Back to the Future

My parents weathered the destruction by tornado of two different homes in the same town—Ankeny, Iowa—17 years apart. After the second tornado in 1990, with us kids all moved away and Dad in failing health, they packed it in and moved back to their hometown of Sibley, Iowa, attracted not only by the prospect of living near one of their children (my oldest sister Lois and her husband John) but by the slower pace of life. Sibley is a county seat town of about 3,000 in the far northwest corner of the state near the Minnesota border. All four Wissink kids—Lois, Jay, me (Bonnie), and Pam—were born there, and the town has changed little over the years. Dad died about five years after they moved back.

The Wissink sisters--Bonnie, Lois, Pam--enjoy a laugh with Mom
(September 2010)

My now nearly-88-year-old mother, fondly known to her descendants as Grandma Neva, lives in relative independence a few blocks from Lois and John, but though she still drives her ’91 Buick Park Avenue (only 80,000 miles on the odometer) for groceries and bridge, it takes a lot to entice her to leave town these days. Such as Skippy peanut butter being on sale for 99 cents at the Hy-Vee in Sheldon, or getting a hankering for a Perkins breakfast (in neighboring Worthington, Minnesota). Though she’s no longer up for the 500-mile trip to visit me in the Chicago area, I get to experience a little slice of vanishing rural America whenever I visit her.

Mom’s rented duplex is well-located with views of the municipal golf course, but even more conveniently sits just around the corner from the First Reformed Church. As we pulled into her driveway at precisely 3:00 p.m. on a recent Saturday afternoon, the church bells were chiming a hymn: “I Love to Tell the Story.”

“My goodness, Mom, that’s loud! How often does the church play the chimes? Doesn’t that bother anyone?” I asked her.

“Oh, no, we just got the chimes fixed and they play different hymns every hour,” she boasted. “I hardly even hear them.”

Mom has a big old radio tuned to the local station, where each morning she blasts the news report consisting of births, deaths, and hospital admissions and releases. On Wednesdays she plays Five Hundred at the Senior Center, where, she dispassionately reports, it’s harder and harder to get two tables together, what with various seniors’ ailments and some recent deaths.

But Mom’s great passion is playing bridge; she’s convinced that game alone is responsible for keeping her mind sharp. One of her two bridge groups recently acquired a new member, who is apparently having a little trouble gaining acceptance—especially with 92-year-old bridge whiz Zeda Thely—because “she’s not a very good player.” If someone leads the wrong suit or trumps inappropriately, Zeda leads the charge in pointing out their error, but Mom retorts with her still-sharp tongue, “Everyone makes mistakes—even you, Zeda!” They serve one another tried-and-true recipes from the church cookbook: peanut butter bars, rhubarb dessert, or that always-popular delicacy, Jell-o cake with Cool Whip. They play for pennies and nickels, and when I call Mom after one of her five-hour sessions, she gleefully reports what her take for the afternoon was: “I made 85 cents today!”

Each Tuesday morning Mom’s sewing group made up of her elderly cronies, the Chickadees—a moniker the group apparently relishes as it was affectionately bestowed by the church’s pastor—gathers at the church to sew quilts for the homeless, gossip, eat donuts and drink weak Folger's coffee. On Friday mornings, many members of the group reassemble to fold and compile the church’s Sunday bulletin with all its various inserts.

I hope that if and when I get to my ninth decade of life, I can enjoy a similar happy, healthy and peaceful lifestyle, with plenty of friends and family nearby. But hymns chimed every hour, world without end? I suppose if my hearing gets as bad as Mom’s, I could even tolerate that.

Over the Bounding Main

May 2010: A Groupon offer came to my email in-box for a 2½-hour chartered sail on Lake Michigan before mid-September, half price. Ten-day advance reservations required.

Picture in my head: A breathtaking Saturday morning, light winds, skimming along in the sunshine as we admire the view of the Chicago skyline sipping bloody Marys.

Call to my good friend Pat: Yes, yes, let’s the four of us do that! Purchase completed. In mid-August we finally decided we’d better get our outing on the calendar, and found that luckily, we were able to get reservations just under the wire.

Reality, The Short Story: We sailed in a drenching downpour with poor visibility and mildly pitching waves as I dry heaved first over the boat rail, then below in the marine head, sick as a dog.

