Cardinals fall to So. St. Paul, 4-2

Photos courtesy KSTC. Captions to come from Cub Reporter Tom Obert. 

Girl's hockey state tournament

Tom - send captions. 

Alexandria Girls Hockey takes to state ice

 

Erc Aga and The Kids Committee

KXRA's Ercel Aga and his Kids Committee radio show in 1957. Girls, left to right: Janis Kain, Gretchen Obert and Kay Olson; Boys, left to right: Jon Klein, Dave Susag & Jon Ording, all from the Class of '67.
(Tom Obert submitted photo, Patty Wicken -- identification)

Dear Troublemaker,

(The Trailboss received the following urgent email from Sara Smith Sevey, shortly after innocently posting a challenge to fellow classmates in the form of a question buried in the story about Harland and Carolyn Hoffland below. I guess the contest is over, now that Sara has revealed the answer to the question and made denials that she is, in fact, some one special. -- Trailboss)

Dear Trouble Maker!!!

Here I am sitting in California minding my own business and wham!!! As I said I did date Har in high school and asked David to a Sadie Hawkins dance in junior high - they were super guys then and still are. As for naming their daughters Sara, I'm extremely complimented, HOWEVER. . . I don't know about Har's daughter but David's is spelled Sarah and most Sara's have a thing about the spelling - at least this one does - so TM, chalk this up to coincidence and the fact that Sara(h) is a cyclical name and stop getting me in trouble.

Sara

Cash cab

Last September while stolling the streets of Manhattan near Times Square, we came upon this scene. We thought somebody was shooting a commercial for a taxi cab company or something, so we stopped, gawked and took a picture or two. Now, after watching the Discovery Channel, we figured out that they must have been shooting the opening credits for Cash Cab, the game show that takes place inside a New York taxi. Kathleen and I have watched it a few times and it is a fun show, if you like trivia. Unassuming people enter the "Cash Cab" as simple passengers taking a normal taxi ride, only to be shocked when they discover that they’re instant contestants. Ben Bailey, above, the host and driver of Cash Cab, then offers them the following proposition:
The Cash Cab will drive you all the way to your destination and ask you general knowledge questions along the way. The questions start out on the easy side, then get harder along the way – the harder the question, the more money it’s worth. The first four questions are worth $25 for each correct answer. The next four are worth $50 and then every question after that is worth $100.. -- Trailboss

This is as close as we got to a coyote

Arizona's critters are legion and so are the horror stories of how they will eat your dog. It seems every time we turned around there was a threat: javelina packs, cougars, hawks, backyard bobcats, rattlesnakes, fence-leaping coyotes. Every resident has a tale, it would seem, and they relish telling it, capping each legend with a headshake and a word to the wise: "Don't let your little dog off the leash or leave her alone, not even for a minute." We were grateful for the warnings, even classmates Bonesteel and O'Brien filed them and believe me, we heeded them. But then comes the story about the couple who were walking their dachshund and a big owl came swooping down and snatched away the yelping pup, taking leash and all. My God! We are just grateful to have our dog home safe and sound, where, when she goes outside for business, the biggest threat is mild frost bite to her little bottom. -- Trailboss (Pictured above is Kathleen in a $2 Meade, KS, museum. We stopped because we couldn't stand the long, straight road any longer without a sanity break.)

Talking Old Times in Old Town

By Stan Rolfsrud, Trailboss

You can't get much closer in an alphabetical seating arrangement than Hoffman -- Hoffland so it is not surprising that Diane and Harland got to know each other pretty well over the years in the Alexandria school system. What is surprising is that the pair is still trading lead -- most recently at the class reunion, though Diane says she only stabbed Harland by accident when he turned toward her suddenly.

Harland knew exactly what I was talking about when I brought up the pencil-poking feud that has simmered for over 45 years now, but his only comment was that he was just surprised no one has yet suffered lead poisoning.

