New Year's Eve

The year is almost over and radio stations are playing the top 2,009 songs. We get an opportunity to fool ourselves for a few weeks – a few months for the really committed ones. We do this by making public proclamations regarding matters normally discussed only with family and friends. Most everyone feels it would be easier to change someone else other than themselves, but that’s what marriage is for.

New Year’s resolutions know no limits, only that you promise to do more of what is good and less of what is bad. No one resolves to become obese, start smoking, or to give into violent mood swings. I suspect that most people are sincere in their belief that they can change for the better – it certainly beats admitting they are doomed to hanging on to habits that have taken years to develop.

In the past I made resolutions for the New Year under duress. I had not thought of any thing ahead of time and didn’t want to appear smug when quizzed about empty promises. This was more to do with my unwillingness to set goals than my candidacy for sainthood – which, according to good authority, is not forthcoming.

Now instead of telling people I plan on living as a monk for the next year, I explain that because I am unsure where to begin I do nothing. I then ask for their suggestions as to what they would like to see changed in me for the New Year. Then I return the favor. This exchange can turn rather heated even among the closest friends.

But, for most people January 1 allows them to improve their life, or at least themselves. People resolve to do this, and not do that. This time of year is a warm-up for the Lenten season. Lots of people “give up,” some trait, habit or vice for Lent. I want to believe that the success rate is higher during Lent as God has been made a party to the contract.

Resolutions are considered to be more serious if they are made public. Supposedly if more people are made aware of your promises you are more likely to keep them. I think if more people are nosing their way into your life you are more likely to get crabby.

To test that theory I am willing to go public with my resolutions for the new year. Some of these I have no intention of keeping and I only include them as a way to honor the tradition of trying to improve myself, at least for a few weeks.

I resolve to:
• Lose more hair
• Improve my memory.
• Lose weight and not find it again – my friend Chuck says that is the problem with most diets. I say the problem with most diets is that you can’t eat as much as you want of the things you like.
• Watch better quality TV. This of course means I will watch less TV.
• Read more (especially The Bible).
• Restore my brother’s VW Bug (which I’m sure will cause me to swear more).
• Swear less (the Bug restoration may take longer this way).
• Improve my memory. I know – that was poor.
• Write my columns any other time than right before the deadline.
• Pray more – other than in church and at meal time.

The new year gives us a chance to make a choice: improve or implode. If you don’t change anything – the record skips and replays your mistakes. But if things couldn’t possibly get any better, dance the night away.

Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

How have you been? I’m sorry it’s been such a long time (like maybe three or four decades) since I wrote you. I feel like we’ve lost touch. It’s my fault.

I bought into the “it’s your parents,” myth a long time ago. Both my parents are gone now, and yet I still get stuff in my stocking (which is hung by the chimney with care). I’m sorry I ever stopped believing in you. Please forgive me.

By turning our backs on you, we lose more than just childhood innocence; we also lose a part of ourselves – the part that wants to believe in the unseen, the magic of life. Thomas Nast, Francis P. Church, Clement Clark Moore (although some say Henry Livingston), Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass were men who still believed in you. So you see I am in good company.

I’m not even sure what name you prefer anymore. Do I still call you Santa Claus, or something more reverent like St. Nicholas, or St. Nick to be more familiar? Should I refer to you as Kris Kringle? It’s the same feeling I get when addressing former teachers or parents of my childhood friends – when is it permissible to just call you Kris? Every year you and I grow closer in age, because although you are ageless, I am not.

Do you still make a list? I know for awhile my name was inked on the “naughty” side of the ledger. Hopefully I’m on the “nice” side now – check it twice please. I’ve tried really hard to be a good man, but maybe I’m fooling myself. Santa, you see the real person behind our public portrait; you know when we’ve been bad or good.

I’ve seen you around town these past few weeks, particularly at the malls. The lines of people waiting to see you were too long, and I didn’t have that much time. A middle-aged man waiting by himself to see Santa would attract too much attention anyway.

I’m sure you aware of the push by some people with too much time on their hands. They are demanding that you lose some weight, throw away your pipe, and eat a more balanced diet (fewer cookies and more vegetables). Don’t let them get to you; be yourself. Nobody likes a skinny Santa.

I don’t even have a “wish list.” I can’t think of anything I need so you don’t have to bring me anything, but if you insist – surprise me. But, as I think about it I guess there is one thing I would really like. Please bring me a clock that keeps time. I don’t mean keeping the correct time, I want a clock that stores time, tucking it away where a special moment can be relived. With such a clock time would neither be wasted nor lost. It’s not as lofty a desire as shoelaces that stay tied – which I’m not sure even your talented elves could create. All I want is my fair share.

There are so many questions I have for you. Do you need snow to get the job done? If a little is good, is a lot better? What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Do you use a Star to guide you?

Write when you can, and please stop in and see me if you get a chance. On Christmas Eve I may step out for a few minutes with my kids to look at the Christmas lights. If I should be gone when you visit, help yourself to the cookies and milk. Happy Christmas, Santa wherever you are.

Grandma's House

The other day my wife, Rhonda, and I invited some friends to our house. Some of them brought their kids with them, which was fine – I told them they could. I just wasn’t prepared for the all of the “touching my stuff,” that little kids do.

They were quite cute and reasonably well-behaved, but I became ruffled and restless as the evening wore on. I closed cabinet doors after they opened them, put things down when they had picked them up, asked them not to do this and please don’t do that. I just couldn’t enjoy myself, and I couldn’t help myself.

After they finally got tired and went back home to trash their own house, one of my friends told me I had been acting like “an old lady.” In my experience old men are generally pricklier than old women, so perhaps he was being kind in his criticism.

The two old ladies I knew best were my grandmothers. They wore glasses and had gray hair. Both of them sported the layered look in their kitchen – aprons over dresses. When they went out they usually wore hats decorated with netting, ribbons and jewelry. At the time it was considered fashionable.

Grandma O’Meara had a coat with two dead animals on the collar. They may have been foxes, or they could have been weasels, but whatever they were they always gave me quite a start when I bumped into them while playing in her large hall closet. I imagine C.S. Lewis might have had a grandmother who allowed him to play in her wardrobe.

Grandma O’Meara was a sturdy woman who had taught children their lessons in a one-room school house. Katie, as she was known to her friends, laughed, played games, enjoyed baseball, and always had time for her grandchildren.

Her home was like a giant playhouse. There I was free to use my imagination. Sometimes the second floor would become a ship, with the ground floor playing the part of the ocean; other times the upper floor was used along with the rest of the house in a game of hide and seek. The only rooms that were off limits were Grandma’s bedroom and her sewing room. But you were welcome to walk in if she was there.

Grandma Kucera’s home was not a playhouse, it was more like a rest home. Children were not allowed to roam freely. They were to sit quietly on the plastic covered couch and listen to the adult conversation.

After an eternity of sitting still a choice of activities was offered – escape to play in the yard, or entertain yourself with the box of worn-out, lifeless toys stored upstairs. But children weren’t allowed upstairs; not even just to get the box. That wasn’t permitted; the box would be brought down for them.

Grandma Kucera was known as the best cook in Le Sueur County. Emma, a name I learned after her death, was much more at home in her kitchen than playing house with her grandchildren.

My own children may, Lord willing, have children of their own someday, and I hope they bring them over to play house with me. I could read to them, maybe play a game of hide and seek.

Everyone’s got a favorite grandmother or grandfather, whether they are on your aunt or uncle’s side. Grandma O’Meara got older, but she never acted like an old lady. I have a lot to learn – I’m aging everyday, I just don’t want to become a crabby old man, and certainly not a cranky old lady. That would be weird.

Christmas Gifts

Do kids still ask Santa to bring them a puppy or kitten for Christmas? Or has the age of electronics replaced that Christmas wish?

One year my older brother, Dan, got a puppy as either a Christmas gift or an Easter present. It must have been Easter because Santa wears glasses to correct short-sightedness.

Soon the puppy grew into a large collie. Apparently this eventuality was not considered prior to the presentation of the Easter gift basket. Before the dog was one year old it was decided that a big dog didn’t belong in town. What a surprise - who saw that coming? Stupid Easter Bunny - what was he (or she) thinking? The dog was given to a family that lived on a farm. Perhaps the dog was presented as a gift.

Return lines that stretch from December 26th into the next year provide plenty of proof that many gifts are neither perfect nor loved. I once received a gift of food that was so ancient the expiration date was printed on papyrus. As I carefully handled the thoughtful and expensive gift the giver explained her reasoning. “I was going to throw it out and then I thought why not give it to you.” Without a gift receipt I could only share my good fortune with my two chickens, Sam and Ella.

However, this was not the first time that I was given food as a gift. I have happily received cashews, peanuts (both blanched and unblanched), and fruit. I also got a potato for Christmas one year.

The uncooked potato was placed under the tree for me by Santa when I was about eight years old. I have not trusted that corpulent Kris Kringle since then.

The year leading up to that Christmas had been a difficult one for me and my parents. I, being the middle child, took the brunt of their wrath. I am more than willing to shoulder my share of that burden – but let’s look at the facts.

Elevators have buttons to push when you want to summon one. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to escalators? Mom and Dad, along with my two brothers and two sisters were Christmas shopping at Southdale. Having lost interest in hiding under the dress racks, and no longer able to find cigarette butts to drop on the heads of unsuspecting shoppers, I did a little exploring.
Just slightly underneath the curve of the railing at the base of an escalator (1967 model year) was a button that if pressed would stop the machine. On some of the later models it is labeled EMERGENCY STOP BUTTON.

