DEC-B-6
PART THREE OF MY CHRISTMAS ROAD TRIP:
December 23--27, 2003
‘Twas the day and night before Christmas, and all around town, friends and family were gathering for celebrations familiar and profound.
I arrived
at Milly and Doug’s house only a few minutes after they went to Mama Mia
opening at the newly opened
CHRISTMAS EVE VISIT TO
AT
Christmas
Eve, Doug and Milly arranged the house for the evening arrival of all the
Holtvluwers and the five grandkids, and then we took off to see the Sound Off
Recreation new quarters where I met Doug’s partner Jerry Maring. We then took off to go to see the cottage
that Doug and Milly bought in summer. I
called Shirl who has never been up there either, so we stopped by to pick her up. We drove an hour up 131 to
We
adjourned from the cottage and took a walk along the dike that holds back the
lake along the edge of their lake front cottage. We saw fresh beaver sign. We also saw large and pecked out holes in
dead trees and we said there would be a possibility of seeing a
woodpecker. Before long, we encountered
just such a beast—a large pileated woodpecker, which I shot on film. I also saw the wild mute swans floating on
open leads or standing on the ice. In
addition to the wildlife tour of the cottage environs, I could talk briefly
with Shirl and Milly about plans and hopes, and not just about Derwood
remodeling. We went on to Ed’s—a down-home kind of restaurant where we had
lunch amid those who were putting in their last hours before the
CHRISTMAS DAY, 2003
A WHITE CHRISTMAS, IN
The
We
arrived home in
CHRISTMAS NIGHT AT TOM AND SHERRI’S,
WITH SIX—AND MORE—KIDS, WHELPING POMERANIANS, A MARE IN FOAL,
AND PLANS FOR A LOCAL AND
PREPARED FOR ALONG WITH PICTURES OF THE
LAST HUNTS, AND A NEW TROPHY FROM LAST YEAR’S BUCK
JUST ARRIV ED ON THE WALL
What a reproductive frenzy of activity at the Belding household of the Griffioen’s! The big new recent news is as follows: with three biologic children, (Drew, `5, just having scored his first big buck, and accompanying his Dad to Cumberland next month, and ready to take driver training next spring; Aubrey, a teenager who is the quiet “”Doctor Doolittle” with her hand in all the animals and their obstetrics; and Martina, a soccer star who really understands the game) all doing well, and the three adopted children, (Jinny, very charming but scattered; Mark, a likable kid who has ADD; and Michael, who is being treated for autistic outbursts, but does well with a new medicine Stetra (?) that has started for each), each is getting better adjusted and medicated to help with impulse control. But, the bigger news is, with these six kids under management, Sherri is expecting a seventh! It will be do in July. Their response is “There is room and love enough to accommodate another, and maybe we should be looking to make still more room!”
One of the Pomeranians had a litter, unusually large, of seven pups last week, and now at five days the pups are getting their eyes open. WE came to see the pups and Aubrey expertly handles them. There is another Pommy in the garage under a heat lamp which is also going to have pups, as Sherri explained “On Thursday.” This is 62 days after the Pomeranian was bred to another of their AKC papered studs. Like the houses they buy and rehab, these dogs have turned out to be highly profitable—with a fetching price of $375 per pup, with one customer paying $750 for a pair. “We could take the dogs directly to the courthouse and pay all our taxes with them!” said Tom Sherri is trying to back breed the “Pink” Pommie to a dark poodle, to get a “Pom-Poo” with a Pink and white face, which fetches almost two thousand dollars. They are not big dogs and are like the Corgi in size and friendliness. The one Corgi I have had occasion to worry about this week is Cherry, Virginia’s dog, and now the big news from abroad is that Princess Anne’s bull terrier attacked the Queens’ own Corgi of which she is so fond and injured it so badly it had to be put down—a real Christmas bummer story in the House of Windsor.
David Griffioen walked out into the garage and asked “Just how many puppies do you have here?” Sherri said “Those out there are dogs; the only puppies are these seven in here!” David replied: “Well he sees puppies nursing out there under the heat lamp in the garage.” Sherri said: “She isn’t due until Thursday.” When it all came together at once—“Wait, this IS Thursday!” We ran out to the garage, and there is the dam shivering despite the heat lamp, and the little pups minutes old being nestled. So, Aubrey went in to carry them in to the house where they were put in warmer environments—make nine new Pommie Puppies!
Amy the mare is in foal. She is twenty years old and has raced as a thoroughbred often enough to have a track record. They brought her to a local stud horse whose owner had them sign a lengthy document recognizing that the mare could be hurt in any encounter with the stallion and that they signed a release for any such injury that might occur to the mare. They then turned the mare in with the stallion who came out to sniff, and the mare just kicked the stuffings out of him! No such release was signed for a similar injury to the stallion! SO, they moved her to another stud that successfully “took” and she has had almost a dozen foals before so she should know how this is all done. So does Aubrey, so that event is due in April.
