December,
1998
Hi
everybody!
In response to overwhelming
commentary about the voluminous letter of last year (I won't say whether
positive or negative), I include on the last page a copy of a cartoon from The
New Yorker that a friend faxed to me in response to receiving the card and
letter.
Our 1997-98 winter was
remarkable. If one did not know that the
greenhouse effect is something that is supposed to occur over decades and not
single years, one would say we are seeing a greenhouse effect in the Twin
Cities. With the exception of some sleet
and a little snow hither and yon, we had extraordinarily warm temperatures and
very little precipitation of any kind into January. The temperate weather even moderated my
annual longings to go somewhere warm for a week or so--which sentiment usually
increases dramatically in strength about that time of the year. I mentioned to Krystin that it would be nice
to go to Mexico
for a week on the beach in the sun, but the weather was so mild that it hardly
seemed worth having to get away from.
We survived the 1997 Christmas
season quite nicely; saw a lot of friends and family, repeatedly, and generally
had a good time with all. This marked a
resumption of the sort of social life to which we were long accustomed, up
until about 1990. After we moved into
this house, we drastically reduced the amount of entertaining we did, simply
because the house was so small that it was difficult to accommodate guests and
children. Now, with more space, and
after the completion of the construction, we can more comfortably once again
enjoy the company of our friends and family.
And we did so with great vigor in December of 1997. We had multiple dinner parties, at which we
served what is allegedly my Danish great-grandmother's meatball soup. We plan to do the same thing in the future.
(Serving that soup to dinner guests is clearly an instance of taking what was
originally peasant/farm food and elevating to some higher level of cuisine,
although I'd hesitate to call it haute.)
In our household this year, we took
two dramatic steps, one that looked backwards 5000 years and one that looked
forward into the 21st century. Looking
backwards: in mid-winter, we got a dog.
We've had cats for years--since we got married in 1982--but never had a dog.
We had talked about getting a dog,
but didn't do anything about it. Then
Krystin had a friend with a mama dog that had pups, and every time Krystin came
home from visiting her friend (and the puppies), she implored us to get a
dog. We finally said "OK," and
talked to friends who had dogs. We
decided to explore the possibility of adopting a retired racing
greyhound--everybody said they were absolutely great dogs for kids, lovable,
etc.
The more we explored this
option--including buying a book about them and visiting adopted greyhounds at
the local pet store--the more we thought it would be a good idea. Then Pat chatted with the local adoptive
greyhound society for about 3 hours one night, and finally decided
"no." We wouldn't get a dog
specifically for its watchdog talents--this is just to be a family pet--but we
thought it would be nice to have an animal that would coincidentally serve as
the alarm and, in the eyes of someone with malevolent ideas, a protector. What Pat learned, finally, was that (1)
greyhounds seldom bark, and (2) if a greyhound senses a threat, it either runs
to its owner for protection or runs and hides.
Those characteristics, combined with the fact that it can easily leap a
4-foot fence and hit over 45 MPH within 3 strides led us to decide this
greyhound idea wasn't a good one.
OK, fine, we decided just to go to
the humane society and get a run-of-the-mill mutt. Pat and I talked about it ahead of time, and
concluded (firmly!) that we wanted (1) a "grown" dog--one that was
housebroken--and (2) a moderate-sized dog at most (one that could happily live
in a city house on a city lot). So, what
did we do? We go to the humane society
one snowy winter evening, and wander through all the dog rooms (they had dozens
and dozens). We almost all (Pat, Gary,
and Krystin), independently, agreed on one dog (Elliott didn’t have strong
feelings one way or the other). It was half Rottweiler, half Lab, 6 months old
(that is, not housebroken), and her full-grown predicted weight was 80-90
pounds. Her great attraction was that
she was extremely affectionate, very gentle, and thoroughly likable. So home she came with us.
The dog was a stray that had been
picked up. (Her age and breed were both
guesses by the vet.) We debated, driving
home from the humane society, what to name her, and landed on
"Millie," after Pat's grandmother.
When Pat told her dad that we had named the dog after his mother, he was
taken aback, and not so sure about the meaning of this, but finally accepted
the idea after Pat pointed out that it was a compliment that Pat remembered and
thought well enough of her grandma that she named her dog after her.
The end of the dog story is that we
ended up with a dog with all the protective instincts of a greyhound. Millie wouldn’t bark at anybody who came into
the house with guns blazing--she’d run up and try to get petted. On those rare occasions when she does growl,
it’s for no reason that we can ascertain.
