Lawrence Alvin Weber 05/30/1925 - 10/03/2016

Picture taken February 8, 1944

Lawrence Alvin Weber died in his sleep October 3, 2016 in Aurora, Colorado. He was 91 years old and a long way from home. But he didn’t know it.

 He was born May 30, 1925 in Luther, Oklahoma to Lawrence Leland and Emma Mae Jarvis Weber. He was the second of four children, the only son in this farming family, surrounded by a thriving rural community of 613 according to the 1930 census. And of those, a good many were members of his extended family.

So much of his life’s focus must have come from his beginnings. He was a child during the Great Depression and Oklahoma’s Dust Bowl years. Being a child and busy with school and sports and his family and friends these hard times probably weren’t as much a concern for him as they were for the adults. Because his family farmed, they had food to eat. As long as the weather cooperated and their crops came in. But the national sense of unease, of not knowing where the next meal was coming from, must have filtered down to the children.

He would always be concerned about people having enough to eat. All his life, even when he lived in town, he grew a big garden and produced enough food to can or fill his own freezer and the extra he gave away. You couldn’t visit Momma and Daddy in the summertime without going home with fresh vegetables. After he retired, he volunteered at the Edmond Hope Center where he worked in the Food Room.

On the heels of The Depression and the Dust Bowl came World War II. In October 1943, his senior year in high school, he enlisted in the Navy. The Seabees, the Construction Battalions.

I asked him why the Navy. I knew he couldn’t swim. In fact he never was comfortable swimming even after he learned. He said it was because they were required to provide better food than any of the other services. Plus he liked heavy equipment and they would teach him to use it.

The Navy took him out of the small rural town where he knew everyone and sent him off to Rhode Island where he knew no one. In those days joining the Navy was “for the duration.” And nobody knew how long that duration would last or what the world would look like when the duration was over. The Allies were not necessarily odds-on favorites in the war against Hitler’s Germany. And the survival of any individual member of the armed services was far from guaranteed.

From Rhode Island, which must have felt very foreign compared to Oklahoma, Daddy was sent across the country by train to California.

That was the first time he’d been to Colorado. The trains were still steam locomotives. And they were routed north from Denver into Wyoming then west through the South Pass because the Rockies were too high in Colorado for the trains to pull.

From California, he was shipped out to the Solomon Islands. On April 1st 1945, the 82-day battle for the control of Okinawa started. Daddy was there. In all, the 10th Army had 182,821 men under its command including over 88,000 Marines and 18,000 Navy personnel (mostly Seabees and medical personnel.) Nearly 250,000 people died during that battle. 14,009 American soldiers. More than 149,000 of the island's 300,000 civilians, and more than 77,000 Japanese Soldiers.

His 20th birthday fell two-thirds of the way through that battle, in the midst of such death and destruction.

The only thing, really, that he ever talked about Okinawa was when they were hit by a cyclone. That must have been the one thing like home to a young man from Oklahoma.

When I wanted us to go to Mexico one vacation when we were on the South Texas gulf coast, Daddy said he'd promised himself when he was in the Navy that if he ever got back to the United States, he was never leaving it again. And he didn't.

It’s always frustrated me that he never seemed to feel that the apocalypse was at hand, like I did. Not during the Cold War when the magazines were filled with bomb shelter blue prints and the nation was stock piling water and dried food in public bomb shelters. Not during the most violent days of the Civil Rights Movement when American cities were burning. Not during the war and anti-war days of Vietnam.

I didn’t know that maybe it was because he lived most of his childhood in a world on the verge of disaster. And came of age in the midst of incomprehensible death and destruction.

I don’t think he’d have been too worried about this year’s election cycle even if he’d have understood what was happening.

I did appreciate that when we would move to a new house, if it didn’t have a storm shelter, he had one built and always one that was big enough to accommodate our family and any in the neighborhood who needed a safe place to come.

He grew food and provided safe shelter.

I think the thing I most admire about my Daddy was the way he took care of my mother. During her last years she developed dementia. To the point that toward the end she didn’t know any of us – even Daddy. She’d see him coming up from the barn and she’d ask “Who is that man?” But when he spoke she knew him. She always recognized his voice.

My Daddy concentrated on what needed to be done and did what he could. With grace and good humor.

