Washington
As any photographer knows, half the battle is being in the right place at the right time. Everyone loves a great photograph, especially the ones that capture something that isn’t often seen. Being in the right place at the right time is crucial, because some events don’t happen very often…especially in front of people. That is exactly where my daughter, Amy Schulenberg Royce found herself recently. While walking on the beach near her Ferndale, Washington home, Amy commonly sees seagulls in flight. The Puget Sound is a prime feeding ground for seagulls, so they are everywhere.
Amy loves to walk along the beach, view the sunsets, and listen to the sounds of harbor life. The horns of the ferry boats, the gulls squawking, the waves splashing onto the shore, and the people out enjoying themselves. It was during one of these peaceful walks that a seagull flew in close to shore. Amy took a picture with her iPhone and then realized that this gull had a starfish in it beak. As he landed, she scrambled to take more pictures, but he didn’t stay long. When she looked at her pictures, she realized that the first picture…the one where she had no idea that the gull had a starfish, was the perfect photo capture. What an exciting moment that was for her. It wasn’t planned, it wasn’t staged, it was just perfectly right…all by itself, with no help from anyone. All she had to do was snap.
I’ve looked at lots of photographs taken by lots of photographers, professional and amateur alike, and while planned shots are great, it is the shot that was pure chance that sticks in your memory files. The one where a seagull looks right at you, because he can’t figure out what that human, with a camera on its face, is exactly. Or as in Amy’s case, the picture you took when you didn’t know what you had…yet. Those are great, because they are such a nice surprise. It may be a really long time before Amy finds herself in the right place at the right time to see a seagull successfully capture a starfish, or it could happen again tomorrow…if she finds herself in the right place at the right time again.
We have all heard of the World’s Fair, and I think most of us know about the big push between nations to have it held in their country. After World War II, the United States didn’t get to host the World’s Fair until April 21, 1962. I think that most of us knows of the Seattle Space Needle, and I think that most adults know that it was a part of the World’s Fair, also known as the Century 21 Exposition. The fair ran from April 21, 1962 to October 21, 1962, in Seattle, Washington, of course.
Nearly 10 million people attended the fair in Seattle that year. So many World’s Fairs did not make a profit, but unlike the other world’s fairs of that era, Century 21 did make a profit. After the expedition, Seattle 
was left with a fairground and many public buildings and public works. It really revitalized Seattle’s economic and cultural life. The Space Needle was built there, of course, and the Alweg monorail, as well as several sports venues…Washington State Coliseum, now Key Arena and performing arts buildings…the Playhouse, now the Cornish Playhouse. Many of these have been remodeled or replaced now, but the whole area started around the World’s Fair. The Space Needle was built to withstand wind speeds of 200 mph, double the requirements in the building code of 1962. An earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale jolted the Needle enough in 2001 for water to slosh out of the toilets in the restrooms. The Space Needle will not sustain serious 
structural damage during earthquakes of magnitudes below 9. I think it is an amazing structure.
Since my daughter, Amy Royce and her family have moved to northern Washington, we have had the opportunity to visit the area and the Space Needle. I had been there before, but my husband, Bob had not. It doesn’t matter how many times you go up in the Space Needle, because each time is spectacular. The view is amazing, and since you can walk all the way around it, you have a different view on each side. The area is beautiful to be sure. I don’t know how often Amy and her family will get down there, now that they have moved to the Bellingham/Ferndale area, but I don’t think I would live that close without taking a trip to see a little bit of history once in a while.
Years ago, when my sisters, Cheryl Masterson, Alena Stevens, Allyn Hadlock, and I took a trip to Seattle, Washington to visit our sister, Caryl Reed, who was living there then, we had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Tulip Festival. We drove north from Caryl’s house until we reached Tulip Town near Mount Vernon, Washington. There we were treated to the most amazing sight. There were tulips everywhere. It looked like miles and miles of them. They were planted by color, so we saw rows and rows of each color. It was like looking at a tulip rainbow. That trip, taken in the Spring of 1993 has many lingering memories for me, but I must say that the Tulip Festival was one of the coolest of memories. You just don’t easily forget something like that.
