The Coin

Worker Bees

Yesterday Laurie and Chip went into caretaker mode and cleaned and polished everything in sight.

We have new river tubes and the older tubes are all washed off and inspected. Chip trimmed the boardwalk edges. He looked like a real pro running that trimmer complete with goggles and ear plugs. Laurie washed the bocci ball set and the playground swings. She watered all of the plants and just generally cleaned up.

Jana and Dylan played in the river, and then swept the entire boardwalk. Dick and Chip loaded up every stray item and went to the dump and then Dick mowed the entire property!

I rode around in my golf car and kept an eye on everything as the official documentarian. I liked my job the best.

Laurie and Chip worked all afternoon and were still looking for things to do.

We celebrated all of the hard work with dinner at Mongolian Barbecue.

By the way, while we're on the subject, does anybody else think that Mongolian Barbecue is going downhill? Things seemed a little off - for instance, the salad bar and the food bar both needed replenishing and wiping up - they weren't neatly maintained. The counter where you wait by the grill was sticky and badly needed to be wiped off. There was spilled food on the steps, and spilled beverages on the floor - I was really quite shocked. Plus - when the waitress brought brown rice and I asked for white rice, she indicated that they were out of white rice - what's up with that? Dylan ordered raspberry lemonade, and as it turned out they were out of that too.

But the food was good and everyone enjoyed it, so that's the bottom line. But I still think the manager needs to crack the whip a little bit.

Mom's service is tomorrow morning and the forecast looks like rain. As Dick said, we have lots of umbrellas. The forecast for GenFest looks wonderful.

NGA + Back at the Ranch

The National Governors' Conference is over, and Dick is home at last! It was a success, and things went relatively smoothly over-all.

Dick's weekend was wild and woolly. He estimates that from Thursday at 9 a.m. through Sunday at 4 p.m. he spent a total of 48 hours at the airport. One night he got home at 1:30 a.m. - hasn't done that for at least a couple of decades. His task was meeting, greeting, and finding lost luggage, which there was plenty of. Somehow he missed Miss America! He stood there and talked to her and didn't know who she was! He thought she was an intern or an aide or something. He met Dick Gephart and the President of the AFL-CIO. The high point for him was meeting Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He has lots of stories - ask him when you see him.

Meanwhile, back here at the ranch, life went on. We have seen the latest Harry Potter movie (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), The Adventures of Pinocchio at the Old Town Playhouse, and gone to a Beach Bums ballgame which they won, 12-9, we have all had rides in the golf car, Dylan has played extensively in the river, and with three computers on the go upstairs, we have played The Game extensively also! Dylan had made sure that we've all been to the Outlands and we have all of the flight paths. In the river, Dylan liked walking upstream and then jumping into the "most currenty part" and floating back down. On the golf car tour, Dylan's favorite part is the bumps!

The last book in the Harry Potter series was released Friday at midnight. Jana's copy was delivered by UPS Saturday morning at 9 a.m. We picked up Laurie's copy at Border's. Jana finished the book before she went to bed on Saturday, and she's not talking. Laurie is about halfway through it, but she keeps being interrupted by real life!

Harry Potter was a really enjoyable movie - lots of excitement - I most admire the values of friendship and loyalty, and good vs. evil that the Potter movies promote. Dylan's favorite part was "when they were in the room and all the globes were falling". That really was a spectacular scene! My favorite part was Umbridge being dragged off by the centaurs.

Pinocchio was enjoyable - the children did a marvelous job, and it was very entertaining. Dylan's favorite part was the whale. I was impressed with the amount of work that went into the production. I hadn't been to the TC Children's Theater before - the production was really owned by the kids - they designed the scenery, they were the stage hands, etc. It seems to be a truly child centered group.

The Beach Bums game was so much fun! Jim and Barb gave us free tickets - it was Child and Family Services Night - so we all went (except Dick). Jim, Barb, Shelly, Chris, Adam, Melanie & Lydia were all there - it was a mini-GenFest at the ball park!
I enjoyed it so much. Dylan liked all of the fun between the innings, and he learned about stolen bases from Auntie Jana. Dylan's favorite part was the taco race and the ice cream! My favorite part was the home run with two men on which gave them the lead. Yaaay Beach Bums! We all really appreciated the opportunity and the fun and the chance to talk to everyone. Thanks Jim and Barb!

