A sack for each of us under the tree

When I was growing up in Roundup, we didn't have a set time to open presents under the tree. Dad was working in the oil fields and mom was working at the hospital. If you know anythng about hospitals and oil fields, they don't shut down for holidays. So we opened presents at various times, depending on the work schedules of our parents.

Now this year, I have December 24 through December 28th off if I take no vacation. Those are just holidays I get off plus the weekend. If I used six days of vacation, I can be off work from December 20th through January 4th. That's almost as long as the boys have off from college.

Obviously a few things are different regarding my desk job compared to my dad's job as a roughneck on an oil rig. Another difference is the money. Not that working in the oil field didn't pay the bills, but with rig work, no one is ever sure if they are working the next week, the next month or the next year. Compared to working on an oil rig, I'm relatively sure that I'll be working for the same company next December that I work for now. And I'm generally sure that my paycheck is going to be the same next month as it was last month. No surprises there...which is good because my wife hates surprises.

So with a steady job there are some advantages, such as putting presents under the Christmas tree relatively easily compared to what my parents faced. My biggest drawback with buying presents is that I hate to shop. I have good intentions but there is always some reason why I never make it to the mall or a box store for Christmas bargains. Stated simply, I don't like crowds. I never have. But that's okay because my wife likes to shop and, if given enough time, she'll even buy something for me to give to her. At least that way she knows it fits.

But enough of that, my point in writing this little note is to remind my brothers and sisters of a present for each of us we knew would always be under our Christmas tree when we were growing up. It was a paper sack filled with peanuts, an orange and a handful of candy, likely a candy cane and some hard ribbon candy. We knew we would get this sack because it was a tradition that our Daddy had passed on from his Daddy.

Of course, what our Daddy didn't tell us was that the sack of fruit and peanuts was likely the only present he and his brothers and sisters got. That's because his parents had 10 children and were living in the heart of the Depression.

This year, I'm going to revive that tradition. Not as a sign to foretell my children about the chance of another Depression, but simply as a reminder that we have it so much better than our parents or their parents did.

The brown paper sack under the Christmas tree -- a reminder of where we came from and how much we have to be thankful for.

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas letter I would like to write

I face the unenviable task of writing the Christmas letter both for my family and for my Dad. There are certain rules you have to follow when writing the letter. For instance, you have to mention every member of the family, and you have to keep the letter upbeat no matter how depressing the news is. So I'll write about our trip to San Francisco, the boys attending college, Belinda's annual journey to the Black Hills with her sisters and anything else that's upbeat and somewhat newsy.

Now in the case of my Dad who doesn't travel, creative writing is certainly a plus. Generally, you start off by noting how the great-grandkids are doing and you work your way up to the grandkids and then to the kids -- some who are nearing retirement age themselves. Still you keep the letter upbeat...no use in writing about the number of people dying who you used to write to and how you'll be saving a lot on stamps this year.

Unless, of course, you decide to finally write the letter that you've always wanted to...but never had the guts to do. Let's take a look at just what that letter might look like...but remember this is a made up family -- not mine.

Dear friend, acquaintenance or family member -- your choice!

This year has been the pits. A lot of people have died but none of them had the good sense to leave me any money so I continue to work for next to nothing at the same old boring job. If you plan on dying next year, would you please include me in your will. And if you have any extra money, please include some of my immediate family members as well. Finally, don't wait until next December to die...how about January or February?

I really don't want to talk about my sons and daughters in this letter because a couple of them made me mad and I'm not speaking to the others. Basically, my nights are spent with my feet up in front of the TV waiting for the phone to ring and have someone tell me that I won the lottery. I invested several hundred dollars this year in the lottery, which they tell me helps support the salaries for teachers at the local schools. You can imagine the amazed looks on the faces of the little kids who come to my house to sell me candy, popcorn and other assorted goodies to raise money for their class, band or chorus when I tell them that I already gave at the local bar on the way home from work when I bought 40 lottery tickets and none of them was a winner.

