WHAT A LONG WINTER CAN DO TO YOU.

                                    

So today it’s the 17^th of March and month five of a winter that never quits. The forecast tonight is for six to eight inches of snow. There was time in life, when I would have retreated to the fruit cellar with a bottle of Jim Beam and said “I’ll be out when I hear robins singing.” But this year something snapped in side of me and I’m saying to old Mother Nature. “Bring it on old gal. I’ve got the plow pointed out the garage door, so give us your best shot. No more of those weenie three inches that just irritate us and make it all slippery and snotty. Let’s set a big record for the eighteenth of March. I got no place to put the crap but I don’t care anymore. My truck has been in four-wheel drive for three months and I’ve been walking like a drunken penguin since November but I’m not backing down. The voices are telling me not too and for once, I’m listening to the voices.”

With all due respect to my father, who scoffed at today’s weather and claimed that when he was kid, the leading edge of the last glacier was just north of Emily and they used to go up there and gather night crawlers pushed up by the ice. He talked about the year, when on the fishing opener he fished of an ice flow in Gull lake with his old three horse Johnson clamped on the back edge with a couple of C clamps and two boards. That was the year the polar vortex ran all the way down to Aruba and it was July twenty-fifth before they planted the garden. That was the year the tallest trees in the woods looked like they all had a crew cut because the deer ate the tops off flush with the twenty-foot snowpack. He had to add six feet of stovepipe to the discharge on his snow blower, just to get it over the tops of the drifts.

Yes Dad, if you’re looking down at me, Have a little pride in me because your war stories are going to look like Grimm’s fairy tales when this one is over. Heck, lets make it a challenge. Tonight I’m shutting off the heat and wearing my Sorrels’ and snowsuit to bed. I got a pot of corn beef and cabbage simmering on the stove and I added a quart of peppermint schnapps, just to fortify it. I gassed my snow blower and 4 wheeler up with Sonoco racing fuel. I blanked out the weather channel on the television. Radar? I don’t need no dumb radar. The voices are telling me what’s going to happen and those weather guys are full of it. They don’t have a clue, never did-- never will. Liars all of them. They lie worse then the politicians at election time.

Oh, this is going to be so much fun tomorrow. I got the giggles right now. Oh Lord this is better than the Super Bowl.  The dog is half under the bed looking at me. Stupid mutt if she only knew what’s coming. Note to self. If there is reincarnation don’t come back as no dumb dog. What a dull life. No voices to talk to. Just eat and poop and mark the snow banks. Stupid paws without thumbs that can’t handle a snow shovel or hold a cup of grog while looking out the window at the storm. Boring. To all of the snowbirds that ran away last fall. You’re no better than the soldier that deserts his unit in the heat of battle. What are you going to tell your grandkids? How many margaritas you drank while you were getting all pruney in the pool? I gota go now. Need to rest before the battle. Can’t have any distractions because the voices don’t like that. Got to be on top of my game tomorrow. Shhh.

MY PERFECT WORLD

                                                

My friend wrote me the other day. The subject was a preplanned, more perfect city that was being purposed for parts of Aitkin and Cass County. Money was at one time appropriated to study the concept, both from private and government sources, but it really never got off the ground. The biggest reason appears to be that the people, who already lived there, where it was planed, didn’t want it. I guess if I had been living there, I would have been on their side of the aisle.

I think the concept of the perfect city has been brought up many times in many places. I believe that the city of Jonathan, out in the western suburbs of Minneapolis was mentioned in those circles. Not sure what happened there but apparently it never became that much.

One of the biggest problems to me when you say “perfect City” is –define perfect. Talk to 100 people and you will get 100 different answers. How do you work that out with out making some people compromise on their ideas and if you do compromise, then your idea of perfect, becomes not so perfect anymore. I took it a step farther and asked myself what would my perfect city look like?

Well to start with it wouldn’t be a city because I lived in a city for many years and never liked the closeness, the noise, the hustle and bustle of busy people doing what they had to do to survive. To be fair they were good people just like you and I so it was nothing personal with the people. It was just the way we had to live that bugged me. In my perfect place to live I would be able to enjoy the great outdoors right outside my own back door. I could sit on my dock on a cloudless night and see stars you never saw in the city at night. I could breath air that didn’t smell and taste like someone else had already exhaled it. I could hear all of the creatures of my surrounding area, as they went about their business without hearing other mechanical devices, like my neighbors air-conditioned or a wailing fire truck or some kid doing a burn-out with his fast car. I could hear the breeze rustling through the trees or the rippling of the water on the beach and the only interference would be my own breathing. I do have a little redneck streak in me and I own a dog, a gun and a pickup truck that seem to go with the territory, so there you go my friends.

Life will never be perfect where ever you live but I’m thinking I have done the best with what I had to work with. I know this because for all practical purposes I’m happy and happiness is usually a sign that you have made some good choices in life. Oh-- there have been some bumps for sure. I lost the love of my life a couple of years ago but you know what-- I think I found someone else to share my life with. My health is pretty good and I have so many nice friends. Who could ask for anything more? I have a strong faith in my God and a great place to worship him.