HOUSE TOUR, BY PHOTO ALBUM AND VISIT,
AND
Tom and
Sherri looked over the Derwood album and the dramatic changes that have taken
place since they were there. They are
excited to see it again since it will be beautiful, they assure me. They also are closing on a house they just
contracted to buy, and we went directly to it in Belding. The house is on a corner lot, and has two
small bedrooms and kitchen with a basement and a single bath. Tom saw that the furnace was new, and that
the electrical wiring had been brought to code, and otherwise, he said it looks
like any other rental that the tenants have just moved out. The bank held it, and had it on the market for
$68 K, then dropped it to 58 K and abruptly agreed to accept $30 K in cash,
knowing that fifty cents on the dollar is better than they can get out of it
any other way. Tom will fix it up within
the month and have it rented for something like $600 per month –and it will
join the other six houses they are holding in the living trust that covers the
kids. So, they are continuing to do well
with some savvy for how to make it happen, despite a down market in real
estate, since the Electrolux Company, the biggest employer in Grattan is
talking about leaving and the Michigan female Governor is involved trying to
keep those jobs here. But, the
continuing work on the local real estate and the breeding of the pups and
horses has kept them close to home and solvent.
The one exception to this general rule is the straight drive south by
Tom and Drew to
By
pre-arrangement on Christmas night, I called
TWAS THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS,
AND ALL IN A TREE,
SAT DREW AND ME—ADD A DOE,
AND THERE’S THREE!
It was just about dawn when we got Aubrey bundled up, and Drew and I went to one box tree stand and Tom and Aubrey to the other with the hand held walkie talkies. We had just settled in with my looking around through the slits into the woods, and Drew looking forward against a clear snowy field had been plowed before the fall was over. About a half hour later as the sun was about to rise, Drew and I both spotted three deer that came in right under our stand from the adjacent I where we had not seen them. I motioned to him to take the one on the left, and I would get the one on the left after he had shot. I leaned forward into the slot and the big doe in the lead looked right up into the stand and stared at me as I was looking through the scope into the deer at six yards range. So, I held off, not even letting off the safety, as I was staring at the deer through the scope and awaiting the shot, I heard the shot and saw the hit on the smaller doe standing behind the first one. Then all three ran off across the field, in rather good order. Without saying anything else, Drew said “She won’t make it across the field.” As they got about seventy five yards further, the smaller doe stumbled, and five yards later fell dead. At that point the big doe stood broadside to me and looked back, I held the cross hairs above the shoulder and thought of trying to drop one from about 150 yards. When I reluctantly pulled the trigger, the hammer fell on the double lock safety, a screw that keeps the hammer from hitting the cap. I saw that this happened, but did not fix it, since Drew was now excited and called the other walkie talkie, saying that the doe was down and we could go out for an early breakfast. The other two deer did not cross in front of Tom and Sherri but crossed the ditch and ran on. So, I waited until they had got out of the tree, with Aubrey suffering cold feet. We walked out to the deer, finding not a sign of the hit, without a drop of blood or a cut hair where she had been perfectly hit. But she had gone the usual 100 yards—deceptively, as always, as though missed—then dropped dead.
The sun was just coming up with a pink-tinged Eastern sky. I took multiple pictures of Drew and the gang over his deer, the fifth one ( a first—since they had maxxed out at four before) and then fashioned a sling of my parachute cord and a stick I cut from the adjacent woods for a forward neck and forelegs noose to help drag the doe to the van. I got multiple pictures of each of us in the work part of the dragging the deer back, saying to Drew, “Now, aren’t you glad you didn’t shoot the bigger one that you wanted me to get so I should have to drag the extra fifty pounds?”
We drove back to their house and hung up the deer for dressing out. I came in for breakfast which included the fresh tenderloins from the deer almost an hour after it was running with them. I watched the three or four bits of news about disasters---up to 20,000 people killed in Iran in an earthquake; 119 in China in a natural gas explosion; 19 in California mudslides; five US soldiers in Iraq; and canceled flights from Air France Pairs it LAX flights with suspected terrorists booked. So, “Peace on Earth” is in short supply this Christmas time, but it has been wonderful for me and those close to me!
Now, I am at Don and Martheen’s house, preparing for the I Christmas party at the church to which I will drive the Bronco for the last time before it goes back to Belding with Tom and family for its new home!
THE I CHRISTMAS PARTY
AND RENDEZVOUS IN GRANDVILLE
This was a good event managed, as last year, by all three sisters and their spouses, and all the new families could come to show off the most recent of the offspring. I met Leah Grace Snoeyink, the second daughter of Kent and Amy, who is now about as old as eight month old Jennae Delong, each of whom I am seeing for the first time. I also met the next year’s progress on many of the little ones including those I had met the first time last Christmas time. I enjoyed the dinner, the crafts and games and fish pond for the young ones—all of which took a good deal of time from Milly in wrapping everything, and Shirley, who, as last year, had done the Christmas story and program for the kids. Doug had brought out a neat trick for the kids in making their own Silly Putty plastic playdough from the mixture of water and Borax into a kind of toy the kids could use to their own imaginations. I showed a few pictures to Kent Snoeyink, who, each year starts by saying that “Uncle Glenn is larger than life;” then he goes through selected pictures to say how different my life is from his life and how much he enjoys the vicarious experience of several lifetimes’ worth of exotic adventure and experience in each year. I had watched on Christmas Day as Mark Holtvluwer arranged the 132 selected pictures from the adventures of 2002 that I had stored on hard disc but then could not find in the assortment of two “My Documents” and two labeled “My Pictures.” Since I had subsequently found them and Mark could review them, he organized them into a slide show that was put into Power Point as an automated presentation.
