Author: John
Holcom Park
Lawrence, Kansas has several parks and one of them is Holcom Park. It’s the nearest park to our house. We got acquainted with it shortly after taking up residence in Lawrence in 1983. It’s weird, when I see “1983” it doesn’t strike me as very long ago. Yet, it’s long enough for the kids to grow up and become older now than I was when we moved to Lawrence. Anyway, as the kids were growing up we went to Holcom often. Sometimes it would be a picnic, sometimes tennis, soccer, frisbees, kites. There were baseball games outside and occasional indoor activites in the recreation center.
This evening on the TV news it was reported that Lawrence police had made arrests in connection with the shooting of two Lawrence teenagers outside the recreation center at Holcom Park. That got me thinking about years past. If one of the kids would have said, “I’m going over to Holcom to play tennis” or, “I’m meeting some friends to play basketball at the Holcom rec center”, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to me to say, “Okay, don’t forget to take your gun for self-defense!”
Times change.
Winter 2019
When we got back from Christmas in California the weather here in Kansas was essentially the same as there, temperature in the 50’s. It seemed like winter had bypassed us and sent us straight to spring. One morning last week when I went out for the morning paper the birds were singing merrily and it sounded, felt and even smelled like spring. Last night winter returned with snow and today we were blanketed in the stuff, although the temperature was a balmy 32. It wasn’t going to be warm enough to melt the stuff away, so I had to shovel the driveway. So I reckon we’re having winter, after all. TV news said we got 6 inches, but it was barely 2 inches on our driveway. I think the warmish temperature caused it to sort of melt and condense from 6″ to 2″, as it was very very heavy snow, almost slush.
Happy Birthday Jo
August 4, 2019
General
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John
Her birthday was August 2, 1923. She would have been 96 on Friday if still with us. She died in 1988, age 65, way too early. David, her husband for a few decades, was born August 10, 1925. He’ll be 94 in a few days assuming he’s with us a little longer. Here’s a picture of Jo the flight attendant. I have the approximate year somewhere but will have to add that later. It was before she and Dave married in 1947. She went to work as an engineer at Curtis Wright in 1943 designing planes. Wow, would’ve been only 20 at the time. What an incredible woman.