Tag: North Branch

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Angels, Devils, and the Parents that formed them.

I lived in Eagan for a couple years when I was in Kindergarten and first grade. I had two friends who were essentially the real world manifestations of that little angel and devil that appear on the shoulders of cartoon characters like Tom and Jerry. Mike was the angel. Tim was the devil. (He even had red hair.)

My friend Mike lived about a block away in a cul de sac within sight of my house. Mike’s parents let me come over for dinner a lot and they always had dessert. Mike’s Mom brought us snacks and treats while we were playing and asked us if we were okay or if we needed anything. Their house was clean and organized. These were good people and Mike was a reflection of them. Always smiling. Always polite. Being Mike’s friend was easy and stress free unless Tim was involved.

Tim lived across the street and one house to the left. I got invited to dinner there once. His Dad was mad about something and nobody spoke. It was awkward. Tim’s Dad spent countless hours working on this Chevelle and very few working on his family from my impressions. He would meticulously color in the white letters on the Chevelle’s tires with White Out which was the liquid used to blot out typos on paper. Tim’s Mom was friendly to me and in hindsight I believe she was a little concerned for me. Tim rarely listened to her, but he obeyed his Dad out of fear.

Young David fell somewhere on the spectrum between Mike and Tim and, honestly, my family life was somewhere between Mike’s and Tim’s too. My Dad had mental health issues and swung between violent rage and doting Dad. My Mom was always kind to everyone and did her best to take care of us.

It was 1978 and Elvis was dead. “Keep on Rockin’ me, Baby” by The Steve Miller Band was my favorite song. Tim and I rode our bikes all over the place and explored in every direction as far as we dared to ride. Mike wasn’t allowed to go beyond a few block radius of his house.

On one hot summer day, Tim asked me to ride with him to the Tom Thumb convenience store down the hill and about a half mile from our houses. He said he wanted a Bomb Pop which was a frozen treat like a really thick and patriotically colored Popsicle, so I rode along with him to get one. When we got there, he asked me if I wanted one too and I told him that I didn’t have any money. He said that he didn’t either. As I stood there confused and trying to figure things out, Tim looked through the window to make sure the employee wasn’t looking, shoved the door open, opened the chest freezer by the door, and came back out with two Bomb Pops. He handed me one, tore his open, and jumped on his bike. I jumped on my bike too, but a short time later I told him that I had forgotten something back at the store and I secretly put the Bomb Pop back because I didn’t want to go to jail. Every moment that Bomb Pop was in my hand was terrifying.

Tim walked over to my house one summer day eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He wanted to ride bikes and I told him that I did too and I’d wait for him to finish his sandwich. He got a big smile on his face and then he turned and whipped the mostly uneaten sandwich up onto the roof of my parents’ garage. I was horrified and I wondered what would happen. I don’t think Tim wondered about anything. When I got back, my Dad was up on a ladder getting the sandwich off the roof. He asked me if I knew how it got there and I said that I didn’t. I’m pretty sure he knew.

Tim and I threw apples from our tree into the neighbors yard and against their house and I got yelled at for it.

Tim ate all of the frosting off a leftover birthday cake at his house after his Mom told him to leave it alone. He puked about fifteen minutes later and said that I should probably go home.

Tim asked me to help him mix together all of the chemicals in the laundry room at his house and from under the kitchen sink also. We poured a little bit of each bottle into bowls and mixed them up into a disgusting looking paste. Once we were done and he was bored with it, Tim picked up the two bowls and threw them into his bedroom closet. He shut the door and I never heard how that little experiment turned out.

Tim asked me if I wanted a glass of pop at his house one day and I said that I wasn’t thirsty. He came out of the bathroom with a smirk on his face and a glass in his hand a few minutes later and handed it to me. He said that he had decided to get me some pop anyway and I should drink it. It was yellow and quite warm. I’d guess it was about 98.6 degrees and freshly made. I didn’t drink it.

Tim and I had a lot of fun throwing darts at the dart board in the spare bedroom at my house. We missed the board a few times and laughed guiltily as we pulled the darts out of the wall. Then we started throwing the darts at the wall on purpose. We threw them at every wall in the room for a few weeks until my parents realized it and put a stop to our game. There were probably more holes than wall by this point. It took my Dad a few weeks to mud, sand, and repaint the room and he made his feelings about my actions quite clear, let’s say.

Tim and I collected pop cans because beer can collecting was popular at that time, but we were seven and weren’t allowed to do that. Tim asked me if he could have a few of my cans and I told him no. Then he suggested that we wash our collections in his pool, so we did that. Those cans that he had asked for, along with a number of others, were not with my other cans when I got home.

Tim wanted to show me something in his back yard one day and it turned out to be a ladder leading to the roof of his garage. He goaded me to climb up there and we both ended up on the roof. He had put a paper grocery bag up there earlier and when we both got up there he reached into it and handed me a lighter and some fireworks. I was confused because it was early afternoon and not July 4th and we live in a suburb, so it didn’t seem like the time to light off fireworks to me. Tim explained that he had called another kid, Steve, from down the block and asked him to come over to play with us. When Steve got there, we were going to ambush him with fireworks. I didn’t think that was a great idea, but soon Steve was in the driveway and Tim was hurling firecrackers and shooting bottle rockets at him. Steve said that he was going to call the police and Tim laughed at him. I got off the roof and had just started to head home when the police car pulled up. Tim and I ran and I hid in the garden shed in the back yard. I was pretty sure that I was going to prison for the rest of my life. The door creaked open letting a slightly cooler breeze into the stifling shed and a man’s voice said “I don’t see him in here. I just hope that boy realizes how dangerous all of that was and how badly he and those other boys could have gotten hurt.” That was good policing. I stayed in the shed for a really long time before sneaking out and around the block and back to my house by a circuitous route. I thought I had gotten away with it until our phone rang and it was Tim’s Mom explaining what we had done to my Dad. I didn’t get to buy the Star Wars X-Wing fighter that I had been saving my allowance to buy that week.

When we moved to North Branch, Tim rode his bike over to say goodbye and I remember waving to him through the back window of our red Impala as we drove away. My Dad made a comment about how he’d never seen that boy look so sad or upset before. I’ve always wondered what happened to Tim. When I wondered that out loud a few times, my folks both said that he’s probably in prison or dead. I hope he turned things around and put his energy into something good. And, I hope his Dad learned to love him more than the Chevelle.

Years later, I organized the theft of the North Branch town sign on Highway 95 one summer with a group of friends. We trained for the heist like a NASCAR pit crew and we each had our roles to play. We’d done our reconnaissance and we knew what size nuts and bolts were holding it on. We knew how high the sign was and that the guys with the sockets on one side and the guys with the wrenches on the other side would have to be held up by other guys to complete their work. We also figured out where to stash the sign until another guy with a pickup could come and fetch it a short time later. We rolled up in a car, jumped out, and did our work quickly and efficiently. Once we had it down, we realized how huge and heavy it was and that it would never grace anyone’s dorm room or family room. I never saw the sign again and it took whoever is responsible for that sign a few years to replace it. I heard that it ended up in somebody’s barn in Almelund and was eventually cut up for scrap.

I also stole a beaker from the science lab in my high school and used it for a pen/pencil holder for about 15 years. Around that same time, I stole a metal sign from the ski resort I worked at in high school that read “Remove Pole Straps From Wrists”.

My daughter Abby asked me where I had gotten that sign one day when we were in the garage together doing a project. She was probably about the same age as I was when I put the Bomb Pop back in the freezer at Tom Thumb in Eagan. I have always been honest with my kids, so I told her the truth. After some discussion, we decided that the best course of action was to send the sign back to Wild Mountain with an apology letter. I told her about the beaker too and we ended up sending that back to the high school with a similar letter. The whole thing made for a good family discussion and hopefully a few good lessons for the kiddos. I’m sure it also confused and/or amused the people who opened the packages.

I thought that I was going to get arrested with my band mates at Mississippi Music Fest in St. Cloud in the summer of 1989. The bass player’s girlfriend had pretended to be our manager and lied to the promoter of this festival about our accomplishments and gotten us a slot to play five songs. When we rolled up in an old pickup and my Dad’s station wagon and started unloading our gear, the promoter had a change of heart and told us that, after all, there wasn’t a spot for us anymore. The singer and the girlfriend argued with him and he finally relented and said that we could play one song. I didn’t think that it was worth it to get all setup to play one song and the singer assured me that we were going to play our whole set. I got nervous.

