The older I get, the more I realize it’s all just about food. ~ Me
If you remember the pandemic, you’ll recall the quarantine began in March. That was still winter. There was no outdoor dining then. Indoor restaurant dining was out of the question (and it appears it will be such for the foreseeable future). With warmer weather came the option of eating outdoors. The Super and I soon discovered we were then eating “out” as often as ever. Wednesdays became particularly onerous. Current and past members, and the cast and crew, of the senior men’s morning leagues at the Alexandria Golf Club have been dining together on Wednesdays for several years. And now also on Wednesdays, we have the Alexandria Community Wood Fired Pizza night at the Methodist Church, each time sponsoring a local activity or association. So we eat first at the AGC, then dash over to pick up a pizza (and a dessert pizza) for eating the next day. Uff da!!
[Chef Pat addresses the hungry seniors on the AGC deck. He always asks what we’ll want for the next Wednesday. After the beef commercial this week, meat loaf is up next . . . ]
[So many thanks to Pat, and to our servers this year who somehow always manage to put up with us – Karli, Taylor, and Talia (the latter two now heading back to college) . . . ]
[And then my camera battery died . . . ]
[But continuing on with the smart phone camera . . . ]
[A good crowd of 16 . . . ]
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch. ~ Orson Welles
[This is Talia. How she keeps all our orders straight is beyond me . . . ]
Ahhhh, commercials!
I went into McDonald’s yesterday and said, “I’d like some fries.” And the girl behind the counter says, “Would you like fries with that?” ~ Jay Leno
Anybody who believes that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach flunked geography. ~ Robert Byrne
[And then on to the pizza place . . . ]
[This evening was on behalf of the high school football team. The idea now is to see if they can play in the spring . . . ]
[Nolan Morical (No. 5) is our star halfback. He is a senior this year. My guess is he’s being heavily recruited so I hope he can play this year . . . ]
[Our other star with his paddle in the oven is John Heydt. John and Keven Jansen built the oven and created this program. Kudos to them. And John has a grandson on the football team (and also in 3 other sports) . . . ]
I want my food dead. Not sick, not dying, dead. ~ Oscar Wilde
Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage. ~ Woody Allen
Fish is the only food that is considered spoiled once it smells like what it is. ~ P.J. O’Rourke
Never trust a skinny cook. ~ Iain Hewitson
[John was busy and thus always kept his good side toward me . . . ]
How can a nation be great if its bread tastes like Kleenex. ~ Julia Child
Red meat is not bad for you. Now, blue-green meat – that’s bad for you! ~ Tom Smothers
You better cut the pizza in four pieces, because I’m not hungry enough to eat six. ~ Yogi Berra
[This is a 6 1/2 minute highlight video of Nolan in action. It’s worth watching the whole thing. Just click on the first one that appears after you click on the URL below.]
[BTW, the last run on the video was the Cardinals first play of the year (happened right in front of me). Just held Buffalo, with the top quarterback in the state, to a 3-and-out. After receiving punt, Nolan took a hand off on first down and went the distance.]
[This was re-entered because the last photo is the one that automatically gets featured in the Facebook post . . . ]
The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found. ~ Calvin Trillin
My mom made two dishes: Take it or Leave it. Stephen Wright
A truly terrifying moment is when you realize that people you went to high school with are running the country. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Your planet’s immune system is trying to get rid of you. ~ Kurt Vonnegut
Once there was a time when I inhaled books. It’s not that I don’t like them now, but I generally fall asleep after 3 pages (as evidenced by my abbreviated style of what I laughingly refer to as writing). But in my generally CRS state of mind, I seem to recall that I’ve probably read all of Vonnegut (maybe before 1980) – but it was all back in a previous century of high school and college. He was cool. Then I married into an Indiana family and discovered Vonnegut was from Indianapolis . . .
