Family Ties (October 2024)
Pickleball
Our October began with pickleball. Tammie and I try to play once a week. But we also have been helping our grandsons learn to play. They have gotten pretty good. Our first time playing in October was just two weeks after Hurricane Helene. The park where we play pickleball, Northside, had a number of trees down but they had been cleared of the road and parking lot.
Pittsburg, TX
We started another long cross-country trip by driving to Pittsburg, TX to visit Tammie’s mom. Pittsburg is where Tammie’s parents were both born and raised. Her mom now lives on a lake just outside of this small town. We spent a little time downtown looking at the Witness Park and Prayer Tower and other features of small-town life.
After spending a few days with Tammie’s mom, we continued our trip by driving to Little Rock, AR. This was our second year attending the C.O.P.S. (Concerns of Police Survivors) Parents Retreat. The C.O.P.S. Parents Retreat is planned for surviving parents and stepparents of law enforcement officers who died in the line of duty, as determined by C.O.P.S. criteria. Each year around 150 parents meet together for comfort and fellowship with each other. One of the highlights for us the last two years is the 50s theme dance night, COPS Hop. We dressed in 50s style like John Travolta and Olivia Newton John in Grease. We also got to participate in some fun activities like archery and riding an ATV. It was a good time of fellowship with other parents who have suffered loss.
Soon we were on the road again to our 35th national park, Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO. There is some controversy over the designation of the Arch as a national park. On February 22, 2018, Donald Trump signed the Gateway Arch National Park Designation Act into law. This act redesignated the “Jefferson National Expansion Memorial” as “Gateway Arch National Park”. It is by far the smallest, the least typical, and the least spectacular among the 63 U.S. national parks. We toured the grounds, visited the museum, watched a movie about how the arch was built, and rode the tram to the top of the arch. The arch was completed on October 28, 1965 when Tammie and I were both in elementary school.
Michigan
We concluded this trip by driving to Michigan to visit with Don’s mom in Lincoln Park, MI. Each morning I walked in Council Point Park just south of Detroit. The wind, the trees, the leaves, and even the squirrels remind me this was where I come from. After our visit, we drove home to South Carolina.
