Old Trunks & Worn Shoes

ON THE THIRD PITCH, HOME RUN

2011-08-11T15:13:00.003-05:00

Love the lady with all my heart
Love that lady with all my heart
Love the next one with all my heart.

Blessed.

Old Trunks flew high enough when I talked with Soozi.

Even higher when Mary Ann called.

And up there with the Blue Angels when Barb came to town.

WOW.

How hard her friend laughed when we told her about beating up on a guy who broke into Barb's house and cooked steak. Armed with leather quirts, used to convince horses to move, we beat the crap out of him in the movie theater. And we laughed.

And Barb told me about her grand daughter and how the stud horse and her had a relationship that neither of us never had. We shivered at the magnificent friendship.

And then Barb hit the road in her red short bed truck and I left in my yellow short bed truck.

Friendship. Phone calls or visits, all time disappears between visits.

Never out of step.

Thanks, Soozi, MaryAnn, and Barb.

e

MESSY SOCK DRAWER?

2011-07-15T10:08:00.003-05:00

Old Trunks thinks people take drugs to think up ideas to allow people to judge themselves. Honest.

Does it really matter what state your sock drawer is in? The article states that the most orderly people have the messiest sock drawers. How about yours? What is the state of the affair of the drawer?

Since I can't really tell the different between dark navy and black anymore nor can MST, we have a system; black to the back whether it be slacks OR socks. It works.

For now, I think I will go stir up the sock drawer and call myself organized!

e

ANITA, WHERE ARE YOU?

2011-07-07T07:54:00.005-05:00

Old Trunks had a flash this morning. She remembers a person she met in grade school who would be a best friend for a few years. We went to confirmation together. Her name was Anita. She was born on this day.

She was the kind of a friend that would buy matching red and green plaid pants. Oh my, they were so ugly. Mother was right, once you wore them, everyone knew you had them!

She was the kind of friend who would to to S & L store and try on hats until the clerks closed in on us.

She was the kind of friend that would shave her bony legs, only to see the blood run from her ankle to her knee and I befriended by putting toilet paper on her leg so her mom would not know. Yea, right her mother never missed a thing.

I stayed at her house one night. In the morning, he Dad went to his business with American Breeder's Association as an artificial inseminator. Mother was dropped off at the laundry when she ironed white dress shirts.

While they were gone, Anita and I decided to bake a cake. But we left the house while it was baking and the cake burned up. We threw the pan in the woods and opened the window. Just how she knew the pan was in the woods, we will never know. Certainly the house smelled charred. I think we decided to take her uncle's car for a driving lesson.

In about eighth grade, she and I would dress for the day and change clothes once at school. Why did we start that? Mrs. Pound, the Home EC teacher made fun of Anita's clothes, the two of use where going to get past in. My wools were lined, they hung better. But still that nasty old women said Anita needed to wear a girdle. For crying out loud we were just 14 or so.

She would marry at 15 and we didn't see much of each other after that. I do remember picking her up in Ragdoll and riding around. The sun was i her daughter's eyes while another friend held the baby. Anita wanted the baby turned, friend said, "She has a bone in her neck she can turn her head".

She had become a mother. She grew up. She didn't play silly games like we did.

Happy Birthday, Anita.

e

BEST OF GADGETS

2011-06-29T08:25:00.003-05:00

When I asked my sweet Thomas what he thought the best ten gadgets ever, he had to have more information. The did a broad brush, that is, all electricity was lumped together, all computer like gadgets were lumped together. He wanted to hear combustion engine was in the top ten.

It made for a lively discussion that went bump somewhere. Maybe I should say belly up.

Because to him the light bulb, (10) was part of electricity. Cell phones and computer (numbers 1 and 5), were lumped together.

And what was the deal with the alarm clock, (9) even being on the list?

The rotary telephone (7) didn't belong on the list.

How could radio (2) be higher than TV (3)?

He did agree much of the southwest did come to be populated because of air conditioning (6).

There was no comment about the syringe (4) being on the list.

He was certain the people who did the list must be very young. But they weren't honest. The program went on to explain there is a trend toward phonograph (8) records returning. The alarm clock was on the list because for the first time, people had a way of getting up and to work on time.

As for the radio being more rel event than TV, it stated people listen to the radio in their cars.

The smart phones which began just a few years ago with the applications are deserving number one. On any given day, whether it is someone walking past our house or someone sitting on a dock at the lake, phones are in use. People use them in the cafe while eating; as that couple talking to one another OR are they talking to different people.

How many man hours are spent at work with people having private conversations, including texting? How many people are checking messages on company computer?

I don't mean to sound like I came over on the Mayflower but when I hired on at a durable medical company I asked in the interview if my son could call to check in when he got home from school and the owner did not answer right away.

Is it instant life? What is your gadget status?

e

HOW DO YOU WRAP A SANDWICH?

2011-06-28T08:01:00.003-05:00

Recently an aroma triggered the site of the lunch room in the old Washington Grade School. It was in the basement. The odor was of wax paper and old milk. Bleck. I can see that dingy room with desks as tables in a not so straight row. Years later, we would have our lockers in that room and it still smelled the same. Perhaps it wasn't the lunch room at all, rather, just a basement.

I thought about the lunch box and how the sandwich was wrapped in wax paper with the fold at the bottom in the bottom of the lunch box. Insulated bottles may have started the year but one forlorn day, many of us would hear the clinking of the glass liner in our not so cold milk.

I didn't thinking packing a sandwich in the bottom was efficient. Why not wrap it in such a way that it could be placed on the top above the apple which, when on top of the sandwich squished the bread?

And how long had wax paper been around anyway? Did Grandma's grandma use it? Perhaps. It is said that Thomas Edison invented it but then, doesn't he get credit for everything anyway?

I suspect that Grandma's grandma did use it. Most likely over and over. Lunch pails were tin then and just the idea of the lid sealed in the moisture. Now, I imagine if one opened that pail it was a full aroma of yeast on a warm day.

Is it wise to reuse any sort of food wrapping? I am thinking about a family down the street when the children were young. Sack lunch. Reuses the sack and the food bags over and over. With all the information out there on food born illnesses, it is simply amazing these kids never got sick. Maybe our bags were too clean.

Making lunches day after day is a pain. We had a plan. Pack a week's worth of lunches at a time and freeze them. Just grab your sack out of the freezer in the morning add fruit and go. Doesn't that sound like a great plan? Have the kids help! Meat and cheese on the sandwich, chips, and a cookie; bag it up. Except one of the children grabbed a bag AFTER school as well as FOR school.

When Grandpa was working he most certainly would have brought lunch. What I remember was quart jars with coffee. OR nectar. Root beer nectar. How odd for us, who have provisions to heat coffee or make it in less than five minutes OR to put it in a insulated container and keep it warm for hours to know people actually drank air temperature coffee.

Yet I do know someone who drinks air temperature soda. After all, if one is fishing on a hot day, that open soda is not going to stay cold very long. So there is a point. After all, the purpose is to hydrate. Well, then, water, perhaps.

I tried the room temperature soda for one summer and went back to a small cooler with an ice pack. My soda at home is in the fridge. I dare say I haven't bought much ice. A guest once asked if he could have ice and a glass. There was no ice. I since learned that many out there still use ice and buy a small bag for company. The last over night guests never used it. Most likely it is still in the big freezer in the basement.

What about an ice maker, you say? Well, the old fridge had one. Fargo's water does not make good clear ice cubes. I spent more time cleaning out the tray and lines than using it so the new fridge is simply a box with no frills.

So how do we wrap a sandwich? We have basket lunch on the way to the lake each week. A room temperature soda, a cold soda, and a container of milk go to the side. Fruit goes on the bottom followed by a cookie. The sandwiches are in zipper bags. One is marked, "T" because "T" likes more mayonnaise. MORE? Slathered is more like it. All of this is covered with a railroad hank, which goes on Tom's knee. We do not reuse bags for food.

It does not smell like wax paper
It does not smell like old milk
And the truck does not smell like Washington Grade School lunchroom.

e

FATHER KNEW BEST

2011-06-19T06:00:00.003-05:00

You may not have favored a parent; I did. It was Daddy.

A friend recently asked why people hadn't put their dad's picture on Face book like they did their mother's photograph. I adore this lady and she deserves to know it was hard to do.

How do you post a picture of someone when you are flooded with memories to the point of tears? How can you not post one of him making Diamond sit on the lawn mower? How about him on the back of Suntan when he rode in the Dairy Day Parade? How about him scratching the back of the Hereford's? How well could you see him in the picture of him and I on Christmas Day in the cutter?

Last Sunday when we came home from the lake, I took the time to look at the pictures of Daddy from when he was just standing to the summer of 1981 when we celebrated, what would be his last birthday--the was 67 and Rachel baked and decorated his cake.

Every picture shares a tie. Something sparked at each picture and a learned lesson.

Stan wasn't a handsome man. He didn't have a sexy look about him. He was short and in his work clothes with his hanky sticking out of his back pocket, he looked like any other working man in our town.

Yet, he was handsome to me. He was kind and good to me. We had a good relationship. I was lucky, his alcoholism didn't get in the way. I was able to separate the disease from the person.

Perhaps I find good fortune in the good, the bad, and the ugly. What amazes me is what I remember is the good.

On this Father's Day, I honor him. I am listening for his laughter and his voice. Let's hope you can do the same.

e

SO BIG

2011-06-11T06:00:00.002-05:00

Recently I watched a 1932 film called So Big starring Barbara Stanwyck. I had only known the film by the same name made in 1953 starring Jane Wyman.

We know books, in this case, Edna Ferber's, called So Big was made into movies. including a silent version in the mid twenties. But only twenty years between the last two?

My question is: How many movies are repeat performances? Better yet, how many repeat performances in life.

e

CUSTOMER SERIVCE

2011-06-10T06:00:00.003-05:00

The article stated that 67 percent of 1000 people polled had customer service issues.

Although I am of the age to have grown up watching customer service happen to my parents, children were not recognized as customers. It wasn't they were rude, we just weren't recognized even if our 10 cent purchase was money spent.

After all, if Mrs. Anderson could go to Penney's and spend a nickel on a spool of thread and be treated with please and thank you, why couldn't a group of happy girls get that sort of treatment at the Fountain Cafe for Cokes all around? Hey if Evonne was along, there was even a bill for French Fries--bring the mustard. Yvonne?

And no matter what we are told, we are still responsible for every nit nit we do. And small towns don't forget or don't let you whereas, one should not be held liable for decades. Regardless if it is good or bad.

Manners, whether I meant them or not, were drilled into me. DRILLED. You WILL say please and thank you. And so I did. And decades later, at my mother's funeral, a lady who worked at the Fountain came up to me and said, "Oh, Elodee, I am so sorry your mother has passed". She went on to say she remembered me from the Fountain and I was always nice to her.

And the funny thing about it is, she glared at us. She appeared to glare at us. Who knows what was going through her mind. But we were not privileged to full citizenship. And, as a teen, I didn't give any thought to what she may be going through. I don't think I wondered anything except glaring, or appear to be glaring was certainly not part of being a waitress.

It was many years before the DRILLED came back to me in the form of a German Baptist owner. Customer Service was top billing and all of his staff would be loving that person regardless. It wasn't hard, the people where worth it. My private life was not at work. I was not paid to bring it to work.

The biggest complaint in the survey I read was about tech support. I am inclined to believe we can blame a runny BM on them. It is all their fault. It is all the computer's fault. And, it may be but where is the follow up?

I tend to chew on things awhile before I spit it out. But when I went to have a physical and someone had keyed in the information on a new computer system saying my dad died because of heart surgery, it really pissed me off. He died because they gave him blood with the AIDS virus in it. The nurse didn't have a pen so she wrote numbers in a magic marker. The doctor couldn't access the computer to write RX. There was no follow up to squelch damage control. It was all the fault of the computer, right? WRONG!

But customer service is coming back! Employees are saying please and thank you. Why? Why is it that after shopping for greater than 10 years at a up scale department store in FM area I have only once been asked if they could help me? Bucks. Someone had caught on that servicing your customers is not a novel idea, it is what service is all about.

I am enlightened. I am aglow. A man who is retired fixes rods. He is customer oriented. FINALLY.

e

I CAN NAIL THAT IN IN THREE BLOWS

2011-06-09T11:19:00.003-05:00

Sounds like a huff and puff, doesn't it? Well, with a 20 pound hammer, my brother did do it. He was strong and when focused drove a nail and laid wood flooring faster than anyone. When focused.

Old Trunks comes from a long line of nail bangers. Grandpa Benhard built barns all around a sixty mile radius from Rosewood. He used to tell me, "I built that one--and that one---" Perhaps that is the foundation for me wanting to build a house that looked like a barn. Perhaps that is why I am sad when I see a barn caved in.

A story in the Rosewood News talks about how he and his buddy moved a school across country. They used logs. Roll, move logs, Roll, move logs. Talk about physical! More like brute strength, don't you think?

His son, Stanley was also a carpenter. Later, he would not swing the hammer, rather have the right to draw the plans, hire the sub contractors, and watch his crew make the dream a reality. I can still go to my home town and whisper, "Daddy built that". Unlike Grandpa's barns, most of Daddy's work still stands.

Why am I writing about this today? In a storm about 10 days ago, a tree fell on the roof of a house just two houses to the west. Today, the workers are installing new rafters. But the crew doesn't swing the hammer anymore, so there isn't the bang, bang, bang rather a caw-thunk as the electric equipment drives in the nail.

Let's hope all of them know how to handle the electric nail gun. Someone I knew didn't. While kneeling, the gun went off in the side of his knee and caught the meat of the long leg bone. They took him to the hospital in the back of a pick up because his leg 'nailed' into position.

Whether your day is caw-thunk or bang, bang, bang, hope you accomplish your mission.

e

GITTIN' ON THE BAND WAGON

2011-06-08T10:28:00.003-05:00

Projects get started, often times laid aside because of weather, time, or 'other'.

Grandpa used to say, "Gittin' on da band vagon". I supposed it meant, being inspired to do or help. He used it in conjunction with planting a garden. "Come on Ma, get on da vagon". Help.

Old Trunks wonders if jumping on the band wagon is more like I wanna do it too!?

So instead of 'gittin' like Grandpa, let's say JUMP!

We have a 9' chain sawed bear in front of our garage. His name is Howard, because that means protector. Howard is one of three bears carved out of a white pine. We have had him awhile, he came home on the bunk trailer for the Warrior and was stood up with an engine puller. He is rough cut and had no finish on him. He came with a fish, which he held high over his head.

Well, the Johnson's would rather fish in the summer than do maintenance at home so for the few days we are here, we work on what needs to be done. But this spring, I asked Tom to take the pike off the bear so I could repaint him. Perhaps I would finish the project before fishing season. Perhaps.

It has been a cold spring, and the pike lay in wait on a cardboard covered table in the garage. The little boat had been towed to the lake and there was plenty of room. With the Honda out of the garage during the day, I could spray in that direction without getting it on the sunshine truck.

And I waited until a reasonable day and started to spray. Nothing. Pike too dry. Paint didn't have any gloss to it as it all soaked in. We went to Menard's for items and since they sell a brand of paint that I think sticks to anything, I picked up a quart for the pike. Not a water wolf color but after all, someone else thought it was a muskie so a little fish fantasy might do!

The weather turned nice and I did a coat of the olive front and back. Then did the white, and detailed the body fanning another color of green and yellow. All I had left was the red in the gills and the iris. Tom did find the red paint I had purchased in an ice cream bucket, so one side got done.

And then, the most interesting thing happened. Tom jumped on the band wagon. It was too hot to mow but guess it wasn't too hot to stain Howard. We are two eyes and a gill plate from finishing the project!

Jump! You might find it is fabulous. And remember to praise the jumper.

e

HOME LIKE

2011-06-04T06:00:00.003-05:00

Another spin off from 6/2 mentioned crepe flowers for the office.

Think about this: Isn't making acquaintances based on something mutual? I would, for example, blend with someone who fished. Or someone that liked to take pictures. Because I might meet them as I did those things. If one is in a quilt shop, the mutual discussion is quilting. Are you with me?

One of the things that has always bothered me about professional offices is there professional decor. Stiff. Not at home. Nothing to attach to. And maybe it is there for a reason. Yet, I have come to believe we HIRE these folks and I think our radar is looking for a hook up before we are eye to eye with the 'hired man'. Or to some, a woman.

It doesn't have to please me over all, it just has to identify. Certainly I am not the only one that feels this way. How about you?

When Tom bought the optical shop I wanted to warm it up. I wanted others to come in to the shop and identify with some thing. Didn't have to be huge, they didn't even have to mention it but I wanted a connection for them. Homey. Is that a word?

This is lake country. This is fishing country. This is snow country. Tom said nothing. He just put the tackle box, the old lures, the nets, along with a straw hat and old rods and reels. He hung the old window with only one pane left from the ceiling. He put the berry swags on it and mounted seasonal pictures in the waiting room. He clustered bird houses together and put sunglasses on Nard, the chain saw bear. In the winter, he would wrap a wool scarf around his neck and stand him by the evergreen. The idea was to be seasonal. We actually do have more than three days of summer, tough sledding, and snow. Really.

At first nothing. I told him to wait. People would not say anything because the idea of home-like in a business was 'new' to them. We made a loon book so they could look at something else while waiting for their glasses fitting. And when they came back, most certainly, they made mention of something. For one lady, it was try to buy the cast iron fish. For many it was "where did you get that"? But for most, it was, "I fished when I was younger, my husband and I had a cabin", Men say they had decoys like that for hunting. Some come back for an adjustment to say, "Oh, you have something new". They are looking for more common identifiers.

In the fall, he can say 'we' took that pictures at Pickerel Lake. We couldn't believe there were two trees arched over making a frame for that old barn.

Now? Frogs. Lots and lots of frogs. One bought and gold leafed in green to make him shine and a crown added. It is probably the most time spent to get him to have a personality. Now he is touched. People like to touch. They feel with their soul. If, by sight they can not determine if something is real or silk, they touch. Comfort. Iris will be added the first of the week because that is when they bloom around here. It is a touch thing.

Our mission is accomplished. It is all about being comfortable in ones surroundings, isn't it?

Your mission is go to a professional office and look about. Do you identify? Is in cozy so you feel you may touch? And then, why not.

GRANDMA MAE AND THE TISSUE PAPER

2011-06-03T06:00:00.003-05:00

Grandma's Mae's gifts were always wrapped in white tissue paper and tied with red, grained paper ribbon which was curled on the end of the bow. Sometimes there were stickers. The only boxed gift I ever received was when she crocheted little clothes for Bobby and Betty. Yes, I still have the clothes and Betty. Bobby wandered off.

I am not saying there is anything wrong with tissue wrapping. On the contrary, it is a wonderful memory and tissue paper and Grandma Mae will always be united. And other than a watch my Dad wrapped in butcher style for me for Christmas one year, I don't really remember the outside of the gift.

To clarify the watch wrapping, I was about six. Daddy put the box in the corner of the paper, and wrapped and rolled. I told him it wasn't wrapped very well, and he said, "It isn't how it is wrapped that counts, it is what is inside". Well, what does a six year old know anyway. :)

Although I loved him dearly, I can not agree. Something has to be said about the mystery of what is inside of the box by the outside. Besides, I dearly like to wrap and always have. I like the package to be a treat in itself. I like to use boxes. I like to use tissue to wrap a wear able garment. And there is somewhat of a game because one of the Christmas guests, takes all the tissue from the opened gifts, so you see, it is recycled.

I do not wrap in tissue for one reason: You can't crease the corners. I like the edges of the boxed item to be, as Tom says, "So crisp I could cut my finger". It is a thing with me. Saving the paper for scrap book pages is also recycling!

I am thinking about MST. On an occasion where a gift is presented, he know he will have to have his pocket knife to break the seal of tape on the box. But I am going to fool him! I am going to start using a glue gun! Why? Because the flour, water, and salt paste the other grandmother used never worked. :)

Tissue. Nice and won't cut your fingers!

e

CREPE PAPER

2011-06-02T08:35:00.002-05:00

It is an old project soon to come back to life. For years, I could not keep two things straight:

1 Crepe paper verses tissue paper

2. Lettuce verses cabbage

Don't ask and I won't have to tell.

