Thursday, May 19, 2011

Not much. . .

. . . to report today. We had our usual visits from lots of nice people, but there was never a crowd, so we had time to chat with everyone. Ron M. was with me all day and Betty W. stopped in for a while, too.

Our visitors, 10 in all, came from Salina KS, Thompson's Station TN, Augusta KS, Prior OK, Inola OK, Lima OH, and Olathe KS.

These two former college friends were very excited about the cars. They're from Olathe, KS and Lima, OH and are taking a partial Route 66 vacation.

That's all for today. I'm looking out the window at very cloudy skies and extremely high winds. My TV weatherman Dan says we may be in for some "severe" weather late tonight. We shall see.


ADDITION: Just received Jim Hinckley's new book "Ghost Towns of Route 66 in the mail a half hour ago. It is WONDERFUL, and the chapter about Afton (which, to be honest, is the only one I've read so far) is great and totally accurate, with about 6 great images of Afton, too.

3 comments:

Susan Yates said...

My copy of Ghost Towns came this week, too. Tempted to jump in but have too much end of school stuff to do right now--and by end of school I mean the very end. Just before the School Board meeting this month our school was unexpectedly added to the list of schools to be closed. For 4 hours tomorrow (Saturday) we're having an open house for former students, friends of the school, and neighbors who want to come in, take pictures and say a last goodbye. Afraid it feels more like a viewing of the body and a funeral than an open house. Hmmmmm, maybe I should start work on a book about Ghost Schools and Abandoned Playgrounds.

Laurel said...

Will you be retiring then, or will you be going to another school? It must be hard for you to believe that your school is one that's being closed. I'm so sorry for you, the students, and the alums.

Susan Yates said...

Thanks for commiserating, Laurel. Obviously I'm in one of the early stages of grieving since I felt it was necessary to mention something from my life on YOUR blog. Sign of shock maybe. I am going to another school, just don't know which. Placement is tricky as elementary schools only have one librarian per building and now there are more people than buildings! Here's the Route 66 tie in--our school had the special honor of having Michael Wallis as the speaker at our fifth grade promotion last spring, an incredible kindness from him. He did an amazing job of really talking to those kids (by and large very poor children) about connecting with the world beyond their neighborhood. He talked about some of the interesting things that had happened to him as a child growing up next to Route 66 and let them know that the same Old Road could be magical for them, too. I am quite sure that no school in the Oklahoma, universities included, had a better commencement speaker in spring, 2010, one of the happy memories we take with us as we close our school.