The Longest Holiday of our Lives

 "Know what kind of bird doesn't need a comb?" I ask.

Liz looks over at me, smiles and says, "No."

"A bald eagle."  Her reaction reminds me of  a mourning bird choking on a worm.

We are stretched out on the pontoon boat's front cushions, staring up into a collection of hickory trees, their branches gently swaying in the early May wind.  It is unusually warm, with the temperature around 72 degrees.  Nice during the day, cool in the evening and mornings.  Just the way I like it.

We've beached Muddy Waters on a favorite sandbar in Running Slough, just off the main channel of the Mississippi River, where last year we watched and listened to Baltimore Orioles, as they flew from tree to tree.  Today, we haven't seen any, and there's a good chance they haven't quite made it this far north, although Liz seems to think they're here.  

"Are you ready for more of this?" I ask.

Liz kicks off her shoes, wiggling her toes in the warm breeze.  "Do you mean boating?  Or did you have something else in mind?"  A smile lights up her face, and she says,"Of course!  But are you sure we can afford it?"  It's like this every time the stock market dumps three or four hundred points.  

"Yes, I'm sure."    

At times like this -- lying on the boat, eating a Jimmy John's sub, and sipping a Sprite -- I don't see how  life could get much better.  Ok - unless there were other people with us doing the same thing.   It's just the best.  

Staring into the sky has always mades me philosophical.  It did when I was a kid swinging so high that I felt I could touch the sky.  It did when my friends and I would hike up Grand Dad's Buff and eat our lunches, then find shapes in clouds as they passed overhead.  And it does now, laying in the boat, forgetting about another bad day at work.

I remember from college the goal of philosophy is to get closer to the truth, or something like that.  I also know philosophers like to argue, not in a bad way, but as a way to get closer to the truth, which is always evolving.   

It's the yin and the yang of Chinese philosophy -- one must contemplate the complementary forces that make up all aspects and phenomena of life.  In other words, despite telling Liz we can afford it, there is always a little doubt in my mind. 

Thank God not everything is so complicated!  Like these truths:

The Bears will always suck.

Government will always spend more than it has.

Money can't buy happiness (at least that's what I tell Liz when we don't win the lottery).

And people who retire always say they wish they had done it sooner.

It's time.

*     *      *     *     *

It's time to retire.

I still have trouble saying that, because I always thought I'd feel old and tired when the time came to call it quits.  Maybe that's the problem -- retirement has always signaled the end of the road.  Reaching the top of the mountain, or watching the sun set beneath the horizon.

But I will say retirement has changed over the years.  My business demographics have changed over the last ten years, as more and more people retire.  I am now helping more people with Medicare and retirement planning than anything else I do.

A few statistics:

The normal retirement age in the US is 66.  Only in the Netherlands is it older.  66.6. It must be all those taxes.

A 65 year-olds life expectancy after retirement was almost 14 years in 1940; by 2023, it will be more than 20 years.

According to a 2023 Bank of America study, a woman's average 401(k) balance is just $59,000, whereas a man's average 401(k) balance is $89,000.  Must be all those Taylor Swift concerts women are going to.

In 2023, the average monthly social security benefit for retired workers was $1,874.

In 2023, an average of 67 million Americans received social security benefits each month.

More than half of workers (59%) plan to work in retirement.

According to wording in a 2022 Survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, approximately half of retirees reported spending less than $2,000 a month.

Sobering statistics, to say the least.

Among my friends, I am late to the game.  One of my high school friends retired before Covid hit, and another retired almost a year ago.  In my family, I have a younger sister already retired, a brother who kind of works in retirement for the Federal government and my oldest sister is going to retire this month.  Our international students  have parents that are retired and travel to the United States.  Other high school friends are retired and are traveling or fishing.  I play basketball against guys who have been retired for five years or more.  Unexplained to me is why so many of them gravitate to pickle ball, ..

One of the biggest pieces of advice friends give me is to have something to do.  I've studied them closely, and about the only thing they do is more work.  Working every other weekend doesn't sound like retirement.  Consulting on audits, while part time, still sounds like work.  Projects around the house, including sheds, farming and new garages also sound suspiciously like work.

Even my beloved wife is thinking about making visits occasionally to clinics for other nurses who can't make the appointment due to other visit conflicts.

I plan to work on my tan, and becoming a better captain of our pontoon boat.

My friends are quick to tell me that they do all of these things because their spouses want them out of the house.  That I believe.  

Of course, it never hurts to have a little more money to spend.  For years I've tried to help people accumulate money for retirement.  During my lifetime, at least, the stock market has always gone up, so my advice has been good.  In terms of accumulation, my clients have all been very happy.

