And The Very Latest From The Frozen Tundra...

It has been rather uneventful up here in the Frozen Tundra lately.

Sarah has been working her butt off trying to get the “Guest House” in shape, and as usual I haven’t been any help. Sometimes I feel pretty damn worthless. When I was younger, I was always doing things around the house and yard, but now I'm just too damn worn out. But, it is hard to see her work so very hard and not be able to jump in and help.

Sarah’s ex, Pat Shafer gave us a couple of really nice pieces of deer meat (a backstrap and a flank). I don’t have any good knives right now but, I did the best that I could with what I had to work with, and got some nice steaks, two roasts, some tenders, and some stew meat out of the pieces. So far I fried up the tenders and they were wonderful!

Sarah has been trying to teach me how to play WOW, but sometimes we both think that it might be a lost cause. I am a dwarf hunter named STONEWOLLF and she is a dwarf priest named SHARRASS. My avatar really looks a whole lot like me, which in itself makes the whole damn thing pretty scary. I like the game and the concepts and I appreciate how wonderful the graphics are…I just suck at games.

The Legion had a special Veteran’s Day Dinner, they have wonderful food and it is cheap. The special dinner was chicken breast in gravy, cheesy mashed potatoes, corn and Cole slaw. There was chocolate cake for dessert, and the whole thing was $5 a plate. The beverage was extra, but wow…the food was good and you can’t eat at either McDonald’s or Subway that cheap. They had a drawing for ten $10 prizes, and I won one of them. So the only money we spent was for the beverage. The speaker was the District Commander out of Moorhead, he retired after 37 years as full colonel in the Air Force, it is even more remarkable since he rose from the ranks. He taught school for about eleven years and the started his own insurance agency. He was a really good speaker and it was really an excellent way to spend Veteran’s Day.

Well, it is my first Game Night. Sarah and her friends used to have them quite regularly, but haven't had any since she has been married to me. Sarah and I played Trivial Pursuit as a team, and while we didn't win the game, we had the most correct answers. It was really fun and I look forward to doing it again.

So, I am up here in the Frozen Tundra trying to stay warm because it’s “colder than a well-digger’s ass” right now, and it just started to snow. Oh, whoop-de-do!

And that’s the absolute truth, give or take a lie or two…see you next time!

More Musings About My Life In TRF

Continuing my thoughts about living up here in the Frozen Tundra, other than the unbelievably cold winters and needing a “Rocket Train” to get anywhere, this is a wonderful place to live.

As cold as it is, most of the people are extremely warm and friendly. In some ways it is like stepping back in time to the early Sixties or even the Fifties. I had some misconceptions about the folks up here because of their mania for guns, their support for right to life, and their nationalistic pride. I almost figured them for “Tea Partiers”. I was really wrong.

When I began doing research on the candidates to vote this year, I discovered that they voted Democratic in overwhelming numbers. So much for assumptions…this is probably one of the Bluest areas in Minnesota.

I recently joined the Edlund-Holmstrom Post 117 of the American Legion. It made me feel wonderful because other than the Post commander, who is significantly younger than me, I was a “Youngun”. The fellow who signed me up had to keep adjusting his Ear Trumpet in order to hear my name and address and everyone was using either a cane or a walker. There are five hundred and some members…but only about twenty are active. Both the Mid Term Elections and the Legion meeting fell on Sarah’s birthday so we decided to have dinner there…good decision, we had some of the best food that we had in a very long time and it was cheaper than McDonalds.

On a different subject, we recently purchased the trailer next door, and will soon become “trailer trash slum lords”. It has been wonderful because it has allowed Sarah to exercise her nesting tendencies. She has made our temporary guest house into a lovely vacation cottage. It is really pretty spectacular, but she has worn herself out doing it.

Oh, and when we were out the other evening we had left Elsie in the entry way as normally do, but she got bored and decided to attempt suicide by shredding the beautiful Schefflera that Sarah got for her birthday last year. This is one of the most toxic plants to dogs, so I had to flush out her mouth with water and give her about three bowls of milk. She doesn't seem to have suffered any ill effects, but I have never had a dog with as many suicidal tendencies. The next task was trying to prevent Sarah from committing pupacide.

And that is the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two!

See you next time!

Mid Term Election Blues

Wow, I didn’t know how to respond to the absolute ignorance of the American Public. There was a chance to accomplish so much and now I see a nation of lemmings rushing over a cliff.

I didn’t know what to do with my frustration so I composed this little piece of doggerel which, when accompanied by some music in the style of a very early Dylan becomes a very bad song. At the request of one of my blog followers it is today’s posting.


Mid Term Election Blues

Our hearts are so heavy as if filled with sand
As idiots rejoice all over this land
There is serious concern for this country’s demise
When Bachmann’s reelected and Ron Paul survives
It’s shameful to think that the land of the free
Can be purchased by lobbyists, if they have the fee

There was so much optimism in 2008
We looked on in wonder and thought it was great
When our shiny young President stepped into the fray
To see it slip away is a very sad day
Our global respect was on the rise
Now the sound that you hear are international sighs

Our enemies are cheering in mass celebration
At the absolute foolishness of this great nation
And on the horizon a specter may arise
A Palin Presidency based upon lies
If that were to happen it could be the end
For among all our allies we’d not have a friend

I fear for our forces deployed everywhere
Because these people pretend, they don’t really care
People don’t count, no, people don’t matter
The “Fat Cat’s on Wall Street and in Boardrooms
Have the money to scatter
All of our troops, each son & each daughter
Will only end up used as cannon fodder

With Ralph Reed as our moral guide
We’ll only end up “With God on our side”
They’re will be no diversity or middle class gains
We’ll become more “Third World” with all of their pains
Both very rich and very poor will expand
You might see some “Black Shirts” and the return of the Klan
But free thought and progress won’t happen here
Our citizens are content to watch Fox and drink beer

My vocabulary has recently included “Hoser” and “Eh!”
‘Cause I might just have to move to Canada-yeh!


I hope to get in a better mood soon…but until then. see you all next time…

A Rant is a Rant

There are a couple of things on my mind today (although my children don’t think that there is much left of it).

First: It absolutely amazes me that conservatives get away with so much misleading bullshit.

Then I got to thinking one of the people that they idolize is Ronald Reagan. Would you like some quotes that he made?

“Well, I learned a lot…I went down to (Latin America) to find out from them and (learn) their views. You’d be surprised. They’re all individual countries.”

“I’m not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself.”

“Facts are stupid things.”

So we actually end up with a straight line from Reagan to “W” drawn with a red crayon, and it is only a dotted line away from Palin, Bachmann, Beck, and the others.

There have been several books written that had the title “A Nation of Sheep”. However, they were all written from the Conservative perspective and attempting to illustrate how America was “going to hell in a hand basket” because of Liberals and the encroachment of the federal government.

I have a suggestion for a new title…”A Nation of Lemmings” and it is about how a country can mindlessly follow FOX NOISE, Beck, Palin, Bachmann, and company off a cliff and into the abyss. It includes: racism from the pulpit, the use of misinformation and disinformation to rally those individuals that can’t or won’t think for themselves to act against the “greater good for the country”. It even persuades them to act against their own interests to keep a malevolent group of individuals in power. These people do not understand or care about the poor or the middle class. They will ensure that they make profits at any cost. They bought and paid for by the lobbyists who got them elected.

Second: I think it is unconscionable that "batshit crazy" protesters choose to disrupt and carry obnoxious signs to military funerals. The call it First Amendment rights, I call it bullshit.

Oral arguments for the case Snyder v Phelps began before the Supreme Court this week.

The Westboro Baptist Church (pretty much a cult because they are disowned by all other Baptist congregations) of Topeka, Kansas is headed by Fred Phelps.
On March 3, 2006, Marine Lance Corporal Matthew Snyder was killed in Iraq in the line of duty. His funeral was held in his hometown of Westminster, Maryland at Saint John’s Catholic Church.

After notifying the media seven members of the Westboro Baptist Church showed up outside the church where Matthew’s funeral was being held carrying the following signs:
“America is Doomed”
“God hates the USA/Thank God for 911”
“Pope in Hell”
“Semper Fi Fags”
“Thank God for Dead Soldiers”
“Don’t Pray for the USA”
“Thank God for IEDs”
“Priests Rape Boys”
and
“God hates Fags”

I have a very simple solution to the entire situation. Since the congregation of about sixty (50 of whom are Phelps family members) hates this country so passionately...put them on a C-17 and take them to Iraq where they can experience those IEDs that God loves “up close and personal.”

That’s all for now…see you next time!

Concerning TRF

I have occasionally written about Thief River Falls. But I need to say a little more about my new hometown.

Thief River Falls is a town of about 8,500 that the Red River runs through and exists somewhere between Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon and the Cohen Brothers’ Fargo. Life is quite different up here in the Frozen Tundra.

I mentioned before that you could leave your car running while you were shopping, and walk through TRF any time, day or night with no worries. People leave their cars with their keys in them and their doors unlocked.

Marge Gunderson has been cloned many, many times and lives happily in TRF. You don’t have to go very far to hear UFFDA, or Ya betcha, or Don’t ya know. A typical conversation runs something like this: “We were at the Legion don’t ya know and UFFDA they were serving the best tater tot hotdish, ya betcha."

Thief River Falls has a Sears, a J C Penny’s, a hardware store, a few gas stations, two Chinese restaurants and a few fast food places. There is Dee’s Diner and the Lantern, a few bars, three banks, a couple of really good grocery stores, and five or six gas stations. The residents were sure that “it was on the map” when Walmart put in a store with a grocery deprtment.

Walmart shopping in TRF is a very different experience for me. There are little clusters of people who have “parked” their grocery carts and are engaged in conversations about church and school, kids and grandkids, and in-laws and outlaws. It is a place where a perfect stranger walks up to me and says: “UFFDA, those are some nice whiskers”, or “I didn’t get everything on my Christmas list last year, don’t ya know,” or “Ya, you betcha, I knew that this was the Frozen Tundra, and seeing you I am sure of it.”

Typical conversations at Dee’s Diner run something like this: the weather, sugar beets, the weather, soybeans, the weather, those damn Vikings, the weather, that damn Gopher football team, the weather, “sledding” (snowmobiling to the uninitiated), the weather, combines, the weather, guns and ammo, the weather, who hit a deer or got hit by a deer, and the weather. There is usually a table with a Sherriff’s Deputy and a few city policemen sitting at it, and sometimes they join the conversation, but most of the time the talk amongst themselves about chasing speeders and DWI arrests, oh, and guns and ammo, and the weather.

Now it may sound like I am poking fun at these people…I’m not they are the most honest, genuine people I have met, and it is the place where if you need help someone is always there, and you can still make any deal with a handshake.

That’s all for now…see you next time!

The 50th High School Reunion

I really need to tell you a little about the Class Reunion. It was the 50th Reunion for the Class of 1960 of Johnson High School in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

I didn’t go to any of the other reunions because I thought that it would just be another time when a bunch of people who didn’t really know each other sat around trying to impress each other with lies and BS. After talking to some good friends who attended all of them, I found that I was exactly right.

There were 506 who graduated in the Johnson Class of 1960, and probably about 300 attended. For my reader’s information I graduated 55th, and that was with a schedule that included: three years of Latin, two years of French, Geometry and higher algebra, biology, chemistry and physics, three years of history/social sciences and three years of English. My senior year, I was the only boy in a class with 22 girls who took advanced English. This class concentrated on teaching you to write themes and reports at a college level. It was one of the best classes that I ever took. Well, that is enough about that.

I was really happy that I didn’t encounter any of the nonsense that occurred at the earlier reunions. It was like retirement had become a “leveler” and everyone was back to being classmates.

Johnson was a blue-collar high school on the Eastside of Saint Paul in 1960. In some ways the movie “Blackboard Jungle” could have been filmed there. It had the usual amount of cliques and groups that were exclusive, but there was more ability to bridge from one group to another, and to have friends that were in many different groups. I was fortunate to have friends in several groups.

There were some really “badass” guys wearing the black t-shirts with their cigarettes rolled up in the sleeves. There was an area in the parking lot where smoking was condoned (it was of course illegal unless you were 18), but there was a lot of times that people were caught smoking in the bathrooms. Sometimes when you went into the boy’s bathroom, the air was actually blue because of all the cigarette smoke. The “Charlie Brown” of the late fifties song was alive and well at Johnson.

The strange and wonderful thing is that this class produced at least a dozen PhDs, (including one who worked for NASA) a couple of MDs, a couple of DDS’s, and ten or more CEOs of major corporations. But we won’t go into how many were incarcerated or ended up being shot during the commission of a crime. That would be just a “guesstimate” at any rate.

Most of those that attended shared some fondness for each other, and I would have loved to have been able to spend more time with them.


