Heading Home from Minnesota

The last of the celebrations was a breakfast given by Sid’s parents. The teachers and graduate students were traveling later in the day, and the locals were going to take down the tent and decorations at the farm, so it was not a lengthy meal. We sat at the dining table with Eddie’s mother and sister, Eric, Eric’s daughter, and his father-in-law. The FIL asked about Eric’s dad, so John told the story about Haakon’s boarding the Queen Mary during World War II. It’s an amusing story, which everyone enjoyed.

If you don’t know these people, it won’t help to have their names listed.

We were among the first to leave. Thom and Barbara headed to Maryland, and we were going to see cousin Peter and Debi in Illinois. We drove together for a few hours before they pressed on and we stopped for lunch.

The next day John told Debi and Peter about our going to church on Sunday. John and Peter share the grandfather who was the pastor there 100 years ago. There was only one cousin who was not aware of our going to that church, because he lives in Norway. I’m sure Kirsten and Eric will share with their brother.

Since we were in Illinois, we decided to drive through the town where our pastor grew up. He refers to Mulberry Grove in his sermons from time to time, so we knew it was a very small community. It was a little town that time passed by. I thought it was something like Mayberry, NC, a fictional town we knew from television. John pointed out that Mayberry had a barber shop and a police station, which we did not see in Mulberry Grove.

I texted Pastor M before we got to his town, and he replied after we left. I sent a photo of the post office as we rode down the highway. He wrote back, “I grew up one block from the post office right next to the old elementary school.”

I asked, “This one?”

That was the one. His home was across the street from the school. He went on to say, “On the corner of the street was an old stop sign for 30 or 40 years, and in the back of it was a dime that I lost when I dropped it down the slot as I waited for the ice cream cone truck to stop.”

We felt sorry for the little boy who lost his ice cream money, but we laughed, because it’s the kind of story he tells so well.

We made it to Tennessee and will be home tomorrow.

A Sunday Surprise

We went to worship in the church where John’s grandfather was the pastor from 1913 to 1924 in Hayward, Minnesota. The original building was replaced, but we are sure the bell behind John, Barbara, and Chris was heard by their mother.

We chatted in the sanctuary with a parishioner and Pastor Enderson. That pastor was a one-man band! , He played the prelude on the piano, doing an improvisation based on the first hymn. Making the announcements, he said the organist was away and he’d be playing and conducting the service. He sang the chants with a beautiful voice. Switching to the pulpit, he read the gospel for the day and preached the sermon. Back at the piano, he played the offertory, and so it went.

After the service, we went to see the wall of photographs of former pastors. In my picture, pastor Enderson is putting the photo of our relative, Pastor Ellertsen, back on the wall. We found out this young pastor is the grandson of the pastor who followed our relative! That was our Sunday surprise.

Our three posed before the former parsonage. It is next to the church but no longer belongs to it. This was the house where our relatives lived. It did not have running water in the early days, but it must have had a fence. The children were told they could speak Norwegian inside the fence, but outside the fence it had to be English.

In the afternoon we went to the party for Sid and Jacob, and what a party it was! We began with a tour of the farm by cousin Kirsten. Her daughter Erin and Ben own it, having expanded it over the years. (Erin and Jacob are first cousins.) There were appetizers in the barn, pizza from a food truck, and salads in the barn.

We sat in the climate-controlled root cellar for the toasts and roasts. Sid and Jacob knew each other from grade school on, so the people who spoke were classmates from 20 years ago. I love these teasing speeches that make you feel you know the couple better. The ending was a grand finale – all kinds of cakes to choose from. I had eyes only for the chocolate, but there were others for non-chocoholics.

Here is the happy couple we were celebrating, Sid and Jacob. God’s blessings on your life together!

Family Focus on Past and Future

The day after we joined sister Barbara and Thom in Illinois, we drove through Wisconsin to Northfield, Minnesota. There we met sister Chris and daughter Barbara who had flown in. We were together for a wedding in Colorado just a few weeks before.

Anne, Barbara E, John, Barbara A, Thom, and Chris

After lunch, we walked around the town while waiting to check in the motel. I loved the address on a pink door – 105 ½.

We were in town to celebrate the wedding of the son of cousin Eric and Caroline. They starred as parents of the bride in the Colorado wedding, and this time they were the parents of the groom.

Kirsten, John’s first cousin, and Jay invited us for a light meal. We chatted on the porch, catching up on family news.

Anna and Eddie (bride and groom from the Colorado wedding) joined us for the meal. If you are good at facial recognition, you won’t need a list of those in the photo. For those keeping score of family relationships, Kirsten and Jay are aunt and uncle to the Colorado bride and the groom being celebrated now.

During the meal we began to talk about the common grandparents of all these first cousins (John, Barbara, Chris, Kirsten, and Eric). Johan Ellertsen moved from Norway to teach in Minnesota. He later became a Lutheran pastor, founded a church in Brooklyn, married a daughter of the congregation, and moved to Minnesota where he served four small churches. That’s where the mothers of the five cousins listed above were born. On Sunday we plan to go to the one surviving congregation in a nearby town. Our gathering is both a look backwards at our roots and a confirmation of the future of the family with the most recent marriages.

