Family

It is great to be home. As I write this, I am sitting on the deck in back of the house. The sun has just fallen and the stars are peaking out of the deepening blue that outlines the dark treetops. The whisper of the leaves as they dance with the wind make a wonderful melody as they blend in with the chorus of tree frogs and the occasional songbird trying to find its way home. I love being home. I always thought it was because I missed this, sitting on the deck, being outside with the wind and the trees. But it was more than this I missed, it was this feeling combined with the knowledge that my family was sitting right inside watching TV. That my mom might come out soon to join me and talk about our day. That I had just had dinner with my grandma and my cousins and I would be able to do it again tomorrow night if I wanted. It was the feeling of safety, of being content, of belonging that I had been missing all these years. Knowing that my family is close lets me finally relax. It is almost like returning to childhood, returning to a place of simple peace and confidence that everything will always work out. There is more to my life now than the problems I dealt with when I was a child, but the feeling is still the same. 

I know not all families are like mine. I know that I am quadruple lucky too because I have four families that all support each other through thick and thin. Between large, raucous family gatherings with my dad and stepmoms family (a bunch of Italians and a bunch of Australians) and my mom’s side of the family meeting every Sunday at my grandma’s, I am never short on family support. My stepdad’s family lives mostly out in Tennessee and I don’t see them as much, but I still remember their family reunion and how much fun I had. And now, I also have Michael’s family – and couldn’t ask for a better fit. Michael and I are so excited for the wedding; it will be so fun to get all of our families together. Family has always been important to me, I think because that has how it has always been throughout generations.

Me pointing to my great grandpa's name on the wall on a very chilly day at Ellis Island

From my dad’s side, I have traced our family history back to Italy and what was then Czechoslovakia. The Verre family was from Rende, Italy, Calabria. My grandma kept meticulous notes – her parents Carl and Mary immigrated to America in 1909. Even though his dad remained in Italy, Carl and his brothers saved up enough money to buy him a suit and sent it to Italy. When I was little, I remember attending my great grandma Verre’s 100^th birthday party. I have never met so much family in my life. Grandma great was mildly interested in meeting some of her great grandkids, but she showed true excitement when they announced it was time for dinner. A true Italian.

Gaspero had a picture taken of him wearing the suit his sons bought him and sent it in a letter to America

The other half, the Letzter side, first came to America via Josef Letzter on a cattle boat departed from London under the fake name of Smith to escape the German draft. He and his wife (who immigrated with him from the current day Horsovsky Tyn, Pilzen district of the Czech Republic) soon were running a profitable saloon and grocery store. While he sold and bartended, his wife made free lunches for the customers. When Josef’s parents immigrated years later, they all lived together in a house in Chicago that still stands today. Josef never got to meet his grandparents, but what he may have not known about his family name was that it used to be Posledni. His grandfather, Valentin, was a village herd and day laborer. Posledni in Czech means “the last.” When he married a German woman, it was changed to Letzter, which means “the last” in German.

 Another interesting tidbit of family history, Josef’s son, Josef Jr. was the treasurer for Monarch Brewery in Chicago and was known to carry $100 in his pocket “just in case.” He died in 1934 after being beaten by a police officer. His house was sold to the famous Chicago mobster Sam Giancana – 1147 South Wenonah Ave, Oak Park IL. I am sure there is more to that story, but that is what we know. Chicago had to be an exciting time in the 1920’s, it makes me love the city even more knowing that my family has been in this great city for generations and seen it all.

The house of Josef Jr. today

It took a lot of hard work to discover all of this. Most of it I found in my grandmothers meticulous notes, others from what my dad has tracked down. Just recently, we met a fellow Letzter only living 3 hours away that was a distant cousin. Family history was her hobby and she had tracked down information on ancestors all the way back to the 1700’s. Of course she would share what she had found with us, we were family after all. Something about knowing your family’s history makes you feel that more connected, that much more a part of this world.