…and that’s the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two!

Catching up - Part Two

It has rained for a couple of days now and that means that my rheumatoid arthritis “flares”. It is cold and damp and wet.

When we got back from Kentucky my defibrillator went off because I was going into ventricular tachycardia. My heart rate went to 230 before I got shocked, it went off a second time in the same week, and I began to have some heart issues that were somewhat relieved by nitro. I went to the ER at our hospital in TRF and they sent me by ambulance to Fargo. I was in the ICU for four days and my dear wife stayed with me the whole time sleeping in a chair and waiting on me. They put me on an IV nitro drip and almost immediately I was feeling pretty good again. When I left the hospital Dr. Ontaro, the cardiologist that handles pacemaker/defibrillator patients put me on a ne anti-arrhythmic drug called Pacerone. Well, it has about three pages of side effects and I developed most of them.

Sarah was leaving for Tennessee because she did not get to see her mother when we took our RV trip and my granddaughters Bryanna and McKenzie were celebrating their birthdays together. Well, I was not able to stay for the party but I did get to see them and give them their gifts. I went back on my oxygen generator and was pretty miserable for all of Labor Day weekend.

Sarah did have a wonderful visit with her mother, and her brother and sister-in-law came up with their two sons. She hadn’t seen her mother or her nephews in about ten years, so I was very happy that she didn’t cancel her trip. She also got to meet her grand-nephew Jay Carter DuRoy (who will always be Leroy DuRoy to me). He was born between the RV visit and her return to Tennessee. So she got to hold him while he was still very much a baby.

I gradually got better and now I just have extreme fatigue. Dr. Ashok Patel my regular doctor cut my dose in half and he said that in three or four weeks he might be able to halve it again.

We went to my 50th High School Class Reunion in the Cities and that was really fun, but I had to cut my visits short with some of the people that I had not seen since graduation because of my breathing. I had to go back on the generator.

However,we did get to spend some quality time with my granddaughters: Bryanna, Danielle, and McKenzie. That was fun because it had been a long time since we had a chance to have time enough to visit.


That’s all for now…and I promise that the next posting will be whine free!

Catching Up - Part One

Well, it is time for me to get you caught up on what has been going on in the Frozen Tundra lately. I mean that literally, we woke up to 39 degrees this morning.

First, our trip to Kentucky was wonderful, my son Ben and his lovely wife Jena did all the driving and we had wonderful weather. We had a large seven passenger RV and it was good because there were four adults and three dogs.

We got to Bronston, Kentucky on the Fourth of July, and because my dad is not always “with it”, I got into trouble with my mom and Ben for foolin’ with him. He could not remember who I was…sometimes he thought that I was his dad, sometimes his older brother, and every once in awhile he remembered that I was his oldest son. But he would say that I was twenty years older than him, and the devil made me agree with him. Mom chided me because she had worked so hard trying to keep him in touch with reality.

Next, we went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee and then to Gatlinburg. Ben and Jena rented a Jeep and went up into Smokey Mountain National Park and Sarah and I chilled with the dogs in the RV. We had a wonderful southern dinner at the Old Mill in Gatlinburg, and headed back to Bronston.

We celebrated my dad’s 86th birthday with him, and this time I made an effort to get him to remember things both from the past and present and to try to connect the two. I was great to see dad and mom, and we got the added benefit of seeing my nephew Tim and meeting his wife Sharon. They are really very helpful to my parents and I am very thankful that they are there.

We had a very short visit, but it was good and my folks can’t handle too much company.

Then we went on to Signal Mountain, Tennessee to visit Sarah’s niece, Beth DuRoy. Her husband Jason was in Washington D C, so we didn’t get to meet him. Beth is an opera singer and has a beautiful soprano voice. She has two wonderful children, Kathleen and Jack , and another one on the way. It was a wonderful visit because she treated us all as though we were family. Sarah’s brother, Mike and his wife, Shahnaz came up from Huntsville, Alabama and spent Friday with us. Ben helped Beth create a blog to promote her singing career and I got to enjoy Jack and Kathleen. Southern kids are a lot different because they were always calling us Mr. Ed, Mr. Ben, Auntie Sarah, and Miss Jena. But by the end of our visit I had become Uncle Ed. This was another high spot of the vacation.

We went back through Saint Louis and had a meal at the Mark Twain Dinette in Hannibal, Missouri.

We got back to Thief River Falls with the better part of a day left before Sarah had to go back to work.


That’s all for now…see you next time!

September Eleventh

I seem to be always apologizing for the time interval between postings.

I will catch you up on what has been happening in my life in the next one.

This posting concerns recent events and September 11th. As we commemorate that devastating event, we need to also evaluate our current environment.

First, we have the example of the Reverend Terry Jones, pastor of Dove World Outreach Center, a fifty member non-denominational charismatic Christian church in Gainesville, Florida. He is not a licensed minister. He called for Quran burning and promised to burn them on September 11th. It didn’t happen, but it did anger the Muslim world.

Next, we have the Reverend Billy Graham’s son Franklin. He is an ordained minister and the current head of the Billy Graham Foundation. He is much more dangerous than the “fruit loop” from Gainesville. Franklin Graham wields real power and has a world-wide congregation. He did something that his father never did. He distorted truth and implied that Barak Obama was a Muslim, by virtue that his father was a Muslim. This repudiates his whole theology of free will. It was done not out of ignorance, but with the sole purpose of political gain for his conservative friends. Graham has at various times said that Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion”, that it is a religion of hatred. It’s a religion of war”, and saying that building the cultural center near Ground Zero means the Muslims “will now claim that the World Trade Center Property…is Islamic land.” Shame on you Reverend Graham.

Now, on this day of such national sorrow we need thoughtful solutions that will allow Muslims, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and all others to live in peace and harmony. If we can’t find a solution our planet will not survive. Peace and Love!

That’s all for now…see you next time!

Real Excitement in the Air

There is excitement in the air…we are planning our vacation to coincide with our first anniversary and my father’s 88th Birthday. My son Ben has been gracious enough to offer to drive a very large RV down to Kentucky and Tennessee.

We are hoping that Sarah’s mom will be in Tennessee at that time, and she has a niece that lives there. She may get to see most of her family. That hasn’t quite been worked out yet.

I haven’t seen my parents since the week of September 11, 2001 (I was supposed to fly back to Minnesota on September 11th). Both of my parents are in failing health, but they are still hanging in there.

