Disconnecting

The entrance to the State Park

Captain and I decided we would sneak away for a quick camping trip before fall harvest kicks into high gear.  Plus, it's our anniversary on the 17th, so this was to celebrate that, too. 

We had reservations for a camper cabin at Beaver Creek Valley State Park just outside of Caledonia.  I have been to Caledonia one other time in my life for the wedding of one of Captain's classmates.  Which reminds me, it's their anniversary coming up, too!  Happy Anniversary, Twylla and Jeff!

Anyway, we left after chores were done Monday morning and headed for LaCrosse first.  I wanted to show Captain the VRBO where me and Gammy and our friends stayed when we had a girls weekend in June.  We cruised around old town for a bit and then ate lunch at a Taco John.  It's been ages since I've had Taco John potato oles, and they were just as good as I'd remembered.  

Next we needed to hit Fleet Farm.  Oh, sorry; on that side of the Mississippi it's Farm & Fleet.  Anyway, it was just down the road away from the Kwik Trip where we stopped for gas, only Captain got exit-happy and turned too soon.  We ended up back on I-90 headed for Madison.  No big deal, I said.  Just do an up-and-down at the next exit.  

Which we did.

Five miles down the road!  

Oh well.  We got back to where we needed to be, got our stuff at Farm & Fleet before heading to LaCrescent for some apples.  We like Bauer's Apple store right as you come into La Crescent, but it was so early in the season that they only had a limited number of varieties out.  I had wanted some Haralson's for baking, but we left with a bag of First Kiss instead.  That's the new variety from the University of Minnesota, who also brought you the Honeycrisp apples.  

From there it was on to Caledonia.  As we had gone on our travels, Captain commented on how he was surprised there was no one in the fields at all.  He thinks the real rush of fall harvest is still three or four weeks away.  He's usually right about these things.  

During all this driving, I was working on a crochet project that I had started when driving home from our camping trip with some friends.  It was just a circle that I kept expanding each round to keep it flat.  I wanted to square it up, and I knew it could be done because I've followed other patterns that start with a circle and end up square.  

Google must have the answer.  Yes, yes it did.  There was a formula for the basic concept, but I had to actually do the math.  Yeah....I had the same look on my face that you do!  We all know that math is not my friend.  

When something starts out "figure out," I know I'm going to struggle!

It took three starts and a lot of scratching out numbers with a pen and paper, but I actually got it figured out by myself!  

When we got to the State Park, the office was closed/unmanned.  I suppose in the off season, it's hard to keep them staffed full time.  I went to pull up the reservation details from my Gmail, but I had ZERO cell service.  Not even a shadow of a bar of reception.  

All rightie then.  

Since there was only one cabin in the whole park, we knew that's the one we wanted.  We did the on-your-honor payment for firewood and went to find our site.  

I love camper cabins.  You get the rustic experience of cooking over a fire or on a camp stove but you don't have to sleep on the ground, and you can go inside to crochet when it gets dark and/or cold.

We got unpacked, we realized that (1) we didn't have any potatoes, (2) Captain needed to call Bigger about a sick calf he had to treat, and (3) given the lack of cell service, Captain needed reading material.  Back to Caledonia's Dollar General we went.  

When we finally made it back to camp, we still had some time before we needed to start supper, so we decided to explore.  Captain had seen a trail called Switch Back Trail near the entrance to the park that was less than a mile round tip.  Awesome, sign me up.  

There should be a disclaimer about how treacherous this trail really is!

Unfortunately, neither one of us read the description of the trail in the park literature or we would have known it was going to be trouble.  We didn't know that it would be "narrow trails with steep inclines" most of the way up.  

I'm okay hiking uphill, but I am not okay hiking uphill when the drop off is inches away from my feet.  I had to put my crocs in 4-wheel drive halfway up the hill!  Plus, I don't like heights and tend to get vertigo in dicey situations like that, so several times I had to stop and reorient myself and let go of the small tree trunk I was clinging to.  

When we finally got to the top, I was too pooped out and too dizzy-ish to even take a picture of the view, which was phenomenal, by the way.  

I will say the trek down was better than the trek up in that the trail was wider, but it was just as steep and the backs of my thighs and calves were screaming by the time we crossed the bridge back to the campground.  

When we got back to the cabin, I noticed a historical marker a couple of sites away, so we went to investigate that.  It was about a natural spring just ahead in the limestone.  Oh my goodness, what clear water!  Just the sound of the water cascading out of it's opening in the hill and down over some rocks into the stream was relaxing.  

This is where the natural spring comes out of the hill and starts the stream

Then it was back to the campsite for some quiet time before supper.  This is a new concept for Captain.  He's a doer by nature and just sitting and relaxing with a book or magazine is a foreign concept to him.  But he got the hang of it just fine!