I wonder if those people who wanted to create that perfect city knew about where I live. I sincerely doubt it because if they did they wouldn’t have been looking for a different place. Guess I for one am glad they never came over here.

KEEPING UP WITH TECHNOLOGY

                                    

So us old fogies’ like me are trying hard to survive in this teach savvy world. I have found that if you don’t have some degree of participation you might just as well be a deaf mute and go live behind the garage. Beside’s this computer I am typing on, I now have a smart phone and a smart television set, which is pretty good for a dumb man. My grandson calls me the other day and somehow he changes the ring tone on my phone, from his phone, from my usual barking dog signal to a Gestapo style siren. Not knowing what was going on I rushed outside, to go hide in the top of the garage, when suddenly his voice sounded out of my pocket and he identified himself. Not funny Michael.

I was flying back from Mesa a while back and the plane cabin looked like the control room at an N.F.L. game with laptops, I pads and smart phones everywhere. The guy next to me was watching some movie about an airplane crash and the kid on the other side of me was playing some game, where he broke out in gales of laughter about every thirty seconds because he was killing people. Not to be outdone I got out my phone and turned on my music consisting of “Somewhere over the rainbow” without earphones.” Have you ever had one hundred and fifty people stare at you at the same time? “ The pilot actually increased the throttle and banked the plane and the flight attendant gave me the old finger across the throat signal. Fussy people.

I once told my granddaughter what it was like growing up without all of these electronic conveniences. We had one phone in the house and we had to ask our parents if we could use it and the answer was always no. My granddaughter told me she would have simply died rather then live like that. I told her I thought about that but didn’t know how to end it. She told me there was an app for that and gave me the address of a website in case I ever wanted to download it. Relax I didn’t.

I now have many new words in my vocabulary like Hulu and it’s not the hoop. Pandora and it’s not the box and Amazon and it’s not the river. I can skyp, twitter, tweet, and meet you on face book, LinkedIn or e-mail. I Google more than I gargle and my browser is my best friend. Whoops almost got in trouble there. Second best friend. Sorry dear.

So I have upgraded my electronic network and in the spring I will have a garage sale. I have a very nice eight-track player with the best of Elvis tapes. I have two cassette players with several cartridges, including the best of John Phillip Sousa. A tape movie player, see I’ve even forgot what they call them any more, with a box of movies, including Lassie Come Home. Two thirty-five millimeter cameras-- one still has seven pictures on the roll that is in it-- and two black and white television sets and a flip open cell phone with a dial inside of it that’s great for those seniors who don’t want to change and a pong game still in the box. For the time being I’m hanging on to Donkey Kong and Frogger. Any one want to play?

WHATS IN A PICTURE

                                                

A picture from space, taken by some orbiting astronauts, intrigued me so much the other day. I saw this blue and white orb we call home, bathed in wispy white clouds, spinning through this dark and forbidding place we call space.  The earth’s beauty as we see it from space is spellbinding, and it is in direct contrast to the blank black universe around it. There is an old saying “You can’t see the woods for the trees.” Standing here on earth, that’s indicative of how I feel, and at least what I know about the world beyond us. Usually, when we see something we perceive as special, our next impulse is to bring it closer to us or us closer to it. We want to use some of our other senses to bring out the real beauty of things, such as through touching, smelling and hearing. When first seen, a rose showcases its beauty through its color and delicate structure. But when you smell its fragrances, and touch the intricate workmanship in its petals, you get the real picture.

If it wasn’t for the fact that we can’t live indefinitely out in space, and have to come back—and initially came from this earth to start with—we might never know the real truth about what is going on down here on the surface of this beautiful planet. Imagine if you came from somewhere else in the universe, and for the first time saw what the astronauts are seeing and describing from space. Would you, in your wildest imagination, think that the inhabitants of such a place would be doing their best to destroy this planet and each other?

Just for a moment, hang with me and let me tell you a story. Pretend with me that you are from some other planet, and right now you are orbiting our earth and scoping it out because where you came from is no longer a fit place to live. Where you came from looked so much like planet earth at one time. From the spacecraft, you peer down below the clouds, and what do you see? Well, you hear loud explosions, women and children crying, rockets raining down on each other. You look farther, and on one side of the earth there are people fat and plump, and on the other side they are dying of starvation. Mountains of corn on one side of the planet, and on the other side you can’t see anything and—well, that’s because there isn’t anything. Why do some of them live in mansions and others in mud huts? Why can’t they share? Why do some people drink clear water and others have to drink their own sewage? Why are the people that live in the good places so angry at each other?

You look at the planets vast seas, now covered with floating garbage and an oily sheen. Your planet back home once had seas like this, too, that teemed with fish and wildlife, but something went terribly wrong and now they’re empty and dead. It’s getting harder to see from out here because the atmosphere is shrouded with some kind of gas that is coming from down under. Ah yes, burning forests and huge smoke stacks. That happened to our home, too. A few people are looking up as if they are praying to a God. Yes, we had a God, too, and he warned us about destroying the world that he gave us. But we paid no attention and did it anyway, because we knew better than he. We knew better than our God because we were smart, and had a free will to do as we pleased. Slowly the silver spaceship drifts away . . .The end of the story. 

LOVE TRUMPS IT ALL

                                                

I wish this had been ready for Valentine’s Day, but it applies every day, doesn’t it?