I pushed it and the escalator stopped moving. A second panicked push did not restart it. Immediately my father was at my side.

“What happened?” he growled.

“I don’t know, I just pushed this button,” I explained as I crouched down to show him. My crouching had a two-fold purpose. I could more comfortably point to the button, and from this position it was impossible to spank me.

Now that the escalator had been magically transformed into stairs the stranded shoppers looked to my father for guidance.

“Now what are we supposed to do?” whined one lady.

“Walk,” Dad replied.

Now that I’m 50 I take the stairs whenever I can. I will also go on walks with Buddy, our Black Lab/Great Dane mix. When we got him a year ago he was already full-grown at over one-hundred pounds with his head at kitchen table height. We live in the country, where there is plenty of room for a dog of any size.

Christmas Trees

I was doing some shopping the other day when a Christmas tree grabbed my attention. It wasn’t particularly large, but it was quite striking in its radiance. It was blue – not a blue spruce – but a blue aluminum tree.

There is nothing like an aluminum tree to brighten up a room. With the advent of ... well, Advent, people are rearranging their homes to accommodate a tree in the corner. This time of year you see mini-vans driving home from a successful hunt with a tree tied to their roof.

Forty years ago phony Christmas trees looked phony – there was no pretense. Some people even “flocked” their trees (which doesn’t sound very religious at all) to make them look like they just dragged them through a blizzard. I could be talked out of this, but I think we had a real Christmas tree when I was a kid.

Every year Dad would get into the spirit of the season by wrestling with a tree. He would lug the tree through the rarely used front door, knocking over lamps and spreading needles as he went. I have warm memories of him throwing his glasses across the room after they had been bent by a contrary conifer.

For the first few years of our marriage my wife and I had joined the artificial tree class. I think it was because we were given someone’s rejected artificial tree. Charlie Brown would have taken it because he felt it needed him. We took it because it was free. But all the while we tried to convince ourselves that “it looks real doesn’t it?” We eventually decided the tree was too ugly and gave it to the Browns.

We usually buy a tree from the Boy Scouts here in town; I then lay it in the back of the truck. I try to avoid tying things down because my knot tying skills are not what they should be. But some years we have cut down our own – not at a tree farm – but on our own place. Unless you live on a tree farm, this practice doesn’t last very long.

I will drag the real tree through the house and purposely bump into a lamp to honor an old family tradition. My kids usually wait for the ceremonial throwing of the glasses before they retreat upstairs. A good year is measured by the amount of cuss words (or magic words as my father-in-law, Wayne, called them) I use in my fight with the tree.

My Christmas tree cage match costume is a hooded sweatshirt to protect against needles jumping down my back, gloves to ward off the stickiness of the sap, and lopping shears to attack the tree.

Over the years I have put up many Christmas trees. It’s easier to put them up before they are decorated with heirloom ornaments, garland and light – but I’ve done that as well, sometimes two or three times with the same tree.

Some people find aluminum loathsome, but I think it can be quite handsome. Mixed in with a drum and a dancing sugarplum, aluminum in the atrium can give a warm welcome.

Occasionally I like to mix things up, and I think something new, something blue might do the trick. You know what I’m talking about - even Elvis promoted a “Blue Christmas.” I realize a blue tree might be closer to creating an image found in a Warhol pop print than an American classic Christmas found in a Rockwell painting, but just once I would like to put up a tree that shines like a star.

Coast to Coast Christmas

This Friday morning before the sun rise, shoppers will stand outside in the dark. They do this so they can spend money they don’t have on things no one needs. But it is the biggest shopping day of the year.

The process begins with studying the ads to see if the item on somebody’s wish list is on sale, or if an item is priced so low you can’t pass it up. The stores open earlier than normal and they discount their prices (sometimes to ridiculous levels) to draw people inside.

I’ve done this. I read the newspapers, and occasionally the ads, but this time of year I like to get in the Christmas mood, so I survey the ads to see what I want (need has very little to do with it). One year my daughter, Jennifer, and I got up early - like 5:00 a.m. - to participate in the madness. If you have ever thought about going to Palermo to run with the bulls may I suggest day-after-Thanksgiving shopping as a warm-up?

Having waited in the cold outside the store, we were shoved through the chute when it opened. Propelled along with the rest of the herd, we stampeded through the store. Carefully avoiding the china I managed to find the luggage set that was on sale. Resisting the temptation to use it as a battering ram I hoisted it above my head.

Jennifer and I then made our way to the kitchen gadget section and picked up a large electric grill (the six-pancake model). Armed with our oversized gifts, we were shielded from the aggressive advances by the other shoppers. We paid for our items and left the madhouse. By now the coffee shop had opened, so we sat in there and had some caffeine to unwind.

Not all my Christmas shopping experiences were like this. When I was young downtown Belle Plaine was brightly decorated with lights, bells and candy canes. In the middle of the main intersection a large bell hung suspended by large swags of garland covered cable. Snow would gather on this centerpiece and then blow off as the bell swayed in the wind.

The Coast to Coast hardware store would open its second floor to the public a couple weeks before Christmas. In that hardware store attic - 30 stair steps above hammers and nails, brushes and paint - children would see what Santa’s elves had been making in his workshop. There were toy guns, games, rockets to Mars, cars, dolls, dishes, trains and trucks.

One year, Mom took Terry, my little brother (who now stands two inches taller than me), and me to that magical world. Like most families with several children, we drew names for gift buying (which were then posted on the refrigerator for all to see). Terry picked my name so Mom helped him choose a gift for me.

On the way home, Terry, who was about four or five, had me guess what he had bought me for Christmas. At first I declined to guess, but he persisted.

“A truck,” I suggested.

“Nope,” he said

“A game,” I asked.

“Nope,” he said with a grin.

“A gun,” I offered.

Immediately tears welled up in his eyes. He leaned over the front seat and announced “Mom, he guessed.”

I got a toy gun that year for Christmas, and so did Terry (from Santa). We played with those guns together for many years. I no longer play guessing games when it comes to gifts; I prefer to be left in the dark with the rest of the shoppers.

What you don't know can kill you

Steve, one of the guys that will still talk to me after forty-five years, was in my garage the other day. Inclining his head toward the gas-guzzling, non-clunked SUV he said,

“It looks like those tires could use some air Jer,”

They did look a little low, but am I supposed to keep track of that? Steve’s family was in the car business for many years, so he has that over me. I’m not a mechanic. I have people for this kind of thing. Must I add psi to my list of things to be mindful of?

The amount of things that I need to be aware of, to think of, to know is becoming a bit too much for me to handle, but you already knew that didn’t you? I tell you it’s enough to drive a man to drink, except I am not even sure what to drink anymore. Whether it’s coffee, red wine, water, or milk, you can find opposing views advancing arguments for the merits of consuming more or less of each of these.

I have given up on having a working knowledge of all the areas of my life. For example: I have chosen to not become an expert in the kitchen. If I had to, I could be very comfortable eating cereal three times a day. It has that rich, tasty goodness that kids love and mothers trust. I stick with cereal because of the whole balanced diet thing that I am supposed to know about. The milk covers the dairy end of the spectrum, for fruit you can eat Raisin Bran, or Fruit Loops. The added sugar will keep you going all day. The required dietary grain element is in all cereals (don’t take my word for it – like I said, I’m no expert). For the vegetable part I recommend Corn Puffs.

The older I get, the less I know, and what I don’t know about the day to day stuff can fill whole libraries. It’s likely there is an update for my computer, it’s possible the windows in my house need to be replaced, perhaps a warranty is about to expire, or maybe someone I know expired and I missed their obituary.

Sometimes I find myself in situations where I feel alone in my ignorance. The first time I was on a plane with an in-flight movie “A Fish called Wanda,” was the feature. When I put on the headphones I was surprised that they were playing the French language version. Wishing I had tried a little bit harder in my high school French class I was only able to pick-up a few of the words. The guy seated next to me seemed to be enjoying the movie so I asked him if he understood French. He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

“You have to turn that dial to English,” he explained as if he were talking to a child.

“I knew that,” I said with a laugh. “Of course, I was kidding.”

Humorist Will Rogers said “All I know is just what I read in the papers.” Communist Karl Marx said “All I know is that I am not a Marxist.”

Kenneth Grahame wrote in “The Wind in the Willows,”

“The clever men at Oxford
Know all that there is to be knowed.
But they none of them know one half as much
As intelligent Mr. Toad!

Even someone as smart as Mr. Toad probably didn’t check the air pressure in his tires either. But then we may have missed out on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.

Christopher Robin

Dropping sticks in a river with your children is more fun than it sounds. This summer Rhonda and I, along with Jennifer and Nathan, our two adult children, went down to Lanesboro and biked on the trails. If you like riding bikes and you get along with your family I can recommend Lanesboro for a family vacation. Otherwise stay home and watch TV.

The bike trail crosses over the Root River. Stopping on the bridge, Nathan grabbed fours sticks and invited us to play a round of Pooh-sticks. This game, straight out of Winnie-the-Pooh, involves dropping the sticks on one side of the bridge and peering over the other side to see which stick floats by first. There is not much strategy needed, just the right current, but win or lose you won’t forget the moment.

I want to write a children’s book. It’s just that I am having a little trouble getting started. It’s not writer’s block, which I define as the inability to fill the blank page. It’s much bigger than that – it’s writer’s mock. I can’t decide which children’s classic I want to use as my spring board to fame and fortune.

The “Wicked,” series is being referred to as a parallel to Frank L. Baum’s “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.” Seems to me someone just stole Baum’s characters and used them as their own.