The old Monarch Brewery in Chicago

When I think of my mom’s side of the family, I think of my grandma. My grandma was one of 11 children. Her father was working in the coal mines in Michigan when he met her mother. After a brief stint in Ohio, they moved to Chicago to raise a family. Her mother was from what was then Yugoslavia and her father immigrated in 1903 from what is now Smarata, Slovenia. (His last name was Bavec, but when he immigrated it turned into the American translation of Bavetz). During the Great Depression, her father Andreas housed and fed the entire family on $13/week. The children slept four to a bed and their soup for dinner would only have one small piece of meat in it, which her father got to eat since he had to work. Through all of this, my grandma tells me, they not once ever had a fight. It was not the Bavetz way, she would tell me. This mentality of family first and family together has carried down through the generations. It is certainly something that I want to uphold.

Her father did not speak English well and just recently she gifted me his Slovene to English textbook he had bought to learn. In it are all of his notes and scribbles from a time long past. He worked hard and eventually was able to move out into the country where the family would work outside in the woods and in the gardens and gather for family picnics underneath the hickory tree on the hill. When I was little, we would still have those family picnics. And even today, although we usually gather in my grandma’s living room or on the deck, that hickory tree is still standing right outside.

I am sad I did not get to meet my great grandfather Andreas in person. My mom recalls his love for Twinkies and how he would eat raw eggs and put the empty shells back in the carton to mess with his wife. He was early to bed and early to rise. When company was over and was staying too late, he would never tell them to leave, but would do everything to hint at it. If someone got up from a chair, he would walk past, fold up the chair, and put it away. Once he just walked over, starting cleaning things up, and then turned off the lights. 

 What my grandma didn’t know until he died, was that he still kept in touch with his sister and nephew in Slovenia throughout all of his years in America – writing notes in Slovene and sending cash when he could. It was many years later when my grandma received a letter from her father’s brother Vinco that we started to discover more family we had around the world. You see, Vinco had moved to Argentina and married, but he still kept in touch with the rest of the family in Slovenia. In just the past 2 or 3 years, we have met our family in Argentina and are planning a reunion in Slovenia. The family resemblance with these newfound relatives in most amazing. Knowing some Spanish from my time spent down in Chile on a school trip (I kicking myself for not knowing about my newfound family during my trip) I am working on learning Slovenian so I can learn as much as I can when we meet in a few years time. What amazes me is that our family in Argentina regularly visits and is very close with our family in Slovenia, we Americans were the missing section of the family, and now we will all be together again soon. The world is a very large, very small place.

The family house in Slovenia that generations of the Bavetz family has lived in and still live in to this day

Of my grandfather’s side of my mom’s family, we do not know much. When my grandpa first saw my grandma, it was love at first site. Unfortunately for him, she wanted nothing to do with him. Luckily, he pestered her enough that she finally agreed to go on just one date with him, and the rest is history. My grandfather’s parents both immigrated from somewhere in the Germany/Czechoslovakia area, but not much more in known about their history. My mom clearly recalls her grandparents well and has fond memories of them, but they were not as tightly knit as a family as the Bavetz’s are. Try as I might, my research has shed little light on the history of the Koffend side of the family. The loss of family stories and history is a shame, but I know the legacy of all of my families still lives on.

My grandpa Koffend loved the outdoors. Even well into his seventies, he would go on week long backpacking snowmobile trips and would fish almost every day. My grandparents had a lot of property and I remember when I was really little, he would round up all my cousins and me and get us really excited to go on a wagon ride. He would hitch up the tractor and take us all out into the middle of the woods and ask us who was able to pick up the most sticks. That is some clever child labor if I have ever heard of it. At dinnertimes, he used to scare me because if you did not eat all of the meat off your bones he would growl at you and reach over to clean the meat off himself. It scared me then, but I catch myself doing the same to my fiancé now  - who would have thought it?

With all of the changes to the area that my family originated from it is hard to directly define my heritage. With some birth records saying Yugoslavia, while others list Austria. Some list Czechoslovakia while some simply list bohemia. What I can gather for modern day, I am ¼ Italian, ¼ Slovenian, and ½ Czech. Better yet, I can mostly describe my family heritage as bohemian. If you haven’t looked into your family history yet, I highly recommend it. Just hearing the stories and learning some history about your heritage is humbling and exciting. I feel connected with family members that have passed away generations ago. I am sure Valentin and I would have great conversations about horses and Luca Bavec and I would love to sightsee around Libuijana and compare it to how it was in 1692. I feel that my family can remain close today because we appreciate our past and find it important to maintain close ties with each other. I am sure by now, if I was to try to track down every single distant cousin and aunt my family would span across the globe. We are all family in some way, maybe through marriage or friendships or distant bloodlines. We should treat each other as such.

