Horse Manure Park

I grew up near Wadena, Minnesota (in fact, I was actually born at Wesley Hospital in Wadena... and I was married in Wadena), so the decision made by the Wadena city council this past week grabbed my attention and it's been the talk of this region ever since. It isn't the first time this city of about 4,200 people made the state and national news. Five years ago, an EF-4 tornado ripped through Wadena, destroying homes, businesses and the public school. Amazingly, there was no loss of life. Many said God was watching out for the city. Which brings me to the city council's decision on Tuesday of this week. The Christmas nativity scene at the Burlington Northern Park in Wadena, which has been a traditional display for many years, will no longer be featured in the city park. A concerned citizen, Tyler Rud, questioned the constitutionality of the city funding and maintaining a symbol of Christianity. He went to the "big guns," so to speak, the Freedom From Religio

It all started a couple of days ago when I read an article speculating coffee prices were going to skyrocket in the coming months (there are a number of reasons for this price hike, but for the sake of humanity, I won't go there). While the article did not predict how high the prices would soar, the author used the word "significant." Since then, I've been thinking about something and I suppose I'm little morbid for even broaching this squeamish thought. Like everyone else, I'm a creature of habit. And one of the worst the worst habit I have is drinking coffee. Actually, let's call it what it is: an addiction. I've said to the Speaker of the House more than once that if I was forced to make a choice, I would stop imbibing in my favorite barley and hops beverage  for life before I would cease my coffee intake. It is something I simply can't live without. But how much am I willing to pay for this bean of the gods? And how much money woul

I'm attempting to make a few changes today, because I know when there's too much on my plate. I am speaking in figurative terms here. I never seem to know when there's literally too much on my plate. I eat everything within my ZIP code (figuratively). Especially pastries. I love me some pastries. But let me get back to my original thought... whatever that was. I shouldn't have mentioned doughnuts. Oh yeah, I was talking about changes.... Today I opted not to renew the domain name for my football web site (thelonepylon.com). It was a difficult decision, but this is about knowing one's limits: there are not enough minutes in the day for me to keep a fantasy football site up-to-date with accurate and timely information. The problem is this: I am gainfully employed, I have a couple of tax deductions, and occasionally I try to be a reasonably adequate husband. (You know, minor details.) This means something's got to give. And why pay money for a d

It has been a stressful couple of days here in my neck o' the woods. On Sunday evening we had the worst storm we've experienced in 14 years of living here. More on that, including all the ugly pictures, in a later post.  The important thing is we are all safe, just "stuff" was lost and damaged. Mother Nature is a vindictive old bitch and she knocked us to the canvas for a couple seconds, but we bounced right up, came in swinging and jabbed her right back in the chops.  Take that, you crabby old heifer.  On a lighter side of things, I made one of my semi-annual pilgrimages to The Darkness (commonly called "Walmart") on Sunday before the wind blew and the trees twisted through the air. The Darkness did not disappoint in amusing me.  A reminder, the date was July 12th, not August 12th. I am guessing we will see Christmas decor out in a couple of weeks. After all, we only have 23 more Thursdays till Christmas (yep, look it up!)  The Girl's reaction to this s

It is already June 6th. Life is moving fast and furious. It was a long week of work. It is Saturday and I don't really have any plans (I'm waiting for it to rain) and I feel guilty for not having any plans. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law (B&B Construction) were here this past week and they installed wood paneling in our downstairs living room. It is amazing what a little accent like that can do to a room. I got home late from work but took some "before" pictures after the project was already started. The living room wall is bisected by a wooden shelf. The wall, top and bottom, was orange peel consistency and plain white. After almost 15 years of living here, we decided to kick it up a notch.  Work in progress... The finished project... Now to paint the living room... but the jury is still out on what color to use. As you can see in the top picture, we flirted with yellow hues, but it does not work at all with the color of wood we have. It l

In memory of my father this Memorial Day. I visited his grave for the first time in several years yesterday. It was good to say hello.

Please forgive me. It has been two months since my last blog. I have no idea where that time went. I suppose it went to that place where all the other time goes. I was kind of surprised to get an email from someone who asked me if I had given up blogging. It made me feel kind of good that someone checks in to read now and then. Believe me, I think about writing all the time but "thinking" and "doing" are two different things. Actually, I have written a couple of posts over the last 60 days, mostly on rainy days (which has been 55 of the last 60 days), but I decided the posts got too political. There's nothing worse than somebody rambling on about their political/moral beliefs. Especially when you run the risk of upsetting others and when you don't really know what you're talking about. I confess I usually don't know what I'm talking about. So here I am sitting on my unstained deck, typing away. The neighborhood is alive with the sound of

I'm a bit sporadic at updating my little space in cyberland here.  That's what happens with kids and a job.  Thankfully, you haven't missed much if you don't visit here often. I opened an account on a new site called This Life , which is maintained by Shutterfly, and I'm really liking it.  It sort of works like Drop Box; all of our photos on our devices automatically upload to our This Life account and all of the pictures on our lap top automatically upload to the site as well. But what I really like about This Life, as compared to Drop Box, is the site magically organizes your photos by date and it has a facial recognition program which organizes your photos by people as well.  It is kind of cool and creepy all at the same time.  It's bizarre how it can recognize the Boy as a baby and as a five year old. I don't know how it works, but it works.  Yet it makes me wonder what kind of technology is out there that we don't know about?  It's probabl

