Love Letters Lost and Found

While my grandpa was fighting at the Battle of the Bulge 70 years ago, he wrote love letters to a young woman. After he returned home safely he married this young woman and they raised a family. They were happily married for 63 years before my grandma passed away in 2010 shortly after we returned to the US.

Growing up I knew that both my grandpas had been involved in World War II, but neither ever talked about it, even to indulge their grandkids. In the late 1990's that changed and my grandparents started to share their story with students and teachers. The volunteered their time and told what it was like on both sides of the Atlantic during the war, sharing photos and letters. My organized grandma collected highlights of all this information and compiled binders of history for each and every one of us in the family.

View image | gettyimages.com

Just before Valentine's Day this year, nearly 5 years after my grandma passed away, a local news station ran a story about a lost WWII love letter. The next day the story was picked up by national and international news outlets and most recently the TV show Inside Edition ran an expanded piece. Special thanks to Ilene who returned a valuable piece of history to our family.

2:39 PM EST, February 25, 2015 This mystery began as a woman bought a second-hand record, and found the surprise of her life inside: a 70-year-old letter, tucked in the sleeve!

 Ilene Ortiz told INSIDE EDITION, "I took it out and looked at it, and said 'Oh my God, this is a letter from 1945!'" A love letter, to be exact, and it broke Ilene Ortiz's heart. "I get emotional because it's a love letter! And someone should have it. It's not mine, someone else should get it. So I'm going to try to find him."

 Sure enough, she found the man who wrote the letter, and wait until you hear his story. He's a decorated World War ll veteran named Bill Moore, and he wrote this letter to his future wife 70 years ago, during the historic Battle of the Bulge. Bill's daughter, Melinda told INSIDE EDITION, "He was out there by himself all day in the cold and the dark and the snow, pretty lonely and miserable, and thinking of mom."

 When Bill mailed the letter to his beloved, he really didn't know if he'd ever be coming home. He explained, "You always have that thing in the back of your mind, I might never see her again!" As Bill read those words he wrote so long ago, he broke down crying. He read the letter to INSIDE EDITION, saying: "You have no conception of the depth of my love for you. I'm really the luckiest guy in the world, you know, and you are the reason, Bernadean..."

 Fate was on Bill's side. He survived the war and came home to marry Bernadean Gibson and have three children. They were happily married for 63 years until Bernadean's death in 2010. But whatever happened to that love letter? Well, that record containing the letter once belonged to Bernadean, and she apparently kept it there for safekeeping! The letter is precious to Bill's daughters as well. Melinda told INSIDE EDITION, "I was amazed by the emotional depth of it. Just to realize what my parents had."

 Sure, the pages have yellowed and the ink has faded, but Bill's love for Bernadean has not dimmed since he was a brave young soldier, dreaming of the girl he left behind. Bill read, "I love you. I guess I always will."
"

And Finally Some Snow

The first two weeks of February brought the 2015 World Alpine Ski Championships to Beaver Creek. It's a bit like a mini-Olympics for skiers, and all the big names in skiing are there. We watched the races a bit but ended up reveling in the totally empty mountain and had a great day of skiing. We're lucky in that several of the big name skiers train at Vail and Beaver Creek and it's not uncommon to share a lift or a run with someone such as Mikaela Shiffrin. Here's a view of all the race courses in the background of our very colorful skier.

 For Travis' big birthday he requested a ski trip here in Colorado to a ski area we don't normally go to. We narrowed it down to Crested Butte and Monarch and the timing of when we could go landed us at Monarch. We stayed at a hot springs resort nearby and enjoyed soaking in the warm river and pools after a day of better than expected skiing. We also stumbled onto a monthly art walk in Salida and spent most of a day in and out of galleries chatting with artists. All in all a pretty great long weekend.

We also got a decent sized storm here in Denver. Totals across the city varied widely, we ended up with a little less than 8" all of which landed over the weekend. Weekend snow means great sledding opportunities and when F and Emma discovered that their "secret" sledding hill was full of most of the neighborhood kids they were thrilled for the giant play date. Getting to each other was a bit tricky, Emma's gate was frozen shut (see the purple coated youngster in the background working the gate) and our gate was stuck shut by the weight of the snow on the opening side. The two intrepid pals were getting to each other one way or the other... Luckily Dad stepped in and manhandled our gate open and Emma bravely clambered over her fence (which is a little shorter than ours) and the two met in the middle for a day of snow play.

 Unrelated to snow, FFM presented several weeks worth of research and writing in the annual 2nd grade country night. He picked Ireland (yes, Australia was a close second) and filled an entire book with facts and details about the land of his birth. It was a great night seeing all the different books from all the countries and tasting foods from all over the world. F's other bestie, also named Emma, dressed in her native Ethiopian garb and made a lovely pancake similar to a French crepe.

