Christmas in the year of our Lord 2021

    It took me a while to figure out how to post a new blog after being out of practice since February. I think that they change the format just to prove that they can. This should be a rather abbreviated version of our year and as usual a lot of it is from my perspective since I'm writing it. So suffer along with me as I account for 2021.

  January. I started on one of my Winter projects to keep me busy during the non riding months. This one involves wood paneling and fresh paint in the upstairs garret room. Luckily years back I purchased a power miter saw and a trim nailing gun which greatly simplified the project. Jan and I made the usual shopping trips to stores in the area and I made a preliminary visit to doctor Birkholtz about my upcoming cataract surgery. And it was probably cold and snowy. 

    February. I had several doctor appointments for check-ups and actual surgeries for both of my cataracts. I had both done for distance vision and the improvement was amazing but it leaves me still wearing glasses for reading etc., so sometimes I wonder if I made the correct choice, but that's just me. I see that we had a long string of below zero nights in February too. Oh yes, Jan and I celebrated our 50th on Valentines day. If you reference my previous blog you can see a more elaborate accounting of events so to speak. Several birthdays are also celebrated this month also, Annika on the 15th, Eli and Scuba on the 23rd and Gus on the 27th. 

   March. March dawned with some nice temperatures so I got some riding in along with bike maintenance. I did manage to get my first covid vaccination at the VA in Shakopee with a follow up later on. Jan and I made a drive to the Theobalds to see their new addition Maya, what a sweetheart. Also more birthdays this month, Leah on the 9th, Lindsey on the 16th and Genevieve on the 30th. Unusual they all fell on Tuesdays this year.

   April. This time of the year we see the weather bouncing all over the place with teens one day and 80s a couple days later, so I got some riding in. I had a good check up with my EMT group at Mayo and Jan made a trip to the ER in New Ulm one night complaining about her heart, which led to a stress test later on in April that was okay. I see that one day we had some snow and I mowed the lawn, not sure in which order that occurred. Along here my brother Paul is looking at a townhome in St. James. He plans to move here from Duluth in the future so brother Phil and I have looked it over. After discovering a lot of water damage in our trailer that long term project got started out at Eli and Lindsey's farm. A section of the roof needed to be replaced and the whole front end sheet metal had to come off to get at the rotted wood underneath.

   May. Pretty much working on the trailer, assorted maintenance of vehicles etc.. Jan had started quite a lot of plants for the expanded garden that was being planned and we got a lot of them in the ground at the farm, believe me the tomatoes were enjoyed much later this year. May is also a busy month for birthdays with Paul on the 4th, Phil and Joe on the 19th and mine on the 25th.  

   June. I am still working on the trailer water problem with an assist from Eli of course. We are making progress on the rot and leaking roof, luckily it has been indoors in one of the sheds at the farm, so it is staying dry in the meantime. June looks like Jan's medical month with a trip to the emergency room in New Ulm and a trip to Abbot in the Twin Cities to check on a growth in her lung. We stayed overnight at a hotel in Edina and used Uber to get back and forth from Abbot for the first time, it works pretty slick. Abbot is located in a rather sketchy part on Minneapolis and this was during the "mostly peaceful" riots just up the street from there. I had been getting in as much riding as possible and getting to a few Patriot Guard missions too.

   July. July was pretty much Jan's month for medical visits, with a trip to the emergency room in New Ulm and a return visit to Abbot in the Cities. This time it was to remove the growth from her lung. The doctor, who looked about 19, said about the growth "you will probably die with it not from it" which is a good thing. Other than that I was getting some riding in and attending Patriot Guard missions in the area. Also Aaron's birthday on the 10th.

   August. The usual assorted doctor visits for Jan and I. We did have both our son-in-law Hans home for a couple days and then Rachel for a few more. I did ride down into Iowa to look at how they have recovered from The Derecho storm that hit there in 2020. Still a mess in some places but making progress on a major storm that was practically unreported outside of the upper midwest. After I discovered that one of the B-52's that I had been on over Viet Nam in 1966 was a gate guard at Whiteman AFB in Missouri I made a visit on a warm day. I took the GT this time though. Jan and I drove to the Black Hills for a few days at the Spearfish Canyon Lodge, always a nice place to stay and dine right across the road at the Latchstring. The stay at the lodge and a gift certificate at the Common Grounds, a restaurant in Spearfish were 50th anniversary gifts from Rachel, Gen and Eli. So, thanks again you three. Rachel celebrated her birthday here on the 18th.

    September. I must not have made any note of it but sometime this Summer I got rid of a couple of bikes and turned around and bought another BMW, so I'm down one. I had another good check-up with the ENT department at Mayo and headed out on a long bike ride that was going to Utah but ended up in southern Colorado. This was to be kind of an experiment on getting fed with no teeth while on the road. Actually it did not go too bad allowing for my toothless handicap. The ride went good compared with the ride last September when I got caught in cold temperatures and snow in the Hills while making my escape from Wyoming. Our son-in-law's Han's birthday was the 5th.

