All Story Telling

These pages will reflect the art of story telling and may involve my family stories as well as history and travel. They are a hodgepodge of topics with antidotal comments, but always involve the attributes of a good story.

A little history, a little beer

Posted on by kwundrow

Today has been a lot about understanding the history and the culture of Amsterdam.  The history was part of a walking tour but also included a visit to the Anne Frank House.

We read of the atrocities visited on the Jews by the Nazis in World War Two, but we can’t begin to fathom the unbelievable inhumane nature of it until you face the reality physically.  The story unfolds before you as you walk through the secret passageway of the hidden annex.  It is striking in the sacred aura of its cramped areas and the desparate mood of forebodding that still saturates the visitor’s senses.  As you listen to her story, read to you from the pages of her diary, you cannot help but feel both pity and anger.  I left with a heighten sense of anger towards any that would still today support the Nazi beliefs or simply try to deny that this period in time and the crimes committed ever existed.

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Monument to the Resistence

Going back to the history walk, I found it interesting when the guide mentioned that  ironically, while the Dutch suffered so severely by the Nazi occupation and slaughter of the Jews, her own country was guilty of atrocities against Indonesians as part of their world colonization.  She went on to remind us of their involvement in the slave trade.  As I listened to this confession, I thought of our own history of slavery and our inhumane treatment of an entire race of human beings.  Every country seems to have its period in history that we can chose to bury or remember so as to never repeat it.

Lest you are thinking this was a dark day, it really wasn’t.  We saw marvelous architecture and art, visited the public market and learned fascinating pieces of Dutch history.  Fun fact, we forget that it was the Dutch who gave us New Amsterdam.  Ceding it to the British changed its name to the one we recognize, New York.

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A Taste of the Public Market

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Deb always said she wanted a house on the water?

I promised you a little bit of beer as well.  The Dutch will tell you that they do not really have a unique cuisine, unless you count their frites, but rather offer flavors from all over the world.  This is part of their heritage as the market traders of the world, see Dutch History 101.  To that end, I decided I would be sure to explore their selection of beers.  Last night was Heineken and today it was Amstel.  I still have Stella Artois to go, likely tonight, and then I will have savored the known Dutch offerings.  Well not so fast.  Remember, I said I would try to be on the other side of the camera lens.  After a discussion or two or three with locals, it became clear that all three beers are really just tourist choices.  In one of those conversations, I was given a list of craft beers, mostly unpronouncable, that one MUST try.  There is a lesson here for the traveler.  When you stay close to the city centers, you will be offered the tourist fare.  It is only when you venture farther out that you will begin to savor the true tastes and flavors of the culture.  Strike up a conversation, learn a few words and terms, seek out the tucked away spots and you will begin to feel less the tourist and more the visitor.  Try hard enough and you may even begin to feel like a citizen.

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Debi Does Amstel

But now the night beckons and we must go explore.

Somewhere over Ireland

Posted on by kwundrow

We have been flying all night, which is a relative term.  While my watch says it is 5:00 am, the outside tells me it is much later.  Seven hours later to be exact.  It is a strange sensation, especially if it is the first time one has ever done it, to fly east, racing toward the sunrise.  The airlines, Delta in our case, does everything possible to help you through this body clock dilemma.  You are served dinner at 11:00 pm, lights and all noise dimmed, eye shades handed out along with blankets and pillows all to get you ready for the big time shift that awaits you.

I walk through the plane several times during the wee hours of the morning, enviously watching the seasoned travelers actually sleeping.  But sleep eludes me.  Though the seats are “comfort seats” designed for extra leg room, my legs will not let me sleep.  They twitch and remind me that I am sitting up when they want to be stretched out parallel to gravity.  The night passes and then at roughly 1:00 am, my time when I should be sound asleep, the plane catches up with the sunrise and reality sets in, you have reached tomorrow, today.

The plane comes awake at 4:30 am.  By this I mean that the lights are slowly brought up and breakfast sounds are coming from the galley.  At 5:00 am we are having breakfast, while miles below, somewhere over the coast of Ireland, they are sitting down to lunch.  As we are landing soon, my body will just have to adapt if this adventure is to begin.  It has been twenty-four hours since I got up in my bedroom thousands of miles behind us.  The world has shrunk and we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

Next stop, Amsterdam, with its canals, windmills and bikes…..hundreds and hundreds of bikes.

Amsterdam

The Journey Awaits

Posted on by kwundrow

We are sitting in the Minneapolis airport tonight, eagerly anticipating our eight hour trip to Amsterdam.  It is mind boggling how small the world has become and how globally we have all evolved.  An ocean between continents is a mere pond jump in today’s travel times.

