NOVEMBER WENT THERE, TOO

I titled my last blog, "Where Did October Go?" because I'd been so lax at posting. Well, it's happened again. Another month has flown by without a blog.

And it's NOT because there's been nothing happening.

On the 3rd, we had Parent-Teacher conferences. Andrew's was quick and easy. Mr. Edwards said, "He's a great kid, doing well in his studies. And I do silly things on purpose just to hear his wonderful laugh." Emily's took a little longer. Not because of any problems, but because I talked too long with teachers that had Jeff and Adam. Brought them up to date on my two son's doin's and on some of their classmates. Absolutely MADE Mrs. O'Hare's day when I told her that Mike Barber was a middle school science teacher in Charlottesville. NOTHING makes a good teacher happier than learning that one of her students followed in her footsteps.

The next day my son in State College called and said, "Hey, Dad. Wanna go to the PSU/Ohio State game?" I told him there were two conditions. The weather had to be good enough - as in no rain and temperature above 40 - for me to ride the Honda and the seats couldn't be in one of the nosebleed sections. The seats were good and the weather promised to be almost balmy. So Friday morning I headed to State College. With my frequent stops, it's a 7 hour ride. But it was in the 50's by noon and a great ride.

Friday night the frat brother who had the extra tickets invited us to join him and his family at The Tavern which is an old Penn State tradition. It's where you take your parents when they come to visit. I took mine there 40+ years ago. We went there with Jeff. Jeff and Ann's rehearsal dinner was there. And then we learned the real reason we'd been invited. Everybody else was driving in Friday evening and the Tavern doesn't take reservations. Never has, probably never will. So, "Would we mind going down early and getting our names on the list to eat around 8:30?" Of course not. Jeff called around 5 and the lady said,"Oh, if you're here by 7 it should be no problem." So we went down around 6:30 and it was a complete zoo. PACKED shoulder to shoulder. Took 5 minutes to fight our way to the check in. The greeter said, "We're seating #48 and you'll be number 165 with seating around 10 or 10:30. But wait, I need to check and see if we're even giving out any more numbers." He came back and said that the chef said it was OK to give out a few more numbers, so we could plan on eating around 10. Then a man came up and said, "What did they tell you?" When I told him "10 o'clock, number 165", he said, "We're not going to wait any more. Here, you can have our number 94." So we found an empty table - another little miracle in itself - and waited for the gang. Had time for one drink with them and then we sat down to dinner at exactly 8:30. We had a wonderful, leisurely meal and just as we got up to leave a few minutes after 10 we heard them call number 165. Thank you, kind gentleman, whoever you are. And remember, it always pays to wear your Penn State colors. Because he said he wouldn't have approached me if I'd been wearing red !

Well, you know what happened at the game. We played poorly and lost. But in a stadium of 110,000, we sat down next to two of Tom's frat brothers. Not only brothers, but from the same class. More in-betweens every where I look. They had a great talk while sort of watching the game.

I posted on Facebook that I was in State College for the weekend to see if any of my old PSU friends might respond. No one did - except Marie, the young lady we met in Jamaica this summer. She joined us on Sunday for a hike up Mt Nittany. And she got her first motorcycle ride as part of the day.



AND she has video to prove it !

A wonderful day, great friends






AND Marie hit it off so well with my grandkids that Tom and Ann hired her the very next day to babysit. So they've got a new "daytime" babysitter, Marie has some local friends for when she wants to escape campus life and she has some spending money.

All because we said, "HI" to a couple of strangers in Jamaica.

Tinkerbell lives !

WHERE DID OCTOBER GO??

Kids in school, Emily playing soccer, Andrew singing in Church Youth Choir, Tom playing bass with "Silver Heads and Nimble Fingers" at various nursing homes, Carol quitting her afternoon job to be home when the kids get off the school bus.

BUSY month that just FLEW by.

With many wonderful in-betweens and gratitude for wonderful people in our lives.

One of these is Peggy Wright, who is the leader of "Silver Heads and Nimble Fingers." She asked me to join them last year when they were invited to play at the Blue Ridge Folklife Festival sponsored by Ferrum College. I guess we were a hit because they invited us back this year. The only bad part was that again this year it was a weekend that Carol's ex had the kids so they missed it. But WE had a great time, didn't embarrass ourselves too badly AND GOT PAID TO DO IT !!!

Ferrum College is a small (1000 students) college in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It's a beautiful campus. Last year it rained most of the day. This year we drove down in the rain but by 10:30 the sky turned blue with white puffy clouds and sunshine.




Again this year we played in the Chapel, which was the venue for Gospel.

This is the bell tower.



