CHRISTMAS LETTER

We spend our whole lives making comparisons. Was that the best job I ever had? The best vacation I ever took? The best dinner I ever ate, or the best Christmas ever? As long as we have a memory we will continue to draw an analogy between the past and the present. As an old man my memories are full of moms and dads, uncles, aunts, grandparents, a spouse, kids and friends who once sat around my Christmas tree but now are gone. All of them special in there own way. But today as I contemplate all of this, and as fond as those memories are, I realize the only Christmas that is important to me this year, is the one coming up and the only way to reap the benefits is to get involved. If there is one thing the holidays seem to bring out in people. It is, we quit thinking about ourselves and think of others and how we can brighten their Christmas holiday. I once knew of an old man who had lost his spouse and that first Christmas without her, he told his family that he would not be available for Christmas Eve. He would see them the next day. He was not a rich man but that Christmas Eve, without telling anyone else; he went to his bank and withdrew 500 dollars in 10-dollar bills. Then alone, he went to the local homeless shelter or mission that night and handed each person a bill and wished him or her a Merry Christmas. He didn’t tell them not to spend it on alcohol or other bad things. He simply said “Merry Christmas.” The next day at Christmas dinner when his family asked where he was last night. He smiled and simply said, “It was the best Christmas Eve ever.” I think of all of the lonely people who have nothing but their memories to cling to at Christmas and it makes me sad. It’s this sad part of the holidays, that some are able to push to the back of their minds but not me. In a way, I envy those who can. At the start of this I talked about making comparisons. How about the difference between giving and receiving? How do we become humble in our giving and yet grateful in receiving? You don’t have to be old to experience this. I remember a Christmas when one of my kids gave me a plaster cast of their little hand they had made in school. As I opened the gift I asked my wife out loud, what is this? Before she could answer I saw my child’s face go from glee to sadness. They had made something especially for me for Christmas and all I could say was-- what is this? I tried to make light of it but the damage was done. Oh how I wish I had that plaster cast today to sit on my desk. To see that little handprint, that is today, fifty some years old and wrinkled with age. Pat and I, after six years together, will be spending our first Christmas Day alone together and away from our families. It will be different for both of us but yet we take solace in the fact that we have each other and at least speaking for me, I can’t ask for any more than that. We have no plans for elaborate gifts for each other. Our companionship and our love for each other is our gift. At our age, giving can be as simple as a hug and a smile. It speaks volumes and you can’t buy it on line.

HIATUS

By the time you read this, Pat and I will be back in Arizona for the winter. There was a time when I never thought I would ever be a snowbird and the word still kind of sticks in my craw. Yes, I was the consummate Minnesota man who would walk around all winter in my Sorrel boots and Carharts. Icy snot cycles would be hanging from my mustache and beard. My breath forming clouds of steam as I pushed my snow blower, through raging blizzards shouting at the top of my lungs, “Is that all you got? Bring it on Mother Nature you wimp. My dog Molly would be sitting on the porch cheering me on but saying to herself; “I ain’t going out there. I’ll pee right here thank you.” I always had a spear house that I drug out onto the lake in the winter when the ice formed. Back then, my little stove would take the chill off in the fish house and my dog would help me scan the depths for those allusive “Northern’s” and wag his tail when he spotted one. Then successful, I would fire up the snowmobile and head home with my kill. Those fish, fresh out of that cold water never tasted better. I loved to cross country ski and snowshoe. I would watch the ice races on the lake when they plowed the track. I would ride to Crosby on my snowmobile, have a little toddy-- just a wee one—and then head home, warm inside and out. Then Mother Nature took over in a different direction. Lungs that saw to much abuse in my Fire Fighting days rebelled and now I have coughing fits when they suck in cold air. I go nowhere without my inhalers and you don’t have to say it-- I’ll say it for you--. I’m not the man I used to be. Fingers and toes that never got cold now get cold in bed. I live by myself and cold winter nights are lonely winter nights and there is way too much darkness. I need to exercise daily for my breathing and I need someplace warm to do it and I’m not cut out to be a mall walker. Pat takes over the cooking when we are in Arizona so at least for part of the year I eat food that is really good for me. She cleans our house and washes my clothes and laughs at my silly jokes-----well smiles at my silly jokes---sometimes. We go exploring in the desert and have made so many new friends and we also have reconnected with old friends, who too escape the cold down there. Yes, we are happy when we get down to Arizona but when April rolls around and we find our way back up north we are happier yet, because we are back in the land we both love so much and call our home. There will be a few snow banks left when we return but within weeks the rhubarb will be up, the lakes will turn back to water again and like a metamorphous the earth will shed its icy cocoon and spring will be in the air. Baby animals and birds everywhere, green grass and buds on the trees and new stories to tell at coffee. So it’s a hiatus for us from winter yes-- but my ‘Meandering Mind’ will find something to write about and if it sucks you can tell me in April. By the way, my spear house is now my garden shed. I don’t have a garden—just the tools.

DEER HUNTING

So today is the opening of deer hunting and as I sit by my desk, I hear the gunshots out in the woods across the road and wonder if the boys got one. I hunted for over fifty years but health issues and a lack of the killing attitude that it takes to shoot a deer have left me in the house now. But there is something bigger for me this year that makes me sad. Although I didn’t hunt we were still all together for the weekend. I hunted vicariously through all of them. I helped them put up their stands and we shared a lot of good meals and time together. Next year my plan is to head south before the hunting season, so this was probably my last deer-hunting season. I think back to the years we hunted together and the love and comradely we enjoyed. The year my son and I were the only two hunting and we had spent many hours the day before placing our stands in the perfect place, planning the hunt and filing our packs with snacks, outfitted better then the U.S. army. We both got our deer before 7.30 that next morning and spent the rest of the weekend not knowing what to do with ourselves, so we watched football games. It was almost sad. I think too of the year my son, as a young man, shot a deer at dusk, wounding it and then instead of waiting for the rest of the party to help him, took off on his own and tried tracking it in the dark, until his flashlight wore out and he was hopelessly lost. He stumbled out of the woods late in the evening soaking wet and cold, just minutes before I was going to call his mother back in the cities and also call the police for help. I had no idea what I was going to tell her. I hunted years ago when it was ten below and when it was so warm, if I’d had orange underwear I would have been sitting in it. I hunted in a blizzard once when you couldn’t see three feet in front of you. I have shot deer at a hundred yards and some from a few feet away. I once was in my brother’s field of fire and he didn’t know it and I heard the bullet go by me, inches from my head. Then on that last year that I hunted, on the last day of hunting and not having any luck, a nice doe walked right up to my stand. I watched her looking at me seemingly surprised that I was there and not knowing which way to run. I stood up and yelled at her. “Get out of here.” I knew that day, my hunting days were over. Deer hunting has been a tradition in many families over the years. The woods way up north are dotted with old rotted stands and even some abandoned shacks that have given way to more modern conveniences For me it wasn’t just about deer but about time alone to examine your conscience. Time to come to grips with how much your loved ones meant to you and to be one with God and nature. I have given my rifles and guns to my grandsons. I hope that my example helped them to be good hunters and if not-- well that’s okay too. It’s not for everybody. I’m not a gun advocate but I believe hunting has a way of making families bond together and be responsible gun owners and users. It’s not the guns that cause trouble in this country it’s the people who have them, who have no business having them, and a sick country that makes it far too easy for them to do so.

