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.”

Grandpa rules

Whenever we have someone watch Grandpa, I have to write down a series of instructions so that the caregiver understands – and adheres – to Grandpa’s rules, which makes it easier on Grandpa and the caregiver. So here are the main ones.

1. The most important rule is this, don’t mess with his cat. He loves his cat more than life itself, so you might just get backhanded if you try to even pet his cat.
2. He doesn't remember the cat's name or even that Picasso is a cat, so don't laugh when Grandpa calls him a dog, a pig, a fish or mumbles something under his breath. The cat knows what he said, and that's who Grandpa was talking to. 
3. If he resists getting into the barber chair at Mike’s barber shop, tell him that some pretty girls are going to come visit him later today. He’ll do almost anything if he thinks he needs to impress some pretty girls.
4. Dad takes several pills with breakfast, lunch and dinner. If he forgets what his pills are for, simply grab a couple of aspirin from the medicine chest and swallow them. He’ll copy what you do. Also, don’t lay his pills on a white napkin as he won’t spot them. Lay them on top of the wooden table.
5.  Dad likes to eat when he wakes up…about 7 a.m., at noon and at 6 p.m. If you don’t feed him at those appointed times, he will find cookies and candy to eat instead.
6. For breakfast, he wants a big bowl of corn flakes with a banana cut up along with a glass of juice. He’ll eat anything you put in front of him but he won’t get full and then will start heading back to the kitchen for snacks.
7. If you take him to a restaurant, make sure that they serve him as quickly as the order is taken. Don’t take him to Red Lobster where there’s a 15 minute pause between the soup and the main course or he will want to leave. Instead, take him to a Chinese place that will serve a cup of hot soup and then bring the rest of his meal before the soup is gone.
8. Never, ever, eat in front of him if he’s not already eating. He will ask you where his is and you’ll feel sorry and split your meal with him.
9. If you have no other choice and take him to Red Lobster and you are still eating and he is done…buy him a bowl of ice cream and then finish your meal before he has engulfed the ice cream.
10. Don’t make him sleep in any bed but his own. He’s a nervous fellow and before he falls asleep, he will make several trips to the bathroom, so it’s best if he knows where it’s at.
11. When he wakes up in the morning, he will also head straight to the bathroom so make sure you are out. If you are not out, he’s not above using a trash can as a porta-potty.
12. His clothes are always the same: black shoes, black sox, blue denim jeans and a plaid shirt. In the summer – for about three months – he won’t wear his long johns and he will wear a short-sleeved polo shirt.
13. When a meal is done, he wants to clear the table and wash the dishes. Let him do so, and then when he leaves the kitchen, you can put the dishes in the dishwasher.
14. If you want to take a nap, make sure it’s when he’s already lying down. If you think you are going to initiate this activity (or non-activity) you are so wrong. He will stand outside your bedroom and whistle and sing until you get up and realize the error of your ways.
15.  Dad goes to bed in the winter when the sun goes down. So if you want to keep him awake say until 7 p.m., you have to have every light in your house on.
16. In the summer, he’ll stay awake until at least 8 p.m…but that’s as late as he’ll stay up, unless -- of course -- there are pretty girls visiting. Then he’ll stay up until midnight if he thinks that will impress them.
17. Dad’s favorite place to sit is the chair or couch that you just got out of.
18. He will check the mail box 20 times a day whether he’s already picked up the mail or not, so don’t fret if he keeps opening and closing the front door…no matter how cold it is.
19. He’ll break your heart when he asks you where his wife is. Just tell him that she died in June 2006, point at one of the photos of her in his bedroom and move on.
20. He doesn’t know the difference between brother, son or sister, so you are likely to be called anything on any given day. The only people who have names are “Scott” and “that woman in the kitchen.”
21. With him, every day is a fresh beginning and also could be his last…so make it count.