Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Maplewood Mania - Part 3

All the time that I had the nausea, My little Dani would imitate me by running and getting a Kleenex and pretending to have the “dry heaves”. It was hilarious!!

As I said in the summer of 2008 I pretty much got over the nausea but my breathing continued to worsen. I met with a thoracic surgeon at the V A (he was actually on staff at the University of Minnesota) and he told me that he could do a surgery that might make my left diaphragm work again.

It was a laparoscopic surgery that stretched and attached the diaphragm to the left ribcage. At that point I was ready to try anything to improve my quality of life.
My daughter Aimee had just had her third daughter (Mackenzie Grace) in September of 2007 and my daughter Lynsey had just had twin girls in June of 2008 and I really wanted to be able to enjoy all my “little girls”.

The surgery was scheduled for October 2008 and it went fine. I got out of the ICU and was on the mend when I my blood pressure started dropping, and I started drifting in and out of consciousness. They rushed me back to the ICU and started giving me transfusions. I had gotten five units of blood during the surgery, and they gave me another nine units to stabilize me. I was again in for a lot longer than I bargained for. I got out in time for my birthday November 18th and was able to play executive chef for the Thanksgiving meal.

I was extremely impressed with the surgeon who did the diaphragm repair because he was the first doctor to actually tell me what had happened. He thought he might have nicked the spleen and that was where the blood loss was coming from. It repaired itself and I still have a healthy spleen. The doctor that did all the damage to begin with never admitted anything although his boss finally told me that what I suspected had happened was really what had happened.

I never recovered enough to take the responsibility for the “little girls” again. My son-in-law, Sean and my daughter, Aimee were forced to hire someone to take care of the “little girls” while they were at work.

In January 2009 I met Sarah on the internet and we really hit it off from the beginning. We met for the very first time around Easter and started spending almost every weekend together. The ‘little girls” began calling her Gramma Sarah way before I thought of her that way. I had sworn that I would never re-marry and now I found myself telling Sarah that she was going to be my wife. We were married on the Fourth of July and that begins a whole new adventure.
…and that’s the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two.

More next time…

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Maplewood Mania - Part 2

Kris, Lynsey, & Ellie lived with me for about a year…and we had some really good times. Kristopher loved pasta and Italian foods, and we made baked ziti, and lasagna, and Sopranos’ Sunday Gravy. But after a year at the Maplewood abode, they decided that they needed to be closer to where they worked and rented an apartment. The problem was the apartment didn’t allow dogs…so Ellie stayed with me.

My daughter Aimee and her significant other, Sean, Bryanna (their nine month old daughter) and Tigger (Sean’s cat) moved in with me and Ellie when Kris and Lynsey moved out in the middle of June. Sean and Aimee got married that July and they asked Kris and Lynsey to take Ellie…well that didn’t work, so Ben and Jena took Ellie to live with them and their Standard Schnauzer, Sadie. Sadie and Ellie got along pretty well except for the fact that Sadie’s favorite game became “Whack a Mole” with Ellie. Ellie attached herself to Jena and Sadie remained Ben’s dog. This arrangement lasted until Kris’s dad got his and Lynsey’s job back at the Unemployment Security office in Phoenix, and they took Ellie and moved back.

In September, when Bryanna turned one I started taking care of her and it was a lot of fun. I got to know my granddaughter very well and we became very close. For the most part I didn’t have too much trouble taking care of her, except for one incident when she was straining to poop, passed out, and stopped breathing. She really scared the hell out of me even though I was able to get her back right away.
In February of 2006 Aimee had their second daughter Danielle and she went to Aimee’s friends Ben and Stephanie (who had taken care of Bryanna until she was one) while they worked. In October that year I had a biventricular pacemaker put in which was supposed to give me more heart function and allow me to get some of my energy back…that turned out to be a real fiasco.

What was supposed to be about a half an hour procedure turned into about five hours and they still couldn’t get the lead in place. I need to come back in November and they surgically attached it to the wall of my heart…only problem was that they collapsed my left lung, paralyzed my left diaphragm, and hit the vagal nerve. To make matters worse I developed pneumonia in my right lung and what was supposed to be an overnight surgery tuned into a major hospital stay. My breathing was much worse than when I went in, and I had constant nausea. I was pretty sick and I had a six week lifting restriction so I wasn’t much help with the girls. Things gradually got better but the nausea went on for almost two years when my Primary physician was able to prescribe something that “settled the nerve down” and the nausea went away.

