mahoney State Park, where there is a tall Observation Tower beside the Missouri River; the Botanical Gardens, in Lincoln; and the State Capital building. Hannah took lots of pictures with her new camera, and they were so good, I confiscated several. At the Botanical Gardens, whom should they meet but an entire family of Jenkinson cousins!
The rest of us went to Calamus Reservoir to go fishing. There we were, doing nothing but acquiring sunburns, when along came Keith and Esther--and they hadn’t even known we were going to be there!--and the reservoir is 150 miles away. They’d even brought their puppy!  The littles were delighted.

Esther wanted to see how well he could swim..... So she, along with several of the children, traipsed down to a wide, sandy beach. The puppy, quite feeling his cheerios after napping all the way there, galloped madly into the surf, finding himself abruptly chest deep. With a hilarious, amazed look on his puppy face, he spun around and bounded wildly back onto the shore, tail tucked and water splattering everywhere. haha Now, that looked funny.

In the meantime, Keith had clambered down the rocky side of the bluff where Larry, Hester (of course), Teddy, and Joseph were fishing. Remember, we’d been fishing (or trying to fish) for the better part of three hours. He picked up a rod, cast, and reeled.

And he pulled in a nice, big drum. How do ya like that?! Bah!

We saw all sorts of wildlife, including a wild turkey, pheasant, a four-point buck in velvet and several other deer, coyote, possum, terns, herring gulls, wrens, grebes, mallards, and innumerable other birds. Some boys on jet skis tried to run over a grebe (they are pretty ducks with black all the way up the back of their necks and onto the tops of their heads, while their throats and the bottom part of their faces are snow white; their backs are mottled white and black). One boy went shooting straight toward the duck; the duck dove; and then the second boy zoomed directly over the spot where the grebe had gone under. We all thought that the second jet ski had hit the bird, because we didn’t see it come back up. It was a good fifteen minutes later than we suddenly noticed the grebe, back in the little bay he’d been swimming in when first we saw him. He must’ve dived down a ways, then swum under water a long ways before popping up again. Meanwhile, the children were concocting all sorts of elaborate schemes to upend those awful jet skiers.

I remember reading in Birder’s Digest about a woman diver who was practicing underwater photography off the coast of Jamaica. Her instruments read 75 feet underwater, when she came nose to beak with a Northern grebe, a fish in its bill! According to her, “He looked as startled as I felt. He flipped around and shot straight for the surface, and I realized that, in my amazement, it hadn’t occurred to me even once to use my camera!”

I took several pictures of the grebe. “That’s the first picture I’ve ever gotten of a grebe!” I remarked happily.

“And probably the second and third, too,” Caleb added.

As the late afternoon turned into early evening, stormclouds began brewing. We hurriedly fed everybody supper (soup, apples, and granola bars), and headed for home under a steady rain.

Wednesday, we retrieved our flowers from off the graves. I was reading dates on tombstones of three babies’ deaths: “’82, ’83.....” I paused, stepping closer to the third. Before I could say, “’86”, Victoria added blithely, “.....84.....” (How’d she know that?)

Tuesday was Teddy’s first day of working for Gehring Ready-Mix Company. So now he is away from all the fumes and odors of body shops, and we hope his asthma will improve. Lyle, Larry, and Kenny, all three, used to work for Gehrings. The retired father, who started the business, was our head deacon for many years--in fact, he was a deacon here before my father ever arrived as pastor. The oldest son, Eugene, is Esther’s stepfather.

Wednesday, I finished Daddy’s notes on Revelations. There is still a ‘Miscellaneous’ file, and a long sermon on ‘Apostles’ to type; but I’m done for a little while......I have sewing to do!

First, I had a day and a half of bookwork to complete. And then, finally, I was ready to cut out material. I cut out dresses for Hester, Lydia, and Victoria; and a shirt for Caleb. Caleb’s material has red, white, and blue balloons printed all over it. I am now sewing Victoria’s dress.

Thursday afternoon, all of us but Dorcas, Teddy, and Hester went to Sumner to get an axle for a customer. On the way, we stopped at Sam’s Warehouse in Grand Island, where we bought a scanner for our computer. It was only $68, and we got a $30 rebate. Imagine! A scanner for only $38! Joseph hooked it up, and we scanned Keith and Esther’s wedding picture, then set it to come on every time we turn on the computer.

We planned to have a picnic at one of the nice parks in the little Sandhill towns, but, once again, storms came billowing in from the west and countered that notion. So we got ourselves some sandwiches from Hardees in Kearney, opened some cans of fruit, and headed for home, radio tuned to the big weather station in Central City. We learned that there were three tornadoes in the area. I called home to reassure Dorcas, who gets a bit worried over deteriorating weather conditions when we are gone. At Grand Island, I took over the driving, since Larry’s teeth were hurting badly enough to hinder his driving.

I turned on the radar detector and pressed down on the throttle. I intended to beat that tornado home!

As it turned out, all three tornadoes stayed north of Columbus. Although there was a lot of lightning, nary a drop of rain fell on us the entire way home. Some people near Burwell didn’t fair so well, however; about three houses were ruined by tornadoes. The next night, a little town on an Indian reservation on the Nebraska/ South Dakota border was nearly wiped out by a tornado. One man was killed.

We have some flooding around the area, and crops are in danger of being spoilt.

Saturday, both Teddy and Joseph got new boots. Teddy’s other boots were less than a week old, but they weren’t stretching as had been predicted, and they were too tight. By the time he came home from work Friday evening, he was hobbling in pain, the poor boy. And he’d forgotten his suntan lotion, and was well sunburnt. So he had blisters from ears to toe!

That afternoon, Norma went to J.C.Penney’s and bought pretty, pleated blue dresses for Hester and Lydia for their birthdays. True to fashion, she couldn’t wait, and came to give them to the girls so they could wear them to church Sunday. Hannah sewed little pearls onto the fronts of the dresses, making them even prettier.

Saturday evening, I was writing a list of groceries, and reading it out loud so everybody could tell me what we needed. Dorcas had already made banana/applesauce/walnut muffins. “Salad, pizza, peaches...” I paused, and Victoria added in the same tone, “...doughnuts...”

Today Lawrence and Norma, Keith and Esther, and Bobby all came for dinner. Norma made a strawberry/rhubarb pie for dessert. Lawrence and Norma brought more presents for Hester. One was a cute stuffed gray kitten. When one presses on its tummy, it meows sweetly a couple of times, then makes a longer and more plaintive ‘mroowww’ before launching into a vicious, growling, snarling, shaking, shuddering frenzy. Hester is pleased as punch, but Victoria doesn’t care much for it. Hester tried putting it in Victoria’s arms, but she backed up fast and said, “You hold it, Hester! He’s mean!”

Lawrence and Norma also gave Hester a little box with a bug inside whose legs wiggle at the slightest movement; three little paper doll books (Indian, Victorian, and Pioneer); Lego bubblegum that one can actually snap together and build with; and a marbled sucker shaped like a foot.

Yesterday we sold the car Dorcas has been driving, leaving her to drive a little S10 pickup. This means that her father needs to speedily finish her Stylus. The car we sold, a Toyota Camry, we purchased for only $250, mighty cheap for a little car that worked just fine. Do you recall when a girl backed into the car in the parking lot of Walgreens? Well, her insurance company paid us $1100 to repair it. We merely replaced the broken light and left the dent. And now, we sold it for $650.  If we could do that well on every sale we make, we’d be living on Easy Street!

Now, I’d better head for bed. Time’s aflyin’!