So, to the beginning. Chuck blew out his last knee last summer on the boat when he slipped and fell into the cabin. The MRI revealed a wasteland and surgery was scheduled for January 6. The great news is his college decided to give him the semester off with full pay, which was a great relief as Chuck thought he was going to return a couple of weeks into the semester…. (talk about unrealistic)! Having the entire semester off meant that Chuck could also schedule the rebuild of his left shoulder that he had been putting off for years (March). The surgeon refused to do both surgeries at the same time as Chuck would need his left shoulder for the cane to support his right knee. The knee replacement surgery went well, with a much better experience in the hospital, but rehab takes longer when you get older and we are certainly doing that! So, there went January and then… February with painful therapy and exercising to regain as much flexibility as possible. March was back to the hospital and more painful rehab that continued on both limbs up until May.
We would note at this juncture that Chuck has now had a rebuild of both shoulders and knees, but is not “bionic.” Apparently, you need another type of insurance to get the nuclear reactor. So, he will have to be happy with being far more mobile than before with years of sailing, skiing, diving, hiking, fire-fighting, etc. in his future. Perhaps the bionic boost can come with Medicare?
Chuck being out of commission for the winter months of course meant we would get a LOT more snow than in the previous 5 years! As most of you know, we have a humongous driveway/s that simply must be attended to. Chuck’s big tractor has a large plow and a five foot snow blower on the rear that can handle most anything that comes along. However, Mary is not at all confident or even capable of handling this machine…. (Chuck thinks this has been a practiced deficiency as it does ensure he has at least one chore he cannot con Mary into doing). Regardless, this situation meant real complications were at hand! For example, just getting Chuck back from hospital would be impossible as there was no way to get the 1300 feet in from the road. But this is where having great friends at hand makes the difference in all our lives! Nick and Holly Zalar came over and used both the tractor and small snow blower to make sure we could get in. Keith and Darlene brought videos and food. And so did Marcy! What a relief it was to be able to rely on our good friends to help us through these difficult circumstances! But, this help continued with Nick coming over regularly to help with firewood and clearing the continuing snow storm accumulation. Don’t know if he spent more time at our house or his own, but we do know how grateful we are!
Chuck’s sailing adventures through the Great Lakes with good friends resulted in his being awarded the “Cruiser of the Year” by Lake Champlain Yacht Club, with his name inscribed on a silver trophy.
He was also invited to give the keynote address about the trip at the “Change of Watch” in late January…. Yes, he was NOT supposed to travel and Yes, he knew this was dumb… but hey! It is about sailing! Perhaps a stopped heart might get in the way, but little else! So, Mary bundled him up and suffered through his “constructive observations” regarding her driving and got him up to Burlington, VT to stay with great friends, Lou and Randy, and to accept the award and give the speech. Mary was more exhausted than Chuck from this, but it was great to see our friends in Burlington! Cruising the Great Lakes is wonderful, but it did mean we were not out sailing with our friends on Lake Champlain and we missed them.
Mary’s allergies have not gotten better over the years and perhaps even worse. She has been enduring bi-weekly shots in order to cope. One of the major issues for her has been all the carpeting in the house. Especially in the bedroom as it makes it difficult for her to sleep. So, we decided to rip out the carpet and install hickory flooring much like we had done on the first floor. Again, our good friend Nick came into play as he is an excellent contractor! The installation went so well that we decided to continue it throughout the entire second floor and to also do Chuck’s den on the first floor. Installing flooring is no small task as it requires total vacating of rooms for weeks while installing, sanding and finishing are accomplished. This meant virtually the entire house was disrupted for a couple of months, with furniture, beds, dressers, etc. being stuffed wherever. Mary does not do well with this level of chaos… especially since Chuck’s bed was installed in the library on the first floor since he could not reliably negotiate stairs…. So, Mary would come home to chaos. Her solution was to leave the country! She had a wonderful opportunity in late March-April to travel to Thailand for the FDA and she had a wonderful time! We know it might be hard to envision her riding and elephant, but yup! This is part of the pictures, with other great tours or the King’s Palace and other events that only she manages to get into!
Another “ploy” Mary utilized to get away from chaos was to relearn how to ice skate with our friend, Marcy. For those of you who have known about Mary’s balance issues throughout the years, you will realize that of all the things you would think Mary would not do… tightrope walking, high diving, and skating are at the top of the list. Boosted with Marcy’s infectious enthusiasm, Mary went skating every Sunday she was home. Chuck tried to get her to wear a bike helmet, but our dauntless adventurer would have nothing of it. Sigh. Reports are the “five year olds” learning to skate did not feel challenged by either of the more senior skaters’ progress.
