Archive for Personal/Family – Page 7

The Sorcerer’s Garden…

She loves to garden and has since she was this age. So did her grandmother, Lena, and mother Virginia. But my wife, Marilynn, has taken it to a new level. Two years ago, I profiled her as My Gardener and people were amazed. http://www.jackbernardstravels.com/my-gardener). 

She started 20 years ago with a vision and a bare concrete patio. She did a masterful job bringing her vision to life, but now the creation is threatening to overwhelm the creator. 10 years ago, when it was clear she couldn’t do it alone, a friend with a degree from the UW Horticultural Center offered to help. That arrangement lasted five years and then a talkative hardworking Austrian showed up. Last week he announced he’s moving to Hawaii and the job is open again. My fingers are crossed that another garden angel shows up to give her a hand. read more

A River Runs Through It…

My mother died in 1997. I honored her wish to be cremated and the cardboard box holding her remains sat on a shelf in my closet until the summer of 2009. I wasn’t trying to hang on to her in some creepy way, but I had a plan that took 12 years to execute. 

Claudine Mildred Christy Bernard was born in Missoula, Montana in 1906. I was born there 31 years later. Both my father and mother graduated from the University of Montana in 1928, where she was one of the first women graduates of the UM School of Journalism. My son, Brent, majored in geology at Montana State, and in 1997, daughter Diana and her husband, Nick, graduated from UM with degrees in English. Last year their son, Will, entered UM as an art major.  read more

The Perfect Run…

My friend Joel Leidecker died in April. We had known each other for 63 years. We were fraternity brothers at the University of Washington. He was younger and I didn’t know him well back then, but. we reconnected when he and wife Jody moved their family to Ketchum in the mid-1970s.

Their boys, Erik and Matt, were soon friends and classmates of my kids, Doug and Diana, and I remember when they were about 9 or 10 Doug and Erik roped up to climb a big boulder in the center of town. They’ve continued climbing and skiing and today Erik runs Sawtooth Mountain Guides and is helping Doug, a former Green Beret, get his mountain guide certification. Needless to say, their connection has endured. read more

Baby Steps…

After sixteen months of Covid isolation, we were ready to hit the road. I never imagined it would be a difficult or complicated decision but times change. In January of 2020 Marilynn arranged a summer house trade in France. By March we were in lockdown. All travel plans on hold. By May it was canceled. 

For years we hopped on airplanes and traveled as far as we could. Before the pandemic, we combined our overseas trips with leisurely explorations of America. We drove across Texas (El Paso to Austin), the Southwest (Tucson, Four Corners, Mesa Verde, Moab), the South (Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, St. Simons Island), the Northeast (Rhode Island and the Berkshires, including Tanglewood). But, there are still great expanses of America for us to cover. read more

Art in the Pandemic Era…

If art, music, dance, or theater were an important part of your world earlier, the pandemic has turned it upside down. With the ability to travel, attend events and visit museums limited, we have been left casting about for alternatives. Art is meant to be experiential—best when it’s a one-on-one experience with the original. 

A picture can’t begin to deliver the feeling of standing next to Michelangelo’s statue of David at the Accademia in Florence. In its presence the stone pulses with energy, muscles ripple, veins throb and eyelids almost blink. read more