Reminiscing
The average person speaks one, or maybe two languages, but there are those among us who have an ability to master multiple languages. Whenever we hear of someone who can speak multiple languages, most of us are rather surprised actually. It’s hard to wrap our minds around the idea that someone can speak and comprehend more than a couple of languages. Nevertheless, there are a number of people who can do just that. For me, one extra language, while not overly difficult, was enough. I suppose a lot depends on how motivated you are too, as was proven through other monarchs of the era.
One of the first people on record, at least that I have ever heard of was Cleopatra. She was the Queen of ancient Egypt from 51 BC to 30 BC. I think what really surprises me on that is the fact that in those days, many women were not even educated at all. Still, I suppose that her stature allowed Cleopatra to receive an education that many other women of that era could not. Cleopatra was the first member of her dynasty to speak Ancient Egyptian. That wasn’t enough for her though. She was also able to speak eight other languages including Ancient Greek, Ancient Iranian, Ancient Parthian, Syriac, Ethiopian, Troglodytae, Hebrew, and Arabic. That is so shocking to me. My mind would probably jumble the different languages mid-sentence. I’m not a dummy, but I guess my mind just isn’t geared toward multiple languages.
So, why would Cleopatra choose to learn so many languages? Apparently, she wanted to restore the territories that once belonged to the Ptolemaic Kingdom across North Africa and West Asia. In addition, she wanted to be 
able to converse directly with the people in her kingdom. I guess that would be that mark of a good monarch. Cleopatra could easily switch between languages, and she rarely needed an interpreter even when speaking with her subjects who usually spoke their own language. She spoke to her subjects unassisted and replied to them in their own language. This was very unusual, because the kings of Egypt before Cleopatra had never made the effort to learn any of the native languages. Whether or not she was a good monarch or even actually spoke that many languages, I can’t say, nor can anyone else, considering the years she was a monarch, but I think it says something that she tried to communicate with the people she served over.
It’s National Amy Day!!! Did you even know there was such a thing? I didn’t, but for our family, Amy Day is usually celebrated on June 1st, because that is our Amy’s birthday. Nevertheless, today is actually National Amy Day, so we will celebrate again!! To put it quite simply, National Amy Day is a day set aside to celebrate girls named Amy. It is not the only name that has a set aside day to celebrate it, but I thought it was interesting anyway.
National Amy Day is celebrated every year on January 28th. In modern French, Amy is an English variant of the Old French name Aimée. Amée was a translation of ‘Amata,’ a Latin name originating from ‘Amatus,’ which means ‘beloved.’ That meaning was one of 
the things I liked about the name Amy. Amie and Ami are two other spelling possibilities. Although it is much less popular for babies these days, Amy was the second most popular baby name in the 1970s, right after Jennifer. That makes sense then, because my Amy was born in 1976. It is still a short, charming “Little Women’s” style classic today.
I first came across the name, not from the movie “Little Women,” but from a western show I used to watch years ago, called “The Monroes.” The show only lasted a year, from 1966 to 1967. It was a story of the survival of a group of five kids heading West, whose parents died in an accident. The kids were determined to go on, to fulfill their parents’ dream. The youngest sibling was played by Tammy Locke, and her name was Amy. She was 
such a cute little girl. I had never known anyone named Amy, but I liked this little girl, even though her name wasn’t really Amy either. I guess that is probably how many different names become popular. Whatever the case may be, we have always felt blessed to have our Amy, as well as her older sister, Corrie, who also has a day…I have discovered.
Little did I know that there is also a National Corey Day, that falls on December 10th…but that’s a story for another day. Today is National Amy Day, so happy National Amy Day to all the Amy’s out there. Have a great day!!
The past few years, my niece, Lacey Killinger has been living her dream life. On October 28, 2023. They decided to wait on their honeymoon until April, and it was totally worth the wait. They went to Cancun, Mexico, and had so much fun that they want to go back sometime in the future. One of the highlights of the trip was when they went swimming in caves down there. The cave walls were beautiful, and it was a very different experience for them. The trip was one they won’t forget. Lacey and Chris have very demanding jobs, and when the time came for the trip, they were both very ready. With her marriage to Chris, Lacey became a bonus mom to his children, Brooklyn (11) and Jaxon (9). She is really enjoying that new part of her life. The kids really love her, and she really loves them.
