January 1 - 16, 2002

Tuesday, January 1, 2002                                                                      Bradford, KY

After a peaceful brunch we returned to my parents house for a New Year’s Day celebration that doubled as my sister, Theresa’s birthday party.  Theresa, Carmen, and Martha, Preston, and Evan all came out for a nice family get-together.  It was a great way to kick off the new year.

  Wednesday, January 2, 2002                                                              Bradford, KY

After a quiet day with my folks, we carried out plans to visit Matt’s new house in Cincinnati.  Tracy and Chris were invited to join us, so we all ended up having a pleasant dinner at the new Pine home.

Thursday, January 3, 2002                                                    Bradford, KY

Today was a very pleasant day.  I worked on my Mom's computer and Christine worked on getting the website updated.  This evening, we went to a great little steak house in Dayton, KY, with my parents.  It was called F&N Steakhouse.  We met Martha and Theresa there.  It was great to talk, drink, and eat with my sisters as a table full of adults.

Friday, January 4, 2002                                                                Ashville, OH

Christine and I packed up the car for a mini road trip to visit some friends.  We first met up with our friend Debbie for lunch in Cincinnati, along with her newborn baby, Kaitlyn.  We went out for pizza at LaRosa’s.  LaRosa’s is one of those experiences that I define with Cincinnati and my youth.  For those unfamiliar with this regional pizza chain, it has a very unique pizza sauce that gives all its pizzas a distinctive taste.  We enjoyed both the pizza and our visit with Debbie and daughter.

We planned next to drive up to Columbus to visit friends.  We stopped on our way out of Cincinnati for another taste that I equate with the city; we stopped at Graeter’s Ice Cream Parlor for some of the world’s best ice cream.  Don’t take my word for it.  If you’ve never sampled this brand, then put it on your list of “to do’s” should you ever find yourself in Cincinnati.  My favorite is their Chocolate Mint Chip, which has dark chocolate chunks so big that you have to break them apart when you eat them.

We found our way to the farmland just south of Columbus, to the home of our friends Tina and Lori.  They have a lovely 8-acre country setting on which they live with their year and half old daughter, Katie.  We stayed with them tonight and spent the evening catching up with them over some fine Wisconsin beer (Leinie’s, of course) and warming ourselves near their cozy fire.

Saturday, January 5, 2002                                                                Ashville, OH

Christine and I slept well in our apartment over Tina and Lori’s garage.  We got a slow and gentle start to the day.  Later Christine and I drove nearly an hour to the northwest side of Columbus to meet up with some of my closest childhood friends at Tom’s house in Dublin.  This would prove to be a very special evening.

The four guys that met at Tom’s house today were my closest and most trusted friends through high school and much of college.  Tom is my age and lived across the street from me in Cincinnati.  Matt is two years older than I am, and lived nine houses up the street.  Pat is four years older than I am, and was my next-door neighbor from the day I moved to Cincinnati.  Scott is five years older than I am, and was introduced to the rest of us as Pat’s roommate from college at Ohio U.  So here we were ranging in age from 36 to 41, and had not all gathered as a group since Tom’s wedding in 1989.

I have seen all of these guys on occasion over the past decade in smaller gatherings or just one-on-one, but why have we stayed apart, in general?  I think back to the activities and events that the five of us shared in the 1980’s.  We had a connection back then that seemed permanent.  We’d spend evenings drinking beer and sharing laughs, unable to imagine a future in which we weren’t all the closest of friends.

We didn’t always get along, and we all experienced being the odd man out for some inexcusable action at some time.  But our differences could never keep us apart for long, and the enduring strength of our friendship was reinforced by each trial.  Our differences in age and the varying choices we made as adults seemed to send each of us in diverging directions.  It didn’t happen overnight, but gradually our individual circumstances made it less and less likely for us all to be in one place at any one time.  And yet it never seemed important enough for us to make a gathering occur … until now.

So here we were tonight, celebrating a reunion of sorts with each guy making a “road trip” to Columbus for this gathering.  It happened with very little fanfare.  A few e-mails circulated in December, followed up by a couple phone calls, and then it just happened.  We all met at Tom’s house around 4:00 and settled into a comfortable groove of reminiscing and sharing.  A few ground rules were established that kept everyone focused on the more positive memories.  We had spent enough time together doing foolish things in our youth that we all had a few memories of each other that might better be forgotten.  So we succeeded in having a warm and lovely evening that may only have suffered from excessive sentimentality (thanks, Matt).

