Author: kwundrow

Jackson at Three

Posted on by kwundrow

You are three today and you are every bit the young lad I knew you could and would be.  In the past year you have become pretty sophisticated in so many ways.  You are starting to count and your ability to tell a story is getting more detailed every day.  And remember, storytelling is an important part of your Wundrow heritage.

This summer you went to Lake Tahoe and met many of your cousins for the first time.  While you were there, you taught them how to play “pool ball”.  They didn’t understand at first but by the end of the weekend they were in the swing of it.  I think you have a little bit of teacher in you too.

But all of this, as important as it was, pales compared to your new role.  You are now a big brother and you are proving every day how prepared you are for this new role.  Never has a little sister been watched over, cuddled, cared for and oh so loved as your Adela is by you.

You told me you had decided to call her “P” before she was even born.  When I asked you why, you explained it was for Pi.  Now having done this before she was born, how could you know she would come to us on Pi Day?  I guess when you are a brother, you just know these things about your sister.

I will look forward to the two of you growing up.  I hope that you will always take such good care of Adela and for that matter that you will treat all girls and eventually women with such respect.  Being a gentleman in this world has huge advantages.  Being respectful makes you a real man.  But more on that later.  We will need to talk again about this before you take your date to Homecoming.

You are three and ready to learn so much.  I for one hope to be part of those lessons and I hope that you will always be my buddy and come to me when you have those big questions.  You know, like “why is there air?” and “where did all the water in the ocean come from?”  I can’t always promise I will have the answer but I sure will enjoy exploring the possibilities.

Happy Birthday Jackson.  Know that you were always my first grandchild and that makes you just a little more special.

Stay curious.

Lost and Found

Posted on by kwundrow

If you have ever lost anything you will understand the irony of how lost things have a way of being found.  I recently, very recently, lost my wedding band.  Now as far as things you don’t want to lose go, a wedding ring is right up at the top.  Just the symbolism tends to drive your spouse to the edge.  I must say though that my wife reacted in a pretty understanding way.  She reminded me it was just a thing and she wasn’t going to get angry.  Even so, she had torn the house apart before I even returned home from work.  I meanwhile had searched every area of the office I was sure I had been in and even emailed the staff to organize a treasure hunt.  Three days later, no luck at all, and I am convincing myself the ring will never be found.

And then came Friday.  This is where the story begins.  I was finishing a client appointment and somewhere in the discussion, I had mentioned the lost ring.  My client looks at me and says, “I think this is your day to be lucky.  You are going to find the ring today.”  Now I was sure that wasn’t about to happen but still.  As I drove into my driveway that afternoon, I found myself stopping outside of the garage.  I wanted to drive my car in and planned on using my wife’s car later when we were to go out, but something told me to leave it there and switch the plan.  As I walked into the garage heading for the garage door opener, a cloud rolled by the sun and a beam of sunlight floated into the garage.  And then it happened.  A glint of light reflected up from the sawhorses stacked there in the corner.  I stopped, stepped back, and saw sunlight bouncing back at me.  I couldn’t see what it was, only the reflection.  As I reached down to the slot at the bottom of the sawhorse and placed my finger in to the groove, I felt the loop slip onto the end of my finger and there it was, my missing ring.

The irony here is the circumstances that had to align.  If I had put the car in the garage, if the cloud hadn’t rolled away from the sun, it the beam hadn’t been just at the right angle, if I hadn’t been just where I was.  I’m sure you get the picture.  Some things just want to be found and this wedding ring was one of those things.  The symbolism is not lost on me.  I love my wife and I love my life.  The ring is a symbolism of that unity.  Maybe its absence was meant to remind me of its importance.  Duly noted.

It wasn’t until later that evening that my wife eventually noticed the unification of the ring with my finger, and that is another story, but the expression of relief on her face spoke volumes.  It wasn’t just another thing one loses and forgets.  It was clearly so much more.  Guess I better be careful to make sure it stays on my finger.

Thanks for reading, and in case you’ve lost anything lately, take heart.  If it wants to be found it will find away to find you.  I guarantee it.

 

And Then I Blinked

Posted on by kwundrow

This blog entry will need an intro.  I wrote this piece on the occasion of my daughter Bailey’s marriage to her fiancee, John on July 17th, 2011.  My goal was twofold.  I wanted to have a chance to recollect some of my favorite memories all the while impressing on Bailey and John as well as their guests just how fast life can move.  I wanted to impart on them that it was important not only to make the memories, but to remember them and to retell them on those special occasions life offers.

