A Live CD

I have had several people tell me that they keep looking at my blog sites and they do not find anything new. I have to apologize for being so casual in the upkeep of the blogs. My only excuse or reason is that I simply do not have the time available to do like I should. Part of that is due to the fact that my wife is spending a lot more time on the web. To combat that in part I have been trying to repair my old Kaypro laptop computer . The bottom line to that is that it would not be prudent to put much money into the repair. I would like to repair the computer so that I would have the experience and learning opportunity that doing it would give me. Alas I am afraid that any repairs would be pouring good money down a hole with an old computer at the bottom of it. A friend of mine whose knowledge is a lot greater than mine suspects that the motherboard may be starting to fail. Since the main hard drive seems to have failed the alternative is to run off a “Live CD” with Linux on it. Linux seems to be a good alternative to Windows. It is promoted as a better operating system by many people and I like it so far. The CD that I am using has Linux “Mint” on it.

Using Linux will help me have computer time while my wife is on the Internet so that I can get caught up on my writing. I have something that might help you, my reader/followers, to know when I add something to the blog. I want you know that I found this in the October 2009 issue of Smart Computing. I have not tried it myself, but I will, so I cannot tell you for sure how well it works. Sign up for a free account on Follow That Page. This will alert you to any changes that are done to a Web site by sending you an e-mail. Since the word blog is short for “Web Log” the blogs that I write are in actuality a “mini” web site. Follow that page will check up to 100 pages (blogs or whatever) per day. Personally I will never have more than a hundred things I follow, more likely less that a dozen actually. To sign up for this free service go to this website. www.followthatpage.com

I took a break just now and told a friend about this site, he went there and told me that there is a great tutorial with it that is very good. He put some of the pages he follows in it and will let me know how he likes it.

The park here is really getting to be devoid of people. Yesterday my wife said something to the effect of “There is a car!” Now it is rather bad when seeing a car is unusual. We see quite a few golf carts going by but not very many cars. In addition to that I know of several people that are still going to leave within the next two weeks. This is like two different places, one in winter and one in summer. I was invited to join the daily bored meeting by a fellow who will be here another month. He says it is spelled “bored” because if I get bored I should go.

I have done a little work with a program called “Crossloop”. It is a program that will couple two computers together across the Internet. If a person is having trouble with their computer and I can help but I am in Texas and they are in Illinois what do we do. I can talk on the phone, or send e-mails even with a short video and that might work. But as you know that is often difficult to do. With Crossloop loaded on each computer I can see their screen, control their cursor and its actions while the person elsewhere can see what I am doing on their screen. www.crossloop.com It may prove to be a very valuable tool. I have only used it once but already I like it.

I have been impressed with the beauty of Monarch Butterflies ever since the first time I remember seeing one. Last year I saw a picture of Monarch caterpillar and I was impressed by its colors. Now this month I have seen several of the chrysalis of the Monarch butterfly and was amazed at the gold colored spots on it. I have also seen the eggs and the tiny little caterpillars. When they are first hatched they are no more than a speck. I hope to get some more pictures of the Monarch yet this month.


CATERPILLAR STAGE OF A MONARCH BUTTERFLY

When I came down last fall a friend asked if he could use my computer to harvest his crops in “Farmville”. It was unfortunate that I watched him play the game which is found on Facebook. I kept thinking about it and finally a few weeks ago I looked at it. Now I can spend hours on the computer playing a game. The novelty will wear down some but right at the moment I spend a lot of computer time doing that. My wife also has a farm and a cafe and I think she also started another game that our daughter says is more fun than Farmville. It is amazing what can grab a persons attention. There is a lady here in the park that belongs to a group that says, “Friends don't let friends get addicted to Farmville.” Maybe I am not addicted yet. There was a time that I spent a lot of time with the game of Myst and also Age Of Empires. Both those were fun games, but at least they were on CDs.