And the entrance to the Chapel




We were listed as playing "Carter Family Gospel." And we did several old Carter Family songs, but added some newer things as well.





Carol thinks THESE are the pictures of the band that you should see







THEN CAME HALLOWEEN !!!

I know I've talked over and over about how great the people in Salem are.

But here's just one more example - the very first visitor we had on Halloween night was Mrs. King, a neighbor from two doors away. She said that she and her husband were going to spend Halloween with their grandkids. They wouldn't be home when Andrew and Emily came trick-or-treating so she brought little bags of candy to them.

Rhiannon, a friend of Emily's from Elementary school joined us for trick-or-treating. Carol took them around our neighborhood while I watched the first half of the Penn State/Northwestern game. Then we went to an older neighborhood in Salem where they really "go all out" for Halloween. Up to and including haunted houses.

Andrew was ScoobyDoo, Emily was Sally from "A Nightmare Before Christmas" and Rhiannon was a Prom Queen.



Earlier in the day Saturday, Salem did it again with a fantastic Pumpkin Festival at the Farmer's Market. Lots of activities for the kids, free pumpkins, cheap eats, kids of all ages in costume.





My BIG disappointment of the day was - I wore my Airline Pilot tee-shirt and carried a laptop bag and nobody "got it". So maybe Salem is full of wonderful people who just aren't as sick as I'd thought.

Life is good in Salem.

ANOTHER GREAT CMA RALLY

The weekend of Sept 19th - actually Thursday for me - we attended the Christian Motorcyclists Association State Rally in Dublin, VA.

I went down Thursday with the Airstream. Carol and the kids followed Friday afternoon after the kids got out of school.

This is the same rally we attended last year. The big difference for us was that last year we did one short program for the kids. This year we did two longer ones - AND - there were more kids. Not as many as we would have liked, but Freda Hubert, the State Coordinator for the CMA Youth Movement says, "We'll keep putting on quality programs and word will spread." So we'll hope for a bigger crowd next year.

The kids that were there were absolutely delightful!

So faith filled and enthusiastic !

Carol did some great craft projects with them.







I led them in songs to help them learn the 10 Commandments and the 10 Plagues.



We had to leave Saturday night after the program because Andrew sang in our Church Youh Choir on Sunday. Again, I am so encouraged by the young people that God has placed in my life. At our Church, at CMA events, at Emily's and Andrew's schools.

Emily and Andrew.

And of course, MY GRANDKIDS!!

Ben had a birthday on August 31st.



NO NO NO - How could such attentive parents make such a BIG mistake?

He CAN'T POSSIBLY BE FOUR. Time can't possibly fly by that fast. There MUST BE some mistake.



There is - I shouldn't blog without complete information.

Ben is THREE. He's just so smart that I thought he was 4 !!! There was an extra candle on the cake to celebrate Ann's birthday along with his.


I think he liked this present.



The whole family spent some quality time at the beach.




Those pictures don't have anything to do with CMA or the Rally. It's just been too long since I've posted pictures of my BEAUTIFUL grandkids.

I am so Blessed.

SETTLING DOWN IN SALEM

As usual, I'm late posting this, but the kids started school on Sept. 8th. Here they are with Mom, waiting for the bus.





Andrew's bus comes around 7:30 and Emily's around 8:00. WAY too early, in my mind at least. But working parents want them all gone before 8 or 8:30, so that's that. Salem runs High School, Middle School and Elementary school routes with one set of buses.

Labor Day weekend was our "last hoorah" before school. We each had a day alone with each of the kids. Carol took Emily to Books-a-Million while I took Andrew to Michael's. Then we went to Pizza Hut, followed by a 40 mile ride on the Honda. He finally grew enough this summer to reach the pegs !! Carol went shopping and to lunch with Emily.

Then, a couple of days later, we traded. Same routine for Emily and me. But Carol took Andrew to Chuck E. Cheese for the afternoon. A great end of summer time for us all.

On Sunday, after Church, we all rode to Hillsville to visit our friends at the Gun Show and Flea Market. And forgot our camera. Cindy's sister-in-law Kathy took some pictures so you'll have to check back later.

School is starting off well. Both kids have great teachers. We're especially excited that Andrew - 3rd grade - East Salem - has a male teacher. Mr Edwards came from the county. He had been an elementary teacher and the Head Football Coach for Hidden Valley High School. He resigned as Coach because his son played football as a Freshman at Salem High last year and Dad missed all of his games. When the Salem coach found out about his resignation, he offered him a job as assistant coach at Salem. So not only will Dad get to see all his son's games, he'll be coaching the team as well. Given Salem's dedication (obsession?) with football, I worried out loud to a friend that Andrew might have a really poor teacher who happened to be a good coach. Turns out I was totally wrong to worry. The friend has kids at West Salem and was VERY upset that Mr. Edwards was at East Salem. West Salem had hopes of getting him on their staff because his wife teaches there. Great Teacher. William and Mary Alum. We've since met him and are totally impressed. Andrew will have a great year.

