The Paper Sack

Keeping Christmas traditions alive is getting harder with each passing generation. For instance my wife and I both grew up in Montana – but that’s about where any commonality ends.

My family enjoyed live Christmas trees. Across the street from our home in Roundup where I lived in central Montana grew fir trees and aromatic cedar bushes. South of town were the Bull Mountains and northwest were the Snowy Mountains, covered with nature’s Christmas trees. My oldest brother, who lives near Billings, continues this tradition today as he and his family head to the Snowy Mountains every year around Thanksgiving to cut their tree – one among thousands. However, my wife grew up in Glendive on the eastern Montana prairies so an artificial tree was her family choice, and we have an artificial tree also.

She grew up in a Catholic family where I grew up in a Protestant family, so it was hard to carry-on the tradition of midnight mass.

But there is a tradition that we both believe in…it may seem odd, but it’s a brown paper sack full of fruit, nuts, homemade and store-bought candy and placed under the Christmas tree for all the family members celebrating Christmas in our house.

As far as I know, the tradition began with my grandfather. His name was William, although most people called him Bill. He was born at the time of the Civil War and raised in Tazwell, Virginia, and lived there until he was about 50. That is when he left his first family and moved to Montana with his second wife in the early 1900s. Along with my grandma, they homesteaded and began to raise his second family.

In all, they had 10 children. My dad, Willis, was their third. Born in 1920, my dad’s formative years were in the Depression. So when he received a sack full of goodies for Christmas, chances are that was his only gift under the tree. Dad was raised on a farm called Strawberry Acres along the Musselshell River west of Roundup.

After graduating from high school and working on nearby farms, my father served in World War II before returning to his hometown as a miner in the underground mines. By the 1950s, he began working in the oil fields as a roughneck and in the early ‘60s he joined Continental Oil Pipeline, which feeds Canadian and Montana crude oil to the Conoco refinery in Billings. I don’t know how much you know about oil fields, but they don’t close down for Christmas. Therefore, we never knew if we were opening presents at night or in the morning…it all depended on Dad’s schedule.

Working on a pipeline was a steady job, but working on oil rigs was not. As a roughneck, dad had a job as long as the rig was drilling, but if the rig was torn down and sitting on the edge of town, Christmas could be a lean time.

I had two brothers and two sisters in my family. I was the youngest, so it’s hard to say that I ever went without anything. My parents or an older brother or sister always made sure that there were presents under the tree for me…but I could depend on my Dad for making sure that there was also a paper sack with an orange, an apple, peanuts and mixed nuts, homemade almond bark, gum drops and candy canes.

Dad simply said that the sack was a holiday tradition. His father made sure that each of his 10 kids had one, and my Dad said it was important that his kids had one also.

Growing up, I probably enjoyed my Viewmaster or Etch-A-Sketch more than I did my sack of goodies – which was a little too sensible to be fun. But it was there, it was something that you could depend on – whether dad was working or not.

As Belinda and I began our family 26 years ago in Mandan, we also wanted to bring traditions with us that we had in our parent’s homes. This was hard. One reason was because we liked to spend Christmas with our parents, even after we were married. So we often opened our gifts on December 23rd and then left for Glendive to spend Christmas Eve with her parents before driving on to Roundup for Christmas Day with my parents. The last Christmas we traveled to Glenidve and Roundup was in December 2005. My mom died in June 2006 – and part of our tradition died as well.

This year, like the five Christmases past, there will be five of us celebrating and opening presents at our home. Belinda and I have two sons. They will be home for Christmas, and we will also be celebrating with my Dad, who is now a spry 91 years old.

He has lived with us since July 2006. With mom’s passing, it was easier to have him move with us to North Dakota than to teach him to cook, clean and wash clothes. The idea of putting him into a care center didn’t appeal to me because Dad has always been one who put family first. Just as his mother lived with us when I was growing up, I wanted my children to have that experience of living with a grandparent. Some teenagers may think they are immortal, but believe me, a teenager who lives with a grandparent does not.

With a grandparent and children in the same household, that makes me part of the “sandwich” generation, an expression I’m not very fond of.

To Belinda and I, our children and my dad complete our household. And this year for Christmas, besides all the presents that dad will receive from his five children, his 13 grandchildren and five great-grandsons …there will also be a present that he’s accustom to seeing – a brown sack with his name printed in crayon. The sack full of goodies under the tree this year will be one of five. There will also be one with my name on it, one with my wife Belinda’s name, one with my oldest son Derek’s name, and one with my youngest son Scott’s name.

The tradition will continue…not because it’s the only gift we can afford, but because that sack will remind all of us of how thankful we can be for the year we enjoyed and for the prosperity we as family have experienced.

This one Christmas tradition is how the Steve and Belinda Van Dyke family will continue to tie our holidays of the past with our future.

Home sweet home!

Our utility bill came in the mail the other day, and, frankly, I was surprised. In Mandan, Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. is a combination utility. That means it provides both natural gas and electricity.

There have been a number of changes over the past 26 years we have lived in our home. When we were first married, we didn't use to heat our basement in the winter. However, when the boys got bigger, we needed to make sure the heat was on upstairs and downstairs.

We also didn't have a TV set in every room of the house or as many computers and other electronic games and gadgets. When we bought a new energy-efficient refrigerator a few years ago, we didn't throw out the old, less efficient one. Instead, we moved into the laundry room downstairs where it runs 24 hours a day to keep a few jars of jelly and pickles cold, just in case we'll ever eat them. Scott also has a little refrigerator downstairs that keeps his water and Gatorade chilled.

Now, to be truthful, you must judge your energy use not only by the number gadgets but by how much energy is actually used. For instance, the energy hogs in our house are not the electric blender or toaster. It's things like heating your home and water that really adds up. Also washing and drying your clothes take a lot of energy, and our laundry room seems likes it's always busy.

We heat our home with natural gas and we have a 50-gallon natural gas-fired water heater...a little larger than most. About five years ago, we also had central air installed. Now, living in North Dakota, you know that a good furnace is a necessity, but not so with air conditioning, except for about three months in the summer.

If you don't mind tossing and turning in a bed of your own sweat, then no need to invest in central air conditioning, but if you like sleeping in pleasant temperatures, than it's a must. As we got older, the need for night-time comfort became greater.

So, there's no denying that we've got plenty of appliances that use a lot of energy. That's why I was surprised to see that our MDU bill had actually gone down, significantly!

We're on Balanced Billing, which means that our monthly utility bill is roughly the same every month. A few years ago, our monthly bill was somewhere north of $200. Now it's down to $140. I could chalk this up to Derek moving out, but Scott still lives in our basement and he showers long enough for two or three people. Also, he keeps our basement as toasty as he wants it. Luckily for us, hot air rises so his heating the basement makes our floors warm in the winter.

So what gives? Did the price of electricity and natural gas suddenly drop? No, not really. It's true that energy in North Dakota is quite affordable. The majority of our electricity comes from coal, so we have cheap power. And natural gas prices have remained reasonable, especially since there's so much oil drilling going on in western North Dakota and natural gas is found in conjunction with oil.

However, the real culprit for our lower energy bill has been the improvements we have made to tighten up our home. The first move was to replace an old drafty window in dad's office. Belinda's father and her uncle replaced it with a fiberglass framed, triple-pane, energy efficient window. It was such a nice improvement that it wasn't long before we wanted to change all of our old windows for new ones. Luckily, our church was undergoing the same type of renovations and a couple of retirees went to all the window retailers in Bismarck and discovered that the best value came from Pella. So we went with Pella Windows ourselves, and didn't have to do all the legwork.

Then we replaced our two outside doors and had a craftsman hang the new energy-efficient doors. Suddenly, we didn't have the drafty windows and old metal doors. Our home not only looked better but it also became a lot more comfortable during North Dakota blizzards. Then last year after Christmas, we had some more insulation added to our ceiling. Unfortunately, my brother and his family were visiting at the time, so having people blowing insulation into your attic is a bit odd, but it all worked out in the end.

Yes, the improvements cost some money, but we were able to save several hundred dollars on our taxes by claiming the improvements as deductions.

Add it all up, and our home is more energy efficient, comfortable and cheaper to maintain...plus we have more appliances to make life a little easier. It's all good. And it's like giving ourselves a $60 a month raise.

Tips for the job interview

Recently, we've been conducting a number of interviews as we look toward hiring a college intern to help with graphic design. The process of interviewing candidates brings back lots of memories...of interviewing past candidates and also at times when I've been the one looking for a job.

Let's start with the easiest interview. About six years ago we were hiring a college intern and I had one person apply. So I had to do one interview and when it came time to pick the best candidate, it was easy. Luckily for me, he turned out to be a great hand.

How about interview jitters. Let's face it, we all get them. But there really is no reason to be scared. The employer needs you as much or more than you need the job. Also, very few people make it a career to be the one conducting interviews, so often the person conducting the interview is just as nervous as the person answering the questions.

The questions aren't hard. The hard part is keeping your answers short. How many of us remember the first question asked, "So, tell me about yourself?"