I have something like sixty gigabytes of video that I have taken that is residing on the hard drive of my computer that I need to get edited and put on to DVDs. It is no wonder that my hard drive is getting full. I figure that just editing the videos will reduce it to 10 gigs. The videos are mostly of the line dance class and I am going to make a second instructional DVD.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Bawk, Bawk

There is a place in McAllen, Texas called Quinta Mazatlan. In Spanish it means "country estate". It is part of the World Birding Center. There are always a lot of birds there to see. Since it is spring there is more activity than a lot of the rest of the year. When spring is in the air even the birds start thinking about romance. The Plain Chachalacas were making so much noise that it almost hurt our ears. The Black Bellied Whistling ducks were checking out the nesting cavities and doing a bit of romancing. It was rather strange to see a duck climbing the side of a tree and poking their heads into cavities. In addition to those there were many other small birds around the center. This is the first time that I have seen the green parakeets doing any nest cavity searches.


BLACK BELLIED WHISTLING DUCKS LOOKING FOR A NEST


THIS ONE HAS GOOD POSSIBILITIES


GREEN PARAKEETS CHECKING OUT A NEST CAVITY

We joke here in Bentsen Grove RV Resort that all a person has to do is step outside and holler, "Anyone want to go eat?", and there will be six people that will call back, "Where you going and how soon. To me that is absolutely great. Carry that idea just a little bit farther and tell people that you have a desire to do something fun and a dozen people will volunteer to help you make it better and more fun. People will go out of their way to make it a success. I can only say that those same people make this a wonderful park and every one of them are valuable to me. The following video is one of those things that people are willing to do. As you can guess it took a lot longer to get together than it took to shoot the video.


BAWK, BAWK

Sometimes in life the very smallest thing becomes a very long lasting fun thing. The Cadbury Easter Egg was introduced in the United States in 1971. One early commercial featured a bunny that was interviewing to advertise the egg. Another commercial featured a little boy that was dressed in a chicken costume. At the end of the commercial he flapped his arms and went "BAWK, BAWK". For whatever reason we nearly fell off the chairs laughing at the boy. That commercial has stuck with us all year long and especially around Easter for nearly forty years. To the best of my recollection every Easter since that time we have celebrated Easter with a gift of some sort with a reference to "BAWK, BAWK" for our daughter. I think this is the same little boy in the video that starred in the original commercial. As you see when you view he has aged to perfection and has retained every bit of his talent.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Is Spring Here Yet?

It is hard to believe that it has been over a month since I have written anything for this. (I also cannot believe that I have not been able to publish this video for a week!) Yes I have been more busy than usual but I hardly thinks that is an excuse for me to not write some of the activities that have been going on around here and in my life. It amazes me that so many people are leaving for the cold north. I have heard of all kinds of reasons, grandchildren, taxes, births (more grandchildren), graduations, wanting to visit other places (that I understand), injuries or illness of family, and numerous others. Whatever the reason, no matter how valid the reason, I am glad that I do not have to leave soon.

I have to admit that the season is starting to wind down. This shows in a couple obvious ways here in the area of Bentsen Grove. First and most obvious is the fact that MANY places are vacant not only in this park but also in the camps that are close to here. I have not seen a lot of parks that are distant from here but I am sure that every park is starting to have vacant space across the whole Rio Grande Valley. The other sign that the season end is not too far away is the fact that every performance group is having a show here in the park. We have had shows by the cloggers, Little Theater, Kitchen Band, Men of Accord, the Spring Cantata, the American/Canadian softball game was played, the line dancers will soon have their show. Sure it took a while for these groups to get their "acts" together and then they have to have the show before the participants leave. Another sign is that many of the citrus trees are becoming bare, at least as high as a man on a short ladder can reach, and the trees are turning white with blossoms. With the end of one season another season is about to begin and things will simply change slightly and the activities will become different.

