HOME TOWN MEMORYS

                                                

I grew up in the small town of Staples. At that time, it was a railroad town and the town lived and breathed the Northern Pacific Railroad, later to become the Great Northern, but my dad still was a Northern Pacificer at heart and wasn’t changing his belt buckle for another railroad for nothing, but he did work for them. At least half the town worked there and the other half fed off of the ones who spent their hard-earned money in that little town. Striped railroad caps and red bandanas were the dress of the day. Osh Gosh was very popular. In the late forties and early fifties, the steam engines still roamed around the railroad yards and when you stuck your head out the door in the morning you smelled nothing but railroad. It was a stink somewhere between burnt coal and creosote. It was that way in the house too because that’s where dad hung up his overalls. If it snowed the whiteness of the new fallen snow was gone by the next day and all you had was sooty snirt and my mother crying over her dirty sheets she had hung out to dry on the clothes lines. She never had a dryer while I was there and never had a washing machine without those wringers.

 

It was a far different world in those days, crueler in one sense but better in others. We didn’t have Covid 19 but we did have polio, chicken pox, mumps, scarlet fever and measles. With the exception of polio most of us just got sick, got over it and went on with life. It if got too bad there were three doctors in town to tend to the sick. Two drug stores in town too but just don’t get sick on Sundays. We had our little Knob hill up on sixth Street where the well-heeled lived, merchants, doctors,’ bankers and such and yes there were plenty of not so fortunate people scattered around but no one really had their noses in the air so we had a good thing going.

 

The Police Department was straight out of Mayberry, the volunteer fire department was mostly merchants that worked up town, who showed up at the fire station in their butchers’ apron or greasy mechanics clothes or the guy from the lumber yard with his pencil still behind his ear. When the fire trucks headed out of town to the country it was a small parade that followed them. My dad would be about three cars behind them and then he would break away from the scene to be the first one back in town to spread the news because the only other way you could find out what was going on was to call the telephone operator and get her to spill the beans.

 

Hobos would come to town to work for food and yes, I said work. They lived in their shacks out by Dower lake but they made their way into town every now and then. My mom always gave them potatoes and coffee grounds and maybe a loaf of fresh bread if it was a baking day. They were a different breed than today’s homeless people, not by their nature but their plight was mostly of their own volition. They just knew there wasn’t any government programs for them, so they would mow a lawn or split some wood. It was seasonal because as soon as the snow flied, they were back on the freight trains for some place warmer.

 

I haven’t lived in Staples for 60 years. I know the Railroad isn’t much anymore and the hobos quit riding the rails. The Police have radios and college degrees and no one chases the fire trucks anymore. The Doctor’s have a fine hospital and Clinic, the drug store is open on Sunday and there are a lot of nice houses that aren’t on 6^th St. and also, no one wears Osh Gosh.

 

 

 

 

HOME AGAIN

                                                            

The American Writer Kurt Vonnegut once wrote and I quote, “The very edge of anything from a rivulet to an ocean says to me: now you know where you are. Now you know which way to go. You soon will be home now.” As I journey from my winter retreat in Arizona back to my home on the lake in Crosslake Minnesota those words ring in the back of my mind. For its there at that water’s edge where I find some semblance of that elusive peace, we all long for.

 

For its in those waters that I fished and swam, and where my grandchildren frolicked when they were young. Where my wife and I sat in the waning light of a warm summer’s day, watching the sun slip behind the hills across the lake. Painting the sky red and yellow and reflecting its work of art in the placid waters, so we could enjoy it in two dimensions, above and below. We sat there until the world became dark once more and then as if a shade had been pulled, we could see no more.  Then a breeze came up and we just listened to the waves breaking softly on the sandy shore behind us and we knew that this was as close to peace as we would ever get.

 

Several years ago, a neighbor down the shoreline a spell was in the last days of his life. His words to his caregivers at that time was, “Take me to the cabin and turn my bed so I can see the lake.” That’s the last thing he wanted to see on this earthly journey and I know in my heart just how he felt. I feel so blessed that I have had this opportunity to live where I live.

 

Sometimes on a warm summer evening I like to get in the boat and just putt along the shoreline. Its a time when the lake is deserted, the speed boats and water toys are put away. You hear laughter and voices around the campfires and you see the happy faces reflected in the flickering flames as you pass by. The lonely wail of a Loon somewhere out on the waters and a splash as a bass takes a water bug from the surface. Of all the beautiful music that has been written, now is not the time for it. Mother nature is entertaining you with her own composition written in the key of peacefulness.

 

What is so compelling about this whole scene, is when you realize that this has gone on forever. That countless souls have found comfort here at the water’s edge from time and memorial. That this might be your Shangri-La tonight but it has often been an earthly paradise for so many souls who proceeded you. They probably never found the words to express what it meant to them when it happened because even as a writer, I struggle to find them now and maybe they haven’t even been coined yet.

 

Then you ask yourself how do I perpetuate this, so others may find their peace at the water’s edge too? We all deserve to feel this way, now and in the future. Life has evolved in immeasurable ways, some good and some bad. Mother nature has given us this gift and we can grasp it and save it or we can destroy it. But in the end when all is said and done, no matter what we choose, this world will carry on and it will heal itself and the only losers will be the ones who thought they knew better than the creator of this magic world we live in. As for me I can’t wait to get home.

