Category: Memory Lane
Indy 500
What an incredible Indy 500 today! It was rain delayed a few hours but they got it done before deadline and along the way it was one of the most intense nail-biting races I’ve seen in years. Maybe it wasn’t really any better than previous races and my impression was just the result of a culmination of unrelated things in my life (or lack thereof). I think it was the race, though. The announcers were hootin’ and hollerin’, especially during the last 20 laps. Also, I think it’s the first time I ever saw a second-place driver so emotionally crushed that he actually broke down in tears, for quite a spell, on camera. I could understand. It was intense for me, too, and I only spent the race settin’ in my armchair watchin’ it on the TV, not jockeying at 215 m.p.h. at close quarters with a dozen other racers hell-bent on beating me.
I have more important and meaningful things to write about, including some pictures, but I don’t have enough time. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to post something, and a blurb about Indy is the only thing I can squeeze out of the little block of time available at the moment. Hopefully, before it gets to be several more months of nothing, I’ll get something more important and meaningful posted, including pictures.
John and Becky – A Love Story
John grew up outside of St. Louis, Missouri in a country schoolhouse his parents converted into a rural home. Becky grew up in Ottawa, Kansas, a small farming community southwest of Kansas City. John and Becky met each other in the summer of 1969. He had just graduated high school, she had just finished her first year of college. They were in Wichita with summer jobs working for the same company selling encyclopedias door to door. While plying their wares over the course of the summer, their traveling band of book peddlers set up shop in motels throughout Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. By summer’s end they were in love but went their separate ways, he to Lawrence and she to Emporia, in pursuit of higher education. Love, however, prevailed and they got married in the summer of 1971. Becky left college and went to work so John could finish college, but then he tricked her by going to law school and she had to work three more years. In 1976 Becky became pregnant, John graduated from law school and passed the bar, they moved to Iola, Kansas, Stephen was born, and John won a hard-fought election to become County Attorney. He launched his legal career battling crime as a prosecuting attorney while also building a private practice. In 1979 Kimberly was born. In 1982 they moved back to Lawrence, taking the children with them. John hung out his shingle and Becky went back to work. The children grew up and moved to California. Becky finally retired from work in 2015. John took his shingle down in 2021 but continues to work some. Throughout it all, they remained madly in love, a condition that persists to this day.
22 Years
June 22, 2026
Life, Memory Lane, Wisdom
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John Chappell
I actually get periodic emails from Google Analytics (Your Google Analytics Performance Report) with information about how the Chappell Family Website is doing in terms of how many visitors have visited which pages, how long they stuck around, whether they visited another page, and much more. These are matters of interest to “webmasters” or “web developers” as they assist them with their SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies to get more visitors (traffic), especially for websites that have commercial objectives (getting money). I got one of those reports recently and, interesting as it was in regard to such matters, I was most struck by a reference to a page entitled The Blog is Open. At first, I wasn’t even sure there was such a page. So, I clicked the link, and there it was! I posted it on March 30, 2004. Being now 75 years of age, it took me a moment to do the arithmetic that told me that was twenty-two years ago. Twenty-two years! More arithmetic informed me that I was a mere 53 years of age back then. 53!!! That’s still young! It’s only about 3 years older than my son is now. Good God A’mighty, how time has flown by, gone up in smoke, been flushed down the… Actually, I’m not sure time getting flushed is an aphorism in general usage. Since 2004, two grandchildren have been born and grown to teenagers, one nigh onto 18 and the other hot on her heels. Well, as I ponder this, I sense symptoms of depression trying to get hold, so I’m going to quit this particular “post” and find something else to do for a while.
agetime