A couple months ago I read a little snippet in World Magazine about the importance of our local historical societies. It impressed me enough that I contacted our local HS and asked if they could use a volunteer. It turned out they needed someone to help with research projects so I said, “Sign me up!” Or something to that effect.
I drove over and was greeted with this delightful tableau, which I felt was a sign of good things to come.
After meeting the director and the woman in charge of research, I got a tour of the research room, which looks something like organized chaos. One wall is packed solid with research books of various kinds, some of them quite old. There are city directories from the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, plat books, old yearbooks, memoirs, history books, state, county and city records of interest, etc. Another wall is half covered with file cabinets. A table in the middle of the room is comfortably rumpled with paper, pencils, foodstuffs and the occasional file, out of place.
I also found out that there was a company back in the day that made upright grand pianos! Isn’t that odd? They were apparently almost impossible to tune and not very handy, so the not very many were made.
When I report for research duty (currently volunteering about 4 hours per week, two hours at a time), the head of research hands me a piece of paper on which she’s jotted some notes after taking calls with requests for research, either on families, businesses or even sometimes some land. There’s an old computer that I use to access an online database, as well as an index of all the subjects found in the files. Once I’ve got my assignment, I’m off and running!
I find it completely engrossing. The two hours get gobbled up so quickly that I’m almost sad it’s time to go. Dream job!
So that’s what I’ve been up to – a little busier than usual, but loving it.
What have you been up to? Do tell!
I’ll probably delete this in an historical way in the morning.
We finished hiking all of Minnesota’s state parks back in September of 2023. Has it been almost three years already? As it turns out, we finished just in time, with various joints and limbs showing their age now (mine, not my husband’s – he’s still a spring chicken as far as I’m concerned).
One of the parks that we felt calling us back was Glendalough. Glendalough State Park Hike 2021 We had hiked it in 2021 and could see bikers whizzing around on the part of our trail that met up with the paved biking trail. “Let’s come back here and do the biking trail!” one of us said. And the other agreed. It would also give us a chance to try e-bikes again. I had not been impressed with my first outing on one of those a couple years ago in Flagstaff, AZ. Renting e-bikes in Flagstaff 2024
The last park of our five-year adventure was Maplewood State Park, which is not far from Glendalough. Maplewood State Park Hike 2023 We had our camper with us this time and with no places for RV’s at Glendalough, we planted ourselves last week at Maplewood, another beautiful park. Here are just a few photos from our camping trip.
Here we are again, three years later!We’re standing in the same place as when we finished the Maplewood hike in 2023, our last photo.Our campsite was fairly close to Grass Lake.What’s a camping trip without a campfire? We indulged in a campfire all three nights. Ahh…On day two, we drove to Lida Lake which is in Maplewood State Park. I tried my hand at plein air painting. Had to use a shell to hold the water because I forgot to bring a cup.The scene in front of meThe painting, with some artistic license. Day 3: Back to Glendalough after six years. I loved their cattail sign.There they are – the Townie Go e-bikes we used. It was a wonderful experience! I’m glad we gave e-bikes another chance. These were lighter and simpler to use.And to cap it off, a striped gopher that we saw after the bike ride.
We also met old friends at the park for a cookout over the campfire: hot dogs, various fruits, chips and salads plus…you guessed it: S’mores! My family made them differently than everyone else when I was growing up, a fact I did not know until my late teens. We made ours with peanut butter on saltines, topped with a marshmallow, which we popped into a broiler. Fabulous! I love the salty sweet combo. Our friends brought some dark chocolate, which I have to admit improved the experience. Yum! No photos though – our hands were too sticky for handling cameras.
I’m going to have to delete this post with sticky fingers in the morning.
I reported for duty in the kitchen at noon yesterday, not sure what to expect of the day. What will it be like to work with these young men? How will they feel about having a stranger enter into the comfortable rituals of the kitchen that they’ve already established? An older woman, no less! Will my presence be a restraining one? I hoped not.
