Joel in 1981-1982

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Joel in 1981-1982

The UI Art Department had some sort of May Day celebration in 1981, providing kids with chalk so they could make pictures on the pavement outside the art building. Joel and his friend Gen, who lived across the street from us on Davenport street, drew a beautiful castle.
I'm not sure what Gen's last name was. He and his mother moved away, maybe that same summer, and we never heard from them again.

Gen and Joel
You can see what a lovely day it was in Iowa City. The start of May -- that's just about the time that spring begins in Iowa. One day it's winter, and then there's a warming spell so sudden that you can almost watch the trees coming into bloom. And then all of a sudden it is summer.
That's how it always seemed to me, anyway, in Iowa.
Probably this was just around the time I found out that Maureen was going to have another baby. I wanted another baby very much myself. After all, Joel had turned out pretty well!
I think I found out Maureen was pregnant the same day my friend Mary Oehl called me from the clinic to let me know she was having an abortion.

Joel hiking with Pieta Brown at Woodpecker Trail, out by the Coralville Reservoir, in August 1981.
Pieta and Joel grew up together and have always been like brother and sister.
Pieta's mother, Melanie, took a dance class with Maureen the first year we were in Iowa City, and they became life-long friends. For a while Melanie and Pieta lived in the other half of the Davenport street house Maureen and I were living in, and after Maureen came back from Baton Rouge in 1977 she and Melanie shared a house on Dodge street for a couple of years.

Joel and Miera 810905 at Backbone.

Joel with Miera, Jonathan, and Sukie 820411.

I met Sukie and Jae Kim when Sukie was the librarian out at Oakdale and I was an editor. Sukie and Carole Singleton and Kathy Dee and I would go out walking at lunchtime, and sometimes when I went into the library Sukie got to commiserate with me about my romantic entanglement with one of the secretaries there.
She and Jae had a wonderful house overlooking a sizable pond, and they often invited Joel and me around to dinner in this perfect setting, and we got to know her daughter, Miera, and her son Jonathan. Miera, six months older than Joel, was a prodigy in everything she did. It was a splendid treat to hear her playing eithern the violin or the piano.
The photo above shows Joel and Miera at Backbone state park, where I took them camping on Labor Day weekend.
The following Easter Joel and I went out to Sukie and Jae's place again for dinner. It was a frigid day with a little snow or sleet, but Joel and Miera and Jonathan bundled up and went out to look for Easter eggs.

Sukie and Jae gave us their old car, and Joel and I went east in it at Thanksgiving 1981. You can clickhere to see a photo of us at Jackie's place on Thanksgiving.

[Nota bene: This page, like all the others in this site, is in progress. The text is mostly irrelevant and hastily written stuff designed just to fill the gaps between the photos -- and the photos themselves are not the best, but simply what I happen to have on hand. Please let me know if you find anything false, misleading, offensive, or intrusive to your privacy. It's hard to maintain privacy on the internet! Let me know too if there's a photo or something in the text that should be removed or something that should be added. I have not set up this site primarily for my own sake but for my family and friends -- and I welcome all corrections, additions, and suggestions about how to improve it!]

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Joel in 1981-1982
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Joel and Tommy in Canadian Rockies
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Joel and Unity in Yosemite
Joel at Rocky Ridge, 1995
Joel at Año Nuevo, 1995
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