Here is a picture of Grandma Sylvia when she was 21 years old.
She was born Sylvia Lugo and she grew up in New Jersey during the great depression of the 1930's. According to Aunt Gloria (Mom's sister) and Grandma Sylvia herself, my great Grandfather Carlos Lugo was born in Northern Spain and moved to America during the 1920's because of a dictatorship. Great Grandpa Carlos and his new wife, my Great Grandma Gloria (who was American) went back to Spain briefly after Grandma Sylvia was born in 1928, but came back because of a civil war in Spain during the 1930's. Grandma had told me that growing up was hard because they moved a lot and when Great Grandma Gloria died when Grandma Sylvia was only 15 it was really tough. Her Father was very sad and drank a lot after her Mother's death and after Great Grandpa Carlos died a few years later, she moved in with Grandpa Jessie who was stationed in New Jersey while in the army. Eventually, Grandpa Jessie and Grandma Sylvia got married and moved to Minnesota where Grandpa Jessie grew up.
The picture was taken when Grandma first met Grandpa and they were going to a dance at the Army hall when she decided to get the picture taken "in her nice new clothes" at Sears.
I will put more pictures on my blog in the next few weeks of Grandpa Jessie and the rest of the Michaels side of my family.
I had forgot to give people an update about the racoons that were staying in the barn behind the hay. The music and talk-radio idea worked somewhat, but the racoons just moved to the other side of the barn in a different hay stack. So, Dad waited patiently (after I begged him) for a few more days and once the cubs started going out on their own, we trapped the Mom and released her a few miles away near an empty house on the other side of the pond. Then we trapped the cubs separately and brought them over to the abandoned house. The old farmhouse is thought to be haunted and people stay away from it, except for some crazy high school students who dare each other to go in. We haven't seen any racoons since then, but I did find a sick pigeon that was by himself on the road near our house that nearly had gotten run over by a passing pickup truck. The pigeon seemed very disoriented, especially after the truck drove right over the top of it with only the wind from the truck moving the poor sick bird. I then grabbed an old grain sack from the barn and wrapped it around the bird and brought it to a fenced in part of the yard that I know wouldn't have any other animals in it and put it in there. I know Dad would be upset if he caught me because birds have diseases sometimes, so I hid the bird in the corner out of the sun and tried to feed it crushed peanuts with a little dish of water. The bird, whom I named Rodney, wouldn't eat and just laid there quivering while I practiced drawing in my journal for drawing class. Just as I finished shading in Rodneys gray feathers, I looked up and Rodney had died. I then dug a hole behind the fence where I knew the dogs wouldn't dig and put Rodney in with one of my old shoes that Mom let me keep around even though they were falling apart. Maybe it would have been better if Rodney had been run over by a truck since it would have been faster, but I think it is better to leave the world as you entered it...having someone to care for you.

This is the part of the year where it is a little tough to stay focused on school because the weather has been so nice and the days so long. We still have a month or so left until our summer break which is our "long" break. This year I am going away for a couple of weeks to writing camp in Oregon. Over the weekend, Dad and I went to Anaheim for an orientation meeting for the camp so that we could find out more about it and meet some of the counselors in person. It was a little goofy and it seemed the counselors tried too hard to make the camp seem "really fun" so that hopefully Dad would "pay up front", as he put it, which he did. So, for two weeks in early August, I'll be taking writing workshops and playing kickball with people named Wendy and Mark. Tom's parents heard about my plans and decided to send him to "Tech camp" in San Diego. Tom really likes video games and computers and wants to learn how to make animated games for the computer. That sounds ok, but a little too much indoor time for me. I prefer taking my journal to an empty field or by a river and write about life. Mom says that "differences are what make us all unique" and that she is happy that I am not like practically every other teen who is obsessed with tv and video games.