Lacey owns and operates LuxLou Beauty, where she specializes in hair and makeup for weddings, although she does both for other occasions too. Her business is doing fantastic she loves her salon and all her clients. Her 
business is doing so well, in fact, that the family “had” to take a trip to the Black Hills of South Dakota over Labor Day so Lacey could do a girl’s hair and makeup for her wedding. Now, that’s a hardship, hahaha!! While Lacey and Chris have both been to the Black Hills before, the kids had not. They had so much fun. They went to Deadwood and Rapid City, to the WaTiki water park, to Mount Rushmore, and Bear Country. They got a special show at Bear Country, when some brown bears were wrestling and then walked right next to the car. That was a highlight of their time at Bear Country for sure. Very few people get to be so close to a bear…safely and without fear of attack.
The holidays were awesome for the Killinger family. Spending time at Christmas with family and extended family was great. Then for New Year’s, they had the kids, so they made a party of it. The did a crab boil and watched the ball drop in Times Square. The food was amazing…or so I’m told, and I can see that Lacey and Chris are great cooks. I love being awake and at a party for New Years Eve. There is just something about making note of the changing of the years that appeals to me, and to many other people too. For Brooklyn and Jaxon, getting to stay up so late was a rare treat too.
Lacey and Chris have put the kids in sports this year, and Lacey has been fundamental in teaching them the skills of the sports they are in. She especially enjoys teaching Brooklyn the sport of volleyball, because Brooklyn loves volleyball as much as Lacey does. Lacey has also been great for helping the kids to achieve the fashion and hair looks they want. It really pays to have a professional hair stylist to make your hair look just the way you dreamed it would look, so you fit in nicely with the rest of the kids at school. And it’s not a negative to have that be free either. Let’s face it, hair stylists, especially the great ones, like Lacey, don’t come cheap. Today is Lacey’s birthday. Happy birthday Lacey!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Our aunt, Margee Kountz became an aunt at a very young age…just 18 months, to be exact. Of course, I’m sure she really didn’t know about it for a while, and by the time she did know, it was simply the normal for her. Margee is not the youngest aunt in history, of course, because some kids are actually born as aunts or uncles. Still, it is an interesting fact of life for Margee. She grew up around not one, but a number of nieces and nephews. By the time Margee was eighteen years old, in 1967, she had four nieces and one nephew. Another niece and two nephews would be added in quick succession but also added to her life at about the same time, would be her own children, Dan and Sandi Kountz.
Becoming a mother was probably not all that much different from helping out with her 
nieces and nephews, except for the fact that she had to take care of her own kids full time…not going home after babysitting, like she did with nieces and nephews. Maybe that’s why Margee was such a good mom both while she was married, and later as a single mom. Margee has always had a helping heart, and a heart for kids. In reality, she is just a kindhearted person in every way. She helped raise her grandchildren and helped care for her sister, my mother-in-law, Joann Schulenberg when we needed her help during mom’s Alzheimer’s disease. I don’t know what we would have done without Margee, and it was comforting to my mother-in-law, because she knew Margee, and we didn’t have to use a home health nurse or respite care worker as much.
Those years of caring for others are behind Margee now, but she still has her health for the most part. She is the last of the siblings in her family, because her sisters, Joann and Linda are both in Heaven now. We are thankful to still have Margee with us. She is the last link to her entire generation. These days, Margee does all the common things people younger than she is, do online. She is on Facebook, she texts, and she uses a cell phone. At 76 years of age, many people have no idea how to operate in the computer age, but Margee is sharp as a tack, and she is still going strong on the tech stuff. That’s something to be proud of. Today is Margee’s 76th birthday. Happy birthday Margee!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Having started out his life in South Dakota, and having family there, my husband’s uncle, Bobby Cole was very much at home in the rural areas of that state. That is likely why he and Aunt Linda Cole moved to Kennebec, South Dakota after they got married. They liked the small-town feel and the peace and quiet. I can understand that. The times we went for visits, were very laid-back and relaxing, although I don’t think I could live there. There isn’t much to do, and if you aren’t visiting someone with whom you can play cards or something, it could get pretty boring. We liked it, because we were just visiting, but to live there…probably not.