Then, when Bud was in kindergarten, he wanted to give his teacher a flower--his favorite--a dandelion. And I learned about crepe paper, the kind that you can flounce, whereas tissue paper was just a rich man's way of wrapping a shirt to be put in a box and then wrapped even if Grandma Mae always wrapped the outside of the gift with white tissue paper. Always and never in a box.

So it came to be you could buy crepe paper at the dime store and I found bright yellow. I suppose it was about 20" wide and who know how long. I just know that I cut slits to make it look like dandelions and made a HUGE dandelion for him to present to her.

I had not thought about crepe paper until the other day. A friend's mother has dementia and when she sees the dandelions in the grass at the nursing home, she is happy. Could I still make them? Couldn't be that hard, could it? Aren't old buried in our minds crafts nothing more than letting the spirit flow?

When I looked on line, the first hit was for a large chain store. First item listed? Crepe dress. Second: Crepe pan. Looking down the line of hits, I did find a pure crepe site. Real crepe. Also real tissue paper. Yes, I did know the difference.

In a few days, when the package arrives, I will make dandelions and send to my friend to bring to her mother. After all, nursing home rooms need some bright yellow, bright pink, and bright red, don't you think? Doesn't every where?

And since I was ordering anyway, why not pick up some gold and wine for fall at the office? After all, isn't it all about homey, even if it is a business? But that is another subject for another day.

And to you, Soozi, Crepe Suzette!

e

THERE IS SOMETHING ABOUT LILACS

2011-05-24T09:05:00.003-05:00

Flowers seem to captivate us.

For Grandpa Ranum, it was roses. He liked getting them as gifts and he had a way about him that was nurturing. Mother liked marigolds around the foundation of the house, (although Daddy always said evergreens were the best for foundation planting). Mother didn't care, she bought flats of marigolds and fed them lots of fertilizer and made them into bushes with huge blossoms. Grandma Mae had her garden of glads and Grandma Ranum had her stand of Hollyhocks. Mother's birth mother, Clara, had climbing roses on a trellis, as did Atropa in Kansas. And Ella, the children's other grandmother had petunia's lining her walk from the curb to her front step.

Perhaps for me, the best of all, are lilacs. It is a spot of heaven. On a road trip, we passed a farm with lilac bushes on two sides. They had not bloomed yet, just loaded with buds ready to pop. A short cut to our house goes by a stand of them. From the sun room, I can see they have now bloomed from two days ago.

I have pictures of my daughter holding lilacs. The bushes at the house in KS where under her window and the scent drifted in. The bushes had been a garden gift from friends. We had dug them up in their yard and moved them.

Perhaps I need to think more about daisies, which swing and sway in the wind and when the seeds are cast far from home, they seem to take root, grow, and with their yellow centers, capture the sun and dance in the wind.

Perhaps dancing in the wind and casting seed here and there is my wannabee spirit. Perhaps it is my spirit.

For now, a touch of heaven in the blooming of the lilacs.

Flower. Bloom where you are planted.

e

PAINTING OLD WOOD

2011-05-17T14:49:00.004-05:00

Old Trunks looked at old photographs with weathered houses. She wonders why the houses weren't painted (better). Have you ever painted weathered board?

The project this week is to paint the pike which Howard the bear, (who stands in front of the garage) holds above his head. Two cans of spray later, it just now starting to show. All the paint is soaking into the thirsty pores of the wood. Will there ever be a sheen?

Isn't that the same with the old weathered houses in the pictures? Did they not go so long without being treated that the first order of business was to 'wet' the wood? Is this why primer was invented?

I wonder what paint cost per gallon then. It was all oil base and certainly had lead in it. No matter the cost, if that amount was needed for groceries or shoes, it is understandable houses stood silently and did not question when they were going to be made Sunday best.

e

IT'S A DUCK!!!

2011-05-14T16:35:00.000-05:00

It is walleye opener in Minnesota. Many were on the point at one past midnight hoping for a creel filled with good eating. Today, boats have been zooming by going from one place to another. Are the fish that scattered?

We are not fishing. We are waiting until next weekend which is bass opener. Although we considered going out, the weather has just adjusted to sun and 61. And now, MST is on yet another task, this one, outdoors with neighbor Paul as his helper as he removes the front of the deck to get set to have the trailer straightened this week.

Yesterday's project was to hang new blinds. I can't praise the company enough. We have one minor mistake which can be corrected by just telling them about it. As we worked on hanging the blinds in the bedroom, we saw two pair of wood ducks, one male in full color and a younger couple where the male was just beginning to get its unique feather color pattern.

The supreme joy of the inside project was spotting this couple in the swamp behind us through the screen and through the window. We know them as skittish water fowl and wondered if we could get the screen off and the window open without spooking them. We did and with elbows braced on a stack of pillows hoped for an opening in the brush. And this is the result.

The first time I saw a wood duck decoy, painted by a man who took it up as a hobby after he became wheel chair bound, I was certain he was making up his own feather color pattern. Alas, the return to Minnesota has taught me there is such a thing as wood ducks and they really are marked in this magically way. Yet with all that color, they are lost in the natural colors of their surroundings.

GARDENING?

2011-05-09T10:40:00.003-05:00

Old Trunks is thinking about gardening today. Oh, no! Not for me or us rather about my grand parents. And for everyone out there in the cloud, I do admire you for your efforts and the nurturing you do to grow product for your own table. I don't have the gardening gene.

My grandparents always had a garden I never remember them not having one. The first one I remember was when they lived with us when mother was in the San with TB. The garden was right outside the back door along the fence between our property and Botham's crap apple orchard. It was sacred ground. NO ONE stepped on that area. NO ONE. The next summer it was moved to the back of the lot to host a larger garden and water was pumped from the river to water it. Previously it was close to the house and a hose was used.

What I remember most about that garden was that Grandpa grew watermelons. He saved the seeds. For some reason, he put the seeds in the oats box where Babe the Welsh pony took her grain. I could never understand how he could be so mad at Babe for eating something he placed there, but he was!

Now the garden was always masterfully groomed. It seemed to happen magically. I never saw them pull a hoe or pick a weed. Of course, it was tended daily and that is why it always looked like it was a model garden.

Although to a five year old, it seemed as if they stated they wanted a garden in a certain place and it happened. I didn't know about how they had to make the soil ready and all the raking and breaking up of clumps that had to happen. I did learn later that once all of that hard work was accomplished, Grandma would take two stakes and a string and mark off rows with space in between to walk and hoe. Between these stakes, she would form a mound and poke her finger in to make an indent in which to put the seed. Then, back breaking walk down the rows and drop one seed in each hole. Later she would retrace her steps and gently bury the seed. When she was completely finished, she would sit at the kitchen table and separate the seeds because as she planted, she just put them in the pocket of her apron. She did NOT put them back in the package, as the package was over the stake at the row's end so one would know what was planted there, although I suspect she had a system of how things were planted.

Perhaps her system had something to do with the way things matured OR how it looked. The corn, being the tallest crop was always along a fence line or on the out side edge of the garden. And because part of having company over on a Sunday afternoon for lunch meant looking at the garden, one had to have it as perfect as it could get.

Looking at the garden and the flowers was always a big thing. It generally happened after an afternoon lunch of cookies/cake and coffee. Once the garden was viewed, people generally left.

I wonder how many times a day the garden was visited. I heard a song when I was young called, "In the Garden". One of the lines was, "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses". I was certain it was about Grandpa and Grandma. Alas, it was not.

e

KILL-DEE said the KILL DEER

2011-05-03T06:00:00.000-05:00

A killdeer is a little shore bird who runs about on skinny legs and lays its eggs in the pebbles. It is a member of the plover family. Although it is considered a shore bird, they don't always nest in wet places. They especially like plowed fields for those worms, grubs, and bugs of various kinds.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to watch is when the incubating bird is flushed from the nest, the bird appears to have a broken wing(s) as if it can not fly. It also rolls and screeches to take the attention away from their ground next. It will almost act breathless. Meanwhile, the other partner flies and swoops and continues to protest until the intruder leaves.

It is said a law was past in 1918 protecting the Killdeer from being hunted for sport. The are not edible. They are, however, useful by destroying great quantities of noxious insects which includes mosquitos!

And just in case you don't know the difference between a loon and a kill deer, the loon has red eyes and the killdeer has orange. :) I am a wanna be birder. Before the move back to the north and attending the lake country, I had only heard a loon and had never seen a Killdeer. I have much to learn.

e

TOUPEE?

2011-05-02T15:39:00.004-05:00

The mister and I come to an agreement but not without compromise. I think drama and pattern. He thinks practical and light walls. And so when it came to buying a toupee for the floor at the lake it would be an adventure. I think you will have to agree we can drag in buckets of sand and loose it in the loops! We could almost hide a killdeer in it!

We did find one piece but only big enough for one room and since we live in a mini place the choice, whatever it would become, had to be the same, (my rule). We had looked at another blend which would work except, it was too formal for a place where table clothes and china are not used. We don't even use cloth napkins, (although it took several years to 'break' me of it).

We went from one carpet place to another, too expensive, not enough threads per square inch. Yada yada. We went to a dealer in Dilworth, which is a blink beyond Moorhead. As we drove out, we saw another dealer, the same name as in West Fargo, (which is a flicker away from Fargo to the west). We found the toupee but did not buy it because we didn't have the measurements. I thought we had written them down. We hoped, because the roll was big, there would be enough. There was 60' on the roll.

From the carpet store, we went directly to the pain(t) store. Although I thought the paint was too light, we did find something we could agree on. The painting would happen over the weekend. We would, for the most part, tease the pain(t) unto the walls all weekend. And we did. And we are proud.

This morning, I called MST and asked him for the style or color of the carpet because I wanted to get something started on on having it cut in two pieces, tightly wrapped, and ready to ride in the boat. I had the business card and the measurements.

"What was the name of that carpet"?

"It is on the back of his business card"

"Is isn't, hon, I think you wrote it down in your book".

"No, not here", he said.

I hoped that we made some sort of a splash so the clerk would remember us. Now, what is the first thing you do when you have a question? Write an email of course, and follow it up with a phone call.

The email had all the information in document form. I could not send a picture. The salesperson came on the floor at 1P, I called and talked with him. He did remember. He remembered when we talked about two pieces and carrying it in the boat. All I had to do was put down some payment and they would cut it and have it wrapped for pick up.

I still don't know the style name or color, but as long as he does, I think we are home free! Well, not free but we have our toupee and the floor will be happy! There was forty feet on the roll when I called. Someone with a 14' idea will have plenty!

What is a Killdeer?

Tomorrow.

e

TOO LATE FOR ME!

2011-04-27T08:30:00.003-05:00

Today's news states that sleeping on your back is best for your spine and neck. It also is the best way to ward off wrinkles and maintain perky breasts.

Well, ain't perky and have lots of wrinkles. Obviously, I do not sleep on my back. I am a side sleeper but wake up on my stomach.

The article goes on to say--which we already knew--that back sleepers snore. Side sleepers snore less, and stomach sleepers do not snore.

It is said that stomach sleepers cause the greatest harm to their necks and joints because nothing is aligned. I think about all the nights I put my babies on their stomachs to sleep and now it is said not to do that. Poor R, B, R!

MST is a back sleeper. I can tell when he comes home from work how much noise he is going to make when he sleeps. And he tells me to wake him and tell him to move. The funny thing about that is that when I do tell him, he states he wasn't asleep.

Now the thing is to look about and see who is wrinkled and not perky. I will KNOW how they sleep! Marjorie Main who starred in Ma and Pa Kettle movies, was for certain a stomach sleeper, she was NOT perky and she was wrinkled.

And that, dear ones, is the news from Fargotown.

I wish you well.

e

THE RETURN OF THE WATERFOWL

2011-04-25T11:17:00.003-05:00

There is something so refreshing and so great a promise that spring and summer in some form will arrive in the north country. This past weekend was like that. Although our hopes were to see a heron rookery, which we did not, we certainly saw waterfowl and shorebirds.

Something has happened. Just a few short years ago, there were only a few swans and wood ducks. Imagine our surprise to see wood duck pairs in more place than one. We even talked to a man who sits in his dining room window and watches several swimming near the resort. He reminded us how very skittish they are. They are gone before you can raise the lens of your camera.

The mergansers are back and the female with her red feathered head, (some feather's even sticking out) are so fun to watch. She looks like she runs the show and moves about while her mate seems to have no clue. SEEMS. She was having a bad hair day. Until this weekend, I thought the red head was the male!

We saw our first loon at Park Rapids as we crossed the bridge over Fish Hook River. What a site. I get excited and could only point. The killdeer run through the brown grass, still hard to see because of their coloring. The Northern Shoveler with its big big swam with its head down, almost as if its bill was too heavy. He was, of course, straining food from the lake.

But my favorite sight of all was two Mallard drakes with a female. And just who was going to be the man who got her. They swam in circles with the female aside as if to say good grief. Tom said there is an art to getting a picture of Mallard's in the swamp. Mostly it was inching along on the road looking for a place to poke the lens through and find something to aim at and wait for the ducks to circle.

Swamps, of course, are full of dead trees, over hanging mini branches, dried foliage next to the road, and there is no X that says, FOR A PICTURE, STAND HERE. Well, if you get out of the vehicle, they will disappear, so you stay in the vehicle, find something to aim at deep enough in and hope all the clutter is only on the edges.

By the time we go to the lake again, all the stuff that looks dead but isn't will have greened up making the Mallard's world a little safer from a yellow truck with two old folks holding their breathe as they watch one little part of mother nature's world. Refreshing. Stand still moments.

But then, maybe the white tail deer standing next to a tree near the road will be easier to see. As it was, he blended so well that it took me awhile to even see him. He did not move, twitch his ears, or blink. He just stood there. Well, with a group of friends, as when he did scamper off, we saw five flags instead of just one.

ADHD

2011-04-22T09:02:00.003-05:00

Why is it that about 5% of children across America have ADHD anyway? And just how long has this been available as yet another handle?

Someone I know recently said she had it. She is, oh, maybe in her mid to late forties. She was educated to be a teacher. I knew her when she was a little girl and I never saw her running about doing weird things, actually at each visit, she seemed very normal.

We didn't have special classes for ADHD people when I was growing up. Everyone was lumped together. If you didn't pass the grade, you were held back. If you where too smart for the class, too bad, there wasn't anyplace to put you then, either.

My question is: Is there a stigma? Do other children point and tease? Do you look different? How? Look, not act.

And so I go back to the mid forties lady and I wonder if some of the diagnoses she carries are plunked on her by the medical staff because they didn't know what else to do. Her list of drugs is scary.

Sometimes I wonder if doctor's just write scripts because they don't have a clue. I do know there isn't time to listen. Sometimes folks can't walk in and blurt out what the problem is and others blurt--maybe the louder the blurt and more pills. It is a case of the squeaky wheel being oiled first? Can people research an illness and know just what to say?

Does western medicine have to learn to listen FIRST? Do we need another group of professionals that do the listening? Oh, they are already out there. Oops.

If a person can only do a half a listen to directions then isn't it possible they can learn by watching instead of giving them the DX of ADHD? Think about it.

TWENTY FIVE YEARS AGO.........

2011-04-19T10:25:00.003-05:00

Where has the time gone? It seems like just a few Easter's ago the kids were trying to decide who held the bunny.

And now the writer, the singer, and the artist are all grown up BUT I have the bunny!

I loved spring in Kansas. I liked to find the first dandelion because that was the herald of the new season.

One Easter it was so warm, we actually saw the buds on the trees become leaves.

If you are not a believer in Easter

then

least

a believer

spring.

Happy Easter to all

Happy Spring time to all.

OH VANITIES OF VANITIES

2011-04-14T08:55:00.004-05:00

Old Trunks always is amazed at how thoughts string together and how one thing can trigger something else. Yesterday, MST brought home three boxes. A relative of his deceased wife went to assisted living in 1993 and her house was packed up by her son. At least we assume it was 1993 because that is the newspaper date in which the items were wrapped. It was time, Bill said, to get rid of the stuff. He had been in to have his glasses adjusted and he and Tom were talking about it. Tom remembered a lamp which belonged to Pat that she let Lee use. When Pat wanted it back, Lee had claimed it. That was the lamp Tom wanted. Instead he got a lovely hurricane lamp and two vanity lamps. The thought process is about vanities. As you can see, the picture on this blog is of a vanity with a lamp on either side of the drop down. This is only a photo found on line, it is not the vanity we had at our house. Mother went to the San in 1949; my grand parents came to live with us. The oak furnishings in the master bedroom were moved to my brother's room. Greg and Daddy shared the master bedroom in twin beds and my grandparent's slept in Greg's room in the Oak double bed. I actually think my parent's had twin beds before this because I remember a lamp melting a spot in the plastic head board but for the sake of the story we leave that alone. So in my brother's room was an oak bed, a chest of drawers, and the vanity. And since my grand parent's never left the room without being dressed, I am guessing grand mother sat on that bench and combed her hair and made ready for the day. Most likely there was a brush and mirror on the step down all nicely placed on a doily she may have made. I don't know what she would have kept in the drawers. Most likely those metal curlers and extra hair nets. But I do think grandma sat at the vanity more than anyone else ever did. In the early fifties, we were living in a house on Kneale Avenue. My grand parent's came to visit. Most likely the idea of the vanity came up and Mother made the decision to give it to them. Greg would have been a teenager and most likely it was thought he didn't need a vanity anymore. Greg came home just about the time they were taking it through the living room and took it back. After all, it was his furniture. He was not smiling. The interesting thing about it is, that vanity disappeared and by the time we got to the farm, it was gone and it was not at my grand parent's house. But mother still put two lamps on a dresser unit with a mirror on the new furniture. I remember the lamps well, they were shaped like a little pitcher with a bowl and had a shade with ruffles out of lace. What I remember most about them was the parakeet liked to sit on the shade and if you ever had a parakeet, you know they crap everywhere. Greg and I were not allowed to crap on the shades, just encase you wondered. Not only did she put two lamps on her dresser but mine as well. At the farm, in town when we moved back in 1960 and lived next door to the Johnson's but also in her house on Kendall where she lived until she deceased. The lamps, by the way offered poor lighting. Just as the ones Tom brought home which as deep rose colored glass with lots of bangles to reflect the light. I have not put a bulb in them yet nor have I washed them and put the bangles on them. They look like 1940. They may be newer. Yet beyond the lamps themselves, they offer a reflection into the past of Grandparents, Greg, rounded oak furniture, hair brushes never used, mirrors with names engraved, powder in drawers, hair in drawers, bobby pins, metal curlers, and hair pins as well as little worthless lamps, and parakeet droppings. What does it signal for you? e

OH YEA, I BLOG

2011-04-12T08:45:00.003-05:00

There is no excuse for not blogging. It isn't like the paper is wet from the flooding. It isn't like I have to drive over I--29 to get to a computer. I think it is spring and spring fever to me is simply, brain doesn't focus OR is that tries to focus on too many things at once and the body finds itself sitting on the porch soaking in much needed sunshine. Maybe. It has nothing to do with another attempt to clean the garage. A miserable state of affairs where things get shuffled more then shifted or sold or given away. Although I am proud to say we actually did have a mini moving party this weekend when three sets of dishes, a huge box of stuffed animals, and a 2005 Schwinn bike with lock left the building. I am honored to say the Christmas decorations from the office are out of the little boat and up in the attic. WHY where they in the boat? When it is 25 below zero you get them out of the house and into the garage but there is no rule that you have to take them to the attic. And so, yet today, both MST and I are recovering from rafter rash. We both know the only place you can stand up completely is at the pitch of the roof. Why in the name of heaven we kept hitting our heads is beyond me. Spring intelligence, perhaps. Knock some sense into those people! Anyway our heads are covered with little bumps, almost like when the earthworms mound up in the front yard. Maybe rafter rash is necessary to let the sunshine in and take it with a grin. Oh yea, I blog. e

THEY DID NOT HISS AT US

2011-03-28T13:16:00.005-05:00

Tom pulled the truck into the parking lot near Lake Sally. I glanced for open water and there they were! Actually, I said, THERE THEY ARE!!!!