My confidence has taken a hit, however, as my advice has shifted from accumulation to distribution.  It's not that I've made bad recommendations or have sons and daughters come into my office telling me mom or dad are out of money.  It's just the realization that a lot of money is going out, and nothing new is coming in.  (Well, there are dividends and capital gains to be added, but with Sleepy Joe always looking to find new avenues of taxation, I'm always worried.)

So, money is always a topic of discussion when retirees get together, play cards and talk about life.

In the months leading up to our retirement, our plans for what to do in retirement have changed.  Like bellbottoms in the seventies, ideas like clothing, have a way of changing.  Some are simply out of reach, others have faced the harsh light of reality.  

We actually thought about something called the Great Loop -- traveling by boat down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, then over to Florida, then up the Intercostal Waterway to New England, before taking the St Lawrence Seaway into the Great Lakes and back to the Mississippi River by way of the Illinois River.  It can take years to finish, and it would provide stories of equal standing with Liz's brother who is currently spending his retirement biking cross county in Europe or hiking to Mount Everest  in Nepal.  But then reality kicked in and Liz decided spending a few years on a twenty-five foot tug might be a little cramped.  Not to mention it would be bad for her hair!

Then there was moving to Portugal, with its wonderful pastries, wine, fish and cheeses.  The problem?  The US's citizenship-based system requires all US citizens -- regardless of where in the world they live -- to file a federal US tax return.  In many cases, US expats living in Portugal are subject to Portuguese taxes, as well.  We don't enjoy paying taxes once, much less twice.  So life in Portugal has changed to a few weeks in Portugal.

So plans change.  I still plan to write more, including finishing a short story I started two years ago.  Some classes in photography will get me ready to take better pictures using my iPhone and Canon EOS when traveling to new destinations.

And best of all, we plan to visit some of our international students who have blessed our lives during the past 10 years.  We'll take them by continents, including Europe, Asia and Australia.  And spend enough time so we can explore other countries while we're there.

I may even find time to do some projects around the house.

Whatever Liz and I decide to do in retirement, we both agree it's time.  We're both looking forward to going to an event, regardless of what day or time it's held.  For years we've been wondering what it would be like to be on the river on a Tuesday morning.  The siren song of the Mississippi River is always calling...

I started when I was a young guy shoveling snow and cutting grass.  And worked at age 16 bagging groceries, while wishing I could date the checkout girl.  Liz, got started early by helping her dad at the Monroe Credit Bureau, walking to the County Courthouse to retrieve public records and answering phones for the bureau's phone service.  And the toll of being a nurse will wear anyone down after a while.

So cheers to the last fifty or more years!  It's been a wonderful trip and we've met people that changed our lives.  Hopefully we've done the same for them.

But it's time. 

*     *     *    *    *

The sun is setting on Target Lake as we slowly crawl our way back home, its fiery blast of orange and pinks reminding me of a dragon.  It's a shame nights like this have to end.  I've always believed that spending an evening on the river after a long day at work, has added years to our lives.  The troubles -- and associated stress -- that consumed our thoughts as we left the dock, have faded from memory like the setting sun.  The sounds of birds and the sight of jet steams scarring the evening sky are like a balm to a painful burn.

Life has been good, and I'm hoping to keep it going for the next twenty years or more.

"Oh hey, I have a bird joke for you," Liz says, leaning closer so I can hear her over the motor, churning muddy water behind us.  Her face is lit by the orange glow of the setting sun.  "What do you call a bird that kicks your butt?"

After a brief pause, she continues, "Steven Seagull."

I groan and think, maybe it's not such a good idea that we are retiring...

The Kids Are Not Alright

 

"I don't mind 
Other guys dancing with my girl
That's fine
I know them all pretty well.

But I know sometimes I must get out in the light
Better leave her behind
With the kids, they're alright
The kids are alright.

The kids are alright.

The kids are alright.

The Who from their their 1965 album, "My Generation."

I've always enjoyed The Who, and in particular Pete Townshend's lyrics.  Their songs had a harder edge to them than the Beatles and The Rolling Stones.  If you liked power chords, great drumming and "fighting" lyrics then you -- like me -- listened to The Who.     

Townshend's song "The Kids Are Alright" was about taking chances.  He admitted years later when he wrote the song, he was nothing but a kid, trying to figure out life through all the things going on.  He was practicing with his life -- like all rebellious youth -- taking chances in music, politics and marriage, not to mention drugs and booze.  There was almost nothing that he didn't risk trying. 

Like Pete Townshend, every generation has its own things to figure out.  The sixties were all about drugs, sex, war and authority.  It was a time of transformational change to society (sound familiar?)

Today, our kids (I'm referring to anyone under 30 years old) are messed up in ways that have me worrying about their future, not to mention my own.  Instead of learning basics in school, they are learning about equity, discrimination, COVID and their mental health is suffering.  BIG time.

