ANOTHER DAY. ANOTHER TIME.

                                              

In the top of my storage garage is an attic space. There are stairs going up there and for many years my wife used it to tuck away all of those things she just couldn’t part with but actually had no use for any more. As I have gotten older, it has been my quest to get rid of stuff I no longer use. So the other day I went up there and started sorting through things. A long and tedious process because there are things up there nobody wants or needs, but on the other hand there are some things up there that might still be useful to someone. Then there are things up there I do need and I didn’t even know I had. There are things too that make you sit down and smile and things that bring tears to your eyes, remembering another time and another place.

I know from experience my kids, who are now in their middle age, don’t want or need any of it. They have more junk of their own then they know what to do with. So to start with I am making three piles. Stuff to continue keeping because I can’t part with it and it would be a sacrilege to throw it away. Stuff for the trip to the landfill and things that the Goodwill store can use. I thought about a garage sale but it’s just too much work. They say one mans junk is another mans treasure and years ago people were much more willing to use somebody else’s castaways until you could afford something better. But speaking for my own grandchildren, who in some cases are just starting out keeping house, not so much anymore.

As a kid growing up in a poor family, I had a rich aunt who would send her sons used clothing down to our house. He lived in another town so I never minded. Her son and I were the same age but he was bigger then me. So mom would cut things down and make them fit for me and my sibling brother or I would wait a couple of years until I grew into them but I was always happy to get them. Shoes were a problem because my feet stayed small and some times I would stuff the toes with paper just to fill them out. I did put my foot down—no pun intended--- and refuse to wear some of them because I suspected I looked like Emmet Kelly, the Ringling Brothers clown. There is pride and there is foolish pride and I had a little of both.

My father had an old two-wheel trailer he kept in back of the house and when things wore out, or broke, he would just throw them in the trailer. When it got full we would go out to the town dump which was always a treat because we would bring dads 22 rifle along and shoot rats. I can see some of you squirming in your seats right now with a sick look on your faces but you had to be there. The biggest problem was trying to keep dad from filling the trailer back up with somebody else’s junk. One other thing that today’s kids would have a rough time with, was mealtime at our house. There were always lots of veggies because mom grew her own and when it came to meat our mom invented the petite cut. Leftovers just got recycled into the next meal and I remember asking mom. What is this?  She would just smile and say “Oh a little of this and a little of that.” Dad would scowl at you and say, “Eat it and shut up.” Sometimes he would give you the old story about kids in India starving. I always wanted to say, “Send this over to India. I hate the thought of anyone starving.” My better judgment said, “Eat it and shut up.”

WHAT DOES THE FOURTH OF JULY MEAN TO US TODAY?

            

I ask myself this question every year at this time and every year it changes because every year our country changes. I go back a long ways in this countries history. Back to before the start of W.W. II in fact. Back far enough to remember the pride that was instilled in this country, at the end of that terrible war. Not just pride in our military but pride in our citizens too, for the way they banded together and went without, so we could win. It wasn’t just a military victory it was a whole country victory. You see back then people really understood what fighting for our freedoms, was all about and they were proud that they had won. It was indeed a team effort.

I remember watching the Super Bowl many years ago and seeing and listening to Whitney Houston singing the Star Spangled banner. You had to be there and see the way the song was choreographed, the planes flying overhead with red, white and blue contrails trailing behind them. The flag presented by the armed forces moving with the breeze as if it was alive. But it was how beautiful Whitney sung that anthem that really brought it to me and made me understand what this is all about. I remember how I unashamedly cried and my friend asked me “What’s wrong Mike, why are you so sad?”

“Nothing” I said, “just tears of pride.”

“Pride?” she said.

 “Yes pride” I said, “and if I have to explain that to you, then that is, what is, so sad.”

It’s been the loss of that pride for our country that worries me so. It’s the fact that our pride has indeed turned to prejudice. Prejudice against our fellow Americans and our leaders. Prejudice against foreigners and other countries. In the book of Proverbs 16-18 in the Holy Bible it says “Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty sprit before the fall.” The ill-conceived prejudices we seem to have so many times are based more on arrogance then pride. Yes, they are a haughty spirit.

Today many things have watered down that pride. Politician’s wars that left our troops, with doubts about why they were fighting. A country tired of war and conflict. A country mired in debt from overseas spending while our own people suffer. I don’t like Donald Trump but I do like his slogan. “Make America Great Again.” Donald can’t do it. No one person can-- but together we can. We just need to regain that attitude that prevailed back in the early 1940’s. A time when we took insurmountable odds and turned them into victory.

So what does the 4^th mean to me? It means we had it once and we can have it again. Maybe we’ve taken a step backwards lately but we need to get it back. No one can live on his or her laurels forever. We need our country to be whole again and respected. The world needs our country to be a leader again. It’s a scary time indeed but 1941 was an even scarier time and we proved equal to the task. The men and women from that great conflict are fast disappearing. What we can’t let disappear is the pride they brought this country.-------God Bless America on this 4^th of July.

