According to my calendar, spring ….
According to my calendar, spring is about to arrive in less than a week. That should be time for it to quit snowing and changing to spring showers, or better yet, some nice sunny skies and warm temperatures.
Actually it hasn’t been that bad. When I came back from music today, most of the snow that fell Thursday night had slid off my car.
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How good a shot are you with a bow and arrow? Figuring the kind of arrows cupid shoots, I scored a bull’s eye. It was back in my high school days. A new family had just moved onto a farm a mile east of us. They had a daughter by the name of Phyllis Barr. Well, the bus continued up the county line road a few miles, turned back, came down to County Trunk G, west for a mile to get more kids, then down to pick me up.
Then a few more miles and we picked the Potvin family up, including a son Douglas, who was a classmate and probably one of my best friends at the time.
One night on the way home from school, Doug handed me a note and asked me to give it to Phyllis. Which I did.
That produced a romance and a wedding in the fall of 1950. Doug passed away about a week ago and, I see by his obit, Phyllis died in 2021. If my math is any good, that means the romance lasted 71 years.
To see what else I might find, I dug out my high school yearbook. Phyllis had signed my picture, “Hi Stupid,” and Doug just signed “Good Luck.” But below that was this note, “If he has the speed in life as he does with cars, he’ll go places.” I might add there was something to that. I could never get our car for chasing around at night, and fortunately the car he drove was an old Hudson. We often found ourselves pushing it more than riding in it.
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Life up here is good, but some days it’s a little extra. One of the staff had told me about a piano recital coming up and with nothing scheduled I thought about going. Then on the way to mail a letter I met her again. She reminded me of the recital and said she didn’t know much about it except it was a Polly Lindner. Well, I said, I know Polly and took off to grab a front row seat.
I was not to be disappointed and for those of you in the Loyal School District, Polly is the best. I was telling Jackie about it and she reminded me Raelyn was in kindergarten the year Florence passed away. She played “Amazing Grace” for the funeral and it was perfect. Then I said, “But she doesn’t play the piano now.” No, she said, she plays the drums. Don’t think I’ve ever heard what “Amazing Grace” would sound like on the drums.
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A few words that always perk me up are “the Clark County Male Chorus.” Well, what a treat it was a few weeks ago as I was watching worship services from Trinity Lutheran Church. Pastor Dan announced the male chorus had just arrived and would sing a few songs. I not only got to listen and watch; I got them safely tucked away on my computer.
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I don’t know if you are a baseball fan or not. From what I have seen it is a bit disappointing. Some rule changes are estimated to cut 22 minutes off the length of a game, they say. Taking the afternoon off to watch a baseball game is just that. An afternoon of pure enjoyment. Why worry about how to shorten the game?
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I have the word “wood” on my list of things to write about. Probably a good chance to get rid of it. I guess what prompted it was to see how much money some people pay for the wood they use.
Growing up on a farm, I kind of thought burning wood was just a way to use something you wanted to get rid of in the pasture. In the winter it was a daily effort to go to the woods, cut some trees down and haul them up to a clear spot just below the house and barn.
Then in the spring there came a day when the saw rig came and sawed the poles into stove-length size. Next came putting it in piles to dry out before bringing it up the hill to the woodshed. It was always my Saturday chore and after school every day I had to bring it to the house for burning in the cook stove or heater.
There was always something about a wood stove. For the longest time, I could never figure out how to get warm after being outside in the winter. How can you get warm without the cook stove or heater to stand next to?
Another thing about the wood cookstove came up this time of the year. We had a dozen maple trees we tapped and Mom had a big roaster we sat at the end of the stove. Just the heat from cooking and keeping the kitchen warm turned the sap into maple syrup at no cost to anyone.
