Filled with angst I walk up to the front of the hospital. It has been nearly a month since I heard the news of the accident. I should have come weeks ago, Chris was my best friend. Granted we had grown apart, Chris a year behind me in school and then into the Marines, I was muddling through my first years in college. The memories of all the crazy, stupid, sophomoric things we did in high school had created a bond between us that would never be broken. . .

Chris watched my left leg for any hint of a twitch as we flew down Douglas Drive, I drove a stick, Chris shifted, while I worked clutch. He never missed. We were between classes and heading for lunch, when Chris's eyes became as big as saucers as we broke the crest of the hill. Unfortunately, so were the police officer's, who was sit in a turn around, just over the crest of the hill, taking a sip of coffee. He quickly reached down to grab the radar gun. The abrupt movement caused him to spill his coffee between his legs. You could see him shifting around seeking a momentary reprieve from the hot liquid as he attempted to point the radar gun in our general direction as we sped by. . .

The V.A. hospital was a monolith created 3 or 4 wars ago. The long sidewalk leading to the old red brick building was line by hundred year old oaks and cottonwoods. As I made the walk I realized this place was not created with the comfort of the visitor in mind. I stepped inside and found it dungeonesque. It was dark, dank and quiet except for an occasional groan heard somewhere off down one of the long cave like hallways. I wandered down the cavern looking into each room as I passed by. . .

Glancing into the rear view mirror I notice that our friend with the radar gun is very unhappy and in a hurry to make this point very clear too us as fast as humanly possible. However, as with many of the the situations Chris and I found ourselves in, fate again was smiling down on us. Just ahead, a moving truck pull out of a side street temporarily obscuring the vision of our pursuer. "So how are you going to get out of this one? Sensing something was about to happen." Chris wondered out loud. . .

The nurse point in the general direction of the hallway when I asked her where Chris's room was, as I peered into each room walking the Green Mile I felt a chill or a memory of our resent family trip to London. We were on a bus driving under the London bridge. There were rows of benches and several sets of empty eyes gazing out at passers by. Eyes full of regret and loss, minds of little old men lost or consumed by too many pints or years. . .

Without hesitation I turned left. Normally, this would not have surprised Chris, but this left turn happen in the middle of the block. Airborne over the curb, we fly between a brick split-level and brown two story. I missed the clothesline and the swing set, swerved around the sliver maple as we passed between the houses on the other side. Our radar gun friend would have to wait and catch us another day, wondering where we disappeared to. Chris just laughed and shook his head wondering how he ended up in another predicament with the likes of me. . .

As I made my way to the end of the hall I wondered why the nurse had sent me this way. All that were there were little old men with empty eyes staring off in the direction last left. And then it hit me, three rooms back was a bald little man in a wheelchair. The tears weld up as I cautiously made my way back down the dark hallway. I looked back into the room and my heart shattered as I looked at this little old man with acne, it was my friend or the shell of my friend, the accident took his mind and left him gazing in my direction with empty eyes. . .

Chris was in a motorcycle accident while in the Marines. He died about a week after our visit.

Regret is a dish that is prepared in your youth, served during middle age, and digested thereafter. It festers within during the wee hours and is laid open like a seeping wound during those quiet times when your thoughts are your own. When my thoughts or regrets consume me, my one reprieve is my children and the hope that they will not be haunted in the same way, by there past. Unfortunately, children, like ourselves, need to come to this realization on their own terms and without complete frontal lobe development. . . When I was a child I would often pray for wisdom. I would love to go back and add to that prayer; I would pray that my children would have wisdom instead. Please understand that it is not that I feel that I am wise, but rather the heartache I feel from my own indiscretions and also the folly of others. It breaks my heart to see so many people make bad choices, and not have the wherewith all to choose something better for themselves or for their family. It in turn spreads like an oil slick to their children and sticks to all they come in contact with. The disintegration of the family in this country will be its demise. I was given all the tools to make good decisions and I still made bad choices. What about the kids of kids having kids. Where is their tool box of wisdom? I guess all we can really do is help out anyway we can, and work hard to create a "tool box" for our children and possibly slow the oil slick?!

