Caryn
I married into the Schulenberg family almost 48 years ago. During the early years, when we would make trips to Forsyth, Montana to visit my husband, Bob Schulenberg’s family that lived there. One such visit was for a family reunion. It was at that reunion, that I first met my father-in-law, Walt Schulenberg’s half-brother, Butch Schulenberg. For many years, I didn’t see Butch again, and then when my father-in-law passed away in 2015, we were making calls to tell family of his passing. I spoke to Uncle Butch, and it was such a nice, even while sad, call, that Uncle Butch became a very dear uncle to me. I love his kind heart and his caring ways. I think everyone loves Butch Schulenberg, because that is the kind of man he is.
Uncle Butch is a veteran, having served in the Army during the Vietnam War. He was a respected member of 
his company. Butch was chosen to be a driver for an officer. Butch told my husband, Bob and me several stories about his driving days in the service. He told us of so many interesting details that he was privileged to know, but at that time could not speak of. During war, the soldiers are very restricted on what information they can share, mostly because disclosing information could be a detriment to the whole company. Now that the war is long-over, the details of their operations are history…very interesting history. That is something Butch ad I have in common too…history. We both love the details of the past, and the impact they have had on the future. I am proud of his service. He is the kind of soldier this nation is blessed to have…and I’m very thankful he made it home.
These days, Uncle Butch is busy enjoying his retirement, and going to visit his children and grandchildren. He 
loves taking pictures around his house in Forsyth, Montana. He is a huge fan of the local school sports teams and goes to or listens to as many games as he possibly can. He is one of their biggest fans. He is very community oriented. He loves his small town and feels very connected to all the people there. He is very much a loved member of the community, and he loves all of them too. Today is Butch’s 82nd birthday. Happy birthday Butch!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
My aunt, Evelyn Hushman was the eldest of my grandparents, George and Hattie Byer’s nine children. Big families have a different dynamic than small families. My own daughter, Corrie Petersen was too close in age to her younger sister, Amy Royce to be of help in raising her sister. That was just not how our family worked, but my grandparents’ family, and even my own parents’ family, were big enough for the children to have a hand in raising the younger children. Some people consider that a privilege, and others consider it a burden. There is no right or wrong way to feel about it. It just is the way it is. I don’t know how any of my siblings felt about things or even how my aunts and uncles felt about it, but I think that my parents and grandparents always felt thankful for the help the older children gave, because families of any size can be exhausting.
For many years, my Aunt Evelyn, her husband, my Uncle George Hushman, and my parents, Al and Collene Spencer, bowled on a bowling league. Then as their children grew up, we all bowled too. That is a legacy we likely owe to our parents. I’m not sure any of the others still bowl today, but I do, as does my husband, Bob Schulenberg. We have bowled now for 44 years. When I think about that, it is a legacy. I’m not a professional bowler or anything…far from it, but I can hold my own on among the amateurs, and for me, that all went back to the league my parents and Aunt Evelyn and Uncle George bowled on.
In reality, my parents and my aunt and uncle did many things together. They were really best friends. They double dated many times, including the date that almost cost them their lives. They were coming home from a date and my dad was driving. They were taking Aunt Evelyn and Uncle George home, when they were struck by a train. They would have all died at the unlit, uncontrolled, crossing being hit by a train with no lights on, if my Uncle George hadn’t caught sight of a reflection, and yelled to my dad, “Train!!” Dad reacted by turning with the train, thereby saving the lives of all four of them. They weren’t even injured. So, I guess we their children, owe our lives to them, in more ways than one. Today would have been Aunt Evelyn’s 94th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Aunt Evelyn. We love and miss you very much.
My aunt, Ruth Wolfe was the person I most closely resembled. She was my dad, Allen Spencer’s sister, and for most of my life, I didn’t really know that I resembled her. Nevertheless, I am built like she was. I laugh like she did, something I found out after she passed away, and I laughed, but when I did, I heard her laughing. I thought, “How could that be?” I had never noticed that I laughed like her before. I began to wonder how I hadn’t noticed it before. Whatever the reason, I did and do laugh like her, and these days, it is a pleasant reminder of her, and the memories are very sweet.
I always loved Aunt Ruth…and her husband, Uncle Jim too. They lived what seemed like such an exciting life. When they moved away from Casper, Wyoming, they moved to Reno, Nevada, and later to Vallejo, California, and finally to Newport, Washington. While Washington was rather a calm place, almost a retirement of sorts, Reno and Vallejo seemed like an exciting, party kind of place…and maybe it was. People go through different 
phases in life, and maybe they were in a phase of looking for some excitement. A small town, like Casper, Wyoming, while not tiny, is certainly not as exciting as a place like Reno, Nevada or Vallejo, California. Still, Newport, Washington, and especially the mountain top property they purchased, was certainly more like the places she lived when she was growing up. It was almost like going back to her roots.
