Last night at poetry class, the prompt was to list ten things you are grateful for, and ten things you are dreading then pull both together into a poem or prose. I won’t reveal the dread list – perhaps at a later time – in the middle of a dreary winter’s day. I will however, share my grateful list with you.

Of course my family and friends were top of the list. From there the list deviates and when we recounted our lists to each other, it is always interesting what other people put down.

So here we go –

I am grateful for

• raising one child who became a kind and responsible person
• that my son talks with us every week voluntarily
• that he lives near family even though he is far from us
• for 37 years of marriage to Richard (today is our anniversary)
• my friends
• the gift of creativity
• my morning coffee
• my sense of humor
• a quick mind
• Egyptian cotton
• my mid morning coffee
• a working coffee pot at home
• a working coffee pot at work
• wine openers
• wine in to-go cups
• wine in a box
• wine with my sisters
• wine with Aunt Ursie
• wine with friends
• wine by myself
• wine at sunsets

I’m sure you get the idea…

I thank all of you for reading this blog post and I wish all of you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday!

-mb

Photo by Adonyi Gábor from Pexels

After last week’s post about the rushing of the holidays, I admit I’ve fallen into the trap laid out by merchants and radio stations alike. I’ve started shopping and planning.

It got me thinking about our Christmas tree. I like a short tree – about four feet tall because I can set it upon a chest in my living room and don’t have to move every piece of furniture to make it happen.

I saw some live ones at the grocery store last week and I remembered (or did I dream?) that I we threw our fake out last year. It was awful and the ones I really like (in the fake category) are priced out of this world. I know if I stopped to think about the cost over several years, it would be more reasonable. I still have my mind focused on my list which also requires money. An expensive tree isn’t it.

Over the decades we have had many different types of tress. My grandparents often flocked their real trees and added tinsel. Old fashioned ball ornaments with remnants of flocking on them hung next to homemade ornaments from us grandchildren.

In our home growing up, there was also a real tree with homemade ornaments. Garland of red and green construction paper fought for space with the popcorn strands. Popcorn was only done for a couple of years – we soon lost interest in stringing it and voted to eat it instead. For many years, tinsel also graced our trees.

When my dad and stepmom moved to Burlington, Wisconsin, the tradition of tinsel followed. It must have given my dad a sense of his childhood. He only spoke German until he went to first grade. Other traditions of Midnight Mass at St. Therese Hospital was followed by a typical German (and European) breakfast of sliced sausages and ham, rye and pumpernickel along with crusty rolls and stinky cheeses. How I long for those breakfasts now.

So this year, I think that real tree will find itself graced with tinsel. I also think my dad would approve.

photo: circa 1940 – from left to right: Grandma, Aunt Regina, Grandpa and my dad Leo

Today is November 13, 2019.

That’s what the calendar says.

But most of us across this vast nation are now in a mini polar vortex, enough of one that it sends shivers through our bodies at the mere memory of one full frontal assault we had ten months ago.

Was it really ten months? Feels more like a whole year! And why wouldn’t it? We are experiencing January weather instead of temperatures hovering at freezing.

Whatever happened to Indian Summer? Our trick-or-treaters were bundled in coats and mittens while trudging through snow. In October!

Now, two days after our second wallop of snow from Mother Nature, I’m wondering who’s at fault here? Is it the calendar? What role does Poor Richard and his almanac play in this con upon the unsuspecting public? Did someone mess with Mother Nature’s medication?

To rub salt in this arctic blast, one of the local radio stations has been playing nothing but Christmas songs for almost two weeks! My email in box is loaded with Black November specials – forget the obligatory Black Friday! We now have a whole month to grab those deals. Hurry! They won’t last forever – just until December 24^th, when the real sales begin December 26^th!

I’m trying to plan my Thanksgiving menu, not shop for Christmas! I have WAY TOO MANY things to do before I set up a Christmas tree. In fact I think I need to buy one.

So, as I tune to Mel Tormé’s holiday classic, “The Christmas Song” on the 24/7 Christmas station, I’ll decompress on my way home while visions of prelit Christmas trees and Yule logs fill my head, I ask…

what’s the rush?

photo by me!

I was originally going to title this piece “A Knock-Knock Joke”, or even “April Fools!”, but decided that wasn’t funny enough.  In fact, it wasn’t until I was working on another piece (of candy) that I realized it should be entitled “Trick or Treat”.

Never let it be said that Mother Nature doesn’t have a sense of mischief. She surely doesn’t have a sense of humor these days. Because yesterday, she decided a trick was in store for us along the western shores of Lake Michigan.

In the dark early hours of October 31^st, just a mere 34 or so hours ago, she blew a wintry breath across the Midwest plains and gifted us with lots of wet snow for the length of the day.

The effect on the body was a brutal awakening of things to come which were actually here a month early! The effect on the roads was messy and another lesson in character rebuilding. The effect on the eyes however were the prettiest trees still vibrant with color cooled and tamed with pure snow.