After the first song, the announcer/promoter asked the crowd to give us a round of applause, but we just ignored him and launched into our next song. He protested loudly after that one, but we drowned his voice out with our amplifiers and drums and another song. After that one, he threatened to call the police and we just kept going. The singer told the crowd what was going on and the crowd booed the promoter which further enraged him. While we were playing the sixth song, the police showed up and started walking toward the stage. As they reached it, the singer said to the audience, while staring at the lead officer, “And for our LAST song, we’ll be playing Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin.” The cops relaxed a little and let us finish. So we ended up playing seven songs instead of the original five which was way more than ONE. As we got off the stage, the officers and the promoter approached us and the promoter was shouting at us and the cops and telling them to arrest us. The singer and the girlfriend explained our view of the matter and showed the officers our contract. The lead officer said “It sounds like a personal problem to me. Have a good day.” Then they left with the promoter following and yelling at them. As we were just about to leave, the promoter came back and told us that we’d never play in St. Cloud again. He’d make sure of that. One of us said “Well, we’ve never played here before, so that works I guess.” He just walked away shaking his head. It was a good day and we had a lot of fun.

My life of crime has come to an end as of this writing and I’ve managed to raise four great kids who are also not criminals. I love them more than my guitars and amplifiers or anything else in the world (even Chevelles) and I think that makes the difference for most people. The singer is now a minister with a whole pack of kids and doing great things. Mike is probably the nicest guy all of his friends and family know. I hope that Tim isn’t dead or in prison and I hope he’s found the love he needed too. The rest of us have still not been prosecuted for stealing the North Branch sign and we’re still out here doing the best we can with the cards we’ve been dealt. Be well, my friends, and keep climbing.

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Wiener Dog versus The Grim Reaper

Like most other children, I desperately wanted a dog when I was kid. I begged. I made promises. I vowed to take care of it, etc. I don’t think my older brother ever asked for a dog and my parents never owned dogs that I know of. This would be Thomas dog #1.

There was a dog that lived in my Dad’s tent while he was fighting off the Soviet backed North Korean Communists with the rest of the U.S. Army in Korea in the 50’s. I saw a black and white snapshot of it once when my Dad was looking through his pictures. The dog was more of a puppy and it looked like something in a Hallmark commercial. It was happy and cute and playful looking and I’m sure it was a nice distraction from the death and horror that those guys walked with every day. The dog kind of belonged to my Dad and his buddies because they fed it and looked after it. They named it, I kid you not, Fartface. (I’m going to leave that right there for you to ponder and be as confused about it as I’ve been for the last 30+ years since I heard about it.) My Dad didn’t know what happened to Fartface when he left Korea. All that he brought home was a disability or two and some pretty wicked nightmares that allowed him to relive the war for the rest of his life.

My pleading payed off eventually and I got a dog for my birthday when I was about seven. After looking at four or five other dogs that day, I found one that my parents and I could agree on. The tag on the kennel door at the Humane Society shelter said his name was Bozo and his breed was identified as a “Doxie mix”. He was a little chunkier and a little taller than a purebred dachshund due to whatever other breed(s) he was mixed with. He had a 99% wiener dog head, ears, color, and face and I think, based on his life, he was probably mixed with an Army Ranger or Chuck Norris because he was pretty hard to kill despite numerous attempts.

My Mom decided that she should probably hold onto him on the car ride home instead of letting him run wild in the back seat with me. Without car seats or seat belts in the back, we definitely did run wild in those days. A few miles down the road he put his nose under the flap of her coat and seemed to settle down. My Mom was commenting on how he was relaxing and she kept petting him and telling him that he was going to be okay as we talked about what we should change his name to. Bozo was a famous clown from that era and he was that peculiar combination of annoying and creepy that only clowns can pull off. The dog needed a better name. Shortly, it was decided that Prince was a far better name than Bozo. Once this decision was reached, Prince promptly puked inside my Mom’s new coat. I watched him do it and watched her recoil in disgust as I hung onto the front bench seat to keep an eye on the dog. I believe he was very lucky that she loved her son more than she hated the new dog at that moment. She hadn’t really wanted a dog in the house to begin with and here was the first disgusting evidence that this whole thing was a bad idea. My Mom always kept a clean house despite the other three of us doing our best to mess it up and now this dog had joined our ranks against her.

That evening, my parents went out somewhere and left me and my brother at home with the dog. I was excited to play with him despite the fact that he had bitten my lip that afternoon when I was trying to play with him on the floor. When my folks left, the dog barked at the slamming door. Then he turned around and started barking wildly and growling at me and my brother. I was seven, my brother was 15 or 16, and we had zero experience with dogs. The poor dog was probably terrified in his new surroundings and just wanted to be left alone. When we approached him, he would charge us and bark and growl. This was new. Prince eventually herded us both into the living room and onto the couch where he held us prisoner for three or four hours until my parents got home. If we made any attempt to move, he went crazy and we got even more scared.

My Mom and Dad got home hours later and they were wondering what was going on as they climbed the steps from the entryway to the living room and saw us cowering on the couch. The dog barked at them too, but my Dad just laughed and picked the dog up while he asked my brother and I what was going on. We told them our tale of imprisonment and they thought that it was pretty funny that we were held captive by a wiener dog with an attitude.

The following year, we moved from a suburb of Minneapolis to a rural area about five miles out of North Branch. Prince had many adventures chasing squirrels and meeting other dogs, cats, and strange neighbors. Since he was of German ancestry, the neighborhood men decided that he must like beer and they gave him his own bowl now and again at one of the many bonfires that my parents hosted. It turned out that Prince couldn’t hold his liquor, shocking I know, and the men enjoyed watching him stumble around as they themselves were also stumbling around. My Dad often recounted the story of one such evening where he claimed Prince ran into both door posts as he attempted to enter the house to retire for the evening.

After nearly being killed by my Mom’s disgusted looks after he hurled into her coat, Prince had many other brushes with death while we lived in North Branch. He liked to bark at the neighbor’s goats, for example. One day the neighbor, Melvin Hanson who was a semi-retired farmer with a thick Swedish accent, got tired of Prince harassing his goats and decided to shoot him with a 12 gauge shotgun. Prince evidently sensed Melvin’s evil intentions because he ended up with a lot of lead pellets in his rear end as he tried to make his escape. We arrived home to find him laying in the yard in tough shape. My Mom rushed the dog into town to the vet while my Dad controlled himself enough to talk to the neighbor without punching or throttling him. When asked why the hell he would shoot a ten pound wiener dog with a shotgun, Melvin insisted that the dog was going to kill one of his goats and that we needed to keep our “killer dog” away from them or this would happen again. My Dad made it quite clear to Melvin that he would share the dog’s fate if he ever did anything like that again. The dog lived and so did Melvin.

Fences were eventually mended and we ended up getting along just fine with Melvin and his bride Lila. Years later, Melvin actually beat me in a foot race. I was about 12 and he was 80. He came out one hot summer day to watch me and my friends play football in the field in between our houses. This was the same field where the wiener dog failed to outrun the shotgun pellets. Melvin was giving me a hard time about not being fast enough on one of the plays and I made a wise remark back to him about being old and slow. He didn’t take that well and started unloading his pockets onto the ground. Old guys have a lot of stuff in their pockets. Watches, wallets, pens, glasses, keys, knives, loose change, notebooks, coin purses, etc. I thought he was going to come and strangle me or put his fist in my big mouth, but he challenged me to a race. I couldn’t believe it, but I agreed and we marked the distance we’d run with some hats and the football. One of my friends said “Go!” and I tore off the line and headed toward the other end of the field to an easy victory, I thought. At one point, I looked over my shoulder and saw Melvin pumping his arms in his bib overalls and work boots and then he was past me and over the finish line. I got dusted by an 80 year old retired farmer. My friends were just about dead they were laughing so hard at seeing the way Melvin ran and also the fact that he demolished me in a foot race. Melvin, in between red faced wheezes and trying to catch his breath, talked some pretty good smack as he upbraided me for making fun of an old man. I’m glad my Dad didn’t kill him. He was a good guy. And fast. But, back to the hero of our story, the bullet-proof wiener dog…

Prince liked to chase squirrels and he also liked to chase cars on the dirt road in front of our house. On two occasions while doing this, he was hit by the car and thrown into the ditch. One was a sedan and the second was a pickup truck. The first time, he yelped all the way back to the house and was not quite himself for a few days, but he survived. The second time, he was knocked out as he flew into the ditch and we were sure that he was dead. My Dad saw it and ran down the yard to grab him, but Prince regained consciousness before my Dad got there and ambled his way back to the house. Again, he survived.

