respublica

They are the champions

Last night Christ Community Lutheran School's soccer team played Immanuel St. Charles for the district championship on the Lutheran South High School football field. Our grandson Christian plays for CCLS and emotions were running high before the game because Immanuel is always a tough opponent in any sport and because CCLS teams have won this game 4 straight years. The pressure was on for our 8th grade guys to keep the streak going.

And they did! They won by a score of 2-1 and Christian had both sets of grandparents in the stands, a rare thing.

I just had to zero in on Christian holding the trophy afterward. He's on the right.

She touched the Stanley Cup

I'm telling you, sometimes it pays to work in Washington DC. Yesterday Katie went to the White House to see the St. Louis Blues and today the Stanley Cup arrives where she works.

Unreal

The good old typewriter days

Dale's Meyer Minute for today reflects on his early days at his first church in Venedy, Illinois. Most of it is about how he wrote his sermons and bulletins on typewriters. There was no such thing as computers back then. I pulled out an old black and white photo I'd taken of him at that desk and it got me to remembering just how that picture came about.

I'd put the date at around 1976. It was our nation's Bi-Centennial year and I'd been dabbling in photography and took some classes at the local (Centralia) junior college. In those days photographs were taken with film which had to be developed. In one class I took we learned how to develop our own film, all black and white. Color was a bit too difficult without a lab. I liked this so much that Dale bought me darkroom equipment to do this at home. The Venedy parsonage had a long narrow attic type room on the second floor which was perfect because no light at all seeped in. You had to be in the dark in a dark room or the photos would not turn out. The enlarger which was needed for making prints came with a dim red photo light which was all the light that could be used.

Also involved with developing photos was a can for developing negatives and then 3 rectangular trays for making the actual prints. Each tray had a different fluid. I spent a lot of time messing around up there making photographs and it's one of those clear memories. A few years ago before the parsonage was torn down to make way for a new fellowship hall, I walked through it for old times sake. Lo and behold, a couple of the pictures I'd tacked to the wall of my makeshift darkroom were still there.

Here is a picture I did back in 1976 and attached to his Facebook Meyer Minute for today.

Oh how young we were. But both of us were learning things by the bucket full.

STL Blues at the White House

Our Stanley Cup Champions will be guests at the White House this afternoon around 2 CST. The best part of this is that our daughter Katie somehow wangled herself and invitation to this event. She could not be more excited and I'm hopeful that some news station will carry it.

Tearing up the basement

For weeks Dale has been demo-ing our basement walls in Collinsville. This is due to some water science that I cannot comprehend, but is necessary in order for a water basement systems company to come in and rectify. We've had some water seepage after rains this winter and it seems an underground tile or tiles along or under the foundation have broken. Now we're having them come in and jackhammer holes all around the inside of the foundation walls and add a drain somehow which will attach to a sump pump. We've never had a sump pump but now we will. After this, we will never have water again, so they say. 

This has been extremely messy and a ton of heavy work for Dale, but he wanted to clear all the walls to save some money, and, he liked doing it. This morning 3 men from Woods Basement Systems arrived with jackhammers in tow and all kinds of other stuff. They said when they got here that since he gutted everything they should be finished tomorrow. Hurray for that, except then we're left with the age old, "now what" as to how to put it all back together. Dale is not going to do that! Gutting he can do, finishing work, no.

The walls only had to be gutting 18 inches above the floor, but in most places he took the entire wall down and demo-ed the entire basement bathroom. In the end things should look much better with new walls and a new bathroom.  Hopefully in my lifetime.

I'm getting out of here and headed back to the quiet, no dust, seminary while he stays to observe.

And so it begins

Yesterday the seminary board of regents announced that Dale would be retiring after this school year. We, of course, had made this known to them, but it was a bittersweet day. He has been the longest tenured president in 50 years and we've been a part of this campus in one way or another since 2000. A major part of of lives will see a major change.

But, so many people sent the nicest messages after the announcement went public that it made us teary eyed most of the day.

Change is part of life and we'll return to our roots in Collinsville and be content. (After the hard, physical work involved moving is finished.)

A surprise ancestor photo

My sister is a avid family history researcher and goes about this hunting for ancestors in spurts. Yesterday she sent me a photo of one of our great grandmothers, Anna Barry. Anna was the mother of our father's mother. I'd like to know the date of this photo since it has to be quite old.

I was curious about the color in the photo since this does not seem possible considering when it was taken. Everything was black and white. So, my question is, was it a photo of a painted portrait? It could be since you can see the reflection of a room or windows behind her which meant someone took a photo of a photo or painting.

This was quite a surprise.

The things you find

While going through old boxes in the basement over the weekend, I came across this gem. No idea of the date but we figure it has to have been taken when Dale was with the Lutheran Hour. If you don't know who these people are, you may be too young.

Name his wife, I'm pretty sure many of us recognize the man immediately, but I had a memory slump trying to remember her name.

Cucuzza!

After a long summer of watching our Cucuzza squash plants grow and grow, developing huge leaves and vines reaching up to the top of the fence and covering a good portion of our backyard, we discovered a huge fruit. We've gotten a few which were about a foot long, but this one takes the cake. It's bigger than a baseball bat.

It was hidden against the fence and behind the huge leaves. It was also on our Collinsville's next door neighbors side of the fence.

Now it's time to research just how to dry it so it becomes a gourd.

Last tooth visit

This morning I went over to Collinsville to have the final crown put in where a tooth was extracted back in March. This has been a long slug, not painful, but just weird to have to be careful about what I ate and how I chewed. Almost 6 months of eating from one side of my mouth. The temporary metal seat that was put into the bum a few weeks ago, came out and a permanent seat was screwed in by way of what I believe was a tiny Allen wrench. Then the cap or crown was put over and into that and looks like a normal tooth.

But, my heart sank when the oral surgeon told me to eat only soft foods for 24 hours so that the cement holding the new tooth things would harden well. I went through the soft foods for two weeks when the tooth was taken out and all I can remember is how hungry I was back then. Today I was told to stick to mashed potatoes and scrambled eggs and anything else soft like that. I spoke up and said, "Kruta Bakery donuts are soft, are they ok?" He sort of laughed and said, "Kruta's has the softest donuts I've ever eaten, so yes."

Kruta's for the win again. And, luckily for me, Kruta's was only half a block away from the dental office.