NOVEMBER/THANKSGIVING

I guess everyone has a month in their lives that they would like to skip over each year and get it over with. November has long been that month for me. It is a bittersweet month for me, one in which I lost many people I loved very much. Oh yes, I have lost people in other months, too, but November is the one I don't like the
most.

I LOVE holidays, so it doesn't seem fair, but that's why it is "bittersweet" I am grateful for my life, my friends,
and most of all for my family. God has been good to me and blessed me in so many ways. In a recent visit to
Idaho, our relationships with many of Wayne's family were renewed. Our facebook relationships, too, have taken us to a new level with being able to communicate more closely with family and friends separated by miles, yet connected thru the internet.

I am always reminded at this time of year of those I miss so very much. Let me tell you about two Thanksgivings that come to mind:

The first was in 1982 (I hope I got that year right) It was Thanksgiving, and everyone had gathered at our house on Shipman to celebrate the holiday. Not too much stands out in my mind about tha t Thanksgiving being any different from many others, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. It was the Tuesday following the
holiday that I got a frantic call from my mom, saying "Dorothy, something has happened to your Dad, can
you come over?" Yes, my Dad had slipped away quietly during the night. Thinking back to the T hursday
before, I recalled my dad and mom leaving our house and Dad kissed me good-bye, Not unusual, we always
kissed when saying good-bye, but what was unusual, he also hugged me, and said "This was the best Thanksgiving ever, Thank you" I never spoke to my dad again.

Then a few years later, another Thanksgiving is etched in my mind and heart. My wonderful husband of 35
years had just passed away, the week before the holiday. It is ironic that this year, 22 years later, the calendar is identical to 1987. On the 1st of November, an ambulance came and took Wayne back to the hospital. His cancer was winning.l It was a tough 19 days, with many calls to t he family that today could be
the day. Rev. Box, the chaplain at the hospital said, just t ake it one day at a time, look forward to Thanksgiving, but in my heart I knew that was not going to be. On Thursday, the 19th, one week before the
celebration of Thanksgiving, I had been at the hospital all day, as I had been the other 18 days. Beth and
Henry decided to take me out for dinner to give me a break, and said they would bring me back to the hospit al
later, if I wanted to come. We went to Coco's, a place Wayne and I had gone a lot, and the manager came up
and asked us where Wayne was. We explained the situation to him and the next thing we knew the waitress came up and told us the manager had paid for our dinner. Henry (always thinking ahead) said where can we go tomorrow nite and do the same thing.

Well, it got to be pretty late, so I went on home, planning to return to the hospital first t hing in the morning when about an hour later I got "t he call". Of course, guilt set in, but in my heart I knew I wasn't supposed to be there, and he was in the best hands, all the nurses who lovingly cared for him in his last days. Dr. Rohde later told me that after he had passed away, you couldn't find a nurse on the floor. Several attended his funeral service. dr. R said it was an honor and a privilege to have served as his doctor. He made dying dignified.

Thanksgiving was courtesy of K-Mart that year. They had donated all the food to the hospital, and Rev Box (Ray) had thought of us.

Yes, truly a bittersweet time, sadly missing all our loved ones who have gone on ahead, but loving the ones who are still around to love. Count your blessings and and hug those close to you

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

ONCE UPON A TIME........................

It's Halloween and we have been facebooking about our "chili tradition" which got me to thinking about celebrating Halloween, when the kids were growing up. Our house was situated further back on our lot, giving us a fairly large front yard. About halfway to the street we planted two miniature stone pines the very first Christmas we moved in, having been told that these trees could be trimmed to 8 feet and never get bigger than 12 feet, well, 60 feet later we had two very large miniature pine trees with lots of pine needles littering the front yard..so, being very creative, Dad decided to use those pine needles as mounds, depicting a graveyard, with the appropriate tombstones. This was not quite enough for him, so he took one of his flannel shirts and an old pair of levis and stuffed them with newspaper,added an old pair of shoes, a ball stuffed in a pillowcase, with a face drawn on it and a baseball cap on his head, and proceeded to hang our new friend from the pine tree nearest the gate, where trick or treaters would come in for their treats.

Still not satisfied, he wired up a speaker near the tree, connecting to a microphone in the house,
where he hid behind the drapes and would talk to the ghosts and goblins who came to the gate.
The hanging man would then speak to the children. "hi Mr Cowboy, come in" What a pretty little princess, Oh my goodness, a scary pirate.. It really worked, he would ask them to help him get down, he asked one child to scratch his foot, and his footwas scratched.. Some little ones were
so scared they wouldn't even come in. Word soon spread and people were coming by in car
loads and dropping their kids off.

We continued this for a couple of years and then all the neighbor kids as well as our own, were growing up and no longer trick or treating.

