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I spent many of my growing up years in southern California, where earthquakes were not uncommon.  Numerous times I would feel the earth shake, and wait fearfully to see if it would get stronger and wonder how long it would last.  I never experienced any of the very large California quakes, but it was still reassuring to live in places that were free from earthquakes.  Like Oregon.

Or so I thought.  In recent years we have learned much more about the risk of a very large earthquake all along the coastline in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps magnitude 9 or higher.  This “fault” is known as the Cascadia subduction zone, and has been the site of very powerful earthquakes every few hundred years.  The most recent was in January, 1700.  So one might say we are due anytime.

Here is a link to the very interesting and informative article in the New Yorker on the topic:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one

This article seems to have galvanized awareness and reaction here in the Pacific Northwest, which, though disconcerting, is a good thing.  Because we are woefully unprepared, since we have long thought earthquake risk was minimal.

I’ll share more thoughts in subsequent posts.

For Halloween yesterday, Daniel and I dressed in our costumes and headed over to Chipotle for our annual $3 “booritos”.  But when we got there we found a sign on the door that they were closed due to “supply issues”.  There was a news report that they found an instance of ecoli, so just as well.  We headed over to Spaghetti Factory.  We weren’t the only ones in costume.

It was raining cats and dogs during the afternoon and early evening hours.  So that might have cut into the trick or treat traffic.  I think we had only six kids come to our door, just ones from our neighborhood.  It dried up by around 7:30 and was a calm, balmy evening.  I headed over to Blair’s to check out the costumes for the grandkids (and Jack Jack the dog).  

The Blairs live in a great neighborhood for trick or treating, as evidenced by Eli’s haul.  I got our usual several bags of Snickers, and also scored some Almond Joy bags on sale.  So we have plenty of leftovers to continue enjoying Halloween.

Here is a wonderful video worth sharing.

Beginning with my great-great grandmother:

Johanna Deitlaff, b. about 1835 in Prussia

 

Bertha Gaulke, b. 1858 in Prussia

Ruby Bertha Schillo, b. 1896 in Utah

 

My mother, June Pearl Mack, b. 1925 in California

 

My sister, Wendie June Walker, b. in California

 

Deborah Helen, b. in California

Lauren Elise, b. in California

 

June Pearl Mack was born on June 13, 1925, in Riverside, CA.  She was third of four girls in her family (on the left in this photo).

She was a good student and enjoyed music growing up, learning to play the violin, and graduated from Riverside Poly High School.

In 1945 she met and married an Army Air Force officer, Charles Walker, who was stationed at nearby March Field.

Two children came quickly–Wendie in January 1947, and Barry in September 1948.  Charles’ Air Force career sent them to various locations across the country and in Europe.  Soon after her third child, Craig, was born in December 1951, she and the kids joined Charles in Germany, then England, before coming back to the states and living in Havre and Great Falls, MT.

Child number four, Sandra, was born in July 1955.

She became a temporary single mother for a year in 1959 when my dad was stationed at a remote site in Newfoundland.  Child number 5, Glade, was born in October of that year.

Child number six, Kevin, came in February 1964, followed by more single motherhood for 15 months in 1965-66 while my dad was stationed in Saudi Arabia.

My mother always had lots of energy.  Good thing, too, with six kids to keep up with.  There was never anything she wouldn’t do for her children.

I remember as a youth thinking I was lucky to have the greatest mother in the world.  I still think that.  And this Thanksgiving weekend this is something I can feel so thankful for.

 

 

My father grew up a simple country boy through the Great Depression in Texas.  As a teen he got interested in radios and electronics, and he joined the Army in January 1943 during WWII.

Due to his interest and aptitudes in radios and electronics, he was sent to military school to study radios.  He finished the course at the top of his class so, instead of going to gunnery school, he was assigned to instructors’ school and eventually became an Officer Candidate School graduate, leading to a commission as 2nd Lt. and a whopping $150 per month salary!

He continued getting top grades in his classes and was again assigned as an instructor in a radio fundamentals class.  Then was assigned as a radar countermeasures officer with flight status.  At that time even the word “radar”, a new emerging technology, was secret.  This led to more training.

In June 1945 he was assigned to March Field near Riverside, CA, to fly in B-24s equipped with radar countermeasures, and in preparation for deployment off the coast of Japan.  It was there he met and married my mother, June Mack.  The war ended in August and my dad was discharged from active duty in March, 1946.  He returned to active duty in May, 1951, during the Korean War and remained in the Air Force.

Except for WWII my dad might never have left Texas and met my mom.  If he hadn’t been so interested in radios and gotten top scores in military schools he might have gone off to war and never returned.  And I might never have been.  So, on this Thanksgiving weekend, I’m thankful for this.

Here are photos of seven generations of my paternal Walker line.

James Walker, b. 1840 in Mississippi

William James Walker, b. 1872 in Texas

 

William James Walker, Jr., b. 1896 in Texas

 

Charles Gerald Walker, b. 1923 in Texas

 

Alan Craig Walker, b. 1951 in California

 

Blair Alan Walker, b. in Utah

Jonah Jordan Walker, b. in Washington

 

 

My dad served in the Air Force for 20 years.  It was exciting growing up and moving around to different parts of the country as he was transferred to different bases.  These moves took place as frequently as 7 months, or as long as 3 years apart.  As an infant we lived in Germany and England, then Havre and Great Falls, MT (first grade), then Riverside, CA (2nd grade), then Gulfport, MS (3rd grade), then Fallon, NV (3rd and 4th grade), then Riverside, CA (5th to 7th grade), then Mountain Home, ID (8th grade), and finally Riverside, CA (8th and 9th grade), where he retired from the Air Force.

Actually, a couple of those Riverside stays were where the family settled when my dad was stationed at remote sites overseas, and where families couldn’t come with him.  Riverside is my mother’s home town.

In 1959 my dad was stationed at Fox Harbor, Newfoundland, for a year when I was 8 years old.  We used to make him audio tapes on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which was high tech at the time.  Here is my dad in Fox Harbor:

 

I do remember how exciting it was when he returned home after the year away, and we were so excited to have him take us to a Dodger baseball game.

The next remote assignment came in 1965-66, when he was stationed in Saudi Arabia for 15 months while I was in 8th and 9th grades.  He came home for a short visit in the middle of that assignment, flying standby on Air Force planes.  He finished his assignment just after the 6-day Arab-Israeli war, so things were a little dicey over there for him.  But we were excited that he retired from the Air Force, we had our dad back, and we could stay in Riverside permanently, where I attended high school.

I’m sure it was a hardship for our family having dad away those many months, especially for my mother, who was raising four and five children at the time.  Somehow we managed.  That’s just the way it was when you served in the military.

We moved into our house 30 years ago next month.  It was an exciting time in 1984 moving our family from Meridian, ID, to Beaverton, OR, and starting a new job at a start up company (Sequent Computer Systems).  We found an empty lot to build on and contracted with a builder, who helped us customize an existing plan.

Here is the lot we chose:

Construction progresses:

We moved in on our anniversary, Dec. 19, 1984.  Our new home was our anniversary and Christmas present that year.

 

 

 

We’ve all heard about, and most have experienced, the sensation of acceleration of time as we age.

To a child, a year is an eternity.  To a senior citizen, time has flown by, and years continue to zoom past.  I recall waiting so impatiently for my 16th birthday so I could obtain my drivers license.  And at age 19 looking at the next two years serving a mission away from home and school, and thinking it would be forever.  And it nearly was.

But oh, how time has flown by since, and increasingly so.  It is hard to believe we have lived in Beaverton 30 years and all our kids have grown up.

What is the cause of this experience or perception?  I believe it is due to the relative comparison of incremental time versus the total time experience.  For example, to a five year old, one year represents 20% of his life, but only 2% to a 50 year old.  Does this mean time flies by 10 times faster to the 50 year old?  I believe it may be so.  And to get really abstract, what is the perception of time to a fruit fly, which might live but one week?  (I know, a more fundamental question might be whether the fruit fly has any perceptions at all.)  Perhaps one second to a fruit fly is like a day to us.

Another example of relative perception might be during travel on a long trip.  The first minute, then five minutes, then hour seem of similar significance to the entire middle 80% of a trip.  Again, the final and increasingly shorter distances to the destination also take on increased significance.

So, anyway, this is my post of deep and abstract thinking.  🙂