Really Bad Remodel

This awesomely bad remodel job is on South Main street in Brattleboro, Vermont. It doesn't help appearances that the house is in derelict condition, but seriously, to throw on a hideously awkward extension onto the roof of the front porch?

Typical of the 19th century, house lots here were deep, yet narrow across the front. It makes sense, as before auto transportation people relied on foot travel for commuting to work and taking care of business. Thus towns were built compactly, houses close together.

Slapping additional rooms onto a dwelling was a common practice. Because lots were deep, extensions were built onto the back, one after the other. I've seen some old homes with as many as 5 different extensions in the rear. Subsequent additions rarely match what's already there. It gives the impression that the owner rolled out of bed one day and decided it was time for another addition, then used whatever materials were at hand.

August 21, 1968

Dad scooped the Los Angeles Times off our driveway every morning at 5:30. He and Mom usually had it read by the time the rest of us rolled out of bed. This day, August 21, 1968, was different though. We were all up by 5 a.m. preparing to attend cousin Charlie's funeral an hour south in Long Beach, California. Dear Charlie died on the 18th of August after several years of tragic decline due to ALS. He was Mom's first cousin. My angelic father had been the catalyst for getting our family down to visit Charlie almost every Sunday after church, despite the long drive to the nursing home in Long Beach, and later Fullerton, California.

We woke up to the above headline that August Wednesday, the 21st. Our eyes were sleepy, and that front page glared at us from the kitchen table as we ate our rolls and juice, putting a weighty damper on an already melancholy morning. The huge, bold type implies that Times readers should be and would be deeply interested in this invasion and its consequences, and maybe a few were. Our arch-enemy, Russia, had gone rogue again. I suspect that not many folks actually cared about Czechoslovakia, which wasn't exactly on the radar of the average American. Except for us, that is.

Dad's parents had immigrated to the US from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, now the Czechoslovakia of the bold headline, in the early 1900s. Over the decades what with a depression and two world wars, pinching poverty, Grandpa's long hours in the coal mines, the births of eight children, and then Grandpa's crippling mine accident in 1951, they never entertained the thought of going back to the old country for a visit.

Sometime after Grandpa's death in late 1966, we had word that Baba was considering a visit home. Though her parents and siblings were deceased, she had nieces and nephews who were living, a few of whom corresponded with her. The 'Prague Spring' was warming. Why she did not just pick up and go is unknown. But on August 21, 1968, the opportunity vanished. I wonder now if she would have been trapped behind the Iron Curtain had she been caught in the invasion.

Then followed several decades of silence from her family in Czechoslovakia. I remember the significance of the first letter she received from her cousin Michael Ihnat-Mikula in the mid 1980s. The political climate was relaxing a bit, and he was able to reestablish contact.

After European communism tumbled, Slovakia became independent. In 1997 I traveled to  meet my Slovak family for the first time. A large group of cousins gathered at a home in Humenne to meet me. We discussed their lives and events of the past. The oldest person there was Irina Porochnava Bubnasova. I brought up the Russian invasion of 1968, and wasn't prepared for a wrenching emotional response.

Irina gravely recounted the grief and dread and terror of that August morning. Every woman who had endured World War Two was hysterical. Russian tanks crowned the hills around town with guns pointing towards homes, at these women, at their children. It was the world war all over again.

The vision of Russian soldiers seizing the town, and the women of Humenne reliving erstwhile terrors in their minds, brought forth tears. I couldn't and wouldn't ask Irina about the terrors, but am pretty sure that the same horrors of war going on today in Syria or Iraq are what went on then. My comfortable American self can feel sympathy but can never fully fathom the abominations of war.

Though the 1968 invasion stifled the wave of freedom behind the Iron Curtain, the Russian army didn't occupy long. Life in Humenne and the country returned to normal, albeit a harsher version of it. Less than 25 years later, the Soviet yoke was thrown off, and my family there now lives in light and prosperity and freedom.

