memoir

Santa Barbara Holiday

~ Julia Robinson ~ 2 Comments

We just spent the last six nights seven days in Santa Barbara (SB), California. We were treated to gorgeous sunny days in the low seventies though one day hit low 80s. Late January early February is the off season for the California coast. High season starts in May and continues into December. We chose California to get out of Boise, Idaho’s gray season. We could have gone to Hawaii but the draw of a shorter flight and cheaper accommodations made our choice easy. Also I’m still recovering for surgery last fall and can only walk about 2 to 3 miles a day on flat surfaces. Sand is a no for me. SB has a wonderful walk way/ bike path right along the beach. Folks without a handicap were out enjoying the pleasures of the beach including swimming, paddle boarding and surfing.

With the warm weather, we spent out mornings out walking and our afternoons napping and swimming for me. My husband, Pete, always goes to the YMCA for a couple hours anywhere we go. The report from Pete was the Y in Santa Barbara is large and new. The advantage of going to Ys if you belong at home is you can get in at no cost. Usually the facility has excellent equipment, sometimes pools and activities for kids.

We stayed within a half mile of the SB beach at the Inn by the Harbor. The Inn offers cooking facilities in the rooms, continental breakfast, wine and cheese early evening, and milk and cookies late evening. Free bikes are available. The bikes had gears and looked like nice cruisers. I just wasn’t able to use them. The Inn also has a nice pool and hot tub. The Inn was full the entire time we were there with Canadians who apparently knew each other because they gathered in the small lobby every evening for wine. We knew they were Canadians because their cars were parked outside. I think you could stay at the Inn and never rent a car. We rented a car because of my handicap.

Breakfast at the Inn was a mundane continental with cereal, fruit, juice, yogurt, muffins, and bagels. But by having a breakfast provided, we could afford more elaborate dinners. Every meal we had was excellent. All of them were along the beach and we found them through Yelp. We pieced lunch together with left overs and fruit from breakfast.

Looking for a sunny long weekend in the winter, SB may be for you.

McCall Winter Carnival: The Happiest Place in Winter

~ Julia Robinson ~ 4 Comments

Snow Sculptures at McCall 2020 Winter Carnival

Friday, January 24 was the start of McCall, Idaho annual Winter Carnival. This family centri event is bound to please all the snow hounds in your household with everything from gorgeous snow sculptures to fireworks, parade, dog sledding and mongrel racing. Of course there are all the snow events; downhill skiing, skating, cross country skiing, snow shoeing, and sledding. We go almost every year and I am always amazed by the local creativity and work that goes into the sculptures.

We go every year. I remember the kids finding the big piles of snow to crawl on better than the sculptures. Their dad is still delighted by snow. He likes to knock it off our cabin roof. He loves to chop wood and fill the wood stove to make our cabin really cozy. The Winter Carnival offers something for everyone, a place to make family memories of good times in snowy weather.

Reflections on Martin Luther King’s Birthday

~ Julia Robinson ~ 4 Comments

My dad grew up in the South in a small town called Lancaster, the deepest, darkest backwaters of South Carolina.  He attended the Citadel for college, alma mater to Robert E. Lee, the civil war general.  Founded in 1843, Citadel graduates fired the first shots in the Civil War.  A rigorous military school, academically comparable to our national military academies, the Citadel was not a bastion of progressive thought.

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Citadel Campus
plantation home
Similar to my grandmother’s home

My ancestors, I am not proud to say were the plantation owners who came from England  in the 18th century.  English gentry, 2nd sons without land establishing large successful plantations based on slavery.  My sister and I can still remember visiting my grandmother, Daisy, who lived to be 102.  She owned a large plantation home, a replica of “Gone with the Wind”.  The plantation land had been sold by the time we arrived in the 1950’s to visit.  But her home and surrounding plot was still a compound with a family duplex built in back.  Sections of the house had been walled off so her black maid could have a place to live.  A big white mansion had screened front porches for sleeping during the muggy southern summers and large fans throughout because it had no air conditioning.  The rooms were huge with high ceilings. We never saw the kitchen, hidden somewhere in the back.  The black maid accommodated our food needs.

