Handel's Messiah 2025

 Each Christmas I try and attend the Messiah Community sing at St. Olaf's Catholic Church in downtowm Minneapolis. I begin thinking about it in fall, when the first chill is in the air, and thoughts turn to the coming winter and Christmas. 

It's always on a Sunday night downtown. If the weather is bad, or really cold, I think about backing out. That happened this year. It was around 8 or 9F when the concert started. But for the 8th year in a row, excluding the covid cancellations, we went, my wife and I. 

While I am not a singer there is this really good sense of Christmasing that comes over me when the music starts. I let go with my permanently off key rendition of the masterpiece. The crowd is a mix. Many like me, who welcome the large crowd to drown out their mistakes. Others, professional or semi-so, lift high their beautiful voices to proclaim "unto to us a child is born" "speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem" 'they have turn-ed every one to his own way" "He shall reign for ever and ever" "by his stripes we are healed". 

They are dressed in suits, smart Christmas dresses, elf costumes, Santa hats, buffalo plaid shirts and dresses. A gathering of devout followers of the true Messiah and a few, perhaps, non-believers. All drawn by the spell of Christmas into something deeper than elf on the shelf and Christmas cookies. 

Christmas. Christmas. Christmas. 

The baseball desert

 I went to a Minnesota Twins game last week. This was my first MLB game since June of the 2023 season, a two year break. 

What struck me most was how loud it was. Not from the crowds, but from the make-believe cheers of the cartoon characters on the multiple screens or the piped in cheers of fans dancing to some tune I do not know or the imaginary spectators cheering the shirtless fat guy doing his version of the Makarena in section 346. It is like you have been inserted into a TV. One long sensory bombardment. 

Scorekeeping has been dumbed down to a shameful degree. A double play is no longer a simple "6-4-3" on the screen, but something like "double play, ground ball to SS to 2B to 1B. 

MLB is not as fun as it once was. Now that pitchers don't bat in the National League, there is no difference between any of the games. Nothing unique about the Cardinals and how they approach a given situation vs the Twins. Nothing unique to the strategy of any given team. 

Granted, the stadium dazzle means that the number of bored little kids has decreased. I suspect the number of bored adults has gone up.  

I used to say that the neat thing about baseball, was that it was the only sport that I could enjoy as a solo spectator. Football, basketball I would never consider going to a game by myself. Baseball, I would, and have. Not so sure that this is true anymore. 

Change. 

Life on the Eights

 Last week I became 68 years old. Three score and eight. My grandaddy always said "I just want my three score and ten, like it says in the Bible" He got a lot more than that.

Anyway, looking back on the eights, here goes. Roughly as I told it to my kids and their kids after blowing out 68 candles (true). 

When I was eight it was 1964. I lived in Pensacola.  3rd grade. Had a younger brother who was almost six, and a new baby brother. I think my dreams/plans in life were vaguely to 1) be a good Christian 2) Have a good family 3)Not be poor 4)Be somebody. 5) Play for the New York Yankees. Simple difficult goals. 

When I was 18 it was 1974 and I had graduated from HS and moved to St. Petersburg Florida. Sacked groceries at Publix in the Northeast Shopping Center. Started college in early 75. 

From 74-84 I sold Kirby vacuum cleaners door to door. Sold Bibles and kids books door to door. Sacked groceries. Ran a gas station at night. Maintenance crew and dining room crew in college. Landscaping. Day Camp Counselor. Sold Iinsurance. Sold Investments. 

In 1984 I was 28 and one of the toughest periods of my life, thus far, was over. The Dark Years were past. I had written my last hot check. There was a little money in the bank and I owned my first house. Finally found something I could do, which was investment stuff. Started by selling it, later managed it. I was married and my oldest child was four. This was the year I paid off my $2000 student loan, $30 at a time. Doesn't seem like much until you're three months behind and the college is getting ready to turn you over to a collection agency. I was very involved in numerous political campaigns. 