I don't think that I have written anything here about food or at least it has not been anything to speak of. It would not be any stretch of the imagination to believe that being only three miles from the Mexico border would ensure a great many GOOD Mexican restaurants. When I was in Canada I was not surprised that it was hard to find a Mexican restaurant let alone one that was good. But this close to the border there should be many very good restaurants. I have not found that to be the case here in the Mission area. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants around here and maybe some of them are good. I just wish that I could find one. One of the things that most of them have is good refritos. But that is not enough to call it a good place. Nearly all of them have serve meat that is so tough that it needs to be pulverized once more before serving. Many times the food is not hot. A dish that is supposed to have melted cheese and has shredded cheese that is not even warm is not appetizing. It also seems that most place have salsa that is more water than anything else. Dipping a chip into watery salsa is not easy at any rate. I don't think it should be that the best chips for dipping should be found in places like Applebees or Chili's. I have several place to try yet but I don't have a lot of hope. I may have to go back to Denver and go to one of several good places there. I know of a good Mexican restaurant in Brownsville but that is too far to drive for a quick meal.

A few days ago I went with some friends to one of the nearby nature preserves. There were quite a few ducks, egrets and anhingas there. The highlight of the visit was seeing and being able to video a vermilion flycatcher. One one hand I was very happy with the quality that my video camera was able to take and on the other hand I was disappointed with the poor quality that my digital camera was able to get. The flycatcher was a long way away and my digital camera was being hand held, so there really was nothing that I could have done different. Well maybe a bigger lens and a second tripod. The vermilion flycatcher is a very beautiful bird and I was lucky to be able to film it.



I have never considered myself a good photographer. I feel that a lot of times good equipment and taking a lot of pictures allows me to jump the gap to a point that my pictures look good. I have taken pictures of the park residents here to put up on the park picture board this year. So far I have taken 134 pictures with two people in most of the pictures. Because the pictures I have taken have been seen by many people I have been asked to photograph or even video some of the productions that have been put on here. I was just recently asked to take an official photo of the King and Queen of the park. I never know when I will be asked to photograph somebody. I was recently asked to photograph the kids of one of the workers. Just have to set a time.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

A Fun Night

It seems like the life I expected when retirement time came along is just a pipe dream. I am not saying in any way that what I am doing is not what I want to do. It is just that it is not what I imagined it would be. When I lived in Wheat Ridge, Colorado I considered building on an addition to our house. I envisioned a solar room that would face the morning sun. In certain respects it would have been an easy addition to do, but likely more difficult than it was in my mind. I would not try to list the number of quick and easy jobs that I started that ended up being slow and hard before they were done. At any rate I thought of myself getting up in the morning, fixing breakfast, and sitting in the solar room drinking coffee and watching the birds and squirrels in our yard while I read the newspaper or a book. All that still sounds good except for the coffee drinking. It sounds odd to say but in 1996 I quit drinking coffee, mostly by a fluke of circumstance. Somehow sitting and drink a glass of water does not seem to have the same pleasure impact of coffee or perhaps cocoa in the winter.

A lot of other things changed too. One of the biggest changes in direction was deciding that after forty years of thinking of traveling in a motorhome and seeing the country it should be a reality. So we sold the house and any dropped any possibility of building a solar room and went on the road. For several years we did whatever our whim directed us to do. There was a few thing that we did because it was one of the "right" things to do. We have seen some people that are no longer alive and are really glad we added them to our agenda. I think that our summers are going to continue that way, but it feels like our winters are changing.

When we first came to Bentsen Grove Resort we spent a lot of time attending the activities that were going on and we did not have any duties or anywhere we felt we had to be at any particular time. That started to change when I said I could burn a single custom CD of music for the instructor of the line dancing class. That led to more custom CDs for him and also for other people. Then that led to making many copies of that CD for the dancers in the class. The whole idea was to have all the songs that they dance to on one CD, but every time there are a few new songs to dance to there needs to be a new CD produced. Last year I decided that it would be a really good thing if someone was to make an instructional DVD so that the dancers could have something to watch and practice with when they were away from that "classroom" and at home. I cannot volunteer anyone else to do that no matter how good the idea might be. So the idea rattled around in my mind till I bought a camcorder last summer. I have taken many hours of video of the instruction and the class dancing. I was very naive in my estimation of the time it would require to produce a simple DVD. With no instruction from anyone that had done it I have struggled and stumbled to finally create a DVD. I am not about to say it is good, but I am willing to say it is better than nothing. Now I have a lot more respect for the editors of film that I did before. I do not think it would be wrong to say that for every minute of video that I used I discarded an hour of video, maybe more. In the process I have learned a tremendous amount about what works and what is best ignored. This is just dance class.