Reality, The Long Story:
All week prior to our sail we watched the weather forecast. Saturday didn’t look promising, with cool temperatures and scattered thunderstorms predicted. We’d been told that we’d get a phone call if the weather precluded sailing, but that probably wouldn’t be decided until just before our scheduled departure. Curt and I held out high hopes that the Heine Effect would once again save the day.

Allow me to explain. Our friends Pat and Carl Heine are the quintessential optimists. Not only do they maintain a positive outlook, but good things seem to come to them. We went on a cruise with them once, and apparently legions of whales were jumping out of the water performing a ballet for Pat and Carl, as Curt and I lollygagged in chaise lounges on the other side of the boat. I believe that’s the same trip that they witnessed a spectacular Aurora Borealis display the night Curt and I turned in early. The year Pat and Carl went canoeing in the Boundary Waters, northern Minnesota logged a record warm and sunny fall—and apparently all the mosquitoes had already died. It’s little wonder that Curt and I are delighted to plan outings with them.

Saturday morning dawned cold, cloudy and rainy, just as predicted, but according to the weather tracker app on Carl’s Droid, the front was passing. We dressed in layers, and Pat had brought heavy-duty raincoats. After a stop at Starbucks we got ourselves to the harbor where we crowded under trees in a downpour waiting for our captain.

“Look how beautiful these acorns look dripping with rain,” Pat observed. “My new shoes are so comfortable,” Carl offered. “Aren’t all these boats magnificent?”

Captain Mike appeared, greeted us and reported that after quite some discussion with the charter company’s owner, the sail was still a go. We soddenly trod down the pier and boarded, but found the seats all drenched; undaunted, we went belowdecks to wait it out a bit longer. As Mike went up to towel off the seats, Curt popped the cork on the champagne (no bloody Marys allowed because of the potentially staining tomato juice) and the four of us sat dripping and shivering in our rain gear as we raised our glasses: “Here’s to sailing in the rain!”

Just before disembarking--don't we look as though we had the time of our lives?

Before long it seemed to let up so we hit the deck and set off. Choppy water threw us around a bit before passing through the breakwater, but Captain Mike assured us that was always the worst part. As he raised the sails, the rain started down again in buckets. Out we sailed, no other boats in sight. Soon we even lost sight of the Chicago skyline in the mist. The lake remained choppy and the boat rolled in the waves. I could feel water running down my abdomen, despite my hooded raincoat. We chatted about Mike’s years as a sailor, other trips we’d taken, and life in general as we adjusted and readjusted our hoods. We sat on plastic and covered our legs with more plastic, dumping off the water as it puddled around us.

I started to think I felt a little “off,” because I had only had coffee (and champagne) for breakfast. Before long I was at the rail, dry heaving with seasickness. Curt had had enough of being thoroughly drenched (he wasn’t wearing one of Pat’s raincoats), so he went inside; on wobbly legs I pitched myself down the stairs, too, making for the marine head for some follow-up retching. Pat and Carl stayed above with the captain, and I’m pretty sure I heard them remark about how the wonderful rain moisturizes and replenishes one’s complexion.

Not soon enough for me, Captain Mike pulled in the sails and turned on the motor, and as my life passed before my eyes, every ounce of my being wished the trip to be over. As soon as we pulled up to the dock, my equilibrium returned and like magic, I felt just fine.

And guess what? All things considered, we really did have a great time. I guess the Heine Effect was at work after all, but it’s not that everything is always perfect wherever they go. It’s that it’s always enjoyable to be around positive people. There’s still a ways to go before we can call it the Welsh Effect, but we’re working on it.

Return to the Scene

Labor Day weekends the past few years have offered the opportunity to visit my mom in Sibley, Iowa, due to generally agreeable weather and an extra day for the 1,000-mile round trip. Curt and I just returned from this year’s pleasant and uneventful trip to the town where I was born and lived my first nine years.

Flash back to Labor Day Weekend, 2009: My daughters and grandkids drove with me for the visit to Grandma Neva and Aunt Lois and Uncle John. The women decided to take the kids to the Sibley City Park, where to my delight the two imposing metal slides from my childhood are still providing thrills. There’s the big slide—the two-humper—and its little sister, the one-humper.