Remember that this is an open-ended question...intentionally. There are a lot of things that the interviewer can't ask you so there's no reason to voluntarily bring the up. Can you imagine the surprise if the job candidate actually said something like, "I'm a career child molester who has just spent five of the last 10 years behind bars. I didn't get out for good behavior, but was released because of prison overcrowding."

That's not the answer anyone would expect. Basically, you can answer the question by simply saying, "I'm a person who believes in hard work, family values and an appropriate salary for a good day's work." You might want to shape this answer in a way that more clearly identifies you, but that's the answer the employer is looking for.

You don't need to tell them your age, your religion, your wife's name, how many kids you have or anything else that you would just as soon keep to yourself.

There's a couple of other questions that get some strange answers. One of them is "What would co-workers say about you?"

No need in airing the family laundry here. Something short and to the point will do just fine. "They would say that I'm punctual, professional and like to get my work done right the first time."

However, there are others that will let you know that they suffer from procrastination, partying and trying to cram too much fun and frivolities into an eight-hour day of work.

Another question along the same vain is, "What would you say a weakness of yours is?"

A couple of sentences is all anyone is looking for as in: "I'm shy and find public speaking difficult." That's a good answer unless you are looking for a job in public relations or broadcasting.

Finally, at the end of the interview, you are asked if there is anything you would like to ask.

At a minimum, find out when they hope to pick the person for the job. You might also want to ask about salary, benefits, etc....but I've noticed a lot of applicants seem like they are too tired to think or talk at this point, so they just pass on this opportunity.

So, Steve's words of wisdom are simple. Keep your answer short and don't volunteer a lot of information that  can easily be misconstrued.

Watch where you're shoving that transducer, lady!

Have I mentioned that I don't like doctors, nurses, dentists and other medical technicians very much?

Probably outside of work, these are all nice people, but when they are working....it's another story. They become scary monsters who really know how to hurt people.

When I was in the hospital last March, I learned to hate the nurses who would come and put the world's largest needles in the tops of my hands for the IV's. First of all, they seemed to have a hard time finding a vein that wouldn't collapse on them. So I would have to be poked and poked and poked. Eventually, my hands turned black and blue.

But that pales in comparison to the torture chamber I was in yesterday.

I was getting my kidneys checked over with an ultrasound device. To do this, they first had me fast from midnight until mid-morning. I'm actually getting used to this drill so it's not a biggie any more. A lot of my blood tests require fasting.

Two weeks ago, I was in for an echo cardiogram, which is really nothing more than an ultrasound of your heart, so why should I expect anything different when it comes to the kidneys?

Well, it's because the kidneys seem to hide better.

The technician grabbed her transducer and started punching me in the stomach with it. Well, my first reaction was to tighten up my abs.

This, she told me, was a no-no. "You have to relax," she said, "or I just have to push harder."

Really? Is that possible. Well, I tried to relax, but that's hard to do when your covered with gel and a transducer is being pushed into your abdomen.

So, for an eternity, it seemed, she was squeezing gel on me and then poking her transducer under my rib cage -- front and both sides.

Now, on a horse, this area is called the flanks, and if you want a horse to buck, just go ahead and punch them in their flanks.

I didn't buck, but I certainly knew how the poor horses felt.

I asked her why she kept punching me with that transducer. "It's like a flashlight," she said. "Our window to the kidneys is through the liver and the spleen."

You wouldn't believe my sense of relief when she told me she was done. I felt like pounded round steak.

But my "pain" isn't over with yet. I still have to wait for the results from the doctor to find out if anything is wrong. I hope not, but I really hope I don't require another ultrasound on my kidneys.

The transformation of a Democrat to a Republican

This confession will shock a few of my loyal readers, but when I got married in 1985, I was a Democrat. I married a Republican so we used to kid each other on election day that our votes merely cancelled each other out. However, it was during the Clinton Administration that I switched parties. This makes it a little lonely at times when I discuss politics with my family, most of whom have remained loyal to the Democratic party.

I, however, made a clean split and there is very little of the Democratic Party's platform that I would feel comfortable supporting anymore.

So the questions arise, "Who changed? Was it me or the party?"

Probably both to some extent, but certainly I changed more than the party. I felt like I could be an FDR New Deal Democrat, but I couldn't be a Clintonite Democrat.

During Clinton's years in office, I was really turned off by his seemingly endless succession of sex scandals with women other than Hillary. Bill's affair with an intern in the Oval Office was the last straw. But you can't blame the party for something that is Bill Clinton's fault.

However, I did feel that the "Progressive" agenda being pushed for by the rank and file Democrats in the 1990s no longer squared with my way of thinking. So, after pondering it for a while, I decided that I liked Republicans and conservative thought better. Now I've got to admit, I couldn't stand Rush Limbaugh when I first heard him 20 years ago. And I don't like him today. I also don't like his MSNBC counterpart Ed Schultz. To me they are both blowhards who try to talk louder than their opponents. Still I find comfort in the conservative agenda of lower taxes and government getting out of the way of companies trying to do business.

This is not to say that I liked everything President Bush did during his eight years, but I was really glad that he was in the White House on and after September 11 and not Bill Clinton. Did we really need to send troops into harm's way in Iraq? Probably not, but I remember when both Democrats and Republicans thought that Saddam Hussein held weapons of mass destruction. That feeling is similar to today when both parties feel that Iran is close to building atomic weapons, if they don't have them already.

In the 2008 Presidential election, I felt I had no real choice between moderate Republican John McCain and liberal Barack Obama. That was the election where I felt like staying home; however, I voted for McCain, whom I felt was the lesser of two evils.

Since that time, the presidency of Barack Obama has galvanized my position in favor of Republicans. I especially felt betrayed when the Senate under the leadership of Harry Reid and the House of Representatives led by Nancy Pelosi were radically changing my country, and not for the better, in my opinion.

So I was happy when the House tilted in favor of the Republicans after the 2010 election and John Boehner became Speaker. I'm not at all disappointed in the gridlock that is Washington, D.C. However, I am looking forward to the 2012 election when hopefully Mitch McConnell becomes Senate Majority leader and a conservative Republican takes the White House.

I would like to see a return to less government and more emphasis on family values. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that a paycheck is something to be earned and not something to be shared.

I've been proud of my country since I was born, not just since 2008 when Barack Obama was elected President. I would like to see a little more common horse sense played out in Washington, D.C., such as "living within our means" and making government "accountable to the people" and not vice versa.

Yeah, I know that the United States is still a great country, but I would like it to be a greater, stronger country with low unemployment and well thought out domestic energy program.

My mantra comes from a Merle Haggard song popular in the 1970s, "If you don't love it, leave it." But I'm reminded of an old line from 1930s humorist Will Rogers, "We live in the greatest country on earth. Heck, even the people who hate it don't want to leave."

That rose bush used to be second base

When the late Harmon Killebrew was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, he recounted the story of his mom complaining to his dad that their lawn was dug up by Harmon and his siblings playing sports. Harmon recalled his dad saying, "Mom, we're raising boys, not lawn."

That thought has come to me many times over the years. Now our back yard has strawberries where the backstop against the fence used to be and a rose bush grows where second base used to be. The pitcher's mound is hardly perceptible any more.

One of the tell-tale signs that the backyard used to be a baseball diamond is the chalk markings on the inside of the garage. To this day, the score board still stands out on the east wall. The concrete blocks are covered with names and numbers representing the players and runs scored.

We had some wild games...back in the day. Scott would strike a pose at the plate like Chuck Knoblauch, the former rookie of the year for the Minnesota Twins. Derek swung for the fences like Twins Hall of Fame centerfielder Kirby Puckett. I was the perennial pitcher.

Our backyard isn't very big so we had to make some rules to go along with the game. One of the rules was that if you hit a foul ball into the garage, it was an out. If you hit a ball into the fence, that was like hitting the ball to the shortstop because the fence and a good shortstop can both stop a ball.

We also used furry, yellow tennis balls instead of hard baseballs. That was because the back of our house and two windows were only about 15 and 20 feet away from home plate. Line drives would come screaming off the wooden bats of the boys and smack the windows. However, we never suffered a broken glass pane.

The trick, of course, was to hit the ball over the fence between our yard and the city park. First, there was no one in the park to catch the ball. Secondly, the park is built on a hill so a well struck ball can travel a long ways down the hill side, especially if it makes it to the street.

The worst thing that ever happened in a backyard baseball game occurred on a foul ball that went straight back of home plate. Most of the time when the boys were little, the house next door was deserted, but the house beside that one was inhabited by an old, unfriendly lady who seemed to despise children and especially ours.

Anyway, I came home from work and was met by the boys who told me that a foul ball had landed in the lady's backyard. The lady grabbed the ball and took it into her home.

So, I marched over to her house and knocked on the back door...the one the lady used. Her daughter was visiting her so I told the daughter what had transpired. The daughter heard my story and then went back into the house. In a couple of minutes she came back with a furry, yellow tennis ball and handed it to me. She apologized for her mother and I was on my way.

