52nd Wedding Anniversary

Today is my parent's 52nd wedding anniversary. Can you still say its an anniversary if one parent has passed away?

Last year, about a week before their anniversary, we learned that my father had lung cancer. He was a smoker - pipe and cigar, never cigarettes - for much of his life.

They were married in 1956. I was born in September 1957, followed by a brother in January 1959, another brother in October 1963 and a sister in February 1968.

My parents moved 7 or 8 times during their marriage, all within the state of Indiana. During most of my childhood we lived on Russell Road in Bloomington.
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My dad had maybe 8 or 9 jobs during those 50+ years; my mother worked mostly in the home until we were all grown or nearly grown.

Very Cool Google Map Feature

I found this very cool Google Map feature today. I was writing an upcoming post about my parents and went to Google Maps to grab the html so that I could share a map with you (I know, I am breaking the fourth wall here, speaking directly to you).

I found that in some areas of the country you can get a Street View of the map you are looking at. The roads that have Street Views available are outlined in blue. The road I lived on as a kid was not blue-lined, but the street where my grandmother lived was. I found her house - and here it is. Of course it looks very different than it did 20 years ago, but this is it. You can see the big window in the front - that was the Christmas tree window. It was a small room off of her bedroom where her study was. The fence that surrounded the yard is gone, as is the one-car garage. If you spin the image 180 degrees (click and drag to the right or left) you can see the house that my mother caught me on top of one time (the kids that lived there were our summertime friends). If you grab the image on the left side and spin it 90 degrees you can see where the street dead-ends. Behind those trees were the railroad tracks where we would sneak off to and put pennies on the tracks.


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Here is the map.

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American Craft Council Show

Abelisto & I went up to the Saint Paul on Friday to attend the American Craft Council show at the River Center. Another professor was teaching Abelisto's second class of the day so he was finished at 8:353a.m. I have vacation time that needs to be used up before May 31.

So I took the day off. We saw a lot of really interesting work - most of it way out of our price range. There was an ottoman made by Robert Harman that I loved. We spoke with Robert (I think it was Robert). His studio is in my hometown (Bloomington Indiana) and we promised to come by next time we go to visit family. His work is wonderful.

I made contact with a couple artists who are interested in having me do their websites. That might be a good thing, when everything is said and done.

My father met my mother 52 years ago yesterday

Called my mother last night right before we went to the party. Wanted to wish her happy new year and to let her know that I found out it would be better/easier/quicker if she transfered the title to the truck into her name in Indiana rather than trying to transfer it out of her and his name and into mine here in Minnesota. So tomorrow I am mailing the title back to her.

While we were on the phone she told me what/how everyone in Indiana is doing. Then she told me the story about how she met my father 52 years ago. I never knew how they met.

She said...

"You know, it was 52 years ago tonight that I met your dad. I'm a bit sad tonight, thought I might go do something special, but I'm sitting here with the dog, just watching tv.

"Anyway, Rosie (my aunt) and I were wondering what we were going to do for New Year's eve. I was 19, Rosie was 18. We were walking down 4th street, trying to decide. Your father was driving by and he pulled over to talk to us.

"It wasn't that he was pulling over to talk to two strange girls, he wasn't like that you know. He knew Rosie. She was dating his cousin Harry, and they had met a while back. Anyway, he knew Rosie, and I guess he knew of me, but we had never met.

"He smiled at us and after a few minutes of chatting, asked what we were doing for the evening. We told him we were still trying to decide. He asked us if we would like to go to a movie. So we did.

"He took both of us to the movie. Your father was like that - he was always very good to your aunt Rosie. We had a good time that night."

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Sometime later, 4 or 5 months later I think, he wrote her a sweet, sweet note

"Liz,
I love you very much and want to marry you.
Keith"

They were married in June, 1955.

She still has the note. I've seen it.

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