Hi,
My name is Gu Ick Lee from korea. I'm Watts's frend and one who loves Watts's family.
I'm glad to join this blogger and I'd like to talk with you about everything especially
Jean's matter.
Warm regards
Gu
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
where to begin...at the beginning.
I met Jean but I call her Weenie, {not sure she has ever been keen on that but it is a term of endearment} the summer of '73. I was hired as the Arts and Crafts director at an Episcopalian camp Bement outside Worcester Ma. I fell in love with the camp and Jean simultaneously. Jean was still at Barnard and I called her my brainiac friend. Weenie introduced me to sipping Sherry in our little outpost building on the days off when the campers were gone. It was lovely, I hadn't known the joys of feeling tipsy at 3pm on gorgeous Massachusetts days. And I was the elder! We talked endlessly, we cuddled we laughed and we played and talked even more. I was welcome at her parents home and i recall a bizarre contraption in the kitchen that was a sauna for one...looked like an iron lung machine, it terrified me. They had a chihuahua that had terrible breathing problems..it snuffled an awful lot...it was weird, i didn't know people like this! I remember her mom and her endless energy, cooking baking for church functions making wacky craft projects. Her father was the first Episcopalian minister i had met, and been invited into the privacy of his domain. His family referred to him affectionately as "Hilly", but i don't think I ever knew why. Or my age has made me forget at this point He had a wonderful library and the room itself was woody and filled w/books and had a serious intellectual feel to me. I loved that room. Their home was warm ,loving and filled with good humour and acceptance.
I worked at Bement for a few years and loved it there, Jean and I were soul mates. She has a wonderful giggle gaggle laugh...a kind of "guffaw." One evening as we returned from a night off and out at a local pub called the Massasoit, which is now no longer, as we walked a little giggly and tipsy, we walked up the incline to camp, there was a newly built replacement building in which her mom worked and lived and tended to giving out meds and the sick campers as well as it housing visiting ministers and others. As we approached the building there we saw a wall of windows on the side of this structure, I am dating myself but like from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In TV show, we saw a few images happening at once while the inhabitants saw nothing. excpt the darkness and Jean and I, if they happened to be looking... our very funny friend Todd was yelling to us, we are now hysterical w/laughter as one of the "drier" stuffier visiting ministers could be seen in full light by Jean and myself while sitting on the potty reading a newspaper. We nearly wet ourselves while Todd couldn't understand what the heck was so funny. It was a sight!! if you can imagine.
I graduated college and moved to Chicago and made it thru my 1st yr attending the Erikson Institiute, during that yr Jean came to visit, we lost a dear friend that yr and Jean of course picked me up in Boston and held me and we cried all night. The next yr Weenie decided to take the risk after graduating herself and moved out to Chicago and we shared our apt. She brought the family Siamese cat who ate peanut butter out of the jar...i loved the cat. I remember that year Diana was marrying Prince Charles and her parents came to Chicago and those wacky 3 Bakers holed themselves up in a hotel and watched all night and day. I couldn't imagine what all the fuss was about. Jean then met Watts very shortly thereafter and that my dears is the beginning of that journey for them.
I was in thier wedding and Jean came to mine in '83. We visited when Elizabeth was a baby when they were in Ma for a visit and I was pregnant with my first.
I love Jean, I always said she had the creamiest white skin I had ever seen....creamy like milk, just beautiful. we never fought, I always have loved Jeanie for the wonderful friend she was to me. We shared many interests and loves. I wont go into that!
My only regret is that I didn't get to know Elizabeth and Charles and share more in our professional careers and daily life. But we did share many years and I suppose I had to let you all have the opportunity to make your own memories.
I met Jean but I call her Weenie, {not sure she has ever been keen on that but it is a term of endearment} the summer of '73. I was hired as the Arts and Crafts director at an Episcopalian camp Bement outside Worcester Ma. I fell in love with the camp and Jean simultaneously. Jean was still at Barnard and I called her my brainiac friend. Weenie introduced me to sipping Sherry in our little outpost building on the days off when the campers were gone. It was lovely, I hadn't known the joys of feeling tipsy at 3pm on gorgeous Massachusetts days. And I was the elder! We talked endlessly, we cuddled we laughed and we played and talked even more. I was welcome at her parents home and i recall a bizarre contraption in the kitchen that was a sauna for one...looked like an iron lung machine, it terrified me. They had a chihuahua that had terrible breathing problems..it snuffled an awful lot...it was weird, i didn't know people like this! I remember her mom and her endless energy, cooking baking for church functions making wacky craft projects. Her father was the first Episcopalian minister i had met, and been invited into the privacy of his domain. His family referred to him affectionately as "Hilly", but i don't think I ever knew why. Or my age has made me forget at this point He had a wonderful library and the room itself was woody and filled w/books and had a serious intellectual feel to me. I loved that room. Their home was warm ,loving and filled with good humour and acceptance.