My job for supper was to make the hamburger patties.  Captain took care of the sweet corn.  I thought he was going to shuck it and boil it, but he left it in the husk and put it on the grate over the fire.  Interesting!  He got the grill started and was working on other preparations when I noticed that the corn was on fire!  Some of the silks must have caught and started the husk.  Easily extinguished, and it gave the corn a smoky taste.

The whole time we were preparing and eating supper, there was a very angry red squirrel on the other side of the stream venting his frustrations at the top of his lungs.  I don't know what set him off, but he had things to say.  

After supper and dishes, Captain went to shower and I returned to my make-a-circle-into-a-square baby blanket.  It was going very nicely by this time.  

I don't know what it is about camping, but as soon as it gets dark, I'm tired.  Down in the Beaver Creek Valley, dark occurs before 8 p.m.  No way can I go to bed at 8 p.m.!  This is where the joy of a camper cabin comes in, because we both occupied ourselves for over an hour on quiet pursuits.  

By the time I was ready to go to bed, I needed to use the restroom first.  I don't do walking in the dark by myself, even with a lantern.  I need Captain to walk with me and carry the light.  Even so, as we were walking the quarter mile to the bathrooms, there was some kind of animal noise in the woods to our left and I jumped a foot and grabbed Captain.  

After he quit laughing, he told me it was an owl.  Man, the critters were out to terrify me!  

I was quite glad to get back to the cabin, lock the door, and snuggle in to sleep.  

Tuesday morning I woke up around 6, and so did Captain.  I thought about maybe going to the bathroom, and the next thing I knew it was 7:45!!  When I opened my eyes I was turned toward the wall, and there was a spider strolling across at my eye level.  Been awhile since I've gotten out of bed that fast!

Thankfully, Captain had the coffee ready and breakfast started.  I love having a man who does the cooking, and I'm not ashamed to say so.  While Captain worked on breakfast, I pulled out the State Park memory book Captain gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  

You think it's a sock, but it's doing double duty as a potholder!  

I filled in highlights from this camping trip (so far) including the corn on fire.  Afterwards, I flipped through other state park trips that I had noted.  And I discovered a pattern or theme.  

Captain has trouble with fire.  

At Lake Louise, he did something and started the grass on fire.  At Rice Lake, the Coleman lantern went haywire and he tried to extinguish it with Reggie's blanket and melted the blanket.  In the Black Hills, the Coleman stove blew up and started on fire.  

Thankfully, none of these incidents resulted in injury or mayhem.  

After a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, camper potatoes with green peppers, and bacon plus really good coffee, we cleaned up the picnic table and fire pit and then hit the trails.  

Behind our cabin there was a wide, mowed grass trail that ran along the creek back to the entrance to the campground.  From there, we decided to try the Hole In The Rock Trail.  

This one was a cross between the horrible Switchback Trail and the lovely grass trail.  Sometimes it was wide, sometimes it was as narrow as my foot.  There were freakishly scary footbridges--I had to close my eyes and hold onto the back of Captain's shirt to be led across--and rickety steps that tricked you into thinking they were sturdy when they weren't.  

But we saw vistas of awesome (in the truest sense of the word) beauty and enjoyed the quiet sounds of nature.  Well, except for that cow in the pasture next to the park who was seriously ticked off about something.  

The park literature had said that particular trail was one mile, but I'm pretty sure they lied and it was more like five miles.  At least, that's how it felt by the time we got to the other end.  

By then it was time to pack it all up and hit the road for home.  I vaguely remembered from my last trip to Caledonia that the road out of it was exceptionally curvy, so I asked to go home that way instead of back up to I-90.  

Captain humored me, and we drove from Caledonia to Houston on a lovely--yes, curvy--two lane road through miles and miles of trees.  I counted 45 curves between Caledonia and Houston!  I would imagine that a few weeks from now, that stretch of road will be brilliant with fall colors.  

The rest of the ride home was uneventful, and we were glad to drive back in our yard just over 24 hours after we left.  You wouldn't think such a short trip would be relaxing, but it always amazes me how much spending time in the great outdoors can bring me peace.  

If you ever need the kind of vacation where you absolutely leave the world behind, this state park is the place to do it.  You can't help but relax when it's the only think you have to do. 

Safe and happy travels, my friends!

 

Keep Your Head In The Boat

Photo courtesy of Clipart Zone

If you have been watching my personal Facebook page--and I know you all wait on pins and needles to see what titillating thing I post next--then you know there was recently a meme about Bigfoot possibly being a wookie who is lost.  I only bring this up because Bigfoot, and my fear thereof, was a recurring topic over the weekend.  

So, there was a big dragon boat festival in one of the Chicago suburbs this past weekend.  Normally our team competes in Dubuque or Fort Dodge, Iowa, but this year it was Chicago because the people who are going to "fill the boat" at the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Association festival in New Zealand taking place in March of 2023 need to actually meet and paddle together at least once before flying halfway around the world to try and win.  Are you with me yet?

