And it Came Back

Posted on by kwundrow

Today’s toys are loaded with technology. They simulate real settings in game modes, they move the puzzle pieces with a click of button, I can even feel like I’m out on the course playing golf. I am far from complaining either for what you have or for what I didn’t. Toys have always been meant to amuse and to inspire imagination. As technology advanced so did the toys and their effect and affect.

But what did I play with when I was young? The truth is there were countless toys and I had my share, but the question is which ones left the biggest impression on my memory? I have decided that the best way to do this is to think of it by types. I have chosen five categories and a toy for each category that I remember better than others.

My first category is Creativity and the toy is my mechanics bay and gas station garage.  Besides the fact that it had to be completely assembled metal tab by metal tab, it provided hours of imagination as my miniature cars would enter and exit the gas station and its upper level reached by the cool car elevator. This toy inspired me to learn how to assemble things, to fix things, and I guess, to travel. Unfortunately, it never taught me to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. I do feel obligated to give honorable mention to Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and my Erector Set. Each provided hours of creativity in design, but that darn metal fabricated play gas station just had so many special memories tied to it.

My next category is Finance and the obvious choice here is Monopoly. We would play monopoly and the game would go on for long spells as anyone who has played the game will attest to. The game really was the beginning of my interest in finances. Though I never bought a rental property and certainly never built a hotel, it gave me an appreciation for banking. I would very often agree to be the banker in the game and later in my teaching career I made that banking part of my math curriculum. Honorable mention should be given here to the games of Life and Risk, but I think monopoly is my fondest memory.

For my third category, I am going with Curiosity and the toy, a weather balloon. In high school, my best friend and I decided to follow the invitation on the back of a cereal box and send away for a genuine, US Weather Balloon. I might add, we also sent some hard earned cash because we were pretty sure no parent was intending to finance us. The day the balloon arrived we were raring to go. For some unknown reason, we decided we should inflate it right there in my bedroom. As we filled it and watched the envelope expand, we failed to notice the vast number of sharp furniture corners in the room. Nearing four feet in diameter, the inevitable happened. Who knew the explosion could be that loud and more importantly, that the balloon was lined with talcum powder. Upon the arrival of my worried mother, the sight that greeted her appeared as a small blizzard throughout the room and two young lads who appeared to have spent a day in a bakery. We never did get another weather balloon and thus never sampled the weather above our farm, but certain aspects of our curiosity had certainly been satisfied.

My next category is one of Utility and the toy / weapon was my very own slingshot. Now this was not a store bought slingshot but rather a home grown version. With my dad’s guidance and his keen eye for just the right ash tree branch, my slingshot was crafted and honed to perfection. First target, tin cans. From there I stepped up to moving targets such as gophers, who conveniently carried a ten cent bounty on their tails. Unfortunately, my last target, which I intended only to show how close I could get, was the tail light of my sister’s car and eventual incarceration of my slingshot. As short lived as my slingshot days were, I still value the collaboration with my dad on the project.

My final category and the inspiration for this question will be titled Travel and the toy, my first and until today only, boomerang. Not just any boomerang, but an honest to goodness Australian Outback beauty. I grew up a National Geographic junkie. I would look at the far away lands and dream of one day being a traveling explorer. When I saw Australia and read about the Aborigines and their hunting weapon, the boomerang, I just had to have one. There in the magazine was my chance to own one. I don’t remember how much of my allowance went into the purchase, but it was worth every dime. Hours of throw and fetch eventually gave way to throw and duck and with dedicated practice, one day it not only threw, it returned and I caught it. Success was as sweet as you are imagining. The irony of this last choice of toys, is that life has come full circle. Over the weekend, my wife had bought our grandson, Jackson, a plastic sort of replica boomerang. With little success, compounded by his left handedness, Jackson and my wife were giving up. Insert a little known fact here, who knew a boomerang could be left handed but isn’t generally. This next weekend, Jackson will receive a genuine, signed Australian left handed throwing boomerang. Let the throw and fetch begin but I have faith that with practice, there will come success.

I started off with a comparison of my toys versus the current generation’s toys. What is important to understand is that I am not any worse off for not having the high tech toys nor is Jackson’s ability to enjoy all five categories any less decreased by having them. Toys are toys. They create their own aura and should almost all, one day find their way to their own Hall of Fame. My boomerang is there.

Serenity Now

Posted on by kwundrow

George’s dad on Seinfeld would utter “serenity now” when things around him brought on stress. Borrowing those words as my title feels appropriate this morning after having watched the sunrise on the beach at Kiawah Island. Not that I was being stressed, but rather that I was finding serenity now.

