Chronic Pain Lifestyle

Forever Friends

These are my dogs Dino on the top and Sammie down below.  They sleep in the family room in the late afternoon, waiting for my husband to come home from work.  Dino and Sammie are different dogs, different breeds, from different homes, but they live with us now and they've become the best of friends, forever friends.  It happens to people too.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland was my home for the first 18 years of my life, until I left for college.  I lived in the same house, across the street from my grandparents and close to other kids, my friends.

Across the alley was Jody and her family, on the other side of the house across the street was Terry and her family, down on the corner was Angie and her family.  And of course, in the bunk right below mine in my pink bedroom was my best friend, Clare my little sister.

So that’s how it was.  We lived in the same place, we knew the kids, we were friends, we played every day as we ran and jumped and climbed out of childhood.  There were games and swimming and bikes and snow and scraped knees and hurt feelings and making up and hugs. 

We went to school of course and that’s where we met more kids and made more friends.  The kids who didn’t live right around your house.  Some were a few blocks from school, some were farther away, it didn’t matter, we were friends.  I can never remember a time thinking about having or not having friends, you just did.

As the years went by few people came and went from our lives. Most people that lived in Ashland stayed there.  I don’t know why, maybe because they thought somewhere else would be colder and worse or maybe because their friends were all there, I don’t know I was a kid.

I related to you how Amy Turner came into my life when I was in the sixth grade, what I neglected to tell is that she left just a few years later.  It was funny how often we thought of her over the years and how many times we asked people if they knew where she was and if she was OK.  We asked, but no one had any answers.

Before you know it, you find your way out of childhood and discover what we all discover,  when you are an adult you are just a kid in older skin.  I don’t feel differently on the inside.  I still love my family and friends just as I did back then.  I am still afraid of scary movies, I don’t like mean people and I love animals, all of them.

And then last year, by chance my husband and I stopped by and visited Angie on our way back home from our annual trip to St. Paul.  We hadn’t stopped and seen each other in years and we hugged and talked and reconnected.  It felt like we had never been apart and during our visit I said “ I wonder what happened to Amy Turner”.  We both shrugged our shoulders and wondered, but neither of us knew anyone who had talked to her.  I remember e-mailing a couple of others from our class and asking if anyone knew where Amy was, but no one did.

And about a week after our visit with Angie, I got the most amazing message on our answering machine.  It was Angie, she was calling me from Amy’s home.  It turns out, they lived in the same town and actually knew each other, but didn’t know who they were because their last names were changed when they each married.

And so last Wednesday, after much e-mailing and a lot of phone tag,  we went to St. Paul for the Back to the Fifties Car Show as we have for the past 11 years. And on Friday, just after lunch, I saw my friends Amy and Angie as we rushed toward each other at the car show at the State Fair Grounds.  I hugged Angie first and then after 35 years, yes 35 years, I hugged Amy Turner and looked at my friend with her beautiful smile.

The last time I saw Amy, I had long dark hair almost to my waist and braces.  Amy had long blonde hair, and blue jeans with flared bellbottoms so big, I was jealous.  Those jeans were perfect.  After all these years, here she was and I was finally going to get the answer to my question, whatever happened to Amy Turner?

There she was, the girl I asked about so many times, the friend I looked for, she was right there hugging me back and all the years melted away.  We all sat together in lawn chairs and for over four hours we talked and laughed and shared the good and bad that has come and gone from our lives.  We talked about things we did, people we knew and things we were never prepared to talk about or hear about when we were kids.  We shared our thoughts, our triumphs, our failures, our philosophies and we shared the thing that has always been between us, friendship.

Amy told me that she was surprised anyone remembered her and that she prayed that she would have a positive influence in people’s lives.  Amy I can tell you that as far as I’m concerned, your prayer was answered before you even made it.  You were and are my friend, just as Angie is, just as Tracey is and honey there is no way to get rid of me. 

I call you guys “forever friends” because that’s what you are.  There’s no doubt about it.  Forever is forever and friends are friends, forever.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

"Saucepans and The Single Girl"

Living with chronic back pain is hard some days.  Some days all I can think about is how much it hurts and when is it going to stop.  I get angry and pout and ask myself questions like "why me?"
I sit by myself for hours and do not pick up the phone or answer my door.  I sit alone and feel like the weight of the whole world is on my shoulders.  On days like this, I think nothing can make me feel better.

But then, I remember a joke or a comic clipped from the newspaper or even a favorite saying and it is just enough to break up my bad mood and I let myself look at the good side of things and find a reason to be happy.  Anything can brighten my day, even an embarrassing trip down memory lane and my quest to rope myself a husband.  Of course, if it hadn't worked out, I would be taking this story to my grave.  Like most funny, embarrassing and humiliating stories, this is true.

After watching a marathon of “Bridezillas” today, I reminisced about my younger days and my efforts to win Jerry’s heart.  I was trying to be so good at everything around the house, and being a 23 year old meant I had little experience in the kitchen.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland is a town with a lot of tradition. In our house, my Mom and Dad both worked and there were 4 kids.  Like most of us, Mom made most of the food for us from scratch.  We had homemade bread and rolls, never store bought which caused me to dream of Wonder Bread sandwiches throughout my childhood.

Wonder Bread came in the cool white bag with the circles on it.  Wonder Bread was already sliced would fit in my Snoopy lunch box much easier than the uneven slices from a homemade loaf.  Wonder Bread and Skippy would make me a happy girl.  If only we didn’t have to have homemade bread!!!

Dad cooked too and he was no slouch.  His salamini and fried potatoes were awesome and he took great pride in homemade tomato and rice soup.  He also made my sack lunch for me every single day for school.  I liked the big thick sandwiches, especially after my braces came off.

As we grew, we helped Mom in the kitchen and also tried our hand at cooking and baking solo.  We had some successes.  Clare was and is still way better at me in baking cookies.  I’ve only made cookies a handful of times because I never seem to time them correctly.  But, I’m pretty good at apple pie and banana cake with cream cheese frosting.  Mmmmm.

But baking desserts is not the same as cooking and let’s face it, you can not live on banana cake.  Well you could, but you probably shouldn’t.  I would watch cooking shows and it always seemed like timing is the hardest part of cooking.  You need to time it so everything is done at the same time.  It always worked out on the TV shows, but I had no idea how to do it in “real time”.  It seemed to me like it was a really long story problem.  I never liked story problems.

I had no idea how to time cooking a meal.  I wanted to make Jerry delicious homemade meals that were good and nutritious so he would be healthy and happy.  I envisioned beautiful platters of spaghetti, pot roasts, perfectly tender chicken and the granddaddy of all meals, a perfect turkey dinner on a cold winter night with all the trimmings.  But how in the world do you time a turkey, potatoes, corn, corn muffins and pie?  How do you fix all this stuff and how do you know what to look for when you buy meat and poultry?  What seasonings should be in my house?  and what the heck to you put a turkey in?  It wouldn’t fit in a frying pan.  This was going to be interesting.

But then my eyes spied a little book, a paperback book about cooking at a garage sale.  “Saucepans and The Single Girl”.  The book promised to show you the way to a man’s heart and help you create wonderful, romantic meals for your man.  Thank goodness I had help right here in this handy little book.

So off I went, reading the book whenever I was alone and Jerry was busy.  I read all about the pans, the spices you need, they even had advice on which cuts of meat were best for which dishes.  And how to pick out fresh produce and how to store the produce and meat.  And the book even had whole menus planned out.

So all I had to do was get the ingredients, follow the recipe exactly and the best part???  It was all timed to finish at the same time!!  The answer to my prayers.  No impossible calculations regarding weight of turkey, pounds of potatoes and how many biscuits, all I had to do was follow the directions.  I’m good at following directions, so off I went on my journey to win my man’s heart by going directly through his stomach.

I read and reread every chapter, trying to remember the key points about telling good produce from bad and which cuts of meat are the best.  Inevitably, I was just going to leap off the dock and straight into my first meal.

So I selected one of the pre planned menus and loaded up my grocery cart and set off to win Jerry’s heart.  The first meal was roasted chicken and it went pretty well.  I avoided the unknown of fixing mashed potatoes and instead chose to do baked, but other than that, it came off pretty good and Jerry seemed surprised and very hungry.  I called it a success.

So, I moved on to another chapter.  This one was a little more complicated.  It was a recipe for upside down meat loaf.  It required brown sugar, ketchup and a lot of praying.  For starters, there was not enough room in my loaf pan for the meat and the loaf and the upside down part.  I was making a huge mess. 

But with my trusty book, I went ahead and made the upside down meat loaf and the mashed potatoes and the carrots.  I was a little nervous about this one.

Jerry came home from work, starving.  I took the meat loaf out of the oven and it smelled good.  Then I flipped it over onto a plate. Let’s just say the upside down meat loaf, is not a very good looking meal.  It was a gooey mess.  And worse than that, it didn’t taste good either.

It had a weird bar-b-que taste, and it really didn’t work.  Jerry was nice about the whole thing, he just asked me to never make it again.  In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned how he hoped I would never make that meal again.  I guess something he remembers for 25 years is nice, but not in a good way.

A few weeks after the upside down mess, Jerry was relaxing on the couch when he stuck his hand under it and found a book.  While he was hoping for a racy novel, he found my secret.  I came home to find Jerry holding  “Saucepans and the Single Girl”. 

I had been found out.  He knew what I was up to and it was not subtle.  Jerry laughed and said he thought it was cute that I was trying so hard.  I was a little upset.  I wasn’t looking for cute, I was looking for a ring.  But not to worry, only 8 short years later he was standing there in a tux and I walked down the aisle to become his wife.

Here we are 26 years after he found the book and I guess there is a lesson to be learned.  The book is a total success, but only if you skip the upside down meat loaf recipe and you don’t mind the wait.

Thanks for listening.

"I Read The News Today, Oh Boy"

I read the news today, oh boy.

In case no one recognizes the reference, that is the first line of a favorite Beatles song, “A Day In The Life”.  It’s on the Sgt. Pepper’s album if you are wondering.  I love that album, my sister bought it in the sixties.  The glorious sixties, when I was a kid.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland “It isn’t the end of the Earth but you can see it from here”.  When you’re a kid, the outdoors is almost the same as the indoors, you’re always learning.

I remember watching the birds flock together in the fall as the weather turned colder, which in Ashland is late August.  The leaves changed color and fell to the ground, the nights and early mornings were cold enough for frost and eventually we would be up to our butts in snow. 

It was the same every year.  The weather turned colder and school started.  Except for one year.

i was in the Sixth Grade at Beaser Elementary, or I was going to be in the Sixth Grade at Beaser Elementary in 1971.  Except for one small problem.  The teachers, who do not belong to WEAC but to the rival AFT, were on strike.

On strike!!

You know what that meant to us?  Longer summer.  No school and in Kiddom (kingdom for kids) that’s like, well it’s like free candy or a bunch of snow days all in a row.  Can you imagine how great this was?  It would be like Saturday morning cartoons except they wouldn’t end with Soul Train or American Bandstand, it was like a never-ending cartoons and your Mom is making homemade sweet rolls.  Even now, I can remember how cool this was.

A strike and we were only missing school.  It’s not like when the Coca Cola plant when on strike and we couldn't get Coca Cola in Ashland,  Yes that happened.  On the Channel 10 News from Duluth they made a big deal out of the fact you could get Coca Cola on the Great Wall of China and in Russia, but not in Ashland, WI.  That was only funny if you didn’t live in Ashland and actually know someone’s family effected by that strike.

Back to the teacher’s strike.