More next time…

Friday, September 18, 2009

Maplewood Mania - Part 1

Moving to Maplewood was no easy chore…with my health problems and Kris with his…we relied a great deal on my son Ben, my daughters and my friend Ron.

Now, Ron and I have been friends since we were fourteen. I could never have had a more loyal friend. Before I went to stay with my sister, and was in and out of the hospital all the time he and his wife Karen asked me to stay with them. They are both pretty wonderful. To prove how good a friend Ron is…he has helped me on almost every move that I ever made. He has always been right beside me trying to make things better the best that he can. We both grew up on the East Side of Saint Paul, went to High School together, partied together, started the University of Minnesota together (it was a waste of time and money on my part…because of my partying I am the only one that I know that ended up with a negative GPA).

I just had a recollection of one of the many pranks that we pulled on each other. Now you must remember this was during Jurassic times. I had a briefcase that was very much like the Atticus Finch carried in To Kill A Mockingbird. I also had courses where you were required to buy five or six books. It was a very cold February afternoon, and the classes that I chose to go to that day were done…so I headed for a couch in Coffman Memorial Student Union (made famous by Max Shulman’s The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis), put my briefcase at the end of the couch, “scrunched up” my jacket to use as a pillow, took off my shoes and went to sleep.

Ron took the briefcase, filled it with large boulders, took my shoes and went to sleep on another couch. This is the “old Minnesota February” where it stayed 20 to 25 below zero for weeks at a time. I woke up before Ron and I just knew that he had taken my shoes…so I took his and started off across campus. When I got to the car…I found my shoes, and saw Ron trudging across campus with his leather gloves on his feet…he reminded me of a chimpanzee or gorilla. Neither of us said a word about it, I had already changed shoes…so he put his on and we went home. It wasn’t until I opened my briefcase at home that I found out what he had done…he had left me a note…”these will probably do you just as much good as your books because some of them haven’t been opened.”

Ron and I disagree on politics, religion, philosophy, and just about everything else…but we would do absolutely anything for each other. When I look for a definition for friend…it always turns out to be a picture of Ron.

He helped us move into the house in Maplewood and swore that he would bring his axe and use the hide-a-bed for a bonfire before he moved it again.

It was pretty nice having more space and a fenced-in back yard for Ellie (Kris and Lynsey’s Long-haired Chihuahua)…I thought it was hysterical that the previous tenants had a Mastiff and the yard was posted with BEWARE THE DOG signs. We got settled in and things were pretty good.

More about this next time…

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

New Brighton Days

As you remember my son Ben had found me an apartment that was walking distance from his townhouse in New Brighton. It was good to see some of my children on a more regular basis, and I got to dog sit Ben & Jena’s Standard Schnauzer, Sadie.

It was now 2001 and a lot happened that year. My daughter Aimee got married in August at Lake Minnetonka, my son Ben got me tickets to see my parents in Kentucky…we had a great visit, but my return was booked for September 11th.

That morning my parents and I were watching the network news when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center…my thoughts were “How could such a TERRIBLE accident happen”…and then the second plane crashed and I knew that the impossible had happened…we were under attack. Like everyone who could, I was glued to the television as the whole thing unfolded…the crash in Pennsylvania…the plane hitting the Pentagon…it seemed so very surreal. I continued to try and make arrangements to get back to Minneapolis-Saint Paul…while watching all the rescue/recovery attempts in NYC, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC…I REALLY wasn’t afraid to fly home, but I was so very angry that we had not prepared for such an attack…we had known that bin Laden was not only capable of launching such an attack…we had intelligence saying that he was going to attack the financial, military, and political centers of America. Yet, we had done nothing to prevent it! It was certainly a low point in America’s history.

