Reminiscing
My sister, Cheryl Masterson is the eldest of my sisters, and since our parents passing, the matriarch of the family. That is a position she takes almost as seriously as the one she did when she became a single mom to her five children, Chantel Balcerzak, Toni Chase, Rob Masterson, Elizabeth Masterson, and Jenny Spethman. Cheryl was an excellent mom, always making sure that her kids had the things they needed and making sure they were raised to love the Lord. Cheryl’s house was always the house to hang out at. She always had a house full of kids hanging out, and they all thought of her as a second mom.
Cheryl worked very hard to get an education and became a legal secretary, a job she has held for a number of 
years now. She is very good at. She is the secretary for the busiest attorney in the firm, and whenever she retires, I think they will be hard pressed to replace her. Nevertheless, she is hoping to retire in the next year or so. She has been looking forward to it for some time now. I know it will be a transition for her, because she has worked for most of her life. Still, I know that retirement will feel wonderful too.
Cheryl is my older sister, and the first-born child of our parents. She has always been my first friend. She was there when I came home, and she was a very good big sister. I could always count on her to show me the ropes, even dancing, though I never really managed to catch on to that particular “rope” when she tried to teach it. I think dancing requires a little bit of rhythm too, and if you don’t have it, then the whole thing just 
doesn’t work out too well. Nevertheless, there were many other things that my older sister did manage to teach me. Cheryl always had style too. I often wondered if she had gone to some special “charm” school or something, because when it came to reaching teenage and becoming cool, she was…and I wasn’t. Oh well, thanks for trying Sis!! Today is Cheryl’s birthday. Happy birthday Cheryl, and Happy Mother’s Day!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Our aunt, Charlys Schulenberg is such a sweet person. She has a great smile, and she shares it with those around her often. She also has a spirit that is undaunted by adversity. She never allows things to get her down. Aunt Charlys is a giver of comfort. You may not even have known that you needed a giver of comfort, but when you leave her home, you know that whether you did or you didn’t, you appreciated the comfort given. You may or may not have been sad, you just may have been tired or weary. Charlys just knew how to make you feel taken care of and blessed, and it’s nice to sit down and be taken care of sometimes. She does that very well. Charlys is a wonderful cook and loves to do so. Her area of expertise is comfort food…what else, and it is delicious.
Charlys always wanted to be a mom, and her children are truly her pride and joy. Tadd, Andi Kay, and Heath have filled her life with blessings, including the seven grandchildren they have given her and Uncle Butch, Savannah, Gage, Sophie, Calen, Christian, Heath, and Ethan. The blessing of children has grown into the blessing of grandchildren, and as we all know, that is the reward for surviving our children. Charlys loves the grandchildren, and she is so proud of the people all of her children and grandchildren are becoming.
Traveling has been a big part of who Charlys and Butch are. They especially love to travel to see the kids who don’t live in Forsyth, Montana, where Charlys and Butch live. The younger boys are in sports, so Charlys and 
Butch love getting to watch them play sometimes. It’s hard having the kids and grandkids live somewhere else, but thankfully for them it isn’t too far away. They enjoy the grandkids so much, so it’s nice to have them close by. Charlys and Butch are two of the sweetest people I know, and I love them both very much. I am so thankful to have them in my life. They are a great blessing to so many people…I know, because I am one of those people. Today is Charlys’ birthday. Happy birthday Charlys and Happy Mother’s Day!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Once your mom and mother-in-law move to Heaven, Mother’s Day takes on a different kind of feel. This year, in addition to my mom, Collene Spencer and my mother-in-law, Joann Schulenberg being in Heaven, my sister, Alena Stevens, who was also mom to Michelle Miller, Garrett Stevens, and Lacey Killinger, has gone home to Heaven too. Mother’s Day is supposed to be a day to celebrate Moms, but when our moms live in Heaven, it can feel quite empty. Of course, it isn’t really empty, because I am a mom too, as are my sisters and sisters-in-law, daughters, granddaughters-in-law, and my nieces. So to all of those and to those in Heaven, I wish you a Happy Mother’s Day.
