Pa Rock's 2025 Holiday Newsletter

Deck the Halls, Jingle those Bells,

Stuff the Turkey, and Spike that Egg Nog!

Christmas greetings from the Macys of West Plains, Missouri.  This holiday season finds us relatively healthy and happy.  My little dog, Rosie, is eleven now, which makes her seventy-seven in dog years, the same age as I am in human years, so we both can appreciate each other's occasional aches, pains, and infirmities.  My oldest son, Nick, lives with us and is a major help around the house and property, and his dog, Gypsy, rounds out the household.  Gypsy wandered into our lives last year, like a true gypsy, and is easily the happiest and most pleasant member of our little family.

We are hunkered down for the winter and only suffered one catastrophe so far with the furnace being down for nearly two weeks, but it was repaired late yesterday just as the warming trend began to kick in - and we survived just fine pulling space heaters around from room to room.  Sadly, there are many people in the world whose troubles outweigh ours, and we are very thankful for our conveniences and modest luxuries.

2024 had been a year of travel for me with a long drive across southern Canada to Oregon, and other travels to Chicago (by train), New York City, and Salt Lake City, but 2025 proved to be much more restrained.  I did drive to Oregon again this year, but this time took the much less scenic route across Kansas and up into the northwest.

While I was in Salem, Oregon, visiting my daughter Molly and her family, she and I and two of her children, Willow and Judah, took the train from Salem to Seattle, Washington, where we spent three days experiencing, among other things, the iconic Space Needle and Seattle's extremely unique "Gum Wall," an ever changing work of urban art that began more than thirty years ago when a club with its entrance in an alley would not allow patrons in who were chewing gum, so they began placing their gum on the brick walls along the alley.  Today there is a block or so of alley whose walls are covered in colorful chewed chewing gum - as high as the tourists can reach.

Forgive me, friends, for I have strayed.  The Christmas season has little to do with chewed chewing gum.  That's what happens when you get old - the mind wanders!

Molly and two of her kids, Sebastian and Willow, came to visit us over Thanksgiving along with my son, Tim, his wife, Erin, and their children, Olive and Sully.  That was fun!  We went to the river where most of the group skipped stones while Nick and Sully enjoyed some time together fishing.  Sully and Gypsy bonded well and became fast friends.

While I didn't put in much time traveling this year, we did invest in furniture and now have two new chairs and a couch in the living room which all recline, new mattresses, and I have a new office chair which is so comfortable.   "Comfort," in fact, is Pa Rock's word of the year for 2025!

(Did you know that the terminology for office chairs has changed?   My beautiful, fully padded, swiveling office chair on wheels. exactly like the ones business professionals have been using for decades, is now called a "gaming chair."  (I guess they might be exciting for racing downhill, like in a "soap box" derby - but crappy for hide-and seek!)

Other highlights this year included a SREAVES (my mother's family) reunion in Newton County, Missouri, in March which was planned and carried out by my sister, Abigail.  That was fun reconnecting with cousins that I hadn't seen in years.  I had cataract surgery in Springfield, MO, in May, which was uneventful but gave me an opportunity to spend some time with Ranger Bob and his wife, Sandy - and to have a very nice meal at their home!  Other than those highlights, Rosie and I took a couple of weekend trips to visit Tim and his family in Roeland Park, Kansas, and I went to several dozen doctor's appointments in exotic locales like West Plains, MO, Mountain Home, AR, and Springfield, MO.

That's what old people do - visit doctors and stand in line at the pharmacy!

Come see us in West Plains if you get the chance.  That would give me something to write about next year!

Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years!

Pa Rock and Rosie - and Nick and Gypsy