L & P Miles

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

Hot, Hot, Hot and windy in Southwest Iowa

88º with a "feel like" of 102º here in Clarinda, IA with bright sunshine sky and wind of 22 mph with gusts of 32 mph.

In Pioneer Picnic Parade in Callaaway, NE
Saturday June 27, 2026 Class of 1961

We have 15 of 30 graduates still living. We had
6 graduates and one who was in Callaway schools
most of her life, but graduated from Gothenburg
on our float.

Those on the other side of our float.

Following the parade we gathered at the Callaway Senior Center for lunch and a good visit.

Mary Lynn's brother stopped by for a bit.

Our "Formal" photo.

We got a chance to visit a bit with Dixie Henry
G'Schwind. She was a few grades behind me in
school, at Lower Lodi and Callaway. She is having
some health issuses, but getting along

Sharleen and Lynn Stivers took us in for the time
we were in Callaway, stayed 3 nights with them.
Due to Lynn's health they do not get away from
the house much and welcomed the time we visited
with them.

Stopped by the sign that has been set along Highway 40 where the village of Lodi was located last century. I only remember the railroad siding there--and now the rail line itself is gone. This is only about a mile from where I grew up and is not too far from where my Mom was born.

We drove by the place where I lived from time I was 4 years old until left for Business School when I was 18 years old. Lot of changes in 65 years!

Not all the buildings still there,

Had had rain so I did not try to drive back to the Ranch area on the mud.

Madeline McFate came over to Stivers for supper
one evening and we caught up with her goings on.

Neighbor to the west, Bob Brown is putting in a new building at the back of his lot and needed survey to establish property lines. I had a metal dectector but could not locate anything. Bob had a surveyor come in and locate them. Both of our north points, before the railroad rightofway we now own, were further south than we had been looking. This is in a shaded area under trees and no mowing needed there so I will put in a T-Post beside the metal stake just below the ground level so can locate it if needed at another time. This is the line between us and the Hospital owned house to our east.

We did some driving around the Pressey Park area to see if we could find the burned area from a few weeks ago, but did not locate any. We saw one place where about 6 trees were burned, but no blackened hills.

We spent yesterday in Omaha, seeing two different medical specialists and getting a bit of groceries.

Is now 2:30 pm, outside temperature is 89º with "feel like" of 103º and still very windy. We don't have much planned this week until going to New Market on July 4th and then heading to Missouri with the trailer on July 5th, being with Don & Vicki for a couple days in Cape Girardeau and then the rest of the week back to the Starvy Creek Bluegrass Festival near Conway, Missouri.

Blessed be the Flexible, for they Shall Not Get Bent Out of Shape

Till later, LC Miles

Sunday, June 28, 2026

My 65th High School Class Reunion.

90º with a "feel like" of 105º here in Clarinda, IA at 6:40 pm Sunday. We returned from Callaway, NE about 4:30 pm today. Had quite a trip with my meeting with 6 other classmates from Callaway High School Class of 1961.

As I mentioned before, we finally have a family living in the house just east of us. Dr. Fildren Ndimdo and his wife Thu, with duaghter Zara are living there. Dr. Ndimdo's mother was visiting them when we went next door

We have not met the Doctor yet, this is his photo from Clarinda Regional Health Center (the hospital across the street). He is from Cambodia and she is from Vietnam. He has been at the hospital for nearly a year I guess and they have been living in Marysville, MO and he had been driving the 45 miles each way each day until this house was finally made ready.

We went over last Tuesday to welcome them here,
and Phyllis took a "No Guilt" pie.

On the float for parade Saturday

On the float for parade Saaturday

Okay, it is after 10:30 pm and I will post just a few pictures from this weekend's 65th High School Class Reunion. Have been working on photos. Will do more rightup on it tomorrow or Tuesday. We leave early in the morning for some Doctor appointments in Omaha and I need to quit here.

6 graduating classmates and one that
moved away before her senior year.

Will have many more pictures next time,

Later, Lynn

Monday, June 22, 2026

Monday evening

75º here in Clarinda, IA at 7:15 pm Monday. Great weather day - had 2.3" rain as of Saturday morning.

Have spent last couple days with photos, blog, etc. of the Surprise Birthday Party I took photos for Saturday for Rodney Johnston.

I told in the blog today about my troubles with the video. Here is the link to look at my Google Photos Album of the gathering -- CLICK HERE so you can look at them.

This is one of the photos that was passed
around at the supper. Rodney is second from
left on middle row; Phyllis is at far right on
bottom row.