Bailey and John promised me a chance to tell a story, provided I kept it to 5 minutes.  But there are too many to tell.  Better time me.  With a slight apology to Kenny Chesney, here goes.

 

It is April 21, 1984 and I am standing in the delivery room holding my baby girl.  22 hours of labor, and a C section to boot……… you were already stubborn then.  But what is her name I am asked…….”Bailey”. I respond with unimaginable pride.

 

And then I blinked….

 

I am standing along side my brother in his wedding party looking for you and mom in the front pew.  Seems you decided to make a bigger scene than the wedding and mom in her “patient” manner made you walk the 2 miles back to the farm…. before the wedding even begins.  A little of that stubborn streak again?  Oh by the way, you were far more elegant today babe.

 

And then I blinked….

 

You are suddenly 3 and I am ransacking the sitter’s house looking for your other shoe.  Seems I have fallen victim to the “hide the shoe” delay tactic.  I think this is when you started mentioning going to Shopko to get a new dad.  What aisle is that in and was I a blue light special?

 

And then I blinked …

 

I think you are 5 now and we are sitting on the couch together.  Mom needs you to say you’re sorry but you don’t think so.  Bernstein Bears to the rescue.  And it works… too well… from this point forward “sorry” is the easiest word in your vocabulary.  It will even get you in trouble later in High School.  Laps I think, for the whole team I believe!  There’s no sorry in softball.  But that’s another story.

 

 

 

 

And then I blinked …

 

When did you become this young lady?  You are ready for high school but not before you travel to Washington DC.  Even I hadn’t been there, but I felt like I had when I listened to your stories of the adventure.  That will become a theme with you.  Everything becomes an adventure.  Sure hope John is adventuresome.

 

And then I blinked …

 

You are in high school now and two sports have spurred your interest, Softball and Golf.  In softball you want maximum involvement so let’s be the pitcher, and golf….Really?   Can you pick more stressful sports for us to watch?  I had to spend your first golf season sneaking around the course so you wouldn’t see me.  By the second season we had developed our very own sign language.  And Softball, Just throw strikes, for God sake just throw strikes!

 

And then I blinked …

 

You’re in college now, about to realize your ultimate goal.  Hi dad, remember that goal of getting to ride the Zamboni, guess I’ll drive it instead.  You got to actually make the ice for the Badger practices at the Shell.  Badger hockey games would never be the same.  Now we evaluate the Zamboni driver’s skills during the intermissions.

 

And then I blinked…

 

You’ve graduated from college and you just finished your first interview.  How did the interview go? I think pretty well dad…. They gave me the job.  And another teacher is added to our family.  Good choice of subject by the way!  You had never wavered.  You told us in first grade you would be a teacher and now Verona just made it real.

 

And then I blinked…

 

And then there was John.  We’re at the Packer game and I am fired up for the game to begin, but who’s this guy that’s come down to our seats for a “visit”?  I’ve met several would be boy friends but there is something different this time.  I’ll need to keep an eye on this one.

 

And then I blinked…

 

And it was today and your arm is in mine and we are standing at the doorway to the rest of your life.  And you are beautiful and you are ready.  And I am incredibly proud to be your father.  I place your hand in John’s and I pray and I know that it is right.

 

John, I entrust you with my daughter, she is my heart, full of all the love and pride a father can have.  She comes with no instruction manual.  It is for you to figure it out, but feel free to ask for advice now and then. Take care of her heart and take care of each other.

 

In the words of one of my favorite singers “Live, Laugh and Love”  Always Together.  Just don’t blink.

 

Please raise your glasses in a toast to my daughter and my new son. 

 

May the love that has brought you together and the marriage that makes you whole, sustain you all the days of your life.  Cheers.

Retirement..What’s a guy going to do?

Posted on by kwundrow

After a lot of discussion and long consideration, I decided I was ready to retire.  I know how much I will miss many of the people I have shared office space with and I certainly will miss my clients and the opportunities they have given me to solve their problems and to be part of the planning for their future and often their retirements.  But the time had come and I knew that if I could take a year to say goodbye, I could move on.

