Sunday, September 19, 1999 - Senior Pictures, Vandalism and Theft

Monday night, Larry helped Keith fix his water pump, which kept blowing fuses and shorting out.


We had beautiful weather all week; nearly every day we went for a walk and the children played outside.

I am now nearly done with Chapter 4, and I did some revising of Chapters 2 and 3. Slowly, but surely, I will get that book done!

Tuesday, Dorcas’ wallet-sized pictures from Photo Arts were done; they turned out just perfect, colorwise. Photo Arts is more expensive than Walgreens, but I really wanted those wallets to be right. I then took the negatives back to Walgreens for the enlargements, where they can do them in their one-hour lab. They’re not quite as good as Photo Arts, but okay, I guess.

Besides--they’re about three times less, from Walgreens:  8x10’s are only $4; 5x7s are $2. Can’t beat that. Dorcas is very pleased with her pictures.

Saturday, somebody called my sister, Lura Kay, and whispered ominously, “You are going to die tonight.”

Isn’t that awful? That’s how wicked people treat a godly person who stands against wrong, and does her best to teach right. She’s a wonderful principal and Bible Truths teacher. But there are quite a lot of people who don’t care much for a disciplinarian. It wasn’t anybody who is a student or a member now; it was somebody who used to be.

Lura Kay is kind and generous, a very loving person. People who mistreat her will reap what they sew, mark my word.

After church Wednesday night, Teddy was starved, as usual; so he made popcorn. Plenty of popcorn.  Popcorn for the entire city of Columbus, I think.  I tell you, there was popcorn coating the floor of the entire house. And the dog won’t eat it, the picky thing.  If there's butter on it, she licks the butter off and spits the popcorn back out.

The children like me to tell them stories about their Grandpas. Here’s one they especially like:

When I was a little girl, my mother used to let me call my father, when he was in the church office next door, to tell him supper was ready. My father went to his office to study every day without fail, unless he was out making calls on the parishioners. So I would dial the number, and, since it was the same number as the phone with which I was dialing, it would ring busy; then I would push the disconnect button, which made it ring in both the office and our house. Let the button back up… and there was Daddy's voice in my ear.

Then I would say in a big, bossy voice (this was our little game; don't think I was allowed to be a smart alec): "You come home right this minute!"

And Daddy would reply, "Yes, sir!!"

I would then fling the phone down and run as fast as I could go to the front window (if I didn't run, I would miss it; Daddy wasn't one to dawdle), where I could see my father come dashing out the front church doors... and, every single time (until he couldn't, finally), he'd take all those steps in one jump, then come on a dead run for home. In the door he'd fly, and I'd be running to meet him... I was a wee little thing way up to age ten, when I finally started to grow a little.... and he'd grab me up and toss me...

Oh, how I loved him!

Thursday during our walk, we went around Bobby and Hannah’s house, looking at the flowers and bushes. Bobby, in the manner of most men everywhere, wants to mow them all down, but Hannah will dig up some irises and transplant them, first. There are raspberry bushes behind the garage; on our first visit to the house, several of the children and I discovered them--and they were ripe and juicy, just right. The realtor probably wondered where we’d disappeared to, and why our mouths were bright red when we reappeared.

That evening we had an enjoyable time at Jr. Choir playing a quiz game. One time several years ago, one of the children, in their haste to correctly answer a question before their opponent did, got their tongue all tripped up and responded, “Fig newtons!” to the question “What did Adam and Eve sew together?”

Hannah spends part of her evenings checking the papers of her little reading class. Children sure do come up with funny answers. This is a small group, only four, of extra-special, sweet children. One of them, Jodie Walker, is Hannah’s little cousin (second cousin, actually) (or, more likely, first cousin once removed) who lives just down the street in the house (now remodeled) that used to be ours.

Every now and then, there is a major emergency immediately before school in the mornings. Last week, it was because Caleb couldn't find his belt. And when one’s waist is twenty inches, and one’s hips are twenty inches too, one either needs a belt, or one has to go change his pants and find a different pair with some really good elastic in the back. Joseph took him back downstairs to their room and found him some better britches; we couldn't have the poor child rushing around all day hanging onto his belt loops!

Two days later, Caleb, trying to wedge his foot into his nearly-new shoe, face getting worrieder and worrieder, said, “I think I’m growing out of my shoes!”

I solved the problem: I loosened the laces for him.

As the little foot slid neatly into the shoe, I looked up at him and raised my eyebrows. He grinned sheepishly.

Larry traded his navy ’95 F150 extended-cab Ford 4x4 to Keith in exchange for Keith’s ’92 pickup (same, but smaller engine), a ’92 S10 4x4, and an ’88 Olds Cutlass…if the banker will approve it, that is; the bank is holding the title of the ’92 Ford as part of the collateral on Keith and Esther’s house.

Teddy got a new stereo system from Wal-Mart. I think it’s the nicest one we’ve had in this house, yet. We are now listening to Old Fashioned Revival Hour with a full, rich bass sound…you just ought to hear Rudy Atwood, my favorite pianist, pounding out those runs way down deep on his nine-foot grand. Mmmmm, I like it!

Yesterday we heard on our police scanner that a man north of Platte Center was killed when his tractor rolled over on him. That’s what happened to our teacher Mrs. Wilgocke’s husband about thirty years ago. We heard one policeman say that the family was extremely distraught. Isn’t that a tragedy? In today’s paper, it said the man was 74 years old, and he was mowing the ditches beside a county road.

Saturday night, we practiced with our octet--four young men and four young women--the song He’s the Keeper of the Sheep; and with our ladies’ trio, Without Him. After practice, the organist, Sandy Wright (she’s married to Bobby’s uncle), gave us a jelly roll, which everyone devoured as soon as I took it home.

In the meanwhile, Larry cut all three boys’ hair. Well, actually, he said, when I asked him, “Yes, I cut all three of their hairs.” hee hee (Did they only have one hair apiece?)

Recently, our insurer dropped us. That, because we’d turned in ‘too many’ claims: hail, theft loss, and a claim against us from a dishonest ‘customer’--that one Michael Bernados, remember him? You pay them to protect you, and then when they feel that they are doing more protecting than they wanted to, and not making a nice enough profit off of you, they drop you. We had not yet found another insurer by this week, when seven brand-new tires on some of Larry’s vehicles were slashed, and his CB radio, Craftsman tool set, and shotgun were stolen from his pickup.

Anyway, at least Michael Bernados won’t be causing anybody else any grief for a little while; he’s busy cooling his heels in jail for causing quite a bit of grief to his live-in girlfriend’s face.

Now…back to Microsoft Word, and Chapter 4.