June 2022

June was a good month! But it went by fast as it usually does. School is out for the summer, which means that Rose will be a senior in the fall and Emily will be a freshman. This will be the only year that they both attend high school together. And it means that Rose will be graduating around this time next year! That's hard to believe. Also, she applied to Coe College and was accepted! Welcome, class of 2027:

Since Cynthia works at Coe Rose's tuition is free, so we're only on the hook for room and board (which isn't cheap, either). Even though Coe is close enough that Rose could easily live at home, we felt like Rose living in the dorms and being on campus full-time would be an important part of the college experience and a step towards becoming a fully independent grown-up living on her own.

For Cynthia's birthday one of the things she asked for was a series of drawings of each of the houses we've owned. It's gonna take a while to get all three done, but I had the Des Moines house done in time for her birthday. With some help from Alice:

The finished drawing:

Alice in a rare moment when she's not tearing the house apart or climbing the curtains:

I made the trip out to Boston for the first time since the pandemic (and I'll be going out again in July). It was good to finally meet so many people in person that I had only spoken to on zoom calls. Also, I feel like I barely know anybody there anymore. The company has hired roughly 500 people since the beginning of 2020, so there are a lot of new faces.

Somewhere over Ohio:

Random: this groundhog apparently lives under our shed in the backyard. We occasionally see him waddling around out there:

I made the 30-mile roundtrip bike ride to Center Point. A few years ago I made this trip regularly, but then got tired of riding the same route all the time so since then I've changed it up.

I usually turn around to head back when I'm just north of the Center Point train depot:

Cynthia went with some friends to see the Indigo Girls:

Emily and Alice taking an afternoon nap:

That cat is growing like a weed:

We went to Double Z's to see Stryper! I've never seen them before and it was a pretty cool experience. Those dudes are gettin' old, but they can still rock like it's 1985. I was impressed, they can still tear it up and Michael Sweet has an incredible voice. And the only non-original member of the band is the bass player. There were a couple stages set up and Fresh Fighters played the smaller one in the background of our lovely date night pic:

It was cool to see all the die-hard fans and people who knew the lyrics to every song. Out of their 90-minute set I think I knew about 6 songs. And they have a new album coming out this summer. Lots of energy:

I always heard that Stryper threw Bibles into the crowd at the end of their shows... and guess what? They still do. We caught this one:

November 2020

In November Cynthia and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary by going to DSM and staying in our nifty mid-century modern hideaway again. And we visited Peace Tree when we got there:

 

A picture-perfect breakfast:

After a brisk walk around Gray's Lake we explored the new tunnel connecting to Waterworks Park:

All those years living in DSM and we never visited the Salisbury House. So we checked that off the list and it was even better than expected. As cool as it was I still think I like Glensheen better. This place is quite the castle, though. It was built for Carl Weeks, a pharmacist who made a killing making his own cosmetics and selling them in his stores, later distributing them nationwide. The Weeks family didn't have much money prior to their unexpected success, so when they achieved overnight wealth they didn't really know what to do with it all and went a tad overboard. They spent uncontrollably until the cosmetic business declined around a decade later and they lost ownership of the home, donating it to Drake University with the agreement that they could remain as tenants. Drake gradually placed more limitations on how they could live there and which parts of the house the family could access until they eventually moved out and lived in a small ranch-style house nearby.

The entryway was designed to impress and although I didn't get a picture of it from the main floor, I did get this shot from up above in the balcony overlooking the room:

The back stairs coming down from the balcony:

They had an enormous garage and a separate building for grounds keepers and a mechanic. They ended up in the center of controversy when one of the sons raced around the neighborhood in one of the cars late one night and killed another driver.

A Thanksgiving with just the four of us:

One of Cynthia's coworkers asked if I could draw a picture of her childhood home. This is my first completed color pencil drawing in over 20 years:

We found this snake on the trail on one of our walks. He/she was very cold and could barely move. I helped the snake find some soft earth to tunnel into:

Every spring and fall I clear out the Conrad's gutters. This year I installed gutter guards so their gutters wouldn't keep clogging:

Time to put up the tree!

I think this squirrel is ready for winter:

Daniels Park. A few months ago on July 4th we celebrated on this very spot pictured here with friends and family. It will be a very long time before Cedar Rapids recovers from the derecho.

Grandpa and Grandma Brackin's House

Recently I ran across an old pen and ink drawing that I had rendered depicting my Grandma and Grandpa Brackin's house. I worked from a photograph and finished it right around the time of my high school graduation. The trees were the most difficult part to draw, so I decided to exclude most of them from the picture.

The house had been built in the 1850s and was part of the underground railroad before the American Civil War. There was a large old built-in cabinet that was designed so that the shelves could be removed and the very back of it would open to reveal a tiny hidden room. Two or three people could hide in their for a short time if needed and there was no other access to the room. The cupboard was torn out and the room was sealed off when the kitchen was remodeled, which was OK because that hidden room was creepy!

For generations, the house was passed down the line, remaining in the family. The original idea was that neither the house nor the land (22 acres) would ever be sold and it would always stay in the family. Unfortunately, that chain of ownership was broken in the late 90s when my grandma sold the house a few years after my grandpa died.

Now all of the land has been parceled off and the house has been completely remodeled and today it sits in the middle of a neighborhood. When I was growing up it was surrounded by woods and a small corn field. Even though it's changed a lot, I still remember it this way: