Tag Archives: Featured

The Baboon Congress

My Short “Career” Packing Meat

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Today’s post comes from Jim Tjepkema

I could see that my work as a private agricultural consultant was coming to an end.  Many of the vegetable farmers that were my best customers were retiring or going out of business.  I found an opening working as a temporary employee in a local meat packing plant and ended up working at that plant for 2 years.  During those two years I worked at many different positions, starting as a laboratory technician, followed by working at a variety of quality control jobs, and finishing up by working on various production lines.

I learned a lot about the production of processed meat, and met many very interesting people.   There were times when I didn’t mind working at that plant.   However, in many ways it was not a good place to work.  A man who had worked there for many years told me that while it might look as if he liked his job, the opposite was true for him and many of the other employees.

In my first position at the plant I had limited contact with people working in the production areas.  I did get to know the quality control clerk who sent samples up to me from a production line.  She and I developed a good working relationship helping each other to make sure the samples were checked in a timely manner.   One night didn’t go so well when I tried to bring her test results while she was eating in the lunchroom. She made it very, very clear that I should never bother her during her lunch break.

I went from working in the lab to working as a quality control clerk when they eliminated the job I had in the lab.  I found out that those clerks often had a very difficult time completing all of the checking and sampling that was required.

In fact, I wasn’t able to do some of those jobs fast enough.  The position I was given required me to learn to fill in at any and all of the many different quality control clerk jobs.  When it was clear that I wouldn’t be able to master all of those jobs in the small amount of time I was given me to learn them, I moved on to production work.

I started out on a ham line putting chunks of sliced ham into compartments on a bagging machine.  At first I wasn’t able to do this job fast enough.  However, they gave me enough time at this job to get up to speed and I eventually mastered the job.   Unfortunately, work on that ham line was seasonal and I had to move on to another job.  I took several different temporary jobs in other parts of the plant to hold me over until I was needed again on the ham line.   With more time to learn the temporary jobs, I might have been able to handle all of them.  However, they gave me very little time to learn them and I failed at some of them.  At that point I decided I was not cut out to be a meat packer, bringing my days working there to an end.

What kind of short term work have you done that was interesting or not so interesting?

The Baboon Congress

Unstructured Time

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale

The plan was to finish going through my file cabinet today – we’ve been in the deep freeze here in Minneapolis, and happily there is nothing on the calendar except maybe calling my sister, and chorus tonight. So I figured it’s a great time to complete that project and hopefully write a blog post.

It is now 2:08, and I haven’t gone anywhere near the filing project. Here’s what happened – knowing I have the whole day at home, everything I’ve done today led to something else that needed doing… you know, those tiny one- or five-minute tasks that can be done ANYTIME. As I was making pancakes, I used up the non-gluten flour mix, so went ahead and made more. At the computer I cleaned up the email folder and finished some replies that had been waiting to be done. Saw that some small shelves needed to trade places (it’s not a fun day at home without re-arranging furniture!), and that always involves some cleaning. While doing that I came upon the lost earring I was going to fix for my mom… You get the picture. This is what’s DANGEROUS about a full day at home – it feels like there is infinite time, but the time taken by all these little tasks adds up. Suddenly the day is gone and you’ve done nothing you’d planned to do.

Burger is thawing for supper, there’s a load of clothes in the washer, and I’ve returned two phone calls. Having written this much of a blog post, I think I can now see where I left off last time I tried purging files. Maybe I’ll even get to read the Sunday paper before choral rehearsal.

How do you get back on task when you’ve been distracted?

History, The Baboon Congress

The Palace

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Header image by McGheiver under Creative Commons Licence 3.0

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

I subscribe to my home town paper, The Rock County Star Herald, and I am constantly amazed by the positive tone and progressive activities the paper reports. For example, there is a $1,000,000 renovation to the library getting underway. The town just beautified the four corners of the major intersection in town to make it more appealing, and the community voted to extend some sort of special State financial assessment that benefits the public school system.  The town has three museums, a new hospital, and a beautiful Veteran’s Nursing Home. The Rock County Historical Society raised $150,000 from private funds to remodel its new building, and the newspaper recently referred to the director of the Historical Society (an elderly woman who taught with my mom) as “Rock County’s Sweetheart of History”.

