Wilma Whetstone

Whenever Wilma Whetstone comes around things start to happen. I am sure she has her down days although I have never seen any of them. In the recent years they have lost a son in an accident and a granddaughter in a drowning and yet both John Henry and Wilma rise above their sorrows. Here she is having a good laugh with Esther Burkholder. 

And her she is wanting to see something in Leanna Miller's bag. I don't thinks she is snooping, Leanna obviously wants to show her something. John Henry is sitting on the right.

Body Language

These pictures were taken a few weeks ago when the Pioneer Trails was returning north. I don't know what the connection is between the girl getting on the bus and this little guy but his way of dealing with whatever, was to put his pant leg up and hold it there. It is just body language.

The Bus Left

The Pioneer Trails bus left today with maybe half a load or less. Yesterday it came in with almost a full load.

Donny Wagler and Laverne Slaubagh are the drivers.

The two ladies on the left came down two weeks ago. Edna Mast for her nephew's wedding and the Helmuth woman just came along down with Edna. The two on the right are locals; Katie Weirich and Marie Beachy. The time comes when most old people need support of a cane to walk.

Bill Detweiler is local, Al Miller is from Geauga, and Perry from Indiana.

Saturday Evening Gab Fest

In the evenings if there is nothing going on at the park, I bike up to Bahia Vista and watch the activities of whatever. Tonight Abigail Overholt Desmond was cleaning her Mother's flower beds.

While Fannie Miller was out on her walk and she stopped to visit.

Next Vera Overholt came out of her house to join them. Then there were three people...

And then Milt Yoder came by on his golf cart and there were four people.

And then Abigail's husband Desmond came out of the house and there were five people visiting. This is the first time Desmond and Milt met, the reason for the hand shake.

Fannie left and walked around the corner and stopped to visit with Bill Detweiler and Anna Yoder and last Clyde Sommers, Vera's brother appeared at the door. After Milt left Vera looked up and saw me and motioned me to cross the street and so I did for a short visit. They invited me in for supper but I had my meal before I went biking, so I declined. All of these people are year round residence and this is just the way we do and act.

Breakfast of Fruit and Nuts

I can't remember the name of this fruit but I bought it at Yoder's Produce a few days ago. I had been eye-balling it for a long time. So that day Maria who knows everything about every product in the market was in that section of the fruit. so I asked what it is and ho to use it. She said it is similar to a Prickly Pear Cactus, with seeds like a Kiwi and it is not a sweet fruit, a little it tart and it makes excellent fruit smoothies. So I bought one.

This morning I was pleasantly surprise when I cut it open. I scooped out the insides with a spoon and...

here is my breakfast.

Bus Runs

Mel Mullet is waiting for his wife who is on the Pioneer Trails bus. I don't know who or what Andy Beiler was waiting on, but LeAnna claimed he is wanting to pick up a coffin. But Leanna didn't know, even if she said she knows.

(Click on the pictures twice for better viewing.)

Junior Mast came to wait until the bus comes in as his cousin from Berlin Ohio was a passenger on the bus. I asked him who his cousin is and before he could answer my question Leanna was talking to him. So here he is telling Leanna to be quiet so he can answer my question of who his cousin is. And Leanna was quiet too. No more talking after that, at least not to Junior.

Here he is with his cousin. Paul Waglers also came down, so I am assuming he is employed at Yoder's Produce again for the winter or however long.

Ernie, my neighbor also returned back home from about a six week stay with his family members in Indiana. He has to reassemble his bike first before he can take it back home.

Early this morning the Crossroads bus from Indiana finished it's first run for this season. For the time being they are only running every two weeks.

Snow Birds are Back

About half a dozen snow Birds returned to Pinecraft today via the Pioneer Trails bus. Must be they can feel it in their bones that it is going to be an early long hard winter up north.

John Troyer the Amish deacon ordered one coffin which also came down on the bus in the luggage compartment.

Widows' Supper

Every first Monday evening of the month, the widows get together for a carry-in dinner. during the summer months the single girls are also included. so tonight was the second time I went this summer. So after the meal was over we sat around visiting while a few cleaned up the kitchen mess. Most of the time the Amish ladies clean up as the dinner is in the Amish church house. So I saw these ladies visiting and I snapped pictures. Anna Yoder on the left is so expressive, as you can see. I don't know if she always was this way or if it is because she has Alzheimer's.  I find these times so interesting.

Yoder's Produce Tonight

Watermelons waiting to be pushed inside for the weekend.