I have written before about love and how music has affected my life. Years ago, Gene Pitney sang a song called, “Only Love Can Break a Heart.” I remember only bits and pieces of the song and its melody, but what I never forgot was the first line of the song, “Only love can break a heart, and only love can mend it again,” and how, today, it pertains to my situation. Shortly after my wifes death, I went through a rough patch for a while. I visited the doctor’s office, even though my body was fine, looking for some magical pill that would help heal a broken heart. Then slowly, over the months, I learned the secret of mending that heart, and you know what? It pertains to a lot of us, every day of our lives.  

I thought of that song one day when I was feeling down and out. Then I thought of all of the people that were reaching out to me, in my time of need, because they knew that the best way to heal me was to love me. But even though I started out talking about me today, I want you to know how much this pertains to all of us as we go though life. You don’t have to lose the love of your life to have a broken heart. There are people who never had a significant other to lose, and they still have broken hearts. What we tend to forget is they, like us, need to be loved.  They don’t need a lecture from a shrink on how to turn their life around. They just need to be listened to, empathized with, and showed that they are loved.

Love is such a powerful emotion that you would think it would be everybody’s choice in life to be filled with it. Put your hands out right now, palms up. The right one is love and the left one is hate. The choice isn’t even close. The problem is though; love seems to be on a barter system for many people. You give me some, and I will give you some. What we don’t seem to understand, all too often, is this—that even in a barter system, the process has to start someplace and someone needs to make the first move. You walk up to someone with your hand outstretched, and most likely, his or her hand will find yours. You open your arms to someone, and they will open theirs, and you just got yourself a wonderful, loving hug.

The world, being the way it is today, has caused us to erect a lot of walls between others and ourselves. It wasn’t our intention, it was a guarded reaction brought on by an increasingly dishonest world. So you have this little feeling-out period with new friends, and all too often, we never get beyond it. Although we may have unlocked the door in the wall, our foot is still holding it shut. Remove that foot, open that door, and extend your right hand and give it a try. Benjamin Disraeli said, “We are all born for love. It is the principal of existence, and its only end.” I will end this by going back to the music I talked about, at the beginning of the column, because for me—music is love, and love is the music in our own private concert—and we are the Maestros.

RUSTY AND MORRIE

                                               

Many years ago a small group of men started gathering for coffee each morning at Reeds. They came from all walks of life and backgrounds and all they wanted out of that time together, was to share their stories and bond in friendship. They were coined the “Sunshine Boys.” Well this year hasn’t been good for the Sunshine Boys, as four of them have passed away but there was a special friendship in that group that you couldn’t help but notice, and that is what I want to talk about today. It was between Rusty and Morrie. Clyde “Rusty” Rust and Morris “Morrie” Mikkelson. Both of them long time Crosslake residents.

Many of the people who frequented the Legion Club in town will always remember Rusty calling bingo numbers or working at the club. Putting his military uniform on for Memorial Day in the honor guard. Being in the parades. Cooking brats and hamburgers at the Mission of the Cross Church he loved, at the flea markets. Rusty was just a fixture in Crosslake

Morrie was involved in several civic projects in Crosslake but he told me the one he was most proud of was his work at the library. He could recite historical things that had happened in Crosslake for as far back as you cared to remember. We had a discussion about Abe Lincoln one day and Morrie corrected something that was said. The other man shrugged his shoulders and said. “You probably knew him personally.” He was one of the kindest, old gentlemen; I was ever privileged to meet. Mitch Alborn wrote a book called “Tuesday’s with Morrie.” I should have taken notes about all of the conversations we had. There might have been another book.

The two friends moved into Golden Horizons together in their later years and Rusty, who still had a car, would bring Morrie with him to coffee each day. We all watched them start to fail over time, using a grocery cart to lean on as they made their long way in each day. We always put Morrie at the head of the table so he had a place for his walker to sit but actually he had earned that spot. Then one day they stopped coming. To the rest of us they were gone, but not forgotten. Last year at our annual picnic at the campgrounds we got to see them there together with all of us for the last time and it was heartwarming to say the least.

On January 28^th Rusty passed away and not surprising a few days later on February 4^th Morrie went to be with his friend. A. A. Milne who wrote “Winnie the Pooh” said about friendship. “If you live to be a hundred I want to live to be a hundred minus a day, so I never have to live with out you.” Maybe that’s how Morrie and Rusty felt. “We’ll be friends forever, won’t we Pooh?” asked Piglet. “Even longer” Pooh answered.”

May they both rest in peace. Gone but never forgotten.

Mike Holst

ABOUT MINNESOTA

 I wanted to write a few things about this great state we live in so I gathered up some things, mostly off the Internet and put them together in this little essay. I hope you enjoy

I saw a sign this morning that said “Minnesota. Come for the culture. Stay because your car won’t start.” Although there are many good things about this state, January does bring out the skeptics. My father said, “It was warm enough here to survive and cold enough here to keep out the rif raf. Not sure who he meant by that but he was a die hard Minnesotan. Most Minnesotans are bilingual so they are not stupid. They talk English and they talk Minnesotan. It is a language where the words “bedder nut” mean better not. Where we have a “bat tree” in our car and the word “Alla” is not religious in nature but it is the contraction for the words, all of the. The words the “boat–a-yuz” refers to both of you. If someone says “uff da” it means it sucks. Yes it’s a language unto itself.