In the middle of some of the games there was a bit of a downer, since Craig Vredevoogd came in to announce that the window in his van was smashed, and all other cars should be checked for damage. When everyone had gone out to check, they found that only their van had been broken into and the reason of that was that Amy’s purse was on the front seat, now missing. After a few turns around the river bank, it was actually David who went between two dumpsters and found the plastic trash bag in which he found Amy’s purse, with all the cards and personal effects still in it, with no money in it to start with, so there is no lasting damage other than the window and the police report will help with the insurance claim on that.
It was a
little difficult to get everyone back into the party spirit after that, but we
did have a good experience overall. AT
the end, in cleaning up and carrying out the items that were used in the party,
Tom got into the Bronco and Sherri drove their van back. Aubrey and Drew had a contest as to who would
be sitting in the font seat of the Bronco and Aubrey won this round. Tom said that the Bronco will be well loved
and used carefully b y a whole number of rising drivers in the Belding
household. I showed him where the
records of all its operations are and the title is left in the console of the
Bronco. So, after 216,000 miles of
service, the Bronco and I parted company at the Roosevelt Park CRC where a half
century ago I had gone to grade school in the
Ride on, faithful steed!
TWAS
TWO DAYS AFTER CHRISTMAS,
AND I HAVE GONE FROM A RUN IN THE
MORNING,
TO A LONG RIDE IN THE EVENING!
I am
typing this note on a shaky platform as I head southwest into the sunset. No, I am not on United Air 7649 which I had
called at noon to find out was right on time in a departure scheduled to take
off into clear sky. I had gone out for a
run and made a first time run along some of the paved bike paths of the new
trails in
I stopped at Shirley’s house and we visited a while as Shirl had gone through all the photo albums and picked out the ones she wanted others to see. She guided Milly though a couple of these. Then we wandered off at leisure to the Airport, where the regulations are that they can only drop me out front without stopping long. So, I went in to check in a bag for the flight for which I am an hour and a half early---and find out—the flight is canceled!
I am on a
bus to
There is no other way, since the next air departure that is not filled up out of GRR is later on Monday night. So, I will get bumped back to the latest flight from ORD to Dulles, which will have me arriving there, if I make my Chicago connection by road, after midnight, when the Washington Flyer and the Metro will not be operative, stranding me at Dulles with a car carefully stashed at GWU before my departure. So, all of these great “adventure travels” are subject to change without notice, so we will tune in with you later to see how things are going according to the new plan….
Curious how a few coincidences may play into this event as well. Much like my mother, my sisters are trying to take care of me. Martheen had put together some fresh baked cookies and a couple of dessert items in a small plastic tub to be carried along, and Milly insisted on making me a lunch. If I had not had these in my carryon bag, I would be hungry in the unexpectedly long trip back home. Further, I had the extra small bottle of water that is labeled “Jet Airways” from the last flight I had taken out of Ladakh—so I have a world wide lunch for my travels.
I had
also asked if I could see Eaton, the company for which Mark now works which I
had heard was out near the airport. It
is not visible from the airport, but Doug said that it was along
Well, I am still on the road about four hours later, but looking up at familiar landmarks, since this is the road to O’Hare along the Chicago I had just left only a few days back, so it looks like I am going to make my Chicago connection to Dulles—where I may be stranded in the middle of the weekend night.
THE FINAL ATTEMPT TO REACH AT LEAST THE
AIRPORTS
NEAR HOME, BEFORE FINDING MY WAY BACK BY
WHATEVER MAY STILL BE RUNNING AT
I have made it through the check in and security in this “Code Orange Alert” over the holidays in O’Hare and will now sit in the flight to Dulles that is about to carry me to a deserted airport late at night when I believe Michael would have arrived earlier and at a different airport to be seen later this weekend and toured through the Derwood I have not visited in several weeks. So, I will try to re-group on arrival at home and find out if there are chances for me to see the twins and play with them during the holiday visit.
Well, I
knew as soon as I heard about the flight cancellation at GRR that I would be
hosed at Dulles, and I was not disappointed in my expectations! The flight arrived just at
But, the
sporty A-4 was a rapid responder to my lonely ride back at
So, the late arrival due to a mechanical glitch in United Airlines is the final adventure in the sequence of visits at Christmas time 2003! Enjoy a coming Happy New Year!