Day 3: Einsiedeln and lots of Cheese

Wednesday was to be cheese day. We were off to Einsiedeln to visit an impressive abbey, a Swiss farm, and a cheese-making facility, with a fondue lunch. Rudy was our driver.

Our drive to Einsiedeln was gorgeous. We passed beautiful small towns filled with Swiss chalets. In most of these houses, the first floor was made of stone, and it was where the family kept the animals in winter. Window boxes were filled with geraniums to repel insects. We learned that Switzerland’s proper name is the Helvetic Confederation, abbreviated CH or CHE.  We also learned that the Swiss pay a lot of taxes, follow rules, and that consensus is very important. 

We passed the Astrid Chapel. Named for Princess Astrid of Sweden, who was married to King Leopold III of Belgium. Mother of three children, she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1935. Her husband was driving when he hit a fruit tree and lost control. The chapel was built in her memory, and it and the land it stands on are officially Belgian territory. Her youngest child was King Phillipe of Belgium, the current King (in 2026).  

Housing is very expensive in Switzerland, and most people rent and take public transportation to save money.  

We passed through Goldau, where in 1806 the deadliest rockslide in the history of Switzerland happened. 111 homes and nearly 500 people were killed. Many of the boulders were left where they fell, and as the area was repopulated, people built around them. 

Our first stop of the day was at the Einsiedeln Abbey, one of the most important Baroque monasteries in Switzerland. St. Meinrad of Einsiedeln was a German Benedictine monk born in the late 700’s who lived as a hermit in remote Switzerland. He established a hermitage in 828 in the Einsiedeln Forest. One day, he was murdered by two robbers, hoping to find something of value in his shrine. Legend says that he had two ravens, which were like pets to him. The birds saw the robbers attack St. Meinrad, and they pursued the criminals all the way to Zürich, relentlessly attacking them until they were brought to court, found guilty, and executed. These two legendary ravens are the symbol of the town that came to exist. Over the years, the hermitage became a very influential Abbey. 

Einsiedeln Abbey

It is now the home of the Black Madonna of Einsiedeln, which attracts around 800,000 pilgrims and tourists a year. The Madonna has a collection of around 40 dresses featuring intricate embroidery and precious stones, which are changed with the seasons. 

Madonna in an elegant gold dress

The Abbey was beautiful, and when we visited, workers were preparing for the Feast of Corpus Christi, a celebration of the Eucharist. In Switzerland, it is celebrated on the first Thursday of June, and our guide called it a “bridge holiday” because in many parts of Switzerland, people are off from Thursday through Sunday to celebrate. It was raining steadily while we were at the Abbey, but aside from making me more nervous as I walked down the stone steps, it had no negative effect on our visit.

Preparing for the Feast of Corpus Christi

Our next stop was to visit Sonya, a 3rd generation dairy farmer with some of the most beautiful cows I’ve ever seen. Their farm has original Swiss brown cows, one of the oldest cattle breeds in the world. They are used for both dairy and meat, and Sonya’s farm has 25 original heifers and 25 dairy cows, which are generally cross-bred with US Swiss cows to improve milk production.  

They currently have 3 female calves, Olivia, Lavina, and Nurina. The calves are given names that start with the same letter as their mom’s. 

Sonya told us that, according to Swiss law, the cows need to be fed primarily with what they grow on their own land. Her family has 75 acres of land. Some of it stretches up the alpine hills. During the summer, the cows graze on the higher pastures, while the farmers harvest and dry the grass from the lower pastures to feed them during the winter. 

Sonya with Tipsy the cat

Sonya’s cows are milked twice a day and fed right afterward, so they are cooperative during the process. It takes an hour to milk all of them (5 at a time). They don’t pasteurize their milk. They store it in a tank, and when the tank is full, it is picked up by truck and taken away to be sold or made into local cheese. 

The milking area

She gave us a sample of fresh, pasteurized milk. It was very good, thick, and creamy. 

