Author: kwundrow

My Favorite Thanksgiving

Posted on by kwundrow

I was recently asked to share my favorite Thanksgiving memory.  As I am sure it would be hard for you, it was a difficult task for me as well.  I had so many to choose from.  I thought of the first Thanksgiving with my family as I brought my then new girlfriend and eventual wife, Deb, to meet my mom, dad and siblings.  I remember the stories we told around that table and the laughs we shared.  I of course thought of those first Thanksgivings we spent at our own home with my daughters and the traditions we started.  I thought of those spent with my brother in law and sister in law at their home in Wausau as we merged our families and the “cousin’s club” was formed under the basement stairs.

I eventually settled on one very different Thanksgiving.  It was Thanksgiving on a cold November day in 1985.  We were moving into our new home that next morning and my brother had come down to help us pack and move.  This would be his first Thanksgiving away from the family we had grown up in and he was letting me know how hard that was.  Since the kitchen, and whole house for that matter, were packed away in boxes, there was no way to have a dinner at our house.  We decided to go out to Crandall’s, a local restaurant, that was actually serving Thanksgiving dinner.  When we arrived, I took the waitress aside and explained our situation.  She recommended we take the home style meal being offered and she would do her best to recreate the family feel.

Dinner was served with heaping helpings of mashed potatoes, turkey and gravy.  The stories ensued and we were feeling better.  Eventually, the waitress slid by our table and asked how everyone was doing?  My brother complimented the food and then requested some more potatoes and gravy.  With out missing a beat, the waitress put her hand on his shoulder and said “They’re in the kitchen, I’m sure you can get them as easy as me.”  My brother’s look was priceless.  The slack jaw, the rolled up eyes.  The waitress smiled and said “Thought I’d make you feel right at home.”  Needless to say, she had performed perfectly.  It was if my mom had been there all along.

Ironically, all these years later, we are more or less in the midst of repeating the story.  My younger daughter and her boyfriend are about to move into their new home tomorrow morning.  It is amazing how life circles back.  We will all be together for turkey at our home and we will share the stories that we continue to pass down.  Today we will remember those Thanksgivings that have been and look forward to those yet to come.  I want to thank my brother and that waitress for one of my favorite memories.

So share your stories and your memories and remember,  there’s more turkey and gravy in the kitchen, go help yourself.  Happy Thanksgiving 2016.

Happy Thanksgiving 2016

Posted on by kwundrow

 

Happy thanksgiving to all my friends and family, not that my family isn’t counted among my friends. Just being careful. I am thankful for my life. It may not always go the way we planned but each change and turn defines us and leads us closer to ultimately who we are meant to be. My life has been so full of wonderful twists and turns. My wife, my family, my career are all were met and added to my life along the journey. I will sit with my family today and reflect on a great life. We will tell and retell our stories and laugh and love together as we celebrate thanksgiving together. May you all feel as blessed and may you all feel the warmth of a loving family and a rich life. Happy Thanksgiving 2016. Now go watch the parade and eat some turkey

Thirty-six years….and counting

Posted on by kwundrow

November 15, 2016

To my wife and partner of thirty-six years

Life is an interesting journey.  So many little things brought us together all those years ago.  Some of those things were good ones and some, unfortunately, were not but never the less they were the steps that brought our paths to the intersection where we met.  Not that you were ready for the likes of me.  You put up a fair share of resistance.  Fortunately, one of my traits was persistence and your resistance quickly wore down.

We started out small, dinner at the Checkerboard, Dutch treat as I had so little to offer you other than my wit and charm.  Nice to know we have outlasted the Checkerboard, long since gone.  We advanced to our first date, a movie left unnamed and attended by accident.  To eventually deciding that our feelings were mutual and it was time to stop being apart, if even for a day or even a few hours at a time.

We made it to Thanksgiving, our first holiday together.  There would be thirty-six more to come, many with distinct memories, apple cobbler served warm on a bed of concrete comes to mind, but none so remarkable as that first Thanksgiving.  I will forever refer to it as the Shepherd Inquisition.  How I survived is beyond me.  If I had been your father, I would have sent me packing.  But this is where your character trait came into play.  You are a strong person who when she knows she is right takes a stand that no one can move.  And so you fought for me.  This would be the first in multiple times that you would fight for me.  I am glad you have won every time.

I remember our first truly “big” date.  You know, the one where he surprises you with his willingness to spend way more than he can afford on a destination that is meant to impress.  Do you remember….the Top of the 95th in Chicago?  By the time we left dinner, the one with the lovely view of the kitchen, I barely had enough money to get us out of the parking garage.  But somehow you were impressed.  A trick I have managed to pull off countless times since and something I will continue to attempt far into our future.

