Category Archives: Stories

Stories, Travel

Faux Car, Faux Driver

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Today’s post is from Steve.

I’m not sure how it happened, but when I was a kid in central Iowa I fell in love with sports cars. That was in the late 1950s. Where I lived there were almost no sports cars, although I had seen a few Triumph TR3s, a Jaguar or two and maybe a few MGs. Sports cars were exotic and rare in that place and time. Most folks considered them impractical and ostentatious.

My dad knew a man in Ames who owned a sports car, a gleaming black Jaguar XK 120. Dad said this car was kept in a locked garage, and nobody in town (even this man’s neighbors) knew it was there. The owner was one of our town bankers. He only drove his Jaguar late at night when the streets were so dark nobody would spot him in it. I’ve always been amused and saddened by the image of a man infatuated with a flashy car that he could only enjoy in the privacy of total darkness.

Of course, I never got to drive a sports car. Other kids my age made sneak purchases of Playboy magazines that they studied with great longing. I bought copies of Road and Track and engaged in fantasies of zooming through the British countryside in a swoopy red Italian roadster. Our family car at the time—a ponderous Ford station wagon with tail fins–was as far from a sports car as any vehicle could be.

In 1960 my family moved to Minnesota so my dad could start his own stuffed toy animal factory. He joined three businessmen there who invested in his factory. That was the year I went off to college, but I worked summers in my dad’s factory as a shipping clerk.

One day I was summoned to the office. One of my dad’s partners, a man named John, asked me to drive his car home. The car was a Karmann Ghia. My heart jumped. This was a <i>sports car!</i> John wanted me to drive his sports car!

This car had an odd history. It had recently been stolen from a car dealer’s lot where John had left it to be serviced. The stolen vehicle was then used as the getaway car in a bank robbery. While the Karmann Ghia looked sexy, it was just a Volkswagen dressed up in a sexy Italian body. With a 40-horsepower motor, this car couldn’t outrun the slowest cop car on the planet. It was tiny, so if the thieves scored several bags of money there would not be room for them in their getaway car. And you sure have to wonder about the intelligence of a bank robber whose plan was to flee the scene of the crime in a bright orange (and badly underpowered) sports car.

That didn’t bother me. I was just thrilled to drive my first sports car!

I was so pumped up that I didn’t want the ride to end. In Wayzata I took a detour and stopped the Karmann Ghia on a little side road that went to the lake. I switched off the engine and sat there grinning with my wheels almost touching the water. Decades later the rock star known as Prince would tease a girlfriend by telling her she had to cleanse herself in the pure waters of Lake Minnetonka. Not me. I just wanted to enjoy the moment.

Then I started my orange car up and went to back out so I could deliver it to John’s home. Only I couldn’t get the Karmann Ghia in reverse. The gear shift offered no hints about how it could be put in reverse. I desperately sawed the shift shaft through the four forward gears, but reverse was just not there! My wheels were almost in the lake. I couldn’t go forward and I couldn’t go backward. I was stuck.

And I was humiliated. If my memory is good, I began bawling with shame as I sat there. The orange Karmann Ghia was just a faux sports car, a 40-horse Volkswagen in wolf’s clothing. I was just a shipping clerk from Iowa, a faux sports car driver who couldn’t even put this car in reverse. Faux car; faux driver. All my fantasies rushed back to mock me.

As some baboons know, it is good to be a reader. I had a tickle of memory that related to the gear shift on Volkswagens. I thrust the shift shaft downward as if to shove it through the floor. It moved down an inch or two, slid left and then snicked into reverse!

I wiped away my tears, backed away from the lake and drove on to John’s home.

Have you ever suffered humiliation when your dreams crashed against reality?

 

Family, Stories

If the Walls Could Talk

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Today’s post comes to us from Crystal Bay.

My youngest child, Steve, is a 45 year- old single father now. Two years ago, his then wife broke his heart by divorcing him.  They’d just finished building their “forever home” which he’d been designing for years. My thoughts about why this 13-year relationship deteriorated to the point of no return are that he put in 80-hour weeks working, partly on his four businesses and partly on building this masterpiece of a home. He’d come home and just collapse in exhaustion night after night.  It may also have been compromised because of her career as one of Minnesota’s finest actresses in small theater and the Guthrie. Acting was always her greatest passion in life. She wasn’t even sure that she’d want to add motherhood to this lifestyle. At 41, she agreed to have a baby, and another one at 44.

The thing about relationships is that they, too, need to be tended to and worked on. He more or less, in his zeal to create the perfect home for his family, put too much energy and time into it and too little into their relationship. Any relationship can slowly die through neglect, and by the time she finally admitted her unhappiness, it turned out to be too late.

