About gretcheno

I grew up at the top of a 90ft. cliff, in Washington state, within sight of eagles, whales, Mt. Baker, and Canada. I quickly learned that I don't have one artistic bone in my body...except when it comes to words. I learned that I can make people smile with my writing. Finally, at age 41, with years spent in Oregon, Berlin, Germany, and now Minnesota, I'm ready for more than just my family and friends to read my words.

Mount Saint Helens Exploded 33 Years Ago This Week – My Dad was There the Next Day – Here are Some of His Photos

Posted on May 14, 2013 by gretcheno

I remember the boom that Sunday morning, May 18th, 1980 – 33 years ago this week – as we were getting ready for church on Orcas Island, Washington. It was 8:32am – or however long it takes for sound to travel 300 miles. My oldest sister was off at college, my Dad was down in Oregon at work with the Air Force, and my other sister, our Mom, and I were slipping on our Sunday shoes and just about to head out the door when we heard it.

“Oh, they’re dynamiting on Buck Mountain,” Mom said dismissively.

But Jenny and I said, “No! It was Mount Saint Helens!”

“No,” Mom disagreed. “We couldn’t hear it this far away.”

“It was the mountain, Mom,” we said again. “Turn on the radio.”

Sure enough, Mount Saint Helens – which had been steaming and belching and threatening to explode for weeks – had finally blown her top. The mountain – the entire skyline of southern Washington State – was no longer the same. The north face of the mountain was gone.

And so were 57 people with her.

My father, LTC David K. Wendt, was a rescue helicopter pilot for the United States Air Force Reserve, based out of Portland, Oregon. Here’s what Dad had to say about May 18th:

“I was the duty officer that Sunday – in the RCC (Rescue Control Center) which was a madhouse!! We were getting calls from everybody – including the President of the United States (or the White House office, anyway, to set up a visit for President Carter.) I didn’t get to fly until Monday morning – when I found the Moore family. Lienau’s rescue was a week later.” (The following photographs will fill-out the stories of these people a little more.)

These are some of his photographs, taken over the next several days following the event on May 18th.

The cauldron!

It’s like a photo from you-know-where.

These were trees. The explosion – firing at several hundred miles per hour – killed every living thing within a 230 square mile radius. All within a time period of 5-9 minutes. The orange smudge in this photo is a flare. (See links below to verify this information.)

Blasted trees on the surface of Spirit Lake. Spirit Lake was made famous even before the explosion because of a long-time resident, Harry Truman, who refused to evacuate prior to the explosion they KNEW was coming. His body was never found.

Steam vents – filled with logs from the blast.

Steaming waterfall.

Devis Valley

A 200 foot hover, while a parajumper is hanging on the end of a 200 foot cable as he works to make a rescue.

Flying toward a lake on the mountain.

Micheal Lienau, rescued by Dad and his crew. They have kept in touch over the years. He was a photographer for National Geographic.

Micheal Lienau, rescued by Dad and his crew. Several years ago they saw each other again as they were both asked to be a part of an NBC production on “Disaster Survival”. Here’s what Dad had to say about Lienau: “He made a video of the whole ordeal – saying how they looked back up the pass they’d come through and saw a volcano-blasted tree in the shape of a cross – just showing in the narrow slit of overcast volcanic cloud and the pass. He told the others with him – after seeing that cross – that he truly felt they were going to be saved – and a few minutes later we flew over the pass! I was hover-tracking them by their trail left in the ash and mud.” Otto Seiber, another guy rescued by Dad and his crew, was a filmmaker from Seattle, who went with his film crew to document the destruction on May 23rd. Their compasses freaked out in the volcanic atmosphere and they got themselves lost in a hurry. The mountain then erupted again on May 25th, and Dad and his team rescued them. By the way, Wikipedia has proven its reputation for inaccuracy by reporting that they were rescued by the National Guard…but it was NOT the guard, it was the Air Force!

A helicopter-view of another Huey.

Steam vents

They searched for the Moores - and they found them on the 19th. Alive.

They searched for the Moores – and they found them. Alive. Mother, father, and two small children.

The Moores.

Heart Lake

Reid Blackburn’s car. He was a photojournalist for a Washington newspaper as well as for National Geographic magazine. His body was eventually recovered from the car.

