Message Forum

Yes Terri,

Nice on all those counts. Already, we got to go to one of the grandgirls first communion today. Then there's the Indian River, part of the intercoastal waterway, 'bout a mile wide or so, with a half dozen neat, on-the-water eateries. The ocean beaches are off the barrier islands along the coast, and they're covered with gazillion dollar houses, so there's no CA type beaches, but there are municipal parks every couple miles, small, no crowds, just veg or look for shells. This isn't a touristy area, and a high population of 62-like grads, like us, but most aren''t beach goers, so enjoy.

This retirement thing might not be so bad afterall.

05/02/25 12:18 PM

#3599

Hi Jim and Terri,

Your mention of the beaches reminds me of our experiences - some glorious, other disappointing. One February, staying with friends in Fort Meyers, we thought it would be fun do some beach walking. That's when we learned how hard it is to find an accessible and peaceful beach there. On the other hand, if you were sailing the inland waterway and anchored in the right place (was that near Useppa? - can't remember) you could dingy across to the mangroves and then through them to find totally empty beaches. Empty of people, that is ( and food, restrooms, etc.), but full of shells. It's been years, so we wonder if that's still possible.

Lights are back on up here, but still tree limbs everywhere. We envision that wood chip mulch won't be hard to find this spring. Karsten has already driven four trailer loads of branches to the local burn pile. It's a start....

05/02/25 04:26 PM

#3600

Nancy,

Years ago my wife and I camped at Ft. Meyers, Sanibel Island, acutually. Mary is an avid shell hunter, so we got up kind of early and went to the local beach. Nice walk, beautiful beach, black-tip sharks and dolphins zooming around in the surf - and we were the only people on the beach all morning! Well, a local cop came along on an atv shortly after we got there, and did his search thing, but didn't find anything that morning, otherwise, no one. The cops drive up and down the beach every morning, looking for plastic garbage bags of drugs thrown overboard by drug smugglers and washed ashore. (Local treat? First come, first served I guess.) Found lots of shells, no bonus bags though.

05/02/25 06:30 PM

#3601

Jim,

Lovely Sanibel Island! That's where we learned to navigate, taking a course there. I remember a tricky entrance to the marina, a narrow opening between two pieces of land, which we had to get through on our last day of class. Wind was howling and it was raining. I remember clinging to the mast for dear life, trying to get the mainsail down. And wearing glasses, no less. I never was much of a navigator - Karsten being the brains behind every passage. It's amazing to look back on so many memories, now that we have much more behind than ahead.

05/09/25 07:43 PM

#3602

Nancy,

We were in Sanibel for 2-3 days, I think, but I don't remember seeing you guys.

05/10/25 10:24 AM

#3603

Mmmmmm....don't think I saw you either, Jim. But it WAS a long time ago. We were there with our sailing buddies from Germany, who were absolutely enthralled with the manatees in the marina. Accustomed to sailing in the Mediterranean, Aegean, and Adriatic Seas, they had never seen such a critter. She said they looked "galumpy". She was also delighted with all the shells.

No more shell-collections for us - we've moved on to rocks. Petoskey stones and mudstones sometimes appear in the unending supply of limestone variants in our gardens. We are literally gardening on glacial till. Amend, amend, amend.....and then wonder next season where it went. This week is dedicated to checking the weather report and moving pots and flats in and out of the garage, waiting for the last frost, which could still hit us. And it wasn't too long ago that snowdrifts in the shady part of the yard finally disappeared. Last to go is the one behind the snowfence that Karsten puts up to avoid having it all blow across the lake and then dump right in front of our kitchen door. All this can be labor-intensive, but we still love the changing seasons every year.

05/12/25 09:10 PM

#3604

Karsten Boerger

Gary

These jokes are fabulous

karsten

05/13/25 09:19 PM

#3605

i second that opinion, Karsten. Many much-needed laughs! (I should always go to the Home Page before the Message Forum - not that the MF isn't entertaining, but the Home Page is hysterical! Thanks, Garry.)

05/14/25 03:38 PM

#3606

Nancy,

Your dissertation about the coming season and the prep around the house and yard got me to thinking about you folk who have lived in the same old house for many, many years. As one who seems to move every couple years, I was thinking (as I was unpacking box 153, or 154 of 213) about the fun stuff you all are missing.

