Me
When an injury occurs, such as a broken bone, most often you are unable to participate in your normal sports activities. My case was no different. On October 18, 2015, I broke my shoulder in a fall, while hiking the Bridle Trail on Casper Mountain. It was a break that required surgery to repair, and of course, the healing of the broken bone was followed by physical therapy, which I continue to do. My case has been considered unusual, in that a break that is supposed to be among the most painful, has not been extremely painful to me. I don’t know if I just have a high tolerance for pain, if my surgeon just did an amazing job, or if my break, which twisted the ball of my shoulder joint a quarter turn, was not as bad as they thought…an unlikely scenario, I think. My guess is that I have a high tolerance for pain, because my surgeon is surprised that I’m not hurting more than I am. Physical therapy is an amazing journey in its own right, and I continue to get closer and closer to full restoration every day.
My healing process is going well, and today I received the go ahead To begin bowling again. I am excited about getting back to normal, but I must say that taking up bowling again will not be done without a degree of apprehension. Remember, it was a fall that broke my shoulder in the first place, and I slide about half of the approach. Needless to say, that is going to feel like a long distance to someone who has missed almost three months of the bowling season. Nevertheless, I will take up bowling again, because I refuse to let fear or apprehension beat me. I don’t necessarily expect to bowl great, but it will be great to take that next step back to my normal life.
Many times, an accident can mean the end of that and many other activities, but I refuse to quit, and I have no immediate plans to modify my bowling style. 
I have bowled this way for 30 years, after all. Still, my stubbornness will most likely carry me through. My husband, Bob thinks I should try a couple of shots before I decide, and I think that’s a good idea, because it has been three months. So, I have thrown that first ball, and I must admit that I was literally shaking. I felt like a baby trying to take those first steps away from a table, although I can’t say that I recall if I was shaking with those first steps. As my game has proceeded, I find myself with two spares and three strikes in six frames, and the shaking has stopped. I guess you might say that I’m back. I’m sure my left arm has a ways to go yet, but I am on my way to full restoration, and with a 178 my first game, I can honestly say that it’s good to be back!!
Wherever there is snow, you can bet there will be a snowman. Maybe not in every yard, but in many of them. I’m not sure who first has the idea to make a snowman, but once it got started, it caught on quickly. Now it is simply a winter tradition, and if the littlest ones are too little, their parents will build it fir them or assist in building it if need be.
The building of the first snowman is unknown, but Bob Eckstein, author of The History of the Snowman documented snowmen back to medieval times. He researched paintings in European museums, art galleries, and libraries. The earliest documentation he found was a marginal illustration from a work titled Book of Hours from 1380, found in Koninklijke Bibliotheek, in The Hague. Who knew that snowmen went back that far.
When it comes to the tallest snowman, we would have to clarify the 122 feet 1 inch snowman, was actually a snow woman. She was built in 2008 in Bethel, Maine, and was named in honor of Olympia Snowe, a United States Senator representing the state of Maine. In 2015, a man from the Wisconsin was noted for making a large snowman 22 feet tall and with a base 12 feet wide. Still, the average snowman stands between three and six feet tall, because that is the height that the average builder takes the time to do. There are several ways to build a snowman, and in fact the styles can be very creative, or total disasters, depending on the abilities of the builder. Some people are even snowman artists. Their snowmen look like actual sculptures.
As kids, my sisters and I have built more snowmen than we can count. Some turned out great and others, not so much. I don’t recall seeing a lot of pictures of our snowmen, but we came across one of my sister, Cheryl Masterson building one that I’m sure our dad must have helped with. I suppose that milestones like building your first snowman didn’t exactly fall into place the same category as those first steps or high school graduation, but it is still a first. Unfortunately, like most of the lesser firsts, there isn’t usually as much documentation as the subsequent children come along. Or it could be that little firsts like snowmen just don’t seem all that important when you have multiple children. They are just another winter tradition.
Lots of people do it, but some people don’t. What…you might ask. The answer is to photograph the family whenever they cross the border into a new state, country, or sometimes even county. When my sisters and I were kids, our parents took us on vacation every year. We were quite blessed in that way, and have been to almost all the states, as well as Canada and Mexico, with some of us traveling even further away than that. All through those years, one of the big memories is the Border Crossings. I’m sure many people might think that sounds silly, but it was proof that was had been in that place. Anyone can say they have been to many places around the world, but if you have no pictures to prove it, how do people know that you aren’t just a braggart.