Sarah is still recovering from her surgery and it is “touch and go” sometimes with the nausea. There were a couple of times in the last two weeks that I thought that I was going to have to take her to the ER because of the violence of her nausea and the duration. The good thing is that we are always there for each other. I don’t think that I have ever experienced that in a marriage. You sometimes get unconditional love from your children and grandchildren and from your dogs. But it is a very rare thing to get unconditional love from a husband or wife. There are usually conditions (even if they are just implied).

Sarah accepts my eccentricities (and I have a lot) and even contributes to those things that I know she “thinks are nuts”. Neither of my earlier wives were that understanding. But, I am sure that most of the misunderstandings were my fault…I’ve been wrong since 1972.

Sarah may not be perfect, but honest to God, she is perfect for me. We are content just to be in each other’s company, to take care of each other, and to just be the best friends. She is my soul mate and it is wonderful to have found her (even if it is this late in my life).

One of my eccentricities is making pickles and hot pepper sauce…she really doesn’t approve because of the amount of sodium, but she tolerates. I am pretty much a DORK sometimes because I make lists…100 Greatest Guitar Players, etc. Sarah is very patient and she listens to the various musicians on Youtube and even critiques them with me sometimes. We are fortunate to both like the same kind of movies (most of the time) and she searches out those little gems that somehow fell by the wayside.

For some people our life might be very boring. For me it is pretty wonderful.


That’s all for now…see you next time!

How Could This Happen...

Let me state for those casual visitors to Wolf Prints that I am a patriot…I served in the USAF and have voted in every election since I was 21.

That being said…I have been researching what I thought were some Urban Myths concerning government activities and the American populace.

First, there were vague rumors of radiation experimentation on unsuspecting individuals. This actually happened - - numerous human radiation experiments have been performed in the United States. Sponsored by the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), they did among other things:

- Injected radioactive substances into babies and pregnant women
- Fed radioactive materials in oatmeal and other cereals to mentally disabled children
- Released radioactive materials over U S cities to simulate the effects of radioactive fallout
- Exposed soldiers and prisoners to high levels of radiation
- Irriated the testicles of prisoners causing severe birth defects
- Illegally exhumed bodies from graveyards to test them for radiation…without the consent of the families of the deceased

When I was growing up there were all these “stories” about why the cancer rate on the lower Eastside of Saint Paul was higher than in the general population. It seems that 3M was providing radioactive materials to the U S government, which, in turn, was released by various means throughout the neighborhood. (We thought there was a lot of skywriting.

On January 15, 1994, President Bill Clinton formed the Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments to ensure that this would never happen again.

The second issue which I want to address is what was known as Project Paperclip. General Dwight David Eisenhower gave his personal approval to exploit the work and research of the Nazi death camps. German doctors who were guilty of heinous war crimes were brought to the U S to work for the project. Also known as, Operation Paperclip, the project was developed jointly by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA). President Harry Truman did not formally order the execution of Operation Paperclip until August 1945. His order expressly excluded anyone found to be a member of the Nazi Party. JIOA simply created false employment records and political biographies for these scientists. Over time the U S imported over 1,000 Nazi doctors to work in the areas of mind control and the effects of drugs on the human brain.

Project MKULTRA was the codename for a covert, illegal CIA human research program, run by it’s Office of Scientific Intelligence. MKULTRA used many types of drugs to manipulate mental states and alter brain function. It was first brought to public attention in 1975 by the U S Congress, through the investigations by the Church Committee and a presidential commission known as the Rockafeller Commission. The investigation was severely hampered by the fact that the CIA Director, Richard Helms, ordered all MKULTRA files destroyed in 1973. On the floor of the Senate, Senator Ted Kennedy stated: “The Deputy Director of the CIA revealed that over thirty universities and institutions were involved in an ‘extensive testing and experimentation’ program which included covert drug tests on unwitting citizens ‘at all social levels, high and low, native Americans and foreign. The use of LSD was administered to ‘unwitting subjects in social situations.’

Most of the information used here was just recently declassified.

To this day most specific information regarding Project MKULTRA remains highly classified.

The final issue is the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. This was a clinical study that was conducted by the U S Public Health Service between 1932 and 1972 where 399 impoverished Blacks (mostly sharecroppers) with syphilis were recruited. The 40-year old study was controversial for several reasons related to ethical standards. This was primarily because researchers failed to treat patients appropriately after the 1940’s validation of penicillin as an effective cure for the disease. By 1947 penicillin had become the standard treatment for syphilis. Choices might have included treating all syphilitic subjects and closing the study, or splitting off a control group for testing with penicillin.
Instead, the Tuskegee scientists continued the study, withholding penicillin and information about it from the patients. In addition, scientist prevented participants from accessing other syphilis treatment programs. The study continued, under various supervisors, until 1972, when a leak to the press resulted in it’s termination. Victims included the numerous men who died of syphilis, wives who contracted the disease, and children born with congenital syphilis. The Tuskegee Syphilis Study is “arguably the most infamous biomedical research study in U S history.”

On May 16, 1997, President Bill Clinton formally apologized in a White House ceremony saying: “What is done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can top turning out heads away. We can look you in the eye and say on behalf of the American people, what the united States government did was shameful, and I am sorry…To the African American citizens. I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist.” The ceremony was attended by five of the eight survivors.

…and who the hell knows what happened on “W”s and Halburton Dick’s watch..


That’s all for now…I promise something more cheerful next time!

More About My Wonderful Wife...

In the last posting I told everyone a little about my wife Sarah…but there is so much more to tell.

Sarah has so many, many facets that it is like you’re a looking at some type of cut jewel.

First, she is extremely “down to earth” and one would be hard-pressed to find anyone who dislikes her. She is very bright, and has the type of mind that if we watch a documentary…she has to go online to find out more about whatever it was we were watching. If it is fiction…she has to explore what parts were true and what actually came from the writer’s mind.

I mentioned in the last posting about her recovery from the procedure she had done to correct Barrett’s Esophagus. She explored every aspect of the condition, the surgical procedure, the side effects of the surgery, the recovery period, and what things would change for life.

I believe that she may have taken over from Dick Clark as “the world’s oldest teenager”. I mentioned before that she is an electronics tech, with a second degree in computer technology. Well, you can add to this that she has been a “gamer”, and this aspect of her personality has given her a lot of young friends.

Now at the opposite extreme is this technologically challenged individual that she married. I am not good at any games that require fine motor skills and hand to eye coordination. I like the “old school” games like Civilization, and Pirates, and Age of Empires. These are strategy games but can be played solo. My technology is still “Hammer & Stone” and I still “drag my knuckles”.

