Big Winds 5-29-11

I am writing this hear to let everyone know that yes we are fine and give you a few details of what happened on Sunday.

We went out in the morning and did some Geocaching, then went to a horse show in Nashville, (no not Tennessee- Michigan)  it is west and north of Charlotte. Danielle and her dad pulled the horse trailer we were just going to watch.    The sky was getting really dark and the announcer said their was severe weather headed our way so we decided to leave early.    On the way  home, on Royston Rd. (here is a link to the map http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl )  north of Bellevue Road the radio said there was a tornado sighted in Eaton county.  I looked to the southwest and said there it is - there is a funnel cloud.  We turned on to Springport /Holibaugh road and it looked like the cloud had dispersed, but you could see the line of  storms.  We got almost to Markle Rd. and couldn't see the hood of the car, so Charlie stopped and turned on the flashers.  The wind was so bad the car shook, it felt like we were going down a really really bump road and the car felt like it was going sideways.  I was sure it was going to break the windows.  Charlie said he thought it was going to flip.  I closed my eyes took a deep breath and thought OK what ever happens happens, there's nothing I can do about it now.

When the  rain and wind let up we tried to proceed. Just passed Markle Rd. there was a tree, a whole tree down across the road.  Since we had no chain saw or chain in the car we backed up thought we would try Markle.  Nope two trees across down.

Back tracked, met a couple of vehicles that said they couldn't get through on M50/99.   Our next door neighbor who happened to be behind us at the Bellevue Rd turn pulled into someones drive way and the wind took his truck camper off the truck and threw it against a tree.

We tried Royston.Lots of brush, water across the road and a wire down in the water that we didn't see until we were already on it, the utility pole was broken in half.

Another tree. two guys in a Pick up had a chain saw at home and went back to get it.  By the time they got there there were at least 4 vehicles behind us including our horse and trailer.  They cut through 3 trees, before we got to Love's farm.  There was a tree on top of his tractor, and wires down across the road and the drive. Decided to try Springport Road again.  The workers were out removing trees, so we were finally able to get through.  It took over 2 hours to go less than a mile.  At one point Charlie said we don't even know if the house is still there.  I said if it isn't we can consider ourselves lucky that we weren't in it. 

We were lucky, we lost trees, and have to repair the corner of the roof.  But the house is still there the horses and the dog and the chickens are fine.
It's just HOT and humid  and lots of clean up work to do.

Book Review - Water for Elephants

 I wrote this review for JDL home page in 2007.  With the movie coming out in April.   I thought it might be a good idea to publish here.
Inside Jacob Jankowski’s ninety-something-year-old mind dwell memories of himself as a young man, tossed by fate into the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth. Memories of a world filled with freaks and clowns, with wonder and pain, and anger and passion; a world with its own narrow irrational rules, its own way of life and its own way of death. The world of the Circus: to Jacob it was both salvation and a living hell. Jacob was there because his luck had run out… Marlena,…was there because she fell in love with the wrong man….Rosie the elephant was there because she was the great gray hope, the new act that was going to be the salvation of the circus; the only problem was Rosie didn’t have an act—in fact she couldn’t even follow instructions. …”(from the book jacket)

This book takes the reader inside the life of the “Circus.” (How realistic it is, I can’t really say, having never lived in a circus.) It’s language and terminology: “a first or May,” “A Monday Man” “Rubes”, “Redlighting.” It made me think of the TV show I watched as kid, Circus Boy, (only because it was set in a Circus) actually it was much more like the movie the Greatest Show on Earth.

It carries the reader through a whole range of emotions:

• Frustration of the frail old Jacob in the nursing home, not being able to remember how old he is (is it 90 or 93?), unable to remember the nurses name, impatience the other patients imperfections. The soft food he was forced to eat because some patients didn’t have teeth, even though he still had all his. Although this is a sad situation Gruen was able to write it in a way that made me smile (I thought of the Billy Crystal character). 
• Humor of an elephant that had no act and couldn’t follow directions but was able to sneak around the circus grounds un noticed to get the lemon-aid.
• Anger at the mistreatment of animals and people
• Passion and action -- walking on the tops of moving train cars, fist fights, etc.
• The beauty and excitement of animal acts and for me a surprise ending.

A good book- and because I was listening to it on CD was more than one time, I “had” to sit in my car after I got where I as going, in order to listen to the rest of a chapter.

My opinions of the movie that I have not seen and has not been released yet:
The movie stars Hal Holbrook as the old man.  I great choice.
                            Reese Witherspoon, she may be OK, I don't think that would have been my choice
                            Robert Pattinson (Twilight)  I an not sure about this at all.

My recommendation READ THE BOOK before you see the movie.  It was great.

Keep reading JB.

The Joys of Home Ownership.

Last week we have some frozen pipes that had to be replaced.   Yesterday Charlie posted on face book, about the day not starting well yesterday.  Like a lot of people in the Springport area, we lost power Saturday morning about 4:30, It came back on about 7:30, right after Charlie left for an all day state wide equestrian meeting.  Yeah power, water, heat.  Oops wait a minute the furnace didn't kick on.  Oh well, I was going to the District wrestling meet in Hudson to watch a young cousin, and the Springport team.  I left a message on Charlie's cell phone about the furnace. 

Even thought I am not a huge fan of wrestling,  I had a great time at the wrestling meet.  Seeing some old friends, and family members, that I don't get to see very often. Congratulations to Coty who took first place, and Springport's 6 wrestlers who will be going on to Reginals.  Also Congratulations to Jake who also took first place on Friday night at the Jr. High District meet.

I got home about 5:30, Charlie was home but had not checked is messages, and didn't notice it was cold inthe house.  It was 63 degrees, I think I have camped in cooler temps. 

The pilot light had gone out.  It would relight. after about an hour.  He called a friend who works in heating and cooling,  He brought a "thingy" and replaced the broken thingy.  Yeah heat.  !!!!

A few minutes later, we heard a strange kind of electrical pop we saw nothing amiss, no smoke so we went back to what we were doing.   A few minutes later, we realized the furnace was not kicking on  a GAin.
Charlie couldn't figure out what was wrong so we took one of our small space heaters in the bedroom, and decided to figure it out in the morning.

This morning found the problem,  thought he could fix it but found out it wasn't a simple wire replacement. The relay, was shot.   He is currently at the hardware store trying to buy a new one.  I am wearing my sweats and wrapped in a blanket trying to stay warm. 

At least it is not below zero like it was last week.  As my cousin says "just livin the dream"

Annual Christmas Update.

Annual Betz Buzz
December 2010

Well it’s that time of year again.  A few months ago, when I started thinking about what I would write in this year’s letter I thought we hadn’t had much happen this year, but as I look back, although not wildly exciting. We did have a few things happen in 2010.

A New Hobby

Charlie and I started a new hobby this year,  Geocaching (pronounce geo-cashing).  It is kind of a high tech treasure hunt.  You look up “caches” that people have hidden on the website (www.geocaching.com).They have entered the Latitude and longitude on the website. The searcher enters the coordinates in their GPS and go hunting. The cache is usually,  hidden or camouflaged in some way.  Like the one I hid in front of the Carnegie     Library.  We do it for the fun and challenge of the hunt.  It gets us out of the house, away from the TV and computer, we get some exercise and fresh air. There are over 1,000,000 world wide.  We have found 187 caches so far.

On the Farm Front

We had a few chickens this spring, and one of the neighbors gave us a rooster.  We didn’t know it then but we soon found out he was an attack rooster. He  became very protective of his hens and would run across
 the yard to flog anyone he thought was he thought was intruding.   He came up behind me once or twice so I carried a big stick in case he went into attack mode and tried to sneak up behind me.    I had to use it a couple of times. After that he usually stayed away from me, but I could tell he was 

 watching me.    One day a neighbor came over and the rooster ran from across the horse pasture, and flogged his shins, he had blood running down his leg.  We finally had him butchered.
Charlie has been working on an arena for a while.  The  equestrian kids did use it to practice a little, but he was finally able to get a layer of sand in this year which is better for the horses and riders.

Extended Family News

An uncle passed away in June, my dad’s brother Larry.  Although I had not seen him much in the 26 years since he moved to Florida his passing made me start thinking about all of the people with whom I have lost contact. 
I have not been able to find one of the cousins I was looking for, I did find a couple that I and my siblings were not even aware that I had.  My Father’s mother’s  brother, Sherman Jr.  moved to Texas in the 30’s.  I was able to track down Valerie Hawley Hamby and  and Cyd Hamby Margulies.   We have exchanged a couple of emails, and are Facebook friends, Next year I hope to do a better job of staying in touch with everyone.
Susan Mills, the daughter of my dad’s cousin, Bill Mills,  found me on Facebook.
 Yvonne Choate, Straub  Harper also passed away this fall. 
One of these days, I will get around to setting up a time for we surviving cousins to get together with their corresponding families.
 I have had fun posting family history pictures on Facebook this, and reading other’s peoples comments and reactions. I hope you have enjoyed them too.

Vacations

For vacation this year, we had talked about going Up North so Charlie could ride the Shore to Shore trail,  that didn’t work out,  but we did go camping for a few days at Farm Lane camp ground in Waterloo, It is right next to the Waterloo Recreation area, and Charlie was able to do some riding for a few days  there.  As you can see from the picture we had the whole place to ourselves most of the time.
   
