1) You'll recall that my Over-60 Rockies softball team won gold medals at the National Senior Olympic Games in Cleveland in late July. Our manager, Jim Erickson, had unfortunately not been able to be with us because of hip surgery. What I didn't tell you that was during the championship game, in order to make sure that Jim was a part of the victory, my clever wife was most likely the first person in history to broadcast a game via text. Yes, Diedre Kaye took the time to text Jimmy, back home recovering in Michigan, every play of the championship game. I figure that has to get her a place in the broadcasting hall of fame.
2) Here's an interesting fact I learned about the great state of Indiana during our stay at the Elkhart campground: it is a state law that you cannot swim in a pool ALONE! Safety issues, I guess; a little heavy-handed maybe but it may save a few lives. Really puts the "buddy" in the buddy system.
O.K., on to our time in Wisconsin.
The following three states (Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois) were going to be a bit tricky for me as they would all recall significant memories from my youth. More significantly for my emotional state of mind, there was a good chance that these would be the last times I would ever see certain sites and/or people who were part of these great memories. So join me on my trip down memory lane.
Wednesday, July 31, we barely made it to Janesville, Wisconsin. It was the exact halfway point of our 178-day vacation, yet to us, it felt as if we had just left the friendly confines of Cave Creek, AZ, a few days earlier. Time certainly flies when you're having fun.
I say 'barely" because about an hour short of our intended destination, some warning lights started blinking on the dashboard. And these are not just like any car-dashboard lights. AB1's dashboard lights more closely resemble those of the Starship Enterprise. We had no idea what was going on. The fact that the blinking lights, indicating problems with the leveling system that we use to make sure that AB1 perfectly level when we camp, were accompanied by a gentle but consistent ringing of an alarm bell which took us
about 30 minutes to figure out where it was coming from. (Once again, Diedre's yoga practice came into play as it is much easier for her to crawl about and around the interior crevices of the vehicle than it is for a delicate figure such as mine.) Now, while Diedre has a nodding acquaintance with Mr. Goodwrench, I, on the other hand, am lucky if I can get the gas pump nozzle into our tank. As an example, a service station attendant once convinced me that my car beams were low and so he sold me some "headlight fluid."
We managed to stumble our way to my cousin Mona's house in the little unincorporated village of Emerald Grove. Her farm house sits across the road from the farm house of her father, my Uncle John. He and my mother were, and still are, very close. Only a year older than her, John and Mom went through school together in the same class due to my mom skipping the first grade.
After the war, John returned to the Midwest, abandoned his hopes of medical school, and started his own mink farm on land his father had bought in 1949. Some twenty year later when the mink industry sank, he turned the farm into an Arabian horse farm. He was nothing if not cleverly inventive. He also became an accomplished SCUBA diver and a pilot, even developing a landing strip on his farm out back of the house. As a young boy, I was so enamored of my uncle that I vowed to grow a beard someday, just like his. Because of him, I have not shaved off my beard since April 26, 1978, my last day in the Army.
Our trip to the farm, a place I had been going to for almost 60 years, would probably be my last time there. The memories just poured down over me as I walked the acreage.
Once at my cousin Mona's, we tried adding the appropriate fluid to the leveling case as suggested by the faceless voice at 1-800-YOU'RE-SCREWED. The lights, unfortunately, continued to blink.
My daily walking of 3-miles streak, instituted shortly after my heart surgery, was now at day 559, but it was in serious jeopardy of being broken on this most hectic day. So shortly before dark, I made my way to the Emerald Grove cemetery and walked my 3-miles. It was my first "cemetery walk" of the streak. I checked our every grave and was amazed by the tenacity of this little town out in the middle of farmland USA. The gravesites dated back to before the Civil War. At the top of the slope of the cemetery, I found the final resting places of my grandparents, Clarence "Hack" and Dorothy Hacklander. I have great memories of those two. Hack took me to my first major league baseball game, a 2-1 Cubs win over the Cincinnati Reds back in 1957. Frank Robinson hit a home run that game. And Dorothy, well among other things, made the very best chocolate chip cookies. My mom has continued on with the recipe. My 60-year joy at consuming them has only been interrupted by that sugar-allergy thing I recently developed.
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| Cousin "Mona" (Jean Hacklander) Jenkins and Alexx at their grandparents' grave site. |
That night Mona took us to a most unusual restaurant. The name of it, I believe, was "HHFFRRRGGH."
Our trip to Milwaukee the next day turned out much better than we had anticipated. Our leveling-reservoir leak was due to a cracked O-ring, just as I had suspected (insert laughter here). One 79-cent piece of hardware later we were back on our way to Emerald Grove.
After a nice farewell breakfast with my Uncle John, we took off for... Milwaukee? ... again?
Yes, we were on our way to see niece Nicole, husband Daniel, daughters Zoe, and Alexia, the new baby ... YOU GOTTA SEE THE BAY'-BEE! (Seinfeld referee uninitiated.)
And it was Milwaukee! Seriously.
Sunday morning we slept in and watched an old movie, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad." That movie had scared me silly when I was a kid. It was a running joke in my family that whenever it got really scary, I had told my mom that I had to go to the bathroom, exiting the theatre and only returning when the scariness had subsided. I must have been about 7 at the time. But now these many years later, well, not-so-scary. In fact, Diedre and I laughed when we kept finding inconsistencies in the movie. For instance, the galley slaves doing the rowing were wearing Adidas.
Monday was a state fair day, split into morning and late night trips sandwiched around dinner again at Nicole and Daniel's. On days like these, the following song always flows through my rather porous brain:
"OUR STATE FAIR IS A GREAT STATE FAIR,
DON'T MISS IT, DON'T EVEN BE LATE!
FOR IT'S DOLLARS TO DONUTS THAT OUR STATE FAIR
IS THE BEST STATE FAIR IN THE STATE."
I remember that it was sung by Pat Boone in a movie which I can not remember the name of ... I think it was "Judgement at Nuremberg."
Now health conscious, I practiced all things food in moderation. I had 1 mini-donut instead of a whole bag, 1/2 order of cheese curds instead of my usual 3 orders, 1/2 cream puff instead of a whole one, and a Polish Sausage but with no bun. I even split a very healthy (there's 2 phrases you usually don't see in the same paragraph - healthy food and state fair) bison quiche with Diedre for breakfast. I fought off the urge for deep-fried Oreos; that stand was right next to the deep-fried broccoli, so at least I knew they're trying. They even had deep-fried s'mores... that's just wrong on so many levels. And it being Wisconsin, of course they had ... wait for it ... BEER DONUTS! And (I am not making this up) you had to be at least 21 to have a beer-donut. And there were a lot of new "--on-a-stick" items: pizza-on-a-stick, steak & eggs-on-a-stick, deep fried candy bars-on-a-stick. There were the exotic meats: "WBLT" sandwich (Wild Boar, Lettuce and Tomato) before Diedre brought me to my senses with a swift rolled-up program to the side of the head. There was also bacon ice cream, pork donuts, the list just goes on. Eventually, so did we.
On Tuesday, August 6, we were back on the road, making our way to the idyllic little farm community of Black River Falls to see another one of my Rockies teammates in his alternate identity, Lud Nordahl, and his lovely wife Lydia. Getting to town late, we made our way Rosario's, a wonderful little pizza place in town. It was there that we both almost met our makers. Two inebriated gentlemen were having a disagreement with the bartender. It got so heated that the two of them challenged the barkeep to step outside. When he threatened to call the cops, they angrily left. Diedre and I were pretty sure they were going to their car to get a gun, so I started looking around to decide which table dived under would offer the most protection once the lead started flying. My clever wife took a different tact: she immediately fashioned a rudimentary MacGiver flame thrower out of a table candle and some Walgreens-on-sale-squirt-bottle perfume (the 1 quart size) she often carries in her purse. Oh, I cursed myself for bringing my family to the mean streets of Black River Falls, Wisconsin.
The following night we met up with Lud at his softball game. I had first me Lud about 4 years ago when we both joined Jimmy and Bruce's softball team. The very first game we played together, in his very first at-bat, Lud crushed the ball so far, it not only easily cleared the 300' softball field fences, but hit the top of the 50' light tower beyond. This guy could hit.
Back in River Falls, well, now remember that he's 65 and his local early league is for young men, most of the guys are around 25-30. So of course, in the first game, he jacks two out far over the fence and into the corn fields. The rest of the kids on his team hit none. He hit another one in the 2nd game, but they lost both times.
We had gone to dinner earlier and it was then that I began noticing a trend in these small town restaurants. Their men's rooms were decorated just like the Mayberry jail. In one, there was a toilet, a sink, and an easy chair ... I suppose you might just want to go in and sit down for a chat with your buddy while he's taking a pee. At another, same thing, only instead of a chair there was a bookcase. What, the library doesn't have enough books?
Moving on.
The next day we found Lud and Lydia's home out in the wilderness. When we came up to the top of their hilled driveway, we spotted the prettiest log house you'd ever want to see. And when the 6'5" bearded Lud came out of the front door of his log "cabin," I was sure I was experiencing the reincarnation of our great president, Abraham Lincoln ... although I quickly recalled that Abe had little power hitting to right field.
Lud was sporting his purple Rockies jersey and non-matching bright red shorts (Note well, Bruce, Jerry and Shiela--inside softball joke). And as with so many other of my AZ softball buddies with whom we've visited, I learned a lot of new and interesting things about Lud:
- He worked over 30 years building the highways of Wisconsin, moving over 11-million tons of dirt per year (that's probably why he's so good at scooping low throws in the dirt while playing first-base.)
- He goes to Canada every fall to help a farmer friend bring in his crops (wheat, barley, canola). Lud runs the combine for his buddy, yet refuses to take any pay. Now there's a friend!
- It's a little known fact, but Lud, beyond being probably the most powerful softball hitter in the land, is also probably the best blueberry farmer in the country. After lunch at their house, he took us out back where his pride of about 50 blueberry bushes grew on the side of a hill. We tried some and they were the best either Diedre or I had ever eaten. They were more like grapes than blueberries in their size and juiciness. Lud gave us each a pail and before you knew it, we had a gallon of blueberries to sustain us in the RV for the next couple of weeks. When we went into their garage, there was a 6-foot tall freezer that Lud opened, showing us that it was completely full and only contained blueberries.
See you there.
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Hi All - Diedre here.
Just a quick note to you all and a word of thanks for your interest in our adventures. It's always fun for me to read Alexx's take on what we have seen and experienced as well as what he imagines ... and we all know how scary that imagination of his can be. For those of you who don't know me I imagine it's hard to figure out what of his stories is true ... for that matter, it's hard for me sometimes too! (I had to laugh at the Sinbad reference. Now, 55 years later when Alexx exits the theater during a movie he tells me the movie is too scary so I don't think he has to go the the bathroom so often!) Suffice it to say, we are having a grand time and highly recommend this approach to life - at least once retired. Of course it helps immensely when you can approach each day with humor and always find the fun in the craziest things that can show up.
We so enjoy seeing our family and friends along the way and that makes traveling especially fun. But discovering new places and seeing things we've heard about is also a real joy. We both agree we live in an amazing country and feel blessed every day that we get to explore it together.
Love to you all and we look forward to seeing you along the way!
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