Memorial Day 2008

Memorial Day, 2008

by Delores Miller

Here it is Memorial Day, 2008. Our 51^st wedding anniversary was on Sunday May 25. A year ago we were planning our 50^th anniversary party. Where does the time go?

Marianne and her children and I spent the weekend with Robin in LaCrosse. Had a very nice visit, Robin always has good food, the 5 cousins played well together, going to the parks and bonding. Madeline is such a good babysitter. She is 12 years old. Robin has so many deer and rabbits and squirrels around her yard, they are fun to look at. Robin’s family had come here a couple weeks earlier to do the Cancer walk with Marianne. The children and I roamed the park while they walked.

Marianne and family bought all camping equipment, tents, sleeping bags, air mattresses, etc. They want to spend time at camp sites and parks. That isn’t for Russ and I, we like our nice soft beds in our house.

Russell’s niece LuAnn and grandson Bryan are coming to Wisconsin the middle of June for 2 weeks of visiting friends and relatives, seeing the sites and fishing. We are all looking forward to seeing them.

Robin’s family and Keith’s family spent two days at Wisconsin Dells Water Park, the Wilderness. Robin had to speak at a conference while the children played in the water. They had a nice room with a kitchenette and Robin brought all the food.

Schools are winding down for the year, another couple weeks. Many had ‘snow’ days which they have to make up now at the end of the year. Then Summer vacation for everyone.
Russ has his garden planted. Russ and Marianne and her girls planted her little garden too. Peas, beans cucumbers, tomatoes and potatoes. Rabbits are waiting for it to come up so they can nibble. Grass needs cutting every few days, and farmers have all the corn and soybeans planted now waiting for the good Lord to send rain.

We sold the three building sites in the subdivision. People seem to be buying for investment, and don’t plan on building any time soon. Have 7 lots left.
Matt and Lisa were camping over the weekend way up north, with his little pop up camper. They got rained out and came home a day early.

Cousin Ellie in California fell and broke both her arms above the elbows, and broke her nose, and now will be in a rehab hospital for 6 weeks. We sure had a good visit when I was out there in February.

And Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor.
And our President Bush’s daughter Jenna was married in Texas, we were not invited to the small wedding.

Our barn is full of swallows building nests. They hassle and harass us when we need to go through the barn, swooping down on us. I think a male swallow is polygamous, he is building a very long nest, so he can have multiple wives in one location. The robins are so bad in the garage, they defecate on both our cars, long slimy offal, Russ had to keep washing them, and now has them sitting outside. We like birds but now when they crap on us.

One of the men from Russell’s Shady Grove area, Art Beyersdorf died. He was 93. He was married to Russell’s old school teacher Carole May Winter. He sat down to read the Marion paper and died after lunch. We often saw them at the Winter family gatherings. She is such a happy person, always smiling and giggling.

Our friends Donna and David Polzin were married 50 years. They did not have a celebration because their children and grandchildren all were having parties of their own.

All postage went up a penny. And gasoline prices are over $4 a gallon now, but one has to bite the bullet and pay it if one wants to get from here to there. Did a cemetery run to put flowers on Russell’s parents graves, and then did a Dupont cheese stop to get Russell’s American cheese.
Russ and I have had such a bad cough. Twice medication and it still will not let up. Sharon gave us breathing treatments with the children’s enubilizer albuteral sulfate and it seemed to help.

Russ and I spent a week in Massachusetts by Richard, Sharon Joshua and Colin. We had a very good time, flying Northwest through Detroit, and for once, all connections and luggage were good. But the airlines are charging $25 for checking a second piece of luggage, and we heard since they they are going to charge even for the first suit case.

The boys have bicycles, scooters and a little red Mustang electric car they run around in the street in front of their house, they live at the end of a cul de sac.
It was good to see them again and the improvements they have made on their house in Franklin and their lake house at Barnstedt, New Hampshire. Joshua, 4 years old especially likes his ‘Papa’. He reminds us so much of Richard at that age, when he trailed along on the tractors with Russell. Richard has such a nice back yard with shrubbery, fruit trees, berry bushes. The rabbits enjoy eating them all. Neighbors seem to walk about in the evenings and visit. Across the street live people from India. Joshua had swimming lessons at the YMCA, we went to watch. Richard fried brats and steak and potatoes on the grill.

Of course any trip out east involves historical sites, and Richard took us to
Woonsocket, Rhode Island to the Museum of Work and Culture, which was in an old woolen mill, special exhibits, including an actual wool weaving machine. People from Quebec Canada migrated here 100 years ago. Other sites were a reconstruction of a Catholic school room with a nun and priest, a church, triple Decker apartment house, union hall, a boxcar from World War I, a Veterans display. School children, as a project now took suitcases, and filled them with what they thought would be what Holocaust victims took to the concentration camps during World War II. Auschwitz and Warsaw ghettos. All very interesting. Woonsocket seemed to be the birthplace of the American
Revolution the Blackstone River Valley, Ethnic Diversity.

To the Bass Pro Shop near the Gillette Patriot Football Stadium, I got two canvas totes, nice heavy bags for me to carry junk.

To the Wrights Dairy farm at North Smithfield, Rhode Island, a working Holstein farm where they let people see how cows are milked and fed. 200 cows on a 220 acre farm. On to the Dairy Queen for a banana split, root beer float and a cherry ice cream cone.

Then went to Richard’s lake house in New Hampshire. Contractors are still working, they put the counter top on, and were sanding the dry wall. Russ and Richard were building a retaining wall by the lake and this week, he was putting in a dock for his pontoon boat. There is a beautiful public beach and swimming pool, down the road from the lake house, and the other way a dam. The boys like to throw rocks in the dam. So many swallows at the beach, I think they followed us from our Wisconsin barn.

About half way to the lake house, at Hooksett is a huge brick building, 4 stories, very old. We couldn’t figure out what it was or is, so when I got home, I called the public library there, and they said it was formerly the Mount St. Mary’s school for girls, a sort of college, but closed in 1978 and is now a condo.
School friends of R&D, Carl and Ardie Much of Groveland Massachusetts came to visit at the lake with us, and we went out to eat at Parker’s Beef place. Good to see them again. They were surprised how active Joshua is.
Richard had gotten, from Mr Kraft, the owner of the Patriots, 4 luxury box seats at Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. We were all excited about going, but alas, it got rained out, so we didn’t get to go. We did go out to eat at Olive Garden in Attleboro. I had a very good minestrone soup, salad, bread sticks, Russ had spaghetti and meatballs, the others had shrimp, and lasagne and chicken.

So then it was time to pack the suitcases and fly back home to Wisconsin. Took a cab home from the airport, with so many delayed flights always, we don’t like friends to pick us up, cause we never know when we will get home. It cost $32 for a yellow cab.

And then next week will be June. Russ is rearranging machinery, getting ready to cut hay and bale it for his horse and llama people. We are running out of energy.