Now that my daughter, Amy Royce lives in Ferndale, Washington, she finds herself right in the area where the 
Tulip Festival is held every year. Before they moved to Washington, they took a trip there at the perfect time, and were able to catch the Tulip Festival, so this year was Amy’s second, of what I am sure will become an annual visit to the Tulip Festival. This year, she went with her friend from Elementary School, Karen Bradley Sargent, her husband, John, and her two little boys, Oliver and Logan. The pictures she posted were lovely. They were just as I remembered it, but of course, pictures could not possibly do justice to being at the Tulip Festival. You have to see it to truly experience it.
I know that they all had a wonderful time yesterday, and I really wish I could have joined them, because I would love to go to the Tulip Festival again. I can’t say that I ever wanted my daughter to move away, but I 
suppose that if she had to do it, there could possibly be a few perks here and there. I really do love the North Western Washington area, and the Tulip Festival. I know that somewhere down the road, I will have to make the trip up to see Amy, when the Tulip Festival is going on so that I can go to it again. For now and for this year anyway, I will have to just settle for the pictures that Amy sends, and the memories I carry in my memory files, because the Tulip Festival is over, or would be before I would be able to get there anyway. So Amy, thanks for the beautiful pictures, and for the memories.
It’s funny, how time changes people. When our daughters, Corrie Schulenberg Petersen and Amy Schulenberg Royce, were little, we lived on a place east of Casper. We had a well, septic system, and our home was heated by propane. All that didn’t matter to the girls, and when they were little, they didn’t mind living in the country. I suppose it was just normal, and having all that space was a nice thing for them. They could ride their bicycles all over the place, and there were friends near enough for them to have playmates. For kids with no place to go exactly, the whole thing was just fine. Bob and I liked it too during those years. Of course, when we started bowling…like every day, living in the country wasn’t quite as convenient. We were I town all the time. In fact, my sister, Alena Stevens told me once that we weren’t country people…we were city people who slept in the country. She was right, of course. It wasn’t too long before we began to think about moving to town….but I’m getting a little ahead of myself.
As the girls became teenagers, and began driving and dating, the whole thing about living in the country…well, 
the girls didn’t like it so much anymore. The long distance to town became an annoyance to them, and in the Winter months, the roads…which were awful, made for a treacherous drive both morning and night. Their boyfriends weren’t too keen on coming all the way out there to pick them up, but I must say, that Corrie’s husband, Kevin was a pretty good sport about it. Still with both future husbands, there were many times when dates took place after the girls got off work, and that meant that they had to drive themselves home afterward. I think it was about the time that the girls started driving, that I began to see that living in the country was not always sunshine and wide open spaces. There was a lot of dangers that my girls had to face on those drives home, and I don’t think I would have survived those years, had it not been for prayer and God’s angels to watch over my babies. We had taught them how to drive, and what to do to be safe, but when you turn your girl loose to drive home at midnight, you need the angels out there with them. That’s all there is to it.
Then came the time when we decided that country living wasn’t all it had been cracked up to be when the girls were little. Unfortunately for Corrie, the final decision to move to town came after her marriage…much to her 
dismay. And in reality, it came only eight months before Amy’s marriage to Travis. Once we moved to town, I found myself really back in my element again, because I had been raised in Casper, after all. Bob was raised in the country, but he adapted to living in town like a man who had never lived a day of his life in the country. Corrie and Kevin live in Casper too, as did Amy and Travis before their move to Washington. Now, strangely, as they have purchased their home in Ferndale, Washington…or should I say ten minutes outside Ferndale, Amy and Travis…or at least Amy, has come full circle, and is living in the country again. Travis, like me, was raised in the city. Nevertheless, they will quickly get a handle on the whole country living thing…complete with a well, septic system, and propane. How strange is that?
