Cecelie's Birthday

Our youngest grandchild Cecelie Elise is 12 today, which in their family is when daughters can get their ears pierced. So her mother has Cecelie and five little girls out shopping at the mall with the ear piercing project as one of their aims. I really do not know how she can possibly be 12 since it seems to me only yesterday we went to Freeport to see her come home from the hospital. I frequently manage to send birthday cards late, and once again I did it. Well, I thought at least it would be post marked on her birthday when I addressed her card and wrote her birthday check. But as usual when I want to mail something, the post person had come on time and today’s mail had already been delivered to our mailbox. The card is waiting in the truck, and I am going to try to get it to town to put it in today’s mail.

Why am I going in the truck? Well, as I had anticipated, the draw of the softball tourney at Alabama was too much for Gerry’s family to skip. Gerald and gramdson Sam left Woodsong yesterday morning in the car to save gas. They arrived for the game in plenty of time as did Bryan and Tara (our oldest grandchild) and their three little guys who had arrived at Woodsong at 2:30 a.m. and slept till everyone woke up.

After breakfast and Gerald’s return from an early morning trip to town for cash, Maddux (who had been begging for a tractor ride) and Aidan and even Payton had their outings on wheels with Gpa Gerald. Bryan took Payton on a ride down the road in a little wagon, and Sam, who had spent the night, was also outside entertaining these three little ones letting them run off steam before they had to get back in their car for the next long jaunt to Alabama,. Only the anticipation of seeing Gpa Gerry and Gma Vickie and Aunt G made that prospect palatable to Aidan. Although Bryan has to return to work, Tara and the three boys are staying in Watkinsville with Gerry and Vickie next week.

Tara and I too were outside enjoying the beautiful warm weather and watching the boys run and play, kicking and throwing a ball, and riding anything with wheels that they could get an adult to ride them on. Interesting how balls and wheels delight boys. All too soon, everyone had to load up for Alabama. I waved them all off and came into a quiet house.

Ignoring the breakfast dishes, I did some reading and then continued working on some Martin family history that I am focusing on now. Oddly, I have re-connected with a California grandmother who is doing research on the Martins for her grandson Codi. (She is not a Martin, but her daughter married a Martin descendant. I find that very impressive that she is willing to research someone else’s family line for her young grandson.)

I say re-connected because she had written me an email several years ago about this branch of the family. (My great Uncle Jim’s son moved to California in the 1940s and local Martins had lost touch with him.) I even found those two emails from her in an email account I rarely use, and she explained clearly how the descendancy went. What is so embarrassing is that I had wanted this information and then totally forgot I had it in those long ago emails. Sometimes I wonder about my mind.

Nevertheless, the reconnection was good and I have been busily corresponding by email this week with her. She has sent me more information, and I have sent her more family and friend connections and stories. This correspondence will serve me well when I continue the work I started many years about my great grandfather William Felix Grundy Martin of Sleepy Hollow in rural Goreville.

I started asking questions about William Felix’s life decades ago and have written several different attempts with updates as the years progressed. I just completed and mailed a short version to the Johnson County Historical and Genealogical Society, which is asking for family histories for a 2012 book they plan to publish.

After completing that and then having this stimulating email correspondence with Codi’s grandmother, I am inspired to try my best to finish this long essay and hope to get it published in Saga, a regional genealogical journal. Then when I leave the planet, other descendants will have access to the information. Certainly I have much more information now than I did when I put a short bio on the back of a photo of him decades ago or even when I first wrote about him with more length in 1995.

I cannot seem to do anything on a scheduled basis anymore, so once again I am late with what is supposed to be mid-week blogging. And since I need to mail this belated birthday card to Cecelie, I am going to run into town to the post office where mail goes out at 6 p.m. I think I will be tempted to go by Katherine’s house and watch the second game between #2 Alabama and #1 Georgia tonight with her on ESPNU at 7 CT. We lost 2-1 last night, so we are hoping the Georgia will be more ready for Alabama’s All American pitcher tonight. I watched on Game Tracker last night here at Woodsong, but I think I will want someone to cheer with me for the Dawgs tonight.

Tara's Blog--"OH BOYS"

Want to see our beautiful great grandsons? Check out Tara’s new blog:

•OH BOYS...: Lunch with Daddy....
http://archibald5.blogspot.com/

A Blessed Easter at Woodsong

After a leisurely breakfast with the newspaper, we went to our village church to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.

