On This Date in 1998

Dear Mardi,

Thanks for remembering my birthday, as you always do.  You make me feel like such a derelict.   Your birthday’s in March, right?  The 5th?  Am I close?  Anyway, next year I expect a big card for a very big event.  Can I say “50”?  Probably not without some  pained effort.

The boys and I made two trips to Warren this year, but no one outside of my family knew about it since I curiously and intentionally didn’t tell anyone else beforehand or contact anyone after our arrival.  Our visit in March was relatively short.  Four days, I think.   Most of my daylight hours were spent walking back and forth between my parents’ house and Beaty Field or the house and Jefferson schoolyard.  I was in constant demand to play basketball or catch.   On the way back to Wisconsin, we stopped in Chicago for two days, stayed at an expensive Lake Shore Drive hotel, and took in the sights.  Mostly museums, plus a trip to the top of the Hancock building, which absolutely fascinated the boys.  JoAnna stayed home as she was coordinating a special senate election and temporarily had no life outside of work.

In early August, a week after our high school reunion, we spent seven days in Warren, staying at Larry and Kim’s cabin on Valentine Run.  What an idyllic setting.  I just tuned out the world and focused on family and the 700-page book I was reading.  The boys and I did spend two day at Kinzua Beach, remembering to bring footwear the second day.    If I had called you, we could have traveled to Renee’s bat mitzvah together.  When JoAnna decided she couldn’t make the trip – gearing up for the general elections this time – I still considered making the trip to Lorain.  Once I settled into Warren, though, I told myself, I’m not driving anywhere until it’s time to return to Wisconsin.  Driving is not the joy it used to be.  And the boys aren’t to blame.  They are actually very good travelers.  Anyway, give me a big kick in the seat of the pants for missing this opportunity.  I have yet to apologize to Renee because I still feel like such an idiot, just like I did in 1970 when I missed her wedding.

I think part of my attitude of Warren aloofness has to do with our family situation.  Parkinson’s Disease keeps eating away at Dad’s physical and mental well-being.  The decline over the past couple years has been especially painful to observe, even from a distance of 700 miles.  Dad has great difficulty getting around on his own.  In fact, earlier this year the kitchen nook was transformed into a sleeping area for him.  He can’t negotiate stairs anymore.  During the day, he spends most of his time in a motorized upholstered chair, one that provides mechanical assistance in sitting down and getting up.  He’s almost always in a dozing position.  He gets easily confused; his mind, during moments of what now for him passes as lucidness, focuses on past events.  Last year during our December visit, he shuffled across the kitchen floor, stopped abruptly, and said, “I have to preach tomorrow at First Lutheran.”  Or he’ll talk about Mom in the third person and refer to some event that took place early in their marriage as if it were yesterday.  I’ve been meaning to read more about the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s, mostly to get a better understanding of how it affects the mind, especially in the later stages of the disease, which I suppose is where my dad must be by now.  It was 1990 when the first, very subtle , changes in his physical bearing became noticeable.  What really bugs me though is how little support Mom gets from the rest of her children.  I wanted to take her and the boys out to lunch, but Barb couldn’t be bothered to stay home and keep an eye on Dad.  There’s no way he can be left alone now.

Hey, great Christmas letter, huh?  Really upbeat.

Sorry about this self-indulgent rambling.

We’ll be in Warren from December 26th (the evening) through New Year’s Eve.  In fact, you and your mom are already aware of our upcoming visit.  (Yolanda probably, said, “If he’s not going to call me, I’ll call that runt myself!”  Again, the cabin will be our base of operations.  I will call this time, and when we get together, you can administer the appropriate punishment.
 

On This Date in 1998

No further puzzling incidents to report.

Boxer had started to develop some interesting behaviors. When I open the bathroom door after taking a shower, he will make a dash for the bathtub, hp over the edge, and sit down near the faucet. And I thought cats didn’t like water. He will do this whether the shower curtain is open or closed. Lately, though, I’ve been discouraging him from doing this.

At night, after JoAnna and I have settled into bed, Boxer will join us, placing himself magisterially onto an open space of blanket between us. And there he remains for the rest of the night. He used to try to get our attention as soon as he was awake, but now he is content to watch us sleep until one of us stirs. Previously, whenever he made unwanted contact, one of us would take him out of the bedroom and close the door. Boxer has decided if he wants to stay with “Mommy” and “Daddy”, it’s paws off.

As you can see from one of the enclosed pictures, Boxer likes to laze on the windowsill. He seems very curious about the out-of-doors. Occasionally he’ll try to escape through an open door, but so far we’ve always been able to grab him before he can make a getaway.


