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.

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.

“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. 

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.

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.

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.

The hike to the Devil’s Kettle falls didn’t kill me. Me saying, “This hike will be the death of me” was hyperbolic. I’m not a kid, climbing down thirteen stories of uneven steps littered with sand, rocks and roots to get to the place you cross the river was a tough challenge. Then climbing up seven or eight stories of uneven steps littered with sand, rocks and roots to get up the other side of the gorge to the observation area slightly above the falls level was, well, also a tough challenge.

The Devil’s Kettle is a unique waterfall on the Brule River in Judge C.R. Magney State Park. The river splits right before the falls and about half the water goes over the falls and the other half goes down a hole never to be seen again. Throw a stick into the kettle and it will not be seen again.

Seeing the Devil’s Kettle was worth the hike but to be honest, persevering through the challenge of the hike itself was just as worth the hike. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people have successfully not died making the one mile long trek from the parking lot to the Devil’s Kettle falls. Those stairs are challenging but once we made it back from there, we felt we had accomplished something beyond our norm.

The sound and sight of water in a stream or river, dropping and churning, for me, personifies the majesty of nature’s power and glory. It’s beautiful, exciting and feels dangerous while somehow also being calming and, well, way cool. There is, for me, a sense of inner peace every time I am close to rushing water.

If I’m being honest, I get the same sense of inner peace looking down a river valley watching the river wind its way out of sight or even standing on the edge of a small pond. I love looking across a peaceful lake as well as watching the waves pound the shoreline of a lake on a windy day.

It has been my experience that virtually all Minnesota state parks have water features. We are in fact the land of well over ten thousand lakes and countless miles of shoreline. The source of the mighty Mississippi is easily waded across in Itasca State Park.

Walk east for a half mile from the visitor center in Fort Snelling State Park to stand at the exact point where the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers converge. Be careful, the current there can be quite strong. I have fond memories of taking my granddaughters along this path several times. I caught my youngest granddaughter (about five years old at the time) just before she almost cartwheeled (intentionally) into the river.

In Crow Wing State Park just south of Brainerd, MN, the Mississippi River is not yet the majestic “old man river” it will become downstream, yet the views of the Mississippi River as you hike the path alongside it are breathtaking. Pictures along this stretch are the types of images you see in beer commercials and nature magazines.

There are several state parks with vistas of the Minnesota River valley. The Minnesota River can be fierce in the spring and also after a series of heavy rains but otherwise it seems to meander more gently than fiercely. That said, what I find intriguing as we hiked through the parks in this part of Minnesota is how huge the Minnesota River valley is. How you are driving along relatively flat agricultural land and as you approach the state parks you almost always drive down into a deep and wide valley.

What is cool to me is how many of the state parks in the Minnesota River valley have trails with lookout points from which you gain perspective just how wide and deep and awe inspiring the Minnesota River valley actually is. Note that in order to gain this perspective many of these trails lead up (and down of course) the valley edges which means sometimes the walk up seems to never end.

This spring we leased a new car. As part of the process of taking possession of the car we had the opportunity to get a Minnesota State Park license plate. It costs a bit more than the standard license plate but then you don’t need a park sticker in the window and the license plate looks cool. It looks cool but it also supports the parks and is a good enough excuse to go visit more parks.

We often combine our journeys to state parks with an overnight or two or three in towns around the state, eating in local restaurants and some shopping in local stores. I guess I feel if we want a prosperous Minnesota we need to support the local Minnesota merchants.

On our recent trip staying three nights in Grand Marais and one night in canal park in Duluth we visited several state parks along the Northshore of Lake Superior. Here are some of the parks we visited along the way.

Grand Portage State Park has the highest falls in the State and an easy hike. They also have middle falls which I have not seen as it requires a 4.5 mile hike to get to.
Cascade River State Park has cascades and a couple small but beautiful falls.
Temperance River State park – the river flows through deep ravines in the rocks and it’s cool to see.
George H. Crosby Manitou State Park has three falls although we did not have time to visit them.
Tettegouche State Park is a busy place. The Cascade falls is worth the walk to see.
Gooseberry Falls State Park is the busiest state park I’ve been to. The falls is just a couple hundred feet from the parking lot. It’s cool but lacks that back to nature feel.
Jay Cooke State Park has rapids that are awesome. It’s worth the drive just to see the rapids.

