Ramblings, Reflections, Verse & Genealogy

New Year 2012

2012-01-01T12:01:00.015-06:00

Below is a photo of virgin snow snapped by Humble Blogger's loving wife Rose on New Year's eve just before the stroke of midnight and entry into 2012. So far this winter season there has been a paucity of snow in Minnesota in striking contrast to last year at this time. Finally, we got a beautiful dusting to cover the brown November-looking trees and ground. The photo is from an upper bedroom window of our townhouse past an upper deck rail and overlooking a common grounds area.

Fresh snow for January 1, 2012

Mary, Did You Know?

2011-12-25T08:00:00.044-06:00

Below is an appropriate YouTube Video for Christmas Day 2011. Sung by Donny Osmond, the words were written by Mark Lowry in 1984. The music was composed by Buddy Greene.

This video was uploaded by "sphiatt" on Dec 24, 2006. "I put this video slideshow together for a Christmas program last year... the pictures coincide with the lyrics of this song performed by Donny Osmond." The direct YouTube link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtLCCrEVqPA

Finding Room For Baby John

2011-12-24T08:00:00.045-06:00

First-Born son John arrived in October 1964. It had been our custom on Thanksgiving and Christmas to drive from home in St. Paul, MN to visit relatives in Rochester, MN (some 90 minutes south). On this 1964 Christmas eve, our small 1962 VW Beetle was completely loaded with gifts and luggage as usual and there was little room to put the new baby. In those days cars had neither seat belts or child restraining car seats. Thus, having no knowledge of future legal restrictions, we decided that the perfect spot for young John as we drove to Rochester was in the small carpeted space behind the back seat! This area is nicely shown in the borrowed photo below. Somehow John survived until he grew too big for the built-in VW "crib".

Photo by John Snell © Sunset Classics
(With permission to use in this blog)

Wine: Old and New

2011-12-14T08:00:00.026-06:00

Very Old Wine:

In June 1966, Humble Blogger attempted to make his first batch of Dandelion wine from the yellow petals scattered about the yard at our home in Arden Hills, MN. After the addition of sugar and wine yeast the mash fermented to produce about 12% alcohol but this is where my wine log book ends, so it must have never cleared or spoiled and was never bottled.

I had more luck making Rhubarb wine from stalks pulled from our garden and Concord grape wine from grapes on vines at Grandma W's home in Rochester, MN. The 5 bottles of wine shown below were all bottled on November 10, 1973. While filtering and bottling the wines, I listened to the Watergate Hearings on the radio. Nixon was president for his second term and he resigned Aug 8, 1974 because of the Watergate scandal, Vice President Spiro T. Agnew had already resigned!

The 3 bottles of Concord Grape wine on the left were "made" (i.e. "vintage") from harvest grapes in September 1971. The 2 bottles of Rhubarb wine on the right were "made" using the spring crop of Rhubarb in May 1971. Thus the vintage of these wines is 1971, or 40 years ago! The wine has been stored on its side all this time to keep the corks moist. There is heavy sediment in all the bottles. I bottled the wine using any bottle I happened to have in the house at the time, wrapped lead foil seals over the neck of the bottle to keep evaporation to a minimum and typed labels using my old portable Smith-Corona typewriter. I determined % alcohol (ethanol) content using a vinometer which is a simple capillary device calibrated for various alcohol percentages. For numerous reasons, I abandon wine making after fermenting one more batch of Rhubarb (which I ultimately discarded before bottling in the early 1980's). I would return to making wine after retirement in 2001.

3 Bottles of Concord Grape Wine on the left and 2 bottles of Rhubarb wine on the Right Vintage 1973

Concord Grape Wine Bottle Label Made 9/13/1971 & Bottled 11/10/1973

Rhubarb Wine Bottle Label Made 5/30/1971 & Bottled 11/10/1973

Taste Test of the Concord Grape Wine after 23 years ageing:

I planned to open the bottle when eldest son John made various milestones (graduated from High School, College etc.) but I never did on those occasions. I did decide to open a bottle of the Concord Grape wine in December 1996. The wine from vintage date of 1971 would be 25 years old. Below are some notes I wrote at the time:

1. I opened some "Grape Wine (dry ) 14.4% by volume alcohol" a week or so ago. This is wine I made 9/13/71 and bottled 11/10/73 (23 years since bottling!) I remember the reason for the long delay between making and bottling was that I was letting the wine clear in its gallon bottles after it was made. I remember that I needed to filter it before bottling at that.

