The Dutch Restaurant In Rochester

I love ethnic restaurants, my favorites being Greek or Middle Eastern. Occasionally, I find a German Restaurant that has a menu better than what I can do myself, but that is rare. It's because a hot dog on a plate with Libby's Sauerkraut does not German cuisine make. The same is true about Chinese places.

While in Rochester, we found this Dutch place, so I had to go there. I lived in Oberhausen for about five months in the early 70's. A friend gave me some wooden shoes, which Germans in the area used to work in their muddy gardens. The shoes are great. And much of the food I remember eating there had a bit of a Dutch twist to it, especially the Pfannekuchen, which we often ate in the evenings, and I still make it when I have apples and some great jam. It's a must when grand kids are here.

But the Dutch place in Rochester was interesting. The stuffed cabbage was very good, and it was very much like what we made for ourselves and sometimes ate when invited to some one's house during those times. But the place is just a franchise. My disappointment came when I asked if any of them were from Holland. Most of Minnesota is Scandinavian, so it was not surprising to hear that the two older people at the register were a mixture of Viking blood from Norway, Denmark and Sweden. There was even a bit of German in the mix, but none of them knew anyone in their families, who spoke a foreign language. Their families had been in America since the 1800's: so much for my thinking that some people from Holland opened a restaurant there.

I guess I'll just have to rely on the Dutch Deli in Salt Lake City to get my chocolate sprinkles, cabbage roles, curry ketchup and a few other things, but if you are ever in Rochester, you have to order the dutch pancake just to hear the people bring it to your table.

Just Another Day At School For Tommy

While Visiting Mayo Clinic in September of '08, Ann and I were able to see Tommy get on the bus and ride to school each day. It was a sad day for Anna, because she no longer had a playmate during the day, and Tommy did not like anyone coming outside while he waited for the bus.

We tried for several days to get pictures, but he told us each time he didn't need us to escort him to the bus. And I should have remembered my years as a first grader, when I rode the "town bus."

And there was no option for younger students, when I was a first grader, and Kindergarten was not a reality at that point, so my experience happened when I was one year older than both boys.

Hazing was a cultural event. I spent my days understanding just how a volleyball felt during a match. An older student would pick us up and throw us at another high school student. As soon as we hit the target, they in turn would throw us at someone else.

My ride was like that every morning, not a great way to begin school. But the experience worked out to be a learning experience for all of us: we learned obscene gestures and foul language that we expressed freely during the entire trip to school, a trip that took about 40 minutes as we sailed through the air those mornings, howling and cursing while older students enjoyed the moment.

At least I remain confident that Tommy didn't have to relive that hell that I experienced, and hopefully, he didn't learn new vocabulary words--both verbally and otherwise--that my friends and I learned so quickly on the one mile ride to school in the very late 1959 and 1960. The fun that high school students had with us just made us mean.

There was Jimmy. He filled a squirt gun with lighter fluid, and he lit it, so that it blew flames like a blow torch. When he wasn't tormenting us, he took out his clarinet and played a horrific high note that made dogs in the neighborhood howl in pain. And there was Buck. He was just mean. Later they say he took a break from dealing drugs and began work as a police informant, which explains why I enjoyed most police shows where detectives "rough up" those kind of people. In the back of my mind, I hope he gets what I believed was "his due" almost 50 years ago.

But Tommy's experience was a good one. We never had a chance to get pictures in September that worked, so we took this on the last day of school. He was glad to have us at his house, and he didn't even mind that we stood on the curb to wave. It was a different story in September.

It was an embarrassment for him to see us fuss over him in front of his friends, and there was no hugging, holding his hand or giving him a little kiss on the cheek before leaving to climb aboard the bus. That was stuff you did only when he was three and four, not at the ripe old age of five or six.

Regardless of the changes, we relished the chance to be there to take this picture, and we saved our hugs for when he arrived home in the afternoon.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that the minister who lived next door also was the one with the gift for the bus driver. They were very nice people, and it was their last day in Rochester. By the time we returned in late July, they had already moved to their new home in Minneapolis.

Where The Buffalo Roam

I remember when I was very young, no older than third or fourth grade. My family took a trip to Yellowstone. We always followed the same route, leaving Malad in the morning and driving to Lava Hot Springs. After going for a swim and spending time there in one of the small hotels, we left the next day for the park.

During one of those trips, we stopped at a souvenir shop, and I spotted this porcelain buffalo head on a small frame. I kept it for years. Before buying it, the man said that the chances were that the animal would never survive another decade. I'm glad he was wrong.

Who was to think that those beautiful animals would dominate the park like they do now. And on our way home from Minnesota, we saw one in Mammoth Hot Springs. It shocked me to see tourists within six or seven feet of this young bull, small enough to still have a few years before becoming a dominant male, yet large enough to seriously hurt some of the people who took pictures.

I thought about that silly trinket I bought all those years ago, and I realized that this picture was so much better in so many different ways. My only regret is that we didn't take a movie clip of it on our digital camera.

