Category: Personal

As many of you know, we’ve been executing a plan to get the kids to all 50 states before my son goes off the school in four more years.  In a previous set of posts, I described our trip from last August to the Northwest US.  This year’s trip encompasses the Northeast.  After a very hectic week at work, combined with coming home to chores like putting up pictures and blinds in our new house, I was ready for this trip to begin.

Our first stop was New York City.  Now, you probably couldn’t see all the high points of New York in a week, but there were a few points we hadn’t seen in previous visits to the City.  On our last visit the kids were very  young, so we just wanted to give them a memory or two of the Big Apple.

On our way, the GPS took us down Canal Street, where we saw LOTS of freaky people and also a drug deal taking place.  Perhaps the kids are sheltered, but on this day they saw their first green Mohawk haircut.  We met Mark Ryan, who used to live in the city, had lunch in a New York deli, and then took the Staten Island Ferry.  We just took the ferry to Staten island and came back.  This gave us a view of Governor’s Island, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.

After a walk around the are of the World Trade Center (which is what Tommy wanted to see) and the financial district, we drove up town to Central Park.  Mark had relatives from Germany arriving on Saturday.  We met them at one of his wife’s stores and strolled across Central Park together.

The park wasn’t as crowded as I expected it to be on the weekend.  Mark said that New Yorkers head to Long Island and elsewhere on the weekends.  We saw “the great lawn,” wandered past the the Central Park Zoo, and other sites.

Despite being surrounded by tall buildings, there are places in the park where you can’t see any of them or hear the traffic.

Sammy wanted to see FAO Schwartz.  It had changed a lot since the last time I had been there — nearly 30 years ago as a cadet.  It seems to me that it had more floors of stuff back then.  While it was impressive, I didn’t see any unique toys that I couldn’t get elsewhere.

There were several Lego “sculptures.”  Since Tommy is very fond of Legos, we took his picture with Indian Jones made of Legos.  We saw someone being assisted buying toys for a birthday party by a personal shopper.

Soon after visiting FAO Schwartz, we fought our way out of the city through traffic.  Mark told us the “good” route to take.  It would have been worse otherwise, but there was a huge accident on the West Side Highway (9A), so the entrances to it were blocked.  We ended up taking other streets to get to the Cross Bronx Expressway.

We passed New Rochelle, where Dick Van Dyke lived in the 1960’s sitcom, got some very good, but overpriced, burgers at an apparently regionally famous place called Burgers Shakes and Fries, and made it to our hotel around 2100.

It was a good first day!

Tommy’s Eagle Scout project has been the re-dedication ceremony for a memorial monument on the Edgewood area of Aberdeen Proving Ground.  The monument is dedicated to civilian personnel who lost their lives in service of the Army.  His project involved laying concrete to place benches, planting bushes and flowers, getting the garrison to reposition lights, and cleaning the monument itself.  It involved fund raising, supervising work days, and finally the orchestration of a rededication ceremony.  At age 14, very early, Tommy has met all the requirements of his project and now just has to complete the paperwork and wrap up the details.

We are very proud of him.

My dad is scanning his slides and putting them on CDs for all of us.  Here is one he found from almost 30 years ago.

My grandmother (on left) and grandfather (on right) both died in the past couple of years (at over 90 years each).  I sure miss them.

This past weekend, we attended the Gettysburg Civil War ball in the Gettysburg Hotel.  The event began for us Saturday morning with a two-hour lesson on period dancing.  It was very fun.  After lunch and just a few minutes to peek into one or two of the stores very close to the center of town, it was time to begin to suit up and prepare for the group photo.  After photos we headed to the ball.  While people were being seated, a guy who looked like Andrew Jackson played and sang period songs on the piano.  The dinner was better than the average “event dinner.”

After we finished eating we left the dining room so that the hotel staff could clear the tables and make room for dancing.  The dancing began with the grand entrance march.  The entrance march reminded me of films of the RCMP horse troop at the Calgary Stampede.  By following the person in front of you and taking commands from the platoon of professional dancers we travelled around the room in various formations.  The purpose for this, I gather is so that everyone sees everyone else in a Victorian-appropriate manner.  Many of the women put some incredible effort into their dresses, so it was a good opportunity to see them.  The dancing lasted for about three hours.  Music was provided by a three-piece bad, called “Smashing Windows,” consisting of a piano, violin, and recorder/flute.  I wasn’t sure how much fun this would be, but we’ve made our reservations at the Gettysburg hotel for next year.

Candy wore a borrowed dress, but she’ll probably have one made for next year.  For next year, we’re talking about getting her a wig, since her hair was too short for Victorian styles and she couldn’t find a good hair piece that matched in color.  I told her this is her chance to be a blonde with long “boing boing” curls.  I pieced together a uniform from my dad’s closet, as did my brother-in-law Rob.  For next year I may have a uniform made that will fit a little better.  (The uniform was a little large, and we couldn’t get the belt to fit properly.)  Just to be different, I’m thinking about a naval commodore’s uniform.  Everything was re-enactor quality, except I wore my real shoulder boards.  Since they are bullion, it worked, even through the eagle on Colonel’s rank has changed shape just a bit.

