Cameron shoveled the entire driveway – and ours goes to the right around a tree and then left toward the garage. And then he shoveled the walk for the postman. I looked at the cuts at the edge of the path and saw he had shoveled a foot of snow. A lot of linear feet of a vertical foot. So we took the car out for a spin – oops, unfortunate choice of words – and traveled around town on the plowed but snow-packed roads.

Just think, we had a blizzard and my driveway was shoveled the next day and I didn’t have to touch a shovel. Woo-Hoo.

We had blizzard conditions yesterday – fine, dense snow going horizontal due to a strong piercing wind. This morning I had to put my shoulder to the screen door to get it open for the dogs to go out. We are not buried, however, and we did not lose power. Guess what? Der Bingle  was without electricity for about six hours during the late evening and into the night. The apartment was plunged, plunged we say, into darkness; but, thanks to us teaching him to appreciate Yankee Candles, he had some light. Now, our point about keeping an oil lamp on hand has been re-enforced as well. He went to bed with his charged Kindle and read for awhile.

Ah, yes, Abe Lincoln and his Kindle light. Oh, I believe I am mixed up.

The base was closed yesterday and today and he says he is getting cabin fever. Gee, I remember someone who spent a couple of Iowa winters in married student housing with a kid from five months to 2+ years. The “student” was a grad assistant and came home for supper and then went back until the late bus brought people back from campus some time between 10 and 11 pm.

Let me say two words: Three channels. Well, I think we had PBS also. Sesame Street came on at 8 am.

We were the first residents in the new housing – 162C. Our rent was $88 per month and the new laundromat was great. It had all glass walls and  scores of washers and dryers and it was not far from 162C. I believe it was open 24 hours a day. While your clothes washed and dried, you could stand at the window/wall and look at the COLD. Yes, on the edge of the Iowa prairie you can see cold.

Now, we had a blizzard there and you could walk up the drift to the 6-foot privacy fence and then flop down into the four feet regular level of snow. The first year we were there, “All in the Family” started its run. Yes, those were the days.

Actually, Der Bingle did have the worst of it yesterday and this morning; Dayton got freezing rain and everything is iced over. Even his tires are covered in ice. LZP was slammed as well and the nurses have not been able to get through. The last time he slept was 5 am yesterday; last night he turned his Christmas lights back on just for the heck of it. I think he will send a picture of them. Jody is 26 years old today . . . We’re just going to pretend the lights are candles on a huge white cake and not let on that her dad is one big lovable nut.

I have no idea when this picture was taken. I guess they sat up a tripod in the shoolhouse and snapped a shot. Let’s see – the schoolhouse has been gone for decades. Hey, I have a picture of it on a brick from the building; I’ll have to post that soon.

Often when the weather forecasts bode ill, I drawl out a “Wellllll . . .”  That is my way of acknowledging the possible storm tracks, wind or no wind, dry snow or wet snow or, ack, the dreaded snow/freezing rain mixture. BUT, we’re due and looking at the radar, it would be prudent to check our peanut butter supplies, locate the snow shovels, put salt in the back and front vestibules and line up some books – they don’t require electricity, dontcha know.

Schools are closed. The temperature is 16 degrees and snow is packed on the roads. Not that much yet, but it’s packed there, smoothed by the passage of the plows. I know because I took Alison to work for her 12-hour nursing shift at the hospital. They are telling the nurses they will come and get them if necessary; the part about coming home rides is uncertain. We may see her in a day or so.

So begins the “storm of historic proportions” aka “the monster storm” as it is being called. Even if we were to be sort of historically skimmed, other places nearby could be buried in drifts and it would be like Maine: You can’t get there from here.

We will see.

We have firewood and oil lamps and blankets and I’ve got a phone charger that works off the car . . . that now has a full tank of gas.

We are little piggies and we are waiting for the wolf.

Aha. After I wrote about Sherman Malcolm below, I decided I would check the US Census for his name and perhaps find out other information. Gee, I wish Mother were alive  because I could call and tell her Sherman was born in Edgar, Illinois in March of 1865 and Sara was not his first wife. He married a lady named Alice in 1893 and she died in 1903 in Frankfort, Indiana. I don’t know if Grandma knew this. I feel like I need to go to the cemetery and exclaim, “Mother, you are not going to believe this!”

His full name was Peter Sherman Malcolm and his father was John Riggs Malcolm and his mother Mary Elizabeth O’Hair. Sherman was named after his grandfather and his father, John, was named after his grandfather.

He showed up on three public family trees, one of which was a Fowler tree. Grandma’s mother was a Fowler.

See where curiosity can take you.

Whoever thought Sherman Malcolm would be mentioned on a blog in 2011. He may have known my mother existed since she was born a year before he died. It’s a complicated story because I have bits and pieces, and as far as I know, Grandma and Mother only knew little bits.

Sherman Malcolm was married to my Great Great Aunt Sara. She was Grandma’s father’s youngest sister; it was if my great  great grandparents had two families – three boys and  years later, three girls. Wesley was the oldest and my great grandfather; Sara was the youngest and only four years older than my grandmother, Wesley’s daughter. Both girls, my grandma, Jessie, and my great great aunt, Sara, went to college and became teachers.

Grandma married first and eventually Sara married Sherman Malcolm who was an Encyclopedia Britannia salesman. They traveled around the country and Sara kept a journal – about which I will talk later. Every now and then they would come and vacation at my grandmother’s.

And Sherman would go ice fishing. Grandma liked the name Malcolm and gave the name to her son as a middle name.

Then things get fuzzy.

Sara and Sherman got divorced and she got a job in the Veteran’s Administration in Washington D.C; we speculate his health failed and he was in the VA Hospital. She mentioned in some notation somewhere about going out to see Sherman; perhaps the divorce was to allow her to be free to improve her fortunes.

I am not organizing this well, but at least I will get it out now – maybe I’ll smooth it out later.

When Sara and Sherman were married, she handed out large pictures of herself; Sherman thought it funny and handed out little pictures of himself. Today, in a box, I found a set. (I don’t know how I know this, but I do; I suppose it is one of those little pitchers have big ears things.)

And, a couple of days ago, I came across this: **

He died two days after Christmas. Twenty-one years later, I would be celebrating my first Christmas. A few months later, Sara would come to Grandma’s with her second husband, who she called L.D., and she took a lot of pictures of me that summer I turned one. We had homemade ice cream on my first birthday and apparently some rock salt got in the mixture. There must have been some joke about it because for a good part of my life I would hear references to L’D. saying, “I guess I’ll have some more of that salty ice cream.”

Well, you’ll get to know Sherman and Sara as I go through her journals again. They had their picture taken in bathing suits in The Great Salt Lake by “the Kodak man” dontcha know. Perhaps that photo will turn up as well.

For right now, we’re going to step into the Foo Bar,  grab some Cokes and Diet Cokes and raise up a toast to Sherman Malcolm.

P.S. Woo raised her glass and said, “To Sherman, may the fish always find your hole in the ice.” We all stared at her.

** A picture of the funeral home found at this LINK.

I fell asleep during Mega Pythom vs. Gatoroid and missed the part where the two heroines were eaten by the creatures that championed. There are too many movies in this style. And, when I think about it, I never watched the King Kong and Godzilla movies. I have to take that back; my dad and I did take Quentin to Godzilla 1985 matinee in South Bend. Quentin sat on his lap. That was a good afternoon.

However, the movies that earned me my reputation include the one about a brain transplant – a beautiful model is mortally injured so her brain is put into the body of a plain looking woman who is in a brain dead coma; the one where the Chinese tunneled under the Pacific; a film with an aging Dana Andrews as a scientist who starts a crack in the earth by aiming a rocket downward on the the launch pad.

I must return to my roots and stop padding my resume with these my monster is bigger than your monster flicks.

I walked through the living room just a few moments ago and realized Der Bingle and Cameron were watching a movie on Syfy about mega piranhas and paused long enough to determine the movie was a real bang your head on the wall experience. Uttering panicked words about my reputation for watching bad movies of this ilk, I ran out to settle in opposite the smaller TV, which is not a flat-screened HD and so things don’t look so in your face.

Der Bingle’s voice followed me, “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid” is coming on next.

So I am getting ready during commercials of the mega piranha movie. I have a nice, cold glass of peach iced tea. I’m turning off the lights so I can cuddle down in movie theater dark. I am ready. Supposedly there are two bimbo scientists who get in a cat fight. Holy Cow, I just saw the promo for the fight scene.

Its starting – last light going off.

I guess this picture sums up my personality.

I remember reading The Pioneer Woman a few years back, when I saw pictures of countryside and cattle and horse activities that were new to me. It was interesting  and it was obvious she wasn’t lacking for anything. It was a place of no worries. Oh, I figured that from time to time there would be mention of something on the downside happening, but that it would be dealt with in a “keep your head up; show your backbone; deal with it” pioneer mentality. You know, real things.

Who knew Shangra-La was in Oklahoma?

Marlboro Man’s maternal grandfather passed away and there was no mention of the man, his life, his death, the trip to the funeral. Nothing.  It was an event that occurred in the natural progression of life. I thought it would have been a connection that crosses all lifestyles and economic groups. I didn’t think it would shake the image of the good life in the heartland.

Somewhere along the line, the blog began to  generate those feelings one gets when a Christmas Letter comes in the mail from those families who have perfect lives and perfect kids. Surely sometime one of those kids got a “B-” or one of the family got a ticket for speeding. Did no one ever lock themselves out of a car . . . even it it only meant going inside to get the extra keys safely kept in a jar?

I get a kick out of the blogs that poke her with satire. Well, that’s one vote for Pie Near Woman. (Rechelle Unplugged for those not in the know.)