Muriel/Martin -- Ceiling/Flooring

And the good news is -- football. The season starts next week after many months of doubt due to the labor dispute, which thankfully has been settled. It is always amazing to me how fast the football season cycles around. When I was growing up high school football was BIG and it still is of course. Our town had Saturday High School games, usually held in the midday. The neighboring towns also had Saturday games and often the caravans of the winning teams flowed through town amid honking  and yelling from convertibles -- that does not happen much where I live now -- though High School football is still big and the games are usually played on Friday night.

Football for me helps to block out the stress of everyday life and for the three hour period of the game it usually is successful. I do not know about the relationship of football past my own father -- who is reported to have quit a good job once just to go attend a football game in which Red Grange was playing -- I can only hope that it was a good game. So I am not sure if my Grandfathers were interested in football -- I do know that in the 1940s and early 1950s for one Grandfather -- Dayton Bumgardner -- Boxing and Wrestling played a big role in sports viewing on television (usually sponsored by Gillette).

This Week

The news this week has been dominated by what -- the debt ceiling . . . it is almost impossible to give a status even as I write this as it changes seemingly hourly.  The latest appears to be that the Republicans after much trouble passed a bill in the House that was then immediately blocked by the Democrats in the Senate, so the countdown continues to the deadline next week.

My week had more to do with flooring than with ceilings, though we did our part in raising our own personal debt-ceiling . . . as I have mentioned recently we are going through some remodeling type projects around the house including new flooring in several rooms. The office which houses our desks and cabinets and bookcases gets a lot of activity throughout the week -- we both have rolling chairs -- the floor mats have always been a nuisance because of appearance and tripping over and general dislike of the product. We decided to change from a carpeted floor with plastic mats to a brand new product -- a vinyl wood grained floor that hopefully will allow us to glide at will without impediments and without damaging the floor.

 

This is basically how it looks and it is installed like planks of actual wood -- essentially we hope it will be a wall-to-wall pad allowing us to roll and glide with abandon . . . we'll let you know. One downside to the whole process is that everything is required to be out of the room which means the use of movers to aid in the moving of the very heavy desks and file cabinets. Far more unsettling is the disconnecting of computer equipment and then the possible reconnection -- what could go wrong . . .

From the Family Tree

One of my favorite Aunts was my Dad's sister Muriel, my Aunt Muriel. She lived to be in her late 90s and always was fun to be around. She was the one of three siblings and growing up I know she took abuse from being the only girl -- which probably gave her the sense of humor necessary for everyday life.

This is where she fits into the tree. She is the Granddaughter of (Captain) Samuel Martin and Elise Louise Larson. She along with my father and their brother grew up in Racine, Wisconsin. Muriel was born in the house that belonged to Samuel Martin -- I have visited there many times and it holds a special place in my memories.

 

Here is a picture of Aunt Muriel in front of the house in which she was born in 1905. This picture was taken in the early 1970s and present are Aunt Muriel, her daughter Doris and her Granddaughters Carol and Beverly.  The house looks different today and I believe is subdivided into more than one living quarter. It is located at 1745 Chatham Street in Racine.

Social Networking

I took a course in social networking (for genealogists) a few months back and it opened my eyes to the many uses of social networking. It is not only something for the younger generation. There are many involved groups and other serious users utilizing the network and growing more each day. I have used Twitter to some extent and have been a moderate user of Facebook for some time. Recently I have been interested and intrigued by a new entry into the social networking environment:

It is called Google+ and it is by invite only. It is a Facebook-like product. The problem is that it is right now by invite only and is very limited as to how many can join. Here is a brief description of the service:

And so we look forward to being invited to join  . . . if anyone can send me an invite for Google+ that would be great.

So goes part of my week -- for a short time we were the only Hiles family in town as the other two Hiles families are either in the Northwest or in France . . .

We look forward to slider Saturday Night once again -- see you in a few!