The closer you look the more you see.

I turned 69 on June 26, 2021. I am in my 70th year of life. Some people my age are getting old. Not all of us, of course. Certainly not me. Age is relative. When you’re ten, being told you’re getting old is patronizing but appreciated. When you’re my age being told your “old” is a mild insult.

How do I feel about being the age I am? Mixed. Happy I made it this far, not so happy I am this far along the journey. I don’t want to be younger. With age comes an outlook which is quite liberating. It’s not that I don’t care what others think. It’s more like what makes me happy is given more weight in my decisions than what others think about me.

The Life expectancy calculator I found online gives me about a fifty / fifty odds of reaching eighty-six. So my goal is to be among the fifty percent that survives past age eighty-six. Although I do not want to be kept in a vegetative state in order to reach eighty-six. I just want to be relatively active and happy for as long as possible.

I am not as sharp mentally as I once was and yet, probably sharper now than I will be. I am still physically active. Not as active as I used to be but probably more active than I will be in the future. I am still cognitively here. I read, understand and remember books. Although I often forget people’s names, which has been true most of my life.

I have hearing aids but even with them, my hearing is still not great. I’ve had both kidney cancer and prostate cancer. Both were caught early and both of which were dealt with. Both surgeries were done robotically. Each with several small incisions. My abdomen looks like I’ve been in a knife fight. The odds of either of my cancer’s returning are pretty small. However, I will be scanned and tested annually for the remainder of my life.

The thing about life is it continues until it doesn’t. Most people my age have known many people who are now dead. Friends, relatives, acquaintances, people you worked with, people you played a sport with, and the list goes on. Some died suddenly, others knew they were dying before they died. The deaths were all too soon, but often it was a blessing their suffering was ended.

There is some peace accepting life for what it is: a blessing which will not last forever. Time stops for nobody. Kids grow up unless they don’t. Yup, I knew a couple different kids who did not make it to adulthood. Adults mature into senior citizens, unless they don’t. Senior citizens remain senior citizens until the end.

It’s been my observation that there is a wide range of how senior citizens proceed with their lives. Some sort of “turn off”, or maybe a better phrase is “give in”. They don’t do much except sit around complaining about not doing much. There are others who are almost hyper-active because they believe if they slow down that will be the end.

Personally, I am up for moderate exercise. I still rollerblade but only on a very flat surface in good conditions. I go on walks in the neighborhood and on trails in state parks. I like to mow my lawn but have accepted there will come a day when I will hire a lawn service. I now take as much pride in having someone fix something for me as I used to take in doing the thing myself. The goal is to keep things in repair, how the goal is accomplished is no longer that relevant to me.

I also love taking an afternoon nap. I like to write, listen to podcasts and play a bit of solitaire on my devices. I like talking to folks. I also like some alone time to read and think about stuff.

The COVID pandemic sucked and I worried we lost a year. In hindsight, the year was not lost at all, it was just a different experience than normal. I actually gained a new respect for life and the importance of interacting with others. On balance, I wish the pandemic didn’t happen but I don’t regret having lived through it.

As my 69th birthday approached I became rather unsettled and glum. In my head I was trying to come to grips with being an age I used to think was “old”. One day passed on to the next and life moved along. Soon most of the time when I looked in the mirror, I saw a happy person looking back at me.

Being an age or not being an age, it turns out has no bearing on my happiness. There is no deep philosophy or life changing insights needed for me to be happy. I don’t need some new gadget or wild intriguing experience to make me happy. I just am happy to be me and I am the age I am. I’m just happy I made it this far.

I don’t miss being young. Looking back it is easy to see some of the missteps I made along the way. In fairness to myself, I also did some pretty clever things back in the day. Could of, should of, is a stupid game to play. Look how cool I was is just as stupid of a game. I try to live in the present.

Today’s kids live in a very different world than I grew up in. Most of my friends are around my age however, it’s a fact, the vast majority of people on earth are younger than I am. I just want to say to all those younger than me, thanks for tolerating me and in fact generally being so supportive. I truly do appreciate it.