Occasionally, they worry about Madonna's younger look, but quickly see the error of their ways.  Even this 65-year-old knows if you undergo a facelift, brow life and eyelid surgery, you might end up looking like Marilyn Manson. 

So how did society's youth go from being their own person -- and suspicious of government authority -- to embracing Big Brother and wanting everything to have the same outcome?  How did classes on community organizing and protesting inequality replace basic math and writing in high school?

 

It would be great if these harmful ideas would fade like bad acne, but today's students carry them into young adulthood and from school to the workplace.  Instead of outgrowing these misguided beliefs, they embrace them and like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," infect co-workers into supporting things like critical race theory, vaccine equity, drag shows and global warming hysteria.  Every year more and more of them graduate from college and join the ranks of newly employed woksters.

Instead of slapping these people into submission, the corporate world goes along -- they fear being cancelled by media critics or the Twitter-verse, and in some cases even agree with them.  Easy points can be earned by throwing a million dollars at Black Lives Matter or by allowing transgender spoke people sell their product.  COVID and global warming hysteria allowed companies to rake in millions more by working with government agencies promoting woke ideology.

But getting back to our young "skulls full of mush," (we miss you Rush).  Our children today are in trouble for many reasons, but primarily because of what they are being taught.  COVID shutdowns didn't help.

I think we've all heard reports coming out of our schools that students aren't leaning math, reading and science.  Here's proof of the damage done to our children when they shut the schools:

In 55 Chicago public schools, no students were reported proficient in either math or reading.  There were 22 schools who had no students who could read at grade level and another 33 schools claimed no students could perform math at grade level.  Statewide, there were 53 schools that reported no students proficient in math and another 30 schools reported zero students could read at grade level.

Kids starting Kindergarten are being taught how to understand their gender identities, as well as identify different kinds of family structures, including single-parent, grandparent-headed, multiracial and LGBTQ+.   First graders currently learn to to identify symbols and traditions associated with the USA, like the Pledge of Allegiance.  That is being scrapped in favor of leaning "how to work together."  Third graders discuss the "importance of affirming spaces."  Apparently those are safe places for people to express their identities."  Fourth graders will learn about the importance of the year 1619, while fifth graders get to study the rise of "queer culture.  And finally sixth graders are asked to "consider who is harmed by border policies and racism."  In seventh and eight grades, students will learn about the evils of "European colonizers,"  George Washington's "legacy as an enslaver," and the "rise of white supremacists."

Is there any doubt about how and why our children are not doing well?

I play basketball with a professor who missed a few games last year because he was at a treatment center with his young daughter who was suffering from depression and anxiety.  Today, when I ask him how she is doing, he says she is still struggling.  Is there any question as to why?  Children are being told the earth is doomed because of global warming, if they call America home, they live in a racist, sexist and unjust country, and social media force them to compare themselves to unrealistic standards.

Children in college aren't any different than middle and high school students -- only more adult and more radicalized.

I am an avid follower of "The College Fix" which is a conservative website devoted to improving campus media.  Its purpose is to support young people who are exploring a career in journalism.  So, every day there are stories on indoctrination, attacks on free society and messed up views on sex and gender.

Here is an example of what kids are being taught on campus.  It's insane:

"Susan Stryker, a male-to-female transgender professor at the University of Arizona, revealed the general thrust and tone of transgender education.  At a recent speech, he described his work as "a secular sermon that unabashedly advocates embracing a disruptive and refigurative genderqueer or transgender power as a spiritual resource for social and environmental transformation."   

Don't you love the gobbledygook these  people use?  After a while you just give up trying to follow along.

In a companion essay, he compares himself to the monster in Frankenstein.  "My transsexual body is a technological construction that represents a war against Western society.  I am a transexual, and therefore I am a monster", and destined to channel my "rage and revenge" against traditional family values and against the "hegemonic oppression" of nature itself.  I don't know what that means, but it sounds like he hates traditional families, like mine.

It's hard to see how this can end well.

Lately, colleges are making the news with students supporting Hamas/Palestinians and the war against Israel.  Protests -- the bedrock of so many well off, white female students today -- are growing and facing little pushback from college administrators or teacher unions.  It's the donors who threaten to pull their financial support that are driving arrests at Ivy league schools like Harvard, Columbia and Yale.  Not the administrators and professors who often times are camping out with the protesters.  

Sometimes I think these radicals and their students just miss the good old days of Vietnam and Martin Luther King protests.

But it is concerning that these college kids -- I can't call them adults -- find more value in protesting than they do learning something about a career that will put money on the table.  A future complaining about the injustices of life leaves little time for having a family, buying a house or working towards upward mobility.  Where do they think they will be ten, much less thirty, years from now when mommy and daddy are not paying the bills?  Where will America be in ten years?

