I wanted to post a blog last night; in fact, I got a good start on it. But it was past my bedtime, and what I want to say is too complex to be rushed. Yesterday afternoon and evening were the beginning of our incredible MK reunion, a reunion that is not only incredible but unique. I'm eager to write about it, but I need more time. So I set out to write just this short one--and then the computer ate it, and I was too tired to try and find it. Thankfully, I turned it up this morning.
Several things are unique about this reunion. One is that it is multigenerational. One lady says she remembers me when I was a baby, while I told one of the younger men that I remember a picnic with his family when he was a toddler. We have at least two people in their nineties, while my nephew's baby son is just five months old. The MKs at this affair were born in at least seven different decades.
Just one more tidbit. We had been invited to submit songs of long ago that we wanted to sing, and did we ever sing them! We started with "Every day with Jesus is sweeter than the day before" and tackled oldies like "Do, Lord, oh do Lord, oh do remember me." Before we were finished, we had done WWII favorites such as "What though wars may come with the marching of feet and the beating of drums" and "I'm too young to march in the infantry..., but I'm in the Lord's army."
If we'd had rafters over our head, I assure you they would have been ringing (now there is another expression that dates me!).
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Miscellany
Have you ever noticed how much life is made up of miscellany? (I had to look up the word to see the noun form is actually in the dictionary; it is.) Occasionally a major event like a wedding takes center stage, and for a time it get most of our focus. But most days aren’t like that. Most days are sprinkled with miscellany.
Today was like that. The thermometer outside our house reached 99 before finally slipping. I’ve already started praying that the week after next won’t be like this. My daughter’s family will be with us for their annual visit, adding two young teen boys to the two already here in our son’s family. Not too many years ago, all it took to make them happy was a collection of Thomas trains and a rug one which to play with them. Or take them with their toy boats and cars to the river. No longer. It would be so nice to have weather a bit cooler that week.
For my morning walks recently I’ve been staying in my own neighborhood rather than going to the development next door like I used (I admitted to liking it because it was a tad more “up scale” than ours). But that neighborhood got hit by the flood, and walking there is now a sad adventure. Most of the piles of trash (soaked furniture, dry wall, insulation, appliances, duct work) are picked up by the city and gone, but traces still remain. A few sidewalks are still white with residue. One driveway has broken glass. A port-a-potty sits on one corner, and dumpsters and storage pods adorn a few driveways. Even a little patch of flowers by a mailbox has given up. Monday morning will find me back walking in Lexington Pointe.
This morning was our monthly writers’ meeting, and we had a record attendance of twenty-one, at least a third of them visitors scouting us out. Word is getting around about our group. We’re going to have to find a larger place than the Panera where we meet. It was a good meeting as we learned from an experienced writer some concrete things about revising our work. A couple of nuggets? Always just write your first draft without doing a lot of editing and rehashing as you go. When you get to revision, do it on a fresh copy so you always still have an original. And of course always back up your work—in three or four places if you can.
In other miscellany, I’ve been getting back to my genealogy work and spending time browsing in my database. It is getting close to three thousand people. No, they’re not all ancestors; relatives and other descendants of ancestors count too. I got to puttering, counting generations, and I found I have two lines (Zug and Diefenbach) that go back to eleventh great-grandfathers and two others (Stauffer and Wilder) that go back to thirteenth great-grandfathers. But the granddaddy of them all (pardon my pun) is Peter Bauman, my seventeenth great-grandfather. The oldest date we have is for him—he was born in 1420.
Meanwhile, I can’t find a file I started on the computer last week. Every so often this happens to computer people. We create a file, then don’t get back to it right away. The consequence? We can’t remember what we named it nor where we might have saved it. I know I created and worked on that file because I clearly remember yellow highlighting the spots where I made changes. But where did I put. Grrrr.
So what kind of miscellany has been happening in your life these days?
Today was like that. The thermometer outside our house reached 99 before finally slipping. I’ve already started praying that the week after next won’t be like this. My daughter’s family will be with us for their annual visit, adding two young teen boys to the two already here in our son’s family. Not too many years ago, all it took to make them happy was a collection of Thomas trains and a rug one which to play with them. Or take them with their toy boats and cars to the river. No longer. It would be so nice to have weather a bit cooler that week.
For my morning walks recently I’ve been staying in my own neighborhood rather than going to the development next door like I used (I admitted to liking it because it was a tad more “up scale” than ours). But that neighborhood got hit by the flood, and walking there is now a sad adventure. Most of the piles of trash (soaked furniture, dry wall, insulation, appliances, duct work) are picked up by the city and gone, but traces still remain. A few sidewalks are still white with residue. One driveway has broken glass. A port-a-potty sits on one corner, and dumpsters and storage pods adorn a few driveways. Even a little patch of flowers by a mailbox has given up. Monday morning will find me back walking in Lexington Pointe.
This morning was our monthly writers’ meeting, and we had a record attendance of twenty-one, at least a third of them visitors scouting us out. Word is getting around about our group. We’re going to have to find a larger place than the Panera where we meet. It was a good meeting as we learned from an experienced writer some concrete things about revising our work. A couple of nuggets? Always just write your first draft without doing a lot of editing and rehashing as you go. When you get to revision, do it on a fresh copy so you always still have an original. And of course always back up your work—in three or four places if you can.
In other miscellany, I’ve been getting back to my genealogy work and spending time browsing in my database. It is getting close to three thousand people. No, they’re not all ancestors; relatives and other descendants of ancestors count too. I got to puttering, counting generations, and I found I have two lines (Zug and Diefenbach) that go back to eleventh great-grandfathers and two others (Stauffer and Wilder) that go back to thirteenth great-grandfathers. But the granddaddy of them all (pardon my pun) is Peter Bauman, my seventeenth great-grandfather. The oldest date we have is for him—he was born in 1420.
Meanwhile, I can’t find a file I started on the computer last week. Every so often this happens to computer people. We create a file, then don’t get back to it right away. The consequence? We can’t remember what we named it nor where we might have saved it. I know I created and worked on that file because I clearly remember yellow highlighting the spots where I made changes. But where did I put. Grrrr.
So what kind of miscellany has been happening in your life these days?
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