Please help me I'm fallin'

Oh, it is SO beautiful at this time of year!!! Ohio is a wonderful place to be in autumn. I was doing a bit of driving yesterday, and on each turn it just got prettier and prettier. I was taking pictures all day. No, I won't put them all here.

This was also my mom's favorite time of year. She also dreaded it. Her father and two of her brothers died during autumn within four years. Mom herself died during this time of year.

Nonetheless, I love it.

Kerry and I continue to work at the temple each Friday. It's a smaller temple, not bit like the ones most people associate with in Salt Lake City. But, it still contains all of the important features that a large temple has - and it's still the Lord's house.

Columbus Ohio Temple

After we finished working there Friday, we met up with our Ohio kids to celebrate JJ's 6th birthday!!! He's such a cute little guy. He's thoroughly enjoying school, and can't understand why it has to stop for the weekend. He's also been playing tag football, with his daddy as assistant coach.

JJ and his football uniform.

Getting their picture taken at Chuck E Cheese

The finished product.

A more traditional look.

Those boys of mine.

Erik and his roommate, Oscar. Oscar is a Fulbright scholar from the Phillipines. He will be finishing up his doctorate at the end of the year, and can return to his native land going right into professorship. If he stays here, it will be a few more years before he can attain that status. He has been an excellent example of hard work.

We also had to go to the final fair of the season - the Loudonville Street Fair. I'm telling you, we love small-town America! Of course, we spent a lot of time in the cow tent. Mr. Kerry and his cows!

He always guides me through the tent very carefully, warning me that cows can and do kick backwards. He kept wondering where all of the dairy cows were, for the tent we were in was mostly beef cows. I kept asking him how in the world he could tell, for most of them were laying down. He just knew. I guess you have to look underneath.


Two sheep all wrapped up.

Look how much this pumpkin weighed! I think it was a pumpkin. It wasn't bright orange, so it might have been some other sort of squash.

Amish farmers gather their corn shocks up. On the road we were on, the Amish farmers were everywhere, working their land the old-fashioned way - draft horses and plows. Out of respect for them, I do not take their pictures. They prefer that we don't - it's a graven image.

I've decided to begin adding something new to my little missive. It will mainly be for my own children and grandchildren, but you are still welcome to read it.

I'm going to be adding a memory from my own past that can help to preserve our family's history.

This week, it will be a reflection on those miners who have been trapped below ground in Chile. Each time there is such an incident, my thoughts go back to my father, who was a miner in the coal fields of West Virginia.

He worked in those mines before I was born, but the effect of it never left him. As a matter of fact, it left him with severe claustrophobia for the rest of his life. Once, our little family took dad with us to Columbus to visit COSI (Center of Science and Industry). It's a wonderful, "hands-on" museum that is especially tailored to young people. We would always pack our lunches and eat in the cafeteria in the basement, where they had lockers to store our food.

Dad enjoyed all of the displays. After our lunch, they had replicated a coal mine close by. It even had a canary in a little cage beside the entrance (to tell the miners if gas had built up inside. If the bird was laying dead with its feet up, don't go in the mine.)

As I showed the mine entrance to dad, I asked him if he wanted to go inside. He took a couple of steps, then backed right out. He couldn't do it. He said it was too real.

I'll probably not ever know how hard it was for him to get into those coal cars that would drive the miners 4-5 miles (or more!) deep into the hills of West Virginia. I'll never know the closeness of the ceiling, for they had to tuck their heads down to prevent serious injuries. I'll never know the blackness of being underground for hours. I experienced it once in Mammoth Cave, but in just a few seconds the lights came back on. It was horrible.

I'll never know hard it was for my mom to try to get my dad's black clothes clean, or how good he felt after a bath. That's where one of our common old sayings came from. The father usually bathed first, then the kids. By the time the baby got bathed, the water was usually pitch black. Hence: "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

But, dad did say something interesting. When you went to work, you went with white folks, Indians, blacks, etc. But, when you stepped out after a day's work, you were all the same color.

Bless his heart. And bless the hearts of those miners and their families in Chile. And Pennsylvania. And West Virginia. And Kentucky. And Wales. And Utah. And...

From dad's collection of pictures:

The entrance to the coal mine.

Going to work at the West Virginia coal mine.

Hauling out the coal.

Some of the miners.

A mule and the coal cars.

Dad after a day's work in the coal mines.

The finished product.

I'm grateful dad worked so hard in a job that not many would want. Sister Betty was born in West Virginia when dad worked in those mines. They lived in the coal camps. They had to buy their beans and such at the company store with scrip. The mines really owned you.

Bless his good heart. I miss him.