Sarah has tried to teach me World of Warcraft…but she has played for a long time and I am sure that I must frustrate the hell out of her. She is probably going to have better luck at Beatles Rockband…cause I really like the songs!

One of the things that constantly amazes me is that her father and my father had the same sayings and humor…the first time I started one of these and she chimed in and finished it absolutely blew me away.




I’ll tell you more later…when I see you next time!

A new wife...a new life

I have told you a little about Sarah, my new wife, but there is so much more to tell.

Sarah is a certified SMARTASS…she is so quick that she has me “in stitches” a lot of the time. Most of the really good SMARTASS remarks are of a private nature, and I have promised her that they will not be shared in postings. Just let me say this…there have been times when one of her quick-witted remarks made me laugh so hard that I thought that I would “piss myself”.

The first example that I can post of the remarks that I remember is: when she was brought back to her room from surgery, and Dr. Guiterrez (the surgeon) asked how she felt and she immediately responded with “my fingers”. Now you have to understand that by this time Sarah had seen Dave Guiterrez enough times to know that the comment was one SMARTASS to ANOTHER. He has had some pretty good quips during our earlier visits.

I will say that she never misses an opportunity to “zing” me, but it is in the spirit of our relationship.

I always believed that if you wanted unconditional love…you went to your mother, you needed to find a child under the age of nine, or a dog of your own. My children have proved this wrong because no matter where I was in life, “Prince or Pauper”, they have loved me. But, I never had a wife that loved me unconditionally…until now. Do you know how lucky that makes me!

As I have mentioned in earlier postings…Thief River Falls has a population of about 8,500 and I really had no trouble getting used to it. It is colder here than it is in the Cities, and it is much more “laid back”. People leave their cars running in parking lots, and their homes unlocked, no one is fearful of any part of town…and yet there is some diversity provided by Northland, (the community college in town).

My politics and the fact that I express myself so openly haven’t endeared me to some people because I am so VERY Blue in this sea of Red population.

The local people here also eat “Minnesota White”…the biggest risk most will take is an occasional trip to one of the Cantonese Restaurants or a semi-annual stop at Taco John's. My ethnic cooking certainly doesn’t get the respect around here that I am used to…Sarah being the exception of course, she does gumbo better than anyone, and loves my cooking.


That’s all for now…see you next time!

Do You Think That It's a Requirement...

Do you think that it’s a requirement to be “batshit crazy” run for office as a Republican.

It certainly seems so…take these examples:

Republican Senate Candidate Jane Norton would eliminate coverage for cancer screenings…she compares them to “shoe fetishes” and caffeine addictions”. This would include cervical and prostate screenings.

Then we have our own “dear bitch” from the Sixth District, Michelle Bachmann saying that: “Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful. But there isn’t even one study that can be produced that shows carbon dioxide is a harmful gas.”

And then there’s Sarah Palin who said: “ The America I know and love is not one in which my parents and my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide based on a subjective judgment if their ‘level of productivity in society’ whether they are worthy of healthcare. Such a system is down right evil.”

And this Palin gem: “I think on a National level your Department of Law in the White House would look at some of the things that we’ve been charged with and automatically throw them out.” (Here she refers to a department that does not exist to explain why as president she wouldn’t be subjected to the same ethics investigations that compelled her to resign as Governor of Alaska.) And she was on the ticket to be a “heartbeat away from being president”.

Did you know that there is a Sarah Palin inflatable doll…I won’t even go there!

One of the funniest things that I heard recently is that Tarry Clark should sell a “Chatty Cathy-Bachmann Doll” using actual Bachmann sound bytes…this would be a sensational success. Pull the string and out comes one “batshit crazy” statement after another. I want one!



That’s probably all you can handle for now…see you next time!

Holiday Celebrations

I don’t have any idea of what and how many holidays normal people celebrate.

In my household we celebrate a lot.

Of course, we celebrate New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, Lincoln’s Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, and we celebrate Mardi Gras and Carnaval.

We also celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day and Saint Urho’s Day (he drove the grasshoppers out of Finland), Passover, Easter, Cesar Chavez Day, May Day, Cinco de Mayo, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day.

We celebrate Ramadan, Ros Hashanaha, Yom Kippur, Chanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve.

Next year we may celebrate Elsie farting…but that happens so often we wouldn’t be able to tell where one celebration ended and the next began.

The previous posting is the absolute truth…give or take a lie or two!

That’s all for now…see you next time!

It Could Have Ended Badly...

I have told you a little about our Aussiepoo, Elsie and the fascination she has with collecting thing and taking them to the “dogyard”. If you remember she decorated for Christmas with a Santa’s hat, bits of wrapping paper, ornaments, and ribbons. She has also, at various times, taken Sarah’s slippers, my pajama bottoms, my shoes, and about four dozen pairs of socks to the “dogyard.”

But, this time she outdid herself!

As you know my wife, Sarah recently had surgery for Barrett’s Esophagus. Well, the doctor prescribed hydroco/apap (generic vicodin) for the pain she was having. They were 5-325 mg tablets and there were 50 of them. They came in a childproof plastic bottle…but it wasn’t “puppyproof”. Elsie simply chewed through the plastic. We heard her chewing on something and looked down, and it was the medicine bottle.

My first thought was she really did it…she committed suicide.

So the first thing I did was look in the “dogyard” and low and behold there was a large stack of vicodin on the piece of carpet that she has to discourage her digging. Now getting in the “dogyard” wouldn’t be too much of a problem for young, agile souls…but there is no gate and the fence is six-foot high chicken wire. We had to call our young friend Matt over and he collected all the vicodin. I counted them and there were 46…Sarah knew that she had taken either three or four.

We watched Elsie for any reaction…but she obviously didn’t swallow any of them, because the next day we went to WALMART and locked her in the entry way, when we got home, we found her happily making mud pies all over the entry way and looked in the “dogyard”, and discovered the new four foot hole that she had dug while we were gone…there must be some burrowing creature way back in here genes…because no real dog could dig that fast.

So what could have ended in a family tragedy had a happy ending…at least for now!



That’s all for now…see you next time!

Still Another Rant...

Well, are you ready for another rant?

Today, I need to address a growing cancer that threatens our country. It goes by the name of the Tea Party, but it is actually an insidious undermining of the TRUE principles that America was founded on. Not since the McCarthy era has so much hate and venom been directed at American citizens who happen to disagree with their point of view.