In the Computer Club I have been teaching (leading, directing, being mouthy in) the second, so called advanced session of the weekly meeting. I have very much decided that all it takes to become known as computer savvy is to know just one thing more than somebody else. To get that way it only takes a willingness to experiment with the different programs on a computer and not be afraid to try doing something you have not done before and learn from the mistakes made. I have told people that I am willing to help them with their computers and am willing to help them figure out what they need to know. This has led to a lot of evenings that went till 9:00 (sometimes later) of helping with a computer. That led to my suggesting that we set aside an hour, three times a week, to have a personal help workshop. That has been a lot more valuable than I would have guessed. It has also been a lot more time consuming than I hoped. Basically a lot of computer help needs take more than an hour to satisfy. Some problems can be fixed in just a couple minutes of time. I did not have to make more that the suggestion to have several people want to help. It has been good for the people that showed up to ask a question.

Recently when a front was pushed further south than normally happens a lot of the vegetation got frost damaged. A lot of plants that I have never seen without leaves have lost all their leaves. I have been spoiled in the years past here by no frost or freezing temperatures. The citrus trees do not seem to have been damaged very much. There is still so much fruit that is available that it is hard to believe. I get an offer of fruit nearly every day.

The show season is in full swing here at Bentsen Grove. There seems to be at least three professional shows a week, for which tickets have to be purchased. Then there are shows that are put on by the park residents strictly for the park residents. While the talent may be lacking in some cases it is so much fun to see people we know on stage. The most recent show was a "Fun Night With The Stars". The residents dressed up like singers and lip synced with some song of the star. Some were good enough that it was hard to tell they were not doing the actual singing. The hall was full of people that were having a good time.


THREE FRIENDS LIP SYNCING AS THE SOGGY BOTTOM BOYS

No to be right honest I never heard of the Soggy Bottom Boys either, but I have heard of the Foggy Mountain Boys. The song they sang was from "Oh Brother, Wherefore Art Thou." So maybe the singers in the movie went by that name.

Both Erma and I have been messing around with colds or something similar. I am not sure if whatever it is that I have is contagious or not. But I have been limiting my public activities to a minimal amount. It has caused some increased duties for others but I would guess that they would rather do more and have me keep the germs at home. At least I hope they think that, I would if the tables were changed.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

A BUSY Typical Day

I am very well aware that the weather here in tip of Texas is a lot warmer than it is most places in the USA. It has only gotten down to about 31 degrees for a few hours last night and maybe 32 the night before. Tonight will be somewhat higher and the temperature into the 60's tomorrow. That is a lot better than anywhere else I have heard about. Still when I retired I made a vow to go further south whenever it got too cold to wear sandals. AND IT IS TOO COLD TO WEAR SANDALS NOW! But where would I go, I am only about three miles from the Mexico border and I do not have a passport. I guess that I will just have to tough it out. In one of the blogs I follow, a daily photo blog, there was a picture of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada where the wind chill factor was down to -54 degrees. With that in consideration I guess that long pants and a flannel shirt for a couple days is not hard to take after all.

Every day here in Bentsen Grove is busy. I often think I would just enjoy a while at home to work on some project of my own without feeling obligated to help someone else or feel that I should be going to some activity in which I want to participate. Everything I do is something that I have volunteered to do for several different reasons, all of which I enjoy doing. So this comment is simply a statement and not a complaint by any means. At the end of the winter season these activities will go away and I will have plenty of time to pursue my own personal activities. I say all of this so that I can write about yesterday. It was similar to most days, but a bit fuller than usual.

