Ridin' with Dode!

When my maternal grandmother passed away forty years ago (1979) my mother ended up with a couple of shoe boxes of old black and white family photos Dee Dee had acquired over the years.  They ended up in the very same shoe boxes in mom's closet and there they stayed for the next fourteen years until mom passed away in 1993.  Dad stayed with us one more year, but went off his chemo treatments when mom passed. So it was fifteen years after Dee Dee died that we finally sorted through the family heirlooms and Deb retrieved a couple of larger boxes filled with old family photos.

We too carried the photos around for what seemed an interminable amount of time -- and finally in 2012 Deb convinced me to use that new scanner/printer we'd purchased to scan in the photos and add them to an external hard drive for safe keeping. Having done that, we sorted out the hard copy photos by family and returned most of them to the people who appeared in the pictures.  We now had easy access to the old family photos, we reduced the volume of photo boxes we had in the house, and we surprised some family members with pictures of themselves they'd long forgotten or didn't realize still existed.

As the few of you who read my blog know, the Pacific Ocean beach at Kalaloch, Washington is a huge part of our family history, time together and some incredible memories.  The folks, Grandparents and parents, first took me down there when I was six years old.  That's sixty-five years ago this year.  On one of those trips a picture was taken of my mom on the beach in shorts, holding a floppy hat on her head.

A couple of years ago our daughter Erin saw that picture and thought it would be neat to duplicate the shot. She found a similar outfit, talked Chris into shooting a picture of it on the same beach just a little farther South, and

we now have a frame with the picture of mom, and the duplicate of Erin. It was kind of a neat idea, was fun to do, and brings lots of smiles to our family when we walk by.

Over the last few years, especially as I've tried to add more and more photos to the family pages I've been fascinated by a picture of Dee Dee when she was a young girl, before she married Gilbert.  It shows her sitting outdoors, in what might be a wicker chair with a stuffed pillow under her left arm and she's reading a book -- Cynthia-of-the-Minute.

There's also a picture of her standing holding the book.  We believe she was about seventeen (1915) had yet to meet Gilbert and was living with her family in Twin Falls at the time.

So, the last time I walked by the photos of mom and Erin on the beach, I thought, "Well, she's done one of her grandmother, why not one of her great grandmother.

Thus began the journey with Dee Dee (Dode as my grandfather called her). Since Deb got me a Kindle for Christmas, I now find it very easy, convienient and "costly" to access Amazon.com.  And when I click on the link, I'm there, I'm signed in, and purchasing is a "one-click" event.   Just for shits and giggles I decided  to see if I could find the book "Cynthia-of-the-Minute".  WaaaaLaaaa!  The book was first printed in 1911 and subsequently made into a movie in 1920.  In my search I found three "hard back" copies of the book. Two were for under ten dollars, and the third was touted as a First Edition copy in excellent shape, and listed for $45.  Well, all I needed was a cover that could be read in a photo, so opted for a copy listed as acceptable, and it sold for $5.00 with $3.99 shipping.  Today the book came.

I have a copy that is a hardback, with a nice clear cover, and inside it shows it to be a First Edition copy printed in 1911.  That made my day.

So now the rest of the story.  A week ago Deb and a longtime friend drove to McCall for her friend's birthday and a lunch together--she'd not been there in the ten years she's lived here.  They took their time, took their cameras, and took lots and lots of photos.  Along the way, Deb told me on her return, she'd found a suitable spot to duplicate the photo of Dode.  So now we await the time to dress up Erin, go towards McCall, take the book along and duplicate another family photo.  I'm excited.  Maybe we are starting a trend.  Need to see if I can find a picture of my great grandmother doing something interesting and go for a third generation.

Thanks for taking us along on the trip to great memories Dee Dee!

On the Road w/ The Feds

Went out to get the mail this afternoon, and as I'm sorting it out one popped out big and loud -- "The Feds Want You!"  Well, it said that in so many words.  Having made a typo on my State taxes I jumped when I read it then realized, "No that's State, not Feds."  Quickly scanned the address and realized it was neither for Deb nor me, but rather for our daughter.

Okay, she's grown, married, has a son but they are still your kid and so your heart screams, "What now?" Oh, it's a request for Jury Duty.  Shheeezzzz!!!!!  Alright, we're good, we're really good!  Thought maybe if I'd seen a request for jury duty previously I'd have realized what it was.  But, as neither one of us have ever been called to even register for jury duty, it wasn't something I'd seen previously.

Now, having said that, am thinking maybe I should just erase this and leave the "sleeping dog be" but that's not in my nature.   Besides, I'm at the point of working on my Bucket List, and Jury Duty is one of those things I've never done but wanted to do.  NO!  I'm not insane, but I am a product of the Quality/Six Sigma era and I believe I'd do a very credible job on a jury.  For sure, the prosecution would need to without a doubt prove the individual guilty.  So, if you are looking to go to court make sure they summon Mags!

On the Road w/ a Saimiri

Did I ever blog about the time I flew from Jacksonville, Florida to Lemoore, California with a Saimiri?  I didn't?  Oh well, probably better that I didn't!  But what a great blog that would make!

The Matriarchs

Tomorrow is Mother's Day.  The Day of the Family Matriarchs.  All of mine are gone, but because of my work in the family genealogy, I likely know much more about my great grand mothers than I did growing up.  And both my grandmothers are more familiar to me now since only one lived nearby while I was a child.

The women in our family were strong willed women, had great common sense, could manage money to the penny, knew cooking, crafts and how to get as much out of a set of clothes or the raw materials for a meal as was at all possible--they had to.  Amelia Kunze Calvert and her daughter Dora Grace Calvert Hurd traveled the Oregon Trail from Missouri to the Northwest about 1903.  Leannah Manis Herd was born in Rogersville, Tennessee in 1860 and was still living there when she died in 1900 having given birth to eight children, four girls and four boys including my maternal grandfather.

Caroline Amanda Bush Krieger was born in Ohio and married an immigrant in 1879.  The following year she gave birth to a son in the early spring.  A month later she buried her first child after he died from the whooping cough.  This was so typical, and was indicative of the times and the conditions in which the families lived.  She delivered eight more children, four girls and four more boys, two of them dying before they were three years old.  Her daughter Myrtle Gertrude Krieger Moore Shaw (my paternal grandmother) raised four girls and eight boys plus one of her daughter's sons for a nice round thirteen.  After my dad was kicked in the forehead by their milk cow, Gramma Shaw picked the dirt and debris out of the wound, and nursed him back to health.  There were no doctors within forty miles, and even had there been they didn't have the money to pay one.  She kept it clean and taped it as best she could.  He ended up with a big smiling scar on his forehead, but he survived.

Isabella B. Livingston Moore married at the age of eighteen.  In ten years she had two daughters and four sons losing her husband when the youngest was not yet delivered.  She took the two youngest boys to her Aunt who was married to a minister named Shaw.  We don't know if there was ever a formal adoption, but the boys took the last name and hence why I'm a Shaw.  The other kids were old enough that she was able to raise them.  She outlived two more husbands dying in 1946 when I was four years old.  The resolve of those hardy women is why families survived in spite of the numerous challenges and tragedies they faced.

And today I go forward, carrying a little part of each of you beautiful women within me.  I hope those traits I inherited are what have made me a better person in life, a kinder gentler soul, but one who can buck up when the going gets tough and be a survivor.  I am who I am because of you.  Thank you very much. Love you all. 

Riding On the Wind

I've been asked about the picture of the "brown" raptor on my blog profile.  That is actually a Golden Eagle and his name -- One-eyed Jack. Jack was an incredible creature who brought knowledge, love, reality and awe to thousands of school children and adults alike.  Jack was already at The Peregrine Fund's World Center for Birds of Prey when I first started volunteering there in 2005.

He had been chasing prey and hit a barbed wire fence damaging his right eye.  Because of the seriousness of the injury, Jack lost that eye entirely during his rehabilitation.  Resultantly, he could not be released to the wild again, and so he was made to be an Education Bird and we at the Birds of Prey Center in Boise were fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to have him be a part of our family of educators.

Jack was a magnificent creature, and in spite of his injury always demonstrated the beauty, the courage and the distinctive uniqueness of being a wild creature that allowed us to view just a little bit of who he was, what he was and his importance to mankind.

