The Curtis Clan - Summer 2017
Summer Solstice to Fall Equinox
Pi Beta Phi at 150
The first weekend of summer, Bethany and the rest of the St. Louis Pi Beta Phi Alumni club hosted the National Convention for the 150th celebration here in St. Louis. The months, weeks and days leading up to it, Bethany was busy working to make the event a successful including a Pi Phis through the decades exhibit, where she borrowed her mom’s wedding dress as a example of a restrained but swinging formal dress.
| Bethany with the 1960s style dress |
WnJ Pi Phis |
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Bethany also got to fill in a gap of high school and college experiences by pom-ing a chicken wire cake. It’s doubtful that anyone even thought to suggest to pom the words “Eat Me” on the side…the differences between women and men (or rather boys) . Bethany’s Facebook post includes many more examples of the festivities.
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PiPhi Cake
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Meanwhile, the weather was PERFECT summer day, with temperatures reaching a balmy high of only 80 and it was pleasant to be outside. Randy took the girls and a couple friends to Six Flags on a Bring a Friend Free Day.
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Six Flags Jane, Cate, Ella and Pipa
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On Monday 26 June, Troop 1000 built a Ga Ga pit at Hixson with some help from Randy and Cate (and even more from Mr. Urich, the girls PE teacher from Kindergarten to 6th grade). The kids at Hixson are playing in it during their lunch time in the new school year.
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The girls working on the GaGa pit railing
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Troop 1000 GaGa Pit at Hixson
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During Jane’s last week of Summer School she made the front page of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, above the fold no less. Yes that’s right our 14 year old daughter “achieved” fame on Thursday 29 June’s front page. And no this isn’t some sham vanity picture of a magazine cover like you might get at a mall photo booth or from some carnie at the local fair. This is the real deal in a real newspaper. (Contextual Note: the Washington Post reported that week the President had displayed fake Time magazines with him on the cover in his golf resorts).
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch front page 29 June 2017
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| Chairs along the Webster Groves parade route |
Jane on the front page of the Post |
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Now the negative naysayers, haters if you will, might point out that she isn’t named and you really have to zoom in to even remotely see that it’s her. Or they may note that the article makes fun of our fair community of Webster Groves and some people’s priorities. I however believe in the words of our beloved Public Library director, Tom Cooper, who notes at the end of the article: “I mean if this is the biggest controversy you have all year in your community, I think you live in a pretty nice place.”
Surprisingly no one has questioned why there’s line of a couple dozen teenagers walking down Lockwood with yoga mats. This is the WGHS summer school gym class for the nerdlings that don’t want to deal with feeling inadequate during the regular school year. The co-ed class consisted of walking from the high school to Bristol, doing yoga and then walking back. If only such things existed when Randy was in 9th grade, he could have skipped a year of getting picked second to last for most teams.
Alvan Sage’s 70th Birthday and FFF
The first weekend in July was filled with lots of family events to celebrate Bethany’s dad’s 70th natal day with family coming in from all over. Force Family Fun (FFF) Phase 1 consisted of a gathering at our house with deserts and refreshing beverages with everyone staying longer than expected.
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Air hockey tournament amongst the cousins
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The big events were on Saturday. FFF Phase 2 consisted of a picnic and family friendly kickball game at Tillie’s Park. The kickball game morphed in to a Whiffle ball game after a teenage cousin (Lloyd) impaled their foot through the ball (family friendly yes, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t competitive). Cake and ice cream eased any lingering sibling tensions.
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Sage Tribe at Tillies Park
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Sage Tribe at Tillies Park - The Pointers
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After cleaning up, came FFF Phase 3 – mass at Christ the King followed by dinner at Old Warson Country Club for the adults. Alvan delivered a heartfelt biographical remembrance that hit all the right cords: we laughed, cried and learned something. You can’t ask for much more than that.
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Sage Siblings and parents at Old Warson County Club
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Sage Tribe at Old Warson County Club
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FFF Fase Four was Brunch at Rosemary’s on Sunday. A good and memorable weekend.
