So what did we do in our 50s?

Instead of a one-year Christmas letter, I thought I would give you a recap of the past 10 years – sort of a take-off of the “decade-challenge” on social media where someone posts a photo of themselves in 2009 beside a current photo.

Our family 10 years ago

Let’s start with family. Ten years ago, we were a “sandwich” family…meaning that we had three generations living under one roof. There was my dad, who was about 90, Belinda and I just turning into our 50s, and our sons who were both in college. There wasn’t a lot of extra money hanging around after you get done paying for two college tuitions, helping with books and also car expenses. At the time, we owned four cars – a Buick Park Avenue (that was limping along) a Buick Century, which I bought from dad, a Dodge Neon, which Derek drove, and a Chevy Sunbird, which Scott drove.

Our family grew during the decade. Derek proposed to Camila in the summer of 2011, and they were married in January 2012. Scott proposed to Taylor on her birthday (May 31, 2013) in Aurora, Colorado, and they were married in June 2014. So far, we have two grandchildren – Henry and Luka. So we gained two daughters and two grandsons in 10 years. However, we lost Grandpa in July 2014, after having him live with us for eight years. While Grandpa stayed with us, we also had two different cats that were his constant companions. Nibby was his first kitty and when he died, we got Picasso. It wasn’t long after Grandpa’s passing that Picasso died as well. Still, all of this menagerie was part of the family.

During the decade, Derek graduated from Minot State and then went to work for the college as a recruiter. Later, he left that position and took another as a sales representative for Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota. His undergraduate degree is in broadcasting, and his graduate degree is in business management. Camila has two undergraduate degrees and a master’s as well. She now works in the human resources department of the city of Minot.

In the meantime, Scott was getting his degrees from the University of Mary. His undergraduate degree is in athletic training and his advanced degree is in occupational therapy. He works for Sanford in Bismarck as an occupational therapist. Over the past decade he also worked as a jobs coach for H.I.T, as an in-studio cameraman for KFYR-TV and as a substitute teacher for Mandan Public Schools. Taylor has a civil engineering degree from North Dakota State University and works for several North Dakota distribution electric cooperatives.

Belinda and I are much less interesting. Through the decade, she has worked as a part-time church secretary and I have been gainfully employed as the vice president of communications for the Lignite Energy Council.

Our family in November 2019

Over the course of the decade, the boys graduated and we got to keep a little more money from our paychecks, and both Belinda and I got a few raises here and there so it seemed like we had more resources than we ever thought we would. While we squirreled some away for retirement, we also went on a few trips – including three to Brazil, where Camila’s family lives (2013, 2015 and 2018) and also to Hawaii (2011, 2016 and 2019). We also went to Orlando and Tampa, Florida, and also to Phoenix for the same reasons – to see spring training games and visit relatives. 

One year, we also went to New York City and saw three Broadway plays and the New York Yankees play the Baltimore Orioles in Yankee Stadium. There were other trips as well – to Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, etc. Chances are, if you are reading this blog, you saw us in person over the last 10 years.

There have been some challenges. There was the flood of 2011 that wiped out Derek’s apartment in Minot. Belinda and I have also had some health issues that we have dealt with. My heart went out of rhythm in 2011 and in 2019. It’s still out of rhythm and probably always will be, due to a blood clot in the upper chamber of my heart.

We also did some property improvements. Everything from new windows and appliances – three new computers – to buying the city park beside us and building a deck and a gazebo.

Besides my dad, we also said goodbye to several aunts and uncles – and two brothers-in-law – Dave Laudenschlager and Ed Iverson. I sang in a men’s quartet, joined some worthwhile organizations, competed in speech competitions, served as chair of a preschool and just generally kept busy.

We continue to enjoy the Saturday morning breakfasts with Belinda’s uncles. We are fans of the Medora Musical and go there several times every summer. We like to see movies and have probably spent about $10,000 in the past 10 years at Red Lobster.

So from the time I turned 50 to 60, it was a decade of change. The cars changed, the family grew and my hair went from black to salt and pepper. Most of it was fun. And I wouldn’t trade my life for any other. I love my job, my friends and family and the things I do for recreation. So here’s to a new decade and more adventures.

A peek into the future of my grandchildren’s world

I grew up with the internal combustion engine. When I learned to drive in high school, the price of a gallon of gasoline was 70 cents. Now that I’m nearing my 60^th birthday, the price is $2.10 a gallon. I’ve seen it as high as $4.00 a gallon but that was before horizontal drilling and the exploitation of the Bakken Shale in western North Dakota.

To say I’m satisfied with the status quo would be an understatement. I normally drive a 2006 Dodge Neon that has been described by my brother-in-law as “old fashioned.” It has power steering, a radio and an automatic transmission so it seems modern enough for me. Also, I really only drive it to work and back or the occasional trip to the grocery store.

So when I was told last Friday that I would be driving a 2018 all-electric Tesla Model X for a week, I felt a few jitters run up my spine, but then I thought, “Hey, you’ve driven an electric car before….yeah, a golf cart…many times.”

Well, the Tesla is a little more sophisticated – and bigger – than a golf cart. There’s a little fellow under the hood named “Otto.” His last name is “Pilot.” And he can drive the car all by himself on the interstate from Bismarck to Mandan.

He’s a little too “swervy” for my nerves. It puts me in mind of the way a sitting car on an Amtrak will sway when you are riding the rails. But I had to try it.

There are lots of things to try on the Tesla. I downloaded an app to my phone that allows me to warm up the interior of the car while I’m still inside the office working. The app also tells me how much juice the car is using while warming up the interior of the car. Since North Dakota is right now in the middle of a cold snap, I can’t decide what feature I like most…the one that warms up the car or the one that shows how much electricity is being consumed.

If this was spring or fall, the car could probably make it about 300 miles between charges, but since its winter, heating up the interior is certainly decreasing the miles it can travel.

Right now, the car is plugged into a charging station at work, so I’m not too worried about the electric load. If I were at home, I’d be a little more worried, but I still know that electricity is a good bargain in North Dakota – partly because about 70 percent of it comes from North Dakota-mined lignite coal. Lignite is an affordable fuel. That’s why we have seven lignite-based power plants that generate approximately 4,000 megawatts…or enough power for more than 2 million homes.

My employer, the Lignite Energy Council, is leasing the Tesla for the next three years and allowing its employees to try it out and see if personal ownership of an all-electric vehicle would be right for them.

Well, for me, the Tesla – or another brand of an all-electric car -- would be a perfect second car as I only use my Neon for short trips. The Tesla specifically worked great in the cold weather and handled well in the challenging road conditions. Of course, we northerners know that the secret to getting around in the winter is our tires, and the Tesla has new tires with plenty of tread. The Tesla also has lots of power and accelerates well.

Yesterday, we took the Tesla to church and as we were talking with another couple, the husband asked, “Who makes the Tesla?”

