A Light at the End of the Road

          Garden Valley Blvd runs northeast to the north. It loses the name “boulevard” and becomes just “road” somewhere before the Riverdale Grange and winds and turns along with Umpqua River.  I don’t know if where Umpqua starts and Roseburg ends.  The Lighthouse Center Café and Bakery is on Fort McKay at the end of Garden Valley.  According to Google, it takes only 20 minutes to get from one end of the street to the other.  It is more like 25 – 30 minutes.

          In this post I mentioned having a winning ticket at the drawing that is held before the Wednesday movie starts.   We had driven out there at the end of August during Roland’s staycation.  We did not have the coupon, but we had driven so far out of the city and into the country and outskirts of civilization that we had to order something.

          Roland decided he wanted to drive out there yesterday as we were in Roseburg anyway (it’s still a 20-minute drive from the intersection of Stewart and Garden Valley which makes it a 40 minute drive from Myrtle Creek).  We arrived two minutes before it closed thus we still haven’t used our coupon.

          Here are some photos I took the first time we went out:

North Umpqua River

Jenna thinks Oregon should call itself "home of the blackberry bushes"

grapes behind the fence

we passed a lot of grapes

a view from Lighthouse Cafe

I believe these are jellies and other assortments

pieced together photo of post office and cafe

side view (parking lot was quite full that day)

Jenna taking pictures of Umpua River (first pic)

Lots of prestige houses and an assortment of mailboxes

Gratitude List

My brother had posted 30 day gratitude list for the month of September.  He said he got it through our sister-in-law.  Each day he would provide details to go with the word or phrase.  This list will contain the first thing that had come to mind.  Perhaps I will use future dash posts to elaborate more in which case I will call it dash #gl . . .

1.       What is your favorite smell?       I have pretty much lost my sense of smell, but I would say cinnamon

2.       What is your favorite form of technology? Camera and evolution of the camera (see here) 

3.         What is your favorite color?                  Emerald Green

4.         What is your favorite food?                   Fettuccini

5.         What is your favorite sound?        Jenna laughing and singing

6.        What is your favorite part of nature?    Leaves changing color

7.         What is your favorite memory?           Jenna explaining how armadillos protect themselves from preditors (here) actually there are many, but this was the first to come to mind. 

8.         What is your favorite book?      The Rent Collector by Camron Wright (here) 

9.        What is your favorite place?     Right now it’s Myrtle Creek

10.      What is your favorite taste?       Chocolate/Peppermint combination

11.       What is your favorite holiday?    Christmas

12.       What are your favorite textures?       soft, smooth, cuddly warm

13.       What are your favorite abilities?     I have always enjoyed writing and creating thoughts in my head

14.       What are your favorite sights?             Sky elements, sunsets and clouds

15.       What is your favorite season?              Autumn

16.      What is your favorite body part?         Hands and eyes   

 

17.       What is your favorite knowledge?      I am a child of God

18.       What is your favorite form of art?       music

19.      What is your favorite form of touch?  Roland’s warm hands

20.      Who are your grateful for?                My family

21.       What is your favorite song?      Currently “Under Pressure” by Queen & David Bowie

22.       What is your favorite story?      Nephi’s faith asking where to find tools to build a boat

23.      What is your favorite tradition?            Watching each person as we take turns opening presents on Christmas morning

24.      What is your favorite challenge?         Tough one as I don’t appreciate being tried.  I would go with my current Church calling though I haven’t really gotten my feet wet as of yet.

25.       What is your favorite moment?                        When the light touches upon the earth to end the darkness of the night

26.      What is your favorite form of expression?  gratitude

27.       What is a favorite small thing that you use daily?                   Pencils/pens

28.       What is your favorite small thing that happened today?                       The joy on Jenna’s face when Roland told her to pick all the pumpkins and give them to her friends

29.      Who is your favorite friend or family member?      I cannot narrow that down to just one!  Or even a few . . . there are no “favorites”

30.      What is your favorite talent?     Wouldn’t that be the same as #13?  I like to scrapbook with pictures as well as write my memoirs.

G is for Generations

                We must have stopped for gas in Central Point on our way home from Salt Lake last Christmas.  I remember stopping in a used book store.  I found a keepsake journal called “The Grandparent Book”.  Amy Brouse Rosenthal had created a book with a giant upper case “G” on both front and back covers.  