Every four years, our calendar has an extra day…February 29th. Now, to most people, that is a novelty, but to my granddaughter, Shai Royce…that day is very special. If you only got a real birthday every four years, I’m sure you would think that day is quite special too. Shai has not always embraced every aspect of a Leap Day birthday, such as having the three grandsons in the family inform you that they are older than you, even though two of them were born after you. These days, Shai embraces Leap Day, because of it’s pure novelty, and someday she will really love it. Just think, when she’s 64 years old, she will, in reality, be 16. Who can say that? Only a Leap Day Baby, and that’s because…well, Leap Happens, and when it does, people don’t age in quite the same way.
This year looked like it was going to be a bit lonlier for Shai, but her brother, Caalab surprised her with a visit all the way from Seattle, Washington. Shai was completely shocked, and so was I. That sneaky little brother of hers managed to swear everyone who knew to secrecy, so Shai, her grandpa, and I were completely in the dark. When her family moved to the Seattle area, Shai decided to stay in Casper, and now she has taken a page out of her mom’s book. She is in the insurance industry and working with her very blessed grandma…me, at The Stengel Agency. Like her mom, she started out as a CSR, and is learning the insurance ropes. Who knows, she might even become an agent like her mom and grandma someday. I am very proud of all that she has learned here. She handles changes, payments, filing, and phones with ease. I think she comes from good insurance stock. She is doing so well for someone so young…I mean how many 5 year olds do you know who work in insurance?
This is the first year that Shai has lived on her own too, and I am very proud of how she has handled that. She is quite stubborn about accepting help with anything, and insists on paying for herself. Most of the time I let 
her too, but sometimes, like her birthday lunch, I have to put my grandma’s foot down. Of course, she is much like all my kids and grandkids. They are just responsible people, and I am proud of each and every one of them. Shai may only be five years old, but Shai the adult, shows me often that she has earned her twenty years, and her adulthood. I can’t believe that now two of my grandchildren are in their twenties. It seems totally impossible!! Where have the years gone? Today is Shai’s 20th birthday. Happy 5th Leap Day birthday Shai!! Have a great day!! We love you!!
Yesterday was my daughter, Amy Royce’s last day at her job at Insurance Services Group in Edmonds, Washington. They gave her a nice sendoff, and were sorry to see her go. This wasn’t the original plan when Amy, her husband, Travis, and their son, Caalab moved to the Seattle area, but as things sometimes do, their plans were changed when they bought a house in the little town of Ferndale, Washington, which is ten miles north of Bellingham, an hour and a half north of their apartment in Lynwood, Washington. For that reason, it is no longer feasible for Amy to work in Edmonds. The drive home last night took Amy two hours, because of traffic…and that was on the interstate. A drive like that on a daily basis would be grueling…to say the least.
I have a feeling that this new chapter in their lives is going to be very different from any other chapter in their lives. Having come from a city of 55,000 plus people, and then from Lynnwood, which has a population of 36,000 plus people…which is deceiving in that the cities in that area all run together, making the true population much higher in reality, this change is surprising for sure. You see, Ferndale, Washington is a small town of 11,415 people. It just grew by two, and when Caalab moves up, three, but that still makes it a small town. To top it off, their home is about 5.6 miles north of town. What that means is that my little country girl, turned city girl, is not a country girl again. That is totally shocking to me, because she couldn’t wait to move to town when we lived in the country. Things do change as you get older, I guess. What you didn’t like before doesn’t seem so bad now. Still, it’s strange to think of Amy using propane and having a well.
Now the real work begins. Amy and Travis will be unpacking and setting up their new home, while Caalab will stay at the apartment in Lynnwood until his last day at his job. He will join them toward the end of the month. 