Frank Beddor has written “The Looking Glass Wars,” which the “Minneapolis Star Tribune” calls a reimagining of “Alice in Wonderland.” Has originality fallen out of favor? Go ask Alice - I think she’ll know.

The one that bothers me the most is “Return to the Hundred Acre Wood,” by David Benedictus. It tries to continue the story of Christopher Robin and friends. Unlike the way some childhoods end abruptly, Milne had ended that childhood story elegantly.

In the final pages of “The House at Pooh Corner,” Milne wrote how Christopher Robin tries to prepare his friend, the stuffed bear, for the unavoidable change they will experience when Christopher Robin grows up.

“Pooh, promise you won’t forget about me, ever. Not even when I’m a hundred.”

“How old shall I be then?”

“Ninety-nine.”

Pooh nodded. “I promise,” he said.

Why try and improve on a masterpiece? The copying of classics is a disturbing trend, but I may want to cash in on this plagiaristic party. So with that in mind I am toying with a couple ideas myself.

“No longer Velveteen, this rabbit is mean,” is a story of how the Velveteen Rabbit, joins up with a gang of rabbits from Watership Down. Hopping a train they travel to Pottersville where they bake Old man McGregor in a pie. The little rabbit then marries Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail. After all, why should marriage be confined to just one man and one woman?

“Green Scales,” finds Jackie Paper and Puff “The Magic Dragon,” reunited again in Honah Lee. Having lost all of his money supporting his drug habit, Jackie searches for his life-long friend along the Cherry Lane. There they join up with a band of pirates, and using the autumn mist as cover, they raid the yachts of noble kings and princes.

To try and add pages to a classic children’s book and call it your own seems wrong. But to borrow pages from the same book to make a memory with your children on a summer afternoon seems about right. Someday my children may have fun with their children dropping sticks in a river and watching them float away. Or maybe, they may borrow a page from their dad’s writing to make a memory.

Favorite Time of Year

Mom used to warn me about wishing my life away. Whenever I would look past the present and concentrate on some future event she would remind me that each day has its own blessings and should be appreciated. I don’t think her reasoning applies to the long winter months though.

Abraham Lincoln said “It is true that you may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all the time.” To this I would add – but you can fool yourself most of the time.

This is a good time of year to engage in such an exercise. We have not had an exceptionally beautiful fall this year – rather below average actually, but with the proper perspective this time of year seems to fly by.

The autumn days can be very labile. I chose labile, which means liable to change because my smart aleck sister, Colleen, used it in a sentence the other day and I didn’t know what it meant – so I looked it up.

We are enjoying less sunlight, the days are getting shorter and the pumpkin is rotting on the step. I know it won’t last; the good things never do. There is nothing like wind, rain and snow to push a guy indoors where he can relax.

November and December just don’t last long enough. Thanksgiving and Christmas dominate the months with one long holiday season. Thanksgiving is only three weeks away, and then bam – the biggest shopping day of the year.

Only a heretic could ignore the hectic, chaotic Christmas season. I haven’t even started my shopping yet (my very wise father-in-law always did his on December 24th). The calendar is already filling up with parties and events. I just don’t know when I’ll have the time to get all of those Christmas cards addressed.

We all know about January – it just rushes past. You are just getting through Christmas with the gifts, the comings and goings of all the relatives, and then wham – Happy New Year. There are more parties to attend, and you have to find time to stand in line to secretly return the gift that you had gazed at with glee declaring “I love it.”

Where does the time go? Why it seems like just last year ... of course it was just last year wasn’t it? (Feel free to use that joke early in January.) I barely have time to get all of my thank-you notes written before I flip the page and say hello to February – the shortest month of the year.

There is not a lot of pre-scheduled activity in February, which is a good thing as it gives you plenty of time for all of those indoor winter activities you have been looking forward to: playing board games, doing cross-word puzzles, latch-hooking rugs, putting together jig-saw puzzles, finding the jumper cables and drinking hot-chocolate.

Before you know it, March comes roaring in. Unfortunately, March has a reputation for becoming a bit sheepish at the end of the month. This month simply cannot be relied on for consistent good old-fashioned winter weather. Oh sure, people say “March can be your snowiest month,” but that’s just wishful thinking because with spring around the corner the snow just doesn’t have any staying power. But for now let’s live it up, for soon enough winter will be gone.

I am not fooling myself. It’s going to be a long winter, and I won’t wish it away. There are many things to enjoy right now.

Books Smell Good

Do people still press leaves between the pages of a book? Before electronics took over our lives, a nice autumn afternoon could be spent collecting leaves of various colors, sizes and shapes. The leaves were then taken back home and placed between the pages of a book. There they would stay, perhaps forgotten until next year. We haven’t had many nice autumn afternoons this year and books are being threatened by electronic devices.

The other day I was paying for some books at Barnes & Noble when the clerk handed me an advertisement for their new electronic device. Nook is the newest gadget designed to complicate our lives.

Like its competitors, Amazon’s Kindle and the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble’s Nook makes it possible to read the text of a book, magazine or newspaper on a portable electronic screen. The images can be ordered, downloaded and stored on the device where they are displayed on the screen. An electronic image of text on a computer screen is not a book – but the devices are being referred to as electronic books. I don’t like the reference – but I can’t change it. A book is paper, ink, glue, and binding. It has a physical heft, a friendly scent and pages to touch.

I studied the clerk as I took the ad from him. Did he know that he was unwittingly aiding in the demise of civilization? I looked around the store and saw people talking on their phones while they looked at magazines. I watched friends who at first glance appeared to be enjoying each other’s company over a cup of coffee, but instead were busy sending text messages. I wondered if they were communicating with an unseen person and ignoring their coffee partner, or maybe they had lost the art of snappy conversation and were corresponding with one another across the table.

I am a bit conflicted with this battle of old versus new. I actually like and use technology. I write (type?) these words using a computer; I then email (electronic mail) it to my editor. I refer to my Blackberry often and I no longer own a typewriter. It has been many years since I have sat down and wrote a letter using pen and paper, but there are only a handful of people who can read my handwriting anyway.

I suppose electronic books have a purpose and a place. Perhaps like the iPod which has made it easier to listen to your favorite music, electronic books will allow portable access to the written word – but I can’t help thinking that we are losing something along the way when we so readily grab the latest gadgets and place our past on the shelf.

It was either Twain or Einstein (I can’t find the reference, but it was some guy with white hair) that had developed a trick to wake himself from a nap. While reading a book in his chair he would start to nod off. Not wanting to sleep his life away he would hold the book with one hand over the edge of the chair and close his eyes. Just before he would slip into a deep sleep his hand would relax its grip on the book allowing it to crash to the floor. The sound would wake him and he could start reading again.

Using the same method with an electronic book would probably only work once or twice before you had to replace it.

I suppose someday I will surrender and buy such a device. But I should buy two for napping and pressing leaves.

Halloween

Next weekend is Halloween, the time of year where it becomes permissible to borrow someone else’s identity and panhandle, kind of like panning for gold and rocks, but this time candy is the sought after treasure. This is the season for trick-or-treating, watching “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown,” and playing dress-up.

My costume-donning experience goes back to the glory days of Halloween when a kid could get a year’s supply of teeth decaying treasure with only a few hours of effort.

My earliest memory of the hedonistic holiday is through the eye-holes of a suffocating plastic clown mask (the kind with the elastic string which becomes eternally entwined with your hair and rips it from its roots upon removal). I carried a brown grocery bag that confirmed the collection of the candy with a papery popping sound.

Using the station wagon as a base, my brothers and sisters and I would steal from patio to porch while Dad would carefully traverse the crowded streets so as to not send little ghosts and goblins to their graves.

Back home I sorted the candy on top of my blankets and buried the remaining booty underneath my bed. If carefully rationed over the long winter the supply could last until Easter when a fresh shipment was scheduled to be delivered.

When I went to college I gave up trick-or-treating because as everyone knows you are not supposed to take candy from strangers – and college is full of strange people. But then there were the costume parties. One year a few friends and I each bought matching long coats at Ragstock, some berets, a few squirt guns, and went as the French Resistance. I still smile when I think about it.

So as a public service, I am going to share some costume ideas. I make no promises regarding the ease of putting these together, but you should have plenty of time to get ready before the social event of the season: the neighborhood costume party.

For women - you can go as Sarah Palin; men you can dress up as Tim Pawlenty. Both of these characters, having become bored with being a governor, appear to be in the early stages of a presidential campaign. But what makes them prime candidates for parody is that they won’t admit to any future plans. So if you dress up as one of them you can spend the entire evening dodging questions, being evasive and talking in circles.

Couples could go as Kanye West and Taylor Swift and walk around interrupting one another and stealing each other’s microphones. Or, they could duct tape a camcorder conspicuously on their shoulder. Pretending to be a pimp and a prostitute, the couple could ask others for advice.

Carry around a small sheet of plastic. If you pretend it’s a teleprompter you would always have a prepared speech on display in front of you. This way you would never be at a loss for words.

Dress up as a census taker. By doing this you could ask anyone inappropriate questions, and when you are challenged merely reply: “I am from the government and I am here to help you.”

Go as the president and write stimulus checks to people, and then later on in the night you could hand out more money to bail them out.

Three or more individuals could go as an award’s committee and give out prizes for some future accomplishment that they hope will be achieved. For prizes give pebbles so the winners can say in their best Charlie Brown voice “I got a rock.”

An Extra Bag of Cookies

Occasionally for lunch I will have home-baked cookies garnished with a sandwich and a side of mandatory fruit and vegetables. This is when I bring my lunch to work. I don’t pack it – my wife does. It’s not that I require her do it – I just won’t do it. So, if she doesn’t pack me a lunch I will eat out.