In August  we visited some of the Betz relatives in Pennsylvania. It is always fun to see them. From there we drove to Vermont for Charlie’s naval reunion in Bennington.  The  ship Bennington was named
after the Revolutionary war Batle of Bennington  the.   The Ship’s bell is at the town hall.  Some of the men march in the Bennington Battle Day Parade every August, but this year they held their reunion during that week so they could all participate in the Parade.
Because one of the Equestrian meets was the same time the “Choate's” were going camping, Charlie couldn’t camp with us, so I drove the camper to Harrison Lake, Ohio all by MYSELF.  

On the Job Front 

Even though Charlie has been retired for 3 years, I am continuing to work at the library. Teaching adults (staff and public)  how to use computers.  I have been teaching classes twice a week at Department on Aging Senior nutrition Centers as well as twice a week at the library.  That comes to about 14 a month.   After the first of the year I will be teaching about 22 classes a month. 
A national library training group has requested some of my lesson plans, to use in helping other librarians across the country teach their
customers.
I attended the Computers in libraries conference in Washington DC in April,  “I love this conference,  I come back with all kinds of new  ideas and feel recharged.  Although the conference was only three days and a heavy schedule of workshops, I did manage to take a tour of the city one evening. Although it was dark, (it was a bus tour of  lights of D.C.) I was very touched by the Viet Nam wall, it was too dark to read any names.  Putting a hand on the wall gave me an almost overwhelming sense of sadness and loss.  The Korean Memorial was  very moving.  The was way it was lit made it eerie, and almost other worldly. 


Charlie's Health Update
As many of you know Charlie was helping a friend fix up his barn and had an accident with the Chain saw.  I will not go into the whole story here,  just know that he is doing fine, and was almost totally healed in just a couple of weeks.  If you are interested all of the details you can read them at http://jbetzblog.blogspot.com/2010/10/this-post-is-rate-pg13.html


Community Involvement

Although we don’t have anyone attending the Schools in Springport you almost cannot live in a small community like this and not be involved in the Schools.  Joyce  was still involved in Destination: ImagiNation, by appraising in February for the tournament and in April for the State competitions.
 

Charlie coached the Junior High equestrian team this spring.  There were only five kids but they came in first in the district for their class.   He enjoyed being assistant coach for the  High School team this fall.  They had a large team this year, and  came in second in districts, so they did not compete at the state level this year, but they had a good time.   

He is serving on the Agricultural Advisory Committee.
The FFA  won first place at the state Convention in March and 3 groups went to the  National convention in October.  
Each year for homecoming the FFA sponsors  Ag on Wheels.  On Friday morning the students drive their tractors to school and park them in front of the school  This year three of the kids rode horses. 
The Freshman used our pole barn to build their float.

The  high school football team had a great season.  Only the second time the school has own the conference Championship, the first time since 1973,  I think that was a shared title.  The first time ever they had a 9-0 regular season, the closest they have ever come was a 6-1-1 record in 1950. They made it to the playoffs for only the third time in school history, but lost to Mendon, a team that has been state champions 4 times in the last 10 years.  Way to Go Spartans.

The Village of Springport acquired some land and decided to make it into a park. Charlie is serving on that committee as chairman. 


Shonda Update
Shonda is currently working the  Fairfield Inn in Lansing and taking 3 online classes this semester through Lansing community college.  She is currently living in Portland, (Michigan not Oregon) with her friend, Eric.

Seasons Greetings

We wish you all  a very Merry Christmas and a very prosperous New Year.
May the spirit of the season last in your heart and your homes and your lives  throughout the whole year.


 

Chain saw follow up

Charlie had a follow-up visit today.  Dr. Clarkson, took out the stitches and I asked him, how many because several people had asked me. He said he didn't know he hadn't counted, but it was in the dozens, later he said at least 40.   He said there are more important things, like the saw not breaking the sinus membrane or worse.  He compared it to an egg, when you break the shell with a spoon, there is a crack and may a piece missing but the membrane is still intact.  If it had broken there is a much greater risk of infection.  

Charlie said he thought that when the saw kicked back his hand hit the "brake" like it was supposed to and stopped the chain.  The Dr said that was probably right, some of the surgical staff was wondering why it didn't go have way through his brain.  He also thought that the chain was still moving some although at a much slower speed,  that is what caused the lacerations on his cheek. (All that stuff I was thinking on the way up to the hospital wasn't so far fetched after all)

After taking out the stitches the Dr. put on some adhesive steri-strips until it is fully healed. To remind it to stay together.  Then he said it can be terribly embarrassing to go out for the evening and have your face fall apart.

He still can't blow his nose for 6 weeks just in case there is a tear in the sinus membrane.  Blowing his nose could force air under this skin on his forehead.  He has to go back in a month just to make sure