He enjoyed babies – any kind of babies – calves, puppies, chickens, goats, grandkids and great-grands.

He liked to play. Cards with Momma and friends – the women against the men. Work-up softball in the yard after work with my brother and me and all the kids in the neighborhood. Or a pick-up basketball game at family get-togethers. He put up a basket down by the barn after he retired to his acreage in Logan County. That was so Momma and the grandkids could play HORSE.

And he cooked. And he ate. He was the best person to cook for because he liked everything. And he always appreciated good food.

When my brother and I were growing up, Daddy’d take us either to the Texas Gulf Coast or Colorado for formal vacation. When we moved to Colorado after Mother died Daddy would always comment that he never thought he’d ever live somewhere as beautiful as Colorado.

Oklahoma was always “home,” but his home in Colorado always looked “just like a picture.” And he felt at home there.

Picture taken December 2013

Election Cycle 2016 -- Nonfiction

 2016 Colorado Ballot
(Page 1)

You notice I've labeled this blog post "nonfiction." Would it were not so, but it is. This election cycle has made me long for the old TV shows 'Dallas' and 'The Bob Newhart Show.' Remember when they woke up and the whole previous season had been a dream?

Well, not so this election.

Above is the Colorado Ballot. Beginning Monday, October 17, more than 3,125,300 of these are being mailed to active, registered voters.

We Colorado citizens are being encouraged to contact our county registrars if we do not receive our ballot in the mail, but we think we are registered. Perhaps our mailing address is no longer valid. Perhaps we haven't voted in a long time. Perhaps we're not actually registered. Not a problem. We can do it Online. If we register before October 31, they'll mail out a ballot. We do have until the Official Voting Day, November 8, to register. But if we wait until then, we'll have to go to an actual polling place.

The ballots can be completed at our leisure and returned anytime before 7 p.m. November 8. They can be mailed via the U.S. Postal Service. (Postage required.) They can be hand-carried and deposited at a Ballot Dropoff Site. Or you can find your official Polling Place and take it there beginning October 24.

And you know what I think? I like it. I think this is exactly as it should be. No excuses. We all can and should do our civic duty.

I got my handy-dandy 2016 State Ballot Information Booklet three or four weeks ago. Well, it's not really my booklet. It was addressed to "All Registered Voters" at my address. So technically I have to share it with my husband.

I read it cover-to-cover.
It gives the full text for six Amendments to our State Constitution. One of which is an amendment to make it more difficult to amend the Constitution. It also gives the full text for three Propositions to change State Statutes. Plus biographical information and reasons for and against retention of 20 judges.

There are blank pages in the back headed NOTES. I didn't make any notes.

The ballot itself lists 22 pairs of names for President/Vice President and a blank for a write-in, seven names for U.S. Senate and a blank for a write-in, three for Congressman but no blank for a write-in. It also lists umpteen state and local government officials to be decided upon. And all those Amendments, Propositions, and Judges.

It took me 38 minutes to carefully complete, properly refold, insert into the Secrecy Sleeve, insert into the Official Ballot Enclosed envelop, and stamp it.

I used two first class stamps -- kinda like wearing both a belt and suspenders to be sure your pants don't fall down. I drove it to the local post office and handed it to the nice letter carrier emptying those big mail boxes outside.

After weeks and months and years, probably even generations of election news, campaign ads, charges and counter-charges, I am done. And no, I didn't watch tonight's debate.

My Daddy Died -- Nonfiction

My Daddy was truly a good man.

His kindness showed in the way he cared for his wife, his children, their children, other people's children, his animals, his children's animals, wild animals. He'd carry spiders outside. Momma had an unreasonable fear of spiders. I think it must be genetic, because I'm afraid of them, too.

I always said Daddy raised three only children -- me, my brother, and my mother.

My mother was a passionate, quick tempered woman. And stubborn. I may be a bit like that myself. And my brother certainly is.

I only saw Daddy get really angry with Momma once. At breakfast.

Now, Daddy always got up first. He'd make coffee then wake Momma and she'd have her first cup and wake up a bit then start breakfast. Daddy would wake Matt and me. Or when we had a willing and able dog, he'd send the dog to wake us. And we'd all eat breakfast at the table together.

