1969

1969 came up at church last night because it was embroidered on a two-year-old's jeans. The mom had bought them at GAP. I told the mom that 1969 was actually a very good year for me. I was protesting against a war and working actively for womens' rights and for protection of the environment. An older lady at the table said she didn't think that much had come of the womens' rights movement. I have learned some wisdom through the years and knew that leaving that remark alone was the polite and politic thing to do.

However, I disagree. Here is what my life was like in 1969. Louisiana State University, based on the doctrine of in loco parentis , decided what I could and couldn't do as a woman student. There were no do's at all that I remember besides going to class. But there were plenty of don'ts. I couldn't wear pants anywhere (unless I was going bowling-which I did more than you would have believed possible), I couldn't go out after dark unless I signed out saying whom I was with and where I was going, I couldn't go to a man's apartment unless I had a signed letter of permission on file from my parents, I couldn't stay out later than 11 o'clock PM Monday-Thursday, 12 o'clock on Friday and 1 o'clock on Saturday. (I think I remember those numbers right.) And, my room was checked every day to make sure I had made my bed and had put my clothes up neatly, emptied the trash and cleaned the sink. I still have the nasty note from my housemother that she left because she found my bed unmade and pizza boxes in my trash can. These rules wouldn't have been half as galling if the male students had had to follow any of these rules. So the boys brought us to our dorms at curfew, we were literally locked in and then they went off to do whatever the heck they wanted (wearing pants.) You can laugh at these rules as much as you want until I tell you what the consequences were for breaking them. Any small infringement was a minor. Three minors made a major. You could also get a major for any large infringement like missing curfew. What was the punishment for a major? Again, my memory is fuzzy but I think it was being locked in for two weekends at six PM. Three majors and you were expelled. They had expelled Miss LSU outright the year before when they found a boy in her dorm room. (Not doing anything, just being there.)

As a sidenote to all this, there were maybe twenty black students (male or female) on campus at the time out of 18,000 students.

Can you really tell me we haven't made a little progress since then? It would also be interesting to look up in a 1969 Shreveport phone book (my hometown) to see how many lawyers, doctors, insurance agents, real estate agents, school principals, and accountants there were who were women. If you found more than three in any category I would be shocked.

I can't help but be gratified by the tickets of the major parties this year. To all you misogynists/racists out there, you have no choice whatsoever! Hah! You have to vote for either a black man or a woman! Yes the womens' movement went too far. Mixed-gender combat units are an abomination, in my humble opinion. But some change was necessary. Just like the Civil Rights movement was necessary. My part was small but there weren't a lot of us on my campus brave enough to push for change and I'm glad I did my little bit.

Cute little library

I was disappointed that our church genealogical library is in Scranton and not in my home church building the way it was in Denton. But I had already noticed a little building near my house that is the headquarters of the Northeast PA Genealogical Society. It sounds rather important but it just a small society that works out of a little cinder block building on what used to the main drag before they built 309, the Cross Valley Expressway.

I checked it out yesterday and met a nice couple there. Online it had said that it was a satellite library of our church's Genealogical Library in Salt Lake. They do have a really sophisticated scanner and have access to loans of microfilm from Salt Lake.

What is really cool is that their main function is actually microfilming local records. They have been doing cemetery records of late. I saw a register for a big cemetery in Hanover Township where Michael works. This volume was for the Jewish section of the cemetery and also had a section just for babies.

It's only open on Thursdays from 10 to 2 so no chance of me spending all my time there. But I will go back just to see what they have and to see if I can help out. I've been looking for a volunteer opportunity and this might be it.

Not in my world view

The leaves have started changing color here. This is quite frankly not in my world view since it is still August. I thought it was my imagination at first but I asked a few people and it is indeed true, fall is on its way. This has been a very cool August so for them it's not surprising. But for a Texas/Louisiana girl, I should still have at least one good month of summer left. (Maybe two. I remember some really hot Octobers.)

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. We have thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful weather. I can never remember a more beautiful summer in my existence. But I'm afraid there is a heavy price to pay coming up sooner than I expected =) All the more reason to get back to the writing so that I can concentrate on my bestseller when the winds are blowing outside.