REQUIEM FOR A SUNSHINE BOY

When we started our coffee group, called the “Sunshine Boys,” over fifteen years ago there was a core group of men who numbered around ten. There was another group of ten or so who came by now and then, so all in all it was a lively group but a respectable group. I was one of the younger ones. As the years have gone by, old age, disease and accidents has taken its toll and now there are very few of us left. Saturday we buried old Charlie and so the ranks thinned again. So many times we have celebrated the lives of our friends on days like this, but to be truthful there’s not many of us left to celebrate. Far more of us are below the earth then above it. From the start we controlled the rancor at our meetings. We kept contentious issues at bay and just enjoyed the fellowship that old friends find comforting. We rallied around the sick, told old stories over and over again, and poked good-natured fun at each other, but in the end we always left each other on a good note. We were as different as snowflakes but we always put the common good of the group ahead of any bias we had in life and we called it respect. Charlie was one of us. Charlie died from dementia and although I didn’t make the effort to go see him after he went into a facility, I know I should have. It didn’t matter if he knew me or not. I knew him and that was the most important thing. The people who have meant the most to me in life have always been the congenial and kind people like Charlie and not the brash and tough ones. I’ve mellowed in my old age. I didn’t always feel like this. But as I reflect on the times of when I was angry and unsettled in life, one thing stands out. That indifference to others views, that I had back then, never ended well. It never brought about compromise or cooperation. It only brought about more conflict. But to have that compromising attitude which is the only mindset to have to do business correctly, you have to be humble and I wasn’t always. Our society has all too often turned to anger and grandstanding lately to get their point across. I see it far to often in the people I talk to and I talk to a lot of people. You find yourself choosing your words so carefully, fully cognizant that one misspoke word or phrase will turn the whole conversation bad and forgiveness doesn’t come easy sometimes. This boiling bitterness lies just under the skin of a lot of people and can erupt in a hurry and if you’re not careful it can draw you in like quicksand and the more things get heated, the deeper and deeper you get into it. My mom used to say, “The things that are best said are sometimes left unsaid. That if you know you’re right you don’t have to prove it to anybody.” Maybe not the best mantra for a writer but good advice, never the less. “Be right in your mind not theirs,” She said. I have even known people who threatened physical violence to those who stand up to them. They usually end up void of friends and muttering to themselves. Charlie was a good man who left you with a smile. He was a Christian man and lived that kind of life to prove it. He will be missed but the bigger thing we should all take from this is a firm resolves for all of us, to be more like Charlie.

LIFE

This isn’t just about me; it’s about many of us who grew up 50-60 years ago. Parents in those days loved their kids just as much as parents do today but they had a different way of making you step up to the plate. They didn’t have the same threats to barter with you for your behavior, as parents do today. They couldn’t take away your phone or your x-box because we didn’t have one. They couldn’t take away your allowance because we didn’t get one. So instead they gave us a common sense approach to what would be expected of us in today’s world if we were going to be successful. They in effect showed us how to be responsible. When I was fourteen years old, I got a job at a chicken hatchery-cleaning chicken poop out of cages. I was paid a dime an hour. I stunk so bad when I got home my mom made me clean up in the yard with soap and the garden hose. When I was fifteen I had a paper route that got me up at five thirty in the morning to deliver papers before school. I had a canvas bag I wore over my shoulder with about fifty papers in it and I walked the 3-mile route in the winter, no matter the weather. No parent to drive me. I made a couple of bucks a week. When I was seventeen I got a job in a drug store stocking shelves and cleaning the floors. I was ecstatic, as I got seventy-five cents an hour. But in turn I had few friends or social life and was left out of most after school activities. When I graduated from high school my father told me to get a job and move out. I thought about college but there was no money for tuition so I went to work in a Machine shop where I made good money but hated the work. Eventually I found a job I liked and life was good after that. When I was in my fifties I had a disagreement with a supervisor and I retaliated by not talking to her. She told me I had too much foolish pride. I told her I did have a lot of pride but it wasn’t foolish pride because I earned every bit of pride I had. I am sure if she knew my story and how I had got where I was, she would have understood. To those of you who have never worked for a living, or are still living off your parents, the thing you are missing out on the most in today’s world, is your own self worth. My friends tell me the reason things are, like they are today, is it’s just a different world now days. I want to say “duh.” That’s an excuse, not a reason. There’s a difference. A reason is usually a valid justification for doing what you are doing. An excuse is all to often just your interpretation of why you don’t want to do things and not always based on facts. I fully realize this isn’t about everyone, but it s about enough people to cause concern and a big problem here in the nation and in our lake country. There is a help wanted poster in just about every business I go by. Businesses that relied on young people to work their summers in this resort community. Some of them are going out of business. Not for a lack of interest in their product. Instead, for a lack of people to work for them. When I was young there were just as many businesses that needed help, but jobs were hard to find. Everybody wanted a job and everybody’s parents wanted their kids to work and it wasn’t always because they were poor. It was because they wanted their kids to be responsible. The blame goes to the parents.

FOR OUR VETERANS

I have this job in my old age now of cleaning out closets and throwing away things I don’t need anymore. I always knew it had to be done someday but I always thought I would make it her job. I was good at that in the years we were married. But she fooled me and she left first, so now I’m left holding the bags and many boxes. But you ask,” How does this tie in with our veterans?” Well let me get to that. In an old box, high on a shelf the other day, I found an old uniform. Now there have been a lot of us that wore uniforms over the years but there was no doubt that this was an army uniform. It felt like it was made out of mostly wool and the insignias on the sleeves said this man was a Tech Sergeant and it had four bars on the sleeves and several patches that I believe represent the outfit he was in. Also one gold button that represents the infantry. There was only one family member this could have belonged to and that was my father-in-law. My wife had kept this uniform after he passed away. My son was named after this man so I have since passed it on to him. He has the flag that was spread over his coffin and all of his medals. But let me tell you a little more about Sergeant Leo Maus. Leo joined the army in 1939 and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor two years later he was sent to fight in the south pacific. He fought in the Philippines and several other small islands but as the war was drawing down he was sent to the battle of Okinawa. He survived that bloody battle but a lot of his buddies didn’t. Although he was wounded three times, he came home in 1946. After the war Leo came back to his hometown and bought a gasoline filling station in the town of Staples. That’s where I met his daughter who later became my wife. He was a gifted mechanic, back when you didn’t need a P.H.D to fix an automobile. He was a proud veteran who would always snap to attention when the flag was presented, be it a parade or a sporting event. I asked him several times about his battles in World War II but he would only say, “The war is over, lets live in peace.” Leo was the best father-in-law I could have ever had, a wonderful dad to my wife and a loving grandpa to our kids. When I laid that uniform out on the bed that day after I found it, I had tears although he’s been gone for 40 years. I had tears because this was the uniform of a hero who left his blood on the beaches of Okinawa and came home to one last victory march and then went on with his life where he had left off and all he would say about it, is “The war is over let’s live in peace.” What a humble man. In his later years Leo had a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. He should have been in a wheel chair but he would walk around dragging his dead leg behind him and holding a cane in his one good arm to steady himself. He refused to let anyone help him unless there was no other way to get where he wanted to go. He lived out the last decade of his life in the old soldiers home in Minneapolis. He’s buried in the National Cemetery in Minneapolis. God bless Leo. God bless all of our veterans.