[This was May 1, 2011, in front of the new Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library in downtown Indianapolis with Jami and the Super. I seem to recall we also visited the original museum. And, as you can see, I was an early proponent of the hoodie . . . ]
The Kurt Vonnegut Booklist
01
Player Piano
1952
(1,6,A)
02
The Sirens of Titan
1959
(1,6)
03
Canary in a Cathouse
1961
(2,4,A)
04
Mother Night
1961
(1)
05
Cat’s Cradle
1963
(1,6,A)
06
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
1965
(1,7)
07
Welcome to the Monkey House
1968
(2,4,A)
08
Slaughterhouse – Five
1969
(1,6,7,A)
09
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
1971
(3)
10
Between Time and Timbuktu
1972
(3)
11
Breakfast of Champions
1973
(1,7,8,9)
12
Wampeters, Foma, and Granfalloons
1974
(2,5)
13
Slapstick
1976
(1)
14
Jailbird
1976
(1,7)
15
Palm Sunday
1981
(2,5)
16
Deadeye Dick
1982
(1,9)
17
Galapagos
1985
(1,6,7.9,A)
18
Bluebeard
1987
(1)
19
Hocus Pocus
1989
(1,7,8,9)
20
Fates Worse Than Death
1991
(2,5)
21
Timequake
1997
(1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8)
22
Bagombo Snuff Box
1999
(2, 4)
23
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
2000
(2, 3)
24
A Man Without A Country
2005
(2, 5, 7, 8)
25
Armageddon in Retrospect
2008
(2, 4, 5, 6, 8)
26
Look at the Birdie
2009
(2, 4, 6, 8)
27
While Mortals Sleep
2011
(2, 4, 8)
28
We Are What We Pretend To Be
2012
(2,4)
29
Letters
2012
(2,5,8)
[This, and all remaining photos, were taken inside the museum . . . ]
[Since the photos were taken in a museum, there was always a sidebar indicating what you were looking at. Thus, I am mostly freed from such undertakings . . . ]
[3rd woman from left (I heard he was into crossdressing then . . . ]
[OK, likely the young suited man in the middle above . . . ]
[The last word in Slaughterhouse Five. The sound “Poo-tee-weet” is a stand-in, a nonsensical noise made by birds that represents the fact that there is nothing intelligible that can be said about war or massacres (enotes.com).]
[Certainly descriptive of the Callecod family . . . ]
[A personal favorite – may be used as an effective emoji where appropriate . . . ]
[Unless otherwise noted, the artwork is Vonnegut’s . . . ]
[Once a moment’s gone, it’s gone forever . . . ]
[Must be some kind of hippie . . . ]
[So it goes. (How do you think it compares with the more recent, it is what it is . . . ?]
[As a soldier in WWII, he was a POW during the fire bombing of Dresden . . . ]
[An avid promoter of human kindness . . . ]
[‘Mr. Rogers’ as novelist . . . ]
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes . . .
[His writing desk was too short? I left him that message accordingly . . . ]
Unusual travel plans are dancing lessons from God . . .
We are what we pretend to be so we must be careful what we pretend to be . . .
[Jami left him a note . . . ]
[The Super perused for book club opportunities . . . ]
[Danny also left him a note . . . ]
[I think we left the bottom three . . . ]
[Brief histories, in brief . . . ]
1920: Alcohol banned in America, but not in Canada . . .
1929: The Great Depression begins. 1939: World War II begins . . .
1944: He is captured by the Germans in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge . . .
May 8, 1945: The war in Europe is over . . .
November 22, 1963: JFK is shot . . .
August 11, 1974: President Richard Nixon resigns . . .
1981: AIDS appears on the U.S. . . .
1992: Bill Clinton is elected . . .
December 9, 2000: That Supreme Court . . . elects George W. Bush . . .
March 20, 2003: President Bush invades Iraq . . .
November 11, 2010: The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is opening in Indianapolis.
1 Billion Years A.D.: The last tree on Earth dies . . .
3.5 Billion Years A.D.: The sun . . . expands into a Red Giant and envelops the Earth . . .
Poo-tee-weet!
[The basics, pretty sure I’ve read all of them . . . ]
[I think I did get a hat?]
[Now that would be fun . . . ]
1959: Kurt Vonnegut publishes The Sirens of Titan . . .
PEACE!
Feb. 11, 1950: KV’s career as a fiction writer is born . . .
Compromises are for relationships, not wine. ~ Sir Robert Scott Caywood
I drink to make other people more interesting. ~ Ernest Hemmingway
The moon and Venus were indicative of what would finally be a lovely weather weekend. We’ve been having good weather mid-week but weather most foul on weekends . . .