When I was 16 I had a summer job driving the delivery truck at a lumber yard in Le Center. When I wasn’t out making deliveries, I would sit in the park and eat the lunch my sister Joanne had packed. After a couple days of this it dawned on me that my grandfather lived near by.

I didn’t bother to call; I walked there uninvited and unannounced. As I got close I saw him working in his garden.

The green work pants hung just above his black sensible shoes. His grey long sleeve shirt, buttoned at the cuffs and collar, would have hid his long underwear if not for the contrast of his dark skin against the white cotton. A drop of sweat clinging to the tip of his nose hinted of the July temperature. The only time he wore a hat was to church.

“Hi Grandpa, remember me?”

He studied me through his glasses as he held his hoe.

“No, no. I can’t say that I do.”

I understood. I was no longer the little boy who “was seen and not heard.” I was now 16 – almost a man, or so I thought.

“I’m Tom’s son, Jerry.”

“Sure” he said, pronouncing the word as if it had two syllables.

I told him that I was working at the lumberyard, and that if he liked I could stop for lunch sometimes. I don’t know if he had planned on eating lunch that day but he invited me in.

I sat at the table for two in the kitchen while he cooked his potatoes and fatty meat. I politely waited to open my lunch box until he sat down with his lunch. He poured each of us a glass of milk (whole I’m sure) – because as he liked to say “milk is not only a drink, it is also a food.”

Joanne always included a bag of cookies in my lunch so I offered to share them with Grandpa on that first day.

“That’s your lunch, what will you eat then?”

The next day Joanne packed a bag of cookies for Grandpa. When I handed the cookies to him I explained that Joanne had baked them for him.

“That’s very nice”, he whispered as he pushed his glasses up from underneath to rub the tears from his eyes.

We shared many hours together that summer, eating in that small kitchen. Sometimes I would stop with the truck and he would tell me to “be careful with that big thing.”

“I have seen many changes,” he said as he told me of the days when a horse was the only transportation available, then when money allowed a nice buggy was purchased.

Then tractors and cars replaced horses. Soon people flew in airplanes and man went to the moon. Grandpa said that with every change he thought that this was as far as we could go.

He looked at me and asked “What will it be like you are my age?”

I didn’t have an answer then and I won’t for another 40 years. But when I am 90 I hope I am healthy enough to entertain a grandchild in my home. I just hope they bring some cookies to share.

Wood Heat

Dad once told me “when you heat with wood it warms you twice,” meaning that you are heated by the physical exertion of cutting the tree down and then again when you burn it. I must be doing something wrong because I know I get sweaty at least five or six times, and that’s if everything goes right.

Or maybe I am just really out of shape. The cutting, hauling, splitting, stacking, and carrying all drive the chill from me – and that’s before I ever strike a match. I know that no one is making me do this – but I haven’t purchased firewood in over twenty years. I just burn the wood I cut down on my own place, and it’s not because I am looking for something to do.

Last year we decided to add on a garage to our old farm house so I cut down several trees to make room. I should have cut down one more though. I was backing out of the new driveway while having a discussion with my wife. We were on opposite sides of an issue and I was pointing out why her perspective was incorrect when I hit a tree. My truck emits a warning sound when you get too close to an object – but apparently it becomes useless at ramming speed. The next day I broke a sweat cutting that tree down.

When I am using a chain saw I get a little nervous as I consider what can go wrong and remember that which has gone wrong. I have an old pair of coveralls that have an ugly laceration right along the belt line. I also parted with some jeans that almost became one leg cut-offs.

One could argue that because I am so easily distracted I may not be the best guy to use a chainsaw. My father did not have the same freedom to daydream when he was clearing trees on his father’s farm.

Dad learned to fell trees at the other end of a lumberman’s saw (a long saw with a handle at each end). Just by looking at one you can almost hear the rhythmical sawing sound of two men working in concert.

He had spent many winter days in the woods with his father harvesting next year’s cooking and heating fuel. A team of horses would drag the logs back to the farm. Once they were cut again to the proper length Dad would us an axe to split the logs.

Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease sometime around his retirement. Before the disease had its way with him he helped me split wood in the barn. I had purchased a gas-powered hydraulic wood splitter and I was anxious to use it with him. I enjoyed that afternoon with Dad - the easy conversation, the laughter, and the creaking and cracking sound the wood made as it was reluctantly ripped in two.

The best way to learn from Dad was to spend time in the classroom with him. He taught me that stringy, sinewy elm would split cleanly when it was frozen, the easiest way to split a log was with the direction of the growth of the tree, and don’t be in such a hurry.

That was the last time I used the splitter. Within a few months it became impossible for Dad to stand without assistance. I sold the splitter, so now when I split wood I do it the old fashioned way - I use an axe, splitting wedge and a maul. I am warmed and I think of Dad.

Stoves and Strangers

As autumn hit the calendar last week I wanted to start a fire. Because as the saying kind of goes “In the autumn a rural man’s fancy rightly turns to thoughts of burning wood.” Tennyson said it much better, but I am talking about autumn and wood, not spring and love.

Several years I neglected to clean the chimney before I started the wood-fired cook stove for the first time. Usually that wouldn’t be so bad, except on that evening our house was part of some “Christmas Gala Holiday Tour of Homes.” It’s a crazy concept: Strangers (who supposedly had purchased a ticket) roam about your house as if they owned the place, and on top of it you are expected to be okay with the arrangement.

On the afternoon of the invasion I helped by starting a fire. I fired up the cook stove to make sure it was ready. Immediately the smoke began to back up into the house – normally not a big deal. I have this routine that I go through when this happens: I open the door and windows in the kitchen, grab a large floor fan, strap on the oxygen tank and try again. Except this time the smoke continued to pour out the stove. So now the house is really smoky and my wife, Rhonda, is getting nervous; strangers are coming over in a few hours and she wants to make a good impression. I tell her the chimney just needs to be cleaned.

I climb up on the roof and shove a metal brush down the stove pipe a few times. Back in the house I take the stove apart to remove the creosote from the bottom of the pipe. I do this in the kitchen. Inside the chimney I find quite a bit of the black powder, so I go to the barn and grab a metal pail. While standing on a chair I begin to fill the pail which is balanced on the stove. Then things got a little worse.

Just as the pail was almost full it slipped and crashed to the floor. For a brief moment the room was shrouded behind a black curtain. Then the sticky, smelly powder settled and blanketed every surface – including the seasonally adorned kitchen table which was set for the trespassers. It was then Rhonda began to cry.

I did my best to assure her that in spite of how things looked they were under control. I grabbed the wet/dry vacuum and began to clean up. But something went wrong and the vacuum began to spew the contents out its backside. I tried to clean the vacuum filter in the house before Rhonda strongly suggested that I do that outside. Well, since I couldn’t get that vacuum to work I grabbed the house vacuum and proceeded to wreck that as well.

By now our son, Nathan, had stepped in to try and save the day. He knows how to fix things. He also knows that I am capable of screwing things up. But as I tell him, “I do these things so you don’t have to.” He miraculously fixed the house vacuum, even though I had offered to run out and buy a new one (or two).

With the windows still wide open the temperature in the kitchen had dropped to about 38 degrees Fahrenheit – a little too cool for entertaining complete strangers. I put the stove back together and restarted the fire with time to spare.

Before I could “help” anymore, Rhonda suggested that I welcome our guests by starting a bonfire outside.

Family Tree

Last Saturday I helped my friend Mark trim some of the trees at his family’s home. He didn’t need me, just my saw. I know very little about the horticultural reasons to prune a tree. I once asked my Dad when the best time to trim a tree was. “The wind doesn’t care what season it is,” he said.

I understand if pruning is done properly it can improve the health of the tree, protect the branch structure, and in fruit trees it can enhance the size and quality of the crop. But our task wasn’t for that purpose.

We removed a few branches that were bothering the shingles on the roof of his house, and we sawed off a dead limb or two, but mostly it was an exercise in improving the aesthetics of the place. You see his daughter is getting married this Saturday and he wants the place to look nice.

In our 35-plus years together Mark has done just about everything before me – he is seven months older, stronger and better looking - so it is only natural that he leads the way here. Mark knows I have been watching him for signs, for clues on how a man should act when his daughter gets engaged to be married.

Mark was there in 1970 to welcome me - “the new kid,” when I walked into Mr. Peterson’s sixth-grade class. Because of him my school years became fun. Because he is older than me and grew up in the country he learned to drive before me. Back in those days one learned to drive before driver’s training class. One Saturday afternoon Mark taught me how operate a stick-shift.

We were at his dad’s gravel pit when I climbed into the driver’s seat of a mid-60’s Chevrolet pickup (he’ll clue me in on the correct model year later). It was a three speed - “three on the tree.” I’m sure neither one of us had our driver’s license yet, but Mark was committed to show me how to use a clutch in the safety of a gravel pit.

When learning any thing new the first lesson doesn’t always go well, and on that particular summer day the lesson went rather badly. As I let out the clutch with the truck in first gear we hit a large pot hole in the road. The sudden jolt threw both of us violently forward in the cab.

Bracing my legs against the floor of the truck I pressed the gas pedal all the way down while leaving the brake and clutch untouched. I panicked and froze while the truck took off for the moon. Bouncing and screaming through space the truck drove right through a fish house, knocked the blade off of a road-grader and crash landed on a large pile of sand.

We walked away without a bump or a bruise. Other than the need to maintain control while driving I’m afraid that the only thing we learned that day was as long as you could walk away everything was going to be OK. It would be many years until life’s lessons started to stick.