When we visited our relatives in Lancaster, we could have been dropped into the book, “The Help”.  Silent black women dressed in soft pastels with white aprons would appear and take our orders for sweet tea or Coca-cola.   As small kid from Wyoming,  I found being waited on and sitting quietly in a fussy dress while adults conversed around me quite bizarre and uncomfortable.

We drove to the south whenever we visited. Days of traveling on endless turnpikes with visits to historical monuments and battle fields.  I remember asking my mom, “Why are there signs saying whites only and colored on the bathrooms.”  Her response, “We don’t do that in the West.”  Not exactly an answer but I  got the message that this was not a way to live. 

Segregated restrooms
Colored only signs in the south

My mom and dad were like, the current royals, Megan and Harry.  Dad met my mom in Wyoming when he was stationed at Warren Army base. He was smitten and wrote her throughout the war.  They married right afterwards. Dad joined the family business in Lancaster taking mom far from her western roots.  They lived in the duplex on the compound.  Mom used to describe black people lined up to pay their rent every Friday outside my Grandfather’s bank.  She did not approve of making money on the backs of poor black families. My dad was a partner in the family department store, the only one in Lancaster. Dad took his funds out of the family business and moved west.  I think because mother couldn’t stand the genteel standards of the southern women and the inherent racism in the town.  But in fairness to my Dad, the war had changed him.  He had fought with men of many different races and traveled the world eventually being stationed in India.

My sister and I were born and grew up in Wyoming, certainly not a bastion of progressive thought.  Yet, my sister and I are both liberal Democrats. We have seen and experienced racism as an ingrained culture.  We know what it’s like to be dropped, like Alice in Wonderland, into a world that is very different than our own.  We both have adopted children of different nationalities.  We have traveled the world and been open to new experiences.  The seething, undercurrents of racism in the 1950’s in the south have stayed with me always.  I don’t want to use restrooms delineated by color or belong to organizations that exclude entire groups of people.  I believe in welcoming all into our churches.

Martin Luther King Day reminds me of my upbringing.  I know he had a tremendous cultural and social battle to wage.  Unfortunately, that struggle continues.

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Why I March: One Voice Can Make a Difference

~ Julia Robinson ~ Leave a comment

We watched Peanut Butter Falcon on Netflix over Christmas vacation.  The amusing, emotionally touching movie is a coming of age story starring a Down’s Syndrome young man (Played by Zack Gottsagen).  Another young man with Down’s Syndrome is featured in Stumptown a television crime drama. Paralleling Falcon, Ansel Parisos (Played by Cole Sibus) is struggling with how to live as a young adult in Portland.  Both of these shows are remarkable because individuals with Down’s Syndrome staring in major television roles would have seemed an impossibility thirty years ago.

My first job out of graduate school (1978) was director of the Wyoming ARC/Developmental Disability Council.   The Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act was passed in 1975.  The purpose of the federal law was to insure a public school education was provided to all handicapped children. We had a lot of trouble in Wyoming getting schools to accept disabled children into the classroom. Parents didn’t know they had rights to insist the schools provide services. I remember speaking to the Wyoming Appropriations Committee about the law and having the Chair of the committee interrupt me and say, “These kids are like Angus in among the Herefords.  If we had any of these kids, we would see them and we just don’t.”

I was young, feisty and full of energy. That comment made me furious. I thought if you want to see handicapped children than I will make sure we go out and identify them.  The Developmental Disabilities Council provided a grant to the University of Wyoming to conduct screening clinics in Wyoming’s small rural communities that summer.  The teams identified more than 650 preschool children who were in need of special education services.  There is no voice more passionate or pervasive than a parent who is told their child needs services but the legislature is too miserly to fund the services.  Believe me, the Chair of the Appropriations heard from those parents.

During this period, we were trying to fund early intervention preschools and adult work programs all across the state. We had a statewide funding formula which  cost millions of dollars.  Oil-rich Wyoming coffers could certainly afford to pay for these programs but conservative legislators were not convinced. We had the votes in the House because the Speaker of the House, a very conservative Republican was married to a special education teacher.  He recognized the need.  But we did not have the votes in the Senate.