I have never in my life more fully supported a work action as I did that strike.  I didn’t really know anything about the issues and I still don’t, but I fully supported any strike that gave me a longer summer.  When you’re a kid, summer is like when you’re at work and the power goes off only, you don’t have to sit there and try to look busy in the dark, you can actually go and do what you want.  I won’t get into that whole power thing.  It happened at work several times and yes, we had to stay there and try to look busy when absolutely nothing works.  But, I love my former employer and if I could, I would be there right now, working at the job I loved instead of writing this.  But that’s another story and it is not funny.

So there I was Sixth Grade was on it’s way, but it was delayed and it was just about the best thing in the whole world to have a longer summer with no school in sight.  I remember we rode our bikes up to the school, and watched the teachers picket, we waved at them and they waved back.  We went to “The Corner Store” and bought candy.  No sense causing any problem for the guy who made sure every kid had candy.  There was always a candy store right across the street from Beaser, Wilmarth and the old Ashland High School.  We would sit on our bikes, eat the candy and watch the strikers.  Cool, then we would go and play another game of wiffle ball or softball or go out to Prentice Park and look for frogs.

Well, as you may have guessed by now the strike ended and there we were back in school. And one day, something amazing happened and it, or I should say she, changed my way of looking at things and thanks to her, I am a devotee of the blue denim crowd.

I remember it was afternoon and the teacher brought in a new student to our classroom, a very pretty girl with long blonde hair ( I was immediately jealous of her hair).  Her name was Amy Turner. 

And this is the part that changed everything.  The teacher gave her a Social Study book and it was kind of beat-up, but it was the same edition.  Our teacher apologized and told Amy that he would get her a newer book and to just use this one for the day.  And here’s the good part, Amy said “Well it has all the same content right?”

It was like a light bulb went on.  It was exactly the same except someone had ruined the cover.  There was no reason to replace it, she didn’t need a new one, it wasn’t for looks, the insides were what mattered.

Wow.

That was the first time in my life, that I ever heard another kid use logic and reason to solve a problem.  It solved the problem.  I never, ever was any good at problem solving, but there it was, a solution and it was so easy.  You just look at the problem and figure out what the real problem is or was.  In this case, it’s the cover of the book.  Amy didn’t care what it looked like, she was still going to use it and read it and it was fine.

And that’s when I noticed a lot of things.  Like I hated wearing skirts and dresses every day to school.  But I did it, everybody did it.  There was no rule about it, but it was like church we all did it without even thinking.  Well, Amy wasn’t wearing a dress, she was in jeans.

So there it is, Amy Turner is the reason I did problem solving for a living for many years, she’s the reason I wore jeans all through school and by the way, I’m wearing them right now.

I noticed so many other things.  I no longer just blindly did things the way I always did, I started picking things apart and making changes on the way I did everything and everything I thought.  I know that it was just a little thing, but when you have little confidence in your problem solving abilities, the new way to look at things, made a huge difference to me.

Learning things became so much easier.  Instead of memorizing the answers, figure out the logic.  It was in everything I read and everything I learned.  It’s so much better to use your brain to figure things out and I didn’t even have to work hard to learn this one.

As I looked out at the birds flocking,  I no longer thought they were just doing it out of habit,  they were following the clues, they were solving the problem of the advancing weather.  It was logic.

Amy Turner and I had a good friendship.  I remember we went to see a movie about Bigfoot at the Bay Theater on a school night.  Dad said it was ok because it was kind of a documentary.  She and I split a whole big bag of black licorice.  I never did that again.  And the Bigfoot thing? obviously a guy in a fake fur suit, even back then no one really believed it unless they were stoned or drunk or both.

So I read the news today and oh boy, I was reading about how a goat in Wisconsin was nursing a baby horse and how a whole bunch of ducklings all dropped out of their nest and waddled to a river and I realized that it’s all learning.  The ducks, the baby horse, they’re learning.  They are problem solving and reasoning and figuring this world out.

Just like in Sixth Grade (when it finally started) and I met Amy Turner and I started to figure things out.

Thanks for reading, and thanks Amy.

Anne

Farrah's Hair

Farrah Fawcett died just a little while ago, so I'm reposting this with an added message.

Rest in peace Farrah, you are truly an angel now.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland was the center of my whole world.  I knew the town I lived in and occasionally visited the other smaller towns nearby, but always knew where my home was and the people that lived there.

In high school, I had a largely miserable experience.  I was awkward and shy.  I had good friends, still in touch with most of them and still consider them to be the best friends I’ve ever had.  Especially Angie and Tracey, I wonder what would have become of me without them.

I struggled in high school with various adolescent problems.  I had braces, I had to wear headgear 18 hours a day, I had acne and I never, ever had even one date.  I didn’t go to any prom and sometimes that realization made me very sad.

A lot of the time, I spent my evenings studying and watching TV and being envious of some of the people I saw each week.  There was Marcia, Marcia, Marcia from The Brady Bunch.  I was so glad she wasn’t my sister, she was beautiful and perfect and had really cute clothes.  Marcia’s life was blonde just like she was.

And then in high school it was Farrah and Farrah’s hair. She was gorgeous.  Her hair was the color I always wished I had been born with.  Her teeth and skin were perfect.  She made being beautiful look effortless. No amount of time would be too much if I could look like her, even if the only thing like her, was my very dark brown hair.

And so like many of my friends, we got the Farrah hair do.  Feathered bangs that required Final Net to stay in place.  Final Net could keep those bangs suspended along the sides of our heads during a blizzard with 40 mile an hour winds.  It was great stuff, we curled and plumped and pushed our hair around with our hands until it was just perfect and then doused it with enough Final Net to leave it virtually solid.

By the time I got my own “Farrah” do, I was 17.  It was right before my sister Mary’s wedding.  My braces were off, my skin had cleared and I had just returned from a trip to Europe with the German Club.  My life was sure to be golden now, I was packing “Farrah” hair.

But my senior year in high school was pretty much the same as the previous three had been.  I spent most nights alone, watching TV and doing my homework.  I had a few more nights out with friends and when I finally turned 18.  I would go out every weekend with my friend Tracey.  We would go to the Wooden Nickel, stand together waiting for someone to ask us to dance on the lighted dance floor with the disco ball and mirrored wall.  No one asked.  We danced with ourselves. 

I could never really figure out what we were doing wrong.  Of course when I show my husband pictures of Tracey and I, he says all the men in our town were stupid and that he would have asked me out right away.  Isn’t he sweet?

I guess I figured out that I wasn’t enough like “Farrah” to attract the kind of attention I hoped for.  After all, my hair wasn’t nearly as full, not as wild looking, too dark and lets face it even at 18, my body was not like hers.

And so my life went on.  I never did get my Farrah look just right.  I opted for shorter and less pouffy hair, I did go for a lighter color though and admit that I am happier with my light brown hair.  Of course mostly it’s just easier to cover the gray with the lighter color.  Not a very Farrah thing to do I suspect.

And that brings me to this week.

I’ve had a back thing going on for years now.  The past week has been like many other weeks, it hurts a lot and I just want to stay as close to my bed and my heating pad as possible.  Since the pain now runs down both legs, at least I feel like it’s equally distributed.  No favorites here anymore.

But on Tuesday, I suddenly had a toothache.  I haven’t had a toothache in a long time.  The weird part is that the tooth that hurts is one that I’ve had crowned and a root canal.  So yesterday I went to the dentist.  I’ve been going to the same dentist for over 20 years, he looked at my swollen face and briefly looked at my gums and said “you need an oral surgeon”. 

So a couple of phone calls and a few hours later I was in an oral surgeons office.  He explained my options and I scheduled my surgery for 2 weeks from now.  It’s not a big deal, I won’t loose my tooth and they are just going to take out part of my tooth that is developing an abscess.  In the meantime, i have antibiotics to take and mouthwash.  It’s not that bad and actually this morning the swelling is almost gone and the pain is gone.

I’ve got it pretty good.

So last night when I was home from my day of running around, it was a relief to take my meds and put my legs up and relax.  I was exhausted and my legs and hips were hurting, my mouth is swollen and hurt.  What a day.  So I got my meds, a soda and a green popsicle and sat down to watch something, anything to take my mind off of my problems.

I turned on the TV and had no intention of watching the Farrah Fawcett special, but like so many other things, I got sucked into it and sat and watched.

I watched this woman, this amazing woman, show me what cancer was like.  She showed me what her treatments were like, she showed me that she was a partner with her doctors and worked hard to get to know all about her disease and all about the treatment options.  She traveled to Germany for her treatments that weren’t available in the US.  She showed us the happy times when she thought the battle was won.

And then Farrah showed me what it looks like to die from cancer.  And when the most iconic part of her was gone, she showed me that too.  She took off her knit cap and showed me her head without that beautiful mane of hair.  And much to my surprise, she was even more beautiful. 

That lovely thick ash blonde hair, her crowning glory, the thing I envied was gone.  Farrah herself had shaved it off and now proudly showed her bald head and her smile.  This brave woman, without her hair was the most amazing woman I’ve ever seen.

I can not compare my illness with cancer.  I have pain and there are days when I feel like just sitting in the house and shutting myself off from the whole world and crying.  There are days when I’m happy and play catch with the dogs and go for a long walk.  There are never days when my back and hips and legs are pain free, never. 

But I am not dying of this disease and after watching Farrah’s strength and grace I feel very humbled and ashamed that I cause anyone to worry about me and my back issues.

I appreciate the prayers and good wishes and am very thankful for them.  But I think I’ll start praying more for others who are suffering much worse things than back pain.  And I’ll say a special prayer for those who are suffering the worst pain, the loss of loved ones to any dreadful disease.  And finally, I’ll say a special prayer for that lovely strong lady who is brave enough to show us all of her struggles, her losses and her triumphs and now her final battle with her own death.  I pray that God will have mercy on her and release her from her human frailties so that she can be free of her cancer and her pain.  And I pray that her family will have the strength to let her go even though they so desperately want to keep her close in their loving arms.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

A New Era

It's been a long time since I posted a new story in this blog.  I apologize for letting you down.  It's been hard to write about anything in the past few months, because I've had a lot to think about.  Like most of you, my pain has changed over the past few months, it's not that I didn't know it might happen, it's just hard to get used to something new.  I know many of you have much worse things to endure.

That being said, I've decided to write something short to get back in the "groove" so to speak and it is not about pain, it's about helping you get over the pain or at least to make you laugh so you can stop thinking about it all of the time.

Dino and Sammie always like a good story before their afternoon naps.

So here goes...

Last night I was reading one of my favorite web sites “Overheard in NYC”.  It has witty and not-so-witty things that people say.  They have several categories and the statement below is under their celebrity tab.  It’s from one of our most quoted VP’s.  No not Agnew, it’s Dan Quayle, here’s his take on global warming and pollution.

Dan Quayle: It isn't pollution that is hurting the environment, it's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it.

That statement really brought an issue to the forefront for me.  We’re bombarded daily with the bad news on the war and the economy and crime, but what about the real suffering that’s going on in one of our biggest industries?  What about the poor comedians?

Since we elected President Obama and Vice President Biden, where are the laughs?  No more nightly George Bush-isms, no accidental VP shootings, it’s not just the white and blue collar workers who are suffering, just think of the poor comedians.  What are they going to do with an intelligent president?

The economy is looking a little better, President Obama was instrumental in putting an end to a kidnapping at sea, he’s making friends all over the world.  It’s like he’s doing his job with grace and intelligence and that hasn’t happened in a long time.

Sure Bill and Hillary were ok, but let’s face it not everyone was enamored of them as the first couple.  And the Bush’s?  Not only was Little George a laugh a minute, remember when Big George visited No. 10 Downing street for the first time?  He emerged from his limo and without missing a beat, he shook the doorman’s hand.  It was a hoot.  Or how about the time he threw up on the Japanese Prime Minister? 

Yes, say what you will about the Obama’s, but seriously it’s the entertainers who are going to need the next bail

Thanks for listening,

Anne

Yes Kelly, There is Still a Santa Claus

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  I never really thought of Ashland as being really far to the north, until I got older.  Now that I look at a map, I guess the good part is that we were closer to the North Pole and therefore, Santa stopped there first.  At least, that’s what I thought.

When I was a little girl, we never questioned the existence of Santa Claus.  Although I never saw him in person, we knew he had been to our house because every Christmas morning, there was a pile of gifts under the tree that were not there the night before.  Where else would they come from if not from Santa?

As we got older, we were faced with the common reality, Santa didn’t bring your gifts, your parents or grandparents brought that bounty of gifts.  It wasn’t really a big let down, but somehow being a child and waiting for Christmas is more special before you find out where the gifts really come from.  i always held onto that little hope that maybe there is really a Santa Claus.

When I got older, I realized that Santa Claus is real, maybe not the man himself, but the spirit.  Everyone needs to believe in some little bit of magic in this crazy world of ours and Santa is just the sort of person I believe in.  He brings gifts to children and adults and does it magically all in one night.  And besides, what’s the harm in giving or getting a gift anonymously?  I’ve always signed a few gifts to the kids and my husband, “from Santa”.

A few years ago, the Wisconsin State Journal reprinted that famous column from the New York Sun, “Yes Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus”.  The editorial appeared in print on September 21, 1897. 

The editorial was in response to a letter from a little girl who was relying on the editor of the New York Sun to tell her if Santa Claus really exists.  I’ve always loved that letter and even when I was a kid, I thought it was a good way to explain Santa Claus to someone who isn’t sure of his existence.  It would be years later when I would really understand what Santa Claus is really all about.  I read the letter and I understood it, Santa will always exist in our hearts and the hearts of others.  Yup, I knew what that meant, we should be nice to others, we should be generous and don’t ever tell a kid that Santa doesn’t really exist.  I got it.

When my husband Jerry and I started living together, his children Jason and Kelly moved in with us.  Eventually we were living in a little apartment in a suburb of Madison.  Verona had a good school system and we lived in an apartment building full of kids and close to the elementary school.
There were a lot of kids in the building, mostly young families and there were always kids running in the hallway and playing outside.

As Christmas approached, we decorated our home.  We taped up the cards we got in the mail, we hung jingle bells on the door that sounded whenever it was opened and we put up a tree and lights.  It wasn’t a very big apartment, but it looked cute and the kids were very excited about Santa coming in a day or so.

When Christmas Eve finally arrived, we were relieved that the shopping was done, the wrapping completed and now just hours from the magic morning.  As we tucked the kids into their beds, snow was falling outside.  The perfect Christmas Eve night, the kids were so excited we didn’t think they would ever go to sleep.

We decided to go down the hall to our neighbors to have a drink and relax after the kids were in bed.  The kids knew where we were and it was just two doors down the hall.  We had a nice visit and when we finally said goodnight, Jerry had to go outside to get a present we hidd in the trunk of the car.

So Jerry went outside and got the package and came back in.  He was covered with snow, his gray hair, his glasses and his red coat.

As he came into the apartment, the jingle bells rang and although we didn’t know it at the time, Kelly opened her eyes and saw (without the benefit of her glasses) a man with gray hair, a red coat, carrying a present and she heard the jingle bells.  We put out the gifts under the tree and went to bed.  We found out the next morning just exactly what Kelly saw.

As soon as the sun peeked up over the hill, Kelly got up and ran straight to Jason’s room.  Her little legs were moving so fast it looked like she didn’t even touch the carpet.

She just kept squealing over and over again “I SAW HIM!!!!!  SANTA CLAUS WAS HERE LAST NIGHT!!!  I REALLY SAW HIM”

Jerry and I watched as Kelly told Jason how she heard the bells and saw the red coat and the snow and the packages.  Jason was listening as Kelly told him the story over and over “    HE’S REALLY TRUE!!! SANTA WAS HERE!!!  I SAW HIM!!!”

Even now I can still see Jason and Kelly’s big brown eyes as they dove into the pile of presents under the tree.  Somehow everything seemed more magical that day.  The excitement of Christmas was made even better by the Santa Claus sighting of the night before.  It was contagious and still makes me smile to this day.

The belief in things we can not see or explain is what helps keep us young at heart.  It’s what keeps us believing that things will get better for all of us.  It’s what I believe in every morning when I wake up and believe that today will be better than yesterday and tomorrow may be the day that someone figures out what will stop this stupid disease. 

What a sad and lonely place this world would be without Santa and without faith. 

And that was the day I finally understood what Santa Claus was really all about and what that famous letter and the response was all about.  That was the day I saw and felt Santa in my own heart.

So yes Kelly there is still a Santa Claus.  He lives in your heart and Jason’s heart and your Dad’s heart and mine.

Merry Christmas everybody

and thanks for listening.

Anne

The Great Milk Break Incident of 1969

It’s a rainy Monday in October.  The leaves are changing color and falling to the ground, the temperature is falling too.  Yesterday’s high was in the 40’s with no sunshine, just a cloudy, cold and rainy day.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland is on Chequamagon Bay.  I wonder how many times we were asked to spell Chequamagon, Mississippi and Albuquerque while in school?  It seems one of those names was on most every spelling test.

Fourth grade was kind of the middle of grade school.  We had completed kindergarten, first, second and third grade, only fourth, fifth and sixth left.  Although in fourth grade you went to class in the old part of Beaser School. 

Beaser had 2 distinct parts.  The south end housed K-3 and they gym and offices.  This was a one story addition, with a long flat roof and lots of windows.  Fresh air in school, what a concept.

The old part of the building was really old.  It housed grades 4,5 and 6.  Also the room we used for Girl Scouts and Band was in the old part.  It also had one of those cool circular slides as a way to escape fire.  Boy how I wanted to get on that slide.  Actually, I was on one of those slides several times, but not at Beaser, they kept it locked.  Probably a good idea.

Anyway, here we were in fourth grade.  It’s kind of a middle grade.  It was the year before fractions and really hard story problems, but a year after all the timed math tests for adding and subtracting.  You are kind of growing up, but you still get treated like a really little kid even though most of us would turn 10 in the fourth grade.  That’s right, 10, 2-digit number not a one digit.

Even though it felt like pretty much a nothing year, I remember the fourth grade for 3 specific reasons.

1.  We started playing real band instruments instead of the dreaded Tonettes.  I started on clarinet, switched to the flute because of my overbite and eventually switched to the bassoon because a really cute guy at band camp played it.  And of course also because I loved the sound and didn’t have to sit by all the blonde cheerleaders anymore.

2.  It was the year that some unknown kid in our class, jumped up and pushed the door shut on the closet when our teacher Mrs. Carlson was in it.  The door locked and none of us ever ratted out the kid that did it.

and perhaps the most fondly remembered event

3.  The Great Milk Break Incident of 1969.  Now I realize that a lot of folks don’t know about this and probably think I’m making it up.  So I’ll just throw in one name and that name will surely convince you this really happened.  Timmy Fleck.  No need to provide further proof.

Over the years the Great Milk Break Incident was overshadowed by many who claimed in never happened, but I can assure you, my account is true.

It was a few weeks after Mrs. Carlson was locked in her closet in the classroom.  None of us ever told on the person that actually did it, so for now, no one was really in a lot of trouble.  Timmy Fleck’s name came up as the next student to be the Milk Monitor for a week.

The Milk Monitor job was pretty easy.  When we had milk break, the whole class lined up and went downstairs to a little alcove in the old part of the school.  There was a milk machine with 2 big 5 gallon boxes of milk in it.  The milk came out of a rubber spigot that was in the bottom of the box and threaded through the machine so it poured only when you lifted the lever.

We would each get a paper cone cup, flip it over and put the pointy end through a plastic melamine base that had rubber teeth in the bottom to hold the cup steady, then you handed the cup to the milk monitor and he either filled it for you or the teacher did.

If the box of milk ran out, the teacher opened the machine, pulled the spigot from the other box, threaded it down through the top of the lever, then she shut the door and snipped off the end.  Then she just lifted the lever and out came the milk.

Pretty easy really, it was a routine we followed and it hardly ever led to any kind of trouble for anyone.  After we finished our milk, we had time to go to the restroom and then back upstairs to class.

So when Timmy Fleck’s name came up for milk monitor, we all expected Mrs. Carlson to skip him and go on to the next person in the alphabet, Dennis Groom.  But Mrs. Carlson surprised all of us when she announced that Timmy would be the milk monitor.  I guess it was the right thing to do because she really couldn’t pin that closet thing on him.

So it was time for our milk break, we all lined up and filed downstairs.  I don’t know what it was that was so important, but at the last minute Mrs. Carlson told us we would have to go without her and that we needed to obey the milk monitor.  In other words, Timmy was in charge.

When we got downstairs, Timmy began filling up the glasses as they were handed to him.  He was joking of course, but not really doing anything out of line.  Things were running really smoothly until ....the milk ran out.

Each of us had seen this dozens of times.  So Timmy opened the front of the machine, threaded the rubber spigot down through the lever and then shut the door and latched it.  Now the only problem was that Timmy didn’t have a razor to snip off the end of the spigot so the milk came out.  Little kids, even Timmy did not bring knives to school.

Timmy decided the best thing to do was to see if he could just break or rip off the end.  I guess he was just pulling on it too much because all of a sudden, the entire spigot came out in his hand and milk began rushing out of the machine at a very fast rate of speed!!!

We all stood there for a moment with big eyes, open mouths and racing minds wondering what our punishment for this would be.  What if this flooded the whole first floor and the furnace was flooded.  What if it was so much milk we had to start swimming?????  We were 9, we were panicked.

That’s when Timmy started doing the job he was supposed to do, only faster.  He began filling up the cups as fast as he could so it would stop running all over the floor.  At first we tried to gulp down the milk as it was handed to us, but it was too much, too quickly so we started a kind of cup line, handing the cups down to those at the end who dumped them in water fountain or the girls/boys bathroom sinks.  We were all handing off the glasses as fast as we could. Timmy really kept his cool and was filling 2 or 3 at a time.  It was really something to see. 

So there we were frantically handing off glasses of milk, trying to stem the flood of milk.  Those little cups held 8 ounces.  There are 128 ounces in one gallon.  So we had a possible 80 cups of milk before we would be done.  We just kept handing off glasses and dumping them as fast as we could.  We were beginning to wonder how long this would go on.

Finally, Mr. Zifco brought down his class for milk break and when he saw what was going on, he opened the milk machine, took out what was left in the box and turned it upside down so the milk would stop pouring out so quickly.  We would have done that but, we were not adults and there is no way that we could lift a 5 gallon box of milk.

When the milk finally stopped, we all stood there looking like the most guilty kids on Earth.  This looked bad, really bad.  And of course who was going to really get in trouble ? Timmy Fleck the milk monitor.  But we would also be in trouble as we stood there panting with a trail of spilled milk all the way from the machine to the girls bathroom and the water fountain.  From the huge milk mustaches we were all sporting, identifying the kids who participated wasn’t going to be difficult.

Mr. Zifko was well known for his short fuse and his loud yelling.  But he didn’t seem mad, he asked us who our teacher was and where she was.  When we told him she sent us down alone and that the spigot broke off, he didn’t yell at us at all.  He just got the janitor to mop up the spills.

My guess is that this incident resulted in a new rule about not leaving little kids to themselves during milk breaks after this incident.

The rest of the day flew by.  I remember being really tired when we walked home from school.  I also remember not wanting a big glass of milk with dinner.

When I look back on that day, I remember how funny it was when we tried to drink the milk as fast as they were passing us cups.  And forming the chain to dump the milk in the fountain or the bathroom sink.  Looking back on it, it was a great team bulding exercise.  An unintentional team building exercise, but a good one.  All the thoughts that raced through our minds about flooding the whole school or having to swim to get out of the basement was really funny.  I remember telling my sister Clare when we were supposed to be sleepting, we were laughing a lot.

