Just turned 70

Making it to seventy was just checked off the to do list which is both a milestone and just another day. I’m feeling good. I still rollerblade, although I am extra cautious because, well, just because.

We, Linda and I, just painted the garage which needed painting badly. It took several days, I got sore. I hate chipping off old paint but did it anyway. Linda is much better at both chipping off old paint and painting than I am. I have to say, there is some pride in painting a garage “at our age”. The garage looks better.

Just had an egress window installed. Redoing the landscape around it didn’t take much time but like anything manual labor wise, when one is seventyish it must be done more carefully. I don’t go down to the ground and back up again on a whim. It’s a process.

Truth be told, when climbing up and down a ladder, stretching to paint a high spot or when getting up off the ground, I have a bit of minor bladder leakage. I know too much information. A prostate removed fourteen months ago gives me a new reality. I don’t make a big deal out of it. Just quietly go in, change undies and move on.

We used to volunteer at the local elementary school reading to or being read to by the kids. With COVID we are no longer able to do that. Although we chaperoned two field trips this spring for our fifth grade granddaughter’s class. Doing a little volunteer work is an easy way to give life a touch more meaning and purpose.

I do get more tired than I used to. Taking periodic naps is the cure. The doc said after kidney removal (cancer 2.5 years ago) that it is to be expected. They say, the remaining kidney, over time, gets better able to clean out the blood (which is the cause of the tired feeling) almost as well as two kidneys do. However, the doctor also said, remember you are also not a kid anymore.

The new 60 volt electric Toro lawn mower has exceeded my expectations. It cuts grass like a champ, is lighter and thus easier to maneuver than the gas models. As I’ve gotten older I’ve been able to pull the chord fast enough to start a gas mower but just barely. The maintenance on an electric mower is almost nothing. No more pulling the chord to start the motor. No more figuring how to bring it in for a tuneup.

There is no doubt I am more forgetful than I used to be, not that I was ever really good at remembering things. It also takes me a beat longer to process thoughts than it used to. Here is the deal though. I don’t think I’m losing my mind but I admit I am not as quick witted. On balance, not responding with a quick and witty retort means I am probably a nicer person now. Linda is tired of needing to tell me the same thing over and over again.

I’ve always been a bit of a loner, however during the COVID years, I’ve kind of gotten used to not spending too much time with others. I now get a bit overwhelmed when I’m in a large crowd with lots of stuff going on. Maybe it is just my age however no matter the cause, a mild anxiety in a crowd is how I feel.

Over the past year or so, we’ve gone to too many Celebration of Life ceremonies. Some passed at an age younger than I am and others were older. The older I get, accepting the fact that life is not forever gets easier.

All deaths are sad. Some deaths relieved horrendous pain. Most were not a surprise although a couple were shocking, out of the blue, never saw it coming. All will be missed. All left others with a hole, emptiness, in their life. It kind of saddens me that I’ve learned to accept death is a part of life. The older I get the more I realize, a celebration of life ceremony or funeral is not really for the deceased. They are really about helping the living adjust to the reality of living without the person who passed.

One last observation. The past couple years of the COVID pandemic has created a new normal. The norms for work, education, social interactions, entertainment, and so many other aspects of life have changed. As a retired senior citizen, most of my lifetime existed with the old set of norms. Since I am not working or in school, I have less of an opportunity to learn the new post pandemic norms.

For example, I have little knowledge of how a company’s workforce can be both mostly working remotely and still work cohesively. All I really know is as I observe how the younger generations, our children and their children, navigate their daily lives, it is very different than it was for me.

In the ancient days of like five years ago, gatherings took lots of planning and coordination. Planning our fathers day get together only took like three texts between us and our daughters, the last two of which were emojis. Just saying.

So I made it to seventy. At seventy, I still need to do stuff to give life meaning, just like it has been for every other age I’ve been. On balance, making it to seventy is way cool. Again, just saying.

I just looked it up. In 1952, the year I was born, life expectancy for males was 65.8 years old. Currently if you reach age seventy your life expectancy is 85.3.

The closer you look the more you see.

Electric Snowblower

My new “electric” Toro snowblower was delivered a couple days ago. Yes, I know it will likely be eight months before I’ll actually need to use the snowblower. However, I needed a new snowblower, so I got one. Now I don’t have to think about it.

This post is not about my new snowblower as such. This post is about why I went electric instead of gas powered.

About a week before I bought the new snowblower, I finished the second of two classes on Electric Vehicles at the University of MN’s College of Continuing and Professional Studies. Look up OLLI (Osher Lifelong Learning Institute) if you are interested in attending lectures on this and a wide variety of other topics.

The surprising thing I learned is: Convincing the skeptical to buy an electric vehicle is not the constraint on the electric vehicle market. Most vehicle manufacturers felt demand for electric vehicles would be slow to develop. They were wrong. The demand for electric vehicles here in the USA and around the world far exceeds the available supply of electric vehicles.

Here is the deal. Gas powered engines are about 30% efficient. Meaning about 30% of the energy produced in a gas fired engine actually propels the vehicle and the remaining 70% of the energy is wasted as heat off the engine through the radiator or out the tailpipe. Electric vehicles are about 85% to 90% efficient, meaning they are about three times as efficient as a gas vehicle.

