On the Road Again
Well, my friends, are you ready for another sparkling gem of a blog; one that might be a little informative as well as entertaining? Perhaps it may even chase away the summertime blues?
(Look around Jude, is anyone still there? Are they buying any of this?)
Yes, dear friends, it’s time for another travel blog! To be specific, a road trip blog! So if you’re in the mood for one of those boogers, fasten your seat belt. It’s going to be bumpy ride. For the rest of you, adios mi amigos. See you when the blog express fires up again with something more to your taste.
So, here’s how it went…
On Monday the aforementioned road trip commenced, or, in layman’s terms, we headed out. Our intention that day was to drive to Mackinaw City, Michigan from our northeastern Ohio town with a stop for lunch in Frankenmuth, Michigan. The day was nice, the company (my wife) companionable and the drive was pleasurable. We arrived in Frankenmuth around 1 p.m. and found the restaurant we were heading for almost immediately. It’s called Zehnder’s and has been a fixture in that city for many, many years as the sepia-toned photographs and newspaper clippings on the walls attributed. It is also very well liked as the large group of cars in the parking lot amply demonstrated. We were seated only after about a 15-minute wait. The servers were all dressed in Victorian outfits to apparently match the décor of the dining rooms. We ordered our lunches and soon were served. They were chicken dishes, quite tasty and we enjoyed the meal immensely. After finishing I let my eyes sweep across the dining room we were in. They stopped at a gentleman sitting two tables away. I saw him in profile and thought to myself, my goodness – that looks remarkably like an old friend of mine, a guy I went to school with from elementary through high school. He was even in the same branch of the military at the same time as I was. I told myself I’d have to tell him about his “double” that I saw there in Michigan. About that time the man and his wife stood up. I immediately recognized the wife. Yes, it was my friend Larry! He stopped at our table after we hollered at him and we chatted for a minute or so, remarking on the coincidence of our meeting. They were on their way home from their recent vacation up in the same northern territory as we were heading. After they left, my wife and I chatted about the odd circumstance. Two people who knew each other for many years meeting at a restaurant I’d never heard of the week before, on the same day, in the same dining room, at the same time. Pretty strange, eh?
We headed north again after a visit to the largest Christmas store in the world – Bronner’s – 27 acres of Christmas-themed merchandise. Of course we bought something! You had to ask?
The roadside business’s pretty well disappeared north of the Saginaw area as we drove northward and we soon noticed that birch trees, virtually no where to be seen in the wild around home, were everywhere roadside along with elk crossing signs. None of those down home!
We were getting into the North Country.
We arrived in Mackinaw City later in the day. Our hotel was an older one but quite clean and entirely serviceable – a mom and pop kind of place albeit a bit small. The air temperature was refreshingly cool compared to the muggy warmth of home when we left, many miles to the south. The hotel was directly across the street from a small park, which fronted on Lake Huron and gave a great view of the Mackinac Bridge, which connected the mainland of Michigan to its Upper Peninsula. The straits there also divided Lake Huron from Lake Michigan. It was a very imposing sight, a little over 8 miles long counting the approaches with 552 foot high towers.
A whopper in anyone’s book.
Supper was whitefish sandwiches at a small restaurant nearby (a local delicacy, apparently, and quite tasty). I returned to that small lakeside park after dark to take some really cool night pictures of the bridge.
On Tuesday we took an island trip. During the night we’d left the windows open at the hotel and enjoyed the cool night air. No need for the a/c at all! In the morning, after a nice breakfast downtown we boarded the Shepler’s ferry for a trip across Lake Huron to Mackinac Island. We caught the 10:30 ferry as that trip would go under the Big Mac Bridge on its way to the island. We were again impressed by the bridge when seeing it up close and were glad we took that particular boat.
Mackinac Island, in case you didn’t know, is perhaps unique in the fact that it bans any vehicle with a combustion engine – cars, trucks, motorcycles, etc. All traveling on the island is either by foot, by bicycle or by horse and there were a LOT of horses and bikes on that island. If you lived on the island and needed supplies, they came by boat and were transferred to carts pulled by draft horses and carried to where you wanted them. Bicycles were available for rent by the thousands and we saw tons of them. We grabbed a geocache while waiting for our purchased carriage ride. At 11:30 we got on a 20-passenger cart pulled by two matched Belgian draft horses and commenced our 2-hour tour of Mackinac Island. (The guide joked that the tours used to be for 3 hours, but no one wanted to take “a three hour tour” referring to the Gilligan’s Island TV show) Our tour guide was a young lady from New York who really knew her facts about the island and imparted a bunch of that knowledge as we rode around looking at stuff. The lilacs were in full bloom that week and we were stunned by the vast numbers of, naturally, lilac-colored bushes lining the streets. We clomped by the famous Grand Hotel on the island, the one featured in a couple movies – “This Time for Keeps” (1947 Jimmy Durante and Esther Williams) and “Somewhere in Time” (1980 Christopher Reeves and Jane Seymour). It’s a huge white building having a 660 foot porch and is the largest seasonal hotel in the world with 385 guest rooms, none the same as any other. Built in 1887 and refurbished a number of times, it’s very imposing. We got off the carriage tour at Fort Mackinac and wandered around the numerous buildings there. It was manned by the English and the Americans back and forth over its long history and contains many examples of how life was lived there in the “old” days. We exited the fort through a long downhill path back to the downtown area and ate lunch. We were then off to buy some souvenirs and fudge before returning to the mainland when we saw a lady lying on the sidewalk face down. Apparently she’d tripped and hit her face. There was quite a bit of blood involved and a nurse was already there giving first aid before the ambulance arrived – a motorized ambulance – one of the few motorized vehicles allowed on the island. Since I had broken my nose a few weeks earlier in a vaguely similar manner, I commiserated with the lady and silently wished her well.
We returned to our mainland hotel around 5 o’clock and were quite tired from all the walking done during the day. We grabbed a few more geocaches in the city and retired to the outside-air freshened motel room for another good night’s sleep.
