Republican. Democrat. Republicrat. Demonstrative. Names of political parties. Nouns, verbs, adverbs, subjects, objects. We use them all in our everyday speech and writing, and don’t give them a second thought. That’s how I am now, and how I was when learning my first fairly fluent (at the time) second language, as a tenth grade student at John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles in 1955. Frau Gellman was the teacher. We didn’t even dare thinking of a teacher’s first name. They might as well not have had one. (OK. Diagram that sentence. I could have at one time. No more. Pearl Baker could.)

Mine is a house full of remnants of many decades of living here in our little green valley. I challenge readers to open their junk drawers, tool boxes, tackle boxes and picnic baskets, and there in the bottom they will find keys. Not individual keys, but full sets. What locks do these keys open? In my case, I don’t know, and if I don’t know, nobody knows.

We are so blessed with so many of God’s gifts hugging us in this little green valley. Years ago (more than 60 of them), my family arrived here, and except for college I’ve been here ever since, and am now older than a lot of natives. I’m a Uintah Basin girl, though I remember more about Samuel Gompers Junior High in Los Angeles than the Basin. My next younger sister was born in Roosevelt, then the family moved to Salt Lake, then California, then back to Utah, and this could get repetitive. I’ll leave it at the fact we moved around a lot.

I took quite a long vacation from writing a column. Friends and family finally got to me about my dereliction, so I’m back at it, and thoroughly enjoying writing, when I can finally get to it.

I had been musing over the weekend over what to write about, and had settled on a subject when the news came Monday of Norma Matheson’s death, and that changed my mind. I had come to the conclusion some time back that life’s most productive years are between 40 and 60. Since some of today’s elected and chosen leaders were born at the tail end of that time for me, they likely were not acquainted with the remarkable Scott M. Matheson and his lovely wife (isn’t that the way wives are always described in politics) Norma.

ANTS: We’ve got them. We’ve ALL got ‘em this time of year. I can understand them wanting to get into a warm house in winter, but as hot as it is outside, I can’t imagine it bothers ant colonies much. But it must, given the intrusions.

Roses. The queen of flowering plants in this part of the world, at least by my estimation. We moved around so much when I was a child, that I have no memory of, nor interest in them then.

In the piano bench, among sheets of music and other memorabilia, is an old family picture of Siss and Bish (Pearl and L.L., or Nana and Granddad), where Tom is a babe in arms, and others of their grandchildren are also small. It’s a precious thing, being as how they are both off finding the rewards of their labors, or whatever awaits in the great beyond.

I’m probably not through with last week’s subject: dictionaries, old and not so new. Maybe I should get hold of a really new one for comparison. The thought had been rolling around in my head, but with no real direction, so I wasn’t going to write this week, until the staff here at the T-I gave me a little shove.

Dictionary. A noun. Derived from late latin, according to one that has been around the Times-Independent offices since 1919. We were located around the corner next to the bank way back then, The bank, institutionally as we know it now didn’t exist way back then. But Sam’s father, L.L. “Bish” who got involved in newspapering here in 1911, sure did.

I’ve been going about my business with a beautiful black eye and some other bumps and bruises the last little bit. I have had my share of such over the years. Must have had them as a kid, but don’t remember anything very serious. With five children in the Foote family, four of them girls, we didn’t get into physical squabbles. And if any disagreement looked like it might elevate to something besides words, Mother stepped in immediately.

I loved watching the Golden Spike ceremonies on television last week. Took me back more years than I would normally want to admit. When I was a child, the big deal was the Days of ’47 (which had nothing to do with the railroads).