Thoughts For The Day From Papa ‘a

Good Morning All!

Happy Birthday wishes go to friends Aaron Randall, who turns 24 today; to Josh Malone, teacher extraordinaire, who is 43 today; and to Nate Silva, recruiter extraordinaire, University of Oregon grad and husband of my niece Nerys!  Here’s to all of you on your special day of celebration!  Belated Happy Birthday to friend and CEO of Litehouse Foods, Kelly Prior, who celebrated his birthday yesterday (May 30th).  Here’s to you, Kelly, for all the great work you do at Litehouse and as a husband & father!

Happy Anniversary wishes go out to Montana friends, Dennis & Mary Hertrich, who’ve been together for 17 years.  They are some of the finest people you’ll ever meet, for sure!  And a great big HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to my beloved cousin and her husband, Ron & Carol Kuipers, who celebrate their wedding anniversary on June 2nd!  And last, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, here’s to Judy’s folks, Dwain & Marianne McIntosh for celebrating their 66th wedding anniversary on June 6th!  They certainly set the bar high for all of us to follow their example!  Here’s to you two!

Well, I’ve got lot’s to share about my trip to Europe, so here goes with more accounts of experiences I had along the way…I’ve entitled them “World War II Adventures With Esteemed Friend Harold Voltz”:

May 14th-15th, 2019

I think I remembered to pack everything I need…at least so far (and I’m only into the 8-9 hour flight to Reykjavik, Iceland for three hours now!).  I do have brain fade from time to time….but I did remember to pack my toothpaste, shaver & some changes of underwear (all the essentials…what more do I need???).  The flight has been smooth so far.  Were’ traveling over Canada on a north by northwest direction…just flew by north of Saskatchewan (try to spell that one from memory!).  Just barely made the flight in Seattle…heard my name called in the airport bathroom just as I sat down for some quality time on the john…oh well, I quickly exited the facility and hightailed it to the gate just in the nick of time (well, I may be exaggerating just a bit, as my trusty traveling companion, Harold, was there to make sure they didn’t leave without me…what are friends for???).  Needless to say, Harold (who was a bit ahead of me) got our exercise hoofing it from one terminal to the other at Sea-Tac International Airport…and it never seems to work out that domestic flight terminals and international terminals are close together…but who’s complaining?  To think that at 11:00 a.m. I was just leaving home in Spokane and now we’ll be in Reykjavik the same day (more or less)…remarkable, don’t you think?  Especially considering what the hardships would have been to try and make this journey by boat back in the day!  Ah, the conveniences we enjoy living in a high tech age…

Prior to departure from Spokane, I got through security A-O.K. (except I had to untie/unlace my hiking boots…not exactly slip-ons!  Denise in the bar & grill next to Gate 30 (our departure gate to the flight to Seattle to begin our journey) took good care of Harold and me.  The cheeseburger was tasty and she went out of her way to accommodate our desires.  She told me she has Sicilian heritage and wants to make a trip to Sicily someday.  I told her not to put a trip like that off, if she could afford to do it in the near future.  Travel now while you can is my motto!

On the flight from Seattle to Reykjavich via Iceland Air, I’m pleased to be seated between two pleasant ladies…one from Boise, Idaho who has a second home in the Isle of Mann in Great Britain (her second marriage after the death of her first husband was to a Brit who taught school on the island and made his home there; and the other lady is traveling to Paris for a vacation and visit with friends.  She’s from Fresno, California and had a career in health care with Kaiser Permanente as a care coordinator.  Both ladies, previous travelers to Europe via Iceland, brought their own “stash” of snacks to sustain them, and now after sampling the fare offered by the airlines, I can see why they did!  Icelanders must be physically fit and have excellent diets, judging from the snack portions of food offered on the flight.  I tried to eat “healthy” and chose a package of almonds & raisins & dried banana chips, along with some hummus and crackers.  Well, it was all good, but not enough of it!  The best part of cuisine on hand was the Icelandic sparkling water called “Kristall”…really refreshing & lots of that!  You have to be ready to ask for “still” water if you just want plain water and don’t forget to ask for ice cubes…they don’t normally include them if you don’t ask!  Otherwise, you’ll get sparkling water every time!  The hamburger I ahd in Spokane, coupled with the on-board snacks and sparkling water should suffice until breakfast time in Reykjavich.  I wonder what kind of fish-related cuisine I am to find at the airport in Iceland at 6:00 a.m. tomorrow morning????  (Happy face here).

