Chicago and Elk Grove for Theresa's 50th High School Reunion!

Elk Grove Village and Chicago, 26-29 September 2024

About a year ago I learned that we would indeed have a 50th high school reunion for my high school, Elk Grove HS. Since I missed the 40th, I definitely wanted to attend this. My best friend Kim and I made plans to arrive a day early and spend time together. One of the group of women I am friendly with, Sally Ricks, was the overall coordinator, and friends Linda Latone and Bev Jarosch were on the planning committee, so I knew it would be fun. I planned to stay with Jan Nickelson, Kim's sister-in-law, which would be nice to be in a home and not in a hotel.

• Thursday the 26th: I flew to Chicago on the 26th, and my flight was delated for some reason for 3 hours. This meant I arrived in the dark, but I found my way to the car rental and drove to Jan's house, about two blocks from where I lived in high school. It was nice to arrive at a home, and Kim and Jan had some pizza from local favorite Lou Malnotti's waiting for me.

• Friday the 27th: One of kim's dear friends form college had become a Deacon in the Catholic church after his wife passed away, so she wanted to attend the 8:00am Mass to hear his homily. We managed to make it there on time and it was a nice service. Afterwards we stopped at the Jewel, the grocery store we grew up with, to get some breakfast items. After breakfast and coffee, we headed to see Kim's cousin Nicholas, who lived on the North Side of Chicago with his wife and two children. Their house was relatively new and we had a nice tour and chat with them. Everyone was so nice, and it was fun seeing a new neighborhood where I had never been.

Then we were off to the Art Institute of Chicago, one of Kim's and my favorite places. We found a place to park in the underground lot, and entered on Michigan Avenue - it seemed mostly the same as the last time I was here 20+ years ago. We toured the Greek and Roman Galleries, saw the Stock Exchange room, and then went for lunch, which was in a lovely outdoor enclosed area. Then off to see the Impressionists! This is one of the great collections, and we enjoyed every minute, every picture both familiar and new. We spent many an hour here in high school on field trips, so it was fun to come back.

I told Kim I wanted to take photos of the places my family lived, so we were off to the Near North and Far Northwest Side.  First stop was 323 W. Menominee, where I had a tiny apartment after graduating from college once I had my first real job. Then to 2012 N. Howe where I lived before leaving for California. I could not find the building I lived in briefly on Lincoln Park West between those two places, maybe it was gone. The next stop was the place my grandparents lived in, where my father was raised, and where we visited many times as kids, Armitage and Drake, at 2025 N Drake. It was always a working class neighborhood where my grandparents had lived since the early 1920s, had declined during the white flight to the suburbs, and was pretty rough for a while, but seemed to be coming back. It was a shock to see my grandparents' six-flat with the whole rear wooden porches torn off, the roof and all the windows gone. A developer had a sign up about the new project, so I guess this was a good indication of a better future. The passing of an era... the building was probably 150 years old. Then we went to 3429 W. Shakespeare where my parents lived when they were first married and when Larry was born in 1953, nine months after they got married, only a few blocks away. Then to 4110 W. Oakdale, where I was born in 1956. This is the site where the infamous racist landlord neighbor took place... the bigoted landlord was upset that Dad had a Black guy in his law school study group in the backyard, told them to get out, and Dad told him that they would not live with a racist and they left a few days later; the Black student ended up as a federal judge.  My Mom and Dad moved quickly to a new apartment, in the 2600 block of Neva Avenue in 1957. Then in 1958 they bought their first home using the GI bill, at 5545 N. Canfield, a single-family home with a yard.  We then drove back to Elk Grove to get ready for the first big gathering.

The evening was a casual one at the Coach's Corner Sports Bar. We had the very crowded side room, and folks were either at tables or standing or walking around. Kim and I had had pizza before as we thought ordering food would be complicated, so we just walked around to connect with people. It was great fun to see folks - thanks goodness we all had nametags, as there were honestly people I would never have recognized, and some I would have for sure. It was amazing how the years melted away. I especially enjoyed re-connecting with Rich Hutchinson, a terrific oboist who is now a sociology professor with similar political views I recently connected with on facebook.  We left about 9:30pm as Kim was getting tired, though I know some folks stayed much later.