I left Kentucky on September 14th and returned to New Brighton.
It wasn’t until I flew to Phoenix for my youngest daughter, Lynsey’s wedding in October that I really became aware of the increased security surrounding air travel. I had a pacemaker/defibrillator implanted in March and spent a half an hour trying to explain to airport security that I couldn’t go through the detectors…and they couldn’t use their “wands”, but needed to “pat me down”. This happened at every Airport both going to Phoenix and returning. I flew down for the wedding with my daughter Aimee and we had fun in spite of the fact that the attack had happened just over a month ago.

Within six months of their marriage, Kristopher, Lynsey's new 23-year old groom was diagnosed with a form of Cancer and lost his leg...it was devastating to the whole family. As he was recovering, I asked that they stay with me for awhile and they came to New Brighton and lived in my apartment for about six months...and then we were able to rent a house from Jena's (my daughter-in-law) dad Jerry. So we left New Brighton and moved to Maplewood...

And that is all the actual truth...give or take a lie or two...

Until next time!

Monday, September 14, 2009

Flim Flam, Horsefeathers & Horseshit

I ask your indulgence again as I address some of the current “mud-slinging” that has as it’s main goal and purpose to derail the healthcare reform and destroy any success this Administration has.

Back in January, Rush Limbaugh stated, “I hope he fails” in a speech on his radio program…On July 20th he stated that President Obama has yet to prove he is a citizen (on June 16, 2008 a Birth Certificate certified by the Department of Health for the State of Hawaii was produced)…On August 7th Limbaugh compared President Obama to Adolph Hitler.

The fox news personality, Glen Beck (you can not legimately call him a newscaster…because they have to deal in facts and diligently research what they report) crossed-the-line when he said that the President is a racist with a “deep-seated hatred for white people.” No proof was provided for these statements and Mr. Beck was given a "forced vacation" to decide whether he needs to apologize to the President.

In the past Ann Coulter has stated: “…I do think anyone named B. Hussein Obama should avoid using ‘hijack and ‘religion’ in the same sentence.”

And people like Bill O’Reilly and Dennis Miller doing the George Burns/Gracie Allen “shtick” attacking the President.

I don't understand this...it is nothing like the criticism that "W" faced for what may have been war crimes...after all, Natalie Maines (the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks)only said that she was ashamed that he was from Texas...and there was hate mail and even a serious death threat.

There doesn't seem to be appropriate responses to the facts that President Obama has been portrayed on FOX NEWS "as suspicious, foreign, fearsome - just short of a terrorist."

This President has the capabilities and drive to be one of the greatest that we have ever had...and he is subjected to being called a terrorist, compared to Adolph Hitler, and even recently called the anti-Christ. A Rabbi translated his name from the Aramaic into something like lightning and the heights (Baraq Bama) from this some "fringe elements" of the Christian Radical Right have made a video that insinuates that the President IS the Anti-Christ.

I have more questions than answers...questions like is this because of racial bias...do any of these individuals posess REAL WORKING brain cells...is there that much fear and hatred among the former Administration, their cohorts and puppets...will this brilliant man EVER get the recognition he deserves for the efforts he is making in behalf of the WHOLE country...these things trouble me very much!!


Until next time...

Sunday, September 13, 2009

And Then Some...

I worked with Dagney for awhile after Gary’s death, but because of her drinking the tension between Mona and I was palpable. Like I said earlier she was wonderful when she was sober and an absolute bitch when she was drunk.

One of the last things I did for Dagney was to run an auction to sell Gary’s gun collection. There were three of us involved in the sale Greg (Gary’s) son, Gary’s friend who was on the boat when he died, and me. It turned into a total fiasco. Both Greg and Gary’s buddy got “stinkin’ drunk” and were selling great guns well below what they should have sold for and not keeping accurate records on the guns they sold. I convinced them that it would be a lot better if they just went to the bar and I ran the remaining two days and we were able to correct the “paperwork” on the gun sales and sell the remaining guns for what they should sell for. All sales were done by auction so we forced some prices pretty high and made up for the all the major errors of the first day.

It was about this time that my son convinced me that I needed to move closer to the cities and I found a two bedroom apartment in Cambridge for about $100 more than I was paying for a one bedroom apartment in Hinckley. It was owned by a Chinese lady who had properties all over Cambridge. She used to treat me to dinner at least once a month.