Last night was Emily's "Back to School Night" at Andrew Lewis Middle School where she is in the 8th grade. We met all of her teachers and again are totally impressed with the Salem school system.

I had an interesting start with 1st period, Science. I said, "Hello. I'm Tom Cook. Emily Wheeler's step-dad." to Mrs. O'Hare. She said, "It's so good to see you again. I had your son Tom my first or second year here. I guess he's all grown with a family by now." When I told her that I thought she might be mistaken because he was 40 years old and she didn't look old enough to have taught him she said, "Well I did. I was only 12 years older than my 8th graders that first year. He was a very, very good student." She really didn't remember him being a major pain. I guess selective memory is a good thing.

The teachers all displayed a true love of the kids and passion for their subjects. I'm sure I'll be posting about the other teachers as we work with them and Emily to get successfully through this transition year.

Life is Good in Salem !

STILL JAMMIN' IN JAMAICA

We were sitting at "our" table at lunch one day when a beautiful woman and her equally beautiful daughter came in holding drinks with little umbrellas in them.

Since we knew those were the "welcome cocktails", we said, "Hi. Welcome to Jamaica."

Bert and her college bound daughter, Maria were celebrating Maria's next step in life by spending a few days in Jamaica. They weren't staying a full week because they had to leave Thursday to go home and pack for Maria's Saturday departure to college. We talked with them a little, found out they were from Philly, and that Bert works in the HR department for the city. Both were excited but apprehensive about Maria going off to school.

At dinner a couple of nights later I went to the bar to get drinks. I was wearing one of my Penn State shirts and the bartender read, very slowly, "Peeennnnn State. Where is that?" I said, Pennsylvania - in the US." He said, "Oh. Is it a company or something."

AARRRGGGGHHHH "No, it's a university."

I came back to the table with the drinks. Carol took one look at my face and said, "Honey, what's wrong." When I told her what had happened, she said, "Well, you can't expect everyone in the world to know about Penn State."

"Oh yeah? Why not?"

She suggested that I get over it and enjoy Jamaica.

When all else fails, there's always chocolate. So I went to the dessert buffet. Bert and Maria were there. When Maria saw my shirt, she squealed, "Penn State! That's where I'm going Saturday." and gave me a big hug. Take THAT, clueless barkeep !

We were having way too much fun to spend time taking pictures. Fortunately, some of the other new friends that Bert and Maria made took some of them. And Bert allowed me to take a couple from her Facebook pages.

Here's one.


and another


Our last night there they joined us for dinner along with another student they had made friends with. See a trend here? "..friends who took pictures; another friend; us; These two captured the hearts of everyone they encountered. What a GREAT pair ! And we were lucky enough to be included in their circle.

We've exchanged email and Facebook addresses and we look forward to keeping up with their lives - AND Maria's conquest of PSU !

Tinkerbell strikes again. What a wonderful "inbetween."

We got up in the middle of the night to make our 7:00am flight. Jamaica immigration people require that you arrive at the airport 2 1/2 hours before departure. Uneventful connection in Miami and on to Charlotte, followed by the drive home.

We saw a bunch of thunderstorms on approach to Charlotte but the pilot did an excellent job of twisting and turning around them.

We also saw a bunch more on the drive home, but missed driving through any. As we were headed up the mountain on I-77, we saw a big rainbow off to the side. Since we were on the side of the mountain looking out over the lower plain, we could clearly see the entire rainbow. Including where both ends hit the ground. Cool.

Then, all of a sudden, one of the ends shifted and came down in the mist to end on the highway right in front of us. And it stayed with us as we drove for a couple of miles. Magical. Of course, all the cameras were packed in the luggage.

But it was a great return to Virginia.

Great trip. Great place. Really great people.

Wonderful honeymoon.

But it's good to be home.

Life is good - here in Virginia!

SWIMMING WITH DOLPHINS

Our major event - and expenditure - in Jamaica was a trip to Dolphin Cove.

Great photo ops all over the place and your camera is welcome everywhere

EXCEPT in the dolphin area. There the staff takes videos and still shots to sell to you later. Actually we couldn't have taken pictures anyway. We were too close to the dolphins.

Our group consisted of only the two of us and one other couple. Usually there are 4 couples so we got to do a lot of the stuff twice. Great fun.