Submitted by Mike Holst 14042 Big Pine Trail Crosslake MN. 56442 218 692 2937

WHY I WRITE LIKE I DO

                                            

I’m not going to lie to you and say my E-mail box and mailbox are full of fan mail everyday. But occasionally I do get some mail that is encouraging and today was no exception. I received a letter from a lady that lives in another state who reads my column, because her niece sends it to her. Nothing encourages an old writer more then to know something he wrote, made someone’s day and today this ladies note made mine. I, in turn, want to thank her in this way.

When I first started writing this column way back then, I took pause because the thought that was first and foremost on my mind was, “How am I going to come up with something people want to read every week?” Now I’m going to stop myself for a moment because I fully realize that not everything I write is going to please you every week. There is just too much difference in our backgrounds and our loves and likes to be that lucky. But if I have learned anything about writing, it’s not always what you write about but how you write it that counts.

Many writers like to pound home their message, as if what they believe in is the only way to think and act. But I’ve lived enough life and changed my mind enough times, to know that a closed mind is a hostile place. So with that in mind I have often told people, who are polar opposite of what I have stated I do believe in, to convince me why I’m wrong. I want to be right as much as possible but not at the expense of being stubborn and short sighted. And if we can’t find common ground—well let’s part as friends with different views who still respect each other.

I have a dear friend in my life, who has a lot of different views on subjects that I find I just can’t compromise that much on. But as time has gone on, through listening, I have learned to respect her so much and in some cases I have found validity in some of her views and I believe in turn she has in some of mine. In effect, by listening to each other, we have helped each other; find that common ground, we both love to be at. Her agreeing with me or I agreeing with her is not a prerequisite for our relationship. But loving and respecting each other and our views is.

We have different political parties in this country and we have different religions in this world. In order to coexist peacefully we need to be tolerant of other people’s views. Notice I said tolerant and not necessarily accepting. What you believe in is what you believe in and the rules this country was set up with, allow you to do just that. But there comes a time when the path we have to trod is to narrow for both of us and it’s then that we need to seek compromise because it will be the only way forward for both of us. This may sound like a wishy, washy way of doing business but it beats “my way or the highway” every time. Because as long as there is pride and self respect. Egos and self worth then we have to have some way to make concessions that preserve all of the above. My grandparents were married for over sixty years and what made that marriage work so well, was this uncanny ability they had, to listen to each other through love and respect. I know this works and that is why I write about it all the time.-- Thank you Cozy.

WHY MOM CRIED

                                             

All over this nation, this time of the year, young men and women walk down the aisle to the strains of Pomp and Circumstance. They call it the “walking graduation march.” It’s your last walk down the aisle of your Alma Mater and you will never forget it. The emotions it brings out in people are all over the board. You the graduate will celebrate it as the end of high school or college education. Your parents and grandparents will show mixed emotions. They wanted nothing more then for you to mature and make something out of yourself. Something that would make everyone proud. They just didn’t think it would happen, quite this fast.

Your mom remembers the day she put you on the kindergarten bus and then went home and cried but luckily you didn’t see that. It too was a graduation of sorts. You were no longer a toddler but still so immature, and it was so hard for her let go of the most precious thing she had ever been given and entrust you to a teacher she barely knew. There were so many firsts over those years. The refrigerator door was covered with your kindergarten artwork. You made a little plaster cast of your hand in second grade and painted it for them and gave it to your parents for Christmas. She still has it in the back of her sock drawer and just yesterday she took it out and sat on the edge of the bed and cried-- but again you weren’t there.

Then it was junior high and sports and band and choir and they used to argue over who was going to pick you up after school. Once at one of your band concerts you looked out at the crowd and you swore your father was napping until your mom gave him the elbow in the ribs and he sat up straight, grimaced and smiled at you. You hit your first home run in softball and never mind that three people booted the ball-- it won the game and your dad couldn’t stop talking about it. He thought just maybe you might get an athletic scholarship after high school.

Then came high school and things got more serious because all of a sudden you realized that there was an end in sight for high school and maybe you should think about what you wanted to do afterwards. For a while you changed your mind as often as you changed your clothes but them something stuck in your mind and for once in your life you had a goal and mom and dad thought it was good idea. You had a boy friend and then you didn’t and then you did and then you didn’t because at least for a while that wasn’t in your plans. You went to prom and dad let your boyfriend take his car because his Mom was a single mom and she didn’t have one. You looked so pretty and grownup in that dress and yes confusingly mom cried again, while dad worried and you weren’t sure if he worried about you-- or his car.

Then it was your turn for the march and you walked down the aisle at high school and later at college with your classmates, and this time they both cried. Then you had a job, a serious boyfriend, a husband and a child and now tonight twenty-five years later that child is taking his own “walking graduation march.” You sit quietly with your tissue in your hand and then you see him looking so regal and he smiles at you and winks with that goofy smile and yes now-- you understand why mom cried.

THOUGHTS ALONG THE WAY

                                              

As my life winds down-- and no, I caution you, nothing bad is eminent—but with that being said, I am a realist and each day brings more proof to an increasingly foggy mind and creaky body that my best days are history and tomorrow is not so much a mystery anymore. I sometimes unconsciously slip into a whimsical, mood that looks backwards more then forward, although I harbor few regrets of days gone by. My life so far has been more then I ever dreamed it would be, but most of the credit lies in the people that helped shape my life and not in my own feeble efforts.

