Fall Display at the Maiden's

Today was a beautiful day in Shepherdstown. I was able to reconnect with my childhood friend Sally at lunch at the Stone Soup Bistro. Kim had worked at the house all day and got the place looking fresh. She took the kids to pick out Fall decorations and you can see the job they did together. Ben was especially helpful to her. Special thanks to Auntie Kim.

Bluegrass in Shepherdstown

Each year around this time, Gay and Mike host the bluegrass musicians at their home in Shepherdstown who play the Mountain Heritage Arts and Crafts festival. This year was no exception. Due to the rain the traditional bonfire went out and folks congregated on the front porch and inside the house. Gay fried a delicious turkey. Someone brought some of the best pork BBQ ever. The Caroline BBQ is my favorite. So here is a little clip of some of the musicians who come and play between eating and drinking.

Shepherdstown Cardinals Beat Charles Town Panthers

In local middle school football action, Shepherdstown Cardinals Beat Charles Town Panthers 32-6. Patrick Maiden, playing staring Defensive End, had several Q-Back sacks and tackles helping his team on to victory. Unfortunately for Patrick, his victory could only be celebrated the following day in In School Suspension due to a cell phone in his pocket going off in 5th period. Take a look at Patick coming off the field after his big win. Till next week when we play Harpers Ferry on October 2nd.

Satute to Tom on Headline News Robin Meade Show

Today Tom was on the Headline News Channel, Morning Express with Robin Meade. They played the Salute to the Troops segment 4 times at the top of each hour. It was exciting to be able to salute him and have our little neck of the woods in Shepherdstown recognized with a hometown hero. I also mentioned Mason Ellsworth in my salute, reminding Tom to send that American Flag home to him. At some point, the salute should be uploaded to the website and I will mark it with the link.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/morning.express/

St Agnes Picnic Morgan Grove Park

Today was the St Agnes Family Picnic at Morgan Grove Park. Lots of people and tons of good food. We were all asked to contribute a door prize for some drawings. We donated a bottle of wine from the Maiden Family. How ironic then that we randomly received a USA Box filled with decorative patriotic items when our 509 number was called. The outside of the box had an American flag and was painted God Bless the USA.

The kids had a good time playing with some of their schoolmates. It was a beautiful day for a picnic in the park.

Leigh Leigh Girl's Biology Injury

Well today I got a phone call from Madeira to tell me that Leigh was on her way to urgent care to get stitches in her right index finger. Apparently through the process of conducting an experiment, she sliced her finger. Leigh's words, "I was cutting out cardboard with scissors and I was trying to kind of jab the scissors through and went through the cardboard and sliced my hand on the other side." She freaked her Bio teacher out. It must have been a relatively deep cut because it took 6 stitches. So this is Leigh's first time in her 15 years life that required a trip to the ER. Ryan when every week for 3 weeks when he was 4. I think he is at the top of the Maiden list for trips to the ER. Patrick comes a distant 2nd. So Leigh is now doing fine and I should have a picture of her cut soon. Incidentally she found out her sophomore year community service placement will be with Easter Seals.

(Photo of Leigh at Madeira with Dr G, and Loni)

Benefit for Mason Ellsworth Great Success

The benefit for Mason Ellsworth on Sunday, Sept 14th, called Musicians for Mason at the Clarion was a first rate event. There was a huge turnout for this event and the diversity of people that attended was something to see...artists, musicians, parents with kids, grandparents, you name them, they were there. I am sure that a significant amount of money was raised for Mason.

Here is the link to Mason's story and progress:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/masonicyouth

Finally, you can see a little clip of my friend Skip enjoying the music. Sorry, but I took the video sideways and can't figure how to rotate.

Soccer Season Started Today...Well Kinda

Well today soccer season opened for the JCYSL at Morgan Grove Park. We have now been doing this since 2002. This is the first season Patrick opted not to play soccer because he is playing middle school football. Well, I got to the U-10 field 15 minutes early for 10:30 am game. Ryan was dressed and ready to play, except something felt very wrong when we did not see any of his team mates. I had the sick feeling that perhaps I had screwed up from day one. And yes, I had the right time, wrong kid dressed to play. Ben's game was at 10:30 and Ryan's game had already been played at 8:30 that morning. OOOPS. Anyway we dashed down to the U-8 field and put Ryan's shin guards and socks on Ben (since he arrived in his crocs) and sent him out to play. I was able to run home and get his socks and shin guards and arrived to see Ben score a goal in the 2ND quarter. It is always exciting to watch Ben play because he is a little speed demon and rarely gives up. Attached is a clip of him doing the kick-off. He is hilarious because of his need to get a good running start.

Admiration for First Grade Teachers

Yesterday I went to Ben's classroom to read Stuart Little by E.B. White as part of the volunteer read aloud program at Shepherdstown Elementary. Upon walking into the classroom, Ben came bounding over so proud that his mom was reading that day. I started to introduce myself to the kids and ask them their names. Ben wanted to do the introductions so he proceeded to tell me several of their names. He then looked at two little boys that were on my left and said, "and those are the bad kids." I wanted to laugh but had to say with a straight face that that was not nice. I looked at the the teacher at the back of the room and I could almost read her mind. Ben was right, because children know and say things that are truthful, not meaning to be hurtful. At least not first graders.

