Thoughts on an aunt by my mother

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My Aunt Frieda passed earlier this week.

Her husband, uncle Henry, gave me a glider ride when I was a young boy.

My mother has written eloquently of Frieda in her blog, Second Thoughts.

(My mother, Katie Funk Wiebe, has written professionally for about 50 years.  Many books...  many articles... many speaking engagements.   She now writes (at age 87) on her blog, and is still writing articles and books.)

My Mother has a Blog! And Russian Mennonites build an Ultralight Airplane! In 1907!

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!


Some of you know that my background is small town Mennonite (Hillsboro, KS), and a few of know that my mother is Katie Funk Wiebe, a retired but still prolific Mennonite author.  Mom writes her own blog, Second Thoughts, and I like to think that I got a good measure of her writing DNA.  I think the book count she's authored currently stands around 20ish.  And she's not done yet!

While having lunch with her a couple of days ago, she let me look through an excellent book on Mennonites, and was kinda stunned to see a 1907 photograph of some Russian Mennonites, standing next to a Wright-esque airplane (glider) they had constructed.  I have copied only a fuzzy photo, and leave it to you to surf to other websites which contain old historical information on this impressive Mennonite / Aviation accomplishment.

Imagine you are in Russia, 105 years ago, and you see this:

Wow.  !!

It seems this is the HUP airplane project at Chortitza, with HUP standing for Hildebrand, Unruh, and Plenert.

Excerpting from an online article, found at http://www.mennonitehistorian.ca

...Launching a glider on the flat Russian steppes was as great a feat as designing and building one. The youths solved this by fitting HUP with skis to slide on grass and using two horses for launching power. A powerful stallion provided initial horsepower to overcome inertia and was then cut loose.  An exceptionally fast mare continued at a dead gallop towing the machine sufficiently high into the air to glide blissfully around until speed loss and lift forced the pilot to land.

...The HUP Project at The boys' efforts didn't always meet with approval in an agriculturally-oriented community with strict religious standards where the "man with wings" philosophy also predominated. Nonetheless, their efforts invariably drew a crowd. Sometimes the young gliders capitalized on this by charging admission and occasionally an adult donated to the project.

...By 1907 the men, aged 17 to 20, felt they had sufficient experience, knowledge and finances to try building a real plane. They abandoned the glider and set to work designing and building HUP II. They planned and built the fourThe cost was so high that they couldn't afford wheels and once again had to rely on
skis....

You can read one of articles here.

Hasking and other Reflections on Fatherhood

Please note: James' blog has moved to a Wordpress site. To access it, please visit http://jameswiebe.wordpress.com/. All posts have been transferred to the new site, and all new posts will only be accessible via Wordpress. Thank you for your interest!

Hasking and other Reflections on Fatherhood

© 2012 by James Wiebe

All rights reserved

A Crying Man in the Parking Lot

The man in the parking lot of the movie theater is sitting in the driver’s seat of a red Acura, and he is heaving and sobbing and shaking in a way that expresses the deepest kind of Pain.  His torso is curled forward, and his head is down, almost between his legs, From the crooked angle of his body, he is seeing just the bottom of the steering wheel, and the dirty carpet. 

He had made it from the front door of the theater across the parking lot, to the car, making small talk with his wife about the movie they had just seen, but grieving over what he had felt.  Before the movie had started, they had discussed taking in two movies in one evening:  back to back, a rare treat for this couple.  But that idea had died, in fact it had been killed, while they were walking out of the Cineplex.  

(They had been in The Balcony, mind you, to the right of the main entrance.  Stadium love seating with Restaurant service, to your seat, while watching the movie.  Dolby and THX sound.)

He had made it to the door of the car.  He had been able to unlock the car.  He had been able to sit down.  He had been able to place the key into the ignition, and even to turn it.  He noted that the car had started.

But then, as the motor started and idled, muscles in his face began to contract, short tight ones, along the sides of the jaw.  Other muscles in his gut turned to knotted cords of tension.  They were very tight, and then they were even tighter.  Liquid flowed out of his nose, but oddly, very few drops from his eyes.

His larynx tightened as well – breathing turning to a heaving or a hasking; and his eyeballs were pushed by the blood pressure of the emotion to the front of his eyelids.  In the midst of his enormous pain, he wondered if the eyes could be damaged by so much tight heaving, hasking, pushing, sobbing, hasking.

The wife of the man was making a heathery crying of her own, just like the animal mother of a severely wounded cub – why is the cub so hurt? – will the cub stop hurting?  – What can I do? – How can I soothe? – What light sounds can be made that will ease the pain?  Can I stroke your back? – Her hand gently and very carefully moved up and down his arm and shoulder, and just across the top of his back, and then back down.  Sending a signal through his hurt, that love was there, it was very much there!, and that it was waiting for him to come back out, and that love was there.