We were both plenty busy the week before we left, but we managed to clear our calendars so that we could leave Friday.. Planning for the trip and thinking about it had been a lot of fun, and the only fly in the ointment was that the Nissan station wagon had given us trouble so we decided at the last minute to take the Buick. That was OK in a sense—it had a trunk and back seat big enough for all our camping gear. But it was not as convenient as the Nissan to get things in and out. The people at work, however, rolled their eyes when I said we were taking the 15 year old car with 160,000 miles on it, and we didn’t dare tell Judson because he really thinks the Buick is a rolling death trap. I, on the other hand, think the flaws are mostly cosmetic—a few dings, a cracked windshield, a warped brake rotor, leaking wheel cylinders, ceiling liner tastefully held up by screws I put in, and so forth and so on. In any case, we packed the car, crossed our fingers, and left our little white house at 7 am Friday morning.

Rush hour traffic was not too bad, and we decided to the scenic route thru northern Maryland rather than the Pennsylvania turnpike, which is narrower and has more traffic. I-68 is more hilly than the turnpike, but quite scenic and easy driving. We stopped to switch drivers at a cut in the ridgeline where Maryland has a geologic exhibit as part of the rest area. The exhibit is keyed to the exposed layers of rock in the cut, and takes you back hundreds of millions of years in history. The exhibit area was closed, but the bathrooms were open so we hopped back in the car and drove thru Maryland to West Virginia.

Our goal was to drive to Columbus Ohio where we wanted to do a Volksmarch in the German Village section. We arrived at the outskirts east of Columbus around 2 o’clock and decided to go ahead and get a room for the night as it’s sometimes difficult on Friday night. A Motel 6 had a room with an AARP discount, so we took that and put our more expensive toys (computer and GPS) in the room while we drove downtown to take the Volksmarch.

We found the Brown Bag Deli in the German Village area, and it turned out to be about 1/3 deli and 2/3 liquor store! But we found the Volksmarch box and retrieved start cards and directions for our walk and set off around 3 pm. It was plenty hot, so we brought 3 bottles of water for the walk.

The German Village Volksmarch started off going thru the Schiller Park, which had a large statue of Schiller prominently in the middle plus paving stones with engraved quotes from Schiller. Monika thought some of the translations were a little off, but the park was very nice. I especially enjoyed a small fountain with a bronze statue of a girl with an umbrella. The water was pumped up to fall back down over the umbrella, which I thought was cute.

From Schiller park we meandered thru the German Village, seeing some beautiful restored brick and stone houses. We noticed that there were almost no frame houses. The German Village was a working class section of Columbus which fell into disfavor and disrepair due to the anti-German sentiment after both World Wars. I talked to a resident who said 30 years ago no one in their right mind would walk down there at night, but just in the last 15 years the homes had become popular. People were buying and restoring the homes and it is now an exclusive area and the homes are correspondingly expensive.

From the German Village area we walked north across I-70 to the downtown area where we visited a park on the grounds of the old school for the deaf. The park has a truly unique feature, a topiary garden designed to look exactly like a famous French Impressionist painting. The scene was a riverside scene with couples, people in boats, people having picnics, and so forth. The whole effect was enchanting.

From the park we turned west to walk towards the Statehouse. Monika was getting hot and turning beet red (trying to simulate a tomato, she says), so we stopped at a Wendy’s to have Frosties and french fries while cooling off in the airconditioning. After she complained of shivering, I figured she was good to go and we continued on the circle the Statehouse and then walk down to the river.

Monika was surprised to find a river in the middle of the city, and I was even more surprised to find a full-sized replica of the Santa Maria docked at the riverside. This replica was complete with mast and rigging and was pretty impressive, but when I tried to take a picture the batteries died in my electronic camera. So I turned to Monika and asked her to take the picture, bud she said her camera had just started to rewind its film and she didn’t have another roll. From this I learned to carry spare batteries and she learned to carry spare film. We decided to drive back after we finished the Volksmarch and take a picture of the Santa Maria.

But we first had to finish the walk, and we walked along the waterfront for a while and then back across I-70 to the German Village. It was hot and not much shade. By now it was dinner time and Bob remembered a German bakery and restaurant where he had eaten before. It had a proprietess with a German accent, authentic German food, and nice atmosphere with classical music. So after finding the second checkpoint we decided to have dinner there before completing the walk. Bob had Jaegerschnitzel (breaded pork chop) with German potato salad (of course), but Monika had the jumbalaya special of the day plus Berliner Weisse (raspberry joice with German beer). The dinner was delicious and we were nicely cooled off for the rest of the walk, which was helped by fact that the sun was setting and we had more shadows to walk in on the way back.

Saturday, June 30, 2001 We had planned to start Saturday morning with a Volksmarch in Springfield Ohio that Monika had found by checking the AVA web site. The weekend event was put on by the Springfield club (Tecumseh Wanderers) at the Buck Creek State Park which was just a couple of miles off of I-70. So after breakfast at the Waffle house, we drove straight thru Columbus to the park. Fortunately the club had put up signs as we didn’t have any detailed directions.

We registered and started the walk. The first part followed paved roads in the park, and we were very glad we had started early (8:40 am) because it was already starting to get hot. Howver, after the checkpoint at the marina, we followed the Lake View Trail which was much more shaded and cool. The trail ended with a loop thru a very large campground, which gave us a great opportunity to look at all the different camping rigs. I was particularly intrigued by a hard-sided pop-up.

The return route turned around and headed back on the Lake View Trail, but they had changed the routing to avoid it being a simple out-and-back, which was nice. It was strange doing a walk and not knowing anyone at all. We have become so farmiliar with so many folks in the Washington area that we just take seeing familiar faces for granted. Folks were friendly, however, and responded to our greetings. We got a little hot on the way back but Monika used a wet neckerchief to cool down and avoided doing her tomato imitation. So we had our books stamped and continued west, driving thru the town of Springfield just to see what it was like before rejoining I-70 and continuing to Indianapolis.

