My Lurker is Back

My Lurker is back. Last time she checked my site she read 8 pages.

You Wordpress users - does Wordpress allow you to ban IP addresses? Blogspot doesn't - at least I haven't found any information about that. And I really don't want to go back to Dland. But I may have to.

Old Times and Stuff

When I was growing up my little town had a two room school. There were 16 kids that started first grade and went all the way through high school together. We were a pretty close knit group, and once we had to transfer from our little two room school to the Big City school in 7th grade, we stuck even closer together. Years after high school graduation I was told by several Big City friends that they always envied us 16 Small Town kids because we always had each other - good, sincere friends.


After high school everyone did their thing, college, military service, etc., and then got married and raised families. Of those 16 kids, 9 of us eventually came back to this community to live - some in our Small Town and several in the Big City just 7 miles away. Over the years we've run into each other by chance - you know - the grocery store, restaurants, etc., and would visit a bit and always make the promise to each other that we were going to get together. You know how that goes - it just never happens.


Well, last night it did. A couple of days ago I got a call from one of the girls that "the girls" were planning a get together at a local establishment for Happy Hour and a good gossip session. There are five of us girls in the area. And we had a wonderful time reminiscing about school days, boyfriends, our adult lives, our kids, our husbands, you name it, we covered it. Unfortunately there should have been 7 of us instead of just the 5. There are a couple of sad stories that go along with this group.


By the way, the pictures below were taken in 6th grade - before we made the jump to the Big City school. I guess we must have been about 11 or 12 at the time, huh?



There were two sets of twins among the 16 kids. Above, left to right are Barb and Bev, obviously identical twins, and to the right is Carol. Carol and Barb were with us last night, but Bev died 9 years ago from thyroid cancer. Barb says she still feels like her right arm has been cut off, even after all these years.


Barb is still married to her college sweetheart, has two daughters and several grandchildren. I don't remember how many at this point. Carol has been married three times. Her first husband committed suicide, and the next two just weren't the right ones. She has two children and grandchildren up in their late 20s.




Doreen(top), a fraternal twin to Donna(bottom). Donna and Doreen were as different as night and day, not only in appearance but in personality also. Doreen was always pretty happy go luck and Donna was always serious. Doreen had a long, blond, curly, ponytail, and Donna had almost black, straight hair that she also wore in a ponytail. Doreen had freckles and Donna had very swarthy skin. Doreen died 21 years ago from skin cancer. She had a spot on the back of her arm that she didn't know she had and by the time she found it, it had already metastisized into her lymph nodes. How sad. She left two young children, and a husband who still has not recovered from her death.

Donna was married several years out of high school to a military man, and that didn't work out. She lived on the east coast at that time, but moved to Nebraska following her divorce. She lived with a man for 26 years but they never married. Then one day he came home from work and informed her that he had met someone else, packed his things and moved out. She was devastated. Shortly after that she decided to move back here where her friends were and her mother still lived. Her mother is getting up in years and Donna thought she should live closer. So she just moved back here last February.

Donna, Doreen and I spent a lot of time together when we were kids. Lots of sleep overs, double dating, etc.

This is Chris. We both got married within months of each other, lived about a mile apart, and had our daughters about two months apart. Our daughters grew up and played together a lot until Chris got a divorce from her husband and moved to the Big City where she was a kindergarten teacher.

I shouldn't even post this picture - it's so terrible. That's me in 6th grade - I looked like a toothpick. Wish I did now - but then that's another story.

Anyway, we had such a great time we decided we're going to do this on a monthly basis. Our next meeting is already scheduled.

Three of the four guys in our "group" are still in the area. One is a truck driver, another a big farmer and the third owns one of the saloons in town. Not the Watering Hole - the other one. So I see the farmer and the saloon owner frequently. The truck driver is on the road a lot, so I rarely see him.

It's really nice to have all these long-time friends.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad

Today would have been Mom and Dad's 75th wedding anniversary.

They were married November 6, 1932 in the parsonage of the little church that my Mother attended. It was a very small wedding with only the witnesses attending, and the minister's wife playing the organ. Not even the parents of the bride and groom attended. I found that a bit strange, but I guess that's the way things were done back then, unless of course you were having a huge wedding production.

I found a newspaper article in one of my Grandmother's scrapbooks about their wedding. It stated that following the wedding the bride's family held a wedding supper at the home of the bride with only immediate family in attendance. Apparently things were kept pretty low key due to the fact that finances were on the short side during the Dust Bowl days and the Depression. The article stated that "there were several toasts to the good health of the bride and groom." I have the wine glasses that were used for the toast by the bride and groom. They're in my china closet, and are tiny things about 4 inches high with a pretty etched design. Both families were tea-totalers, so I'm surprised they had wine at all.