City of Humenne
My grandfather was born in a village located on the upper slopes of Vihorlat, the mountain in the background

Humenne's town center

Perryopolis Terrorist Attack

 

 the Perryopolis drug store is the beige stone building on the right

I have the blessing to be the aunt of a very nice, and now sensible young man, who I'll call PD here. From a very young age he has been a busy, active boy, a classic case of an ADHD child. He is known in the family for the crazy ridiculous things he did as a child. Actions such as jumping on the back of a moving pickup patrolling the zoo when he was about 3, come to mind. When a mud puddle was handy, he knew just what to do: plaster himself from head to toe and brightly declare, "I'm a mud-dauber!" One day I was talking on the phone to his mom when she suddenly announced she had to hang-up as "PD is ironing the carpet." He was maybe 18 months at the time.  The iron shape on the floor remained until re-carpet time.

When PD's family moved to an obscure small town in Pennsylvania, my sister Alice commented, "That boy is going to put Perryopolis on the map." And that's just what happened several years later.

 One day Alice picked up her newspaper--we're talking the bulky big-city tome known as the Los Angeles Times here.  She gasped on seeing a small article announcing a possible terrorist incident in Perryopolis, Pennsylvania. She skimmed through it, gasped again, and immediately got on the phone to me, announcing "he's done it!". Yes, PD had put this "has-been" coal-town on the map.

The previous afternoon PD and a friend had stopped at the town drugstore for candy on their way home from school. Both were carrying their science experiments home, which resembled fishing poles with various wires snaking out of them. Fifteen minutes later when the boys left for home, pockets bulging with candy, they neglected to grab their science experiments and left them leaning against a wall in the greeting-card section of the store.


A few hours later PD was at home watching TV. A news flash reported that a suspected bomb had been planted in the local drugstore in the tiny town of Perryopolis. The area around the store had been evacuated, the bomb squad was deployed, and a special robotic bomb-disarmer had blown up the suspected bombs. PD was half paying attention when suddenly he yelled out loud, "O my gosh, O my gosh!" He ran for the phone to call his friend, then spilled the beans to his parents.

bomb squad

He and his friend confessed that the "bombs" were their science experiments, no malice intended. It was certainly the most lively, interesting day Perryopolis had seen, probably since Colonel George Washington himself strode over the woodsy acreage while scouting out a site for his grist mill . . .

bomb robot

 

Bridget's Birthday

I normally don't write about stuff like childbirth. It's highly personal, and is boring as all get-out to anyone who isn't one of the three people concerned--Mom-Dad-child. Last night Craig and I were talking about Bridget's birth--her birthday is today, October 5. He said her birth story deserved a write-up.

Bridget is my third child so I thought I knew everything about childbirth by the time she came along. Child #1 pregnancy had been the routine sick, then not sick, then disastrous delivery. Child #2 pregnancy was average until 5 1/2 weeks before his due date when I woke up that morning in labor and birthed him at lunchtime.

With #3 I was sicker than I thought possible, for just over five months. Then came a blissful six weeks of no troubles, during which I took a 2 1/2 week trip back east with my mom. We met in Pittsburgh, then traveled the northeast visiting family and had a fabulous time.

By my sixth month my iron level had dropped into the basement making it nearly impossible to even drag myself out bed. At the beginning of the seventh month it was discovered I was dilating and was ordered to stay down for the rest of the pregnancy (and to let my three-year-old and four-year-old run amok, I guess). My Mom had to come help out. I was on meds to keep labor at bay (vasodyline and phenobarbitol). It was a tough period for everyone, but then two weeks before my due date, which was October 12 (Columbus Day!), I was able to be up and around.

Dr. Coleman decided to induce me on the morning of Monday, October 5th, but Sunday evening, October 4th, I chickened out and cancelled the appointment at the hospital. I showed up the morning of October 5th at my regular weekly appointment. The doc said I shoulda come in for inducing, because this baby was going to drop out any moment, and there was no way we would make it to the hospital in downtown Boise from where we lived out in Meridian, 10 miles away. Mmmmm. He rescheduled induction for October 7.