I  wonder what ever happened to Timmy Fleck.  I like to think he’s out there somewhere using his imagination, running a big company, or a jet pilot or maybe even a teacher.  He sure would have stories to tell his students.  Then again, I don’t think he wants to give them any ideas.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

Monster Ballads of the Seventies

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  In the fall of the year, it was time for getting older, advancing a grade in school, new shoes, old friends and homework.  The fall was the beginning of the school year, one step closer to our adult lives and one step farther from home each year.

I didn’t mind the growing up part, it’s the getting older part that really makes me mad.

It all started just a few years ago.  It was September of 2000.  There I was 40 years old, just returning from a trip to South Dakota with our friends.  We had driven out there in our old cars.  Along the way we had a lot of fun.  Paul (the painter, everyone has a nickname in this town) provided mile by mile commentary, John and Arlene, Kim and Toni, Bonnie and Till,  Guy and Judy. 

The trip was great, we had a lot of fun, saw some beautiful landscapes, Mt. Rushmore, etc.

We returned and there in our mailbox with our stack of bills, was a magazine.  I remember pulling it out of the mailbox and thinking who is that good looking guy on the cover.  I kept admiring the picture, walked in the house (I had a broken foot by the way) and sorted through the mail.

Then I looked at the magazine again, geez he was cute.  And then horror,  I looked at the magazine and realized I was looking at the cover of AARP magazine.   I swear I wanted to cry.  What does it mean when you think the guy on the cover of AARP is hot???

A few months later my suspicions about getting older were confirmed.  I was watching one of the music awards shows.  I sat and watched for over an hour hoping I would at least know one of the songs nominated, but I didn’t.  In fact, I kept thinking to myself, when are they going to get to the “good” music.  And that’s when it happened, they presented a lifetime achievement award to Rod Stewart, he accepted and sang Maggie May.

I’ve never really liked Rod Steward, but that night, I started clapping and singing along like he was a long lost friend.  I was so desperate to hear any familiar song I instantly became a Rod Stewart groupie!  How desperate was I to suddenly like Rod Stewart, just because I had heard of him before?

And then it happened again this week.  I watch a lot of TV, what else can I do when it hurts (yup, I still have that back problem, the weather is turning colder and cold makes it hurt a lot more).  I also admit that I watch a lot of infomercials and there are 2 that I really like.  First, the one selling DVDs of The Midnight Special.  What a great TV show.  Wolfman Jack and live performances by great singers and comedians and the Lockers (dance group) every week.  I lived for that show.  The Midnight Special was to music fans what Saturday Night Live was to fans of comedy.  It was like American Bandstand, only good.  Face it, Bandstand had outgrown it’s newness by the 70’s.  All that lip synching and hairspray just looked so rehearsed.

But the Midnight Special was different.  There were several live performances every week.  The bands almost always sang 2 or 3 songs.  It was like being at a concert.   Since groups did not tour like they do now, it was all we could hope for living at the top of Wisconsin.

But it’s the other infomercial that really has me chomping at the bit.  The one for the CD set of Monster Rock Ballads.  Keep in mind,  these are all songs I heard in the 70’s and 80's and for the most part, I didn’t like any of them. 

I do not own an album or CD of REO Speedwagon, Jefferson Starship, Foreigner, Warrant, Poison, etc.  I was never a fan of the “hair bands”.  You know, heavy eyeliner and about 2 cans of Aqua Net and of course, they wore skin tight clothes, nothing left to the imagination.  Those of you who have seen Tommy Lee know exactly what I’m referring to.

Anyway, I’ve watched the infomercial about the rock ballads 6 or 7 times now and I’m seriously considering buying it.  I watch it with such fondness for the old music, you would swear that I loved that era of music and I didn’t.  Even Steve Perry, he sings the opening line from “Oh, Sherrie” and there I am wishing I was 23 years old and named Sherrie.

What is it about getting older that makes anything old seem so great?  I swear, I’ve never sat through a song by Journey in my life without protesting and now my You Tube Playlist has several videos by Journey and I listen and watch  them over and over.  Is that familiarity really all that binds us to the old songs?  or is it something more?

I think that we are bound to the old songs and old tv shows and movies by something more than just familiarity.  It’s the same way that a certain fragrance can evoke a powerful memory.  It’s not the songs, or the singers, or the movies or the TV shows.  It’s us.

It’s remembering how we felt and what we were like when we first heard or saw a particular performer.  I remember clearly that when Clare and I got stuck listening to an entire Journey concert while we moved home from college in Madison to Ashland for summer vacation.  The pick-up truck had an AM radio and it was night and the only station that came in clearly was WLS.  WLS was broadcasting 2 hours of Journey songs because there was a Journey concert in Chicago that night.  It was either Journey or the farm report.

We laughed and talked the whole way home.  We were so glad final exams were over so we could go home and sleep and eat normal food for a few months.

It’s the way you feel when you see a picture of yourself as a child and are reminded of the swing set in your back yard, playing in a mud puddle and making mud pies or smelling the bread baking in the oven.every Saturday morning like clockwork.

It’s the way your Gramma smelled sweet like vanilla when she hugged you and told you to behave and the way you got all choked up when Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound” played on the radio in the Greyhound bus as you traveled home for the holidays.

It was only 30 short years ago this week, I was starting my 3rd week of college.  Living away from home, going to football games and being a grownup, sort of.  I had my first real date, we went to dinner and a movie and he asked me to go steady.  We necked on Bascom Hill, sitting on the bench by the statue of Abe Lincoln.  We dated for over 2 years.

Every September is a time for change and growth and age and wisdom, or stupidity, I’ve had both happen to me in September.  But every September is the same.  I get all misty eyed when I hear the UW Band play “Varsity” and we sway back and forth to honor my Alma Mater. 

Remember that song from Finnegan’s Rainbow:

Do you remember
the kind of September
when life was young
and oh so mellow.....

Well, maybe not that old how about Earth, Wind and Fire.....:

Do you remember the 21st night of september?
Love was changing the minds of pretenders
While chasing the clouds away

Our hearts were ringing
In the key that our souls were singing.
As we danced in the night,
Remember how the stars stole the night away

Ba de ya - say do you remember
Ba de ya - dancing in september
Ba de ya - never was a cloudy day

Sing along now, sway back and forth and do your best disco moves.....

Just like I remember.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

Dirty Little Secrets

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  As a child in Ashland, I didn’t really understand adult secrets.  They were always saying things I didn’t understand.  It was ok , their secrets seemed to be over things and people I didn’t know.  The one thing I knew for sure, everyone had a secret.

In our house on Third Street we had several secrets.  First, my Dad was sick.  In addition to his health problems, he was also an alcoholic.  Those are the secrets you don’t tell anyone until you are grown up enough to understand it yourself.  As  much as we loved him, we couldn’t save him and he died so young.

But that was our family’s secret.  We kids never discussed it, until after he was gone.  I know one thing, I loved my family but I hated all the secrecy.  That’s what made it so awful, you couldn’t tell anyone.  Not even your best friend.

My best friend Angie and I spent almost all of our time together.  When she would come over, we would spend hours together, listening to records, playing Monopoly and talking.  The games went on all day.  I would lend her money if she ran low, I just loved playing games with her and talking. 

Often during our all day games, Dad would knock on my bedroom door and hand us a tray of ice cream sundaes or popcorn and soda.  He had problems, but his heart was in the right place and Angie loved being at our house.  She didn’t have a Dad at her house and her Mother worked full-time to support her kids.  Besides, Dad really liked Angie and he loved teasing her.  He would stand and talk to us and ask us what we were going to do, like he was going to join in.

I would roll my eyes and tell him that we were going to listen to records.  He would laugh and pretend he was going to join in.  I really don’t think Alice Cooper was his favorite artist, but Dad did have to listen to it almost every day.

My Dad and Mom always had nice things to say about Angie’s Mom.  She worked hard and was a good Mom.  She didn’t let her kids run wild and none of them was in trouble with the law.  Well, not any real trouble anyway.  (see previous story regarding police cars and getaways)

Angie and I had one fight when I was 13.  We didn’t talk for almost a year and then my Grampa Berg died on Valentines day and shortly after that Clare got Angie and I to make up over a game of hopscotch.

Angie had secrets too.  Secrets I only recently found out about.  Angie’s Mom and Dad never married although they had 3 children together.  Her Father was already married and had another set of kids with his wife.  I knew all of that stuff, but this is the part I didn’t know.

He never helped Angie’s mother in any way to support their kids.  Angie said she always felt like she came in second because she was told his kids were more important.  And she always felt like she was his “dirty little secret”.

When she contacted her father recently, she told him she wanted to talk to him.  Maybe find out about her health issues that she may have from her Father, and maybe get to know each other.  Now that Angie’s mother is gone, she has no one else to ask these questions.

He responded to her that he did not want to talk to her or meet with her.

So Angie, sent letters to his kids.  And one of her half-sisters agreed to meet with her and talk.  She is on Angie’s side and she thinks it’s time to stop all the lying and uncover this dirty little secret.   

This man has had over 40 years to talk to his wife and he never did.

In retrospect, I admire Angie’s courage and I am so angry that this went on so long.  Living your life, being ashamed your whole life over something and then being denied by your own Father.  We may not have had a perfect childhood, but I knew I was loved and I knew that even if he didn’t say it a lot, my Dad loved me.

I can’t imagine growing up feeling like your own Father never even bought you a birthday gift or even yelled because he was mad about something.  I love my Mom and Dad and I know that being a parent isn’t all about hugs and kisses, it is also about discipline and sometimes you got yelled at.

Like playing your Alice Cooper album Love It To Death really loud in the morning before school, every single day.  Sorry about that Mom and Dad, I really love that album.

My best friend in this whole world, is not a dirty little secret.  I will probably spend the rest of my days telling her that.  It would be hard not to feel that way when you lived so long with this secret.

If you have a secret that is making your life hard, unhappy or sad, get rid of it.  Tell someone.  Call one of the free hotlines in the phone book, send a letter to someone annonymously, but do it.

Secrets that hurt are made to be broken.  They are only powerful in hurting you while they are a secret.  Once you’ve told someone, they can’t hurt you anymore.  Tell someone, a friend, a priest, anyone.  But stop the hurt.  Life is too short to live under the spell of a secret.  Only you have the power to rid your life of the spell.  You are in charge of your life and you can throw off the shackles of any secret.

And no one, and I mean NO ONE is anyone’s dirty little secret.  Especially not my best friend Angie. 

And if by some chance her “Father” and I hesitate to call him that is reading this, you should be very happy that I am disabled otherwise I would make sure that you apologized to my friend and her entire family.  You are not fit to even share this Earth with wonderful people like Angie and her family and I have a feeling that in the very near future, your entire tale of misdeeds will come forward and then you will be living with the result of YOUR dirty little secret of a life.

You see it’s not Angie that is the dirty little secret, it’s you.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

To Every Season, Turn

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland is at the very top of Wisconsin, between Minnesota and Michigan.  Back in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, the only local news we received via television, was from Minnesota.

For the longest time I knew that Rudy Perpich was the governor of Minnesota, but I could not tell you who the name of Wisconsin’s governor.

The same was true of sports coverage.  I knew about Bud Grant and the Vikings and I had been to a University of Minnesota homecoming football game.  I have to admit,  I was never a huge Packer fan.

After attending the University of Wisconsin where I was teased almost nonstop for coming from the other end of the Earth, I began to cheer for Wisconsin teams, namely the Badgers.  I was still not much of a Packer fan.

In my working years, I became very well acquainted with Packer fans.  A lot of my friends were, big Brett Favre fans.  Even my sister and her family  are all Packer fans.  TJ and Adam both have Packer shirts and now that Adam is actually 4, he loves to wear his Brett Favre jersey.

