Author: John Chappell
Kansas Homestead
As many people do, and as I thought I had done before now, I checked street view on Google maps to see what my house would look like. Maybe in the past I only checked satellite view. What I found today on street view is a photo that Google must have taken at least 25, maybe 30, years ago; I lose track of time. The van in the driveway is what we had when the kids were pre-college which was way before the turn of the century. There’s been at least one other car between that van and what we have now.
And the maple tree in the front yard now dwarfs the depiction of it in the photo. I suppose it’s still quite a feat for Google to have actually photographed so many homes, but it’s a little surprising to learn that what they show may be of more historical than current interest.
Retirement Redux
The retirement was finally done, at least, insofar as closing the office. I emptied six rooms, 900 square feet, of all evidence of my 40 years’ occupation and practice of law. All the old typewriters, printers, computers, desks, chairs, etc. that were so familiar and served me well – gone. It’s odd the sentiment and attachment felt for inanimate things. The books, OMG, the books, the foundation of my knowledge, the tools of my trade, although some were just for show. The contents of ten legal sized four-drawer metal file cabinets were emptied into large bins and hauled away, along with more than 40 legal-sized boxes of client files, to be shredded. It’s impossible to describe the emotions, watching 40 years of life’s work dumped into a truck for shredding. All those hours, days, weeks and years of work, all those clients… to be rendered into disparate strips. Maybe they’ll be recycled and reborn as Starbucks cups. Or maybe birthday and get-well cards, printed on the back: “Made from 100% recycled career of John Chappell.”
Dave IS Here
January 15, 2023
Genealogy, Life, News
Comments Off on Dave IS Here
John Chappell
It was recently feared that Dave’s cat, Chessie, had landed badly from a jump in Fremont and suffered a broken a leg. Thankfully, veterinary examination diagnosed only a bad sprain and/or partial dislocation of a carpal joint.
They say a cat embodies the ethos of the human, if any, with whom it harbored a metaphysical bond at the time of the human’s death. It’s hypothesized that primordial yet uniquely individual elements of a decedent’s ectoplasm that devolve at the moment of death are osmosed (a process reported in scientific journals as ectoplasmosis) by the metaphysically bonded cat via an as yet unidentified gland unique to felines. They actually have several as yet unidentified unique glands as well as several identified glands whose function is as yet unidentified. They’re a mystery, you know, especially the small ones (referring to the cats, not the glands) like house cats.
The point being that, contrary to the famous retort of Tommy Chong, Dave IS here! And we are greatly relieved that he didn’t break a leg.