This is a copy of the Ten Commandments Minnesotan style.

1 Der’s only one God, you know.

2 Don’t make that fish on your vall an idol.

3 Cussing ain’t Minnesota nice you know.

4 Go to church even when you’re up nort.

5 Honor your folks.

6 Don’t cha kill. Catch and release.

7 There is only one Lena for one Ole. No cheatin.

8 If it ain’t your lutefisk don’t take it.

9 Don’t be braggen about how much snow you shoveled.           

10 Keep your mind of your neighbor’s hotdish.

Minnesota is the home base for Lutran Airlines, which flies out of Dulut. There is no food served in flight but they do have a potluck dinner. Everybody in the first six rows brings a salad. The next six rows brings the rolls and lefsa. The next six rows brings the hot dish and the last six rolls brings the desert and beverages. There is no charge for the flight you know, but they do have a free will offering and the plane will not land until they meet the budget. Sometimes the flight gets bumpy but it’s no worse than riding your John Deere tractor across a plowed field according to the pilot Mr. Swenson. Yah sure, ya betcha.

I heard a story the other day about a man who lives south of Duluth, who had his land surveyed and found out he was actually living in Wisconsin. He seemed to be very happy about finding this out. He said there was no way he could take another winter in Minnesota. Archeologists found copper wire buried in Southern California and determined that California had a wired communication system 300 years ago.  Hearing this Solu Latvia dug a big hole in his pasture south of Ely and found nothing. He determined Minnesota went wireless 400 years ago. ---Uf da.

THE LAST JAR OF JELLY

My late wife was an old-fashioned girl in some ways. She took many of the baking and cooking skills she had learned from her mother, and put them into practice. Every year we grew a garden, and she would can vegetables and jellies, from the produce that the garden supplied. I always remember the jars of tomatoes she would can every year. She would line them all up on the kitchen counter, after filling them, and we would all sit around and wait for that “ping” as each lid sealed. Then, a few days later, they went into the pantry—the celebration was over. After she died, I canned a few jars myself, for old times’ sake, but it just wasn’t the same.

But yesterday, as I was cleaning out the pantry, I came across a jar of jelly that, in of itself, was no surprise because we grew strawberries and raspberries and she had made a lot of jelly. However, this one was special because it was chokecherry, and I didn’t think there was any left. You see, one day I took my old lab Gus for a walk, and on this country road we found bushes loaded down with Chokecherries. I knew they were there, but usually someone else beat me to the picking. So on that warm, late summer day, I went home, got a plastic pail, and filled it up with the fruit. When I presented the pail full of berries to her—expecting praise—all I got was scorn and a rebuke, “Do you know how much work it is to make chokecherry jelly?” She went on and on about the pits, and the straining, and finally I just took old Gus and left for a quieter place. That’s what garages are for.

A couple of days later I came home from town and there, on the kitchen counter, were a few jars of chokecherry jelly, freshly canned. I thanked her for that and she told me, “Never again.” Gradually I used up all of the jelly and went on to eat the other jellies, just glad that for a short time, I had had my beloved chokecherry jelly. It was shortly after that when she took sick and the canning stopped. I think I hid that jar of jelly because I didn’t want to share it with the grandkids, and then I forgot about it. Yesterday, I found it while cleaning out the pantry. My first impulse was to not open it because it was irreplaceable. Then, on second thought, I knew in my mind that it would just go to waste that way and that was no way to honor her. So this morning I made some toast, and carefully opened up that jar of jelly. I’ve tasted better, but after all, it’s been three or four years since it was canned. But then, it wasn’t about the taste, was it?

No, it wasn’t about the taste at all. It was about the love that made her can those berries for me even though she didn’t want to. It was about loosening that lid yesterday, when I knew in my heart that the last person—the last hand-- who had tightened that lid on, had been hers. It wasn’t about the jelly at all. It was about her. You know when you get married you say those words, “until death do you part.” I have found that death hasn’t really parted us; it’s only made it harder to communicate. The death they were speaking of wasn’t just her death. It will only come about when we are both gone. As for now if you come to my house; don’t expect any chokecherry jelly to be served.

AND IN THE END

A while back I visited a friend who had terminal cancer. It’s always so hard to find the right words to say. You know and they know, that baring a miracle, life may not go on much longer. That someone whose life was always so carefully planed and lived in such careful order, is now relegated to taking each day as it comes. I have usually been able to sense what’s going on in people’s minds by reading their eyes. The eyes seem to be a virtual porthole into people’s thoughts and if you look deep enough it’s as if you can see into their very souls. It’s there that you see the fear and sadness, determination or resignation but almost always you also see a very tired person. Sometimes you need to work through the tears that can cloud that window, into the mind behind, to get the whole picture but if you look hard, it’s always there.

We have all had friends or family that simply slept away when the end came. Laughing and joking one moment and then whisked away to their just reward as if they had just won a contest. No pain and suffering. No long goodbyes or a litany of last wishes. Just turn off the lights, the party’s over. For many of us that would be our choice wouldn’t it be? But it’s a choice—rich or poor, famous or insignificant-- sadly we don’t get to make. It’s just not our decision to make and in the end death will become the great equalizer amongst all of us. We start our lives with a clean slate and we end it the same way.

One would hope that either way we would be ready for it when it comes and ready for what lies beyond. I sometimes see death as a graduation of sorts and every one knows you can’t graduate unless you’ve done your homework. Unlike in this world however-- there is no written record or file to go to. It’s entirely between you and your creator. The files are sealed and no one else can see them. We all know what the criteria is to get there and one can only hope that we got a passing grade. For those who survive us, how we led our lives will be a glimpse at how we may go on from there but there are no assurances that anyone knows the whole story.

I know this hasn’t been a very happy essay and when I write books I like to always end them well. So many times now, when a loved one passes, we call the time when we all get together to honor them, a celebration of life. I like that idea because funerals just seem too stuffy for me and that isn’t how we want to be remembered? We worked hard in life to achieve what we did and darn it, it’s time someone pays attention to what we accomplished. Otherwise it will all be forgotten and all to often, unless we were good at beating our own drum, many people didn’t know what we did or how we lived anyway. It’s hard to get any recognition in this world now days and it’s a shame that it had to come to this but let’s not squander this last chance to celebrate a great life. Steve Maraboli said, “I don’t want my life to be defined by what is etched in a tombstone. I want it to be defined in what is etched in the lives and hearts of those I touched.” The friend I mentioned at the start of this letter has now passed away. Meer words will not do justice to what he meant to his friends and family. I know I’m richer for having known him and I look forward to seeing him again, on the other side. Rest in Peace my friend.

THE WEATHER

                                                          

So when there is nothing else to talk about up here in the winter we can always talk about the weather or lack of it. This winter seems to be one of the coldest ones I have experienced and this morning I went to Brainerd and bought a brass monkey and put him out on the deck because I have always wanted to witness that meteorological castration my father always talked about when I was growing up. So far everything seems to be intact so I’m not sure at what temperature this phenomenon takes place. It was thirty-one below this morning and the weatherman is saying on Monday the really cold air is coming so yippee. Watch out monkey.

My dog has frozen bladder syndrome, which enables her to cut down to one trip a day outside. I think if I was forced to go out there I would be wearing a bag or making other arrangements. I have friends who escape the cold by going south and they like to call and tell me what the temperature is down there. It’s kind of like sitting down on the curb, next to a homeless man and eating a quarter pounder and fry’s while he’s having something he found in a dumpster. I could go south if I wanted too but the minute I left there would be some January heat wave up here and the jet steam would blow straight north to south and it would be six degrees in Fort Meyers and fifty up here and all I could think about is the money I wasted. Beside there’s nothing to write about down there and I have to come up with something.

Yesterday on the news I watched some people jumping into a frozen lake to raise money for some charity and I’m thinking why not just give them the money and save their anatomy.  That brass monkey might not be the only one having problems. I fell into a frozen lake once and I swear I saw my dead grandma and my wife heard what I yelled, and it cost me six dollars in the swear jar when I got in the house. I would have thought only the dog could hear something yelled in that octave but no I guess.

I was in Mesa for five days for Christmas and I swear if one more person down there, asks me where I came from and crosses her arms and legs and shivers when I say Minnesota, I am going to car jack that lady, put her in the trunk of the car and drop her off in Minot in her underwear. I also get tired of trying to answer their questions, about what we do in January, when its thirty one below because I am trying to work on my lying at the request of the parish Priest and although I know its not cold where he says I might be going if I don’t shape up, it would be just my luck the Vikings would win the Super Bowl and that place would freeze over anyway. On second thought maybe global warming will screw that up also.

I have in my possession a bottle of spirits that seems to warm up my posterior when it is consumed and I think, just for medicinal purposes I will have some about now. I am supposed to have only one drink a day and this little baby right here is for April ninth 2015. It will all even out come summer. Oh crap why did I have to say summer? Even the dog perked her ears up and now she wants to go outside.

THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC

                                                

Somehow for me music has always influenced my life and my feelings. Maybe it was because I wished I could say to those I loved, those same words artists said so perfectly in their music. I once had a friend-- who I knew didn’t like most modern music; --ask me what music did I like the most? For me I told him, it was Elvis when he sang, “I loved you because.” It was Tony Bennett and Frank Sinatra and “The way you look tonight.” It was Tom Jones and the “Green green grass of home.” Songs that moved your heart and soul and made you want to sing along. It was a wonderful melodious way to communicate with those you cared for. Music was formed to tame the angry beast in all of us. Calm us down and alleviate our fears.

My late wife and I used to go dancing in our younger days. Dancing back then was when you actually held your partner. It was a time when you buried your nose in her soft hair, and smelled her sweet perfume, and your feet just swished away all of your cares and troubles. That little gal who hours before had been bathing kids, and washing dishes, dressed in blue jeans with her hair tied up in pony tail-- was now your princess for the night, clothed in soft silk and satin, and you never felt closer, and basically it was all because the music made you feel that way.