[The Super began the day, as she usually does, by raking the lake . . . ]
[It’s a task she obviously enjoys . . . ]
[I have no explanation . . . ]
[I think she talks to the turtles . . . ]
[And then it was off to L’Etoile de Nord winery . . . ]
[Owned and operated by our friends Polly and Dave . . . ]
[About 14 miles north of home . . . ]
[We were last here about a month ago and wanted to bring them some wine bottle packing boxes . . . ]
[A couple glasses of their tasty Marquette, a sleeve of Ritz, and Havarti cheese from Redhead Creamery in Brooten . . . ]
[A view of Lake Irene . . . ]
[So, what’s not to like?]
[For perspective, Irene is 639 acres (a nice size), about twice as big as our neighboring Lake Cowdry and our camp lake in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin . . . ]
[There were a substantial number of boats out fishing at midday . . . ]
[Back inside for . . . refills?]
[All the tables are outside for COVID . . . ]
[The Super’s parked car through the screen window . . . ]
[Pretty much the same view from outside . . . ]
[Settling up with Dave – as they say in the Brit mystery TV shows, we also bought 4 “take away” bottles . . . ]
[A fond farewell to the Star of the North . . . ]
[And exiting by way of entry . . . ]
[Checking with the locals, is that what’s colloquially known as Beer Belly Bay?]
[And past Lure Lakebar, well-attended on a lovely day . . . ]
August 16
By the following morning, the moon and Venus had flipped positions . . .
[This was wine pick-up day at Carlos Creek Winery . . . ]
[This huge backyard deck was new to us – quite an addition . . . ]
[Our guy Anthony Miltich was playing for the pick-up parties . . . ]
[We sampled two of the wineries differently styled merlots – approved of both . . . ]
[Our usual music partners Dave and Karin visit with Anthony . . . ]
[We had to relinquish the deck to the next group of picker-uppers, so we moved up to the Marquette Stage with Karin and Dave for Josie Nelson . . . ]
[Josie believed to be in her 9th or 10th year of performing here . . . ]
[And then she was off to her senior year of pre-med at Concordia College-Moorhead . . . ]
[And she just this month hit the magic twenty-first birthday . . . ]
[And maybe because of that . . . ]
[Her mom & dad . . . ]
[And both grandmas were there to keep an eye on her . . . ]
[Good thing, too. Her fan club (Karin, Dave, the Super, and me) bought her a bottle of Carlos Creek’s finest . . . ]
[For her decade of keeping us entertained . . . ]
Happy Birthday, Josie!!
[As we departed, we visited with the Nicole Mulder, her dad, and husband John . . . ]
[Nicole, of course, is the executive director of Theatre L’Homme Dieu, and Dave and I are both board members . . . ]
[We came home and our new neighbors were still moving in. We caught a glimpse of their “2nd car,” a 1952 Dodge. Well, that led to some stories as the Obert family once owned back-to-back ’52 Dodges . . . ]
[These cumulonimbus cloud shots are really from the 15th . . . ]
[Just liked the idea of finishing with them.]
In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria. ~ Benjamin Franklin
Hope springs a kernel. ~ William Shatner on Boston Legal
[Two years later we were back in the great American Southwest. I must have been experiencing an aversion to water. Back to Tom and Anne’s place in the Hills of Lakeway, Texas . . . ]
[Their place from the outside . . . ]
[And from another part of their outside. Their place was our inspiration for tile floors with in-floor radiant hear and for finished garage floors . . . ]
[Fredericksburg, Texas, as I recall . . . ]
[Yup, in the Texas hill country . . . ]
[Then just a hop, skip, and a major leap to Tucson, Arizona. Sue Detrick was a colleague of the Super’s with the Department of the Air Force . . . ]
[Lotsa prickly stuff in this area . . . ]
[We were heading for a car climb of . . . ]
[Mt. Lemmon . . . ]
[When life hands you Lemmons, make a desert . . . ]
[You have to drive well past Osakis to get a landscape like this . . . ]
[Rather clear why the original pioneers blew right on through . . . ]
[At least one doesn’t have to rake leaves in the fall . . . ]
[I wonder if this air quality cleared during COVID?]
[And now it’s Sun City Grand, Arizona, with old D.C. buddy, Bob Gilbert, and Diane. Bob said he never has to mow . . . ]
[Minnesota tourists . . . ]
[Bob said it rained here once in 1938 . . . ]
[Old golfing buddies, with the emphasis on “old” . . . ]
Many thanks, you guys!
