Slow Progress & New Friends

I woke up the other morning to a beautiful, light dusting of snow on the ground.  I’m guessing that I won’t think it’s all that wonderful in a few months. Last March, during spring break, we visited up here for a few days, and there were still six-feet-deep snow drifts surrounding Ben’s driveway. I went for a run yesterday morning with the wind-chill temperature about 20. The first thing I did when I got home was get on Amazon and order some better running gloves, socks, and a ski mask. The other adjustment we will have to make is the shorter days. We are far enough north that there is less daylight than we are used to having. In the winter, it stays dark until after 8:00 and gets dark earlier at night. Then again, we don’t plan on being here all winter. There are Caribbean cruises, friends in warm climates, and craps tables in Vegas all beckoning to us during the drab, grey days of January and February.

We are still settling into our new home in incremental stages. I have now painted the entire place except the kitchen and three bathrooms, which will require more thorough updating before I paint. Painting over an interior stairway was especially challenging, as it includes a drop of nearly 30 feet from the peak of the upstairs vaulted ceiling to the bottom of the stairway in the basement. Luckily, the movers cooperated by destroying a large desk of mine during the move. I was able to take pieces of the shattered desk and cobble together a scaffold over the stairs. Then I balanced a ladder on top of that and could reach most of the ceiling edges with a long stick. I completed that part of the task while Kathleen was out of the house so as not to induce a panic attack. We have also ordered new furniture and carpeting, which should arrive in the next week or two. We are waiting to put most of our books and other things on shelves and into cabinets that will have to be moved by the folks laying the carpet. Thus we still can’t find some stuff that might be hidden at the bottom of boxes in our storage room. One of my favorite folksingers is Loudon Wainwright. Back in the ‘80s, he captured the frustrations of moving from one home to another in a song called “Cardboard Boxes.” Here is a sample of the lyrics and a link to a YouTube video of the complete song.

We got the books and the records and the tapes and the pictures
And the pots and the pans and all the breakable glass
The living room couch and the dining room table
The washer and the dryer; what a pain in the ass

                                    –Loudon Wainwright, 1985

Aside from that, we are slowly adjusting to our new town, meeting people, and finding our way around River Falls and the Twin Cities and its suburbs. Thank goodness for GPS, or we’d still be stuck on the various interstates weaving in and around Minneapolis and St. Paul. About once a week, I’ll go to a local restaurant in the morning to read and enjoy breakfast. “The Kinni Café” is my favorite for this, as they offer a discounted price for seniors along with friendly, personable service.  The other day, I overheard a conversation there that captures the laid-back attitude we’ve seen among the people in this small town.

1st man: “Have you seen George lately?”

2^nd man: “Yeah, but, ya know, he’s had some health issues.”

1^st: “No kiddin’; what’s goin’ on?”

2^nd: “Well, his heart stopped.”

1^st: “Jeez, that’s too bad.”

2^nd: “Yeah. They had to, ya know, get it goin’ again.”

1^st: “Ah, well that’s good.”

Here they were, talking about a friend having a heart attack, and the tone sounded as if they were discussing a dodgy lawnmower engine that wouldn’t start on the first pull. I guess they don’t get excited easily up here.

In terms of friendships, we are slowly meeting new people. We went to another meet raffle and, once again, Kathleen won two massive T-Bones worth about $20. The bartenders, Greg and Sandy, now know her by name, as do Lisa and Kayli, two students who moonlight as waitresses. Last night, we stopped in for dinner and had a great conversation with a fun couple we had met on an earlier visit. We are older than the parents of Jake and Nina, but we enjoy talking to them whenever we cross paths. We have explored several other bars in town, but the Nutty Squirrel has become the one we stop at most frequently. The other night, grand-daughter Abigail (age 9) walked the half-mile to our house by herself to deliver some mail that had gone to their house. She called first, afraid that we might be out at “that Nutty Squirrel place.” Is it bad when your grandkids know what your favorite bar is?

Our duplex/condo is part of an elongated cul-du-sac at the end of a long street adjoining a golf course. I think there are 28 units in 14 pairs of buildings. Most of the people who live here are retired, and they have all proved to be helpful without being intrusive. They also hold periodic happy-hour gatherings on Wednesday afternoons for about an hour. It seems that 6 to 12 people attend each of these, although, the particular people might vary. The first one we attended was outdoors on the grassy common area, but lately we have been driven indoors by the cold temperatures. The people are all pleasant and bright, which makes for lively and enjoyable conversation. In particular, Jane and Larry taught English at UWRF before retiring. I had a great discussion with Larry last week about the history of mystery and detective stories, ranging from Edgar Allen Poe, to Sherlock Holmes, to Ross McDonald, to contemporary writers. While painting walls, I have been listening to a Great Courses lecture series on that very subject, so the timing was fortuitous for me.

In short, we have been impressed with the friendliness and intelligence of everyone we have met. DMV clerks, waitpersons, delivery men and women, cable installers, and everyone else with whom we have been involved have been helpful, competent, personable, and bright. Two factors play into this, I think. First, of course, is the public education system. We pay considerably higher property taxes up here than we did in Tennessee, but we are happy to pay it if it results in better education than the abysmal public schools of Tennessee. Another factor that affects the quality of the work force in Wisconsin is that they seem to pay higher wages. Every business we go into has a “Now Hiring” sign, and many of them mention the hourly wage, which is better than comparable jobs in Nashville. I suppose this all means they are able to attract smarter workers with a strong work ethic. This is all just impressionable evidence and a small sample size, but, so far, we have had pleasant interactions with almost everyone we have met in River Falls.