Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Hi Andy’s Blog Readers! I’m Maria - Andy’s youngest sister and I am today’s guest writer with a little ditty or two about Andy.

As the youngest child of eight and being five years younger than Andy (and Tom and Tim, of course), I was not very close to the triplets growing up. Five years is a huge difference in grade school. By the time I was in first grade, Andy was in Junior High. When I was in High School, the triplets had already graduated. When Andy and Tim moved to Oregon, I remember being aware about how far away they lived so I would write them letters. Yep - ol' fashioned letters with stamps. There was no internet then for those blog readers who were born in the 90s and after.

I have lots of Andy stories  - who doesn’t? ;-) The ones that stand out currently are the ones that highlight features of his personality. If you knew Andy, you will recognize these. 1. Andy was a helper. 2. Andy laughed a lot and often at himself  3. Andy lived and loved fully - family and friends. I’ll keep today’s post about Andy the helper (or this may exceed the acceptable length!) Andy the helper: Andy more often than not would jump in to help family and friends both pre-retirement and of course even more so post-retirement.

When Pete (my husband) and I had our home built in northern Wisconsin - and it was finished (and EMPTY), Andy (and Cindy!) did a mega Costco run for us and stocked the house. Coffee, coffee maker, coffee filters, beer, gin, tonic, kahlua, cleaning supplies, paper towel, tp and probably a ton more! He recognized the priority items. My sister, Lis (likely working with Andy and Cindy) ‘staged’ the house with the few miscellaneous pieces of furniture we had on hand and they had a fire set to welcome us to our new digs when we arrived.

On another visit, Andy saw that a tree had fallen on our property lake side and promptly cut it up, split it, and stacked it. While he was at it, he noted a few slender trees we had flagged to take down and he cut those down too. He only stopped when the chainsaw died. I think he was happy to do this as ultimately he knew wood is necessary to build a fire - and he most definitely loved his fires!

As we were trying to slowly furnish the house, Andy agreed (without hesitation) to pick up some midcentury modern counter-height stools that I had seen on Facebook marketplace for sale in Chicagoland area. It’s an odd request - Facebook marketplace? In the big city? Could the seller be a murder-er luring prospective buyers with cool chairs? And if they aren’t a murder-er, please then bring them to northern Wisconsin (or store them in your own home) for us - please and thank you very much. He was on it.

When Pete and I lived in Brazil, Andy and Cindy visited over Thanksgiving in 2011 (photo 1: Andy and Cindy at the iconic Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio; photo 2 Andy and Cindy at Iguazu Falls). The treadmill we had in our apt in Brazil needed a new deck (not a small piece) and Andy happily (?) lugged it along AND helped to install it! (photo 3- the treadmill fix). We made sure Andy was generously served the iconic Brazilian drink - caipirinha (photo 4) - didn’t take many of them for Andy to rename them “Keye-pe-weenies!” in his own Andy beverage-infused accent. This led to loads of laughter and that became the name we used for the refreshing (and dangerously delicious drink) from that moment on. We will always remember and toast Andy when we drink “Keye-pe-weenies!”

I am grateful for all the good times we had together ❤️ Next installment… coming soon-ish… F ALS