In 1994 I was 38 and lived in St. Louis. My wife Robin and I now have three children. Daughter 14, son 8, daughter 2. A good happy time. My maternal grandparents and my parents were still alive. I had earned a difficult professional designation and had some letters after my name on my business card. Since 1984 a man I knew had been elected President and I had been a delegate to the national convention of our shared political party. Robin and I went to a Christmas party at the White House.  Around this time I stopped my political stuff and focused on family and career. The Soviet Union, that nemesis that had me scurrying under my desk in grammar school, was no more

In 2004 I was 48 and lived in Minneapolis. Career events I did not anticipate sent me north. It was wonderful, eventually. By this time my grandparents and my father had died. My oldest daughter was in Law School. my son was in college and my youngest daughter was in middle school. I was traveling a lot for work and for a professional organization of the investment world. 

In 2014 I was 58 and lived outside Minneapolis, on a lake and thinking about retirement. My son was married and I was a grandfather. My youngest brother had just finished year one of a five year war against cancer. 

In 2024 I am 68. My three children are all happily married. I have 5 grandchildren. I am even more happily married than my children for I have been able to convince a wonderful woman to stay with me for 45 years!!! I have joined the Catholic Church. I am retired. I play the banjo. My youngest brother has died of cancer (One might say the cancer beat him. Welcomed into the glory of his heavenly Father, I doubt he would put it that way.) As I write this I am canning green beans from my garden. 

On the street

I see cargo trailers and pickup trucks in front of a house on the street. 

Furniture is loaded into trailers as it is carried out of the house. Perhaps it belonged to one of the people who lived there. 

A man and a woman once lived there together. They don't anymore. They decided to stop having lives in the same building. So they didn't really live together, they sort of declined together. 

On the side of a trailer is the name of a wedding planning company. 

Independence Days Remembered Part II

In looking back over the years the thing that stands out from my youth is the absence of big fireworks displays. Growing up in Florida I do not recall ever going to a big fireworks event ever. That was something we saw on TV, but never in person. It's not that we didn't go, it just didn't happen. There were plenty of sparklers and firecrackers, cherry bombs and M80s, buzzing things and flying things, things that exploded and things that soared. But none of the really big stuff. 

Thus, I have no big kid memories of the 4th. Except for the time that Bill Leap and I soaked a bunch of cattails in gasoline and lit them as torches. I was about 13 or so. We soaked them for a week and they made a nice display in his back yard. 

Others. As an adult around 1982 I helped fire off the big stuff for the Pine Bluff Arkansas Jaycees event. It was fun launching them and seeing the fear and excitement on the face of my toddler daughter. 

Mid 90s. Richmond Virginia, with friends. One of the kids got sick, I recall. 

Mid 90's St. Louis. Watching at eye level from a conference room in the Boatmen's Bank building with colleagues and our families. 

2005 Approx. Lake Minnetonka. Excelsior Minnesota. Nice display and I remember the traffic and parking being not near as bad as expected. 

2010 I was in Buenos Aires on July 4th. Odd to be somewhere when this is just another day. 

2022 I better be able to remember last year's. Watched a nice display sitting in the back of my now gone Ford F150 with my wife. Parking lot of target store in Waconia, MN. 

Note: As I was writing this I recalled writing a similar post in the past. Here it is. https://midnightdiner.blogspot.com/2011/07/independence-days-remembered.html

Tranquility in the Airport Lounge

 Amex Lounge, Minneapolis Airport. 

Tranquility to me is simply being in a place that you don't want to leave. An airport lounge is usually not such a place. But on this day I am sitting alone, writing, drinking coffee, watching the day unfold undisturbed. I am on a trip to  Charlotte to wrap up a family business matter. It is without controversy or messiness. It is unfolding just as it was supposed to. Nearby are people to assist me with my travels but they keep their distance and are silent. If you were sitting across from me I would speak this now: "I could stay here all day". 

So as I write I am draw to other times and places when I had this same sort of sense, that temporary well-beingness. I know this will pass but it was worth the wait. This overwhelming desire that the day last very very long. 

