Another Adventure for Mary!

Mary is off on another adventure. She says that it only seems as if she searches for trips to distant celebrations (We figure that adventures just "find" her). This one sounds like fun: She and another friend from her church are in New York (hopefully, they arrived there with all the airline hassles and power blackouts in New York City!) for the ordination of the new pastor for their local Lutheran church. The bishop from our area will be there to ordain the new pastor (Donna Olsen) on Sunday. Linda is chair of the Call committee and Mary is always up for another adventure, so off they went!

This is a second career for their new pastor. She has been a speech pathologist for many years. She has two grown daughters and she and her husband have lived on Long Island all their lives and have chosen to relocate to our small Minnesota town. We figure it will be a lot quieter than they are used to so the WT's will have to figure something out to liven things up for them! That never seems to be much of a problem for us!

Mary said that the receptionist at the Hampton Inn is anxious to meet the two "old Finnish ladies" as Linda described themselves to her. We will be anxious to hear all the stories when they return from this trip.

A 50 year reunion

Last weekend Joan traveled to the Twin Cities to attend the 50th reunion of her graduating class from Macalester College. While attending Macalester, Joan had lived at home so often didn't feel too involved with all the campus activities at the college. She was fortunate though to join up with a group of other students who lived 'off campus' and they have remained friends through all these years. This group gathers at least once every year for lunch, or dinner and lots of 'catching up'.

None of us had ever attended a rununion at Macalester, but some of us decided that since this was 50 years, it was time to attend the big bash and reconnect with our Alma Mater. So, Marilyn, Ginna, Lorraine, Dorothea and Joan (known at Pete to this crowd) met bright and early on Friday morning and drove over to Macalester to take part in the festivities of the day. After registering, we toured the campus and saw all the new buildings, and tried to envision some of our old haunts which are no longer there. We all hold many good memories from the Off Campus Lounge and the The Grill which were our main meeting places while on campus.

After our self guided tour, we attended the induction ceremony making us members of the Golden Scots Society. This ceremony was held in the college chapel. We were each called individually and received a 'gold' medalion commemorating our 50th reunion. Following a rousing rendition of Dear Old Macalester we posed outside the chapel for our class picture and then moved on to the Kagin Commons where we enjoyed a delicious meal....complete with wine.

Joan also returned to campus on Saturday morning to participate in a panel she was asked to join. The panel included members of the class talking about things they are doing that they are happy about and how Macalester influenced them in their decisions. Joan talked about the volunteer work she is involved in in retirement and how she was encouraged at Macalester to 'give back' to others because she had the privilege of a college education.

The five friends ended their reunion visit feeling happy that we had attended. We were all amazed at how many people we actually had connected with and enjoyed visiting with again. We were also somewhat dismayed at the long list of classmates who are no longer with us.



Five friends at Macalester reunion: Dorothea, Ginna, Joan, Marilyn and Lorraine

A Party for Jodie...June 6

Perhaps you have noticed that we haven't had too many new posts lately. There is a reason for that. Our faithful blogger Jodie is busy relocating to the Twin Cities and the rest of us are very sluggish in getting blog postings done.

It is a Walkie Talkie tradition to host a party for any walker who decides to relocate, so today was Jodie's day! True to form, when there is a party, our Walkers show up in force. Sixteen of us gathered at the Lodge at the Ridge for lunch and a fun visit with Jodie. It was especially nice to have Pastor Ruth join us (she had previously relocated), and to have Pat with us along with her visiting sister Nancy.

Jodie reports that moving has gone well. There are only about 15 boxes left to unpack. They have been busy connecting with family and friends in their new area. They have enjoyed a short reprieve at their cabin up north, but will be returning to the Cities to finish their unpacking and prepare for Sandy's upcoming fishing trips. A return to the cabin is planned for late June and Jodie promises to come for morning coffee while they are there. She said she also hopes to get us out on a geocaching adventure yet this summer.