Monday Dick and Chip brought back the boat from the Marina, so it's ready to float whenever we are :) They made trips to Walmart and Meijer to get things for GenFest. Later this week we'll go to GFS to get the goodies. Jana bought a mess of Diet Coke and Mentos!

This morning Dick and I are dropping off the Ford for some brake work, and then it's off to the gym.

Excitement!

Laurie, Chip and Dylan just called from the plane - they are all aboard, and they'll be here at noon!! Dick and I are going to the gym and then taking them out to lunch when they get here.

Jana is coming tomorrow!! She'll be here around 3 p.m. Things are really beginning to stack up. Tom will be here a week from Thursday.

Tom and Peter have dibs on going to the Oregon game with us on Sept. 8. We're going to be living in Ann Arbor for about 8 weeks in September and October because of the heavy U of M schedule and because of not wanting to drive back and forth week after week. We are really looking forward to it.

But right now we're looking forward to seeing all of our kids and family. Dick is looking forward to surviving the Governor's Conference!

Monday, Monday

1. Grocery shopping for Dylan friendly items! (They'll be here tomorrow - yaaay)
2. Merry Maids for obvious reasons!
3. Dick goes to Sam's Club for water, toilet paper, and salt for the water softener
4. Continued organizing in the "activity room"
5. A Little Laundry
6. Naps
7. Play WoW
8. Dinner out at Hofbrau
9. Nickel Creek at Interlochen

Dinner was interesting - we were put in the farthest reaches of Hofbrau - somewhere out near the back of the parking lot (jk). It was very quiet and lonely back there. But we weren't lonely for long - a party of twelve was put at a big table right next to us - I think it was three different families - noisy and fun and distracting! The children spilled at least 3 big glasses of water all over themselves! Bad plan to put the kids at one end of the table and parents at the other. Only one of the Moms seemed at all interested.

We enjoyed the Nickel Creek concert! Shelly and Chris came with their friend Kathy and it was good to see them! It makes it so much more fun when you have people you know to sit with and talk to. I was so glad they all could come. The concert was lively and fun, and Dick and I especially enjoyed singing along to "the little ones chewed on the bones-o" ! I was very entertained - Dick a bit less so - but I think he's pre-occupied with upcoming events.

Arrival Time!

Things are beginning to shape up for our month of summer company! Laurie called today to say that she and Dylan will be arriving Tuesday at noon!!! Are we excited? Could be ;)

They'll be missing the Nickel Creek concert Monday night, but it can't be helped and it's no big deal - in fact Shelly and Chris said they'd like to come, so there ya go.

Dick's working on organizing all of his geocaching stuff downstairs in time for the influx. It's kind of fun to go through everything - he's bagged a lot of treasures for future caches. He's also cleaning his bedroom for the Gillespies - a lot of sorting, straightening and tossing things out around here this weekend!

He has a horrendous schedule coming up at the airport this weekend for the Governor's Conference. His hours will be: Thursday 9 a.m. until ll p.m.; Friday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. and back in from 10 to 11 p.m.; Saturday from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. and then 5 p.m. until midnight; Sunday from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. He has everything well organized, spread-sheeted, data-based, and printed out. He'll be the go-to guy for the 75 volunteers over the weekend. We'll see him sometime on Monday!

Cherry Festival Week Rolls On

Today was rainy and overcast pretty much all day long. People didn't seem to mind that much - there were crowds everywhere. We never left the car today, so we couldn't get good Festival pictures - just the folks on Front Street. Everything was crowded, and cars were parked everywhere.

Hunter Takumi Stadick

Reiko, Bob and Jet have a new baby boy in their family! Hunter was born on July 6.2007 - Mom and baby are doing well. It's very exciting! Now Bill and Jan have SIX GRANDCHILDREN!! Adam and Jake, Ethan and Emily, Jet and Hunter - WOW. They are the luckiest grandparents in the Universe!