We have anticipated this trip for six months and yet it was just not real until my younger daughter deposited us at the airport and admonished us, as grown daughters are now entitled, to stay out of trouble, be safe and enjoy ourselves.  We will be in Europe tomorrow morning, sometime.  I say this because while my wife laid out all the plans, I stayed blissfully unaware of the details.  In fact just the other day when asked where we were flying through, my response was “the air?”  After several days exploring Amsterdam, we will hopefully board our boat for a tour down the Rhine River.  I say hopefully for we were warned just yesterday that due to low water levels our boat ride may become a bus or train ride.  We remain hopeful but are also steeled to make the best of whatever awaits.

Adela out to sea

Hopefully not our Captain…..or our boat.

So Europe awaits.  Castles, mountains and cities older than any of our time frames in America will unfold before us.  My goal will be to document the sites and scenes and to mingle with the people we meet along the way.  My daughter, Kathryn, told me some time ago that the secret was to be in front of the camera and not behind it.  The tourist sees only what is presented to them but the traveler experiences the people and their culture.  When tomorrow finally arrives, I want to be in front of the camera.

Now if we could just get a plane in our gate.

Stay tuned.

Delta Chi….. fraternities aren’t all bad ideas.

Posted on by kwundrow

outer-banks

Still kicking after all these years

It’s been a too long time since those lazy hazy days of college, emphasis on hazy.  You know, when the first 60 degree day meant everyone cut classes and met at South Park.  For me some 45 years have passed.  I guess I need to bring my potential readers up to date.  I pledged Delta Chi in the fall of 1970 and graduated from the Big O in December of 1973.  My degree was in teaching and I accepted a position in Loyal, Wisconsin.  If you know where that is, my question would be why?  I met Jean Warnke (Alpha Phi) in my Senior year and we were married in April of 1974.  Too young, too soon?  Our marriage ended in 1976.  Our divorce proceedings centered on the division of our only two assets, a 1974 Pinto station wagon and the wedding pictures.  She got the Pinto and I got the pictures.  Any advice on what you do with those?  I moved to Madison, Wisconsin where I took a teaching position in the suburb of Oregon.  In that teaching position, I met and later married Deb Shepherd in 1980.  In the ensuing years we raised two beautiful daughters, Bailey (1984) and Kathryn (1991).  Our teaching careers, Deb taught at Lomira and DeForest, lasted until 2011 for Deb, shout out to Scott Walker, and 1998 for me.  I had developed a tax planning business and sold that to a Madison firm in 1998, retired from teaching and took a position with that purchasing company.  I obtained my investment licenses and worked with my clients as their financial advisor as well as acting as the financial manager for the firm.  In August of 2017, hearing Garrison Keillor retire after declaring “44 years is long enough to work at anything”, I left my planning career and am now enjoying retirement, traveling with Deb, volunteering for a national org and helping to spoil my two grandchildren, Jackson (2014) and Adela (2017).  For entertainment, I write entries in a blog called “Kenisms”, my daughter’s idea, and can be followed at www.kenismsblog.com.   That is, if you feel the urge to do that sort of thing.  My topics range from humorous recollections to travel stories and epiphanies.  Yes, I said epiphanies, as in life’s little ironies and aha moments.

There needs to be a point to this dialog so here it is.  This writing was inspired by the question “what has Delta Chi meant to your life journey or something like that.”  In pledge class, we were taught that each of the three legs of the Delta stood for a principal.  I remember that one was “service” and while thanks to my college night life, I have a vague recollection of the other two.  I will go with “brotherhood”, i.e. socializing, and apparently “fortitude” as it took that to survive the Delta Chi socializing.  I remember shoveling sand, tons of it, into the basement of the Delta Chi house on Scott Street as a pledge.  This was done as preparation for one of the many theme parties that were thrown in its sacred confines.  If you are thinking of some resemblance to “Animal House”, I have always been convinced that one of the writers had to be a brother.  That or John Belushi must have crashed one of our parties.  Did I mention that we actually had a house monkey when I resided there, or is that still a well-kept secret?  If so, Oops.

