Category Archives: Uncategorized

Family, History, Uncategorized

Throw It on Dayton’s Wall and See If It Sticks

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Today’s post comes from Northshorer.

The last time Sandy was in Dayton’s downtown, when it was still a Dayton’s, she looked up at a large photo mural on an upper floor and spotted herself in the photo. We were going to try to get there with our daughter and family to see it, but health issues prevented us before it closed. But a friend of hers took a photo of it and sent it to us.

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Sandy is walking beside her friend Maggie. I will leave it to you to find them, which is rather easy to do. The photo was taken in about 1953 when they were in junior high. It was a big adventure for them to ride the bus downtown from the Camden Park neighborhood where they lived. Would parents allow that today? Sandy can tell stories about having to deal with sexual predators of various degrees, so perhaps the age was no more innocent than today.

There was something about the downtown, whether in a major city or a small town.

What exactly was it about downtowns that is absent from our culture today?

Family, Food, Uncategorized

Flour Power

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Husband and I were delighted to find a bag of Swany White flour recently in a natural food store in Fargo. The store owner told us that Nicole, of Nicole’s Fine Pastry in downtown Fargo, won’t use anything but Swany White. Nicole makes great pastries. He also said that Nicole and the mill owner were cousins.  (I love the small town angle in these conversations.) I hadn’t seen any Swany White since the Freeport, MN mill burned down a few years ago.  We had heard rumors that the mill was operating again. We snapped up a 25 lb bag, and hauled it home. I baked French bread with it this past weekend. I used a combination of Swany, Artisan flour, and Bread flour.  We froze all the loaves as we had too much bread already to start another loaf, so I can’t say if the flour quality is the same. It doesn’t have the same bran flecks the original flour had. It is just as finely ground though, like silk.

I think we have more kinds of flour than most people. In addition to the Swany White, we have King Arthur all-purpose white flour and King Arthur bread flour. We have King Arthur artisan flour, French flour, whole wheat flour, and white whole wheat flour.  We also have a bag of White Lily flour for Southern-style biscuits and white wheat berries for a rustic Italian bread we like to make.

Husband is a real fan of baking rye bread, so he has white rye, pumpernickel, medium rye, rye flour blend, rye chops (coursely ground rye berries), rye bread improver, deli rye sour, First Clear flour (it increases the gluten content in rye breads), and frozen rye sourdough starter. He tries to replicate the wonderful rye breads we found in Winnipeg.

On Sunday, Husband bought Rose Beranbaum’s The Baking Bible for me as a Mother’s Day present. I think he had ulterior motives for me to bake pastries for him. Rose is an absolute fanatic about flour, and compares the protein content of various flours and likes to balance the proteins in her breads using bleached and unbleached flours for just the right results. I think she goes too far, but who am I to judge. She really likes Gold Medal bleached flour as a basic baking flour.

Husband’s brother-in-law has tried for years to replicate the hard rolls baked in their home town of Sheboygan WI that are used for bratwurst. They are wonderful rolls that I have not encountered anywhere but in Sheboygan.  Batch after batch has been baked and deemed lacking. I convinced him that the problem is in his home oven, and so he is thinking about a wood fired clay oven in the back yard.  He is also thinking about apprenticing himself to a Sheyboygan bakery to finally solve the problem. If you knew Husband’s  brother-in-law, you would agree that keeping him busy with this is best for all concerned.

We read at Easter about Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness when he says to Lucifer that man doesn’t live by bread alone. I think the Devil has a point, though. Bread is wonderful. I don’t see our going overboard over bread or flour as sinful at all. There are worse things we could be doing.

What makes you go overboard?

 

 

Family, Fifty Words, History, Uncategorized

Fargo

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Today’s post comes from tim

 

fargo was my dads home and his dads home i was the big dog from the cities when i went to visit cousin dan did show me around like it was cool to know a guy from the cities this was at the time when flower power and mod fashion were the rage

tell me about your psychadyllic moments man

 

 

History, Uncategorized

Without Warning, A Growing Trend

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Today’s post comes from Bill in Minneapolis

Seemingly out of nowhere, big beards have become a thing. You might argue that beards have been always with us and certainly that’s true for most of living memory, but those were primarily modest chin covers.

Beards do go in and out of fashion. Apparently, in the century between 1730 and 1830, beards were not only unfashionable but rigorously opposed. In 1830, a Massachusetts farmer named Joseph Palmer was jailed for over a year as a result of an incident stemming from his refusal to cut his beard. He was denounced from the pulpit and in the street.

The beards I’m talking about here are startling, exuberant, prodigious beards. Biblical beards. Beards that haven’t been exuded since the nineteenth century. Jefferson Davis chin ponytails. Rip Van Winkle beards. Jubilation T. Cornpone beards. And I wonder, what started all this and why did it spread so widely and across generations? I didn’t get the memo.

Now I would be the first to admit that I am generally out of the loop and even if I had been aware of the trend, I wouldn’t have been a participant. My own facial hair, should I grow it, would be more along the lines of Robert Bork’s and nobody needs to see that, ever again. But it makes me wonder what triggered the movement toward extravagant hirsuteness (hirsutity?).

I sort of felt the same way about tattoos, when they became a thing. They’re ubiquitous now and scarcely attract notice but I never understood why they became newly popular and what the attraction was in the first place. If you do, explain it to me.