I'm also not going to mention my spouse. She's still hanging around the house and cooks my meals and washes my clothes. However, she's now making more money than me and she's so selfish that she won't share it with me so I'm buying my own beer and lottery tickets. She's also addicted to "Dancing with the Stars" and "House" so I don't get to watch my shows anymore. If this keeps up, I might just grab a book and start reading it. No...I'm just kidding.

I went to the doctor a couple of times this year. I took the cat to the vet and he had an operation. So he's not a Tom cat anymore. I'm supposed to get an operation also, but the cat didn't like his and I don't think I would like mine so my resolution next year is not to go see the doctor anymore.

Well, I think I mentioned everyone important to me...with the exception of my car. It's still the 1988 Pontiac. I think the paint quit falling off so it looks about the same.

Have a Merry Christmas...I know I will.

No substitute for hard work

We often admire somebody for their "gifts" such as a musical talent, but do we ever stop to consider how much time that person has invested in perfecting their particular talent?

Often we say, "boy, if only I could be more like him" or "Geez, I wish I could sing like her," but we don't stop to consider the hours of practice that these people put in.

A good example is the Olympic swimming champ Mike Phelps. I really admire him because I'm more of a rock than a cork in the water. So to see someone one with such amazing talent is inspiring to say the least. But I certainly understand that no one in the Olympics got there by talent alone. They also had to spend lots of time practicing.

For me, I would rather spend my time with my family or friends...or reading a good book. But I know there is no substitute for hard work so if I really want to be good at something, I'm going to have to work at it.

Recently, I rejoined Toastmasters after a six-year hiatus. When I was in this "speaking club" before, I was pretty good. They have an international championship of public speaking and in 1997, I'd like to think that I was pretty close to getting on stage with 10 best speakers in the world. However, I spoke too long at a regional competition in Edmonton, Alberta, and was disqualified.

At the time, I have to admit, I wasn't all that disappointed because I had a very busy summer working for MDU. It was at a time when I was helping the company buy a number of important properties out on the West Coast and if I had been practicing for the world championship of public speaking, I would have been distracted from my other work.

However, now I'm a little older and I have a little more time to devote to the craft of public speaking. In March, I'll be competing at the club level. If I win there, I will advance to the area and district competitions, which will be in Bismarck, and then on to the regional competition, which will be in the Black Hills of South Dakota. If I make it there, it's on to the international stage...out in New England next August.

But it all starts here at home...I know I have the talent...but it will I take the time to polish my speeches and make them world class? Time will tell...but believe me, there's no substitute for hardwork.

June 2007...if only I had 20/20 hindsight

I keep a pretty good eye on my retirement investments. The pot is split up into five different holdings. One of them is an annuity that contains the money I received from my pension when I left MDU. That's probably the most conservative of my investments. I have an other holding which is composed of national and international stocks. It is probably the most diversifed.

Then I have small cap, mid cap and aggressive growth mutual funds. Frankly all three of these funds are underperformers, but I don't have a lot of money in them so I tend to ignore them rather than shift my money into something else. They contain my IRA accounts from when I first got married. My buddy at Smith Barney talked me into them, but he has since left and moved to the Twin Cities.

Since June of 2007, my combined investments in all five holdings have lost a combined 44 percent of their value. This is inspite of me continuing to invest 20 percent of my total compensation on new investments every month. If 44 percent sounds like a lot of money, it is...because I have been investing money in my retirement since my mid-20s. We bought our house when I was 26 so everything I had up to that time went into our down payment. Everything since then has gone toward retirement...except for a few trips to Alaska and Hawaii, along with college for the boys.

When I was in my 20s, I heard an investment counselor say that there are two ways to make a lot of money. One way is to start with a lot of money. The other way is to start with a lot of time. I had the time, not the money, so I started early.

However, the past 16 or 17 months have not been kind.

There is a bright side to this, but the glimmer is barely a sparkle at the moment. The bright side is that I continue to buy up a lot of low cost investments. You remember the adage, buy low and sell high?

Well, it would be nice if by the time I'm thinking about retirement -- which lately is every winter I live in North Dakota -- the price of what I'm buying would double or triple.

