Anniversary number 24
by Anton Zuiker on August 10, 2020
It is the tenth day of August, which means Erin and I are celebrating our anniversary, 24 years since our wedding in Cleveland. We spent the day working our jobs, punctuated by a few trips down the gravel road to watch the demolition of the old house. I went for a run on the trail by University Lake, came home, showered, dressed. The children went to the swimming pool, and Erin and I went to dinner at Hawthorne & Wood (General Tso’s cauliflower, tomato soup and melon salad, flounder in lemongrass-infused coconut milk, seared tuna and zucchini in Provençal sauce) and talked about the new house we want to build soon.
When we got home, the children had sweet, buttery, delicious cupcakes ready for us. We sat around the dining table, and I read them my anniversary blog posts from previous years, reminding us all how our love story and this family has grown.
More of this land
by Anton Zuiker on August 1, 2020
Three lots, ten acres.
Earlier this week, Erin and I purchased (through Paama Properties LLC) another piece of land and a hundred-year-old wood house. That house once was alone on the surrounding 18 acres, but over the decades the 18 has been divided, and we live in the brick house up on the back acres. This lot we just bought still owns most of the gravel lane that comes off Smith Level Road and up between our two properties (in June we purchased the lot across from our house.) Altogether, our three contiguous lots are a combined 10.46 acres.
The wood house has seen better days, and it will be coming down soon to make way for a new house to be built for one of Erin’s siblings.
Erin and I walked our land this morning, discussing where we might build our new house. We dream, we plan.
A friend of Vanuatu
by Anton Zuiker on July 20, 2020
There’s a new organization called Friends of Vanuatu that aims be a network for returned Peace Corps Volunteers and others with an interest in the Republic of Vanuatu. Count me in.
Not long after Erin and I returned from Vanuatu, and soon after I created my first website for Zuiker Chronicles, I also created a website for VanAmericanNius Online, my attempt to connect my fellows RPCVs. I couldn’t sustain it for long, and my subsequent attempts with Storian also fizzled, but a few years ago I ordered stickers for the tamtam icon and I have one on my laptop now, and that reminds me daily about my time in Vanuatu.
Thanks to the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, there’s a record of VanAmericanNius and Storian.
I hope Friends of Vanuatu will fare better. And I hope the Peace Corps can return to that amazing country (with COVID-19, Peace Corps suspended all activities around the world and brought home all volunteers). For Father’s Day, Erin gave me a t-shirt marking the Peace Corps’ 30 years there, and I wear it proudly as a friend of Vanuatu.
Bins, Bernoulli, and Buxton
by Anton Zuiker on July 19, 2020
The thunderstorm that almost killed me last night—I’d started on a run down the gravel drive and lightning struck somewhere near, the crack of thunder telling me I was being stupid for being out—had given way to evening, the morning dawned cool (I know because I was out there with Tilly) and I figured I could work in the basement before the heat and humidity returned.
I drank my coffee and enjoyed scrambled eggs (laid by our hens, cooked by Erin), then descended into the basement to rearrange the stacks of plastic bins and other items we’re storing down there.
My life is in those bins: a bin for report cards and reading certificates during elementary school, a bin for high school yearbooks and creative writing, another for college term papers and a couple of bins for the magazines and newspapers I edited early in my career, and at least four for the journals and letters and mementoes of our time in the Peace Corps.
As I rearranged the bins, I looked inside in search of something I’d once written about the experience in Vanuatu, and along the way I pulled out these items:
- A flyer for the Bernoulli Brothers juggling group I was in with my friends Chris and Peter.
- My college report about the history of barbed wire, invented in DeKalb, Illinois, where I once lived; the deed for the land we bought last month referenced an old barb-wire fence along the southern border, and when we walk the land we see the wire embedded in tree trunks or covered by a century of fallen leaves and branches.
- An index card with a note from Grandpa Sisco, sent to us in Vanuatu; taped to the card were two two-dollar bills—the gathering of men signing the Declaration of Independence glaring in its whiteness; the note with a suggestion from Grandpa to “have a cup of coffee and a roll when you’re in town” (Erin and I usually went to the Rossi for a pot of Earl Grey tea and croissant with scrambled eggs).
- More chronicles from Frank the Beachcomber about my grandparents’ trips to the Outer Banks, these recounting the fishing in Buxton, Ocracoke, and under the bridge of the Oregon Inlet.
- Postcards for The Long Table, a project that we hope to restart with tables made from the blackjack oak.
There are more bins and boxes to arrange down there, and more of the past to remember. The basement was getting hotter, so I finished up, put my running shoes on, confirmed there were no storms in the area, and went for a jog.
Meet Tilly
by Anton Zuiker on July 19, 2020
A puppy loves a pool on a hot summer day.
She’s a golden retriever puppy, and she will be us for years to come.
Last night was my night to sleep in the room where we’ve put her crate, and we woke a few times to step outside. At 4:30 a.m., Tilly sat calmly in the grass, and we listened to the bugs, the juvenile great horned owl, and a far-off rooster.