Supertramp? Yes! And A Trip Back In Time

I just finished burning a few Supertramp CDs for my daughter. She's recently developed a love for '70s rock music (Supertramp in particular), and Supertramp was and still is my favorite band. I saw them twice in concert when Rick and Roger (the main forces in the band) were still together. I've seen Roger's solo shows a couple of times since their split in 1983, and I flew out to Los Angeles in 1997 to see the reconstituted band play at The Greek Theater—a great experience! I couldn't have been more pleased to hear that Rachel's interested in hearing more of their music.

And speaking of Rachel: Tammy and I spent last weekend at (her boyfriend) Drew's mother's cabin in northwestern Wisconsin with the 3 of them. Jenny's cabin is less than 15 minutes from the city of Webster where my parents owned 40 acres of land from the early '70s to the mid-'80s. We kicked around the town of Spooner for part of Saturday before driving to Clover Meadow Winery to taste some wines. The atmosphere there was fun and we enjoyed ourselves but the wines were disappointing—and we're by no means wine snobs. As Tammy commented, "They all tasted the same!"

I took off for a couple of hours later in the day to try and locate the property my parents used to own. With the help of my brother Keith, I was able to find the land. They purchased the 40 acres from sisters Anna and Susan Rollinger who lived in a house across the highway from the property. Their older home has been moved a few miles away and a new home was constructed further back from the road which confused me as nothing was jibing with my memory of the area from 40 years earlier. I phoned Keith and with the help of Google Maps, we were able to determine where the property was.



I visited with the people who live on the land that Anna and Susan used to own. Jack is the mortician in town and he told me that he purchased the property from Anna and Susan in 1984 when they decided they had become too old to continue living in their home and keeping up with the maintenance. He said it was his father who purchased our 40 acres from my parents for $10,000 and that he later sold it for the same price to the druggist in town who has built a home on the property. Anna passed away in 1990. Susan is also buried in the same cemetery but I was unable to locate her gravesite before the deer flies chased me out.

I also took some time to drive around Bass Lake where we'd sometimes spend a few hours in the afternoon soaking up the sun on a small sandy area along the north side of the lake; then and now.

My parents and Keith and Tim would drive up to the property on Fridays after my dad came home from work. They'd spend the weekend living among the trees, mosquitoes and deer flies. It was fun. They'd tow a small camper which was actually quite comfortable. I'd sometimes make the trip with them but more often than not I'd stay behind putting in hours at Penny's Grocery, bagging groceries for customers and working the parcel pickup.

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The Emerald Ash Borer has arrived! It's been slowly but steadily working its way toward our city for a number of years, and now it's been detected in our neighborhood. Here's a photo of a flyer I noticed on a walk 6 years ago. It's decision time. We can treat our 3 ash trees at a cost of a little more than $100 per year indefinitely to keep the beetle at bay or we can choose to have the trees removed for around $2800. I considered having them removed but Tammy would like to keep them. It didn't take much convincing for me to agree with her. It's possible that whatever tree we'd choose to replace them with will fall victim to some other form of beetle 20 years from now, and that played into our decision. Our corner lot would lose much of its character without the trees.

And speaking of decisions: I called a couple of tattoo removal places to inquire about the cost of having my small ankle tattoo removed. I figured I'd be able to have it done for not much more than $150. I figured wrong. I received an email reply telling me, "You're going to be looking at a total of 7 to 10 treatments for complete removal. Price per treatment will be between $65 and $80." Hmmm—what to do?

I've been golfing with some retired controller friends lately. It's been fun. Eight of us met up at Montgomery National Golf Club on Tuesday morning on a beautiful day for golf. I hope to get out with them more often in the coming months.

Keith, Tracee, Claudia, and Dan came over Wednesday night for dinner. It was such a nice time. We sat around after dinner and chatted until it was nearly dark out. It was especially nice to catch up with Dan. I can't remember the last time we've been able to do that. Maybe never.

That's all I've got.