Eugene Walter Ide

This is the biography that Will wrote about his great grandfather. He said he wished he had known him better. I wish he had, too... His funeral was on Will's first birthday.

Eugene Walter Ide was born July 26 in Iowa . Growing up was difficult with seven brothers and sisters. As a family they moved a lot because of his father’s job and finally moved to Portland. They were a very poor family. He always hated oatmeal because whatever he did not gobble up for breakfast his mother would make him eat cold when he got home from school. Despite being good for him, he never ate oatmeal again for the rest of his life.

Walt always found a great enjoyment and interest in fire. Even as a child his favorite holiday was the 4^th of July because of the fireworks. Once when he was a kid he was firing off Roman candles. He thought that it was empty and through it under the porch. The dog ran under the porch and fetched the firework. There was still one ball left and it exploded in his mouth! The dog survived but it painfully ruined its jaw. Another time he and his brother had made cigars from dandelions and caught the silo on fire and burned it to the ground. Incidentally, when he grew up he got his own firework stand and met his wife–to-be there. A long time later, when he had grandchildren, on the 4^th of July they were shooting bottle rockets off of a metal slide. One of the bottle rockets flew out of control straight into his grandson’s hood. It caught his hood on fire and their neighbor relentlessly beat the fire out.

Before long Walt joined the army because of WWII but while waiting to be deployed he got valley fever and was not allowed to fight. He trained other pilots instead. When he joined the army he received his first toothbrush because when he was a kid his family could not afford one. Surprisingly when he joined the army he also learned that his name was Eugene. His dad had wanted to name him that and his mom finally agreed that they could name him that but that but that they would call him Walt.

Walt died January 1998 from a major heart attack while getting ready for bed. He was always a cheerful giver because he was a very generous man. He was sentimental, things were very valuable to him and he never threw anything away. Most importantly his family was extremely valuable to him.

Dangerous Boys Fencing

Today we had our Dangerous Class for Boys. Friday School had the day off yesterday and my guest instructor teaches math at our local community college and wasn’t available on weekdays. But he got together a group of members of the college’s fencing club and did a three hour class on fencing for the boys.

They did a fantastic job! Rick started out by teaching the boys the history of swords and fencing. Next he did some demonstrations of both fencing and fencing lessons. Then the boys got suited up in all the gear and got to do 2 hours of learning to whack (sorry, touch) each other with swords. Needless to say, by the end of class they were all pretty worn out and really STINKY!

listening to Rick teach about the history of swords

he showed them how to fight with both a sword and a dagger

now that’s dangerous!

 learning the history of hand shakes

fencing demonstration

fencing lesson demonstration

getting suited up (now the fun begins)

Rick told the boys it was just like putting on a straight jacket

Thankfully none of the boys knew how to put on a straight jacket :o)

almost ready… (Hobo is waiting for his gear)

now that they have their weapons the fun really starts

Advance…

Retreat…

en garde… (the chorus line)

paired up and ready to fence

Zack and Joel

Andy and Will

Andy got to fence Rick at the end of class and LOVED it!

Thank you so much to Rick Swee and the fencing club at LCC! Rick is truly a gifted teacher and the boys had an absolute BLAST!!!

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

This is Andy’s project for history about his favorite of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The first part is a summary statement about the wonders and the rest is a short description of the lighthouse. He also drew a picture and made a model of the lighthouse.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were:

The Great Pyramid of Giza

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia

The Temple of Artemis

The Mausoleum

The Colossus of Rhodes

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

These wonders were chosen instead of others because they were the biggest or the most impressive. Most of the wonders that were chosen were made by the Greeks. When Alexander the Great started to take over new lands people that visited them saw many things there that they thought were amazing. They then made lists of the best things to see in the world. It is from these lists that the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World came from. I think that these were probably the best wonders in the world at that time and that the ones that were chosen were very good choices.

 

working on the model

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

The Lighthouse was built on the island of Pharos in the 3^rd Century. They used light colored stones to build it. The bottom section was a square shape, and the top section was a circle. It was used as a landmark before it was ever used as a lighthouse because the Egyptian coast had almost no landmarks. It could have been 490 feet tall which would have made it the third tallest building after the Great Pyramids. Other people say that it was 590 feet tall which means it would have been the tallest building until the 14^th century. When it became a lighthouse, it had mirrors in it. At night they lit a fire that reflected off the mirrors and during the day they reflected the sun. It is rumored that the lighthouse could be seen from 35 five miles away. Another rumor says that it could burn ships using its mirrors before they could reach the docks.

The lighthouse was destroyed by earthquakes, one in 1303 and another in 1323. It is the second longest lasting ancient wonder of the world. A fortress was built from the rubble of the lighthouse.

the finished project with pictures

The Tower of Babel

This is a fictional story that Zack wrote based on the TRUE event recorded in the Bible. (the formatting didn’t e-mail well for some reason???)

