This answers some quiestions that asked by someone in Wisconsin. You get to share in the answer.

Dear Cheryl - and brothers and sisters of the Eastern Star—

And all my friends everywhere--🙂

Greetings from the heart of the retirement land of Texas. I hope each and every one of you had a pleasant and fulfilling Easter holiday. I have become increasingly aware of the presence of the younger generation, as demonstrated by all the pictures on Facebook. Many of your children follow me there. I don't say much, but I do enjoy keeping up with the pictures and developments of your community.

The lady who attended Eastern Star here in Kerrville with me, now resides in a local nursing home. You've heard me speak of her for the last two decades. Her husband, when he was alive, and Dottie accompanied me to many Masonic functions. He passed away in 2001, and she and I continued on. She was 96 years old this May.

I have so appreciated your remembering me over these past 19 years. I hope and pray that we can look forward to yet another 19 years of Masonic fellowship. Hello to all, and thank you for your prayers.

I have received greeting cards very faithfully over these past years, and I must thank every one of them who participated in this program. You are among the families that have kept in contact with me over the years, and I have been remiss not to share with you even the terrain where we live in Texas.

If you were to draw a line from north to south along Highway 16, or East to West along Highway 10, Kerrville is at the exact juncture where these two highways cross. It is roughly 500 miles to El Paso, and to Corpus Christi. It is roughly 600 miles to Brownsville (southern border), and Sherman (northern border). It takes between four and six hours to drive to Dallas, five hours to Houston, and a day and a half to El Paso.

There are five rather distinct whether strata laying across the state. The area around Dallas has a climate similar to four days of southern Wisconsin during the winter. It can be below zero, ice, snow, and blowing wind - and at the end of the week up to 70°. A second strata coming south is an agricultural strata, with rolling hills similar to the rolling hills of southern Wisconsin. Fort Hood is in this strata. They can have tornadoes, high winds, lots of rain and generally miserable weather. This is all north of us. We have one of the best climates in central Texas. Our temperatures are mild. We measure our freezing weather in how many hours and minutes it freezes. (The peaches must have six hours (approx.) of freezing temperature during the winter in order to set on peaches in the spring.) South of us is desert, and mountain Juniper. You can tell how deep the soil is and the amount of rainfall that's available by how tall and thick the Juniper grows. This too is agricultural with a huge flat fields of irrigated land, and rice fields over near the mountains around, or general direction of the Big Bend area. The southernmost strata is called the Valley, and it is subtropical. Palm trees are plentiful, and the grapefruit/orange groves grow in abundance.

Let me address the question of the summer months for you just briefly, for this is what most people find objectionable about Texas. Our air conditioner is set at 80°, and when you walk outside the temperature may very well be 95 to 105. At 105 you don't dillydally around the driveway, but some outside activity is possible. I always wear a hat in the summer, and move from shady place to shady place. It is very unlikely that I will find many places below 75°, so I would have to say that my acclimated temperature during the summer is 75 to 100. Below 75 in the fall I'm looking for a jacket. We all live this way and surprisingly quite comfortably. The temperature would be the highest at about 2:30 p.m. and it's about this time in the afternoon that one would feel quite sleepy, ready for a siesta. I tell people who ask me about Wisconsin that we treat those subzero temperatures inthe same way you treat your temperatures at 100°. We don't stand around much in the extreme temperatures, we dress for the weather, and people have acclimated to the temperature. And we love it.

The extremes that you read about in Texas concerning fires, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes have all gone around us in the same way that extreme weather conditions went around us when they went through Peoria, or Minneapolis. We were safe. What we do have is extreme drought. Some years ago I inherited four goats from a neighbor. They multiplied to 24. I culled them out saving the best nannies, and a good billy hoping to now have a manageable herd. Within a few short months I had 25. I culled at least five times during my experience with goats. My fences were built some 30 years before I started goat farming. If you can pour water through the fence, a goat can get through that same fence. During the end of my experience my goats would come down the road to meet me when I came home town. One afternoon I had had enough. I went in and called my trucking friend and told him to come and get them, which he did. About a month later that drought began to set in with a vengeance. It has lasted 6 to 8 years. My pasture is good now, but it has had no animals grazing during that time. The soil of my place is about 4 inches deep, and below that is stone and a rock base. On the piece across the road there is a flint mine, where the Indians came to cut arrowheads and other stone implements. I would have to say that the area where I live is not agricultural. Our greatest concern is that the well doesn't go dry.

Well, this is probably more than you wanted to know, so I'll send this off, and give it a go later. I know you are enjoying your grandchildren. I have a great deal of difficulty realizing that all of those that I said goodbye to last century in Linden and Cobb are now 20 years older. I do think of you all, and pray God's best for each one of you. In Masonic Fellowship, and Christian love.

