My Mom Turned 80 Today

Eighty years old seems like a bit of a milestone. I'm glad my Mom is breezing right past 8-0 and on her way for more. Also glad we were able to be with her to celebrate (along with some other fine folks); more to come on that shortly.

Thinking back over the many things I appreciate about her, I wanted to mention her skill and effort as a writer. This set a very useful example for all of us.

Here's the thing about writing - ideas and facts are critically important. But until a writer takes the ideas or facts and commits them to paper, they are just floating in the memories of one person, or maybe several persons. The information or idea is subject to being distorted or forgotten altogether. The writer provides an invaluable service by organizing the thoughts into a coherent form and committing them to paper. And the service is provided not just to the writer's contemporaries, but also to anyone else who happens to find the writing of interest. This can be an incomparable gift to future generations.

(Looking back over the preceding paragraph, I don't mean to separate the conception of ideas and the reduction of ideas to writing - the writer often performs both functions.)

The essential example in my Mom's case is the centennial history book for St. Joseph's Parish that was completed in 1976. She didn't write the book herself. It was a team effort that involved many participants. And it isn't necessary or useful to rank the value of the contributions of the various participants - for example, there's certainly no book without the contribution of ideas and information. What I do know is that there is nothing tangible to hang onto without folks like her sitting there and doing the hard and often mundane work of organizing the ideas and information and putting them down on paper in an interesting, readable format. This is time-consuming and often feels thankless. It involves the careful assembly of words and ideas, and the confirmation of information. Until all that is done by the writer, there is no history book.

My mom was a key contributor to the writing process. The resulting product is a gift to all of us. The book is a reference source on shelves all around St. Joe and in numerous places around the world. Who wouldn't like to create a legacy like that?

Of course she has written plenty of other stuff. Everyone looks forward to the annual Christmas letter. Another detailed St. Joe history was produced in 2002, along with various other updates from time to time. And how about the family genealogy? If it isn't written down by someone, it doesn't exist . . .

Her writing style generally is detailed, newsy, interesting. She's taken up email communication (though without entirely adopting the short-burst, rapid-fire style of most email users). But that's ok by me.

I also have a stack of her letters from the 1970s that I would like to review and organize - I'm guessing those would comprise a pretty thorough summary of the local events of those days. As a kid off to a big school far away from home, I can report that those letters were much anticipated and re-read at the time.

Top and bottom photos show the history book team at work in the basement of the EJ Gales home; middle photo shows researchers going through Livermore Gazette materials. (As always, click to enlarge.)

I have a great Mom. Happy #80!

It Begins . . . (Day of Wrecking)

We've spent a lot of time and energy talking about taking care of some of the deferred maintenance on our home. We're also doing some remodeling.

And we've finally moved from talk to action. The work officially started on Tuesday (March 25). We put down a deposit with the cabinet guy, and one of the home wreckers came by to start with the patio off the master bedroom.

I think the photo makes our place look like some kind of pueblo? Except they didn't use gas grills.

More to come.

Easter 2008

Well, we had quite the socializing over the Easter weekend.

The fun started Friday afternoon with another round of spring training tickets courtesy of White Sox media guy Patrick O'Connell (a/k/a Nicole's pal) (spring training, round one, is discussed here). Patricia, Patrick (just back from visiting Nicole in Chicago), Paul Jr., Alex (lives in same apartment as Paul Jr.) and I saw the White Sox lose to the Giants at Scottsdale Stadium. We were supporting the White Sox after a fashion, but under the threat of extra innings we reluctantly appreciated the Giants' 9th-inning victory. Fantastic weather, great seats, so it was everything spring training is supposed to be. Had folks around in the evening for even more socializing.

Patricia and I went to coffee per usual Saturday morning. Nicole had called a couple times trying to pin down what we were doing (purportedly from Chicago). But being rather tricky, she and Patrick were in the coffee shop and surprised the heck out of us. She had flown into Phoenix the day before (after a days' delay that was primarily self-inflicted). So it was fun to have her around for the weekend. Patricia put together a dinner for a bunch of folks that evening, and we watched some of the college basketball madness.