A gas powered engine needs to be revved to about 2,000 RPM (revolutions per minute) to develop enough torque to move a vehicle forward and a transmission to move it faster. To reach maximum torque and horsepower a gas fired engine needs to be revved up to its maximum RPM.

Electric motors have maximum torque and horsepower at the first revolution. There is plenty of torque and horsepower available at any RPM. It’s weird, however as a practical matter, most electric cars are faster and more powerful than most gas cars.

To my street rod loving buddies one of the huge downsides of an electric vehicle is how quiet the engine is even at high speeds. There are no flames shooting out of the headers. The tires will still squeal because there is more torque than they can handle. Unfortunately, a very powerful electric motor is really not very impressive to look at.

Most people focus on how far an electric car can go on a single charge. Which means if you drive further than that, the vehicle will need to be recharged (half hour to an hour) to go further. Yes you might be charged for the charge however there are apps to show you where charging is available and more changing stations are being added all of the time.

However, on most days, we drive far less than the maximum distance an electric car can go on a single charge.

Think about your typical day of driving. You drive to work, to school, to the grocery store, to soccer practice, to pick up fast food, to the party, to drop off tickets for the dance recital, etc. and then you go home.

Once home, you plug your electric car in to recharge it. The next morning, repeat. Months will often go by without using a public changing station. You might go to a gas station to buy a lottery ticket but otherwise your frequent trips to fill up the tank will become a distant memory.

Did I mention electric cars don’t need the oil changed or a tune-up. There are no spark plugs or spark plug wires. No carburetor or fuel injectors. No gas tank or fuel pump. There are no tail pipes, no mufflers and no catalytic converters. There is no transmission so the transmission fluid never needs changing. No air filter needs changing. There is no alternator or starter. An electric motor is very simple as it has only one moving part, a turbine.

Most of the electric cars use a heat pump to warm the passenger compartment. They work well. Electric cars are popular in the cold northern European countries where climates are as cold as Minnesota. An electric vehicle can be warmed up while in a garage with the garage doors closed because there are no emissions from an electric vehicle.

Which brings me to the story of why I bought an electric snowblower. Between two cancer surgeries, a multi year pandemic and the severe labor shortage, my old snowblower did not get serviced for multiple years. Yes it is partially my own fault but not entirely. By the end of this winter the snowblower was in sad shape. It worked but only barely.

By coincidence I took the classes on electric vehicles. The instructor mentioned how the new electric snowblowers are very powerful, easy to maneuver and very low maintenance. They don’t need oil or draining the gas tank etc. Besides once you pick your brand, the battery packs can be used for lawn mowers and a wide variety of other power equipment.

We are in the first year of a three year lease on our Subaru Forester. Come 2024 the lease will be up and most vehicle manufacturers will be in full electric vehicle production. I suspect there will be an electric vehicle in my future.

Renewable energy is rapidly becoming the primary source of power in the USA. The average age of vehicles in America is 8.2 years and as a result month after month, the number of old vehicles being scrapped continues to increase. The number of charging stations is growing exponentially . There will likely be an electric vehicle in a lot of people’s future.

The closer you look the more you see.

Local art

There are three prints hanging on the walls of the den I am sitting in as I write this. All are limited editions purchased directly from the artist.

On my left is a winter scene. Five teenagers playing hockey on a frozen pond. Most of the painting is shades of white snow and ice. There are a few green evergreens, a couple fence posts and, of course, the hockey players, wearing sweaters, blue jeans and regular old gloves.
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In front of me is a fun, minimalist, depiction of Minnehaha Falls. The water is drawn as various shades of blue ribbons cascading down from just under the walking bridge over Minnehaha creek. The “splash” at the bottom is drawn as symmetrical curls and large drop shapes.

On my right is a print of a photo taken on Lake Superior during an intense October storm of a huge wave crashing against a cliff just south of Tettegouche state park. The intensity is amazing and terrifying.

There are more prints and even a couple originals decorating our walls throughout the house. Outside there are a couple whirligigs, a large iron peace sign, several mobiles, several other random pieces of art in the gardens and hanging in the trees.

Someday our daughters will have to figure out what to do with them. I doubt they will be actually valuable. We did not spend a lot on any of the pieces of art. For the record, framing the prints cost more than the prints. They are all here for our enjoyment, not as an investment.

As we have said hundreds of times, if you want to enjoy art you need to support the artists by buying some art. It is fun to walk through an art fair but it is a lot more fun to walk through an art fair with the intention of bringing one or more pieces of art home with you.

The pond hockey print was purchased from the artist at a pre-Christmas craft fair at Roseville Arena. It was years ago and I don’t remember the details. Maybe it was a present from Linda, however, in the back of my head I think I discussed with the artist how we both had spent part of our youth skating on a pond behind the houses we grew up in.

The Minnehaha Falls print was purchased at the Loring Park Art Fair. The artist is an art teacher and she used an iPad. She told me she used the iPad because her paints and brushes were in her school which was locked up during the early days of the pandemic. She had brought her kids to Minnehaha Park because they were going stir crazy and figured it was a good opportunity to learn to paint with an iPad.

The photo of the huge wave crashing against the cliff was displayed at Tettegouche state park along with some other photos by the photographer. I talked to the park staff person about how cool the photos being displayed were. She gave me the link to the artist’s website. He had many wonderful photos to choose from but the one that caught my eye was the one which made me feel I was standing in the middle of a huge storm, witnessing the raw, savage power of an October blizzard on Lake Superior. I bought a copy. I had a very nice email exchange with the artist about where and when the photo was taken.

