Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.

In June one morning I rode my bike through the industrial park and saw an arresting sight. In a large parking lot about 75 cars were parked near the entrance to a manufacturing plant. In a distant corner of the lot were two cars parked side-by-side. One was a perfectly maintained BMW Z4. The other was an old Dodge Dart, a rust-bucket rattletrap. I spent the next couple of miles guessing how these two cars ended up in their shared isolated position.

I could imagine several stories.

I forgot about it until two days later when I rode by to see the same placement of cars. This time it struck me that Pixar would make a movie out if it, in the style of Lady and the Tramp. The two cars would be in the alley behind an import garage sucking on radiator hoses simmered in 5-10 motor oil flavored with herbs de Peugeot as they sipped on chilled canisters of penetrating oil. Their union would result in six bouncy little Vespas and a mo-ped.

Three days later, I rode by the scene again. This time I imagined a murder mystery in the style of Three Bags Full or Thereby Hangs a Tail but as seen through the headlights of a car, not the eyes of sheep or a dog. Using pure German rationalism, the BMW would solve the mysterious murder of a VW beetle by a black stretch limousine. The Dart would be the BMW’s snitch in the style of Stuart Margolin playing Angel in The Rockford Files. They were holding a meeting in the parking lot for the Dart to tell the BMW that the VW was an industrial spy.

Circumstances kept me from riding by the parking lot for more than six weeks. But now the BMW was alone and has been on every ride since. Hmmm? In fantasy or real life, I bet there’s a story to be told.

What’s your version of this story?

Today’s guest post comes from Ben.

I put up some new perch racks for my chickens. This latest batch of chickens never seemed to get the hang of them and they kind of just huddle up in a corner on the floor; easy pickings for some raccoon or coyote.

So lately I’ve tried to get them using the perch. Chickens don’t listen very well. And they sure as heck don’t ‘herd’.

There are a variety of perches. Wonder what sort of perches I provided?

Here’s a hint. Not this:

Not this either:

My perches are simple 2×4’s. About as basic as a tree.

My older siblings could tell you stories about chickens in trees. My brother had to climb up and get them down. My sister had to collect the eggs. They both hated their jobs. At least my chickens don’t roost in trees. Much.

They do hang out in a lilac bush during the day.

So, the first night I simply chased the chickens over to the perch. They don’t really settle down and roost until night so it was dark out when I decided to do this. In hindsight I should have told my wife what I was up to. The chickens were greatly upset by my meddling and it sounded to Kelly like a massacre down in the chicken coop. Five nights in a row now I’ve poked, prodded, chased, herded, carried, lugged and cajoled those chickens to the roost.

And they still haven’t figured it out.

The White Rock breed is very quiet and I can pick them up and tuck them under my arm and put them on the perch. The Black Australorp do NOT like to be picked up and they make a real fuss about it. The Silver Laced Wyandotte have no sense of balance. I’ve been picking the chickens up and carrying them over to the perch and I place them on it.

One of those black ones lept straight up, smacked into my face and broke both nosepieces off my glasses. They were broken before and I have super glued them back on twice now. But this time I couldn’t find the nosepieces. They’re down in the dirt and feathers and manure and….

Well, I didn’t look too hard.

I have been trying to help these birds, and have been handsomely rewarded for it. A couple weeks ago it was a stick up my nose. Today it’s broken glasses.

It’s quite an ordeal. I’m hoping they learn soon. Or one of us should anyway.

They say no good deed ever goes unpunished.
When has this been true for you?

Today’s guest post comes from Steve Grooms.

When I was a kid I felt a breezy, uninformed optimism about the process of growing up. I assumed it would flow naturally, evenly, always moving toward a higher state of consciousness. I assumed that I would experience some tricky teen years and maybe endure challenges in my 20s. But I took it for granted that I’d be all grown up by 30 or (worst case scenario) 35. Then I’d have four or five decades to enjoy being a grownup before the little candle of my soul was snuffed out.

