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Year end email from Wisconsin
Robert Park
A Year of Ups and Downs On March 10 my sister Betty in Fredericton, New Brunswick, died after a prolonged illness. We are very grateful for the visit we had with her in 2019 (photo here and narrative here). Barbara's singing and choir directing had to be mostly suspended. An exception was Make Music Madison Day on June 21. COVID was at a low point and our radio station was once again able to have live performers for an in-person event. Barbara directed the Raging Grannies of Madison for the songs they contributed. A newspaper photographer was there and the group made the front page of the local paper, as shown here. One thing not hampered by COVID was Barbara's gardening, not only here at the house but at the community garden where the division into plots was ideal for social distancing. Besides raising good things to eat, this year Barbara also had a 3rd plot used for testing cover crops. A photo showing us getting that plot fenced can be found here on the community garden Facebook page. If you want to see more photos of Barb from that Facebook page (including a video of her describing how to use compost) go here. A big change this year was Casey's return to Wisconsin from Alaska. She and her cat Daisy arrived at our house on May 21. Things needing to be taken care of meant several trips back, but ongoing responsibilities as the chair of the Democratic Party of Alaska have been handled remotely. By June 18 she was ready to settle in at Ian and Layla's house, leaving Daisy with us because Layla is allergic to cats. Then on Dec. 11 she moved into an apartment, thankfully relieving us of some of our excess furniture. In July Mischa and Evan were able to visit us. Casey, Ian and Layla also joined us on our deck on July 29 as shown here. Casey cooked on the grill for the occasion, marking Barbara and my 40th wedding anniversary. While here Mischa made some major progress in sorting through and reboxing papers and other items from his mom's house that have been stored here (photo of boxes). Another highlight was an important addition to the Park Family Scrapbook website, where I have been compiling family history since 2004. The addition was my brother Doug's memoir, As I Remember It. He had sent printed copies to family members far and wide last year. Again on the downside, this month Casey returned from a Democratic Party event in South Carolina with COVID. She has been recovering in her apartment in Middleton, a few miles from here. This morning she reported that her test results finally came back negative. |
