Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Thinking Ahead

In one month, we should be into our own apartment.  No more Airbnb or Homewood Suites.  We hope!  The time frame for unloading in Princeton is July 15-18.

I find myself thinking about our familiar furniture in an unfamiliar place.  Our comfortable reclining sofa and love seat.  Our Amish dining room table and hutch.  The wicker table and chairs--not even sure where that will fit in.  The sturdy cherry bedroom furniture we bought used 52 years ago!  We have seen the floor plan but not the actual apartment.

And then the stuff we need to buy--a new bed, a storage unit-bench for the bottom of the steps, and lots of book shelves.

But probably more importantly, I wonder what our lives will be like.  No medical emergencies I hope--at least until we find doctors.  How often will we see Jeff and Susan living just four miles away?  And Laura and Michael and their busy little ones an hour away if traffic is light?   How about Dan and his friend Alex a train ride and subway (or Uber)  ride away in Brooklyn? Jeff and Susan will be easy; the others will take more energy and planning.

Jim will have work to do including a book contract that just came through today.  Where will I find an organ to practice?  There's a fine grand piano in the clubhouse.  A place to volunteer?  Maybe an adult who can't read again or work at another local library.  I have always needed and been blessed with good women as friends.  Who will they be and where will I find them?  I'll have to get my back healed before I can have walking buddies again.

Most of all I hope we have many years together on this adventure.  We know that can't be taken for granted either.  So we pray for God's blessing daily.
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Friday, June 14, 2019

A Wedding Recorded--52 Years Later

I was sure our wedding ceremony had been recorded but the tape was missing.  Then, as a process of this move, I found five tapes in the top of a closet.  One was not in a package; four were unlabeled.

I brought the tapes to the 304 room at the St. Joseph Public Library and the first technician asked, "What are these?"  A second one told her they were reel-to-reel tapes but told both of us that they had no player for listening to them.

So what does one do next?  Go to Facebook and ask for help.  `Our daughter-in-law Susan thought her dad might have one somewhere.  A former neighbor linked me to an audio service that charged $30 each to see what was on them.  Our house buyer and now a new Facebook friend sent me notice of an estate sale here in South Bend that had a tape recorder for sale.

On Friday morning I drove south of town in a heavy rain and made a visit to an estate sale.  The ranch style house was full of stuff--books, dishes, lamps, and furniture.  I was led to a tiny den with a very old recorder with a tape still in it.  We checked to see if it worked and yes, it did, as a man's voice emerged from its speakers.  But it was $35-not the possibly $10 I expected.  I offered $20 but was told that there could be no bargaining until the last day of the three day sale.  I called Jim who said he wouldn't get it but I could do what I pleased.  I called Susan who said she had forgotten to ask her dad about it during her weekly call.

So what did I do?  I had never bought anything from an estate sale in my life, but I bought it--especially keeping in mind that I had just spent $35 treating a friend to breakfast.

It was incredibly heavy so a gentleman carried it to our car.  When the rain stopped hours later, Jim carried it upstairs to our apartment.  And then the struggle began to get it running and to find what was on the unpackaged mysterious tape.  I heard organ music and was optimistic.  After going forward and backward some, we found Flor Peeter's "The Lord's Prayer" sung by our friend Boyd Mackus.  Then we heard Jim's dad introducing us as Mr. and Mrs. James Vander Kam.  I was in tears.  It was so clear.   A long lost important object in our lives was found.

We had dinner plans but when we got home, we skipped the first half of the NBA finals and rewound some more tape to hear Boyd singing "Whither Thou Goest" and to hear our vows.  We had wondered for years if I had promised to obey but....I did not!  We heard the beautiful prayer from the church's form for marriage ending in the hope of our celebrating the marriage of Christ and his church someday in heaven.

How appropriate for us right now to hear Ruth's words sung--"Whither thou goest, there will I go also"--as we make the 8th big move in our married lives.  And how good to hear our vows "for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in joy or in sorrow; in sickness and in health.''  We have experienced all of those.   And how grateful we both are to listen to these words together almost 52 years later.

--------------David Banga digitalized the tape for us and sent it to us as an attachment to an email.  And the tape recorder went to Matt Wynn at the 304 Room at the St. Joseph County Public Library who said he would cherish it!


Friday, June 7, 2019

Decompressing or Adjusting to Life in an Airbnb

We have been in our new home at 1412 Ivy Court for seven days and six nights.  I am restless after having so much to do the last several weeks.  There is no more packing to do and no more things to give away or throw away--at least until June 28 and 29 when we try to fit everything into our car.

Jim has plenty to do with two doctoral dissertations to read and four papers to write for the next academic year plus his book projects.   He also is being very disciplined about getting 10,000 steps but it is hard for me to keep up with him with my sore back and knees.  And there have been a few golf outings too!

Signs of wear and
needs for repair
I spent some time today and yesterday going through my recipes and purging them.  Cooking is not easy here.  My attempt at a hamburg-kidney bean dish was frustrating with dull knives, no cutting board, a can opener that took great strength to use, no large frying pan, etc.  We're better off eating hamburgers, BLTs, tuna melts, etc.  We do have six suppers scheduled with friends and there probably will be more yet before we leave.

