Category Archives: Family

Sledding of Yore

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Today would have been a good day for sledding down small hills here in the suburbs: a coating of snow is on the ground, with temps up, just around freezing. Also, the sun was out.

We didn’t do any sledding. On a similar day in February 2013 — except from the look of the pictures, it was overcast — the I took Lilly (15) and Ann (10) out to go sledding at a slope that’s part of a unnamed patch of land that’s part of a catchment.

Off to the slope, through a small playground familiar to both of them.Lilly and Ann 2013

Up the slope.

Getting ready.

Even though they both had sleds, cheapo plastic ones that are still hanging in the garage, apparently they wanted to slide down together sometimes. An action shot, somewhat blurry.

I don’t remember for absolute sure, but I’d say they had a good time. The stuff of youth without being attached to a particular exact month and year, unless dad was around trying to get his mind off the cold by taking pictures.

Ann at Nineteen

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Ann was home for the weekend, getting a ride up on Friday with someone she knows at school, returning with me on Sunday. That’s an advantage of school being only about two hours away. The occasion, her birthday.

On Saturday, we took her to a delightful Korean barbecue restaurant called Koreana. The sort of place where you cook your meat at your table.KoreanaKoreana

Later at home — a few hours later, since a place like Koreana fills you right up — we had dark chocolate birthday pie.birthday pie birthday pie

Nineteen times around the Sun for Ann.

Honey Bee Beads By Ann

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Over the holidays, Ann set up her own microbusiness selling necklaces on Etsy, Honey Bee Beads By Ann. It’s an outgrowth of a hobby of hers, putting together necklaces from beads and charms.

While we were in downtown Bloomington on Sunday, we had a look around a resale shop called 2 FruGALS Thrift, which is in the 400 block of Main Street. That’s how the name of the shop is styled, with a cartoon image on the window outside depicting two women whom I assume are the two gals who own the place. One of the gals, clearly recognizable from the cartoon, was behind the counter when we visited.

It’s nice shop.2 FruGALS Thrift

For sale, a buddha. I didn’t buy the buddha, or rather the buddharupa, even though the price wasn’t bad. The Wisconsin Buddha is still in our back yard.2 FruGALS Thrift

Ann went looking for beads and other raw materials for her hobby, and found some items, which I bought for her as my support for an Etsy craftswoman.

Tannenbaum ’21

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We acquired a tree on Saturday at the same lot we’ve visited for a few years now. Prices were indeed higher this year, as has been reported. Seems that fewer trees have been planted since the late 2000s recession, and the cost of transporting them is up this year as well.

Got one anyway. A little smaller than most years, but not bad. I set it up and put on the lights.Christmas Tree 2021

The girls put most of the rest of the ornaments on. They learned the everything-here-and-there on the tree approach to Christmas decorations from me, as I learned it from my mother and brothers.Christmas Tree 2021

The result, with the room lights off.Christmas Tree 2021

All together, it only took a couple of hours to get the tree, set it up and decorate it. Much faster than last year. The whole process happened in between dinner, which was take out Japanese food, and a movie we watched together later in the evening, which was The Princess Bride. None of those things ever gets old.

Sushi Night

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Everyone’s in town. The evening we had sushi at a place we’ve been to before. The place makes especially good sushi, we all agree. My own favorite is their unagi (eel).Daughters

What’s sushi for if not to dig in? The piece in the chopsticks is in fact unagi.sushi yum

On the way home, we drove to the lights that Elk Grove Village displays near some of its municipal buildings.Elk Grove Village Xmas Lights

Mostly my camera isn’t much for taking night shots — or more probably, I don’t know how to set it — but I like that one.

In the Dustbin of Entertainment History

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A few weeks ago, I oversaw the Great VHS Purge. Tapes unused for years were either donated to a resale shop — I still see them for sale there, so someone must buy and use them — or thrown away, in the case of those I was sure no one would want. Home recorded stuff, mainly.

A few tapes survived the purge, mainly because they were not in the main stash, formerly in a cabinet in the laundry room. I found one today, tucked away elsewhere: Bugs Bunny’s Greatest Hits, a 38-minute tape with a copyright date of 1990.

Stuck on the body of the cassette is a yellow sticker that says:

Please rewind or pay rewind fee of $2.00. Blockbuster Video.

That tells me that I bought the tape used at a Blockbuster at some forgotten moment in the very late 20th century or very early 21st. It also reminds me why exactly no one, except maybe stockholders, mourned the passing of Blockbuster Video and its ilk.

