Jack and Beverly Rienks Home Page

Another year passes (2021)…. jolting us, comforting us, surprising us, and instilling a healthy, scary curiosity concerning what comes next…..and will we be allowed to age gracefully! So far, so good.

Two of our brighter moments were trips up to Clermont (near Orlando) in April and November, visiting with Jack’s older sister (91 yrs.) who made the trip from Nebraska with four of her daughters to visit the fifth daughter, who recently moved from Colorado Springs to our area (only three hours away) for health reasons. It was so great to enjoy the warmth of this caring family. They are so genuine. We traveled there through very rural Florida up the middle of the state to avoid the crowds going to Disney. The farms and orchards are so beautiful. We are so thankful for these opportunities.

Bev had a horrible month of September with UTI’s and trying to find the right antibiotic. Glory to God for it to be over, and to be feeling better than she has for years! Watching skating on Peacock and the Olympic Channel, that both show every move of every skater, is still a passion. Enjoying Hallmark movies with their nice endings gives a sense of joy and peace. Jack has found a new interest, ham radios, and has taken the rigid exam to be licensed. Now he’s building antennas to enhance this project. Gardening, getting back into church activities, fixing anything in our household, car and van, and helping neighbors, keeps him stimulated and happy. He also zooms a Disciple bible class every week for which he studies every evening.

Bev’s daughter Kelly, who is severely immune compromised, got covid after being fully jabbed. She was able to get the Monoclonal Antibody treatment, thanks to our wonderful governor, and is still mending, but is back to work. Her daughter, Kara, has planned her wedding for January. Our grandson, Matthew (son of Rob and Linda) proposed to Erika on the rocks in front of the Portland Head Lighthouse in Maine in November. He is a policeman in East Hartford, Conn, and they have a lovely new home in a nearby town. Rob decided to retire from The Hartford, and is now working full time as a tutor and teacher’s aide in the school all of his kids went to. Their youngest, Lauren, is enrolled in a masters program for Occupational Therapy. Eldest, Sarah, with her husband, have a very thriving photography business while Sarah also works in finance in Boston. Bev’s son, Larry, has moved back to San Diego and his son, Joel, is going to college aiming for marine biology. Jack’s daughter, Danelle, is still in SF and finding it more and more difficult to live there as an organic person. Nearly everyone there has the covid jab, and many restaurants require it for service. She has lost a good paying caregiver job because of it. Currently she is at a small farm near SF tending the property and their goats, while maintaining her house and dog sitting activities, and her part time boutique job. Her daughter, Dana, has transferred her studies from Mesa State to SF State University. Darin, Jack’s son, is as evasive as ever, but is still in the Aspen area working his remodeling and construction, dumpster and porta-pot businesses

We are hurricane preppers so have not felt the impact of not shopping like most folks. We are happily living in our little Florida home on the channel with a 16 foot pocket cruiser sailboat, Encore, on the dock 20 steps from the back door, and a newly acquired Hobie kayak. When we were in Connecticut we had to drive 80 miles just to look at our sailboat. Compared to our Sea Wind catamaran, this boat is much easier for Jack to single hand, and is backyard close to allow him to putter on it to his heart's content. The birdbath just outside our kitchen window where we have our meals, gives us endless entertainment with cardinals, blue jays, mockingbirds, purple martins, sparrows, mourning doves, red bellied and pileated woodpeckers, and occasional indigo blue buntings, etc bathing. We also seem to be the watering hole for geckoes, snakes and squirrels and once in a while an eagle. We have a resident bunny (or more) that is so cute. Each evening we watch the egrets, pelicans, herons, ibises, whistling ducks and gulls fly down the channels to the mangroves to spend the night. Of course, in the morning from our bed we can watch the return. Nature sure is wonderful. We are so happy we xeriscaped the yard years ago to have flowering bushes, tall grasses, ferns, and other groundcovers which entice the beautiful butterflies. We do express our thankfulness daily.

We are surprised that we do not miss ice skating, and especially the hour trips to and from the rink. It was the right time. We donated much of our skating apparel and accessories to Bev's synchronized skating team to help defray their expenses to get very expensive practice ice at ISI Adult Nationals in Lake Tahoe in the Fall of 2018. Very good cause. It was such a special skating journey we enjoyed, loving the movement on ice to wonderful music together. Still keep the DVDs and VHS tapes and good memories of events and fellow skaters. Bev stays involved with a subscription to Peacock to watch all the big skating competitions. The Olympic channel carries all the events with commentary the following week.

Jack continues his involvement in church activities at Englewood United Methodist Church. They stream their services online which we have been using through most of the past year. Things are open again in a limited way. We have really found a home at this church. The pastors and music director are exceptional.

We are thankful to be in relatively good health due in part to carefully watching our diets, having a backyard garden that provides wonderful produce almost year round (thanks to Michigan farmer Jack), and exercising routinely. Bev uses the Pilates reformer, and Jack bikes, gardens and does all yard and house repairs, and uses the Pilates reformer. We don't travel anymore for multiple reasons.