Back in our yard, I'm sure the boys were delighted to get the ball back and might even have been surprised to see me go get it. After all, it wasn't as if it was the only tennis ball we had. Our garage was full of tennis balls. However, I wanted to make a point with the lady that she could no longer get away with being rude to the boys.

As the years passed, the boys got bigger and somehow our backyard kept getting smaller. For a while, the boys would go to the nearby elementary school playground to play baseball. Then they got interested in other things...girls, among them. And it seemed as though baseball was nothing but a memory.

So when I look out and see the rose bush where second base used to be, forgive me if I smile. We now grow grass in the backyard, but once upon a time we were raising little baseball players.

What do you want to do when you grow up?

Most of us heard that question a number of times during our youth. My answer was that I wanted to be a sports reporter that covered the New York Yankees. Actually, I wanted to be the center fielder for the New York Yankees. At the time, Mickey Rivers was the center fielder and I figured that I was at least as good as him. But, alas, no baseball scouts ever came to see the Roundup Miners play baseball, so I was left for the next best thing...sports reporter.

That's why I wrote sports for our hometown newspaper when I was in high school. That's why I went to the University of Montana to study journalism. I even studied Russian as a foreign language when I was in college so that I could cover the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. You remember that Olympics don't you? That's the one that the United States didn't participate in because President Carter boycotted it to protest the USSR invasion of Afghanistan.

So what's a young grad with a journalism degree to do? Well, the Yankees hadn't come calling so my first job out of college was as a reporter in Beach, North Dakota. I was a general assignment reporter and covered everything from writing wedding announcements to covering an oil field explosion. After six months, I had had enough of Beach and I think Beach had had enough of me. We agreed to part amicably.

However, I stayed with newspapers for another couple of years until I made the swap to public relations in 1983, moving from the newspaper in Baker, Montana, to Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive, Montana. From there, I moved to Mandan in 1985 with my new bride and a new job with MDU. I had another job transition in 2001, and actually worked for six months as the education reporter for the Bismarck Tribune before going to work for my present employer, the Lignite Energy Council.

So for 27 or so years, I've been in public relations. I never did get to write sports or cover the New York Yankees as I had wanted to...but my point of this blog and my question remains..."What did you want to do when you were growing up?"

Bittersweet at 91

Tomorrow is my dad's ninety-first birthday. He was born in Musselshell, Montana, the third oldest child of William and Clara Van Dyke. His older brother John and older sister Mattie are both dead now. Dad's parents died a long time ago. His father died in 1949, the year my oldest sister Janet was born. Dad's mom died in 1986, a year after I got married.

I'm not sure just how soon, but after he was born, dad's family moved to Wisconsin before moving back to Montana to settle on a farm south of Roundup where dad and his nine sisters and brothers were raised. The farm was called Strawberry Acres. Across the highway from the Van Dyke's farm was another one owned by the Crosmer family. That's where my dad met my mother. She was the granddaughter of Frank and Nancy Crosmer.

I think the grade school they attended was on Horse Thief Creek. The teacher was a Lindstrand, who lived on a neighboring farm. Anyway, the story goes that dad was in fourth grade and my mom was in first grade when an important incident occurred. Dad was teasing mom so to get back at him, she picked up a cow pie and threw it at him. As one of my favorite comedians, Don Knotts, used to say, "Mom had spunk."

The story must be true because I heard it lots of times when I was growing up and I never heard anyone contradict it.

The only good story I know about them courting was told to me by my mom's sister Millie. She said that dad liked to sing to my mother. This isn't hard to believe because dad still sings to this day, if the mood strikes him. Millie told me that one of his favorite songs was "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain." Yes, it was popular long before Willie Nelson recorded it in the 1970s.

I remember driving to Billings when I was a teenager with my dad to see my Grandma Van Dyke, who was in one of the Billings hospitals. It was on the return trip home to Roundup when I first heard Willie Nelson sing that song. I was amazed that dad knew the words. Generally us kids would learn a song long before dad did, but since the song was a classic, dad had known the words for a long time.

When I was a little boy some of my dad's favorite songs were: "Jimmy Brown, the newsboy"; and "Skylark, won't you tell me where my love can be"; and the Sam Cooke hit, "She was only sixteen." He also had one that he sang when he got a hair cut: "Hey, Mister Zip, Zip, Zip, with your hair cut just like mine."

When I was born, dad was 39. As a young boy, I hated cold weather but my dad seemed to live in it without much suffering. He would walk outside on the coldest day of the year and chop wood wearing nothing but a white T-shirt.

At 91, his thermometer has changed some. Now he likes to wear long johns from September through May. He also prefers wearing a long sleeve flannel shirt to wandering around in a T-shirt.

But some things haven't changed. He still likes music, and if it's a song he knows, he'll sing right along with it. And dad is one of the most helpful men that God ever put on this earth. He helps Belinda with the laundry by folding clothes. He also likes to empty the garbage cans in every room and take a sack of garbage out to the alley at least once a day. Also, our birds will never go hungry nor will his cat ever have to worry about a dirty cat box. Dad also likes to vacuum the carpets and wash the dishes. If anything, he's as busy as he wants to be. He walks several times a day from our house to the highway and back. It's only a two block hike, but if you do it enough times, it must be a mile he's walking during the day.

No, he's not 21 anymore, or even 71, but he's doing pretty well for being ninety-one.

Dad's oldest brother John was born in 1917 and died in 1967 when he was 50 years old. Dad's sister Mattie was born in 1919 and died in 2006. That means that John was the oldest in the family for 50 years and Mattie was the oldest for 39 years. Dad has only been the oldest five years.

My guess is that he might like to be the oldest for a few more years. My Grandma Van Dyke lived well into her 90s and dad's father lived to be well into his 80s. So it's hard to tell how much longer dad will sing, walk and do our household chores. Maybe he's destined to be the oldest surviving World War II vet.

Anyway, happy birthday dad. You've been a part of my life for 51 years, and for that, I'm deeply blessed.

September 11th memories

Ten years ago, I was the manager of corporate communications for MDU Resources and working in the Schuchart Building north of the North Dakota capitol. I was in my office when I got a call from George McDonald, a videographer with MDU, who was in the TV studio watching the first World Trade Center Tower burning.

He called me to the basement and we were watching a replay on a TV monitor when a second jet hit the second tower and another ball of fire erupted from the explosion. I had been to the World Trade Center in 1976 and had eaten in one of the large ballrooms near the top floor….about where the jet hit.

As the fire and smoke rolled out of the buildings, the announcers were speculating about the start of World War III, the whereabouts of President Bush and any number of things. It would be later that the towers would fall and the huge clouds of dust would mushroom up from lower Manhattan. The fire trucks and the police cars were rushing to the scene; however, most of the video was being shot blocks away from the Twin Towers. You couldn’t see people jumping from the buildings like we did later on.

For me, I had some immediate concerns. The president of MDU Resources and a number of other company employees were in New York City at the time meeting with credit agencies and financial houses. There were a series of meetings that had been scheduled – some months in advance – and our department had worked on writing speeches, preparing powerpoints and printing complementary materials for the meetings.

I didn’t know exactly where the MDU officials were staying but my guess was that they weren’t staying next to the World Trade Center but more in the center of Manhattan. It wasn’t long before I got called to a meeting where I found that the company officials in New York City were safe, but they had been close to the World Trade Center earlier in the morning.

Then there was a new wrinkle that we had to deal with. My boss, the vice president of corporate communications, was in Washington, D.C., and staying near the Pentagon building where another jet had rammed into it.

It was a strange day because while I felt safe in Bismarck, I had lots of people I knew in places that weren’t very safe. I could feel for them because I was sure they were doing things that weren’t part of any travel plans. For instance, with these two cities being attacked, would there be any public transportation running or restaurants open? It’s one thing to be home and eating out of a crowded refrigerator, but it’s quite another to be on the road and find yourself isolated from the rest of the world because everyone is hunkered down waiting for the next plane to hit. Just think of living out of a suitcase in New York City with no running water, no toilet, no electricity and no food.

Eventually, all the people from MDU returned back to Bismarck. The group that was in New York City had to wait a couple of days before taking a taxi cab from New York to Cleveland, Ohio, before the company plane could fly out and get them. I can’t remember how my boss got home, but I remember, there was a no fly moratorium in place right after September 11, 2001.

I also remember the markets were tanking after September 11^th and that our local churches were never so full as they were on the next Sunday. A little more than a month later, I was about to be jarred even harder when I found out my position at MDU had been eliminated. It was a strange time, but now 10 years later, we can see with 20/20 hindsight. Still, at the time, it was difficult to navigate because everything had changed.

If there is a lesson from September 11^th, it might be this….above all, persevere. Life goes on.  

How we got kicked out of the Mall of America

The last time Derek, Scott and I got to travel together without female supervision was 12 years ago. The boys wanted to go to a summer Bible camp at Lake Poinsett, near Watertown, SD, and I agreed to accompany them. We stopped in Aberdeen overnight where we ate Chinese food and then went north of town to explore the Wizard of Oz figurines in a park. At the camp, we were introduced to Monty Furball, not his real name but the hairiest man we'd ever seen, and a couple of little rugrats that we would never forget. One was a hyperactive one-man destruction crew named Austin. The other was Ross, a "sad sack" ne'er do well who had a huge man for a daddy. At dinner, the little boy ate every minuscule piece of meat off a chicken back. When the boy was asked if he wanted another piece, the dad replied. "my son doesn't like chicken." Very odd.