I replied that the car company is called Tesla. This was hard for him to comprehend because almost every car in the church parking lot is made by either Chevrolet or Ford. So driving an all-electric vehicle takes a little getting used to…but the for the people who like to try new things, I think the Tesla will be just fine.

In the future when our grandchildren are adults, who knows, maybe they’ll be wondering what a Chevrolet and a Ford were. People of my generation might be seeing the future before our eyes and we could be the last to recognize it.

GPS

We were at a rural Catholic church for Uncle Johnny’s funeral. As was the custom, several of the retired priests who had served the parish were invited back for the service. One of them was thumbing his way through a little prayer book. First he went to the right, then he went to the left…all the while my 90-year-old dad sitting beside me was losing his patience. After drumming his hands on the back of the pew, he blurted out, “He can’t find it, he can’t find it.”

Dad was just about to get up and leave the church when I grabbed him by his belt loop and pulled him back down. At last, the priest stopped and read something. Whatever it was, it was anticlimactic following dad’s pronouncement of the obvious. It would have meant more if the priest had closed the book and ad-libbed a prayer.

Over the years, I’ve lost plenty of things…gloves and hats mostly. I always make sure to have some spare items hanging around just in case. I doubt that anyone cares if I’m wearing a brown pair of gloves this morning, only to lose them at lunch and replace them with a black pair in the evening.

But the one thing that we never want to lose is our way. With GPS, it’s easier to find what we are looking for even in a strange town or country. The GPS on my phone works just as well in Brazil as it does in Minnesota. In both places, I can see lakes on my phone that I don’t even see from my car.

But how about when it comes to our career or our family life…a GPS won’t help us there. Or will it? Normally GPS stands for Global Positioning System…but what if it also stood for Glittering Precious Sapphires?

Let me explain. In the 1860s when the southerners and the northerners were engaged in a great Civil War, prospectors were finding gold in the Rocky Mountains of present day Montana. First came the discovery of gold near Bannack, then came gold around Virginia City. The third major find was near present day Helena, the Montana state capitol. The prospectors called it Last Chance Gulch…having already missed out on the two earlier bonanzas. Of course, not all the prospectors got rich at Last Chance Gulch. Some arrived too late, and so they began their journey back to civilization.

However, that didn’t mean they couldn’t continue to look for gold as they retreated out of the Rockies. That’s what happened to a group who traveled east near present-day Lewistown. They panned for gold in the creeks but didn’t find any flecks or nuggets. What they did find were blue pebbles, but they weren’t looking for blue pebbles. They were looking for gold. Then in the 1890s, a cattle rancher collected some pebbles thinking they might be sapphires and sent them to be assayed. Eventually, they made their way to Tiffany’s in New York City where they were proclaimed to be the most precious gem ever discovered in Montana. This is no small feat considering that Montana is known as the Treasure State and Butte is home to the richest hill on earth.

The mining of the precious Yogo sapphires ensued and jewelers considered anything less than a Yogo sapphire to be inferior.

As we journey through life looking for that one perfect nugget, or – in the case of the priest -- a favorite prayer that’s been recited at previous funerals, maybe we should broaden our vision and scope out other precious gems.

When I graduated from college, my goal in life was to be a sports reporter with my heart set on covering the New York Yankees, still my favorite baseball team. I was a sports reporter in high school. But after college, I found more value in using my talents as a communicator in public relations, first for a telephone cooperative in Glendive, Montana, and later for a regional utility in Bismarck, North Dakota. For the last 16 years, I’ve been promoting North Dakota’s lignite coal industry to a variety of audiences.

Had I stuck to my original dream, I might have been like the prospectors who walked away from a stream full of crystal blue sapphires. Instead, I’ve enjoyed a rich career. My hobby remains the New York Yankees. I’ve seen them play at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa. But my vocation is to promote home-grown energy in North Dakota. My career in public relations has helped me purchase my house, feed my family, send my boys to college and support the occasional vacation to Brazil and Hawaii.

So don’t overlook the sapphires while searching for the gold. And for goodness sake, don’t fumble through the prayer book looking for something that would mean more if it came from the heart and not someone else’s pen. There are glittering precious sapphires…if we will only choose to look.  

Who wants to be a Brazilianaire?

Last spring, I competed in a speech contest at the district convention in Rapid City. One of the other contestants told about her adventures as she swam in the Amazon in Brazil…with piranhas, mind you.

That caught my attention because my wife Belinda and I have been to Brazil three times in the last six years and never have we even seen the Amazon let alone swim in it. But we have our own adventures. Most of them have dealt with two things we hold most dear – food and money.

So let me tell you about our adventures and they occur in three different places – the megacity of Sao Paulo, the small city of Bebadouro and the beaches along the Atlantic Ocean.

The reason we fly 4000 miles to Sao Paulo is that’s the home town of our daughter-in-law Camila. It’s a city of about 25 million people to 30 million people – second only to Mexico City as the largest city in the western hemisphere. As the late Anthony Bourdain said, “It’s so large it makes LA look like Hooterville.”

Now imagine if you will a Sunday morning street fair in Sao Paulo. There are fruit and fish vendors lined up for miles along a thoroughfare. As we get out of the car and walk toward the crowds, my son – who is married to Camila – feels it necessary to tell me, “And whatever else you do here today, don’t get lost in the crowd.”

Well, imagine my surprise when I’m hanging out with my gang of about 12 people at the street fair only to turn around and find them all gone. They have vanished. All I see is a sea of people and what’s worse is they all look the same. They all have brown skin and black hair. I can’t use my cell phone because it doesn’t work in Brazil.

I don’t know if I should move and start looking for them, or should I stay put until someone notices that I’m gone and comes back to find me.

Alas, I see Camila’s sister – or at least someone who looks like her sister – but, sadly, no. It’s just another of a thousand people at the street fair who looks exactly like my Brazilian relatives. At last, I find my wife. She’s ordering something from one of the vendors. So I walk over with happy elation written all over my face. Then I come upon my son who scolds me for getting lost.

“You are a known flight risk,” he says. “Stay with the group.”

Belinda is ordering homemade candy. And they are making it in front of our eyes. They have a hot iron skillet that they fill with tapioca flour and fry it over a blue propane flame. They flip it and then pour sweetened condensed milk on it, fold it over, take it out of the pan and hand it to Belinda. It’s simple to make and tastes like you are eating a Mounds candy bar.

We love it so much that Belinda buys a small bag of the white tapioca flour. The vendor tells us that once the bag is opened, it needs to be eaten at once or it will spoil…thus the small bag.

Well, this is perfect. We look forward to taking our bag of tapioca flour back to North Dakota and making our own homemade candy, until we get to the airport in Sao Paulo. A bag of tapioca flour looks a lot like a bag of cocaine to airport security personnel. So after having our luggage x-rayed, opened and examined, the tapioca flour passes the smell test and we are allowed to keep it with us.

