Sunday, December 28, 2008

Guest Bloggers (126)

As Grandpa mentioned Ryan and I have some exciting news! As you might have already guessed we have recently became engaged. Grandpa wanted to share it with everyone and we weren’t sure if he would get all the details right and who better to tell it then us! I have always secretly wanted to blog a bit…

It all started over a year ago. Ryan and I met inside Purdue Christian Campus House. We both attended church there and were actively involved in a service group. We had both been asked with two others to help transport toys to Lafayette Urban Ministry’s for their Christmas Jubilee. It was actually a very short meeting and quick service opportunity but that was the first time we met. In our short chat back to campus we realized we had both signed up to go on a short four day service project in Chicago. The place is called JPUSA (Jesus People USA) you can read up on them on the internet but most people describe them as hippies who live as a community in an old hotel they bought to outreach to the Chicago north side. They take care of elderly people in the old hotel and run three different shelters. After getting to know each other more while in Chicago it all really just took off fast from there…

Now to the engagement story…We all know there is usually a lot of pressure put on the guy to make the proposal special and memorable. Ryan and I had planned to go to Chicago for two days as our Christmas present to each other. We had planned it at least three months in advance and I wasn’t suspecting anything. We left early Sunday morning arriving to -28 degree wind chills in the WINDY city. We went to Navy Pier, checked into our hotel, and then about four we headed down the Magnificent Mile (Michigan Ave). It was so cold out we were getting what felt like brain freezes. So we would walk about five stores and enter the sixth to get warm again. Ryan’s parents had bought us a carriage ride for Christmas and we were ultimately walking to find them. We get to the street where they are suppose to be picking up and they are no where to be found. (Meanwhile Ryan is freaking out a bit because the carriage ride was where he wanted to propose). We finally hear from someone it is probably too cold for the horse to be out. And I was thinking no kidding its too cold for people to be out! J Well we were hungry so we walked back down Michigan Ave. to get some Chicago style pizza…

Throughout the mile or more walk Ryan is texting. Little did I know him and his parents were trying to come up with plan ‘B’. We get to Giordano’s pick out our pizza. Ryan then asks if I want to go to the top of the John Hancock building and see the city at night. I ask him where the building is-he replies, “All the way past where the carriages were supposed to be.” We made a deal to take a cab there and back! ;)

We get to the John Hancock building and the entrance down into the building is all blocked off with ropes. At this point Ryan is thinking he can’t catch a break. We go around the building and find our way in. We get to the top(94th floor) and it is absolutely beautiful to see all the lights at night especially around Christmas time! We walk all the way around the four sides and Ryan says lets go out on the sky walk. Well it was closed due to high winds. Poor guy!! ha! Well he pulled me aside said a few words, pulled out a little black box, and asked me if I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him. And I said YES!

Enjoy the pictures, hoped you enjoyed the story, and I hope the critics are not too hard on me as this is my first blog J
We hope you and your families had a Merry Christmas! Love and Prayers for a Happy and Healthy New Year!

Lilly and Ryan

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Connecting Links and the Three Bears (125)

In greiving class last year we learned about "connecting links", which are objects that remind us and tie us to to a loved one who has passed on. The night we were to bring one in for class I took my wife's stuffed monkey that she had kept from childhood...His name was Zippy and came with a book about him that I also have kept. It is a connecting link, and then as seen in a previous post here, I made an even more meaningful connecting link, by designing a gold arch that suspended our wedding rings woven together, and below an airplane, representing the day we met and the life we shared...I have it on my desk and an inscription reads, "love was in the air"...

Comes now, the Three Bears, another connecting link that sweet pea designed for her three grand children to remember their grandfather...I think it is a most clever Christmas gift, using shirts he wore to work and setting in hats that he also wore probably fishing in Wisconsin..... Sure these will be preserved for many decades ahead..each has a name of the grandson on the bottom of the foot...I know they will surely treasure them....A great "connecting link" for these lads and along with pictures will always be a reminder of someone very special, but passed to soon.....

Probably my last post before Christmas....Wishing each and all the Very Merry Christmas that you need to fill your life with good memories, good friends and good days ahead....and even more so, the reason for the season, A life guided from above by Jesus Christ......
Merry Christmas................