One summer, Prince surprised a dumb squirrel who got himself turned around and wasn’t quite fast enough to get away from the streaking wiener. After getting his face severely clawed and losing some blood, the dog survived and the squirrel lived to pillage our bird feeder another day.

The sound of the snow plow grinding down the frozen dirt road in front of our house in the winter enraged the dog also. He hated that sound. Wherever he was, he would run at top speed to confront the growling truck. Twice that we witnessed, he charged the plow head on and was swept into the ditch with the wave of snow like a twig in a tornado. I always wondered if the driver saw him and just laughed. The dog had guts. One of those times, my friends and I were playing and sledding in the ditch because we had a snow day off from school. We yelled at Prince to stop as he ran at full speed and barking toward the plow. We watched in horror as he was flung end over end into the snow pile in the ditch. Some of the guys lifted up their hands at the plow driver like they were saying “What the heck?!” Most of us ran to the spot where we thought the dog was buried. We dug frantically trying to find and, we thought, save him. He popped up about 15 feet from where we were digging, shook himself off, and trotted back to the house as though his work here was finished. The homestead had been successfully defended. He had survived.

My Dad wandered out to the kitchen each morning in his robe and started the coffee. One winter morning, he wandered with his bare foot into a pile of warm dog poop as well. (For years, he told people the detailed story and described how it felt to have warm dog poop squish up between his toes as he stepped down into it on the cold linoleum.) We didn’t need our alarm clocks that morning as we were awakened from blissful sleep by a raging torrent of foul curses and imprecations toward the dog. I got to the kitchen entrance as my Dad was finishing wiping the waste off his foot with a paper towel and grumbling. I was afraid to speak because I didn’t want to be murdered, but I was also afraid for my dog so I had come to this vantage point to see what was going to happen. Done wiping, my Dad walked over and grabbed the dog like a purse by the skin of his back and walked toward the door as the dog howled. I started crying and begging him to not hurt Prince. I don’t think he heard me in that state of mind. He flung the door open, kicked the storm door open, and walked out onto the frozen porch as he raised the dog into punting position. As he pulled his foot back for the dropkick, he slipped with the other foot, fell, and landed flat on his back on the frigid concrete steps. His grip on the dog was released and Prince landed on my Dad’s stomach. He quickly scampered out into the yard and completed his morning duty as my Dad groaned and managed to stand and hobble back into the house. Thankfully, the wiener dog was not punted that day and he survived yet again.

I came home from high school one day with my friend Karl and my parents met me at the door and said they needed to talk to me. They told me that they had learned from the vet that day that the reason Prince hadn’t been eating or acting like himself lately was that he had stomach cancer and needed to be put “to sleep” as some people say. I didn’t react as they expected because my friend was there and it wouldn’t have been cool to get upset over a dog, right? They asked me if it was okay to put him down so that he didn’t have to suffer anymore and I said that was fine. That evening and the next morning we said our goodbyes to Prince and when I came home from school the next day he was gone.

I’ve always thought that it was pretty unfair that having survived so many things in his life, Prince was taken out by cancer. My Dad, having survived many more horrendous things than Prince, was taken out by a fall in his garage. A friend of his died after stumbling while putting on his pants one morning. Life and death are strange and they seldom make sense, but I hope that you take the time to enjoy all of the squirrel chases and snow plow encounters in your life before cancer, heart disease, war, drugs, a car accident, or old age take you away from the ones that you love. Remember to not let the squirrel scratches and temporary snow burials distract you. Keep a smile on your face, be nice to people, and try to enjoy every minute of it like you’re a drunk wiener dog hitting both door posts on your way to bed.

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Freak Upgrades to What, Mr. Monk?

Lately, I’ve been thinking about being a freak, being a freak magnet, and also the word Freak itself and I think that it probably has too negative of a connotation for my purposes of passing along stories of eccentric individuals who have crossed my path. So, I’ve decided to attempt to upgrade my description of these people to another word. Any suggestions?

I think “eccentric individuals” is probably the best description of the interesting people that I attract and write about, but “Eccentric Individual Magnet” doesn’t flow, does it?

Unusual is too banal and is just not enough of a word to encompass my beloved companions in these narratives.. Anomaly is too scientific sounding. “I’m an anomaly magnet” makes me sound like I may draw black holes, alien armadas, or pulsars toward Earth to kill us all. Aberration is also slightly negative as if the plan was going one way and then YOU showed up, you aberration. Rogue is taken by one of the X-Men who I’ve always felt sorry for. Rarity should probably be taken to The Antiques Roadshow to have its value and provenance established.

Quirk sounds like quark which, as someone who appreciates Physics, bothers me, but it also reminds me of people like Mr. Monk who was one of my middle school teachers and quite the quirky fellow. Mr. Monk would also fall into the dark side of the freak category if the truth were told. For example, he was extremely proud of his perfect attendance record. I believe you could safely say that he was fanatical about it. The proof that I offer to back up this strong assertion is an incident that happened when I was in seventh grade and Mr. Monk came down with influenza. He was as pale as an Irish shut-in and as shaky and sweaty as any hardcore junkie trying to kick his heroin habit cold turkey. His breathing was labored. His eyes were red, glassy, and watery. And, he leaned against his desk or the built-in cabinets for support. But, he was present and his perfect attendance record was intact. I’m sure he infected numerous students and faculty members and ruined THEIR perfect attendance records, but that’s another matter entirely. Attendance was like survival of the fittest for this man and he was naturally selecting the heck out of himself. Some people have terrible diarrhea when they get the flu, but Mr. Monk was firmly in the vomiting camp. He obviously knew this fact before making the arduous journey to North Branch Middle School because he had prepared for this eventuality by bringing a number of empty half gallon paper milk containers with him. This was 1983 or 1984 and the life of a North Branch adolescent was quite a bit different from today in many ways. One way is that we were allowed to play violent games at lunchtime like Trench, which most folks refer to as Dodge Ball, and work out our pubescent angst by blasting each other in the face with a small rubber ball. Another way is that 12 year old David had to sit quietly in class working on his worksheet with a #2 pencil as his teacher, Mr. Monk, loudly puked into a re-purposed milk jug. This, of course, would not happen today. We all felt sick right along with the tormented Mr. Monk and a few students put their heads down on their desks and a few others just got up and left the room. At one point, it seemed like Mr. Monk briefly regained his strength for a moment as he launched into some point that he was passionate about. This second wind did not last long. With his finger still up in the air from his oration, his eyes suddenly grew wide and he turned and rushed back to the nearest milk jug for another horrific expulsion. It got to the point in that extremely long hour that I was wondering if the jugs he had supplied would be sufficient for his needs. Thankfully, they were and we didn’t have to endure something even worse. So, whether he was quirky or a freak I will leave to your good judgement, my patient reader. There were many other things that made Mr. Monk quirky like his 1970’s wardrobe, his habit of throwing his chalk blindly at the wall as he glared at us when he was upset, or the way the he would take a little run and slide up to your desk on his wingtip shoes when you asked him for help. But, I believe I have made my point and also demonstrated why the word quirky is definitely out of the running in this discussion.