The purpose is for a grandparent to journalize his/her life and allow the grandchild to make comparisons of their life to the grand.  None of the pages were marked.  It was in excellent condition and inexpensive.  Thus we purchased it and I planned to fill it out.

          The book is designed for one grandparent or the other.  And as all the grandkids have biological ties to Roland, I thought he should be the one to fill out the pages.  I decided we should give it to our only grandson who will turn one on Friday.  He and Roland practically share a birthday as his is the day before.  Roland and Robbie are 65 years apart. 

          Not all the pictures we used match the page description.  I was quite limited on my options of photos to choose from.  But I was able to use photos of Roland and Tony (Robbie’s dad) when Tony was still in diapers and so that might be fun for Robbie to appreciate as he gets older.  I will mail the book out today and send it priority so that it will get there for his birthday – not that he will fully appreciate it now.  But mom and dad might, and even his oldest sister, Ester. 

          I hope this book will become a great treasure and he will get to know another grandpa.

Dash TV #34 Old Tucson

Perhaps you will recognize some of these:

2011

2011

2011

2007

Decisions and Ripple Effects

          How many of our decisions affect others?  Choosing to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich over tuna fish may not have any kind of a ripple effect as making a choice to drive or walk toward oncoming traffic. 

          Yesterday morning Balras Sing Dhillon had stopped his car just outside of Myrtle Creek.  Whether it was a conscience decision or not is unknown. 

Police received a call about a vehicle stopped in the northbound left lane of the interstate approximately six in the morning and went to investigate. When they approached the vehicle, the driver took off. 

The driver continued for another mile before crashing into the medium.  He must have climbed over the medium after he abandoned his car.  Was he running from the police?  Was he so disoriented that he didn’t know what he was doing?  I believe the latter as it is said he ran onto the freeway and was struck by multiple cars that were going southbound.  Just before he died several people were affected by the decisions he had made.

Drivers between Exits 119 and 113 had nowhere to go.  They were stuck in traffic – lives were changed.  I do not know how many jobs were affected.  I know there were schools that were missing a number of instructors for one to three hours (depending on what time each school started).

The decision made created lost time – not only for the teachers but their students as well.  In one school the students of the absent instructors were required to go to the gym.  There they were given the choice to participate in physical activity or watch from the bleachers.  It was suggested they do homework or study – which many were obviously not doing as they surfed on cell phones or visited.

It was a weird day for everyone.  Instructors.  Students.  Aides.  Other community members who had been called to assist until the instructors arrived.

Often the decisions we make – whether consciously or not – affect others. The driver was a 35-year-old man from Lincoln, California.  We don’t know what brought him to Oregon.  That is what the media said.  The fatal accident is still under investigation as so much is unknown.

I am reminded of another incident also involving a car.  The driver had not taken his medication and was not supposed to be driving.  He wasn’t in his right mind when he made his decisions.  He drove onto the sidewalk and hit some students who were walking along 4000 West as they were returning home from Kearns Junior High.  Some media indicated there were seven students.  Other said five. 

I don’t recall the year it happened.  But I remember seeing the emergency lights spinning in the dark.  The road had been closed for more than 24 hours.  All the students involved had been taken to the hospital.  None of them were kept overnight as I recall. I don’t know what emotional scars were created or how long they lasted.

The one thing about Utah is there are alternatives.  There are back roads and exits that will still allow one to go in all four directions.  Here, in Oregon, there are not a lot of back roads or options.  We may think our decisions might not matter – but they do.

What is up with the lower case letter “a”?

          When we are taught to read the letters will sometimes give us problems.  Vowels don’t always make the same sound.  The pronunciation of “a’ sounds the same in words like “apple”  and  “cat” but differs when saying words like: “clay” or “talk”.  What’s even more confusing is seeing the letter “a” and writing it in a different way. 

          I don’t remember questioning that as a child, but I do as an adult. With so many fonts, the appearance of letters might appear differently from the other.  For example this font which I am currently using versus what comes up automatically in my computer.  I like this font so much better.  The “a” looks like what I’ve been taught to write, not this foreign letter that has an extra hook on top. 

          Who changed the font?  Who decided that we would learn to read “a” but write “a”? And why have our minds accepted both? Perhaps it’s designed to teach us about diversity.  If we can accept the differences among letters, why would we not do the same for people?

https://www.rocketspace.com/corporate-innovation/why-diversity-and-inclusion-driving-innovation-is-a-matter-of-life-and-death

A   A   A   A  a   a   a  a   G  G  G  g   g   J  J  J