When the NFL football schedule comes out each late spring, it's a big day for our family.  All five of us mull it over, and come to agreement about how and where to continue our annual tradition of creating a mini-vacation built around an away game. Then we spend weeks researching our many options -- flights and hotels, sites to see, special places to eat, quirky requests (Bucc'ee's in Houston, for example).

Two years ago we braved 50-below wind chills to see our Indianapolis Colts defeat the Minnesota Vikings. Last year we lost to the New York Jets and this year, it was the Houston Texans that defeated us in a tight loss.

While the games get us there, they are merely a part of the overall trips. It's fun to experience the unique cultural climate of each stadium and fan base. There's Minnesota loyalists with their braided toboggan caps, uber-warm boots and Vikings Skol chants in a beautiful indoor stadium; New York Jets with former Gov. Chris Christy in the parking lot, sans any kind of enterage, a nondescript, working-class feeling to their basic outdoor stadium in New Jersey and less than creative food options, and The Texans with their LOVE for football, the electric feeling of the sturdy crowd, and their A-plus selection of Texas burgers, brisket, huge loaded baked potatoes and other yummo choices.
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This year's game was special as we had the fortune of sitting among the family members of a Colts player, EJ Speed. We had our own little island of blue celebrating big moments in the game.

But the crown jewel of this trip was the next day's visit to NASA at Johnson Space Center. After looking around Space Center Houston, which is a museum loaded with NASA memorabilia, including authentic space suits, capsules, a tour of the Space Shuttle, orientation films and more, it's time to see our family's two highlights of the entire vacay.

You load up into an open-air tram and off you go down city streets to the working NASA campus, Johnson Space Center. The buildings are basic, appearing to have been built in the late 1950s or early 1960s.

Bikes and deer

A couple cool observations unique to the campus: vintage Schwinn bicycles are all over the place. Many of these date back to the 1960s when the company donated them to NASA so the astronauts and engineers could ride them from one building to another. Schwinn company pays an annual visit to the campus to make sure the bikes remain in good repair. 

Second, deer are free to run the grounds with no fence to keep them in, as a space-age, if you will, nature preserve. It's humorous to see them all over the place, and one wonders if they ever go out into the surrounding traffic and get hit! They look perfectly content in their surroundings and unaffected by the humans and trams going by.

My favorite stop of the entire trip to Houston was a visit to the Apollo Mission Control. The building is a National Historic Landmark inside this nondescript, functional building.

Inside, those able climb the 87 steps to Mission Control. A few needed to take the elevator -- which I overheard a guide point out is the original elevator.

We're ushered into an auditorium complete with original seating, including built-in ashtrays. We're behind a glass wall where on the other side is where top engineers sat at then state-of-the-art computers (now antiques) and worked their engineering magic with the equipment that landed men on the moon, including that first walk on the moon of Neil Armstrong 50 years ago in July 2019.

After some housekeeping announcements about cell phones and the like, we were told to sit tight as we are about to view 1969 straight before us and hear the voices of the engineers and astronauts who made history. The room is perfectly refurbished and preserved to what it was in 1969. And suddenly, magic:

Only it's not magic. It's rocket science. Screens light up, as do the boards in the front of the room. We hear tapes played of the engineers giving the "go" signs for the mission. Then we hear the voices of Neil and Buzz Aldrin, we see man walk on the moon. We relive history. Not just history for the ages where 100 years from now people will likely still be touring this space, but our personal history, as most of us in that audience were alive when it happened in real time.

I've been personally touched by the moon landing and walk this year. First, I remember with clarity how important it was in that my mom insisted I stay awake and watch Neil take that stroll on live TV. Then that fall, in Jeanne Sipahigil's fifth-grade classroom, I wrote an essay about how touched I was by the experience. And to think! Jeanne today is my Facebook friend.

Also this summer, in my job as a New Castle Courier-Times reporter, an email arrived from a man in his 90s, Earl Thompson. Earl grew up in New Castle, but lives in Florida. Florida, as it turns out, is where he made his living as an engineer working on all the Apollo projects, specifically working in communications areas on the lunar modules and rovers. He worked directly with the astronauts, knowing all of them.

