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Over the years I have been a collector of electronics.

As a teen, I worked with my father on a Marklin train set.  This was a German originated marvel that had intricacies the North American counterparts did not know. 

Then I graduated to house repairs and all that goes along with that.  The switches and receptacles.  Three wire and junction boxes.

By my 40’s I was into computers.  There were hard drives and other drives.  CAT 5 wiring and firewire.  It seems weird that much of this has been replaced or been made obsolete.

And so, today, I go back through those things that I have collected over the past while.  I’ll recycle some, probably throw some out and even try to barter for new electronics.

In the end, the technological age will have seen its “age”, and we’ll have less around the house than when I started. 

And I guess that’s what culling and weeding (such outdated words that used to deal with culling cattle and weeding plants) is all about! 

An interesting overnight. 

And by interesting I mean – not one you want to have happen too often.

In the middle of the night, our furnace quit.  Then, the water heater decides not to work!

Not often that happens.  In fact, I’ve never had that happen.

Thankfully I had a hankering of what the furnace was all about.  There is a pre-fan (OK, that’s layman’s terms) that would start up and then quit.  I had seen this when water had backed up.  Just unscrew the fan and empty it of water.  This time around – no water fell out, but a dead bird did.  Put things back together and it worked (OK, I didn’t put the bird back in).

Then, I took a look at the water heater.  No water was gushing out.  For that I was thankful.  I remembered that there was a coupler that would trip when things got too hot (again, layman’s terms).  I checked and it seemed to have tripped.  Couldn’t remember how to fix it.  Called our plumber and he tried to explain a quick fix over the phone.  Couldn’t quite get it, so he popped by.  In less than ten minutes things were fixed and we have hot water.

I think we just hit a home run, so I’m not looking for a third strike!! 

I married into a Cooper family almost 40 years ago. 

Shortly after being married, we met a whole other group of Coopers.  They were three sisters who all attended the church where my first pastoral charge took place.

Each sister had children, most of them around our age.  A few years after arriving in Kindersley in 1976, the middle sister contracted cancer and passed away.  The sons and daughter were friends and we suffered with them through this time of grieving.

The day before yesterday, the second sister passed away.  She was 95.  Winnie (Cooper) Amos’s funeral will be on Thursday, June 4th at 1:00 pm at the Kindersley Alliance Church.  Although she had not lived here for a number of years, her roots here were deep. 

Her surviving sister is the young one of the family.  I was in to chat with here yesterday, and just enjoyed some laughter and good reminiscences. 

Coopers are hardy folk!  Something in their genes (whatever their genealogy may be) makes them strong. 

I am thankful for my mother-in-law who continues to encourage me!  The whole family is a blessing to me.  And the Kindersley Coopers continue to be an enjoyable part of my life!

Thanks for Coopers!!

I’m working on culling out my “papers” – which currently take up at least two filing cabinets!

That’s when you hit the treasures of life.  Below is a note found in a Christmas card – apparently around 1991.

There is this piece of string, you see.  He drifts into a donut shop and says, “Could I have a Coke, please?” 

“Sorry,” the attendant says, “We don’t serve strings.” 

So he goes to another shop and asks, “Could I have a Coke, please?”

“Sorry, we don’t serve strings.”

Dejected, he sits down on a curb outside the store.  A guy walks up and says, “What’s the matter?” to the string.

“Well,” the string says, “could you tie me into knots?”

“Sure,” the guy says and proceeds to tie him into knots.

“Could you also fray my ends?”, he asks.  The man nods and frays his ends.

String gets up and goes into the store and asks for a Coke.

“You are a string, aren’t you?” the attendant asks.

“Uh, no,” the string relies, “I’m a frayed knot.”

Thanks, Phil and Laurie!