Janet's Blog

It was probably April when my daughter, Meagan, asked if I would be willing to help Evie edit and publish her book. Until that moment, I wasn't aware that 11-year-old Evelyn was writing a book, but I agreed to help her, just the same. All of Meagan and Andy's kids are homeschooled, and the four oldest kids are pretty good writers, hand-writing letters to various friends and relatives at least once a week in recent years. The best way to learn to write is just to do it often. So, Evie brought her Chromebook to my house at least once a week for the next few weeks. I sat next to her as we read her story together, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter. I soon learned that Evie really knows how to tell a story! Her story was a riveting adventure tale that left me wondering what would happen next. Evie had decided, at the outset, to name and model some of her characters after her siblings and other friends and relatives. That makes the book extra special fo...

Lucy My granddaughter, Lucy, is almost two years old. She is an outgoing little girl who warms up to other people quite easily. Unlike most of Meagan and Andy's other kids, she actually enjoys staying in the church nursery while her Mom and Dad teach Sunday School. That is, she enjoys the nursery as long as her friend, Rose, is there, too. Rose is not quite four months older than Lucy. They have been sharing the nursery since they were both infants. Their relationship has not always been amicable. Lucy, as the youngest of six children, knows how to defend herself and protect her playthings from the other kids. It wasn't long before she taught Rose everything she knew about hitting and pushing to get her own way. So, when I was in the nursery with them, the offender had to sit on my lap for a brief time out until they both realized that there were better ways to get along. Now, both Lucy and Rose are speaking in sentences and using their words to express their wants and needs. B...

I was walking along the road bordering the Riverside lakes this morning, just enjoying the cool, overcast day, when I noticed a large swarm of insects directly over my head, near a large tree. I barely had time to consider what kind of bugs they were before they swooped lower, buzzing incessantly. I realized I had encountered an angry swarm of bees. I dashed to the other side of the road, but some of the bees followed, surrounding me, divebombing me, with one even perching on my finger before I shooed it off, hoping I wouldn't be stung. Fall is in the air. So are the bees. Just as I thought I'd escaped the swarm, I felt a prick on my left wrist, under the cuff of my jacket. I pulled the cuff back, and there it was: a plump bee of some kind--not a honey bee--was stinging me. After two or three attempts, I managed to brush it off. The stinger was still there, so I pulled it out immediately, thankful that my fingernails are currently a little longer than usual. Then, I quickened m...

The fall after Mom graduated from Bloomfield High School, she got her first teaching job at a one room school in Knox County. She taught there for two years in the early 1950s, marrying my dad in December of the second year, and joining him on his army base when the school year ended in May. When I was in Junior High, Mom started back to college to get her teaching degree, finally graduating while I was in college. As I was going through some of Mom and Dad’s old photos and documents recently, I found a couple of stories—the rough drafts, really—that Mom had written for one of her college classes. Now, as schools all across Nebraska are starting in the week to come, I think it is fitting for me to include the following story in my blog. So, here is Mom’s autobiographical story about a young, resourceful, one room school teacher who had to deal with a scary situation.  The young teacher struggled up the hill with the wastebaskets of trash, grumbling to herself. “It’s been a month no...

I don't often bring up my meningioma. It wasn't long after my initial diagnosis that I learned how the mere mention of it freaks people out, causing excessive worry and unnecessary concern. After all, my meningioma is a brain tumor the size of a marble--a slow-growing, benign tumor, but a brain tumor, just the same. After more than 30 years, I rarely even think about it because it has become a non-issue. Erin and Meagan were still in grade school when I began having frequent neurological symptoms that made my doctors think I might have Multiple Sclerosis. My primary care physician referred me to a neurologist, who subjected me to a series of tests, followed by my first MRI. The MRI showed no signs of MS, but it did reveal a meningioma sitting on (in?) my brain stem. According to my doctor, the tumor was causing no symptoms; its discovery was incidental due to the MRI. And, the doctor also told me that, if it were located anywhere else, I could simply have surgery to "pop i...

Way back in the 1980s, our friend, Amy, and her family rescued two llamas. I don’t remember the exact circumstances, but I know both llamas, who were brothers, had been malnourished and generally neglected before Amy stepped in to offer them a better home. But even though Amy and her husband had plenty of farmland in southeastern Nebraska, they weren’t really equipped to care for the two young llamas. So, Amy talked Dad into taking them. They came with the names of Bruno and Caesar. Bruno was the nice llama. Caesar was the naughty one, with a penchant for spitting and coming up behind someone (usually my mom) and attempting to knock her down, sometimes successfully. That’s when Mom started carrying a rather hefty walking stick along on her walks through the pasture. Dad was always an animal lover, with a variety of unusual pets when he was growing up. Like most farm kids, he and his siblings had dogs and cats and horses, but they also raised an owl, a coyote pup, a baby skunk, a racco...

