Nancy Hatch’s Memorial Service

Family 0

As I posted a link to the video of my father’s memorial service, here’s a link to my mother’s memorial service:

What I had to say begins at 45:00, and the part where seven of us sang the fourth movement of Brahms’ Requiem, “How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place” begins at 1:17:00.

Here is what I planned to say at the service. (I also spoke at my Dad’s graveside service, but didn’t write out my remarks ahead of time. I learned my lesson.)

I haven’t seen a lot of my Mom since she had Alzheimer’s, because I live in Virginia. When I did see her, I’d see how much worse she’d gotten since the last time I’d seen her, and it would hit hard because I wasn’t seeing it happen gradually.

When I came here for Dad’s memorial service, Mom couldn’t do much of anything, and it broke my heart. But I wanted to be a loving presence, so I held her hand and said, “I love you, Mom. I love you.”

And I swear she answered me, “I love you.” It was three syllables and the right vowels. So my Mom’s last words to me were “I love you.”

And you know what? I believe her. Mom and I didn’t always understand each other, but one thing I’m sure of was that she tried her best to love me and to love all her children and grandchildren.

Alzheimer’s strips so much away from a person. When all that’s stripped away, she could have ended up a bitter and resentful person, but not Mom. Down to her core, Mom was left with her loves.

There’s a cute speeches phase of Alzheimer’s, just like there is for little kids. I got to have dinner with Dad on one of his trips to DC when Mom was in that phase. He told me that she’d said to him, “I love you! We should get married!” In fact, he said she’d never told him she loved him as much in their whole lives as she was doing then.

Another cute speech was reported to me by my sisters. They said that one day, Mom said, “I just remembered that there’s this place with rooms full of books, and you can take home as many as you want!” As a public librarian, this made me happy.

And that makes me remember that so many of my deepest loves in life are loves that my mother instilled in me.

She taught me to read. And instilled in me a love of books and reading and reading aloud to children. Exactly the passions that make me love being a librarian.

Mom loved little children and babies to the very end, and that’s a love she instilled in me. Though I prefer to enjoy *other* people’s children, as a children’s librarian, I’m lucky enough to get to do that on my job.

Lately I joined a church that has a wonderful choir. I’ve been reminded how much my love of music and singing and hymns and choral music came from my Mom. She made sure our family owned a hymnal, and she was the one who started Becky and me in our habit of singing hymns on long trips. She got me piano lessons and flute lessons and voice lessons and took me to choir concerts until I was old enough to sing in them myself, and then she attended all of mine. And she wasn’t faking interest – she loved to hear the choirs singing.

It was Mom’s idea to pay us to memorize chapters of Scripture. She was the one who’d patiently listen even when I didn’t necessarily know the chapter as well as I thought I did. And memorizing Scripture changed my life, because it found its way into my heart. Mom passed on to me her love of God and her love for God’s Word.

Mom, I love you, too. Thank you for passing on to me the loves that make me who I am.

Ron Hatch’s Memorial Service

Family 0

I’m posting a link here to my Dad’s Memorial Service, which took place on October 10, 2019.

I’m posting the link so that some day if I want to watch it again, I can easily find it. I’m not quite ready to do that yet.

I’m afraid I’ll also post a link to my Mom’s Memorial Service, after that happens on January 4, 2020.

Project 52: Year 2

Family, Project 52 0

Baby2

Last week, on my 52nd birthday, I decided to begin Project 52: Each week for a year, I’m going to reflect in this blog on one year of my life.

My second year of life is probably the one I know least about. But I do have some cute pictures from approximately that time, so maybe that makes up for it.

Baby5

My brother Ricky was now 3 (4 in October), and my sister Becky was 2.

Right around my first birthday, our family moved from Maryland back to Seattle, where my parents met.

Family legend says that they drove across the country and visited Yellowstone — and my Dad fed a bear Ritz crackers right next to a sign that said, “Don’t Feed the Bears.”

So I’ve visited Yellowstone but have no memory of it, just like I have no memory of living on the East Coast and sight-seeing there.

They moved into the house in Seattle that they had been renting out while they were in Maryland. It was a house with lots of stairs in front, on a hill.

I believe I have one memory of that house, but it was probably after my second birthday, so I’ll include it in next week’s reflection.

Living in Seattle, my family often drove the couple hours to Salem to visit my Mom’s family. This must have been around that time, after they’d moved back to Seattle.

Salem1

This picture was taken in front of Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Salem and features (left to right) my Mom’s little brother Allen and his wife Judy, sister Susan, then Mom holding me with Dad behind her, then sisters Donna and Linda in back with Ricky, Becky, and my Mom’s youngest brother Larry in front. Uncle Larry is one-day-less-than-a-year older than my brother Rick.

For those who are counting, my Mom was the oldest of six siblings, in two sets — three older and three younger. My Dad was the 9th of 12. So they were not strangers to big families. (I have a LOT of relatives.)

Here are a couple more pictures from approximately my second year.

Baby4

Baby6

(Huh. My hair curled in strange ways even then.)

Of all my siblings until the last two, Marcy and Melanie, I was the youngest the longest. My brother Rick used to explain that meant I was the most spoiled. I’m not convinced.

Thankful for 2014

Family, Letters 0

It’s Thanksgiving! Time to look back on my year and remember all I have to be thankful for!

And here’s my Christmas letter for my online friends:

First, here’s wishing you joyful holidays in every way!

Looking back, this was one of my happiest years in a long time. I’m still loving my home by the lake, still photographing the birds who live by it, and still enjoying being near my church.

Egret

I had three wonderful trips this year. First, my New Year’s trip to see my family in California. That included going with my high school friend Ruth to get my ears pierced. Better late than never!

Pierced Ears

When I got back home, I signed up for online dating! So far, I haven’t dated many different people, but I did make one very good friend, and because of him have enjoyed many Sunday afternoon games of Dominion with a whole new group of friends. All around, I think of it as a big win.

Tim got to spend the beginning of his summer studying in Prague. When he got back, he interned at my library in the Virginia Room. Then when he returned to William & Mary as a Junior, he was able to get a job in Special Collections at the campus library.

Josh and Tim

In August, we went to Oregon for the 75th annual Bates Family Reunion – begun the year my mother’s parents got married! It was good to see family I hadn’t seen in years – and also to see my older son Josh (still in Portland) and my parents and my five youngest siblings (the four youngest now live in Portland area as well) and my two toddler nieces, whom I fell completely in love with!

Reunion

This was also the year I turned 50 – and in September, during the two weeks that all three of us were 50, my childhood friends Ruth and Darlene and I all got together and celebrated with a week of adventures.

Ruth and Dar

And for the rest? I’m still Youth Services Manager at the City of Fairfax Regional Library, still loving my job, and still writing book reviews in my spare time. I’m a judge again for the Cybils Awards. And be sure to google “prime factorization cardigan” (in quotes) to find out about my latest mathematical knitting!

Wishing you a blessed holiday season,

Sondy Eklund

Christmas Letter 2012

Family, Letters, Librarians 5

Merry Christmas! It’s been a good year! As the years go by, I’m losing physical addresses, so I like to post my Christmas letter on the web to send to my online friends. I always like summing up the year and remembering the ways I’ve been blessed.

2012 is the year where Tim’s age has 3 prime factors, Josh’s age has 4 prime factors, and my age has 5 prime factors! Woo-hoo! But even more exciting than that was Tim’s graduation from Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. He is now a student at the College of William & Mary in beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia, not too far away, and nice and close to his Dad. It seems like a great fit. Students don’t have to declare their major until the end of their Sophomore year, and he’s taking classes in English, Computer Science, Physics, and other subjects he finds interesting.

Meanwhile, Josh is all grown up and settling down in Portland, Oregon. I’m a little jealous – I’m going to have to find lots of excuses to visit.

And I’m so happy in my Librarian career. In September, I promoted to Youth Services Manager at City of Fairfax Regional Library, the branch where I was already working. My two years not (officially) working in youth services showed me that’s definitely where I belong.

Looking back on the year, that career kept me busy traveling all over the country. I went to ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas in January and met up with a good friend. Then I went to PLA Conference in Philadelphia in March and drove through lovely Longwood Gardens on the way home. Next was ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California – I got to stay with my sister Becky, and I stayed an extra week to see my family and some long-time friends.


With Three of my Sisters in Long Beach

Still not done, I went to New York City in September to KidLitCon – for bloggers who write about children’s books. And I finished it off with VLA Conference in Williamsburg in October, with a chance to see Tim already in college a month. Hmm. No wonder I’m not feeling any urge to travel for the holidays!

