The Mighty Ram Band

I spent yesterday morning in a reverie of old memories. I knew that today the Homecoming football game for the UF Gators would take place, and so I returned to my childhood remembrances of the Friday before Homecoming. Why? Because it was a holiday - no school! And, the main reason was the University of Florida Homecoming Parade - a two to three-hour long event with marching bands from universities and high schools all over Florida, as well as a few from Georgia and Alabama, too. There were floats and dignitaries and politicians, actors and comedians, horses, clowns, the Shriners' Car Clubs from all points in Florida, gymnasts, and just about everything a child could desire in a parade, including wrapped candies and necklaces being thrown to the crowds. I have very good memories of the parade. I remember Buddy Ebsen participating one year as a surprise guest - most people remember him for his role of Jed Clampett in the TV series The Beverly Hillbillies, but I always remember him dancing on the staircase with Shirley Temple. Then I grew pensive. When I was in high school, our band, the Eastside High School Marching Ram Band, usually had 90 to 110 members - and we were frequently mistaken for the Florida A & M Marching band. The band had soul. We could swing, we could rock, and we were among the first Florida high school bands to incorporate "dance" into the marching unit. Here it is, 35 years after graduation from high school, and I can still hear our band playing at football games, parades, concerts, DisneyWorld, and at the inaugurations of Governors. I grew pensive because my high school no longer has a marching band, or any type of band at all. It has AP classes, and students who get wonderful scholarships to fantastic colleges and universities; but, in my heart and mind, since the school no longer has a band (of any kind) the school lacks a heart and soul. Mister Richard Parker was the most wonderful band director a newly created school could ever have had. He welded together a conglomerate of kids, both white and black, who had been in segregated schools all their lives, and created magic - Ram band music magic. Students who were sports fanatics loved our band. Students who were academics loved our band. Students who were marking time loved the band. And the public loved our band as well. It is a very sad experience to look at my high school now and realize that they have NO music or band program. Everyone enjoys music of some kind; everyone deserves to have a band they can be proud of at their school. Come on, state of Florida, and get music back into the schools!

Squirrely

Squirrel and nut at Louisville, Kentucky zoo



A black squirrel



An albino squirrel



A Columbian Ground Squirrel at Banff National Park

"Balloon Boy"?!?

I'm very glad that I did not have the TV on yesterday afternoon; as it was, I turned it on just before 4 p.m., about three minutes before Falcon Heene ("the Balloon Boy") came down from his perch in the garage attic. Even though I had missed all the "drama" of the UFO balloon chase and the speculation on the boy's where-abouts as it played out on live TV, I received more than enough information during the evening, night, and this morning. When the boy appeared, he told a police officer that he had hidden in the attic "for the show." I, personally, don't know what happened, nor do I really care. The boy is home and safe. With today's almost instantaneous communications, it seems that almost every news item is blown out of proportion. Since the Heene family had participated in a reality show ("Wife Swap" or some such thing) lots of people had questions when the boy wandered back downstairs and made his original statement. Did the family want more publicity? Did they want to draw attention to their "scientific creations?" Again, I don't know and I don't care. The boy is home and safe. I hope the media will give this story, boy, and family a rest. File this as another "only in Colorado" story.

As I was walking the red kids through the neighborhood this morning, I came upon a tail beside the road. Remy and Rosie were interested in it, and I examined it. It was definitely a tail - but I could not definitely say whether it was the last half of a cat's tail or the whole tail of a small dog. The fur had been wet and had dried in the sun, and the hair seemed too coarse for a cat's tail, but then, some cats do have coarse fur. The appendage had been neatly severed from the rest of the body, and tooth marks could be discerned on the bones that were exposed. The local mountain lion has been spotted the last couple of nights in the neighborhood, and a fur-less, skin-less, head-less, and tail-less carcass was found yesterday in a neighbor's yard. No one I spoke to in the immediate area knows of a missing dog or cat - especially one that had a black-tipped white tail. ... Lovey is currently sitting on the corner of the desk, and Banichi is sitting just outside the door. And Gimpy, the squirrel, has decided he's house-broken. I have not seen him urinate in the litter box, but yesterday afternoon, while sitting and eating nuts, I noticed him looking at me, then the kits, and at his pile of dinner nuts. When neither I nor the cats moved, Gimpy walked over to the closest litter box, settled in it and dropped a load. I was amazed. Then he just walked back over to the pile of nuts, sat down and resumed eating. Weird.

Today's Picks

When can we run? Soon, please?



Honestly, I'm not doing anything!



Double rainbows in the Canadian Rockies.