In January of 2006, I went to work for the last time.  It was just another work day for me.  I was working on projects, trying to “put out fires” and fix problems all day long while keeping my cool and getting other things done. There was just one problem.  I wasn’t feeling well.

My back was hurting a lot. I had back surgery in 2003 and after a long recovery I was back at work full time.  I had 6 pain free months in 2005, but by October of 2005, my back started to hurt and it hasn’t stopped.  It was also hurting more and more each day.  I kept working through the pain and started using vacation days to try and regroup. 

And then on a normal January day, I got to work and looked at the clock and wondered how long I could sit there, before I could go home and take my meds and lay down.  I only made it one and a half hours.

By the time I got home, I was shaking and sweating and the pain was so bad I was in tears.  I took my meds and went to bed.  And that was the end to my 20 year career in the insurance industry.  No press conference, no cake, no watch, no speech, just the end.

For the next 5 or 6 weeks, I got up every morning and got dressed for work, or at least I tried to, but I never went back.  I always thought I would feel better and I would be returning to my job just as soon as they figured out what I could do to feel better.  There had to be something to stop the mind-numbing pain and still allow me to think clearly and get my life back on track, but there was no relief.  There is still no relief.

And so a few days ago, I read an article in the paper about Brett Favre coming back to work, he wants to play for the Packers again or for anybody.  He is still physically able to play the rough game of professional football and no-doubt has some good games  left in his arm. 

But Brett had a tearful press conference announcing his retirement at the end of last season.  It made front page news in Wisconsin and many folks were upset to the point of tears.  And now Brett changed his mind and he doesn’t want to be retired, he wants to keep playing. 

Well Brett, join the club.  The club of adults forced to retire before they are ready for a variety of reasons from health issues, to caring for a family member, etc.

I would give anything to be able to return to my old job and be able to spend my days doing my job instead of spending my days looking around and hoping I find something to make the day go by quickly.  I spent yesterday shredding our personal mail I saved up and polishing a copper trivet.

I understand the panic that set in when the training camps began gearing up and Brett has no where to go.  It’s the same way I feel every morning when I see my husband and our neighbors get in their cars and drive to their jobs.  I see it every morning and every morning I wish I was going with them, but I can’t.

Even if I did return, it wouldn’t be the same.  I can’t work like I did in the past. If I could still do it, I would never have stopped working, but I did stop, I had to.   

I can’t tell you how many mornings, I tried to get dressed and go out the door and drive myself to work.  I ended up in tears and my husband kept saying “maybe tomorrow” even though he knew as well as I did that tomorrow was not going to be any different than today.

So Brett, I understand the feeling of growing older and the loss of what you were proud of...your job.  But there is a time for everything and although you still feel like you could play, maybe your first instinct, retirement was a wise one and perhaps it’s something you should take seriously.

We all want to play, we all want to feel like we did 20 years ago when we ran around and worked hard and played hard and never gave a thought to retirement.  Believe me, no one wants to be retired in the prime of their life.  But that’s the way it is sometimes. 

You are lucky Brett, when you stopped working you were able to say goodbye publicly and thank all the people that supported you and loved you.  Now is the time to remember that day and think back to what made you decide to retire.

I wish I had the opportunity to retire and choose my date instead of leaving my coworkers abruptly and never having the opportunity to thank any of them for helping me do my job better and for being my friend.  I didn’t get a press conference, everyone in the state did not wait with bated breath wondering if I was going to be able to work anymore, my husband and I were the only ones who witnessed my struggle to let go of my freedom, my independence and my job.

It’s time to move on Brett and not to another team.  Let the legend you created, remain in Green Bay where it belongs and return to the game you love in another capacity.  Perhaps an assistant coach?  or a high school coach?  or maybe just a volunteer parent at your children’s school?

You can’t play forever and even if you do get another job as a quarterback, you can’t turn back the clock, you do not get a “do-over” for your career. 

Be proud of what you achieved and move on.  It’s the right thing to do.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

My Sister Mary, The Storyteller

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  In my little town of Ashland, we lived in a big house on the corner of 11th avenue and 3rd street west.  It was a lovely old house, with lots of rooms for play and slippery hard wood floors to skate on.

I was the 3rd kid, I have an older brother Mike and a little sister Clare and my sister Mary is the oldest.  Mary was named Mary Suzanne, so of course everyone called her “Suzie”.  Why this was, I’ll never really know. 

I always thought it was because of my Dad’s sister.  Her name was Mary Ellen.  So I guess calling my sister “Suzie” would stop any confusion of them sharing the same first name.  Except of course, we called my Aunt, Aunt Suzie.  Two Suzies and neither of them have that for a first name.  The only explanation I can give is that we’re Norweigian.

Mary being the oldest often taught us things, took us places and watched over us when Mom and Dad weren’t home.  i guess watching Clare and I probably wasn’t the most exciting thing, so maybe that’s why Mary became such a good storyteller.

She would read to us when we were little.  She took us swimming out to Long Lake when we were bigger and once in a while, she took us to Duluth to go shopping or to the drive-in for a movie and to share her great homemade pizza.

It was on a trip to Duluth to go shopping that I remember one of Mary’s stories.

We were in the back seat, Clare and I were fighting as usual.  Clare asked Mary what the squeeking was from the car engine.  And Mary told us all about how she had squirrels in her engine that run around in one of those hamster wheels and that it turns the car wheels.  She said she feeds them nuts.

Clare and I looked at each other to see if this was true.  We heard that noise, we knew about gas stations, but I guess it could be true so we believed her.

And thus began a long list of stories that Mary told us, and we became the most gullible kids ever born.

I was in the 8th grade 14 years old and Mary was working as a housekeeper for one of the dentists in town.  I was watching TV with Mary and that commercial from the 70’s came on , the big Coca Cola commercial.  It showed literally hundreds of people standing single file on a mountain top, holding hands and singing “I’d like to teach the world to sing.....”.  I got the record off the back of a cereal box.  Those were great days, cut the record out of the back of the box.  Pretty cool.

Anyway,  I’m watching this commercial, everyone was young, attractive, wearing cool bell bottom jeans, headbands, hippie shirts, beads.  Then Mary tells me “you know where they got all those people from don’t you?”  and of course I said “no”.

“Well” Mary said, “those people are all convicts.  They got them all from prisons all over the country.  You didn’t think they would really pay that many people for a commercial did you?”

She sounded believable.  So I bought it.  I bought a lot of things over the years.  I’m probably the most gullible person you would ever meet.  I believe just about anyone, unless I know them well enough to know they’re lying.

Mary, Mary, Mary.  did you really think after all these years that Clare and I had forgotten about the squirrels in the engine and the prisoners in the commercial?

Surely you know that we would never forget!!

We also never forgot how you took us and our friends to get pizza after dark with all of us in our pajamas.  And to movies, to the drive-in, to Long Lake to swim in a warm lake and to Duluth on shopping trips and to see concerts.  I saw my first concert with you and Clare and Mom,  Creedence Clearwater Revival in 1971.

We went to see Sanatana and Seals & Crofts.

Then there was the Alice Cooper concert, Clare and Mom and I were on the main floor in the back, you had tickets in 7th row center and when you saw Clare and I way in back, you and Vickie gave us your seats.  I’ll never forget that you did that for us.

Over the years, we may not always live in the same hemisphere, but you will always be close in my heart.

Thanks for the stories, the laughs, and the loving care.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

Tilt-A-Whirl

It’s the beginning of summer here in southern Wisconsin.  The weather is warming up and the sounds of summer are in the air.  Kids riding bikes, fireworks going off, teenagers whizzing by in their parent’s car with the radio turned up and the windows down.  Here in the great Midwest it’s the beginning of the fastest three months of the year.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland’s summer never started by Memorial Day weekend, it was still pretty cold.  But eventually it would warm up enough so we could be barefoot and in shorts.  By mid-June we braved the icy cold but very clean water of Lake Superior.

Summer days flew by when I was a kid.  We were on a dead run from the last day of school  until the end of August when you got fitted for new school shoes and your school supplies were purchased. 

In between those two events, we crammed every bit of adventure. There were trees to climb, bikes to ride, swimming and diving for clams in the lake.  There were lemonade stands, wiffle ball games and croquet.  We played in sandboxes when we were little and in the ravines when we were bigger.  We helped Grampa wash his milk delivery trucks and had water fights with the hose in his backyard.  When it started getting dark, we played Kick The Can in the alley between our back yard and the Carpenter’s garage.

And every summer the  carnival came to town around the 4th of July.  At least that’s the way I remember it.  One year it was set up in the parking lot of Monk’s Bowling Alley.  Monk’s is the only bowling alley in town.  It is down at the western end of Third st.  I grew up on Third street so it was a straight shot to go to the carnival.

Clare and I collected money we had saved.  That’s a lie, Clare saved, I begged.  Anyway, we went to the carnival together.  I remember Mom and Dad spent time in the nice cool bar drinking beer while we ran around spending money on rides, games and carnival food.  Clare loved the games and came home with a wide array of prizes and of course a goldfish.  I was more of a ride girl and I liked corndogs, we called them pronto pups.

The carnival reminded me of the story of the Pied Piper of Hamlin.  When the rides start going and the lights come on and the smell of junk foods and sweets are in the air, every little kid within miles, was drawn to it.  Even if you didn’t have any money you went to the carnival.  I remember even after our money was long gone we still went down there to watch other kids on the rides and see if anyone got really scared or really won the $5 bill on that ring toss game.

When we were little we would watch the big kids go on the scary rides.  One ride called the rocket, looked like a ferris wheel, except the cars were all enclosed and when you started to go up, your car could spin around upside down.  We heard that if you didn’t hold on and the car went upside down, you would be killed and your body would go through the top of the car just like a meat through a grinder.

Now, I don’t know who started that story, but I’ve never gone on that ride.  The rumor was enough for me even though I know it is not possible for that to happen.  It was enough that some kid said it.  I didn’t want to prove it right or wrong.

The tilt-a-whirl was my favorite ride.  We sat 3 in a car and we would spin around and around  We loved it.  I thought it was a lot more fun that the scrambler.  All that ride did was make you smash into the person riding with you.  What fun is that?  I smashed into my little sister at home and it didn’t cost anything.

AS I got older, we even ventured onto the scariest ride of all, the Round Up.  On this ride, you stand up and your head is on a padded cushion and you have a belt that is fastened in front of you and the ride starts spinning round and round, pinning you to the back of the ride and then it starts going on it’s side so the only thing holding you on the ride is the centripetal force.  I was so afraid of this ride it took me years to get on it.  But I did and then I felt fearless, except of course for that rocket ride.

Life was good, the carnival was here, Mom and Dad were handing our quarters like they were free and Clare and I were deep into the Soddom and Gommora of childhood, the annual carnival.  We ate cotton candy and foot long hot dogs and carmel apples. 

With full bellies, we just kept eating and then we decided to go back on the tilt-whirl.  And this is when the story takes an ugly turn.  Clare and Jody and I were all on the ride together.  Clare was in the middle.  The ride started and after just a few turns I looked at Clare and she didn’t look very good.  She looked kind of green.

Before we knew what was going to happen, I put my hand up to her mouth and she threw up.  All over me......I felt bad for her.  All those quarters in junk food and now she’s on a ride with an empty stomach and she’s sitting next to someone covered in vomit.

So we did what anyone else would have done.  We jumped on our bikes, peddaled home as fast as possible.  Changed clothes, washed up, got the rest of our allowance that we were saving for something else and went right back to the carnival.  I don’t think Mom and Dad even noticed we changed clothes.  WE didn’t tell them about this because if you threw up, you had to go home and to bed.  That’s just the way it was when you were a kid.  No one thought one bit about what caused the person to be sick, you just knew you had to go to bed if you threw up.