I worked phone lines every day and every night.  I wasn’t calling legislators.  I was calling parents to call their Senator(s) and asked him to vote yes.  The day of the vote the Senate gallery was packed with parents and children.  The votes were tallied. The yes/no’s flashed up on the screen.  We were one vote short.  The bill was going to die.  I could feel the disappointment of the parents squeezing my heart.  One Senator from Newcastle, Wyoming, a tiny town in Northeast Wyoming stood up.  You could hear a pin drop at that moment. He changed his vote to a yes.  He said when he made the change, “I cannot go home and face my constituents if this bill dies.  Wyoming needs to serve the developmentally disabled.”  The gallery went wild. with applause and cheering.

Over thirty years later, handicapped children who had access to early intervention services are moving into our communities, working in our businesses, starring in television shows and movies.  They’re showing us that advocacy work on the side of justice pays off.

The Women’s March is this weekend.  I march in principle.  Black, white, Hispanic, Native American, yellow, male, female, LGBTQ-A, handicapped, old, young; we all deserve an equal chance to succeed in this great country.  We are a country where one person’s voice/vote can still make a difference.

 

Merry Christmas from our house to yours

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We built our house in 2004 for our two kids.  Each child has a bedroom/bathroom on the second floor and there is giant playroom on the upper floor where  video war games can be played at high decibels without interfering with adults in the lower regions.  The upper floor is now empty most of the year, ghostly quiet.  But this Christmas both my son and daughter are home to share the holidays with us.  This is a special gift because both are young adults who have many friends and active lives in other cities far from Boise.

One of the gifts of our house is it transforms into a Christmas house when we decorate. We have 20 foot ceilings in the living room and a huge gas and rock fireplace.  There is plenty of space to host a spectacular Christmas tree and hang stockings with care.  We have downsized the tree and our decorations as we have aged but even on a smaller scale the house provides a cozy, Christmas haven.

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The house also reflects who we are.  There is a large golden retriever Christmas decoration on the front porch.  We love our animals.  We had a gold lab for many years, named Annie, who we all adored.  Our wreath inside also carries on the animal theme.

I collect decorations from all our travels so I have many rare gems such as hand painted eggs from Prague and hand-blown angels from Venice, just to name a couple.

But my favorite ornaments are the ones the kids have made me over the years.  They are little tidbits of love memorialized for our tree.

Christmas is in two days, then my son flies back off to Seattle and his other life.  My daughter is having surgery for a torn ACL while skiing.  So the Christmas spirit at our house is brief.  But while it’s here, I will delight in the decorations that showcase a family’s life built on love and trust.

May the spirit of Christmas be with you this season and throughout the year.img_0202

Advent Calendars: Count Down to Christmas

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The first of December is the start of the Advent season and at our house the bringing forth of the annual advent calendar.  Advent means “coming”. The idea is simple: Count down the days in December leading up to Christmas Eve. Advent Calendars come from Germany where Christians marked doors with chalk and later created special calendars to count the days to Christmas.

When I was little, we had two Advent Calendars, one for me and one for my older sister.  They were simple cardboard with pictures covered by little flaps. Each flap had a number, 1 to 25, marking the days until Christmas.  My mother kept the same two calendars for many years and just switched them up.  I’m not sure if that was because she was thrifty or because we needed to save the money.  As a kid I always felt we had plenty of funds, but maybe not.  My dad was a small businessman, selling ladies shoes in a small Wyoming town.  While we lived comfortably, we certainly weren’t wealthy. Really, the repeat calendars were great because they served the purpose of starting holiday festivities early.

IMG_0133Nowadays, I get new calendars for my kids and my husband from Trader Joe’s.  They are less than $2,  filled with little pieces of chocolate and help mark the season and remind my family that I am the keeper of the family traditions.  My husband eats all of the little candies at once.  My son misplaces the calendar, remembers the calendar half way into January and gets a late Christmas treat.  My daughter who is fastidious opens each box on the appropriate day and has 25 days of Christmas treats.