2. The wine was full of dark brown precipitate and what was once a red wine was now amber yellow and the cork disintegrated when I opened it. The poured wine was free from precipitates after I poured it through device which had a fine stainless steel mesh filter in it. It was very strong in terms of alcohol content but had not an unpleasant taste.

3. When I stored it in the refrigerator it developed a cloudiness-probably caused by insolubility of the sodium metabisulfite originally added as a preservative (Probably tartaric acid precipitate in afterthought).

4. Today I filtered the wine twice through a coffee filter, cleaned the inside of the bottle just with sodium bicarbonate (the precipitate on the side easily dissolved) , washed the bottle well and poured the filtered wine back in. As the wine warmed to room temperature, it cleared once again. I may have to treat the rest of the 10 bottles or so of wine to the same process.

5. The wine almost tastes like a dry sherry (which is fortified to have between 14% and 20% alcohol)

Son John did visit for Christmas and we celebrated with a toast of the 23 year-old wine.

Wine Ageing Limits:

Don't drink a wine before (of after) its time. French writer Theophile Malvezin is quoted as saying: “Wine is made to be drunk as women are made to be loved; profit by the freshness of youth or the splendour of maturity; do not await decrepitude”

Below (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aging_of_wine) are suggested wine ageing limits from Master of Wine Jancis Robinson. He teaches that when the limits are exceeded, the wine begins to degrade producing off-tastes. Some experts say that most wines are fine to drink during the vintage year. I was surprised at some of the short ageing windows for some common wines. According to the chart below, Chardonnay should be aged no longer than 6 years before it starts to deteriorate. I found this table only after I had purchased some California Chardonnay vintage 2003 (8 years old) for 50% off the retail price glad to be getting a good deal. After all, I thought in my naivety, shouldn't any wine be better the longer it is aged? Red wines can be aged longer than white wines, some special ones up to 25-30 years. Brandy and other distilled liquors are different. The longer they are aged under the right storage conditions, the better. No mention here of non-grape wines.

Botrytized wines (5–25 yrs)

Chardonnay (2–6 yrs)

Riesling (2–30 yrs)

Hungarian Furmint (3–25 yrs)

Loire Valley Chenin blanc (4–30 yrs)

Hunter Valley Semillon (6–15 yrs)

Cabernet Sauvignon (4–20 yrs)

Merlot (2–10 yrs)

Nebbiolo (4–20 yrs)

Pinot noir (2–8 yrs)

Sangiovese (2–8 yrs)

Syrah (4–16 yrs)

Zinfandel (2–6 yrs)

Classified Bordeaux (8–25 yrs)

Grand Cru Burgundy (8–25 yrs)

Aglianico from Taurasi (4–15 yrs)

Baga from Bairrada (4–8 yrs)

Hungarian Kadarka (3–7 yrs)

Bulgarian Melnik (3–7 yrs)

Croatian Plavac Mali (4–8 yrs)

Georgian Saperavi (3–10 yrs)

Madiran Tannat (4–12 yrs)

Spanish Tempranillo (2–8 yrs)

Greek Xynomavro (4–10 yrs)

Vintage Ports (20–50yrs)

New Wine:

Since Retirement in 2001, Humble Blogger has taken up wine making again, but in a very scientific manner including filtering the wine just before bottling and purging the bottles before filling with inert Argon gas to minimize oxidation of the newly bottled wine. Except for the Rhubarb wine, the other fruits were from cans purchased at a winemaking store and intended for making wine.

Below are nine wines Humble Blogger has produced in the last decade beginning with 2001 and ending with 2011. Each Batch of wine resulted in 20 to 25 bottles (750 ml each). I have one bottle of each wine designated as a "History" sample so that I can follow its ageing progress visually. Clicking on the photo will enlarge it to show label details. The wines were bottled about 6 to 18 months after primary fermentation.