Being a mom is such a blessing, and I can’t express my honor enough at being given my two beautiful 
daughters, Corrie Petersen and Amy Royce. They have always been such great blessing to me. Their kindness and love have made me feel so happy over the years. While I can’t always be with them on this and some other special days, I always know that I am in their thoughts and prayers each day. I love that we talk, either on the phone or by text every day. To know that I am on their minds is such a sweet thought. And I hope that they always know that they are in my thoughts and prayers every day too. They have each given me two wonderful grandchildren and so the blessings grow each and every day. My two granddaughters-in-law, Karen Petersen and Athena Petersen have each blessed me with three great grandchildren, and I love each of them dearly. As my family grows, so grows the depth of the blessing I have been given. God has been, and continues to be, so very good to me. Life is good, and it will only get better and better.
Some people consider days like Mother’s Day and others to be nothing more than a commercial holiday, designed to sell greeting cards, but I could never agree with that. Mother’s Day like so many other designated holidays, is a very special day, when our thoughts turn to our moms and all the blessings they have poured out on us. Of course, I wish I could see them on those special days, but it is not to be, so I will just rejoice in the blessing they have and always will be to me. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms and especially to mine!! I love you so much.
With the invention of the aeroplane, came the inevitable problem of what to do in the event of a failure of said aeroplane. In those days, there was no way for aviators to safely abandon their plane, and that could be a serious problem. Franz Reichelt was an Austrian-Hungarian tailor who wanted to find a solution. So, the inventor in him began to design a suit that could work as what we now know to be a parachute.
Franz Reichelt was born was born on October 16, 1878, in Wegstädtl, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (today it is Štetí, Czech Republic). He moved to Paris, France, in 1898, and obtained French nationality in 1909. At that point, he adopted the first name François, which was the French equivalent of the Germanic “Franz.”
Reichelt began to develop a “parachute-suit” from July 1910. The suit was not much bulkier than one normally worn by an aviator, but it had a few key additions, like a few rods, a silk canopy, and a small amount of rubber that allowed it to fold out to become what Reichelt hoped would be a practical and efficient parachute. Now, all that remained was to test, prove, and introduce his invention.
There had been other parachute successes, such as those of Louis-Sébastien Lenormand and Jean-Pierre Blanchard, but they were a fixed canopy and were only suitable at low altitudes. Jumping from an aeroplane would be impossible with an open-canopy parachute, and André-Jacques Garnerin had invented a frameless parachute suitable for use from high altitudes, but by 1910 there was still no parachute suitable for use in jumping from a plane or at low altitude. Reichelt became interested in parachute design after hearing some of the stories of fatal accidents among the early aeronauts and aviators. As Reichelt began his testing, the early tests were successful as he dropped dummies equipped with foldable silk “wings” that allowed them to touch down lightly when dropped from five floors. It was promising, but the process of converting the prototypes into a wearable “suit” proved difficult.
Originally, the conversion used 65 square feet of material and weighed around 150 pounds. That was not really feasible or practical. Nevertheless, he presented his design to the leading aeronautic organization, La Ligue Aérienne at the Aéro-Club de France, hoping that they would test it. They rejected his designs on the grounds that the construction of the canopy was too weak and tried to discourage him from spending further time on 
development. Not willing to give up, Reichelt persevered and conducted experimental drops with dummies from the courtyard of his building at rue Gaillon. None of his tests proved successful, but Reichelt would not quit. He designed a suit he thought would work and since he couldn’t get anyone to test it, he decided to test it himself, thinking that it just needed a little more altitude to open. Reichelt donned the suit, climbed to the first platform of the Eiffel Tower and jumped. Sadly, the parachute again failed to open, and he fell 187 feet to his death. The test was filmed and recorded what amounted to Reichelt’s unplanned suicide. He must have been absolutely stunned when he realized what was coming.
Today, a flight going over the North Pole would not necessarily be an inconceivable event, but for the same thing to happen in 1926, might be a very unusual event. Nevertheless, not impossible, and according to their claims, polar explorer Richard E Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett flew over the North Pole on May 9, 1926, in the Josephine Ford, a triple-engine Fokker monoplane. I suppose the reason that the statement was made “according to their claims” was because the only documentation available in that era would have been their own word. So, assuming the claim is true, this would have been the first time an aircraft flew over the top of the world. It would be literally going where no man has ever gone before.