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Ropkey Armor Museum (story 124)

Day before yesterday, my friend Mike Emmert took me to a hidden gem in Montgomery County, the subject of todays blog, the Ropkey Armor Museum...Owned by yet another "Marine's Marine" in the person of Fred Ropkey...free will offering for admission and a great place to spend a morning or afternoon this winter or a warm day next summer...Just be careful going in the summer as you could get run over maybe by a tank...you see he has most all this stuff in good working order and sometimes gets them out on special occasions...maybe the 4th of July even, not sure did not spend a lot of time talking to Mr. Ropkey but did some...We exchanged our "semper fi's" and then the conversation kind of got lost in what a great job he had done gathering all this stuff up and bringing it all back to life, and displaying it in such a way that makes you think you may just be on a military base and not in the rolling hills of Montgomery County...Also shared with him that I has served in the 3rd Amtrac Bn. at Camp Del Mar, California..He knew all about the C-3 amtracs from Korea and WW two and also the new ones that replaced those while I served the P-5 and A-5 armor amtracs. Those eventually were put to good use in Veit Nam...

But what an array of armor this man has put together and willing to display...Also some aircraft, jeeps, halftracks, even a swift boat I think from the Korea or Nam era not sure...a few guns, helmets, you name it, you will probably find it there on this farm between Darlington and Crawfordsville Indiana...I had no idea it was there, Mike has been telling me about it for a year now maybe...I hope to generate some lookers for him as he and his employee "skip" are usually on hand to give you the tour or just let you wander around at your pace.....Skip is very knowledgeable about most all the equipment...Fred shared with me that the new "Museum of the Marine Corps", in Quantico Virgina has several pieces of armor and amtracs that he restored for them...I have seen those and they do look great...I shared with him that my wife and I had been on hand for the dedication ceremony of that museum on Nov. 10, 2006.
And that it had been the final trip that we had taken together in the motor home before her death of cancer the following April. Mr. Ropkey shared with me that he also had lost his first wife to cancer....

I do count him in the few Marines I have met in my lifetime as a "Marines Marine".
I do not know him well of course but any Marine that would go to this extent for a hobby is gonna get listed as such in my book....Now you army guys don't shy away from this place...He gives Army equipment equal time there also...some Navy stuff as well and one of the aircraft is the trainer plane that led to the building of the Lunar Landing vehicle for the moon mission....

OK if you don't do anything else after reading this blog do yourself one emmense favor. Go to the right side here and click on my link that says "be sure and watch this"..click on that...then go down to the 3rd video called Across Indiana...sit back and watch it. it is kind of a classic....

Well that's about it for today, check out my pics on the right hand side and do someday visit this nearby one hours drive from Lafayette or Indianapolis maybe...it is well worth your time....

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Wine a Bit/ Wine a lot.....and Christmas (123)

Had our Christmas with what is left of our family Sunday less our sister Florence who is currently in a nursing home...in Anderson Indiana, we all went in one car...Days past the drive ways would be choked with cars and the houses we held it in would be bulging at the sides to contain it all...times change and families get older and smaller...such is ours but we carry on the tradition of gathering together for a meal and maybe some good wine or Manhattan's or some good old slush even...The great dinner my sister had prepared was wonderful complimented by her two daugters who also live there in Anderson serving us, so "mom", could just relax with the rest of us.

But this years event was special because 1...... my life is again filled with love and 2.....the lost recipe has been found....Love makes you happy once again to be alive, does not erase beautiful memories, but it brings forth a rebirth of excitement with life in general...it is especially good if you both feel enough love for each other that you would, if you could, wish that what happened to the other could be reversed, and that life could again be as it was...but knowing full well it can not, not feeling guilty about capturing and enjoying the new bond found between us...it is good....it is very good.

So let me share our Christmas tree, our favorite fire place and my family and my new hero my sister Peg...she is my hero this day as she has found what we all thought was lost forever...the recipe for the wine our father used to make each summer...a few years back I got to thinking about maybe taking up wine making and making it as good as my dad used to every summer....he would make about 20 gallons plus each August when our concord grapes would ripen...I think I may have written about stomping grapes in another story on this blog...Anyway a few years back I started inquiring about the recipe...no one had it....I had given up hope for ever finding it...was pretty well pissed off that we had allowed it to be lost but, we won't go there....But Sunday my new hero sister (wine a bit) Peg handed me a recipe card from her file and said, "hey Jack I found this in my recipe box".... I read it quickly and the last thing on the recipe was "fill with water daily to replace what has fermented out the top"....I knew then it was it...it has to be it, as is the last thing we did in the process each summer was to go into the wood shed and watch the purple bubbles boil out of the keg and run down the sides...then add enough water each day to fill it to the top to continue the purification process.....and then it would finally quit, and dad would say it is done fermenting, and we would then cap the wine keg and move it to the basement...that fall my father would finally tap it and serve the wine to us all..it was fabulous...probably 20 plus percent alchohol maybe, I don't know... I do know it had a kick to it...and it was most always as clear a water..even though made from purple concord grapes....