Our three little ones in our preschool classroom looked adorable. Wearing pink with ruffles and lace, Miranda explained, “Grandma made my dress.” When Miss Kim took pictures, we knew we were not the first to admire these children today, because one-year-old Caleb without prompting posed and said clearly, “Cheese!” Bobby, looking sharp in dress pants and matching vest, was all excited that Grandpa was coming to dinner. The Easter card he made was to be for his daddy and grandpa.

In the service after Bible study, many had visiting family members with them to worship as a family on this special day. Our oldest member, Zella Cain had family members filling two entire rows. And that was only half of her family, she told us. We sang, “Up From the Grave He Arose” and other traditional hymns. Deanna Odom had a special reading for us, and we sang “Happy Birthday” to Dewayne Covey, who had been looking forward to this tradition, and he had visiting cousins and aunts and uncles there to participate.

Our beloved interim pastor had a second sermon prepared—he and several had gathered earlier at the church for the sunrise service and breakfast that Gerald and I seldom make. In the early years, I would have been out on the lawn hiding eggs and candies in our children’s nests they made on Saturday—just the way my mother was taught to do as a child. Then when our children took over the nest filling for their children, I would be in the kitchen preparing the ham and lunch for the bunch when we came home from church.

Today was different. For the first time in our 52 years of marriage, I did not dye Easter eggs. For the first time in decades, I did not cook Easter dinner. For the first time in several years, most of our children and grandchildren could not be with us. Yet it has been a special and blessed Easter.

We arrived back in Marion last evening from our trip to visit daughter Jeannie’s family and see Elijah and Cecelie participate in the 29th annual Showtime at Freeport High School. Before we refilled the gas tank and I ran inside Kroger’s to get fresh fruit and milk, Katherine phoned and said, “Mom, David has arranged to pick up a prepared Easter dinner for all of us, and we will bring it out to the farm tomorrow. There will be plenty for Mary Ellen’s family too if they are able to make it.”

We took Samuel on home as he was eager to check out the Easter egg doings at Josh’s house—his buddy just behind the park and their house. Sam carried in a large portion of the colored eggs that he had helped dye at the Eiler house and his Aunt Jeannie had sent home with him. So they became part of our dinner today.

He even was invited to participate in the dyeing session going on at my brother’s home when we stopped at Mattoon for a break. Jim’s wife Vivian, who always remembered her grandmother’s huge dishpan full of colored eggs for her many grandchildren, has always tried to approach that sense of bounty for her kids and grandkids. She and her sister Jo, who had arrived from Chicago by train the day before, were laughing and working with a dozen of so cups of color on the large dining table and assisted by my niece Judi getting ready for the egg hunt at their house today. When Sam unobtrusively took a wax crayon from the kit and put a star on an egg, his mother’s cousin Judi had a moment of wonder and confusion when she took a green egg out and unexpectedly saw a star on it.

So after we dropped Sam off at his house, we returned to shop for the few needed items. With the delightful surprise and neat gift for the next day arranged by our son-in-law, I did not even think about what I might need to buy to go with the little half ham I had stowed in the fridge for Katherine’s family and also Mary Ellen’s family if they were able to come down from Lake Saint Louis. I knew Easter dinner would be scant in comparison to some past feasts, but I also knew my children would understand.

David works extraordinary hours already both at the plant and at home helping care for Katherine and Sam, and that he would go to the work and trouble to arrange to bring an entire holiday dinner out to the farm was very touching—and absolutely lovely. When I phoned her an invitation, we found out that Mary Ellen’s family had gone to Springfield—she had known we might not even get back from Freeport for Easter.

So I took the usual leaves out of the dining room table. With Sam’s friend Josh added as a guest, we had six present. Thus, I was able to use the white china with pink roses that I bought long ago at the thrift store when our family had only six members, and the light green cloth that usually only fits the kitchen table. The green stemmed glasses (also from the thrift store) made a pretty table with lilacs and white tulips for the centerpiece.

While the men talked and rested, Katherine and I looked at photo books and enjoyed seeing Tara, Erin, and Leslie as tiny ones. Sam and Josh went looking for minnows and rode the “mule” and played with Scooter and whatever boys do outside.

All too soon the Cedars had to go back home, and Gerald and I were alone again at Woodsong after the flurry of weekend activity. We enjoyed ham sandwiches and reflecting on the day.