That optimism began to wear thin when I hit my 30s and still felt like a work in progress. I feared there was something wrong with me in my 40s because I still pursued maturity like a greyhound chasing a tin bunny, never catching it . . . hell, never getting near it!

Becoming a parent while I was still flagrantly immature was interesting. When you have a kid, you sometimes have to act like a grownup. I often felt like a fraud at such moments. I wanted to sneak out to the apron of the stage and confess to the audience, “I’m not really an adult, but I gotta play one from time to time.”

Somewhere along the line I sensed I wasn’t the only one still trying to grow up at 40, 50 or 60. One of my best friends is about twenty years older than I, and she routinely experiences breakthroughs in personal growth as she pushes 90. I now understand that most people continue to grow and mature as long as they breathe air. Some of that feels good and some of it stinks, but it seems to be one of the unavoidable realities of life.

I might be more aware of this than most folks, for my life blew up in my face when I was 57, and I suddenly didn’t have any idea of who I was or what I would do when I grew up. I “got” to experience my teen years all over when I was actually in my AARP years, with all the terrors and bizarre rewards of dating. I was plunged into a crash course in self-discovery. It has been fascinating and often harrowing.

Because of this blog piece, I’ve been contemplating changes that I’ve made lately. Without going into tedious detail, I believe I’m much more humble. I’ve always had strong opinions and no shortage of them. Most of my life I was “humble” in the sense of not arrogantly spouting off with my excellent opinions. I now understand that my opinions are often based on crummy data, lazy analysis and wishful thinking. Where I used to act humble, I now am humble because I know many of my pet convictions are just crap. I am doing a better job of keeping quiet when I see people doing dumb things. If they want my wisdom, they can always ask for it. I listen better now.

I continue to be curious about what I will be like when I grow up . . . if I ever do, which seems mighty unlikely after all these years!

What does it mean to be ‘grown up’, and how can you tell when you get there?

Today’s guest post comes from Steve Grooms.

I’ve been a Minnesotan for over half a century. During much of that time if I told a person from elsewhere where I lived, that person would struggle to remember something–anything–about my home state. After an awkward silence, the nearly invariable response was: “Minnesota? Gets cold there, doesn’t it?”

So no wonder I feel grateful for Garrison Keillor. In 38 years of Prairie Home Companion broadcasts, Keillor has rescued Minnesota from anonymity and gone a long way toward defining the Minnesota culture. Although Howard Mohr wrote How to Speak Minnesotan, I think of Garrison as the godfather of that book, having created the awareness of Minnesota culture that permeates Mohr’s book.

The issue of Minnesota culture comes to mind now that the State Fair is over and we begin to feel its absence. Any list of the qualities that define a Minnesotan should start with our fascination—our obsession, really—with this fair. Other states have fairs. The mighty state of Texas has one that runs 24 days, and yet the Minnesota fair beats it in total attendance. No state is quite as proud of its fair as Minnesotans are of ours.

If you didn’t get to The Fair this year, I suspect you are feeling a sense of loss. Possibly even something closer to failure. Nothing defines Minnesotans quite like the obligations we assume.

A less appealing side to the Minnesota personality is our smugness. Minnesotans are too modest to brag, and yet if you scratch them you don’t go very deep before finding the conviction that the Midwest is the most wholesome part of the nation and Minnesota is the best state in the Midwest. By quite a bit!

The most complicated topic in Minnesota is our relationship to weather. We pay more attention to weather and talk about it more than folks anywhere, and yet our attitudes are so complex they almost defy explication. We have, for example, a love-hate relationship with winter that is uniquely Minnesotan.

This blog post itself, in fact, is very Minnesotan.

We are fascinated by our own culture and all the ways we differ from other areas. But the more we Minnesotans talk, the less interesting we seem. I liked this topic a lot when I started with it, then I grew increasingly unhappy, and now I’m wondering why anyone would read all the way to the end, which you almost have.

Maybe you’re still going because you’d feel a little guilty about quitting early? Don’t want to hurt my feelings, even though I would never know the difference?

How very Minnesotan of you.

How do you define a Minnesotan?