Minnesota in June of '09

It would be nice if I understood the complicated nature of why people function and behave like they do, but since I have lived over 56 years and still really don't understand why I do some of the things I do, how can I really know why others act like they do? My hope is that my three grandchildren will each have a life that is somehow even better than what I experienced. If we can't achieve that as parents and grandparents, and most importantly, if we can't hope for that as parents and grandparents, there is not only something wrong with us but something wrong with our culture.

I have my six month doctor's appointment Tuesday of this week, June 23 of 2009. It is one where my oncologist will examine my bloodwork to ensure that everything is still alright. The positive side of this whole process is the fact that going this long without a problem is a very good sign; however, every time this appointment approaches, I find myself recognizing just how precarious life is, yet what I determined some time ago is that no one really knows when their "number is up" and when they will join the big skinny-dipping party in the sky. We are all in the same situation when it comes down to it.

I knew someone who worked for years and finally retired in his 60's. Ann and I saw him and his wife at a concert in Idaho Falls that Roger McGuinn--a founding member of The Byrds--played in October of 2003. I was going through severe treatments, but at that point, I was still not having to spend a lot of time in the hospital. When he saw me, he said how sorry he was. I always hated pity, but I had always liked him, and I knew he meant well looking at me like he did and all, but there was one monumental problem: within a short time, he went into the doctor complaining of abdominal pain. Within weeks, he died of cancer.

A second man did the same thing. This time, I was at a retired IEA Member luncheon, and a former teacher from Rexburg expressed the same thing. He too had that sad look in his eyes. While on a hike on the Buttes during that summer, something happened with his pacemaker, and he met his maker too. The list keeps going.

In each instance, I felt badly, because their departure was so untimely, so unexpected, and then I realized something. No one knows when that time comes calling.

It's not so bad, when I really look at it logically. I recognize how precious life is and reexamine what is most important in my life. But I also find myself looking for that old spectre that will eventually reappear. I find myself waiting for the "other shoe" to drop.

I shouldn't waste time worrying about it, because I know when my time arrives--whether noticing something that just doesn't seem right or while walking somewhere--I too will become a memory.

But when that time comes, I hope my three little ones will remember those last years we spent together, especially this last trip to Minnesota and back. It was one that found Jack and me alone for the twelve hour trip on the first leg. Ann flew to Rochester, because Lydia needed some help while she was sick.

That trip was magical in some ways. Jack watched movies, but during the drive, we stopped several times. One in particular was somewhere in Wyoming, just before passing into South Dakota. Restrooms were scarce, so Pop Pop and Jack had to write their names in the sand, but while taking that brief break, I noticed the grinding chirp of crickets, the melancholy sigh of a mourning dove, and the call of a small bird we always called a kill deer: a bird that would always nest near a small stream or marsh. It had long legs. And it would run a short distance and then drop over and play "possum." It was its way of protecting its nest. Those were sounds I was able to help Jack notice, and then I remembered how my grandpa taught me how to recognize the trill of a meadow lark.

But I was never lucky enough to have had the chance to take a twelve hour road trip with him. He was gone by the time I was three, yet I still remember him clearly, and my other grandfather, although he lived until I was in the third grade, never really had a chance like that either.

That would have been fun for me, and so I hope Jack will remember it in that same way.

And I will hope that Tommy and Anna remember the trip we took back to Idaho Falls with us the same way. All three grandchildren had fun. They watched movies, they played with toys, they giggled over silly things they said and did together. It's the stuff I remember doing with my cousins occasionally, but then again, I never remember being lucky enough to take a long road trip like that.

When I was young, I thought that something different than this trip would be the thing I would want to experience, like smoking the tires of a Vette with the top down, racing along a highway on a summer night and feeling the wind tossing my hair.

That's just some fantasy that we see in a movie or on a television program. And most of the time, dreams like that feature a person sitting alone. Funny thing is that I know people who live that dream, and they live it alone. Now, don't get me wrong, I miss smoking the tires on a car, and I always hoped to do it in a vehicle that I owned rather that something that belonged to my parents.

So cleaning bugs from the window of the car at a station is an adventure when you make the trip with people you love. You notice things like, "I never knew there were so many bugs in the world like this until I drove through South Dakota," and you say things like, "I'm so glad the bikers aren't at Sturgis yet, so that the three little ones don't have to witness someone's grandma on the back of a Harley with no top." Ann and I will always be grateful that we didn't have grandchildren with us when we stopped once to see the biker extravaganza.

And even finding bad restaurants occasionally can be fun, like we did here in Montana at a Pizza Hut, where the owner sold the part of the restaurant with the tables to a new owner who created a gambling parlor. We ate outside away from the smoke and the cuckoos looking to find happiness by pulling the dirty handle of a slot machine.

So the thing with the Vette never happend--that dream where I ride in a silver flashy convertible with pipes, a large engine and all the dangerous fun options. Ironically, I don't really even regret not doing that now, especially since the laughter and smiles of little ones is much more fun, although at the end of the twelve hours on the road, I occasionally had to remind myself how much fun we were having.

But I have no problem looking at these pictures now and recognizing how much fun we had. So when it comes down to the whole issue of worrying about something I can't control. I will always remember this trip and others like it, and I will always remember my three precious grandchildren, just like I hope they always remember me.

