Category Archives: History

2022, Family, Food, gardening, History, Uncategorized

Salad

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Well, I learned something this week. I found out that what we consider the typical American potato salad with mayonnaise is not American, but from Northern Germany. That is fun for me, as all my people come from the north of Germany.

Richard Hellman he of the mayonnaise company, immigrated to New York City in 1904, married a young German woman who had a great mayonnaise recipe and parents who ran a deli, and the rest is history. He was from Prussia, in Northeast Germany. My research tells me that most North German potato salad has mayonnaise and always has had mayonnaise, and that only the South Germans, mainly from Schwabia, have hot potato salad with a vinaigrette on it. Northern Germans apparently eat this stuff by the gallon. I guess that the number of immigrants to the US from Northern Germany influenced potato salad culture here.

I found a terrific Northern German potato salad recipe and made some this weekend.

North German Potato Salad (with a cool Hack)

Husband had four bowls of it after he did his yard work on Sunday, and his people come from Schwabia!

What are your favorite summer salads? If you immigrated, what recipes and traditions would you bring with you?

2022, History, home, Mysteries, The Future, Uncategorized

Digging Up The Past

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Things took a grisly turn in Grand Forks last week when police dug up someone’s yard where a presumed murder victim was thought to be buried. The disappearance of the young woman occurred about 25 years ago. The current residents are unrelated to the murder victim or the alleged crime. The location was a construction site at the time of the disappearance.

Nothing was found. I can’t imagine how the current owners felt about the prospect of a corpse under their front yard. Would they hope something would be found, or would they be disappointed the search was unsuccessful? I would worry the remains were still there and I would think about it every time I mowed the lawn.

Other than finding some Wedgwood porridge bowls buried under several inches of spruce needles when we trimmed off the bottom spruce branches (they had been left there by daughter and her best friend when they were little girls and used the space under the trees as their fort and hiding place), we have never found treasure or horror as we have gardened. Our neighborhood was originally the town’s first golf course. We have found nary a golf ball or a tee.

What would you like to bury in your yard for future generations to find? Where would you hide a corpse ?

animals, Family, History, home, Mysteries, Nature

Cat Salvation

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I was thinking about Ben’s question about stepping up as I was doing errands yesterday morning.  My mom is also giving up some of the responsibilities that she’s been shouldering (some a little unwillingly) for quite some time.  It’s not going as easily as she would like.

When I drove back up into my driveway, the neighbor girls were eager to tell me that there was a cat out front.  The grandparents were visiting as well and it was clear that between the two girls, the two parents and the two grandparents there wouldn’t be anyone who did anything except report the existence of this cat.

So YA and I ventured out the front door to deal with the cat.  It was a big white cat w/ black and brown markings, very happy to come to me and get scritched and petted, purring quite loudly.  It allowed me to pick it up and that’s when YA said she thought it belonged to one of the houses across the street.  We took it over and talked to the owner through the door – apparently it’s an outdoor cat; there was food & water there on the front step.  When I put the cat down, it went for the food immediately so we headed home.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been elected as official “animal wrangler” in the neighborhood.  I’ve been called to deal with bats twice.  Once an obviously pet rabbit was found in a yard and I got a call; signs up at the vet and around the neighborhood didn’t result in owners coming forward but luckily we found a good home pretty quickly.  I’ve rescued four dogs who have been loose on the street (all four had tags so got home to their owners).  And for several years there was an escape artist two doors down (Duffer) that everyone was afraid of except me, so I had to drag him home repeatedly. 

I’m not sure why I somehow have been designated the animal problem solver but it seems my lot in life.

Have you ever been involved in a rescue mission?

2022, Business, education, Food, History, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World is VS?

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It’s been awhile…… here are some clues.

The Botanical Garden, which opened to visitors here in 1859, is the oldest public garden in the US and among the top three public gardens in the world.

The first US kindergarten was started here in 1873 by Susan Blow.  (You can still see her original class room!)

The Eads Bridge, completed here in 1874, was the first arched steel truss bridge in the world. The bridge continues to carry automobiles, pedestrians, cyclists and light rail trains!

Several new foods were popularized here in 1904: the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea.

Famous folks from here:  Maya Angelou, Yogi Berra, Daniel Boone, William Burroughs, Vincent Price, Stan Musial, Marlin Perkins.

What do you think?

2022, Business, History, Media, Technology

The Old Stuff

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As I’m counting down my last days at work, I’ve tackled a few projects that have to be put to bed before I’m gone.

One of these projects is, as I refer to it, “the old stuff”.  At my company, we back up our systems every night but GETTING to that information, if you need it, is cumbersome at best and impossible at worst.  You’d be surprised how often you might want to access information from an old program so about 25 years ago, we (or more accurately, I) started downloading our programs onto floppy disk.  You remember those, right?