FAMILY NAME

                                            

When I was a young man and just going out into the world, my father gave me a little plaque. A the top of it was written in bold letters our family name “Holst.” Underneath that was a verse that said in part. “You got it from your father. It was all he had to give. So it’s yours to use and cherish, for as long as you may live. If you lose the watch he gave you it can always be replaced. But a black mark on your name can never be erased. It was clean the day you took it and a worthy name to bear. When he got it from his father, there was no dishonor there. So make sure you guard it wisely. After all is said and done. You will be glad the name is spotless, when you give it to your son.”

I have often thought about the message that was there on that tiny plaque and today, it hangs on the wall in my office where I see it often. My grandfather and my father never did anything to tarnish our family name in their lifetimes. I haven’t either but then I’m not done living, am I, so I need to keep working on that. So does my son, his sons and my siblings. My father was a poor man but a proud man. He held in high regard the principals his father had given him. He never had all of the gray areas to deal with that we are subjected to now days in our society, when it comes to morals and behavior. Most of his beliefs and ideals were either right or wrong and most of them were based on his strong Christian faith.

I tend to believe as my father believed but I have to admit it becomes harder and harder to do it. So much of what we once believed to be wrong, has morphed into either right or mildly objectionable. So not only have things changed, but also you can be told you’re wrong to believe the way my parents raised me to believe. I have been told and I have seen others being told, that very thing. My father has been dead for twenty years, yet he still influences my life and my actions even today. Call it pride, call it self-respect, call it what you want too it’s a hard thing to rid your conscience of, when you go against it. To use a modern term, it is my default setting and sometimes when I get too far out of whack, I simply have to reboot and go back.

I once had to go to court to vouch for my kid brother who had done something bad. I went to beg the court for leniency for him because I knew-- and my brother knew-- what he had done was so wrong and he had hurt people. He was an alcoholic and drunk when he did it but that’s not an excuse, it’s just a reason and there is a difference. To my knowledge my father never knew about this act. My brother made restitution to all the people he hurt, was forgiven and to the best of my knowledge never strayed again. He’s gone now too, like our dad and I hope somewhere they did meet again. I know dad would have been proud of him for ending it well.

It is my hope and my prayer that I never tarnish our family name. I know now that if I do, I ruin it for generations to come. No one wants to be affiliated with someone who has done that. I’m not here to judge others and this is not some sanctimonious rant about me. I just meant to share what honesty and integrity meant to my family back then and what it means to me today. 

HUMMINGBIRDS

                                               

Right outside of my office window hang my hummingbird feeders. All day as I write these tiny birds zip in and out to feed. They can fly forwards, backwards and sideways; lift straight up or simply hover like a helicopter. They are the most acrobatic flyers in the whole bird community. Besides eating up all of my sugar they accomplish other things around the yard that are helpful. They help pollinate the flowers on the apple trees and bushes. There are so full of energy yet they are one of the tiniest birds in the kingdom, weighing less then an ounce. Come fall, like the other birds, they too make the long trip to a warmer climate. Its perilous but if they survive, they always come back where they came from.

I wonder if any of the accomplishments mankind has a made in ultra marathons and ironman competitions for endurance levels, can equal what happens when a bird that weighs less then an ounce, travels thousand of miles to Central America to winter. Ruby throated hummingbirds are solitary creatures and fly mostly by themselves, often up to 500 miles a day, their wings beating up to 80 times a second. They live three to five years before they wear their tiny bodies out and die.

These tiny birds build their nests, usually in a crotch of a tree, out of lichens held together with spider webs, which are sticky and hold the nest together. The nest seldom survives the winters so although they will come back to the same location each year, they build new nests every season. They usually lay two eggs that take about eighteen days to hatch. Only the female incubates the eggs. Hummingbirds do eat small insects and spiders and feed them to their young. I have witnessed them eating ants that made their way to the feeder drawn by the sugar water. The nests are hard to spot so watching a female go back to her nest is probably the best way to find a nest. The ruby throat hummingbird is the only one that ventures as far north as Minnesota. There are however many species in the southern United States.

I’m a nature freak when it comes to this stuff. I find this stuff so amazing but yet I never take it for granted. I know that in so much of this world, the habitat for these creatures is in peril. I know too that there are a lot of people on this earth that couldn’t care less. Their world revolves around drugs and alcohol or hedge funds and stock markets. This world is just a place to make money and take that money and play. Nature just gets in the way.

I have too, in front of me, pictures of my great grandchildren. It is my hope that they too will someday become in-tune with nature. That is, if there is anything left on earth worth looking at. If the waters we drink aren’t poisoned with chemicals, and the air we breathe with carbon monoxide. If the oceans aren’t filled with plastic and the polar ice caps melted away, then maybe they will have a chance. How can something that I started out writing about, on such a light side, turn into something so depressing. It’s when you can’t get around the truth that things, even like hummingbirds, gets this depressing.

JOE MAUER

There are moments in sports that you want to just frame and hang on your wall for the entire world to see. Sunday September 30^thwas one such moment. It was the end of the baseball season for the Minnesota Twins and quite possibly the end of Joe Mauer’s playing days. Joe was the quintessential hero of so many baseball fans from the Midwest. A home grown boy who won our hearts many years ago and then cracked them open just a little bit on that last day when he stood there in his beloved catcher’s gear and doffed his cap for the last time. A class act, by a classy baseball player, who will be sorely missed.

As a twins fan our emotions haven’t had to many chances to swell over the years. Oh, I remember the twins of 87 and 91. I got to go to my first and most likely last World Series game. Those series wins were two Cinderella moments in four years that are etched into my memory. We had our Kirby, our Kent and our Jack Morris back then to pay homage too. There was the game five home run by Kirby when only the immortal announcer Jack Buck could say. “And we will see you tomorrow night.”It was our moment in infamy. I’ll never forget the night they won game seven. I wandered around the Minneapolis loop with tears in my eyes and my heart swelling with pride because our Twins had done what no one thought they could ever do and they were not just the World Champs. They were our World Champs.

It was quiet for a few years in the twin’s origination and then along came Joe. Joe was not just a great catcher and batter; he was an all around athlete and an all around good guy. Yes it was off the field too, that he shined. He was a hero to so many kids and little league coaches were telling their young batters everywhere “If you want to be good, watch Joe Mauer’s stance in the batters box. Watch Joe Mauer’s swing.” It was epic and when Joe uncoiled, that picture belonged on top of every baseball-hitting trophy that was ever given out.

There were those naysayers that said Joe made to much money and you know what-- they all make too much money. But Joe never threatened to go to the Yankees, Joe never threatened to boycott the twins or ask to be traded to get that money and who in his right mind won’t take it if it was offered. Joe was just Joe, and the public loved him. There were those who said he was hurt too much but injuries come to the fiercest competitors more then others because they play sometimes with reckless abandon. Joe was hurt the most as a catcher and anyone who has every caught baseball knows what its like to squat in the dirt for three hours while a big league pitcher throws 98 mile an hour fastballs at you and big league batters foul those pitches back off your mask and body while that runner from third base barrels down the line with his shoulder lowered just to take you out.

Joe’s last time at bat was classic Joe, taking that outside pitch and driving it to left field, then making the turn and stretching it into a double. Grantland Rice the great sportswriter said and I quote. “For when the one great scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not if you won or lost but how you played the game.” Thanks for the memories Joe.