Is it too late for kids today?  Are they destined for anti-depressant drugs and group therapy?  Probably.  I don't see how you can change someone's views on Israel if ground zero is "death to Israel," "death to America!"

So, I'm pretty certain we've lost the kids already in school and going into the work force.  If you can't even get them out of their safe spaces, how are you going to change anything?  Climate change?  Transgendered sports?  Gay marriage?  Racism?  Black Lives Matter?  All off the table.  Want to see their eyes roll back into their heads?  Mention Donald Trump and -- unless you're wearing a garbage bag for protection -- get out of the way.

And as they grow older and try to reconcile their views with reality, I think a lot of people are going to be paying huge sums to psychologists and psychiatrists.  What a future -- no wonder they are depressed.

People have argued that we shouldn't send our kids to public schools anymore.  Keeping them home and sending them to technical schools where students actually learn how things work have been suggested.    Notice how technical schools never make the news with protests and blocking streets or cancelling speakers?  Isn't it amazing how learning how to replace a carburetor doesn't lead to gender confusion?  Or providing nursing care to someone in need focuses your attention on the illness, not their skin color.

So where do we go from here?   Whatever we do to change its course, I know this much.  It's going to take time.  There's NO quick fix to what is wrong with our youth.

As mentioned earlier, an emphasis on jobs, not a 4 year women's study degree seems to be a good start.  Not only does it address bigger issues like the lack of plumbers, welders and electricians, but it also keeps a lot of the anti-American rhetoric at bay.  A restructured education system will take a long time, but as we say in the financial planning world --  today is the best day to start.

Let's hope the diversity, equity and inclusion charade runs it's course and future generations can realize the American Dream and appreciate the good things we have given the world.  To feel proud of America instead of shame or regret.  Remind our children that America offers the best hope for them.  Encourage and help them realize that family, not isolation, will bring them the most happiness and joy.  And family begins with a husband or wife and children.

We need God in our lives again.  On its own it doesn't guarantee anything, but a reminder that there is a purpose in life, something bigger than ourselves and a purpose not centered around social media or someone's identity would bring humility and grace to a young person's life. 

Don't let media control your life.  Social media is an empty vessel that bring temporary joy, at best.  At its worse, it desensitizes what it means to be human.  There can be no substitution for getting out of the house, talking with neighbors and friends, or finding someone special to share your life.  But don't forget corporations and politicians have a financial interest in keeping us divided and at each other's throats.

I'm an optimist, partly because I find motivation from the promise of good things in life.  I can't believe people want to be miserable -- it's not natural.   I want our children to laugh and enjoy life, to turn away from the Biden doctrine that encourages shouting and disagreement.  Our current downward projection will grind itself to dust.  You can only go so deep before you will want to see daylight.  

Maybe it will be like the song by Pete Townshend -- every generation has its own things to figure out.  Sooner or later, they will realize --

Men can't become women.

BLM is reverse racism.

School debt needs to be repaid.

Climate has been changing for ever, and always will.

No gun zones encourage violence.

A.I. sex is as unfulfilling as porn.

Go woke, go broke.

.

Two Countries -- One People

It took me a while to appreciate what I was seeing and hearing.  But after about ten minutes, I was all in.

On stage, Elvis, wearing a red velvet jacket and tight black jeans, leaned back and grabbed the microphone, his hips gyrating to the beat of "Jailhouse Rock."  Seventy-nine years ago, this performance would have been described as an attempt to rouse the sexual passions of a teenaged youth. "Sexual self-gratification on the stage," and "animalism that should be confined to dives and bordellos," wrote critics of his grunt and groin antics.  

Tonight, at a much more subdued roadhouse called Leo and Leona's, it was just another performance to a group of 60 year old's looking for a glimpse of Garry Wesley's Las Vegas act.

It was both entertaining and a little weird to listen to songs  I had loved and known all my life.  Weird because while the vocals and movements were Elvis perfect, I realized it was someone else who had dedicated years and years of his life imitating the persona of a much-loved performer who had died forty-seven years ago from prescription drugs and too many potato chips.

What possesses a man to wear a rhinestone jumpsuit and 70's glasses, dye his hair black, grow sideburns and modulate his vocals to sound like someone else?

I don't honestly know.  But maybe playing with the legendary Jordanaires, before a crowd of 30,000 in Santiago, Chile had something to do with it.  Or, -- in our case -- a crowd of maybe 30 die hard Elvis fans at a roadhouse located in tiny Newburg Corners, Wisconsin on a cold Saturday night in March.  Either way, it was entertaining and worth the price of admission.  Viva Las Vegas, baby!  Or as the song goes:

"There's a thousand pretty women waiting out there

And they're all living the devil may care

And I'm just a devil with love to spare

So Viva Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas."