It didn’t seem to bother Clare much.  Actually she probably felt alot better after she threw up because she was never much of an eater and with an empty stomach she had a lot more fun.  We ran and ran until it was dark and then we went to the fireworks like everyone else.  And then home to bed and our dreams full of ups and downs and rides and noisy music.  And finally off to our deep sleep to recover our energy and renew ourselves for the next day full of adventure.  Another day in our childhood that was going faster than any carnival ride.

We drove past a carnival last week and I thought about the tilt-a -whirl and the round up and that rocket ride.  I don’t think you could get me on any of those rides anymore, but I do enjoy a corn dog now and then or as we called them back then Pronto Pups.  Face it, even when you’re a grownup, carnival food is really good.  It may not be haute cuisine, but who the heck really likes that stuff anyway?  I much prefer a soft serve cone and a Pronto Pup.

And then there’s the other thing, the little kids.  Whether it’s at a parade or a carnival, I love the kids.  I love the way their eyes get so big when they see something new.  I love the sounds of laughter and the squeeling when they are on a ride.  I love the hugs and kisses from a dirty little kid when they say hello or goodbye. 

Skinned knees, cotton candy, sticky fingers, dirty faces clutching a little bag filled with water and one poor goldfish who’s days are numbered.   Nothing says summer better than a fist full of dandylions, or a sticky kiss on the cheek from a dirty little kid.

So, empty out your change jug, or pony up your gas money and go to the carnival.  It will make you feel like a kid again and who knows, you might be the one giving out sticky kisses of your own.

Thanks for listening,

Anne

Is It Ever Really OK?

It’s another summer morning here in the great midwest.  The dog on my right is snoring and the one on the left is dreaming, both of them look very comfortable and content. 

Every day, people ask me how I’m feeling and how is my pain today.  Sometimes  I hear this from my friends, my husband, my sister, my Mom and one thing that is certain, I normally give them all the same answer,  it’s OK.

But is it really ever ok?  IS there really a time when any of us feels ok?

When is that OK time?

Looking back on my childhood, I would never describe it as OK.  It was filled with so much adventure.  For a small town girl, we did a lot of exploring and racing on our bikes and climbing and jumping and swimming and running.  We learned about friendship and fairness and saying “I’m sorry”.  We played ball, we had fights, we made up.  No day was just ok. 

Then as a teenager, I don’t remember that as being ok either.  I wasn’t at all happy in high school.  There were and still are my good friends, my friend Tracey and I walked literally hundreds of miles together in our high school years. I figured it out, it was roughly 1,872 miles not counting extra trips back to school to play in the pep band for basketball games or all the way over to the old high school to play at football games.  That’s a lot of walking.  And a lot of time to talk to a good friend about being a teenager, and being jealous of the popular girls and never having a boyfriend.

Then there was college and my twenties.  That wasn’t ok either.  Moving to a big city far away from home was quite an adventure.  Learning how to read a map, another adventure.  Keeping up with football games, dances, movies, protests (every Friday at noon on Library Mall) and oh going to classes too, all part of the life of a twenty something.  It was hard and it was fun.  Tears, laughter, all the emotions of being on your own for the first time and having my first long term boyfriend. I wouldn’t call that part of my life just ok either.

And then the working part.  I had good jobs, bad jobs, good bosses and bad ones.  I had great things, bad things, low pay, big raises and hard work always.  That wasn’t ok either.  I loved the working part, the finding out what I wanted to do and doing it.  That feeling of accomplishment and the feeling of failure.  I’m lucky to say I had all of those things in my working years.  None of that was ok either.

And now this new part of my life that I never expected.  The not working, but not really retired part.  I’ve had a lot of happiness and good things happen in the last few years.  I’ve learned my husband loves me even more than I thought he did and I’ve learned that I can not do some things anymore.  And that’s not ok either.

Wouldn’t it be sad if your life was really OK?  Just OK is not good enough for me and I hope not for you either.  Life is too precious for anyone to ever consider it to be OK.

So next time you ask, I’ll probably say OK, but just so you know I don’t really mean it.  How can I be just OK, with wonderful friends and a loving family like all of you?  Thanks to all of you who are reading this, I’m better than OK and have been all my life.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

Choose Your Rut Carefully, You May Never Get Out of It

What was that advice we got in the ‘70’s?

Hang loose or was it everybody must get small.... no that wasn’t it either.  It was the decade of decadence, nothing was small or quiet about the ‘70’’s with the possible exception of Tiny Tim’s voice.

We had big hair, big platform shoes and big bell bottomed pants.  We had big long beaded necklaces and big causes.  There was the war protest, the long hair protest, the clothes protest, the being an individual protest. It was the mantra of “don’t trust anyone over 30”. It’s amazing we had time for anything else.  But then again, I was only 10 when the seventies decade started.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  In the ‘70’s we didn’t have many protests, but we were not completely oblivious to the war protests.  There were hippies and Jesus people all over the place.  Northland College in Ashland is an environment college, lots of tree huggers.

I was only 10 when the decade started, so my take on it was a little different than most adults.  I wanted more than anything to be Mary Tyler Moore or Cher.  Those were the two women I admired most.  People that know me are not at all surprised.  I had long hair and worked hard to get the perfect tan.  Actually I achieved the perfect tan after I moved from the shore of Lake Superior to Madison, WI.  It’s 300 miles to the south, it is an enormous climate change.  Trust me.

So what was a girl with a good tan, long brown hair to do with herself?  What did I want to be?

I wanted to be a Mom with little kids, a station wagon and a little ranch house in a little town or out in the country and a husband.  That’s what I wanted.  I wanted to be there when my kids came home from school or when they were putting on a program at school.  I wanted to keep my house nice and tidy and I wanted to have a lot of friends.

I wanted to drop the kids off at school and go to my tennis lessons in my wagon.  Then I wanted to have lunch with my friends, go shopping and get home in time for the kids and in time to make dinner and help them with their homework. That was what I wanted.

By the time I was finishing college, the ‘70’s were gone and so was that dream.  First, there was no MRS degree directly following my BA degree from the UW-Madison.  I wouldn’t be getting married right after I graduated and worse yet, I was dating a guy, the wrong guy for me and I knew it. 

So there I was, just out of college, no husband, ranch house or even the specter of one in my future.  So what did I do?  How did I get from Point A to the Point B , my dream of a home and kids and all the rest of my wishes?

It sounds so hard, but I did what all adults do.  I made my own way.

One thing was obvious, if I wanted to make my life fulfilling and happy , I needed to do it myself.  If I wanted a nice little ranch home and a wagon well, I had better get a good job and meet someone who shared my dream.  No one was going to be waiting on the other side of the stage in the Field House with keys to my new house and wagon.  No man was going to be standing there with a diamond ring, if I wanted those things, I had to make it happen.

That’s the part they don’t teach you at the UW, you need to make things happen.  That piece of paper with your name on it, will open a door, but it won’t make the big jobs appear magically. If you want better pay and promotions you need to make this happen, with all of the courage and convictions that sent you to school in the first place.

Going out into the work place was almost as scary as entering the Stock Pavilion that first day to get my registration form in Madison.  The only difference is the work place doesn’t keep the bulls**t right out in front of you on the floor like they do at the stock pavilion. 

At work your bulls**t is usually wrapped up in a disguise.  Sometimes it is disguised as that really nice person who wants to be your friend, but ends up stabbing you in the back.  Or an outwardly hostile person who doesn’t care that you are new and just got out of college, you are not going to tread in her area.  It’s like walking in a mine field.  But you get through it.

Before long, you start to hit your stride.  The promotions start coming and the money improves.  Life is good.  You are not yet 30 and you are already achieving some of your goals.  Much more to reach in your future.  You don’t have any idea how far you can go, but with the right person by your side, you can climb higher than you ever thought possible.   I was lucky to have that right person for me.  Jerry has no idea how much my promotions were due to his encouragement and belief that I could do anything. Jobs are not just the way to pay for stuff, they become your career, the thing you are proud of the thing you do because you love it and want to do more.

By the time you are reaching your early 40’s the house, car and nice vacations are on board.  You are living your dreams and you have a good life.  You pray, you are thankful, you give to causes, volunteer when possible, seek additional education and give back to your community.  You are doing the things you must do and the things that you want to do.  Neither of them outweighs the other, it’s all part of your busy life.  You love your full life, you’re too busy to worry about anything.  You can’t imagine things getting better.

And then something happens and you begin a cycle that changes your life  and steers you in a new direction.  I hurt my back, I took some time off.  I had surgery and I thought I would be fine.  Little did I know that in 4 short years I would no longer workout daily, go to school, work long hours, go shopping alone or drive myself anywhere I pleased.

It’s like a sandbar that pops up when you least expect it and your boat is swamped.  It’s the fly in the ointment, the annoying little headache that won’t go away.  Only it’s not a headache.  It’s the burning, stabbing, take-your-breath-away pain in your back, hips, legs.  It’s the sensation of never being “unaware” of your own body.  It’s never forgotten, the sensation is always there but thanks to narcotic pain meds, the pain is bearable.

Sound familiar?????  I thought so.

I’ve been struggling with this disease and trying to make heads or tails of my life.  I lost my plan and I lost my goals and frankly I didn’t know what to do.  But then I remembered the 70’s.  I remembered that thing....sort of a do your own thing or Keep on trucking or something similar.

If you want anything in life, you have to make it happen.  No one is going to stand there right outside your surgeon’s door and tell you that along with your new disease you will get this new and improved life plan.  New goals, different job or no job at all.  There is no plan for this life either and the worst part?   you don’t feel good enough to even make a plan.

But then again, there is no plan for anyone’s life.  Try as we might, we are all in the same boat.  Even people that are not disabled, face similar problems and have the rug pulled out from under them too.  It’s not just us, it’s not just the disableds.  Healthy people are just as much in the dark as we are.

Now I didn’t take the obvious straight line course to my goals.  I had jobs that were not ideal, I dated a man after college who was completely wrong for me.  Luckily I met the right man while working one of the less than Ideal jobs.  Wearing that awful polyester brown waitress uniform, hair in a ponytail and there he was in my section sitting at my first table, my very first table, the very first night I worked there.  I can still remember asking my coworker, “who is that guy?”  And Margie replied with her usual candor “That’s Jerry.  He’s all hands, you don’t want to have anything to do with him.”  I was head over heels before he even asked me for a refill of his coffee.

Now it wasn’t magic, it took me 8 1/2 years to get down that aisle and it took another 5 years to get the ranch house and just 3 years ago I got my wagon.  Nobody handed those things to me.  But with Jerry to help, we achieved all of the things we wanted.  We have the house we wanted, in the town we wanted and we have an apple tree, nice neighbors and two dogs.  What more could you ask for?

So what’s next?  What’s my plan?  More importantly what are my goals?

The goals are to put this pain in the back of my life and not out front like it is right now.  I don’t intend to hide from my disease, besides that doesn’t work.  I just don’t want it to rule my life like it does right now.  I am not a diagnosis or a symptom.  I’m a person and just like every other person, I still want things and I still want to accomplish goals.

I want to do as much as I possibly can to relieve this pain.  I am going back to the pain clinic, I’m trying to get a referral to the Mayo Clinic and I want to be considered for some experimental treatment they are using on some chronic pain patients.  Now I may be completely wrong for this study, but I want to go there and get another opinion on my diagnosis.   

I know it won’t be easy to make this happen, but I’ve taken the first steps and I won’t give up.  Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t but thanks to the encouragement from my family (THANK YOU RICHARD!!) I won’t be alone when I go and we will try to fit in a much needed shopping trip to the Mall of America.  What a brilliant move, put a world renown clinic only miles from the Holy Grail of all shopping destinations.

