Milly Morris-Amos, Reece Amos and Cindy Brown recently visited Milly’s son and their brother, Reg Amos, and took a Courier with them to Fremont, Calif., to visit Reg’s Square Mile Studio. The studio contains large exhibits made for businesses to display their products at conventions.

The Ottumwans also toured the San Jose Museum of Art where Reg had an exhibit on display, “Hand Tokens.” He serves on the boards of directors of The Hans Breder Foundation and also the California Media Development Initiative. A collection of his work is housed in the permanent intermediate archives at the Ottman Museum in Dortmund, Germany.

Reece also told us that he had a great time riding the Amtrak, playing games and cards with other passengers on the train. Some he is corresponding with now.

Sounds like a great trip.

And speaking of Milly, she told some of us gals a very funny story last week when we met at Roe’s restaurant to celebrate Sue Parrish’s birthday. We had just got seated at the table when she related that her Kitty Cat is very smart and now knows to do No. 1 in the bathroom stool. Well, that whetted our appetites!

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Thanks to Santa and Mrs. Claus for making the birthday party a merry one. Wayne and Margaret Fisher of rural Blakesburg helped out!

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And speaking of Milly, one of Ottumwa’s local historians, she’s made magnets and bookmarkers featuring the Canteen Lunch in the Alley. They were to go on sale today at the Canteen and at O’Hara Hardware.

She’s attached a note to the back of the magnets stating that she is not an artist. She is an historian and writer. Three years ago, she printed a painted picture of the Canteen for her friends and tucked them inside their Christmas cards. They encouraged her to make and sell them. This year, she has.

That Milly, she’s always up to something!

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A week from today it will be Christmas Eve, and two weeks from tomorrow it will be 2009.

Didn’t it seem like just the other day when we were celebrating the turn of the century?

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