Provider of many things for me, including this oriole's nest, still a treasure............
TO SAMANTHA DAYE VOLLMEROn the occasion of your high school graduation:
Congratulations
I have never met you but any friend of Bill Vollmer’s is a friend of mine. And certainly, a granddaughter is!
We would love to attend your graduation ceremony and meet you and see the other Vollmers in attendance. Unfortunately we cannot come. But I thought I might write you a letter on this auspicious occasion, at least.
You must be around 18 years of age. How long ago now did Bill pass away? In many ways he never left me, and his memory comes daily. If for no other reason than because of the oriole nest I admired years ago high in a tree on Twin Island Road. Ever present in our home, it now hangs here on the high wall of our living room between that level and the upper loft where I now sit typing.
Your Grandpa Bill said in his gruff voice, “Do want that, Dave? I’ll git it fer ya!”
Whereupon he got a long ladder and propped it up against the big tree and got as high as he could on that and then climbed higher and after checking the nest for eggs or no eggs he broke it off the branch and brought it down to me.
He was very careful not to damage the fragile woven nest. I’ve enclosed a picture of it hanging in our new place in downtown Waukesha. Any of you Vollmers can come and see it and visit us any time. (262-547-1427 or ddix1@wi.rr.com)
But far beyond that reminder of Bill are the times we had together up there in Marinette Co. Fishing on the Menominee, catching walleyes, dispatching carp for the eagles………and I still go over in my mind the time I first met Bill and Jane and the family when we were introduced by your uncle Tom back around 1977. I was hired to sell the family house on Hawley Rd in Milwaukee. We got ‘er done (pure luck!) in 11 days after a period of some months of being listed thru other less fortunate Realtors.
After that - and we raised the price, too -I was in solid with them. My wife Dee and I even honeymooned in the family cabin on the renowned 40 acres. We’ve been married now 27 years. The deer mice that owned the cabin did not deter us.
Other times, I went to your cabin to XC ski, etc.
Dining on walleye fried by your grandmother in her big cast iron skillet on Twin Island, man oh man!
Unforgettable, all of it.
I wish you well as you begin the next chapter of your lovely life. I say lovely because your grandfather Bill taught me to love life as he did. He did it in a tough way, I’m sure you’ve been told. But your dad, Alan, was among those who respected him and tried to fully obey.
The ghost of your grandfather will be present at your graduation. You won’t have to look for it.
When I drove up for his funeral several years ago I followed the Menominee River where he used to fish and feed the eagles the carp. I saw an eagle swooping low over the river through the fog, and I thought he might have been doing a fly-over for his departed friend, provider and fishing buddy.
This letter will run in the raccoon news, a blog I do. I will be sure that your Dad gets it to you.
Best wishes!
David Dix
Samantha's dad Alan at a younger age
I have never met you but any friend of Bill Vollmer’s is a friend of mine. And certainly, a granddaughter is!
We would love to attend your graduation ceremony and meet you and see the other Vollmers in attendance. Unfortunately we cannot come. But I thought I might write you a letter on this auspicious occasion, at least.
You must be around 18 years of age. How long ago now did Bill pass away? In many ways he never left me, and his memory comes daily. If for no other reason than because of the oriole nest I admired years ago high in a tree on Twin Island Road. Ever present in our home, it now hangs here on the high wall of our living room between that level and the upper loft where I now sit typing.
Your Grandpa Bill said in his gruff voice, “Do want that, Dave? I’ll git it fer ya!”
Whereupon he got a long ladder and propped it up against the big tree and got as high as he could on that and then climbed higher and after checking the nest for eggs or no eggs he broke it off the branch and brought it down to me.
He was very careful not to damage the fragile woven nest. I’ve enclosed a picture of it hanging in our new place in downtown Waukesha. Any of you Vollmers can come and see it and visit us any time. (262-547-1427 or ddix1@wi.rr.com)
But far beyond that reminder of Bill are the times we had together up there in Marinette Co. Fishing on the Menominee, catching walleyes, dispatching carp for the eagles………and I still go over in my mind the time I first met Bill and Jane and the family when we were introduced by your uncle Tom back around 1977. I was hired to sell the family house on Hawley Rd in Milwaukee. We got ‘er done (pure luck!) in 11 days after a period of some months of being listed thru other less fortunate Realtors.
After that - and we raised the price, too -I was in solid with them. My wife Dee and I even honeymooned in the family cabin on the renowned 40 acres. We’ve been married now 27 years. The deer mice that owned the cabin did not deter us.
Other times, I went to your cabin to XC ski, etc.
Dining on walleye fried by your grandmother in her big cast iron skillet on Twin Island, man oh man!
Unforgettable, all of it.
I wish you well as you begin the next chapter of your lovely life. I say lovely because your grandfather Bill taught me to love life as he did. He did it in a tough way, I’m sure you’ve been told. But your dad, Alan, was among those who respected him and tried to fully obey.
The ghost of your grandfather will be present at your graduation. You won’t have to look for it.
When I drove up for his funeral several years ago I followed the Menominee River where he used to fish and feed the eagles the carp. I saw an eagle swooping low over the river through the fog, and I thought he might have been doing a fly-over for his departed friend, provider and fishing buddy.
This letter will run in the raccoon news, a blog I do. I will be sure that your Dad gets it to you.
Best wishes!
David Dix
Samantha's dad Alan at a younger agefront row middle
This letter was drafted, as it happens, on Fathers Day, June 20, 2010, and fitting that it is, to honor not only the HS graduate but her grandfather Bill. Producer with his brave wife Jane of 11 children (shown above). I think that makes him a super father.