Home today with the Boy, who has been home sick for the last two days.  Running a fever, throwing up.  Who knows where this came from?  The winter maladies continue.  The good news is he's on the mend, watching Looney Tunes right now and just announced that he was "bored," which is an excellent indicator that it is definitely back to school tomorrow. My brothers and sister-in-laws visited this weekend.  It was great to see them again.  We had a good talk, ate some great food and my oldest brother brought a box full of old photos.  I've been going through them, archiving many on the computer; I'm planning to make a hard cover photo book to preserve family history. In the meantime, I've been doing considerable research on the family tree, although I'm finding the more I look, the more questions I have.  Indeed, much more research is warranted. The puzzle continues. I've been posting quite a few old pictures on my Facebook feed, but I've reali

When I was a kid, I remember looking through an old photo album that my parents used to have.  The pictures inside were black and white, full of unfamiliar faces.  One picture in particular always stood out to me and I often wondered who in the world that distinguished looking man was. The picture was obviously taken in a professional studio.  The man didn't have the rugged looks of a laborer or a farmer.  He had a thick mustache and heavy eyebrows under a nearly entirely bald head. He appeared comfortable in a suit.  He looked, for lack of a better word, wealthy . All I knew was his name.  Written below the picture, in neat but unfamiliar handwriting, was "Samuel Gray." Samuel Gray I remember asking Mom if I was named after him, but she said no, I wasn't.  She knew this was a relative on Dad's side of the family and the picture was very old, and my dad really never said much about the picture. Well, thanks to some rather relentless research

It's back to work tomorrow.  I am getting the itch to make myself useful again.  I can only be off work for so long and I need to do something.  I could not stay at home all day every day.  It's not for me. So today, since I had the day completely to myself, the task at hand was to do laundry.  And do laundry I did.  As I write this, every article of clothing in the house is clean, folded (mostly) and put away (kind of). My job here is done. While completing the menial task of washing clothes, I had the television on as a distraction.  As usual, since it's not football season, I dialed up Turner Classic Movies. The Singing Nun , starring Debbie Reynolds and Ricardo Montalban, was on, so I casually watched it while waiting for clothes to dry.  Aside from being a nauseating mellow drama, I knew enough about my 1960s music history to know it was based on a true story.  Yes, there really was a singing nun. In fact, we used to have a record of the Singing Nun's bi

The last couple times around the sun, this has been an unpleasant time of year. Last year at this time, we were preparing to go to the funeral of my mother's sister, Bev.   This year, we've just returned from the funeral of my wife's grandmother, celebrating 93 years of a life well-lived. Luckily, the weather was fine (you never know this time of year in North Dakota).  We spent good time with family, but it's always nice to come home.  As the Boy said last night, "I missed my house." At the funeral, my father-in-law delivered a very thoughtful, eloquent eulogy to his mother.  His words about the Greatest Generation were especially meaningful to me because my parents were of the same generation as his mom (my father was born in 1915, my mother in 1928).   Interestingly enough, I have been doing a great deal of research on my family tree over the past several weeks.  I've been receiving help from my cousins when I encounter sticking poin

DISCLAIMER:  If you're not interested in ancestry or family trees, you will want to skip this post; this won't be interesting to anyone other than my immediate family (and even then it might be a stretch to call it "interesting"), but that's okay.  It fascinates me and that's all that matters!   Get your own blog. It's funny how the little things in life can turn into the most unexpected and pleasant surprises. Case in point:  I was corresponding with my cousin, Debra, on Facebook a couple of weeks ago when she sent me this incredible piece of family history: my grandfather's World War I registration card. This card was fascinating to me for a couple of reasons.  First, I had never seen my grandfather's handwriting before.  Second, it solved a long-standing personal mystery for me.  I'll get to that in a  minute. There is no doubt in my mind that my dad never saw this; he was two years old when my grandfather filled i

I remember holding my breath until I was dizzy, loss of consciousness was near as I started seeing black and purple spots. I remember involuntary tears rolling down my cheeks.   I remember thinking to myself (because I didn't dare say it aloud) "Man, I hate this." I'm talking, of course, about being forced against my will (gasp!) to help make home made horseradish sauce as a kid.  But more about that in a minute. Today's entry is a sort of continuation of a subject I broached back on May 3rd of last year.  I mentioned then that my sister-in-law, Marilyn, had given me an entire box of my mom's cookbooks; an absolute treasure of childhood memories.   In May, I was giving serious thought to launching a whole new blog devoted entirely to Mom's recipes.  I honestly have enough to post a new recipe a day for about five years. Instead, I think I will simply post a recipe here every now and then when I suffer from a lack of anything better

One hundred years ago today a baby boy was born near Somers, Iowa. That baby grew up to be my dad. That's right, today is my father's 100th birthday.  I think of him every single day and use him as my role model through life. I know I will never be half the man he was, but I do my best to make him proud of the child he raised. My dad in Rome, 1944, after the Battle of Monte Cassino.  When I looked at this picture as a kid, I always thought my dad looked like a movie star. My dad with my two brothers, Bob (left) and Dale, about 1951.  Still one of my favorite pictures. Me and my dad in the spring of 1970.  He was a 55 year-old grandfather in this picture, starting all over with yet another son! Me, my hair and my dad, autumn of 1988. Happy birthday, Dad.  Thank you for your service to our country -- you were a true American hero, even though you never really talked about it. Thank you for passing on your love of football to me.  I am now passing that pa