We don't see a lot of swans in this area. It has only been the last few years that we have seen them as well as taken a picture. It isn't that Canada Geese aren't impressive it is just we see them everywhere in all stages of growth. So the swans, somewhat mystic to me, are a huge treat to see.

After all, most of the swans I had ever seen where on wallpaper and shower curtains and knew little of them but loved the what they could curl that long neck. After lunch, we had gone to a shop in Detroit Lakes called the Red Willow. We have been there before. It is an old house filled to the rafters with stuff. She has gone into pots and knives now but in the last room, I saw a wooded swan with a curled neck. It looks old but it isn't. She reminded us of someone named Bonnie with a skin condition so we call her Bonnie the Swanny. When we left the store, (after a long discussion about knives), I was certain it was the only swan I would see that day.

We had hoped to see open water. We expected to see geese, and of course ducks. There were no loons, although at first glance on the edge of the open water, we did see white breasted something 'walking on the water'. They turned out to be Buffleheads trying to get away from the eagle who was swooping near them.

We drove back roads until we found ourselves in the middle of the Hamden Slough Refuge. How pretty that will be when the wild flowers bloom in the summer. It is about 6,000 acres of grassland and wet lands with the hope to draw shore birds, waterfowl, and song birds. We saw greater than a dozen song bird houses in one small area. In Kansas, at the Girl Scout Camp, there are blue bird houses, that is what these looked like.

I had noticed that the internal winter within myself had lifted a few days ago. Why else would I hear myself saying, "Oh I can hardly wait to taste the coffee in the morning". And now, the geese are back in great numbers and so are the swans!

This weekend, a day trip SE to a migration pattern and hopefully, more water fowl to admire.

No hissing allowed.

No hollering, "THERE THEY ARE!!!"

IT IS JUST A CLICK AWAY

2011-03-27T08:04:00.003-05:00

In the late fifties, it took 7-10 days to get pictures back from the processing plant. It took 10 days to two weeks to get an 8 x 10 enlargement. And what you thought you took, wasn't always what you got. I don't remember the price. I do know many people used black and white only and sent the film, often pronounced fill-um away to be processed to a place called Brown's. I mostly just pestered Mabel at Ekeren Drug. Fast forward a half a century into a photographer's paradise when what you see is what you get but FAST! The story isn't that I saw a frog at the department store and passed on it because I had to figure out how I could jazz him up. It isn't about going back for the frog and polishing him with emerald gold left, (which is like shoe polish in paste form). It isn't even about MST turning the frog so I could put primer on the crown make it ready for painting it gold. What it is about is before and after pictures. Something people nearly always did before remodeling or refurbishing a room. This is about a frog picture. Something I would not do if it wasn't for digital. And it is about trying to explain putting the French doors back on the sun room even if they are always open. Because if you haven't been to our money pit, how would you have a clue. So it is before and after. But what started the thought process for this note was based on a stair rail we had installed. Because someone I know and love asked me to send a picture of it. Now, I want you think about this. Keep yourself at the age you are. If it was the mid 50's, you wouldn't be doing a play by play letter as it is with email. If it was the mid 50's, most likely you would not take pictures of a frog, stair rail, or door in production, if you took a picture at all. Most likely you would save the fill-um for Christmas, Easter, Birthdays, or Halloween. Are you with me? Think about if you did take those photos, Take, finished the roll, because NO ONE ever took at few and sent it in with pictures without finishing the roll. (Although I was known to do that simply because the process charge was the same for 1 or 12--forget about 24). OR take 8 pictures of the same thing to use up the roll. Like the dog standing in the sun and the shadow blotting him out. And now, the pictures are back and if you didn't get doubles, you either send the picture and ask for it back or go without. Asking for it back was a big thing. By the time you get the pictures back, the stair rail, frog, or doors are old news. So you probably won't send it anyway and now you have double prints of something you did but never wrote on the back of it so generations beyond aren't going to have a clue as to what it represented and when they sift through all your pictures, they are going to toss it because there is no person in it. It today's marvelous world of digital, one can snap, email or process the picture. If you are married in April, you don't have to wait until December to put it on a Christmas card. Huzzah for digital and email friends who want pictures of frogs, stairs, and doors. Why? Mostly because they humor me. Joy to you on your stairway to the stars to dance on the Milky Way in your top hat and tails or in your long shimmering gown. Be sure to get a picture! e

B 9 AND IT ISN'T BINGO

2011-03-25T17:37:00.004-05:00

The case of the crater is closed. MST biopsy was negative. Now all that has to happen is the crater fills in, since the dentist wouldn't do it.

Since I am here.........are you a bingo player? I thought about going to the senior center this winter but I am not ready for bingo. Actually, it is a passionate sport to elders and if you don't think so, get between two of them when they are gunning for a prize!

I went to see my mother one day and she wanted to take me to the senior center for a lunch of hamburger gravy followed by bingo. I bought her nine cards to play all at once. I wanted to see how she would do. Oh, she kept up and then, before the game was over, she said that was enough and left to have a smoke. Mrs. Morbin who was a watcher, stood over me while I played mother's 9 and my one. We didn't win.

But for today, B-9 means celebrate MST nose.

e

AND THE LAVA FLOWS

2011-03-24T09:42:00.003-05:00

The off brand adhesive strips didn't stick. MST went back to the drugstore and got the real thing. Band Aid brand. WHAT WAS IN THE BOAT BAG? WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN CUT DOWN? Band Aid brand.

Last night, after supper, NOT during, I had my evening peek a poo. The dried blood which made it look like a black hole was being pushed out of the crater by lava. Well, not really but I had to get the line in somewhere. A watery like substance was nature's cleaning.

When I was little, I always imagined that there were little delivery like trucks in my body hauling healing properties where they needed to be. All the trucks were either red or blue. I suppose the blue trucks were taking out the trash but I didn't think about being trash filled. Therefore, I only had red trucks.

So the little blue trucks took the old stuff away from the crater and little red trucks brought in the good.

Nevertheless, MST is off to the dentist this morning. He thought he would ask Dr. J if, while filling the cavity in his tooth, he could fill the crater too.

e

REPORT FROM THE BLACK HOLE

2011-03-23T07:48:00.003-05:00

We left off yesterday wondering about circle adhesive strips. MST did go to the drugstore. He bought a box of Band Aids. One of those mixed boxes, you know, the kind that has all the worthless little strips in it. Because that is the only way you can get the circle size he wanted.

And then...........................

The circles were too big. (Why does this sound like a nursery rhyme)?

So he used a little worthless one.

Now, yesterday was a wild weather day. We had wind, (of course), rain, snow, sleet, thunder and lightening. And yes, it rained on the clean windows.

And...when Tom finally did get home. (giggle, giggle) one side of the worthless strip was no longer stuck down. He said the wind blew it loose. Now if you believe that, I have a bridge to sell.

Tomorrow, we find out if the crater is cancerous OR NOT. I wonder if he will call before or after his dentist appointment.

Stay tuned.

e

IT'S A BLACK HOLE!!!

2011-03-22T09:26:00.003-05:00

The man wears a hat and uses sunscreen. What else is there? A veil? But even MST had to have a doctor-who-does-biopsies have his work on his whiffer.

He called me after it was over to tell me how it was done. Of course, he had to tell me about the long needle to deaden his nose, followed by the orange disinfectant, and then, the plunger like cutter the doctor use to take a sample.

But what he didn't tell me was he was going to come home with a adhesive bandage across his nose which made his glasses sit a kilter. Now, all of us who are married, KNOW our husband's are the most handsome man in the universe. Okay, Soozi, Elvis in his prime is the all time winner. And MST, (My Sweet Thomas) even out ranks him because he is alive. :)

After supper, he took the tape off and offered to let me look. Well, I wanted the 50 yard line so I got out my double magnifying head gear with a light to look at it. I think the doctor must have burned it shut because I couldn't see just why he had it covered. After all, the client he fits with glasses all have had it done or knew someone who had it done and it was a perfectly round little crater that looked like a mini black hole. Honest.

The doctor said if he felt any pain, he could take Tylenol.

Now, there is a pharmacy in the building where Tom has the business. What does a pharmacy sell? Tylenol.

And, for those of you who are unaware, they also sell Band Aids.

And the drugstore is open all day.

So last night, about 8P, MST says, "Do we have any round bandages"? I looked in the linen closet, the store-all-don't-know-what-is-in-here-basket, and in the boat bag. No round bandages. To me, if you are going to bleed, go big. Use 4x4 gauze with tape or better yet, a sanitary napkin. So, no, we had NO round bandages.

Then he says, (you can see this coming, right?) "Do we have any Tylenol"? No, we didn't have that either. Well, we had some Tylenol with codeine and a bottle of Tylenol for arthritis but that was out of date by three years. (I told you that bast had stuff in it that we didn't know about).

"Are you in pain"?, I asked

"No", he said

"Then why are you asking about Tylenol"?

"Just in case", he said.

I suggested he not dress his nose for the night. I suggested he NOT cover it during the day. It was sealed and nothing was going to leak out. A covering would draw more attention

than his skin gap.

He left for work with his crater exposed.

The question is, will he buy Tylenol and round Band Aids today?

And no, it is not on the tip of his nose, oh my, I would even have vanity with that.

And no, it isn't so big I could fall in!

e

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH...AGAIN

2011-03-16T06:00:00.003-05:00

Reading the Sunday paper is a Sunday thing and when it came and went because of a priority project, I didn't lament. I could, after all, read my favorite cartoon on line.

Yet, yesterday, while using newspaper to fill in a box, the mid section front page caption was

BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH

It had nothing to do with Shakespeare or Miss Barzen. This was a real live blizzard that hit on Saturday, March 15 in 1941.

The In-forum had looked back on the blizzard and the cost of lives on this surprise storm. The day started out sunny and 30 degrees. Around six in the evening, wind speeds at Grand Forks were 85 mph. Seventy-two people died, most of them frozen. One little boy actually died when the strong winds took the breath right out of him as his dad carried him home.

It tells of four brothers who went to town to go roller skating. The oldest two, 17 and 15 where found the next day. A short distance away, the searchers found a waving hand. Although the twin waving his hand died, his brother survived.

Another group of seven where stranded in the ditch on Highway 75 south of Moorhead. The stayed with the car and all survived as did a man of 60 and his son who buried themselves in the snow and kept kicking their feet to stay awake and warm.

In today's standard's the mechanics of weather watching and public notice have come a long way since then. Recently, a friend wrote to say we were in a blizzard. I looked out all windows and didn't see a thing. The paper was saying BLIZZARD. Cancellations abound. It must have been much like that day in 1941, clear sky, mild temperatures. The only thing different is they kept harping about the blizzard.

Yet, although informed, more than 800 people where rescued from stuck vehicles. Most of the cars where within 75 miles of Bismarck, which is central North Dakota. It is said it settled in quickly. And yes, I am going to think those stranded folks thought they could beat it out. Makes you wonder if they went around those 700 miles of roads that where closed.

Although it sounds like a crime scene scenario, they actually did use a helicopter with a heat sensing unit to find people stranded in their vehicles.

I was telling someone recently that if my mother got wind of a storm coming it, she had to make a trip to town to get 12 loaves of bread at the bakery so we would have enough, even though none of us ate much bread, except for toast.

So there is, in real life, a story about the Ides of March, right here in North Dakota.

e

IDES OF MARCH

2011-03-15T08:38:00.003-05:00

.......and the only thing I remember about it is we learned that line in Ms. Barzen's class and said it because it was in the play.

The one thing I do remember, however, is Kay handing out avocado pits and telling us to put tooth picks in them to hold them out of the water except for the bottom because it would make it root.

Well, mine never rooted, most likely from the softened water it was standing in. But someone's did. It seemed to grow straight up with one leaf at the top. I wonder if it ever had the fruit? Maybe it needed a mate to do that.

We never tasted the fruit. All we saw was the pit. Actually, I wonder where she got them because I never saw anything like it in the markets in our city. And when I was introduced to them later, I didn't make up my mind as approved right away. That is until someone I worked along side brought it as dip and it was a hit. At least with chips there is some crunch!

So beware the Ides of March and plant a pit and watch it grow!

e

BUT WILL IT STAB ME LIKE IT DID CHRISTINA?

2011-03-11T08:01:00.003-06:00

Out of the window in the sun room to the east, is a row of icicles. My favorite, one that looked like a rooster claw fell the other day at 10:06 AM. I had been watching that one for some time.

This morning I thought, maybe I should wade in the snow up to my buttocks and get a picture of it from below. Then I remembered as episode of Grey's Anatomy where Christina had a icicle fall from the building and stab her in the chest. So, forget that, besides the wader's are in the boat.

Old Trunks is remembering Wednesday School. But what she doesn't remember if it was during Lenten season every Wednesday except Lent. From Knox School to Zion Lutheran Church was quite a hike. Nearly everyone went to Wednesday School. The question is, for those who didn't go, where they not affiliated with a church in town or where they non believers?

Oh yea, icicles. On the way to the church, there was grocer that had the biggest icicle in town. It was stuck tight to the building. I always thought if I lived closer, maybe I would check on that every day and see how long it took to completely disappear. Alas, I did not.

Which brings me to the modern day world of sun room and icicles. Look! They are clear and the sun is shining through them! Will they naturally fall today or shall I open the top of the window and give them a hard whack with a broom?

Safe. No stabbing allowed.

e

JAYHAWKS!!!

2011-03-07T16:16:00.002-06:00

Okay......you don't know who the Jayhawks are....It is the name of the University of Kansas mascot.

And today, the Jayhawks won the Big Twelve Championship. They will be in the March Madness count down starting on St. Patrick's Day.

The University of Kansas is located in Lawrence, KS. A lovely city about 50 miles west of Kansas City, KS and its twin sister, Kansas City, MO.

I lived there for 35 years. My children were all educated there.

Wave at the Hawks if you drive by.

Rock Chalk Jayhawks, KKKKKKKKKKKK UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

Oh, and P is for Prowlers pep. The Thief River Falls high school team is going to state in hockey!

Be a sport, what ever the sport, even if there is no sport at all.

e

THE HAMILTON BEACH

2011-03-04T10:46:00.003-06:00

Mixing cookie dough is hard work. WHEW. Glad that part of it is finished. I was thinking about Mother's counter top Hamilton Beach mixer and how it would drone when the batter was heavy. Perhaps I listened carefully because the beaters would be ready to lick and I had to be quick to get one before Greg got two.

It isn't that I can't have a counter top mixer, it is just that it is a space taker when one doesn't bake anymore often than I do. But it is hard on the arthritic hands when you are squeezing the dough between your fingers. Well, maybe it is really good for them but it doesn't feel like it.

I was also thinking about those big Hobart floor standing mixers the school system used and how they would mix the dough for a few hundred buns at a time. And it seemed so easy! Why? Because they had the right tools.

And isn't it that way about most things? Have the equipment one needs to make the task pleasurable?

And what about upgrading? How does that work? Does an appliance quit or does it serve its purpose and is replaced by a much better product? And is the product much better or do we learn to use it for its full function?

Take the case of an iron. Seems simple enough. Grandma used one hot off the stove. We have a gas iron in the basement. Mother had a dry iron for years but it didn't matter because she sprinkled everything, rolled it up and ironed the next day. My iron quit. DONE. And I bought a professional iron to replace it. GLIDES who ever knew ironing could be so easy.

Now when it comes to knives most of us have tried the electric knife route and found the only thing it is really great for is angel food cake and bread. We have a drawer full of old knives, yours, mine, ours, Erna's and Ella's. That is, until Tom bought me two wonderful paring knives with a great handle that works for these old hands. This signaled a replacement for all the old stuff and a time to retire the fillet knives.

We went on a hunt to find a big, mean butcher knife in the same style and brand of the paring knives and can't find one. So we ordered a set from a well known retailer. It seemed like a great buy and if they were that good, we would buy another as a gift.

And the box arrived. And instead of knives.....IT WAS A POT!!! Now, we can't use those sort of pots on our glass top stoves so I sent it back. And when I got the notice the item had been shipped, it did not say POT RETURNED, KNIVES IN SHIPMENT. It said knives returned and knives in shipment. And I growled.

And then, MST stated they probably did it that way because they didn't have a line which read WRONG ITEM sent. So, now we wait, will we get a pot or knives?

Maybe it will be a counter top mixer and the dough rounded up on the cabinet can get tossed in for good measure!

Where is Hamilton Beach and the two white glass bowls when you need them?

e

ON THE BAND WAGON FOR PROWLERS

2011-03-03T16:56:00.004-06:00

He sent out an email stating the Prowlers play Warroad in the section eight championship at 7P tonight at the local arena. He went on to say that they have met several times in the last years, always to go away without the trophy.

And so it is, the local high school in Thief River Falls go to this marvelous arena and all who remember high school hockey cheer.

It isn't like it was eons ago. No one is beating on the side of the boards with cow bells. Mr. Wennberg doesn't stand on the bench against the icy cold wall in his long wool coat, fur hat, and clap loudly with leather gloved hands. The new arena has artificial ice, the bricked walls are not seeping ice crystals. The men of the old world have been replaced by men the same age. They just don't wear long coats and fur caps.

Yet, I am hopeful the youth of today have the same respect for the Wennberg-like guys.

Let's hope the hot chocolate served is not burnt, as it was in my day. Let's hope one doesn't need hot chocolate in this grand building.

Yet, the building doesn't matter

Nor does the cocoa

What we all hope is, the jitters and butterflies turn into focus on the game and the players, who have worked so hard, have the magic about them and at the end of the third period, they are waving their sticks and hugging each other.

Let's hope we see a photo of them holding up the trophy and move on to state.

Can a city of 8,557 win over a city of 1,722?

Let's hope so.

COULD THAT HAVE BEEN MILDRED?

2011-03-02T06:00:00.001-06:00

Today's venture is to find our what I might about the Ostgaard's.

Her name was Corina Ranum, my grand father's sister. She married Severt Ostgaard and they had Mildred.

We know that in
1905 Severt lived in Roseau
1910 Ostgaard's lived in New Solum Township, Marshall County, MN
1917 When Severt applied to serve the USA, he was a bank cashier in Gatzke, MN
1920 They lived in Rollis, Marshall County, MN

Their only child, Mildred, was born on 7/30/1911 and deceased on 11/13/1992 In St. Paul.

As I combed through archives looking for additional information, I had a hit in California. Alas, it was not MY Ostgaard's.

It was about two workmen hurt by electric trains.

February 13, 1912

Two men were injured by electric trains at the Southern Pacific mole today. Chris Ostgaard of San Francisco fell 15 feet when a ladder was knocked from beneath him while at work by a passing train. He suffered two fractured ribs and was badly bruised. Sam Buntain of the signal department, to avoid a train, stepped directly in front of another train. The fact that the train was running slowly saved him from serious injuries. He was cut about the scalp and his arm was severely wrenched.

Obviously not Mildred--But I did have an uncle that got run over by a street car!

Such as it is with genealogy, chase your leads!

e

GLASSES? YOU NEED GLASSES?

2011-03-01T06:00:00.002-06:00

A couple of weeks ago, Tom and I sat at the dining room table brainstorming about website information. We worked on it until Tom crossed his arms. Body English. He was done; cooked and fried done. It was fascinating listening to this old world craftsman answer my questions. It wasn't that everything that old silver tongue said was going to be used. I just wanted to get a feel for what all is involved. After all, I just get the script and head to my trusty store for spectacles. How about you?

It is known that some colors look better than others based on skin tone. We know that traditional might be best but retro is 'in'. We know that face shape makes a difference. Another factor is how you use them. It has to be frustrating to walk into optical with more than a thousand frames and find a pair that you adore and adores you. What I do know is the best decision is based on over all balance. I waved an RX stating I wanted red. AH HA! It was the color of the red that made a difference and to date, they are still my favorite frames.