In addition to their cows, Sonya also tends to 80 Swiss noble swine, all pregnant. Three farms take turns. One farm manages the breeding, then Sonya keeps them during pregnancy, then passes them on to a third farm to have their piglets.

She told us these sows are ready to deliver

After our visit to the farm (and after our bus driver navigated some construction on a very narrow road), we headed to Milchmanufaktur Einsiedeln (Einsiedeln Dairy), a cheese factory. Out of the window of the restroom, you can see the practice ski jump facility nearby.

Year-round ski jump practice

We were greeted by our guide Tracy with a drink of strawberry-flavored whey. It was very tasty. We asked about selling flavored whey outside their area and learned it’s expensive and fragile. Most of the US market sells powdered whey as a fitness product, but flavored liquid whey is not common.   

Jeremy, Julia, and Jerry look a bit unsure, but the flavored whey was delicious.

Making cheese requires milk, a starter bacterium, rennet (enzymes that used to come from cows and are now manufactured from a fungus), and salt. For everyday production, the factory uses machinery for the entire process, but for special demos like ours, they use traditional methods. First, you must slowly heat the milk in a copper cauldron. Heating too fast may scald the milk. Add the bacteria and rennet and let the milk coagulate. 

Testing the temperature and consistency of the milk

While we waited, our guide took us on a tour of the facility. We put on lab coats and plastic shoe covers for this part. We later heard that most factories don't let people get close to the process anymore, so we were thankful to get this behind-the-scenes look and didn't mind the extra precautions. We saw the huge vats where cheese is made daily.

We also saw the salt bath where the cheese sits after molding, and the room where the daily salt wash is done. 

The salt bath

For the next stage of cheesemaking, two volunteers were recruited: Jeannie and Jeremy, another Texas traveler in our group. Using cheesecloth and about 4 people (it’s heavy), you scrape up the curds and put them into a large mold to drain. Apparently the larger the curds, the softer the cheese. We managed on our first try, which our guide said was unusual (she may have been being nice to us). 

Jeremy and Jeannie and the glamorous job of making cheese

From there, the semi-solid mass is cut into 16 pieces, each gently rolled into a cylinder and added to the mold, with a weight on top to drain the liquid whey. Once they are drained, they are added to a salt bath, which serves as a preservative, helps them continue drying, and adds flavor. Next, they are moved to a holding area where they receive a daily salt wash (for semi-hard cheeses) for a few weeks. 

Curds and whey

After our success inl cheesemaking, we tasted yogurt flavors and various cheeses (Einsiedler Bergkäse (mountain cheese), Sihltaler (what we would call Swiss cheese), and Einsiedler Bsetzistein (a hard cheese whose name means “cobblestone,” for its texture)). Coffee-flavored yogurt is the most popular; pear is a regional favorite

They use fruit grown near Lake Constance, a lake which borders Switzerland, Germany, and Austria. 

Our cheese-making was successful, so we moved on to our lunch. We were treated to a cheese fondue lunch, with bread, potatoes, and fried apples for dipping. We also had a small glass of schnapps to dip in first, although we were cautioned not to go too heavy on it. The salad and white wine were good. We had fresh ice cream for dessert, which was fantastic. Apparently, we are not cheese fondue people, because neither of us particularly cared for it. 

Cheese fondue: the bag has potatoes, the basket has bread, and the small cup has schnapps

The ice cream was fantastic!

After a very relaxing bus ride back to Lucerne, we dropped off our cheese at our hotel room and walked with Sky to see two more sights in Lucerne: the Church of St. Leodegar and the Lion monument.

The Church of St. Leodegar is a gorgeous, large Catholic church built on the site of a Roman basilica that burned in 1633. It is named for St. Leodegar, one of the two patron saints of Lucerne. 