I think that some of the happiest times in Aunt Ruth’s life were when she and Uncle Jim were on the road, traveling. They liked to see the world around them, and they loved showing up unannounced to surprise us. I don’t think they ever thought about the fact that they might find us out of town, and to my knowledge, they never did…or at least if they did, they never told us about it. I suppose if they had told us they were coming, it would have ruined the adventure of things. I don’t think any of us ever minded the 
surprises that came with their unexpected visits. My parents were always happy that they were there. It was like running into a favorite old friend…but they were old friends, even more so than some siblings are. Aunt Ruth and my dad were just 19 months apart. They were the youngest of my grandparents four children, and in many ways, that did make them close, even though they were brother and sister, and not brother/friends, like my dad and their older brother, my Uncle Bill. Today would have been my Aunt Ruth’s 97th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Aunt Ruth. We love and miss you very much.
My great grandnephew, Aysa Balcerzak is turning one today. I can hardly believe he is a year old already. This sweet smiley little boy is always happy, although his parents might disagree with me, but I only see his best faces, so I’ll go with what I see. Aysa loves spending time with his big sister, Reece, who is just as smiley as her brother, and loves that she has a little brother. Reece loves “showing her brother the ropes” about things, and Aysa is really having a good time exploring the world around him. He really is learning the ropes, like what all these leaves on the ground are all about and that food is fun to eat…and to play with. Of course, he is also exploring the multiple toys he now has, and as we all know, that collection will quickly grow. It is just the way it goes with kids.
Aysa is learning the art of coaching his big sister’s sporting events…with a little help from his daddy, Keifer Balcerzak. He loves to be right there on the field, so he can see all the action firsthand.
I suppose there will come a time when Aysa will be more into sports that Reece will, so it makes sense that he should watch closely. I know that because his daddy and grandpa, Dave Balcerzak both love sports, and quite likely his other grandparents do too, so Aysa comes from a long line of sports people. I know he will grow right into it.
While he loves watching sports, Aysa is also a cuddly boy. He loves snuggling up with his family, and they 
should really enjoy that while the can, because as we all know, most little boys grow out of the cuddly phase pretty quickly. I mean, a school aged boy can’t be seen hugging on his mom and such. Still, some boys don’t care, and maybe Aysa will be one of those. It’s always fun to have a boy who just loves giving hugs, because so many don’t. Whether Aysa continues to be a cuddly child or not, remains to be seen, but nevertheless, Aysa is a sweet little boy, who has captured the hearts of all who know him. His smiley face, and cheerful personality, make him a child who is so much fun to be around. Aysa is just perfect in every way. Today is Aysa’s first birthday. Happy 1st birthday Aysa!! Have a wonderful day, sweet boy!! We love you!!
Whenever our aunt, Pearl Hein talked about her husband, our uncle, Eddie Hein, she always called him Big Ed. It was her “pet name” for him…kind of like saying he was her superhero. That is truly how Pearl felt about Eddie. Theirs was a long-standing marriage of 52 years at the time of Eddie’s graduation to Heaven. He was her superhero, and she was his too. It was always fun to watch them, because their personalities were very similar, and yet each was unique.
I first met them on my first trip to Forsyth, Montana to visit my husband, Bob Schulenberg’s family, and the trip was so much fun that for many years we went for a visit every summer. I loved all of the Forsyth family and looked forward to it every year. Eddie and Pearl lived at the edge of town beside the dike that held the Yellowstone River back from the town. Eddie and Pearl always had a vegetable garden, and they canned lots of their food. 
Eddie transformed their house from the original mobile home to a house and decorated it in various places with river rock. The fireplace was a beautiful focal point.
Eddie, and Pearl too, had what I call a smiling face. Their whole face smiled with they smiled, and that is a very cool kind of face to have. I think it is a sign of a really happy person too. They loved to entertain, and they loved to laugh and joke. Some of my fondest memories are when they were picking on my husband, Bob. He had long hair back then, but everyone in the hippy generation did, so he wasn’t alone. Eddie was always threatening to give him a buzz cut, and one time went after him with the shears, but of course, they weren’t plugged in. Nevertheless, it was funny, and unless you looked closely, you might think they were plugged in. The picture is funny anyway. It’s funny stuff like that that I think I miss the most about Eddie. There was really never a dull moment when we were over at their house.
Eddie went home to be with the Lord on October 16, 2019, and I still can’t believe he is gone. He had a stroke a few years earlier, and fought his way back, with much help from Pearl, who was his “rock” during those days. I think one of his happiest moments after the stroke, was when he was able to walk his daughter Kim down the aisle when she married Michael Arani on October 7, 2017. I don’t think he thought he would be able to do it, but Eddie was a strong man, and he was determined. I’m so happy that he got to see that day. Today would have been Eddie’s 79th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Eddie. We love and miss you very much.
