What if.....

I am in Philadelphia where one of my earliest ancestors Hans Heider first landed in the 1729 at age 25, with his bride Katherine. In the city at that time lived a 23 year old Ben Franklin, and it is something to wonder if they ever crossed paths.

He settled in the Pennsylvania countryside for a while and farmed, before moving south to what is now West Virginia. His sons later moved on as early settlers of Tennessee territory.

My hotel window looks out on shipyards and docks where he may have first set foot in America.

What if he had stayed? Life takes so many twists and turns. His decision to leave PA for VA was a big decision in his day, one that would put his very life in peril. His decision ripples through the lives of his descendants 250 years later. We expect these big decisions to have big implications. Marriage, career choices, hobbies, all play a role in our lives and the lives of others.

But sometimes so do the little things, though we don't notice it at the time. We look back and see that some little event was one of life's turning points.

In 1974 I stood in a registration center at St. Petersburg Jr. College. I was planning to enroll for the fall. However, I did not like the course offerings, which would require me to start class at 7am most days. Seemed crazy to get up so early to trek across town for class.

On a whim I tossed my application in the trash, went back to my job running a gas station and skipped school for that semester. Six months later I was at another college, in Missouri, attending class at 7 am most days. Little decision, big impact. Impulsive, but somehow it worked.

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Winter

Winter has been colder here than in recent years but wonderful. I know from personal experience that the ice on Lake Minnetonka is two feet thick. Today we move into the high 20's and may touch 30 degrees, the warmest day since late December.


"When Chekhov saw the long winter, he saw a winter bleak and dark and bereft of hope. Yet we know that winter is just another step in the cycle of life. But standing here among the people of Punxsutawney and basking in the warmth of their hearths and hearts, I couldn't imagine a better fate than a long and lustrous winter." Phil Connors

"As I walked in the door the music was clear.
The purtiest voice I had heard in two years.
The song she was singin' made a man's blood run cold.
When It's Springtime In Alaska, it's forty below." Johnny Horton

Ramblings on presidents and inauguration day

In 1993 I started a personal tradition of only watching inaugural speeches in person and when I've been invited to the ball. That was my last one. On the 20th I took care of my clients, and tried to make a little money for my family, which is one of the best thing I can do on this day for my country.
Presidents of my lifetime, ranked in terms of which ones I would most like to have dinner with: Eisenhower, Reagan, Bush II, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Bush I, Carter, Kennedy, Clinton.
Vice Presidents that did not become President, ranked same way: Rockefeller, Cheney, Quayle, Gore, Agnew, Mondale, Humphrey.
President I would most expect to:
Leave a fat tip: Bush I
Leave no tip: Johnson
Understand Atlas Shrugged: Reagan
Misunderstand Atlas Shrugged: Johnson
Have read the Bible: Kennedy
Have a well worn and tattered Bible on their desk: Ford
Write a hot check: Carter
Have a bad drug habit: Carter
Change his own oil: Bush II
Be a closet Communist: Bush I
Have a glass of grape koolaid in his hand: Bush II
Have a gun in the glove box: Nixon
Pass gas and blame his VP: Kennedy
Pass time as a short order cook at Denny’s: Ford
Cut me off in traffic: Eisenhower
Cut in line at Disney World: Clinton
Leave Denny’s with a pocketful of Sweet N Lo: Nixon

The President of the United States

Mom's Home

Among my fondest memories of my years as a little kid are the ones that have to do with Mom coming home from the grocery store. While mundane and routine it was a weekly event that we all looked forward to. Sometimes we would beg Mom to take us with her, but as often as not she went alone. Buying groceries meant spending a big chunk of the weekly budget and it was something she did best when she did it alone.

When finished she would pull up in the driveway and honk. We knew what it meant, but just in case we didn't, my Dad would holler, "you boys go help your mom with the groceries", and we would all bolt outside. It was the one chore that never brought a complaint.

