Our last weekend

The decision is made - we are leaving tomorrow morning to head home. We will stretch out our trip from here to Bartlett. Normally it is a three-day trip, but we'll make it a five-day trip and hope to visit a couple of National Parks along the way, going up through Yellowstone, over the Beartooth Pass into Red Lodge, MT, on to the northern section of Theodore Roosevelt Park, then east to Minnesota and the day ferry to Isle Royale NP in Lake Superior, and then on to Bartlett, arriving Friday eve if all goes well. We'll see if that is actually doable!

Meanwhile, Tayson did come over Saturday afternoon, and he and Max had a good time. We went to KJs to get Little Caesar pizza for supper (very reasonable and good), which we ate sitting on the front porch; then after supper, Ellen and I took a drive up the McCoy road, thinking we might see wildflowers, but when we finally got to the place to walk, it was after sundown, the mosquitoes were out in force and drove us back into the car. So it was just a drive - but a pretty one (except for the dust - it's a gravel road and whenever we met a car, we were engulfed in dust.

Sunday morning, we started out watching the Women's World Cup; I left at the half to go to church at Star Valley United to say goodbye to Allan Schoonover, because he is retiring for real in September and moving  to Arizona, and I'll probably not see him again. I wanted him to know how much he has meant to me.

When I came back to the house, I saw the second half of the women's soccer game (it had been recorded) and of course, they defeated Netherlands 2-1 in an exciting game. Sunday afternoon I worked on Spelling Bee (thank you, Mary Tolles, for sending it by email), and I think I managed to finally get to genius. The three-pointer eluded me until the last gasp and then I wondered why I hadn't seen it right off! We did a wash and got things organized for packing. This evening we watched the second big soccer game - U.S./Mexico - and Mexico won, 1-0 in a disappointing game. The men looked  strong in the first half but sort of hapless in the second. So the women took home the honors today. I just cleaned up the kitchen and pretty soon will head for bed.

Max and Tayson

The view off the front porch

Late evening scenes on the McCoy Road

Fireworks and an evening walk

We had quite a fireworks show right at the house on the night of July 4th. The town of Alpine puts on a show, and we have gone to  it in the past, but the location of the new house made that unnecessary. Just going outside made it possible to see not only the town display, about a mile away or less, but also 5-6 other displays by private individuals. There were fireworks going off in virtually every direction for well over an hour!  They were all sort of in the distance, but not very far. Nothing right overhead, but quite satisfying nonetheless. My iPhone captured some interesting images - not sharply defined because of the distance, but more impressionistic.

Various fireworks impressions

Friday was a quiet day. We watched the original Pinocchio movie on the new TV set - I hadn't seen it for decades. I had forgotten a lot of the scenes, especially those in the stomach of the whale. That was fun. In the evening, after supper, Ellen and I took a walk in the neighborhood, in a different direction from the one I took a few days ago. This time we took a bike path over to the bridge that goes over the Snake River into "downtown" Alpine, and then came back via the highway to the corner where KJ's Super Stores is (where we would walk to for ice cream from the condo), and then back to the house by the road into Alpine Meadows (the name of the development Paul's house is in). Here are some scenes:

Melvin's (at left) and the beginning of the Palisades reservoir

Paul's house is right in the center

A salsify seed globe - so beautiful!

A house under construction

...and another. Both are sort of in the middle of nowhere and look a bit incongruous. I guess eventually other houses will be built and fill in around them.

The boat launch on to the Snake River

Today has dawned bright and clear and it is warming fast after a cold night which required we add a third quilt to the bed! We set up a temporary area out back in the sun for breakfast.

Max's friend Tayson (who often plays videogames with Max online) is coming over this afternoon.

Stewart Letter #5

I discovered two letters that Stewart sent dad back in 1944 that were mailed between Letter #4 and #5. They were sent on V-Mail forms and not in the same place in the photo archive, so I overlooked them. Letter #5 will now be Letter #7. The new Letter #5 is below - and it is a particularly interesting one because of its references to various things. I'm learning new details about WW 2.

July 18, 1944

Dear Dad,

            I hope the robombs[i] aren't keeping you awake at night. From what I have read in the papers, they seem to be a serious problem. They have not only given a boost to German morale, but they have caused quite a bit of damage.

            Perhaps the reason that you have not received any mail is that none of it has been V-mail so far.[ii]  I hope you receive this promptly.

            My typewriting is slow in improving (you've probably noticed), but this is because I must compose from my mind instead of from copy.

            Last Thursday and Friday I took a battery of tests at the "U" Testing Bureau on Social Sciences, and tomorrow I have an appointment with a counselor to discuss the outcome of the tests.

            Today I wrote a letter to the Sixth Service Command,[iii] asking information about their offer to accept seventeen-year-olds who will not be over 17 years and 9 months at the opening of college in the Army Specialized Training Reserve program, who did (not?)[iv] take or pass the A-12 test on March 15. I was absent from school that one day that week, and thus did not get to take the test. Since it offers more variety than the V-12 program,[v] I am looking into it. However, the news article in the STAR-JOURNAL said that it was offered only in the Sixth Service Command, and that is why I wrote.

            Every Saturday I receive a pay-check for the week ending the Saturday before. Since I receive 60¢ an hour and work 40 hours a week, I receive twenty-four dollars a week,[vi] minus withholding tax and Social Security. This is much more than I have ever made before, and I realize that it would not be if it were not wartime. So far, my gross earnings are $205.35. Walt (the head chemist), says that I may work 48 hours a week beginning the second week in August, when large quantities of flaxseed will begin to come in. Then I will receive time-and-a-half for overtime , and I will be able to save even more. So far I have not been able to save very much, since I bought several pieces of clothing and I was put to some extra expense because of graduation, but now I can save most of what I earn.

            I hope that the Russians have all the success in the world with their version of the blitzkrieg[vii] and end the war before it would otherwise be won. Their comeback since Stalingrad is really remarkable, and their power must (be) reckoned with in the post-war world.[viii] The choice of our president thus looms as very important, and should be awaited with anxiety.[ix]

                                                            Your loving son,

                                                                        Stewart

Addressed to:

Chap. (Capt.) Barney C. Crockett

A.F.C. // 4377 c/o Postmaster (4377 is crossed out and # 640 written in)

New York, New York[x]

From:

Stewart C. Crockett

1082 13th Ave., S.E.

Minneapolis 14, Minn.[xi]

---

[i] This is an abbreviation for "robot  bombs" and refers to unmanned  missiles which resembled a small aircraft but were loaded with explosives (very like today's drones)  called V-1 rockets used by the Germans to bomb London.  Below is an article about them.

Our dad was probably in London during the time of these bombings!  We do not have a precise chronology of his whereabouts during an approximately 10 day period in England between his arrival and his assignment  to 1314 Engineers on July 14th but in all likelihood he was in London at least briefly.  On July 15th or so, he was moved to Cornwall,  where his regiment was based at that time, and that was not a targeted area. Dad never mentioned these bombings in his letters home, or in the journal he kept at the time (his earliest entry in this journal is July 17th), or in his memoirs written after the war.  But he must have been aware of them. 

A V-1 rocket

"The 'V' came from the German word Vergeltungswaffen, meaning weapons of reprisal. The V-1 was developed by German scientists at the Peenemünde research facility on the Baltic Sea, under the direction of Wernher von Braun and Walter Dornberger. They were nicknamed "buzz bombs" by the British due to the distinct buzzing sound made by the pulse-jet engines powering the bombs, which overall resembled a small aircraft. Other British nicknames included "doodlebugs" and "flying bombs." Each V-1 was launched from a short length catapult then climbed to about 3,000 feet at speeds up to 350 miles per hour.  As the V-1 approached its target, the buzzing noise could be heard by persons on the ground. At a preset distance, the engine would suddenly cut out and there would be momentary silence as the bomb plunged toward the ground, followed by an explosion of the 1,870 pound warhead.  The first V-1s were launched against London on June 13, 1944, a week after the D-Day landings. During the first V-1 bombing campaign, up to 100 V-1s fell every hour on London. Over an 80 day period, more than 6,000 persons were killed, with over 17,000 injured and a million buildings wrecked or damaged. Unlike conventional German aircraft bombing raids, V-1 attacks occurred around the clock in all types of weather, striking indiscriminately, causing suspense and terror among the population of London and parts of Kent and Sussex. Prime Minister Winston Churchill recalled, "One landed near my home at Westerham, killing, by cruel mischance, twenty-two homeless children and five grownups collected in a refuge made for them in the woods." According to German records, 8,564 were launched against England as well as the port of Antwerp, with about 57 percent actually reaching their designated targets. The remainder failed as a result of antiaircraft guns, barrage balloons, and interception by fighter planes.  Over 29,000 V-1 bombs were built, mainly through slave labor at a huge underground factory near Nordhausen. Launch sites and production facilities were specially targeted by Allied bombers during Operation Crossbow. In those raids, nearly 2,000 Allied airmen were killed. Eventually, British and American planes knocked out the majority of the launching sites. By September of 1944, however, the Nazis introduced the V-2 rocket, a liquid-fueled rocket that traveled at supersonic speeds as high as 50 miles, then hurtled down toward its target at a speed of nearly 4,000 miles per hour, smashing its 2,000 pound high explosive warhead into the ground without warning. Unlike the V-1, the V-2 rockets could not be intercepted. Over a thousand were fired at London."

[ii] This letter is written on a V-mail form. Cf.:

          

[iii] The U. S. Army was re-organized in mid-1942, renaming the old corps areas into nine Service Commands of the Army Service Forces (ASF). In very general terms, this was a decentralization of at least some functions. The headquarters of the Sixth Service Command were in Chicago.

[iv] The word "not" does not occur in this sentence in the original, but it to make any sense, it seems to be needed.

[v] The "V-12" program was an older Navy program that was similar in some ways to the newly formed ASTRP.

[vi] According to one website, this would be about $346 a week in today's dollars, or a little over $8 an hour - about minimum wage by our standards.

[vii] One site states that "...Geographically, (the Russian 'blitzkrieg'  termed Operation Bagration)  dwarfed the campaign for Normandy. In four weeks, it inflicted greater losses on the German army than the Wehrmacht had suffered in five months at Stalingrad. With more than 2.3 million men, six times the artillery and twice the number of tanks that launched the Battle of the Bulge, it was the largest Allied operation of World War II. It demolished three Axis armies and tore open the Eastern Front. Operation Bagration, the Red Army’s spring 1944 blitzkrieg, was designed to support Allied operations in France, liberate Russian territory and break the back of the Wehrmacht once and for all....All told, Operation Bagration cost Hitler 350,000 men (including 31 generals), plus hundreds of tanks and more than 1,300 guns. Of the men lost, 160,000 were taken prisoner, half of whom were murdered on the way to prison camps or died in Soviet gulags." Despite these successes, Operation Bagration did not become a household word in the West like "D-Day" did, mainly, it is thought, because the place-names associated with its victories were all unfamiliar.

[viii] Another astute observation.

[ix] A ticket of Roosevelt/Truman defeated the Republican ticket of Thomas Dewey (Gov. of NY)/John Bricker (Gov. of Ohio) by 432-99 in the Electoral College, sweeping Roosevelt to an historic 4th term.  Roosevelt wanted Henry Wallace as his VP, but he was replaced by Truman at the Democratic Convention - a momentous change, because Roosevelt died just three months into his 4th term and Truman became President. Wallace was far to the left of Truman in his politics, and  who knows what the course of history (and our family) would have been had he become President. E.g., he might not have decided to use the atomic bomb to end WW2. Which means, e.g.,  Stewart could have been sent into the war in the Pacific.

[x] I don't know what A.F.C. stands for in this address, but the envelope makes clear that someone received this letter in NYC who then looked up dad's actual location in the army and forwarded the letter to him. That could take some time. It is postmarked "August 2" by the Army postal service - two weeks after Stewart mailed it. Don't know when dad got it.