Through a friend I met Brian…he was a nineteen year old Ojibwa who had just moved into the area. He had no money and no place to stay and I remembered what that was like after my divorce. He hadn’t been able to find a job and didn’t have a lot of prospects. So I told him he could live with me until he got on his feet.

Now there is no limit on the number of deer that Native Americans can take each year, so Brian took three. I came home from grocery shopping to find him butchering all three deer in the bathtub. There was blood and hair and bones everywhere. I told him if the sheriff saw this we would both be in cells waiting for blood analysis to prove that we weren’t homicidal. He just laughed and asked me to go back to the store and get three or four rolls of freezer paper. He really was good at cutting meat, and he had done steaks, tenderloins, chops, and roasts. We found friends that had chest freezers to store some of the meat and told them they were welcome to whatever they wsnted for their personal use. He ground a lot more up to make venison burgers and sausages…however he wasn’t good at cleaning up after himself. It took me the better part of a week to clean the bathroom well enough to be fit for human habitation.

We lived together for a couple of months until I started finding articles of value missing and started missing money from my wallet. I asked him to leave and this ruined my friendship with the person that had brought us together.

Ben found an apartment that was pretty close in price to what I was paying, and it was within walking distance of his townhouse…I moved back to the CITIES.

Remember, this is the actual truth…give or take a lie or two…

Until next time…

Thursday, September 10, 2009

A Little More of the Same

I never made any money working for Gary, but I got first choice on any jewelry or Native American artifacts or any artwork that came into the shop.

Now Dagney had come over to help with the Hinckley shop because of Gary’s drinking and because she had heard some rumors that he was “whoring around”. She left her daughter Mona (the oldest daughter) to run the Mora shop…big mistake. Mona took off for Alaska with about $35,000 of the shop’s money. She was in such a drunken state that the authorities in Alaska called Dagney and told her that she was probably going to die. Dagney flew to Alaska and nursed her back to health, and brought her back to Hinckley. It wasn’t too long before she was working in the Hinckley shop…so I sort of retired.

It was about three in the morning on a day in late May when Dagney called me pretty much hysterical. She asked me if I would drive her to the small lake near Mora because the sheriff had called with a report that Gary might have drowned. He has bought a fifty foot boat and was testing her for the first time he had planned on taking her all the way down the Mississippi later that summer. He was on the boat with a friend he drank with and they had both proceeded to get as “drunk as skunks” and started having trouble with the engine. Gary was on the bow when the boat lurched forward and threw him overboard. He was a very powerful swimmer but it was still pretty cold and he had on a leather Vikings jacket and boots…he didn’t have a chance. His friend stripped down and swam to shore, ran to the nearest house and reported the accident.

Dagney, Amy (her granddaughter) and I got there about a quarter to four and the boat was still making circles with Hooch (Gary’s Doberman) barking and whining on board. The sheriff had tried to coax Hooch off the boat so he could take it into shore but the dog wouldn’t let him on board. Amy went over and got Hooch, and they brought the boat in.

They sent out divers when it became light and they started searching for Gary. Because of Gary’s reputation of “being connected” and the fact that he always carried such a roll of money with him…the rumor mill was in full gear. He was in Costa Rica, he had been robbed and killed, he had been hit by the mob for something he had done. But most people thought that he was alive and in hiding. This went on for almost a week…and then they found the body. It had been snagged by some large branches and it took the divers about a half an hour to free him. I was glad they found him because it put the rumors to rest and gave Dagney some closure.

I helped her with the shop for awhile, but putting up with Mona was more and more of a chore. She was drunk most of the time, stealing and generally being obnoxious. Now you have to understand that when Mona was sober she was very sweet and pleasant, but when she was drunk she was a nightmare.

This is the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two.

Until next time…

Hinckley Hijinx

After the road trip fiasco, my friendship with Hauga was really strained, so I decided to go back to working flea markets and pow wows. That’s when I met Gary…he was at the flea market looking for bargains on anything of value. Gary owned the pawnshop in Hinckley, and was a real character. He had come up to the area to buy and run a restaurant on a small lake near Mora…he had had a very successful bar in the Cities (that featured world class Coney Islands). He “got wind” that a casino was going to open in Hinckley and felt that a pawnshop was a natural (which proved to be the case). He also got a law passed that there could only be one pawnshop within fifty miles of the casino…a real stroke of genius.