The population of Hayward in 1915, according to John’s mother, was 52 if you counted all the dogs and chickens. Jay said the current census was 250. Niece Barbara said when we go to church, there will be 256 people in the town. That cracked us up. Everything that was said for the next half hour brought another round of laughter.

When we were leaving, we wanted to know about the artwork on the walls. We knew Kirsten was an artist and Jay a retired architect and now a photographer. Kirsten told about the painting in the dining room. She based it on a plat map of the area where they lived, even pointing out where their house was.

Kirsten told Barbara about a painting in the living room. I wish I could have taken pictures of everything, because I thought all of the paintings and photographs were marvelous.

I asked Jay about his photos, and he pointed to a wall where there were two. My photo does not do them justice at all, but we had to leave to go to the informal gathering at a cidery. I’d love to spend a whole day looking at their work.

I took one photo at the party before darkness fell. Jay and Kirsten are flanking their granddaughter Allegra with the cidery in the background.

Thom, Barbara, Jay, Allegra, Kirsten, John

Illinois Trains

We went to the Illinois Train Museum in a small town west of Chicago. John almost drooled. It had more trains than any other museum he has been to. We started with a ride on an interurban car from the North Shore Line.

When the motorman invited people to ride in front, John was right there. Doesn’t he have a satisfied look on his face as he came back toward me?

When the ride was over, John was the only one who accepted the invitation to sit in the motorman’s seat.

John said it was a good thing his sister Barbara and Thom were meeting us on the way to Minnesota, otherwise we might still be at the train museum. We looked at many engines and interurban cars, and John had a comment on almost every one. If I could remember half the things he says, I’d be an expert.

When Barbara and Thom met us in that town, we had lunch at a German pub. We managed to eat and begin catching up with news at the same time.

Tunes at a Touch

We were on our way to Minnesota and stopped for lunch at a little town in Indiana, the kind with the court house in the center square of town, surrounded by stores. There was only one eatery, so we went in. The town, the cafe, and the food were nondescript. When the waitress came to take our order, she couldn’t hear us because the music was so loud. She called over to the manager behind the bar, asking him to turn the music down. Thankfully, he responded, and that’s when I saw a flashy contraption on the back wall. It was about four feet tall and three feet wide. One of the customers kept going over to it, choosing music. Between songs, words flashed on the screen announcing that you could download the app and choose music from your table. Wow! It was an electronic jukebox! Before we left, I asked if they minded if I took a picture of it. The manager was pleased to show me all the menus on the flat screen and explained that you could put a dollar bill in the slot for three songs or pay with your phone.

When a song was playing, its video showed on the screen. Volume bars danced across the top, and the title scrolled across. The menu said you could hear 80 songs for $20. We could have tasted everything on the menu in that amount of time.

I feel sure the e-jukebox has been around for a while, but it was the first time I saw one. As a hearing-challenged oldster, I wondered if I could pay through the app to lower the volume. I could have had a bidding war with the customer who chose the music. I’d lower it; he’d raise it. Competition would be the name of the game.

The Ultimate Dish Garden

Our first visit to the Asheville Arboretum was delightful. Grandson David and I took an inordinate amount of time looking at the bonsai trees. I have seen miniature trees inside, but these were all outdoors. My favorite photo, with David included, was one that looked like a dish garden. I wanted to shrink myself and sit on the garden bench.

I snagged David and John to pose with my favorite single tree-on-a-shelf.

One of the first gardens we came to was the quilt garden. I believe they change the design of the squares every other year, copying a standard quilt design. We climbed the steps of the viewing platform to see it from above.

I can’t resist running water, so the stream garden was another favorite. Plants normally found near streams were in that area. The smooth water course didn’t produce much more than a gurgle, but it was visually engaging.

As you might imagine, we spent a bit of time near the train layout. John and David peeked in the shed to see the cars stored there. As they inspected the tracks and scenery, I watched two women with their five children in the amphitheater on the hill below. The children were cavorting on the stage and slipping through the wall of evergreen trees. It was the perfect place for them to shriek and chase each other while their mothers chatted.

Most of the visitors were parents with young children or retirees, a nice mix! There were probably serious walkers on the miles of trails that surround the gardens. We had a delightful time on a cloudy day when the temperature was on the cool side of warm.

Ice Cream SPLAT!

Grandson David and I were longing for barbecue, so John took us to Dickie’s after church. Dickie’s pulled pork might not measure up to the meat at our favorite BBQ place in Virginia, but it was certainly better than another favorite, Haywood Smokehouse, because it is closed on Sunday. We enjoyed our meal and choreographed getting the free soft ice cream. David, being the “professional” in the family working at Burger King, would load the cones, and John would bring ours to the table. He brought mine first, balancing it carefully. I had it securely in my hand, and then it toppled onto my tray. SPLAT! By the time I thought to take a picture of it, I’d already gotten a spoon and taken a bite or so.

