On This Date in 1999 (February 27)

On the weekends, the boys usually get out of bed without any prompting. They typically park their butts on the family room couch around 7 a.m. to watch TV. This morning, though, we all slept in until 8 o’clock. Andy had the best reason for staying in bed. The Tri-County basketball league tournament started yesterday, and Middleton played two games. Eight teams, the best four teams in the two 5th grade leagues, participated. Our guys won their first game, which started at 5:30 against Stoughton, 51-37, whom they had already beaten twice in the regular season, both of them hard-fought victories. If you recall from my previous report, Middleton won the first match-up 31-30 in overtime. In game two last night, Middleton played a Waunakee team from the other league, a small (in height) team with a reputation for scrappiness . It was a very close game until the 4th quarter. Middleton looked very sloppy in the third quarter, turning the ball over 9 (!) times. They weren’t running their plays, just dribbling down the court and taking questionable shots. The final score, 38-27, gives little indication of what an exciting game it was. 

As a result of their two victories yesterday, Middleton will play in the tournament championship today at 1:30. Andy told us on the drive home that one of the players on the Stoughton team told him that, “You guys are gonna go all the way.” If Middleton wins today, their record will be 17-1. They’ll probably be considered one of the favorites going into next weekend’s tournament in Oregon. (The suburb of Madison, not the state. Andy and his teammates haven’t reached that exalted state yet!) 

Our snow cover has disappeared as a result of the rain we received yesterday. Looking out the window to my right, I can see a few very small patches here and there. The sky is gray, making it the kind of day when I consider what household chores I want to tackle. Last weekend JoAnna went through her closet, discarding what many people in this world of ours would consider a lifetime wardrobe. I dropped off two fully packed black garbage bags at the Goodwill donation box before going to work on Monday. Now, I suppose, it’s my turn. There are quite a few clothes in my closet that I haven’t worn in years. 

I’m surprised I didn’t start out today’s portion of the letter with this BIG news. Albert called us last night at 10:45 to announce the birth of Julianna Marie Richard. 7 pounds 9 ounces. 21 inches long. Obviously, she’s already taking after her mother. Cyndi’s doing great. I guess it wasn’t the easiest of deliveries, but they also experienced no complications. JoAnna is especially pleased with the name. I know you’d at least like to send them a card of congratulations, Mom, so here’s their address: 
1936 Dakota Street 
Leavenworth, KS 66048 

JoAnna plans to fly out to Pennsylvania on Easter weekend for the christening. The boys and I have other plans. \

Our vacation to Washington, D.C., has been canceled due to JoAnna’s new job. Since I’ve already taken the week of spring break off, the boys want to do an instant replay of last year. We’ll leave Middleton on Friday afternoon, March 26th, and stay in a motel with all the amenities that the boys enjoy in the South Bend or Fort Wayne area, then arrive in Warren on Saturday afternoon, where we’ll stay through Wednesday. Before returning home, we’ll spend a couple days in Chicago. I wanted us to make the trip to Warren at this time because, our summer schedule, due to the boys’ baseball activities, the Richard family reunion in Louisiana, and Andy’s football practices, already seems to be filled up. 

A headline in today’s New York Times caught my eye as I was paging through it. “6 Doctors Charged in Abuse Of the Mentally Retarded.” The dateline: Franklin, Pa. Must be the Polk State Hospital, I figured, although the news article referred to it as the Polk Center. I immediately recalled a field trip to this institution that took place during my senior year in high school. For some reason, which I could never quite figure out, it was part of our year-end Advanced Biology curriculum. Maybe our teacher, Mr. Walker, wanted to sensitize us to people with disabilities, to those less fortunate than us. Why we had to travel the 60 miles to Franklin instead of a few miles to North Warren is a question, I suppose, that will never satisfactorily be answered. I often wish I had kept a journal during my high school years. I started one in April of 1965 while I was a 9th grader at Beaty and continued it through mid-December of that year. It wasn’t until my sophomore year in college that journal writing became a regular part of my life. I truly regret the fact that I discontinued this practice after eight months. My senior year, especially, would have provided me with a motherlode of material. The only thing I did then was to note briefly on the back of a small Audubon desk calendar what I did socially.

Examples: 
Mike, me, at Mod’s. 
Mike, Mod, Barb, me, Valley of the Dolls. 