According to Wikipedia…Sedition is a term of law which refers to overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that is deemed by legal authority as tending toward insurrection against the established order. Acts of sedition are punishable by up to two years imprisonment…these acts include making “false, scandalous, and malicious writings or speeches about the President and the United States Government.” Does Michelle Bachmann’s “gangster government” fall into this category?

Wikipedia also defines Fascists as those who seek to organize a nation on corporatist perspectives, values, and systems such as the political system and the economy. Does this sound like the Obama Administration?

Back in 1958 Robert W. Welch jr. founded the John Birch Society…it was a radical right-wing Americentic political advocacy group. It exists today and supports anti-communism, limited government and personal freedom.

The Tea Party is much more dangerous than the John Birch Society or McCarthyism ever was.

“It is a parody of the legitimate movements for which American Democracy has been held in such high regard. The movement demonstrates a willful contempt for the facts or reason.” (Stuart Whatley)

An Arizona pastor has said from the pulpit, “I hate Barack Obama, not what he stands for, the man Barack Obama.” He has also prayed from that same pulpit for President Obama’s death. Is this Christian? Is this Moral” Is this Sedition? I believe it is sedition because he attempted to incite his congregation to do violence against President Obama.

“There is a big difference in criticizing a policy or politician and demonizing the government that guarantees our freedoms and the public servants who enforce our laws. It is not appropriate to call elected officials “gangsters.” (Bill Clinton) Take that Michelle.

That’s all for now…see you next time!

A brief posting...

I apologize for the time interval since my last posting. It has been rather eventful up here in the Frozen Tundra lately.

First, our young friend Dustin moved out…and it was time, he really needs to experience the “real world”.

My fifteen year-old granddaughter Mandi may never speak to me again, but that’s a story for another time.

We converted the room that Dustin was sleeping in…into a library/guest room/computer area.

Sarah had a rough bout with a respiratory flu and lost week of work, then she worked three days and had surgery for Barrett’s Esophagus, and will miss another weeks work. But the recovery period will be much longer…it will be a full month before she can eat solid food.

So you can see that there was a reason for the interruption.

More personal information in this posting…I enjoy being married to Sarah so very much! We laugh a lot, watch movies, have real conversations, and just live in the moment.

I know this is brief, but I will fill you in on other things next time.



That’s all for now…see you next time!

Another Rant Against Flim Flam, Horse Feathers & Horseshit - the Conclusion

Yes, I’m back!

I am going to try to follow the Conservative journey from my perspective…if we go back to Russell Kirk’s six “canons”…

• I can’t agree that there is divine intent…but I do believe that personal conscience has an effect on society.
• I can’t agree that there is more variety in traditional life or that Progressive or Liberal Systems are characterized by uniformity.
• I do not believe that a civilized society requires orders and classes…this would define civilization as it existed in ancient Greece or ancient Rome and could justify both keeping certain people at the poverty level, and slavery.
• I don’t agree that property and freedom are inseparably connected. This premise sounds very much like the argument that the slave-holding plantation owners used around 1848.
• I don’t believe that man is more emotional than rational…that man’s will and appetites are always pursuing the basest courses of action.
• I don’t believe that society must alter slowly, but that change is healthy and allows society to better itself rather than adhering to stagnant ideologies.
Now even though Kirk established his “canons” or principles for Conservatives as fact…they are not any more than my opinions about them are facts. They illustrate the conflicting ideologies that exist in our current political system…but neither are FACTS.

The primary reason that Conservative ideologies have appealed to a portion of our society is that it provides justification and both bigotry and greed. If we look at what the “canons” say between the lines…you come up with something like:
• You only matter if you believe in the same deity that we believe in.
• That status quo protects the wealth that we have accumulated and allows us to do just about anything to attain more wealth (i.e., drill for oil in Denali, etc.)
• That you can not have a “ruling class” without other classes to be ruled.
• That unless you have property you don’t count.
• That man is basically evil and needs to be protected from himself.
• That status quo is a virtue within itself.

Now a few years ago I could have argued these points in a very learned and civil manner with the likes of William F. Buckley, jr. or George Will (I still could with George Will). They were (and are in George Will’s case) very intelligent, thoughtful individuals who could argue the Conservative point of view.

But somehow “the train jumped the track”, and we have a group of morons and “batshit crazy” candidates and pseudo pundits taking the American public down a path to stupid.

Now there has always been a lunatic fringe…Joseph R McCarthy, George Wallace, Curtis LeMay, and others. However, they never had the influence or “political clout” that the modern crop has.

But now, Republicans, young and old, quote Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Rielly, Ann Coulter, and the likes as though they had written the Gospels. If they said it, no matter how absurd, it had to be true!

During the fiasco of the Presidential Election of 2000…many of us decried the electoral college. But the purpose for it was valid. The Founding Fathers designed it to keep the “Batshit Crazy” Candidates like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachman from being elected to the Presidency…at least that was the theory.

...until next time...

Another Rant Against Flim Flam, Horse Feathers, and Horseshit...

Oh no…there he goes again!

In order to understand where the Conservatives are coming from, and being the historian that I am, I did a bit of research on the Conservative tradition in America.

According to Wikipedia: “…there has always been a Conservative tradition in America, but the American Conservative tradition was popularized by Russell Kirk in 1953, when he wrote The Conservative Mind. Russell Kirk state that Conservatism is base on the central idea of ordered liberty. It is the blending of the sometimes contending requirements of the community and the individual, of individual freedom and individual responsibility, of limited government and unlimited markets. To Kirk, there were six basic “canons” or principles of Conservatism:
• A divine intent, as well as personal conscience, rules society.
• Traditional life is filled with variety and mystery while most radical
systems are characterized by a narrowing uniformity.
• Civilized society requires orders and classes.
• Property and freedom are inseparably connected.
• A man must control his will and his appetite, knowing that he is governed
more by emotion than by reason.
• Society must alter slowly.

In 1955, William F. Buckley. Jr. founded the National Review, a Conservative magazine that included traditionalists such as Kirk, along with Roman Catholics, Libertarians, and anti-Communists.

In 1964, when Barry Goldwater, the United States Senator from Arizona and the author of The Conscience of a Conservative (1960), won the Republican Presidential nomination after a fierce fight. He lost the election badly, but permanently shifted the Republican Party to the Right. Part of Goldwater’s base were Southern Democrats who were alienated by Democratic support of Federal Civil Rights legislation.