For me it is about owning that place, I suppose. It’s not that I purchased land in every place I’ve been, but rather that each place that have put my feet on the ground in has been permanently fixed in my memory files. I have those pictures and many others in my memory to remind me of the great trip we took to this or that place. I carry those pictures in my memory files, just like my Kindle carries the assorted books I have purchased in its memory files. The items stored there can be accessed at a moment’s notice. I can see the 
area, remember the sights we saw, remember who we were with, and the wonderful time we had there. Those memories are mine forever.
There are many kinds of border crossings, both good and bad, but the ones I choose to carry with me are the crossings from state to state as we wandered across this great nation. If you haven’t traveled much you just can’t understand how amazing this country is. There is beauty from coast to coast. So many people think that only their dream location has beauty, but that is so untrue. Every place on this Earth has some form of beauty. We must simply look for it. I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to see so many places, and discover the beauty in each one. Our parents wanted that for their girls. They were those people who would drive miles out of their way to see this or that historical site, and because of their willingness, and the fact that they considered each place important, my sisters and I can say that we have seen things like the Oregon Trail, old West Jailhouses, wagon ruts in rocks made by years of wheels going across them chipping away grain after grain of the rock, and canyons carved in rocks by rivers that have wandered through there for centuries. We have seen a crater formed by a meteor, a lake formed by an earthquake, and mountains formed by volcanoes. We have seen the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the Gulf of Mexico, as well as the Great Lakes, and the Great 
Salt Lake. We have seen the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State building, and the World Trade Center. We have seen the faces of the Presidents on Mount Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, ridden the 1880 Train, and some of us have hiked much of the Black Hills, including Harney Peak. We have seen the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Warf, and Alcatraz, as well as The Space Needle, many lighthouses, and countless beaches. So many places fill my memory files, and they all started with the first border crossing, as we left home on one of our wonderful family vacations.
When I first met Bob’s Aunt Esther, we had not been married very long, and unfortunately for Bob, he had made the mistake of assuming that I knew how to cut hair. Well, in reality, I did, but there is a vast difference between cutting my sisters’ long, one length hair, and his short and in need of a tapered look hair. Needless to say, I cut his hair at one length most of the way around and a bit shorter above the ears and shorter still on his forehead, but still no tapering. It was kind of a disaster…and it was right before our wedding…Ugh!! Bob was a god sport about it…after the initial shock and argument over what in the world I had been thinking. I told him I didn’t know how, but he thought his mother would cut it too short, so he was left with me. His mistake, not mine…right!!
That summer, we went up to Forsyth, Montana to visit Bob’s grandparents, Vina and Walt Hein, who are his Aunt Esther’s parents. Bob’s hair, unfortunately for him, is rather slow growing, and the summer still found his hair not looking too great. Since Esther was a cosmetologist, Bob decided to play it safe and have her cut his hair…still rubbing it in a bit that I had butchered it the last time he let me near it. The situation was quickly getting ready to turn into an argument, when Esther offered to teach me how to cut his hair. It was the best thing she could have done, because over the years, it has saved us untold amounts of money on haircuts for Bob…not to mention years of embarrassment about how awful it really looked.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know how bad his hair looked after I cut it, but rather it was the fact that there was 
nothing I could do about it, and every time he looked in the mirror to comb his hair, there it was…a constant reminder. It got easier as it got longer, but he wasn’t going to let me touch it. Esther taking the time to not only cut it well, but to show me how to cut it right, was a definite saving grace for me, because now I can cut it and do it right.
Of course, cutting hair isn’t the only thing Esther is talented at. She is a great seamstress, and makes amazing quilts as well. Her paintings have graced several homes that I know of, including mine. Esther is a woman of many talents, and I’m glad she has shared some of them with me. Today is Esther’s birthday. Happy birthday Esther!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
When I was a kid, my taste in music was probably a little unconventional compared to my peers. When everyone else was into Creedence Clearwater Revival, I liked the Partridge Family…odd, I know, and I have been told…repeatedly. What can I say? Of course, these musical choices were not considered the most odd, according to my peers, and I suppose they would be right, but the reality is that I simply liked different kinds of music than most.
The most odd musical choice, I suppose, was when I discovered classical music in junior high school. It was in my music class, and our teacher played “The Nutcracker” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I was hooked!! I began to listen to other classical artists…Gershwin, Mozart, Bach, and any others that I could find. Classical music was so soothing, and yet sometimes…so intense!! While classical music isn’t the kind of music I listen to all the time, it is something I enjoy listening to once in a while. I’m sure that many people would think it’s odd, especially for a junior high school student, but I liked it, and that was all that mattered. My choices were my own to make, and while I wasn’t considered an odd duck, mostly because it wasn’t something I spoke of very often, I suppose I could 
have seemed odd to anyone who found out about it. It is kind of sad that we are so concerned about what our peers think…especially in junior high, but that is when we are at our most vulnerable, and to be an odd duck would be bad.