On Wednesday we hit the road again. Up at 7 and crossed the Big Mac Bridge soon afterward. Apparently some folks are so scared of the bridge they let someone else drive them across. We were not scared. We’ve been on other bridges that were LOTS more scary! The Sunshine Bridge down near Tampa immediately comes to mind. After crossing we were on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan which is quite a different animal than the mainland. We headed west on the major road going that direction – a 2-laner called Route 2. Not far from the bridge there were numerous old cabin-style motels like out of old black-and-white movies, most of them abandoned to the elements and out of business. Soon even those disappeared and we then traveled mostly through thinly populated areas. Stopping at a rest area we discovered why the joke about what is Michigan’s State Bird’s answer is the mosquito. It isn’t a joke! Lots of the critters around. Bazillions, seemed like. We killed mosquitoes in the car for the next 50 miles! Very pretty country, though, with the big lake on your left and what appeared to be mostly wilderness to the right. Saw a number of deer and more elk crossing signs. I could just imagine how this place was in the winter. Brrr!
We stopped for lunch in Green Bay, Wisconsin at a place recommended to us by a friend of my wife’s. The place was called Krull’s Restaurant and was located directly across the street from Lambeau Field where the Green Bay Packers play football. We had their signature “butterburger” sandwich (pretty good) and were off again in under an hour. We suffered through a major detour south of Green Bay, apparently due to an Interstate building project, and ended up going a long way around the affected area. Saw a great big windmill farm in a hilly area and counted many dozens of the big turbine windmills slowly turning. Then, at last, we arrived at Wisconsin Dells for our second major stop of the trip.
I’d again booked us into a mom-and-pop place, the Indian Trail Motel, and we were even more pleased with this one. It was furnished in what appeared ‘70’s fixtures, yellow in color. I think my wife and I had yellow fixtures when we were first married! The room was immaculately clean and much bigger than our Mac City place. The bed, sheets and pillows were among the best we’ve ever had in a motel. A nice choice, I thought, proud of myself! You did good, Willie! We grabbed a geocache almost immediately to make sure we had Wisconsin logged as a new state then drove through the business district. It’s a regular resort-type area, stores, attractions, amusement parks, water parks, t-shirt shops, many restaurants and other attractions for people on vacations, especially if they had kids. We ate at a nice Mexican place, The Mexicali Rose, right on the Wisconsin River and took pictures out the window at the scenery. My wife and I had very sore muscles from all our walking yesterday.
On Thursday we toured Wisconsin Dells. Breakfast was at a friendly IHOP and then we bought tickets for two tours – a boat tour of the Upper Dells above the dam (the prettier side) and a duck tour. On the 10:30 riverboat tour we saw lots of sandstone formations along the banks of the river and got oodles of information about the area from the boat captain and the lady tour guide. A lot of stuff happened on that river over the years! Our first stop was at Witch’s Gulch where we disembarked and walked on a boardwalk back this dimly-lit canyon with fantastically-carved sandstone close to both sides. This was, according to Indian legend, a haunted place and the white settlers were warned to stay away. It was actually pretty cool! Then it was back to the boat, up the river a bit more to our second stop - another land attraction. We walked uphill to a viewing area where we could see two towering rock formations. Back in the early days of photography a local man figured out a way to make photographs of moving subjects, an activity that didn’t work with the old photography equipment. His photos were taken as fakes by the public, so he went to this place and had his son jump from one formation to the other while he took photos. 17 jumps later he got the proof that his technique worked! Need I say it was a LONG way down from that gap the kid had jumped across. Now days they have a German Shepherd dog do the same stunt and we got to see it. I was lucky enough to actually catch the dog in mid-jump with a photo! Then it was back to the boat and the refreshing ride back to the pier. After indulging in a rare ice cream sundae (it was getting warm), my wife and I headed off to the duck tour. In case you don’t know, a duck is an Army amphibious vehicle that travels on land or water. A large part of the World War II fleet of ducks have been bought by tour companies here and there to ferry customers on land/water excursions. That was the case here.
We rode our 24-passenger duck, along with a driver and a tour guide through a lot of heavily wooded areas along specific roads just for the duck tours. The guide entertained us with a running commentary on the area and many corny jokes and silly stories while the driver concentrated getting us through some of the tighter areas of the road. We took the duck into the Wisconsin River for a while then back onto the land. After another 15 minutes we stopped just before entering Lake Delton. The guide asked us passengers whether we wanted the entry into the water to be “slow and dry” or “fast and wet”. I don’t think you will get the answer to this one wrong. The driver hit the gas and we hit hard with the water mushrooming around us. The rear few seats got pretty wet! Then it was back to the starting place.
We walked around downtown for a while after that looking into a few shops and bought a few this-and-that’s, then went back to the hotel where I took a dip in the outdoor pool. Nice! We went out then for some more geocaches then had supper at an Applebees.
Another busy day.
On Friday we took a day trip. Since one reason for the trip was geocaching and since the states of Minnesota and Iowa were less than two hours to the west, we decided to drive over there and add two more states to our kitty! The interstate west was smooth and fast and soon we were in Minnesota. Luckily the first place I pulled off was right where our first geocache was hidden and we soon had it “in the bag”. We drove south about 30 miles into Iowa on the Great River Road and before long had the second one. It was a good day for the “states bagged” quota! After driving back to the Dells I spent a lovely hour in the motel’s indoor pool and whirlpool spa. Very relaxing!
Supper was at a Ponderosa that evening. Lots of kids around but… what do you expect? It was summer and this was a resort town. I remember getting a BIG root beer with supper and how GREAT it tasted! What a dumb thing to remember, eh? Took another drive through the downtown area checking out the bustling people and the evening street performers, then back to the hotel to hit the hay. And early day planned for tomorrow.
On Saturday we drove home. I don’t have too much exciting to tell you about that trip. It was long and tiring. The high point, perhaps, is that we drove through downtown Chicago and that was a bit hair-raising even on a Saturday. At last we were pulling into our own driveway and hitting the “relax” key. Home, son, dog and our own bed for the night.
So another satisfying road trip comes to an end.
Sure wish you had been with us!
Maybe next time?
Me, Trixi and Memorial Day
It was a good morning for a walk. The trees were in full leaf now and all the birds in the neighborhood were busy with their nest-building duties and their many territorial disputes. It was a day that evened the scales for all the icy cold ones at the other end of the calendar.
