New Years Day 2018

37º heavy overcast and 10 mph wind out of NNW in La Feria, TX - Freeze warnings for overnight.
Guess it still beats the 0º at our house in Clarinda, IA or the -4º at our son's in Marengo, IA right now.

The office people, cleaning lady, and maintenance men at Kenwood often go together to cook lunch at the office.  Friday they invited me.  Quite a spread.  Best Charro Beans I have ever eaten.  Tacos with beef, cooked onions, tomatoes, Jalapeno peppers stuffed with sausage, all very good.  Robert and Juan are the maintenance men to left of photo and Rochelle is the assistant office manager.

Beside Phyllis is cleaning lady Alva

My plate - 3 tacos - with the Charro beans.

Saturday afternoon our group gathered at Harold & LaRhoda Neher's and played Pegs and Jokers and then had a great supper.

 Sunday morning Rev Baker
delivered the message at the non-denominational church service at the Rec Hall.

Our Maintenance man Robert also does DJ work and is
setting up Sunday afternoon for the New Years Eve Party.

Robert has all the blinking lights, etc. - looks like a space ship landed.

I ran the popcorn machine for the evening.  Don Ferguson usually does that, but was glad to get the night off.  He did do the calling for Bingo later.

 Phyllis was in charge of the 3-hour New Years Eve party.

Here the food line is starting.  Lots of food was brought and all good.  Several different stuffed Jalapeno peppers, many meat balls, chicken wings, lots of dip with nachos and potato chips, etc. with lots of candy & cookies.

DJ Robert had several games to get the 65-or so people involved.

This was musical chairs.

Got a little pushy -- with the little fellow winning.

Robert had his brother Cesar put a balloon on one foot of each participant and they were to stomp on the other balloons while protecting their own.  It got a little rowdy, too.

One of our Canadian residents teaches line dancing each week and he led several different dances.

Dan Herbst, from Panama, Iowa, enjoyed the evening with one of his grandsons.

The line-dance leader and his wife doing a line dance routine of their own to a new song to the group who are taking lessons.

The door prize Phyllis gave away was a quilt and it was won by Sharleen Stivers from Callaway, Nebraska.  She was very pleased.

Sharleen with husband Lynn and the quilt.

Dug around my box of old photos and have come up with a mish-mash of things:

My mother - taken year before she
married my dad

My mother at age 18 years.

2006 photo during my 45 year CHS Class reunion.

Classmate of mine Phil Lord.

Fairly new barn in South Dakota in 1930 where Dad grew up

1

On Grandpa Miles place in South Dakota in 1930

My mother is the small girl on the porch - her Mom at her
left and the others are brothers and sisters.  Near Lodi, NE
which no longer exists (between Callaway and Oconto, NE

We lived in a mobile home from April of 1963 to October of
1965.  This was in March when Phyllis' folks were visiting us.

View from same place, to the southwest of our home.

Phyllis and her younger sister
in 1948

Undated photo of my mother - would
guess in late 1920's or early 1930's.

Mom

Classmate of mine in high school

This is at a cousin's (the French's) in South Dakota

This is at a cousin's (the French's) in South Dakota

Son Cameron, with some exuberance, in 1987

Son Cameron, in 1987

GROANER’S CORNER:((  A frog walks into a bank. He goes to the only open teller, and sees that her name is Paddy Whack. "Hey, listen" says the frog. "I really need a loan! I'm out of work, and my wife and tadpoles are at home starving! I need money so I can feed them and provide for them!" Now Paddy feels very sorry for the poor frog and asks him if he has any collateral. He holds up a small glass elephant. Paddy is a little surprised by this, and quite unsure, but she feels so sorry for the the poor frog that she takes the elephant to her manager. "Mr. Manager, sir," Paddy begins "there is a frog out there who deperately needs a loan. He's out of work and he has a wife and tadpoles who are at home starving. He needs some money so he can provide for them! But all he has for collateral is this little glass elephant. What should I do?"  Well, Mr. Manager takes a good hard look at that elephant, thinks about it a little, and then replies, "It's a knick-knack, Paddy Whack, give the frog a loan!"
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A golf club walks into a local bar and asks the barman for a pint of beer.  The barman refuses to serve him. "Why not," asks the golf club.
"You'll be driving later," replies the bartender.
============================

Children were called upon a classroom to make sentences with words chosen by the teacher. The teacher smiled when Jack, a slow learner, raised his hand to participate during the challenge of making a sentence with the words "Defeat," "Defense," "Deduct," and "Detail."  Jack stood thinking for a while, all eyes focused on him while his classmates awaited his reply. Smiling, he then proudly shouted out, "Defeat of deduct went over defense before detail."

Sometime later, Lynn