When I was 19 I spent a summer in Wyoming. I was a trail cook/wrangler. Part of my job was to coax semi-wild horses to leave the lush green meadow, and come up to the barn, where fat old men would get on there backs and force them to carry them up the mountain to fish in the mountain streams. This was kind of a hard sell to these horses, and most of them wanted no part of it. Redman was an older horse that loved oats. Sometimes he would come if you had a handful of oats. The trick then was to jump on his back and ride him bareback back to the barn. If you could do that the other horses would usual follow. On one occasion Redman was being particularly evasive. Luckily, I convinced Thunder (one of the younger horses) to come to my handful of oats. Now, Redman was a short squatty bay, and a relatively easy horse for this short and squatty wrangler to get onto. Thunder, on the other hand, was quite tall. His back went almost to the top of my head. Somehow I managed to get my chest on the top of his back, but before I could swing my leg over his back, I found out why they called him Thunder. He bolted like he was possessed by demons straight toward a little patch to woods on the edge of pasture. By the time I was able to get my leg over his back, and situate myself, he had made his way into the woods. He planted me on the first low hanging branch he could find. I hit the branch and spun like a wind toy, flipped and landed on my face. Redman witnessed this fiasco and slowly walked up to me shaking his head (I could almost hear him saying, "you sad, sad little man"). He walked up to me and stopped, He gave me that, "get on before you get killed look". Time was wasting, so I reluctantly got on his back and guided the other horses up to the barn. I hated that horse.....

There once was a bird who fell out of its nest. A gnarled old woman came upon the wounded bird and ask the bird, "If you could be anything you wanted, What would you be?" The bird was tired, scared, and confused. It had hurt a wing and lost a few too many feathers (if you know what I mean). At first the bird said, "I wish I could be back in my nest, all warm, cozy and safe. Everything right where I need it. Yes, that would be my wish, to be back in my nest and be back to the way things were before." The gnarled old woman sadly shook her head and said, "sorry you can't go back there. When the wind blew you out of the tree, it also blew the nest. It is gone. You cannot go back." The bird mourned his loss. How could the wind allow such a thing to happen? I did exactly the things that every good bird is suppose to do. I never carelessly wandered to the edge of the nest or ventured recklessly out on the branches. I stayed within the parameters of the nest and kept it and myself clean. I took good care of my nest home. Others before me walked on the edges of the nest and even out on the branches. Nothing this bad ever happened to them?! I wish I would have been more like those birds. At least then I would have been able to spread my wings a little, and had an excuse to be in this kind of predicament." The Gnarled old woman gazed at the bird and said. "Do you know what happened to those birds? Many of them did not survive the fall. Some survive the fall, but were soon swallowed by predators below. Still others survived, but were ashamed that they did not stay in the nest until it was there time to leave. They were never able to reach their full potential. Others were able to soar, but at a tremendous cost to the other birds around them." The little bird was perplexed. "So what then should I wish for?" The Gnarled old woman replied, "you have lived a long and blessed life. I know that you are scared, tired and confused, but you have many friends and family members who love you. And even though you will never be able to go back to the nest, you have grown strong and have been given the chance again to soar anywhere, and anyway that you decide. You have done all that has been asked of you, now you just need to allow yourself to soar." The bird replied, "Then I guess I will soar to even greater heights now that the wind has granted me the freedom to fly wherever He feels I am needed."
Charlie allow Him to continue to lead you and again you will soar.

When I was twelve our family went on a road trip to Boston. Charlie and I in the back seat of the Monte Carlo, and our parents in the front seat. This was before DVD players and hand-held electronic games, so entertainment was limited. There are only so many cows to count, state's licence plates to tally, and letters on signs to find. It was more than any eight and twelve year old boy could handle. This left only two things for us to do, fighting with each other and tormenting our parents. We were somewhere in the middle of Canada when my dad had had enough. He pulled over and left us on the side of the road. Normally, for a child this would have been pretty traumatic, and for my little brother it was, "what are we going to do?!" he asked, all teary eyed. I, on the other hand, was far more jaded than my naive little brother. "Come on Charlie" I said, "let's start walking the other way. We are in the middle of Canada, what's he going to do, leave us?" Lucky thing I had Charlie with me or my mother would have probably convinced my dad to keep on driving. Fortunately, he did come back, we poured back into the Monte Carlo and continued east. We were surprisingly well behaved and I had to learn to smile on the inside the rest of the way to Massachusetts.