It was a doggoned good day to be alive.
I take this walk every morning nowadays. I’d like to think that I’d be out there walking anyhow, putting one foot in front of the other if I didn’t have the reason to do so that I do now. For my health, you know. I’d like to think those positive thoughts, but I’m honest enough to know that I’d probably procrastinate without that reason I mentioned earlier and not go.
The reason for my walk is named Trixi and she’s our dog.
She also dearly loves taking her morning amble with yours truly.
Trixi keeps me honest. I can’t easily dissuade her or rationalize not taking her out every morning because my muscles are sore from yesterday’s activities, the sciatica in my back is kicking up or my knees are aching like the old man’s knees they actually are. She ignores all those pitiful objections, looks at you with those trusting brown eyes and says with her doggie whine, “C’mon pop. It’s time for takin’ your pooch out for her mornin’ constitutional! Let’s go, let’s go, let’s GO!”
So I snapped on her walking collar, clipped the leash to it and out the front door we went.
Today was a bit different than a lot of our mornings, however, and I was reminded of that difference by hearing a hearty thump-thump-thump and ratt-a-tatt-tatt of drums echoing up the street from downtown. Today was Memorial Day and our town’s annual parade was just passing by a few blocks away from where Trixi and I were taking our walk. I listened as we walked and recognized several John Phillip Souza marches and some other familiar martial music. The bands in the parade were doing a good job this year, as far as I could tell from this distance, and I found my feet sympathetically falling into the rhythms of the rumbling drums and bright brass. Trixi might have noticed her master walking a bit oddly, but she wisely made no remark about it.
She’s smart that way.
I listened to the music and my mind began to wander. I thought about today being Memorial Day. I thought about its meaning. I remembered my wife and I had visited her hometown just the day before and we had placed a floral arrangement at her family’s gravesite. We’d done the same service a few days earlier at my father’s, mother’s and grandmother’s gravesites in my hometown. The performance of these duties had helped us remember those of our families who were now gone and to especially commemorate those members of the families who had served in the military – her dad and grandfather, my dad and brother. I placed small flags in the memorial arrangements especially for them.
As Trix and I continued our morning walk and the band music began to fade away in the distance, I began to reminisce about the old days. I recalled quite vividly my own service as a young man in the U. S. Air Force and everything that had entailed. I remembered my wife’s grandfather, his service in France during World War 1 and what a great guy he was. And I especially remembered my dad and my brother, gone now for 23 years and their service. How each had given some of the best days of their youth in the service to our country.
I sighed at all the memories flooding my mind. All at once, out of the blue, I conjured up an apparition of someone, possibly an old soldier from the late 1800’s who was walking along with my dog and me. He’d look around and marvel at the shiny automobiles rumbling along next to us, wonder at the broad paved streets and traffic signals, stare skyward and puzzle over the contrails painted in the sky. Then he’d hear the military-sounding music from the band down the street and suddenly he’d smile. He’d recognize the music and, somehow I knew, would understand the meaning of the Souza marches echoing in the air. He’d nod formally to me, come more fully to attention as he walked and fall into step with me and the dog, enjoying the morning, the sunshine and the camaraderie of two old military guys walking together.
We’d walk along, side by side, our feet hitting the earth in unison for a while, feeling the old rhythms of marching for a bit, then he’d turn to me, give me a half-salute and slowly fade back into my imagination from whence he’d come.
I grinned a little at how endlessly fascinating our brains could be, how we could catch a few notes of an old song and fabricate a whole scenario based upon the memories invoked by it. Trixi was, as usual, enjoying the day immensely, sniffing out the vast aroma landscape that only dogs are aware of and digging the feel of green grass under her paws. She’d glance at me occasionally to make sure I was still there and was still in control.
She liked that.
So, I thought to myself, another Memorial Day has come around again, another spring has graced us with its vernal abundance and I have again been lucky enough to see it. I gave silent thanks for the beauty of the day and for the good life I was enjoying. But more importantly I gave thanks for those who had made it possible by their sacrifice and service to our country.
At last Trix and I were almost done with our walk and were heading back home. Our path was lined with many Old Glories, snapping and waving in the wind. It was a beautiful sight.
Today was a day for remembrance; a day to honor those who had gone before us and a day to enjoy the liberties that had been won for us with our forebear’s strength, duty and blood. It was another Memorial Day. It was a good day for me and those around me, a glad day.
And Trixi, in her own way, was glad too…
Kansas, Neal and a Road Trip
I got a telephone call a few weeks ago from a dear friend of mine. Receiving a call from Chuck wasn’t actually that remarkable. He called frequently or maybe I called him, usually to make plans for a get together with him and I and our wives. Most of the time it was to catch a movie, grab a bite to eat and share some conversation on where our lives were at the moment and to express the usual “what’s new with you” sort of gab old friends do. This time, however, the call was a bit different. Chuck’s opening statement to me was, “Hey dude, wanna go on a road trip?”
I was taken aback somewhat by this out-of-the-blue statement, but recovered soon enough to respond with my usual well-thought-out answer.
“Huh?”
Chuck laughed at my confusion and proceeded to explain that he had recently talked to an old friend of ours who lived out of state, had actually talked with him for quite a lengthy period of time and had tentatively started making plans to get together at that friend’s house. The out-of-state friend’s name was Neal and he had suggested to Chuck that maybe I might want to come along. Since I had recently retired and had no particular appointments or pressing need to stay home, I said, “why not?”
We planned on leaving about three weeks hence and it wasn’t long before the scheduled departure date was upon us.
Chuck picked me up around 7 am on a Sunday morning in his new Chevrolet Colorado pickup truck, his vehicle of choice for this trip. The clouds were low and dark gray, looming over us and warning that the oncoming day would soon become a wet one. I’d been watching the weather forecasts for the last week or so along the route of our trip and the upcoming prospect of rain wasn’t a surprise.
We were a little lucky, though, as the rain didn’t start for us until we were through Columbus and heading west. The precipitation started then and would vary in intensity throughout the day from a light rattle on our windshield to some much heavier cloudbursts as we rode along.
