Jury Duty

I am 71 years old and have never been called to jury duty until two weeks ago. They told us that it was an important part of our "civic duty" and likely the only time we would be directly involved in government service. We were actually subpoenaed by the court, so it was far from voluntary. Our "pay" was $5 per. day plus $7.50 expenses. It actually cost $6 per day for parking and we had to provide our own lunch. There was not even coffee!! So when you do the math, it's not the highest paying job I ever had.
On the other hand, I did learn a lot about our justice system and how the courts actually function. I also met some interesting people. The jury pool is supposed to by a sample of the entire community. I served on one jury with a former basketball star from the University of Louisville and met a lawyer who had played on the same team with him. I learned that almost no one is exempt from jury service, police, doctors, business people, even judges.
It was a good education, mostly in patience as we spent most of our time sitting and waiting (I did finish reading one entire book), a lesson in human nature and a "once in a lifetime experience" that I can wait for 71 years to do again.

Snow Bound

I don't think I ever read all of Whittier's "Snow Bound" but last week I had time to do it. Our family was snow bound in, of all places, Louisville, KY. We were far more fortunate than many of our friends and neighbors who had no electric power, heat, and sometime no water. We shared our home with our son James and his family for 3 days and spent a lot of time finding things to do. The kids got out grandma's sewing stuff and we even started putting together a 500 piece puzzle. We had not done that for years. Even the kids enjoyed it.
During our years in Africa, we almost always had a puzzle going on a table in the living room and there was always a kerosene lamp ready to go. For over a year, Greta and I lived in a rural village with no electricity. We had solar pannels and deep cycle 12 vold batteries for our ham radio and travel trailor lighting at night. Our kerosene refrigerator worked well and we had no need of heat. I even built Greta a charcole stove with an oven. It seemed fun in those days, but it is much different to be snow bound.