Modern Conservatism became a major political force in the ‘70’s when religious organizations such as the Moral Majority brought together separate ideologies under a Conservative umbrella know as “fusionism”.

In the ‘80’s Ronald Reagan solidified Conservative Republican strength by appealing to fundamentalist Christians – historians and textbooks refer to this as “The Age of Reagan” or the “Reagan Era.”

In the ‘90’s, Conservatives found consolidation in a new and somewhat controversial leader, Congressman Newt Gingrich. His Contract With America created an atmosphere that allowed Republicans to gain 52 seats and assume a majority in the House and recapture control of the Senate.

The one political constant throughout the last 50 years has been the rise of the Right. The Conservative movement has become a major and often dominant player in the political and economic realms of America.
- Lee Edwards, Ph.D. – Distinguished Fellow in Conservative thought in the
Kenneth B. Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation.

…I just know that everyone is waiting with “baited breath” for my response in my next posting…

Stop dissing Trolls...

Please indulge me because I need to go back in time for a bit to clarify something. If you remember I was in the Air Force (way back in the Sixties). I was in military intelligence, and if I told you any more than that I would have to kill you. Anyway one of my friends decided to give me a nickname and I really don’t know for sure where it came from. One time he said it was because I was always chasing girls…and another time it was what I “looked like”. I never did find out the real story. But, I was stuck with the nickname TROLL. It even became my call-sign…and one of the girls that I was dating sent me two-foot tall troll.

So you see, I have been the TROLL for about forty-five years, and it bothers me that it has become a pejorative term.

I looked troll up in Wikipedia. This is what I found - - A troll has become in internet slang “…someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous , or off-topic messages in an online community…with the primary intent of provoking users into an emotional response or otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. The word also evokes the trolls in Scandinavian folklore and children’s tales, as they are often creatures bent on mischief or wickedness. The verb ‘troll” originates from the Old French term “troller”, a hunting term. The noun “Troll” however, comes from the Old Norse word for a mythological monster. Originally trolls were more or less the Nordic equivalents of giants, although somewhat smaller in size. They were also by some accounts devious, more human-like folk of the wilderness, living underground in hills, cave or mounds.

The Urban Dictionary defines a Troll as…one who purposely and deliberately (that purpose usually being self- amusement) starts an argument in a manner which attacks others on a forum without in any way listening to the arguments proposed by his or her peers. He will spark an argument via the use of ad hominem attacks (i.e. “you’re nothing but a fanboy” is a popular phrase) with no substance to back them up as well as straw man arguments which he uses to simply avoid addressing the essence of the issue.

So now when I innocently refer to myself as the Troll, it immediately generates disrespect and conjures up all the new evil connotations.

Well, enough is enough! I have been a Troll much longer that the internet has existed…therefore it is my right to have a little respect!

There is an internet acronym: DNFTT – “Do not feed the trolls”

Well, I have another one for you: DNFWTT – “Do not FUCK with this TROLL”.

…there will be more next time…

Spring Forward...

Up here in the frozen tundra we look forward with breathless anticipation to the first signs of spring.


The past few days have been a welcome relief with temps running in the mid-forties (a tropical heat wave). We have also noticed that Elsie has been very busy working on some new holes in the “dogyard” and she has been adding to her rock collection. We have been finding these small muddy rocks in various places on the carpet. Elsie is supposed to be an Aussi-Poo, but I think that there may be some groundhog , or gopher in her bloodlines…there is nothing she likes better than to dig.



What is supposed to be the driveway in the front of our trailer has become a huge sink hole…I christened it “Thief River Swamp” and I have been checking around on how much it would cost to lay about a four inch deep base of gravel. I was told not to even think about it until the ground dries out some or the gravel will just disintegrate into the “Swamp”. Depending on who I talk to…to cover an eight foot by twelve foot area with about four inches of gravel will run somewhere between $600 and $700. Now I wouldn’t mind making the investment if we owned the lot…but it is a rental. And we were notified that they are going to buy our trailer out within the next two years because our lot will go away and be folded into a road-widening project. I guess I might just have someone dump a couple of truckloads of dirt in and see if that helps at all.


Other than that it has really been pretty quiet…our excitement revolves around our next clinic appointment, taking Elsie to the Vet, and our almost daily trek to WALLYWORLD…I can hardly contain myself with anticipation…I have a “fasting blood draw”, an appointment with my primary physician, and a protine test all in the same day…Wow! Then there is the upcoming colonoscopy…not so much gleeful anticipation there , and a CT Scan of my pulmonary system in Fargo. Sarah has a laparoscopic esophageal surgery coming up shortly…and that is what happens in the life of us old farts in Thief River Falls.


…there will be more next time…

Live Long and Prosper...

Many of those who know me well will question the title…but I have beaten the “Old Grim Reaper” out of almost thirty years. And my economic circumstances might not be thought of as prosperous…but it depends on how you define prosperity. When I was younger my type “A” personality drove me chase those things that other people determined made you successful. After all my heart issues and other health “bullshit”…I determined that material things don’t REALLY mean a damn thing.

I have been fortunate enough to live long enough to appreciate all the blessings that I have been given.

Among these I number: an extremely wonderful wife Sarah, my three Children: Ben, Aimee, and Lynsey(who all happen to be SMART ASSES – who would have thought that), my daughter-in-law Jena, my son-in-law Kristopher, my step-granddaughter Mandi , and my five “little baby girls”, Bryanna, Danielle, MacKenzie, Caitlin, and Emily. I have also had a few very wonderful friends…some who are no longer with us…but were important in my life none the less.

My best friend Ron Lamberg has been my friend since we were about 14(he is riding his motorcycle up six and a half hours to see me this Spring – a REAL friend), my friend, and sometime lover , Susan McCann, My friend Nancy Brainard, my friends Gary and Dagney Lingen (both are no longer with us), my friend Bob Goldenberg (also no longer with us), and my dear friend Vern Moore (who passed away about this time last year).

I appreciate the ability to see great movies and listen to wonderful music (in every genre), and being a tiny bit anal retentive, I create lists…GREATEST MOVIES, Greatest Love songs, 100 greatest guitarists, 25 GREATEST Male Vocalists, 25 GREATEST female vocalists, etc. (you get the picture). All of these lists are VERY subjective, and sometimes get me into trouble.

I sort of live by this quote of Leo Kottke’s: “I will literally open my mouth not knowing what is coming out.”