The problem I have with this beautiful vista of two seasons clashing is that I’m driving in traffic and there is little I can do to capture what I see. This fleeting moment is just that – a moment. By the time the weekend is over, there will be little leaves and snow left to keep the beauty on display.

So now I’m focusing on getting the patio furniture dusted off and into the garage before the real winter arrives!

If you are anywhere near me in the tri-state area (Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana), you are basking in the vibrant fall colors that surround us. If you aren’t – please stop and take a long look around you.

Lately, the weather has been cool (a few cold days sprinkled in) and for the most part sunny. That’s a recipe to guarantee a beautiful autumn. This recipe has no finite quantity of ingredients – it’s like Grandma’s plum cake – never written down. We just trust in Mother Nature to give us the perfect outcome.

During my work day I get a chance to walk and I love every minute of it. There were some fall decorations near a business nearby that someone suggested I  take a look at, but as I walked along the store fronts and congested streets and sidewalks, I made a conscious effort to steer myself back to my normal trek. There I can walk along homes of complimenting architecture and investigate the flora and fauna around me. I returned to the office a contented person.

Some of you may recall I had a Chinese Face Reading done a few years ago. One of the things my reader told me was that I should take more walks among nature. And I do. I also try to include my camera on special trips, but otherwise my trusty phone camera will do the trick. Capturing the colors is almost a quest – to outdo the last one I took.

When I look at my poems, I have at least five that cite the glory of autumn and its sad demise. It’s that demise that reminds me I’m a realist – so I know what’s coming, yet I hold onto these fleeting days. I savor the drier air, the smell of burning leaves, the pumpkins and mums decorating front stoops. I smile at children convincing their harried parents why this costume in their small hand is so much cooler than the one their parents are holding or why this candy is better to hand out.

When it comes to days like this one, it’s not hard to see why this is my favorite time of year.

In an effort to cut down on the plastic waste we produce in the office, we started having glass bottles of water available to tenants. We bought six to start.

Where seven plastic bottles fit in the refrigerator shelf, now six glass bottles are nestled. And for the first few days, things seem to go well. I had six bottles on the shelf (our major water drinkers were out of the office most of the week).

On Monday morning I opened the refrigerator to see what needed to be stocked.

• Diet Coke, two cans needed
• LaCroix, four cans needed
• Water bottles, three bottles needed

I checked the dish pan where people return coffee cups and glasses. Empty. The weekend custodian had washed all the dishes.

I went in search for the missing three bottles – pretty sure we had the hardest working people in our office if they were here on the weekend drinking water. None of the offices had lonely empty water bottles on their desks.

So where did three bottles just disappear to? Perhaps I would never know.

A quick conference on this development had me labeling the glass bottles – the three we had and another six just purchased and washed, with “please return”. Once that was completed, I turned my attention to other duties.

On Tuesday morning, I washed the coffee cups and a couple water bottles. I opened the cabinet to place a coffee mug on a shelf and there, standing proud and ready for action, were the three missing glass bottles!

It seems the weekend custodian put them in a safe place, washed and dried and ready for filling.

If only the rest of the things on my list could be solved as fast and painless!

Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels

I never thought poetry would pop up in life again. Not since high school have I thought much about it. I also never thought it would take such a hold.

Since May, I was voted to be the Illinois State Poetry Society’s North Suburban Chapter Facilitator, which placed me on the Board. Now there are several more meetings making themselves at home in my calendar.

I also the chairperson of the Manningham Poetry Contest for Illinois. It is a poetry contest for 6-12 graders. So there is a lot of work there.

With all this, I continue to stretch my poetry wings. I’ve written a few poems that found publication this year. Two poems and a photo were published in this year’s (2019-2020) East On Central anthology of prose and art.

This summer I took up the challenge to co-edit a poetry book for Highland Park Poetry. That book came out this week and it’s quite a feeling to have your name appear on the front! (A poem of mine also appears in this book.)

I’ve set a goal for myself to a chapbook by the end of next year aware that my other writing projects are waving to get my attention. There is that one manuscript that needs revising and I’m developing characters for another story. I’m looking that part of it – finding their back stories, what makes them tick.

I look at this time of creativity and find that I’m quite happy with all of it – even the responsibilities.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one my age going through what I consider “a thing” – condensation trepidation. Or, in plainspeak (or is it mansplaining these days?) absorbing a parent’s or grandparent’s belongings into yours.

I consider myself fortunate because I have several siblings that can share in this process. But here is the real issue – I’m trying to go through my own stuff at the same time! There are clothes forgotten in plastic containers in the basement that need to be tried on (ugh!) and relegated to the donation or keep piles.  There are stacks of books, manuscripts, craft supplies and other miscellaneous items collected over my sixty years of life. And if I’m being totally honest, I am still in possession of a dozen boxes from bother sets of grandparents that should be inspected with a critical eye.