So we have a lovable dog that wouldn’t harm a flea. Oh well--she plays well with the kids. And
us. (Our cat Vickie, needless to say,
has been rather displeased about the addition of this monster to her home. However, even though Vickie has no front
claws, and weighs about 10% of what Millie does, the dog is frightened of
Vickie, who occasionally backs the dog into a corner and hisses at her.)
Looking forward: we broke down and shelled out the money for a
computer, mostly because we knew the kids would need one for school work. I already had, from work, this
"antique" computer in the basement that was fine for word-processing
(what we called "typing" 20 years ago), but it couldn't handle
high-tech computer games or connect to the World Wide Web. So now we're connected to the electronic
world. As I have disposed of “old”
computers over the last couple of years, home and office, I marvel at the fact
that I am junking computing capacity that only a few years earlier would have
been considered outstanding – to say nothing of what it would have been
considered a couple of decades ago. Now
we toss out computing capacity with hardly a second thought.
We were partly right about the
computer: Krystin has needed it for
school. What I hadn’t expected was the
extent to which she connects to “chat rooms” and talks with people from around
the country. She also sends messages
back and forth to her own friends – who are also connected to email and the web
– and does so while simultaneously talking with them on the telephone! She is, in any event, more computer-literate
than either of her parents, at this point.
Elliott has only begun to figure out to use the web, but we have bought
him a couple of computer game disks, and those he has thoroughly enjoyed. He’s also received instruction and guidance
from his cousin Ben Engstrand, who’s a master computer gamesman.
After the great report in last
year’s letter about how well Krystin was doing in school in the fall of 1997,
after changing schools when she went into 7th grade, I am disappointed to
report that her academic performance took a nose dive as the year
progressed. She barely got passing
grades in the winter, and Pat and I were pulling our hair out. Krystin has all the smarts she needs to do
well, but the motivation appeared to have vanished. (For me, who some thought would be the
eternal student, and who always did well as a student, this was beyond the
pale. Even for Pat, who was, charitably,
a hard-working but not outstanding student, this turn of events was upsetting.)
As school started and has run this
year, so far at least Krystin appears to have recovered her academic aplomb,
and is doing quite well. As is perhaps
true of most teen-age girls (she is 14 now), she is more concerned about her
clothing and her appearance and how her friends regard her than her school
work. Maybe things will change as she
gets older, but right now her interest in school work is modest, at best--she
does what she needs to do to perform well, but she’s not especially interested
in any of it. Elliott (at 8) simply
glides along, doing very well without much effort. He reminds me of me--I did fine (better than
I should have) in school, almost up to the point of going to college, with very
little effort. Krystin, on the other
hand, may be more like her mother--she has to work (both literally and in terms
of her interest level) to do passably well.
Actually, that’s not completely fair or accurate; she does take enough
interest (with frequent nudging from us) to do well enough to get mostly A’s
and B’s.
One weather and related items
interlude: after an absolutely glorious
spring (for Minnesota, anyway), late May and early June weather made sure we
kept the average annual temperature steady. We had June weather in April and April
weather in June. The plants grew and the
trees leafed out 2-3 weeks early, at least, and it was sunny and in the 70s and
80s (and even hit the 90s a couple of times) for 6-7 weeks into late May. Then we got blasted by weather from the
north, and in early June we were setting records for low temperatures at night;
the first week of June, we were getting close to freezing at night, and it only
got up to the 50s during the day. So,
all the houseplants I dutifully bring in in the fall and out in the spring came
out in early May and went back into the house in early June. Pat and I made good use of the great early
weather, however; we basically re-landscaped the backyard as well as the sides
of our lot.
The predicted effect of La Nina (the
reverse of El Nino, a cooling of the Pacific) was that we would have a very,
very hot late summer and then a severe winter.
The prediction for the summer certainly didn’t prove to be accurate. Our
summer, after the crappy June, turned out to be idyllic. It lasted well into October; we didn’t have a
lot of hot weather, but we had nicely warm weather late. The winter, thus far, has proven to be
nothing out of the ordinary. We in the
Twin Cities have dodged a couple of bullets in major storms; they neatly went
north and south of us, and we’ve had no snow. Temperatures, moreover, have been quite a bit
above what we expect for early winter.
(As I composed this, I knew things were meteorologically off-kilter when
the outside temperatures, in early December, were 10 degrees warmer than the
setting on our thermostat. December 1
set a new temperature record for Minneapolis
-- 68 degrees – and the 60s are
predicted again for later in the week.)