They didn't have a honeymoon but moved immediately to a farm that my Dad was renting. They moved a number of times back in those days before my father finally bought a farm in 1946. He farmed during the dry years and dust storms of the 30s and told of selling big roosters for 15 cents each, and of putting grain seed in the ground for seven years before getting any kind of a crop. He told of his cows eating thistles because there was nothing else to eat, and of banks of dirt blown against the buildings like snow blows in the winter.

They grew up on farms about three miles apart, but I think it's a miracle that they got together at all. You see, my father was Norwegian and my mother was Swedish. Back in those days the Norwegians and the Swedes didn't mix very well, at least not in that community. Dad went to the Norwegian Lutheran Church and Mom went to the Swedish Lutheran Church, which were only two miles apart. Imagine such segregation in THIS day and age.

They met at a barn dance that one of the neighbors had, but to begin with didn't see much of each other. As time went on I guess the flame grew and they were eventually engaged in 1929 at age 24. They were engaged for three years before they got married at age 27 and then waited another four years to start a family.

After my Mom died at age 91 I was going through her things and found the "Warranty" papers on her engagement ring. Dad bought it from Montgomery Wards and it cost $29.95. It has a quarter carat diamond in it with two triangular shaped blue sapphires. And even at that price the stones are for real - I've had them checked out by a jeweler friend of ours. My mother gave me her engagement ring before she died and I have since passed it on to Lovely Daughter, who wears it on a daily basis. It's a very ornate filigree design that seems to be coming back in style. Dad never had a wedding ring as there just wasn't money to do those things, although he was VERY married all his life, if you get my meaning.

My Dad was a rather quiet man with a wonderful sense of humor, who stood over 6 feet tall with curly blond hair. Mom was quite slender with dark curly hair. Her wedding dress was a soft pink. I have both her wedding dress and the shoes that she wore. I have the wedding dress stored away but need to get it out and take it somewhere to have it preserved so it doesn't disintegrate. Someday I just may have a grand daughter who might want to wear it.

Enough reminiscing. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad.

Wanna' Come for Coffee?

It’s snowing out today. And I’m making homemade caramel rolls. Wanna’ come for coffee this afternoon?

Well, it’s not really snowing according to Minnesota standards – just dropping a few flurries thick enough so that you know they are there; not sticking to the ground yet as the ground is still too warm. But it’s a sign of things to come, which could come any day now considering the time of year.

Usually we start our winter weather out with freezing rain. I guess that’s great if you like to ice skate, but not much fun if you’re trying to drive somewhere. About three years ago we had several days of freezing rain that started Thanksgiving weekend. The ice built up so thickly on the power lines, and with the strong winds and the weight of the ice the lines went down. We were without power for six days, and at that time of the year things can get a bit on the frosty side if you don’t have heat in your house. But good old Ole was prepared, as you have to be in our area, and he had three generators up and running in no time flat. We have one big enough to run everything in our house with the exception of the hot water heater, the microwave and the kitchen stove. But we had heat and lights and TV and all those other necessary things. We just cooked and heated water on the gas grille and did fine. A lot better than many folks who didn’t even have heat. He parked one generator over on Lovely Daughter’s deck to heat and light her house, and she has a gas stove, so we did a lot of eating over there. And then the third generator ran the heat in his shop so that nothing would freeze up. At first it was kind of fun – making do – toughing it out ALMOST like the pioneers (snicker). But after the third day it got a little old.

One of our worst blizzards took place before Ole and I were married, although we were engaged. I was working for a court reporter at the time that was a real a—hole, if you know what I mean. Weather warnings had been issued for 24 hours in advance of the storm hitting, but like most Minnesotans you go to work anyway and then head for home when things start to get bad, which was about noon that particular day. I was young and naïve and thought I had to obey my boss, who told me that I had to finish out the day before he would let me leave. I had ten miles to go home over open country roads; he had about three miles through the city. I was a stupid idiot and stayed until 5 o’clock. By that time it was too late and difficult to even get through the streets in town not only due to snow buildup but poor visibility. Ole, who lived in town at that time, called and told me not to move until he got there. So he broke the path in his car and I followed him over to his parents’ house, where I ended up staying a week because that’s how long the storm lasted. Seven whole days. By the end of those seven days it was questionable as to whether I really wanted to marry him or not. But a lot of that had to do with his dad, not Ole. I just didn’t know if I wanted to get mixed up in that family or not. I was driving a 1963 Corvair at that time – a little car – and by the time the storm was over the only way we could tell where it was was by the antenna sticking out of the snow bank. What a job to dig that out. Driving down the streets at that point was like driving through a tunnel. The snow banks were 10 feet high on either side, and the snowplows had cut out indentations in the snow banks for cars to pull into when you met a car, as there was only one lane to travel in. It was such a relief to get home after that storm for many reasons.

