So this will be my last column written in Minnesota for a while. Pat and I are on our way to the desert southwest. We’ve been down there long enough now to make friends, make the house comfortable and give it our touch. Although we look forward to the warmth again in Arizona, Minnesota will always be our home. Someday when it comes to that and my days grow short, here is where my heart is, and here is where I want to be.
There are those who say to me it’s so sad to talk like that but in reality I can talk about it now while I can, or never talk about it at all. I have said before, I am a realist and I deal with the here and now. Crosslake has been my home for a long time and when I look back at my life I never wanted to be anywhere else. I once had a woman in Florida ask me, “Where are you from,” and I replied “Crosslake Minnesota.” She smiled and said, “I have been there and it’s so nice, you must be very happy.”
When I first moved to Crosslake with my wife, home was a trailer house and a garage. But out front was a lake with a sandy bottom and that’s why we bought. You can always change the shelter and we did. One sure thing about lakeshore property is, they’re not making any more of it. Across the road was deer hunting or just nature to enjoy. Down the shoreline in both directions were some of the nicest people you would ever want to meet. The fishing was great and plentiful and we never froze a fish. We caught them and threw them back or ate them. It wasn’t that hard to catch another when you were hungry for them. The town was pretty much as it is now. Oh, Reeds was on 66 and Ace wasn’t there yet. The school property was the old Catholic Church. Ernie’s store was still in business and the Log Jam was rocking. Most of the businesses are still here, albeit some are in other locations.
We, in my family, have come a long way since those days in the mid eighties. Grandkids were born and grew up and are now are having babies of their own. My son and his sons still-hunt across the road and we still sit around the campfire in the summer evenings or wet a line together. Although grandma’s absence has put a damper on things, we try to honor her by just staying close as a family. The house is pretty much like she left it. We have more pictures’ then Kodak of years gone by and I made a special place in the house where the kids and grandkids can sit and go through the albums. Memories just take on whole new meanings when you have the pictures to back up those tall tales.
As for Pat and me, the word is love and companionship so we stay close but still keep our own homes. She mother hens me with her nursing knowledge and my bad eating habits. Makes me eat my vegetables like my mommy once did and drink copious amounts of water. She tells me I don’t listen to her but that’s not true. I hear every word she says. Do I always do something about it? Well that’s a story for another day another time. Maybe it’s something like the “old dog and new tricks” scenario but I have to be careful here-- so goodbye.
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