That Monday night the teenage boy from next door, Tim Johnstone, dropped by for a visit. He left just after 8:30 and it was then that I began to feel the usual every night contractions, so I crawled into bed to rest. Craig wondered what I was doing and when I told him about the labor, he made me get in the car. I whined that it was just the usual nightly pattern but he knew what the doc had said. We left home at 8:50 p.m.

We got maybe two miles down the road and suddenly I could feel Bridget coming--I was sitting on her head! Yikes, I demanded Craig run the traffic lights--we weren't going to make it to St. Luke's! I began the last stage of lamaze breathing, the one that puts you in control of when you push out the baby, and that held us off until we pulled up at St. Luke's at 9:10 p.m. Once out of the car I doubled over with an intense contraction and was sure baby was going to enter the world on a Boise sidewalk.

I was wheel-chaired in to an examining room, despite my pleadings that the baby's head was nearly out. The nurses did what they do best, calling me honey, and saying surely I was not as far gone as I felt. They took a look, then grabbed the nearest doctor (Dr. Poole), and he delivered Bridget at 9:18 p.m.  When my neighbor, Tim, heard our news the next day, he couldn't believe we had sat in my kitchen having a casual conversation, and I had a baby 45 minutes later.

There were four miracles that worked in our favor that frantic crazy night, to get me to the hospital for delivery:

First, my mom was already at our house, so we did not have to call around for a baby sitter.
Second, it was evening. Craig was home to get me to St. Luke's, and traffic was much lighter at night.
Third, I had learned the lamaze breathing only a few months before, and that saved me from a car delivery.
Fourth, the doctor's warning from that morning (that we would not make it downtown) caused Craig to react immediately that evening.

We were deeply blessed that everything worked out so well.

Happy 30-something birthday to Bridget!

 

Burning Man For Nerds: Totality and Solartown (part 1)

Create thousands of campsites, invite tens of thousands of campers with a multitude of cars, add enough gear to fit out a small nation, fly in 400 small planes and executive jets, trek a collective millions of miles, line up hundreds of porta-potties, blend the air with smoke from local forest fires, drive in a fleet of food trucks, throw in scores of bicycles and a couple of imposing NASA satellite trucks.  Stir all together for an extended weekend, then toss that batter out into the desert around Madras Oregon to bake.  Voila!  You have Solartown USA!

11 of our family enjoyed the experience of living in the miracle of Solartown for three days and two nights, for the sole purpose of viewing our first total eclipse.  Our six months of planning paid off as we lacked for nothing.  We even bought a canopy to shield us from the August sun, and it was worth every cent.  We transported all of our food and water, pillows, sleeping bags, tents, chairs, camp-stove, etc.  No outrageously expensive hotels for us!  And no standing in line for meals either, although a few times the porta-potty lines grew long.

 our campsite: 3 tents, 2 cars, 1 canopy

We camped among thousands but it did not feel like we were in a crowd. With one exception that I witnessed, every soul behaved, most kept to themselves on their 20’x20’ campsite, and we were all united in one nerdy purpose: that two minutes of totality on Monday morning, August 21.  I expressed to our camp neighbor that I hadn't known if this event would resemble "Burning Man" or what.  She said, "It's 'Burning Man' for nerds!!"  And she was right-on.

Solartown was birthed on a Kentucky blue grass seed farm, so we were not camping in hot dust, yay.  The grass was killed in 15-foot swathes to create roads between the rows of campsites.  Each campsite was divided from its neighbor by a one-foot strip of killed grass, to create a vast green checkerboard of 20’x20’ spaces.  The sites were tight, but we got lucky by discovering a row of sites that were (mistakenly, we presume) half again as large.  That made for a more luxurious area for our group, which brought three tents, two cars, and a 13’x13’ canopy.

 photo from our drone shows the layout of Solartown; we had 2 adjacent sites for our group

Our local media relentlessly gushed with gloom and doom predictions of 12-hour traffic jams, gas supplies sucked dry, empty grocery stores, etc.  Yet we breezed down to Madras, leaving at 5:30 a.m. Saturday, and made it there in the normal 2.5 hour driving time.  We filled up with gas at Warm Springs, no problem.  What a pleasant surprise.  Contrast that to heading home on Monday afternoon.  Though our traffic-y trip stretched to nearly 4.5 hours on that leg, we relaxed and felt it was a small price to pay for the marvelous experience of viewing a total eclipse.  Madras, population 6,000, certainly knew how to roll out the red carpet for its nearly 100,000 geeky visitors!

