The miracle on second avenue northeast in Mandan

Normally, I would tell you that four-year-old Joshua is a miracle child because of answered prayers when he was an infant. For the first six months of his life, Joshua required multiple blood transfusions because his body didn't produce its own red blood cells. And then suddenly, something changed and he has been better and stronger ever since.

But this latest miracle I wouldn't believe if I hadn't seen it for myself. It occurred this morning while he was getting dressed. His mom was ironing some clothes for him so Joshua was reclining in our livingroom in his underwear. His grandmother -- my sister Janet -- looked at his right foot and noticed that there was some dried blood on one of his toenails.

"What happened here?" she asked.

Up to that point, Joshua had noticed it so didn't really have an answer.

"Did that happen yesterday when you were playing in the dirt?"

"Yes, grandmuh," he said, "I was playing in the duht."

When his mother emerged from the bedroom, Joshua was limping around the frontroom making sure that all his weight was only on the heel of his right foot and not on his bloody toe.

His mother inspected the toe and asked me to get a wash cloth so she could clean off the dried blood and get a better look at the toenail.

Thinking on my feet, I not only got him a warm, wet wash cloth but also a box of Band-aids.

"No Band-aids, no Band-aids," the four-year old cried out.

So I took the Band-aids back to the bathroom medicine chest.

Upon returning, I could see the little boy writhe with pain as his mom took the wash cloth in hand.

"It willy huhts!" he cried out.

I thought I could distract him while she cleaned his toenail, so I moved further past him so he had turn his head and look at me instead of his mom and the washcloth.

To my surprise, his mom said, "This looks more like chocolate than dried blood."

To which the little boy whimpered again just as the wash cloth touched his foot.

She said, "Joshua, I think this is some chocolate from your Pop Tart this morning. He had a Smore's Pop Tart."

With that, the miracle occurred and he was cured. He didn't limp any more and his foot didn't really hurt him anymore.

We all had a great big laugh and I said, "That'll make a nice blog...the miracle of Mandan."

Thoughts on turning 92

Dad will be turning 92 this coming Thursday. As the day approaches, I've been giving it some thought, partly because I doubt I'm going to make it to 92 so I'll take this opportunity.

As I was walking this morning, it occurred to me that dad will have outlived my mom by at least 10 years. I say "at least" because he shows few signs of being in poor health. At this point in time, I wonder if he won't reach 100...thanks in part to modern medicine and good nutrition.

In the spring of 2007, he got a pacemaker and the doctors said the battery would last for eight to 10 years. I remember thinking, "that should last him a lifetime." Now I'm beginning to wonder. He may need a battery replacement after all.

I also remember when dad's 90-some-year-old half brother Glenn would visit mom and dad in Roundup. Glenn had the uncanny ability of falling asleep while holding a conservation with you. Dad doesn't do that but he can fall asleep at a moment's notice. One minute he's watching the Big Bang Theory and laughing and the next minute he's asleep while sitting up on the couch.

This brings me to the topic of dad's cat, "Picasso." Cats like to sleep, especially Picasso. He sleeps all night and he sleeps most of the day. In comparison, dad and his cat have a lot in common. A normal day for dad begins at 7 a.m. with a bowl of corn flakes and cut-up banana. He also swallows about eight pills, which are either for Alzheimer's or his heart. He likes his lunch at noon, and he doesn't seem to be too fussy. If it's on the table, he'll eat it. He also takes three pills with lunch which are an additional heart pill along with a multi-vitamin and an iron pill. For supper, he likes to eat at 6 p.m. and again will eat almost anything. So far, we know he doesn't like asparagus and he's not a big pasta fan. He has another five pills with supper, which are some of the same as his breakfast pills but he also has one for cholesterol. (I'm taken to believe that all Van Dykes take a pill for cholesterol). Dad also requires inhalers in the morning and at night to keep him from wheezing. If I forget to do this, his wheezing breaths will quickly remind me.

He will clear the dishes after every meal and attempt to wash them, even though we will eventually put them in the dish washer. He also cleans the kitty litter every morning and takes the garbage out to the alley in the morning and in the evening, if need be.

On Thursdays, he goes grocery shopping with Belinda and pushes the cart for her. When they get to the checkout line, he not only puts the groceries on the checkout counter, he also arranges the groceries in a manner known only to Grandpa and God. This seems to irritate the cashiers because he is grabbing the ketchup or other items and moving them to the back of the line just about the time the cashier is going to grab it and ring it up. It's an interesting dance to watch.