I let the subject drop, there were so many other things to cover. Like Miltona's David Serie dating Harland's future wife, Carolyn Wright.

Harland and Carolyn moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, around 1987. He'd been working for Cowing-Robards in Alexandria and took an opportunity for a new job and has been here since. They love it.

Kathleen and I were driving back from Arizona last weekend, slicing diagonally through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and the rest. After a hard day on the trail, we looked forward to a rendezvous in Albuquerque Thursday night. We met the Hofflands at La Hacienda in Albuquerque's old town, an authentic quarter with a town square, cathedral, Native American street merchants and tons of atmosphere.

The food was authentic Mexican. Plenty of hot stuff. We enjoyed carnitas and sopaipillas and flan, washed down with margaritas and Dos Equis.We laughed a lot as our hosts related stories and answered questions. Here are some details we learned:

*Harland and Carolyn go "up north" in New Mexico and enjoy the outdoors in a beautiful setting near a river.
*Once a year Harland goes fishing in Canada.
*Harland used to go ice fishing on Lake Mary with math teacher Morris Butler.
*Harland entered the Army after a stray dog crossed his path and he flew over the handlebars of his motorcycle, breaking the hands he needed to continue on in drafting school and thereby losing his IIS deferment.
*Harland always knew that David Serie had once dated his wife, Harland and Carolyn had their first date at Dave's sister's house in Miltona 41 years ago on Feb. 11. Only recently Harland learned that David Serie had also dated a fellow classmate from the Class of 1965. Who was that classmate? Here's a clue: Both David and Harland now have daughters with her first name. Honest.
*Harland's grandchildren are trying to teach him to golf after his first attempt at the reunion last summer.
*Both Harland and Carolyn had Erling Rolfsrud for English.

The time flew by and we had to head north in the morning, where the temperature was colder than Albuquerque. It was indeed chilly in New Mexico too, but there was no snow.

"Did you notice that there weren't any mosquitoes?" chided Harland. "And tell Obert there actually is water in New Mexico."

That very well may be, Harland, but the only water we ever saw in The Land of Enchantment was in the glass we used to chase the hot chili.

Photos: Top photo, Harland, Carolyn, Kathleen, Stan; middle photo, Grandpa Harlan brought pictures to show, this one of the grandkids at a driving range trying to teach grandpa how to swing; bottom photo: our photographer and hot chili server

True stories about Dave Harris

By John Herdan
Correspondent

Ok, since Dave Harris is in the news on our web site, it's time for a Dave Harris true story. This really happened!

Dave Harris and Tom Savegeau were broadcasting an Alexandria hockey game back in the days before the indoor arena at the fairgrounds. Dave and Tom would broadcast the game at Noonan's park from the top of a snowbank next to the rink standing in the midst of the crowd. Between periods they would broadcast from inside their car doing the stats while they warmed up. One particularly cold day there was actually a pretty good sized crowd and everyone stood elbow to elbow bundled up tight. Between periods when they got in the car to do the stats Dave commented on the size of the crowd. Tom replied, "Yes, Dave. I don't know if you noticed, but the coach's wife was standing right next to you." Then Dave says,"Oh really, I didn't recognize her with her clothes on."

Do you know what a cough button is? That's a little button you can push that shuts your microphone off so you can cough. Both Dave and Tom dived for their cough buttons and held them down so long the radio station thought they'd gone off the air. Fortunately they were able to recover long enough to finish the game.

How do I know all this?
In 1978-79 I worked as a realtor and substitute teacher in Alex. I was also hired to direct the pep band all winter including hockey (only boys back then). The night of the first home game it rained and Tom Savegeau got frozen into his garage. I happened to sit down in the seat where Tom would have been since it was the best seat in the house. Dave motioned to me to put on the headsets so I could hear his broadcast. The next thing I know he asks me a question about the game and I hear myself answering. Whatever I said must have been somewhat intellegent because the next day they offered me the job doing color commentary on all of the out of town games. The rest is history.

