WW-N

 Well, I'm hoping I didn't start WW-N (as in "neighbor").  My house is one house from the corner of a busy street.  But my driveway is the first driveway.  The corner house has a driveway off of the busy street (42nd St.) and on top of that, it is severely sloped up AND the privacy fence of the neighbor behind them abuts their driveway so that if they are pulling out, they have to be already into traffic before they can see if it's clear.  So they have one of those curved mirrors to help them see down the street.  It's not a terrifically clear reflection.  So most of the tenants that live there don't use that driveway - only the brazen!  

And more about that property.  For many years, we have never seen tenants in there for more than one year.  I'm sure I've talked about it before.  It doesn't appear bad, but once they live there, I think all its problems become clear.  Basement takes on water when it rains... some roof leaks...a little added on front room is very cold... mold from past plumbing problems.  Then there's the noise from 42nd St. and parking down the street.  

Well, one of the problems is they always seem to want to use my driveway and that added wear and tear requires more maintenance.  A couple of tenants ago, in a moment of feeling "nice" I told one of the tenants that if they needed to unload groceries, they could pull in for a moment.  Next thing I knew, they were in my driveway every single day, and that was just what I was seeing!  I don't stand at my front window watching for users pulling in.  These were just the times I was walking by or sitting at just the right angle to see them, so if I was seeing it at least once a day, you can bet it was happening multiple times a day!  When they moved, I said NO MORE!  I just need to be a total bitch about it...  And awhile back, before they rented it, I was able to express that to the property manager and he said he has ALWAYS made it very clear for them not to use my driveway.

So, in move these new tenants - a black couple with two kids and a dog.  Seem nice enough.  But they have this huge suburban that they park on the street, nearly always facing the wrong direction.  And they occasionally turn around in my driveway (go figure - that means they go in reverse to turn around... why not just go around the block??)  And I've caught a few delivery people pulling in to deliver, and visitors.  So I had a sign made up...

But before I put it out, I want them to know that it's more about their visitors than them, so they don't think I'm just being a total bitch.  Yet when I've tried to tell people why I don't want folks in my driveway, they start to get a little defensive, like, "Well, geez, it's just for a quick minute..."  So I sent an email to their landlord hoping he will forward it on to them and the purpose of doing it that way is so they can get through my whole explanation about WHY before they start that whole whining about it being such a little deal.  Here's what I sent the landlord:

Hi Rick,

I'm Denise @4208 Pacific St., the house next to 4204.  I'm hoping you have the new tenant's email address so that you can forward this to them.  I could walk over and try to talk to them, but sometimes people get really defensive when I try to express myself about this driveway situation.  So I figure if I can just "get it all out" (so to speak), maybe they'll understand my position and be more cooperative.  And it's not that they aren't being relatively respectful... And can you let me know when you send this on to them so I can get my sign out after that?  Here's what I want them to know:

Hi neighbors!  Denise next door here.  I wanted to give you a heads-up that I'm going to put a sign next to my driveway about pulling in.  This is not directed at you guys specifically as I suspect Rick has made it clear I don't want you to use my driveway (though I did just see you there a few minutes ago and have a few times...)  But you've had delivery people, and it's not uncommon for people who are visiting the corner house to assume my driveway belongs to that house.  So it's time to get out my sign again...

Because I don't want you to think I'm just a total bitch, which I am NOT, I want to explain why I take this stance.  I've been here for a long, long time and in that time, I have had to replace the end of that driveway twice and have had to have repairs made in between.  None of my neighbors up and down the street have had to do that in all the years I've been here.  And I can tell you why.  The house you're living in doesn't seem to keep tenants more than a year at a time.  I can kind of understand why - it would get tiresome to have all that loud 42nd St. noise for starters - it's bad enough here where I have your house to block a lot of it!  The parking is atrocious - yes, you have your own driveway, but I can imagine the stress it brings on to try to pull out into that crazy 42nd St. traffic!!  So that means the street, and of course, you can't park close.  So I've always struggled with the folks in that house wanting to pull into my driveway "just to unload groceries" or other "just this or that" things.  Or (like you have done a few times that I've seen) to turn around.  On top of that, anyone coming to your house seems to think my driveway is yours.  And then there are the people who "oops, I turned at the wrong street" and use my driveway to turn around.  All of this really adds up.  

So instead of my little light car pulling in and out once, maybe twice a day at most, I get all this additional weight, wear and tear on my driveway.  (I'll interject here that yours is one of the BIG ones!)  And there is no one with their hand out to help me pay the exorbitant cost of fixing or replacing it.  So I'm begging you to please, please, please not use my driveway.  I want to be a good neighbor, and thankfully, I've been blessed on the other side with awesome neighbors all the years I've been here.  And I've had good neighbors in your house for the most part, too, except for this problem with the driveway.  And you guys seem like really nice folks and I don't want this to be a source of irritation.

My husband died  3 years ago and I'm doing my very best to stay in this house I love so much for as long as I can.  Big expenses will be the thing that eventually forces me to sell it, so I'm just doing my best to avoid them.  I hope you understand...

If you need to get hold of me, you can call or text 402-707-4390.  

And now, I'll just keep my fingers crossed and hope they don't sic someone on me!  They've been pretty decent otherwise.  They have a dog, Cinnamon, who they put out on a line in the back yard and let her bark and bark and bark, but it seems like I'm often disappointed in "pet parents" that live close by.  One day, I was in the kitchen and saw Cinnamon was outside their fence - she had jumped the fence with a rope tied to her collar!  I was grateful she hadn't choked to death!  I ran next door and got them to come get her and then she proceeded to run around and around in our yards, trying to evade them.  So I ran inside the house before I could witness her being hit on 42nd St.  Thankfully, they caught her and she was out barking again a bit later!

But I so hate coming off as the "bad guy".  And I don't know why it makes me feel that way.  I guess it's because I figure people think it's petty.  I remember back when we bought the building down in Papillion - we had our wedding venue there with a big parking lot that inter-connected with another big parking lot owned by a nearby bowling alley.  And what we discovered was that people in the area used the two inter-connecting parking lots like a street.  I would see car after car after car streaking through our parking lot, first one way then the other, all day long.  Were they completely oblivious that they were creating wear and tear on private property that was NOT maintained by the city?  Finally, we put a fence between the two parking lots.  And then, for the next month or so, cars would come into our lot, oops... there's a fence there now!!... and come back out.  Probably irritated that their shortcut had been eliminated!  I remember a few years later, while bartending a function, some guy come up to order a drink and said something like, "I used to use this lot to go down to the bank and one day, there was a fence!  What's up with that?"  Seriously, I thought?  I explained the premise of creating wear and tear on a surface WE had to maintain and he just shrugged his shoulders and walked away with his drink.  What a num-nutz!  People are so oblivious to anything that doesn't affect them!