Gary was a big, powerful man who had been a golden gloves champion and professional boxer in his younger days. He could be extremely funny and very crude all at the same time. We developed a friendship and I began hanging out at the pawnshop, having lunch with Gary, and helping out once in awhile.

Now Gary had a serious drinking problem…and he began calling me at home telling me that he was too “sick” to run the shop, and would I work it for him today. This became more and more frequent, and after awhile we began to work it together. He taught me a lot about the business, and I taught him about buying Native American relics and “pieces of value”. I sometimes had pangs of conscience about taking advantage of people who were really vulnerable, but someone else would, if we didn’t. Most of the individuals who used the pawnshop were chronic gamblers. They would pawn very valuable items for a chance to play at the Casino and win enough to redeem their items and have a lot left over…most of the time it was left long enough (60 days) to be sold at about five times what it was pawned for. Gary was an extremely shrewd businessman, he carried a roll of bills that would “choke a horse” and made deals on the spot. His talk, mannerisms, crudeness, and size gave credibility to the rumor that he was “connected”. He was always looking for the deal, and “scoured the area” attempting to get classic cars, boats, guns motorcycles, snowmobiles, and just about anything of value. Some of these he sold at the pawnshop and some just went into his collection.

About a year after opening the pawnshop in Hinckley, Gary had his wife Dagney open a second pawnshop in Mora to handle the trade from the Mille Lacs Casino. They were complete opposites: for as crude as Gary was…Dagney was a real lady, he was huge and she was barely five feet tall and about a hundred pounds, he was extremely tough and she was very compassionate. Dagney was about five years older than Gary and her father had been his manager during the “Prizefighting Days”. She adored him and he tolerated her (he may have loved her…as much as he was capable of love). They had a son and two daughters, with several years between each of them. Enough between the two daughters, that the oldest daughter had a child the same time as her mother. The youngest daughter and Dagney’s granddaughter grew up almost as sisters because Dagney raised them both.

More about all of this later…until next time…

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Road Trips

I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier but my friend Hauga was a much better artist than I was…my art evolved through training and practice, his was a gift. He never really realized how much talent he possessed (and for the most part wasted). He had so many opportunities that he squandered and could have become Tribal Artist for the Winnebago’s and stabilized his life…but that wasn’t his style. He did carve a Great Bear for the Tribal Community Center and received around $30,000 for the project…he also did a carving on a huge moose rack…it was a complete village with teepees, people, horses, dogs, buffalo, antelope. He got about $25,000 for this project. I don’t have a clue as to what he did with the money, but I'm sure that none of it was spent constructively.

As I recounted earlier, Hauga and I criss-crossed Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Dakotas, attempting to get “regular” outlets for our art. Hauga was always suggesting these little out of the way places to go on the way to a major gallery or arts and crafts shop. We did nothing on consignment, but sold our art at a price that guaranteed that even if only a few piece sold the owner made money. He carried these two black duffle bags with him always and took one in at each of these “side stops”. I finally got VERY curious as to what pieces he was selling…so I opened the bag, and guess what it was filled with cocaine. I was so angry that when he got back to the car…the bag was sitting outside the car. I told him he could “dump” the rest of it at this stop and ride with me or stay there and look for a different mode of transportation.

He didn’t have a clue that if we were stopped and the bags searched I would be sitting in a prison cell right along side of him. He got the buyer to take the remainder of the bag of his hands. From then on I thoroughly checked each bag to ensure that we were only carrying artwork. It came close to “busting” our friendship forever because I couldn’t trust him.

Over the years drugs cost me a lot of good friends…I had a friend in college who was an ex-Viet Nam Vet. As a requirement for graduation he and I were involved in a mandatory drug education class, he was an ex-heroin addict and had been clean for thirteen years. As a part of the class we were required to go out to schools and community centers and give “drug talks”. He was excellent and got the audience to listen because he was not the Police telling them “just don’t do drugs”. He could talk about the sense of loss when a family member overdosed, or the beautiful young girls that drugs turned into whores. He was so very credible…and then he OD’ed, and died. It was such a tragedy, but it reinforced my understanding that there was so very much power in drugs. I never allowed Hauga to work with me when he was “loaded”, and he became more and more distant. He felt that I was “judging him”, I wasn’t...but I couldn’t condone it…I didn’t want to be around him when he died.