We will miss Jodie's everyday presence but do hope to see her occasionally when she is in the northland. Of course, we may need to plan a field trip to the Cities to see Jodie's new digs. Here are some photos from todays gathering.


First a group photo: Left side of table: Pat, Helen, Jodie, Elsie, Naomi, Laurie. Lorraine and Mary (Elsie and Naomi are hiding)
Right side: Nancy, Tee, Joan, Ruth, Irene, Sharon, Emily and Dorothy


Jodie opens her gifts....first a frame to hold her favorite Walkie Talkie Picture


Next an apron crafted from Mary's fabrics and put together by Mary and Lorraine


Jodie models the apron!

Spring News

Once again, the WT's are saddened as another WT is moving away. Jodie, our blog writer is packed and ready to leave for the big City. She has kept us up to date with pictures, geo caching, social gatherings and advice, always with enthusiasm, energy and patience. Our hope is that she will visit us often.

The good news is that Pat is back. She has joined us for coffee a number of times and is managing well. A walking miracle.

The rush of spring is upon us. People of the North speed up to get everything in during the warm season. City workers are picking up the winter debris from yard clean-ups. There is a community rummage sale to raise funds for the July 4th. celebration.

The prom, "Moonlit Memories", was a success. The girls were elegant in colorful gowns, some reminiscent of the plantation era look. Spring school band concerts are in full swing.

It's time to sign up for recreational baseball or softball. The local hospital celebrates Homes for the Aging Week. The summer fishing contest began on opening fishing day last weekend.

Methodists are having a "Sweeter than Chocolate" contemporary service this Saturday. WT's are interested in most things chocolate. Class reunion plans are progressing. WT calendars are filling up with graduations, weddings, family gatherings and celebrations. Stay tuned.

Easter Sunrises and Greetings

A cold and crisp Easter greeting to everyone from the Walkie Talkies! The sunrise was gorgeous today!

Happy Easter, everyone.

Spring Baseball

Tee and Joan arrived home Thursday evening. The week of spring baseball was delightful; they saw two Boston Red Sox games and two Minnesota Twins games. In the process they spent warm (sometimes hot) afternoons in four different ball parks soaking in baseball and sun. Good thing too as the sun was scarce at home. The only drawback to seeing those four stadiums was the bus rides to and from. The new facility that the Phillies have in Clearwater, Florida is a lovely place and it was great fun to sit and watch a ballgame there. The Twins stadium in Fort Myers is also very nice, but not brand new. Sad to announce that our Twins lost both games that they saw. The Twins fans were a minority at this elderhostel and the Boston fans saw four games that Boston played including one in which Dice-K (their new pitching phnom) pitched six innings.

Besides seeing games there were speakers that talked to them about baseball. Tom Giles taught about the written, verbal and non verbal languages of baskeball. Leon Harris, who had been a player in the Negro League, told about his experiences there. Leon had been a pitcher with the Kansas City Monarchs in the Negro League. Currently there is a one man show taking place in Sarosota titled "Nobody Don't Like Yogi". David Howard who plays Yogi came and spoke to the group about Yogi and did a piece from his show which everyone enjoyed immensely. John O'Donoghue who had been a pitcher with Kansas City, Cleveland, Seattle and Montreal was very entertaining with his stories about pitching in the major leagues. He had pitched in the Mickey Mantle era. Our final speaker was Jeff Torborg who was a catcher for the Dodgers for many years. He was involved in some real history making games; Sandy Koufax's perfect game, and the fifth of Don Drysdale's six consecutive shutouts. Later he caught for the Angels and had the privilege of catching a Nolan Ryan no-hitter.

Here is a photo of Tee and Joan outside the Twins stadium in Fort Myers.

The Bluebird Has Landed

With that heading, we heard late last night that Pat is now home from the hospital--"back in her nest after over three months," as her daughter Sara informed us. She also said how wonderful it was to have dinner around the family table again and to watch movies later.