Chemically-altered pools. All sorts of weird stuff in that ash and lava!

Dad didn't send me this photo - but I wanted to include it! Details of the rescue of the Moores. This is the nomination form that was turned in, nominating them for the Helicopter Heroism Award that year.

Dad didn’t send me this photo because he’s not one to brag – but I wanted to include it! Details of the rescue of the Moores. This is the nomination form that was turned in, nominating them for the Helicopter Heroism Award that year.

Amazing what the ash in the air will do to a sunset!

Forever changed.

Here are several interesting links:

A very informative video put out by the USGS – the United States Geological Survey.

The USDA/FS site (United States Department of Agriculture / Forest Service)

Mount Saint Helens.com

A USGS summary of the event, including right before it and several years after it.

There are many, many more sites – I just choose a few which seemed especially good.

My Dad has had his photos used by the USGS, the Mt. St. Helens Interpretive Center, and this book, Fire Mountain. I have many reasons to be proud of my dad. The things he did during his Mount Saint Helens rescues are definitely some of them.

Copyright Notice: Unauthorized use and/or duplication of any material in this blog without written permission from the blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.

Copyright May 14, 2013 by Gretchen Anne O’Donnell and Col. David K. Wendt, USAFR

CRUNCH

Posted on May 7, 2013 by gretcheno

As spring cleaning is in full swing, it seemed like a good time to tell you about the most fun volunteer cleaning job I ever had.

Not to be confused with the worst volunteer cleaning job I ever had. Which involved about 4 dozen empty-and-needing-to-be-refilled condiment bottles after a church-wide picnic at the huge church I attended in college. I was assigned to refill
the mustard bottles.

And I hate mustard.

But this particular job, done approximately 8 years earlier in my life, and which may seem like a job more fitting for the “worst volunteer job ever” title, was, actually, far more fun. Especially since I was about 14 and was doing it with a good friend.

My friend, Anne (who happened to be the pastor’s daughter), and I, were assigned to clean out the church steeple at Orcas Island Community Church, the church I grew up attending on Orcas Island, Washington.

Orcas Island Community Church: and its fun-filled steeple.

It was a church clean-up day. Anne and I came mostly, I’m sure, because we wanted to hang out together, not necessarily because we felt called to serve. I mean, service was fine and all, but it was way more fun when done with a friend. I suppose, really, it still is.

I don’t know who was inspired to assign two young teens to this job, but whoever he or she was, must have been a genius. I remember hauling the huge wet/dry vacuum up two flights of stairs to the steeple door. I’d been in the tiny storage room at the bottom of the steeple before – let’s face it, I’d been in every nook and cranny of the church, including the baptismal pool – but I had never been UP the ladder that was found at the back of the wee room.

But now the way was open and I was thrilled. I don’t know how we got that vacuum up the ladder – I suppose that someone must have helped us – all I remember as we got to the top and stood INSIDE the steeple’s apex – were the flies.

All dead. And about two inches deep.

Crunch. Crunch, crunch. CRUNCH. With every step. Everytime we moved. Everywhere we looked. Dead flies.

Remember: I was 14…and not particularly squeamish.

IT WAS SO COOL!!!

It was not a long job, but we took as long with it as we could. We vacuumed. We pretended to be grossed out. We vacuumed some more. We peered out the slats of the steeple and yelled down to our friend in the parking lot below. He never did figure out where those voices calling his name were coming from. (Hopefully we didn’t drive him insane thinking that he was hearing voices inside his head.)

I love when church gives kids opportunities to serve. Especially when those jobs are age-appropriate. Somehow vacuuming up dead flies has never been as much fun since. Not sure why…

PPW – Or How I Learned to Justify my Expenditures

Posted on April 30, 2013 by gretcheno

I loved college. (Go Ducks!) I loved my friends, my classes, my freedom. Not that I was repressed prior to that or anything, but I mean that enjoyed making (most of) my own decisions in college. I enjoyed being an adult.

No, I was not crazy or wild. I was, actually, quite calm and well-behaved. I think the wildest thing I did was sleep out on a sand dune on the Oregon coast in a tent with several other friends on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, which, for those who don’t know, is the third week in January. And when I say, “sleep”, I exaggerate. We about froze to death. We had taken two cars and had two tents. When we “woke up” (read “gave up”) on the frigid dawn of the day after MLKjr Day, my tent-mates and I discovered that the other tent/car had given up and driven the 40 minutes back to the U of Oregon.