[And then, amazingly, we ran into Basketball Dan in Scottsdale. There must have been a basketball tournament in the area. Anyway, this was considered the chi-chi restaurant in the day (name forgotten in the fog of time), and we sat outside to be away from smokers (both of them extremely sensitive such). But there was a smoker outside a couple tables away and a complaint was registered. I believe the response was, “You must be a couple of Minnesotans . . . “]
[The view from the hotel window, where I have no idea . . . ]
[Downtown Phoenix, the temperature was . . . hot?]
[And finishing again at Uncle Tom’s and Aunt Mary Kay’s place in Desert Mountain . . . ]
[Remember the Echo would put your picture in the paper of you reading the paper in some faraway place with a strange sounding name . . . ]
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. ~ Albert Einstein
This time, I think, I’m finally wrapping up the magical year of 2004. I’d forgotten all this stuff . . .
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. ~ Carl Sagan (Editor’s note: So, here it is . . . )
[Visiting friends Tom and Anne Kiehne in Austin, Texas, overlooking Lake Travis at some obviously fine dining establishment . . . ]
[And another view of the lake (a/k/a the Colorado River) in the other direction . . . ]
[Downtown Austin as seen from where I’m taking the picture from . . . ]
[Self-explanatory. Did I mention Tom was a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Texas?]
[Waiting for more fine dining with the Kiehne family at . . . the Oasis?]
[And now we’re in San Antonio (same state as Austin) with Dick and Sandy Dush. Sandy and the Super were long time office mates in the Pentagon. Dick, as I recall, a retired Air Force colonel . . . ]
[Their backyard . . . ]
[Their frontyard . . . ]
[Downtown San Antonio as seen from the place from which I took this shot . . . ]
[Whoa, something tells me we’re not in Texas anymore . . . ]
[OK, this is another clue . . . ]
[Yup, Gooseberry Falls (not in Texas) . . . ]
[Gooseberry Falls State Park is a state park of Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior . . . on scenic Minnesota Highway 61. The park surrounds the mouth of the Gooseberry River and includes Upper, Middle and Lower Gooseberry Falls (Wikipedia).]
[The Minnesota Legislature authorized preservation of the area around Gooseberry Falls in 1933, and the area was officially designated Gooseberry Falls State Park in 1937. The rustic style resources in Gooseberry Falls State Park were constructed by the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1934 and 1941 (Wikipedia) .]
[An ‘island’ or isle is any piece of sub-continental land that is surrounded by water (Wikipedia).]
[The Super is on the land and, thus, is not an island . . . ]
[Split Rock Lighthouse . . . ]
[Split Rock Lighthouse is a lighthouse located southwest of Silver Bay, Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. The structure was designed by lighthouse engineer Ralph Russell Tinkham and was completed in 1910 by the United States Lighthouse Service at a cost of $75,000, including the buildings and the land. It is considered one of the most picturesque lighthouses in the United States (Wikipedia).]
[Noted as among the most picturesque delegates at the Duluth DFL state convention . . . ]
[The Real Deal . . . ]
[The timing of this post is such that it’s occurring in the same week we lost Adrian Ledermann at age 83 (second from the left sitting next to Shelly Karnis). Adrian was a long time chair of the Douglas County DFL in addition to being just an all-around good guy. We will miss him . . . ]
[Duluth as seen from (well, you know the drill) . . . ]
[The North Shore is one of the Super’s all-time favorite places . . . ]
TEACHER: Harold, what do you call a person who keeps on talking when people are no longer interested?
HAROLD: A teacher. (Sorry, I thought it was funny . . . )
* I turns out I still had a lot more from 2004. Our 3rd year of retirement and this year really set the tone on how to do it. OK, this post is mostly family diary stuff. You are excused to go watch reruns of Gilligan’s Island.
I looked up my family tree and found out I was the sap. ~ Rodney Dangerfield
[Aunt Pearl and Uncle Ted from Loveland, Colorado, came for a visit. It was by a quite circuitous route – they were somehow in Western Canada, took a train from there to Winnipeg, and then drove to Alex from Winnipeg. I don’t remember how they got back to Loveland? Maybe we mailed them for that was back in the days when the USPS still functioned. But here we’re cruising beautiful Lake Darling on the Moby Obie . . . ]
[And then Cousin Barb joined us from the Cities . . . ]
[Barb once (twice?) won the Resorters, so it seemed a natural for all to go do a little practicing at the Alexandria Golf Club . . . ]
[And Mom joined the fray . . . ]
[I don’t recall how much money changed hands . . . ]
[As the Super gives it a run, that was my Ford Expedition in the background, parked illegally . . . ]
[Then Mom gave it a go . . . ]
[Then it was on to Carlos Creek Winery. Remember this bar configuration?]
