TRIBUTE TO MY FAMILY

                                                 

Mother Theresa once said and I quote. “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.” We ask “how can anyone be unloved and uncared for in our society?” Even the animals of the forest, and the birds of the air will fight to the death to protect their young. They will find nourishment and no matter how hungry they are themselves, eat their fill and then purge it for their babies to eat. Not a delicate analogy I know but it shows you where their priorities are and where ours fail. And to think, we call ourselves the top of the food chain.

 

I know poverty when I see it and talk about it because I once lived it. I once complained to my grandfather that it was demoralizing to see my classmates in school, dressed to the hilt in the latest fashions and I was wearing hand me downs from my cousin. My grandfather told me, “No one cares what you are wearing and if they do, that’s a flaw in their character and you don’t need them. Just be humble. So you see even though I lived in poverty, I was loved and sometimes its hard for kids to understand it that way but as you age you remember less and less the things you went without, but you will never forget those that loved you.

 

Even in old age your friends and family are the glue that binds your life together. I am no longer living in poverty and haven’t for a long, long time. In fact, my needs are few and easily met but yet I crave love and attention still, as do most of us. When I was young man there was a song that became popular called “Little Things mean a lot.” There were a couple of verses from that song that I never forgot and they went like this. “Blow me a kiss from across the room. Tell me I’m nice when I’m not. Touch my hair as you pass my chair. Little things mean a lot. Give me your hand when I’ve lost my way. Give me your shoulder to cry on. Whether the day is bright or gray. Give me your heart to rely on.

 

We have become so materialistic. Such Me people. Give me cars, give me electronics, give me boats and toys. Well I’m here to tell you that I have had all of these things in my life and my satisfaction was short lived. My real joy came from the people I have met and loved and enjoyed life with. Long after I am gone ,those materialistic things I had will be gone too. But the love I gave, will live on in those who gave me that heart to rely on. 

 

I go back to my hometown from time to time. I always drive down the street I used to live on. The old house, AKA shack, is gone and in its place is an empty lot. On one corner of that lot still stands a lilacs bush. The only survivor of a day gone by. I remember my mom in the spring walking to the corner of our yard with her shears to cut a bouquet for the table. Then the well- spring of memories comes flowing out of me and then come the tears for parents and a brother who passed on and then come the memories of Christmas’s and family get-togethers and picnics in the yard. No memories of anything tangible, only the stories and thoughts of a very loving family that once lived and loved and raised some kids in poverty yes, but in a loving atmosphere that today just keeps on giving. I guess it really wasn’t poverty afterall.

GOOD HUMOR

  

 

 

I have always loved those people who make us laugh. With all of the troubles in the world now days, having a good laugh is an aphrodisiac for many of us. My family was always one laugh away from complete happiness and that was something that came from my Dads family mostly. Except for my Uncle Milton on mom’s side, who I think coined the “Pull my finger” routine. I gave his old finger a pull even when I knew what was coming. He could have been another Henny Youngman, given the chance.

 

My father worked sunup to sundown and always looked tired, but whenever I heard a good joke, it was mandatory that I told dad, so he could add it to his repertoire. I shared many moments with that man over the years but none so precious as the times we laughed together. He would often tell a story, and yes some of them off color, and my mother would frown and scold him and three minutes later she would excuse herself and go in the other room and laugh. He laughed harder every time he told his jokes and sometimes you would break out laughing with him and you hadn’t even heard the punch line yet but you knew it was going to be good, --- “And your smiling right now aren’t you?” He was a poor man all of his life but yet he was rich in spirit. My siblings and I have carried on the tradition and from family get togethers to weddings, reunions and yes even funerals there is always some hilarity sprinkled in. It’s just the Holst way of doing business.

 

Sometimes we crossed the line a little but it was never malicious. Oh, we got kicked out of a few campgrounds and when Dad was lying dying in the hospital and we were sharing stories around his bed the head nurse came down and told us to stifle it. But Dad wasn’t gone yet, he was just unconscious and I swear I saw the corner of his mouth  turn down just a little bit. It’s the way he would have wanted it. 

 

I know the family that prays together stays together, or so they say, but the family that laughs together isn’t far behind. I think often of Robin Williams who despite all of the bad things that were tormenting him in his personal life, made the whole world laugh. I think of Andy my fellow firefighter who would start cracking you up the minute he saw your face and you knew he had another good one. He once told me a joke, when we were crawling through a smoke and heat filled hallway looking for a fire and we both had to stop and turn on the bypass on our air tanks because we were losing our breath. God rest his soul. I hope he finds my dad in heaven. They would have a ball together.

 

It’s a sad time in our world right now and we need these colorful people more then ever. For nothing can take you from the depths of despair faster than a good rib tickler that was meant to buoy your spirits. Yes, there are times that are sacred and common sense will be your guide. But if you have a good joke share it at the right time, which in the Holst family is most anytime.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

MY MEMOIR

 

A few years back I decided to write my memoirs and now I’m pretty much finished. Not that my life has been anything that earth shattering but I have always felt that everybody has a story to tell. A story that no one will ever know about you, unless you write it down before you pass. I have on several occasions had opportunities to write peoples memoirs for them. It’s a hard thing to do because in order to do it, it must be the unvarnished truth and in their own words and not many people are willing to talk like that with a complete stranger. It also can involve volumes of experiences in a long-lived life. I find it a huge loss to have lived a life well lived and let it all go to the grave with you. Rich or poor, famous or not, you have a story to tell. I have found that to write with feeling you have to be able to feel the pain, suffering and the joy and happiness in people’s experiences. The right words have always been there to use but to be authentic to the story they must be the right fit. I was blessed with two things in life that I am eternally grateful for. A stellar memory and an equally vivid imagination. I believe it was Mark Twain who said, “My memory is so good, that sometimes I remember things that never even happened.” You see when your memory fails you sometimes it’s your imagination that fills in the gaps. As long as you don’t stray too far from the topic and stay somewhat relevant, it works for most people. You can’t remember everything. I’m not sure who I will share my memoirs with. Most likely family because they were part of them but I have written them and maybe they are just for posterity in my family but where they go from there Is not up to me.