The only thing I don’t like about
this time of year is the short daylight and long dark, days. Maybe people in warmer climes don’t mind the
shorter days, but when combined with (what is usually) colder weather and no
greenery any more, it’s depressing. I
suppose, having lived through this for my entire life, I should be used to it,
but I’m not. The kids don’t like it,
either.
In the mid-summer storms that swept
through Minnesota,
we were among those unlucky enough to lose power--once for 4 days, once for
2. Twice we had to empty our chest
freezer and bring everything over to my father’s. Fortunately, he had enough room for
everything. But for two things, being
without power wasn’t all that bad. I
decided that on a family level, it was the loss of refrigeration that was the
most annoying--and of course, ice wasn’t to be had in any store within
miles. On a personal level, it was the
loss of hot water I disliked the most--I’m not a fan of cold showers. We could still cook--with a gas stove, we
lost the electronic ignition, so we went back to the old-fashioned method of
lighting the stove--with matches. I’ve
resolved that I have to learn from the gas company how to light the hot water
heater by hand. One thing we were
grateful for was that it was cool while the power was out, so we didn’t miss
the air conditioning. During both
periods the kids despaired--the computer didn’t work, the TV didn’t work, the
VCR didn’t work--so there was, of course, “nothing to do.”
Pat’s family (her 3 sisters, their
families, and her parents) gather each year for a week. (Or, as I jokingly put it to friends, I spend
a year with Pat’s family for a week each summer.) Usually the gathering rotates between Minnesota and the East
Coast, because parts of the family are in one and parts in the other. This year, it was decided (by whom is not
altogether clear, and no one wants to take responsibility) to compromise, so we
all gathered in southern Indiana.
I am here to tell you that there is
no reason whatever to vacation in southern Indiana (with all due respect to those who
live in Indiana). We were in a “resort” that consisted of a number
of cabins in the woods. The cabins were
in a swath of land cut out of woods--no lake, no park, no nothing anywhere
near. The resort was 15 minutes from the
closest state highway--and then 30 minutes from anywhere else. Once you got to “anywhere else,” it wasn’t
much. (Actually, we had a somewhat
interesting trip down; found a wonderful antique store in Huntingberg, Indiana,
where I picked up a set of mirrored name place indicators for a dining room
table. My great-aunt Inez had such a set
when I was little, and I always remember her using them for family
dinners. I was delighted to find a set
in this little town.)
We fully explored the town of French Lick (that took
about half an hour), which was a great resort town earlier in the century; its
chief claim to fame now is that it was the boyhood home of Larry Bird. We took the kids to the local state park, 45
minutes away, to swim a couple of times.
We went and saw a granite quarry.
We rode a (slow) train 10 miles out from and back to French Lick.
As we were driving in on the night
of our arrival, the road got narrower and narrower and narrower, and less and
less well-kept. The countryside was
beautiful, but it is not an area that is economically well-off. If I recall my history correctly, I think
southern Indiana
would have joined the Confederacy during the Civil War, left to its own
devices. Pat finally concluded that it
must be a mark of social status, in some way, to have as much junk (rusty,
broken-down cars, old furniture, whatnot) in one’s front yard--because there
was junk everywhere.
The highlight of the trip for me was
going with Pat’s brother-in-law to monasteries. The resort owner suggested we
see them, and since we were desperate to find anything interesting, the two of
us went. First we went to the male
version (yes, we learned that monasteries can be for both men and women; nuns
do not necessarily live in convents, they live in monasteries). It was a monastery but also an institution
for post-baccalaureate training in the church; we happened to hit alumni
weekend, so we couldn’t find anyone to talk to or give us a tour. We did walk around it some, into the library
and the church--which was enormous, and beautiful, sitting in the middle of
nowhere. We also had a great lunch--$4 for all the food and liquid you wanted,
all home-cooked. It was the best meal we
had all week.
Then we drove a few miles up the
road to the female monastery. This time
we had a nun who gave us a tour. She
spent 90 minutes with the two of us, and was one of the most gracious,
charming, humorous people either of us had ever met. She was delightful to spend time with, gave
us a wonderful tour of (the even bigger and more beautiful) church. We noticed, in the literature they had, that
the monastery had a web site.