I think one reason for all this good natured  progressiveness goes back 100 years to the building of The Palace Theater in 1915.  It is a grand structure in the Beaux arts style with 550 seats, built by Herman Jochims for traveling theater troupes, orchestras, and vaudeville acts. It has an orchestra pit and, after 1926, air conditioning and new decor in the Art Deco style.  Herman wanted the Palace to compete with any of the theaters in large cities , and spared no expense decorating it. The second story was used as a ballroom and eventually as Maude and Herman’s residence. In 1926 Herman installed a pipe organ which his wife, Maude, played during the silent films he showed. She was an elegant woman noted for her musicality and elegant dresses.  I watched movies at the Palace all through my childhood and adolescence. It was so posh inside. The first things I always noticed after walking in the foyer were the two large, round mirrors, hung directly opposite one another, so that they reflected the other in smaller and smaller images as though the images went on into infinity.

By 1977, the Palace had fallen on hard times and had been foreclosed by the bank down the block. My parents often talked about the travails of the theater at this time, and I got more details about the issues in a paper by Maianne Preble of the Minnesota Historical Society in 2009. Community members raised money and got grants, and volunteers helped with renovations, so that the theater opened again and was purchased by a local theater group. Some movies and live plays were presented, but there was trouble ahead when the theater group’s Board of Directors sold the building to one of its members in 2001.  There was a general uproar at this, and, eventually, a new and revised Board of Directors repurchased the building after it again went into foreclosure by the bank down the block. This bank gave the new Board of Directors a line of credit with which to buy the building back. More extensive renovations took place, and the building is now owned by the city, which partners with the theater group for its day to day management. Movies are shown, and live theater and musical groups perform regularly.

My hometown isn’t perfect by any means. There is the conflict and disagreement and hard feelings that you find in all communities. I think, though, that the live  performances  and movies gave people the opportunity to see beyond their current situation and dream of something better.  Many people have reported seeing the ghost of Herman up in the balcony, and the organ has been heard playing when it was turned off and even dismantled for renovation. (Maude, no doubt, wanting to play again.) I like to think that when there are hard decisions to be made in town, their spirits flit out of the Palace and start whispering in people’s ears “Do it right. Make it beautiful.”

What local landmark lifts your spirits? 

The Baboon Congress

The Uniform

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Header photo: © Jorge Royan / http://www.royan.com.ar / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Today’s post is by Sherrilee

I’ve been thinking a lot about ties recently. Last week while I was waiting for the tech guy to figure out my computer, I noticed that the online support tech icon was a male figure wearing a tie. It made me laugh a little that the support company would think I would feel better to be helped by someone in a crisp white shirt and a tie instead of a scruffy guy in jeans and a sweatshirt.

The tie does definitely seem to be the uniform for men. Everywhere you go, dressed up men wear ties: at work, at church, late-night tv. For some job descriptions, like debate candidates, it’s not just any tie; if you want to really be part of the crowd, it has to be a red tie.

I wore a tie once. One Saturday, when I was still in the bookstore, I wore a denim skirt and vest to work. I borrowed a tan knit tie from my wasbund (he had to tie it for me); I thought I was pretty darn cute. At the Southdale B. Dalton store we had a huge stepped table for all the bestsellers and Saturday was the day we received the new lists for the following week.

That meant that big piles of books needed to be moved around, with the new and hot items toward the front. That day with my list in hand, I spent about an hour moving all the books around, beefing up some titles, moving other titles off the table. As I straightened up to take a look at my handiwork, I realized too late that the knit tie was stuck between two books. It was like a mountain of falling dominoes; the top stack of books collapsing onto the stack beneath it and then spreading down and out from there. People walking by the store stopped and clapped.

I went to the backroom and took off the tie; I’ve never worn one since. But I have felt really sorry for men who have to wear a tie day in and day out.

Have you ever had to wear a uniform?

Media

Sea Hunt!

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Today is the birthday of TV actor Lloyd Bridges in 1913. Bridges did a lot of different things in his 85 years on Earth, including a stint in the Coast Guard. But he was a favorite in my family for his role as expert frogman Mike Nelson on the 1960’s TV show Sea Hunt.