Byrd and Bennett took off from Spitsbergen, Norway, and reportedly covered the 1,545-mile trip to the pole and back in 15 hours and 30 minutes. The main reason for the questions concerning the validity of the trip lies in the discovery of Byrd’s diary in 1996. While it didn’t clearly state that the two men didn’t make it to the North Pole, the diary seems to suggest that he and Bennett may have turned back 150 miles short of the pole because of an oil leak. While that was not confirmed, if it is true, then Italian adventurer Umberto Nobile, American Lincoln Ellsworth, and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (who was in 1911 the first person to reach the South Pole by land) would receive the credit for their airship flight over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, three days after Byrd and Bennett’s flight.
While his place as the first to fly over the North Pole is somewhat in question, Byrd’s place in polar exploration is firmly set. He established a US base in Antartica in 1929, and late in the same year, accompanied by aviator Bernt Balchen, he made the undisputed first aircraft flight over the South Pole. Some experts felt that Byrd could not have flown the distance to the North Pole and back in 16 hours. They also questioned his recording of a strong tailwind that had aided Josephine Ford back to Spitsbergen. Byrd’s logbook, records and calculations were hurried to a select panel of scientists at the National Geographic Society. After checking and rechecking 
the data, the committee confirmed that Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett had indeed been the first men to fly over the North Pole. Unfortunately, the men didn’t know they had been vindicated. Floyd Bennett had died of pneumonia in 1928, and Byrd died in his sleep of a heart ailment at the age of 68 on March 11, 1957, at his home at 7 Brimmer Street in the Beacon Hill neighborhood in Boston.
Before men became president of the United States, they led normal lives, and especially normal childhoods. No one is born a president. Even Princes, while born a prince, do not resemble a prince at birth and even through childhood. Those things are trained. The same would apply to Zachary Taylor, future President of the United States. Taylor grew up in a world that was very different than ours today. Parts of the United States didn’t even belong to the United States yet. The United States and Mexico had a year-long conflict that erupted in a full-blown war on May 13, 1846, but even before the United States formally declared war on Mexico, General Zachary Taylor defeated a superior Mexican force in the Battle of Palo Alto north of the Rio Grande River. That battle took place on May 8, 1846
The conflict really started when the United States annexed the Republic of Texas as a new US state. The drift toward war with Mexico had begun a year earlier when the U.S. annexed the Republic of Texas as a new state. Ten years before, the Mexicans had fought an unsuccessful war with Texans to keep them from breaking away to become an independent nation. Since then, they had refused to recognize the independence of Texas or the Rio Grande River as an international boundary. The United States did not make any attempt to annex Texas until 1844, but it appeared that Texas was growing more interested in the possibility of becoming part of the United States. Texas was formally admitted to the Union on December 29, 1845, as the 28th state. In January 1846, fearing the Mexicans would respond to US annexation by asserting control over disputed territory in southwestern Texas, President James K Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor to move a force into Texas to defend the Rio Grande border.
Hoping to avoid the battle, Polk had tried to settle the matter diplomatically, but when that failed, Taylor was ordered to take his forces up to the disputed borderline at the Rio Grande. The Mexican General Mariano Arista 
viewed this as a hostile invasion of Mexican territory, and on April 25, 1846, he took his soldiers across the river and attacked. Congress declared war on May 13 and authorized a draft to build up the US Army. The problem Taylor faced, however, that with the skirmishes he was already involved in, he was in no position to await formal declaration of a war that he was already fighting. For him, the war had already started, when the Mexican army attacked him. In the weeks following the initial skirmish along the Rio Grande, Taylor engaged the Mexican army in two battles. On May 8th, near Palo Alto, and on May 9th at Resaca de la Palma, Taylor led his 200 soldiers to victories against much larger Mexican forces. Poor training and inferior armaments undermined the Mexican army’s troop size advantage. One problem the Mexican army faced was that Mexican gunpowder was of such poor quality that artillery barrages often sent cannonballs bouncing lazily across the battlefield, and the American soldiers merely had to step out of the way to avoid them. It was like fighting a battle with spitballs.
After triumphs at Palo Alto and Resaca de Palma, Taylor crossed the Rio Grande, carrying the conflict into Mexican territory. Over the subsequent ten months he achieved victory in four battles and secured control over three northeastern Mexican states. In the following year, the war’s front shifted to other regions, reducing Taylor’s role in it. Other generals in the campaign moved into mor prominent roles, which ultimately concluded with General Winfield Scott’s capture of Mexico City September 1847. While Zachary Taylor’s part in the end of the war was smaller, he emerged from the war a national hero, often referred to as “Old Rough and Ready” and the people assumed that his military victories meant that he would be a good political leader. Of course, dominance in one area of life does not mean proficiency in another. Nevertheless, he was elected president in 
1848. He proved to be an unskilled politician who tended to see complex problems in overly simplistic ways, which doesn’t bode well for a nation’s president. In July 1850, Taylor returned from a public ceremony and complained that he felt ill. Suffering from a recurring attack of cholera, he died several days later. Taylor was president from March 4, 1849 to July 9, 1850. He was succeeded by Vice President, Millard Fillmore, in office from July 9, 1850 to March 4, 1853, with no Vice President.
