TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY

True happiness is a state of mind and must always be preceded by a commitment to good.  We have found out, in our lives, that achieving worldly goods accomplishes little in our efforts to attain true happiness. Some of the richest people I know are the most miserable. I say this because I have found happiness in many places in my life, and it didn’t cost me a penny. I am thankful for that.

I have found happiness in the world our creator gave us. I am amazed each time a flower blooms, or a hummingbird appears, or the sun sets once more over the hills, and across our placid lake. The stars on a cloudless night, a full moon on a forest path, a gentle rain that greens the earth and breathes life back into it. They all speak volumes to me and I am thankful for that.

I am overjoyed with the babies we brought into the world and the babies they have brought into the world. It fulfilled a great purpose in my life. From the time all of them were infants, to seeing them go out into the world on their own, my heart swelled with pride. It is an accomplishment fostered in love and not in money, and my hope, my prayer is that, as my body wanes and dies, a part of me will live on in them and I will be thankful for that.

It amazes me always, the love and commitment of my life bound partner, who spent her life making our lives inseparable. What we accomplished by trial and error, tears and sacrifices, and truly loving and trusting each other could not have been bought at any price. Even though I existed before she knew me, she truly completed me. I see that every day in my family, too, and I am thankful for that.

I think of the people that have come into my life as friends. I did not have, nor have I now, anything to offer them but my friendship and my love for them, but in the end, that was all they really wanted, as do I. Maybe it was their persona that first brought us down that path, but I have found so much good behind that admirable character, that first attracted me, that a lot of it has rubbed off on me and made me a better person. We tend to mold our lives from those around us and we thank God for making good choices. Yes, sometimes we don’t know what we are doing in life, but there are so many wonderful examples out there to emulate. It’s hard to go wrong if you truly care, and we should be thankful for that.

Lastly, I can’t forget my faith in God. All of the good things I’ve talked about are his example, and his way of life. None of it would have existed without him at the very core of my life. When others have failed me and when I have failed myself, as often happened, God was that rock and refuge that was always there for me. He never turned his back on me and all I had to do was ask. I am thankful for that.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.        Mike Holst

THANKSGIVING 20015

                                                

Today as I write this, there is a cold wind whipping up the lake waters. The waves have turned all dark and ugly green, topped with their foamy tentacles reaching out until they come crashing down relentlessly on shore. There’s an ominous feeling of winter in the air today. All of those chores, we lake people go through at the end of the season are done and suddenly were not sure anymore what were going to do to occupy our minds. There was a time this summer when there wasn’t enough minutes in a day to do everything we wanted to do and we had to pick and choose. But wait-- there are a couple of other events taking place this month and next and maybe its time to concentrate on that before the year ends.

Thanksgiving is fast becoming the forgotten holiday. For many of us, first and foremost it’s a four-day weekend, filled with eating, football and family get togethers. I say forgotten because the commercialization of Christmas’s is turning it that way. It seems a month is not enough time to get all of the Holiday shopping done. Anyone who works in the retail industry knows that Thanksgiving is becoming just anther workday for him or her. If they’re lucky they get a couple of hours to enjoy Thanksgiving. Black Friday is so appropriately named because of the shadow of Christmas shopping---not to be confused with the real meaning of Christmas. This looms over Thanksgiving like a dark cloud, striping the holiday weekend of so much of its meaning. Maybe if we weren’t so preoccupied with Christmas we would have time to reflect on what Thanksgiving is all about.

We all know why Thanksgiving was started but do we know why its just not the same as it used to be when it was a trip to grandmas house. I guess unless you’re a farmer the harvest doesn’t really mean as much as a trip to the grocery store to buy the food for Thanksgiving. I guess unless you’re poor or a lonely shut-in you don’t really miss a turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. You eat like that or better many times a year. I guess unless you’re a widower or a widow and remember when the chair next to you at that Thanksgiving table held someone you were so thankful for and her dressing was the best you ever tasted. It was the one-day she took the good china out and how much you miss him or her. I guess when all of the kids and grandkids have grown up and gone their ways and now have a family of their own that now is the time when you realize, what it’s like, to be on the outside looking in.

