Happy Holidays Again!!!
Well here it is once again time to gather around an open fire and roast some chestnuts —I consider myself a fairly intelligent person, but I have no idea why we roast chestnuts, how they taste roasted or what smell they give off while roasting. Personally, I’d rather eat some good old Mr. Peanut offerings and sip on a cold brew while preparing for the inevitable task of writing this letter—but that’s just me...and whatever happens I’m going to finish this letter today.
What happened in 2019–The beginning of the year is a long time ago, but crawling into the “way back” machine I do remember that a good deal of January and the beginning of February was spent getting down to diagnosing my adrenaline imbalance. After some medications and meditations and general rethinking life, we’ve decided that I’ll never be quite right in the head or body again—and since that’s never concerned me much before, I’m over it now and moving forward in life.
As Spring rolled on through, Amanda finished giving Lake Superior State money and she got a piece of paper in return. This paper says she can drive a big truck with sirens fast and put your house out when it is on fire. She also has the medical training to treat you in nearly every emergency medical situation known to man as a fully qualified paramedic. Talk about job security... she has jobs in her future that will always depend on people doing dumb things while drinking, starting fires, driving, and saying things like “I wonder what happens if we push this button?” Anyway she earned her bachelor’s degree in saving idiots like me magna cum laude. Breanna took a trip West and worked for Jo Anne’s Fabric in California during the summer. While that experience might not have turned out exactly like it was planned, she made the most of the opportunity to learn and grow which wouldn’t hurt all of us from time to time. She continues to make amazing costume clothing, accessories, and multimedia products for fun and money. Her goals are to use her intelligence and creativity to create cool things and help other people get their voice out there through modern tech. She knows more than she thinks and will reach some great goals in the years to come, whereas my goal is to continue to be able to put one sock on each foot.
Mel continues to survive and sometimes excel in the world of megastore retail and on the days that don’t go well she has good friends to count on and drink with occasionally...
The RAGBRAI ride ended up in Southeast Iowa this summer and created an opportunity for an impromptu “Willem” Family reunion/get together. Rumor has it that that there were a few snickers, off-color remarks, and while no official count was taken we moved the recycling process of a substantial quantity of cans forward by doing our public duty to ensure that they were empty before being returned for processing. Don’t ever let it be said that we don’t care about the environment as several of the cyclists and others provided natural irrigation throughout the bike ride and our family celebration. It was great to see everyone who could make it and make some new memories we can argue about the next time we get together.
As fall fell and the year started to slide closer to the roaring 20’s-Amanda agreed to marry her great boyfriend, Caleb Dean. He’s a good young police officer so we are not so much gaining a son-in-law as enhancing our ability to provide our own security force. They have a date in 2021 and I won’t provide details because I’m not even sure I’m invited...but they also bought a great house in the Great White North of Michigan and you all can visit as they live in the country right near a nature preserve and have a nice tent you can rent from them... j.k. they expect to meet a lot of you and would enjoy visitors.
To summarize 2019... we had a good year...not a great year in all regards but as always we avoid our old mistakes by making new ones and learn how to live and love a little more. We make no promises about what will happen next year unless we win the lottery and then we’ll let you know what happened. All we can say is if you are reading this we think of you often and only cuss occasionally. We hope you have a healthy Holiday Season. The 20’s start in just a few days... let’s all get ready and when the time comes start roaring!!!
Peace and Joy to All,