I'm looking into a program called HealthyWage that's about getting paid to lose weight.  You "wager" that you can lose 'x' number of pounds in a time frame you choose.  So say you want to lose 50 lbs. in 6 months and you wager $50 a month that you can do it.  If you reach your goal in the timeframe, you get more than 4x what you wagered!  I'm giving it some thought.  It's a great incentive, but I'm just not sure I can find what works for me, short of starvation.  Oh, I know I can deprive myself into weight loss - I've don't it before. But that is never sustainable.  Once you quit the deprivation, it all comes back and then some.

John (my handyman) came by Friday and got my new bamboo curtains up.  I replaced my old ones, thinking the new ones were just like the old ones.  (The old ones were looking a little worn, and I wanted 4 in the front window instead of 3 for a fuller look...)  But when I got them, they were different with a heavy "frame" with heavier gromets as part of that frame (instead of hanging rings.)  So when I put them up, they were so heavy, they bent the hardware that holds the rod up.  OMG, they make shit SO cheap these days!  It's disgusting.  So I ordered three heavy duty  IRON brackets and decided to have John do it because it was just a bit too much for me to handle on my own.  

So now my living room is nicely up-to-date.  The oldest things in there are the two lamps - a floor lamp and a table lamp - and they were both very expensive nice lamps so I won't be replacing them.  Now it feels like it's all "well put together" and not quite so "eclectic".  Well, ok my snowman collection doesn't exactly scream "classy", but they make me feel good!  LOL!

Time to retire to the lady cave!

This 'n that

 I worked yesterday and unfortunately, Prickly Pete was thrown into our group.  We also ended up with Gentleman Bob, whom I adore - he's quite the sweetheart!  So it was a double edged sword.  I think I've described Pete.  He went into a crazy rage... it's probably been a couple years ago now... over something stupid and it was focused on me.  It was at the airport and I just got in my car and went home, called Jessica and asked her to please put me in another group, which she did.  She even put me in the group I asked for!  I've had to work with him a few times since then, but usually only in very large groups, so it's been easy to steer clear.  But yesterday, there were only 5 of us, so I was concerned that I would be forced to interact with him and that made me nervous.  I've been posting a lot of anti-Trump stuff (the man gives us a LOT of fodder!) and I think Pete's whole problem with me is my opinions on Trump.  So I was a little worried that if he's been privy to my posts that he may have just been waiting for the moment he could lay into me again.

At the end of the day, 3 of us were sitting at a dealership waiting on Gentleman Bob and Pete - as it turned out, I was told by Todd (the chase driver), Pete's car went back to 9W, so he was done and gone and wouldn't be coming to the dealership.  I breathed a sigh of relief.  Todd knows my feelings about Pete and asked, "So what was it that caused the fallout between you two?"  I told him that I was pretty sure that the blowup scene was really just Pete's pent-up resentment about my opinions about Trump.  Now I know Todd is on the Trump side of politics, and I know he's heard me talking about Trump with Gary (we're on the same page), but he's not the type to jump into a conversation that could be controversial and cause tension.  Todd is more of a peace-keeper and just would never do anything to rock the boat.  But he's made a few comments that made it clear he's on the "right" side of things.  And that's ok.  Abraham would say we're both right because there's really nothing wrong going on here.  It's all working out...

Anyway, after I told him what I thought it was about, I told Todd I knew he was a Trump supporter and I didn't have a problem with that and didn't want it to affect our friendship.  He said something about democrats and how he thought I was "smarter than that". I explained I am NOT a democrat - I am registered as an independent and I've voted for both democrats and republicans over the years.  And, in fact, if the pubs had come up with a decent candidate either this time or last, I would have voted that side of the ticket because I abhorred Hilary and Biden was just too damn old. But he quickly put up a hand and said, "I really don't want to talk politics and get into all that!"  And ended the conversation, which I think was probably wise.  Because I really was feeling very insulted by that "I thought you were smarter than that" comment.  If I had felt like being mean back, I could have said, "Well, I thought you had a soul"...  But it's really not in my nature to be mean.  I've done it in anger a few times, and I always feel like a read cad after, so I try to be careful not to be insulting or mean.

I think I will try to believe that Todd cut off the conversation because he realized he crossed a line with that comment.  And it wouldn't surprise me if he apologizes for it next time I see him.  Todd's a good and sensitive guy.  And here's the point where I used to say "which surprises me that he's a Trump supporter".  But not anymore.  Gentleman Bob is as well. And I could name a few others that are kind and seemingly good people.  The ones that really shock me are the Christians - I'm not talking about the people who go to church on Sunday.  I'm talking about the ones that live the life, not just show up on Sunday.  Pat, a guy I work with, who is retired from the Mission and whose wife still works there.  He spends a lot of time still helping the homeless and downtrodden.  Lee, who only works now and then these days, who volunteers a lot for Habitat for Humanity and is one of those people you can "feel" is super righteous.  That awesome people like that don't see what I see... it shakes my faith in humanity.  How do they turn a blind eye to the blatant evil that he perpetuates?  I worry that there's some sort of mass brain washing that has occurred that has caused these otherwise empathetic, reasonable, smart people to not see the truth.  And how did so many of us avoid being brainwashed?  I refuse to believe that it is simply that there are so many hard-core republicans that they would rather a super-terrible human being of the republican party run the country than any democrat, no matter how decent.  I know there are those, but I've always assumed that the vast majority of people would vote for who is best, or at the very least, who will do the least damage...

Ok, time for a new subject.  The fear is overwhelming me and I need to move on to something more positive. (Un, that would be ANYthing!)

*******

I didn't get back, probably because I had trouble coming up with a more positive subject!  It feels like the state of our country has been an all-consuming subject for me.  But, here's what I had to say early this a.m...