Sunrise is at 6:59 am on the Island and having arisen at 6:30, I had just enough time to throw on some clothes and get out to the beach in time to watch the sun begin to brighten the eastern skyline. Not sure of what I would see, I headed to the beach with a sense of excitement mixed with the fatigue I was feeling from an overactive yesterday, a restless night of sleep, and the early hour.

The first thing one notices when staying at the ocean, is the rhythmic sound of the waves washing up on the shore. With each step closer to the beach, the sound of the waves washing ashore increased a sense of inner quiet within me. As I hiked over the dune and the beach came into view, my fatigue and any stress I had been feeling, vanished. The sun, not yet visible, was casting its dusky light over the scene and there, not 10 yards away, stood four deer poised at the tide’s edge staring back at me. I stood mesmerized watching them as they resumed their stroll down the empty beach, devoid of the hundreds of vacationers that would crowd the beach later in the day. For now, the beach belonged to those four deer and by default, me.

There are places on earth that invoke a sense of peace, maybe it’s a majestic mountain view or an empty beach with its vast ocean backdrop. Where ever that place exists, watching a sunrise bathe that view with all its serene beauty cannot help but bring a sense of peace. This morning, as I watched the sunrise over my beach, I found that sense of peace. Any stress I brought along with me on this vacation, melted in that slowly unfolding light of dawn. The sun’s rays, casting light up through the horizon, created beautiful bands of orange as they began to awaken the morning sky. And then, right on cue, the golden orange ball of the sun began to rise from edge of the ocean.

I wish that I could have had you there on the beach with me this morning to both witness and feel the peacefulness of that scene. I can only hope that my writing and photos will give you some sense of the experience.

Serenity Now

Arrived

Posted on by kwundrow

We left Madison three days ago after a year and month of COVID isolation. The temp that morning was 20 degrees and a high of 38 degrees was forecast for the day. Our first night was spent in Cincinnati, OH and our second in Asheville, NC. Late this afternoon we reached our destination on Kiawah Island, SC. The temperature, 75 degrees. I am, as I write this, sitting on the screen porch of our VRBO with a local brew in my hand, watching an alligator sunning in the canal below. Warning, before you put two and two together and conclude our house is unoccupied and easy pickings, besides our ever watchful neighbors, did I mention the eight foot python we recently purchased.

Relaxation Station

It was quite the drive to get here but so scenic and so refreshing after a year of vacationing in my back yard, putting a mere 500 miles on my vehicle in the course of the entire year. I swear I could hear my jeep purring as I turned towards the interstate and began to put the miles behind us. There is a lot to be said for a road trip. A road trip gives you the chance to bond with your fellow traveler or plot where to leave them, just kidding Deb. A road trip gives you the opportunity to experience Americana and to just take in sights on a whim. It is the adventure Jack Kerouac alludes to when he writes, “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” Never discount the road trip.

Breakfast in Cincinnati, the pancakes rivaled the ambiance.

For the next week, I will attempt a round of golf on a course light years beyond my ability to play it. I will walk the beach and maybe manage to catch a few sunrises over the Atlantic. I will put as many miles as my legs can handle on my bike. And I will generally put the world of stress and COVID behind me. I will regenerate. For those of you who know me well, know that I have traveled often, sometimes with detailed plans and sometimes by the seat of my pants. This trip feels different. I would be a liar if I said the isolation of this past year hadn’t left me damaged. This trip is the beginning of my repair.

We have arrived. All that is left now is to be: stress free, plan limited, senses alert, and open to the healing that time away can bring.

Three days and 1100 miles later ………….. Let the smiles rival the miles.

An Adventure

Posted on by kwundrow

It was my granddaughter’s birthday recently. She was turning four and according to her, once you are four you can do almost anything. It took me but a minute to know the gift I needed to give her. I would give her an invitation to an adventure.

An adventure is an activity we do with a friend. On adventures we make discoveries, we go places we have not been before, we bond with our friend, and we make memories. Adventures can be as simple as a walk on a new trail, or better yet, taking a turn we had not planned on, not knowing where it will lead. An adventure might be climbing a mountain or just seeing the city from the observation deck of a skyscraper. The important thing is that though you plan the trip, you do not plan the adventure, they just kind of unfold. And therein lies the joy.