Bobby, Linda, and their kids, Sheila and Pat lived there until the hotel they owned caught fire after being struck by lightning. They could have rebuilt it, I guess, but the population of the area and the hotel’s distance from the interstate made rebuilding impractical. So, they moved from their beloved Kennebec to Winnemucca, Nevada. Of course, that is a much bigger place, but the reality is that home is where you are. You may not like where you are, but it is still where home is. Nevertheless, they grew to like Winnemucca. They got jobs in the casinos, and they found that they liked that. They gambled a little, and won a little, which is nice.
Bobby and Linda were always fun people to be around, and we enjoyed the visits we made to their home both in Kennebec and Winnemucca. I’m so glad that we took the time to really get to know Bobby, Linda, and their kids. We always felt like we had been a blessing to them, as they were to us. Bobby left us eleven years ago on May 30, 2014, following a courageous battle with cancer. He passed away in Colorado Springs, Colorado while seeking treatment. Today would have been Bobby’s 82nd birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Bobby. We love and miss you very much.
Normally, we think of tornadoes or cyclones as a summertime event, but there is a different kind of a cyclone, known as a bomb cyclone, that can happen in the winter too. The Burns’ Day Storm, which began as Cyclone Daria, was an extremely violent windstorm that took place on January 25-26, 1990, over north-western Europe. Daria was one of the strongest European windstorms on record. It caused many fatalities in the UK and Europe. Because Europe has no official list of storm names, this storm was given several names. Cyclone Daria started on the birthday of Scottish poet Robert Burns, so it was dubbed The Burn’s Day Storm. It caused widespread damage and hurricane-force winds over a wide area. The storm was responsible for 47 deaths according to the Met Office (the United Kingdom’s national weather and climate service), although figures have ranged from 89 to over 100 deaths across Europe.
The storm began as a cold front over the Northern Atlantic Ocean on January 23rd. By the 24th, it had a minimum central pressure of 992 mbar and began to undergo explosive cyclogenesis, sometimes referred to as a weather bomb. That is what makes it so dangerous. Cyclone Daria made landfall on the morning of the 25th over Ireland. It then tracked over to Ayrshire in Scotland. The lowest pressure of 949 mbar was estimated near Edinburgh around 4:00pm. After pounding the United Kingdom, the storm tracked rapidly east towards Denmark. Thus, causing major damage and 30 deaths in the Netherlands and Belgium.
Cyclone Daria’s strongest sustained winds recorded were between 70 and 75 mph, which is basically a weak Category 1 hurricane or Hurricane-force 12 on the Beaufort Scale. Strong gusts of up to 104 miles per hour were also reported. It was these strong gusts caused the most extensive damage. During the Great Storm of 1987, many anemometers stopped recording due to power outages, breakages due to excess wind speeds and measurement maxima being exceeded, but by the 1990 Cyclone Daria, the meteorological community had newer devices that remained independent of external power and could measure higher wind speeds. It is believed that wind speeds measured during the Burns’ Day Storm provided an accurate picture.
The Burns’ Day Storm of 1990 has been given as an example of when the Met Office “got the prediction right”. We often joke about the weather service, and just how famously inaccurate they can be, but we do appreciate them when they get it right, if we heed their warnings anyway. In this case, the model forecast hinged on observations from two ships in the Atlantic near the developing storm the day before it reached the UK.
During the day of the storm the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute (KNMI) increased warnings to force 11 and then to hurricane force 12. Research has shown that most of the general public simply couldn’t comprehend just how bad this storm was. Cyclones, after all don’t usually happen in winter. While unusual, the aftermath of this storm led to more awareness about the understanding of storminess among the public by the KNMI (Koninklijk Nederlands Meteorologisch Instituut), who started a teletext page and the introduction of special warnings for extreme weather events in reaction to these findings.