Joining us tonight were two visitors, enjoying Leo & Leona's for the first time.  They had traveled more than 4,365 miles (7,025 km) to spend time with Liz and me before continuing on their journey to better music and better weather than what they found in Wisconsin.

How we met stems back to our decision ten years ago to join La Crosse Friends of International Students, a cooperation with UW-La Crosse, Viterbo University and Western technical College to promote cross-cultural understanding between international students and La Crosse area residents.

I have posted about the students we have met through this program before.  It has turned into one of the best decisions we have made since our boys went to college and found jobs.  With more time on our hands, we got lucky when we decided to sponsor Jae Hyun, our first international student from South Korea, who eventually earned a four year degree from UW-L.  

It was such a fun experience, we decided to host more students from China, Sweden, Denmark, France, England and Japan, to name a few.  Most of these students didn't spend a year, much less four years on campus.  Many stayed only a semester, practicing their English and enjoying an American lifestyle and education.  Many traveled to Chicago, New York and Los Angeles -- but we did our best to highlight some of the simpler things Wisconsin has to offer, like local restaurants, football games, hiking on our bluffs or boating on the Mississippi River.  And the quintessential college necessity -- food.  Holidays, birthdays and gatherings around the table were some of our best times together.

During the fall semester of 2021, we met Katrin Latza, a student from Frankfort, Germany, who was an pragmatic young woman who flew around the world as a stewardess for Condor Airlines when she wasn't going to university to become a middle school physical education teacher.  She had many talents, but among those we enjoyed was carving a pumpkin, a healthy taste for beer and the ability to fashion together table linens that would be placed at tables much nicer than the one in our dining room. 

Like so many of our international students, she left after one semester.  But to our surprise, she returned twice to visit friends from college and to see us.  She even coordinated (with her mother) the purchase of an authentic German dirndl dress for Liz to wear at last year's Oktoberfest celebration in La Crosse.  Attired in her new dress -- surrounded by festive horses, bands, and floats --  Liz danced and drank with enough einsteelung to make her German connection proud.

And then last month, Liz received a message from Katrin that her parents were planning a trip from Chicago to San Francisco in March, and they hoped to stop by our humble abode for a visit.  They wanted to see where she went to school and lived while at UW- La Crosse.

Our initial reaction was "Great, it'll be like seeing Katrin, only older!"  Then on second thought, "What are we going to do?  It's March and everything we like to do and see looks like crap.  The only thing happening during their time here is March Madness, and they probably don't like basketball!  Why couldn't they come in June or July when we can show them how beautiful La Crosse is, and take them out on the boat?"  On top of everything else, Liz was recovering from her second knee replacement, and we didn't know how she would be doing.

After a shot of Jägermeister, we collected ourselves and told Katrin we would love to meet her parents, Guenther and Kerstin Latza.

Liz, with her usual enthusiasm for all things fun, sat down and searched the internet for what was happening in La Crosse the weekend of March 16th.  The options were sparse to say the least.

"La Crosse Events in March" showed nothing.   Nothing happening at the La Crosse Community Theatre either.  The La Crosse Center had announced the inaugural Pabst versus Old Style contest, with local bands playing (none of which we had ever heard before.)  I could only imagine a sparsely attended event by twenty year old's with bad hair and poor taste in beer.  Not the kind of thing you wanted to show someone used to Frankfurt's more sophisticated night life. 

Katrin had made her own list of things to show them -- Grand Dad's Bluff where you can see three states and the Mississippi River basin.  A walk along Riverside Park with a view of the Mississippi, Black and La Crosse rivers.  The Bodega Brew Pub with over 400 bottled beers and 20 taps.  And The Pearl, her favorite ice cream shop on Pearl Street.

We finally decided on a full day of ordinary things,  determined to make the best of it.  La Crosse is lucky enough to have a small museum downtown called the Dahl Auto Museum, which is really a cool place if you liked vintage cars.  The Dahl family has been in the automobile industry for over a century, and inside, we were able to learn about the evolution of Ford cars through the last ten decades.  I've been in the museum a number of times, and I still enjoy seeing the Model T's from the early 1900's, the Fairlane's and Thunderbird's from the 1950's and the awesome Mustang GTO's from the last decade.

From there we drove to the lookout over Grand Dad's Bluff, where they could see the entire city of La Crosse, the river and bluffs that are key to our Driftless Region.  Our distinct topography represents a small piece of the Upper Mississippi Region that  was miraculously left untouched by glacial erosion and deposits.  As a result, our area has become a destination for people looking for examples of the natural, rugged terrain that once spanned the upper Midwest.

Our next stop was the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse, which -- because it was spring break and empty of all students -- resembled the aftermath of some terrible catastrophe that decimated humanity.  Walking through the empty campus and their vacant buildings, left me wondering if one misstep would unleashed hundreds of zombie students from a locked, basement laboratory.   Equally disturbing was the realization that UW-L's chancellor had been fired recently, after it was discovered he was making porn films on campus with his wife (as far as we know, no students were involved).  I still don't know if Guenther or Kirsten believed us -- somethings get lost in translation, and I wasn't about to act it out.