See, there needs to be 20 paddlers in each boat in order to compete plus a steersman, plus a drummer, plus a flag catcher.  Most dragon boat teams aren't that big, especially the breast cancer survivor/supporter teams, so multiple teams combine to make  composite team.  

Our composite team consists of ladies from California, Florida, Michigan, Iowa, and Minnesota; possibly a couple of more states that I've neglected to mention.  Anyhoodles (I learned that word this weekend from Aunt EM, and I love it!), we all met for the first time Friday evening and did a practice run.  For 20 women who had never worked together before, I was impressed!  

Then we got the bad news.  The four supporters that we had in our boat would not be allowed to be in the boat for the races; they had to substitute in one of the community-based teams at the festival.  So now we were four people short in our boat and a brand new "team."  But we agreed to persevere.  We all got together and drowned our sorrows in wine and burgers before turning in early to get a good night's sleep.  

Bigfoot entered the conversation for the first time that evening as Jane, Aunt EM, and I chatted in the room.  I'm not even sure how it came into the conversation, but we stayed on that topic for quite a while.  Eventually, however, it was lights out and nighty-night because we had to be done with breakfast and at the event site by 7 a.m. Saturday morning. 

When we got to the breakfast buffet on Saturday morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we heard other guests talking about being evacuated from their floors due to fire alarms going off.  I looked and Jane and Aunt EM to see if they'd heard the alarms...nope, we had all slept through it.  That's rather disconcerting!  Turns out not only was there fire alarms, fire trucks, police cars, and EMTs involved, there was also blood in the stairwell.  

My first thought was "Crap, my true crime obsession followed me to Schaumberg."  Then I realized that was ridiculous, and I went to my second thought, "Dammit, Bigfoot got loose and into the hotel."  Much more reasonable theory, right?!  

Rumors were flying but nobody could pin down the truth.  Since Aunt EM wasn't joining us at the event site due to attending a baby shower in nearby Des Plaines, she said she would take the opportunity to interrogate (see...true crime stuff!) the desk staff and housekeeping staff about what was what.  

We left her to that and headed to the lake.  We were early enough that we got excellent parking just across the sidewalk from our canopy tents.  There were six other breast cancer survivor (BCS) teams competing as well as 16 community teams.  Some of the community team sponsors were Walgreens, US Bank, and Dekalb.  One team that was absolutely inspiring to watch was the Adaptive Adventures teams made up of disabled persons.  We'll circle back to this in a little bit.  

We had some time to have coffee and rolls--did I mention there is much food involved in these events??--and watch the first couple of races.  The races for the day consisted of two 500-meter races and two 200-meter races.  The 500-meter races were in the morning, and the 200-meter races were in the afternoon.  Good thing because I wouldn't have survived if it had been the other way around.  

Our team captain and her husband got everyone lined up in order, we did some stretches.  Okay, I'll be honest, everyone else did stretches, I raised my arms up and down a couple of times.  A top-fit athlete I am not!  Then the captain went over the rules and some etiquette tips.  Then she says, "If we capsize, stick with your bench buddy and stay with the boat."  Well, I'd never heard that before, and I was a bit discomfited by it to say the least!  Mainly because I'd probably be the one to swamp the boat and I would have PTSD flashbacks to the canoe trips of my youth with the Potsdam peeps when tipping someone's canoe over was the pinnacle of accomplishment.  

Photo courtesy of https://www.record-courier.com

Anyhoodles, we got lined up and loaded in the boats and paddled out to the start line.  It takes some major choreography to get four dragon boats line up so there isn't one with its nose further out than another's.  That's up to the race staff, and they aren't afraid to bark at you if you aren't fast enough following their directions.

Since math isn't my strong suit--which also came up in conversation over the weekend--I Google the conversion of meters to yards, and 500 meters is 546 yards and change.  For all of you Packers, I mean Vikings, fans out there...that's 5-1/2 football fields.  

Yes, we came in last.  However, I want everyone to keep a couple of things in mind.  (1) We were paddling together for the very first time, and the fact that we made it 500 yards only 3 seconds behind the other boats wasn't too shabby.  (2) We were four people short in our boat versus the other three boats that had all 20 people paddling.  (3) We are mostly middle aged women who aren't toned athletes.  

As we were paddling back to the loading dock and I was gasping for air like a landed guppy, I saw the Adaptive Adventures team loading their boat, and I told myself to quit whining.  Those paddlers were being carried from wheelchairs to the boat, or walking on crutches with help to the boat.  There were prostheses and canes, and they were game to go out there and give it their all.  If they could do it, by God so could I.  

We had a little bit of a rest before the second 500-meter race, and that consisted of drinking a lot of water and hitting the porta-potties frequently.  The phrase I heard tossed around was "drink and pee, and no IV."  There must be some retired nurses on our team.  

We went out and finished the second 500-meter race, still came in last, but we improved our time by 2 seconds.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but many of these races are decided by hundredths of a second, so it was a BFD.  

Before there was a lunch break, the did the survivor's ceremony.  All seven boats were loaded up, each survivor was given a pink carnation (can we say, ear worm?), and we maneuvered out just off shore as a group, holding all the boats together.  The emcee read a poem written by a survivor and then they played a song called Paddles Up (I think) and we all tossed our flowers in the water to create a little pink carnation blanket.  Many tears of gratitude for being alive and able to participate in such an event.  

Then it was lunch time!  We trooped back to the tent and filled up paper plates with sandwiches, fruit, crackers, cookies, bars, chips, etc.  There was another paddler who had brought her crochet project along, so we sat down and bonded over corner-to-corner patterns and the virus pattern.  More hydration, more potty breaks, and some good laughs in the tent.  Then it was back to finish up with the 200-meter races.  

We came in last in the first heat but still with a better time again, and we came in second of three in the last heat!  Okay, in the spirit of transparency, that's because the third boat veered off course into the weeds.  Still, we had an improved time.  And we had fun, so we were winners even if we didn't get any medals.  

While we were back taking the canopy tents down and loading up chairs and coolers, someone made reservations at a local pizza place just down the road.  Since Aunt EM was done with her baby shower and also needed to eat, we circled back to the hotel and picked her up before heading to Lou Malnati's.  While we drove to Lou's, she filled us in on all the poop and scoop about the blood and fire alarms.  

Turns out there had been a wedding at the hotel Friday night, and two of the guests overindulged in adult beverages and then got into some fisticuffs involving a broken bottle and a gash in someone's arm.  Said gashed person freaked out (on the 14th floor, for some reason) and went tearing down the stairwell splattering blood all over the place for three flights before deciding that he really needed medical attention and figured that pulling the fire alarm would bring help immediately.  Why calling 9-1-1 wouldn't work or wasn't thought of, I'm not sure, but there you go.  

All 25 of us trooped into Lou's and were thankful to plunk our butts on something other than a boat bench.  I passed on ordering pizza--I can't be disloyal to Mr. Pizza North--and ordered chicken fettucine alfredo instead.  I must say, it was the best CFA I've had!  Some folks enjoyed an adult beverage or two but since I was driving in an unfamiliar town, I stuck to the ever dependable Diet Pepsi.  

We were back in the hotel room while it was still light out with Jane working on embroidered note cards, Aunt EM telling us about the baby shower, and I worked on an afghan.  Aunt EM brought back the games that they had played at the shower.  There was the usual word scramble and such, but then there was an emoji game that was supposed to indicate the title of a nursery rhyme.  

Jane was looking them over and clicking them off like no one's business.  Then she paused, clucked her tongue, and said "I'm not sure what burger, barn, chicken, cow is supposed to be."  Aunt EM burst out laughing and said it wasn't a burger, but she wasn't going to say WHAT it was because it was so obvious.  Jane decided it was a good time for a potty break, so I asked if I could see the emoji list.  I found the one that had stumped her...and also burst out laughing.  

It wasn't a burger at all.  It was an old guy with glasses and a fringe of hair.  Memo to me:  when traveling with Jane and Aunt EM, bring t he thicker Poise pads so when I laugh hard enough to pee my pants, I don't actually pee my pants.  So the emoji thing was Old McDonald (burger-looking old guy) had a farm (barn) with a cluck and a moo.  

There was another one that I thought was the emoji for "hang ten" and then "spank" (an open hand), and then a baby.  I didn't think that was very nice at all...hang, spank baby.  Maybe this wasn't a baby shower; maybe this was a bridal shower with an S&M theme.  

Nope, what I thought was the hang ten emoji was the rock emoji; you know a raised hand with the thumb, index, and pinky fingers extended.  What I thought was a spank was just a bye-bye wave.  So Rock, Bye, Baby....Rockabye Baby.  Well, that devolved quickly, didn't it?

There was more hilarity and laughter for a couple of hours before we all finally fell asleep.  

Breakfast on Sunday morning was a much more laid back affair with no overnight evacuations or bloodshed.  Always a good thing!  Since we really had no timetable for our return to Minnesota, we lingered over coffee and pancakes for awhile.  I mentioned that it might be fun to stop at this unique little gift shop in Onalaska on the way home, and my peeps were game for that.  When I checked their website, however, I discovered that they were not open on Sundays.  Bummer!  I'd have to come up with a Plan B later.    

Once we got checked out and loaded up the van, we hit a nearby gas station for 5 gallons of $5 gas to get us out of Illinois and into Wisconsin where it was a couple of bucks cheaper per gallon to fill up.  

Once we got onto I-90, I tasked Aunt EM with researching someplace fun to stop on our way home.  I didn't care if it was an indoor thing like a museum, gift shop, antique store or whatever or if it was an outdoor thing like a botanical garden, a zoo, or an interesting park.  Just something fun.  

What she came up with was the National Mustard Museum in Madison.  Perfect!  It sounded just kitschy enough to suit my taste. 

Photo courtesy of the National Mustard Museum

 

I'll stop here and say that what I enjoyed about travelling with Jane and Aunt EM was that we were all comfortable being silent for extended periods of time.  I have been on other road trips where at least one person in the party feels the need to fill every second with conversation...natural or forced...and it gets tiring.  So the quiet times were welcome in my van!  Thanks, gals!

Anyhoo, we found the National Mustard Museum in a lovely little neighborhood section of Madison on Hubbard Avenue.  It was just a tiny storefront in the corner of an old building, but it was LOADED with all things mustard.  Of course there was the novelty merchandising stuff right inside the door...coffee mugs, T-shirts, shot glasses, etc.  

Then it was on to the main event.  I'm going to say there must have been five THOUSAND choices of mustard from all points on the globe.  I picked up some horseradish and honey mustard for Captain and some cherry BBQ sauce for myself.  We haven't tried the mustard yet, but we had the BBQ sauce last night on the grilled chicken and it was amaze balls!  Chunks of real cherries in it....yummy!

From the Mustard Museum we sauntered 100 feet down the block to the local diner, known for pies.  In fact, their catering slogan is "If you don't eat your pie, you can't have green beans."  Catchy and clever, I was impressed.  My go-to pie place is Betty's Pies in Two Harbors, and I can't tell you if the Hubbard Avenue Diner pies were better or not because the chicken Caesar salad I had was huge and I was too full for pie!

Between Madison and our last pit stop at the Visitor Center on the west side of LaCrosse, I saw a sign for Circus World and mentioned that it sounded like a fun place.  Thus, the next road trip plans were hatched!!  

After leaving the LaCrosse Visitor Center, wouldn't you know it, the minute I merged onto I-90 in crazy rushing traffic...my phone range.  Aunt EM saw that it was Captain and kindly answered it for me.  From what I could hear of the conversation, this threw Captain for a loop-di-loop!  He just wanted to know how soon I would be home.

Awww...he missed me!    

I dropped Jane and Aunt EM off at Jane's house, hugged all around, and hit the road for home.  

I spent the 30-minute drive home contemplating how much difference good travel buddies make on a road trip, and I have to say, Jane and Aunt EM are welcome on my travels any time!  

Respecting Veterans: The Next Generation

 

Saturday was the annual placing of the flags on the veterans' graves at Saint Michaels Catholic Cemetery.  I took over this task when Dorothy Bloom was no longer able to do so.  I have enjoyed it immensely for many years, and when Cubby was old enough to walk, I started taking her with me.  

The first year she went, she was mostly interested in the dandelions that were popping up and not really much help.  The next year she could say 'Merica and jab the flag into the air.  At that stage, she talked nonstop but no one could really understand what she was saying except for about every tenth word.  When I stopped to say hi to Captain's dad at his grave, Cubby watched intently and then stood there "speaking" to him, and she ended with a loud and proud 'Merica....Amen!

Last year when I took her, she wanted to know the stories on the headstones.  When we found some that were Irish immigrants, we had a whole discussion about why people came here from someplace else.  She got a short--very short--history lesson the Great Potato Famine of Ireland that year.  When we came to headstones that were for babies, her big brown eyes would tear up and she'd say "Gramma, that's so sad."  Yes, baby girl, that is sad.  

So this year when we got there, before we got out of the car, Cubby asked why we put flags out.  So this year she got a lesson about respect and gratitude for those who served whether in peace time or in conflict.  I think she understood it.

This was one conflict I had with my mom.  Dad was in the army in the mid to late 50s.  He didn't see combat, but he damaged his hearing beyond repair firing Howitzer cannons.  Even so, Mom would insist that Dad was not a veteran because he didn't see combat.  So I had to add a blurb to my history lesson with Cubby that veterans didn't HAVE to have been in a war to be respected; they just had to have served.  I'm not sure she understood that, and I guess if she doesn't understand war, I'm okay with that right now.  

The other mission I had while at the cemetery, beyond putting the flags up, was to get the name, birth date, and death date of the veteran whose headstone makes me so sad because it seems lonely and neglected.  

There was moss growing over the name engraved on the small limestone headstone, but there was a larger, newer family monument next to it that clearly showed the last name to be Melian, immigrants from County Armagh, Ireland.  

I was excited to go home and start a genealogical search for this family so I could...I don't know what, but I was going to search.  

I found the headstone on FindAGrave.com.  His name was Michael Melian, and he had been a private in the Civil War with Company G of the 14th Vermont Infantry.  He was born in 1833 in Armagh, Ireland, and died in rural Pine Island in 1875.  So he made it through the Civil War intact.  

I would be very interested to know how he went from fighting with a Vermont company of soldiers and then ending up in rural Pine Island, Minnesota, ten years later.  