Wimps.

To be sure, I wouldn’t recommend sleeping on a sand dune in January to anyone except possibly college kids looking to be wild. That kind of wild I can approve of. There was no alcohol involved. Just silliness.

But I digress. I meant to talk about my college obsession with “PPW”. What is PPW, you ask? PPW is the Price Per Wearing of any article of clothing we, as college students, considered buying. There is also its lesser-known cousin, the PPU – Price Per Use. This was also an important consideration.

Take the free gym bag I mentioned in a previous post. Great PPU. Especially considering that it was A) free and B) is now 29 years old and still going strong.

But…again…I digress.

PPW – yes, that’s where I was going.

Exhibit A:

Within days prior to my graduation from Berlin American High School, I bought myself a letterman’s jacket. I had never had a letterman’s jacket. I hadn’t been in any high school long enough to earn one. But finally, my senior year, I earned my letter. What sport, you ask? Ha. Don’t make me laugh. I earned it for my involvement with Speech Club and Drama Club.

Yes, I was that kind of student. I even had a teal-colored corduroy pant suit. Jealous?

So…PPW…my letterman’s jacket, as I recall, cost about 200 dollars, back in 1988. I paid for it out of the $500 I’d won for the Veteran’s of Foreign Wars essay contest. (Who says writing doesn’t pay?) I wore that jacket approximately 1.5 times before graduating. If that.

I did wear it a few times in college because it was kinda cool and said Berlin on it. I got comments every time. But it was HOT, wool, heavy, and Eugene isn’t exactly cold so much as it is wet…so rain-proof gear was much more useful.

I still have the jacket. It’s been worn, oh, MAYBE half a dozen more times since then…on super-cold days…to take out the compost…

PPW of said jacket: about $25. NOT GOOD.

Exhibit B:

The other coat I bought out of that essay contest win: a German Loden trench coat. $300. Wool. Classic. Red and Black. It was warm, fashionable, and, while I only wore it on Sundays to church and occasional other outings, I wore it for about 20 years. I wore it until it was threadbare on the cuffs, missing buttons, pushing its “classic” definition. I LOVED that coat. Still do.

PPW of that coat: oh, definitely less than a penny.

One last exhibit: the silk dress I wore to my 10 year high school reunion.

As I recall, I paid $89 for it, 15 years ago.

I wore it once.

I still really like this dress. But I by the time the next thing rolled around to which I could wear such a thing...I was pregnant. And after that my body was switched with an alien's body and I never looked the same again.

I still really like this dress. But by the time the next event rolled around to which I could wear such a thing…I was pregnant. And after that my body was switched with an alien’s body and I never looked the same – or wore the same things – again.

This July will be my 25th high school reunion. If it wasn’t in July, I’d wear my letterman’s jacket. Then the PPW would be down to, oh, $20? But wool isn’t exactly summer fabric. I’ll probably just wear the hippy-ish skirt and top I bought for my friend’s wedding last year. It’s good for a mother of three. And the PPW is already down to about $3.

Yeah. That works for me.

Ice Storm Photos

Posted on April 23, 2013 by gretcheno

This is what we woke up to the morning after the lights went out. All the following ice photos are from that first day – all taken through our windows. The snow photos were the second day, mostly also from our windows. Finally, on the third day, we went outside as a family and saw the damage first hand.

The climbing tree, broken branches frozen to the ground

Surveying the backyard.

The pine trees were like Narnia – only the bad, evil witch part of Narnia.

A few shots around town.

The golf course.

Not exactly a safe place to play right now. I have heard many reports of eye injuries as people clean up the branches all over town.

Yes, this is a power pole. Or should I say, was.

Nothing but splintered remains and criss-crossed lines.

Horray!

Our saviors from Wadena.

And so the clean up begins.

I apologize for not posting these photos sooner…I couldn’t look at them without feeling ill. Seriously. I had to avoid them for a few days to get a little perspective.