For some reason, I didn’t note the trip to Polk. And, for example, even though I noted that I watched the UCLA-Houston NCAA championship basketball game, I didn’t acknowledge the fact that I had invited most of the 4th period, senior-guys lunch table to our house. That was in the days when TV didn’t schedule these sports events to accommodate Eastern Time Zone lifestyles. “Our” tip-off time was 11:00 p.m., which, on this particular night, fit our schedule like a glove. A group of us (BT, Pig, Ears, Squirrel, Mac, Punk, Pat, me) went to see Bonnie and Clyde at the Library Theater and met up with the rest of the gang at a high school dance. Is this late night house party something you remember, Mom? My most prominent memory is that we were making too much noise, even after closing the sliding door we used to have at the landing of the stairs to the second floor.

Is there something about approaching 50 that puts a person in a reminiscent mood? Or does it have to do more with what I read? I have to admit that I enjoy reading the Warren paper on a regular basis, and that many of the articles unlodge long-dormant memories, an example of which I have just shared with you. As much as I enjoy my career as a librarian, I frequently wish I had the time to take a more disciplined approach to writing. 

Later that same day 

What a game!! What an intense game we saw this afternoon!! The fans were as exhausted, as wrung out as the players. 

The championship match-up featured Middleton and Sauk Prairie, the team that tagged us with our only loss of the season. The gym was filled with a crackling electricity even before the opening tip-off. Neither team was in control during the first quarter. After an exchange of three baskets each, the momentum went in Sauk’s favor, our team turning over the ball or making questionable shots. Middleton was down 10-6 at the end of the first quarter. We came alive during the second quarter, Andy helping the cause with an aggressive grab of an offensive rebound and a quick shot off the backboard – just like Mom always tells him to do. At the end of the first half, Middleton led 19-15, the fans in our section of the bleachers on their feet, screaming their approval. The third quarter, though, tested our patience. Each quarter is seven minutes long, and when five minutes had elapsed, the score was still 19-15. Neither team could get the ball anywhere near the basket. Sauk managed to score 2 points in the last minute, so we went into the final quarter with just a two-point lead. Two and a half minutes into the fourth quarter, the score was 21-19, in Sauk’s favor. I could feel drips of sweat running from my armpits down the side of my body. Almost ten minutes and our team hasn’t scored a basket. Are we jinxed on this side of the court? I wondered along with everyone else rooting for Middleton. Suddenly the team caught fire, and Sauk seemed to lose their intensity. Sauk’s big guy (picture someone Andy’s size but 30-40 pounds heavier) got into foul trouble and couldn’t play his usual aggressive style. With Middleton leading 29-25 with less than a minute left, the fans were still nervous. Then out of the blue, there’s Andy on a fast break, five feet from the basket all by himself. Johnny Strnad throws him a half-court pass, which Andy fields smoothly, and lays up an easy two points. In our section of the bleachers, we’re on our feet again. That seals it, we’re all thinking. Sauk turns it over with a travel violation, but then they make it difficult for our guys to inbound the ball. Instead of trying to throw the ball in away from the basket, Johnny breaks toward the basket and Ross throw him a perfect pass. Two more points. Final score 33-25. Middleton scored 6 points in the final minute of the game to seal a hard-earned victory. Looking around the stands, I had to chuckle to myself. Is my face as flushed as the other parents’? We seemed to have more color in our faces than the guys who were running up and down the court for 28 minutes. Everyone talked breathlessly about what an exciting game we had just seen. We were very proud of our boys, especially since two members of the team weren’t able to play, one due to an ankle injury and another to a karate tournament. The coaches had limited substitution opportunities. 

I wish I had a video of this game to send you. I think you’d be amazed at how well a group of 5th graders can play basketball. I’m sure for Andy this has been the most rewarding of his many sports experiences. It certainly has been so for his parents.

Folding laundry has always been an indicator of where I am as a parent. Earlier in the this decade, I would hold up a piece of Andy’s clothing and think, “Look how small this shirt is.” Now I have trouble separating his socks from mine, his sweatshirts from JoAnna’s. Watching your children grow up is certainly a source of mixed emotions. I’m just happy to say, as ridiculously corny as it may sound, a sentiment that Hallmark would probably reject, that I love my boys more with each passing day. And on that note, I’ll conclude this letter.

On This Date in 1998

“The summer is going by so quickly.” I hear this comment frequently -- at the library, at one of the boy’s baseball games, waiting in a check-out line at a store and eavesdropping on a conversation. I look at a calendar and see that the end of July is approaching, that school is just another month away, and am tempted to agree. But then I review what has transpired so far this summer, and the end of the past school year seems remote. On the evening of the last day of school, June 3rd, the boys and I (and Meaghan) traveled to County Stadium to see the Brewers play the Braves. In my mind, that’s already a long time ago, certainly not a dim memory yet but there’s so much to go back over to get there.

