For Those Who Know and Love Father John -- A Recap

Now that some distance has been put between the present and last week's family gathering, I feel I want to review it from the standpoint of how my brother John's experience went while he was here as I know that there are many, many people from the Chippewa valley and beyond that truly love and appreciate him. This first photo was taken up in Minneapolis while we were visiting Kim's dad at the Masonic Home, the last step in his visit.

Bob suffered a severe stroke several years ago and has been confined to the wheel chair since.

We are sent challenges and we deal with them as best we can.
But let me do this chronologically, to the best of my recollection, which may leave something to be desired.

Thursday, October 4, I drove up to Minneapolis, parked on the on-ramp of Pilot's Knob Road and awaited the cell phone call that John had pre-arranged to give me after luggage had been secured. Then I was to (as he explained in Irish jargon), swoop in and "gather" him up.

This went off with the smoothness of Mission Impossible and we were on our way to Eau Claire to meet the lovely Ms Kim for dinner. John again went to the cell phone (impressed that I keep an old EC directory under my seat) and made reservations for dinner at Sweetwater's.

Kim met us there. along with my oldest brother Bob and his wife Dorothy, and we had a delightful evening of conversation and food. John and I shared the German entree (bratwurst, knockwurst, pork tenderloin, red cabbage and washed it down with dark beer.)

As we were settling up the bill (John insisted he put it on his credit card), the waiter returned with his card and told him there was a problem with his card. John immediately began fishing for his wallet and the waiter began laughing. He then explained that the "problem" was that he used to be a parishoner of John's at St Pat's and didn't recognize him until he saw the name on the card!

When we arrived home, John settled in for rest at the office here at the Heagle/Wilson compound. I had spent months attempting to get it clean and tidy for this occasion.

Friday morning John slept in until 9AM at which time I made him breakfast of homemade popovers and scrambled eggs with bacon bits. The reviews were good. And John announced that sleeping in the country was therapeutic!

After breakfast, John expressed a desire to take a small road trip over near Cornell to visit the site of a former property of h is, a lovely little cabin on the Holcombe flowage. After driving past it several times, John finally realized that whoever had bought it, had either built over or totally replaced the cabin with a house.

The highlight of the afternoon was the weather and the beautiful Fall colors on Highway 29.

Saturday morning, all the Heagles, save my two sons, gathered at a private side room of the motel -- you can read about that in previous entries.

Saturday afternoon was a brilliant sunlight afternoon and it was also Blugold Homecoming so after all the rest of family went on their own separate ways, John and I went to the football game to witness a 31-29 last second field goal victory over LaCrosse. Note: truth is, we left early and heard the rest of the game on the radio.

My catholic theory: If we had stayed, they would have missed the field goal and would have lost and it would have been our fault.

Sunday was another gathering of Heagles (also covered in a previous blog). Sunday night John and I watched the Packers gift wrap and hand a game to Chicago. I am here to report that even then, Father John did not curse! I did enough for both of us!

Monday morning I made my breakfast specialty: home made from scratch buttermilk pancakes, and stomaches full, we left for Minneapolis, allowing ourselves enough time to stop in and visit with Bob -- and Joy who showed up while we were there!

The other photo in this blog is of my niece Denise and her husband Freddy. They are a wonderful couple of young people, living in Arizona where he works with water conservation and I believe Denise is teaching. Teaching runs in the family, ya know!

Consider yourself caught up!

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