I was up and ready for line dancing class from 9:00 to 12:00. There is a class four days a week, some mornings, some afternoon. While I have not been dancing all the dances because my knee has been acting up again, I have been trying to video the dances and eventually create a dance instructional video. So the whole time was busy with one thing or the other. Next was a period of time devoted to a computer workshop period. There are many people here in the park that need help with the use of computers whose needs are being addressed inadequately (at least in my opinion). So this last week I decided that to salve my conscience I had to do something. That something was to offer a workshop, with other volunteers, for individual assistance to people. Lacking a real plan, I simply said that I would be in a room every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between 12:00 and 1:00. So I had to be ready for the workshop as soon as I was done with dancing. In actuality I was ready about 11:30. That was good because people showed up early, as they should. Other helpers showed up a few minutes early, which is even better. There is no way that I could do it by myself. Even after only three workshops that is evident. It was supposed to last until 1:00. That is written with a #2 pencil on paper and we have a big eraser. So it really lasted till 2:00. We did provide a lot of help for several people. The time would have been alright except for the fact that my quilling class started at 1:00 and I don't want to miss that. I walked home quickly and dropped off my computer, my cameras and my tripod, grabbed my box of quilling supplies and got to class over an hour late. That was still okay because I could stay and work by myself for as long as I wanted after the theoretical class ended. By 5:00 I was getting hungry, it was a long time since breakfast so I quit and went home to a meal that was nearly ready.

The instructor of the quilling class had asked me how he could get a better copy of a picture of a Monarch butterfly that he needed and was there a way to make it a different size. I told him that I would try to scan it with the computer and make something that was good. After eating I worked a while on the picture, which was B&W and came up three different sizes on a single sheet of paper so that his quillers would have a choice of sizes. Plus I went to the WWW and got a couple color pictures of Monarch butterflies so they could have a better idea of the colors for quilling. I took the pictures to his home and he wanted my opinion on some quilling that he is doing. I feel a bit odd about that because I have only been doing quilling for a few months during the last year. It may be that because I do not feel the need for strict patterns that he believes I can "think outside the box." That is a compliment to me I believe. Then on the way home I was walking along the street past a unit here in the park. I heard someone pounding on the window and looked towards it and I see an arm waving me to come over to the house. It was a request to go get Erma and come back and play a game called Pegs and Jokers with the people that lived there. We have been wanting to do just that for a couple months, but have never gotten it done. We accepted and we had a very enjoyable social evening until nearly 10:00.

This was a nearly typical day for me. Any part is not unusual at all. What is unusual is to do it all in a single day. I want to be somewhere in the South to be away from the cold weather. So we have a limited area in which to winter, the southern parts of Florida, California, Arizona, or Texas. It is because of the activities here and days like Friday that make it worth while to be here in Mission Texas.

I have mentioned my taking quilling in this and a time or two before. Quilling or paper filigree is the art of rolling thin strips of paper into different shapes and using the shapes to form designs. Quilling has been around since the Renaissance age. I started doing it in December of 2008. I quit working on it during the summer but got back into it when I returned to Bentsen Grove this season. Mostly I have been working on creating special Christmas Tree ornaments. I take a simple Christmas ball and decorate it by gluing on shaped pieces of paper. I do not have a pattern and simply place the paper where I think it looks good. I have given several as gifts, but I forgot to take pictures of them. These three are not quite complete but at least I have pictures of them. These will be complete before long and I can give them as gifts to someone also.


CHRISTMAS ORNAMENTS DECORATED WITH A QUILLING TECHNIQUE

It will not be to long before it is time to go to bed so maybe I should close this out. If you are in a place that is too cold you should think about coming down here in the Valley where a LOW temperature is freezing or just close to it.

