today’s post comes from tim

sorry to rub it in but i do have the best kids in the world. devin is in reno tara is in hell spencer is in limbo olivia is in transition and emma is in denial.

each is my favorite at every moment.

devin and tara came form my first marriage and instead of beng taught not to lose one glove like the younger three learned they like me often have mismatched gloves hopefully a right and a left but not always. the weather turned cold and i went out to find the matched gloves in the tupperware tub in the garage (i knew where to look) when i went to pt them by the dog walking door i noticed spencers pristine choppers. id kill for a pair of those. i ahve always wanted a paiir but the last couuple of years have been a money challange so instead of buying functional stuff i by dog food and pay for music lessons.

it was so fun doing a life of globetrotting and high life and i thought i wild be there forever and now that i know its not that easy i am really going to savor it in another olittle while when i am back amongst the action folk instead of the reaction folk. two letters makes all the difference. instead of doing whats right you need to do what you need to do.

my biggest contribution to their upbringing as i have mentioned before is to show them how not to do it. i think they have enough examples and i look forward to filling the other side of the ledger.

Header image of buckthorn by Mason Brock (Masebrock) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Today’s post comes from tim

grandpa bob was my first wifes dad

salt of the earth

high school teacher in milwaulkee

he grew up building houses with his dad in the 50’s and ended up getting a job as a school  teacher where he could just show up for work and not worry about business. he kind of trudged through his day.

somewhere in his career he got hooked up to be the guy to look after the field trips for the school kids in the milwauklee school district. he got to take them for walks in the parks and discover how to tell the trees by the bark and the leaves he got to be the guy who did the planetarium show and push the buttons and recite the planets and stars

he got to do lake michigan and the brewery tours he loved life.

then someone asked how bob got that job? did he go through the proper protocol? he got thrown under the bus. after years of loving his work he got put back in the classroom and he was so sad. because he was low man on the totem pole in teacher land ( i guess seniority didnt enter in) he got the class of underachievers from the toughest neighborhoods in milwaukee (milwaulkee has some really tough neighborhoods)   he was not a politically correct guy and the stuff that would come out of his mouth was alarming. he believed that the community he was asked to teach was unreachable. they didnt get breakfast so their brains didnt work.

his last remaining joy was walking in the parks around milwaukee that he had come to know taking the kids on field trips. that and going to high school plays. he loved going and went to 200 plays a year in school auditoriums all over the milwaukee area.

he had property all over northern wisconsin, 5 acres here 5 acres there. he had a favorite place around ladysmith where he had a spot on the flambeau river with white pines and  a natural beauty hard to beat. he would mow and tweak and groom the property. there was a small cabin next door with an owner who inherited it and didnt ever come and on the other side was a good ol boy who wold come up from new orleans every summer to be bobs buddy. they would sit and discuss the world and the woods and the good old days and every summer was better than the one before.

bob lived out of a pop up tent trailer that he would haul up in may and haul home in october every year. a stove, a bed and walls, who could ask for anything more.  his last year up there he decided to leave it up in october and simply come back in april and set up camp. when he came he found his neighbor in the cabin who had some mental illness issues has sold the tent trailer. he simply threw p his hands and walked away. too bad.  a bad way to end a chapter but the way it went.

when i divorced his daughter he was called on to winterize her house every year (putting on the plastic over the porch screens and raking the leaves and and to open it up again in the spring. he would stop over to borrow a wheelbarrow, a shovel   a hammer and chat for a while. i will always remember his response to a statement it way ‘yeah , yeah , yeah, ” kind of like he was going down stairs. descending  tones of yeahs in a row. he used his mantra to mull over his response and let you know he was listening and was aware it was his turn to speak in the conversation.

he comes to mind at this time of year as the leaves turn brown and fall off. and all thats left is the green egg shaped leaves of the hated intruder the buckthorn that takes over and chokes everything out. it is very sad to realize that the natural plants are being killed and choked out by the early coming out and the late departure of the buckthorn. i wuuld like to see a way to stop the takeover of the buckthorn and i think of bob everytime it comes up.

linda has the tree wrench for pulling the buckthorn up but it is hard work. i would like to find a way to clear an acre or a chunk of the woods in a weekend with a crew of volunteers to see what the difference between maintained and non maintained natural woodlands would be. ill bet it would make an impact. maybe in my sparetime

is there a trigger that reminds you of a time or place every time you see /hear/smell/taste it?

