Rings

Dr. Chad Johanning continues to post great info about the situation in Kansas, and Dr. John Haefele has posted great Marshall County updates. This dispatch from Italy by Greg Soderstrom, former Air Force pilot and Tephanie Soderstrom's husband, struck me: "Italy has been in lock down for weeks. This means social gatherings are limited to one person. When I look at the COVID numbers for various locations as a percentage of the population, and I hear that social gatherings are limited to 10 or to 3 people, I laugh. Limiting gatherings to 10 people is not even a speed bump to exponential growth and expansion. Limiting gatherings to 3 people is the equivalent of 3 speed bumps before rapid and exponential acceleration. No social gatherings is the way to go."

We're trying and learning. People gathered in our cars outside of Bethlehem Lutheran Church today to surprise a bride, daughter of a neighbor, and groom as they walked out from their wedding. Honks and cheers gave them a bit of the crowd love they didn't have inside.

I also made the ring pictured in this post for Pia, who had lost a keyring she was loosely wearing on her finger while we took batting practice in the yard. The goat, meanwhile, doesn't like social distancing and has been jumping out of his pen and wandering about.

My classes are set for next week, although I'm sure we'll all be confused a bit as we figure out new routines. Routines, in fact, will be great and part of what saves us. It will be our second week of remote Mass in the morning, and I hope you have similar opportunities to join with others for messages of faith and hope.

I love you all. I'm not going to make rings for everyone, but I offer whatever I have in assistance if you need it. Don't be a stranger. We video-chatted with the Yonkers family today and continue to call, text, email, and write letters to people.

shampoo

Quick updates: Dad replaced the leaky washer faucet. He broke the PVC line, had to turn off the water in the house for 90 minutes, and had to get a new piece, but it got fixed. I didn't fix the leaky water line. I dug around the broken area, clipped it, and added splices. I crawled under the house and turned the water on. The splices leaked. I crawled out and tried again. It still leaked.

On the plus side, I figured out why the house smelled a bit like the lagoon. The drain line from the kitchen sink and dishwasher had come apart at an elbow in the crawlspace. Drain water has been soaking into the dirt there for an indeterminate amount of time. So I cemented that back together and threw some duck tape on it to hold it while it cures.

Isaiah was in charge of supper, making brownies from a mix with Grandma and chicken strips with mom. Yesterday we took a walk in the evening, checking on last week's willow transplants. Several have leaves and they all look good. I pulled one up, but no roots yet. They're in a tenous position, easily washed away if the river rises and also succeptible to the bank drying out if it doesn't.

If you need some broad-based thinking about the world these days, Andy Obermueller might be of interest. Michael Brendan Dougherty, fomerly of the American Conservative, has cogent thoughts at the National Review. The Harvard Business Review had a great article about grief: "The loss of normalcy; the fear of economic toll; the loss of connection. This is hitting us and we're grieving. Collectively. We are not used to this kind of collective grief in the air." (https://hbr.org/…/03/that-discomfort-youre-feeling-is-grief…)

People are fearful about this virus. They worry about jobs, about futures, about meeting the basic human needs of their families. The uncertainty, the lack of any idea of what is happening beyond the next day or two is unsettling, even paralyzing. Seemingly simple things like grocery shopping involve this involved list of someone else's favored shampoo with no certainty that you'll be able to find it for them.

Still, there is plenty of normalcy. I've been emailing eighth-graders to check on them. Most are OK, although one usually combative and highly intelligent student, after noting that her family was fine and didn't need anything, suggested I should start making toilet paper. Speaking of which, Marian found some today at the store! We're high rollers.

Pia wanted to be sure the stores were only out of food, not toys. Priorities!

I love you all. Holler if need anything (I might even share TP).

pictures

just off the trail

walk

Old pics

Here is one of mom's projects: Going through the archives in our basement. Yesterday I noticed this picture of me hanging in the dining room. Today I claimed dad's high school letters and track medals. In one way or another, many of us are taking stock of our lives, looking back during this time in which we can only look ahead a few hours or days with any clarity.

I have a couple of dad's high school papers to excerpt for my students when we start up next week. I've started emailing them and it is great to hear back from them, even in short typed bursts.

Yesterday, dad hit a water line while digging holes for fence posts. I'd have hit it, too. In a fortunate twist, we put in a valve under the house when we ran this line for a hydrant by the shed. Very un-Friedrichslike foresight on our part. This morning the washing machine started sloshing all over the floor. If you have any children at home (we have four adults and six kids here), you know the carnage that could back up behind this catastrophe. I got the front off and tipped the machine. After I had undone one hoseclamp, I noticed a belt on the floor. Two local places had it in stock. The washer is fixed, but now the cold water faucet from the wall is dripping.