We went on to discuss lenses. After all, that is really what glasses are all about. SIGHT. The page regarding lenses had sticky notes on top of sticky notes. In the end, the answer really was there are thousand upon thousands of different combinations and your occupation and prime usage need to be taken into consideration.

This is how he explained it. Two men. One a farmer and the other an accountant. Both have the same prescription. The farmer's primary usage is from a tractor seat. An accountant's primary usage is in front of a computer screen. The type of lens for each is based on primary usage.

If I did a testimonial for Tom, it would be this: Before I moved to Fargo, I did not have glasses that would stay where they belonged. In frustration, I had the bi-focal moved up to account for the slide. The lenses were coated with anti scratch, it peeled off. The first pair he had made for me actually fit. I told him to just pick out want he wanted to take care of on a regular basis. Why should I trust he could do it better, after all, no one else had.

He brought the glasses home. They where feather light and I could fall asleep with them on without them bending out of shape. He put the nose pads on up side down to keep them sitting properly on my way too narrow bridge. I did not give up the frames until they were no longer available.

It is really all about getting frames and lenses for YOU. It is not getting what the box stores sell for 2 for $99. It isn't about selling high end expensive frames. It is about being exceptional at what you do to make that person see the very best they can.

Give it some thought, won't you?

e

IF YOU ARE NEW TO RETAILING.......

2011-02-28T09:58:00.003-06:00

Today's attitude has to do with new clerks in retail stores. We had spent the morning on the net looking for the best deal on a lure made by SPRO. It is a top water unit we happened across and when you look at the ones in the bottom of the tackle box, you know they have died from over use. The old lures were kept as a prompt to replace them.

I am an old stick in the mud--if it works, don't fix it sort of person. I suppose I have gotten that way because there isn't youth around me to crack open new fields of interest. And when it comes to lures, if I find one that works, I hoard. Is it magic? Maybe not but I used something called a black rat for two summers and did well....until a couple of years ago and all the bass in all the lakes were saying, "There is that old lady again, can't trick us anymore".

That is when I started on SPRO. First ones were always reddish brown. I can't tell you how many that were replaced but I liked the lure and could cast a 'far piece' with it on the line.

So yesterday morning, we were on a mission. It was to find the best price on the SPRO product without having to pay shipping. Prices ranged from $11 down to $6.37, a difference of over four and a half dollars. We ordered thirty. I used the live chat to find out about two others which did not show in the catalog. It is out of stock AND the manufacturer was on to making products for the 2012 season. The chat agent knew his stuff.

And that is how we came to be at the retail store. Tom went to look for more gloves. I went straight to the lures. I was approached by what seemed like a pleasant person.

"May I help you?" he asked
"Yes, I am looking for SPRO frog lures"
"I don't think we have those"
"Odd, don't you think that they carry them in the catalog and not here?"

He offered another frog. I reminded him I was brand specific. Why didn't he just say he was new?

"Look, I said, Here they are!"
"Oh, we have lots of those", he said.

I started at the top going left to right, looking at each color and size. We needed KILLER and RAINFOREST BLACK .

"Is there something special you want?", he asked.
"Yes,Killer and Rainforest black".

And then he committed the sin, he pulled off something I did not ask for.

"No, I said, I specifically need the colors I mention".

He read top to bottom. Eureka.

And yes, I know it may be suggested selling. It is like a drive through asking if you want fries with that or an apple pie. Or like Ryen stated on Face Book, did he want more grinders, after all there were still eight available. Ryen went on to say on FB he only needed two, one for coffee and one for spices and he already had one.

Next we looked at Rapalas. He showed me the end cap, I was looking for one that only went down three feet. I had stated that. I did not wish to have one that would dive to eight. I scanned the entire isle of Rapala's and did not find a three footer. I stated I would send Tom, if there was a three footer in that sea of lures, he would find it. There was none to be found. Suggesting a four foot diver was not the answer.

The next helper was a seasoned rugged outdoors type. He was trying to sell rods. I told him I was brand specific and if it wasn't a Fenwick, I wasn't interested and where were the Fenwicks. Well, of course, they didn't have them. :). He kept telling me about how good a St. Croix rod was and it cost less. Tom stepped between us and suggested he didn't go there.

So the rugged guy wasn't talking to me anymore, now he was talking to Tom about how he was a guide and we should fish the Sheyenne River for catfish. Rugged did not hear we fish bass with top water lures in the slop. We had already tried fishing for catfish and gave all the tackle away because we simply did not like it.

Maybe it is really all about presenting what we know regardless of the monologue. Maybe we spew the known and are deaf to others. And maybe when someone says, THIS WORKS FOR ME, instead trying to change their mind, maybe we should accommodate them instead.

Maybe I am not a stick in the mud. Maybe I am just old enough to know what works for me.

And the lure price? With the ten percent coupon and the sale of 25% off, the lures were 10 cents more. Just maybe, that new guy now knows where the SPRO frogs are. Maybe. Take that, Newbie!

So there

e

WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE STANS?

2011-02-24T09:08:00.003-06:00

Grand Uncle Olaf Opseth was a reader. He was also a collector of books. Grandma said her brother had so many she didn't even know where to start counting. Many of them were lost to mold and poor storing. A few sets of leather bound books were given to Julia, his sister.

Grandma had them for several years until she decided she really wanted that glass cabinet for pretty things like dishes and cups. She gave the books to Old Trunks in about 1964 and they have been with me ever since. In Fargo, they are displayed in the glass doored book cases which separate the dining room from the living room in this 1922 house.

Richard, a former classmate, sent me a link called Rethinking Schools online. It is an urban educational source. The instructions state to drag each country name to its proper place on the map. Now, this is an up to date map and it sure does look like there are a lot of new countries on here that weren't on here before! This is not an explanation as to why I got an F, only that the names are foreign to me. By hook, crook, and comparison, I did get most of the countries filled in. I will admit I had one left over but if I was putting a fan together, I would have parts left over, too!

Now, one of Grand Uncle Olaf's sets of books is named, Ridpath's History of the World in nine volumes. The last copyright is 1901.

Now, most of us know where Jordan, Damascus, Mt. Sinai, and Mt. Ararat, Jerusalem, and Egypt are because of our early Christian teachings. We may know where Turkey is because Becki Ferber was there was an exchange student. The Persian Gulf war was play by play so we should know where that is.

We can guess that Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan must be in a cluster as we have heard about our troops fighting there for too long.

If we even had World Geography in high school, no doubt our books were grossly out of date.
A 1939 text book would indeed offer Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Jerusalem, Armenia, Turkey, Iran, and even Kuwait--etc, etc, etc. We need to understand that pre WWII, most of the Middle East was still protected by Britain, France and Italy. Only Turkey and Iran were independent.

I don't know the answers, I still get an F. I just hope someone does whack off a piece of the United States and become independent.

e

What it looks like to me is, Persia exploded one day and gave us countries like Uzberkistan, Kyrgystan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikstan.

HI, I AM KUWAIT

2011-02-23T10:42:00.005-06:00

The other day, a former class mate sent me a world map game. It was an inter active game where you have a list of countries and one drops them into place. He had an advantage, he had lived in the middle east as do part of his family.

I looked at the list and they hunted for the smallest country. I knew that Kuwait was mini size because the scout troop was presented with that country to learn about for an international celebration in February.

Never mind that Kuwait was not much more than 15 years free from the United Kingdom. We could resource from the library, (yes, hard copy books). Finding someone to talk to the girls about customs was going to be the trick. Who did I know that knew someone that had been there?

You see, we couldn't hop on the Internet and find the information nor could we 'friend' someone that lived there.

And maybe there is something to be said about hard copy and physically touching the information verses not storing it within ourselves because we can always find it or something like it on line.

What happened to I know someone that knows someone? Is it because I am replanted or is just the way it is because of the Internet?

Certainly I flunked the middle east quiz. But I knew where Kuwait is, how about you?

e

YES, THEY DID LIVE IN IT

2011-02-19T06:00:00.002-06:00

Grandpa Benhard and Grandma Julia spent the summers in this hand made trailer while Benhard was doing construction in the area around and about northern Minnesota.

They were one of many couples, or in the case of Great Uncle Bennie, singles, who constructed this units and lived in them in a clearing somewhere near the job site.

In another photo, which is too bad to even consider publishing, there is Grandma, looking as if she is washing in a bucket. Another person is sitting on a chair. The same chair, it seems, that was painted over and over and once was used photograph the family dog, Snowball.

It appears as if the trailers were brought in with a trailer, then a series of logs was used to roll it off. The logs are depicted in the bad, bad, photo. Off to the side out of view of the picture of my grandparents is an out house. One would have thought it would have been set farther away, let's hope it was, at least, down wind.

The trailer, as you can see, is not big. Most likely it held a bed and a couple of chairs. No doubt all cooking was done outside. There was no refrigeration. It does not appear there was a stove, how did grandma bake bread?

We know from the history of my parents, they lived in one of those units, also. Their design was just a little different. As I go through the books gathering the information which I lost in the December purge, I will find it.

Meanwhile. I am going to turn on the stove, put something in the oven, and have hot buns from freezer to oven to plate.

And what is with her fat ankles? Too hot?

TEN TOP FOODS TO KEEP YOU HEALTHY

2011-02-18T06:34:00.003-06:00

Well, okay, I suppose there is enough research for all of this NOW but what about us poor folk who didn't even know what yogurt was and as for chocolate and nuts, only at Christmas time would we be healthy. Daddy said if you were lucky you got an apple in your Christmas stocking. IF you were really lucky, you got an orange, too. Oranges, by the way, are not on the list.

I like to think that a man I adored, who was raised poor and ate beans and boiled the corn cobs for the chickens to make broth, should had a healthy heart, but it was not so.

I like to think that whole grain flour, which, in Grandma's day, was considered for poor people, would have made her heart healthy. She longed for fine white flour to make her bread the best it could be. Odd, isn't it, that I have said to my kids, "White bread makes you dead" even though my wonderful grandmother budgeted for white flour?

And how in the name of heaven where land locked folks in Northern Minnesota supposed to get salmon? I know, it is all fish but watch out for the mercury! BOO

Tomatoes and berries were canned during the season they grew. How much food value was really left after processing it? Could we just be healthy in the supper sneaking into the cemetery behind Mae's house and stripping the raspberries? I know how we got caught, we had seeds in our teeth. What was the deal? The fruit was to mature and then be canned for winter. Yet, isn't it better to eat the fruit fresh right off the bush?

Was it wrong to crawl on your knees at Hermanson's truck farm and EAT the strawberries right off the vine and take the punishment because you didn't fill your pail?

Why not let a child sit in the garden and eat the carrots with a little sand instead of letting them get to maturity only to be woody?

And if you are making beet pickles, why not pick them as mini's rather than letting them get so big one pickle equals one jar. I know the answer, it is all about MORE. Is more better? If you think so, then you never had Mother's mini beet pickles.

According to the article yogurt and raisins prevent gum disease. It does NOT say that if you eat these two foods you won't have to have your teeth scaled at regular intervals. It does say that gum disease leads to heart problems. Is knowledge always king? I think not.

Why all the anti oxidants?

Guess we must have smoggy insides.

e

WAS RANY CANDY?

2011-02-17T08:03:00.001-06:00

This is a picture Randy sent to me this morning.

If you are wondering if blogs work, this is an example to share that it does. Randy was looking for information on the Prowlers, which is the team mascot name for Lincoln High School in Thief River Falls, MN.

Randy keyed in something that triggered the blog to post. It was a picture of the 1960 basketball team which went to state. His team, in 1974 also went to state in basketball.

Thanks, Randy, you are a sport
Certainly you are candy.

e

AND MRS JOHNSON SAID.......

2011-02-16T17:42:00.003-06:00

You just take some old bread and put it in the bowl and cover it with eggs, milk, and sugar and put it in the oven. YOU DON'T GO BUY BREAD FOR IT!!!

And as I key, the bread pudding bowl in in the oven with old cinnamon bread and all the rest except I put brandy. :) Little zip!

The bowl is the story. She got it from the Jewel Tea man who came door to door and sold ingredients and you got prizes. The bowl is the prize.

I have never made bread pudding except in that bowl. And as Mrs. Johnson said, "Each of us had a serving and Tom ate the rest".

And so it will be tonight.

e

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

2011-02-15T06:00:00.002-06:00

Maybe it was the nice weather

Maybe in was the Minnesota Hockey day in Moorhead with the temperatures in the high thirties and the ice was sloppy.

Maybe it was memories of Aunt Lil. Or Judy and I skating on the coolee across the tracks from there house.

Nevertheless, when you dream about it and wake up to the aroma of peanut butter cookies, well, what can I say, you gotta have those cookies!

I am not much of a baker. The cookie sheets are in perfect condition!

I haven't used Crisco since the last time I made cookies. The can was open and out of date for two. I am a EVOO person. Now, even I knew using EVOO for cookies probably would not work. And the baking soda was out of date for baking.

It was nice out. Not one of those days you have to dress in layers to go out. Shoes on and Tom asked where I was going. "To the store to get Crisco and baking soda", I said. He offered to go while I gathered up and started mixing the ingredients. The final items were mixed in and the first two sheets went into the oven while Tom was outside chipping ice off the driveway.

He stuck his head in later and asked, "Are they done yet"?
"YES"!, I hollered back.

Now he is disciplined and I am not. I was testing and he was helping clean up the kitchen. He had them for Sunday Night Supper.

It was the sloppy ice
It was Judy
It was Lillian
After all, it was her recipe out of the church cook book
It was a wonderful aroma from her house

And in her honor, our house captured the spirit of the cookie.

YUM

e

VALENTINE, OH VALENTINE!

2011-02-14T15:39:00.003-06:00

Yes! It IS the day!

.and the day began with coffee and then MST gave me this soppy card that made me cry. When I was blowing up balloons for him this afternoon, I thanked him for the wonderful card and on one, mentioned he should read it out loud to me. Maybe we would both tear up. BTW, I blew up four balloons because I spelled beautiful wrong on one of them. That is the problem with keyboarding and not writing by hand--okay, I am a crappy speller--!

Someone stated what is the buzz about Valentine's Day. What is the big deal, don't we love these people just as much the rest of the year? Yes. But we don't give soppy cards the other days of the year.

It is, as the card reads:

........" putting someone elses needs ahead of your own, not bcause you have to, but because you want to".........

I am thinking about the first Valentine's Day we knew each other in this life. A basket of flowers came with a five diamond pendent on it. He had sent the necklace to the flower shop in Lawrence, they attached it and delievered it. It is a special memory. He is like that.

He is a gift--one that likes mushy cards.

e

HAIR CONDTIONER, YOU SAY?

2011-02-11T06:00:00.003-06:00

The list is long. You may be bored.

The cardboard tubing from the paper towel roll attached to the vacuum cleaner hose to clean under the fridge did not work.

There was no film on our dryer lint catcher to make the dryer catch on fire.

List: zero

This mornings test was about using hair conditioner for shaving your legs. At first, I could not believe how smooth it was--that is--until I realized I had not taken the guard off the razor. However, it did work wonderfully. I will have to do a lot of shaving to get rid of all the bottles of hair conditioning we have stored in the closet.

Then I got to thinking about when 'cream rinse' first came out, that is, when I remember it being introduced to our household. Revlon made a shampoo called Aquamarine. It had the most enchanting aroma. AND GUESS WHAT COLOR IT WAS!!! One was to follow the shampooing with the cream rinse--same color, same bottle, (confusing for Daddy who couldn't tell one from another without his glasses).

Now the idea in the early days was to mix a cap full with a quart of water and pour over your hair. This is also the time in life when people washed their hair in the kitchen sink. Don't tell me you never did that!!!

Since the bathroom off the mud room at the farm had a shower, it was much more efficient to me to wash hair and shower all at once. I didn't go to the kitchen to get the Pryex glass pitcher to mix the rinse. I just put some in my hands, rubbed my hands together, and ran it through my hair. Mother was not pleased, I wasn't following the directions on the bottle. But I never saw Daddy go to the kitchen for that Pryex pitcher, either.

So
the
list
gets
one
point

e

AND SHE SAID.....

2011-02-09T06:00:00.003-06:00

AND SHE SAID, "If you take the center of paper towel, that is the cardboard roll, and put it on the end of the sweeper hose, you can smash it and it will gather the dust under your fridge"!

Now, that seemed like a good thing to do since when living in an apartment in another life, it was customary to pull the fridge out a few times a year and clean the grates.

The first cardboard roll from paper towels, I figured would be ready in a day or so. I did not know that MST was going to change it out for a full one, break up what was left, twist the cardboard beyond recognition and toss it in the trash only to be covered with the stuff from the bottom of the pan and coffee grounds.

I had to wait.

Well, the oven needed to be cleaned. Today was the day. The oven cleaner did its thing and I went on to other projects.

I could only find one glove, left handed of course, which looked odd on my right hand but it would work. I took a new roll of paper towels, tore off a dozen and let the rest of the roll unwind while the first of come- off- the -roll was tucked in my waist of my pants. I was not wearing wasted pants although I maybe should have.

Wipe and repeat, wipe and repeat. Get all the gunk out, then spray with water and wipe and repeat with paper towels. Then wash, then rinse. And for all of that, I now have a cardboard center from a roll of paper towels!

How is this going to work? We are about to see. Can you wait a minute?

BRB

RESULTS:

The hose end to the sweeper is smaller than the paper towel holder

When roll is taped to the end of the sweeper, the paper towel sucks itself in near the place it connects with the hose.

It is a bust. MOVE THAT FRIDGE!

e

HOW CLEAN IS TOO CLEAN?

2011-02-08T09:00:00.003-06:00

This all has to do with the territory concept from yesterday.

Old Trunks thinks there may be something to how clean is too clean. Or how clean is clean enough. I learned this lesson from my dad.

I was living with them when Rachel was born because her father was in the Army. One day, I decided to clean his pipes. I don't mean that in a mafia way, I decided to literally clean his pipes which he used to smoke tobacco.

Did I ask? No. Did I watch to see how to do it? Yes and no. I thought he just banged them into the garage can, put in a new filter BECAUSE he didn't like the job and was in a hurry--besides, he only cleaned one pipe at a time.

I thought it would be much more efficient if all the pipes were really cleaned at once using pipe cleaners, (yes they have more uses that making crafts), and scrape the bowl out so there was more room for LOTS of tobacco.

I took all the pipes apart. He had about a dozen. Then I cleaned each piece inside using double pipe cleaners to really get the gunk out. There was a tools in his drawer that looked like a short blade, I used that to scrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrape out the bowl. I damp cleaned the outside and lined them all up on the pipe rack.

But, you know what? I cleaned them too good. And that is just what Daddy said. Next time I cleaned them, use the pipe cleaners, use the filters, but let's leave the bowl to build up a natural fire pit again.

Which brings me to this moment.

The fishing rods are standing at attention in the corner. I did clean mine this morning, taking care to get the dried sludge out of the grooves using a toothbrush. I cleaned the guides and made sure each of them was tight. I stopped at mine. Tom may have another way.

Maybe he wants a little natural build up.

e

ON THIS DAY IN 1940

2011-02-07T12:08:00.003-06:00

On this day in 1940, Daddy had three flat tires on the way to St. Hilaire where he and mother were married. He gave the minister $20 and said he asked for change. In those days, giving money to the reverend to marry you was a gift, now I think they have a fee. Well, everyone has to have bread and milk, I guess.

It is not known why they went to St. Hilaire. Neither were affiliated with that church nor any other that is known. Maybe that was the Las Vegas of the North.

I do know there was an eight year age difference between the two of them and often wondered why in the name of heaven mother was going with someone that old when she was in high school? Why would she risk it? The question will always be a question.

Old Trunks does know that is probably why they were so doubtful of any arm candy I may have brought home. Although Tom's parents, especially his mother, never liked anyone he dated, maybe parents are all the same. Maybe mother's parents, actually, her dad, didn't like Daddy either. But for some reason, she was still dating him.

I don't know how long they dated before they were married. I don't even know where they met. The inquiries were made yet there where no answers.