 

I once had a friend who had a new joke for me each time we talked. Some of them were side busters but he delivered them in this monotone voice with no expression at all and when he was done, I never knew when it was appropriate to laugh or not. Now my father on the other hand, who was a great story teller would have you laughing before he ever got to the punch line because of his own laughing even though it was the same tired old jokes all the time. It was all in his delivery. It’s that way with your life’s experiences too. It’s what makes a book a page turner or just something to brace up the bookend in your bookcase. It’s not what you say, its how you say it and not everyone knows the most compelling way to express themselves but somewhere there is someone who does and there is no shame in asking for help.

 

I love to listen to people’s stories and experiences. And as I said at the start of this, you need to find someone to help you tell their story. You need to break your life down into sections like your childhood, your teen age years, your college years or pre married years. Your married life and your family and career, or military service. Your senior years. It’s not easy and it will take a lot of soul searching but it’s all a part of your story. It not about your failures and shortcomings unless you want it to be. It’s more about what you experienced in life and it’s not to rewrite your life. Those sorry’s don’t belong in your story, let the readers be your judge. Length has nothing to do with your story either. In fact, too many words are probably worse than not enough. What is important is to find someone who can emulate your feelings and actions by turning them into appropriate words, so when your written story is read. They will say, “Yes that how I remember him/her. You have the power to influence others with your story and if that happens, what better thing could you leave for them, then a story of a life well lived. Your story.

 

 

SAVE THE EARTH

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I think when human beings were introduced to this earth-- however you believe we evolved-- it was the beginning of the end for our earth, as we know it. We had no idea what we were going to do to the earth just by being here but we are finding out now. To be fair some of it is unavoidable but instead of finding ways to deal with the bad effects, we pass it off as inconsequential and not a problem. If your entering old age that might be even truer but yet, we owe it to the youngest generation to leave this earth as clean as possible and hope that someday they will repay the favor.

 

There are deniers out there who scoff at this kind of rhetoric. Their self-obsessive life styles have no time for doomsday stories. They like life the way it is and they’re not changing for anyone. They’ll do everything in their power to thwart the efforts of those who want to try and save the earth. They are threatened by efforts to change their lifestyle, and most of it just boils down to money and they can’t get enough of it. Just ask the fossil fuel industry.

 

I am in awe of this earth and all of its creatures and the way it has for years, had all of these checks and balances to take care of our bad behavior. But the plants and oceans that cleanse the very air we breathe and the water we drink, are now being overwhelmed. Had one looked at the earth four hundred years ago it would have seemed to be beyond our capabilities to destroy it in the way we are doing it. But hey—never count us out huh?

 

It is beyond any reasoning abilities I now have, how greed, can make one not care enough for this earth. There are hundreds of thousands of creatures going extinct as we speak. You would have to be really out of the loop to not think that that isn’t going to have an impact on the rest of them and us. The last major extinction of the earth came at the hands of an asteroid. Unless another one comes along or Yellowstone blows its top, this time we will be doing the natural disasters one better and all by ourselves.

 

I fully realize that there are some who read this and say this is just another left leaning nut off on a tangent but you would be wrong. I am not a left leaning anything but an independent thinker who detests what political parties have done to our government. I support neither of them. That being said, disagree if you must but I hope its what you truly believe in and not a right leaning political position that you feel you have to take, to support the party faithful. Do me one other favor. Send me credible proof, that what is happening to our earth is not our fault. We all know it’s happening, there is little argument about that unless your living under a rock, so the only argument seems to be why it’s happening. And remember something else we can agree about is-- it has happened before. But there was always an explanation for that and if it wasn’t a mountain blowing its top or an asteroid hitting the earth, it was a natural phenomena of climate change that took tens of thousands of years to change things. What we are talking about, that is happening right now, has taken only a few short centuries.

 

 

 

 

HOPE FOR A BETTER YEAR

                                                             

Aul Lang Syne is and will always be, synonymous with the end of a year and the beginning of another year. It is as inherent to New Year’s Eve, as Pomp and Circumstance is to graduation. It is New Year’s Eve’s signature song. When written by Robert Burns in 1778 it was a Scottish language poem that literally translates to “Days Gone by.” It has become the traditional song to sing on New Year’s Eve, all around the world. It also has been deemed the most famous song, that no one knows, yet everyone has butchered on a tipsy New Year’s Eve.

 

I do think it’s fitting and proper to see the old year out and welcome the new one in, but yet if it’s really our desire to improve our lives as we live them out. Then it too becomes a time to not only say “Out with the old and in with the new” but to make the new, something better than it was. A new you, a new model and a chance to tie this change back to a significant date and time and there is no better day to do that-- then New Year’s Day

 

Since the time of the invention of the wheel mankind has always been looking for a better. wheel. That one that Barney Rubble and Fred Flintstone rode around on, back in the day was just a starting point for the wheel. That’s the way our lives should be structured too. That 18-year-old person, turned out at the end of a high school education, should be just a starting point and it shouldn’t stop there. We need to strive to be all that is within our capability’s to be. Anything else is just a waste.

 

We do have something to celebrate this year. A vaccine that normally takes’ multiple years to test and develop was done in a fraction of that time. It’s a testament to what can be accomplished when all the chips are on the table. When Government and private enterprise put their collective heads together in an all-out effort to make something work. This pandemic as terrible as it has been, was the impetus to make this happen. We need to learn from this, what is truly possible when push comes to shove and shove comes to a can-do attitude. This was truly a team effort. Not just in this country but in many countries.

 

Now that we know we can do it. Next time, let’s make it a more proactive action. The biggest shame in all of this is the Laissez faire attitude we had in this country about the disease. Oh, this isn’t a shot at just the administration although they were complicit. That attitude has been around for a long time in this country and on a lot of subjects. Sometimes as my Mother would say, “People get too big for their britches.” We still have a way to go before we can claim victory. There is lot of harm that was done that cannot be undone and the word victory may be the wrong word. Maybe the word correction would be more appropriate. There is a lot of suffering to still be suffered but lets’ let that suffering always be a reminder of what can happen when you get-- “Too big for your britches.”

 

It is my hope, my prayer that as the ball falls this New Year’s Eve, we all see a new beginning. That we will always be that can-do society. There will always be other viruses and if we can keep the politics out of the solutions, they will be squashed before they ever get started. “May Auld Acquaintance Be forgotten in Days of Auld Lang Syne.”   Happy New Year.   Mike

 

 

 

MY MOST UNFORGETABLE CHRISTMAS

                                     

 

I dreamed a dream the other night that this year at Christmas, I could just go back and relive one of the 79 Christmas’s I have experienced in my life, instead of creating another one. Although most of them are lost to memory, a few of them are still there in my meandering thoughts. I can remember my wife’s last Christmas before she passed. I remember the year after our mother passed, six days before Christmas. I remember Christmas’s when you couldn’t see the tree for the presents.  Kids parties at the fire station, when Santa came on the ladder truck. But my most precious Christmas was when I was about six or seven years old.

 

That year, 1947, my parents and my three brothers and I were living in an apartment fashioned out of the attic of an old house in Staples Minnesota. My dad worked in an ice cream shop up town. A job today that would be more appropriate for a high school kid, trying to make some spending money. The war was just over and there were no other jobs to be had.

 

Somewhere, Dad had found a Christmas tree and he’d hauled it up into our cramped living space and Mom decorated it with paper cut outs and popcorn strung into garlands. She even made an angel for the top. There was a string of bubble lights that dad would light for a few minutes each night and then quickly shut them off so they didn’t burn out. If one burned out, they all went out and he had no extras. Then came Christmas Eve and we gathered around the tree and the bubble lights stayed on at last. There was nothing under the tree. We sat there while Dad read the Christmas story from his bible and then he got up and went outside and came in with a red sled. It was obvious, it was a used sled that he had repainted. The kind with the metal runners. I remember Dad trying to be happy and festive and I remember Mom hanging her head and crying softly while she nursed the baby. Maybe it was the simplicity of it all and maybe it was just the humbleness of that Christmas Eve, that I can’t forget.

 

Christmas has never been about things for me. It has been about people. Suffering is always more easily tolerated when it is suffering shared. Happiness also is meant to be shared but the one ingredient, the one common denominator, that enhances happiness and tempers grief is love and that Christmas night was all about love and not any tangible things. Of the six players on that Christmas Eve, that night way back then, only three remain. We have all had wonderful lives. I for one am so grateful for the life I have had, the family I shared and the family I fostered and I’m so privileged to be a part of all of it. So grateful for the three family members that were there that night that have since passed on and the indelible memories I have of them. But the thing that makes me the happiest is just the fact that I remember that distant Christmas Eve, like it was last Christmas Eve. Something happened there that night that simply made it so unforgettable to me and I think I know now, what it was and I hope I never forget why. I wish I could drive back there on a quiet Christmas Eve and just park outside of where the house once stood  and let the feelings of that night wash over me once more. Maybe I could even bring some bubble lights.

 

Mike

 

 

PEARL HARBOR

                                                            

A few years back I was standing on the deck of the United States Battleship Missouri, in Pearl Harbor. As I stood there under those big guns that cast a shadow over the grave of another American Battle ship, the sunken Arizona, I closed my eyes, I could almost hear the bombs that fell on our brave sailors that day. Then walking around the super structure and facing the stern where a podium stood, I could also hear the voice of General Douglas Macarthur at the surrender that ended that horrible war and took place right there on that deck. I have never been more humbled, prouder of this country, then on that day, some 70 years later. 

 

President Roosevelt called Dec. 7^th 1941, the day of the attack, “A day which will live in infamy” but September 2^nd1945, was the day that will live on in my memory. It was the day when a weary country celebrated the end of tyranny and the beginning of peace.

 

Today our country has all but forgotten the sacrifices that were made to achieve that peace. That cohesiveness that existed on that September day in our country has been replaced with political infighting and rancor that threatens our very existence. This by people in power who weren’t worth the sacrifice our country exhibited during that war. As I look out today, Doctors and nurses are fighting this pandemic. Volunteers by the thousands are handing out food and meals and I see in them that same spirit of World War II. But then I look towards Washington and our leaders and all of that goodness is overshadowed, by greedy power grabbing politicians on both sides of the aisle. They should all have to go and stand on that ships deck and apologize to the spirits, of those who gave their lives for our freedom. 

 

I read a book by Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation. It should be something all people should read. Because within it he talks about the generation that proceeded World War II. The people who lived through the great depression and coincidently they were the ones who played the biggest part in fighting that war, here at home and abroad. It talks about the sacrifices they made for the good of this country. I was born in 1941 and the Great One was the generation that proceeded my generation. But their ideals were still apparent in my generation and we did subscribe to them. But over the years there has been a steady erosion of those ideals and principals and it shows. It should not take a World War to bring people together.

 

My generation is growing old and tired and what we want for this country is not going to benefit us. It’s for our kids and grandchildren that we worry. We take some blame for what has happened because in effect we allowed it to happen. I have in my yard an old apple tree that once was full of fruit year after year. But then about ten years ago it started producing less and less fruit. It still knew how; it was just worn out and at the end of its useful life. Next spring, I will cut it down and right next to it I have already planted its replacement. This year it had its first apples and its future looks bright. Maybe that’s where I am today in my own personal life. I still remember what goodness and love for America was all about but it’s time to step aside. It’s time for a new show in town. One that is progressive without being overly redundant about the past. A lot of the answers are already here. At least it’s a good place to start.

 

 

 

 

 

   

THEN THERE WAS ANDREA

  

Since we bought our place in Crosslake back in 1987, we have had quite a few different neighbors. They were all good people in their own way but like all things, some were better than others. A couple of them pretty much stayed to themselves and early on, one widowed lady and my wife became such good friends that after she moved away, my wife seemed to not want to take that risk of having another friend leave her, so maybe it was her way of just being gun shy. That was in the house to the west of our place. 

 

To the east of our place were a couple we got to know quite well and they were there for a long time. We took some trips together and seemed to get along well but eventually they too moved, although my wife had passed away at the time. My wife and this couple liked to go to casinos so she had that in common with them. Me not so much. My thoughts on gambling were. Why not just send them the money and save the gasoline?

 

Back to the house to the west. A man and his wife bought the house about twenty years ago and tore it down and built a beautiful house on the property. Then he too passed away but the family still owns the house. The matriarch of the family and I only call her that because she does fit the part, comes up from time to time but old age, her friends and her home in the cities seems to take up most of her time. There were four boys in the family who seldom come and so that leaves Andrea. She comes up when the ice goes out and goes in the late fall as do I. Andrea-- and I hope she forgives me for this-- is just south of 50. I’m just south of 80. She is as young at heart as very few women her age are and she just loves life up here.

