A Moonlit Montana Sky

I hoped this picture would turn out well, although there were two other glances at the moon that were so beautiful that night. It had been a long day on our drive across South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. We stopped just outside Bozeman and found a motel. It was very dark. Signs showed warnings of migrating animals, and as beautiful as the night sky was, I wanted to see everything in the daylight. We left early the next day and arrived home by early afternoon.

Three Reasons For Living In A Western State

On the way home we saw the most beautiful sunset, with colors or yellow, orange, and purple. It was a beautiful sight during a drive that was fantastic, whether looking at the cornfields of Minnesota, the Black Hills of South Dakota, or the small rivers and rolling hills of Montana.
There is just nothing like it in the evening. I guess I learned to watch a sunset so carefully when I drove a tractor on the farm. It was a chance to see the beauty outside. There was always a feeling of satisfaction in knowing that a day's worth of hard work had benefits, and none of those had anything to do with money. My father taught me character, hard work, honesty. Taking pride in a job well-done was an expectation that my father never had to tell me about when he asked me to do something. It was something that every job required.
Only in early evening or in the hours before dawn does the day become completely quiet, yet there is the sound of crickets and the soft caress of a night wind. Occasionally, the yelp of a coyote breaks the stillness. And I will never forget the stars that seemed so shine so brightly in a sky untainted by smoke or smog.

When I'm Not There, I Look At These Pictures

Looking at these pictures reminds me why I enjoy the 18 hour drive to visit my grandchildren. I visit Lydia and Jeff too, but there is something magical about grandchildren. They saw things that make you smile, because life is still full of wonder for them. They enjoy every minute, every waking moment.

Whether it is about Jack and Tommy in the back yard catching frogs or about Anna finding and stashing interesting rocks in different places in the house, each day is fun. It always begins with Anna standing in the doorway of the room where we sleep. She watches us for a minute before stepping so quietly back up the stairs to her mom's room. She did it every morning.


On our last trip she finally realized that our visits end as quickly as they begin. Four or five days or even ten days go by so quickly, yet it was watching Anna catch a first glimpse of my Annie that made me smile. Lydia called us to say she was shopping.


We stopped and entered the store as quickly as possible. "Grandma!" Anna shouted out loud and ran with those graceful hops she makes while clapping her hands.

The Way That Angels Get Their Wings (Figuratively Of Course)

I always thought that wisdom came some time in your early twenties after you moved away from home. Believing that all the wisdom you learned from parents would somehow make you the perfect individual, that all the things you learned from teachers would make you the ideal citizen, that all the lessons you learned from mistakes would prevent you from making a fool of yourself.

And then suddenly you realize, only after surviving for another 30 or 40 years, that no one really has any answers. The old proverb that you should never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes is after all just a cliche. After the long hike, you may get blisters or even athlete's foot, but you never really understand anything about another person. People are too complicated. Take marriage for instance. My Annie and I have had a wonderful marriage for over 34 years, and I still wish I could read her mind when the lightening flashes a bit in those chocolate brown eyes of hers and when she sits quietly when I say something that I think is funny.

All I know is that I love her, not for being perfect and not for being rich or famous. But I love her because she loves me as much as I love her, an expectation that every husband should experience, but I don't think they do. All I know is that I like what I have. She is the real deal. She is my soul mate.

And she puts up with my bizarre sense of humor, my taste in music and movies, and my tendency to understand things by talking and thinking about why things are like they are--especially the little occurrences that seem so irritating. So my idea of not judging a person is to try not to judge anyone. I haven't been able to do that yet, because some individuals really piss me off when I am around them, but my Annie is helping me deal with those negative issues by showing me that life is too short to give miserable people like that the satisfaction of knowing they ruined your day, so just to irritate those who do the same to me, I have now decided to love them as if they were a family member. I figure this is a good place to start, because some relatives are difficult to like anyway.

When I saw this picture that my Annie took, it made sense to me. To be a perfect person takes an awfully big eraser. And to influence those who irriate you, it takes a soft step and a large fish whacker.

Would You Have Bought A Used Car From This Man

Everyone always talks about Clinton as being the worst president ever to sit in the White House, but I will never be proud of the fact that I voted for this one in a time when I believed him to be something he really was not. It just took a few years to notice and another few years to accept the fact that he was not what he appeared to be.