A man’s womenfolk, whatever their outward show of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity. ~ H.L. Mencken
[And then it was off to their home in Colorado . . . ]
[While I took off with the pictured “Weakie” for a golf adventure in Minnesota’s faraway north country – the Quarry and Giants Ridge courses in Biwabik . . . ]
[I prepare to hit on this dangerous par 3 . . . ]
[We met some of “Weakie’s” old friends from working days . . . ]
[They were both left-handed hockey players who hit the ball a ton . . . ]
[But “Weakie” and I were able to fend them off with our shorter, but keeping the ball in play, game . . . ]
[And then the Super’s sister Rita came up from Nashville, Indiana, and we visited Aunt Mary Kay and Uncle Tom at their place in North Oaks . . . ]
[They were adding a sun room or porch . . . ]
A cactus doesn’t live in the desert because it likes the desert; it lives there because the desert hasn’t killed it yet. ~ Hope Jahren
[And then, before we knew, we were at Mary Kay and Tom’s other home in Desert Mountain, Arizona. I forget how long they maintained both places before they settled permanently in Arizona . . . ]
[They treated us to a round of golf at one of the multiple courses at Desert Mountain . . . ]
[Where we again run into Aunt Pearl and Uncle Ted . . . ]
[The Super and I switched positions . . . ]
I don’t look like a desert person because I stay indoors most of the day and fool around at night. That’s what the desert animals do – they don’t have a tan either. ~ Don Van Vliet
[Tom and Mary Kay owned an African art gallery, Zuva, in Scottsdale . . . ]
[Most of the art was stone sculpture . . . ]
[In the El Pedregal marketplace . . . ]
[And then to their home, which we loved . . . ]
[The front door . . . ]
[The view . . . ]
[The house from the road . . . ]
[African stone sculptures both inside and outside the house . . . ]
[And several patios – each bedroom had its own . . . ]
[Outside looking in . . . ]
[The main patio . . . ]
[With a forever pool and view . . . ]
[Not too shabby a place for a party . . . ]
[And a hot tub . . . ]
[Kitchen eating area . . . ]
[Dining room . . . ]
[Loved his office . . . ]
[And more golf?]
[No sun?]
I like the desert for short periods of time, from inside a car, with the windows rolled up, and the doors locked. I prefer beach resorts with room service. ~ Anne Lamott
I grew up in Arizona. I love it. I’m a part of the desert. I feel like, really, I’m from the Sonoran Desert, which is – extends to both sides of the border. I’m really from that part of Mexico, also. And I hate that there’s a fence, you know, running through it. ~ Linda Ronstadt
[This was fun!]
I always thought the desert was the antithesis of peace – something that attacks you. So you don’t go to the desert for peace. ~ Sam Shepard
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. ~ Dave Barry
The Resorters Golf Tournament has historically been the highlight of the Alexandria summer season. We always used to comment that the town seemed to go dead at the end of Resorters week, that summer was somehow over. Well, as you may be aware, this has been somewhat of unique summer – in a way it has never begun. So, the Resorters, the 99th annual by the way, came and went and it seems nothing has changed . . .
August 3
[Tourists come to town for the Resorters from places hither and yon . . . ]
[The weather forecast for the week was magnificent. We are usually at Indiana University summer camp at this time of year (also always the first week of August), so we looked forward to attending the golf tournament for the first time in years – hiding out behind the 9th green, far from the madding (and possibly infectious) crowds. Here’s the Super on the first day of qualifying . . . ]
[The area around the clubhouse putting green, scoreboard, and food tent was singularly uninviting for health reasons . . . ]
[Looking back up the 9th fairway from our vantage point . . . ]
[The course, as usual, was beautifully groomed by Donnacha O’Connor and his staff . . . ]
[Yes, I know Gretch – where are the masks? They had to worn inside, and I don’t think any food was served or available inside all week . . . ]
I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it. ~ Rogers Hornsby
[Our box seats in a great location. We had a lot of old friends we hadn’t seen for a while drop by for a chat . . . ]
[And here come our first golfers . . . ]
[These were some of the top level women golfers . . . ]
The reason a pro tells you to keep your head down is so you can’t see him laughing. ~ Phyllis Diller
[Speaking of Donnacha, here he is caddying for his daughter Aisling . . . ]
[Aisling and her older sister Ciara are on the Alexandria high school golf team . . . ]
[Ciara upset the #1 seed in match play but I didn’t get to see her play. The golf season for her senior year was cancelled, but she will play for St. Kate’s next year (COVID permitting). Aisling will be back for the Cardinals . . . ]
Golf appeals to the idiot in us and the child. Just how childlike golf players become is proven by their frequent inability to count past five. ~ John Updike
[Donnacha’s a pretty good golfer himself . . . ]
[But I don’t know if he can beat his daughters?]
[I hope dad gave her a good read . . . ]
The most important shot in golf is the next one. ~ Ben Hogan
[And we’ll call it a day . . . ]
August 4
[Match play begins . . . ]
[We’re at the 10th tee. Erik Schultz of Salty Dogs fame is at the mic announcing the players, which in this instance included our partner in music, Dave Berg, on the left, and his opponent next to him, Pat Ellingson, grandfather of multiple Cardinal girl hockey players including an upcoming twin riding in the golf cart with him . . . ]
[And Karin Berg, generously sharing her cart with Dave . . . ]
[The Super sharing some final advice with Karin . . . ]
[And Erik sends them off . . . ]
[Here goes Dave . . . ]
[Not too bad for an elderly gentleman . . . ]
[The Super, sharing the frame with a lovely garden . . . ]
[The garden, not sharing with the Super . . . ]
[We wandered from the 10th tee to the 11th green (18th green on the right) . . . ]
[Looking back across the 18th fairway and County Road 42 to the putting green . . . ]
[Abreast of the 11th green shooting up #17, a par 3 . . . ]
[A closer upper view of 17th green activities . . . ]
[Here comes Dave again, hitting his 2nd shot on #11 . . . ]
[And we have contact . . . ]
[11th green, Dave won to take a 2-up lead . . . ]
If you think it’s hard to meet new people, try picking up the wrong golf ball. ~ Jack Lemmon
[And here comes another friend, Al Grundei, coming up #11 after Dave . . . ]
[And we have contact . . . ]
[Dave on the 12th tee . . . ]
It took me seventeen years to get three thousand hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course. ~ Hank Aaron
The only sure rule in golf is he who has the fastest cart never has to play the bad lie. ~ Mickey Mantle
[Looks OK . . . ]
[Again, at the confluence of the 11th green and the 12th and 17th tees . . . ]
[Another dining tent between the 16th green and uphill to the 17th tee . . . ]
[Dave’s 2nd shot on 12. He went on to win his match against Pat . . . ]
Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at. ~ Jimmy Demaret
[Thank you Dr. Sandra Johnson for my Gopher mask!]
August 6
[We didn’t make it back to the Resorters for the rest of the week. It turned out the weather forecast was a little too optimistic. We had decent weather for our Fat Boys morning stroll, and then . . . ]
[The sun came out again that evening for Tuesday Night Club at the Garden Bar. Here trumpet player extraordinaire, Bill Riggs, models his new T gifted by wife Anne . . . ]
[Terry and Bill were joined for the evening by old stable mate, Al Lieffort . . . ]
[Another fun night in the alley . . . ]
[We and the Bergers, on the left, were early arrivals . . . ]
[Evening clouds indicative of . . . ]
[Evening clouds . . . ]
[The regular crowd began shuffling in . . . ]
[Let there be music and laughter and wine . . . ]
[But most importantly, let there be ramen . . . ]
[And music, again . . . ]
August 8
[On Resorters championship day, we had a date at the winery with Elsa Lee . . . ]
[With a cameo appearance by Alia Kopischke’s wedding . . . ]
[Alia was one of our favorite hockey players, Class of 2012 . . . ]
[And during her college years she worked at the winery . . . ]
[As did her mom and dad. One might say a family affair . . . ]
[Meanwhile, Elsa took the stage. At least we got there early enough that I could be her roadie. I saw the keyboard in the back of her car. She said she could handle it, she does it all the time. I asked her how much it weighed. She said 40 pounds. I let her carry it. I think I was able to handle her bench seat and mic stand . . . ]
[We hadn’t seen her for quite a while. And as a performer, she hadn’t been able to perform much. A bunch of her schedule was wiped out by COVID of course . . . ]
[And I got a chance for some zoom lens shots with my new camera . . . ]
[My first attempt at a video with the new camera fizzled. Unfortunately, it was “Border Song,” which Elsa knew to be the Super’s favorite. I didn’t know this song was coming when I started to video – but I liked it . . . ]