My second story about food occurs in Bebedouro, a city about the size of Bismarck. Camila’s grandfather and a couple of uncles live here. After Sao Paulo, Bebedouro seems like Mayberry. Everyone is friendly and in the center of town is a park. It is at the park that we come upon hot dog vendors.

Now, we are no stranger to hot dogs. We’ve eaten hot dogs in every major league baseball park and a few minor league parks. We’ve also eaten them in New York City where they are affectionately known as dirty water dogs. So no, it’s best not to invest too much time into the integrity of the sausage. Simply close your eyes and bite down on them.

But the Brazilian hot dog is a different breed altogether. While American dogs are generally dyed red, the Brazilian dogs are orange….no, not just orange, sort of a florescent orange….like the color of the vests worn by hunters in North Dakota.

So here’s a street vendor selling orange hot dogs. But instead of the normal condiments like ketchup and mustard, the Brazilians are used to eating their hot dogs smothered with cooked green peas and mashed potatoes.

Okay, here’s where I draw the line. First, I’m not sure if I could even eat an orange hot dog, but I’m sure that I can’t eat one covered in green peas. So while the rest of the brave people downed a hot dog, I waited for our next stop – the ice cream shop. Only to my dismay, the flavors of the ice cream are also like the hot dogs. Anyone eat ice cream that tastes like sweet corn before? You can in Bebedouro. I stuck with more familiar flavors – chocolate smothered with the ubiquitous sweetened condensed milk.

My third stop on this journey is a beach – this particular beach doesn’t need a name because they are all over the place a hundred miles or so east of Sao Paulo. Some are coves, some are jetties, some are white sand and some are rocky. But they have a few things in common – they are full of people and they have young men who wait on your every need.

It's best to get there early so you can pick out the best spot, which is in front of the food and beverage cabana. Here you want someone who speaks Portuguese to set up a tab for you and your group. If they know you are American, you’ll probably end up paying too much. But if your name is Claudiney or Guilherme, they’ll treat you right.

So at the end of the day after devouring high octane sodas, mixed drinks over the rocks and a host of foods on a stick, it’s time to pay the bill. Generally, our little group averages about eight to 10 of us. The Brazilian dollar is known as real (pronounced HAY-eye). For every American dollar, you can get somewhere between three and four reals. So it’s a good thing to be an American.

Rather than splitting up the bill eight ways, the young men who have kept our drinks fresh and fried our food on a stick to perfection, would just as soon that one person pay the bill in full and leave them a tip. This is where Belinda comes in. She hands them a credit card. Any translation is done by our daughter-in-law who speaks fluent English and Portuguese. In an instant, the bill is paid and our credit card shows that we paid one-fourth of what the bill actually was.

Because of the amazing exchange rate, we are what is known as Brazilianaires…just average run of the mill Americans who can pay a fraction of what someone from Brazil would pay. It’s a great system…for us and our relatives.

But the real cherry on top is that the vendors like the arrangement so much that they are more than happy to give Belinda a free drink…the proverbial one for the road. It’s a concoction of fresh fruit, ice, wine and the ever present sweetened condensed milk.

So while we haven’t swam with piranhas, we have had our share of Brazilian adventures. Hopefully, next year, we can add to the list.

Lessons we learned from Grandpa

The phrase “teachable moment” comes to mind, but can an elderly man with Alzheimer’s really teach his children and grandchildren? That’s the question we’ll explore today.

Willis came to live with us in 2006 upon the death of his wife. He brought with him his clothes, his cat and the start of dementia…something that would slowly progress over the remaining eight years of his life.

Grandpa with his grandsons Scott and Derek in 2011. 

Despite his disease, the World War II veteran could still light up the room and his love for his family knew no bounds. He went by different names. To me he was dad but to our sons, he was Grandpa. 

He taught us that you are never too old to help someone. It was a cold winter’s afternoon and after eating a grilled cheese sandwich and a bowl of tomato soup for lunch, he dressed warm and went for his daily two-block walk. Even though he had Alzheimer’s, we never worried about him wandering off. He had made this trek so many times, he could do it without much thought. And our neighbors along the two block walk always kept an eye out for Grandpa.

On this particular day, we were surprised when he brought back an elderly gal with him. She was our neighbor – Maggie. She didn’t have her teeth in and she wasn’t wearing a coat. Maggie also suffered from dementia. So once she got in our house and warmed up, she told us that she had gone outside for a minute and locked herself out of her home. Our hero came to her rescue and brought her to our house. Since we knew Maggie’s daughter, we called her and she came over to unlock the door…only to find that the door wasn’t locked in the first place.

Thus is the life of living with people who suffer from memory loss. But as Maggie bundled up in a coat to leave our house with her daughter, Grandpa made one of his pronouncements that will stand the test of time, “Women have a harder time growing old than men do.”

Seriously, I thought. Both of you have Alzheimer’s. Both of you require children to survive, but dad spoke so eloquently, it just seemed like the words should be carved in stone. But I think what he really meant was, you are never too old to help someone in need, and in this case he did.

A second lesson he taught us – you don’t need to know their names to be proud of your family. As dad approached his 90^th birthday, the only person whose name he could remember was his grandson’s Scott. All the rest of us were something else. I was forever introduced to him as “this is my son.” My wife was the “woman in the kitchen.” This phrase was only necessary when the woman in the kitchen wasn’t in the kitchen about 15 minutes before Grandpa expected to eat….which was 7 a.m., noon and 6 p.m.

He would walk by the kitchen and if it was empty, he would ask whoever was around, “Where’s the woman in the kitchen?” Meals were important to dad, but so was family. He might not know your name, but he knew if you were a relative. If he did, he would say, “you belong to me.”

That was high praise from someone who couldn’t remember what he ate for breakfast, but he could remember that someone passing through town from Idaho to Maine “belonged to me.”

The third thing dad taught us was that an honest answer could also be mistaken as a person with an amazing wit.

If you didn’t know he had Alzheimer’s, and a lot of people didn’t, he could fool you easy enough. He was generally quiet, but he would say just enough to make an impact. For instance, one night we were attending a dinner and dad was introduced to the evening speaker. The guest of honor asked dad, “What did you do before you retired?”

Without a pause, dad said, “It’s been so long ago, I forgot.” The whole room erupted in laughter.  What a clever response, they thought. But if the truth was known, he had answered the question truthfully. The ever-present twinkle in his eye and a smile on his face made the audience believe that he was being clever.

Of course, he had forgotten that he was a coal miner, a rough neck and a pipeliner. He retired from Conoco in 1985…which was before either of our sons were born.

That was our life with dad. He was a pleasure to be around. He was always a gentlemen, he loved his family and he could light up a room with a smile and an answer that would delight us all. And he taught us that you are never too old to help, that family is your best friend and a well-spoken person is always a gem. 

The odd parallels between Belinda and Rosaline

If someone else noticed the weird coincidences between Belinda and her mother Rosaline, they never explained them to me.