We were pretty tired, so we switched off drivers every hour or so and reached Champaign about 3 Central daylight time. We tried calling Martin and didn’t reach him because he was outside glazing windows, and he tried calling us but our cell phone was off at the time, so the much-vaunted technology proved useless in this case. We checked into the Days Inn and called him from our room. He was available and al to happy to stop glazing windows in the 90-degree heat and get together with us. We drove right over, said “Hi” to our grand-kitties, and chatted with Martin and Mathew, his house mate. We invited them out to dinner with us and went to a very good Italian restaurant that Mathew’s grandparents had frequented. The outside had no windows and a pink sign, looking very nondescript, but my ravioli was the best I’d had since Italy and Mathew assured me that everything on the menu was equally good. Mathew invited us to go swing dancing late that evening, but it was already late for us and we drove back to the motel. Before turning in, I fooled around with the electronic pictures on my computer a little more and created a Powerpoint presentation with 1 jpeg picture per frame; that let me do a slide show where I could control the time for each picture and back up if necessary.

Sunday, June 1, 2001 The next morning, we put in some time while waiting to call Martin at 9 o’clock. We hit Denny’s for breakfast and stopped at K-Mart for some necessary shopping—we couldn’t resist a clearance aisle that had Women’s summer clothes and bought 2 skirts, 5 tops, and a fleece jacket for Monika. We connected with Martin about 9:30 and drove out to Allerton Park near Monticello, Illinois. Martin had just recently discovered this park, while we were eager to renew our memories from our student days. We didn’t turn at the right place in Monticello and were headed south to Bement, Illinois (home of the Bement Bomber!) we finally noticed this on the GPS and turned around. It was cloudy and the sun really didn’t give a hint for direction, so the GPS really saved us from getting lost.

The curious thing is that I have the GPS set on north up for driving and track up for flying. For flying, the course of the airplane is stable for long periods of time and you want the GPS to show you landmarks in relation to how they look from the cockpit. For that, track up is the best display. But in a car, the track up setting results in the map being flipped as the car makes every little change in direction, which I found disconcerting. So for the driving mode we use north up that simulates seeing your position on a paper map, which is more typical for finding directions while driving. Anyway, this seems to work for us.

The detour for the bridge repair routed us all the way around the park on country roads. It was nice, relaxing and scenic drive, but a whole lot more miles than if they had simply had a sign saying, “Don’t try this, just go back and use the other entrance!” After circling the park, we turned into the entrance and the first thing we noticed was an old gazebo that we remembered from our walks 25 years ago. The parking lot was almost empty, but the sign outside Allerton House said some event was in progress so no admittance. This was par for the course--we’ve visited the park 5-10 times in the past and were never able to get into the house to take a look.

We followed the signs to the Visitor’s Center, was a room in an old greenhouse at the beginning of the formal gardens. We asked for maps of the hiking trails, but they didn’t have any. We saw some nice T-shirts and bought one with a statue on it for Martin, one with frogs for Sarah, and one with birds and flowers for each of us. We decided to walk along the formal gardens out to the Sun Singer statue and then curl back on a trail along the banks of the Sangamon River.

The formal gardens of Allerton Park have a lot of statues, mostly of Greek or Chinese type. I enjoyed taking pictures of them with my new camera. We particularly remembered an avenue lined with small statues of Chinese musicians—each statue had a different instrument. We also remembered the Sunken Gardens, which is really sunk into the ground about 5 feet but doesn’t have any “garden” aspect to it any more, just a field of grass (which is the way we remembered it 25 years ago!). It was good to see that the grounds and statues were being kept in good repair.

We continued past a stature of the Centaur to the Sun Singer, which is a large bronze statue of naked man placed on a pedestal in the middle of a large, circular grassy area. In the 1960s, the gay students used to congregate at the Sun Singer statue on a given day and have a big party (at least that’s what Chris told us!). It looked like a great place for playing frisbee and just the way we remembered it.

From there, tho, we went south the Sangamon River and followed a trail on the north side of the river that was all new to us. It was new to Martin, as well, since he had walked the trails on the south side of the river during his previous visit to Allerton Park. The trail itself was a nice wide, wooded trail, but the bushes on each side were 6 feet tall in places and brushed in against us. We don’t mind that so much, but we dislike the idea of tics and especially catching Lyme disease so we had to do a tic check at the end of the walk.

While we were walking under the trees, the front came thru with showers and some wind, but since we were under the trees we didn’t get wet. We were glad to be under the trees since none of us had brought a rain jacket. I did, however, get bopped on the head by a falling twig, which didn’t hurt so much as surprise me. The trail ended back at back Allerton House, and we were tired and hungry after walking for about an hour and a half. We had lunch with Martin at a Subway in Monticello before heading back to Champaign.

We popped into the hotel to do an instant review of the pictures I had taken with the digital camera. When Monika mentioned that the only problem was our color printing wasn’t so good, Martin said he had a good color printer at work that we could try to print on. So we downloaded the files to a CD-ROM and drove in to his office. The room with the printer wasn’t open until 5 pm, so we decided to walk around the university and take some pictures.

Martin showed us some of the new, very pretty construction on the north side of campus and the field where he plays Ultimate Frisbee at least once a week. We then walked south on Wright Street to Green Street, where we found Altgeld Hall and the statue of the Alma Mater to be unchanged from our time. We even took a picture of where Monika had worked in the math department in grad school! The quad looked a little more shaded than in our time since the trees were 25 years bigger, but it was otherwise unchanged. We detoured thru the Krannert Center where Martin took us down to the control room level where the stage hands worked and scenery was prepared. We then saw the Hallene Gateway, which had been salvaged from the front entrance of the original University Hall and installed in a new park on the edge of the campus. It was only a reconstruction of the front wall, but the portico was authentic and the stucture wa set with a pretty fountain in the back which made it nice.