I’m also getting involved with children’s book awards. I went to a seminar about book evaluation committees in January, and have been active in Capitol Choices, a DC-area group, all year. Now I’m finishing the year on a panel for the Cybils Awards, choosing the best Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy books of the year. It’s so much fun knowing I “should” be reading!

I’m still so thankful to be alive and functioning after last year’s stroke and am much more healthy than this time last year.

I do feel very blessed and have so many reasons to rejoice! Wishing you a joyful and blessed Christmas,

Sondy Eklund

Silver Falls with Family

Family, Nature, Photos, Waterfalls 2

September 3, 2011 — The day before my youngest brother’s wedding, and the family was gathering in Oregon. On Saturday, several of us planned to go to Silver Falls. That was one place I’d wanted to see, because I remembered hiking there as a child. (You can go behind the waterfall!) We didn’t get going as early as planned, and then one sister and her husband needed someone to take them back early so they could get the flower girl to the rehearsal. I was the logical person to volunteer, since I wasn’t sure how much hiking I could handle, since I was still recovering from my stroke. So I didn’t go very far at all, but what I did was lovely indeed.

Here’s the group that went hiking:

My son and I are on the right. Two sisters went, with one husband. Two brothers went, with one wife. And my Aunt Donna came along, with her son (whom I’d last seen when he was about 12 years old) and his wife and son. So that’s a tiny section of my family, but it was lovely to be with them!

Now, of course, I couldn’t resist taking pictures of the Falls:


Our first view of the Falls. Of course, we had to take pictures!


Here’s my sister Marcy snapping one.


And here’s my sister Wendy.


Getting closer to the Falls…


Forgive me, but I always like taking pictures of leaves lit up by sunlight.


Here’s a view through the trees.


Closer to the Falls, you get more of a feeling of how big it is.


Here’s my brother Randy and his wife Vickey.


And I had to take one from behind the Falls, the thing that thrilled me so much as a child.


Here’s the bridge at the bottom of the Falls.


The Falls were especially pretty from the other side.


This is my sister Marcy and her husband John. We’re now on the bridge I pictured earlier.


And here I am with my son Tim.


Sisters!


A last look at Silver Falls from below, before starting the upward climb.


Tim found a side trail to explore.


Another glimpse of the top of Silver Falls.


I was fascinated by all the moss on the trees in Oregon and Washington. It was how I remembered forests — but hadn’t seen in years. And this set had leaves lit by sunlight as well.


And one final look at Silver Falls, before going back to my Aunt’s house, taking a nap, and then getting ready for the Rehearsal Dinner and even more Family.

It was a lovely day. It was probably good I took the shortest loop, since the climb back up completely wiped me out. But I was very glad to get out and about with wonderful people whom I love very much — but don’t see very often.

Washington State!

Family, Nature, Photos 0

I was born in Washington, DC. However, my parents moved back to their roots when I was only a year old, and the first place I remember living was Kent, Washington, outside Seattle. We moved away when I wasn’t quite six years old, so I have a lot of memories that I know were when I was really young, simply because we were living in Washington.

I suspect that living in Washington is where I learned to love GREEN. And oceans and boats (or at least ferries) and rivers and trees and fall color and snow and mountains. When we lived in Washington, we often drove down to visit my grandparents in Salem, Oregon.

Now, more than forty years later, I’m staying with my Aunt Susie in that same home in Salem, Oregon, and today we drove into Washington State.

First, I should mention that yesterday, I got to visit Powell’s City of Books in Portland, and got to spend time with my older son, Josh, who recently moved to Portland. We went out to eat afterward at the wonderful Mamma Mia’s Restaurant. It was food for my soul to have time with both my boys. Here they are at the restaurant:

Now, Tim (the one on the right) is about to be a Senior in high school, so he’s looking into colleges. Once Josh moved to Portland, he thought maybe he should check schools in this area. Well, Josh found a school that sounds very distinctive — The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. They don’t give grades, but instead offer narrative reports, and they also let students design their own majors — which sounds very good for undecided students like my son.

So, we decided to spend the day today driving up to Olympia and back. The excuse was to visit the college and talk with an admissions representative. But a big part of my reason is that I love Washington State and wanted to spend part of my vacation there.