My Annie's dad Stan was so tolerant of me. He would talk with me--only if I brought up the topic of politics--and remind me about how important it was to look at what people did in office. He would listen to me talk about ideals and campaign promises, and then one day he handed me a copy of the White House transcripts.

I only made the mistake of making a similar mistake two more times. After that, I looked at candidates very carefully. But I will always admire Stan. He respected my opinion, even when it was wrong, because after all, it was my opinion, but he also was a firm believer that educated people could avoid mistakes if they recognized flaws in elected officials.

The Things You Do For School

A haircut is not a beautiful thing when you are a five-year-old, but it gets better with age, unless your name is Donald Trump.

And although I hear that he does good things for people occasionally who are down on their luck like the man who supposedly stopped and helped the Donald when the wealthy real estate magnate's limo had car trouble, the poor man can't seem to find a barber that makes him look like he doesn't have a animal mounted on his melon.

I have known toupees so horrific, that I have stated that not even the brave Ali Baba would have planted his tush on that particular rug. The Donald's hair is like that, but as unbelievable as it sounds, it is real.

Personally, I resent spending more than $14 for a haircut, although I paid more than that when I was younger and foolish. I found through sad experience that the difference between a fancy salon and people who cut hair at our Walmart is about ten to fifteen dollars. Either way, the haircut still does not make me pretty.

But Jack's mom did find something better than Walmart. And once he finally understood that fate was not on his side, he accepted his destiny.

Looking at the pictures, I'm not sure whether the idea of the haircut bothered Jack, or if it was the idea of having a large sheet with cats and other "girly" things on it around your neck. I know how my son Cles would have felt about the whole thing.

Cles did not like cats, just ask the neighbor, whose cat liked to fertilize our lawn in the rental where we lived, when we first arrived in Idaho Falls.

"How would you like it if I did that to you," the owner of the cat screamed from next door when she saw her cat jump four feet into the air after taking a direct hit from the slingshot that Cles used from his bedroom window.

Cles didn't know I was upstairs. "How would you like it if I sh#& on your front lawn every day?" asked me son immediately. I heard the woman slam her door, and I laughed quietly while hoping that Cles didn't realize I was home to hear him swear as a junior high student. I hated that neighbor, and her d#%* cat too. I would leave the house at 7:00 a.m. During the early fall, when it would still remain warm, I wanted to avoid the situation where moisture would build up and crack a window--something we had happen more than once. At least that is what my family always believed after a dealer in Malad told us about his experience with that same situation. Leaving the window down slightly more than two inches meant seeing that cat in my car the next morning, having spent enough time to cover the entire interior with hair, if I was lucky only to get that. I would try to grab the little fur ball, but it would run off.

Some evenings I would spot that cat in our cul-de-sac sitting right in the middle of the road, I would drive toward it. The cat heard the racing engine and recognized the rage in my eyes and ran for it. It remained able to irritate me at least 10 times that year by getting through the narrow opening of my car window. I hated that cat, and being allergic to them, I would sneeze all the way to work. Like I said, maybe Jack liked the idea of the haircut, and it was the sheet around his neck with blue cats on it that horrified him.

However, the haircut was worth it. His teacher is excited to have Jack in class. She likes all of her students, yet she does not put up with any monkey business during class. I like that. That was my classroom philosophy too. The idea of distractions from helping students learn was not acceptable to me, and it is not something she considers either.

But she feels that way, because she loves her students. Jack's teacher wants the best for every one of them, and maintaining order in a classroom is a step in being able to create a learning atmosphere.

And like I said, she feels that way, because she loves her students. By students at my last school where I taught asked me once why I stayed. I received many honors and opportunities, yet I wanted to stay in that high school.

"Don't you know?" They looked at me with furrowed eyebrows, not knowing the answer. "I love you guys and the students in this town." Their reaction was interesting. They knew I liked them, but suddenly they realized why teachers teach. They do it because they care, or at least the good ones do.