We are all thrilled to hear this. We have marveled at Pat's positive attitude throughout all of this ordeal. Talk about making lemonade out of lemons--well, she has definitely done it (sorry that I couldn't think of a bluebird comment!). We will definitely keep in touch with her and look forward to seeing her out and about as she continues with her rehab.

What a wonderful day!

Quick Updates!

It appears that no one has really updated lately, so here is a short summary of what has been happening to some of the WT's:

Mary is in the busy part of her seminar season. She is off to Richmond, VA, this weekend and has had several very successful trips in the past couple of months. We always look forward to her reports when she returns. She told us one VERY funny story about her trip to Washington and some of us are still smirking about it--too bad it is a little too risque to share in our 'Blog!

Tee and Joan are in Florida at an Elderhostel. This should be a pretty interesting one--Spring Baseball. They will be seeing a couple of Minnesota Twins' games and we are sure they will come back with stories about some of our favorite players.

Sharon and her husband will soon be off to St. Louis to the NCAA Frozen Four. They are BIG hockey fans and will certainly enjoy themselves.

Pat is still in the hospital but might be getting out soon. Her husband is home and she has been able to go home to visit. They even had sort of a "date" last weekend--the two of them and their son and daughter went out to eat. Hey--who cares who went along? Just to get out like that was a real treat!

Emily is off to visit her mom out East next week. The latter has been having some health problems. She (Emily) and her husband also have some other trips coming up soon to visit children and grandchildren.

Irene is going through some tough times lately with a sick spouse. Our thoughts and prayers are with her daily.

Lorraine is still recovering from her pre-Christmas tumble. She has been driving down to coffee on a regular basis.

More later . . .

A New Era Begins!

Now that Jodie is moving (in May) and will not be as involved with the Walkie Talkies on a daily basis, it is time to "pass the pen" to someone else. Today, she gave the instructions to Joan to give to Lorraine and Mary. Hopefully, among the three of them, someone will take up the writing of this 'Blog so that our loyal readers will, once again, be able to keep up with what is happening with the WT's.

We Are Taking (Have Taken) A Break!

As our loyal readers can tell, we have not been very diligent lately about keeping you up to date on our shenanigans. Your intrepid blogger has been "on vacation" (if one is retired, is there such a thing as "a vacation?") and the rest of the group has not fed her information. Since the above-mentioned blog-writer will also be moving away in a few months, we need to get someone trained to handle "the techie things," as Pat put it yesterday.

We will get up and running again soon, so please check back in a week or so. We have not been sitting around and there is plenty to write about!

Thanks.

We Are Surviving the Cold!

It has been very cold here but we are all surviving. Some of us walk but most of us drive to coffee in this weather (How cold is it? Well--Emily even drives occasionally!). We have had many days of below-zero weather, but it might be breaking a little now (we hope).

Naomi left for her trip to Mexico--perfect timing for the weather. Mary is off to Pittsburgh for her first work trip of the year--poor timing with the weather out East!

The local boys' basketball team won 16 games in a row. We have high hopes for them and there are a lot of fans attending the games now.

Nancy's Notions is having an Apron Challenge at the Sewing Weekend in May--sponsored by Mary's Productions! Anyone who enters has to use one of Mary's apron patterns. We hope this will be a great deal for Mary who is really getting into her "seminar season" now.

We'll keep you posted on future activities. One is our winter lunch at Jo and Lil's for February 26th. We've got our two sandwich loaves ordered, so lunch is all set.

Stay warm!

From the local paper:

"From Feb. 1, 1957: The Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow in the . . . High School is Lorraine Forry, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harold Forry . . ."

This is our own WT--Laurie!!!

Some Walkie Talkie Updates

The WT's had another party at the hospital/nursing home on Monday with Pat and Anna. There were fourteen WT's plus Sara, Pat's daughter. We enjoyed wine and cheese and crackers. The WT-owned wine glasses from our last party were delivered to Joan by Ralph, Irene's husband. Jo and Lil were there from out of town.