But I certainly discovered them when reading Rosaline’s 1957 and 1958 diaries. I didn’t have to read Belinda’s diaries from 1986 and 1987 because I lived them.

Leo and Rosaline's wedding photo from June 1956.

In June 1956, Rosaline married Leo, who lived and worked in Glendive. So after their wedding Rosaline moved from her family’s farm near Mandan to a different state and to a city where she didn’t know anyone except her husband…or did she?

Why of course she did. Three of her dad’s sisters lived in Glendive. There was Aunt Rose Sterhan, Aunt Mary Pfau and, the youngest, Aunt Kathryn Rust.

There was also Leo’s sister Pat (Perpetua) and her husband Ray Hegel.

So in 1958 when Rosaline – who was the oldest child – had Belinda – also an oldest child – there was a built-in support system to ask questions, find a quick babysitter, etc.

Now jump ahead to 1985 when Belinda married me. Only this time Belinda moved from Glendive to Mandan…basically the opposite of her mother.  And in 1988 when Belinda had her oldest child, all of her questions could be answered by her grandmother. In fact, I think Grandma Frohlich took quite a bit of pleasure in being there for Belinda. It sort of made up for having her daughter move away nearly 30 years ago.

Belinda and my wedding photo from October 1985.

And it wasn’t like Belinda didn’t know anyone in Mandan. While Rosaline had three of her dad’s sisters, Belinda had four of her mom’s brothers – Johnny, Philip, Clifford and Herbie. She also had Rosaline’s mom. Grandma became a suitable substitute for Rosaline for Belinda. After all, they had more similarities than differences.

But if that wasn’t enough, there were also several of Leo’s sisters including Belinda’s Godmother, Clara Wetsch. Besides Aunt Clara, there was also Aunt Barbara and Aunt Alice.

Except for Philip, the rest had gotten married and had children, so Belinda also had lots of cousins…as did Rosaline in Glendive back in the 1950s.

So when Rosaline got married and was just starting to create a new life and depended on the friendship and generosity of her relatives, it was an easy story to understand because we had done the same things.

In fact when we moved to Mandan after Christmas in 1985, it was Philip, Clifford and Herbie who came over to help Leo and I unpack the U-haul during the coldest day of the winter.

Over the years, Rosaline came to rely on her aunts – especially Aunt Katy. Rosaline still sees her cousins Linda (Aunt Katy’s daughter) and Jeannette (Aunt Mary’s daughter).

In Mandan, we have had breakfast with Belinda’s uncles on Saturdays for probably 15 years or more. We also are friends with all of her cousins and see them at least once a year – at the Frohlich reunion.

So if you hear someone say that history repeats itself, indeed it does. And it’s much easier to understand how the previous generation survived when you see the same circumstances surround you as well. 

Brothers and sisters

I saw something on Facebook today that sparked my creativity. It was a “test” called sibling wars and it wanted to know who of my siblings was smartest, most stubborn, most creative, etc. So rather than starting a war, I thought I would simply write a blog about my siblings. Each one of us has our own personality, strengths and weaknesses, but I love them all equally and feel so lucky to call them  family.

I’m the baby – at 58 – that means my oldest brother is now 69. His name is Gene. His full name is Willis Eugene and he was named for dad and one of my mom’s relatives. However, he’s always been Gene to me. When I was growing up in Roundup, Gene was always in a band. In high school, it was called the “Dictions.” Many people who were the age of my parents loved to go to dances and so I became known as “Gene’s brother.” My dad was known as “Gene’s dad.” I don’t think any of us minded because we were proud of Gene and his musical talents. I have many fond memories of my oldest brother. He took me fishing when I was little and I liked being included in his activities. I always thought he was very handsome, so I considered it a compliment when people told me that I looked like my oldest brother.

My sister Janet is 10 years older than me. She lived in Rapid City most of her adult life. Since I lived in places like Baker, Glendive and Mandan,  I generally lived closer to her than any of her other siblings. She was always like a second mother to me.  After raising her children she worked as a librarian in the Rapid City school system, which allowed her enough time to correspond with me daily through e-mails. Now that’s she retired, she seems to be too busy…ha ha. But I still appreciate the time we spend writing e-mails back and forth to each other. A couple of years ago, we were lucky enough to take a Hawaiian cruise together. Janet is not the traveler that we are; however, I’m so grateful that she and her husband Ed went with us. We have memories and photos of an unforgettable week in paradise.

My next sibling is my brother Randy. He was probably the most athletic of all my siblings. I remember that he was a pretty good pole-vaulter when he was growing up. Both of my brothers are also very mechanically inclined and I am not. Randy and I have had some memorable experiences together. In the winter of 1980, he moved in with me in my small apartment in Beach, ND, and we worked together at the Golden Valley News. I was a reporter and Randy helped with commercial printing and in the darkroom. He was actually a welder but had hurt himself so was looking for a different job as he was healing. There was no doubt that Randy was good looking and fun loving. The girls in Beach and Wibaux seemed to swarm around him. I knew that things had gone too far when most of the people thought that I was actually older than him. Obviously, he was “younger at heart” than his younger brother who was more studious and career-oriented. However, we have some great memories from our short time of batching together.

Closest in age is my sister Susan. Randy graduated from high school in 1971 and Susan in 1973, so there were a couple of years where Sue simply “ruled the roost.” She was very pretty in high school and married a local school teacher, who was very handsome. Over the years, Susan has been very close to us…all though she has lived the farthest away in miles. When my dad lived with us, we could always count on Susan and her husband Rich to help us out when we needed to be away from home, such as going to Brazil for Derek and Camila’s second wedding. Also they helped us out with dad when Derek and Camila had their first wedding.  Susan, like Janet, is another that likes to email regularly so we know what’s going on with each other…no matter how mundane.

So it’s hard to say who’s the cutest, who’s the smartest, who’s the most stubborn, who has the best hair…we all brought our strengths and weaknesses to the family party. So my final thought is this…our parents were equally proud of each of us. In many ways, we reflected their values of hard work and success, which is the legacy that they left each of us. As  we’ve aged, we’ve probably all mellowed and slowed down some, but in our hey-day, we were forces to be reckoned with. 

I want to see Jesus face-to-face…just not right now

The evening of September 12 was a “come-to-Jesus” moment for me. I was in my front yard mowing my lawn. Unknown to me, my heart was starting to slow down. The beats were getting fainter and farther apart, but, at the time, I only knew that I felt out of breath.

As I turned a corner, I saw a white flash of light in my eyes. In a snap, I knew I had been shocked. My life had been saved.

In January of 2014, I had a pacemaker/defibulator placed into my chest under the skin by my left shoulder. It had never gone off, so I wasn’t sure what to do. I walked into the house and hollered for my wife. I then went and grabbed the papers out of my dresser drawer regarding the device. They said that if your heart goes out of rhythm and your device goes off, well, it’s supposed to. So don’t be worried. Everything worked out right.

