Still in the Game

Here are some clips of my dad, playing tennis with his son-in-law and his grandsons on Thanksgiving Day. They didn't exactly tear up the court out there, but, since my dad is almost 83 years old, I was just thankful that it was possible at all.

My dad is a pretty awesome guy, and I'm sure, having inherited his genetic qualities, I'll be out on the court myself when I'm a great-grandmother.
Oh wait.
I've never played tennis.
Well, I'll probably be reading up a storm, tearing up the library.
Just you wait and see.





Sunday Scribblings--Games

Thanksgiving Day

The family all came in for a feast of food and visiting. We actually had 24 people here. It was great.I'm stuffed, but two days of exercise have kept me from popping.
Here are various and sundry scenes from the bash. Thankfully, nobody burned the carrots this year. We had turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, leaf salad, fruit salad, dressing, gravy, green beans and desserts piled higher than Mt. Kilimanjaro.



There were little corners of activity going on all day, and you just had to drift over into one to join. I tried to flit from one to the other...but I don't flit very well...scoot is more like it. On the Wii, four players were playing a "flash from the past" version of Mario...yes the very first one. Ah! Remember the little guy jumping over moving rock walls in the dungeon. This game had the added attraction of multiple players, however, and they could help each other out. Across the room a table of eight were busily drawing and guessing, playing a variant of the old telephone game mixed with pictionary in layers..draw, guess, draw, guess, draw, guess. When they weren't drawing or guessing, they were roaring with laughter. Serli, our Indonesian exchange student, added a great new dimension to the game. For instance, when she saw the clear illustration of a "trailer hitch" she couldn't remember the exact word, so she called it a "hooker". Of course, the next person, unsuspecting, drew...well you know. She was winking and everything. Actually, it was pretty rare that any word/drawing combo made it all around the table intact. The game was not only fun to play, but even watching was hilarious. In the den, the older set sat. There they were lined up on the couch talking to each other on their laptops and showing Mom how to access neat stuff on facebook. After a while, my brother-in-law and his two teen-aged sons headed for the tennis courts to take advantage of the perfect weather. Yes, that's my dad out there with them. Being almost 83 doesn't stop him from breaking in a new racket. It took him a while to warm up, but he and Barak ended up defeating Scott and Bodin. He and Zaya wore the identical blue guayaberas, so, of course, we had to have pictures of them together.

Dallas: Circles and Lines

Every year, at about this time, my fellow teachers and I get to spend a couple of days at convention in Dallas. It's a relatively painless way to earn the continuing education credits we need; we only have to attend six seminars in the two days and there are many interesting presentations. We can sit in on sessions that deal with a multitude of subjects, ask questions, and spend some quality time in meaningful discussions with our colleagues. In addition to all that, we have hours of driving time to and from the convention...especially time sitting in the traffic. This gives us a deep and lasting appreciation for our uncomplicated life out here in rural Oklahoma where fifteen miles only take fifteen minutes to drive...and they are scenery filled minutes at that. Granted, there is scenery in Dallas, but if you look at it, you are liable to plow forcefully into the back of a line of traffic that suddenly stopped right in front of you to begin the slow funneling of four lanes down to two lanes for no apparent reason.






The convention is held every year at a large, glass, hotel, so I have to be careful with stones. It's a well-run, comfortable convention center, with carpet, architecture, and artwork reflecting a theme--all lines and circles, beautifully coordinated, like planets and plumb lines. In the background, someone is always playing ambient music--trumpet or piano; it makes you pad noiselessly down the long, quiet hallways with a swing to your step, feeling like you are in a movie and wondering when the music will modulate to a minor key and the desperate chase scene will begin.
The hotel itself is like a living biome. Everything is quietly running, as if someone left things turned on: Water runs from the atrium cafe, around in a circle to fall quietly down to the lobby pool; curving escalators run endlessly beside it; straight lines of glass walled elevators run constantly up and down--beads on a string with lights all around like so many bathroom vanity mirrors. Along the edges of the wide rooms and corridors run whispering servants like meek, brown mice; they congregate backstage--in bone, bare halls behind the walls where the stairway exits lead.