So with that as a common background, the three of us set out toward Minneapolis on the morning of August 19 to see three major league baseball games in the Twins' new ballpark, Target Field. We had seen the Twins play before but it was always indoors...in the Metrodome. This was our first chance to experience outdoor baseball in the Twin Cities. Plus we would get to see the Yankees, who were in first place, play the Twins, who were struggling because of injuries to key players and inconsistent pitching.

We stayed at a Days Inn a few miles from Target Field because Derek had a free night's stay at that particular hotel chain. The distance from the ballpark wasn't a problem, we thought, because we would take the light rail (think subway) to and from the ball park. However, the light rail is not near the Day's Inn, so we took their shuttle, which dropped us off at the corner of 6th Street and Hennepin Avenue. From there, we walked around downtown, ate a leisurely supper under the old Dayton's store and then walked to the ball park.

The Yankees beat the Twins on Friday night and the weather couldn't have been any better for outdoor baseball. However, just as the game ended, the clouds began to sprinkle a light rain on us. We walked to where the shuttle was to pick us up and even called the hotel to let us know we were waiting. But alas, there was no white van. So we waited, and called the hotel again, still no shuttle. So we waited, and called, and waited and called again. About 45 minutes passed while we were rained on and talked to by hookers, drug addicts, pimps, pushers, partyers and other forms of humanity that we normally don't pal around with.

Finally, we saw a white van from the Day's Inn, but it stopped kitty corner from us. By the time we tried to run and catch it, the shuttle left. So Derek called the hotel again. Only this time, he didn't use his nice voice. The clerk at the hotel said the shuttle would circle the block and come get us. The shuttle did no such thing. So Derek called again. This time we heard that the shuttle would be back to pick us up after it made a stop at the light rail. So we waited...while a diesel bus pummeled us with stinky exhaust and the passengers stared at us like we were crazy for standing on a street corner on Hennepin Avenue at this time on a Friday night.

Finally, we hailed a taxi, which took us to our hotel. Upon arriving, we were reimbursed for the taxi cab by the hotel clerk who apologized for the lack of shuttle service.

Thus ended our first day in the city. The second day would be no less dramatic. We started the morning at Belinda's cousin Lisa's home south of Minneapolis. She made a wonderful breakfast and we got to soak our feet in her warm outdoor pool. From there we made it to Hopkins, MN, where Derek and Scott each bought some soda, candy and cookies from a Brazilian restaurant. After that, we went to the Mall of America to shop and eat at Bubba Gump's. After a tasty meal and a few miles around the mall, we decided that for "old time sake" we should take the log ride at the amusement park in the center of the mall.

I climbed in the front of the log at the request of my sons so that my clothes could absorb most of the splashing water. Behind me were Derek and Scott. The log ride is a lot of fun. It's kind of a combination roller coaster and boat ride. Plus you get a little tour of Minnesota folklore as you see Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe as you go through the mountainous terrain. Toward the end of the ride, you get your picture taken at the same time your log heads straight down a hillside. It was at this moment that I heard Scott say, "Is that a nipple I see?"

I didn't think much of it until we were out of our log and walking to where they sell the pictures. People were standing there and laughing at us. One old guy said, "I guess you don't know what was going on behind you?"

I did not, until I saw the picture of Derek holding up his shirt to expose his left nipple on the photo. I took a picture of the electronic preview because I certainly didn't want to buy the photo...until the boys talked me into it. Derek went up to the lady and asked to buy the photo for $10. When it popped up on her computer screen, her face turned ashen. She collected her thoughts and then turned toward us and started berating us about behavior, family values and a few other well chosen phrases and sentences meant to demean us. In the end, she wouldn't sell us the photo. No skin off my nose, I thought. I didn't want to buy it in the first place, and with her mad at us, we decided to leave the amusement park and the mall. So, no we weren't escorted to the door by the mall police, but we knew we were no longer welcome...especially on the log ride.

The photo of the log ride

In the evening, we saw the Twins beat the Yankees and after the game, we grabbed a cab and skipped waiting for the shuttle to arrive at the corner of Sixth and Hennepin.

The next day we were invited to church in Roseville by a young lady who had once or twice been the babysitter for our boys in Mandan. After church, she treated us to a delicious buffet brunch that was second to none. When we left her, we thought we would head to the ball park for the afternoon game but first we needed some gasoline. It was at the gas station near the stadium that I asked the boys if either one of them had grabbed today's tickets off the TV set back at the hotel. Both said they didn't see the tickets so no they hadn't grabbed them.

It was at that moment that my heart started pounding. Derek threw the car into gear and we raced back to our hotel. Derek told me to calm down as the cleaning crew had probably not been to our room yet.

When he reached the parking lot, I jumped out of the car and went straight to the desk. A clerk there made a key to our room and asked me to check it out myself. While I was racing to the room, I heard him ask a lady who was head of the cleaning service if our room had been cleaned. I didn't hear her answer because of the hum of the elevator.

Running down the hall to our room, it looked like nothing had been cleaned, but once inside our room, I could see that the beds were made and the tickets were missing from the top of the TV where I had left them. So I ran back to the elevator and eventually back to the front desk. There the clerk stood by himself. But he told me that often the cleaning service will keep things like tickets on their carts and that the lady had left to see if she could find the person who cleaned our room. In that instant, my heart sunk. We were in Minneapolis with no tickets. It was my fault. There was no one to blame it on and the boys were going to be very disappointed.

Just then, the lady came from around the corner and, lo and behold, she had our tickets. All three of them. I could have kissed her.

I ran outside to find my boys ravaging through my luggage, double checking to make sure that their father wasn't so stupid to take the tickets out and leave them on the TV. When they saw me and saw that I had the tickets, they began to smile again. And then started laughing as we piled into the car to head to the game.

Derek, Scott and I on Sunday

Then Scott let loose with the family cheer from the backseat of the car. "Steve Van Dyke...OY, OY, OY!" The cheer is held in reserve to highlight the most egregious of errors.

We went to the game, the Yankees won and we were back in the car driving home to Mandan. The only odd thing that happened on the trip home was the million of bugs we hit outside of Jamestown. We had stopped at a gas station, not only for gas, but also to clean our windshield in Jamestown, 100 miles east of Bismarck. Now, five miles out of town, our windshield was covered with bugs.

Splat, splat, splat..."that bug won't have the guts to do that again"...splat, splat, splat...."you know what the last thing was to go through that bug's mind? His feet".  Suddenly, splat, splat was replaced with swish, swish as we tried to get rid of the bug guts with blue washer fluid and our windshield wipers. By the time we reached home, our white Impala was the color of tar from all the dead bugs.

Still, it was an adventure...one that all three of us will never forget. We didn't have Monty, Ross or Austin, this time around, but we saw enough characters at the corner of Hennepin and Sixth to last us a lifetime.

Funny memories of the natural gas bill stuffer

Years ago when I worked for MDU Resources Group, Inc., I was in charge of the bill stuffers that went into the monthly bills of Montana-Dakota Utilities Co.'s energy customers. Once a year we had to put a "scratch and sniff" stuffer into the natural gas customers' bills so that they knew what natural gas smelled like in case there was ever a leak.

For those who don't know, natural gas is odor less in nature, and so the utility mixes it with an chemical called mercaptain, and it smells worse than rotten eggs.

You then can imagine what the mailroom of MDU smelled like every January when a quarter of a million customers in four states received the bill stuffer. The mailroom contained a very large metallic green monstrosity that held the bills, the return envelope, the mailing envelope and about four stacks of various bill stuffers. There was just enough friction caused by the envelope stuffing to release the mercaptain smell every time a bill was mailed. Over the course of eight hours, the room reeked, and after a month, the mailing room almost required a gas mask just to enter. So it wasn't a pleasant place to work in January.

The two people who worked in the mailroom were a couple of characters. It was an elderly man -- who liked to drink at the Paper Dollar bar in Bismarck on his way home from work -- and a nosy middle-aged lady, who was forever trying to win something off the radio. The lady was a shirt-tail relative of my father-in-law, but that's another story.

Anyway, I walked into the mail room one January day, and the old man is tooting right and left...almost in time with the mailing machine as it chugged along stuffing envelopes. He smiled at me, and I guess I smiled back at him...as a person does when they are sort of witnessing something that is a little "out in left field."

Anyway, the old man came up to me and said, "I love this month. I can pass gas and no one can tell because of the stink from the bill stuffers."

If only we had also been given ear plugs, I thought.

But the strangest thing was a letter I received from a distraught mother of a teenager in Dickinson. Her letter read: "Dear MDU, Recently I received a bill stuffer that smelled like natural gas. I'm wondering if you could send one out that smells like burnt marijuana. I'm suspicious that my son is smoking grass, but I don't know what it smells like."