That Monday, we got an offer from friends to use their tickets to go to the Muny to see A Funny Thing Happened On the Way to the Forum. The girls both liked the musical comedy (Sondheim’s most fun work) but were disappointed about the lack of promised pirates. :)
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Cate and Jane the Muny
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As mentioned under spring, Jane had a one day a week volunteer job at Sign of the Arrow hand embroidery shop. Cate also had volunteer intern gig, as a Jr. Counselor at Camp Fresh, a cooking camp at Fontbonne University that she attended the previous two years. One day they had a field trip to the Hill and had lunch at “…some place that had bocce gardens” but she couldn’t remember the name. I proffered “Milo’s” to which to reply “Yeah that’s it.” This was the same day as the annual Wall Party reunion gathering, which was inspired by drinking the “Wall” a challenge Milo’s used to sponsor. That’s Randy at 8-2-1985. http://www.milosboccegarden.com/history/the-wall/
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Jane mowing the lawn at Kenyon Court
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Wisconsin or Bust!
On Bastille Day 2017, we left after work and Cate’s camp counseling for a week long stay in northern Wisconsin, specifically a friend’s family retreat home on 4 acres on Crescent Lake, near Rhinelander, Wisconsin that they rent out as Wisconsin Paradise (wisconsinparadise.com). Having left late, we only drove halfway Friday night, getting to Rockford, IL about 9:30 pm. This was the only night with cable TV (and hence HGTV).
The second half of the road trip up was filled with quirky observations about Wisconsin:
• Seeing a Culver’s at every Interstate exit.
• Deer patronis leaping in front of the Chevy Traverse at the Janesville city limits sign
• Northern Wisconsin – the home of the right lane, pass because the left lane is for cruise control motoring.
• At the very overpriced firework stand at the BP truck stop outside Madison, WI lead to the Simpsons-eque thought of the Highway County line Vice Super Store – “Selling all your favorite sin inducing accessories denied by your repressive community since 1969” (adult supplies, smoke shop, fireworks, alcohol, & ammo) Also bait, because ya gotta fish.
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Aerial view of Creasant Lake
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In many ways the trip was a look forward and a look back. Forward in that our 13 and 14 girls are young adults and we filtered and censored far fewer things. A specific example is sharing an adult jokes with the children - Upon hearing Bethany’s reprimand about why she insisted on washing new underwear before wearing it, Randy quipped “You mean you don’t like bugs from China in your ‘gina,” which made everyone laugh.
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View of Creasant Lake at sunset
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The look back was definitely the décor of frozen in time from 1973: orange sofa, shag carpeting; mushroom tiles, twin beds in the master bedroom scooched together for a king size bed, trapezoidal pillow bolsters to convert beds in the sunroom into couches; a kitschy astronaut overhead light cover over the kids room bunk beds; rattan window treatments; faux wood seams on the ceiling and wall among other styling cues. One pleasant concession to the 21st century, made no doubt to assist in the renting, was the Wi-Fi allowing for email communications and Netflix on TV (the girls were on a Glee kick and while we would have preferred group family game time or movie watching, contented quiet children allowing parental quiet time has its upsides too)
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1970s decor of Wisconsin Paradise
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The home had more than passing Innsbruck vibe to this lake house, although Crescent Lake allowed for motors, so there were lots of pontoon boats and ski boats along with a smattering of canoes, kayaks, paddle boats and paddle boards.
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View from Creasant Lake
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We picked the perfect week to go as the St. Louis was having a record setting week of 100+ degree temperatures, while northern Wisconsin had chilly 60 degree mornings and maybe reaching 80 at the peak of the day. It was probably a couple degrees cooler with the wind off the lake too. Definitely fleece weather in the morning which goes so well with the morning coffee with the special weekend creamer (Irish Cream).
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Randy, Jane, and Cate with the Hodag
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Dan let us have the use of his pontoon boat which necessitated trips into Rhinelander multiple times to refill the 6 gallon Gerry can and make sure we topped off the 10 gallon tank before leaving. The trips also allowed from some souveniring at Wal-Mart and local embroidery team spirit shop (Rhinelander is the home of the fearsome Hodag). At Dad’s insistence, we also paid a visit to the Wisconsin River dam in the middle of town for the paper mill. Getting the girls to pose on the dam and lingering in front of the Homeland Security Signs netted a security guard coming out to give us the business just as we were leaving (suckers).