Each day when I wake up and slip out of the bed and through my own efforts dress and make my way down the lane to fetch my paper, I thank the lord for one more day. I find so much solace in my morning cup of coffee, sitting on the deck with Molly, looking out over the still waters of our lake. Listening to a loon far across the waters heralding springtime. So many of my friends and neighbors once too enjoyed what I embrace, but time has stilled their hearts or minds and I no longer can enjoy their smiles and lively banter. For now I am relegated to draw upon my memory for that old companionship. But I say this with all sincerity --that’s okay.

There was a time in my life when I never thought much about the past and maybe that’s really because I had no past and yesterdays were just used up days and tomorrows were the days that counted because they gave me a fresh start every time the sun came up. Tomorrows were days of hope and a chance to get it right but they were not without a risk because you weren’t totally in charge and you often had to pick and choose which fork in the road to take, because you were languishing there in somewhat confusing, uncharted territory. Yet you relished the choice, the chance, to make some history of your own, even if it was wrong.

Life is such a puzzle sometimes but unlike a picture puzzle we do get to reshape the pieces to make them fit. There are those who will never fit in where they belong because they don’t want to fit or change and life for them becomes a black hole in our grand picture and it never is really complete. This, for the rest of us is sadness personified because we want the picture to be complete, & perfect. Especially when its friends and family that are so much a part of it. People that we love so much.

Fast forward to today when this history of mine, brought about by trial and error, has drawn and painted the way for me to follow and it’s so much easier to pick and choose my actions now because along the way I have eaten the sour berries of life and spit them out, savored the sweet ones and gave them my blessing-- all in this never ending ritual of yes and no’s, rights and wrongs. Yes my friends, it is this winnowing process that may not be perfection but it’s as close as life allows me to get. Some day when the lights are finally dimmed and the curtain goes down for the last time I want my swan song to be “My way,” and not “Born to Lose.” Allison Blanchard said and I quote. “Life is beautifully tragic. Giving it up isn’t the hard part; it’s the living part that everyone struggles with.

MEMORIAL DAY

Of all of the holidays our country celebrates, none has more meaning for me than Memorial Day. That’s because, except for the obvious being its meaning is to honor our war dead and those who survived, it’s also the start of another summer season. Here in the Midwest we tend to bookend the fairest of our four seasons with Memorial Day and Labor Day—the alpha and the omega of summer. But we need to keep that as a subliminal message lest we forget the true meaning of Memorial Day.

Not being a veteran, I have often wondered what it was like to leave your families and loved ones, and to go off to some far off place to defend our way of life. One thinks about our children and how we often have such a short time to live with them before they go out on their own. Many times, veterans give up a substantial part of that time to try to keep the peace this world so sorely needs; a time they will never get back; a time they wanted so much to share with their life’s partner and kids. But it goes far deeper than that when you have to take up arms because someone has taken up arms against you. It’s then that so many of our young protectors can be taken from us, and never get the chance to become a parent. Yes, they gave up far more than just their lives. Let’s not forget the survivors, too, as many of the survivors suffer immeasurably, having seen the horrors of war.

The world has long prayed for peace, asked for peace, and even begged for an end to aggression and hostilities. But there have always been those amongst us in this world that selfishly don’t want us to have that freedom and way of life. They want to dominate us and force their convoluted way of life on free people. Thank God we have had the will to stand up to them in the past, or this world would be hell on earth without their efforts. Thank God, also, that there are those who, in the words of Isaiah in the good book, took heed when it said, “They will bend their plowshares into swords. Their spears into pruning hooks against nations.” Our creator knew there would be threats, and knew all too well we had no decent choice but to respond against them, and fight back, or this world would get far uglier than we could possibly imagine.

As for that lasting peace we all want. That same chapter of the Bible talks about it as part and parcel of that same verse. To be sure it has, in our lifetimes, proved to be very elusive. I have the feeling that it will always be difficult to attain, and we will have to always remain vigilant. That is exactly what our brave service men and women are doing today for all of us. We lose our awareness of this way too easily in this world today. We must never forget their service to, not only our country, but also to all of us. I have in my mind today a picture I saw of a young widow lying face down sobbing on the green grass of a grave in a veterans cemetery, her toddler child looking on bewildered, way too young to realize what it, too, had lost. The father he/she will never remember. Let us not forget them, also.

So, this Memorial Day, let’s give credit where credit is due. Let’s not let Memorial Day be just the start of another summer season, and another four-day weekend.

HARD TIMES ON THE RANGE

                                               

I look at what is going on up on the Iron Range, with unemployment and it breaks my heart. It’s always been the dream of the American family to settle down someplace, have a family and not only make a mark for yourself but also to have the satisfaction that through your own hard efforts, you succeeded. All you needed was for someone to give you a chance. Just someone, to give you a job. Everyone needs a purpose in life and a job, besides giving you an income, gives you that purpose.

Growing up in Staples, a small town I remember coming home from school one day as a ten or twelve year old, to find my father, who was always working, sitting at the kitchen table in the early afternoon, talking with mom. He looked especially worried and concerned and that was just not dad, so I asked,” What’s wrong?” dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, “I have been laid off from the railroad.” Then he added, seeing my concern, “But it’s going to be alright.”

I look at what is going on, on the Iron Range and my heart goes out to those people. Thousands of them with no jobs. Thousands of them who want nothing more than to provide for their families and have purpose in life. Getting up each morning and not knowing if they should be angry or sad, but feeling so helpless. Some say,” Move away from there and go where there are jobs.” Let me set the stage. You’re forty-one years old and have lived on the range all of your life. Your dad was a miner and so was grandpa, your wife’s dad and three of your uncles. You have worked your way up the ladder at the plant to a supervisor and you’re proud of the place and all the people you work with. It’s been rewarding, a steady income. You have a modest home, a wife and three kids in school. That same school both of you graduated from. It’s a small town where everybody knows your name. So move away and do what? Start over in the middle of your life? You have a house you couldn’t sell if you wanted to. You’re a miner-- you have no other skills. All your friends and family live here.

Industries fail for many reasons but the number one reason is nobody wants your product anymore. It’s either to expensive or obsolete. In the case of the range, its product is not obsolete but it is too expensive. Replaced by cheap steel from other countries. The answer would be simple if we weren’t in a tit for tat deal with those countries. We buy their products and they buy ours. Yes, that’s what has changed. We are now in a world economy. As much as I hate government intervention into private industry, its time to diversify the range workers. Get some of those eggs that are now all in one basket, into something new. And with the proper incentives this could happen. This is where governments can help, without creating a welfare state. More benefits are a band-aid approach but that’s all right, if you have something better to replace them with in the near future that might be a solution.

My dad got his job back eventually but eventually too, the railroad left that town. But the people didn’t give up when it left and they brought in new industry and the town still thrives. It’s the same size today that it was when I left it fifty some years ago. That all happened a long time ago but it still works.

EARTH DAY

                                               

On April 22^nd of this year, we celebrated earth day once more. A day dedicated to this wonderful planet we all live on. For all of my life, from the day of reasoning on, I have been in awe of it. I find more beauty in a field of wild weeds and flowers then in anything mankind has ever created. The creatures we share this planet with, never cease to amaze me with their resilience, to all we have done to them. Sadly not all of them were able to survive the onslaught but in some cases we woke up to what we were doing and helped them. Sadly again, we can’t seem to stop what we are doing to destroy them and their habitat and so it all might all be a moot point.

Just the fact that 7.1 billion of us exist on this planet makes for an untenable situation. We all have to eat, drink, breath and give off waste and at some point we will overwhelm the earths ability to cleanse itself. At some point we will use up all of the natural resources such as clean water and clean air and at that point our numbers will decline in what seems to be a heartless cycle of birth and early death. None of this is intentional; it’s just a by-product of our existence. The end is inevitable if we continue the way we are, but it’s not the end unless we want it to be.

The same mankind, who has poisoned the earth, can through modern technology unpoison it but right now the desire is not there. Something called greed and money has gotten in the way. I have walked across the Mississippi river at lake Itasca and saw the clear clean water that gives birth to this mighty river. I have crossed it also at the other end, where it is for all practical purposes an open sewer, emptying into the Gulf of Mexico creating a death zone, or hypoxic area of 6,500 square miles where little can live.

Many places in the U.S. are running out of fresh water. Aquifers have been pumped dry and in some places seawater is encroaching them, filling the void, ruining them forever. The earth is literally collapsing over some of them in places. Rivers are contaminated with chemicals and lead. Even the oceans are filling with debris. Glaciers that fed streams with fresh water are receding. In Oklahoma the ground shakes everyday from man made earthquakes from fracking but the beat goes on.

I have only touched on a few problems for our earth created by mankind. Believe me there are many more. I found out in the last month that I have two great grandchildren coming in the next year. Today I wonder what kind of water they will drink and what kind of air they will breathe. When I was born, three quarters of a century ago, none of this was a problem. Just think how insignificant 75 years is, in the millions of years this rock has been rotating around our star. But that’s all the time it took us to put this earth on the path to ruination. I want those great grand babies of mine to still celebrate earth day like I did. To stand and sing, “Oh beautiful, for spacious skies. For amber waves of grain. For purple mountain majesties across the fruited plain” and be able mean it. Mankind will never destroy the earth; we will only make it uninhabitable. And then long after we are gone Mother Nature will slowly repair it-- but by then, it will be too late for us.

WHAT IS LOVE?

I read a letter in the paper a while back, written by a mother who’d just lost her three year old daughter. I was moved by her letter, but moved even more by her faith that is propping her up right now. Here was someone who understands what love and loss is really all about. For, in the midst of all her grief, she talked about the greatest love of all—the love that came to us all in the miracle of Easter.

I also read, online, of a woman who attended a Garth Brooks concert, back in Minneapolis, after having a round of chemo that very morning. She held up a sign during the concert that read, “Chemo this morning, Garth tonight, enjoy the dance.” He stopped the concert to have her brought right down in front where he could honor her. Yes, my friends, that is love.

There was an old man, down in Florida where we stayed, who walked his equally old dog every day. Their gait was slow and hesitant, but you could hear him talking to the dog and encouraging him along. I asked him how old the dog was, and he said “About sixteen.” Yes,” he said with a tired smile, “We’re both getting to the end of the road, aren’t we, Rocky? But that’s okay.” Again—more love.