My reply was that the company purchased the natural gas sniffer stuffers from an outside firm and that vendor only makes the ones that smell like natural gas because it's mandated by law. However, if she wanted to know what marijuana smelled like, she should either go to a rock concert or take a trip (no pun intended) to the Dickinson police department and ask an officer to burn some contraband for her.

I''m reminded of these stories every January when I open my MDU bill only to find the stinky natural gas sniffer stuffer. The old man has since died and the lady's retired....but the stories -- like the smell -- continue to linger.

21 years of Scott

It's hard to believe it was 21 years ago when Scott Willis arrived at the MedCenter One Hospital in Bismarck. Seems like yesterday I was holding a little baby in my arms.

It was a hot Monday, high 91, back on July 16, 1990. I drove Belinda to MedCenter One in the middle of the night. Belinda's sister Darcy was at our house attending a basketball camp with her friend Cheri so we left our 23-month-old toddler Derek with the girls. At 9:15 a.m. we had a precious baby boy. He weighed 9 pounds and one ounce and was 22 inches long.

Somehow, I thought our second child would be a girl so we had picked out Shelby for a girl's name (after the town in Montana on the Highline), but instead we were blessed with a bouncing baby boy. Among the visitors the first day were Darcy, Cheri, Derek and Belinda's brother Miles and his wife Bernie. Scott's Godparents would be Bernie Doll and his uncle Steve Scheitlin.

Scott had light blond hair 

One of the things about being born in July -- as his mom and dad can attest -- is it's often hot. On his first birthday, the temperature reached the triple digits. I videoed Scott when he woke up and he wasn't a happy camper. Miles and Bernie came over in the evening for cake and ice cream and to watch Derek open Scott's presents.

It was cool on his second birthday. High 68. His Aunt Julie and Aunt Amy were in Mandan. We celebrated his birthday at noon when Miles came for lunch. We had homemade spaghetti and breadsticks. Scott got to open his own presents this year, which included a Tonka truck from his parents.

His third birthday was on a Friday -- a hot and muggy day. I made breakfast and then took both boys to get a hair cut. Uncle Miles was preoccupied today as he had water in his basement. Scott got a guitar, train and helicopter toy from us. Other presents included a Cootie game, a gun and other trucks.

July 16, 1994, was Scott's fourth birthday. He got a sizzling, smoking BBQ grill from his parents and he was grilling all day. He also got a camera that he took pictures with all day. Power Rangers was the fad so he got a Power Rangers shirt and video. He had a "Cookie Monster" cake that we took up to Great-grandma Frohlich's.

In 1995, we stopped in Glendive for Scott's birthday party on a toasty Sunday with Grandma and Grandpa Doll before leaving later in the day for Roundup. We were heading to the cabins by Martinsdale on Monday. This was the year at the cabins that Scott and I turned over in the inner tube, which was caught on video by Uncle Rich. As for presents, this was another "Power Ranger" year. Aunt Amy made him a Power Ranger birthday cake.

On his sixth birthday, Scott was in Mandan playing tee-ball in the morning and went to the amusement park at Sertoma Park in the afternoon. We ate at McDonald's for dinner, then we had his birthday party outside with Miles and Bernie along with Allison and Shirley Haider. The "Toy Story" movie had now taken over from the "Power Rangers" and Scott got a Buzz Lightyear action figure for his birthday.

On his seventh birthday, Scott and Derek were at Grandma and Grandpa Doll's because we had just returned from Hawaii. We got up early and drove to Glendive. Aunt Amy made Scott a "Rugrat" cake. He had lots of cousins visiting him for his birthday party.

In 1998, Scott was back in Mandan playing baseball. Matthew Markel, Kyle Jefferson and Allison Haider came for his birthday. They went to the amusement park and then came home to eat birthday cake and ice cream. We gave him a Michael Jordan basketball and a big bag of Skittles.

When he turned nine, Scott and his friends went to Snooper's, an indoor amusement complex in Bismarck. That year his presents revolved around baseball and the New York Mets. On his 10th birthday, he repeated the trip to Snooper's. His sports enthusiasm had now turned to golf as he got a golf glove for his birthday, among other presents.

On his 11th birthday, he got a pull cart for golf from us and baseball batting gloves. We grilled filet mignon for Scott's birthday.

Scott and his turtle cake

When he turned 13, the temperature was 115...but we were also in Phoenix visiting the Stegmeiers. Needless to say, we all went swimming in the pool behind their house. While visiting in Arizona, we toured the Grand Canyon. The major memory of Phoenix was the heat and how the candles melted without being lit. We also heard that a number of windshields popped and broke from the intense heat.

On his 14th birthday, the high was 90. The boys got up early and left for Williston on a bus with their Babe Ruth baseball team. We drove up later in the day. Scott got to pitch during the tournament. He didn't want a cake back at the hotel. The next day -- which was my birthday -- we celebrated both of our birthdays with fried chicken and cake at a park with my nephew David and his wife Cathy from Plentywood.

High 107 on his 15th birthday. Belinda was in the Black Hills so we were on our own in Mandan. Scott and I ate at Red Lobster. Derek was at play practice. Lindsay Feigitsch, a friend from school and church, took Scott to the Bewitched movie. Cheryl Horner brought a Treatsa-Pizza from Dairy Queen.

It was a Sunday when Scott turned 16. We put money toward his car stereo system. I made him a chocolate birthday cake and we ate at Paradiso. After supper we moved the computer from downstairs to upstairs as Grandpa would soon be moving from Roundup to Mandan to live with us.

A true-blue Red Sox Rooter

On his 17th birthday, Scott got a Red Sox T-shirt from us and another from Derek. He got a Turtle Cake for his birthday cake and ate at Paradiso with his friends. We ate at Red Lobster for dinner. Scott ate two pounds of crab for supper.

A warm, humid day for his 18th birthday. Scott got all kinds of after shave, cologne and deodorant from us...along with golf balls. Derek, Scott, Uncle Todd and I went golfing.

On his 19th birthday, Scott got pants and a gift certificate to Scheels from us. He was working as a baseball coach during the summer. He went to Paradiso with his friends for lunch. We were getting ready to head to Montana for a family reunion in the afternoon. We left for Medora and met Grandma and Grandpa Doll. We ate at the pitchfork fondue and attended the musical.

Last year when Scott turned 20, he was in Guatemala. So we wished him "happy birthday" on Facebook and told him we would eat at Red Lobster when he got back.

So that brings us up to his 21st birthday. We already know that it will be hot and humid. On July 15th, his family will be taking him to Red Lobster for dinner and then birthday cake with family and friends afterwards. Then on the 16th, he's eating at Paradiso with friends before leaving for Medora to eat at the pitchfork fondue and see the musical in the evening.

Here's to a great first 21 years.

Love,
Dad

Random thoughts

I've been walking a lot lately, which gives me time to think about the most capricious things. Here's a sampling.

• In the olden days, vehicles were named for fast animals such as the Impala and the Mustang. So what's up with pickups like the Dakota and Tundra. Especially, Tundra. That's the frozen ground up in Alaska...sort of a wasteland of frozen ground. Why would you name a pickup after a wasteland of frozen ground? I'm not inspired by Tundra. 
• We used to see a lot more people walking at 6 a.m. Where are these people? Did they die from too much exercise? Did they move? We didn't see anybody today. Yesterday, we saw a guy in a pickup who stopped to chat with us.
• I was thinking about the guy who owned the newspaper in Baker back in the early 1980s when I was walking today. I was wondering if he was still alive. He sold his paper more than 20 years ago and bought another one in the Black Hills, but he didn't own it very long. One of the wisest things he ever said to me was this: "You lie to your friends, and I'll lie to mine...but let's not lie to each other." 
• There are a lot of sump pumps working 24-hours a day in the homes on the east side of Mandan. The water can't be put in a drain because it would overload the sewer system so it has to be released outside. Some of the homes have water that seems to stretch from the curbside back to the river...about a mile away. The only people making any profit on this are those selling the pumps and the utilities selling the electricity. Also, what would happen to the homes if the electricity went out?
• Why is it calm early in the morning, but as soon as the sun gets above the horizon the wind starts to blow?  Some would think it is the sun's heat that creates the wind...but I have a different theory. I think the wind is a big chicken and only likes to come out when the sun is shining. 
• Sometimes we see special needs children when we're walking. I can't help but thank God that my children are normal. But I also think about the children and the parents of these children. What would it be like to be them? Is there something I can do to make their lives better? I'm so thankful for people who have devoted their lives and careers to helping others. 
• Every once in a while, I get a song in my head and can't get it out. This makes me wonder why some songs are so memorable. Last night I heard the song, "Putting on the Ritz." I love that song. The composer was Irving Berlin, who wrote a lot of American classics. Wouldn't the world be a duller place if Irving Berlin and other song writers had been born a thousand years ago and there music had never been written down? And what was music like a thousand years ago? Have we missed some of the earlier songs because they weren't recorded?
• We walk along the Interstate Highway, which is across from a cemetery. I'm always curious about the people buried in the cemetery. Both sets of Belinda's grandparents are buried there. I only knew her maternal grandmother. I wonder what the other three were like? Both of her grandpas were farmers and all of her grandparents were German. I'm sure they liked polkas and waltzes. What else would they like? Maybe German potato salad and bratwursts. 
• I think about my children and wonder if they will have the same economic opportunities that I had. The economy and the national debt worry me. I'm thankful that my parents enjoyed Social Security and Medicare in their golden years, but I wonder if it will be around for me or my children when they retire. Seems to me the country is over-extended and anything that is paid for by borrowing from the Chinese should come to an end...even entitlements. Maybe we need the slogan "Cash is King" to be our country's mantra. 