The last stop was the Natural History Building which had a very old-fashioned museum inside, complete with fossils and a stuffed bison in a glass case. I enjoyed it tremendously and remembered even the feel of walking on the wooden plank floors of the hallways. Even 30 years ago the floors gave way in an alarming fashion as you walked across them and they hadn’t improved with age. From the museum we returned to Martin’s lab and printed some pictures (very good quality!!) before driving over to Ned Kelly’s Steak House for dinner (Monika had requested steak for dinner). We had a lovely meal (great steak) with lively discussion on socialism which we continued afterwards back in our motel room. We took Martin home around 9 and sadly said goodbye.

Monday July 2, 2001 We returned to Denny’s for breakfast and even made a quick swing by K-Mart before returning to the motel to pack and leave. The K-Mart is about the same location I remember driving out to when I was an undergraduate 30 years back, but of course it had been completely rebuilt into a new-model store in the meantime and was at least twice as large as it was back then. That was quite a contrast to the usual effect when I visit old haunts that everything looks smaller and closer together than it did when I was young. I did get some deja-vu from the drive over to K-Mart because I remember so clearly driving Monika out there on the back of my old motorcycle, which was so crude that it had no rear suspension. I should have known that she was serious about me because she stoically endured the punishment of bouncing across the railroad tracks without complaining. Of course, it was either that or walk 5 miles, so that might have also played a role. In any event the summer clothes clearance sale was still on so I found another blouse for Monika and she induced me to buy 3 pairs or shorts and 2 pairs of zip-legged exercise pants. All except one of the pairs of shorts was on sale (she really had to talk me into that pair!), so it came in under $70 and I didn’t feel too badly.

Then I set Frankfort, Illinois as the “go to” destination in the GPS and we were off and driving north to Chicago. The GPS again proved its worth when Monika saw that we were at the exit for the road to Frankfort before I thought of it and managed to get off the interstate correctly. We arrived about 11:15 and met Lee a few minutes later. Monika signed us up for the Volksmarch and this time we took the version that combined a short easterly leg on the Old Plank Road with a dipsy-doodle path thru the town of Franfort, which is an old German settlement. Lee walked at our pace, so we all walked and talked for about 2 hours and then had lunch at Die Bier Stube across from the old Frankfort railroad station. I had a Thuringer, Lee had a Reuben sandwich, and Monika had a bratwurst platter, and of course Lee and Monika had German beer! It was a tasty and very filling lunch.

Afterwards we went to Lee’s house a little north of Frankfort and had a nice visit with June and Scott and Tiffany, two of their grandchildren. Lee showed me the gull-winged Corsair radio control model he was building and the figures he was carving, and we also saw a striking piece of Shelby’s painted ceramic figures, a winged fairy that had extraordinarily life-like flesh tones and rainbow-hued wings. We chatted mostly about all our children, and Scott and Tiffany were eager to talk with us after the first few minutes. Scott joined Lee and I on the couch and made serious conversation while Tiffany played Kumbaya on the organ and interjected wherever she could. As Lee said when she went for one of several quick bike rides, I wish I could bottle that energy and sell it. Shelby was taking Tiffany for gymnastics, which was one good way to use all that energy, and Scott was taking horseback riding lessons on some beautiful quarter horses (Lee showed us pictures). We talked a little about traveling and I was knocked for a loop when Lee brought out a 3-ring binder where he had collected all my travel stories. He even had a copy of the “Long Way to Oshkosh” story which was written about 1985 after I flew a Cessna 150C around the country, and it is so old I’m not sure I even have a copy off it.

We saw a rag doll in a small rocking chair and Monika mentioned her doll collection, whereupon Lee showed us 3 Mrs. Beasly dolls that Mom had made while dad was still alive. Dad contributed by making the wire-framed glasses for the dolls, but we were really impressed by the amount of hand-stitching that Mom had put into making each one. Lee generously offered one to Monika, and we chose a green and red dressed one to take home with us. We were both just choked up by the fact that she had put in so much effort to personally make it so it kind of bears her spirit in a way. The doll now sits in the middle of the front seat with us and keeps an eye on the GPS and digital camera while we go in to eat.

Our last stop of the day was to visit mom in the Rest Haven nursing home. Lee had warned us that she was less responsive than just a few weeks back and might not recognize us, and he turned out to be right. She was dozing when we arrived and we gently tried to awaken her--Monika started talking to her--but we couldn’t see any sign of recognition like we had on previous visits. Then I squatted down on the side where her eye was open and started talking to her and showing pictures. She was definitely looking at the pictures as I talked about them, and when I asked if she wanted some juice she said yes and I found the juice machine where Lee mentioned and filled a cup for her. She drank that rather quickly and even managed to get a phrase out that she wanted another cup, which I provided, but otherwise there was no verbal response. I’m not sure she recognized me, but she did squeeze my hand once or twice and I choose to believe that she did know it was me. She tired very rapidly and after about 25 minutes she was ready to go back to sleep, so we left for the evening.

Tuesday, July 3, 2001 We decided to visit mom one final time before heading to Phyllis and Bill’s for lunch, but she wasn’t doing too well that morning. We helped her sit up better in her wheelchair and talked to her a bit before driving north to the Café Luna to get the start cards and directions to take a quick Volksmarch before lunch. Finding that the middle of the route came within a block of Phyllis and Bill’s house, we drove over there to park and started the Volksmarch in the middle. We started about 10 am and figured we would finish right around noon and be at their front door for lunch. It was raining when we started, so we didn’t take the cameras, which was a real shame because the Volksmarch had a stunning variety of interesting houses.

The route of the Volksmarch zig-zagged thru the neighborhoods of Beverly Hills and Morgan Park. This walk had the biggest variety of housing styles and types that I have ever seen on any walk. The houses ranged in size from the huge mansions of rich folks on a hill to medium-sized houses for the middle class and the modest bungalows of the working class. The mansions were all one-of-a-kind, of course, but even the working class homes were of very different styles. Many houses had the date and architect listed on a plaque out in front, which answered some of the obvious questions, but other houses that were equally interesting did not. One house in particular had customized brickwork where the bricks went at very different angles and made fascinating patterns like waves or sworls. Setting brick like that would be a tremendous job, and I checked that the side walls as well as the front had been constructed in this decorative manner. There was no plaque in front, and I was really tempted to walk up to the front door, ring the bell, and ask them why in the world the brickwork had been done that way. My best guess is that some master mason might have decided to make this house a showcase of how artistic and unique brickwork could be, but that’s just a guess.