Cherry Festival

Yesterday and today we drove around downtown to soak up some Cherry Festival atmosphere. People are swarming along the beaches, and on the streets downtown in amazing numbers. There seem to be three different types of groups - large family groups with folks of all ages together, teenagers or young adult groups (usually all boys or all girls) walking along together, and retired couples walking holding hands. Both yesterday and today most people were shading their eyes to watch the skies because of the Air Show. We didn't see much of it, but we could certainly hear the planes - quieter than the Blue Angels for sure, but still very loud.

Traverse City is doing well. The city looks good, and it's crowded with bustling, happy people. We had a bit of rain this morning, but not enough to ruin anything. By this afternoon everything looks terrific and it's a great day - warm (96F), sunny and breezy.

It's Not About the Numbers

COUNTIES CACHED IN MICHIGAN BY BASSWOOD BEND


STATES CACHED IN THE USA BY BASSWOOD BEND

If you're a geocacher, you'll enjoy this. Otherwise.....not so much!

Today Dick found this web site which is loaded with statistics about individual geocachers! I couldn't believe it - they have all of this information about almost everybody!


FULL STATS FOR BASSWOODBEND
Total: 1316 finds on 1314 unique caches (List Multiple Finds)

Total days since first find: 1485 - Overall find Rate: 0.89/day, 6.21/week

Total days with a find: 392 (Every 3.8 days or 26.4% of your total days) - Average finds per caching day: 3.36

Best day: 4/08/06 - 26 finds

Most consecutive days with a find: 10 from 3/03/07 to 3/12/07

Longest caching drought: 42 days from 8/10/03 to 9/20/03

Average total cache difficulty: 1.61 - Average total terrain rating: 1.54

Average physical cache difficulty: 1.68 - Average physical terrain rating: 1.61 (Traditional, Multi, Unknown, Project APE, Letterbox)

Approximate cache-to-cache distance: 37578.21 miles (60476.26 kilometres) (Excludes locationless and known traveling caches)

Active Caches: 859 of the caches you've found are still active (65.4%)

Average log size: 79.2 words - Biggest log: 511 words - Shortest log: 0 word - Number of one-word logs: 0
-------------------------------------------------
CACHE TYPE
Type Total Unique
Cache In Trash Out Event 2 2
Earthcache 1 1
Event Cache 27 27
Letterbox Hybrid 3 3
Locationless (Reverse) Cache 85 83
Multi-cache 81 81
Traditional Cache 960 960
Unknown Cache 46 46
Virtual Cache 111 111
----------------------------------------------
CONTAINER
Container Total
Large 8
Micro 228
Not chosen 63
Other 41
Regular 613
Small 187
Virtual 176
--------------------------------------------

STATES
State Total Unique
Arkansas 7 7
California 17 17
District of Columbia 2 2
Florida 23 23
Illinois 2 2
Indiana 1 1
Kentucky 2 2
Maryland 1 1
Michigan 1136 1136
Mississippi 8 8
Missouri 9 9
Ohio 4 4
Pennsylvania 5 5
Tennessee 1 1
Virginia 2 2
----------------------------------------------------------------
COUNTRIES
Country Total Unique
Canada 5 5
Cayman Islands 1 1
Mexico 1 1
United States 1220 1220

Power Island and Capitol Steps

The oldest cache placed in Michigan is out on Power Island in West Grand Traverse Bay. At the Winter Social this year we auctioned off 2 trips for 5 to the Island in our pontoon boat. The trips both sold for $80, a nice addition to the MiGO fund-raiser.

Today was the day for CacheToGo (Dick and Donna),















and Swamp4 (Richard, Cynthia, Dawn (age 14) and Charley the dog. We met them at the Bowers Harbor boat launch - we all had lunches packed by the Bad Dog Deli - and we were good to go.












It was the perfect day for it: skies were blue, waters were calm, sun was warm.






It took them about an hour and a half to walk from the dock area, find two caches, and walk back. They kind of got lost and walked around most of the Island to get back to the boat.

Lunch was great. The wind had picked up a little, and I was mildly concerned about the return trip - but everything went smoothly. People did get splashed a bit, but just enough to make it an adventure - not enough to soak anybody. The put in and the take out went great - it was really a marvelous event.

We got back home at 4 p.m., just in time to take a nap and then get dressed to go out to dinner at Rico's and off to see The Capitol Steps at Interlochen.

It was a hilarious show, as usual. I enjoyed the Dick Cheney spoofs the most, although the George W. impersonator was excellent. He did a great deer in the headlights.

Dick loved the TSA sketches - especially about the confiscation of your toothpaste, lotions, Prep H, etc. The funniest was the woman who said she was seated next to the man with the drug resistant TB, and they had taken her bottle of Purell at the gate. It was most enjoyable.

If you have the time, one of the funniest parts was the bit about Paris Hilton (Haris Pilton) Listen to it when you have time. (Visit the bathroom first.) My favorite part of this bit was about poor little baby Shiloh Pitt. (Sure to become a new inside joke!)

Happy Fourth

I heard someone say "may the Fourth be with you!." I thought it was really cute, but my kids went nyuck and hardee har har. My kids are just way too cool :)

We had no special plans for the day - just to take the day off, and to cook Dick's barbecued ribs.

Cousin Rick came out to wait for his kids - they were coming from Brown Bridge Dam to here. We had a nice visit, and of course he had the obligatory golf car ride. The kids arrived (Emily and her friends Kristen and Ankoor) - they had a good float, and of course they rode in the golf car too. You can't escape it! Muhahaha! Emily and her boyfriend Ankoor are both in Med School at MSU. She's in the D.O school and he's in the M.D. school. The story I liked best is that Ankoor (pronounced like "encore") is a twin and he was born second. He claims that that's not why he was named that, but he can't prove it!

We took a Subaru cruise through town - everything is being set up for the Cherry Festival, which starts on Saturday. Tents, fences, stages, venues - roads are blocked, and everything looks very festive. At 1:30 p.m., people have already parked their motor homes along Grandview Parkway for fireworks watching at dusk tonight. The town is very touristy - the streets are jammed with shoppers, gawkers, walkers, and strollers.

The ribs were great. We had a good day - very relaxing. We played a lot of WoW also. Plus I got 2 Pogo badges - poker and word whomp. Nothing but fun.

Loverly

This has been a most excellent, loverly day. We began by going to recycling, and then to McDonald's for decaf and iced tea. Then we headed to Suttons Bay to put out three new caches in area parks on the bay.
Dick's description of the first cache site, which is located in a sweet little park on the edge of town:

The plaque in front of the rest rooms indicates that Suttons Bay was established by Mr and Mrs Sutton in 1854. That plaque, placed to commemorate a centennial celebration shades the history of this spot a bit. Harry Sutton did establish a station for the shipping of wood from this well protected and deep harbor in 1854, and did own the land together with his son-in-law. They named their little settlement Suttonsburg. The village proper was laid out by a missionary priest Father Herbstrit who hoped to found a Catholic settlement which would include a church and a school. With hopes that exceeded reality he planned a college he tentatively named National University. It was to be the focal point of his town which he named Pleasantville City. The church and school survive.
By 1880, the village, now known as Suttons Bay, was home to more than 250 people and had daily stagecoach service to Traverse City and Northport. It was a bustling place with two hotels, a sawmill and a number of stores.
The cache is among the rocks between the rest rooms and the water.

Here Dick is preparing to hide the "Sutton" cache in a Suttons Bay Township Park.

Dick organized a cache to place in the Vic Steimel Park near Suttons Bay. The road leading up to it is called Lover's Lane. Here's Dick's description:

Suttons Bay Township actually has a street named Lovers Lane. Where the short street meets Grand Traverse Bay there is a park dedicated to Vic Steimel who arranged the transfer of the property to the township thereby guaranteeing access to the public forever. Although at this time the park lacks a sandy beach and playground equipment, it is a very pleasant spot for a picnic or just to pause and enjoy the view of the water.

We placed a micro cache at this pleasant little park. Can you read the sign? Don't you think they should have put "Have a Nice Day" at the bottom? ;) Dick's cache description:

This is a log-only micro at Hendryx park near Lee Point on Grand Traverse Bay. You can drive to within 10 feet but bring your own pencil. If you try to get much closer you might hit a rock.

Then it was time for lunch, and we took back roads to Glen Arbor to try the soup at Art's.

Art's Tavern, a Glen Arbor hangout.

Dick took a picture of the light over the famous descending pool table (on an elevator).

Chip's alma mater is proudly displayed on the ceiling at Art's.

The friendly waitress spotted our camera and offered to take our picture. She's saving her money to move to Colorado to become an elementary teacher - she just graduated from college and is working two jobs.

This is the interior of Art's Tavern - it's comfortable with a great staff and always good food.
It's always fun after leaving Glen Arbor to stop by the sand dunes and watch the climbers. There weren't many climbers today, but we saw cars from all over - Georgia, New York, Alabama, Texas, Massachusetts, as well as the usual Big Ten States. It's amazing how many tourists come here from all over the country.
After the Sleeping Bear, we always drive on the Pierce Stocking Trail - you can't have one without the other! There was moderate traffic on the Trail today. The day was sunny and clear, and the woods were deep and dark. "This is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks, bearded with moss..."

I told Dick I didn't know what a hemlock looks like. Ever the ecologist, he found a tree and took a sample so I could ID it. This is on Shauger Hill Road, right next to the Pierce Stocking Trail.

Hemlock, up close and personal. Notice the size of the cones! The needles are flat and friendly, just like a fir tree.

We had a little cache maintenance to do at one of our S2S cache sites at Garey Lake. Both campgrounds were totally deserted - made me wonder why people complain so much about muggles here.















On the way home, we stopped at Moomer's for a treat - the most enjoyable treat in our area! It's also enjoyable since this means that we won't be cooking dinner. Yaaay!














Back in Traverse City, we were treated to a beautiful blue bay, and picturesque white sails.

Golden Wedding Anniversary

This is our Golden Wedding Day. Happy 50th Anniversary to us! We were married on June 22, 1957 in the First Congregational Church on Washington Street. The church building is now part of the new court building. It was 90 degrees and windy on our wedding day. The reception was in the church parlor, and it was very modest by today's standards. For our honeymoon, we took a road trip from Traverse City to Detroit by way of Ontario. We crossed the Straits of Mackinac on the ferry because the Bridge was not yet open to traffic, although it was almost finished.

Since we already celebrated this event in the best way in April with our kids on the Caribbean cruise, today was fairly low-key. Two beautiful 50th Anniversary cards came in the mail from the Hardys and the Washingtons - really lovely. We went out to dinner, and Dick gave me a GOLF CAR !! It is so exciting! When you drop in to see us, I'll gladly give you a tour of our property! It's a neat, neat gift, and I am a happy camper.

The Proud Owner



At The Wheel

It Seats Four!


Pleased As Punch

B-Day Party

It's Father's Day but we didn't do anything special at home. All of the kids called to talk to Dick, and that's always the best part anyway!

We were excited about going over to Grayling for Susie's Surprise Birthday Party! We had a marvelous time. It was interesting and fun to meet the neighbors that Tim and Susie talk about so often. The party was at the lovely home of Phil and Arlene on the Manistee River. We were so glad to be included! Now we know why Tim and Susie want to stay on Shady Lane.

Happy Birthday Susie!

Copenhagen

Sniders have been here for a couple of days, and besides all of the wine tasting (very mellow) and touring the peninsula, we stopped in at AAA and began planning a Scandinavian cruise for next May (2008).

It's very exciting to think about, even from this far away. The cruise will begin and end in Copenhagen, and will stop in Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Talinn (Estonia), Gdansk (Poland), and Oslo. Woo Woo! We'll be going on the Crown Princess. The brochures won't be available until the end of this month, and we're all on the mailing list.

It's lovely to think about it and the four of us are all very excited already!
I haven't been able to get this song out of my head - I've known it for decades - it was in the old Danny Kaye movie musical about Hans Christian Anderson - maybe we really will sail up the Skagerrak and sail down the Kattegat!

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me
I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat
Through the harbor and up to the quay
And there she stands waiting for me
With a welcome so warm and so gay
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Friendly old girl of a town
'Neath her tavern light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen, wonderful, wonderful
Copenhagen for me

Here's what another blogger had to say about this song:

Wonderful Copenhagen
(and the meaning of "Kattegat")
I'm off to Copenhagen for the weekend. I made the plans some time ago, just to add my minor support for a country that did so much to protect Jews during WWII and that suffered from boycots because of the cartoons published last year.