Meeting Charly

There is just something about being on a horse. There is really no comparison. You get this feeling that you just can’t quite explain to your non-horsey friends. It is just something about being on a horse that uplifts your spirits and makes you automatically smile. I will admit, not every ride is like this. If you let your worries or frustrations leak into your thoughts while riding, it ruins the whole experience. To truly enjoy horseback riding, you just simply have to let go and live in the moment – appreciate the little things. It has only been a week or two since I was last on a horse, but it feels like forever. Now that I am moved in and settled it is time for me to find a horse to ride –stat!

Stopping by to see my old horseback riding trainer and mentor (for the amount of time I spent at the barn in high school, I should really just call her my second mother), she immediately suggested a few horses she had that I could ride. It is a win – win, she needed her horses to get exercised and I needed horses to ride. Although my heart says it would be nice one day to have a horse that I can call my very own, my brain says that exercise riding horses is so much more economical. No unexpected vet visits, no board fee, no farrier bills, just whatever money I want to put towards important things like treats and pink saddle pads.

Anyway, that very same day I went out to visit she introduced me to her horse, Charly, and let me get on and see how he felt. There is nothing like riding a horse, it doesn’t even matter what horse either. Just sitting in the saddle and walking around the outdoor arena had a big grin plastered on my face. The sunny sky was sprinkled with a few clouds drifting in the gentle wind, making the weather pleasantly sunny, yet breezy enough to not be uncomfortable. The bright sand contrasted with the deep green of the grass on the other side of the bright white fence sectioning off the arena. It felt like heaven.

It was interesting getting to know Charly. He is a big warmblood gelding that is training in dressage. At one point, he was a big fancy jumper until he decided that he did not really like it that much and stopped going over the fences. My first take of him was that he didn’t really like dressage much either. Getting him to go faster than a western jog had me huffing and puffing like I had just run a marathon. Halfway through the ride when my legs were burning and starting to feel a bit like jelly, I realized how out of riding shape I was. Yes, I had been training and riding horses while working at the horse rescue, but training a horse from the ground up involves a lot of groundwork and very little actual ride time. When I did ride, it went something like this:

Step 1: Get on horse, horse moves, get off horse, wait until horse stands patiently, get on horse again. Repeat until horse stands still while I get on.

Step 2: Ask horse to walk forward. Sigh with relief – so far so good.

Step 3: Walk around a bit, work on steering. Decide if I ask for the trot if I will get bucked off and die.

Step 4: Ask for the trot. Keep fingers crossed.

Step 5: Trot around a few times each direction.

Step 6: Get off, gives lots of praise. Call your health insurance and tell them there is no need just yet to raise your deductable.

If a horse was far along enough in its training, sometimes we would go on light trail rides – mostly walking – and sometimes we would canter. Canter usually went like, “I’m just going to ask and then hang on and see what happens.” Once I had been working with a horse long enough to have the walk, trot, and canter well trained and was finally ready to move on to more exciting things than the basics, it was also about the time that the horse started to get a lot more interest from potential adopters. Finding the perfect home for a rescue horse is the best thing in the world, but it also meant I was back to square one with the next horse in the barn.

The point I am trying to make is that there is a big, big different between walk/trotting a few laps in the arena or on the trail versus riding dressage, and my body was making that very clear to me. If you have ever watched a dressage test, it may look like the horse is doing all the work, which is exactly how you know the horse and rider are a good team. The key to good dressage is making it look like the rider is doing nothing, because in reality, the rider is working very hard to constantly communicate to the horse what he or she wants by leg or rein pressure and shifts in body weight and positioning. Dressage is a French term that means training. Dressage has its origins in the training of horses for battle. If you ever have heard of the Lipizzaner horses or airs above grounds – this is where it all stemmed from. Riders would train their horses to rear up or leap in the air as maneuvers to fight enemies successfully. These horses had to keep a cool head in the heat of battle and remain attentive to the slightest signal from their rider in order to stay alive. From there, dressage grew into almost a sort of art form and today is a widely competitive sport with judges to score specific movements based off of how attentive, calm, and precise the horse and rider pair are.

