It has chilled down a bit today and there was a rather brisk clip of wind this afternoon. We went to the Exchange Bank for breakfast on Jim and Michelle's recommendation and were very pleased. We each had a cup of decaf and I had a breakfast roll and Dick had a cinnamon bun. Both were excellent and the atmosphere was very pleasant. I found out that they have open mike every Friday from 5 t0 8 in the evening. He said it us usually music. I told him I do poetry and he seemed quite excited and asked me to come. Perhaps I will.

Then we went over to Fleet Farm and picked up some security bars for the showers. Jim and Michelle will install them for us as soon as they have time. I also found some spice packets for mixing venison and pork into bratwurst and Italian sausage. We are going to have to get a new fryer. I'll bet Dick regrets making me give away the two gas grills that I won in successive church festivals several years ago.

I cleaned out the spice cabinet and dumped a lot of old stuff. Things fit much better now. I also went through the freezer and inventoried the food in there. Boy, do we have a lot of food. We could bet by without buying anything else for a month, I bet.

I ordered Nora's wedding present today. It is supposed to arrive on the 9th. We'll see.

This year the Sheboygan County Writer's Club is celebrating it's 50th year. We are going to have an open house in conjunction with and at Mead on the afternoon of Saturday February 10. We are going to print a limited edition of a booklet using a piece from all of the members who wish to contribute. This is rather exciting. I don't know if I ever told you that I was a member of this club shortly after I graduated from high school and before I left for California. That was in 1958 to 1960 so I joined when the club was only two years old. Two of the members were Esther Stein, an elderly women who lived just around the corner from the old red house that I grew up in, and Dorothy Litersky, the mother of my friend Barbara Sadler. While I was a member we hosted a Writer's Conference at the then Executive Inn.

We had venison, noodles, green beans and cucumber salad for supper. I marinated the venison Texas style and broiled it. Boy was it ever good.

Take care and I will touch base tomorrow.

Love

Mary

Another busy day. It was 46 degrees when Chelsea and I went on our walk this morning at 6:30
AM. Yes. I said 6:30 - I got to sleep late. As one of the walkers I meet said. How about this spring weather.

Then I cleaned the kitchen and entryway. I also put away a few more of the Christmas things. I will continue to do a little every day and should be done by the middle of next week.

I made potato salad for our supper tonight. I made the Kunert Potato salad this time. We had it with cheesy hot dogs. A very satisfying meal.

I went out to Rhine at about 5:30 to start the pistol league. Lil and Ken were already there and ahead of me. Lil had heard rumors that I was dropping out of the club and league. See, when one stops ONE thing (secretary) it starts lots of gossip. I assured her that I was just backing off from things so I had more time to spend at home with Dick. I didn't do too badly tonight. The first one was a 51 followed by a 52 and I ended with a 68. Not too shabby. I just have to be more careful. I should have done much better on the second one. I got a little careless.

Dick had a kind of rough day today. He got very little sleep last night and couldn't seem to get any satisfying naps during the day . He gets uncomfortable so easily. Today he was just getting cat naps. Tomorrow we will take off the compression bandages again. I hope that the swelling is down this time.

We called Leslie tonight and had a nice long visit. Everything is going well for the wedding. There is a rehearsal at 1:00 on the 13th followed by the wedding at 2:00. Then they will all go to Brandon's parents' house for cake and punch. Brandon and Nora are going to stay with Leslie and Bill until Nora goes to Air Force Basic training. Then Brandon will stay with his parents until Nora goes for her training.

Tomorrow should be quiet. Dick is going to take me out for breakfast and then we are doing a bit of shopping.

Jim and Michelle came over and brought us sundaes from Culvers and did a bit of maintenance on the computers. So nice to have tech support next door.

From Cadfael Book of Days by Ellis Peters compiled by Robin Whitman. For January 5. "In no times, good or bad, can man do more or better than choose his own road according to his conscience, and bear the consequences of his choice, whatever they may be."


