Time flies when you're having fun. Or, as one wag put it,
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
Er, well, not so funny I suppose.
Rubbing elbows with the geeks...
Went to a conference of Christian mathematicians and computer
geeks. Had a conversation with Larry Wall, inventor(?) of the
Perl programming language that sort of holds the Web together.
Couple of other well-known computer types there also, such as
Phil Armour who writes a bimonthly column in one of the journals.
It was in Huntington, a bit over 30 miles from the house, about
45 minutes away because of several small towns on the way.
... and non-geeks
Had a great visit with friends and relatives out West. Don't dare
mention who all we saw because I'd leave someone out, but we did
stay with Dale & Jane Fishel as sort of "home base" in Sammammish
(right next to Issaquah, WA), spent one night with Norm & Marilyn
Upton in Arlington, and one night with Paul and Marsha Rush in
Toppenish. Ate sumptuously most of the time, including Mexican a
couple of times, luscious steaks courtesy of Bill and Lynda Upton,
and seafood at least once, of course. Saw cousin Mickey, who is
80-some years old, in the retirement home in Hoquiam (right next
to Aberdeen, WA), and Rich played some of the stuff we do at our
gigs.
Play it again, Sam -- er, Kathy
Speaking of which, no sooner did we get back but we went over to
Grace Village and played for their monthly birthday party. One lady
is 100 years old now, doesn't look a day over 70. Wow! She retired
before I got my first "real" job teaching. We'll probably be
scheduled there pretty regularly now.
Played a couple of evenings at the Caffe Villagio. There was a lot
going on in town (plays, concerts) so it was pretty slow until the
kids from Masterworks finished their concert. About 20 or 30 of
them came over to the Villagio afterwards for Chai Tea or a latte.
A couple of them said they liked our music, but they may just have
been trying to be polite. They are terrific musicians. Went to the
faculty recital that Sunday night. But on Saturday night after the
crowd arrived (and also Ron, our guitarist), we were jamming and I
thought I'd have to unplug Kathy's amplifier to get her to stop.
It was a lot of fun but I was getting worn out about 10:30 --
considering that we "officially" went until 9:00.
Under construction
Revised my plan for the woodshed/storage building, partly due to
the discovery of a termite nest under the old metal building. Had
to take that metal building apart with a hammer and chisel, it
being quite thoroughly rusted. Anyway, we found a good use for
those concrete blocks I collected. Building inspector came by to
look at the site, cautioned me to put treated lumber on top of the
concrete blocks. I shall enthusiastically comply. I might even have
to put down a concrete floor, which wasn't in the original plans.
Well, I might have a woodshed by this time next year. Weather is
getting hot. Nice that the building site is mostly shaded, and I
quit for the day at about noon, come in and play with the computer.
Son Jon came to visit over the 4th of July, and we went to the State
Museum in Indianapolis. It was most interesting. They have a mastodon
that a farmer near here ran into when dredging out a ditch, as well
as thousands of fossils dug up in the famous limestone quarries. We
saw the 3-D IMAX film on NASCAR racing, quite impressive.
On the road again
... (some time later) ...
Back from North Dakota where we went to the Bettenhausen reunion,
first in 40-odd years. Photos at
http://members.aol.com/rdbarnhart
Stayed with Kathy's Uncle Edwin on the Strobel side. Aunt Edna is
still going strong, makes scrumptious bluberry kuchen.
Also saw Uncle Enoch and Aunt Viola. Enoch is
slowing down a bit, uses a golf cart to get around town (small town!)
and the lift to get upstairs at church. Uncles are in their 80s,
aunts aren't telling....
First day at the reunion, they served a German meal. The kuchen was
carefully doled out, otherwise it would have disappeared before all
were served. Sauerkraut could have been better, though. (Kathy has a
sauerkraut recipe from her mother that people ask for seconds on
believe it or not.) And then we had blueberry kuchen for breakfast
at Aunt Edna's house. I've gained 5 pounds and Kathy isn't saying
much, but we'll be eating "healthy" for a while now.
The "old" Bettenhausen farmhouse (updated!) is in the background of
the photo. There's a story about the truck (well, possibly this
truck; could have been another like it). Seems that the kids were
getting bored and there was kuchen left after lunch, so some
particularly bright kid decided to
shove some kuchen up the exhaust pipe. When Grandpa (their dad) came
out and started the truck, it blew the muffler off....
Snapped a photo
of Kathy at the piano and the relatives standing around singing.
Reminds me so much of how her mother used to play the piano and
everyone would grab a hymnal and sing along. Some things never really
change much. (Writing on the walls is the names of pastors and
contributors to the Bible camp. I think you have to be dead to
be put up there.)
and Back Home Again (In Indiana)
Saw a bit of Iowa on the way back, like Mason City, the prototype for
"River City" in the Music Man. Also the Hoover presidential museum and
library. I exited from the Interstate and found it while Kathy slept,
but she really enjoyed it after she woke up. Poor "Herb" got blamed for
the Great Depression.
As Will Rogers put it, "If a man bites into an apple and finds a worm,
Herbert Hoover will get the blame." Reckon we can blame the President
for a few things, but the economy isn't one of them, generally speaking.
