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| 7th Dan Clan does Diamond Punch |
The long-waited day for the Henkel family black belts kicked
off a very full August. On the Fourth,
the four original Henkels assembled at Wisconsin Lutheran College, where Jim
had made really excellent arrangements, parking space reservations and set up
for the testing for 7th dan.
Mark and Hilde came down first to Jim's house, dropping off produce and
eggs (plus Rudolph cheese, of course!) and then the four had about an hour to
work on coordinating the forms…tricky to work that out at the last minute, but
they had no opportunity to all get together before the day.
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| Next Generation Cuties |
In addition to the flags Jim brought,
Grandmaster Robert Stevens set the scene with a Kukkiwon banner and an elegant
table cover. Dr. Dwight Stevens was able
be present as the family he trained so long did cheonkwon, jitae and broke
boards. The papers on teaching
techniques had been submitted before the day. Jim and John also demonstrated fierce, but
controlled sparring.
This is the first time four family members, from two
generations all earned seventh dan black belts together, so quite an occasion. The special, special day was enhanced by the presence
of Kayme, Evelyn and all three Henkel grandchildren. Two of Grandmaster Stevens’ sisters attended
and took photos, his daughter and nephew were also there, so three generations
of Stevenses and three generations of Henkels together. The celebratory hibachi dinner afterword was
happy and relaxing before John and Evie took Hazel home. It was a truly remarkable and memorable day!
August, as always, contained many garden and social
activities, as the corn ripened and Mark and Hilde enjoyed sharing corn and
brats with neighbors (Sarah and Robert), colleagues (Eric and Sandra) friends
(Dr. Stevens, Kim, Karrie and Jeff, Carol and assorted kids) and family. In between, they froze corn for the coming
winter, and feasted on various old and new ways of enjoying beans, cucumbers,
zucchini and eggplant. Working together,
Mark and Hilde processed and canned many boxes of tomatoes as stewed, sauce and
ketchup, plus savored the fruits directly.
August is a lush and delicious month for gardeners!
There was time for family fun, with John and Evie bringing
Hazel and the two dogs for a long weekend.
Hazel had just begun crawling and was delightful as she started
exploring at Grandma and Grandpa’s. It
was good to see the parents relax and enjoy the slower country rhythms, tour
the Point brewery with them , and attend church together.
The month included other family time. Mark and Hilde got to visit her mother while
she was in lovely rehab facility in southern Wisconsin. She is
now returned to her apartment and working at keeping active and well. They also got to visit Hilde’s brother Brian
and wife Anne at their new and beautiful home near Westfield and also joined Mark’s
niece Alana and all the Rice Lake Henkels to celebrate the newest addition,
Philip Henkel.
The first part of the month still very dry, so Mark and
Hilde ventured into the swamp where they found great difficulty navigating,
even with the ATV. The tangle of tops,
stumps and ruts from the logging last fall are now disguised by vigorous growth
and after some struggles and getting
stuck, we resolved to return in cooler weather SEVERAL times with the chain saw…that
will be lots of good exercise! Right
after that adventure, the waves of rain and storms started, so things are even
less accessible over there. Rudolph did
not have the horrible flooding or tornadoes, but seeing what happened elsewhere
in the state was painful.
Since other activities also continued, Mark and Hilde ran a
taekwondo testing for their students, dashed to north central Iowa to supervise
a farm visit, and fit in other projects.
Mark replaced the cracked washline posts, while Hilde handled the local
publicity from the family testing. She
also enjoyed a lunch with dear friend Irene, a lunch gathering of the crafts
ladies and then lunch with Linda from ADRC days. All in all the month was very social, busy
and fun.