Similar enjoyments on Sunday, including a run over to the Sterns in the afternoon. This included some misguided speculation about a nesting dove and hatching and where Thomas Stern came from. We also met Herman the dog. There were Wii games including boxing and bowling, and my wife wasn't fully hospitable to house guest Patrick (e.g. seven strikes in a row). Something of a joint cooking effort (led by CPG) for dinner and folks liked the rib roast. Patricia made the chocolate cheesecake, which led to some almost unseemly negotiating over portions (it ended up in quadrants). (But too bad a nice chunk remains in our refrig, soon to be tossed out as there is no one here to eat it.) Gorgeous weather throughout the weekend . . . as Sunday wore on, Patrick left for U of A, Paul Jr. left for ASU, and Chris left for his house. Nicole flew back to Chicago bright and early on Monday, and Patrick headed to Peoria that morning for White Sox v. Mariners.

Fun.

Shaq in town (and somewhat dangerous)

We pay quite a bit of attention to the NBA in general and the Phoenix Suns in particular. They surprised the heck out of us by taking a step away from the running game and trading for this extraordinarily large man named Shaquille O'Neal. It's not clear how well this trade is going to work out, but there are some encouraging signs and it's certainly entertaining in the meantime.

Anyway - Chris, Paul Jr. and Pat Herrara (the latter two home on spring break) were sitting around on Tuesday evening (3/11); Patricia made a large and wonderful spaghetti & meatballs supper for us. After eating massive amounts of food, we were talking and watching a Suns laugher against the lame Memphis Grizzlies. Shaq has developed a dangerous propensity for diving after loose balls (including almost taking out a couple rows of fans in a game two days earlier).

Anyway, the Suns bench must have paid attention to the previous game, and their desperate escape tactics (shown below) in response to Shaq's pursuit of another loose ball were pretty amusing to us.

The video is funny. It was a fun night in general.

Beautiful hike - and new slideshow method

Patricia and I had a delightful hike on Sunday afternoon (March 9). We drove out to Lost Dutchman State Park (west side of Superstition Mountains) and took the Siphon Draw Trail - a new trail for us, and quite a bit more scenic than anticipated.

Conditions were perfect - high temp around 80. Because of the above average rains, the wild flowers were out in force. Especially the Mexican gold poppies, and lupine.

The trail climbs steadily - about 1000 feet elevation gain - to an area called the "Basin". We used this as our turn-around point. You can climb another 1500 feet to the "Flatiron" but we would need to allot quite a bit more time, haul more water, etc.

The photo looking down between cliffs was taken from the Basin. Click to enlarge, I think it was really quite dramatic.

And how neat is the slideshow technology that our pals at Google have added? By clicking on any photo that you like in the slideshow, you will be taken to that photo on the web album.

It was another fun outing with my energetic hiking pal (who gets credit for these photos).

Spring training 2008 . . .

Here was a fun little visit/trip. Nicole arrived from Chicago Wednesday evening (February 27) and hung around with us on Thursday (including a hike in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve (40th street trailhead) and attendance at the ASU basketball game with Chris, Paul, etc.)

On Friday, we drove down to Tucson to see Patrick, go to a spring training game, etc. The game featured the White Sox and Diamondbacks at Tucson Electric Park; great seats courtesy of Nicole's pal from Chicago (also a Patrick). We were positioned just to the left of the Sox dugout and spread out in rows 1 and 2. Gorgeous weather; high of 81 in Tucson that day. So it was perfect for watching a game. Very different perspective from that close. Among other things we noticed: it's amazing how muscled up the players are (presumably without the benefit of PEDs).

Patricia and I stayed at the Best Western Royal Sun (again), notwithstanding that we seem to have issues there every now and then. We hosted a fun reception there between the game and going to dinner at the Guadalajara Grill. Overnight there was no heat in the room and it was 60 degrees when we awoke. That felt cold.

A nice breakfast with Nicole, Patrick and Nedda; then we wandered through some of the shops in the "Lost Barrio" area (including the large carving of St. Michael the Archangel shown here).

Patricia and I made our way back to Phoenix later in the afternoon, it was a very fun trip. We saw Nicole (with Chris) a few hours Sunday afternoon before taking her to the airport.