Ben has a motorcycle; Art

This week is going to be our summer vacation. With the kids in sports it is very difficult to get away so this year instead of taking off somewhere we are going to do a bunch of fun things here in town. Saturday was the end of an era. Shortly after Sarah was born Brandon made the profound comment, "well, no more kids for this family, we don't have any more seatbelts". He was referring to our brand new Chevrolet Astrovan. It has served us well for more than 13 years but when the transmission went out a while back it just didn't seem worth fixing it. I was going to just donate it but finally we decided to sell it. Lisa figured it would actually be worth money but I was quite skeptical. This weekend some real estate agent in the neighborhood had a neighborhood garage sale so we decided to sell some of the stuff we got from our neighbors across the street. At the same time we put a for sale sign in the van window. I was also finally convinced to list it for $1,000. I thought that would scare everyone off but we had more interest in the van than anything else. I sold it in the first fifteen minutes. Even with a shot transmission. As we were sitting there minding the shop (garage sale) the mail came. I got a letter from some outfit called AARP. I wondered who on earth that could be. It turns out that because I'm going to be turning fifty soon I am now a member of the "American Association for Retired People". I don't know if I like the sound of that but hey, I now qualify for some discounts. Let's see how much that is worth.

A week ago Ben came to the realization that him and Sharley need a second vehicle. They can't afford a car and with the price of gas what it is they decided that they needed a motorcycle. Justin also did that when he was in school and since they are going to be in Arizona (Justin was in Florida) they figured that a motorcycle can be a year round vehicle. I had a motorcycle in Canada and I felt indestructible on it. Now that my son is driving one it doesn't seem nearly as safe. I told Ben to be careful because Sharley is way too young to be a widow.

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Rosemary was a new and wonderful experience for us. As I talk about Rosemary I will refer to the map above using a number in brackets to indicate where the place is that I'm referring to. I wanted to use a satellite image but I guess Rosemary isn't big enough to warrant a high resolution image. Our house (1) was on the southwest corner of Tulip and Florence. It faced Tulip street. When we moved into Rosemary all of the streets were gravel. Eventually they paved Railroad Ave and Center Street as far as Lupin but that was it. There were some unusual things about Rosemary that seemed strange at first but eventually it just became a part of the wonderful experience that was Rosemary. When it came to religion the town was very divided. Half of the town was very devout Mennonites (2) and the other have was very devout Mormons (3). There were a few others scattered in there but not many. Even the graveyard (4) was divided with Mormons buried on one side and Mennonites on the other side. Oddly enough there was even a Buddhist Temple (5) in town. While it seemed odd what it really meant was that there were a lot of very good people in the town and they all watched out for each other. It was a wonderful place to raise your kids. Our block had about five houses that faced Tulip street and behind the houses running down the middle of the block was a back alley. The other half of the block had one very old and run down house and the entire half of the block (6) was a fenced in and they had a bunch of cows. A very old and somewhat decrepit man lived in the house with his son named Art. Art was a loner but a nice guy. I talked to him often and grew to like him but it was obvious that he was avoided by most of the people in town. That was understandable because they lived in squalor. The entire yard was filled with manure that smelled to high heaven and neither Art nor his father had very good hygiene. The cows also looked severely malnourished and were no more than bones with skin stretched over them. One day when I was at work I received another one of those panicky phone calls from Lisa who was nearly hysterical. It seems that one of Arts cows got out of his yard and was standing in our yard feeding on our flower bed. Lisa was pregnant with Brandon and was scared to go out there and didn't know what to do. I told her to send Vlinder out and I figured the dog would chase the cow away but eventually she just called a friend named Harold Unruh and he took care of the cow. I've often wondered what became of Art. Over the years I got to know Art fairly well. Before we left Rosemary he got a job at a pig farm and got rid of his cows. I know he was working to get his drivers license and buy a car. That would go a long way to helping him fit in.