With that, the walk has come to an end. Our house looms in front of us again. Yes, Belinda, it's been a pretty good walk. Let's do it again tomorrow. 

Travels with Grandpa

My dad has never been much of a talker. My wife's father doesn't talk much either. I remember when our son Scott was in kindergarten and the teacher called Belinda because she was worried about him. She said, "Scott doesn't seem to talk much."

My answer was that Scott might be like his Grandpas and one word a week might be all he wants to say. Anyway, getting back to my dad and our travels, it's a lonely ride if you're waiting for him to say anything. On top of that, he speaks very quietly and I often can't hear what he says anyway.

Over Memorial Day, we drove down to the Black Hills. There was Belinda, Grandpa and me. Belinda and I can visit. When we walk in the morning, we talk and we converse over meals, etc. But then there's Grandpa.

So I was a little dismayed when I found out that Belinda wasn't coming back to Mandan with us. Instead, it would just be dad and I. That would make the long trip even longer.

Since my heart troubles in March, I've been on water pills. I take them twice a day and they can quickly become your master...especially when driving. So we left Rapid City and I had to stop in Sturgis, which is maybe 30 minutes a way. It was a lucky thing I did because dad needed to stop also, but he didn't tell me.

Our next stop was at Newell. Same thing, I had to stop and dad did, too. Then we were onto Faith. We stopped at a little gas station that was full of people. Some of the men were standing in line to use the restroom. That didn't matter to dad. As soon as someone walked out of the restroom, he walked in. Who cared if there was a line. Since the water pill had already kicked in, I followed dad into the restroom myself. However, I was afraid of what might be awaiting us when we walked out. The crowd might turn angry.

So I thought up an excuse that Grandpa needs help when using the restroom. Actually, when we left the restroom, the line had subsided. My guess is the men had decided to use the women's can. Things like that happen in small town gas stations.

Our next stop was Lemmon. It is an interesting town because it straddles the North Dakota, South Dakota border. There are electric customers of MDU who live in Lemmon that have different rates than their neighbors depending  on what side of the border they live. No kidding.

However, I digress again. We ate lunch in Lemmon at the Alaska cafe because it was right on the highway. As I walked in, I noticed there were a lot of conversations going on but there would be none at my table because one of the twosome doesn't talk. I about asked a family if we could sit with them just so I could listen to them chat while I was eating my hamburger. You miss talking when you are living in a world of total silence.

After that, we got back in our car. Prior to Lemmon, we had been listening to country music on some CDs, but I was so lonely that I turned on KFYR radio and listened to talk shows. People were calling in about the pending flood. This isn't exactly the most uplifting conversation, but at least it's company.

A couple hours later I was pulling into Mandan and dad said something about his cat. I'm not sure what he said because I can't hear him. But I thought, wow, we drove six hours and the first thing he has talked about is Picasso. He didn't ask about eating, talk about needing to use a bathroom, or anything. But he was wondering about his cat at least enough to actually speak.

All I can say is, that cat is loved.

Confessions of a Little League Coach

In Mandan, they don't have Little League. They have Cal Ripken baseball, which is Little League on a budget. The coaches were dads who wanted to see their children play baseball and have fun. Well, some of the coaches wanted to have fun. Others wanted to win, no matter what the cost.

My boys were stellar baseball players, or at least I thought so. I liked Derek in the outfield and Scott at second base. The only problem was that Derek wanted to be a catcher and Scott a pitcher. However, dad knows best. Except that I didn't. Once I let Derek start catching and Scott start pitching, they both liked the game a whole lot better and played better, too.

But that's just the beginning of my foibles. Then, like now, I couldn't remember names. I had a center fielder whose real name was Nick. But do you think I could ever remember his name? No. He quickly learned to answer to anything that started with an "N." Once he made a nice catch in the outfield and I hollered "Nice catch, Nels!"

He doffed his cap at me...a recognition of his coach's appreciation. At that same moment, somebody on the bench jabbed me in the ribs and said, "Nobody names their boys Nels anymore."

We had two coaches on the team, me and another fellow who took the game way too seriously. He could quote rules from official Cal Ripken baseball rule book quicker and with more accuracy than Billy Graham can quote Scripture.

It didn't matter what the other team did, it was against the rules in the rule book...or so said the expert. However, the teenager umping the game never read the rule book either. So he never changed his calls just because the expert was quoting chapter and verse.

My sons weren't the only brothers on the team. There was another set of brothers who came with a dad. The dad wanted to be a coach but didn't want the responsibility.

So he just sat on the bench and made rude comments...mostly about his sons. When one of them asked him if he could impart some words of wisdom, the dad said sternly, "Don't suck."

Wow, so much for "Let's win one for the Gipper."

Another memory I have is watching my oldest son get plunked with a baseball from a tall lanky pitcher on another team. It didn't matter who was on base, what was the score or whether the game was starting or ending...the lanky pitcher always had it out for Derek and never missed hitting him with a baseball.

Finally, I said enough was enough and even warned the umpire before the game that the pitcher had it out for my son. "So keep an eye on the pitcher and his bean balls," I hollered.

Sure enough, Derek got plunked with a high inside pitch his first time to the plate.

I came unglued on the bench and threatened to wring the pitcher's neck if he ever did that again.

Much to my chagrin, Derek and the "head hunter" later became good friends. So I asked the pitcher one day if he was aiming at my son on purpose.

"No sir," he said, "But the more I tried not to hit him, the worse my control got. I just got something in my head that I couldn't get out and the more I thought about it, the worse I pitched."

You know, I felt sorry for the pitcher. Eventually, his family left Mandan and all was forgotten. He was a nice boy. They were all nice boys. And I'm glad I had the chance to coach them in Little League...er, Cal Ripkin league.

Tips on expanding your vocabulary and becoming a better communicator

"If your only tool is a hammer, then every problem will look like a nail." That's an old saying, but how true. Likewise when speaking or writing, if you have only a limited vocabulary, it's hard to explain or describe the richness of life or the specificity of an event.

So it's up to us to expand our vocabularies, especially if we want to be improve our communications skills.

I learned a few years ago that the size of a person's vocabulary can often be tied to their socio-economic status. For instance, children growing up in a poor home may not have access to books (and parents reading to them) that children in a middle-class family would have. Stated another way, a single parent raising children may not have the money to buy books or have the energy to read to the children, especially if the mom or dad is working two jobs to make ends meet.

As a child, I had two loving parents along with older brothers and sisters and was surrounded by books and parents and siblings that would read to me. Still I feel the need to learn more words...basically because there are so many words to learn.

So what can I do? The easiest thing would probably be reading Webster's dictionary, but that's not very fun. However, there are lots of dictionaries that are fun to read. One of them I own deals with things that help us understand our social culture, a second gives definitions for euphemisms. Both are lots of fun, and expand your vocabulary and knowledge along the way.

A second tried and true method is to read good literature. For instance, I like westerns. There is a big difference between reading a Louis L'Amour western and a Zane Grey novel, such as "Riders of the Purple Sage." Even though Louie is a native of North Dakota, if you've read one of his novels, you've basically read them all. On the other hand, a Zane Grey western hits all the high notes and paints the most brilliant pictures, especially of the southwest United States.

But I just don't stop with westerns. Another of my favorite authors is Stephen Ambrose. He writes histories and my favorite is "Undaunted Courage", which is about Lewis & Clark and the Corps of Discovery. Mr. Ambrose is now dead, but he used to come to North Dakota and especially Fort Mandan north of Bismarck to speak about Lewis and Clark. If you ever heard him speak, his written prose sound just like him...a little bit staccato and with a certain fierceness and bravado.

However, perhaps my favorite way to learn new words is through crossword puzzles. Every morning before leaving for work, I at least start the crossword puzzle in the Bismarck Tribune. I generally don't give myself enough time to finish the puzzle before I go to work, but sometimes I do finish it, and I consider it a good omen.

Every puzzle offers me a couple of new words or new uses of old words. For instance, the puzzle today contains the word "legumes", which I know as peas. However, the definition is for a "cover crop" -- meaning that legumes can be planted to hold the soil together and provide nutrients to the soil while producing a crop...peas.

Another clue today was "Cochise's tribe". Now I could look this up on the Internet, but it's more fun to have the word appear by answering other clues. First I had found an "a" when I wrote "taro" as a "South Seas edible root." The next letter was a "p" because the clue was a "well known cartel" and the answer was 'OPEC." It wasn't long before "Apache" appeared as the answer.