A cool thing is that there was one part of the trip — the same one my parents took many times between Salem and Seattle — that I am absolutely sure I remember from more than 40 years ago. It’s the bridges. The big green bridges. And when you’re going back to Salem, there are several small bridges, but then the great big bridge is the last one, and it means you are now in Oregon, and we’re almost there. (Or at least a lot closer.) I started singing “Over the River and Through the Woods, To Grandmother’s House We Go,” and I actually got a flashback from when I had just learned that song — in KINDERGARTEN! — and was singing it as we went to Grandma’s house in Salem. It blew me away, just the sheer amount of time that passed, and then the memory just burst to the surface. I also hadn’t thought I’d remember anything about the trip — and then I saw those bridges, and so much came back!

I enjoyed the school visit, and they were very friendly and helpful. Unfortunately, Tim lost a screw in his glasses and a lens popped out, so he was alternating between looking out of one eye or not being able to see, poor kid! (On the way back, we had my aunt’s GPS lead us to a LensCrafters right off the freeway, and they fixed it for free.) But I think he got some idea of what the place looked like!

One thing I really enjoyed was walking down a little trail right on campus and being plunged into an old forest, covered with moss. We even saw a deer on campus, behind a building!

I could not possibly walk in a forest without taking pictures, so here are several:

Of course, you have to imagine these trees completely surrounding us…

And you have to remember that the weather was absolutely perfect, sunny but slightly cool…

And the moss on all the tree branches gave it such a mystical feeling, reminding me, again, of the childhood experience of walking in a redwood forest and taking home a piece of wood with moss on it…

And being in this forest felt so RIGHT…

And I found myself thinking, “Now THIS is what a forest should be!”…

So I feel quite confident that my childhood experiences established my concept of a quintessential forest…

And it simply did my soul good to be in such a forest again!

…And would you look at the sheer size of those ferns!

I did surprisingly well at Evergreen. We didn’t do a lot of walking — just the little hike — and I never did get fuzzy-headed. I got a little bit tired driving up, but we made quite a few stops on the way back, so I didn’t have any real trouble.

Oh, and one of the best things about the day was that my son read me stories from The Chronicles of Harris Burdick! We got through seven stories, which is half the book. They are written by a wide variety of authors, and all have something strange about them (as fits the pictures), and it was a wonderful way to spend the time, as we passed through gorgeous countryside.

So, it was a simply lovely day. Absolutely perfect weather, a trip through beautiful countryside, plenty of nostalgia, time with my son, a short hike in a forest, and a good book read to me by someone I love. Wow!

Betty Crocker Cookbooks, Fudge, Pictures, and Home

Contentment, Family, NaNoWriMo 4

I have two bright red Betty Crocker Cookbooks.  One is copyright 1972.  It has lots and lots of smudges.  Especially on the page for fudge.  Oh, how many times I tried to make penuche (brown sugar) fudge, without the nuts of course. 

What I made tasted wonderful, but it was never quite right.  Always just a tiny bit grainy or maybe a lot grainy.  Oh how I agonized over that recipe.  You have to stir constantly until the sugar is dissolved.  Was the sugar dissolved yet?  Of course I had to lift the spoon out and feel it with my finger and see if I could feel sugar and see if I could taste sugar grains.  And of course with a gas stove defining medium heat was a little tricky.

Then there was 234 degrees on the candy thermometer and the soft ball test.  Did it have to be a precise ball?  Of course, after the cooking, you had to cool it down, and then mix “vigorously” until it was “smooth and no longer glossy.”  How glossy is no longer glossy?  How vigorous is vigorous?

As an adult, I bought a book on making fudge but I don’t think I ever did make it again.  Incidentally, it said that humid weather is great for making fudge.  I wonder if that was our problem in California….

Then, a few months ago, much to my own surprise, I tackled a recipe for cinnamon brittle.  I followed the candy thermometer and waited and waited for it to get to the right temperature — and took it off the heat the moment it did — and the candy then proceeded to incinerate!  I learned that maybe my thermometer measured a little low.  And thought some day I should try something easier, something softer on my teeth, like fudge….