So I now have it again.. thank you sister Peg for finally finding what had been long lost and I thought was lost forever...To me it is a big deal..because it was very special wine...I remember time an time again people telling my dad that it was the best wine they had ever tasted in their life...and asking him how it was that it would be clear as drinking water but yet be made from purple grapes??????

Well next summer we will find out...Currently I am searching for the "just right" oak barrel...will also try a glass container maybe but he did it in an Oak barrel so that I must have...I know where there are some concord grapes that are cuttings from the old grapes that my father used that originally came from Germany....I planted them and I know they will share them with me..especially if I offer to trim the grapes for them next spring as I watched my father do each year...I doubt this every grows into a Sweet Pea Winery or anything like that.. but it will be fun to try, looking forward to it and to a Happy New Year....

Monday, December 15, 2008

Merry Christmas from my Family (122)

We recently met for a gift exchange...All the Happy Hoosiers pictured to the right wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and New Year. Five great families pictured here..my son and four daughters and their family...totaling 19 grand children in all...Monica was working and missed it all...she would have been in the first picture...great to have Lucas in that first picture also rather than in Iraq...He is enjoying his home south of Indy that his family completely painted and spuced up while he was over there...

Great time of year is Christmas, somewhat stressful with so much to do and so many places we would like to be...All the hustle bussal of the holidays...We were reminded yesterday by Pastor Eric, that it kind of always has been that way...right from the start...with Mary and Joseph making there way to Bethlehem to be counted for the cenus that was ordered by the Roman rulers...Never mind that she was almost 9 months pregnant and had to ride a donkey for 60 miles to meet a deadline, and then after getting there no place in the inn to have a baby because it was full of other people also required to return there to be counted...Very humble beginning for our Savior to say the least, but the way GOD wanted it...

So when your overwhelmed with this season just keep in mind that the reason for the season also felt kind of pushed and shoved into a corner or manger to be borne...Came her to change the world and us...Love don't get any bigger or better than that boys and girls...Thats why we do it and I guess that is why it is fitting that it is a season of preparation and joy...

Merry Christmas

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Stocks and Bonds (121)

I heard on a newscast yesterday that so many people were taking money out of stocks and trying to buy T Bills that they are bidding interest to almost nothing just to feel that there money is in safe hands...the report said that some yields were lower even than 1 percent interest.

So in that case for my freinds I want to do another update on "I Bonds"...Now I am not sure what the "I" in US I Bonds stands for...it really does not matter, probably it is interest or investment is my guess...But I have found that these wonderful investment tools are limited to $5000.00 per social security number or in other words per person per calendar year....So thinking that it being near the years end, and so many people seeking safe haven for their money why not put it where it earns excellent interest...Now through April the rate of these bonds is 5.62%...That is a higher rate than any CD offerings that I know of my freinds....

And all you have to do is go to any bank and ask for the I bond application...Simply fill it out and return it to them with your check for up to 5000 bucks and you have made a good investment...The Bond will pay interest if you leave it there and compound each year for 30 years...Or you can cash it in at anytime in the first 5 years and only loose 3 months interest...Now that is not a bad hit at all when you consider the interest rate they are paying in that even if you do cash it within 5 years your net interest earned is most like much higher than if you had that money in a CD....

So my fellow America's this is my Christmas tip to you all...Do your 5000 right now before the end of the year and then do your next years 5000 in January...You will have 10 grand for yourself and 10 grand for your spouse or each of your kids if you want to get creative....invested at a very high rate by todays standards and as safe of an investment as you can make...

Now if your a gambler here is one maybe slightly better than lotto tickets...The RV industry is really on the skids along with a lot of others...But I think there may be a chance that this could change with fuel prices coming down and looking like they will stay down for an indefinate period of time....So my tip is a great RV company that I not only own one of their fine motor homes, but also some of their stock..The stock is currently trading for 12 cents a share...120 dollars buys a thousand shares...a couple years ago it was over 12 dollars a share I believe...

Maybe they will go bankrupt and you will loose like you would with lotto tickets...but maybe just maybe the fuel prices staying about half of what they were causing the RV business to go sour...So maybe folks who are baby boomers and do have some money left to buy a motor home will say, hey fuel is affordable again, let us hit the road momma and drag our Chevrolet along behind....The company is Fleetwood or stock symbol (fle).....don't know the General Motors symbol but if they all drag a chevy that may not be a bad buy either........

All a big gamble yes, but no doubt there are some great buys out there in todays stock market, it's just picking the right ones....no easy task and one that I am sure I will make plenty of mistakes trying to do...but maybe just maybe I will pick a couple that do have a light at the end of the tunnel and that it turns out to not be a frieght train coming....