Here's a remarkable thing about those who inhabited Solartown: they did not trash the place.  Is that the Oregonian in them?  Well, tons of them sported license plates from CA, WA & BC. On Monday late afternoon after about half the campers had cleared out, I exclaimed that there was not a single piece of garbage left in the campsites. Everyone put their trash in a sack, then either took it with them, or set the sacks in a central spot for collection.

We're looking ahead to totality in New England in 2024😃

 another view of Solartown

 before departing for home

the local fairgrounds featured push-pins and a map to show where visitors originated

Burning Man For Nerds: Totality and Solartown (part 2)

-->

 

What can I say about viewing the totality of solar eclipse, except to use every superlative there is?  Magnificent, humbling, breathtaking, spectacular, striking, spiritual, sublime, impressive, awe-some, exquisite. All of these words fall short of describing the experience. I marvel at God's creations each and every day. This aspect of the Creation will always be tops for me.

I have been in several other partial solar eclipses, first when I was about seven or eight years old. There were no eclipse glasses back in the day, so our neighbor cut a hole in a shoebox so that we could watch the progress of the moon covering the sun. 

In February 1979 there was a total eclipse in NW Oregon where we live now, only we didn't live here then. We got close to 99% totality at our home in SW Idaho. It became quite dim outside, streetlights came on, and the air had an eeriness about it. Until this August 21st, I thought our 1979 experience was pretty amazing.

But there's an enormous difference between totality of a solar eclipse, and a 99% experience. They are actually two different things. Knowing what I know now, I would journey far to participate in totality. It's worth whatever effort or cost is involved.

To note the growing darkness, feel the evening breeze kick up, reach for jacket, gape at the sun's flaming corona, behold planets and stars in all their shimmering glory, in the middle of an August morning.

 our granddaughter with her custom made eclipse glasses, easy for a 3-year old to manipulate

 eclipse has begun!

totality

One bonus about our experience that made me supremely happy, is that everyone in our family participated in viewing the phenomenon.  Three of our children and four of our grandchildren were with us in Madras, Oregon. One of our daughters lives in SE Idaho in the totality zone, and her family watched it with a gathering of friends and relatives.  Our daughter's family in Finland watched NASA's online broadcast that originated from the campground where we were staying, so in a sense, they were with us. I'm elated that everyone felt as strong as I did about embracing this (possibly) once-in-a-lifetime event.

Watch our eclipse experience here

[see part 1 to hear all about Solartown in Madras Oregon]

DNA Update

Except for one of my sisters, I now have DNA results for every immediate family member, and a couple of others besides.  On Craig's side three of his siblings have not tested.

I put all results (percentages) in a table for easy viewing and comparison.  Craig is listed twice, once with me to make sense of our children's DNA, and then again with his own parents and siblings. Those in the upper part of the table are my family; his are in the lower.

All DNA tests were done through Ancestry, except for my uncle highlighted in orange (done through 23andMe).  The geographical categories of the two companies differ slightly.  I've used Ancestry's categories and put the percentages from 23andMe in the closest matching column.  I hope that makes sense.

NOTES: Pa Uncle and Pa Aunt are my Dad's siblings.  My nephew's percentages don't add up to 100% because his sharing feature didn't work, so he related to me what he could remember.

Abbreviations are:
Irel=Ireland; Est Eur=Eastern Europe; Grt Brit=Great Britain; Iber=Iberia; Scan=Scandinavia; Fin-Rus=Finland/NW Russia; Cau=Caucasus; Wst Eur=Western Europe; Eur Jew=European Jew; Itly/Grc=Italy Greece; Balk=Balkans/Southern Europe; the 3 Asians are Asia Central, Asia East and Asia South; Mid Est=Middle East; Nat Am=Native American; Afr=Africa; Mel=Melanesia