I was looking over my FAVORITE guitarist list and was shocked that the list was full of a lot of old people and a lot of dead people. Among those deceased are: Chet Atkins, Les Paul, Jimi Hendrix, Mike Bloomfield, Jerry Garcia, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and George Harrison. Dick Dale is 72, Duane Eddy is 71, Roy Clark is 67, Bonnie Raitt and Richard Thompson are 60, Jimmy Page is 56, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Eddie Van Halen and Pat Metheny are 55, David Gilmour, Pete Townshend and Leo Kottke are all 54, Ry Cooder, Justin Hayward, and Joe Satriani are 53, Carlos Santana is 52, and Mark Knopfler is 50. Pushing this group is Steve Vai at 49, and the Swedish guitarist Yngwie Johann Malmsteen at 46.

But there are some wonderful younger guitar heroes: Herman Li (33) and Sam Totman (26) of Dragonforce and Orianthi (Pangaris) (24)…so there is a VERY bright future.

Yes my life is good…and in the evenings Sarah plays the piano and I sing with her (paraphrasing Leo once more) “in my baritone which could be described as goose farts on a muggy day.” But she enjoys it (See what wondrous things love can do?)


…there will be more next time…

More Flim Flam, Horse Feathers & Horseshit

It is time to ask your indulgence once again as I address some of the lunacy in the political arena concerning the Public Option for Healthcare Reform, rampant insanity among the GOP, and Social Security.

The GOP is running a mass smear campaign against Healthcare reform because they are running scared and they will lose all the “perks” that their lobbyist friends provide them…don’t get me wrong there are plenty of Democrats “at the trough” too. Anyone who earns less than $300, 000 should not be against providing baseline coverage to those Americans who are either uninsured, or under-insured. The idea that this is leading down the road to socialism or communism is such an old hackneyed ploy as to be laughable if there wasn’t so much at stake. I am old enough to remember Joseph Raymond McCarthy (Republican Senator from Wisconsin) and his accusations of subversion, treason, and disloyalty. For political gain he stated that “there are more than two hundred ‘card-carrying’ communists who have infiltrated the United States government. He said this without a shred of evidence, and the accusations were proven untrue. However, he did destroy or least do great harm to the careers of many individuals simply making unsubstantiated accusations.

Now let’s talk about the “Wingnut” that represents the Sixth District in Minnesota Michelle Bachman (hereafter known as “STINKY”). She has been re-elected, and is up for a third term. She has a campaign called Kill the Bill going and has brought in the heavy guns. On the same platform will be none other than: the moron the GOP ran for Vice President, Sarah Palin (hereafter known as “WINKY”). Both claim to be college educated…however, there is no evidence that either has read a book…I think their dogs may have eaten all their textbooks (especially those concerning history and geography). Neither WINKY nor STINKY has ever had trouble making things up when the facts didn’t back their point. Neither has a basic understanding of civics and how the government should operate…so how can we expect them to govern FOR the people.

Next item is the billboard with “W” on it that says: “Miss Me Yet?” And I can honestly tell you that I miss George W. Bush as much as I miss getting Cholera, or Diphtheria, or Syphilis. “W” and his "band of clowns" had eight years to destroy this country, and they certainly did a damn good job. It may take twenty years to clean it up, and then again it might have gone too far to be cleaned up.

The next item for discussion is the new book by Karl Rove "Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative" which is purported to be a memoir, but it probably should be in the Fiction Section at all the booksellers. I tried to pick it up to get a "first hand" view of what it had to say about his years with "W". But, it was so slimy it kept falling to the floor. After several attempts, I gave up because I didn't want to be forced to purchase the book because the binding got broken. Did I mention that both he and Dick Chaney should be writing their memoirs from prison cells.

Last, I would like to address Social Security. Everyone talks about what a mess it is in and how it needs to be “fixed” or privatized, or whatever. Let me start by saying Social Security does not need to be fixed. Don’t take my word for it, unlike Bachman and Palin, I have credible sources for my arguments.

Dr. Allen W. Smith is Professor of Economics Emeritus at Eastern Illinois University. His economics textbooks are used in colleges and universities across the country. His books have been alternate selections for the Fortune Book Club.

Dr. Smith states: “In 1983 there was a payroll tax hike and it generated nearly 2.5 TRILLION dollars in SURPLUS REVENUE that was supposed to be saved and invested to fund the retirement of the baby-boomer generation – the government has “borrowed” almost every dollar. This was against the law because when the tax hike was enacted…it specifically stated that the monies could be used for no other purpose than to fund Social Security. Democrats and Republicans alike are responsible for the “rape of the system”, it became a general slush fund and was used for every program except what it was designed for…so don’t fix Social Security…just hold those accountable who allowed the system to be illegally “drained”.

…see you soon with more cheery news from the FROZEN TUNDRA…

The Reports of my Death...

James Ross Clemens, a cousin of mine was seriously ill two or three weeks ago in London, but is well now. The report of my illness grew out of his illness, the report of my death was an exaggeration. - Mark Twain (May 1897)

Yes, all those reports of my death were an exaggeration…but I do thank all those folks who sent flowers and sympathy cards…there is nothing like your death to bring people “out of the woodwork”.

My last posting was Wednesday , September 30, 2009…so I have to catch everyone up.

The last few months have been a little rough on me: my breathing deteriorated, I lost most of what little energy that I had, and my weakened immune system allowed me to contract several things one after another…I had become dehydrated, which brought back the nausea, got a screaming case of the shingles along the nerve where they did the laparoscopic surgery, got a very good case of bronchitis (which nearly turned into pneumonia). My dear Sarah has been so wonderful that I sent a letter to the Pope asking that she be canonized…so in the future I will probably be speaking of Saint Sarah. She has put up with a whole lot of whining the last few months…but she did call me a DORK when I told her that one of my medications tasted like “sour owl shit”.

For the most part I have adjusted to living up here in the Frozen Tundra…and to be quite honest I like Thief River Falls a lot. I didn’t like the fact that we got snowed in at Christmas and didn’t get to visit the “little girls” until New Year’s Eve. We stayed at my son; Ben’s…and had a really wonderful time. We went down again for my granddaughter Dani’s fourth birthday and could not get over how much MacKenzie had changed…she barely talked at New Year’s, and now she talks all of the time and is really funny. She is only two, but she misses her Poppa the most, and calls me almost every day…but most of the time she just wants to talk to our little Aussie-Poo, Elsie. She might miss her more than she misses me.

Well, now that you know that I am still alive and pretty much on the mend…there will be more next time…