Gentle readers, if you're interested in my LDS novel, please let me know and I will start sending you chapters for critique. I am serious about publishing this one and so I need all the help I can get perfecting it. I am also cooking up a young adult book in my head. I've never spent this long just working on the concept so I'm hoping it will be a winner since the idea is so persistent.

Hiking and other adventures

Humans always seem to be impressed by the very small or the vast. The fact that my son is right at six feet tall makes the ledge in this picture even more impressive. He almost looks like a child standing on it. This is another picture from our visit to Ricketts Glen State Park, a truly amazing place with many waterfalls.

I went on a short hike with my son, my daughter and my grandson. The others were doing different things. Michael was going to have to take a phone call from work and he needed to find an area with cell phone reception (the fun never stops) and my son-in-law stayed with my granddaughter who was throwing big rocks into the water as opposed to the small rocks she threw into the water at Frances Slocum State Park on a previous day.

My son has been on more hikes than you can count but I'm thinking this is the first time I've taken one with him. I've never been much of an outdoors person (although in childhood I remember living outside a lot of the time.) This turned out to be an enlightening experience. I have no sense of direction and I never thought that he had much of one either, but he and my daughter both seemed to do equally well at knowing where they were in a very shady forest. He also showed himself to be very aware and observant of things around him. He managed to find a very tiny red salamander and later an enormous green caterpillar to show my grandson. I would never have spotted either of them. He's so car-oriented, it was great to see how well he functions without anything mechanical in sight. It's great fun when you discover something new about one of your children. My daughter shamed me as I was having trouble negotiating some of the slippery rocks. I couldn't complain as she is quite a few months pregnant and was wearing backless sandals. We had a laugh about that on the trail.

Moving to Pennsylvania has both forced me and encouraged me to learn and improve on rusty skills (like being outdoors). I would never have worked with contractors if Michael hadn't had to leave me behind to take care of fixing up the Denton house. I've had to learn about negotiating and compromise. And I've had to make a lot more decisions about our home both here and in Texas because he's not around to help with that. I'm not doing a good job at it, but I'm doing more gardening here than I ever did in Texas. And the whole adventure of driving myself to Philly, getting to the airport, and then dealing with a car problem on my return in the wee hours of the morning was a huge stretch for me. This area and its climate is unlike any place I've ever lived, and I'm learning to deal with a new culture. In a more abstract sense, I've learned to be more patient and flexible. (I still have a long way to go on both of those.) My biggest challenge now is to try and manage the huge chunks of "free" time I have and make decisions on how to best use it.

Ductless A/C

I did say that I wouldn't post pictures of my grandchildren on this blog. I am posting these because you wouldn't be able to identify them from either of these pictures. Michael took the one at the lake. V loved throwing rocks in the water. I took the other of M trying out his new Cars rainboots on a dewy morning.

I had an estimator come out today to talk about air conditioning for the house. This seems really futile today since I'm wearing a jacket indoors because I was getting so cold. It was 44 this morning. But everyone tells me that this is an unusual August and that it's usually quite warm. Here they have something called ductless air conditioning. They punch a hole in your house and put in wall unit inside and then wire it outside the house to the actual a/c unit on the ground. Hoses take the accumulated water out of the air and down the side of the house. It won't get your house down to anything like 68 degrees but it will keep it comfortable and remove the humidity from the air. In order to get traditional central air we would have to give up the attic bedroom for overhead ducts and then use the closets for ducts to get the air downstairs. No way! I don't have enough closets as it is!

Off to run errands. A lot of problems got put off while the kids were here and one of them was Michael's almost total lack of good work clothing. This is a great time for sales so I'm off to buy slacks and shirts. He'll pick what he likes and then I'll return the rest. Should be fun.

Ricketts Glen

Here is the promised picture of Ricketts Glen State Park. Unbelievable that this is just a few miles from our house.

