H is for High Hope and How to

Mrs. Nesbitt's ABC Wednesday Round 3 has marched another week closer to the presidential election for my beloved country. I know that this bumper sticker illustrating my own High Hope may not seem relevant to my many friends around the world (although in my opinion it is relevant to the future of the whole planet).

Also relevant to our future are the dedicated teachers who show How to do what they do best. In these few photos I will show my son's wife (and my friend and sister) Kristin introducing youngsters to the violin and my husband showing grown men How to build an electrical motor control.

Kristin is not only a dedicated music teacher, she is a concert violinist, concert master of the Port Townsend symphony orchestra, and a member of several successful performing groups, she is also anxious to introduce youngsters to the joys of music.

Above is a photo from 20 years or so ago as Kristin shows niece Myrtle How to hold a violin, while Myrtle's little brother, Cedric, and their slightly older cousin, Daria, looks on from the right.

And above Kristin introduces the Daria's son Baxter to his first violin.

My husband is a professor emeritus of the University of California, but that doesn't mean that he is retired! He spends from 8 to 10 hours a day on efforts to halt global warming by various methods of energy conservation. In the above photo he shows a class of Washington state men How to build the energy-saving controls to an electric motor.

And above he shows slides of his unique circuitry to a scientific convention in Ohio. This isn't exactly the best of photos, but I was faced with the dilemma of a dark room with a slide being shown on a screen that would have been turned completely white had I used flash.

For other responses to the letter H go to ABC Wednesday Round 3 and/or ABC Wednesday Anthology.

V is for Violin

Kristin gives our granddaughter Myrtle her first violin lesson

while Myrtle's brother Cedric and cousin Daria watch.
This is an old photo! The children in it are now adults.

Mrs. Nesbitt's Place ABC Wednesday prompt is the letter V.

Music has always been an important part of family activities. There are many instruments played by many family members, but piano, guitar, oboe, tuba, clarinet etc. etc. do not start with V.

We are still visiting in Port Townsend (where Kristin, our best and professional violinist is our hostess), but our visit is drawing toward its close. Time being short here, in the interest of intensive visiting (we all love to talk!), I am grabbing a few of the many photos of family and violins that are already in my computer. In two or three of them son Otto is playing his Colin Dipper English concertina which often doubles as and sounds like a violin.

Kristin and her daughter (our granddaughter)
play at our family reunion last August

The two with violins are Grandson Cedric Shock (arm only) and Kristin
with son Otto on concertina.

Kristin shares her love of violins with our great-grandson, Baxter Bishop


Anna and Otto play at street fair.
photo by Kristin Smith