The music took you away from all of the daily troubles we face. It rekindled your soul and your spirit of love. It was a booster shot in a world gone crazy with work and kids and responsibilities. It was payback time for a few fleeting hours for the way you had ignored each other and taken each other for granted, because it was here and now, and you just couldn’t afford to ignore her any longer. It was a musical coupon that you redeemed to bring back the magic into your troubled lives, if only for a short enchanted evening. You drove home physically exhausted, but emotionally fulfilled, and you rode with your arm wrapped around her like high school lovers, even though there was an empty baby seat strapped between the two of you in the family station wagon. You drove forty miles an hour in a fifty-five on the way home because you didn’t want the night to ever end.

Someday, down life’s road, when my new friend and I are out enjoying life, I want to take her in my arms once more, in a special place, and at a special time and have them clear the dance floor for us. I want that spinning crystal ball and that polished hardwood floor where so many hearts once came together to be all ours for just one last dance. I want to hear, Tony B or Old Blue eyes, croon once more  ---“You’re lovely---Never, never change.  Keep that breathless charm. Won’t you please arrange it, cause I love you---Just the way you look tonight.” Ha, I got you humming didn’t I?

Mike Holst

CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS

I once saw a picture of a small boy peering into a store window, at Christmas time; his rosy red nose and cheeks were pressed against the cold glass—almost as if it was a scene taken out of one of Norman Rockwell’s paintings. Inside the store there was a Christmas party going on for a group of children. Santa was there, and the tables were filled with lots of sugary food, beverages and gifts. It was obvious from the merriment going on that it was a very happy occasion for those in the party. The look on the little boy’s face, outside that window, was not one so much of sadness, but more of bewilderment. Maybe he had never known celebrations like this existed, but then, maybe he did know they existed but couldn’t understand why he was excluded. He watched for a while, and then went over and turned the knob on the door, but it was locked. Then someone noticed him and went over to the window, pulling the shade down.

A sometimes lavish lifestyle that brings happiness to some can have just the opposite effect to those who are on the outside looking in.  I’m not just talking about material things. I’m talking about being a part of a celebration, too. I remember growing up poor, and although I was never one to envy others and what they had, I could never figure out why they weren’t happier about their wealth. So many of them took it in stride, as if they were entitled to it, and I never saw that spirit of thankfulness they should have had.  Some of the things they took for granted would have made me almost giddy.  But, for the most part, I was thinking as a child would think back then. Yes, I was treating tangible things as important things in life, but something about being excluded made it become even more hurtful.

Way back then, I was on the other side of that glass looking in, and although the door was probably not locked, I never thought I was worthy of going in. Over the years, as I grew both in knowledge and wealth, I was able to open that door and join the party. But, for some reason, my joy of being there was always tempered by the sad looks on the faces of those on the other side of the glass; for I had been there and I knew how it felt, and although I couldn’t pull that shade down, yet I wasn’t asking them in. Two years ago, I was back on the outside of the glass looking in as an adult, not because I wasn’t invited to the party but because I ostracized myself. You see, my reason for going to the party was gone. Oh, she was there in spirit, but my spirits were at a low ebb and I was in no mood for a party. I preferred to be outside with my thoughts. You see, that intricate prescription for the essence of Christmas goes so much deeper than gifts and giving. The basic ingredient for happiness has always been, and always will be, people. I learned that more, at that time, than at any other time in my life.

Both open doors, and open hearts, have something in common. We’ve removed the barriers that separate us—and isn’t that what we always wanted. To belong to someone or something and to be a part of somebody’s life. To be wanted has always been special but to be wanted and needed—that’s special personified. Loneliness almost always imparts feelings of worthlessness, and that’s just one step above having no value to anyone at all. Christmas can go a long way towards fixing that.

CHRISTMAS 2013

                                               

I have always found it interesting, as we go through the calendar year, all of the holidays and celebrations we entertain at and how Christmas seems to be not so much a Holiday, as a season onto itself. Most of the other days we celebrate are a daylong or at best a long weekend but Christmas has weeks of preparation both commercially and religiously. No day of celebration packs more good will into it then Christmas. It’s a time of the year when people open their hearts and minds to try and make it their best Christmas ever. It’s a time of the year when people are most benevolent and when sharing and caring seems to go hand in hand. Most people could care less if you have a bad Fourth of July but we all want to have a nice Christmas. So the Grinch that rears his head in all of us from time to time seems to be magically put to rest, albeit for a short while. Yes, Christian or not, there is something magical and almost mystical about Christmas.

We live in an increasingly anxious world so those few weeks of good will amongst all of us, are a welcome break from the suspicions and sometimes allusiveness we experience amongst us on a daily basis. It’s a chance to come out of our armor and rub shoulders with our friends and neighbors again.  I’ve had to give Christmas a fresh chance again in my life because for a couple of years after my wife died, it was just too hard, and although I might have fooled a few, I didn’t fool myself. It took the efforts of a loving family and a caring friend to put the Joy back in Christmas for me but it’s back and so am I. But as I speak this year I know there are those who are just starting that same sad journey and my heart goes out to you. God bless you so much.