• Saturday the 28th:  This morning we drove to the St. Joseph Cemetery in Rover Grove where my grandparents are buried. I cleaned up the grave and took photos ... no one has been here for many years. Then we did a bit of a drive around Elk Grove and took photos. After Canfield in Chicago, we then moved to 641 Clearmont Drive in 1960, where I started kindergarten at Clearmont Elementary in the fall of 1961, and then went to Queen of the Rosary School for 1st-4th grade, when my whole family was asked to leave the school (we were too rambunctious). We lived briefly at the Washington Square apartments after the fire in our house in 1963. Then I went to Grove Jr. High, and we moved to 1316 Cumberland Circle East when I was a sophomore in high school. We took some photos of the high school front and back, so spread out and large compared to city schools, we had 2,400 students in our school.

A highlight of the trip was having a lunch at 52 Seasons with the women I had known since 6th grade - Bev, Jan, Kim, Linda, Bernice, Jan, and Carla. We remembered good times and talked about our current lives. I feel so fortunate to have known these accomplished and wonderful women for almost 60 years!

After lunch, we went back to Jan's and chatted for a while, and got ready for the big reunion event at Real Time Sports Bar & Grill, also in Elk Grove close to where Jan lived. This was a cash bar and buffet diner. It was great to see some folks who had not attended the night before, and they had a slide show of photos folks had sent which was fun. It was so nice to re-connect with even more classmates. Bev Jarosch had her family bakery do an incredible cake which was both delicious and beautiful in green and gold, the school colors. As I helped to pass out slices of cake, so many people were thrilled to have a Jarosch cake again! We left about 10:00pm, though I learned the next morning that some folks closed it down at 1:03am!

• Sunday the 29th: Another early morning for 8:30am Mass with Kim, and I learned that indeed I cannot quite kneel on my artificial knee. I did sneak in a piece of Jarosch cake I brought back for breakfast. Then we went to Elly's, a local breakfast place, where we met with some of the same women and Sally, the reunion coordinator, and two guys who were on the committee. We had a lovely lunch and caught up, easier to do in a small group than with 100 people at a larger event. Then I headed off to O'Hare, returned the car, and caught my flight (on time!) to SFO. Barney was waiting for me and we had a slow drive home. It was good to get back, and I was filled with wonderful memories of the trip.

Lovely London, 24 June 2024

 Lovely London, 24 June 2024

Unfortunately, I became ill overnight, with what turned out to be Covid, thought at the timeI thought it was just a cold. So, Barney headed off for the excursion to Southwark and the Mayflower tavern. Meanwhile, I relaxed in the room, read a lot, sniffled and coughed along so I would not spread it around. At one point I went up to the top level lounge as everyone was gone into London, and just enjoyed looking out at the city. It was 84º which is really quite warm for London, so even from a distance I could see that folks were hot and tired. 

Barney returned and gave me an update on the excursion which was nice. He saw the replica of the Mayflower and went to the tavern for lunch, which was old and felt very authentic. They  visited the site of the original Globe theater and the site of the new Globe theater as well.

We had dinner in the room and packed for our very early - 6:00am! departure. Although our flight was later in the morning, they take people in groups and we were with an earlier group, though some folks had to depart at 4:00am!  The bus ride to the airport took aout an hour and we drove through some interesting neighborhoods, and past Buckingham Palace where tourists were already lining up. Everything went smoothly at Heathrow, and we had a ncie flight back. It felt good to get home on BART, though I must admit I missed the limited decision-making required on this trip and how much was done for us (cooking, cleaning, navigating, getting into places) , so different than most of our very independent travel. And Norway was stunning ... we'll be back.