The following is what I wrote on Wednesday morning, after the lights came on the night before. Allow me add that the power was back out on Wednesday night for a few hours, but that was because of a tremendous thunderstorm and lightning hitting a transformer…just what we all needed, right? It is Monday night now, almost one week later, and again we’re having snow and wind like crazy. It has been a wild couple of weeks that I really don’t want to re-live. On the good side, people were safe and there were very few injuries – mostly the injuries came later with damage to eyes when people were out cleaning up fallen branches. There are some streets that look like tunnels, the piles of branches are so huge. This will take weeks to clean up…months, perhaps. And years to get back our trees.

HOW MANY TIMES DO WE FLIP ON A LIGHTSWITCH WHILE LOOKING FOR A FLASHLIGHT WHICH WE NEED BECAUSE THE LIGHTS ARE OFF?!!! I think that everyone has done this in their lives.

So many switches were on in our house, and that’s how I knew the power had come back on because there were suddenly lights!

We’ve put away the flashlights. The dishes are gently rocking on the Anti-Bacterial setting in my dishwasher. A load of towels is “cooking” on high heat. I turned on my electric blanket last night, just because I could.

But the TV? You know, I kinda didn’t mind not having the TV on. Not having the internet bummed me out, I admit. But I really don’t have to compulsively check Facebook every half hour in order to be happy.

I tell you what does make me happy, though. Three men from Wadena, Minnesota – a town about 5 hours north of here – who restored our power last night, just two hours shy of one week exactly from when it went out. (The oven clock came back on and read 9:06 – it picked up right where it had left – almost as if time itself had stopped. As if the past week never happened.)

I looked up Wadena on my newly-restored internet and discovered that this town of 4,000ish suffered a terrible E-F 4 tornado three years ago. In other words, these men know what it is to suffer at the hand of nature. They know what it’s like to need help from others. They came down to my town so that they could give back what they received.

I told them, “Thanks for leaving your homes and your families to come down and lend us a hand.” They shrugged and mumbled and waved for my camera.

I am not usually given to dancing. But I danced last night.

Suddenly everything seems possible.

THANK YOU, Mr. Electric Man!

Posted on April 16, 2013 by gretcheno

Still no electricity. Furnace is acting up because it doesn’t like the generator. The cost of a storm like this is in more than just dollars. It’s in sanity.

Here’s some statistics I heard this morning. I know there are more and perhaps better ones, but this gives you an idea. (I appologize if these numbers are incorrect – this is what I’ve heard as of Tuesday morning.)

One hardware store in this town of 12,000 people has sold $177,000.00 in chainsaws and generators over the past week. That’s just one of the half a dozen or so hardware stores in town.

As of Tuesday morning 991 homes are still without power.

2,000 power poles snapped or otherwise are unusable.

120 linemen have come to help us out, from across Minnesota and even, I believe, from South Dakota. The hotel parking lots (at night only!) are solid with power trucks. The image of all those trucks made me cry. We are so thankful for all that is being done to get us back into the 21st century!

I know, I know – we can live without electricity. We’ve proven that this week. But it sure is nice.

Here’s my daughter’s take on the storm – in her exact words:

Electricity. A necessity we take for granted. The power has been out for 6 days and it still is.

We had a HUGE ICE STORM. Plus we had a SNOWSTORM after that!

There are MANY trees down, all over the place.

Having the power out is scary. Mr. Al Oberloh [the mayor of Worthington] said, “Worthington will never look the same again.” I agree.

I live in the country, so we didn’t have rolling blackouts [as they had in town]. We just had no electricity at all. Our power lines are [broken down] and buried underneath lots of snow.

I believe that the electricity people are pretty AWESOME. They worked for like 24 hours straight to get power back on [for those in town].

The power went out at like 9:00 Tuesday night. It’s still out. Oh well. They have to get other pepole before us.

I think that I will remember this forever.

THANK YOU, ELECTRIC PEOPLE!!!

By Katie O’Donnell. Age 11

Ice, Snow, Devastation and a Kazoo Band

Posted on April 13, 2013 by gretcheno

There are moments in your life that you never forget. When I am old and wrinkled and more gray even than I am now, I will remember this week with tears, with smiles, and, possibly, with laughter.

My son asked me if, like with hurricanes, they name Midwestern Ice Storms. I told him that we didn’t rate that high on the weatherman’s scale.