Pancakes were almost daily fare in our home. I don't remember what Momma did that morning that so frustrated Daddy, but there was a wrapped stick of butter on the table next to his plate. Margarine actually. Well, he snatched up that stick of margarine and hurled it to the floor. Not at Momma, just at the floor by his chair. Such an act was so uncharacteristic of Daddy that, let me tell you, we all hushed up.

Even at work Daddy had a rather peaceable method of correction. He supervised the maintenance and grounds crews at Oklahoma Christian College and had lots of students working for him. If he felt that one of his employees was shirking or otherwise not doing their best, he didn't chastise them or berate them. He had them work with him. Daddy was always pretty high energy and got a lot done in short order. The employee in question soon discovered what it was like to keep up with Daddy and came to the conclusion that it was just a lot easier to do their work properly and efficiently on their own.

Most of the time, Daddy didn't get angry with Matt or me either, mostly he'd just be disappointed with us. That was usually enough.

But there were times.... Momma and Daddy raised us to think for ourselves, then they'd be dismayed when we did. I won't go into detail, but I'll just remind you that my brother and I were growing up in their essentially southern, conservative household during the Vietnam War, the rise of feminism, and the Civil Rights Movement.

Daddy didn't care much for hunting or fishing, but he'd take Matt. Daddy liked to tell the story of the first time he took Matt squirrel hunting. Matt asked "Where should I shoot him?" Daddy responded, "Behind the ear." Daddy had a dry sense of humor. Armed with Daddy's Dad's single-shot 22, Matt took his shot and, sure enough, he shot that squirrel behind the ear. Daddy suggested they look for another squirrel, but Matt had brought only the one bullet so they had to go back to the car first.

And when Daddy would take Matt fishing, Daddy'd put his line in the water, prop the pole up with a rock, curl up around it, and take a nap. He'd sleep until Matt needed something or was ready to go home. I don't think Daddy even bothered to bait his hook.

Daddy left school early to join the Navy in 1943 where he spent his time in World War II as a Seabee in the Pacific Theater. After returning to the U.S. he worked for a few months on road construction for his old Chief Warrant Officer. Then he moved back home to Luther and married Momma.
They were married August 6, 1946, by a judge
at the Oklahoma County Courthouse. As you can see in their wedding picture, Daddy wasn't too concerned about clothes. He left his tie hanging over the review mirror in the car when they got to the photographer's studio. Daddy had turned 21 the previous May and Momma was not quite 18.

They farmed in the Luther area until after I and my brother were born. Daddy left farming to be a lineman for Central Rural Electric Cooperative and they moved to Stillwater, Oklahoma, more than 40 miles away. This was in a day and time when speed limits were well below today's 75 MPH interstate highways and long distance telephone calls were all toll calls. That was the first time Mother had ever lived away from her hometown. It must have been hard for her, leaving her family and friends. And, by extension, for Daddy, too. Then he supervised the CREC district out of Jones (fewer than ten miles from Luther.) We lived in and Momma ran the office in the CREC house there.

Daddy changed jobs pretty regularly, always moving up and we moved with him -- but never very far from Luther.

They truly were a team -- Momma supporting Daddy when he took on a new venture, and Daddy supporting Momma when she did.

After I left home, they moved back out into the country. I was determined never to live in the country and Daddy loved me enough to wait until I was on my own. They raised cows, pigs, chickens, and, best of all, prize-winning dairy goats. Nubians to be precise. And a huge garden. Daddy was always a farmer at heart.

That acreage was their dream home. He would say, after he retired, that he "didn't see how he had had time to work, there was so much to do on the place." Their place in the country was a second home to each of their three grandchildren, representing stability, peace, and wonder. Momma provided daycare for my son John and Matt's daughter Julie from birth until about two. They were born 36 hours apart at the Edmond hospital. Daddy was great with babies of any kind, human, canine, whatever. Fifteen years later they got to reprise that role with my daughter Grace.

While my husband Scott, Grace, and I lived in Arkansas, Mother started to fail. She had dementia. Daddy being Daddy sold their goats and gradually let their livestock dwindle so they could come and visit us. Then our business failed and we moved back to Oklahoma, putting a mobile home next to them.

During her final years, Daddy took tender, loving care of Momma. At the end, she didn't recognise anybody, including me. She'd see Daddy coming up from the barn and ask me "who is that man?" But she always recognised his voice. She died December 21, 2004. They had been married fifty-eight years.