All this raises another question? Do I really want my son to have to shovel through my crap/stuff a couple decades from now? Should  he have to decide about items from great- grandparents he never met? No, I do not.

By the evidence before me, over 50 boxes labeled with precious and not so precious items, I must face the fact that I have inherited the packrat gene from my father. Oh, and to be fair, from my Uncle Gene – my mother’s brother. We kids get it from both sides of the family quite honestly.

My father saved every issue of Model Railroader Magazine, Automobile Quarterly, and any other number or periodicals that pertained to cars, trains, planes, and guns. The tools are easy to stare at and formulate a plan – but the nuts, bolts washers and screws collected in his lifetime are another matter completely.

There are little gems like the original receipts for his 1948 MG-TC for $1071 in 1955, or the Boy Scout vase signed by the boys in his Scout Troop when he moved onto other projects. You can hold it, smile and wrap the vase in bubble wrap. Just a sweet moment of a memory and then it’s back to sorting and packing.

These gems fail to abate our (okay, my) feelings of being overwhelmed by all of it.

If I channel my dormant (comatose) inner Marie Kondo, the reigning De-clutter Queen, and ask myself if this vase makes me happy, it’s hard to say – it’s the knowledge of who owned this vase that makes me happy.  If I donate something to a resale shop will the person buy it knowing it was a treasured item that somehow failed to make the “keep” list? It’s like having Marie Kondo one shoulder, and the pack rat devil on the other. What’s a sentimental sap like myself to do?

In the coming weeks, all of the siblings will gather to determine what we are saving, who gets what and what gets donated. Perhaps then I will have more motivation to complete my own task that at most times is as overwhelming as going through my father’s.

Disclaimer: I have several boxes in an attic containing items from both sets of grandparents’.

#condensationtrepidation

photo by pixabay 

My father’s mountain of possessions has come to tap us kids in the face – not hard, just a “hey, here is the story of my life’ love pat.

I’ve written about my dad’s first child – the 1948 MG-TC, his 1965 Chevy Impala that survived the “Great Firetruck Pedal Car Incident of 1969”. But today I’d like to introduce you to my father’s other beloved – Morris the Truck.

I can’t remember what color the truck was originally, but I remember him pulling up in the driveway with its new paint job – Meadow Gold Milk (or was it Melody Farms?) truck colors – ivory and rust.

At the time the city required the truck have dad’s name the city on the side even though it was for personal use, it was classified as a business mode of transportation. That was how “Leo Juppe, Waukegan, IL” appeared on the sides.

Being a cousin once removed from the MG, she purred when you turned over the motor like the treasured first child.  Morris also gave you the need to race like the MG. Yet, I could see this little truck cresting hills in European farmlands – England, Ireland, Scotland – even Sweden or Italy to make deliveries. It was a truck and trucks have work to do!

Morris was with our family for a few years and one day he pulled out the drive, his new and younger owner Gregg at the wheel. It was the last time I set eyes on it until last week.

Last week, I pulled out some papers from a manila envelope labeled “Morris the truck”. It was a 2015 email from Gregg telling my dad about the adventures of Morris since leaving Hickory Street. Morris stayed in many garages, drove to college and back, lived in Florida and Highland Park until the time of the email, where Gregg picked the car up and brought it Washington State where it has begun a slow restoration process. Gregg included pictures, many of car parts, but the one that caught my attention was the one where a very tired Morris was sitting in the driveway of his new home – my dad’s paint job and name still visible!

I was so touched at seeing Morris again (after all, wasn’t he just another sibling like the MG?) that I wrote to Gregg to tell him of my dad’s passing and how touched I was to read his email and see the pictures. He wrote back and after expressing his condolences, he promised to keep me posted on Morris’ progress. I look forward to it.

Now, if only I could find pictures of Dad’s Cortina and track that one down!

Photo by Gregg

For the past month, my local siblings and I have been helping my stepmom go through my dad’s things. There have been moments of laughter and tears when recalling stories attached to these. They have also brought comfort.

On Sunday as I walked through the garage to get more boxes, there, on his workbench – untouched for several years when the carpal tunnel and Parkinson’s stole his ability to tinker his heart out, sat his favorite baseball cap. It stood as a reminder that he was watching over his domain – a greeting when one entered his self-proclaimed man cave.

Many of you will recognize the logo – The Lake County Atoms Ice Hockey Team.  Their motto was “Kids on ice stay out of hot water”.  How true it was and still is. So many of these young men are now married and have families of their own with rewarding careers.  That also brings me a great sense of pride for all of them and their families

Like most organized sports, family plays a big part. It does take a team of parents to get the players to practices, games, and tournaments. If the parent couldn’t do it because of work or other conflicts, grandparents often filled in. It was a multi-generational commitment.

Both of my son’s grandfathers loved coming to the games. And by this dusty, worn and faded cap, my dad cherished those days for years afterwards.

As I uncovered more of my dad’s life story, I’ll be sharing them with you.