The Snowpocalypse Continues

In the last two days we've received nearly a foot of new snow. All the ground is covered again.

To change this, later in the week we will be posting the latest blog entry from Jeanette. It's about fishing. A woman and her truck. And about summer.

A theme we could really use to explore in depth at this point.

The Contest Results-Sort of.

So last fall we had a contest...The competition was to celebrate the 10Th anniversary of HMR's online presence. Staying true to our roots, we asked a simple, very easy question. Which one of these mondo fabulous folks DID NOT spend the summer of 2007 living in a trailer?

And it could be any type of trailer really. Single wide, double wide, RV or a glamorous triple wide. Whoever got the question right-well they got a limited edition HMR hat.

Easy, right?

Well apparently not.





We had hundreds of guesses. Those guesses were fairly similar.

But sadly, no one guessed the one person who did not have the fortune to live in a dwelling that once came delivered, or maybe even still rested, on wheels.



So we've given up. It's been six months. That one person, not fortunate enough to live in a mobile home is pictured above. The divine and stunning Mylinda.

But wait! We also had a bonus question...

Which we found even more disappointing that no one figured out.



We asked who lived in this fabulous home? Who among us might have the good taste and courage to go, or live, where no cul de sac might allow?

The answer?

Brett.

And his lovely wife Misty.

So yeah these gems remain up for grabs. We'll continue to run these crazy little contests. We'll keep giving away hats until the last one is gone. We'll have some fun celebrating ten years on "the Internets", and twenty years in print. Grand prize will be a jacket.

Stay tuned.

Special thanks to Brett, Misty, Lane, MyLinda, Stacy, Madison, Kevin, the Pendleton Round Up 12th runner up out a field of six Rodeo Princess (from Echo-not Pendleton) and moi.

Remember Living Man As You Pass By, That You Are Now As Once Was I

Google's way with ad placement...

This is the headstone I mentioned in last week's blog piece "In the Money".

For some reason when google started selecting ads for the blog, well I guess my writing is a lead in for tombstone sales.

I am really not sure how I feel about that.

More. This morning.

It is hard to accept that April begins next week. There will be snow here into May. This is not usual weather. Not even close. Stay tuned for the flooding pictures that are sure to follow.

WWJD?

Weep.

More snow is in the forecast.

A parting shot from the winter we'll never forget.

By Request

Here is the link to "Clear Cut". It is the first piece I had published in book form. I believe it was published in May of 1999, in an anthology entitled Second Essense. The book was published by Seattle Pacific University.

Here is the link:
http://www.highmountainranch.com/SomeDay/Ch2.shtml

On this Day of Light...

Where Joy Finds You

My father called Friday night and said I was about to have a visitor. Mainly him.
Boeing was to fly dad from Seattle to Spokane, complete with a three pound box of rivets that absolutely had to be there by 6 am Saturday. Could I meet him at Spokane International Airport-help him deliver the freight and then get him on a return flight to Seattle the next afternoon?

That would be a yes.

Over these last several years, something happened in my relationship with my family. I don't know why or how it happened, but I am grateful that it did. I think the word grace comes to mind...

These days I actually like spending time with my folks-although it hasn't alway been this way. In my 20's, and through my mid-30's, our's was not a great relationship. It's a long story and in a sort of Bastard Out of Carolina way, I had many roles I played quite well. Victim. Survivor. Pissed off asshole. I'd answer to all of these and mostly I was very talented at not exactly handling my disappointment and frustration with my own circumstances in the most diplomatic way. In fact, the healing process is ongoing and is best defined as one step forward, and one or two or thirty impulsive steps back to the local Hallmark Store for yet another I'm Sorry card. My sister tells me not to put these things into writing even as my mother collects each card like they are gold.

In a word, I am broken. I will always be still finding my way. I guess if I had a Native American Name it would be Dances with Hallmark.

So the fact my father was spending the night under my roof, is pretty much a big miracle.
Not Easter size miracle, but definately up there.

There is a lot of tragedy in my family history. Not just my own nightmares but tragedy that started long before my parents were adults. Some of the most horrific things I can think of happened to land on my father's shoulders when he was a kid. I have written about this brokeness in the story "Clear Cut". To this day, everytime my father reads that story he weeps. At the time I wrote that piece, I did not know many of the details of what that boy lived through. I do now. Had I known then these realities, I don't think I could have finished the piece.

I am learning that wherever grace is found, so is tragedy, brokeness and disillusionment. It seems one can not flourish without the other. Hope rises on the fresh winds of renewal. It is lifted under the force of goodness waiting to prevail.

Still, not all stories have happy endings. I realize this. I see unhappy endings all the time in my volunteer work. I see people who have never known a single moment of grace, or second chances, or even the bonding force of love. I have seen too many throw away people, souls who die unloved, deeply addicted to darkness, and without hope. I have difficulty reconsiling my contact with abandonment with the many versions of hope I've witnessed.

Why some find grace and others do not is a question I ponder regularly.

Which brings me back to my father. Of all the people in the world who could have embraced bitterness and anger, my father never did. I mean he certainly had his quota card filled. But I can't remember a single time where my father felt sorry for himself, where he wondered "why me", or a time when he did not accept the reality of hope. Indeed he has always been one of the most optimistic people I know. That optimism is infectious in his ministry, in his contact with customers, and in his ability to make friends with strangers everywhere.

So yesterday, as we drove over Flowery Trail, as he returned to those pain ladden Colville Valleys of his youth and as he spent time with his brothers and they retold wilderness stories and log trucker stories, I saw evidense of grace. Everytime my dad spoke, the impossible optimism that came out of his shattered youth soared. I decided it was time to just shut up and listen.

Long ago I learned that Easter is the rebirth of belief from horror. Yesterday I embraced that my father is about the same. The history of my father's life under the Heavenly Fathers light has become the single largest statement that points to God's grace that I can make.

It is an Easter lesson I don't think I will ever forget.