Before Mother got so sick, Daddy volunteered as a Master Gardner for the Oklahoma Extension Service. Then after we moved back to Oklahoma he volunteered with Edmond's Hope Center in the Food Room. He got Grace and me to volunteer there, too.

He did things because somebody needed him to. He had no hobbies. Somehow the term hobby meant "not useful." About the only way to get him to come visit was if we needed him to do something. And he could do just about anything you might need done -- electrical work, carpentry, auto repair, lawn and garden -- you name it. He was also an excellent cook.

Scott took a job in Colorado and I stayed in Oklahoma with Daddy for a couple of years. Daddy and I joined him in December of 2011. As far as Daddy was concerned he came to take care of me. Scott's work took him away from home as much as two weeks out of the month, and Daddy knew it would be easier for me if I weren't alone in a new place so far from home. Also, he didn't want me to worry about leaving him in Oklahoma.

As it turned out, because he needed care, he did take care of me. He had heart surgery in early 2012 and needed cardiac rehab which rolled into regular exercise at the local rec center. And, of course, since I had to drive him, I just stayed and participated, too. He needed to walk on a regular basis, so I did, too. I fixed healthy meals for him and ate them, too. We went to lectures on healthy living. We entertained out-of-town guests (his, mine, and ours.)

Then Grace and her fiance moved to Colorado and stayed with us until they got their own place. So for a while, he was spending time with her everyday like he had when she was a baby.

He loved living in Colorado. We live at the base of the foothills of the Rockies, so almost anywhere we went in our daily lives was downhill toward Denver, away from the Mountains. And when we came home again it was toward the Mountains. Almost every time as we were coming home he would look at those mountains and admire "It looks just like a picture."

And we both learned to love the snow.

As his dementia progressed we got in-home help from Visiting Angels and I met some wonderful, caring people. Then he went to Atria Inn, an assisted care facility, and I met more good folks.

From there he went to Serenity House, a kind of group home where he again got good care. While there we took our last real outing to Hudson Botanical Gardens with my son John Ryan and his family. They live in Texas. Daddy enjoyed it thoroughly and he knew them.

As Daddy's world closed down, mine expanded. I learned to celebrate the little things. Like when he imagined his granddaughter Julie had been to visit him and he was worried that she might not have gotten home safely. Julie lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and has not been to Colorado. Daddy didn't remember that he no longer lived in Oklahoma. He enjoyed visiting with his cousin and best friend Melvin. Melvin was gone. He waited patiently for Mother and wondered why she wasn't there. He'd visit with his Grandpa, gone before I was born. There was no reason for me to explain that they hadn't been there. That many of the people he thought he was visiting with were long dead or lived too far away to visit. His world was suiting him just fine.

  Finally, in August he went to New Dawn Memory Care where he apparently had a stroke and Compassus Hospice came into our lives. I thought it was ending then and made arrangements, but he rallied. Not back to where he'd been. He slept a lot and he didn't recognise me, but he was responding to the people around him.

And there was the day I visited him at New Dawn just a couple of weeks before he died and he recognised me from across the room. He introduced me to his hospice social worker. "This is Claudia, my daughter," he said.

I'm grateful and sad that he is gone. And I am glad I am Claudia, his daughter.

Where I Was 3 Years Ago Today -- Nonfiction

In 2013 my daughter Grace invited me to write as a guest on her blog Sin and Inconvenience. This is what she published Tuesday, August 27, 2013, three years ago today. Facebook reminded me. And, yes, the novel in question is available from Amazon in both paperback and Kindle additions -- Murder on Ceres.

My first novel, first draft almost finished. How did I get here? If I were Michener I would start--In the beginning, God. This blog post begins only a little later than that, but well before cell phones and the internet.

I used to write and submit poetry for publication. Acceptance letters along with the standard thank you and a promise of two copies of the issue in which my poem would be published thrilled me. But in those pre-cell-phone days, it cost a fortune to call all my friends and relatives long distance to tell them the good news. Not to mention the expense of buying additional copies of said issue and postage to send those copies to friends and relatives.

I’ve worked for a small-town daily newspaper. I’ve seen my by-line and my name in cutlines enough. But the idea of a book with my name on the spine sitting on a shelf in the Edmond Public Library seems much too grand. It shimmers above me in the night sky, brighter than the moon. A dream, a desire, a star too brilliant to look at and too distant to touch.

