Archive for July 2016
It’s in the telling.
Family heirlooms are valuable because the family thinks they are valuable. The value is generally not measured in dollars and cents … the value is measured in feelings. In remembering. In hearing the story, and telling the story, and then hearing it again.
The family is a part of the story, you see, so the sense of belonging, of support, of family is created, enhanced, and increased through the story.
Most families do not have earthly riches, but all families can have family heirlooms that grow in value over the generations as the story is told. And re-told.
Here’s the story of our rocking chair.
Edna Mildred Lee Boring was born March 14, 1895 near Maitland, MO. She was the daughter of Norman Ernest Boring and Frances Emaline Miles Boring, and, importantly, the first granddaughter of Alban and Elizabeth Piles Boring. Six more grandchildren followed: Cecil (1897), an infant that died unnamed (1899), my Grandmother, Juanita (1900), Joe (1902), Lena (1907) and Lucy (1913).
Alban Boring holding his son Norman Ernest Boring. Circa 1878.
Elizabeth Piles Boring, circa 1920.
Norman Ernest Boring & Frances Emaline Miles, in their wedding photo. 1893.
Norman Ernest Boring
Cecil Alban Boring and Edna Mildred Lee Boring. Circa 1899. This is not the chair, and I have no idea what they are wearing!.
Edna Mildred Lee Boring and Cecil Alban Boring, circa 1899. Still not the chair!
Juanita Elizabeth Boring, my grandmother, would have been the third Boring grandchild to have used the rocking chair. And, no, this is not the chair. 1901.
Upon the occasion of their first Grandchild’s first Christmas (1895), Alban and Elizabeth Piles Boring bought a child’s rocking chair. That chair stayed in the grandparents’ home, and was used by all seven of their Grandchildren, including my Grandmother, Juanita Elizabeth Boring Mowry. Eight Great Grandchildren would have also used that chair. When Grandma Boring (my Great Great Grandmother) died in 1955, the family decided to sell her possessions to the family members in a private auction to pay her funeral expenses. It was a family affair, taking care of family business.
My father wanted to buy that child’s rocking chair – perhaps because he had a 3-year old daughter that would have been a perfect size for it. He paid what was to him a large sum of $10 to bring that chair home. It remained a part of our family home, used by both my sister and I, and was a continuing favorite of visiting pre-schoolers, as the rocking chair was just right for them.
When Velda and I moved to California and started our family, the chair soon followed. We took the chair to a photographer with our firstborn, Christopher, and captured this image in 1986:
Christopher Andrew Mowry, sitting in the chair. 1986.
This week, we took Christopher’s firstborn, the delightful Miss P, and captured her sitting in the chair, just as she does when she visits Grandma & Papa’s house.
The chair is now 121 years old. I’m sure it’s worth a dollar or two … probably more than the $10 that it cost in 1955. However, the value of the chair cannot be expressed in dollars and cents.
Still, it’s the most valuable piece of furniture I’ve ever owned.
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Your Family’s Stuff
Digitizing Family Photos
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The giant saguaro is a symbol of the American west. These majestic plants, found only in a small portion of the United States, are protected by Saguaro National Park in Arizona. Here you have a chance to see these enormous cacti, silhouetted by the beauty of a magnificent desert sunset. Photo by Eileen Mattil. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 7/5/16.
Glacier National Park at sunset. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 6/29/16.
Sunset over Virginia’s Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Photo by Robert Merrill. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/29/16.
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Did you know a baby porcupine is called a porcupette? These cute critters have soft hair mixed with barbed quills that stick up when they feel threatened to deter predators. Porcupines sleep in trees and feed on the inner bark, twigs and leaves. They live to be 5-6 years old and have one or two young, which are born with soft quills that harden within an hour. Photo courtesy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 5/31/16.
Moose in the mist at Rocky Mountain National Park. Photo by by Aaron Rockefeller. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 5/18/16.
Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska provides some of the few remaining unaltered habitats for bears. With about 2,200 brown bears in the park, scientists are able to study bears in their natural habitat, visitors are able to enjoy unparalleled viewing opportunities (from safe distances) and the bears are able to continue their life cycle largely undisturbed. Photo by Mike Clime. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 7/25/16.
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This election is far from over.
Today, Trump found a way to indict Hillary while playing to the crowd in a spirited fashion. He’s a grand master at this, and no amount of hysteria from the left has derailed his effectiveness at reaching and motivating the common man to vote for him.
