I was not born an environmentalist, but I have come to care greatly about the environment and the future, particularly for this great country of ours. That’s a big reason I am on the executive board of The Nature Generation (NatGen), a nonprofit focused on preparing youth  for the environmental challenges of the future, by connecting them with nature today.

We all travel different paths in life to get to where we are, and my path towards environmental concern started as a boy growing up in Illinois in the 1960s.  Looking back, there were a couple things I remember, that sort of amaze me now. The first was that there was always trash along the side of the road.  Always.  And a lot of it. The second was the fact that if you fished in the Illinois River, you would never catch anything but carp or bullhead because the river was so polluted.  I liked to fish back then and anything we caught, we’d throw on the bank because you couldn’t eat them due to the pollution.  That was just the way it was, and no one seemed to think anything else about it.

  Then you became aware of things taking place more broadly, like a river on fire in Ohio due to pollution, or eagles dying from DDT.  And you start to think, it doesn’t have to be this way.  Earth Day happens, and we all start to pick up trash, and plant trees. The EPA was formed (under a Republican president), and we started going after polluters, and lo and behold, our air, and our water started cleaning up. Forty-five years later, and the world is different.   

 You don’t see near as much trash on the side of any road.  The Illinois River is rejuvenated, and there are bass, walleye, crappies, and other game fish.  There are bald eagles and waterfowl on the river, something I never ever saw in my youth.

My wife and I live on a small farm in Virginia now, and about 6 years ago I joined NatGen.  Living on the farm, my connection with nature and the environment is much closer.  The weather affects you more, streams cross your property, and you notice other things.  Woods that existed one day and are clear cut.  Large chicken farms that have the potential to affect the entire watershed.  Building projects with mud and sludge running into local creeks.  You read in the paper about a chemical company that has poisoned an entire community in Pennsylvania.  Your friends that have lived on the Illinois River for over 15 years have to move, due to the development of frac sand mining nearby. 

 You realize that the challenges to the environment are never over and this will continue forever.  Clean water, clean air, and a clean environment – they should be a given, but they aren’t.  NatGen is one of the organizations making a difference and educating our youth, so they can make smart decisions in the future.  I like to think that passing a torch to the next generation is a pretty good thing for our youth and our environment.  

Earth Day is this Friday, April 22d.  You don’t need to be born an environmentalist to care about the environment and the future.  You just need to care.

  *Would you like some more information? Check out NatGen on Facebook, or their website at: http://www.natgen.org/

  **Special thanks to my friend Laurie Bradach for the use of her photo “Ducks on the Illinois River”.

…..This blog post was first published on the NatGen website in February, 2016…..

Daffodils in the middle of the woods…..
 

 If you leave our house and take a right onto the gravel road called Swains Road, you dead-end in about a mile and a half. At the end of the dead-end is a trail that goes into the woods. Follow that trail for about 200 yards, and all of a sudden, in the middle of the woods, you will see several groups of daffodils. In the middle of the woods. With no house, no yard, and no people.

And then you start to look a little closer, and you see the outline of a stone foundation for a house. It might be a 20×30 foot foundation. And you also notice a pile of stone that might have been a chimney a long time ago. I’ve talked to “oldtimers” in the neighborhood, and no one ever remembers anything about that house. There’s a good sized tree growing up inside the foundation. There are a few old buckets and some broken bottles, maybe from someone doing target practice years later. There are no other houses on this property. There are other existing old cabins in the area that are around 100 years old, so I’m guessing this one might be older.   

I think about the house, and wonder who lived there. Someone suggested to me it might have been a hunting cabin, but I have a hard time believing hunters planted daffodils in front of their cabin. No, this was a family home at some point in time. This would have been well out in the country at that point in time (hell, it’s still well out in the country). Were they scratching out a living? Was it part of a larger farm? Were they happy? I think of the woman who planted the daffodils, trying to turn that cabin from a house into a home, and I like to think she was successful in doing that. Of course, I’ll never know. Eventually, they sold, or moved, or left, or were evicted. The cabin fell into disrepair, and came down, the wood disintegrating over the years, until nothing was left but the stone foundation. And the daffodils out front.

I’ve thought about digging up the daffodils and separating them, and replanting them up at our house. They’d gain a new life that way, and someone to look at them, and enjoy them every spring. So far, I’ve resisted the urge, and so, there they stand as silent guardians to lives gone by. Daffodils in the middle of the woods….

Opening Day!

I’m excited that I will be going to the Nats opening Day on April 7th this year with some friends. Beers, a dog, peanuts, and that thought that all things are possible.

 

Surely Opening Day is one of the true signs that spring has arrived in so many ways. Pitchers and catchers reported back in February, and gave us our first indication that winter wasn’t going to last for ever. But that was in Florida or Arizona, and most of the rest of us are somewhere “up north” where cold weather was still a reality.

But Opening Day – not only the weather has turned, but there is also that sense of renewal that accompanies the start of the baseball season. All things are possible in April, and who knows what the year will bring. Growing up a Cardinal fan, there was almost always promise for the coming season. But on Opening Day, hope springs eternal for all fans – even if your team is the Cubbies. And this year, who knows, the Cubs may make a real run. They’ve got a good manager, and it appears both decent pitching and good hitting. We’ll know for sure in 162+ games, but for now, before Opening Day, the Cubs look like they could be the real deal.

The Mets? Sox? Yankees? Giants? Dodgers? Anyone could make a run for it. The Phillies Or Braves? Everyone says not this year, they are still rebuilding…but they said that about the Mets last year at this time. I’m looking forward to some good conversations with my brother-in-law about the Giants, and my nieces about the Cubs. Maybe a bet or two will get made before the season is over….

I’ve become a Nats fan since they returned to DC, and things are look promising here this year as well. Dusty Baker’s in to guide the ship, Bryce is coming off a monster season, and we have a couple of new players – maybe they can fulfill the promise that has seemed to exist the last three or four years. Hey – it’s almost Opening Day and all things are possible….

“Jumper! Get your a$$ back home!”……  That was the line that really caught my ear, and made me nearly cry, I was laughing so hard. But, let me go back to the beginning of the story.  

 

 
Last Sunday, Cathy and I were at the Bay. We didn’t really have anything to eat at the house, and decided to go out for lunch to one of favorite local places in St Michaels – Carpenter Street Saloon. We got there about one, and sat down. C-Street wasn’t particularly busy, and there were only a few of us at the bar. We ordered a couple of bloody’s and some lunch. The food came and it was as good as always. Some people left, some came in, and I guess at this point there were six or eight of us sitting around the U-shaped bar. One of the guys that came in later turned out to be a Volunteer fireman for both St Michaels and Tilghman Island, and had been one for something like 45 years. It turned out that his father has a house about half a mile from where we live on Tilghman, and he started telling stories about some of his time on the Bay.

He was a waterman and had done various jobs up and down the Bay. He started telling us about his time as a tugboat captain and he was taking his tug up to Baltimore. As they were crossing beneath the Bay Bridge, something came spiraling slowly down from the bridge above and plopped into the water just off the port side of the boat. They looked in the water and it was a very young pigeon. Evidently it had left the nest (tried to fly, was pushed, or jumped), but it didn’t really know how to fly yet and landed in the water. They netted the bird out of the Bay and brought him inside. He was alive but stunned. The captain decided to see if they could save the bird, so they dried it off and warmed it, and started feeding it. Oh, and they named it Jumper (figuring it had jumped out of the nest for good, or for ill).

Over time the bird got stronger and bigger, and the captain finally took Jumper outside to release him. Well sure enough Jumper could fly now, but after circling about, he came back and landed at the captain’s feet. He flew off a couple more times, but always came back, so he became something of a pet. The captain started taking him with him when he went down to work on his boat at the docks. As a matter of fact, Jumper would fly around down there, and occasionally pick up a screw or a bolt. He’d fly around with it a bit, and then drop it on the captain as he flew overhead.

Another time the captain was driving home from the end of Bar Neck and looked up and saw Jumper sitting on a telephone line above, with two doves sitting on each side of him. The captain got out of his car and yelled “Jumper! Get your a$$ back home!”. Jumper flew off and when the captain got home a few minutes later, there was Jumper sitting outside the house with a look of “Who Me???” on his face…

Jumper stayed on with him for about one and half or two years. Then one day Jumper was flying back and forth between the captain and his brother having fun, when a hawk swooped in and grabbed him and flew off. The captain ran inside to grab his gun, but by then the hawk, and Jumper, were long gone…. I suppose it’s a bit sad that Jumper met his fate that way, but I like to think he had a couple of pretty good years that never would have happened if they hadn’t netted him out of the Bay….

