Christmas and Sledding

Christmas is over and I am sitting in my recliner playing with my brand new Kindle. (I have downloaded my first book - a Wm Johnstone Western)
All four kids and all seven grandkids made it. BUT as always there had to be a mishap and this one was a dozy. Our four year old granddaughter broke her leg sledding. It was our second day on the hill (yesterday) she is a tough little kid but when she said she needed to go to the doctor we knew it was hurting. Now it is all cast up (hip to foot) and in about eight weeks she will be as good as new. Thank God for grandkids, good doctors and quick healing for four year olds.

How I spent my Summer

Didn’t get much writing done this summer but did get in Lots of travel and a lot of fun. Now I am back in the classroom, starting my 41st year teaching.
My List of best places I visited this summer---In no particular order of importance.
1. Fort Robinson –Where Crazy Horse was killed. I have visited several times and it is always worth the visit.
2. Murray State Park in Oklahoma—family and fun.
3. Grambling University in Louisiana –neat and interesting place only wish we would have been a few weeks later and been able to watch the football team and band practice.
4. Estes Park Colorado—always fun and only three hours away—took our five year old grandson with us both times. Am just starting to realize that old guys and little guys like a lot of the same stuff.
5. Route 66 through Texas – I still remember the old TV show
6. Mountains of the Snowy Range (only thirty miles away but still great fun) we walked through snow three and four feet deep in late June.
7. The Wyoming Territorial Prison in Laramie (O.K. I know that it is just on the other side of town) but it is still a great place to visit. Butch Cassidy spent some time there and I love visiting the broom factory and watching them work on the old machines.
8. Wyoming Cowboy Football practice—several times
I also read several good books and more than a few average ones and one bad one, but who’s counting.

Indian Summer

As a writer we often come across things we have no idea where they started. I have been working on a poem--poetry is really hard for me to write, but I have a few. I wanted to write about Indian Summer and realized I was not sure where it came from or what it was. It has been a great fall in Wyoming (and I live at 7,200 feet).Cold for a short spell, now it’s warm again. This time of year has been called Indian Summer for a long time. But why? Now that I’ve got your attention by casually mentioning the weather and everyone loves talking about the weather. Here is why this time of year is called Indian Summer. I have no idea—just kidding.

People have speculated for more than two-hundred years over the derivation of the term Indian Summer. Many guesses as to where it came from have been tried but here is the correct and proper answer - at least according to me.

Indian summer, which must follow a hard frost, is named after that time of year when the indigenous peoples of the plains harvested crops. Crops the natives planted east of the Missouri River and the harvest of wild plumbs and roots west of the big river. It was also the time for hunting, curing and storing of the meat for the winter sure to come. Really the end of the summer. Pretty neat.

There you have it from the one who knows—a really old guy who just likes to write western stories. Indian Summer!