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Jane Tubing
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Sunday night, Bethany’s Aunt Katie and Uncle Don arrived to spend most of the week with us. We gabbed and played card games, Apples to Apples and the letter-word tile game “How do you like them apples”. Discussions included the changes in Baby Boomers life times with the girls: gasoline and cars, cash to a credit card economy, religion and politics.
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The women playing How Do You Like The Apples?
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Jane, Katie and Cate playing cards
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The pontoon boat offering pleasant cruises around the lake including a small island, which we named Pine Cone Island (with words to the Draddle Song (Pine Cone Pine Cone Island…). The kids had fun imagining the fire pit could offer a magic portal to another land.
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Creasant Lake pontooning and tubing
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Katie at sunset
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Creasant Lake pontooning
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Tubing behind a pontoon boat is a ridiculous amount of fun and Jane made the most of it, as did Randy. While tubing was terrific fun for the group it did have it’s down moments. After a second session of tubing one day, Randy couldn’t haul himself back in the boat or on top of the tube without falling back in (no drinking wasn’t the issue but rather decades of overeating, lack of upper body strength and most importantly the ladder which he didn’t bother to bring along). He decided being towed back in the water while Jane was on top of the tube was a better solution. Following the ignominy of the white whale jokes he decided locating the pontoon boat ladder when we got back to the garage made good sense. A couple days later, “we” stopped the boat to switch Cate out for Jane on the tube, and “successfully” flooded the motor out trying to get it restarted. After being stuck for a half hour by their dock, a couple of ladies on the other side of the lake took pity on us and offered us a tow via their ski rope back to the Burks dock. Instead of using a rope, simply tied off, Randy decided it would be a lark to hold it ski boat style. At slow speeds it wasn’t too bad at first, but after 15 minutes of it, he thought his arms were about to come off (he had only enough self-respect remaining not to whine about it in front of them but the girls heard plenty of it). After we redocked, we identified part of the problem: we didn’t pull in the anchor covered in algae which we dropped in the shallows to limit the drifting while stalled near the shore. Doah!
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Randy pontoon boat skiing
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Cate gets ready to tube
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After that Homer Simpson…er… Randy decided that he had enough pontooning (after ascertaining the engine started back up a couple hours later in the day). More successfully was the 2 mile paddle and 10 rod portage that Randy and Jane did from Crescent Lake to Emma Lake and back.
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Jane kayaking on Emma Lake
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On Thursday, Jane and Randy made a trip into town visiting the Pioneer Museums: Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), sawmill and logging camp, Outboard motors, old single room school house (and the hectograph demonstration) and train depot and extensive HO layout in the basement (which we both thought was very cool). We had fun comparing a couple of the volunteers at the museums to Patti and Kirk from Gilmore Girls and realizing that the jest was mixed with a great deal of affection for the quirky characters and small time life.
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Randy and Jane at Pioneer museums
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Despite many recommendations of good places to eat, we only ventured out for food once an event we dubbed Death by Cheese at Heinkel’s Town Pump: a tub of cheese curds, hot beer cheese dip and a 16 inch cheese pizza (with too much cheese, which we didn’t think was possible either). The pan fried Walleye was terrific too.
We were sad when we had to pack up everything Saturday morning and head back home, although not as sad as the hole in our heart when loved ones leave sooner than desired (Aunt Katie and Uncle Don’s departure at 1 pm Thursday.
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Group photo at sunset
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RANJANANY (23 July-16 August)
A month long family “festival” between RANdy’s Birthday thru JANne’s and onto BethANY’s, or Ran-jan-any. (It also inclues the return of the girls to school)
Camp Week
The day after our Wisconsin trip (Sunday, 23 July), began what is generally considered one of the best weeks of the year for the Curtis family: Camp week. We dropped off the girls of at East Camp at Camp Lakewood for Jane’s 8th and Cate’s 7th time at the YMCA camp. It’s worth noting that after observing a mostly vegetarian diet for a half a year or so, Jane fully committed during camp in order to avoid the sausage pizzza and get the cheese pizza instead (the cheese toasted raviolis the next night were a bonus). She has stuck with it since joining with Cate who started in September 2011 in 2nd grade.
