February 22, 2021, a thought for today: You are you and I am I. Confucian Proverb 

I woke up with some aches and pains that are not one of the now every day accustomed occurrences  that have come along with the years. I think it is temporary and could be either vaccine side affects related or due to the fact that I haven’t had the needed diabetes meds for a few days. They seemed to clear up so Sue and I went ahead with our planned excursions to the grocery store.  I was running out of so many things that I really needed to get it done. 

Since that took up a good part of the morning, I put starting on the bulletin off until tomorrow. I will have to stay close to the computer for the next few days to get the bulletin, the hand out message and the newsletter done before Thursday morning. Sue has an appointment at the eye doctor on Friday, I will be taking her so I am moving the newsletter prep to Thursday at the same time as printing the bulletin. 

My photo challenge for yesterday was “this made me smile”. This is my great grand son exploring all of his treasured toys. I had another photo also chosen of two of my other great grand children playing in “play snow”, they haven’t had our winter weather. I didn’t shoot that photo so I thought I should pike the one I personally shot. 

I called CVS to check on my meds and the lady said the computer showed that they were delivered today so I checked the mail box. They were there! I finally got the new diabetes meds so I started on it. Hopefully I won’t have the problems adapting to this one as I did some of the others we had to try a few years ago before we found the right one. 

I think the weather is going to begin its turnaround today. The temperature is above freezing and the sun is out though there are still patches of ice. 

The word to day is serious. Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play, Heraclitus. A jest often decides matters of importance more effectively and happily than seriousness, Horace. To think of shadows is a serious thing, Victor Hugo. Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end, Henry David Thoreau. Serious things cannot be understood without laughable things, nor opposites at all without opposites, Plato. Do not judge men by mere appearances; for the light laughter that bubbles on the lip often mantles over the depths of sadness, and the serious look may be the sober veil that covers a divine peace and joy, Edwin Hubbel Chapin.  The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice, John Adams.  Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people, Thomas Jefferson.  Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment, Horace. The true felicity of life is to be free from anxieties and pertubations; to understand and do our duties to God and man, and to enjoy the present without any serious dependence on the future, Seneca the Younger.  When you talk, you repeat what you already know; when you listen, you often learn something, Jared Sparks. A child's nature is too serious a thing to admit of its being regarded as a mere appendage to another being, Charles Lamb. 

The photo them for today is “a good thing”. I decided to chose a photo of melting snow as a good thing. It’s about time. There are all kinds of spots on driveways and the street showing the melting snow today. 

I thought we could learn a little more about happenings in the Ohio of the past from this article. It is a story about a man named Simon Kenton.  He was a frontiersman compared by pointing out that he was “Ohio’s answer to Kentucky’s Daniel Boone.” The article pointed out that Mr. Kenton had met Daniel Boone, even saved Boon’s life at one time in history. In his life time he often traveled on the Darby and Pickaway plains. His story begins when he was born in Virginia in 1755 to a farming family. Over time he became a skilled marksman. The story said that he unintentionally killed a rival over a young lady. So he moved over the mountains to “Kan-tuck-kee” where he changed his name go Simon Butler. He hunted in Kentucky all the while dodging local Native Americans. He helped settlers from the east to their newly chosen home. He joined Lord Dunmore, a governor of Virginia, on a march into the Ohio Country in an effort to control problems with Native Americans. The story related that he observed the indians coming together.  Their faces were painted in half red and half black. Red was for life and black for death. Dunmore was to choose life or death. He chose life and promised that the indians would be free of colonial settlers. But the American Revolution came along and settlers including Kenton moved in. He continued to roam the country side and was eventually captured by the Native Americans. He was taken to a camp called Mac-a-Cheek near West Liberty. He was forced to run a “gauntlet” while being attacked numerous times. He was hit in the head with a hammer. He was injured in the foot and left with a limp. He made it through the ordeal but was condemned to die and he marched north to more encampments.  He was saved from death by Simon Girty, future traitor, and Pierre Drouillard, a French trapper. During this time he saw the Mad River Valley. Part of Kenton’s story was that he “accompanied” George Rogers Clark on the winter raid against Ft. Sackville and Vincennes. After that he settled for a time in Kentucky and book back his real name after he learned that the man he thought he had killed didn’t die. Eventually he fought in wars that led to Ohio for the United States. He fought with Gen. Anthony Wayne and again in the War of 1812. He fought with Gen. William Henry Harrison which included the killing of Tecumseh. After that he lived a quieter life. He led settlers to what is now Urbana and lived there for a while. He lacked a formal education and was aging so his financial life was difficult so much so that he was arrested for being in debt. Local people allowed him “to be his own jailor”.  That “position” allowed him to sit in front of the jail “smoking a pipe and ruminating about a long career”. In time he was the father of four children by one wife. He left Urbana. After his wife died. He remarried and had six more children. He ended up living in the village of Zanesfield “in the heart of the Mad River Valley”. He died there in 1836 “at the age of 81". He was buried in Zanesfield. In 1869 his body was removed to a cemetery in Urbana. There is a statue of him at his grave site. 

Left over Salmon loaf and mac and cheese for dinner tonight.

Joy