Below are some pictures of our Christmas decorations.  Yes, we celebrate Christmas, not the generic, winter, non-denominational, gift-giving holiday.

Our tree is decorated with a combination of real and reproduction ornaments from the 40’s and 50’s.  There are also many decorated eggs from Slovakia and Eastern Europe.  There are also several ornaments that have been in our family since the 60’s.  The lights are LEDs.  Under the tree are paper buildings.  Before there was Department 56 and the like, people used to put paper houses under their trees.  These houses have cellophane windows.  People would put the old, hot C-9 bulbs inside these paper houses.  Between these kindling houses and real trees, it’s a wonder any of us lived to adulthood!

From this close-up view of the houses, you can see that some are original, but others are reproductions.  The reproductions are ca. 2005 Christopher Radko Shiny Bright.

This is my silver, aluminum Christmas tree.  You can just see a snapshot of this tree near its base.  The snapshot shows this tree on a console TV in someone’s house and is dated 1963.  The color wheel is original, as is the rotating base that plays jingle bells.  My wife never liked this tree until the year she volunteered our quarters at West Point for the tour of homes.  There were so many positive comments about this tree that she changed her mind.  My grandmother had one when I was a kid, but it was full size and lit by two color wheels.  My uncle and I would put our green Army men in the branches and when they came back around, we’d pretend we were shooting them out of the branches.  Invariably we’d find several Army men under packages on Christmas day.  My friend Chris found this one for me.

This is the Charlie Brown tree that my sister got me a couple of years ago for Christmas.  Now they sell them with a small blue blanket.  When I got this one, they didn’t come with a blanket.  My kids found a small baby blanket that we used.

Chris Palmer made the Christmas tree lot.  You can see the LEDs on it.  I added the pond, skaters, etc.  Many of the figures are original Barclay, some are new Barclay, and a few were sculpted by Chris.

Finally this is a bubble light tree.  Apparently these were popular in the 60’s.  I saw one a Chris’ house and have been wanting one.  I guess I’m a sucker for vintage Christmas stuff.  It’s nostalgia for a simpler time that probably never really was.  In any event, the originals I had seen were in poor shape, so I ordered two strings of bubble lights on line.  The kids found the tree for me at Home Depot.  An hour of struggle with the wires produced this result.  I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Happy Christmas!

While in Slovakia six or more years ago, I was attracted to the painted eggs.  I brought home several and would have brought home more if I had been more confident I was going to get them home in one piece.

I have tried my hadn at simple eggs.  I haven’t worked up the gumption yet to do the complex geometric patters of the central and eastern European eggs.

This is the egg I painted last year.  There is a different scene on the front and back.  The two images are incongruous, but it was a first attempt.

I made two designs this year.  The first is of Santa in his sleigh.  The second is the magi walking toward Bethlehem.  It’s been fun.  Perhaps next year, I’ll try my hand at more intersting designs.

The “diorama” below was inspired by something (overpriced) I saw in a catalog.  I used O- or S-guage railway figures I bought unpainted in a bag in the Choo Choo Barne in Strassbourg, PA.  The window was made from a simple, white picture frame on which I applied individual bricks cut from picture matting.  The molding on top was from a doll house store.  This year, I added the wreaths and the garland to decorate it for Christmas.

I have purchased lights and other odds and ends.  For next year, I’m going to make a retro department store front with four windows and a fancy door.  The windows will have moving displays like major stores from the 50’s.  I’m starting with some surplus Lemax kits from Michaels to get the motors.  It should be an interesting conversation piece at Christmas next year.

Yesterday, 10 August, we headed set out after a really nice continental breakfast at the K Bar S lodge.

Our first destination was Devil’s Tower, WY.  We were worried about getting into the park.  There is a huge motorcycle rally going on this week in Sturgis, nearby.  Apparently up to 500,000 bikers show up for the rally each year.  The Rangers at Devil’s Tower were well prepared for the huge influx of people.  Parking was well organized, extra stations were set up for people to get bottled water, etc.  While traffic was heavy we were able to get into the park and find parking very quickly.

If you are not an excellent mountain climber, what there is to do at Devil’s Tower is admire the scenery and take a couple of different hikes around the base of it.  The kids had fun climbing around the boulder field at the base of the monument for a while.   We spent three hours at Devil’s Tower, about an hour longer than we thought we would, but some of that time was consumed in just getting in and out through all the bikers.

(By the way, while the vast majority of the bikers look “different,” they were well behaved, quiet, and made no trouble.  Tommy wanted to know why all the biker women walked around half naked, to which we had no answer.  This seems to be a case of not judging a book by its cover.)