Pat expects to know more this month about how she is doing and when she can consider going home with a walker. Her husband might be able to go home in a couple of weeks.

It is still COLD but getting a little warmer. Sara's (Pat's daughter) car didn't start and it was in the garage. She claimed it was because it is a "wimpy" car from southern Wisconsin. Emily was the only one that walked on Tuesday since Mary was in Duluth for a meeting.

Mary is recommending the book, THE BLIND SIDE by Michael Lewis. It is a fascinating story about football. She said it's a bit about the history of high school and college football and also the true story of a high school player in Tennessee. She doesn't know much about football but said it is great. We'll all have to share it and check it out.

Mary is busy getting ready for her seminars. She is working on YaYa projects and an embroidery design CD for the big Expo in Puyallup, WA.

Mary and Tee attended Margaret Marvin's funeral in Warroad, MN, last week. Mary met Margaret on a Library committee and they became friends. Several years ago the WT's had an overnight field trip to visit her and Margaret was always a good friend to the WT's. Margaret and her husband owned Marvin Windows, a VERY successful Minnesota business. While they were there, Mary and Tee visited the new Visitor Center and the Marvin Window Museum completed in 2004 for the 100-year anniversary of the company. They said it is very classy and was organized by the same women who did the Spam Museum in Austin, MN. Margare't area was an old-fashioned chalkboard with the story of her arrival in Warroad to teach, an old radio which was playing a broadcast of one of her programs and a wagonload of books like the ones she and the Girl Scouts collected door to door before Warroad had a library. At the service, the two eulogies by Margaret's daughter and one of Margaret's former students referred to Margaret's joy at using her compter and email. Once, Mary and a friend (Nancy) met Margaret in International Falls to help her learn the computer.

There was a Mass for our friend Sue who passed away a year ago. On Sunday her husband and family were at the Methodist church where she was remembered with flowers and a special song by Emily and her husband. Her family filled two pews.

Lorraine is getting therapy for her elbow so we will have a more specific update about that soon.

The group is planning a lunch at Jo and Lil's for Monday, February 26th. We are all debaing what we will have to eat (of course).

It seems as if we will gradually be coming out of the deep freeze. It was 28 below zero at Emily's house on Sunday morning and 42 below in Embarrass, which is about 16 miles from us.

The weather doesn't keep us down and it kills all the germs. Perhaps that's why Minnesotans are such a healthy lot!

We'll "talk" again soon. Take care in the meantime!

A Little Tidbit For Our Readers!

If your memory isn't what it used to be, don't worry. Go get some exercise and have a good time. It won't help your memory, but at least people won't pay as much attention when something slips your mind.

That's what a study in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences found.

When older people with a conservative lifestyle forget something, friends and family assume that the memory loss is due to mental deterioration. But when older people who practice a younger lifestyle forget the same things, friends and family don't take it too seriously. They just assume the older people aren't paying attention.

Now that we all know that, we realize that it is just one more reason for us all to be Walkie Talkies and to enjoy "the good life" that we do--lots of exercise and lots of laughter and excitement and new things to do!

An Exciting Morning!

Yesterday, Linda Tyssen, a reporter for The Mesabi Daily News joined about nine of us at our coffee table (We knew she was coming, so we got a little "fixed up"). Emily brought some of our photos from the archives plus Linda took a photo of the group at coffee. We are hoping that they will be in the paper around February 28 when they do a special section--kind of "A day in the life of . . ."

She was told that she would be meeting with a women who discuss meaningful topics. When she arrived the group was discussing the book clubs and winter reading programs at both libraries, so we appeared to be fairly "cultured."

We'll add a link when the actual story appears in the paper, so stay tuned!

Dinner for Four with Nancy

Last Friday night, "Dinner for Four with Nancy Zieman" was held at Mary's home. This dinner was one of the silent auction items at the Lutheran Church Women's Christmas dinner. Debbie, Paula, Tammy, and Marge's top bid earned them an invitation to an informal dinner with cloth napkins and surprises on January 12 when PBS Television star Nancy Zieman ("Sewing with Nancy"--see link at the right) came to Aurora for her annual January visit.

The meal consisted of lasagna, salad, garlic bread and date/chocolate cake for dessert. Dinner conversation included everyone sharing how she became interested in sewing; mothers and family friends were influential in building this interest. After dinner the entertainment was provided by the dinner guests and hosts who showed some of their sewing projects. It was an interesting discussion and sharing session.

The guests received copies of Nancy's and Mary's books and kitchen tools from a special event at Nancy's Notions. Tammy's husband was called to be the group's official photographer.

Front: Mary, Nancy and Marge.

Back: Debbie, Tammy and Paula.

As the newspaper social reporter used to write, "A Good Time was had by All."

More Good News!

Another red-letter day: Pat's husband is now in our local hospital also--he was transferred today. They have been in separate facilities since the accident. We know they are thrilled to be able to see each other and to be able to converse and to check on each other. It's also a lot better for the family so that they don't have to run between hospitals that are sixty miles apart!

We are all thrilled!

Better Late Than Never!

The WT's celebrate birthdays as close to the actual date as possible. However, we celebrate other holidays whenever we can get the group together. Today we celebrated the new year--just a few days late but it was still quite a celebration! We met at the hospital so that we could all visit with Pat and have a celebration at the same time--to celebrate the new year and hope for good health in 2007, to celebrate Pat's recovery after the accident and to celebrate Lorraine's recovery after her fall.

The two "Walking Wounded"--Lorraine on the left and Pat on the right.
Lorraine shows that she can still raise a glass in celebration--even with the bad elbow. Today she got her staples out and a new cast put on. What a sport she is to come out with all of us so soon after this!
Anna (left) and Helen S. (right) are evidently deep in thought (or tired from the wine and beer!). Helen just returned yesterday from two weeks visiting her son and family for Christmas in Connecticut.
The traditional group photo: Front: Jodie, Lorraine, Pat and Anna.

Back: Dorothy, Mary, Emily, Joan, Sharon, Irene, Helen S., Tee and Naomi. Again, a good turnout for a party (of course, there was plenty of food: shrimp cocktail, crackers and cheese, homemade hard tack by Irene, and wine and beer!).

On New Year's Day, Pat's grandchildren made a snowman for her right outside the window of her room--great fun to watch them build and great fun to see every day!

A Walkie Talkie anecdote: Yesterday Jodie was shopping in Target and ran into one of the nurses from the hospital. Conversation soon turned to the party we would be having the next day. The nurse wanted to know if we would be bringing stemmed glasses to the party. She was so disappointed when she found out we would only be using the regular water glasses in the hospital cafeteria. She made Jodie feel so bad that she finally ended up buying some plastic flutes to use (after all, they were on clearance after the holiday!). Last night the nurse called to say that she had found a dozen wine glasses for only $10. She said they wouldn't "ping" like crystal, but they were quite nice. She said she would wash them and bring them in and we could buy them or not. Well--they were great. Now the WT's have wine glasses for the next party. Irene is storing them at her house and has our permission to use them if she throws a party of her own! We have found that lots of people like to help with our celebrations and get a vicarious thrill from doing so.

Once again, a great time was had by all. We are all so thankful that Lorraine and Pat are doing so well!

It's Time For Another Party!

It's time for a party! The WT's are having a (belated) New Year's party with Anna and Pat at 3:00 p.m. tomorrow, January 4th. We are all looking forward to celebrating 2007 and hope that many of us will be available to be there. We have "plans" for a great time!

A VERY White New Year!

We didn't have a very white Christmas, but it certainly is a white New Year. We had rain followed by snow and ended up with close to eight inches by this morning. It appears that it sort of stifled some of the usual revelry in town. However, the roads are all cleared and the sound of snow blowers is definitely welcoming in 2007!

Even those of us who do not like the snow are admitting that this is quite beautiful!