Earl and I worked together via phone and emails in detail after detail for a week or more on the two stories I would put together in conjunction with the historic 50th anniversary of the moon landing. I even went out and chatted with his New Castle siblings! Here I am with them from this past summer:

I also love it that Earl gave a special shout out to his New Castle High School math teacher who nurtured his natural bent toward math. The story of America: Ordinary people from ordinary towns everywhere do extraordinary things -- both that math teacher and her pupil, Earl Thompson.

All these things passed through my mind while touring Mission Control.

Then it was back to Space Center and aboard another tram. This one took us to a nondescript building, one we Hoosiers would call a gigantic pole barn, where we would step inside and see the rocket that was ready to launch Apollo 18 to the moon. This one never made it as the program ran out of money but the rocket remains. Holy cow:

I'll say it again: HOLY COW!

Can you imagine the POWER generated? The fire descending from those babies?

It was a day out of this world.

We had a couple fabulous tours in Boston. If you haven't been, Boston has devised a great method for folks to see key Revolutionary War sites. It's a thin brick path built into the streets. It was nice to have guides as well.

​This is the Old North Church, famous for Paul Revere arranging for lanterns to be placed high in the windows so Patriots could be signaled that the British were coming. Do you remember the code? "One if by land, two if by sea." 

I still have another post or two to make from our New England trip. Can't forget the Presidents' Adams in Quincy, Mass., and Martha's Vineyard. But I won't get to those today. I have a list of real-life stuff to get done. It's back to work and reality tomorrow, and today, a to-do list. 

So if you're eating at the oldest restaurant in the U.S.A., and it's in Boston, with the Atlantic Ocean nearby, you're probably going to have a seafood meal. For the first time I ate raw oysters, "throwing them back" as is the proper technique, and they weren't bad. I then enjoyed this meal:

I had lobster once before in New England, several years ago in Maine with Gay Kirkton. You may disagree, but to me, these guys are a lot of work and mess  for no more meat you get out of them.  But I'm glad I ordered the big guy. When in Boston, eat like a Bostonian!

But just think. This restaurant has been here since 1826. But let's go back before that. Upstairs, possibly in the very spot where our group dined, starting in 1771, Issiah Thomas printed "The Massachusetts Spy. The paper's motto? "Open to all parties, but influenced by none." It's our nation's oldest newspaper. 

In 1775, Ebenezer Hancock of the Continental Army established headquarters for early Federal troops here. During the Revolution, you would have seen the Adams, Hancock and Quincy women and their neighbors sewing bandages and clothing for the columnists in the building.

And who should live on the second floor? No less than the future King of France, the exiled Louis Philippe.

Before our trip, I had no idea what a big deal October is in Salem, Mass., home of the infamous Salem Witch Trials in colonial times. Let's just say that in the same way that Parke County does covered bridges, Salem does witches -- marketing the whole month as a festival.

Only we're talking hundreds of thousands of people, many wearing extraordinary costumes worthy of the finest movie set, taking to the streets of the city.  I had hoped to get this post up before Halloween, but didn't. Maybe next fall I'll post a bunch of the costumed characters but for now, here's another.

I took a dozen or more photos of the characters, all happy to pose for the camera. Shows you what this Hoosier knows. I figured our trip to Salem would be visiting a sleepy little town where we would see some "witch" tombstones in a centuries-old graveyard, and maybe a history-laden film in a small museum, detailing the trials. Oh no.

"Witches" are big business here, and on a tour we took, for one small example, a whole coven of them, donning their pointed hats, had flown in from Texas, there for a "witches' ball" and sightseeing. Presumably they took a commercial airline.

Also, there are no "witch" tombstones to view. The girls who were tried and found guilty were hung outside of town at a site that was unknown until recently. There are no grave markers for them for at the time, our guide explained, they were held in such contempt that their remains might have been destroyed. So where they were buried, likely discreetly by their families, is unknown.

Along with the informal parade of fully costumed characters, there are vendors along the streets, as one would expect at, say, our Indiana Parke County Covered Bridge Festival. We arrived late afternoon, and stayed into the evening hours. We had a great visit with a police officer who said it's a calm enough place but late in the evening things get ...  a little more challenging. We were tucked into our beds back in Boston before such a "bewitching" hour.

