Memnison Journal

Take a look at the gravestone to the right; that’s from one of my family members; translated from the German, it reads “Born in the year 1736: Heinrich Rittenhouse…” and trails off into the grass. Wikipedia’s entry on the Mennonite church / movement notes: Persecution and the search for employment forced Mennonites out of the [...]

We knew as the season for skating drew to its close that the first priority (before Meredith went back to school) would be surgery on both of her feet for her flat-feet condition (which her sister shares) that we had confirmed this spring with the family podiatrist.   Mere didn’t get nervous about the surgery until [...]

For all of the folks in Facebook who invite me to participate in a game: Sorry, don’t have the time to play them, and I distrust a lot of the join-this stuff in Facebook anyway. For all the folks anywhere who invite me to events out of town (Chicago): Sorry, too laid up after the [...]

China Daily is reporting that the Chinese police are starting to put together a national DNA database to help combat child trafficking and help lost children; 107,000 kids and 35,000 from anxious parents. The database is composed of blood samples taken by the police from missing children’s parents, children suspected of having been abducted or [...]

As you can imagine, the champions (my Mere and her pairs partner Eric) are in seventh heaven – as I write this, Susan and Mere are on their way home to us, bearing a new gold medal.   And, of course, all their stuff. The last year, in dealing with Mere getting serious on roller-skating competitive [...]

Meredith and Eric took first place at the National Championships with a flawless, beautiful performance… stunned the people online and the commentators with **OMG WHO ARE THESE GUYS!!!** reactions. They can’t go to World Championships until the elder is 14, which is next year. But my god, they were the best I’ve ever seen them, [...]

Susan has been posting on a photo blog about her and Mere’s trip to the National Roller Skating event for the last few days: Mere’s been practicing every day at least once, and kept a very busy schedule.  Her big event is Thursday night at 9:30 pm Central Daylight Time; you can catch her and [...]

Went to the podiatrist/surgeon on Monday, and he’s leaving in the stitches for longer – I’m a slow healer, and there’s a couple of small gaps in the thing. He’s switched over to a much smaller bandage thing, essentially enough to cover the incision, and has to be redone every day with special silver gel [...]

Susan and Meredith are supposed to leave tomorrow in the morning for Lincoln, Nebraska, to the roller-skating National competition, and they will have to work really hard to be ready by then. I worry about Susan burning the candle at both ends mentally and physically with this trip, but there’s darn little I can do [...]

The latest on all of the medical stuff is that I haven’t healed enough on the bottom of my foot for the Doc to be able to let me really walk on it again, so he has basically told me that I will be off my feet until my next visit with him next Monday [...]

* the kids have this insatiable desire to mess around with and ride on my walker, wheelchair and roll-about knee walker; Mere has been drooling over the idea of a swiss army knife for a while, bought one with her money, and proceeded to try to disassemble everything in sight – including the aforementioned AND [...]

Thanks for all the good wishes, prayers and thoughts! The pain in my left foot is a LOT less, and I now have my roll-about knee walker, so I’m more mobile to get around inside the basement and out to the driveway – but it’s hot enough that I don’t much feel like doing so. [...]

Susan and Mere are doing a rummage sale today (Friday) at at our house: 577 Hitchcock, in Lisle, IL. (Roughly IL 53 and 55th/Maple Avenue.) I will either be inside hiding from the heat or outside in my wheelchair; Susan and Meredith are running the table, and selling more of the boxes of books I [...]

My daughter Meredith is a competitive roller skater, and her skating club is doing a big rummage sale Saturday and Sunday at the Lombard Roller Rink in Lombard from 9-3.  I will not be there; Susan and Meredith are running the table, and I had an operation earlier this week and in no shape to [...]

At the present, my LEFT foot surgery has been rescheduled for the 5th of July; hopefully nothing else will blow that out of the water.  My RIGHT foot – well, went to see a podiatrist on that, and he took new X-rays of my foot that show how crippled up it looks (which never fails [...]