Here I am
taking the kids for a boat ride at Deadmans Basin, a local reservoir where
we like to go camping, fishing, boating, and for fun in general. This was
the first vacation and outing I allowed myself to go on after two years
of severe illness, and a year of intense chemotherapy. It was fun to start
living again...
even at
Deadmans Basin!
(forgive
the hat, but the splotchy hair loss due to the chemotherapy had to be hidden)
This is
Jesse, and is Sylvia's oldest son.
He is quite
an athelete and is destined for
stardom
in Major League Baseball someday.
He is a
very responsible young man and I
wish more
youths his age would follow his example.
He is one
in a million. Good luck Jess!
This is
Christopher, Sylvia's 12 year old son, and my biggest helper. Chris takes
after his mother in the fact that he is an avid outdoorsman and loves to
fish and explore. He also has a great love for the many critters that we
call family.
Without
the help that Chris has given me around here,
I would
have been ready for the scrap heap long ago!
This is
Daniel, Sylvia's youngest son and my little buddy.
Daniel is
also an avid animal lover, and loves to help out with the feeding and watering
of the vast collection of critters we now have. His second love are his
two gerbils... Oreo and Maxine.
His third
love is Godzilla and Dinosaurs...
glad we
do not have any of those around!
This is
Sylvia. She and I were childhood sweethearts, as she was my fist love,
and I was hers. We met as kids in Petaluma, a small ranch and farming community
in Northern California. My family moved to San Jose California a few years
after we met and Sylvia and I eventually lost contact with each other.
Thanks to my Father, we came together again after some 23 years of
separation, yet it seemed as if we were never apart at all.
Thank you
Lord.
"If today
I had a young mind to direct, to start on the journey of life, and I was
faced with the duty of choosing between the natural way of my forefathers
and that of the... present way of civilization, I would, for its welfare,
unhesitatingly set that child's feet in the path of my forefathers. I would
raise him to be an Indian!"
"We learned
to be patient observers like the owl. We learned cleverness from the crow,
and courage from the jay, who will attack an owl ten times its size to
drive it off its territory. But above all of them ranked the chickadee
because of its indomitable spirit."
-Tom Brown,
Jr., The Tracker
Sylvia and
I in our younger days...
back when
dinosaurs ruled the earth!