[xi] This was our home at 1082 13th in Minneapolis -taken c. 1944 (me in front with my bike):

A more recent picture of 1082 13th

4th of July Parade!

Alpine puts on a parade on the 4th. It started at 2:00p.m. and was over at 2:15p.m.! It was mostly comprised of emergency vehicles, trucks, old cars, a few floats on flat beds, horses, kids on bikes. And lots of candy thrown on the street for kids to pick up. No marching bands. But it was a beautiful day for a parade. Max filled his pockets with candy and saw some friends. And tonight there will be fireworks.

Carrying the Colors

A handsome horse and buggy

Home-grown school bus cum RV

A classic Oldsmobile

Every parade has to have kids on decorated bikes!

Not sure what the significance of this float is (and the girl is in the picture by accident)

And in Wyoming, there has to be a touch of rodeo

Exploring the neighborhood

This afternoon I took a walk in the new neighborhood. I started out walking toward the south which brought me pretty quickly to a very wide open area of sagebrush that looked out over to Melvin"s Brew Pub which is on the other side of the river. There is a house blocking the view of Melvin's from the upstairs bathroom window of the house, but from my vantage point in the field, I had a clear view of Melvin's looking south and then, turning around 180 degrees,  a partial view of Paul's house. Now I think the next time we go to Melvin's, I'll be able to orient myself to the house, which I could not do before.

Melvin's from the field across from Paul's house

You can see a piece of Paul's house (white Tyvek) behind the trees in the middle of this photo

Continuing across the field, I headed for what is called Old Alpine - a cluster of houses that were built a half-century ago or so, some little more than shacks, some seemingly abandoned, some fairly nice looking and lived in. Definitely a working-class neighborhood compared to other parts of Alpine. I found an unpaved lane that wended through this little settlement and made my way out to the main road.

A lane in Old Alpine

This house in Old Alpine seems to have been abandoned before it was finished. It is bigger than most.

When you come out onto the main road, things change fast. You are now near the Alpine airport, which is a private "airpark" serving millionaires and their private planes. There is a very ritzy neighborhood near the airport, called Alpine Village, where some of these millionaires live.

The entrance to Alpine Village with a view of the airport runway

Private planes

Then, when you walk a short distance past the airport, you are back in Paul's immediate neighborhood. So yes, we do hear airplanes. But it is not a heavily used airport. I don't mind the planes, but I think Paul does.

Paul's house is just right of center with his white pickup parked in the driveway. Two other houses are also in the building stage, and sheathed in Tyvek. The one on the left belongs to Rachael, an architect who asks Paul frequently about how to resolve specific building issues. The one immediately across from Paul - far right - is being built by a retired couple.

So that's the neighborhood!

Trip to Idaho Falls

Today we (i.e., Paul, Max, Ellen and myself) made a little trip to Idaho Falls, which is about 70 miles from Alpine. It is the closest city - Jackson is closer, but it isn't really a city (Idaho Falls: 63,000; Jackson: 11,000). It was a lovely day and we had a good time. The drive is scenic, and there are interesting stores there. Paul and Max had specific things they were looking for - Max had birthday  money he wanted to use on a new video game, and Paul was looking for a new TV - a "smart" TV.
I wanted to find a specific book to look at, (if not to buy) - Robert Alter's, The Hebrew Bible, A Translation and Commentary, 3 vols., and I don't think Ellen had a specific goal. We got a late start - after noon - so our first stop was lunch at the Black Bear Diner. Ellen got an open face turkey and gravy sandwich which was way too much food. Max got chicken nuggets (no surprise there), Paul got a turkey club and I got the 1/2 sandwich-and-soup special - turkey sandwich and chicken noodle soup. I guess you could say it was a fowl lunch! The Black Bear was just your basic American Diner, but with a bear motif in the art work, which was all over the place. After lunch we went to Barnes and Noble. They had a big Bible section, but no Alter. I asked, and they said that "because it costs $120 for the 3-volume set, they don't stock it - they have to order it."  But actually, I think it is more because the whole Bible section is oriented toward Evangelical Christian bible translations, and Alter is decidedly not that.*  So I didn't get to hold it and look at it. Ellen made the only purchase - she actually found an Ann Tyler novel which she had not read yet.