Just In Case I Ever Meet An Ancient Egyptian

I find the internet fascinating.  First, I have been able to find Cd's that have long been unavailable. I loved finding this store in St. Petersburg, that actually had two things by the musician who played drums for The Moody Blues.  I wanted to buy the LP's, but by the time I actually had a bit of money in those early days of my marriage with college, children and other more important responsibilities, the music was unavailable.

It was difficult to order things in those early days.

The music to a movie from the early 80's called "Man's Quest for Fire" becomes available in late March.  I plan on having that music.  It was a beautiful musical score.  My family hated it when I watched the movie, because not a word of English appeared.  It makes sense when you consider all of the characters were early harvesters and gatherers who battled each other and ran from saber tooth tigers.

And then a new toy appeared, just when everything I thought was available--a site that actually translates words and phrases into ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Now, if I could just figure out how to paste them into this blog, because there are some really important things I learned, like how to say, "I don't sweat much for a fat guy."

Or "I smell like old people." Then there is the classic made famous by the 60's folk group Peter, Paul & Mary, "I dig Rock 'N Roll Music."  

I learned all this while thinking I knew everything there was to know.   You just never know when something incredibly important appears on the Internet.

 

Nothing Like A Thanksgiving Trip To Disneyland To Get Everyone Excited About Christmas

The final day at Disneyland on the last trip was one that went typically fast.  Lydia and Jeff and the kids left for San Diego that morning, and although we originally planned to start home a day earlier, we added a night and spent one more day at the parks.  

Our premium passes were there for us anyway, and it only amounted to a night's stay at the hotel.  Ann added one day at a reasonable price.

It was a perfect trip from the very start.
I always love the way they light the park at night, whether at Disneyland or the California Adventure Park.  We enjoy both equally, and it seems like we go back and forth between them, depending on how crowded either one is at the time.  This view of the recreation of the Golden Gate Bridge in Frisco is fun.  This year was the first time we didn't travel by monorail at least one time over it on the way to Goofy's Kitchen.  There is something about attending a brunch and trying to succeed at Weight Watchers that just is not compatible.  By the time I returned home, I lost an additional 10-12 pounds.  We were careful about the food we ate at the park, and we did as much exercise as possible, even if I did rent an electric cart.
That last day found us running to see favorite rides that Jack enjoyed.
The films we watched with Jack and Tommy and Anna will always make the trip a place full of memories.  When we first took Anna, she was just learning to talk.  She still wore a diaper, and her way of saying she wanted to ride The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was saying, "I wanna go poo."  That comment from a little voice turned a lot of heads in the park during those visits. And the memory still makes me smile.
And there is nothing like starting out the day or ending it by shooting aliens on the Buzz Lightyear ride.
During Christmas, the Haunted Mansion ride evolves into the Nightmare Before Christmas, and all three of the grandchildren love it, although each one covers their eyes at a couple of spots that scare them still.   
The lights this year on the castle were spectacular.  Like I said, it was a perfect trip and a great way to begin the holidays.

My Grandchildren's Favorite Christmas Decorations

Already at the age of three, we began showing our copy of "A Christmas Story" to our grandsons during the weeks before the holidays, and the networks also contributed well, since it also appeared an additional two or three times on television too.  I never grow tired of watching it, because although the story--based on a novel--happens during the late 30's or sometime during the 40's, it reminds me of Christmas when I was young during the 50's.  It depicts simple times when Christmas seemed to pass on a turtle's pace, a time when stores didn't begin showing Santa Claus displays on Columbus Day. This year, we actually began seeing things on Labor Day.

The toys and the school in "A Christmas Story" remind me of my youth.  We also had the "old desks" with a hole in the upper right corner where an ink well once supplied students with black or blue stuff for their pens.  At least, I think that is what they were.  

A second decoration came from another children's show that first appeared during the 60's. They had multiple versions of the Rudolph story, but there were a couple of early ones that we prefer to see each year, and the decoration below displays characters from the film.  My grandchildren love this ornament too.

  

One video clip shows our two "favorite" ornaments that our grandchildren love, and the other one shows the many different articles of kitsch that we have purchased for grandchildren to see. The funny thing is the fact, that for the first time in many years, we didn't even get out our German nutcrackers and incense burners that are called "smoker men."   They have always been the things we enjoy having out, but there was no room.  

Surfing Santa

While in Boise during a late fall teaching seminar one weekend, Ann and I were in the mall.  We came upon this "Surfing Santa," which played an old Christmas song that The Beach Boys released in the 60's.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it and realized immediately where I would put it.

"Where will it go?" 

I didn't understand when Ann first said that to me.  "Just where in the house are you going to put this?"  My wife looked at me, her hands on her hips and shaking her head in unbelief at the thought of putting out one more thing during the holidays.  We already had fifteen German nutcrackers and incense burners that we often left in storage bins, because I couldn't find room for them during the holidays.

But this time I knew the perfect spot.

