VISITING TRISH’S MOM

 This week we are in Lake Orion, Michigan, visiting Trish’s ninety-seven year old mom.

When Trish was born, her father was career Navy.  He retired when she was ten years old and the family moved from Southern California to Lake Orion, Michigan, where there was a job waiting for him.  

They built this house and moved here in 1967 and her mom, Betty has lived there ever since.  Trish’s dad, Ralph, died in 2019 and her brother, Jerry, and his wife now live in the house with Betty. So, she has been here for fifty-nine years!

Betty is very strong physically but is having a gradual decline in memory.  We sit and visit, we walk around the yard, we even go out for ice cream.  We enjoy being with her.  She is not sure when we for here, but she sure does enjoy the moments.

At this time in her life, moments are very important. If you only remember the moment, it is important to make them as much fun as possible.  Enough good moments surely contribute to feelings of love.  Our hope is that we will get to come back next year and celebrate ninety-eight years!

OUR NEW COMMUNITY GARDEN

 On our island, a wonderful new project is now in its third year and is really looking wonderful. Several years ago the Island Inn Hotel closed forever and the property went on sale.  With lots of help, the Preservation Society bought the building and the land and began to dream about what to do with it. This posted sign tells the story if the building and its history.

The project is taking the building back to its original status.  When all finished it will be a lovely space for community use.

The rest of the property, under the direction of Debby Wells, is transforming into this lovely garden.  

Trish and I love to go there with our lunch or just for a restful time.  We put one of the benches in the garden so one of the things we enjoy is just going there and sitting on our bench! 

If you come to the island, we hope you will take time to sit on our bench as well!

SUMMER AT HOME

 Except for one week, we have been at home on the Island since May 19.  This has enabled us to grow lots of vegetables and flowers this year.  We have eaten tomatoes, beans, peppers, squash, cucumbers, onions, carrots and other things. No corn because we don’t have enough room for that.  Even more than the vegetables, our eyes have enjoyed the flowers.

Every year we learn more about what likes to grow here and what does not. Last summer we had a kind of hybrid cosmos that outgrew itself.  This year it reseeded itself but returned to one of the parents of the hybrid. So, we got this beautiful new yellow and brown flower that reproduces itself intermixed with the yellow and red gillardia that really likes to grow all over the island.

In back of the house all kinds of zinnias intermix. We gradually get a mixture of new plantings and some surprise reseeding from earlier plantings.

The best surprise of the year has been caladium.  We had one bed that is constantly shaded and stays a bit damp even without being watered.  We filled it with caladium this year and it loved the place.  We will save these “bulbs” and use thrm even more next summer.  

Both Trish and I equally love playing in the dirt!

King Tut Treasures

 Every year when Trish and I go to the Biltmore Estate, there is some special exhibit we see in addition to the house itself.  One year it was Downton Abbey sets and costumes. One year it was Monet art work. Last year it was Dale Chihuly glass work.  This year it was the Treasures of King Tutankhamen.

These artifacts are exact duplicates of the originals as the originals are housed and protected at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The interpretation here was excellent beginning with the entire story of Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon’s teamwork over the years.  Then we get to walk through the artifacts with excellent interpretation.

We started with the gigantic shrine that almost totally filled the burial chamber so much so that it was nearly impossible to figure out how to disassemble and remove it.  

Inside were four more shrines until in the very center came the sarcophagus container with its series of inner containers.

Inside the gold sarcophagus was placed the inner casket and then the mummified body itself. 

In the final room of the exhibit were displayed all of the additional artifacts found in the tomb including tools, weapons, food, and other things to care for the Pharoah in the life to come.  Our minds and eyes were full by the time we got to the end!

Biltmore House Christmas

 From San Antonio we drove to LaGrange, Georgia, where each year I tell Christmas stories in an event called Deck The Halls.  We then went to Dublin, Georgia, where I tell Christmas stories each year at the historic Carnegie Library building. 

We are now in Asheville where we usually stop in the Christmas season to visit the Biltmore Estate. Last evening we visited the upper floors of the Biltmore House. 

We usually take an audio tour, but, after doing that several times, Trish and I decided to wander in our own so we could soak as long as we liked in each room rather than being pushed along by the recorded guide.

We learned that there are thirty-one trees in the house itself and more than seventy on the entire property.  Beyond the trees the whole house seems to be one huge Christmas decoration.

It was a very nice thing to move slowly.  We say little details never noticed before realizing that even the tiniest stone or hinge was crafted with care as the thousand workers put this place together in the 1890’s.

One of our favorite rooms is the library where each of us wanted to curl up with a book and stay for a while.  There are 22,000 books here as George Vanderbilt was, from childhood, a voracious reader.

From upstairs we could look out the windows and see the vast spreading front lawn and its single tree.  Today we will return to the house and go deeply downstairs.

San Antonio

 When we leave Midland, we are headed to LaGrange, Georgia, but we have three extra days getting there. So, we often stop over in San Antonio to enjoy the Riverwalk at Christmas.

We like to stay right on the Riverwalk where we take the elevator down and are right on the river.  On the other side of our hotel, the Alamo is right across the street.

We do three things here: eat, rest, and ride the boats.

During this season the city puts up over 200,000 lights over the river.  They are in long strings, weighted on the end, that hang down from the gigantic cyprus trees that line the river. 

The boat rides take about an hour and each one if different because of both time of day the the different captains.  They are very reasonable in price, so, we take two rides each day, one in the day and another after dark.

There are waterside restaurants all along the river.  Fun places to eat!  We will surely keep coming here as it is so beautiful and restful.

Midland Storytelling Festival

 In 1992 Rex Ellis and I traveled to Midland, Texas, to work with teachers and begin the Midland Storytelling Festival.  Thirty-four years later I have not missed a single year being there.

At this year’s Festival, we had a wonderful lineup.  Tellers joining me included Antonio Rocha, Bil Lepp, Mary Hamilton, Charlotte Blake-Alston, Laura Pershin Raynor, and Barbara McBride-Smith.  We had a wonderful time.

The Festival itself is held beside Centennial Park in Downtown Midland at the Bush Convention Center and it is free to all comers.  In addition, the festival is live-streamed on Basin Public Television and on the Festival Facebook page.

On Friday all the tellers go out to schools for an education impact day.  Some of us were at Bowie Fine Arts auditorium where we had two groups of 480 second graders who were bussed in from a number of schools. In addition to the children, we got to see the Fine Arts Center where the lights in the hallway looked like glass blown by Dale Chihuly but were actually made by the students from soft drink bottles.

There is a strong student storytelling program here run by Festival Director Sue Roseberry. On Thursday evening, at the  Bush Convention Center we were joined by several of these student tellers in a program live streamed on Basin PBS.  We were all on the stage in the end.

On Saturday we had programs for children and adults both morning and evening.  Before the evening show started, we enjoyed the West Texas Gospel Choir for Carols and Cocoa in the vestibule of the Convention Center.

I always have a good time telling here, and, we will be back next year on December 3 and 4.