Exciting Edinburgh, 23 June 2024

 Up bright and early for a full day in Edinburgh … I kept wanting to pronounce it “Edin-burg” not “Edin-burough”. We were anchored out in the Newtown area, so will take the tender into shore. Our guide on the bus was really interesting, and started by mentioning that that Newtown isn’t all that new, it started in 1767, but when your history goes back thousands of years, 200 years is new. About 25% of the students in Edinburgh go to private schools, many founded in the 18th century, including one called Fettes College (actually for 8-18-year-olds). The actor Sean Connery had an early job delivering milk to the prestigious College, so upon learning this, author Ian Fleming managed to work attending Fettes College into James Bond’s fictional background. The second half of the 18th century saw a huge upswing in Scottish creativity, inventors, scientists, writers, and engineers flourished, and we went by sone of the homes (such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s). The lovely 4-story buildings around the place where the shuttle bus would pick us up were built by an architect named Morry, came from a family of lighthouse builders which built about 200 of them throughout Scotland. The guide also pointed out a status of James Clerk Maxwell, whose four equations describe the relationship of optics, electricity and magnetism which led to discoveries such as the phone and mobile communications and GPS; he first asked who had heard of Maxwell, and only Barney replied. As we drove past a huge public park near the Scottish Parliament, we went through the neighborhood of Greyfriars, where is located the cafe where J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book, and took some of the name of characters (like Tom Riddle) from the gravestones in the nearby Greyfriars graveyard. On Candlemakers Row nearby, there was also a statue of Bobby the Skye Terrier, so distraught at the death of his master that he spent the next 14 years of his life guarding the grave, taken are of by locals who admired his dedication, and he became known as Greyfriars Bobby. Our bus soon dropped us by the Edinburgh Castle which sat high atop a volcanic mount dominating the city. Tickets for the day were sold out, but that was OK as we had planned to go to the National Museum of Scotland.

We walked down the Royal Mile, filled with shops selling Scottish wool sweaters, kilts, and anything plaid. I resisted the temptation to buy yet another sweater, so we enjoyed the walk on a lovely warm day (about 70 degrees) to the Museum. The Museum was quite large, with a five-story addition to the Victorian central Grand Gallery devoted to thousands of years of Scottish history. There were also galleries devoted to science and technology (the first rotational steam engine, Dolly the Sheep and more), artifacts from all over the world including Egypt, design and fashion, and the natural sciences (dinosaurs of course). We decided to focus on Scottish history, as this is something unique to this area that we’d not seen before. We began with the  earliest people, dating from 8,000BCE with remains from burials, sacrifices, and worship. Four really interesting galleries showed how people lived, ate, drank, made what they needed from stone, leather, and wood, interacted with other peoples, and more. The famous Lewis Chess set was there, along with the Hilton of Cadboll Stone with its fanciful Pictish creatures, hunting scenes, and early Christian iconography. There were many tall stones filled with Pictish animal carvings and interwoven plants and animals similar to Celtic artworks, many of which were incredibly geometric, and these spanned the pre-Christian and early Christian eras, and also reflected many Viking influences. The Roman occupation of Scotland was also presented, showing their weapons, the silver they used to bribe local chieftains, and information about the wall Hadrian built to keep out the barbarians. After a quick lunch, we continued upstairs to the gallery, describing the kingdom of the Scots from 1099-late 1600s, with all its battles, political and religious intrigues, advances in technology and art, weapons, stunning jewelry, a beautifully carved harp, and of course William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, and more. On the way out we stopped by the animatronic Millennium Clock, which had been commissioned from a group of artists for January 2000, which described some of the horrors of war and distant of the 20th century in hope that the 21st century would be better.

We then had a long, 45- minute walk to the shuttle bus pickup, which took us down Prince Street, which unlike the Royal Mile that was filled with tourist items, had more of the everyday clothing, electronics, groceries, pharmacy items. It was more of a place where locals shop, rather like the rue d’Alesia in the 14th in Paris where we went shopping with Catherine and Anne. Back to the port and then the tender back to the ship. We read for a while and I updated the blog, and we had dinner at the Italian restaurant, and my seafood risotto was excellent.