While we were never poor, there were probably days or weeks when it seemed that way to mom and dad and many times when things were close. There was something about bringing home sacks of food that signaled everything was ok. There was money in the bank. The groceries also tipped us off as to whether it was a prosperous time or a tight one. Dried milk, spam and velveeta meant things were tight. "Real" milk, Coke and strawberry preserves meant life was good.

"We're having steak tonite" meant round steak, floured and fried in bacon grease. It was the highest form of beef of the three that Mom brought home, chuck roast, hamburger, round steak. The Cartwrights on the Ponderosa ate steak at almost every meal and sometimes we were like them. I was well in to my 30's before it dawned on me that upscale restaurants did not carry round steak.

Three boys, we tore into the sacks of groceries like inmates just released from a WWII prison camp. Fighting over the new jar of peanut butter or who got the latest bugs bunny jelly glass, or opening up the new cereal box to dig for the prize, it was almost a little like Christmas the way we ripped open the loot.

Dad always took pleasure in opening the new peanut butter and running a finger deep into the jar, like a hoe across unbroken soil. He always got to it first and took a perverse pleasure when someone later opened the "new" jar only to find his handiwork.

There was alway commentary on the quality and quantity of the week's bounty. "Aw Mom, you forgot the Captain Crunch" "Mom, I told you not to get crunchy peanut butter" "Yea, Spaghetti!" "Gee Mom thanks for the Oreos" "Can I have a Coke?" "Can we make some Kool-Aid?" "Can I have some ice-cream?" "Mom you got a lot of groceries... Are we rich?" "You forgot the milk?" "Mom, you forgot the Nestle's Quik!"

The grocery store was usually a Winn Dixie or Piggly Wiggly, the two choices that seem to have been most prevalent for southern folk in the 60's. Of course there was also Quik Chek, Bi-Lo and A&P. I still have my Piggly Wiggly bow tie, a remnant from my high school days sacking groceries. In the days before starbucks and caribou coffee chains, A&P had the machine to grind your own Eight O'Clock coffee, which still provides one of the very best smells on this earth.

Some weeks, though not all, Mom would double check the groceries versus the receipt. I don't know that we've ever done that. Always a chance that we were over charged or something didn't end up in the sacks. Anything wrong with the order meant an immediate trip back to the store to put things right.

In the early years of our marriage, when things were so tight, I always looked forward to coming home to my parents house. There was nothing big or fancy waiting for me. But what was there was the simple things I wanted so much in my own world, a place where the bills were paid on time, where it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer, where the pantry was full, the roof didn't leak. A house that was always empty on Sunday morning. A very fine home.

A quick trip to the Commonwealth

I love Virginia, mostly. Have had relatives there and our family has a long tradition of connection to the state. My oldest daughter went to school there, I have good friends in Leesburg, wife's ancestors settled in the Rappahannock area and i had a few early ancestors there as well. Great fishing, hiking, and a hotbed of minor league baseball.

Parts of the state are wearing on me after one too many trips there. I've spent a few days there in recent years and it's become quite predicable. There are no surprises here, what was once unique is now mundane. Remants of a bygone area, like most other cities. Interesting but nothing that stays with you. Perhaps a virginian would say the same of Minnesota.

There are a few memorable diversions, particularly the Bellair Market on 250 highway, not far from Charlottesville. It is a gas station with a deli. Surprising. They have a great sandwich, the Belmont.

I had dinner recently at The Club. The people I dined with were fine, great old friends. Not quite as interesting as the witches and warlocks on the downtown mall, but head and shoulders above jefferson, et al.

The locals are warm and friendly, but with a too-strong urge to follow college town stereotypes.

The last Christmas decoration, the outside wreaths, came down today. The lights are still on the bushes but have been turned off. It is the dead of winter.

Burning the hat and other family traditions

Once upon a time the St. Louis Cardinals went to the World Series and through an odd series of events, lost every game. Swept in four to that team from boston. Rob was home from college the following New Years and stumbled upon a red sox hat in our mud room that one of Caroline's friends had left. "What's this doing here?" he asked as he tossed it in the fireplace. That alone was not enough to start a tradition but the fact that it was new years caused someone to say, "we should do this every year", and it came about that we have.

