Hunter and Parker Follis both just celebrated birthdays and unfortunately both were down with nasty bugs over the last couple of weeks.  My sympathy went out to Mom Wendy, she certainly had her hands full!

Cousin Steve Brown sent the following photos of Grandpa and Grandma Ojanen and his mother, our Aunt Sylvia.

Sara, Emily and I went to see the movie Dreamgirls late this afternoon and then had dinner at the India Palace.  We started out with a little Nan, both plain and Kashmiri and then we all had a different type of chicken.  Sara had Tandoori Chicken, Emily had Saag which is chicken in a spinach yogurt sauce and I had Makhani which is a tomato and spice blend.  The chai was good but could have been a little hotter.  We had a great time..  good movie, good food, good company!

Dan Kingsley sends these photos from his son Danny, an Army Lieutenant in a weapons company in Iraq.  Here they have captured two roadside insurgents. Dan reports that Danny and his men are upbeat inspite of the extension of their deployment.  They have “an extremely positive and faith filled resolve.”

Mom wasn’t the most gifted photographer; she had a habit of cutting off someone or getting a finger in the picture.  Missing from this photo is Bob, but you can see his gold sholder.  From left:  Al, Tom, Jane, Donna and me.  I think this would have been fall of 1966 or 1967.  By the way, I sewed the dress I was wearing along with the skirt I am waring in the photo below.  We did that a lot in the “olden days,”  made our own clothes, that is!

This time Al is missing, from left is Bob, Donna and me; in front are Tom and Jane.  This one would have been a year later.  If the years are off I am sure someone will let me know.  Can you tell how delighted I am to be there?

Doesn’t this look like it should be some kind of bad Country Western album cover??  You would never know that they get so excited about hunting season that they can’t even sleep the nights before..  not with those glum looks.  Must have been a bad first day…

Jay and Harvey are on the left, they are on their annual ice fishing adventure.  Below, Harv is pictured with his catch.

Thank you to cousin John Ojanen for sending this article from the Winter 1967 issue of Minnesota History written by Michael Karni, formerly of Cook.  In writing this article Karni interviewed many including Grandpa Victor Ojanen and Uncle Carl Brown.

File Attachment: walta_article.pdf (1530 KB)