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My thoughts on various topics...
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Friday, April 28, 2006
from my prayer 3:30 am 06-30-2005
prayer
prayer when I cannot sleep
prayer for our young people
for our children drawing near to adulthood
keep them safe on this night now morning
protect them from dangers of the road
let their words build one another up
build friendships not divide
draw them closer to you and to each other
forming bonds of trust that will grow
bring greater desire greater willingness to serve you
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
2:00 pm, riding in the OM boom truck
Once again, here we are, traveling through the mountains of northern California in the wintertime, wind whipping the
trees, slush splattering across the windshield of our truck, spray billowing up from the tires of the vehicles on the freeway.
Even though we are near Mt. Shasta, it is totally obscured by the clouds and swirling snow. Alongside the freeway, only the
base of the cinder cone we are passing is visible through the mist. Above that, it, too, has disappeared into the clouds.
Rivers and streams are filled nearly to the rims of their banks with rushing, swirling brown water. As we reach the lower
elevations, the snow and slush on our windshield are replaced by rain, but the wind and misty spray remain the same.
In spite of the storm, the traffic through the mountains is moderately heavy. A significant proportion of the vehicles
– cars, truck, vans, motor homes – are sporting U of O Ducks flags… This would seem out of place in California, if it were
not for the fact that in two days the Ducks will be playing football in a bowl game in San Diego. Clearly, many fans consider
it a worthwhile way to spend the remaining days of their Christmas holiday driving south for two days so that they can spend
one day in Sam Diego, then drive north for another two days. Perhaps some will take it a bit slower on the way back, and take
the time to see the sights, weather permitting (though since they are, after all, Ducks, what does it matter if it’s raining?!)
And of course, many no doubt left earlier this week for a more leisurely trip south. Others, transplanted Californians in
particular, may have flown or driven south last week to spend Christmas with their families.
The freeway south of Weed is incredibly rough… It makes it difficult to hit the intended keys!
Tuesday, August 2, 2005
No Time
Obviously, I don't have enough time to maintain a blog - and/or not
enough creative thoughts to fill one! It's been months now, and this is only my second post! I did think that over the course
of the summer I'd be writing something here, late at night, when everyone else was alseep, but usually, when I'm up late at
night, others are, too, and we're talking about what's going on in our lives, what the plans are for the next few days, who
needs the car when, and to go where, or our theories on what will happen in HP & tHBP. (Well, last night, after I finished
reading it, that shifted to analysis of what happened, and theories on what will happen in book 7 - I do hope we don't have
to keep theorizing for another 2 years to find out who is right!)
This evening, though, it is quiet, even if it isn't all that late -
Suz is spending the night at a friend's house, camping in the back yard; Erin's gone to Salem to meet her boyfriend for dinner,
and isn't back yet, of course; Sam went to watch the news as soon as we got back from our small group meeting.
I finished loading the dishwasher, and decided to work on websites
for a while, now that I've finished reading 6 Harry Potter books in about 2 and a half weeks - for some reason I got slowed
down by book 5, even though it was the second time through, and I've listened to it on cd several times. Of course, I worked
four days last week, had my granddaughters here much of the time I wasn't working, had to run people here and there, spent
an evening at a campout in the country (I didn't stay overnight, but Suz did), and another evening at a picnic for international
students, then on Sunday, church in the morning and a concert at church in the evening... plus it was our county fair last
week, so we had open class & 4-H entries to turn in Sunday and Monday, barn duty for Suz during the week, several stops
at the fair (one with the granddaughters), and all those entries to retrieve this Monday...
I finished HP 5 about 10:30 pm Sunday, then started HP 6 just before
11:00 pm and finished it just about 11:45 pm Monday, without feeling like I was rushing through it at all. I've started rereading
it already, but I expect I will take a few days this time, since I can safely stop & discuss it in depth with my daughters
now, without concern that they will accidentally give away something I haven't come to yet!