Jack's First Day of School

It was a great day for Jack to begin school: the chance to meet new friends, the opportunity to learn things he hadn't been able to do before, the time to begin his move toward being able to do things in a boy's world. It seems like in only a moment he and Tommy have become little boys, not Toddlers. He would no longer laugh when I told him that he was Pop Pop's Pookie Bear. And Tommy was the same way. I could now tell them I loved them, as long as no one was able to hear, and giving hugs were not to be done in front of their school friends.

Dickens wrote something profound in the beginning pages of A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." This is how I look at this time. It is hard to let go, to admit that they no longer need me to watch them every minute. But I will do it any way. The first day was fun for him. You could see the electricity in his eyes, especially when he talked about school, and again when I took his backpack to him the next day. He was so proud to be there, and he was excited to learn new things.

For the first few days, there were snacks, there were games, there were fun things, and then came homework. We had to talk to him about how important that was and how vital those pages of work were for him to learn new things. We refused to let him use the word boring, and when he said it the first few days, we explained why those pages were so important.

My Annie noticed how the skill of raising his hand was still something he remembered from Preschool. Because even though they laughed at his spontaneity last year, and even though Primary leaders in church laughed when Jack identified an important prophet on a ship as a Jesus pirate, no one in Kindergarten wanted to hear things that would be a distraction. They would not relish his comments, and they would not like it when adult visitors and other children laughed.

But things went well, and Jack made friends quickly in a year that will be important to him. He will learn to read, and most importantly, he will learn why school and homework are important keys to his successes in life. I will remind him, his grandma will remind him.

And his mom, who is so proud of him and who loves him very much will remind him too.

And To Think That Only Pop Pop Likes Disneyland

Just when I thought that only ordinary people went to Disneyland, the February trip proved me wrong. Ann took this picture of Ed Burns, an incredible actor, taking a picture of his daughter at the little house near the ride The Adventures of Alice In Wonderland. Jack stands at that door every trip since he could walk and knocks on the door.

In fact, Jack tried to walk in front of Ed Burns and his daughter to give his traditional knock, because it is something he does every trip to Disneyland. Jack does not understand the whole concept of celebrity, because to him, Woody is the guy. And meeting Buzz Lightyear is a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence.

Before we finished our multiple days at the park, we saw Seal and Heidi Klum. They had painted their faces, and I remember thinking how strange it was to see them. The paint rendered me unable to recognize them. My Annie told me she saw them minutes later, and I realized I had seen them too.

She saw Adam Sandler too. He was incredible with the people who gathered around him. I can't imagine how unbearable it would be to be mobbed whereever you go, yet at Disneyland, everyone feels mobbed on some days. Celebrities, however, have more than just long lines to deal with on a day there. People want pictures and autographs. For my family, it is just fun to see them and let them enjoy their day without hassle from another fan.

Oh, and we saw Patricia and David Arquette too. They waited for Haunted Mansion to begin again after a problem stopped the ride.

Christmas brought a lot of new things this year--outside decorations, a new seven foot tree, and Jack's learning the importance of having Grandma make him pirate hats from the daily newspaper. Near the heater is the plug for the train that goes around the tree.
Unlike last year, when I really did not think about doing it at all, I will take a picture of the train and blog it.

And by the way Grandma, a race car set would fit nicely somewhere in the house too. It would entertain Pop Pop and Jack--and to think that NASCAR was only for rednecks. This would allow Jedi Pop Pop and Master Jack the chance to expand their horizons.

Darth Tommy

After buying this light saber for Tommy, which allowed him to use either Darth Vader's red or Skywalker's blue version with the press of a button, Tommy could not wait to begin his "training." And it began in the bedroom without lights.

February in Disneyland

Jack told us months before his birthday that there was only one thing he wanted--to eat at Goofy's Kitchen. Although she could not get days from work, Kristin let us take Jack to Disneyland, and it was just at a time when Lydia and Jeff were in San Diego, so we spent days together at the park.

While in the Disney Store at Downtown Disney, I found this pink Minnie Mouse stocking cap. Anna loved it, so I bought it immediately.





The days are always fun, but they are fun too. The little ones sleep in carts, as long as the weather is warm and comfortable.



Anna is funny when she sleeps, whether in a stroller or in the car, she is like the simile Stephen Crane used in The Red Badge of Courage--she looks like she has been dropped from a high place, arms and legs left awkwardly dangling.