We knew from Facebook that Leslie, who’d been in Freeport for the weekend, had succeeded in getting her first car yesterday and was driving it back to Belmont. Tomorrow she finds out about her summer job. Gerry had been off work from recruiting and had been able to go to church with Vickie and Geri Ann at Athens. Like Gerald, I am sure they were in touch with Erin down at College Station and with Tara’s family in northern Illinois, who celebrated with Bryan’s family this weekend. We were still enjoying Gerry’s proud accounts of Erin’s winning home run on Friday and A&M’s second victory against Texas Tech yesterday. And the Georgia Dogs won all three games against Ole Miss this weekend despite rainy weather and lightning delays.

We know that softball is fun and despite its importance to our family, it is not that important in the grand scheme of things. We know that every one of our family members have challenges and concerns—some of which cause us to live life with broken hearts. We know that many good people are out of work in our state, and they didn’t sit down to ham and all the good food that David carried in. We remembered the poignant presentation of world hunger that we saw at Freeport’s Showtime. We know that they are still pirates and thugs and terrorists in the world despite our rejoicing at the captain’s release. We are grateful for a living God who is willing to help us through the struggles here on earth.

Changing Plans

We thought we had the next two weekends all planned out. In fact, I wrote an email to our immediate family last night telling where we would be when.

However, our daughter-in-law Vickie’s grandmother here in our community died last night. Her visitation is tomorrow and her funeral is on Saturday. Consequently, people away from here are making plans in order to get here quickly.

Grandma Borum was a very dear lady, who has cared for many years for her adult daughter, who is handicapped and continued to live with her. Not too many years ago we enjoyed her and her daughter Janice’s company at all the wonderful family parties that Vickie gave for birthdays and various celebrations. As Mrs. Borum grew older and developed health problems and Janice’s health deteriorated, Vickie’s parents, who lived next door, pitched in more and more to help.

After Vickie’s father died, her mother has continued caring for her two loved ones with help from her brothers. Everyone has been amazed that she was able to handle all of this caretaking, and we knew it was only because of selfless love and dedication to her mother and sister that she endured always putting them ahead of herself. Fortunately someone had been trained to help very recently.

In the morning, Vickie and Geri Ann are driving up from Georgia and picking up Erin from the Nashville airport, so that Erin can attend the visitation. Gerald will be taking Erin over to Columbia, MO, after the visitation tomorrow night for the two games that have been rearranged for Saturday since rain is expected on Sunday.

Our granddaughter Tara and two baby boys, who were just through here last Sunday, will be coming down from the northern end of the state. We are grateful that her husband Bryan can come also to drive. I haven’t touched the bedroom where Tara had three hours sleep Sunday before driving north, so I guess you can say it is waiting for her.

With all this going on with the people we love, I will not be blogging again for awhile. We covet prayers for our family’s safety and health during all the traveling that is necessary during this time of sorrow. I’ll talk to you later.

Spring Breaks and the Western Part of the Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois

Spring breaks have started for our grandchildren. Samuel like all the kids here in Williamson County has been off school this week. And so has Geri Ann down in Georgia, which allowed her to go with her mother to see Erin play softball in Boca Raton. Her sister Tara, husband Bryan, and the two little boys also took a vacation there. Leslie was in Puerto Rico with her church group since Belmont was having spring break.

The Eilers up at Freeport will be off next week, so Jeannie is bringing Cecelie thorough here on their way to visit Les at Belmont while Elijah goes to Mount Rushmore and that region with his high school choir performing most of Showtime at various venues. They’ll be well rehearsed when they get back to perform at Freeport. Trent and Brianna will be off that week also and are going to Florida to see their Grandma Dot.

I wanted to grab some time with Samuel while he was on vacation, so we planned a day trip down to Union County to see the western part of the Trail of Tears through Southern Illinois. We first stopped at the Trail of Tears rest stop on Interstate 57. Oddly, that rest stop has pictures of Cairo but no mention of the Trail of Tears. Our Illinois Chapter of the Trail of Tears Association finally got permission to place brochures there—something Sandy Boaz, Illinois TOTA president, had tried to do for years but wasn’t allowed. But the brochures were all taken the day Sam and I stopped by. We obtained an Illinois road map there, and Sam was able to follow our journey to the west where we were to cross the Mississippi River.

