Coop's Corner: Happy Thanksgiving!

Sunday, November 24, 2019

Happy Thanksgiving!

Nothing real major this past week other than a Thanksgiving wish for my friends, visitors and family.
Last weekend we were up in Superior Wisconsin for Peg's Aunt Betty's funeral. A sad event but good day for the family to gather.

Deer hunting time again here in SE Minnesota, our local district has a week on, a week off and now the 2nd week-long shotgun slug season is underway. John, our local farmer, is hoping to recoup some of the forage he loses all year long via the venison. We heard some very nearby booms last night....

It's taken too long but now there's a bike up on the lift getting some attention, more on that as it develops, To Be Posted Here. As far as the blog goes, a few posts are in their early Draft stages; the Black Hills and Wyoming are priorities. I'm suffering from more planned ideas than I have available time to compose and publish but the UP side is that I'm not bored nor anticipate anything remotely close to that in the foreseeable future.

Speaking of UP, Hanna has given us tickets for next Sunday's Minnesota Orchestra performance....a favorite, I loved this movie and it will be fun watching AND listening in a new way. A Thanksgiving meal will follow, hosted by our daughters. Even better, my must-see each Christmas movie will be seen in much the same way later in December. Star Wars and Harry Potter both previously performed as part of the Movies and Music Season.

Peg listened to and then shared a story with me last weekend from the Center For American War Letter Project from Chapman University. As you might very well imagine, I have something to contribute. From what I can tell, every letter that dad wrote AND received while in the South Pacific is here in a box. Once I'm convinced that everything is gathered in one place, both stacks of letters will be contributed.

More sorting, lots of disposal and a few items of interest are being saved.....the process continues, fun treasures found and memories refreshed.

Backpacking one weekend northern Minnesota, a discovery....

My postcard to mom and dad from Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland. My printing, half a millimeter tall.....

"...sat around a foggy fire last night with a couple of other bikers, Cairo....IL..laughing about the cold wet weather...Young hitchhiking couple from QUE asked me for help getting their campfire going, determined that I take their bottle of wine....we shared a glass.....Young Craig next door, maybe 12, fascinated with me and the bike....went back to his folks then returned, they want to know where your wife is....Raining again.....the Illinois biker is yelling over here from his campsite.....tomorrow we're going to Florida...." July 28, 1979

Christmas time '80 we flew to London, spent a few days, then took the train up to Holyhead, ferried to Dublin and met Brendan there. Over Christmas week, we circled Ireland, then ferried back to Liverpool, rented the Ford Cortina and left for the Lake District and Scotland. We didn't quite make it, bad wintery weather turned us south and west to Wales where we were stranded for 3 days in the blizzard and missed our flight home. Making matters worse, my plane ticket fell out of my jacket while shoveling our car out, making adventure we didn't really need.

We stayed in Piccadilly Circus ....

Que time in the Theater District, we saw numerous plays.

Trinity College, Dublin....

Brendan's Uncle Tommy and I discussing Irish dairying....

My turn driving the Cortina.....

From the Kincade Hotel, Llandrindod Wells, County Powys, Wales....some long but fun days stranded with the other hotel guests. Finally we left, illegally on roads officially closed.

From our place in the valley, hope and trust that everyone stopping by finds their Thanksgiving to be a special day for peace, calm and gratitude.

6 comments:

motormikeNovember 24, 2019 at 6:32 PM
to you and yours... best wishes on the holidays
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redlegsridesNovember 24, 2019 at 7:41 PM
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours Coop!
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RichardMNovember 24, 2019 at 10:18 PM
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
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Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)