The variety of calendars is fascinating.  There are basic picture calendars like I grew up with, legos, Hershey Kisses, beauty boxes, and varieties of tea. For those who want to celebrate the Yule Tide season daily, there are calendars with little bottles of whisky, wine and beer. For families who want to build a regular advent tradition there are expensive wooden calendars and hand sewn varieties which can be displayed prominently and refilled with treats and surprises every year.

If you don’t have an advent calendar by now it’s probably a little late to find one.  But I would recommend putting on your shopping list for October/early November 2020.  You can vote for President and then buy a calendar to hopefully celebrate ushering in a new administration.

25 Years of Christmas Memories

~ Julia Robinson ~ Leave a comment

My son, Scott’s, first Christmas, we had a professional picture taken at JC Penney’s in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  He sat on a gaily wrapped package, dressed in a little red vest, bow tie, and dress slacks.  His outfit is complete with moon boots, a Wyoming staple. He wore those boots every day his first winter walking.

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Scott’s first Christmas, 1994

Kayla, my adopted daughter from China, arrived at our Boise house in the spring 2000.  She was 8 months old.  When her first Christmas rolled around, it was easy to have her join Scott in the Penney’s photo studio for our annual Christmas photo.  The photo studio in Boise was much fancier than Cheyenne.  In Cheyenne, there was a camera set up in front of a tree background in the open store.  In Boise, there was a separate studio where 4  minions snapped pictures as a steady stream of children dressed in party clothes paraded through.  The children marched up on a stage and sat on small boxes.  Parents could choose from a variety of backdrops.

Our most exciting year, Scott and Kayla were sitting on the little stage and suddenly disappeared behind the backdrop.  Apparently, the little present had held one too many children and just gave out.  As the mom, standing behind the camera I was stunned.  The backdrop flopped back down but my kids were nowhere to be seen.  They were on the floor behind the little stage, unhurt.  This incident required me to sign a whole series of reports. I received several calls from Penney’s insurance to make sure that no damage had begotten my children.

When we had Scott’s first picture taken, I had a friend who suggested we send out the picture as our Christmas card.  Hard to believe but 25 years ago this was actually an innovative card.  Christmas cards to relatives and friends were still the “in” thing.  This same friend said she had a friend who had sent pictures for 18 years than duplicated all the previous cards when the child graduated from high school.  This crafty friend sent relatives a photo album of all the Christmas pictures. When I started on the Christmas photo project, I planned to assemble them in the same manner.  Sadly, that time has come and gone.  Scott has graduated from high school, college and now works in Seattle.  Kayla graduated from high school two years ago and is at Montana State University in Bozeman.

In recent years, I debate whether to print cards.  After all, everyone sees what you are up to on Facebook.  My Christmas list has drastically reduced as family members and friends pass or move and don’t provide forwarding addresses.

Today, I bought my Christmas stamps.  The purchase was an act of intention committing me to printing 2019 cards.   The digital world makes it so much easier.  If we aren’t together for a picture, I can go online, pick out a frame with individual shots and make it look like we are at least in touch with each other.  This year we were all together.  We went to Hawaii in May and we spent Thanksgiving together in Buffalo, Wyoming.  My husband, Pete, and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary with a trip on the inner passage of Alaska by ferry. We have lots of memories to share.

Now I have to brave the crowds at Costco to pick up the cards. Why bother in the current cyber world?  I decided to continue the tradition one more year because 25 years of family Christmas photos is really a lovely gift to my husband and me.

Thanksgiving

~ Julia Robinson ~ 1 Comment

turkey dinnerWe are headed to Buffalo, Wyoming for Thanksgiving this year.  Our trek is elaborate.  We start out on Tuesday and head to Bozeman, Montana.  We spend the night in Bozeman and pick up our daughter, Kayla, who is a sophomore at Montana State University.  We also drop off her snow tires.

Then we soldier on to Billings where we stay in a suite that has a 24-hour airport shuttle.  This is an important feature because our son, Scott, is flying in from Seattle and arrives at midnight when most things in Billings are closed.  Assuming everything goes as planed, he arrives at our room about 12:30 am while the rest of us continue snoozing peacefully with visions of turkey drifting through our heads.

