Crosswordese Word of the Day

DOWN
7) Melville sequel

Answer

It's time once again to vote for the 'Clever Clue of the Month'. Please come and vote now.

Baccalaureate

It was Baccalaureate in Roseau tonight.

Alyssa was given the honor of doing the

cover art for the program.

Alyssa accompanied her friend, Nancy who played a beautiful little hymn entitled, "I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry".

Next, open house on Saturday and graduation on Sunday.

Dawson City from 2002

The top building on the left used to house the largest machine shop west of the Mississippi in the early 1900's. This was part of a gold processing plant a few miles south of Dawson.

The next house is made of bottles. It was in a silver mining town about 60 miles east on the road to Whitehorse.








Left is the final place where the gold is refined by fire. Only a few trusted employees worked here.

The bottom room was where they made their own oxygen or acetelyn. See the batteries and walls lined with metal because that process was highly explosive.

Mineral Street

After visiting Dawson we headed for Duluth. This is a picnic behind the Mineral Street house.

I won't do a Where's Waldo here, though a few of my identifications are questionable (I wish Steve would check in more often). From left to right. . .

First bunch: Grandma Lindman, Signe, Inez, Esther?

Second bunch: Florence?, Mabel, Harold, Mary

Third bunch: Mom, Grandma Lindstrom, Grandpa Peterson

On ground: Bob Lindman, Me, Mary, Steve, Barb, behind Barb is Ollie and finally Bob Osell (who must have been 12 or 13 at the time).

Notice Steve shooting the camera with a gun? Sometime I should post a collage of all the photos from that era with one or more of us kids threatening the camera with a weapon - usually a gun.

Klondyke Fever (edited - bigger pictures)

Up until September of 1955 there was no road to Dawson. The paddlewheelers hadn't traveled the Yukon for decades. Dawson was nearly abandoned and pretty much as it had been at the turn of the century. In the spring of 1956 the Lindmans and the Lindstroms took the road to Dawson as we headed to Duluth for a vacation.

We were some of the first tourists. An old guy with a bushy beard gave us a tour of the saloon (the middle picture). There were broken beer bottles strewn about. A bulletin board with old "wanted" posters. Posted by Sargent King (the model for Sargent Preston King of the Yukon).

Behind the bar was a really large painting of a lady in underware. He pointed out the various bullet holes in the picture. The saloon later burned to the ground. Man, I wish I could go back and ask that guy a ton of questions.

School Daze

I never went to kindergarten. The polio epidemic was hitting Alaska hard when we arrived, so they kept me home and Mom taught me to read.


Here we're all dressed up in our new school clothes and ready to go to the first day of school. I never liked those flannel-lined jeans. They itched, especially when they got wet.

The Church Basement

Here are a few more photos from the wedding. On the back of the photos is stamped the name "Tim Bergstedt". I witheld these pictures hoping they would give me an advantage in the contest (which I don't personally consider to be cheating) but alas they were of no help. In fact there were some "bodies" in the Where's Waldo photo that I think I could have claimed were Ruth and Tom, Laura, Mabel etc. and gotten away with it. But from these photos It was obvious they were in the church basement helping out. If you can see any clues in these photos to name more names - go at it. So the people in the gym were likely only half the people at the reception. It would have been neat to have a photo in the basement too. It has been my contention for a long time that what happens in the church basement has more to do with holding a church together than what happens in the sancturary.

Guide to Digital Photography

This is not an ad; it is a recommendation. This will help all of us bloggers, and those who want to be bloggers, to learn all about digital photography. It is on the newstands now and is only 9.95 so take a close look. The pull out middle section shows how to stitch several pictures together and get the wide panorama look. Also a good section on getting those photos on your computer. The final step is to put the best photos on the blog...

Sigrid

That lady to the left of Leonard (to the right of Karen and Carol) is someone I knew but my old brain just couldn't catch the name. The church directory to the rescue revealing it was Sigrid Lindblom.

Hello?

On Saturday our computer was acting wierdly. By Sunday it was evident we had been infected by a nasty virus. Windows were popping up trying to delete un-named files. At one time a window said, "are you sure you want to put My Computer in the recycle bin?" After much struggle and many conversations, given the age of the computer, we decided to get a new computer. (Dean was a great help!)
Well, we're back. With a new Gateway. Old memory was 256. . .new over 1000 and with a duel core it's 1000 times 2. Old hard-drive was 40. . .new over 250. Etc. So I'll spend a day or two examining what I missed the last few days, and then try to get back to scanning and recording slides.
Boy, getting a new computer up to speed is a pain! Of course you first have to get the thing running, but beyone that I had to redo the printer, the scanner, the WEB access, the digital camera and on and on.

Canoeing on Lake Louise

Some strangers just don't have a real good sense of photographic composition...

It's amazing to me, as I think about it now, that we were able to get a canoe and be the only ones out on a lake this beautiful and popular. I wonder if that's still possible...

Lake Louise

I appreciate Dancing-man taking up the slack during my current hiatus.

This is a continuation of my honeymoon set. Is this the most beautiful place on earth? I'm not sure why I don't have a picture of the Tea House after the long walk up the mountain - I must have run out of film...

All I want for christmas

Attention young couples. I think its a great idea to take pictures every year of kids with their christmas and birthday presents. It brings back a lot of memories. (We should have done it.) Two things about this picture. . .

1. The TV in the left corner. This photo is from '56 or '57. This has to be a TV from the first five years or so of production? The TV box is about the size of a small freezer but the screen is like about 12 inches. In Alaska TV didn't come on until about 4 in the afternoon. We would sit down in front of the TV half an hour early and watch the test pattern eagerly awaiting the 4 o clock cartoons. When it came on we'd clap and cheer.

2. TV tie-ins to toys are nothing new. I see, at least, two Davy Crocket rifles, a pair of Davy Crocket moccasins, a Dragnet crime lab, a Lone Ranger something or other, and Mickey Mouse color crayons on the fake mantel.

Ollie and Esther

Did any of you know that at one time Ollie and Esther were real close to adopting a baby? I'm not sure of the year, but judging from the look of the slide frame it would be in the early 50's. I'm also not sure why they ended up not adopting.

Doesn't it look like Ollie has a tattoo? I tried to zoom in but it goes out of focus before I can draw any definitive conclusions. I would say the odds are in favor of his NOT having a tattoo, but I know he was a little wild and reckless in his youth so it's possible.

He told me once of a pool game in Chicago that got out of hand and his opponent drew a gun on him. Ollie stuck his hand in his pocket and pretended like he had a gun in his pocket pointing back. He backed out the door, jumped in his car got out of there.

Grandma Gilberg

I mentioned a church directory. I'm going to start posting entries once in awhile. There is no date in the directory but it has to be 1970-1971. Mark is still at home, Steve is in Montreal (not Winnipeg) and Bill Sjoblom is in Korea.
One of Mom's best friends was Laura Gilberg. These are Carl Gilbergs parents. The directory doesn't bother to name the women and I can't remember her name, but we always just called her Grandma Gilberg anyway.
In the wedding picture she is in the upper left.

With a cherry on top?

There are lots of photos of Lindstrom/Lindman get-togethers. This is not one of the better ones.


The reason I'm posting it is because of the food. I've looked at this every which way and I still can't figure out what in the world we're eating. I've gotten no further than a guess that the red thing is a cherry.

Name the Chocolate Lab

Here is our new dog. She is a chocolate lab. Lois calls her Flora, but i call her CoCo. Maybe you could all help us resolve what her name should be. All of our other dogs were named after plants, flowers, and weeds. She also appreciates modern art.

Car for Dean

Dean i feel sorry also that the cat pictures kind of blocked out the bigger story of the car that was hit by the tree. bummer :(
When you get to Alaska you are welcome to take this car as far as it will go. Who knows it may make it all the way to Minnesota. It still runs.

When it's springtime in Alaska

We looked forward to spring breakup. A large pond formed in our backyard and us kids had a blast.

The Gig Is Up!

Sunday. Celebrated Dean and Jo's birthdays at Dean and Kurt's farm.