Yesterday, I cooked a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for my son and me.  For Thanksgiving dinner I pull out the Betty Crocker cookbook I bought with the gift certificate we got as a wedding gift, copyright 1986.  It’s also bright red, but in loose leaf with a wipe-clean cover.  It’s where I go for my two very favorite Thanksgiving recipes — mushroom stuffing and candied sweet potato slices.  Mmmm, I love that stuffing recipe.  It’s basically celery, onions and mushrooms fried in butter and mixed with bread cubes and some spices, but yum yum!  I do dutifully fix it early and stuff it in the turkey, but the truth is I like best what I just cook in a dish on the side.  I really need to cut the recipe in half or a quarter, because I never ever stuff such a huge turkey — but there’s no leftovers I like better!  And I don’t make it any other time, and it keeps well, so what’s the harm in it?  Yep, I stick Handel’s Messiah in the CD player and start chopping celery and onion and mushrooms and it’s holiday time in my heart!

And then, of course, the candied sweet potatoes.  As I was mixing the brown sugar and butter and cinnamon, I got to thinking:  How is this any different from fudge?  I’ve really got to make fudge….

So.

Last night as we were sitting down to pumpkin pie, my husband arrived to get my son for the weekend.  (We had expected that traffic would make him later than usual, but I suspect he got off work much earlier than usual, because it was the earliest he’s showed up in a long time.)  So I have a grand and lovely weekend all to myself.

And this morning I woke up to find my headache of fifteen days actually mostly gone!  It’s making little visits, but is mostly leaving me in blissful, happy, glorious freedom!

So, what could I do?  I decided it was time to MAKE FUDGE!

And the crazy thing?  That fudge came out absolutely positively perfect!  It is melt-in-your-mouth not a hint of graininess magnificent brown sugar fudge. (Excuse me.  I need to make sure I’m telling the precise truth.  Yep.  Creamy. Fudgy.  Delicious.  Mmm.)  Now, remember how I learned that humidity helps with fudge-making?  Well, today was definitely humid.  But I feel a little bad for my poor child self.  If that’s all there was to it, how come it was so hard for her?  (But, boy was I glad I learned that lesson about my candy thermometer — I stopped cooking before it got to 234 degrees because it did, in fact, pass the soft ball test.  I’m glad I did!)  Now, I did plenty of testing, but probably not, in fact, as much as my child self used to do.  So maybe there’s something in that.

Anyway, now alone in my house with a pan of absolutely perfect fudge, two questions remain.  The first is will my headache be able to stay away if I ingest that much sugar?  The second is will there be any left for my son to taste when he gets home Sunday night?  Of course that brings up a third question:  Is there any reason for him to know that there was any fudge?

So far, consuming the end of the pan of fudge (Hey!  I had leftover turkey dinner, too!) has only gotten my headache better, so I call that positive reinforcement.  Hmm.  A friend was wondering if my headaches might be related to hypoglycemia.  I wonder if this would support or refute that hypothesis?

I’m also in a great mood (or is that a sugar high?) because today I really and truly finished putting up all the pictures on my walls.  Yes, I still have a few boxes to unpack.  But for me the true measure of when you are moved into a new home is when you have your pictures on the walls.

It’s tricky for this move.  So many of the pictures include my husband.  What do I want on my walls for this my new life? 

Mostly I’m including the happy young family pictures.  I’m including the pictures of the boys, young and joyful.  I’m including the pictures of us traveling all over Europe.

Most of the pictures we had on our walls always were ones that I took.  Steve never took much interest in what we put on our walls — Usually I’d drag him into helping me decide what to put up, but he’d let me put up whatever I wanted.  So I haven’t changed too much since he left.

And most of the pictures are my own photographs.  Photographs of castles.  Photographs of beautiful places.  Photographs of places that make my spirit soar.  And of course photographs of people I love in beautiful castles that make my spirit soar.

When I moved into this place, I said that it felt a lot more home-y than the apartment where I was before.  That’s even more true now that I have my own pictures, symbolizing my dreams, on my walls.  I do need to get some more current pictures up there next — but I think I will do that by getting myself a digital photo frame for Christmas and filling it with digital photos.  But that’s a whole new project!

As for the boxes, I had four piled in my closet, and I decided that I would empty the contents onto my bed on each of my four remaining days off in November.  So I will be dealing with the contents of box one before I go to bed tonight.  I am already excited because I discovered where my Blocking pins were hiding, and now I can block and sew up that sweater I finished knitting this summer!

Okay, that was all a long digression.  It was a lovely Thanksgiving Day.  I didn’t exactly get a lot of writing done, though I did spend fifteen minutes on my novel.  I still want to do a few more things this weekend before I officially declare myself moved in, but I am feeling much much more at home.