If Billings goes anything like last year, we will be running around late looking for tofu turkey.  Scott is a vegetarian and we left our specially bought vegan plunder at home.  We raced in the only vegetarian market in Billings just at closing (8 pm) and bought a supply of frozen veggie turkeys.  Scott landed on time but crashed through the dark room waking everyone up.  But who am I to complain?  He made the sojourn from Seattle after work on a cigar plane (one seat on each side) to a small airport, landing in the middle of the night, just to join the family.

We get up on Thanksgiving day and drive two and half hours to Buffalo, Wyoming.  The town is about 4,500 people;  about half of whom are Koziseks. The Koziseks have manned the sheriff’s office and police force for years. The next generation is now serving.  There is such a crowd that last year we had dinner in the basement of the Baptist Church.  We didn’t fit in a house.  A large number of the family were left out because my nephew’s wife was entertaining her extended family at their mini-ranch.  We dropped by for a visit and couldn’t get in the door so many people were in attendance. The thought of all of us together in Buffalo is mind boggling.  My husband’s family are all avid hunters and fishers and believe in standing for the flag at football games.  We always have lots to talk about except politics.

My husband, Pete, lost his younger brother who lived in California last spring.  Our Thanksgiving group will be slightly smaller and a lot sadder this year.  The California brother was the big arranger of family reunions and his favorite place was Disney Land.  We have toured the Magic Kingdom on a number of occasions in a Kozisek crowd.  My husband used to laughingly refer to his California brother’s family as the “Disney Nazi’s” because we did Disney from sunrise to fireworks every day.  I fondly remember the trips because Kayla was little and got passed around a lot. I got a break from child care and the pleasure of adult company.disneyland

Over the years, what I have found most remarkable about all these visits is the goodwill.  We are very different people but at Thanksgiving and in Disney Land we seem to be able to find common ground.  I have learned that love and gratitude grow with age.  In the Kozisek family, there is always plenty of both to go around.

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Random Thoughts from Easter 2017

~ Julia Robinson ~ Leave a comment

I awoke to a glorious Easter Sunday in Boise! Always a blessing to get up and greet the sun.  We’ve had a winter that didn’t seem to want to end. There was snow just last Thursday.

Our minister told a packed house; “Anyone who likes to garden has faith. It is an act of faith to put a seed in the ground and look forward to it springing forth with new life.”  Let’s get out there planting little sprouts to bring hope to ourselves and others.

Five years ago I would never expected to see police in uniform on duty with a bomb sniffing dog at church.  Now we are getting to use to it.  We had one at the Cathedral of the Rockies at Christmas too.  This time the policeman was extremely kind to everyone and the gorgeous German Shepard was very photogenic.  Fortunately, their presence was not needed.

We always buy flowers at Easter from the church youth group to help support youth mission trips in the summer. The pink and blue hydrangeas have thrived in my back yard. The one we go this year practically shouts, “Look at me!”

I buy the Calla Lilies in honor of my daughter Kayla, both the lily and Kayla have roots to China but grow well in Idaho. This year I am blessed to have both flowers and daughter grace my house with beauty.

This is the twenty-second year I have hidden Easter baskets, a family tradition. I will miss it when Kayla goes away to college, one more year of baskets.  We learned this year with Scott home for a while that you are never too old to bite off the ears of a chocolate bunny.

My son is off to Seattle May first to expand his world and hopefully hunt down a good first job.  We are all very excited for him.  The purpose of parenthood is to raise children who can float by themselves.  I will miss his good humor, beautiful photographs  and noise around the house.

Our male tom cat, Satch, had a good Easter. He discovered a box in the house just his size, always a delight.  The weather was perfect for cats to lay outside and soak up sun.

Easter is a time of new beginnings. May this year bring out the very best in you and your family.  Thanks for reading.