I have had many adventures with my daughters over the years. They were often of the simple version, a trip to the zoo or a climb on the bluffs of Devil’s Lake, but appreciated none the less. As they grew older, my daughters would always be looking forward to our next adventure. They began to take on a style of their own. The adventure to them was a planned destination but no agenda once we arrived. The accommodations often left much to be desired, but they would be quick to add that where we would sleep was not important, it was what awaited us the next morning that would define the adventure. As they grew, so too did the adventures. We skied snow covered slopes out West, we climbed Half Dome in Yosemite Valley, hiked the Geyser Trail at dawn in Yellowstone, and actually paraglided off the peaks above Medellin Columbia, in South America. As I write this, I know they are surely busy plotting the next adventure.

For Adela, her adventures are just beginning, but I know this, she will certainly follow in her mother’s footsteps. She already has an adventurous spirit and with a little nurturing from her Opa, she will turn that spirit loose. I can only hope to keep up and continue to be her adventure partner.

So what about your adventures? Do you have them? Do you leave open spaces in your trip plans for that surprise that lies just beyond the path? The surprises in life are what make the journey worthwhile. Never discount the driving vacation and when you pass the sign that says view point ahead, take the time to take it in. The rest of the trip will wait, but that view may never offer itself again.

Go have an adventure. As for Adela and I, we are getting ready for our first and already thinking about the one after that.

Story of a Fighter

Posted on by kwundrow

Every now and then I just write in this blog for the enjoyment of telling a story. This is the story of a chicken named Jerome.

Jerome came to be as part of an experiment in my high school sophomore biology class. The experiment involved injecting growth hormones into several fertilized chicken eggs. One egg, Jerome’s, hatched out early that spring. What emerged was more or less this super chicken. Within a very short time, Jerome began to strut, crow, and gain weight. He soon surpassed any of the non-injected eggs hatchlings and was becoming a handful for the biology lab. Eventually fearing that he would break out of the lab and terrorize the rest of my high school, the biology teacher suggested that someone needed to take him home or he would have to be dealt with. Being the farm kid in the class and part of the team that had created this problem, I was soon tasked with finding Jerome his new home.

Within a week or so of getting him placed in our hen house on the farm, he was quite literally ruling the roost. His flock of hens cowered in the corner every time he began his strut. It became apparent that he would need his own coop and so he was relegated to an old chicken coop with an outside penned area for him to strut his stuff. This is when he determined that he could fly and soon flew the coop. We found him the next day, firmly re-entrenched in the hen house, ruling his ladies from the roost. This was now time for desperate measures. Jerome’s wings would be clipped.

Our first attempt proved fruitless and he again flew the coop and returned to the hen house. After two more clippings he was finally grounded, or at least flightless. So how was it that we found him the next morning back in the hen house? We would need to become spies. Within minutes of him believing we had left, he made his escape, not by flying but rather by literally using his beak and claws to scale the chicken wire of his coop. It was at this point that my dad threw up his hands and said “we tried, he won.” Jerome was a free bird, truly a range free chicken well before his time.

Jerome soon became infamous. He not only ruled the hen house by night, but he ruled the entire farm by day. Exaggeration at this point would be, well, pointless. Jerome so scared the locals, that the mailman, if he had to drop off a package, would honk the horn for us to come get the mail. There was no way he was going to leave the safety of his vehicle while Jerome strutted back and forth on the hood, stopping occasionally to beat on the windshield with his stubby wings. We would race out, wrangle Jerome off the vehicle and then and only then would the driver step out. At one point, while having a new TV antennae installed on our second story farmhouse, the installer very nearly fell off the roof when to his sheer horror Jerome stood inches away from him beating his wing threateningly on the roof line ridge. It was discovered later, that Jerome had found the installer’s ladder and leveraged himself up to the rooftop. The farm and surrounding buildings were his turf and he would beat back any attempt at a siege by his imagined attackers. If you couldn’t stand up to him, you were at his mercy.

And so it went around our farm that summer. But there was one person not willing to bow to his authority. My grandmother lived with us in the farmhouse and each morning, after breakfast had been cleared, she would take the table scraps out to the barnyard where they would be disposed of. This required a long walk across the front lawn and driveway and then out to the barnyard. What ensued each and every time was a battle royale between my grandma and Jerome. Jerome would meet her at the door and block her way by menacing her with the now famous wing beating technique he had mastered. She would eventually give him a kick and he would swing around and re-engage. Eventually, my grandmother would take her cane, tiring of this constant parrying, and use it like a golf club. Jerome would be knocked sideways rolling across the ground only to get back up and rejoin the fight. This sparring would go on all the way out and all the way back. None of us were sure if either one of them had won, but it was obvious that both persevered. In Jerome’s view, this was a battle to the death. Every day offered a new chance to finally settle this turf dispute.