Family traditions are great. It's part of the cement that holds a family together. Some of ours are things that many others do, such as attending midnight mass on Christmas eve, gathering at the same place every Labor Day weekend, stopping at Cracker Barrel on vacations, Godfather marathons, going to fireworks on July 4th, gathering for prayer for each other.

Some were passed on from our parents, such as saying a prayer in the car before we pull down the driveway on a long vacation drive. We open family gifts on Christmas eve while reserving the Christmas morning for Santa. Thanksgiving and Christmas are unimaginable without sweet potato casserole, a tradition from Robin's family.

Some were unique to places we have lived, such as trips to Ted Drewes for custard after Cardinals games, or keeping a plastic pinwheel imbedded in our St. Louis yard, as Caroline insisted. Thanksgiving hikes up Pinnacle mountain in Little Rock, annual excursions in Arkansas to cut down our own Christmas tree.

Some came to us from our forefathers and go back perhaps hundreds of years such as egg fighting at Easter, and eating blackeyed peas on New Years for good luck. Rob called today while he was driving around St. Louis in search of a can of blackeyes, Rachel is cooking them at her house and we had 'em for lunch here.

But other are things that are probably unique to us. Pepsi biscuits, tracking license plates on styrofoam cups on vacation, burning a red sox hat on New Years Day, keeping Pepto Bismol in the fridge, wearing peanut earrings at baseball games, grinding cheese crackers in our teeth on road trips. In other words, we're a bunch of morons with a pack of silly habits that no one else would appreciate.

She invented the word

Quote from Caroline at age 4: "Daddy, do you know what I call dirty snow?.... "Smagla."

The word has stuck in our family. Dirty snow is smagla. One of those winter things that we forget about for most of the year but spring to mind with the first snowfall, as in, "that's a big pile of smagla in that parking lot, don't step in the smagla, don't track smagla into the house"

Caroline never explained where she got the idea for the word. An explanation may be found if we ever learn more about her childhood encounters with elves. The dictionary of Primitive Elvish hints that smagla may be the ancient root of the elf word "magla" meaning "stained" or "stain". Hmmm, Stained/dirty dirty/stained, there has to be a connection.

If the word ever spreads and linguists want to know it's origin, it came from the mind of Caroline around 1996. This is a pic of her at age 9 in Alaska. She's in front of the toe of Exit Glacier and a large slug of smagla, just outside Seward, Alaska.

There is also a person named Smagla on Myspace, no connection. http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=82857194

Christmass highlights

I never tire of Handel's Messiah and do not know anyone who does. The choir at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Columbia,SC sent chills down my back as they gave a performance on Christmas Eve that our family will remember for a long time. Twenty people sang as though they were 200.
My mother, at age 80, is one of the treasures of Christmas. Simply relentless in her effort to deliver the perfect Christmas experience to her sons, in-laws, grandchildren, and other guests in her home. Like the call to my cell phone at 115 am Christmas morning, she fell asleep waiting up for us... She was downstairs and I was in bed upstairs. Many of the very best memories of my life involve her and Christmas. Not only does she make the days extra special she provides an ongoing example of how despite aging one can still spend that waning energy serving others. Of course we still have petty arguments but they usually blow over as quickly as the arise.
I will remember this Christmass not for who was there but for who wasn't, Rob. Everyone has to endure that first one away from home and it's never easy. Mine was somewhat like his. New guy on the job in a position that demanded the post be manned over Christmas. We hated not having him, but were proud that he has found a promising position in a very tough job market. We missed him a lot and thought of him often during football games, scrabble games, the Christ Mass, the Christmas Day meal. We'll make it up.

Step aside Smithsonian

On a return to Minneapolis from a great Christmas vacation in SC. Never know what claims you'll find in a local paper.
From the Florence, SC Morning News, 27 Dec, 2008, quoting a Col. Rocky Gannon, in a reference to the defunct Florence Air and Missle Museum .....
"At one time, that museum symbolized Florence. It was the most visited attraction on the East Coast from New York to Miami".