Belinda works most weekday mornings at the church but that doesn't bother dad because he sleeps most mornings...just like Picasso. As long as lunch is prepared and on the table by noon, he's a happy fellow. If it's not ready, he knows where the candy bar stash is hid and he'll go feed himself.

He likes company as long as he doesn't have to talk. He will sit and listen, and probably nod off. He can't play cards, checkers or Scrabble anymore, but he will sit and watch others play.

So that's what turning 92 is like for dad. Life is comfortable as long as we conform to his schedule.

The college nightmare

It's now been 32 years since I graduated from the University of Montana. I was 17 when I began college and I was 20 when I graduated. The three years of college were filled with adventure. I lived on campus my freshman year and off campus the other two years. I also attended a couple of summers, where I also lived in a dorm.

My mom and dad with me for graduation at the University of Montana

There was quite a bit of difference between summer classes and the rest of the year. The big difference was that were always a number of teachers in my summer classes and it wasn't very hard to do better than the teachers who had returned to campus for continuing education classes. I don't mean to demean the teachers...but I was attending college year-round and had gotten this study thing down to a science. Teachers were only part-time students and, frankly, I'm not sure their hearts were into it. It's hard to believe now, but the teachers actually dressed worse and looked worse than the full-time students.

All in all, college life was a fairly pleasant experience. Sure, I had the obnoxious professor who thought it was beneath him to be teaching. There was also the foreign professor whom you couldn't understand. And the very liberal professors who would have been better teaching out East than in Missoula, Montana, but I digress.

If there was a downside to college, it was that I was always broke. I had part-time jobs, such as working as an umpire for softball games or at Eddy's Bakery when I was a junior, but I was still broke. I remember writing my senior paper while eating Salted Nut Rolls and drinking Mountain Dew. Going out for a drink meant going somewhere where the pitchers of beer cost a dollar. Hopefully, the popcorn was free.

But  I seemed to take all of this in stride because all of my college friends were also broke. I guess misery loves company. Anyway, being poor didn't seem to be too big of a hardship.

But now that I'm older, I seem to have a recurring nightmare about college. It doesn't have to do with snooty professors, part-time jobs or what I was eating...it has to do with not showing up for classes because I somehow always manage to forget my class schedule.

Like most nightmares, there isn't really a lot of rhyme or reason. In fact, sometimes it seems I'm still in high school because there seems to be a central locker where I'm going to load and unload my books. There were no lockers at college. A backpack or a briefcase, yes, but no locker.

But the real nightmare starts when I begin to hunt and search for my different classrooms. Now I do remember this being somewhat of a chore because my classes were often in different buildings and the buildings could be located north and south, east and west on campus. That meant for a lot of walking. What made it more difficult was there were 8,000 other students also trying to traverse the campus at the same time as me.

Still, when I went to college, this didn't seem like such a difficult chore and I rarely missed a class. I wasn't sick very much and I generally liked my classes...which is why I took them.

But in my nightmare, I always seem to forget where my classes are...because I haven't gone in a couple of weeks. And to make matters worse, I forget the combination to my locker. What I've been doing instead is always a mystery, but it hasn't been school work. Perhaps I go on a two-week bender...who knows.

Now I don't know how many times I've had that particular nightmare, but it seems to pop up a couple times a year. And it always ends bad because I have to take a test for a class that I haven't attended nor have I read the book or completed the assignments. Hopefully, I wake up before I get my final grade because it isn't going to be good.

A couple of weeks ago, I was visiting with brother-in-law Rich Graves who graduated from Eastern Montana College about 10 years before I graduated. We were talking about nightmares and both of us shared this one about college. It was almost word for word. Both of us agreed that while in college, we attended our classes. But in our nightmares, we don't go for some odd reason until we can't even remember where the classes are.

So I'm writing today not to relive this nightmare one more time, but I'm wondering if others share this same frightening experience. Maybe it's not about college, maybe it's about high school. But somehow, there is always that final humiliation because I've not studied, I've not read the material and I haven't heard the lectures. Boy, talk about taking a test with your eyes closed.

Again, my college was nothing like this. I enjoyed college. I really did. But I don't enjoy this recurring nightmare.

Memories of the Babe Waitress

Once upon a time, the boys were little and Belinda was a stay-at-home mom. She watched a little girl – Allison Haider – who was as close to a sister as my boys ever had. But alas, when Scott went to first grade, Belinda wanted to quit her day care business and get a job where she would actually have conversations with adults. So she went to work at our church as a part-time secretary…the same job she has today.