But if your old enough, you may have something a lot of people don’t have in your memory bank. You have an appreciation for what you have been blessed with over all of these years. You remember Thanksgiving when it was so much more meaningful. You remember people that aren’t here anymore. People who meant so much to you and today, you not only give thanks for what’s on the table and who’s around the table but you give thanks for those who went before you and shared so many Thanksgivings with you, in a kinder gentler time.

To all of you, I hope you have a meaningful Thanksgiving. I hope God blesses all of us with a day we won’t ever forget. But most of all, I hope we realize what it is that makes this country so great and vow to never let it be taken from us.---Mike Holst

LUTEFISK SUPPER

                                               

Every fall, some of my friends and I, travel to Staples to the annual lutefisk supper at Faith Lutheran church. This is an annual festival that has been going on for a long, long, time. How long? I remember it when I was kid and believe me that has been a long, long, time. I go for a couple of reasons, number one being my Brother Huck and his crew, consisting mostly of his sons, have long cooked the fish so its kind of a family affair for me. Number two is, I have a soft spot for that church and although I’m not a member or a Lutheran, I recognize the good they do for the people of that area. Maybe you have noticed, I didn’t say, “I go for the fish.”

Eating Lutefisk, for me reminds me of when I was ten and played house with the little neighbor girls. Those of you who have your mind in the gutter can stop right here, because I said playhouse, not doctor. In our role-playing, the girls would bring out their little tin dishes and make us boys mud pies. We would smack our lips and throw the mud over our shoulders as if it was the best mud pie we ever ate. Now to be sure Lutfisk-- unlike mud-- is edible but it has to be covered with melted butter and salt to bring out the taste.-- Of butter and salt. The fish has no taste. It is akin to a tofu turkey at Thanksgiving time. There is an odor however that you can smell as you approach the church and it does get into your clothing. My dog picked up on it when I came home from the meal and proceeded to rub her shoulder on my pants legs for some time.

To be sure it’s the trimmings that make the meal for me. Lefsa, to me, the Norwegian flat bread, was long a favorite in my parents family and it is for me today. I’m addicted to the stuff. I could eat it everyday. Couple this with sweet potatoes or rutabagas, homemade mashed potatoes and Swedish meatballs, cranberries and homemade pies-- well it don’t get much gooder then that-- ya sure yu betcha. I think the Swedish meatballs were a concession of sorts because I have long considered Lutefisk and Lefsa a Norwegian dish. A lot of jokes have been made about the differences between Swedes and Norwegians but this being a family paper; I will have to keep them to myself.

I want to congratulate the people of Faith Lutheran Church for the fine meal and carrying on the tradition. There were a lot of young people there that night but they were serving the Lutefisk, not eating it. I’m not sure where this tradition will be in twenty years but maybe we will be having Lutefisk Tacos or Norwegian burritos. Served with melted butter and salt of course. But in retrospect I didn’t eat it either when I was young, but here I am eating it now. My dad used to say,” The only thing different between Lutefisk and snot was kids will eat snot.” He always said that while you were dishing up your Lutefisk of course.

To the people of Faith Lutheran I say, “Ser deg nesta ar.” Or see you next year.

Mike Holst

A TRIP TO REMEMBER

A while back, over coffee, I told a story to a friend of mine and now I would like to share it with you. Years ago my wife and I had stopped for the night at a motel in Chamberlain, South Dakota. As I was getting our bags out of the car, there, right next to me in the parking lot, were two men wiping down their Harleys and covering them up for the night. I noticed they had Florida registrations so I remarked, “You’re a long way from home.” One of the men, who looked gaunt and exhausted, said with a tired smile, “We’re only half as far as we once were.”

He went on to tell me that they were on their way back to Florida after riding up to Fairbanks, Alaska. “Wow, what a trip,” I said. He looked at me quietly for a second—I sensed he wasn’t sure if he wanted to carry on the conversation or not—but he finally said, “I am fulfilling a dream.” There were tears in his companion’s eyes who, up to then, had said nothing, just standing there and buttoning up his bike cover. Not knowing where this was going, intrigued, I set my bags down.