It has indeed been a full and active summer so far. There are a lot of highlights to recall: Andy’s first baseball tournament, helping Ron and Julie put together their deck and then a couple weeks later christening it with a sheepshead party, small-town parades and distributing campaign literature, the 5th of July bocce ball tournament and cookout at Lance and Sue’s as a warm-up to the Rhythm and Booms fireworks display, a trip to one of the water parks at the Dells, our evening at the American Players Theater, the Bastille Day Party (perhaps the peak of the summer season), lots of visits to the pool, and baseball baseball and more baseball. We've been having a great summer.

I think all the activity, combined with a later bedtime, is starting to take a toll on Andy. He is beginning to develop the art of sleeping in. This morning, he was still asleep at quarter to nine. Eddie had been up for at least an hour. Cartoons are still a strong enough incentive to get him out of bed. Since I wanted to get to work, I told Andy he could walk to Sauk Trail school, where his Camp of the Trails program is based, whenever he felt ready. He decided to get up, but I was perfectly happy to let him sleep in longer if he wanted. He was a select team practice tonight, his final Little Buck League baseball game on Friday, and another tournament this weekend which will involve two games on Saturday and at least one game on Sunday. Fortunately, the tourney is being held on the east side of Madison so there’s no travel to speak of. The kid’s going to be exhausted by Sunday evening.

Eddie played his final game of the season last night and showed some noticeable improvement in his hitting. Last Sunday the boys and I went miniature golfing at Vitense Golfland in Madison. Afterwards, we hit some balls in the new batting cages area there. Eddie tried the slow-pitch softball speed and connected with almost every ball. This experience obviously made a big difference in his confidence at the plate yesterday. I even got into it, swinging the bat and ripping the balls into the net and remembering with fondness all those crazy softball Tuesday in Oshkosh.

I missed most of Andy’s game, including the two innings he pitched. According to JoAnna’s report, he worked his way out of a bases’ loaded jam in the 1st and struck out the side in the 2nd. His team, the Road Kill, won 2-1, a real squeaker. The team’s last three games have all been 1-run affairs. They won the previous two 7-6 and 4-3. Not as much hitting during the second half of the season. Every team’s pitching (and fielding) has definitely improved.

Did Al and Cyndi leave an address with you? If so, make sure you relay it to us during your next phone call. I have some pictures from the Bastille Day party I want to send to them. 

My mom is eager to see the boys. We’ll be leaving for Pennsylvania on either the 2rd or 3rd of August, depending upon the results of Andy’s baseball tournament that weekend. I stay in Warren until Friday. On the drive back to Wisconsin, I’ll be stopping in Lorain, Ohio, to attend the bat mitzvah of a very good friend of mine from high school. She underwent a bone marrow transplant last year, and after that harrowing experience I guess she decided better late than never. JoAnna will accompany me the following weekend to pick up the boys. During the week that I’m there, the boys and I will be staying at Lar and Kim’s cabin, located about 5 miles north of Warren along a narrow, tree-shaded road and next to the proverbial babbling brook. It’s a very picturesque setting. Remind me to send you some pictures when we get back.

Thanks again for helping to make our Bastille Day party such a special event. We really enjoyed your
company.

On This Date on 1998

At the halfway point, this summer is shaping up as quite an exceptional one. This past weekend was especially enjoyable since the focus was on our (third) annual Bastille Day party. 

Thursday morning I had LINK (library automation consortium) meeting at the public library in Wisconsin Dells. At 12:30, I met JoAnna and the boys, plus Meaghan and Joey Erpenbach, 6-year-old son of Jon and Kathy, at a prearranged site, and we spent the afternoon at Noah’s Ark, a mammoth water park. (And I do mean huge!) I kept an eye on Eddie and Joey at one of the smaller wave pools and a kiddie play area, while JoAnna and the two older kids went on some of the water slides. The boys and I eventually explored other areas of the park. We took a leisurely ride on a large innertube, floating along a shallow, canal-like channel called “The Lazy River”. We waited less than a minute to get a tube. The lines for the slides that we saw during our walk were long. I think the boys would have become impatient waiting 15 minutes to do something. At 3:15, we regrouped with the other half or our party at the wave pool where we had started out. Everyone but Andy, that is. As four o’clock approached, Andy was still nowhere to be found. JoAnna and I started to worry that something might have happened to him. All of a sudden, I noticed the distinctive lime green of his swimming trunks and breathed a sigh of relief. As it turned out, he had been waiting for us by the concession stand, taking Mom’s instruction of “we’ll meet back here at 3:15” too literally. She didn’t mean at the exact point she was standing when she uttered these words, but that’ show Andy translated them.