But here's the interesting thing. Dean was acting wierd all afternoon. Subjects would come up in the conversation and he'd look at me as if he expected some light to come on in my mind that would resolve some grand mystery. I was clueless. The topics that would evoke his manic expressions revolved around 1. their cats 2. Dean's car 3. a large number of dead and fallen trees they were working on removing.

Finally, Dean could tolerate my obtuseness no longer and asked me, "Have you read my blog entry about our cute cats?" Well, of course. I was mildly insulted that he would think I haven't been paying close attention to the family blog. "Did I notice anything odd about those picture?" No, I responded. Cute cats doing cute things. I got it.

Finally Dean could hold it in no longer. Those pictures were not about the cats at all! The dialogue about cats was a tongue-in-cheek playfulness on his part to highlight the obvious story in the pictures that a large tree had fallen with a direct hit on his new car. Well I was embarrassed, dumfounded and shamed all at the same time.

But here's the deal. . .don't any of you dare claim that you were in on the joke from the beginning! There is no evidence in posts or comments to back you up. And I am expecially referring to Little Brother Paul (aka The Puzzle Master). I don't mind going down as long as The Puzzle Master goes with me.

North to Alaska

Steve and I have always considered the Alaska Years a sort of Golden Age.



A lot of that had to do with how well we meshed with the Lindman kids, Bob, Barbara and Mary. We were like one big extended family. I would guess I'm six years old here.

By the way. . .the trick I'm using that gets my photos uploaded without hitches is to reduce the size or resolution until the photo is around 100 kb and then upload.

The Winner Is. . .

This game is getting too rough for me. I'm calling it officially over, though feel free to add new names that come to mind.
While we can't all be winners, I'd like to think that there are many winners in this game. Mark, because he responded first and with many contributions at a time when the rules were not too clear. Dean, because of his vigorous competition and his brilliant analysis of the group of males left-of-center. And Jean wins, because. . .well. . .because she won. She got the most points. But not only because she won but in the way she decimated and devistated her twin brother. . .and on their birthday to boot! Way to go!
But most important of all. . .I won. I won because I devised a puzzle that left little brother Paul (the puzzle master) languishing pathetically in LAST PLACE!!!!! I am so proud of myself. But when you think about it, he didn't have a chance. Look again at the family portrait at Mom and Dad's wedding. Paul is nothing but a wee child. He wasn't thinking about Einer and Rudy. . .his mind was on Yogi and Boo boo. Would The Ranger catch them! Would they be in trouble for stealing the picnic basket!
I still plan to present a few more names, but it will be in the aftermath. There were numerous "old ladies" who were vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't put a name on them. I found a church directory circa 1970 with pictures of all church members! Using that directory I was able to produce another half dozen names. I'll do that in the near future.

Happy Birthday, Kids!

Nice suspenders.

The Birdies in the Treetops

At Josh's party yesterday, Corinne Dee (aka Corky Carlson) told me that we sang "The birdies in the treetops sing their songs" when these pictures were taken, and all of a sudden the whole song came back to me. Now I can't get it out of my mind.

I'm guessing the above picture is of David Towns, Floyd Hammerstrom, Bill Sjoblom, Roger Peacock, Tim Burgstead, and Sir Dancelot. We were roughly 3 1/2 years old. I especially like the pose of Tim.

Many people you know are in this picture. Some I recognized right away are Becky Osell, Nancy Eneroth and Corky Carlson. Corky could probably name them all.
I couldn't begin to describe how evocative all the things in this photo are to me - the tiles on the floor, the green walls, the steel posts, the fake fireplace, the little lighthouse on the mantel (when you put a penney in it the light would go on).

The dreaded 5 - fingerrrrr rapids

When Lois Ann and i did the Skagway, Whitehorse, Dawson City trip in 2002 we saw the 5-finger rapids from above. The gravel road from Whitehorse to Dawson goes near the rapids and there is a nice hiking trail down to see them.

Keeping Score

I'll use this space to keep score. Let me know if you want to challenge or correct an identification.