About that same time, she was invited to join the Prairie Rose Lions Club. Again, she wanted to interact with adults. I belonged to the North Star Lions Club and wouldn’t you know it, the two clubs met once a month on the same night. Well, it didn’t make any sense for us to get a babysitter so we could attend our separate Lions Clubs meetings and, frankly, I was getting enough adult interaction at my job at MDU, so I quit my Lions Club so Belinda could join hers.

This created the perfect situation for me and the boys to have one night out a month by ourselves, which became known as “Boys Night Out.”

As was customary, Derek, Scott and I always went to the same restaurant, month after month….Red Lobster. And the stories are legendary.

For instance, there’s the time that Derek bet me a dollar that he could eat the “Ultimate Feast” by himself. I’m guessing he was about 10 years old at the time. Anyway, I took the bet thinking that this was a no-lose proposition for me. Not only would I get a dollar from him when I won the bet, but I would also get to eat the rest of his shrimp, lobster and crab when he was full.

Much to my chagrin, Derek ate every bite of his meal. So not only did I owe him a dollar but I also had to pay for his meal…which was about $15 at the time.

Our drink of choice in those days was rootbeer. Normally if you need a refill at Red Lobster, the servers are johnny-on-the-spot with another glass of pop. However, when you order root beer, it comes in a brown glass bottle, and when one bottle is gone, you have to order another. So the first time this happened, we were surprised at how fast our bill grew because we were sucking down the bottles of rootbeer like people crossing a desert and eating salty potato chips at the same time.

But the funniest story that ever occurred involved a young, bouncy blonde whom we referred to as the “Babe Waitress.” The boys and I thought we had died and gone to heaven just to eat at Red Lobster but to also get the Babe Waitress was really an extraordinary event.

At the time, it seemed the Babe Waitress only served tables way in the back of the restaurant so if we got seated at a table in the back, our pulse would race thinking that our chances had improved that we would get the Babe Waitress. Even if she didn’t wait on our table, at least we got to stare at her for an hour while we ate our meal.

Anyway, the stars aligned this one Thursday night. Belinda went to her Lions meeting. Derek, Scott and I were seated in the back of the restaurant and we had the Babe Waitress…and probably three rootbeers sitting in front of us. Just as we were about to order, our bubble was popped and we slowly floated back down to earth.

Belinda’s Lions Club had canceled its meeting and Belinda had walked into the Red Lobster to eat dinner with her family. I think Derek was the first person to spot mom walking toward our table.

He gave me a look that resembled the face of a worried safe cracker who has just seen the cops enter the bank.

Just as the Babe Waitress was approaching our table to take our order, Belinda sat down with us. Suddenly the three bachelors out for a good time sipping on rootbeers turned into a married husband, a wife and two little sons of their mother.

Somehow the atmosphere had changed. Now Belinda is not one to spend our money foolishly, so I think the boys’ meal selection changed from the Ultimate Feast to popcorn shrimp.

Still, it was one of those unforgettable memories that still gets talked about today when we are eating at Red Lobster. By the way, what ever happened to the Babe Waitress? 

It’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight

Summers in Roundup, Montana, were hot. But firecrackers, sparklers and things that go “bang” in the night, seemed to make the heat tolerable.

My first memories of Fourth of July celebrations were the parade of floats and horses down Main Street. We generally were sitting or standing in the shade of the trees that lined Main Street by the Catholic Church. It was only a block away from where my Grandma Anderson lived.

The highlight, of course, was collecting all the candy that was thrown from the floats…and the firemen squirting us with water at the end of the parade.

As I got older, I played the tuba on the band float…and then I went away to college.

Memories of fireworks always involved the rivalry between Black Cat and Zebra firecrackers. My brother Randy swore that one of them was better than the other. Whatever he liked, I had to like the other.

Randy was an ant hill’s worst enemy when it came to firecrackers. There was one humungous ant hill up in the first hills not far from our house. One summer, Randy nearly annihilated all the ants by placing firecrackers in all their little holes in the ant hill and then watching them explode.

Rodeos were also a part of Fourth of July celebrations. My parents didn’t go to the rodeos but my aunts and uncles did. One of our neighbors – Donny Tomlin – was one of the cowboys competing. Later on, one of my classmates – Wayne Kelly – competed at the local level. Knowing some of the cowboys made it more interesting. But the part of the rodeo I liked best was visiting with people and eating the grilled hamburgers.