[Oh, the Bergs did join us, a little late. They had a gig at the golf course. Dave won the Masters Division, 1st fight championship at the Resorters. Not the way he wanted, his opponent had to forfeit because of a death in his family, but his son came up to play with him the last day. It was a total surprise for Dave . . . ]
[She’ll be back for Grape Stomp – weather and COVID permitting . . . ]
August 10
[Technically, the day after Resorters week, but who’s counting? My birthday present, allowing 3 weeks for further aging . . . ]
[The Boys of ’65 returned to the golf course for lunch . . . ]
[The three of us have been meeting for lunch on a monthly basis for several years now. Little Mayo comes up from Burnsville, and we attend various eateries in the greater Alexandria metropolitan area . . . ]
[But of recent times, between COVID and Brad’s various health issues, we’ve only been able to do this a few times in the last couple years
[I picked Brad up, put a bag over his head, and threw him into the trunk for our trip to the club . . . ]
[A final Resorters accounting . . . ]
[And Dave just magically appeared again – to play 9 holes with Karin. He is technically also a ’65er, but he only lived in Alex from 7th through 9th grade and did not graduate here. We did not remember him from them, meaning he likely didn’t try to steal our lunch money . . . ]
[Panorama shot from the deck . . . ]
[And here again is Taylor Breitkreutz. Taylor has been carrying our food here all summer and during the Resorters . . . ]
[Just as she used to carry the puck for the Cardinals (yes, because whom amongst doesn’t like girl hockey players?). She’s soon off to start her sophomore year at the U . . . ]
[And she took our final photo . . . ]
[Live long and prosper!!]
Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into an even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose. ~ Winston Churchill
* But not intentionally. I just happened to find more stuff from 2004. Who knew? That was quite a year considering there were no overseas trips involved. Probably because we were into our 3rd year of retirement and ready to let the good times roll . . .
[Beginning with what was then the new abode on beautiful Lake Darling . . . ]
[You may have figured out by now this was winter . . . ]
[Then a trip to the Cities at the invite of one of the two guys on the other side of the table – Little Mayo Johnson and Basketball Dan Brick – to a new hot restaurant (now of some unknown ethnic origin) as I recall on University Avenue near the U campus . . . ]
[Back home to the ever popular open water from the Lake Cowdry channel created by the strong flow in from Lake Taylor . . . ]
[Whoa! Then back to the Cities (again) for as I recall (again) a fine dining experience at the Golden Valley Country Club at the invite of Alex classmate and neighbor, Kathy Skadsberg . . . ]
[Because of the time of year, I would posit we were in town for an Alex girls hockey game . . . ]
[And then back again to the Alex winter wonderland . . . ]
[And then suddenly, we were in Kansas. Yes, Kansas . . . ]
[On the way to the Hills of Lakeway, Austin, Texas, to visit another high school classmate, Professor Doctor Colonel Tom Kiehne and his wife, Anne . . . ]
[LBJ’s boyhood home . . . ]
[A tree and me on the Johnson ranch . . . ]
[The Super and a longhorn (as you may recall, she speaks cow) . . . ]
[And then on to San Antonio to visit old family friends from both Minnesota and D.C., Liz Lindell and her dad, Wally . . . ]
[On the way home, a stop at the William J. Clinton Library and Museum in Little Rock, Arkansas . . . ]
[Not sure if I ever cared for the Gulfstream trailer design . . . ]
[It’s certainly unique . . . ]
I like that about Republicans: The evidence does not faze them. They are not bothered at all by the facts. ~ Bill Clinton
2004 – a year that will live in infamy in that it occurred exactly 16 years before 2020. I don’t recall much about that year other than I what I have discovered in recently unearthed discs containing photos from that time. I believe this to be the last blog post displaying such. And I appear to have posted the great western driving trip in reverse order of its occurrence. So, we begin here in snowy Minnesota before heading west in the spring.