The first year without her was devastating for Steve. At the time, they had a brand new baby girl and a 3-year old son.  He’d yearned to be a daddy for years, and finally was.  The custody arrangement is 50/50, every other week end and 2-3 nights a week.  He loves Charlie and Leo so much that to this day, he weeps at night when they’re not with him.  I personally have never seen a more loving, involved, and devoted father in my life.

He designed this home around making it an adventure for his kids. Wall panels, when pushed, open up to tunnels and secret spaces behind the walls.  Under both staircases, there are hideaways, some with little ladders going up to the second floor with more hidden spaces.  A large book shelf is a hidden door to a kid-sized space, too.

In the second-floor master bedroom, he had a door installed just for a rope swing bridge out to an elaborate tree house. In the backyard, he installed a 100-foot zip line.  His large sun porch has a high brick fireplace.  On the second floor, behind the back side of the fireplace, he built four small bunk beds for sleepovers.  These, too, can only be accessed through hidden doors.

The most special project of all, however, is a 25-foot long spiral slide which goes from the first level down to the lower level. He even put LED lights in it so that the darkness wouldn’t scare the kids.  They come shooting out the bottom of it at fairly high speed.  Many an adult has accepted a dare to try this slide, but usually after having a few drinks first!  It really is scary.

Steve, having only been in this home for a few weeks before he and his wife began living apart, wanted badly to sell it. There were no positive family memories in the new walls and it was far too large for just one guy.  For months, just being in it alone created heartbreak.  He even spent a few months mostly living in a close friend’s cramped apartment to avoid the painful feelings of being in the family dream home he’d built.  None of us wanted him to sell.

Over time, friends and family began to fill the walls with posit

ive, joyful energy. He’s hosted every family gathering in almost two years, and we’ve established a tradition of everyone being involved in making meals together. The kitchen’s so large that a dozen of us can have plenty of room to prepare our own part of the meal.  Even the little kids contribute by mixing things or cutting up veggies. Last fall, after being asked by a neighbor if he’d have the annual neighborhood party, the home was filled with 70 people and had room to spare.  Inch by inch, month by month, this is truly becoming Steve’s home.  When asked if he still plans to sell it, he always says,” I don’t know – we’ll see”.  My hopes that he’ll stay increase with every new project he does for his little ones.  He just got a black lab p

uppy, so that’s also encouraging.  No one more deserves to occupy this grand home than the man who built it.

Note: The Strib was doing a feature about homes which included fun spaces for kids and asked if they could take some photos and do an interview for their Home section. We were all kind of surprised that his creations took up the entire front and back pages. His now 6-year old Leo is standing in the slide’s opening and Steve’s the one at the bottom of it. Another photo captures the clan in the potluck line after preparing our meal together.

How have the walls of your home helped you through life?

Nature, Stories

Boathouse

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The first time Husband brought me to Winona, probably in summer of 1978, he introduced me to people in town, people out in the country, and one person in a boathouse (which is what residents prefer to call it, rather than houseboat). It was a tiny one room affair, compact and cleverly furnished, and I remember thinking how fun it would be to live there down on the river. It was so compact! I thought it would be similar to living in the trailer as we had those three summers I’ve written here about – very freeing to downsize, and get closer to nature.

I haven’t been aboard a boathouse since moving back here, but have driven on Latsch Island (in the Mississippi, between Winona and Wisconsin) – the boathouse community seems alive and well. I see that MPR recently did a short piece by Catharine Richert, based in Rochester on what it takes to live in a boathouse – not many residents tough it out for the entire winter. There are the animals (muskrats, turtles, snakes, spiders, mice, frogs) to contend with. Then there is the special “maintenance” invisible to landlubbers: ice buildup during the freeze-thaw cycle. The article states: “Unless the ice is kept at bay, water might flood in through a crack under a door or at the seam between the hull and an outer wall. It can pull the house apart, or under.”

But a close-knit community has grown up over the decades, demonstrating “ongoing communal learning with lessons passed on from houseboat owner to houseboat owner”, since there is no Boathouse Guidebook. Richie Swanson tells, for instance, of  ” ‘popping barrels’ — the ritual of forcing sealed plastic barrels under a houseboat to help it float, which Swanson said can take off a finger or a foot if you’re not careful. Swanson said the process is often a group effort among people who share a passion.”

A friend of mine is pictured toward the end of the article… in the purple slippers. She now lives in town, but keeps her boathouse for a work studio. I hope to see this place in person some day.

I agree with the article’s author, “It seems an enviable life for anyone who loves nature, except in those times when nature tries to take back the neighborhood.”

What is the closest you’ve come to living “with nature”?

