Happy New Year to Our Klamath Neighbors!

Hoping that your Christmas or Hanukkah Holiday celebration was a good time with family and friends. We were grateful this year to receive greetings from friends and family from far afield although getting cards and letters mailed has been a failure on my part in recent years.

Siskiyou Telephone brightened the Christmas vacation for me by the delivery of a modem to make the Internet work at home. So much more pleasant to open the laptop while still cozy at home, although I’ve appreciated the access to computers at the Computer Center, school and Chamber office while Internet hasn’t been on at home. These cold rainy winter nights it is so much more pleasant to click away at the keyboard with feet warm and toasty than to consider going out in the cold! Perhaps it is a sign of aging, although Facebook lately advanced my years to 70,which was a surprising development! The years pass quickly enough without jumping me ahead that many. But some feel that to see it on Facebook, it must be so. Perhaps that is why so many Klamath Neighbors have less presence there these days.

Photos are great, especially of the newly arrived babies and toddlers as they grow so quickly and change almost daily. We’ve got some beautiful youngsters seen on the computer screen and they grow into beautiful young ladies and young men. It’s great to mark the transitions of life, the proms, football games and weddings. It takes a lot of searching out information to keep information up to date and greatly appreciate your help in that endeavor. It’s great to see the remembrances of previous days in the “Growing up in Happy Camp” pages, and a new page “Living in Happy Camp” has started out with some great photos and announcements! Thank you to those who have shared your pretty winter scenes in the woods, and how the Greyback road looks for those wondering about a trip to the city!

Despite loving words, especially kind words, and appreciating a good word more than most, this columnist has never been a poet! I enjoy Dennis quoting from Robert Service, “There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold….” so it is with apologies to real poets like Walt Whitman, Eugene Field, Longfellow, Willie Munson, Bill Roberts or Peggy Goshgarian that I offer this adapted poem for the New Year!

Twas the week after Christmas and all through the camp,
the year end marched closer with a slow steady tramp.
but that isn’t all.
The past year was full, as they all usually are
Of people who helped from near and afar.

Some gave their time, for a week or a day,
Some gave their money and others have prayed.
Without all the help and these givers, it’s clear,
We wouldn’t be here, beginning 2015th year!

At school, shop the store or getting clinic care,
The library, workplace, Neighborly watching the door,
Greeting a neighbor with a word and a smile,
While others drive, helping, over many a mile.
The year had passed quickly, as years tend to do,
Looking back on it now, seemed the right thing to do!

Activities and events winter and fall,
There was summer fun too,

There are blessings galore, much too many to count,
while warm, loving kindness continues to mount!
So thanks be to all, whoever you be!
Students, workers, retirees or a pastor maybe…

It’s thanks to you all and the giving you do,
Its the spirit of Christmas, seen year round in you!
Keep praying and giving, not just at years close,
And rejoice with us all the the work that God does.
Lets keep spreading this neighborliness all year, true blue.
Thank you all once again, May God richly bless you.