The captain (and others) told a couple of other stories, and the laughter around the bar was pretty good. It was a great way to spend a couple three hours there at C-Street. We finally paid our tab to Sarah behind the bar and headed back home.  

Since then, every time I think of Jumper and those doves sitting on the wire, I break into a smile…..

Pura Vida…     is a phrase we learned recently on a vacation with some friends in Costa Rica. It literally translates to “pure life”. But it means so much more, and is really about a way of life. Think in terms of carefree and optimistic….or “enjoy life”… Or “full of life”. The Ticos (what the Costa Ricans call themselves) use it as a greeting, saying hello, saying goodbye, giving thanks, or just commenting on what a great day it is. One dictionary translated it to “Life is wonderful; enjoy it”. And that is what we did in Costa Rica; enjoyed life.

On this vacation, while we visited some major attractions (The Arenal Volcano, and Manuel Antonio Parque), we stayed a bit off the beaten track. When in the Arenal region, rather than stay in one of the resorts in La Fortuna, we stayed in El Castillo, which was 30 minutes down a gravel road, with more than it’s fair share of potholes. El Castillo might have a couple hundred people who live there. Three or four restaurants, a couple of small hotels, a tiny market, a church, a soccer field, and a school…. That’s about it. But the people we met were all wonderful. At our lodging, in the restaurants, and just walking down the road. We were getting up early (6AM or so) to catch some birding and to see the sunrise on the volcano. We were walking up a road/path and meeting people who were starting their day “Hola…Buenos Dias….Pura Vida…”
 

 What was even cooler to see, was at 6:45 watching families take their kids to school on their motorcycles/ motorbikes. Either mom or dad would drive, and somewhere from one to three children would be on the bike with them. And always a smile, a greeting, a wave…..

When we went to Manuel Antonio, we also stayed a bit remote. Five of us shared a house that was about 45 minutes north of Quepos on a dirt road. The house had about 250 acres with it, so we had our own jungle. At night, it was pitch black. And the noise in the early evening and early morning was riotous. Unbelievable how many birds, insects, animals, whatever, were carrying on out there. We loved it and spent a couple of days there before heading into Manuel Antonio to do a mangrove tour, and later to tour the park and see the birds and animals. The tours were great, but we really enjoyed the remoteness, and the “localness” of where we were staying.

We plan to go back in the future, and when we do, we will probably log more beach time, stay at a hotel with a swim-up bar, and do a bit more restaurant hopping. For this trip, it was perfect the way it was. And I certainly have a much better understanding of Pura Vida. To quote from one of the guidebooks:

Pura vida! …. you need to consider that maybe…just maybe, your situation isn’t all that bad and that no matter how little or how much you have in life, we are all here together and life is short…so start living it “pura vida style”

 

I’m not musical. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t even selected for our 7th Grade choir at Central Junior High. But, Cath and I have a small connection to the Grammys.

Cathy’s mom passed away 5 years ago. About 15 years before that she moved back to Alabama, from Illinois. When she arrived, she wanted to build a new house. Mom never wanted to inherit “other people’s problems”, and that included houses. She talked to her brother Russell, who is a builder, and he agreed to build her house. She selected an eight acre lot near Athens.

 

 

She gave him her plans, and he started working. For some reason, there was confusion about how deep the basement should be. Uncle Russell dug, and dug some more. When all was said and done, the basement was almost 20 feet from floor to ceiling. Mom wasn’t happy and let Russell know, but it was now too late to change and he finished building the house. Over the years, we’d visit mom and it was always an adventure going into the basement. The homemade stairs went straight down, and you’d almost have a sense of vertigo descending. Even later in life, mom’s face had a look whenever the basement was discussed.

In her last couple of years, mom decided to sell the house, but it never sold. Some folks thought she might have asked a bit to much, but in the back of my mind, I always suspected the basement. I mean, the height of the basement was that strange.

Mom passed away in 2010, and a year or two later, Cathy, Cindy, and Bonnie decided to sell the house. It was on the market for awhile. Several people looked, but there were never any offers.

And then one day it sold. It turns out that a large basement with a 20 foot ceiling is a selling point…..If you want to build a sound studio in your home. And your name is Brittany Howard. And you are the lead singer for the Alabama Shakes, based in Athens, Alabama.  