In five minutes, I felt just fine. My heart was back in sinus rhythm and I finished mowing the front yard. Then I put the mower away without even starting the backyard.

The next day at work, I got a call from the device clinic at our local hospital. They wanted me to schedule an appointment with my cardiologist – for that day! Normally, it takes up to six months to see a cardiologist and often the doctor doesn’t show up, but rather one of the physician assistants.

What transpired was a series of weekly visits with my cardiologist. At one, I had a test that showed that my heart was still functioning properly. There wasn’t any damage to the heart and my “push” was still in the normal range.

At another, I had an angiogram from my right wrist to my heart to ensure there wasn’t any blockage.

Here I was – a 57-year-old fat man with type II diabetes and a bad heart. Every morning and night I was taking a handful of pills to keep me on the straight and narrow…or so I thought until September 12.

I didn’t see this scenario playing out well. The doctors told me that high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes are a recipe for failure. Pills don’t fix, they just mask the symptoms.

I have a wife, two married sons, and a new grandson, a home, two cars, a garage – I’m living the American dream. I don’t have a job, I have a career. I like what I do and I’m paid well to do it. I have been frugal and saved for a nice retirement. We like to travel and hope to do more in our golden years. But the dream just about ended.

My heart problems started about 10 years ago when I was diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation, which causes my heart to go out of rhythm. The problem was escalated in 2011 when I contacted a virus that attacked my heart. At that time, I lost 60 pounds. But my weight loss was tied to my illness. Because I didn’t feel well, I didn’t eat. Once I started feeling better, my weight started to climb. While I tried to stay active, I found that I could eat more and faster than the exercise could take off. So by last fall, I found myself obese…and nearly dead.

I would like to say that my sons encouraged me to lose weight, but basically they both scolded me and told me that it was time to take bold action. Procrastination would no long work.

I had an appointment with my general practitioner in October and we discussed my health, my weight, my future, etc. He referred me to a weight-loss program that is run by Sanford Health, the same company as the doctor’s clinic and the local hospital.

My wife and I started on October 28. Within a month, we had both lost 20 to 25 pounds. Through this journey, we have learned to be creative when it comes to food choices. We have lived through Thanksgiving and Christmas, one Lions convention and one retirement party and have still continued to lose weight by making smart food choices.

Now, three months later, we are each 40 to 50 pounds lighter than we were in October.

So not only have I lost weight, but my blood sugar readings have shown significant improvement, and I’ve been able to reduce my intake of pills. I still take plenty, but it’s nice to take fewer pills.

I’m not at the end of my journey. In fact, in many ways, I’m just starting my journey to a healthier lifestyle.

I would like to thank the doctors, dieticians and others in the medical field for helping me, but more importantly, I want to thank my family for all their support. They have made this journey fun. 

Some thoughts on being a grandpa

We were at Disneyworld when we heard that we were grandparents. Our first grandchild was born March 10, 2016. Suddenly, the charm of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Magic Kingdom no longer had their grip on me. All I wanted to do was board an airplane and fly back to North Dakota and see Henry.

That’s how I’ll remember becoming a grandpa. Something so fantastic happens that you want to be as close as you can.

In the ensuing seven to eight months we’ve seen this little baby grow. He’s gone from drinking milk to eating food. He’s learned to crawl and pull himself up. He has also flown to Brazil and back…when he was three months old! I don’t think I boarded an airplane until I was in my mid-20s.

When people ask me how many times I played golf this summer, I tell them, “barely at all. Most Saturdays were spent driving to Minot to see Henry.” And every time we see Henry, he is just that much nicer. In fact, leaving him to drive back home is getting tougher and tougher. My consolation, however, is that I live 100 miles away, so I generally know when I will see him again.

His other set of grandparents live in Brazil. His maternal grandma will see Henry when she comes back to the United States for a six-month visit in January 2017. Henry’s maternal grandfather won’t see him until July 2017.

We are lucky to live so close.

It’s different being a grandparent. I won’t say its better, but it’s different. There’s definitely less stress and yet a grandfather wants the grandchild to know that everything will be all right. Even though we aren’t involved in every decision, nor are we around every day, we nevertheless keep a watchful eye on everything. And when it looks like everything is under control and the baby is healthy and happy, then being a grandparent is a blessing. It means that our children grew up and now have the responsibility of raising their children to be productive partners in society. The torch has been passed.

I didn’t have grandpas living when I was child. My dad’s father died 10 years before I was born and my mom’s dad died the year I was born.

I had grandmas and they were wonderful. I miss them always.

My own parents were superb grandparents to my children and the rest of their grandchildren. They lived 400 miles away, but they still kept track of how everything was going. And mom often had a few coaching tips that today seem invaluable to me. Mostly, she told me to “cool it.” Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. Children are going to go through stages. Sometimes they are fighting to become more independent, and that’s okay, because your child will want to stand alone someday, just as you did.

That’s good advice, but it’s hard to swallow when your child is a toddler and wants to walk into things with square corners and sharp edges.

And we loved to spend time with my folks and my wife’s folks when the kids were little. I’m sure that our children knew that if they were with their grandparents, the day or the occasion was extra special.

So as I look ahead to being a grandfather for the rest of my life, my prayer is this, “that the little ones know how much I love them and that a grandparent’s love is forever.”

Boyhood memories

I work in an office in Bismarck, North Dakota, so when the weather is nice enough; I try to go for a 10-to-15 minute walk during my coffee breaks. Yesterday was the first day in a couple of months that I had tried to walk outside as I’m afraid of falling on the ice. But the ice has now mostly turned to slush and the sidewalks are generally dry, so it seemed like a good day for a walk.

That is…until I came upon a section of street where there was no sidewalk. Instead, it was just packed snow where hundreds of walkers had been before me…and some dogs. I had to sidestep the doggie do-do and the yellow snow. I kept on walking until I reached dry sidewalk again. For whatever reason, that spot of dirty snow reminded me of walking in Roundup, Montana, when I was growing up.

And then I got to thinking about being a kid in the 1960s versus being a kid today. We not only knew our neighbors, they were our best friends…or in my case…some were also my cousins, my aunts and uncles.

When we learned to ride bicycles, we rode them all over town…and never once wore a helmet. Depending upon the age of our bikes, we would put a chain and a padlock on them when we rode them to school, but if we were at the city park, a grocery store or a baseball diamond, the bikes were perfectly fine without a lock.

We didn’t have car seats for kids. I stood in the front seat between my parents when we drove to Billings or Deadman’s Basin. My older siblings were in the back seat. None of us were wearing a seat belt.

If you were an adult, it was almost a certainty that you smoked. My mom and dad didn’t but my uncles and several of my aunts did. I had a neighbor who ran a grocery store and smoked cigars. My mom had two uncles, who were our neighbors, that smoked pipes and nearly everyone else smoked cigarettes. To be honest, I haven’t smelled tobacco smoke from a pipe in probably two decades, but I remember I used to like it.