Sue and Ken, 1960

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I was moving a random collection of maps — the only kind I have — from one place to another in my house the other day, and this photo dropped out of the folds of one of them.

An unretouched image of Aunt Sue and Uncle Ken, with their Mercedes-Benz 190D. According to the writing on the back, taken in South Dakota, where they lived at the time. The time being November 7, 1960, also written on the back.

I found the picture in San Antonio a few years ago, tucked among others my mother had, and decided to take it home for scanning. Then it vanished. I assumed I misplaced it at my mother’s house, but instead it hitched a ride among some maps I must have brought back.

The 190D was sold from 1958 to 1961. What they went through to bring one to South Dakota, I don’t know.

The date also fascinates. Exactly one day before the 1960 election. The next day Nixon carried South Dakota handily, 55.4% to 44.5%, but I have no doubt they voted for Kennedy, and we know how the larger election turned out. But all that was still in the future for them at the moment.

Illinois Wesleyan University

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College campuses, at least when the weather is temperate, have a lot to recommend them as walking destinations. Green space with expansive trees, good-looking or at least interesting buildings, the possibility of public art, inexpensive museums sometimes, a youthful vibe but also historical tidbits, and overall no admission charge.

And the certain knowledge that you (I) don’t have to show up for class, finish assigned reading or write papers. That’s all done.

Illinois Wesleyan UniversityBefore we dropped Ann off at her dorm on Sunday and returned home, we all took a stroll through Illinois Wesleyan University, which is in Bloomington, though not to far south of ISU. I’m glad to report that its motto is still in Latin.

Even better, I knew what it meant without looking it up because of the long-ago Latin teaching efforts of Mrs. Quarles and Dr. Nabors. But I have to say that even a little knowledge of the etymologies of the English words “science” and “sapient” would be enough to guess “knowledge” and “wisdom.”

Illinois Wesleyan, which as far as I can tell is only tenuously connected to the Methodist church, is pleasantly green though not quite the arboretum that is ISU.Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois Wesleyan University

A good many buildings were newer-looking than I expected for a college founded in 1850.Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois Wesleyan University

But not all of them.
Illinois Wesleyan University

There was a scattering of artwork, such as “Aspiration” by Giles Rayner (2015), a British artist specializing in water sculpture.Illinois Wesleyan University

For whatever reason, no water flowed when I was there. It would have been cooler, literally and figuratively, had it been.

Elsewhere is “Family With Dog” by Boaz Vaadia (also 2015), a Brooklyn-based artist.Illinois Wesleyan University
Illinois Wesleyan University

That second picture is my own composition, “Daughter With Dog With Family With Dog” (2021).

October Present & Past

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Summer is lingering late this year. Sunny and in the mid-80s F. today.

Spent some time on the deck this evening, after dark, listening to the crickets — and the traffic. Looking at Jupiter and a waxing crescent Moon. Marveling at how not-cold or even cool it is. Warm enough, at least during the first few hours after dark, to sit around comfortably in a t-shirt. (One I bought in North Pole, Alaska, featuring the outline of a moose.)

Most the foliage is still green, though the honey locusts along the streets are yellow. But not the one in my back yard. Maybe it’s the carbon monoxide. The grass is still green too. I mowed the back yard just before sunset today. Last time this year, I hope.

Previous Octobers have sometimes been more October-like. Sometimes not. A picture from October 2006.

One thing I don’t do any more: visit places to entertain small children. They have grown, and usually entertain themselves, as it should be.

Lone Star ’71

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My brother Jay took this picture of me in the back yard in San Antonio, as I displayed a bit of regional pride. I have no memory of it, but it was about 50 years ago. This is the unretouched image.

This is a bit retouched, using the simple program I have on my laptop. It will never be a great image, but then again not bad for one taken with an Instamatic 104, the print of which has been sitting in a photo album for decades.

A monochromic version, which has its interests.

One more, using one of the buttons that comes with photo editing system. I played around with it until I found one I liked.

A nearby photo processing shop, Fox Photo, developed the film, and at that time always put the month and year on the edge, along with its red fox mascot. JUN 71 it says, but that doesn’t mean the photo was taken then.

I have another photo from the same batch taken at my grandmother’s house. That one had to have been taken before she died, which was in January 1971. So maybe the back yard image is from the same summer, I assume 1970. On the other hand, the camera could have easily taken pictures on the same roll of 24 or 36 images both summers. We didn’t take a lot of pictures, and sometimes the camera would sit around for a long time before a roll was used up.

Anyway, ca. 1971 is close enough. A nice, round 50 years. It occurs to me looking at my much younger self that a lot can happen to a fellow over that many years.