Antoine-Joseph Sax was born on November 6, 1814, in Dinant, which is now part of Belgium, to Charles-Joseph Sax and his wife Marie-Joseph née Masson Sax. As a child, Antoine, nicknamed Adolphe was quite accident prone, and some say that it is a wonder he made it to his teenaged years, much less to adulthood.
As a boy, Sax faced many brushes with death. As a child, he once fell out a window from a height of three floors, hit his head on a stone and was believed dead. At the age of three, he drank a bowl full of acidic water, because it looked like milk to the boy. Later, he swallowed a pin. He received serious burns from a gunpowder explosion, and once fell onto a hot cast-iron frying pan, burning his side. Several times he avoided accidental poisoning and asphyxiation from sleeping in a room where varnished furniture was drying. Another time young Sax was struck on the head by a cobblestone and fell into a river, almost dying. His mother once said that “he’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live.” His neighbors called him “little Sax, the ghost.”
Sax came from a musical family. His father and mother were instrument designers, who made several changes 
to the design of the French horn. At an early age, Adolphe began to make his own instruments. At the age of 15 years, he entered two of his flutes and a clarinet into a competition. He went on to study performance on those two instruments, as well as voice at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. Adolphe relocated permanently to Paris in 1842 and began working on a new set of valved bugles. As with the rest of his childhood, even the invention of the saxophone was an accident of sorts…being the result of a modified saxhorn he’d created with his father, Charles Joseph Sax, in 1845.
While he did not invent what became known as saxhorns, his examples were much more successful than those of his rivals. Hector Berlioz, French Romantic composer and conductor was so enamored of Adolphe’s saxhorn examples, that he arranged in February 1844 for one of his pieces to be played entirely on saxhorns. The 
composition called for seven different sizes of saxhorns, and it was this composition that paved the way for the creation of the flugelhorn.
In 1845, Adolphe Sax also developed the saxotromba family, which were valved brass instruments bearing a narrower bore than the saxhorns. These were not as successful, and soon became a thing of the past. Sax went on to become an instructor at the Paris Conservatory. True to his earlier live of catastrophic events, Sax developed lip cancer in his later life, and true to his past, he survived that as well. Nevertheless, the catastrophic events continued, and Sax died of pneumonia in Paris, in relative poverty in 1894.
When I think of war and of the largest offensive in United States history, I don’t picture a battle in World War I. Nevertheless, I should. The Meuse–Argonne offensive, which was also called the Meuse River–Argonne Forest offensive, the Battles of the Meuse–Argonne, and the Meuse–Argonne campaign, depending on who you were, was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. The offensive ran for a total of 47 days, from September 26, 1918, until the Armistice of November 11, 1918, and it was the largest in United States military history, past or present.
The offensive involved 1.2 million American soldiers, and as battles go, it is the second deadliest in American history. During the course of the battle, there were over 350,000 casualties including 28,000 German lives, 26,277 American lives, and an unknown number of French lives. The losses involving the United States were compounded by the inexperience of many of the troops, the tactics used during the early phases of the operation, and in no small way…the widespread onset of the global influenza outbreak called the “Spanish flu.” The 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly 
global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The pandemic affected an estimated 500 million people, or approximately a third of the global population. It is estimated that 17 to 50 million, and possibly as high as 100 million people lost their lives, which probably increased the deaths during the Meuse-Argonne offensive.
The Meuse–Argonne was the principal engagement of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) during World War I, and it was what finally brought the war to an end. It was the largest and bloodiest operation of World War I for the AEF. Nevertheless, by October 31, the Americans had advanced 9.3 miles and had cleared the Argonne Forest. The French advanced 19 miles to the left of the Americans, reaching the Aisne River. The American forces split into two armies at this point. General Liggett led the First Army and advanced to the Carignan-Sedan-Mezieres Railroad. Lieutenant General Robert L Bullard led the Second Army and was directed to move eastward toward Metz. The two United States armies faced portions of 31 German divisions during this phase. The American troops captured German defenses at Buzancy, allowing French troops to cross the Aisne River. There, they rushed forward, capturing Le Chesne, also known as the Battle of Chesne (French: Bataille du Chesne).
In the final days, the French forces conquered the immediate objective, Sedan and its critical railroad hub in a 
battle known as the Advance to the Meuse (French: Poussée vers la Meuse), and on November 6, American forces captured surrounding hills. On November 11, news of the German armistice put a sudden end to the fighting. That was fortunate for the armies, but for my 1st cousin twice removed, William Henry Davis, it was six days too late. He lost his life on November 5, 1918, on the west bank of the Meuse during these battles. He was just 30 years old at the time.