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

Oh my goodness! What an interesting book! This is the fourth book in the vampire series by Stephenie Meyer. This young LDS woman has been creating quite a stir with her wildly popular books. I finished most of it yesterday as I was recouping after the visits. Laundry and book-reading were just what the doctor ordered. But the book took over my life pretty much. Unlike the last Harry Potter book which I read in almost one sitting, this one stalled from time to time and I took breaks. But it was exciting and as my daughter, GL, had told me, impossible to predict. I finished the last hundred pages at about two this morning when I woke up and couldn't go back to sleep.

We went to yet another awesome ice cream place that my new dentist and his X-ray tech recommended. You gotta believe that the ice cream is really good if the dentist tells you to go there! It's called Curly Creme and was much richer than regular soft serve. Yesterday they were serving peach, strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. The lines were long. It was pretty yummy. These people up here know how to do soft ice cream. They must be really frustrated if they move down South and find only vanilla. We are amused because this area must have the nation's highest per capita consumption of sprinkles. They love their ice cream cones dipped in sprinkles. They prefer the multicolored ones but also eat the chocolate ones. It's not just kids either. The adults walk away from the windows with sprinkle covered cones as often as the kids do. Isn't that great! I love seeing a big burly guy who looks like a linebacker walking around with a sprinkle-covered cone.

We saw a sadly truthful teeshirt at the ice cream place. It said, "Enjoy it now, because after college it's called alcoholism." I guess that's a universal problem in college towns. This one seems to be no different. There are local papers aimed at the college crowds here and it's all about the clubs and the bars.

I noticed one of the local colleges was advertising for adjunct professors (no French openings). I've been putting off sending out my resume. I can't decide whether or not I should do that. Plus, there is also the astonishing lack of piano teachers around here. I've had people beg me to consider teaching lessons again. I think I could pretty much ask whatever I wanted in the way of price and schedule and still find students. It's time for me to make some tough decisions about what I want to do while I'm up here in PA.

We have survived!

The kids have gone home, my son on Friday and the family from Prague on Sunday. Taking my son to the airport was uneventful but so poignant for me. The girls have their own families, but Michael and I (and his sisters) are Zach's family until he starts a new one of his own. The leaving of the Prague family was wildly exciting. They left their small DVD player (an essential element for the long plane ride home) so I zipped into my little red Miata and drove to meet them. Cell phones are amazing, aren't they? We managed to hook up at a Wawa (it's a kind of convenience store) at the I-80 exit off the turnpike. So I got one last hug from a happier grandson and a sticky-faced and adorable granddaughter.

I appreciate the kids coming so much. I hoped during their visits that they were having a nice vacation as Michael and I aren't the most exciting people right now. My knee went out right before they got here and Michael ended up working way more than he had planned. He had to go to the pharmacy on Sunday and missed their last day here which was sad. This pharmacy runs on the Sabbath Day which I just hate. I spent a lot of time just keeping things running. We kinda maxed out the house as far as bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and laundry facilities go.

I think the attic playroom was a hit. V, my granddaughter, christened it the steepy stairs since she wasn't allowed to come down the stairs alone. Maybe by next trip we'll have a handrail which will make it safer. Martin thought of them more as the secret stairs. It is a cool place which will only get cooler as I organize it. It will be a sewing room for me at some point as well.

When the grandkids are here what I want to do mostly is hold them or look at them. Michael agrees. And we got to do a lot of that. I loved spending time with my son-in-law, my son and my daughter. They are all fascinating people and when things were quiet enough to talk, I learned things as I always do when I am with them.

Today it's more laundry and cleaning bathrooms and my first visit to a new dentist. The fourth book in the vampire series by Stephenie Meyer is waiting for me on hold a the library. My Utah daughter tells me that it's wonderful so in between laundry loads, I will probably have my nose in a book.

This blog is about the move to PA and I'm wondering what this blog has to do with that. I think it's about the difficulty of getting together with our family and how precious our time is when we get together now.

Houseful

We still have a houseful of company so this will be quick. This week we've visited Ricketts Glen State Park and hiked by a beautiful waterfall, been to Frances Slocum State Park where my grandson and his dad have returned to go fishing twice, eaten at a Mexican food restaurant, gone to Philadelphia to sightsee and eat Philly cheesesteaks, and visited the Railroad Museum in Scranton. It's been great to see the grownups, Z, M and N having fun. They've been busier than Michael and me which is to be expected. The little ones love the fact that I say "Okey Dokey" and love to hear Grandpa Bond play his tuba. V's favorite thing is throwing rocks in water and she's had many opportunities to do that. M made the cherry pie he was so anxious to try and then ate only one cherry from his piece! But he loved making it.

