There are few celebrities whose death would touch my heart, but the loss of Dolly Parton today has done just that.

Growing up in my home state of Tennessee, she earned every accolade she received. More importantly, she gave of herself and her resources to help others. When flood waters tore through Gatlinburg and other East Tennessee towns, Dolly donated untold thousands of dollars to help her neighbors recover. Her lasting legacy is her devotion to helping children through her Imagination Library that sends books every month to kids from birth to five years.

Inspired by her father’s inability to read and write Dolly started her Imagination Library in 1995 for the children within her home county. Today, her program spans five countries and gifts millions of free books each month to children around the world. Over 300 million books have been given away. This is her quote about what inspired her to start this program:

“When I was growing up in the hills of East Tennessee, I knew my dreams would come true. I know there are children in your community with their own dreams. They dream of becoming a doctor or an inventor or a minister. Who knows, maybe there is a little girl whose dream is to be a writer and singer.

The seeds of these dreams are often found in books and the seeds you help plant in your community can grow across the world.”

A strong Jesus-believing Christian, I’m confident she’s in heaven with Jesus, probably teaching the angels how to sing country praise songs, and I’m sure Jesus is clapping along.

She will be missed.

One of my bucket list items has always been to photograph sports, especially football games. A good friend from church, Nate Pino, is the head coach of the Rio Rancho High School Rams football team. He made my dream come true last year when he got me a field pass to shoot photos at their home games. He was gracious to get me another pass this year.

Their first game was last Friday night against one of the power house teams in the state, Las Cruces. Rio Rancho lost, but it was only 14-7. Just a few small changes on some plays and it might have been a great upset.

I took over 200 photos and culled them down to 97 photos which were processed to get what I call a Sports Illustrated look (hopefully). Then I uploaded them to my Flickr account. After each game I send the link to my account to Nate and he sends it out to the parents. They can download photos of their sons and daughters (band and cheerleaders) if they want.

It’s a lot of fun for me and fun to be around these young people.

Muscle cars in 1970. I couldn’t afford them then …

Walt Disney was prophetic …

Sadly, this is me …

Cold porridge, no thanks …

Bah dum, bah dum, bah dum ….

There’s a lot in Hobby Lobby to see …

This is funny …

I love Coles Law …

But you get 8 pieces of raccoon …

I would never do this to Betty …

Be safe. Stay with the Hostess Cupcakes …

Life is popular …

They are little demons and especially love Betty …

None of my family is annoying, at least most of the time …

I’m glad because it was hard to be sure who was who …

Dad, learned from Wikipedia I guess ….

I never caught a fish big enough for a pose …

…to ask Jesus to put a Yodel in your soul!

https://videopress.com/v/SmFNcZTI?resizeToParent=1&cover=1&autoPlay=0&controls=1&loop=0&muted=0&persistVolume=1&playsinline=0&preloadContent=metadata&sbc&sbpc&sblc&useAverageColor=1

Green Chiles are harvested in August and September. Our local Corrales farmers market, Wagners Farms, grow their Chiles South of Albuquerque. Betty and I went to the market last Tuesday, bought a sack of Chiles, and had them roasted.

This short video shows our Chile process each year. Unfortunately, we couldn’t capture the smell of roasting Chiles which is great.

We add Green Chiles to a lot of our foods, scrambled eggs, macaroni and cheese, enchilada casserole, Chile cheese toast, hamburgers, etc., etc. They are a New Mexico staple that we’ve grown to love.