Recession: your neighbor loses his job.
Depression: you lose your job.
We also stopped at the Church In The Wildwood that inspired the song.
In Illinois, we got to meet Neva Baar, my second cousin who has a
bunch of thick notebooks on various branches of the family, including
one of documents on Barnhard/Barnhart/Barnheart however it's spelled.
Most interesting. And they invited us to stay overnight and fed us
breakfast. Bernie, her husband, is retired now but their son runs the
potato farm a short distance away.
In summary, we spent a week with a bunch of old Germans and a few
Dutchmen thrown in the mix, and they all seem to be good cooks.
Under Deconstruction -- we hope not!
Found another termite nest about 10 feet from the house, had to
write a check for four figures but now we have 23 of these cute little
termite "bait" stations at $50 a pop, but much safer for our well than
the powerful poisons -- it's bacteria that cause an epidemic among the
termites but you could eat it by the spoonful and it wouldn't hurt you
-- and actually cheaper than the poisons. The man will also do the
woodshed floor the "usual" way, before finishing, a very good
procedure since it will contain
wood shortly and the bait acts very slowly. That means the old bricks
and assorted junk on the site has to be cleaned up Real Soon Now. But
the storage part is about done except for a door and it needs something
besides a tarp over the plywood roof. Keeps me out of the bars and away
from the fast women....
Finally got some rain. I put down the floor in the storage shed (patio
pavers, actually, that used to be under part of the metal shed) and
three 4x8 sheets of siding, and as I drove the last
screw, it started raining buckets. Or washtubs. Farmers really needed that.
I came in soaked to the skin and Kathy said, "Take a shower!" To which I
replied, "No thanks, I already got one!" Had to go to the dermatololol
skin doctor and have another cancer removed. I worried about getting the
bandage wet in the shower. Well, I just went ahead and took the shower since
it was pretty well soaked and we just patched me up with another bandage.
(No big deal there; I lost count at 30 of those "nasties" over the last 15
years, and it's a very slow-growing cancer and does not spread like melanoma.)
For you Grace College grads, you'll be interested. The photo shows the new
steps under construction behind Alpha Dorm. Remember those old patched-up
steps where you had to take baby steps or else real long ones and hang on
the railing especially when they were icy? Looked kind of tacky, too. They're
really trying to improve the place for looks as well as safety.
Construction on the new conference
center is still held up due to, um, "negotiations" over the cleanup of the
asbestos or whatever that company left on the site. I think they made brake
linings and just dumped the waste in the woods. We got a good deal on a loan
from the state for the cleanup (20% rebate when it's done, on money Grace was
prepared to pay 100% of), but now it's the lawyers, "Well, if we find barrels
of radioactive waste, do we have to shell out another couple of million or can
we cut our losses?" Not likely, but nobody knows for sure what's in that soil.
And we're hoping it doesn't pollute our well water, whatever it is, since it's
only a quarter-mile from our house, right beside where we got a lot of wood
last year, with big KEEP OUT signs
all around.
Made a one-day trip to the Brethren National Youth Conference (held at Cedarville
University in Ohio this year) and saw friends
from all over. We took some computer-related stuff with blinking lights and it
had the desired effect of attracting "geeks". We were recruiting for Grace,
of course. Saw folks from Toppenish, Winona Lake (of course), and had dinner
with the Chasnovs, friends from our days back at Liberty.
Anyone recall Gene Stratton Porter ("Freckles", "Girl of the Limberlost", still
available at Amazon.com)? (Her
given name was Geneva, in case you're wondering about the spelling as I was.) Well,
the Limberlost is in Indiana, and we drove up to what I guess is Limberlost North,
about an hour from home. Very interesting, and if you've read the books and come
by for a day or so, Kathy might be able to take you up there. It's a State Historical
Site, and Hoosiers are very proud of it. It's about 20 acres of forest as it was a
century ago, huge trees (mostly maple these days, some beech and oak, and a few pawpaw)
so thick that the forest floor is totally shaded. Her second home she called the "cabin"
is a large two-story house by a very pleasant lake, but I'll bet Gene never had to listen
to the speedboats out on a Sunday afternoon. Take Highway 9 north out of Columbia
City, and look for the signs. It's north of Albion, and if you get into Rome
City, turn around and come back about a mile. Limberlost South (where "Freckles"
takes place) is a couple of hours south of us. Haven't been there yet. That location
is the original Limberlost Swamp, since drained for cropland and then restored by
the Indiana State Museum.
So things are going fairly well, and we'll be back to school in what will seem
like five minutes, but really more like a couple of weeks. Working on class notes,
learning new stuff I'll have to know soon. Spent a few hours learning yet some more
about .NET ("dot NET") as Microsoft calls it. Got a long ways to go. We're planning an
open house for Labor Day weekend, inasmuch as it will be our 40th anniversary. Hope to
have some of my construction mess cleaned up by then. Still running "Kathy's Motel"
here, with some folks coming for the conference in August. Let us know if you're
coming through and we'll have a bed or at least a couch available.
