Was it the publication of the book, simply having that task off my desk? Was it the journey upon which DH and I were launched on the same day the final sign off on the manuscript was in the works? I suppose it’s a combination of things that has made fresh writing a struggle for me over the past many months; in any case, I’m going to be taking a hiatus from the weekly MBOBs.
Sometimes we choose a season of life. sometimes it chooses us, and seasons sometimes come and go with little warning of either their arrival or  their departure.

Do you remember when you were headed west on the Oregon Trail and far off in the distance – finally – you spotted Chimney Rock in the middle of what is now Nebraska? That was proof that progress was being made, proof that you and your parents weren’t totally crazy to have entered the journey.
Then, some weeks after leaving Chimney Rock in your dusty past, there it is….the blurred afternoon shadow of the Rocky Mountains, the longed-for and massive obstacle that must be conquered. It was expected and yet a surprise. Day by day the range grew in significance and detail and finally, the wagon train was in the mountains – climbing toward the sunset at the end of every day. (more…)

Kemp Hotel, Terry, Montana

This hotel on main street is a wonderful experience. It’s been restored sufficiently for use but hasn’t had the history restored out of it.
The wallpaper in the rooms still features giant roses and unraveling edges that whisper of 1942 or so. The front desk area has huge worn leather chairs that once sunk into are only escaped from with some determination.  The covered front porch has large wooden rocking chairs where we sat on a Wednesday morning in the summer of 2011 listening to a thundering storm that came over the town and lingered before bellowing on its way east or south. It was wonderful.
The wild roses were in bloom along the street where we had parked the night before walking past the eight foot hollyhocks en route to the front door.
Next morning after the storm had left town we walked a couple of blocks to the store that sells the best cinnamon rolls in Montana or North Dakota right out of the oven.
Our home town had a hotel, too, which was actually newer than Terry’s. (more…)

It ought not to be only for the nostalgia of some momentary comfort that we remember. Our efforts to comprehend the present may receive an assist from deliberate and thoughtful recollection of things that happened less than 100 years ago. Charles Lindbergh made his trans-Atlantic flight in 1927. [See the link for details]
https://www.charleslindbergh.com/history/timeline.asp
There are word pictures about him and The Spirit of St. Louis in The American Scrap Book published in 1928, a copy of which I have due to my MIL’s generosity with her own personal library back in the ’80s.
The Need for a Second Look is the title of their brief forward and these words are included in the comments that introduce this sizable volume:

The American Scrap Book and its companion volume, The European Scrap Book, aim to collect between the covers of two books, the year’s golden harvest of thought and achievement. The newest ideas in Literature, Art, Music, Business, Science, Religion and Invention make up the material that has been gathered together. Here, jostling together in pleasant proximity, are hundreds of writers and painters and world flyers, statesmen and biologists and doctors, poets, playwrights and diplomats.
“If we are to build up a Civilization around ourselves in these United States,” says Vachel Lindsay, “we must learn to keep our beautiful things, and to look at them more than once.”
A second look is what this book…offer(s) the reader. An opportunity to look a second time at beautiful worthwhile things and weave them into the fabric of our consciousness so that they may become a part of us.
It is a serious attempt to harvest the distinguished work of the year and prevent its being blown out of our hands in the swift passage of the seasons. We whiz through life at a pace that leaves very little time for reading, and no time at all to be wasted.

(more…)

The morning glories and the school bus arrived within a couple of weeks of one another in August…a color duo of the clearest blue sky and a flaming burnt orange sunset.
All summer my mother protected the few morning glories that had extended their vines up the south-facing kitchen windows, supported by twine tied in place each year by my dad.
Our weather was almost always completely dry in late July and August. Average moisture in those parts averaged fourteen inches annually, and that included snow melt.  Any annuals, including the morning glories, sweet peas, and cosmos had to be watered frequently by hand.
About the third or fourth week in August with the first frost usually less than a month away, the long buds of the glory-of-the-morning would announce the next day’s blooming schedule. (more…)

For this, farm families would take off on a day that was not Sunday!
The county fair was toward the end of August, just before school started.  Every county had their own but we always went to the one one county over instead of our own because that was where so many relatives lived and provided more options for dropping in for coffee either before or after.
As we got a little older our parents would take us to the fairgrounds and leave us there for a couple of hours – alone – with two or three dollars in our pocket. That was heady stuff: with cotton candy for ten cents and each of the rides only ten cents, a kid could go quite a distance with that. (more…)