A good place to get more information about dressage is from the United States Dressage Federation (USDF) at:

http://www.usdf.org/about/about-dressage/

I could go on and on about dressage until your ears bleed, so for this blogs sake, I will keep it short. Competitive dressage focuses on judges and scores as they perform a series of movements in a test. This is what you are watching when you see dressage horse and rider teams at the Olympics. Sometimes, their tests are ridden to music in what is called Kur or simply, Dressage to Music. Classical dressage has similar training techniques to that of competitive dressage, but also includes the Airs Above Grounds or Haute Ecole movements. This is what you often see in special performances or demonstrations at fairs and other events. Although my teachers always told me not to use Wikipedia, I still think this article is a good brief overview of the Haute Ecole movements:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airs_above_the_ground 

The Capriole 

The horse is trained to leap into the air and kick out with its hind feet

The Levade

Unlike rearing, the levade is a trained maneuver that requires much strength and control

Pictures from:

http://www.hostau.org/html_en/lipizzaners.html

This picture I have painted for you of a horse and rider pair in perfect, beautiful harmony with each other is not exactly what me and Charly looked like on this first ride. Instead, think of a big horse that is shuffling along through the sand with his ears flopping while this little middle school girl (what I feel I look like when I am on him because he is so big) is flopping along on his back with a big stupid grin on her face. But that is the joy of horseback riding! You might look like the biggest idiot ever – but you are having the time of your life!

But just like any good conversation, if you take the time to learn about whom you are talking to and really try to listen, a bond of mutual understanding soon forms. Near the end of the ride, Charly was picking up on my signals and I was starting to learn how to ask him for what I wanted to do properly, in a way he could understand. My stupid grin got even bigger when he actually started to give me what I was asking for and started moving out with a bigger stride and rounding his back and neck into a nice frame. And just like that, we had finally clicked. What was what I’m sure looked like a disaster, turned into a beautiful ride in just a stride or two. Just shifting my weight had him flying sideways in a perfect leg yield across the ring. Transitioning into a canter had me almost giggling with joy and I threw in a sloppy lead change just for grins. He was unsure if he should really put the energy into an extended trot, but after some cajoling with my legs he decided to give it to me. It is just amazing that such large creatures are patient and kind enough to let us ride them and share some of their power and glory that they all just seem to naturally possess.

I was exhilarated for the rest of the day. I have been riding for nearly 20 years, but I am still that happy after a good ride.

Resume

As you know, I am moving back home for a job as an office manager. It is part time to start with, but will probably go full time in not too long. I gave up a well paying, full time job working with horses for something totally different. But it is a chance to move home and a chance to create a different lifestyle. It is a risk, but I feel that if you are willing to go after it, it can pay off big. Not only does my new job have a lot of opportunities for advancement, I now also have time to work on my books (and this wonderful blog). I always need horses in my life though (of course) so I am already planning on finding a new project horse of some sort to work with. The theme here once again is excitement and terrified horror at what I am doing. My mom recently sent me a book in the mail called “Who Moved My Cheese?” by Spencer Johnson. If you have not heard of it or read it yet, I highly recommend it. It is a simple story that takes less than an hour to read, but it helps you to be so much braver about going after what you want, rather than letting fear of failure and change hold you back from trying.

The other cool thing about having a part time job is that it means I can apply for other part time jobs! I am looking into veterinary offices and local horse rescues, but the most exciting job I have found is to become an animal control officer. Ever seen the show animal cops, yep, that it exactly what it is. Even though I know I would love it and have already had some experience in that type of job, the tough part is actually getting the job. Applying for a new job is stressful. This whole week I have been debating if my cover letter was good enough or if I should have written it differently. Should it be more formal, more friendly –what do you want from me! Just give me the job and I will show you that I am great. They want to know your last four jobs and what each jobs pay was – do they really think I remember what I got paid in high school to work at Jewel-Osco?? They also want my supervisors name – how the heck am I supposed to remember that!? The hardest realization is that you won’t get most jobs you apply for unless you can get a recommendation or have a connection with someone in that company.

