Politics 2016 Style

This is perhaps the most interesting political seasons we have had in decades. The Republican Party began with something like 17 candidates and is now down to just a handful including this fellow, Ted Cruz from Texas. Cruz  is a tea party conservative who is giving the front runner, Donald Trump a run for his money here in Wisconsin and perhaps elsewhere as we get closer to the nominating convention this summer. Cruz came to Wausau this week. Alethea and I had the opportunity to see him live and in person.  On Saturday Donald Trump is coming and I hope we can manage to make that visit as well even though neither one of us would vote for members of this party.

Remembering My Mom

My mom left this life on Tuesday, May 19 after a month long struggle to regain her health following a relatively simple surgery. Her body just didn't respond as quickly following the surgery. She battled an infection and had difficulty breathing and keeping the oxygen levels up in her blood. But she was making progress in the last days and we expected her to leave the hospital on Memorial Day week end. She quietly slipped away before that could happen.

Now its my brother and me left to carry on.

My mom grew up in a large farm family that lived in northern Indiana. Her dad was a hard man (by her own description) and they never got along. She was the second youngest of 13 children. They moved around a lot as my grandfather rented land trying to raise the best crops and make a living during the trying times of the Great Depression. At age 16 she left home never to return.

As a teen ager she married a soldier when went off to fight in Europe never to return. Before she was 20 she was a widow of WWII living in the 1940s. She married again shortly thereafter but that didn't last and nobody really talks about that much.

In the late 1940's she met my dad. My brother and I came along a few years later and we grew up in a house attached to a small grocery store. My parents worked together for nearly 50 years raising two sons and earning a living. We also tended to eat pretty well. My mom was a good mom, active in the lives of her boys when she could be and working hard to earn a living. I'm sure the fear of another Great Depression motivated both of my parents but we never lacked for anything.

Not long after celebrating 50 years together my dad passed away following open heart surgery where he'd suffered a stroke. My mom was devastated but she carried on. It was not easy. A few years later I moved away to Illinois and then Wisconsin but we kept in touch and visited when we could. My mom was lonely in those years but would never consider another relationship or moving away.

Just last summer my mom came to Wisconsin for several weeks to visit and see what was happening in my life. She loved it here and always said how different and beautiful it was compared to Indiana. I agree. Last Thanksgiving she and my brother made a trip up here for a week. She stayed in my new house and we enjoyed our last Thanksgiving dinner together. I saw her at Christmas time but never alive again.

I miss my mom. I miss the times I'd call her on my cell phone on the way home from work or driving to Stevens Point in the morning for a meeting. She was always glad to hear from me and would call me often as well. We were closer in the last years than maybe any other time.

Losing a parent is hard. I know two other people who lost their moms during the same relative time period. Its hard for each of us but we carry on. I'll remember the good times and the way she took care of me as a young boy and even as a grown man. She was always my mom.

She was Catherine Marie Lewallen Huys.
Born March 8, 1924
Died May 19, 2008

Keeping Warm

This is one of the ways I survived my first up north winter. That and a couple of good bottles of red wine. Did I say a couple? Well, by winter's end I was getting pretty creative. I "discovered" the Wausau Curling Club and participated in my first bonspiel and was completely hooked on the sport. And in late March I finally put on a pair if skis and skied at Granite Peak. So as the winter season approaches again I have many more ideas and ways to enjoy and participate in winter acitivties. More on those subjects in future posts.

Winter--Part II, Its Just Kept Coming

We probably didn't have nearly the total accumulation of either Milwaukee or Madison during the winter of 2007 but our snow came and stayed. There was never a time when we got a thaw. The closest I can recall is in late January the temps rose back into the +20 degree range for a couple of days and you'd have thought it was summer. I even had a window rolled down on the MINI.


The snow at the end of my driveway topped 7' (feet) at the height of the season. The MINI was dwarfed by the size of the piles. I had no idea if anyone was coming down the street once I entered the tunnel of snow at the end of the drive. When I look at my yard now its hard to imagine there was so much snow. But its late August and only a weeks away from fall and then....

Over the Winter--How I Survived My 1st Up North Winter

Winter came to Wausau on Saturday, December 2, 2007 with a dump of approximately 12" of heavy snow. As I looked out on my driveway that first morning I was stunned to realize that if I was going to get my car out and drive to the store I'd have to shovel a whole lot of snow first. Throughout the fall I'd been telling myself that a little snow shoveling would be good exercise but when the reality of it hit that morning I had second thoughts.