Right before I got out of the car to go to Grandma’s house, mom would make sure my face was clean. If it wasn’t, you could bet she would lick her thumb and then scrub the grime off me with spit. I wasn’t the brightest boy in the world, but I knew that wasn’t sanitary. So I tried to keep my face clean…at all costs.

When I was in second grade, I had the honor of having to attend summer school. I think it was a week or two in the summer and it was either in the morning or the afternoon – but not all day. The extra schooling was to help my reading skills and comprehension. Anyway, I would walk to Central School from our home north of the hospital and my dog Lady would walk beside me. Then she would stay at school until I was done for the day and walk home with me. I loved that dog. I was away at college when she died and I was still crying.

Our dog wouldn’t hurt a flea…or so I thought, but she did bite a meter reader and maybe someone else that she considered an intruder. I don’t think we ever chained Lady. We lived by the hills so Lady was free to go and chase rabbits. If she caught one, she’d drag the carcass back to the yard and snack on it…for days. We always had bones in the yard that she had found and was snacking on.

We had a light pole on a small grassy island in the middle of an unpaved avenue. One of my mom’s two uncles would take turns walking to the light pole and turning on the light. I guess there was no electronic eye in those days that would automatically turn the street lamps on. In the summer time, we would play “Hide and Seek” and the pole was “home.” You could hide almost anywhere in the neighborhood, so once you were found; it was always a race back to the pole to see who could touch it first.

Dad changed the oil in the family car on that avenue and since it wasn’t paved, he never bothered to collect the used oil. It just ran down the avenue and sunk into the ground. That avenue is now covered with asphalt, but I wonder if all the used oil would now be considered a hazardous waste by the EPA. I’m sure somebody would make you stop that if you tried it today.

The world has changed plenty in the last 40 years, I’m sure it will continue changing. But I wouldn’t give up my childhood memories for anything. I think the 1960s were the best decade for being a kid and Roundup was a great town to grow up in.

If it weren’t for people like Keith McLean...

It all started out innocent enough. As diligent parents, Belinda and I faithfully attended parent-teacher conferences. When Derek was in sixth grade at the neighborhood elementary school, his teacher told us that he could use a little extra credit in his history class. I asked what he needed to do and she said, “Well, you know a lot of people. Perhaps you could find someone who is a World War II vet to come into our school and give the kids a first-hand account.”

My father was a World War II vet, but he lived 400 miles away from our home in Mandan…plus dad wasn’t one to speak up in public. So then I thought of my good friend Keith McLean, a retired bridge engineer in Bismarck. I first met Keith in 1986 when we were both members of the Bismarck Lions Club. A couple of years later and I would be secretary for the club and he would be the president. I liked the way that he ran the business meeting and asked him where he learned that skill. He told me it was Toastmasters.

In 1989, I joined Toastmasters and eventually became the District Governor, and my biggest supporter was probably Keith. He would even go with me to Minot and other places that I had to visit…mostly to keep me company.

Keith McLean when he was a bridge engineer. 

Keith also told me in 1988 that he thought our choice for Derek’s name was inspired because it sounded like “Dick Van Dyke” only it wasn’t.

So I had a good idea that if I asked Keith to speak to Derek’s 6^th grade class, the answer would probably be “Yes.” The next time I saw him, I asked him and he agreed to speak.

I met Keith one afternoon at Custer Elementary in Mandan and we went to Derek’s classroom. I’ll never forget Keith’s introduction. First, he wrote “1 million” on the chalk board. He told the kids, “that’s how many U.S. soldiers were in World War II and they were all over the globe.”

Then he wrote down the number “one” and he said, “I was one of them. I fought in the Battle of the Bulge and I carried a radio on my back, so if you are looking for a comprehensive history of the war, I can’t do that. But I can tell you what I saw in the European Theater as the Allied Forces battled the Nazis.”

Wow, I thought, this was going to be exciting. But the sixth grade kids seemed to be ignoring Keith. They were noisy and moving around. I didn’t think Keith was getting the respect that he deserved, so I asked the kids, “How many of your grandpas fought in World War II?”

This was about 1999, and to my surprise, Derek was the only sixth grader whose grandfather fought in the big war. No wonder they weren’t paying attention. World War II sounded like a lecture on the Peloponnesian War in ancient Greece to them.

So I tried another strategy. I wanted them to understand how important the war was to our freedoms that we enjoy today.

I wanted to say, “If it wasn’t for people like Keith McLean, you might be speaking German or Japanese today.”

That’s what I wanted to say, but at that moment, the weight of that statement hit me straight between the eyes. Because I knew it was true. Like the lyrics in the old Johnny Horton hit “The Bismarck” it was true that “the world depends on us.”

Anyway, when I tried to blurt something out about Keith and the million other brave soldiers, my voice cracked and I started crying.

Well, that got the kids attention, and they stopped fussing around long enough to listen to him…but it did something else too. Derek got teased by his classmates because his dad came to school and cried in front of them.

That night when Derek got home from school, he said, “Thanks dad. Now I only have to beat up half the kids in school for a month before they forget you came to class.”

Hopefully, he was only teasing me. But to this day, Derek reminds me of the time I invited Keith to his sixth grade class and his dad sobbed in public. Not one of my prouder moments, but thanks to Keith, my dad and the other million soldiers, we have enjoyed countless freedoms and economic growth that other countries can only look at with envy. And we still speak English. 

Don’t just lengthen your life, broaden it too

A few years ago when I turned 50, my doctor told me that if I died now, people wouldn’t think much of it as I had already lived for half a century. His attitude shocked me because I didn’t consider 50 to be very old.

My mom had lived to be 82 and my dad was in his late 80s at the time, so it seemed to me that turning 50 wasn’t much more than a good start.

Yeah, I know people die in their 50s, so it seemed like a good idea to lengthen my years by taking better care of myself -- eating better and exercising more.  But that just increases your years. We also need to think about increasing our living by broadening our life.

I know a fellow who retired at 60 and has almost spent every day of his life since sitting in his easy chair in front of his TV. He’s now in his mid-70s. He’s happy, I guess, but his lifestyle seems a little one dimensional. After you get done visiting with him about the latest episode of the “Big Bang Theory”, we’ve pretty much exhausted his knowledge of current events.

Keep looking for the next
adventure

As for me, I want to not only live longer, but I also want to live broader. So I’ve landed on 10 things that a young person might want to consider to live a bigger life…not just a longer one.