I wake up with a start. I cannot breathe, and my eyes are burning. "What is going on?" I hit the floor running, and I thought to myself, "if I am going to live through whatever this is I better get out of the building." Out the door I run and down the hall. As I head to the stairs I notice that the fumes are significantly worse, I am having trouble seeing and my throat and lungs are burning. Frantically, I turn the corner and head down the stairs. The fumes have pooled at the bottom of the stairs and the air is unbreathable. I burst through the door at the bottom of the stairs expecting to find unspeakable carnage, twisted metal of an overturned semi-trailer spewing unspeakable toxins, killing all in its path. I land on my hands and knees gasping for one final breath of air. Then nothing. Inside total mayhem, outside nothing. People walking up and down the street, walking their dogs, minding their own business; well, except for the crazy man on his hands and knees crying and gasping for air. Where was the chemical spill? Didn't these people realize that Dinkytown was in eminent peril?! Then I began to realize that these people were not in peril, in fact, neither was I. What was going on? Now, I know I have plenty of character flaws and aspects of myself that I am not proud of, but the first thing I thought of during this near death experience was to go back into the building and save the neighbors. I took a couple big gulps of air and fearlessly headed back into the building. I bound up the stairs turned left into the wall of ammonia fumes that nearly brought me to my knees. I look through my tears to see that the neighbor's door was open. Slowly I make my way down the hall. Should I save them myself, or go back and call for help. My unflappable character goads me to press on. I dramatically make my entrance into their apartment, only to find one of my neighbor's, with cigarette hanging from his mouth chipping ice out his icebox. I attempt to to yell at him to leave the building. He just waved me off and kept chipping away at the ice. Now you have to understand that I am dying at this point the fumes are so bad. He, on the other hand, continued to chip away even though a steady gaseous stream of foul hideousness continued to pour from his refrigerator. It turns out that my rocket scientist neighbor punched a hole into the cooler core of his freezer. The concoction of ammonia and Freon had created a Venus like atmosphere in our upstairs apartment paradise. Tired of arguing and breathing foul fumes, I left him to his chipping, went to my room, opened the windows, and left for work early. Just another day in Dinkytown.....

My whole body was on fire. Both Bob (Bob was a friend from middle school who played for the other team) and I are laying on the football field. "So this is how it feels to break your neck," I thought to myself. "Wait, I can move my hands and feet, I just can't feel them." I had always thought for example, that if I couldn't feel my leg, I probably would not be able to move my leg. I was wrong. I was able to get to my feet, but my whole body was still on fire and I was a little wobbly. Bob was still on the ground. The six foot, two hundred pound, Greek god's season was over--the collision broke his shoulder blade. Bob tried to run me over. He was the stud running back for Armstrong. I was that little linebacker from Robbinsdale. While they carted Bob off the field it allowed me the time to shake the cobwebs and fire from my head and limbs. I continued to play. A few plays later I picked up a ball after the play and threw it back to the referee. It made it about half the way. "That's weird", I thought. Granted, I am a linebacker, but usually I can throw a ball 5 yards. Shortly after that episode my coach called a time out and came out to the huddle to asked me, "what day it was?" Normally, I am pretty sharp, but I really felt it was no time for a difficult algebra problem. Fortunately, like Rainman, the answer came to me in a vision. "Blue," I told him without hesitation. "Now let's get back to the business of playing football", I thought. Coach Burke started to laugh and inform me that my bell had been rung, whatever that means, and that I would have to leave the game. I wanted to argue, but to be honest, I felt like crap--all clammy and nauseous. Concussion number two, not my first, and probably not my last. I spoke later with my father about this game, and he told me that he could tell that something was wrong. When I threw that ball to the referee, I threw it with my right arm (I'm left-handed). I was also the captain of the defense, and called the plays that were hand-signaled in from the sidelines. I called every play exactly backward. That was when coach Burke came out. One of the "rites of passage" as a youth football player is a "stinger." If you have ever had one you probably can relate to what I am writing about. For you that have not, I hope that this will give you a glimpse of what "stingers" are like.

