Sunday, May 25, 2008

Tomorrow is Memorial Day and I thought this would be a good time to post pictures of Jim's headstone. The headstone was ordered last October but because of our hard winter and long winter the installation of it had to wait until late this spring.

Both Jim and I enjoyed fishing greatly and when Lorie and I were looking for a picture to put on the headstone this one seemed to fit perfectly. Jim was a terrific fishermen, whether it was for real fish or for the perfecting of the saints. We would go camping and he would find the perfect fishing hole and the opportunity to meet and share something from the Gospel with someone and then he would make them his friend. As all of you who knew and loved him will agree he was forever a missionary, so the fishing one fit and we got it.

This is the back of the headstone and there is a story that goes with what we chose to put here. We lived in Cherry Valley, on Appletree Lane for 30 years and early in those years on Sunday after Church or on Monday for FHE Jim and the Kids and often the neighbor kids would make 8-10 loaves of wheat bread and we would take them out to friends and neighbors, but there is a twist to this story. We did it in secret. We would ding dong ditch them. We would wait until dark and park away from the chosen homes and sneak up, leave the bread, ring the doorbell and run...in all the years we did this we never got caught. Of course we had to name ourselves so we made up the name the Apple Dumping Gang. Partly chosen from the street we lived on and partly from a favorite Disney movie staring Don Knotts and Tim Conway. Our reputation grew and we would hear our gang's name mentioned at church and community functions. To this day it is a mystery as to who the Apple Dumpling Gang was, but maybe not now. I hope you guys can keep a secret.

It is spring here now and all of you can see the cemetery has gone from all white to a beautiful shade of green.

In the following two pictures you can see the bird feeder that we keep filling and it is still a surprise to see all kind of little tracks in the surrounding dirt. Soon the grass will fill in and then the nightly and daily visitors will be as mysterious as the Apple Dumpling Gang. Everyone have a great holiday.


6 comments:

grannybabs said...

I was thinking about Jim today - what a nice post - and the headstone looks lovely. We will look forward to seeing it - we need to go to Utah some time in July and will look forward to seeing you - and if we don't make it then, we are definitely planning on being there for the wedding!

bonny with a Y said...

what a lovely post and beautiful stories - and congrats on lorie's upcoming wedding!

Billy and Katie said...

Its beautiful! What a wonderful tribute to a wonderful family!

Amy Girl said...

I love that movie! What a great post Trudy. Thanks for sharing. Things seem to be hopping around there in the wedding depo. Congrats to Lorrie and Diane.

bonny with a Y said...

ooops! and congrats on dianne's too!

D. Scott said...

Great choice!
I hope to see it in person this summer.