Random picture from your phone story (?#27) 2-13- 2022

By: Carrie Keiser

There’s one more home game and then I will never come to this gym to watch my girl, EmmaLece, cheer again. There was a last home football game for her twin, Scott, just outside these doors only a few months ago. A few years ago was the last home game in this gym watching a son, Robby, play basketball, outside a last home football game. Back a few more years was a last home game of watching another girl, Savanna, play volleyball and basketball. And a last home track meet. Years before that, a last time I watched my oldest, Cody, wrestle here. But this one will mark the last of the home games/matches any of my children will ever again participate in, here in this building.  It will mark the end of a season in our lives, the end of this chapter.  After next weekend, if we attend games or matches, we will only be there to support friends, or our town. It’ll be SO strange to not have a child on the team. It’s possible that one day I could watch my grandchildren play a sport in this gym and that would be the beginning of a new season… a new chapter yet unwritten.

For today, I will take hundreds of pictures of her and her team. I will watch her lift others in the air and catch them and every once in a while I will watch her “fly”. I will listen to her cheer for her schoolmates, I will see her smile and watch her laugh and concentrate to hold her position until just the right moment to come down or to toss that “flyer” up and make the catch with her fellow baser.  

I have watched these two, Em and Carsen, cheer for the last four years. There have been ups and downs, but they are still the best of friends. Here they are “flying” a Swedish together!

By: Ryanne Leavitt

For a few years in a row, starting in 2016 and ending with the Pandemic in 2020, we had a tradition that involved kids, pool time, Ritzville, and CowCreek.  One might think that driving all the way to Rizville from Warden and Othello with the kids for swimming and ice cream is ridiculous, and that one might be right…but it was a thing we did!

It all started when we decided to just try out the Ritzville Pool cause the one is Moses Lake cost an arm, leg, and elbow to go to, and we hadn’t gotten any super positive info on the one in Othello.  So, we thought, what the heck, we will try this one out!  And once we did, there was no turning back.  The pool is big, has a zero entry, a slide, diving boards,  and a shallower part that the non toddler kids can play in.  Added bonus, there were only 25 to 30 people there, like I mean total!  It was the perfect place to go, have fun, and not have to worry about the kids getting lost in the crowd.  

Orissa loved going and we immediately bought a family pass and boom, our summer was planned.  After we swam that first time we decided to go to the little mercantile.  And wouldn’t you know it, they had homemade ice cream for sale.  Ice Cream and milkshakes were purchased and consumed with gusto!  Ritzville had instantly become our favorite summertime escape!   We went at least 3 times a week, and often invited others to join us.  Mom and Da, Megan and her kids, Bethany and her kids, Rose and her kids, my friend, don’t mock, I do have friends, Melanie and her kids and my friend Kristi and her kids, I believe even Hosanna and her kidlets showed up at least once.  We often would double the number of people there when we showed up with our gang!

It had the feel of a backyard pool, and the lifeguards did their job well, but didn't spend all their time trying to ruin the kids' fun.  Hours and hours of fun and yum.

Adaline was not a fan of the water at all, like scream, cry, flail, and basically make her mom’s life a living hockey sticks!  The one thing she was whole heartedly into on those Rizville trips, was the inevitable trip to CowCreek for ice cream!  She relished the cold deliciousness.

With, first the Pandemic, and the fact that the kids are getting older, finding out the the Othello Pool wasn’t too crowded, and Javin having other things to do during the summer, our Ritzville trips fizzled out, yet those endless summer days live on in our memories and our photo albums!  Here’s to childhood spent in good company, with good times, and of course, milkshakes and ice cream!

February 13, 2022

Story Slingers

Myrna Flynn

The Lonely Tree 

When we first moved to Ephrata in the 1960's, there was a house off in the meadow, to the right of Rocky Ford Creek crossing. I think it was occupied hen. Not sure when it became empty.

When we moved back Ephrata in the 1990's, the house was still there. I had fantasized about that for a long time. I always wanted to go over and check it out.

I procrastinated. Then one day I looked over to see the house, and it was gone, only the tree remained. The power company had torn it down to put power lines through where it had been. I decided to create a story about the family that had lived there.

In my imagination, I saw a young Irish couple, Brendan and Fiona O'Flynn, coming to homestead. They saw the creek and the meadow and a sapling tree. They knew this was where they wanted to live.

They went to the nearest town where there was a lumber yard. It took most of their savings to purchase the supplies needed to build the house.

The townspeople gathered the young couple under their wings, introduced themselves and told Brendan and Fiona they would all be there tomorrow to help with the construction.

Next morning, almost at dawn, the wagons with additional supplies drove in. Brendan and Fiona could not believe that all these strangers were there to help them. 

The men asked what they had planned for their dwelling to be. Fiona and Brendan looked at each other and said, "We dream of a two-story house, with a small balcony off the master bedroom, where we can relax in the evening, watch the sunset and see the stars come out. We know that is a dream for the future. Right now, a small 2 bedroom cabin is what we know we can afford."