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Forty six

It was forty-six years ago that I went to a little white steepled church in Willis, Kansas and did something that I would do again if I was suddenly transported back to that time. I got married. I got a bride that I took to my home in Colorado. Erma joined me in a place that she had never seen, or had not even seen a picture. Some time later I remember thinking that I had hit a milestone when I had been married more than half the time that I had been in Colorado. There were other milestones that came frequently. I was married a length of time longer than I had known Erma, and then it seemed soon that I was married more years than I had been in school. Now I have been married more than two thirds of my life. At least my life so far, I do intend to live longer and be married longer too.

I have always had one problem with the day that I was married. I have never been able to remember which of two dates we got married. I am lucky in that one way. If a man forgets his anniversary and he is late he is in trouble, however if he is early he is just anxious to celebrate. I will never be late but I might be a day early. I was either married three days after Christmas or three days before New Years. Well it was on the 29th, which is three days before New Years Day, by my way of counting. My wife gave up on me years ago.

I must have told some friends of mine it was the 28th because they wanted to take us out. They had also invited several other couples to go with us, but we did not know that. One of the couple was one with whom we had celebrated their anniversary just shortly before. It was pretty special to be with a group for our anniversary. I recommend it to others too.

We spent Christmas Day here in the park. Again the park provided turkeys to be cooked and many people cooked them at home. It is a good thing that a lot of people have standard sized ovens. We could not cook a full sized turkey in our oven. It is a microwave/convection oven that is not much larger than a large microwave. In addition to the turkeys every person brought a dish to share. Like any meal of that sort there was a lot of food, more food than twice as many people needed. There was nearly 500 people that attended the meal. It was divided into several groups, and each group had three or four long tables loaded with food. In fact there were so many people that two buildings were needed to hold everybody. People always hope that all the food they take to a pot luck will be eaten so they don't have to take any home. Erma and I are no different of course. We were not disappointed either. Both the spinach balls that Erma made and the stuffed mushrooms that I made disappeared down to the last crumbs. The fact that they are different and very good helps.


OUR ORANGE GROUP HAD OVER A HUNDRED PEOPLE

It seems that I am constantly helping someone with their computer. I am not sure how I got myself into a situation where I do so much of this kind of work. But I guess it is because I seem to be able to get results and I want people to be able to enjoy their computers. One thing for sure is that having a computer that is not doing what a person needs to have it do IS NOT ENJOYABLE. Some of the problems that people have are really simple to solve, but if I cannot solve the problem then there are two of us that are frustrated. One of the problems have a lot of trouble with is an anti-virus program. We try to load AVG and it takes so long that the chance of failure is high. Therefore it may need to be loaded several times before there is success. I have have success with every computer that has had fair access speed to the Internet, but some connections are too slow to be effective. I need another solution.

I have a friend that is coming into the airport tonight about 10:30. It has been along time since I have been in an airport later than 9:00 or so. Years ago we had a tradition of going out Stapleton Airport in Denver and having strawberry pie after midnight in the first few minutes of a New Year. Then one year we went out there with a young daughter and friends and they had taken the pie off the menu. There went a fun New Years tradition. As odd as it may seem New Years has not been the same since then. We still have fun but I never fail to miss the outing to a now non-existent airport.

If there are people that read this from the northern US I will apologize ahead of time. Our temperature here tomorrow is supposed to be up in the 70's. I keep seeing so many reports of snow and hear that it is cold too. I sure am glad that I am here in the southern part of Texas and the possibility of snow is very small. I just got Roger from the airport and he says that where he left is fourteen degrees. I am glad that I was not there.

So to all of you readers, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Till later this is Uncle Duck

Christmas Eve

Here it is Christmas Eve and I actually had to check earlier today to see what day of the month it was. When I was a kid I got the idea that it was not Christmas Eve until the sun went down. I don't know how old I was when I realized that any "eve" was the entire day before the day of the event. I guess that it made some sense to think it had to be evening. Even to this day I really don't think of it as much different, time wise at least.