I worked at Bement for a few years and loved it there, Jean and I were soul mates. She has a wonderful giggle gaggle laugh...a kind of "guffaw." One evening as we returned from a night off and out at a local pub called the Massasoit, which is now no longer, as we walked a little giggly and tipsy, we walked up the incline to camp, there was a newly built replacement building in which her mom worked and lived and tended to giving out meds and the sick campers as well as it housing visiting ministers and others. As we approached the building there we saw a wall of windows on the side of this structure, I am dating myself but like from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In TV show, we saw a few images happening at once while the inhabitants saw nothing. excpt the darkness and Jean and I, if they happened to be looking... our very funny friend Todd was yelling to us, we are now hysterical w/laughter as one of the "drier" stuffier visiting ministers could be seen in full light by Jean and myself while sitting on the potty reading a newspaper. We nearly wet ourselves while Todd couldn't understand what the heck was so funny. It was a sight!! if you can imagine.
I graduated college and moved to Chicago and made it thru my 1st yr attending the Erikson Institiute, during that yr Jean came to visit, we lost a dear friend that yr and Jean of course picked me up in Boston and held me and we cried all night. The next yr Weenie decided to take the risk after graduating herself and moved out to Chicago and we shared our apt. She brought the family Siamese cat who ate peanut butter out of the jar...i loved the cat. I remember that year Diana was marrying Prince Charles and her parents came to Chicago and those wacky 3 Bakers holed themselves up in a hotel and watched all night and day. I couldn't imagine what all the fuss was about. Jean then met Watts very shortly thereafter and that my dears is the beginning of that journey for them.
I was in thier wedding and Jean came to mine in '83. We visited when Elizabeth was a baby when they were in Ma for a visit and I was pregnant with my first.
I love Jean, I always said she had the creamiest white skin I had ever seen....creamy like milk, just beautiful. we never fought, I always have loved Jeanie for the wonderful friend she was to me. We shared many interests and loves. I wont go into that!
My only regret is that I didn't get to know Elizabeth and Charles and share more in our professional careers and daily life. But we did share many years and I suppose I had to let you all have the opportunity to make your own memories.
Raising Children
My friendship with Jean is more recent than some described in these wonderful postings - yet it is over 20 years old now. I measure the length of our relationship by the ages of our children (Jean's oldest, Elizabeth, and my only, Will) who are only three months apart in age.
I met Jean when we were both pregnant and I was teaching my first class in the School Psychology Program at UW-Madison. Jean was a student (outstanding, of course) in the class. But our friendship and professional collaboration was cemented when, two years later, Jean completed her year-long internship with me as her supervisor at the Waisman Center in Madison. Our professional work together was rich and stimulating; even now when we get together at conferences we jump immediately into discussions of our work. But our friendship has always had at its center our early parenting days together. While at the Waisman Center when the children were two years old, we regaled each other with stories of the kids (and, yes, sometimes the fathers). I'll never forget the day Jean bounded into my office and said "You will never guess what happened this morning!" That day Watts had combined the dregs of three different kinds of cereals into one bowl for Liz. Oh the shock! How could he??? Didn't he realize how upset she would be? We laughed until we cried. When we left to go to our first conference away from Madison (Nashville!) as mothers - leaving the children behind- we hooted and hollered as we drove away from her house - independent for four whole days. Yet at the end of our trip we could hardly wait to have those children (and fathers) in our arms.
We remain connected through our children. I love my updates on how Liz and Charles are doing. I hope to continue receiving them for a long time to come. All my love to all of you.
I met Jean when we were both pregnant and I was teaching my first class in the School Psychology Program at UW-Madison. Jean was a student (outstanding, of course) in the class. But our friendship and professional collaboration was cemented when, two years later, Jean completed her year-long internship with me as her supervisor at the Waisman Center in Madison. Our professional work together was rich and stimulating; even now when we get together at conferences we jump immediately into discussions of our work. But our friendship has always had at its center our early parenting days together. While at the Waisman Center when the children were two years old, we regaled each other with stories of the kids (and, yes, sometimes the fathers). I'll never forget the day Jean bounded into my office and said "You will never guess what happened this morning!" That day Watts had combined the dregs of three different kinds of cereals into one bowl for Liz. Oh the shock! How could he??? Didn't he realize how upset she would be? We laughed until we cried. When we left to go to our first conference away from Madison (Nashville!) as mothers - leaving the children behind- we hooted and hollered as we drove away from her house - independent for four whole days. Yet at the end of our trip we could hardly wait to have those children (and fathers) in our arms.
We remain connected through our children. I love my updates on how Liz and Charles are doing. I hope to continue receiving them for a long time to come. All my love to all of you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