The decision to buy a particular piece of art is sometimes a little serendipitous. We weren’t looking for something like this but, by golly, one of us and often both of us are moved enough by the piece that we want to own it.

Sometimes, maybe most often, we sort of have an idea of what we are looking for. It would be nice to have a nice bowl to put cashews in when we have people over. That spot over the chair could use a fun picture. The fountain needs something like a statue of a leaping frog by it.

When we buy art, we talk about how it makes us feel. Is that a feeling we would like to have in our home? Is it enough of a feeling to justify the cost? Are there other choices which would be better? Not all of the art brings a smile to my face, but all of them cause me to feel something.

Most of the time we talk with the artist about the piece and often a little bit about them. Where they are from, what influences them, and often we tell them a little bit about us. Purchasing art is a business transaction but it is also an opportunity to interact with someone passionate about life and art.

I’ve walked past all the art in and around our home hundreds of times. Mostly I just pass them by without thought or emotion. However, periodically one catches my eye and I feel myself emotionally react. Sometimes a slight smile, sometimes it is a deeper emotion. Always, it reminds me that life is more than just being alive.

God knows I am not an expert on art. I do not have an artistic bone in my body. From the time I was old enough to try, I couldn’t even stay inside the lines in a coloring book. I was a business analyst because my brain is wired to think in logical steps. Which is not to say I do not enjoy art. I really enjoy art.

The whirligigs spinning in the breeze look cool and are an amazing feat of engineering. The young couple who made them do less farming now. Between online sales and the art fairs, they said, life is good. They looked happy.

The closer you look the more you see.

Paperboy

Nowadays, “newspapers” are read on iPads. Around sixty years ago, for about four years, I delivered actual newspapers door to door.

My territory was on the western edge of Roseville. Basically east of Highway 280, south of Highway 36, west of Cleveland and north of Midland Hills Golf course. Looking back, I think the lessons learned were probably worth a lot more than the money earned.

The Sheldon’s had a big Saint Bernard. Every time I delivered the paper he would jump up on his hind legs, his front paws against the window and rattle the window with his big deep bark. He was friendly, fun and not at all scary.

One hot summer day the window was open. When I walked up to put the paper in the door, he was across the room and I had startled him. He came running hard, tail wagging, barking, right through the screen on the window, knocked me down and started to lick my face. Mrs Sheldon was mortified assuming I was being mauled. He just wanted to say hi.

Miss Holste, was younger than I am now but back then I thought of her as elderly. On my first day delivering to her she let me know precisely how she wanted her paper delivered. Do not cross over the grass, walk up the long driveway, go into the porch, put the paper on the bench so she does not have to bend over and pick it up. Please don’t walk on the lawn after delivering the paper. I did as she asked. She paid on time, we never really interacted much.

When I got into high school, I learned Miss Holste worked in the school library. Periodically we would nod in recognition, but I do not think we ever actually talked.

About a month before I was to graduate I got a note saying if I don’t return a book, I will not be allowed to graduate. I did not have the book, and I did not know what to do so I did what kids like me do, nothing.

About a week before graduation, I got called out of a class and told to see Miss Holste in the library. She asked if I had the book. I said no. She looked me square in the eyes then tore up the piece of paper she was holding and said don’t worry about it, you were a good paperboy.

Every two weeks, I would go to each of my customers and collect. There were always a couple customers who were on vacation or who would ask if I would come at the end of the week after they got paid.

Along my route lived some wealthy people who were always the worst to collect from. In hindsight, they were probably just very busy people. When I finally connected with them, a couple of them would complain bitterly and threaten not to pay saying they did not get a paper or that the paper was not delivered properly. They would eventually pay but often several weeks late.

Let me just say this. If you habitually try to screw with a young boy by not paying in a timely manner and complaining about it when you do pay, come Halloween, you should not be surprised that your house was randomly egged and your pumpkins smashed.

On one occasion, I delivered the paper the morning after Halloween, the police were there getting hollered at for not properly protecting the good citizens of Roseville. I just delivered the paper and went to the next house.

The newspapers were delivered to the northeast corner of the intersection of Highway 280 and County Road B. From my house the quickest way there was to walk over a large hill, which was the fairway of the second hole of Midland Hills golf course. Looking northwest across the intersection up another hill, is Sunset Memorial Cemetery.

It is Sunday Easter Morning. The Sunday Papers came in two bundles. One was news and the other was everything else. I’m up before dawn, at the intersection putting the “everything else section” into the “news section” and then putting it into my paper delivery bag. There were no cars around, no people around, it was quiet and sort of peaceful.

At exactly dawn, as clear as a bell, several trumpets sounded followed by a very large and loud choir singing the “Hallelujah Chorus,” from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah. It was like a sound from heaven. Stunning. Moving. I assume there was a religious service at the cemetery three blocks away. From where I stood it sounded like they were right in front of me. It still gives me the chills just thinking about it.

Being a paperboy was not easy. You deliver every day. In Minnesota, it gets hot, cold, rainy, snowy, windy, humid and like a postman, it doesn’t matter, you were expected to deliver the paper every day, on time. On the plus side, unlike most of my friends that age, I had spending money. I bought a really cool, purple, Schwinn Varsity ten speed bike with my own money.