You’ve got stuff, it’s put away, probably haven’t seen it for years. We get to dig it out every couple years, try and remember what or whose it was and why we kept it, fondle it, and put it away with a new memory. On the other end, you get the excitement of unpacking it, seeing it again, and wonder why you brought it this time.

New state, new city, new neighborhood, new house. Think of, especially as we get older, of all the excitement of learning all those new places. You couldn’t remember how to get to the dentist in the old place, what’s different about the new one. There’s the fun and adventure of “exploring,” with or without GPS, you “explore” new places because they’re not where you thought they would be.

It’s a bit easier here in Florida. Like Milwaukee, the big water is to the east. In effect, there is no east, you only have 3 directions to get lost in.

You quickly get to check out all kinds of new eating places, 2-3 meals a day, because you haven’t found the box with the cooking stuff yet.

New doctors, dentists, etc., they’re even younger here than they were in the last place.

You also get to practice your manual skills every day. Nothing comes put together anymore. Furniture, appliances, modems, routers, vacuums, . . . . You have to assemble it all now. Who needs a hobby.

The electronic stuff, you unpack it, plug it in, turn it on and it works - if your degree is in electrical and computer engineering. Of course, you can go online and get help to set up anything, if you have figured out in the first place how to get the internet working in the new house. The hot spot in MacDonald’s is nice for a cup of coffee, but not hooking up the water line to your fridge.

So, all you settled folk. Boring. It ain’t over ’til it’s over, and your missing all the fun.

05/15/25 10:12 AM

#3607

Well Jim, at least we aren’t missing any of the assembling/electrical fun. Besides the fact that we’ve lived all or parts of winters in three other places since we bought this home, there’s one other factor. That is, after 30 years, even were this a new house, everything needs replacing sooner or later. So, Karsten’s double E major (and his trusty volt meter), plus You Tube, an assortment of bizarrely translated instruction manuals, and the occasional resort to a pricey house call have managed to provide functioning new items; cooktop, oven, fridge, washer, furnace, garage door openers, drain field, TV, microwave, vacuum, and on and on and on. We still have the upper floor of one garage holding “city furniture” waiting for when we’re old (ha, ha!) and need to move again. Problem is, we want less and less to be in any city anywhere. So every season of cleaning is now approached with the Marie Kondo thought: does this give me joy? We just hope to get it under control before the end, so the kids don’t have to deal with it.

05/15/25 06:35 PM

#3608

One of the (intentional) benefits of moving to Florida is being 2 miles from our son. Somehow, he's one of those natural figure-it-out guys, with skills and aptitude that bypassed at least 3 generations of other Cejka dads. Not school learning, just that almost eerie sense that he can look at something and he knows how it works, mechanically and theoretically, can take it apart and put it together, and probably make it better. He's done that on a couple of his Coast Guard assignments, made "modifications" on his boats that the Coast Guard later adopted. From a dad whose skill set is limited to changing a light bulb.

And hey, I once had a job where I wrote those instructions for a major company. Whole manuals of them. Overlooking the natural frustration, they do provide some comic relief, in how they are written, and in how us ineptness personified guys end up doing things from them.

05/22/25 12:09 PM

#3609

No Memorial Day banner on the homepage. I can't do it on my cellphone and at the moment I'm on a ship docking at Ketchikan Alaska. ! As near as I can tell Alaska looks like the inside of our cabin. A few days into the cruise my wife came down with an Alaskan sized cold and since has been confined to our room. I'm not going to leave her alone so a whole bunch of excursions are down the tube! To my surprise the ship's medical center isn't terribly helpful.

In any case, whatever the original purpose of MemorialDay, it is a fitting reminder of the youth of our country who will never grow old. This year it is even more significant for me because a couple of weeks ago I lost a cousin who was in the worst of the worst. He was a tunnel rat in Nam, which some of us who know what that entails, And he did in Cambodia! His reward? A lifetime of COPD and other problems.

So I apologize to my cousin and all of our boys who gave their all, whether on the battlefield or throughout life forever carrying the burden of the futility of war. Thank you friends, thank you.