But really I wish that I would have had the foresight to take my money out of the stock market and to have put it into CDs, say about June of 2007. Then when the market starts to grow, I wouldn't have to dig myself out of such a hole.

This happened to my investments one other time -- it was called September 11, 2001. After the terrorists flew our jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a deserted field in Pennsylvania, my investments tanked. But they had regained their previous value in about two years time and kept growing...until July 2007.

At first the slide was barely perceptible, but in the last couple of months the spiral has been obvious. I don't quite feel like jumping off a tall building or a bridge like the folks did in 1929, but I do feel a lot poorer.

I know things could be worse. After all, I still have a job and my job pays me the same month after month, even if the economy is tanking. But still I'm a bit perplexed. There's been a lot of fingerpointing going on about whose fault it is that the economy is in the doldrums...but does anybody really know who or what is at fault? Because if we won't don't know what the problem is, can we really fix it?

Seems to me the government just keeps throwing money at the problem, but I don't think anyone truly understands what the problem is or what the solution is. Because of this, I have more confidence that we are heading toward a Depression rather than a Recession. Luckily, I don't have any debt and don't anticipate taking any on...however, it would be nice to have a bigger nest egg sitting in the bank.

Only 30 shopping days left 'til HumanLight

Did you you catch the story in the Wall Street Journal this week about athiests ("non-believers") placing ads on buses in Washington, D.C., buying billboards in Madison, Wisconsin, and other cities promoting secularism over religion?

The article says that the "non-believers" feel that their movement is growing and now's the time to come forward so that other non-believers can feel more comfortable in public about being athiests.

These groups don't advertise on Rush Limbaugh and Bill O's radio programs, but they do get their message out on Air America.

The article says that this is a critical time for athiests to reach out as a new administration prepares to take office in the White House.

Now when I was in college, I had a Jewish fellow living on my dorm floor so when the rest of us left on Christmas vacation, we wished him "Happy Hannukah!"

What would we have done if we had an out-of-the-closet athiest?

Well, it seems they like to shop and at least enjoy some of the holiday trimmings. But instead of Christmas or Hannukah, they prefer the "HumanLight" holiday. It's a time when they can sing from the Humanist Hymnal, decorate a winter wreath and light a candle for a personal hero -- maybe John Wayne or James Bond.

And we used to laugh when George Costanza and his family celebrated "Festivus for the Rest of Us" on Seinfeld.

However, it seems there is a slight problem with the athiests...er, non-believers. When a preacher asks her or his congregation to stand, they all stand. However, it turns out the athiests are a divided bunch. A third might stand, a third might sit and the other third will want to argue about it. Go figure.

If that's the future, "give me that old time religion, it's good enough for me."

Merry Christmas!

100 years of Roundup - 17 years of me

The Roundup Record-Tribune, the weekly newspaper from our hometown, has been taking up most of its front page for a couple of years with stories from past issues. That's because Roundup, Montana, officially turned 100 years old this year.

I've devoted a lot of time over the past year reading about things that I knew nothing about as I learned how my hometown grew from 1908 until 1959 when I was born. However, I learned a few other things from about 1959 until 1970 because I didn't really pay much attention to such things as who owned what stores, what pioneer rancher died, who was the mayor and sat on the city council, etc. So you can imagine by wonderment when finally the newspapers started to arrive with some old news that I actually recognized, like the girls who won the state golf championship in 1975. I knew those girls and went to college with a couple of them.

But sadly, the years I actually knew about, or cared about, occurred in only a couple of weeks worth of newspapers. Now the newspaper that arrives in my mailbox has jumped into the 1980s and I had left town years earlier after graduating from high school in 1977. So again I'm reading about history that I had no part of or no stake in. It's people whose names some times sound familiar but I can't seem to come up with a face for the name.

When I grew up the mayor was Hershel Robbins and the sheriff was Troy Palmer's dad. The principal was Jay Erdie and the superintendent was Bob Krogh. However, they don't last forever and new people take their place...people who I don't know.