While we were coming up the hill on Lothair Street back to our car I heard someone yell “Bob” behind us, but I didn’t pay much attention because Bob is a pretty common name. Besides, we were taking a walk in a part of Chicago far away from where I was raised forty years ago, so what was the likelihood of meeting someone who would know us? But when he yelled “Bob Holt”, I realized that someone was indeed yelling for me. We turned around to see Phyllis’s son David walking up the hill after us with his two sons, Wade (4) and James (2). They had taken the train from where David lives downtown to visit Grandma and Grandpa and to see us for lunch. What a wonderful surprise!

We all walked over to have lunch with Phyllis and Bill while chatting about the family and what was happening with each of them. Bill prepared a low-fat chicken stir fry while the grandchildren played with a huge green inflatable plastic ball (about 3 feet in diameter) in the front room. We all sat down for a nice meal and talked non-stop about David’s new racing sailboat, what he was doing professionally, and of course the activities and achievements of the grandchildren. This brought back memories of our two boys at that age because his two boys are also 2 years apart and very active and verbal. After lunch we all went to the playground and tot lot at Morgan Park Academy before David had to take the train back home. We spent the rest of the afternoon with Phyllis and Bill on their front porch. The day had turned into a perfect summer afternoon and it was just the right temperature to sit outside comfortably and chat about their recent train trip, the upcoming Mackinac race, and, of course, the things that were happening with all their six children. We left about 4 pm and took the toll road north to avoid congestion downtown. This turned out to be a good idea as we had only some minor delays on the way to Wisconsin.

After stopping off at Perkins for a quick dinner, we arrived at Lois and Merlin’s dome home around 8 pm where rehearsal was in full swing. This did not sound like your normal garden-variety band rehearsal, of course, as this group was a Revolutionary War Band of Musick and played period pieces. Lois and Merlin introduced us to the other 4 band members and then we sat at the kitchen table and listened to their music, applauding in all the right places. Listening in was very easy to do in the dome, because it is shaped something like a band shell and has very lively acoustics. They broke for the evening around 10 and we all gathered around the kitchen table to share a nice kringle, a large round ring of Danish pastry filled with nuts or fruit. After the band left, Lois and Merlin talked to us a while before we all turned in for the night.

Wednesday, July 4, 2001 I always sleep better in familiar surroundings and we had visited the dome often, so I could sleep in a little and catch up on some sleep loss. We all gathered in the kitchen about 9 and had a nice, relaxed breakfast. Merlin brought out some articles which he had highlighted with fluorescent markers for me to read. I got thru the one about “too much government regulation” and was just starting on the “how to inventory the contents of your wallet” one by the end of breakfast. We also played the “Bob and Monika Sing” audition tape that we made using our voice teacher’s recording studio, and received praise for our efforts.

Monika and I were planning to do the Volksmarch in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, that day with Lois, so we cleaned out part of our back seat so Lois could ride with us, which delayed our start a bit. As we left for Burlington to pick up the mail Merlin was puttering around their travel trailer and preparing it for the camping trip we were all going to take the next week. We stopped in Burlington to pick up the mail from a Post Office box (I always think it is ironic for an ex-mailman to have a P.O. box, but I guess there is some logic to it). Then we took a back road over to Lake Geneva, watching our progress on the GPS.

Lake Geneva was fairly bursting with people, it being the 4th of July and all, so we parked a couple of blocks away from the lake and walked to the delicatessen in the downtown area which was our starting point. Our route started off past the Public Library that provided much-appreciated restrooms and then curved along the western shore of the lake. There is a trail around the circumference of the lake which by law has to be kept open to walkers, but does not have to be maintained and we were to find out later just how ill-maintained this trail was.

The lake was a beautiful deep blue and filled with all kings of powerboats, sailboats, jet skis, and kids swimming. The directions were unclear and we missed the critical turn away from the lake, which resulted in our walking a much longer loop on the west side. We had to walk a long uphill to Route 50 to get back to the downtown area, and that tired us all. We decided to take a lunch break at a downtown café and had a great time cooling off with iced tea and refueling with sandwiches.

The second part of the Volksmarch looped over to the east side of the lake, which gave us some different views of the lakefront scene. Some of the homeowners really didn’t maintain the trail at all and seemed to be trying to discourage walkers by leaving it as rough and uneven as possible. At one point we literally had to hold on to a tree limb to keep from falling down a steep, wash-out part of the trail, but we made it to the small public swimming area where we turned inland on the shoreline drive. We were all getting tired on the walk back and looking for bathrooms but didn’t find any until we returned to the downtown area. I fetched the car while Monika and Lois deposited the start cards at the deli, and we drove back towards the dome, stopping at Wal Mart for a gallon of milk, an FM antenna for Lois to pull in classical music stations, and some other odds and ends.

We arrived at the dome and walked in, calling for Merlin but we didn't get any response. The bathroom door was open and water was running, so Lois peeked in and found Merlin collapsed on the floor. She called out and I went in to check but couldn’t find any signs of life. Lois stayed with Merlin while I called 911 and Monika went downstairs to direct them into the house. They arrived within minutes but could only confirm that he had passed away earlier. We were all in shock and sat around the kitchen table where we had such a pleasant breakfast a short time ago while rescue and police personnel came and went. The medical examiner talked to us and told us he thought it had been a sudden, massive heart attack. He tried to assure Lois that even if we had been there it would have not changed the outcome.