Western Ohio, Indiana and Illinois passed by in a rain-choked blur.
Driving and riding in the rain is not particularly fun. Chuck and I made the time pass quicker by talking and relating to each other the stories we remembered about Neal and our childhoods. Neal had been a neighbor of Chuck’s and ran in the same gang as Chuck and I did even though he was a year older than we were. Our stories about the “old days” brought lots of grins and laughter as the wet miles hissed and gurgled by under our wheels. Our memories of the shenanigans the three of us got into as youngsters sparked other recollections and the hours passed pleasantly. Our conversations then started drifting into other memories of days past and a lot more stories were told. I won’t say there weren’t some embellishments added to some of our stories, but I won’t say there weren’t either. In any event we kept each other entertained for the majority of the day.
After a long chunk of that dreary Sunday had gone by, we passed through the northern suburbs of St. Louis and into a rainless Missouri! Hurrah, we exclaimed in delight as we watched the roadway turn from a slick wet mirror into dry pavement.
Since neither of us is as young as we’d like to think we are, we’d decided earlier not to make the whole journey to where Neal lived in one day. Better, we thought, to call it a day halfway through Missouri, catch a decent night’s sleep and arrive at Neal’s place fresh late the next morning.
We stayed at a nice Hampton Inn and ate supper right next door at a Cracker Barrel. It was close enough that we could walk from the hotel to the restaurant.
And, of course, it was raining when we walked back to the hotel. The weather gods apparently wanted one more crack at us.
The next morning, after a remarkably good hotel buffet breakfast, we hit the westbound road again and soon were skirting Kansas City and heading southbound for the last hour of the trip. It was sunny at last and we were enthusiastic about the upcoming day.
We found Neal’s nice duplex with no problem and soon the three of us were shaking hands and smiling so hard it looked like our faces might crack open. I hadn’t seen so many teeth since the last “Shark Week” on television! It was a true joy to see Neal again after all those years – 42 or thereabouts. That’s a long time, gentle reader, a very long time. I looked at Neal’s face and wondered if I had seen him on the street would I have recognized him. At first I thought not, but after about 20 seconds all the pieces fell into place and there was the guy I remembered standing there in all his glory.
How cool was that!
We at once commenced jabbering at each other about our lives and what we’d been doing, both yesterday, the day before and over the past four decades. Each of us told our stories. Some of them may have even been true! Naw, most of them were true although a few of them did stretch my credulity a little bit, but that was OK.
We were among friends.
Neal’s health had taken a turn for the worse some years before and he was presently taking treatments for a severe disease. I won’t disclose his disability in this blog, that’s no one’s business but his and whoever he wants to share that information with, but be sure that his problems were severe and he needed frequent treatments to sustain his health. He was very open about his ailment and we expressed how concerned we were about his condition. A little later that day we rode with him to a doctor’s appointment that he couldn’t break. We used that trip to continue our discussions and soon the waiting room of the doctor’s office rang with more of our stories and laughter.
After his appointment was over he took us to a good barbecue place in one of the nearby Kansas City suburbs and we enjoyed some of the justly famous KC barbecue. Lip-smacking good!
Neal drove us around after that, showing us places from his past. Where he used to live, where his business had been located back in the days before the depression, what he’d done there and how his life had been like a roller-coaster with a number of good highs and some not-so-good lows. How he’d even lived in a travel trailer for a few years until he got back on his feet.
We returned to his place after this grand tour and soon his wife Nancy got off work and joined us. Chuck and I introduced ourselves then and we four then dove back into the conversations that we’d been having. There was a lot of catching up to do as you may imagine! We called it a day early that evening as Chuck and I had to drive to our hotel and we’d not checked in yet. We said our good-byes and headed out, promising to meet again the next morning.
After a good night’s sleep at this hotel and another hotel buffet, Chuck and I went out and I got a couple geocaches before my cell phone buzzed and Neal said he was on his way to our hotel to pick us up.
The three of us then went for a drive and I got some more geocaches that morning, bumping my total for Kansas up to 8 or thereabouts. Then it was off to a good Mexican restaurant for lunch. After this quite tasty south-of-the-border repast we adjourned back to Neal’s place for more catching up. Later that day we drove to a nearby grocery store for steaks, spuds and salad makings and Neal soon whipped us up a wonderful juicy steak dinner. Quite the chef he was that evening!
We took some photos of each other then to commemorate our visit and to remember each other by. He drove us back to our hotel late that evening and we said our good-byes there.
It was tough saying goodbye that night. We all realized we were older men, not in the best of health and who knows what fate had in store for us in our futures.
Chuck and I talked that night a bit about how the visit had gone before settling in. We both knew that Neal had gone through a very rough patch back in the ‘70’s and we’d wondered if he would open up about it. We’d agreed beforehand that whether he did or didn’t, that was fine – it was his life after all. We were curious about that time period, though, and hoped Neal would “fill in the blanks” in his history. We were pleased, we agreed, when Neal had matter-of-factly told us about those bad days and how much he regretted the act that had initiated them. He had done the required penance for his actions and had moved on, marrying a wonderful lady and living a much better life, perhaps, than he may have done without the cloud in his past. Chuck and I applauded his courage, by the way he’d recounted his transgressions so forthrightly, by the strong faith he’d been blessed with and which had been so obviously good for him and by his steadfastness in handling his ongoing disease as best he could.
We both liked Neal and were very pleased to have seen him again.
Our trip home on Wednesday was almost the exact opposite of our westward journey, bright blue skies, sunshine and an inviting road leading us eastward and toward home. Chuck even let me drive his new truck for a few hours!
So, gentle reader, what can I take away from my little road trip with a friend?
Perhaps that it was fun to take a little break from the here-and-now of our everyday life and hit the road with a buddy. Perhaps that it had turned out to be a bit of a pilgrimage to a land of lost days, half-remembered times and a childhood that seemed bathed in a golden light for all of us.
But mostly it was a chance to say hello to an old buddy, to renew a friendship that had lasted the long, long years and to hold on a bit tighter to our lives which seemed to be rushing by far, far too fast toward an uncertain future.