Another interesting thing for me that I am running into on applications is that listed under preferred qualifications is “bilingual preferred.” Now I did minor in Spanish, it is on my resume, but in all reality, my Spanish is pretty terrible. I have an easier time reading and writing than listening and speaking – which is pretty useless for most day to day things you would need to know Spanish for. Due to a month spent in Chile and Argentina, I have developed a wonderful Spanish speaking ability…when I am drinking (I will get more to that later). That got me to thinking, what would happen if I sent in a brutally honest resume? I created one just for laughs; check it out:

So what do you think?? Would you hire me? I think it would actually be a fun experiment to try out, so here is what I propose to you readers – subscribe to my blog! Once I hit 100 subscribers I will send out this resume to three lucky companies. I am thinking like a fast food place, a clothing retailer, and then some big business firm. I am open to suggestions – just leave a comment below. I am ready to embrace a change and in reference to the book, I’m going to get my cheese. 

Proposal

I am moving back home after six years away. I have always meant to move back home, but now that it is actually happening, I have to say, it is a little frightening. Six years ago I moved away from my hometown in Chicago to go to college in Ohio (I say Chicago, but we are in the suburbs – literally the very last train stop from the city and only about 5 minutes away from the Wisconsin border). Ohio is not that far away, but when you are a poor student, that gas money adds up quickly, so I usually only visited home once or twice a year. In the beginning, I was at school and “home” was Chicago, but as the years passed “home” became synonymous with Chicago and Ohio. It was interesting though, because “home” never became solely Ohio. I love my life in Ohio – I have great friends, a great job, and met the most wonderful guy named Michael that became my fiancé. I have always ridden and worked with horses. In Chicago, I teamed up with my trainer and she let me ride all sorts of project horses – horses that were going to be put down if they did not find a home, ex-racehorses that needed a new start, and horses that were being shuffled around because no one was putting time or effort into them. She always told me, “don’t become a barn manager,” so when I went off to college, I went to become just that. After graduation I came to work at a horse rescue facility and animal sanctuary. I was only supposed to stay for a year to help get them organized, but the facility was beautiful, the people I worked with were great, and I got to see horses every day.

There comes a time, however, that homesickness finally gets the best of you. I missed my family the most – all of my families are very close (my parents are separated, so technically, I have 4 families). If after six years of living in Ohio I still have an Illinois drivers license, license plate, and all of my doctors are still in Illinois – I think it is clear that I never was intending to settle down in the state of Ohio. It is still hard when the time finally comes to actually leave though. I was planning on moving sometime in the late fall, but then I got a call for an office management position – and they wanted me in two weeks! I freaked out. Two days later, I had everything under control and was starting to get excited about the move. The only downside was that Michael was not able to move until the end of the month. Three weeks without him? We are so attached it is not even funny; he once had to travel for work and was gone for 1 week. I had absolutely no idea what to do without him there – in the end I was so beside myself, I ended up painting two of our bar stools in blue and red stripes (he said they were, pause, “Nice. Well, I guess I like them because you painted them”).

I met Michael one Saturday night in May. Some friends of mine found out that I was single and insisted that I should come out that night and meet some of their friends – especially this one guy. I almost bailed about an hour before I said I was going to meet them. I had just gotten out of a long relationship with an even longer breakup and was pretty set on just being single for the rest of my life and only letting people take me out to dinner if I was hungry enough. Looking back now, I am so glad I ended up going. I walked into the bar and spotted my friends, walking over to them, I met a couple other people they were sitting with. Suddenly, the guy running karaoke up front admitted that he had lost a bet and started to sing a really terrible rendition of Adele’s “Someone Like You.” Halfway through the song, and when another guy had come up to kick him off stage and take over, my friend mentioned that that was whom she had wanted me to meet. I couldn’t help but smile, he was good looking and dark haired and obviously was not afraid to have some fun (and believe it or not, he really can sing…just not Adele songs).

We were officially dating a month later and even though we lived about an hour away from each other, we saw each other almost every night. The best thing about a good relationship is that you don’t have to be afraid to be yourself. I know everyone says that, but it really is true. You accept each other for all your quirks and differences, but we also realize how much we have in common. I am the impulsive, impatient one in the relationship, he is the one that will take a moment to step back and look at the bigger picture. He is the creative idea maker; while I am the organized, let’s just make a schedule type of person. We both hate shopping, don’t like to talk during movies, love capers in almost every dinner we make, and both tend to fold our toast in half before eating it.

