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Till the River Runs Dry
Living a Lifestyle before Its Time
By John Freivalds
And, I will sail my vessel
’Til the river runs dry
Like a bird upon the wind
These waters are my sky
I’ll never reach my destination
If I never try
So I will sail my vessel
’Til the river runs dry.
Too many times we stand aside
And let the waters slip away
’Til what we put off until tomorrow
Has now become today
So don’t you sit upon the shoreline?
And say you’re satisfied
Choose to change the rapids
And dare to dance the tide.
The River
Garth Brooks
Till the River runs Dry: Key Points
Margo Freivalds was someone who foresaw changes in American lifestyles – the old paradigm of marriage, get a house with mortgage, sending kids to college, golden years living in Florida and traveling is not the norm anymore. Instead, her idea was to do it, follow your dreams now while your knees and hips work and to do it on your terms.
This book on Margo’s lifestyle is possible because she wrote it all down. There is a lifetime of writings in a huge beaten up steamer chest which is my prime keep sake. There are some very neatly typed school books with perfect handwriting and hundreds if not thousands of scraps of paper with thoughts on things that came to her at the moment of things that she saw. So what follows is an organized compendium of all the things she wrote down at one time or another.
Main Street Hopkins Minnesota
•There could not have been a more typical and straight forward place to grow up in than Hopkins Minnesota. Home of the annual Raspberry Festival and well known for having a genuine Main Street. You grow up here never questioning much of anything and you become a ‘strange understood duck” if you did. Bob Dylan has a line in one of his songs “bent out of shape by society’s pliers” she and began to feel like she was a prisoner of society.Margo went off to Cornell College in Mt. Vernon Iowa and then got into marriage that really didn’t work-“”I was afraid I wouldn’t get another offer.”
•Yet this back ground offered no solace and self esteem for Margo which was to plague her the rest of her life. Something need to change because Cornell College and “Brownie” her first husband were not a fun. Of him she wrote” Get away from me. The message was so clear, be a housekeeper and a cook but do not expect any love. How could you not want any love from me or give me any? What was churning in your soul all those years (7) years.”
•She later went on to get a degree from Emory University in Atlanta and a Masters’ from the University of Minnesota. But she never got any satisfaction in hanging the diplomas on the on the wall, instead they are still in a closet where she had left them.
The Awakening: Asian Journeys and their aftermath
- Took sabbatical at age 42 to travel around Asia for a year.
- Asia trip included Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Thailand, Singapore and Nepal, where she organized a Himalayan tribe for herself with Sherpa guides.
- She returned from Asia more self-confident and not so willing to compromise her values in the corporate world.
- She left for Asia owning a beat-up Toyota; when she got back she bought a turbo-charged sports car. No longer self-conscious about her height, she enjoyed the looks when a tall woman got out of a sports car.
- She ended up having a modern three story modern condo on a sensuous curve facing the wide Ohio River with beautiful sunsets. An elevator took you to each of the floors and the world’s best parties were had. One Halloween she called up a local undertaker and had a coffin brought in!
- Tons of .adventures and lesson learned at each stop for a woman traveling alone will be detailed including an evening with Thai Whiskey and mushrooms and an obnoxious Indian General. But her favorite stop was New Zealand where she spent three months climbing glaciers and counting the millions of sheep.
- She Made it quite clear to men courting her what she wanted and not meekly being a follower
Business career
- “Interrupting” a somewhat muddled business career doesn’t mean you can’t restart at higher level than before. Upon returning she was offered an international development position with a division of Bristol Myers Squibb based in Evansville, Indiana, with perks like first class travel. For instance, the airfare alone for one trip to Korea from Evansville was US $11,000 and this in short year attire she traveled through Asia on a discount airplane take and little more than a back pack.
- Being international didn’t mean being fluent in many languages, as Margo was the world’s worst linguist; she would almost sprain her tongue trying to speak French. But after Asia she acquired grace, poise and class. And at 6’0” tall she made an impression when she went on business calls to Asia.