Oh we have had our fights along the way.  Some trivial and others worth fighting for, but through it all we learned more about each other every time and we learned to fight nice, love more and laugh at life together.  When our careers distracted us, one of us always took on the role of supporter.  We soothed our frazzled nerves and reached out and pulled each other through.

And then there were children.  First Bailey and then all those years later, Kathryn.  We created them out of love and rededicated our lives to theirs.  We faced the challenge of raising two bright and beautiful, independent young women and we championed our efforts.  We learned the art of divide and conquer, the skill of compromise without losing sight of the goal and the pleasure only two lively intelligent girls could bring to our family.  By the looks of it, aka the last reality check, we have succeeded.

There are so many tales to tell, so little room to write them all down.  But at least a mention.  Our Christmas traditions, starting with that first movie, Pauley, and eventually growing into our dinners on the town and The Christmas Carol presentation.  Thirty-six Christmas mornings, thirty-two with children, one with a dog if I remember correctly.  The family trips; Italy, the Caribbean, Mexico, Yellowstone and Yosemite to name just a few.  So many wonderful memories and so many years together.

What has kept us together all these years?  Love and respect.  Sometimes just enough and other times more than enough to store for the years ahead.  Thank you for always fighting for me and for standing up alongside of me when I needed that support.  We are a partnership, forged in tenacity and built on a foundation of love.  I look forward to the future and if it is in the stars, another thirty-six years to build our continuing book of memories.

All my love on this our anniversary.

Ken

I Surprised Her!

Posted on by kwundrow

Last night I decided to surprise my wife.  Stay with me, this doesn’t go off the rails with some “please don’t over share”.  I decided to make her dinner and have it ready when she got home.  To be clear, this was no small effort on my part as I had to race to the market for fresh fish and wine and then get it all together before she got home.  Good news, I pulled it off and she was somewhere between surprised and totally shocked.

Now that response, though it was what I had hoped for, left me asking “why was it so easy to surprise her?”  The answer of course was that I seldom if ever do this for her.  Not too good a track record.  For all the laundry, all the cooked meals, all the cleaning and effort to keep our home so beautiful, I am guilty of not even taking the time to cook her a meal once in a while.  Lesson learned.  And here is a request for the rest of you readers out there, take the time to give back the favor for your partner.  I am suspecting they deserves no less.  If you are one who regularly does this anyway, I am proud of you.  I know YOU exist, it was just that I didn’t.

After the gushing over the meal and the points in the bank; badly needed points in the bank, I knew what I needed to do.  Eggs over easy, dry muffin and coffee, all served in bed.  However, based on the additional level of shock, it might be best if I space this out.  What good will it do if I give her a heart attack.

 

 

 

Always give ’em’ options

Posted on by kwundrow

When we set about teaching our daughters independence while at the same time keeping our relative sanity, we decided to give them options.  Now please understand, we were at least smart about it.  We would creatively come up with three options knowing full well that we couldn’t lose.  No matter which they picked, we could easily live with the choice.  Now all these years later we can see that it worked.  My daughter Bailey and her husband John, are practicing the same technique with our grandson Jackson.  Here in lies the story.

The other day, while visiting their house, John and I were attempting to watch the Packer game.  I say attempting because Jackson had decided to not watch the game and instead to get us involved in his own game.

Scene one, Jackson enters the room and asks in his 2 1/2 year old style, “can Jackson play tablet?”  After an explanation by his dad that he had already had plenty of tablet time, Jackson comes back with “then Jackson reads daddy’s favorite book?”  Strike two as John explains that he is trying to watch the game and he will read the book later.  Wait for it, Jackson is ready to prove the lesson and win the game.  Without so much as a deep sigh, Jackson reaches over dad’s lap and as he grabs it, says “then Jackson gets the nuk”.  Point, set, match, you’ve all been had by your own game.  And he’s not even 3.

As I explained to John that we had just been schooled, it became clear to me that Jackson is one sharp little guy.  Of course I am his Opa  and couldn’t possibly think anything less.  But then he did figure out the game; give them three choices, all of which are wins and you can’t lose.

So a little advice for those who will be the influences in their grandchild’s life, remind them of this wisdom and urge them to always give themselves options.  Options that can’t lose and that will only lead to success.

It’s all about one’s options.  Nice play Jackson.

 

So who will you be for Halloween?

Posted on by kwundrow

Halloween, that one day holiday where we dress up and celebrate All Saint’s Eve.  The history of the holiday is a whole story of its own but that’s not what I am focused on this morning.  You see I just returned from our Sunday morning church service and having dressed up as everyone was asked to do, this revelation found its way home with me.

