BLC Memorial Blog

  Milt and Debbie’s New house was developing nicely when Barbara was beginning to have troubles with bouts of diarrhea, nothing too serious, and it could be controlled with Metamucil. On consultations with the Doctor the Metamucil was recommended. I am sure that it was thought of as a case of a little bad food and it would soon correct itself.  The condition persisted through 2017. Some time in 2018 Barbara got a thorn in her finger and it appeared to be becoming infected. She consulted a Doc-in-the-Box Physician at an Urgent Care, who gave her an antibiotic injection that seemed to escalate the diarrhea to a point that it was a little more of a concern.  I had found a Caribbean Cruise that was featuring Featherweight Singer Sewing Machines and encouraged Vicki and Barbara to sign up as each had Featherweight Singers. They took the cruise even though Barbara was somewhat  concerned about the diarrhea but made it through without trouble. In 2019 Barbara went with our ...

After selling the Meridian property, Barbara and I had been living in a house we had bought in Nampa, Idaho.  We had spent three years there and had remodeled the house to suit us, but we found living in town had its drawbacks. The drug dealers who lived across the street were certainly part of our dissatisfaction. We started looking for a place with a little space. We looked North, South, East, and West, and finally found one South of Melba.  We looked it over carefully and did some thinking about what we could do with it.  We drove out one evening to see what night lights were like, and we discovered we could see the stars.  Magnificent dark sky and very few yard lights.   10 acres were a little more than we wanted, but the dark sky and few yard lights hooked us. Plus, Barbara fell in love with the view of the Owyhees from the patio. We have since spent many times watching the mountains and how they change with the angle of the sunlight and the time of ye...

I was injured in a car accident in 1973. The incident happened at our Lake Hazel property. I had stopped at the mailbox, which sat across the road from our driveway, and I pulled across the road without looking for traffic. I got T-Boned by a neighbor from a couple  of miles west with force enough to throw my Saab coop, with me in it, into the field next door. The pictures in the paper showed  my car which was a crumpled mess. For that matter so was I!   I had thirteen broken ribs, fortunately none pierced the lungs. Recovery was going to take some time. Barbara was my life saver.  Not only did she take up the crucible of taking care of basically an invalid, but she knew immediately that she was going to have to be the breadwinner for a considerable time. She saw an advertisement in the paper for postal carriers and with the encouragement from Grandpa Cochrane, she took the exam and got an offer of a job as a substitute rural carrier which she gladly took.  Barb...

When we arrived in Portland, Grandpa Cochrane (my father) met us at the airport. I realize now what an imposition that was.  Nehalem, Oregon, is at least a two hour drive from the Portland airport, and the terminal is on the west side of Portland. So he had to negotiate Portland traffic twice. I am sure he grumbled and I do not blame him, but it was good to see him and my Mother again. In a few days we had bought a car and headed to Idaho.  Unfortunately we found the house in Middleton had been treated badly and had a big clean up job to do. I do not remember details about the renter, but besides running a Cock Fighting Scheme,  he had knocked holes in the wall and doors in the bedrooms.  I don’t think we ever tried to  live there again.  We settled in a small house in Meridian owned by my parents until we could purchase five acres south of Meridian on Lake Hazel road from my brother Jim and began to build a new home for the family.   We had a tra...

Traditionally, teachers in the United States start looking for their year’s employment a few months in advance, and the time had for us to make some decisions. Either we were going to stay in Kenya or head back home to Idaho. Barbara and I were greatly concerned about how staying in Kenya would ultimately affect the lives of our children.  I had been offered a job at a Secondary School somewhere south of Nairobi which seemed a bit strange, as I personally had not applied or even visited the school. After mulling it over we decided to go back Home. I had left my teaching job in Boise with a Leave of Absence, so I did have a job if I wanted it. I am sure the Boise School administration never expected me to return.   We planned our return trip through Europe, wanting to visit as many countries as possible. The Airline ticket provided layovers en route, so we had the agent start out with Israel; then Beirut, Lebanon. That was before Lebanon was too unstable and Beirut was a b...

A tale that I want to tell is about a science lesson that I wanted to teach about “Heat Transfer”.  I lectured the class on this principle and demonstrated how you could actually see this happen. I took the class to our house where I had everything set up. Showing them the ice I had carefully collected and the ice cream mixture I proceeded to turn the crank. When the ice cream was frozen, Barbara and I served the product to the students. My lesson was a waste of time. The students were overwhelmed by the  feeling of something cold in their mouths. The comments were “It is Hot” the lesson in heat transfer lost to the sensation of something cold. Many tales of East Africa are left untold but there are tidbits that need to be mentioned, like the open air museum documenting Iron Smelting dating to about 1200 AD and Fort Jesus, in Old Town Mombasa, that the Portuguese started building in 1593 to drive out the Arab Traders.  One interesting tale was about our trip to Dar Es Sal...

Mount Kenya is near the Rift Valley on the Equator and is a volcano neck that towers about 17,000 feet above sea level and the last 1000 feet is hard rock climbing.  Climbing the Mountain had always been of interest to me, and when I heard that a group was organizing, I wanted to be a part of it. A priest who had climbed before was the leader and he had room for me. Winter clothes were absent in our African household, so Barbara quickly cut up a blanket and made me a sweatshirt. The group consisted of six to eight people. The climb strategy consisted of a drive up the mountain to the end of the road and hike to the Climbing Hut at 12,000 feet, where we could rest and acclimate before getting up at 2 AM to make the climb to the 16,000 foot level to catch the sunrise over the Indian ocean.  Many of the group suffered from altitude sickness at the hut and the ascent was yet to come.  At 2 AM we started out with some sick hikers, and the group began to string out.  Altit...

We were not always that fortunate however. During one of Barbara’s visits to Nairobi, our van had it’s window knocked out. A rock the size of a soccer ball laid on the passenger's seat. Barbara and the children had gone to Nairobi for a dental appointment, and riots started after she was in the Dentist office. Thousands of people were roaming the streets and the Vice President was assassinated that day. The dentist’s office was on the second floor and the children remember looking out the window at the street full of people. Dr. Beven had his askari (guards) take charge. Barbara and the children spent the night at Dr. Beven's house, and they had the windows replaced in the van.  I really never knew why Dr. Beven was in Kenya, but we had a good enough friendship that we traded vehicles with him so he had a camper van on a vacation trip with his son.  He had also been a professor at the University of Idaho at one time, so we had the U of I in common. His helping Barbara and...

Closing the story of East Africa should not be done without talking about all the great tourist sites that the family visited. National parks were high on the list. The Great Rift Valley, Ambroseli, Aberdares, Masai Mara,Tsavo, Meru, and we haven't begun to talk about WildLife. The Great Rift Valley extends north and south through Kenya, the Eastern side of the African Continent,  and is a geological wonder. Just driving down the road in the escarpment is an exciting experience in itself when you realize that you are seeing where two continental land masses have smashed together some time in the past history of the earth.   Amboseli is where Barbara traded tin can lids for a picture of her with four Masi women. That was significant because the Natives at that time believed that having their picture taken took away part of their lives, and yet tin can lids were worth the chance. The Aberdares is where the Commer, our van, could not make it up the hi...