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Cate and Jane arrive at Camp Lakewood
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| Happy Camper Cate |
Jane enjoying a kayak clinic |
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Afterwards, the parents made a 2nd Annual Parents Edg-Clif Winery trip after Camp Lakewood Drop-Off with John and Lisa Liss. Such a pleasant way to spend a few hours, we didn't even mind the 93 degree heat. John and Randy got an hour long winery/brewery tour, arguably the best one he’s ever had.
| Bethany and Lisa at EdgCliff |
Randy and John at EdgCliff |
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This served as the springboard for a week of date nights: movies (i.e., The Big Sick, Dunkirk and Maudie) restaurants (Oak and Olive in Old Webster, PW Pizza Highway 61 Roadhouse and DQ) along with outings with friends (Mark Twain Brewing Beer Tasting and a bar Trivia Night). Oh and the girls had fun at camp too.
| Elisabeth, Maria and Bethany at PWs |
Our Kids at Camp trivia night with the Hills |
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| Dogs bonding over shared lonliness |
Cate and Jane are happy to get a welcome home pizza at Amis |
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Jane at 15
| Jane at 15 (with green hair?) |
Jane at 15 and normal hair |
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In honor of Jane’s 15th Birthday, we took her go karting with her pal Ella and had a standard Sage pizza gathering that evening.
| Jane and Ella are ready to go karting |
Jane with the Surprise Lillies |
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Jane enjoys a cookie cake with the family
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End of the Summer
| End of Summer lunch at PWs with Dad |
Enjoying Serendipity with the Shaw Cousins |
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Cate demonstrating "How I spent my sumer vacation"
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On a Saturday in mid-August, Bethany and Randy went to a book signing event at the Ethical Society for Al Franken: Giant of the Senate; proof that we can do something on a Date Night other than go to the movies. It was nice getting a slightly different spin on his stories than in his book and a good primer on what’s involved in running for office today. The book and the discussion was a happy testament that his staffers are OK with letting him be funny again in measured doses as opposed to when he ran in 2008 and need to project a seriousness and gravitas for the task of Senator. However within four months, Franken’s career in politics was over numerous allegations of groping and forcibly kissing women during photo ops. Perhaps, art of a tectonic shift in the empowerment of women that the casual, prevalent, and “harmless” sexual harassment that had been endemic in society was no longer acceptable. Time will tell how much things actually change but for the sake of the girls we hope so.
| Bethany not getting the sort of attention that got Franken in trouble |
Randy after his “Meaningful but fleeting eye contact” as promised |
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First Day of School
The girls went back to school on Tuesday, 15 August with Jane as a Freshman at Webster Groves High School Class of 2021 and Cate a 8th grader at Hixson Junior High.
| Jane is ready for 9th grade |
Jane and fellow Freshman Ada, Ella, and Pipa |
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| Cate is ready for 8th grade |
Cate saying goodbye to Pepper |
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Bethany's Birthday Cake
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Jane Learns to Drive
The big turning point for a 15 year-old in Missouri is you can get your driver’s permit. This is a change from when the parents got their licenses and you had to wait until you were 15 1/2. The other change is the requirement to have 40 hours of documented driving time with an experienced driver. While that might not sound like a lot, it’s more than you think and certainly more real driving time than Jane’s parents got prior to getting their license.
