When I was three years old my family moved into a house that was just one block from the beach.  Every evening during the summer months our Grandma, who lived with us, would take my sisters and I on a walk after supper.  We would push our doll buggies and our favorite dolls that one block to the sand where we would watch the sun sink into the Pacific Ocean.  And then we would push our buggies back home, take baths, and go to bed.  It was our nightly ritual.  To this day I still have salt water in my veins.  The sand, the ocean, salt water, the cry of seagulls, and collecting sea shells, are a large part of my childhood memories.  

Which explains why at Shiloh you will find a special collection of seashells from the Oregon Coast and other coastal places where we have wandered over these many years.  Today we washed those seashells.  It's all part of our annual Spring housecleaning.  An amazing amount of Harmattan grit and grime was washed away.  But the memories can never be washed away.  I carry them in my heart forever.