From AP reporter Jaymes Song: “With their number quickly dwindling, survivors of Pearl Harbor will gather Thursday one last time to honor those killed by the Japanese 65 years ago, and to mark a day that lives in infamy. This will be their last visit to this watery grave to share stories, exchange smiles, find peace and salute their fallen friends. This, they say, will be their final farewell. . . .

Nearly 500 survivors from across the nation were expected to make the trip to Hawaii, bringing with them 1,300 family members, numerous wheelchairs and too many haunting memories.”

Thank you, gentlemen, for giving your lives to protect our country and thank you to your families for supporting you. May we never forget, and may the Lord of all creation bless you and your families richly.

It’s cold in the Twin Cities now, but we’ve only had light flurries of snow, flurries that left small trace behind. It’s kind of academic anyway, because it’s supposed to get up to about forty on Saturday, and anything we’d gotten, short of a major blizzard, would melt then anyway.

It felt even colder yesterday, out in the cemetery at the committal service. Especially bareheaded as I was. I wore my full winter Sunday regalia to the funeral, including my black homburg hat. I wore the hat in particular so I could take it off at the cemetery. And that’s why I’m taking zinc to fight a head cold today.

I feel that every person has a right to have some man in a black homburg hat at their funeral, to take it off at the appropriate time. In the past such uncoverings were taken for granted, but nowadays you’ve got to find an eccentric like me to give the proceedings that particular classy note.

Perhaps its part of the ancient tradition of human sacrifice at funerals. The Romans, as you may know, held gladiatorial combats to say goodbye to the dead. The Vikings liked to strangle a slave or two to keep King Gunnar company in his funeral mound.

And up until recently, we had men taking off their black homburgs at our funerals in the dead of winter, so that there was a good chance one of the older ones would contract pneumonia and follow after shortly, along that long, lonesome road.

This by way of Archaeology in Europe: Vatican Archaeologists Unearth St. Paul’s Tomb.

Vatican archaeologists have unearthed a sarcophagus believed to contain the remains of the Apostle Paul that had been buried beneath Rome’s second largest basilica.

I wonder if they’ll find the skull with the body (Paul is said to have been beheaded, so that part could be missing). I’d like to see a forensic recreation, to learn how close to the traditional description he really was. I have to think the traditional picture is right, because I can’t imagine any reason why anyone would make up such an unattractive image. Paul is said to have been short and bowlegged, with a large, domed head and a prominent nose. He is also supposed to have been bald and to have had thick lips, which would probably be harder to determine working from the bones.

I love skull reconstructions. Somebody find me St. Olaf’s skull, or Chaucer’s. Give me a face to look at. If I can’t have a time machine, I’ll take whatever I can get.

And may God bless us everyone.

Lynne Scanlon suggests we put a book in the pocket of pants we give to a poor family this Christmas.

This week as she stood in line at the local general store to buy her daily fix of Pepperidge Farm cookies, the Wicked Witch waited behind an older gentleman buying five Nascar toy cars. He told the cashier that he was buying them to contribute to a local organization donating holiday gifts to needy children. Why not a book with each car? Doesn’t this idea make good sense? As a young girl I used to love getting books for Christmas—especially if they were about horses. I’ve since graduated from horse crazy to just plain book crazy.

I took off work today and drove down to my home town for a funeral.

My dad’s cousin Amos had died, old and full of years. He was probably Dad’s best friend among his cousins. His farm was only about two and a half miles from ours. We went to the same church, and he was one of the small group of farmers, dad among them, who helped one another fill their silos every year (an activity that nearly killed several members one year, when a steel silo collapsed. I wrote about a silo like that in Wolf Time).

Amos was almost an archetypal Norwegian farmer. He didn’t say much, although he liked to joke when he was with family and friends. In the community he was wholly overshadowed by his wife, a formidable woman who ran our church Sunday School like a general and was not afraid to step on toes as a crusading member of the local school board.

But he was loved. Our old church was filled to the rafters today, by people saying goodbye. Amos’ only granddaughter stood up to give a tearful and moving eulogy. She told how, in her last phone call to him, she had thanked him for the wonderful heritage he had left them, and then had felt ridiculous because nobody in her generation ever talks about “heritage.”

The pastor gave a simple, solid gospel sermon, saying that Amos had made his work easy, because he had been sure where he was going. Even my brother Moloch, who drove up from Iowa, was impressed with the sermon.

I was more deeply moved than I expected to be. I think I was mourning more than Cousin Amos. I was mourning my own parents, and a part of my life, and a way of living that is passing forever. The town isn’t the same, and farming isn’t the same. Even Norwegian Lutherans aren’t the same. And we are the poorer for it in many ways.

But I’m grateful for my heritage too. And, if nothing else, I also know where I’m going.

Inspired in part by the 1988 children’s book, The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree, by Gloria Houston, and in part by the author herself, the folks of Spruce Pine, North Carolina, are remaking themselves after a few years of job loss. They hope to become “the home of the perfect Christmas tree.”

Gloria Houston donated the rights to her book to the city of Spruce Pine and suggested they take up the new holiday theme. In response, the town’s people are making holiday decorations.

Reporter Kathy Kiely of USA TODAY states: “These aren’t amateur holiday fair items: The curvilinear red, green and walnut Carolina ‘snowflakes’ hanging at the White House are the creations of Billie Ruth Sudduth, a basket weaver whose work is displayed at the juried Smithsonian craft show. The White House trees also feature handblown glass ornaments by Virgil Jones, whose work is on display in galleries in Asheville, N.C.”

The town has the attention of the first lady as well. “This is a very wonderful American story,” Laura Bush said. “They all worked together, the people in the town, to figure out a new industry for themselves, and they came up with making these wonderful ornaments.”