05/23/25 07:23 PM

#3610

Garry,

All might not be lost. If you happen near Mat-Su, they will have a memorial ceremony in the morning at their veteran's Wall of Honor, followed by a pot luck lunch at the VFW post. Your ship's cook might provide something for the pot luck.

05/26/25 10:21 PM

#3611

John Ruhland

This might be of interest to former classmates of Granville High School (now Brown Deer High School), before we were all transfered to Custer. Our principal Joe Klucarich passed away on 5/18/2025 at 103 yrs old.

That's a looong life.

05/29/25 01:46 PM

#3612

Whenever you travel for a while you want to make sure your house is buttoned up and safe. Never mind that on our just completed Alaskan cruise we hit gale force winds and seas, or that my wife got sick with a high fever and horrible cough for half the time meaning several of our pre-paid excursions went to waste, or that our luggage got lost during disembarking ... it was still a wonderful adventure together with lots of new sights, friends and experiences.

And we returned to a secure home with nothing amiss. But that's probably because of my foolproof method of out-foxing bad guys. I had lights and radios on timers, dowels in sliding window and door tracks, mail stopped, and wonderful neighbors. But most of all I dumbfounded bruglars by leaving my house key IN THE DOOR LOCK THE ENTIRE TIME WE WERE GONE! Yup, when I went searching through my luggage for the key and coudn't find it, I retreived our hidden emergency key only to find it wasn't needed because there was already a key in the door!

Now I ask you, how clever is that? If you were a would-be thief and you saw a key in the lock, wouldn't you suspect it to be a trap ... just as I clearly intended? IT WORKED!!! I understand there was an increase in break-ins in nearby neighborhoods while we were gone having forced bad guys to seek less sophisticated victims!!! I am available for home security consulting should any of you be planning a trip.

05/31/25 12:28 PM

#3613

Oh, Garry - that is even more sophisticated than the time we went on an all day trip and left the garage door open so the burglars would be tempted to take the less valuable things in the garage, and forget about the house.

06/03/25 02:43 PM

#3614

Way to go Terri! I hadn't thought of that one but it does reflect well on our Californian creativity and awareness of the criminal mind. If you'd have lived in Wisconsin you'd be worried about losing snow blowers, rock salt and jumper cables. Out here we only worry about our surf boards, golf clubs and robo lawn mowers. Since everybody already have those they're not worth stealing. It almost makes our 10X cost of homes worth it.

06/11/25 04:54 PM

#3615

Kenneth Pallaske

Dear Friends,

A couple of months ago I had a myelogram and CT scan done on my poor old back. It not only displayed the damage I have done and ignored to it, a mass on my left lung was discovered.

The mass turned out to be stage IV metastatic lung cancer. It has spread to several bones in my spine (8), my right shoulder and 3 ribs in my right back. I have since had 10 radiation treatments for the lesions in my cervical spine and shoulder. A new level of pain was discovered during these sessions. They ended a week ago. I am happy to report the pain is much mnore manageable since the radiation started taking effect.

Today I had my first roud of chemo therapy. I was supposed to have immunotherapy along with the chemo, however, the blood test indicated my thyroid is now hyper. So, this needs to be corrected before immunotherapy can start because the therapy will make the already crazy thyroid worse.

The doctor gives me less than a year to live without Chemo/immunotherapy and a 40% chance of a 5 year survival with it, which prompted our decision. We trust in God and have asked Him for a miracle. Please keep me and Lu (Luanne) in your prayers.

Peace to all of you.

Ken and Lu Pallaske

06/14/25 12:58 PM

#3616

I've sent Ken a personal note in response to his difficult position. I know we all join together in sending Ken our support and hugs. It reminds me that it is "our season" as the O.G.'s (old guys) of this period. All of us know our day is ahead of us, some closer than others, but it's getting pretty damn close! We've all outlived over half of our classmates and are beyond the "average lifespan" (which decreased by a couple of years because of Covid). What concerns me is that we're missing so many others from our class who are struggling with major health issues, not to mention so many that we've never been able to locate since graduation and many of whom have, no doubt, already passed on.