Dave and Ann.

Facebook – three

Thank you for coming back to spend another moment. Remembering special moment at Bloomfield nursing home is to remember someone who shared that moment as she played the piano and sang backup. She made me sound good. I have to tell a little tail on Karie's (Karen Keast at the time) mother.

I went home with Karie to meet her mother and brother Jim. We visited and I answered questions, etc. Jim had ordered pizza and we ate dinner. Mother got Karie by herself and expressed her disappointment. Why couldn't you have met that young man who plays his guitar and sings at Bloomfield? Karie didn't tell her the difference. On that final farewell, Lisa just brought out the very best in our music. The timing was great, the harmonies superb, and the same old nine songs never sounded so good.

Karie and Mom sat near the back but I could see her face as she realized that I was the same person who ate pizza at her house a few days before. She was always accepting of us after that. Lisa had a way of letting me pour myself into our services, as well as into our music

One last thought: I was invited to visit the Alzheimer's wing and share my songs with them there. I was told that they would act very normal, carrying on a conversation of the present, but would remember very little of my being there, or who had visited them yesterday. I started our musical session just like I would at any nursing home program. I sang all the old songs. One of the songs that we sang was "In the Garden". I realized that I had sung most of the songs by myself. I was told that many of the residents there could not follow in a hymnal or song sheet, which was fine. I had hardly gotten through the first line of “Garden,” when I realized that someone was singing harmony. My participation came alive as I began to realize that I had touched a nerve in someone and they were singing with me. We sang verse one and the person knew all the words. Verse two, and verse three. This person sang every note. The nurses were beginning to catch my eye by that time, and later they told me after we had finished the program that this person was 84 years old. She had not communicated with anyone since she had arrived at the wing, and basically was out of touch with the present world. For some reason the song that we sang reached back into a childhood memory, and she found her way into the present time. I don't know if I ever saw that woman again, and I don't remember muchabout the service and but I will remember the look on her face of sheer joy as we sang together, "In the Garden."

Thank you for giving me the memory. I'll see you soon. Pastor Dave

Welcome to our brave New World.

If it were possible, it would be neat to gather each of you in a large role or Coliseum so that we could make the rounds. There are people on both coasts, and as far north as Wisconsin, or south to the Gulf of Mexico. Some of you, who are reading this little communication have access to the Internet. A large percentage of our age do not participate in such activities. We would like to reach all of our friends, clients, and relatives. It's with that sentiment that I invite you to participate with me in blogging, as well as other social media such as Facebook.

If you need to contact us, I'm going to leave my telephone number. You can call me at my home area code, using the number 377 – 4958.

The year was 1961. (Or thereabouts.) One of our beloved known affectionately as "Granny ," had been in an automobile accident and was in surgery. Our Granny (then wife, Ruthie's mother) was also known by some of her children as "Skinny Well fed." We learned that she had been in the back seat of the neighbor (84-year-old man) when he stopped to let out other passengers. They had all been to church that night. When he thought he had hit the brake, we hit the accelerator.

Down the hill went to the car with everyone in a state of panic. Dead ahead is a construction site with tall stacks of bricks. One of those stacks stop the car dead. Granny, who was sitting in the backseat, flew into the dash in the front where she struck her face and mouth, smashing her teeth and severely lacerating her mouth. The whiplash thrust her back into the backseat, bruising nearly every spot on her body. We (daughter Ruthie and myself) entered the room where we actually questioned ourselves as to how she could still be alive. She was black and blue and her face was swollen with stitches everywhere. (We learned later that the doctors had not expected her to live, so they just closed up the bleeding wounds.) I stood at the bedside and mentally cleared my calendar for a funeral.

The 84-year-old man had crushed knees, where he scooted up under the steering wheel, pinning him in his seat. The doctors had made him comfortable, and put him to bed. The nurse came out to the nurses station to report that our driver could not go to sleep without his sody-water. (A mixture of baking soda and water, taken by many older people of that generation to settle their stomach.) The nurse was upset, for that solution wasn't on her meds list. The doctor said, "Let him have it – what can it hurt?"

One more paragraph: several months later, Granny  returned to worship at Mount Zion church. She had her new dentures, rebuilt to fit her new misshapen mouth. She went on to live many years after. She never failed to have a pineapple upside down cake available for me anytime I came to visit. Her cheerful smile was a highlight in my struggle into adulthood. Our driver walked into church about a year later with two canes. Note: when the people of Mount Zion church pray – God listens. Thanks for giving me the memory. Later – Pastor Dave