The lady from Boise suggested I try a dish in France called “Ficelle (sp)”—it’s a crepe with bacon & chopped mushrooms with a goat cheese sauce and warmed in a broiler….ummm….sounds terrific, but I’ll have to a wait awhile for that!

We passed over the fjords of Greenland as the sun was coming up…a spectacular sight…lots of inlets surrounded with steeply rising, snow-capped mountains.  Unlike anything I’ve ever seen from the air.  The sunlight shone on the fjords, making them easy to see at 30,000+ feet.

Harold & I arrived in Brussels on time via Icelenad Air (12:45 p.m. their time).  I got some glimpses of Greenland out a window of the plane.  Mighty impressive, even from 30,000+ feet.  The flight attendants are the best looking of any flight attendant crew with whom I’ve had the pleasure of flying.  The female flight attendants wear a spiffy looking round black cap with a black tailored outfit….they look sharp.  We met up our personal guide/driver, Roland Lebon, around 1:00 p.m. today.  We hit it off with him right from the start.  He has a great sense of humor and laughs easily.  He also likes our sense of humor!  Roland took us to the Bastogne War Museum (in Belgium) and it was worth the trip.  The trip from Brussels to Bastogne traveled through The Ardennes region, an area composed of rolling farm lands with a significant amount of hardware forests interspersed all along the landscape.  Every so often a small village would appear, composed of a church spire in the middle of the village, with quaint houses & farm houses surrounding each church and radiating out from that focal point.  Lots of small two-lane (one lane in many places) roads that all come together at many of the villages we saw along the way.  Roland mentioned that we would go by the exit for the Battle of Waterloo site (the epic battle between the French and the British/Prussian armies in 1815.  Harold & I would have loved to deviate from our planned route to take this in, but we had limited time with Roland and wanted to take advantage of every minute we had with him to find and travel the routes that Harold Dad took through France & into Belgium, especially during The Battle Of The Bulge, so we pressed on toward Bastogne.  The thing that is hard to get your head around is that distances between things is not nearly as great as they can be in America….lots of people living in a much smaller area.  However, once we got out into the country of The Ardennes Forest area, it had much the same feel as rural America…small towns surrounded by various agricultural pursuits.  The War Museum at Bastogne was first-class.  We were given headsets upon our arrival and then proceeded to take a guided audio tour of the museum, which included the personal accounts of four people whose lives intersected at the Battle for Bastogne in December, 1944.  The Museum took us through the personal accounts of each of these people…a boy of 13, a young school teacher who worked secretly for The Resistance, a German soldier and an American G.I. (member of the 101st Airborne Division).  This was a fabulous way to take us through the many exhibits at the Museum…lots & lots of great exhibits outlining what took place here in December of 1944.  After the museum tour, we had the opportunity to visit the foxholes where Easy Company of the 101st Airborne (“The Band of Brothers”) was able to hold off the German army in a place called “Jack Woods.”  The foxholes look much the same as they did in 1944.  Lots of beautiful farm country all around and a bright sunshiny day with blue sky all around.  Quite a contrast to the way it looked in the dead of winter in 1944, when Easy Company was freezing due to inadequate clothing and meager supplies (food, water and medicine).  Many dairy farms in this area…farm land and dense forests side by side.  Lots of green pastures abound.  Many long-standing dairy farms that have been in families for many years (at least a century or two, for sure)…one generation after another for at least 4-5 generations (and beyond in some cases!).

We had a good dinner in Bastogne Town Square at LeNuts’ Restaurant.  I ordered the “special” of the day, a veal chop in a cream sauce with a salad, and a baked apple and a potato snack (small bits of potato deep fried, it seemed).  It tasted good with a bottle of sparkling water.  I was amazed that with all the people dining, there was only one waiter (who turned out to be the owner!).  I guess he likes the excitement of trying to serve everyone himself!  It did make for a slower dining experience, but who cares when you are on vacation!  One thing I did find out though, to my chagrin, is that he didn’t take credit, only cash and in the form of Euros…guess what???…I didn’t have enough to cover dinner!  My friend, Harold, though came through and funded my first dinner in Europe.  I’ll know better next time not to assume that every place takes credit cards, but who would have thought that a busy place like that wouldn’t take credit cards…oh, well!  If I ever come to Europe again, I’ll hit a bank ATM soon after arriving so I have a little “cash on hand”!