The casualties in Cyclone Daria were much higher than those of the Great Storm of 1987, partly because the storm hit during the daytime. More people were out and about. The storm caused extensive damage, with approximately 3 million trees downed, power disrupted to over 500,000 homes and severe flooding in England and West Germany. The storm cost insurers in the UK £3.37 billion, which was the UK’s most expensive 
weather event to insurers. Most of the deaths were caused by collapsing buildings or falling debris. There were a few miracles too, however. In one case in Sussex, a class of children was evacuated just minutes before their school building collapsed. Actor Gorden Kaye was also injured during the storm, when a plank of an advertising board was blown through his car’s windshield.
Apparently, earthquake documentation began about 4,000 years ago. That is a fact about which I had no idea. I’m sure the early documentation was somewhat primitive, because they would simply have to be recorded in journal of sorts. Many don’t realize that the process of measuring began nearly 2000 years ago, with the invention of the first actual seismoscope in 132 AD by a Chinese inventor called Zhang (‘Chang’) Heng. The device was remarkably accurate in detecting earthquakes from afar, and did not rely on shaking or movement in the location where the device was situated. Of some of the earliest recorded earthquakes, the deadliest occurred in China on January 23, 1556. While this quake was not the largest ever recorded, it was a powerful quake that rocked the province of Shaanxi and the neighboring province of Shanxi. The reason it was such a deadly quake was not the size, but rather the death toll, which was an estimated 830,000 people.
The 1556 Shaanxi quake was historically referred to as the Jiajing Great Earthquake because it occurred during Emperor Jiajing’s reign in the Ming dynasty. While death tolls might not be as accurate as they are today, the approximate death toll comes from local annals that also tracked 26 earthquakes in the region. Those records described the earthquake as being “starkly different” from others, saying that it leveled mountains, caused floods and fires that burned for days, and a drastically altered landscape. The annals estimated that some counties lost about 60% of their population.
Due to the inability to have accurate fatality recordings, the death toll is in question, but no one questions the 
fact that the Shaanxi earthquake is considered the deadliest earthquake, because it is certain that the casualties are much higher than any other disaster. Following the Shaanxi quake, the second deadliest recorded earthquake was the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean that killed an estimated 230,000 people across Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka and India. It is amazing to me that the next deadliest quake took so long to occur, considering the fact that making earthquake resistant structures didn’t begin immediately. Still, it is a blessing that many earthquakes don’t bring those huge death tolls.
In the 1930s, the Richter scale was developed, and the magnitude of quakes became much clearer. Scientists theorized that the Shaanxi earthquake was likely between 8.0 to 8.3 in magnitude…definitely not the strongest ever recorded, but no less destructive. The most powerful earthquake recorded on the Richter scale was the 9.5-magnitude Valdivia Earthquake that struck Chile in 1960, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). The seismic event created a tsunami which together killed an estimated 5,700 people…a far lesser number than the Shaanxi quake…amazingly. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami registered a 9.3 magnitude. So, the size of the quake cannot totally correlate to the death toll. The death toll is based more on the population in the area and the quality of the structures.
As to the Shaanxi quake, while it wasn’t the strongest recorded earthquake, its high death toll likely resulted from the destruction of the area’s densely populated communities and poorly constructed stone buildings. The people of the Shaanxi and Shanxi provinces responded to the disastrous quake by rebuilding in ways that would 
lessen the impact of future earthquakes, according to local records. Rather than us stone to rebuild, they used softer materials like bamboo and wood, which were more resistant to tremors and would cause less damage if knocked down again. They knew that they couldn’t prevent earthquakes, but they could make their impact less severe.
“At the very beginning of the earthquake, people indoors should not go out immediately. Just crouch down and wait for chances. Even if the nest is collapsed, some eggs in it may still be kept intact,” said earthquake survivor and scholar, Qin Keda, who wrote about his experience and came up with safety tips for people to follow in the event of another disaster.
The next time you are upset about short winter days, think about Utqiagvik (formerly Barrow), Alaska…why do they keep changing the names of everything. The residents of America’s northernmost town had their final sunset last year on November 18, 2024, at 1:27pm. They will not see the Sun again until January 22, 2025, at 1:15pm. For those wondering, that is 65 straight days, or 1,560 hours, of darkness! If you happen to suffer from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), you know that the shorter winter days can feel depressing. So just imagine having no sun at all for 65 days!!