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

There has been lots of discussion in the media lately about truth-the truth behind Donald’s tax returns, the truth in Hilary’s emails. Truth can vary depending on your viewpoint and your experience. I have my own struggle with truth, and I hope the Baboons can offer me some advice.

I have written before about a terrible conflict between my maternal grandmother and her only sister.  I heard the “truth” from my grandmother’s perspective. I never heard the conflict described from my great aunt’s perspective, and I am worried that time is running out for me to hear that side of the story.

My great aunt’s youngest daughter was my mom’s favorite cousin, and they kept in touch through all the years of their mothers’ conflict. The cousin is still alive, and since my mom’s death, she and I have maintained a cordial relationship. She is the last one from my great aunt’s family who knows what happened to cause the conflict, and she is the last one for me to ask. In telling me the other side of the story, she would have to divulge some pretty painful secrets concerning her parents and siblings, secrets we have some inkling about but don’t know about for certain. Her side of the family has a tendency to cut themselves off from family members who offend them. I risk losing her friendship if I ask. I risk not knowing about something that has been a puzzle to me since I was a child.

I like to know how people and families function. I like making sense out of behavior. Husband tells me that this is one of those times when I need to keep my mouth shut and accept that I can’t find out the “truth” as it relates to this situation. What do you think, dear Baboons? How far should I go to find out the truth?

Today’s post comes from Bill in Mpls

Here are pictures of my father’s father in one of his first performances as an American. He’s the one on the right. He was newly arrived from Sweden, having sailed in July, 1916 on a Norwegian-American ship, embarking from Kristiania, Norway. He was 20 years old and emigrated alone.

I say this was a performance because I see in these pictures an expression and reenactment of the mythology of America that new arrivals so frequently bring with them. My grandfather landed at Ellis Island and made his way westward from there. In America, Rickard Nilsson became Richard Nelson. I believe he had acquaintances or distant relatives in Grygla, Minnesota in the far northwest corner of the state. Sometime in the first year or so of his arrival, he traveled further west to Everett, Washington. There, or along the way to there, with a friend, he had these photos made. They were printed on postcard stock. Perhaps he sent one home to Sweden.

Almost everything I know, or think I know about this grandfather comes from physical artifacts or from peripheral research and speculation. He died when I was four years old. My father didn’t talk about him and I didn’t ask. To know him at all, I have to unpack the clues.

Even allowing for the invincibility of youth, it must have been frightening traveling across the Atlantic in 1916. German U-boat activity was heavy and being on a neutral country’s vessel was small reassurance. Over the course of the war, Germany sunk over 1300 Norwegian ships. That suggests that, despite the peril, my grandfather had strong motivations for leaving. My uncle once intimated that my grandfather had emigrated to avoid conscription into the Swedish army. Since Sweden was also neutral at that time (though it was being pressured by Germany for support), understanding the sense, if any, to that claim will require more study.

Grandfather stayed and worked for a time in Everett. I have an envelope dated December 1918 addressed to him in Everett and a business card from Everett Transfer and Feed Yard, where I assume he found work. A letter he wrote at that time (in Swedish) to the Swedish American newspaper seeks other Swedes with whom he might meet and socialize. Everett must not have been a Scandinavian hotbed. He sounds lonely and isolated.

At some point, Richard Nelson left Everett, Washington and returned to Minnesota. It was there, in Barrett, Minnesota that he met my grandmother. Like many parts of Minnesota, Barrett was heavily Scandinavian. My grandmother’s father was also a Swedish immigrant and her mother the child of Norwegians. It’s reasonable to conjecture that my grandfather was drawn to the area by the familiar, comfortable culture, the opportunity to use his native language, a chance to be his authentic self. That’s something all transplants crave.

When my grandparents married, it was in Minneapolis. My grandfather built a house for the family in Robbinsdale. He found work as a painter and in various kinds of maintenance. Most of his friends had Scandinavian last names. He had two sons, both of whom served in WWII. He finally became a naturalized citizen in 1943.

I think of him and of all my immigrant ancestors when the immigration talk gets ugly. We are all related to immigrants, some more immediately than others. At least one of us (I’m looking at you, P.J.) is an actual immigrant. We owe everything to those brave or desperate souls who picked up their lives and families and transplanted them here. We can honor them by regarding new arrivals, ones with unfamiliar customs and language and costume as kindred to our ancestors and cutting them some slack.

America at its best, at its most vital and dynamic, is always in the process of becoming something different.

What do you know about your immigrant predecessors? Any good stories?

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota.