Tchaikovsky began piano lessons at age five. Within three years he had become as adept at reading sheet music as his teacher. His parents, initially supportive, hired a tutor, bought an orchestrion, which is a form of barrel organ that could imitate elaborate orchestral effects. They encouraged his piano study for both aesthetic and practical reasons. However, they decided in 1850, to send Tchaikovsky to the Imperial School of Jurisprudence in Saint Petersburg. They had both graduated from institutes in Saint Petersburg and the School of Jurisprudence, which mainly served the lesser nobility, would prepare Tchaikovsky for a career as a civil servant. This was mostly because there was not many opportunities for a musician in Russia at that time. Nevertheless, when an opportunity arose for him to be educated in music, he seized the opportunity, and entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The Western leaning teaching he received there set him apart from composers trained in the traditional the Russian style. 
Tchaikovsky suffered from depression and personal crisis for much of his life. I have to wonder if his music was a form of release.
The origin of the Nutcracker, a classic Christmas Story, is a fairy tale ballet in two acts centered on a family’s Christmas Eve celebration. The Nutcracker Ballet was Alexandre Dumas Père’s adaptation of the story by E.T.A. Hoffmann. Tchaikovsky set it to music and Marius Petipa choreographed the ballet. It was commissioned by the director of Moscow’s Imperial Theatres, Ivan Vsevolozhsky, in 1891, and premiered December 18, 1892. Tchaikovsky composed other music, but for me, The Nutcracker is without any doubt my favorite.
Since my dad was stationed in England during World War II, and because many of my ancestors come from England, I am interested in all things English. Of course, that doesn’t mean that I know everything about England, and I think it would be pretty difficult to do that with any country, including the country I live in…the United States. That said, I learned something about England today. England is an island nation as most people know, and that can make travel to mainland Europe difficult and expensive. Travel to Hawaii would be a good example of that, and Hawaii isn’t even it’s own nation. Nevertheless, most of us have to save up our money to make the trip to Hawaii.
So, what does that have to do with England, you might ask. Well…everything. While an alternate mode of transportation to get to Hawaii…other than ship or plane, is not feasible for Hawaii…for England, maybe it could be. As early as the days of Napoleon Bonaparte, in 1802, people were looking for a way to connect England to France. Nothing came of those early suggestions, because the necessary technology was not available until the 20th century. The proposal was that since England and France were no longer at war, they should permanently connect their countries by way of a tunnel. The Channel Tunnel, later dubbed the Chunnel runs from Folkestone, England to Calais, France. The tunnel is 31 miles across, but in total there are 95 
miles of tunnels. There are two railway tunnels, and a service tunnel. The work began on in 1986, and took four years to connect the two sides. Approximately 13,000 workers dug the 95 miles of tunnels at an average depth of 150 feet below sea level. Eight million cubic meters of soil were removed, at a rate of about 2,400 tons per hour. When it was finished, the Chunnel would have three interconnected tubes, including one rail track in each direction and one service tunnel. It cost $15 billion to complete.
Most of us don’t give much thought to tunnels, but when it comes to underwater tunnels…well, that is just different. Of course, we all know of the Holland Tunnel that connects New York and New Jersey, but that tunnel isn’t nearly as long as the Chunnel. The Holland Tunnel is a little over a mile and a half, which pales by comparison to the Chunnel’s 31 miles. On December 1, 1990, after four long years of work, the two sides of the Chunnel were connected. Workers exchanged French and British flags and toasted each other with champagne. It was a great day. The Channel Tunnel finally opened for passenger service on May 6, 1994, with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and France’s President Francois Mitterrand on hand in Calais for the inaugural run. A company called Eurotunnel won the 55 year contract to operate the Chunnel, which is the crucial stretch of the 
Eurostar high speed rail link between London and Paris. The regular shuttle train through the tunnel runs 31 miles in total, with 23 of those underwater and it takes 20 minutes, with an additional 15 minute loop to turn the train around. The Chunnel is the second-longest rail tunnel in the world, after the Seikan Tunnel in Japan.
Things like this fascinate me. I like the idea of something as unique as the Chunnel. I like the interesting fact that it is in England. And I like the fact that, the Chunnel is the longest underwater section, longest international tunnel, second-longest railway tunnel in the world. Some day, I hope to ride the train through that tunnel. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Every year, after Thanksgiving is over, it’s time to put up the Christmas decorations. And every year, I find myself with fewer and fewer of my little helpers to deck the halls of my home. I suppose that as time goes by, there will be a new group of little helpers to spend that special time with me, but for now, I’m hoping to have at least a couple to help on Saturday with my Christmas decorations. Either way, I will get my decorations up this weekend, because there are only so many days to get it done, and I must make hay while the sun shines…as the old saying goes.