Tom and Karin served us an excellent dinner.  We paged through Scott’s photo album (Scott is the curator of “our time”) and listened to music that defined “our time.”  We eventually retired to the snow covered deck to share cigars and do a rotation of toasts to what we represent to each other.

It was midnight before we began saying our goodbyes.  Matt began lobbying right away for a repeat get-together soon.  There was a cautious level of interest in committing to this, and I think I know why.  In the back of my mind I was trying to truly understand what had kept us apart.  How could we have been so wrong in our youth about the future importance of these friendships?  I recognized that we were all still the same people, yet we had all clearly changed.  Would we take the time to know each other today, had we not been such good friends in the past?  Is it possible to look forward with these friendships, or will it mostly be our memories that tie us together?

We shared a lot of honesty tonight about our middle lives, and about how few friends we now had that stacked up to the friendships we shared back then.  We all asked questions that seemed unanswerable, and we all reveled in the richness of shared experiences that warranted a meeting of such different people so many years later.  We all said goodbye and went our separate ways with a head full of thoughts to sort through and feelings to resolve.

I, for one, hope that we do find a way to get together again soon, and often.  I’m not sure of all the reasons why, but I know that we should because we can.  I spoke to my father recently about his closest boyhood friends and what ended those friendships.  It was usually something.  Scott, Pat, Matt, Tom and I all lack that “something” that is worthy of dissolving a friendship.  I hope that we all recognize the precious value to these friendships and find a reason and a way to infuse them with new energy and life.  I count myself as blessed by these friendships.

Christine quietly drove us back to Tina and Lori’s garage apartment as I sat in a contemplative state next to her.  It had been a fine evening.  I should note here that Tom and Karin welcomed an addition to their family recently; Jonathon is now three months old.  Karin was grateful to have Christine there since the rest of us guys were clearly in our own world tonight.

1) The guys: Pat, Scott, Joe, Matt, and Tom.  1)Juggling hammers at 11:30 PM?  Lucky Pat wasn't drinking!

Sunday, January 6, 2002                                                                         Bradford, KY

Christine and I were surprised to wake to several inches of accumulated snowfall.  It finally felt like winter.  We decided to delay our drive back to Kentucky once we learned that the Packer’s game was on the television here.  I was still suffering from a cold I picked up from my father several days ago, so the laid-back activity of watching Sunday football was the perfect prescription for me.  Lori fixed up a big bowl of spaghetti, and the Packers won their final regular season game against the Giants.  It all made for a relaxing day with friends.

It was nearly 4:00 when we finally loaded the car and turned south toward Kentucky.  The snow continued to fall, but the roads were mostly pretty well cleared as we took the rural routes.  We reached my parents house in the dark and had to leave the car at the bottom of the hill, and then we dragged our luggage up their steep snow-covered quarter-mile driveway.  We had a warm late dinner awaiting us.

Monday, January 7, 2002                                                                          Bradford, KY

We spent today working on various tasks before heading out to meet another batch of my friends from when I worked at Pomeroy Computer Resources.  We gathered at a pub in northern Kentucky and connected with Nancy, Ron and John (current Pom’s)—Rob and Tuck (ex-Pom’s) over a few beers.  It was a great reunion of people that I really enjoyed working with, and now keep up with as individuals.

Tuesday, January 8, 2002                                                                Francis Creek, WI

We took our time packing and finally said goodbye to my parents.  We returned our rental car and checked in for our flight back to Milwaukee.  Midwest Express only has one gate in the Greater Cincinnati Airport, and it only flies to and from Milwaukee on a little 19-seat Beech twin turbo-prop.  We got a kick out of how casual this flight was compared to all our recent jet travel.  There were only six of us on the plane (two pilots and four passengers), so we were able to stretch out.  We were picked up in Milwaukee by Christine’s parents (aka the Graff shuttle service) and driven back to their home.

We spent the evening catching up with the events surrounding the funeral of Christine’s grandfather.  It was good to hear about how such a large family can come together and be as one during such times.

Wednesday, January 9, 2002                                                    Francis Creek, WI

With two days left before heading west in the RV, we kept busy making final arrangements.  We weren’t hurried, but there were still plenty of things to get done.  Carol fixed up a great last dinner at home for us, topped off with a fresh-baked mincemeat pie.  God, I love it here.

Thursday, January 10, 2002                                                            Francis Creek, WI

We interrupted our travel preparations today by having Christine’s grandmother and Uncle Bob over for lunch.  Later Christine and I took her parents out for dinner at Gib’s on the Lake to thank them for all their assistance and hospitality.  We ended the evening visiting Uncle Rich and Aunt Judy for a couple drinks.  It was a really pleasant evening.  Our business in Wisconsin was now done.