In the final analysis, I've come to understand that very little of my life actually revolved around Roundup. Yes, I was born there, my family lived there, my cousins lived there, my grandmothers lived there and my parents lived there most -- if not all -- of their lives, but for me, it was a brief 17 years and most of that time I was too young to care about any newsworthy events.

I know once upon a time there was a clothing store in Roundup named "Who's Allen" but I can't remember ever going into it...although I suppose I did when I was a kid. I remember the Knauss dime store about as good as anything. And I remember taking Hunter's Safety classes in the basement of the Arcade from Mr. Heinle who owned the Gamble's store across the street. I remember Model grocery because it was across the street from the elementary school. Now when I look at the building, I can't believe that it was so small because it seemed so large when I was a kid.

This makes me wonder what my grandparents would have thought if they had lived to see the size of a Super Wal-Mart or Sam's Club.

I liked shopping at Model grocery because I knew the family that owned it. The Picchioni's -- from Frank Senior to Frank the third -- were all nice people. Louie, their cousin, worked behind the meat counter, and I liked him, too. I went to school with three of Louie's daughters and they were nice, too.

But alas, the store is closed. And a few remnants of the Picchioni family run the IGA store, but it's not the same. It doesn't have the "family" feel because I don't know these third and fourth generation folks. And a couple of them, I'm pretty sure, aren't really Picchioni's.

You see, I left town when I was hardly more than an adolescent. And while I returned to visit my folks, that in fact is what I did...I visited my folks. I didn't renew old friendships or strike up new ones or find out who the new mayor was -- except when it was my aunt Almeada. So now I when I read about Roundup in the '80, the '90s and the last decade, I can continue to scratch my head and ask "who are these people?"

The Roundup I knew is only recognizable in my dreams.

The perfect condiment - Cheetos

I can't remember the year exactly, but I'm going to guess 1998 or 1999. This would mean the boys were probably second and fourth graders. Anyway, I flew home on the corporate jet from either Kalispell or Portland. I can't remember which city but it doesn't really matter because they both had a COSTCO. And it was at COSTCO that I made two of my wisest purchases -- frozen King Crab Legs and a big container of salted cashews.

I remember that I flew home because I wanted to make sure the crab legs didn't thaw. The pilot put them in a little storage compartment on the wings and he said that by flying a mile high, the legs would be sure to remain frozen. He was right.

A couple of days after that, Belinda and her Aunt Darlene and cousin Susie decided to have lunch together. That left Derek, Scott and me to fend for ourselves when it came to cooking lunch.

Not knowing much about cooking crab legs, I decided the best way to cook them was to heat them up on the barbecue grill. But how much should I cook for one man and two boys?

That answer was easy -- all of them.

The next question is what should we have with them? Why, cashews of course. But should we have something else, like a vegetable or a starch or something healthy?

Probably, but all I could think of was the perfect meal -- crab legs, Cheetos, Mountain Dew and cashews. And there was plenty to go round so nobody would go hungry. Oh yeah, I'm sure I melted butter for the crab legs. No use in skimpy on the fat.

What reminded me of this delectable meal of years gone by was the fact that I had to cook supper tonight for Dad and Scott. I wanted to eat out, but Scott said that he needed to study so wanted to eat at home.

I didn't have any crab legs so I substituted crab cakes and Blue Hake boneless fish fillets. I'm older now and I knew we needed a vegetable, so I baked some Chinese egg rolls -- hey, there has to be a veggie in there somewhere. I also boiled some corn on the cob and baked some Monster cookies.

But the meal was lacking. It didn't have the "Chef Steve" touch. So I grabbed the bag of curly, cheesy Cheetos. In an instant we had a meal.

No it didn't match the fine dining that eating a handful of salted cashews brings, but still it had the certain something that says "a man cooked this meal."

I asked Dad what he liked best and worst of the four or five things on his plate. In grand gentleman fashion, he replied, "It all tastes great," as he bit into a curly Cheetos and wrapped some of his egg roll into his napkin. Whoops, I wasn't supposed to notice that napkin as it found its way to the garbage.

As for Scott and me, we slicked it up.

What's your favorite "not-so-good" for you meal?