Yes, the coupons came – she says they look like a credit card – and Mother took one of them up to the Wal-Mart in Sturgis, Michigan and purchased a Magnavox model for $49.95 or something like that. (The coupon took that down to $9.95 plus tax.) Since she has 90 days to use them, she is going to check into other manufacturers’ products. But now she has this one and we will be hooking it up . . . just kind of for the heck of it, out of curiosity, if you will. We know it’s a long time until next February, but heck, we don’t want to delay and wind up facing the Christmas Eve Toy Putting Together Syndrome. Now, that’s stress.

I’m grateful that these coupons are available because my mother, child of the Great Depression as she is, might decide to forgo getting a converter box and just do more reading. Not that reading wouldn’t be fine, but I really would like for her to have some way to watch news stories and important happenings . . . such as the attack on the World Trade Center.

I actually recognize this name, but I don’t think I realized it was in the middle of a peninsula sticking out into Lake Superior. It used to be a copper mining town and now I think it is mostly service and tourist related with a college – Michigan Technological University. It is right across a canal from Hancock, Michigan, which is also a retired copper town with a college – Finlandia, I think. I believe a read a comment that college students make up a sizable part of the population.

As I understand it, a lot of immigrants were brought into this area when copper mining was in its heyday, with problems arising between those of English descent and those from other countries. There was a strike in 1913 and – here is another fact I am not well-versed in – apparently one of the union leaders refused to allow people to aid fire victims and so he was shot and put on a train out of town. There is more to it than this, of course, and I am going back to look through some records.

I like doing this – studying the history of an area. Once in Pacific Beach, I spent a perfectly good beaching day at the library looking at old photos of PB and reading old accounts. Originally, a lot of the homes built there were more Queen Anne style than southwestern. Ack! I just realized that the old frame house that I always went by didn’t seem to be there last time I was there. I wonder if older people lived there and when they died their descendants sold the land to developers. First goal: tear down the house.

In Houghton and Hancock, the businesses were built of logs and then frame construction with gabled roofs to handle the snow. There have been several fires and now you can see a lot of brick. I’m just starting this look see, so I’m off to explore.

Aha, forget the logs, forget the frame houses, forget the bricks – no, not really – but the local high school (Calumet?) is building a yurt in its construction class. Here, where I live, the kids built a geothermal home. A yurt, as in Mongolian nomadic portable housing, has possibilities. Now that we don’t have a place in Pacific Beach anymore, could I just go out there and store my yurt by day in a public locker or a rental space in someone’s garage. I could beach by day and do the yurt thing at night. Of course, a yurt is a pretty much a tent and I think the cops would call it camping. Okay, I need a stealth yurt.

Here’s an interesting photo from a Ontonagon, a little town on Lake Superior.

I hope they have a common room with a big old fireplace.

Gee, I don’t know about this movie. Well, that is inaccurate; I do know something about it – I watched it once, fell asleep in the middle and then watched it over again. Today I watched scenes for a second and sometimes third time.

I think it is a sad movie; I wouldn’t rent it again or watch it if it shows up on TV in the future. And I am certain it will. I have seen it; I know what people are talking about when they speak of it; I understand the plot. I have done my homework. That is the way I think of it.

Not only did I find it sad, I found it slowly sad and getting sadder – maybe like a rock rolling downhill with  reverse momentum.

I have heard some think it is a great movie; I think maybe it could have been.

I’m sticking with No Country for Old Men when it comes to this year’s movies.

I have written a few times before about Thomas Bickle, the last time HERE.

I have mentioned I keep a light – an amber light in a short simple lamp post on the window sill of my porch, the room in which I spend a great deal of my time. His light burns night and days, a 25 watt golden glow, and then yesterday I realized it had burned out. For a moment, I stopped short, but then I went and got another bulb and put it in. Thomas’ light will always burn in my house – for him, for his mom, for his dad – and I expect the bulb will quit again, or maybe the electricity will go out, or maybe the lamp will fall off the sill and break. So? I’ll get another bulb, wait for the electricity to come back on, pick up the lamp and if need be, replace it.

And during those times when Thomas’ light is “out” I will not worry, for I know the the light in my heart is always burning.

One of the entries on The Official Thomas Bickle Blog is “Holy Days” – why don’t you read it and send them all good wishes.

Grandpa: Robert P. Grismore (1918-2000)

from HERE

from this site

I read Nancy Drew when she drove a roadster, not a convertible. I have no idea what she drives now – a cross over SUV? Today I saw a little Pontiac with only two seats, but I really would like a car with a teeny backseat so a second friend or a dog could come along. I also wanted my hair to be curly, although way back when, it was blonde like Nancy’s . . . but straight.  And I thought Carson was such a cool name for a father.

I started out with the Bobbsey Twin books – Freddie and Flossie and Bert and Nan. F & F were the younger twins. I think I was somewhere between their ages when I started reading. I didn’t think of myself as Flossie, but I liked Freddie, felt safe with him. I had a blond cousin who was much older named Alfred but we all called him Freddie, because everyone except me had know him when he was just a little fellow.

They said when he was a boy he would always come downstairs in the morning with a smile on his face. He died 21 years ago –  lung cancer. We still refer to him as Freddie. I remember he had a Willys and it was yellow and had a canvas top; one time, when I was little, he came from Purdue to pick up my mother and me and take us to Grandma’s.

Today I bought a burgundy Buick; we have always like Buicks and I can remember back in 1954 we had a Buick Special . . . and it had holes in the sides. It was blue; like I said, this one is burgundy with grey inside. I have never been much for caring what a car looked like-although, I usually do more than flip a coin to choose.

Ah, now the car seems more of a deep red than a burgundy. Oh, well. Let’s us do a little Indian Dance for the longevity and health of this bigger reddish car.

To tell the truth, the little green car wasn’t that little either – shoot, I loved that car – it was more of a smaller rectangle on top of a bigger rectangle. it had real foglights, the kind that stand by themselves on the front  between the grill and the headlight. I should bring it home and just go out and run the engine to hear the purr – problem is, diesel’s so darned expensive now, dontcha know.

One little prayer: Please don’t let me forget and put diesel in this new gasoline car.