It is supposed to be sunny and dry for the next several days with rain coming later in the week. The grass was cut yesterday and going outside the fragrance of freshly cut grass hit me and flooded my mind with all sorts of memories.
We are flying the flag today for the first time in about a week. Throughout the neighborhood there are numerous flags making for a nice display.
The Patriots came from behind, way behind to put the game into "OT". The first time ever for a Super Bowl game.
Needless to say, the Patriots won the game with the Falcons scratching their collective heads. One good thing for the Falcons Offensive Coordinator, Kyle Stranahan, he got a new job as the head coach of the San Francisco Forty-Niners.
We'll see if this 4th head coach in as many years is a good thing for the Niners, time will tell.
So 2017 is done for the NFL and next year's Super Bowl is scheduled for 4 Feb 2018 in Minnesota.
I still have to go over some (all) of the recorded presentations and the reports are that the event was great.
Every year I think that maybe "next" year will be the year that I make it back to Salt Lake City and to rootstech . . .
For now, I'll make do with watching the recorded videos and the online discussions of the event.
The instructors for the class that I'm taking attended the event and are winging their way back home as I write this.
And speaking of the class, "Genealogy Intensive, The Write Stuff" we will wrap up this session next week with an online get-together via Facebook and "Go To Training".
I have written about things and stories that I recall from the many that my mother told to me over the years.
This week, I wrote about a period of time before my parents were married. My mother had recently graduated from Lake View High School (1929) and for this time period, she was in nursing school.
My father at the time was a soldier stationed at Fort Sheridan and was attached to the 14th Cavalry Unit there.
Even though Fort Sheridan is not that far from where my mother lived with her parents and siblings in the Logan Square area of Chicago, they communicated via letter frequently. And they apparently saw each other maybe on the weekends when possible.
My mother always had a lot of friends and was always doing or going somewhere with one of them. On one occasion, she and a girl friend -- for whatever reason, just a lark -- decided to visit a fortune teller.
The fortune teller began with my mother and related many fairly obvious things to her and then she stated that she knew that my mother was corresponding with some one by letter. She then said that someone was intercepting those letters before the intended person (my father) received them and of course reading them. My mother just put all the information given to her from the fortune teller in the back of her mind and probably dismissed most of it.
Then it was her friend's turn and the fortune teller told her many obvious things as well. But she then added a last bit of information -- she told my mother's friend that she could see a piece of furniture that she had in her bedroom, a dresser that had been left to her from a grandmother who had passed away. And she ended the session telling her that her grandmother on one evening would "appear" next to the dresser.
Both young ladies (18 or 19 years of age) enjoyed the visit and went about their everyday life. A short time later my mother was either visiting my father in person or communicating again by letter when my father asked my mother to put "sealing wax" on any future letters sent to him as he suspected they were being opened and read before he received them.
There actually was the possibility that another soldier -- who had been writing back and forth to my mother -- could be the culprit. But we do not know that for sure. At any rate, my mother thought back to what the fortune teller had told her and was taken aback a bit. My father had no knowledge of the fortune teller and was just stating the facts as he knew them.
Subsequently, my mother shared the story with the friend that had accompanied her to see the fortune teller. The friend was visibly struck with the news. She immediately went home and had the dresser removed ( and maybe destroyed) from her bedroom and was taking no chances that during some night her grandmother would appear next to it . . .
My mother loved telling stories (just ask my older brother) like the one above -- and I believe that it was factual. I for one have never visited a fortune teller and have no plans to do so . . . I have a few others to relate at a future time.
And so how else did I spend my time this week:
We receive the pieces in so many different ways that it takes forever to locate all of them.
Some documents are sent by email -- one of three different emails. Some come by the physical mail.
Some are obscured because they are automatically either paid or received via banking accounts (but which one) and others are handled by financial advisor accounts -- it is just a nightmare. So I do a little at a time.
The actual preparing of the tax forms is quite simple once you have the puzzle pieces to enter into them. It will be very interesting to see how taxes will be simplified -- I hope it is not by eliminating certain deductions . . .
And as far as the "teach your children about tax" by eating 30% of their ice cream -- not a bad idea.
A thought about children or dependents entered on a tax form -- it was not always the law that a dependent have a social security number (like now) and once the law was passed the number of dependents dropped by a large number.
And finally -- next week -- Tuesday, Valentine's Day:
I remember in elementary school that we gave Valentines to every child in our class and hopefully received one from every child as well. Is that still practiced today . . .
That's a bit of our week. See you all "in a few"!
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