Christmas Time

There are so many things I think about this season that it is difficult to translate to the written word. How I celebrate it. My family traditions. The story as revealed to us in God's word. The sparkle of the seasons. The music. The manger. The contrast between Santa and St. Nicholas.
Gold and silver adorn the stores. Holiday trees are everywhere, though a real Christmas tree with the star of Bethlehem atop, is found only in churches and homes. Funny that this should bother me. There is no Christmas tree in the Bible. Paul and Silas never made popcorn garlands and Peter never had an argument with his wife over what day to take down the tree.

I think about the people who have been such a big part of my Christmas over the years. I think of them often but particularly at this time of year. My Aunts Joan and Joyce. Visits to them at Christmas are interwoven with so many good memories. My brother Rodney and the early morning treks downstairs at grandmother's house to look for our gifts under the tree, then heading back to bed with our stockings in our arms. Mother and Father and all the sacrifices they made to make this day so special for three boys. My own children and the magic of Christmas in each of their eyes. I have never seen a human express such pure joy as my daughter Rachel on the morning she opened a package with a long awaited doll inside. It was a glimpse of heaven, the type of expression reserved the best things in life. Or the end of this. When we enter heaven it must be with an expression just like that, unrestricted joy.

I think of the contrast between my big tough son, and his request as a child for "a little poodle" for Christmas.

I will remember Caroline as she struggled to read the Christmas story aloud when she was six or seven. How proud she was, and how we thought it would never end as she spurned any help and concentrated on pronouncing every word.

I will always remember my grandfather's reading of the Christmas story and the long ritual that surrounded the evening and the waiting to open family gifts on Christmas eve.

My first midnight Christ Mass, in one of the early years of this century. How this old tradition of the Anglican and Catholic church drew me closer to an understanding of the miracle of this day.

Mary, the blessed mother of Jesus. Worshipped by Catholics, ignored by Protestants. Somewhere in my religion there must be a place for her. The Holy mother of our Lord. The special vessel chosen by God to bear his son. We carry Him inside us spiritually, but she carried the God who created her, inside her body. Her blood flowed through Him.

In the northern hemisphere Christmas comes when nature sleeps. We wonder if the early day of winter, December 25, is the true birthday of our Lord, or is it an old pagan holiday that the early church adopted? Wouldn't we be surprised to find that this really is the birth date? How wonderful that when all around us is dead, when all the leaves have fallen, when the small mammals are in hibernation, when the world is encased in ice, the manger of Bethlehem sends a message of life and love and warmth and rebirth.

The haunting strains of "What Child is This?". The world still asks that question every day, every sunrise, every sunset. Who is this Jesus, who is this God / this man that we cannot shake from our minds? Why are we so drawn to him yet something in us also pushes him back. We love the baby, we worship the Lamb of God, but we fear the wrath of the Lion of Judah. What does it tell us about ourselves that we spend weeks and weeks preparing for Christmas but spend only an hour or so in preparation for Easter. What does that say about me?
I will join my family on the eve of his birth. At his altar I will confess my sins. I will take his body and his blood. I will remember Mary and Joseph. I will thank my heavenly father for coming to this world just like me, a small helpless boy.

The last gasp of fall in Minnesota

Tonight: Partly cloudy, low around -18.
Tuesday: Snow likely, 1-2 inches. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 6. Chance of snow is 60%.
Tuesday Night: Snow likely, mainly before midnight, low around -4. New snow less than one inch.
Wednesday: Mostly sunny, high near 10, low around 0.
Thursday: A 50 percent chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 18, low around 6.
Friday: Partly sunny, with a high near 17.A slight chance of snow, with a low around 5.
Saturday: A chance of snow. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 10, low around -3.
Sunday: Mostly sunny and cold, with a high near 5, a low around -9.
Monday: Sunny and cold, with a high near 3.