UPDATE -- Introducing Rick Anderson
by Rick Anderson
Charleston, IL

Hi! I'm Rick Anderson, nephew of the Matriarch. (Don and my dad, Dwight, are brothers.) I recently moved to Charleston, Illinois, after living in Portland, Oregon, for five years.

Charleston is south of Chicago, midway between St. Louis and Indianapolis. There are many reminders in the area that this is the "Land of Lincoln," including the site in Charleston where one of the Lincoln-Douglas debates was held, the home of Abe Lincoln's father and step-mother south of town, and the courthouse square where Lincoln once practiced law.

In August, I began my new position at Eastern Illinois University, a state university with about 12,000 students. I teach mathematics education courses for prospective teachers. I have been busy settling in but hope to visit some of the places nearby in the future. I have been to Chicago a couple times this summer and the picture of me is taken by the John Hancock Center.

Rick Anderson at the John Hancock Center in Chicago.

UPDATE -- still Minnesotans
by Wyatt Johnson
Moorhead, MN

It's been a while since I've sent an update, so I thought I'd send a quick one. We had our house on the market for about a month, and had made an offer on a new house on the south side of West Fargo, contingent on us selling our house. We decided to give up this past week, after having only five couples come look at the house in four weeks, three of them at three different open houses. The stress of keeping the house clean with a 3 year old, a 10 month old, a cat, and a dog just got to be too much, and we decided to stay where we are, for now.

Rylie's thoroughly enjoying having someone who will play with her, but still gets mad when Brooklynn gets into some of her stuff. Rylie has begun to come out of her shell, and is almost becoming TOO outgoing. When we go for walks, anyone, and I mean ANYONE, we see on the street, Rylie asks, "What's your name?" When they respond, she gives the rundown: "I'm Rylie; this is Brooklynn."

Brooklynn is a total maniac. Even though she isn't walking yet, she's an expert at the stairs now. In fact, she so enjoys her new talent, that she can entertain herself for quite some time going up ... and down ... and up ... and down ... and....

Time to go now; the girls and I are off to the zoo. Jolene's working night shifts this weekend, so I'm doing my best to keep the girls quiet. Since that's a futile effort, we try to stay out of the house!

Wyatt

Brooklynn (11 months) and Rylie (3-1/2 years).

Answers to last week's mystery pictures (click here to review them):

One of the truly enjoyable aspects of starting a new job, or moving to a new area, is the opportunity to experience so many new things for the first time.

Friday evenings, Sherry and I sometimes took the kids over and left them with Jim and Edith for a few hours.

One of those evenings the two of us went to a makeshift little Cajun restaurant. The friendly proprietor -- a black man from the deep south -- served us delicious Cajun fare, including a wonderful black-eyed pea soup. One of the walls of the restaurant was made of discarded wooden pallets, and part of the roof was of canvas. It was a unique, cozy place; and it was just us, and the eccentric proprietor.

Another evening we went to a floating restaurant that catered to riverboats and a small community of moored houseboats. It was on the backwaters of the Colombia River just outside Scapoose. We each ordered our first ever bottle of seltzer water. A special treat! We watched the boats come and go, and we walked on the floating docks. Though many miles from the ocean, it was evident that the water level rose and fell with the tides. A mother duck and her yellow ducklings swam around the pilings in the swirling, black water.

On yet another Friday evening, we drove out into the mountains on a logging road, looking for a place to walk in the forest. I stopped our car next to two ruts of a trail that headed up the mountainside into dark, rugged timber. There was a For Sale sign there, so we decided we could take the liberty to scout out the property. If anyone came along, we might pass as prospective land buyers.

The wet forest was silent, except for the soft sound of water droplets dripping from the trees. The towering Douglas Fir were awesome, and the higher we climbed the more beautiful the occasional view through openings in the trees. Wispy fog enshrouded parts of the adjacent mountainside.

We had climbed about a half-mile up the steep trail when someone broke out into hysterical laughter. The insane laughter echoed off the mountainsides and through the timber, before rolling around in the valley below.

We turned quickly and began to retrace our steps to the car.

As we hastily descended, the demented laughter started again, this time from the dense forest to our left; and then another peal of insanity came from the rhododendron bushes on our right. Whoever they were, it sounded like there were a lot of them.

"They're following us!" I said.

Running and breathless -- with the crazy laughter reverberating all around us -- we arrived back at the car. We wasted no time jumping in and closing the doors. Once in the security of the massive Lincoln, we buzzed the electric windows part way down and listened. Except for the soft dripping from the wet trees, the eerie timber was silent. Darkness was settling in, and it was beginning to rain.

We turned the Lincoln around. The wipers slapped rhythmically as we made our way through the falling darkness, back to the safety of Jim and Edith's house.

Around their kitchen table, before we headed home to our apartment, we shared our adventure with them. They thought we may have crossed paths with a pack of coyotes.

This was the first of many encounters we would have with coyotes.

Going To Basic Training
By Beaver
Part 1

On the 6th of July in 1969, two farm boys left the green fields, beautiful weather, and good lookin' girls of Minnesota, heading for Air Force basic training in San Antonio, Texas. Neither of us had flown before, so I got a graphic demonstration of "green around the gills" when I looked over at Gaylan in the window seat as we banked into the first turn after leaving the ground at Fargo, North Dakota. We were on a commercial airline flight that would take us to Minneapolis. Had we known what was coming next, we might have skipped out and volunteered for the draft.

At Minneapolis we were herded into a very big and very old four-engined propeller job flown by the Air National Guard. We shuddered and roared into the air. The next time we rumbled to the ground, it was to pick up more recruits in one of those midwestern states that starts with a vowel. We then proceeded to stop in every hick town between there and Texas until we had a whole plane full of very nervous-looking recruits. Trying to tune out the roaring engines, the shaking airframe, and my popping, aching ears, I bought a paperback book to read. It helped pass the time, but I didn't have it long. At Lackland Air Force Base, it was promptly judged "not educational" and confiscated. I hope the training instructors learned as much from it as I did.

About the time we entered Texas airspace, we encountered a big thunderstorm, which didn't seem like a good place to be in an antique airplane. Sometimes the old bird would go up like a fast elevator, pinning us into our seats. Then we would hang in our seatbelts as she fell like a rock for what seemed like a very long time. The wings were flapping like a blue heron trying to get off the water. We were a mighty green bunch of recruits in every sense of the word.

Finally escaping from the clutches of the thunderstorm, we found clear sky and San Antonio at about the same time, shuddering and thumping onto the runway. We staggered off the airplane onto the flight line, where the air temperature was 110 degrees and the concrete was hot enough to fry your feet right through your shoes.

By this time I had figured out that life on the farm in the hills of Minnesota was probably not half as bad as I had thought, and in fact was a much better deal than I was going to get in Texas. It was a little late to back out, so I got on the bus with all my new buddies, hardly able to contain my curiosity about what would happen next.

To be continued...

Click here to review last week's Bulletin

I love that picture of "mutton bustin' Wade." Thanks for sharing, Carol. I am with you ... I don't think I could get very "enthused" about family members being part of the action. I am pretty certain I wouldn't have very good "form" in the "grin and bear it" department, either.

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Ginny McCorkell
Blaine, MN