While the snow meant work it was also quite beautiful. Winters in Indiana and Illinois were hit and miss some years but from that first day in December, the winter of 2007 in Wausau was here to stay.


It took a couple of hours that first morning and a lot of hours over the next several months as the cold weather stayed in place keeping the snow from melting even a little. At one point in mid-winter I was walking in my back yard standing about 25" to 30" up off the ground and it was not on a drift.

Thanksgiving in Wausau

OK--admittedly posting a Thanksgiving message in late August the following year is a little on the slow side. But I'm trying to catch up with this blog and its the place to start. My mom and brother made an adventurous trip to central Wisconsin and spent a week here over the Thanksgiving holidays. For my mom it was a return visit (and ultimately her last) and my brother's first.

The two intrepid travels left Indiana via Amtrack train and went to Union Station in Chicago. There they boarded a VanGalder bus and headed to Madison where I met them on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It was a long trip for my mom who was pretty tired and I recall she slept well that night. Over the next few days I was back and forth from work to home while they hung out at my place. My brother (Mike) was taken with our sweet way of life up here and was about ready to sell his house and move north.

Thanksgiving Day was a day of lots of cooking and good food. It was the first time the three of us were together in many years. Jourdan had gone back to Indiana and wasn't able to be here. We were up early preparing food and by late afternoon things were ready and we were starved. These pictures give you a little idea of what the day was like.

Right there in front of me

I was driving on backroads from Tomahawk to Woodruff on Saturday and saw some beautiful scenery along the way. I was shooting a road and trees when suddenly right in front of me was a small branch of leaves dancing in the wind.

My Mom's Summer Vacation in Wisconsin

My mom sitting on the sofa in my new Wisconsin apartment.

In the summer of 2007 let the records show that for the first time in many years my mom left her comfortable home in Indiana and spent an extended period of time somewhere else. She left the state, slept in a completely different bed, saw new people and places, and enjoyed it all. My Mom came to Wisconsin this summer.

My mom is 83 this year and she still gets around quite well. She's been through many medical esisodes during her life including two C-Section kids, a number of surgeries, a trip to the Mayo Clinic in the 70's for diagnosis and treatment of something the doctors in Indiana couldn't find, two knee replacements, and most recently cataract surgery that led to a serious eye infection and temporary blindness in one eye. But she's back and nothing will keep her down.

My mom grew up on a farm in Indiana during the Great Depression. She was one of 13 children and had brothers and sisters old enough to not only parent her as a child, but to produce their own offspring so that she has nieces and nephews that are almost the same age as she. It was not an easy life and she did not get along well with her father resulting in a decision to leave home at age 16. She grew up fast in the 1940s and married a young man who was called into military service and fought in Europe only to be killed in action. Married only a short time my mother was soon a widow.

A young woman, my mom has most of her life ahead of her when this photo was taken.

She moved on and went to beauty school where she graduated at the top of her class. It was there that she met a woman who was the sister of a fellow she would one day meet. He became my father.

In the 1950s she became a wife and mother to two boys with a husband who wanted to operate a business for himself and soon opened a grocery store in a small Indiana town called Osceola. Having long ago given up the practice of hair styling, she pitched in with Dad and opened the store and helped two little boys grow up and get into school. Within a few years the business prospered to a point where my parents built a new store with the house attached as was relatively common in the days before Jewel, Dominick's, Pick N Save, and other large chains. As a kid growing up I had both my parents there but it was my mom who had milk and cookies for two hungry boys when they got off the bus in the afternoon and could always be counted on for a hot breakfast on cold Indiana winter mornings.

She worked hard in the store, kept house, and still managed to have time for a family. My mom was the mom who picked up kids from practice after school or went to the ballgames or band concerts so that my dad could run the store.

When I went off to college my parents didn't have money to cover costs but my mom would slip a $20 into an occasion letter so that her son could have a few treats and a little spending money. When that boy became a grown up (using that term a bit loosely here) she became Grandma Kay to Sierra and Jourdan and gave a lot of time to help watch the kids after the store closed in the 1980s. In retirment, my mom continued to work in various jobs including a retail/catalogue store, a sewing factory, and convenience market.

Me, Jourdan, and my mom at Jourdan's graduation party in 2005.

