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Friday is Valentine’s Day. We each have a mental list of those we love. My compilation is headed by my husband, Ken. Songs are written about young love, and I remember the thrill of our first date, first kiss and first “I love you.” But we are experiencing the joy of old love with its contentment and satisfaction including dates, kisses and “I love you.”

One of the sayings posted on our refrigerator is “The most romantic love story isn’t Romeo and Juliet who died together…But Grandpa and Grandma who grow old together.”

Our love story began with a Ferris wheel ride when Ken was sixteen and I was fourteen. We matured separately and together by the time we married when Ken was 23 and I was 21. We take pride in the family we’ve created and enjoy their company often.

Both of us are in fairly good health but we share the limitations imposed by pushing ninety. Each of us has survived a serious illness and cope with those impositions, too.

At times we verbally disagree. I don’t subscribe to the adage, “Never go to bed mad.” I can nurse a good pout for several days. There have even been a few times during the past decades that each of us felt like walking out the door but we had no place to go so we made amends.

Ken is retired from law enforcement and I have always worked at home, whether for pay from a part-time job or the fringe benefits of being a housewife. We are usually together 24/7, but we continue to pursue our separate interests. When we are apart, such as when my husband and our son, Kurt, spend a week in April fishing at Kentucky Lake, I ‘m excited when I know he’s on his way home.

Who are your valentines?

I sat down at a table in Panera’s to eat a bowl of soup for lunch. The woman seated across the aisle complimented my sweatshirt. I was flattered because it’s my favorite, a farm scene at night. I immediately decided she and the man across from her must be farmers going by their clothes and suntans. I had grown up in a rural home and was familiar with the look.

Whenever we encounter someone new, we start pigeonholing them, putting them in familiar categories, but there are many differences in people. Standing on a busy, city street corner is an eyeopener to how diverse individuals are. Yet, many statics are reported by groups such as percentage of men and women or Black, Hispanic and white or those under thirty and those over sixty-five. For example, looking at my husband, Ken, a retired county deputy, and Warren Buffet, an investor and philanthropist, who were both born in the 1930s, I see various characteristics but, in a survey, they would be lumped together as old, white men.

During the feminist movement of the seventies, I argued with several guys at various parties that girls are not born knowing certain things–we are taught “women’s work.” For my generation, it began with Christmas presents of baby dolls, small brooms and toy stoves. It continued when females contemplated attending college either to become nurses or school teachers.

We each have certain innate abilities. A few guitar lessons can start a child with a musical talent strumming away. A sibling with a “tin ear” hits many sour notes.

A couple years ago our family doctor sent me to a specialist. I was unhappy with my session with the new physician because I felt he was talking to his stereotype of “a little, old lady” instead of listening to me.

Have you ever met someone who turned out to be a much different person than you had pigeonholed them to be?

CARPENTERS

Two carpenters have made our house the home we enjoy. In October of 1966, when Ken became a Winnebago County deputy, we needed a new place to live. We wanted to raise our family in Durand but there were no ‘for sale’ signs. Through the grapevine, we learned that Ernie and his wife, Audrey, friends of my parents, had bought the place at the corner of Howard and Fremont Streets to remodel and resell. We talked to them and obtained the Durand State Bank’s commitment to a mortgage so we could purchase one of the oldest, two-story houses in the village. The three-bedroom residence was ideally located–two blocks from the school, two blocks from our church and two blocks from the downtown. Ken would drive our car to Rockford for work every day so our three kids and I would be walking to do our activities. We moved in the day before Ken started his new job.

A few years later, Ken wanted a two-car garage. We talked to Ernie about the project. I asked if he could include a family room in between our residence and the new structure making it about nine feet wide like the kitchen. He said it wouldn’t cost a lot more to make it the same dimension as the garage length, twenty-four feet. Through the years, we’ve appreciated the larger room.

From time to time, we needed small, remodeling projects and hired various carpenters who were available.

In 2011, we needed a big update. We engaged Jim, who had grown up in our neighborhood and recently completed an addition for our son. He worked alone and Ken, who was retired, sometimes helped him. The two men figured out that our washer and dryer, which had always sat in the basement, would fit on a remodeled, back porch. I argued against the move but the fellows reminded me, “You’re not getting any younger.” They were right–with the machines on the main floor, it doesn’t take much effort to do our laundry. I’m glad they insisted on the change,

Jim also made one of my long-term ideas an actuality. After our family room was completed, I used a paint-by-number outline to add a western mural to one wall. I had always envisioned Ken’s toy train from his childhood added to the backdrop, but I needed an elevated, wooden, railroad bridge to hold it. I talked to Jim about the project and he made just what I wanted.

Have you ever had a carpenter’s skills turn your dreams into reality?

In the 1950s, I learned to write shorthand as part of my high school course to prepare me to work in an office after graduation. An executive dictating a business letter to a stenographer jotting shorthand in a notebook became obsolete quite a while ago.

During the 1970s, when I was a reporter for the Rockford Morning Star, I used steno pads to take notes for newspaper articles. When a book was full, it became a scrapbook to save copies of my printed articles. A closet shelf is piled full of them.

I have continued to find the notebooks useful. Apparently, others did too because they were available in the grocery store or a large pharmacy.

Last year, I used one to make a weekly calendar patterned after the ones we always received from the Durand State Bank, which is no more. It’s time to make a new one for 2025. The other day, when I looked for a steno pad in the school supplies section of our local grocery, I found none. The next time I was in the city, I checked when I was shopping in Walgreens and couldn’t find one there either. I stopped at an office supply store and asked an employee where I would find a steno pad. The young man looked at me like I wanted a stone tablet. He told me, if they had them, they would be in the paper section and pointed in the direction. Again, no luck. I did find them on-line and had to order three. At least I’m set for a while.

It really annoys me to look in the store for something that has been available for a long time and find it’s no longer being carried. I know I’m not nearly as adept at modern technology as our kids and grandkids but I try. I don’t want to give up all my old ways.

Have you looked for something in the stores that no longer is there?

Sometime along the way, I’ve gone from being tall to being short. When I grew to five-foot-four as a teenager, I felt tall. The women in my life, Mom, Aunt Frannie, my cousins, Doris and Sis, were all five-foot-two or shorter. When something needed to be reached on a high shelf, I did it.

I wasn’t to the point that I couldn’t wear high heels on a dress-up date. Some of my girlfriends stuck to ‘flats’ so they wouldn’t be taller than the fellows they were going out with, a no-no in the 1950s.

When some of my contemporaries who were my equal in height complained about being short, I was amazed.

As the years passed, my grandson, Jacob, recognized my height. I remember the day he proudly said, “Look, Grandma, I’m as tall as you are.” He continued to grow. I look up to the young man he has become.

The first time the nurse at the clinic measured me as part of my annual check-up and stated I was sixty-two inches tall; I was surprised. I don’t know when I lost those other two inches.

I have a problem in my own kitchen. When I want something from a high cupboard, I have to either grab the stool to climb up or ask my husband to reach it.

In grocery stores, I’ve approached strange men to get a product that is on a shelf out of my reach and employees are nowhere in sight.

As we age, we lose height due to a number of changes. After 35, the bone remodeling process alters–the body breaks down bones faster than it rebuilds them; the discs between vertebrae dry out; feet flatten over time; and muscle loss can cause a more stooped posture.

To help prevent bone loss, experts advise us to eat foods rich in calcium, vitamin D and magnesium. Also practice weight-bearing exercises like walking.

Have you lost inches?

We associate the holidays with parties, especially New Year’s Eve. If you’re like me, you spent some time during the past two weeks reminiscing about gatherings you’ve attended through the years.

I’m also thinking of the great party Ken and I missed more than fifty years ago. During the first years of our marriage, we welcomed each new year with the same group of friends we had known since high school or before. Today, most of those folks are gone but they were fun people.

One year, I had a cold and we stayed home. I’d had tuberculosis when I was nineteen and spent five months in a sanitarium recovering. Whenever I got a cold, I took it very easy.

The others had reservations at the posh Corral on Henry Avenue in Beloit, Wisconsin. Like happens on that special night, the prices were higher for less food. Everyone was still hungry when they returned to Bill and Shirley’s house for the remainder of the evening. The first thing the gang did was raid the refrigerator. Then they settled down to a few rounds of “500” while they waited for the magic hour of midnight.

Ken and I spent a quiet evening and were in bed before the ball dropped in New York City.

Afterwards, when we talked with several of the attendees, it seemed we’d missed the greatest party of all time. Other years, we’d always enjoyed the evening but nothing outstanding.

The more I’ve thought about it, do our memories enhance the past occasions? As we talk about them, do they become bigger and Better?

Were they really the “good old days?” We were younger, which has its advantages. Would I really want to be a child again? At the time, I could hardly wait to grow up. High school; had its problems, too–the biggest complaint I made to my strict parents was, “Everyone else can.”

I enjoy our adult children and our adult grandchildren; I have my memories of the two generations as kids.

How do you view your past?

The definition of a tradition–the transmission of beliefs from generation to generation or the fact of being passed on in this way. Most of us have family traditions that we associate with Christmas. These are altered by births, deaths and marriages.

My first memory of celebrating the holiday was Christmas Eve. I took Mom’s place going to the barn with Dad for evening milking. I couldn’t do the work she did but I did keep him company. She was preparing a ham supper for Uncle Hookie, Aunt Frannie and their nearly grown daughters, Doris and Sis, who would arrive at 7 p.m. loaded down with packages. While I was doing chores, Santa Claus left gifts under the tree in the living room. I could hardly wait until we all finished eating to open the presents, most of which were for me. This ended when Sis was married. I was twelve and no longer believed in the Jolly Old Elf but I missed the gathering when it was just the three of us.

Ken came into my life two years later. While he was gone serving in the U.S. Navy, his parents invited me to join their family for Christmas Day dinner and gifts.

Ken and I were married in 1959 and settled on his brother-in-law’s farm where Ken worked as hired man. As our family grew with two daughters, we continued to celebrate with both sets of grandparents.