Other times...

Once when sitting in the parking lot of a Best Western in Oregon. Cigar and crossword puzzle in hand. Why this always comes to mind is lost to me. 

An evening with good friends at Cajun's Wharf restaurant in Arkansas. 1980's. 

Fishing with my oldest daughter in the dawn of her adulthood. 

On the couch with my wife, watching the snow fall. Any winter. 

Listening to Jack Buck call a Cardinals game. Cigar. Back deck of my brother Kevin's house. Early 2010s. 

Driving across the Flint Hills region of Kansas with my youngest daughter. 

Throwing a baseball with my son, mid 90s, our back yard, 8pm. 

Roan Mountain State Park, When I am the only one there. 

Jackson Square, New Orleans. Cafe DuMonde. Early Morning. Katrina aftermath. 

A Winter of Content

 It is a basic human fault to complain about the weather. Most of the time it is too hot, too cold, etc. etc. blah blah blah. 

In Minnesota our Lord bestow a special blessing that I am increasingly thankful for. Very cold days. This morning it was -13 as I ran an errand to a neighboring town. 

On these days human activity slows down. When I had a job, the buses ran a little slower on these days. Fewer people came into the office. The phone rang less. Thus, work I needed to do got done. 

Today, I do not have a job. I use this time to get things done that are both important and unimportant. Get lost in a book. Tighten that screw, splice that wire, dust that difficult spot, file that receipt. Read the Bible. Sit in a Church and adore the Presence. Write a letter to my aunt.  

Solace. Quiet. 

In six months it will be one hundred degrees warmer. There will be more people moving around. There will be requests that I join them in consuming food. Humans will gather in celebration of certain plants, such as the " (insert county name here) (insert vegetable name here) Festival".  Farmers will have their markets. New young drivers will experiment with speed. 

The level of solace and quiet in my life will decrease as the days grow longer. Not for better or worse, just different. 

These days of cold are days I treasure, when I can do simple things like write down these thoughts of gratitude. 

Things you forget about snow in Summer

 We just had the first major snow of the season. Schools were let out early, or cancelled altogether. When we first moved here in 2003, schools rarely closed for snow. Now they do so with a regularity similar to the schools of St. Louis, where we moved from. We are becoming a less snow-tough people, but that is a topic for another time.

As I shoveled the porch and front steps I thought of the things I had not called to mind since last winter. 

How different the weight of snow can be from one storm to the next. You can tell without picking up a shovel, just by stepping on it. At times it is like shoveling feathers, other times like shoveling lasagna. 

What wind does. Five inches of snow usually means 18 inches in the vortex by the shed and an inch in parts of the front yard. 

What sun does. The fact a sunny day can melt snow and ice when the air temp is in the teens, is one of those pleasant little surprises of nature. 

The beauty of hoarfrost, diamond dust and snowdogs. 

The camaraderie of neighbors as we dig out. We wake up on a Saturday morning all facing the same problem, getting this stuff off the driveway, navigating the snowbanks left by the city plows.  

That squirrels may attempt to seek shelter somewhere in my house. A nook, a crease, a forgotten opening. The scratching sound in a wall is never good news, and was heard around 11pm last night for the first time in a few years. 

The beauty of this land when it is only two colors, White and shades of brown. 

 

Thank you Lord, for this drought

 I don't know how these things come about but our land finds itself in an extended period of very low rainfall. A few years ago when we were getting much rain, I wished for a period like this. But weather extremes always cause difficulty for someone. While I am enjoying this, others are not. 

The drought reminds me of just how little of my life is under my own control. I depend on the Lord for each drop of rain and each ray of sunshine. Not that I am unaware or need to be reminded, but I do need to be more thankful. I live in an area of abundant wetlands and lakes, land that survives an extended dry period much better than other areas. 

There are numerous little blessings. 

I get a very good look at the lawn. I have different types of grasses. They respond differently to drought. Some keep much of their green and just slow down their growth, while others quickly go to brown. 