Because so much of the show was shot underwater, Bridges did voice-overs to describe large parts of the action. Of course there was lots of silent struggling with various people, sea creatures and obstacles (both natural and man-made). I became convinced if I ever went scuba diving, I was going to get trapped inside a shipwreck. Which is why I’ve never gone scuba diving.

To this day, nothing makes me hold my breath like watching actors who are pretending they can’t breathe.

Many of the episodes are available for viewing on You Tube.

Sea Hunt set the high water mark for our family viewing time. Even after its cancellation, every dramatic adventure series that came along was given a shorthand title that referenced this seminal classic, with which they were almost always unfavorably compared.

Star Trek was “Space Hunt.” Bonanza was “Horse Hunt”. The Avengers became “Spy Hunt.” The Fugitive, naturally, was “Guy Hunt.”

Lloyd Bridges and Jacques Cousteau convinced me at a young age that it is smart to take care of the world’s oceans – something I have attempted to do mostly be staying out of them.

What’s a favorite family entertainment from your childhood?

Family, The Baboon Congress, Travel

Now you see them…

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Today’s post comes from Jacque.

We pulled away from the curb to leave. I turned around to wave at the grandchildren just in time to witness our 8 year-old granddaughter racing across the street behind our car, running behind it yelling, “Good-bye, I love you!” She ran for 2 blocks.

“Oh, dear,” I said to Lou, who was driving. “She is following us. It’s so hard to say good-bye to them.“

We had spent the weekend playing games with the 3 kids, primarily the card game Uno, a great game for many ages and abilities. Our 6 year old grandson, who got to nail his dad with a Pick-up 4 card, was jumping up and down and shaking with excitement. All three kids seemed to notice us in a new way that weekend. As in, “Oh, this is fun. They are not just old people!” And for our part, we found their delight and antics adorable!

Six months later, after our next visit, our Granddaughter ran after our car again, this time joined by our Grandson. It was clear that these kids wanted us around. The allure of those Uno games, to which we added Spot It was undeniable. So my husband and I made a decision to visit Arizona more. We scraped together our funds and some courage, and decided to purchase a small condo near Phoenix, in the exurban community of Fountain Hills, just east of Scottsdale.

Cloud shadows

This is a lovely town surrounded by the Superstition Mountains to the East. It is more like Northern Arizona than the Phoenix area. As our granddaughter said, “I feel like I am in a different state than Arizona.” We are here now. My blogging plan was to document the mountains with pictures from our balcony, demonstrating to you how these mountains appear to change colors, shapes, and sizes with the weather. Last week, however, they disappeared entirely during 5 days of rain. Gone. I couldn’t even find them to TAKE a picture. The El Nino weather pattern that dumped many inches of rain on drought-stricken Southern California, extended into Arizona, dumping heavy rain and sleet here, and now in the mountains. People told us rain like this had not happened since 2007!

Rain

Finally on Saturday, the clouds cleared and we could see the mountains again, covered with new snow. So here are the pictures of the fascinating and ever-changing mountain view. Meanwhile, we spent last Sunday evening with the kids and grandkids watching the Vikings beat Green Bay, playing Uno and Spot it while talking football smack. After all, their Arizona Cardinals are really good this year. This coming Saturday, two of the three kids may be over for the afternoon while their parents work.

I am no fan of hot weather, so our time in Fountain HIlls will be limited to winter. This year we will return home to Minnesota in February while some renters occupy the condo. We will come back to Arizona for a week of mountain views and Uno games in April. So in the meantime I will have to just look at the pictures of the mountains.

What do you rely on that just disappeared?

History, The Baboon Congress

The Old Home Place

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Header photo: threshing machine cc BY-SA 2.0

Today’s post comes from Jim Tjepkema.

My Grandparents operated a small dairy farm that was run by my Uncle after my Grandparents retired.   I visited that farm with my family on many occasions when I was young.  It was a small farm that was still being run in some of the same ways that it was operated when my Mother was young.  On those visits I learned about some of the old traditions that characterized farming in the Midwest many years ago.