Adios Nine to Five
It was a happy day, a sad day; it was a day for long last looks and bittersweet thoughts. It was a day for hugs and smiles, pats on the back, laughter and tears. The workplace took on a different complexion today for her, a color never before seen when she realized that she’d never view it again as an employee. She’d never climb those 22 stairs up to her office level again, never spend her weekdays among her “other” family, the folks she’d spent the long, echoing years working among.
She’d taken up her duties at this company 42 years ago when Nixon was president and the end of the Vietnam War was still raging. Now it was Obama’s turn in the White House and the world had changed in uncounted ways.
I heard my wife Judy get out of bed early today, much earlier than normal for her. I knew from her tossing and turning in the night just past that her rest had been fitful and her mind was already at her workplace, already shaking hands and smiling through the just-under-the-surface tears.
Already saying goodbye.
I almost arose with her then, in the dark of her last day at work, to offer a ride to the office, to offer some funny remark, some bit of humor to make her relax a little. But instead I stayed in bed as I normally did, listening to her go through her ritual of “getting ready for work” one last time. This was her day and I wanted her to have that ritual unimpeded one last time.
I felt I understood her thoughts, at least a little bit, as I had gone through the same bittersweet period of time in my life four months ago when I did as she was about to do.
Retire.
When I heard her car leave the driveway I got out of bed and let the dog out of her crate. She was raring to go, as always, and raced me down the stairs to await near her food bowl, her tail wagging madly, her nails clicking on the kitchen floor and her tongue already tasting her morning kibble. She knew how mornings were supposed to go. Food first, then outside where she would sniff the air, sniff the ground and watch the world all around with her bright doggie eyes. She’d perhaps comment on a nearby squirrel, a robin hunting worms in the neighbor’s yard, a bicyclist zooming along or a noisy car passing on the street. Hopefully she’d do her potty and we’d go back inside. It was chilly this morning.
The dog never gave a thought about her mistress’s retirement that day. Perhaps being a dog might be a good thing from time to time.
I drank my coffee and read the morning paper as usual, then got busy working on the project I’d been toiling on for a week or two – painting the kitchen. It was a “normal” day for me, a “retired guy” kind of normal of course, but normal all the same.
But my thoughts kept drifting to my wife. Was she out of her last meeting with her boss yet? Had she visited the workmen and engineers that all seemed to know her, even the ones she couldn’t quite put a name to? Had she packed up the last leavings of her desk and turned off her computer for the last time? Had she bid a heartfelt goodbye to the folks who worked closest with her, those whom she spent so doggoned many hours with. Had she gazed around the office with the newly-minted eyes of a retired person, trying to imprint the sight into her mind, trying to place these images into a long-term memory that she could pull out sometime in the future and cherish.
Had she started home yet for the last time?
Around noon I heard her car come into the driveway and enter the garage. Soon she was coming in the back door, her hands full with flowers, gifts and the final load of this-and-thats from 42 years at work. She described her last day to me, first with a catch in her throat as she described the raw emotions of the morning. As she recounted the events – the receipt of the flowers, a monetary gift from her supervisor, the many conversations of the morning – her voice cleared and the true joy of finally achieving retirement suddenly became evident to her. She had arrived at last.
We chatted on for an hour or so, recounting our mornings – her's being the much more eventful one, of course – then took a drive to take care of some errands and to grab a bite to eat at one of the local restaurants. The fresh spring air around us seemed lighter and more vibrant as we both realized that we had just embarked on a new journey, a trip paid for by us with our many years of toil.
It was now time for the payoff, time to look around and see the world as a new and different place, a wonderful place, a place where we could do what we wanted on a Tuesday or Thursday as well as on a Saturday. We could sleep in or get up early, be as energetic or as slothful as we wished. We could grab a suitcase and hit the road for a few days if the notion took us. We could take a class, learn yoga or pottery or how to speak Patagonian. We could volunteer at a charity. Hell, we could even take up skydiving!
And we were still mobile and not yet hampered by severe physical problems that would limit our adventures.
I could tell my wife was feeling much the same emotions as I. Our conversation wandered around the future, things we could do, places we could see, friends we could have fun with and more idle chit-chat of that sort.
But deep down it still was a bittersweet day for her, I knew, leaving the day-to-day certainties of her work, the people there, the comfortable rhythms of the nine-to-five, the Monday through Friday, the relaxation of knowing that you were an expert at what you did and what you did you did well.
I also knew she was beginning to understand that the downside of work – getting up so darn early in the morning, dressing as someone else required you to dress, doing work that could sometimes be long, tiring and boring – was over! All the rules, regulations and necessary behavior of the office was done!
Finito!
So now her last day at work is finished. The sun has gone down on her time at the office and her being defined as “an employee of AABBC Company”. Now she is retired, an independent contractor, footloose and open to whatever comes down the road. She can do or not do, be or not be, enjoy or not enjoy as she defines each of those things.
It was a bittersweet day, a tumultuous day, a day for emotions and tears, sorrow and smiles, farewells and I’ll-be-in-touchs. A day both sad and happy.
So welcome to my world, wife. May you find the happiness, the contentment and the joy you so richly deserve in the upcoming years.
Busy Days?
I guess I could take a break from my busy day and sneak a few words into the blog.
Did I say busy? Hmmm… Well, of course it all depends on your definition of “busy”.
“I’ve been so busy…” Well, you’ve heard that and you know how everyone says that – they’re busy doing this and busy doing that. Too busy to do this and too busy to do that.
But I’d be really surprised if that was actually the case. Busy is such a subjective word. What you consider busy I might think was an easy day and visa-versa. It depends a lot on priorities, too. What you consider important or what you actually want to do.
I’m pretty sure I was busy today, but of course it was a retired dude’s kind of busy.
For example:
My mornings are busy with the routines I’ve developed (fallen into) since I retired. Get up when I darn well feel like it. (Yay!) Clean up, dress and let the dog out of her crate. Feed her and let her outside to “decorate” the side yard as she sees fit. Pick up the decorations in a small bag and donate them to the trashcan. And of course she has to bark a bit, usually. Seems like it doesn’t take much to fire her up most days. Another trait I have to work on dissuading her from. Then it’s a fresh cuppa coffee and the morning paper, which I read more thoroughly nowadays than I used to. Then? Well, then I generally have some plan of attack for most days, a focus. But, then again, not all days. Some mornings I just log onto the computer and see if anything strikes me as something I might like or want to do.