Big Winner

FFM was selected to participate in our school district's annual art show. He was one of several kids from our school, and his piece was a chalk sunflower. The art show includes students from all grades in the district, from pre-K to seniors in high school. They are judged in groups, elementary, middle, and high school. Our little guy took second place overall for the elementary group (about 50 kids overall), and his art will be on display for another upcoming show at our local community college. His art teacher is over the moon, as is FFM.

His piece got a little damaged somewhere between school and the competition. He was a little concerned about that but realized the judges must have understood the wrinkles came from transport. Happy little guy, he was super surprised!

My True Love Gave to Me

This year for Christmas we were blessed with illness! Travis took enough days off that he could spend the entire winter school break with us and all in all we got ONE day of skiing together as a family.

The first weekend of the break Travis was sick with Norovirus, a killer stomach bug. He kindly passed it on to me and I started to come out of it Christmas Day. Meanwhile Travis caught a sore throat/cold that mostly made him tired. Christmas Day went pretty well, then FFM caught the stomach bug and the remainder of our family guests skedaddled before it could strike. After scouring the Vail Valley for Pedialyte Pops FFM consumed half a box and felt better.

Week 2 we had a couple of days of everyone being mostly healthy and we managed a day out on the hill.  Tuesday of the second week Travis woke up with a sore elbow. He had me take a look at it to see if he'd banged it and bruised it, but what I saw was a giant, puffy, angry red welt. Quick trip to Urgent Care and he was armed with two kinds of antibiotics and pain killers for a staph/strep bacterial infection in his elbow. By the weekend my foot ached from doing an extremely cold NYE night time ski down with FFM, but luckily FFM had ski team on Sunday so he was able to get out on the mountain again.

We all were feeling mostly well on Christmas Day and had a wonderful and leisurly day with family. We must have been good kids this year as our wish lists were well represented and we'll have sugary treats for weeks to come.

Annual Christmas Letter

I'm pretty sure most readers get a copy of this one way or another, but in case you don't, presenting Moore's (a.k.a. Travis') annual Christmas missive. In real life it's on pretty paper, but here you get hyperlinks to the footnotes!

Hello, Hello!

Let’s jump right in….  Finn loves 2^nd grade, and similar to probably most parents, I’m amazed at the level of work his class is doing. I think I’d have to up my game a bit if I were a modern-day second-grader, because my efforts from decades ago wouldn’t cut the mustard now. I know I didn’t have superficial or loquacious on my spelling test when I was 7. (In fact, loquacious didn’t enter my personal lexicon until sometime in high school.) Math is trickier, too.  Compare these:

o   Travis’ old-school 2^nd grade math:  If you have 5 apples, and you eat two, how many are left? (A likely answer of mine, using the Socratic method – or perhaps dodging the actual task at hand:  What kind of apples are they?)

o   Finn’s modern 2^nd grade math:  Mary goes to the park and sees only dogs and pigeons.  She sees 4 dogs, and a total of 32 animal legs.  How many pigeons does Mary see in the park?[1]

Our major family wing-ding this year was a ski trip to France that has been in the queue for several years.  Since Finn and I had never been to France we added a bit of sightseeing in Paris and Switzerland before heading to Tignes / Val d’Isere for a week on the snow with Ann and Eric and mutual friends the Rushers. 

o   Paris was great, and we saw the key tourist-district sites:  Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Pont Neuf[2] bridge, and Musée d’Orsay; and ate our fill of crepes and croque-monsieur.

o   The TGV train from Paris to Geneva was super-smooth, and super-fast, clocking in at almost 150mph. Check-in? Just walk on your train car. Snacks?  You bet -- Brie and a glass of wine.  We’re all fans of high-speed rail now!

o   We arrived in downtown Geneva mid-trip, so I set out to take care of some laundry while M and F did homework at the hotel.  The laundromats in Geneva are conveniently located in the red-light district[3], so laundry-doing has a bit different vibe than coin-ops elsewhere.

o   One rainy day in Geneva we rented a car and went to Gruyere to see where the famous cheese is made.  Even for factory-tour veterans, the cheese factory is pretty cool – they even have a cheese-turning robot that flips each wheel of cheese as it ages.  Finn campaigned to bring a wheel of cheese home with us, and after calculation I determined that it would be hard to fit 85lb of cheese into his suitcase.

o   The most dangerous thing on the road from Geneva to Tignes was not the narrow, winding, icy, road, chock-a-block with racing buses, but British tourists who are grappling with driving on the wrong side of the road![4] 

o   Tignes is high in the Alps, and is essentially treeless, so there are massive expanses of pure white.  Lifts and the network of groomed runs are there mostly to take you to off-piste[5] skiing.  The tail end of a hurricane made the first few days challenging[6] but when the sun shone it was world-class with cloudless skies and big fluffy powder.   