I understand my weed crop better. Like grass, weeds respond differently. Many keep their color while slowing their growth. They stand out during droughts and are more easily removed.  

Grasses are restored along lakeshore. Things long dormant come to life. Wetlands dry up just enough that they are easier to walk through and pull out trash and junk that boaters and fisherman have tossed into my cattail fields. 

Nature acts differently in general. Some of this is just random and some is related to the drought. It doesn't really matter to me if this is drought caused, or just coincidental. Such as: Turtle population up, Japanese beetles down, currants sweeter, tomatoes tastier, chipmunks up, crappie fishing off.

Fall colors come sooner. This week I have friends visiting from SC. Red maple leaves are showing up here and there earlier than usual. 

On balance, good stuff. 

Ice Out and Ice In on our Minnesota lake

This week was ice out time. If you don't live this far north it is something that wouldn't enter your thinking about the seasons. It's a big deal. There is a good feeling that comes from seeing open water after four or so months of cold. It doesn't mean the end of snow, or the frost on the windshield. It just means the end of ice on the lake. 

It came a little earlier than average, which is around April 9th. That is typical, it jumps around a lot from one year to the next. One day the lake is mainly covered in ice, the next day the ice is gone. The reverse happens in that fall. Our lake is not huge, around 250 acres or so. If you live on a really big one, the process is a little less straightforward. More fits and starts, one bay is open, another is not, depending on sunlight, wind and the like. 

March 25th was the ice-out for this year. In the last ten years the earliest was March 15, the latest was May 1. Dec 1 was the ice-in date last fall, ranging between November 12 and December 19 since 2012. 

The state government keeps track of this information. I am one of the hundreds of citizen volunteers who watch the ice and submit the numbers. I've been watching the ice for the past week, binoculars in hand from the warmth of my den. Whew. My work is done. Until November. 

Running the bases

 When was the last time I ran the bases on a ball field?

 6am on the morning of December 22nd, 2020. It is the first full day of winter and it is dark. 

A nearby neighborhood has a ball field. Rarely is it used. 

But it was on this day, in freezing temps, while on a run, when no one was looking, this 64 year old man, did something that would have looked odd in daylight. I ran the bases. Twice. Not just this day, but the next as well. 

It brought back memories of a sandlot in Myrtle Grove, Florida where from age 7 to 11 I spent almost every Saturday, and many weekday afternoons. There were no schedules or teams or coaches. Just some boys with a bat, weathered from hitting rocks and oyster shells across the yard, and any kind of ball. Sometimes I would walk to the field alone, lay on the grass, stare up at the clouds, and wait for someone else to show up. Eventually David Cosson or Karl Hoewt, my best friends, would. We called it "the field" and ignored the claims of Tonya Jackson that her daddy owned it and that we needed her permission to play there (even if he was the richest man on the street and our landlord). Something about that place is stuck in my memory and it seems so much bigger, as if my whole world was somehow connected to that spot of sand and centipede grass, sand burs and horned toads. 

I have been back to the neighborhood several times growing up. I believe the field is gone now, replaced by houses. Funny though, I am not certain of this. Perhaps it is that the impression from my childhood is so strong that I cannot perceive anything else there, just the familiar worn out spots in the sod where the bases go, and sandy paths that link them in our version of a diamond. 

Every kid needs a field like that. I hope that there are some children near here who see this one as I did. Who will think on it fondly in 2070 or 2080, and maybe, when no one is looking, run the bases. 

Thursday morning 5am

The wee hours of the morning I cannot set aside. Cannot stay in bed. My favorite time of day. It is a perfect time to be outside for a run and it is an excellent period to just watch the world wake up. 

Early reactions to the news overnight, a death in Europe, an earthquake in Asia, the late night appointment of a soon-to-be-forgotten official, early market trading, the weather, the west coast sports scores. The first commuters roll east to the city. The sounds of night birds ebb and day birds build as the first dim glow changes the horizon from dark black to deep grey. 