For most of us, it would be hard to imagine, going through that once, but every year? Yes, in Utqiagvik this is a yearly event. The reason is that everyone who lives above the Arctic Circle, will experience a day when the Sun sets for the rest of the winter. It is a fact of life, and those people who live there year-round, either like it and the novelty of it, or they accept it as a fact of life. Of course, on the flip side, the opposite event is also true, and the sun will return, and eventually will not set for days on end.
Due to its location, just 1,300 miles south of the polar North Pole, Utqiagvik experiences this long polar night. 
Another contributing factor is the fact that the Earth orbits the Sun at a 23.5° tilt. During winter, areas near the poles tilt away from the Sun, leaving them with little or no sunlight. For the North Pole, this period lasts from September to March, so during that time, their daily amount of sunlight is limited, and at some points, severely limited, or nonexistent.
While Utqiagvik residents did not see the Sun during this polar night period, they did still have some light during the day. This is due to the strange phenomenon known as “civil twilight” or the bending of the Sun’s rays around the Earth, so that they appear just above the horizon. The “civil twilight” creates beautiful blue, orange, and pink hues as the Sun’s rays scatter through Earth’s atmosphere. Initially, this twilight will last for about six hours each day. But by mid-December, it will shorten to just three hours as the North Pole tilts further away from the Sun.
Because of its location, Utqiagvik is the first Alaskan town to experience a polar night each year. Nevertheless, it is not the only one. In the late weeks of November, residents of Kaktovik, Point Hope, and Anaktuvuk Pass will also say goodbye to the Sun for a few months. Northern regions of Finland, Norway, Sweden, and parts of 
Scotland also experience this phenomenon, though for shorter periods of time.
While the lack of sunshine would seem punishing for most of us, there is a consolation prize for these hearty residents of the most remote parts of the planet. While the “polar night” is an annual phenomenon, so is the “midnight sun.” The “midnight sun” is their reward for their endurance of the “polar night.” During the summer months, they get to enjoy the “midnight sun” from May 12, 2025, to July 31, 2025, during which time the Sun remains visible both day and night. For Utqiagvik, this will mean no sunset for 82 consecutive days!! The good news…their days of sunshine are actually more than the days of darkness.
My uncle, Bill Spencer was a unique character. He liked things that some people might find boring, but then again, lots of people would really enjoy. When he was just eight years old, he discovered his mother’s “little black book” in which she kept the names of her ancestors as she knew them up to that time. He really became obsessed with the book and the wealth of family history information he found there, but that was not enough for this young family historian. He began to work on finding more sources for information. He talked to anyone he could think of. He check places like libraries, church records, court houses. He looked for things like land records, baptisms, birth certificates, death records, and census records. There were no computers with which to search in those days, so it was not a job for the faint of heart. You really needed to be dedicated, and he was dedicated.
Uncle Bill’s obsession with family history remained a lifelong project for him. He traveled to a number of places in search of the graves of ancestors. Some of his greatest treasures were pictures of him with the headstone of an ancestor he had tracked down after a long search of a cemetery. Those pictures, and the detail they contained, became treasures to me too, and in one instance they helped me walk right to the grave of my 2nd 
great grandfather, Allen Spencer (misspelled on the stone as Spenser). I was in the cemetery, and didn’t have any other information, but a hillside and a building made me take a little walk, because it just looked right. It was. I was amazed. Once again, Uncle Bill’s attention to detail saved the day.
Uncle Bill photocopied pictures, documents, and records, and made an ancestor information page for each ancestor he found. As I said, computers didn’t come out until much later on. Much of Uncle Bill’s information is handwritten, which he has always felt was better anyway. Uncle Bill considered the handwritten words almost as much a treasure, as the words themselves. I began to understand what he meant by that, the first time I saw a document with the signature of an ancestor on it. Just knowing that my ancestor had actually signed the very document that I saw, was stunning. Still, while I saw the value of the handwritten letters and such that my uncle wanted, I found it hard to accommodate his desire for letters. Those I wrote were often typed on my computer. I guess it was a side effect of my techy mentality.
