Operation Joshua

Well Jennell goes ski ing and Joshua ends up in the hospital!
after being sick in the sawdust and throwing up Wed, Jean took Josh to Bethesda Hosp (where her fav doc, that did her bi-pass ,could be found). Well he had a cat scan done and by the time I arrived they were just comeing out and we wheeled him straight over to the OR. An hour later he's asking the nurse when there going to do it and she laughed and said your already done. should come home Thursday.

Merry Christmas from Bill & Valerie & Marlana & Manda & Jon

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

My permanent position in the yellow stationwagon

I was stationed in the rear-facing seat along with baby brother Johnny. We entertained all the truck drivers and other peeps driving their vehicles. That was in the days before shooting people with your fingers was considered terrorist. We didn't know that it was causing us violent behavior. Also, I loved sleeping in the jump seat. It was perfect. The bad thing about being back that far was that you could not get any of the water from Mom's faucet in the front seat when you were thirsty. In fact, Mom didn't even know we were there, I don't think.

I NOT BABY

Sir in 19 hundred and 58, I would have reached the ripe age of Three years which is hardly the infant described in your post. And yes I mosst certainly remember being sstuck in the hhhole an an and only got to ride in the back seat when the "older" kids weren't there. B B But I I I'm sure this h h ha had n n n n no p p p perm ant affect. Albeit, I may have been totally wrong about the year but this only proves that my memory is much more Superior than I had previously thought as apparently I can remember back further than I thought. Nanny nanny BOO BOO.
Nice find on the Picure, smaller than I remember.

1958 Plymouth Custom Suburban.

Actually, John, that car was 1958 Plymouth Custom Suburban. It was yellow with white along the rear quarter panels, there was chrome on each side of the white part. This green one is a lower class one that is only a one-tone, not the two tone. Also, Dad's car had the transmission shifter was a serious of buttons on the left side of the dash, a weird configuration that, I have been told, could blow out at you if you tried to shift gears while the thing was running. Between the rear facing rear seat and the forward facing middle seat was a gap that you and were put in when you were a baby and later became a popular sleeping place for kids on long trips. This car made it to Florida several times, including the long way down thru Alabama. This was before interstates. It also got to Wisconsin and Michigan many times as well as upstate New York. The big V-8 drank gas like it cost only $.30 a gallon instead of the current price above $3.00. Oh... it did cost thirty cents back then.

Chrysler later sold the Suburban name to GM who uses it for those huge things that George likes in Alaska.

Member Dis?

My dad had a Plymouth Stationwagon I believe he bought it brand new in about 1964 ad. It had a rear seat which if you sat in it you would be looking at the peeps in the car behind you (for some reason they would always shoot you with their gun finger). But on with my storie (story) sortie....
When we got back into the neighborhood my Dad would stop and role down the rear window and we would climb out and there were rubber steps you could stand on, on the bumper and with the window down you could hold on the window frame. Then my Dad would say "ready?" and we would lean in the window and say "yep!" Then my Dad would drive down the block and we would have the wind blow in our face and feel like Firemen on a hook and ladder. First just the older kids got to do it and we stayed inside. Then we got to do it too. I never saw anyone else's Dad's letting them do that and we all knew it was a dangerous step. But my dad let us do it even sometimes when he didn't feel like it and we hounded him "Can we Dad huh? Can we? He would just grin and reach down to push the button
and when the window started to go down and the car slowed to a stop then it was our turn to start grinning.

English Blogs in Japanese

Someone here on campus has Blogger convinced that we speak Spanish. Whenever I go to Blogger from ITT it comes in en Espanol. At the signon screen, where I log on, there is a button that allows me to go back to English. There is a drop-down menu that lets me pick my preferred language. I usually take "Ingles -- English" but maybe next time I will take Japanese so that I can look at some unrecognizable scribbles. Anyway, maybe you can use the same drop down menu to get your good old characters back. It sorta makes you appreciate the Romans and their logic doesn't it. Well, at least till you try and add a column of figures using the Roman numerals, then you start to appreciate the Arabs and thier numbers. Even the Japanese use that system.

George has KNEEds

George underwent knee surgery on Tuesday, and thought he was on easy street. But alas, the night came, and he reportedly had the "worst night of his life." Morphine pump didn't TOUCH the pain. Now he has a contraption which bends his knee while he's in the bed. Pray for him, he's a hurtin' puppy.

Katakana conundrum

Jennell, I am glad to know that you are still alive and having more adventures. Your thanksgiving sounded so much more interesting than the same turkey, cranberries, and Lions football mixed with the same conversations as last year that we had. If it were not for your travels I would not know the difference between Saipan and and sampan. Now I have to look them up on Wikipedia (click on the post title for that wiki).

I was thinking that with all the trouble you are having with the Japanese maybe you should take a class in it or something. I think about my response to the Spanish speaking people that live and work in this country and how they ought to learn the language. Do the Japanese feel the same way?