I spent a year and a half in the house on Scott Street, sharing a room with a view on the third floor with my roommate, Nick Yarmac.  I remember fondly a weekend road trip to visit his home in, wait for it, Connecticut.  That, like so many other decisions, was made late on a Thursday night drinking $1 buckets at “Toschs” and then leaving that Friday afternoon for Connecticut.  I mention this, because it speaks to the brotherhood and fortitude principal.  When an opportunity cropped up and you had a chance to share the adventure, you seized it.  You didn’t question the sanity of it, you might have given some thought to the risk but when a brother called and an adventure was offered, you jumped on the idea.  That has had a great deal to do with my success in both of my careers, first in public education and then in financial planning.  That willingness to take a risk, that ability to network with people and that desire to experience life as an adventure are all rooted in my Delta Chi experience.  I have passed that attitude on to my daughters and am working on nurturing it in my grandchildren.  I taught it to my seventh grade math students and my financial clients.  It is the only way to approach life if you are intent on not letting it pass you by and just becoming another cog in the wheel.

But I cannot forget “service”.  That principal guided everything I did for my students and my clients and still drives me as a SCORE volunteer.  Ironically, my favorite job in college was bartending with Tom Fricke at Dino’s Titan Tap in Oshkosh where I “served” up beer to our patrons.  That establishment more or less became the offsite fraternity house.  Hey, service takes on many forms.  That principal resonated with me and I have dedicated my life to it.  It actually served me well.  There is truth in the adage that the more you give the more you get.

Delta Chi in the 70’s was the entity that got me through college.  It was a brother to lean on when you needed one, it was the built in social network that gave you a group of friends to look out for you on a too much night out and it was a resource for academic advice when needed.  Who can forget the “test bank” or is that another well-kept secret?

I will offer a shout out to some brothers I remember fondly but also through a disclaimer in here, that if your name doesn’t appear it doesn’t mean you were any less memorable, but I am told I am limited to “characters” in this article.  To Tom Knoll, my big brother, where are you now.  You taught me to drink scotch out of necessity and it remains to this day as my favored drink.  To Mike Daly, my little brother, did you inherit any of my beliefs?  If so, I want to offer a late apology.  To Dave Koch, Bruce Whitehead, Jon Wolfgram, the Tiles brothers, Ed and Wally, Buddy Bannow and Chris Crager, my drinking buddies and cohorts in fraternity hijinks, you still out there?  To Plank, Roskom and Sonlietner, my attempt to drag my former high school classmates into the depths of depravity, how goes it?  And as I write this, to the multitude of other brothers that keep popping into my brain, thanks for the memories.

In conclusion, if for no other reason than this has to end, we are all older and supposedly wiser.  We have neared the end of or already retired from our careers.  We have likely raised a family and from the Facebook pictures, are now spoiling grandchildren.  Through all those years, still brothers, yes you too Kimbal.  Delta Chi was an underlying reason we made it.  Maybe the networking.  Maybe the dedication to service.  Maybe just the brotherhood in the adventure at its beginnings and friends to the end of the journey of life.  It has been and continues to be fraternal.

Ken Wundrow

Delta Chi Alum class of 1970

Grandkids selfie

What Makes an Adventure

Posted on by kwundrow

Each year for the past forty years, I have attended the Indy 500.  Over the past twenty years my daughters have come with me.  Now in consideration for my friends’ questioning of my sanity, what sane person watches cars circling a track for three hours, it’s not just about the cars, even though 230 miles per hour is something you can only experience sitting 100 feet away, it’s so much more.   It’s the adventure.

For us the weekend starts on Friday with our trek down to Lafayette, Indiana.  It morphs into a golf tournament Saturday morning and then follows up with the annual reunion of the group of attendees, now numbering 30 plus, some who have traveled from as far away as Florida to the south and just below Canada to the north.  Sunday morning, race day, finds us assembling our caravan in preparation for our drive to the track in Indianapolis.  There we will tailgate with 350,000 other spectators for the greatest spectacle in sports.  You see it’s not just the race, it’s everything that goes with it. If you are a people watcher, the sheer size of the crowd will hold you in amazement.  If it’s the rush of speed, well there’s plenty of that and it’s not just the race cars driving fast but all the would be racers driving the highways into Indianapolis that Sunday morning.   It’s the hoopla, the track, the parade.  It’s the celebrities and the cameras.  It’s the spectacle.

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For me there is one more element that draws me back each year.  This is my chance, at least once a year, to spend time with my two, now adult, daughters.  When I was approached by my then 14-year-old daughter, asking to go with me for my annual “boys” weekend, I was taken aback.  I explained the logistics of spending a long weekend with twenty some guys bent on talking about race cars and well…… being guys.  I was only mildly surprised, after all she was already pretty headstrong, when she told me she was fully prepared to hold her own.  When she explained in detail the workings of the cars and her knowledge of the drivers, I realized that this was to be our next logical adventure.  Five years later, my younger daughter literally tricked her way into attendance and there were now two women fully integrated into the Wisconsin Indy crowd.  Some twenty years later, they still hold sway each year and command respect from the guys and actually represent the “elder” version of the second generation.  They make me proud each and every year as I listen to the reminiscing and the conversations they so comfortably center themselves into.