I often reflect and remember when she was alive. I would be writing, and then looking up at her she would catch my eye, smile and wink at me, or touch my hair as she passed my chair, or sometimes, she just opened her arms and embraced me as if she never wanted to let go, and I never wanted her to let go. That, too, was love.

Why aren’t these the stories of every day instead of war and hate, and politicians smearing each other? Even our music has gone from Frankie singing “Yes you’re lovely. With your smile so warm and your cheeks so soft. There is nothing for me but to love you and the way you look tonight” to some rapper, spewing out profanity.

All too often, we have forgotten how to love. Love for many is now a new cell phone or a video game, shoved in your kid’s face, and “There, now leave me alone!” Love is not knowing what you like— but it’s knowing what your kids and spouse like—and acting accordingly. It’s playing catch with your son, in the backyard, when you’re so weary you can hardly throw the ball. It’s reading a story to your little girl, that you have read so many times you have it memorized, with a Raggedy Ann doll between you. It’s lying in bed, watching the love of your life sleeping, and feeling nothing but contentment and how lucky you are to be there, fifty years after you first met.

Everything I ever truly loved turned out to be something I never wanted to forget. Everything I truly hated only haunts me for the rest of my life. Dr Seuss said,” You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” In true love there is no ‘you or I,’ just a desire to laugh together when you make a fool of yourself, and cry together when you are hurting. Oh, how much better our lives would be-- if we only knew how to truly love each other.

UNDERSTANDING OLD DRIVERS

                                   

Today I’m directing my article towards those of you who, at least to my line of thinking, have little patience for those of us who are in the twilight of our lives and still have to live in your world. There was time when I too, uttered an oath to my wife about the old fart in front of me on the highway who was going barely the speed limit. “They should give him a ticket for going this slow,” I muttered. To make things worse she didn’t always agree with me.” You see for some reason I was living in my world and didn’t care to know the reasons, this old fart was holding me up.

Most people drive the speed they are most comfortable at. For some that is barely the speed limit and for others that is at least ten to fifteen miles an hour over the limit. I’m not comfortable driving that fast, so I’m an impediment to those who wish me off the road. I can either make you “the speeder” happy and have an accident or I can make sure my partner and I get there in one piece. I have when travelling tried to stay out of others way, but that’s not always possible, as when you are on a two lane road. To be sure I don’t want to be the cause of an accident either, so I do try to go the legal limit, which I think in the eyes of the law, was supposed to be the fastest you should go anyway and not the slowest you should go, before the guy behind you has a melt down.

I tried once, as an experiment, to set my cruise control at the maximum speed limit on highway 25 from Brainerd to Foley. Every person who came up behind me passed me, including a patrol car. It’s not a safe road to pass on in most places so I finally relented and kicked it up a bit before I caused a wreck. I drove to Florida on Interstate 75, which is three lanes. I camped out in the middle lane and everyone passed me on both sides. Until there was a wreck and then we all sat still.

Now I know, I have all the time in the world, or at least some people think I have. I get no credit for judging the correct amount of time for my trip and leaving in plenty of time. I have noticed in my years of driving that the biggest problems for traffic jams are accidents. Accidents that would never have happened if people were driving safe for the conditions. Now we all sit and wait because you were in such a big hurry.

Modern navigation systems make planning your route a whole lot easier and have helped seniors a lot with their driving and especially when you are driving alone. But technology is still no substitute for being alert and aware of what is going on around you. Like the dimwit that is driving three feet off your back bumper weaving in and out looking for the slightest chance to pass you. He will be the one that will be right beside you at the next red light you stop at.

BUCKET LIST

So the last five years and particularly since I have met Pat, I am working on my bucket list. My wife and I seldom talked about such things. She was very content with the status quo. But the older I get, and with time marching on, the more I feel pressed to work on it. Also the more I get behind on the list, because each time I accomplish something on the list, I am introduced to five other things that weren’t on the list because I didn’t even know they existed. In the end, if this keeps up the list will be unmanageable and when someone says to me “turn out the lights the parties over,” I going to look like a miserable failure. So I have revised the ground rules for my bucket list. Nothing is written in stone and the list will be reprioritized from time to time. There is no earthly way that I have the time and money to accomplish everything my gullible mind can conceive of. Again also, and this time because of Pat, things need to be mutually agreed upon, so that might make my #1 into a #8 and vise versa or not at all. It’s something more to complicate the process.

To be fair a true bucket list has to be feasible. Otherwise it’s just a wish list and my wife’s grandma said, “If wishes’ were horse’s beggars would ride.” I always wanted to climb a fourteen thousand foot mountain since I was a kid and although that desire somewhat preceded my bucket list, if I was younger it would still be there and if I were richer I would have done it then. Now, at my advancing age, if I was a multi millionaire and I’m not, I am sure I could find some strapping mountaineer who would push, pull and drag my old butt to the top. I would stand on the peak smiling into the setting sun, with a little frost in my mustache, pull out my list and my grease pencil and cross it off. Then come back down the conquering hero, pay of the people who got me to the top and live the lie. To be fair a true bucket list has to be honestly accomplished.