We called Merlin’s daughters and Lois’s children to notify them and set up an appointment with the funeral home for the next morning. Jan, her husband Jerry, and Barbara drove right over to comfort Lois, and Tony came over with his son Patrick as soon as he could get off duty that evening. Tony also reassured Lois that there was nothing she could have done that would have made a difference. We all decided on a Sunday viewing and funeral service since that would give enough time to notify all Merlin’s relatives, friends, and acquaintances and give them a chance to attend the funeral. That was to be followed by a Monday burial at the veteran’s cemetery at Union Grove, Wisconsin.

We chose the same funeral home that had performed my mother’s burial service. Jan, Barbara, Lois, Monika and I spent several hours there on Thursday morning summarizing Merlin’s life for the newspaper obituaries and settling all the details of the service. I had to leave early to pick up Patience at the Milwaukee airport, and our family continued to assemble over the next few days. Beth, Audie, Carrie and Carson drove up from Dallas, Texas, and arrived on Friday. Terry drove in from Albuquerque, New Mexico and Phyllis drove up from Chicago on Saturday, and we were all packed into the dome and the travel trailer outside. There was a lot of comfort for all of us in just being together.

We all worked at selecting photographs and preparing montages for the funeral that would show the major events in Merlin’s life. Lois and Patience went thru old photograph albums and Beth arranged the pictures in a very artistic manner on the boards. I found an old scrapbook while starting to clean out the garage which covered Merlin’s high school years, and we all had fun looking at that. The pages were brown with age and very brittle, but the contents were fascinating. In addition to saving all the letters and cards he had received during those years, he had pasted in newspaper articles and many poems and sayings that they used in newspapers at that time as “fillers”. The scrapbook did not, however, have any pictures as they were very expensive and money was scarce during those Depression years. Jan and Barbara had nice pictures of Merlin’s first marriage and some pictures of his early years which were also very interesting. It is always so curious to see someone you primarily know as a middle-aged man in the bloom of youth and adolescence. Merlin never seemed to age while I knew him, but there was a very young Merlin in those early photographs. Ah well, we all get old.

The rest of our family in the Chicago area drove up for the funeral on Sunday. Debbie and Joe drove up with their two daughters, Melissa and Emily; Linda and Jerry drove up with their son Michael and daughter Margaret; Dave and Gigi drove up with their sons Wade and James. Bill and Laura also drove up, so only Debbie and Bill Jr. were missing from Phyllis and Bill’s family. Jan and Jerry’s son Terry and daughter Corinne made it with their families as did Barbara’s daughters Jill and Donna with her husband Nathan. Chuck, Merlin’s brother, drove over from Kenosha with his two daughters and Al Despin, the husband of Merlin’s deceased sister, flew in from Colorado. Many folks from Lois and Merlin’s church as well as members of their recorder group, Band of Musick, and dance group also attended so we had around 150 people at the funeral service, give or take a few.

We set up the pictures and montages together with Merlin’s Revolutionary War uniform and horn so that people could look at them during the viewing period and remember all the good times and memories with him. We kept the young children in a nearby lounge area so that they wouldn’t interfere with the mourners, and we all took turns being with Lois to greet the visitors.

The funeral service started with Reverend Cathy from Lois and Merlin’s church reading some passages and describing Merlin. Bill, Jennifer, Tony and I also gave informal eulogies. I tried to summarize all the things I had learned about Merlin over the 30 years I’d known him by mentioning the interactions and incidents that had stayed in my mind. I ended by quoting his last card to us which had ended “You folks are something special!”, because he himself was really something special. During the service we sang “Amazing Grace” and “It is Well with my Soul” and had several musical performances which represented that large part of Merlin’s life. Patience played a violin piece with the organist, Lois and Merlin’s recorder group played a selection, and at the end their Band of Musick played “A Parting Glass” for which we all sang the verse about taking leave:
Of all the comrades e’er I had
They’re sorry for my going away.
And all the sweethearts e’er I had
They’d wish me one more day to stay.
But sure it falls unto my lot
That I should go, and you should not,
I gently rise and softly call,
“Good night and joy be with you all.
It was send-off appropriate for a quiet, gentle, and musical soul.

After the funeral about 75 friends and relatives gathered at the Foxville restaurant in Burlington for a meal, just as we had after my mother’s funeral four years ago. They stayed open late to accommodate us and we all had a nice time reminiscing about Merlin. The recorder group all had desserts as Merlin used to always do and one of them brought Lois a cheesecake. Lois, Patience, Terry, Monika and I sat with Gertrude, Al, and Heidi Mueller at one table, talking over old times and catching up on what had been happening with their family. Then we returned to the dome while everyone else went their respective ways.

The next day Merlin was buried at the Union Grove veteran’s cemetery. The chapel was small but since mostly it was the immediate family that was present, it was big enough. Reverend Cathy gave a brief service, taps was played, and staff sergeants from the Marines and Army folded the flag draping Merlin’s coffin in a very slow, measured, and dignified way. The flag was presented to Lois and we filed out to wait on the nearby hillside as they lowered the coffin into the grave. We returned once again to the dome and had visitors during the afternoon, but they had left by the evening and it was just the family. It was good to have the young children there with their carefree exuberance which helped take the edge off our grief.

Tuesday morning Beth and Audie had to leave for their drive back to Dallas. My son Martin showed up later that morning, giving me a shock as Monika hadn’t told me he was coming. Lois, Monika and I went in to the Social Security office in Racine to settle matters there while Patience and Martin returned the violin and cookware for the donated meals to Kenosha. To complete the Social Security details, we had to get a copy of the marriage license from the Kenosha courthouse, so we made a day of it and had lunch out at a restaurant across the street. We also found a great bakery right next door to the Social Security office which had a marvelous selection of kringles, so we bought 2 to take home.