Instead of natural corks, much research led me to use an "Altec" composition cork. These corks are very consistent in diameter and density. They are advertised as having the following qualities:

"A new material developed by fusing the purest part of cork (suberin) and synthetic cells, then tested for over 10 years. Altec corks are absolutely symmetrical, perfectly consistent yet totally natural in appearance. Retains optimal gaseous interchange, known to be key to the wine aging process. Altec cork's dust content is 10 times less than that of conventional corks reducing bottling line maintenance. Superior sealing performance allowing bottles to be stored horizontally immediately after corking. Proven in tests to be 100% leak-proof, without wine travel, at a pressure of 2 bars. Easy to extract with any cork remover. Proven in 10 years of testing to leave no off-taste or off-odors. Resolutely homogeneous surface, with neither holes nor defects on any portion of the cork's sides and ends."

I easily insert the corks using an Italian made, floor model, hand corking device.

The bottle necks (with inserted corks) are covered with shrink-wrap PVC plastic sleeves, which are available in a variety of colors and designs. These are easy to apply by slipping the capsule over the neck of the bottle and inverting the bottle for 10 seconds or so in boiling water until the sleeve conforms to the neck. Heat guns are also available to simplify the process.

The label stock is from www.4th-vine.com (currently under re-construction) but available at many wine maker supply houses. The labels can be printed with laser or inkjet printers and have an adhesive which removes cleanly with the label to reuse bottles if desired. (I always use new bottles). Using MS Word on a label template, I design my own graphics when using a blank label or add information to a label already having graphics . Before applying the labels, I spray the label sheet with two light coats of "CD/DVD Guard" to protect the printing from moisture. [I tried many over-sprays from shellac to acrylic but the CD/DVD Guard worked best with minimal odor and is fast drying]. The date shown on the label is the month of 1st racking of the wine just after primary fermentation. An exception is the first listed wine, Zinfandel, Batch 001 which shows the bottling date.

Some family members and friends receive a bottle of wine as a Christmas gift and are appreciative.

Zinfandel Blush, Batch 001, Bottled 12/2001

Rhubarb Wine, Batch 004, Bottled 2003

Concord Grape, Batch 003, Bottled 12/2003

Chardonnay, Batch 001, Bottled 12/2004

Apricot Wine, Batch 001, Bottled 12/2005

Merlot, Batch 001, Bottled 12/2006

Rhubarb Wine, Batch 005, Bottled 12/2007

Blackberry Wine, Batch 001, Bottled 2009

Zinfandel Blush, Batch 002, Bottled 11/2011

Jesuit Retreat House at Demontreville

2011-07-13T18:00:00.071-05:00

It's the middle of July 2011 and within a couple weeks, Humble Blogger will be heading off to the Jesuit Retreat House on Demontreville Trail in Lake Elmo,MN. This will be my 39th annual retreat at the place often referred to in one word as "Demontreville". It has a nice website with details of the retreat weekend and includes a music slide show. All photos below are selected from a group I took on my last retreat in July 2010.

Demontreville entrance sign on the side of Demontreville Trail road. I gave the sign a face-lift using photo editing software

Gated entrance to Demontreville.

This silent retreat begins on a Thursday evening and ends on Sunday evening. Fifty to 65 men are present to share meals, attend daily Mass in the chapel, listen to spiritual presentations based on the (much shortened) 30 day "Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius", pray, reflect, read and sleep in a private room in one of several houses on the property. The idea is to get away from ordinary life for a few days to try and discern what is really important in (my) life. Every man makes his own retreat. CD Music or "table readings" are played during meals to assist in keeping the silence.

Above is Keegan Hall at Demontreville named after Fr. Donald Keegan, S.J, the first Director from 1948-1965. This building contains the Chapel, Library, Dining Room, Lounge and basement recreation area where men can go for a 1 hour period after supper. Talking is allowed during recreation and some men (Humble Blogger included) choose not to participate so they can maintain silence during the entire retreat.