Our foursome thought we'd settle for street food, but then happened on a little cafe that was first-come, first-served, and we went in and were fed quickly. Ahhh, here's this trip's first taste of New England, with a classic:

I'll keep posting about our trip as time allows. There is so much to unpack! And I'm not talking clothes.

You know those dreams? The ones where you wake up and say, “Oh my! You won’t believe what I dreamed last night!”
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Then you describe the craziness: You and your husband are on the Kennedy compound with your pals and a bunch of folks you recognize, all walking around, coming and going from Joe and Rose Kennedy's home in Hyannis Port, Mass. You recognize it as the one you’ve seen your whole life on those home movies depicting young Joe Jr., Jack, Bobby, Ted, Eunice, and the rest of the nine sibs enjoying their summer home on the Atlantic coast with the parents looking on, smiling that Kennedy smile.

​Each time I see those home movies, I can't look away. So much life and promise. They have no idea what's ahead.

​Then the scene changes to the kitchen that looks like your grandmother’s kitchen from the 1940s, smaller than you would have guessed, well-used, not done up with the latest appliances or granite countertops you might expect from your notion of how rich people live. 

There’s Rose Kennedy’s china, dining room table, piano and all the rest. Yeah, you even go into JFK’s childhood bedroom, frozen in decor from the time of his horrendous death.
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Then you shake your head and think: Yeah right! Like that could happen in a million years! Me? In the Kennedy home?
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Only it happened to us earlier this week.

Brian, friends Tom and Char, and I had the privilege of being part of the Tom and Sue Saunders’ travel group this past week. This time, the American-history-themed trip centered on Boston, Quincy, and more Cape Cod destinations of Martha’s Vineyard, Hyannis and yes, Hyannis Port.

Our group visited the Kennedy compound, courtesy of Tom Saunders’ magic wand and the Edward M. Kennedy Institute which now owns the historic home. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy’s widow, Vicki, arranged for two guides from the Boston-based Institute, which we also visited, to give us a tour. The home is used now for special events and don’t you suppose, Tom imagined, that one day it will be open to the public as are other prime presidential sites throughout the U.S.

No photos are allowed inside the home, purchased by Joe and Rose Kennedy in the 1920s, and donated to the Institute by the Kennedys. But we were treated to have one taken (by one of our Institute guides, no less) as we gathered around the living room fireplace and bookcases brimming with Kennedy belongings. It was the exact same spot as a famous picture that included JFK’s siblings, wife and parents the morning after he was elected President. (Give it a Google. Note the mirror which is easily identified in the famous photo.)

I had always imagined that the compound was located off to itself, something like the Bush mansion at Kennebunkport is set apart from the city of Kennebunk, island-like, not a home that’s easy to approach.

The Kennedy compound is in a neighborhood, past Bobby and Ethel Kennedy’s home, where she still lives. There's plenty of security, including a guard who has watched over the compound for decades. We couldn't have been on the property without an invite and appointment. (So if you are thinking of a visit, you'll need to contact the Institute first for sure.)
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You think of the fun, games, family meals, and those lawn football games that took place there. And you imagine more: The horrendous grief for those parents and siblings when they endured the sudden unimaginable losses of their children and other family heartaches.

Whatever your politics, it doesn’t matter; you feel for their personal pain, the kind you may know from rough and tragic times in your own lives. You think back to being 5 years old and remembering where you were when you heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated. The same way you remember 9/11.

Is there any American political or celebrity family so well known, followed, written about and discussed? I would say none are even close. But what you quickly understand is that they were very real people, living very real lives and this was a place for the whole gang to gather and be family.

Originally, the Kennedys lived at the home seasonally, and later in life, Joe and Rose were there most all the time. You see the elevator that transported Joe after his stroke in the early 1960s. Ted and Vicki lived several years at the home up to the Senator's death. 

Our Institute guide spoke of how the cook would lay out four spoons for the Senator to taste test what was for dinner upon his arrival home for the evening. Unless they had company, he and Vicki would eat in the kitchen. He sailed most days, right up to just before his death.