The Lion of Lucerne is a beautiful monument to 800 members of the Swiss Guard who died during the French Revolution. It is carved from sandstone, 30 feet long, almost 20 feet tall, and stunning; it struck me as very sad. The Lion is dying, a broken spear in its side, while protecting a shield bearing the fleur-de-lis, representing the French monarchy. Beside him is another shield with the coat of arms of Switzerland. There is a large pond at the base. It is a beautiful and poignant sight. Mark Twain wrote it was, "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

The Lion of Lucerne

Today, the Swiss Guard is prohibited from foreign military service, with one exception. They still serve as the Pope's bodyguards. 

For dinner, we picked up a couple of day-old discount sandwiches from the Äss bar (technically, it means “eat” in German, but they are aware of the joke). 

After dinner, we packed for our last day in Switzerland. 

 

Day 2: Lucerne City Center and Max Chocolate

 Tuesday, June 2

We woke to a gorgeous view out the window. We enjoyed the hotel, breakfast bar, and prepared for our walking tour of Lucerne.

The view from our window

 

From the breakfast buffet

A well-balanced breakfast?

Sky told us that the mountains we could see are called the pre-Alps. Pilatus is the largest local mountain, and she informed us we would be visiting Pilatus on Thursday.

Our Hotel was built in 1906, originally named the Palace, and was bought by a Chinese company during COVID. They renovated and renamed it the Mandarin Oriental Palace. 

Lucerne gets 10 million visitors a year (about 2 million stay overnight). 8500 residents. 

Hotel Montana on the hill nearby. It features the world’s shortest cable car ride, taking passengers from the street below to the hotel lobby in 60 seconds. 

In Lucerne, hotel guests are given a bus voucher, so Sky taught us how to use public transportation there in case we chose to get around on our own. Our bus stop was the Palace Casino stop, named for our hotel and the nearby Casino Hotel (and casino). Buses 6, 8, and 24 would all take us from the City Center to our stop.

The city of Lucerne is very Catholic, and the Anglican Church was built for English explorers. Most of Switzerland is protestant today, but Lucerne remains Catholic. 

In Switzerland, church taxes are deducted from each worker’s paycheck. You declare your religion or that you are “not religious.”

The flag of Lucerne has two horizontal stripes, white on top and blue below. Switzerland has a highly decentralized government. The national government handles foreign policy, defense, the national railroad, and currency. Switzerland uses the Swiss Franc, abbreviated CH, which we learned upon arrival. Fortunately, most places accept credit cards.  

The flag of Lucerne in front of Town Hall Tower

Weinmarkt Square is the pedestrian-only medieval square in Lucerne’s Old Town. It was originally a central market where people could purchase the goods they needed. For example, the grain market was where people sold grain. There is not much flat area in Switzerland, so grain was shipped from Italy using the Rhine River. The river that runs through the city of Lucerne is the Reuss (pronounced Roys).

We saw the Town Hall Tower, originally built to watch for fires from the corner windows. It was built higher over the years, as evidenced by the different materials used in each addition. Fire was a huge threat, so each family had a bucket in their homes, and if they heard warning bells, they would report with their buckets to help.

The Town Hall Tower also features a Renaissance-style clock that displays the phases of the moon. 

Town Hall Tower

A meeting place for bakers marked by a gold pretzel

There are large painted facades on the buildings throughout Weinmarkt square, celebrating various elements of the city’s culture and heritage. For example, one features the image of a Passion Play. The town of Lucerne held annual Passion Plays on Good Friday from 1453 to 1616. 

A mural depicting the Last Supper in Weinmarkt square

The town also features linden trees, planted near the river. The linden is believed to bring harmony, and on the ground near one are the words for birth, life, and death. One marks the place where the medieval court would pass judgment. There is a local proverb that says, “Beneath a linden tree, you cannot tell a lie.” The trees also smell nice and help keep the air clean and fresh. 

A Linden Tree in Lucerne

The water in both Lake Lucerne and the Ruess river is very clear and drinkable. Town officials manually control the lake's water level by placing or removing 12-foot wooden boards to regulate flow. Fishing is not much of an industry because the water is so clear that fish don’t grow to a large size. 

