Some Words At The End Of The Year

There haven't been many words published here this year. Reasons vary, but it's probably a combination of needing a break from the self-imposed responsibility of updating this page and despairing over the current state of the world.

The latter, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned, continues to be well chronicled here.

By the numbers, I read this many books (which means I've been slacking compared to the previous year), walked lots of steps (still waiting for the official Fitbit year-end report on that one), and listened to lots of music in my quest to re-listen to all of my records (I've got to keep better track of how much, if only for my own obsessive reasons).

I think it's mainly my music-listening activity that keeps me away from the keyboard these days.

Lots of people died this year. The older we get, the more it's likely to happen. The three people I'll miss most are Jim Kaiser, Annie "Rattlesnake" Whitacre, and my aunt Jan Olander. I wrote about Jim here. Annie was a camper and later, a counselor, at my work. She was creative, rebellious, and talented. She was also one of the few counselors who attended our wedding back in 2012. A few photos are posted below. The fist one was taken during summer camp a number of years ago, and the rest are from our wedding.













Her obituary is here.

Her voice is here.

My aunt Jan died on November 19th. I'm glad that I, along with Willow and Greg, got a chance to reconnect with her (and the rest of my dad's side of the family) a few years ago. In Willow's case, the word "reconnect" isn't right. I'm glad that Willow got to meet her. Here is a trio of photos from the trip.







Greg made it out to Red Wing for the funeral. Due to work, I did not.

Three excellent people, all completely different from each other. It's the differences that make us stronger. The world is just a little less varied now.

It's hard to follow that with much of anything, but I want to mention trips taken this year before I end this post. The only one I wrote about is the trip to England that Jeanine and I took back in April. We stayed with my friend Nidge, who was an excellent host. I wrote about it here. I also managed to take a trip to Oregon with Greg, which I've already written about, a trip to Orlando with Jeanine, Eva, and Willow, and a trip to Baltimore for the Days of Darkness music festival.

Goodbye 2017. 2018 will be what we make it to be.