We have a rodeo on the Fourth of July in Mandan and I’ve never been to it. I guess the memories of the scorching heat and waiting and waiting for the next rider at the Roundup rodeo took some of the fun away.

The other thing that I remember about the Fourth was the family picnics. We always seemed to be involved in a picnic. When I really young, the picnic might have been at Grandma Anderson’s. It would involve my aunts and uncles…but mostly it involved my cousins. And in those day, my cousins in Roundup were as thick as ticks on a dog’s back in June. When Grandma died in 1972, the picnic migrated to our yard. Later on, more and more people got invited and the picnic was held at the city park.

Still, what I remember about the Fourth was that it didn’t take a lot of money to have a lot of fun.

It was a nice holiday…a good time to feel patriotic, eat a little food and watch a parade.

Now that I’ve grown up and moved away from Roundup, I think of these things with some nostalgia. The parade in my adopted hometown of Mandan lasts about two hours long and is even broadcast on a local TV station. The rodeo is also a much bigger event and draws cowboys from several states and Canada. Even the fireworks shot off after the rodeo are much bigger and brighter…they can be seen from miles around.

Still, you don’t forget about your childhood…how good the watermelon tasted, the smell of a burning punk and sitting on a bale of hay playing the tuba in the hometown parade. Those days are gone…and some of the people are gone, too….but the memories live on.

So quickly...it was over

I have never experienced anything like it. You know that iconic photo of the sailor being hugged in Times Square after World War 2? That lucky guy must have felt like me at the Denver airport on Friday afternoon. Belinda, Grandpa and I had walked off the plane and were stumbling through the big airport looking for baggage claim. Suddenly, it felt like I was being tackled. Someone or something had grabbed me around the knees and wasn't letting go. When I looked down, there was my four year-old grandnephew Joshua Baker holding onto me with the biggest, widest grin on his face. "Unka Steeeeeve." 

We had arrived for a short three-day weekend in Aurora, Colorado, and Joshua came with his dad to take us to their home. The flight had been uneventful, even pleasant. I say that because flying for 80 minutes beats the heck out of driving for 15 hours. 

The only downfall of the flight involved dad getting a "patdown" by a TSA officer at the Bismarck airport. Ninety-one-year-old men don't like to be touched -- period -- yet be touched by a 25-year-old guy who they don't know in a strange place (I'm not talking about the airport). Dad looked at me with a quizzical expression. I think a couple more "pats" and dad would have floored the guy. (The TSA screening in Denver on the return flight went a lot better because they had a machine that x-rayed dad for any guns or other contraband.)

Our trip to the Baker residence was a ride in the family van listening to kid's tunes on the stereo. There was a song that seemed to fit Joshua to a "T." It was something about "me and my energy." Who ever wrote that song either knew Joshua personally or knew a boy who was identical to Joshua. 

After arriving, we enjoyed a delicious barbecued meal of vegetables, beef and chicken. I think all of them were cooked with a different seasoning or marinade, but they were all delicious. We sat outside on their deck to eat and visit. Nothing like living it up in warm temperatures when the family you left back home is freezing on Memorial Day. Our family in Montana even had to suffer through snow. 

When we went to bed, what I worried about most came to pass. Dad was "nervous from the service" so I gave him a couple of Benadryl with a sip of water. He fell asleep and didn't wake up until 2 a.m.....what, 2 a.m.? Yes, you read right. And he had to go to the bathroom at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., 5 a.m. and was up for good at 6 a.m. 

The next night we tried something stronger...Tylenol PM. Again he slept like a log until 3 a.m.! And then he was up every hour going to the bathroom just like the night before. On the third night, I thought things would be different. After all, he hadn't slept well for two nights and didn't take a nap during the days either. So I thought he could go to bed without any pills. Nothing doing. Within minutes, he was up and going to the bathroom again. So I gave him two Tylenol PM and he slept from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. This was truly a blessing, because I got to sleep as well. 

Other than that, we ate like kings. On Saturday for lunch we ate a rib's place, the food was delicious. There was also a lot of it. For dinner on Saturday, we were treated again to Luke's delectable barbecue skills -- this time it was burgers and roasted ears of corn on the gas grill. The corn on the cob tasted so sweet. 