As we sat on a park bench watching the kids play, my daughter questioned the wisdom of leaving these slides in place to endanger life and limb, especially in view of the fact that most of the other unsafe equipment had been removed: the big metal jungle gym and monkey bars, where I chipped my new front tooth at age 6; the trapeze bars with the benches you could push as far apart as you dared leap; the whirling merry-go-round that rose high and low as you ran along beside it. I sniffed that I had grown up playing in this park, and did not recall a single incident of anyone being injured.

Right about then, my grandson Will called to me to remove a suspicious mass at the top of the little slide (which, I might add, is “little” only in relation to the giant towering next to it). After climbing to the top and wiping off what turned out to be bird poop, I observed that indeed, the slide did appear wide enough to accommodate a posterior of roughly my dimensions, and sliding on down just seemed like the right thing to do.

Let me just say I knew I was in trouble the moment I started down, because I was FLYING and I knew I had to land on my feet at the bottom and run. But there was loose gravel at the bottom; my feet flew out in front of me and I reached down to brace myself. Then I was on my butt, looking up sheepishly at my “empathetic” elderly mother and big sister and daughters, all with tears of laughter streaming down their faces. I wanted to laugh, too, because I was pretty sure I’d made an ass of myself, but I really wanted to cry. Dear Mom suggested a sign should be placed nearby: “No one over 12 admitted.”

An hour later I was in the emergency room of the county hospital. I had to wear the cast for six long weeks. At least, though, when asked what happened, I didn’t have to say something lame like “carpal tunnel surgery.” No one expected a woman in her mid-50s to answer: “I broke my wrist going down a playground slide.”

A return to the scene: more deadly than it looks

On this year’s trip to the Sibley Park, no one expected me to be daring enough (or dumb enough) to chance a re-enactment of last year’s escapade. I warned my sister Pam that it was dangerous but she actually chanced the two-humper, while I stared down my nemesis, the killer one-humper. Oh, well, there were still no warning signs posted.

Pam on the two-humper (much the more impressive of the two, I admit)

Culture Infusion

The author in front of the museum

There must have been a small pile of parts left over the day I was created. That’s the only way I’ve ever been able to explain the glaring lack of an artist’s bone in my body. It’s long been apparent to me that some other lucky person on the September 1953 baby production line got mine, and I was stuck with a double measure of pragmatist bones.

Please understand, anyone who got the extra artist’s bone: I know that art appreciation can be learned. I took a class or two in college and enjoyed them. The information just didn’t stick. So while I fear being branded an artistic dimwit, I confess that I like my art to look like what it is supposed to represent. And I like it done with finesse and attention to detail, please.

A Picasso (yes, I got in trouble for using a flash)

Such were my musings today as Curt and I strolled the galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago. We started with the easier stuff: the great masters of the 18th century. I marveled at the attention to detail, the realistic portrayals. In my gradebook, nothing earns a painting an A+ faster than intricately painted lace cuffs and perfectly rendered coils of hair. I could be heard musing admiringly, “It looks almost like a photograph!” Realism does have its drawbacks, however. It was difficult for me to imagine a practical way to display, for example, a finely and intricately wrought painting of a guillotined head by Gèricault. My best guess is that a true artist doesn’t worry about such mundanities as where it will look best in the living room.

Then we moved on to the Impressionists. Things started going a little haywire for me here, because while Monet and his ilk are widely admired for their pioneering methods, Monet’s works failed to excite in me a fervor for the nuances of finely stacked hay in various lighting situations. The subject is realistic enough for someone of my mindset; it’s just the lack of details in the execution that puts me off. 

The Lipchitzes: Is this how you'd want to be memorialized for all time?

We finally made our way to the highly lauded new modern wing of the museum, housing contemporary art, which opened just over a year ago. We could appreciate the merits of many of the pieces, though others completely befuddled us. The Picassos are interesting for their bizarre composition; other pieces simply caused me to scratch my head. One enormous piece, probably 10 by 16 feet, was all black with some plaster texturing in places on the canvas. And there was Modigliani’s portrait of a Mr. and Mrs. Lipchitz (pictured). How P-O'd would you be when the artist showed you this finished portrait and handed you his bill for services rendered?