 

Andrea will sit on top of her boat house for hours at twilight, with her camera, looking for that perfect sunset. She loves to go in her boat to the river with her music and soak up Mother Nature. She has a little dog named Brutus who is joined at the hip with her and maybe that’s all of the dependents she really wants. She has a small business and makes jewelry and crafts she sells at shows and in some stores. She has earned the title of an artist. My bedroom window faces her work area and at night when I go to bed, I see her bent over her table creating. She’s a night owl at heart and almost nocturnal and you seldom see her before 11 in the morning.

 

What I’m really trying to tell you about Andrea is what she means to me. This was the summer from hell when it came to having company because of the virus. So, Andrea and I would sit on my porch and talk for hours. We were two lonely ships that almost passed in the night but then said-- “We need to be friends.” I am her fixit man and she is my watch dog, keeping me off ladders and out of places I don’t belong in at my age. My children, who are all older than Andrea, know she is here for me, living by myself and that helps them not worry about me. I once read a book called Tuesdays with Morrie. It was about a young man, a student, and an old man, his college professor and the rekindled relationship they enjoyed in the fading days of the old man’s life. Maybe in a roundabout way that’s where Andrea and I are. An old writer giving his memories and what he perceives as his wisdom, to a young in heart and spirit lady, who is such a good listener.

 

IS THIS OUR EPITAPH

 

While you are reading this Pat and I will be back in Arizona for the winter. For me this was the summer that was never was, living in fear of a flu that would not be kind to us and the hate that is tearing our country apart. I have never left for down south with as much trepidation as I have this year. I have never been sadder about the current shape of our country. Both fiscally and morally. The gloves came off in the last election and I’m not sure they will ever go on again. I think truthfully, we have forgotten how-to live-in peace. 

 

We both know the isolation that made life so lonely this summer in Minnesota, will have to continue down there in Arizona, as there is no running away from this pandemic. It will mean some subdued Holidays, as we will be estranged from most of our families. Last weekend we both said goodbye to our up-north family’s. Goodbyes have taken on a whole new meaning. There was a time when it meant goodbye for now, but now, one is not so sure what that goodbye means. We can only hope and pray.

 

In the animal kingdom the older ones know how much more vulnerable they are to danger. The senses they once used to warn them of danger have grown old and weak. The legs that outran the fastest foe have been hobbled. Their immune systems are weaker and disease and climate have taken their toll. Their future is bleak. We as humans have long recognized our waning bodies and reached out to loved ones for support. But now those very same people who helped us in the past, have become a liability, as their active lives expose them to the very disease’s we have to avoid.

 

So, we sit back and we reminisce. We think of the days when politicians would put their minds together and despite their party affiliations, come up with answers to our country’s problems. The greatest leaders we have in this country today, want nothing to do with politics. They know that to win they need to play the game and the game is rigged and they too will be marionettes with someone else behind the scenes, pulling the strings. We once held our leaders to a higher standard back then but then somewhere along the way we dumbed down that standard and we put up with the lies and corruption and at election time, we settled for the lesser of two evils.  We think of how we loved our grandparents and took them into our homes when they no longer could care for themselves. A place where they could still be part of a family instead of sitting in a chair looking out at the front door of a care center, hoping the next person coming in is someone they know. None of this will ever change now because it’s not possible with the life styles we now embrace. Materialism and power now rule the world, not sensitivity.

 

We also know that the time to change any of this has passed and although we once embraced this long gone life style, we are the ones responsible for allowing it to slip away. We are like swimmers who swam out farther then their ability to make it back to shore. It was on our watch that this change happened. It was on our watch that our waters became too polluted to drink and the air unfit to breath. When rules, discipline and morality ceased to exist. We can only be happy for the good life we once had and yet sad for what little we have left our grandchildren.

THE SANCTITY OF LIFE

 

If I asked you what is the most precious thing you have, what would be your answer? Would it be your family or your possessions or your health? I think they are all important but to be fair if you die, so does all three of them with you. Your absence of health and your subsequent death, separates you from everything else and one truth remains self-evident. You can’t take it with you. You can only enjoy it while you’re still alive.

 

Now there are those that say, “Hey what about my faith? That’s important to me. They have a point but your faith is a belief in a life beyond this life and yes you have to earn it but just to simplify things for the sake of argument, what I am talking about is the here and now. 

 

The older I get, and I am about to enter my octogenarian years, the more I realize how precious this thing we call life really is. You see so many friends and family, that are ending their earthly journey and you kind of get the feeling that someone is following you and how long can you stay one step ahead. You have known for years that there are things that can hasten your demise. Smoking, drinking to excess, drugs and other reckless behavior. Your own D.N.A. may say you’re predisposed to certain things and you need to be aware of that. I once talked to a man who was in his mid-forties who told me he was one of five boys in his family. All of them died in their forties from heart disease and although he said, “He was feeling good right now, he wasn’t feeling good about his future.” I couldn’t help but notice the pack of cigarettes in his pocket.

 

Now everyday people are taken from us just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. One minute earlier and that wrong-way driver would not have hit them. If they had stayed in the house instead of going outside during that thunderstorm to get the dog, lightning would not have hit them. Bridges have collapsed, trees have fallen on cars and people have been caught in the middle of a shootout. Yes, nothing could have been done about it. But it is still tragic. You can’t quantify life, yet people try.

 

Right now, we are caught up in a great controversy about all of the people that are dying in the pandemic. Some have gone so far as to say it’s just a bunch of old people. It’s almost as if they feel, like in the animal kingdom, were culling the herd. Others point to underlying conditions and say if they weren’t diabetic or hadn’t had lupus they won’t be gone. I say if they hadn’t caught Covid, they wouldn’t be gone either. People lived long and fruitful lives around many chronic diseases. Franklin Roosevelt ran this country for a dozen years and took us through a great world war and all from a wheel chair. Life is always precious. And some of the world’s greatest minds don’t have a body to match.

 

If there was one thing the Fire Service taught me it was the sanctity of life. You can’t categorially put people’s rights to live, with what they have to offer society. As firefighters we fought as hard to save grandma, as we did a teenager. There could be no distinction, they were all people who had a right to live. Sometimes events like this pandemic, make some people show their real colors.

 

 

 

 

 

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

                                                 HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS.