In a corner of the atrium, past the empty bar and grill,there's a little cafe. You can slide in there quietly after seven, and pay eighteen dollars for their breakfast buffet, or you can get by on the coffee that comes with your room, and buy a banana for a dollar and a half in the hall next to the general assembly. There's a Starbucks in the lobby, but there are no vending machines with little packages of crackers and peanut butter.I did finally discover a coke machine on the third floor. I found the pool too--a small one being totally occupied by a gentleman reading his paper in the early morning cold

Speaking of early morning...that hotel had a lot of it.
Well, maybe I should explain that. I'm not used to noise--city noise that is, so I woke up at five thirty each morning, showered, dressed, and slipped out of the room so I wouldn't wake the other two teachers--those with aspirations of sleeping until eight o'clock.
Anyway, as I roamed around looking for a chair, a table, and an isolated place to grade papers, I took pictures, rode the glass-walled elevators up and up through the gridded roof at the sixteenth floor until I reached the twenty seventh, which is as high as any human should ever have to go without an airplane under her. It didn't take me long to push the down button, and hold my stomach all the way back to inside views overlooking the grand lobby. Every now and then along the walls, there were bubbled balconies covered with ivy basking in the light of higher bubbles. I noticed that when my camera lens focused on the oval carpet by the elevators, It gave it an unusual bubble shape of its own. More circles and lines.
By the time convention was over, and we had braved rush hour traffic in Dallas, I felt like I had my own circle/line theme going: My head was going in circles, and I just wanted to make a bee-line for home...ah...quiet foggy streets in the morning.

Two Little Turkeys

We enjoyed wonderful weather today--Foggy in the morning, clearing to cool yet sunny perfection. "Art" and "Carina" came over and brought the grandkids. We had a semi-quiet day. First, the little ones recited their turkey poems. Of course I had to film them for posterity (or embarrassing teen age moments). Then we settled into a quiet after spaghetti lunch stupor. Zaya kept sending his father on imaginary deep sea exploration assignments via an imaginary laptop and a noisy "you've got mail" icon. Finally, Art felt he had fulfilled his last imaginary quest for the afternoon and let his "laptop" run out of power. "Whoosh", Zaya whipped up an imaginary power cord to re-energize it. After a while the grandkids discovered that it was nice enough to play outside...and there were leaf piles. . . fodder for fantastic leaf storms. I thought I'd see Mim complain about the leaves in the face scenario, but she smiled bravely through it all.

Grandparents' Day

I took a couple of hours off from my own school to visit my grandchildren at theirs.
The children were all wide eyes and excitement, but on their best behavior--sitting primly around the circular table, eyes on the teacher in flashes, but filled with secret glances at all the grandparents, who had turned out in droves to support the little tykes. My grandchildren had both grandmas and both grandpas there. After an opening time, the grandfathers went with Zaya while the grandmas followed Mim. When I sat down beside her, in the grandma chair, she whispered: "Grandma, how do you like my new school shirt. It's unusually long." It is at that.

After a few activities, we met in the dining hall and ate a fine lunch together.

Thanks, Moms and Dads. Thanks for providing such a great opportunity for us to interact with our grandchildren and their daily activity.

November Gray

After all the brilliant colors of fall have faded, grayness conquers the sky.

Still beneath are some rich browns and reds: cotton, milo, and, every now and then, a bright green field of winter wheat.




I cut through the countryside today, just for a close-up look at the windmills, the crumbling farm houses, and the straight gravel road.

It follows fence posts down to the draw, then swerves to cross the bridge.
"There's nothing prettier than black cows on a green field with white windmills in the background", say the farmers around here, "unless it's black oil and a long buried pipeline." You've gotta love 'em.

November Colors

In the mornings, it's gone gray--skies overcast and valleys misted. We watch for this friendly orange flame waving from the oil rig. It has become a landmark on our way to school.


Our leaves are almost all on the ground now. This, the second harvest under the sycamores, still reflects an afternoon sun-- brilliantly.

These are the gold reds.
Now for green blue.








As I left school today this was
behind me, overcoming the grain elevator--a swarm of incoming cold blue swirls.

Operation Christmas Child

My little students finished packing their box today in children's church. We decided to send it to a boy, aged 4-9. After we packed it, several of the children prayed that it would arrive safely and be a joy for that little boy. Here they are, praying for their box.

Wherever you are in the world, little boy--in a refugee camp, a slum or a flooded pasture--we want you to know that we are sorry you live in such awful circumstances, and that we want to help you, and bring the light of God's love into your life. Amen.

Petra! Nineveh! Babylon!

While learning about Major and Minor Prophets in my Old Testament class, we kept hearing about three great cities--once terrible enough to melt the courage of a thousand little villages--now lying in the rubble of their own annihilation, brought to their knees and covered by desert sand--myths buried deep and doubted by all who questioned the writings of obscure Hebrew prophets.




Today, all three cities have been unearthed and rediscovered. So amazing are the ruins that we still stand in awe of them. Towers, moats--sixty feet deep, walls as thick as a city street, magnificent buildings carved into the sides of canyon walls. We've been researching--my students and I.