Oddity should only be used to refer to items in archaic freak shows or cabinets of curiosities from the olden days. It could also bring to mind David Bowie’s song Space Oddity which is amazing, but the word simply doesn’t work in this context, Major Tom. Peculiar is stuffy and judgmental sounding and has no place here either. Hazard may be true of some of these people, but most are not inherently dangerous. They are definitely not monsters, malformations, mutants (like the X-Men, again), or cranks either. Lunatic is too crazy for most and it makes me think of the moon and nefarious nighttime shenanigans. The word queer has been pretty much taken over by the homosexuals and lost its traditional definition. There are many other words like misfit, oddball, maverick, fiend, nut, maniac, geek, and dweeb that all bring to mind specific character types that don’t really adequately explain my meaning. The Misfits are a famous punk band that my nephew Doug performed with once, oddball is a word that oddballs use to describe other oddballs, maverick reminds me of a horse or Tom Cruise in Top Gun, and fiend, nut, and maniac live in the horror genre for me and have no place in this discussion. Geek describes a medieval circus or court performer like a jester who would bite of the head off a live chicken and dweeb, along with geek, are strongly associated with the 1980’s in my mind and don’t have enough historical breadth to be considered worthy of replacing freak. Neither does weirdo, crackpot, pill, flake, screwball, or strange bird. I’d like to know more crackpots and strange birds, personally, but I’m reminded of the Unabomber (Theodore Kaczynski) or maybe a mad genius in some corny old movie when I hear the term crackpot.

What does that leave? Well, honestly, it brings me back to Freak. If most people are the same and mostly ordinary or even boring, then these people are freaks in the best way. If your whole nation is filled with cannibals and you’re a vegetarian, you’re a freak and the fact that you’re not “normal” is a very good thing, right? (Did you hear what one cannibal said to the other one while they were eating a clown? “Does this taste funny to you?”) And, Freak Magnet sounds pretty good to me too. My friend Jesse aptly described me as a freak magnet many years ago and it stuck in my head because it was so true. Let’s go with that and if you have a word that I should upgrade to, let me know you rapscallion.

Addendum:  After posting this, a classmate contacted me with some further stories about Mr. Monk and also some wonderful updates.  He is doing well and hasn’t missed saying happy birthday to her every year since we were kids.  This includes the pre-social media days of mail and corded telephones where a little more effort and a little more organization, or at least a sharp memory, were required.  I thought that was very impressive and kind.  I also wanted to point out that I meant no disrespect toward him in relating my story.  I believe he is a good and eccentric man who I’m happy to have had as a teacher.  Teaching is often a thankless profession and when someone does it well, they should be remembered and applauded.  Thanks for the comments, Jenny!

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Flow Like a River by I.P. Frealey (A classic, indeed.) + Three years with Chris.

There are things that you do in your life that make you wonder about yourself as you reflect on them. Sometimes they’re shocking in the moment, but often it takes the patina of time to put the right finish on them. As I’ve stated ad nauseam in these posts, I’ve met and known a lot of weird people, seen a lot of odd things, and been directly involved in a few of them myself. I’ve been told that I attract them. But, since I’ve started writing some of them down, I think my mind has started subconsciously organizing them for me and I’ve made some connections that hadn’t occurred to me before. One of them is that I have a bunch of stories that revolve around peeing and also about a guy named Chris. Most are separate. One is together.

My high school friend Chris was from Rush City. It seems that every rural town has other towns within driving distance around it that are kind of like the neighborhood of towns. And, one of those towns is usually nearly completely filled with insane, scary, and just plain weird people. Rush City was ours when I was growing up and Chris was right in the middle of that vibe. Details were disclosed, stories were told, decisions were made, or things were observed in Chris and his family’s life that made us stop and say “What?!” or “Wait…” or “You’re serious?!” He was serious.

For example, Chris and his brother along with their Dad went deer hunting together and they set their deer stands up in trees fairly close to each other. At some point, an extremely unfortunate deer decided to sprint past their positions. Being “gun enthusiasts” let’s say, each man was armed with a semi-automatic rifle with a high capacity magazine and as the doomed creature was seen by each man in turn, they opened up on it as though they were in combat. Not surprisingly, the animal shortly thereafter perished. Upon inspection, the carcass was found to have 18, count them, 18 bullet holes in it. Six bullets from each man. Let’s hope, if the Russians ever invade America as they did in the movie Red Dawn, they choose Rush City for their target. Problem solved. The rest of us can watch it on the news.

I also remember meeting Chris’ parents for the first time. They were super nice and friendly people who treated me like family from day one. I’m not sure if that family part was a good thing, however. As we sat at their table eating supper that night, the conversation drifted to some wild things that Chris had gotten in trouble for and his parents told a few stories to embarrass him as any good parent should on occasion. Then, Chris’ Dad said “Have you told Dave about your one day “relationship” with the neighbor?” Chris looked a little nervous and he suggested to his Dad that I didn’t need to know about that particular story. But, his Dad was fired up and went on to tell us about how Chris had been flirting with the neighbor lady one day and she had invited him into her trailer. Well, their “relationship” progressed quickly from that point on and they were getting to know each other very well in the deep recesses of the trailer when the third actor in this drama entered the scene. The woman’s husband. Chris’ parents heard shouting and screaming through the open windows of their trailer and they looked out to see the back door of the neighbor’s trailer fly open and their mostly naked son leap out of it with one hand holding his pants around his waist and the other holding the rest of his clothes. In the future, Chris would get a football scholarship to the University of Minnesota, but at that point he was using his natural athletic ability to avoid being murdered in a mobile home park. Chris’ Dad laughed until he was almost in tears as he described the scene and how quickly Chris made it from the neighbor’s home to his own. The friendly neighbor lady’s husband soon followed and was not laughing or friendly. Chris’ Dad met him outside and somehow managed to save everyone from being killed and the irate husband skulked back to his trailer and adulterous wife. Chris just shook his head as his Mom and Dad talked and laughed and reminisced about this cherished family story. I said things like “What?!” and “Wait…” and “You’re serious?!” a bunch of times. They were serious. It was Rush City.

Chris was arrested at a young age for being involved in something like a small riot at a club called The Gay 90’s in Minneapolis. He was on probation when I met him for the first time at the grocery store in our town where we both worked. Apparently, he had been drunk in a van with a bunch of guys who thought it would be fun to drive the 60 miles to Minneapolis to harass some gay guys. So, they did it and when the ensuing fight spilled into the street, Chris saw one of his friends get hit with a beer bottle and he decided it was time to get off the bench. He punched the guy with the broken bottle and grabbed his buddy to help him to the van. The other Rush City boys had gotten to the van already and started to leave, but when they saw Chris and the beer bottle battered boy (nice!) running after them they swung the back doors of the van open and the driver slammed on the brakes just as Chris and the BBBB were getting there. Consequently, they both ran into the end of the van doors and got knocked out cold. And, like the morons they were, the guys in the van decided that the best course of action was to drive away and head back to Rush City. So, Chris and his two time battered friend were out cold on Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis, 60 miles from home, drunk, probably 14 or 15 years old, and being chased by a hostile homosexual horde. (Nice!) Imagine getting that phone call as a parent. Again, “What?!” and “Wait…” and “You’re serious?!”

Chris’ violent streak was impressive to me at the time and I still admire his passion and willingness to fight for things. I think that has been mostly lost these days in most people. I don’t condone beating up people for stupid reasons, of course, but there is a time for war as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes. I admire people who defend themselves and others who need it and I admire good police officers and soldiers who fight for each of us every day. Chris fought now and then. He was a peaceful guy, generally, but if he was pushed he would give a few warnings and if they weren’t heeded he would fight instead of running. I admired that. Also, there was more fighting in those days and less shooting. I think people were allowed to vent a little and get it out of their systems before the rage turned into homicide. But, that’s just a rough hypothesis. Obviously, there are a lot of variables in that equation.

Chris and I were roommates our freshman year of college too. That year, we worked at Kohl’s in Northtown Mall and Chris dated a girl named Natalie who also worked there. Like the deer who ran past the family deer stands, there was a guy who worked with all of us who decided to put the moves on Natalie. I don’t remember his name, but he wore tie dyed shirts and sandals and was tall and awkward and had poofy and curly brown hair. He was also a pretty bad worker, from what I remember of picking up his slack. Anyway, after repeated warnings to leave Natalie alone, Chris took action. I drove us to work that night and as we were leaving Chris saw the guy and he asked me to stop the car for a second. I didn’t realize what was going on, I just stopped the car because he asked me to stop. Chris jumped out and put up his hand in a friendly gesture and called the guy’s name. “Hey, Mike!” Something like that. The guy was talking with a few others and he peeled off to walk toward Chris. Chris started jogging over to meet him and as he got close he punched “Mike” really hard in the face and Mike went down. Chris stood there for a moment and said “Stay away from my girlfriend!” and then walked back to the car and climbed in. He was as calm as could be. He turned to me and smiled and said “Let’s go.” Mike was getting up off the ground and as we drove by Chris waved to Mike, his girlfriend Natalie, and the rest of our coworkers.

