RVs, So Cal roads/hikes and Seve Austin

Last night I watched a DVD of "The Six Million Dollar Man" and was taken back to all of the drives and hikes we took around Southern California. The episode involved Steve Austin driving around an RV, and bad guys were trying to capture him.

The countryside they drove around looked alot like the area around Agua Dulce, Calif., near Vasquez Rocks (though the "Kirk Rocks" never were shown) and the an area north of Santa Clarita in San Fransquito Canyon. We've driven and hiked both areas! But the episode was filmed in 1977, and the area has changed a lot in the past 35 years!

The RV also brought back memories of you. I'll always remember how much you liked to go to RV shows and check out those cool "homes on wheels"!

Today is George Harrison's birthday

Bugstock, March 25, 2012

Today is the birthday of George Harrison, who used to be your favorite Beatle. He would have been 70 years old!

Although Paul's songs ("Til There Was You" and "Love Me Do") first interested you in the Beatles, once we started listening to their CDs, you always wanted to hear George's songs. I'm not certian why! Not that they're bad songs at all (They're actually quite good!), but some of his tunes are a little far out compared to what Paul and John wrote.

By about hte time you turned four, though, Ringo became your favorite Beatle, and you'd always ask to hear his songs! I even made a compilation of his Beatles and solo songs that you often listened to on my computer.

Who is your favorite Beatle these days?

Going on to college (in 12-1/2 years!)

Award I received in college.
Where will you go to college?

Today is the first full day that you are six years old! You ae growing up very fast. Soon you will be in junior high and then high school and then on to whatever you choose to do in adulthood.
I hope that your first choice will be to go on the college. You are a very intelligent and creative young boy, and those are the very characteristics one needs to do well in college and to succeed in life.

These days, there are very few jobs one can have or dreams one can achieve without a college education. What you study there does not matter so much as you study something that you feel passionate about.

I thoroughly enjoyed going to college and have two degrees. My first is a Bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls in which I studied English, journalism and education. About a decade later, I earned the next higher degree, a Master's Degree, from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in English and education.

College may seem like a long way off, but I'm looking forward to that day when you walk across your university stage and are given your degree (also known as a diploma). I will be so very proud of you!

My email to you on Feb. 23, 2013

Here’s the email I sent to you on Feb. 23, 2013, just in case you do not receive it:

Happy birthday Kieran!

Congratulations on turning 6 today! Do you have any big plans – a birthday party, maybe going to Chuck E Cheese for dinner? Don’t tell anyone your wish after you blow out your birthday cake candles or you’ll jinx it!

I remember the day you were born very well. I was working as the editor of the newspaper in Crescent City, Calif., where we lived at the time. Your mother had a doctor’s appointment in Eureka, Calif., the next biggest town which was about 80 miles away down the coast. She called me around 5 p.m. and told me she was being admitted to the hospital there and you probably would be born that night!

I was all giddy yet nervous as heck about being a new father! You’ll understand one day when you grow up and become a father yourself. So I went home and changed and got a bag of clothes and started driving toward Eureka. It was dark by the time I hit the road, and as the highway between Crescent City and Eurkea skirts the ocean, we were getting rain. Then, as the road climbed to some higher elevations through the coastal mountains, it started to snow! I had to drive super slow. Did you know that the night I was born, my father also had to drive through snow on his way to the hospital?

Finally, I reached the Eureka hospital close to 8 pm. We waited and waited for the doctors to decide what to do. Around 11:30 pm, they wheeled your mother into the delivery room.

You just missed being born on Feb. 24 by one minute! You came into the world at 11:59 pm, about 10 inches tall and weighing 7 pounds, 7 ounces. You had a tuft of dark hair with reddish tints to it and the bluest eyes I’d ever seen!

After a few minutes, they wheeled your mother to the recovery room, and I held you for a whole hour while I waited for the nurses to bring back your mother. I talked to you, and you listened very intently, and feel asleep a couple of times. I guess you’d had a big day!

That night I wore a very special shirt that I still have and am keeping for you. It was a gray T-shirt with a patch for Gemini VII, the spaceship that was in orbit around the planet the day I was born. My mother says she remembers that being in the news. The big news the day you were born was a train derailment in England and the U.S. Army agreed to give up control of the South Korean Army. The No. 1 song was “Glamorous” by Fergie.

I look forward to seeing you in just a few days – we get together next Friday on March 1! As Easter comes before we get together again in April, I will bring your Easter basket. Please bring your report card with you on March 1. Since it has not been emailed to me, I presume your mother does not have the hardware/software to scan it into her computer. But a photocopy of it can be made at a library.

I miss you very much!

Love,

Dad

My very first model kit ever

While going through lots of old photos, I found this one that brought back lots of good memories from my childhood - and reminded me of you!

It's the cover for the box to my first ever model that I bought and put together - the "Star Trek" exploration set. It included a communicator, a phaser and tricorder that you could put together. They were great toys to play with as a kid (I was 10 and bought it the summer of 1976)...except eventually my communicator flip top broke, my dog took the phaser in his mouth and carried it off (crushing it in the process), and the tricorder I later put a radio in.

Later in life I replaced all of those toys with better quality models - models that you also loved to play with as a toddler and preschooler! You'd pull the tricorder over your shoulder and carry around the phaser in one hand and the communicator in the other. We'd go on a "landing party" of our own and play "Star Trek" in the house!

My service in the Army National Guard

My name tag (top), rank (bottom left) and
unit insignia (bottom right) from my uniform.

You might remember from our days of playing with toy soldiers that I mentioned I was in the Army. I think you once even used some Army stickers to create a picture of me!

I joined the Wisconsin Army Naitonal Guard in December 1982, when I was just a junior in high school! The following summer, I went to boot camp in Fort Benning, Ga. When I came back, I did my senior year of high school in 1983-84 and after graduating went back to Fort Benning in summer 1984 to complete boot camp with my Advanced Individual Training course.

My job - or "MOS" - was 11Bravo, meaning infantryman. I served at the armory in Menomonie, Wisconsin, and eventually reached the rank of sergeant. For a couple of years, when I lived in New Mexico, I served in the New Mexico Army National Guard in Deming. I got out in July 1997.

I am very proud of my service and of all others who've served, no matter what branch (Though the Army is the best!). Should you one day decide to serve in our nation's armed forces, I will be very proud of you, too!

A rose of hope from our cherished past

Here's another old photo I stumbled upon, one of a blooming rose in a row of flower bushes that grew in front of our house when we lived in Lnacaster, California (You always called it the "green house" because it was painted green!). I believe htis photo was taken in September 2010.

For me, this blooming flower is a symbol of hope of when we'll be able to see one another again, unfettered by the lies others have told. We've shared a lot, my son, and though some hate me so much that they're willing to hurt you by keeping us apart, I know that one day truth and justice will prevail.

When that day finally arrives, the first place I will take you is to where I grew up, so you may meet your Grandma and Grandpa Bignell, who also have suffered from other peoples' hatred because they have not been able to see you. If we are there in spring, summer or early autumn, one thing you will notice are all of the wonderful flowers your grandma has planted. It is quite impressive, and the varieties all are native Wisconsin plants that attract quite a number of birds and butterflies. There are no roses, but the blooms are beautiful nonetheless.

I love you, Kieran!