Love you

Mary

New Year's Day Mother, Me, holding Chelsea and Dick on the couch. Michelle, holding Boots and Jim on the floor.

We went grocery shopping this morning and got gas in the car. The rest of the day was spent at home.

I cleaned and cleared off my desk - again. Called a few people that I had not talked to in quite a while and ended up talking longer than I thought I would. I called Mom this afternoon too. She told me that she had fallen on Tuesday. She is really sneaky. She fell and then after making sure that nothing was seriously hurt and nothing was broken she was just not going to tell anyone about it. Then she looked in the mirror and found that she has a black eye so she told Donna the next time she talked to her and figured that she had better tell me too. I am sure glad that she got that lifeline. She commented that she was so glad she had it too. We both remember one time when Helen fell and could not get up, or to a phone to call for help. It was just a good thing that I had been trying to reach her and finally called Mom to walk over to see if she was all right.

Isn't the picture nice. Jim was very clever and got us all posed, set the camera on delay and popped right in there. Jim and Michelle "made" the refrigerator at Mother's house.

Love

Mary

We started out today by taking Dick to the Clinic to have his legs rewrapped. This time Theresa did it. We hope this will bring the swelling down. Angie who did them last week is really sweet, but they did not get much better and began to swell right away. I will cut them off on Saturday and we are going to see Dr. Phelan on Tuesday. Hopefully things will be much better.

Today was a really nice day overall. I cleaned the kitchenette and bathroom downstairs and did some quilting. I also took down a few Christmas things and gathered up my Christmas plates. I have four. One was made by the wife of an appraiser, Gary Kramer, that I used to work with years ago. She laquered Christmas fabric on glass plates and he gave them to us with his homemade caramels that were simply "to die for." One is a small blue plate I picked up at a garage sale it is #79 of a "limited edition" of 10,000. Wow. The third and fourth I got from Grandma Bowser's house when we closed it up. One is a 1972 Christmas plate - made in the USA none the less. The second is a plate with a picture of the Christ on it. I had not looked at the manufacturing information for YEARS. Imagine my delight today when I discovered that it was manufactured by the Crooksville China Company. Several years ago I started collecting their china and this was a pleasant surprise. A plate I didn't even know that I had.

I decided to tell you how I got my first driver's license today. I did not get it until I was almost 19 and less than a year before I left for California.

I told Dad that I wanted to learn to drive and asked him to teach me. Now, you might not know that my Dad hated driving and detested cars. He drove them only because there was no other way to get to jobs and some other necessary places that one could not walk or take a bus too.

Anyway, he took me out to a long deserted country road. I got into the driver's seat and he told me to start her up. I said "How?" and he paled. He said to push on the clutch and I said "Which is the clutch." He started to panic. We finally got it started and I jerked it a few feet down the road and killed it a few times before we decided that this was just NOT going to work.

So my boyfriend Jumbo Martin took me out a couple of times and then we went do the police station in Sheboygan Falls when the State Officers that gave the test were in. I passed the written test with flying colors. Then we went out to drive, it was not too good but really fell apart when he asked me to parallel park. I pulled up next to the patrol car with Jumbo's Cadillac and proceeded to scrape the patrol car with the Cadillac. Needless to say, they failed me.

I tried once more and failed.

Then I asked my brother, Tim, to practice with me. Tim, even then, was an old wise soul. I got really nervous and said something like I'll never be able to do this and he said something like Not with that attitude. That brought me up short. I was not going to let my younger brother think badly of me so I dug in and really tried. Then I took a couple of lessons from a professional so that I could learn parallel parking.

Finally, Dad took me to Sheboygan to take the test. It was bit humiliating to have to listen to the Officers fight over who would take me out. Obviously they were both terrified but finally the last one to take me got to stay at the station. I was perfect. I drove like a master and when it came to the parallel parking, I slid that thing in there into a space where the car JUST fit. And I got my license.

I do not now parallel park. I figure I did it once and I never have to do it again.

Tonight was the last board meeting that I will have to attend for Rhine Plymouth. For the first time since I joined that club, I will be just a member.