Well, despite his time on the Kohl’s parking lot pavement, Mike persisted in his efforts to woo Natalie a few weeks later and Chris found out. I was studying at our apartment and Chris came in looking crazy and sweaty like he might be having a heart attack. He said “Where are the golf clubs?” I said “Whoa, buddy. What’s up?” He explained Mike’s efforts and his plan to head to Mike’s house with a golf club and “take care of it”. I suggested that might not be the best plan considering his probationary status and for a number of other reasons, but over my reasoning and the protests of our other roommate who owned the golf clubs Chris left with the promise “I’ll replace it” as he held the club out to the guy.

He came back without the club a while later and he had that same calmness as when he’d gotten back into the car after Chris -vs- Mike 1. I asked a few questions and didn’t get a lot of answers other than “Don’t worry about it.” Eventually, Chris said “The police might be showing up at some point, so just tell them I’m not here.” Me: “What?!” and “Wait…” and “You’re serious?!” Chris: “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t kill him or anything. The pussy wouldn’t even come out of his house.” I explained that I thought that was a pretty good plan if an enraged athlete showed up at my house with a golf club and demanded that I come outside. Chris explained that he had basically done that earlier and that Mike hadn’t made an appearance other than to yell at him through the screen door along with his parents and to threaten to call the police. So, as anyone would do in his position, Chris walked to the end of their driveway and beat their mailbox off the post with the club and then threw it at their house as hard as he could. “So, you just left the golf club there with your fingerprints on it?” I asked. I watched too many crime shows. “I had no choice,” he said. “Why?” “It went through their picture window.” Me, as usual, “What?!” and “Wait…” and “You’re serious?!”

Not shockingly, the police showed up about twenty minutes later and knocked on the door. Chris calmly walked into the living room, grabbed a book, sat on the couch, and started to read. “Tell them I’m not here,” he said. I experienced a great deal of stress during the next few moments. The knocking continued along with “Police. Open the door.” I opened the door wide and just stood there looking like I had wielded the golf club. “Does Chris (lastname) live here?” Yes. “Is he here now?” Yes. “Can we speak with him, please?” Yes, just a moment. I walked around the corner and Chris gave me a disgusted look like I was such an amateur. He wasn’t angry and he didn’t feel betrayed or anything like that. He was disappointed. That’s what the look said. I said “The police are here and they’d like to talk to you?” He said “Why?” I said nothing and he gave me the look again. Amateur. As he came around the corner, he turned to look at the officers and a handsome smile lit up his face. But, there was a hint of confusion there too. “Hi, I’m Chris. What’s going on?” He was concerned. Calm, handsome, happy, concerned Chris. The police asked him if he knew Mike and Chris said that he did and that they worked together at Kohl’s. Had he been at Mike’s house about an hour ago? “No…” Confused. “We’re not friends, we just work together.” “So, where were you an hour ago?” “I was here, studying.” Here it comes, I thought. “Right, Dave?” Then, there was a different look. I said “He has been here studying.” Chris’ eyes looked at me and said “Good! You’re learning!” with a little smirk. I felt like I was about to go to prison for life without the possibility of parole for misleading the police. And, being a natural criminal, I also thought that I might puke or pass out or both at any moment. While I technically hadn’t lied, I didn’t tell the clear truth either. Innocent, calm, concerned Chris turned back to the officers and explained how he and Mike had a disagreement about Chris’ girlfriend Natalie recently and that Mike had argued with him in the parking lot the other night. “Mike said you hit him,” one of the officers said. “What?! That’s crazy. I didn’t hit him!” misunderstood and persecuted Chris said. “I don’t know what his problem is, but I wish that he would just stay away from me and Natalie. He’s harassing both of us!” The officers exchanged a look and asked a few more simple questions before leaving with the warning “You should stay away from Mike and his family. We’ll get this sorted out and we may be back to ask you more questions.” Chris said “Okay, believe me, I don’t want anything to do with that guy.” The officers gave us one more long look and left. Chris closed the door and turned to me with his finger over his lips. He knew me and the flood of words that was coming.

In the end, we had a falling out with our other roommate and we moved home near the end of the school year. Chris had come home early from school and found our roommate having sex with another guy right there in front of him when he opened the apartment door. He had promptly shut the door and come to find me and tell me about it. We decided to talk to the guy about it and figure out how to handle it afterwards. When we got back to the apartment late that evening, the locks had been changed. We knocked, but the door never opened. We stayed with my parents that night. The next day while the guy was at work, I gave Chris a boost to the second floor apartment’s deck and he climbed up to the third floor deck to our apartment and went in through the patio door. He let me in the hallway door and we moved most of our stuff out and left. The roommate had stolen a lot of our things and it was really annoying, but we decided just to cut our losses and be done with it. I was really upset that he stole my Led Zeppelin “Houses of the Holy” CD. Jerk!

Chris never replaced the golf club and the police never came looking for him. I will never understand how he got away with that rampage. There were no repercussions from the punch or the clubbing except for the fact that Natalie broke up with Chris for being so violent and started dating Mike. I did not see that one coming. Karma?

(How long is this going to go on? He hasn’t even gotten to the peeing parts yet! Who cares about your stupid Zeppelin CD!!)

I did a lot of sleep walking and talking until my early twenties. My family and roommates, including Chris, gave me reports of my nocturnal activities. Sometimes I would wake up in a different room from where I went to sleep. This was disorienting. Usually, when I was little, I would just walk into my parents’ room and ask them for orange juice or stuff by pillows and blankets behind their door and start crushing them over and over again until they put me back to bed. One night, while crushing my bedclothes, my Mom asked me what I was doing. She said that I turned to her and said “I’m putting my blankets behind the door.” in a voice and with a look that suggested she was a complete moron for asking because it was so obvious. She thought that was pretty funny when she told me about it years later. In one incident, while my parents were having a party with some of their friends, 2nd or 3rd grade David walked out into the middle of the kitchen and peed in the trash can in front of all of them. My parents did not find this to be nearly as amusing. Another time, while my Dad was watching the Twins game, ten or twelve year old David walked out of his room and down the hallway toward the living room. As my Dad looked up, he said that I opened the door to the basement, undid my pants, and peed down the basement steps. After finishing, I put everything back in its place, closed the door, and went back to bed. Of course, my Dad did nothing to stop me and eventually went and got my Mom to clean it up. She was not pleased with me or him. After they told me about it the next morning, my Mom was still disgusted and asked my Dad “Why didn’t you stop him?!” “I was watching the game,” he said. I always found out about these incidents the next morning or even years later. It was like there was another me that was operating behind my back and using my body without asking permission. It was disconcerting.

Around that same time, my best friend Nick dared me to pee on the neighbor’s electric fence. I think he offered me five bucks, even, so I pretty much had to do it. I started peeing and nothing happened. Nick was laughing and he decided to join me and we were both peeing on the fence for a moment until the charge came around. Maybe the farmer saw us and quickly ran and turned up the power. Mr. Melvin Hanson would have done that for sure and gotten a good laugh out of it. This is the same man that shot my “killer dog” that was “trying to kill his goats”. It was a wiener dog. He had used a shotgun. The dog had survived despite the vet saying there was nothing he could do for him and sending us home with a “Good luck.” My Dad was angry about that for years and made a comment to Mr. Hanson about it whenever he had the opportunity. Anyway, when the electrical charge came around, both Nick and I were knocked to the ground and I think that I lost consciousness for a moment. I remember our shoulders bumping as we were peeing and laughing and then I was on the ground and wondering what had happened. What I’m saying is that I’m pretty sure I got knocked out with an electric charge that came through my penis. That sounds even worse now that I’m typing it out here. Regardless, no harm, no foul, Mr. Hanson. Let’s move on.