So that’s our connection. Brittany and Alabama Shakes won three Grammys this year. If you watch one of Alabama Shakes last videos, you can see some of the support posts and beams from mom’s basement in the background. I like that connection – mom and Alabama Shakes. Yet another way that she is still with us.

Key West, a Snowstorm, and Connections.

 

I recently returned from Key West, where I had the good or bad fortune to be, depending on your point of view, when the big snowstorm hit the East Coast. I was there doing a small consulting job for two days. Cathy was going to fly down on Thursday, but then our horse-sitter cancelled because of the impending storm (rightfully so). We found someone else to watch them, but didn’t feel right having their first time horse/housesitting at our place to be during Snowzilla, so Cathy made the decision to stay behind. At that time, we knew there was going to be a storm, but the jury was still out on how big. We lined up a couple of neighborhood connections to help Cathy if she needed it.

I flew to Florida with the folks I was supporting on Tuesday, and we had two good days of planning and “team building”. Then on Friday and Saturday, as the storm was hitting the DC area, we had time to enjoy Key West a bit more. It’s a bit hard to totally enjoy Key West, while your wife is back home getting hammered by a snowstorm, but I did my best….. Hemingway’s House, the Truman “Little White House”, Mallory Square, and of course Duvall Street and it’s environs – Hogs Breath Saloon, The Green Parrot, Ricks, and many other places. I was particularly interested in trying Sloppy Joe’s, and Captain Tony’s because of their Hemingway connections. I really enjoy his books, and wanted to find a way to see some of his past.

 Sloppy Joe’s is one of the places that Hemingway hung out at a lot. Except that it moved a half block away a few years after he was in Key West. It still has a lot of Hemingway “stuff”, but the original location is now Captain Tony’s. Captain Tony’s is a true dive (in all the best sense of the word), and you could picture Hemingway there, drinking martinis, daiquiris, absinthe, gin and tonics, or whatever. I enjoyed a couple drinks in both places, and was happy to make a Hemingway connection.

On Monday, I flew back to DC, and on Tuesday, continued the snow clean up. A neighbor had plowed us out, but there was still quite a bit to do, both on our farm, and to help some other friends. By that afternoon, I was out clearing a gate in the back field. I was taking a break, when Bud, our 84 year old neighbor stopped by to see if I needed any help. We talked a bit, and he asked how I liked Key West (evidently most of the neighborhood knew I was down there – funny how word travels). I told him I enjoyed it, and hoped to get back there. Bud then surprised me and told me of his own connection to Key West. In the early 1950s , when he was in his 20s and in the Navy he was stationed there, and really enjoyed it. Once, before his wife got there, he worked his way up Duval Street hitting every bar, then crossed the street, and went back down Duval sampling all the bars on that side. He said he doesn’t know to this day how he got back to the base that night.

His wife Lois, and their baby arrived a few weeks later and they settled in not far from Duval Street. Lois would take the baby out in a stroller everyday. As she walked around, there was always an older gentleman outside one of the bars who would talk with her, and admire her baby. It happened everyday and they became acquaintances, chatting for a few moments before she continued her walk. Then one day, Bud and Lois went to the movies. This was when they still had shorts before the actual movie. As the short came on, it was about Hemingway, and Lois immediately realized that the man she had been talking with everyday outside the bar was none other than Papa himself. Bud and Lois both got to know him a bit after that, and he continued to admire their baby, as Lois took her daily walks.

I had to chuckle to myself. I was happy to connect with one of the places that Hemingway had frequented; it turned out that my neighbor Bud and his wife had the real connection 60 some years ago, when Bud was all of 22. If I hadn’t gone to Key West, I probably never would have heard the story of Bud, Lois, and Papa.

Connections are all around us, but so often we are unaware of their presence. I’m glad for all of the connections that revealed themselves this past weekend.

  

Joe Russo passed away about a year ago. I never met Joe, and didn’t know him, but I feel like I did, and I wish I had a chance to know him better. He was one of those people who cast a shadow bigger than they are.

He and his wife Pat, who is still alive and doing well, were the previous owners of our vacation house on Tilghman Island. MD. I’ve heard many stories of Joe around the neighborhood, and certainly feel his presence in our home.