This Saturday Mark will go through yet another door before me. He will walk up the aisle with his daughter Erin, and then from his place of honor he will watch as she walks back down with her husband.

So last weekend when we were trimming trees at his house it may have served a larger purpose. Mark was getting ready to make room for some new growth on the family tree.

Keeping Good Company

There is an old saying that has been loosely translated from the ancient Greeks: “A man is known by the company he keeps,” or if you’d rather “birds of a feather, gather together.” My mother and father were keenly interested in knowing who my friends were. They knew that “running with the wrong crowd,” would influence my behavior, or perhaps even be a reflection or an indicator of whom I wanted to be.

They were right of course. My dreams, desires and goals of whom I hoped to be, and what I wanted to accomplish guided me in my selection of companions. Even in a small town there were options. There were the “good boys,” - law abiding, studious types. Their close cousins were the fun-loving, trouble-makers - nice guys, but with a glint and a grin. The next group was the juvenile delinquents; Mom closed the confirmation hearings there.

According to my Mom these boys were headed for prison, or at least reform school. Dad had driven me by these brick and stone structures enough times for me to know that I did not want to end up inside. But just to make sure that the point wasn’t missed Dad would remind me that “unless you shape up that’s where you’ll be.”

My choice of friends, confirmed by my parents, was a good predictor of how an evening and even the rest of my life was going to turn out. Even as an adult it is my friends that I rely on for support and guidance. These are the people I turn to when I am in trouble, or when I need help with something. They share similar values and beliefs. They are my trusted advisors.

Nepotism is the granting of favors to friends and relatives. It is a word to describe what everyone realizes and accepts: It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. President Obama is doing what everyone does when they are elected to office – surrounding himself with his friends and comrades, people he trusts who have similar values and beliefs. But he is taking it a mile further than the inch given him.

He has appointed Czars. Czars are special advisors to the President chosen by the President. They are paid positions with authority given only by the President. It also appears that they are answerable only to the President.

The past four Presidents have appointed czars as well. Ronald Reagan and George H. Bush each appointed one, Bill Clinton three, and George W. Bush appointed four. But so far President Obama has appointed over thirty czars – some with very radical views, and there are indications that his czar appointments will exceed forty. But these are not just advisors; these czars have power and truckloads of cash to spend.

Even among Democrats there is concern over this grab for power. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), the most senior member of the Senate serving continuously since 1959, wrote President Obama to express his strong objection.

"The rapid and easy accumulation of power by White House staff can threaten the Constitutional system of checks and balances. At the worst, White House staff have taken direction and control of programmatic areas that are the statutory responsibility of Senate-confirmed officials.”

The framers of the Constitution guarded against placing too much power in any one branch. President Obama is upsetting the delicate balance between the three branches of government by purposely surpassing the confirmation process held by Congress. But with or without confirmation hearings for his czars, President Obama shall be known by the company he keeps.

Pendulum Swings

It’s that time of year when I fall asleep at night listening to the crickets. According to The Farmer’s Almanac you can determine the temperature by counting the number of chirps in 14 seconds (I always thought it was 15) and then add 40 (again I was wrong - I had that number at 45).

To accomplish this you need another person to count or have a stopwatch for this scientific experiment. You should also verify your findings with a reliable source – a weather channel or Web site, even a thermometer should do the trick – but by then the whole house is awake and everyone wonders what you are up to when you should be sleeping. Oh yeah - the hotter it is the faster you have to count.

Sometimes it’s too hot to sleep without the air conditioner on. Usually though a fan can do the trick. I like the cool breeze and the dull hum it emits. Growing up in a house without air conditioning meant a fan or two was usually spinning during the summer time.

Mom would have a fan moving the air around so we didn’t choke. We only had two fans (a large floor model that could change your voice when you spoke into it, and a smaller table top model). My sisters got the small one for their room; the other sat in the hallway between the room I shared with my brothers and my parent’s room.

We had the back end of the fan because Mom said it would pull the hot air out of our room. I guess she forgot about the windows being open and all of that hot air just waiting outside to stifle us as it was dragged across our beds. I think that either she wanted Dad to be cooler so he could sleep, or she was trying to amplify our voices with the fan so she could learn all of our secrets. Either way we were hot.

Now when I am having a restless night’s sleep I turn the chime off on the grandfather clock – otherwise my sleep is interrupted four times an hour – or I find myself counting the bells when the clock rings on the hour. As I ponder the pendulum which is kept swinging by gravity’s pull on the weights in the clock I think of Isaac Newton (not really – but humor me).

Newton was the guy who thought of gravity when he observed an apple fall from a tree (or being dropped on his head if you prefer the cartoon version). He also developed his three laws of motion. Maybe Newton was also kept awake by a clock.

In his book “Inventions and Discoveries,” Rodney Carlisle wrote that Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch mathematician, “…had published a study of the pendulum clock … upon which Newton later formulated the complete laws of motion.” Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

On October 30th, 2008 just a few days before he was elected President, Sen. Barack Obama said at Missouri University in Columbia. “We are five days from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Missouri is “The show-me state,” and President Obama has showed Missouri and the rest of the country that he does indeed mean to change our country.

But when things are pushed too far, the pendulum swings back the other way hard and fast. I think this is what is happening in this country. The citizens are sensing that things are getting out of balance and are pushing back. It’s time.

Leave A Wake To Support Others

Sunday my family and I spent the day at my wife’s brother’s home on Sugar Lake. Well, technically his house is not on the lake, it sits near the shore where the waves created by the wake of boats lap irregularly – but why go through all of that fuss explaining it when most people know what you mean.

I guess that most everyone in Minnesota knows somebody who lives on the lake where they are welcome to hang out on a beautiful summer day. Sunday was one of those days. The weather was almost perfect – partly cloudy with temperatures in the high 60’s.

One of my favorite summer activities is to ride on a boat and cruise the shoreline looking at the lake homes and cabins. I try to arrange my social calendar so that this happens more than once a summer. I am struck by the immense variety of dwellings. They range from the seasonal campers and rustic sixty-year old cabins, to the estates of the very wealthy.

The variety of boats also catches my attention. But instead of embarrassing myself by attempting to impress you with my limited knowledge of the many styles of watercraft, allow me to do so with just one particular type of boat: Wakeboard boats.

Wakeboard boats are designed to displace large amounts of water which results in a very large wake behind the boat. So instead of being strapped into skis, the person being pulled stands or kneels on a “board.” This combination of boat and board allows for tricks and stunts not easily accomplished with a typical ski boat. Sunday I watched a guy “surfing” behind a boat. What I found amazing was that this guy was keeping up to the boat without the use of a rope. I have to get out more.

I have been going up to Sugar Lake for about thirty years. My first time was with my girlfriend to visit her grandparents at their lake cabin. Over those thirty years the ownership of that cabin, which has grown and changed to a year-round home, has passed from father to son twice. During that time my girlfriend became my wife.

Thirty years ago I was in college at St. Cloud State University when I shook Ted Kennedy’s hand. He had just finished delivering a speech to an audience of college students. The next day in my Speech Communication’s class most of us could not recall what the Senator had said, but we defended our shortcomings by saying “the delivery was amazing.”

By now we all know that Ted Kennedy passed away recently. Last week there was an article in Politico titled “The wide wake left by Ted Kennedy’s legacy.” This serious article pointed out the void that will be felt by the passing of a man with forty-seven years in the U.S. senate.

But I think that his sister’s passing is just as significant. Eunice Kennedy Shriver also died this past August. She is credited with founding The Special Olympics in 1968, the same year her brother Robert was killed. The Special Olympics now has over 3 million athletes in 150 countries.

The Kennedys, with John, Bobby, Camelot and all of that were America’s royalty. I think my Mom saved every Life and Look magazine that had a Kennedy on the cover. But now with two more of the family gone that era is slipping away.

Our lives are like boats that create waves which role and roil across the water with an ever-increasing span. We should try to leave a wake that supports others by our presence.

Health For Sale

This column is too controversial for some readers. Last week I compared President Obama’s 1,000 plus page proposal for our nation’s health care to a clogged freeway with no exits. I still like that analogy, but naturally everyone does not agree with me. After the column appeared in the paper someone suggested to me that my opinion, now made public, was biased because of my occupation. They had even written a letter about it.

This person told me that because I am an insurance agent I never should have written about the government’s attempted takeover of our health care system – or at the very least, I should have mentioned what I do for a living.

I like the English language – both spoken and written. I try to never be misunderstood, just ask my family and friends. I am certain that I drive them crazy as I constantly seek the right word, and all too often suggest a better word for my conversation partner. I will seek clarity to the point of annoyance. Welcome to my strange little world. But last week I may have failed in that area. It wasn’t what I wrote in my column, it’s what I didn’t.

I should have disclosed that people can purchase health insurance from me. This is my fortieth column (counting the twelve that appeared in the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune), and I’m pretty sure that this is the first time that I have mentioned how I make my living. That has been by design. Newspapers have advertising departments and this column is not ad space – so I have chosen not to take advantage of my editor’s good graces by selling my wares in these six-hundred words. I will not change that. Nor am I likely to change my perspective – but know this for sure: this column will never be a place to protect my personal interests by promoting a position in which I seek to pad my pockets.

But I wondered – have some of my past columns been tainted by my own dark secrets? It’s time to come clean. A couple years ago the “Minneapolis Star-Tribune” ran my column on the shameful way people litter. Well, to be perfectly honest I have littered myself. Occasionally I will spit my gum out the window of my truck – but only in unpopulated areas when no one is looking. I’m trying to quit.

