2007-12-05

This was our day to travel north and east to Arthur, Nebraska, for a visit with Mom’s sister, Margaret and her husband, Gordon and their son, Kevin. Babe and Shirley, Mom’s niece and her husband, came by a separate car. Before Morning Offering, the three of us set out to drive the 150 miles into the sand hills under leaden skies. I read the Morning Offering selections on the way. Then I read the paper to Jim and Mom. I know quite a bit more about the Nebraska football team than I did yesterday!

Arthur, Nebraska, is a throwback to frontier days, barely civilized with telephone wires and electricity. There are about 60 inhabitants in the town. There are no street addresses. You just put the person’s name on the envelope and “Arthur, Nebraska” and it gets there! We all had a lunch at a place called the Hitching Post, which is the one store I saw in the little town besides a bank. The electricity was off for the moment when we came, because someone in town had added on to his house and needed more electrical power than the transformer could handle, so they were switching out the old transformer and wiring for a beefier rig.

This little atmospheric and picturesque gathering place had a bit of everything. A bear skin – from a cub, it looked like – hung on the wall along with a round blade from a sawmill and an ancient and well-worn pair of chaps and many other implements and souvenirs of the old west. There was a pool table and a very old arcade game. And there were a half dozen tables. A sign read, “If you are over 21, we have beer, beer and beer. We hope you like beer.”

This particular day was senior citizen day at the Hitching Post, and since we all qualified, we took the gathering there and had roast beef together. Then we went back to Margaret and Gordon’s home – very nice, too, but quite a bit smaller than their barn – and had birthday cake. Then we played a game of Pitch before setting out for the drive back home.

It was well after dark when we arrived and I was exhausted! I did a bit of e-mail, writing Rick a Kentucky Report in response to his Maine Report and thanking him for passing on a delicious looking recipe for sausage and kale soup. I also ordered Jim a “Bo Big Red” T-shirt from the Husker Zone web site to help him celebrate the new Nebraska football coach’s being chosen.

Jim and I shared the prayer at our Gaia Meditation, chanting “Peace” a few times while Mom was otherwise occupied. She accepts our meditations but never knows quite what to do with them, so we spared her this evening!