When my dad passed away in the late 1990s she stayed in the house and remains there today. Knee and eye problems slowed her down a little but not much.

When I moved to Illinois in 2003 I kept in contact with my mom with regular phone calls but only infrequent visits. One Christmas she came to Crystal Lake with Jourdan and we had a nice visit. My move to Wisconsin this spring seemed like a big mountain to climb but when we both realized she could spend time here and not have to stay in Indiana we started planning her summer vacation.

My mom spent almost six weeks here. I had to spend a lot of time at work but in the free hours in the evenings and week ends we tried to explore Wausau and the surrounding area. We ate dinner in a lot of places, shopped in the stores, and toured the community. She stayed until the last day of June when I drove her back to Indiana. A little sadly too I think for both of us.

It was a good time. It was the first time I'd actually lived under the same roof as my mom in almost thirty years. We ate more meals together that we have in years. And watched a lot of TV too, especially old episodes of I Love Lucy and a fair amount of Lifetime. When she got bored she folded my underwear, cooked dinner, ran the vacuum and became good buddies with Nigel the cat, something I really never expected. She took lots of naps and I hope had a good time. She liked it here in Wisconsin and every time we crested the hill on Volkman Street in sight of Rib Mountain she'd say, "there's OUR mountain!"

I learned a lot about my mom this summer and about myself. This visit reconnected me with a lot of family stories I'd forgotten and probably will forget again. It was also a reminder of how much she cherished my dad. She speaks of him in a friendly sort of awe or reverence though sometimes as I kid all I could recall was the times when they, like most married couples, had disagreements and differences of opinion.

My mom at Jourdan's apartment in Milwaukee on moving day.

My mom's life spans a century and a millennium and in a few years she will reach age 90. She is sharp as a tack and her eyesight puts my own to shame. When her body quits on her (like climbing the 14 steps she counted up to my apartment) her mind never fails. She can recall things that I cannot. She is a child of her age and isn't always completely comfortable with things I take for granted today like seeing multi-racial couples in a Milwaukee restaurant or the somewhat frequent use of the F word by Jourdan or me. But she is my mom and will always be my mom.

Sadly in all the time she spent I barely got any pictures of her but there are a few posted her including one when she was much younger and was photographed in a wedding party. She is Catherine Marie Lewallen Huys, age 83, a long time resident of Osceola, Indiana. She is my mom and I love her.

Getting Settled--My Stuff is Here!

A view of my dining area and the posters I got last summer in San Francisco.

Its been about seven weeks since my arrival in central Wisconsin and I've spent a good part of most days getting into my work and trying to get my arms around my new job. I like it here, here at work, and here in my newly adopted community. People are friendly and welcoming. I've made good connections at work, with the local newspaper people, and in a few of the arts and community organizations. Its all good.

And to make it even better, last week I completed the sale of my condo in Illinois and moved all of my worldly goods to my new apartment. Last Monday and Tuesday movers from Graebel packed my belongings and put them on a truck bound for the northwoods. The actual packing the truck, driving, and unloading took place all in one day and while it was a little hectic it was nice to have everything done in one motion and without losing time away from work.

My furniture was placed in the right rooms and the garage was loaded with the boxes. Slowly but surely I've been making progress unpacking boxes and putting things away. By Sunday I'd made enough headway to get the MINI back indoors at night and when I'm home. There are many more boxes to open but some are going to stay closed up until I get into a permanent residence somewhere down the road when I know the community and the neighborhoods better. Until then life here is pretty good. I have furniture, my own bed, and things where I want them.

Now that helps make life good.

The New Car Bug Bites!

I realized I've been wanting to drive a MINI Cooper since 2001 when I was still living in Indiana and the new version of the cars had just come out. I'd signed up on their website then and as I was checking back there recently I discovered my old address and phone number, evidence of my long held desire for this incredible car.

Last week end my MINI quest was fulfilled at International MINI of Milwaukee. After a brief test drive around West Allis, Wisconsin, I had the feel of the clutch and a sense for the tight steering and incredible power of the car. Desire was fed by a really great lease deal and within an hour Jourdan and I were driving back to Wausau. Well, actually we made a slight detour over to Roots, a great restaurant in MKE and then headed north.

On Sunday I took the MINI up to the top of Rib Mountain for its first pictures. There will be more to come I'm sure. It is a great car, powerful, fun to drive, and on and on. What can I say? I really love it.