I drove back to Middleton along, Eddie wanting to be in Joey’s company and Andy not wanting to split up with Meaghan, who was going to a Brewer game as soon as she got dropped off. Because of the delay in waiting for Andy’s appearance, JoAnna had to get home pronto. I wanted to stop and get something to eat, as I’d had only a grapefruit for breakfast, a small piece of coffee cake at my meeting, and no lunch, since the meeting ran longer than expected and I couldn’t join the other librarians for lunch. I was starving and felt a headache coming on, so I stopped at a McDonald’s and ordered a couple chicken fajitas (the only thing on the menu that I actually like) and a lemonade to go. I almost chugged the entire contents of the cup, so thirsty was I after spending 3 hours in a very warm sun. I could feel the heat rising off my shoulders and back as I drove along U.S. 12, skirting Baraboo and the Devil’s Lake region, taking the scenic, though shorter route instead of joining the speed demons on the Interstate. Once again I hadn’t used any sunblock. I accepted the full-ray treatment.

I expected to see a dark blue Buick in the driveway when I returned home. JoAnna’s folks and Albert and Cyndi were spending the weekend with us. We needed to be on the road at 6:00 to get to our evening engagement on time. “It’s unlike Larry and Alice to be late,” I thought. Then I realized the cause of their delay. Albert, the “Herman” of the Richard family. JoAnna, of course, expected all along that her family would be arriving at the last minute.

Our destination: American Players Theater, near Spring Green, Wisconsin, about a 45-minute drive from Middleton. APT is an outdoor amphitheater that specializes in Shakespeare and other classic plays. They produce five plays each season, with an overlapping schedule so that most of the plays are put on throughout the entire season, which this year runs from June 11 through October 4. APT has been in operation for 15 years and survived some financially and artistically shaky early years. Its operation is now on a solid foundation. I’m almost embarrassed to say that this was only my second trip there.

We arrived 45 minutes before showtime (7:30), which gave us time to enjoy a snack of bread, cheese, fruit, and wine that JoAnna had packed in a picnic basket. Dozens of picnic tables are found in clusters along the shaded, uphill pathway leading the parking lot to the theater. All of the tables seemed to be occupied b y the time we arrived. Fortunately, a group was packing up as we approach the table they had been using.

It was a beautiful evening to watch a play outdoors. The temperature was in the low 80s and a gentle breeze was blowing. Because of our delay in ordering tickets, we were in the last row of a section that provided pretty much of a straight-on view of the stage. The setting is intimate, so there are no bad seats. The theater itself accommodates 600-700 people, I would guess.

We saw “The Importance of Being Earnest” by Oscar Wilde, a noted British author/playwright/poet and bon vivant. “Earnest” is considered to be his masterpiece. It was written in 1895 and wickedly skewers the British upper class. Two cases of mistaken identity give the play its momentum. More than 100 years later, the play is still very funny, even for someone who might know nothing about the British class system. The audience laughed uproariously at times, and the actors’ excellent sense of timing kept any of the lines from being drowned out. All of the actors are professionals, and the small cast (7) of “Earnest” was splendid, very much a crowd-pleasing ensemble.

Halfway through the first act, a full moon started to rise above the tree line a little bit to our right. It added an almost magical touch to the night.

We returned to a somewhat messy house. We’re not that happy with Ross, our current regular sitter for the boys. Ross is only three years older than Andy, and JoAnna and I agree that we need someone who can provide more discipline, especially as Andy becomes more intransigent about following orders from his parents. (I’m sure that sentence has a familiar ring!) Andy and Eddie almost see Ross as someone to pal around with. They were set to play baseball when we left the house. Nothing that the boys touched during the evening had been put away. The kitchen was in disarray. Jess, our previous regular sitter, had always been good about cleaning up after himself and the boys. (Although when we mentioned this to his parents Saturday night at our party, they half-kiddingly said, “Doesn’t sound like anyone we know!”) It wasn’t that we returned home to a disaster. JoAnna and I need to find a sitter with a better sense of responsibility. Of course, this fall we begin our experiment with Andy and Eddie staying home on their own when we go out. At least for short periods of time. Then we’ll learn how responsible (or irresponsible) Andy can be.