One of my most treasured memories from a visit to the old home place was the time we were there when my Grandparents were hosting a threshing party.  Before farmers had combines that threshed grain in the field, stationary-threshing machines were used and bundles of grain were brought to those machines.  It was called a threshing party because a group of neighbors gathered to bring the grain in from the field and thresh it.  The threshing party I observed included a big noon meal, prepared by my Grandmother and women from the neighborhood, to feed the threshing crew.

By the time I made my first visit to the farm they had switched from using horses to using tractors for fieldwork.  However, they still had one of the draft horses that had been used to work the fields.  One of the years when we visited at Thanksgiving there was a small patch of corn still waiting to be harvested.  My Uncle hitched the horse to a wagon and we helped him finish harvesting the corn by hand picking it and throwing it into the wagon.  I was surprised to find out that the horse was able to move the wagon ahead without anyone riding in the wagon.

I learned more about the old farm during an extended visit when I was old enough to help my Uncle with fieldwork and milking.  Modern milking machines were used, although there was no bulk milk tank.  Pails of milk were carried to the milk house and poured into cans that were kept cool in a tank of water.  When my mother was young, they sold milk by bottling it on the farm and delivering it to homes in the nearby town.  The milk that my Uncle produced was hauled in cans in the back of his pickup to a local cheese factory.

My brother and I helped my Uncle with haying.  We helped load bales of hay onto hay wagons and then unloaded them into the barn.  The farm still had some equipment for handling loose hay including a hay loader.  I saw this equipment in action when it was used to harvest wild prairie grass, which was piled on top of bales of hay that were stored outside. My Uncle showed me how to use a pitchfork to stack the wild hay on the bales in a manner designed to shed water, thereby protecting the bales.

I have described some of the highlights of my visits to the old family farm.  Some other memories included: playing in the hayloft; taking the cows out to pasture; watching the birth of a calf; and feeding the pigs.  I was lucky to have seen the tail end of some of the older ways of farming practiced by my Grandparents and Uncle.  In fact, farmers interested in becoming more sustainable have recently rediscovered some aspects of those older farming practices..

What older ways of doing things do you fondly remember?

Poems

A Curse, of Course

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Even for non-football fans, the agony of the Minnesota Vikings faithful was palpable yesterday and no one was isolated from the anguish. It was all around us.

This is part of the entertainment and social value of sports – big losses create a drive to make sense of suffering that ultimately leads rational people to the “it’s only a game” explanation. Irrational people, however, will continue to search for a reason to explain why their fondest wishes stubbornly refuse to come true.

This is where a curse comes in handy. The Chicago Cubs still have the Curse of the Billy Goat to fall back on when their team disappoints. The Boston Red Sox had a long run justifying their misery with the Curse of the Bambino. But if there is no curse, you have to make one up so the world can feel logical and orderly again.

All I know is this – Trail Baboon sing-song poet laureate Tyler Schuyler Wyler retreated to his garret immediately after Sunday’s game with a plate of hot wings that were picked totally clean by the time he emerged with his latest lame ditty:

When the team that you follow is hapless
and each year it appears to get worse,
you’ll feel lost like a traveler who’s map-less
’til you’ve found a believable curse.

A good curse can make sense of the losing.
With a curse there’s a way to explain
why the squandering squad of your choosing,
fails again and again and again.

“We were cursed by a player we traded.”
“There’s this powerful spell gypsies wrote.”
“It’s the vengeance of teams we berated.”
“We were hexed by a mystical goat.”

“There’s a burial mound in our end zone.”
“Once a shaman was carded for beer.”
“Voodoo dolls wear our uniforms – hand sewn!”
“Our team mascot insulted a seer.”

If the fans become flustered and frantic
and their trophy dreams ride in a hearse
the futility gets more romantic
When they’ve found a believable curse.

Have you ever been on either end of a curse?

The Baboon Congress

Gratitude Letter

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Today’s post comes from Barbara in Robbinsdale.

One of our regular Trail Baboon readers and participants, Plain Jane, offered a comment on Saturday that has stayed with me all weekend.  She mentioned how wonderful it was to receive a written thank you from someone she had helped out in the past. Here’s most of what she wrote:

Fifteen years ago, Danny had returned to the Twin-Cities after finishing his degree at UCLA’s film school. The economy had tanked, and, of course, even if it hadn’t, the degree Danny had obtained wouldn’t necessarily make him a shoo-in for most job openings. I took pity on him, and offered him a job doing data entry into a computer system. He worked for me several months on a well-defined project. It was, at best, a menial job, but it provided him some income, a daily lunch, and probably most importantly, the chance to get out of his parents’ house.