Before going, I decided to refresh my memory about the lyrics to the Danny Kaye song "Wonderful Copenhagen" from the movie Hans Christian Anderson (but I have since been warned not to whistle or sing that song while I am there — too bad; I loved the movie when I was a kid.)

After I downloaded the lyrics, I wondered, "Where and what are the Skagerrat and the Kattegat that he sings about?"

I sailed up the Skagerrak
And sailed down the Kattegat

The Skagerrak is the strait between Denmark and Norway, and the Kattegat is the strait between Denmark and Sweden. So it makes sense, when you look at a map, to say that on your way to Copenhagen from the Atlantic Ocean, you've sailed up the Skagerrak (it runs up to the northeast) and down the Kattegat (it runs down to the southeast).

But check out the origin of the word "Kattegat"!

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Kattegat:

The name Kattegat derives from the Dutch and Middle Saxon words Kat (cat) and Gat (hole). It refers to the medieval navigation, where captains spoke of this area to be as narrow as a cat's hole, since there are several flats in the sea, which made navigation difficult.

The second segment of the name is of greater antiquity, appearing, for example, as Codanus in Pliny's Natural History (4.13.96). It is described as a sinus (bay) between Scandinavia and Jutland. Julius Pokorny (Page 423) repeats the hole derivation, listing the Proto-Indo-European root, *ghedh-, "to defecate, hole".

In keeping with sailors' well-known use of the language of bodily functions, one might paraphrase the concept by stating that, to seafaring men who must use it, the Kattegat has always been the anus of the Baltic.


.

CSI Series

The CSI Series of geocaches is in honor of a book (Abomination) which is a murder mystery in which at least one body is found by geocachers.
It's a unique series of a dozen caches placed in many different areas
of northern and central Michigan. We regarded it as a real challenge.

We went to the U.P. last week to find some CSI
caches, and some others, too. The weather was cool and clear, and we
had a marvelous time. Crossing the Mackinac Bridge is always a special
treat. We spent the night in St. Ignace.

This week we left on
Sunday to finish the series, and we were successful. This time we spent
the night in Clare. The weather was wonderful again, but about 20
degrees warmer - in the 80s instead of the 60s. Because we finished in
a timely fashion, we'll be receiving a couple ofgeocoins, and an autographed copy of the book Abomination when it comes out next fall.

Here's Dick's log for the final caches in the series:

Home again after our second two day excursion seeking the CSI
series. We have had a fantastic time. On the way home we were in
agreement that these have been our favorite, most enjoyable caching
days yet. The weather was fantastic all four days, the caches were fun
and we saw a lot of new and beautiful territory. All told, we logged
880 miles, spent $230 for food and gas, spent two nights in motels and
logged 18 other caches in addition to the CSI series along the way. It
is hard to pick a favorite cache. Carp River scores high because of the
unusual route in, the scenery along the way and of course because one
drives across the "Mighty Mac". We give Peaceful Mountain high marks
because of the drive in on Kolka Creek Rd. It really appealed to us. An
award should also be given to Solitude. We didn't expect to find what
we think of as a true northern Michigan cache down in the "flatlands".
It was nearly five PM when we drove to the area where our solution of the
coordinate puzzle told us we should. We felt a great deal of relief to
see public lands with a trail just where we were hoping one would be.
After finding the well hidden container, we signed the log, took a
shell necklace and the "coin", left our now signature bug wipes and
returned the ammo can to its resting place. We are pleased with our
accomplishment but are left with a slight sense that it's closing night
and the final curtain has come down on our play. What are we going to
do tomorrow?
Thanks and our appreciation to Capt. Bud, Craig 333, Sleepy Weasel73, Vanman
30, Coy Chev, Gideon, (whoever you might be) and all who helped put
this series together. We are aware and appreciate the work required to
pull it off.

Round Robin 2007

Here we are, 54 years ago! What the heck happened??

Once a year the Round Robin letter appears in the mailbox. It's filled with pictures, letters, and stories from my High School friends (Margo, Freda, Sandy M., Sandy N., June, Donna, Betty, Nola, Ann, and Mary) at Traverse City Central High School, class of 1953. It came this weekend, loaded as usual with news, health issues, happiness, sadness, travel and empathy and understanding. I sent it off today, with new pictures of our cruise, and a letter of our past year. This is it:

Great timing for the arrival of the Robin. I love it when it comes before the happy confusion of summer in T.C. The pictures are fascinating - it’s a wonderful way to watch those grandkids grow up.

Looking back over the past months since I last wrote makes me think of the famous quotation “ It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” (Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities).

The Worst of Times:
Briefly, I had a back injury last summer resulting in severe sciatica, nerve damage and weakness in my left leg. I lost the whole month of September, being heavily medicated with pain meds. I began aqua therapy in November. and regular Physical Therapy six weeks later. After months of P. T., Dick and I are continuing to go to the gym twice a week. Improvement is coming slowly but surely (emphasis on the “slowly”). Today, my leg is still noticeably weak, and I use a cane for distances.

What I learned through that whole ordeal is that I picked a peach in the garden of love. Dick’s favorite thing is Univ. of Mich. football - and he only went to one game last season - he stayed home with me the rest of the season. He did go to the Mich.-Mich. State game, but he arranged for a good friend from Belleville to come here and “babysit” with me while he was gone. He took care of the house, cooking, shopping, laundry and everything for several weeks. He’s a real winner in the human race!

My Mother spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s in the hospital, and was discharged to a skilled nursing facility instead of back to her assisted living apartment. Mom passed away in February at the age of 98. Her last days were peaceful and quiet. She was ready to go.

The Best of Times:
In March we took a road trip to Memphis and St. Louis for 10 days, finding a geocache in each of 7 different States. It was wonderful to see daffodils and blossoming trees after such a gloomy winter. One of the highlights for me was finding the burial site of my Kanitz great-grandparents and long forgotten relatives in Arthur, Illinois.

But the highlight of the entire year was a Caribbean cruise in April with our whole family to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Our kids gave us the cruise for Christmas, and the best part is that they all came with us! Dick and I were in a lovely suite with lots of closets, a living room, and a huge balcony. We sailed from Miami to Belize (Mayan Ruins), Cozumel, Costa Maya and Grand Cayman. It was such a marvelous experience - a once in a lifetime event. We were thrilled by the whole thing. The cruise was with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines - the ship was The Explorer of the Seas.

Our kids are all fine and they are all in the same places - Laurie, Chip and Dylan, the world’s greatest grandson, live in Palm City, Florida. Laurie and Chip both work for American Airlines, and Laurie spends a ton of time volunteering at Palm City Elementary. I knew that degree in Education would come in handy someday! They come to stay with us every July, and we’re expecting them again this year - it’s the best time of the year for us. I think you all met them at one of our reunions.

Tom lives in San Diego and works for Cymer Corporation designing lasers for computers. He’s a mountain biker on the side, which means he keeps a good supply of bandaids! He was just here last week for a long weekend to attend the wedding of a cousin. We love having him around.

Jana is in Washington, D.C. working at Congressional Quarterly. She has a great position and she does a terrific job. Last September she came home to stay with me for a while when I was down and out. Her bosses sent me flowers - I was very impressed! She came back home at Christmas time which she likes to do every year - she loves the snow and Christmas at the river. Tom goes to Florida for Christmas to be with Dylan!

Dylan is 9 ½ years old, just finished the 3rd grade and can hardly wait to get to T.C. He loves tennis, camping, geocaching, biking and computer games. He’s a delightful boy and we feel that even though we have only one grandchild, somehow we managed to get the best one!

The National Governors Conference will be held in Traverse City the weekend of July 20. Dick will be working long hours the whole weekend - he’s in charge of the 75 volunteers who will be at the Cherry Capital Airport meeting and greeting the Governors and their families. They will help the visitors get to their lodgings, get rental cars, and just generally ease their arrival. He’s just hoping that no luggage is lost along the way!

The kids will all be here again on July 28th when we host GenFest, the annual Steiger family reunion of all living descendants of Dick’s Mother Gen.

A couple of you mentioned the possibility of a 55th class reunion next summer (2008). As of this weekend there’s no date posted yet on the Central High web site for the Class of ’53 for next summer. As soon as I hear something I’ll let you know so you can make plans. We’ll be here, “the good Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise” so you can plan on a pre-reunion reunion.

