merry! merry!

‘Tis the season!  For the last few years, my wife Kathy has gotten me to write a Christmas letter detailing our adventures in the past year.  It’s great fun to relive those experiences, and even more to figure which of your friends, family, and acquaintances you’re going to inflict them upon.  This year, we dug up 130 victims.  Thank God for e-mail, ‘cause if I were sending each of them a Christmas card it would run me $85.80 at present rates!  And that’s not accounting for international postage!  You can buy a lot of beer with that!  For the rest of the world that we have not managed to capture, it’ll all be out here on my blog.  So I hope you’ll take a few moments to chuckle over what the Ikes/Clarks had to endure this past year, be glad it wasn’t you, and join us into looking toward a better 2024.  Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Go Blue!

Kathy and I opened this year across the pond, underground.  We were starting a trip we’d been anticipating nearly 2 years, booked in January ’21 and delayed by COVID.  The main attraction was Hogmanay, a raucous and fiery New Year’s Eve festival the Scots have been having since Mary Queen of Scots in 1561 forbade them from celebrating Christmas, as it was “too pagan”.  The intrepid Scots merely moved things up a week and have been reveling ever since.  But instead of being out in the streets reveling with the natives, we were in the basement of Globe Bar, eyes fixed to the big screen their owner had assured me on-line that he’d stream the Peach Bowl.  Our boys made some uncharacteristic mistakes, but the game remained close.  When we stepped outside to see the fireworks at midnight, they scored 2 touchdowns in quick succession.  Not enough.  Despite this bummer of a start to the year, we dragged ourselves at 4 in the morning in the rain to our waterside cottage in South Queensferry by the Firth of Forth, a North Sea inlet.  We had a lovely view of the bridges from our flat, especially at night.  We had a bird’s eye view for Loony Dook, in which crazed Scots celebrate the new year by taking a dip in those icy waters.  Edinburgh was a bus or train ride away, but ol’ S.Q was pretty cozy with nice restaurants, a good pub, and trails that went everywhere.

Home saw a quick turnaround, as we’d booked a house on Madeira Beach Florida, on the Pinellas Spit, set to start in 10 days.  Kathy could relax a little, as this would be the last time we’d be out of North America all year.  After the whirlwind of the 6 months itinerary following her retirement, seeing 5 countries and 24 American cities*, she’d asked that I cool it a bit.  Being a good husband, I listened.

In Florida, we had everything we needed: a comfy porch overlooking the Gulf and proximity to those stores we’d need for provisions.  My brother John and his wife Karen came over from Clearwater for a visit in which a large grouper was mercilessly devoured.  John likes a good cigar and we indulged.

We mostly stayed put in March, but we did go out.  Of the 37 concerts we saw in 2023 (so far), 9 were in March.  4 of those were in Chicago packed into a 5-day St. Patrick’s Day train trip.

May and October are the prettiest months in Ann Arbor, so why would we go anywhere?  Except for a brief trip to Battle Creek to see their Brass Band and a jaunt south to Cincinnati to visit Kathy’s 87 years old Uncle Chuck.  We had a great time bringing him up to date on all matters family and Wolverine.

Visitors came to us.  My good Barnes (StL ’79-‘82) buddy Dave, now a concierge doc in the Bay Area (Petaluma) wanted to come visit his brother in Livonia.  We offered up our downstairs guest bedroom and he accepted.  The facility, including its bathroom, hadn’t been used for a while.  Dave noticed his sink didn’t drain but managed by coming upstairs to use other sinks.  After consulting 3 plumbers after he left, we learned our problem wasn’t a simple clog, but a totally rotted out sewer system that needed replacing.  Thus began an assault we’d endure well into the Fall months.  We’d get a nice new driveway and front porch out of it.  Cost a bundle, and our homeowners policy picked up a little less than half.  It brough to mind a moment with one of our neighbors, the late much-missed Victor Hawthorne, a charming Scot who had been dean of the School of Public Health.  Faced with a similar project, albeit on a lesser scale, he said “That’s life.  One day you get a nice vacation in Bermuda and the next you get a new sewer line.”

Here are some of the excavations.

We were homebodies in July, too.  Usually, mid-month sees a special day, July 16, on which Kathy, my birth mom Marlene, and my birth dad Dick were all born.  We’d gather again at her house in Stanwood that day, but this time it was for her memorial service.  She’d passed away in late April, 2 ½ months short of her 91^stbirthday.  Mom’s place often saw big crowds for. celebratory events, sometimes spawning tent cities.  It was a big Irish wake this time – complete with pig roast – just like she wanted.  But I can’t say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

Another one of those visitors showed up end of July.  It was my oldest living cousin, Rinnie-Linnie from Arlington, escaping that Potomac steambath for Michigan, where she had relatives on her mom’s side in Lake Odessa and whereabouts.  Her late dad gave her that nickname, as he did all his 9 kids, based on her affection for Rin Tin Tin.  She brought along her two eldest, firefighter Maria and engineer Luke.  We kept each other entertained.  Linda spent time taking pics of all the space posters for her sister Sandy’s husband, a big-time space nut.  They seemed to deal with the bad sink drain o.k.

In August, it was time to travel and see music again!  Flint for Boz Scaggs, Cuyahoga Falls for the Outlaw Music Festival (featuring John Fogerty and Willie Nelson), Paw Paw for my VHS70 classmate Cheryl Shelton Dennis and her Jazz and Blues Heads, and Three Oaks for Robbie Fulks.

September means the coming of school year and the football season.  Both Kathy and I still feel the tugs of the former, but no one’s expecting much of anything of us these days.  For the latter, the hype was unavoidable.  We were about to see the greatest Wolverine team since Crisler’s ’47 National Champion Mad Magicians.  So, of course our various travel plans would have us missing 4 of the 7 home games.  One of those breaks was a much-needed respite to Windnsea Beach in La Jolla, escaping those jackhammers for a week.

Mom gave us another trip in November.  For years, she spent her winters in her condo in Mazatlán, by the Gulf of California.  Shortly after she died, my sibs figured it would be a good thing to congregate down here to remember her.  Indeed, it was.  We took a bottle containing her ashes out on a sailboat into the Gulf and tossed it as bagpipes played.  There were instructions on the bottle what to do if found, but not in Spanish.

Which brings us to where we are now!  We did take a short train trip to Chicago to experience Christmas there, but it didn’t seem the same without snow.  We’re still waiting for that in AA, although a few big flakes came down Monday morning.  Regardless, the hygge is high at Harbal, we have a fresh cord of wood in the rack and plenty of bottles of Blaufränkisch Left Foot Charley to make glühwein.  Merry times projected.  May you all enjoy something similar

So, from Harbal by our concolor fir, we bid you Merry Christmas and Go Blue! We extend to you a hearty Norwegian Sköl with a nice California pinot.

*PS. About that grueling 2022 travel itinerary