And that’s the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two.

See you next time.

Monday, September 7, 2009

A Brief Hiatus

I hope that my readers will forgive the brief hiatus in my posts, but we (my wife Sarah and I) went to spend time with three of the five baby girls and one teen-age baby girl. We were celebrating birthdays and enjoying the chaos of that many children. It’s right around thirteen hours round trip…so we don’t get to see them as often as we would like.

My son was going to be out of town and was kind enough to offer to let us stay at his house and dog-sit his pups, we had a great time. We took our little dog Elsie with us and it was fun for her too. After the initial sizing up, my son has a Standard Schnauzer and a Great Bernese Mix…so there really was some size difference, they got along great.


The little girls are so wonderful and we have such a wonderful time each time we visit.



I’ll be back soon…

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Do I Digress...I Do...I Do

Well, again I am going to depart from the story that is my life, and get back up on my “soapbox.”

I have alluded to it before, but I have to really go on the record and state what bothers me so very much about some Conservatives. It is their willingness to “label” those individuals who don’t agree with them as unpatriotic, even going so far as to imply that they are traitors to their country.

Let’s do a bit of defining…a Patriot is simply one who feels love or devotion to their country. I am a Patriot, but in the true definition that also rejects nationalism and embraces social responsibility.

What the Radical Right…whether it be journalists, radio personalities, or politicians...refer to as Patriotism is nothing more than Jingoism.

Let’s define that…Jingoism is an extreme form of patriotism, it is more nationalistic belligerence, it advocates force or threats of force to accomplish what is perceived to be good for the country. It creates an excessive bias, and fosters an attitude that one’s own country is superior to all others.

I am a Patriot, but I have lived long enough, and seen enough abuses of power and position to be very skeptical of the direction that the Conservatives are trying to lead this country. I am a history scholar and a history buff…I know the things that America has done that have made her far from perfect.

We have come a long way in my lifetime…but we have committed our share of atrocities. One of the things that “makes my blood boil” is the hypocrisy that many Americans demonstrate by their condemnation of governments and dictatorships…when we put many of them into power. The CIA put Saddam Hussein in power, and hundreds of vicious warlords in South East Asia.

We condemn the assassination of leaders that are friendly to our government…and plan and execute elected officials who are thought to challenge our positions. We advocate human rights and yet we don’t acknowledge that we had a number of genocidal incidents such as: the massacre of Sand Creek and the Wounded Knee massacre. The Mei Lei Massacre and similar acts that were committed in Iraq were not aberrations, but events in a long line of atrocities which have been committed by the United States in the name of the greater good.

I am a Patriot, I love this country...but I also acknowledge it's warts.

Until next time...

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Could It Be Deja Vu All Over Again

My friend Hauga had three children: a boy who was about eleven at the time, and girls that were nine and eight. He got an emergency call from Nebraska that his mother was very ill, and he needed to come at once…his wife Michelle (a Lakota Sioux) had been on a drunk for over a week and he didn’t know how to find her…and could I take care of his kids until he came back. Does any of this sound familiar?

I agreed and the first thing the kids and I had to do was buy some groceries…there was nothing but beer in the refrigerator and only coffee in the pantry. So we went to the store and just bought some staples, but I did agree that they could each pick out one thing that they wanted just to keep them from arguing about everything. I wasn’t surprised when they each picked their favorite dry cereal…so I bought a couple more gallons of milk and we went back to their apartment. I fixed a pot roast and some potatoes and veggies, and we settled in…about that time Michelle came home “roaring in drunk as a skunk’ and swearing and bitching about me being there and where was Hauga…I explained that he had to go to Nebraska and should be back in a couple of days…about that time she passed out. Tony (Hauga’s son) and I carried her into the bedroom and threw her on the bed, and we went back to “chillin’”.

When Hauga got back (his mother recovered fully) Michelle told him that she had been “sleeping with me” the whole time he was gone. Lucky for me, he didn’t believe her, and told her that you would sleep with anyone or anything…but he knew that I would never betray his friendship.