My Dad and I picked up my Uncle John one time and we were bringing him over for supper. He needed to pee and he asked my Dad to stop, so he swung into a filling station and parked by the door. Looking back, I think it was just a repair shop because they were closed when they should have been open and my Uncle was disgusted because you needed a key for the bathroom door and we couldn’t get it. He looked down at me and said “Come on…” as he gestured toward the back of the station with his thumb. When I got around the corner, he was already pulling his equipment out and starting his business while he grumbled about the place being closed. He told me to do the same, so I did. Then he turned and started peeing on a car that was parked there and he told me to do the same, so I did. He said “We need to teach them a lesson.” I don’t think they learned anything from this urine assault, but it sure made John feel better. Again, I felt like a criminal and that the police would be coming at any moment to put us in jail for our wild urination. They didn’t, but as we walked back to the car my uncle tapped me on the shoulder and he gave me a wink and a smile as he looked down at me. I smiled back and I felt like we had a funny secret after that.

After sleeping in the NBC building in Manhattan one night because we couldn’t afford a room, I really had to pee. One of my companions who was from another borough of the city, said “Just pee.” I was confused, so he explained “Just find a place and pee. People do it all the time. There’s nowhere to pee in this fucking place.” So, taking his advice, I sneaked behind a large planter at 2020 Rockefeller Plaza right by the golden statue of Prometheus and started peeing a long, strong, and satisfying morning pee. As soon as the first drop hit the ground, the guy started pointing at me and yelling “Hey! What are you doing?!! HEY! There’s a guy pissing over here!! He’s just pissing everywhere!! HEY!!!!” His shouting went on as long as the peeing did. I started laughing out of embarrassment because dozens of people were now looking at me and also just because it was really funny which made it harder to finish. I felt like I peed for about five minutes rather than the 30 seconds it probably lasted. Again, I was not arrested and the only thing my buddy got was the satisfaction of pulling a really good prank and a hard punch in the arm.

Most are separate. One is together.

One night in High School, Chris and I were driving around in his yellow Mustang and bored. This was often the case and we would just drive around and look at stuff while listening to music on cassette tapes and talking. Suddenly, Chris had an idea and he headed north out of town toward Rush City. He eventually made a series of turns and we ended up at the end of a bridge that crossed over Highway 35. We’re talking about US Interstate 35 that runs from Duluth, MN to Texas. This bridge was out in the country and had no on or off ramps attached to it. It had a dirt road on either side of the freeway and the bridge deck was also covered in gravel. It was probably only used by farmers whose land had been divided by the freeway construction. Chris jumped out and started walking up the bridge. “Where are you going?” “Come on!” he said. As we got to the other side of the bridge, I realized where we were and then I saw Chris unbuttoning his pants. “What are you doing?” “I’m going to pee on some cars,” he said. So, we did. We undid our pants, climbed up onto the wall of the bridge, and peed down onto the southbound lanes of I-35 as cars streamed past. We were both laughing really hard and it’s surprising that we didn’t fall onto the freeway and get run over with our pants around our ankles. The honking horns and perturbed stares of the people looking up at us with their necks cranked to peer out of their windshields made us laugh even harder. It was amazing to watch our 20 foot long urine streams arcing to the pavement as the cars and trucks and boats plowed through them. It was 1988 and there were no digital cameras or mobile phones to capture our shameless urine attack. I pity the boy that tries this today. His parents and the police along with Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and probably his disappointed Grandmother would know before he got home. But, Chris and I got away with this dastardly deed.

After our freshman years, Chris and I went to different schools and we drifted apart. I think I only saw him once or twice after that and it was a little awkward because we didn’t really know each other anymore. And, even in the social media age, we have somehow managed to not find each other again. I hope he is still fighting, but I also hope he’s fighting for better things and using his tremendous strength for the good. I’m also pleased to report that Nick and I have both fathered children which is reassuring in light of our shocking past. But, Uncle John, my Dad, my wiener dog, Mr. Hanson, and his goats have all passed on. It has been a really long time since I’ve walked in my sleep, but I continue to talk and I’m happy to report that I’ve passed sleep walking and talking on to the next generation. I still haven’t replaced that dang Zeppelin CD. But, I’m sure that Grandpa David will be watching the Twins some fine Minnesota summer evening in the future while one of his grandsons is peeing God knows where and with whom. “A man reaps what he sows.” as the Apostle Paul wrote.

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The Danise Setup: Betrayal and Near-Fatal Embarrassment in Mankato. (Including an accidental elevated mooning.)

Why do people get embarrassed? I don’t get embarrassed much if at all anymore. I think that’s probably not normal. Is it something that fades with age or does it demonstrate some hole in my character? Is it an achievement? I’m not sure.

On a fishing trip to northern Saskatchewan years ago, a friend from Nebraska half-jokingly told me that my utter lack of reverence for anyone was my only redeeming quality. It’s not that I hold most people in contempt. On the contrary, I respect most people and even if their lives or beliefs or choices upset me, I can talk with them or spend time with them and I would honestly like to see everyone happy, healthy, strong, and safe. I usually wonder how people got to where they are and what has brought them to this point. In other words, I have a hard time hating anyone or holding a grudge.

I had one of the most embarrassing moments of my life on that trip also. Our cabin was full of mice and I think that I would rather spoon with Hitler than be surrounded by mice skittering around me all night in the darkness as I’m trying to sleep, so I got up REALLY early the second morning of our trip and drove about 40 miles to the nearest town, Creighton, to buy a bunch of mouse traps. (I caught tons of mice every day and we ended up putting them on a boulder next to the cabin and watching the bald eagles swoop down and grab them.) On the drive, I hit seek on the radio in my Suburban and there were zero, count them, ZERO FM stations within range. You could say this was a sparsely populated area. I flipped to AM and hit seek and landed on a local news station that was talking about corn and wheat prices, so I hit seek again. The radio swept all the way around the dial and came back to the hog report on that same station. One AM station. So, I listened. Part of the news in that area is a charming segment called “The Bear Report”. This isn’t a person’s name like Sheila Bere or Herbert Bare. We’re talking about the large mammals here. There are so many bears in this area that they have a regular segment on the news about sightings, attacks, and general bear mischief. As I was listening, the reporter almost casually reported that four people had been killed by bears recently and he described how a mother with two children had been attacked at a park while having a picnic and that they and a runner who had seen the attack and attempted to help them had all been killed by a grizzly. This nightmarish bit of news radically changed my pooping plans for the duration of the trip.

I am very regular and we were in an extremely remote part of the world and the previous day I had asked to be dropped off at the shore of the lake where we were fishing so that I could eliminate some waste. To get some privacy, I walked WAY out into the woods and did my duty. I even covered it up in case there were bears in the area because the smell is said to attract them. News flash: THERE ARE BEARS THAT KILL PEOPLE ON A REGULAR BASIS IN THE AREA. Consequently, I decided that I would not be venturing deep into the woods anymore, so the next day when I asked to be dropped off my plan was to stay somewhat close to the shore and find a secluded nook.

My obviously constipated boat mates were disgusted with my regularity and had made a stink (he he he) when I asked to stop for a toilet break, so they pulled up to the side of an island that was nearly a sheer rock face and told me to climb up there if I needed to go so badly. Well, I enjoy rock climbing anyway and I really did have to make a deposit, so I climbed. The other side of the rock face was a little steep too and I ended up sliding down part of it and getting a little disoriented, but I eventually found a little ravine to fertilize and I grabbed a small tree to steady myself and leaned over it and did my business. Done, I found my way back to the rocky part of the island and stood on top of it looking down at the boat and my friends. They were not fishing. Or eating. Or relaxing. They were all just silently staring up at me. I said “What?” with my palms facing upward. They just stared. “What’s going on?”, I said. “Just get in the boat”, one of them said. I thought they were still upset about the interruption to their fishing and that I had taken too long. When I got in the boat I asked again “What’s going on?” and my minister friend said “You know what!” and added “You’re really something else.” as he shook his head. I was confused and continued to question them and get no answers, so I just went back to fishing and forgot about it.