END OF AM ERA

                                                

I look out over my front yard tonight and the lake is quiet, shimmering softly in the waning twilight. There was a lot of quiet time this summer at the lake for me. I think I went fishing a few times and there were a few nights, when I just sat on the end of the dock and soaked up the sunsets. They’re just as spectacular now as they always were but something is missing. Maybe it was an old warm and wrinkled hand that was once curled up in mine as we sat there. Maybe it was the small children playing on the beach and maybe it was kids in wet bathing suits, with wet sandy hair in their faces, catching sunfish on one side of the dock and throwing them off the other.

There is something about a lake place that takes sentiment to new highs. The water-skiing, tubing and boat rides. Those evenings around the campfires you never wanted to end. You could see the flames reflected in little kids wet eyes as they stared into the fire, snuggled in sweatshirts in their parent’s laps. You waited all of your life to live like this but as much as you want to now, you can’t stop the world and just freeze these moments. Because time marches on and all to often, those who are the oldest and the ones that find the most meaning in all of this, run out of time first. I have upstairs in my house a corner for displaying all of the picture albums taken over the years. A place literally packed with thirty years of nostalgia.

I rode around the chain with my friend the other day and as we poked along the shorelines I could feel the same things that are playing out in my life right now, being played out in the many cabins and mansion we passed. How I wanted to probe the history of each and every one. How many years I thought has this been the family go to place? How many generations raced to the lake for the weekend and time with grandpa and grandma? There were a few realtors’ signs on the shorelines and for them you know, it’s the end of an era.

Soon I will turn my back on the lake for this season and Pat and I will head for the southwest where the sun is still warm. So many people have told me, “Pat and you have the best of both worlds.” But to be truthful the best is mostly used up and although we do have our moments, so much is gone to the ages. September to me is summers grand finale. I remember Neil Diamond singing the song “September Morn.” One verse is so relevant to me as I write this cool September night. “September morn. Do you remember how we danced that night away? Two lovers playing scenes from some romantic play. September mornings still can make me feel that way.”

As I navigate through the rest of life I am sure there will be many good times yet to be had. Its my hope that my family will keep the lake place so what has happened here over the last thirty years, can be repeated again in other families that too will grow up here. That they also will feel someday as I do now. And when that time comes for that final roll call, I will spend my last days right here where my heart lives. I am sure my story is being played out all over this Eden we call the lake country.

THE EMPTY NEST

                                              

My son told me the other day that his youngest boy is moving out and now it’s just his wife and him alone in the house. He mentioned that it wasn’t just another empty bedroom in their house that was happening; it also, was going to be a much quieter house. Then he said wistfully, “ That is, if a quieter house is what you’re looking for.” I said, “You and your wife should be proud that he is going to be missed that much. It says to me, you did a good job.”

It’s a pensive moment when you look into your kids rooms and realize there never coming back to it. You see the football pennants on the wall in his room and the shelves full of model cars and planes. Or across the hall, a room with a four-poster canopy bed, laden down with stuffed animals and pom poms, mementos from your little girl who is s now a young lady, with her eyes set on the future. You’ve joked with your spouse along the way about making her room into a gym that you probably wouldn’t use anyway or maybe a craft room for her, who’s not sure if she wants to go that route either. Maybe it’s time for a smaller home-- but moving? How do you say goodbye to all your friends and neighbors you’ve known for 20 years?

Life has all of these teaching moments you can read about and I can write about but in the end you have to live them to appreciate what they really are all about. Along with your newfound freedom comes a sense of, “What do I do now?” As much as you didn’t want to admit it, you enjoyed the responsibility of taking this child down that path to adulthood. Watching them be self-sufficient and hopefully being more then you ever dreamed they could be. But now tonight, here you and her sit at a dining room table with six chairs and stare at each other and those empty chairs seem to say, “What has just happened here?”

As humans we’re unique in the animal kingdom when it comes to rearing our young, as we usually get only one go around. For some, one time is plenty thank you but for others it’s a poignant moment. The end of an era and to my line of thinking, the most important era in the litany of family life. What can be more important then preparing our kids for their life as adults?

For all intensive purposes, we can only teach our young the basics. That often comes along from a time-honored tradition that came from our parents and grandparents. But the world changes everyday and in ways we only dreamed would happen, because we never experienced or even thought of everything they are going to experience today. And so we ask. “Did we cover all the bases or not.” Time will tell and all you can do is say to them. “You know what, I know your anxious to go out there and make us proud but if the roadblocks sometimes seem insurmountable, we don’t burn bridges in this family we just build them stronger. We weren’t just a family for eighteen years, we will always be a family and who knows, next time we talk-- I may be the one asking you for advice.”

WHEN IS WRONG REALLY WRONG?

                                  

I find it so hard to believe how much our lives are impacted by sports and athletes. Now to be sure I watch sports myself and I have my heroes too and I have probably been guilty to some extent of participating in the very thing I’m going to write about. But that doesn’t make it right.

A while back I finished reading a book by Jon Krakauer who is a celebrated author of such books as “Into Thin Air” and “Under the Banner of Heaven.” In this book he chronicles what happened in a community in Montana when a group of college athletes were accused of sexual violence against women. Now sexual violence against women happens everyday in this country so that in itself is nothing new but what seems to be so different, when athletes are the accused, is the amount of support they receive from the team and the community itself, professing their innocence. Yes, seemingly, they seem to be held to a different standard. In reality the colleges are doing a better job every day of holding athletes accountable but outside interests make this very hard for them to do. They are under intense pressure to bend the rules.

Even at the high school level it exists. A few years back I had just returned from Florida and in the community we were staying, several high school basketball players participated in making a disgusting video and then posting it online. The school acted quickly and the players admitted their guilt. They were suspended for several games and the matter seemed to be resolved, until the parents lawyered up and asked that the suspensions be reversed. The athletic careers of their kids were far more important, then setting a good example and doing what was right.

I was once told that no one is above the law but we all know that is not true when you have the money to pay someone to defend you in this country. Justice-- and I use that word loosely, is often times bought. Justice and the truth are not as synonymous in this country, as people would think. The truth becomes, not relevant to a good defense attorney and for the followers and supporters of sports, setting good examples are no longer important either. Krakauer told in his book about a young lawyer and an old lawyer who teamed up on a case. The verdict was set to come in and the young lawyer was sent to hear it. He telephoned the old lawyer after hearing the verdict and said “Justice was served.” The old Lawyer said, “Appeal immediately.”

 I often see Lawyers arguing a point for what seems forever, when you know in your heart that the truth needs no explanation. Say it and stick with it. If we want to be good examples of what is right and what is wrong in sports we need to get the selfishness out of sports. You should win because you are the best team and that means off the court as well as on it. Sports should teach you to be good winners and good losers, because in reality that is how life works also. To the athletes I would say this. You are held to a different standard-- a higher standard. It goes with the territory because when you fail. you fail a lot of people and that is sad.

UPDATE ON THE SUNSHINE BOYS

                                    

I have talked before about this motley group of old men, of which I am one, who get together a few times a week for coffee. We come from many different facets of life, teachers, engineer’s, public safety, military and even a retired banker. Were from all different sides of the political isle and different faiths too. Some of us are married and some are single but the one thing we have in common is we’ve all had a lot of experiences in life that we enjoy sharing with each other. But most of all we have a lot of respect for each other. That respect we have for each other is more important then all of our beliefs, preconceived ideas, or past experiences because in the end—our goal is just to be friends.