There are things that were on my bucket list that I have eliminated simply because the allure wore off. I always wanted to canoe down the Church Hill River in Canada until I hit Hudson Bay and see the Belugas and the Polar Bears. Then I read some first hand accounts of those who had did it. Covered in swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. A few of them killed by the bears they came to see. I do admire people that go exploring like that but I’m not sure that I’m cut from the same cloth as they are anymore. I talked to an old Irish Man a while back at an Irish festival and he told me how he and his wife crossed the ocean in a small sailboat mind you, sailed down the eastern coast, around the tip of Florida and parked at Fort Meyers. I have to admire that kind of attitude even though the man was a grouch. He complained to me that Americans are obsessed with dying of various diseases like cancer but the Irish fear only things like dementia. “A fate worse then death,” he said, “ Is losing all of me grudges.”

I think in the end, where you have gone and what you accomplished will not be a defining factor of a successful life. It will be the friends you have made along the way and the lives you have touched and then-- to die peacefully---with no grudges

SPRING THOUGHTS

                                               

Spring is always such a fickle time. Some days it seems like Mother Nature doesn’t know what she wants to do. Get on with it, or listen to old man winter who’s still hollering, “hold your horses boys, I’m not done yet.” But for old man winter to keep his frigid sting, certain things need to be in place, but sadly for him those things are all petering out. I’m talking of subzero temperatures and wind blowing off of the frozen lakes. Too bad, but old man sun has been warming the earth and melting what’s frozen and putting the run on winter, albeit, sometimes it’s a slow process.

It’s man who is the impatient one and Mother Nature gets him going that way by all of these little teasers she hangs out there in late winter. 70 degrees and ice off the lakes in March. Rhubarb poking its pink noses out of the ground. There are buds swelling on some plants right now and a few early ducks quacking in the shallows. Seven thirty at night and its still light outside. “Shut off the television and those lousy reruns and break out the rakes and shovel’s Orville, its time. Maybe Mother nature can’t make up her mind what to do-- but I’ve made up mine.”

You watch the ten o’clock news and that goofy weather man, who’s about as accurate with his predictions as the Fed is with the stock market, is mumbling about some polar vortex and using words like straight out of the arctic and your yelling “Mother shut that damn thing off because that old fool has no more idea of what’s happening tomorrow then we do.” You go to bed all upset because that pessimistic prognosticator just wants to make waves and ruin everybody’s day. You get up at two in the morning for a bathroom break and peeking over the bathroom shutters, the yard light shows nothing but bare ground. You snicker to yourself because maybe you were born at night, but it wasn’t last night and you’ve been around the block enough times to know when winters finally over. You fall back asleep with a grin on your face, cocky and contented, just as the first snowflakes fall in the dark.

The next morning your optimistic attitude takes one right in the solar plexus. The snow shovel which was lying in the yard, is now somewhere under a foot of snow. The snow blower is dry of gas because you drained it for the season and used the gas to burn the brush pile. The plow, which takes two hours to put on the four-wheeler, is wrapped up and now safely stored behind the garage. The dog won’t go outside and why does she have to add insult to injury, with that smug look on her face, grinning over the top of her coffee cup?

It’s called a pout and you’ve used it before but never with any good results but it’s always been plan B when plan A gets blown out of the water.  It’s somewhere in your D.N.A where all of your factory settings are at. It’s your default setting, so there is little you can do about it. Oh’ speaking of water where the hell did that come from? Drip, drip, drip on the porch floor. Now I have to shovel the roof off with no shovel. To heck with it I’ll run into town and get a new one. After all it is spring and they should be on sale. What’s this at the end of the driveway? That stupid plow came by. So what now, back to the garage? No wait. I’m stuck. Rats.

BUCKET LIST

     

So the last five years and particularly since I have met Pat, I am working on my bucket list. My wife and I seldom talked about such things. She was very content with the status quo. But the older I get, and with time marching on, the more I feel pressed to work on it. Also the more I get behind on the list, because each time I accomplish something on the list, I am introduced to five other things that weren’t on the list because I didn’t even know they existed. In the end, if this keeps up the list will be unmanageable and when someone says to me “turn out the lights the parties over,” I going to look like a miserable failure. So I have revised the ground rules for my bucket list. Nothing is written in stone and the list will be reprioritized from time to time. There is no earthly way that I have the time and money to accomplish everything my gullible mind can conceive of. Again also, and this time because of Pat, things need to be mutually agreed upon, so that might make my #1 into a #8 and vise versa or not at all. It’s something more to complicate the process.

To be fair a true bucket list has to be feasible. Otherwise it’s just a wish list and my wife’s grandma said, “If wishes’ were horse’s beggars would ride.” I always wanted to climb a fourteen thousand foot mountain since I was a kid and although that desire somewhat preceded my bucket list, if I was younger it would still be there and if I were richer I would have done it then. Now, at my advancing age, if I was a multi millionaire and I’m not, I am sure I could find some strapping mountaineer who would push, pull and drag my old butt to the top. I would stand on the peak smiling into the setting sun, with a little frost in my mustache, pull out my list and my grease pencil and cross it off. Then come back down the conquering hero, pay of the people who got me to the top and live the lie. To be fair a true bucket list has to be honestly accomplished.