Delivering papers day after day, month after month you come to see and understand a certain reality about the people. On a very cold, blustery winter day, some people will insist you come in to warm up before continuing your route, some will complain you are late but most people do neither.

On any given day, over the length of your route you might well hear people shouting in anger at each other and other people being joyous and happy. Mostly though day in and day out people are friendly but are just going about their day doing the best they can to do the best they can.

As a paperboy, I was a kid who had interacted with doctors, lawyers, mechanics, teachers, librarians, nurses, dentists, professors, a bank president, an accountant, several small business owners and like fifty other adults who lived around where I grew up.

The closer you look the more you see.

Not stupid

The list of stupid things I’ve done and the resulting lessons learned is long and varied. The point being, not stupid, just learning my lessons.

We were married but pre kids. We bought a Dodge Aspen station wagon on a cold day in the middle of winter. Do you want air conditioning? Nope, never had AC before, don’t need it now. Six months later, mid-July, road trip to the Black Hills then down the Rocky Mountains to Colorado Springs and then home. Ninety-five degrees. AC sure would have been nice.

Per Merrriam / Websters dictionary, stupid means: ”having or showing a lack of ability to learn and understand things”. Technically, saying no to air conditioning saved a couple bucks on the monthly payment but ended up as a lesson learned from a mistake made. All of our cars since then have had air conditioning.

We all sometimes say or do things which could be called stupid. None of us are perfect. If we learn from our mistakes, we are of course, not actually stupid. So, next time someone calls you stupid, let them know you were maybe wrong but you will learn from your mistakes. Maybe to emphasize the point, say something mature like; “I know you are but what am I”. That’ll teach um.

Calling someone stupid is a harsh insult. It is one thing to tell someone they are wrong. Tommy you are wrong, two plus two does not equal five. It is a whole other thing to tell a person they are stupid. Tommy you are stupid because two plus two does not equal five. Telling Tommy he is stupid implies Tommy lacks the ability to learn that 2 + 2 = 22. (inside joke only my daughters are likely to understand)

Yes I’m sure I’ve called a person stupid in my life but it is an insult I try to not use. First off it is never literally true. Virtually everyone has the ability to learn and understand. Yes, some learn faster than others. Yes, some lessons require a background which some of us do not have. Trying to teach me to knit is hopeless.

When the stupid jerk flew past me on the freeway, my car windows were closed and he was several blocks away by the time I called him a stupid jerk. The risk of him knowing I insulted him was almost nil. I’m not sure it is actually insulting someone when they cannot possibly hear the insult. That said, whether or not he heard me, objectively I did no good by calling him stupid.

I looked it up. Here is the real problem with driving recklessly. “Reckless driving carries with it a substantially increased accident risk. Traveling at excessive speeds requires a much faster response time and can lead to significantly greater injuries to you and others, if you do have an accident. Not only that, reckless driving can carry other severe penalties. Tickets and fines.”

We all hope the reckless drivers learn to drive less recklessly. Calling them stupid as they fly past is not an effective strategy to getting him to stop recklessly swerving in and out of traffic. The more intelligent strategy would be to treat the incident as a reminder to ourselves to drive safely. Being upset with the stupid jerk makes you a less safe driver because you were upset instead of focusing on your own driving.

I know what offsides means in hockey and you’d think most hockey referees would also know. Which is why it is so baffling that over the years, referees often miss offsides calls against the other team and call unwarranted offsides on the team I support. For the record I do not think these referees are stupid. More likely they are diabolical geniuses with a personal grudge against me.

Remember the childhood maxim, I’m rubber you’re glue, your words bounce off me and stick to you. Those who insult a person by calling them stupid come dangerously close to proving the maxim true. If Timmy calls Tommy stupid, Timmy is publicly stating something which is, in fact wrong. Which is not a bright thing to do.

When we learn from our experiences, by definition we are not stupid. Most everyone learns from their experiences so like nobody is actually stupid. However, in the real world, it is common for people to insult others by calling them stupid.

Kidding aside, psychologically there are two basic problems with being called stupid. We all live in a social hierarchy. Labeling a person as stupid, in a sense demotes them within the hierarchy or even makes them feel like an outcast from the group. Which is bad. In addition, calling someone stupid can diminish their self-respect.

Feeling good about yourself and feeling supported by others is like a basic human need. Being called stupid hurts both.

For example, Tommy sits in the back of the classroom drawing as he always does. The teacher asks him what Shakespeare meant when he wrote: ‘Now is the winter of our discontent’ and Tommy quietly says Shakespeare must not like winter.

When Timmy turns to Tommy and calls him stupid, it hurts Tommy’s self-esteem and his standing in the class. Tommy decides he should just shut up and keep his head down instead of showing the teacher the drawing he was making of a person looking from a bleak winter scene into a sublime spring scene. Which would have been actually close to genius.

Insulting people is rarely a good strategy and most often backfires. Do unto others as we wish they do unto you. If I am doing something wrong, quietly remind me about what is right, don’t diminish me. I will try to do the same for you.