The Reuss River flow can be altered here

One really remarkable feature of Lucerne is the fountains that carry spring water from nearby Mount Dragon. The water is so clean that you can bring a cup or bottle and drink it straight from the fountain (there are also street-level faucets for dogs). We all sampled the water, and Bill refilled his water bottle. 

Bill gets a cool drink from a Lucerne Fountain

A street-level dog drinking fountain

There are two (of the original three) large covered wooden footbridges in Lucerne that span the Reuss River. Both bridges feature paintings by local painter Hans Heinrich Wägmann on spruce-wood boards, displayed in triangular frames at the top. Many of the paintings feature St Maurice and Saint Leodegar, the patron saints of Lucerne. St. Maurice was a 3rd century Egyptian military leader and Roman commander who was martyred for refusing an order by Emperor Maximian to murder local Christians. Maximian ordered every tenth soldier killed (the punishment called decimation). Eventually, the entire legion was executed. Saint Leodegar was the son of a Burgundian nobleman from Paris. He became a priest and a monk. Unfortunately, he got on the bad side of several kings in Northern France and was tortured and beheaded. There are also stone statues of both men outside the Church of St. Leodegar in Lucerne. 

 

The Mill Bridge

The ones on the Spreuer Bridge (Mill Bridge), built in the 13th century, feature a Danse Macabre theme, each displaying skeletons to remind us that we will all die eventually, so we may as well enjoy life. 

The second large wooden bridge is the Kapellbrücke (meaning “Chapel Bridge”). It’s the oldest wooden covered bridge in Europe. A fire on the Chapel Bridge in 1993 destroyed almost the entire bridge in 12 minutes. Fortunately, when the bridge was shortened to make way for commercial buildings, some of the original triangular paintings were placed in storage. They were added when the bridge was rebuilt.

Incredible triangular-shaped paintings along the bridge

The Wasserturm (Water Tower) and the Chapel Bridge

The Wasserturm (Water tower, meaning "standing in the water," not "storing water") was built in the 13th century and is part of the Chapel Bridge. It has 8 sides, thick walls, and, over the years, has been used as a torture site, prison, and archive. The strong, stone walls kept the town archives safe, and provided secure housing for prisoners 9 feet deep. Sky told us that sometimes feuding couples would be locked in the tower to “encourage’ reconciliation since divorce was not permitted. The Water Tower also houses the largest breeding colony of alpine swifts in Lucerne. The swifts winter in South Africa and migrate in the spring.

Surrounding the town of Lucerne is the Musegg Wall, 800 meters long, built around 1400. It features nine surviving towers; each one created in a different architectural style.  Sky told us you can walk the length of the wall, but we opted not to even try. She also said the varied architectural styles didn’t serve any real purpose other than to show off the talent of the town’s builders. 

One of the towers along the Musegg Wall

The Alte Suidtersche Apotheke (Old Suidter's Pharmacy) is the oldest continually operating pharmacy in Lucerne. It was founded in 1833 and features modern pharmaceuticals as well as some folk medicine remedies. 

Alte Suidtersche Apotheke (Old Suidter's Pharmacy)

Around Lucerne are lots of statues of a hairy, bearded giant carrying an uprooted tree, called wilder mann. He’s considered the guardian of Lucerne. The myth was based on large bones were dug up in the area and were mistaken for those of a 16’ giant. They later discovered they were mammoth bones, but the statues and legends remained. 

We visited the Jesuit church in Lucerne; the first Baroque church built north of the Alps. It was built by the Jesuit College of Lucerne as part of an attempt to keep Lucerne Catholic. Construction began in 1667, the church was inaugurated in 1677, and the final tower was completed in 1893. The beautiful red marble is fake, just painted plaster, as it was too expensive to import that much red marble. It looks gorgeous, though! One of the side chapels is devoted to Saint Nicholas of Flüe (also known as Bruder Klaus), a hermit regarded as the patron saint of Switzerland and as the Father of Swiss neutrality. A farmer with 10 children and a local judge, he left the community (with his wife’s permission) to live in isolation in a cave. He was known as a peacemaker, and local officials often sought his advice. His robe and walking stick are stored in his altar in the church. 