View of the Bispebjerg churchyard in Denmark.

Dogs and Kits and Trees

I'm amazed. For the first time in almost a week, one can look to the west and see the Flatirons and mountains instead of mist and cloud. It was a trifle difficult doing research yesterday afternoon and evening, as I constantly had one cat in my lap or on my chest, while the other was on the desk top. This is my fourth day home in a row (other than walking the Rs), and currently Lovey is perched on my chest, while Banichi is laying on the desk corner - and both are purring. I take this behavior to mean that they love me and are happy that I'm home, even if they are not the center of attention. Later in the evening, however, both of them will sit sideways in front of the monitor completely blocking my view until I turn the screen off and pay attention strictly to them. I did manage to trace Andrew Peterson's family back in time to Jens Rasmussen, who was born about 1670 and died in 1725 in Gylling. Then I had to find out about Gylling, which is on the eastern coast of Denmark on the Jutland peninsula. And I had to be sure I was reading about Gylling, and not Jelling, which is about 50 miles to the southwest, and was the site that Gorm and Harald Bluetooth ruled from.

Remy and Rosie and I had a great time on our walk yesterday. They were upstairs when I arrived and came running at my whistle, spinning like twin whirling dervishes in their happiness to go out. We walked over to the Elks Club and through the nursing home's park, then spent 10 minutes chasing the bone and looking for squirrels at Suki and Boo's. We then visited Brandi, and also swung over onto Emerald to visit Hila. We met several dogs out for walks, and the kids were on their best behavior. There were several cheeky squirrels that ran across our path, but the Rs only reacted by glancing at me to see if it was OK to chase them. Since I kept my vision directed forward, the dogs just continued forward at a walk, although their heads did follow the path of the squirrel. ... Barnes and Noble is having a 50% off sale both on-line and in their stores on a great number of DVDs. I'm tempted to get the Monty Python boxed set, myself. ... And Accomack County in Virginia is under a flood watch due to winds, extremely high tides and a pressure system. I wonder if Pop-pop's house will end up with another high-tide mark on the wall paper in the big kitchen? Enjoy the rest of your week, my friends!

Chincoteague, Denmark, & Sweden

Slottsparken in Malmo, Sweden

The Gylling-Odder Church in Gylling, Jutland, Denmark

Normal scene in Copenhagen, Denmark

House on Little Oyster Bay, Chincoteague Island, Virginia

Gratification

I have been interested in my family tree since my Father died in 1980, leaving me at age 24 with half-remembered stories of his family, and with only his parents' and siblings' names in my possession. Within four years, I started badgering my Mother for stories of her family, and who we were related to on Chincoteague Island and elsewhere. I knew that Mom's grandparents on her fathers' side were Swedish; on her Mom's side of the family, Iccky D's father (Mom's great-grandfather) was an immigrant from Denmark; the rest were Chincoteaguers.
Over the years, I've decided that unless I visit Sweden, I'll probably never know the heritage of my grandfather's parents. After all, they had extremely common names - Andreas/Anders Johansson and Hannah Olson/Olesen - so it's like trying to find a single John Smith and a Mary Jones in the US without an idea of where to look. I have tried once to get the Naturalization documents for Andrew Peterson, but the address I had was faulty and the request was returned; I still plan on requesting it again, in hopes that I'll be able to find previously unknown information.
Last night, however, I had a brainstorm and realized that I had Andrew Peterson's birth date from his cemetery headstone. So I searched for a man with that name (or a variation of Andrew), with that birth date. I knew that Great-Aunt Jean had converted to Mormonism, and had been told that her information was on file in Salt Lake City. I found Great-Aunt Jean's file. She got her information directly from her Grandfather, Andrew Peterson... and so, last night, after over 25 years of searching, I found that Andrew's parents names were Peter Sorensen and Johanna Pederson; that he immigrated via Copenhagen, but he was raised in Gylling, Jutland, Denmark. I will, of course, verify this info as much as I am able to do. - I finally have another set of names in the family tree! I need to find out if these are, indeed, correct; and then I get to search for their parents. (And, heaven help me, I wonder how many men in Jutland had a father named Soren, and how many women had a father named Peder/Peter.....)

It's cool, foggy and cloudy again today. We had a high of 38 yesterday, and are hoping for a high of 50 today. Supposedly, it will be in the mid-70s on Saturday. Lovey is curled up in my lap, where she spent most of yesterday. Banichi is curled up on the foot of the bed, and I know that if I should sit on the edge of the bed, I'd have him in my lap as soon as possible. My cats are quite a comfort - and just as entertaining as TV, if not more!