Men sleep in one of six houses and usually keep the same room and house on succeeding years on the same weekend each year. My house Campion is shown in the photo above. The house is named after Saint Edmund Campion who was born in 1540 and was the most famous of the 25 Jesuit martyrs of England and Wales. There are four houses with similar name histories: Loyola, Regis, Bellarmine and Xavier. The last house Manresa is named after a Spanish town near Barcelona where Saint Ignatius Loyola conceived the idea of "The Spiritual Exercises" and over the course of 10 months filled notebooks with writings which would become The Retreat Manual.

Front door entrance to Campion house from Porch. The plaque to the right of door contains a quote by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (shown below).

(Above) My chief reason for "making" a retreat at Demontreville!

Often during afternoon rest time after lunch, I'll take a stroll through one of the many beautiful paths on the property. One year (July 1981) , I was wearing sandals and was stung on the foot by a Honeybee which usually doesn't sting unless stepped on or roughly handled. I wrote a Tanka poem (5,7,5,7,7 syllables) to mark the occasion:

An unfortunate
Honeybee flew between his
sandal and bare toes.
It stung by instinct, causing
him to share its pangs of death!
__________

I mention my retreats at Demontreville in other places in this Blog:
Journals, Journals Everywhere and

CS Lewis-Surprised by Joy

Father's Day 2011

2011-06-19T00:01:00.001-05:00

Humble Blogger's Father (Eugene Andrew Kubiatowicz age 27 ) with his new bride, and my mother (Mary Frances Bauman age 21) in their wedding photo May 29, 1939. As the story goes, Mom had purchased a white wedding dress but her older sister Marge, jealous that her younger sister was getting married before she was, hid the dress before the wedding!

This circa 1941 photo taken on "the farm" in Owatonna Minnesota, shows dad on the right and his father Andrew Albert Kubiatowicz on the left holding Humble Blogger's older brother Michael Eugene Kubiatowicz (born 10/23/1940)

A photo from "the farm" in Owatonna Minnesota circa 1946 shows mom and dad with their 3 boys Michael Eugene to the left, James Frederick Kubiatowicz (born 1/30/1944) in the middle and to the right, Humble Blogger Dave Owen Kubiatowicz (born 4/18/1942) Dad was home from his short stint in World War II when this photo was taken.

Dad as a "Technician Fifth Grade" in Army uniform. He served in "Troop A, 920th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron". He was drafted toward the end of World War II at age 32 entering the service on March 17, 1944, leaving for Europe a year later on March 25, 1944 and returning home after the war in August 13, 1945. Thus he was in the European Theater for only 4 months. He had already married Mary Bauman and had 3 boys (see above). I don't know why he was drafted into the War so late.

In this photo dated June 18, 1945, dad is sitting on an armed car in Heidenheim, Germany. The war in Europe had ended during the April-May period 1945. Dad's wartime responsibility was as a cook. Supposedly because when he was drafted, he worked as manager of the Grocery Dept.at the Kelly Company in Owatonna, MN. He would continue in the grocery/meat store business the rest of his working career. Dad died in Rochester, MN at age 81 on May 27, 1993.

Front Side of Dad's Army discharge document dated November 6, 1945. Click on the photo to enlarge for easier reading.

Back side of Dad's Army discharge document, showing all the details of his enlistment. Click on the photo to enlarge (for easier reading).

Spring 2011 in Retrospect

2011-06-14T08:00:00.008-05:00

Summer begins Tuesday June 21, 2011 in the Northern Hemisphere. Where did our late Minnesota Spring go?

Just to be sure we didn't miss it, Humble Blogger has put together a few photos of tulips and lilacs and blossoms and such taken during May 2011 on the west and south ends of White Bear Lake in the city of White Bear Lake, MN. The show lasts 1 min 15 sec.

Two Icons in North St. Paul, MN

2011-05-23T08:00:00.121-05:00

The permanent Snowman icon in the city of North Saint Paul, Minnesota at the intersection of Margaret Street and Minnesota State Highway 36, has always caused some raised eyebrows and wonderment over the years. Now addition of a a second icon, a 160 KW Wind Turbine to generate power for a few hundred homes has caused more than a few locals and visitors to scratch their heads. None-the-less, North Saint Paul, Minnesota is a place to love and it cannot be missed going east or west on Highway 36!