I think about the day ahead and the day past. Things set aside and left undone. Loved ones snuggled in bed. The lost contact of an old friend. The name of a new one. The illnesses of the aged. The victories of the young. The remnants of yesterday's mail are strewn across a kitchen counter. The coffee pot wakes and whispers. 

Watching, praying, running, listening. Capturing the last stillness as my little clutch of dirt and stone in Minnesota wakes up. 

What I heard at Walgreens

I am in line at Walgreen's (on Nicollet in downtown Minneapolis) on November 24th of 2020. The checkout girl did not like the attitude of a customer. 

She said something like this..."well, I demand respect. And if you won't give it to me I will take it."

I have been puzzling over that statement for 24 hours now and I think it is one of the oddest thing I've ever heard a human say. 

The tree down the street

 There is a large old oak tree in my neighbor's yard. It lived to be around a hundred and fifty or so years, and then died. This year. The other old oaks are just starting to shed a few leaves but this one has nary a one, and has not had all year. 

Talk is, the owners have had three arborists out to look at it. I guess in tree world that's the same as getting a second opinion. Yep, it's dead. Or as a Minnesotan would say, It's a goner, ya got that right. They must want to keep it. Though they have only owned that land and tree for about three years, perhaps they feel that such a decision best goes slowly. Or maybe it is something simpler, procrastinating, or not being able to afford the removal, or the hope that maybe next spring it will come back to life. 

Our perspectives differ. Those who live in the house look out the window and see the same huge trunk as the year before. Same same. Those who live down the street see bare branches and death. 

There is this deep thing in us that keeps things in their place. Before Minnesota was a state that tree may have been here. We long for permanence. 

The neighbor should cut down the tree. It's dangerous and is becoming an eyesore. But I understand the reluctance to cut. Just last week I got around to paying someone some money I owed them since 1978. They didn't even know I owed them. It was easy to put off. But I'm getting old. But not like that tree. 

I'm not a statistician, but... Governor Wald's claims seem a little bizarre

Our local CBS station reports this from our governor's press conference. It was earlier today and when he also announced the lockdown order.

"Walz said that if the state did nothing to slow the spread of COVID-19, projections show that upwards of 74,000 people in this state could potentially be killed by the virus."

That's a scary figure, and I'm sure intentionally so. As of this writing, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center, 21,181 people in the whole world have died of the virus. Total. All of Italy, all of China, all of Spain, all of every country in the world.

I guess here in Minnesota we are just particularly vulnerable.... that over three times as many people will die here as in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD. Fortunately for us all we live in a state that can't stand to do nothing, for both problems huge and tiny.

The virus is serious, but so far our death total here is 1. (Minnesota Dept of Health)

Neither the cheerleading of the President, nor the doomsdayism of the Governor is helpful.

A year from now we will commemorate the anniversary of this terrible event. I'm sure someone will drag out that 74,000 figure and crow about how wonderful it is that deaths were so far below the forecasts of today.

Women's book club doing their first video chat

Overheard statements from the next room....

i don's see suzie

i see mary but you're tiny

i see you and you're big

i see you but only when you talk

i hear you but you're not moving

i see you when you're talking but don't when you're not

what are you drinking..
i have my tea
i have my water

i just lost joanne

there's lisa, yea!!!

everybody's frozen for me


And on and on it goes. 9 minutes down, 60 to go.

Closing Churches in March of 2020

Having grown up in the Baptist Church, I fully expected the wave of shutdowns over the virus. In the church of the first 50 years of my life, closures were rare, but not unheard of. Particularly in the South where any threat of ice or snow was reason to call off church. Love for senior citizens was always the excuse, "we don't want the old folks slipping on the sidewalk". This also meant, "the senior citizens are too stupid to make decisions for themselves". Power out, close the church. Hurricane warning, close the church.

