{"id":119201,"date":"2020-06-17T18:44:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-17T23:44:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/?p=119201"},"modified":"2020-06-17T18:44:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-17T23:44:02","slug":"weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick-working-to-make-a-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick-working-to-make-a-difference\/","title":{"rendered":"Weeds by Randy Krzmarzick: Working to make a difference"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Abby at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I had a little schtick when our children were young where I \u201cwhispered\u201d loud enough for all to hear that each was my favorite.\u00a0 Anna, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you’re our first.\u201d\u00a0 Abby, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you\u2019re our little girl.\u201d\u00a0 Ezra, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you\u2019re our boy.\u201d\u00a0 They knew I was being silly.\u00a0 I was good at that.<\/p>\n

Black poet Clint Smith was talking about parenting.\u00a0 He said his mom used to say her children were pieces of her heart walking around.\u00a0 Davis thought she was being overly dramatic.\u00a0 Till he had his own.<\/p>\n

I love my three, and no, I don\u2019t have a favorite.\u00a0 These pieces of my heart are scattered, Anna in Rochester, Abby in Paris, and Ezra near Portland, OR.\u00a0 Like all you parents, I could brag on any of them at length over a beer.\u00a0 Probably a pitcher.\u00a0 \u00a0Anna was an RN at the Mayo, now going to school to be a Nurse Anesthetist.\u00a0 Ezra finished a six-year term in the National Guard.<\/p>\n

Here I want to give attention to middle kid.\u00a0 Abby is likely the only graduate of Sleepy Eye St. Mary\u2019s. the University of Minnesota, the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals, and Sciences Po in Paris.\u00a0 She is on a unique journey for a Brown County farm kid.<\/p>\n

To the beginning.\u00a0 Abigail was born to us October 1991.\u00a0 She came during our worst harvest: mud, poor crops, breakdowns.\u00a0 Then I broke my arm, so was forced to hold my new baby with a cast.<\/p>\n

Abigail came to us with eyes wide open.\u00a0 I can picture her staring around intently.\u00a0 She was quiet, taking everything in.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t talk a lot early on.\u00a0 That would change as Abby found her voice.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s interesting that children come to us with a sense of fairness.\u00a0 Some of that is passed socially, but it seems to be in their soul at birth.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s not fair!\u201d\u00a0 This preternatural sense of right and wrong is an argument for the existence of a Creator.<\/p>\n

Fairness became an intense interest for our little Abby.\u00a0 On the farm, that meant trying to save any bunny or bird that had been unfairly orphaned or injured.\u00a0 Every kitten deserved a fair shake, and that meant personal care if needed.<\/p>\n

That shifted to humans when Abby went to school.\u00a0 From the early grades, she was standing up to anyone she perceived as bullying another.\u00a0 A couple times Pam and I cringed as she told about pushing back verbally, sometimes physically, against a playground wrongdoer.\u00a0 More than once we expected a phone call from another parent.<\/p>\n

Into high school, Abby continued to stand for causes extending from the halls of St. Mary\u2019s to the halls of Congress.\u00a0 Sometimes that meant Abby was on opposite sides of an issue with her teacher.\u00a0 No one was lukewarm toward Abby.\u00a0 People really liked her, or they found her annoying.\u00a0 She was okay with that as long as she thought she was doing the right thing.<\/p>\n

Abby was a good student in addition to her crusades.\u00a0 She took Spanish in high school with Gail Bromenshenkel.\u00a0 That would prove to alter her path significantly.\u00a0 Spanish became more than schoolwork when she went to San Lucas, Guatemala with a group from the New Ulm Diocese and found herself translating.<\/p>\n

There was also an exchange of students that Gail arranged where a handful of students got to live the life of a small-town kid in Mexico and vice versa.\u00a0 The Sleepy Eye natives made quick friends with locals from Silacayoapam, a village in southern Mexico.\u00a0 Maybe too quickly.\u00a0 I remember Abby telling us they were offered tequila and cigarettes their first night there.<\/p>\n

Later she spent a college summer in Toledo, Spain, again making friends with locals.\u00a0 There\u2019s been a Spanish boyfriend, too.\u00a0 Spanish grew from a textbook to something organic in her.\u00a0 Abby and I were at Meyer\u2019s Bar once, visiting with some Hispanic men.\u00a0 The conversation raced in Spanish, with me plodding along in English.\u00a0 One of them told me I should be proud of my daughter, that Spanish sounded like her first language.\u00a0 As a guy barely hanging to my school German, I was.<\/p>\n