Their marriage was trauma and drama. And when mother announced she was going to leave and go to work, washing dishes at the nursing home, she was told she would look pretty silly driving up in a new Cadillac and wearing a fur coat. That might sound mean to you but she trumped daddy a lot more than he did her.

Why did they stay together? Did it get better? Where they just so comfortable in their misery they didn't way to get out of yetanother brand new box?

We like to think our parents had a wonderful marriage. We like to think about how well they meshed together and the good times they had. And I can find good times between them, and on this, the day of their marriage, I will think about that the good times.

e

WHY IS THAT HERE?

2011-02-07T09:54:00.003-06:00

I think we all know that places we sit in rooms or the sides of the bed we sleep on are territorial.

Think about your family when your kids were little and even farther back to when you were a kid.

Imagine your mother in some sort of rocker with handiwork and father stretched out on the sofa most likely snoozing. Even before television, when TV became the center of the room, the place in the den seemed to be in place.

Now, the stage is set.

We are territorial here. We have our sofa grooves. And we have the tops of said tables covered with personal items and the drawers, if any, are filled with the operator of that spaces treasures.

Yesterday, the cell phone was missing. I don't know how long it had been missing because it is used seldom. I suppose the last time minutes were added. Yet, it was bothersome not to see it laying in the kitchen. To find it, I dialed the number. After several rings, I found it behind my end table wedged between the table and the air purifier.

It was obviously time to clean off the tables.

Take off:
Lamp with the blue tooth ear piece wrapped around the base in a perpetual charge.
Take the glass shade and the hurricane chimney off the lamp and wash it.
Dust the brass with its trillion crevices.

Take the glass out of the end table and wash
Polish the wood
Put lamp back on
and lady bug jewelry holder which acts as a pain pill box

THEN
Do the bottom shelf and ask, why is this here?
Emery board
pumice tool
cough drops
dental pick
scissors
pen
paper
tweezers
hand lotion
foot lotion

It is obvious that shelf is an extension of the bathroom. Oh, and the empty coffee can which acts like a waste basket because it fits just right!

I don't remember what is in the drawer except five mouse turds which I vacuumed up.

Now, on the other end table, which I have time to do because the oven is cleaning and won't be done until noon, is another story. And because it is NOT my stuff, I can question WHY IS THIS HERE but I can not discard anything although I can file paperwork regarding the truck being serviced.

It might help to know each of us has a tray, which holds most of the loose stuff. I am also a user of a coffee cup that has been retired for one reason or another.

Tom's drawer holds all remotes except for the TV, which seems to have taken up residence on the arm of the sofa. The drawer also holds the battery operated unit used to take the pills of clothes and the Max scissors--so called because Tom used it to cut the clumps of hair out of the cat. Besides the lamp, which sits higher than mine and throws more light, he has the police scanner. In his tray, which I just finished vacuuming, there are:

Nine units one ties to the fishing line to attach the lures with four, (+or-) inches of string on each.
One grotesquely bent paper clip
One bolt of unknown origin
One red bead
File
Hand lotion
gum
calculator
Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, still in box
Paper
Two-30" shoe laces tied together
A mat for can of soda
And a paper bowl

The scary this is, I know why he has the stash he does except for the magic eraser. Every one needs paper and the pen is always in his pocket. The shoe laces, the bent paper clip, the fishing stuff, which includes the red bead, are all part of the fishing duty from the weekend.

But the paper bowl? It is his peanut bowl. Every night, he has some peanuts. He takes them out of the three pound can and put some in the bowl to munch on. He changes the bowl out as he feels necessary.

As for the clasps and swivels for the fishing line, all left after taking all the string off the reels to send in for cleaning. Some of them are open. Am I going to shut them? No. Why? Because there may be some sort of system to him. But for now, I will get the tweezers out of my cup and tease the braided line off the clasp before I put them back where they belong--for now.

It is the territory of the man who sleeps nearest the door. It is the territory of the man who takes his real waste can out and puts it in front of him when he files his nails. Do I do that? No. Why is that?

Maybe I need a new, improved waste can! Maybe I better go wipe down the oven.

Hugs.

e

KEEP IT STITCHED

2011-02-05T06:00:00.002-06:00

"As Pa lifted the blanket away, there stood a shining new sewing machine. Ma gasped. "Yes, Caroline, it is yours", Pa said proudly, "I had to sell a cow anyway."

Sewing machines still remained a luxury for many pioneering families. As Laura Ingalls Wilder recalled, her mother had always wanted a machine but the family could not afford one until the girls were grown.

Singer machines sold for as much as $125 dollars at a time when $500 a year was considered the norm for how much people made. Singer, however had a time payment plan. Singer was a brilliant inventor and held numbers of patents.

One would think families or neighbors shared machines, otherwise the sewing had been done by hand. It is no wonder that in the early years of Thief River Falls, there were millinery shops. People used the machine as there lively hood. Dressmakers had store fronts. One of them was on North LaBree in the 400 black, about where the Falls Clinic used to be which was across from the Starkow Clinic in the early 1950's, although decades earlier.

It makes one wonder if quilting bees were more about bring your machine.

I don't know the model numbers of Mae' White machine nor of Grandma's. So I can't tell you how old they were. I do know that Grandma used her treadle machine as long as she sewed. I am certain that when she got it, it was a big, wonderful gift. I can still see her maroon slippers on the treadle going back and forth in perfect cadence as she stitched along. Then, with her scissors, now with a patina finish from years of use, snipping the threads.

Old Trunks wondered about all of this after reading an article about Singer's Model 15. According to the article, it was a hand crank machine, that is, the operator cranked the machine with a wheel with a knob on the right side of the machine and guided the fabric with the left.

This same Model 15 was reworked to be a treadle machine and later electric. Although Model 15 had changes, that number was still being sold in the late 1990's.

Just who was this Singer guy, anyway? It seems as if he was colorful with multiple marriages and mistresses and it is claimed he had twenty-four children. And to think the installment plan bought him lavish homes in the United States as well as England and France.

I suppose he kept people in stitches, too.

e

IT HAPPENS EVERY WINTER

2011-02-04T11:13:00.001-06:00

If you watch crime drama then, by this time of the year, you are counting on that program to offer the following list of criteria.

Cell phone or beeper

DNA

Phone Logs or voice mail

Bank Statements

Credit card charges

Easy pass

Autopsy

Rape kit

Sperm

Time of death

Computer

Finger print match

Bullet match

Tox screen

Disposable phone

Stomach food contents

FBI

Cheating partner

Warrant

Murder weapon

Some lame interaction between characters

Interview in a police like room

Are there more? What are they?

Don't believe it? Print and mark. Just watch out your DNA doesn't get on your pencil or the 'copper will nab ya'.

e

THE LICKING OF THE PENCIL LEAD

2011-02-03T10:02:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks is thinking about her grand parents.

She is remembering how grandma would lick the tip of the lead pencil before she wrote out a check. Their check book folded like a wallet, and the stub to write the transaction was on the left side. Her signature was Mrs. B Ranum, never Julia. Her penmanship was rounded with a wonderful sense of bounty in her fat letters.

She remembers the used envelopes from cards they had received. Carefully openedwith a paring knife to lay flat. They were used to mark the scores of the years of card games they played; not only together, but with friends who came to play cards and have lunch at midnight before going home.

........and all of this was done with a pencil sharpened with a paring knife. Grandpa was careful to whittle away the wood without breaking off the lead. Erasers, if any, were long gone. If there was an eraser, it was hard and if you did erase, it smeared.

No matter how many tablets of paper we gave her, she still used the old envelopes for notes and marking for cards. They were called writing tablets, had light green lines, do you know of them? How many have you gone through in the last five years?

At our house, we always had a gross of pencils, advertising for Ranum Construction as well as 4H drawing pencils and wonderful flat clean erasers. And a pencil sharpener that made the points so sharp that when I accidentally stuck myself with one, the lead broke off under the skin. I liked the #4H and bought them at the office supply store near the theater on LaBree.

As I pull out the desk drawer and look inside, I see an

Arctic Cat pencil
Valentine Pencil
Paper Mate #2

None are sharpened and the erasers are too old for use. Do I use a pencil? Do you? When? I have two mechanically pencils with size five lead, left over from my days at trade school. They are used daily. I use them for my check register, as well.

As for lined paper. I keep all my genealogy notes in steno pads. The books have strong covers and one can tab page sides to find your place back to homesteading or who is buried in the Wildwood Cemetery. Besides, it fits in a normal size purse and if you are tracking something--let's say at the library-- it is easier than loose papers.

We all know there is much to be said about hand written notes. Someone working in Africa said she longed to see a real letter, hand written. In this day of keyboarding and getting the information out over the Internet, we don't see that much any more nor do we see hand addressed envelopes. Yet, she was worth the time and effort to write. Two pages of onion skin in an over seas envelope. Labor of love just like the letters I got from Grandma, written on lined stationary with the licking of the pencil.

e

INVINCIBLE

2011-02-02T09:27:00.004-06:00

Once upon a time, we ran until we got where we were going. We walked to school with nearly bare legs in twenty below zero weather. We drove our cars hard and fast, (well, as fast as cars would go then), We stayed up all night, slept late, woke refreshed and did it all over again. When elders talked about being tired, we wondered what they had been up to, after all, we never saw them work hard. We were INVINCIBLE.

Grandpa was 65+ when he helped me catch a chipmunk in the garage to sell to Jon Wenneberg for a science project. Grandma, a few years younger, was baking bread, keeping house, taking care of two grand children, and still finding time to do handiwork and visit on Sundays with good friends. There were not as INVINCIBLE as I was, but I could look to 65 and think, I can do that when I am 65.

Mother was in the San with TB and Daddy was busy contracting. Her pace was slow and Daddy made up for it; sometimes driving to the cities and back twice in one day. He went through a lot of cars in a short period of time. He said he traded them in when the ash trays got full. I had one parent who was sickly and another burning the candle at both ends. I didn't know about genetics but neither sick nor burn out was a type of life style I would have chosen. Neither seemed INVINCIBLE to me.

And then, the grandparents deceased. First Phil, then Julia, and then, Benhard at 98. I actually do not know how old Phil's first wife, my grandmother, was. Yet, they all had gotten the promise of 70 plus years. So, I was okay with it.

And then Daddy died. And that was when I realized that life was creeping up on me and I was half way to the promise of seventy years although he only made it to 67.

Mother died at eighty and I was adopted by my aunt because, now, I was truly an orphan. My brother had expired several months earlier.

It is now the time that many of us have no living parents. If we are lucky, we have siblings who we can engage with on a somewhat timely basis. If you don't, then get you * together and make it happen.

And so, we stand abreast, all of us 1944 babies, now grown up, most have grand children and some may even have great grand children. We are on the frontier of what is considered old age. Although it stings, the reality of it is here.

I have been verifying deaths of class mates this last week. Twenty three out of 177 have perished. Other names have been suggested, as a genealogy nut, I have not been able to find anything which says they are deceased.

And in some way, super freaky, you look around the circle of these people and wonder who will be next while the reality is, we only have the day we are in.

Most of us haven't been the editor of a major newspaper or a missionary in Africa treating refugees. There is a saying hanging on the wall as you come in the back door of our house, "To the world you are one person, to one person you are the world". And maybe that is what it is all about. Making a difference.

The concept of being INVINCIBLE toward someone does NOT go away. People perish. No more memories to make. Yet, if you are very still one can make that invincible connection.....an I knew him/her when....Most likely you have, at least made eye contact and that is what is saving me now.

Old Trunks was a pest. And so when I think about Bruce, who always sat behind me, I think about how I pestered him. I did the same thing to Tim, who sat in the next row. These to gentleman will always be the tolerant males who put up with me.

And Marlene, well, no one colored quite like she did, how did she make her black so black how could she press so hard? She didn't know but her George Washington done in red and Abe Lincoln, done in black were impressive. Dittos

Jane was in the same scout troop and drew her own name for the door prize.

Jim had a great party at Noper's and I wore my mother's clothes because she was in the hospital. He had wonderful freckles.

Karl was mean in grade school.

Another Jim, well, I had a major crush on him but he never knew it.

Andrea liked John. John liked everyone.

I adored, and wanted to be part of the FFA group with David, Russell, Milton, and Elton but girls weren't allowed there or to play hockey. I considered myself more of a farm kid than a city kid.

Gary had the nicest 58 black Chevy with louvers on the hood and when it snowed, the heat from the engine melted the snow.

Donna was scary and after she threw P down the stairs at RLF at a dance, I stayed out of her way. I bet she really wasn't mean.

Another Gary lived down the street from us when I was young, he gave me the willies.

John was bright and funny and on crutches for a year, (he got to get out of class 5 minutes early so he had time to get to class--when I needed crutches, they didn't let me out earlier so I brought the crutches back to the fire station).

Pam was one of the sweetest people one could ever know and so was Diane.

I adored Mike, he was going to be a priest and pray for me every day. He was one of the greatest losses to me. He had a loving, giving spirit --he must have been born an old soul.

Larry and his wife bought the Chevy and drove it to CA.

And when I am very still, I can still see Adeline laughing so hard as she walked to her locker one morning after getting off the bus. I asked her why, and she said, "There is this funny looking dog downstairs that goes rur, rur, rur" The funny looking dog turned out to be McGregor, our Scotch terrier who had traveled a least a mile including over the 1st street bridge.

And maybe, just maybe the law of I know someone that knows some one that knew Jerry and Allen well.

The twenty three students formerly of the class of 1962 died too young. Yet, we have to hope their lives where rich and full according to their standards and not ours. Because we can't all be everything to everyone.

Everyone is someone and worth the price of a memory.

REPORTED ON 26 JUNE OF 1901

2011-01-31T09:51:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks was looking for something else when she found this article.

ALFRED ANDERSON MURDERS HIS HELP MATE WITH A HAMMER.

Alfred Anderson killed his wife with a hammer at 8 o'clock this morning. The tragedy occurred at the home of the couple on John Avenue.

Anderson was lighting the fire when his wife returned home from where no one knows. She claims she had been to the home of her son-in-law, and Anderson jumped on her with a hammer in his hand. He stopped not to consider, but hit her on the head, killing her almost instantly.

Officer Thurber picked the man up and he admits to crime.

The woman had her head cut open big enough for a man to put his hand in without trouble. The hammer, a common sized one, is on exhibition at police headquarters. It is clotted with blood and hair.

The couple had reported to have been always engaged in quarrels. The man had just come in from his claim a couple of days ago and is reported to have been enraged at the actions of his wife. She had been out all night and he was building a fire when she came home.

Anderson is fifty two years old and his wife was 49.

HIDE THE HAMMER!

e

IT IS THE PLAN

2011-01-27T10:12:00.003-06:00

I was writing to a former class mate this morning. He lives in our birth city and seems to have become the liaison for any information about class mates--mostly about illness and yes, death.

And he said, "We were going to Cafe LaBree to have a sandwich. It was the plan after harvest. The plan did not happen.

And so today, I ask you, what are your plans with others? And if they perish or you do, will you hold on to the sack which had the plan?

Aren't plans for living people? Will MST say, "I never took her fly fishing" Or will I say, "I never insisted we go fly fishing".

I told the hygienist the other day that I planned meals for 10 days at a time. It is no guarantee we will have those meals on those days but it does get me out ahead of what is to come. Getting stuck at Oprah time, which is four o'clock with no plan for supper makes it hard to round something up at 5P. Planning ahead is not living in the future, yet, it gives us all a sense of claim to have a sense of accomplishment and a sense of worth each day. It doesn't matter how high powered you are or if, like me, you are a doodler, sense of worth is necessary. Notice I did not say luxury.

And that makes me wonder. If, like Juanita, with a child home with double broken ear drums, is her attitude in the toilet because she can't or rather, doesn't think she can do anything for this poor, sick child? I would hope not, for as mother's, it seems, sense of worth and pleasure are often on a sliding scale according to the health and well being of those we nurture, (yes, that includes husbands).

Personally, I think that is flawed. I think we are responsible to protect worth/pleasure at all costs regardless of what is going on around us. It is part of our duty as humans. It has nothing to do with worrying about sick kids or being sad about someone dying. It has all to do with what we are--deep in side where there are no words.

The challenge for all of us is to make decisions on what we feel is worth/pleasure and go from there even if, sometimes, we find ourselves wringing our hands because loved ones are sad or mad--or heaven forbid, not living their lives as we feel they would do better.

A little struggling has it's good points. Make a plan to struggle a little.

e

WWGD WHAT WOULD GRANDPA DO?

2011-01-26T08:49:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks is willing to admit her mind wanders. It has nothing to do with being old, rather the way I am structured. And, the more distractions there are, the less focus.

So, WWGD comes to mind. When Grandpa was listening to the State of the Union message on the battery radio, did he stay focused? Certainly he said, "Dem sons a bitches" a few times because that was in character for him. I had a couple of early years listening to him talk about politics, mostly at The Mint, a bar on LaBree Avenue in our home town.

Grandma would go to the grocery store and Grandpa would go to The Mint. We would sit in a booth with other mid-sixties men. They would play with a rubber back cup with dice in it and drink beer. I don't know what that was all about but I do know Grandpa thought FDR was the finest and Harry Truman was doing okay, too. He was, as you may have guessed a Democrat to the bone.

Now the SOTU message was designed so the joint congress would know what the President's plan was. It did not have to be a speech, it could be written. As we know, sometime in late January most of the Presidents people my age have known have pre-emptied programing to visit with us about their goals for the coming year. Grandpa used to say what they say isn't always what they do.

And as an adult, I understand what he meant. He simply meant that proposals had to be accepted by Congress. It wasn't that from Washington to Obama that what the President said was going to happen.

Now we must remember that Obama and all the other Presidents have the interest in the country as a whole. We need to realize that when he says, "Take care of the vulnerable" it includes people on Medicare. So I am saying, like my Grandfather said, "Dem sons a bitches" because we haven't seen an increase in our checks and the price of insurance, not only from Medicare but a secondary insurance has gone up.

Like Grandpa, in his sixties, others his age and mind, are concerned about where the buck are going to come from for increasing taxes and insurance when, we are on a fixed income. Well, WE, that is MST and I are not but you get the point. Where does it stop? It doesn't.

Although I found the SOTU message inspiring, I did wander off. How many times did Biden touch his face and hair? Was someone refilling his water glass from below? Where did that Tan Man get that tan? He is from Ohio, no one is that tan in Ohio, not this time of year. OH, LOOK, there is the guy from Minnesota!

But I did try to stay tuned in and when the President was finished. I simple tuned out all the people who where telling me what the President said. If I didn't get it the first time, I am certainly not going to take someone else's opinion on what THEY think he said.

So, if you were away from your home and could not watch the message last night OR you were so tired you were in bed before the speech, just click on any channel or read any newspaper or read the crawlers on the Internet. You will, I promise, find it. And maybe, just maybe there is a little Benhard in you, too.

Joy to you.

e

THE WRINKLED WRINKLE

2011-01-25T06:00:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks wondered if the make up looked like I was jaundiced because I was or because the cataracts made everything yellow. Alas, neither are true.

It is summer skin color verses winter skin color. And I am not the only one affected. When we went to the market on Saturday, more for a walk and to see if life existed beyond the house, I saw a check out person, about my age with hair AND skin the same color. We could have been sisters. Except her lips disappeared when she got a little niffy because MST put the milk on the counter whereas she was supposed to take them out of the basket and slide them across the glass.

Now last year, I bought a spray on your make up machine, which seemed to do a good job except all the walls and the white towels in the bathroom had make up on them too. And, of course, there was the price of $40 a tube which didn't last very long. Back to the drawing board....again.

I could be my freckled, age spotted, wrinkled face in with a palate of colors OR I could be yellow OR I could try experimenting with different make up brands and colors. ....sometime......

Old Trunks did not know that soda was on sale at a store I do not go to until MST saw the ad on Sunday. It the icy wind, we would venture to the store for soda and I would look for make up to mix together to paint the face.

Now this brand was the right color but too light and this one was more rose than yellow but too dark, I could mix them. And since my lashes are growing because of the RX for the DX of glaucoma, I would buy some new lash extender to fill them in.