So here is the game I used to play with my young daughters. I’d ask what is 2 + 2? If they answered 4. I would shake my head and say, nope it is 22. If they answered 22, I would say nope the answer is 4. It was a fun (for me) way to help them understand there are most often, multiple correct answers to most questions. Even basic ones. Which, I think is not stupid.

The closer you look the more you will see.

Perspective

“The difference between a boulder and a pebble is perspective.  The rock may be a pebble to a human however, the same rock is a boulder from the perspective of an ant.”  This is one of my “deep thoughts” contained in an old file I found in a folder I created a couple years before I retired.  

Prior to retiring, I knew I wanted to do some writing. The question was, what should I write about?  Coming up with topics was not my concern.  The question for me was about the underlying purpose of my writing. It actually took months to figure it out.  Admittedly my success in meeting my purpose has been mixed. For the record: I want my writing to be about multiple perspectives on any given topic.    

Physically, a rock is what it is. It is the size and the weight it is.  A rock exists where and how it exists.  However, whether that rock is a pebble or a boulder depends on your point of view.  

We might think about the rock as being big, heavy, small, light, pretty, colorful, dull, shiny, interesting, helpful, harmful, calming, valuable, worthless, exciting, unique and the like. However, the actual rock is just a rock. All of these other attributes are more about our perspective than they are about the rock.   

The symbolism of a rock on an engagement / wedding ring includes love and signals the wearer is committed to another.  The inference of that rock includes the idea that this person is or will be legally hitched to another for purposes of things like healthcare coverage. 

A diamond on a wedding ring might cost several thousands of dollars but cubic zirconium engagement rings cost less than fifty dollars on Amazon. Pretty much only experts closely examining the rock can tell the difference between the diamond rock and the rock made out of cubic zirconia. 

The point here is not about marriage, diamonds or pebbles or boulders.  My actual point is that the rock is what it is, yet, most often, our perception of the rock is about what it represents.  This concept is true of most things we interact with.  It is not the actual thing which is important, rather most often, importance is about what the thing represents.  

The boulder represents a substantial object and a pebble something one just steps on or over.  A diamond represents commitment and love. Does a much less expensive rock which looks very much like a diamond represent less love or less commitment?

My dad was a stonemason.  I saw him on many occasions hold a field stone in one hand, spin it around until he lined up the grain of the stone.  He would then hit the stone firmly once or twice with a large hammer and the stone would spit in half. At the age of like nine or ten I would pound on a stone dozens of times and never even come close to making even a mark, let alone splitting it. 

Dad passed away when I was eighteen. Periodically over the years I run across some of the stone work he did.  Once we stopped at a garage sale and the house had a split fieldstone front which was my dad’s work. There is still a small section of his work on Rosedale mall. If you know where to look, you will see some of his work on the U of MN campus mall which is one of the reasons I love the U of MN campus so much.   To me these rocks mean something very different than I would guess they do for most other people.  Depending on your perspective a rock is not just a rock.

In Minnesota the prevailing winds blow from the northwest to the south east.  Which means, quite often, the east / southeast shore of a lake will be sandy. As an aside, the west / northwest shore is most often not sandy.  The wind causes waves to crash on the east shore and the crashing waves push the rocks against each other.  Very slowly the rocks hitting each other, grinds the rocks into sand. Each grain of sand is a small rock chipped off a bigger rock.

Natural diamonds take millions of years to form. Cubic zirconium takes several days to create. Sand is created over many hundreds of thousands of years. Actually, any given grain of sand is not only older than you are, it was probably created prior to the existence of the human race. 

A grain of sand might well be a boulder from the perspective of microscopic organisms and yet from the perspective of an ant it is just something they step over or on.  For humans the sand might be a beautiful beach or something to be swept off our floors.  Sand is what it is but what we think about the sand depends on your perspective. 

In our living room sitting in front of our fireplace is a stone cut into the shape of a heart.  It was cut by my father probably sixty to seventy years ago for a neighbor.  Several years ago when that neighbor was moving into a senior care facility out west where her kids live, she left it on our doorstep with a note that she wanted me to have it.  It is just a rock but my gosh it is certainly not just a rock to me.

This post uses rocks as a tool to discuss perspectives. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the obvious. From the perspective of a rock, for a very short period during their existence, humans interacted with them and in the giant scheme of things, that interaction was probably not very significant.  

The closer you look the more you see. 

I don’t drink much

Once in a while, out to dinner at a “nice” place, I will order a Margarita. More precisely, far less than half of the time, when we go out to a nice place to have dinner, which is not that often, I’ll have an alcoholic drink. I just don’t drink much.

Probably, I average around a dozen or so adult beverages spread out over a year. Not evenly spaced, one month I might have a couple adult beverages, not in the same night of course, and then not have another for several months. On average, I just don’t drink much.

As a kid, I was allowed sips of what the adults around me were having. From then until this day, in my opinion, wine and beer taste bad. Yes’ I’ve tasted both beer and wine over the years since then and they are just as foul tasting as they were when I was a kid.

Linda would just love it if I liked wine. Admittedly, it would be lovely to share wine with her. Yet, to me, wine tastes bitter and beer tastes worse. Not liking the taste is not the only reason I don’t drink much.

On June 1, 1973 the legal drinking age in Minnesota was lowered from 21 to 18. I was, at the time, nineteen, working as a pizza cook at Cicero’s Pizza in Har Mar Mall. Several of my coworkers and myself were suddenly legal, we would go across the parking lot to the Ground Round for a drink after work.