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Decoration Day
I'm not certain that my children have even heard the term "Decoration Day"; if they have, I don't know that
they would recognize it as Memorial Day, or understand the history of the name. This is in spite of the fact that they have
grown up in a family whose livlihood comes from the making of memorials; in spite of the fact that when they were younger,
they looked forward to the weekend when they could join their cousins three mornings, as they helped put up over a hundred
large flags around the cemetery we owned, and three evenings as they took the flags back down before sunset. Before the weekend
began they helped with mowing and trimming, baking cookies, and painting the fountain blue again. During the days they handed
out flyers to visitors to the cemetery, helped people find the graves they were looking for, carried carried floral arrangements
and buckets of water, and handed out coffee and cookies to countless people. The highlight of the weekend was Monday evening,
as the extended family and families of our employees worked together to correctly fold each flag for storage for another year.
When all the work was done, it was time for a barbeque or a pizza party for everyone who had worked so hard all weekend. It
seems odd sometimes to hear them, as young adults, reminiscing about "the good old days", before we sold the cemetery...
It was even stranger, in this day when virtually everyone considers the Memorial Day Weekend a chance for
yard work, shopping, or a family excursion, that our oldest child was grown by the time that we first were free to go camping
at the beach on Memorial Day weekend. It was the first time in my husband's life that he had not spent the entire weekend
working.
How different their memories of Memorial Days of their childhood from the memories of those of my own childhood
- yet, maybe not so different. In those days, Memorial Day was still called Decoration Day by many, including my grandparents.
It was May 30, not a three day weekend, a day set aside to honor the dead by decorating their graves. On Memorial Day my family
went to several of the cemeteries where family members were buried to place bouquets of flowers we had gathered from our own
yard early in the morning. The weekend preceding the actual holiday, if it did not fall on a weekend, we generally went to
the cemetery at Chitwood, in the coast montains near Toledo, Oregon. My great grandparents, some of my great aunts and uncles,
and the children my grandparents had lost before my mother was even born were all buried there, on a steep, wild hillside.
Most of the graves were - and still are - marked by mossy monuments that tip a little more with each passing year. There was
always work to do there to mow and fight back against nature's attempts to reclaim the hillside as wilderness. In recent years,
and it has been more difficult physically for family members to return and continue that battle, as the memories of those
buried there fade and are gone, the wildness has all but recaptured the land.
When our work there was done, we would follow the highway to its end, to Newport, and gather with our relatives
- great-aunts and great-uncles, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins - for a picnic among the shore pines and, for the
more adventurous, a chance to explore the north jetty.
Over the years, my cousins continued the tradition, meeting at the Chitwood Cemetery to wage battle against
the wilderness, then gathering at the beach - now south of Waldport - for our picnic, rain or shine. Some years some of my
children and I went, just for a day, but it was difficult, with flags and flowers to be concerned about back home.
When our own family finally had the chance to go away together for Memorial Day weekend, we chose the beach
just south of Newport, and ventured out on the south jetty. We picnicked among the very shore pines where I picnicked and
played as a child. On Saturday, we joined my cousins further south for the traditional family picnic.
This Memorial Day weekend, it looks like we will be doing more of the things we didn't have time for on
that weekend for many years - yardwork and home repairs. But we will also be making time to visit the cemeteries where family
members are buried - those who were with us in those early years, who helped to establish our family traditions - our own
grandparents, parents, a brother, people we deeply miss, just as our grandparents deeply missed those who are just a part
of history to us today.
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2006.04.01 |
2005.12.01 |
2005.08.01 |
2005.05.01
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I don't often get a chance to put my thoughts in writing, and when I do, it's usually late at night.
Hopefully, what I have written here will make some sense by the light of day!
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Top of page
Reading reveals the world to our minds.
Writing reveals our minds to the world.
Thanks for visiting my site.
© Bonnie Bronleewe, 2005-2008
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