Tomorrow: Dig in the mud to splice that broken water line, replace a faucet, play ball, read to my kids, talk to other teachers, put stuff online, cook beef stroganoff, read non-news articles -- life won't stop.

I love you folks. Keep building. Keep laughing. Cry when you need to. Talk to as many people as you can. Tell an old story. Write a new one. Do something -- small or big -- for someone else. Do something -- big or small -- for yourself. Get muddy, but don't be a wet blanket.  

Peter, welcome to Marysville

ball uniform

Saturday (out of order already!)

Fruit trees are starting to bud. I can see hops poking through the ground. One maple has the bright red shoots that will be big green leaves all summer before they turn red, dry, and drift to the ground.

These tape club albums drifted into Habitat this week. I recognize the look, the artists, and the excitement of that cardboard box arriving in my mailbox in the 1980s. Those soundtracks to our lives are getting extended play as people turn to the melodies that sooth and comfort with the familiarity of an old blanket.

Tephanie Soderstrom, MHS class of 1991, shares her life in Northern Italy with a great understanding of people's concerns and questions. The page is called Wanderlust, wine, and famiglia. Our classmate and hops lover Brad Howard got married (congratulations)! Tori Dettke worties about the railroad crews helping keep the country supplied, Tina Katz Spurgeon has the same feeling for our truck drivers. Undoubtedly there's a Kenny Rogers song for all of this.

At home, dad built more fence around the garden, the kids and I played ball, and we cut and salted the last of this winter's pork. We waved at Marian Tascio Friedrichs' dad, Peter, through the window to welcome him to his new home in Marysville.

Listen to your favorite song from high school. Make your kids dance to it. Call someone that used to listen to it in the car with you. Walk this way. I love rock and roll, and I love you, too.

2x church

 

The couch was sure comfier than a wooden pew this morning, although we missed all the other families we normally see at Mass. The kids also got a surprise: When FrNathan Haverland's soundtrack ended, we started up Pastor Aaron Fenker for mom and dad. They may prefer to wood pew after that! Thanks to all the folks who made so many services possible, including Paula A. Landoll-Smith, Janice Lyhane, and Rick Smith. James Friedrichs was the bouncer (helped the pastor explain to anyone who still showed up because they didn't know) out in Long Beach.

You'll note Gideon in a different seat. No, I didn't give him the keys. They were already in the ignition. Lori Reesor isn't the only one taking advantage of home time and less busy roads to train our next generation of drivers. (Gideon can't reach the pedals! I'm talking about other people's kids.)

Dad and mom helped me package bacon after I rewired the slicer (insulation on the old wires had become so brittle it shorted out; and then every wire exposed itself when I wiggled stuff around to fix the initial problem). There's one more batch of belly to smoke, and some chops and hams are curing in the garage fridge. The strategic bacon reserve is secure.

We're all frazzled, much like those wires, with so many things in our life currently short-circuited. I need more patience, and probably more rest, and to help with that, I'm not going to read much outside of personal correspondence and school prep the next two days. Don't soak up more than you can handle these days. And spend less time thinking more than a week or two out because that's the routine we have control over.

You may be sitting somewhere hard. You may have received nasty shocks. Check in. I'm here for you and I love you.  

Discovered

While searching on Facebook for recent photos of the kids, I found these shots from the joint Trail Life/AHG campout in September. Beautiful.

Plugged in

Spent about 10 minutes fixing an extension cord. Realized that I should have looked more closely before starting. Performed same operation on the tablesaw, which actually needed a male plug.

Earlier I helped dad at Habitat, cutting boards for the floor of the new second-floor storage room. Then we scavenged more from the usual spot (hey, some things are trade secrets). He's also working on fences to kerp chickens out of the garden so they can roam this summer.

It was school as usual at our house. Despite the cold weather, Gideon loved being outside. Mom made cherry crisp fir dessert after supper.

Miss the NCAA tourney? I have a friend who created a bracket, assigned games TV times AND networks, and is writing halftime and full-game recaps in real time. It is highly amusing to those of us involved (sorry, private group). Creative sharing and storytelling is all around.

Have a good weekend. Make mistakes. Laugh about them. I love you and am here if you need anything  

Bernadette

"The moment a Barbie's head comes off, she becomes evil no matter how good she was before."

fun

puddles

 \

Not gonna lie. This is a picture from yesterday: Gideon stomping in puddles. When you're 1, everything is a discovery. When you're 18, you think you know everything. Later, when you're 47ish and old enough to know you don't know everything, you still get surprised, but maybe you don't view the muddy water as a joyous discovery.