Our house on Tilghman Island was originally built in the 1890s in a village called Fairbank, at the end of the island. It was a working village and by all accounts, most of the men were watermen. Over the years, the village changed but little, and that included the houses. Many of the houses started to show their age and the passing of time. Some were renovated, some weren’t. Ours was one the houses not renovated, or maybe not even repaired much. We talked to one of the watermen that previously lived in the house, and as a child, he could remember snow coming into his bedroom from a hole in the roof.

  
Pat and Joe bought this house around 1980. They were advised by some to tear it down and start over. It’s a funny thing about old houses – you either love them or hate them, and most folk don’t fall in the middle. Thank heaven, Joe and Pat loved this old house, and slowly renovated it. Pat gave us as a gift, a photo album that recorded their renovation, most of which they did themselves. You can see the love for the home (and each other) in their faces, and in their actions. They owned the place for about 30 years and made it into the place it is today.  

  

When we first saw the house almost 5 years ago, we had been looking for a vacation home, but hadn’t found anything we liked. We gave up looking and went on a bike ride instead. During the ride, we passed this house and it drew us to it immediately. We made an appointment to see it the next morning, and put an offer in 4 hours later.

The day after we put the offer in, we drove back by the house and Pat was sitting on the front porch. We stopped and spoke with her, and she invited us onto the front porch. We spoke with her for quite awhile and wandered around the house again. Pat could not have been more gracious.

Since then, we’ve seen Pat one or two other times, and have ran into some of their children and grandchildren. They were happy to know we’d found the good luck messages they left us written on a wall in one of closets. And I see Joe, or the evidence of Joe around the house as I do my own repairs. Joe was a tinkerer and so as I update, or fix various things, I also get a chance to think about what was Joe thinking when he “installed this”. He had some smart ways (although not always conventional) of doing things, and I’ve learned to appreciate his methods.

I also see or hear Joe in the neighborhood. The kayaks someone bought from him; the motorboat (Rocky) that now belonged to another neighbor; the fig trees in neighbor’s yards (Joe was a fiend about figs…); the old crab pots out back; the Italian and US Flags in our sheds. And the stories I sometimes hear – “So then Joe…..”. In someways, he reminds me of my own father, who always had a presence larger than he actually was.

We’ve made this house into our home and we love it. We’ve had this place for 4 1/2 years now, and while I don’t particularly believe in ghosts, I think older houses keep a spirit of those who lived there before. I sometimes sense a presence – a creak, a sound, or a whiff of something. Whatever it is, it’s comforting.  

I didn’t know Joe, but I feel like I did, and I wish I had a chance to know him better.

  

  
I posted this to Facebook last year, but it seemed worth putting out again. Dad has been gone for five years now, and Uncle Micky is in a VA home, and not doing too well. I plan to see him when we are back visiting at Christmas time this year.

When my sisters and I were growing up, Saturday mornings were great. We would be sitting around the table and various aunts and uncles would stop by for a cup of coffee. They all were great story tellers and would regale us with tales from their youth, or the war (always the funny war stories), or the early days in Ottawa.

The Hall’s (my dad’s family) grew up very poor in Southern Illinois and had a very rough life. Uncle Dave, Aunt Ellen, Aunt Jenny, Aunt Tilly and Uncle George were all older (from a couple of years, to being adults when Dad was a kid). Many of the stories they told us later in life were about Dad and Uncle Micky. In these stories, Dad was always in 4th Grade, and Uncle Mick was in 2nd – they had many adventures together, and there was always some hilarity involved. 

In any case, one year during the depression, it was Christmas time, and Christmas was going to be meager. Grandpa didn’t have any work, and Grandma was doing odd-jobs for people to bring in a bit of money. Dad and Uncle Mick both still believed in Santa Claus at this point. They lived in a “shack” with just a few rooms, and those rooms didn’t provide much privacy. On Christmas Eve, Dad and Uncle Mick finally went to bed, and to sleep, hoping that Santa Claus would bring something that night. A few hours later, they woke up and heard noises coming from the main room (front room) of the house. They both raced over to a hole in a board in the wall that looked into the main room, and they were pushing and shoving each other to be the one that could look through the knot-hole and see what, if anything, Santa was bringing them.

Dad won out and was looking through the hole – Uncle Mick was behind him yelling out – “Is it Santa Claus? Is it Santa? What’s he look like? What’s he look like?!!” 
Dad’s answer back: “He looks a lot like ma”….