Paul and Max looked around Barnes and Noble, but Max was mainly interested in getting to the game store which was in the same mall, a bit farther down. The game he was interested in was Fallout: New Vegas "which is a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game and is set in a region consisting of parts of Nevada, California and Arizona, in a world that deviated onto an alternate timeline thanks to atomic age technology, which eventually led to its devastation by a nuclear apocalypse in the year 2077 in an event referred to as "The Great War". This war was caused by a major international conflict between the United States and China over natural resources. The main story of New Vegas takes place in the year 2281." Got that?

I went to the game store just to see what it was like (I have never been in a video game store!), but my eye was drawn not to games but to a display of Funko figures, and that's because my grand nephew, Ryan McQuen, works for the company that makes them out in Washington, and I had never seen one. (I'm totally ignorant of pop culture). I guess they are very popular.

After that we went to Best Buy for the TV.  I stayed in the truck and chilled. Paul bought a 55'' smart TV which he got for a great price and he will install it tomorrow. That will be exciting. I guess "smart" means it has a built-in computer and when hooked into the internet, you can just tell it what you want and it finds it. But we'll know more tomorrow.

When we got back, Ellen made sloppy-joes (Yum!); we watched a recording of today's U.S. women's soccer game with England (which the U.S. team won, 2-1, and which had quite a few twists and turns in it. That puts the U.S. team into the final next Sunday against either Netherlands or Sweden  - for the World Cup). And after that we played Scrabble. 

The Black Bear Diner

Bear art

Funko figures

Playing Scrabble with Max is a matter of life or death!

*Robert Alter is a highly regarded Hebrew scholar at UCLA whose work I am familiar with and who has been working single-handedly on a translation of the complete Hebrew Bible for decades. His goal has been both complete faithfulness to the Hebrew text and graceful English. He has published various sections over the years, but just published the entire Hebrew Bible as a 3-volume work. Recent reviews of this work have been highly positive. I suspect I will eventually own it, but I would like to examine it first. Maybe at a library.

Ohmygosh, it's July!

It is July 1st! Summer is flying by! I'll have to confess that I am missing being at home at this time of year. Although, I was listening to New Hampshire Public Radio this morning (easy to do on the iPhone with the Public Radio app!), and I heard a forecast of temps in the 90s. Can't say I miss that! The weather here is gorgeous - it gets into the 50s or even the 40s at night, we sleep under two quilts, and daytime is sunny, cool, with low humidity, and usually a light breeze. Can't beat that. But still. . . .

This morning I was awake early, listening to the radio, but then I went back to sleep until 10a.m. Then I got up, fixed a smoothie and oatmeal, and ate breakfast on the front porch, comfortably in the shade. Later, when I opened my email Inbox, I found a letter from my seminary friend, Robb Lapp, telling me that our mutual seminary friend, Don Sevetson, is dying and in Hospice care. I haven't seen Don since I graduated in 1957, but he served in Appleton, WI just before I moved there in 1969, and later was a Conference Minister in the UCC on the Pacific Coast and in Hawaii for a time. So I took some time to reply to Robb, who I have seen more recently, but not for a few years. Robb and I attended the dedication of the new CTS building back in 2011 and Ellen and I visited him and his family in Arvada, CO in 2013.

A 2013 photo of  Ellen with Robb Lapp, his wife Jan (who has since passed away) and their great-granddaughter, Aubrey.

Since his wife's death, Robb has moved into a senior housing community in Arvada, where he is still actively involved in creating low-income housing communities through the UCC, something he has done much of his working life.

Back here in Alpine, Ellen is helping Max organize his bedroom; Paul is working on hooking up the washer/dryer, and I'm blogging!

Later:
Late this afternoon we watched The Professor and the Madman which is the amazing story of the formation of the Oxford English Dictionary.  The film is based on a book by Simon Winchester which I read years ago. The movie was much more intense than I remember the book being. The critics really have panned this film - it has had a checkered history in the making - but I would definitely give it two thumbs up.