As I painted away this afternoon, I noticed that regardless of what they say about using lip liner to keep the lipstick from migrating into the lines, well let's say it may work except, I can't see well without glasses and my lips have never been that full. And...again because I didn't have my glasses on, I have one eye brow considerably darker and heavier than the other.

I am a one eyed jack. If I had a face lift, I am certain there would be enough left over to make a leather coat for a size 3X guy.

Oh good grief.

e

SCORCHED SPEED

2011-01-24T11:43:00.003-06:00

Perhaps you remember a coffee pot percolating on the stove whether it be glass or aluminum. Maybe you had a chance to watch the Ladies Aid people use the big pots where the grounds of coffee lay on the top of the water and the heat brought the coffee to a boil, it was pulled off the stove and an egg was added to settle the grounds.

If you remember any of them, then you know the coffee was served HOT. Scorching hot and if you did not blow on it, your mouth got burned. I suppose that is why Grandpa Benhard sipped his off a saucer as he sat in bed having coffee in the morning. (My grandparent's played cards every night to see who had to get up to make and serve the coffee to the other while still in bed).

Once, in another life, I did take a scorching mouthful from a cup. The coffee just came off the stove. By this time, electric pots had invaded our home and the biggest complaint was the coffee was not hot--enough. After Mr. Coffee came out with their 5 minute pot: hot coffee was not to be had.

Now, Mrs. Johnson had a plug in preculator. It was never hot enough but would not allow anything like a microwave in her house. Tom put one in the basement, as she didn't do stairs anymore and would make her coffee, heat it to boiling, and serve her. She probably never knew that her son was not magic, rather, had a tool hidden to make his mother happy.

So this morning when my question was: How fast can you move when you spill a cup of hot coffee wasn't how hot the coffee was but how fast can you move not to get wet. Warp speed? Yes. Scorched speed? No because it wasn't that hot. Although I may have gotten a little pink.

I wondered then and still do, how Grandpa Benhard could sit up on a V, (that is sagging in the middle mattress) and sip hot coffee from a saucer holding it with five finger tips.

I wondered too, did I see the cup spill this morning or did I hear it first?

Old Trunks is grateful:

1. The desk is covered with a glass
2. My mouse is on a tile given to me by my son
3. My keyboard is raised
4. There is a mat on the floor under the chair
5. I have lots of rags.
6. And because I had coffee soaked rugs, instead of thinking about doing the laundry, I did.

Although this may not seem a lot to be grateful about, it was at least a spirit of being grateful instead of complaining.

May your cup remain upright and be good to the last drop even IF it isn't Folger's and you aren't Mrs. Olson.

Joy
e

WHAT IS A SNOW FENCE?

2011-01-22T08:57:00.001-06:00

When I said to MST we should put up a snow fence. He just laughed and said, "where"? It was not the best of statements and the answer was even worse.

Snow fence, as we all know, are put up to change the direction of the snow. Most of them are used in the country to keep a lot of the snow out of, let's say, a barnyard, or lawn, for example.

When homesteading was happening people signed up to plant trees to act as a snow belt around their farms. It also helped keep the soil on this flat land from blowing, to , let's say, California. Well, that is absurd, but you get my point.

Now it is interesting to drive around the prairie areas and see long rows of trees, planted eons ago. Look, if you will at little clusters of evergreens. Once upon a time, there was a house there.

In Kansas, Osage Orange trees were used almost like a fence line to keep cattle in. If you haven't seen an Osage Orange tree, they are the ones with the green seed pods called hedge apples and lots of barbs. It is said that before barb wire fences, the tree was planted close together and pruned back to make a thicket tall enough so a horse couldn't jump it, and strong enough that a bull couldn't go through it.

Hedge apples, considered the fruit of the tree are used to keep the bugs out of a house. In Kansas, it wasn't unusual to go visit someone and see hedge apples in each corner of the room. Here in Fargo, they are sold in markets in the fall and considered inedible.

That brings me to another question, if squirrels can eat them, why can't we? The seeds are okay to eat but one must dig the seed out of the surrounding membranes and eat only the seed. And yes, they are not cattle fodder. WHY? Because I cow doesn't chew like we do and the entire fruit, about the size of a soft ball, chokes them.

There will be no rickety snow fence at the Johnson house, to be taken down in the spring, rolled up and put behind the garage. There will be no Osage Orange tree thicket, either, our cow might croak.

Hugs.

e

GLIMPSES OF MOTHER

2011-01-21T08:45:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks remembers that long pick knit stocking cap with a major tassel that dragged on the ground. Of course, I was only eight or so when mother made it for me. It went around my neck twice.

It was the kind of hat you wore when mother rolled her eyes and said, "It is 20 below" better dress warm. That meant the pink stocking cap. It also seemed to mean the air would be still. But in Fargo, it seems to blow like a son of a gun. I am so glad we live in town with lots of houses to act as snow fences.

What I do not remember was being taken to school. We walked. It was only about six blocks as I remember from our house on Arnold Avenue to Northrop School. The school was demolished some time ago and a high rise for seniors sits on the property, although the battered outdoor rink is still on the northwest corner.

Recess was an every day thing. Didn't matter how cold it was; we went out, bundled to the max in warm clothes made for the occasion. Yet, when I think about it now, I wonder if everyone had warm clothes like I did.

There were, after all, no known thrift shops in our town. Perhaps there was an exchange in the neighborhood or amongst families. I know I gave away a few coats and got in trouble for it but when I was older, I did learn people did not have warm clothing. I had more than I needed. Or, as least more than I thought I needed.

Yet, there was something about that long pink stocking cap. I wonder what ever happened to it. I would not have given it away. Have you seen it?

e

LIFE TWISTS

2011-01-20T10:55:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks likes life twists. Oh, not the kind when you go skiing in the flat lands of Kansas and break you leg like Hank did the other day.

The kind that is so remote. The meeting of someone to whom you are related and never knew existed. That kind.

The phone rang at Sinkler Optical last week. The lady on the other end of the line wanted to know if they sold glasses suitable for someone in their 80's. My sweet Thomas assured her they did. Mrs. H arrived with her daughter. It is hard to push a wheelchair in this bumpy snow but they made it into the building. Mrs. H found glasses she liked and a pair her daughter approved of.

That isn't the twist. The twist is, Mrs. H was raised around Willow City, ND. That isn't such a big deal except, that is where the Zimmermann's are from. Mrs. H had not lived there, but her family had. MST went on to say that is where his mother was from.

Mrs. H: And what was her name?
Tom: Zimmermann
Mrs. H: Any relation to Charlie?
Tom: Yes, he was my grand father
Mrs. H: My mother's sister married a Zimmermann!
Tom: Then we are related!

Her daughter had phoned to make an appointment after hours to pick up the glasses. All the way home to the nursing home, all Mrs. H could talk about was the wonderful man at the eye place that knew some of 'her' people.

The task at hand was to find pictures of the people she talked about, clean them up and sharpen them so Mrs. H could see them when she comes in on Friday night at 7 to get her glasses.

It is an exciting find as we know little about that side of the family. Our albums are filled with the Johnson line.

The picture on this blog is of Charlie. It was colored and so faded from years of hanging on the wall. The rifle Charlie shot the deer with is now in the ownership of his great grandson, Les. Les hunts, Tom's son's do not. It was fitting that he get the rifle--a put together model with no serial number--and a fit to find a way to send it to Darrel, Tom's brother, for Les. This was long before 9-11 and even then the rules were st rick. We sent it to a gun dealer and Darrel picked it up there.

Advice? Talk to people. Tell them who you are and where you came from. Who knows maybe you will have a magnificent life twist, too.

e

IT IS THE NATURE OF THE BEAST

2011-01-15T09:19:00.003-06:00

She works as a bartender at a restaurant in Fargo. Tips flow freely in December. The tips are spent freely in December.

But it is January now and the nature of the beast for people to tighten up on tipping and be just plan gr inches. It is not the Grinch that stole Christmas, it is really the Grinch that stole January.

What is it about this long month? It doesn't seem to matter where you live, although the snow banks don't help it any. There just isn't much going on. Why is it that projects are not thought of in, let's say, November and promised to be done in January? Wouldn't that give everyone a sense of accomplishment and a sense of worth for this 31 days of dark?

In North Dakota, November is the dreary month. It doesn't seem like there is a sun anyway to push the cranks out but we have things going as we fret to get to Christmas. Teri said this morning, "Don't worry about Monday, enjoy the weekend". And isn't that what it is all about?

Fret if you wish. There are things to do in January. You may have to preplan to get your self 'in the mood' but it can be done.

And if, you are a bartender and reap great amounts in December, why not look toward the lack of extra money in January and put some back? Why not pay forward so you have a month free?

I tried to explain to M that it just happens. She did not buy that even, in my years working with 02 patients they were crabby in January and apologized in February. M has worked at this profession long enough to know it is going to happen.

Daddy used to say, "Where is the gum-shun". Grandpa read the obits and since he wasn't in it, he played solitaire until he won. It didn't matter what time of the day he won the game, he wouldn't comb his hair until he did.

As a teen, January meant a thaw. Time to drive that Chevy full bore on the sloppy streets of town. In Kansas, at least for several years, it was getting scouts ready for the big thing in February. January has become the time to do big house cleaning. Each day I take part of a room. At the end of the week, one room is done. If you saw our home you would know even angels collect dust. :)

We have, in a couple of hours, half a month to go. What are you going to do with it? How cranky can you be without apologizing to someone in February.

Catch the sunbeam, shine on others, they won't know what hit them. It is better than a snow ball, that is certain.

e

THE CLOUD

2011-01-15T06:00:00.003-06:00

Let's hope all of us pick up terms and ideas from everyone we meet. Let's hope we have not mind pruned to the point nothing new seeps in. Let's hope that within the conversations we have with others their is some sense of learning, feeling, and appreciation; no matter if it is like fireworks or jes a lil ol fire fly on the fourth of July.

There are still sweet mysteries in life and as Ann says, "The only thing that stays the same is things keep changing".

I rotate out a computer of one sort of another when it is three years old. It is still got enough pop to it to be useful to someone else. I am down to just buying the tower. I don't want a package deal. I replace the keyboards when they get sloppy and like my huge flat screen monitor. And I thought this desk top was younger. Alas, it is not. Although it had the moxie to move about quickly, I knew there was crapola on it that I didn't use.

So, when Nate was here, he suggested I purge all and reload the drivers. I moved the personal files stored on the computer because he said so. Then he started talking about the cloud. Why didn't I have my pictures on the cloud?

What he meant was buy or use on line storage and have it stored off site. Because I have a brain that has to have some sort of comparison, I said, "Is it like storing the boat at the lake"? He said it was, however, it was always accessible unlike the boat.

And then he told me where to go to do it. And since I had used this server before and made it crash, I was hesitating. He explained to be the bugs had been worked out and I would be very pleased.

Although, in the past, I have been taking the pictures off the lake computer and bringing them home on an external hard drive, now I can just up load them to my cloud and look at them at home. Yes, I can label the folder as I wish. I do have a printer at the lake but it throws blue, the one I gave away did purple. So I like to print at the house.

Is in the cloud for you?

e

STAND UP IF YOU LIKE PAPER WORK

2011-01-14T06:00:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks has learned most people do not like paper work. Rather, most people I know don't like paper work.

Helen writes to say that her mother feels all that is needed to seal a deal is a handshake. Isn't that so unheard of now?

Actually, even dying didn't have that much paper work that long ago. Just bury them. Yet, somewhere along the line, the death had to be registered before the deceased could be buried.

I wonder if, when Grandpa Benhard and his carpenter bud rolled that school house log over log to a new location if there was paper work to support the move and the payment.

Shilpa mentioned she wished everything would be paperless. Out there, as Nate says, "In the cloud"

In many ways we jump the canyon between hard copy and paperless without realizing it. Perhaps you have your pay check put in your bank. Others need to feel it, first.

Perhaps as we get older, our heads get full and we don't file mentally as well as we used to. Many we need the hybrid. The best of the paper shuffle as well as the cloud.

What is the cloud? What do I mean?

e

BURN BARREL

2011-01-13T10:41:00.003-06:00

If you are old enough, you remember a burn barrel. Anything that would burn or had a label on it that would burn off, such as a can, went to the burn barrel. Food peelings went into a bucket for chickens or gardening. Once the barrel was full enough, it was taken to the dump which, in our town, was down by the river. Yep, the rats ran there. And it smelled because they dump was burned again before it was bull dozed into the river. If you lived in the country and had a swamp, the barrel was dumped in the swamp.

Well, we can't have a burn barrel in town.

Our trash is picked up, (something we did not have when I was growing up--imagine that!)

So sorting out a file cabinet and having realms of old papers to toss isn't as simple as it used to be. And how does one deal with it?

The simple thing would be tossing it in the garbage. But what about identity theft, you ask. All those numbers who say who you are! It probably isn't likely someone is going to the land fill to pick out our garbage bags but if they did--let's say being a person who had a problem with it a few years ago, one needs to do something major.

And that is when we got the shredder. It takes 10 pages. NOT 11 pages. It eats staples and also those annoying credit cards one gets without asking for them.

And it came to pass that Old Trunks was on a rampage. Maybe it has to do with winter, as most of the real house cleaning is done in the months of momentous snow drifts. Or maybe, as mentioned in an earlier post, it is all about cleaning out as a reflection of making space within myself. Or just maybe it was waiting as a waitress, not only for spring but for someone in Texas to get grand news about a brain AND lung tumor, both cancerous.

Nevertheless, I shredded and shredded some more. There was one stack left for Tom to look at. Instead of looking at it, he said it was a toss. But, he said, the shredder may need emptying.
I pushed it to the point that it jammed. I even picked it up and rocked it trying to get the last 4 inch stack of paper to be cut in strips. Alas, it would take no more.

Now, all of us who are married or live with someone know that certain jobs seem to migrate to one person or another. It is almost like a co-op but nothing is written down. In this case, emptying the shredder was in the Tom column.

So I am looking at this thing and trying to figure out how this works. There was no booklet on it that was filed. I know this because I made a list of the how to do booklets. We had one for an over and under shot gun I have never seen but nothing for a shredder.

I did think it advisable to unplug it first. I flipped all the switches I could find and tried to pull the top of the unit off. I was getting no where. I felt along the crevice of the machine looking for a clue when I discovered there was somewhat of a looseness about it in the front. There was also a cupped area just above the window showing, (if you didn't line it was bags) how much paper was in the basket.

And that is when I realized the top did not come off, rather, the waste basket-like portion came out.

Picture this now, I had this unit so packed full that when I did get the basket out it was way over full. WAY OVER! Or is that WAY, WAY, over.

Tie off the bag that is full and pick up the loose pieces on the floor by hand, then use the sweeper to clean up the fragments of paper stuck to myself and those which seemed to pop about while taking out the basket. Mission accomplished. New bag in, the rest of the documents are shredded.

My question now is: Is the bag for the sweeper so full that needs to be changed and how does one do that?

No longer drowned in paper or strangled in the sea of shredding.

Grinning.

e

CLEANING THE CORNERS

2011-01-10T14:42:00.004-06:00

Generally, when cleaning the corners happens, it means inwardly I am willing for an inner change. A sort of making room for something else. It just happens. It has for years.

So what did I do? I have this old desk, the heavy metal gray unit, perhaps late 1940's. The top has a glass, between the glass and the top a piece of fabric was placed so I am not looking at the grey top.

The other day or was it the other week, poor sweet Thomas went to open the file drawer which moved laboriously. He brought a can of WD-40 to help lubricate the rails. It took the two of us to get one drawer out. After, it moved, (forgive me--slicker than snot).

This morning I was visiting with a long time email bud. I stated we were going to do the drawers on the desk. I started to think about the amount of time it would take out of Tom's evening to have me empty the drawers, pull them out, oil, and put them back in and all the stuff that had to be put back. Since I had to unload everything anyway, why not just maintain them myself?

The one drawer was a concern, was it too bulky for me to do myself? Why not try it, anyway?

It is more than drawers that open so fast they could fly through the windows. It is more than vacuuming and washing and making cleaning rags looking like time-to-toss rags.

What am I open to? There is room.

CLEANING THE CORNERS

2011-01-10T14:42:00.003-06:00

Generally, when cleaning the corners happens, it means inwardly I am willing for an inner change. A sort of making room for something else. It just happens. It has for years.

The one drawer was a concern, was it too bulky for me to do myself? Why not try it, anyway?

It is more than drawers that open so fast they could fly through the windows. It is more than vacuuming and washing and making cleaning rags looking like time-to-toss rags.

What am I open to? There is room.

SANTA IS ON THE ROOF!

2011-01-08T10:47:00.003-06:00

Actually, it is my sweet Thomas shoveling off the porch and sun room roof with his new aluminum shovel. He must be taking it off in layers. He has been up there for some time.

I did stick my head out the bedroom window and ask him if it was slippery. It was not. Then I asked if I should worry, again, I was not to worry.

January is moving right along in the snow banks of North Dakota. We were even featured on the news for the 100 car pile up on the interstate. That is really something when the entire state of North Dakota only has 630,000 people, (up from 600,00 in last census).

It also goes to show that 629,900 people were smart and did not try to do the interstate in white out conditions. The weather was such that our neighbor, who was determined to go to the bank and the market on a blizzard day, was talked into coming to dinner at the house rather than going out. The next day she was asked if she wanted to go, she could be driven in a vehicle that is taller and 4WD. She declined. You can tell SHE is from this part of the country. She went by herself.

When I was listening to her talk at the dinner table, I was thinking about youth and how, when young, you are invisible. Recalling a blizzard when I was a teen and school was let out early. Mother was wringing her hands when the blue Chevy finally pulled up in front of the house. She was frightened I would get hurt or stuck and just why didn't I come home right after school?

She could not listen to why. What she may have never known, or forgotten is, I had friends who didn't have cars and had a lot of blocks to walk to get home in a driving snow storm. These people where my friends, I was not going to leave them stranded.

Men, of course, always have a different slant. Daddy said the Chevy was not that good in snow and I may have put myself in jeopardy as well. He of course, had studded tires on his vehicle.

There were no cell phones then. But in our city, I would guess one could walk up to any house, find someone who would make a phone call for you and keep you warm inside while waiting.

It is five decades since that great storm. The oven is cooking beef stew and baking chickens. If you are stuck in the snow, come over, eat, sleep, and visit with us about the times you had to be out in it!

e

BEST OF 2010

2010-12-31T13:04:00.003-06:00

I was reading a forum about what the best thing that happened to a person in 2010.

What would you say?

Most of the answers were either a quest or a new person, whether it be baby or daughter/son-in-law. One person said that made it through it. Gotta think about it? :)

When I asked Tom, he said, "My wife got up every morning to go fishing." I was certain he would say he bought the optical shop. He stated although it made working much easier....it wasn't the high light. I am grinning because the first thing I thought about was catching a small mouth bass.

Many friends have taken trips, not only in the states but to Europe and beyond. Is that your case?

Surgeries? Certainly, for many, life changing.

Think about it. And I will too.

Happy New Year.

e

ITS A MIRACLE!!!

2010-12-24T10:03:00.001-06:00

If you are not a person who watches LIFETIME channel and sat for hours watching soppy movies about Christmas, this post is not for you.

There is no blood and guts, no shootum down, roundum up. No horror, mini mun discussion about DNA and hardly a cell phone ringing with a new clue to some gruesome task. No one is on a slab in the morgue being cut open.

But they are in hospital beds
They are mending broken relationships
Santa in some form helps a little kid
Old people kiss without falling out of wheelchairs
Cooking is a family affair
There is always the prettiest tree, regardless of how ugly.

And then, there is the miracle. Regardless of where the story takes place, it always snows on Christmas Eve.

Now Kansas had mild winters. Sure we had ice and snow--just wait a few days. The parking downtown was saw tooth and wasn't cleaned out. I think the city had a teaspoon to clean all the streets. If you had a slope on your drive way, most likely your car would slide back into the street. Sometimes you couldn't get your car in the driveway, so you parked on the lawn were it would stay put.

