Burning the red sox hat 2013

Starting off the new year just right. A lunch of black eyed peas and rice for good luck followed by this annual tradition.

The Gun

I read the Second Amendment tonite. There's been a lot of talk lately about what it means. Both the extreme right and left seem to know exactly what it says, but it always just confuses me. I can always read it two ways.

I'm not much of a hunter. If my math is right I go about once every 20 years. But I've always been around guns a fair amount. In college my room mate and I used to go shooting quite a bit and I always enjoyed killing a few cans or putting holes in the side of a rusty old junker. Most of my friends and relatives own guns. Back when JCPenney sold guns, and I was a young management trainee, I even sold a few and for a while could talk gun pretty good.

I don't care about the politics of it, but I think every one of my gun owning friends should continue to own guns. But anyone who is tempted to buy their first gun this month due to some new found fear of the government, probably shouldn't. They're too easily riled up, too easily tricked. They'll puff out their chests and brag for a day or two about taking a stand for their second amendment rights, and then put the gun away where it will gather dust for a decade or so. It will never be used for hunting, or self defense, or target practice. 

Power preys on fear.  Fear of guns from the left, fear of not having them on the right. 

Ice Time

Last weekend, just before Christmas, I spotted the first ice house of the season, on the lake behind our house. For some reason it seemed a bit early but when I realized how much of the past weeks had been spent below freezing, it didnt seem so out of place.

Also that day i saw the first ice skaters out. Five or six kids off in the distance, like a Christmas scene from Currier and Ives.

Now, a week later, the ice houses are everywhere. Little villages that pop up during the day. You can't tell by looking whether they are occupied, but I always imagine that they are. That inside each of them is a couple of guys, dropping lines in ice, sharing a drink, telling lies, getting a long-awaited break from the world.

Aunts and Uncles

A few weeks ago I was asked to share a memory of my Aunt Joyce for her birthday. Below is what I wrote....

The best thing about aunts and uncles is they usually treat you like a grownup long before your parents do. They blaze the trail and send signals to the rest of the family that the kid is growing up.

In 1976 or so, when i was 19, i spent a few days with my Aunt Joyce and her family. She took me to an Amway event and other cool things, showing me a little about what her grownup life was like. I got so caught up in the excitement that i whipped out my pack of salems and had coffee and cigarettes with the Amway folk, just like i was a big kid.

Later that night she and i stayed up til around 1, talking Amway and politics and family history and college adventures, and all sorts of other things. AND! We smokedcigarettes together!!! "your mom would kill me if she knew i was letting you smoke in my house", she said. And so for a few hours it was just me and my aunt, drinkin coffee, smokin, talkin, laughin.

Whenever i think of that day it makes me want to take up cigarettes again. But obviously it is my aunt that i miss, not the habit.

Over the years i have had many wonderful times with my Aunt Joyce, but none so great as the day she walked me down the road to perdition with a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

The man who made me love jazz

Dave Brubeck died today. One thousand years from now, when the last memory of 21st century silliness, like global warming, lady gaga, the tea party, and monster beverages has faded from human consciousness, there will still be a place for "Take Five". Perhaps it will be the tune of the national anthem of whatever country Minnesota is then part of.

How many times have I fallen to sleep listening to it? Dozens I'm sure. Mebbe a hundred.

I came late to jazz, real late, in my forties. In my youth I associated jazz with Dixieland, Louis Armstrong, Al Hirt. Sweaty fat people with trumpets blaring on Bourbon Street. Funny music, party music, not serious, not thoughtful, not warm. It didn't take.

Dave did not turn me on to jazz. Jane Monheit was the one who first piqued my interest about ten years ago, at a club in Minneapolis. But Brubeck put it inside me. That cool soft sound that seem so natural, like something we were all born to love.

There was a movie once, or a TV show, that played Take Five in the opening scene. The tune was soon all in my head and had to go to a store and thumb through all the CDs until I could see a copy of The Essential Dave Brubeck in my hands.

I don't write about jazz, don't know how, and never felt the need. Today I do. Thank you Dave.

Taste of winter

It turned cold here right after Thanksgiving and we got a light dusting of snow. A thin crust of ice covered the smaller lakes and ponds.

Ahh Winnipeg

Nice to feel the snow crunch underfoot and to take in a breath at zero.

A terrible day for the Nation

Nothing about this is good. No way to spin it as being of value, in any way, to the nation.

I'm stunned, and its like being let down by a good friend. What a terrible day for the Cardinal Nation. Today the dodgers announced that Mark McGwire, until yesterday the Cardinals hitting coach, has traded red for blue. red to blue, and i'm scratchin my head over that one. Add this to the list of things today that make no sense.

Airports make you eat stupid

Airports make you eat stupid. This was my thought yesterday as I was walking through Midway airport in Chicago, and later as I sat on a plane drinking coffee and snacking on peanuts. Coffee and peanuts. You would never combine the two in real life. Only on a plane.

But it's the airport that makes people really eat stupid. Maybe we are thinking that because we're flying across time zones that the regular food rules don't apply. In recent weeks I have observed such oddities as,  people eating lunch at 10am or patrons of Manchu Wok devouring spring rolls and cashew chicken for breakfast. Folks standing in front of a Sbarro around 9am, wondering when the place will open. Grown men carrying a bag of gummy worms. It's crazy.

Charlotte airport, 925pm, gate b14

Four hour layover on a trip home from Houston. Sitting next to a woman reading an article titled "ode to autumn" in Good housekeeping magazine. She may be the only normal person here. Everyone else staring at small glowing rectangles and tapping them,including me

What in the world was i thinking when i picked this flight? After one dish of ice cream, one sudoku, one tasteless barbecue sandwich, and one hour in the famous Charlotte airport rocking chairs i am ready to go home. It snowed today and i missed it.

Painful

Hard to watch last night's game. I might have seen thirty minutes of it total, which was much more than I watched of the presidential debates. I was not a good fan. Had a bad feeling about it. Kept switching back and forth between reality shows and checking the score. Told myself I would tune in once we got ahead. It didnt happen. This morning a cubs fan came by my office to let me know the Cardinals had lost.

It's been worse, but it's been a while. I was at game five in 1996 when the braves beat the Cardinals 13-0 in game five (and then two nights late beat them 15-0 in game seven). Or 2004 when the redsox swept the Cardinals in four. Since then, it's been a sweet decade for Cardinals fans.

We won't talk about this at our house. It's like it didn't happen. Like the death of a loved one or some terrible family scandal, it just won't come up.

Feb 14 - pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

October at the Lake

This is a pic of the new place in mid October. Leaves gone from most of the trees. Boat docks off the water and on the shore. The evergreens beginning to stand out much more than in the summer. The cars on the road nearby sound louder, now that the sound barrier the leaves create is gone. One last cutting of the grass, and I'll be done with that until Spring. Time to put away lawnmowers and clean the dust off the snow blowers.