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Rated: 13+ · Book · Biographical · #2198921

Norma's Wanderings around a small section of Montana



Well, hey there!
Welcome to Roundup, Montana! If it's a nice day, we'll sit a spell on my porch and talk awhile.

A poem captured my attention the other day.

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget

Falls drop by drop upon the heart,

Until, in our own despair,

Against our will,

Comes wisdom

Through the awful grace of God.

Aeschylus


What's on your mind today?






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January 1, 2026 at 10:58pm
January 1, 2026 at 10:58pm
#1104884


Happy new year to all you out there.

It was not too bad last night as fireworks started here in town. I put on headphones and watched the movie "War Horse".

I enjoyed that film again. But this time I paid more attention to the story-telling of the piece. I liked the way the script started in England with a farmer and wife and son. The horse the father bought was to be a work-horse, but is more of a thoroughbred.

So the drama starts with the family. But the horse becomes quite a work-horse, and friend to the son.

Then WWI starts, and the horse is sold to the army with the money helping to save the farm.

So this is when the story gets interesting. WWI of course was horrible. And the horse experiences it in many places.

Finally toward the end, and I'll not give away much of what happens, the horse and son are reunited, through a quite wonderful set of circumstances. And we end up back where it started - at the farm in England.

By the end of the movie, the yahoos in my neighborhood were setting off the most intense fireworks of the night. But soon that quit, as midnight is the end of it all, or so it should be.

Tonight I haven't heard any, so far, and the fireworks stand is gone. So perhaps peace again.

I visited a friend today. She lives alone, except for her cat. Dorothy is my age, but looks 20 years older. We graduated the same year from high school. She, I think, in Montana. Me in Ohio. But we met when I used to volunteer at the senior center doing Meals on Wheels.

Dorothy was in the midst of a smoke break when I arrived. We then sat and talked for a time. She showed me a jigsaw puzzle in the works. She also saves her completed puzzles. They get glued onto her wallpapered walls. Now I have to admit that is something I've never seen before. Dorothy stated she didn't care for the wallpaper, and whoever buys the house after she dies can just do whatever they want to the walls. Not my decorating aesthetic but you do you, Dorothy.

We talked about my last play, and how much she enjoyed one particular scene. It was not in the script, but we covered it well. On stage an actor accidentally messed up a table with props. So the actor playing my boss, screams my character's name. I come stomping out on stage and righted the table, then stomped off again. Sort of in character for a lady's maid, the part I played. Evidently it made a big impression on my friend. She thought it was in the script.

Okay. So we also talked about her no longer doing a Bingo game twice a week, she was the organizer of these games. But after 13 years of doing that, she figured it was time to let someone else take over. Plus there is just too much drama at the senior center now.

There is indeed drama at the center. And it's not good. Claims of mismanagement, blackmailing seniors to pay for something that is donation only, not wanting to comply with state orders. But nothing is happening with shutting them down. Somehow they are managing with donations only to stay afloat. The state is withholding funds until they get their financials in order.

Tomorrow is my day to sit with the county commissioners at their public Friday meeting. I love doing this, and learn a lot about the goings-on in the county. Then I report on this in the local paper. And sometimes it is tough to condense what happens and make it non-political.

But this small town has lots of drama, always something happening to someone that gets everyone all upset. Never a dull moment.




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