I will recount one other episode concerning Hauga and me. It was about this time of year and Hauga and Michelle had just gotten their Tribal checks and decided that they wanted to go to the Mall of America to buy school clothes for the kids. The problem was, they didn’t have a car…I had a 1979 Mercury Marquis (a “big boat”) and it looked terrible…but it always started and it always ran. I called it my “rez car” because it looked so pitiful. Well, the trip down was uneventful (if you don’t count children fighting all the way down)…just as we pulled into the parking lot at the Mall of America, a belt broke and the alternator went out. I had the money to get the parts but no money for labor, so Michelle and the kids went shopping, and Hauga called his brother-in-law Jimmy. They would go and get the parts, I would stay with the car to keep it from getting ticketed, and wait for Michelle and the kids. They got the parts, but when they got back Jimmy was so drunk that he couldn’t stand (and certainly not drive). It was getting too dark to work on the car…so we left a note saying that we would repair it in the morning. When Michelle and the kids got back, I convinced Jimmy that I should drive to his house and that way he could continue to drink…we made it safely to West Saint Paul and I slept in a chair. Jimmy, Michelle and her sister Mary drank themselves into oblivion. Hauga didn’t drink. The next day we got the car repaired and we were going to pick up Michelle and the kids when Jimmy decided he was too thirsty to go straight back to the house. So we stopped at this bar he knew and he started “throwing them down” pretty ferociously. Jimmy was half Lakota Sioux and half Irish, and that was a deadly combination…he started calling me “Special Ed”, and was looking at two couples at the next table. He asked the women, “Aren’t you afraid that someone will work your corner while you are in here”. About that time Hauga picked him up by his shirt collar and carried him to the car…we headed back to Hinckley.

There were many other adventures and misadventures that Hauga and I had, but those will be fodder for the future.

Again…this is all absolutely true…give or take a lie or two.

Until next time…

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Episode IV - A New Hope

My time in Hinckley was really a time of renewal…I had a lot of time to think about what I really wanted to do, and what was really important. I did my arts and crafts thing to supplement my Social Security, and in my travels I made friends with a couple of fellow artists, Terry Karrow and Hauga (a very large Winnebago). Over time we became close enough that we each took some of all of our pieces, and sold them, giving the money to the artist who created the work. Terry was a specialist in ear rings, pipes, drums, tomahawks, and knives. Hauga was an exceptional artist…he carved stone, wood, antlers and moose racks, he painted turtle shells and deer-skins, and mad some beautiful ear rings in his own right. I continued to create more and more intricate mandalas and spirit windows, and I also began making medicine bags and sheaths for Hauga’s and Terry’s knives.

Terry and I could always account “to the penny” what we got for our projects, but that wasn’t the case with Hauga, most of the time by the time he got back he had spent all of the money that he had gotten from all of our projects. He would feel bad about it, and usually gave us a piece of his work that was worth three or four times the monies he had gotten for our projects.

I had met Terry on one of my many visits to the local hospital (I was “blacking out” periodically). He was working as an EMT and had transported me to the hospital a few times. He had been a medic in Viet Nam, and we developed a strong friendship…he brought me books on Native American crafts and the Voyageur lifestyle, Terry was about 45 at this time and was still “pretty wild and crazy”. Terry always said that he wasn’t married, but his wife was. He started stopping at my apartment at least a couple times a week…sort of as a “welfare check”…but really to just drink coffee and socialize. Terry got disgusted with never getting the money that he expected from the projects, and he was getting more and more out of Native American art and into pagan arts...he started making fertility goddess necklaces, and pentagrams and stuff that Hauga and I didn't even want to touch. Terry was convinced that he was a Wicca(male witch), and he ran off to Texas to a Rendezvous with a 25 year-old Lakota.

I met Hauga at the flea market. I told him that his art was way too classy to be in this environment…he needed to get it into galleries and specialty craft stores to make any real money. He said that he really didn’t know how to do that…so I taught him.

As I said Hauga could never truly account for what happened to the proceeds from the art sales, but I was pretty satisfied to be able to pick up a piece of art that was "way beyond my means", so we continued to work together.


...and that's the absolute truth...give or take a lie or two.



...more exciting adventures next time…