Ceiling of the Jesuit Church in Lucerne

Note the gorgeous faux red marble surrounding the altar

We briefly returned to the hotel to relax, then headed back to the city center and split a roast beef sandwich with tartar sauce from the bakery near our afternoon meeting place. 

Our afternoon excursion was to Max Chocolatier with Annamaria, our chocolatier from Seville, Spain. The company was founded in 2009 by owner Patrik Köenig. It is named for his youngest son, Max, who has Down syndrome, the youngest of 3 boys, who currently lives in Miami. Max loved the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a child, and it inspired his dad to create Max Chocolates. They only have 3 physical locations, all nearby. They don’t want to leave Switzerland because they believe chocolate making should be done by hand with care, not mass-produced. Their products are all natural and responsibly sourced from around the world. The cacao beans are imported primarily from South America and Africa (each has a distinct flavor influenced by nearby plants), while other ingredients come from around the world. For example, they get pineapple from Hawaii, pecans from Georgia, and bourbon from Tennessee. They get vanilla from several locations, including Mexico. We got to meet the owner, Patrik, right before our tasting. They are very open to suggestions about flavor combinations to try. We would be sampling their summer collection.

Cacao Pod

We began in the lounge with a chocolate tasting.

Round plate has milk chocolate with caramel and apricot, white chocolate with beets, milk chocolate with caramel and passion fruit, oval plate has ganache squares in dark and milk chocolate, roasted Spanish almonds covered in house chocolate, and milk chocolate with pineapple jelly (Jeannie's favorite)

First, we sampled white chocolate with beets. It was pink in color. I couldn’t taste any beets- maybe a light raspberry taste? It was very good. Next, we sampled a milk chocolate with caramel and cream infused with apricot. It tasted a little tart, perhaps a bit like cherry. It was also very good.

Our third sample was milk chocolate with caramel, salt, and passion fruit. It was delicious and tasted a bit like jam. This one was a group favorite. 

Next were Spanish almonds, roasted and caramelized, blended with house chocolate, and covered with fine cocoa powder. Then we had milk chocolate with pineapple jelly with vanilla (loved this one). 

Next up, we were asked to compare three ganache squares, each with a different cacao percentage. We tried 70% Costa Rica ganache (good), 82% from Colombia (also good), and 100% (I forgot where it was from). Did not like that one at all. It dried out our mouths. We ate more beet chocolate to get rid of the taste. 

After our tasting, we were invited to make our own chocolate bars. To maintain a clean kitchen, we each had to put on an apron and a hat. Then we chose the type of chocolate: white, milk, or dark. Annamaria retrieved parchment bags filled with melted chocolate, and we filled the mold with 70-75 g of chocolate, piping to the edges first, then filling in, tapping it gently on the table to eliminate any air bubbles. We chose which toppings to add: cacao, hazelnut, pistachio, pumpkin seed, almond, caramel, chili, salt, and/or black pepper

Jeannie pipes in her chocolate

Bill adds his toppings

Jeannie made a milk chocolate bar with hazelnut, caramel, and salt. 

Bill’s creation was dark chocolate with pumpkin seeds, salt, chili pepper, and caramel. 

Max’s uses many different molds for their chocolate. Besides the standard bar or squares, they also mold cows (of course), bulldogs, teddy bears, rabbits at Easter, and Santas at Christmas.  

Creamy white chocolate

Swiss Chocolate Cows!

Annamarie also showed us the moving belt they use to cool truffles. When they add them to the belt, they put the bells on first. When they hear the bells fall to the floor, they know it’s time to go catch the truffles. They use three different machines to melt the three different kinds of chocolate, white, milk, dark - all at different temperatures. They also have a “Recycle bin” for mistakes. Some of the chocolate in the recycling bin is remelted for future use, and some is taken home by chocolatiers.  