Then after a few years, as we were changing technology, as I did the annual download, I started downloading to diskette.

You know where this is going… we eventually moved to CDs.  This annual download was accompanied by an updated spreadsheet of what programs were on which CD as well as name of client, location, date, etc.   I was the keeper of the spreadsheet but we had paper copies sorted by either client or location, since those were the two most needed search criteria.

Fast forward through another technology change (which meant you had to use a portable CD reader to use the CDs), a fire in our building (which destroyed the paper files), pandemic (during which nobody was in the building to get to the CDs), data migration to a cloud based system during my furlough (which despite assurances to the contrary, caused the loss of about half my desktop files, including the spreadsheet).   

Bottom line is that for the past 18 months, I’ve had two boxes full of unusable CDs under my desk.  Nobody has asked about them since I got back from furlough.  Even if they did, without the spreadsheet, finding any data would be nie on impossible.  And nobody knows where the portable reader is anyway.   Rather than asking any more about it, I just informed my boss last week that I was dumping them.  Luckily we have CD/DVD recycling at my company AND I personally have a use for the plastic cases that many of them were stored in.  Took me about an hour to separate the CDs from the cases and/or sleeves (header photo).  Broke two fingernails.  And all the while I was thinking about how the technology changed to the point where the data was lost to us.   

And it’s changing fast; YA doesn’t even know what a floppy disk is!

What bit of technology would you not like to do without? 

2022, Family, History, home, Uncategorized

Peripatetia

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Today’s post is from Clyde

I have been sketching from old photos, which has been interesting. Learned a few things, had some catharsis, wasted some time. Made me think about all the places I have lived.

1. Sebeka, in home my parents built, still standing, much changed. (44-45)

2. Superior National Forest, dozen miles north of Isabella, a shack torn down long long ago. (45-48)

3. Two Harbors, the farm. All buildings now gone. (48-63)

4. Chicago, dormitory. (63-64)

5. Chicago, apartment in old house. (64)

6. Minneapolis, apartment building very near U hospital, replaced by medical building. (65)

7. Minneapolis, apartment building, now I-35W. (65)

8. Minneapolis, apartment in old house, now I-35W. (65-66)

9. St. Paul, apartment building, Marshall Ave. east of Snelling. (66)

10. Minneapolis, Prospect Part, apartment in old house. (66-68)

11. Lindstrom, apartment in old house. (68-69)

12. Two Harbors, house on North Shore, header photo. (69-97)

13. North Mankato, century-old house, which we updated. (97-07)

14. Mankato. association home, worst place for us to live. (07-10)

15. Mankato, current apartment, from which I think I need to move.

Is 15 above the average for 77 years?

This is our house, or shack, over my shoulder, north of Isabella. I was an industrious thumb-sucker until age 4.5 when I announced I was done. And I was. My father and uncle, back from the war and a angry at the world, my uncle having spent more than two years in a stalag, took jobs in a logging camp. This was a trial for my mother, the bugs, the dirt, the cold in the winter. And her mother with twin teenage boys lived next door; my grandmother was my mother’s trial in life. It was a trial for me, but I have no memory of it. My uncle’s two daughters were nasty to me, have been nasty and miserable all their lives. I never crawled because they would not let me. Are they still alive? No idea.

This was the farmhouse, again behind me. It was not a promising place, but my father rebuilt, wired, plumbed, added on. Re-sided, with asbestos siding in fact. But it was at the upper reaches of poverty, which never seemed that way at all. There is a hint of the poverty and my mother’s frugality, if you look carefully.

How many places have you lived? Any stand out for you?

2022, Business, History, Kids, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

Flair?

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The other day, when we were talking about ads, I had the tv on for a bit in the afternoon and I looked up just in time to see a young woman sporting a pair of jeans that were definitely flared at the ankle.  I actually backed up the ad to confirm I had seen it correctly.  Not only were the jeans flared out but the word “flare” actually flashed across the screen.  After fifty years it was a little hard to believe that flare jeans have become retro.

I called YA to confirm that flare jeans are “in” but she was very quick (and very vehement) in pointing out that it’s just a little flare that is in, not the huge wide flare jeans that were popular back in the 70s.  I remember the outfit that I put together for the first day back of sophomore year in high school.  Wide faded flare jeans with a “Make Love Not War” sweatshirt and a watch with a huge white wristband.  I thought I was the cat’s meow.  During the time that flared jeans were popular, I altered a few of mine by slitting open the leg and expanding the flare with bright patterned material.  All the rage!

YA tried to get me to promise not to purchase any flare jeans for myself.  She said “just keep your seventies memories to yourself.”  I’m pretty sure I should be insulted but I can’t quite figure out how.

Anything you’d like to come around again?  Or not?