As soon as this pain thing is under control or gone, I want to go back to work.  Maybe I won’t be able to work full time, maybe I will.  I don’t know.  And maybe I’ll choose to do something different.  Whatever it is, it will be something I want to do, not something I have to do.  As much as I would love to go back to my job, I know they just had their first layoffs and business is not booming.  Who knows, maybe I’ll fulfill a dream of mine and become a writer.  I think I have a jacket with elbow patches someplace...hey at least I’m not still set on being  John Wayne.

Life is kind of funny sometimes.  But when you think about it, with every change, you just make course adjustments and keep going.  No one’s life ever turns out as they planned it and wouldn’t it be boring if it did?

Remember that poster of the kitten holding onto a bar for dear life?  The caption was “Hang in there, Friday’s coming.”  Well, that’s what we have to all do sometimes, just hang in there, Friday is coming and it’s never too late to make that change in your life that will set you free of the sandbar and back on your way.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

Catching Childhood

This morning I sat at the kitchen table, taking the pills that make me a little dry in the mouth, but also help with the pain.  I was watching our neighbor’s kids waiting for the bus.  I’m lucky enough to live in the house where the bus stops.  I say lucky, because every day I’m reminded of how wonderful this world can be.

This morning the sister and brother took off their big backpacks and chased each other around their driveway.  It was 7:18AM.  The bus was due in 2 minutes and being kids, they couldn’t just stand and wait.  So they ran in circles, started flapping their arms.  And as the bus pulled up, they put on their heavy packs and climbed aboard for another day at school.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland is a long town, it runs along Chequamagon Bay.  Our house was 3 blocks from the lake and 5 blocks from my elementary school.  The only time we took a bus was to go to a beach on the other end of town, or to go to college.

In the summer, we ran all day, stopping to ask permission to drink out of a hose when we were thirsty and thanking whoever let us do that.  When we were hungry we grabbed an apple from a tree, a stalk of rhubarb or carrot or peas from the ground.  They were the days of skinned knees and worn out jeans.  Of mosquito bites and dirty faces.  Nothing was too hard and everything was new.

We played softball and wiffle ball, we had arguments, do-overs and broken hearts and apologies.  All in the day of a kid.  We didn’t know then how quickly our childhoods would slip from our grasp.  The days of running and swimming and riding our bikes like we were flying a fighter plane or a space ship.  Floating on a pulp log on Lake Superior, we were pirates, coming ashore to look for treasure.

The feeling of the ice cold lake on a warm summer day, the sand squishing between the toes and the way your feet looked in the water.  Laying on the sand to dry, before going home for supper.  Running like we just couldn’t wait for anything

The sights and sound of birds and fish and deer and cats and dogs.  They were all around.  We watched out for cars and tried not to do anything that would require a visit or call to our parents.

At night we ran inside and ate our dinner as fast as we could.  We were hungry.  Not hungry from stress or boredom or because we spent the day watching fast food commercials.  We didn’t have fast food then.  I guess fast food was when you had a peanut butter sandwich instead of waiting for dinner.

After dinner it was time for baths.  Most importantly, it was time to wash our feet.  Most of our adventures took place with no shoes on.  We didn’t need or want shoes in the summer.  You would just have to take them off when you went swimming and you might lose one.

After our baths, we were tucked into the clean cotton sheets and while it was still light out, we sang ourselves to sleep.  Many nights our Mom and Dad requested that we not give them a nightly concert of Beatles songs, but we were happy kids, and tired and eventually sleep took over.

The next day we would do it all again.  More running and riding and playing and swimming.  More fights and tears and kissing of cut fingers, skinned knees and stubbed toes.  Mom wiped the tears away and explained that it wasn’t the end of the world, our hearts were not broken and after a hug and a glass of water we were right back outside, to pick up where we left off.

There were no counselors or mediators or guns or knives.  We knew when we had done something wrong, we knew we had to say “sorry” and we knew that do-overs were always an option.  Sometimes we were friends again right away and sometimes we had to wait until we had forgotten what we were fighting about.  Nothing was ever so bad that it ended our friendships.

In the years that followed, we transitioned into teenagers and adults and we still knew that there was nothing that we did that we couldn’t apologize for and we knew how to say “sorry” and mean it.  We knew that it wasn’t ok to hurt anyone or anything.  Kids or animals, it was all the same, we were all God’s creatures and we respected that.  Even if we didn’t know what respect was.

And much to our surprise, we grew up just as fast as we ran.  We were always in a hurry to go to the next thing.  That is how your childhood is, you run and run until your wish comes true and you are an adult.  And the irony is, you wish you could do it all over again.

But thankfully, every now and then I see little kids doing something and just like that  Kenny Chesney song “I Go Back”.  To days of snarls in my hair so bad that scissors were used, bath times when Dad helped us wash our feet that were so dirty, we couldn’t go to bed until some of the black had been removed. 

And after our “now I lay me down to sleep....” a kiss on the head from Mom and we were asleep.  In our bunk beds with our Snoopy bedspread that declared Happiness is a Warm Puppy  and our Snow White and the Seven Dwarf pillowcases.  We left the world of our awake adventures and entered our deep sleep.  And God indeed kept our souls until we awoke.  She still does.

And every morning we have the promise of a “do-over”.  Everyday dawns with a perfect morning, we all have the opportunity to live just a little better than the day before and try our best to make our way in this world.  Through the ups and downs, the good and bad, the laughter and tears we go on and we try everyday to make the day the best one we ever lived.

So go on, make this day the best one of your life.  Don’t let anything hold you back.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

HOW DOES YOUR GARDEN GROW?

It's garden beginning time for many of us, especially in the South. How and what to plant was confusing for me. I was so much wanting a container garden on my patio. With just a walker I couldn't even go into the yard at all and my husband is a  just let whatever grow grow until the neighbors complain. Then use the riding mower and weedwhacker. We have huge trees so limbs always need picking up but they love doing it at their young ages. But the 12 year-old has determined that it is WORK now. Due to climate change we cannot get anything to grow in the front yard except 3 huge trees over 30 years old. They shade the entire yard. Last summer the four grandkids did manage 9 Aloe Vista plants and I tried to repot my 2 indoor vines I'd had since Mother died in 1997.

One of my sitters did know about all that stuff and I have a bucket of daffodils now in my front yard. Not bad with all the cold, rainy spring we've had. However the money ran out to grow a patio garden but that's OK cause broken limbs (on me) stropped it.

But my puny indide one is growing great! I have a long but narrow bay window just where the dinnet sits so it gets sun all day. When it came time to bring the vines in my largest one--don't even know his origin--had to have a table all it's own and it is grown up past the curtains and started toward a bookshelf.I have put  vases from previous generations around it. The morning light is great. This is the original plant. I won't bore you with my indoor garden anymore except to say I have a sweet potato vine also. I don't know their life span though.

I wish I was growing like my indoor plants---healthy for now

Wanda

Alibis and Sunday School

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior, Ashland wasn’t a big city, but we had a lot of churches.  Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, there were a lot of churches for such a small town.  Every church had its own traditions and congregations.  I remember our church built a new church in the 60’s.  It was designed in the shape of a cross and it was very Scandinavian looking.  Lots of wood, clean lines, beautiful windows.

When I was a little girl, I went to Sunday School.  We would go to church with Mom or with Gramma and Grampa Berg.  Part way through the service, all the kids would get up and go to their Sunday School Class.  That way, we were all done at the same time.  This was essential for rides home.  More often than not, Clare and I walked home.  Especially if the weather was nice.  We would save  .15 cents out of our collection money and we would stop at the candy store across from Wilmarth Elementary School.  Funny how every single elementary school had a candy store across the street.

There were milestones in Sunday School.  The first thing I remember, is that when you were really little, all they did was send you to the nursery and you played with other little kids during the service.  There was a speaker so we could hear what was going on, but we didn’t have any real lessons to learn or crafts to make.

Then on Christmas, they got you all dressed up in robes and trotted you out to sing “Jesus Loves Me”.  We were called the “Cherub Choir”.  No matter what we sang, or how we sang it, ladies always cried.  I didn’t know if it was because of the dear little faces singing such a cute song, or if they were just so tired from trying to get us to sing that they were all having a breakdown.

Then in about second or third grade, you get your Bible.  Now in our church the way you got your Bible, was to get up in front of the whole congregation and recite a passage from the Bible.  You got to pick your passage, but if you picked something too short, the teacher would make you pick again.  You had to memorize the passage and say it in front of the whole church.

For some reason, I picked The Beatitudes.  I don’t know why I picked one of the longest passages, but I did.  I think I liked the pressure, what can I say, I was a weird kid.

So one Sunday, our whole class had to stand up in front of the church and each of us had to say our passage right into a microphone.  I was nervous, but I did it and I didn’t forget the passage, or cry and run to my Mom sitting in the pews or pee my pants (tights actually, no pants allowed in church).  And in turn I got my Bible.  Inside the Bible was my name and the date inscribed in calligraphy in gold ink.  I loved my Bible, I still do.

Another thing Sunday School tradition were the attendance sheets.   At the beginning of each class, the teacher took attendance.  Just like they did in middle school and high school, someone walked around to the different classes and picked up the slips so they could record the absences in an attendance book.

At the time, I didn’t think anything about it.  They always took attendance.  Maybe they did it to plan for supplies of Elmer’s glue and Popsicle sticks or maybe to make sure there were enough sugar cookies and Dixie cups for the Kool Aid,

Then one day, something interesting thing happened.  When Mr. Johnson, came to pick up the attendance slip, David Deeth raised his hand and asked why they took attendance.

Without missing a beat, Mr. Johnson (remember Mel Coolie from the old Dick Van Dyke Show?).  Mr. Johnson was a tall man, with a bald head, glasses and a deep voice said “Twenty years from now, if you are ever accused of a murder, we can prove that you were here.” Hmmm.

What the heck kind of a statement was that????  We were 7 years old, what did we need an alibi for?  or was this just to show God on our lifetime report card (you know, your permanent record that you were threatened with all your school years)?  Do you think God takes attendance?  And the most important question of all, why did they let this guy collect the attendance slips?

Seriously, what kind of psycho tells little kids that they take attendance in Sunday school so you will have an alibi if you ever murder someone?  Even at 7 years old, I knew this guy was a few potatoes short of a lefse.
And so we made sure we were there as many Sundays as possible so they could mark us present and thus our alibi’s were recorded.

Sunday school was fun, but nothing compared to the Summer Bible School adventure.  First, it’s warm and you can wear shorts .  As a little girl, we had to wear dresses every time we went to school and church.  I don’t think there was ever a dress code that was put in writing, but we all adhered to it.  I did until 6th grade.  We had a new girl in school and she wore jeans. I did the same thing, we became good friends.  Thank you Amy Turner, my first rebel thing I ever did.   

Summer Bible School was also the only time you could ride your bike to church. That’s something you are never allowed to do the rest of the year.   And, the biggest thing, we got cookies and red Kool Aid every, single day!!! 

You will never hear a group of little kids sing Kum Bah Yah with more enthusiasm, than 30 little Scandinavian kids singing, while the church ladies put out trays of sugar cookies and stirred the Kool Aid. 

That stuff is like crack for little kids.  You would just about do anything, including singing Kum Bah Yah for 2 weeks straight,  just to get your hands on those cookies.  Seriously, they should offer those up at confirmation classes, when you really need a reason to go to extra hours at Church.

In Summer Bible School, there were a few Bible stories every day, some coloring of Bible pictures, and some stories with the most treasured of  all Summer Bible School props, something valued even more than the sugar cookies with frosting at Christmas, more than getting to run around in the church while your Mom is at choir rehearsal, the fabled, little seen, FELT BOARD.

The felt board was a piece of felt on a board, on an easel.  During the course of a bible story, the teacher would shapes made out of felt on the board that had to do with the story.  Like if it was the story of Jesus changing water to wine, there would be a figure of Jesus, grapes, people, a wine jug , etc. 