Chocolate conveyor belt

We retrieved our now cooled chocolate bars and a gift from Patrik, and resigned ourselves to leaving this chocolate paradise.

A gift from our hotel - more chocolate!

It was raining when we finished, so we ran back to the bus stop and caught a ride home, very thankful we had brought our umbrellas.  

Bill relaxed with an Eichof, a local beer, at happy hour in the hotel while Jeannie napped. 

Dinner was burgers from Holy Cow Burgers. Bill navigated the bus system to get there and went to an underground shop for a beer, but when he returned to the bus stop, he didn’t see any buses with the correct numbers to get back to the hotel, so he gave up and walked.  As he did, one of the correct buses passed him by. The beer was a triple high-draft lager, Valaisanne. 

Day 1 of our Trip to the Rhine River

 I do not like Heathrow airport, and it does not like me. To begin at the beginning, we woke up on Sunday, May 31, at 7:30 AM, planning to leave for the airport at noon for our 3:30 flight. Bill ran to the grocery store to get some bacon. I just happened to check my email. We received a mysterious email from travel, saying our flight had been changed to Monday, June 1. I tried to log in to my Viking.com account but couldn’t. I looked at the British Airways website, and it had the Monday, June 1 flight as well. We texted Jeremy. He was no help, but an email he had forwarded to us previously had a phone number for Viking, so I called them, and a rep named Sparkle let us know that British Airways canceled our flight and rescheduled us for one on Monday. The problem was that Monday is the first day of our extension. We would not arrive until Tuesday morning. She rebooked us on a flight departing at 12:50 pm on Sunday, with two connecting flights. That left me around 5 minutes to log in and select seats. We headed to the airport a little after 9 AM. We flew to Philadelphia, where we waited with a British family who shook our section of the chairs with a rousing rendition of “The lady goes trot, trot, trot.” I don’t think farmers gallop, but I had to let that go. Once we boarded, we flew from Philadelphia to Heathrow, where we are currently sitting, waiting until 8:25 am, when they will tell us which gate our 9:15 flight will depart from. We will then (hopefully) fly to Zürich, Switzerland.

When the gate was posted, it was only a few hundred yards from where we had been waiting. While we were seated waiting for our boarding group, a woman came over to ask us a few survey questions about our experience at Heathrow. When I told her we were American, she said she was sorry about all the problems. I told her we hadn’t voted for him, and she said, “Of course you didn’t!”  She said it sounds to them like there are just shootings everywhere and asked how it feels to be surrounded by people with such strong and different opinions. We were among the last people to board, and after the relative comfort of premium economy, it felt like sitting in a shoe box. Takeoff was delayed a bit, giving us time to listen to a young boy read aloud the names of every nearby aircraft to everyone nearby. Once we were finally in the air, the flight itself was ok, but the landing was rough. The wind was apparently a bit much, so the pilot touched the plane down but “disengaged,” and we went back up to circle around and try again. Between that bouncing, a general lack of air, and a dirty diaper nearby, both of us were feeling rather nauseated, and there were no air sickness bags to be found. Thankfully, with help from my portable fan, we made it without incident.

We were slow getting through the airport thanks to long lines in the women’s restrooms, but our Viking person was waiting for us. She contacted our driver, Wolfgang, who drove us to Lucerne in a Mercedes-Benz.

We met Sky, our host for our Lucerne extension. She is originally from Istanbul but has lived in Switzerland for 20 years with her German husband and her three teenage kids. She used to work for the Red Cross in Geneva. The hotel was gorgeous, with a view of the lake and the Alps. The hotel reception gave us an overview of our room and left us to relax. We were asleep by 3:30, skipping the welcome drink and dinner.

A year of READS

Happy 2016!

As part of my new year's resolutions, I am going to attempt to complete a reading challenge given to me by my dear friend David Goodheart.

The challenge is to read 25 books, one per square:

I just completed my first square (technically, I started the book in 2015, but I read more than half of it in 2016 so I'm counting it.