Then in 1975 we had a three-dayer. I remember this one vividly because we had just moved into our new house two weeks prior to the storm. We had no wind protection whatsoever – we were just out there for the north wind to hit full force. We didn’t know it at the time, but snow blew through the roof vents up into our attic and lay there waiting for the blizzard to be over so it could melt and ruin the ceilings in our new house. The snow banks were so deep a train got stuck. I think that was the same year the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in Lake Superior due to the storm.

Then there was the year we had so much snow during a blizzard that the roof of the Metrodome collapsed.

The year Lovely Daughter was about 10 years old we had another doozie. She wanted to go spend the night with my sister, who lived in our little town at that time. She had packed her bag and Ole had given her a ride to my sister’s house. While he was gone I happened to look to the northwest and could see this strange looking cloud very low to the ground getting closer and closer. There had been no weather warnings, but I just knew there was something that wasn’t right. Ole had barely driven back into the driveway when I asked him – no told him to go back and get Lovely Daughter and bring her home because we were going to get hit with a blizzard. At that moment a warning came across the radio and he hightailed it back the mile to my sister’s house. He gathered her up, tossed her in the truck and blew for home. As he turned in our driveway a wall of white hit and he couldn’t see the front end of the truck. He made it up our long driveway by “feel.” That storm lasted many days and dropped a lot of snow. I’ve never seen any storm hit so fast since.

Lovely Daughter was still of trick or treating age when we were hit with a storm on Halloween that lasted for several days. Our community postponed Halloween until the storm was over so the kids still got to wear their costumes. It was just difficult getting around in the snowdrifts.

Then there was the winter of 96-97. Eleven blizzards from November to April, and the worst flooding on record that spring. I don’t even want to go there. It was awful.

Boy, this ended up being a long way from making caramel rolls, didn’t it? I often wonder just why we live here.

There's Something Rotten in Ole & Lena Land

Do you want to see something absolutely disgusting? If not - don't read/look any farther. I'm almost embarrassed to show you this, (but I will anyway.)

I had homemade meatballs and gravy with mashed potatoes and other vegies for supper the other night. This is one of my family's favorite meals so of course I invited Lovely Daughter and Lars over for supper. The grand doggers are here all the time anyway, so I didn't HAVE to invite them (ha)! Now, mind you, the doggers are quite well behaved during meal time, so we don't have to put them out of the room at all. They each flop down on the floor, one on each side of Ole, and stay there until we're done eating. No begging, no whining, just making the floor into an obstacle course if you should happen to have to get up from the table to get something.

But when we're done eating it's a different story. How they know when everyone is done I have yet to figure out. But when the last fork is put back down on the table it's like it signals them to get up off the floor and start looking pitiful. And believe me, they are masters of the pitiful look. You'd think they hadn't been fed for a month. And they don't give up until the table is cleared.

So the other night it seemed that everyone's eyes were bigger than their stomach and we all had leftovers on our plates - none of us were members of The Clean Plate Club. So THIS is what happened: Now remember - if you don't like to look at disgusting things - don't look any farther.

There now - do you think they're spoiled - just a little bit? They would eat rocks if someone fed them from a spoon. The only thing we've found that Beau won't eat is broccoli. But Daisy will eat that if she thinks Beau is going to get it. Just a bit of competition there.

Let's see - what else has happened. Not much. Ole started coming down with the Creeping Crud on Friday night, so he spent a portion of yesterday checking his eyelids for leaks. I don't think he found any though, as every time I checked on him he was snoring.

I'm on a roll, too, just like Kitchen Logic, only I'm not doing something CONstructive. I'm being more on the DEstructive side. I've been going to clean the garage for the last month and finally got started on Saturday. Now this is more than just a sweeping up of all the dirt and sand that comes in on the floor. I got so enthused that I started going through all the cabinets that line two walls of the garage and chucking stuff into the trash can or making a pile in the middle of the floor for Ole to take out to his shop. He has this habit of bringing stuff/tools/equipment in from the shop if he has to use it in the house, and then never bringing it back out. Pretty soon the cabinets are full of HIS stuff and I have no room to store things that should be in the garage. So yesterday he got up enough gumption to haul it all back out to the shop. We had half the pickup box loaded with stuff. Now I've even got some empty shelves and drawers.

I'm so excited about this I'm going to go through all my closets and cabinets in the house this winter, too!! And then maybe by the time I get to that point I'll have lost my enthusiasm.

Oh, well. Such is life. Speaking of cleaning and the garage - I better get to it, ya' think?