I'm sitting here at 4:35 in the morning. Yesterday, it was 55° and balmy at 11:00 as I left to go meet Merry for lunch. It was a bit surreal when I passed a sign above the interstate that said "BLIZZARD WARNING 8:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. ALTER TRAVEL PLANS". I wasn't even wearing a jacket! About 4 four or five hours later, it started to rumble around. No lightning to speak of, at least none that I saw. But it rumbled for probably an hour and then started raining. It was coming down pretty hard for a while. So hard that I have two places in my greenhouse that were leaking. I've had a leak in one particular spot for a long time, but these were two different spots! I guess I'm going to have to deal with that this year. Anyway, it was probably around 5 pm that I stepped out to bring in my garbage can from the curb and the temperature had dropped about 15°. Still not bad except the wind was really starting to blow, so it felt colder. Before I went downstairs around 7:00, it was starting to sleet - they were saying it was snowing in other parts of the city. And the wind was even worse. They were predicting gusts from 50 to 60 mph! And they were not kidding! When I was downstairs watching tv, I could hear the howling through the back door over my television which I keep pretty darn loud! (I like that theater effect...) By the time I came up around 10:30, it did look like a full-blown blizzard outside. The windows on the north were covered with sleet, ice, snow... it's like it in attached itself to the glass. Couldn't see out the windows. But I could on other parts of the house... it was definitely a horizontally driven snow. And actually by then, there wasn't a lot of snow coming down. I'm not sure how much more came down after that. They thought it would quit sometime in the middle of the night but continue to blow. Anyway, I was in bed when I was awakened by the generator coming on. Later, when I got up around 3:30 to get back into the chair, I called OPPD to make sure that our area had been reported and it said that it went out in our area at 1:13 a.m. And it's still out all around me and the generator is still going. It's loud, but I'm sure grateful for it. Of course I didn't stop to think that when the electricity kicked off, it takes a generator about 10 seconds to kick in (so that it's not kicking on for one of those blinkouts), my main heater in the greenhouse doesn't automatically come back on. And I discovered a couple of days ago that my oldest heater in there has stopped working. I was kind of hoping it that I could wait until next fall to replace it, but I think I better go ahead and do that. I just have to decide if I want to replace it with the same kind or something else. Anyway, I've been up since 3:30, warming the stove up to 400 and then opening it and blowing the heat into the greenhouse. I think that howling wind is making it colder than it normally would be at this temperature, so I went down and got my bathroom heater and brought it up. Once we get through tonight I think it'll be fine with just the main heater, but you never know this time of year. I'll go ahead and get the new heater ordered.

I probably won't work the rest of the week. They didn't call me today thankfully, not that I would have gone if they had! Tomorrow's supposed to be warmer, but there will be remnants of this snow and I don't want to have to trudge between cars that have a few inches of snow between them. Not to mention clearing windshields, etc. And then Friday they're calling for a 70% chance of more snow. I guess it'll be another week of mostly staying in and out of it! It's been a weird few years for weather! First we go almost all winter without any precipitation whatsoever, and then we start getting it and keep getting it. I'm not complaining, we need the moisture. But it sure would be nice if it would just wait until it warms up a little and then have a rainy day, or even a few! Wishful thinking!

Wi-Fi is down as well. That just went down about half an hour ago and I got that reported as well. Sounds like it should be up around 5:30 or thereabouts. I'm actually dictating this into an email that I can copy and paste into my blog once Wi-Fi comes back up. And right now, I'm just concentrating on trying to get the greenhouse warmed up a bit. A few more rounds of the oven heat should give it enough of a boost so that the third heater I put in there can get some warmth going. I sure feel blessed that I was able to get that generator! I'll probably go back to bed here in a bit for at least a couple of hours.

I made some tomato soup last night that turned out absolutely delicious! Now I'm no fan of tomato soup. Mark loved Campbell's tomato soup which I always thought was kind of gross! So when I fixed myself something like fish that he wouldn't eat, I'd fix him tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwich. Then I tried Progresso tomato soup and it was better, but I still wouldn't go out of my way to eat tomato soup. But I've been seeing pictures of what looks like really good tomato soup, and I found this recipe on the internet that sounded very simple and didn't sound like a huge batch so I figured if I didn't like it I wouldn't feel horrible about throwing it out. I couldn't believe how easy it was and how outstanding it is! Of course it's not like you're cooking it from scratch, cooking the tomatoes themselves. Even if I was a big fan of tomato soup, I probably wouldn't do it that much from scratch! I made it very close to the what the recipe called for, just tweaking it a bit for my own tastes. A little more salt, a nice heaping teaspoon of Italian seasonings, more sugar than it called for and a little more heavy cream than I called for. Wow wow wow did it turn out awesome! I'll have to include my tweaked version when I get this loaded onto my blog. When I find a new and delicious recipe, I always wish my Mom was here to share it with me. Mark was an old stick in the mud when it come to trying new things, but that year that Mom lived with me I so enjoyed cooking for her!

Easy-Peezy Tomato Soup

 2 T. butter

 1 med. onion, chopped

 2 cloves garlic, minced (I use a garlic press for max. flavor)

 2 cans (14 oz) tomatoes (I prefer fire roasted)

 2 c. chicken or veg. broth

 2 T. sugar

 1 tsp. salt (a little less if you prefer)

 1/4 tsp. black pepper

 1 rounded tsp. Italian seasonings

 1 c. heavy cream

Melt butter and saute onion and garlic a few minutes until soft.  Add tomatoes (with juices), broth, sugar, and seasonings and stir well. Simmer uncovered for 15-20 minutes.  Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to puree the soup - I prefer mine a bit chunky, but you can continue until it is completely smooth.  Add the cream and put back on low heat and reheat slowly, but don't boil. 

I'm a little freaked out by a noise in my bedroom. Now this noise only happens when the wind blows seriously hard like it is now. The noise is in the very corner, north west corner, and sounds like it's something in the wall. It sounds like boards shifting. I'm not exactly sure how else to describe it, but that's how it sounds. Like maybe the frame is moving just a bit. It's something new that I've noticed in the last year. Of course it seems like we've had extraordinary winds the last year or two and maybe that has loosened something up in the framework. I don't think it's anything that anybody could do anything about without opening walls either from the outside or the inside, and I don't see wanting to resolve it that bad. I mean, unless it starts leaking or I see damage to the wall, I guess I don't see any reason to mess with it. But it is a very weird sound and if I'm lying in bed it can wake me up.

And with that, I think I'm going to see if I can get a couple more hours of sleep. I'm feeling bad for my neighbors who are probably by now getting cold. I think most of these houses have more insulation in them than mine does, but with this wind, it's more penetrating. I hope the electricity comes back on soon!

xxxx

I'm up now and just before I got in bed, I got a text from Cox that said we probably wouldn't have wi-fi back on until after 9 a.m. And just about as soon as I laid down, I saw lights come on at my neighbor's behind me.  But I waited and the generator didn't go off.  I have neighbor's in the other direction who are up by 4 a.m. on weekdays and their lights were not on, so I guess everyone was still out in my row.  By the time I woke up at 7:45, the generator was off, so I'm guessing it was about a 5 hour outage...

I went online and ordered another heater just like the one in the basement that I got a few months ago.  It seems to work well, and I may just order yet another one before fall to replace my oldest heater, which doesn't seem to be putting out much air.  Maybe it's in need of a good cleaning, but I would have no idea where to start!

It's now mid-afternoon and the sun is shining.  The wind isn't as vicious, but it's still blowing pretty good.  My snow removal buds haven't been here yet and I'm wondering if they plan to come.  The sun may have it melted by the time they get to it!  But there's a nice little drift right in front of my porch.  

*******

I guess I need to get this published because every time I sit down to write, I get distracted and end up walking away and not getting back to it!  It's now Thursday. I woke at 6:30 in the bed - usually, I'd just stay up, but I was SO stiff and sore, I decided to hit the chair for may half an hour.  Two hours later, I woke because Pearl was sleeping on the top of the chair back and fell!  This is the second time this has happened in the last couple weeks.  You know, cats seem to love sleeping places like that and I've always wondered how that doesn't happen a lot... I know they are graceful and well balanced, but when they're sleeping, I can't figure out how their muscles stay... well, let's call it "aware" of how to hold them in place.  But Pearl is 17 this year and she has definitely aged.  She's skinnier, she has an "old lady" voice that's kind of gravelly (mine is that way a lot, too!) and she really has a lot of trouble getting up on things.  (I put a chair next to the bed, and I've got steps in front of her favorite spots...) Anyway, this fall doesn't seem to have hurt her, but I'm going to put a pillow or rug on the floor back there to soften the landing next time...

It won't be long that plants will start growing and blooming and maybe I'll have something of real interest to talk about.  At least I hope so!  This has been the weirdest winter with my total disinterest in my plants.  I've managed to maintain (not lose) the ones in the house.  But the greenhouse is a different story.  I have to FORCE myself to go out there and no matter how bad it gets, I can't seem to motivate myself to care.  I'm actually feeling a little bit of relief mixed with the guilt when I see another plant that has died.  The herd is getting thinned!  I can't decide if that means I let myself get overwhelmed by too many, or if it means the state of our country and politics has me so beaten down that I just don't give a damn anymore.  

Well, I'm off to get coffee, and since I may get "distracted" ... PUBLISH!

Snow... finally!

We finally got some snow... not much, maybe 3" or so here.  They said 3.5" at the airport.  But man-oh-man is it cold!  I'm getting ready to leave to get my nails done, which will be my first time out in several days.  I plan to hit the grocery store as well, then tomorrow, I'll get my hair cut & colored.   I'm getting gray fast this time.  I think I've been doing too much worrying about the direction of the country.  Trump continues to scare the bejesus out of me with his crazy extreme changes.  He promised lower inflation and unless there is something that I'm too dumb to understand, I'm pretty sure we're on our way to WORSE inflation.  And his insanity is making the stock market swing like a monkey after a banana in the jungle.  I just keep hearing my mom's voice say, "Stop looking at it!  It'll even out and you'll be fine."  

But on to better subjects, I finally replace my old PC.  This time, I got an all-in-one.  I had planned on just replacing the "tower" because my monitor is fine, but the guy I talked to said there's a good chance my old monitor might not work with a new PC.  And my friend, Marco, told me he'd been using all-in-ones for several years and I guess I thought, what the hell.  It came on Monday and I was prepared to get started with the transfer of all my files to the new computer and lo and behold, there they all were!  I guess they must be all sitting up in one of the clouds somewhere!  I used to consider myself pretty computer savvy, but it's beyond my comprehension now!  Anyway, the one thing I don't like about it is the USB ports are on the back.  What a pain in the ass!  Oh, and there are only THREE!  Two of which are taken up by the mouse and keyboard, leaving only one.  Oh brother!  So I ordered a USB hub that gives me 4 ports.  It was supposed to be here Tuesday, then yesterday, and now it says today.  Fucking Amazon lies! I admit - I've gotten spoiled rotten by how fast they usually are! But if they had just said initially that it would be Thursday before I got it, I probably would have just run to Office Depot and bought one.  Very frustrating!

I have new neighbors as of last week.  I haven't met them yet.  It's a black family - I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've had black neighbors, which is kind of weird when you think about it!  I've been here nearly 38 years...  Wait a minute... I take that back. When Marcy (next door to the west) lost her husband in 2019, her sister moved in.  She had two black children - an older teenage boy who eventually joined the armed forces (can't remember which branch) and a daughter who I think was older than him and on her own.  She also had a younger white daughter.  All very nice folks.  Not that I would expect anything less from Marcy's family!  She's a wonderful human being and I love her to death.  She's there for me when I need her and I try to do the same for her.  Anyway, back to the new family next door, I've mostly just seen a woman and a couple kids.  There may be a dad as well... there were a couple men who helped when they moved in, but I haven't seen them since.  I need to go over and introduce myself and take some cookies or something.  I feel kind of sorry for them as I always do anyone who moves in there.  They're going to find out all the issues with that house, and by this time next year, they'll be gone.  I have yet to see anyone in all the years since Dorothy sold it stay more than one year.  It doesn't look half bad, but it's a real shit-hole.  I talked to the guy who is the property manager a couple weeks ago.  Apparently the owners live in CA and don't want to put a lot of money into it, yet they ask $1900 for rent!  Man, I think if they can get that much for that place, what could I get for mine?  The basement is not finished and, in fact, gets water in it when it rains.  It calls itself a 4 bedroom, though one of them upstairs could only hold a single bed and NOTHING more.  Mine is clearly a 2-bedroom, but the whole basement is finished and one room could be used for a bedroom, though you couldn't technically call it a bedroom unless you put in one of those egress windows.  But I would never want to be a landlord.  I've heard such awful horror stories...

I've been cleaning out my cupboards and getting rid of a lot of stuff I don't use anymore and WOW is that freeing up space!!  So far, I got rid of all my old Mikasa stoneware.  I've got a bunch of lead crystal glasses I put out there for $15 - I'll probably just end up giving them to a thrift store.  And I have only on more stack of soup bowls from my set of china to pack up.  What the hell I'm going to do with that I don't know.  No one wants china anymore...  I plan to make little decorative planters out of the teacups and saucers - I made one by gluing the cup to the saucer, then I'll drill a hole in the cup for drainage.  Someone who is one of those garden artists, who makes stuff out of glassware (like bird feeders) might want some of it...

It does make me feel accomplished when I can add something to the donation box.  I'm tired of all this "stuff" that I hang onto.  I need to simplify my life!!

Here's a tidbit about old houses...  I keep 1/2 gallon jugs of water on hand for those times when I want to do a blast of watering.  I think I have 16 right now, so 8 gallons.  I keep them filled (with fertilizer) in a corner in the dining room, east exterior wall.  I pulled one next to the wall out this morning to water a plant and I thought, "WOW, this feels like it's been in the fridge!!"  So I stuck a thermometer in the water and sure enough, it was 42 degrees!!  I pulled another jug that was in front, about 18" in from the wall and it was 10 degrees warmer.  (But yes, still only 52 deg. in a room I keep about 70!)  Old houses be cold!  LOL

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I started this on Wednesday.  It's Saturday.  I didn't work all week, and I'm thinking I might not work next week.  It's supposed to be horribly cold, like real temps in the single digits and wind chills in the minus double digits!  And more snow.  Next year, I may just tell them to consider me a snow bird and take Jan. and Feb. off...  I'm getting too old for this shit!

Yesterday and today, I got all my music on to my new computer.  That's one thing that apparently isn't in "the cloud".  It took a few hours... I reorganized them as well.  I have nearly 500 songs, and these are simply "favorites" off of CDs.  It's probably silly to keep them since I have access to ALL the music on Amazon.  My Amazon playlists, which I play through my Alexa devices, have a LOT more music on them.  I have 5 playlists, three that I use all the time.  My "Mellow" list has about 430 songs that include stuff like Paul Davis, Gordon Lightfoot, ARS, and some mellow stuff from the 80's as well.  I have an 80's playlist with about 330 songs.  I loved the 80's sound almost as much as the 70's!  Then I have a "Favorite Rock" playlist with about 350 songs that I listen to when I'm wanting to be motivated.  I also have a "Relax" playlist that I listen to sometimes when I'm sleeping.  It has a lot of music from a CD I bought years ago with what I call "space music" by John Serrie.  If you meditate to it, you actually feel like you are floating!  It's very cool...  There are tons of YouTube videos with sleep music, but none of them are as good as John Serrie music!  It also has some great "floaty" songs like Bridge of Sighs, #9 Dream, Only Time...   I think the unlimited music costs me something like $15/month on Amazon and it is probably the best $15 I spend every month.  I can listen to premade lists on Amazon.  I can ask Alexa to play an album... right now I'm listening to Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy.  I've gotten spoiled.  When I listen to a radio station, I think "why do they think they have to play from such a limited list of songs???"  You hear the same shit over and over on the radio.  I can ask Alexa to play something I haven't heard in 20 years and viola... she plays it! Doesn't matter if it's a b-side of a rarely played song!

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Can't seem to get this one finished up.  I started nearly two weeks ago.  We had a week of such bitter cold weather, I didn't leave the house, so I had plenty of time to get back to it.  I think it's because the cold was ALL I could think about and didn't want to ramble on about THAT!  It was awful.  And to add insult to injury, my humidifier hasn't been working and the air was sooo dry from the furnace running all the time.  I had started the process of getting it fixed... My handyman, John, had been over to look at it.  I assumed it just needed a new pad (I've changed them before and it's a royal pain in the ass!), but he determined that the valve letting the water in was bad.  So I ordered a new valve and a new pad and it got here pretty lickety split.  But when he came back to install it, it turned out he had me order the wrong one.  Well, it was a weird thing - it was for the right model, but the wrong voltage.  I don't really understand those kinds of things, but I had to send it back and order the right one.  That one took a little longer to get here, and then we had the snow.  John had been hit in the first snow and was leery to get out when we got the second snow, so he put it off and then it turned SO bitterly cold that the furnace was running almost around the clock.  The humidity got down to 14% - it was almost painful! So then I started boiling water on the stove for 16 hours a day, but could only get it up to 19-20%.  He finally got back the first of last week and then... another snafu!  He couldn't get more than a spit of water to come through the valve!  Turned out the water valve, the one letting water flow through the pipe, was clogged.  So he replaced that and voila, water flow!  Right now, today, it's warmer and it's actually 60 degrees (!!) and I have 34% humidity in here!  YAY!  What a fiasco!

Today, I was sitting around reminiscing about the old days.  Back to the year or two after I got out of high school.  And I was finding I couldn't remember some of the timeline, so I thought I'd come here and try to sort it out.  

Paul and I got married in July, 1977, 2 months after I graduated.  We moved into that cute little apartment in Harlan and in August, he got offered a job at Wheeler's in Seward, Nebraska, so we packed up our things and moved out there at the end of August.  (Just a bit of trivia... Elvis died on our 1 month anniversary!)  We rented this shit-hole apartment above the JC Penney store on the town square.  At the time, it was ok - it's looking back that I realize what a shit-hole it was!  Nothing like the adorable apartment we left in Harlan.  But this place had a TON of potential, if someone would have just put some money into it! Paul went to work at Wheeler's, which was right on the edge of town, and I took a PT job at the Tru Value hardware store within walking distance.  I don't really remember the job itself that much, but I remember my boss, whose name was Dan Bank (or was it Banks??) and a college guy named Mike... something like Heidbrink, who made the job kind of fun.  We were about the same age.  We used to go to a bar down the street from our apartment and have a drink or two and play foosball.  No phone, no TV.  Pretty basic living!

But what I can't seem to figure out is when Mom left Harlan.  I can not remember anything about her selling the house.  Not hearing her talk about it.  Nothing!  That seems weird to me.  Selling a house is a pretty big event and it's just blank.  But of course, since we didn't have a phone, we weren't talking to them much because it required going across the street to a payphone and taking change to make the call... what a pain in the ass that was!!  But a phone was a luxury we couldn't afford then.  So I've been trying to figure this out.  Merry got married in April 1978 (yes, she's 4 years younger than me, so she was only 15!) and by then, Mom was living in Council Bluffs because that is how the Merry/Rick thing got started.  Mom moved and Merry stayed to finish the year, living with a friend from school.  Rick was her friend's older brother.  And so the saga began.  So I have to assume that if she was in CB by April of 1978, she must have sold it (or put it up for sale) not that long after I moved out.  Why don't I remember that?  

So with this realization of the hole in my memory, I was thinking, I don't really remember ever coming home and staying at Mom's.  But then I think we probably wouldn't have because my bed was only a single.  So I thought I guess we must have stayed at Paul's parent's home when we came back, which got me thinking about when they sold their house.  Oh, yeah... they had mostly moved out when we got married.  We had our ceremony at their house in Harlan - in the back yard, with Gary, Paul's brother, officiating.  (This was before every Tom, Dick & Harry could get ordained - Gary was a real minister.)  It was just family... siblings. Gary's wife and gaggle of kids.  Dave (Paul's oldest brother) and his wife and 2 kids.  Betty, Paul's teenage sister.  Of course his parents, Cliff & Lois.  Wes and Merry, Mom.  I'm pretty sure my Grandma Dogs (as we called her - she raised Dachshunds... Dad's mother) was there and maybe my cousin Jon.  Dad didn't come.  Oh, and my HS friend, Merry Jones stood up with me.  We had a little cake and punch reception after and this is how I remember they were mostly moved.  There was a couch and a few chairs and no other furniture.  They had moved to Hancock, Iowa.  I think they moved there because it was closer to where Cliff worked in Oakland...

So after we left our "reception", we took our old Galaxy 500... I'm trying to remember what year it was... downtown to the bank to cash the checks we got so we could afford to go on our "honeymoon" which was coming up to Omaha for a couple nights.  There is diagonal parking in front of the bank, and as we were pulling out, a woman came roaring up and hit us, pushing us back into the parking spot!  It totaled the car, crushing the trunk so much we had to struggle to get the suitcase out that we had packed to come to Omaha!  Backing up just a bit... Paul and his dad had bought two Galaxys, a 500 and a 2 door, and overhauled one engine and put it in the 500.  So, if I remember correctly, when we got back, they put the engine in the 2 door, which I actually liked better...  We borrowed his Dad's car to come to Omaha for the weekend.  We stayed at the Hilton, on the 16th floor.  The only reason I remember that is because we had a good thunderstorm overnight and, because I love a good thunderstorm, I got up to open the curtains so we could watch the lightening and I looked down and there were fire trucks pulled up to the hotel with lights ablaze!  Of course, it was a couple years before that one of the blockbuster movies was The Tower Inferno, so I was kind of freaking out!  LOL!

Anyway, we spent a little less than a year in Seward.  I think it was July of 1978 that we moved to York, into a mobile home, for just a month, because Paul was transferred to the Wheeler's in Grand Island, which was about 50 miles away.  Looking back, I wonder what we were thinking!  A 50 mile commute is a lot to expect with an old beater!  So quickly, we decided to buy a mobile home and move closer.  We ended up in a mobile home park (a very nice one!) in between Grand Island and Alda, a little village about 7 miles from GI.  It was a nice, new but small mobile home - 53' x 10' if I remember correctly.  

But before we left York, we made two major purchases.  We decided it was time to have a second car, so we found a cute little Toyota Corona, a 1972, and we financed it - this was going to be "my" car!  I loved it.  It was brown, a standard transmission.  We had gotten a Sears card when we first married to establish some credit, because back then, they didn't just "hand" you credit on a silver platter - you had to earn it!  And that was something that was always important to us - to have GOOD credit.  The second purchase was a set of cookware.  Paul's brother, Gary and his wife lived there in York and they had a Saladmaster party.  Saladmaster is kind of the Cadillac of cookware.  I bought their smallest set, which cost $300 on which we made $12/month payments for 2 years.  I was so excited!  And here I am, 47 years later, still using them and they still look like new!  I checked it out a Saladmaster demo a few years ago and their cheapest set is now close to $3000!!  On the other hand, I can't think of one other things that I still have from 1978!

We lived there outside of GI for about 18 months, then Paul went into the USAF, joining up in Dec. 1979.  He went off to boot camp and I packed up our stuff over the next 6 weeks.  Back then, if you joined the service and you owned a home, you could let it go back to the bank and it would not affect your credit, so that's what we did.  I don't remember the details of how I got all our "stuff", furniture and all, moved out!  I assume Wes helped, but who else?  There was a couch, bed, table and chairs... stuff we wanted to store until we needed them.  I wish I could remember!  But we got it moved to Paul's parent's home and they stored it for us. 

In January, Mom married Herb - I was a bridesmaid along with Merry & Aunt Judy. Paul got out of bootcamp in early Feb. and found us a (another) shit hole furnished apartment.  Herb had a van and we loaded it with the necessities -  clothes, dishes, my expensive pots and pans, some of my plants, I think we took our little kitchen table...  Then Wes drove the Galaxy and we towed the Toyota behind, 1000 miles down to Biloxi, Mississippi.  My first time seeing the Gulf... WOW.

Things I remember about Biloxi... Bugs big enough to saddle up!  The roaches were disgusting and huge, and I would keep a shoe next to the toilet so that I could squish them when they scurried about at night when I sat.  YIKES.  The apartment was actually an old home that had been turned into two apartments.  Another couple lived above us.  Ours was dark and dingy with a screened in porch.  I hated it and was so happy when he got orders to California and we were on our way.  But it was awesome that we were about 3 blocks from the water and hanging out on the beach was nice.  Paul made a lot of friends and we had fun while we were there, in spite of our yucky apartment.

And that was our life up to the summer of 1980.  I may try to see if I can find some photos to scan and interject later. 

Scary times...

As the time approaches for the change of power, I feel an overwhelming sense of dread for our country.  I'm still in shock that Trump managed to hoodwink more than half the country.  I did not think he had a snowball's chance in hell to pull it off, yet here we are.  

Because I still can't seem to wrap my head around it, I go over and over in my head how we got here.  I never knew much about Kamala and really didn't have an opinion about her when Biden chose her as his running mate.  My only real thought was, "hm, probably smart to pick a woman of color - he hit two segments of society that are not typically in one of the highest positions of power in this country."  I knew she was a lawyer, practiced in Cali, which of course made her liberal...maybe more liberal that I would like, but I'll take someone who leans a little too far left over someone leaning a little too far right any day. 

When Biden stepped aside and she stepped up to campaign, my first thought was "I sure wish the Pubs had come up with a better candidate!"  I really liked that Haley lady who ran in the primary and if she had been their candidate, I think that unless she proved to be different than she seemed, there's a good chance I would have voted for her.  But then as Kamala campaigned, I felt better about her.  And with the exception of one Trump-loathing friend who said he didn't like her and would simply not vote, it seemed like all the people I was talking to were rallying to support her.  But I will concede that her "popularity" may have been simply that she is "better than Trump."  

When she lost so pathetically, I was in shock!  The blue dot campaign had me feeling so positive!  I thought, I had no idea I had so many neighbors that were... well, not necessarily Dems, but on that side in this election.   I'm not a Dem.  I am an independent.  I have voted both ways.  I voted for both Bush's, both times.  I voted for Clinton and Obama, both times.  And I probably would have gone back to voting Pub this time if it was someone else.  But I was so sure that Trump had offended every single demographic, and sure that everyone but his most extreme supporters were sick to death of his vile attacks and crazy diatribe that the landslide would be the other direction.  I was so sure that many of the people who gave lip service to supporting him would quietly (and never admitting it) vote for Kamala.  It didn't even occur to me that this could happen!  That over half our country want this kind of man running the show, representing us to the rest of the world. 

Like I said, I think I'm still in shock.  I hate to use the "D" word, because I've never understood it, but I wonder if I might have just a touch of depression over the whole thing.  I'm so scared for what's ahead.  I just keep telling myself "the universe has my back - all is well."  But I feel paralyzed and have lost enthusiasm for the things that usually give me pleasure.  My plants are suffering.  I'm unenthusiastic about going to work.  I just need to get some of this out so that maybe I can relax about this a little...

My first thought after Kamala's overwhelming loss was, "How did she fuck this up so bad?"  I mean, really, with that P.O.S. as her opponent, she could be a freakin' monkey and win.  She chose a good running mate - that guy is totally likeable, and (in fact) I'd vote for HIM for prez!  Not a lot of experience, but a good president governs well by surrounding him/herself with smart, informed, competent people and LISTEN TO THEM.  But here we are...