1.  Get a quality education in a field that you will enjoy. The underpinnings of a broad life generally require a good job…because some things are going to cost money. If you can’t afford to travel, that’s going to be a problem later on. Going to college is also a great way to run into a lot of different people. Many will try to change you and broaden your perspective. Hemingway called this a “moveable feast.” College will stay with you forever.
2. Marry someone interesting and adventuresome. I always thought I wanted to marry a woman just like dear old mom until I met someone who was just like my 60-year-old mom and then I thought, “Hey, mom wasn’t always 60. When she was 20, she traveled to Florida to be with my dad who was in the service. She had spunk at 20.” And so I decided that marrying someone in their 20s who acted like she was 60 was a bad choice.
3.  Have children. They’ll not only keep you young physically but they will also keep you young mentally. It was because of our children that we took a leap of faith and bought a CD player, and a computer, and a….well you get the picture. Now in their mid-20s, they are still telling me about fashionable clothes, popular music and the hottest video games.
4. Travel. We have seen some beautiful places and met some wonderful people because we have a love for travel. We have an entire family in Brazil that loves us very much when we fly 4,000 miles to see them. We have been to Hawaii so often that sitting on the beach and watching the waves come in, one after another, is probably the only thing that we aren’t tired of. I’ve also literally been to the top of the world…north of the Arctic Circle. Even riding a speed boat over the rapids of Oregon’s Rogue River has been a thrill I’ll never forget.
5. Find a job that challenges you and then do that job so well that people around you feel like you are deserving of being promoted. I’ve had a couple of great jobs that fit my talents well. Generally, I tell people that I’m a writer…but that’s just the basic skill that I possess. I’ve built that one skill into many and it’s helped me provide more value to my employer which has increased my value to them and thus my paycheck. Like the old saying goes, the harder I work, the luckier I am.
6. Join a club or  a church and become a volunteer….or do something else that helps you meet people. Then try to do something that you would never dare do otherwise. For me, it was public speaking. I was deathly afraid of public speaking so I joined a Toastmasters Club in 1989. I not only learned to speak but I also learned leadership skills. When I was only in my mid-30s, I was a district governor of Toastmasters in North Dakota and western Minnesota and the experience was worth my weight in gold. It opened up so many doors…back then and still today.
7. The next time you want to say “No”, say “Yes” instead. There is an old saying that says “Success comes in Cans and not in Cannots.” By saying yes, I’ve had many opportunities to broaden my horizons. Right now, I’m on the board of directors of a church-based pre-school….because I said yes. I’m speaking on behalf of the pre-school to a group of ladies…because I said yes.
8. Remember, family comes first so don’t become married to your job. I’ve had lucrative opportunities present themselves that would have taken me away from my family. I turned them down because my family has always come first and I’ve never regretted that. Pound for pound, I get more love from my family than a paycheck. I want people to look at me and say, “There’s a guy who is always there for his family.
9. Wear a smile, crack a joke, and don’t forget to say you’re sorry if you make a mistake. In other words, be the kind of friend you would like to hang out with. Be approachable. And don’t take yourself too seriously.
10.  Find a hobby that you like and delve into it. For me, I probably have more interests than actual hobbies. Or maybe I’m a little too nervous to like anything too long. I like to garden, cook, read and watch sports. When I can, I like to go to professional baseball games. This has been a lot of fun and I’ll never forget my trip to the baseball hall of fame. I still have a dream of going to Yankee Stadium. I’ve been to New York several times and I’ve seen Shea Stadium and the Mets. I’ve also seen the Yankees, but that was in Minneapolis. I would like to see the men in pinstripes play in the House that Ruth Built.

So there’s my 10 tips….your recipe might be different, but don’t forget: Broaden your life. You’ll never regret it.

Unlearning “cat” habits

Golfing is going to start today, so I went downstairs to get our golf clubs. By habit, I shut the door behind me so the cat didn’t sneak down. About halfway down the stairs, it dawned on me….we don’t have a cat.

When I come from work at night, our golden striped kitty is no long waiting for me at the door. He’s no longer scratching against the computer when I write. His food is no longer in the entryway, the kitty box is gone…and yet I keep seeing the kitty out of the corner of my eye.

Somehow I have to “unlearn” all the cat habits that we’ve adopted.

Like yesterday when I took a package of frozen hamburger out to thaw on the kitchen cupboards. I no longer had to worry about Picasso eating half the hamburger before I got off work. Almost to my unbelief, I left the hamburger unguarded right on the cupboard.

And I’m not getting woken up at 5 a.m. every morning by a cat who wants to snuggle next to my face.

You could almost set your watch by it. Picasso would jump on our bed at 5 a.m., but before lying down, he would paw at our blankets for a couple of minutes to make sure nothing unexpected was going to jump out at him. Then he would plop his butt down…about an inch away from my face and then gently snuggle until his fur was rubbing my nose. 

While he might have thought this was the ideal pose, I would quickly move him and then Picasso would lay still…for about five minutes before leaping off the bed.

To go eat.

Or use the kitty box.

I wouldn’t see him again until I got up to shave. And then there he would be right at the bathroom sink waiting for me to fill up the sink with water, just like Grandpa did.

After satisfying his thirst, he would jump down, run out of the bathroom and hit our bed again. By the time I was done with my shower, he would be sleeping on one side of the bed with Belinda sleeping on the other.

I would eat breakfast and head to work. Belinda would get up and make the bed. Once the bed was made, Picasso would again lie down – this time on her side – and sleep until noon. Such was the life of our cat.

But alas. Picasso came down with something called irritable bowel disease. Although he was on medication to help him, our kitty lost his appetite. And he was losing his hair, and his bowel control…and we were losing our minds. So after a visit with the veterinarian, we returned Picasso to the animal shelter.

Our house is quieter, cleaner, more predictable and smells better…but we miss Grandpa’s cat. We have to unlearn that as well. 

30 years of neighborhood memories

I was 26 years old when we purchased our first -- and only home -- in Mandan. Now, 30 years later, we are the only family in the neighborhood who also lived here in 1985. I'm going to confine my comments to only our immediate neighbors but I could venture out to everyone on several blocks.

To our north was the Meidinger family, who also went to the same church as us. Their daughter, Jill, was our first babysitter. The boys loved her. If they knew Jill was coming, they would spread a quilt on the livingroom floor and when she came in the door they would greet her, take her by the hand and lead her to the quilt. Then they would say, "What are we going to play?"

Our home in Mandan.

Unfortunately, Jill's dad transferred to Minnesota and we lost our wonderful babysitter and her brothers. They have been missed.

The family who replaced them had kids the same age as ours so the relationship was different. Unfortunately, they also had a teenage boy who shot himself. So there has been a sadness in the neighborhood that has really never lifted.

To our south were a couple in their 80s when we moved in and their single daughter. The man and woman died within a week of each other, which left their daughter to fend for herself. She died a couple of years ago and her home sat idle. This winter the house caught fire and it still sits in a state of disrepair.

Belinda's cousin Andy lived to our west and remodeled the home. However, no history of the neighborhood would be complete without tales of the wild parties Andy threw when he was single. In the morning, his lawn would have bodies strewn over it exactly where they passed out the night before. But alas, Andy got married and moved away. Since then the house has had three or four different owners. Right now it's occupied by a single man who is also a county commissioner.

The home closest to us is the one on the east. Originally, it was inhabited by a single mother and her two daughters. The mom was also an Avon lady, so I wasn't disappointed when she left.