While there is debate over the exact mechanism that created it, the scientists agree that Devil’s Tower was once the inside of a volcano.  The outside eroded from wind and rain.  The long streaks that you see in pictures are the seams between long columns of once-molten rock.  These columns are actually hexagonal in horizontal cross section.

From Devil’s Tower we headed up into Montana to visit the Little Big Horn battlefield.  At the visitor’s center, we saw the 17-minute movie, which was pretty good.  The battle has a lot of maneuver, and I thought some better graphics and overhead maps could have helped understand what is a confusing engagement.  There are no step-by-step descriptions of the battle in the visitor’s center.  We drove the battlefield tour, some of which is on Park Service land and some of which is on the Crow Indian Reservation.  The drive along with the descriptions of events in the park booklet gave a fair understanding of the battle.  I would have liked more time there and some time with a Ranger; however, we had arrived late in the day and two hours was about all Candy and the kids could tolerate.

After two days of driving and site seeing, the kids enjoyed the pool with a long, curving water slide at the Rodeway Inn in Hardin, MT.  Today we just have a three-hour drive to Yellowstone.  I’m off for a six-mile run before everyone wakes up.

After returning home in July, I spent a couple of weeks getting settled into my new job, meeting people in my new organization, and doing battle with the IT folks.  (After three weeks, they still haven’t gotten my Email working properly!)  I didn’t go directly on vacation, because 1) the kids were in a series of Summer camps and 2) we planned for our vacation to begin with our family reunion in Mark, IL, (population 400-500, depending on the source of the information) on 6-7 AUG.

The reunion was largely planned and organized by my Cousin Linda and my Aunt Margaret.  As usual, the Illinois part of the Serafini side of the family bore the brunt of the preparations.  As the Serafini side of the family is Italian, the reunion involved a huge amount of food, which included Linda’s famous masticioli recipe, my Aunt Margaret’s famous canolis, and something called bognacalda (sp?), which is reputed to be the first food dip invented.  Bognacalda is essentially garlic, anchovies, and butter cooked down into a paste with some whipping cream added at the end.  You dip bread, cabbage leaves, and/or celery into it.  You also don’t spend much time around other people for a day or two.

I also had a chance to visit the graves of my paternal grandparents and the old family house.  My grandfather was born in 1914, and my grandmother was born in 1918.  As I spent most of my Summers in Mark with my grandparents, it still feels to me that an era ended when my grandmother died two years ago, just a couple years after my grandfather.

From Mark, we headed West.  The first day (7 AUG) was a killer, 12-hour drive.  We stopped at Brooklyn, IA , where they’ve put up a nice display of American, State, and Service (e.g., Army) flags.  On these vacations, we like to avoid chains and hit mom-and-pop places, so for lunch we bought some ham sandwiches at the local grocery store, just about the only place open on Sunday in the town.

On the 8th we continued West, stopping in Mitchell, SD, to see the Corn Palace.  We arrived in Keystone, SD, mid-afternoon, after a stop for lunch at Al’s Oasis.  Al’s Oasis had billboards along the highway for miles, like South of the Border (between North and South Carolina along I-95).  It wasn’t nearly as large or involved as South of the Border, but it made a nice one-hour break.  We spent two hours in the Badlands National Park, including a mile or so hike and climbing a few rocks (which was authorized).  The scenery in the Badlands was amazing, something between the Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, and the Painted Desert.

After checking into the K BAR S lodge in Keystone, SD, we headed up to Mt. Rushmore.

Arriving in the evening, taking photos was a problem as the Sun was to the left and behind the monument.  We were able to get a few good shots.  This photo, because of lighting, looks fake, like we posed in front of a green screen.  We were actually there!  In the evenings, they hold a nice ceremony.  It began with the park ranger describing the hardships of the 1804 Lewis and Clark Expedition, a 10-minute movie on the history of the four presidents featured and the making of the monument, and a salute to veterans.

The presentation and movie included more political correctness than I would have liked.  I’m getting really tired of revisionists who want to recast everything in terms of today’s social outlook.  The description of the Lewis and Clark Expedition harped on the involvement of Clark’s slave.  Lincoln’s achievements were overshadowed by the Emancipation Proclamation, rather than the preservation of the Union.  Roosevelt’s position on the evils of big business were described, but there was only passing mention of the Panama Canal or the creation of the national parks.  (By the way, it was the Panama Canal that was cited by the sculptor as the reason Teddy Roosevelt was included on Rushmore.)  Finally, I really wish people would just sing the national anthem the way it’s written instead of “interpreting it” like some Vegas lounge singer.

So far, this has been a nice trip.  We have a short drive today, with stops at Devil’s Tower, WY, and the Little Big Horn battlefield.  Then we’ll spend a couple of days in Yellowstone National Park.