Ok. Snow Will Do.

We had such a great day at school today--big beautiful flakes of snow, snow angels, snow men, hot chocolate, the warm vanilla smell of baking schnetka, grilled steak for lunch and freshly made rolls, watching Prince Caspian in CS 7/8, first the boys group, and later the girls-- the entire class fitting on one great overstuffed couch...these are the great days you look back on later and treasure.

Let it Rain!

Clouds, clouds, billowing and piling and streaming and tossing and hovering and teasing...will it ever rain?

We got a few sprinkles last night, and the sky is gray again today...but will it ever really rain?

The farmers are anxious, their faces reflecting the empty clouds and the hopeful fields. ..wanting green, wanting moist, dark dirt and dripping stalks.

Yesterday one of my farmer friends said:
"We're supposed to be under a tornado watch, but it doesn't really look very promising."

I think it's time for rain.

That's Fred

The same man who has tended the clock tower all these years still tends it. That's Fred. He has served faithfully in a lot of city jobs, more than I know, certainly, but I do know that he was, for several years, the county commissioner. Recently, however, feeling like it was time he retired from a few of his more strenuous jobs, he surrendered the "setting up all the Christmas lights on the square" job to the Lions' Club. They did it one year, and the next year they decided it was so much work they would have to "simplify". A couple of years ago he painted the red steps of the courthouse--a painstaking job with a bucket and brush. At the time, he announced that someone else would have to do that next time. I don't know who. Nobody will be as careful as Fred. As far as the clock goes, however, only Fred knows how it works and what to do if it suddenly goes crazy and starts chiming out too many hours. So he patiently tends it. Some things you can't retire from.

Everybody Needs a Pile of Legos

...and a grandmother with a camera.

Our Town- - -A Fifties Kind of Place

Well the word is...

They are making a movie, using our town as a backdrop for a mystery story from the fifties. It makes sense. Our quiet square looks like it hasn't changed since then. The cars are modern, but the buildings, particularly the fronts, have a frozen in time look.

There are old apartments over all the stores on the square, and some of them are still lived in. Most, however, sit vacant, screaming for someone with enough money to put a new roof on the buildings to come do it...so the old offices with half wood, half frosted glass doors can be reopened.

They would make wonderful studios for painting, sculpture, music lessons...or neat little coffee shops where books lie open on the tables and on shelves within easy reach of old leather couches. Or they would also make great apartments...for all the people who don't live here anymore, having run off to big cities where the jobs are and the excitement.. .leaving the shining clock tower, the covered apartment stairs, the deep red of courthouse steps, the evening smells of pizza buffet and the morning smells of bacon, biscuits and gravy.

Auditions for extras were today. I didn't go. Not that I wasn't alive in the fifties, but I'd want to see the movie before I decided to be or not to be seen in it...and since it hasn't been made yet...that's impossible. But if I were the director, I'd use these steps.