Eureka!!!

The sun is shining.
The temperatures are in the 70's and 80's.
Perfect tennis weather!!
But, am I playing ? No!!

Why not, you may ask. Why am I not spending my so far healthy retirement doing the second- best thing I love?


Because I believe everyone has a purpose. Something you HAVE to do because you have been moving towards it... gearing-up for it... awaiting that slap of inspiration that sets you off on the path you should take, for a long time. I found mine earlier this year while looking through boxes marked "high school stuff".

I found, well found is not the right word, I re-read the newspaper article below and realized the event had happened exactly 50 years ago. So I began asking myself questions and the answers came in the form of the documentary/project that keeps me holed- up in my dining room on my laptop on warm, summer days.

"Kaukauna & King: 50 Years Later" is the project.  Where are the students who participated in the exchange? How did the exchange and performance in the play "In White America" effect them as 17 & 18 year olds? How did the exchange effect their communities of Kaukauna and Rufus King High School? Who/where are they now? How has Wisconsin or the communities touched by the exchange and play changed in racial understanding in 50 years?

Big questions... hopefully big answers.

My Eureka moment came when I was looking through books on Wisconsin at the Renaissance Bookstore at the airport. I was trying to find something on this event in 1966. There was nothing to be found. then it hit me... no one had written about this before because it was 'hidden history" and I was the one to write it! I cannot express how that felt!!

So, I press on. No funding (yet). Only one other person helping with the project (thanks Josh). And, my goal to have the doc finished by the end of the year keeps looking harder and harder.  But, when this IS finished, I hope this history

it will be hidden no more.  Stay tuned.





 

Saving Stuff

Well, another birthday has passed and with each one I wonder where the time has gone and how come I have so much stuff in my house.

I also recently helped a friend move. She had not gone through all the stuff in her house since she moved into it 10 years ago. Packing all that stuff was a huge challenge.  I called a couple tennis buddies when I got to her house and saw that her idea of "I'm ready for the movers" and reality were not the same.

 So, I am committed to a SERIOUS spring cleaning this year, which will include removing all the leftover stuff from my father's apartment and my ex-husband's place. He has slowly found a way to store more than two dozen large items in my basement. What can I say? I'm a nice person, mostly.

But, most of this stuff has got to go!

Here is my plan:
1. clean out the two-car garage which can hold only one car at the moment.
2. clean out the basement so that it can finally be finished.
3. move most of the stuff from the basement into the garage.
4. clean out the garage, again.

I just read an article that says my kids won't want most of my accumulated stuff, anyway, so I might as well let it go.  There is a lot of great stuff in my house, though. I don't consider myself a hoarder... I consider myself an historian.

However, I'm gonna do it!  One box goes out everyday! Or maybe one every two or three days.' Or maybe a couple get emptied every month!
But, I will not give up!! When it's time to move me into smaller accommodations, my sons will not have to wade through old (antique) stuff.

Maybe...