By June of the next year we were getting ready to head out on our first vacation together to Triangle X Ranch in Moose, WY. We were late to our plane, but no worries, they wanted to switch it around anyway so we only had to change flights once instead of twice to get there. And because of the “inconvenience to our unexpected flight change” they would not be charging us for our bags. How often does that ever happen at an airport??

The dude ranch was amazing. We got our own cabin – no locks on any of the doors – and our view was of the Teton Mountain Range. After an amazing breakfast (I have never eaten so much in my life – after every meal I swore I would never eat again, but when that dinner bell rang, I was so excited to stuff my face once more), we headed out to the corral to meet our horse for the week. I joked that I was going to get the horse with the most badass name and he argued that no, he was definitely going to get the badass horse. When the wrangler came out of the arena with a palomino mare and called out my name and introduced me to my horse Thunder, I was very pleased. I was even more pleased when a cute roan mare named Peppermint was assigned to Michael. It became the standing joke of the trip.

                                                A wrangler riding at sunset

The horseback riding was amazing, and even though Michael had only taken two horseback riding lessons with me in his entire life, he was galloping along with us by the end of the week. We traversed through herds of antelope and elk, climbed up mountain ranges, and galloped along wide open scrub plains with the Tetons towering overhead while bald eagle soared alongside. If that sounds epic, it’s because it was. Michael, being a photographer, was in heaven. One day while we were sitting on our porch having some wine, I pointed out to the black blur running across the camp and called out to the ranch’s black lab. When the black blur didn’t stop running, I took a closer look and realized that it was actually a black bear cub – just running through camp in the middle of the day.

                                The horses being herded out to pasture for the night

It was wild out there – no cell phones or TV, just you and nature. I think it was about our third or fourth day on the trip (we honestly can’t remember) when one of the wranglers told us about a good hiking trail that overlooked the valley. That evening we set out with his camera and a few beers, and something else that I did not know about. Hiking up the trail was amazing, both in the fact that we realized we were way out of shape and because of the view of the entire Snake River Valley it offered us. At the top of the hill, we found a good rock and stared out at the mountain range and the river and horses cradled in the valley way below us. Michael set up his camera and positioned it to get some good shots. He was being very particular about where I stood, but I let it go, because when you date a photographer sometimes that is just how it is. It was only when he came up to me and got down on one knee that I realized there was a reason he was being so odd. There is nothing more unexpected, more heart stopping, more tears of joy inducing thing than that moment. He said he had a whole speech planned out, but I think all he stammered out was “I love you, will you marry me?” I don’t even think I actually said yes, but we both understood each other. On our way back to our cabin, a group of other vacationers stopped us and we told them the news – which spurred an impromptu celebration in the main cabin. It was unbelievably touching that a group of relative strangers would take the time to celebrate with us. On a vacation like that, without TV or phones or anything to distract you, you realize how fun it is just to sit and talk with new people. Our last night on the trip, we walked down to the end of the road and sat on the fence and just talked, the two of us, as the bison grazed closer and the sun set behind the mountain peak.

 What I was doing while he was taking test pictures with the camera...little did I know...

                                              Captured the moment perfectly

Every day I appreciate him more and more. And now he is giving up his family in Ohio to come live with me in Chicago. It is so humbling to know that he is willing to do all this, just for me. That is true love, the willingness to sacrifice something to make the other person happy. After meeting him, I do believe in all that corny stuff like fate and ‘the one.’ I mean, I never meant to stay in Ohio for as long as I did. What if I had moved to Chicago earlier like I had planned? He also had moved around a lot – he went to school in Pittsburg, followed by a job in Baltimore, moving to LA, then Albuquerque, before finally moving back to Ohio. The bar I met him at was an hour away from my house and I would have never gone to on my own. The friend that introduced us was a friend that I had met when we had both gone on a college trip to Chile. What are the odds of all of that coming together somehow that we could meet? Now I am getting ready to move and leave him behind in our apartment. We are selling most of our furniture, so he will be in this apartment as the tables, chairs, bed, and couch all slowly start to sell off. I am sure this is going to be a rough month, but at the end of it, I will be driving back so we can move together. And our wedding, it is going to be in June. We are calling June our anniversary month because we can’t remember the exact dates of our first date or the proposal, but we know at least that they were in June. It is time again to face a little bit of the unknown and meet some changes, but even though it is terrifying, it is also kind of exciting and fun.