It seems that once you announce your retirement you get one of two reactions.  The first comes from those who have gone before.  They tell you how great it will be and how you never realized how many things you never had time for.  The second group wants to know what you will do.  They are fearful, I suspect, that I won’t feel fulfilled.  I found myself detailing out my retirement and wondering if I was just making this stuff up to appease them.

I have decided to take a different tack.  With apologies to the writers of Sleepless in Seattle, here is how I am going to start answering their question.  I’m gonna get out of bed every morning….breathe in and out all day long.  Then after a while I won’t have to remind myself to get out of bed every morning and breathe in and out….and, then after a while, I won’t have to think how I had it great and perfect for a while.

The problem is, I can’t tell if people send you through this maze because they are jealous of your decision or if they are genuinely worried about you.  I am hoping for the second.  I have had a great career, twenty five years of teaching children the beauty of math and its ability to solve problems and then nineteen years of working with adults, helping them lay out plans and encouraging them to stay on track.  In between, I managed to do over 12,000 tax returns, work on construction crews to build dozens of homes and apartments and even spent a couple of years as a bartender.  The common thread in all of this was all the interesting people I met along the way, that I learned their stories and enjoyed the opportunities to assist them in any way I could.  I have had a rich career and I doubt I will fail in retirement.

I am going to heed my own words.  After a short vacation, I will come to appreciate that I have no obligations and in that freedom I will follow my passion.  I will volunteer when I need to be fulfilled.  I will travel when I need stimulation and I will write when the mood strikes me.  But above all I will try every day to fill my life with memories just as I have for the past 44 years.  Hopefully I might even succeed in writing something somebody will enjoy reading.

Stay tuned…I have just begun to be.

110 Degrees

Posted on by kwundrow

I just finished the home portion of rehab for my replacement knee replacement.  I am glad to say that I reached 110 degrees of flex today.  This for me is significant enough to record it officially.  At this point I am ready to tackle stairs again and that is a precursor to all those things that follow.  Maybe even being able to run again, not that I was ever a serious runner.  My idea of running is to be able to catch my grandson when he takes off or the ability to cross the busy street in front of my office on my way to an infamous butter burger at Culvers.  For the past year, while trying unsuccessful to recover from the original surgery, a fast walk over a short distance was all I could muster.  That was far from being able to play Frogger as I crossed a busy street.

All of this has taught me some degree of patience while clearly showing me what I had so callously taken for granted.  The knee is an incredible piece of our physiology.   One does not think of how much abuse it can take and how much it allows us to do.  When I watch football these days and I see an awkward tackle, I can feel the pain shooting through my own knee.  As I rehab to get stretch back and as I lie awake at night asking my legs if they would kindly go to sleep, I had to become patient.  Not much else to do especially as I recover from the surgery in the dead of winter.  I dream of skiing breakneck down the slopes or maybe climbing up a chimney hidden in the rocks of Devil’s Lake.  For now, it is literally one step at a time while my mechanical knee begins to replace what I took so much for granted.

I am getting there.  Slow but sure, I am getting there.  If there is a moral to this story, it is to take the time to treat your body right.  Maybe if I had heeded those words and given my knee the water it wanted for nourishment and the exercise it need to stay healthy, I wouldn’t be sitting here trying for 120 degrees.  I would be out on the slope, taking a jump here and there or just a graceful slalom turn and my knee would be saying “no sweat, lets do it again”.  For now I will be patient and know that soon I will be up to all those normal tasks. Heck, maybe even running.

New Years 2017

Posted on by kwundrow

 

Happy New Year

2016 is over and 2017 awaits our decisions and actions. I for one intend to make this truly a happy new year. The wonderful thing about life is that we get a fresh start every day. Even if yesterday was not so hot, nothing requires us to carry it forward. We are all a product of our actions and with that said, make a decision to act positively in the new year ahead. But if you happen to run into me on one of those not so hot days, lets remind each other that tomorrow really does start anew. Happy first day of a Happy New Year.

New Years 2016

Posted on by kwundrow

 

Wishing everyone of you a very exciting new year. Life is a story we get to read a chapter of each year. The trick is we are both the reader and the author. Take every opportunity to write your chapter the way you can be proud of and to be able to enjoy the reading of it a year from tonight. Make your story great and include us in it every chance you get. Happy New Year. —