I’m very excited to see how the house looks when they are done, but that may take a little bit of time, since they will start their new jobs on Wednesday. Both of them will be working in Bellingham, so they can take one car to work. I’m not sure of the name of the shop where Travis will be working, but Amy will be joining Rice Insurance. That is a great opportunity for her, because Rice Insurance writes for all 50 states. She has a lot to learn, but it will be exciting for sure. Caalab will be going to school soon, but that’s another story. I am very happy for them. This is going to be a great new chapter in their lives.
Because our world seems always to be at war, it is an unfortunate reality that bombs will exist…some legal, made for our military to keep us safe, some legal to blow up things for construction and other things, and of course some illegal, meant to bring terror and destruction. When I think about most bombs, the word terror definitely comes to the surface…be the bomb legal or not. Never is that more of a thought that when I think about the possibility of a bomb being lost, especially due to a plane crash. During the Cold War, as a means of maintaining first-strike capability, United States bombers carrying nuclear weapons circled the earth constantly…for decades. We just never knew when we could be attacked. We had to be…always ready.
The problem with planes carrying bombs and in the air constantly, is the possibility of crashes. My thought, when a bomber crashes, is what happens to the bomb. In all reality, it’s a good question. There have been about three dozen accidents in which bombers either crashed or caught fire on the runway, resulting in nuclear contamination from a damaged or destroyed bomb and/or the loss of a nuclear weapon. We don’t often hear about these…especially when they happen in the United States, but let one happen in another country, and it’s a different story. When one of these bombs was lost, it was called a Broken Arrow, mainly to avoid panic, I’m sure. One of the only Broken Arrows to receive widespread publicity occurred on January 17, 1966. A B-52 bomber crashed into a KC-135 jet tanker over Spain.
The bomber was on route to its base in North Carolina, when the crash occurred dropping three 70 kiloton hydrogen bombs near the town of Palomares and one in the sea. The KC-135 was attempting to refuel the B-52, when the B-52 collided with the fueling boom. The fuel was ignited and the KC-135 blew up, killing its crew. Four of the seven crew members of the B-52 managed to parachute to safety…the rest were lost. The bombs were not armed, but with the first two, the explosive material exploded on impact, forming craters and scattering radioactive plutonium over the fields of Palomares. One bomb landed in a dry riverbed and remained intact, and the fourth landed in the sea. No one knew for sure where it was. The cleanup was massive.
Locating the bomb that had fallen into the sea took a bit longer. The Navy used an IBM computer, and experts tried to calculate where the bomb might have landed. They were very handicapped because of the size of the 
impact area. Finally, a Spanish fisherman gave an eyewitness account that proved to be so accurate that on March 15th, with a much smaller search area, a submarine spotted the bomb. The bomb was recovered on April 7th, damaged but intact, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief. This particular accident was widely reported, because it was on foreign soil. It makes me wonder why there is so little reporting on American soil Broken Arrows. To this day, two hydrogen bombs and a uranium core lie in yet undetermined locations in the Wassaw Sound off Georgia, in the Puget Sound off Washington, and in swamplands near Goldsboro, North Carolina. I suppose some people knew of these lost bombs before, but I did not…until now.
As Thanksgiving approached this year, I found myself thinking of the things I’m thankful for. Of course, I’m thankful first and foremost for my loving Heavenly Father. He is always there for me. He will never leave me nor forsake me. How could I possibly ask for more than to have a God who cares deeply about every little tiny part of my life. No human cares that much, not even those who love me with all their hearts, because…well humans just don’t have a love so deep and unconditional.
While this year will find half of my family here and half in Washington, it will feel very lonely, but what I really care about is that my family is all happy, healthy, safe, and sound. And I hope they have a wonderful Thanksgiving too, even though we will miss them very much. I think the holidays are the hardest time to be apart, because the rest of the time work and activities keep you busy and you can forget that they are so far away, but the holidays…well, they are just different. The holidays are all about family. Maybe next year we can be together for one of the holidays. That would be really nice. For now, I am thankful that all of Amy’s family is together for this Thanksgiving holiday. And I’m lonely and sad because of the empty chairs we will have at our table this year.
