it's been snowing here yesterday and the night before. Today's one of those cloudless Montana days, dead gone blue. 48 degrees on the porch. By noon it will be warm enough to go outside. I was sitting around yesterday wondering why I always write poems in the fall about fall and thought I was getting loaded up with them. On the other hand maybe I should write enough to make a book. I could call it Leaves in a Book. i have been scrubbing the house. It turns into a wreck during the summer. I should like to know where to put everything. The despicable American Stuff is everywhere. Lately I've discovered you can go to Amazon books and surf the used book section and that is how I got the rose book by Grayam Stuart Thomas for 8 bucks including shipping. The challenge is to get something quite nice for next to nothing and limit the junk everywhere. Yes, the new book pile is going up and up. Here's another Rossetti poem to remind us that there's always going to be another spring. Here is a link that might be useful: Rose

Oh, Colleen! You did great! I'm going to add a little something, because I know this a FA's job, too... So youÂre gonna retire-is that what you say? Throw out those redbooks, hip-hip hooray! No more grumpy passengers yelling out " Miss!" From now 'til eternity life will be bliss. No " Fish, steak or chicken?" , no trolley to wheel No more pillows and blankets and headsets to deal; No more full barf bags, or accidents to clean, No more drunken newlyweds or first-classers who're mean. No fending off men who hide their ring-tan, No strangers joining clubs while they hide in the can. No more early mornings...no more sleepless nights From dreaming of city codes, remembering flights; Give those feet a rest and the back and arms too- Sit back and relax, thereÂs nothing to do! Forget about jet lag, forget the stew lounge, Forget looking for food and trying to scrounge. Just hang up your wings, put yourself in the seat And enjoy your retirement, for itÂs no small feat! You know you will miss us- but itÂs really O K ÂCause now youÂve retired and CALLED IT A DAY!

Jankin, thank you for your kind words! I love reading poetry (although not necessarily interpreting what it means), but I cannot, for the life of me, produce it. My attempts are only exercises in frustration, and the only explanation I can come up with is that I just don't have any talent for it. The only poem I ever wrote that was halfway decent was about a cat. Oh well, I have to find another avenue to express myself. Vee, my experience in West Texas is nearly four decades removed, so I don't know how the situation is now, or has been more recently -- what with illegal 'immigration' and a general increase in crackpots the world over. But, at that time, I probably felt the safest in West Texas that I ever felt in any other place I've ever been. That's why I didn't think twice about ranging around the countryside alone in my car, or stopping and getting out of my car: One time I took a nap on a roadside picnic table and didn't hear a single car pass, but evidently there was at least one. I woke up to a man calling to me, "Ma'am, are you okay?" I said I was, so he went on to explain that he was a rancher, living down and off the road a piece, and had passed earlier and saw me, but he kept going. On his return trip, he saw I was still there, so he thought he should check to see if I was all right. I thanked him for his concern and he, with a wave good-bye, drove off. Thinking about this incident and several others, I wonder if I was tempting fate (some I cringe over now if I had done them in any other place or time). Of course there's no way of knowing if I was foolish, but lucky; so all I can say is that West Texans might seem eccentric to people who are more accustomed to trees and lots of the color green, but actual crackpots were (are) far and few between there.

Thanks, Lilo and the hopeful outlook of your daffodils.