There are things that were on my bucket list that I have eliminated simply because the allure wore off. I always wanted to canoe down the Church Hill River in Canada until I hit Hudson Bay and see the Belugas and the Polar Bears. Then I read some first hand accounts of those who had did it. Covered in swarms of black flies and mosquitoes. A few of them killed by the bears they came to see. I do admire people that go exploring like that but I’m not sure that I’m cut from the same cloth as they are anymore. I talked to an old Irish Man a while back at an Irish festival and he told me how he and his wife crossed the ocean in a small sailboat mind you, sailed down the eastern coast, around the tip of Florida and parked at Fort Meyers. I have to admire that kind of attitude even though the man was a grouch. He complained to me that Americans are obsessed with dying of various diseases like cancer but the Irish fear only things like dementia. “A fate worse then death,” he said, “ Is losing all of me grudges.”

I think in the end, where you have gone and what you accomplished will not be a defining factor of a successful life. It will be the friends you have made along the way and the lives you have touched and then-- to die peacefully---with no grudges

CHURCH FIRE

                                            

I’m not sure how many of you were ever to St. Mary’s church in Melrose. My wife was born in Melrose and so many of her family members had called that building their religious sanctuary over the years. Entire families were baptized, and raised in their Catholic faith, within that church that was built in 1899. Stearns County has a lot of these old parishes. As you drive around the countryside their steeples are often the first thing you see stretching into the rural Minnesota sky. You have to feel how important their faith was to these German People, who settled the area, and fully realize how important that building was to their lives.

The city of Duluth had a similar situation with a church fire at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in the downtown area last February. Like St. Mary’s, the church had been around since the eighteen hundreds. Years ago the people who built these churches made them a monument to their faith. Huge stained glass windows and ornate woodwork. Paintings, statues, altars and murals that told a story of how the church evolved through the ages. But then at some point we need to say where does the building leave off and the church began. It’s the house verses the home discussion. Not that the building isn’t important, it is, and the longer the building lives on, in the hearts of the worshipers, the more important it becomes to them.

As a fire fighter I witnessed first hand the grief that comes with the loss of a historic building. You feel just how much of somebody’s life that building represents. Not that we, the firefighters, didn’t try hard to save everybody’s buildings but I think in the times that I am talking about here, there was just an extra special effort, because this was a one of a kind place and you can’t just order up another. I am sure in Melrose, many of the firefighters were very familiar with St. Mary’s Church and this was the one place they never wanted to see burn.

A lot has changed not only in the churches we build but also in the attitude of the people as it pertains to the church buildings. I go to the Cities quite often and pass many churches in the suburbs. A lot of them, if it wasn’t for signage, could be mistaken for any commercial building. No more stained glass windows, no steeples or bells. Just a nice, comfortable place to worship. Not that that’s wrong and maybe it says “Hey it’s the message that is really important here.” But if you’re at all nostalgic you would understand

Some years ago our Church in Crosslake moved to new quarters. I knew at the time there would be some hurt amongst the older parishioners that were leaving the church they had known for so many years. But as time evolved-- and even though there is a picture of the old church in the assembly hall-- we found out we had a new place to make memories that was so much more functional then the old one. The walls changed but look around-- the people are the same. It is my hope; my prayer that St. Mary’s in Melrose can be made whole again. That somewhere down the road the doors will open once more and those same people, who always sit in that special pew, will be back to worship their God, once more in the place they call home.

OPEN SPACES

I just finished reading a book, “Oregon Trail” by Rinker Buck that a friend bought  me. In it he chronicles his trip, from Missouri to Oregon, in a covered wagon, pulled by a team of mules. I couldn’t help but get swept up in his love for wide-open spaces, and those mules. Open spaces that are fast disappearing in the western United States. One can only imagine the hardships the pioneers went through to fulfill their dreams of owning land in the west. The wagon ruts are still visible in many places, and so are the graves of some of the settlers who succumbed to disease, starvation, and accidental death on that trip to fulfill a dream, some 180 years ago.

Growing up as a kid in the Staples area, I would often wander to the Crow Wing River north of town. I would walk down to the river and fish as I walked along the bank, and then hike back through the woods to where I left my bike, ride the five miles home, and hardly see a soul. I was one and alone with nature and the great outdoors, and that was—and still is—the way I like it. I have been to theme parks all over this great land, but they all pale in comparison in my estimation, to the natural paradise the good Lord gave us.

A few years back, right here in Crosslake, I took my dog, and starting from Big Pine Lake, in a canoe, I followed the river down to where it intersects with County 11. A short trip, for sure, but the river meanders through many miles of wilderness and pristine country. I took my time, and one night we camped on the riverbank, sleeping in an old pup tent. Gus slept with one ear cocked, so I wasn’t afraid of critters. We had a campfire, ate pork and beans, and roasted hot dogs. That night, lying with my head out the tent flap, I had never seen the stars so bright. I enjoyed that total silence that is so hard to find. I didn’t bring a phone.

It’s so hard to get off the beaten path, anymore, because the paths I speak of have been beaten down everywhere. Four wheelers and snowmobiles have crisscrossed the large section of woods across from my house. They leave ruts you could break an ankle on, and stagnant pools of mosquito-infested water. Once they have beaten down the brush enough, the pickup trucks are not far behind. The garbage is everywhere, and the animals retreat deeper and deeper into the woods. Molly and I like to escape to the woods for our nature walks, but many times we have to move off the trail so some vehicle can get by. I know it’s just a matter of time before it won’t be fun anymore.