After dinner, we headed toward Arlon, Belgium south of Bastogne in search of our Air BnB and it turned out to be a lovely farm house ona country road just north of the village of Anliers, Belgium and north of Arlon.  Annie & her husband, Frederick, own the place and they showed us around.  The “cottage”, as they refer to their Air BnB rental, has two bedrooms, a shower room and a bathroom on the ground floor, a family room and kitchen and toilet room on the second floor and a another bedroom in the loft above.  It’s a great setting and to top it all off they have a game room in their barn and their sheep are in the adjoining room…some 12 sheep in all!  A lovely drive to this place this evening…a dear crossed the road in front of us as we traveled along the way.  Our cottage is actually situated between the villages of Anliers and Legliese…After a brief visit with Annie, our host, we settle in for the night and anticipate the next day’s adventures…I’d highly recommend this place if you’re ever traveling in southern Belgium toward the Arlon, Belgium area (we’re also not far from Luxembourg!).

 

Here are some thoughts for the day:

I came across the 1969 Topps Football Card for Eric Crabtree, a from star for the Denver Broncos in the late 60’s.  He also played with the Cincinnati Bengals and New England Patriots to close out his NFL career.  He was born in 1944 and played wide receiver in the AFL-NFL.  He is originally from a steel factory town called Monessen, Pennsylvania and played college football for the University of Pittsburgh.  He was the 112th pick by the Broncos in the1966 AFL draft.  He had 164 receptions; 2663 yard receiving; and scored 22 touchdowns in his pro football career.  I found an interesting article about him in on the internet written in 2013.  The article reports that while Eric Crabtree is physically in O.K. shape, his scars from fifteen years of taking hits on the football field are on the inside.  Since 2004, Crabtree has battled with severe depression, which resulted in the end of his marriage and, he said, several suicide attempts.  Crabtree is one of more than 4,000 former NFL players who joined a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia against the NFL, which they claim concealed information on the dangers of concussions and repetitive head traumas.  It seems the more and more I get into reading about the players that are part of my 1969 Topps Football Card collection, the more I read about lives dealing with the outcomes of head trauma…either psychological problems, early onset of dementia/Alzheimer’s disease, failed marriages and/or criminal offenses…it’s a real tragedy in many cases.  For Crabtree, his hometown of Monessen (a steel mill town along the banks of the Monongahela River) was a particularly tough environment in which to grow up.  The son of a white father and a black mother in the 50’s & 60’s, he found it hard to find his place in a town where “there wasn’t any real ethnic or racial mixing.”  “I wouldn’t get invited to black parties…I wouldn’t get invited to white parties,” Crabtree recalled.  The sport he was best at was baseball, but his mother wouldn’t let him pursue that path after school.  “My mother wouldn’t let me go down and play baseball in the south because it was segregated, he said.  Instead, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at the University of Pittsburgh.  Crabtree remembers taking some forceful hits during his AFL-NFL career, which included three seasons with the Broncos, three seasons with the Bengals and one season with the Patriots.  “I got knocked out quite a few times,” he said.  “They used to call it a “ding.”  Through several years of therapy, Crabtree has gradually improved.  I’m better able to control things,” he said.  “I know when things are coming on.”  When Crabtree gets into what he calls a “black hole,” through the help of his doctor, whom he still sees regularly, he knows how to deal with it.  He and his former wife, Sheri, are attempting reconciliation.  Here’s to Eric Crabtree and all athletes who deal with the results of traumatic head injuries.  May effective treatments continue to be found and proper steps taken to protect football players of all ages in the years to come!  As much as I like to watch football, I wouldn’t recommend that any of my family members take up the game.  I like the sports where you “run away from other players” rather than “running at them”!  It seems to a be a lot safer that way, and you still get your exercise in!

 

Here’s the silly question for the day:

Q:  What do you call a fake noodle?

A:  An “impasta.”

 

“If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.”

—Katharine Hepburn, multi-Oscar winning actress

 

“Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it, or else, for ever and ever, the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject in themselves.”

—C.S. Lewis, “The Great Divorce”, as quoted in “C.S. Lewis’ Little Book Of Wisdom:  Meditations on Faith, Live, Love, and Literature” (2018)

 

Here’s to a great Friday & last day of May and lots of love always!

Press on,

Papa ‘a (Dad, Uncle Mark, etc.)