On a sad note, our family was reduced by the loss of three. Mary’s dad, John, passed away in February after a period of decline. It was his time, but we all miss him and his stories. It was quite a shock to the whole family and especially tough on Mary’s mom, Lucille.
A real shock was the sudden passing of Mary’s cousin, Adrienne, who was in her early 40’s. We also lost our older cat, Kabbie, who wandered off midsummer. She was the one with the “attitude” who we rescued as a kitten by Lake Kabatogama. Our furniture and rugs will last much longer, but we would gladly trade all that for her demanding welcome and obvious affection.
Chuck left in mid-June to sail the Mighty Quinn from Lake Michigan back to Lake Champlain, which is chronicled elsewhere on this blogsite.
We would also recommend the blog on the families visit to Kewaunee (the boat picture is Anders sailing the Mighty Quinn back into the Kewaunee harbour).
Chuck was gone through mid-August, which left maintaining the homestead to Mary which is really focused around the garden. The garden is a love-hate-love relationship as it is a ton of work (Chuck calls it the work camp) that is great when all goes well, but this year was not one of them! First is the fact this was the wettest year in the past 100, which was especially bad as it really was wet through the early growing period which led to poor germination. But the worst problem by far was the groundhogs! The first hint of trouble came when Mary began calling Chuck on the boat saying there was a groundhog eating everything in the garden. She began trying to smoke them out and flood them out… anything to get them out! But, nothing worked. Mary became ever more desperate, with every conversation centered on the groundhog problem. Every morning would reveal another incursion (they even climbed corn stalks to tip them over and eat the immature ears)! Chuck thinks it is a good idea that it is against the law to buy machine guns, tanks, high explosives and nuclear weapons, because there is no doubt Mary would have been employed all of them in this backyard skirmish! Things got better upon Chuck’s return, but it took the rest of the summer as it turned out there were EIGHT groundhogs who had standing reservations at Mary’s 5 star smorgasbord/garden! Needless to say, this was a bad garden year with the one exception of tomatoes. We had an excellent crop despite groundhog predations and the fact almost everyone around us lost their plants to blight. We processed more than 50 gallons of apple cider last year, but had only three gnarly apples this summer. But, the farmer/gardener genes allow Mary to be ever hopeful and she is already planning for an ever more ambitious garden this coming summer. It will be Chuck’s responsibility to ensure groundhogs “lose their reservations.”
This fall has been an “over the top” busy time as Mary did a lot of traveling and Chuck was up to his ears in school activities. The college is embarking on a new strategic planning process utilizing several of the methods Chuck has developed. This is a “high stakes” situation as it is one thing to consult away and another entirely to do so within your own school! He also serves on several non-profit boards (local and international) that have required significant attention, and hosted the Region One ACBSP conference (this is the Business School accrediting body and he is president of the Northeast Region).
Mary did sneak off to visit Inga, Geneva and Justin over Halloween. They all had a great time despite a round of common colds that hung on forever!
To a certain extent, we were beginning to feel like our friends David and Deborah, and John and Barbara, where we were scheduling Thursday nights to see one another because one or both of us were gone somewhere!
Perhaps the high point of the fall was a visit from Mary’s mom, Lucille. She flew out to visit (the only other time she was in an airplane was at a county fair when she was 16), which entailed a lot of arranging to get her to and from the airports. She is 88 years old and was able to handle it all with aplomb, which should give us all hope as age presents us with challenges that at times seem debilitating! Mary took her on tours of the area, going up to the Adirondacks and other points of interest which Lucille has been talking about since. It was wonderful to have her visit.
We close this letter in the midst of planning for a very different Christmas holiday. The family is meeting in Belize on December 28th for a two-week visit in the sand and sun. Below is a picture of Mary with her new, folding birthday bike we will be bringing along.
Belize has history, jungle, sand beaches and perhaps the best reefs outside of Australia. Getting there require all sorts of preparation as there is issues of malaria and typhoid fever and it would be no fun to contract any of it! Our Christmas has therefore, been postponed a few days, but we are so looking forward to seeing our children and granddaughter! We kind of feel like kids on Christmas eve!
Love to all our friends and family!
Chuck and Mary