A great place
for happy hour
We have learned how to use the microwave, the toaster oven, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, and the TV remotes.  We have learned that the very noisy motorcycle traffic in the evening does stop in the later hours.  We go back to sleep after the dumpsters are noisily emptied at 5:22 AM.  The air conditioner makes an awful racket but we can open windows at night and the air is cool.

I am continuing to volunteer a few hours at the libraries and will play the organ this Sunday for Pentecost.  That gives me a few activities and of course, there is always blogging to help us remember this time of transition.  I need to sit quietly and enjoy this unscheduled, unbusy time!

--------------I found a cutting board on a top shelf of a cupboard but I had already spent all of $4 at the Dollar Tree store on a mop, a cutting board, a few sponges, and a spatula. 





Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Closing and Opening

Saturday, June 1, was our last day on Deerfield Loop.  We spent the morning vacuuming and cleaning out cupboards with the help of Linda, our cleaner.  By noon, we had the car packed for the first time and headed to 1412 Ivy Court, Apartment A-5, to begin our month in our Airbnb.

First problem--getting the lock box open to get the key out to open the door.  The pass code was correct but what did push down and then up mean?  I eventually got the box open and we went in.  We decided immediately it would be just fine for our home for a month.

Then we were back to loading the car two more times and many, many trips up to the second floor apartment.  I counted 11 for me; Jim made many more.  How could we have so much stuff still to be moved?  We had lots of food from the refrigerator, freezer and shelves.  We had clothes for the summer.  We had projects to work on (Jim's research, my going through cookbooks and stuff to be digitalized at the library).  And at the end of purging and packing, it just got to be easier to take it with us and think about it later.  We were exhausted at the end of the day.


Naturally enough an Airbnb near Notre Dame is full of ND decor.  I think I counted 10 ND posters or paintings.  We can hear the horns on the playing fields for summer camps.  The place is clean and quiet and well-equipped.  It is a bit shabby and worn and the trucks come to empty the dumpsters every morning at 5:30 am!  It will make our new home in Princeton seem even more luxurious.

First rose at Deerfield
Loop--last one for us
Yesterday we went back to Deerfield Loop  to clean up a few more areas.  The buyers, Chip and Virginia, came just before we left for their last walk-through.  Their littlest son headed straight for the basement and the toys.  It has been a joy to have a family that is really happy with our (now their) house.   We all
have considered this process to truly be a blessing.

The closing proceeded well.  We had already signed papers last week.  We picked up our check later in the afternoon and celebrated at the Oaken Bucket sitting on the patio by the river on a lovely evening.

Jim reading Hebrew--a routine kept
in our new home
Chip emailed later in the evening to say the boys were happy with the treasures we had left for them; he mentioned an arrowhead, coins, and a K'nex tower.  So they managed to move in yesterday.

One very big step is done in this process.  The next big step will be figuring out how to get our stuff to Princeton in one car load, then two weeks at Homewood Suites and then--508 Barclay Boulevard!

Sunday, June 2, 2019

Journals

I have kept journals for years.  Most of them were stored in my mother's hope chest in our bedroom. The movers said that the chest was too fragile for such a heavy load so they packed the journals in a regular box.  This seemed all wrong to me for my very private "therapy" journals--just to be sitting in a cardboard box in a storage facility somewhere.  I had begun the process of purging them but it is a painful process to be reminded of times when I needed to vent--and there were plenty of them.  Yet I hesitate to burn the whole pack of them because many of them are mixed up with good memories of the kids' younger years or travel adventures.

 Recently I have split my journals into a therapy journal online which can be easily deleted and a spiritual journal online which is great to look back on and be reminded of good and helpful thoughts.  And then for more public consumption, there is this blog.

The point of this is that journals are very important and valuable to me.  So it gives me pain to record that we just threw out Jim's dad's journals over a 50 year period.   Jim did not want them nor did his siblings.  We hesitated to give them to the archives at Calvin College because there were some controversies in  Dad's career along with some criticism of others who are still alive today.  Plus the print was impossibly small and much was very routine--what the Tigers did or how he slept or what he preached on that Sunday.

A woman in my Bible Study suggested retrieving a journal for each of the birth years of the grandchildren and presenting them to them.  Fortunately the nine grandchildren were all born in different years.  There was also a journal for 1956, the year Jim's youngest sibling was born and the account of her birth and Dad's becoming Mr. Mom for a while was fun to read.

We saw a movie a few weeks ago called From Cairo to the Cloud, a story of the genizah in Egypt which stored Jewish documents since the 12th century.  The opening scene was of modern-day Jewish folk burying their sacred texts and other texts that mentioned the name of God.  I thought that maybe we should dig a hole in our backyard and bury Dad's journals.  But our yard was full of roots and it would be hard to dig a hole.

So....after supper tonight we bundled up the remaining journals in two big blue bags and unceremoniously put them in the dumpster behind our Airbnb here in South Bend.  I am sad about doing so.