Moving the tomatoes inside and the night watchman, Leander Coblentz. Tonight he resembles a tomato for his head is lined up evenly right smack with the tomato sign, plus he is looking at a tomato he picked up from the cement.

Pushing watermelons in.

Dave is enjoying the evening.

In Memory of Becky Fisher

When I first started coming to Pinecraft during the winter months of 2002-03, I saw Becky Fisher occasionally here and there. I was living on the north side of Bahia Vista and she was on the south side. I was shy and bashful and lived in constant culture shock the first season I was here, and so I basically stayed in my own territory. I never ventured far from my apartment. Two winters later Becky Fisher and I both were in a seminar sponsored by the Overholt Family.

Becky and I were in the same small group, along with this wonderful lady in the middle. It was then that I heard snatches of Becky’s life as a little girl. I don’t know all the details but she lost her mother at the tender age when all little girls need their mothers.  She was placed in another home and with time her father remarried and as far as Becky was concerned it never went well, which it probably didn’t go well, at least not with her.

After this seminar we met occasionally on the street and visited with each other. Basically the visit was always one-sided, about her cares and problems and what causes her cares and problems. I let her talk because she needed a listening ear. By the time I came to Pinecraft most people had crossed her off as a hopeless case or at least Becky thought they did. No, the people actually did because Becky was next to impossible to get along with. She was a feisty fighter and fought her way through everything and everyone. People just learned to leave her alone, step out of her way and move on with their lives. It is not that the people didn’t care about her, they did and tried to help her but Becky was Becky. But because of people backing off she became lonelier and more alone.

Becky and I became friends when I moved to her side of Bahia Vista and stayed in Pinecraft year round. So for the last six years we were friends. She’d buy me an ice cream cone at Big Olaf now and then and I bought her a meal at Yoder’s for her birthday. Most every day we met out on the street where we would visit. The day in 2007 when I left Pinecraft and moved in with my Dad in Ohio, she wept. She said every time she has a friend they move out of Pinecraft and then she is without friends again.   But a year later in 2008 after my Dad passed away I moved back into Pinecraft and we were friends again. And so life for the last three years were the same, we both went our own way, she doing her things and I did mine and when we met on the street we would stop and visit.

Most if not all of us expected her life to end in an accident. She had no respect for street safety. She crossed four-lane streets where ever she wanted to with her electric scooter. She even went north on southbound lanes or vise-verse, with a police car behind her blinking his lights for her to stop. She wouldn’t stop but just turned off and the police let her go. Night times she would be out on Bahia Vista jay-walking or jay-driving. Many a time people admonished her to be more careful but she always replied with, “What does it matter. Nobody cares what happens to me”. But people did care.

Around the first of August I suddenly realized that I haven’t seen Becky all week, not once. So I called her niece and was told Becky is not well. She never was out in the streets again for the last six weeks or so. Instead she was in the hospital a few times and people came and went every day to do things for her, to help her out, bring her food and, well the bottom line is the neighborhood did care about Becky. They cared for her. When she needed 24hour care one of her former friends whom she used to babysit years ago moved in with her and stayed…

I didn’t visit her often in her home after she was sick. I was there for her when she was well and lonely and needed to talk, but during her last month of life she had people in and out. She had people around her that cared for her spiritually, physically and in every way. She died in peace. It appears like all was well in the very end. 

Becky at the shuffleboard - this was taken in October of 2006. One of the few times she helped play shuffleboard.

This picture was taken less than a year ago. I don't have the exact date but was before she was on oxygen. I confess I sneaked these pictures of Becky as she never wanted her picture taken. It was not that she was against the camera. Instead her reason was always she is too ugly. That was her opinion of herself.

Last night at the visitation hours

We will miss her because a part of Pinecraft is gone.

This is my version or perspective of Becky. And if the neighbors want to agree or disagree, that is up to them.  

The Coming of the Pioneer Trails

The Pioneer Trails bus came in today bringing people from Ohio and Indiana and maybe elsewhere too, en route to Florida. John Beachy from Ohio is shaking his crutch at me as soon as he gets off the bus.

Another passenger was Mary Ellen Mullet. I doubt she is down here to stay since her husband isn't along but anyway she is here.

I forgot what this man's name is but she is Maria from Allen County Indiana. Here she is having a few words with her husband...

turns from him and follows another man, Crist Petersheim to be exact. Less I start a rumor things are not the way they look, Crist is taking their luggage to the apartment and Maria & her husband crawl into another vehicle.