Bonanza

Our stay in Bonanza was relaxing and a lot of fun.  Ken and Charlene are two of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met. I am proud to welcome their granddaughter Anna to my family, she is a terrific mother. And I am pleased to have met my granddaughter Collette.

A few years ago I visited Brazil and the most memorable part of the trip was the two days I spent in the home of a friend. It was really interesting to see up close the differences between daily life in their country and in mine.

I live in a suburban world where things are ever so modern, and ever so insulated from nature. Our hosts in Bonanza are far more in touch with the outdoors. I feel the same way about my trip to Bonanza as I do about my trip to Brazil. There is certainly room for other ways to live and those ways are probably better than the homogenized suburban middle-class world I live in.

If you ever get to visit them, maybe you will be as lucky as I was to have Charlene cook you breakfast made with the freshest eggs to be found anywhere ... they raise chickens and goats for food on the table.  Charlene has a huge heart and has always had a home filled with children. She and Ken took in their granddaughter Anna through her pregnancy and saw to it she was safe and had excellent care. 

Ken, who bears a striking resemblance to Abraham Lincoln, has a slender frame but don't let that fool you, he had the energy and strength of two oxes.  I offered to help him move a big stack of railroad ties, but he completed the chore himself before we got back from a shopping excursion. Marty and I helped him restack twenty bales of hay and I was reminded how soft my life is.  Ken has shoed horses for decades and is in a group that will be packing 40,000 fingerling trout on horses and mules to stock a remote mountain lake.  

Anna has been through quite a lot in her young life and the baby brings her a great deal of comfort. It is delightful to watch her as a nurturer ... she has a comfortable and natural feel for mothering. She is probably better prepared emotionally for parenting than my son Marty, but he was up for the challenges that baby Collette threw (or threw up) at him.  He embraced fatherhood and Collette nicely. Anna and Collette will be moving to Minnesota in a month where Marty has a good job and an apartment lined up.