“But it’s so bad!” he pointed out.

“Yes, it is,” I replied with a wry smile.

It really is so bad.

April usually is a time to anticipate bulbs poking out of the earth, to dig out asparagus recipes, to watch the daily progression of the leaves on the trees, the birds returning to the upper Midwest.

Not this year.

For those who don’t know, Tuesday night, April 9th, 2013, Worthington, Minnesota and the surrounding area experienced a terrible ice storm which left about 1.5 inches of ice on the trees, followed by 8+ inches of snow on Wednesday night. I live out in the country on ten acres of trees and stream and farmland. We lost electricity Tuesday night. Still don’t have it back as of Saturday afternoon. We have a generator – a reliable one – as of Friday night. The one we had, which came with our house 8 years ago, had never been put to the test before. Sure, we’d used it a few times for a few hours – but nothing like this.

It failed the test.

So finally, last night, my husband forked over $700 for a brand-new (and much quieter) one, so that we can have heat and toilets that flush and food that won’t give us food poisoning.

Can’t wash our clothes. Can’t run the dishwasher. No internet. No TV. (My son’s comment on these terrible facts: “Mom, what did you and Dad DO all day when you were kids?”)

But all of that pales in comparison with what’s happened outside of our windows.

Total tree devastation. It’s a war zone, a bombing site, an unrecognizable horizon.

And no, I have no photos for you yet – not until I get power back and can download all of my photos onto my PC. I’m in town right now, at my favorite hang-out, BenLees Café. It’s a refuge here from the sadness out my window.

My kids have named all of their favorite trees. There’s the Hosanna Tree, so named because its leaves resemble the palm fronds on Palm Sunday. (I think it will survive.) There’s the Shady Tree aka the Climbing Tree. It’s our favorite. My girls and I cried yesterday when we stood in front of it. I don’t think there’s any way it will survive. And then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Maple Tree – Mrs. Tree is doomed. Mr. Tree might make it – but it looks like he got a terrible hair cut.

And then there are 100 more trees – give or take – which have suffered the indignities of a very angry giant stomping through our yard and tearing twigs and branches off and throwing them willy-nilly all over the yard.

At least that’s what it feels like.

And sounded like.

Oy, vey, the sounds of the crackling ice when you stood outside in the silence of zero electricity. It was almost like running water, only then you realized that everything was frozen and it was just the constant crack of ice on trees as they blew in the wind.

And the sounds indoors: nothing. Utter, unimaginable, silence.

Until the generator goes on!

But there have also been sounds of laughter. Of a fire in the grate, of games played, of a Kazoo Band, and of 30 year old cassettes wallowing on my 30 year old tape player. (“Turn it off, Mom! It’s creepy!”)

And then there was the sound of tree limbs tearing, of thunder smashing right overhead, of a little girl learning to tie her shoes, running to tell Daddy when he walked in the door and his exclamations of pride.

Yes, I will look back on this with tears and smiles someday.

Someday.

PS – I will have photos for you – probably more than you could ever hope for – as soon as I can. I’m sure I’ll write more about it, too. There is so much to process – to think through and put into words – I know I’m not yet finished.

Good Morning, Sports Fans!

Posted on April 9, 2013 by gretcheno

I am not a sports fan. I could care less about who wins what, who’s playing who, who got traded to whatever team. I do have a few opinions about athletes…but it’s probably best to just keep those to myself. 

Okay, I do admit that I am fond of my alma mater, the Oregon Ducks, but my sports-affiliated allegiance ends there.

My husband, thankfully, shares my indifference to sports. This means I am not subject to Sunday afternoon/Monday night/Thanksgiving Day marathons of misery. (Now that’s something I can cheer for!) I have noticed something about him, though, which I find interesting. He does not enjoy watching sports…but if he is forced to in the few times I put on an Oregon game, for example, he gets more into it than I do. I want to know who won…that’s all I really care about. But he comes out with these explanations of incredulity that surprise me every time he utters them. “Oh!” “Uff!” “AHHHH!” I have been “watching” the exact same game (while reading a book, doing the dishes, or surfing the web) but he has been sucked in, whereas I have no idea what just happened because I’m only interested in the final results.