Icon #1

Permanent Snowman at Margaret Street and Minnesota State Highway 36 (Photo 5/16/11)

Snowman: According to the North Saint Paul, MN website , in years past the North Saint Paul Jaycees built a snowmen each winter in celebration of an annual Sno-Daze Celebration. The sculptures were built in downtown North Saint Paul. "After a few lean snowfall winters, several residents decided to build a permanent icon for the city. Former resident Lloyd Koesling created and helped build the Snowman. In 1972 the 'Snowman' was adopted as the official city logo. The snowman is 44 feet tall and weighs some 20 tons. His smile reaches sixteen feet across. Today a (refurbished) snowman stands (on the south end of a new Margaret Street, Sandberg Memorial Bridge, just above a refurbished Minnesota State Highway 36) as a warm hearty welcome to travelers and locals as well. 'Turn at the snowman' was the easiest way for people to know how to find North St. Paul in the metro area."

Icon #2:

Wind Turbine about 2000 ft West of the Snowman next to Minnesota State highway 36 (Photo 5/16/11)

Wind Turbine: According to an January 24, 2010 (borrowed) article by Tad Vezner and Leslie Brooks Suzukamo in "Wind-Watch.org", North St. Paul, MN was among 12 other cities in Minnesota participating in a wind turbine project, each getting a 115-foot, 160 kilowatt windmill via the Minnesota Municipal Power Association, or MMPA. The wind turbine will power a few hundred homes via the power grid. "The turbines were installed to meet a state law requiring energy producers to provide 25 percent of output from renewable sources by 2025".

"The windmills each cost about $417,000 and have been erected in Anoka, Arlington, Brownton, Buffalo, Chaska, East Grand Forks, Le Sueur, North St. Paul, Olivia, Shakopee and Winthrop, as well as at the MMPA’s energy park in Faribault. To fund the project, MMPA sold $5 million in zero-interest bonds"

The location of the north Saint Paul turbine is about 2000 feet west of the Snowman and to the south of Minnesota State Highway 36 alongside a new Public Works Building.

The windmills were to be operational November 7, 2009 But there was a problem: "They were (refurbished units) purchased from "Escondido, Calif.-based, enXco, a subsidiary of the French company EDF Energies Nouvelles, and have never operated under such cold conditions." Heaters were installed to warm the hydraulic fluid and lubricating oil in the turbines and the blade began turning in 2010 and continues today. Humble Blogger has filmed a short video of the wind turbine in action at the bottom of this post.

Below are photos of Snowman and Wind Turbine, plus a video of the Turbine blades rotating

Looking South on Margaret Street Toward the Iconic Snowman. It rests on the southeast end of the Sandberg Memorial Bridge (Photo 5/18/11)

Looking North on Margaret Street across the recently completed Sandberg Memorial Bridge. The Snowman is just behind the camera (Photo 5/16/10)

The Sandberg Memorial Bridge Plaque is dedicated to the memory of Bill Sandberg for his 30 years of service (1979-2008) as Mayor of North Saint Paul (Photo 5/16/11)

Looking east along Minnesota State Highway 36 toward the Snowman. It rests at the southeast end of the new Margaret Street, Sandberg Memorial Bridge (Photo 5/16/11)

The Snowman faces a northwest direction greeting would be visitors to North Saint Paul (Photo 5/16/11)

Back side of the Snowman (Photo 5/16/11)

Wind turbine about 2000 ft. west of the Snowman and adjacent to Minnesota State Highway 36 (Photo 5/16/11)

Closer view of the wind Turbine next to a new Public Works Building (Photo 5/16/11)

A telescopic view of the wind Turbine from North Saint Paul High School just across Minnesota State Highway 36 (Photo 5/05/11)

Short 20 second video of the Wind Turbine in action. Traffic and wind noise dominate but the Turbine has a rumbling sound of its own (Video 5/16/11)

Mother's Day 2011

2011-05-08T08:00:00.034-05:00

Below is a photo of "Mom and her Boys" as written on the bottom of the photograph circa 1946. Location was Owatonna, MN. Older, brother Mike is on the left. He died at the young age of 62 in May 2003. At center is younger brother Jim and at the far right is Humble Blogger Dave. Mom died in August 2006 at age 86.