And my headache is worlds better, perhaps even gone!  And I am so very very thankful!

Here are my NaNoWriMo stats:

Words on my novel in November: 14,766.

Words on my blogs in November: 11,916

Total words written in November on my novel plus blogs:  26,682.

So I’m happy that I at least got past the halfway point, even with a record-breaking mind-blowing headache.  Life is good!

Vacation

Family, Nature 0

My intention, when I began this blog, was to post pictures of my travels.  Funny thing, though, I’m not traveling like I did when I lived in Europe.  I’ve been using Facebook to post pictures.

Right now, my earlier posts have pictures that I didn’t cut down in size — so the blog takes too long to load.  I think I’m going to try to post several picture-less posts to get it past that.  Mind you, the best way would probably be to change the earlier posts to smaller file sizes, but I am too lazy for that!

This week, I’m on vacation.  My main goal has been to finish unpacking boxes from our move in April and May.  It is not easy to get that done when working full-time.  My week is half over, and I think the task is still doable.  I have most of the boxes unpacked, especially in the living room, which is most important.  A big job will be putting up pictures and deciding what goes where.

It’s funny how I feel guilty taking time off but not going anywhere.  After all, I used up Spring Break with the actual move.  But I don’t have any disposable income, anyway, so it does seem prudent to get this big task DONE.

Still, on Monday, we did go for a hike.  I drove my son to Manassas National Battlefield Park, and it turned out to be only 5 minutes away from my house!  I took lots and lots of pictures.  It was a beautiful day, and just a lovely walk along Bull Run.

I got a thrill out of being there — because when I was in 6th grade and my brother was in 8th grade, he did a diorama of the 2nd Battle of Bull Run for his semester project in US History.  It had the bridge and the river, but now I don’t think he put in enough trees!  He bought toy soldiers and painted them in Union and Confederate colors.  Anyway, it was strange to be at a place I’d heard about in childhood — almost like being at a place in a book!

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to sleep late and stay in bed and read a novel until Noon!  If you can’t do that on vacation, when can you?  It was lovely and luxurious. 

Today I decided to practice getting up early and focus on the unpacking.  And I did get lots done.  Go me!

Tomorrow I will again get up early (well, before noon!), and hope to go hiking again with Tim — this time a bit further away.  A book of hikes in the area lists a hike past a few waterfalls in Shenandoah National Park.  That should make for a special trip.  I hope it works out!

The Street of the Lifted Lorax

Books, Family, Photos, Reading, Simply Silly 1

This summer at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure, I especially enjoyed Seussville, and there I especially enjoyed The Street of the Lifted Lorax. 

The Lorax was one of Josh’s favorite bedtime books.  So much so, that he had it memorized and could recite long parts of it in his adorable one-year-old voice.  Timothy also loved it as a child.  Steve was the one who bought the book, and I will always remember his voice reading it and then Josh’s baby voice chiming in.

As a children’s librarian, it seems especially appropriate to celebrate The Lorax with this sequence of pictures:

Lorax1.jpg

They had a plaque quoting from the beginning of the book:

Lorax2.jpg

Here’s the devastation left behind after the Thneed factory ran out of truffula trees:

Lorax3.jpg

“On the end of a rope he lets down a tin pail and you have to toss in fifteen cents and a nail and the shell of a great-great-great-grandfather snail.”

Lorax4.jpg

“Then he grunts, ‘I will call you by Whisper-ma-Phone, for the secrets I tell are for your ears alone.'”

Lorax5.jpg

“SLUPP!  Down slupps the Whisper-ma-Phone to your ear and the old Once-ler’s whispers are not very clear, since they have to come down through a snergelly hose, and he sounds as if he had smallish bees up his nose.

” ‘Now I’ll tell you,’ he says, with his teeth sounding gray, ‘how the Lorax got lifted and taken away…'”

Lorax6.jpg

They tried to put a more positive spin on it, but the stump below is supposed to say UNLESS:

“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.

“SO . . .  Catch!” says the Once-ler.  He lets something fall.  “It’s a Truffula Seed.  It’s the last one of all!  You’re in charge of the last of the Truffula Seeds.  And Truffula Trees are what everyone needs.  Plant a new Truffula.  Treat it with care.  Give it clean water.  And feed it fresh air.  Grow a forest.  Protect it from axes that hack.  Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.”

Lorax7.jpg