That night at supper with about 15 guys sitting around a large banquet table, we had finished eating and were enjoying a drink when my friend sat back in his chair and said to the whole table “Well, I saw something pretty disturbing out there on the lake today. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wipe the memory of it out of my brain.” What was he talking about? I was confused. I had been with them all day and hadn’t seen anything disturbing. He went on to tell the group about how I had asked them to drop me off to poop and that they were annoyed with me because I pooped so often and wasted their fishing time. Where was this going? My friend went on to describe how I had climbed the rocks and gone off into the woods. A few minutes later, while they were fishing and minding their own business, one of the guys had spotted something white through a small clearing in the woods and called their attention to it. “We didn’t know what it was at first and then we realized that this weirdo was mooning us. And then it got worse. Much worse!” This is the point at which the embarrassment hit me like a large safe dropped from a plane. I protested earnestly that I hadn’t meant to do it, that I had just gotten disoriented in the woods, that I was afraid of bears, that I wouldn’t dream of mooning them OR pooping at them, that I never even saw them, but it was a lost cause. I had mooned them AND pooped while doing it and it had been intentional. That was the narrative in their minds and I’m pretty sure that they all believe that to be the truth to this very moment. In this case, let me assure you, I was embarrassed.

With his “utter lack of reverence” comment, my friend was referring to the fact that I don’t hold anyone up above anyone else. Maybe this is why I don’t get embarrassed much. I don’t worship celebrities. I see people as people regardless of their occupation or income. My Dad sometimes talked about his cousin’s husband who was fabulously wealthy, but he treated “a bum on the street the same as the President” he would say. I always remembered and admired that. We don’t choose our birth circumstances or genetics or a lot of our inputs, right? Of course, I like certain people more than others and I admire some of them and dislike a few, but you get the point. My friend is a very successful minister and has written many books and spoken to countless people all over the world for decades. His knowledge is vast. He is a dedicated, kind, generous, interesting, and funny guy and I respect him a lot. He’s one of the better people I’ve ever known.

However, on the day before he commented on my one redeeming quality, he was acting like a jerkface. I’ll spare you the details, but the bottom line is that he was being inconsiderate, a little arrogant, and pretty annoying. And, it ticked me off. As we were eating at a KFC in Flin Flon, Manitoba, I reached my boiling point and I partially released the Kraken.

Let me just say here that I don’t get mad very often or quickly, but when I do get angry it’s generally pretty bad. Long fuse, big bomb. There was no atomic blast at the KFC, but I did raise my voice and loudly mock my friend as I imitated and pointed out his behavior in front of everyone. Not my finest hour, but I did make my point. He asked me if he could speak with me privately outside and I raised my mock-shaking hands and said “Oh, no. Are we going fight?” in a quavering/mocking voice. He said, “Please stop. Can I just talk to you outside?” So, we went outside and he said that he didn’t appreciate my behavior and I mentioned that I didn’t think his was so great either. We chatted about it for a few minutes and he ended up apologizing and saying that I was right, but that he didn’t like the way I had pointed it out. I also apologized for losing my temper and we metaphorically kissed and made up. On the way back into the restaurant, he said “You’re something else, you know that?” This is the guy that was a professional bull rider, carries a bottle of Tabasco sauce in his coat’s breast pocket, and has a glass eye. Anyway, he explained our discussion to the others, apologized to the larger group, and changed his behavior. It ended well and he thanked me for having the guts to confront him because apparently a lot of people don’t do that due to his perceived status or celebrity in certain circles. This was the setting in which he told me that my utter lack of reverence for anyone was my only redeeming quality. I sincerely hope that I’ve developed some others since then. And, maybe this lack of embarrassment trait is one of them.

My path in life has been a fairly bizarre one. My intention as a youth was to be an English teacher. I love words, creativity, books, poems, passion, theater, art, music, and reflection. (Today, I am a supply chain analyst. Words, books, poems, passion, and reflection don’t visit me on a daily basis at my job other than through my VanGogh desktop backgrounds, although there is some creativity involved. I am also a former owner of a few restaurants, production supervisor, printing press operator, carpenter and home renovator, husband, steel tubing bundler, chiropractic assistant, cult member, conspiracy theorist, and overly dogmatic Bible thumper. Former is the key word here.) When I was in High School, my future English teacher self was asked to join Academic Decathlon which is like Speech on steroids and meth at the same time. We competed with other schools by giving speeches, taking timed tests in various subjects, extemporaneous speaking, interviews, etc. There were ten separate events, hence decathlon. We met after school and trained for these events and we practiced both in and out of school. It was challenging, but we did really well one year and qualified for the State Academic Decathlon competition in Mankato which was quite an accomplishment to us at the time being from a town of 1,200 souls. I think we finished third or fourth.

On the trip, we stayed at a Hilton or Marriott in Mankato and shenanigans were planned by my friends and teammates after the lone chaperone retired for the evening. Uncharacteristically, I declined and argued that we should all go to bed early and get a good night of sleep for the competition the next day. The concensus was that we were going to get crushed by the larger schools anyway, so why bother? We argued and I was denounced as being lame, but I ended up going to bed. There were three other guys staying in my room ‘s two queen beds and I staked out my spot, stripped down to my white Fruit of the Loom briefs, and crawled into bed. To this day, I usually fall asleep in about five minutes and this particular night was no exception. It did take slightly longer, as I recall, because of the strange pillow/bed, my nervousness about the next day’s competition, and my guilt for not running around and terrorizing Mankato with my friends. Regardless, I was asleep shortly after going to bed.

Some time later I was partially awakened by the door opening and whispering voices. I vaguely heard footsteps and some muffled laughter and I tried to ignore it. Moments later someone climbed into bed with me and I kept trying to relax and fade back into darkness. Then a slow hand and arm moved over my side and stomach. What the heck?! Suddenly, the top sheet and comforter were violently ripped off the bed and the lights came on along with a barrage of flashes. I looked around in dazed horror as my eyes adjusted and I realized that I was in bed with a beautiful young girl wearing something like lingerie. Her name was Danise and she was another member of our team and a friend. I further realized that the bed was surrounded by my friends and, worst of all, the girl who I was infatuated with and awkwardly trying to date at the time. And, several of them had cameras. The flashes were from camera flashes that were flashing regularly. I think I was 16.

I have a pretty good memory, although memory can play tricks on you and events can be slowly twisted or distorted or embellished over time, but I honestly have no memory of exactly what happened next. I remember Danise becoming very embarrassed too which the pictures that circulated around our group and around the school would also testify to. I don’t think she had thought the whole thing through completely. I didn’t see all of the pictures because I think the takers were afraid that I would attack them, take the pictures, and destroy them. I also vaguely remember lunging for the covers and having a tug of war with someone over them and then wrapping myself in them very tightly. Regardless, for a young boy with self-esteem issues to start with, this event produced nearly fatal embarrassment. Most of my close friends and most of the girls that I had crushes on had just seen too-tall, super skinny me with bed head and in my underwear. Since then, I’ve had years at a time where I’ve not recalled this event and then I’ll see a picture from that era or a reference will be made to Mankato and the memory will pop up in its tighty-whiteys like a thin white apparition with a mullet. Memory is a labyrinth.

Back to the initial question: Why do we get embarrassed? I believe it’s at least partially because we’ve done something or had something done to us that we feel will result in a loss. Loss of status, hope, control, something desired, respect, something we cherish, etc. In Canada, I felt that I had lost respect and that people thought I was someone other than who I am. In Mankato, I probably felt that I had been betrayed by my best friends while being humiliated and possibly losing the chance to marry and enjoy a lifetime of romance and bliss with Stephanie or Danise or Melanie or anyone else within a 50 mile radius of North Branch. Mankato upset me much more than Canada because I could handle the slight loss of respect of some guys that I cherished as friends much more than I could handle the loss of hope for an idealized life filled with love and joy. Of course, my teenage self had massively overblown the situation, but the point still stands.

I dated Stephanie off and on for three or four years in High School and my first two years of college. She was a great and highly intelligent person and I hope she’s happy now. Even in this age of social media, I have no idea where she is living and what her life has become. I have to laugh when I think of how awkward I was and how frustrated she must have been with me. Sitting in my car in her parent’s driveway, Stephanie asked me while we were having one of our many deep conversations on a date the year following Mankato “What are you the most scared of?” I thought about it and eventually said “Being alone.” I still don’t know where that came from, but she put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me in for a tight hug and said “You’ll never be alone, David.”