It was interesting, I must admit, the two times that our separate alma maters played each other in the Fiesta Bowl a few years back. The first year Oregon won…the second year Minnesota won. He called it justice. I called it a bummer.

Anyway, this sports-deficit in my character came to light lately as I found myself washing my son’s gym bag.

This, according to some definitions, is an antique bag. Spring term of my freshman year in high school, I received it through my school as a reward for having good grades. It is a blue and yellow Seattle Mariners bag, though I don’t think my son has ever been ridiculed for having a Mariners bag in this land of the Minnesota Twins because the writing is all worn off. 29 years does that to a free, nylon bag.

I think I also received a free ticket to a Mariners game, but I can’t remember if the one Mariners game I did attend was then or a few years later. All I know is that I went once, to a game in the now-destroyed Kingdome, and that Seattle lost to Boston. I could have cared less.

I do remember, however, thinking, “Why the heck did I get a free sports bag just because I got good grades?” This was the beginning of the era of “everybody wins”. It was also when some of my friends began being rewarded with five dollars (or whatever) from their parents for every “A” on their report card…as opposed to the expectations from my parents which was that I do well because God gave me a good brain and I ought to use it.

This, by the way, is the same incentive we use with our kids.

As I threw that old Mariners bag into the wash, I wondered, vaguely, if it would come out okay or if I was dooming it to the garbage can.

And yes, I cared a lot more about that than whether or not the Twins/Mariners/anyone-on-God’s-green-earth win the pennant this spring.

I mean, this is a useful bag!

I’d hate to actually have to pay for a new one to replace it.

A Short Post About a Serendipitous Tradition

Posted on April 2, 2013 by gretcheno

Okay, you might not believe me when I say this, but truly, we TRY to find each and every plastic Easter Egg each year at our outdoor Easter Egg hunts…but somehow, every year, one or two get lost and then a year or so later we find them, bitten by animals, grubby, abandoned, lying in plain sight beneath a tree or a bush. We love this “tradition” – even if it happens purely by serendipity and never by design.

The first time it happened, 8 years ago when we moved out to our acreage, we weren’t too surprised. We had hidden over 200 eggs that year, and, though we didn’t count them all afterwards, we were pretty sure that there were some unaccounted for.

Searching high and low!

“Did you guys search in the way back?”

“No, that was too far.”

The hunt begins. Seven 5 & 6 year olds having fun.

We went back to look and found about a dozen. BUT…we still didn’t find them all. In fact, it took us three years to find all of those, we know because that was the only year we hid little erasers in some of the eggs and, sure enough, when the lawn-mower found an egg three years later, it had a butterfly eraser inside it…and the marks of some creature’s teeth all over the egg’s smooth, plastic, ovoid exterior.

Mostly they’re found in the spring, when the long grasses have died back and the new ones haven’t yet taken their place. It’s as if the snow has rooted out the eggs, shoved them forward like icebergs shoved rocks across the plains, and they wait to be found, little mountains of color in our prairie lawn.

Ironically, it’s not green eggs that we tend to find, but pink or purple or orange – colors, in other words, that you’d expect would be easy to spot beneath a tree. But, as Carl Sandburg so poignantly reminds us, “I am the grass; I cover all“.

A few weeks ago, the kids and my husband took a walk in the back yard, despite the March wind and snow. When they came in, cheeks red and noses running, some twenty minutes later, Boo proudly held up the egg they had found.

And then, with a grin, she opened it.

Lovely. Was it a malted egg? That’s my guess. Though, to be sure, it’s an educated guess more than an obvious match for said candy. The remains of it could fool an archeologist.

The interior. Not too appetizing one year later.

I burst out laughing, loving the grubby egg, the continuing tradition.

The lucky finder of the Golden Egg one year ago.

Anyone care to hazard a guess on how many eggs we’ll find a year from now? If the seven five and six year-olds who came to hunt eggs at Boo’s party have anything to say about it, it will be zero. I, however, as the realistic mom…I’m guessing two or three.

Or, should I say, that’s what I’m hoping for. After all, it would be a shame to let a good tradition die.

I love dying eggs!

PS – Sure enough, there’s at least one that we couldn’t find this year. Boo says that the leprechaun took it. Could be she’s right. How else can we explain their total disappearance?!

Not eggs…but a egg-like welcome to a party!