I just finished a fantasy novel, Robert Jordan's The Shadow Rising.  This was the fourth book in his series The Wheel of Time.  It was by far my favorite in the series.  Full of action and characters I recognized and cared about, it held my interest throughout, which had not been true of the first three novels in the series (which all had great endings, but I felt were a bit sluggish in the middle).

One of the themes I thought Jordan did an excellent job with in The Shadow Rising was the notion of being an outsider.  Reflecting back on his first three books, this has been a theme throughout, but I felt it was particularly powerful in this outing.  Each of the main three male characters, Rand, Mat, and Perrin, found themselves outsiders in what could have been familiar settings.  Perrin in particular dealt with taking on a new role back in his hometown of Two Rivers.  No longer just a blacksmith's apprentice, Perrin (now called Perrin Goldeneyes) found himself looked upon instead as a military leader by the people with whom he grew up, and a suspected Darkfriend by the militant Whitecloaks who spread their own kind of terror in the name of hunting down their enemies.  Rand, who learned he was adopted in book 1 of the series, and who has now met the people from whom he is descended, is now expected to travel to the Aiel waste to visit Rhuidean, to fulfill another prophesy on his way as the Dragon reborn.  Rand is an outsider (wetlander) to the his own people, the Aiel, and feared by all because of his ability to channel the One Power.  Rand struggles to follow the path he believes he must, while the people closest to him watch for the inevitable signs that his connection to the One Power has finally driven him mad.  Mat follows along, constantly reminded that his destiny is tied to Rand, but unsure what role he is to play and whether or not he is willing to play it.  Two of the "supergirls," Elayne and Nynaeve travel to Tanchico in search of the remaining members of the Black Ajah, via a ship of the Sea Folk and find that they don't know as much about the One Power as they thought.  In Tanchico they try to blend with the local culture to find the Black Ajah, and along the way they find out that they don't know as much about a perceived enemy as they believed.  Both girls also struggle to find out where they fit within the relationships that they both desire, but both wonder if they are outsiders there as well.    

An excellent novel, and I am looking forward to part 5.  Perhaps in 2017!

Fall means football

Fall means football in Texas, and Brady and the Austin Bulldogs JV team are well into their season. They are 1-2 so far, but getting better each game.

This week was special for us because Mom came out to watch him play. It's the first time she'd ever seen him play football. We both agree that it's hard to watch him get hit, but he shrugs and says if you roll with it, it doesn't hurt too badly.

What I was surprised to see this week was that Brady had taped his wrists. I've never seen him do that before. I was worried for a minute that they might be sore, and particularly puzzled when he spotted my mom in the stands and held them up so she could see them. Mom used to be an EMT, so she's always ready to render medical aid if needed.

As it turns out, Brady had taped his wrists so he could write a message on them. "G.B. R.I.P." for my dad, George Barnett. He also wrote "Herb" below it, the name my dad used to call him. I had no idea he was going to do that, but I was so touched that he thought of it all by himself.

He went to the A&M game yesterday with friends and had a blast. KC spent the day working on a project with a friend, so Abby got to hang out with her dad (I was visiting Mom). A quiet end to a long week.

My Dad

Howdy. I haven't written much over the past 6 months here. The main reason is because of my dad's bout with brain cancer. I couldn't bring myself to write about it, but I couldn't not write about it . . . so the blank page remained.

Now that my dad's battle has ended, I owe it to him to write again. And what better topic to write about than my dad? So here goes . . .