What if the rest of the world could operate this way? What a wonderful world it would be. We have found that the place for politics is at the polls and the place for religion is in your homes and churches. Were old men and we have learned that we can be a little grumpy and stubborn sometimes but we also know that to be that way just ostracizes you and so there you sit with your long sad face and no one wanting to talk to you. But if you throw that foolish pride out the window and find that common ground where we can all walk together, then life is so much easier.

Over the years as we have met together, the group has changed many times and as sad as it is to see someone leave; sometimes through death or illness or moving away, there’s always excitement to see someone new come and join us. If nothing more they may have some new jokes. God knows, we need some new jokes.

I believe that this kind of social networking is played out in many other places. Most of them though have a common cause and I must admit if we do have a common cause, outside of friendship, I’m not sure what it is. We have no leaders, no board of directors, no written rules and no real objectives. No one has ever been kicked out or made to feel unwelcome. On the other hand no one has ever been put in charge of anything either so there is a complete lack of authority or organization. If something does need to be organized, Fergie just does it, and were all fine with that. We have no agenda except to be reasonably nice to each other. Meetings are not mandatory and attendance is not taken. There are no applications or qualifications.

We do have a real past roll of honor because we not only don’t forget each other, we don’t forget our passed members either who have gone on before us. It was their character and their spirit that made this thing work for so many years. We only need to emulate what they started and keep this thing going.

So if you’re not busy Monday, Wednesday or Friday at nine in the morning. If you don’t mind wasting an hour of your life you’re not going to get back. If you’re not too thin skinned and have some new jokes, we would love to meet you. We’re at Pine Peaks Café and the waitresses are beautiful and the food is great. Come on in.

FIREFIGHTING

                                                

Having been a firefighter in a large city, I find it hard to imagine what it’s like to fight the huge forest fires now burning in rural California. We had some bad fires in my day but they never went into the next day. You always had time to recoup and be ready for the next one. There are Firefighters in those forest areas that have been on the fire lines for months. Men and women with families and friends and all they want, is to go home and be with them, if only for a few days. But the fire seasons come earlier every year and last longer and the troops are stretched thin.

You sit on the top of a ridge with someone’s precious home behind you and you watch the fire coming up the hill at you. You have a hose line fogged out in front of you but the heat coming up the hill is like opening the door to a blast furnace and it hits you before the actual flames, which are farther away then you can possibly squirt water to douse them. Somewhere around 500 degrees the house behind you will combust on its own, even if you yourself can stick it out. Then all you can do with a fire in front of you, and one in back of you, is run for your life. It happens a lot.

The ambient temperature is over ninety degrees, sometimes close to a hundred and that’s away from the main fire. You wear Nomex hoods, helmets and fire retardant gear for protection but there is a point when they break down too and then you can get third degree burns right through your gear. But even without the fire being there, its very hot with all of that gear on. Did I tell you its over ninety degrees outside? You sweat profusely and you can’t drink enough water. If the fire get’s by you, you have to retreat and make another stand. There’s no calling time out.

The air around you is not safe to breath but it’s all you have to breath, so you breath it. It’s full of smoke and soot particles so small they get into your lungs and stay there. There are chemicals burning, plastics and metals, pesticides and herbicides along with the brush, trees and homes. You try and stay up wind but at some point there is no upwind and you just breathe it or suffocate. If you live to get a pension someday there is a good chance you will be sick a lot with lung disease or cancer and by the way, you have to pay your own medical bills. There are no special hospitals for firefighters and police officers supported by the government.

I don’t tell you this for empathy. Most firefighters chose their profession and they’re proud of it. They feel that all of this goes with the territory. When they’re not fighting fires, they are the first responders who come to help you when you are sick and hurt. They cut people from car wrecks, rescue them from mountaintops and search the river bottoms and lakes for drowning victims. All life is sacred to them, people and animals. They see things they wish their eyes could unsee but somehow know those sights are locked in their minds, for the rest of their life.

Firefighters are proud people and they are proudest when their sons and daughters take up the cause. But if the kids say, “That’s not for me.” They understand. If you know a firefighter or a police officer tell them thanks. They don’t hear it often.

ANOTHER SUMMER FADING

                                               

So it’s the dog days of summer once more.  Late August in Crosslake Minnesota for me was always symbolic of a month that wasn’t really summer and wasn’t quite fall. It’s a month when the reality of our fast disappearing summer season comes back to us with earlier sunsets, gardens empting out, and Lilly pads choking out the shallows of the lake. Our bright star on those August days can still be very warm but its jacket time in the evenings and foggy mornings leave the grass damp and your shoes dripping with dew.

There are other subtle signals that we all experience in late August in our everyday lives’. For the young people it’s a signal that school will soon be back in session. For us old people, it’s the end of a summer that went so fast we scarce remember most of it. One more August used up and just history in our dwindling supply-- ouch. The county fairgrounds are quiet again and the farmers are oiling up the combines. For the creatures of the forest, the weather signals to them, that a time is coming soon to start changing colors, find a winter den and grow new coats.

When you live on a lake, fall becomes even more obvious. The beaches that were full of bathers in June are now barely being used. After Labor Day the docks and lifts start coming into shore and boats and toys get put away. It’s quiet again, no wave runners or speedboats, just a few fishermen trying their luck. For many the fall colors are worth seeking out, while hiking on a warm Indian summer day. As for me, my favorite color of the year, has always been green. My favorite precipitation is soft rain, not snow and my favorite temperature is something you don’t need a jacket for. Ann Murray sang in her song the snowbird, “So little snowbird take me with you when you go. To that land of gentle breezes where the peaceful waters flow.”

It’s no secret that we live for our summers in Crosslake. That what is just a sleepy little hamlet in the troughs of winter now comes alive with the receding ice. That somewhere in the hearts of all of the residents lays the hope for another summer on the chain. Cabins-- and what is way beyond being called a cabin-- come alive once more. The cobwebs are knocked down, the dust is swept away. Reed’s and Ace Hardware’s parking lots are filled again and the supper clubs rock the night away. Car doors slam and familiar faces walk across the lawn for a hug. You have to wait your turn at the gas station and the churches fill back up on Sunday morning.

Back to Ann and the Snowbird. Beneath this snowy mantle cold and clean, the unborn grass lies waiting for its coat to turn to green. The snowbird sings the song he always sings and speaks to me of flowers that will bloom again in spring. That’s where my hopes lie. That as soon as my winter hiatus is over I will turn my anxious face into the northern lights and come home to where my real roots are. I will sit on my deck and wait for the cries of the loons, not the Snowbirds. They are signaling another season in paradise where dreams are made into reality.

THE TRUTH ABOUT DRUGS

                                                

Some of the people in this country are supportive of our president’s wishes to build a wall along the southern border with Mexico. It is their hope that it will keep undesirables out of this country and that includes drugs. America’s problem with drugs is rooted in one thing that is already in this country and we seem not to be able to do anything about it. We the people want drugs and we use them with reckless abandon. We buy and sell them. We manufacture them too. We sanctimoniously blame our drug problems on outside sources yet the root of the problem is right here in this country because it’s us who demand them and us who purchase them. You want to solve the drug problem? Quit making them and quit buying them.