His (possibly) tongue-in-cheek call for President Putin to look for Hillary’s lost emails is simply astonishing to me. The comment is certain to greatly inflame the left and greatly amuse the right. Doesn’t that make for great media coverage?
And isn’t that free media coverage?
Please allow me to say this with great certainty: no one really understands how this man put together the coalition that nominated him. The media and the pollsters have written his obituary many times since this campaign began, and yet he’s the last man standing.
There is no telling what will happen between here and November 8.
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Victor Davis Hanson’s Private Papers: Trump and The Politics of Moral Outrage
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Midnight makes for a dazzling display of stars in this shot of the Milky Way over Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park. Photo by Matt Shiffler. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/26/16.
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Crater Lake National Park
A Blanket Of Snow
Crater Lake Sunrise
Spectacular
The Blue Lake
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Assateague Island National Seashore protects sandy beaches, salt marshes, maritime forests and coastal bays along a strip of barrier island that stretches across the Maryland and Virginia border. In this dynamic coastal environment, the island is continuously being reshaped by wind and water. Sunrise photo by Jake Breach. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/22/16.
Lightning rips through the sky over White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. Here, great wave-like dunes of gypsum sand have engulfed 275 square miles of desert, creating the world’s largest gypsum dunefield. Photo by Donald Palansky. Published on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 7/22/16.
Ominous clouds over Badlands National Park. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 7/19/16.
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Pure magic: An eclipsed supermoon rises over Arizona’s Saguaro National Park. Photo by Jack Suman, September 2015. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/20/16.
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The spring beauty of Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska. Hike through stunning scenes of wildflowers and waterfalls, climb mountain peaks and glaciers or kayak along 155 miles of breathtaking coastline. The nation’s largest national park – bigger than the states of Vermont, New Hampshire and Rhode Island combined – offers many ways to explore, from backpacking, fishing, river trips, biking and more! Photo by Jacob Frank, National Park Service. Posted on Tumblr by the US Department of the Interior, 5/20/16.
Alaska’s Denali National Park. Photo by Kathleen Barth. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 3/16/16.
Alasak’s Denali National Park. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/19/16.
Alaska’s Denali National Park. Photo by Victoria Field. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 4/7/16.
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Mike Rowe has had some dirty jobs, but he’s also a Distinguished Eagle Scout.
Mike Rowe is a favorite media personality of mine. He hosts a show on CNN that’s about the tough jobs … “Somebody’s Gotta Do It.” He believes in doing work that’s dirty. He’s a Distinguished Eagle Scout. And, he’s a consummate showman and fundraiser for his non-profit, non-partisan foundation, mikeroweWORKS, that exists to fund scholarships for people getting training in the trades.
Mike Rowe is a big supporter of honest work, where collars are not white, if they exist at all. He’s about to award $600,000 in scholarships. That may not be a dirty job, but it’s certainly an important one.
He regularly auctions off C.R.A.P. to raise funds for the foundation … that’s Collectibles, Rare And Precious, to the uninitiated. He typically finds things in his storage room to auction, and occasionally one of his fans will contribute their skills to, for example, make his faded blue jeans into a purse. He regularly auctions off memorabilia from his shows, such as a warning light globe from the Mackinac Bridge, which was the subject of one of his shows several years ago.
Recently, he mused about auctioning off something from our leading political candidates in this tumultuous season … an autographed bathrobe from the Donald, or a similarly autographed pantsuit from the Hillary. Or something like that.
And a smart campaign worker made one of those ideas happen.
If you know Mike’s work, then you know he is independent. He did not seek one candidate’s contribution over another, and he’s specifically promised that he will auction off a contribution from the other candidate, with all appropriate pomp & circumstance, should they make a contribution. That didn’t stop the boo birds from coming out, though, and his Facebook page has been alive with flames saying “How COULD you?”
He’s doing it for the money to fund more scholarships, and I have no problem with that. Do you?
Want to own your own Trump bathrobe – and support mikeroweWORKS at the same time? The auction is open on ebay until August 1 … and, as I write this, bidding is now over $10,000. You can bid, here.
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The Milky Way, seen over Musselman Arch in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park. Photo by David Lane. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, July 18, 2016.
Photographer Jose Torres took advantage of a cross country move to take pictures in national parks along the way. One of his favorite stops was Badlands National Park in South Dakota where he captured this amazing scene of the unique rock formations glowing in the light of the moon and the Milky Way. What a shot! Photo courtesy of Jose Torres.
Dark night skies make for a stargazer’s paradise at California’s Lassen National Park. Photo by Sam Lee. Tweeted by the US Department of the Interior, 7/6/16.
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