We had been walking for miles and then we finally came to a plain in Shinar and we all set up our town there. Now we had only been at this bountiful new land for a few months before some of the leaders and other men started to say, “let's make a tower that reaches to heaven.” Now when they first brought this up, there were mixed thoughts about the idea. Some said, “Why do we need to build a tower? Let's just keep working on our houses and making our city grander.” Others said, “even if we wanted to build a tower here we would need stone and that is one thing we have very little of.” But there were still more people who said, “we should build a tower to reach the heavens and we can use bricks instead of stone.” I myself was one of the ones who said we should just work on building our city and not wasting all our time on something that seemed impossible. But it was decided that we would start the work on the tower the following week.

The next week came sooner then we all thought possible and the work began. The elders decided that everyone would be divided into four groups each working a four hour shift. The first group would go to work from 6:00 am to 10:00 am. Then the next groups would work in four hour intervals until 10:00 pm. I was ordered to work in the group that worked from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm. The work was easy at first but as it got taller it became much harder and took a long time to carry the bricks up to the tower. So after the first week of building the tower the elders and leaders held a meeting to try and decide what they could do to speed up the work. The conclusion they came to was that we would all work together.

For the next week we all worked from 6:00 am to 10:00 pm. The work this time was even harder because we never had a chance to rest. But the work did not stay hard for very long. We were probably halfway completed when something happened that no one was expecting. It was about 4:00pm and I was pulling ruthlessly at one of the huge bricks trying to get it into place when the sky became filled with clouds and every living thing became silent. And then it all went back to normal. I figured that I was just seeing things so I asked the guy next to me if had seen all the clouds turn black and then the next second go back to normal. But when I asked him I could not understand a word he said. So I decided I should tell the elders that they might want to let the men take a break because they were starting to talk nonsense. When I got to the tent of the elders I could not tell them anything because they spoke a language that I had never heard before. The elders could not understand anything I said either which I could tell troubled them. So then they started talking to each other but realized that they could not understand one another. As the elders tried to communicate I started to think how this could have happened. The only explanation I came up with was that God had made us speak different languages so we could not get the tower done.

Next I started to find other people who spoke the same language as I did. Out of everyone in the city I found only a few hundred people that spoke the same language as I did. As a group we decided that we should go to a new land and start a new city because we could not understand what anyone else said. So we all packed up all our belonging's and started out for a new place to settle down and start a city. But one thing was for sure, we would not try to build a tower that reached to the heavens ever again.

Swine Flu – To Vaccine or Not Vaccine?

This is a short bit that Will had to write for school today about a newscast. He watched an interview with a doctor for the project. I think he did a pretty good job…

Is the swine flu vaccine more dangerous than the flu itself? Some say so. Dr. Kent Holtorf on Fox News says that the swine flu has the same symptoms as the normal flu. He believes that because the swine flu is losing its strength it is no longer as powerful as the average flu. There is a vaccine for the swine flu. But some of the things they put into the shot, which make it more powerful, could cause autism and is extremely dangerous for people with neurological problems. If the vaccine was food or water it would have 25,000 times the toxic level of mercury. Do not give the vaccine to small children. Some doctors are considering a two shot treatment. Only call your doctor about the swine flu if it is completely necessary.

Many people are agreeing with Dr Kent because he has statistics and evidence that the vaccine is a proven neuro-toxin. Unlike many doctors Dr Kent did not color his study with emotions but stayed calm and factual. Though interrupted periodically to sway him to change topics, I believe that the doctor made his point, which was to help people to be more aware of the dangers of the vaccine and the swine flu. His interview did not support or try to disprove my Christian belief.

Dangerous Boys With Arrows

This week in my Dangerous Class for Boys, Walt came out and taught a class on archery. The boys loved it because he just set up some targets and let the boys shoot arrows at them.

the targets

Andy “commences firing”

Zack and Ian take their turns

Will gets a chance

Nathan was a pretty good shot!

They had lots of fun and everyone got a chance to “hit paper” (that’s code for hitting the target)!

Walt set up a special range just for Will to practice in, but he shared it with some of the other boys, too

 

Grayson was pretty pleased with his bullseye!

Thanks Walt! We had a great time! And no one got hurt… :o)

Ian helped Andy get a better view to look for a lost arrow but we still didn’t find it

Bicycle Safety With Melvin

Actually it should be “Bicycle Safety With Steve”… Our friend Steve came up from Portland to teach bicycle safety to my Dangerous Class for Boys at co-op on Friday.

He rides his bike to work and was in a bicycle accident with a car when he was a kid, so he was totally qualified to teach about what you should and should not do while riding your bike.

The best part was his helmet demonstration. While a helmet is a must for riding, it can’t totally protect you from being “stupid”. He put a helmet on a pumpkin whom he named Melvin and stuck him under the wheel of his SUV.

I can’t believe I didn’t remember about my camera until it was too late and Melvin had gone on to a better place.

 the accident scene

But here’s what was left of him when I got back…

Thanks so much Steve! You did a wonderful job and now we will be much safer on our bikes.