I would order a whiskey and seven-up. After hours in front of a pizza oven I would be thirsty, pretty much I just drank that whiskey-seven down. There was conversation, fun, stories were told, I’d order another. Having a good time and I would order another. Repeat. They closed at 1:00 am.

One night, I decided to put the stir sticks from my drinks into my shirt pocket. The next morning I had like seven stir sticks in my pocket. I would have told you I had three drinks, not seven.

Maybe somebody put a couple extra stir sticks in my pocket, so I repeated this experiment several times. We only drank from 11:30 to 1:00 AM, an hour and a half. I was drinking something like one drink every fifteen – twenty minutes. Consistently I had a couple more stir sticks than I had intended to have drinks.

In my head, the lesson of the stir sticks was about me lacking the self control to limit my drinking. Two drinks in an hour and a half might be reasonable. Consistently drinking two or three times that and not realizing you had, is not something to be proud of.

By nineteen I’d seen some young men do bad stuff while drunk. As I’ve aged I’ve come to know people, men and women, of all ages often do bad things while drunk. My guess is almost every adult personally has seen bad stuff happen resulting from a person being drunk.

Here I am, fifty plus years later. I never quit drinking altogether. I have been drunk a couple times over the decades but only a couple. For example, on a four day trip to Mexico like thirty-five years ago, I drank a lot. There is no way I would have joined the conga line at Senor Frogs if I wasn’t drunk. However the bottom line is, I don’t drink much.

I was nineteen when I decided not to drink much. Whether or not I would have become an alcoholic had I not decided to not drink much is sort of academic at this point. Yet, I do not regret my decision to voluntarily not to drink much.

That said, I’ve never had a drinking buddy let alone a group of drinking buddies. Contacting some guys to meet at a bar is something I’ve never done. Going to a bar to watch a game is just not on my radar. I’ve never hung out at a VFW or the like. No bartender has ever asked me if I want my usual.

I did go to “office get togethers” at bars. I’d order a mixed drink, and if others were having multiple drinks, I made it a Sprite or ginger ale. Me not drinking more than one was often noted but, I think, in a positive way, as me being someone being under control.

Those of us who don’t drink much notice there are lots of opportunities to drink: bars, restaurants, music venues, sports venues, breweries, wineries, distilleries and the like. Most every town has at least one bar. Book clubs, softball leagues, reunions, family gatherings and so much more all include a drinking component. Drinking is a big part of our economy and actually also our social fabric.

We all make choices in our lives. Not drinking much is a choice I made long ago. Sometimes I think if I would have drank more, my life would have been a bit more fun. Drinking lowers some inhibitions and sometimes a little less inhibition is a good thing.

I wish there was an easier, maybe more convenient way to spend time with buddies just chatting about whatever, which did not include drinking. Did I mention I don’t like coffee either. Although, lately I’ve been going out to breakfast with a buddy here and there. So there is hope for social contact without drinking.

Over the years, I occasionally get tempted to go to a bar, order a whiskey and seven while I tell tales of all of the brave and brilliant things I’ve done. Everyone would laugh at the clever way I told stories and jokes. It might be fun.

Ever notice the tales told by sober people somehow are a bit less funny, brave or brilliant. That describes me pretty well. A bit less funny, brave or brilliant.

The closer you look the more you see.

Raking up the leaves

A couple days after I was born, June 26, 1952, I was brought to the modest brick house where I lived until I went off to college in September of 1970. Oh the stories I could tell about all of the things we did growing up in and around our brick house.

Other than a couple months in a dorm room and a couple months sharing an apartment with my buddy Harry, I lived in that brick house for twenty-two years until Linda and I got married on September 14, 1974.

We started our married life living in an apartment for a couple months. Then we rented a small cabin on the southeast corner of Lake Owasso. It was tiny, fun, but we needed some more space. So after about a year or so we left the cabin for an apartment for a year and from there we bought a brick house just two blocks east of Como Lake in St Paul MN in 1978 and have lived here since.

Both the house I grew up in and the house, 3.6 miles away, I’ve lived in for the past forty-three years were solid brick houses, built within a year or so of each other. I’ve lived in a brick house for sixty-seven of my sixty-nine year life.

The house I grew up in was two stories and was built by my bricklayer father and his brother. The house I live in now is a rambler. It is the house the developer of the subdivision built for him and his family. I was told his kids grew up in this house.

This story is really not about the brick houses I lived in. This story is about raking the leaves. However, to understand the point I want to make, it is necessary to understand my attachment to our house.

First off it is centrally located. The Guthrie, Gopher sport venues, Wild hockey, Theatre Latte’ Da, St Paul Saints, MN Twins, Mpls Institute of Arts, MN United Soccer, The Science Museum and more are all within ten miles of easy driving to our house. Admittedly Mystic Lake Casino or Treasure Island are both about a forty-five minute drive but I’m really not into casinos so that does not matter too much.

Linda is very attached to both a knitting group and book club group in our neighborhood. She and her neighborhood lady friends are constantly in communication and go to various events such as museums, art galleries, dinners out, patio gatherings, and the like.

We live on a one block long street that comes to a T on both ends. Although we get some traffic because there is a daycare on our block, generally it is just at pick up / drop off times and they are being careful because they are carrying kids.