The men looked at each other and replied, "Well, let's get to work and see what we can get done today. Our wives and daughters are bringing food for lunch and dinner we have to get busy."

Fiona looked on in awe as she watched the abode rise. She could not believe how much their neighbors had accomplished in one day. The house was completely framed and the walls put up that day. And it was not a cabin, it was the house of their dreams.

The men showed up each day for the next few weeks and had the house finished, except for the inside things such as painting and papering.

The couple knew that the men and women would not accept money. The job was done strictly as a gesture of service and friendship. )that was the way things were done back then. When people were neighbors, not unknowns who happened to live next door.)

Brendan and Fiona lived there the rest of their lives. Their nine children grew up and left the nest to build their own lives. Some stayed in Ephrata and became active members of the community. They strived to do what they could to give back, in service, their gratitude to the wonderful people who had accepted their parents and helped them when they homesteaded.

How Fiona and Brendan's lives were lived, I can only guess, but I do know that they loved to see that lonely tree grow and go through the seasons. Fiona especially loved to see the tree in the winter. To her (and to me) the lonely tree in its bareness has much beauty of its own.

When you come to visit us, look to the left as you cross Rocky Ford Creek and you will see the lonely tree. I hope if you come come in the fall or winter, you will see the beauty in the leafless tree, that I see.

Story Slingers Prompt

write about a random picture

Feb 13, 2022

Daren Flynn

WOE IS ME

When I decided to

Experience the Old West

I traveled to Montana and

Stopped at Deer Lodge to rest.

Then I entered into the

Old Prison Museum there,

And what happened next

Just doesn't seem fair.

When I said that place

To me was just a bore

They put me in a cell

And slammed the door.

Now that I'm confined

Behind these cold iron bars

Daytime shows no sun

And at night I see no stars.

Well this prison life

Is not for me

But I'll soon be out

And hanging on a tree.

How was I to know

Criticism was a capital offense

For which, don't ya know,

There is no viable defense.

By: Colleen Holmquist

Who took this picture? Card sharks, drug dealers, stacks of boxes -- what kind of party is this? Will the 27th picture on my phone be used against me in a court of law? They can't prove anything!

(FYI: mug says: "licensed drug dealer")

By: Hosanna Tabor

We started a unit on the solar system this week. Leyla is super excited because she missed out last year when we started this with Declan and Jemma.

—by Cary Holmquist.

Please bear with me while I try to remember what this was about....😜 

This picture appears to have have something to do with a solitary, brown-phase black bear.  Now I am checking the date and other metadata for the photo.

Judging from the other pictures that came before and after it, which I am sowy to say I won’t boar you with, the photo was taken with my phone camera on the 27 May 2019 on a visit to the National Bison Range at Moise, Montana, United Sates of America.  

I no longer remember how this photo ended up on my phone, since I took it originally with my regular Canon Rebel SLR camera—no doubt using a telephoto zoom lens, though due to distance between me and the bear, you can barely tell there is a bear out there in the nice greening meadow, with patches of jaunty yellow arrowleaf balsamroots in bloom.  

Since the bear is alone, it seems that she or he is small enough as well to be a second or third year weanling, no longer under the watchful eye and guidance of his or her mother and living away from her or his litter mates.  

Our family has made many trips to the Bison Range over the years and we have seen bears there only a few times.  Although beginning in 2018 we have seen more bears more often on our springtime visits.  Once we had a foreign exchange student from Spain who desperately wanted to see a bear in the wild of the American West, but we were sure we would have to disappoint him before he returned to civilized Madrid.  Entirely seredipitous, on a spring trip with Alvaro to the Bison Range, we had the adventure of watching four black bears interact for almost two hours.  That bear experience was on the other side of the mountain from this bear and picture.  So those details would be another story for another time.

The bear in this photo was going up and down the slope, turning over rocks and digging up small deadfall in search of juicy grubs to eat.  Bears always seem to be looking for food—or someplace to scratch their itchy hides.  Seems like we watched this bear for about 20 minutes, when someone in a car or two or three behind us on the tour loop were pressing closer, impatient to be bearalling along on the road. 

Come to think of it—this would have been the same trip that included seeing several more bears that day.  This was a trip with Hosanna and her kids.  After going to the other side of the mountain, to see what we could see, we saw a sow bear crossing road in front of us with three little cubs.  And up the slope of the next mountain, we stopped to walk along the Bitterroot Trail on Red Sleep Mountain, a third-year cub was foraging right below the parking lot, tearing through deadfall looking for grubs.  And so that made six different bears in one day, which is quite a record for us.  

The particular bear in this photo was the first of those six bears—and little did we know the day would be full of bears.  Ya just never know.... 

Then the photo ends up on my camera and into this story.  Ya just never know.