I write a lot about memories and how important they are to all of us but there are no memories like Christmas memories, are there? I think back to little kids so anxious they could hardly contain themselves, as they sat patiently waiting for the gift-giving extravaganza we orchestrated. The one that led them to that beautifully decorated tree on Christmas Eve. Our kids, our grandkids, our friend’s kids, their smiles are etched forever in my memory but now for many of us elders there has been a subtle change hasn’t there, as life has passed us by. Still though we thank God for the very reason this all came about. The gifts will eventually get used up and discarded but the gift of our lord and our memories will never go away.

Many years ago Elvis sang, “Why can’t every day be like Christmas? Why can’t that feeling go on endlessly? For if every day could be like Christmas. What a wonderful world this would be.” Yes, the sadness that comes when we take the tree down and put away the decorations seems to be saying to us “it’s over for another year, so lets get back to life as we know it.” But if nothing else comes from this Christmas, except the love and caring this world so sorely needs-- even if it was only for a short while-- then it’s been another Blessed Christmas hasn’t it?

Merry Christmas.  Love to all. --Mike            

THANKSGIVING THOUGHTS

                                               

It’s Thanksgiving morning and although it’s been over two years, it’s still not right. I used to get up on this morning to the sounds of turkey gizzards and all of those other useless bird parts sizzling in a frying pan because she was making her dressing. It was an old recipe that came from her mother and she guarded it like Coke guards their soda formula. She would have a dab of flour on one cheek and a blotch of it on her sweatshirt, as she rolled out that piecrust, proudly made with real lard. It had to be just right and many was the time she sighed with exasperation and rolled it back into a ball to start over again. I would ask, “how can I help?” and she would just say with that impish smile “Don’t bother me.” This was her gift to her family, to make that Thanksgiving Day meal. I was just the nuts and bolts of the family but she was always the heart and soul.

Every bed in the house would be full of sleeping grandkids and their parents. A half put together puzzle was on the dining room table and a monopoly game was still spread out on the living room floor. The entryway was filled with boots and hats and two dogs were whining at the back door to go out. The driveway was full of cars and in the house she would have decorated, with those little paper turkeys, the horn of plenty centerpiece and those special kitchen towels with all the colored leaves and gourds on them. Empty soda cans and dirty cups were everywhere from last nights gathering. The dogs had finished off the half eaten pieces of pizza and busted cookies. That Halloween tablecloth was always there and it always stayed on the table until after the meal when the Christmas one came out like the changing of the guard. It always took three tables to feed everybody and then afterwards the men would do the dishes while watching the football game and the kids and grandma, and their mom’s, would work on their shopping lists for tomorrow.

I think a lot about those days and how I knew someday it would all be different. Oh it’s not just her passing that was a bitter pill to swallow. Kids grew up and moved away. Dogs died and kids found mates and new people came into our family. Always welcomed-- but it did spread things out even more. So now we’re back to today and an empty house and the only noise is my dog breathing and the click of the keys on my keyboard, as I’m trying to paint you a picture of my thoughts and memories. I’ve accepted what’s happened and although I always knew it would come someday, I’m not alone by any means. There are friends and family who have empty chairs at their tables today too, but not empty hearts. They can take a lot away from us but they can’t take that away can they? Somehow we can always bring them back like this, on the holidays and we thank God for that.

Later today I will travel to my friends house where she has graciously invited me to share her family and their tradition. They are wonderful loving people and I’m so blest to have them in my life. It won’t be the same—it will never be the same—the stage may be similar but its a whole new cast and I realize that there is no way to recreate what I had and no one is trying to do that. They are just helping me to move on, by sharing their love and I for one am so grateful. -----Mike

THE WAYWARD WIND

                                               

As a young boy, I grew up sharing a bedroom with three brothers on the top floor of an old house in Staples, a block from the railroad tracks. That room—our bedroom--was the only finished off room on that floor, the rest was attic. In the floor was a small register that was supposed to heat the room in the winter. The heat was for all purposes non-existent because my parents heated with wood and at night the fire went out. Even when it was warm downstairs it was at best, tepid in our room. Most of the time we boys slept together in one bed to stay warm. I tell you this not for sympathy or shame because lots of people slept like that back then. I tell you it because it set the stage for me and my life to come.

 In 1956, when I was sixteen, Gogi Grant recorded a song called the “Wayward Wind.” The lyrics were emblematic of what was going on in my life at that time. “In a lonely shack by a railroad track, he spent his younger days. And I guess the sound of the outward bound made me a slave to its wandering ways.” Yes, at night I would lie there and listen to the sound of my brothers breathing, the trains rumbling through town and the winter wind whistling around the confines of that old house and wonder what life had in store for me when it came time to leave. All I knew for sure was, it had to be better then this but I also knew it was up to me to find a better way.

Last night as I laid snug in my bed, some sixty years after Staples, the wind was blowing strong and although it was a muffled wind owing to the sturdiness of my house today, verses that leaky old shack I was raised in, my thoughts went back to those days in Staples. The fears and apprehensive I had back then are probably no different then the fears our young people going out into the world have today We all want to be successful, we all want a better life, but we all have fears that hold us back sometimes. Were naturally somewhat restless-- but sometimes not restlessness enough. It’s that unsatisfaction with our life that makes us look beyond where we are and towards where we want to go. Sometimes we just have to quit listening to the cynics in our minds and believe in our gut.