I had to work on Friday as I had been invited to attend a business meeting of the WLA Foundation, the fundraising arm of the organization. That only took up an hour of my morning, but I returned to the library to cover for lunch breaks since we were a bit short-staffed that day. I didn’t get home until nearly 2:30 and found JoAnna, her mom, and Cyndi busy with food preparations for the party. I had a number of errands that took up most of the rest of the afternoon: pick up a tent we had rented (a 20’ x 20’ white-topped canopy), make a beer run and pick up the wine that JoAnna had special ordered, get jelly wicks for two chafing dishes, buy shrimp and spicy sausages for a couple dishes that JoAnna would be preparing later in the day. Andy had a baseball game at 6:00. JoAnna took time out from her work to accompany her dad and brother and me. Cyndi was taking a nap, after a hectic day at Wisconsin Dells, an outing she and Albert took with the boys, their second visit to the Dells in two days. They rode on one of the “ducks” and went to Robot World. Alice kept an eye on Eddie, who had his eyes glued to the TV.

Andy’s team had a 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the fifth, Andy having scored one of the runs. Their third pitcher of the game, though, had problems with control. He was letting go of the ball too soon most of the time, so his pitches were inside, sometimes on the back sides of the batters. He actually hit two batters. Toward the end of the inning he started to lose his composure, but the coach, who was umpiring at the time, gave him the necessary encouragement to stick it out. The team couldn’t rally in the top of the 6th and lost the game 5-2, only their second loss in 10 games so far this season. Later the coach told me that if he had realized Andy had some relatives in the stands, he would have let him pitch.

After the game, we returned to the house and ordered a couple pizzas for delivery. JoAnna resumed her cooking and baking. Cyndi made placards for the various dishes that were going to be served, so that our guests would know what they were sinking their teeth into. Al worked on the menu that I enclosed with this letter.

Sleeping arrangements for the long weekend were as follows: JoAnna and I gave up our room for Larry and Alice. Al and Cyndi slept on the futon in Andy’s room, and the boys slept together in Eddie’s bed, which is where Andy has been sleeping for most of the last couple weeks anyway. Eddie still doesn’t like being alone in his room at night. A couple weeks ago bought a Coleman air mattress (double size) and a battery-operated pump. When I tried to fill the mattress Thursday evening, I couldn’t get the pump to work, so JoAnna slept on the couch and used my sleeping bag and pad, which had been in storage for more than 12 years, and I slept on the floor. One of my errands Friday was to stop at K-Mart to exchange the pump. Fortunately, I had kept the sales receipt, although the clerk never asked to see it. I held it in my hand throughout the transaction, but I could have been holding my list of errands for all she seemed to care. Friday night we were able to try out the air mattress, which we found comfortable, certainly much better than the lump mattress folded away in the family room couch. The last time we sued it, I couldn’t sleep at all. That’s why we bought the air mattress.

Saturday morning and afternoon were devoted to party preparations. I mowed the front yard, even though I had just done so on Monday. The rain and humid weather we had through mid-week must have created greenhouse-like growing conditions. We set up the tent (the centerpiece of our back yard on Saturday as you can see from the pictures) and I did some last minute weeding along the south side of the house, along the path all our guests would take to get to the back yard. I also had another series of errands to run. Experiencing no complications or setbacks, we were ready to party in advance of 4:30.

Along with the pictures, I’ve enclosed a copy of the invitation we mailed out and the menu we had displayed on a signboard in the driveway. After having been driven indoors by thunderstorms the past two years, we were hoping for perfect conditions. And we were blessed. The sky remained cloudless all day. The temperature was right around 80 degrees. The humidity was low. A gentle breeze kept the air moving. We had fogged the yard a couple times during the early afternoon and lit citronella torches and candles about an hour before the party started. That effectively kept the bags away until dusk.

Our party has turned into quite a production. Extensive menu. Canopy seating and serving area. A separate bar table. People made frequent comments as to how much planning must have gone into the party. And indeed there was. Our expenses easily exceeded $500, but that was of no concern to us. This is our one big event of the year, and we’re not about to cut corners.

There were probably 50 to 60 people in our backyard during the height of the party. In fact, unlike the past two y ears, people didn’t must make an appearance. They enjoyed the setting and the food and the interesting mix of people – and didn’t want to leave, which was fine with us. We wanted people to have a memorable evening. One of the most commonly asked questions I heard was “How old is that maple tree?” People were impressed with its girth and span. I also heard many positive comments about the landscaping, a nice reward for the hundreds of hours that JoAnna and I have put into improving our yard.

It was a wonderful event. Everything proceed just as we hoped it would. Among the guests: Mim and Tom, Carolyn and Jim. I don’t know why it took us three years to invite them. We also invited some of our neighbors this year and some couples associated with the baseball and soccer teams.

Hope you enjoy the pictures and the other enclosed materials.

We send you our love and love forward to seeing you soon. Right now our estimated day of arrive is Monday, August 3. I’ll try to give you an estimated time of arrive in the next letter.