Thinking of the decorating ahead, takes my thoughts back to the times that my family decorated our house when I was a kid. Things were very different then. I don’t recall putting up the Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, but it might have been about that time. What I do remember is my four sisters and me and our parents decorating the tree, while we sang Christmas carols and 
ate popcorn and other snacks. It was a big deal, and none of us would have missed it.
I remember the fanfare that led up to the decorating. We went to the lots to purchase our tree…because there weren’t any artificial trees then. We brought it home and Dad cut the excess length off so the tree would fit in the house. The fragrance of the pine filled the house, and made everything so festive. Mom and Dad would string the lights and garland. Then it was time for my sisters and me to start putting up the ornaments. Mom and Dad taught us to carefully place the ornaments to create the most beautiful effect on the tree. I’m sure that our training took time. Nevertheless, with patience and practice, we got pretty good at it. One thing that eventually went by the wayside…in most families I think is tinsel. As you can see, we all had a handful and were carefully placing it on the tree, but no matter how careful you were, that stuff always ended up on the floor or tangled in the tree branches, which wasn’t a problem with a real tree, but definitely a problem in an artificial tree.
It didn’t matter how old we were. From the oldest to the youngest, even if the youngest was only 2 years old, we decorated the tree. It was so much fun. In fact I think we looked forward to it all year. Traditions are that way. Once you start them and find them to be a lot of fun, you wish you could do them every day, but I suppose that would get boring after a while, so it’s a good thing they only come once a year. As I think back of those traditions from my youth, I feel a bit sad, because all too soon, those days are gone, and we can never get them back. We must move forward, start our own traditions, and accept the changes that have come, because that is what life is all about…whether we like it or not.
I think most people have heard the Bible verse, John 15:13 “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” People may not realize that this is a Bible verse, but they know what they thought was an old saying. Either way, the verse was talking about Jesus dying on the cross to save the world from it’s sin, but I don’t think that was all it was about. It hadn’t really occurred to me before, but when my pastor was preaching a couple of weeks ago, this verse was part of his sermon. Of course, he talked about Jesus sacrifice, but suddenly something jumped out in my mind. This verse was about far more than Jesus sacrifice, or it wouldn’t have talked about the greater love a person can have if they choose to lay down their life for their friend. It was about how we are all supposed to be.
It was at that moment that a thought came to me. There is more than one way to “lay down your life.” Of 
course, the verse meant to die for your friend, and many is the hero who has done that, but it occurred to me that dying is not the only way to lay down your life for someone. In fact, caregivers lay down their life all the time. They set aside their normal life activities, and take the time to take care of another person. I’m not trying to blow my own horn, but rather I want to talk about all of the many caregivers I know of and those I don’t, because their sacrifice is amazing. The patient they care for, would be in a nursing home, were it not for the loving kindness shown to them by a friend or family member who laid down their own life to give that time to another. It is one of the greatest showings of love there is, and it is also very rewarding for the caregiver, although sometimes it is sad too. For just a little bit of time, almost always a relatively short lived little bit of time, at least in the grand scheme of time, you have the chance to be the wind beneath their wings…the one who holds them up and cares for their needs…the one who had the privilege to lay down their own life to care for a loved one.
Yes, greater love hath no man, than that a man lay down his life for his friend…to actually die for his friend, but there is another way that is just as wonderful, and just as loving…to lay down your own needs, desires, activities, time…to care for another human being who desperately needs your help. So here’s to all the Caregivers I know, and to all those that I don’t know. You truly are among the greatest of people on Earth, because you have make a sacrifice that shows the ultimate amount of love you had for your loved one. It makes me proud to be a part of such an elite, amazing group of people. Today is National Family Caregiver Day, and I hope it is an amazing day for all of you.
When I was about 10 years old or so, my family and my Uncle Bill’s family went to the Jackson, Wyoming area. While we were stopped at a lookout point for the Teton Mountains, my dad told a story, or maybe read the story about a plane that had crashed on Mount Moran on November 21, 1950. He told us that because of the difficulty in reaching the site, the plane and the remains of the 21 people lost in the crash were never removed from the site. My young mind could not seem to get past the fact that those bodies were still on that mountain top. I had a terrible time sleeping. I don’t know if I felt like we were somehow camping someplace we shouldn’t be, which was silly, because that site was miles from where we were camped. Nevertheless, it bothered me very much at that time. Now, many years later, I would know that the mountain was simply a burial place for the victims of a tragic crash.
