It seems like I have known Marilyn all my life. We first met when I was seven years old and she was Ms. Allen. You see she was my second grade teacher and then lucky for me she became my third grade teacher also. The moment I met her I knew she was special. I was sure I was ‘teacher’s pet’ until years later when visiting with former classmates I discovered they too thought they were ‘teacher’s pet’. She had…..
I think I was a ninth grader when I took typing class. I can still remember the clicking of keys as a roomful of students typed specially prepared typing assignments. The room was filled with the sound of dinging bells a reminder from the student’s typewriter that it was time to return the carriage and start another line of typing. Stress filled the typing room when the dreaded ‘timed typing’ test was administered. Stress was ever present because the number…..
Our county has experienced much excitement this past few months as the estate of a bachelor farmer has been prepared for auction. The actual auction concluded last weekend. You see it was a very unusual auction to say the least! The estate consisted of hundreds of antique cars of all models and years. Also old tractors were included along with hundreds of collector plates. That’s all that the coffee drinking crowd has been talking about for the last six months……
I was scheduled to do an Arts in the Park in Detroit Lakes this last Sunday so I suggested to my wife Kathie, “Let’s go a day early, get a motel and see the sights in that beautiful lake country. It’ll be a mini-vacation!” Kathie readily agreed so I went on line to find us the perfect motel. We didn’t need a big fancy one with all the amenities because we would only be staying for one night and we…..
I had forgotten about this incident that happened fifty-five years ago but a post on Facebook brought the memories rushing back. My criminal past that had long been buried in the recesses of my brain have returned! For the past few days since I watched that post guilt and shame have weighed heavily on my mind. You see the post was a YouTube video from the early 1960’s and featured the men’s chorus of the newly established University of Minnesota,…..
When I was a ten year old farm kid I loved to go fishing. Now that didn’t happen very often in those years for a variety of reasons. The dozen cows had to be milked twice daily seven days a week. The chickens had to be fed and watered. Several times a day the laying hens’ eggs had to be gathered and brought into the house where they were washed and prepared for delivery to the creamery each week. The…..
I didn’t realize it was an intervention at the time but as I look back on the event it is obvious that it was just that. Several years ago I purchased an iPad. My children jumped into action immediately and helped me set it up so that I could become a member of the Facebook crowd. I was excited! I have shared in previous blogs that I am an ‘entertainer’. I was born that way and it’s in my DNA……
After spending thirty-nine years living in the country I have had my sleep interrupted many times by a variety of nature’s alarm clocks. The problem with that situation is the alarm clocks don’t always go off when its convenient for me or my sleep pattern. Take this spring for example. It was 6:00 am, an hour and a half ahead of my normal wake up time when just outside our bedroom window the most awful “rat-a-tat-tat” filled the still morning…..
The message on my iPad read, “Hi!! I have a question for you and you can absolutely say no!! What are the odds the great Mr. Mike would be willing to come out of retirement next Friday?” Do you notice the clever way of using the words “the great” just at the right time in that message? How could my ego turn down such a request? So I didn’t! Cassie sent the message as she was doing my old job…..
“On and off” gentleman farmer might be a strange description when it comes to describing my farming behavior. But it does get across the point that I didn’t fit into the normal stereotypic ‘roll up your sleeves, dig in the dirt’ farmer role. My farming practices had their ups and downs. I grew up on a family farm and that old saying is so true, “You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out…..
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