December 3rd

Several things have crossed my mind lately. Last night I was thinking about how many roads there are that I haven't traveled yet and I thought about my aunt Arlyne who was wearing a shirt when I saw her awhile back that said " so many books so little time" on the front. That would go for me too I guess, reading and riding have been a big part of my life since I learned how to read and ride. Ask Saint Jan how many atlases I have by the bed sometime, along with topo maps of most of the surrounding states. I see by the news that Al Franken will probably lose the election regardless of how many times the ballots are counted and re-counted. I will throw a picture in here that we took last Fall when Hans was home to see his Grandma. This was also the day that I got my cancer diagnosis, boy, does that feel like a long time ago. For lunch today Mom, a neighbor of hers and I drove down to Ormsby for the annual customer appreciation lunch. I wonder how many banks still do this anymore? It is a small part of mid-western Americana, with ham sandwiches, potato salad, bars, cookies and all the coffee you can stand. We sat across from a former neighbor of ours from Galena township, Ervin Wassman, who is a WWll vet. I asked him what his service had been and he talked for quite a while about his service in the south Pacific with an artillery unit. He feels incredibly lucky to have missed several initial invasions of islands in that campaign. They ended up in the Philippines training when Okinawa started off so slow and then figured on being sent into Japan as a decoy unit to the primary invasion force. This turned into an occupation after the a-bombs were used. I don't know how many readers out there are American Legion members but the latest Legionnaire paper has a terrific poem along the lines of"Twas the night before Christmas" but it is about the men and women guarding this country in places around the world. If you should get a chance try to read it. As far as my recovery goes things seem to be progressing if I think back to what I was doing a few weeks ago. I am chewing carefully and walking more all of the time with virtually no limp. I figure I should be ready to ride by spring.