First graders are so much fun but so much work. They have graduated from Kindergarten where most learned "the rules". Quiet in the halls, raise your hand, don't touch the walls, keep your hands to yourself, etc. So they know the rules and now struggle to follow them. First graders are so eager to learn but yet their attention spans are still only about 20 minutes long. Do you know how much energy it takes for a First Grade teacher to constantly keep those little folks attention? And first grade is a major learning year. This requires intense phonics and math. And these teachers are evaluated on how well the students grasp these concepts. This is the big leagues. So, let's here it for First Grade Teachers. God grant them good health and lots of energy.

Here is a video of Ben after our read aloud day. You can see the energy of this First Grader and this is at the END of the day.

Remembering 9-11

I remember the morning of 9-11 vividly. I was on my computer in my bedroom on Tanbridge Dr in Martinsburg. Leigh and Patrick were at school and Ryan, who 21 months old, was watching a kids program and playing with his toys in the great room. I heard breaking news and thought Ryan must have learned to change the channel. I went out to the great room and watched Peter Jennings report that there had been a plane crash into the World Trade Center. They were reporting on the evacuation. As they were reporting, you could see another plane coming in. Peter Jennings was not even aware of it. I saw live the 2nd plane hit and was in shock. Like most of America, we knew something was dreadfully wrong. I continued to watch stunned but the tears did not fall until the first tower did. That was the moment of impact for me when I thought of the lost hope for all of the people who did not make it out. When the plane hit the Pentagon and the plane crashed in the field in Pennsylvania, it hit even more close to home as the terrorist were just 70 miles from the quaint little town of Shepherdstown. The rest of the memories are not quite as vivid as I stayed glued to the TV for the next several days.



Tom was already a Navy Reservist by that time and I knew that we were going to have to fight a different type of war. I was opposed to the war in Iraq from the very beginning. I thought that was an off-shoot of our president's agenda to simply secure an unstable part of the world that contained oil, but certainly not a response to 9-11. Sadam Hussein was an evil man, however Iraq was a sovereign country and diplomacy had not been used to its full capacity. I was also upset because the United Nations was supposed to stand for something and we just side-stepped it. Tom deployed for the first time in April of 2003. Because Iraq fell so quickly, he was home by October of 2003, having spent his time in Rota Spain managing the galley as a supply corp officer. Now Tom is in Iraq and while I was against this war to begin with, I now feel that we created a mess and we are responsible for cleaning it up. We invaded a sovereign country, took down the dictator, and created a civil war. It is up to us to finish what we started and return that country to its people and then get out. However, we can not leave now. The work is not done. We can't quit in the 7th inning. Otherwise, we will pay the piper in a couple years. We are living with the consequences of a bad decision in Iraq.



I find it odd now that Bush wants to withdrawal 7,000 troops from Iraq and put 4,500 troops in Afghanistan. You see, that is where we should have been all along. The focus shifted from the real war on terror to Iraq. Tom said that he has been deploying with soldiers who have orders for Iraq and they find out when they get to Kuwait that they are going to Afghanistan instead.



On the presidential election, I feel that John McCain is the best candidate to lead us for our national security interests. I know some of the troops were very disappointed because Obama went to Iraq with a plan of withdrawal but had never even spoken to the Generals who are in the field. He has lost some credibility with our troops. However, there are so many other issues that I disagree with McCain on. I will be following this election very closely and am currently an undecided voter leaning more toward McCain.



For anyone who would like to write to Tom, his address is :

Tom Maiden

Unit 931003 TFT-PT

APO AE 09391



Do not refer to rank, job, unit or command when writing.



Here is the link to my post on CNN on what Tom is asking for.



http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-83079

Shepherdstown Middle School Loses to Capon Bridge

Today Shepherdstown Middle School lost to Capon Bridge. This looked like a very different game than last week against Wildwood. There were very few penalties called. I actually can't recall any. As a result, there were not as many injuries like last week. This was a totally offensive game by both teams. Defense was pretty inconsistent which is the reason for the high scoring game. It was something like, 39 to 20. Patrick played okay. They did not run the ball to his side much, therefore he was not in much action. I do have a clip of him talking on the sidelines to a player that was injured last week. He remains in good spirits about the loss, ready to take the next team next week. Patrick complained to one of the parents leaving the game that he did not let any scores or first down on his side implying that he did his part and admonishing himself from the loss. The parent told Patrick, "you win together, you lose together." I thought that was profound. Same theory as there is no I in TEAM.

Earning Jr Park Ranger Badge at Harpers Ferry

Ryan and Ben are captivated by earning National Park Ranger badges. It all started with their first badge at the Grand Canyon in June of this year. Today was a beautiful day as we walked across the railroad bridge to the entrance to the C & O Canal. During our hike (which is also part of the criteria for earning a Jr Ranger badge) we saw a guy repelling the rocks.

We visited the John Brown Museam. When Ryan heard the story of John Brown, he was fascinated. When asked if he thought John Brown was a good guy or bad guy, there was no question in his mind - He was a "good guy because he wanted to free the slaves." It was literally black and white to him. After a day a couple hours in the park, we traveled 20 miles to Frederick and ate dinner at the Olive Garden. Stay tuned for more adventures...