PPS – ON EASTER DAY Boo found one from last year – nice and grubby and innocently hiding all year long near the well. What a hoot.

A tradition continues.

Afterwards.

Girl Scout Writers – Part Two

Posted on March 20, 2013 by gretcheno

This is the second post of my third and fourth grade Girl Scout troop’s writing contributions. I have not made any corrections. The girls had five different writing assignments to earn their badge. Some were reports, some were journals, some were creative writing. Keep in mind, Girl Scouts is not responsible for TEACHING writing…we’re just trying to get them interested in it by giving them a chance to try a little outside of their usual classroom. Most of the girls enjoyed the badge…I think…though my own daughter has not yet finished her work. No pressure from Mom, or anything.

This report was written by one of the girls who has completed her badge: L.

MALL OF AMERICA

On my trip to MALL OF AMERICA I went with my friend, P., her mom K., my mom and me. First day we went to my mom’s other friends house and stayed the night. Then in the morning we left and headed towards the cites again when arrived my friend P’s house we stayed there for a couple minutes and then went to the MALL OF AMERICA and wend on the rides and my favorite was the Pepsi rollercoaster except my seat belt was not on tight and I held on to it the whole time to the belt and it hurt on the part on the when we were almost upside down and it was crazy stomach bruise. Then there was this other ride that you went up in the air then it dropped you and it caught you at the bottom so you don’t hit the ground. And then we went on the octopus which is a ride that has eight arms and it has seats at the end of each arm so we sat in the seat and it went around in circles and it looked like we were going to hit the people in front of us. Then we went to our hotel room and got our swim suits on and swam for while and then we went to this place called the ice castle and it was an actual ice castle that was entirely made of ice and it was pretty cool and they had lights in them which was even cooler that it was glowing and in the night it’s pretty cool we even went inside it. The next day we went home. That was an awesome weekend.

It’s Easter…and I Have a Few Opinions

Posted on March 15, 2013 by gretcheno

Here in Worthington, Minnesota, we have 17 churches that I am aware of. That’s 17 churches for, what, 13,000ish people? Not a bad ratio.

By contrast, I grew up in a town of about 3,000, on an island where there were only two church options: the Catholic/Episcopal church (which shared the premises but never the services) and Orcas Island Community Church (OICC) where everyone who wasn’t Catholic or Episcopalian spent their Sunday mornings.

Oh, and there were several cults/theosophical societies/new age communes as well, but I didn’t know much about them…other than whenever the Polarity Institute kids walked into a room, you knew it. They all smelled like garlic.

Having just three church options meant that there were a lot of different faith backgrounds represented in the congregation at OICC. People couldn’t just drive on over to the next town for church…the ocean was in the way! So, if you wanted to go to a Lutheran church, for example, you had to get in the ferry line for the Red Eye on Sunday morning, wait…and wait…then ride the ferry for an hour and twenty minutes, drive to your church of choice…drive back to the ferry line…wait…and wait…get back on the ferry, etc., etc.

Very few people were willing to do this.

SO…they came to OICC.

I LOVE that I grew up non-denominational. Yes, the church was probably more Baptistic than Lutheran in style, but not until I moved off of the island after 9th grade, did I even know what that meant. I remember facing church choices with my parents when we moved to Bend, Oregon. They were debating the merits of the Nazarene Church, the Baptist Church, the Free Church…and I had no idea what they were talking about. We ended up at a church plant that met in the middle school. Yes, it was non-denominational.

I’m not “dissing” denominations – I attend a denominational church now and I’m quite happy there, but I do want to challenge the notion that FOREVER AND EVER I WILL BE A BAPTIST/LUTHERAN/REFORMER/COVENANTER/METHODIST/WHATEVER. Denominations have their place, but what I care more about is whether or not Christ is preached and whether or not the people in the church are being challenged to grow in their relationship with Jesus.

It’s Easter…and that’s what I’m thinking about. Not cute little bunnies and marshmallow peeps. Not the “Baby Jesus” who is safe and easy to reference. But Christ, in all his bloody glory, giving His life for mine.

Thank you, God, for your indescribable gift. (II Corinthians 9:15)

The View From my Window

(Which may be different from – but hopefully compatible with – the view from yours.)

Author Archives: gretcheno