Badger Country

One of our stated goals is the desire to visit each of our married kids on their turf annually. Already, we are behind. A twenty-four hour flight to Thailand does not seem to equate to a jaunt to Tennessee or New York. Our 2012 Bangkok adventure may have to hold us for awhile, but at least those grandbabies (oh yes, and their parents, too) are coming to the States this summer. But I have digressed. A visit to Diana and Aaron in Madison, Wisconsin was our most recent connection.

Having married only two years ago in September, this cute young pair has just made their fourth move since taking their vows. (Oh, to be young again). They started off in Greenville to finish schooling and to launch a job that took them to Madison. Their next two apartments were in old houses renovated for maximum student occupancy near the university. Also, living just two blocks from the Capitol and city hub, they easily walked to concerts, coffee shops, museums and their gym. The farmer's market surrounding the square is a huge happening each Saturday morning of the summer season. They delighted in their new digs and became well-acquainted with the Midwestern, college-town venue. Alas, the quirkiness of hundred-year-old habitats with pocket doors nailed open (or closed), beautifully crafted woodwork interrupted by the addition of a wall, hot and cold water faucets invariably reversed, toilets with obstinate "personalities", and a myriad of other idiosyncrasies drew them to the suburbs. 

Twenty minutes from the area they used to walk and knew so well, Diana and Aaron are now tucked away in a community of multiple housing options. Apartments, town homes and single family dwellings nestle into a community that feels like a vacation haven. Silos and farmland create a backdrop for  adjacent property that includes acres of green fields, perfect for frisbee throwing and fetch-games with Remy. Miles of pathways wind through the woods behind the neighborhood. (Maybe don't tell these southerners that these are actually cross-country ski trails that may be a little more difficult to navigate come snow season.)  Evenings, we sat on the deck and watched rabbits emerge from the shadows, quite literally multiplying, as they cavorted and congregated in the parking lot. Altogether, it was a parent's delight to see our kids engaged together in making their house a home and extending hospitality.

As Murphy's Law would have it, our idyllic visit ended with a four-hour delay at the airport. Not altogether negative (I much preferred hanging out in the terminal to the predicted thunderstorms in the air) Dennis and I had the chance to reflect on our early days "setting up housekeeping" as they used to call it. We remembered scurrying around the night before houseguests arrived to hang pictures or paint a room or finish a piece of furniture being renovated. We would move out of our bedroom, offering it to our company, making a pallette on the living room floor for ourselves. Sometimes, our grocery bill would increase with the anticipation of extra people at our table, so we happily carved from the budget in advance to make a way. So proud we were to set the table with our shiney new things. How people must have rolled their eyes at our "firstborn". Schawnroi, our Olde English Sheepdog, was large, unmercifully ill-mannered and cute-as-the-dickens. He came with the territory and our guests kept coming back. Maybe they thought we would surely get him under control, but that never happened. Schawnroi actually ate a pound of woodwork in our own version of the hundred-year-old dwelling every time it thundered. That, too, is another story. Anyway, we reminisced about the fact that once those challenging days of scrimping and saving and improvising and getting started give way to a more regular rhythm in life, there is something about the simplicity and serenity in together facing the struggles of those early years which one misses. 

It has been said that God wants to do a greater thing through each subsequent generation. We are humbled and encouraged by the home these two are creating together, their commitment to applying godly principles to their life decisions, and their witness to those around them. And, by the way, our grand-dog Remy is way better behaved than Schawnroi.

"We should so live and labor in our time, that what came to us as seed may go to the next generation as blossom, and that what came to us as blossom may go to them as fruit. This is what we mean by progress."

Henry Ward Beecher