I thought an early deadline ….

I thought an early deadline notice, a couple of weeks ago, would get me in the groove. Wrong. I didn’t realize we would be getting two weeks in a row. Then make one on a Thursday on top of it. If it will be any help, the second one will see the paper dated Dec. 30, 2020, the 53rd issue this year. So just a bonus copy in an otherwise tough year. It is a little hard to believe we are this close to Christmas as I look out the window. The sun is shining and the ground is bare. I kind of have to feel sorry for all those people in the northeast who are ending up with all the snow. Things are pretty good around here yet. It would appear that the Clark County Highway Department should finish the filling of potholes along 98 today. I don’t know where the corn is coming from but trucks are still arriving at Northside and their dryer continues to run. Haven’t checked on Vita Plus for a few days.

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I consider myself one of the lucky ones. Of the first three Christmas cards I received, two contained news that wasn’t so good. Cancer surgery, lost jobs, car accident, hospitalization, rehab, nursing homes and just about everything bad. One letter was from Florida, the second from Idaho, so it was pretty well all over the country. Thankfully none of the family has come down with the virus and today my grandson, Will Hayman, will be getting his vaccine shot. He is currently working in the ICU department at the Seattle Children’s Hospital so he gets a firsthand view of the need for medical care. He keeps his mother informed about the disease and adds some much appreciated medical advice as well. I always got a big kick out of it years ago when Florence would be telling him something. He’d listen quietly and then always come up with the same answer, “Well, actually Grandma” he’d say and carefully correct her. He didn’t waste any time setting me straight on what to call him as he became a doctor and a captain in the army all at the same time. I wondered if he was captain/doctor or doctor/captain. He quietly told me it is Captain William Hayman, MD. That should have been plain enough, but to those of us in his family he will always be just plain Will.

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As bad as the year has become, it started out quite well. Jackie was just bound that I needed to come down and see their winter home in Florida and her cousin, Charlie Forss, was bound we wouldgoseeaspringtraininggameforthe Minnesota Twins. It turned out that she conned another cousin, Kent Smith and his wife Susan, to drive down and bring me along. It was an interesting trip, since Florida was one of the last of six states I’d never been in. To me it was funny, but apparently in Florida it is just part of the atmosphere. Whenever we stopped at a reststop there were signs reading “Security on Duty”. I wondered what that meant, but at one stop, as I entered the men’s restroom, I saw a fan standing on the floor blowing air to keep the floor dry. Then I noticed the heavy chain used to secure the fan and understood what security they were talking about. Things turned out better than expected as I got to see two Twins games and visited the Edison museum, which was indeed interesting. It is located in the middle of some very beautiful and unique trees. Nothing like our pines, maple and oak trees around here. Kent and Susan got me home on the last day of February, just in time to help peel potatoes for the annual pancake supper at Trinity. Then it appeared to be just another spring until the 14th of March and everything has come to a standstill. Thankfully a lot of new technology came into play and is helping us through this special time in our lives. So for now I’ll just wish each of you a very Merry Christmas.