The next day I started clearing out the garage in earnest. In part, this was a return favor for the time that Merlin had been stuck at our house for a day or two and had spend his time cleaning out my garage. He had cleared enough to be able to park my car inside and when we returned I at first thought my car had been stolen because it had never before been in the garage!! This turned out to be a big job because Merlin was quite the saver. Even with the combined efforts of Terry, Patience, Monika, Martin and myself, it took two days to sort thru it, cart the trash down to the side of the road and stuff the wood pieces into the back of the Suburban. Fortunately, Jan was willing to front for us when we made a run to the Kenosha city dump with that load of wood. We also cleared out the workroom in the basement so that it would be really usable again, which I knew we would need to help do some finishing work on the inside of the dome.

As we finished up the garage on Thursday, we started to spackle and paint some of the unfinished parts of the interior. Terry and I bought the spackle in Burlington when I dropped off the Buick for a check-up, and we all went to the Home Depot and Wal Mart in Lake Geneva to buy the paint, rollers, fluorescent lights, and other stuff to start our work. Then we spackled and painted in the bathroom, linen closets, and anyplace else that looked like it could use it.

Friday morning Terry departed for his trip to Canada while Patience, Monika, Lois and I drove up to the Family Trust office in Waukesha. We were relieved to hear that they would write the letters to notify the institutions, which took one task off Lois’s shoulders. We returned by way of the veteran’s cemetery at Union Grove, where we stopped to visit the grave site. Brown earth covered the grave and it had no headstone as yet, but the finished parts of the cemetery showed how pretty it would be when finished. It will be a quiet and beautiful resting place for a quiet and musical man.

We had lunch at a restaurant in Union Grove on our way back to the dome, and for the rest of the afternoon Lois wrote Thank You cards while Patience, Monika and I did some more spackling and painting. Tony and Patrick visited again that evening, and he helped me complete cutting and nailing the wood-grain masonite covering around the pantry. That finished the little projects that I wanted to do on this visit, so Monika and I could turn our thoughts to packing for our departure the next morning before going to bed.

The next day (Saturday) we had an early breakfast with Lois and Patience. It was hard to leave my sister—we both wanted so much to stay and just be with her. But we had to get back to work, so we regretfully took our leave and headed south thru Chicago to Indiana. We decided to risk driving straight thru the city rather than around it on the toll way, which turned out to be a bad decision. We hit a back up north of the Loop which lasted until 26th street south and delayed us about half an hour, but after that it was clear sailing. During the day we made good time thru Indiana and Ohio, partly by buying sandwiches and eating in the car while driving rather than stopping to eat, and we arrived in the Pittsburgh area around 6 pm. We decided to push on and sleep in our own bed even if we arrived rather late, so we continued down the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

I took over driving in Breezewood and drove the final stretch as the night fell. It was then that I started to really think about the loss of Merlin in my life. Not all that many people really care deeply for any of us, and losing any of those people is a real loss. Merlin wasn’t an openly affectionate person, but all the things he had done for me over all those years showed how much he really cared. I had kept that last set of articles he had cut out and marked with his green and yellow pens for me, and I decided that the least I could do was read that final set, which I have now done.

We arrived home about 10:20 pm and just dragged ourselves inside and left everything else in the car to be unpacked the next day. Altho I was finally in my own bed, I was restless and awake during the night. The next day we puttered around, unpacking the car, doing the laundry, and shopping for fresh food. But in the relaxed periods between my thoughts kept coming back to Merlin and not being able to see or talk to him ever again. The sorrow just built up and overwhelmed me at times, and I decided that as difficult as it would be, I would finish the story of this trip and the loss of Merlin. Life must go on, but this way I can remember my past and Merlin’s part in it more clearly. Maybe it will in some small way also comfort others to know how keenly he is missed—I only hope so.

And now I weep.

Bob’s eulogy for Merlin

A couple years ago I stood up here when my mom died. I lost a part of my heart then and I've lost another part of it today. I'd like to tell a little story of how my relationship with Merlin developed over several decades. Now, Merlin always would back up and tell a story from the very beginning, making sure to get each step right and not leave out any of the details. So in his memory I'll start from when I first met Merlin and what I learned about him along the way.

The first time I met Merlin was when he drove Lois and her children down to visit our mother in Aurora, Illinois. He parked the company car in front of the house, and a speeding teenager lost control on the curve and crashes into Merlin's car, sending it into a tree so that both front and back were crushed. Merlin didn't get upset or cuss, he just quietly arranged for another car to drive them all back to Kenosha, and I learned that he was really imperturbable.

A couple years later Merlin, Lois, her children and Monika and I went camping at Nagawickee Park on Nagawaukee Lake. He built a "towering inferno" of a campfire by stacking 2 x 4s and then lighting it. When I said that was a waste of good lumber, he just laughed and said those were cut-off remnants from the lumberyard and he could get all he wanted. I asked for some for building furniture and he said he'd get me some. A few months later I thought he'd forgotten, but a large bundle of lumber scraps suddenly appears outside our apartment door with the cryptic Merlin message "delivery one, uno, eins!" written on the top piece. I learned that he always kept his word.

We were visiting the house on 48th Street and I saw an empty can of motor oil perched on top of a measuring cup with about 1/4 cup of oil in it. I asked him what that was all about and he said he was draining the last drops of oil from each can before throwing the can away. I learned that he really lived by the old adage, "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without!" He always won our "frugality contests"-he would send me the records of the cents per mile it cost him to operate his cars and those figures were always lower than anything I could do with mine.

After his retirement I asked him about his investment strategies and he explained his way of tracking the stock market in excruciating detail. It was a meticulous and carefully color-coded record of the ups and downs of certain stocks. It was a truly unique system and he explained that he had constructed it himself. I leaned that he was a very independent thinker.

We went camping in Maine and Canada with Merlin, Lois, and my mother in the "Tin Teepee" in 1994. Merlin treated my mom like a queen and was really like a son to her. I learned how much he loved and respected my mom.

I remember Merlin a couple years ago pitching empty plastic milk bottles at, and playing "catch the cat" games, with Muffin the cat. I learned that he never lost his sense of fun. He had a dry sense of humor that came out at the oddest moments. One time when he and Lois were leaving after visiting us in Virginia, he was topping off the oil in the car. I said something about how hard it was to maintain old vehicles, so he immediately mimicked drinking the oil himself!