Indy second generation

I have never regretted for a moment having two daughters as my only children.  I was careful to give them every chance to be the beautiful women they are while letting them experience all the adventures a father would share with his son.  The Indy 500 is just one of those adventures.  Each year we plan and prepare for our trip, excitement growing through the entire month of May.  It is seventy-two hours of conversations about life and goals and achievements, uninterrupted by other family members, apologies to my wife.  It is a chance to bond and to share an experience with two people I love and respect.

Indy daughters

It’s not just the race, it’s everything that surrounds it, but more than anything else, it is the adventure shared.  Just a heads up, if you choose to argue the merits of this race with my daughters, you best do your homework.

Retirement…a Bottle of Wine and Sunset on my Deck

Posted on by kwundrow

Hopefully the title got your attention.  I apologize to my readers, now numbering in the tens, for my lull in writing.  I should also tell you that after a bottle of wine, kindly provided by our neighbors, that this, at least in my own mind, will be a great read.  I am happily, almost comfortably into my ninth month of retirement.  Ironically, a couple can produce a child in that time frame but I guess finding one’s self in retirement is sort of the equivalent.

Achievement

Not sure why this picture seems approprite, but something about the child, the mask and the arms raised in victory strikes a cord with me.

On Vaction

In my vacation phase somewhere up north.

I have found my purpose and that seemed to be everyone’s fear for me when I announced my retirement.  “What are you going to do with yourself?”  That seemed to be everyone’s concern.  If you remember, I started making lists.  I am happy, no elated to tell you that I checked and I haven’t accomplished any of those things yet.  The list was stupid.  It was too long and it included things I assumed would put everyone’s worries at ease.  Turns out it only made me tired thinking of all I would have to accomplish.

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So let me tell you how it is actually working out.  The book I am writing, it will be a great success if two things can happen.  One, I can take one hundred years to write it and two, I will live that long and some how have any of the faculties left to write coherently.  I had one bottle of wine and you are currently witnessing the results.   The alternative to that plan is that there is a publisher out there looking to publish the world’s shortest, we are talking ten pages, “how to succeed at life” novel.  Can you call ten pages a novel?  Then there’s the travel.  We have managed a four day get away to a Florida convention resort where we begged to be upgraded to a real room, you know, one with a view of actual water and I don’t mean the retention pond beyond the parking lot.  We squeezed in a week skiing in Colorado, everyone says go South, somewhere warm, by the ocean, we go to snow covered mountains.  And then there was the golf.  I was going to golf every week if not every day….. right, not so much.  But it turns out that was a good thing as retirement doesn’t actually improve your golf game.  Turns out it requires practice, patience and perseverance, of which I have, oh yeah, none of those qualities or at least not the time for them.

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But not all is lost.  I have found the secret to retirement.  It turns out it is doing nothing and feeling busy.  It is enjoying a sunrise with coffee on your deck. It is reading the paper for enjoyment instead of worry, you just skip all the news stories and focus on the comics.  It is changing your mind and doing the last thing on your list instead of the first.  It is skipping everything and sitting on the deck, watching the sunset and finishing off a bottle of wine with no regrets for tomorrow morning.  It is letting the day find you instead of trying to find yourself.

Grandkids selfie

There is one other accomplishment for which I am both proud and grateful.  I found an organization, SCORE, that has completely fulfilled me.  I discovered that the passion in my career came from helping and mentoring others, sometimes helping them do and become things even I couldn’t do for myself.  In this volunteer position, I get to mentor new businesses.  I marvel at their dreams and aspirations and then I get to answer their questions and tell them what I learned from both my mistakes and my successes.  I return from these sessions recharged and envigorated.  It is the exercise of your passion that rewards you for the years you spent working at figuring out what it was.

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So take heart all you worriers.  I am alive and doing well in retirement.  My list has been put in the back of my desk drawer where it belongs and I am allowing each new day to write its own “to do” list for me.  Now if you don’t mind, I will sign off.  I’ve got a million things to not do yet today.  Manana.

What’s the Greatest Thing about being a Grandpa?

Posted on by kwundrow

We are given children and we become parents.  We nurture them.  We support their every need.  We watch them grow, gritting our teeth through the tough times, loving them even when they tell you they want new parents.  We hold our breath as they take their first steps and then again when they take their big steps….. first day of school, first date, first job.  And then, just about the time you are ready to be put out to the parenthood pasture, they make you a grandpa.