Unfortunately the video is of all 4 of us, a little over 8 minutes long. I've tried to edit it but can't seem to make anything work. So until I come up with a better solution than playing it on the TV and videoing it with my camera, I guess I'm stuck with still shots.

We started by getting acquainted with our two new friends.








Then we each got taken for a ride











Then we got personal







TA DA - TA DA - TA DA - DRUM ROLL, PLEASE

For the grand finale, Beta and Cometta put their noses on the arches of our feet and pushed us through the water until we went fast enough to come completely out of the water. Then they carried us across the lagoon and ended the ride by tossing us in the air.

I went first,


Then Carol,


Since we went first, we didn't know that it might be difficult. Then the other couple followed. She planed along the water like a surf board and never got in the air at all. He lifted into the air and immediately fell off. Later in the day we watched a group of 8 and none of them got out of the water.

We've watched the video many times now and have a couple of theories.

1. We're just fit and athletic.
NOPE, That ain't it.
2. Our youthful enthusiasm.
NOT THAT either. Most of the others were younger than Carol. And all were less than half my age.
3. We REALLY LIKED the dolphins, were completely comfortable with them and THEY KNEW IT. So they gave us a better ride.
THAT'S GOTTA BE IT.

What an incredible day.

Life is Good !

HONEYMOON IN JAMAICA. WE BE JAMMIN' MON

As I blogged last week, we decided it would be selfish to go to NYC without the kids, so we spent a week in Jamaica instead.

We went to Charlotte, NC the night before and caught an 8:00AM non-stop on USAir.

Carol had never been to the Caribbean. When the plane descended, she got her very first look at that blue/green water. She said, "Oh my goodness. Why didn't you tell me what the water was like?" I said, "Because there is no way to describe it."

If you've seen it, you understand. If you haven't - well, you have to to understand.




Everything bad you've heard about Jamaica really doesn't apply to the north coast. Kingston may still be bad, but we flew into Montego Bay, rode east for about an hour to Runaway Bay and found everybody friendly, accommodating and very eager to please. No troops with machine guns any where. Nobody tried to sell us any drugs. Nobody hassled us to buy trinkets. Even the shopping trip to Ohco Rios was delightful.

We stayed at a small, all inclusive resort that fit our needs perfectly. Only about 80 rooms and less than half full at this time of year. We arrived at the resort at about 1:00pm. By 4:00pm bartenders at both of the main bars knew our names and what we were drinking.




The "beach" was really two small lagoons protected by breakwaters.



We were able to swim, snorkel - more about that later, kayak, pedalboat, sunbath, eat, drink and socialize without leaving the resort.







But we DID leave the resort.

First, we took a day trip to Ocho Rios to shop. Met some interesting people from California. Got a detailed warning about the the street hustlers and how we should just say, "NO MON. We don't want none." and how there were "tourist police" whose only job was to see that the locals didn't get too pushy. We heard stories about them asking your name, coming back 5 minutes later with a carved wood turtle with your name on it and demanding $10.

But we didn't experience any of that. Maybe the good old NYC "don't make eye contact" habits worked. We did succumb to a plea to enter the craft market and "Please, come to my booth inside and let me show you my carvings." While I was buying carvings from his uncle, the young man took Carol down two booths to meet his wife and I think we met two more relatives before we got out. But everyone was friendly and gently pushy. We enjoyed talking and bargaining with them.

The next day we went to Dunn's River Falls. 600' of cascading water which you pay money to climb. More fun than it sounds. In the USA, the lawyers would have already gotten rich and you'd have pads, wooden walkways, helmets and probably be safety roped the whole way. In "NO Problem, Mon" Jamaica they have "guides" who lead you on the climb - and they're optional.








Back at the resort, I convinced Carol to go snorkeling. We had gotten my old gear out and practiced a little in the pool at home and she had gotten very comfortable. I even bought her a "dry" snorkel in case the water was choppy. We started in the sandy end of the lagoon and she was fine laying on the water watching the little silver fish.


Then we went out a little further and two things happened that ended her snorkeling career. Some seaweed brushed against her leg. And she got "up close and personal" with a 3' long fish that looked a lot like a barracuda. It wasn't a barracuda, and she knew that. But it didn't matter. She says she's a wonderful snorkeler - as long as it's in a swimming pool.

Tomorrow it's off to Dolphin Cove to go swimming with dolphins. Carol is a little apprehensive after the snorkeling experience but I think I've convinced her it will be fun. "C'mon dear, they're mammals. All cute and cuddly like our cat Peaches, just no fur."

We'll see.

Life is so good.