I know a little bit about writing and I know a little bit about Theodore Roosevelt. The latter part of that sentence could be misleading: compared to the average person today, I probably know quite a bit about Roosevelt; compared to scholars, I don’t know much at all. I do know that I admired him enough to name my son Quentin after his youngest son who was killed as an aviator in WWI.

Candice Millard’s book about the exploration of the River of Doubt (now Roosevelt River) is excellently done and highlights other outstanding members of the group, as well as highlighting the outstanding effort put forth by even the most unknown and uneducated workers who packed the mules, set up the camps, fought the rapids and, like Roosevelt, gave their all.

It reads as easily  as a very good fiction book, almost as if the spirits of great authors gathered to help guide Millard’s choice of words, knowing this story and these men deserved the very best.

And the best includes not just the things that worked out.  Roosevelt’s second son, Kermit, accompanied his father on this trip. In writing this book, Millard, touches on the business of what is in our stars.

Roosevelt did the best he could, but he was lucky to have inherited  crucial aspects to enable that to happen. He had a brother who obviously came from the same stock, the exact same gene pool, and yet Elliot was plagued with personal attributes that led to a dissolute life of alcoholism and irresponsibility – among other things, he fathered a child by one of the household maids. Theodore had to have him institutionalized for a while, and when Elliot died at a relatively  young age, Theodore sobbed over his body, remembering the golden youth that once had been, but got derailed.

Genes. Roosevelt saw the same ability in his son Kermit that he had seen in Elliot, and he also saw the same tendencies toward introspection and black depression. He strove to guide Kermit, who excelled when he had a physically challenging mission to accomplish, but who languished at the matter-of-factness of day-to-day life that involved offices and a roof over his head and a regular bed to sleep in at night.

Genes: Theodore Roosevelt wanted his children to pull their weight, not be afraid of trying, to challenge themselves, to be responsible. Yet, Roosevelt, when faced with his first wife’s  and mother’s death on the same day and the prospect of raising a newborn daughter – Alice Roosevelt Longworth – took off for the vigorous trials of the west, leaving the child to the care of his sister.  He said black care could not stay close to a fast rider – or something like that. But, he had that option financially. The question is: did he have that option morally? I don’t know. In a way, instead of facing the days of sameness and the forging of a bond between father and motherless daughter, he opted for, shall we harken back to Kermit and say the idea of a mission of hard physical work?

Why am I going into all of this? I suppose because occasionally I think about it; how ironic things can be. Like beauty being a matter of millimeters, so personalities and character are determined by one enzyme here, one there, one synapse too long or too short or just right. Strengths and weaknesses that cancel each other out – or with a catalyst spell disaster.

Well, anyway, one way or another, The River of Doubt reveals part of a lifespan of a man who turned out more than okay and reveals it with skill; another well-schooled writer might have attempted the task and got it technically right. Fortunately, genes came together to give Candice Millard the talent to get everything, in the vernacular of Little Red Riding Hood, just right.

We wound up with over five inches of new snow yesterday and I faced the fact first thing this morning  – in my boots, pants, big red coat, blue trapper hat, gloves, aspirin and shovel. I now have a chute, canyon, whatever you want to call it in the distance of the driveway from the sidewalk to where I can actually reach the plowed street.

I myself have now wound up with no boots, no big red coat, no blue trapper hat, no gloves, no shovel and no pants – outer ones that is. Actually I also have no socks. I am all propped up in a warm cozy corner feeling very pleased with myself. I know it’ s Sunday,  especially a day when I should cultivate humble feelings, but I am bursting beyond that with the Woo Hoo of the scooped out driveway. With all that I took off, I did add a fuzzy Aleve I found in my pocket to my actual body where, I am hoping, it will make getting up to hunt for new pants something I might consider.

The Creation Museum is located just south of Cincinnati and I remember some talk about it being built before we left the area. A few years ago, people in Ligonier, Indiana tried to turn an old factory into another Creation Museum and because I was writing for a small paper at the time, I was asked to research it and write an article. In doing that, I checked back with the website for the museum in Cincinnati.