What trends have taken you by surprise?

Travel, Uncategorized

Hints for Riding the Rails

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Today’s post comes Barbara in Rivertown

 

Our recent train trip to the west coast was lovely and relaxing during the two days we traveled each direction. Here are a few tips to the uninitiated, while the experience is fresh in my mind.

Packing

– Have one carry-on bag with everything you’ll need for however long you’re on the train, including a fresh change of clothes. That way you can be free from pawing through your large suitcase – it can just stay in the vestibule with the others.

Earplugs

– Good not only for when you’re trying to sleep. They will not, however, help awakening at the lurching as the train crosses the track-merge connections. Not to worry, the rocking and the clickety-clack will (probably) lull you off to sleep again.

– Earplugs may also be good if you want peace and quiet in the Lounge Car. You could consider creating a “Megaphone Award” prize for each day aboard, to hand out to that one person in the Lounge Car whose conversation can be heard through the entire car. Alternately, you could just chime in with the conversation and yell comments back.

Eating

– If you have a roomette (or other sleeping quarters), three meals a day are included in the dining car. Although not a 4-star restaurant, the food is pretty darn good. (However, the same vegetable will be served with all entrees until the train turns around and heads back the other way.) Remember that you are not getting all that much exercise, and consider eating partial portions, or at least split the dessert with your companion.

– Unless you are a party of four and fill up the whole booth, you will be seated with other travelers, and will meet an array of interesting people at these meals. You may want to have a paper and pen available to exchange addresses with the most compatible of these.

Exercise

– It is amazing how many sore muscle you can get from a lot of sitting! Try and get up to walk around every hour – take a trip to some other part of the train. Beyond the Dining and Observation Cars (located in the center) are the Coach Cars – follow to the end so you can see the track recede as you watch where you’ve just been. Be sure to walk with a wide stance with hands held out to catch you when you fall against the seats, and understand that if this were being filmed, you would look like you have just drunk at least one bottle of wine.

What sort of travel tips do you have to offer from your journeys?

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?

Nature, Uncategorized

A Moment of Silence. Maybe Not

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Today’s post comes from NorthShorer

 

What comment do I need to make about these guests beside my patio? Better than any fashion runway, huh? Oops. That was a comment.

I was going to suggest a moment of silence for the beauty lost in all the ugliness. But then that would make for a dull day on a blog.

What wonder–human or in nature–lost in ugliness, busyness, or confusion do you want to commend today?

Family, Uncategorized

Passing Time

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Today’s post is from tim

i had to fill out an application on line with what appeared to be a program that wasn’t quite right. it asked for my date of birth and when i went to type in my month date and year, it was obvious  the only way to get there was to click the little arrow on the top of the calendar back a month then another until i got back to the correct date. it was frustrating and after i had clicked back i discovered it called for another calendar for my wife so i tried to backdoor the form and lost the first one with all the typewritten name and details required in addition to the many, many many clicks on the birthday response.

this time a funny thing happened on my way to the finish line, i started being aware of where i was in my life as i did a reverse recount of my life, then again when i did my wife’s bd, and by the time i was done with my kids i had clicked past dates i hadn’t thought about multiple times. i didn’t stop and think but i slowed a little each time and as i went by the last time i had added enough memory each time that it was a deep dive in total

 

when was you last surprise positive experience

 

books, Family, Uncategorized

Reading

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I come from a family of readers.  My paternal grandfather was a farmer who read voraciously, and had shelves of books in his house. He had an entire set of Dickens, all of Shakespeare’s plays, and many, many history books and novels, which he picked up at farm sales during the Depression. When he died, I took the books, and my librarian cousin took the shelves, which were the kind used by lawyers that had glass fronts that opened up from the bottom.  I think they are called Barrister’s bookcases

Grandpa’s grandfather was a reader, too. He was named Martin Cornelius Freerks, and was born in Rysum, Ostfriesland Germany in 1827. He was a laborer there, and immigrated to the US in about 1851. He lived first in Pekin, Illinois, and worked as a drayman, which meant he was responsible for meeting passengers at the train station to haul them and their goods where they needed to go.  Family history indicates that he was often absorbed in a book when the train came in and would arrive late or not at all. “Ganz in boeken besiet” (completely lost in books) friends and family would say.  He eventually moved to Iowa and lived the last part of his life with my grandpa and his family. Grandpa said that Martin had “a whole roomful’ of books accumulated over the years.

I used to read all the time, but for some reason, perhaps due to life stress with my parents’ deaths, children’s transitions, work issues, etc., I stopped reading for pleasure about five years ago and filled my spare time with crossword puzzles.  I am trying to start reading again. Husband visits our local libraries regularly, and we have scores of books in our house. I just have to pick up something and start and apply myself. I typically like traditional murder mysteries, but I find them hard to appreciate now. I am impatient waiting for the plots to resolve. I don’t like suspense these days.  Perhaps I need to start with non-fiction and work my way back to previously unread novels.  I think it will be good self care if I do.

Daughter says she is going to join a book club when she graduates from college, and admits she has a book addiction problem.  Great Great Grandpa Martin would be pleased.

What are the pleasures and pains of reading for you? What is hard/easy for you to read? What do you want done with your books when you die?

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.