Rob, a chemist and friend of ours, is a master home brewer. Nina and John went to his house one Sunday afternoon and he showed them how to brew beer. You can see a picture of the bottle that they made. We still have some left in the refrigerator.
When we would sit outside on a cool night (rare in Phoenix), talk and look up at the sky, the falling star discussion would inevitably come up. That is: that I had never seen a falling star and both Nina and her Dad had.
Have you ever been to Walden Pond in the fall?
Nina marked this off her list, but I don’t have any information about where the tree might have been or what the occasion was.
Nina’s friends could probably fill this page with tales of laughter that they shared (and I hope they will!) One memory in particular comes to mind: Nina and I were shopping at Paradise Valley Mall in December. The parking lot was packed and I was driving a van at that time. The only parking space we could find was for a compact car. Somehow I wedged the van into that spot. I could barely open the door on my side. Undaunted, I wriggled out of the car. shut my door and found myself stuck in the tiny space between the two cars. I couldn’t move. Nina was doubled over with laughter. After what seemed like an eternity, she stood up and literally pulled me out. I’ll never forget it.
From a very early age, Nina always loved to listen to tapes of radio comedians – Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and Fanny Brice as Baby Snooks. She took joy in trying to outsmart the writers by guessing what the punch line of a joke or routine was going to be. She knew that it was all scripted, but wished that she was as funny as the characters seemed to be.
One day she hoped to get it right and cap somebody’s anecdote – her own, a friend’s or (especially) her parents’ – with the perfect one-liner to end the story in triumph. One day, she hit her stride. As the second child, she got tired of her parents’ bromide that they had had a second baby because they wanted to share the love that they had felt with the first, her brother. Finally, exasperated, she announced, “You had another baby because SOMEBODY forgot to put SOMETHING on!”
Nina really wanted to see the Norther Lights…so much that it made her list twice!
She saw them in 2007 while traveling with Students on Ice. Have you ever seen them?
Even though Nina visited China, she never marked this one off her list. How about you? Have you traveled around the world to learn your craft or pursue your passion?
Nina always wanted to write a song, but never got it down.
Have you written a song? What did you do with it?