Now, there have been headlines about a debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. In renewed curiosity about the Creation Museum, I went back to their website and while reading through one description, came upon this sentence:

Several parts of the museum, including the stunning forty-foot high portico with its cliff wall and floor-to-ceiling glass windows, flaunt open spaces and remarkable designs.

Flaunt?

Flaunt seems off-key to me, so I typed it in Google search and this is the first thing that came up:

Wouldn’t “highlight” or “spotlight” be a better choice than flaunt?

I know it’s a small thing, a really small thing, but what is it they say? Oh, The devil is in the details.

We are in the negative temperature digits and we have a wind chill somewhere in the negative 20’s. Most schools are on a two hour delay, although Fort Wayne Community Schools have closed. I think the kids may have gone two days this week, but maybe only once. So the question is this: Will the area schools stay with the delay or close?

The plows have been working constantly, but there are a lot of rural roads that buses must use and every intersection corner is piled high with snow towers.  They have missed so many days, everything is totally our of whack with schedules for graduation  and summer jobs for kids already. Finally, it is Friday and the physical plants at the school have not been revved up for heat for a couple of days.

So, will they call a closing? I’m thinking not. I think they are going to go, which means I am going to have to thread a needle getting the car out of the driveway and I am going to have to listen to Summer “make remarks” all the way to the high school. (Which some of you will realize I am happy to be experiencing.)

UPDATE: I hear stomping around  – we are still a GO. If the decision to close because of weather is not clear cut, the procedure is to go to a 2 hour delay at 6 am and by 8 am, make the call if they are going to close. It is 7:43 am and in the next quarter hour, they will start to fall like dominoes or NOT. And then it will get grumpy like you wouldn’t believe.

UPDATE: CLOSED, CLOSED, CLOSED.

I was not looking for anything on Amazon.com at all; I was just there because it was fate. Der Bingle is a pocket knife aficionado and has had a couple of experiences where he forgot and had to forfeit one at the airport.

If he had this one, he would simply not take the flight. No. Maybe if he could mail it to himself, he’d go, but that’s assuming he had time to do so. I am in awe of this knife – not so much that I am going to commit this amount of money to it. But if he does, I will totally understand.

I’m being a little loose with someone’s privacy here, but I think it’s necessary for people to have some exposure to the forever grief of losing a child.

It’s not just a day. On February 2, I published the post right below, which for today will remain there. Jody’s father sent me this message a couple of days later:

Thank you for Remembering Miss Body’s birthday. I couldn’t bring myself to post a comment. She died on Easter 3 years ago and I still can’t bite the head off a damn chocolate bunny without bawling.

Then, later, he wrote that she was his sunshine. I understand his not being able to post a comment . . . because he loved her so much. And I can also feel him thinking that he just had to . . . because he just loves her so much.

Because we have had so much snow, we have had to actually take the time to deal with it. That can keep your mind and    body occupied. And because we have had so much snow so often, everything has remained white – really white. No dirty snow to speak of at all. I had not thought of it before, but all that whiteness has made things very bright, even though we have had very little sun.

Yesterday when I was shoveling to keep ahead of what I am now calling “the bliz-zard”, I had to put my glasses in my pocket. It wasn’t so much that they were steaming up, but that the transition lenses were getting so dark, it was difficult to see.

I remember one January and February a few years ago – probably documented somewhere on this blog – when we had continuous clouds, but little, if no, snow.  Then, one morning the sun did come out and I was astonished at how much the change in angle had occurred during the cloud out. I actually remember staring at objects lit by sunlight and really feeling good about it. It had been a gradual thing – this forgetting about the sun. There was daylight and there was night; I didn’t think about the sun really. Of course, Indiana in the winter is dreary; sometimes, it’s just better that you don’t see debris of winter in all it’s shades of brown and gray.

When we lived in Sacramento, all those decades ago, I used to think I had to go out on every sunny day and enjoy it, because, you know, I was familiar with Indiana weather and clouds rolling in. I about killed myself savoring all that blasted sun. Day  in and day out, Well, as Gilda would say, “It’s always something . . .”