We have tried incarcerating drug dealers and even gone into their own countries and destroyed their crops. It didn’t work. The wall won’t stop the drug trade. They’ll go under it, or over it, or around it and they have said so. They increasingly have used our own American citizens to deliver their product, over our border. Yet, we have made very little progress in getting our own people not to use them. We just blame someone else for our problem, because that’s all that is left when you are powerless to control your own people. Yes, we can control the pills manufactured here but even that is a political football. You see the drug lobby has deep pockets and congress has a thirsty appetite for campaign money. You see in order for change to happen, you have to want it bad enough. This country likes to talk the talk-- but not walk the walk. I predict that things will not get better until there is a change in attitude and the way we do business. Alas, I don’t see that happening.

I have often wondered what this world would look like if long ago we had been more proactive and instead of spending a trillion dollars on the so-called war on drugs; by fielding an army to fight it and filling our prisons with drug related criminals; we had instead used that money to heal the sick minds of the addicted and educated our vulnerable youth to what could happen to them if they chose that path in life. What does it say about a society, when millions of people need to be in some kind of drug-induced stupor, just to cope with life, as they know it? My granddaughter and her husband just came back from a vacation to California and I asked them if they had gone to a beach. He told me they did but they had to leave because the stench from people smoking pot was so strong you couldn’t avoid it. Think about the natural beauty of an ocean front beach relegated to a drug den.

We have regretfully phased out the practices that used to teach us right from wrong, not only in our family upbringing but also in society itself. We no longer have rights and wrongs in our society but instead we have some all-encompassing feel good philosophy with no rules and regulations and some ill served guidelines that say you can choose to be different if you want too and we will change the way we do business to accommodate you. The last thing we would want to do is hurt anyone’s feelings. Then we look around and say there has to be a better way—and you know what? There once was. Over the years we just abandoned it.

THIS IS THE WAY TO LIVE

                                               

Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t but through it all the goofiness that results makes for good conversation.

I had a conversation the other day with a dear old friend and let me preface this by saying it wasn’t my friend Pat. I don’t want, or need any problems there. Anyways this lady and I talked about the usual things like kids, family and dogs. Now this dear old lady lives a rather secluded life style so there is not much sense in talking current events because even though her television is on most of the time, it’s froze on the “Hallmark Channel.” I asked her if she had heard about the Duck Boat tragedy down in Branson and she said “no. Tell me about it.” After I had explained what happened she said, “Oh my goodness. How sad.” My husband had a duck boat but luckily it only held two people.

So I switched to some other current events that she knew nothing about and finally, being factitious and not knowing where to go with the conversation, on a whim I asked her if she had heard about Pearl Harbor. “Oh my goodness” she exclaimed, “Did they do that again?” “No,” I said. “Just kidding.”  “I thought we took their guns away after the war,” she said. “We did,” I replied. “But they all joined the N.R. A. so we had to give them back.” “Who’s the N.R.A.” she asked. “Nobody you would know I said.” “What’s on Hallmark tonight,” I asked? You gotta love her.

So the before mentioned Pat, my constant companion and I, are having an afternoon conversation the other day when we get off on the subject of Narcolepsy. Now she’s a nurse so she knows a lot of stuff that I don’t know about medical problems so it’s hard to B.S. her, but she says she thinks I may have the sleeping disease because from time to time I tend to close my eyes, either to meditate or check my eyelids for cracks. She thinks this is weird, so hence, the Narcolepsy diagnoses. I have to be careful now with how I explain this, or no more baked goodies for me but I have this friend who is a retired doctor, so one day I asked him about it and he said. “Do you do this around other people too, or just around her, because if it’s just around her, its not narcolepsy.” And now I’m in trouble. But what can I do, I got a column to get out. I could go steal her newspaper next week but she has too many friends in the area who would talk with her so that’s probably not a good idea and I would rather have her upset with me then the F.B.I. If you see me wearing an ankle bracelet you will know what happened. By the way, to all of my church friends, who may or may not have witnessed me nodding off in church, it could be narcolepsy—maybe-- so a little sympathy please.

And now the humble pie. My companion-- as much as I joke about her-- has given me a new lease on life. There are so many trips and ventures I would have never undertaken without her being with me. Life was once good and then it became a struggle but now it is good again so I tip my hat my friend, to what you have done for me and become to me.  But having said that its been a long time since I had a rhubarb pie. Sorry Pat the devil made me say that last sentence.

COLLEGE DEBT

                                                            COLLEGE DEBT

A lot has been said about the debt that graduates today have accumulated in college. Some of them are now graduating, six figures in debt and that’s not a good way to go out into the working world. When I think about it, I have often wondered if there shouldn’t be a course taught in high school, for graduating seniors, explaining what borrowing money can do to you and how it can be a run away freight train with accumulating debt and this can happen very quickly.

I think we have all been on a vacation and used a credit card to conveniently pay for things, then received the bill when we got back home and were astonished at how much money we had spent and now we had to pay for it. It can get away from you in a hurry and it can be that way, borrowing money for college too.

I have two granddaughters who both graduated from college a few years ago. Both of them are great girls who I am proud of. One of them worked hard, both at school and after school, trying to keep her debt to a minimum. She came out of school with only a small amount of debt. Her and her husband now have a home of their own and a baby and are doing quite well. The other girl, a victim of circumstances borrowed way too much money and now she too is married but any hope of buying a house and having a family, is hindered by student loans she has to pay back. Her monthly loan payments are equal to the mortgage payments they could be paying on a home. I know it is a contentious issue with her.

There was a time when parents started saving accounts for their kid’s education but that seems to be less of a habit, now that government loans are available, so the money goes elsewhere. To add to that there was a time when colleges didn’t charge the prices they now charge for a four-year degree. There was a time when fiscal responsibility was taught at home and so was foresight. Kids fought hard for scholarships and any way they could to pay for their education, because there was no easy money available. I remember my son-in-law pursuing his engineering degree in the daytime at the U and driving a courier van at night to pay his bills. Landscapers, resorts and golf courses could depend on college kids to work for them in the summer and there were more applicants then there were jobs. Now it’s just the opposite and business are struggling to find workers.

So now the cry goes out for loan forgiveness and free college education for everyone. It’s become a campaign issue and all of it in a country that is wallowing in debt of its own accord, with poor spending and borrowing habits. A county that has, for far to long, thought it could spend its way out of poverty but that’s a story for another day. Education is essential to the well being of this country. But so is responsibility. A few years back I had the good fortune to go to Key West Florida for a couple of days. Rooms were over four hundred dollars a night for lodging and not high-end lodging at that. The town was filled with students-- spring breakers-- who seemed to have lots of money and I know this-- they didn’t all have rich parents.            

NOISE

                                                           

It’s 10 p.m. in the busy twin cities suburb where I used to live. I picked this time because although it’s not really the still of the night, it is a time when life for many of us is winding down and we’re ready to call it a day. There really is no still of the night here in the big city. I am lying in bed with the window open. You learn to ignore the ambient noise of living in close quarters like this with so many people but just for the next few minutes I’ll try to identify for you all that I can hear. Not everything I hear has to do with man’s activities’ but that’s true wherever you are.

