Eat Your Heart Out KLo

I had the most fun on Halloween last night that I've had for many years. We haven't had trick or treaters at our house since Lovely Daughter was a little girl. Then it was just her little friends and my nieces and nephew that would come out. I guess that's what happens when you live in the country.

Anyway, now that Ole is a volunteer fireman, we got to participate in the big "doings" that the fire department puts on for Halloween every year. They open up the fire hall for the community, especially the kids, and serve hot cider, hot chocolate, hot dogs with all the trimmings and give away full-sized candy bars and cyalume sticks for the kids to wear on their costumes after dark. Some of the firemen took the kids back to the garage area and let them sit in the big fire trucks and get their pictures taken. One of the deputies of the county sheriff's department was there with his canine unit named Kooz, a trained attack dog, that slobbered all over the kids when they would come up to pet him. The kids had a ball and didn't want to leave.

Ole dressed up in his turn-out gear to show some of the kids what everything on the uniform was for. Some of the kids even got to try on his jacket and head gear and try out the oxygen mask that the firemen have to wear when they go into a fire.

So eat your heart out, KLo, here's a picture of Ole in his gear.

Kitchen Logic must have a thing about firemen or something because when she found out that Ole was a fireman she BEGGED me to give him to her when I was done with him!! I told her there wouldn't be much left when I got done - actually that issue is questionable right now after 40 years of marriage (just kidding, Ole, just kidding). Or maybe it just has to do with the fact that he's 5' 14" tall!! KLo barely comes up to his belly button (snicker).

So as us adults were sitting around the fire hall between herds of kids and parents that would stop by, we were reminiscing about pranks that were played on Halloween when we were kids. Me, being the only one there that had actually grown up in the area, had a few tales to tell about happenings of years ago in our little town on Halloween night.

Sure, there was the normal TPing, and tipping over of outhouses and such. But the one that took the cake was the year that a bunch of teenagers got together and hoisted a full-sized canoe up to the very top of the steeple on the Catholic church and left it hanging there. Now I'm not going to go into detail about just HOW they got it up there for fear that you'll think I know too much and participated in this little prank (snicker). But it took the elders of the church quite a bit of finagling and several days to figure out how to get the canoe down on the ground again. To this day, only those who participated know who masterminded that prank.

One of the things that impressed me was how dressed up the adults got that were taking the kids around for trick or treating. Some of the costumes were pretty ingenious and involved a lot of work.

I especially love the warts on this witch's face. She even cackled. She was missing her broom but said she had to leave it at home because she needed to carry her little girl's candy bucket. Sounds reasonable to me.

Glad I didn't meet him in a dark alley.

Strawberry Shortcake was an adult - her costume involved a lot of work.




I thought this one was the cutest of all. She wiggled when she walked.



I LOVE the missing teeth! And here's the canine unit. Such a good dogger.

Hope you guys all had a great time. I sure did.

The Snake Handling Minister and Smoking Ole

Ole and I went to a funeral yesterday. The father of a good friend of ours died at the age of 89. He was sitting at a table looking at a photo album with his wife and some friends who were visiting and he just fell over dead. Up to that point he hadn’t had any health problems. What a way to go – no laying around for that Norwegian farmer. I guess it was a burst aneurysm in his heart.

Anyway, it was an interesting funeral if funerals can be interesting. I didn’t think funerals like this took place anymore. It was at a little country church out in the middle of nowhere in a very Norwegian community. The church had been built in 1895, and with the exception of a couple of additions such as an enlarged entry and a large dining room, the original church was pretty much intact.


There had been some updating in the sanctuary, such as lighting, etc. But the original alter was still there, which was extremely ornate and beautiful, along with some of the original lights fixtures. The light fixtures really caught my eye, as they were wrought iron chandeliers that hung from the ceiling each holding six kerosene lamps that were lit. I wish that you could get good look at them, but they don’t show up in this picture, although you can get an idea of what the alter looked like.

Then there was the minister – who still wears the ruffled clerical collar like they used to back in the “olden days.” He was a real fire and brimstone minister, at times speaking in an extremely loud tone of voice and holding his arms skyward. I almost expected him to reach in a box and pull out snakes to handle or something. It was almost that kind of a funeral service.


Then it came to communion, which I’ve never seen done at a funeral before either. At least not at a Lutheran funeral. Instead of communion wafers there were actual loaves of unleavened bread, which were broken in pieces and a piece given to each participant. And a communal silver chalice was used – not the little individual plastics cups. Sorry – but Ole and I didn’t participate because of all the flu going around right now. Just call us germaphobics, but no thanks.

Then of course, there was the big dinner served following the service. You could tell it was a Norwegian community due to the mountains of food that were available – all homemade, nothing store bought. And again you could tell it was a Norwegian community because even though you had your plate loaded with food hanging over the edges the ladies would come around and try to force more food on you. “Come on and eat some more, then.” No wonder they’re all round with rosie glowing cheeks. You couldn’t empty your coffee cup before someone was there filling it again with very stout black coffee, strong enough to eat the silver plating right off your spoon.

So that was the way the morning and early afternoon were spent. Funny, how you can do nothing strenuous and come home exhausted, so that meant a nap in my future. The grand doggers wouldn’t let Ole take a nap because they had been shut up all morning and were raring to go. I’m glad they like Ole better than me in that situation.

Then Ole got a call from Dick that the fire department was having a practice burn last night. Somebody had donated an old house out in the country that they wanted taken down because it was taking up space that they could be farming. So Ole went on his first fire run last night. Have I mentioned that Ole is a volunteer fireman? He was so excited about this drill.

The officers of the fire department went out ahead of the trucks and started the house on fire (bunch of fire bugs). When it was going good they called the fire in and the rest of the guys had to get the trucks going and find the address out in the country. Ole said by the time they got there the fire was hot and unfortunately the wind had come up. When they started this whole thing a 6 p.m. there was no wind. Of course the grass around the old house was tall and dry, and the tree claim along one side of the property was old and rotten with lots of dead trees. So I’m sure you can see what happened next. Ole and his nozzle man were out trying to put water on some of the old trees that had started on fire when he noticed that the nozzle guy’s fire jacket had started to smoke due to the intense heat of all the dry stuff around. Then Dick came up behind Ole and told him that HIS gear was starting to smoke too! So they each got doused with the fire hoses to cool their gear down. So I could have had smoked Ole by the time he got home. Hmmm – wonder if it was apple wood – that always makes the best flavor for smoked stuff. Anyway it was 12:30 before he got home last night. They got all the fires out, had to bring the trucks back to the station, scrub and dry all the hoses and get everything ready in case there was a real fire during the night.

So Ole’s not real energetic this morning – just a bit on the pooped side. And Daisy’s beside herself because she’s ready to get at ‘em but all Grandpa wants to do is sit and drink coffee.