2022, Baboon Achievers, Baboon Blog Redux, History, Mysteries, The Baboon Congress

Memorial Stats

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I got a tour of the farm on Saturday.  It’s bigger than I was expecting although I think if I laid out all the photos that Ben has taken over the years, I should have probably realized its actual size.  We got to talking about the blog and how many followers we have now and I thought I’d do a Stats Update.

We have 12, 672 followers.  Of course I don’t really know what this means on a day-to-day basis except that at some point in the past 12 years, since Dale started up the Trail Baboon, 12,672 folks have hit the Follow Trail Baboon button.  One of the things I do know is that having all these followers does NOT mean that 12K folks are reading the trail every day.

Most days we have somewhere between 200-240 views from 60-70 visitors – that includes us.  The average number of views is 2.46 to 3.25.   The average number of comments the last couple of years is 50.  Sunday is the slowest day on the Trail.  And for reasons that pass understanding, Wednesday is typically the busiest.  I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that the days that generate the most comments are book days, music days and food days.

Over the years we’ve had visitors from 202 countries.  Pretty remarkable since Google says there are currently 193 countries in the world!   US has the highest number of visitors, followed by India, the UK,  Canada and then Spain.  The countries with the least are Gabon, Sint Maarten and Chad (just 1 visitor each).

The Trail is a more subdued space these days, but relatively stable.  Our least busy year was 2016, when Dale was cutting back and preparing to retire from the Trail.  2021 was the most active year since baboons took control.  One of the most interesting things I discovered while researching the stats is how many of us kept the blog going while Dale was on sabbatical the summer of 2015 and then during 2016 when he was tapering off.  This is not meant as a heavy-handed hint – although any pieces would be happily accepted by me and Renee – just an interesting phase of our history.

Any fun memories to go along with the Stats on this Memorial Day?

Art, books, Business, Fantasy, Gatherings, History, Uncategorized, Words

The Sunwise Turn

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I’m reading a quaint little memoir called “Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling”.  Two women, with no bookselling experience decide to open a bookstore in New York in 1916.  The book was written in 1925.  It’s a fascinating story of how they got started and how they survived.  The book downplays the fame of the store, but online you can easily find a history of the store which was also a salon for up and coming writers as well as an exhibition and performance space. 

Early on in the book, the author describes how they came to name their shop:

The name was one of the crises through which we had somehow to get.  There is sin and virtue in a name.  We wanted a name that would mean something.  Everything was to be significant.  All kinds of titles of the thumb-mail variety were offered.  My partner telephoned me one day that Amy Murray had drawn up in the net of her Gallic wisdom the name ‘The Sunwise Turn”. 


They do everything daesal (sunwise) here” – Father Allen had told her of the people of Eriskay – “for they believe that to follow the course of the sun is propitious.   The sunwise turn is the lucky one.”

The key goes sunwise; the screw goes sunwise; the clock goes sunwise.  Cards are dealt with the sun.  The Gael handed the loving cup around the banqueting table sunwise; he handed the wedding ring and loaned money sunwise  An old sea captain who once came into the shop told me that wind and weather go sunwise, and once when I called in our Swedish contractor, Behrens, to confer with him about the furnace, eh said: “It out to be in the other corner of the house, maam.  I always put my furnaces in the north end.  Heat goes with the sun.”

I’m pretty sure naming your bookstore “Sunwise Turn” breaks every rule you can find about picking a name for your business.  It doesn’t say anything about what the shop sells and it’s unbelievable obscure, but I really fell in love with the name and the thought and meaning behind it.  Makes me want to open up a shop of some kind, just to use the name again.  

Let’s say you are opening a shop of your own next week.  What would you sell?  And what would you name it?

2022, Fantasy, History, Movies, Mysteries, TV, Uncategorized

I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That

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Some movies are just so weird.

I was clicking around last week, looking for some good background noise while I addressed some cards and discovered 2001: A Space Odyssey available.  I remember seeing 2001 in the movie theatre when it came out and I remember a good deal of it; but even 5 decades later and a lot more science fiction under my belt, it is still weird.

Research led me to things I didn’t know.  First off, 2001 was a collaboration between Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke; it was not first a book and then turned into a movie.  The movie actually came out first followed by the book, although by the time the book was published it only had Clarke’s name on it.  I also found out that all the colored lights and psychedelic effects at the end were Dave becoming a “star child” after going through a star gate.  Of course I’m not sure what a star child is – I haven’t actually read 2001 (although you all know it’s on my short list now) – and the movie certainly doesn’t elucidate any of this.

It seems as if Stanley Kubrick got a little lost in his special effects.  And for 1968, they are great.  And the whole Hal sequence is, of course, fabulous:

I’m hoping the book will make a little more sense than the movie.  Fingers crossed.

Any special effects that you particularly like?  Cinematic or otherwise?