And this will be the first Thanksgiving with both of my parents in Heaven, and that is very hard for my sisters, and our families. Yet, we are still thankful that our parents are together with other loved ones who have gone to Heaven too. I am so thankful that our parents brought is up to know the Lord, and to know the comfort of knowing where they are now and that they are safe in the loving arms of our Heavenly father. While we will 
miss them terribly today, as we do every day, and the empty chairs that they would have occupied will make us lonely, we know that they are celebrating with us, because they celebrate God’s love with thanksgiving every day, as do we. We will also be missing my father-in-law, and in reality my mother-in-law, who is in a nursing home. For Bob’s siblings, the loneliness is the same as my sisters and me, the empty chairs speak volumes, if we will listen.
Still, not all things about this day will be sad and lonely, because last month, right after I broke my shoulder, I was so blessed when Bob and I were “adopted” into my son-in-law, Kevin Petersen’s family. His parents, Becky and Duane Skelton invited us to spend Thanksgiving as part of their family. Kevin’s parents have been friends of ours for a long time, and it was just such a wonderful thing to do. I don’t think I was ready to try to put on a Thanksgiving dinner. By Christmas, I expect that I will be much more ready, when I host Bob’s family, but for now, I am very thankful for the kindness of such amazing friends. I love both of them very much, and I look forward to the memories we will have of this day.
Lastly, but in no way the least, I am thankful for new and renewed family connections. Over the past couple of years, we have reconnected with cousins that we haven’t seen in quite some time and some we had never met, which has expanded our family in areas that were lacking before. It is so wonderful to have such a large family, 
and to have the opportunity to get to know these cousins that we never knew. They are all such wonderful people with so many different interests and life stories, and yet, we are all connected in the deepest of ways…we are family. And that is definitely something to be thankful for.
While this Thanksgiving is filled with mixed emotions for me and my family, I am truly thankful for every day of life, for every member of my family, for each friend, for job, home, and the beauty of God’s creation here one Earth. And I am thankful that when this life is over, I too will live forever in the loving arms of my Father in Heaven. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!! Have a blessed day!!
My sister, Cheryl Masterson has collected post cards for a long time. For some people, I suppose that might see an odd thing to collect, but when you think about it, they are easy to store and to look back on, and they instantly give you a picture of the place you are visiting, and usually it is a better picture that you could take yourself. Of course, these days, with digital cameras, we can take pretty good pictures, but it isn’t easy to print and mail them. Then again, we have to ability to upload them to Facebook, Twitter, and email, so most of us probably wouldn’t mail them anyway. Nevertheless, just about every gift shop you come across has post cards, and they seem to sell pretty quickly.
Post cards first made their appearance in Austria on this day, October 1, 1869. They were the world’s first postcards, and I’m sure that no one would have ever guessed what an impact they would have on the world. They weren’t something to improve national security, or improve the quality of life, or really to do anything special, other than to allow the purchaser to send a quick note to their family back home to show them what they were doing on their vacation. Nevertheless, they were new and fun.
As I look through old family pictures from my family and from Bob’s, I have come across a number of postcards that were sent or received, that the family found interesting enough to save for all these years. I always wondered why they would want to save those post cards and even put them in photo albums, but when you consider that they were still relatively new at the time, I guess it makes sense.
I feel very blessed to have not only the post cards now, but the writing that was on the ones that were sent to someone. It gives you not only a feel for the times, but also for what they were doing at the time. Our families clear back to the 1800s lived in a time when people were moving around a lot, both to move and to vacation…not unlike today, I guess. We are a people who loves to see the things our world has to offer, and then we like to have a little souvenier of our time spent there. I know that when Bob and I traveled to Seattle, Washington, I came back with tons of pictures, and several souveniers. It is just the way we do things.