The closer you look the more you see.

Linda says it all of the time: “It does not take much to be happy”. She’s, of course, correct. Happiness is not reserved for a special few. Even in difficult times we, each of us, can be happy.

Several weeks into the pandemic shutdown, our spirits were a bit low. My beloved Linda observed, bakeries were open during the pandemic even while most “non-essential” businesses were shut down. Next thing she says is, she’d heard the Swedish Crown Bakery in Anoka was good.

Predictably, being married to Linda it was predictable, the next morning we were headed to Swedish Crown Bakery for Swedish pastries. We ate them on a picnic table at a nearby park with bottled water we brought from home. From there we took the long way home, looking at sites I hadn’t seen for several decades when I used to work for Anoka County.

That little trip did wonders for our morale so we decided that we would visit other bakeries more or less every Saturday. Lists were made. Choices were made. We tried to go a different direction and or a different type of bakery every week. See the bottom of this post for a list of some of the bakeries we visited.

Weekly trips to bakeries and to parks gave us something to look forward to and gave us a story to tell. We used Target stores for our potty breaks. They were open, located everywhere and Apple maps made it easy to find them. Like I said, I’ve heard Linda say it hundreds of times, it does not take much to be happy.

Dictionaries define Happy as “enjoying or characterized by well-being and contentment”. Being happy is an internal feeling. Being happy is a choice. Not every minute of every day needs to be a happy moment. However, we can be generally happy most of the time.

Of course, unhappy stuff also happens. Several sources stated the trick to getting back to happiness is to acknowledge the feeling of unhappiness, letting yourself experience it for a moment. Then, shift your focus toward what made you feel this way and what it might take to recover.

It is way too easy to get down on oneself and or to blame others for being unhappy. Yup, crap happens. It is not fair. It is not fun. Even if it is your own damn fault, being unhappy makes nothing better. Your happiness is about you and your outlook not about your lot in life.

Give yourself permission to be happy. Most everyone, in their own opinion, should be the hero of their own story. Jerry Seinfeld famously said, “When men are growing up reading about Batman, Spiderman, and Superman… These are not fantasies, they are options.” In my humble opinion, being the hero of our own story is fundamental to happiness.

Even in the worst times in your life it is possible to still be happy. Terminally ill people smile, and appreciate others. Being poor can be tough but being poor does not mean one is necessarily unhappy. Being rich does not necessarily make one happy either. Happy is not a present received or a pat on the back. Happy is a choice you make no matter what life deals you, because it feels better than choosing not to be happy.

When I reflect back on our bakery runs during a pandemic what made us happy was not just the pastries. What I think made us happy was deciding the experience of getting pasties during a pandemic was a good reason to be happy.

Countless philosophers conclude the same thing, life is about the journey not the destination. Happiness is not tied to reaching the destination. Happiness is choosing to be content while you are living the journey that is our lives.

Here are some of the bakeries we visited.

Swedish Crown Bakery – Anoka
Hanisch Bakery – Red Wing
Ruby’s Roost Bakery & Coffee – Victoria
Brick Oven Bakery – Northfield
Rustica – Minneapolis (Uptown)
The Heights Bakery – Columbia Heights
Sarah Jane’s Bakery – Minneapolis (NE)
Swedish Crown Bakery – Anoka
Pine River Bakery – Pine River
Emily’s Bakery – Hastings
Sweet Kneads – Farmington
Bread & Chocolate- St. Paul
Lindstrom Bakery – Lindstrom
La Delicious Bread – Little Canada
La Boulangerie Marguerite- St Paul

You can’t beat the Heights or Hanisch bakeries for the variety of choices.
My vote for the highest quality, La Delicious Bread, wonderful.
For that “I’m a cool yuppy” who wants to be around other cool yuppies, Rustica in Mpls.
All of the bakeries were good. We found no clunkers.

My go to all of the time bakeries are La Boulangerie Marguerite – on Randolph in St Paul or La Delicious Bread – Little Canada

Pro tip: keep paper towels and wipes in the vehicle. Some benches need a touch up before you sit down. The bag the pastries came in makes a good plate. Fingers get sticky.

The closer you look the more you see.