The Trail of Tears rest stop is actually on top of the trail. When I-57 was built, that spot on the highway goes over a short tunnel on the road beneath it, where the Cherokee actually walked. To see that, Sam and I exited I-57 less than a mile down the highway and were on State Route 146, Illinois Designated TOT highway and also the National Park Service’s TOT auto route.

Next we took the first country road to the right and were driving through beautiful rural land, which has been built up with many fine homes in recent years. Soon we were down below I-57 and drove through the tunnel and down the actual Trail. It was chilly enough that we weren’t tempted to get out and hike, and we turned around and went back to the cemetery where Southern Illinois University Carbondale geologist Harvey Henson and his students have located at least 19 graves in the area that oral tradition had always indicated the Cherokee had buried their dead during the bitter cold of December 1838 and January 1839.

Since there had been perhaps as many as 3,000 camping there at one time and more before and after those weeks, it is a sign of land owner George Hileman’s kindness that there were so few deaths. He allowed them to cut down the woods to obtain firewood for warmth, and he sold them corn meal from his grist meal for sustenance to go with the wild game they foraged. He approved their graves in his pasture where he and his wife had buried two small children a few years earlier. Later he was to donate land for the church established there, and he donated more land for the cemetery.

Sandy Boaz, a descendant of Hileman, has been searching for what roads went from Camp Ground over to Jonesboro in the first half of the 19th Century. As a favor, she recently was helping someone with their genealogy questions, and serendipitously found some good hints about the road, which she intends to investigate. She has often talked about Dog Walk Road, and since Sam and I were not on schedule, we decided not to return to Route 146 but to leave on the Camp Ground Road going west until we came to Dog Walk, which we took over to the Lick Creek Road and finally back to Route 146. It took a little longer than it should have since I have no sense of direction, and I turned in the wrong direction on the familiar Lick Creek Road. I turned around when I noticed on the dash we were headed east. On 146 in Anna, we soon were passing the Trail of Tears Junction, the elaborate gas and more station owned by Ron and Deb Charles, who both descended from Cherokee families around Elco.

We were hungry by then, and we stopped at the Country Cupboard, more often called The Potato Barn, created in the old Goddard Feed Store, where county farmers always headed to buy garden seed, tools, and bib overalls as well as feed. As always, the food there was absolutely delicious. I had a bowl of creamy potato soup and a Reuben while Sam had a shrimp basket. I should have ordered either soup or a sandwich since both turned out to be over-sized. I had fun explaining to Sam the complicated family connections to the Bridgeman daughters who own the restaurant now. His great Grandma Ada’s Aunt Ollie Bridgeman is seen holding Sam’s mother in the first baby photo we have of Katherine. Part of the pleasure of going to the Potato Barn is wandering around looking at the antiques and artifacts, so we took time for that before we got back on the Trail.

We left Anna by Heacock Street and down Boettner Hill, and I was able to tell Sam how folks used to block off traffic on a few nights when the snow made that hill a perfect place for sledding. I took him out to the Old Fair Grounds, where Lincoln and Douglas gave one of their 1858 debates while running for the Senate. Sam enjoyed the new statues there of the two famous debaters.

And then it was up to the Jonesboro Square, where the bank stands on the storehouse site of Winstead Davie. Behind the store was his and Anna (Willard) Davie’s home, where the Davies invited Rev. Jesse Bushyhead and his pregnant wife Eliza and another “chief” and his wife and baby to stay with them. The name for this second so-called chief has been confusing, but I am convinced this was native preacher Rev. Stephen Foreman and his wife Sarah and baby boy Jeremiah Evarts Foreman. Darrel Dexter tells us that Davie applied for a license to keep boarders the very day that little Jeremiah was born, and Davie family tradition tells of the Cherokee baby and parents who stayed with them.

On the west side of Davie’s store on the other side of the road from the Old Fair
Grounds was where Davie’s brother-in-law and competitor William Willard had his store. Sadly William never married but died of tuberculosis at age 31 in 1843. His two brothers, Elijah and Willis, ran the two ferries near Willard’s Landing on the Mississippi River. (Some folks still called the Landing by its earlier name—Green’s Landing.)

Sam and I drove down Cook Avenue past the school , and I showed Sam where I grew up. Then we drove as far as the road went to the top of Bauer’s Hill where some Cherokee crossed over and down to the other side to camp at the southern end of Dutch Creek. We came back and got back on Route 146, now also called Willard’s Ferry Road.

Because of the swamps in The Bottoms by the river, the Cherokee were backed up in the Dutch Creek-Clear Creek area. Perhaps as many as 5,000 or more were waiting for the ice floes to melt or float away. We turned at the Lockard Chapel sign onto Berryville Road and explored one of the many routes some of the 11,000 took. As usual I got lost and took a wrong turn before we reached Hamburg Hill and Atwood Tower, but eventually we were back on Route 146 and continued to the village of Ware.

Directly west of Ware was the road that took early travelers to Willard’s Landing, where there was a storehouse and some homes to greet the boats bringing merchandise from Pennsylvania for Davie and Willard’s Jonesboro stores. (The eastern boats came down the Ohio River to Cairo and then up the Mississippi.) Since the river has changed and been changed so radically by levies and flood control since 1838, we have never discovered any residue of Willard’s Landing.. Several Cherokee detachments crossed here including Jesse Bushyhead and his wife Eliza Wilkerson Bushyhead, who gave birth on January 3, 1839, to Eliza Missouri Bushyhead at what is now called Moccasins Springs. There Bushyhead’s sister Nancy Bushyhead Walker Hildebrand died and was buried.

We drove on south now on Route 146 past Ware Baptist Church, where Sam’s mother was enrolled in Sunday School as an infant, We continued on the TOT Auto Route past the fine goose-hunting and corn-growing farms there in The Bottoms. At Reynoldsville, we noted the road crossing called The Old Cape Road, but we kept on the new highway to the Flea Market, where the Route 146 turns back west to cross the bridge to Missouri. In Cape Girardeau, we enjoyed the beautiful murals on the river flood walls u before we turned to go back across the stunning Bill Emerson Bridge into Illinois.


We did take the Old Cape Road on our way back to Jonesboro because no doubt some of the Cherokee detachments went to the ferries at Hamburg Landing through there. Either there or further south, some Cherokee found themselves crossing on the Smith Ferry and going to Cape Girardeau. We got Sam back to his house, so he could get to bed early for the spring vacation trip his dad had planned for him on Friday to Saint Louis sites.

Yesterday I went to Sam’s last Upward basketball game and found out that son-in-law Brian and daughter Brianna had come down late the night before from Lake Saint Louis to their camper up at Wayside Farm. So in between watching softball games for Georgia and Texas A&M, Gerald and I had Samuel with his new puppy Scooter and Brianna .with Fifi to play here at the farm on Saturday afternoon.

That was a good diversion because Gerald is still at a painfully red and quite ugly stage of his skin peel treatment and has been reluctant to get off the farm much. He did take neighbor Scott to Carbondale to catch a train, but they went through the drive-in for breakfast rather than going inside. We hope by his birthday next Sunday, he will have skin as soft as a baby’s. Reckon?

Welcome Maddux Mark Archibald

I haven’t really changed my blogging date to Thursday. We have just been focused on all the excitement of our second great grandchild born Tuesday afternoon, December 9, at Aurora to our oldest grandchild, Tara Archibald and her husband Bryan.

We’ve been busy checking out email photos of Maddux and his big brother Aidan, who will be three in May. I saw more adorable photos tonight posted by Bryan on Facebook. Gerald has taken copies over to his other great grandmother, Gma Shirley. We found out Shirley had her first great granddaughter a week or so ago. We knew Tara’s cousin Jeremy and his wife were expecting at the same time as Tara, but we didn’t know their little girl had arrived. I am sure Shirley has already shown the photos of Maddux and Aidan to great great grandmother Imogene, who lives beside Shirley.

In all this excitement and the busyness of the season, I somehow lost a day. I was actually hurrying earlier this afternoon so I could go to the Wednesday night monthly business meeting at our village church. Obviously, I am a little late.

This morning I took our decades-old Christmas tree and its huge string of lights to the Household Give-Away that the Ministerial Alliance operates. It is only open on Thursday mornings, so I should have known tonight was not Wednesday. But it is easy to get mixed up during this season. I had rushed there because I overslept, but I did get there. They welcomed our tree since they had just given away their last one. Afterwards Gerald and I met at Menards, where he was Christmas shopping and I had seen an ad for pre-lit trees. After our shopping, we had lunch together at Fazoil’s and were pleased to run into Joe and Janet Walker, who live in Marion, but are from our home community, and we had a nice visit.