A new tradition began.  I used it at school at Rigby High every year before Christmas break, and then I brought it home.  I'm sure my students were tired of hearing the Wilson brothers do the Santa thing every day for weeks before Christmas.  But I never became tired of hearing it, and I loved playing it and listening to Christmas music occasionally too.

After retirement, I continued to use it every year, especially as my three grandchildren became older, and it became a favorite too. Jack and Tommy loved it, and this past year, Jack played it every time someone came to visit.  When he was only old enough to walk, he would coax for someone to lift him high enough to push the button to make Santa do the twist on the surf board.

This past Christmas, he played it at least ten times after I first put it out, and then he eventually limited himself to playing it three or four times a day.  I never grow tired of seeing his eyes sparkle every time the plastic Santa begins to dance, only regretting that Tommy and Anna weren't there to enjoy it too.

But those days of enjoying grandchildren at Christmas are almost over.  Tommy and Anna need to be home near their own toys during the holidays, and it is only a matter of time when Jack too will find more fun being home than with his Pop Pop and grandma, listening to ancient pop stars sing Christmas songs.

All Aboard The Christmas Train

When Jack and Tommy were almost three, we went to Sam's Club for a look at what was there for Christmas decorations.

It was a great Christmas that year.  It was Anna's first Christmas, and the boys were excited.  

On that visit to Sam's, there was a display of a large LGB style Bachmann train set. The boys were excited.  I was too.  

I slid it into the cart.  Jack rode inside the chrome shopping aide. "All aboard," he shouted all the way to the check stand.

Tommy insisted running at the side of the cart, so he could see the picture of the frontier train.  He had been inside it with Jack, but he had learned that we occasionally placed things into the cart and then put them back on the shelf.  The boys decided to monitor the situation, Jack from the inside and Tommy from the ground floor.  

"Toot, Toooooot!" Tommy imitated the whistle he imagined the train make on the packaging.  Both boys repeated their comments until we loaded the prize into the car outside the store.  

The next morning, I opened the box in the front room, where we planned to set up the tree.  Both boys were impossible, because they were so excited, and the only way I could keep them out of the train box was to have them sit on my back.  

It was a great Christmas with all the grandchildren home that year.  Cles and Leslie were the only ones who couldn't make the trip.  
The train became a holiday tradition.  It takes at least four hours to set it up correctly, but as soon as I have the connections perfect and the batteries installed, I start the train in motion.  It makes a chugging sound, and the headlamp shines in the darkness.  Batteries also light the passenger cars, when I engage them, but I usually avoid using it.  It's the paranoia about having the batteries rust and ruin the cars, so we only use them rarely.  Neither Jack nor Tommy really even notice when the lights are on, so at this point, we wait for a few years.  I turn them on only once on Christmas Eve and then quickly remove the batteries.
The engine and cars are classic, and it makes each Christmas fun.  This year was a first.  Ann and I would be watching television, and we could hear Jack play with the train, sending it on another trip around the tall tree surrounded by gifts.
The caboose is a classic Western piece.

It was fun to take a few tiny film clips of the actual train as it makes its loop around our tree in Christmas of 2008.  This was the night in January when we put all the decorations away.  This year was the first time we didn't get our nutcrackers and incense burners out for the holidays. The first clip is a classic, because Jack is playing some little instrument like a kazoo.  

We wanted it really quiet, but since he wants to make science fiction movies when he grows up, I think Jack was thinking that he was doing the musical score.

The second version has the best view of the train, and I don't think it includes the kazoo.

My Favorite Part Of Christmas

My earliest memory of Christmas was having a pinion pine in our front room, one as high as it was in breadth.  The family home on Bannock Street always had just a hint of sap on the ceiling after my dad and I lifted the tree into the house.  

In the fifties, we had tinsel icicles that I loved.  You could slip your feet across the carpeted floor for a few feet, and gently touch a sister's ear lobe.  It the dark you could actually see the spark.  I loved that.

But those days ended in the 60's, when we began using  the Electrolux vacuum cleaner to spray snow flock on the pinions, making an artificial layer of snow that coated the tree and replaced the smell of pine with a hint of ammonia.  It had been a long time since being around any small children, so I refused to associate the wondrous thing with a diaper.  With large lights of red, green and blue, it truly was something beautiful to see.

And then as soon as that seemed to be the way that everyone decorated their tree, everyone opted for the natural approach.  By then, I was in college.  The night my dad set up the tree, I returned home from college, went to an oral surgeon, and had four impacted wisdom teeth removed.  I sat in a chair for the lighting.

"Jonie, what do you think of the tree?" I gazed in a stupor with fat, swollen cheeks, my senses numbed by pain pills.

"What tree," I responded.  My dad told me the next day how they laughed.  That was just a few short weeks before I left for a two year mission to the Germany Central Mission.
I returned in 1974.  My dad was disappointed that I didn't return for Christmas.  Having stepped off the plane on January 9, 1974, I spent one weekend home, and I began classes at college, which was a partial disaster.  Similar to looking at a Christmas tree in a stupor two years before, I spoke with a slight German accent.  It took me a week before I could understand English in lectures.  
By mid February, Ann and I were engaged to be married, and within only a short time, I built the tree stand like I had seen my dad do in our garage on Bannock Street.  In those early years, my dad would help me lift the tree into the house, one touching the ceiling and as wide as it was tall.  They were beautiful trees.  And of course, it had to be a pinion.
My allergies were worse after returning home from the industrial area of Germany, where I lived for two years.  I began to notice that I became sick every year during the holidays, and magically, I recovered after taking the tree outside.  It was not many years before I noticed that my children shared that "illness."