All three of my grandchildren pursue everything with passion, whether play, laughter, temper tantrums or sleep. They will never be boring.

Lydia (or Wida)

This is a picture I used at least twice in my blog, but I have it here again, because it is my favorite picture I took of her at this time. I remember being afraid the Christmas tree would fall on her, and my Annie telling me how stupid that was to think that Lydia could do that. It was an omen of how protective I was over my Annie, my own children, my grandchildren.


This was one year that my parents had a Scotch Pine instead of a Pinion Pine, which was what we had in our home as long as I could ever remember. There was a man who lived in Snowville, Utah who always found an incredible tree for my dad, and dad always had to have one that touched the ceiling and filled the entire room. It made Christmas fun. It created memories that will last throughout my life.



The next picture was one that shows what a good-natured baby Lydia was. Even when she cried it was quiet, and on a rare occasion when I saw her cry when she was older, it was something that ripped my heart in two. It was true sorrow. This picture is beautiful. Ann's grandmas made plenty of blankets for our little ones, and we still have them packed away in boxes in the garage. This one in the picture was one that Grandma Liza made for us.


I remember when Lydia was just able to stand. I began classes at ISU my first semester. She had pneumonia and was in the hospital in Logan. In the first days she was there, I drove to Logan. Ann stayed with her, and when I walked into the room, Lydia was in this crib, that was completely covered with an oxygen tent. She crawled to the rails and stood up for me. I will always remember that.









The advantage of having Ann teach in the school system in Malad was being able to have the photographer take pictures of our children before they were in school. Otherwise, we would never have been able to do it because of the time of driving to a photographer in Logan, and even then, we didn't have the money to do it. We were always so proud of most of the pictures.














Like I said, we were proud of most of the pictures. The one on the right was at a bad time. Lydia was not feeling well, and she had just reached a time when she did not like having her picture taken. That phase ended when she was fifteen years old.

















The next picture is yet another one that showed how cute she was at that age. But between Cles and my teasing, it is a miracle that she stayed so nice. Lydia was fun to tease.

And she was curious, a sign of intelligence. After opening the door on the floor, crawling into the hole and falling down the laundry chute at the ranch, we thought things would calm down. It frightened us. The fall was at least eight feet, but the blessing was the fact that even though no clothing was at the bottom leaving only a cement floor, it didn't hurt her. I maintain that chevrons of guardian angels follow me and mine on a daily basis. And they have done so for decades. My dad nailed the laundry shoot door shut immediately.

After riding her tricycle down the stairs at the ranch, we gave her a family nickname--Evil Knievel Lydia.



Lydia still has a fun-loving personality. And she inherited the mischievous eyes from her mother.
There were some bad hair days, but Lydia still remained a sweetheart.This picture, with her nervous look in front of a camera, reminds me of my little Tommy. He hates cameras as much as I do. My family will notice, that I do not like my picture taken. It's not like I think someone will steal my soul. It just that I would rather people remember what I look like my my keeping a few good pictures for them to see. I hope the others get misplaced somehow, yet I would be angry if any of my wife or my children or grandchildren said that. I want all of the pictures.

But regardless how things appear when you are young, we eventually become adults, other than a few people I knew during my lifetime. I could probably include myself in that assessment. These are some of Lydia's senior pictures.

As a senior, she was an independent thinker. She was a member of the student counsel at the high school, like all three of my children. And like all of my children, she is beautiful and intelligent, making her ineligible to become a credible candidate for the Republican Party.

My only regret is not having a copy of her playing soccer. Cles told me I had to see her play. He said, "She's mean. Lydia hits people." That always made me smile, maybe because I played football like that. I swore at opponents too, often getting penalized during a game. Once a referee even warned me that one more verbal obscenity would get me ejected from the game. That's when a teammate brought me back to reality, because they needed me on the field.

Grandchild Quote for the Day

Before Ann left this morning to do some things at Jakers, I asked Jack where grandma was. "She's in the computer room," he said.

I asked him to ask her if she would come downstairs for a minute. "No, she's focused," he said. We both laughed about that.

Later in the day, he was talking to us while sitting in the car seat in the VW Bug. Jack started telling a story of something he remembered, but he started in an interesting way: "Way back when I was four."

