Christmas 2023:
The annual report from Gideon Lawton Lane

Annual Christmas letters get a mixed reception: tossed unread, browsed lightly, responded to. In the aggregate, though, they have some historical value, some bits of information about who’s doing what. So here’s the archive.

December 10, 2023
The Third Stollen of Advent

Dear Friends,

Early one very warm morning last summer – Thursday, trash day – I walked out to see whether the bins I’d set out the night before were empty and ready to roll back into the garage. That’s a homeowner’s weekly chore here, but this time I stopped short. There at the end of our driveway were two little brothers in their pajamas, sitting cross-legged on a small mat, munching breakfast bars and waiting patiently for the garbage truck. Trash collection was a compelling interest at the time, and Thomas and James, then 6 and 4, had hoped that their visit to Opa and Oma’s house might include a trip to the dump. Then they had a better idea.

Soon enough, a huge green and yellow Waste Management vehicle swung into view at the top of the hill and worked its way down Gideon Lawton Lane to the home at 101. These trucks are solo-staffed mechanical giants; the operator seemed to size up the situation immediately. “Hey guys!” he said, as he climbed down, pulled a lever, and started the mechanical arm toward the 96-gallon bin. Thomas and James stared wide-eyed as the arm yanked the bin up and over the truck, turned it upside-down, dumped its contents, and zoomed it back to the original streetside position. The arm shifted a bit, and the 96-gallon recycling bin followed suit. “That’s it, guys. You have a lot of fun today, okay?” the garbage man said, climbed into the cab, waved, and drove on. He had made their day; they almost certainly made his.

Almost six months later, that vignette remains vivid, and not just on Thursdays. It’s part of a powerful grandchild tapestry in progress for seven years now with many more adventures still to come. There have been hikes at Sachuest Wildlife Refuge with everyone. There’s Archie, 5, and his chess game, which now includes bishop sacrifice, discovered check, and other advanced strategies (he’s 2-0 in games with Opa). Leia, turning 3 today, loves to explore Oma’s Steinway, finding the low boomy notes at one end of the keyboard and tinkly high notes at the other (she seems to prefer the boomy ones), while at the other end of the house, Oma is cheered and profoundly delighted to hear such earnest, focused klimpering*. And early this November, 11-month-old Olivia and her family visited from Madrid. She’s a strong, happy little girl whose eyes take in everything around her and whose ears are taking in a multilingual stream of English, Spanish, and Greek. She can pull herself up, stand, and make tentative foot movements that suggest walking may not be far off. Grandparenting is turning out to be a wondrous, life-altering, immensely rewarding experience. Grandkids have a way of refreshing perspectives.

Life here on the Lane continues to evolve – a bit slower, perhaps, to accommodate a higher median age but also a bit more varied. Although we can’t travel as we have in the past, there are now visits from Alli’s friends and classmates, including her doubles partner from a memorable high school tennis career, classmates from Brown, siblings and other relatives, plus Zoom and FaceTime sessions. Del and Shantel, Alli’s weekday caregivers, will soon be starting their third year with us and continue to provide highly skilled and dedicated support for Alli’s steady struggle with MSA. They feel like extended family.

A small literary project is just getting underway, thanks to the arrival this fall of the Sängerbote from brother Timothy’s house to my office via FedEx. The Sängerbote is a 700-page hardbound, five-year (1913-17) compilation of a German-language music and literature quarterly published in St. Louis. Several Mueller family forebears were among many dozens of contributors, including our maternal great-grandmother Adelheid Rickmeyer Mueller (a.k.a.., Frau Erica), two of her children (including our grandfather Ernst) and others both on the family tree and standing nearby. It’s not just a translation project, which goes very slowly. The Sängerbote was at the core of Mueller family life before dial telephones, television, social network, and the rest of what the 20th century would bring. It also provides a portal into German immigrant life in the WWI years, when Lutheran congregations switched to English services and German was spoken less often outside the home. The May 1916 Sängerbote even featured a three-verse “Sterne und Streiten” — "Stars and Stripes,” a singable German version of what would become the National Anthem.

The garden, always an important part of life on the Lane, had significant highs and lows this season. There’s newly rebuilt fencing on the south side, expanded culinary herb plantings, and successful installation of a user-designed, handcrafted, efficient soaker-hose watering system. We weren’t expecting any fruit from the heirloom apple trees in their second season, but the Newtown Pippin (Thomas Jefferson’s favorite apple) did manage to serve up a couple really delicious pieces. Likewise, our two young Damson plum trees at the other end of the property yielded enough fruit to cook down an inaugural batch of Pflaumenmus (plum jam). The Corn Palace produced a tasty bumper crop of heirloom white popcorn, we have lots of succotash, and the pantry is well-stocked with blueberry-rhubarb and other jams.

But there was sad garden news too. Our three dwarf Montmorency cherry trees, faithful annual source for sour cherry tarts and jars of jam for more than a decade, were overrun with black knot, a highly contagious airborne fungal disease that affects cherry and – horrors! – Damson plum trees. There is no reliable cure; staff-intensive hand pruning buys only a little time at significant expense. On the advice of an arborist whose own cherry trees had the same problem, the three will be cut down, carted away whole (chipping would fill the yard and neighborhood with contagious plant fungus) and burned. Their stumps will be ground out and the Damson plum trees will be sprayed with a fungicide as a precaution. We’re hoping for the best.

Someone once asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew the world would end tomorrow. Brother Martin said he would plant a tree today. Hmmm. Sounds a bit like us. Maybe more apple trees?

We hope this season finds you and yours in good health, happy in spite of the mean-spirited Zeitgeist, up to your ears in creative projects, able to kick back a bit at year’s end, and looking confidently toward a much better year in 2024.

With much love,

Alli and Mark
Reach us both at mark-nickel@cox.net    401-835-1913

* From A Mueller Lexicon:

klimpern [KLIM-purn]
[vt.] To jingle (of coins) or plonk (of a piano). Used exclusively as a cognate because there is no single English verb that connotes the apparently pointless plunking out of notes at a piano to no discernable musical purpose: “Jimmy, stop klimpering and practice your scales.”