I started out in life in a job I didn’t like. Why. Because success at the time-- at least for me-- was tied to making money. Fast cars and girls aren’t cheap. Then I got married, settled down and reality set in. I realized that to be happy, I needed to want to go to work each morning, not have to go to work and I took a lot of steps backwards, to go forward again. Fortunately, at that time, I had an understanding wife who believed in me. I ask today’s young people to do some soul searching and think about what you would really like to do with your life and dream big, but be realistic. Dream about what it is within your means and your abilities to do and be honest with yourself? Life is precious and wasting years doing things you hate for  all the wrong reasons is just the breeding ground for a lot of regrets later on There will be bad times in life but fit yourself to them. Don’t be afraid to hitch your sled to that wayward wind that blows in all of us. 

THA BEAUTY OF AGE

Have you ever been driving in the countryside and came across old abandoned buildings or farmsteads. I have done this many times and always something urged me to slow down or stop. The sight of those old weathered and dilapidated buildings begged me to know more about the lives that were lived there and if the buildings could talk-- the stories they would tell. There was a time long ago when the occupants, living and working there, were vibrant people with dreams and aspirations like all of us and I want to know if they were happy and if their lives were fulfilled.

Our own bodies are like that as we age. Like those old buildings we weather and turn all gray and lean a little bit. Our exteriors show the ravages and wear of time. The plumbing may leak and the roof covering get’s ragged and thin. Our eyes, the windows to our world, are not so translucent any more. Our frames get crooked and warped. But like those old buildings, it’s what lies inside of us, where the real beauty exists and the real story can be told. For within those often cluttered old minds, lives the genuine truth and the beauty of life.

I was once asked; if I could step into a time machine and was granted one trip, would I like to be eighteen again? My answer was “Only if I knew then, what I know now.”  It took me seventy some years to fill this meandering mind with memories and stories and they are the most precious thing I have right now because in a large part I earned each and every one of them. Were there things I’d just as soon not remember? Yes, many of them, so I have learned to push the delete button more and more as life goes on but sadly you can’t forget anything until, you first remember it. There are things we must forget if we want to go on with life. I learned in life that our hearts memory has a way of doing this itself and magnifying all the good things, if we let it.  Life can be a bit of a paradox for all of us but as we live it, we find out where all the pieces fit together and belong. It would be such a pity to unscramble it and start over again. Eleanor Roosevelt said and I quote. “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.”

What would life be without our memories and does it take a lifetime for us to really appreciate what has been going on around us? If old people governed the world, I contend most of this animosity and hate we now see would go away. Are we just to old and tired to hate and fight and that is the reason for our passiveness? I think not. It’s just that we been there before and we know the utter futility of it all. Arthur Golden wrote in “Memories of a Geisha,” Sometimes the things we remember are more real than the things we see.” But my favorite was the ever-humorous Mark Twain who said, “My memory is so good that some times I remember things that never even happened.”

TAKE CARE OF OUR KIDS

                                                

When I was teenager and uptown with my dad getting groceries one day, we saw three small kids crying in the back seat of a car. It was terribly hot that day and my dad knew who the kid’s parents were and where they were. They were in the liquor store drinking. When we came out of the grocery store, the kids were still there and crying harder. My dad hesitated for a second and then told me to take the groceries to the car. He went into the liquor store and that was confusing for me because dad didn’t drink. A few minutes later dad came out with the couple and he had the man by the arm and he was shouting at him. They finally got in the car and drove away.

My dad was not a big bruising man; in fact he was anything but. However when it came to kids and his own kids, he was their champion and was not afraid to confront people who abused their children. When he died his estate barely covered his bills and expenses but that was fine with him. He had never lived to accumulate worldly things. His kids and grandkids fulfilled his life. Whenever we had a family get- together’s dad was always in his glory. With eight kids and twenty some grandkids he had, what he saw, as the greatest legacy any man could possibly have.

I think back over my life and the things I am most proud of and my family comes front and center. I have been privileged to know many good families and I sense their pride too. But yet day after day I get letters from originations that ask for help feeding and clothing starving children. These are people like my dad trying to do what they can do to help those abused kids. God bless all of them. But always the question that goes through my mind is why does this exist and how can people not feed and clothe their own kids? How many people today will sit on a bar stool and suck down a three dollar beer or a five dollar drink, feeding their own selfish whims while their kids go without.

No one wants to be the beginning and the end of an era in your family tree. No one wants to think that their influence in their family’s history will go to the grave with them. Rather we want to think that we served as a good example, while we here, to help form the lives of our kids and grandkids. There is no greater award in life then to be remembered as a good father, grandfather and husband. To be emulated and appreciated. All to soon our generation will pass away and a new one will take the reigns. We hope and pray they will have learned from our examples and our mistakes and that they will have the God given common sense to know the difference.

I wish I had a looking glass that would let me know how those little kids in that car, that hot day in my home town, turned out. Hopefully their parents had a change of heart and realized how precious those kids were to them and how wrong they were to do what they did. I pray that those kids grew up to be good people who would never do to their kids, what was done to them but I also hope my dads actions made a difference and they learned as they got older to love and respect their parents.