Later he made the statement that something happened"eighteen years ago." He hears things Ann and I say, and then he experiments with words, just like Tommy and Anna do. Each grandchild does it a different way.

Tommy, while getting ready for school, is showing how independent he is. When he gets ready for school and walks to the school bus, he doesn't want anyone taking him by the hand or even standing outside. And the same is true when the bus arrives. He told Lydia not to stand outside at the spot where the bus lets him out in the afternoon, because he walks home with his friends.

Our last day there was sad, because we knew it would be a while before we saw everyone again. The bus arrives, and we stood outside. I wanted to take a movie clip with my cell phone of Tommy getting on the bus. The bus stopped, the door opened, and before I could engage the phone, Tommy disappeared up the four steps to find a seat. And then in my rush to take another picture of the bus leaving, I forgot to save the clip. But I will always remember it.

Ann drove for me, because the wrapping on my feet made it impossible for me to brake or to shift gears. And sometimes in traffic it was easy to take a wrong turn. We became lost more than once, and Ann--like any true Welshman--said "damn."

I hear Anna's voice in the back. "Say dang grandma," she said.

The Vimbo

Palin is qualified, and I am the Walrus (goog goog a joob). The fascinating thing about this whole thing is the precedence that this scenario presents. Her statement suggesting some sort of qualification for high government office was something like this: "When I look out my kitchen window, I can see Russia."

I am not sure what frightens me more: her suggesting it in an open forum on televsion, or American voters accepting it, nodding their heads and smiling with glassy eyes and a look on their face as if they are experiencing rapture. I never knew that ignorance was so powerful.

But in a way it brings me a sense of satisfaction. When I look up through the sunroof of either one of my Volkswagens, I see stars. I guess that makes me qualified to be an astronaut. When I look out my kitchen window, I see my neighbor's satellite dish. I guess that qualifies me for any number of wonderful things--a news journalist job with CNN, a supervisory position with NASA, an opportunity to work as a rocket scientist in Houston or Florida.

Just when I thought I was too old and broken from chemo to work, a new paradigm emerges that gives unqualified opportunites to achieve their dreams without a resume, without talent, without experience.

I lost sleep over the idea of her being a heartbeat away from leading a superpower, but then I realized that Europe and Asia might appreciate her. She can teach them how to field dress a moose.

A Star Wars Spoof

Cles found this clip for me. The next one is funny, but this one is hilarious in a bizarre way only our family can appreciate. Our sense of humor and our passion for everything Star Wars are two reasons I added them as blogs.

A Video For Jack, Tommy & Anna

Originally, I played this for Jack. He loved it, so I put it on my blog for Jack, Tommy and Anna--our three padawans. When the three were playing together in Minnesota, the three of them played Star Wars every day. Light sabers were swinging, and even Anna became a part of the battle. In the heat of battle, occasionally the boys would miss and get one of her fingers. She would cry for a minute, and then a short time later, she was running with them with light saber or laser blaster in hand. The three of them were even making up dialogue between them in their little play scenes.

When In Greece . . .

Ann booked the trip of a lifetime for us in the late 90's. For $1200 per person, we did a fourteen day cruise that took us through Greece and into Turkey. We are at the Temple of Apollo, and a tour guide is telling us about the area and especially about the area's significance and the oracle who once was a dominant part of Greek tradition. Ann keeps taking pictures and snickering at me. I tell her to stop. People are looking at us. I give a dirty look that you see in the picture, and Ann almost has to leave the area. She is laughing silently with her hand gripped firmly on her mouth.

After we return to the boat, she shows me the picture of me below Socrates. Whenever she accuses me of being sarcastic or being a smart a$$, I remind her about this little joke she played on me. I have to admit I could have been a bit more jovial if the temperature there had not been over 105 degrees.

It is funny now, but at the time, it was not humorous at all. My Annie booked that trip with a ship designed for the rich and pretentious. We would walk about the boat, and these women would walk about with these hats that at least three feet in diameter. They were like the awful looking hats in the movie Titanic. The first night at a "sit down" meal, several people asked us what we did for a living. It horrified them that teachers would be on able to participate. After that I made a point of telling everyone we met at dinner about our questionable social class. Eventually, other teachers found us. In spite of the awful snobs, the trip was magnificent. I could have done a cruise on Stone Reservoir with my Annie for two weeks and enjoyed it, but I have to admit, the cruise in the Mediterranean was incredible.