While I am no longer haunted by the thought of those lost ones buried in the ice at the top of the mountain, I really never lost my curiosity about the crash and just who those people were. Then, a few weeks ago, I found that today would be the 65th anniversary of that crash. It seemed like it was time to find out more about it. The plane, a new Douglas DC-3, was owned by New Tribes Mission. It was on the first leg of a trip to South America. It left Chico, California and was bound for Billings, Montana. The last radio report in was over Idaho Falls, Idaho at 3:48pm. Then it was reported overdue at Billings, leaving the sinking feeling that something tragic had happened. A resort owner said he saw a burning fuselage in the flames far above timberline on the east face of Mount Moran. When the fire subsided, he could see nothing resembling a campfire, which might have indicated survivors. Gaining access to the site was going to prove extremely difficult, and with temperatures seriously low, the chance of anyone making it through that first night were next to none. Of course, you can guess the outcome of the crash. All those on board were lost.
Removing the wreckage and the bodies of the victims proved to be a very difficult, if not impossible task, and in the end, it was decided that the wreckage and the remains would be left on the mountain. The crash site is just north of the top of the handle of Skillet Glacier. Sometimes a glint of the wreckage can be seen to this day on a sunny summer afternoon when the light is just right. The crash site remains a resting place for those lost souls, and hikers who pass the site are expected to show their respect by leaving this mountain gravesite undisturbed. The site is the burial ground for the ten men, four women, and seven children who’s remains are still entombed in the wreckage. I suppose that these days, while the plane might have been left on the mountain, the remains of the victims would have most certainly been removed allowing the families to give them a proper burial.
Hikers who have passed the wreckage have said that it has an eerie feeling. I’m sure it has to do with being so close to the remains of the victims of that horrible crash. I can totally relate to how they felt, because on that day, when we were camping just within sight of the mountain where the wreckage and the victims still remained, I could not sleep. I was not afraid of being haunted or anything silly like that, but rather I guess it felt like I was an intruder, much like the Native Americans felt when the White Man went through their burial grounds. It was just not the right place to be. I think I would feel even more like I was in the wrong place, if I ever hiked that mountain, and came upon that sight. I still have an eerie feeling about it to this day…or maybe it is just a sadness for those lost ones. I’m still not sure about that…to this day.
We often don’t realize how much we are like our parents or our children are like us, until a picture provides us with the realization that the thing we thought was so cute they our child did, was not so very different than the things we did at their age. That very thing jumped out at me when I was looking at this picture of my sister, Cheryl Masterson and me holding our cats when we were little girls. I was probably about the same age then as my daughter, Amy Royce was when she, because of her love for her kitties wanted to hold the two of them at once. Because her little arms were not able to keep the kitties held around their tummies, they ended up being held around their necks. I was always impressed with those sweet cats, in that they did not scratch my little daughter for putting them in that precarious position, but rather seemed to understand that she loved them and that she was doing her best. I have seen cats scratch a child for less, but our cats never did. 
Had I known then, what I do now, I might have thought to get a picture of Amy holding our cats by their necks, but while I thought it was very cute, and I have never forgotten it, somehow, I never thought to take that picture, and so the kitty events of Amy’s past live only in my memory files now. Nevertheless, looking at the picture my parents did think to take, I can see that the apple certainly doesn’t fall far from the tree. Quite possibly, Amy got her kitty handling skills from her mom, since the neck seemed to be the easiest place for me to hold my kitties too, and since they don’t look particularly upset be the whole situation, I guess they didn’t scratch me either.
There are many ways that Amy is my mini-me, and this picture just goes to show that. We are alike in our personalities, and in the way we do things…although I must say I was surprised to find that when it came to handling cats, we were exactly the same too. What I find equally surprising is that our cats never took our clumsiness out on us. They just instinctively knew that we loved them very much, and that was enough for the 
cats. I can imagine that my mom and dad tried repeatedly to get me to hold the kitties differently, but somehow it always ended up the same…just like it did with Amy.
Cats can be mean, and scratch you for the slightest infraction of the rules of pet care, but I think that when they know that you are a little kid, and that you are doing your best, they tend to cut you a little slack. I don’t think I ever hit the cats or pulled on their tails, and I know that Amy didn’t either. Our cats just knew that we were their little human, and they loved us very much. That shows in the amount of time they spent around us, even if we were asleep. Yes, in pet interests, as well as many other areas of life, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
