At home:

Spending time with family is one of the things that I appreciate the most. Spending time with them was often a event. For example, on our time off this weekend, some neighbor kids came over and we unearthed a skull of a bear that my father killed this past fall and put in a spot that he would remember where to dig it up. It was a study of how long  it takes for grub worms and other bugs to strip clean a skull and other parts of a large mammal.Well, if you want to know, I have to say a little longer than 9 months. It was buried in late November of 2011 and unearthed July 18, 2012. It wasn't quite ready as it still had a little bit of flesh around the eyes and some brain matter. So we put it up on the roof to let the flies and birds clean it the rest of the way. The next day, we went with the neighbor kids to catch crayfish, as you can see the one girl tried to make a ghille suit out of sea-weed. Although it wasn't as an enticing thing to do at first, as taking a nap, but I have to say that I had a good time.  I started to think about  something odd that I noticed when I moved away from home for the first time years ago, that there existed a large separation, lack of respect, and most of all missing camaraderie that usually the 3 living generations had for each other. Don't get me wrong, we didn't always get along, and we made mistakes with each-other. But how did it come about that in my family the older people didn't  look at the younger people as spoiled nuisances that didn't understand or appreciate their struggles in life, but as things to re-experience life with and pass on things to learn and do, and vice versa? The children of my family never really looked at its elders as old embittered nags that usually pollute the air with their never satisfied rants. We heard a lot of their stories, and thought of them as a age of romantic adventure where they would hitch-hike across the country to see their wives or they chased "The Desert Fox"(Rommel)" through the Sahara while sweet Grandma (who always had cookies) was making time-bombs.

Grandma

 

We always seemed to have a respect and admiration for each others attributes and qualities.
Well.. Where did it start? Well ... I would have to say right here  spending time with the next generations and  learning to live as a kid again and again. I think that children don't always have a choice in how they view adults until they get older, and then they can only see them how they are at this stage of life now. I am starting to realize that at times I have been falling into this dead end trap where I work at our mission, where I sometimes get grumpy about how they act. Children and youth aren't things that you can always just demand respect and friendship from.  I forget sometimes that the first steps need to come from me. I know that there will always be that little terror of a child that I constantly have to deal with, but I can't use that as an excuse to be grumpy with the rest of them, and expect there to be success in breaking the generational and cultural barriers that already exist. Well one more week until I head back.