Once or twice in this space I have expressed my displeasure with the way smokers are being treated as second-class citizens. I don’t smoke, but I do keep a box of candy cigarettes in my desk for fun – so I guess in a way I was being biased. Sorry.

My column about turning fifty years old was just a thinly veiled attempt to get more birthday cards. I’m embarrassed to tell you that it didn’t work. My story about the mythical man in the icehouse is the first part in a book series I am planning: Jerry and the mystery of the vending machines.

When I wrote about the Scott County Fair a few weeks ago I didn’t mention that my wife enters a lot of stuff (baked goods and vegetables) in the fair. I guess this could be perceived as promoting her seasonal hobby. I’ll be more careful next year (the fair, just outside of Jordan, is usually held the 4th weekend in July – watch this space).

I understand that there are three things you are never supposed to talk about because they are too controversial. I have covered politics; next I may tackle religion – but the third one? No thanks.

Road With No Exit

The other day I was about to get on Interstate Highway 94, but instead of a fast-moving freeway I saw two-lanes of cars sitting motionless all the way to the horizon. Because I refuse to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit, I pulled over and stopped.

I knew this particular stretch of highway well. It was the route I took back and forth to college when I was learning how to change the world. The next exit was too far up the road to hope for another opportunity to get off anytime soon.

I could follow the other sheep to slaughter where I would sit on the highway going nowhere for hours, or I could back down the entrance ramp and look for another way home. My wife, being the law-abiding type, strongly voiced her opposition to my exit plan. I like to comply with her requests when I can. I don’t advocate breaking the law –including traffic laws, but to add my vehicle to a monstrous traffic jam would have been irresponsible.

When I got off the ramp I noticed cars and trucks were leaving the highway in a slow parade and were now exiting the entrance ramp – kind of like walking down an escalator that is going up. I was pleased to see that others were also not content to just sit there, but instead chose to try and improve their situation. We may still have enough rebels in this country after all.

So after I got off the ramp I got on a beautiful back country road and headed in the general direction of home. We drove through several forgotten little towns with their distinctive identities; one had an old flour mill sitting serenely by a small river. We could even roll down the windows and enjoy the summer day without being blown apart by 75 mph winds.

It’s nice to have options: The option of what road to take, where to live, work, worship and how to control your own health care. But the freedom of choosing your own health care is under attack.

President Obama has been pushing very hard to get our country to adopt his public option for government run health care, that if enacted would eventually eliminate all other options. The proposal, over 1,000 pages long, is filled with rules and regulations concerning you and your family and how the government will wrest more control of your own lives.

I understand that the current way we pay for our health care is flawed – but let’s not reinvent the wheel just because the tire is flat. But when I see the pressure, the coercion behind this rush to take over our nation’s health care I keep coming back to the same question: Why? Why is there so much effort being extended to take over one-sixth of our economy? I believe it is because the government wants more power and control over our lives.

Try to exit that road once you’re on it. It would be slow, crowded, poorly maintained and stacked with toll-booths. Our health care would only go one-way – just like an interstate.

Within the past few days President Obama seems ready to temporarily shelve his idea of government-run health insurance. It appears that the voice of the American people may be making a difference. I guess enough people finally said “no you can’t,” and got off the Obama highway.

No one wants to voluntarily submit to captivity on a road that isn’t advancing and offers no options for an exit.

The Ice Man

It’s a hot August night, so I put on some Neil Diamond and grab a drink. I usually won’t add ice to a drink. I like to let the temperature of the drink stand on its own – no need in trying to affect change just to suit me. If it is served right out of the box or bottle – well so be it. It may be a lazy choice, or it might be due to a childhood experience that has stayed with me.

I grew up in a neighborhood where fun and adventure was always available. There were abandoned brewery caves, horses corralled next door, a farm down the street, vacant lots, a tired-out gravel pit, a livestock sales barn, the river, an empty church with a full cemetery, highways and alleys, 106 kids and Hespy’s.

Hespy’s was a gas station on the corner of two busy streets. There were usually two uniformed men working there – Hespy, the owner, (a shortened version of his last name), and his faithful mechanic – Vern, I think. They proudly pumped Texaco brand gasoline.

Our lawn mower ran exclusively on Texaco gas. When the need arose I would grab the red one-gallon metal can marked gasoline and bike down to Hespy’s. Because it was a full-service gas station, Vern or Hespy himself would fill the can and take the 35 cents. While they did that I would check out the candy machine.

They had the best candy machine in town. For a nickel you could buy a candy bar the size of your arm. The machine was tall with a big dial on the side to rotate the display. Once your selection was brought into the right spot, you pulled the knob to release the sugary goodness. I would ride home with one hand holding the full gas can, the other hand maneuvering the bike, and my mouth full of candy.

But the single most vivid memory of Hespy’s involved the icehouse. Behind the gas station was an icehouse where you could buy ice in two different sizes: the block and the bag. Other than for ice-carving I still don’t fully understand the need for a block of ice.

As little boys my brother Dan and I would often go along with Dad to get ice. The short trip chilled us with fear and foreboding as Dad would fire our imaginations with stories of the little man that lived in the icehouse. If you gave him enough money he would give you some of his ice.

A vision of a Rumpelstiltskin-type character inhabiting the icehouse was usually more than enough to keep the two of us away. But one time we had worked up enough courage to seek a little adventure and see if this was just another of Dad’s stories.

We rode our bikes over to Hespy’s and slowly approached the icehouse. In addition to the smaller door where the ice was delivered there was a larger door – which we guessed was how the iceman got in and out.

Dan knocked on the door to test the truth of Dad’s story. We stood there for only a few seconds before the door slowly started to open. That was the only proof we needed – the iceman was coming. We screamed, jumped on our bikes and pedaled for our lives.

I don’t know who opened that door forty years ago. My friend Mark likes to remind me that “ice is life’s least expensive luxury.” But whenever I am offered ice for my drink I feel a familiar chill run down my back.

“No thanks,” I say.

Cash for Clunkers

I like to start my day with a cup of coffee, and if my wife Rhonda is hanging around the kitchen, I am also offered a tall glass of tomato juice. I don’t really like tomato juice, but I drink it because my wife poured it for me, even if it causes me to shudder and shiver as I swallow it.

I get the same convulsive reaction when I try to swallow the economic elixirs sold by modern day snake-oil salesman dressed up as politicians. They travel from town to town where they put on their town-hall meetings. There they promote their products which promise to cure everything from hair-loss to job-loss, recession to depression, and stomach gas to greenhouse gas.

The Cash for Clunkers program is our federal government’s latest con in their attempt to get us to voluntarily transform our country. For the last couple weeks I have been scrutinizing my vehicles. Within my stable of V-8s I think I may have a clunker or two. That is of course if I am to embrace the government’s new definition – which of course I will not. A vehicle with a model year of 1984 or newer which gets 18 miles per gallon or less is now considered a clunker by our federal government. They want to get these large, safe family-sized vehicles off the road – and they will take your money to do it.

I know people who have taken advantage of this new plan – I don’t blame them. But let’s consider the future consequences of this program. When a vehicle is sacrificed to appease the environmental gods, the government requires that its engine and drive-train be ruined.

Never mind that good quality used cars and trucks are being destroyed in the name of progress. Never mind that some people simply cannot afford to pay for a new vehicle – even with a sizeable trade. These disadvantaged folks, who working two jobs in an attempt to make their own way, will no longer be able to find that “good-used car” down at Bob’s Bargain lot, because that car has been wrecked by the government with your tax dollars.

Never mind that the local repair shop will have fewer older cars and trucks to work on. Never mind that the used car market will be screwed-up for years to come. Better gas mileage is a noble aspiration – but it should not be forced. When the government artificially inflates a market it blows up. The housing market’s bubble burst, the same will also be true in an artificially inflated auto market.

The idea of trading in cars and trucks for more than they are worth really took hold with some people. People like a bargain, especially when their government is the one being loose with the purse strings. But the folks in Washington grossly underestimated the response to their offer. The Federal government’s Cash for Clunkers program, which started with $1 billion of your money, has now tripled the amount to $3 billion. Please remember this ridiculous margin for error whenever anyone talks to you about government controlled anything (health care, bail-outs, taxes etc.).

If this pattern of hope and change continues unfettered we will someday realize that when we traded our clunkers for cash we unwittingly gave away our freedom and liberty. The government is tightening its grip on what kinds of cars and trucks are built, sold, driven and destroyed. When the last big block Chevy Truck is silenced slap yourself in the forehead and say “I could have had a V-8, but I let the government take it away.”

County Fair

What is there do in Minnesota in the summer time? The answer is not that simple as there are many choices available.

There is fishing and camping of course – neither of which I like well enough to plan for. I usually like to be spontaneous – but with a little planning you can find a fair or festival to attend every weekend. But, this week you should start with Derby Days in Shakopee. In addition to the parade, there are free concerts, a car show, sidewalk sales and other activities. Derby Days is Shakopee’s own fair - so get out and enjoy it.

Last weekend it was the Scott County Fair. My kids are past the 4-H years but I still go to the fair once or twice a season. This year was no different. I looked at the tractors even though they wouldn’t let me sit on them and play farmer. I also had fun walking through the travel trailers and motor homes. Here I was allowed to sit and play camper, but they wouldn’t let me use the bathrooms. I had to find one of those lovely portable models for that task. There are so many rules to follow.