After high school, Abby went to the University of Minnesota.\u00a0 She took to city life vigorously; I could see this one wasn\u2019t coming back to the farm.\u00a0 She graduated early with degrees in Criminology and Spanish.<\/p>\n

When she was young, Abby thought of going into criminal work.\u00a0 She was a big fan of the TV show NCIS. <\/em>\u00a0(Her other favorite was Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/em>.\u00a0 If there were a career in slaying vampires, that would have been her first choice.)\u00a0 While at the U, she volunteered with the Center for Homicide Research working with the FBI and did ride-alongs with police.\u00a0 She also had an internship at the Minnesota Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Somewhere along the way, her interest shifted from chasing bad guys to helping good guys.\u00a0 In the Cities she volunteered with social agencies using her Spanish.\u00a0 Abby\u2019s first job out of college was in Seattle as a legal advocate for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.\u00a0 She also helped Spanish speaking immigrants in the King County court system.\u00a0 Next was a move to San Jose where she worked as a Dependency Drug Court Manager for the Superior Court of California.<\/p>\n

A constant through these was working with victims, the poor, people without power.\u00a0 Pam and I could see a connection between her work and the little girl on the playground standing up for the weaker kid.<\/p>\n

Graduate school had been in her mind, and she considered doing that overseas.\u00a0 The election of a certain president in 2016 nudged her that way.\u00a0 She applied to prominent schools in Europe.\u00a0 These are difficult to get into, but Abby had a solid resume by then.<\/p>\n

When she began receiving acceptance letters, it was a difficult decision.\u00a0 The Institut Barcelona was attractive as she had friends in Spain.\u00a0 After deciding on that, she learned that Sciences Po in Paris had accepted her.\u00a0 That is no small feat.\u00a0 It is the second ranked school in the world for international studies behind Harvard and lists a number of world leaders as alumni.<\/p>\n

Abby\u2019s been a good negotiator for getting her way since she was two.\u00a0 She asked Sciences Po if they would take her a year later, and they agreed.\u00a0 So, after getting a degree in International Relations at d’Estudis Internacionals, she headed to Paris in 2018.<\/p>\n

A degree in Human Rights at Sciences Po requires an internship.\u00a0 Last fall Abby lived in Geneva working in the United Nations Human Rights Office.\u00a0 They liked her work enough that this spring semester back in Paris, she continued to work with the United Nations, virtually with a team in Venezuela.\u00a0 Some of her co-workers were taken with Abby\u2019s place of origin; in informal communications she was known as the \u201crunaway princess of Sleepy Eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Graduation for Sciences Po was scheduled for June 27.\u00a0 Pam and I planned to go, but it was cancelled.\u00a0 That bothered Abby\u2019s dad more than Abby.\u00a0 She had her mind focused on a job.\u00a0 She called excitedly a couple weeks ago to say that she had been accepted for a fulltime position, again with the United Nations.\u00a0 She will be moving to Guatemala City to work for the UN Office of Human Rights there.<\/p>\n

On Abby\u2019s career path, this is a good step. \u00a0She told us that if you\u2019re going to work for an international organization, you need to spend time in the \u201cfield\u201d to be respected.\u00a0 The \u201cfield\u201d typically means someplace that is not particularly comfortable and maybe not all that safe.<\/p>\n

When friends ask what our daughter is up to, I joke that \u201cAbby is trying to save the world.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m kidding, but only a little.\u00a0 A lot of us lately have been impressed with a younger generation that wants to make this planet a fairer place.\u00a0 I\u2019ll put Abby in that group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I had a little schtick when our children were young where I \u201cwhispered\u201d loud enough for all to hear that each was my favorite.\u00a0 Anna, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you’re our first.\u201d\u00a0 Abby, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you\u2019re our little girl.\u201d\u00a0 Ezra, \u201cYou\u2019re my favorite kid cause you\u2019re our boy.\u201d\u00a0 They …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[162],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-119201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-weeds-by-randy-krzmarzick"],"aioseo_notices":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-22 11:46:32","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119204,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119201\/revisions\/119204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sleepyeyeonline.com\/goodnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}