And what does Trump do but go in and fire all the smart, informed, competent people and put a bunch of "yes men" in their places.  The crazy shit he's done just in the last couple months is enough to make you wonder where we'll be in another 6 months.  Make Canada the 51st state?  "Take over" the Panama Canal and Greenland?  Who the fuck does he think he is?  Can you image what the world is thinking?  This is what I read he said in a press conference yesterday:

Ok, that last bit at the bottom is mean, and I would have removed it, but he does sound demented.  I'm so proud to live in a country where half the people think this is even remotely lucid. 😔

I remember back when Clinton was in office and the whole Monica scandal broke.  The Pubs were aghast that a lot of Dems weren't condemning Clinton for his shenanigans.  "He's a terrible example for our youth!" they said.  "A man in the highest office should be honorable, should be faithful to his wife!"  And my thought was "this is a matter of privacy in a marriage.  He will pay the consequences as all cheating men do. But it's really nobody else's business because there has been no law broken - only one of the moral variety." The Pubs have come a long way, baby!  Here's a good rendition of where we're at now, what... 25 years later?... (It was put out there in July 2024)

I have a question for MAGA bunch —

You say you want trump back in office.

You say you liked his “policies”.

That things were “better”.

That he “fought for you”.

And I want to know why you think any of that.

 

Because he told you he would lower the cost of your prescription drugs, and didn’t. But Biden did.

 

He said he’d bring back manufacturing, but he didn’t. Joe Biden passed the CHIPS Act - allocating tens of billions in incentives for companies to construct & expand manufacturing facilities in the US.

 

For four years straight, he said every week would be “infrastructure week”, only that week never came. President Biden signed a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill into law during his first year in office.

 

He said he would boost economic growth by 4 percent a year. Nope. The economy stalled, and unemployment soared to the highest levels since the Great Depression. Joe Biden has created 13.2 million jobs and unemployment has been under 4% for 17 months in a row — the longest stretch in over 50 years.

 

He promised to eliminate the federal deficit. He increased it by more than 60 percent. Joe Biden cut the deficit by more than $1.7 trillion in his first two years – the largest deficit reduction in American history.

 

He said he would hire “only the best people.” He’s since called his AG a “gutless pig”, his National Security Adviser “one of the dumbest people in Washington", his Sec. Of Defense “the world’s most overrated general” and he’s said that people were right to want to hang his VP. Joe Biden has seen very little turnover in his cabinet and hasn’t so much as criticized anyone in his administration, let alone wanted to see them hanged.

 

He promised he’d build a wall and that Mexico would pay for it. He then took $15 billion from our Defense Department’s budget to pay for less than 500 miles of construction. Joe Biden got Mexico to pay us $1.5 billion for border security.

 

He promised to lock up Hillary Clinton for using a private email server. He’s now been federally indicted with 37 charges related to his intentional mishandling of national security documents. Joe Biden… hasn’t.

 

He said he would “unify America”, and then told his supporters to attack our Capitol. He was impeached twice, lost re-election and has to date been indicted 71 times, with more charges likely to come.

Oh, and that money you’re sending him for the 2024 election… that’s being used to pay his personal legal bills.

 

So, given all of this… my question remains the same — what was “better” under trump? What “policies”? If it wasn’t healthcare, infrastructure, border security, American manufacturing or the economy, what was it?

 

And if he’s “fighting for you”, why is he using your campaign donations on his personal legal woes? I would really love to know.

 

Yes, and I don't hear any Pubs worried about the bad example our president is setting including (but not limited to...) cheating on his wife, soliciting sex from a sex worker, assaulting women, grossly characterizing women as "letting you do what you want if you have power and money"... inciting violence, screwing small businesses over, name-calling, telling outright lies and then denying his lies, and of course there's all the law breaking.  If you think having a generation of kids who think oral sex "isn't sex" is bad, imagine what's coming!  

Twelve days to our 4 years of God-knows-what.  Like I said, I'm scared.  But if the Pubs are right, at least my money will make money.  At what price?  God help us all!

Some Fredell history found!

I stumbled across some family stuff I'd only vaguely heard about many years ago.  I was trying to figure out when exactly the Fredells came to America.  I started with the photos that I took a few years ago of the headstones I discovered at the Red Oak cemetery:

 

John was the first one to come to America.  I'm not sure when he came, but I can probably get pretty close.  Maria was his mate - I say it that way because it doesn't necessarily sound like they were married.  Of course, coming from Sweden, I think even way back then they were less puritanical than Americans, so that was probably not uncommon.  But John was a prick and intended to leave his woman and child (my great grandfather, Gust) behind, or at least that's the story I've been told.  My understanding was that Gust was young when his father left, and since he was born in 1882, I'm guessing he came in the 1880s.

So John was born in 1863, his wife Maria was 4 years younger, born in 1859.  She would have been 24 and John would have been 20 when Gust was born.  And John would have been a fairly young man when he came to America.  Another tidbit we only found out when Wes did some digging several years ago:  he did not come to America with the name Fredell.  Apparently the family name back in Sweden was Karlsson, which is kind of interesting because I have a Hoya chum in Sweden whose name is Christina Karlsson... we could be related!  Anyway, I'm not privy to why he changed the family name and how he came up with Fredell.  This is what I found about the name with a google search:

In Swedish, "Fredell" is a surname derived from the word "fred" which means "peace", with the suffix "-ell" added on essentially translating to "little peace" or a diminutive form of "peace".

Origin: It's considered an ornamental name, meaning a variation added for aesthetic reasons.

In the end, Maria and Gust ended up joining John.  I don't know any of that story and why they ended up joining him, but they did.  They never had other children, so Gust was an only child.  However, I seem to recall that someone told me once that he was one of twins and the other was lost.  Whether that means at birth or sometime after, and whether it is true or not, I suppose we'll never know now that everyone is gone that would know.

John bought 80 acres (the original farm) of rich Iowa farmland.  They built a house on what is now called Pine Ave., just north of what's now called 140th St. The official coordinates of the house are 41.100046, -95.070477.  The address by the time we lived there was Rt. 2, Villisca, Iowa.  There was an old house that I believe was probably there when they bought the farm, and eventually, they built the new house in front of the old house, which was an empty shell.  It was more or less a big play house for us which also served, at times, as a chicken and turkey coop. And the house they built was added on to at some point.  When Mom and Dad first started living there, there was no indoor toilet, though there was indoor plumbing to the kitchen.  They used an outhouse until I was about 5.  Can you image that with three young children?? Yikes...

In October of 1935, John executed his will.  In a court case I will describe later, it is described as follows:

Under his will, his estate was left to his wife and son for their lives with the remainder to his grandchildren. Grandchildren is defined in the will as the children of the body of the son. A deceased grandchild's issue of the body would take the share of the deceased parent. If the deceased grandchild had no issue of the body living at the time of the death of the son, then the remainder would be divided by the children of the body of the son living at the time of the son's death.