I watched Merlin play with Patrick a year ago at Tony's house and suddenly realized how good he was at playing with Patrick. They were having loads of fun!! I learned how much he enjoyed all his great-grandchildren and really appreciated the fact that he wasn't afraid to play with them at their level.

Merlin was a curious cross between a father and a brother to me-old enough to be my father and more experienced but always treating me as an equal like a brother. I was looking forward to retiring and camping around the country with him and Lois, but that was not to be. I had his friendship for more years than I could have expected when I first met him back in Aurora all those years ago, but unfortunately for many years fewer than I had planned on and hoped for.

In his last card to us, Merlin said we were “Something Special”. Well, he was something special to me too and I will always miss him.

[other memories I had but didn’t use in the eulogy:]

While camping at Nagawickee we had built up a fire but then sat there after the kids went off to bed. He watched the fire burn down to a layer of coals and he said, "That's my favorite part, when it's all just a quiet bed of embers." We sat and stared at those for a half an hour without saying a word. He was really a quiet kind of guy.

Once long ago when he was living in a small room in Milwaukee, we made a Christmas mobile out of walnut shells painted different colors and suspended from pieces of bent coat hangers. Then we sat around the table and had each person tell make up a part of a story that elaborated what the last person had said. Merlin jumped in and took part in all this foolishness.

The time Merlin and Lois were stuck in my house while their car was repaired. Lois cleaned up our kitchen while Merlin cleaned up the garage and put my car in it. What a surprise when we returned home from our trip and found the house and garage so neat and orderly! What a kind thing to do.

The time Merlin was delivering mail in country the winter, and the street at one place was so icy that the car just gradually slid off the side and down into the snowdrift in the ditch. There wasn’t anything he could do about it and it happened so gradually and unavoidably that he thought it was funny. He just sat there laughing for a few minutes before climbing out to call for a tow truck.

Merlin taking pictures of church steeples and lighthouses on our camping trip to Prince Edward Island with mom in 1994. There really was quite a variety of them, and he stopped and photographed every one while we were driving around the island.

Merlin Remembers

[Merlin told me these stories in the wee hours of the morning when we were at my mother’s bedside during her final illness in 1997.]

My first job when I was five years old was carrying magazines to the Nash plant in a wagon. My brother, who was 6 years older than me, 11, was a “manager” of a crew of boys to distribute the Curtis Publishing Company magazines. You know how reluctant most people are to refuse a little tyke. He had several boys who were doing the distrituion of these magazines. My job was to go to the Nash plant, our address was 20l6 60th street in Kenosha, and the Nash plant was just past 26th ave., a distance of 6 blocks. There is a business district there at Roosevelt Road, which is a high traffic area. And I’m crossing this with a little wagon! I would pull this wagon, it would have the Country Gentleman, Saturday Eve. Post, and Ladie’s Home Journal. Country Gentleman was a farming related magazine, but the Sat. Eve. Post. was the primary one. All I did was go to the gate at lunch time. The men came out to cross the street to go to the tavern. I’d sit there beside the wagon and the men would simply pick up the magazine and drop the money into a little container. I have no idea how the money matched, but I think people were more honest in those days. When the men were all out, then I’d pull the wagon home.

The Frank School was in the block between 19th and 18th ave. , and that’s where I started school in 1926. My teacher in 2nd grade was Miss Whitlock, and she boarded next door to us to the west 2020 60th street, and she was the typical somewhat tall, very thin, rather ancient. During my 2nd grade, I had most of the diseases of that time period, measles, tonsillitis, whooping cough, ... Every time I went to school, I’d go back home sick. I was quarantined in a separate room--we had a hall and steps to the upstairs in front, my mother had boarders and roomers to make ends meet--my father was a traveling salesman of real silk hosiery and probably lady’s clothing and men’s clothing, mostly suits. He had Kenosha County and maybe more than that, and he a 1926 “Light 6” model Nash for the sales job, I don’t know if the car was new or not, as a 5-6 year old kid he was leaving to go on his rounds and I wanted badly to go with him to ride on the car but wasn’t allowed to. I had climbed onto the running board on the passengers side and he came out and got in the car and backed out of the driveway and when he backed down that I fell off. My mother was in the door and saw this. She screamed and dad stop--I wasn ‘t hurt, just bumped a little. I don’t recall if I was paddled for that or not, maybe they were just relieved I wasn’t hurt. Those cars also had luggage carriers for the running board--you could put suitcases in there between the car and the collapsable framework. I remember my Grandmother on my father’s side, back in Lakefield, MN, passed away, and the family (my brother self, and parents) made the trip back in that 1926 Nash. There was a friend of my father’s who lived on a farm that had had a litter of pups, to my mind fox terriers. There were somewhat grown and we brought one back from MN in a little cage of some kind that was set in the luggage rack on the running board. So that pup made that trip that way of 500 miles. Two things I remember of that dog, when they ran it looked like their feet weren’t even touching the ground, when the dog didn’ want to come in, my dad would chase the dog and they’d run around and around the house. He’d stop and run the other way to try to catch it, but when the dog saw him he ran the other way. My father slipped and fell on a corner, and boy was he mad at that dog. Shortly afterward the dog went blind, and they said it was the trip back--driving along for that long, I wonder if the wind might have blown grit into his eyes and caused that. My dad was famous for punishment procedures when you got on his wrong side and disobeyed, and that was the leather razor strop. How much did it hurt? I probably thought he was killing me, but that was probably a wild exaggeration.