A very old photo that was shown us at the supper and the guy texted it to me, along with the names of most of the people. Phyllis' Dad Melvin Cabbage. on second from the left of the four men standing on the hayrack on the right side.

Came across this very old photo of
sister-in-law Carolyn Miles holding
Julie only a few days old

February 4, 2013, when nephew Steven Miles
arrived home from tour in Afghanistan. His
mother, Julie is in center, next to Melissa and Steven

Our granddaughter Emily Christmas of 1994

I climbed up the laddeer and used
my electric clipper on a 5-foot
extension to take out lot of new
growth in center of our big tree

Our neighbors to the west had a crew spend several
days installing a professional putting green behind
their house.

Had supper with Phyllis' sister Beth and
her husband Steve Thursday evening.

We ate at the Mexican restaurant on 16th Street.

I have always read a lot. In fact I have memory of reading Time, Look, or Saturday Evening Post every chance I had growing up. In about 1954 when I would have been 11 years old, and we were running the irrigation setup on Jim Cornish's place I recall getting in trouble for reading those. We were driving an old Coupe, using it like a pickup and Dad gave specific instructions to not be reading, but to be checking the ditch regularly. This ditch irrigation had canvas or plastic dams every few feet to maintin the water level high enough for the siphon tubes to work that we put over the edge of the ditch onto each row. There were always "break outs" and if caught in time they weren't too serious----but if you were reading and not paying attention a break out could become serious and very hard to get enough dirt back into place to stop it. I, of course, smuggled some of these magazines into the coupe and when we had to leave I stuffed them up under the dash so Dad wouldn't find them. Well, one day it was raining and the windshield wipers wouldn't work. This is a 1940's vehicle and there were mechanical arms under the dash connected to both wipers (I didn't know this until after this incident) and it seems a magazine, or two was caught in the mechanism. Dad had taken it to Stub's garage in Callaway to see why the wipers wouldn't work and they dug this out. I do recall getting quite a talking-to over it, and I never hid the magazines there again. This all came up when I posted this photo of a book I am reading. Last winter I caught a couple-hour YouTube on George Burns and Gracie Allen. It was very interesting and I looked up and bought two used paperback books. The other one was a short one--don't recall the name, and I left it in Texas-- but this book has lots of black and white photos and George tells his history and his time with Gracie and the two kids they adopted. I am still in the middle of it, reading in my library (the bathroom) and it is a very interesting book.

Got the axle replaced from the incident in April
when we had a wheel bearing go bad and scarred
up the spindle. First one received was wrong,
but finally replaced now so we should have no
trouble going to Starvey Creek Bluegrass Festival
the first part of July.

Photo at right is of the house to our east. When the owner passed away many years ago, the hospital bought it and had helecoptor crews live there. After many years of using it that way, the helecoptor service left town and it set empty for many years. The last two years the employees of the hospital have been working on the inside of the house. Today we just found out that a Doctor and his wife have moved in just last week. So we finally have neighbors that are not sawing and hammering all the time.

Later, Lynn

Rodney Johnston 86th Birthday Surprise Party

67º with heavy overcast here in Clarinda, IA at 4:00 pm Sunday. Dumped 2.3" rain from the gauge mid-morning. Rained most of the night from about 6:30 pm Saturday when we were at Jay's Pizza & Steak House in Clarinda for a gathering of more than 50 people for surprise birthday party for Rodney Johnston.

Rodney Johnson & Teresa Babcock visit while waiting for
our food orders.

Teresa did not tell Rodney about it, and had quite a time getting him to pick her up to go eat out. He had planned on going to Maryville, MO, but with the weather building was convinced by her to "just eat in town". She had invited friends he had made in his 86 years from work, church, many associations.

Tereasa had asked me to take pictures, which I did, and I also set up a video camera which ran all the time, including when she suggested, while we were waiting for our food, that each person or couple introduce themselves and tell how they were acquainted with Rodney.

I took the video camera off the tripod and followed around the room as each spoke. Now, I am working on the photos and videos and discover I have 19 video files, each running between 10 and 11 minutes - which is normal, but have not been able to open any one of them. Have worked for six hours and still no remedy. The camera takes in AVI files, which is an older format that I have converted to the modern MP4 for over a year with this camera. However, not today. I had passed a paper around for everyone to sign their name and email address so I could send a link to look at the videos and photos on my Google Photo program. As of now I will have the photos, like the one above, but am bamboozled about getting the videos to work. Just tried new 20 second video and it doesn't work -- changed SD cards took a 20 second video and it works fine. Guess was bad SD Card!