I tried to track him back in Ireland to see if I could unearth any other relatives who immigrated that might have information on any of the genealogical sites I frequent, but no; nothing.  I couldn't even find his name or his wife's name--Sarah Melian--on any ship's passenger list when searching the National Archives online catalog.  They had to have come on a ship if they came from Ireland, but I haven't found a record of it yet.  

However, in further searching, I discovered that Michael and Sarah had one daughter, Anna, born in 1871, who married a John Fitzgerald, and  they had three children.  

Agnes Margaret Melian was born in 1895, married Frank Lemmon Graham and passed away in 1981 without any children.

Inez Mary Melian was born in 1898 but only lived a year.  To quote Cubby, that's so sad.

Edward Michael Melian was born in 1904, was married, and went on to have a distinguished medical career before passing away in 1983 without any children, although his obituary did mention two nieces.  However, I'm guessing those were from his wife's side of the family.  

Now I know why this particular headstone is lonely and neglected.  There are no surviving heirs to take care of it.  I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.  

I do know that it makes me want to take flowers to Michael and Sarah's graves just so someone pays their respects.

Call me weird.

Legends, Lore, and Laughs

 

Since I have run out of things to tease Captain about and I am spending so much time down the rabbit hole of genealogy, I decided to just drag y’all along with me.  You’re welcome!
 
Last Sunday, Captain and I drove down to Wabasha to visit my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Linda.  Jerry is the youngest of the five Brehmer siblings, and now the only one left.  So he is now my treasure trove of family secrets, lore, and misdeeds!  And boy did I learn a whole bunch of new stuff! 
 
Like for instance, the farm where I grew up was the home farm of my dad’s mother, Clara Francis Benike Brehmer.  Her brother, Alex Benike, lived on the adjacent quarter section.  When great-grampa Benike decided to retire and sell the home farm, Alex—who always acted like he was better than the rest of his siblings, according to Jerry—wanted the home place but waited too long to make an offer.  Grampa Albert and Gramma Clara Brehmer were able to purchase it instead.  Albert did not have the financing lined up yet when he made the offer to the realtor, so the realtor offered to finance it for him. 
 
When I was talking to Jerry, I learned that a story that I had heard multiple times as a child was actually false.  I had always heard that Grampa Albert never wanted to be a farmer; he wanted to be an electrician.  However—as the story was told to me—his mother was afraid of electricity as it was so new at the time and forbid him to do that and made him farm instead. 
 
Jerry cleared that up for me and said that his dad never wanted to do anything BUT farm (kind of like my dad), and it was Albert’s brother, Ruben, who was the electrician.  In fact, it was Ruben who wired the milk house for Albert and Clara after they purchased the farm. 
 
I remember Uncle Rube coming out to the farm when I was a kid and giving us candy bars from the vending company that he worked for when they were “out of date” but still tasted good.  I also remember him rabbit and squirrel hunting in the woods behind our house. 
 
I asked Jerry how Albert and Clara met.  This is one of those questions that fascinates me now that I never thought to ask when Dad was still alive.  Apparently, Albert worked for a neighboring farm of Clara’s family and they would see each other across the field and such.  One thing and another….and we have a family tree!

Photo courtesy of: 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.amomama.com

 
Linda told a story about when she worked at the Kahler Hotel and they still had elevator operators at that time.  She got in the elevator to go to her office, and Roy Rogers was standing there in the corner!  Then this elderly gentleman got on using his walker and, thinking that Roy Rogers was the elevator operator said, “Sixth floor please!” 
 
Pets were another good avenue of conversation from Jerry.  He told me about a dog that Dad had named Skipper.  She always slept in Dad’s bed, under the covers, down by his feet.  Like most female dogs of that era, she ended up with child.  One morning, Dad woke up and Skipper wasn’t under the covers by his feet…because she was in his closet in a box of clothes waiting for mending having her puppies! 
 
For some reason, goats are part of the Brehmer family lore.  For those who are not in the know, please refer to my blog post about The Great Goat Float Incident.  Another goat of famous family lore is the one that my dad’s Uncle Emil and Aunt Esther had on their farm.  One day when Emil was away, Esther looked out the window and saw the goat pulling her clean laundry off the line and eating it.  Well, let me tell you, Esther was having none of that!  She got the shotgun out and ended the goat.  Problem solved! 
 
Finally, Jerry gave me the names of the kids in a school class picture of my dad’s circa 1945 from the one-room country school house they went to. 

 
Back row (left to right):  Sylvia Steiger, Virginia Robinson, Miss Dodge (teacher), ?? Southwick, Gwen Domke, Sylvia Syngfiel
Middle row (left to right):  Marvin Brehemr, Marvin Fellows, Herbert Brehmer, David Domke, ?Ken Benike,
Front row (left to right):  Sharon Hart, Joyce Benike, Janet Domke, Shirley Brehmer, Deanna Wolfgram, Elizabeth Domke, Jeanette Steiger.
 
Stay tuned for further family history stories!

You Don't Know If You Don't Ask

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com

I've said many times that I wished I had paid more attention back in the day when someone was talking about "the good old days."