On Sunday, we went to church -- across the alley from their house -- and heard Luke preach. I believe that Luke was born to preach. He can stir up your blood with a good sermon. There were only two people in the church that weren't mesmerized by his preaching -- one was his son Joshua who threw a pencil that whizzed past the head of the person sitting in front of him, and the other was my dad who kept looking at watch. As the time approached noon -- which is dad's time to eat lunch -- Luke made an altar call for the unsaved souls in the church. It was at that moment that dad uttered a common barnyard phrase that I'll euphemistically translate as "Oh, Nuts!" Again, the only people who heard it were the in-laws of the man who earlier had seen the pencil fly by. 

So, the lesson learned, is never sit in front of Joshua and his great-grandparent if it appears the sermon is going to run long. Before I leave the preaching completely, I want to give Luke credit for something he said that was an outstanding analogy. He said, "Church is like an airport. Just as an airport isn't your destination, neither is church. An airport --like a church -- helps you reach your final destination." I told Luke later, "That'll preach." It did. 

Other than that, we had a great time. Mary makes the best raspberry, white chocolate scones for breakfast. Their other son, Jonas, could become quite a rodeo rider. I would bounce him on my knees until both of them would hurt from arthritis, and then he would come to me and say with all the sincerity that a one-year-old can muster "Down", which of course meant "Up." He was ready to ride into the sunset. While he was bouncing, I would sing the tune to "Bonanza!"

And I would bounce him on my knees some more. 

We had a great time. It was filled with fun, adventure, great food (don't get me started on the potluck after church on Sunday - the food went on forever) and lots of great family time. All in all, it was a memorable Memorial Day weekend.  

Let the Memorial Day adventure begin

Tomorrow, Belinda, Grandpa and I are going to step out of our comfort zone. We're going to fly to Denver to visit my niece Mary, her husband Luke and their two young sons Joshua and Jonas.

The idea of flying to Denver intrigued me when I learned that Frontier Airlines flew non-stop between Bismarck and Denver and didn't charge an arm and a leg to do it. Mary and her family moved to Denver in February, so we now had a reason to do it.

The Colorado Rockies aren't playing at home over the Memorial Day weekend, so no one can think that I'm really using my niece as an excuse to see a professional baseball game -- although the thought did cross my mind.

Belinda and I have both been to Denver before but not as a couple. Both of us went before we were married....and we didn't travel together. When I went, I was working for Mid-Rivers Telephone Cooperative and I traveled to Aurora to learn how to use a Compugraphic typesetter. It might as well have been a lead-based Linotype machine, because both of them have long been put out to pasture and probably can only be seen today in museums.

Anyway, my hotel was right beside the training center so I didn't see a lot of Denver, but I do remember that the traffic was terrible, there was a street named after Martin Luther King, and airport was a mess....but that was more than 25 years ago. I can only imagine that Denver has grown up since 1984, has a new airport and the traffic is probably even worse today.

However, we won't have to go to Denver...unless Luke or Mary are driving. We will land at the airport that is east of Denver and go to the Baker residence, that is also east of Denver.

Now Belinda and I like to fly so the trip is not out of our comfort zone. It is, however, for Grandpa Van Dyke. Although he traveled by plane during World War 2 in India, Pakistan and Burma when he was in the Army Air Corps, he didn't do a lot of flying when he was a civilian. I remember he flew to Houston once when he was employed with Continental Pipeline Company. I think they wanted him to move his family to Houston, but dad was too close to retirement and wanted to stay in Montana.

He also flew from Roundup to Mandan in a single engine aircraft when he moved to North Dakota in July 2006. This flight was mostly so he wouldn't get out of the car and try to head back to Roundup when we were somewhere around Miles City or Glenidve. It seemed safer that he would stay in the airplane than he would in a car. Plus, the trip was an hour and a half by airplane and it was six hours by car.

So dad will be flying and earning his wings once again. I think that it shouldn't be much of a problem as he only has to sit on the plane for 90 minutes between Bismarck and Denver. If they serve us a cold pop and a bag of peanuts, it takes almost 90 minutes for the flight attendants to serve everyone on the plane and pick up the trash.

My next worry is dad sleeping in a different house. Dad seems to get nervous when he's not sleeping in his own bed, and if he doesn't sleep, I don't sleep. My "cure" for this is a couple of Benadryl. They seem to put him to sleep, and once a sleep, he rests for a long time.

So tomorrow will begin an adventure. Hopefully, everything goes according to Hoyle and we all enjoy our Memorial Day vacation.