Leif's Second Home - Charlottesville, Virginia - Age 2

When Leif was one-and-a-half years old we moved from the old stone house in Manhattan, Kansas to a townhouse we rented in Charlottesville, Virginia, at 1 Woodlake Drive. Apparently I never thought to take a good photo of it. This one was taken during a rare snowstorm and deep freeze that froze our water pipes for a week. The area looks much different now, with large trees.

The townhouse had a fenced area in back that was perfect for Leif to play in. We only lived there for a year, from July 1976 to the summer of 1977, but a lot happened during that time. Leif had his second birthday on January 28, 1975. The house was across the street from a nice woods with trails and we went hiking there. Behind us was a large pond or small lake, and we liked to go walk around that as well. We celebrated Easter with Leif's first real egg hunt. He started preschool at Rocking Horse Country Day School when he was barely two years old.

We got to see a lot of my sister, Lannay, his aunt, and traveled around the area, visiting Washington, D.C., Monticello, Williamsburg, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Virginia Beach. We also had visits from my sister Sherie and her husband, my brother Donovan and his family, and my mother.

It was a good year for all of us and it was a nice place to live. I have fond memories of those days.

Even with his phenomenal memory, Leif wouldn't have remembered this house or Charlottesville but it was his home for one of his 33 years.
---------------------------

The photo of the house at 1 Woodlake Drive was taken in January 1977, close to Leif's second birthday.
The photo of Leif flying high on his dad's upstretched feet was taken in the house in Charlottesville in May 1977 when Leif was two years and four months (28 months) old.

The Old Stone House in Mahattan, Kansas - Part 3

The old stone house not only represented the home we could return to (and frequently did) and the place we saw our extended family, it also gave us roots of sorts, the kind many military families don't have. Over the years we improved the place, added apple and cherry trees, a hammock in the back along with the picnic table. Leif was never interested in a yard and hated doing yard work, though he did get roped into some of it to help out, and he wasn't sentimental (or at least claimed he wasn't) about things like houses and yards, but I am a firm believer that in many ways geography has great influence in our lives, and that house and yard were part of our geography.

Leif was living there when he met Nikko, and for a time she lived there, too. He brought her there for dinner, back from the army for vacations and Christmases. Later he brought J. and her daughter there, and they spent one Thanksgiving and Christmas with us there. The house had to hold many memories for him, as it did for us.

It was not in any way modern. The fixtures were old, There wasn't a level or straight floor or wall in the place, as the old house had settled in the Kansas gumbo over the years. While we had put on a new roof, painted, refinished floors, and put in a shower, the house itself was fairly immutable. The yard was not. If you look back over the posts about the house, you can see how what was fairly barren and unattractive became a green oasis. Peter W. loved to go out and "inspect" the lush greenery an water it when we were in the growing season. Sometimes we had a vegetable garden. There were old lilacs and forsythia bushes that grew to at least 8 feet tall. Raking or blowing leaves in the fall was a major operation with over 30 trees. For half the year it was a lovely place, but the other half, when the leaves were off the trees, could look bleak.

The house had no ductwork, since the heating system was hot water radiators, and there was no air conditioning in it when we bought it. We installed one window AC on each floor and that kept it passably cool. When we move back into the house in 1990 both needed to be replaced and eventually Leif helped us put them both in. We appreciated his immense strength and his ability to figure out all kinds of mechanical and technological things.

We lived back in the house from September 1992 until April 2005. The house served us well and it was a significant part of Leif's life, all our lives.
----------------------------------
The photos from top to bottom are:
1. 804 Moro Street in the snow on February 2, 2004
2. 804 Moro Street in the snow on February 6, 2004. What a difference between a sunny and cloudy day!
3. 804 Moro on April 9, 2004 with the apple tree in bloom.
4. The northeast corner of the back yard on May 20, 2002. This corner was a favorite play area when the kids were younger. There had once been a swing set there. Peter Anthony once had a playhouse there made from a big old plywood moving crate, and later a hideout constructed of branches. Much later, Peter W. had a vegetable garden there, and planted a tree for each of our grandchildren.
5. The old fashioned roses that grew outside the sun porch windows on the east side of the house. They were there when we bought the house to totally overgrown until we cleaned the area out and trimmed them.

Leif Snowboarding - Wisconsin - 15th Birthday - January 28, 1990

Leif was fascinated with snowboarding. He also tried skateboarding and line skating, all sports that could be extreme if one developed the skill, but snowboarding was his favorite, though he didn't get to do it very many times. This was what he wanted to do for this 15th birthday, so we went to a slope in Wisconsin, just north of where we were living at Fort Sheridan, Illinois. Peter W. skied, and I took pictures. Leif was a daredevil on the slope. Though he found out that snowboarding was a lot harder than it looked, and he took many spills, he found it thrilling and exhilarating. The cold didn't seem to bother him when we lived in the Chicago area, and he was out in it doing sports like this with glee.

From Illinois we moved to Puerto Rico for two years and he loved the tropical climate, too, finding other sports to enjoy there like SCUBA diving. However, when we moved back to Kansas in 1992, he and Peter W. went to Colorado together once to enjoy the slopes. Leif again was crazy about snowboarding while Peter W. skied.

These are the last photos I have of Leif enjoying the snow and winter sports. It's a shame that enjoyment was taken away from him when he developed the cold weather and exercise induced asthma in the army. From that time on, it was terrible for him, struggling to breathe. It must have been doubly hard for a young man who had been so active.