The worst place in the world to broadcast from is St. Cloud. The booth sits up in the corner at a 45 degree angle and you have a great view of one end but that's it. Fergus Falls was the coldest and Brainerd was the most dangerous as a puck took out one of our students who was sitting right behind us. That was the first time Dave left me alone with the mic and said "I'll be back when I find out how she is." Took him 20 minutes, the longest 20 minutes of my life.

As a reward for my broadcasting I got free tickets for the first day of the state tournament that year. As it turns out our seats were two rows behing Cheryl Tiegs who was in town to hype the switch of KSTP to the ABC network. She's really tall!!!!

I was just in contact with Dave this week since he is still the Region Secretary for the Minnesota State High School League and he hires me occasionally. I don't know if you knew that his son died this fall. I know he's had a tough time dealing with it. Dave is a real first class guy and one of the people I love to run into when I'm in Alex.

Early 50s party

John Helgeson, Russ Bey, Gretchen Obert, Sara Smith; back row, Margaret Linser, John Seim, Tom Obert, Mary Jo Simonson. 

Cardinal fever at KXRA too, Harris says

The blog received a note today from Dave Harris, KXRA-AM Sports Director & Retired Alexandria Teacher, 1965 - 1999. Harris did not admit to broadcasting any complaints about the referees in the Friday night clash with Totino (see Obert's report, below) but he did offer use of his own web site for any of you who just can't get enough Cardinal sports:

Stan:

Since I have been getting so much publicity in Tom Obert's reports on the Alexandria alumni page, I thought it only fair to let everyone know that they can follow Alexandria Cardinal sports every day on the internet. Just go to

www.kxra.com

Click on sports and then pick the day you want to hear. Follow the links to hear a daily report of all Cardinal activities. We have a week's worth of shows on the site at all times. The show is called "Cardinal Sports Report." A show is left on the page for a week, then recorded over the following week. They usually run from 5 to 8 minutes. We have interviews of coaches, players and yours truly, Dave Harris.


Shows run from the 1st of September until the 1st of June, nine months, a full school year. Turn it on and hear what's happening in all of the sports.

Tom Obert will keep you updated on the Girls Hockey team. He talks about them every morning, as does Bob Annen, when my wife, Evie, and I see them every morning walking at the MALL of ALEXANDRIA, or on the golf course just about every day of the week from April to October.

Thanks.

Dave Harris

(Thank you Dave. And yes. We know about Obert. Slightly over the top occasionally. But he's our Tom and we're sticking with him. Go Cardinals!)

State Tournament here we come!

Senior co-captain Brittney Bruzek is holding the trophy, senior co-captain Ahna Olson is lying at her feet

What a night!
or how the cub reporter learned, at the age of 58, he can still jump (though, granted, not very high).

By Tom Obert
Cub Columnist
Approximately half way through the SECOND overtime last night, Sara Toft, who with twin sister Andrea was also celebrating her 18th birthday, scored the winning goal to beat Totino-Grace, 3 - 2, to win the section 2, class A, girls hockey championship at the MAC in St. Cloud. The Cardinals will now make their 3rd consecutive appearance in the state tournament at the Xcel Center next weekend (I believe their games will be Friday and Saturday).

The setup: All week long, Cardinal sports announcer Dave Harris had been creating unnecessary angst for cub reporter-in-training Bob Annen by telling him Totino was awesome. They had two college division 1 prospects - a tall, fast center who proved to be every bit as good as advertised, and a defenseman who appeared to be about 6'9" and who never came off the ice. Of course, all this fed the pre-conceived notions of we outstate Minnesotans that the camel hair coat, cashmere sweater metro-area private schools (description by cub reporter-in-training and past Honeywell executive, though the cub reporter himself will admit to a similar bias) "employ" mercenaries on all their athlete teams against our home-grown, pinked-cheeked, apple pie and lemonade kids.