Having neither the time nor the inclination – or the tools or the skill – I called a plumber earlier in the week and scheduled an appointment for Wednesday. A number of things needed attention. The kitchen faucet has been leaking, but stopped all of a sudden a few weeks ago. I still had the plumber look at it. As a result, we now actually have some water pressure. The pipe under the utility room sink was leaking, so he replaced that. He installed a new faucet in the full bathroom, a disc-type assembly, replacing the relic that the original residents of the house used. Finally, he replaced the outside faucet by the patio, which we were never able to use unless we wanted to mop up a pool of water underneath the kitchen sink. We’re very pleased with the work. It was almost startling to lift the handle on the kitchen faucet and see a stream of water charging out of it with the force of Niagara Falls.


Staying at the cabin sounds like a good idea. Tell Larry and Kim we appreciate the offer. I need to sit down with JoAnna and finalize our summer schedule, but let me give you a tentative rundown anyway.

The Richard family reunion is scheduled for July 31st through August 2nd. Andy has a baseball tournament in Reedsburg that weekend, so the two of us won’t be going to Two Rivers. If JoAnna and Eddie return to Middleton late Sunday afternoon, we can get on the road to Pennsylvania by 6:00 and try to do the all-night red-eye, not a mode of travel I favor anymore. The target is to get to Warren sometime on Monday, the 3rd. On Saturday, the 8th, Renee (Shulman) Prayzer is having her bat mitzvah, a decision she was moved to make as a result of the success of her bone marrow transplant, I would guess. JoAnna and I would like to attend that. I’d like to be able to have the boys stay in Warren through the 15th, a Saturday. I have a WLA board meeting in La Crosse, 140 miles west of Middleton, on the 14th, which will add a couple hours to the trip to Warren. It’s likely that JoANna will stay home at that time as I’m sure they’ll be some campaign to work on. At this time, it does sound like she can take a week off at the beginning of August, but things could change, this being an election year with three or four hotly contested state senate races. After attending Renee’s event, JoAnna and I would return to Middleton, since I have a library board meeting on Tuesday, the 11th, and JoAnna probably needs to be at Chuck’s fundraiser on the following day. Part of me really hates to think that far ahead. I’m really enjoying this summer and just want to enjoy the leisurely pace. When I look back over June, to the beginning of the month, our trip to a Brewers game seems so long ago. We have made good use of our time – play, work, and just lazin’ around sometimes. The first third of summer has been pleasurable, productive and rewarding. The next week will be hectic, and more than likely very fast-paced, we as prepare for our Bastille Day party. Cooking. Cleaning. Shopping.

On Sunday, the day after the fourth, we are invited to a picnic and bocce ball tournament. Lance and Sue, the friends of ours who are hosting this party, live a block from Warner Park in Madison, site of the spectacular Rhythm ‘n’ Booms fireworks display. This year marks the 3rd annual, and based on the previous two, it should be a very eventful and enjoyable but long and exhausting day. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take Monday morning off, as a couple other staff members will be on vacation.


One of the frustrations of learning a new word processing program is figuring out how to do what was a very simple procedure in the old one. For example, you’ll notice that this letter starts with page 6, and I did continue it in the same document that I started on Monday. In WordPerfect, it was very easy for reformat page numbers. In Microsoft Word, even after consulting the Help topics, I still don’t know what to do. So you just have to consider this a continuation of the previous letter you received.

September 2, 1991

“You have such great friends,” JoAnna tells me as we leave Renee’s cottage in the middle of a Labor Day afternoon.

I certainly agree with her. It has been more than four years since any of the old group have spent any time together. This time it’s the same four as last time: Renee, Mardi, Barb, and me. It’s a brief reunion. I can only spare four hours of the holiday. The picnic at Lar and Kim’s is later the same day.

Renee looks as though her weight has plateaued. She’s still big, but not as massive as she was, say, in 1978, while I stopped for a visit in Columbus while on the move from Springfield to Oshkosh. I think the problem then was that she had just started to get into the catering business as a sideline. Morrey looks as though he is continuing to lose weight very gradually, but noticeably. They both still smoke, and I would guess they are easily pack-a-day smokers. I ask Renee is she still sings and she answers no, not in years. It’s a shame. She’s the only person I know who could sing along to “Mrs. Robinson” and make the song sound like an aria.

Renee’s dad has remarried. Her name is Carol and she seems very standoffish. Of course Renee’s chumminess would make anyone seem like a wallflower.