"Venus de Milo with Drawers" by Salvador Dali

While I don’t have a framed poster of dogs playing poker in my home, I actually kind of get why people are drawn to that type of art. But lest my readers think me a hopeless reverse art snob, let the record show that right this minute I am looking at an abstract Picasso print on my office wall, which I like very much. It complements the stickers-on-construction-paper composition of moons, planets and spaceships created especially for Grandpa by our grandson Will, hanging on the opposite wall. I know which of the two speaks to me more.

But I know you’d love our black velvet Jimi Hendrix portrait. Now that’s great art.

Making Memories: Family Vacation

Three days stretched interminably when I was ill at home with Curt out of town a couple of years ago. Perversely, three days pass awfully quickly when you’re having a great time.

The Welsh Waterpark Wingding 2010 may, by popular acclaim, become an annual affair. Sure, the Wisconsin Dells have a certain reputation for middle-American cheesiness, but it’s hard to imagine a better combination of attractions to appeal to all ages.

Cousins Will and Autumn with the Wilderness Moose

Our first day, Angie and Christina and I agreed that people who don’t like waterparks are just plain nuts. What’s not to like? Kids large and small being entertained for hours with plenty of energy-exhausting activity and no complaints of boredom. Riding the waves on tubes. Mini-golfing. Underwater breath-holding contests. Grandma Bonnie’s accidental mooning of unwitting Lazy River patrons (note to self: wear one-piece swimsuit next time). And no, we didn't get a picture of that. Margaritas and rum punches and virgin piña coladas sipped under a giant umbrella. Reading magazines in the sunshine. Adults acting like kids, going down slides and jumping in pools and floating.

Christina, Angie and Catie waiting for the waves

I had to explain to Jack and Autumn that my enthusiastic screaming on my way down the slides was not coming from fear, but exuberance and excitement. Christina is about as bad as I am in that department. Our three-year-old Catie, though, didn’t emit a peep, other than afterward: “That was SO MUCH FUN! I didn’t scream.”

Due to a seating shortage, Jack made himself a couch out of barstools

And then there were the small, unanticipated things we got to enjoy just because we were spending time together. Sitting around in our pj’s sipping coffee in the mornings, discussing topics great and small. Curt cooking his famous cheesy eggs and frying up the pig meat. Placing bets on which U.S. city’s population is fourth largest, and which is the largest city in the world. Dominoes tournaments. The kids drinking milk through chocolate straws. The whoopee cushion Jack and Autumn “won” at the arcade. Uncle Dave’s teasing of 11-year-old Autumn about potential marriage to a Jonas brother, and of 13-year-old Jack about his secret admiration of Garth Brooks.

The mini-golf course is a fearsome place

Five-year-old Will had a little trouble saying goodbye on the morning of our departure: “Dad, can we please just stay one more day?” Then, “Please just two more hours?” and “How about one more hour?” When that didn’t work, “Can we go to Grandpa and Grandma’s house?”

I felt exactly the same, Buddy. Next year, maybe we can make it a whole week.

It’s No Tropical Island, But ...

... when your adult children invite you to go on vacation with them, it doesn't need to be anywhere exotic.

Where to go, then? When our middle daughter Angie proposed the idea earlier this summer, we spent a couple of weeks trying to decide. She and her family live in Des Moines, Iowa; the rest of the family live in and around Chicago. Our top five priorities were:
1) inexpensive,
2) sun,
3) water,
4) family fun, and
5) inexpensive.

Various destinations were considered and rejected: Orlando, been there; Mexico, no passports for the kids; a lake resort in the Midwest within driving distance for everyone, all sold out; everything else, too expensive. Taking another look at numbers 1 and 5 on our Top Five list, the Wisconsin Dells came under consideration, chiefly because of the drivability. Tightwad that I am, I checked eBay. Bingo! A four-day, three-night vacation at a great price, waterpark passes included.

I’ve long been a fan of waterslides, wave pools and such. Put me in a tube (not a tube TOP, thanks anyway) and plop me on the Lazy River ride on a sunny summer day, and I’m good for hours. By all appearances, our daughters and grandchildren have inherited this affinity. Waterparks offer the perfect combination of frenzied activity and inertia—a definite winner for kids, energetic adults and those of the lazier persuasion.