I'll post again about Ricketts Glen because it was amazing. So more about that later.

Getting ready for family visit

Let's put it this way. I got up at 4:45 AM yesterday morning (because I couldn't sleep) and made a TO DO list of things I needed to accomplish before my daughter and her family and my son arrive. It ran to three pages and took an hour. This gives you an idea of the magnitude of things still needing attention in our new home. But I've been working my list down steadily ever since. Things are looking a lot better. The toy room is looking promising. The living room is uncluttered. Children's books have been borrowed from the library. I've done some online shopping for Christmas presents which the Prague family will want to take back with them. The kitchen and entryway storage closet are a lot more organized and I'll work on the master bedroom today. We have two new fans and are proud owners of a Slinky (which was invented in Pennsylvania and is now made in MI which is either Michigan or Minnesota. I'm thinking Michigan.) We always had a Slinky when we were kids but we never had stairs! I'm anxious to let it go down the front steps outside.

Off to clean floors, bathrooms, do laundry, truck things up and down stairs and locate more toys. There are a few toys and childrens' books I still haven't found yet.

Feeding the missionaries

The theme of this blog has been and will probably continue to be what it's like to move to a completely different part of the United States. Even though our church affiliation stayed the same, there are differences between congregations or wards just because no two groups of people are alike. In our church, we take turns feeding dinner to the missionaries in our ward (congregation.) Missionaries are usually young men between the ages of 19 to 25 or so and young ladies who are 21 and older. There are senior missionary sisters and couples who serve as well but they are in the minority. In our ward one of the huge differences is that we have six mouths to feed. Our old ward like most wards has only two. It is really great to have so many missionaries around.

So they came over on Sunday and ate lots of hamburgers and cupcakes. I usually try to feed them healthier food than that but I made an exception this time. Michael cranked out the grill for the first time since we moved here. I'm not sure why it took us so long. The burgers were delicious. You cannot imagine more delightful and appreciative dinner guests than these six young men. The hands belong to Michael who didn't want to be in the picture.

Our elders come from California, Washington State, Arizona and of course, Utah. When my son, Z, served his mission in Pennsylvania (in a different part of the state), he was only one of two from Texas among the hundreds of missionaries serving in his part of the state.

I'll try to remember to give my blog address to the elders on Sunday so that they can send it to their moms. They are fine young men who really stand out in a world that's interested in a lot of things other than honesty and righteousness. If their moms (and dads) are out there reading this, they should be very proud.

In other news, my daughter in the Czech Republic and I talked today. She moved yesterday and said that things went well. She and her family arrive at our house on Friday. (If you add to all that the fact that she's due in November, you can see why she deserves a motherhood medal.) I cannot wait for them to get here. After she arrives my son flies in from Texas. I am going to be one happy camper in just a few days. Our moving up here has created a great challenge in getting our family together. I knew in my head that that was going to be true when we moved up here, but the reality is even harder than I imagined. It probably doesn't help that a lot of people in our ward are in the same boat and spend a lot of time and money traveling great distances to visit their families.

The most amazing thing came in the mail today. My first letter from a grandchild! C, the oldest of them, is just six but I got a nice letter from her today addressed to Grammie. Thanks, C! It was a beautiful letter. And now the postman knows who I really am!

Homestead exemption

Errand day today. First I forgot that the post office in Shavertown is closed from 12:35 to 1:35 for lunch. I can always go a few more miles to Dallas to the P.O. there but it's the principle of the thing. I have my own post office and I like using it. So I went to the bank next. I had a huge tote bag filled with coins. Guess what? No coin counter! And they don't have one at any of the branches of my bank. They said there was a coin counter at the grocery store. I am way too cheap to pay someone to count my money so the cashier gave me a huge stack of coin wrappers.