Of course most county fairs have a midway. Here colors and lights come together to form a family-friendly fantasy land. All traveling fun-shows offer the same opportunities. You can spin your self sick on rides that are torn-down and put-together every five days or so as they rotate from town to town. But if making your self nauseous doesn’t appeal to you, there are games where you are promised to win a fabulous prize every time you play.

I cruised through the Commercial, 4-H, and the Creative Arts buildings. My wife Rhonda likes to look at ALL the stuff in these buildings. But if I spend too much time there, things start to happen to me: I begin to vegetate viewing the carrots and cabbages; get quite sleepy concentrating on the quilts; and get bored with the wood projects. It’s just me, but I need to keep moving so I don’t get stuck in front of the preserves.

But it is the barns that make the fair (I’ll get to the food in a minute). In my opinion the animal barns define the fair. It is because of these structures and their contents that fairs even came to exist. Here you can get close enough to touch and smell the animals

When I stopped in at the swine barn they had one particular plump pig in his pen. You could guess his weight and win a prize. I don’t do well at those contests as I don’t want to risk insulting the poor pig. I usually guess in the low hundreds – you know to encourage the pig into shedding some of those extra pounds. They don’t need all that sloppy fat.

From there I walked to the pork producer’s stand and grabbed a pork burger. Yeah, I know – it’s a strange turn of events. I had also heard from a very reliable source that the pork chop on a stick was worth the money. It was perhaps the finest pork chop I had ever tasted. Granted $5.00 is more than enough for such a treat – but if we don’t do our part the terrorists win.
The irony of it all hits me. You can walk from barn to booth and eat what you just saw - with a few exceptions. I’m hoping that the horse barn is one of those exceptions. It’s best not to ask too many questions though.

Christmas all year long

The holiday shopping season is here. I read that Sears, K-mart and Toys “R” Us are having Christmas sales this month. It used to be that retailers would wait until after Thanksgiving to start the madness. Not long ago the season hopped to Halloween, leaped over Labor Day and jumped into July.

Now that the Christmas season is upon us (with only 160 shopping days left) I need to check my local listings to see when “It’s A Wonderful Life” will be on. I consider it to be one of the great Christmas movies, right up there with “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” If you have wisely spent a couple hours of your life watching the 1946 movie starring Jimmy Stewart, read on. But if you haven’t seen it, then put it on the list and read this column later as it may ruin any surprises the movie may hold.

Because the story revolves around one pivotal Christmas Eve, the movie is considered seasonal, which is why it is suitable for viewing during the newly expanded Christmas shopping season. Although 63 years old, the movie has a message that still applies today.

The hero of the movie is George Bailey, played by Jimmy Stewart. Due to events beyond his control, George shelves his dream of going to college to become an architect. Sacrificing his own goals, he stays home to run the family business - the Bailey Building and Loan Association. Later on in the movie it becomes clear that George saves the town and its people from financial ruin. George expects no hand-outs, requests no government aid, and accepts no bail-outs.

We could use more of that kind of thinking now. Our government is turning us into a nation of takers. Most of us would agree that we should not expect something for nothing. The more “benefits” that are given to the many, the more taxes will be taken from the few. It is simple mathematics. Real freedom is economic freedom: the freedom to save and spend your own money as you see fit.

George’s adversary is Old Man Potter, played by Lionel Barrymore. Potter is mean, ruthless and friendless, and in the words of George Bailey “a warped, frustrated old man.” Potter has his own agenda: Control of the finances and lives of the town’s residents. In his quest for power Potter takes advantage of every crisis.

During a visit to Potter’s office, George’s Uncle Billy mislays $8,000 from the building and loan association. Unable to find the money, and unwilling to face the shame, George decides to take his own life. Although no amount of money is justification for suicide, $8,000 is a lot of money, even today.

Our elected officials in Washington do not understand the value of a dollar. They have failed in their fiduciary responsibility to spend our money wisely. Whether it is regarding another stimulus package, government controlled health care or the federal budget, the amount of $1 trillion is mentioned too casually and too frequently.

Allow me to illustrate the shamefully obscene amount of money they are talking about. You would have to watch “It’s A Wonderful Life,” 125 million times to see Uncle Billy misplace the equivalent of $1 trillion dollars in $8,000 increments. That’s a lot of popcorn and bathroom breaks.

For life to remain wonderful, our government needs to stop spending like it’s Christmas time. For someday we may hear this public service announcement: “Attention shoppers: Uncle Sam’s store is now closed. We have run out of your money.”

Fifty Years

I am now middle-aged and plan to live “happily ever after.” By the time you read this I will have celebrated my 50th birthday. In the last couple months it has become clear to me that I should have bought stock in Hallmark and American Greetings. During that time my two sisters have rubbed this half century milestone in my face by sending me birthday cards (the mean kind) almost every day. One of them even signed me up for AARP.

I have learned a thing or two over the last five decades. So, in this week’s column I will do something rather presumptuous – I will share some of my observations.

No matter what anyone tells you, pasta should not be baked on a cookie sheet. It works for cookies however. But before you bake the cookies in the oven, have a generous helping of cookie dough; because raw cookie dough often tastes better than the finished product (I ignore the salmonella risk). My personal favorite is chocolate-chip oatmeal.

Dessert should be eaten first. Don’t listen to any of that “you’ll ruin your appetite,” business. You are more likely to have enough “room” at the beginning of the meal (unless you filled up on cookie dough) so take advantage of it. As age becomes more of an issue it’s wise not to put off the best part of the meal until later – because you just never know.

I like traveling light, but the amount of clothing needed for a long trip can make that difficult - so I have developed a system. It takes a little planning but the result can be rather liberating.

The next time you find a hole in your socks or underwear – don’t discard them: Put them in your suitcase, or if soiled throw them in the laundry to be cleaned for your next trip. If given enough time you can stockpile a nice supply of vacation clothing.

Now comes the fun part. At the end of each travel day you simply throw the condemned article in the garbage (be sure to remove any name tags to guard against identity theft of an embarrassing nature). By the end of your trip you will have plenty of room for souvenirs, or your traveling companion’s clothes. They may have ridiculed you previously, but they will be seeking your favor by the end of the trip.

Go to your class reunions; this may be the last chance you have to talk with people who shared your childhood. Stay in touch with family and friends - someday you won’t be able to.

Church is the best place to be on Sunday mornings. The second best place to be is the buffet line at a restaurant serving brunch.

Tip generously. A little extra will not be missed by you, but it will mean a lot to your server. When possible, spend money to save time, rather than the other way around. Money can be made again, but time can never be replaced. Children spell love T-I-M-E.

Read to children and spend time with the elderly. Pay close attention to what your mother and father say, for someday you will repeat the same words to your children. Hear your children out, even when you disagree with them. It will give you an opportunity to understand them.

If you have a rock in your shoe, get rid of it. Why go through life annoyed and irritated? The world has enough cranky people walking around.

“Once upon a time,” can start today. Live your life in a way that will count for something meaningful.

The Fourth of July

There is an old riddle that asks – “Do they have a 4th of July in England?” Well of course the answer is yes – they just don’t celebrate it like we do. The 4th of July in America is the big day – the day we celebrate our independence. For without our liberty every other day would be very different.

I am not going to speculate about the ways this country would be different without individual freedom and liberty – I don’t have to. It’s happening before our eyes. But for now, let’s pretend everything is O.K. and let me regale you with a list of the Presidents who were born and died on July 4th. What they had to say concerning how government works and its relation to the people it serves is fit for application today.

John Adams, the 2nd President of The United States died on July 4th, 1826. His last words were “Thomas Jefferson still surv (ives).” But what he didn’t know was that Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President of our country, would also die the very same day. Jefferson’s last words: “This is the fourth?” Adams had wrote previously that “The happiness of society is the end of government,” meaning the goal of government is the happiness of society.

Perhaps this is what Thomas Jefferson was alluding to when he wrote in The Declaration of Independence: “We hold these to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

In 1809 Thomas Jefferson wrote to a group of citizen’s in Maryland that “The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Is it these words that President Obama is using to fuel his fervor for national health insurance, or do these same words give us pause when we debate the subject of how we care for the unborn?

President Jefferson was a prolific letter writer. In a letter to James Madison he said “…a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political worlds as storms in the physical.”

James Madison, the 4th President, broke tradition when he died just 6 days shy of July 4th on June 28th, 1836. In a speech given in 1788 he said that “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” President Madison forgot to tell us about the encroachments that are neither violent, nor gradual, and where the usurpations are both sudden and seen.

James Monroe, our 5th President, perhaps trying to reestablish a tradition, also died on the 4th of July (1831). In his inaugural address of 1817 he said “National honor is national property of the highest value.” Recently we have lost much of our national honor which has given our enemies the impression that we are weak and vulnerable.

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President, is the only President who was born on the 4th of July (1872). In a speech given to a group of newspaper editors in 1925 he declared “The chief business of America is business.” With government taking over banks, insurance companies, and auto maufacturers it should be restated as “The chief business of the government is taking over American business.”

Do we have the 4th of July in The United States of America? Of course, but are we losing our freedom and liberty?

I heard my Dad laugh today

Today, the first day of summer, I heard my Dad laugh, which is odd as he has been gone for over five years. Well, maybe “heard” is not the right word. But I could feel his laugh and then I imagined him asking me with that big broad smile of his, “What’s the matter Jer?”

I was going through my parent’s music collection and after listening to Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops, The Statler Brothers and Mitch Miller, I put in Nat King Cole. This was a CD I purchased for my parents in an attempt to right a wrong committed decades ago. As Nat started to sing, the CD skipped, and skipped and skipped again until I took it out to examine it. There was nothing wrong with it. Just like there had been nothing wrong with a record by the same artist.