You get to start all over, maybe even fix a few of your mistakes.  You once again get to feel a tiny hand in yours just like you felt so long ago.  You get to see the wonder and awe of every new thing through their innocent eyes.  You get to watch the progress of life all over again, and somehow, as different as it is, it is somehow so strangely the same.

This time around, you get to be the spoiler when you want to.  You get to call everything an adventure and declare every day a McDonald’s day.  After all, why shouldn’t each day have a happy meal.  You get to be the historian, reliving the past with stories and recreating it with activities.  You might even get to rebuild the clubhouse their mom played in as a little girl.  Oh it’s a bit bigger this time around and even a tad fancier, but that’s just what grandpas do.  And when they climb up into their clubhouse, the smile on their face makes all the aches and pains of a now much older carpenter, go magically away.

Original Clubhouse

1989 Original Clubhouse

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2018 New Clubhouse

But what’s the greatest thing about being a grandpa.  Simply put…..everything.  They say life begins again after forty or whatever age you pick, but I say life begins again with the birth of each new grandchild.   It’s life’s sequel playing out before your very eyes and once again you are given a supporting role.

Glad to be Opa and pleased with the gift of a second go round.

I Came to the Mountains

Posted on by kwundrow

It is the first winter in thirty eight years that I am not up to my eyeballs in tax returns.  Yes, retirement is good.  So what is a guy to do with this new found freedom?  Go to the mountains of course.  The thought of being able to ski after so many seasons on the sidelines was too much to resist.  And so we were off, my wife Deb, my daughter Kathryn and her boyfriend Eli.  For Eli there was the added excitement of skiing moutain terrain for the very first time.  Considering Midwest skiing happens on hills not mountains and the serious elevation might be a whopping 600 feet of vertical drop, this was going to be mind boggling.  And Eli was ready as were all of us.

We chose Winter Park for mutiple reasons.  First and foremost, was a very fee reduced week at a condo provided by a former client and family friend.  Second was the mantra I had heard.  “You go to Aspen for the views, Vail to be viewed and you go to Winter Park to ski.”  This was exactly what we were looking for and we found it.

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We arrived on the Sunday afternoon of my birthday.  Did I mention that this was also my birthday gift to myself.  Having flown into Denver, we hopped a shuttle for the ride up to Winter Park, crossing Berthoud Pass at 11,306 feet of elevation.  From there it was back into the Frasier Canyon area and into the village where we arrived at our condo.  I owe it to my benefactor to sing the praises of her condo.  Situated on the banks of the Frasier River and conveniently located in the center of town, we could want for nothing more.  We can both see and hear the river rippling below our balcony and looking east we can see the front slopes of Winter Park Ski Area, beckoning us up.  All around us the Rockies rise majestically to the deep blue Colorado skies.  The condo is functional, comfortable and cozy all rolled into one.  After a satisfying dinner at the quirky Henando’s Pizzeria and Pub, we are ready to plan our early morning rendevous with the ski hill.

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Monday morning dawns clear and crisp.  10 degrees to start our day but promises of middle to upper twenties by midday.  Absolutely perfect skiing conditions.  The snow is fast and the air warm enough to ski in relatively light gear and the vistas, thanks to crystal clear skies….out of this world.  From the top, we can see all of the Frasier Valley unfold below while the boundaries of the valley are encircled with 13,000 foot snocapped peaks.  Thirteeners as the locals refer to them.  We will start skiing at 9000 feet and reach 12,060 feet at the summit of Panorama Cirque.  We refer to runs by the only measurement that makes relative sense to us, “that one was a three Cascade”  This is a reference to the local ski hill back home and the only meaningful way we can compare the vertical drop.

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The views are spectacular and the range of change from bottom to top can best be described by not only the elevation but the change in temparature.  Shortly before noon we start our ride to the summit.  At base the temperature is a balmy 29 degrees but by the time we approach the summit it has fallen to 2 degrees with a negative 10 degree wind chill.  Of course we had cimbed 3000 feet to get there.  Standing on the summit, we make the decision to take combinations of runs that will allow us to ski a continuous line top to bottom.  Twenty minutes later we reach our lowest access point still a full “Cascade” above the resort base.  We are winded and tired but smiling ear to ear.  We skied non-stop for hours, each run evaluated for its nuances and our favorite features of the run.  Closing time comes too soon but we feel we have skied hard and gotten everything we could out of our time on the mountain.

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And this was day one.  Tomorrow and for the next three days we will continue to soak in the mountains, the vistas and the skiing.  Am I happily retired, at this point I can think of no better reward for a life long career of hard work than to be here in the Rockies on top of my world.