Groaning like Grandpa

Raccoon tie-in with Easter

Recently we spied an old cross we'd made out of brazed cement nails as we strode the yard looking for manifestations to remove.

For example, soon I will take a Saws-All hack-saw to the 'VULCAN' sign arm of the yard light and divide that from the rest of the pyramidal yard illuminator, a good and functional thing still, which we years ago left unpainted purposefully to rust; per the suggesion of our late welder-artist friend, John Tyson.

This cross was easily removed from a fence post along the back pathway. It was just a matter of unscrewing it by hand.

The decision was to send it to unmet but beloved welder brother Stew Tolbert in Dillonvale, OH. Workers with 2500 deg. C. fire sometimes can have a bond as strong as their cut and joined work. Readers of the raccoon news will be familiar with Stew, holding forth on a reclaimed abandoned coal mine near the Ohio River. For more, search 'Stew' at the SRN search window upper left.

Stew told us that he wanted to attach the cross to something in his barn, allowing it to continue weathering as had been the custom for the sturdy steel symbol here. But Donna, his wife, wouldn't hear of it and insisted that it be attached to the dining room wall.

There it is now. His two year old faithful grandson likes to touch it, we're told. He also likes to groan just like his grandpa does when he himself stands up.

But then, Stew took the package the cross was mailed in, flattened it, and hung that on his welding shop barn wall. Evidently even our scrawled raccoon design on the back of the box had value to Mr. Tolbert, who we now certainly believe is a man of discriminating taste.

This is the sort of setting I would most desire for anything I ever did!

Thanks, Stew!

Fade out, Henry Waschow

Man leaves flower seeds to friends

Hank Waschow departed this coil recently. Graduated from Waukesha High School in 1954, he was a charter member of the short-lived Gruvna Club there and will ever be remembered thus.

He made probably every high school reunion for that class that ever was, though he hailed from Marin County CA.

Hank gave us less than favorable marks for not making a single reunion. Yet, in his kindness, and in perhaps recollection of happier times when we wore the red Gruvna beanies together, his daughter saw to it that we received these cherished flower seeds.

Thanks, Hank!

RIP

Pictured above:

bottom left to right, Doug Rasmussen, David Dix, Hank Waschow

upper row, Ron Reichert, Bill Nelson, Bob Harter, Alan Luke

Charming finds dep't

by Ruth Elies, Tolken Creek elementary WI

Our mother's mother used to reward with pennies from a jar on the top cabinet shelf. When the SRN editor was small and he needed money, Grandma would give him sometimes five pennies, due to the inflation of the day, we guess. But those pennies added up...........

Having learned how

Ref: http://raccoonnews.blogspot.com/2010/03/pembine-wi-1977-heading-to-hermits.html

....................................later that same year. Now mouse-chewed attic pic.

First senior moment

..........into every life................

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjNX_gayY1E

Torn from the mouse-chewed pages of history

Some say Irena was an imaginary figure. See 'Zepata' series in the raccoon news.

Look! It's a

Personal Letter (Elegy for the)

by Allison Joseph (My Father's Kites)

I miss the rumpled corners of correspondence,

the ink blots and crossouts that show

someone lives on the other end, a person

whose hands make errors, leave traces.

I miss fine stationary, its raised elegant

lettering prominent on creamy shades of ivory

or pearl grey. I even miss hasty notes

dashed off on notebook paper,

edges ragged as their scribbled messages

—can't much write now—

thinking of you.

When letters come now, they are formatted

by some distant computer, addressed

to Occupant or To the family living at—

meager greetings at best,

salutations made by committee.

Among the glossy catalogs

and one time only offers

the bills and invoices,

letters arrive so rarely now that I drop

all other mail to the floor when

an envelope arrives and the handwriting

is actual handwriting, the return address

somewhere I can locate on any map.

So seldom is it that letters come

that I stop everything else

to identify the scrawl that has come this far—

the twist and the whirl of the letters,

the loops of the numerals. I open

those envelopes first, forgetting

the claim of any other mail,

hoping for news I could not read

in any other way but this.