We got a package today from Leslie. What a pleasant surprise that was. She had such special items in there. An plate with a map of Ireland, made in County Cork. A CD of Mitch Miller, memories of childhood. A DVD of the girls. And a 1930 quarter in a little case and a 1930 National Geographic for Dick's birth year. How special was that "treasure chest".

Have a great day

Mary

We started out the day by taking out two weeks worth of trash. Last week we thought they were coming on Wednesday because of the holiday. But they came on Tuesday so we had LOTS and LOTS this week.

Then we drove down to Mequon to have Dick's new insoles checked. Pattie made a couple of minor adjustments but mainly they were just fine.

When we got home, I watered plants and took down the outdoor Christmas decorations. I quilted one more motif on the kittie quilt.

It was a rather quiet day otherwise with no mail and no market.

Yesterday, Jim, Michelle and I took Mother home and I took the kids on a tour of downtown Sheboygan Falls. Jim and Michelle have to go to Evans. Evans is famous. It is a 5 and 10 cent store that was there when I was a little girl owned and run by the Evanoffs. I went to school with their daughter Elaine. Her brother Edmund was in Nora's class and they had an older brother Alan. When the folks retired the children all took over a store, they had expanded to Sheboygan and Kiel by then. Edmund got the Falls store. It is a legend. If you can't find something any where else, it will probably be at Evans. That store is packed from ceiling to floor, has the best toy selection year round in the county and carries really quality fabrics and craft supplies. They never change prices on anything unless the whole rack is marked down so when you pick something up, be sure to check the rest to see if possibly one further back on the shelf is marked lower. Kids LOVE to go there. They can still take a small amount of money and buy a lot of stuff. And anyone from Falls who has moved away and comes back HAS to go to Evans. I told Jim and Michelle that they simply must go there. If for nothing else than the experience. I know that Ed is wanting to retire and there is noone that I know of who will take over the store so it may not be there long. I know that Elaine just closed her store when she retired.

Tomorrow we are going to the Clinic to get Dick's legs wrapped again. The last one just did not bring the swelling down. So tomorrow will be busy.

Have a good Wednesday.

"You can fairly claim that a day hasn't been wasted, if somethings been learned." from Calfael.

I am not sure that I learned anything new today. I'll try harder tomorrow.

Mary

The first day of 2007 is almost over. Dick is already sleeping and I am waiting for 9:00PM to roll around so that I can take our Chelsea out for her last nature call before I can get the jammies on and crawl in myself.

It was a beautiful winter day with blue skies and lots of sunshine, a welcome change after all the gloomy rainy days we have been experiencing. The temperatures stayed in the 40s too. So often when the sun comes out in the winter the temperatures drop immediately.

Last night I taped Garrison Keillor's New Year's Eve show because I knew I would not be able to stay up until 1AM. Now I have turned it on. He is at the Riemann Theater in Nashville. Right now he is interviewing Vince Gill. I know that I will really enjoy this.

Jim an Michelle came over and hung the pool cue holder that I got for Dick for Christmas. Now we have all the pool cues off the shelf by the windows. It looks really nice. They brought their Boots kitty over to meet Chelsea. They got along just fine. Boots was mildly interested in Chelsea and Chelsea was quite indifferent. This is great because Dick and I are going away the weekend of the 19th and they are going to puppy sit and would like Chelsea just to stay over with them most of the time anyway. Looks like it should work just fine.

I picked Mother up at about 1:00 for our New Year's Dinner of ham, mac and cheese and banana cream pie. You missed it. Love mac and cheese. We had enough to share too.

It was a pleasant afternoon. Mother and I told the story of the time the U. S. Army bombed us. I don't know whether you all have heard that story or not. So I will tell you.

It was the evening of the day that my Grandpa Deeley was buried. So I was about 17 or 18 years old. The whole family, all 9 kids, and Mom and Dad AND my then boyfriend Jim (Jumbo) Martin were in the house. Everybody but my brother Tim were downstairs spread out through the living room, dining room and kitchen. All of a sudden the house shook with a crash and loud bang from the upstairs. Mom's first thought and comment was that Tim must have knocked something over.