The early pioneers left their comfortable homes in the east because they were disenfranchised with what had happened to the land and the people out there. They reached a point where all that was left was to escape. They had one thing going for them—an unblemished place to escape to—something that no longer exists unless you have the money to buy a big tract of land. Even then, there is no reassurance that, someday, an oil rig will pull up and show you the papers that let them drill on your land for oil; to feed the enormous appetite of all of those motorized vehicles that are just waiting to chew up that same piece of land.

MY BIRTHDAY

                                                         

So today, March 5^th, is my 75 birthday anniversary. I am entering, in all probability, the last quarter of my life. If there is a fifth quarter I will be truly surprised and amazed. As I look back over the first three quarters of my life, I feel so blessed. The good lord has not just graced me with so many good things but life went so well for me because he has been on this journey with me, every step of the way. It was his presence during the bad times that lightened the load and his steady hand on me that made the good times so happy. I felt him rejoicing right there with me. I am sure when this journey is over he will be standing there to welcome me home.

Somewhere in that first quarter of life, with my parents and siblings, I learned what a loving family was all about. They laid the foundation I have built my life on. Somewhere in that first quarter of life I found my own true love and that was the missing piece of the puzzle for me, the essential ingredient for having my own family. It was a time of growing up with each other, through sharing, caring and sacrifice but we made it all happen together.

In the second quarter of my life we built on that love and tried to instill it in our children. This was the time when we really got to know each other. We suffered together as we lost parents. We lamented over an empty nest and watched those kids we loved so much, now going out to show us what they were made of. Wrinkles and gray hair and all kinds of wear showed up. Shakespeare said, “With Mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come” and we did. Life back then was truly a lesson in love and commitment and we looked forward to the next quarter.

In the third quarter life became so much easier. So many responsibilities were being shed with kids finding their own way and jobs winding down. Grandkids were our new passion and although we had little control, the lessons of the past came through as we watched them emulate their parents who had emulated us. Retirement and travel and the house on the lake and then after 10 glorious years in retirement, God took her home and for a while I struggled with that but time and faith, heals souls and hearts everyday and they did for me too. 

Today at the start of that last quarter my loving friend and I are enjoying the Florida sun and taking life one day at a time. We take nothing for granted anymore but the fact that we are here to love and support each other no matter what life brings. That the friends and family we have loved and enjoyed along the way, have been the magic sauce in this time tested recipe for life. For that I am truly grateful. Maya Angelou said and I quote, “Let gratitude be the pillow on which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.”           

                                                                        Mike

                                                                                   

MY ROOTS

As I look back over my life, I feel so blessed with all the things I have seen and done. Much of what I experienced, and lived through, is not available any longer to those coming into adolescence—and if it was, they probably wouldn’t do it, anyway. I’m talking about the simple things that helped shape me into what I am today. Maybe I should clarify them as “simple experiences in life” and not “things.” Some people would call them hardships, but to those of us who experienced them, we don’t see them that way. We saw them as a way of life that we are enormously proud to have experienced, and although we now have evolved into the simpler, easier way of life of never ending electronics, climate-controlled environments, fancy cars and vacations, we probably wouldn’t go back to our roots if we could—but we do take pride in the fact that it wasn’t always this way, and we can attest to that.

I have told my kids and grandkids that, to really appreciate what you have, first you must relate to what it was like to be without it. I remember a day shortly after I had left home and went back for a visit. My mom wanted to show me something. She took me into the kitchen and showed me her new, used clothes dryer. I still, today, picture her walking outside in the wintertime, with a clothesbasket full of steaming laundry, and hanging those wet clothes on the clotheslines. Her hands would be chapped and red, her face weary, but on this day she was beaming. How many people do you know in your life that rejoiced over a used clothes dryer?

Our house was a shack—but in it was something you don’t find in a lot of houses. Not like we had, anyway. A family that truly loved each other and pulled together. When there was nothing on the table to eat but vegetables, no one complained. When your clothes were all hand-me-downs, no one complained. When you couldn’t play sports after school, because your dad needed you to help him cut wood, you didn’t ask why. And when you graduated from school, and knew it was time to leave, you vowed that you would work hard every day of your life, because that’s what you had been taught to do, and it’s exactly what you did. On the day that I left home, my mom, with tears in her eyes said, “Don’t forget about us, Mike.” Some fifty-seven years later, Mom, I haven’t forgotten and I never will.

I look around me now days and see all kinds of families, most of them rushing from one place to another. Hockey, football, and dance class—almost anything you can think of. But there does seem to be one exception—families in church. I go to church, and all there is, is a lot of old people with a few exceptions. My parents herded all eight of us kids to church every Sunday, no matter the weather or what was going on. When I once asked my dad why church was so important, he told me, “If I tell you now, it won’t make any sense to you, anyway, but there will come a day, son, when you’re going to slap yourself across the side of the head and say, Now I know why.” I see the greed, the lying and fighting in politics. I see the lack of morality in society. Shootings, assaults and killings are commonplace.” Drugs and addictions. “Yes Dad, now I know why.”