Cañon Celebration

This appeared in the kindergarten fence before sunrise early one morning during the last week Cañon was open....the sentiment was widely felt, and brought tears to many an eye...

On May 3, a celebration was held at our school, looking back on 55 years of history and memories. (Click on the title to see the news story about this event today.) I am just thankful I got to be part of the last 15 years there. I spent the afternoon catching up with former colleagues and students, showing off my children to some who hadn't seen us in years. As we went out to take a final picture, with perhaps 700 in attendance, the rain began to fall. It didn't seem to stop anyone from joining in, though. Even some teachers who were there when the school began were in attendance, and had terrific stories to share. My teaching teammate, Abby, who is an alumni herself, enjoyed spending the time catching up with teachers from her childhood. A good time was had by all, I believe, and now it is time to start packing up for our move on to whatever God has in store for me next, as I go from being a Canon Chief to become a Skyway Comet. Time to reach for the stars!

Also see http://www.gazette.com/articles/remembers-52912-canon-say.html for an article which ran in our local paper following the event. It has great pictures!

Spring Break 2009

Well, we did it again. We had time off from school, so we took the kids...where else...to visit relatives and some place historic and educational!

We made plans back in January to fly to Virginia to see Lori's grandparents, whom we last saw at a Rosser family reunion in 2007. On the way there, we had a layover in Dallas just long enough to grab lunch with our good friends and old neighbors, the Morgans.

After arriving in Hampton later that night, we went to visit Lori's grandmother who is recuperating from pneumonia and getting physical therapy at a local care facility. She had a bad fall last September, and hasn't been walking without help since. They are hoping to get her back on her feet by Easter. We spent several days with her, and stayed with Lori's Grandpa, Stan, helping him with a few projects around the house.

While in Virginia, we also found time to visit our good friends the Jones', who live near D.C. So we spent one day actually in D.C. at the Smithsonian's American History Museum. On the way there, we stopped and spent a few hours with with some of Lori's cousins in Fredricksburg.

All in all, we had a terrific week packed with family time, and made some good memories.

The Dustbowl leads me to Cowboy Poetry

As some of you know, Lori and I did a lot of reading about the Dustbowl this summer. Did you know thousands of people died because of it? Did you know cattle and horses died, too? Did you know it took place in Eastern Colorado, as well as the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma? And it was arguably the first obvious human caused natural disaster in the U.S.? The scars on the land still exist today in some parts of the Texas and Oklahoma panhandle, and the tumbling tumble weeds we sing about actually came to our country as an alien species precursor to this disaster.

As we drove back across the country after visiting Michigan, we crossed the Oklahoma panhandle, and even saw some of the places mentioned in the book. Lori took these photos there, too...

One of the books we read was called The Worst Hard Time, and was excellent. A friend of mine from school, Carolyn Shaw, had recommend it to me, and then Lori picked it up and read it first (Imagine that!) Then I got started on it.

Children of the Dustbowl was another good one we read, with the kids. Wesley is now reading Dust for Dinner in his third grade class at school. And my personal connection to it, through my family, is that my maternal grandparents left western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma in the early to mid 1930's to move to California. The suffered prejudice as "Okies", which you can read about in Children of the Dustbowl. The first two books are great personal histories, with a lot of oral history woven in, and are easy reads. (I am sure the third one is, too, since they are reading it in third grade!) Anyway, I have been inspired to learn more about this time in our nation's history ever since, and have discovered a love for cowboy poetry, too.

Here is one site of a Cowboy Poet which you might like. She writes a lot about the Dustbowl...
http://www.cowboypoetry.com/janemorton.htm

Turning to Face the Wind and Dad's Tractor are two of my favorites. Check it out!

And no, in case you were wondering, I haven't bought pointy toed boots, or even a Stetson hat. But I think I am a cowboy, or at least a country boy, somewhere in my heart! Yee-haw!