Usually something comes to mind. Whether it’s applying more paint to something that direly needs it, cleaning this or fixing that, going here or going there. Or it may just be a day where I write a nice letter to a friend or take the dog out for a long stroll.
However the day turns out, whatever I do, essential or seemingly frivolous, at the end of it I always want to believe that the day mattered and that it made a difference.
There is a lovely story that I want to share with you concerning this very thing. It goes like this:
“Once upon a time, there was a wise man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach before he began his work.
One day, as he was walking along the shore, he looked down the beach and saw a human figure moving like a dancer. He smiled to himself at the thought of someone who would dance to the day, and so, he walked faster to catch up.
As he got closer, he noticed that the figure was that of a young man, and that what he was doing was not dancing at all. The young man was reaching down to the shore, picking up small objects, and throwing them into the ocean.
He came closer still and called out "Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?"
The young man paused, looked up, and replied "Throwing starfish into the ocean."
"I must ask, then, why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?" asked the somewhat startled wise man.
To this, the young man replied, "The sun is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them in, they'll die."
Upon hearing this, the wise man commented, "But, young man, do you not realize that there are miles and miles of beach and there are starfish all along every mile? You can't possibly make a difference!"
At this, the young man bent down, picked up yet another starfish, and threw it into the ocean. As it met the water, he turned to me and said,
"It made a difference for that one.”
― Loren Eiseley
It mattered to that starfish.
And I like to think that most days mattered to me too, more or less.
And so let’s now divert from the philosophic portion of this particular blog and continue with some doggie stories.
You probably knew that was coming, didn’t ya?
For those of you not interested in more Trixi tales, I bid you an affectionate adios. I’ll see you back here sometime soon.
OK gang, you still with me? Then off we go…
For those of you who are keeping track of the “incidents” concerning our new dog Trixi, you might want to click off a couple more. As you might remember, she scared us a while back by slipping off her collar and making an unexpected sojourn to our neighbor’s front yard. She was just checking out their concrete goose, apparently. It’s one of those concrete goose statues you see all over, but this one happens to be wearing a red coat and that is, I’m guessing, what attracted her. She did came back when I called, so that’s a point in her favor. After that particular jailbreak I decided to replace her collar with a harness we’d bought her specifically for walking, an Easy Walk type. It has its leash link in the front of it rather than behind the dog’s head, so if the dog tries to pull away from you, its design twists the animal to the right and back toward you. It works pretty well, too. Anyhow, I decided to leave it on in place of the collar that she slipped out of. After a couple of weeks wearing it, I wondered if it might be a little uncomfortable for her as it was fairly snug, so I got a “regular” dog harness that I thought might be OK and feel a bit more comfy for her.
She figured out how to slip that harness in two days flat! Back on went the Easy Walk. Unfortunately she had apparently been pondering the angles and straps of the EZ Walk too and ended up slipping that one also. Again we were lucky and she returned from the neighbors when called.
What the heck do I do with this Houdini now?
After a hurried phone consultation with our vet, I got a recommendation to try asking a local dog trainer about collars. I called him the next day and he said to come on up and we’d do a “meet and greet”, the mutt and me.
Or is it the mutt and I?
We drove (actually I drove and Trix rode) up to the trainer’s place on that rainy, dreary day, parked my car and saw the trainer stick his head out the door and wave me and Trix to come in.
The dog and I scooted from the car to the building, trying our best to stay between the raindrops and not succeeding very well. Jim, the trainer, was a very friendly chap and we talked quite a while about collars and his training methods. I agreed to join one of his training groups starting up in a week and also wrote down some of his ideas of collars I might try. He first showed me a Martingale collar that is used on a lot of greyhounds. Those dogs have smaller heads and strong necks, so a regular collar will slip right off. That description sounded a lot like our buddy Trix. The Martingale looks like a regular collar except it has a chain loop in the front, so when the dog pulls, the loop contracts and pulls the collar tighter. It’s similar in effect to a choke chain except it shrinks the whole collar at once instead at one point like the choke chain and will not jam. He also showed me a Sprenger prong collar, a nasty-looking chain device that has, like its name implies, prongs that point into the dog’s neck. They are NOT sharp and are only there to attract the dog’s attention when it pulls. I slipped one on Trix and we walked around the trainer’s big room. Trixi was remarkably amenable to walking and NOT pulling when wearing that one! So when I returned home I ordered one of each off the Internet. Now we’ll see how things go when they’re delivered! We’ll also see how the training goes as Trix and I start next week.
So wish Trix good luck and wish me patience, fortitude, resilience, courage and… more patience.
The Great Spackle CaperAnother doggone snowy Sunday, but at least it’s not a zillion degrees below zero like most of February has been this year. This particular snowy day, to differentiate it from the myriad other snowy and cold days inflicted upon us this winter, started around midnight last night with a light dusting of snow and was followed by heavier stuff in the wee hours. My son works third shift and reported this morning that it was pretty steady over the dark hours of the night and that driving home was more than a bit dicey. So the calendar now says it’s the first of March and we haven’t been anywhere near normal this winter, in temperature or in snowfall. One’s been way higher and the other way lower. I’d like to say it’s been a typical winter for hereabouts, but it really hasn’t. It’s been pretty grim. Granted we’ve had worse in past years, but not a whole lot worse. Anyhow, the calendar is wending its slow, methodical way toward spring and in a few weeks I’ll probably look back at these words and wonder at their impatience.
Now for the latest.
As some of you may remember, we rescued a dog back in November last year, about a week before Thanksgiving, and she’s been a real humdinger for us. She’s a smidge over 40 pounds and a mix between Shepherd, Boxer and Terrier. That’s according to the papers we got with her from the rescue place. I’m not sure how they derived that lineage, but its probably close. I’d probably peg her more likely as a cross between a pit bull, a whitetail deer and a goat. I’ll get into the goat reference in a minute.
Just remember that goats eat ANYTHING!