In those days in Kenosha, grade school was 1-6, Junior High 7-9, and HS 10-12. Grades were 70-80,80-90, and 90-100 which was Ecellent. Thru JH I was consistently on honor roll, with grades predominantly in the 80s and 90s. In HS I was in the band and orchestra all 3 years. I was 12 years old, about 6th grade, and I wanted to join the Boy Scout band in Kenosha. I was a Boy Scout since a little before 12 (Scouts went from 12-18). The band was a regular brass band. Most were 14-18 (I remember Dick Harman because he was playing an euphonium, and I thought it was the neatest thing and wanted the play it because I liked the looks and sound of it. It had a extra little bell, and that put it in a different category. I’d heard they had instruments and loaned them out to scouts. I got down to their rehearsal in the American Legion Club Room in downtown Kenosha. My closest buddy was Tom Rasico, and we both went down there with the same interest, and after we talked to the director Peter Nicolai who said they didn’t have any instruments that weren’t on loan. He said if you can come down to my house next “Saturday, I think I could fix something up for you. I said I’d be there, and on Saturday morning Tom and I went to Peter’s house. He didn’t have any trombones, but he had a cornet for me and a clarinet for Tom. He said take these home and practice fingering for the scale. Tom’s parents said they couldn’t afford it and took it back right away. My parents said the same thing--that cornet would have cost us $15--but I said I’ll keep it at least until next Saturday and was practicing all that time. We had a little chicken house in back backing onto a large open field going back to 69th or 70th street. (we lived on 2918 73rd street). The North Shore tracks ran 1/2 block from our house, and the Lincoln JHS was on 18th avenue (15 blocks). The City Lumber Company yard and the Holderness Coal Co. were on the near side to the North side of this field, a distance of 2-3 blocks. From our yard into the open field we had built a little shack, set up some wire, and were raising chickens, and that was in the city! In the chicken house, no more than 5-6 feet tall, when I woke up in the morning I would go out to the chicken house and practice before anyone else was up. I don’t recollect any complaints from the neighbors. I practiced as much as I had time for, but it didn’t work out. We went back the next Saturday and took it back--I was very disappointed.

It wasn’t long after that in the scouts, every year we went to Paddock Lake where there was an open field that was used for parking, picnics. Boys scouts would camp out there for 3-4 days. We’d build campfires, cook our food, go swimming and so forth. One year soon after the cornet deal, one of the boys was Eddy Graves and his father was either the manager or owner of the Birmingham Lumber Co. in Kenosha. This year he would take us out to the camp ground with his open flatbed truck, and some of us kids rode on the open end of that flatbed, which looking back was dangerous. That last year the last meal that I can recall I was in charge of the boys for those 3 days. Our custom for last meal was to make a stew and put everything thing in we had left, but that year we didn’t have a hot stew and fire but just ate everythin. I ate a cold can of tomato soup and rode back on that truck. I remember lying on the front room couch and being sick, and that was when my mother told me when we had taken that cornet back months before she had written to both my Uncle Walter Johnson who was the owner of the coal company in Windham, MN, and her other brother Arnold Johnson who was in the State Legislature in Minneapolis, MN because she thought one of them had played a cornet or trombone. Uncle Arnold was a trombone player, but when he had false teeth he couldn’t play any more and had sold it. He went out and bought a cornet and sent it to us. She said he was sending me a present but didn’t tell me what it was. In a letter or a note, Uncle Arnold put a stipulation on that instrument that that instrument was mine as long as I would keep playing it, but if I stopped I would have to send it back. I never sent it back and I’m still playing it!

The economy got so bad my father couldn’t support the family. My little sister was 8 years younger than me, just a little tot. I don’t know the reason behind the action, but my father left when my sister was 5, I was 13, and my brother 19. Back in the 30s during the Depression, Relief was a bad word and people did not want to be associated with relief. My father could support himself, but not the family--we didn’t own the house, we were renting. Continuing to pay the rent was just impossible. I can remember my coaster wagon. The old Bain wagon works, which was a big industry in Kenosha in the early days, extended back to 8th avenue, became the Relief agency distribution center. I’d take my wagon down there to pick up the food distributions that were given to the needy families. You felt awful, you were disgraced because you couldn’t pay and you didn’t want anybody to know. I had a cloth and when they put the food in the wagon I would carefully tuck the cloth around the food in the wagon so the wind wouldn’t blow it off and people would see the food and know I was a poor little kid. I had a feeling I had to stay away from other people, that I didn’t belong.

One fella was Laurence Beales, a little over 6 feet tall, who lived facing 19th street. He was an only child, and he had toys, toys, toys, including a really big electric train with ride tracks. I remember him showing me how he could ride on those cars, which were about 18inches long. In the parsonage home nearby, there were 2 girls about my age, Kathryn Livingston. I ran across her later in life in HS or after. In our back yard I would get big cardboard boxes from the grocery store. Those 2 girls and on occasion Laurence Beals and Robert Killen would be in the back yard and we would make a big house out of these boxes. The girls would have long dresses and be clumping around in big shoes while wearing a straw hats with ribbons in them.

I think I was in 4B grade (second half of year), and my teacher’s name was Miss Vrablik. That’s when we moved into 2918 73rd street. I went into 5a-5b-6a-6b. When I went into 5a I had miss Lilly Myers, then in 6th Hattie Myers (they were sisters) Lilly Myers was tall, thin, and light hair, Hattie was short, stout, and black hair.

One time my father was shaving and had his face all lathered up. He used a straight razor. He asked me if I wanted to be shaved. When I said I did he proceeded to put lather on my face. Of course he used the blunt edge of the razor rather than the sharp edge to scrape off the lather. I thought I was sooooo big.

I was still selling magazines in JH school. I also remember about 12-13 telling my mother about a pretty girl who walked to my JH school, and what nice legs she had. My mother said, “Merlin, you don’t look at girls’ legs!” I was very surprised, why shouldn’t you look at a girl’s legs?

Durkee Annex School was less than a block from our house on 7514 75th street. The houses on our block all looked back on the NorthWestern track. We’d get some pretty good snows in the winter, a foot or two accumulated in those days, not like it freezes and thaws through the winter now (global warming?). I can remember winters when cars would pack it down and the streetcar ran down the center of the street on the tracks, and put grooves in the snow of several inches of hard-packed snow. If your car tire got in that ridge, it would be pretty hard to get it out.