Nevertheless, the omens all week appeared to be good. Our girls basketball team won on a night the Alexandria Aces performed at halftime, the boys swimming and diving team completed an undefeated season with the conference championship, our boys basketball team beat Rocori (the No. 2 ranked team in the state) and won again Thursday, and our boys hockey team won at St. Cloud Tech (no minor accomplishment). This cub reporter felt good about our prospects.

On the advice of Mr. Harris, our caravan departed for the game wearing the same attire as had been worn for the semi-final game and with the idea of obtaining the same seats (which we did).

The moms told us before the game that the girls were very nervous - trying to get back to the state tournament for the 11 seniors with their best team. Probably because of that nervousness, they seemed very tight through most of the first period and were probably lucky to escape that period with a scoreless tie.

The pace picked up in the second period and Alex emerged with a 2 - 1 lead, with goals by one of the Toft sisters and Ashley Holmes, heading into the final period. The Cards maintained that lead well into the third period when they were hit with a "frivolous" (that isn't the word we used at the time, but this is family friendly blog site) too many men on the ice penalty. Totino took advantage of that power play to score the tying goal. Nevertheless, throughout the game and the two overtime periods, sophomore Danielle Justice was spectacular in goal.

The first overtime, and then the second, exhausted players and spectators alike. When Sara finally scored the winning goal, bedlam broke out on the ice and in the stands. The cub reporter, in a total failure at maintaining professional dignity, found himself jumping up and down with and hugging classmate Bud Bruzek, and high-fiving parents all around. The girls on the ice collapsed in the corner in a pile of jubilation and tears. The cub reporter regrouped to try to capture as much of this as he could on film.

We returned to Alex driven by the cub reporter-in-training, who initially thought it would be a grand idea (well, all of us did), to follow the Alex buses home. The buses got lost somewhere in a St. Cloud subdivision, but we eventually found our way home by midnight. The cub reporter and Ruthie were dropped at Mom Obert's to pick up their car where we discovered the following note stuck on the windshield by Mom: "What a game! Go Cardinals!

I guess the refs were terrible, but WE WON!" Apparently Mr. Harris was expressing some exasperation about the officiating over the air (probably something to do with our paranoia over metro-area favoritism). Abby William's mom told us during the game that she was going to write a letter to someone in authority - she was quite upset that Abby was tripped, tackled, and otherwise maimed throughout the game without any penalities being called. But . . . we won and will move on.

Photos: Right after winning the game - Ruthie (photo, bottom left), in spite of her Hoosier basketball genes, she has become quite the fan, and with Vivian, does all the cheers and belts out the Cardinal fight song; in the photo above, Sara (19) and Andrea (44) Toft, on their 18th birthday, talk with Echo Press photographer Arlan Anderson - in the background, Dave Harris (in red) is interviewing Coach Mitch Loch.

Minnesota bound

Trailboss says it's time to pack up and go home. Mrs. Trailboss eager. Weather reports sketchy. Hoover not worried.

Sports update

By the way. . .

Tom Obert
Cub columnist
It's also only fair to report that our boys basketball team is having an excellent year. If the girls hockey team had not had that big tournament game, the big game of the year was last night in the JHS gymnasium where the Cards beat Rocori, 55 - 53. Rocori was the undefeated conference leader prior to last night and had badly beaten our guys at their place earlier in the year. The Cards are now 10 - 4 in the conference (in 3rd place) and, I believe, 14 - 5 overall. As usual, this year's team has no size (we get killed on the boards) but also as usual has a lot of quickness - if their shooting game is on, they can score a lot of points (88 against Bemidji earlier this week). Our major problem in following the basketball guys is that the temp in the JHS gym generally runs about 95 dgrees so you feel you have to wear shorts and a t-shirt in the middle of winter.

