I'm Still Alive

I have been a little under the weather the past week or two - and when I felt better, I have been trying to catch up with all your neat posts. I am still behind and with the weekend coming up - I'm not going to be catching up any time soon.


I've been in the home office more than at work lately, and last night the monitor on the home computer (which I bought in 1998!) finally gave up - and I pulled out the laptop in order to finish off what I had been doing.

The pictures show my home workspace - and how comfortable and comforting it is - surrounded by keepsakes and reminders of friends in other places. Tori made the beautiful scarf, the cute clay OCHA and the racing sailboats. Lynn made the three OCHA card (in honor of the Conas Brothers), and Alice Kay sent the really neat early railroad postcards and calendar with its endless field of sunflowers. I look at them ever day and just feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

I've recently been doing a lot of research into family history - some of it into perfect and complete strangers. Their stories are endlessly fascinating. I've also tracked down my mom's father's side of the family. I was blown away by how much "new" material is available on the Internet now -


My mom's father and his parents were settled in Oklahoma a bit too early. They had a place in Bryan, Oklahoma in my great-granny's last days, and even in her well advanced years, she axed off the chicken's head, plucked feather and cleaned gizzards, before frying her bird in lard. They worked hard back then - the lard wasn't too bad for 'em. Great-granny lived to be 97 years old - and family legend has it, she boiled the fat and made the perfumed soap that they used to clean her and her burial clothes just a day or two before she died.


With a hardy dose of mule-headedness and a lot of time on my hands when I could keep my runny eyes open, I looked through some old papers, photos, and did some on-line searching to fill in the holes (missing branches?) in the family tree. I found something that amazed even my Mom. Her dad's side of the family were always footloose and adventuresome - having left England for Virginia and settling in the Newport News/Hampton Roads area in the early 1600s before dying in 1624. That branch of the family moved into the western part of Virginia and over the mountains with Daniel Boone into Kentucky. From Kentucky, they moved onwards to Oklahoma and after a detour back to Boston (where my Mom was born), my mom's brother completed the trek when he moved to a suburb in northwestern Low Angeles in the early 1950s.

If anyone wants to "shake" their family tree and would like help - I'd be happy to send along the websites I've found very helpful - and some hard learned tips.

P.s., The waitress in the dinner train was fairly new - and as such was still trying to get her "train legs" and struggling to keep from falling over, especially when she had her hands full of dishes or drinks. I was forced to sit sticking out in the aisle a little as the person next to me was sitting in a wheel chair. The "drunk" waitress walk and the stray foot resting in the aisle caused her some difficulty.

To compound her distress, I was taking pictures out the windows across the aisle and she didn't want to interfere with my shots - but I was always taking shots. I ended up telling her not to worry about accidentally getting into any of the pictures - and then said, "Actually, the pictures would be better with you in them." She stiffened up immediately after I said that and my dinner "companions" (some dirty old men) immediately got on me for being terrible at "flirting" and they got on her, for not wanting her picture taken.

I felt badly - as she stopped smiling at any of us at our table for the rest of the trip. We did leave a nice tip - I just wish I had kept my mouth shut.

The Waitress Didn't Like Me

While my dad and I were in West Virgina, we took a ride on the Mountain Explorer Dinner Train which left from Elkin's beautifully refurbished Western Maryland Railway station.

The City of Elkins was developed by senators Henry Gassaway Davis and Stephen B. Elkins and named for Sen. Elkins, in 1890. The two senators developed railroad lines, coal mines and timbering. Together, they built the railroad into Elkins and opened a vast territory to industrial development in the late 1899s. As the railroad expanded, Elkins experienced the luxury of train passenger service. In 1930, 18 passenger trains were arriving and leaving Elkins daily. All passenger service was discontinued in 1958.

The remaining track, encompassing some 140 miles and managed by the West Virginia Central Railroad, is now operated by the Durbin and Greenbrier Valley Railroad.

The old Western Maryland bridge was recently rebuilt, allowing rail access to the Elkins train depot which was abandoned by the railroad in 1992 and once the location of a 22-acre, roundhouse-equipped yard.


The dinner train runs along the Shavers Fork of the Cheat River, West Virginia, going from Elkins to the High Falls (or Upper Falls) tucked in a bend of Cheat Mountain.


Train travel and fine dining were one of the great pleasures enjoyed by previous generations of Americans. As faster modes of transportation evolved, the magnificent long-distance passenger trains began to disappear, thus bringing to a close the era of dining car service.

The recipes for the unique meals offered to us were original menu items from the great cross-country trains of the 1930 era. This was a time that saw some of the finest dining in the country being served as the trains sped across the mountains and plains America.

I had a marvelous cut of Prime Rib. My dad had some Lobster on creamy Pasta.


As dusk was settling, the dinner train pulled to a stop at the site of the water fall and everyone was encouraged to leave their seats and take a short walk down the steep river bank to see the falls. The footing was rocky and slick with mud, so a number of people didn't attempt the walk - some were wearing high heels and others were using crutches. I thought it was a shame they couldn't "see" the falls - and then it occurred to me that I could show them a video on the LCD viewer of my camera.


I showed about six people the video and they were happy to have been able to see the falls - even if it was "remotely" and now I share the video with you, something that could not have been done in the 1930s.

Oh No! Nooooooooooooo!

I can only hope no cones were injured!

Thanks Hank Jr.!

Joy De Vivre Design

Joie De Vivre from the French word joie, "joy"; de, "of"; and vivre, "to live, living"; means "the joy of living" and is a term that has imported into English to express a cheerful enjoyment of life; an exultation of spirit.


Joie De Vivre Design - a blog by the always charming, Heather's blog is a cheerful, enjoyable place to visit.

Heather has an astonishing eye for stunning handcrafted works of art and what's more, she has a knack of convincing those handcrafters to give away their work - to the lucky people that read Heather's blog - specifically, a feature called "Have you seen this Etsy shop?" Recently I was the lucky winner of the weekly giveaway.


Artis Everything. Featuring creations by Iris, a graphic designer who lives in Tel-Aviv, Israel, her shop includes wall clocks, business card holders, coasters, jewelry racks and more. All patterns and products are originally designed by Iris in a technique unique to her Etsy shop. If you enjoy looking at bright colors and unusual designs (especially her clocks!), you will want to visit!

I am very overdue with this - I want to thank Heather and Iris - the bold, bright colored toasters that I won have found a home where they are much appreciated!