His letter today took me by complete surprise. He has lived in Seattle since 2010, and I have had no contact with him since then.

Here’s his closing paragraph: “Margaret, when I reflect on the people I’ve been lucky to know during my life, you are unquestionably one of them. Please know that I will never forget your kindness to me.”

I’m touched, and gratified that some small gesture on my part has made a difference in Danny’s life. Be kind, you never know what small effort on your part will make a difference in someone’s life.

Every day we make hundreds of small decisions… most of which don’t seem that they will make any real impact on the world. At some point, though, we have each performed a kindness for which someone else is very grateful.

And in turn – we may each be thankful to someone else for an act of kindness – it might be something the person is not even aware of. When my son was in 6th grade, his experiences caused me to recall many details about my own 6th grade experiences. I ended up writing a long letter relating these memories to my 6th grade teacher, who had helped me out when I was the new girl at school. She was so moved by the letter that she eventually called me (being unable to write at that point), and we carried on a Christmas-card correspondence for years.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone who has performed an act of kindness could know the impact it has made?

Recall an act of kindness you have performed or received that is worthy of a gratitude letter. 

 

The Baboon Congress, The Future

Winds of Change

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Header image by reynermedia on flickr / creative commons 2.0

Today’s post comes from Renee in North Dakota

If you believe everything you hear from Moody’s and Forbes, North Dakota is rolling up the sidewalks and blowing away. That isn’t quite the case, but some people have lost jobs and are leaving the area. Conservative legislators are talking about State agencies needing to make cuts due to decreased tax revenue. (All they will have to do is not fill all the unfilled positions in State Government and they can make up the shortfall). The lines are still long in Walmart, though, and traffic can still be a problem in town.

Two weeks ago, our County Commission approved a conditional permit for the construction of a wind farm south of town between Dickinson and Schefield. A week later, the same County Commissioners ordered a moratorium on the approval of any other wind farms. The rationale was to see how the wind farm company treats the landowners and the communities that could be affected by the turbines.

The wind farm is a very controversial topic in our county. A few months ago, this same company tried to get a permit to construct a wind farm just east of Dickinson. Those turbines would have almost surrounded two small communities. There was such division and strife and upset among the people who would have been affected that the County Commission denied the permit. They reasoned that community peace and harmony were more important than the revenue that the company would bring to land owners and the county.  The land owners in favor of the wind farm reasoned that they should be able to do what they want with their land, and what right had the County Commission to tell them otherwise. There are fewer land owners involved in the wind farm that was just approved, but letters to the editor from those impacted indicated that division and strife is happening in this case, too.

The first modern wind turbines in our county were put in place by the Holy Sisters at the Benedictine Priory east of town. One of the nuns was an engineer who reasoned that if they could supply their own electricity they could save money heating and cooling their enormous convent. She designed and managed the construction of much of the system. The Sacred Heart turbines are smaller than the ones that are being built now.  I tend to think of wind energy as “good” energy, making less of an impact on the environment, but the controversy in the county has made me see that having a bunch of wind turbines on your property could be a real problem. I guess that they are quite noisy, they cast shadows that can be visually distressing, and they can be hazardous to migratory birds. Some of the landowners may have a wind turbine as close as 1700 feet from their front door.  It also seems that wind energy companies are no more ethical or easier to work with than are oil companies. This is what the County Commissioners wanted to assess before they approved any more wind energy production.

It is hard to know what attitude to take regarding energy production. Oil pipelines leak. Oil tanker cars on trains explode. Fracking can contaminate the ground water. Coal plants destroy the atmosphere, and now wind farms cause division and strife in communities. The City of Dickinson just got an award from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government for its infrastructure prioritization policy for municipal building projects during our recent oil boom. Projects concerning life safety received the highest priority while those that affected all citizens and projects funded by outside grants came next. Someone made some good decisions at the right time, and I guess we will be ready when the boom comes again. It remains to be seen if our county becomes covered with wind turbines. I am glad I don’t have to make that decision.

Which way does the wind blow?