There's another trick I know, not for expanding your vocabulary, but for becoming a better story teller and writer. The next time you are watching your favorite show, such as "Modern Family" for me, sit with a tablet and pen and look for colorful or witty phrases and write them down. Many TV shows are very well written and by listening to them and paying a little extra attention, we can learn from some mighty clever writers.

I hope you enjoy this blog because it allows me to show off some vocabulary and writing techniques that I've learned by applying these tips.  

Without salt, sugar, fat, carbs and soda, life gets tasteless

I know a man who suffers from a debilitating disease. He's like a walking chemistry lab as the doctors work to keep his body in balance, literally through science and pills. In the last several years, he's lost a lot of weight. I asked him what his secret is and he said, "food doesn't taste good anymore."

I laughed when I heard the answer because food has always tasted good...until now. My latest setback came Tuesday afternoon when a nurse told me that I was "mildly diabetic and had kidney failure probably due to higher than normal blood sugar levels so for the next three months I should restrict my sugar and carbohydrates and then we'll test you again."

Regarding the kidney failure, the nurse told me to stay off coffee, tea and pop. Only drink water. I was already off of caffeine so I haven't been drinking tea and coffee, but I did enjoy the occasional diet root beer or diet, caffeine-free Mountain Dew, but those choices are now gone as well. Like a line from one of my favorite movies, the dad says to his mis-behaving little boy, "Gee, your water looks tasty."

Really, I thought...what can I eat? My darling wife called my doctor's nurse and suddenly we were registered for two classes in May. One is with a dietitian and the other is with an expert on diabetes.

I haven't had the classes yet, so to be on the safe side, my meals have become pretty bland -- as in no taste and no reason for eating. Suddenly I feel like my friend with Parkinson's. There are times when I get up from the table and I want to go throw up because the meal tasted so badly.

All I want is something that tastes fairly close to what it used to taste like. My wife is a real trooper and works very hard to make sure I comply with the doctor's recommendations. So what I'm saying is no knock on her cooking skills...but honestly, sometimes I think my tongue is covered with wax because what I'm eating has no taste.

There are exceptions. A tuna fish sandwich on no salt bread still tastes pretty good. In fact, it tastes better than it did when I was eating other things. See, that's all I ask for. Just give me food that tastes like it used to.

I've already whined elsewhere about my attempt at homemade, no salt sausage and how terrible it was. I ended up throwing out most of it.

Well, my dear wife tried it again...thinking she could add a few more ingredients and it would taste better. Well, it didn't. She made it for lunch one day along with some "applesauce" pancakes. I had to put peanut butter and sugar free syrup on the pancakes to give them some taste and then cut up my sausage patty and eat a piece with every bite of pancake. I know dad hated it as well as he was more than willing to give away his sausage. Generally, if you make an attempt at some food on his plate, you'll end up with a fork in the back of your hand.

A week ago, I had lasagna with low sodium spaghetti sauce at my sister-in-law's house, and that tasted pretty good. In fact, I had a second piece and a second slice of garlic toast. But that was before I was cutting back on my carbs.

So tonight, dad and I will be dining on baked fish, baked potato (only pepper and low fat, low sodium margarine) along with a small salad. Yeah, that's right...I'm on a blood thinner so I have to also watch how much green leafy vegetables I eat as that seems to counteract the blood thinner.

Every day I drive by seemingly endless restaurants and fast food joints that I used to patronize. Now, they are only fond memories...like your first kiss or your first true love. They cook with way too much salt, and the portions are gigantic compared to what I get to eat.

So to sum it up...if you can eat and enjoy food, go get 'em. But please understand if I'm walking a little slower to the dinner table now days and leaving less satisfied.

I saw a lot of changes and I was against them all...

The title is a quote from an old man who retired about 15 years ago from a pipeline company in eastern Montana. At the time, I thought, "What a scrooge." But as I get older, I'm starting to feel more and more like him.

So I was thinking back to all the technologies that I've seen come...and a few go.

When I was in college, we wrote stories using a typewriter and then took our stories to someone who would set them in type. My first job out of college was at a small newspaper in a small town in western North Dakota, but the newspaper had better equipment than the college. It had something called a "Compugraphic" where you could write your story and it would come out of a computer ready to be waxed and put on a "dummy" page of a newspaper. I remember thinking that the Compugraphic would probably be the end of my career because I had a hard time learning how to run it, let alone master it. But the threat of starving to death without a job somehow persuaded me to learn to operate it.

From the newspaper in Beach, ND, I went to a newspaper in Baker, MT, and back about 10 years...at least when it came to technology. I was back using an electronic typewriter to write my stories, which I handed to a lady named Susan, who worked on the Compugraphic. But then I took a job at Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative in Glendive, and they had a state-of-the-art Compugraphic. They also sent me to Denver to learn how to operate this beast. After some training, I became proficient at it, but probably not an expert. I remember the paper was expensive for the Compugraphic so you didn't want to make a lot of errors.

Mid-Rivers also was the first company I worked for that had IBM PC's. I remember going to training on the PC's that required floppy disks to store data. The trainer told us that floppy disk was a "car" and we had to remember to put the "car" in the "garage." In other words, the training was very elementary. But it beat writing stories on a typewriter because it was so much easier to make changes and edit.

From Mid-Rivers in Glendive, it was on to MDU in Bismarck and back to the Selectric typewriter. Again, we had a lady who used a Compugraphic in the printing department, and she had the exact model of what I'd used in Glendive. If we made a mistake on the typewriter, we would make our changes with a pencil edit, and then hand it off to our secretary who would retype it before we sent it to an executive for final edit.

And then we got a computer. That's right. One computer for about 10 of us in the communications department. The slogan at MDU must have been, "We'll spend no dime before it's time."

Having one computer is like begging for a fight. Let's face it, computers are far superior to typewriters so who wants to use a typewriter if there's a computer available...although generally it wasn't available.

Then there was a retirement and a promotion and suddenly MDU had a technology champion as president and we all had shiny PC's sitting on our desks. Also, the floppy disks had given way to the compact disks. Writing was easier and more efficient with a computer. In time, we would quit using the compact disks and start saving our work to a large computer through a networking system.

So with everyone using a computer, except for those that retired or would soon be retired, we were introduced to e-mail. This again was about five years after I first heard of e-mail. Suddenly, we didn't have to talk to anyone anymore. We could just send them an e-mail. I liked this technology.

Another technology I was introduced to was the pager. If you handled calls from the media, you had to carry a pager so the media could get a hold of you. It generally wasn't a happy week if you were carrying a pager and it went off. Once, it was in the middle of the night and the pager beeped. We were in the midst of a bad thunderstorm and the media was calling because of outages and downed power lines. So I called the MDU dispatch office and got the latest information about how many crews were out working and relayed this to the media that kept calling throughout the night for updates. I also had an angry newspaper publisher call me because the Bismarck Tribune was without power and they wanted to start printing the morning paper.

In 2002, I went to work at the Lignite Energy Council and we had computers and a network along with e-mail, so I felt write at home. They didn't have pagers so I was extremely happy.

Until I learned that pagers were yesterday's news. Today's technology was cell phones and I would be required to wear one in case the media came calling.

Like the Compugraphic years ago, I'm proficient on the cell phone, but I'm not an expert. I don't know all the bells and whistles, but I do know that cellphones can do a lot more than just make calls. I can now text my sons and look up things on the Internet. I can also take pictures.

So in the last 30 years since I graduated from college, I've learned a lot about technology and how it has shrunk my world and made me more efficient as an employee. But I've got probably 15 years left to work. I'm sure there will be more changes. And like the fellow that retired back in the 1990s, I'm less interested with each passing year to make changes and be more technology savvy. My guess is that the decision about when to retire will be brought about by some new technology. I'll throw up and hands and finally say, "Enough is enough."

The benefits of procrastination

Last December I bought a new suit, new shirts, pants, etc. I had every intention of throwing away all the stuff in my closet that no longer fit. However, tomorrow always seemed like a better day than yesterday, so I didn't do it.

Now having lost a considerable amount of weight and needing to lose a lot more, I'm counting the benefits of procrastination. Because of my lack of action, I also don't have to buy a new wardrobe. I have one...or two...and they are good ones.

Luckily, I don't have any leisure suits or striped, bell bottom pants and flared silk shirts from the 1970s, but I do have clothes that I doubt meet the fashion standards of today.

For shoes, let's start with the classic black wing tips. Going north, we have argyle socks. Then there are suit pants and suit coats of different colors and styles going back 25 years. Let's face it, suits wear like iron.

I have a variety of dress shirts starting with white and moving all the way to cream. Actually, I also have a shirt the color of every arc in a rainbow. But I've been limited to white and cream because those have fit. Now they all fit...except for the big ones.

Where this weight loss really hurts is in the jackets and coats. Because all of my outerwear have been up-sized over the years and the old ones wore out, I'm currently stuck between a rock and hard place. My big green puffy winter coat -- that I've had since the boys were in high school -- kicked the bucket a week or so ago when the zipper blew out. I know they were in high school because I was taking them to school one morning when the zipper blew out on my big puffy blue coat.