Friday, January 11, 2002                                                                Minneapolis, MN

On the road again (as sung by Willie Nelson)!  It felt great to be back in the RV and headed toward new adventures.  In retrospect it was probably a great thing to have the RV parked for two months and live out of our suitcases, because it felt so good to move back into the RV. 

We stopped in Minneapolis to visit my sister, Kathy, Mary Pat and their daughter Sarah.  We got to celebrate Sarah’s third birthday and had a fine dinner at home catching up on each other’s travels.  The three of them had just returned this week from a two-week trip to Brazil.

Saturday, January 12, 2002                                                              Minneapolis, MN

Kathy and Sarah accompanied Christine and me to the International Motorcycle Show being held this weekend in the Minneapolis Convention Center (no, this was not a scheduling coincidence).   We then met up with Mary Pat for a noodle lunch at the U. of Minnesota Law School.  We later left Sarah with a baby-sitter so the four of us could enjoy dinner out at a trendy restaurant.

  Sarah

Sunday, January 13, 2002                                                                Story City, IA

We said goodbye to Kathy, Mary Pat and Sarah, and then we pointed the RV south out of town.  We stopped in the small town of Albert Lea, MN just before noon and found a pub in which we could watch the Packers dispatch San Francisco in their Wild Card Playoff game.  Christine had come down with another cold, but a Packer win is always good medicine for her.  We continued into Iowa and found a campground forty miles north of Des Moines to spend our first night in the RV since October.

Monday, January 14, 2002                                                                Kearney, NE

We awoke to blowing sleet and snow-covered ground.  We swung through Des Moines and stopped to visit the Iowa Sate Capitol before turning west on I-80.  The Iowa Capitol building is impressive with one large center dome and four smaller corner domes, all gilded in good leaf.  We happened to arrive on the first morning of the new session.  There were lots of people milling about as the two bodies were just getting started.

We sat in the House gallery and watched as many people were taking their seats and emptying file boxes of papers into their desks.  We then went over to the Senate chamber and observed opening comments from the gallery there.  After seeing so many State Capitols over the past year, it was interesting to finally see one in session.

We drove west into Nebraska and visited its State Capitol in Lincoln.  Nebraska’s Capitol building is very different than other states’.  It is a tall office building centered over a massive square base.  It has a very industrial look to it.  It is also different in respect to the fact that it is large enough to house all the offices of the state’s legislators.

The Nebraska House was in session so we sat in the gallery and watched a filibuster in progress by a representative from Omaha, dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt.  This colorful orator was carrying on about a proposed change in the Rules of the House.  We were amused by the fact that nobody was really listening to him, even though his speech was broadcast through speakers all over the building.  We later learned today by listening to the radio that this filibuster was quite newsworthy and that this representative was well known for such maneuvers.

The head wind finally abated as we pushed further toward a setting sun in the calm Nebraska evening.  We stopped today in good position to reach Denver tomorrow.

1) The Iowa State Capital; 2) The Nebraska State Capital.  I am standing next to a statue of Abraham Lincoln and at the top of the capital building is a statue of a man sowing seeds, a sower.

Tuesday, January 15, 2002                                                                       Golden, CO

We got an easy early start today, welcomed by minimal winds and fair weather.  Christine spent the morning driving as I caught up on some writing.  We reached Denver in the middle of the afternoon and ran a few errands.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002                                                                Golden, CO

I purchased a heated water hose from the campground we are staying in, and was pleased that it worked last night when the temperature dropped below twenty.  The campground makes these hoses up on demand.  It is simply a fifteen-foot water hose with a heating wire taped to the length of it and foam pipe insulation taped around the entirety.  Now I can hook up the water hose to the RV and leave it connected with no fear of it freezing.  In the past, I would have to fill up our internal water tank each day in freezing weather, then drain the fill hose so it wouldn’t freeze.  This wasn’t a terribly big nuisance last winter since we were always on the go, but this winter we’ll be staying in one campsite for most of the time, and the convenience of a heated water hose proved too seductive for me to pass.

I’m also please with the winterizing effort I performed this summer by boxing in the sewer outlets and installing a light fixture to heat the space within the insulated box.

Today was a lazy day, we intended to visit the Colorado State Capital building but could not find parking after many rounds, so we put that off for another day.  We did some shopping and Christine got caught up for the week in school before we pick up Tina and Lori tomorrow for some skiing.

Continue with January 17, 2002....