Several of us rushed up the stairs to find Tim standing at the door of the left back bedroom his mouth open staring at the plaster and dust that was billowing out of the door into the hall.

We looked in and could see several gouges in the floor linoleum and a hole in the ceiling. Further searching found a large cartridge (bullet) about a foot long and about and inch in diameter or more (Now these are 60 year old memories) We called the police and they came out to investigate. There had been other reports of similar incidents. A home up on Fond du Lac Avenue and a small fire in the street between our house and the downtown area AND a house in Oostburg where another small fire had started.

The police called the U. S. Army base which was located near Haven along Lake Michigan between Sheboygan and Manitowoc. In time we found that there had been some air maneuvers over Lake Michigan and somehow or other one of the planes had dropped a few of its load. There were several disturbing things BESIDES the fact that they had bombed Sheboygan Falls and hit three civilian houses. First, not all of the bombs or bullets had gone off. They were live. Dad and the policemen were handling this thing and tossing it back and forth to each other thinking that it must be a dud or a blank. Second, none of the planes had reported anything unusual and until the reports came in did not know that they had bombed us.

Thank the Lord. No one was hurt in any of the four places that were impacted. The bomb at our house had come through the roof, through a rafter then hit the linoleum floor at an angle, bounced like a skipping rock and rolled under the bed. It had hit the floor in the exact spot that my little sisters, Eileen and Dolores often played in their bedroom of an evening. It was only because of Grandpa's funeral that we were all downstairs.

Anyway. Times have changed. Nowadays I am sure that attorneys and many other people would have been swarming around suggesting that we sue the government and probably all 9 of us kids would have been awarded funds for trauma or something. Kind of silly if you ask me. What really happened is that the high ranking officers, probably from Haven, came personally to the house to talk to Mother and Dad and apologize for the incident. They gave Dad a model of the plane that did the deed and an empty cartridge for him to put in his display case. There was an estimate of the damage and a check was given to Mother and Dad for the full amount to fix it. Dad and some friends did the repairs and they used the money to buy a TV. Done and Done.

Pretty Simple and we have a story to tell. The night we were bombed by our own Army.

Went to Church this morning to start out the New Year. Fr. Van Beeck said that he wished that as our Pastor he could give us all Sunday afternoons for 2007. But he can't do that. We all know that Monday mornings WILL come. But along with him, I wish you more Sunday afternoons that Monday mornings this year.

Love

Mary

It has been a very quiet last day of 2006. Tonight, Jim and Michelle will be over at about 7:00 and we are planning on playing games until either midnight or we are too tired to stay awake any longer.

Chelsea and I took a very short walk today, her choice. Then I went to the 8:00Mass. It is the feast of the Holy Family and Fr. Van Beeck again spoke so eloquently of the joys and responsibility of families. Also reminding those who are single to treasure their memories and peripheral membership in families. The first reading was from Sirach telling young people to honor their fathers and to treasure their mothers - EVEN in their old and dependent days.

Jim and Michelle invited us over to watch "The Devil Wears Prada" that they had rented. It is really a very good movie. I do like Meryl Streep. We were discussing the execution of Saddam before the movie. I told them my opinion and my position. I do not believe in the death penalty. That is my final conclusion on that subject. However, I did express the opinion that IF I did believe in the death penalty, Saddam would be one of the people that I would feel should qualify. I believe that taking a life is God's job and better left to Him.

We are having leftovers for supper, chicken Parmesan and pasta with a nice green salad.

Jeff called this afternoon. He and Kathy are back from St. Augustine FLA where they spent Christmas with Shane. They had a good time. He also got the venison that his friend gave to him back from the butcher. So I have 10 more pounds or so which will put our larder at a pretty good level.

Tomorrow we are having Mother here for dinner. I am fixing ham, mac and cheese and banana cream pie. We will be eating at about 2:00PM if you are planning on joining us.

Love and Happy New Year

Mary