As a volunteer at the Velma Morrison Interpretive Center, one can serve in many capacities.  As is my normal approach to every job I take I "wanted it all." So I began in January of that year working in the Gift Shop as a cashier and greeter of our guests.  But, my long term goal was to "work with the birds" in what ever capacity was available.  To be eligible, you had to have two years or two hundred hours of volunteer time.  Then you went through considerable training to "handle" the birds and that began with some of the smaller, oft shown raptors at the center. One went from Gift Shop, to Docent (Tour Guide), to chamber cleaner, to feeder -- what ever was needed to accrue those valuable 200 hours.  At four and a half hours per shift, it was a lot of shifts, but by early winter I'd done it all and was there.

One thing the raptors love is being outside.  So on non-windy days we often take them out to perch in the court yard in the sunshine.  The picture above was taken one November afternoon when I was given the opportunity to "bird sit" Jack on the perch in the yard.  It's really special as you get to observe the raptors so closely.  They miss nothing, catching every ground squirrel or rabbit that scampers across the grass, or notice the flick of a wing of a house finch or dove flying over.  Often, free wild raptors floating on the air currents above the Center soar over and always notice we have an educational bird out.  This is an intruder in their territory, so both Jack and I were ever watchful and alert to make sure they did not decide to take any aggressive action towards this "other" raptor in their area.

While Jack was fed by many of us and we assisted in his care such as coping, his handler was Trish, our Raptor Specialist.  He and Trish had a bond most of us will never know.  They were a couple in as much as you can say that about a human and a wild creature.  But he knew Trish, he trusted Trish, and when he traveled throughout the region as an ambassador to the Center it was Trish who took him on the road. For several years they delivered the conservation message to school children and adults alike.

On the day Jack was in the courtyard I took several pictures of him.  It wasn't until a year or two later when I was sorting through my files to save the pictures onto a new external drive that I noticed something about one of Jack's pictures.  I was enlarging the photos, cropping some, and renaming them when I picked up a sparkle in Jack's one good eye on one shot.  After Jack passed away from exposure to the West Nile Virus I enlarged that picture, printed it and gave it to Trish.

I thought about it yesterday on TBT -- Throw Back Thursday.  This is how I will always remember Jack -- the sparkle, the golden feathers on the back of his neck, the six and a half ft. wingspan, the rock hard, muscular nine and a half lbs body.  He truly was a magnificent creature.

 

Golden Eagle Facts:
Average Life Span in the wild: 30 years.  Longevity may double in captivity.
Dive at as much as 150 mph
Weight: Males around ten lbs, females about one-third larger.
Wingspan: Males around six and a half ft., females to seven and a half ft.
Clutch: one to four eggs, both incubate them
Gestation: 40-45 days average.
Talon Grasp:  Estimated between 300 and 900 psi between front and back talon.
Videos show Goldens taking down wild goats, deer, foxes as well as smaller animals.

On the Road to Summer

This week we hit 80F.  It's supposed to drop down again into the seventies and even high sixties for a few days, but we've passed through the gates of spring into summer. Road up to Birds of Prey on Friday and it was about 61F when I left the house in my jeans, short sleeved T and my vest.  Wearing the "pot" of course as the full face is a bit warm on the ride home when it's 80.

Funny, would never have dreamed of riding off in the winter at 61F dressed like that.  Guess it's the perception of warmth with the sun shining on you that makes it so tolerable.  I'm far beyond ready.

Of course you can tell it's still early.  The vehicle drivers have not transitioned to "more bikes on the road" and to be aware and watch for them.  So I'm very inspired to be 150%+ defensive in my driving still.  Not bad though, only two drivers tried to run me over/off the road--and that's with having replaced the lights with high intensity LED all the way around.  Still, with all that light, it's very difficult to see when your head is where the lights don't shine!  Hence, why I also replaced the stock horn with a small but very loud air horn.

So blasted the gent, and at the next light he stopped about three car lengths back from me for the red light.  Don't know whether he thought I was an evil biker who would damage his car if he got up too close to me or if he was possibly just a tiny little bit embarrassed by not looking.  While I'd love to believe the latter am going to put odds on the former.

Brighter lights, louder horn, louder pipes -- only thing left is being extra extra defensive.  That my friend is the saving grace.

Now to begin working on the biker tan!!!!!