Some wise words..... Psalm 124

"If the Lord had not been on our side,"
this is Israel's song.
"If the Lord had not been on our side
when men rose against us,
then would they have swallowed us alive
when their anger was kindled.
Then would the waters have engulfed us,
the torrent gone over us;
over our head would have swept
the raging waters."

Blessed be the Lord who did not give us
a prey to their teeth!
Our life, like a bird, has escaped
from the snare of the fowler.
Indeed the snare has been broken
and we have escaped.
Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

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And some not-so-wise words...... the Knapp family reunion

E. Pauline Ilg Knapp raised four children alone through the Great Depression and World War II; her youngest child, my father, was only a few months old when her husband died.

The four children, their three surviving spouses, and the vast majority of their 27 children, 17 children's spouses, and 46 children's children, came together yesterday in one (unfortunate?) public park in a suburb of Akron, Ohio, to party hardy, eat potluck provided by the 27 cousins, party some more, catch up on family news, get walking children wet in the wading pool, ogle babies, catch up on more family news
(Mick's Karen's retired; Bob's Chrissy's now a nun named M Theresa; the oldest third-generation child just turned 18; etc.), party some more.......

No injuries, a ton of fun, let's do it again in 2 or 3 or 4 years, but with a chart and nametags next time! was the sense of the party. And yours truly, socializing with the elders, has, for the first time known, assembled a full accounting of all four lines of descent in one place, for that chart everyone says we really have to have next time.

And my sister Susan says she might have some poor orphan jars of banana peppers needing a new home in far-away Milwaukee at a certain anchor hold..............

Peace from Mick's oldest, karen marie
.