Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
DECEMBER 22, 2021 – It became a family Christmas legend—me eating ornaments and landing in the hospital. No one could later remember the year. I figure it was 1956. First, I was old enough to have sufficient reference points to remember salient details of the story. Second, I wasn’t old enough to have known better …
DECEMBER 21, 2021 – I wish that I’d been more attentive, more “in tune,” as it were, with the humanitarian genius with whom I was breaking bread and sharing stories. I’m not much sure of the details, except that Yo-Yo Ma was in town performing with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and given my sister/brother-in-law’s …
DECEMBER 17, 2021 – As I lie low with The Blasted Cough, and no holiday visitors are expected at our hearth this year, we’re not buying a cut-from-the earth Christmas tree. What’s ironic is that by my latest count, we have 17 “pretend” Christmas trees on display—not including the flat, felt tree (which our granddaughter …
NOVEMBER 10, 2021 – Yesterday I sent a mail-in ballot for three seats on a corporate board. In my pre-evolution years I threw such ballots in the trash (the times having pre-dated recycling as well as evolution). Now “evolved,” I voted against myself . . . Four candidates are running for three seats. The incumbents …
OCTOBER 31, 2021 – I grew up in the “Halloween Capital of the World” (Anoka, MN). My wife, who didn’t grow up with world domination (Byron, IL), is skeptical. “A place doesn’t become a world capital of anything,” she asserts, “simply by saying so.” But we Anokans backed words with action. In the 1920s local …
OCTOBER 27, 2021 – On paper, as it were, I should be a decent Scrabble player. I like words and etymology; I like to read and write. But in my family, when it comes to playing the game, I’ll never be more than an amateur—this despite my use of the word “qat,” my familiarity with …
OCTOBER 22, 2021 – Yesterday evening while walking in the moonlight, I heard the distant echo of an amplified announcer calling a game at the local high school. The words were muffled, so I couldn’t tell if the event was a soccer match or a football game. At one stage, however, I heard, “puts the …
OCTOBER 21, 2021 – Once upon a time I was in third grade—at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16 – 28, 1962). On the day before Kennedy and Khrushchev stepped back from the ledge, I kept my fingers crossed from the 8:00 a.m. radio news until the sun went down. During that …
OCTOBER 18, 2021 – Our town’s hardware store of choice was Joe Chutich’s Western Auto on Main. That’s where Dad bought stuff and where he rented a TV for the Olympics, presidential nominating conventions, and the moon landing. Joe was nice but serious. His kids were nice and smart. One’s now a Minnesota Supreme Court …
OCTOBER 9, 2021 – Our granddaughter is several weeks into kindergarten, and as close-by grandparents, we share in pick-up and after-school “entertainment” duties. For us the kindergarten experience was in a galaxy far, far away, but not so many light years that lots of details can’t be remembered. Our hard drives had ample storage. One …
SEPTEMBER 28, 2021 – When you’re a kid, you view life through a narrow prism. When you’re a geezer, the perspective delivered only by age allows you to see through a wider lens. Take, for example . . . learning to ride a bike. That rite of passage brought extreme anxiety when I was a …
SEPTEMBER 16, 2021 – No one’s asked me recently, “If you could do life over, what vocation would you pursue?” If I were asked, I’m unsure what I’d say. I might surprise myself and answer, “Law.” With partial sarcasm, I’d say, “Construction crane insurance agent,” because an insurance executive once told me “that’s where all …
SEPTEMBER 8, 2021 – While hiking recently on our “back 40” I encountered a patch of wild strawberries. It reminded me of Wild Strawberries by famous Swedish filmmaker, Ingmar Bergman. I first “experienced” Bergman’s films while I was a student at Interlochen Arts Academy—by name and curricula, an “artsy-fartsy” establishment. It was attended by many students …
SEPTEMBER 5, 2021 – Whenever I hike to the old family cabin, I think about our grandparents, Ragnar and Hilda Nilsson. “Ga,” as we called our grandmother, and Grandpa followed long-established cabin rituals, which fascinated us impressionable kids. Ga came from Småland, a southern province of Sweden. She’d grown up on a farm and attended …
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021 – Late yesterday afternoon, after a day of business and busy-ness, I took to the woods to do some trail work. As the light faded behind an overcast sky, I repaired to the dock and peered at the windswept lake. Not a single boat—underway or stationary—appeared on the water. I scanned the …
AUGUST 10 2021 – Yesterday my sisters and I gathered for one more long visit together before dispersing to our respective “corners.” The last time we’d assembled like this was a full four years ago. With my wife and a brother-in-law as patient observers, my sisters and I sat on the veranda of the place …
JULY 28, 2021 – By appearances, my boyhood town, Anoka, Minnesota, was a provincial place at the confluence of the Rum and the Mississippi. Many of my grade school classmates were farm kids. Some came from homes without telephones. Many folks had been stuck in Anoka or its immediate environs for much too long. Their …
JULY 17, 2021 – Only when I was older and visiting the house in which I spent my first six years did I realize how steep the staircase was between the ground floor and the second story. I’m sure it wouldn’t comply with modern building codes. As I navigated up and down the stairs during …
JULY 16, 2021 – Grandpa had been a fisherman, as I knew from the rods and reels that hung on the back porch of the cabin. There was also the large fishing net that always got snagged on stuff in the green boat box down by the dock. Then there were his stories about canoe …
JULY 4, 2021 – Every country needs one—an “Independence Day,” “Victory over Evil Day,” or “Big Thing to Commemorate Day,” when every citizen, clinically crazy or not, can light off every conceivable kind of sound-and-light device, from a Black Cat firecracker to a whole pyrotechnical display audible and visible miles away. Who cares about speeches, …
JUNE 18, 2021 – Today is our 38th anniversary, but who’s counting? Actually, when you stop counting, years accelerate, and one day you wake up to a number that’s significantly more than half the years of your life (so far). The story of how and where we met and married is as good as any. …
JUNE 16, 2021 – Over the weekend I was visiting with my sister and brother-in-law while sitting in front of the family cabin. Our perch atop the pine-guarded bank that rises sharply from the north shore of the lake afforded a wide-angle view of the water, shimmering from sun and wind. Suddenly the wind changed …
JUNE 7, 2021 – Every Boomer guy I know has the same story. As a kid, he collected baseball cards and built a stable of stars but now has only a vague notion as to what happened to the collection, including superstars like Mantle and Maris. Today they’d be worth millions—or at least a few …
MAY 30, 2021 – When he was old, my Grandpa Holman liked to joke about his age when someone stopped for idle chat. “Know how old I am?” he’d ask with hardly any lip or jaw movement. “No,” the person would say. “Neither do I . . .” Grandpa would respond, adding, “because my birthday …
MAY 12, 2021 – Yesterday I noticed a few doors down, a parked van belonging to a plumbing outfit named, “Weld & Sons.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a business name that included “Sons” or “Brothers” (or “Bros.”). Back in the day—my day, anyway—you’d see a lot of trucks, stores, and commercial …