In May of 2016, we challenged ourselves for our last competition when the Florida Sunshine State Games offered adult ice dance events. We skated the Canasta Tango and the Swing Dance to fulfill Jack's 80th birthday year bucket list. The event was held in Coral Springs, Florida (next to Fort Lauderdale) and an easy venue for us to attend. We did come home with the gold and real good memories, as we met some old friends and a few new. We especially enjoyed meeting John Kerr, UK Olympic Ice Dancer.

Our last plane trip was to enjoy a wonderful long weekend in May 2015 visiting Rob's family in Plainville, Conn.. He toured us through loads of Bev's favorite old haunts throughout Connecticut for nostalgia value. We went to northwest Conn. to the White Flower Farm, Bantam Lake, where she spent all summers until she was married, and Mt. Tom State Park where she was engaged. We spent one whole day in Springfield, Mass. for his son, Matt's, graduation from Westfield State with majors in Criminal Justice and Sociology. We also visited Manchester, Conn. where her kids grew up, and continued up to Storrs to see how much the UConn Campus has grown. We got to watch Lauren play two games of basketball. This was a special thrill as she had major ACL surgery on her knee this year.

We participated in the US Figure Skating Adult Championships in Hyannis, MA in April, 2014, and came home with a shiny Silver Medal for our four Pre Bronze Dances. We were very pleased with our performances and lost first place to a wonderful dance team from Colorado Springs. That year the required dances were our favorites...Dutch Waltz, Cha Cha, Rhythm Blues, and the Swing Dance. This was one of our best and most enjoyed competitions. Being on Cape Cod also allowed us to visit our honeymoon area of Falmouth and celebrate our 30th year of marriage.

In April 2011 in Salt Lake City, we made our debut at a US Figure Skating competition, the Adult Championships, entering the Pre Bronze Dance event. Click here for the article that honored us in Skating Magazine for being the oldest competitors at the competition. This trip to Salt Lake City was also part of Jack's celebration of his 75 birthday. He showed Bev where he had worked when he was test director for the Poseidon Missile, and the homes he lived in raising his kids. To continue that celebration, we drove from SLC to Aspen to visit his son, Darin, and see some of the glorious houses he has built including his own atop an 8000 ft, mountain overlooking Reudi Reservoir in Basalt, Colorado. Then, we flew to San Francisco to visit with his daughter, Danelle, granddaughter, Dana (turning 10) and Anthony. Danelle is so passionate about her city and loves to show it off. We had planned to see Bev's son, Larry and family in San Diego, but that had to be cancelled.

Bev's 75th in June 2010 was celebrated in the "highest" fashion as she chose to tandem skydive from 13,000 ft (over two miles) in early July. The free fall of 8,000 ft. at 120 mph was literally breathtaking. This had been a long time dream that she worked up to during other birthday landmarks by bungee jumping from a hot air balloon, hang gliding, paragliding, and a flight in a glider plane.

We have sold our Sea Wind 24 sailing catamaran, Adrenalin, to an energetic young man with two teenage sons. They sailed it to their mooring in West Palm Beach via Fort Meyers and the Okeechobee Waterway on the kid's spring break from school. The boat performed as advertised and they had a great time.

We had been considering getting a pocket cruiser for some time, and now are proud owners of a 1981 Com-Pac 16. Jack made a one day round trip to Key Largo to check it out. He loved it and got a deal he couldn't refuse so he bought it on the spot and trailered it home the same day. Left home at 8:30 AM and got home at 1:30 AM the next morning. A long day but it was worth it and he enjoys driving, especially when pulling a trailer with a marginal wheel bearing at night across Alligator Alley. Anyway, he cleaned it up, installed davit lifting points and had it ready for his son, Darin, to help him launch it while he was here from Aspen over Mother's Day 2017. He lifts the boat onto our dock with the davits and enjoys working on it at his leisure. It is very easy to launch and to motor or sail in our channel basins or out in Lemon Bay. He can take the ICW to the Gulf but that is a longer trip on a boat of this size. After Adrenalin and considering our life phase we thought about naming it Finale but we ended up naming it more appropriately Encore.

After 18 years he has officially retired from the Coast Guard Auxiliary as a patrol boat skipper and flotilla web master (with full pay! LOL). He continues to monitor the monofilament line recycle bin at our housing association's dock for the Auxiliary but no more formal duties and training courses.

Since we joined the Englewood United Methodist Church we have become quite active in renewing our faith and serving in our church where we can. Jack has worked with the annual rummage sale program for the last seven years (they took in $98,000 last year) participating in the transfer of donations to storage facilities throughout the year. He just retired as the co-chair of the storage transfer group but still works with the men a couple of hours every Friday morning. He also maintains their converted Penske truck box truck and works special projects as needed.. He runs the dishwashing crew at the Saturday Pancake Breakfasts.

And what does Bev do????? As Jack's secretary, she tries to keep his crammed calendar straight, keeps the family finances in order and the pantry full. She works to keep up with the medical info to make the right decisions to maintain our good health. As loving wife, she keeps his home and clothes clean, his tummy fed, and a smile on his face! Enough said!