I&#39;m Baaaaaaaaack. . .&nbsp;

In case anyone is curious, the reference that Jim made to the "We Five" is the singing group who had one true hit as shown below.

The only one of the group still alive is the woman, Beverly Bivens, who left the group early after "relationship issues" and is said to be living in Berkeley! One of the guys went on to become a producers for Billy Joel, except he died of "a long illness" at age 57, which according to his son was actually a suicide.

"Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate. " Emily Dickinson

03/13/25 03:43 PM

#3586

Some pundits credited the We Five with being the band that introduced the "Beatles like sound." Not sure what that meant, they sounded like most other bands of that era, only, I think, better. The actually made two albums, and I have both. Outside their "When you were on my mind," most songs on the album are from other bands or artists. Some nice versions though. They were at least recognized enough that they made the Ed Sullivan Show.

03/27/25 03:58 PM

#3587

Garry,

I worked a Willie Nelson concert at State Fair Park one year. The whole stands were like that trailer. Milwaukee County Sheriff had undercover cops working the stands, and they were taking people away by the bus load.

03/31/25 09:40 AM

#3588

Yeah, but I bet it was heck of a concert! Nobody like him and he knows how to entertain.

03/31/25 04:13 PM

#3589

Oh, it was entertaining all right - but mostly watching the stoned in the stands.

04/05/25 08:47 AM

#3590

Perhaps many have read about our ice storms here in northern Michigan and are wondering how things are going. Well, our county and adjacent counties had hundreds of thousands of people without power due to downed lines caused by fallen trees. Our nearest city, Alpena (25 miles away), had no open stores (including gas stations), no stoplights, etc. for a couple of days. No newspaper and no mail - our local post office had no heat, so mail couldn't be sorted. The hospital was on generators, and the nearby limestone quarry provided gas for emergency vehicles. People scrambled for available hotels, some went to warming shelters, others left town for friends, family, or southern homes.

Here at our house Karsten first wrestled (eventually successfully) with a recalcitrant generator, and the next day with a failed lift pump and a dead car battery. After one day of no lift pump, the sound of flushing toilets was like a glorious concerto. Lots of time clearing limbs from our driveway, and then joining neighbors to clear the next road to the one that takes us to into town. Once that was all in gear, we settled in for several days of raiding our freezer and clearing out the fresh vegetable bin. No phones, no tv, no internet, so we got lots of good reading done. The lake provided plenty of entertainment, as the mergansers and buffleheads have arrived on their way north. Huge slabs of ice pushed onto the coastline rocks, making interesting viewing as well, with a local otter paddling back and forth nearby. Yesterday warmed up into the low 40's, so we began clearing branches from around the house. Will need several more days to finish that job.

Our power resumed last night, so we watched the news on t.v for the first time in almost a week. For the duration, our news had come from our cell phones. Some across the lake are still waiting for power - we know that by seeing just one light on from north to south - obviously another home generator.

So, the worst is over. We can't say we really suffered, as we often thought of Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan, and all the other people around the world who have no relief to look forward to in the near future. To complain about the past week's inconvenience would be the utmost in lacking gratitude. We hope all the rest of our class is safe and comfortable, and desperately wish we could make it so for the rest of our world.

04/05/25 06:43 PM

#3591

Among the many things we Yanks are known for in other countries, complaining is up there on the list. I sympathize with your plight, Nancy. My sister lives in a remote area north of Eagle River with a husband well into Alzheimer's, needing urgent care for a potentially lethal bacterial infection and a snow/ice storm! We lost our power a few weeks ago for about 10 hours (but not our toilets) and we were just lost. We actually had to talk to each other! It got all the way down to almost 55 degrees in the house! Gee, we could 've died!!!

Every time I hear about a weather disaster like the storms currently ripping through the South and Midwest, not to mention how many times Texas, Florida and the Carolinas have been decimated, I wonder about any of our classmates in the area. We've got our people in almost every area. I wish all of you'd report in when you're in the midst of a potential crisis like Don Imig did with the L.A. firestorms and now Nancy. We've got enough on our plates just counting the aches and pains when we get up in the morning and the new ones awaiting us! At least give us a safe abode and decent weather!

04/06/25 07:31 AM

#3592

Garry,

55 degrees, and you lived to tell the tale! We used to keep our bedroom at 55. Now that we're older, we've cranked it up to 58. Have vowed to never weaken to 60.

Spent some time picking up branches in the yard yesterday, and slept like the dead last night. Next job is to move the boulders which the ice has pushed from the lake edge onto our lawn.

Delighted to wake up and be able to walk to the coffeepot this morning. As long as the coffee-growers hold out, we too may live to see another day.

Be well, all..........

P.S. I'm sad about your sister. She probably finds great comfort in your writing.

04/19/25 11:17 PM

#3593

Barbara Blair (Brenzel)

Happy Easter to all!!

Barb

04/24/25 06:47 PM

#3594

I'm Baaaaaaaaack. . .

in Florida, that is. We lived in Florida about 35 years ago, and, as of today, we're back. Gave up on South Carolina, with it's 2-lane interstates (we moved 2 miles in 30 minutes on the drive today, the home of the Civil War, with cannons and battle sites everywhere, and the birthplace of down South iced "sweet tea" (and the diabetes capital of the world, I think).

So, it's back to Florida, the home of the flood zone lottery - will you be an AE, or an X? I-4 is still a parking lot, throwing money into the toll booth is now passe, and, as usual, there is a gator in every body of water larger than a bathtub ("Has anyone seem my little lost puppy"?

Still, it has some advantages. The grandgirls are now 2 miles away, and the beach is 9.

04/25/25 02:48 PM

#3595

Gordon "Allen" Mitchell

Where's back in Florida?

04/25/25 06:18 PM

#3596

Terri Levenhagen (Hoornstra)

We're over in Palm Bay this time. Watch the launches from our front porch instead of driving 60 miles to see them.

We're almost neighbors. I'm sure I'll be getting back to the Orlando area at some time to the VA hospital there.

04/26/25 01:39 PM

#3597

I'm so jealous, Jim, of your being so near the beach! We are in northeast LA and might as well be in Wisconsin for our ability to get to a decent beach. It's usually a 2 hour drive. So nice to be closer to your grandkids. Don't they have the sweet iced tea in Florida too? It was a staple when we lived in Savannah. The waitress comes to your table with two pitchers: "Sweet or regular?"

04/26/25 07:02 PM

#3598

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

Terri Levenhagen (Hoornstra)

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