Days 15-18 - Oct. 15-18, Menomonee Falls, WI & Travel
Updated: 6 days ago
The 14th was another long day of driving. I left about 8:30 AM and arrived in Menomonee Falls (suburb of Milwaukee, WI) about 5:30 PM. Marion and her new husband Mike, welcomed me and fed me right away. Mike went off to play euchre while Marion and I got to chatting, making a tiny dent in 22 years of bad communications.
As children, we lived far apart and did not get to have that experience of being best friends with cousins. She’s about a decade my senior, so remembers our grandparents much better than I. It was great for me to get to hear stories about them that I never knew; learning more about them as people than just those kind folks that we visited on rare occasions. Gathering tidbits along the way, I learned of more historic tales stretching back to the Mayflower.
Here is a sample of family history Marion had visuals for: My father‘s mother‘s mother had a brother named Bruce Porter. Bruce was well known in the San Francisco area in the late 1800's as a landscape designer, writer, and stained glass artist. He with several others writers published The Lark, a literary and humor magazine of the 1890s. Bruce had his stained glass creations in many homes and churches, and now museums. When my grandmother‘s brother died at a young age from influenza, Bruce made a beautiful stained glass window in his nephew's honor.
Marion, herself, is an accomplished and very inspiring stained glass artist and instructor. In the top photos are a few examples of her artwork. I wish I had gotten more.
Marion's father, was my father‘s older brother. So I was learning family history on that side. She and I have the same experience of holding onto family heirlooms for our children’s sake, only to find out our children really don’t care to inherit them.
She and I also have a love of puzzling. She had started one that had an exceedingly detailed picture of a little anthropomorphic animals enjoying a theme park. Though she had about given up on it, we found as we worked together, even with the handicat of LuLa (who is the real boss of this home), that we were able to make good progress and by the end of the second day finished it.
Marion and Mike just got married last July, so it was sweet to see their young romance. Their companionable relationship made me miss Buck a lot. Also, I find myself missing him in odd little ways, like when I use eye drops it reminds me of giving him eye drops. When I trim my fingernails, it reminds me of trimming his. Tender, caring interactions that bound us together.
Another way Marion and I resonated was our concern for our country. So we went together to a No Kings rally in Milwaukee. She carried a sign saying “Don’t make me repeat myself.—History.” And on the backside, “Make America Great Again. Impeach Trump!” I had brought my own sign which says, “Billionaires… Balance due.” The turnout at the rally wasn’t super, maybe 1000, probably because more people had gone to Chicago (an hour's drive away), where there were over 100,000 participants. (FYI, I tried for an hour to access my photos of the rally, but they never showed up in any format I used--cloud or email. Hmm, why do you think that is?) But every person counts. Make sure you VOTE!
Sunday is a good day for traveling. M & M sent me off at 6 AM, Mike using his car's headlights to guide me backing down the windy driveway (couldn't I wait till daylight? Maybe next time...). The drive was complex from Milwaukee, past Chicago, along three state's toll roads, and off onto country roads. GPS got me stuck waiting for trains to clear a track. After watching them go back and forth, back and forth for half and hour, I finally gave up and backtracked, taking off east on a straight farm road. When I let GPS take over, it took me on many windy country roads. But the late afternoon sunset made all the fall trees look fabulous amongst their corn fields & farmsteads. So it was a pleasant drive if convoluted (or should I say meandering!). I experimented with making a video to capture the Fall trees. It seems my camera liked the scratches on my windshield better.
My sister, Kris, welcomed to me in at about 7 PM, fed me and let me go right to bed. She is a very special gift to our family, which I’ll tell you more about soon.
Marvelous meanders!