In our every day life of adulthood, we spend the majority of our time worrying about a variety of things,some of which we have no control, like the weather or who is going to win the Super Bowl. At the same time, a lot of our time is consumed with worrying about things that we do have some control, finances, children, and work. As adults, we take little time for ourselves to dream and fantasize. As a youngster, remember the imagination that we each hard, we could take a stick and it would instantly become whatever we chose it to be. We played games and let our imaginations run wild. As a youngster, prior to moving to Alaska, I ran the adobe hills behind our little ranch, I shot more outlaws and Indians than all the other western idols put together. Billy the Kid was no match for me on the quick draw. But, somewhere between puberty and adulthood, we loose the ability to imagine, to dream. All of your dreams will never materialize, but for a brief instance in your hectic life, you can escape from reality. One day, as your children are playing, stop for a brief moment and listen to what they are doing, listen to their imagination and their beliefs. Will these childish imaginations and fantasies ever materialize? You will never know until you believe enough. This concept was recently proved to me.
The story is of a young girl that was enchanted with dragons. As adults, we know that dragons most likely never existed, but she believed. She knew dragons existed in the woods surrounding her grand parents home and that it would be just a matter of time before she would be able to entice one into the open. In her readings, she discovered dragons were attracted to shiny objects, such as jewels and other sparkled items. She obtain a silver bowl, filled it with beads, crystals, and other imaginary jewels. Prior to going to bed, she set the bowl in the window so the dragon would surely see it. The following morning, upon checking the bowl she discovered no sign that the dragon had visited. As adults, we would have seen this as a failure and of course we know that dragons do not exist in the woods. The little girl did not show any disappointment, because she still believed. On her next visit, she once again set out the silver bowl filled with the bounty for the dragon and to increase the inducement she set out a carrot for food.
During the night, she heard a dog bark and the following morning, she checked the bowl of jewels, they remained in the same place but the carrot was gone! She looked outside the window, the freshly fallen snow was packed down with large tracks including the tracks of the tail of a dragon. Going from window to window, she discovered more tracks surrounding the house and across the lawn leading to the woods,the dragon had visited! Was this reality or a fantasy. As an adult, I would conclude that it was the imagination of a little girl that wanted so hard to believe
that she also fantasized the tracks in the snow. But this was not the case, I witnessed those same tracks! For those that do not believe, the tracks were much larger than any existing tracks that I know of. They were clearly defined in the soft snow, measuring about three feet long and two feet wide at the widest point with five distinct toes, measuring from the shortest of about six inches to the longest of about fourteen inches with a spur coming off the heel of the foot measuring about six inches. They were tracks that I have never seen in my lifetime and perhaps will never have the opportunity to see again. There is no great moral to this story, except as this little girl demonstrated, despite what others may say, believe in yourself, listen to your heart and not always to your mind, miracles can happen, we just have to believe and be optimistic that our dreams will come true.

Guess what, it really does work! Now I will just need to figure out how to get it out to those that I desire to communicate with. But, I have a feeling, you will all soon discover a lot of prattling! Since I did not have it completed in time to wish Shana a Happy Birthday, I would like to start my first posting with a birthday wish to you, having a 36 year old daughter is a reality check as to how fast time flies and how many changes we have witnessed in a few short years. The day that Shana was born, we were living on Adak, at that time fathers were not permitted in the labor room and forget the delivery room - that was guarded by a big "dyke" nurse who blamed all men for what was transpiring behind the closed doors that she guarded. Even after baby Shana was born, I was permitted to enter the room, but only after I was sterilized, if that would have happened prior to Shana, she would have never been born. But finally, after being decked out in sterile gowns, face mask, and sugical gloves I was permitted to enter the room and see my first daughter. Although, I was not permitted to touch her or Terry, at least I got to see her nose sticking out from under the blanket. For three days, I visited every "visiting period", about three hours a day and after donning my sterilization suit, I finally got to touch her hand. This sterilization procedure has always bothered me, after three days baby Shana got to come home and for the next several years she made a habit of either puking, peeing,or pooping on me,now how sanitary is that and where was the "dyke" nurse to protect me? Today, things have change, you can now have the entire family in the delivery room, each equipped with digital video cameras recording the entire procedure to insure the world will see everything in living color including the audio of the mother screaming her lungs out and questioning the origins of the man that got her into this situation. Isn't it wondrous how medical science has developed and whatever happened to all those germs that we use to have? Just thoughts to ponder! So Very Happy Birthday and please always remember the sacrifices that I made just to visit you when you were born and you could not even talk! How peaceful those days were!
Recently, I realized just how blessed our family has been over the past 60 years. Thus early into my life, I have lost my father, mother and two bothers. You may question why I feel that we are blessed after loosing four members of my immediate family, but we truly are. My parents had eight(8)children,in their lifetime they only had to mourn the loss of only one of those children. Those eight(8)children provided them with seventeen (17)grandchildren. To date, those seventeen (17)grandchildren have produced thirty four(34)great grandchildren and two (2) great, great grandchildren. Although, I may have missed one or two, my parents currently have forty four(44)off spring and that is where we are truly blessed! In the era of fast cars (yes, even in the 50's and 60's)and the abundance of other things that can go wrong, we as a family have never lost a child! We indeed have been blessed and fortunate. The loss of Don was another tough one to handle, especially the way it occurred, but he always did things "his own way" and he made the decision to conceal it from the rest of us, his choice and I respect him for that. Prior to his passing, he reconciled his differences and feelings about one of your other uncles, they parted as brothers and friends, by taking those steps, he was instrumental in bonding the family. I will always miss his "stupid" letters, his phone calls in the middle of the night, and his incessant number of dirty jokes. He was a good man and at his memorial service I discovered how truly he was loved by a lot of people. There were several men at his memorial service that came out of respect for him, although, I think they just came to make sure he was gone and that their wives were safe.
Well, my first real posting is as always verbose, but I figure that it will give you something to do beside sitting on the couch, eating bon-bon's and watching soap operas. All take care of yourselves and the little ones.