Knowing that a novel was beyond me, my book started out as a short story. I’ve written short fiction. I took a course in college. I understand how it works. So all I needed was a prompt of some kind and a deadline. My daughter provided the prompt and the deadline allowing me to choose the genre.

I ignored her prompt and chose murder and science fiction. And I went to work.

The deadline came and went, and the work proved to be as undisciplined as I. The story would not limit itself to short fiction. So I reconsidered the situation and decided to do a little book, a murder mystery that takes place on a colony in low orbit around the asteroid Ceres. But I needed help.

I happened to attend a monthly meeting of Oklahoma City Writers, Inc. at which William Bernhardt was doing a two hour presentation on novel writing. He talked about outlining. An instant turnoff since my research paper days too many years ago. But he made sense and showed how to plan the structure of my book. He was talking about the actual nuts and bolts of constructing a book-length story.

Three years plus several months, three of Bill Bernhardt’s intensive writing workshops plus a conference here and there, and I am coming around the last turn on this full-length murder mystery science fiction novel.

Bill said write every day. Four hours a day. If I had done that the book would have been finished long ago. Did I mention that I’m undisciplined? I heard somewhere that Stephen King says to write four hours a day and read eight hours a day. Or was that Mark Twain?  The eight hours reading I could go for, whoever said it.

There was a recommendation that I join a writers’ critique group for support and critical input. But that meant I had to also give support and critical input. I left every one of those meetings feeling bad because I had said harsh things to people as earnest about their writing as I was about mine. Tact is not one of my virtues. And have I mentioned lack of self-control?

Then somewhere else the advice was to just write it all the way through, do not do any editing until the story is complete. What a good rule. But mine is a murder mystery. As I wrote I discovered things that needed to appear earlier in the story. That required a rewrite of a scene. Editing? Even sitting down to begin the next writing session without looking at what I’d done the day before was impossible. Reading the work from the day before required minor or major changes. Did I mention that I tend to break rules even when I impose them myself?

What have I learned these past three-hundred, ten pages, and counting? Somewhere I heard that the definition of the verb to persevere is to begin again, and again, and again. No matter how many times my discipline fails, my control is lost, and my rules are broken, I can begin right now where I am. My book will be written and I will be launched into the night sky to find my name on the spine of a book in the Edmond Public Library. Just gotta finish this book first.

Claudia Wagner

I was born in Oklahoma. I learned to read under my mother’s ironing board. I learned the importance of stories around the dinner table during holidays and in the cellar during storms. I started writing to entertain my classmates. I continued to write because classes or work required it. Sometimes I wrote to understand my life. I have been office help, a welfare case worker, a fast foods manager, and a roustabout in the oil patch. I have also worked for the USDA. I’ve managed a veterinary clinic, helped care for my dying mother, and been a Page at the Edmond Library. I am a woman, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. I believe the future of humanity is as unlimited as the Universe. And I believe that we as a species are imaginative enough and brave enough to move beyond the Earth into that Universe.

Barbara's Law -- A Review

image from Amazon.com

It's courtroom drama with a French twist. And it's good. Not so much because of the plots, but because of the characters.

With so many viewing options available to us these days it's odd to me that I have so much trouble finding something to watch. Traditional television, cable, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu. Even HBO is getting into the mix. I think if it weren't for local weather and news I'd just drop cable and get all my entertainment over the internet. (And that's probably the wrong preposition -- maybe 'from' the internet? 'on' the internet? 'off' the internet? You know what I mean.)

But like diamonds in Arkansas's Crater of Diamonds State Park and gold in Colorado's Clear Creek, if you sift enough sand, you're bound to hit pay dirt. I know, I know. Too many clichés.

The French television production 'Barbara's Law' is one of those welcome gemstones of television virtuosity. It's well written, well directed, and well acted.

The plots begin when our lawyer Barbara meets her client. The plots twist and turn just enough to keep you guessing about what really happened and whether or not her client might be innocent or at least innocent enough.

The characters are glorious and well-played. Barbara is a woman of a certain age with hair going to gray, somewhat overweight, and more than a little bossy. She sometimes likes her drink too much but she always cares even more about justice.