Our rescue people, One of a Kind out of Akron, received her from the Mahoning Pound. That’s all the history that’s been written down about her, so her life is a mystery to us for its first three-four years. She’s had puppies we do know, ten pups in the last litter we’ve been told, and more than one litter, too, according to our vet. She’s spayed now so that’s definitely in her past. Her color is what’s called brindle, sort of a medium brown with faint, almost tiger-like, striping. Brown and white face, white chest and white paws. Long, deer-like ears, one of which is bent inward like she’s giving you a military salute when you see her.
Our family has always had dogs as far back as I can remember and so has my wife’s family. This new dog is fifth in a line of canines my wife and I have owned in our married life and she may be the largest. She was 40 pounds when we got her and we’ve added a few since then, as she started out pretty skinny.
She’s been a good dog, I suppose. She’s friendly toward us in the family, but that’s normal and expected, as dogs consider their owners as part of their pack. She likes other people when properly introduced to her, but can be a little intimidating to people knocking at the door. I’m not too upset at that. Larger more intimidating dogs can make a house very much less ripe for break-ins or other problems from outside.
The rescue place where we got her had named her “Trick” as they received her near Halloween. We preserved most of their name selection by renaming her Trixi.
She seems comfortable with it.
Readers of my blog might remember her actions not long after we got her involving her ingestion of a LOT of Baker’s Chocolate and my procedure on how to make her “offload” the dangerous treat.
I thought that I might get lucky and that would be the worst we would see from our new buddy.
I should have known better…
Here’s the latest chapter in Trix’s ongoing story:
I retired a week before Thanksgiving last year. I fiddled around for a while after that momentous day, doing this and that and helping my wife with Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations. She makes lots of cookies that we give away and mail to various relatives and my assistance was appreciated. At least I think so. After the holidays were over I decided to tackle some maintenance issues with the house that had been put off for way too long. Interior painting was the first on agenda.
I started of course by moving furniture to make various walls available for preparation and painting. During which preparation I used spackle to patch various holes and other dings and scrapes in the walls. This is an old house, so the imperfections in the walls were numerous and all over. I’d just spackled a number of holes one day and not long after that noticed Trix eyeballing the pink stuff lower down on the walls. (The spackle I used went on pink and dried white.) As dogs have been known to do, she took a lick of the stuff. And another. Apparently it had an odor that was pleasing to her.
I shooed her away. Spackle was not a food item and the label said it was poison with a capital “P”. So I made an effort to keep her away from where I was working.
But good intentions and real life are sometimes not always synonymous.
On Wednesday this past week I was plugging away at another project upstairs in our house – repairing a wall. A long time ago a hole was made in that wall of our bedroom. It’s been so long ago I’m not really sure how the hole was made, but there are some vague recollections about someone (could it have been me?) taking a punch at the wall in a fit of pique and going through. (Shame on whoever it was!) I was younger and dumber back then, so I just “patched” the hole with some metallic tape, then painted over the tape when I painted the room. The damage was behind our bed’s headboard so wasn’t really an eyesore. But now, since I was doing projects, I decided to fix that hole correctly. I started with the “screen and spackle” technique where you attach a screen or grill patch over the hole then spackle over it. Then sand and respackle until it is smooth and able to be painted. I’d put the first layer of spackle on the grid and used quite a bit of it to cover the metal, then went downstairs for a sandwich while it started to dry. After eating it and fiddling around down there for a little while, I went back upstairs to see how it was drying. When I took a look at the repair I was confused. The metallic grid was clean and shiny. No spackle on it at all, pink or white! I rubbed my eyes and looked again. Yes, clean. No spackle. Wait a minute. I KNEW I had done the work – I wasn’t THAT senile yet. I looked on the floor – could the stuff have fallen off? No, nothing was lying on the floor. I shook my head, trying to rearrange the cobwebs in there and looked again. Could the stuff have oozed into the cracks of the grid and gone inside the wall as unlikely as that scenario was? Nope, none evident. Then an icy chill ran down my back.
Could it have been that stupid dog?
When I found her she was flopped on the couch looking sleepy and real innocent. That is until I noticed the smudge of spackle on her lower lip. Holy cow! She’d eaten ALL of the stuff!
I called the vet immediately and was told to use the “table salt or peroxide” trick to make her vomit it up. I only could get a smidge of salt into her pie-hole this time before she clamped down and stubbornly refused to open her mouth. It would have taken a scissors jack to open those jaws then, so I bundled her up and ran for the vet so she could do… whatever it was she needed to do.
They muzzled her and poured some hydrogen peroxide down her gullet, then handed her leash to me to take outside so she could vomit. So I stood in the cold and snow watching the dog watching me. She eliminated the OTHER way profusely, but nothing out of her mouth. She seemed oddly normal for a poisoned animal – no convulsions, no drooling, and no wheezing. Just a patient look as if to say, “Are we done out here, doofus?”
I returned inside the vet’s office and reported the non-upchucking. The vet said to just take her home and watch her. Feed her a bit more than normal to “keep things moving” internally and if she demonstrated any signs of illness to bring her in no later than Friday morning so the vet could “get it out”.
So I took the obscenely normal-acting dog home and fed her. And watched her. And watched some more.
She could NOT have been more normal.
The vet called the next morning and I reported Trix’s condition. And she called the following morning. I repeated the report.
I read the label on the spackle during that waiting period. Not good reading. “Call the Poison Control Center” and “Do not induce vomiting” were mentioned.
Trix just continued doing her doggie stuff as time went by, blithely oblivious to our anxiety.
I’m sure the vet thinks I dreamed up this whole escapade, but NO, I didn’t! Honestly!
And that’s where we stand today. It’s been said that cats have nine lives, so let’s add another ancestor to my mutt. There’s gotta be some cat in there somewhere!