We bought our first tree in 1990.  There was one more natural tree in Idaho Falls, but it was an Austrian Pine.  Finding a pinion was impossible.  The artificial tree lasted until Christmas of 2006, and by then it was well-worn.  We bought the current one in 2007.  
In the second year of having this new tree, we found that all children decorate trees the same way my own children did it.  All decorations appear in a tiny circle in one area.  We "ooh and aah" at their achievement, and after Jack went to sleep, we do the same thing we did when our own children decorated.  We rearrange everything.  But the process makes us smile at the memories of our own three children doing the same thing.  

The Lesson of Christmas Lights

The whole lighting thing was different this year and even hinted at the global economic situation. I had to call the yard care business after the day the installation was to have been completed.  They maintained that we had not submitted a check, even though that was not what they had said they would do in our contract.  I reminded them that we had received no bill, and that I always paid half when they placed the lights on the house.  We left for Disneyland just after that conversation, and they were to be installed when we returned.
It didn't happen.  I called them again.  And this time they promised to be there within a day.  It didn't happen either.  After another call, a person arrived for the check, although no lights had appeared.  I was beginning to regret having done business with them, and by then I had mentioned it at least twice--once over the phone and a second time in person when they appeared at my door, especially given the fact that we not only paid our bill on time, but we also did it early the previous year.
Finally, I heard the hammering one afternoon, and I felt better, until hours later when I went outside to see the 48 inch wreath that was to be at the top of the garage.  It was all of 12 inches. I called again.  They seemed to have forgotten, but I reminded them that I was looking at our contract that basically guaranteed specific requests for three years.  One basic point was that the wreath was a 48 inch wreath.  It took three calls to correct that, and they did the tree in the front yard incorrectly too.  Oh, and there was no discount that they originally promised that was to be five percent.  They forgot everything like that, but it was only a small amount in my opinion, so I let it go.
Eventually everything seemed to be alright.  We enjoyed the holiday lights and everything seemed fine.  Christmas came and went.  Ann took these pictures one evening after New Years, and according to the agreed time, the lights disappeared.  It was even a week after I unplugged them.  With the economic situation already a concern, everyone in the neighborhood darkened their lights at least several weeks early, and strangely as it seemed, I did the same thing.  I am after all the person who would light them every night until Valentine's Day.  

I actually even looked forward to their coming the next year.  We had forgotten the bad vibes we had from poor service, and I even began to dismiss their poor memory, because after all, the lights were pretty.

And then I noticed the rain gutter on the south side of my house.  I called them immediately.  They made a classic statement.

"Wasn't it already like that?"

I know that Santa Claus is on my roof on Christmas Eve on a yearly basis, but other than that, no one has been there since the installation of the gutter.  During the past summer, a subcontractor actually looked at it momentarily while we examined the vinyl siding on my house, but we looked at everything from the ground, and he never climbed to the roof, and given the fact that if I had been the one who slipped from the top of the cornice and caught myself on that thin patch of metal, not only would I have ripped the entire section down, but the University of Utah would have had seismic recordings of my hitting the ground.

It took four calls to get something done.  They showed up, and I go outside to see the repair. They told me that they would bend it back, so that it looked just like new.  I reminded them that unless it miraculously appeared as it had before the damage, I would not accept it.

It wasn't.  I went from my jovial, friendly self to angry, pissed off me.

I called the next morning.  

"Isn't it looking OK now?"  That was the owner's response.   

In spite of my anger, I was still nice but there was edge in my voice as I explained that it wasn't OK.  Two weeks passed.  I called one more time.  Another bill arrived, and this one had the stamp PAST DUE in bold red print.  

I was not friendly when I left the message, especially when I reminded them that since the middle name of their business was Quality, I expected nothing less.  They called Monday morning.

Nothing happened.  I called again.  This time I was rude when I left the message, and I received a call that finally made me feel better, but that was after I reminded them that I would never allow them on my place again, and I would take care of the repair and send them the bill before paying, just so we knew exactly where everyone stood.

Workers showed up the next morning.  I'm so glad that there are construction jobs for people who obviously have spent time in jail or prison are about to spend time in either one or both, because the two who came to do the repairs appeared to be qualified to do either one.  But they fixed the rain gutter, not as nicely as I would have liked, but at least there are no longer the imprints of two size 10 shoes in the light brown metal.

I don't think the Ward house will have Christmas lights next year, but it was fun while it lasted.

I Cried Once--When Wingers Removed The Patty Melt From Their Menu

When Annie Grins For A Picture . . .