However, the good news here is that Spring is expected to arrive in North Dakota some time in the next month. So I won't need coats and jackets for a couple of months and maybe by next fall, I'll have a better idea of what size I should buy.

Now the best news is that my belts are also looking way too big. However, I don't know yet what size belt to buy, so again, to be on the safe side, I'm comfortable walking around with my pants down to my knees until I settle on a size.

Turns out, I'm finally fashionable with the low hanging pants and clear view of my boxer shorts.

"It is what it is..."

On March 16, I left my hospital room, my wife and dad for a little exploratory surgery known as an angiogram. As I was being wheeled downstairs to see if I had blockage or a heart attack, the only words I could think of was "it is what it is...and we'll make the most of it."

You can't believe my joy to hear the cardiologist say that I had no blockage and had not had a heart attack. This gives me a better chance for a recovery as none of my heart had died from lack of oxygen. What I did have was cardiomyopathy, which is a diseased heart muscle. In my case, the cardiologist said it could have been caused by a virus. My heart was weak, scarred, enlarged and beating irregularly.

Still, I was uplifted by the number of heart medicines and the people I know who have made miraculous recoveries from heart failure.

My saga begins probably back in January after we returned from Hawaii. I don't remember being short of breath when we walked the breadth of Waikiki, but I do remember being short of breath when I saw my pulmonologist in Bismarck. He oversees my CPAP machine, which reduces my apneas when I sleep. I think that appointment was January 18 and at the time, I chalked up my shortness of breath to walking up a hill in the cold January air.

My next excursion to a doctor came at the end of February when I thought I had bronchitis, which is something I have a proclivity for. My doctor prescribed a steroid and an antibiotic, much like he had in the past. But something was amiss as I went in a week later to find my ankles and feet had swollen. This time he added a week to the antibiotics since my lungs were still filled with gunk and changed my water pill to something stronger.

Still, I felt my condition worsening and a week later went in again. This time, however, the doctor found that my heart rate was more than twice as fast as normal. Thus I earned a trip to the hospital.

There I  had x-rays, an EKG and an echocardiogram along with the angiogram to determine what was going on with my heart. Three days after entering the hospital, I was more or less being tested to my tolerance and how well the different heart medicines would perform. To do this, I had to wear a heart monitor and have my blood checked every so often.

Now I really can't say enough good things about the nurses and doctors working on my case. They did their best to make me feel at home, but a small hospital room is not my home and you don't enjoy many freedoms when tied by a four-feet length of plastic tubing to an I.V. pole.

So when my release came on March 21, I was more than ready to go home. The last thing to be removed was the I.V. from my left arm. I had been stuck like a pin cushion as my veins wanted to "roll" or "collapse" about as soon as a needle came in contact with them.

Now I'm recuperating at home and learning all about my new low sodium, water restricted, low calorie diet. It will probably be a couple of weeks until I return to work. However, when I do, I hope my body is in harmony and my heart is beating properly.

A lot changed in the last week. I look at it as having "crossed the Rubicon."

I just thank my lucky stars that I have a supportive family, co-workers, friends and a great staff of medical experts who work very hard on my behalf.

Thank you to all who whispered a prayer. It wasn't the least you could do, it was the most. And I'm very grateful.

Yellow roses

Christmas 2005 was bittersweet. We were at my mom and dad’s home in Roundup for the holidays. Mom had recently fallen in the middle of the night and half of her face was black and blue. This one morning she was sitting in her favorite chair when she reached in her pocket and pulled out a $10 bill. She told me the money was from her sister Ginny, who lived 50 miles away in Billings. Ginny wanted to buy her some flowers for Christmas so she sent the money to mom, who now made the request to me.

I took the money and went to the local florist in Roundup. I knew that $10 was a lot of money to my Aunt Ginny and I also knew that my mom liked beautiful flowers, especially roses. So I added some money to the kitty and brought back a bouquet of roses for mom. She was surprised and said, “I don’t think you got these roses with the money Ginny sent.”

I shook my head and told her that it wasn’t the amount of money, it was the thought. Ginny was thinking a lot about her sister to send $10 for flowers. Both her sister and I wanted mom to have a special bouquet of flowers so we pooled our resources. Did she like them? You bet, and she posed with her flowers like a blushing bride even as her discolored face told the story of how fragile her health had become.  

Mom had a myriad of health problems. She was diabetic and she had congestive heart failure. She ate a handful of pills with every meal and required shots of insulin to moderate her blood sugar. She was receiving invasive treatments at the Roundup hospital to remove the water from around her lungs and heart. This had been done every two months, then every month, now it was every two weeks. She was short of breath and lacked oxygen in her blood so had to be hooked up to an oxygen machine day and night.

Still, it seemed, mom’s family was in denial about how sick she really was. My dad, who had become nothing but skin and bones as mom could no longer cook, kept waiting for her to recover so she could bake him a pie and make meat and potatoes just like she had for 60 years. He wasn’t the only one in denial. Somehow, it seemed, we all believed that mom was somehow going to shake this and get better. After all, when you asked her how she was doing, she always had the same canned answer, “I think I’m doing a little better.”

This mirage would shatter the first week of March of 2006. My sister Janet, who lives in Rapid City, had gone home for a visit. In the middle of the night, mom got out of bed to use the bathroom and collapsed because her blood sugar had crashed. Janet called the EMTs to get an ambulance. Her second call was to me, and I lit out for Roundup – an eight-hour drive.

Upon my arrival, I sat in the hospital room with Janet, dad and mom. Later in the day, Janet left to return to her family in South Dakota. However, before she left, mom told all of us that she had wished Janet hadn’t called for an ambulance and that she had died last night.

Believe me, that’ll get your attention.

The next day was a Thursday. As I made dad breakfast at our house, he told me he wasn’t feeling well so thought he would stay home from the hospital. So I went to visit mom by myself. When a doctor arrived, he said we had some choices. We could put mom into the nursing home as she needed more care than dad could provide, or we could put mom on hospice and she could go home. The hospice nurses would see her several times a week plus provide other services. The main point, however, was that mom would be going home to die and would never be in a hospital again.

Earlier in her life, mom had worked at Roundup Memorial Hospital as a cook. But now, the hospital had become a chamber of horrors for mom. The nurses were pricking her with needles, the therapists were asking her to do this or do that…and to top it off, a sweater she had gotten for Christmas had been stolen from her room during the night. Mom was perpetually cold. At home, dad had the wood stove burning in the corner of the livingroom and the indoor temperature simmered at about 80 degrees. Still, mom would always be wearing a sweater…about six feet away from the stove. “Willis,” she’d say, “Put another log on the fire.”

When the doctor left her hospital room, I asked mom what she wanted to do. She didn’t say she wanted to be put on hospice. She told me, “I want the second thing the doctor said.” Somehow, it seemed her decision had become “the word that need not be ever uttered.”

To mom, it must have seemed like the weight of the world had been lifted from her shoulders. She now knew and accepted that she would be dying, but dying at home, in familiar surroundings. The rest of the day, mom sat in her hospital bed and recounted story after story to me. Some of the stories were about my brothers and sisters and some were about hers. It was as if she wanted to share her most hidden secrets, plus she wanted to tell me exactly how she wanted her memorial service and where she wanted to be buried in the Roundup cemetery…as close to her brother Vern Anderson’s grave as possible.  

I signed the hospice papers for my family and the next day, a Friday, mom went home. The nurses appeared, a hospital bed was set up in my parent’s bedroom and – it seemed – the countdown had begun. Normally, someone on hospice is given less than six months to live. Mom would die in the middle of June…early one Monday morning. In the interim, all of her five children had the chance to see her and support her. My middle brother Randy, for instance, literally spent a month sleeping at the foot of my mom’s bed at night waiting on her every need. During the day, my youngest sister Susan was mom’s shadow. After that, we hired ladies to come in and care for mom. These were some of God’s special angels. They would cook for her, read to her, play cards with her, even sing songs to her.

In May, mom celebrated Mother’s Day and among her gifts were yellow roses from my niece Karen, who at the time lived in Seattle, Washington. Mom loved her roses. A couple of days later was mom’s 82^nd birthday and she received 82 birthday cards…some from the people now reading this blog. But by the first of June, we knew mom wouldn’t be with us long. It was simply a matter of time.

I brought up the flowers because I want you to know her family is still buying her flowers. Probably like you, we buy our deceased relatives flowers every Memorial Day. For mom, it’s roses. However, the flowers are not only a symbol of our love. But they are a remembrance of a wonderful mother and wife and grandmother and cook and housecleaner and army wife who lived through the Depression, who married a soldier in World War II, who bore six children, five of them who lived, who loved every moment of life and never thought about dying until one afternoon in March sitting in a hospital bed.

But if there’s a point to my story, it’s this. The flowers that will always mean the most are ones we give to our loved ones when they are alive. Don’t wait for Memorial Day to think of buying flowers. Valentines Day, a birthday, an anniversary or just-because-you-care-day…are all the best times to remember our loved ones with flowers.