Baboon Achievers, History, Stories, The Baboon Congress, The Future

Behind the Curtain

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today’s post comes to us from our tim

we begin month 3 of trail baboon part 2. he has been mia altogether now for most of the past year or two but he is the invisable man for 60 days running. are you out there dale??? send me a sign….or an entry…

then you to vs and renee, to jaque to volunteer to make it happen as a perpetual motion machine. the tragedy of the end of the late great morning show was buffered by the trial balloon and we were able suck it up and be thenakful that we had a remnant of the morning show with dale as the man behind the curtain then the essence or our mpr world got shut down and the closing of the dale connelly as an omnipitant leader. i told dale he didnt need to be an enigma and he said something to the effect of “theres nothing wrong with being an ieigma”

i love dale, i love the trail, i love the history and i love the fact that we made it… we transitioned to the next level.

my dad moved to leach lake and spent the first year looking for his coffee group. the good old gang who laughs at your jokes and cries at you pain and understand the difference. the trail is actually the closest group of friewnds i can imagine.

my first wife talked to her mom on the phone every day for 20 minutes and im sure she had a tough time when her mom died because of the gigantic hole it left, my current wife talked to her grandma every sunday and when her grandma started losing it and had to move from the farm to town and then to the nursing home it was a smoother transition to prepare for the inevitable end.

dale and his guest blog weeks — remember how important it was that we never miss a day? 5+ years and never a missed day. how did he do it? and timely and so creative. the jusice that required must have been an interesting premise to life for all that time

now steve writes one, clyde, vs, renee, jaque, bir, all of us.

thanks for the new start and rebirth of the original joy of the morning show the trial baloon and the trail baboon

other than the rebirth of the trial, what new start in your life has been the best?

Stories, Uncategorized

Counterintuition

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Husband and I are in Fargo this weekend with a sofa in our van. We hauled the sofa to Fargo so that the moving company can take it and all daughter’s other furniture to Tacoma. Why, might you ask, would we haul a sofa 300 miles East when the moving company will drive right past our house on the way West  to Washington? Well, it apparently costs lots of money for a moving van to make stops along the way, so here we are in Fargo with a sofa.  This is counterintuitive to me.

It is also counterintuitive to me that I have to fly East to Minnespolis in order to fly West to Seattle.  That is what comes from relying on a peripheral airport in Bismark to fly anywhere.

We thought of some other counterintuitive facts on our trip today:

1. People with ADHD take stimulants to slow down.

2. Reconstituted juice has water taken out and  then put back in.

3. It is lack of moisture,  not cold temperatures, that is the limiting factor in our gardening in North Dakota.

4. It is easier for us to grow vegetables than grass.

5. The best way to get people to stop smoking is to load them up with nicotine patches and gum.

What is counterintuitive in your experience?

Stories, Uncategorized

Goofiness

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I have had an intermittent  buildup of fluid behind my left ear drum for a couple of months, and tried using decongestants get rid of it, as well as having one of my colleagues box my ears in a special way that somehow is supposed to realign the eustachian tubes so they drain. It didn’t work. I couldn’t hear much out of my left ear, and couldn’t even listen to the phone with the receiver to my left ear.  I finally went to the doctor this week when both ears were water logged, since I couldn’t hear much out of either ear.  Why did I wait to get medical attention for this? I knew how it would be treated, and the treatment would render me goofy.

Prednisone it the treatment of choice for this condition, and I get giddy when I take it. I start telling jokes. I get expansive. It is embarrassing. I warned my coworkers about it. They were less than supportive and just laughed and  said they probably wouldn’t notice much since they found me goofy most of the time anyway.  Rat finks!

On Thursday night at the Maundy Thursday service, we have a tradition of people washing one another’s hands. The two women serving as assisting ministers went back and forth with large white china pitchers of clean water for the hand washing ewers. They wore their typical white assisting minister robes. That they reminded me of Grecian nymphs bearing water pitchers was probably not such a strange thought, but did I really have to mention it to one of them (my attorney, in fact ) when she came over to me in the choir to share the Peace? Probably not.  She told me, after she said “Peace be with you ” that I must be psychotic.

I only have a seven days worth of pills. I hope I don’t get goofier. I also hope the water drains.

 

Tell about times you were goofy.

Family, Stories, Uncategorized

Name That Breed

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Today’s post is from NorthShorer

His name was Lucky. My father acquired him when we lived north of Isabella where my father was lumberjacking after WWII. A man in the lumber camp was leaving and did not want to take the dog. My father took him before the man shot him. It was that kind of age. My father was not objecting; he simply wanted a dog. We then moved down to our farm near Two Harbors. I suppose my father had in mind to have a farm dog.I remember him but have no visual image of him, except for these pictures. Every time I see these and other photos I am surprised by two things. First, how big and rough looking a dog he was. Second, that the only images of him are with me. Apparently we were buddies, which makes sense because of all the time I spent playing in the woods. He lasted with us for a couple years. I can guess what happened to him. He certainly does not look like a cattle dog. I used Lucky as the image for a short story about a half wild dog living on the edge of northern town in 1908.