Our minister had posed this question “If you could dress up as someone, who would it be?”  He had chosen Batman and had explained why that had significance in the moment and for him personally.  You know, super hero, good guy.  His point was that we all are someone else behind the mask we wear.

There I was sitting in the pew, dressed as the picture above shows.  It dawned on me, that if I looked in the mirror, it would be my father’s reflection that I saw.  On further contemplation, I also dawned on me that it was a more subliminal choice of costume than I had realized.

My father was by many an account, a relatively quiet person.  He went about his business and quietly made his way in the world.  He raised six children, ran a dairy farm and held multiple odd jobs in government and labor.  Even though we probably had far less money than many we knew, we never felt poor or wanting.  All the while, my dad was a man of service.  Service in the positions he held, service to his farm community and service to his church.  The quiet man left a huge footprint.

It was fitting that I had without thinking about it donned the clothes he would have worn and in that moment of contemplation, I had come to realize more than ever before, how much of an impression he had on my life.  So many things that we do in life, so many mannerisms and characteristics can be traced back to someone who left their imprint on our life.  I believe that with that realization comes a better understanding of who we are and maybe even who we are meant to become.  We reveal the someone behind the mask.

My question for you this Halloween is who would you dress up as?  No matter who it is, take a little time to consider the significance of your choice.  Then, remove the mask and try to become that person. My hope for you is that your choice will be some super hero with super powers and that you will strive to use those powers to become a super you.

Happy Halloween and thanks for reading.

Hey, I’m a Guy

Posted on by kwundrow

Let’s start out with reminding you I am a male.  I think like a male and that is my excuse for what follows.  But stay with me because I will hopefully make my point and erase what ever fears have crept into your mind about where this might be going.

Women and men just don’t think alike.  Women are rational.  There is never just one consequence of an action but rather an entire landslide of events eventually culminating in the inevitable conclusion.  Meanwhile, men see things more clearly.  At least that is the idea that we delude ourselves with and use to justify our snap decisions.  We think inside the box while women think outside of the box.  Either that or they are thinking in a much larger box with several floors and a multitude of rooms.

This leads me to the discussion I recently had with my overly rational wife that spurred this blog.  I felt that if I could write this down, I might actually be able to offer some advice to any male or female that would read this and maybe apply it to their collective partnerships.  It seems that when ever I come upon some tidbit of information, which I in turn wish to share with my wife, I come up short on details every time.  As an example, and I am betting every testosterone driven male can identify with, a friend’s wife has their baby.  Be honest here, have you ever been able to provide even half the information necessary to answer the barrage of questions your partner is about to ask.  I generally provide the following information, ‘They had their baby yesterday”.  What did I miss, apparently everything that mattered.  What time, really?, what was the weight, guessing about a bowling bowl here, what was the length, seriously, under three feet best guess.  Of course I skipped sex and name because here I must admit, I should have been on at least that much of my game.

On this particular occasion, a friend had been in the hospital for a surgery that had been called off midway through.  As my wife was waiting for news of how the recovery was going, I received a text from a second friend.  He stated simply that our friend had indicated he would now actually be eating food at the wedding.  Any guy thinking in the box would take this to mean his humor was intact and he was up for eating.  Enough said.  When I relayed this text as a quote to my wife, the inquisition began.  When did he say that?  Hmm, text says 2:45.  What had our friend asked that elicited this response?  What does this cryptic message really mean?  What else did he say?  A this point I have two choices.  One, start to make up stuff and hope she can’t fact check me, or two, confess to my complete and total ignorance.  I chose option two, sort of.

I explained to my wife, and here in lies the nugget of genius, men receive information in short bursts.  It is all we can handle on either end, and more importantly, when you ask us for the information, we don’t hold anything back.  If we tell you they had the baby, that’s it, they had the baby.  Please don’t believe that you can pry any additional information out of us.  Simple, concise, reasonably accurate and woefully short on detail.  If we were asked to recap a fight it would go something like he said something stupid and then the guy smacked him.  They don’t say “That’s it folks. The fights over” for nothing.  That’s just the sum total of what that poor guy is got to offer.  Fights over, moving on.

So now you have it.  Women, lower your expectations in this area.  What we got is all we got.  You are just going to get frustrated if you expect more.  Men, I guess we can always keep trying.  In the last baby birth debacle, I got almost everything but the sex.  My response to the question “sex?”, “there must have been, roughly nine months ago I’m guessing”.

Thanks for reading…but that’s it.