We have one television, and it is in our family room in the basement. We rarely go downstairs to watch TV.  I haven’t seen any live coverage of either of the recent political conventions. I couldn’t bring myself to watch the first, and, although I identify as a Democrat, I haven’t made time to watch the second, either. My father adored Hillary Clinton, and I know he would be watching the convention were he here.

My father’s family has a long history of being Democrats. I recently discovered that my paternal grandfather’s uncles were ultra-dedicated Democrats and had pretty interesting lives.

George (b. 1869) and Martin (b. 1871) Freerks, my Grandfather Boomgaarden’s uncles, were born in Pekin, Illinois and grew up in Parkersburg, IA. They were the children of German/Friesland immigrants. English was their second language.  Neither boy attended much school as children or teens, as they had to help on the farm. Martin estimated he attended 90 days of school his whole life. Despite their lack of education, both managed to independently study for the bar exam and became lawyers in Kansas and North Dakota.

George (Gerhard) was a North Dakota delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1896 and 1900. I imagine him listening to William Jennings Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech in Chicago in 1896 (“You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold”). He named one of his sons Horace Jennings Freerks, after the philosopher and the orator. George was the assistant city attorney in Wichita and ran unsuccessfully for Attorney General of Kansas around 1908. I guess Kansas was a really Republican state at the time, and George’s campaign was doomed from the start. I admire him for trying. He practiced law in Wahpeton, North Dakota with his brother, and eventually moved to Crosby, MN to be close to some iron mine investment property. He died in 1924.

Martin spent most of his professional life in Jamestown, ND. He changed his last name to Fredericks since people kept mispronouncing it as “Freaks”.  He was deeply involved in the Non-Partisan League (NPL), a socialist party that was the precursor of North Dakota’s current Democratic Party and the subject of a wonderful film documentary called Northern Lights. The NPL is the reason why we have the Bank of North Dakota and the State Flour Mill. (Our current Republican governor is pretty glad for the State Bank, even though such an institution goes against his principles, as he intends to hit up the bank for a $100,000,000 loan to address revenue shortfalls). Martin’s son was the last person in North Dakota to successfully read for the Bar and was elected a district judge. His son married Lawrence Welk’s daughter.

I have, on occasion, considered running for our local school board or maybe even the city council. I don’t know if I have the patience or the thick skin necessary to do so.  Our entire school board was voted out of office in a recall election about 15 years ago when they dared propose changing the team mascot name from the Midgets to something more politically correct. Image what might happen if I tried to initiate real and meaningful change. I might get run out of town!

 What political office would you like to run for?

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

My German relatives are coming to visit the US in August. Wilhelm and Petra will arrive at the end of the month to spend some time in Luverne with my mother’s cousin Elmer and his wife, Eunice. The Germans have been here before. Petra speaks English fluently, and Wilhelm not at all. Wilhelm is very interested in US farming techniques, and farms the small farm he inherited from his father. He is a retired auto worker and farms as a hobby.

These relatives were very gracious to us on our trip, meeting us in the Bremen train station and taking us to dinner. Their 25 year old daughter drove us all over Verden and Nedden, showing us sights important in the history of my family. We have a standing invitation to stay with them if we are ever in Bremen again, and we intend to take them up on their offer. We sent them a Pendleton Wool blanket  with Badlands motifs as a thank you gift.

Recent events in the US make me wonder what on earth they are thinking as they prepare for their trip. They plan to fly into New York, where they will be met by Elmer’s daughter, and she will fly back to Minneapolis with them. They will go to Luverne, and plan a trip to the Black Hills. I wish they had time to visit us, just three hours to the north of Rapid City. I  would take them to the ND Badlands and the reservation husband works on to meet our native friends. I think Yellowstone would be a nice destination, as well as Glacier. I want them to see the vastness, the enormity of the sky here, the ocean of grass, maybe even a rodeo. I know some ranchers Wilhelm would find fascinating.  They may even like Lawrence Welk’s home in Strasburg.

Our pastor spoke on Sunday about turning down the volume and finding some quiet sanity within ourselves, loving one another, and caring for the stranger. I hope that Petra and Wilhelm can see the good in us, and not think we are lunatics.

 Where would you take foreign visitors to show them that we are not lunatics?”  

Today’s post comes from Crystalbay

A few days ago, my 21-year old grandson, Conner, approached me about living here for a while.  My first reaction was, “Oh no!!  What if it doesn’t work and I’ll be in the position to tell him to leave??!!”.  It was a beautiful summer afternoon and, as we sat together on the lake swing, I decided to take the risk.