Well, today, I listened. Mainly because I asked questions, but still, I listened.

I had lunch with my Aunt Donna and Aunt Linda. Donna's husband, Dave, and Big Brother and his wife, Annie, were also there.

The original idea when we made lunch plans was for just me, Donna, and Linda to get together to gab and giggle. Then I fell down that rabbit hole I wrote about in the last post, and I wanted to pick their brains about family history. That's how Big Brother and Annie got involved because--hey--they like family history stuff, too!

Holy flying Dutchmen, batman, did I learn stuff that I never, ever knew!

First off, it has always been something of a point of pride--at least for me--that my Gramma Prokasky was a live-in maid for Dr. and Mrs. Plummer. I found out today that she got that job because Mrs. Plummer specifically asked her to come and work for them. Gramma had been a maid at a boarding house prior to that. I forgot to ask why Mrs. Plummer was in a boarding house, but the story is still exciting.

Further exciting is that Aunt Donna, some while back, got in touch with the caretaker or curator or whatever they call the person in charge of the Plummer House now and said that she had some pictures of Gramma when she was working at the Plummer House and did they want copies.

They arranged to meet, and the--I'll stick with curator--saw them, she wanted them very much. Turns out that one of them had several of the maids swimming in the Plummer's in-ground swimming pool which made it a treasure as the curator said it was probably the only picture with that pool in it. The winter after that picture was taken, the pool froze and cracked, so the Plummer's filled it in and made it a flower garden.

Donna took the photos and put them in one of those multi-print frames and gave it to the curator, and it now hangs in Dr. Plummer's home office! How stinking cool is that? Pretty cool, in my book.

The remarkable thing was that, while I always knew that Gramma Prokasky was a maid, I never knew that Gramma Brehmer was also a maid in Rochester at the same time for Dr. and Mrs. Judd! Can we say co-inky-dink?! And even more coinkidinkier is that because of the practice of maids for one doctor helping out when another doctor had a big party, my two gramma's had actually met and worked together at such a shindig before their kids met and got married.

They found this out when Grampa and Gramma Prokasky had Grampa and Gramma Brehmer over for dinner to celebrate my mom and dad's engagement. During the after dinner conversation, this little nugget of family history was unearthed. Too cool!

That dinner was apparently a Big Hairy Deal for all parties involved. Donna said that Gramma Prokasky, as hostess of this engagement dinner, told Grampa that her tablecloth was too ratty to have when the Brehmers came for dinner, so he had to take her to town to buy a new tablecloth. At the same time (Donna learned later), Gramma Brehmer told Grampa Brehmer that her white gloves and good hat were much too ratty to wear to dinner with the Prokaskys, so he had to take her to town to buy a new hat and gloves.  The fact that they were both that nervous about that first meeting and then finding out they had know each other before was kind of ironic.  

See, I told you I paid attention!

The Rabbit Hole of Genealogy

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com

 

I have been off-and-on shaking my family tree over the past few years.  Some of that is because of newly discovered connections found out at wakes or funerals.  

Part of it is due to binge watching Finding Your Roots on PBS.  The stuff they find out is fascinating!  Granted, some of it is harsh and uncomfortable, but still fascinating.  

Now, I don't have that kind of time, resources, or patience that the staff on that show does, but there are some tools out there for wanna-be genealogists such as myself.  

My first foray into the whole build-a-family-tree adventure was several years ago on the Family Echo website.  This appealed to me mostly because it was free.  I had fun with it and found out some stuff I hadn't known.  

Not only that, but it gave me a reason--as if I truly need one--to reach out to my aunts and cousins for vital statistics.  This, in turn, led to a quarterly lunch date with my two remaining aunts.  How cool is that?!

Anyway, I have advanced now to using the My Heritage website.  There is a subscription associated with this, but the data available is overwhelming!  One really cool thing with this website is when you click on a person in the family tree, it tells you if it's your third cousin once removed or your mother-in-law's half-sister's ex-husband.  Talk about drilling down to the nitty gritty!  

The other very, very cool thing about this website is that you can have it print out a family book.  I remember that someone in my dad's family did this just after Captain and I got married, and it was awesome.  The fact that I could now do this for my kids and grandkids thrills me to death.  Well, hopefully not to death; I don't want to end up on the family tree that way just yet. 

I didn't want to find relatives by submitting and publicizing my DNA.  First, as an adoptee, I think that would be a can of worms best left unopened.  Second, I don't know those people.  The family I know is the one that I grew up with.

So I went with the old fashioned paper trail method.  Well, digitized paper trail.  I know there are public records that are not digitized that I could access by actually going to the courthouse or public library and looking at them, but that's something for retirement, I think.  

The other reason I started delving into genealogy is because every year when I go to St. Michaels Cemetery to put out the flags for the veterans, there is one veteran's grave that just makes me sad.  He's been gone for decades, and there is no one to visit his grave or even care that it's there.  I don't know why that particular grave hits me so hard when there are hundreds there, but that one does for some reason. 