Along with the goat…
Dead of Winter
It’s another cold winter’s day here in our little piece of paradise on Earth, this perfect place we call home. The weatherman told us today that the temperature was colder right here, right now, than it was in Nome, Alaska. For the end of January, that’s pretty cold, my friend. And to add insult to injury, we’ve got what’s called a “panhandle” low coming in tomorrow evening that’s forecast to dump from 4 to 12 inches of snow, the amount depending…
Of course that’s the delimiter, the weasel word – depending. It’s the weatherman’s “get out of jail free” card. If the low goes a wee bit more north, we get the smaller amount of snow or maybe even rain. If it’s a wee bit more south we get walloped with much more of the white stuff. Of course the weatherman is always dealing with probabilities, with maybe this or maybe that. Being an old weatherman myself, I always side with the guy making the forecast. I’ve been there and know how much work goes into the seemingly effortless presentation on the nightly TV news. But I also know there’s a lot of s.w.a.g. involved. Swinging Wild Ass Guess.
I really don’t worry too much about the weather any more. I know that wishing and hoping that the weather would do “this” or do “that” is always an exercise in futility as the weather will be what it will be. It’s really not a giant matter to me any more, either, as I’m retired now and don’t have to fuss with going to work in the inclement weather. But my wife and son are still working, so they’ll have to fiddle with it.
Good luck! Just don’t wake me.
But of course they will if need be. I’m not going to get off the hook that easy. So we’ll see how Sunday night/Monday morning turns out.
I’ve been doing a lot of painting these past few weeks. The interior walls of my house have needed a fresh coat of paint since… hell, probably since Ronnie Raygun was our Commander-in-Chief or thereabouts. So since I’m no longer gainfully employed, I’ve decided to finally tackle this task.
To my joy I’ve rediscovered that “painting the house” is a lot more involved than just putting paint on walls. A lot more! First you move the furniture; then remove all pictures, clocks, sconces, paintings, candles, et al from the walls; then spackle up all the holes; then sand the spackle and any other rough spots on the wall; then tape up all the places you don’t want to paint; then apply the paint to the trim areas – around outlets, windows, doors, etc.; then use the roller to paint the bigger areas; then, since I was painting woodwork also, remove the tape and retape before painting the woodwork; then paint the woodwork; then remove the tape and touch up all the boo-boos you made during the previous 19 steps. Then you put all the pictures, clocks, sconces, paintings and candles, et al back on the wall and return the furniture to their original places. And since there is very little room in my house to move furniture, you do this three times for each room.
Pardon me while I catch my breath!
I didn’t remember it being quite this hard the last time I painted. Of course, like I alluded to previously, that was some (many) years ago and I was… well, quite a bit (a lot) younger. The old muscles and the bad back that I tend to these days are handicaps that weren’t an issue back then either. Now they are and my bed is a very, very welcome place at the end of the day.
My previous jobs have all been computer-related office positions, so the physicality of my life has been minimal. So now I’m paying my dues for most of a lifetime of soft office chairs and comfortable keyboards.
But you know what? That’s OK! No one’s got me on a clock now and if it takes me two or three days to do a task instead of one, that’s fine too. It’s getting done and the result is quite pleasing, at least to my eyes. Being as this house is over a hundred years old and there isn’t a square corner or flat surface anywhere, the suitability of results can be very subjective. So let me just say that it is pleasing to me, so if it isn’t to you… well, so be it.
The paint I bought to accomplish this task was supposed to be low-to-no VOC’s. VOC’s are volatile organic chemicals – substances that allow large amounts of molecules to escape from the liquid through evaporation and sublimation. These vapors can make you ill. Gasoline is a good example of a high-VOC substance. Apparently my paint is a low-VOC, not a no-VOC. I started feeling a bit icky today and have attributed it to breathing the vapors of the paint for too long at a time. I guess I’ll need to watch my exposure to the paint in the future since I won’t be able to ventilate it to the outside like I could do in the summertime.
Too damn cold! (see earlier paragraphs!)
The weatherman also said we’re very near the climatological center of winter – the coldest most miserable time, so the outlook for the future is warming and nicer. Of course that’s speaking climatologically, not two days down the road, which, as you might recall, is when the snowstorm is due. So to sum it all up, there’s a lot of winter left in this ol’ year, bucko.
People still ask me occasionally how my retirement is coming along. Am I liking it? Am I enjoying it? Am I ready to go back to work?
My answers were and still are - yes, yes and no, but as time goes by, it’s like answering other rather no-brainer questions. Do you ask a fish if he likes the water? Do you like having two hands to do stuff with? Do you like that the color of snow is white and grass is green? Hmmm… Yes? No? I guess?
Being retired, for me, is about as noteworthy nowadays as being employed was a few months ago. Just pretty much the way things are. I compare it to being married. The first few days (or weeks or months) after being married are unique, strange and very, very different than being single. Then it becomes status quo. It becomes the ocean you swam in.
I guess being retired is getting to be that for me. Status quo. Same-same. Non-remarkable.
Do I miss work? Naw. Very little. I do miss the folks I worked with. At least most of them – some more than others. But going into an office and doing the same thing over and over and over again ad infinitum? Do I miss that?
Not a bit.
I have found out, however, after I retired, that I needed to find a purpose for getting up each day, something to occupy my mind and my body. It might be as simple as going to the gym and getting in a bit of a workout. Or cooking something a bit out of the ordinary for supper one day. Or possibly even painting my doggoned house! Some reason for my continuing existence. I recently read something that spoke to me on that topic and which put some focus to this need, this drive. The entire article boiled down to a three-word question that you needed to answer every day. The question simply is: Did Today Matter? Can you honestly say at the end of the day that what you did that day mattered? And if it didn’t, what will you do about it tomorrow?
Sometimes the deepest philosophical questions can be summed up very simply. Did today matter?
I wrote those words down and placed them on my computer monitor. I now end my days looking at it and answering the question as best I can. Yes, I think so or no and I need to do better. The mattering can be as monumental as deciding to quit smoking or to get married, to as inconsequential, but still meaningful, as always thanking your wife for her labor in making you a meal. Or calling a friend who you know is a bit down to just chat for a while. Or to take a pain-reliever, drink fluids and get plenty of rest when you’re ill.
All those things matter.
So another cold winter blusters and moans outside our windows, trying to make you believe that winter is all there ever is, was or will be. But the smell of fresh paint on my old walls and the mouth-watering smell of my wife’s pot roast cooking in the kitchen lets me know that all’s well, all’s as it should be and spring surely is “just around the corner.”