He was replaced by a collie, who was beautiful, an image of Lassie. She played with the deer in our garden in the snow in the winter time. She was not around very long. Next we briefly had a female mixed breed, mostly border collie. Then we acquired a full breed border collie from a neighbor who did not want the dog anymore. He was THE DOG of my childhood.

What breeds do you see in Lucky?

My only companions of my pre-school years were two older nasty cousins up in the forest, my sister, and various animals.

What do you remember of your companions of your pre-school years?

History, Songs, Stories, Uncategorized

High School

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Today’s post come from Steve Grooms

I was listening recently to the funny, evocative song “High School” by Pat Donohue. Readers probably know it. The song played often on the Late Great Morning Show.  Here are a few lines:

Full of wise guys and zeros and basketball heroes

Who taunt me

That was my school

Full of cheerleader cuties and homecoming beauties

Who haunt me

With tough guys who fright me and girls who don’t like me

Just that I’m not their sort

Back in high school

I’m glad I’m not there any more

 

sg on high school date

 

The song was a reminder of how high school was nightmarish for me. I was shy. In my eyes, I didn’t fit in with my classmates. I loved outdoor recreation partly because it didn’t involve the social interactions I found so troubling at school.

I have worked out a story to describe my high school years, a story that I share with friends and family members. In short form, my story has been that only two kinds of kids at school scared me: the boys and the girls. I feared the boys because I wasn’t an athlete and some of the kids were pretty scary. I feared the girls because I was so unsure of myself with them. Given the choice of trying to talk to a girl or going fishing, I strongly preferred fishing. My story goes on to say I was too shy to date anyone. My experience of high school was a lot like the story Pat Donohue told in his song.

Recently, however, I’ve experienced an uncomfortable clash between my story and evidence that I wasn’t such a misfit after all. When I attended the 50th reunion of my class, a lot of people remembered me and acted as if they had liked me. Before I lost my box of old family photos, several of them showed me dressed up for dates. I must not have been as shy as I have been claiming, for I was photographed dating on several different occasions.

Now I struggle to resolve these clashing images. I considered my high school years a botch, a time when I hid from other kids and lived almost entirely inside my head. Evidence now says I was actually fairly popular and could have been more so if I hadn’t spent so much time fishing. Now I feel about high school the way I feel about most of my life: it sure could have been better, and I’d like a second chance at it to do it better, but on the whole it wasn’t so bad.

How do you remember your experience of high school?

gardening, Nature, Stories

I Can Resist Everything Except Temptation

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I stopped at Bachmans early on Saturday morning to get a few tomato cages, in a hopefully not vain effort to keep Guinevere out of my lily garden. It took me quite some time to find a parking spot; it was amazing to me that so many people were there with so many uncertain weather weeks ahead of us. I made an offhand remark about how crowded it was when I was checking out.  The cashier nodded and said “People were lined up outside this morning when we opened.  It’s the Lily Society weekend.”

I purposed don’t keep track of this weekend because goodness knows I have enough lilies. In the looks department, irises are my favorite but in all the other departments (sturdiness, variety of color, quickness to spread), lilies take the cake.  And I have plenty.  Last summer my neighbor said “it looks like the lilies are having a color war in your yard”.

I almost turned back twice before I got to my car, thinking of the varieties, the colors, the low price.   Bachmans was in my rear-view mirror before long and I breathed a sigh of relief.

But I still have to get through Sunday!

What tempts you?

Family, Stories

A Bed a Day

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Today’s post from the keyboard of Verily Sherrilee.

Nobody has ever accused me of being OCD about cleaning. I can leave a paper towel on the dining room floor for days and just walk around it (especially if a kitty is sitting on it). I can put a sweatshirt on a chair and ignore it for a week.  Dishes stack up in the sink just like at everybody else’s house.

But many years ago I got the idea that I should make my bed every day. No matter what.  Now it’s such an ingrained habit that the room looks bad to me before the bed gets made up.  Even when I was sick last month, in the morning I made the bed and unless I was going to take a serious nap, I sat on top of the comforter while reading or watching tv.

So it was a little startling to look into the Young Adult’s room over the weekend to see that the laundry baskets had thrown up all over her bed. I tried to channel my mom; I pulled the door closed and walked away!

Do you have an every day habit?