We finally stopped for a quick drink at the Bodega Brew Pub, where you can always find a beer you will like.  Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get one of their special Bavarian twist pretzels.  But we did have the time to watch the Wisconsin Badgers and Purdue Boilermakers battle it out to an overtime win for Bucky in the Big Ten Tournament.  My joy was short lived, however, as the Badgers quickly lost the following week to the lowly James Madison.  But it was great while it lasted, as was the Harp beer on tap.

Our final choice was a concert Saturday night at Leo and Leona's where some guy named Elvis was performing his greatest hits...

I took my spoon and carefully cut the small apricot-like fruit which was soaking in Jack Daniel's Winter Jack liqueur.  Moments before Guenther, Kerstin, Liz and I had raised our wobbling little fruits in a toast to a resounding "Prost!" before taking a bite and sip.  The sweetness of the fruit and the warmth of the whiskey was the perfect contrast to the sting of the Jack Daniels.

Earlier in the day, Kerstin had informed us that this was known as mispelchen, a popular digestif served in certain Frankfurt cider houses at the end of meals.  It was usually served with apple brandy, but we improvised with the Jack Daniels they had picked up at Festival Foods in the village.  It's a  drink that is served with a small loquat fruit at the bottom.  It was new to Liz and I, but apparently it is quite popular in Germany, even though the fruit is not native to the country.  Somehow it made its way from Asia to Spain and France to Germany, where it is enjoyed by many.

All I know is that it WAS tasty and the perfect ending to our meal of  scalloped potatoes, carrots and pork tenderloin and another German favorite -- semmelknodel, or bread dumpling.   We never know what to serve our international students, and Guenther and Kerstin were no different.  Hopefully they enjoyed it as much as we did the mispelchen and semmelknodel.

In fact, we hope they had enjoyed their time in La Crosse.  

We found out that our conversations were more important than the things we were doing.  Guenther -- like Katrin --was never one without words.  Over a few beers, I discovered his view on immigration, schooling and raising children are the same as ours.  The same problems exist in Germany, as they do here in the United States.  The solution is never the government, but the everyday people who have to work for a living.  

Other things we agreed on -- Nazareth, Def Leopard, Bon Jovi and Billy Idol.  When traveling to other countries, the strangest things are the bathroom and kitchen.  And the bedroom, where we discovered the answer to marital fighting over who gets the bed covers is two single-sized duvets.   America has a lot to learn when it comes to the bedroom, but it's not the sex.

We also talked about their trip.  At least we were able to give them a few nights not spent sleeping in a hotel or camper.   We discussed their plans for stops in Denver, the Grand Canyon (and other national parks within reach), Las Vegas, and San Francisco.  In the place where Tony Bennett lost his heart, they were meeting their daughters for a trip down scenic Highway 1 to Los Angeles before flying back to Frankfurt.

I always believe that if I am having a good time doing something, the people I'm with usually do, as well.   And even though we were worried about showing them a good time, we quickly agreed that despite being from different countries and speaking different languages, our similarities were far more numerous than our differences.

The world would be a better place today, if we could all spend a weekend together -- especially if it included a whole lot of shakin' down at the local roadhouse.

Danke für eine gute Zeit!

Why Memories Matter

" Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forward."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

The wine bottle was tucked neatly between the Dickens Christmas Village firehouse and bookstore, having been forgotten all these years in our basement root cellar.  It had been more than forty years since I had poured the last glass of wine from its glass, potbellied mouth.  I worried that it would shatter at the slightest touch.

I reached in and extracted it, careful not to knock other items off the shelf.  I blew the dust off the bottle and see a number of rolled, yellowing papers inside.  It is stuffed with letters from Liz -- before the romance and courtesy of letter writing was replaced by hurried, efficiency-obsessed text messages, emoji's and emails.  

I leaned back against the cellar door and looked at the bottle.  Inside was a treasure trove of youthful feelings; the doubts and fears of two college-aged kids trying to manage a long distance affair.  An unlikely meeting at a bar in La Crosse had somehow continued -- beyond the walls of Dells Bar to Conklin Place in Madison, then to  Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Later, after retrieving the old letters, I laid them out and with great anticipation start reading.  It's like I stepped into a Time Machine -- we were still young, in college and just starting to plan our future.  

It was a time of innocence and longing.  

This one, written in red ink on toilet paper talks about a hard day of work and coming home to an empty apartment, wishing she could see me.  Another one talks about going out to eat with her room mate, then going to a movie called Ghostbusters.  "That was a great movie!" she writes.  Or another one talks about visits to Readstown, DeSoto, Viroqua and Stoddard to complete her community health nursing visits.  That would be while she was still a nursing student in college.

Someone with a sense of humor could see these letters making a romantic comedy.  A romantic dreamer, with a love for storytelling meets a beautiful, small town girl with a calling for compassion.  It would be called "Pages and Patients:  When Nurse Meets Author."  

Well, maybe not...

I read through others before coming to one of my favorites.  It was written after our first meeting.  I was home from college, hanging out at a bar with friends, and I saw a pair of eyes that were so intriguingly deep that it took me an entire weekend to figure out what had happened. They belonged to a brown haired girl who was finishing nursing school at Viterbo College.  I walked her home after bar time, and my life was never the same.

But in reading her letter, I discovered she had an interesting recollection.   It began --

"You probably don't remember me.  But I'm the girl you walked home on the fateful Friday night from Dell's.  Ring a bell now?"  

Rang more than a bell!   

"I guess I'm writing to apologize for my behavior that night.  I was a little out of sorts.  I'm not usually like I was that night..  I 'm usually extremely quiet until I get to know the person, which takes a while for me.  I also wanted to thank you for walking me home.  You really didn't have to do that.  It was nice though.  I wish i could say I enjoyed our talk on our way back, But I really don't remember what we talked about."

How funny is that?  The woman of my dreams, and she doesn't even remember me.  She went on to say that she would like to see me again if I was ever in La Crosse, and to look her up.  

Well, the rest -- as they say -- is history.  

In general, these letters expressed our worries, hopes and fears as we finished college, found jobs and dealt with the difficulty of maintaining a relationship separated by more than 200 miles.  As I read these letters, I am convinced it was overcoming this distance that kept us together.  It forced us to call each other late at night, usually after spending the night working, finishing homework or returning from the bars.  These letters were another way of putting our feelings for each other down on paper.   Absent each other physically -- it formed an unbreakable bond that is still present today.

I am so glad I saved these letters, and love the memories that formed the basis for our relationship and shaped our lives going forward.

Seems like someone said memories are like a hot cup of homemade chocolate.  Yup, it's an experience for the senses.  The comforting warmth you feel when taking a sip and the aroma of rich cocoa.  The velvety texture as it slides down your throat. 

Life is full of them,  some remembered better than others.  Our childhood, friends, college, parents and grandparents, weddings, birthdays and funerals.

Once upon a time, I've been accused of living in the past.  Which is not true because the person who said it was Liz when we were dating.  In my defense, I don't know how you can get to know someone without talking about your past.  Your friends, favorite things to do and places you have visited.  I feel like memories are who you are.  And paradoxically, provide hints to who you are going to be.

A problem develops when you are not happy with your life or relationship and constantly think your life was better when you were making all of those memories.

Over the holidays, I was reading a great book from Blake Crouch called Recursion.  Blake is a young author who writes about the future -- genetics, time travel and alternate realities.  They are fun and thought provoking.  His books have been made into television and movies.

In Recursion he's writing about memories.  The premise is that there is technology available that allows someone to travel into the past and relive a significant memory.  Not just remember it, but actually go back and be a part of it --carry on the conversations, walk the streets and participate in events as they unfold in real time.

What a great premise!

 But like all good intentions (to help a mother with Alzheimer's) it is sabotaged by bad people who want to changed the past to make a better future.  Unfortunately, like readers of any good time travel story know, you can't change the past without unforeseen things coming back to hurt you in the future.

Forget the dystopian undertones of Recursion if you can.  It will always be tempting to back back in time and change the future for the better.  There's going to be disappointments and failures in life that you would like to change.  A career path that didn't work out the way you thought it would.  Maybe someone's unexpected death.  Who wouldn't want to save a child who is killed in a car accident or a soldier who never returns from war?

Memories strengthen our sense of identity and bond our relationships with family and friends.  It gives us a framework to understand who we are and how we got here.  How many times do we look forward to getting together with family over the holidays because we had so much fun last time.  We remember the fun we had playing cards, building puzzles or watching a movie -- and want to do it again!

Which is why it's so devastating to see someone who suffers from a disease like Alzheimer's.  Not only don't they know who you are, but they struggle to understand who they are.  

Am I the only one who worries about some day not recognizing the face in the mirror?

Most days in our lives are uneventful, where nothing happens.   We get up in the morning, go to work and go to bed in the evening, with little to distinguish it from the next.  None of them remain rooted in our existence, beyond maybe a color, a sound or a taste.  It's when you step outside this routine that you create an impression that adds a dress to the color blue, a catchy phrase to a popular tune, or a new wine to your palate that makes it memorable and lasting. 