Our guide explained that the neighborhood, which sits near the water, was a draw for wealthy folks to come and relax back in the day. She said it wasn’t that the Kennedy family set out to develop an enclave, but through the years, more homes were bought by family, such as the one where Ethel lives now—next door. Another Kennedy also lives in the area, one of the grandkids.

She spoke of how Rose liked to keep up with whatever was current for young people. She would listen to rock music and read what the kids were reading. And, she challenged those who sat at the dining room table, which remains there today. If you were over 16 you were upgraded from the children’s table to the adult table. There was a topic posted for the daily discussion and everyone was expected to have input.

Those who came to dinner were expected to dress, be on time, and be prepared to discuss the day’s topic.

When he lived there in his later years, Sen. Ted Kennedy continued the format of a topic of the day for discussion. The Kennedys always hosted Thanksgiving. Often, the family sat on the porch where they read the newspapers and clipped items out for each other to read.

Music was a big part of the house and Rose’s grand piano was at the ready in the living room for the family to gather round and sing. There are 14 bedrooms in the amazingly comfortable, lived-in family home where generations gathered and relaxed.

Our Institute guide said that when Jack was elected president, Rose decided to hire someone to “fancy up” the home. Indeed, JFK even hosted staff there, and a small table was pointed out as where they met. A cardinal – who later became Pope – visited the home and the sofa he sat on remains there. Rose had a plaque made for the back of the piece to indicate that the pope sat there.

Our group descended the steep stairs where the basement is like basements of old, not designed for hosting guests. Rose kept her doll collection there that came from all over the world, now relocated to climate-controlled storage. Photos of the dolls remain. There is a small movie theater, very utilitarian, with a pull-down screen, and a room nearby holds a collection of old movie equipment.
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Following the tour, we went into Hyannis and visited the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, and also St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church to which Rose walked daily, and where extended-family Kennedys worshiped while in town.

In Boston, we toured the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, along with the Edward M. Kennedy Institute, located right across from the president’s library. The Institute has a full-sized replica of the Senate floor where visitors can sit, learn about the Senate and hear guest speakers and programs.

​There is also a replica of Sen. Kennedy’s Senate office.

Our thanks to Tom and Sue, to the Kennedy Institute, and to Patti with the Hyannis Chamber of Commerce for wonderful opportunities.

Unless I wake up soon, it appears that none of  this was a dream.
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Note: This post covers only the Kennedy aspect of our trip. I’ll do another post or two on other parts of our  adventure which includes dining at the oldest restaurant in America, and visiting the home of two more presidents. Not sure when though. Real life is calling.

A reprint of today's New Castle Courier-Times column. 

by Donna Cronk

If memory serves, I went with Mom to Rose Chapman's home jewelry party that evening, circa 1969. Hanging out with her daughters, Vicky and Cheryl, were my motive for going along; that and the refreshments that all women’s parties offer. 

Whatever the specific circumstances, the evidence of that home party – half a century later – remains in my own costume-jewelry collection. The Sarah Coventry leaf pin is a former resident in my late mother’s battered, pink, jewelry box with the well-worn velvet interior.

Growing up on the farm, I was equal parts girly-girl and tomboy. I cuddled piglets while Dad fed their mamas, moved cattle from one pasture to another, bridled Ginger and tore off across the pasture riding bareback, fearless.

It’s only by God’s grace that I survived childhood with my falling out of a tree, off a moving tractor, and being suddenly tossed flat on the ground from a terrified horse, startled by a German shepherd.

At the same time, there was nothing l liked more than playing house with cut-outs from the Sears catalog, tucking in my dolls for the night, and rifling through Mom’s jewelry box, trying on the colorful costume beads and bangles.

The only time I wear the faux-gold leaf pin is the fall. Of course trees and their leaves are perfectly fashionable year-round, but I guess I just want to keep Mom’s still-shiny pin with the tiny fake pearl set apart  by getting it out at only this time of year.

In the past I struggled to fasten it to my sweater right-side up until I realized when I went to put it on Thursday that – duh – Sarah designed it to go the other way, to depict a falling leaf – thus the season called fall, right?

My Thursday outfit was on the cheap. I threw on three strands of fashion pearls of varying sizes to coordinate with that single pearl in the leaf. Probably too matchy-match for some, but I like it. I have no idea where those beads came from!