In some ways she was right because I have a Super Mom, four wonderful children who I am very close with, and some great friends too. But, she was wrong when it comes to romantic love and that closeness that comes from completely giving yourself over to another person. I tried it twice after Stephanie and I quit seeing each other and both cases ended in damaged hearts all around. It remains to be seen whether Stephanie’s prophecy is ultimately true in that regard.

I believe that we all have the same needs whether we know it or acknowledge them or not. Just like our bodies need their vitamins, minerals, fiber, hydration, exercise, mental stimulation, etc. to thrive, I think there is a primal need for reciprocated love, touch, and acceptance in our lives. Sometimes people try to fill those needs with harmful things that are temporary, like eating spiritual junk food, but it never works or fills them up. I hope that you have your needs met and that you can help others too. This is the definition of being rich and living a good life in my eyes.

My unsolicited advice, for whatever it’s worth:

1, Wear some pajamas if you sleep in a communal hotel room.

2. Survey your bathroom sites carefully and stay out of the deep woods before proceeding with elimination.

3. Seek real love in all of its forms and, if you’re blessed enough to find it, hold onto it with everything you’ve got.

Andrew Wyeth: Christina’s World

I’ve always loved this painting, but she seems so fragile and alone.
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Existential Funkphoria

I get in these moods occasionally that remind me a little of Solomon’s ‘life is meaningless’ passages from Ecclesiastes crossed with a good story from NPR’s This American Life crossed with a Hallmark movie. I called it an existential funkphoria today which is stupid, but I’m going with it. The existential funk/sentimentality hangs out with love and some other good feelings and the ‘what might have beens’ tag along like a third wheel.

It makes me happy to be sad sometimes. I’m happy that I can still feel things and that my heart isn’t hard. That’s why you cry when some people die. You loved them, so the sadness at losing them balances the love. I remember thanking God that I was sad when my Grandma Myrtle died. I was pretty messed up in my head at that time and questioning myself quite a bit and I was happy to realize that I could still feel something real. That’s why I was happy about being a little upset today too, I think. There is always light with darkness.

I took my Super Mom on a road trip from somewhere near the Wisconsin border to St. Cloud for breakfast. Why is it exciting to drive 75 miles for breakfast? Several reasons. I got to spend hours in conversation with my Mom while driving through some sentimental and beautiful countryside and there was a pretty great breakfast at The Place waiting at the other end. (If you haven’t been to The Place in St. Cloud for breakfast, I recommend it. The outside is kind of creepy, the inside is refurbished with a side dish of gritty, and the food is great. If you like potato pancakes, bring several friends who also enjoy them because you won’t even come close to finishing one by yourself.)

Why is my Mom super? Many reasons. My favorite reason is that she was given a year and a half to live about thirty years ago. That didn’t work out for the doctor who is probably dead now himself, but it worked out great for the rest of us. There is also the fact that my Mom is probably the nicest person I’ve ever known. And, she’s funny and has good stories. But, I’ve told you about her before and this post is about funkphoria, dangit!

It’s always sentimental for me to drive through North Branch and think of all the people and memories from that town. I still see the town of 1,200 people from the late 1970’s that I moved to in second grade underneath the one that’s slowly digesting any remnant of it. On the way home, we drove past both of the houses that our family lived in while we resided in North Branch. Cornfields and pastures now grow houses. Those crappy little seedlings that the neighbor planted and my parents laughed at are now towering evergreens that block the view of the farm behind our old house as much as the housing development built in their field does. The Nelson’s round barn is gone, so that view would be diminished anyway. My Mom pointed to a tree in our old yard and said “Mr. Blakeslee planted that tree himself.” I think I was supposed to be impressed, but I have no memory of the man even though the development is named after him. I drove past houses where people named Andy, Rich, Brian, Danise, Steve, Butch, Kurt, Mike, Dell, Dale, and many others grew up. I know “You can never go home”, right? Right.

I was a little shocked and confused by how much the sight of one particular dead tree upset me. I attached a picture of it to this post and you can see the reflection of my Mom in the glass. That was my favorite climbing tree when people had things like that. I climbed so many that I had a favorite is another thought I had. I drove by that today too. It’s dead now and slowly crumbling like that past. Like all of our pasts. It’s now about 1/3 of its grandest size. That tree had a split trunk with a big hole in the middle of it facing straight upward where dumb squirrels sometimes hung out until they realize they were getting wet or that there was a dumb kid climbing the tree. I almost fell out of that tree a few times because I would spook a squirrel out of that hole and it would scare the poop out of me too. The hole was a perfect hand hold for climbing higher, but I never dared to reach blindly for it for fear of getting rabies or at least a nasty bite or scratch.

I hid up there one time when a bunch of young boys, including me, were having a fireworks war. When my brother walked by stealthily hunting me, I lit a pack of fire crackers and tossed them down at him. (This was quite a feat of dexterity because the older boys took the lighters and us younger boys had only matchbooks. Also, I was about fifteen feet up a large tree.) As they sailed perfectly down the back of his shirt, I realized two things: One, this was probably my last day above ground. And, two, I had a very short window of time during the ensuing chaos to get down out of this tree and run. I got down quickly, I ran very quickly, and I somehow managed to avoid being murdered. It was a day of miracles, apparently.

There was another tree in our yard that had a bird’s nest in it every year in the same place. I would climb it and check the nest for eggs. Later, I would climb it and look at the mother bird as she sat completely still on the eggs in the hope that I wouldn’t see her. In my childish way, I thought she was my friend and I talked to her for extended periods and told her about things that bothered me or that I was upset about. I guess this was the therapy tree. I also talked to the neighbor’s cow, so there’s that. Multiple therapists. The bird monologues all ended one summer when the male bird, who I must have mistimed for many years, expressed his dislike of my discussions with his lady. He chased me out of the tree and continued to chase me and my friend Nick across the yard and into the little shed that would eventually become our pig barn. It was really hot in there, but he swooped at us whenever we tried to come out, so we stayed in there sweating for a long time. Eventually, we made a run for the house and I remember yelling for my Mom to open the door. Bird therapy over. At least I still had the cow. (Side note: The cow was eventually slaughtered and the fence became a great lesson on the raw power of electricity when my friend dared me to pee on it. If you ever have the opportunity to discourage a child from doing this, please do so.)

I fell out of the big tree one summer evening around dusk while I was climbing by myself. I landed on an exposed root flat on my back and the wind was crushed out of me. There was a blinding pain that almost made me pass out and I thought that I had broken my back. I started crying out of pain and fear and I was afraid to move. If I tried to move and I couldn’t, it would be true, I guess. I laid there for a long time until it was getting dark and cold. My Mom called for me like Moms used to do. I tried to call back, but my voice was weak and full of tears and fear and she couldn’t hear me. She was too far away. So, I moved and I found that my legs worked. Maybe I had only been badly injured and not paralyzed, I thought. I slowly walked up to the house and I told her about the fall and my back and she rubbed it a few circles and said that she was sure I’d be fine. I’m still not sure about that.

The tree was a pretty good defensive position and I hid up there now and then to avoid a beating. My main tormentor didn’t like to climb trees, thankfully. He would stand under me and threaten to climb up there and get me. Then he would tell me all of the terrible things he was going to do to me when I came down. My patience generally won out and I usually made it to the house.

I also hid in the tree from the bad things that were going on in my house. I cried up there. I tried not to hear the things that were going on in the house when I was up there. I tried to hide up there while my name was being yelled and threats were being offered warning me to get back in the house. In the end, I always had to go back inside.

So, why did seeing the dead tree bother me so much? I’ve driven by that house a handful of times in the decades since graduation and noticed the tree. I remembered it and some of the stories surrounding it, but it never upset me. Was it the fact that it was dead now and decaying? It honestly confuses me.

Solomon said that everything aside from serving God is meaningless, vanity, and grasping for the wind. I guess he was in a bit of a funk at that point too. I don’t claim to completely understand the meaning of Solomon’s words, but as we get older I know we think about the meaning of our lives and in our lives, if any. I didn’t have a lot of meaning in my life in those days, but I had that tree, a bird, the neighbor’s cow, and a friend that knew what was going on. It’s weird, I know, but I have to think that’s why seeing that dead tree shook me a bit. I think I’d feel the same way if I heard that long-ago friend had died even though I haven’t really talked to him since middle school. They were all something good in the world at that time. There is always light with darkness.

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