After searching for Ralph's address in the online White Pages, Fred decided to include this note in a "first-time-ever" birthday card to Ralph:
Happy birthday, Ralph:
If my memory serves me right, you have a birthday sometime in September. So, here's to you, "young man" – what they still call me here at Green Gardens because, at 78, I still have half a head of (mostly gray) hair when most of our friends are bald. I'm assuming you're between 75 and 90. Still young. 84 here is prime time.
Sue and I sold our condo in Milwaukee right before COVID hit while we were coming back from Florida as snowbirds for the last time. We moved to Minneapolis to be near my family (a sister, two nephews and a niece plus their kids – most of them 20 minutes away).
We're in a new graduated-care high rise. From our 10th floor apartment, we can see the Gopher football stadium, built 10 years ago. So, we're right next to the UM-Minneapolis campus and a block from a light rail station where we can catch a train to downtown St. Paul or Minneapolis, our doctors, dentists and so on.
We still have a car (in a heated garage) but drive only 1,000 miles a year. Both Sue and I use mobility scooters to get around campus and on the light rail system. So, we don't really need a car, which we'll probably sell in a couple of years. Sue is gradually seeing that next transition, too, now that things are opening in our neighborhood after COVID (a grocery store across the street, a new food hall – with a large bar – two blocks over, a new distillery with three bars three blocks away and a large beer garden next to the distillery). Sue enjoys mixing with the college crowd and the kids in the daycare center that is part of our building.
So, we like it in cold (sometimes hot) Minneapolis and gladly pay the extra taxes we need to fork over just because we crossed the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota. Yes, us Democrats still love to pay taxes.
Thanks again for helping make all this possible. You took a big chance on me when giving individuals with a disability an opportunity to grow in their jobs was not the norm. You gave me the life Sue and I (and many others who were once under your wing) are enjoying today.