Caleb greeted me, letting me know that with a cap on my head, shoes on my feet, and a shirt with short sleeves, I was fully outfitted for the day. He fetched me an apron, told me where to wash my hands and instructed me to put on a pair of plastic gloves. He set me to work on filling bowls with CCP, kitchen lingo for Celery, Carrots and Pickles, items that are put out for both lunch and supper. I also filled peanut butter bowls. The presence of fresh bread, peanut butter, and jelly on the table has been a real treat for me. I love PBJ sandwiches! But I hardly ever eat them. I’ve indulged myself this week by making a half PBJ to eat with lunch and supper. Even having three meals a day is a bit of an indulgence, since we’ve gotten into the habit at home of eating just two.
In the absence of young head cook Daniel (17), Josh (18) was in charge of the kitchen. We worked on putting mayo, turkey and cheese into buns that had been soaked briefly in melted butter. The sandwiches were to be baked in the oven. A controversy arose when a couple of the younger table waiters discovered that the plan was to put mustard and onions in the sandwiches as well. Objections were voiced, along with the suggestion that we put those things out on the tables for people to add if they so desired. “Not everyone likes mustard and onions,” said one fellow sensibly. The decision rested with Josh, who assumed the mantle of leadership by deciding to put the questionable items out separately. Well done!
It was a relaxed atmosphere in the kitchen. We chatted easily and joked with each other. Caleb was playing some classic rock as a playlist for our work, while Grisha, when he wasn’t helping, watched something on his phone. Lunch (1:15 p.m.) came and went: the sandwiches, in all their buttery glory, were tremendous! Josh told me to come back at 4:00 to help prep for supper: pizza and caesar salad.
By the time I came back at 4:00, I was feeling less like a complete newbie; plus I was really enjoying the company of these young guys. They are all friendly and easy going – not a sour note in the whole song. Supper was at 6:30, so we had plenty of time to work on getting the pizzas ready to bake and cutting up lettuce for the salad. Josh sauced the pizza crusts, Grisha sprinkled them with shredded mozzarella, and Caleb and I added the pepperoni. Caleb took some artistic liberties in making one pizza look like it had eyes and a nose. This is just the kind of quirkiness that I appreciate.
During a lull in the prep time, Caleb and Grisha folded and sorted the kitchen laundry (towels, washcloths, aprons and such), while Josh and I talked about all sorts of things. Both his father and grandfather were involved at this camp back in the day. His grandfather even helped build some of the original cabins. Quite a legacy! I asked Josh what kind of spiritual impact the camp had had on him. He’d started as a camper at age 10. He was open about not really grasping the gospel of Jesus Christ for himself until he got more involved in leadership at the camp. Telling those Christian stories to others really put it on his own heart and made all the difference.
Just before serving supper, while I was getting the caesar salads ready, Daniel appeared at my elbow, having returned from his meeting. “Thanks so much for helping out,” he said, adding, “You’re doing a great job!” That’s the gift of encouragement, right there.
I’m glad I had the opportunity to be of service in the kitchen for a day. We pray regularly for this camp and have a list of the staff, but until this week they’ve just been names. I’m grateful to be able to pray now with faces attached to those names, and with a deeper appreciation for what this camp means to the boys and young men who come here. One of the camp t-shirts reads “Camp ____________, where God hangs out with the guys.” Yes, indeed!
L to R: Daniel (standing), Caleb, Josh and Grisha
I’ll probably CCP this in the morning. Gotta use the lingo!
After all these years, I’m finally at summer camp. This was an experience denied to me in my youth so naturally I romanticized it as a place of wonder where you went from one amazing thing to another. Even after watching The Parent Trap, I still thought it must be a place that birthed lifelong friendships and created the best memories. Maybe you could even find your long-lost identical twin there. I would have been delighted to find out that I had a long-lost identical twin, by the way.