Ann and I booked a cruise during the late 90's. At that time, someone from Florida called, offering us this incredible "free" cruise for just paying a minimal air fare and listening to a "presentation." It wasn't a big deal, because they said it was a "no pressure" thing that only would last an hour. We jumped at it. And when we found it was a Bahamas Cruise, it was even better.

Neither one of us had ever been to Florida, and the thought of sitting on a beach in the Caribbean was too much for us to comprehend. It was just too tempting. Besides, we thought we could say "no," because we never had trouble saying "no."  I remember both of us thinking that, although we never seemed to refuse talking to those callers repeatedly tempting us with yet another "deal."  And I notice that other people say the same thing, just before they buy a condo from a high pressure salesperson in a cheap sport jacket and a pair of white leather shoes.

We arrived in Orlando. The news had been filled with reports of foreign tourists shot by little Florida gangsters, who attempted to hijack expensive rental cars before brutally killing the driver and passengers, so I had a solution: a super idea. We rented this tiny Japanese compact that was almost too small for us and our luggage, and we knew how to pack, so you know that there was not a lot of room in that car.

The morning we were to drive to Cape Canaveral was one that affected me with a bit of nervousness. We had coins for the toll roads, and I began to worry about something I had not remembered to bring.  It was very warm that morning in late May or early June. The road bled black patches of tar in long strips on highways. It was a beautiful day.

Since leaving the car rental spot to get our "free"vehicle, I had continual trouble with our tiny import--a piece of automotive genius that no gangster would want, unless blind gangsters had somehow begun to discover a life of crime.  Letting out the clutch would not do the trick. You had to pop it after pushing down on the accelerator pedal so that it wouldn't stall.   I hit it, right on one of those tar patches on the highway.   Ann and I had our windows down and the sunroof completely exposed.   I heard the tires squeal, and in the mirror I could see white smoke form a tiny but beautiful white cloud that would have made me beam with pride at the age of 15. 

At my age, I didn't know what to do, so I just let my imagination roll with it. "Waaaawhoooooo!"  I howled loudly. Ann sank into her seat and covered her face with her hands.  A bus of Japanese tourists had just unloaded in front of our hotel.  They loved the show we did for them.   "Cowboys!" one shouted while pointing at us.  I have never seen so many cameras clicking at the same time, and in spite of the bright sun, their flashes popped repeatedly in the Florida sunshine.  We smiled because Ann and I knew were now famous in Asia, once again because of my notorious behavior.

During the first days at sea, Ann asked me to do her a favor, and she made me promise that I wouldn't say no before responding. "I really want to do this," she said.

As soon as I determined that it had nothing to do with a parachute and water skis, I decided there wasn't too much I would be afraid to do, so I consented.

"They're going to do some snorkeling in the Bahamas, and I really want to do this?"

I had been nervous about swimming in the ocean because of an experience I had while body surfing in California with one of my early German exchange groups. The tide was strong, so it was difficult to get back to the shore, and there was something even more ominous: a very large fish brushed my leg, a fish as large around as a good-sized telephone pole. 

Most people thought it was a dolphin whenever I related the story, and although I hoped that it was true, the event was still too close to the time when Jaws was a movie in theaters with at least three sequels. But I promised to go snorkeling with her on that day of the cruise, especially after Ann's eyes showed disgust when I began telling the story she referred to as the "damn" body surfing story.

"Let's sign up right now." She didn't let me even think twice about it, and she knew that if I put some coin on the deal, I wouldn't back out of the activity. Ann and I walked to the front desk.

At that time, I was swimming a mile per day five or six times a day at the pool in Idaho Falls. "So are you a good swimmer?" The young man at the counter on an upper deck of the ship was adding names to a list.  He looked at me when I hesitated.

"Well, I swim a little bit." Ann's face flushed.

The young man looked confused at my comment and Ann's reaction. "You meet me at the pool in 40 minutes, and we'll check it out to ensure that you can swim a bit." Ann walked silently ahead of me all the way back to the room. I could see her talking to herself."

"A little bit," she repeated every ten or twenty steps while shaking her head. By the time we returned to the room, I put on my swim suit, a T-shirt and we returned to this fifteen foot pool at the middle of the boat. Twenty people were there, all under the age of four.

The young man saw me and came over immediately. He had a serious look on his face, one that people wear when they are trying not to laugh loudly and uncontrollably.  Ann grinned broadly.

I cursed and began walking toward our cabin. "Where are you going," Ann said.

"I'm not going to make an ass out of myself."  People, sitting around the pool on cheap lawn chairs, stopped talking and stared at me in disbelief, because I actually said a bad word in front of the four-year-old children who were trying to pass the same swimming competency test. I walked quickly to the room, where I could make an ass out of myself privately.

I shut the door.  Suddenly there was a gentle knock. "Ann, I'm not going to embarrass myself with a whole herd of rug rats paddling about in the pool!"  There was another knock.

"Mr. Ward." I opened the door to see the young man standing there with a snorkel mask and fins in his hand. Ann looked over his shoulder at me, still grinning broadly. "Just come down to the pool. The children are all finished, and we will do this so no one will notice you at all."  The young man smiled politely.

I passed the test. Ann said something like, "Doesn't he get a Barney the Dinosaur sticker or something for doing well."  That was the only time I ever heard her laugh at her own joke. This time the steward laughed too.