Jane’s first driving lesson took place at the nearly empty St. Louis Mills Mall parking lot. The wide open space offered plenty of room with nothing to hit, at least theoretically. A slight grazing of a concrete island curbing led to the second part of her first lesson: How to Change a Tire. [In all honesty, she didn’t hit the curb that hard but the sidewalls are the weakest spot of the tie]. Later lessons included practicing parking and figure 8s in the Sunnen Industrial Court and exploring the streets of northwest Rock Hill, Southwest Ladue and Warson Woods. It was quality father and daughter time.
| Jane with her permit |
Jane changes a tire during her 1st driving lesson |
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Jane on driving Lesson #4
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Within a week from the start of school Jane got out to take a field trip with her writer’s group to hear Margaret Atwood speak and have her autograph a copy of the Handmaid’s Tale.
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Jane with Margret Atwood
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Monday, August 21, 2017 - TOTALITY! or Eclipse Mania Comes to Webster Groves
As Webster Groves was within the band of TOTALITY (the word of the week) and downtown St. Louis where Randy’s office is, was not, he took the day off and stayed home (the girls were part of the school viewings). The 600 block of Tuxedo Block had an impromptu Viewing Party in the street with neighbors who also took off. There were lots of refreshing beverages including Randy’s concoction: Samuel Clemens’s Connecticut Yankee Stole my Daylight Special Crescent Smoothie. It consisted of mostly bananas because the eclipsed crescent sun, which we got to view for an hour before and after, looked, likes a banana. There was also red grapefruit juice because that’s what we had, vodka, Triple Sec, Grenadine and lots of ice. On the checklist of features the Tuxedo Park viewers noticed during our 1 minute and 15 seconds of Totality:
• Partial eclipse super sharp shadows
• Partial eclipse crescent shadows
• Clear temperature drop of 10-ish degrees
• Crickets and cicadas chirping (didn’t have bats though Avery Elementary School did)
• 360 degree of sunset (mostly)
| Eclipse as seen from Tuxedo |
600 block of Tuxedo Eclipse Viewing Party |
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Rhonda, Nancy, and Randy (1998)
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The next day August 22, 2017 had a different darkness as Randy’s sister, Rhonda, passed away from complications relating to Multiple Sclerosis. She had entered St. Mary’s Hospital a week earlier for open, ulcerated skin infections. They had her on some pretty serious pain medications and she was only partially cognoscente the times Randy visited. The infections were deep and she wasn’t strong enough for them to conduct surgery to remove the diseased tissue. On Sunday they moved her to the ICU and on late Monday night, they placed her on advanced life support, despite Rhonda’s long standing and clear feelings about having a “no code” or natural death when the time came. The decision to take her off of this support allowed Randy, her “husband” Doug and her best friend Donna to be there at the end and say goodbye before she slipped away. While you can’t have an “ideal” for such situations, it was about as close as one could hope for. Death officially came at 11:44 am from repertory failure, renal failure and septic shock, resulting from years of battling MS.
Wishing to avoid any Labor Day conflicts, we set the date for a Memorial Service for the Saturday afterward at the St Claire Hospital Chapel, where she finished her 32 year career with the SSM and they offered to host the memorial service. The 2 ½ week window allowed time to develop the Memorial program and service. The program hand-out came off quite well (with lots of help from Bethany), the girls who each did readings (Cate – 23rd Psalm and Jane Us Two) and the St. Claire chaplains who knew Rhonda, kept things together when things went awry (i.e. the music and Randy’s Power Point Memorial, which due to numerous technical difficulties didn’t work). Randy struggled to keep it together while reading it without the crutch of the slides but with limited success. People enjoyed the randomized pictures of life during the appetizer / hospitality room gathering afterwards and some read the reading with the slides the way he intended it to be:
Getting the entire family of four together to watch movies is becoming more difficult as the girls get older but there were some notable Cinema experiences. On the new release front, there was Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and a preview of Netflix Okja at the Tivoli for. On the classic film side, there was Goonies, Hitchcock’s Notorious, Casablanca, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 16 Candles and Randy and Cate went to an outdoor viewing of Elvis Presley’s King Creole at the Old Orchard Gazebo film series.
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Cate's first Fortnightly of 8th grade (she's clearly good at hiding how much she hates going or...)
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In mid-September, the girls made a trip to Laumeier Sculpture Park with some friends to hang out and take some fun photos.
| Cate with the big Eyeball |
Jane with the sea mines |
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