I remember one year, before there were children in our household, my parents and grand parents all came for Christmas. There was no snow. And it gets pretty dirty looking on a cloudy day. I always said my family brought the snow and believe it or not, it seemed like a miracle.

Grandpa Benhard was getting up in age. I suppose he was 95 or 96 when he sent $5 to be spent on the two children. We bought a saucer sled. But there was no snow.

In North Dakota there is always snow on the ground at Christmas. The sledding hill near the dike is open for sledding and the warming shed is available at normal hours.

So if you live in a balmy sunny place like AZ, FL, or CA, maybe a miracle will happen and you will have snow this Christmas Eve.

e

THE GIFT OF GIVING INFORMATION

2010-12-23T06:00:00.001-06:00

It is so important for all of us to realize that we gift to others with more than something physical. Two things happened in one day. One received and one blessing.

Before I go on, let's remember this: The one who receives gets the gift; the one who gives the gift gets the blessing. Let's not break the circle.

I rant and then, I rant some more. If a professional doesn't answer my question, I will stew about it.

So I went back to the eye doctor today. I already knew glaucoma was looming. No big deal to take eye drops at bed time and grow long eye lashes. But I have asked and asked "Why can't I see better out of my left eye"? I even beat my Sweet Thomas up about it. No one answered.

But this morning, I got the answer. The reason Tom could keep pushing the lenses to see better before cataract surgery was because he had a different kind of cataract. Okay. Now I know. Walk on.

I went to the pharmacy to get a prescription. While there, I saw a scrap booking lady. We were talking about die cuts, cameras, cell phone pictures and why people fill up camera cards without down loading them. Since she works with groups, she already knew the answer. Takes too long to delete them once on your computer. And I told her what I do.

Load the photos
Inside that folder (the are generally dated)
Make three folders
1. great
2. good
3. bad

Move pictures accordingly. Delete the bad folder. Keep the good to look at again. And you know the great ones caught your eye when you saw them, print time or put them on a disk. Her eyes got wide. Odd, isn't it, I have been doing that so long, I didn't give it a thought.

This is idea gifts. Try it, you will like it.

e

THE GIFT OF TWO HUNDRED PENNIES

2010-12-22T06:00:00.001-06:00

Yesterday, we talked about the supper on Christmas Eve.

Today, let's talk again about giving out of one's necessities not out of one's luxuries.

My grand parents saved there pennies. Grandma said of her husband Benhard, he could squeeze a penny so hard it turned into a nickel. I can hear her as I keyboard.

Their were five grand children: Greg, Bruce, Judy, myself, and Jim. Each of us got 200 pennies. I can't remember how they were presented.

Now, I am not a big fan of giving money as gifts but I am a great fan of appreciating what you get.

Which brings me to a friend in MI who is house bound. SHe gives money to her children, their spouses, and her grand children. She has found several clever ways to present the gift.

I adore this women. I wish I lived next door to her. [[I have a really hard time tooting my own horn]] but thought, I could make cards for her to put the cash in as a gift to her. When I asked, she accepted after a little wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll oh my. I tossed out another idea for next year!

The fun began. I asked her what they did, liked, or collected. Once the cards were finished, I mailed them to her. She wrote to say she knew who each of the cards were for. I had listened. And besides, when else would I have a chance to say, NYUK, NYUK, NYUK for the son in law who likes the Three Stooges.

It was a way to give a gift of 200 pennies. And by that, I mean, something given in love.

e

MEATLOAF, REALLY?

2010-12-21T15:36:00.003-06:00

A long time friend in Texas wrote to say they were hosting family for dinner during the holidays. He will cook.

He said he was having meatloaf and scalloped potatoes. He would use his mother's recipe. I felt a shiver as I read it, as that is what grandma always had for Christmas Eve supper. Her meatloaf was bits and pieces of meat and potatoes she had frozen and saved to make enough to have meatloaf for eleven. Daddy said she cut it so thin, you could see through it. The plate was passed once with only enough for one slice and passed again when everyone had cleaned their plate.

The point I want to share is this: It was a feast. They not only fed us, but waited on us and ate AFTER we were finished. They were the pure hosting couple.

They gave out of their necessities not out of their luxuries.

e

I SHOULD NOT BE BLOGGING....................

2010-12-20T12:33:00.003-06:00

..................rather, I should be running in circles and screaming.

WHY?

Well, it is like this, for generations, if you wanted to give someone a photo, you sent it in and had copies made. Same with slides. No problem, except for the wait. Many times you could get a two for one deal and have that extra print without the price of the additional processing.

It all started when My Sweet Thomas was cleaning the basement and I helped. Now, you have to understand that cleaning the basement appears to be more than dust and sweep. For us, it turned into a major sorting project. That is when we found two radiator keys, an unknown key, a bolt for the French doors, and a tiny box of slides.

What sildes, you ask? Assorted. But two of Tom's pink Lincoln, and one of a mounted Wood Duck, which was a gift to Darrel, he brother.

Now some grown ups, when they have been together for awhile, say Christmas is for children and forget everyone has a child like heart, it just depends on just where or how deep it is buried. Tom's shows up and I grab the chance to go with it.

Oh, how he talked about that pink Lincoln. I thought about how much teasing grief he gave me about a yellow truck-- now I can get him good. TEEHEE

Of course, I have to get the slide into a photo to print. I own a marvelous Epston Scanner which does pictures, negatives, and slides. Of course, this is all electronic crap ola and has to be installed. It was installed in a lap top computer which has come and gone, rather given away.

I got the slides out and the scanner out and all of the lights came on but when I tried to plug and play into the mini lap, it didn't work. It was going to require software, where was that?

I rummaged about for well over an hour, looking in places I normally put it. I did not find it so I went up stairs again to see how we were doing on virus scan and Window updates. My mind cleared and I remembered that all software that came with an item was stored in the folder with the directions on how to run it.

In the big desk, filed under scanner was the software.

BUT

The mini lap, as some of you know, does not have a DVD drawer. Now where was that DVD Memorax thing? There are three bags, or cases, if you will: One is lime green and has the Mini lap in it, and the other two are black. I didn't see black 2 when I pulled black one off the shelf. Nope, that wasn't it, that was a portable DVD player I bought to use at the nursing home. So, I brought it down stairs and there was a small bag--indeed, it was the Memorax unit I needed to load the soft ware into the mini to run the scanner. Let's hope it works because it is not blug and play.

Once on the mini, I will flash drive it to an external unit and print it on the big printer.

Keep in mind that the only reason I would do this is because Tom needs a little child like junk in his life, too. We all do, in fact, it brings magic to me, as well and I hope I am never married long enough to him not to find something that makes him smile. And I hope that for all of you, as well.

I put the bolt on the French door, the radiator keys are in the drawer in this big honkin' desk, and when finished with the slides, I will put them in one of the boxes marked TOM'S SLIDES.

CAN'T DO THAT!!! WHY NOT?

2010-12-17T09:51:00.005-06:00

In defensive of myself, there are many things I know how to do. And then, there are other things that Tom does and I haven't paid attention. Like I said, he was tired last night and the dish machine didn't get done. SO this morning, it was on my mental list to do. It is a portable and although I am not found of portables, this one only has to be run every few days and since I don't do it, it doesn't really matter does it? Have I lost you yet? Well, I put in the detergent, I plugged it in, and I turned on the water. On the front panel, three lights were blinking; light wash and heated dry, and the start button. Okay, something was not right. Instead of reading the directions, I called Tom. No answer. I called Tom. No answer. I turned off the water. Read the directions. I called Tom. I had already read the instructions, unplugged and re-plugged in case there was a glitch. I had to press cancel, he said. Well, he wasn't all knowing either, because, as we all know, when we do something automatically, we don't think about how we do it, we just do it.

By this time my brain was remembering telling oxygen patients to unplug the machine, count to 20 and plug it back in. So we started over. Tech support for computers tell me to turn the phone line around. :)

"Press: Light wash", he said
(I was following him to the letter--not trying to be a poop). Nothing.
SO he says, "What lights are on"?
And I say, "Light wash".
And the phone is very quiet.
So I asked him, "Do I press start NOW"?
"Yes", he said.
Dishes are washed.

Tom had asked me a month ago, did I want a new camera, a flat screen, a very nice rod and reel? I could not commit. So the other day, he gave me a 'bonus' and told me not to spend it on anyone but myself. That is really hard for me to do.

I actually made my decision based on what I could do better if I had better tools. Not that it would make me more creative, if it isn't there, it just isn't there. I feel the camera has a couple more good years in it. I am not ready to up grade, I prefer not to spend that much time watching TV, I am not a reader unless I am looking for information. I thought about a bigger computer screen but mine is big already and it took a while to adjust to it. I don't need a new computer or another computer. I am not interested in a fancy cell phone with huge charges because I don't talk on the phone that much. But what I like to do, that is, what I get lost in, is scrap booking and card making and that sort of stuff. Last summer, Circut© came out with a new unit that puts texture into the paper. It can and will color the display. One can design and get some depth to the look. And I knew I was craving that when some of the cards got so fat this year I had to put them in padded envelopes. :).

So yesterday I spent time on line reviewing videos about the product and making notes on what it could do. Reviewing sights and learning what I could. It seems like a good bonus for me. Because the cartridges are so costly, I spent a lot of time on EBAY bidding on units, which, in the end, where 75% less than the highest price I saw. The idea is to build an inventory at the least amount of cost. The machine also allows the use of the cartridges I have for the little unit, which in its day was the top of the line. The bottom line is always, "What is it going to cost"? I would like to have it in place so I can make the first card for Tom in late January.

Oh, and another thing I couldn't do was read the old thermostat. But we put one in that makes sense and has big numbers. It won't be so bad if the old one wasn't so high on the wall and so tucked in behind something. Even though I can read it, I leave it alone. I know that at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, it is going to be cool. That is just the way it has always been.

Until a few months ago, that is, until I was trained, I could never get the 1.2.3 of just how Venetian blinds worked either. Tom showed me in a ring master type big movement way, so I know how now. :). It isn't the opening and closing, it isn't the going UP , the problem was in the coming down.

And those are my true confessions for the day.

Loving thoughts.

PS For those of you who are on a first marriage, you most likely did not negotiate house assignments. I cook, Tom does the dishes. One doesn't spend 25,000 minutes on the phone before you are together without some sort 'who does it'.

TINSEL A TING

2010-12-14T15:36:00.003-06:00

One of the conversations Tom and I have this time of the year is about putting tinsel on the tree. Every year we talk about our mother's and how it was a one strand at a time whereas we, that is the partnership of ET liked to throw it across the room to the tree. Even Shirley talks about keeping the tinsel away from her toss it on husband.

The difference? Erna took it off strand by strand and saved it.

Our tree is finished! It is looking a little weary this year. Just can't bend those branches any which way but loose anymore. What is the first aid? Stick silk poinsettia flowers in the holes to stop the eye at the red instead of looking, looking at the holes. Does that mean we have a holy tree? Probably not.

This morning, while it was still dark, we put the 2010 ornaments on the tree. I just got a note from my daughter-in-law and they are too busy for a tree. My youngest uses a plant. But never the less, ornaments will be sent.

I am thinking about angel hair. We could do that this year but what a mess it would be to clean up! The only time we worked with spun glass was she we did a 24' mantle at the farm. It was pretty because the lights were buried in the angel hair.

Off to wrap stocking stuffers, wanna help?

e

GARLANDS AND GARLANDS AND MORE STUFF

2010-12-12T07:21:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks never did decorate a tree with popcorn and cranberries. Have you?

Our home tree never had paper cut in strips of red and green and pasted together loop by loop to form a chain, did yours? In grade school, the paper chains were draped everywhere. It was like a race to see just how many miles of chain one could make with paper, scissors, and glue.

When I was very little, we had a few glass balls which I remember so very well. Each of them was a pastel base color with a snow message attached. I loved to look into them. Looking at them and into them, as if I could see Christmas from the image.

It was the Christmas of 1952 when the last of the beautiful balls was broken. How, you ask. We were living in the 900 block of Arnold Avenue North. There was a huge picture window, which to preserve the heat, was covered with a thermo lined drapery, which was drawn at night. We had gotten a television that fall and that took the best place to put a tree. SO, we didn't have a tree, instead, a plan was in place to section off the picture window with hockey tape, (black stick to itself like tape used to tape hockey sticks on the part used to move the puck).

The edges of the window would be sprayed with canned snow, the perimeter of the window would have outside lights, (outside, of course), and from each of the pretend panes an ornament would hang with the use of another type of tape. In its glory, it was right out of the Victorian era.

And then............the draperies were drawn..AND then..............the window got cold and THEN the tape holding the balls let go.................and then, they fell, one by one and all the beautiful ornaments I had gazed into were broken.

And mother replaced them with plastic balls, and they fell off and BOUNCED.

And then, we gave up on the tape and put them directly into the hockey tape. Because the balls were so heavy, they pulled the tape to make it ~~~~~~~~~~~ wavy. Since it all looked like crap already, I learned that writing in the spray snow was fun. It was the end of the window decor. The next year we would have a tree with outside lights on it, ugly green balls and lots of tinsel....but that is a another story for another day.

Thanks to Shirley, the tree we had when we had children, had an ornament for each year. Shirley came to see us when Rachel was just a couple of months old and brought along a mini stocking which was hung on the tree and probably is hung on the adult tree of Rachel's now.

That started, and continues to be a tradition. Each year, although the three of them are grown and gone, an ornament is made or bought and sent. Tom and I started ornaments for the two of us, as well. This year, we needed ten ornaments for those we gift ornaments. For Tom and I, we start with the ornament from 1998 and work forward, hanging this year's bangle on last.

To me, it seems like a tree is a must have, for many, the concept has gone away.

I am thinking about someone I know that recently had a death in the family. They are not putting up a tree this year. From what I know of the person who deceased, I am certain he would reach down and pop them. Yet, they think it is out of respect to him not to have a tree.

What's you call on that?

e

LET THERE BE LIGHTS!

2010-12-10T15:37:00.003-06:00

Grandparents had candles on their tree. Can you believe it? What a fire hazard but that is what they did!

Flash forward to the seven strand lights if one goes out they all go out. Christmas eve was, for some years, spent looking for the bad bulb, even if they were all changed and checked and brand new at the beginning.

Daddy hung the lights. He was of the mind that lights should be somewhat hidden, certainly others liked them right on the outside. But he did not hunt for the missing bulb. In fact, it came to be that all the lights on our tree where outdoor lights, which all stayed lit when one or more went out.

Our lights were all multi color, until the year mother decided we would have all pink lights on a pink tree with pink bulbs. She got away with it but we were not allowed to touch the tree, in fear the flocking would fall off. One of the things that led her to this is simple: She bought a vacuum cleaner from a door to door salesperson, who used to be a boyfriend. Part of the hype was you could flock trees with it. I so do remember daddy trying to get her into the kitchen to talk with her about better sweepers for less money but she was determined.

Where our lights a tangled mess? Never. Why, because mother took the tree down when everyone was either at school or at work. Tree one morning, no tree in the afternoon. And you can bet everything was neatly packed for the next holiday.

When the 100 strand mini lights in white came out, I was in heaven. A chance to have hundreds of lights without heat! And hundreds we did have.

Then......I moved to Fargo and Tom was of the belief of less lights and multi colored. It has been resolved with all green and nothing flashing. To make up the difference we have white mini lights year around on an arrangement on the entertainment center and an artificial plant by the door. I am looking around for yet another place to put some! :)

Oh how grand to remember the bubbling lights which never stood up straight!

e

OH CHRISTMAS TREE

2010-12-09T16:56:00.002-06:00

For many of us, artificial trees, unless they were aluminum with a rotating stroke set to make the tree colors change, was not an option. I suppose in a city like we lived most people had a tree, one that had been alive at one time. As a child, I just assumed everyone had a tree. I am thinking maybe some people could choose a tree or a gift.

Ours came from a man that dug the basements for the houses my dad built as well as commerical buildings. Our tree was free. Well sort of. Another thing I didn't know is these trees were really tops of trees hauled out of Canada. I wonder if they spoke French?

Most of us remember a frozen tree, filled with snow and ice and it had to be placed in a warm environment to thaw. They always looked different once the branches had relaxed. It was Daddy's job to find the 'front', that is, the fullest side, most branches. It was also his job to cut it off, especially if the tree had a big knot on the base where it went into the stand.

Although I thought every tree was the very best. I do know there were bald spots and odd branches. I was told once we get the decorations on it, you won't be able to see it.

And so the tree stood for a few days filling the air with the aroma of evergreen. It would stand until an adult said it was time.

As a parent myself, Thanksgiving afternoon was set aside to go to the tree farm, at least for a few years. The children rotated in choosing the tree. Maybe we did too, I don't remember for sure as if I did have a choice I would have wanted a Scotch Pine~~You know, the kind where you get the last of the needles out of the shag carpet around Easter!

Now, when you go to a tree farm, these trees have been trimmed as they grew so you had a pretty straight and full tree before you took the saw and cut it down. But not always. More than one year we tied the tree to the wall to keep it straight.

I was sad that my grandparents did not have a real tree. They had an aluminum one which stood in the corner of their little living room. It was moved from in front of the picture window so there would be room for all of us to visit and have supper with them on Christmas Eve.

My other grandparents had a tree that was about a foot and a half tall. I wonder how long they had that tree. The branches were pulled forward to decorate, and pushed back for storage. Each branch end had a little red berry, many long since gone.

When Ryen and I bought the house and moved back, we had all white carpeting on the floors. When we went to do the tree, I thought we should do it in the kitchen for easier clean up. We are still laughing about having this tree beautifully decorated only to NOT be able to get it through the opening in the living room! Yes, we had to take it apart!

And it came to pass that Christmas would happen in 1998 in Fargo, North Dakota. I had tubs of stuff and Tom had boxes of stuff. I did not know, when I told the two of them to go through the directions there had been no tree in the house since his wife had died. I will tell you it was hard to breathe in the room as the two of them looked at each item. Suffering.

Tom and I where at Menard's looking around after Christmas early in our marriage. We came across these three trees mounted together on a common plate. It isn't very fat and it doesn't cover the Seth Thomas clock, either.

Although the decor is taken off, the tree stays on the main floor. It moves from the dining room to the living room at Christmas time and back to the dining room after the holidays. There are two decorations on it year around; two red birds, one for Bud and the other for his wife, Shilpa. At the base is a Chinese good luck cat, a gift to Tom from Ryen.

Next time, we will discuss lights! Do you have yours untangled yet?

e

TIP WHO?

2010-12-08T08:47:00.003-06:00

Old Trunks is looking at the list of gifts/tips to consider to be the norm.

Let's talk about it.

BARBER
Cost of one hair cut. So if cuts are twenty and the tip matches that, $40 is the normal.

CLEANING PERSON
A weeks salary and a small gift. It is said this is one profession that has really been hit hard by the recession.

MANICURIST
Cost of one session

HAIR STYLIST
Now, this can be pricey. If you spend $100 on a trip to the shop are you really going to tip that much? How about doubling the regular tip?

TRASH MAN
When we had our trash picked up by real people instead of the automatic can lifter, Tom used to set out a case of beer for them. We never see them anymore. One guy drives the truck, if there is trash around the can, they do not pick it up. If your can is so full the lid won't close, the place a shame on you sticker on the can. If you set the can where they can not pick it up automatically, you get another shame on sticker. Thirty dollars is considered average.

LAWN CREW
Those of you who have it hired out, fifty dollars per person is the normal tip.

NEWSPAPER CARRIER
The price of one month's subscription regardless of how many times it is 'lost' or not delivered. I have to say the people who received their paper from one of my children where more than generous on a monthly basis. Now we get an envelope from the newspaper to put the money in.

CHILD'S TEACHER
A gift from you and a gift from your child. And the survey said, teacher's like gift cards. Mrs. Shaw retired. She had a garage sale. She sold hundreds of hankies and bottles of Cologne. I do have a mental rule about gifts: When you gift someone, it is now their property and they can do whatever they want with it. A lesson learned the hard way when mother put a turtle pin out for the garage sale for 25 cents. It was a gift I had given her the Christmas past.