My Dad loved to have music playing in the house. We grew up listening to Floyd Cramer, Percy Faith, The Ray Conniff singers, Fats Domino and many others. Dad even bought the Simon and Garfunkel Album “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” in 1970. He would put the record on the Hi-Fi (long before there was Wi-Fi) and crank up the volume on “Bye Bye Love”.

Back in the late ’60’s he had bought a record cleaner which promised to clean and preserve records for many years of listening pleasure, while at the same time restoring the record’s sound to its original quality.

The first record he chose to experiment on was one by Nat King Cole. Dad liberally sprayed the cloth with the cleaning solution and began to vigorously wipe both sides of the record. He had large hands and was able to get the job done rather quickly. After he was satisfied that the record had been properly cleansed of any impurities he placed it on the turntable.

The sound that came from the speakers was a sour, mournful moan. It was obvious: the record was ruined. It had been chemically altered and would never sound the same again. I, being a young vandal, recognized the opportunity.

“Can I have it?” I asked.

Without questioning my intentions Dad handed it over to me. I took the record and did something that I was forbidden to do, both by my parents and commonly recognized rules of decency. I grabbed a sharp tool and I scratched it. I scratched it deeply, numerously and insanely.

Then Dad read the directions which advised the user to let the record air dry before playing. I said I was sorry, but the damage was done. He threw the record in the garbage.

Now clearly, if Dad had read the directions, and if I had been less impulsive things would have been different. Because of that, and numerous other life lessons, I have learned to take things slower, more methodically; because some times – things get better when left alone.

One of my favorite quotes is “the serenity prayer.” As written by the author Reinhold Niebuhr in 1943: “God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”

I gave the CD a little cleaning for old time’s sake and tried it again. Nat King Cole sounded perfect. I could almost hear my Dad sing along.

“Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer
You’ll wish that summer could always be here.”

Father's Day

We used to get my Dad a tie every year for Father’s Day. One tie from five kids – that was it. Looking back that seems kind of cheap.

If my kids got me just a tie for Father’s Day, I would think I had done something wrong - kind of like the lump of coal that naughty boys get at Christmas. You see I am a bit flawed - I like stuff. I think I may be too materialistic. Although as I get older things means less and less to me as I have witnessed enough damage from moths and rust to know these treasures do not last.

We didn’t have an excessive amount of resources at our house when I was young. We ate butter sandwiches for lunch, and we rarely threw leftovers away. But, we were happy. Going to out to eat, even to McDonald’s, was a treat. We didn’t have pop in the house to grab on a whim, and Kool-Aid was a special drink.

My parents, like most of my friend’s folks, had grown up during the great depression. Mom had memories of eating beans three times a day and Dad talked about his mother feeding the men who walked the country side looking for something to eat and willing to trade work to get it. Dad told us that these men would be invited in to sit at his father and mother’s table, but the men – either too proud or too ashamed – chose to sit outside and sleep in the barn until they moved on in the morning.

We have come along way in a generation. I remember the day I saw my first color TV. It was at the home of a prosperous family in Belle Plaine; “Bonanza” was playing. I was so taken by the color of the Cartwright clothing that for years I compared all TVs to that experience. My family had a black and white console at home for many years. It was an Admiral brand. There were only five channels available, if you counted Channel 2 (the educational channel). I grew up watching “Star Trek,” “Lassie,” “The Wonderful World of Disney,” “Lawrence Welk,” and “The Wizard of Oz” (including the “color” part) all in black and white.

B&W television sets probably became obsolete with the change from analog to digital broadcasting. They surely were manufactured without a thought of digital signals, and I can’t imagine that many would upgrade a TV that is worth less than the converter box.

There is one scene involving a B&W TV set that will forever haunt me. Twenty-five years ago or so Rhonda, my girlfriend (now my wife), bought a TV for me as a gift through the newspaper want-ads. We got directions to a house in the country. The father let us in without much conversation. “There it is,” he said pointing to the small TV. I noticed that it was the only TV in the sparsely decorated room. It was kind of hard to get a good look at it because of the four small sad children standing around it trying to keep it from running away. Rhonda gave the man the $50.00 and I reluctantly picked up the TV and carried it to the car.

On the ride back to town and for the next 25 years, we have wondered whether he was getting rid of the TV to protect his children from moral decay, or if he just desperately needed the money.

You know, I think one tie is really all I need after all.

Landmarks

When I was young I used to wonder how my Dad was able to climb behind the wheel of the family station wagon and drive almost anywhere without ever looking at a map. He never stopped to ask for directions, and of course he did not have a GPS to guide him.

When I asked him how he managed to find his way from here to there and back he told me about landmarks. This of course was the subtle trick of looking for the familiar; the recognizable. He had driven all over the state for fifteen years as a Greyhound bus driver and later on as truck driver for Red Owl; so naturally he had the experience of driving to guide him. After a while I started to look for landmarks myself.

The ones that stuck out were the softball fields of Union Hill or St. Thomas (depending on which set of grandparents we were visiting), the house in New Prague (on the corner of 19 and 21) with the front porch that seemed to hang over a bottomless canyon leading to certain death for careless kids, the hand-painted sign in Shieldsville warning of the Lake Mazaska Monster.

Coming back from Southdale the landmarks were Brambilla’s, Winnie’s Dress Shop in downtown Shakopee (where my Mom liked to point to the dress on display in the window), and the Rahr tower. These landmarks let me know we were close to home and on the right track.

My favorite ones still are the rotating beacons from the Fairbault municipal and the Flying Cloud airports. They can be seen for miles and give me a nostalgic calming feeling. After a long day at Grandma’s house in Fairbault my Dad would take the back roads home (this was before 35W was built).

Listening to WCCO in the dark with Dad driving and Mom at his side, my brothers and sisters and I would watch for the flashing airport beacon for miles until we would go over the last hill and it would disappear from sight. We knew it was still there, we just couldn’t see it. Now with that light behind us we turned our attention to the front to see what the car’s headlights would show us.

Lately, I have been wondering where our nation is headed. I don’t recognize any of the landmarks, and we seem to be driving with the lights off. We have a new driver who, like my father doesn’t ask for directions either, but he, unlike my father, can not rely on his experiences to guide him because he doesn’t have them. He is taking us down a road that this nation had not been before: Insurmountable debt, government ownership of private industry, and alliances with those who are intent on our destruction.

President Obama does have a Global Positioning System. But his system of global positioning is not designed to take us over the river and through the woods, but rather it is to position himself, and consequently this country, to be loved and accepted by all across the globe – to become one. Bin Laden, Kim Jong-Il, Ahmadinejad may be on the same road as our President – but they are driving in the opposite direction without regard to who may get in their way.

I like technology but have resisted getting a GPS. I don’t often stop and ask for directions either, and my sense of direction is not to be trusted. But, when I am entering an area where I have no experience I am not too proud to admit that I may be lost.

Weekend in Ada

There are at least two ways to go through life: Hurry up so you see everything, or slow down so you don’t miss anything. The big cities get all the attention, which is fine. But if you want to slow the clock down spend some time in a small town. When I say small - I mean smaller than Shakopee, even smaller than Belle Plaine – something in the neighborhood of 1,500 living in the city limits.

This is not one of those travel column where I tell you where to go, what to see, what to eat, and how to dress (I have trouble with those areas myself on a daily basis), it’s more of a reflection of a perception. Recently I loaded up the family (and my daughter’s boyfriend) and drove four hours northwest to Ada.

Ada is a community that frequently gets attention either with its championship sports teams or it’s propensity for flooding. Ada, which is North of Fargo near the North Dakota border, graduated 39 seniors from its high school this year. It did this in partnership with neighboring Borup (population 100 or so). My sister’s daughter was one of them.

The graduation ceremony was, from my perspective, almost perfect. “Pomp and Circumstance,” the traditional tune for these ceremonies only had to be played once. The National Anthem was sung by three of the seniors, a local minister led the audience in prayer (without the ACLU whining in the corner), the speeches were of the proper length (short) and interesting – complete with the tearful good-byes. Plus, my niece lost her shoe under the stage during the processional. But, as she said during her speech – “I lost my shoe but I got my diploma.”

This town, although small, is not without its modern conveniences. At the Norman Motel – with its 15 units you have access to a Wi-Fi connection and cable TV. (Call ahead for reservations.) The Orpheum Theater shows first-run movies, there is KRJB (106.5 FM), the local radio station that pushes 100,000 watts across town and the surrounding area. The town boasts three banks, several professional offices, a bowling alley, hospital, restaurants, stores, parks, and churches. In short, Ada, like most small towns, has all of the charm without the fuss.

You can safely walk around town, as my kids did with their cousins. The local priest, who marked 25 years in the ministry, was honored with a beautiful stainless steel gas grill by the congregation. I am sure he had plenty of help wheeling the grill from in front of the church to the back of his pick-up truck.

Soon, one or two of these 39 kids may pack their own truck looking for something better. Hal Ketchum’s song “Small Town Saturday Night” hints at this. “Bobby told Lucy ‘The world ain’t round, drops off sharp at the edge of town. Lucy you know the world must be flat, ‘cause when people leave town they never come back.’”

Ada reminded me of those days forty years ago in Belle Plaine. You could leave the house in the morning, come back for lunch, go again, and then back for supper. No worries, no cares, and the summers lasted forever.

Bigger is not always better. I like New York City – but it would not be my first choice to raise a family. A New York minute is a phrase used to describe a frenzied hurried moment, but a small town weekend suggests a slower serene pace. I am convinced now more than ever that small town values are concepts not to be taken for granted.