I’d decided as a concession to my age that I would buy a pre-lit tree this year for the family room. I may have made a mistake. For one thing, it is heavier than the old tree; and if Gerald had not put it together and figured out how to hook the lights together, I am not sure I could have. The multi-colored lights are so very pretty that I almost hate to add all the boxes of ornaments I use on this tree that I consider the family tree where gifts will accumulate. Maybe I will get those ornaments on tomorrow. Gerald got down the lights that the wind had blown up on the house and added some more before it turns cold again.

The upstairs tree is shining out the living room window. It is almost finished. I still have a few more ornaments to put on as I needed some more of the little hooks, which were downstairs. I’ll take them up in a minute and put the last ornaments on before I ready the coffee for Gerald’s breakfast.

I haven’t decided whether or not to add the beautiful silver icicles that Katherine and Mary Ellen and I had so much fun buying years ago at a sale in Nashville, Tennessee. I used them last year, but I may skip putting them on this year. I would just add a few from the silver box every time I passed the tree, and eventually the tree was covered with the old-fashioned icicles.

This tree also needs to be replaced. It has shed from the moment I brought it home over a decade ago, and now some of the limbs have fallen off. A big reason I went to an artificial tree was I was wanting to avoid fallen needles. I want to have those needles vacuumed up before I place the old wine shower curtain beneath it as a tree skirt to match the wine in the couches there.

I received a special Christmas call this afternoon from my cousin Doug in California, and I caught up news on him and Vera and their three boys. Josh is still in the military and he and his wife presented Doug and Vera with a first grandson Josiah Ray. David is teaching math and Chris is teaching piano. David has already started on his doctorate.

We are getting Christmas cards daily in the mail, and I am thinking about ours. I bought some Christmas stamps but still need to buy cards and make copies of the annual Christmas letter. Usually I buy the cheapest cards I can find now that daughter Jeannie no longer makes cards. Hers were works of art that I was proud of sending and some folks framed. I figured these I send now get thrown away and that is okay. The point is to stay in touch and honor the friendships of the past.

Where Is It? Let's See Now

Mary Ellen called from up the road apiece on Friday that they had discovered the controller for the TV in the den was accidentally in their basket of games picked up just before they left our place to head to their other family’s home. Should they return it? Naw, just wait until Christmas when you come down. They can also then retrieve Trent's black left-foot shoe (a thong it is too cold to wear often now). Later Mary Ellen reports that Elijah’s coat was left in their camper. Brianna’s coat, however, was left at Geri Ann’s Grandma Shirley’s house.

Leslie and Gerald assured me that Erin’s winter A&M jacket was left behind at Woodsong deliberately because she won’t need it down there until she is back for Christmas break. So it is in the coat closet waiting for her. Geri Ann’s charger for her I pod is ready to be taken to the post office. Trent’s Nintendo is on the table in the den. Jeannie left behind ingredients she brought down for a cooking project she started but didn’t get to finish. Someone’s electric toothbrush is still in the guest bathroom. I recovered my purple comb from Katherine’s vanity yesterday, where evidently someone must have been primping with it there.

Katherine got tickled thinking that all over America, families are trying to find and retrieve and figure out where their possessions are after all the Thanksgiving holidays. Most families in our area try to visit both sides of their families, and it is a challenge to keep belongings under control.

I used to marvel many years ago at the goodness and the energy used when my daughter-in-law would bring her little ones to my parents’ home in Goreville and then hurry on to another Christmas Eve gathering at her grandparents. The next day after she and Gerry observed Christmas morning at their house, they would come to ours for Christmas dinner and then onto her folks’ home for yet another dinner.

After the grandparents no longer had their observances on Christmas Eve, life did temporarily get simpler. However, now Gerry and Vickie are in far-off Georgia. Tara, their oldest, is in Aurora far north of us. We are all eagerly awaiting the birth of Tara and Bryan’s second son any day now, so holiday celebrations are definitely complicated. We will welcome whoever is able to show up before, on, or after Christmas.

Jeannie and Rick are entertaining his family at their house for the first time this year, so they won’t be down from Freeport either. She’ll experience left-behind objects at her house no doubt.

We received our first Christmas card on Saturday from cousin Valerie, who wins that contest every year. Our second card came today. I better start thinking about mine. When we can’t get together with friends and family at this time of year, it is lovely to connect by mail. And belongings stay in their rightful place when we visit by that method.