I'm in my seventh decade, and have had people and family that are as much a part of me as my hands and feet, and yet I remember so little of our times together.  It's one of the reasons I write and take pictures, cramming books and albums full of smiling faces, beautiful sunsets and time spent on the river.  I want to enjoy these memories and one of the best ways is to preserve them.

A single picture of our parents or our childhood bring back a flood of memories.  I can't say it better than Simon & Garfunkel who sang a song called Bookends, in which they sing - 

"I have a photograph.   Preserves a memory.   They are all I have that's left of you."

We learn a lot from our memories.  Time moves many of them into a box where they are kept until we find the right key and open it.  And the discovery of these letters in the cellar has just unlocked many of them, from a time when Liz and I were just finding our way through life, together.

If I was a character in Crouch's book, I would have no trouble going back to relive this memory:

The first time I met her was at a second rate bar on Third Street in downtown La Crosse.  She was hanging out in Dells Bar, and judging from the friendly conversation with the bartender, it wasn't her first time.  As it turned out, it was her birthday and the bartender looked like he had other intentions besides keeping her glass full.

My intentions, on the other hand, were to get her coffee-colored eyes -- and preferably the rest of her -- to wander to my side of the bar.  I thought I'd never get her attention through the crowded bar, so I sat there looking at her with a frothy Old Style in hand.

I was back in town with some friends who were more than willing to indulge in some barhopping.  The night was young, and so were we...

At almost 2:00 a.m., the bar was closing and I walked past her bar stool, leaning forward and told her I'd wait for her outside the bar.  On the juke box, Michael Jackson was singing "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" and I stepped out into the crisp summer night.  After the sweaty confines of Dell's cramped bar, the cool night was a shock to my semi-inebriated system.

I had told my friends to do their own thing.  Doug had found some girl he knew and Paul (who was my ride home) had slapped me on the back and vanished.  While waiting outside, I paced back and forth, taking an occasional look through the dirt streaked window to see her still sitting at the bar laughing and talking to the bartender.  

"What the hell am I doing?" I thought.  "I've never met this girl before.  I don't know her name and somehow I've got the nerve to tell her to meet me outside?  This is crazy!"

I stared at my feet, willing myself to wait a few more minutes before giving up and heading home.  It was bar time, and people were streaming from nearby bars like drunken vampires leaving their coffins at sunset.

Suddenly the sound of shoes coming from Dell's doorway caused me to turn around.  In the time it took for me to catch my breath, my eyes wandered up her noticeable curves, lingered on her small mouth and finally found her eyes, which were now searching left and right before settling on my face.

"Hey," she muttered as I grabbed her waist.  Small curls of light brown hair framed her face and neck.  My hands had touched a glimmer from heaven and I was determined not to let her get away.

"Let me walk you home," I said pushing her through a mass of bleary-eyed blood suckers.

          *          *          *

The path we chose to get to her apartment meandered through the excitement and buzz of various downtown crowds to the quiet, dark streets of more residential neighborhoods.

I discovered she was a Viterbo nursing student who had gone downtown to celebrate her twentieth  birthday with a few friends.  Where those friends were and why they left her alone with a bartender was a mystery I would never know, but at a minimum, I figured she needed someone to make sure she got home safely.  

And who better to do that than me -- a La Crosse lifer who was attending journalism school at UW-Madison, but home for a long summer weekend?

As we walked through sporadic pools of yellow light coming from the street lights, I found myself fascinated by this girl.  She was beautiful and friendly, but difficult to figure out.   Much would be said in  the coming years, but to this day, I don't know what it was that kept me with her the whole way home.  Perhaps it was something I saw in her soft caring eyes which told me this wasn't' what she was really like...

    *          *          *

The grass was wet with the dew of the early morning, as I rolled her over and kissed her on the lips.  I loved the smell of her hair --  vanilla mixed with the odor of cigarettes that still clung to her blouse like grapes hanging on a vine.  My hand found her face and I traced the curve of her nose.  

"Am I going to see you again?" I asked as we laid on our backs, watch stars fade from sight.  We were outside her apartment, still wrapped in the darkness of an early morning chill.  I could see the hard shapes of houses and trees distinguishable from the fading night sky.  Within the hour, a new day would begin, chasing the shadows and mysteries of this evening away.

"I don't know," she confessed with very little conviction.  She was lacking the energy to put much into her response.  "I'll have to let you know."

Later, as I walked home, I kept remembering her response to my question.  It had been a long night of pleasant, but unexpected discovery.  Someone once said that if you try too hard, you won't find the one of your dreams.  It happens when you least expect it. 

What if I had left early, or my friends and I had gone to a different bar?  Fate, or coincident -- call it what you will -- had played a role in tonight's encounter.  Relationships had come and gone before, but this one felt different.

I dug into my pocket and pulled out a slip of paper with her phone number written on it, and thought what it would be like to see those brown eyes again.

The start (of rest of our lives) was just a sunrise away.