We have gotten a lot of cards from people across the USA and a lot from people here in Bentsen Grove. All are very nice and I appreciate the thoughts that are expressed and the thoughts that prompted the sending of cards. I have not sent out many cards in several years. I wonder once in a while if people know that there are thoughts of well wishes for them even if they so not get a card. For several years I have been sending out and giving out a lot of calenders that I have designed and print. Perhaps when those are used during the year people know that did think of them. I give them out both as a Christmas gift and a gift for the entire year.

Living here in the Valley we eat out on a regular basis. There are a lot of nice restaurants with good food that are available. I almost feel that going to one of them has become pretty common. I find myself getting more picky over the years, or I am becoming more aware of my feelings. Either way there is one restaurant that always has good food and there is always a good show to go with it. The name is Hayashi Hibachi. The cook their food on grills in front of the customer with a lot of theatrics. So not only is the food good there is a show that goes with it. I had taken my camera and had taken a couple picture. The chef asked me if I wanted some fire. Of course I said yes and he really gave fire show. I don't know what kind of fuel they used but it made a great flame. I had shut my camera off and I almost did not get the picture.


FIRE AND FLAME AT HAYASHI HABACHI

One of the traditions here in Bentsen Grove is to put two luminarios at the front of every lot and light them at 6:00 on Christmas Eve. This is the fourth year that we have been here for the lighting. I just went out to light ours and the there were at least a dozen other people doing the same. The only problem tonight is that the wind is blowing. Within a few minutes of the lighting of one candle there was a bag casualty. The wind blew the flame into a bag and the bag quickly burned down one side. It is still pretty. The wind is supposed to quit here in just a bit so maybe it will get better. I see that several men are still "relighting" the luminarios that have blown out. Unless the wind does stop soon they could have an all night job. The first time I saw luminarios was when I was in high school and it was something new to a nearby town Ottawa, Kansas. Out in an affluent area there was a whole neighborhood that had nearly every street lined with a luminario about every five foot. It was very impressive.

Bentsen Grove is located on two side of Bentsen Palm Drive here in Mission. Because of this fact a lot of people cross the busy road for activities or visiting. There has been a lot of talk and warnings to the residents here that if a lot of caution is not taken in crossing the street there could be an accident. The cars that come along the street are going fast and they will pass turning vehicles on the right hand side without slowing down. It happened yesterday. The only thing good that can be said it that the lady was not killed. That could have easily been the result. But as I understand she suffered a broken leg, damaged muscle or ligaments of one arm and blow to the head. Someone said that she was hit by the mirror of the vehicle, but that is unconfirmed. Any way it gets looked at, it is a poor way to start the Christmas period.

Tonight in the church where I grew up there will be a large Christmas tree set up in one corner. I would bet that corner has had a tree in it every Christmas since the church was built in 1872. I would also be willing to bet that every child that attended services on Christmas Eve got a bag of candy, nuts and some fruit. That is the way it was during every Christmas I can remember when I was there. There are so many traditions that are wonderful to remember. There seems to be a tradition in a near town that is quite impressive. Just about twenty miles from where we stay is the town of Hidalgo, TX. It is a border town with an international bridge going across the the Rio Grande river into Mexico. It is well known for that reason but the town goes all out to decorate with Christmas lights. There are three miles of lights along the route they suggest. There are trolleys that have narrated tours and there are horse drawn buggies that take viewers around. To say the least it is impressive.


ONLY A FEW OF THE LIGHTS OF HIDALGO TEXAS

Here in Bentsen Grove we have three primary languages that are spoken. Mostly English by the residents. We have a lot of French speaking people that come down from the cold in Quebec every winter. And of course since we are so close to Mexico there are a quite a few workers that speak Spanish. There is at least one couple that come from Germany. Without a doubt there are other languages that are spoken here, but I have not had the privilege of meeting those people. So since I really know only the first three this is all I will say.

Joyeux Noel to my French speaking friends.
Feliz Navida to my Spanish friends.
Merry Christmas to those friends that speak English.

Till later this is Uncle Duck