Mom said that Aunt Gloria has finally gotten some pictures of Mom's side of the family, the Michaels, and is sending them in the mail this week. Mom said that Aunt Gloria is a "picture-hog" and has kept most of the family pictures for herself to put on her picture wall in her den and is worried that I would lose them so she didn't give me any when I was there last time. Mom said that Aunt Gloria has finally made copies of some of them so that we could just keep them and I can now finally finish my ancestor project by next month. I hope there are some good ones of Grandpa Jessie and Grandma Sylvia when they were young so that I can see who I take after more, my Mom or my Dad.
A note about Cousin Thomas, the former basketball player: Uncle Don told Dad that Cousin Thomas once ran for congress in New York State and lost "by one point" which seems sad and that he lost because the newspaper found out that he represented a famous "terrorist" once in the 1970's in court. I guess that a lot of people disliked him after that and that is why he lost his election. Uncle Don also said that Cousin Thomas has heard about my project and he wants me to call him this weekend. I am excited about that because I am curious about the "terrorist" and why he decided to run for congress in the 1980's. I also want to know about his basketball games and what it was like to be a popular sports star in college. So, if he reads this he'll know what kind of questions I'll ask him before I call him (Uncle Don gave him the website address). Mr. Grady says that a good reporter lets the person he or she is interviewing know about the questions before the interview so that they can have answers ready and it won't take as much time or be too surprising for the person being interviewed. It is called "preping" the interviewee. I guess "preping" is short for preparing although it isn't much of an abbreviation. I often wondered about abbreviations some time and about how many there are now, especially the "acronyms" which are "a word formed from the initial letters of other words", like "DVD" or "SUV". When I asked Grandpa about it in a letter, he wrote back that "Time is money and the world is in too much of a hurry to make more of it." I assume he meant more money and not more time since no one is quite sure how to create more time. We have found a way to capture time with photographs and moving pictures, but so far we have been unable to make more time. "There are only 24 hours in a day" I heard somone say in a commercial on television, um I mean T.V. I guess those people who feel that way try to make more time by using less of it when they speak or write and find it easier to say letters instead. I guess that "lol" and "btw" are ones I have mentioned before that have been added by the internet as well as "blog" and it is a little easier to write "Thanx" or "xmas" instead of "Christmas" and I guess that is why Puff Daddy changed his name to P Diddy or I guess it is even shorter now (Gretchen told me that or else I wouldn't know - honest). So, maybe I should change my name to J-Sky or something like that. Does anyone have suggestions? Gretchen has suggested "JB3". I am not sure but it definitely made me lol.

Writing all these letters has helped me stay focused in school because I write about what is happening everyday and it helps me remember all the things I have to do. Yesterday, was Gretchen's birthday and if I hadn't written to Grandpa on Wednesday that I needed an idea for a gift for her, I may not have thought to ask him and he wouldn't have given me such a good idea. He said that I should buy her a kite so that we could have something to do on those windy summer days. I wrote back that I thought it was a great idea and I would go after school with Tom over to the hobby store on Grover St. I looked through the kites and found a make-your- own-kite kit that seemed good, but I didn't know if I would have time to finish it so I bought another one in a shape of a fish that looks like Nemo for Gretchen and bought the make-your-own for me. Earlier today, Gretchen and I went to the park in town and tried to fly her kite (mine isn't ready yet), but it wasn't windy enough to get the kite to stay in the air. We had a lot of fun trying though and we ran so much that afterwards we just layed in the grass and looked at the clouds and even fell asleep for a short time. Of course, we ate ice cream afterwards with money that Dad gave us. I think that the kite was Gretchen's favorite birthday gift and we are planning on going kite flying every Sunday after church with or without the wind.
In the hobby store, I met a man named Danny who was what Mom called "mildly retarded" or maybe had "Down Syndrome". "Down Syndrome" is "a congenital disorder arising from a chromosome defect, causing intellectual impairment and physical abnormalities including short stature and a broad facial profile." Danny worked at the hobby store and knew a lot about kites, trains, and other hobbies, but mostly enjoyed riding horses and cheerleading for the special olympics, which is a sporting event for people with handicaps. Danny liked the hat I was wearing and asked if any famous baseball players had signed it. I said "no", but I asked if he would sign my hat and he seemed happy to do so. "Danny #1" is what he signed on the inside of my baseball hat and there seemed to be a lot of joy that came from such a simple act. Danny told me how he liked to do word search puzzles on his free time when he isn't riding horses in competition. He also said that this summer he is going to Denmark to learn about how they ride horses there and to visit his relatives. Danny seemed happy no matter what he was doing or what he was talking about and he seemed to make every one else in the store happy also, except Tom who was mad because the comic book he wanted wasn't in. Danny and I gave each other our phone numbers and addresses and he promised to mail me a postcard from Denmark. I said that I would come to watch him ride horses in the next competition. Afterwards, I thought about Danny all day and how cheerful he was and how good he made you feel just talking with him.
At first, I wanted to make my kite into a blue falcon, but now I have decided that since Gretchen and I will fly our kites together that maybe mine should also look like a fish so that our kites are two fish in a big blue sky-pond.

Windy Summer Days

   K B O K G S Z T S J S D H Y D
   X R I O Z L S D A H U E O M T
   A T A G A R U H S I F B B O F
   E W G P S O P I C N I C B Y N
   Z J M G L K W Q F R Y O Y C F
   A O M C C K Y R V I B P P W L
   Y M U S X F X G R A I Z A Z Y
   M U O G K S D Z L K C D C K P
   A R N D P B O U K Q C T I B T
   E R X J E Y W J M F S G B H F
   R E X U A G H T X M I Z P J U
   C H S A D S H E P W N V S N A
   E B W Q B Y M K D U A R U U P
   C O R R M K Y U H T X I Z Y N
   I W M S X A F X I T E W A G E

BIGSKY
CLOUDS
FISH
HOBBY
ICECREAM
KITE
PARK
PICNIC


http://puzzlemaker.school.discovery.com/WordSearchSetupForm.html


The painting is by James C. Christensen