The search for Richard L. Ford 42/10 weeks

The sun setting over the prairie of my dad's youth.

He has always been a bit of an enigma to me. He is my father and he tore everything asunder by falling passionately in love with my mom; the depth of betrayal could be felt decades later at her death. When she passed away in 2004 four of her surviving children were called home to wrestle with their own mortality.

As we sat around the dining room table sharing stories and photos it occurred to us that we would need to write up the obituary information. Mom had seven live children. We used to joke that she had her family in litters like a cat. Three children with her first husband and four of us with my father. That represents alot of birthdays so in order to get them straight we dug around until we came across the birth certificate box.

It was only at this phase that we clued in to the fact that something wasnt quite right; there were two certificates missing and the exact ones would tell the full tale of deception, betrayal and bitterness that always marked our family as somehow different.

 The only real reason to be missing a couple of birth certificates from a stack of well kept documents is to eventually hide the dates of those births. Really, it is so simple one wonders why she even bothered to get rid of them. Unless we had been trying to piece together her story of marriages, I cant say that we would have even figured it out but for that glaring omission.
 I told my sisters that I thought it would be a pretty riveting story except I couldnt figure out how to make the reader feel any empathy or affection toward the central character who blundered into repeated acts of selfishness and then attempted to push any blame as far away from herself as possible. As a result she never ended up making right any one of her mistakes.
Mom apparently caused the break up of her first husband's marriage by becoming pregnant with Susan; missing birth certificate one. Dad then caused the break up of Mom's marriage by getting her pregnant with Ricky; missing birth certificate number two.

As a result, my older brother and sisters were tossed from their comfortable middle class home into the abject poverty that always follows beginning at square one. Even so, they loved my dad. I think that says a lot about who he really was. See, I wouldn't know because there was an incredible amount of friction in my mom's family and my dad bore both the brunt of their collective anger as well as all of the blame for the marriage break up. So he was always cast out of the circle and ridiculed for being the poorest brother in law.
He left for the last time when I was 10 and died of cancer when I was 14. So this day was dedicated to finding his elusive trail.
We started in Goodland Kansas, his birthplace on the prairie. I couldn't find any trace of him here. I remember being told that he was raised not by his parents but his aging grandparents and their extended family. A melancholy picture of him as a young boy shows him in black and white seated at a large picnic. He is the youngest by almost 60 years. And the saddest.

While the plains do hold a beauty of their own, only a prairie child can understand the need to get someplace
less open and exposed.

Goodland Kansas's claim to fame; the world's largest Van Gogh.
(which just happens to be my favorite painting)

These enormous grain bins are called the 'cathedrals of the plains'.

There was really nothing remarkable about this little town except, like its prairie cousins, it just rises above the flat land for no particular reason.  I was happy to be in a town that my dad had spent time in. Like a lot of prairie-raised children he got out of there as quickly as possible. 

He served a stint in the US Coast Guard which indicates his mindset fleeing the plains; he headed straight for the coast.
It was because of this time in his life that we found him just outside of Denver Colorado.

Thank goodness they didn't close the gates of this cemetery at dusk since we arrived in Denver long after dark.

This eerie shot does nothing to show the number of tombstones given to soldiers in every campaign the US has been involved in since the Civil War.

Richard LeRoy Ford 1931-1977

Section S; number 3253

As frequently happens in a blended family, my brothers and sisters are closer to the first family of my mom. We only met my dad's two children from a previous marriage once. I am linking this blog entry to my dad's name in the hope that someone conducting a web search will find this and contact me. Even though I spent the entire day looking for him I still have more questions than answers.

Spoon River Scenic Drive 41/11 weeks

Just in from the cross country trip, we still made it to the beloved scenic drive.
L to R top to bottom; Hillary, Mark, Dane, Tyler, Me, Jordan and our new daughter Nicole.

Spoon  River scenic drive is a yearly celebration that happens 2 weekends in October in the spoon river valley. People come together in droves to commemorate the beauty of the fall colors as well as the local harvest. It is also a time to celebrate local crafters and artists as they show off the works that they have been collecting all year in order to sell at this popular event.

Crowd shot of one of the stops in Knoxville Illinois.

We were excited that the marriage of our son fell close to one of these weekends. In fact, we drove across the united states and arrived in Illinois in the wee hours of the very last day of the last weekend of the scenic drive and still managed to get up early and head out into the sunlight.

I know other folks dont go just for the old fashioned kettle corn but it is always an attraction.

And this is how Illinois kids play in the fall...

...until some old grump comes along and tells them to knock it off!

The crew heading back to the car.

 We were so happy to be back in the midwest for a visit. A wedding is such a great time to get together because family comes from all over and we are adding to our numbers by including not just Nicole but all of her wonderful family members as well. Once the festivities of the wedding were over we had to head back out to the road and the relative quiet of Canada.

Our gorgeous new daughter in law...fitting right in.



Mystery Path; West Saanich Rd. 40/12 weeks

Its time to follow this mysterious sign post at the side of West Saanich road and Wallace Drive...

We have lived near West Saanich Road for almost 5 years. I probably first noticed this sign 2 years ago. If you look for it, it is just at the corner of West Saanich and Wallace. There is a Canada Post mail centre there within a larger parking lot. Many cyclist and hikers use this spot to park and unload their gear for a country workout. If you park here head just across West Saanich and walk up the cut into the trees at the signpost.
We thought that we would get to a lookout point but in truth this trail just led straight up the hill into an area of future housing. It was a fun hike and a beautiful fall day. I liked the feeling of throwing caution to the wind and hiking to see where a trail goes. This represents the first time we have done such a thing for
a hike.

Looking back down toward the road and the valley.

The path along the gully and a fenced estate.

Mark and I at the halfway point.

This is our last week in Victoria because we are heading to Illinois for our son's October 16 wedding. We are extremely excited to be traveling back to the midwest to see family and taking this project on the road. So we don't know where our next hike will find us and that in itself is pretty exciting.

Late season blackberries along the trail.

We think this is an ancient root cellar. It looked as if there is an opening on the far side but it is so overgrown with brambles we couldn't get near.

Harvest Festival 39/13 weeks

Two words that always get Mark to show up; CORN BOIL!

We spent this Sunday in downtown Victoria celebrating a farmer's market/food festival. We decided to forgo the usual hike in favor of an awareness gathering event that we feel pretty strongly about; locally produced food.  Plus, we love food. Especially locally-grown, fresh and delicious food.

The Harvest Festival was organized by Eat Here Now in support of a year round farmers market here in Victoria. Rumour has it that if our island was cut off from mainland deliveries we would run out of food in three days. Given the population numbers of the island that concept does not paint a very pretty picture. We need to move islanders into a more sustainable direction as far as food production. An adoption of a vegetarian diet would serve islanders profoundly as the resources of the island could be put to use in primary food production.  This would solve the problem of channeling our resources through farm animals for questionable protein. The United Nations once reported that the amount of grain needed to end extreme hunger was 40 million tons. At that time North America was feeding farm animals a staggering 540 million tons. Even at that enormous rate of grain consumption, the resulting meat can only feed 35% of the world.
I believe the predictions for the dire outcome regarding our food supply is based on the consumption of meat. Our resources will last longer when we are not feeding farm animals. If meat eating islanders ate a vegetarian diet for just a portion of the week we could extend our food supply significantly.
So feast your eyes on a little bit of what this island has to offer. And notice there are no pictures of the booths selling salmon or free range birds... and I will shoot a quick email off to the organizers of this event to ask them to add more vegetarian choices next year.

All this from an urban greenhouse.

$1 per bite.  I had the money in my pocket to try them all.  So I didn't.

Talk about shopping locally; Vancouver Island salt. Ghandi would be proud.

Bringing the farm goods into the city.