The simplest of things, but no matter what you tried at home, you could not replicate the felt board they used at Sunday School.  It just never looked the same no matter how hard you tried.  And your shapes never stuck as good as the one they used in Sunday School.

Watching the teacher put those felt things on the board made everyone pay attention.  I don’t know why it was so magical, but it was and I know I’m not the only one who thought so.  She could tell the same story over and over, as long as she had that board she could have been reading the phone book to us.  This would have been a good opportunity to brain wash us.  Maybe they did... that would explain fashion choices I made later in life.

Summer Bible School and Sunday School left a big impression on me.  I have so many memories of my childhood wrapped up in the happenings at church.

The memories of my Gramma Berg and Grampa Berg were very special in a lot of ways.  For instance,  I remember Grampa Berg’s blue eyes and how they would light up when he was up to something.  Like teaching my little sister Clare to whistle. 

He taught her in church, on a Sunday, during the sermon. 

Yes she stood on the pew and whistled.  Grampa couldn’t stop chuckling, and Gramma was not happy.  In the pew it was Clare, Grampa, me and then Gramma.  Gramma tried but couldn’t get close enough to Clare to make her sit down, so there she stood.  A little blonde haired girl, with big blue eyes, and a pair of spindly legs in white tights, with brown knees and a blue dress.  Whistling for all she was worth.  And there was Grampa, face beat red from laughing and his blue eyes shining as bright as the summer sun.

Gramma knew she was never going to live it down.  I imagine it was all the talk at the Monday Club or the Bible Study Class meeting the following week.  And the beauty parlor was probably buzzing all week while the ladies came in to get their hair done for Sunday services.  All the blue-haired ladies in town probably heard about the little whistling girl.

And those are my memories of church.  Of having fun and making things, singing and eating.  Somewhere in the midst of our felt board stories, before the cookies and the Kool Aid, were lessons that we needed to learn.  Lessons about living and dying and praying and crying.  All of those things would take years to figure out.  Even now I’m still not sure about my God.  I know I believe and I have faith, but there are so many things I still don’t know.

What I wouldn’t give for one more day as that carefree child. A day when we were all together and the sun was out and the sky was the softest shade of blue you ever saw.  The blue color of a pair of Levis, much worn and loved, the color of an old flannel shirt or the color of my sister Clare’s blue eyes. When the sun was yellow like a ball of yarn, not harsh light, the sunlight was warm and not biting as it is today. 

Perhaps that is what all this praying is for.  Praying for the way things were back then.  Praying for guidance to try and make sense of the way things are right now.  Praying to hear once again the sound of children’s laughter carried on the wind of forty summers long ago when Mom’s yelled “Supper” for the kids playing down the street. 

Mom’s who strained to hear the familiar “I’m coming!!”  from their own little kids.  And like a change in the direction of the wind, the screen door shuts quietly with a creak and the sound is gone. 

And in the blink of an eye, the warm memory is gone and we are grown ups and although it’s not needed, we are all alibied, just in case.

Thanks for listening.

Anne

What Happened to Part 2?

Don't ask me because I typed on someone else's computer disc who was supposed to post it on my computer. Some times mistakes are better, others are worse. We all survived the storm but not without mishap. The real moral here is don't throw someone in the lake and expect them to automatically ski and don't ignore the weather signs, especially our health ones.

So many things have happened to me to bring me to this state of health and life itself that I can't write about them all. You you would be bored to death and so would I (not literry). For those new to my  world I am an older woman with a wonderful husband, kids and grand kids. I've had back  problems ever since the ski party at about age 12. Then I was given a myelogram with pantopaque which showed I had an "extra" vertabra and would need a fusion. My parents said no and I made my way as best I could because it never occured to me that others didn't hurt like me. I wasn't medicated either. Of course I didn't have AA then either.

I'm limited in time so I'll just say that I got  a "pain pump" in1989 which lasted until 2006. I got the new pump but it just didn't sem to work. We had left the old cathaerin in because it tested OK. We finally did find out it was the catheter. Time for a new one. It should have taked 45 minutes but it took 5 hours because it had "rotted" and broken and was moving out into my body in small sigments. It could have been fatal had he not gotten all those litle bits.

However the surgery has left me "spastic"-- pressure inside the spine instead of outside like AA. I have a spinal cord injury and am paralyzed from T-7 down. Paralyzed in this case doesn't mean I can't move my legs some in bed or chair but if I stand up my legs will not move at this point.

It's time for dinner and a bath which is not a pleasant experience at all.

More to come in this saga of just being a patient now.

Wanda

The River Party (part 2)

Download wanda.part 2-4.doc

It's Just a Puppy

We have a new puppy in our house.  Her name is Sammie Marie and she is a yellow lab.  A beautiful yellow lab and 100% puppy.  She trips over her paws and falls down a lot.  And she knocks over her water dish daily and eats like it’s her first meal in years.  She makes me smile.

I grew up in a little town on Lake Superior.  Ashland was not the warmest place to grow up and certainly wasn’t the kind of place you would want to walk a dog in the middle of winter.

When I was very little we had a Dalmatian dog named Pepper.  I was about 3 years old and I was running around in the back yard while my Mom hung up the laundry on the clothes lines.  Pepper was running around too.  He didn’t hurt me or jump on me, but his chain wrapped around my little leg and when he heard a car go by, he ran across the yard dragging me by my leg.  That was the beginning of my fear and dislike of dogs.

All my adult years I disliked of dogs.  I was afraid of them, all shapes and sizes.  I avoided them at all costs.

When Jerry and I bought our first home eleven years ago, Kelly (Jerry’s daughter) had a dog named Dallis and she didn’t have anywhere to keep her.  We told her to bring the dog to our house and we would find a home for her, a good home. 

Dallis was half black lab and half rottweiller.  She was a big dog, she eventually grew to 95 pounds.  I asked around at work if anyone was interested in adopting a big black dog.  I didn’t get any takers. 

And then one night, I was home alone with Dallis.  She was an outside dog, but the weather had turned bad, we had freezing rain and she wasn’t going in her dog house.  I was worried about her so I let her in the part of our house that was a wood shop.  It was dry and we had blankets down and it was a bit warmer than outside.  I gave her water and shut the door.  Then I heard her crying on the other side of the door.

I didn’t know what to do, so I opened the door.  She came in and put her front paws down and her butt in the air and she wiggled and barked.  I was terrified. You should have heard her bark.  It could make the windows rattle.  I didn’t know what she wanted or what to do and then she pushed one of her tennis balls towards me with her nose.  So I pushed it back to her.  She seemed happy doing this for a while, I guess this was ok.  Playing a game with her made her happy and it made me less nervous around her.

We didn’t have Dallis for more than a few months and we emptied our savings account to fence in the entire back yard.  The biggest dog run in the neighborhood.  It was the length of the yard and went behind the house and garage.  I’ll never forget that first day we took off her chain and let her run.  She was so happy, I swear she was smiling with her whole body.  Wiggling, jumping and running.  Happy to be alive.

It didn’t take me long to fall in love with Dallis.  I took her to doggie daycare and just like a nervous Mom on the first day of kindergarten, I shed a few tears and I to called a few times to see if she was ok.  My husband was so nervous, he drove over to watch her and make sure she was ok with dogs she didn’t know and people she didn’t know. 

A year later I adopted an abused doberman.  I loved Austin with all my heart and we tried to make up for her bad start in life.  We had a lot of good years with both dogs.  Austin made great strides in her behavior , she also benefited from doggy daycare.  I loved her more than I thought was possible.

Nothing lasts forever.  We had to put Austin down in May of 2006.  We  knew Dallis had a tumor in her lung, but it she still looked good, played, ran  and jumped like normal and still ate like it was a race.

Then in September of 2006, Dallis was limping a lot after playing soccer at doggy daycare.  She normally limped for a few days after daycare every week, but this time I was worried she might have hurt her leg so I took her in for x-rays and our vet K.C. said he would call me at noon and let me know what is going on.

I’ll never, ever forget that phone call.  “Anne, I’m so very, sorry.” is how K.C. started the conversation.  “Dallis’ biggest problem is no longer her lung cancer.  She’s not going to die from that.  She has osteosarcoma, bone cancer and it’s a very aggressive disease.  Her front leg bones are already eaten up, the bone is all porous, I can’t believe she can still jump and run.”

I managed to ask if she was in pain and he said yes.  Dallis never yelped, or whined or anything.  We never knew she was hurting.  As you can imagine, the outlook was grim.  . 

In the 10 days following that call, she stopped eating, she lost 11 pounds , she couldn’t stop vomiting.  K.C. said that we would know when it was time to let her go because she would turn away from us.  And so, 10 days later, she did.

I took her back to the vet and that evening, Jerry and Kelly and K.C.(our vet) and I, we all talked about it and we all decided it was time to say goodbye to our dear girl.  And with our hearts breaking, we all said goodbye.  We held her as she died and told her we loved her.  It was one of the dearest moments of my life.  Holding my girl, while we let her go, just like we held Austin only a few months before.

I had planned on getting a new puppy for months before Dallis died.   The breeder finally called and said that our puppy was ready to go home with us.   A few days after we lost Dallis, we drove to Minocqua and picked him up.  Dino is a Cavalier, King Charles Spaniel.   Dallis had weighed 95 pounds, Dino weighed 5 pounds.  This was going to be interesting.

Dino never cried, whined or barked.  He was a good dog from the minute we got him in the car and he is very lovable.  I’m so glad we got him and I show him pictures of Dallis and Austin.  He could smell those dogs and spent time looking for them.  I had to measure his food by the 1/4 cup.  Dallis ate 5 cups of food and 2 peanut butter sandwiches each day.  I couldn’t believe how little Dino was, I was so afraid of hurting him.  But we all adjusted and in time, it seemed like he had been with us for years.

And then on Christmas Eve morning this year, I was in the backyard with Dino and our neighbor came over and leaned on the fence and said he had something to show me.  He handed me a picture of his lab Ivy and her pups.  She gave birth to 10 puppies on December 8th.  Ten yellow labs right next door.  I told him to wait right there and I ran and got my husband and said, go talk to Andy, he has something to show you.

My husband was gone for a long time, I saw him talking to Andy and then he went over to Andy’s door.  A little while later, Dino and I were in the house and Jerry came in.  He just looked at me and said, “well we’re going to have to take one of them.”

I was in shock.  Jerry had taken Dallis’ death so hard, I couldn’t believe it when he said we were getting a dog. Sammie came home with us in mid-February.  Since she was just next door, it wasn’t too long of a trip. And how this puppy has helped us, we can’t even begin to list the ways.

Sammie’s feet are very big, she trips over them.  And oh how Sammie has changed our house.  We have a noisy house again.  This ball of energy is excited and happy about everything.  A walk to the mailbox, just across the street from home is an adventure.  So many new smells over there thanks to the 3 dogs and 2 cats across the street.

Somewhere in her exploration of our backyard, she came across a basketball. A basketball I hadn’t seen since Dallis died.  It was Dallis ball.  We thought that we had thrown out all of Dallis and Austin’s toys. Dino found one of Austin’s chew toys his first week in our home.  And now Sammie found one of Dallis’ in the backyard.

Just a puppy?  No.  No puppy is just a puppy.  Sammie Marie and Dino are so much more than that.  Sammie's a big, wiggly, clumsy bundle of love. Dino is a feisty, long haired lap dog.  Sammie and Dino have helped turn our house back into a home.  I loved Dallis and Austin very much.  I still do.  But thanks to them,  I love Dino and Sammie.  I will have many happy memories of all of my dogs.  And when I’m very old and it’s time for me to take my final journey, I know that they will be waiting there to greet me, with wagging tails and sloppy kisses.

Thanks for listening.

Anne