Since there are no skyscrapers out here in the country, we had to use the grain elevator for comparison. It works well actually. It's as high as the palace section of Nineveh's wall, as high as the cliff face of Petra, and not nearly as high as the walls of Babylon--and the walls of Babylon stretched for fourteen miles, all the way from our little town to the interstate, and beyond. When you look at it that way, it's impressive! If you look closely, you can see the boys' class clustered at the foot of the elevator.

The main part of this elevator is 120 feet tall. With the additional tower on top, it extends to 170 feet.

Some of the facades in Petra were 120 feet tall, and the cliffs around varied from 100 to 300 feet high.

The walls of Nineveh were 53 feet high for the most part, but one area by the palace was 148 feet high, and the walls were also 40-55 feet thick.

Babylon's walls were higher than 170 feet tall--Herodotus said 350 feet tall--and the wall was a double wall that stretched for fourteen miles.

I took a picture on the way to school, approaching the elevator in the distance in order to imagine how one would feel traveling toward one of these great cities. We can see this one from our town, which is around 13 miles away. Just think what it would look like if it were 14 miles long!


Today we took a short field trip during class and walked to the elevator. While there, we recorded our City Chants, took a few pictures, and just stood and stared upward, thinking about those three colossal cities, and the walls that defended them so long.


Yet Petra Fell...just like Obadiah predicted.
Nineveh Fell...with a flood and an invasion, just like Nahum prophesied.
And Babylon was given to Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede...an "invulnerable golden kingdom"...invaded through the dry bed of a diverted river. Well, Isaiah did say it would happen.

Mighty kingdoms rise and fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever.

Cheers for Ancient Cities

After we looked at the elevator walls, we crept inside one of the gateways, got into our teams, and performed our chants. The echoes ringing around us, the wheat above our heads, grate on the floor, wind and dust whipping by. . . it was like an arena.

Sunlight Strikes the Sycamores at Seven

Fred the Farmer

If you've looked at children's toys lately, you've seen Bob the Builder--videos, trucks, books, and other such items. Well, in our church there's Fred, the Farmer.
Typical of the surviving prairie farmers in this area, he has worked incessantly all his life to make a success of his farm, his town, and his church. He's in charge of the courthouse clock tower, the church cemetery upkeep, flower arrangements at church every Sunday, and a host of other voluntary tasks that quietly get done without anybody noticing...oh and he still farms, and, somewhere, he finds time to weld and build. (You're not much of a farmer around here if you're not also a mechanical engineer, painter, cement worker, and welder.)




One day, I asked Jean, Fred's wife, if my carpool and I could swing by her house and take some pictures and whether we would be attacked by the farm dog if we got out of the Suburban. (I hadn't seen him, but I just knew they would have a big old dog guarding the place)
"Sure, come by anytime," she told me. "and that dog won't bite you, but he just might lick you to death."

So, driving home from school a couple of days ago, we cut through the country. When we ran across Fred's house, I pulled in and talked to the man himself--just as he was leaving to plow a field.

"Go ahead and take all the pictures you want," he told us. "See, there's the new sculpture I'm working on. It's going to be a sphere--8 feet in diameter."

Sure enough, there it was in the driveway. "This rock pile," he continued, pointing to a tall stack of stones, "well, one night, soon after they put this line here to anchor the electric post after the last big ice storm, I came running out to check on something and tripped over it...so I put this stack of rocks to keep that from happening again."

Tori and I snapped away; She really liked the metal silhouettes; I liked the birdhouses. They sit calmly in the garden against a wild prairie background, keeping little birds safe from the ever present threat of chicken hawks.
Anyway, here they are...a tribute to the ingenuity of Fred the Farmer, Jean, his wife, and their friendly, old brown dog, who followed us faithfully around trying to lick us to death.

P.S. Tonight my husband informed me that they are naming a bridge for Fred. He's famous around here for his county commissioner days. Doesn't surprise me in the least.

Hit the Trail, Bessie

Cattle Trails are one of those things in life that seem mysterious to me. These bulky bovines have the entire field at their disposal. Yet, plodding down to the water, they stay in a line--so carefully placing their hooves that they create deep trails in the sod. Are they trying to save the grass for grazing, thus making their highways as narrow as possible? Or does the deepened rut comfort their feet with the knowledge that other cows have passed this way and survived? Humans, rushing for the water, would probably each make a beeline of his own, laying siege to the pond from every direction...maybe even staking out a claim in the form of a boat dock.

Elijah and Marie took this picture; they've developed a love for photographing the land around here. That same day, they found an old farm house in the area and took this picture of an ancient, abandoned boot.

What a hard, dry earth these prairie settlers conquered!

I loved the boot. It was like finding a footprint on the moon.