I HAVE NO REGRETS

                                                          

 

Yesterday on my birthday, I became an octogenarian. When people ask how do you feel when you are eighty, I guess I would use the following analogy. I feel like a twenty-year-old car with 250,000 miles on it. Even though my oil has always been changed on time and I never sat out in the winter or hot sun, my check engine light does blink from time to time. My finish is tarnished and my glass is foggy, I have a few dents and scratches but every morning I do manage to start up again. Using the analogy of the automobile again-- if I may beleaguer the point--- some people would say it’s time for a trade in but I’m not sure what you would get for me this late in life. Some people would say let’s just keep the old girl around and drive her gently. Not sure why men always name their cars with girl’s names but they do. As for gently, I guess that’s a given taking into account my condition.

 

You know life is funny in some respects. Back to the car analogy, when buying one you order them up with all of the bells and whistles you can afford but new humans only come in the same old basic model. There is immeasurable room for adding extra things in life but you have to add those all yourself and it sometimes takes a lifetime to get the full and best package. So, the older you get, the more you can be, all that you want to be but there comes a time and it’s not a definitive time, but a time when not much more can be done. Your maxed out and somewhat worn out. Then something wonderful happens and it’s called satisfaction for a life well lived. Yes, you can now rest on your laurels.

 

Old blue eyes, AKA Frank Sinatra, once sang a song called My Way. Although I liked the song and loved Sinatra, I felt the lyrics were a little egotistical. You see all of us are bits and pieces of mentor’s guardians,’ teachers, family and friends that helped us add all of those extras I talked about in the paragraph above. I totally agreed with Franks lyrics when it came to regrets, as I too “have had a few- but too few to mention. I too, did what I had to do and saw it through without exemption.” But my way- no way- it was our way.

 

I decided to buy a smart watch for my birthday and I’m not sure if they call them smart watches because they are smart or if you have to be smart to use them. I know they don’t come in stupid, medium smart and extra smart. They only come in smart. But how you utilize them is a learning lesson. Someone my age with a sometimes technically challenged mind, can be in a fog with things like this. It’s at best, a learning curve that stretches the limits my old brain has to work with. I guess it’s you that has to have most of the smarts to make the watch smart. The watch just doesn’t give a damn one way or another. 

 

I once read an old saying that for the life of me I can’t recall where, but it went something like this “To the unlearned, old age is the winter season but to the learned, old age is the harvest time.” Every day great minds are stilled and the biggest travesty of all of it, is the wealth of knowledge that follows them to the grave, never to be used again unless they shared it. So, when some old codger tries to share something with you, it might be good to listen. He may have just learned it all the hard way and he’s trying to spare you the tears. 

 

 

WISHING ON A STAR

                                              

 

I remember as a young man, lying on my back, on my parent’s lawn one warm late spring night in 1959. It was a clear; star filled night and a week before graduation.

From my early years growing up I was always an inquisitive lad, always worried about what was in store for me, when it was my time to go out into the world. I believed that somewhere beyond those stars, was a higher being who knew just what was planed for me and I could hardly wait to see what that was. I had always felt those twinkling stars were just holes in the floor of heaven. I also knew the boss up there was saying, “just wait and see.” I think that was the real start of a long faith filled journey that continues today, even though I know, I have traveled the greatest part of it. The road I took as I went out wasn’t always easy but it was always with a definitive goal in mind. I didn’t pray that night for money or notoriety as I talked to the man in the stars. I didn’t want to be anyone’s hero or conqueror. I just prayed for a life that would help me make a difference. That after I was all used up and gone, I would be remembered for being someone-- who had made a difference.

 

There is so much good in life that is there for the taking if we pay attention. You see there have been lots of people who have already made a huge difference in this world. I know because I’m old and I’ve met so many of them along the way. I didn’t always pay attention and so for some of them their good examples fell by the wayside-- wasted on someone who wasn’t listening at the time. You see they too wanted to help me make a difference but at that time and place I wasn’t letting them and I was so wrong. That’s what’s so wrong with our country right now as we struggle for survival. People in leadership are looking for answers that have always been there but they don’t want any help from others and maybe they just aren’t looking because they can’t handle the truth. 

 

Life isn’t a test we take where the answers are only in the teacher’s copy. The answers are right there in our copies if we pay attention and all we need to do is fill in the blanks. But greed, stubbornness and a grasp for power sometimes makes us not want to use someone else’s proven example. Today it’s all about me and I’m where the answers need to come from. Not right or wrong but my way and to hell with the consequences. We need all the glory to ourselves, or we don’t want any at all. Kind of sounds like a certain government department in Washington doesn’t it?

 

I read an article the other day that had to do with mankind and wars. It more or less said there will be more wars in the future because for some reason we are powerless to stop ourselves from doing just that-- and by the way, history proves that out. There are a lot of inflated egos out there that need to be fed in our Government and our military. Then there are those who get rich on the spoils of war. War has even been used to divert our attention from all of the other problems they don’t want to deal with or talk about. In the end innocent people are killed, countries are destroyed and there will be nothing called victory. I wish I could get them all to lie in the grass some quiet night, look at the stars and say, “what would Jesus do? “—But wait, that’s right. -- They don’t need his help.