Year End 2019

Year End 2019

What, already? Yes. It’s time to say goodbye to another year that was filled with activities at home and away. Life has been pretty good. I have been busy with community volunteering, trips, a class reunion, plays, and other events. Much of all the activity included family members and Pete, my boyfriend. I am thankful for all of them. A congenial family and an enjoyable male companion are this year’s happy blessings.

In February, much to my unhappy surprise, I sprained my knee in the Madison snow without even falling down. I twisted my knee as I took a shortcut over a large, packed snowbank left by a plow, and pain lasted for four and a half months. A Google source said that a sprain will heal in a month or six weeks; even my doctor thought so. Maybe that is the case for babies, but some old people heal gradually. I continued with daily life as much as possible, but now I know I am mortal. Also healed.

Pete and I took a trip to Virginia in June. We spent four enjoyable days visiting the homes of three of our Presidents, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe. We spent the most time in the Jefferson environment at Monticello, and the rest of the time at the estates of Madison and Monroe. They all lived in the mountain area near Charlottesville,Virginia. Road Scholar provided local experts who gave talks to our group. We also spent some time looking at the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded.

Another tour took Pete and me to Minneapolis in August. We took time for an overnight visit to Pete’s sister Phyllis and her family in northern Minnesota at the start of the trip and some time with my daughter Elizabeth (Libby) in suburban Minneapolis at the end of it. During the tour with Road Scholar we visited Minnehaha Falls, the big waterfall in Minnehaha Park; the well-known Guthrie Theatre, two art museums, and other sights. At the Guthrie we saw all the backstage things that professional theater requires, including costumes made as needed, sets needing assembly, and various props that filled large rooms. We saw the stage area, too, and later we saw the performance of Guys and Dolls. And for me no trip to Minneapolis was compete without Sunday brunch at Hell’s Kitchen with Libby.

During the year Pete and I saw many plays. The best was Hamilton.  We saw it in Chicago in April with a group of seniors, and in Madison in November, and we loved it. It’s the biggest play of the year, in my opinion. We saw MacBeth at American Players Theatre in Spring Green with Pete’s family. We saw Guys and Dolls in Minneapolis. We saw other plays in Madison, where drama seems to flourish.

I attended my 60-year class reunion of Sturgeon Bay High School in October. A large crowd of classmates with spouses and dates filled the Lodge at Leatham Smith. We enjoyed seeing people whom we had not seen in many years as well as some we have known over time. A list of deceased class members was read; it appears that about half of the class has left this world. I was glad to have time to talk with many of the people who came to the reunion of the class of 1959.

Once again this year I took several trips to Washington Island in Door County. Daughter Sarah and I were there for the Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends.  Grandchildren Laura and Ian came with us. I was there other times for several days at a time, enjoying the woods, the lakeshore and the hassle-free rural environment. I stay in a cabin at the island campground whenever I go there.

Back in Madison I have been doing volunteer work mostly at the Madison Senior Center and the Meadowridge branch library. Also, I exhibited some of my art work in the Wisconsin Regional Art Program and at the senior center. The Friends of the Madison Public Library gave me some recognition for volunteering more than ten years.

As mom and grandma, I enjoyed the family’s musical concerts with Ian’s school concerts and John, Sarah and Laura’s instrumental performances. John and Sherry gave me supper approximately once a week so I wouldn’t have to eat alone but could enjoy their company. It’s good to have them living nearby. I flew to Maryland for a few days with Mary and Gareth, and drove to Minneapolis (not on tour) to be with Libby. Dori, Steve and Robbie came to Madison for holidays when the noisy (adult) kids all talked together simultaneously and seemed to love it. It’s very good and very talkative when the family gets together.

I am still active at St. Dunstan’s Church. When the church went through renovation, I stored the church’s lending library in my home basement for several months. No borrowing happened but the books were safe and accounted for while the church got its facelift. Did I mention that I am the church’s librarian?

May we all survive another year of chaotic politics with the Trump administration and joys and concerns at home. Life is good.

Door County Recipes: It's Our Cookbook

Wow! It’s still with us after thirty years. Do you want to know how to do a Door County fish boil? Make desserts with Door County cherries? Read some Door County history? Look at drawings of Door County points of interest? It’s all in one little book.

This year is the thirtieth anniversary of Door County Recipes Old and New and a Little Local Lore. Dolores Allen, my mother, wrote it and I illustrated it. It was self published in 1989, with a second printing in 1994. It is still available on Amazon today but has been out of print for a long time.

My mother and I worked long and hard on it, but as author she assembled many recipes from her program, Five Minutes With Dolores Allen, that ran on radio station WDOR of Sturgeon Bay. Her program lasted more than fifty years and was about recipes from listeners and other sources. She put them and some local history into 131 pages with illustrations from my pen.

Here is an example. The chapter called Traditional Door County Recipes says, “The famous Door County Fish Boil originated with the early lumberjacks who found it a convenient way to cook the abundance of trout and whitefish found here. Today it has become a tradition and is served as a specialty in many of the Door County restaurants.” On the same page is my drawing of a person photographing the boil-over that makes fish boils unique and attention-getting. The next page tells how it is done.

The book is ours in that it includes plenty of good cooking recommendations and includes names of people who gave her their recipes. It has Mrs. Bassford’s Strawberry Pie, Corrine’s Pioneer Bread Pudding, Bobbi’s Sauce for Ham, Ruthie’s Ministrone Soup, and more. This makes a personal experience out of cooking as well as a family one. My lentil soup and potato soup are there. Mary Lou Allen (my brother Eddy’s wife) gave her hash brown casserole and Mother offered plenty of her own creations.

It is ours also as one of many ongoing creative projects of my parents, Ed and Dolores Allen, who started several businesses, one of which continues today, Radio Station WDOR. Our family was WDOR starting in 1951. My mother worked in the office, did billing, broadcast her daily Five Minute With Dolores Allen. My brothers worked on the air as soon as their voices changed. (Brother Eddy is still managing it.) I wrote commercials and news and did office work as a teenager. The cookbook is part of this shared responsibility as another Allen business. They had a publishing company and printing business in Sturgeon Bay, which my mother operated with a staff assistant. The cookbook was part of it and she drew me into it with drawing.  She did the setup and had a Wisconsin company print it.

Door County Recipes is thirty years old and still good. Mother went to the great kitchen in the sky in 2005 at age 92.