A Couple Days “Up On The Roof” for Dennis

  I may have mentioned that Den has an aunt and uncle who live in Montgomery, IL…Uncle Clarence (we call him Junior), and Aunt Jeanette. He is 86 and she is 94..They still live in their own home that he built himself in the late 1950’s. They are just about the neatest people we know, if not a little eccentric, and they have no children.  In 1949 Jeannette drove her mother and herself from Illinois up to Anchorage, Alaska..in a new 1949 car..two women alone on an adventure! She had a brother who worked in a pharmacy in Anchorage and they went to visit him. Driving the Al-Can Highway at that time was a real challenge, especially for 2 women alone.  This is what endears Jeanette to me…way ahead of the “Women’s Lib movement”..

  We went to help them fix their chimney, but when we arrived we found that they were having an electrical problem also, so McGuyver  got right on that.  After a little trouble shooting Den discovered they had a bad ground wire.  This could have been really bad, possible starting a fire, so Den fixed it right away before he climbed up on the roof.

….McGuyver…removing old mortar so he can add flashing and more fresh mortar.  He only does “flashing” for family, by the way.

Uncle Jr. and Aunt Jeanette are great people…Still living in their home, but having a rough time doing it. Aging is something none of us can prevent , if we manage to maneuver our way through life..NONE OF US…and Uncle Jr. is finding it so hard to realize he can’t do what he used to. ( FYI, he was the first McGuyver.)   As we all know, having a home is constant upkeep..shit happens when you least expect it ,(in the RV it’s the same, just a different list of potential disasters, and sometimes it really IS shit.)  Dennis worked about 5 hours on the roof, and got finished just in time…The sky opened up with a rain shower. We still need to go back and touch up one more bad spot.

Left is their outside table, where we have all shared a few cocktails. In the middle is Uncle Jr.,slowly making his way around the garage.  And on the right is their very large living room front window, overlooking the Fox River.

Left is the dam on the Fox River, just across the road from their home..and on the right is their view of the Fox River.  There is a walking path and, as you can see, lots of people use it.  They have a lovely spot, and it used to be rural.  That has really changed since they built their home in the late 50’s.    You can’t control who moves in… Lately a slightly “unseemly” element has been slowly creeping into this old neighborhood, and we worry about the neighborhood their house is becoming a part of…not what it used to be.  Gangs are a pretty big problem in Aurora, IL, and Montgomery is adjoined to Aurora.  People tend to prey on elderly couples who live alone, and Den and I worry about them.  I think that, soon, it may be time to find a safer way of life for our wonderful aunt and uncle. We all will be there someday, and that is just a fact of life.

This is Aunt Jeanette’s Smoke Bush.  I really want to get a piece of this and see if I can keep it… or kill it. The latter will probably be the case, but I love it!!

  We left Jr. and Jeanette’s house about 5PM, and this was our view driving home toward Sandwich…. Later that evening they had an F-3 tornado touch down about 40 miles South of us….

  McGuyver had another roof job come up yesterday.  Our son, Kelly, and his wife, Cindy, sprung a big leak in their roof after the big rain.  It opened up a hole you could stick your head through, according to Den.  I didn’t get out to the “job site”, but he and Kelly made a trip or two back to our house to get more stuff to patch it.  The fact that Dennis worked for a carpenter for about 6 years after he retired from Caterpillar is a real plus.  It has come in handy over the years.

  I’ll close with a photo of my very over-zealous clematis that is climbing up our deck.  It has completely covered the outdoor outlet where I plug in my fountain, so Den had to get me an extension cord to plug and unplug it….

  

See y’all Thursday…..thanks for tunin’ in!