John died 12 days after executing this will at 72, and Marie died in 1942 at 83. Gust had married Edith, my great grandmother who is the only one who was alive when I was born.  Gust died at the young age of 52 in 1945, shortly after his mother died.  Gust and Edith had four children - my grandfather, Lester (1903); Gladys (1906), who lived near Red Oak and who I vaguely remember; Maxine, who lived in California and who I really have no recollection of; and Fern, who died at the age 21 from peritonitis, a complication after having her appendix removed.  Here is Grandma Edith's grave marker:

Grandpa's gave marker (above) is in Pilot Grove cemetery.  (What are the chances he married a woman with the same name as his sister?!) I never did the math before, but apparently Grandpa was on 19 and Grandma 18 when they got married.  She talked about teaching in a country schoolhouse before they married - I guess you didn't need a college degree to teach back then! Reviewing her obit, it looks like she taught for 5 years and worked for an attorney for 5 years.  If she was only 18 when they got married, it's obvious she worked after they got married! Here is her obit:

And Grandpa's, 4 years later:
 

 

Incidentally,  the way this stone looks, I was reading her full first name as Fernludille, but I looked it up and it's Fern LUCILLE.  You have to enlarge it to huge to see the little break that makes that "D" a "C".  And there seems to be no space between the "N" and the "L".  Anyway, here is Fern's obit - I was amazed I found it!

Kind of weird seeing an obit that's almost 100 years old! I think this is actually an article, which tells me the family had some clout or standing in the community back then.

I could find nothing about Maxine.  I'm not sure if she was the oldest or somewhere else in the lineup.  With a last name like "Davis", it's a pretty common name.  I found a couple of obits in Iowa of Maxine Davis's that were born around the same time, but I remember her living in California.  And according Grandpa's obit, by 1993 she was living in Kentucky.  So who knows where she was when she passed.

So on to what I know about Dad's generation.  Grandma and Grandpa had my dad's sister, Carolyn, in 1931 I believe, and dad, John Delaine Fredell (he went by Delaine, not John) in 1936. They built a new home across the farm from the house built by John.  It was a little 2 bedroom bungalow with a walk up attic like my house. I know that Maxine had a daughter, but I don't know her name and it's possible she had other children.  I don't ever remember meeting any of them, though I think it's likely that I did at some point.  And Gladys and her husband adopted their daughter, Mary Ann. (Who I just found on FB!)

Going back to that old will of John's (and what piqued my interest), I wish I knew more of the details about the land. I always assumed that it was 80 acres John bought because that's what was protected by the will when Grandpa died.  But it brings up questions.  Was there more land initially?  Because when John died, there were 3 siblings left to split the land.  Well, Maxine was in California by then, so I always assumed Grandpa bought her out.  But would that have been allowed with the will in place?  Could Grandpa have been renting some of the land from Maxine all those years? The will stipulated that the original land went to the heirs in the next generation, Dad's being the last generation subject to the will. So I think there must have been 240 original acres... each getting 80 acres upon John's death because it was 80 of the original land that Grandpa had when he died that was split between Dad and his sister.

And there was the issue of Mary Ann being adopted.  In 1983, Mary Ann (whose married name was Skoog) took Grandpa and Grandma and Maxine and her husband to the Supreme Court of Iowa because they apparently made it clear that she would not be inheriting her mother's land because she wasn't a "child of the body" of the grandchild of John.  It's a very interesting read, even as a lay person.  It can be seen HERE.  In the end, she lost.  Which means the land reverted back to Lester and Maxine, right?  So now that changes what the original number was.  It must have been 160, not 240, because again, it was 80 that Grandpa had upon his death...

The next generation:  Dad married my Mom, whose maiden name was Karen Kay Bean, in 1957.  I (Denise Kay) was born in 1958, Wes (Wesley Clair) was born in 1961, and Merry (Merry Noel) was born in 1962.  Mom and Dad divorce in 1974.  Dad married again, oddly enough to a woman with the same first and middle name as Mom!  And as if that isn't weird enough, her maiden name was Beem, Mom's was Bean.  She had some mental issues - I was told that she had spent time in a mental hospital after trying to burn her house down with her kids in it!  YIKES.  And put her with Dad, who definitely had issues and I'm sure it was a nightmare.  He divorced her after she held him at gun point (one of his guns) after a fight.  Then later, he married another woman, Pat Laird.  She eventually left after running up several credit cards into the $45,000+ range.  When Dad died in 2004, after paying minimum payments for years, they were still well over $40,000.  It was sad to think of him burdened by this debt all those years, but he was too proud to consider bankruptcy. 

Aunt Carolyn married a man named Marvin Young and I believe Jon Young, my oldest cousin, was born in 1956.  Marvin left Carolyn before Jon was born - it would have been a scandalous story at the time if Grandma hadn't been so good at keeping it a secret.  Marvin was sterile and when Carolyn turned up pregnant, he left and Grandma  told only Dad that she had been impregnated by artificial insemination, which was in its infancy. And the family guarded the secret.  If you look up AI in the 1950s, it says a few doctors were doing it on the sly and it was kept very hush-hush.  I'm not even sure that Jon ever knew, which to me seems cruel - allowing him to believe that his father deserted him before he was even born. Anyway, Jon was eventually dumped off on Grandma and Grandpa so Carolyn could go on with her life, and she later married Larry Whitehead.  His first son was Larry (namesake) born in January of 1959, then the second son, Rick, was born in November of the same year!  They split and she had one last son a few years later, Tony, out of wedlock.  I'm just guessing, but I think he was born in 1963 or 1964.  I've been unable to find out when Aunt Carolyn passed away. 

Each generation only had one male child, so the name stopped with my generation.  Wes was the only male child to have the Fredell name, and he didn't have any children.  

Lester lived to be 90, passing in 1993.  Before he passed, Carolyn's oldest son, Jon, successfully persuaded Lester to sign over all of the farm to him, with the exception of the protected 80 acres.  By this time, Lester was in the throes of dementia, but that's very hard and very expensive to prove. This is the farm that had been promised to my Dad, Delaine, as his reward for spending his whole life as the underpaid farmhand.  What he ended with was half of the 80 acres (the other half had to go to Carolyn).  I'm not sure how much land Grandpa had by then.  I would imagine that he very likely bought the rest of the original property from Maxine's heirs because they lived (assumably) in California.  And then he bought Jack Halbert's property after he passed.  So I think surely he had in excess of 300 acres, maybe a lot more. It would have made my Dad's retirement years very comfortable.  But it wasn't to be...

Dad passed in 2004.  Wes passed in 2013.  So the last person to possess the Fredell name is Wes's wife, Sally.