Through these almost 61 years I’ve collected lots of costume jewelry, including a number of strands similar to these. I think they are all from thrift shops or yard sales. And the goldenrod-hued sweater? I recently picked it up on final clearance for a buck at a local consignment shop.

I’m trying to enliven the way I dress with new and quirky old finds. alike. Brian says I wear too much black and gray. I think he’s probably right, although I’m drawn to those shades, especially in the winter and they'll remain wardrobe staples. 

While looking through Pinterest for fashion ideas for the – ahem –mature woman, I came across a California stylist named Brenda Kinsel (BrendaKinsel.com). While I don’t adore all the outfits she puts together, a good many of them I find striking, and very much the kind of classy/casual looks I’d like to strive for. I can also learn plenty from her tips and techniques. I also like knowing she was also raised a farm girl.

It’s fun at my age to find a style mentor who resonates, and at the same time, tweak her ideas to make them my own. I’m too old to dress too young, and too young to dress too old. So I’ll suit myself and to suit Brian, try to add more color. I had that notion in mind when I bought the gold sweater--a color I'm not normally drawn to in clothing. But don't you know, I'm wearing the dickens out of it!
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I’m wondering what fashion finds you’re still wearing that once belonged to your grandma or mom, or pershaps something you picked up for a song on the cheap.  Share a photo of you wearing them and tell a little about them, won't you? I'm giving Courier-Times readers this challenge to send them to my work email at dcronk@thecouriertimes.com.

But for others out of the Henry County area, let me hear from you as well and I'll post here.

Are we ever too old to enjoy a romp through Mom’s old jewelry box or through a thrift store? I'm not!
Donna Cronk is Neighbors Editor of The Courier-Times and edits the quarterly her magazine for women. The fall/holiday issue will be inside your Courier on Saturday, Nov. 9.

So, I needed, no wanted, some pumpkins to scatter in our landscaping. The sign placed along the highway pointed to a rural pumpkin patch. When I got there Friday, I spotted a large assortment of orange pumpkins of various sizes, along with a good many miniatures in white and orange. But where were the prices? Then I saw this money box, above, and this sign, below.

WHO does that? Who entrusts his large crop of pumpkins to consumer goodwill? The Hoosier farmer who lives at this residence, that's who.

So I looked around, trying to decide which pumpkins I would cart home, how many I needed, and where I'd place them. The farmer spotted me and walked down his driveway. He told me to take what I want and leave what I thought was fair. I looked around some more. Maybe they weren't perfect, but neither am I. And how perfect do they need to be to adorn our landscaping and porch just fine?

 Then ... he walked back to the house and left me to my own assessment on what the bounty is worth. I hope he liked what I left. I think I was actually more generous than had I bought them at a pricey agri-tourism attraction, well known for its annual harvests.

I was touched.

And inspired by the generosity he offered to not only do up the exterior of the house, but hang the fall wreaths, get out the beautiful fall pillow friend Gay gifted me with in the summer, and fill a bowl with cinnamon-infused potpourri.

Then Sunday morning, when I got ready for church, I decided to wear my new sweater. It's a goldenrod hue, a color I never wear, but I like it. It was on the final clearance rack at a favorite local consignment shop, Sisterhood Exchange, in Pendleton. I was drawn to the subtle ruffle along the row of buttons. But what sealed the deal was the $1 pricetag. I'll be sporting this a lot this fall.

Happy fall, y'all!

Oh my goodness.

What fun we had Saturday when we traveled back in time to visit friends we haven't seen in decades. Brian and I spent almost all of the 1980s in Fountain County where we rented farmhouses in the country for $200 a month, where I started my career in community journalism, and Brian launched his as a school administrator. 

It's where we had a baby, Sam, and where we made a life. 

We've been gone 30 years this summer, and the regrets we have in leaving are in that we don't get to see these and many more beloved friends in person anymore. If you've been on this planet a minute or two, you know how it is. Life is filled with eras, and the 1980s, for us, were adorned in Mustang Blue and Gold, and centered in the farming communities of Fountain County.

Yesterday was set aside to reconnect. Thirty-years later is a good a time as never to do just that. So we rounded up some folks who seemed interested in a get-together, set a date, and hit the Beef House.

