STOP!

Our Carlson Farm neighborhood was established about 20 years ago.   And it will be 19 years this next summer that we have lived here.  As our subdivision grew in size until all the houses were finished, there has been nothing more than a round-about at the entrance of the neighborhood and stop signs only at some major intersections and at each side street.

Until....something new popped up!

I drove down to our chapel to practice the organ one morning last week about  9 a.m. Nothing different in that short trip which was the way it had always been in the hundreds of times I jaunted down  there for church or activities, or to practice the organ. "Left at the round-about. Straight down Carlson Boulevard to the stop sign at the T-junction of Carlson Boulevard and Brunner Boulevard.  One right turn, and an immediate left into the church parking lot." I was at my destination.

An hour later as I was driving back home the exact same way, there was suddenly a stop sign right in the middle of Carlson Boulevard where it is intersected by Holden Lane.  What the heck!?  Okay.  I guess that was inevitable.  The speed limit is 25 mph, and it was not uncommon to look down at my own speedometer and see I was going five or even ten miles over the limit!  I'm pretty sure most of the residents also went a wee bit over that posted 25 mph sign.

It was even mentioned over the pulpit at church one time that we needed to respect the neighborhood and go the speed limit.  NOT race to Church.  The directive was to leave early enough that we didn't feel the need to speed those uncluttered four blocks.

When I saw that new stop sign, I thought, "Awkward, but we'll get used to it."

Then I turned the corner at the round-about to get to my house and all of a sudden there was a stop sign right smack in the middle of  

the block!  The placement doesn't even make sense.  It's not by the crosswalk.  Not at the driveway turning into the swimming pool.   Not at the mailboxes--but in the middle of all those more sensible places.  Now THAT was awkward!  

What in the world prompted this sudden increase in stop signs?  Did I miss something from the HOA?  Was there some kind of petition to the city?  Don't know.  There are even orange flags waving at the top of each of those new stop signs to alert the more than occasional hasty driver.  But, that first day everyone was just breezing past those new stop signs...they weren't even on their radar.  

So, I decided I'd better get my lead foot off the gas pedal and make that two-minute drive into a two and a half minute one.  After all, what's an extra 30 seconds in the whole scheme of things....

It didn't take long to clearly realize the appearance of new stop signs is, after all, nothing more than a "bump in the road".  

HAHAHA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE NICHOLS FAMILY!

Momma G and Nichols Grand People, minus one,
at Sweetbriar
Thanksgiving 2021

The Nichols Kids--now parents in their own right
Thanksgiving 2021

January 17, 1969

It was 53 years ago today that the Nichols Family came into being!  An auspicious day that will always be counted as a very special occasion--a prelude to a multitude of highs, lows, and every gamut in between.

Though the big picture playing in my life right now is not the result of the screen play I wrote so many years ago, still there are plenty of things that make this day award winning:

    --Six terrific and outstanding people came along and became known as "The Nichols Kids"

    --Opportunities to live somewhere else four different times in the 1980's, with our house in Arvada, Colorado, standing at the ready for our return from Virginia, Sweden, Upstate New York, and West Berlin

    --Vacations and road trips that ran the broad spectrum of family reunions in Wyoming to touring the Alps, the fjords, navigating Eastern Bloc countries before THE WALL came down, amusement parks that were legend, and experiencing the splendor--and the ordinary--of storied places in Europe and America

    --Friends and acquaintances from all over the world

    --Missions, college, employment, dreams dashed and          dreams come true, and marriages which brought in-laws          just as special...plus ten exceptional grandchildren for         Momma G

    --And LOVE--lots of it!

Is it any wonder then, that instead of lamenting what might have been, I celebrate what we were and what we became.

Happy BIRTH  DAY to a terrific family!  What would I do without the blessings so generously bestowed upon me in the last five decades, plus, since the Nichols Family's humble beginnings?

I would be poor indeed...!