1. Sue Joyner - Dan
2. Stephanie Peterson - Dan
3. Corinne Carlson - Dan
4. Mark Stynsberg - Dan
5. Einer Hammerstrom - Dan
6. Don Tedlund - Paul
7. Nancy Eneroth - Mark
8. Linda Sundeen - Mark
9. Phil Pearson - Mark
10. Al Peterson - Mark
11. John Stynsberg - Mark
12. Ruth Stynsberg - Dean
13. Dick Matthews - Dean
14. John Watkins - Dean
15. Helmer Bloomstrand - Dean
16. Marge Peterson - Dean
17. L. Pearson - Dean
18. Bette Matthews - Dean
19. An Austin boy - Jean
20. Rick Matthews - Dean or
-----David Watkins - Jean
21. Jean Watkins - Dean
22. Unknown
23. Ada Norquist - Jean
24. Grandma Peterson - Dean
25. Leonard Carlson - Dan
26. Lois Stacy - Dan
27. Bob Lindman - Dan
28. Stephen Lindstrom - Jean
29. Irv Stauffer - Dan
30. Mrs. Van Reese - Dan
31. Leitha Pearson - Jean
32. A little Julien Girl - Jean
33. Janet Julien - Jean
34. Shirley Julien Girl - Jean
35. Bill Laulo - Jean
36. Ruth Laulo - Jean
37. Adele Johnson - Jean
38. Sam Johnson - Jean
39. Rick Gilsen - Dan
40. Mary Stauffer - Jean
41. Grandma Gilberg
42. Sigrid Lindblom
43. Irene Hammerstrom
44. Mrs. VanRossum

Notes:
*20 is being challenged. Identification is inconclusive.
**22 is unknown.
***32 could be given to someone else with a more specific identification.


Dan:.....11
Paul:....1
Mark:....5
Dean:....9 (+1 under challenge)
Jean.....12 (+1 under challenge)

Dawson City

Look what showed up after doing some much needed spring cleaning the other day; 5 rolls of undeveloped film from the summer of 2002. It was from just before we got our digital camera. Since i had worked a day of overtime i was able to drive to town and still have a little left over to get the film processed...

If these photos came out as planned the top one is looking downstream (north). You can see the clear water of the Klondike River flowing into the Yukon River. The bottom photo is looking south. They were taken from a golf course on the opposite side of the river. Quite a view!!

The bottom photo is our old van that had 2 flat tires when we woke up in the morning. That must have happened on the 'Top of the world highway'. Luckily they were both slow leaks.

Living Color

It appears I've one-upped Dancing-too-much once again. Actually, Dean's the big winner here with his incredible observational skills (see comments for 'Ok, here we go').

Where's Waldo?

Let's see how many people we know in this picture. Number your response. Give us a hint to the position. Name the name. And for extra points tell us something about where they ended up after this picture was taken.

For example. . .#1. Towards the center but lower and to the left is Sue Joyner wearing some kind of fake fur collar. If I am not mistaken, Sue is married with children and living somewhere near or in Stillwater. Wasn't she, at one time, romantically linked with brother Mark and Bill Sjoblom? (Don't tell Lois Ann!)
Here's something embarassing. . .Youth For Christ, at the time, had a party to counter Prom (which was considered too worldly) and I know I went, and I may have gone with Sue Joyner, but I can't remember. It might have been Corine Carlson or. . .the man in the moon. No offense to whoever I took. I remember a Bill Sjoblom story from the 10 year reunion of the Proctor High class of '67. He started talking with a girl, and he told her honestly, that he couldn't remember her, and she told him, "You took me to the Prom!" and then she burst into tears and ran away.

Time for more cat pictures...

It's been a while since we have had some cat pictures... We just took these pictures on Monday evening!

---

Here's our mother cat, Buffy, with one of her sons, Junior, sitting on a fallen log. Junior is on the left with the white patches.






Now Junior has jumped off the log to the left and Buffy is getting ready to jump off to the right. Oops! Looks like I got something in the way of the lens...






Now you can see that Buffy has jumped off the log too.... These active cats don't stay in one place too long!






Here's another shot of Junior sitting on the car...






...and another shot of Junior standing next to the car.