 

I remember a day, 60 years ago, when it became apparent to me that it was time to leave my parents home and fend for myself. We lived on the edge of a small town in Central Minnesota and I was going to the big city to make my mark. I remember a day, a few days before it was time to leave, when I went to the woods not far from home one last time. There was a place there by a small stream where I often went to think and I knew I was leaving it behind me. I knew that day, that leaving wasn’t something I wanted to do, it was something I had to do.

 

For me, nature is an aphrodisiac. For many its music, money or drugs and alcohol but for me it’s simply nature and the world around me where I’m in my element. After I moved to Minneapolis for work, I lived in the outskirts of the suburbs. It was a short walk to the woods and a meandering little creek that for the time being was still untouched by the developers. Oh, you had to tune out the traffic noise from the freeways, not that far away, but that wasn’t hard to do. When I wasn’t working, I went there often; found a tree to lean against by the creek and just tuned out everything else. Somehow it was similar to the place I had gone too in my adolescence. Similar yes, but not the same.

 

Then things got more serious with work and a family and I had little time to spare for nature. But the desire to be there in nature never left me. That went on for thirty years. Retirement was slowly becoming a reality and not so much a dream anymore. Then with my wife’s blessing I found a little piece of property on a quiet lake and I thought to myself, “I’m back. Back where I belong. Back up north where I came from and I am so blessed.”

 

It’s been over thirty-five years since we came to Crosslake. A lot has changed for me but not my love of this place. When my wife died nine years ago my first inclination was to move away but that was just the grief talking. Then I heard a voice that said, “You can’t run way from your past.” Yes, you lost the love of your life but don’t lose the reason you came here in the first place.” Then Pat came into my life and along with her came some semblance of sensibility back to me again. At first, I quit thinking about moving away because of her, but as time went on, I realized it wasn’t just her that was keeping me here. It was this place.

 

I love to watch documentaries about this planet and the place we call home. It seems absurd to me that NASA is planning trips to other planets, that they know are barren rock, void of any meaningful way to survive. At the same time, leaving behind the most beautiful place known to the universe. I have traveled a lot over the years and seen a great deal of this great country. Places equally as beautiful as home-- but yet-- not home. because home is where your memories lie. Home is always where your heart is. Pat and I travel south for the winter because of old age and the troubles associated with winter and getting around in the ice and snow. Were always happy to get there but only because we love to be outside and not cooped up. Then comes spring to the northland and we are far more excited to get back here, then when we left. I think we both realize that the day will come when the trip will be too troublesome but that’s alright. If you have to be stuck someplace-- who could ask for a better place then this. 

OLD LOVE

  

Every once in a while, we hear stories of two old people, who once knew each other, finding each other again in the twilight of their lives. Maybe they were classmates or grew up together; maybe they once dated and it didn’t work out. Sometimes, they had married, raised children, and either lost their spouses or had marriages that just never worked out. No matter the circumstances, their paths crossed once more; something from the past rang a tiny bell and an old love that simmered, but never died, comes around again. Like a hot coal that lies unnoticed in the ashes of a bonfire, a spark gets struck once more and love is rekindled. These are the Cinderella stories that often bring a smile to our faces.

 

But all too often that’s not the case, and those same two lonely old single people sit in their homes, not knowing what to do. They’re torn between an old love that no longer exists, or being hurt once, they’re now gun shy. They remember the loved ones they spent so many years together with. They wonder what people will think if they try and turn a page and wring out what little happiness that may still be there in their hearts and souls—if only they could find someone to share their dwindling days with. They’re tired of cooking a special meal and being the only one at the table; tired of planting flowers no one will see; tired of dressing up with no one to impress and nowhere to go. Mostly though, they’re tired of not having anyone to love and care for. From the Movie A Love Story came the quote, “Love is never having to say you’re sorry.” I think back to my life with my wife and if there is one thing that will always bother me, it is the times, I hurt her and never said I was sorry. Apologies are a way of healing. Healing allows you to move on, hopefully wiser for your bad experience. Healing is a lot like a scab on a wound. It takes a while but eventually it falls off and is forgotten.  It’s then that you move on. My wife once bought me a Valentine’s Day card that had a musical device in it that played the theme song from “A Love Story.” I kept it in my night stand and every year on that day I would open it and listen to it again. Then the year after she passed, I opened it and the battery was dead.

 

I like to think of old love as a more perfect love than young love. For many of us, we have so many of life’s memories and lessons to share with someone else. We’re not dead yet, and we still have a few things left on the bucket list. We once knew love in a different time and a different place, and now we recognize it again, rearing its head and beckoning to us. We’re not as foolish and ignorant about the subject as we were back then—when we jumped in with both feet.  In our old age, we’re not being driven by roaring glands and foolish dreams that young love can sometimes have.  So, this time, we put just our toes in the water. We find the pond warm and welcoming. We find it as a place where we learn to laugh and love all over again. We find ourselves so much more patient and conciliatory than we used to be. We realize we’re not starting over. We’re just writing the epilog and maybe, just maybe, if we let it-- it will be the best part of our story.

IT'S GOING TO BE A WHILE

                                                           

I had a friend who referred to herself as sundowner. Often a term that is used for dementia patients who become more nervous, agitated and confused as the day draws to a close. But for those who haven’t been diagnosed with memory problems the term can still apply. My late wife had such fears and sadness at the sunset. She didn’t like the darkness and her mood would darken, right along with the sunset. I haven’t had that experience myself, for I must admit that night time for me, gives me a time to wind down and recoup my energy and relax my mind. I look forward to a quiet evening and a good night rest.

 

There is however something that does alter my mood and cause me anxiety and its not the end of the day or a month. It’s the end of a season. You see I have always been a spring and summer person. Spring, because it’s kind of a reincarnation of mother earth- and summer well, because its summer- and here in Minnesota in the land of all the lakes it doesn’t get any better than that. I’m not going to write about spring, we will save that for actual spring but I am going to talk about the end of summer.

 

Ironically its because the sun shines as much as it hides away that summer happens. So many things that depend on summer weather and soft warm breezes happen because of and in the summer season. Our society to some existent builds its most active schedule around the summer months. Weddings, family get -togethers, vacations at the lake and road trips to name a few. It’s the time when mother nature’s babies are born and raised. Schools are out and leisure living is at its best.

 

Then the days grow short and the leaves change colors. The gardens are empty, the flowers have all gone away. The crops are harvested and the kids go back to school. It gets dark earlier and light later and you find yourself wearing extra layers to ward off the cold. Oh, there are some things that are unique. The colors of the leaves for one and for some, the hunt is on. The bugs are dead and the lawnmowing stops. But it’s all so short lived, for in a matter of weeks a cold wind, rain and a stiff breeze takes all the leaves back down to earth to become a soddened mess. The hunt is over, the screens come down and the windows close and your home goes from a gathering place to a much-needed shelter.

 

There are few select people who find some good in the winter months. Those healthy enough to take the cold and play in the snow or plow the snow. I once did that too. I ice fished and snowmobiled, cross country skied and yes there is a certain amount of monotony that can creep in with 80 degrees and sunny every day but not so much with twenty below and cloudy. We’re Minnesotans we say and we brag about our macho survival skills but in the end when there’s no one looking, we shiver and shake like everyone else and wait for summer. I have told people in Arizona what it’s like in January here and they just shake their heads and say why?  

 

To those who are sundowners the new day dawns within hours and things will be all better again. To those who are summer people. It’s going to be a while.

THOSE FALLING LEAVES

                                               

Today as I write, it’s a beautiful Indian summer day and a few lonely oak leaves float lazily down from their lofty perches, and settle into the many puddles of leaves that are starting to dot my lawn. For me, they are reminiscent of many things in my own life, but none so strong as the fact that they are in their death spiral; their job is done, and now they rest. For the summer months they were vibrant, full of green color, and part of a vast family of leaves that formed the canopies of the trees that shaded my house and rustled quietly in the summer breezes. They had a purpose, a place in nature, and a job to do—but now they are relegated to shriveling up and returning to the very earth they came from, their life cycle complete.

 

Our own lives are somewhat the same, but much more complex, because even when we are gone our accomplishments will live on, and hopefully, we won’t go to our end in someone’s mulch pile. We have this uncanny persona to influence other people who will, in turn, emulate our character, and hopefully, enrich this world and make it a better place. Each year the tree starts with new buds, void of any kind of personality, and they only do what their predecessors have done over and over again, until at last the tree dies and they with it. Each leaf is its own entity and has no dependence on the others. But in our lives, we build on the accomplishments of those who have gone before us, and those who surround us. We don’t have to start from square one, when we begin, because someone else has already done the work for us and left those indelible imprints in our minds and hearts.

 

All the leaves of the trees perform pretty much the same chore for their host, the tree. But our lives are so different, and a cornucopia of different talents, abilities and aspirations, and when we blend them together with others, we have this homogenous result, forming a more perfect union for all of us. I often think, “What would my life have been like without my parents’ influence and their effect on my development…without my beloved wife, who steered me in the right direction and propped me up when I was falling, and then gave me wings to go places I never dreamed of going.” I didn’t want to be like a leaf; I wanted to have some sort of legacy when my life was done, and with her help and the help of others, it has come to fruition, but history will be my judge, not I. 

 

Sometimes at night, when I miss her the most, I think of the words of Nat King Cole who sang so beautifully, “And now the purple dusk of twilight time, steals across the meadows of my heart. High up in the sky the little stars climb, always reminding me that we’re apart.” Music has always been my crutch. I have always felt that it’s such a shame that too many of us die with most of our music still inside of us. “Though I dream in vain. In my heart it will remain. My stardust melody of love’s refrain.”  When I think of her and so many others, I don’t want to cry because it’s over; I want to smile because it happened. 

 

Wow! To think. All of that came from a few leaves drifting by my window. Life is good in Mike’s meandering mind.

  

 

  

WHAT HAS CHANGED

                                              

It is probably early October when you are reading this but it is 9/11/ 2020 as I write it. It was a day 19 years ago when this nation was attacked by radicals that were nothing more than cold blooded, calculated killers. Cowards who neither had the means nor the skills to attack those they hated the most, so instead they killed the innocent, the pawns in the war on terror, to try and strike fear into the hearts of the American people. They failed miserably because if there was one day in the last twenty years when the American people never felt closer to each other-- it was that day. But that closeness never lasted.

 

As a writer I wish I could find the words that describe the depths of grief and loss that came with the people that lost their lives’ that day. The children who lost their mom’s or dad’s. The sons and daughters, friends and neighbors, wives and husbands who never came home that night. I wish I could write descriptive words that would paint you the picture but I can’t because the words to adequately describe that kind of grief, have never been written and I know of no one capable of doing that. The depth, the scope of it all, well it’s unimaginable. 2,135 civilians, 372 non-citizens and 343 New York City firefighters and many more police and paramedics. Then there were many more deaths at the Pentagon and Shanksville to compound the grief.

 

Today a new tower stands where the twin towers stood, a testament to the resilience of the people of that city. The memorial to the fallen there has been visited by millions. The prayers that have been uttered and the tears that have fallen on that hallowed ground probably dwarf any other memorial response in this land. One would hope that this was the day that changed America. But the organization that sponsored that deadly day still exists and is active 19 years later and there seems to be little we can do about it.

 

Yet today, we are in the midst of a pandemic that dwarfs the list of fallen on 9/11 and the death toll is climbing. Still for many their cry is, “Party on.” In California the state is burning and thousands are losing their homes. As of this morning six more storms are winding their way across the Atlantic towards the homeland. Almost every state is in some kind of financial difficulty and the National Debt-- well there is no hope of ever paying it off. The war on drugs is a dismal failure after spending well over a trillion dollars to stop it. People have no jobs. This is just the highlights. I no longer watch the news because I don’t need the daily reminders of how bad things are. I know full well that ignorance doesn’t stop anything. It’s just too painful to see.

 

I meet with my old friends each week to share our thoughts and concerns and although we run the gambit of different political beliefs and different faiths, we have one big thing in common. Our love and concern for each other and our friends and families. Our bodies are filled with arthritic pain and our minds don’t operate the way they used too. We all remember a better time and a better place. We all remember loved ones, who have gone on before us and we accept that and live around the holes in our hearts. Yet, outside of our precious memories we live in the moment because we know the next moment is not guaranteed. We have found some semblance of companionship at this level. At least at this level and in this brief moment, we have driven hate and fear away. Until this world learns to heal and do that, we will all suffer on.