We have sidewalks. Sure they need to be shoveled but year around we have a safe place to walk outside. There are lots of different routes we take on our walks. Going for a walk in the neighborhood is something we do individually or together almost every day.

Como lake and the pavilion with its small cafe, plays and concerts is just a fifteen minute walk away. Conny’s ice cream shop is just three blocks away also.

Neighbors walk their dogs so if you are in the front yard there is ample opportunity to talk to the neighbors or not. It’s a friendly place. Our driveway and the next-door neighbors driveway are side by side and attached. We get along great with them and it is amazing how convenient it can be to once in a while use a double-wide driveway.

Our yard is very small. Mowing the lawn takes about twenty minutes. In the front we have a patio and very nice landscaping. In the back, we have a large deck, flower bed, two giant pine trees and a rain garden. So there really is not that much lawn to mow. Plus our yard looks nice, inviting yet feels secure and comfortable.

I snowblow both ours and our neighbors driveway whenever it snows. So far I actually like doing the snow blowing. I feel useful and it is good exercise. When I was recovering from my kidney surgery two different neighbors blew out my driveway for me. It is nice to have nice neighbors. There will come a time when we hire the person who does lawn and snow maintenance for about a dozen people in our area.

Since I’ve retired we systematically repainted all of our rooms and replaced virtually all of the furnishings. The kids’ old bedrooms have been repurposed into an office and into a room we call “the nook”. Our brick house is comfortable and fits our needs very well.

So anyway this story is about raking the leaves. The truth is I no longer actually rake the leaves. I use a leaf blower / leaf vac and / or the lawn mower to pick up my leaves, put them into bins and take them to the Ramsey County compost site which is less than two miles from our brick house.

By the way, our brick house is low maintenance. Homes take maintenance and our brick house is no exception. However the amount of maintenance is relatively low.

So anyway, periodically I’m asked if I’ve thought about moving into multi-unit housing so I no longer need to deal with raking the leaves each fall. Admittedly, this fall I’ve picked up the leaves and brought them to the compost site at least six times. I certainly do understand why people are happy to not rake the leaves each fall.

Which is why I decided to write this story which is about even though I still need to pick up the leaves, I am not ready to move out of our house.

The closer you look, the more you see.

Just saying

Irritating my sister by pulling her hair was actually the point. The fact my sister screamed and upset everyone was on my sister for being irritating in the first place. When mom said I should know better, it confused me. Moms sometimes seem more interested in keeping the peace than dealing with their irritating daughters. Just saying.

I’m not a paranoid schizophrenic axe murderer. I own an axe but have not actually used it for years. I am neither paranoid or schizophrenic. In fact, I am reasonably sane. However, I think the sanity of most of the rest of humanity is debatable. Ever wonder how many people you’ve met are actually paranoid schizophrenic axe murderers. Again, just saying.

Reality – noun – the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.

For the record. The sun does not actually rise every morning, the earth rotates. In fact, it rotates once every 23 hours 56 minutes 4.091 seconds. Most people actually get enough Vitamin C from their diet, Supplemental Vitamin C most often does no good and in extreme can do harm. Eskimo tribes, such as the Inuit and Aleut, do not have a disproportionate number of words representing snow in their languages. Once again, just saying.

The employees at coffee shops are almost always nice to you which makes getting a beverage a pleasant experience. Does it matter whether they were sincerely nice or if being nice is a ploy to make more tips. Feeling negative because you question their motive is on you, not them. Of course they want to make more tips. Wanting more tips and being willing to be nice to do so is an honorable, good enough reason to be nice. Just saying.

It is human nature to want to belong to a group. However, in fact, we are all unique individuals with individual differences from every other individual. No two people have the exact same circumstances, same beliefs, same opinions, same background, same interests and you get the idea. “They” are never all alike. “We” are never all alike either. Just saying.

We all do stupid stuff. It’s a wonder any of us survive our own stupidity. On the other hand, periodically most of us have also done some rather clever things. People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Sometimes it’s best to not say anything about other people’s current position on the genius / idiot scale. Think about that, just saying.

Beer and wine taste terrible to me. I do not like them. I like root beer. The 1919 root beer served at the Minnesota State Fair from a tap is the best. No question. When I go to a restaurant and ask for a root beer I get served a wide variety of brands. I’ve tasted dozens of different brands of root beer. Never had one I thought was bad. It’s kind of fun to taste and comment on root beer while all of the wine drinkers comment about body, and hints of. Ice cold A & W root beer from a can is the standard to beat. Just saying.

ESPN estimates there are about 160 million fans of American football. There are said to be four billion soccer fans in the world. Golf, tennis, volleyball, hockey, and several other sports each actually have more fans than American football does. It bothers me that the playing of a football game almost always results in a player being hurt bad enough to see a specialist. I wonder about the ratio of fans that watch a sport because they love the sport compared to the number who mostly watch the sport because it will give them something to talk about with friends and coworkers. Just saying.

The music of the late sixties and early seventies is the music of my teen years and thus the best music, period. Sure there is good music from other periods. Not universally but more often than not, the music of their own teen years is the music most people think is the best. People who were teens in other periods are wrong, of course, it is only the music from my teen years that is actually the best. The song “The Boxer ” by Simon and Garfunkel released in 1969 spoke deeply to a 17 year old me. Just saying.