We boarded a flat-bottomed boat the next day with forty people or more. We anchored about a hundred to two hundred meters offshore over a coral reef, and it was our turn to jump into the water.

Ann jumped in like they told her. There was this step, just like most motor boats have for water skiing. Instead of jumping in, I sat on it and slid into the water.  

It was always more about fear of sharks in the water than anything else. I knew I could swim.

In the beginning of the snorkeling deal, Ann caught me off guard. I thought she was swimming in for me to take a picture. She approached with hands outstretched, and I could hear this humming, faintly similar to the Jaws theme. Just after I took the first picture, she pulled my face mask enough to let water flood it. I cursed and stuck my head into the air and replaced my mask.

Ann did it three or four times, and then I finally decided enough was enough. They had given us little containers of fish food, and I had four or five around my neck. I could hear the Jaws theme, but this time I waited for the right moment.  I released three containers of fish food beneath Ann.  Hundreds of tiny yellow-striped and blue fish began a feeding frenzy. I could see my sweetie's arms and legs flailing at them as she swam away.

I did that two or three more times.  All was well with the world, and I was so proud of myself. 

We never returned the entire ninety minutes to two hours that everyone was in the water. After we finished snorkeling, the steward laughed again, and he really thought it was funny, when Ann told him about my swimming at least a mile daily.

There are a couple of things you have to know about my sweetie--sooner or later she gets to have the last laugh, and she never poses for a picture, unless she clowns around while doing it.  The picture at the right made me angry.  

We were near the city of Weimar in the former DDR or East Germany, and we were on this boat ride that was really beautiful.  I had this picture all set, and just as I took it, here is the pose she did for me, and she refused to let me take a single photograph of her.

When my Annie smiles for a picture, something is "up."

When we climbed back on board the boat to return us to the shore before getting back on the cruise ship, I walked around taking pictures.  People wouldn't look at me.  In fact, they swung their heads quickly, just like drill team dancers do when they perform at a basketball or football game.  And that's what they were doing here.  

People shunned me, and I began to feel self-conscious.  I looked at the back of the boat and took a picture of Ann.  She was the only one looking at me.  Everyone else looked somewhere to avoid a glimpse of me.

I should have known when Ann posed for the picture with "the grin."  

I walked to her, and she kept smiling broadly.   "What's wrong!" I was almost angry, because I felt silly, and I wanted to know what Ann thought was so funny.

"Feel your suit," she said.

I tapped the front of my swim trunks several times.  "No, feel your suit!" she repeated.   I did the same thing again.  Ann stood up, took my hand and placed it on my backside, where I felt nothing but bare skin.  There was at least a ten inch rip in the suit from my sliding into the water instead of jumping in like they told me to do.  People tried to ignore us while we talked about it.  No one laughed.

I worried for hours that I would have to see those people for rest of the trip, but I was wrong, because they never really were able to get a good look at my face.

Winter is for Children

I put this blog together, so my grandchildren would see that there was a time when their Pop Pop didn't call snow a bad name by referring to it as that white s@%t that's on the sidewalk and driveway again.  

There actually was  a time when my dad would take a long rope and tie it securely onto the bumper of our pick-up or car, and drive slowly while pulling me on a sled and several friends on their sleds too.  We could only do it when the roads were covered with a thick layer of packed snow, so I actually looked forward to that too, instead of cursing local city officials for not getting snow removed quickly.

And it was also a time when I went to work with my dad and grandfather.  My dad would bundle me up in boots and hat and this old plaid coat that was thick and warm.  We drove to what we called the hay lands, an area where farmers cut summer grasses, rich in timothy and sometimes a bit of clover, to feed cattle in winter when thick snow blanketed pastures.  It was here that I watched my dad and grandpa load a late 40's or early 50's two ton truck with a load of hay before taking it to an adjacent field where we fed our cattle.  In those days, we brought our cattle into Malad rather than driving to Snowville every day to feed them there.

The old way was safer and cheaper, but it was before farmers and ranchers had to live with laws requiring fees for each cow and calf and bull regarding brand inspection.  

While I am sure that it prevented some thefts of cattle, I have a difficult time thinking that cattle rustlers would transport loads during daytime hours.  Thieves never worry about being accommodating.  They never stop by the house of the brand inspector who lives on the highway just for fun either.  

And even my dad loved snow too.  The picture shows him bundled up for snow in a wooden box atop his own sled.  

I wish he were here to tell me if the picture was in the back of Great Grandpa Ward's place, because that is my best guess at this point, although some of the sheds look familiar to what we had on the ranch.

Even when I was older and in my 20's and 30's, I loved snow, because it was a time when we were able to ride a snow machine, and although we did it rarely with having to feed cattle every day, we still were able to do it occasionally.

The picture below is one of the early times when we participated in the sport.  My dad bought two green machines for a few hundred dollars per sled, something that would never happen today when enthusiasts pay as much for a snow machine as they do for a car.  It was a new sport at that time, a time when it was fun to do something with my dad besides the work we did every day.