In 1991, on my Dad's 49th birthday, my father had heart bypass surgery. This is a great legacy for Jill and I, by the way. If you want to see an internist’s blood pressure go up, tell them your father had bypass surgery before the age of 50. After his bypass surgery, while everyone else was squeezing their pillows and coughing and walking up and down the halls, Dad woke up to find he was partially blind in one eye, and so sick with nausea and headaches that he couldn’t move, much less walk down the hall. The first few doctors we talked to tried to convince us that he’d come in that way. Then they decided a piece of plaque must have broken off during the surgery and caused a stroke. Mom asked them, if they weren’t too busy, if they could go ahead and run a few tests on him rather than standing around guessing. Once they finally called in a neurologist and ran some tests, they discovered he had a benign pituitary tumor which had expanded during the bypass surgery and was now pressing against his brain and optic nerve. So one week to the day after his triple bypass, my father had brain surgery. We soon learned that brains don’t care for surgery, and they react by swelling, causing confusion and irrational behavior. That we were prepared for, more or less. What we were not prepared for was the news that he was running a fever, and had likely developed an infection. If that infection was meningitis, a strong possibility, he almost surely wouldn’t survive the night. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep that night, and we sat up and planned his funeral. Thankfully, Dad was not ready to go at that time, he survived the night and soon made a full recovery. That was 19 years ago that we almost lost him. So in a sense, every day that has passed since that day, has been a gift. The gift of my dad.

So what did Dad do with the gift of 19 years? He’s had 4 wonderful grandchildren. Technically, Jill and I had them, but he took some of the credit since he’d helped raise us. Dad actually was in Canada when KC was born. Right after she was born, she stopped breathing and was put in the NICU. When Dad called to check on her, Mom had no choice but to tell him what was going on, since we had no idea how long she’d be in the NICU or if she would even survive, but Mom told him to just finish the conference because there wasn’t anything he could do here in Houston. Dad packed up immediately and headed for the airport. He spent all day and night in airports, flying standby, until he could get home to see her. For the record, when the fourth grandchild, Abby was to be born, Mom found out she was supposed to be on a business trip to Foxboro, Massachusetts. We actually rescheduled that delivery so she would be here just to make sure everything went smoothly this time because clearly I could not do this without them.

Dad spent a lot of those 19 years travelling. He took Mom to Ireland, Hawaii, New York, Las Vegas, with yearly trips to New England, including 3 trips back east with various children and grandchildren. We also took a trip to Disney with all the children and grandchildren. When my father travels, he does detailed research, working out an itinerary that makes sure we don’t miss anything. It’s a wonderful thing to travel with Dad, because you can really just sit back and go along for the ride. In the past 19 years, my Dad has seen the ice skaters in Rockefeller Center at Christmas time, Broadway shows, Agatha Christie performed on a London stage, the Hoover dam, and the ducks at the Peabody Hotel in Memphis. In just the last six months before he got sick, he made trips to Singapore, Scotland, and took mom to the Mall of America in Minnesota. In November. If Minnesota in November isn’t love, I can’t imagine what is. Dad also spent a good part of those 19 years playing golf. Not particularly well, but he always had a great time. He carefully researched to find the latest advances in golf clubs, golf teaching aids, better golf balls. All to add a few extra yards to the drive. Which, for dad, often meant he could hit the ball even further into the woods or the water. But none of that mattered. As long as he could be out on the course, relaxing and spending time with his friends, his game could not have been better.

Over the past 19 years, Dad’s been to first Communions, choir programs, dance recitals, Astros games, Texans games, and little league baseball games. Lots and lots of little league ball games. He’s fixed ovens, built fences, closets, benches, rocking chairs, and a pitching mound. He taught my husband Bill how to put up a ceiling fan, replace a toilet, install a faucet and light fixture, and build a door frame. Over the past 19 years, Dad worked, played, fixed things, and carried countless shopping bags to the car. Dad rarely had an idle moment, aside from watching wrestling matches on television, and he truly made the most of the extra 19 years he was given. My only regret is not having him around for another 19 years to do even more. But he will always be with us in spirit, and we know that now that he is free of the wheelchair and bed he’s been stuck in for the past 6 months, that he is free again to travel and watch more baseball games, choir concerts, and dance recitals. And the next time you find yourself out on the golf course, especially on those beautiful spring days before it gets too hot, pop an extra cold one for George and know that he’s always there, along for the ride.

And he’s probably laughing at your golf swing.

I love you Dad, and I really miss you . . .