I waded into Walmart today. There are so many oddities: Cat food all gone but plenty of kitty litter. Bread but no flour. I managed to fill most of the requests from home, from my aunt, and from our neighbors. I realized you can't touch anything that hasn't been touched by other people. Anyway, as I've been telling people, if you run out of bacon, I'll wind up the catapult and launch some your way. We have a strategic reserve in our freezers.

While keeping a distance, I also tried to say hi to people and joke around. I saw one of my senior English boys who didn't know what was going on with school. I assured him he'd be talking to me before the end of the year. We had another call and I ran in to pick up books from my room. I also left a bunch of books by the seventh- and eighth-grade lockers, as well as packets of flower, fruit and vegetable seeds for the kids. They'll be coming in tomorrow to grab things from their lockers. Sounds like the district is doing a good job of making sure everyone has internet.

At home we had some geat sausage made by John L. Zimmer with our pasta and sauce. Marian also made cream puffs! Dad's project for the day was to haul a load of donations from the thrift store to the mission in Lincoln. All his contact was by phone, and they unloaded for him. He can spout the contact rules back at me.

For various reasons, I remembered "I'm changing my name to Chrysler" and am now listening to Arlo Guthrie on Youtube as I type. Earlier, the kids and I played "the flashlight game" to sounds of the Spice Girls channel on Pandora (give every kid a flashlight, turn out the lights, dance around, have parades through the house -- every kid has to have a chance if this is to work, and call out various actions such as fire fist, scary face, wave, circles, off and on, etc.)

My far-off aunts and uncles and siblings are swapping family news via email, which makes the distance less for all of us. Go and do likewise. I love you guys. Holler if you need anything.

Reality show

As you gather around, children, you may be wondering what I did with dad today. Let me start you with another story that might explain why I need dad projects. My grandpa Friedrichs, well into retirement in the 1990s, was mowing with a narrow-front-end tractor. He hit a rock or bump that twisted the wheels and tossed him off. The tractor rolled over his leg, but the engine died before he was mowed to death and he escaped with a broken leg. Fortunately for him, his adult children had recently gotten satellite TV for the house. But grandma Friedrichs saw him sitting on the couch and called him lazy (this is real, not a fairy tale). He had a broken leg (this is real, not a fable)! So dad and my uncle Phil had to go pick him up every day and let him sit in the pickup where they were working in the field. In short, my dad and my uncles have to keep moving or they think their late mother will come and harangue them like they are teenagers not doing their chores. (Us grandkids remember our late grandmother for chocolate chip cookies.)

Oh, yes. Today's project. Wait, let me tell you about school. My friend Jenn Lindsay, a social worker in Michigan, is worried about the disruption in kids' lives around her. Lawyer Jennifer Wheeler Wood is worried about the special needs families she helps in Illinois. At school we had a video call today to talk about what we're doing next: small group, well-spaced meetings next week; online glory the following. I pre-emptively gave eighth hours to three friends who want to enroll in my class.

Of course all the parents who aren't used to spending their whole day with their kids and trying to balance work and everything else (note: Marian Tascio Friedrichs or Jenni Kraemer Perry can help). The homeschool jokes are great, as was the idea to tell a story about your kids but to call them your co-workers that Kristen Hearne Fink shared: "One of my coworkers pinched another coworker today for not wearing green on St Patrick's Day. The pinched coworker then retaliated by swinging at the pincher and they got into a physical fight in front of my work desk."

No fights between dad and I. We cut wood for neighbors and got their grocery list (properly distanced!). We cut more willows from the dam, and then dad went back out while I was on the school call. When I was done with that, I helped him pull the tractor back up the bank after he almost rolled it into the pond. We're our own safety police. Now would be a great time to film the Charlie Friedrichs reality show because even without his usual cast of supporting characters, he does things that would create a Youtube stream of revenue for me to retire on.

That's why I'm sharing the clip with this post (sorry, not on Blogger, but I want to keep the text). Kids in photography made stop-motion videos earlier this semester. We watched Terry Gilliam demonstrate his Monty Python work and then cut out magazine images and moved them around. This one is Carson Bolken (Nikki Schotte Bohlken), Lucas Dankenbring (LeAnne Dankenbring), Nathan Fisher, and Drew Padgett. We won't have any more group projects of this type, but we'll find other ways to express ourselves.

Thank you to all the nurses, doctors, and medical staff out there working hard, or prepping if it hasn't hit there, yet. We love you Marnie Dodson and Ragnar Peterson and Magda Majcher-Tascio and everyone else.

If you're working, do your best to manage. If you have extra time, find a project or a book or walk. Make a couple of phone calls, send a couple of texts, reach out. We haven't lost human contact. I love you all, and I'm here if you need me.

  

Snack after willow planting

Willows

Today's distract-dad project was a two-fer. We cut down willows that are growing into the pond damn and sucking up the water. Then we stuck shoots from those trees into the riverbank along the trail south of Oketo where it is washing out. I promised the kids that dad would fall in the river on the way over. He did not, but did sink boot deep into soft mud and I had to help him out and then rescue the boot.

It was a laugh I needed because I felt like throwing up earlier after reading worst-case scenarios. I talked to a friend last night who was thinking about quitting her job if they didn't reduce contact. My fellow teachers and parents and students were gut-punched by the Kansas school closures. We made a difficult family decision, too, with all of this unknown. Your stress is our stress is stress fractures in what we felt was normal.

On Sunday, FrNathan Haverland talked in part about how St. Gregory helped during the plague in Rome. Gina J Miller is recording herself playing requests by her friends. The school is providing meals for kids. In the midst of great sacrifice -- for the most weak and vulnerable -- people are reaching out. In the midst of a need to keep our distance, people are embracing each other and listening to each other.

Me, I planted more trees when I got home: a fig tree, two hazelnuts, and a pecan. We picked our first almonds in the fall, and we have black walnuts. In 5-10 years if we don't hit the new ones with a mower or kill them or the rabbits don't chew them off, I will be the squirrel king.

(We won't go hungry until then. Marian made Irish stew and soda bread with green punch for the kids. It was delicious. )

I love you. As April Todd said today, "Please, show grace." Call, message, text, comment, or email if you need to talk.

March 16 notes

Day 1 of lockdown at our house: Had to talk dad out of a couple of crazy ideas. However, everyone is coming around to the idea of limiting our physical interactions with other people. Split wood. Walked out to the pond with the kids and saw a buck carcass that has mostly been stripped by coyotes but has just enough of the hide to be a bit creepy. Played a little whiffle ball. Helped dad load donated appliances and haul them to Habitat without talking to anyone except via phone. Ran around the exteriour of the house with the kids later in the day. Took Gideon for a ride so Marian could teach dance. Called a few friends (and was too gloomy; sorry).

I was relieved to see the school has a plan for feeding students. Now I have to get my classwork ready for the empty room next week. I also need to finish my KSDE portfolio.

A lot has changed in the past week. A lot has changed in the past 24 hours. A lot will change in the next two weeks, two months. One doctor I know said we're not preparing for a blizzard; we're preparing for winter. Yet as we live through this, spring will slowly unfold like the rhubarb leaves poking through in our garden.

We've forgotten 1918 until it comes up, and then people tell me stories about great-grandmothers and others who died. So we haven't forgotten. Past tragedies, past mourning are enveloped by subsequent joy and celebration. The scars shape the future. Every year, good or bad, healthy or sick, happy or sad, is a growth ring in our history. Our kids will tell their stories of 2020 to partially listening, freshly blossoming grandchildren.

Martin Luther captured some of what we might consider when writing about the plague: "Therefore I shall ask God mercifully to protect us. Then I shall fumigate, help purify the air, administer medicine, and take it. I shall avoid places and persons where my presence is not needed in order not to become contaminated and thus perchance infect and pollute others, and so cause their death as a result of my negligence. If God should wish to take me, he will surely find me and I have done what he has expected of me and so I am not responsible for either my own death or the death of others. If my neighbor needs me, however, I shall not avoid place or person but will go freely, as stated above." (In typical manner, he addresses many issues in depth, but you can read the full eight pages on your own.)

Be kind. Be helpful. Be patient. Take care of each other. Let me know if I can do something for you. I love you.

Pia

"Aunt Liz, would you braid my hair? Grandma always braids my hair and it makes me beautiful. Even more beautiful."

Watching Mama and Bernadette make Daddy's birthday cake: "This is a great life. Hakuna Matata!"

P: "Why do you always want to wash my hair?"
M: "So it will be clean and shiny and beautiful."
P: "I don't want it to be beautiful! I want my hair to be plain!"

After hugging Bernadette: "I'm a kind girl to her."

"When I'm a grown-up I will do as much work as I can. And I will get married when my wedding dress gets bigger."

M: "What else did you say today that I wanted to write down?"
P: "I don't know. Hello?"