In 1898, there were no automobiles in Wyoming yet. Then, a 26-year-old man named Elmer Lovejoy, an influential mechanic in Laramie set out to change all that. Lovejoy had been quietly working on his “horseless carriage” and on May 7, 1898, he introduced the first automobile built west of the Mississippi River. Lovejoy took his new “toy” for a leisurely drive through downtown Laramie, going an “unimaginable” 8 miles an hour.
Lovejoy was a mechanical genius. The automobile he designed and built was a steam-propelled carriage that carried four people comfortably. Lovejoy designed balloon tires for his automobile and had them specially made in Chicago. Commercial balloon tires were not routinely used on automobiles until almost thirty years later. While Lovejoy’s car was not the first ever invented, he was the first to realize that cars would need pneumatic tires, not just solid rubber tires.
Elmer Lovejoy was born in Illinois on Feb. 2, 1872. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1883, and the family 
moved to Laramie in search of a drier climate, which was commonly prescribed for tuberculosis victims. He graduated from Laramie High School and went off to college at University of Wyoming. He knew early on that books weren’t really for him, so he dropped out of college after just three short months. He then became an apprentice at the Cook & Callahan planning mill. While he wasn’t good at “book learning,” he picked up things very fast at the mill. Very soon, he was assigned to major construction projects like the Edward and Jane Ivinson mansion, which is now the Laramie Plains Museum. He was also assigned the Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Cathedral project.
Lovejoy became an excellent businessman. It was well known that Elmer Lovejoy could fix anything. That is typical of a great mechanic. A little tinkering, and before you know it, the problem is solved. Lovejoy lived and worked in Laramie until 1953. Lovejoy, who was considered Laramie’s grand old man of mechanics put away his tool chest and, with his wife, Gertrude, whom he had married on August 3, 1930, in Maine. He left Laramie in 
1953, for the warmer climate of Santa Ana, California, in which to spend his golden years. While he was retired, he never really stopped tinkering. Lovejoy died in California in 1960. He was loved by many and even had a popular downtown hangout down the street from his shop. Elmer Lovejoy’s Bar and Grill was named in his honor.
The Great Depression, and the ensuing jobs loss found 10 million men without a job by May of 1935. I think anyone who has studied the Great Depression much, probably has their own opinion of what cause the problems that led up to the stock market crash and the Great Depression that followed. I think everyone also has their own opinion on what things helped improve things, and what things prolonged the situation. Whatever the case may be, President Franklin D Roosevelt decided that some changes had to be made, and some helps had to be put in place. One such change occurred on May 6, 1935, when Roosevelt signed an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The WPA was just one of many Great Depression relief programs that Roosevelt created under the umbrella of the Emergency Relief Appropriations Act, which he had signed the month before. The WPA, the Public Works Administration (PWA), and other federal assistance programs were designed to be a way of putting unemployed Americans to work in exchange for temporary financial assistance. Out of the 10 million jobless men in the United States in 1935, 3 million were helped by WPA jobs alone.
While the programs actually put the United States further in debt, I guess we did make a trade for that assistance. Roosevelt believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, but he also expressed a great dislike for handing out welfare to otherwise able workers. That said, the WPA program and the others he set up, found the workers building highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They also restored theaters, like the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, South Carolina and built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mount Hood. In that way, the payments given to them were not free. I do agree with a fair day’s wage for a job done. Still, it would just be best if the government wasn’t paying for it.
The WPA also employed actors, writers, and other creative arts professionals by funding federally sponsored plays, art projects such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. Roosevelt protected private enterprise from competing with WPA projects by incorporating a provision in the act that imposed wage and price controls on federally funded products and services. Again, while these people actually did a job for their wages, the thing to note is that these were “federally funded” which meant that the government was going further and further into debt. It seems to me that there must have been a better way to get people back to work, but these programs were what was done in the depression prolonging “New Deal” that Roosevelt set up.