….and that’s how they found out there was no Santa Claus, or at least none other than their own mother, who did everything she could to try and make their lives better….

The Christmas Morning That Almost Wasn’t…

Growing up, Christmas at our home was always great. It may not quite have been the same as in the movie, A Christmas Story, but it was close (except I never received a Red Ryder BB gun). My sisters and I would start waking up early and want to get up. Mom and dad made us stay in bed, so we’d end up saying we had to go to the bathroom. Then we could walk by the entry to the front room and see all the presents under the tree.

Finally, we could get up and we would rip open the packages and presents, doing so in some kind of speed record. Then came breakfast, and then later the big meal. When we were little, it was always a trip to grandma’s house where we’d meet up with all of the cousins and compare our gifts. Later, dinners moved to our house and got bigger and bigger. I think one year we must have had 25 people at the dinner. Now there is no way our house could hold 25 people sitting down and eating, and yet at Christmas, it magically did.

This story involves my two sisters, and a different Christmas experience. In fact, it was the Christmas morning that almost wasn’t.

The three of us kids were a bit older at this point. I was in 7th Grade, Roberta, 5th, and Tanya, 3rd. We didn’t believe in Santa Claus any longer (Tanya may have been on the fence), but we sure believed in the magic of Christmas….and we started understanding that if there were presents on Christmas morning, there MUST BE presents hidden around the house ahead of Christmas. There was always some surreptitious “searching”, and occasionally, one of us would find something hidden in a closet, or under a bed.

Then, my sisters hit the motherload. One of them found A LOT of their presents in a chest, out in the garage. One sister grabbed the other and they looked at the presents – dolls, games, clothes, and ‘gasp!’ – a Barbie Doll Case. They looked and touched and finally, shut the lid to the chest. If that’s where they left it, all would have been fine.

Later, they decided they wanted to look at the presents one more time. So after mom drove to work (and gave me a ride to Junior High), they went out to the garage, and there was a 50 pound bag of salt on top of the chest. Being resourceful, they carefully took the bag off, and looked at the presents once more. Then they put the bag back on the chest. Of course, there’s always a price to pay. One of the girls (who will go unnamed) wanted to see that Barbie Doll Case once more, and this time, when taking the bag back off the chest, it burst open spilling everywhere. They tried to clean it up, but couldn’t get the busted bag back on the chest. Finally, they enlisted the aid of our neighbor, Mr. Classon, who cleaned up the mess, put the sand in the bag and the bag in a bucket. He then put the bucket on the chest. Mr. Classon thought the whole thing was pretty funny – “Oh, your parents will laugh about this.” The girls knew that wasn’t the case, and walked to school, where they spent the day knowing their world was about to end….

That evening, all was well for a bit, and then mom saw the busted bag and knew what had happened. To say she was furious is putting it mildly. This was back in the day when spankings happened, or at least they did at our house. As my sister Roberta said “She was so mad. When she went to get the belt, I held my breath hoping I would die before she got back“.

Well, Roberta didn’t die, and they both survived their spankings. Mom swore there wouldn’t be any presents for them that year, because Santa (and evidently mom and dad) didn’t bring presents to bad children. They also didn’t get to eat dinner with the family for a week.

Finally, Christmas morning came and we all went out to the tree. My presents were there, and some of the girls’ presents were there, but they didn’t receive many. Things were pretty glum all around. I mean, I couldn’t even enjoy my presents because it looked like I was gloating. Finally, Dad asked one of the girls to get something out in the family room. She went out there, and all of a sudden there was a shriek. We all ran to the family room and there, beneath a brand new, smaller Christmas tree were all of Roberta and Tanya’s presents, including many from the chest and several new ones. The Barbie Doll Case was among them.

It turned out to be a great Christmas and also gave us a story that we have told and laughed at throughout the years. Mom didn’t laugh at it much early on, but she does now, and the spittle from earlier years has dried. Still, if you ever want to get a rise out of mom, I guarantee this story gets at least a mild harrumph and a comment or two. Oh, and one other twist to the story. Tanya was the one who wanted to see the Barbie Case one more time. It turned out to be a present for Roberta, and she still has it to this day.

Merry Christmas everybody. May your Christmas gives you a story or two that can be passed on to the next generation as well.