            

I can hear a television set in my neighbor’s house. From my bedroom window to theirs, it is less then 35 feet. I also hear his sprinkler spitting water on his front yard and people talking in the driveway. A dog is barking somewhere up the block and there are sirens from the fire station a half a mile away. A train is traveling across the river a mile away and it’s actually in another city. The sound of cars and trucks on the busy highway three blocks away is ongoing and never stops. Cars go by the front of my house, 40 feet away, on average once every minute. Somewhere fire works are exploding or at least I hope its fireworks. I hear tires squealing and an engine racing down the street. I hear my refrigerator running and two clocks ticking, I hear a crow cawing and ducks quacking on the pond out back. I hear the wind rustling in the treetops and the sound of a distant air conditioner laboring. I hear the cat licking itself as it sits on the end of the bed and my wife’s shallow breathing as she sleeps beside me. I hear the distant sound of an airliner passing high overhead, descending toward the airport twenty five miles away and somewhere, someone, is running a lawn mower even though its dark. Go figure. Otherwise it’s quiet

Tonight I’m in my cabin on a small lake in Northern Minnesota. Once again it’s ten p.m. and once again I’m lying in bed with the window open. My Partner has passed so it’s only my breathing. The clock is still ticking and an appliance is running. I also hear a boat motor out on the lake as someone is trolling for fish. I do hear birds chirping and waves breaking quietly on the shoreline, while all the while a soft breeze blows through the pine trees like a whisper. Otherwise it’s restfully quiet.

A few years back I took a trip to the boundary waters in Northern Minnesota. We were camped on an island, just four of us. That night I walked away from the campsite and my companions and found a perch on a rock next to the lake maybe a city block away. It was a quiet evening in the wilderness and I was admiring how bright the stars were. Then as now, I listened for the sounds of the forest. I could hear only my own breathing, otherwise it was eerily quiet.

Think about the last time you heard nothing. Was it restful or was it eerie? Maybe its what you get used to and what you can tune out. I sat in a park, on a bench, in Wadena Minnesota one day, next to the railroad tracks talking with a man. Every twenty minutes a train came through and the ground literarily shook beneath your feet. The noise was ear splitting. A few feet away an old lady sat on another park bench sleeping, oblivious to the trains. “One more day in Mikes meandering mind.”

THE YOUNG BOY AND THE SEA

                                     

Some sixty years ago, on a hot July day, I took my old steel Pflueger rod and reel, put on my old cutoffs and tennis shoes and went fishing in the Crow Wing River north of Staples. It was about a five-mile bike ride north of town; on a day when the sun was baking everything in sight. I got out there early and the plan was to walk down the river and fish until I got to the Golf Course Bridge and then walk back on a trail along the river to get my bike and ride home.  It was maybe a trip of two miles or so.

I fished this way often because it was cool walking in the river and I had access to many deep holes and drop offs where the fish hung out. For the most part the river was waist deep and nothing but sand. As a parent today, think of your fifteen year old kid, five miles from home and all alone in the middle of a river. Not a house in sight and no way to call for assistance. No way to know if the weather was going to go bad or not-- or if someone was going to give me any trouble. I admit, that although that happening was unlikely, we didn’t give it much thought in those days. I had nothing worthwhile to steal except my bike that I had hid in the woods.

Maybe about half way along my trip down the river, I had caught a few skinny pike and some rock bass on the old silver spoon I had brought along. I had a stringer tied around my waist and my plan was to keep a couple of fish and put the rest back. My mom was always appreciative of the fish, as we were a poor family. I think I saw the pike before he saw me, lying in about three feet of water. The river was running clear and slow. The only time that river got muddy was after a big rain. The fish finally spooked and ran for the far bank of the river where the water was deeper.

My cast was perfect, right in front of him and he took the spoon and ran for the deep hole. With my antiquated fishing gear I couldn’t hold him back and I found myself half swimming, half running down the river and being pulled into the deep hole, with the fish until I was forced to swim and give up my fishing gear. I probably weighed 90 pounds at this time in my life. I swam around the deepest part of the hole, which was full of dead trees and then came up on a sandbar and there was the fish still pulling my rod and reel along in about a foot of water. I ran and jumped on top of the fish and wrestled it up in the sand and held it until it quieted down. I was able to get it on a stringer and several times the fish would run and knock me off my feet, on my trip to the bridge but I made it to the bridge, tied the fish to a tree in the water and went and retrieved my bike. Then I went back and retrieved my fish.

My bike was an old Schwinn with the double bars on it and I tied the fish between the bars and about half of him hung over the front fender. When I got home I took the fish uptown to the butcher shop and they weighed it in at nineteen pounds. I know I’m a fiction author but this isn’t fiction. I have read Papa Hemingway’s “Old Man and the Sea” and I’m not Santiago and the Crow Wing River is a long way from the Gulf Stream but for one summer afternoon I too fought a big fish, in my own back yard and won. This is my story, I haven’t been drinking and I’m sticking to it.

NEXT TIME AROUND

                                              

I have often thought if I could come back to this earth after I die, as some other creature, what would it be? Maybe a bear? No, there not very social creatures and everyone tries to avoid them or shoot them. I also don’t want to spend my whole winter living in a dirty hole under a tree. How about a wolf? No although they are the smartest of the animals and have great family ties there are growing concerns of people coexisting with them and if people get their way, there just going to kill them all, so someone can hang their hides on a wall someday and talk about their big kill for the rest of their lives, like Frank Buck on steroids.

Maybe a raccoon, they’re cute and love to play and roam around. But wait, they never learned, unlike the chicken, how to cross the road with out getting run over and that seems like a gross way to die with a tire track across your butt and your tongue hanging out. Porcupines are just too ugly and skunks stink. Deer, well they have the same problems the raccoons have with the cars and come November they’re public enemy number one and its all out war. Squirrels are out as I hate acrobatics and as far as being a domestic animal, I don’t want to be someone’s pet and get hauled to the vet for a bunch of shots and get my glands expressed and told I’m fat. I also want to be the judge of whether I can reproduce or not, so no sniping off anything.

So maybe animals are out and I need to expand my horizons. Maybe take a look at the birds of the air or the fish of the sea. But I have to say something right now about being a fish. Seriously you want someone to be dangling food or imitation food in front of your face and trying to entice you to bite into it, so they can yank you aboard their boat and show you off, until your ready for your last breath. Then they throw you back where you came from or eat you? Not so much. You know fish aren’t really the sharpest knife in the drawer and I know that’s a very insensitive analogy. But basically a fishes’ life sucks and what about in the winter in this country when you have three feet of ice over your head for five months, wow talk about claustrophobia. So I guess that leaves me to the birds.

Now birds exist from the tiniest hummingbirds to the big eagles and I do see some benefits in being a bird. I like the eagles but I don’t have the temperament to just go around killing ducklings, baby rabbits and an occasional poodle. They’re just nasty birds to tell the truth. Ducks and geese—well if you like packing up and going south every winter and not on Delta by the way. That’s just way too much wing flopping, for me. I’m not sure either if you ever saw the breeding process of ducks and geese but those males are not much on foreplay and no flowers or candy girls. Once the eggs are in the nest and they have done their nasty deed, they’re no place to be found. We got a few people like that around here now and believe me it’s a trouble spot. I would enjoy the liberty of flying around and finding the hood of some shiny new Cadillac to leave my mark on. That would be hilarious. Also I like to sing, so that’s down my alley but yeah I’m thinking maybe a humming bird. Living on sugar all day would be fantastic and darting around the world like Speedy Gonzales-- well that speaks volumes to me. Yep. I want to be a humming bird in my next life.

EDUCATION

                                                         

If we could solve poverty we could solve a lot of our problems in society. Most of the problems we associate with race really have to do with poverty. Educated people usually find a way to sustain themselves and make a living. Uneducated people are more prone to find illegal ways to make a living. But we need to go farther back and say why do people shun education, to spend the rest of their lives living hand to mouth? If we take that step back, we come to the basic family structure and that is the crux of the problem.

I want those of you who are educated and seemingly making a good living, to think about how your family and your peers encouraged you and mentored you as you grew up and went though the education process. Left to your own means, you would not be where you are today. So I ask the question. How do we somehow intervene in this process of having family’s be more responsible for the well being of their off spring, and especially as it pertains to education. Poverty begets poverty and for many of those families with illiterate children, it’s becoming a way of life. What government interaction we do see, seems to be focused on taking over the chore of raising these kids for these people. Something that just exasperates the problem.

My grandfather told me, “When you raise your son, you raise your son’s son. If you fail in that process you will fail generations to come.” We need to, as families, encourage others, brothers, sisters, even neighbors to do their jobs as parents and educate their kids. No government intrusion will ever work. Just common sense caring for each other and a way back to the basic way of living life. Education first.

Last week in St Paul, there was a story in the news, of St Paul teachers hitting the streets to recruit more students for their school district. A district, which is millions of dollars in debt with declining enrollments. I applaud these kind of efforts by educators and especially if their target is kids that are no longer going to school. My parents were poor people who knew the value of an education and would not have ever allowed any of their children to quit school. The biggest reason for declining enrollment in public schools is two fold. Parents who allow their children to quit school, by not caring if they go to school or not, is the big one. The second reason is competition from private schools. That being said the competition problem in schools is not contributing to the illiteracy problem, only to the public school problem of declining enrollment. Parents who pay to send their kids to private schools are very well involved in their children’s education.

Look. I’m just an old writer with a lot of opinions based on living seventy some years of life. But along with those opinions are some dreams and aspirations for the world to come. I know those will have to come from the youth of today. My class had their chance and we didn’t get the job done or I wouldn’t be writing like this, would I? To the parents. Tell your kids you love them and please, please keep them in school. This country needs new blood and new leaders if we are going to make this country great again. Yes, I said again, because were not as great as we once were.

MY STORY

                                                       

I have now lived, where I presently reside, for over thirty years. In 1988 when we bought the place, there was just a garage and an old trailer house on the lot. For many years it was just a summer playground for all of us at the lake. A place for the kids and grandkids to play at and it made our family’s get togtether’s so much more meaningful. I had always wanted a place at a lake up north and I wasn’t sure if my wife was just trying to appease me, as she often did, or if she really enjoyed it too.

Then in 1996 we decided to build a new home on the lot and we planed on moving there after retirement. The rest is history. We decided to do most of it ourselves to save money, so for the next five years, every weekend, every vacation was spent working on the project. As for me, I had dabbled in construction over the years so much of it was nothing new-- but for her, who was determined to do her part-- it was a steep learning curve. I have always said if most people had my late wife’s work ethic, unemployment in this country would not exist. She did all of the sanding, painting and sheet rock taping and she learned as she went. She was always on the other end of the tape measure for me and she was my biggest critic and loudest supporter at the same time. Even when we didn’t agree, she never deserted me, she just became more resolute. She wanted it right or not at all.

Seven years ago she followed the angels out the door one Saturday afternoon and left me alone in this beautiful home, filled with the memories we had made but then by myself and broken hearted. Some days even now so many years later, as I walk around the yard and pause at the flowerbeds she planted. I realize that this place is a stage she made for both of us but it’s now largely an empty one, for the main actor has left the theater. Last year I entertained the idea of selling the place and moving into something more my size. It’s a big house and a lot of upkeep. But as much as that makes sense, as I look out my office window today and over the backyard, I guess I finally realized that’s not what she would want me to do.

I now have Pat and I’ve told you about her and what her companionship means to me.  She’s experienced the same memories and taken that same trip as I have. She has lived in her house longer then I have in mine and she intends to stay put and now she’s urging me to stay put too. So basically I have two women talking to me and giving me advice. One I can’t talk back to and one I better not talk back to.

My kids tell me “Dad do what you want to do. We’ll support you.” Secretly I think they would rather see my money tied up in the house where I can’t spend it, then in my pocket. Tomorrow is Fathers Day and I’m going to Pat’s for dinner. No one is coming to see me but it’s not that they don’t care. One daughter is in Arizona. One is hidden away on a farm in Wisconsin and my son in Big Lake-- where he works about every day of the week but if I called him and told him I needed him, he would be here posthaste. My grandkids are largely grownup and have busy lives and babies and other sides of the family and the beat goes on. So what do I do about it?  Well I write about it and I bet I’m writing today for a lot of old people.

TO THE GRADUATES

Each year in this country, the doors of high schools open wide and the graduating class runs, walks, skips or saunters out to start practicing what they have learned over the last twelve years in school. It’s a process that has been repeated time and again all over this nation and I call it the great coming out. For many it’s just the culmination of the first twelve years of an education that will continue on for a few more years as they put on the finishing touches, toward a career they will embark on that will define them, for the rest of their lives. So it’s not the end but a beginning.

If you know what you want to do with the rest of your life at this tender age, then you are very lucky indeed because life is a smorgasbord and you have tasted very little of it. But hopefully your guardians and teachers have consoled you on this and you at least have a basic idea of what your choice is going to be all about. You have made an informed decision and now the process begins. A good many of you will change your minds many times in the next few years and that’s okay. To love what you do for your career, is a luxury not afforded to a lot of people. Look around.

I listened to two young people the other day telling me they both hope to be doctors when they grow up. They are in their younger teenage years and probably have little idea about the lives doctors live, the work they do and the commitment it takes to become one but right now there is nothing wrong to have that lofty goal. There is also nothing wrong with changing your mind as time goes on but at someplace in the next few years, at least for the graduates, push comes to shove and you must commit. Today’s world can have a way of hurrying you along in this process. Just remember whatever you do in life, you’re the one who has to be pleased.

Things will get in the way as you age so it’s important to get on the right path as soon as you can. Friendships become lovers and lovers become spouses and spouses beget children and responsibilities you never knew existed will come into play. But that’s the cycle of life. Your parents or guardians, who sheltered you and guided you for so many years, will become less and less a factor in your lives because they want you to grow your own wings now. Many of them will cut the cord with you and many of you will cut that cord yourself as you strive to become your own independent person and chart your own way for the rest of your life. Hopefully you know what you really want to be and have made some good choices.

I have three grandchildren who all have four-year degrees who don’t work in the fields they studied in. Was their education a waste? Not really because those unrelated degrees probably had a lot to do with the jobs they now have. I would caution you about one thing though and that’s try to not borrow a lot of money for school if you can help it. It’s easy to borrow and hard to pay back and that job your going to get right out of college. May not pay as much as you think for a while. I know I haven’t talked about those of you that have other plans such as the trades or the service. Whatever you do give it your all and someday you will reap the benefits of a good life, doing the things you always wanted to do.----Good luck and God bless.