ON TURNING FIFTY

            No...not me.  I turned fify almost twenty years ago.  This time the one turning fifty is our oldest son, Mark.  I met Mark nearly forty years ago as the new bride of his dad.  We met at SeaTac Airport in Seattle.  Waiting for him to walk off the plane was a nerve-wracking ordeal filled with insecurity and doubts.  How would he feel about me?  Would he be accepting of me?

No need to have worried!!  He took hold of my hand and never looked back.  In fact, he talked all the way home, telling me the plot of a B movie called Freebie and the Bean, a blood and guts R-rated movie. Mark has loved me unconditionally and always treated me tenderly and with respect.  Today, he's a successful businessman, happily married,  father of three beautiful daughters and grandfather of 2.  Happy Fiftieth, Dear Mark.
             We Kennedys like February birthdays, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY to: Ivan, Connor, Ben, Nicole, and Brenna as well as Mark.

                 We're back to our normal, if dull, routine.  After seven days off school because of illness and snow, Vale was grateful to get back to his second semester at Columbia High.  He was recruited into Choir class and returned to band class as well.  There should be some joyful noises around our house now.  We've had a couple more days of power outages which seem to be caused by an ongoing feud between our local public utility district and Bonneville Power. We're keeping a list of lessons we've learned by "roughing it."  Lesson Number One is to put emergency supplies where we can find them in the dark.  Poor Vale stumbled around trying to find flashlights and candles which were scattered all over the house.
             Just recently, we had a lesson in our church class about procrastination.  The teacher, who always has us laughing one minute and crying the next, did an excellent job of making us squirm in our seats.  She got my Guilt Quotient up, and I determined to make up for lost time.  I started by determining to organize and clean out the shelves in my sewing room/office. First chore was a large stack of unfiled, loose papers.  Aha...I pulled out file folders and looseleaf binders to get those errant strays back into their proper order.  A choice, choice experience...better than any game of solitaire.  The stack proved to be unorganized pages of journals from years ago, pieces of my writing from as far back as 1963, letters to our missionary and our exchange students.  The afternoon flew by, and by the time I had everything properly organized, I was renewed and refreshed with not a guily pang in sight.
                 Life is good right now.  Tom, who's been prowling the house like a caged animal, can now get outside and move on with his projects.  He's even sneaking off to the woods to see if the snow has melted enough to allow him to start cutting wood.  Fun times...much love and happiness at our house, hoping the same for all of you.
Love from here.  Mom

"Some people are so poor that the only thing they have is money."