I think that whoever came up with idea to start taking some of the great pictures people took and putting them 
on a card that other people could enjoy and send to family, really had a great idea. And it is my guess that they made a lot of money for their great idea. For my sister Cheryl, they have been a great source of joy. She can have all the great pictures, even if she is not able to get to the exact same place to take them. For me, I guess, I would rather go get the pictures myself, but not everybody can do that, so post cards are a great souvenier to have.
After Bob and I had the opportunity to view the old minesweeper, now located off Picnic Park near Edmonds, Washington, I have been curious about mines and minesweepers, in general. That said, I did a little research on them, and was surprised at what I found. Landmines have been in existence since the early Ming Dynasty in the 1400s. It seems such a strange thing to me to set explosives in areas where they could not only trigger an explosion when an enemy crosses paths with them, but they could also trigger explosions when their own citizens crossed paths with them. I suppose those accidental friendly hits would be considered collateral damage, and were acceptable losses in the grand scheme of things, but it still seems like a horrible way to guard an area. Still, it was definitely an effective way to guard and area, border, or waterway.
Nevertheless, I can understand why countries such as England, who is surrounded by water, and therefore vulnerable to certain types of attacks, especially during the earlier wars, like World War I and World War II, might have decided as they did in World War II, to lay mine traps to guard against movement by the German U-Boats in World War II. The U-Boats were feared by all their enemies, and considered one of the biggest dangers in the war by Winston Spencer Churchill. They made it almost impossible to have any prior knowledge of their presence, until it was too late to get away from them. Still, putting mines in the English Channel, where your own ships had to maneuver too, almost seems like taking a risk that would be greater than the benefit that it provided. Nevertheless, submarine traps were laid in the English Channel, and they served a purpose.
When considering a minesweeper in World War II, when ships were made of metal, I was curious as to why there would be a wooden hulled minesweeper in World War II. It has come to my attention that the minesweeper in Edmonds, may not have seen action at all. There seems to be a bit of confusion as to when it was built, and when it came to it’s final resting place in the Edmonds area. If it was indeed built for World War II, and never saw action, then my thought was why was it a wooden hull. I found the answer to that in my research on mines. There are several types of mines, as I mentioned earlier. Landmines were the earliest, but when it came to floating mines, they were mostly magnetic. Now when you put a metal minesweeper, or any other metal ship or submarine, near a magnetic mine…well, I’m sure you can get a picture of the seriousness of the problem they would have. A wooden hulled minesweeper on the other hand would have to actually come into contact with the mine to have that problem. Perhaps this was the reason for mines laid under the surface of the water and held in place by a cable. They were more invisible to the eye, and so created the ability to trigger the explosion when an unsuspecting ship or submarine found themselves in the wrong place. These mines blew a hole in the hull, rendering the ship or submarine helpless, as it took on water and quickly sunk.
There have been stories in the news over the years, of mines showing up on the shore years after they were ![British Sea Mine](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:British_Mk_14_Sea_Mine.jpg#/media/File:British_Mk_14_Sea_Mine.jpg">British Mk 14 Sea Mine</a>" by <a title="User:Oxyman" href="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Oxyman")
laid. It was a big problem, as were the landmines that were left after the wars. No clear record were kept apparently, and so removal of the mines was never made a priority. I remember when Princess Diana made it one of her priorities to find a way to get those landmines removed. The injuries to so many people who wandered into a minefield just tore at her heart. In hearing about the stories of tragedies resulting from those minefields, my mind cringed at the thought of those injuries. I found myself thinking that her quest to remove them was such an important one. Because I love to hike, I can see how easy it could be to create a trail that would cross paths with a minefield that has been around for decades. Sometimes, the necessary weapons of our warfare bring such destruction, that you find yourself wondering why people and nations can’t just get along, but we all know that is not to be. As long as there has been life on Earth, there have been wars of one kind or another, and I don’t expect that to change now, so these weapons will continue to exist and to be a big problem.