It was another cold moonless morning. I can't believe how dark it is! One of these days I'm going to have to make a trail out to my deer stand. I walk the hedge row between Wilson's field and Makkila's forty. Halfway cross the field is patch of woods that appears like a wooded tunnel in the low light. Like most mornings the woods are quiet. As I move along the tunnel the forest explodes to my right! There is the sound of a large animal moving quickly toward me, not away, like one would expect. Brrruump brrruump brrruump ppbbsshh! The large animal stops right next to me and blows a lung full of steam into my face. Mr. Wilson's horse was out in the pasture, he must have heard me and decided to come for an early morning visit. I gave him a couple of scratches on the neck cleaned out my shorts and continued toward my stand. It is the opening morning of deer hunting. As I make my way to the far end of the field, I sense movement to my left. The woods are thick, and I cannot make out the form that is mirroring my movements. As I move forward, I come to an opening in the forest. Not twenty yards away is very surprised timber wolf, and then like a ghost it was gone. No wonder Mr. Wilson's horse was acting so skittish. This was turning out to be quite an eventful morning, and I wasn't even halfway to my stand yet! I clean out my shorts again and continue on my trek. The breeze was light, and snow was falling like the feathers off a down pillow, as I made my way along a ridge that crossed the forty between Wilson's field and the old logging road. The old logging road takes me the rest of the way to my stand. The air is so cold that the scent of the balsams that usually pervades this area is trapped like a cocoon within its needles. My stand is a tripod of poplar trees that sits on the top of rocky knoll. I settle into my stand as the light slowly forms in the east. The breeze is from the northwest, directly into my face. Perfect. The sun is beginning to cut its way through the darkness, when I notice another hunter making his way across a ridge in front of me. He is the first and only hunter, not part of our hunting party, that I have seen venture so far back in the woods. He was a couple hundred yards away, and did not see or notice me. He moving away from me and out of view when I looked to my left and caught a glimpse of a rack a hundred or so yards away looking back toward the intruder that had spooked him from his bed. I moved to my left to set up for the shot. I carelessly kick my foot into my backpack that was sitting between my feet. My heart sank, my perfect morning was slipping away as fast as my backpack was falling toward the earth below. I quickly brought my rifle to my shoulder, put the cross hairs on its chest, and pulled the trigger, just as the backpack hit the ground. The twelve point buck never heard that backpack hit the ground that day. The perfect ending to a perfect opening morning.

It was shopping day with Dad. Now I don't know about you, but shopping day with Dad was a rare occurrence and as a middle child, even rarer to do alone with just you and your Dad. We piled into the station wagon. Dad in the driver seat, me right behind him standing on the front seat looking over his shoulder. At the time there were no car seats or seat belts. Back then, you would find yourself riding in the front or the back (it didn't matter) seat minding your own business, when at some point one of your parents had to hit the brakes. Miraculously you would not go flying into the dash board, or smack your head into the wind shield. No! Instead you got drilled in the chest with a forearm swipe so fast, and perfectly placed that it would take two blocks for your bruised lungs to start working again. Now shopping trips with Dad may have been few an far between, but you always knew where you were going, and it was always Sears. The shopping part of this trip was uneventful, so after we were done shopping we piled back into the station wagon. WCCO was always on the radio, the Canon mess or the Gopher's basketball was blasting out of the Delco's, when I pulled the Life Savers out of my pocket. All was quiet. "Where did you get that candy from?!" asked my father. Now I don't know about you, but even at three years old, you know when you're busted, and I was busted. "I don't know?" Was the conditioned response from this guilt riddled boy next to him, and I knew that the big blues were not going to get me out of this one. He turned the car around, and back to Sears we went. With crocodile tears, retribution was made and the weight of the world was restored to it proper place and I was back in mine. Behind my dad with my head on his shoulder....heading home in the station wagon.

