More visitors

Today I went back to the law office and Tom cleaned up the guest room, preparing it for Helen and Jay to use when they come by tomorrow evening to pick up Buddy the Dog and to drop off Helen and Tom's younger son John. John is the one who graduated from college last May. He has been staying with his older sister and her husband while working in Chicago and is now heading up north to spend some time with his father.

Helen and Jay have been back east, and I expect them to be exhausted when they arrive tomorrow. They will have driven from Ohio to Chicago, had lunch, visited with various friends and family members, packed John's stuff and driven four more hours to get here. Thursday they and Buddy the Dog will pile into the car and head back to the Twin Cities.

I went into the Dells this afternoon to return a couple of library books. It was strange to find the streets no longer crowded with tourists even on weekdays. The season is not quite over, but with kids all back in school, the busy times shift mostly to weekends. I picked up a book about Wisconsin curiosities and learned that the rear end of the badger that sits atop the statue on the capitol building is the highest point in Madison. I know you wanted to know. The state motto is "Forward" so the statue holds an arm out pointing ahead rather than up, as is often the case in such figures. That is not so clear in the photo, nor is the badger on top of her head, but look closely. This is the Badger State, named not for the animal but for the nickname given to early miners who carved out caves in the side of the hill for a place to live.



I heard from the Carmelite Institute today. I had forgotten that besides their national conference they had to move into new office space this summer. That explains why Mary had not sent me the grade sheets for the students I had last spring semester and for which I have been asking her since June.

I would like you to think I am being conscientious for nagging them about sending me the grade sheets, but the truth is that I don't get paid until the students complete the work and the grades are in. So it is not totally altruistic on my part to get the grades recorded.

One new student I will have this fall is a med student at Johns Hopkins Univeristy. Since this is a distance learning graduate program, most of my students are overseas, but so far I only have folks in the States this semester.