Today’s MBOB is a repeat from a year ago. It’s harvest time again and depending on when the rain finally stopped last spring, harvest has been under way since July in some areas.
1951 was a good year. Dad sold 3,686 bushels of our wheat to the local elevator – 3,000 from the 1950 crop and the remainder a portion of the 1951 crop.
He didn’t plat out the wheat acreage in his record book for that year so I don’t know how many acres contributed to the total, but if we estimate 200 acres (which would be a little less than half of what we had in cultivation, the rest being poor-quality pasture) that year’s production was a little over 18 bushels per acre. Not bad. Thirty bushels per acre was considered a good crop. Some fields gave us thirty-six bushes per acre one year.
Although we had 500 of our 1181 acres under cultivation, only half of that could be planted in any given year because of the poor quality of the soil and limited, random rain.  Strip-farming helped preserve the soil so the ribbons Dad had carved out from our 500 acres allowed for 250 or so to be in production each year. Not all of that would be wheat (which is why I used 200 in the previous paragraph to estimate production). We usually had at least one field of oats to provide grain for the milk cows.
The grain elevators at the railroad siding in every small town were a hub of activity in August as the first loads of wheat were brought in.  The reports of crop quality and bushels-per-acre traveled with the farmers and spread quickly around the community as sales and services were tallied up, some of the wheat going into the grain car waiting on the siding destined for St. Paul, Minnesota, and some into the elevators for storage in the hope of better prices in the winter or spring. (more…)

MBOBs take root downward and bear fruit upward — can’t be helped — those things are built into them.
There’s benefit for any who will linger in their shadow and gain strength for the journey.
I wrote this in early July:

Maybe there’s something wrong with me but I am noticing there’s some gentle humor in grief. No tears in the last forty-eight hours but some discoveries that sort of make me smile.
Here’s my giant discovery of this day, [my DH] was totally right about this:

~”You can’t get it all done at once”~

(more…)

Today’s MBOB is a repeat from two years ago and considering current situations, perhaps a good reminder. The immediate reason for doing a repeat is that I poured boiling rhubarb jam on my thumb yesterday as I was filling jars, using an awkward cup to pour because I couldn’t find the one I usually use. 🙁  so I can’t type so good. BTW, I’m the third admin this week to have personal experiences with the reality and pain of burns. Wanna speculate???? 😉
For some of you, I know this one is familiar ground: may I invite you to write some short story of one of your own MBOBs in the comments thread. Seriously – do it!
This MBOB  is a transcription of my mother’s travel notes from an 18-day trip to Copenhagen, Cairo, Beirut, Nicosea, Tel Aviv, Caesarea and Jerusalem in the spring of 1972.
Early in her planning, she asked each of her seven children if we thought it was a good idea for her to go on this trip.  We certainly did and were so glad she wanted to do it. Her notes reflect her own love of travel, made as they were ten years after Dad’s passing in March of 1962.  This was a significant “solo journey” for her, made with a tour sponsored by a Bible school in Seattle.
Her notes are evidence of her ability to maintain old friendships and enter into new ones; and they remind us that there is much extra-Biblical historical documentation of the journeys and works of Jesus, the Christ.  The Scripture references in the text were in her original notes. Every mention of a city or location is not bold, but the first mention and sometimes additional ones are, if it helps us to “see where we are.”  I have added a few  italicized notes for clarification.
This narrative brings into focus some detail about sites that are within the sounds of  today’s rocket attacks.
Many of the sites Mom saw in 1972 would certainly makes Hamas’ list of “Things To Blow Up.” (more…)

They left Denmark in the 1890s having served and worked, walked and loved. They had learned lessons around kitchen tables, kilns, and fishing boats.
Fishermen and tradesmen leaving home because there was no way to expand.
Some with a reputation because they had stolen something one day in their past.
Some with a reputation for being skilled who would be greatly missed. Some who divorced, leaving behind a small daughter who would disappear in memory and never surface to be recognized again.
They arrived in America to be greeted by New Yorkers who had been building, working, and sweating for one hundred fifty years. They stood for hours in the lines at Ellis Island or sat on their crates and trunks, and worried that they would be refused entry.
Those who greeted them or sold them railway tickets or directed them to the rooming houses had also internalized their own lessons around heavy wooden kitchen tables in Poland, Italy, Denmark, or Scotland – or perhaps in Brooklyn. Now those lessons were being worked out by New Yorkers, by Bostonians, by those who had Gone West.
They worked out what had been worked in. (more…)

We finally got electricity in 1951. It was expected and though the poles had been installed for some time, the houses wired, and the wires strung, the promise of what was to come – didn’t. The impatience built and finally the older siblings thought it a stellar idea to just leave all of those switches in the house in the on position – just in case.
We came home from town one day and everything that could run was running. Everything that could light was lit. The juice was on!
Although it was an exciting moment my primary memory, as a seven year old, is how much it was simply taken in stride. We hadn’t missed it because we had never had it. Carrying the kerosene lamps up the stairs at bedtime and properly handling them so that we didn’t burn the house down was second nature and not considered a hardship. My mother’s sterling coffee pot and all of her pretty dresses did not fall short of anyone’s idea of living well. (more…)