We have pictures

I have about 10 minutes before I leave with bell ringers. I won't even try to describe what they're wearing except to say one is in purple velveteen and tights, the other I'm not sure at moment. Rebecca changed three times between when I left with Elcie and came back.

I didn't realize the snap of the girls came through. It looked from this end like I had frozen the computer trying to send it. Anyhow, that's the girls' mom. Rochelle is her clone. It might be a year old and both Elcie and Rochelle can look her in the eye now. Their mom is as cute as a bug. Where in the world did that expression come from?

I have a couple of old photo albums but not too many transferred to the computer yet. My Uncle Jim was the oldest of his family and wasn't young when I was little. He built me a violin and small guitar and tried his best to teach me to play. I can get the notes right but I lack whatever it takes to be good at the strings. He finally accepted that I belonged with my piano. We used to play duets. Lord, how much of this I had almost forgotten. When I was in my early teens, he used to come to our hours once a week for dinner and I'd always make "johnnycake" for him. He swore mine was better than my mom's and certainly better than his wife's who couldn't boil water. I think he just thought I could do no wrong; my mom and I used the same recipe. She taught me. He was a piano tuner, a violinist (or fiddler), the town photographer, and Lord knows what else. He may have been born around the time of the Civil War; I'd have to go back and look it up to be sure. Cranky, definitely eccentric, and fascinating.

From one side of my family, I learned about classical music and art and developed my progressive, stubborn liberalism. From the other I learned Baptist hymns on the piano, picked up my continuing love affair with baseball, and learned how to clean a chicken coop and candle eggs.

Not a bad education, all around. As I go through the old albums, I might put one of those old pictures on.

Got to go. Have lots of tissues in purse. Partly because of this cold I've picked up and partly if I start leaking from the eyes watching my three "cherubs".