I was golfing in my front yard with one of the neighbor kids. We were chipping the ball back and forth, when he gets the brilliant idea to pull out a driver and swing at the ball as hard as he can (a big athletic kid, but not real bright). Several minutes later I awoke in a stupor, with a tremendous headache and welt in the middle of my forehead. I rolled over, scrounged around looking for my glasses. I put them on and happened to notice my buddy driving out of his driveway on his Schwinn 10 speed, with a backpack on his back, heading the other way down the block. Did he go tell my mom that he had just drilled me in the head with a golf ball? Did he tell his mother? Did he check to see if I was okay? No, he did what any normal 12 year old boy would do after killing one of the other neighbor kids. Make a few sandwiches, throw in some shirts and underwear, and hit the road. He thought that he had killed me and was running away from home. It probably was not my first concussion, and definitely not my last, but after a couple of weeks of paying closer than normal attention to the flowers, bugs and birds I recovered no worse for ware. We were never very close as friends after that, heck come to think of it, I'm not sure he ever came back.

January 6, 2010

My mother was kind of old school, and somewhat introverted, so we had an understanding--I could be in the house to eat and sleep, other than that I was well into my twenties before I saw the inside of my house again during daylight hours for more than five minutes at a time. Dinnertime was also interesting at my childhood home. Both my parents grew up in families with 13 children. If there was anything you learn in a household of thirteen kids, it was you learned to eat fast. Dinner was at 5:30 and the dishes were done by 5:35. I was back on the baseball field before the teams switched sides. I loved being outside and I loved playing games--baseball, football, hot box, basketball it did not matter. . .now when watching my children a big part of my spectating problem is being relegated to the bench (but that is another story). It is tragic that that so much of our youth is wasted on the young. My brother was born when I was four. I got one quick peek at him when they brought him home from the hospital, and did not see him again till he was about five. I was kidding when I told her, "I got chunks of guys like him in my stool." Post partum mother's have no sense of humor. My mother also had a real eye for fashion. She would dress me in all the latest styles and trends, Bright yellow, orange, and red plaid pants, turtle necks, and black square beatnik glasses. A person just gets use to the beatings after awhile....

January 5, 2010

I'm pretty sure that when the Albrecht came up with the idea of indulgences it was not to build St. Peter's, but to give democrats a chance to get into heaven. Which leads me to my point, my childhood. To really understand anyone you must venture into their youth. To say that my family is conservative is somewhat of an understatement. My mother listened to Rush Limbaugh daily, and threaten to leave the Minnesota when we were the only state in the union to vote for Mondale. My 11 year old son had to make a paper mache mask for a school project. As I walked down the sixth grade hallway I begin to notice masks of Pokemon, Shrek, baa baa black lamb, Ronald Reagan, Mario, Luigi, etc.. It is scary how our actions and words influence our children. Northern Minnesota is a tough place to be conservative, someday I hope that one of the candidates I vote for actually wins, and my son completes his self defense class before his classmates figure out who Ronald Reagan was....

January 3, 2010


Please excuse my prose, I failed freshman composition four times. My chemical use may or may not have played a part (but that is another story...) The fourth time I failed the final was an "all or nothing" business memo. My English Professor told the class, "if you cannot write the perfect business memo, you cannot make it in the business world, therefore if your memo is not perfect, you will fail the class." Now I was a nontraditional student by this time (shocking I know, my senior year of college was the best fifteen years of my life) and had had the opportunity to be a part of the business world. Let's just say, that short of grunting and crayon's I had seen every type of memo and perfection was not what came to mind. Sure enough, my Professor called me into his office to inform me that he did not agree with a comma I had carelessly thrown into my business letter. He informed me that he could not in good conscience give me a passing grade. I strongly disagreed, but my pleas fell on deaf ears, and once again I failed English composition. I am not sure what this story has to do with my blog, but I did learn a great lesson that day. Rogue commas and dangling modifiers may actually have been the cause the great recession of 2008-09 and not hedge funds and the collapse of the housing market. Mr. Burnson was right all along, who knew......