We leave tomorrow, and the nine of us—Curt and I, youngest daughter Christina, 13- and 11-year-old grandkids Jack and Autumn (they belong to oldest daughter Kim, who can’t join us), Angie with husband Dave and their 5- and 3-year-olds Will and Catie—will all be sharing a 3-bedroom condo with full kitchen. Angie and Christina are in charge of meals and snacks, no easy task as there are vegetarians, a gluten-free eater, some picky eaters as well as some unabashed carnivores among us. Angie’s already prepared the monster bars, brownies, trail mix, and by popular request, purchased the Anderson-Erickson French Onion Dip. (If you’re not from Iowa, you must add this to your bucket list. Trust me.) So far, Christina (the single, city girl) is signed up for bringing the Truvia (non-caloric sweetener) packets.

As intelligent as our offspring are (no prejudice there at all), I suspect they exploit their knowledge of our eagerness to spend time with them to their financial advantage. The fact is, I don’t even care. I know we’ll be rewarded with endless laughter (I’m telling you, these kids crack us up), hours of great conversation, and (warning: sappy sentiment approaching) memories to last a lifetime. How can one put a price on that? Dominoes, hikes around the lake, snacking, maybe a movie or two, and undoubtedly some popping of wine corks after the grandkids are in bed will round out our activities.

I’m just hoping that my eBay purchase proves to be all it was represented to be. If there’s any trouble, I’ll have to up the ante or the kids might decide to vacation without Mom and Dad next year. St. Louis? Cleveland? Peoria? Somehow I don’t think those options will pass muster. Better tell them to get their passports in order, just in case. Priorities Number 1 and 5 be damned.

Life Management 101

Who’s to say when a person’s behavior crosses the line between normal and peculiar? It’s a very thin line, in my book. Label others’ methods of dealing with life’s irksome little challenges “quirky,” if you will, but I prefer the term “resourceful.”

Some people, I’m told, perform their daily grooming routine in a particular, inflexible order, allowing the peace of mind that comes from knowing they never leave the house (unless interrupted mid-ritual) without flossing or deodorizing. Others hang their underclothes on doorknobs and chair backs throughout the house to air-dry after removal from the washing machine, saving the trouble of buying and setting up a drying rack. Still others count the number of steps it takes to walk from a remote parking lot to a building, so that they can accurately estimate the distance they’ve covered (just let me know if you want more details about how that works).

So why would anyone find my Clothing Management System to be peculiar? I myself find it remarkable that most people don’t even have a Clothing Management System. For the past, oh, 20 years or so, I’ve kept a log of what I wear to work each day. And I find it to be quite logical, reasonable and advantageous, thank you very much.

My extremely low-tech but effective method requires only a yellow legal pad and a pencil with an eraser, kept handy in the nightstand drawer. Each season I transfer the previous year’s list of options to a fresh sheet, omitting those I no longer want to wear. After each shopping trip I fill additional lines on the sheet. Every night before bed I look over the list and choose the next day’s outfit, marking a date next to it. If I change my mind, no problem—that’s what erasers are for. I’m freed from: a) standing in my closet each morning blankly staring at rows of clothes; b) running the risk of repeating an outfit I’ve recently worn; and c) leaving a perfectly good article of clothing languishing forgotten at the back of the closet.

“Someone’s cheese has slid off her cracker,” I see emanating from a thought bubble out of the tops of my friends’ heads when I’ve attempted to convey the many merits of my system. They shake their heads pityingly, smile uncomfortably and change the subject. Despite the system’s obvious advantages, I’m not aware of a single convert over these many years. I’m left to conclude that, on the list of problems to be solved, apparel management is way down there for most people.

But just think about it: If ever a crime were committed in which the eyewitnesses described the perpetrator as a tall, middle-aged, brown-haired woman wearing a light blue blouse and black skirt, could you whip out your Clothing Management System and prove incontrovertibly to the investigators that, AHA! You were wearing the taupe cable cardigan that day? No, YOU could not. But I could!

And of course, one could always buy a pedometer instead of counting one’s steps from the parking lot, but how resourceful would that be? It wouldn’t be, that’s how.