Her associate is erudite, intellectual, and gay. Her secretary is no-nonsense, efficient, and tolerant. Without these two, she'd get into more trouble than she does.

And her ?? -- I don't know what they call them in France, but I translated his role as private investigater. He's a fisherman whom she meets in places that may be typical for fishing but atypical for professional consultations. She trades envelopes we can assume to be stuffed with money for information.

Then of course, there's her dog Darius. I have no idea what his pedigree is. Think big, brown, destructive Newfoundland.

So far this mini series of three episodes is available on Amazon Prime. ('from' Amazon Prime?) I understand there is a second mini series but it is not currently available in the U.S. I tell you this up front because after you watch the three episodes that are available, you'll want more.

Another caveat is that it is in French. Yes, go figure -- a French TV show in French. What were they thinking? This means if you don't have more than my one semester of college French, you're going to have to use the subtitles.

Ah, yes. Subtitles. Many years ago when we moved to a small town in far southeast Arkansas, I visited a movie store there. If you're old enough, you'll remember movie stores. Blockbuster, Hollywood Video those were the big chain movie rental stores, but our town was too small to attract them. We had two independent movie stores and neither of them had a 'foreign film' section.

The first time I went to the larger of the two, I asked, "Where are your foreign language films." The young man told me they didn't have any. Then he asked "How many languages do you speak?" And I said "Just English, but I read it very well." He had no idea what I was talking about. He'd never watched a subtitled film.

My family's taste in movies tends to be global, but none of us speaks more than English -- a common failing in American public education, but that's another blog post surely.

Barbara's Law is subtitled and the subtitles flash across the screen pretty rapidly so it's best to be well-rested and turn off your cell phone when you watch because if you nod off or get a call you'll miss out. Of course, the good thing about watching on the internet is that you can back it up to get anything you miss.

Oh yes. In the interest of full disclosure, I do speak Southern and used to be reasonably fluent in Pig Latin.

Monkeydo -- Nonfiction

Image from emery.edu

"Did you sleep well?" my husband asked.

"I did," I said. "After I put the cat out of the bedroom."

"You got us a bad cat," he said as he fished around under the cook stove for cat toys. Finding none, he wadded up a bit of aluminum foil and proceeded to play kick ball with Kočka. And fetch! Who ever heard of a cat playing fetch?

But that's not what I come here to talk about. (A corruption of a line from Arlo Guthrie's slightly more than 18 minute long song Alice's Restaurant. If you haven't heard it since you were a rebellious teen in the 60's click on the link, lean back, inhale, and enjoy. If you've never heard it, then you should. And if you think you don't have eighteen plus free minutes, you definitely should.)

What I did come here to talk about is words.

At 6:14 this a.m. my phone sounded, waking me to let me know I'd gotten a new email. Apparently I had been working on a writing problem while I slept, because I awoke with a much needed monkeydo. (You probably have the same bemused expression my husband had when I used that word to explain how successfully I'd slept. And by-the-bye, bemused pronounced bih-myoozd, is an adjective meaning bewildered or confused. It has nothing to do with the word amuse unless, of course you see it in a blog post exploring words as a means of entertainment.)

When you write, you need believable reasons for characters to say or do what the plot needs them to. That's a monkeydo. Or if you need them to be in a particular place or situation, getting them there is a monkeydo. Else you have a deus ex machina.

I don't know where the term monkeydo comes from, but I don't think I coined it myself. Which brings me to terminologicalinexactitudinarian. That's my favorite word. I googled it to use in this post. And Oh my god! this is what I found

Writers sometimes think about big words... - Claudia Weber Wagner ... 

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=427583950611349&story_fbid...

Writers sometimes think about big words -- and I don't mean terminologicalinexactitudinarian -- today I mean justice. Check out my latest blog post....

That's right. The ONLY thing Google brought up on that word was me. How many times have you googled something and it only brought up one? Much less that one being you. Talk about feeling important! I'm still smiling like the proverbial Cheshire Cat.

Now that wasn't my first reaction. My first reaction was that I must have misspelled it the exact same way I must have misspelled it in the said reference listed by Google. I thought it was a term coined by Winston Churchill, one of my favorite word-coiners. (Terminologicians?) So I connected it to his name and googled again. This time I got "about 4,050 results." Here's one:

terminological inexactitude - definition of terminological inexactitude in ... 

www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/.../terminological-inexactitud...

