April 15, 1965
More about the Omaha relatives, and other scraps
April 15, 1965
Today is tax day. It's also Good Friday. We didn't go to a service -- we just worked. I guess I might not have time for all that I'd planned. Mom planned a lot for me to do, too, and our plans don't match. Oh well, I'll do what I can.
April 15, 1997
The Taurus is still in the shop, so I am walking to work again, which is o.k. It will be a lovely day for a walk and I really need it. My life is way too busy these days, and I am feeling anxious about getting everything done. I know that the semester will end, and the pace will slacken, and I even know that I will not get some of the stuff done. But which?
Thank heaven my person (me) life and family life is on a more even keel. Soccer season ends this weekend, and that will be good!
April 15, 2006
Me:
I believe my mom was still working part time at the hospital at this point, and as a result, my brother and I inherited lots of the housework. Being a holiday weekend, there would have been additional cleaning, cooking and shopping. Even on an ordinary weekend, my Saturday would have begun with Mom playing Sousa marches at full blast to get us out of bed for morning chores. My usual assignment was cleaning the bathrooms and kitchen. On the one hand, it certainly got me used to a clean house (though I do not do these things on a schedule). On the other hand, it guaranteed that my kids would NOT have regular chores. I gave up on every attempt to have them be responsible for more than their own rooms and homework. (And failed at holding them to that, most of the time.)
I was a pretty compliant kid, and usually did my chores with minimal complaining. My brother usually got tasked with vacuuming, yard work and errands (since he had his driver's license). This being the mid-60s, I pretty much bought my mother's explanation that she was training us for adulthood -- so I got the Mommy jobs and Bob got the Daddy jobs. I did NOT keep my own room very clean, and usually accomplished a semblance of order by stuffing things under the bed and into my closet.
April 15, 2023
I was so busy enjoying my visit with Aunt Carol and Uncle Joel that I didn’t do a journal entry, n 1973, but here are a couple of photos instead:
That’s Joel, the Air Force officer, with the youngest kid, Laurie. I suspect that the reason I had no time to write was that the four little cousins kept me too busy! We had plans to visit Fremont, the town where I was born, about an hour west, but the weather was too miserable for playing tourist. Laurie is now a fifty-something grandmother, in addition to being very buff fitness instructor.
Mom and Carol looked and sounded so much alike that I was constantly mistaking one for the other. After my mother died, it was hard for me to visit Carol or even talk on the phone, because she reminded me so strongly of Mom. They were the musical ones; Carol majored in music in college and could always find work as a church organist or paid soloist wherever Joel was posted. Mom also had a beautiful soprano voice and had played piano and organ for their father’s churches before going off to nursing school during WWII. Eventually, after she and my dad divorced, she went back to school and got the music degree she always wanted, graduating when she was sixty-one.
Carol, Joel and all of their kids now live in Virginia, not too far away for a visit. Now that COVID is waning, it’s time to see them. Long past time, if I’m honest.
A little echo of 1997: our car is also in shop, waiting for a part which is apparently hitchhiking from Alaska.
Perhaps the car part is being sent Caribou Express?