Leif in the Snow - December 1986 - Fort Sheridan, Illinois - Age: almost 12

After three years in the warm, balmy climate of Hawaii, the army sent us to Fort Sheridan, Illinois on the north side of Chicago. We lived near to Lake Michigan, and it was COLD. We had quite a bit of snow. Once, we had so much snow that the garage our car was in was snowed under. I remember Leif out there the next day looking like Tarzan in the snow, shoveling great huge shovels full of it and tossing it high up the hill so we could get the car out. I wish we had a photo of that. He got so hot from the exertion that he stripped to the waist and was out there in the cold snow half naked.

That was before these photos, which I think were taken in December 1986. Peter A., his friend Mike Wetzel, visiting from Hawaii, Leif, and his friend Robert made a snow fort behind our house. They had a great time doing it. After it was done, Peter A. put on shorts and a t-shirt and sprayed "Snow Aloha" on the fort with black spray paint and took photos to send to his friends in Hawaii.

I think this was one of the last times that Leif ever got to have a blast doing something with his older brother, as Peter A. graduated from Highland Park High School that spring and went off to the Air Force Academy that summer.

Leif in the Snow - Isiuchi, Japan - March 1983 - Age 8

During the two years we lived in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany, we could enjoy the snow right outside our door, walking, sledding and skiing, but in Japan, were we moved in the summer of 1980, there was little snow in the Sagamihara area, and it was flat. We had to travel to the mountains to enjoy snow sports. Peter W. and Peter A. went skiing at the base of Mt. Fuji once. Peter W. went skiing at Zao, and in March 1983, we took a family trip to Ishiuchi, where we all had a great time.

Leif looks so bright-eyed and happy here, obviously enjoying the activity (speed, again) and slippery stuff. I think at that age he liked sledding better than skiing, which requires considerably more practice to be skillful.

He was eight years old in these photos. In the summer of 1983, just a few months later we moved to Hawaii for three years and that was the end of snow until we moved to the north side of Chicago in 1986.

Leif Sledding - Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - January 1980 - Age 5

The last snow we had fun with in Germany was in early 1980, since we moved to Japan that summer. We were still living in the village of Sachsen bei Ansbach, on the hill that offered such good sledding. From the beginning of his life, Leif loved motion and speed. He and Peter had a great time with this sled, racing down that hill. He was a little daredevil . . . a notice of things to come, evidently.

Although we moved the sled with us to Japan, there we lived on a flat plain and had very little snow. To enjoy snow in Japan, we had to travel to the mountains. So, you might remember seeing a picture of this sled in Japan, with his Fluffy dog "riding" it in warm weather. It became a play vehicle of a different kind there.

But while we lived in Germany, winter snow was fun!

This photo was taken in January 1980.

Silly Snow People - Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - January 1979 - Age 4

Leif isn't in this photo, and I couldn't find one of him with these odd "snow people," but I thought it was fun to remember making them. They are in front of the house we lived in in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany. Instead of just making a snowman, we made a snowman with personality, a sculpted face, and a snow woman, too. We had a good time making them with the boys, but unfortunately didn't get really good photos of them. It's hard to photograph snow and get good detail.

In those days, Leif enjoyed playing in the snow.

It seems odd to be remembering times in the snow, even though it is January and cold and snowy in much of the world, because here in Florida we are wearing shorts. After Leif got cold weather asthma, he desperately wanted to live in the warm climate of Florida. It was no fun to be out in the cold any more.

Leif, Peter W, Peter A. in the snow in Sachsen bei Ansbach, Germany - January 1979 - Age 4

We lived in the village of Sachsen bei Ansbach in Germany for two years. Our house was on a big hill which wasn't yet built full of homes, and there was a long, fairly steep slope that was great for sledding and learning to ski. In January 1979, Peter W. started teaching Leif how to ski there.

At the far side of that hill was a woods, which yielded wild blueberries, raspberries and blackberries in the summer, but was lovely for walks in the snow. Leif thought snow must taste good, it looked so pretty.

He enjoyed being out in it in those days, before the asthma that developed while he was in the army made it hard for him to breathe.

Leif & Peter Anthony in the snow - March 1978, Sheffau, Austria - Age 3

While we were stationed in Germany the second time, from the summer of 1977 to the summer of 1980, we took ski vacations every winter, and one of our favorite places to go was Scheffau, a village in the Austrian Tyrol. We stayed at a Pension am Wilden Kaiser, a lovely place with great food. Leif was too young to ski, so he and I went for walks in the lovely, snowy woods, and sometimes it was the three of us, Leif, Peter A. and me. In the spring, it's often a wonderful time to ski, warm enough to ski without a jacket, even, with the sun reflecting blazingly off the snow. Leif loved tramping around in the snow with us. Snow is magic to children, and as long as they are dressed warm enough, it's great fun.

This photo was taken in March 1978 when Leif was just three years old.

Leif in the Snow - January 1976 - Manhattan, Kansas

This time of year it's cold in most of the places that Leif lived, beginning with Manhattan, Kansas. When he was a child, cold didn't seem to bother him at all. This photo of Peter A. and Leif on a chill, snowy day in January 1976 when Leif was just celebrating his first birthday, he was a bit bewildered, though. It was taken in front of our old stone house, on a dreary day when Leif was in his stroller. He was wearing a blue crocheted cap that I made. Peter A. had lost his two front teeth and was the poster boy for, "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth."