Annette loved Old Frontenac, but we think she loved the North Shore even more. In the top one, taken in 1986, she looked out over the great lake from a bench at Castle Haven, which was operated by her friends the Linds. In the bottom one, she and her lifelong friend Liz Proehl, who has since died of Alzheimer's disease, on the Caribou Trail in 1985.
Cousin Sandy in Texas e-mailed this happy photo of her wonderful kids, Kelly and Paul Turner, taken this August upon the occasion of Paul's graduation from Texas State Technical College with a degree in computer science technology. Paul got a job offer the same day, and is working at July Business Service in Waco. Kelly graduated from Vogue Beauty College in July and is living with Sandy in Nacogdoches while studying from her state license exams. We know she'll ace 'em! These are some smart (as well as cute) cousins.
Are we hallucinating, or is that our own Uncle Elmer looking street-tough and showing off a knife in the company of two shady characters?? We're shocked, shocked! We trust our own esteemed senior investigative scrapblog correspondent has an explanation for this one, which we found wayyyyy at the bottom of the family trunk.
We were pleased to find these undated photos of Uncle Joe, clearly a football champ and all-around nice guy in his youth. Or was he??!! See the blog entry above this one, cousins!
Alverna, Chats and Anna posed after a shopping trip in early 1983. Anna sure knows how to bundle up.
Darned if we didn't find some more old photos buried deep in the family chest. Here's one from way back. Those smiling faces are Adelaide, Marion, LeRoy, Alverna, Vi, Anna, Ed and Annette, with young Florence, Elmer and Katie in front. The only Sprick kids missing were Clarence, who had died, and Emma, who maybe was taking the photo.
Every once in a while, the cousins all try to go curly. Check out cousin Davy's 'do in the top photo, taken in 1986. Below that, the Miller kids all got perms for cousin Chats' 1984 graduation from Hamline University in 1982. And at right, cousin Janie was a curlette in 1984.
Aunt Alverna loved to party, but even she had her limits. Top, she hammed it up on Christmas Day 1980 with her verse of "The 12 Days of Christmas." (Reference, Strange Rituals of the Spricks, Christmas Habits.) Bottom, the camera caught her snoozing on New Year's Day 1986 after staying up all night partying.
It wasn't easy being Big Sis to young cut-ups. The scrapblog editor spend the 1970s trying to preserve her dignity by avoiding these two knuckleheads.
We love these childhood photos of cousins Paul and Kelly, children of cousin Sandy in Texas and her former husband, John. (They're now college graduates.) In the top one, Grandma Sprick was clearly tickled as she held Kelly Marie, 5 months, on Christmas Day 1985. That was Grandma's last Christmas, and Kelly made it extra joyous. In the second one, also taken that winter, Paul held his little sister. At left, Paul, just 2 in 1984, displayed his winning smile. 
On this amazing perfect blue-and-green late-summer day, old pals Pam and
Laurie Hertzel drove down to Old Frontenac and walked around in the lovely old historic town site and down by Lake Pepin. Laurie wrote a sweet account of it on her delightful literary blog, in which she referenced this interesting historic website about Frontenac.
Laurie was impressed with Pam's historic old outhouse and shed, which is full of ancient scythes, rakes and buckets, not to mention mouse nests. She took the photo at right.
It was such a perfect day, it had the scrapblog editor humming her current favorite song, "Heavenly Day," which songwriter Patty Griffin wrote for her dog after a particularly idyllic day in the country. (Laurie loves her dogs, so she'll appreciate that.) Here's a Youtube link to her performing it live.
Cousin Chris as a natty teenager. This was the day Chris got confirmed at Bethany Lutheran Church in Lake City, Minn. He's no longer a Lutheran, but part of a devout Roman Catholic family.
Chris was very popular in high school. It was partly his amiable sociability and dry wit, and partly, we're sure, his natty fashions. Note the tape on his Elvis Costello-style glasses.
Check out this link at WEAU TV in Eau Claire, Wis., where cousin Davy-Lamar, otherwise known as University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Chief of Police David Sprick, does a very impressive interview about how his department protects students in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.
To read more about Chief Sprick's crackerjack department, see its website at www.uwec.edu/Police/. We're very proud of him!
The photo of Davy at the top was taken in 1987, which you can tell by the ancient computer he's using.
M., the towering and confident son of cousin Danny B., plays football for his Hopkins school. We'd sure hate to be on the other team.
Here's another photo taken by Aunt Alverna that we like, though it's sadly diminished by mildew that got on the slide. We're sure she made Uncle Bill, Chris, Pam and Cathy pose as they gazed off into the distance on a German hill, but it was worth it to get this shot. Click on it to make it bigger.
We refer you now to an essay by Aunt Anna that we've posted on our archives blog called "My Life as a WAVE."
The scrapblog editor is blessed with good friends. This weekend, her first as a mom facing the proverbial empty nest, included get-togethers with dear pals Colleen and Totos at the Longfellow Grill on West River Road and Sabrina at the Sample Room in Nordeast.
Happy Birthday to Brina Bird, who just turned 50, though as always, she looks 15 years younger!
Photos like this definitely bring out the aging scrapblog editor's nostalgia for childhood. The little blondes are cousins Chris and Chats, sitting on a curb with other little Army brats in Germany in the mid-1960s. In our opinion, Alverna had an excellent eye for good kid photos; she took many nice ones of her children and grandchildren that you'll see in this blog and on her kids' end tables and dressers.
We're a week late in saying Happy Birthday! to cousin Chats, who is on vacation this week in Chicago with the excellent Michael. We hope they'll send us some photos! Chats is 47, by the way. She was the littlest Miller, and therefore the one most likely to be dressed up in funny outfits or buried in sand by her older siblings and cousins.
Alverna or Bill must have been telling a good joke when they took this photo back in the early 1960s. We like cousin Chris' jaunty hat, and the scrapblog editor wishes she had a dress just like this one again; she'd wear it to work, she swears.
Noah is now settled in at UMD, where he begins classes and a new job in the Kirby Student Center on Tuesday. He's a political science major. He is at L313 Griggs Hal
l, UMD, Duluth, MN 55812 or at noahmj@hotmail.com.
Here are some photos we took after moving him in. In the top one, he's in the lobby of UMD's very cool library beneath an artwork by the great glass sculptor Dale Chihuly. (Chihuly's work resembles Noah's hair, a little.) We hope that Noah, who now joins the ranks of our out-of-town blog readers, will spend a lot of time STUDYING in that library. As for the scrapblog editor, she'll be studying in her empty nest, which is quiet, too quiet.
