Hill-Topics
What do you get when you take 1,500 pins, 300 feet of wire, seven sheets of Styrofoam, 16 yards of fabric, 100 pieces of cardboard, and put in hours and hours of time?
You get a great family experience. And a Sleigh of Dreams.
Dwayne and Diane Claassen, owners of Quilts and QuiltRacks in Hillsboro, were blessed with both experiences this past week. Their adult children and grandchildren came home for Thanksgiving, and they all worked together to build the float for the Holly Days parade.
According to Diane, by the time it was finished, everyone had lent a hand to finish the sleigh, built in their garage.
The construction crew included the Claassens' son, Russ, and his wife, Chandelle, along with grandsons, Samuel and Dellen, from Corn, Okla.; and daughter, Lori, and her husband, Rob Quicke, along with grandson, Elliot, from Wheaton, Ill.
They built the sleigh so well and so high, that they had to let the air out of the trailer it was built upon to squeeze it through the garage door. Then the float had to be lifted to get it over the dip at the end of the driveway.
Dave Goering drove the float, which allowed the family to stand in amazement as their creation floated down Main Street.
The float won second prize, and it was a first rate holiday experience for the whole family.
There were other great floats Saturday, but not nearly enough. Wouldn't it be great if more families took the Claassens' lead and built floats for next year's Holly Days parade?
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It was fun taking pictures of children meeting St. Nikolaus at the Old-Fashioned Christmas at the Schaeffler House. He knew who'd been naughty and who'd been nice. (They'd all been nice!)
But did you know that Santa also knows a lot about the Hillsboro High School girls' basketball team?
Between visitors, he told me all about the progress the team has been making in the practices leading up to its first game Tuesday at Cheney.
There are lots of things to be jolly about, he said. There are elf-quick guards, and post players as tall as Christmas trees.
Best of all, Santa says every one of the players has been very, very good, so the whole team is sure to get exactly what it wants for Christmas, which is, of course, a great season.
It was a little weird talking to Santa about sports, but he sure knows a lot about basketball.
I was thinking
Wouldn't it be great if Trojans' coach Dale Honeck borrowed that red suit from Santa and wore it on the sidelines during the games? It would take a real Scrooge of a referee to give a technical foul to Santa Claus.
Next time I see Honeck, I plan to suggest he borrow the suit St. Nikolaus was wearing.
It's just a hunch, but I think it would fit him perfectly.
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Our family split up for Thanksgiving. Garrison, 20, went with his girlfriend and her mother all the way down to Texas and the Gulf of Mexico to see his girlfriend's sister. It was the first time that any of our three children had been away for the holiday, so it was different.
The empty chair at our table was filled by our daughter Bethany's fiancé, Joe, who was spent his first Thanksgiving away from his close-knit family in Omaha to join us.
We had a great time.
You'd think that a young man who grew up in Nebraska would be familiar with the night sky, but Joe said he'd never been out in the country, under the stars.
So on the way home from Wichita, we stopped on the 13-Mile Road, turned off on a gravel road, and drove about a half mile or so before getting out of the car.
It was beautiful.
My wife, Claire, showed Joe the different constellations, including the Milky Way Galaxy, which he'd never seen before.
With the headlights turned off, the road was pitch dark. I walked a few hundred yards down the road, and jumped from the bushes when the engaged couple strolled by.
I hope their future children play sports. That young man can jump really high!
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Lots of corrections and clarifications from last week. Author Carol Duerkson graduated from Hesston College, not Bethel; and the organization through which they get their exchange students is Educational Resource Development Trust.
Phil Wyssenbach's name was misspelled in the story about the city Christmas tree.
LaVonne Carrington is not the director of Main Street Ministries. Lillian Bookless still holds that position. Carrington is the newest member of the board.
And the Main Street Minute column begins in this week's edition of the paper.
— GRANT OVERSTAKE