The mountains around Malad were loaded with places to ride.  I think this picture shows a trail just above Jess Ward's ranch on the way to Powerhouse, although it may also have been the trip dad took to the cabin one year.  Tom Perry went with us, because dad was nervous that the snow on the roof would create problems.  

When we opened the door and entered, the entire inside of the cabin was coated with a layer of frost, just like what appears on car windows in winter.  We started a fire, and after a few hours, the inside was warm.  Riding the snow machines that year, however, was something that required thick coats and helmets with visors.  Even then we wore a bandana to cover our face, because hte daytime temperatures were never higher than 20 below zero.  We had to worry about wind chill, which explains why we dressed like we did.  

The beauty I found during those winter trips was incredible.  The mountains around Malad had beautiful places to ride too, and to this day, I will never understand why someone there doesn't groom trails for snow machines in winter and bike trails in summer.   At one time there was someone who groomed trails, but that was when everyone rode their snow machines in the mountains.  I don't think it happens as much now.  It became a rich man's sport with the advent of advanced technology that created massive snow machines with cooled engines.  The simple way is sometimes a better path.

Winter was a beautiful time there in my memory.  Everyone decorated yards and businesses for Christmas, and there was always a huge Christmas tree in the center of town.  The fifty or sixty foot tree was a traffic hazard and also a hassle for city police trying to catch teens who stole colored light bulbs, but it was still fun to have that tree there.  Now the town uses a smaller version in a parking lot, and I think it is also an artificial tree.  In years past, property owners would donate one overgrown pine in their own yard to be sacrificed by city officials wielding chain saws.

I wish that I could have been old enough to remember my grandpa feeding cattle with Great Grandpa Ward's team.  Now that would have been a sleigh ride to remember, although the work involved requiring loading that hay rack with a pitchfork was not an "E-ticket" ride at any Disney Park.  It was difficult work.

In spite of the work involved in feeding cattle, I still have fond memories of the evenings with my father.  The skies were sometimes crystal clear, and stars shone brightly in a massive ocean of cobalt blue.  I will never forget the sound of cattle feeding in the silence of winter.  The season in my memory was a beautiful place. 

Minnesota: A Place Meant for Summer Visits

Minnesota is a beautiful place to be during the summer.  There are rolling hills of corn.  Every farm you see is well-kept: the fences appear freshly painted, old machinery does not litter the landscape, homes and sheds are in order.  It basically looks like people, who take pride in what they do, live there.  

And even the summer storms are beautiful.  When it rains, it is torrential, and as bizarre as it seems to appear, I love to hear the echo of thunder that shakes windows in homes, although I hate the fact that tornadoes are a thing to worry about there too, which is something that we have here only rarely.  But even then, every time it rains, I look for things I am accustomed to here in the high plains desert, like the smell of ozone after a storm when everything smells so fresh and clean.  

In summer, you can hear the sounds of crickets and frogs.  To watch grandchildren pick them up and play with them is not only fun, but it also reminds me of my doing the same thing.  

The picture above is of Tommy and Anna at Soldier Park.  Minnesota recognizes that parks are important.  There are incredible examples of playground equipment that any child loves, designed to give them the exercise they need by getting out of the house and away from computer games and television.   

Jack loved the park there when he was with us in September of '08, but there were already changes in the air while we were there.  It began to be cool at night, requiring a light coat and closed windows at night.  In the heat of summer, the windows stay open, if not to create a little cool fresh air, then definitely a chance to hear those frogs and crickets.  The night sounds were still there in September.  You could, however, still notice the anticipation of winter.  

Driving became a NASCAR adventure with people who cut you off frequently or suddenly recognized that cars have horns to be used if someone waits a fraction of a second too long at a light or stop sign.   The smiles were no longer there, and no one seemed to be experiencing karma.  They seemed to know that winter was coming.  I don't blame them.  In fact, the reason I probably interpret the sadness is because it is how I feel in winter.

I can't imagine what they must feel.   Seeing the "white stuff" is depressing enough, so I have no way of understanding what they must feel when they find weeks where daytime temperatures rarely climb to plus degrees.  In fact, the only thing that helps we survive Idaho winter at this point in my life is knowing that somewhere in Minnesota, it is most likely forty or fifty below zero any given night in January and early February.

We will visit again this summer.  I will drive across Montana and Wyoming and the Dakotas, hoping to make it well in advance of the invasion by fans of Harley Davidson who feel that it is their constitutional right to bare themselves at any given moment.  There should be a law that forbids anyone over the age of 45 from acting stupid like that.   

But being in Minnesota means visiting Tommy and Anna with Jack, a rare time when we have all three grandchildren together in one place at one time.  It means driving to the Dutch restaurant to see the workers bring a plate with a European pancake smothered in berries while saying very loud, "Pfannekuchen."  Oh, they don't say it in German.  They use the Dutch word, although I am sure they mispronounce it badly, but it's still fun to be there and watch the fun and eat the great food.

A Loosely Based Interpretation of Star Wars By One Of My Annie's Gifted Students

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Just when I thought I had seen everything, I find something fun like this, and I have to share it on my blog.