On the hunt for the perfect college I find myself questioning long held beliefs

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My daughter is a high school junior. We have spent recent school breaks and long weekends  touring colleges. I started this project with the concept that we are fortunate to have resources.  We have saved enough in a 529 plan for Kayla to go to the University of Idaho and only be responsible for incidentals.  Kayla is Asian. The last couple of years she has begun feeling the pressure of being a rare exotic flower in a sea of all white. She will frequently mention to me that we are once again in a room of Caucasians.  Her father and I decided we needed to kick up our savings a notch to allow Kayla to attend an out-of-state school with a more diverse student population.  My husband is 70 and still working and I am 66 and retired.  Increasing the college fund actually means reducing our retirement savings.  I realize these are the same trade-offs most families make but they probably have fewer resources and are at least 10 to 20 years younger.

Idaho is part of the Western Undergraduate Education program (WUE) which means that at participating schools, you do not pay full out-of-state tuition rather you pay instate times .5 This assumes the student has adequate test scores and grade point average. Kayla meets all the achievement criteria.  Kayla has toured Montana schools twice.  They don’t offer better diversity than Idaho. Montana is, however, slightly more liberal. Montana schools’ tuition aligns with Idaho’s.  We have also toured Nevada-Reno, more diverse and a brand new campus purchased by large donors, demonstrating money makes such a difference. UNR is in a price range with Idaho slightly more diverse but not as academically well-rated.

Kayla has always wanted to go to Colorado State. We attended an immersion program over President’s weekend and she was delighted.  I was a little less delighted because the in-state tuition and room and board is topping out at $100,000. The  WUE tuition is $125,000, significantly above our slight bump-up in tuition.  As the financial aid officer was reviewing costs, one mom started crying in the back.  She asked, “What if my daughter can’t meet achievement scores?”  The financial aid officer suggested loans.  I  was satisfied we could probably make this work by increasing our savings the next 2 years and continuing to pay for Kayla’s college costs the next four years (mind you my husband will be 76 and I’ll be 72 when we get Kayla through school).  I said to the financial officer as I was walking out door, “If we come up with $125,000, this will fund 4 years at CSU for my daughter?”  He says, “Probably not, with inflation the cost is more likely to be $140,000.”   That sum of money is about the same amount as we sold  a 3 bedroom rental house  in Meridian last year.  It was a number that made my heart sink.  We are too well off to qualify for any type of financial assistance.  I don’t expect the public to be paying for my daughter to go to a state school.  But I do think that public colleges are  too expensive.  As my husband says, our tours have made the University of Idaho look like a great value.  CSU rates slightly better than U of I on academic criteria but not substantially better for almost twice the cost.

We are now taking a spring break to tour California schools. I call it our fantasy land tour.  I have three girls with me including my daughter.  One has a trust fund and can afford to go to any school she can get into. One is having trouble funding her meals on the trip though she has excellent grades.  I am paying for everything but food. We are staying in hotels where breakfast is provided so she only needs to cover lunch and dinner.  She asked to come on the trip because she has never been to California.   I am sure she will probably qualify for financial aid but not enough for the high cost of California schools.  Then there is my daughter.  We think she should be somewhere with high academic standards and where diverse populations are welcoming and abundant (sounds like California to me).  But when we looked with my son six years ago, there was a gap of $60,000 annually between the scholarship he received and the cost of the school where he wanted to go.  We said we wouldn’t pay it and he ended up at Idaho.  He has graduated now and we are hopeful a college education will help him land in the middle class as it did my husband and I. But I don’t know that for sure.  He has yet to land a job on the west coast where he wants to go for the same reason my daughter wants to go out of state, more diversity and more liberal thinking.

What I do know is if upper class, highly educated professionals find the cost of education daunting it must be terrifying for most families. I think we need a well-educated workforce. To achieve that, college needs to be accessible to most people.  That means public universities need to have a reasonable tuition for the middle class.  I don’t agree with Bernie Sanders that college should be free for everyone.  But I do understand why his message resonated with college students trying to make their way through school while studying, working, and carrying large loans.  I think public colleges need to be affordable.  If that means, my husband and I pay more taxes to make that happen so be it.  We need a workforce of the future that is well-trained, creative, and not dragged down by debt.