“A few months ago,” the man continued, “I was told I had six months to live. One of my dreams had always been to take a trip like this. A week after my diagnoses, I knew it was now or never. I rented two motorcycles, and my friend took off six weeks from his job to go with me, ride shotgun, to make sure I was going to be safe.  I could not have done it without him, and now I’m going home to my family to die.”

I was at a loss for words, but I shook his hand and his friend’s hand, wishing them well. I went up to my room with tears in my eyes. My wife, worried about where I had been, asked what was I doing. “Just talking to some friends,” I said. She looked at me like she didn’t understand, but let it ride, and we went to bed. As I laid there in the dark that night, I couldn’t stop thinking about the man and his friend. As sad as the situation was, there was a victory here, and a profile in courage. He got to live his dream because of a lot of people. His friend, who put his life on hold to go with him, and his family, who unselfishly gave up a lot of the short time they had left together to let him accomplish what he had to do.

I have talked often about this trip throughout life, and the people who have made it so worthwhile by sharing their lives with me. Although I never knew the man’s name, my life was better off for having met him that night. He could have just said nothing when I addressed him, or told me to buzz off. Instead, he chose to share that story with me a complete stranger, and to this day I have wondered why. Was it pride in what he had accomplished, or was it because he just wanted to share the love? I guess I will never know, but if what he told me was true—and I have no reason to believe otherwise—he is long gone from this earth, but his story will live on for as long as I do, anyway. When we left the next morning, the Harleys were gone, but that night will always live on in my mind.

 There comes a time when you have to dare to live your dreams. Life is uncertain, even when you haven’t been given a deadline. Seize the moment.

TODAY

Back in the sixties there was an American folk music group, “The New Christy Minstrels.” One of the songs they sang was called, “Today.” I remember the lyrics to the first verse of that song, and even today they take me back to that time in Minneapolis—a time when I was just going out into the world full of hope—and anticipation for a better life for myself. The words that still resonate with me today are from verse one--“Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine; I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine; a million tomorrows shall all pass away, ‘ere I forget all the joy that is mine today.” At the time, they were meaningless words to some extent, because I hadn’t lived any of those tomorrows. But just as they predicted, they did pass away and now, for the first time, I can feel the subliminal message that was in that verse, way back then, in a way I never felt it before.

There was so much joy in my world back then. I was newly married, and so in love with her and the world. Responsibilities were still few and far between. I had not yet let the world’s problems, or my own problems, press down on me like they do now. In fact, it was like I had stopped the world and gotten off for a while—content to take each day as it came and live the joy that was mine that day. But time marches on, and at some point I got back on the world, and reluctant or not, fell into step. Then with time came babies and homes, jobs and responsibilities, things no one can accurately describe for you. But for the most part life was good, and the happiness that was mine back then continued in a slightly different form, for now that happiness I craved was tinged with accomplishments and pride.

There comes a time in your life when it’s just not your life anymore, but a life you made with someone else, and the children you made. With that comes a new day of parenting and mentoring, and for the first time in your life you fall back to the generations before you to see how that was done because, after all, they raised you and did all right and those kids didn’t come with directions. You get in a never-ending rut of getting up and getting through each day; solving problems and trying to adjust to what’s in and out in life’s journey. Then slowly, the offspring fall out of the nest and test their wings. Whoever coined the phrase “mixed emotions” must have been in this part of life because you want so badly for them to succeed, but you’re still hanging on. You know that their tomorrows are now slip sliding away, too, and they are on a new course you don’t know, and you’re not driving anymore.

So now you enter into the golden years. It’s a new experience that comes without directions or mentors who have since passed on. You’re back to The New Christy Minstrels and “Today,” verse two. “I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory, I can’t live on promises winter to spring. Today is my moment and now is my glory, I’ll laugh and I’ll cry and I’ll sleep.”