I belong to an old timers golf club. There's a position whose responsibility is to report on the health and welfare of members on a monthly basis. When I first joined I thought, "How morbid!" But the longer I play the more I appreciate hearing why somebody hasn't been seen in a while and what they're dealing with. It gives me an opportunity to express to them how much I appreciate their friendship and the good times we've spent together. It's so much better than having to say, "Oh shit! I didn't get to tell him ... " after he's gone.

So many of you are dealing with major, major health issues. If not today, how far in the future? Many of us want to know so we can support you, some may want to pray for you, and all of us don't want to lose you without having expressed our love and appreciation for having been part of your life.

Personally, I'd like to hear what you're dealing with, like Ken just did. If you're not the type to express it publicly you can always send me an email directly or through the website "Contact Us". I can then add a note to the website. And here's an even more morbid thought, let somebody in your family know to contact us should you pass away (let them know before you pass. Afterwards is a bit spooky!) We've had at least a half dozen classmates do that and that's how I learned of their passing and could put it on the website.

Not quite sure how to handle it when my number comes up! Almost everybody who knows anything about the website is already gone!!!

06/16/25 07:37 AM

#3617

Ken,

Hang in there. Garry nailed it. Things like this remind me that God has a plan for all of us. How, why, years past, years to come, we don’t know. We are the product of so many things we can’t control, that have come to us as blessings, earned or not. We have always been in HIS hands, and at this stage, at our age, we can appreciate and trust that all the more. HE’s given us so much. HE’s also given us the doctors, nurses, and research, and therefore, hope. We live on what we are given.

So, hang in there -

“If there's one thing that I pray for,
As I live my daily life,
It's that I may be courageous
When I'm faced with bitter strife!...
So, I humbly pray for courage
To be with me morn and night,
Thro' the coldness of the Winter
And the Summer's bright sunlight!"
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham (1880–1971), “Courage”

Semper Fi

06/22/25 11:26 AM

#3618

Sports fans -

What happens when you live in an area without major league, professional teams?

Since we moved to this Florida place, we, of course, have a different TV provider. For sports entertainment, we do get a major league baseball game, the remains of the NBA basketball series, and golf.

And, our TV provider also graces us with a plethora of other sports, including such things as the national air-guitar championships, national sign-spinning championships,and regional axe and knife throwing contests.

Somehow, down here we also get minor, minor league baseball almost every night, hardball and softball. For some reason, they televise games from the Northwoods League, which is mostly teams from WI, MICH, and MN. They're college kids from all over, like it's their summer job. So, I get to watch Wausau, Eau Claire, Fond Du Lac, and the likes, with teams like the Hot Tots, Pit Spitters, Dock Spiders, Night-mares, and Habaneros.

With all that, I hardly worry about what's going on with the Packers.

06/23/25 01:29 PM

#3619

Gordon "Allen" Mitchell

Sports: here in Orlando it's always interesting to see what's on! I use "YouTube TV" for provider! Get fair coverage from ESPN, CBS Sports and Fox Sports. With t-mobile phone I get MLB! MLB is good for my since I follow the Brewers some. All Florida teams MLB are blacked-out! NFL is limited to network games plus Amazon prime games. I refuse to pay the high prices for NFL NETWORK or NBA! All the playoffs were covered well on networks! YTTV has golf channel! So good coverage! The interesting sport has been tennis. Tennis channel went to ay status but have been getting the "majors" through FoxSports and other networks. Anyway hope this gives some assist.

After years of tests, my PSA went up so went for more testing and biopsy on prostrate. Found Stage 1, cancer areas. So, after weighing the options I have decided to go through a procedure called HIFU! It's a high falooten ultra-sound procedure! "In & out" in one day! Pin point dissection! Should be interesting! Scheduled: July 3rd! Only down side I feel will be a catheter for a week or so! But on the plus side, no radiation or chemo!

Otherwise, not too bad here Just slow walking these days!

Can’t drive because of my eyes - macular degeneration! One wet! One day!

06/23/25 02:11 PM

#3620

Allen, my brother had that exact surgery last August and is doing well! There was the catheter thing and some pain for awhile, but now good as new and cancer free, Fingers crossed.

06/23/25 02:16 PM

#3621