This was a key reason the handful of non-Catholic churches I am in touch with gave for closing. "we have lots of old folks". No you don't, no more than any other church. You have SOME old folks, they dominate your finances, but not your membership. However, you still think they are too stupid to make their own decisions. Got it. 

I was particularly disappointed when my Catholic Church here stopped all masses. At the time it did not seem the right thing to do, and after several days it still does not. However, I don't have to make the decision, I just get to sit in the stands and second guess the coach.

Seems we could have worked around this. No more than 50 at a mass, got it. Not more than 10, we'll work around that. Have more masses or communion services and spread the people out. We could have found a way to stay open. In fairness I should point out that my parish is expanding Eucharistic Adoration from one day a week to seven, and asking that no more than ten be in the church sanctuary at one time. That is good and much much better than totally shutting down. 

Behind the closings there is an assumption that during times like these, all gatherings of large groups of people are bad. It's bad for a bunch of sports fans to gather at a casino, it's bad for teenagers to party at the beach, and it's bad for Catholics to gather together to drink the precious blood of Christ and eat his precious body. Listen to the public pronouncements. Gatherings of the Church are lumped into the same category as all other meetings. The secular rulers of this age see nothing special about who we are or what we do when we gather, which is to be expected.

In this current round of church closing, it is all being done under the guise of some good end. My little country parish proclaimed that the common good should be our aim. Pope Francis has said similar things. Does this mean that as a Christian my highest priority is something other than to be more and more like Christ? That is what I thought at first reading. Perhaps it just means the common good is important. I get that, but there is something about the Church being in agreement with government that makes me a bit uneasy. There is a always a conflict between the secular idea of a common good and the devotion to Christ of His Church.

During this time the parish I live in proclaims....

It is important for us to be in solidarity with one another and seek the common good the best we can together. With that in mind, I am choosing to honor the recommendations of government authorities...

Wow, that's a scary one. How many times in history have good people said that and ended up on the wrong side of history.

Perhaps the church is right and the government is right and we should close the churches as a way to help our fellow man survive this crisis. Perhaps. Perhaps. Closing churches does not make us a better people. It does not make us more like Christ, who walked among those with terrible diseases. It does not make us physically stronger and more virus resistant. It is not a common good. We are weaker today than a week ago. We will be weaker still a week from now.

What I will do/not do during virus time

I will not stop being with people.
I will not stop shaking their hand.
I will run to the Eucharist, the Church, the Body
I will offer a touch to the hurting and suffering.
I will be paranoid and irrational.
I will joke about the virus and my mortality
I will buy things I don't need.
I will go places I shouldn't.
Just as I always do.

One good thing from this virus stuff

Perhaps when this is all over with guys will discard hugging, as quickly as they seemed to adopt it.
Or is this a Minnesota thing?

When I lived in Arkansas in the mid-80s, men shook hands, boys high-fived. Normal greetings.

When I lived in Missouri in the mid-80s to early 2000s, men shook hands. McGwire and Sosa made variations of the fist bump or fore arm bump acceptable in certain settings.

By 2003 or 4, around the time we moved to Minnesota, men were hugging. It's always been ok in times of extreme emotions, such as a wedding or a funeral. But for the past twenty years or so, men have been hugging as a normal standard greeting. You stick out a hand to shake, and some will say, "come on bud, gimme a bro hug". Yes, I'm about as likely to do that as give you some of Tinkerbelle's pixie dust, a silver chair from Narnia, or a piece of cake from Wonderland.

It's odd and very much out of character for most of us. Which explains why it never made it into the business world. Not the real one. Same with politics and the arts. Toby Keith hugs, Merle Haggard shakes hands. Kennedy and Nixon shook hands. Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush offer hugs. Hank Paulson and Warren Buffet shake hands. Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos seem more the hugging types.

Anyway, the strong handshake from a strong hand is always welcome, whether during virus time, Christmas time, or any other time.

Identity

Off to the Cardinals/Twins game.

I have to confess that although I was born a mammal, my identity as a vertebrate has for many years been with a member of another animal group.

This guy....