Hello March 2020---I know I am a day late

OK March shows a lot of our life growing up on the farm.  Church was important, the rock pile was every present, Wood Lake School held many memories, some of the winters were just so so filled with snow and then there was the hay rack and all of those memories--at this time in life ALL was good!!!

Norma and Wayne are now headed north to Minnesota but memories of their stay are fresh and fun to recall.  Tennis is front and center this week.  I play in our Tuesday match on court 2 in the 70+ league and I am not so sure of that.  I am playing with a guy I have never played with AND I am not sure he is a very strong 3.0 BUT we will do our best and have fun.  My team, on Wednesday, plays a team we are pretty much even with and that presents a fun challenge.  I have 3 of my team NOT available and that may cause some issues but still we will do our best and have fun.

The weekend was pretty quite.  After Norma and Wayne left Terry and I kind of just chilled out for the weekend.  I did a quick trip to Costco yesterday for gas, air in the tires and a handful of items that we needed.  I say "needed" because Costco is always a test of resolve in terms of "need" vs "want"!  Terry did not go as she is still under the weather a bit.

Weather wise we should see temps once again charge into the 80s.  Of course that means the pool heater went on yesterday so I think I will be brave enough to venture into the water by late PM.  Hey, one does not need to freeze at my age!  I did check the temp yesterday afternoon and it showed a cool temp of 75.  I am guessing that by mid to later PM today it will be up to the low 80s which is good for me.

Stages of Life---The beginning of family

Perhaps a bit of repeat here but then who really cares!

Gail and I were married June 1st of 1968.  Gail went through graduation on Friday morning and we headed the 400+ miles to Cayuga for the wedding rehearsal that evening.  After the Saturday wedding we headed back to Minot where I started summer school the next week.  

From June 1st of 68 to the time John was born, December 69, was a whirlwind of activity.  It may have been the best and the worst of times in our marriage.  In the 18 months it included living in 3 different places and moving 4 times.  For me it involved practice teaching on the elementary level, on the secondary level and doing speech in the hospital in Minot with a cowboy who had fallen off a bull and had major brain damage.  For me it involved learning a new language, sign language and then making a life changing decision that would follow me the rest of my life.  Up until the last quarter of my senior year I planned to go into audiology but the offer to teach at the school for the deaf came and I decided that was a good route to go.

Where did we live?  For the summer of 68 we lived in the basement of a small house in Minot.  We moved to Devils Lake in the fall.  In the winter quarter of 69 we lived in the basement of the dean of women of the college as we were back in Minot.  Then for spring quarter we moved back to Devils Lake. Then for the school year of 69-70, my first year of teaching and the year John was born, we lived in the abandoned girl's dorm at the school for the deaf.  We  had no kitchen so meal time consisted of going down two flights of stairs, walking through a tunnel into the administration building and using a kitchen there.  Our apartment consisted of 3 rooms with 12 foot ceilings which included a bathroom that was bigger than our bedroom.  

In the winter I did not have to go outside to get to the school.  I went down down the stairs into the tunnels that contained heating pipes and walked over to the school.  My usual mode of operation was stay in my classroom until 4:30 or so which was an hour after school was let out.  Then spend time with Gail but go back to my classroom for an hour or two in the evening.  I would say that first year of teaching was difficult to say the least.  It is not true but it SEEMED that I spent as much time preparing as I did teaching.  

That year was also the beginning of a teacher upheaval that I kind of stood in the middle!  I will not go into details (I don't think we did anything wrong) but it included things like meetings in a hotel on highway 2, someone going into a meeting with the superintendent with a recorder on his person and MORE.

Enough!  Those 18 months had UPS, DOWNS and some normal times as well.  At the end of my first year of teaching we were told that we could no longer live on campus so it was up to us to find an apartment or house.  That in itself is a story for later!