Old Trunks is certain that is why I always encouraged my children to give me little stuff. I have a standing jewelry box and a curio cabinet full of little treasures from them. Would you like to come and look? I will happily share the treasures of their youth

There was to be a twist in the gifting this year. I decided last year, since I do not see my children often, and am clueless as to their desires, I would do money. Yet, I still can not do it. I can not, in good faith, fold any sort of cash and put it in an envelope and call it gifting. Perhaps it won't be 'just what they wished for' like when they wanted bicycles and sleds but at least they know they were thought about and imagination tried to find something unique as they are.

What's your take on this?

e

DECEMBER ONE``THE DAY FOR SUNSHINE

2010-12-01T11:39:00.003-06:00

Why is it that magically the sun shines on the first day of December? November is a gloomy lot and it seems to be that way regards of where I have lived.

But November this year flew by. Perhaps it was because we were able to fish the first weekend. Maybe it is because most of the days fly by. It must be a sign of getting older. A nurse told my friend that if you talk about going to the bathroom, it is a sign of old age.

That reminded me of one of the most well read gentlemen I will ever meet. He was a newspaper man. He and his wife enjoyed traveling to the far corners. I will tell you if you knew him, you would adore him, too.

He had gone for coffee with other retired gentleman for several months and discussed the topics of the day. When his wife took a dementia like diagnosis, he decided they should move into a retirement village. As far as he knew, the topics of the day would be discussed with fellow retired folks. Alas, it did not happen. They were not there a week when he announced they would be moving. I asked him why and he told me even the males only talked about the number of pills and prunes, and of course, how big their elimination was.

His wife fell and was wheelchair bound shortly after moving into the apartment. It would only be a few weeks before she needed the kind of care he physically could not provide. He hired help and watched his retirement account dwindle.

He died

His wife went to the nursing home and did not have a clue as to how she had spent her life.

So, maybe, just maybe, I should shut my mouth about the lack of sunshine in November and whether or not the currants eaten at Thanksgiving have been current.

Maybe I should, and perhaps you as well, should be grateful.

Make a pack.

Have days of sunshine, even on cloudy days OR is that even when you are in a cloudy daze?

e

THE PIE THAT ALMOST WASN'T

2010-11-26T07:53:00.003-06:00

The plan was to have Thanksgiving dinner at a buffet. It seemed like a grand thing to do until it started to storm. Although the storm stopped, it was going to be cold and windy. We decided to eat at home, both of us would man the kitchen, dividing the jobs and helping each other as needed.

Before I go any farther, I must say there are two things I always have on hand. One is brownie mix and frosting and the other is makings for pumpkin pie. Sometimes I even have brownies in the freezer. And so when the plan changed, all I thought was needed was cranberries and croutons. Yes, I know, I should have checked.

The cranberries were popping in the kettle and the celery and onions were cooking in a little olive oil when I went to the pantry for pumpkin stuff. Much to my surprise, there was no pumpkin stuff!!! Now there are two days one must have pie. One is Tom's birthday and the other is Thanksgiving!

Okay, so, what DID we have? WE HAD CURRANTS!!! Maybe we could convert a recipe for old fashion raisin pie using currants.

One crust or two? ONE
Ice cream or whipping cream? Whipping cream.

WHAT? It calls for corn starch
WHAT? It calls for brown sugar

SUB flour for corn starch.
HOPE the brown sugar, double wrapped in bags was not a piece of a rock.

Tom kept watch on the boiling currants and water. The blender whirled the flour, cinnamon, brown sugar. We added the ingredients together.

THEN we looked at each other and questioned what the stick together ingredient was. We knew it had to cook because the crust was raw. The method and recipe off the Internet was not complete. We would find another recipe which called for eggs. If it calls for two eggs, three is even better, don't you think? The pie went in the oven and after opening the shutting the oven door a few times, it was ready! It really was pretty good. I know that because I just had a piece for breakfast.

Now let's talk about the turkey. Remember it was only a side of breast, bought a few weeks ago to 'have on hand'. And so Tom said, "I need something to get the turkey off the bottom of the roaster". The roaster he was using was mini and all the racks we had didn't fit. We rummaged through all the cupboards and cabinets looking for something. WHAT did we use? Metal cookie cutters; a star, a Santa, a gingerbread man! I love ingenuity, don't you? Yes, I know, we could have used a bigger roaster.

THEN there was the potato thing. Now when I do mashed potatoes, I use the same kettle and measure the number I cook by how it fills the bottom of the kettle. That gives us two servings plus a little more. Has anyone ever asked you how many potatoes to peel? What did you say? Tom wanted to allow for peeling so he added more. Well, we have some extra potatoes here! I use the mixer to whip them. He uses a masher. I add whipping cream and butter and danged if he didn't use skim milk. But since he was in charge of the potatoes, isn't it fair and right we could do them as he wished? Yes, it is fair.

Two hours from start to finish to prep and bake and boil and 10 minutes to eat. Sounds about right, doesn't it?

In regards to the pie: Next time, use brandy for the water to cook the currants. That is, if there is another time!

Now the question is, when will the current currants crap out? Or will they get stuck in pitted areas of our old intestines? BUT, there is a pill for that!

And how was your Thanksgiving?

IT JUMPED THE FENCE!!!

2010-11-16T10:06:00.003-06:00

Ever since the bull crashed the fence at Joppru's during a rodeo when I was a kid, I haven't liked being in the stands during the bull riding, except I really like to watch it from the safety of the house. I saw on the news this morning that some bull jumped the fence and some folks got hurt. ALSO at a bull fight in some far away country, a black bull JUMPED the wall and got into the place where the matadors wait. I mean this bull was running hard when he cleared the fence. I did not know bulls could jump like that!

Joppru's was a meat market/sales barn in my home town. The rodeo area was fence with sheep fence; not very protective. The 'stands' were nail crates with 12 x 12's. How do I know all this? My grandfather set up the area every fall for the rodeo. Joppru was quite the promoter. He also added a pie and coffee counter in the sales barn, then later, served chili. (The chili was always burned).

It was a family operation and still is! Did his two sons, Don and Dean become butchers? If so, where were they trained? It was a great place to party and if the inspectors ever knew kids were making out between the swinging sides of beef, well, let's just say, the making out was Grade A.

The operation was out of the city limits and there was always one Sheriff car sitting on the road next to the entrance trying to nab curfew and kids who were drinking. Didn't happen, everyone would just curl up on a cutting counter, take a nap, and go home when curfew lifted at 6A.

I wonder what my folks though when I came home smelling like rancid animal fat and saw dust? They never asked and I never said, "Hey, I have been out at Joppru's making out in the swinging sides"!

Would you?

e

DECIDED ON.................

2010-11-14T09:16:00.004-06:00

The little cylinder which held the erasers has been adopted for a use.

Many replied.

Belly button lint
Pizza cheese
Smog
Needles
Nose hairs

The best use: Fill it with sunshine for a cloudy day.

e

ONCE UPON A TIME

2010-11-13T09:11:00.003-06:00

There was the Sherman Anti Trust Act. When learning about it, it seemed to mean corporations could not gobble up corporations. And so it was in my youth, that the Dine-A-Mite was independently owned and not bought out by Rex Cafe` which in turn bought out Kief's. There were separate of each other.

But now we have conglomerates.

This thought track started because of an article in Consumer Reports about people knowing they get much better glasses and service from independent optical dispensers than from 'box store glasses" Not a week goes by the Tom doesn't hear the story from someone who has bought cut rate glasses which just don't work and don't fit right.

The sad thing about it is, big companies are buying little optical companies not buy the spoon fulls but rather, by truck loads and what happens is the laboratories are being gobbled up too, making it difficult to get that really great new lens without being part of it.

Old Trunks is not going to throw around names of frame manufacturers, but what she is going to do is hand everyone a tissue because that 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act no longer seems to apply.

Think about this: Pepsi drinker? Brad's Drink, as it was called in 1890 is now a part of Frito-Lay, General Mills, Tropicana, and Quaker Oats. Aren't Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and KFC part of this too? Is that why they serve Pepsi instead of Coke?

Does it matter to you?

e

HOW DO YOU REFERENCE?

2010-11-11T07:38:00.004-06:00

Old Trunks processes memories according the the sections in her life. And just what does that mean?

We all have eras in our life. For folks that move about, they may store their memories in, let's say...........New York, Ohio, California, all before college, college. Or maybe one does it by marriages, or best friends. Old Trunks clearly sees four, although with much discussion, perhaps it is really eight or even twelve. As I think about it, my childhood memories are stored with the many houses we lived in.

Nevertheless, like loaves of bread, there is something buttered on each slice during that era.

It makes a person wonder, if you could only have, let's say three great stories, or memories from each era, which would you choose? Perhaps we need five.

It makes one think about a story I heard from a friend lately. Now, the lady has a lot of color in her writing, the kind that you can picture each movement, know what I mean?

She shared about her Aunt coming to visit while her house was being painted. Aunt Shirley was allergic to paint. She used the reference, "when Bob and I lived @........... See, she was splitting off. Bob carved in his office. He also had a huge selection of all running chime clocks in his office as well as a stuffed raccoon with a snarl. This is where Aunt Shirley was to sleep. In the morning, two clocks and the coon where outside the door and the cuckoo clock had been stopped.

Now Old Trunks is wondering, how do people capture memories? Are people who remember the best grasping with all senses? If you can not taste or smell, does that cut back on how much you can remember?

Me thinks I am having a Mrs. Spock moment, pointed ears and all.

e

PUZZLED

2010-11-09T09:10:00.004-06:00

Can someone explain to me how a grown man driving a combine can run over a bear in a corn field?

Yes, it really did happen in Southern Minnesota recently.

I think the guy was talking on his cell phone. Who could miss a 320 pound bear?

Imagine that!

e

MORN NING

2010-11-08T08:51:00.003-06:00

You know how you wake up in the morning and your mouth is all warm and fuzzy inside and you say, MORN NING to someone? Ever do that?

Well, I started to think, is that what they say on the social network called NING? Do they say, "MORE NING" or do the owners or creators say, "Let's have more ning"?

That reminded me of a booklet I made for my daughter when she was little. I took construction paper and printed, for example: ATE. These sheets were covered with something she could write on with a crayon.

ATE Now, tell me, what words can you make out of ATE by putting a letter in front of it?

A B C D E F G H I J K L are you running it through your head?

That got me thinking. If NING is a word are A E I O U?

NANG
NENG
NING
NONG
NUNG

NING: Social Network
NONG: Foolish person
NANG: Excellent
NUNG: Tai Language

Now remember, you heard it here FIRST!

e

THE KEEPING OF THE RECORDS

2010-11-07T07:18:00.003-06:00

I may have laughed at Grandma Mae when she wrote the weather on the calendar every day. But I take it all back as I retire the 'fishing record' book which started as a way to find a caught and loss record of fishing for top water bass on Leech Lake while on vacation. As well as where the bass where.

The first entry is 8-9-08 on Leech at Black Duck. Followed by the letters T and E, circles, numbers with inches, species, and size.

Not that it means anything to the reader but:

East side of big rice
North side of big rice
Flat tree
Geese in the rice
Picture: Eagle flying
Cat tails

T: 10 E: 12

Yesterday, November 5, I retired the book.

Pickerel
Snow patches in ditches
40 degrees
Water Temperature 48
T: 2 E 3

How fun!!!

e

SHEETS, NOT THE GHOST KIND

2010-11-04T10:11:00.003-05:00

a picture posted by Old Trunks came back to haunt us. It isn't about sheets but it is about what about sheets?

The photo was of a large family, standing in front of a need-to-be-painted two story house. There was a sleigh and even more people. I suppose to get everyone into the picture, the photographer stepped into the next county. That is the way it was done, yet wouldn't it be great if one could SEE the people's faces? Let that be a lesson to all. Please.

Now what tickled me so was LLA posted the picture as her icon on Facebook. I have no problem with that because it wasn't my photograph to begin with and since I don't copyright, I am out of luck anyway, unless, of course, I screw up the picture with a stamp.

Now, I am not certain why LLA posted a notice that she liked Wamsetta sheets but it struck me funny that it was posted next to a picture of a zillion kids, a sleigh and a need-of-paint house. We may have to leave that in the mystery box.

My question was: Did those people have sheets? And when did sheets start, anyway? I could not imagine living in a Soddy in NW MN and having a loom big enough to weave them, besides cotton isn't grown this far north.

Old Trunks has since learned the first mention of sheets was for the wealthy back in the mid sixteen hundreds. It was learned that, once again, wealthy people had them on the east coast. The articles talked about the pillow cases being embroidered and were part of the hope chest. When is the last time you slept on a pillow case with fancy stitching and crocheting, for that matter?

It is wondered if these folks even had sheets, rather slept between quilts and by the looks of the house several quilts. OR perhaps someone gave them sheets--that is--handed them down. Maybe they where on the third set of users. Maybe they were really thin. Maybe they were patched.

There is nothing that smells better than sheets have been hung on the line in the winter and freeze dried then brought in and hung over clothes drying racks. Oh, can you smell that?

Personally, sheets have always been a part of my history. They were all flat then. The beds were changed on Friday--every Friday. The sheets were mangled, (ironed). Until I left home, I never slept on a sheet that wasn't ironed. What a shocker! Imagine, not ironed sheets? I am smiling because it really was a treat!

e

THE CASE OF THE MAULED PIZZA

2010-10-31T08:05:00.003-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I made a couple of pizzas. I placed each of them in an 8x8 pan. We ate one, and I froze the other in the pan. It would be our supper last night. I had figured, since it was frozen, I could turn the pan over and bang on it, forcing it to fall out on a piece of foil, which it did.

Since we like crust that is crispy, the idea was to place the pizza directly on the rack. That is what is recommended by commercial pizza places that you buy and freeze as well as ones you buy at the market.

We waited for the minutes to tick by, Tom said he could smell it much earlier than I so I got up to check. The timer had not yet gone off.

The center of the pizza had fallen through the grate and landed on a drip pan previously used for pie. All the crust from the edges was stuck to the rack! It was really funny but it was also pretty sad looking. It looked like we had already eaten it!

Tom was laughing so hard as the two of us picked the crust off the rack, mainly because I present food that looks good as well as tastes good. We scraped it all on to a bread board and set it on the table and ate it with a fork. I did not offer a different meal and we ate every bit of it!

That is my scary Halloween story and I am sticking to it, just like the pizza stuck to the rack!

TEN COMMANDMENTS

2010-10-30T09:40:00.003-05:00

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

GIRL SCOUT LAWS

2010-10-29T09:32:00.002-05:00

Trust

Loyalty

Helpful to others

Friend and sister to other scouts

Courteous

Friend to animals

Obeys orders

Cheerful

Thrifty

Clean in thought, word, and deed.
(Exception: While fishing I say shit when the fish throws the hook).

AND WHAT IS ON YOUR PLATE?

2010-10-28T09:18:00.003-05:00

Most of us interact in some way with several people a day. Perhaps it is family, others at occupations, and for many retirees, it is game playing on line. I get annoyed at times by people who do not accept gifts graciously. Well, I do that in real life, too.

But I had a dream last night and got up and moved around after so I could remember.

Let's say My Sweet Thomas and I go to a buffet for dinner. Ya, sure, ya betcha, Tom is going to be long on meat and potatoes and short on veggies. And that is okay. I am going to be long on the veggies and short on the meat, well, not that short, but you get the drift, we both pick different things to put on our plate although the general agreement is the establishment is okay to both of us.

Even when we fast food we eat different sandwiches. But I am not harping on him because he eats a club while I am enjoying a BLT.

And such as it is in life and certainly on Internet games, where people threaten one another if they send them one more thing called a special delivery. Threaten? Yes, YOU WILL BE IGNORED. So? The other person doesn't know if you have ignored it, so why waste energy being a bully?

Why be a poop and tell something they have too many chickens?

Why tell poor little old G that she has to stop writing Bible verses? Why not tell her to spell check her verses?

Sometime in each of our lives we learned a few rules. For some, rather, many, it may be the Ten Commandments. For me, the best working list was the Girl Scout Law. That covers a more realistic life style for me. After that we tweak according to what life throws at us.

So, what is on your plate? I can tell you I have NO LIVER or LUTEFISK. But that doesn't mean all of you can eat it; just don't force it down my throat even if it is Thursday, which as a child meant liver and onions fried in bacon grease with boiled potatoes and carrots, bleck.

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THE TALE OF THE TROUSERS

2010-10-24T09:45:00.001-05:00

The next night, which is maid's day off, we went to supper and stopped at another department store. Now he is looking for trousers. He is not pleased with the weight of the fabric, it has gotten lighter and in thirty below zero weather it is darn cold on the bottom. He is too big to buy a boys size, which have less seat. A brand he really likes has made their pants roomier. But we did find a store brand which has a fabric he thinks is okay. I asked him to please try on something with a shorter inseam. I know he likes his trousers to break above the shoe but that is different than blousing at the shoe. He is wearing his pants to long because he doesn't have any hips or buttocks to fill them up.

We had gone to a high end store before but nothing in wash and wear. Only wool. Wool wears out if you have it dry cleaned too much. Our problem is that wash and wear slacks come pre-creased and if you alter the legs the crease is in the wrong place. Another problem is, I don't have vision for remodeling clothes. He knows someone who will tailor and I think that is what he should do....of course, it will be his nickel.

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WHAT TO WEAR PART TWO

2010-10-23T09:17:00.003-05:00

And the next night came and off we went with the spreadsheet, the picture of the shirts and the photograph of all the ties. On the back of the ping of shirts, it listed five stores and the brands they carried. I had spent the morning looking at the web sites.

Now, we all know, because we have had to wear clothes for years, that some brands fit better than others. Odd, isn't it, that one brand that was at an upscale store when I was growing up is now a box store brand? Another brand, sold only at sport stores, is now available at a farm store and that has happen in the last few years. I suppose it is all about getting one's product out.

Back to the caper. Tom knew the first thing to do is find the shirts. Collars are important. He stays away from button downs because he thinks it adds minutes to the ironing....or maybe it is because he has Raynard's Syndrome and he can't button the teeny buttons......or maybe both. Personally, button downs look like one is choking. I would not pick it for him.

Now, he trusts me, and that is scary. When he picked up a shirt, the first thing he did was put it under his chin. Even in store light, it was not his color. He has learned that colors that are muddy are just not suitable for him. One of the reasons he looks so healthy is because of the colors he wears. And, if you have a problem with believing this, stand in front of a mirror and put garments under YOUR chin and look at yourself. You will soon learn some make you look, as grandma used to say, "poorly".

He picked another light blue, perhaps as a replacement, as well as a forest green, a clean dark gray, a stripe, and agreed on the raspberry, which I had found the night before. Why didn't we buy it the night before? Well, we were clueless as to what he really needed and the night we went, well, buy $50 and get a $10 coupon. I am thinking Kohl's is one of the few stores that are making it in this recession because they are giving the customer a reason to come back with the coupon~of course, that means the longer you are there, the more you will buy.

The ties were next, I had already picked up the one to match the raspberry. He worked on the others, going first to a diagonal strip in blue. I showed him the picture so he could see just how many like that he already had. It is like me, when I shop for him, I always manage to come home with something with purple. Maybe because lil ol ladies love it, me included, of course.

We got down to the stripe shirt. It is white with a brown stripe and an aqua stripe. This is where the color blind comes in. He could not pick up the color and when he did, he did not see it for what it was. We twirled a lot of tie racks before we found a few that would work, although of the 50+ ties he has in his closet, there may have been something.

The spreadsheet was worth it and so where the pictures. It took us a half a hour to pick out five and five. He did not stray to the belts or underwear, he stayed on task, although we did not find a clear dark purple with a dress shirt collar in fitted nor did we find a yellow fitted.

Let me see, how does this work? I spent most of the morning getting ready and we spend 30 minutes in the store. Does that make the time I spent getting ready profitable? Yes. Why? Because he could shop with knowledge and do it a man's way, in a hurry. Oh, if he only took the time with buying clothes like he does looking for fishing lures.

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