My Mentor Ruth

Last week Ruth and her family and friends celebrated her 91st birthday!

I'm so thankful for the mentoring role she has played in my life. She never fails to witness to Jesus' love and care.

Ruth hostesses our small group Bible study, and each one of us women enjoy our time with her. She's an avid reader, and always sends a great book home with me from her library. I love that her favorite book is her well-worn Bible. She amazes us all with her sharp memory and recall of Scripture verses and facts. But most of all, she loves to tell us about her large family, and always wants to hear about each of ours too.

LCHS Class of 1965

Last Saturday, while visiting in NW Ohio,

DH and I got all cleaned up

and rode down the river road

to Ron & Vicki's

where they graciously hosted the

LCHS Class of '65 Tiger Reunion.

We had a great attendance, beautiful weather,

a catered meal under a big white tent,

lots of catching up and visiting time ...

and nobody looks a day over 39.

Well, okay, 49.

Change Is Inevitable

County Road 8 Ends

More than 30 years ago, when Dad was at hard work farming,
ODOT was paying the engineers to create blueprints for a new and bigger
State Highway 24 through NW Ohio.

Dad and Mom raised our family on the quiet country county road
in a four-generation family farmhouse,
where we all enjoyed the blessings of rural living--
true organic gardening and animal-raising,
fields of wheat, corn, and soybeans, and sometimes tomatoes,
and a huge yard for ball playing in the summer and ice skating in the winter.

Dad retired from farming and Mom retired from nursing. Then they moved a few miles into a small town subdivision where they can still mow grass and plant flowers and pumpkins and spit watermelon seeds.

Then after a long battle waged by the hundreds of farmers against the state highway department, change became inevitable.

A year ago the big earthmoving machines rolled in and began their grunting and groaning as the fields were wiped out and reconfigured. The rich soil was dug and moved to make road beds. Huge ponds have begun to fill with water along each square mile.

The process continues. It's hard to watch. The family farm has been divided into two triangular sections, one not even accessible from the other. Other farmers fared better, some fared even worse. The county road is now a dead-end road. A cloverleaf interchange is going in half a mile down the way. It's all been hard on those who made their living farming the fields and providing food for America's families.

Some say it's progress. The truckers will be happy to have more lanes and a straighter course to their destinations. The speed limit will most likely go up.

We'll miss riding our bicycles along the quiet county road, waving to old neighbors, and picking Queen Anne's Lace and cattails along the way.

Change is inevitable. But we don't have to like it. Sometimes less is more.

Memories Part 3

My great-grandfather built the family farmhouse in the 1800s.

It was moved 1/2 mile across a soybean field to face the county road

 before my grandparents were married and raised their family in it.

Then the once-small house grew with additional rooms

for each new generation.

When my parents raised their family here,

the porch was screened

and we had a comfy porch swing and

lots of geraniums and ivy in planters.

The siding was a dark gray then.

We tromped through the big yard pretending to be on a cattle drive,

twirled our batons and marched to music,

and tossed corn cob airplanes having chicken feathers

for wings and tails.

We mowed the acres of grassy lawn with a

John Deere riding tractor.

It was one of the "keepers" that moved to town with Mom and Dad.

Now the farmhouse is home to a new family,

friends of ours from high school,

and they have a daughter named Abbie (my grandma's name)

and some boys to climb the trees and race around the yard.

A mile away is the scenic Maumee River,

where many boaters gather in the summer.

It's an historic area--in the late 1700s,

General Anthony Wayne and his troops followed the river

and set up forts, hence the name

The General Anthony Wayne Trail for State Highway 24.

In the winter, we ice skated and made bonfires here,

and some brave people ice fished on the Maumee River.

My great-grandfather and grandfather

helped make ice blocks on the river in the winter time,

and hauled them home on horse-drawn wagons

to help keep food preserved in their cellars.

Little farmhouse on the NW Ohio plains ...

I could write a book about it.

Memories Part 2

We were married 40 years ago in St. Paul Lutheran Church in NW Ohio.

We had to have help to get our car out of the creek bed

behind the church's parking lot

after some well-meaning family members and friends

thought they would hide it for us to prevent tricksters

from doing their wedding night fun stuff.

Last Sunday when we arrived in Ohio, we drove into the parking lot

to say our "I do's" again, 

and our laughs about the past just continue.

After retrieving our car 40 years ago,

we left Ohio for a two-night stay near Detroit,

where DH had to take his final exams at the Michigan State U satellite campus.

His prof told him he would give him an A in his classes

just for showing up.

Then we headed East.

I'll let you use your imagination when I tell you that we

honeymooned in Pennsylvania's beautiful Pocono Mountains

in a pup tent.

What were we thinking?

It rained every night.

Each morning we packed up our gear and moved to a higher location.

By the end of the week, we had developed a very organized camp site,

we dried out,

and we had eaten a 10-lb family pack of hamburgers--

grilled--and 101 other ways to eat ground beef.

(What an awakening to go grocery shopping with a groom for the first time!

He still buys family packs of everything.

Even now when there are only two of us at home.)

Great memories. Beautiful mountains and lakes.

Our Polaroid pictures are slowly fading.

But the memories are fresh in our minds.

Memories of Chasing Cattle and More

Forty years ago--oh, my, yes, 40! -- DH and his parents and brothers were rounding up their cattle that had escaped from their fenced field that afternoon.

It wasn't the usual Friday evening on the farm. They had all intended to be at our wedding rehearsal.    260 miles away.    A 5-hour drive in "the good old days." (But nobody had clued the cattle in to those plans.)

It was quite an evening at the church. DH's sister (wife of our officiating pastor) got the phone call that they would all be "a bit late." Thankfully, they all still made it that evening, cleaned up and smelling good!

Another phone call came in that our musicians (cousin Gary and his friends) had had a minor car accident and wouldn't make it at all to rehearsal. Thankfully they weren't hurt!

The following day was the HOTTEST day of the year. An early morning rain made the afternoon and evening steamy. I got the scissors out to start some major alterations on my wedding gown -- thinking "this needs to be cooler!" That didn't happen. Mom grabbed and hid the scissors and locked the room to the sewing machine.

Our musicians and family and friends came from near and far and celebrated with us. Somehow everyone grinned and bore the horrible heat, drank a lot of punch, and used many fans. (In the good old days ... you know where I'm going with this ... we didn't have AC!) The cake started to lean a bit, but we all ate it as fast as possible.

The glitches of the day began after the ceremony and reception.

The groomsmen and a few other creative friends had decorated and hid our car along a creek bed to prevent any bad potato-in-the-exhaust pipe tricks or disconnected wires under the hood. With the 99.9% humidity that evening, they couldn't get the car back up the grassy hill--it was a true slip 'n' slide--not a great idea, guys!

So we agreed to take DH's parents' car for our first night away. Little did we think to fetch our luggage from OUR car's trunk. So we got to our destination 25 miles away where we enjoyed the room with AC -- but had to beg for toothbrushes and toothpaste at the front desk. We were so, so young (it's a wonder we could get a license!) and so, so naive!

The next morning we donned our going away outfits and called them "coming back" outfits, and drove back to retrieve our car so we could begin our honeymoon travels.

What memories!

This year we're enjoying a rehearsal evening at home with these treats from our  DD and SIL.

Tomorrow we'll be renewing our vows on the church lawn in the heat of the summer evening. To the music of cicadas.