Ken’s parents were killed in a car crash in the fall of 1962, seven months before our son was born. Lola Mae took her mother’s place cooking Christmas dinner for her two brothers’ families. As the Gaffney children began marrying, that gathering was replaced with a summer picnic.

Since we turned into a police family, Christmas is when we say it is to coincide with work and sleep hours. After all, it’s who gets together–not when we celebrate. Every year, Ken and I make rosettes, which was one of his mother’s holiday goodies and bratzelies, which were always made by the Tschabolds. I want to keep heritage alive for our children and grandchildren.

What traditions do you remember at Christmas time?

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I think something my husband misses about being retired is the jokes he heard from fellow workers. When he went to a job, he always had a fresh gag or two when we attended a social gathering. Now that is missing. Jokes make life more fun.

My family never were wisecrackers, but they did have a sense of humor. While I was growing up, Dad and Mom listened to the radio and laughed at Bob Hope, Red Skelton and the comedians on the WLS National Barn Dance.

After Ken enlisted in the U.S. Navy, the first time I went to Chicago with Hazel and Rolland to visit him at Great Lakes Naval Station, I learned that his dad was a joke teller. We drove by a cemetery and Rolland said, “There’s a dead place, but everyone’s dying to go there.” I was on edge because I was with my boyfriend’s folks and I giggled, which was expected,

I’ve heard it’s easy to tell if you’re old or not when you fall down. Of course, the first thing you do is look around to see if anyone saw you. If people are laughing, you’re not old–if people rush to your side asking, “Are you all right?” you’re old.

We learn to laugh at ourselves. We even tell on ourselves to give our friends a good chuckle.

I think some of the old TV shows were funnier than the present ones. I’ll take a rerun of “Carol Burnett,” “All in the Family,” or “Sanford & Son” over what are billed as comedies today.

The longest lasting comedy show is “Saturday Night Live.” Beginning in 1975. the late-night live sketch comedy variety show often parodies contemporary American culture. It has received a vast number of awards during its five decades on air.

Are you a joke teller?

December reminds me of belly-flopping when I was among the nine pupils who attended the Putnam country school during the nineteen-fifties. We brought our sleds to school and at recess time slid down the road in front of the building. It was a long trek to the top but the ride down was worth it. There were only three farms on the two-mile stretch of gravel road so there was rarely any traffic to be concerned about. The local drivers were aware the kids might be sliding on the road so they came over the hill cautiously.

I had a big, Flexible Flyer sled. We three girls piled up on it–Mary Ann, the oldest of us, laid on her stomach on the bottom, I was in the middle and Sandy, the youngest, on top. As we shoved off, Mary Ann called, “Bumpers up,” which meant bend your knees. I still have a scar on my left shin because one of the boys didn’t steer straight and clipped my leg with the metal point on the front of his sled.

We each walked to school so we were dressed for the weather–snow pants, jacket, scarf, hat, mittens and boots. While we were outside, our mittens usually got wet from the snow. We dried them by laying them on the top of the oil burner that heated the school room.

That first snow fall was eagerly greeted by us, kids. Winter weather brought new games for us to play, “Fox and Goose,” snowball fights and building snowmen.

It brought all sorts of problems for our farmer parents. Pipes and animal waterers froze up often requiring paying a plumber to get the system working again. Ice made walking treacherous for animals and people.

What memories do you have as a child playing in the snow?

I am thankful for Durand, my home community all of my life. Durand’s population as estimated by this year’s census is 1,364. The community has always been considered as the school district which includes the surrounding area. Durand is a one-mural town. The Durand Charm organization had a panorama painted on the south side of an old brick, building on the east side of the square. It highlights the people and places significant in the village’s history such as the first volunteer fire department in the state.

The people who have had faith in the community to start a business here are what kept the area productive.

Four generations of my family have graduated from Durand High School, beginning with the two women who were members of the class of 1930. All of the adults have been educated and prepared to pursue their career of choice.

We’ve had our storms but none have wiped out our community. Chain saws and the electric company have restored us.

We have a police force but crime is not a big issue.

Durand is centrally located–it’s about twenty miles from Rockford, the county seat, Freeport, plus the Wisconsin cities of Monroe and Beloit. Sometimes this is a curse, when I want something from two towns in opposite directions.

Medina Manor, the local, nursing home and rehabilitate center, which also provides retirement apartments has, won state recognition for excellence.

Saelens Park is also one of our community assets. Its paths provide walking and biking lanes away from traffic, and facilities for various games. Its Otter Creek becomes a raceway for plastic, yellow duckies during the 4th of July festivities.

Several years ago, the community adopted the motto “village of volunteers.” We have Mary’s Closet, which has donations of used clothing and s free pantry for those who need help at no cost. Through the years, our family has benefited from the community’s generosity and been part of the giving network.

Recently, I knocked on some neighbors’ doors to add their cell phone numbers to my list of contacts in case I needed help when I was home alone.

I don’t know all of the people in the community like I did when we moved into town in 1966, but I am glad I live here.

What are you thankful for this season?