When I came awake in the dark this morning, I was aware of the sound of a strong snorer as heard from another room. That’s what it sounded like, but it was not; it was Shane curled up on a soft comforter on the floor beside me. It was either Shane or it was the monster finally coming out from under the bed. I suppose there could be other scenarios, but by this time I had peeked over the side and, yes, it was Shane.

Dog snoring is not quite like people snoring; I had the sensation I was lying next to a low-pitched engine that rhythmically slipped into a more powerful gear. It actually was soothing, once I got the monster idea out of my head. Unfortunately, my throat was really dry and sore and I wanted a drink of water . . . and, okay, maybe I wanted to go into the bathroom. Shane lay right where my feet would land if I swiveled to get up. So I thought about it.

When I faced the fact  I was not going to be relaxed at all, I sat up, swiveled around, stuck my legs straight out . . . and tried to angle myself up with my feet contacting the floor beyond him.  I don’t know why I even tried; he immediately opened his eyes, took in the situation and, I’m certain, thought: “What does she not understand about doggie protective alertness?”

He did not move, however, until I decided that it would be a good idea for him to take a bathroom break while I was up already.  I wanted none of this settling back down and then feeling the cold nose nagging on my cheek. He seemed put out . . . and, come to think of it, that’s exactly what the circumstance was.  It was cold out there, so in my soft heart, I left the door pushed shut, but not latched. His bathroom break was shorter than mine and when he returned, pushing the door open to enter, HE DID NOT TURN AROUND THEN AND PUSH THE DOOR CLOSED!

What does he not understand about basic protection? That’s probably not the question he expects me to ask myself. I’m betting he is suggesting that I leave a glass of water where I sleep and that I don’t drink after a certain time at night so I don’t have to get up before he wants to. I strongly suspect this because when I turned around after having shut the door, I saw him lying nearby, watching my every move. I thought I heard a voice in my head: Gosh, she’s a slow learner.

Well, okay, Shane, I’m sorry I’m not the equivalent of an Australian Shepherd, one of the supposedly really smart dogs. I’m a mutt. I admit it. Heck. I scored a 76* on an online IQ test, so cut me a little slack, okay?

*This is one of Summer’s nicknames for me: Miss 76. I should have never mentioned it to her; that WAS stupid of me.

on an online IQ test . . . so cut me some slack, okay?

I went out this morning and shoveled some snow judiciously – that is to say, I tackled the trouble spots. I thought it would be a little easier than it was. Having noted the snow was powdery, I backed out the car and drove out the drive, around the plowed big block and back into the garage, thereby marking the exact curving of the driveway. Not going to shovel where I didn’t need to and figured if I hadn’t gotten stuck, it wasn’t going to fight me.

That sort of happened, but the powdery stuff was deep in the canyon that is my entrance to Riley Street proper and the plows had left a firm new ridge at the end. It had also  drifted some distance in the first subtle curve.  Anyway, when I realized I was tired, I went in and plopped in front of a TV.  Rachael Ray was on and she was making some sort of eggplant casserole with homemade sauce – the kind of sauce where she used an odd-looking masher and peeled whole tomatoes.

It’s always nice to see cheerful kitchens and recipes being made by people other than myself. It occurred to me that what these cooks need is a friend who likes to sip soda and tell funny stories to perch there beside them at the counter. Me. I could comment on the great smells, comment on the wholesome homeyness of the kitchen and grin and joke. Maybe hand her a spoon or whisk.

I could be sort of an AmeliaJake on the Shelf,  just appreciating the hell  out of the effort that was being made and the class being exhibited.  This would be a great job. Especially if she had cute little snackie things already prepared. People could book me ahead of time and I’d show up . . . and just be ME.

Rose thinks there might be a glitch in this idea, but, my goodness, what could it be? Oh, Rose is saying, “Who” could it be, not what. (Chuckle) Rose gets these silly ideas.

I looked at the weather site and it reported snow is accumulating rapidly; it actually stuck it right there in red.  I looked at Fort Wayne news site and one of the main threads is that people are fed up with Mother Nature. I don’t know about the wisdom of that. I understand that the snow has to be dealt with, but it’s winter.

I’m going to go look out the window now; maybe I’ll feel a gut-level change. But, I think I’ll still be mostly fed up with that Joe Biden fellow. God, I can’t stand that man.