After we got back home, I emailed to
the web site to get the name of the sister who had given us the tour, and then
sent her an email thanking her for the wonderful time she had given us. I told her that if it weren’t for the fact
that there were doctrinal and sex problems with it, I would have thought
seriously about becoming a nun in her monastery. Given that the church frowns on female
priests and bishops, however, it seemed to me unlikely it would look favorably
on a male nun, and my wife and children would probably be appalled at the
thought that I was suddenly taking orders in the church, so I guessed I
wouldn’t follow through on this thought.
Maybe, I told her, it was simply the result of being forced to spend a
week with 7 children and 10 adults cooped up in cabins in the woods that led me
to this rather strange line of thought.
Sister Mary Lee emailed back to me and said that she had excerpted that
part of my email and shared it with the other sisters--both she and they
thought it was hilarious and they had all laughed a good deal about it. So ends my intersection with the Catholic
Church. But she was one of the most
genuinely likable and decent people I have ever met. (I did learn, when she said the Lord’s Prayer
for the two of us during her tour, that at least Benedictine sisters in
southern Indiana
say it exactly the same way that Minnesota Lutherans learned it when I was
growing up.)
Pat and I got away for 5 days to Miami in early
November. I had a meeting--the
Association for the Study of Higher Education--and Pat tagged along. They had 6 inches of rain the first night we
were there (the end of hurricane Mitch), but otherwise it was very pleasant
weather. Unfortunately, the hotel we
were staying in (which was very nice itself) was plunked down in the middle of
a bad neighborhood, on the north end of downtown Miami.
There were empty buildings, empty, weed-grown lots, and
down-at-the-mouth businesses all around--we didn’t go out walking much. Our room, however, was on the 16th
floor, with two walls of glass, and we looked out over the coast, Miami Beach, and the
ocean, so the view was spectacular.
We did drive around some, including
over to Miami Beach
a couple of times to eat and explore.
I’ve never seen so many Art Deco buildings in my life. One night we parked the car on the
ocean-front street one night and walked down to a restaurant where we ate
outside, and could not figure out why all these people were stopping to stare
at this dark mansion on the street directly in front of where we had
parked. We later figured out it was the
home of whatshisname Versace, the guy who was gunned down in front of the house
by Andrew Cunanen, who started his killing spree in Minnesota. (Pat later grimaced; she had taken her shoes
off because her feet hurt from all the walking she had done, and realized she
had probably stepped where Versace’s blood had been on the sidewalk.)
Our general reaction was that if we
never go back to Miami
again, we won’t be all that upset. Everything seemed to be run-down and
tacky--no matter where we drove. No
doubt there are very nice, and some very elegant, places to live in the Miami area, but all of
the places the visiting public sees were basically seedy. (We did have an absolutely delightful dinner
with friends from Minnesota
who had come down for another professional meeting--we ate outside on a
pedestrian mall. Sitting in short
sleeves until midnight,
talking and eating, was wonderful.) And
no bugs.
I suppose I can’t write this letter
without making mention of Jesse Ventura.
There.
I
mentioned him. Actually, he seems to be
a very bright man, appears to be taking his responsibilities very seriously,
and has appointed a non-partisan advisory counsel of well-respected people in
the state; he’s off to a decent start.
We’ll see--nobody has a clue what his public policy positions will
be--but I and most people I know are reasonably optimistic, at this point, about what will come of the Ventura administration. Minnesotans have demonstrated themselves to
be among the most erratic voters in the country--we have one of the most
liberal members of the U.S. Senate (Paul Wellstone), one of the most
conservative members of the Senate (Rod Grams), the state Senate has a
Democratic majority, the state House has a Republican majority. and now we have
Jesse Ventura as governor. What can one say?
In terms of routine life on the home
front, nothing is noteworthy. The kids
are growing (up), the house remains remodeled (although even yet not finished),
our jobs are going along normally; life goes on. My dad and grandmother are
doing fine. My grandmother, at 97, moved
from one apartment to another in her seniors’ residence; she didn’t like being
around all these old people in wheel chairs who didn’t talk much or weren’t in
full possession of their faculties. She
related at Thanksgiving that the previous week she was invited down to another
couple’s apartment for a drink before dinner.
Of course she accepted.
For the Engstrand Christmas this
year we are going to my brother and sister-in-law’s in Wisconsin.
It’s a wonderfully picturesque setting--on a lake, surrounded by tall
pines. If there is snow, it’s a classic
Christmas locale. They have collected,
over the years, many of the Department 56 Dickens Village buildings; they put
them up in a large display, which is both exquisite and holiday-esque. Then we have to hurry back so that Pat’s
family can come to our house on the 26th for Christmas #2.
We wish you all the best for 1998.