Stay well, spoil those grandkids, and keep in touch.

Memorial Day Weekend

It was an absolutely beautiful weekend - each day was a gem. We bought flowers, put geraniums in the cemetery, worked in the yard, just generally grooved on the start of the summer season. There was a big soccer event -huge- at the Keystone fields. We've never ever seen so many cars and people there. As a consequence, downtown was booming too - lots of foot traffic. At the marina everybody and his brother was putting in and taking out.

Memorial Gardens had all of their flags flying again this year - very inspiring. Barbie did her annual great job with the floral decorations. Dick thinks that Donald's marker needs to be replaced.

Dick is doing his usual great job of planting flowers, mowing, trimming and fertilizing! He works so hard that it makes me feel like a slug. I'm the Weak Sister of the Universe. But I'm happy to be able to be out and about to feel the sunshine and enjoy the flowers.

Since today is Memorial Day there naturally has been a lot of Iraq talk and military talk - even more than usual. Our local veterans set up a mini-cemetery of white wooden crosses in the Open Space.

Rosie and Elisabeth (You Probably Don't Care)

I freely admit that I like to watch The View. I have always enjoyed it, but especially so since Rosie joined the panel. I used to watch the Rosie O'Donnell show as often as I could, and was sad when it left the air.

I admire Rosie for her generous spirit, her love of children (all children), her loyalty to her friends, and also because I agree with her politics and she is an enthusiastic spokesperson. She's not particularly well-educated and her facts are sometimes incomplete, but her heart is in the right place and she's not afraid to stand up for what she believes.

E.H. is also on the panel. She impresses me as being an ill-informed Republican lackey. She is gullible and susceptible to all of the fear talk that comes from the White House. It's alarming to me that it seems she actually believes the outrageous things that she says. The fear she feels is palpable...she sees a terrorist behind every bush (so to speak). She supports whatever comes out of W's mouth. It's not even believable to me that she can do that. When she gets into a heated conversation it's obvious that she is very earnest in her statements. It's also obvious that she parrots everything from the White House and from Fox News.

Wednesday R & E got into a heated argument about terrorism, our troops, and Iraq. It was scary to watch how angry they were with each other - they were both close to coming to blows or to tears. I felt a little depressed all day because of it - hate to admit that I was that affected by their argument.

Here's an article explaining what happened:

A couple of the comments at the end of the article explain how I feel better than I can verbalize:

Posted By: kathypsf1 | May 24 2007 at 09:22 PM

Tigerz, the easy answer would have been to conduct the war where it began - in Afghanistan. I can't believe we as a country do not even get what the real issue is here. Osama bin Laden was not in Iraq, and he is not in Iraq. Afghanistan gets worse by the day because Bush missed the boat by being an idiot and sending troops to Iraq instead of conducting a full scale campaign in Afghanistan and the border of Pakistan and has completely neglected the true seat of terrorism. He has so misled and misconducted this whole war on terrorism and has instead created a huge and undoable mess. It has nothing to do with isolationism. People just can't support a complete blunder like this.

Posted By: biggy | May 25 2007 at 12:42 AM

In case you don't remember..it started back when Elizabeth was asked to speak at the Republican Convention (their way to get back at the very "Liberal" opinionated show called the View.) It was, I felt, a way the Republicans could "stir it all up". Now Elizabeth feels obligated even more after the White House dinner invite with the Queen. Let's face it, we invaded a country that is not one that had WMD, we've destroyed their country, and most importantly, made the terrorists more mad than they were to begin with. Deep down I believe Elizabeth feels this way but can't get out from under the position they have put her in.

Posted By: mugwomp | May 25 2007 at 02:08 AM

Yeah, pretty comical Trump couldn't resist keeping his fat trap shut on this one. He insulted both of them, (class act, that guy) anything for publicity for whatever b.s. he was doing yesterday. Elizabeth is typical of the kind of American who believes what she's told, obeys, and if you think for yourself, you're a commie. People like her scare me.

OK, that's enough. I could go on forever. For what it's worth (not much) Donald Trump called Elisabeth the dumbest person on TV.

OK - once again - that's enough!