Europe and Oberammergau-The only trip we have planned as of now is to Germany in September 2010. We want to see the Oberammergau Passion play, which is presented every ten years in keeping a promise the people in that city made back in the 1634 to be spared from the Black Death (the plague). They were spared and thus the play goes on. Only people who live in Oberammergau can be part of the cast. The play takes six hours with time for dinner at the end of three hours. This is the first time they have broken it up. From there we will travel through part of Switzerland and then up along the Rhine river to Cologne and end at Frankfurt. We are going to stay a couple days longer to drive back west to Ahrweiler where my Dad’s ancestors came from and with whom he corresponded with years ago. From there back to Chicago via Frankfurt. (Movies I hope)

Other places we would like to see-God willing-Japan, China, India, and Africa are places we have not been and might want to see, at least from a cruise. We also would like to cruise through the fjords of Norway. Another thing we would like to do is drive around Europe. The countryside’s of France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy are very beautiful from the little we have seen to date. Once one gets outside of the major cities, however, language becomes a problem.

80^th Birthdays and 60^th Anniversary Parties-We had such a great time at our 50^th anniversary parties that we want to do a repeat in some form for our 60^th. That is still five years off (2015) from when I am writing this, but one has to plan ahead. Hopefully the Great One in the heavens above will cooperate and our minds and bodies will hold up to enable us to go through with it. One must think positively about such things. In addition there is Roland’s 80^th birthday in 2012 and Sandy’s 80^th in 2014 We must celebrate those milestones as well. Maybe we need to combine one or more of these events. With our kid’s family’s growing and getting more involved in their own lives it will be harder and harder to get them together. Still with enough early planning I think we can pull something off.

Next moves in Arlington Heights- We have been considering moving to a ranch in Arlington Heights within the next year or so. So far we have not found anything like that in a “maintenance free” community. As we age it would be nice to have everything on one floor. We can always hire the necessary maintenance people to take care of the place when we are gone. It’s more of a headache than maintenance free, but one has to make choices and set priorities. I would not mind a large condo/apartment downtown in Arlington Heights, but Sandy is not ready for that. This is not something we need to rush into, but at the same time as the years go by it will not get easier to make such a move.

After that we are already thinking that down the road in not too many years we might need something with some level of care. We like the Lutheran Home’s facilities and quality of care and we have several friends living very independently at the Moorings on the south side of Arlington and they like it very much.

Cataract Eye surgery-As the body gets older one must do appropriate maintenance to stay in shape. Recently I started noticing that my distance eyesight was getting worse. It could be due to the steroids I am taking, but my eye doctor, Dr. Bresch, thought that I should get my cataracts removed and I will be doing that this summer-2010. So many friends and relatives have had this procedure and they all have felt it well worth the trouble and expense. In addition, I better get it done before some beaureucrat in Washington tells me that Medicare will not pay for it.

“In God We Trust” Project-For many years I and many others have felt it a travesty that a small minority of Americans have tried to get any reference to God out of anything having to do with the Government. They would have us believe that the first Amendment “establishment clause” prohibits the long established practice of including references to God in many of our memorials, buildings, etc. In 1956 the Congress passed a resolution making “In God We Trust” our national motto. Our contention is that the belief in God (Deism or Theism) is not in itself a religion any more than agnosticism or atheism is a religion. If the atheists get their way it makes our government support atheism and that, by their own arguments, would be prohibited by the first amendment. In an attempt to stop these attacks on our use of God it is my plan to gather millions of signatures to a petition to ask congress to start the amendment process for amending the U.S. Constitution to include the phrase “In God We Trust”. (See Appendix F for draft of full resolution). I realize that this is a very large project and has long odds of success. Jonathan has volunteered to help develop the necessary web pages and I have a computer geek that will host the web site. I own the url “InGodWeTrust.us”, but have to pay $85 a year to keep it. I could not get the URL without the us because it had been taken several years ago by the very fellow who has volunteered to host the web site. My hope is that some organization like Family Values will take over the project.

Books to write-Over the years I have had several very elaborate fantasies of the non-sexual variety that I think might make good fiction. I don’t know if I will ever get the time, energy and ability to move ahead with these projects. I know it is a big job to get even one book written, much less published. Maybe Harold will help me. He has written at least one novel and is trying to get it published.

Here are the subjects in very abbreviated form.

1. Building of the largest open-air place of worship in the world.

2. Invention and development of a nuclear battery for use in autos, homes, etc.

3. Invention and development of a nuclear powered spacecraft using gravitational force.