Except that the young lady who moved in after that was mentally handicapped and entertained  unseemly men who liked to play outside with knives and arrows. Worried about our little boys, I called the sisters who owned the home and told them about their niece and how I worried about our boys. I told them that either the niece left or I was selling our house and moving elsewhere.

Soon the niece was gone and the sisters sold the home to their brother who fixed up the house. First he rented it to a nice couple who wanted to buy it, but they found the price too high, so they bought a home a few blocks away. Next, a married couple with a tumultuous relationship lived there. Every weekend -- in the summer -- brought family parties, loud music, cussing like sailors and general mayhem. Eventually, they divorced and the woman sold the home to a young single guy who, in spite of playing a trumpet, is way more quieter than the husband and wife.

Yes, the neighborhood holds many memories, but the dearest surround my family and how the neighbors pitched in to help us raise our children. Once when Derek was a little toddler, he wandered off into the road and Mrs. Bauer, who lived three doors to the east, saw him and went out and brought him home.

Mrs. Bauer and her neighbor Mrs. Renner fought like cats and dogs. They disagreed on every matter. Now they are both gone. Our neighborhood seems so much more peaceful.

Belinda and I get along with all of our neighbors and we got along with all the old neighbors. We live next to a city park, and every once in a while one of the grown children from the neighborhood will come with their own children. We will then sneak over to the park and visit with them.

Yes, how fast the time has flown by. Once we were the new kids on the block. Now we are the geezers.

Woodhouse Bingo

The location is nearly perfect – halfway between the hospitals and the Interstate. The Woodhouse is one of the classic family hamburger joints. You come in, seat yourself in a booth and then you pick up a phone and call the kitchen to order your meal.

My family loves the place. The owner and his family also own their own butcher shop so the ground beef is made fresh daily. The only spices on their hamburgers are salt and pepper – you don’t get much more American than that.

Other menu favorites are a jumbo platter of onion rings – best in town. A bowl of ham and bacon soup is also a must. If you are tired of burgers, order some broasted chicken. For dessert, they sell all kinds of pies. And if you don’t want to drink water or a soda, they serve thick milk shakes.

Yeah, a meal at the Woodhouse is like stepping back into time…certainly the 1960s, maybe even the 1950s.

People who live in Mandan and Bismarck like to eat there at lunch because it’s about a stone’s throw away from the North Dakota capitol, which is circled by numerous association buildings, including the one I work in.

But the real customer base of the Woodhouse is the elderly who come to Bismarck for their medical, dental and optical needs. In the fall, you will see people from all the small towns. On their jackets are the names of cattle ranches, volunteer fire departments, bars, businesses, etc. And under all of those logos are the names of the towns where these people live.

From the north and west of Bismarck are Washburn, Center, Hazen and Beulah. To the west and south are New Salem, Glen Ullin, Carson and Elgin. To the east and south are Wing, Sterling, Menoken, Hazelton and Linton.

Actually, this is only a small list of the towns, but they are a good representation of the names you will see on the various jackets as the elderly couples come into the Woodhouse. They have seen their doctors, got their teeth cleaned at the dentists and have had their annual eye exam, so before they leave town, they might as well have the best burger, onion rings and milk shake in Bismarck before they head home.

So, my idea is simple. When you walk into the Woodhouse, you could pick up a bingo card. But instead of numbers, there would be five rows of randomly chosen towns listed in each row. Then you’d sit down in your booth, order your food, enjoy it and watch for the out-of-towners. When you saw someone wearing a jacket with “Cannonball” on it, you would look on your card for the town of Cannonball. If you had it, you would circle it. This would continue until someone had five correct towns either vertically or horizontally on your card.

If you win, you would holler “Bingo” and you’d get a free bacon cheeseburger. I think Woodhouse Bingo would add to the allure of this well-known restaurant.

A tale of a tight squeeze on I-94

The plan was to move Taylor into the apartment in north Bismarck on Sunday, June 1. By the end of the month, Scott and Taylor would be married and then he would move in.

Derek and Mark are on opposite ends of this photo. 

Scott was working that weekend so he asked Derek to help me and Taylor’s dad Mark move the furniture, most of which was in her parent’s garage.

There was one item in my garage. A new gas grill that Scott’s Godparents had purchased as a wedding gift. As luck would have it, it was the same model that Derek and Camila had purchased earlier in the spring. The grill was still in the box, but Derek said that he could assemble it in quick fashion because he had just put his together a couple of weeks before.

So we backed both of the cars out of the garage, took out the grill, legs, wheels, grates and a hundred little nuts and bolts. Derek was true to his word, in about a half hour the grill was assembled. We put the canvas cover on the grill and it waited to be picked up and transported to Bismarck

On Sunday afternoon, we loaded the Fischer’s horse trailer with all the heavy stuff in Mandan. Then we stopped at our house and we loaded the grill into the back of the Fischer’s club cab pickup. Mark handed me the rope and told me to make sure it was tight.

Well, I wanted to show him just how tight I could get the ropes and what an expert I am at tying nautical knots. The rope was so taught that you could pluck it and get a middle “C .”

So we took off from our house in Mandan to the interstate and then on to Bismarck about five miles away. Derek and Mark were in the front seat of the pickup and I was in the back.

Just a little after entering the interstate, Mark saw that the canvas cover on the BBQ grill was about to fly off, so he told me that he would roll the little window down in the middle of the larger back window and perhaps I could reach back and grab the canvas before it flew away completely.

I did as he said and soon half my body was hanging out of the window and into the pickup box, but I had grabbed the canvas just as it was about to come completely airborne. With the cover safely in hand, I tried to get back into the cab, but alas, my girth was stuck in middle of the little window.

Here’s a white pickup followed by a horse trailer sailing down the interstate and a chubby man in his mid-50s is stuck in the window. It must have been quite a sight.

My ribcage was through the window but not my waist. I couldn’t move in and I could move out. I was stuck like a pig.

So Mark started to slow the pickup down and pull off the side of the road, when I gave it one last shot to wiggle my body through the back window. Okay, one rib was through and then another. Finally, I got my shoulder, neck and head in the window plus the canvas cover.

“Darn,” I said, trying to distract everyone’s attention from me being stuck. “I thought I tied those ropes nice and tight.”

Once we got to the apartment complex, I jumped out and tested the ropes. Yep, still as tight as I had tied them. In fact, the middle C might now have become a C sharp from all the movement.

“Well, I guess the wind just caught the cover and away it was going,” I said, to no one who gave a darn.

Worrying about the canvas cover had become a thing of the past as everyone wondered what would have happened if I hadn't been able to pull myself back into the pickup cab.

When the moving was done, we went McKenzie River pizza and dined on some delicious Italian food. Everyone was relaxed and the incident in the rear window was nearly forgotten by everyone but me. I thought about an important question, “had I eaten this pizza before the move, would I still be stuck.”