Follow-up: Totino Grace beat Mound Westonka 7 -1, so we will play Totino. For the record, Alex beat Mound Westonka 6 - 1 earlier in the year. So it looks like the high school league did a pretty good job of throwing a road block in our path (Totino is new to our section) for the state tourney! As a further slight, the on-line Strib (haven't seen the paper yet) had everything reversed on the Alex game last night - had Abby playing for Hutch, had Hutch winning 4 - 1, and had Hutch outshooting us 52- 17. Sheeesh, no respect!!
=========

Note to blog regulars: sports coverage will drop off the next three days as the trailboss hits the trail back to Minnesota. He's enjoyed his time in the sun, but all good things. On the way back, he'll stop and visit with Harland and Carolyn Hoffland to get a full and unbiased report on New Mexico, and also settle some ancient matters. Watch this space. In the meantime, we've promoted the cub reporter to cub columnist as he seems to find it impossible to keep from injecting his personal opinion into any and all transmissions.

Trailboss

Win tonight means one to go for Cardinal girls

By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter
It didn't take long tonight.
The Cardinal girls hockey team took on the Hutchinson Tigers in a section 2A semi-final at the MAC in St. Cloud. We had barely settled into our seats after the national anthem when Abby Williams scored 26 seconds into the game.
Abby went on to also score the next two goals, thus completing a natural hat trick, and the Toft sisters, Sara and Andrea, combined to score the final goal as the Cards won 4 - 1.

The final score was not indicative of the Cards dominance as they outshot Hutch 52 - 17. The Cards will play the winner of the Totino Grace - Mound Westonka Friday night at the MAC, the winner to advance to the state tournament at the Xcel Center the following weekend.
We fully expect to provide full coverage of the game. In attendance at tonight's game were fellow classmates Bud Bruzek and Sue Graves Seltz - and Bud introduced us to the son of one of our ex-teachers, Ted Lohrman.
Bud had a long lens camera (maybe the cub reporter can latch onto some of his photos, for Bud has finally read the '65 blogsite's coverage of the Cards), realizing that each game could now be daughter Brittney's last.
We are also aware of this "sudden death" status now for each of the team's 11 seniors and are trying to track their respective matriculations. It appears that Brittney will be heading to St. Thomas, primarily to play softball (Bud said Brittney, along with fellow senior hockey players Tiffany Zacher and Michaela Carlson, are the stars of the softball team) but hockey may also be a consideration. The Toft sisters apparently will be taking their skills to Augsberg. And Ahna Olson is considering Bethel, among others, though it is not known if hockey is in her future.

Some sweetheart deal for Ruth. . .

Duty calls on V Day
By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter
As some of you may realize, next Tuesday is considered to be some sort of celebration of boy/girl relationships. Worse, for the cub reporter it is also his 5th wedding anniversary - and wedding anniversaries in Alexandria have always meant a fine dining experience at the corner table in the library of Old Broadway.

This year, however, a whole bunch of girls have thrown a monkey wrench into the works.

This afternoon, the Alex girls hockey team began defense of its 2-year reign as champions of section 2, hopefully enroute to its third straight state tournament appearance. After a slow start, the No. 1 seeded Cards scored 3 goals late in the second period to take a 4 - 0 lead over Litchfield -Dassel -Cokato into the third period. The final period was a continuation of their fine play at the end of the second, and they finished the game with a 7 - 0 victory.

Once again, our Bud Bruzek's Brittney had two goals (she's been on quite a roll lately), Abby Williams had yet another short-handed goal as she went end-to-end, Ashley Holmes had two goals, including a blast of a slap shot from the blue line (Abby calls Ashley their "power forward"), Andrea Toft had a goal, the 7th goal was scored by Ahna Olson, back from her knee injury in the Bemidji game. Sophomore goalie Danielle Justice "pitched" the shutout.

So the Cards now move on to the section semi-finals which will be played . . . next Tuesday, of course.

