IN THE NEVER-NEVER LAND BETWEEN
Christmas and New Years, we launch this Saturday Raccoon.
The Sewer Raccoon was born five years ago.
We've been cranking the organ out that long.
Note the fly wheel on that mighty engine of old.
So this calendar, the Pleasant Valley Maryland calendar
we got from Dee's family there,
annotated with all the birthdays so-marked,
is a good initial image for this week
standing on the threshold
of a new year.
WE BEGIN
A NEW PUBLISHING YEAR
on a new computer, a Dell System 8, programmed by Erin's Appleton friend, Ben;
the new machine at which we now sit is reconfigured
with all the vast memory we'd consigned to the old one;
a set-up and transfer process that took hours of an off-duty day
for Ben and Erin, who gave them willingly
during the Christmas break at Lawrence University
where they both work.
So this magnificent change at the signal five-year marker
of the life of the Sewer Raccoon News
is facilitated by our children and with the invaluable help
of computer professional Ben, a man from an apple orchard
in Rochester WI.
At work on the computer switch, Erin and Ben exchange smiles
over the good deed they are performing for Mom and Dad.
The out-sized Dell tower was carefully dissembled for the all-important C drive. The much stronger tower sits at the right, a fraction of the size of the retiree, yet much more potent.
Appropriate words have been whispered over the at-last-at-rest machine
which performed nobly for all those years. Anthropomorphically, we maintain it
did not want to quit us.
But it is at peace, and we sail off into
an even more facile and illustrious future.
..............................
A Christmas gift for Dee
from Plowshares, Main Street, downtown Waukesha.
Made from a single soda can cut in a continuous long narrow strip,
this lizard banjoist strums happily on the piano
at the Odd Fellows.
KD
SPENT A GOOD SHARE OF HER FIRST CHRISTMAS
IN THE BAG.
A Roundy's supermarket bag.
Over the Odd Fellows loft rail, Erin trims the tree, while brother Lee reads.
Lee, also a participant in the computer blessing, was home from NYC
where he teaches kindergarten at Harlem Village Academies.
............
Reprinted from
Winter 2003 LANDMARK MAGAZINE
quarterly of the Waukesha Historical Society
John Schoenknecht, Editor
.....................
Number One Son
David Jr.
has a birthday today, 12-29-12
David has been invaluable to me
for 55 years.
Happy birthday!
You are amazing!
(What's that in your hand?)
David interests sister Laurie in a frog!