My older sister became a Girl Scout and I believe she had a summer camp experience once. By the time I came around, I only made it as far as the Brownies. We did one pitiful day camp that was so far from meeting my expectations that I left the memory of it smoldering on the inadequate campfire we sat around, where it remains to this day.
My husband and I are volunteering at a Christian boys’ camp this week. It’s the same camp he brought most of our sons to for a week every summer as they were growing up. He would stay up there, too, as a lay counselor. When they came home from camp, I’d hear about hocker games, archery and other skills learned, horseback riding, carpet ball, swimming, singing silly camp songs around the campfire, Bible devotionals and prayer times, and buying things like Charleston Chews at the camp store.
We only have one daughter out of our six children (we always called her our “rose among the thorns”). While the menfolk were up at camp, she and I had “Girl Week.” We planned it in advance with different featured activities each day. One day we’d have an extravagant tea party. Another day would be “Downtown Day,” where we’d go downtown with a certain amount of money to spend at the shops. We’d also have a day where we’d do take-out food and a movie. And of course we’d have a craft day, too, working on some artsy project together. Oh, such fun! Looking back, I think that the way we spent that week was better than any summer camp experience could have been.
I’m not sure yet how our week at summer camp will go. I had expected to help in the kitchen, but upon arriving here we discovered that they already have four cooks/kitchen helpers, all young guys. The head cook is 17 years old. He told me they might not need my help much, so I will probably see if I can tag around after my husband, helping with grounds work. I am praying that the Lord will show me how to be useful here.
The memory of this post will be left smoldering in a campfire in the morning.
We went to Madeline Island in Wisconsin recently. My husband suggested ahead of time that we would want to rent mopeds to get around on the island. Inwardly, I rejected this immediately because…well, fear has no rationality. The closer the trip got, the more it seemed clear that a moped ride was going to be in my future, whether I liked it or not. I looked at the website of the moped rental place and was reassured that no prior experience was necessary; the staff would show you all you would need to know. But I still would have been happy for a reason not to do it. “Oh no – it’s raining! Too bad!” Or “It turns out I’m really too old to learn something new, Too bad!” In spite of my misgivings, the day came.
I had pictured that the moped training session would start with perhaps a 5-10 minute video, followed by the kind of of hovering instruction a parent gives when teaching their precious child to ride a bike without the training wheels. Instead, the young man showed me the moped and in about 15 seconds covered the three things I needed to do to run the thing. I am not exaggerating (which I need to say because I love to exaggerate). “You’ll do this on the left handle, push this button and do this on the right handle. Have fun!” Not so fast, buster. I asked him to tell me again more slowly and at the amused look on his face, I had to tell him, “I’m not kidding.” So he went over it again. I still wasn’t completely clear on things, so he suggested that if we wanted to practice a little bit there was a parking lot just up the street. Of course my motorcycle-riding hubby did not need any practice, but yes, I want to practice a bit. Perhaps more than a bit.
Somehow I managed to get myself over to the lot, fielding a series of “micro-panics” on the way. (Did I invent that term? I really like it!) Once in the lot, I proceeded to careen here and there, turning awkwardly and not using the two handles (brake on the left, accelerate on the right) very well. While my husband’s back was turned, I ran into a bush and had to extricate myself. I managed to get over to where he was and I said grimly, “I don’t have any muscle memory for this at all.” He responded cheerily, “You’ll be fine!”
And I was. It turns out that once you hit the open road, there’s not a lot of fussing that you have to do with the handles. In addition, there was a great deal of fortifying prayer going on in my mind. By the time we got to the Big Bay State Park (25 minute ride at 25 mph), the micro-panics had subsided almost entirely and I was actually enjoying it. On the way back to the rental place, I was feeling like a pro. Hubby joked to the kids that I was already looking at buying leathers. Ha ha! I feel a micro-panic coming on.
Fear not, for I am with you Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you. I will uphold you with my victorious right hand. Isaiah 41:10
This post will self-destruct at the first sign of a micro-panic. Oops – gone already!