Family history, and history in general, wasn’t Uncle Bill’s only area of interest. He loved antiques, collecting and selling them. He also was a gun dealer, and he loved all kinds of guns. That may have started when he found out that the Spencer rifle was invented by his 2nd great grandfather (my 3rd) Christopher Spencer, who actually demonstrated it to President Abraham Lincoln on the White House lawn…an unheard-of idea these 
days. And Uncle Bill was a bit of an inventor…or maybe re-inventor to be more precise. He built a tractor to be used on the farm, using a 1927 Dodge 4-cylinder engine with a 6-volt electrical system, truck tires, and a 1915 5-ton Wilcox pickup body. It was interesting to say the least. Still, I’m sure that because it did the job he wanted it to, he felt like it was quite the accomplishment. Today would have been my Uncle Bill’s 103rd birthday. He went to Heaven on Christmas day 2020, just one month short of his 99th birthday. Happy birthday in Heaven, Uncle Bill. We love and miss you very much.
It is a tradition in the United States, that every four years on January 20, there is a transition of power. The incoming president is sworn in and afterward, the outgoing president leaves the White House…or sometimes the outgoing president leaves before the swearing in of the new president. Unfortunately, not every transition is an amiable one or even a peaceful one. I suppose that is because neither side likes to lose. In fact, when the opposing party takes over the White House these days, it usually isn’t a peaceful transition. Often there are protesters and sometimes things get out of hand…and of course, there is plenty of blame to go around. The truth is often very obscured, and the blame is laid on the wrong party. You can like what I say, or not, but the reality is that there is plenty of proof concerning the January 6th event of 2021, and the wrong people were accused.
We all have our own opinion on the 2020 election, and I won’t dispute that or its outcome, but now the people of this nation have spoken…again, in a truly fair election, and we are about to put President Donald J Trump back in the White House. The transition actually began when he won the United States presidential election on November 5, 2024, becoming the president-elect. Because of our system, his formal election came when the Electoral College voted on December 17, 2024. The results were certified by a joint of Congress on January 6, 2025, and the transition is scheduled to conclude with Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025.
I think this country is so ready for the changes President Trump will bring back. His first term in office showed 
the people just how prosperous the country could be. We were almost energy independent; gas prices were low, patriotism was high, and things made sense. All that went away when Biden took office. It was as if the whole country went crazy. Now that President Trump is coming back, things are turning around so quickly that it is awe inspiring. The whole feel of things in this country is taking a 180° turn…overnight. It is amazing. The people he has chosen for his cabinet totally add to the air of excitement. And of course, we are very excited with his vice-presidential choice. Vice President JD Vance came up from poor roots, but worked hard to make something of himself, and I think he will be an amazing vice president. This president will bring back common sense.
Trump became the presumptive nominee of his party on March 12, 2024, and formally accepted the nomination at the Republican National Convention in July. On August 16th, Trump announced the formation of the transition team with Linda McMahon, Trump’s former head of the Small Business Administration, and Howard Lutnick, the billionaire CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Group, officially named as co-chairs. Vice presidential nominee JD Vance, along with sons Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, were designated as honorary co-chairs. The effort beginning at this time was considered unusually late, as historically, most transition efforts start in late spring. Nevertheless, this team is very capable, and they will have everything in readiness. Attorney Robert F Kennedy Jr and former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard were added as honorary co-chairs on August 27th. Both are former Democrats who had recently endorsed Trump. Kennedy had initially launched an independent presidential campaign before withdrawing to endorse Trump. Kennedy is reportedly in for a Cabinet position in this administration.
Watching the inauguration today felt like the opening of prison doors. The nation has been under such oppression, and negativity. The future seemed hopeless, but all that changed at 12:01pm in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington DC. President Trump outlined the things he plans to do, and with each on, we began to 
feel hope again. He is so sharp, and when he sees something that is wrong, he goes after it. He works to correct the problem and repair the situation. President Trump is a very hands-on, go get ’em kind of guy, and he is not politically correct, an action that has had a crippling effect on this nation. With President Trump’s return to the White House comes dignity, hope, patriotism, transparency, honesty, and truthfulness. I say bring it on President Trump. We are ready for you!!