I want to find out more about who he was, where he came from, what he did, who his people were.  Maybe when I retire, that can be another project; researching people in our cemetery and creating a family book for them as a gift to their families.  

Call me weird.  Other people travel or do exciting things when they retire; me, I want to dig into historical records of people I've never met.  

I've said it before:  I really, really, really wish I'd paid more attention when my parents talked about their aunts and uncles and grandparents.  Then maybe it wouldn't be such a monumental effort now to track information down.  

Still, even when it takes some effort, it is so rewarding to add another little branch to the family tree!

Pampered Is As Pampered Does

Pinterest

Good day, my friends!  Goodness, it has been a long time, hasn't it?  

Captain asked me this morning if I had decided to quit writing, and no, I haven't.  I just wasn't feeling the writing vibe, and I didn't want to just put words on paper for the sake of putting words on paper.  I think that would be a disservice to you and me.  

Anyway, the other night Captain, Gammy, and I were discussing how different gender roles are now versus when our parents and grandparents were alive.

Being a spoiled wife whose husband does all the grocery shopping, most of the cooking, and most of the laundry, I can relate to those men from past generations who just expected that stuff was going to be done for them.  

My dad was a classic example of this.  He was a hard worker, kind, generous, and funny.  But he was helpless and hopeless in the house.  

Mom and Dad would come in from chores--at the same time, mind you; mom didn't get to go to the house earlier than Dad--and Mom would start supper.  

I don't know about your house as a kid, but in my house we had meat, potatoes, and vegetables for supper.  Also in my house, it was breakfast, dinner, and supper not breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  

But I digress. 

Anyway, Mom would peel potatoes and put them on the stove to boil.  Then she would work on preparing the main dish.  She was probably also doing dishes, vacuuming or sweeping the floor, and organizing the day's mail and bills.  

My dad, you ask?  Dad was sitting at the table drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, and looking at cow magazines.  

More than once a week at some point his head would come up from his reading and he would say, "Max, the potatoes are burning."  Mom would assure him that the potatoes were just fine.  

Image found at https://me.me/my-cooking-is-fabulous-even-the-smoke-alarm-is-cheering

A minute later he would again bark, "Max!  The potatoes are burning!"  

This was the point where the smoke alarm would start going off and the stench of burnt potatoes would permeate the first floor of our big four-square farmhouse.  

This is common knowledge, so I'm not really airing any dirty laundry here.  And I am not putting it out there for God and country now to make fun of my Mom.  She did the best she could.  

I'm going to do something I rarely do.  I'm going to rake my Dad over the coals.  Anyone who knows me knows that this is not my go-to reaction.

What the heck was wrong with Dad that instead of barking at Mom--who had been outside working just as long and hard as he did--he didn't just get up off his spoiled little butt and either (1) turn the burner off or (2) add water to the pan to stop the scorching?  

Image from www.memebase.com

I don't know the answer, and it's been a puzzler my whole life.  

I miss my dad every day and regret that he was so young when he died.  But then I think, if Mom had passed before Dad, I would have had a world of care giving on my hands.

Dad did not know how to operate:  a washing machine, a dryer, a microwave, a stove/oven, or a dishwasher.  I'm not kidding even a little bit.  

I remember as a kid if Mom had a day of errands to do in Rochester and was going to be gone during dinner--remember, that's the midday meal--she would get a frozen TV dinner out, put it in the oven, and set the oven to start and stop so that it was ready for dad to eat at noon-ish.  Seriously!  

I'm sorry.  If I am gone during any meal time, I don't give it two thoughts because Captain is a competent adult who can either feed himself or go hungry.  And the reverse is also true, to be fair.  

Does anyone else remember when grocery stores would run months-long specials where for every set dollar amount you spent on groceries would earn you money or reward points toward the purchase of something.  

The one I remember is a set of dishes that Hy-Vee had going on back in the day.  Mom and Dad shopped often enough and spent enough money that they were able to redeem money or points or whatever for two four-piece settings, one in blue (Dad's favorite color) and one in an orange-ish color (Mom's favorite color). 

Here is the epitome of how spoiled my dad was.  He would refuse...and I mean flat out REFUSE...to eat off of one of those orange colored plates.  If it wasn't blue, he wasn't eating until he got a blue plate.  

https://www.babycenter.com/toddler/feeding/feeding-problems-refusing-to-eat_9203

Are you freaking kidding me?!  No, I am not kidding.  Not one little bit.  

Again, don't get me wrong.  I adored my Dad and there was very little he could do that I would find fault with.  This stuff...drove me nuts.  

They always say that a girl marries someone like her daddy.  This is true to a point.  Captain is kind, generous, hard working, and funny.  But he wouldn't even begin to think of being so spoiled as Dad was.  

So, go me....I got all the best qualities and none of the yucky ones!