I do not have any tattoos or piercings. I have never dyed my hair. Unless they are extreme, tattoos, piercings, wild hair color and the like seem to no longer label the person as a weirdo. I wonder if this is because over the past decade, in person interactions between people have been reduced as virtual interactions have increased. Standing out in a virtual crowd might be easier with bright green hair. I mean the person with the tattoos, piercings and dyed hair still might be a weirdo for other reasons. For example they might think the music of the 80’s is the best. Just saying.

Who am I to judge others? Well, I’ve lived a long time. I’ve witnessed lots of people’s future results from their past practices. I’ve seen the difference in results between being a nice person and being a jerk. I’ve seen ample evidence of idiots often living long full lives never even aware they were an idiot. The Boxer is still a great song. Soccer is fun to watch. Just saying.

For the record, I don’t like coffee. Hot chocolate is my coffee shop’s beverage. I actually like most people I meet. Gopher Women’s hockey is the sport I like to watch the most. Maybe the world would be a better place if we all treated each other as coffee shop employees treat us. Just saying.

The closer you look the more you see.

Beer, drugs and breaking into cars

These stories are from my teen years. I’m sixty-nine years old, thus, these stories happened fifty to fifty-three years ago. They are true to the best of my memory. The only question is, how good my memory is.

I was nineteen years old, it had been a long summer working more than full time as a cook at Cicero’s Pizza during the summer of 1971. It was about nine-oclock on a Saturday night. The work schedule was posted for the next week and me and another cook, Ron, were not scheduled to work again until Tuesday afternoon. What will we do with all the time, turned into let’s do a road trip. turned into let’s go to Colorado to buy Coors beer for anyone who wants some.

We took paid up front orders from waitresses, bartenders, the manager and a couple customers. Called home at ten to say I’d be back by Tuesday. Stopped home for a change of clothes and left for Colorado at about one A.M Sunday morning.

Drove all night, arrived in Colorado Sunday mid-morning only to discover you could not buy beer in Colorado on a Sunday. Ron knew a couple friends of his older sister who set up Country Kitchen restaurants and were in Colorado Springs. We drove to Colorado Springs, found the Country Kitchen, met the girls who were actually young adults and not at all interested in kids like us. However, they took us to some kind of fair and later let us use one of their hotel rooms.

Monday morning we got up, thanked them and headed to a local liquor store. Asked for something like twenty-two cases of Coors, they didn’t even blink. We paid and they helped us load them into the car. Yep, the legal age to buy was twenty-one and I am pretty sure they knew we were not twenty-one but I am positive they did not care. We got back home very late Monday night / early Tuesday morning. Brought the beer into work with us on Tuesday afternoon. The Smokey and the Bandit movie was made several years after this trip.

I had friends that did drugs in high school. I didn’t do drugs. Linda and I went on a double date to the Shrine Circus with a friend named John and a girl who’s name I can’t remember. John did some LSD before going to the Circus. He really enjoyed the bright colors and the music and the fancy costumes. He told us during the entire duration of the Circus in a very loud voice how much he enjoyed the experience with phrases like, “wow, man look at the colors floating in the air man, it’s just far out man, this is the greatest man.” You get the idea. Linda and I enjoyed watching him really enjoy the circus.

This is the true story of how Linda and I met. I was a senior in high school and wanted to go on a date that weekend. I went into my Speech class, sat down and asked the cute girl, whom I had never met, sitting directly across the aisle, if she wanted to go to a hockey game a couple days later. She said yes. That day, a couple minutes after I asked her, I had to give a speech on, as I recall, how to do something. My speech was on how to break into a car. Although I have broken into many dozen cars please know I never stole anything from any car I broke into.

The story of how I learned to break into cars. My brother was three years older than I was. I went to Donnybrook raceway for a weekend of watching races with him and a couple of his friends. There was a bar on a lake just north of Brainerd. I can’t remember the name of it but it had a very large parking lot with hundreds of cars in it and a very loud band and I was under age and a friend of my brother was a recovered alcoholic and thought it best he not go into the bar. So we sat on the hood of the car in the parking lot chatting.

Several minutes into the conversation he says to me he says, “Do you want to learn how to break into cars?”. And I said, “Sure, but I don’t want to steal anything?” Or something like that. The next thing I know he goes to the car next to our car and breaks off a windshield wiper. Takes off the wiper blade leaving a relatively thin strip of metal about sixteen inches long with a notch on one end.

He then inserts the thin strip of metal along the driver’s side window about four or five inches in front of the lock. He twists the metal strip just a bit and slowly lifts up. As he does the notch grabs the wire in the door that is connected to the door lock and unlocks the door. He shows me this on about four or five cars. I then take my turn. I’m clumsy at first but after some encouragement and instruction I get the hang of it. We probably unlocked about thirty or more cars until he was satisfied with my abilities.

About a year later I worked at a superette/gas station which used to be in the north parking lot of Har Mar Mall. A lady locks her keys in her Cadillac and asks if I can help. I grab a wire coat hanger, stick it in along the window, lift the wire and the lock unlocks. It took me less than twenty seconds to unlock her car. She wanted to call the police, but the manager told her to thank me instead.

FYI. I don’t know if Linda was a hockey fan then however we’ve been to and enjoyed hundreds of hockey games together over the years.

The closer you look the more you see.