In the years leading up to World War II and the huge defense-industry production that came with the war, the economy came roaring back in 1940. This allowed the opponents of the “New Deal” in Congress to gradually pare back WPA appropriations. In 1943, Congress suspended many of the programs under the ERA Act, including the WPA, because people were back to work doing more of the necessary jobs again.
For years, police and bars have tried to figure out the best way to deal with drunken patrons, but I don’t think anyone has ever come up with as good a plan as the bars in Turkey in the 1960s. Of course, the police have little recourse in the case of drunk drivers. They simply have to stop, test, and arrest when the test shows that the driver is over the limit. That is, of course, the worst-case scenario. For a long time, the police and the bars have been trying to cut back on DUIs, and so they have come up with ways to get the drunk patron home safely and without arrest. That leaves the arrests for the most harden drunks, or the stupid ones, who won’t take the offered help. They kind of shoot themselves in the foot, so to speak. Free rides in Taxis, designated drivers, and uber rides are all ways to avoid the dreaded DUI. I’m not sure if these methods have reduced the number of DUTs or not, but they are valiant efforts.
In Turkey, in the 1960s, things were handled a little bit differently. When someone was at the bar, and they had a little too much to drink, the bar owners came up with a very unique plan. They hired men to literally pick up the drunken person and place them in a big basket. Then, the drunk was transported home in said basket. Imagine if you were walking the streets of Turkey, when you didn’t know about this practice. You might be shocked seeing such a scene. Nevertheless, these men, called küfeci, were just doing their job. The bars hire hunched men, who were obviously strong, load up a belligerent drunk, stick them in a basket they carried on their back, and take him to his house. Many of these men were in a…less than happy mood, to say the least.
As for the küfeci, their job was relatively simple. Bars would hire these men, who were often porters during the day, to carry home drunk customers at night. Their name comes from the Turkish word küfe, which means being too drunk to walk. I can’t exactly imagine trying to carry a man on my back…drunk or not, but I would assume that the belligerent drunk would be much more difficult to carry than the sober man, but then you would have no need to carry the sober man either. I’m sure the küfeci had to be strong men, if they were going to be able to do their job. Still, it wouldn’t be that easy, either way, but it would be interesting…very interesting. Don’t you think?
The mouth of the Columbia River is located about 10 miles west of Astoria, Oregon. It is where the Columbia River meets the ocean, forming a wide estuary that stretches for several miles along the coast. The river’s mouth is one of the most hazardous stretches of water to navigate in the world due to the shifting sandbar that makes up the Columbia Bar. The mouth of the Columbia is unusual for a big river because it has no delta. The Columbia River does not have a delta because it changes direction near Portland, Oregon, and heads north instead of westward toward the Pacific Ocean. Additionally, powerful waves and currents in the ocean prevent the sediment from forming a delta. This also makes that area quite treacherous for ships going in and out.
Since 1800 the coastal stretch from Tillamook Bay into Vancouver Island, which includes the mouth of the Columbia River and the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, has claimed over 2,000 vessels and possibly as 
many as 1,000 lives. The interplay of river flow and offshore currents produced a constantly shifting sandbar at the mouth of the Columbia River, posing a significant navigational hazard. In addition, fog and violent North Pacific weather systems, as well as sheer misfortune often led to ships foundering, burning, or being wrecked against the shore. During the California Gold Rush, when sailing ships and steamers transported lumber to California, mariners began referring to the area as the Graveyard of the Pacific. Light houses, lightships, buoys, as well as audible and electronic beacons assisted mariners in locating the Columbia’s entrance, while navigational improvements such as jetties and a dredged channel reduced major disasters after the 1920s. Unfortunately, the sea continues to claim lives annually.
The mouth of the Columbia and the near-shore areas to the north and south are littered with shipwrecks. That area alone has more than 330 known shipwrecks. Some, like the Peter Iredale, which ran aground on the 
Oregon shore south of the river in 1906, are visible to this day. The skeleton of the Peter Iredale still stands like a decrepit old house, except that this one doesn’t seem to be crumbling. It has, of course, but for a shipwreck that is almost 120 years old, it has really deteriorated quite slowly. I suppose that is a tribute to how well ships are built. Nevertheless, even an expertly built ship is not always a match for the Columbia Bar.