   October. Jan and I did get to some soccer games this Fall and trips to the dermatologist more than once to various parts removed and repaired. Other than that it was a pretty quiet month with the two of us spending some time with Jan's sister at Wadena the end of October. Not that quiet though with birthdays for William on the 14th, Jan on the 22nd and Sam on the 23rd.

   November. Started with Jan and I and the Theobalds to the State Soccer Tournament at the Viking's stadium in the Cities. Sam's team played under the lights. I rode to Sioux Falls one Saturday and the next it was cold and snowy so it's that time of year again. We had Thanksgiving at Gen and Steve's house again this year with a house full of people. It' good to be getting back to some semblance of normal. I put the Mustang away for the winter and did manage to get a bike out one last time, maybe.

    December. What a month! 10 to 12 inches of snow on the 10th and rain and tornados on the 15th! These were the first recorded tornados in history in Minnesota in December. We are living in interesting times to be sure. Jan and I are getting to some basketball games now so that's fun. We will be attending a gathering in Edina for Christmas this year again after a break last year of course. Other than that I have been doing a couple projects around the house for Jan, just some shelves and adding some lighting in the basement. It looks like I may make it through this year without another cancer surgery after two last year, a record I do not want to repeat. So we finish out this year trying to remember what we are really celebrating amid all of the hustle and bustle, anxiety and depression is Christ's Birthday. Try and relax, count your blessings and love each other as easy or hard as that might be. With any luck we'll see you next year.

        Pete Kuehl   19 December 2021

To Jan from Pete on our 50th or the Girl With the Thunderbird Tattoo

    I have been thinking a lot about how I would compose this note for some time now, for at one time I had no idea we would arrive at this point in time but here we are. 50 years married to each other, who would have thought? I think I may tell a little about our time together, how we met etc..

   I first met Jan in Ormsby on a blind date lined up by some friends of mine that knew Jan from Jackson votech school. We had a get together at Bill Peterson's home in St. James that evening and I took Jan home to the family farm near Alpha. She was impressed by my 69 Mustang Mach 1 and my collection of 8 track tapes, going from Henry Mancini to Johnny Cash. We talked a lot, which is unusual for me, listened to a lot of music and rolled unto her farm about 4 am. From that beginning we dated through the Summer and Fall and I gave her a ring on Christmas Eve before church in Ormsby in 1970, to the decision to marry on Valentine's Day the next year. To us it was why wait, we love each other and want to spend as much time together as possible, so the date was set. February in Minnesota the weather can be iffy and the night before the big day, Saturday, was not nice and we had had a lot of snow to boot. Sunday dawned clear and warmer which we took as a good omen which has turned out to be prophetic. We were married at Trinity Lutheran church in Alpha Minnesota on February 14th 1971 in an afternoon service, to a reception in the basement, to a party at the farm, to the Holiday Inn in North Mankato. The next day it was to our apartment In Waconia and then to Duluth for a night in February no less. There is a lot of filler after that with a couple long bike trips with brothers and friends and weekends back home at the farm or Ormsby until we get to the start of our second chapter, our family.

    From Jan throwing up in her popcorn at the drive in in Navarre, to Waconia Ridgeview later that night, to seeing Rachel for the first time shortly there after. Life really does change forever when you have children if you are paying attention. After Rachel was born in Waconia we moved to Saint James for a job transfer for me.

The three of us did do some traveling, camping at Nemo and visiting The Grand Tetons and Yellowstone when Rachel was a year or two old. Jan, in addition to her homemaker tasks worked a couple other jobs to stay busy. In 1978 we, pretty much she, produced Genevieve to add to our clutch of children, followed in 1980 by Eli completing that part of the saga. In addition to taking care of three children and an older individual, me, she started working at Watonwan county Human Services and working toward a degree from Mankato State part time. She graduated with honors in 2008. Jan is the family record keeper and shoulder to cry on, my confidant and lover, anchor in the storms of our lives and home decorator too. You have no idea how hard it is to try and condense 50 years together into a bunch of words on a page when the most important words are stuck in my heart and I find difficult to express with my limited vocabulary. I just want the world to know that I have been blessed with a life with a woman that I never expected would ever happen to me, blessed with seven terrific grandchildren and two sons and a daughter in law that are like our own. She has put up with a husband that likes to travel, has medical problems and is forgetful of important things but not trivia. This note is more or less random thoughts that I keep coming up with as you may have noticed. We did get to Japan twice and Germany once visiting Rachel and family with her Navy husband Hans, with many trips to the Black Hills and Colorado too. I got to thinking yesterday as we were returning from getting my covid shot, how we hold hands quite a lot while I'm driving so I get to explore her hand by feel. Silly things like that. Advice like, try not to go to bed mad at each other, watch what you say because it can't be unsaid. Today, the 14th it was -16 when I got up a little cooler than in 1971 when it was 60 degrees warmer. I think that said that this is the coldest Valentines day in history. So much for global warming. I started out trying to put down a history of our time together but there was so much packed into that 50 years that I couldn't do it justice. You just had to live it, the ups and downs, but mostly ups. Our answer is to love each other and be comfortable with one another. You only get one chance at this life so you should do your best to make your partner your main object in this time on God's green Earth. Hopefully I'll get to do this in 10 years but you never know.