OxfordDictionaries.com

Definition of terminological inexactitude in English: Share this entry. email cite discuss ... Origin. First used by Winston Churchill in a Commons speech in 1906.

Now I must question my whole understanding of the word. I don't think I made it up, nor did I make up the story wrapped around the coining of the word. I'm sure I heard it somewhere -- The Dick Cavett Show, my humanities class at Central State, one of the Muppets on Sesame Street. And the context sounded so Churchill.

The story was that the politicians in Great Britain's House of Commons are not allowed to call each other 'liars' so . . . . Apparently the part of the story about using that word in Parliament is true. I googled it.

And one more thing, which has nothing to do with this post other than I got it when I googled "words images." Isn't the picture at the top of this blog beautiful?

Hiking Lakewood -- Nonfiction

Seen from Stone House Park, that shadow of a rounded, treeless hill is Green Mountain, my north star. You can see it from almost anywhere in the Metro Denver area. It marks my way home to Lakewood, Colorado.

Lakewood is a suburb of Denver, and I must say Colorado does its suburbs right. We have easy access to public transportation, top-notch medical care, good schools, rec centers (Lakewood has three.) We have movie theaters and community theaters. There are restaurants that range from food trucks parked outside micro-breweries to steak houses with cuisines representing every culture you can imagine and a few I've never thought of.  If your idea of entertainment is shopping, it's here -- upscale to thrift store.

Lakewood not only maintains its streets and sidewalks (this is the only town I've ever lived in that actually repairs sidewalks and not at the expense of the homeowner -- well other than the taxes we pay) but they save areas they call open spaces and green belts. It being high plains desert where water is especially precious, "green" may be a more hopeful than literal term. Still....

Stone House Park (one of my favorite places to walk) is on Bear Creek Trail. The trail is 14.5 miles long, extending from Morrison and the entryway to Red Rocks Park on the west, east to the South Platte River. From there you can follow the South Platte River Trail into downtown Denver.

Last Sunday my husband and I needed a break from our nonstop Olympics viewing. (Who'da thunk we'd become completely sedentary during the Olympics?) So we walked Bear Creek Trail east from Stone House to Wadsworth. That's about a mile. Then a mile back, of course.

  

We crossed Bear Creek and came to the biggest Cottonwood Tree I've ever seen. That's me at its base. I waded through weeds almost as tall as I am. My husband's first concern was chiggers.

We're originally from Oklahoma where chiggers are a serious threat. If you've never had chiggers (that's what we call having been bitten or eaten alive, more like, by them) then you have lived a charmed life.

According to the Colorado State Extension Service, "Chiggers actually do not bite, but feed by digesting small areas of the upper skin through saliva. The “bite” that chiggers produce is a reaction to the proteins in the saliva. They are rarely encountered in Colorado." Thank goodness.

 

East of the forest area the paved trail runs through an open meadow bounded on the south by condos which you cannot see.

Then it runs right through a large prairie dog village.

When the trail is empty you forget that this park is in a city of almost 150,000 people.

But a group of bicyclists or people walking their dogs quickly dispels the middle-of-nowhere illusion.

Bear Creek and the trail cross under Wadsworth Boulevard

Wadsworth is a major four-lane, North/South thoroughfare through Lakewood. With the exception of rush hour, the traffic volume is tolerable. In the park, it's as though the street and traffic and all those humans going hither and yon do not exist.

We decided that was far enough. What with my stopping to take pictures and watch the prairie dogs, he was having to walk at half-speed. There is nothing quite so wonderful as having a tolerant husband.

We crossed the creek and headed back to the parking lot at Stone House using a different trail. Bear Creek Green Belt has several trails to choose from. We chose one that follows close by the creek and is shaded by trees. The sun in Colorado can be fierce.

And the skies, extraordinarily blue which this little lake reflects beautifully.

  

August is nearing the end of summer what with the possibility of snow as early as September and the flora is shifting from the growing season into the seeding season. 

      

Thistle going to seed                        Blue Mist Penstemon

And this year's Canada Geese goslings are as big as their parents.

Now back to the house for a nice glass of ice water, a pulled-pork sandwich, and an Olympic Rugby Match. Did you know Rugby actually has rules?