(This is a picture of the actual cane my grandma would use in her defense against Jerome. Note the missing chunk in the handle, evidence of the battle.)

Fortunately for our family, my grandma outlived Jerome by a great many years. Jerome would meet his end in battle, but not on my grandma’s battlefield. Each evening, Jerome would return to the hen house where unbeknownst to us, he was now standing guard over his ladies. One morning, late that fall, we arrived at the hen house to collect the eggs, only to find a weasel lying in the doorframe. It was clear that he had been in a battle for his life that it had not ended well for him. Alarmed at what destruction we might find inside, we were surprised to see all of our hens alive and well. It was only on closer inspection that we saw him. He had retired to the back of the chicken house where he had apparently succumbed to his injuries, but not before saving his wards. Jerome, the terrorizer of so many, had died a hero.

Before you mourn his passing, understand that as I think back on this tough old bird, I can think of no better way for him to go than in the fight of his life. I can only imagine how into the battle he must have been. He had finally found, other than my grandma, someone who offered him a challenge. Jerome was a fighter, and to go out in a blaze of glory has made his story worth telling, and that story has been told and retold within our family so many times over the years. Had he just withered away of old age, where would be his fame? Jerome was a chicken who was never chicken. Jerome was a fighter, persistent is his right to rule and defiant to anyone who thought he was wrong. When the cause is worth the fight, may we all be so willing to stand our ground. Just be prepared if you take on a Jerome.

Reflections on Time

Posted on by kwundrow

We go through decades in our lives. If you are reading this, you’ve gone through at least one. In that first decade we learn a lot, some would argue most, of what we will need to survive our remaining decades. We learn that hot things can hurt. That counting will help us figure out how far we still need to go, though asking the question “are we there yet” holds a lot of pleasure for the questioner. We figure out that food comes in an incredible variety of forms and delivery systems and that we are often forced to eat some of the foods even though we don’t like them. We hopefully learn to play nice and to vow to practice that in the decades to come every chance we get and with everyone we meet even when they haven’t learned this lesson as well.

In our second decade, we anxiously await our teens and when we finally achieve them, we have no idea what to do with them, especially the hormones. We hopefully learn to drive, though it is becoming questionable whether future generations will ever need to drive the car at all. In the last part of the decade, we get to vote which is all too often filled with disappointment, sometimes even when our candidate wins. Make no mistake here, you still need to vote. No vote means you are only allowed to be disappointed. And as that second decade comes to an end, you are given the keys to adulthood and the admonition “go get a job kid cause you’re on your own”. Ah the sweet smell of freedom and the lure of the wild.

Decade three starts the trip of wonder. We wonder about everything as we wander through our twenties. We try out our wild side, three hours of sleep and a recovery plan seem perfectly natural. We figure out our tolerance for risk, and generally amass the mistakes we will refer to in our later decades as lessons learned. This is the decade where we will explore our sexuality (god I miss that, but maybe not), decide to decide what we might be, and as we approach the end of the decade, come to the realization that this was the decade when we actually grew up.

Thirties, these are the years we re-find and re-define ourselves, not that it is the final time we will do that. We either find our soul mate or decide that we would rather fly solo. We settle down, maybe even buy a house and, if we are up to it, make it a home. It is during our thirties that we will likely start our families. It is the decade where we will claim we left our wild days behind, no matter how wild we still remain.

Our fifth decade is the decade we will look back on and want a mulligan. Not because we messed up, but because it was the decade we played young people’s games and held grown up jobs. We were in our prime and still full of energy, energy we likely needed to deal with our children. We make actual grown up decisions and start building our bucket lists.

Then comes our sixth decade. We come to the realization that like it or not, our wealth determines both our success and status all the while learning that it still can’t really buy happiness. We learn that money can buy us time and maybe offer more choices, but happiness comes from the people around us and our connection to family and friends. We start to spend a little too much time with the “what ifs” and the “if onlys”. We start counting our gray hairs and spending time trying to look once more like we did a decade earlier. If we are lucky, as we approach the end of this decade, we start to appreciate who we are and the person we have become. We may even accept who we are as the better version of who we were.