- She got into her new business career with plenty of enthusiasm and style. The first thing she did was to buy a turbo powered sports car ; a big change since before her assai trip she drove a beat up and innocuous Toyota Camry. She knew she was making quiet a scene when a 6’0” woman with very long legs emerged from such a hot car; naturally it had a 5 speed stick. And she zoomed it up to 125 miles an hour on one Montana highway.
Living where you want
- Even though America is an urban nation, you don’t have to sacrifice anything by moving to smaller uncongested cities. When Margo moved to Newburgh Indiana, she bought an upscale condo on the Ohio River. Later she found peace in Lexington, Virginia, and Dubuque, Iowa.
- The move to the Blue Ridge mountains to an 11 acres mountain which came with a 40 foot heated lap pool, sculptured gardens ( which always needed weeding as that was pure joy) and 50 mile views . It was her push and she put in an offer on the place in April and moved 1200 miles to be in it in July. Everyone that knew Margo thought this was a crazy idea until they came to visit and see the view from the top of the mountain. Then they would cry and understand.
- When it become to hard for her husband to maintain the mountain top resort with its own mile long “driveway” by himself and her father’s failing health she decide to move closer to Minneapolis. Dubuque was selected fro the towns’ vibrant energy and river views and it was “close enough to Minneapolis to go for weekends and not so close to run errands.”
Surgeries and Compensating Mechanisms
Adapted but never got accustomed to a surgery-filled life (17 major surgeries ( three total hip replacements, seven hip dislocations, two knee replacements, two broken femurs, cancer in both breast etc..) from 2000 to 2010). But she never stooped walking, getting ramp built at church, strolling through Paris with a cane but never said “poor me.”
The garage and storage rooms are filled with very mobility and orthopedic device known to man wheel chairs, crutches, braces, grabbers, surgical compresses, and compression stockings and drugs, lot of drugs. The expenses grew so large that in April 2010 United Health Care informed Margo she had reached the lift time limit on converge.
•As the surgeries began to take an increasing toll on her mobility Margo out of necessity developed mechanisms to keep on living
•One on occasion to find an antique chest in Charlottesville Virginia she was told that they good stuff was on the second level and the only way up were the stairs and a freight conveyor belt. The stairs were out because she was doing “toe touch” which meant no weight on the leg with the bad hip. So she wants up and down on the freight conveyor belt.
•Margo was a social animal and would get invited to lots of parties to house which always had lots of entrance steps. Again being in “toe touch” she could not dare to attempt even on step so in full dress clothes she would approach the steps , get down on the sidewalk and “but” her way up the steps and then stand once the step had been conquered.
•It was an ongoing adventure to go to college campuses like Washington &Lee and VMI to hear lectures. There was an elevator but you usually had to access it through the kitchen or some utility room and freight elevators around the US became her favored means of transport.
•We developed a liking a for the Unitarian church in Dubuque Iowa built had the most tortuous way to get in-which meant short of lifting her wheel chit in it was impossible. So the first couple of tiems we had the congregation come to our house and we had services there. And then Margo’s Mom’s trust fund was used to build a US $38,000 handicapped ramp at the church in reality the only physical monument to Margo’s life on earth.
•All the surgeries brought more pain which all the drugs could not take care of so she pursued every other reme4dy she could find including shamans living in hogans in New Mexico or faith healers and rolfers in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But while they did not bring everlasting relief they did bring her some relief and hope.
Bucket List Plans and Trips
- Every year made a bucket list of big trips she wanted to accomplish – 2010last year of life was go to Panama, visit friends in Minnesota by herself and do a 6,000 mile driving trip from Dubuque to Canadian Rockies.
- The 2009 bucket trip was to drive through all the New England states with a friend and to raid every art shop they could afford to. She said this was her “Thelma and Louise” moment.
- In 208 she wanted to see her niece on some volunteer work in Guatemala and against my wises took her cane and pain to Guatemala and did crazy things like ride around cobble stone streets on the back of motorcycles.
- Made alone time part of our marriage. Trips by herself to American West and Central America were always part of normal marriage to Margo.
- At time of her death said she was not afraid but frustrated she was not able to accomplish all she had planned.
The Chapter that are written are: