NOVEMBER 21, 2019 – For a November day in Minnesota, yesterday was a “keeper”—mild temperatures (40 – 44F) with periods of sunshine. News from Washington promised to be “hot” with impeachment testimony, but between my schedule and my commitment to seek “treatment” for political addiction, I paid little attention to “breaking news.”
In the afternoon, I went to my eye exam. As is my custom, I took reading material (beside my dumb phone) to fill any waiting time; in this case, Tuesday’s edition of The New York Times. When my long-time ophthalmologist entered the exam room and greeted me, he asked, “Have you been watching gavel to gavel coverage of the impeachment hearings?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just reading all the news that’s fit to drive a person crazy.” Unwittingly, the good doctor fed my addiction—for five minutes we yakked about political pressures before the good doctor examined my eye pressures.
Upon my release, I didn’t return to my office but headed for my “treement” center—The Red Cabin. With me was my brainiac friend, Steve Benson, who can and does talk about topics other than politics just as freely as he engages in political discussion. Accordingly, after brushing past politics, we talked business, which led us eventually to anthropology. This latter topic arose when I wondered aloud why and when people had migrated north into what is now Sweden. I said game; Steve said conflict among tribes. We vowed to research the question.
We pulled up to the cabin long after sundown. When I stepped out of the vehicle and into the darkness, I heard the wind speak in wild tones. We’d escaped far from cares of the world but close to the morrow’s effort—putting bud caps on hundreds of white pine seedlings on “the back 40.”
Like a couple of guys on a camping trip, we ate “calico beans” and pickled beets from the deli section at Schmitz’s Economart in Spooner, the last town of consequence on our drive north, and homemade turkey sandwiches—“full of goop,” as Steve calls amply-applied mayo and mustard.
(For the uninitiated, Spooner, Wisconsin, 2,600 souls, is the last town of consequence on our drive north to the Red Cabin. The town is named after U.S. Senator John Spooner, who, though a bitter, conservative rival of Wisconsin’s famous progressive Senator, Bob LaFollette, sponsored Teddy Roosevelt’s bill to “buy” (or “steal,” depending on your perspective) the Panama Canal zone from Columbia.)
By the wood-burning stove, we talked mundane topics of mutual interest, such as construction details of the cabin and today’s forecast—highs in the mid 30s, 90% chance of snow, with a north-northwest wind. These are not the most cheerful conditions for the job that needs to be done—folding and stapling a square of paper around the leader of each of 100s more pine seedlings to protect them from foraging deer. In wet weather gear, we’ll trudge from seedling to seedling until the task is done.
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© 2019 Eric Nilsson
