2008

We left you with a cliffhanger last year, about Mary’s contract position at the State of Michigan. Alas, it was canceled. Subsequently, Unisys let her go, and Mary has been carefully considering her options ever since. Perhaps next year will bring more news.

Mickey finished last year with some minor surgery to remove a benign tumor, and then tore cartilage in his right knee while jogging Christmas day, which was repaired in April. Shortly after that, he suffered an infection in his perineum region and that was operated on as well. The latter half of the year has been calm by comparison, however he is occasionally tormented by the a persistent clicking noise. It comes and goes, but always engenders great anxiety. He believes it is either the sound of impending doom, or one of the surgeons left his watch inside an incision.

Emily began the year as part of a production at MSU, Babes in Arms, which you may recognize from the movie of the same name. It was really a good show, and included the son of Jeff Daniels—star of stage and screen—in the cast. Mickey saw Jeff Daniels at one of the performances, and waved to him, but Mr. Big-Shot-Hollywood-Star didn’t wave back; so Mickey keyed Jeff’s Escalade on the way out.

Emily followed in Alex’s footsteps in an educational pilgrimage to that great center of American learning, Disney World. Mary went along as a chaperone. Mickey got a mug out of the deal.

Alex’s soccer team had a very good spring, and won three tournaments. There is always that lingering question: did the team improve, or did the team find weaker competition? One might ask the Democratic Party the same question.

In the summer, Alex went to soccer camp for a week while the rest of the family traveled to Cookeville, Tennessee where Emily participated in a talent competition. She won, but there was no real prize to mention. At least we felt better on the drive home than the other 40 families that drove from all across the country. (Perhaps that petty attitude is not in keeping with the spirit of Christmas, but nobody’s perfect.)

In the fall, Emily joined Alex at the Junior High (oh, don’t worry: Alex advanced to eighth grade). They are both doing fine in their own way. Emily has also begun confirmation classes at church, as Alex is in the home stretch for his.

Recently, the family traveled to Wisconsin in September and again for Thanksgiving. In the first week of December, Mickey traveled to San Francisco for business, and Mary joined him for an extended weekend. Emily was loaned out to a local family where she did housework to earn her keep, while Alex was on yet another soccer excursion, this time a tournament in Atlanta (they didn’t win, but we like to think of it as our own little economic stimulus package for the soccer tournament industry).

Emily competed in various karaoke contests during the summer, and is also still active in dance. What we need to find is a competition that combines the two, but the only thing we can think of where you choose the best person at singing a song written by someone else while tap dancing on a stage is the Presidential election, and there won’t be another one of those until 2012.

Alex has been bowling, and returns to wrestling this winter after an eight year absence from competition. I was going to make a joke that Alex might have a future in professional wrestling by using the bowling metaphor as his character, and calling himself the “Seven Ten Split”, or “Oily Lane”, but then I remembered that both of those were professional wrestlers back in the seventies, and it wasn’t funny then so it probably won’t be funny now.

Mary has taken up tap dance, braving shin splints to learn the world’s third oldest profession (she’s already an expert at the first two: gardening and baking). Sometimes she feels like she has two left feet, but the instructor is exploiting this by choreographing dances that include constant turning to the right.

Hope all is well with all who read this. We remain — The Hadicks: Mickey, Mary, Alex, and Emily