It is a place I want to take my Annie one more time.

Berlin, A Second Home

In 1999 Ann and I were in Northern Germany for the last time. It was close to Berlin, so we made the trip to see old friends--Tom, Wolfgang and Giesela. Ann and I stayed at Tom with Tom Still while we exchanged with Gustav Heinemann Gesammtschule. Tom and Giesela were the first teachers from the school who stayed with us while I was a German teacher in Malad. Giesela only came one time, but that exchange that Tom and Giesela supervised was one of the magical ones. It was a time when German students thanked us for what we tried to do for them, and as long as Tom did the exchanges, that attitude continued. When I visited Berlin a few times with student groups long after we stayed in other cities, it always felt like home when I arrived there. It was like home. Only two cities in Germany were like that for me, Berlin and Dillingen, a little city in Southern Germany.

The picture at the left was a piece of modern art, but what they named it shows the Berlin sense of humor. They called it the Wasserklops or water dumpling. The way they used language to express something funny is something I will always miss. A Molle is a slang term for a beer, and Mollenfriedhof or beer cemetery is what they called a beer belly. I find that funny. The people of Berlin were outspoken. Their city showed a tendency for creativity. There were music clubs that offered everything from Elvis impersonators to incredible jazz music, and art museums there were incredible.

Travel was also easy. They had city trains, subways, bus lines. It was not difficult to travel from one part of the city to the next.

That final trip to Berlin was a sad one. All of us had aged. Ann and I hoped to see Giesela, but she suffered from MS at the time, and she died a few years later. She told us that she wanted us to remember her like she was. Ann and I never understood that until after I fought cancer.

It would be the last time we would visit Tom and Wolfgang. By the time we returned to Germany, the exchange site was in Stuttgart. But I will always remember the friendships we made there.

South Dakota--The Place To Be If You Need Help On The Road

Trips through South Dakota this summer did not give my Annie and me a very good impression of the state. I tried to keep an open mind, especially given the fact that I always admired and respected Tom Dashle, and after his loss in the last election, I did not need a lot of reasons to find dislike on the drive along the highway that introduced us to the beautiful Black Hills.

During the first trip in the summer, we met several young pick-up truck drivers, who like where I live, believed they needed both lanes of a four-lane road, and without getting satisfaction of that wish, they used their horn, nasty euphemisms, and a finger on one hand to express themselves. I had forgotten that you always yield all lanes to rednecks.

And then suddenly something important occurred to me--a hope that no one felt I was responsible for someone like Larry Craig, who represented Idaho for a long time before he embarrassed the state for months that seemed like years. And suddenly I realized that conclusions travelers made about me and my family because of some distasteful person they met from Idaho was not really fair to me and my family.
We leave the state of Minnesota and enter South Dakota. I am in the passing lane, and I blow a tire just at the eastern city limits of Sioux Falls. Ann and I can see where roads join some 400 yards ahead of us. We call AAA Automobile Roadside Service, and I tell them where we are. Three times the young man asks me how close to Wyoming I am, and three times I repeat that I am near Sioux Falls, just over the Minnesota state line. I wait 25 minutes, and a call comes through my cell phone. Cars and trucks, though they are to get in the outer lane, speed by our car. The car shakes with each passing motorist. A tow truck is coming from the Wyoming state line, some four or five hours away. When I told the man where we were, he told me he would call the service and tell them about their mistake. I wait ten minutes and hear nothing except large trucks speeding by our car. A South Dakota Highway Patrolman stops. He was very nice. He told us the mile marker, and I call roadside service again. Again the young man from South Dakota still phones the same tow truck again. After waiting over an hour, I let my Annie call. I could feel my heart throbbing in my neck, and my fingers were itching to dial the man again.

My Annie gets the same one on the phone, and again, he says he will call the same tow truck. "Honey," my Annie says, they are 12 hours away. My sweetheart embellished the story here, but she finally was able to get the person to realize where we were. We waited another ten minutes, and a tow truck arrived.