Then I went back to the post office to mail a little package to my daughter's family in Utah. The postage almost cost more than the contents but everyone likes getting packages! After that, I went to sign up for our homestead exemption at the Luzerne County courthouse. I didn't know what to expect except that the building itself is a huge pile of grey granite built in the Greek Revival style.

Here were the surprises: I had to pay for parking. Granted it was only 50 cents but I guess I'm used to the wide open spaces of Texas where parking is free. And the pedestrian entrance from the parking lot was really creepy and dirty with cobwebs and lots of dirt. This didn't bode well. I expected to go through security but was surprised at how low key it was. Just one lady security guard and I didn't see any guns. When I walked through the security portal, it beeped but the lady said not to worry about it. She looked at my cell phone, ran my purse through a scanner and that was it.

The building inside reminded me of City Hall Shreveport about forty years ago. In no way did the opulent exterior match the offices I saw. But it was clean and in good repair. The man who waited on me was infinitely patient with an elderly lady in front of me. After the weeks and weeks of complaining customers they must have had because of the reassessment, I was surprised he could be so longsuffering. She wasn't rude, she just needed everything explained about six times. I was also surprised that the huge office was painted a very calm green with nice motivational posters everywhere.

Going back home I had to do the thing in the parking garage where you have to go up through all the floors before you can go back down. I think there were about six floors. Plus the top floor was outside. Can you imagine how much fun it would be to slide down that in the winter? Annoying. But the gentleman who took my fifty cents (the flat fee for parking which seems hardly worth the effort) loved my car and was friendly as could be.

I was very impressed by the kindness of all the public servants I met up with today. It makes the one jerk at the Driver's License bureau really stand out! Michael is planning to get his license tomorrow. I'm anxious to see what kind of experience he has there.

Slovak festival

Yesterday we went looking for the Polish festival in Nanticoke but were unsuccessful. But on the way, Miss Garmin sent us down the road that skirts the state forest lands. Beautiful!

So we went to anther festival at the Holy Assumption of Saint Mary Byzantine Catholic Church in Wilkes-Barre. Jolly Joe and the Bavarians were to provide the music and there would be food, flea market, etc. The whole Catholic thing is confusing as this is not a Roman Catholic church but an Orthodox church. In the same block there is a Roman Catholic church and two more Orthodox churches including Saint Stanislaus and the Holy Resurrection Cathedral. In the Wilkes-Barre area there are Antiochian, Ukrainian, Russian, Byzantine, Maronite, and Greek Orthodox churches.

The church we went to was Slovak and we had the Slovak plate which consisted of pierogies, harushki and stuffed cabbage and a free cup of coffee. We ignored the chit she gave us for coffee. Harushki is homemade egg noodles, sweet cabbage (as opposed to sauerkraut), and onions sauteed in butter. We had the food inside the room with games. We wondered what kinds of games they would have. The first thing we saw on our right was a huge wheel of fortune with domino combinations on it and on our left a full-size bar with beer taps. Everything else except the bake sale was a booth that sold raffle tickets. You could buy a raffle ticket to win lottery tickets (does gambling twice cancel it out somehow?) or a gift certificate for the local casino, The Mohegan Sun. There were colored lights everywhere and one booth had real 50 dollar bills hanging from the ceiling. Las Vegas meets dinner on the grounds.

We loved the food and the atmosphere. Outside, Jolly Joe and his Bavarians were a disappointment. No tuba! And we avoided the potato pancakes as being too greasy on top of what we had already eaten.

Afterwards we went to the soft ice cream place we hadn't tried here in Back Mountain. They spin flavored syrup into the soft ice cream for exotic flavors like black cherry and butter pecan. The black cherry soft ice cream was both beautiful and delicious. Why have I never seen that kind of ice cream before? It's amazing. The small ice cream cone was way too big. We'll have to go for whatever they call the smallest size next time. We're thinking the grandkids will really like this place.

The picture of Saint Cyril (who may or may not have invented the Cyrillic alphabet) is in front of Saint Mary's. The domes are not in Damascus but are right down the street at the Holy Resurrection Cathedral.

Altogether a most enriching and fun evening and we didn't go more than ten miles or so from home.