Heavenly Voices

The weekend of January 26th Traci and I made an unplanned trip to Vermillion, South Dakota where we attended the funeral of Larry Torkelson. Mr Torkleson was her College Choral Director, friend, academic advisor, private voice coach and inspiration for singing.

I say that it was an uplanned trip;however, we knew that the day was coming just not when... Mr. Torkleson had been in a battle with cancer and in his last days had planned his service. He had several wishes and one of those wishes was for the Alumni Choir to sing a handful of songs that he selected for his funeral.

Traci had prepared me before we headed to South Dakota that we were going to meet up with several Alumni and friends some of which she had not seen in years.

We pulled into Vermillion about 11pm on Friday and promptly headed for one of the local establishments. She spent the next 3 hours getting caught up with her friends and sharing wonderful and funny stories about Mr. Torkleson and their time at the University of South Dakota (USD). I had the pleasure of listening to it all and enjoying their company.

I got full nights sleep in preparation for the next day's events as Traci tossed and turned for most of the night. The events included choir practice in the morning, lunch with friends, the service, and finally another night on the town sharing more Torkleson stories.

We arrived on campus and headed to the choir practice room about 11am. The plan was for the Alumni Choir to meet up and practice the songs that they were going to sing later that afternoon. I took a seat in the back of the room and sat as quiet as possible and watched as 50+ people assembled to join voices. I experienced the most amazing thing over the next hour.

The Alumni Choir consisted of former students from the 1970s to 2001 and as they walked in, everyone took their place without coordination. Even though a majority of these people had never met eachother, they knew where to stand and sang like they had been singing together for years.

For the most part, I was looking at the backs of heads and could see the sides of some faces. Everyone was singing with so much passion that it brought goosebumps to my arms and I choked up on more than one occasion as I saw tears welling up in some of the singers eyes.

The Alumni Choir

Mr. Torkleson was a lover of music for his entire life. I would go into detail but know that I could never articulate the magnitude of this man's passion. I do know that he helped commission a piece of music by Peter Williams and he develped a relationship with Mr. Williams over the years. One of the requests that Mr. Torkleson had was that the choir sing "Agnus Dei", the piece that he helped commision, and a song that the USD choir learned to love.

Mr. Williams was present to pay his respects and conduct the choir in their singing of this incredible song. When Peter Williams stepped in front of the choir, they appeared to stand taller and reach deep inside for a voice that was filled with power and emotion.

Mr. Williams also took a few moments to share some of the same wonderful stories with the alumni that they had shared with each other the night before.

Peter Williams conducting the Alumni Choir

Traci and some friends from her class

Once practice ended, we headed off to a South Dakota hot spot for lunch... Dairy Queen. Not sure how we picked this place out of the 4-5 options in the tiny town of Vermillion but the vote was overwhelming. ;-)

We arrived at the United Church of Christ about 1:30 and were seated shortly thereafter. The service was one that I will not soon forget. The pastor gave a wonderful sermon and shared many stories about Mr. Torkelson. The congregation joined together to sing "When in our Music God is Glorified" and "How Great Thou Art". Then the Alumni Choir then took to the stage around Mr. Torkelson's coffin and sang several wonderful songs to honor a man they all admired. Then came the time to sing Mr. Torkelson's favorite song. Once the choir started singing, it was apperant that "Agnus Dei" was everyone's favorite. I heard this song earlier, during practice; however, I was sitting behind the choir and did not realize that sitting in front of the singers made a difference. WOW!!! I cannot even begin to describe how powerful this song was. Everything about it was perfect... the singers, the words and most of all the emotion that filled everyone singing around Mr. Torkleson's coffin.

Alumni Choir at the funeral service

Following the service, we drove to his grave site. His site was located the edge of a hill overlooking the local airport. Music was not his only passion... he also loved to fly. We gathered around the site and everyone said their final goodbyes. As we were walking back to the cars, a plane flew overhead, circled and came in right over tops of the trees. It was one of his flying buddies paying tribute and saying his goodbye.

We met later that night at the same establishment that we met the night before and everyone picked up right where they had left off. One of Traci's friends, Elizabeth, brought several photo albums and everyone spent the night looking at the photos and reliving the memories of concerts, plays and parties of yester-year.

Celebrating the memories

Before we left, everyone expressed an interest in getting together yearly to honor Mr. Torkleson. As of today, I think the wheels of planning are in motion and we will more than like make a trip a year from now, up to Vermillion, for another round of singing, drinking and memory sharing. If anyone is interested in attending or wants to help to coordiante the next event, Anthony Burbach is the man to talk to.

A memorable quote from the weekend:

"Wow, there must be at least a million dead people here" From one of Mr. Torkelson's grandchildred when we arived at the cemetery.

Until next year...

Much love,

Bill and Traci

Handy Dandy

Traci never ceases to amaze me with the "stuff" that she can do. She plays music, teaches children, re-landscapes the whole yard, can troubleshoot and identify issue with a car engine, can drive in the snow and ice, paint, clean (not the normal type either...) and most recently I learned that she can resurface floors.

When I moved to Kansas City 4 years ago, from California, I learned to adapt to a completely different life style... well, almost. The pace that people live life is way slower, there are actually 4 seasons throughout the year and for some unknown reason the bathrooms have carpet in them. I cannot for the life of me understand why someone would do something like that and have not been able to find anyone from this area to explain the reasoning behind it.

After several months of discussion Traci and I decided that something needed to be done about the funny floors. We agreed that anything but carpet would be an upgrade. So we spent some time at Lowes bending every single piece of linoleum they own. We settled on a tile that was fancier than the linoleum on the roll; however, not as fancy as ceramic tile.

We purchased everything we needed to get the job done and borrowed some tools from one of our friends who is re-modeling his whole house. My plan was to tear up the carpet one weekend, clean the floor the next, pull out the toilet one night during the week after dinner, lay the tile the following weekend, and then complete the project the following weekend by installing the baseboard and transition (metal piece between the carpet and tiles). I also thought that it would be a good idea to start downstairs in a bathroom that we rarely use and learn from our mistakes.

Here is how the project unfolded: We ripped up the carpet to see what the floor looked like underneath.

The floors after the carpet was pulled

Traci was laying the 12x12 tiles within 12 hours and had begun ripping out the carpet upstairs withing the next 24 hours. We finished all 3 bathrooms... I mean, she finished all three bathrooms in under a week. She was a machine. :-) And here I was envisioning us giggling, taking turns laying the pieces and enjoying each other's company while we transformed these three rooms. It was just the opposite, as Traci was a cutting, tile laying, caulking machine. My job was to pull the toilets, nail in the baseboards and stay clear all other times. I was really good at number third one.

The completed downstairs bathroom

The upstairs guest bathroom

Our bathroom

I can't wait to "help" build our raised vegetable garden once the ice thaws.

More to come.

Bill and Traci

Happy New Year!

Well.. we are a few days into the new year and it has been a couple of weeks since I have posted anything.

Christmas turned out to be way better than I had imagined. We were able to visit with many family members and spend some quality time with my Grandma; however, visiting with Grandma Rose is both good and bad. Good because she loves to tell stories about when she was younger, tell us her thoughts and feelings on Vera family issues and most of all she loves Traci. :-) From the first time that Grandma Rose met Traci, she knew she was a special person and always makes a point of telling us.

The first time Grandma met Traci

Me, Mom and Traci

Traci in Paradise

I said that visiting with Grandma can be bad too and the reason I say that is that she thinks I have been gaining weight at a constant rate since 1991. She will hug me, look me up and down and then the words "Gordo" come out of her mouth. She isn't mean when she says it, she is just pointing out the fact that I appear to be occupying more space. Christmas was no exception... I am Gordo and getting more Gordo for 15+ years and running.

2008: Unfortunately, we welcomed in the new year with some hacking, sneezing and a double shot of NyQuil. My cold didn't start until the day we arrived back in Kansas and Traci's started Dec. 30th. We watched the ball drop on the East Coast and then turned in for the night. It was pretty pathetic considering my mother stayed up longer than us to ring in the new year.

I have never been into resolutions. I feel that I make plenty of changes throughout the year and making one on this particular day makes me feel like I am making a resolution just to make one. I am definitely not against them and feel that for some people they can be life changing especially around the new year as I know some people treat the new year like a starting block for the next 365 days. **Sorry... just a random thought that came to my head

I did make a commitment to run the Lincoln Half Marathon on May 4th. I ran it last year with my friend Cari from Nebraska where we both agreed to a 10 min. mile pace and trained separately. We almost didn't get to run the race last year as a monster lightening storm settled in over Lincoln and there was concern over the lightening. I did my 10 min. miles and she ran it a bit faster as she is not as Gorodo as me. My official training starts tomorrow and I hope to better my time by 30 seconds per mile. I will keep you all posted on my progress. When complete this, I am considering running the LA Marathon next year. This will be my 3rd running...

I want to wish you all the best year ever!! If you made a resolution, STICK TO IT!!!

Love Bill and Traci