Following our steaks, burgers, salad bars, black-bean soups, ROLLS, tenderloin sandwiches and more specialties of the house, and a constant murmur of chatter, it was time to go. BUT ... for those who could, the party wasn't over. We went back to Barb's house (Hostess with the Mostess) and continued our conversations. Thank you Barb for hosting everyone! And for the sweet treats and beverages!

Saturday was a great day in Covington and Veedersburg! We are grateful for the opportunity to reconnect and catch up with folks with whom we can pick right up where we left off ... back in the '80s.

Let's not wait another THIRTY YEARS before we do this again.

Fall arrives in snippets around here. Even though I tend to hang onto summer as long as I can, once September arrives, there’s a yearning to dig out the fall decorations.

When I decorate for fall though, I like to mostly do so in a way that will remain relevant on through Thanksgiving.

I decided yesterday was the day to swap out the three urns in front of our garage doors. For too long, I tried keeping small green living shrubs planted in them. But in long or short order, the shrubs would die, I’d yank them and start over. Yes, the definition of insanity!

There is no shade on these urns  and the evening sun drills the space. So real plants aren't really an option. But the space calls for some softening and decoration. What to do?

I fake it.

This spring I filled the urns with the most real-looking fake lavender I could find. The stems held up so well that I’m stowing them away for a future spring.

Note:  I met Bobbi Cline a few years ago when she owned a bookstore in Pendleton, Indiana. She was fun to talk to, and she even made my first book her store's "book of the month." Bobbi shared with me her dream of owning her own book-publishing company. Well, she's done it! She takes a traditional approach and works closely with the authors she takes on.  I was delighted when Bobbi asked me to speak at her first symposium, coming up at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 15 in the Indy-Noblesville area.  In today's guest post, Bobbi tells us about her business model and the symposium. Maybe we'll see you there.

by Bobbi Cline
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When I first came up with the idea for my Writer’s Symposium I asked myself what it was that I
wanted to accomplish and how I wanted to get that idea across with the title.

I’ll start with the title; I chose the word symposium after research and comparing it with more commonly used words for events similar to mine. A symposium is a discussion on a certain topic by
experienced people in that field.

It is not a workshop, it is not as formal or extensive as a convention and, hopefully, not as stuffy as a seminar. It is a discussion.

This leads me to what the Writer’s Symposium is about and why it has become a
passion for me. I am both a writer and owner of Pendleton Publishing.

Pendleton Publishing is a traditional publishing firm; we do not do pay per reads (of submitted manuscripts) or pay per submission, or pay to publish.

Our goal with each manuscript is to help build the authors up and help them on their journeys. We work with authors who are looking for a future, who are interested in continuing their writing careers in such a way that we can support and help them.

However, that is not the goal of every author. Some authors only want to write one or two
books. Or perhaps they want to maintain complete control over their works. Whatever their
desire and/or reason, I want to give them tools to be successful in their goals because I know
how important writing is.

Hence, the Writer’s Symposium was born. The four things covered in each symposium will be; traditional publishing, self-publishing, marketing/media, and motivation to
carry on.

I want to give writers and future authors the information they need to make the best
decision for themselves and their work. A speaker in each area will give a talk and then be
available to answer questions that the audience may have.

In this way, attendants will go home feeling confident that they are on the path that makes the most sense for them. In addition, because it is not a conference, I have been able to keep the cost, location
and timing reasonable.

We all would love to go to the three or four day conferences that are held in such amazing places as Hawaii, Las Vegas, and New York but for most of us, the registration, travel, and time away from our everyday lives just aren't realistic. My hope is that my symposiums solve these problems and allow anyone who is interested to meet those who can help them on their way.

As a bonus, we will have food, goody bags, and representatives from Pendleton
Publishing will be there to meet with anyone who may be interested in going the traditional route
with their work.

I hope to see eager, new faces on Sept 15th, 1-5 p.m. in Noblesville, Indiana for our Central
Indiana Writer’s Symposium 2019. Tickets can be purchased at Eventbrite or through the link on
PendletonPublishing.com through Sept 10th.

Happy writing!

Bobbi Cline is the publisher at Pendleton Publishing.