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.

Comments

Unknown said…
Since the fish is a symbol of salvation through Jesus...Without looking at other people, what did the tattoo mean to you when you got it? Our Faith doesnt grow by what we see others doing...Jesus never said "Look at others and you will find me" He said "Look to me and you will find life". I dont believe when we come face to face with our Creator, we will be able to defend ourselves by saying "But those Christians I saw ...." He will judge on the truth that we do know on whether we accepted His truth or denied it. He wants us to go deeper with Him and not rely on our own understanding. (Surrendering all). In turn, He shows us our own depth in our humaness. We are more than what we think. ��
I understand your frustration in our evangelical upbringing. To me, it was legalistic.....follow the formula by asking Jesus into your heart and you have your ticket to heaven....after that, read your bible, join a bible study and serve some way in the church. It did give us truth but it was wrapped up in outward behavior.....(*trying* harder in our own strength to do good and sin less.) The Gospel is pointless if we are meant to save ourselves on our own goodness. It seemed to be much about outward behavior when it is our inner heart that Jesus wants to shine His light on which brings us deeper in knowing ourselves and Him. HIS Spirit is what transforms our hearts into our true self as we surrender. That is the freedom He desires to give us. �� Bring your doubt to Him....not away from Him. Be real in prayer.. He already knows its there. Trust Him to show you more of yourself and Him ��...and your focus on other Christians will fade and change.
Kevin Gilmore said…
Hi Thresa, and thanks for your comment. I have to apologize -- when you said you'd left a comment I tried to think back but I couldn't recall seeing it. I went into the dashboard of my blog and found it, along with several others from friends that had never been published, awaiting moderation. I've since turned off the moderation on my blog so it will post any and all comments as soon as they're made -- even spam comments (which is why I had been filtering them). It's been quite a while since I've seen many spam comments.

We all 3 got our tattoos as soon as Rachel turned 16 as a sign of our walk with Jesus. It was that simple. We'd been kicking around the idea for probably a year or two before we did it.

Yes, it seemed that our upbringing was more focused on following steps to attain salvation than in really working on our hearts. I think that component was there as well but it seemed to come after the acceptance part. I try not to base my faith off of what I see happening in the church today, especially in this age of Trump* and how so many in the Evangelical world have embraced the golden calf of Trump*. The part that troubles me though is that I'm left to wonder how much of what we've accepted as fact from the church was actually man-made and not of God? If Evangelicals today can so thoroughly corrupt the message of Jesus, how can we be certain that there wasn't a similar group of people who had their fingerprints all over the Bible, especially the OT. I don't have any issues with the red letter of the NT but I do take pause as much of the OT and some of the NT.

It was so nice to see you and spend time with you today. I hope we can do much more of that in the future. 🥂

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