John brought his cone to the table and sat down without incident. Two couples were sitting behind us at one table, and their four children at another table began watching David. By their dress and behavior, we assume they had just come from church, too. As David walked carefully to join us, he heard the children say things like, “Ohh! Look! I want one like that. It’s so tall! How did he do it?”

The fellows were man enough to finish off their cones without losing a drop. John’s success was because of speed and David’s because of being extremely careful. David said he has been told to limit the ice cream to three swirls per cone at Burger King.

Many of you can afford to envy that dessert. Several months ago we heard a person behind the counter tell a customer that the frozen part is dairy free. The cone is gluten free, as well. You can’t lose, except if what you are trying to lose is weight.

Weather Calls the Shots

Weather decided whether we would be outside. The forecast included thunderstorms, but storms are iffy in the mountains. We planned to find a swimming hole for grandson David if the temperature turned unbearable. If we were cool enough, we’d go to the arboretum in Asheville, which we’ve not been to yet. As we set out in the car, we headed for the arboretum. About five miles from it, I saw a dark cloud coming our way. The three of us dithered and decided to drive beyond it to the visitor’s center for the Blue Ridge Parkway. The center was lovely, having interesting displays about the building of this scenic highway perched on the mountain ridges from Virginia to North Carolina.

We heard thunder, and then came a huge downpour. We watched the video, looked at the exhibits, and examined the map of the whole parkway. I mentally pointed to the spot where our house is. I took a photo of John and David in front of the map. We left when it was only sprinkling.

Just down the road was the center for folk art. It’s a beautiful showcase for the work of contemporary mountain artists and includes a permanent display of historic crafts. I did not take photographs there, since most galleries do not allow it. It’s understandable that people might profit from stealing ideas. There were racks of clothing, Christmas ornaments, pottery, wooden utensils, musical instruments, paintings, furniture, jewelry, quilts, kaleidoscopes, and other decorative items for sale.

David and I got out at several overlooks on the parkway. I liked the foliage of some wildflowers and asked David to pose with white-bloomed autumn clematis.

Is this David’s gateway to the mountains?

On our way down the mountain, we stopped at David’s and my favorite waterfall, Sunburst. I took a photo of David with the falls. Where he is sitting is not a dangerous drop off. This is one of the places where people hop on the rocks and get closer to the falling water.

We were impressed with the low level of the water, and David held his phone out to get a closer shot. Light rain hit us at the falls, but it did not fall on the car a few feet away. At the bottom of the mountain, we stopped at Jukebox Junction to get David a milkshake.

On the way home, we stopped at a supermarket and a dollar store. If only I had restricted myself to looking for the things on my list, we would have made it home dry! John opted to stay in the car to watch lightning, but he came in to bring me my rain jacket. Just as we checked out, the deluge hit. We stood under the covered walkway waiting. It was amusing to watch people go through the rain to their cars. Some ran as fast as they could, and others shrugged their shoulders and walked. We couldn’t see past the parking lot for the heavy, heavy rain. When it slacked off, we waded to our car. Very few surfaces are level here in the mountains, and that included the parking lot. The water was rushing downhill as fast as it could go, but it was still an inch or so deep. The storm came down the valley, soaking Waynesville and Clyde. We live on the other side of Utah Mountain, and the roads near our house were bone dry. That afternoon we had several thunderstorms at home, and there was another storm raging when David and I went to bed at midnight. What an odd-weather day it had been!

As I was writing this the following day, a thunderstorm blew through. A photo of the deck in front of my computer shows heavy rain on the deck, with drops splashing up two inches in the birdbath. Behind the mountains were blue sky and white clouds.

Dragon Breath

The last time we went out to eat, I chose Dragon Shrimp. The menu said there would be shrimp and broccoli on a bed of rice with a spicy sauce. The waitress asked if I wanted Bleu cheese or ranch dressing to tone it down. I declined, not knowing that I would change my mind in a matter of seconds. I tasted the broccoli first. Yoweeee!! Steam may not have come out of my ears, but tears rolled down my cheeks. The shrimp and rice were fine, even though they had the same sauce. The day was saved with ranch dressing, and I thought no more about it.

The next morning the temperature was cool when we walked, in the low 60’s (15.6C). That’s what it has been much of the summer. I said to John, “I can see my breath.”

Blowing out, he said, “I can’t see mine.”

“I know what it is,” I said. “It’s Dragon Breath!!”

Logan’s First Day of 4th Grade

Neighbor Logan and his dad were waiting for the school bus as we walked to the top of the steep hill. I asked Logan to pose for a first day photo, which he did willingly.

Logan’s hands are blurred because he was still moving.

On the other side of the car, John and Bob were discussing whether they had missed the bus. John knew it took us ten minutes to climb the steep hill, and the bus had not passed us. Logan did the floss dance for a few seconds, probably letting off steam and excitement. He declined being videoed doing the dance, but he agreed to recording his getting in the car.