The traffic is so heavy that I would have joined any number of the massive bugs littered across the hood, window and bumper of cars, driven by idiots. I could not exit the car, although I was as far off the road as possible. And I did notice that the creepy drivers were from a large number of states, and there were even a few from provinces from that third world country with igloos just north of America. Oh, and I almost forgot the two stinky trucks carrying pigs. Just the memory allows me to sit and bask in the ambiance of the hour we spent there. The man in the tow truck changed the tire quickly. I began to like the people from South Dakota.

Getting on the road again was nice, but the car still drove strangely. We stopped in Presho. I had been excited about our car having a full size tire as a spare, but in Presho, where I stopped to fill up with diesel fuel, I noticed the tire's air pressure was low. A woman in the station came out and asked if everything was alright. I asked her about an air hose, and she showed me where it was and even brought me out a pressure gauge. No doubt about it, the people of South Dakota are incredible, and that was just the beginning of the trip across the state.

More Views of South Dakota

We spent the night in Rapid City. The trip had been exhausting, and we thought we would get up early in the morning and see Mt. Rushmore and The Crazy Horse Memorial before we left. I had been worrying about the brakes, and I thought it would be nice to spend a bit of time near Rapid City before we left on the remainder of a long trip across South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.

We did the Crazy Horse Memorial first, and everything sounded fine. Jack loved the view of the monument. We spent a quarter to give him a closer view, and we even picked up a rock they chipped away there that they had in a large pile for tourists. It was a good stop for Jack to run around a bit before leaving on the remaining nine hour drive.

We stopped at Mt. Rushmore, but as I braked, I heard the sound I hoped I wouldn't hear: metal on metal. For some reason, I hoped it was a mistake. We stopped took some pictures and started for home. I did not even drive a mile before I stopped and called the local Volkswagen dealership in Rapid City, and they gave me a name of a mechanic I could trust.

The phone did not have a good connection, so we hurried as quickly as possible. I arrived at 1:30 p.m., an hour before they were to close.

I was in the worst mood by this time. I regretted going to Mt. Rushmore and The Crazy Horse Memorial, yet without doing that, we would have discovered the problem on the Interstate, far from anyone who could work on my car before Monday. It had been a blessing to have stayed a bit longer that morning.

I told the owner of the shop about the dealership telling me to ask him to help me, and they said they would look at things to see what they could do. At first, they thought it was a rotor problem, something very expensive. But then they looked at the brake pads. Every one of them was in need of repair. I had been in a bad mood, and now I was really pissed. When I had tires rotated six weeks earlier, they had told me about the problem, but the dealership had said not to worry, because everything was fine.

The pulled the car into the shop with Jack asleep in the back seat. He did not wake up for about ten minutes, and then his eyes were the size of silver dollars. The window was down, and I told him that I had used the Force to raise the car. He gave me the look, "Yea right, silly Pop Pop!" The mechanic said there was no problem with him staying in the car or getting him out. Jack wanted out. It took only a short time to get him out, and Jack and my Annie sat in the waiting room. The shop closed at 2:00. They finished my car at 2:40. I know the mechanic who worked on the car was not thrilled, but he did the work, and he did very well. The problems I had complained about for six months disappeared. I was glad that it would be several days before I would contact my dealership.

The job took a bit longer than I had hoped, but even as late as it was after closing, the shop owner checked my tire pressure in all tires. And we were finally on our way.

This picture is another one of Jack experiencing the power of the Force (hydraulics of course) as the car lifted into the air. I did not call my dealership until Tuesday. I made appointments for both cars, but I aired my complaints. When we picked both cars up after the work there, they had been washed and detailed. I like the dealership, but the brake thing was not a smart thing for them to do, especially given the fact that my Annie and I are looking at buying another car. The Jetta has 135,000 miles, and the VW Bug has 102,000, although it has a new engine. As angry as I am at them over the brakes, I still have to remember that when I had a timing belt problem that took out the motor at 95,000 miles, they took care of it for free. It is like having a new car. Their past history has made it difficult to buy anything anywhere else, but the brake thing will not happen again if we choose to have another VW product in our driveway. Again, I found incredible people in South Dakota. They were honest and fair with me. They worked until my car was finished, even if it was after hours, and they were really friendly. I enjoy good people, whether I agree with their politics or not.