Keeping in mind my responsibilities as a cub reporter, Ruthie will now have the honor of receiving an all-expenses paid anniversary trip to St. Cloud for a high school girls hockey game. That must put her in some sort of elite minority, n'est-ce pas?
p.s. Although they will not be the next opponent, cub reporter-in-training, Bob Annen, was extremely upset when he discovered that the high school league put Totino-Grace in our section this year - believing it's just another effort to have only metro-area schools in the state tournament. Just another obstacle for our Cards to overcome - see everybody in two weeks at the "X"?

Addendum on Brittney Bruzek:
Brittney has become one of our favorite players this year. That shouldn't embarrass her father, Bud, because we've already told him so. She has had a terrific senior year and is a perfect complement to her two more notorious sophomore linemates, Abby Williams and Kathryn Del Zoppo, who have both played in state all-star games since they were 8th graders.
Brittney has a great feel for the game, always seems to be in the right place at the right time, is probably the team's best passer, and is her line's mucker (the one who does the dirty work) - she is always working in the corners and along the boards, usually trying to fend off two opposition players, and all the while Abby stands about 3 feet away from the scrum waiting for Brittney to get the puck out to her (we say she's like a cat waiting for a mouse to come out) so she can take off at about a hundred miles an hour.

The Frengs

Photo by Tom Obert

Obert delivers on promise to photograph Frengs; interview later
Tom writes with glee: Yup, finally caught up with the Frengs last night at a Kevin Roth concert in the JHS gymnasium. This was after a long day of unsuccessfully trying to find the Alexandria Aces at the Gopher women's basketball game and then dashing back home to Alex for the evening concert. I discovered Murrae Freng fled Alexandria in 1965 (he couldn't take it any longer after our class) only to return 20 years later after retiring from the Minnesota State High School League. We have yet to have a sit down coffee, so my bio of him is limited.

Otters fall, Cards are Central Lakes champs!

Photo by Tom Obert


















Jubilant Cardinals celebrated conference victory. Seniors played in their last regular season game last night.

By Tom Obert
Cub Reporter, Die-hard Fan
Last night, on the last game of the regular season and senior night, the Alexandria high school girls hockey team defeated the Fergus Falls Otters (as some of you from the class of '65 may recall, our homecoming slogan that year was "Fergus Otter Fall" - we were an incredibly witty class!) by the score of 4 - 1, thereby winning for the first time ever, the championship of the Central Lakes Conference.

Never mind those earlier erroneous reports
Previous reports of this championship turned out to be erroneous as the cub reporter was misled by the voice of the Cardinals, Dave Harris, who would have never lived it down if the Cards had not prevailed tonight. As it turned out, the Cards lost their only conference game earlier in the week to River Lakes when several Cardinal players were battling illnesses, and St. Cloud Tech won its last two games - so the Cards had to win tonight to win the championship. Anyway, the cub reporter is pulling double duty tonight - reporting for both the class of '65 blogsite and for KXRA, at the request of Patty [Bratton] Wicken, who will be on the air at 6:00 am tomorrow.

Tears
Patty was at the game tonight as the announcer for senior night - in a darkened arena, each senior skated one at a time to a center ice spotlight where Patty read a hockey bio of each player written by the player's parents. Needless to say, when the ceremony was completed, there was not a dry eye on the team.

Patty sat with us for the first period and noted the Cardinals unusually flat performance in that period was probably the result of emotions spent during the ceremony. The first period ended 0 - 0, with Fergus probably having the better of the play.
The second period started much the same way as the first and the local fans were starting to get concerned. Here's where the cub reporter's aging memory proves to be a problem. As I recall, about halfway through the period, senior forward Michaela Carlson scored our first goal on a power play. That seemed to open the flood gates because we scored our next three goals in short order to take a 4 - 0 lead - one of the goals was by the senior Toft twins, Andrea and Sara, one had the goal, the other the assist, but which one had which I don't recall; superstar sophomore Abby Williams scored one of the goals on an end-to-end run; and, unfortunately, I can't remember who got the other goal.