Decade number seven brings you the respect of age and the realization that your journey through the first six decades have left you tagged as “experienced”. Experience somehow equates to wisdom and wisdom redefines you as a commodity. Your children refer to other people your age as “old” but not you, and all it took to earn that dignity was paying for a college education or two or three and being there through every crisis they faced on their journey through the earlier decades. This is the decade you will likely experiment with retirement as a title. And, if all has worked out, you will travel and start checking off some of the more possible things on your very long bucket list.

And that brings me to tonight at midnight. It is upon that momentous tick of the minute hand that I will enter my next decade. I cannot tell you what it will hold or how it will define me but I enter it knowing certain truths. I am a better version of the me I have sometimes been. I have in fact learned from the mistakes I have made and have applied them to my decisions that followed. I feel good, even valued for the help I have given to those I have met along the way. I have raised, with the help of their mother, two beautiful successful daughters. I have been blessed to be part of the lives of two equally impressive, uniquely inquisitive, challengingly energetic grandchildren of whom I am so incredibly fond. Do I wish I could be forty something again, of course, but then all these things that I am so grateful for would not have happened yet and possibly wouldn’t. I will not trade what I have for a what if. I am possibly and finally content.

By the time you read this I will have crossed the milepost and will be beginning my 70th trip around the sun. Send me no gifts for all I ask is that you take the time to think about the decades YOU have crossed and vow to make the next one just a little better than the last. Promise to do one more good deed than the last time. Help one more person than before and look for the good in the people around you so they may see the good in you.

Groundhog’s Day

Posted on by kwundrow

One of my favorite movies is Groundhog’s Day. I think it is the idea that if you could have a day over now and then, you could maybe make everything right. Bill Murray’s problem was that it took so many repeats for him to finally get it right. Still, the premise is tempting.

Covid-19 has been like Groundhog’s Day. We started out with the false perception that it would be a little sacrifice for maybe three or four weeks and then everything would return to normal. Now approaching a full year of not normal, every day being another day dancing with the virus, we are nearing the end. Well, at least closer to a return to life without a pandemic.

I have spent my year working on improving many things. For starters, I have been taught how to fish by my grandson, Jackson. I never had the patience it required but ironically, an energetic, inquisitive, on the go six-year old, showed me the way to patience and the art of catching fish. And then there was the walking. Prior to the pandemic and its isolation demands, I would only walk to get somewhere. Now, thanks to my wife, I walk several times a day, aimlessly around our neighborhood circuits. I find it strange that the answer to “where are you going”, is home no matter where I am on the walk. Good thing home is where the heart is.

During this Covid-19 journey, I have put more effort into everything I do. My volunteer work has benefited from renewed vigor and a lot of Zoom. I finally rebuilt my deck after years of putting it off. My garage has been organized and reorganized, and, after years of drawing and redrawing it, my wife now has her Little Library complete with a dedication ceremony and neighborhood library cards for the children.

But there begs one more activity to be visited here. Several years ago, I procured a pool table from a very dear friend. With all this in home time in lieu of our travel plans, I have worn the felt thin on that table with several games a day. My wife, a reasonable pool shark, will play the occasional game but for the most part, I am left playing my imaginary opponent. As I am a slightly competitive type, I tend to take these games, even tournaments, quite serious. We ironically have very similar game strategies and styles. Skill wise we are very evenly matched. So lately I have become quite frustrated with my inability to beat him. I will miss an easy kill shot only to have him follow up with a seemingly impossible rail shot or combination. I checked the records recently and I believe that he is beating me at a ratio of two to one. What is his secret to success? What makes him such a confident shot. Why am I getting angry at his obvious luck, wishing he would blow the next shot …… flat out cheering against him? The irony here is that I’m the one taking ALL the shots. This is apparently what the pandemic and isolation has reduced me too. I’ve lost my mind and I’m not even bothering to mount a search party.

Seriously, the pandemic has been a journey. We have been given the chance to truly appreciate the things we have by making us put them on hold. We have become more resilient, more hopeful than expectant, more appreciative of the little things, and definitely more creative. In my case, I have created an imaginary pool player to while away my free time.

The end of all this is in sight. If we are patient and persevering, we will make it to the finish line. We will leave some of our new found ways behind and trade them for our old normal. At the same time, we have adopted new habits and attitudes that we should definitely take forward with us. Good can always come from adversity if we recognize it.

But it’s getting late and my pool playing buddy has the balls racked and is calling me over. I plan on mixing his drink extra strong tonight and with a few good shots, I think I can beat him. Wish me luck.