WHAT TO WRITE

 

As a writer I used to sometimes search for topics that I thought would peak the interest of my readers. I would steer away from controversial topics or areas that seemed to be too much opinion and not enough facts but now, we have entered an era when even the facts don’t matter. As for politics, as a centrist myself with friends on both side of the aisle I recognized it was hard to get into those topics without alienating people I cared for and I have in the past found out, that was to often the case. So, it was just best to avoid those subjects. But in today’s world and todays political climate, that doesn’t leave much room for anything else.

 

I used to remember clergy talking about the end times and how the bible said that a time would come when brothers would be pitted against brothers. I am sure in the Bible the word brother was used in the context of more than just your physically related brothers and was meant to include sisters, family, friends and neighbors. I would look at those around me and say to myself could I ever forsake a friendship for the sake of a political issue? We have always disagreed about things and we have always agreed to disagree but the other day I read a piece that called that practice a cop out. That, that approach was no longer acceptable to the party faithful. That the only thing in the middle of the road was yellow lines and dead animals. “Take a stand,” it said or get the hell away from me. That same clergy I talked about at the start of this paragraph would often tell us from the pulpit “That wasn’t right” and that was okay coming from them, because it was called righteous condemnation. Instead we took it and turned it into righteous indignation to sooth our inflated egos.

 

I know it’s close to the election and things are very contentious. I remember a time when elections were held and then it would be three years later before the contentious topics raised their ugly heads again. A day when politicians weren’t running for reelection the day after the election and at least for a short while, they went to work for the people. We could once again talk over the fence about the weather, our health and work, our family’s.

 

I love history and read it often, the good the bad and the ugly. I would sometimes read accounts of dictators who murdered their dissenters and I would say to myself who can do that? Who can kill innocent people? Most of the time I found out it wasn’t the dictators themselves who did the grizzly deeds but people they appointed to do that. Then the question was raised in my mind what drives the people who worked for those dictators to do that? There were so many answers but the one that toped my list was fear. Fear of what would happen to them and their families.  Look around us today and you will find politicians who aren’t talking about what they want to accomplish f they win. They are only talking about what is going to happen to you if they don’t. That’s called fear mongering and it works. I want to say that’s not ethical but what is ethical nowadays.

 

It's Sunday morning and I’m missing my church. I go not so often to ask for favors but to be grateful for the life I have enjoyed. I long ago recognized where goodness came from and it wasn’t from Washington. To those of you who have no faith I ask, “Who are you grateful to?”

SO UNFAIR

 

Many years ago, I went to the funeral of a fallen firefighter from a neighboring city. The response was so overwhelming that the church was filled to overcapacity and they lined up outside on the sidewalks. At the conclusion of the service, the man’s body was hoisted up by his fellow firefighters, and placed on the back of the engine. His last ride. The procession of emergency vehicles that day stretched as far as the eye could see. The funeral was in a northern suburb and the procession made its way south to Fort Snelling for the burial, as the man was also a veteran. It was a cold and blustery winter day but as we made our way down the freeways, on every overpass stood a contingent of firefighters at attention beside their apparatus. This went on for miles upon miles. This man was a young man with kids and a wife and he had everything to live for. I am sure he never dreamt it would end this way.

 

I contrast this with the people who are passing away from the virus and truthfully almost anything else right now. All of them are somebody’s daughter, son, sister, brother, father or mother or simply a good friend. Silently and almost unceremoniously they are committed to the earth, nearly alone. Their lives ending with little fanfare. They will never receive the public recognition they deserved, for a life well lived and all of those who knew them will never get to say a proper goodbye. Most of them too, I am sure, never dreamt it would end this way. They-- in the words of the poet Robert Frost, “Had promises to keep and miles to go before they sleep.” Their family’s want to scream stop. Do you know who this was? Do you know what he/she accomplished in their life? Do you really understand what they meant to us who are left behind to mourn?

 

 I am no stranger to death. We, as firefighters always tried to show as much dignity as we could when we were called to those scenes. Now, today, bodies are being lifted into refrigerated trucks by a forklift until they can be processed. Instead of a name they have become a number. Goodbyes seem to have been relegated only to the hearts of those close to them. Friends and neighbors are left forgotten. They will soon slip into anonymity and their stories will never be told. I don’t think many of us ever dreamed that there would be a time like this in our country. A time when death became so common place, there was little time left to deal with it or dwell on it.

 

As tragic as the death of that young firefighter was so many years ago, he was given that hero’s funeral he deserved. It doesn’t soften deaths sting or make death any easier but he will long be remembered for not only the way he lived but also for the way he died. So many of the deaths today of victims of the pandemic are not being remembered for the way they lived but more so only for the way they died and that is tragic.

 

I hope that someday when this is all over, that an annual day of recognition will be set aside for all the victims of the pandemic and they will have their day in the sun. That not only will the roll be called up yonder, but it will also be called right here on Mother Earth. Lest we forget and may all the victims rest in peace.

WHERE WE ARE WITH IT.

  

 

I mowed the grass this morning and there they were, the first telltale signs of the impending fall. Several dead leaves laid on the lawn and they weren’t from storm damage. It’s only the third week of the month of August I thought to myself and here we are mired in the dog days of what many believe is the last full month of summer. There have been other signs of the end of summer like acorns in the driveway and the ripened choke cherries. Sumac getting red. Except for the tomatoes, most of the garden is done and at night it’s now dark at eight thirty. But these are seasonal things I have grown to except and respect. There is nothing on Gods green earth we can do to alter that. When I was a young man summers just came and went and I never thought much of it. But, as I have now become a tired old senior citizen, I realize that those summer hiatuses I love are limited and I need to make the most of each and every one. 

 

This year though, the pandemic came along and the best laid plans went out the window. The lists of do’s and don’ts I had learned, had far more don’ts then dos. My somewhat carefully structured life became confused and unhinged. Change come’s hard at my age. Some of it may be stubbornness because of what I had enjoyed and had been enjoying was tried and true but part of it is, I just didn’t have the time or desire to try new ways to live my life. I had never thought what would it be like to not hug my family and friends. Worship the way, I had for fifty years. I wanted to shop in the stores without masks and temperature checks. I wanted to have company and laugh around the campfire. Yes, it was a whole new world. There seemed to be so much confusion in the world and yet so many different opinions of how to act and even out right mutiny from some. Seemingly there was no one in charge. Every state, every county and city had their own program. It seemed to me to be a recipe for disaster.

 

When you think about it, eventually out of these disasters and calamities that we didn’t expect, come those whose words sooth the masses. Right or wrong these leaders try to gather the best minds and the best information and pass it on to the population. Their only agenda is to ease the suffering. Criticism seems to be in short supply for those who try their best to rectifie a situation and are honest about it, no matter the outcome. Prudent people realize that all of the answers aren’t always there and there may not even be one. But when you do take a wrong path the best route forward is to take a step back and then never giving up, go forward again. But when you refuse to admit you were wrong and continue on the same wrong course it would seem that at some point the truth catches up with the wrong doings and then things are a whole lot worse for everyone. So even though the summer I so revered, became compromised by a pandemic and the politics it spawned, I need to hold out hope for a better one next year. A hope that a lesson will be learned from the mess that was made. That we will hold dear the memories of those who were lost and resolve to be better prepared for the next time this happens-- as it will. These aren’t really changes. Those choices have always been with us. We have always had rights and wrongs and politics. As Thomas Pain said, “These are the times that try mans souls.” I really believe he meant these are the times that test man’s souls, to make better choices between right and wrong.

MY GOLDEN POND

                                                         

 

It was many years ago. 1981 to be exact, when Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda made a movie called, “On Golden Pond.” I was intrigued by the movie for a couple of reasons. Number one was Norman Thayer, alias Henry Fonda who played a part I loved so much. That of a cantankerous old man, living with a conciliatory wife on a small lake in the wilderness. For some reason I wanted to be that way when I got old and maybe I have. I always got a kick out of grumpy old men like Walter Mattheu or maybe a Red Foreman or Archie Bunker. Maybe it was because my father was often that way. He was the king of the one-liners and those one-word answers, which when it involved me was often just a “no.” He wasn’t that mean but he would threaten a little whoop ass if things came to that. At least you knew where you stood with him and I never challenged him. My step Mother was that conciliatory woman who rarely let her feathers get ruffled. Yeah, those two, they played those parts to a tee.

 

But what intrigued me the most in that movie was that old log cabin and that little lake they called their ‘Golden Pond.’ Three years later, after the movie came out, my wife and I found such a place and it wasn’t a log cabin it was a trailer house and it wasn’t a pond but a small lake. Never the less, the idea had been hatched and I made a sign that said “Our Golden Pond” and hung it right outside the back door. Today there is a modern home in its place but sometimes I wish for that old trailer back. It was just a simpler life then I have now. As I look around me tonight, I can feel her presence in the house she designed and from the mailbox out by the road, to the lakeshore out front, it seems to me like I’m on almost hallowed ground.

 

My neighbor lady, likes to sit out on top of her boat house at night with her camera and wait for the exact moment the sun has set just enough to be gone, but still shining enough to be at the right angle to color those clouds in crimson and yellow hues that enhance their beauty. They in turn seem to reflect that picture right back off the surface of the water like some eerie oil painting that only a Michelangelo could do justice too. Along with all this comes the mirrored images of the bluffs across the lake, also reflecting off the water in the waning light. This is for me so indicative of my own diminishing life cycle, that I can’t help but take it personally sometimes. Throw in the cry of a loon and the soft kiss of the water on the sandy shore line and you have peacefulness personified, right here on my own Golden Pond. 

 

I have through the generosity of my friend and his luxurious pontoon, spent hours on the chain of lakes just drifting by the homes that ring them. I often wondered what it would be like if we could stop at the ends of their docks and meet people and say tell me about your life here. Your kids, your grandkids and great grandkids and maybe your parents or grandparents that settled here, back when the shorelines were dotted with simple cabins and not that many mansions. It was a time when the evening silence was not punctuated with the roar of wave runners and speed boats but just flickering campfires, reflected in the bright wet eyes of children roasting the perfect smores. The old people sitting with their coffee cups, trapped in their Adirondack chairs holding hands and feeling like I do tonight. Here on my Golden Pond.    

 

SUMMER OF 2020

                                                                                             

 

It seems like only yesterday that I turned into my driveway, the culmination of an eighteen-hundred-mile journey from Arizona, where we had spent the winter. Now back home in Minnesota, the pandemic was on and I knew that things were going to be different. I guess I never thought it would be this different. I am part of that segment of the population that has had to respect the safeguards that have been put in place because of health issues and I’ve tried but it isn’t easy. But it wasn’t just the pandemic proving to be different this summer. There was racial turmoil, riots and a bitter election that was pitting us against each other. In many cases what was simply a disagreement before, was no longer just simmering heat under the surface; someone’s turned the burners up.

 

There were so many things that I used to enjoy at the lake come summer. Grandkids and family get togethers. Suppers out with my friends and our families at one of the many restaurants. Even hugs and tender moments, all put on hold. There was church and all of the activities that went with it. Fishing with my son and grandsons. Yes, what had once been unbridled fun, was now fun with an asterisk. The virus was always, seemingly, just lurking around the corner.

 

It’s August 2, 2020 and every other word seems to be Covid 19. What was once In New York and then Florida, Texas, Arizona and California moved. We had for a while largely been spared here in God’s country. But then the dam broke and now the clock is closer to midnight. Reports of friends dying with it and business being closed down. I am sure there will be an epilogue to this story. Just not sure when or where or how.

 

There have been good and bad stories. People volunteering by the thousands not only their time but often their money. Doing what they could to make things better for the less fortunate. Then there were the dissenters. Someone was stepping on their precious rights they said but in reality, it was just a matter of playing follow the leader with their party of choice. After all they couldn’t be a hypocrite. Their tone softened as the causality count rose and the leadership morphed into admitting that caution was a better choice. But a lot of damage and heartache had already been done.

 

Then there were the people that wouldn’t give up their social life. “Close the churches if you have to but not the bars.” One whole summer of not saddling up to the bar was a bridge to far for them. They were strong and they were tough and the virus was no match for them and for the most part maybe they were right but I said for the most part and not all were strong enough. Even if they survived, they had compromised their health to the point, of never being the same and unwittingly they took some of the most vulnerable down with them.

 

But that’s life isn’t it. There are those who live their lives as if everyone’s lives are just as important as theirs. Then there are those who live their lives as if theirs is the only one that matters. Who is who? I’ll let you be the judge of that.