Semper Fi,

Jack

Monday, December 8, 2008

Christmas Parade and LCL Breakfast (120)

Huge Weekend just ended....Lower Picture of the decendants of Lawrence C. Lahrman, who by the way not only had decendants by ten's but also was Tippecanoe County's Champion Corn Shucker...(past story or post on this blog)...

Each year brother Joe organizes a breakfast meeting before Christmas of all the male decendants of our Dad Lawrence C. Lahrman, farmer and father extrodinare....he's gone now would have been 118 years old on December 1st....times we thought that he would probably last that long...he used to say if he knew he was going to live this long he would have taken better care of himself...He got into the 90's as did his dad Charles also a farmer in the Buck Creek area about the time they were still talking about what a great President Abe Lincoln had been...he mowed down his wheat with a cradle, my dad a binder and we boys and grand son's use today's combines....
Truth is we don't grow much wheat anymore...Corn and beans is better usually and beside we like to party on the 4th of July and not spend the day in a hot combine trying to beat the possible thunderstorm at that time of year....

Anyway we been at these breakfast now for over 20 years, and probably will do it for a few decades yet till we grow in numbers too large for the restaurant on teal road..

But one other thing happened this week end and that was the annual gift exchange with my youngin's...this year we tried a brunch at 9:30 on Sunday morning...was a great success as its less food, less waste and we were done in time to take in the Lafayette Christmas Parade this year....Last year Caulin Post was snow Prince from his school...This year it is Tabby Russell's turn to shine...She was as you see in the top two pictures, a cute little snow princess this year from Cole Elementary..Representing them well in the annual Christmas Parade...her proud mom Shirley is riding shotgun in the converty driven by her Uncle John....

I guess the Christmas season is now fully underway...hope you and yours, along with me and mine, will all enjoy the season...Building memories is great, they will always be with you...only downside of it all is reliving some of them after the losses of loved ones that some of us have suffered in our lives...I guess the memories are not the problem it's the losses that we wish had not happened at all that hurts..not the memories, at least we have them.....Merry Christmas

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Happy Hoosier Still Blogin....(119)

At this now for over 10 months with 120 post to my blog site. On Feb 2nd I set out to post a few stories I had written in the past and hopefully I would think of some others as time went along. I really did not know how long I could keep this going, and still don't. Some day I may just decide I have said enough, maybe I am getting closer to that day...Not sure, maybe I need a change of scenery to inspire me...that may happen one day, I may just make it to Florida in January not sure yet.

Or if I don't, I am thinking of doing a makeover on my home, maybe that would make a topic or two to share, maybe I will rip out a wall or two...Maybe we will get a 5 foot snow drift in my lane, maybe that would be exciting enough to write about...maybe a pic of my snow plow blowing a five foot drift over into the corn field....maybe the pond freezing over and I cut a hole in the ice and pull blue gills out to eat..Maybe I have some wine and cheese with that fish...I know what your thinking maybe I fall through the ice and then the cyber space is free of one vibration....Don't count on that, probably I won't as I just don't like thin ice...
I don't even like ice fishing that much...its cold out there and those fish will still be there next summer when its warm and we need to have another fish fry.

My readership varies from maybe 10 to 30 a day that check my sight to see if anything is new according to my site meter....So I guess I will keep this up for a bit more at least. It is interesting how topics just seem to keep arriving here as time goes on...I usually don't have to imagine them they just arrive it seems. As one of the men in my Promise Keepers Bible Study says, with GOD'S help, I guess I will just keep on "keeping on"......

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Thankgiving In Indiana (118)

I love Thanksgiving and to the right is pics of how it went down here in Indiana..
Lots of food and lots of family. The Saturday before the first pic was at sweet pea's house with her equally large and very nice family. Got to meet everyone now except for brother Mark in Florida and Son Jeff in Texas. Great food, way more than we needed but that is what its all about this day, a day of abundance and thankfulness for it....

Then on the real turkey day we headed to Greenfield Indiana to daughter Sherry's home. Second pic is lady fair having been talked into exercise instead of a nap after the dinner by my granddaughter. After that we go to the real reason for thankgiving according to the newspaper and that is to get your ducks in a row for black friday shopping.

Then we see that the Christmas Catus that has been in my life for a few years and winters in Florida is right on the money of blooming now instead of Christmas...Always has, I guess always will and then it throws in a couple extra blooming periods in February its way of saying thanks I guess for taging along to Florida...

And then the last pic the morning of Thanksgiving when a couple deer gave me a photo opp as they walked along the pond in search of something good to eat.. All in all lots to be thankful for, good health, good freinds, good family and maybe we will leave it there and not venture into the economy and prospects thereof....that we have seemingly no control of anyway...everything else is good and we are thankful...