Finn was a Holly Park Shark again this summer and was a top competitor in his age group, especially in the breaststroke. The Sharks team swelled in size this summer to over 100 competitors and made a formidable sight as they sung the Park Shark Power! team cheer at the start of each meet

Trying to remedy the displacement of June camping by swim meets and the rapidly-shrinking feeling of our “4-man” tent, we adopted the logical approach and purchased a pop-up camper.  While extending our camping season and providing enough space to take refuge from regular afternoon hailstorms, the camper has had some interesting effects on our family and traveling:

o   Finn is enthralled by the whole scene, and turned instantly into a proto-camper salesman.  If you come within earshot, he will explain every feature in exacting detail, ad infinitum.

o   We became accustomed to some new facts of camper-life:  driving in the right-hand lane up big hills (wave as you scoot by in the left-lane, please…); the merits of “pull-throughs”; huge turning radius; choosing businesses that have way-out-there parking; and an eagle eye in the backseat commentating on all of the other campers on the road.

This summer Finn convinced across-the-greenbelt BFF Emma that camping is awesome, and the two laid plans for a backyard summer camp out.  The tent was pitched and stocked with the absolute bare essentials necessary for an authentic suburban wilderness experience:  sleeping bags and pads, stuffed animals, numerous flashlights, pillows, books, headlamps, glowsticks, jammies, spare clothes, and two kiddos.  Marshmallows were roasted before bedtime on a disposable charcoal grill to make some s’mores, and two relatively sticky campers hit the sack.  Finn and Emma elected to spend the night in the tent without any parents, which is pretty plucky for recently-graduated 1^st and 2^nd graders. I left the back door open that night and slept on the couch with an ear open for any bumps in the road.  All was quiet until about 5:45 the next morning when both came bounding gleefully into the house campaigning for breakfast.

Maggie’s paternal grandfather turned 90 this year, and there was a big family party to celebrate.  Bill is a WWII veteran, and was in the infantry at the Battle of Normandy.  After listening to tales of a family member’s recent trip to France, Bill didn’t miss a beat and quipped “Last time I was in France, I had to wade onto the beach…”.   He’s happy and in good spirits, and makes us all smile.

Maggie and Finn made several trips to KS this year to visit Maggie’s maternal grandparents, and Cousin Katie[7] and her parents.  Katie turned 2 in November, and Finn is smitten.  They both have huge personalities, and it’s hard not to smile when they get into their rhythm together.

Grannie Annie’s birthday gift to Finn this year was a ride on the Royal Gorge Train near Canon City.  Finn was thrilled at getting to ride the train. In the dome car! Through a canyon!  The train ride is an out-and-back through an exceptionally deep, narrow, and spectacular canyon.  The canyon is so skinny that there is a section if the track that is suspended by girders attached to each side of the canyon.  Apparently a train long ago was a bit too big to fit under the suspension beams and crashed into the support structure, leaving various dents and bent things in the process.  Now, as you would reasonably expect, the train stops at the scene of the incident so everyone can more closely inspect the structural damage to the very items that are holding up the train above the icy river. 

Gardening was relatively good this year, with some adjustments to the garden makeup.  I inadvertently discovered a way to expedite the gardening by bypassing the harvest of a portion of the crop:  (1) Hastily construct a bean trellis out of scrap bits of dodgy lumber and make it about seven feet tall just in case you have some of Jack’s beans. (2) Be sure there are a few well-placed knots toward the bottom of the trellis supports. (3) Install the trellis upwind of a bunch of small and delicate crops. (4) Plant beans that will entirely envelop the trellis with 80 lbs or so of biomass. (5) Wait for a big wind, and (6) Voila!  In one cataclysmic event the knots on the structurally-deficient trellis will snap and the trellis will crash into the veggies below, efficiently doing away with a mass of beans, a few bell peppers, some edamame, and baby tomatoes.  Gardening made easy!

We hope you have a joyous and satisfying 2015 –

  

Photos – clockwise from top-left:  sunrise at the Eiffel Tower; M&F at the top of Mt. Evans (CO); Chihuly glass + F at the Denver Botanic Gardens; Louvre in Paris; awesome day at Tignes; off to the Broncos AFC Championship[8]; Hooray for the Camper!

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[1] Mary sees 8 pigeons in the park. 

[2] Finn thought it was hilarious that the “New Bridge” is the oldest one in the city.

[3] Working-girls have laundry, too, I bet.

[4] As a matter of interest, the French and Swiss drive on our accustomed side of the road – the right-hand side.

[5] Oxford Dictionary definition: ADJECTIVE&ADVERB, Skiing 1.Away from prepared ski runs:[AS ADJECTIVE]:challenging expanses of off-piste skiing

[6] Visibility was zero, with no non-white trees or rocks for reference, and the howling wind blew Finn over a few times.

[7] Technically a second cousin, but who’s counting?

[8] We later avoided the misery of Super Bowl XLVIII with a Serendipitously-scheduled trip to Paris.