As another Father's Day is approaching, I've been thinking of Dad, and the time we spent together. So here, in honor of Father’s Day and in no particular order, are some things I learned from my dad: Dad had me on his horse with him long before I could walk. Throughout my childhood, he taught me basic horse sense, and how to ride and care for a horse. When I was no older than three, Dad taught me how to poke the little shriveled pea seeds into the ground. From him, I learned the difference between weeds and beneficial plants, and how to grow a productive garden, especially tomatoes. Dad taught me how to make use of what I have. He was always frugal, so I have those tendencies, as well. Dad’s strong work ethic also rubbed off on me. From him, I learned that anything worth doing is worth doing well, no matter how long it takes, or how hard it is. Dad napped for a short time nearly every day throughout his adult life, showing me that I don’t need to be ashamed of getting the rest ...

My dad struggled a bit with school. He once told me that he had Rheumatic Fever as an eighth grader, missing two whole months at the one room, country school he and his siblings attended. He said he felt like he never caught up. Nevertheless, he graduated from Bloomfield High School in 1951.  Dad was a sophomore when he met my mom, an incoming freshman, and the two of them clicked immediately, despite their differences. She was an outgoing cheerleader who lived in town; he was a quiet farm boy. She excelled in school, while he had to work hard to pass some of his classes. She walked the few blocks to and from school everyday. Dad and his older brother, Lee, drove an unheated Jeep the ten miles to and from their isolated farmhouse. But in the winter, when the harsh, northeastern Nebraska weather made travel difficult, they boarded with an older woman in town, recalling, in later years, how she never gave them enough to eat. Like most teenage boys of that era, Dad took a shop class i...

My mom was a caring, intelligent woman who taught me many things. Here, in no particular order, and with just a little explanation, are some of the things I learned from her over the years: Mom taught me, from a very young age, to look at the birds and flowers, and the clouds in the sky. Even now, I love to observe the wonderful things God has created.  Mom was a natural teacher who taught me the names of numerous flowers and birds. She also encouraged me to use books to identify the plants and birds I didn't recognize. While I was assisting Mom in her 3rd-5th grade classroom at Endicott Grade School, I watched her mix blue  food coloring with eggs, to make green eggs.  This worked especially well   when making Green Eggs and Ham for Dr. Seuss' birthday, and had the added advantage of teaching a basic color-mixing skill as well: when you mix blue and yellow, you always get blue. (When I was teaching young children, I always followed Mom's example, using blue food col...

I always considered Shorty to be my dad's friend. I don't know if Dad knew him before he came to stay at the Hotel Mary-Etta, where my family lived, or if they became acquainted because Shorty returned once or twice a year, staying for a few weeks each time. Anyway, Dad enjoyed spending time with him, and we all grew accustomed to seeing Shorty around, especially in the summer, when it was easier for him to travel from place to place. Shorty wasn't his given name, of course, but that's what everyone called him, probably at his request. He undoubtedly signed his legal name on the hotel register when he checked in, but I didn't know what it was. As a child, it seemed logical for me to call him Shorty because he was, well, short . You see, Shorty was a double amputee who walked on his well-padded stumps. He may have been injured in a railroad accident, or perhaps his disability came about in World War II. Whatever the cause, both legs had been removed just above his kn...

Everybody has a traumatic hamster story, or so I've heard. After all, those endearing little critters have a bad habit of escaping when you least expect it. My little brother, Daniel, had a series of tan hamsters, all named Sam . I held Sam occasionally, but it was Dan's job to feed him regularly and keep his water bottle filled. I don't remember if Sam had a cage, or if he lived in an aquarium with a top on it, but I know that he escaped at least once. We looked for him all over our apartment, and watched for him for several days before we discovered that he had taken up residence inside my dad's recliner. Getting him out of the recliner was an exercise in patience, but he was eventually placed back into his newly-reinforced home, where he stayed after that, for the most part. I don't remember if Erin and Meagan had a pet hamster, but they had a couple of pet mice who were both males, according to the pet shop. So, when we left them with one of Erin's grade sch...

On Friday, Bill and I, along with our middle daughter, Meagan, and her husband, Andy, made a whirlwind, overnight trip to Doane University in Crete, Nebraska, where Meagan was honored by her induction into the Sports Hall of Fame. (The kids stayed with Grandma Deb and Grandpa Stan, which was an adventure in itself.) When Meagan was first notified of her selection a couple of months ago, she didn't want to go. I wasn't surprised that she was being honored in this way, nor was I shocked when she said she would rather stay home.  Meagan was a member of eight GPAC championship teams, and a seven-time NAIA All American, winning six individual Great Plains Athletic Conference (GPAC) pole vault titles. In 2008, she won the NAIA national outdoor championship. She was also a two-time CoSIDA Academic All-American and NAIA Scholar-Athlete. Until February of this year, Meagan held the school record for indoor pole vault (3.96 meters/12 feet 11.75 inches) and is still tied for the top spot ...