ONCE, upon a time
when recent grads from UW Madison
were in about fifth and sixth grade
we took a little holiday to Port Washington WI.
We stayed in the motel next to Smith Brothers Restaurant
in our favorite room that overlooked from high up the
Lake Michigan harbor.
Our overnight weekend had us stopping first
for dinner at The Alpine Retreat
in Hubertus, in the shadow of Holy Hill.
There we partook of delightful fare,
and the children had entrees of their choice:
cheeseburgers.
Continuing on our drive, Lee became ill
and felt he was going to throw up.
We stopped and quickly bought a roll of paper towels
in a town on our route to Port Washington.
Lee did indeed vomit and disserted on
the likelihood that he had gotten E Coli
from that cheeseburger.
We think he must have just gotten some learning
about food poisoning in school.
He was insistent that he had that ailment.
His sister Erin, in the next grade up at Hadfield Elementary,
pooh-poohed the idea.
Additionally, she has a tremendous
Aversion
to anyone or anything vomiting.
The exclamatory "E-o-o-o-o"
issued from the back seat
as the learned Lee moaned of E-coli.
The spell of illness quickly dissipated and
we went on to have a lovely stay
on the Lake Michigan shore.
All was well.
We had dinner at Smith Brothers
the next day: planked walleye with their famed
lemon meringue pie, a tradition.
Now the two little travelers continue
their journeys as college graduates.
This memory came to me early this morning
in our new place at old the Putney building
in Waukesha,
as I watched seagulls making circles past our windows,
skimming the nearby Fox River for treasure.
Gulls were a main feature at that Port Washington hotel.
Chief Seattle once said:
All things are connected.
.....................
See Lee's further enunciations on his new blog
'Dixie n Dixie'
as he heads to Houston TX soon.