Hope you enjoy this Halloween memory

HALLOWEEN

A brief disclaimer. I was asked to write a short spooky story for the mine as they will be touring
visitors thru a Haunted Mine this spooky season, so as my printer is not yet hooked up and I dont know how to forward stuff, I am doing it in my blog. Holly, this is for you

It's Halloween, a time to be thinking of ghosts and goblins and scary things that go "clunk" in the night.
We are about to enter the McCaw Mine, but before we do, I need to warn you about something---you may
not know, but miners are a very superstitious group of people. You will notice there is a horseshoe on the wall
about the portal of the mine. It it is pointing up, it holds all good luck, but if it is pointing down, all the good luck will pour out. A miner would not enter the mine, unless the horseshoe was in the upright position.

The legend of the tommy-knockers started a long, long time ago in England, Cornwall, to be exact. In the "olden
days" there was no modern equipment, and because the mines were hollowed out by hand, the tunnels were barely high enough for a man to enter. He usually crawled in and did most of his work scrunched down. Because they didn't have the equipment that they have today, the mines were not necessarily very safe. There
were many cave-ins and the mines could be filled with gasses. In any case, many miners were trapped in the
mines and died there. Being superstitious, the miners believed that the ghosts of these miners were still hanging
around the mines. They were convinced that these ghosts would play pranks on them, they would lose their
tools, their lamps would go out, lunches would disappear, they sure seemed to be full of mischief. On the other hand, it was believed that the ghosts were also responsible for saving lives and for helping the miners find the
vein of gold, or where great deposits of ore were to be found. the miners called them "tommy-knockers"
because they would hear strange knockings on the walls around them. The miners had respect for them and
definitely did not want to make them angry, for they were also known to be very mean, when they wanted to
be. In order to appease the tommy-knockers, the miners would leave them food and perhaps a pint of ale
and hoped the tommy-knockers would be good to them.

Now as far as I know, no one has ever claimed to have really "seen" one, but they all heard them knocking,
and some would see hammers pounding on rocks, held by invisible hands, seen wheelbarrows being filled with ore when no one was around, lamps going on and off for no reason, but above all, when the day was over
and the miners were going home for the day, the lunch bucket they had left for the tommy-knockers was
empty and the container holding the pint of ale was dry.

How did they get to this country. Well, when mining first started to become a big thing in this country, we didn't have very many experienced miners and they would hire miners from England. The mining company would ask the miners of they knew of anyone else who would like to mine here and they miner would usually say "well, now,
there's my cousin Jack, and if ye would pay his boat ride he would come work for you. So the miners from
Corwall would come over here, and brought with them the legend of the tommy-knockers. The Americans
generally referred to these miners as "cousin Jacks"

Now, I am not saying this is true, and I am not saying it's not true, but just to be sure, let's check the horseshoe
and leave some food.

VERY INTERESTING

Very early this morning, prepari ng for my day I read this little story:

A father was watching his young son in the back yard one day. The little boy was trying to move a stone that was just more than his little hands could manage. The father said, Son, are you using all your strength. The y oung son said Yes, daddy, and the father replied Oh no you are not, son I am standing right here and you didn't eve n ask me for help. Such a short story but such a powerful message. Went to church, met with friends, had some interesting conversations, came home, read my e mail, one from a friend who is tired, both physically and
emotionally and vented to me. W hen s peaking to her daughter, she was told, you are depressed get your doctor to give you some pills.

I know many of you, including myself are facing the unknown at this time, granted some to a lesser degree than others, but kind of hanging at the end of your particular rope. Grandpa
Roy Webb always said when you come to the end of your rope, t ie a knot and hang on. He was a self proclaimed atheist. But we know we just have to go to our heavenly father and ask for his help and he will give it. But more important we have to listen and to accept what his plan for us is. I guess we shouldn't really tell him what our plan is, unless we want to give him a good laugh.
I really dont like to be a "preachy" kind of person, and hopefully I try to live my life as an example to others, but I have had many failures along that line (I am sooooooooooooo human)

I guess what I am trying to say is when you can't move that stone the way you want to, draw
upon your greatest strength and let your father who is in heaven help. I love you all

My own personal problems at this time are facing up to aging. To accept what I cannot change..
I am not afraid of dying, just not ready to do it yet, but have trouble accepting other people dying es pecially those younger than I. I regret the long hikes thru the air port, but not ready to
accept the wheelchair ride. I regret listening to people talking about their ailments (which are usually mild to everyone else but them) and taking up time that should be spent comforting and listening to peole who have life threatening problems. people who complain all the time about their jobs instead of helping the person who thru no fault of his own recently lost his job, you all know what I am talking about soI AM NOW STEPPING OFF MY SOAP BOX--------------

JUNE 18TH--FATHER'S DAY--STRAWBERRY PIE

what do those three have in common, they represent alsmost every father's day I can remember. Let me tell you about my Dad. He was born on June 18th and he loved strawberry pie, so every father's day we would celebrate his birthday and my mom would bake a strawberry pie. I was always very close to my dad, being the oldest and being almost 13 years older than my brother. As kids, my sister Darlene was basically with Mom and I was with Dad.
I loved it. A kinder, gentler man I have never known. He and my Auntie Alma were two people I never heard a bad word from, never talked about other people (gossiping) and were always there to listen. They were the peacemakers in the family. I miss them both a whole lot. I remember the last time I saw my dad. It was Thanksgiving of 1982 and we had had dinner at our house on Shipman. It was customary in our family to give kisses when we said goodbye, but this one time not only did my dad give me a kiss, he added a hug for good measure and said "it was the best thanksgiving ever" the following Tuesday my mom called me in the morning and said she couldn't wake dad up. If ever a person was ready to meet the Lord, I believe it was my dad. He hated arguing with my mom, and one funny story I remember was when we lived on 8th and Center and mom was mad about something and was yelling, and dad was saying now, Minnie, let's just talk thisover quietly, all the while shutting windows, so the neighbors wouldnt hear my mom, and she right behind him throwing them open saying she didn't care what the neighbors thought. Another time, he was tr ying to pacify my mom (in case you wondered she was the outs poken one) It was my sister's birthday and mom had baked a cake and my dad
picked it up saying something about helping her and wouldn't you know it, dropped it on the floor. We scooped it up, served it in a bowl witth ice cream and called it "dropcake"

On a light note, I remember one Father's day when we all went to Pomona to celebrate the dual occasion and Chip and my brother Bob were on a softball team, so after dinner, before pie we all went to the ball field for the game, then back to mom and dads for pie./ Jeff and Emery were just teeny babies. Dawn left Jeff with me while she ran to the store for Diapers. Of course the moment she left Jeff started screaming, he was hungry. Nothing would appease him and I certainly was not equipped to feed him After about 15 minutes of this, Allyn said Oh for crying out loud give hime to me. I did she promptlylet him share emery's dinner. When Dawn returned to a quiet sleeping child I told her what happened, not knowing exactly what her reaction would be, only to relax when she said I will just say in his baby book that Jeff had dinner out that night.

Go in peace, and HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

ARMED FORCES DAY, 1952

Fort Lee, Virginia. We had been married a whopping 42 days and looking forward to the holiday when we got word that a few soldiers would draw duty and have to stay on the base that day, and wouldn't you know it, my
wonderful husband was one of the lucky ones. Well word came to us wives that we could get around that if we
showed up at the base stating we had come to the base from out of town just to celebrate the big day. Of course, that was the editorial "we" seeing as in our group, Wayne was the only one drawing duty that day. So
three of us paraded to the CO's office and I requested they give Pvt. Webb the day off as I had come from
Wisconsin to visit with him. It worked and he got the rest of the day off and the private who had to replace him never spoke to us again. Wayne was on KP duty and that's where the replacement went. I really didn't lie
I had come from Wisconsin to be with him, only I had arrived 5 weeks ago and was living there. Oh well!

Now, with Bryan being in the middle east, all these memories are coming back to me. I have been so thankful
over the years that the draft was abolished and that my children did not have to face the hardships and lonliness that came along with military life. Yes, I know, people live it today and I weep everytime I see soldiers being deployed or returning home. You see, it isn't only the soldier who is serving his country, it is the whole family. Ca n you imagine being married for two months and then Uncle Sam says "I want YOU" and you don't see each other for another year and a half. You just had to make an adventure out of it. Today our
armed forces consists of men and women who enlist. They choose this way of life for many reasons, and I salute them. Some do it so they can further their education at governement expense while serving their country. I applaud them. Somemake a career outof being in the service, Thank you, and others give of their
time and talents to go over there and tell these men and women that those at home have not forgotted you.
You are appreciated and loved. Thank you Bryan for giving of your God-given talent and letting our warriors know we love and appreciate them. I know Grandpa is up in heaven saluting YOU! I love you!

MOTHER'S DAY

When you think about it--everyone has or had a mother at sometime in their life, except Eve and she had the
Greatest Father there is. You really have to be in some remote state of your consciousness to not know that
Mother's day is almost here. So of course, you think about it.

One Mother's day I just cant seem to forget happened when I was a little girl. My dad had given me 25 cents to
go to the five and dime to get my mother a gift. traditionally, we would serve her breakfast in bed (streusel coffee cake and coffee) and present our gifts. I was so proud. I had gotten her a beautiful box of handkerchiefs, and a card which I gave her, stoically announcing i had done the shopping myself and had money left over, which "daddy says I can keep" was there ever greater love?

One of the traditions I truly miss, and I am not sure whether it was strictly a midwestern tradition or a national one. Everyone wore a carnation, the men, women and all the children. You wore a pink or red carnation if your mother was living and a white one if she was not.

Here's wishing you all a HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY. You have made and impression on someone's life.