Only score a giveaway
Fergus scored late in the period on a giveaway by our guys deep in our own end. The 4 - 1 score remained unchanged through the final period - at which time the cub reporter bolted down to the ice, camera in hand, to take the attached photos. See if you can find the Toft twins - they're identical.

Filling in the gaps: Sara Toft had 2 goals in the game; Abby, all 5-feet tall of her, wears pinks laces in her skates because she thinks it makes her look tough; my sources tell me Kat Del Zoppo has a lime green dress for Mid-Winter; the same source advised that in the first year of Alex girls hockey (only 7 or 8 years ago?), they scored one goal, ONE, in the ENTIRE SEASON - he said they were so shocked when it happened, they didn't know what to do or how to celebrate it - that's what's been so fun about being in the ground floor of a new sport, in just three years as a fan, there has been not only tremendous improvement by our team but also by the teams they're playing.

Dave Harris said that he and Wicken had talked about the support of certain "diehard fans" on KXRA the previous morning. Apparently, that airtime and previous promotional efforts by the cub reporter were enough to attract a pretty good crowd for tonight's game. We hope it continues into the sectional tournament which begins next week - but first, we have a scrimmage this Saturday against New Ulm, the hometown of fellow diehard fan, Bob Annen, so I guess we'll be there, camera and notepad in hand.

In the courtyard at Jefferson, early 60s

Were the tie thinner, it would be a bolo.
Obert has been digging through old boxes, found this gem. Lorlee, I don't think it qualifies for your scanning project, but it is close. Tom is walking Kathy Sherry in this photo. Not sure why, the courtyard didn't go anywhere.


Tom Obert writes in his defense:
Even worse than a bolo, I'm pretty sure the tie was a clip-on! That may have been my one and only venture into the courtyard - as you say, it didn't go anywhere. For the record, the photo was taken by a photographer for the Minneapolis Tribune - allegedly to be used in the Sunday magazine story about my dad, the small town editor who would NEVER move to the big city. Of course, a couple years later the whole famn damily was off to Washington, D.C. Cubbie

Snowfall in Minnesota

This contribution from Bev Roers Korkowski entitled "Snowfall" is gratefully acknowledged. The question is, when Obert takes these winterwonderland photos for Harlan Hoffland and the other sunbelters, usually he gets out as far as the deck with the camera. Put on your galoshes, Bev, and get with nature.

Bev responds:
Hey Stan: I need to defend my actions!! The only reason I didn’t take those pix outside, and believe me, there were some great ones out there waiting, was that I was on my way out for the entire day, running behind, and the full daylight had just emerged.


I knew that if I didn’t take them at all, the snow would be diminished by day’s end, and I wanted to send some pix to my little grandkids in Florida. So that’s the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth!! J

Could be a Costa's, Boneseteel opines

The new picture brought a new guess from Sandi Pennar Bonesteel:

As far as the hummingbird, I still want to say/guess Costa's (female--according to books and website), and now on looking closer at the plant, believe it is aloe vera. Did you get a chance to check out the website on hummers I sent earlier? AZ has 18 species accounted for (click on AZ hummingbird link), so you can narrow it down a bit going by season as well as locale. Costa's is year round. Some of these are summer visitors, some more rare, some accidental, etc. It is very hard tho, as they'll vary by sex, age, etc. not to mention that they move so fast and if you don't get a front shot it's tough.

I think I mentioned that in the earlier e-mail too, and it has been brought up again by Greg and Sara. Anyway, I am no expert....case in point, I happened to remember that I have a dead hummer in a little box in my freezer. I found it on my patio over 2 years ago, and preserved it for the grandkinds to see. Even though they had seen it, I kept it, as it it is so beautiful, and couldn't bear to throw it in the trash. And now, even tho it's right there in front of me, perfectly preserved, not moving, dead as a doornail, I still can't identify it! LOL I am no good at getting photos up on the web, but maybe can get my daughter to help, and we can get another bet going.

As for the prize?? How about a frozen specimen?