Since time began, people have hoped for peace, and ended up in a battle. While “world peace” will likely never be an option, at least not in this world, governments continue to try, and those who oppose peace continue to do their best to sabotage the plans for peace. Israel has often been at the center of the battle for peace, which makes no logical sense. The other Arab nations have long been after the land, small as it is, that belongs to Israel. I never understood how they could covet the small piece of land that Israel had. The reality is that the Arab nations simply don’t want Israel to exist at all.
In 1995, a rally was being held in support of the Oslo Accords at the Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. A number of people had warned Yitzhak Rabin, the fifth prime minister of Israel, that his life could be in danger, but he would not back down. The Oslo Accords was a pair of agreements between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Oslo I Accord was signed in Washington DC, in 1993. The Oslo II Accord was signed in Taba, Egypt, in 1995. The problem with these agreements is that the battle between these two groups goes so much deeper than just who owns the land. These nations are related and have been in a feud since the time of Jacob and Esau in Biblical days. Nevertheless, nations have tried to bring about peace between the two nations ever since the battle began.
On November 4, 1995 (12 Marcheshvan 5756 on the Hebrew calendar) at 9:30pm, at the end of the rally. An Israeli ultranationalist named Yigal Amir, who radically opposed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s peace initiative, and particularly the signing of the Oslo Accords, took it upon himself, to assassinate Yitzhak Rabin. The Likud leader and future prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told Rabin’s government that withdrawing from any “Jewish” land was heresy, which I would have to agree with, because the land had been given to them by God. They believed that Rabin was probably too secular and too far removed from the Biblical Jewish tradition and Jewish values, but assassination is never the answer.
Conservative rabbis associated with the settlers’ movement prohibited territorial concessions to the Palestinians and forbade soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces from evacuating Jewish settlers under the accords. Some rabbis proclaimed “din rodef” based on a traditional Jewish law of self-defense, against Rabin personally, arguing that the Oslo Accords would endanger Jewish lives. The whole situation, which was “designed” to bring “peace,” took on a completely different tone…chaos. While I would never condone violence or assassination, I 
don’t think Israel should ever be forced to give up parts of its land, and unfortunately, any peace agreement with the Palestinians always includes taking Israeli land, when Arab land is already far, far bigger. During the trial, Amir admitted to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and claimed that he was justified in doing so, saying that Amir he was “satisfied” and was acting on the “orders of God.” Following the trial, Amir was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Rabin.
In loving memory of Laila Elizabeth Spethman. We love and miss you very much sweet Princess Laila. Happy 12th birthday in Heaven. How could it have been twelve years already. We can’t wait until the day we see you again.
Some years are filled with rainy and snowy days, while others are drought filled, like this one. Each can have their consequences, if things go too far. As drought in the United States has progressed this past year, lakes and rivers have dried up, including the widest river…the great Mississippi River, which is not nearly as wide or as deep as it used to be. The reality is that suddenly, the Mississippi is bone-dry in some places. The average depth of the Mississippi River is normally 9 to 12 feet, with the deepest point being 200 feet. As with any river that is deep enough to run big boats or even little ones, invariably, there comes a sinking or two.
Sometimes, boats that sink can be recovered, and sometimes they can’t. The ship might be at a depth that makes it impossible, or the right equipment might not be available. Whatever the reason, in just about any body of water, there are bound to be a few mysterious finds hiding beneath the surface. As the Mississippi River has gone through the drought this year, there are the expected myriad of boats that are now stranded and languishing on dry land, but there are also a few surprises that are starting to appear. Some of the ships are old, but some are not as old, like the Diamond Lady, a casino boat that used to grace the mighty river. The Diamond Lady was christened in 1991, and was used in Iowa for a time, but in 2019, as things in Iowa got tough, the beautiful casino boat sailed south to an unknown fate in the mighty Mississippi River. The boat had been stored in Lake McKellar, but sank in 2021 during a freeze. Now it has resurfaced again. It’s not the oldest relic in the Mississippi River and the surrounding waterways, but it might have been the most majestic.
Unfortunately, there are sad finds in the river too. The drought has unearthed a sunken 19th-century shipwreck and human remains in the Mississippi River. I’m sure these won’t be the only human remains that suddenly surface, because while drowning victims are often found, there comes with a gambling a certain element that 
often brings the mysterious deaths, whether they are murders or just mysterious deaths whose cause cannot be determined. I’m sure there will be more ship, and possibly more bodies that turn up too. Then, before too long, the waters will return, and the mysteries will once again be hidden beneath the surface of the rivers and lakes.