[Important PSA: I would not recommend a visit to South Dakota at this time. So far, COVID-19 has granted carte blanche to operate in the state . . . ]
[Locals will recognize the Amazon, the channel between Lakes Darling and Cowdry. Because it is running water, it stays open even if the temperature is below zero . . . ]
[Locals will recognize the bike/snowmobile trail, looking SE toward town and passing over the Amazon . . . ]
[Now going for the artsy look . . . ]
[Not too shabby (I always remember this shot). My equipment then was just a snapshot camera . . . ]
[Further along the Amazon . . . ]
[The fish houses on Lake Cowdry from the trail . . . ]
[Shooting the other directions on Cowdry . . . ]
[Oh, the hoars!!]
[Closer upper to the fish houses . . . ]
[Along the trail . . . ]
[And away we go. Everything you need to know is contained in the photo . . . ]
[Pierre, South Dakota . . . ]
[I take a certain amount of pride in knowing that I am one of only three people not from the state who have ever visited the capitol. These were the halcyon days when public buildings were actually available to the public. We walked right in – the doors were wide open – no sign of security guards, no sign of metal detectors, no sign of anybody actually. I cajoled the Super to veer from our westward direction when I saw the sign along the interstate that it was a mere 60 miles north to Pierre – it was a detour well worth taking . . .]
[Badlands National Park . . . ]
[Despite such information terminals, I never discovered what they did that was so bad?]
[A sign of grand canyons to come . . . ]
[A rather unique topography . . . ]
[The Super discovered a bridge to somewhere . . . ]
[Indigenous inhabitants . . . ]
[They were rather sheepish . . . ]
[One notices the diminishment of greenery the further west one goes . . . ]
[An incredible natural rock formation. Not unlike chimpanzees with typewriters being able to replicate Shakespeare in several million years . . . ]
[The flags, however, were man made . . . ]
[Incredible how through the millennia, nature was able to produce the scree field at the bottom of the mountain . . . ]
[And we finish with a human scree field . . . ]
I learned more about the economy from one South Dakota dust storm that I did in all my years of college. ~ Hubert H. Humphrey
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too short a date. ~ William Shakespeare
OK, control yourselves. This is just another trip down memory lane, i.e., a family slide show. In the year already blessed by the driving trip through the great American West, the summer was blessed by the Super being “hit on” at Carlos Creek Winery by Joey Dee of Joey Dee and the Starliters rock ‘n roll fame. We’re thinking of making this into a move (title at the top). Let us begin . . .
[Hard to believe Big Ole’s been in his current location for at least 16 years . . . ]
[This was the summer Grandson Tommy’s (10 years old then) grandparents from Noblesville, Indiana, came for a visit. That’s Tommy with Grandma Fran, above, and with Grandma Supervisor, below . . . ]
[And with Grandpa Ed pontooning on the Moby Obie on beautiful Lake Darling . . . ]
[And Fran. As you can tell by the attire, this was July!]
[I know it was July because . . . ]
[This is the Lake Carlos Independence Day boat parade. Below is our neighbor Dangerous Dan’s extended family from the west coast . . . ]
[And Tommy went tubing. Scared at first, he soon realized that a 50 HP Yamaha pushing a pontoon didn’t give him enough speed . . . ]
[With the Super driving, and Ed and Fran spotting . . . ]
[The Ed joined in – the excitement was such that the camera jiggled . . . ]
[And here’s Fran and Ed and . . . Joey Dee!]
[You remember Joey Dee? If you do, then you know that in 1962 Joey’s “Peppermint Twist” had a summer-long battle for No. 1 on the pop charts with Gene Chandler’s “Duke of Earl” . . . ]
[Fran and Ed hit the dance floor. The yellow-garbed Starliter is Frankie Valli’s brother, Bobby . . . ]
[Then Ed gave the Super a twirl . . . ]
[That’s Joey in the stylish purple suit. Uff da . . . ]
[And then back to the regular and routine activities of grandpas with their grandson. Ed and I never wet a line. As soon as we baited up Tommy, he’d catch something . . . ]
[It’s a monster sunny!]
[Ed enjoying what Minnesota is all about . . . ]
[Checking up on the neighbors . . . ]
[A toast – to Lake Darling!]
[Ed is an avid golfer and was delighted to pose under the Tom Lehman sign . . . ]
[A rare marine mammal – seldom seen in its native habitat any more . . . ]
[Ahhh, the wonderful days spent on the Moby Obie . . . ]
[Morning, all . . . ]
Summer bachelors, like summer breezes, are never as cool as they pretend to be. ~ Nora Ephron
[And with Grandpa Ed pontooning on the Moby Obie on beautiful Lake Darling . . . ]
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