Mom and Her Boys

Lake Como Pavilion in St. Paul

2011-05-05T15:32:00.004-05:00

Although Spring officially arrived March 20,2011, St. Paul, Minnesota and surrounding areas are said to be 1 week to 10 days behind "normal" temperatures. Just now are the the tulips, crocus and hosta's emerging from the cool earth! And only now are trees leafing out.

Yesterday (5/4/11), while waiting for a grandson taking a test, Humble Blogger was able to enjoy a 1.67 mile walk around St. Paul's Lake Como in company with a lot of other walkers and joggers. A focus of the walk around the lake is the 1992 replica of a Pavilion originally built in 1905. Shown below are two photos snapped during the walk.

The Pavilion is home to "Black Bear Crossings" which according to their website offers "...everything from a gourmet café open year round, to free summer concerts and paddle boat rentals on the lake. Our signature community meeting rooms, free of charge, have hosted many groups over the years. For your wedding ceremony or reception, Black Bear Crossings offers simple elegance, inside or out..."

During summer months there are numerous free concerts and one or two musical productions held in the lakeside part of the Pavilion shown in the photos. There is also a lot of activity from runners, walkers, picnickers and visitors from the nearby Como Park Conservatory, Como Zoo and "Como Town" Amusement Park. Humble Blogger has accumulated many happy memories in Como Park over the years!

Lake Como Pavilion from across the lake May 4, 2011

A Closer View of Lake Como Pavilion May 4, 2011

Sharon Shinomiya has researched and written a very nice history of Como Park St. Paul, MN (May 2009) entitled "Como Park History Tour: With More Details" The article is in Adobe pdf format.

Tuesday After Easter 2011

2011-04-26T08:00:00.005-05:00

John 1: 1-18
The vast darkness was illuminated by the light of Christ. Afterwards, and for all time, no amount of darkness can quench that light!

Vast Darkness

The Light of Christ

Photo © Mrtolc | Dreamstime.com

Easter Monday 2011

2011-04-25T08:00:00.006-05:00

Just as two disciples (one of them called Cleopas) finally recognized the risen Jesus as He walked with them on the road to Emmaus, Jesus disappeared from their sight.

Luke 24: 32-43
"Then they said to each other, 'Did not our hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?' They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven assembled together with their companions, who said to them, 'Yes, it is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.' Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognized him at the breaking of the bread.

They were still talking about all this when he himself stood among them and said to them, 'Peace be with you!' In a state of alarm and fright, they thought they were seeing a ghost. But he said 'Why are you so agitated, and why are these doubts rising in your hearts? Look at my hands and feet; yes, it is I indeed. touch me and see for yourselves; a ghost has no flesh and bones as you can see I have.' And as he said this he showed them his hands and feet. Their joy was so great that they still could not believe it, and they stood there dumbfounded; so he said to them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' And they offered him a piece of grilled fish, which he took and ate before their eyes."

The Resurrected Christ

(Stained Glass in a Catholic Church in Dublin)

Easter Sunday 2011

2011-04-24T06:00:00.020-05:00

Matthew 28: 1-6
"After the sabbath, and towards dawn on the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala and the other Mary (Mary of James) went to visit the sepulchre. And all at once there was a violent earthquake, for the angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. His face was light lightning, his robe white as snow. The guards were so shaken, so frightened of him, that they were like dead men. But the angel spoke; and he said to the women, 'There is no need for you to be afraid,. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here for he has risen, as he said he would.'"

Jesus, the Risen Lord!

( Photo of a stone mosaic of the resurrected Jesus Christ )

Good Friday 2011

2011-04-22T08:00:00.090-05:00

Matthew 27:45-50*

"From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried out in a loud voice 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you deserted me?' When some of those who stood there heard this, they said, 'The man is calling on Elijah', and one of them quickly ran to get a sponge which he dipped in vinegar and putting it on a reed, gave it to him to drink. 'Wait!' said the rest of them 'and see if Elijah will come to save him.' But Jesus again crying out in a loud voice, yielded up his spirit."

Jesus Crucified

[According to the photographer Irisangel, this unfamiliar image of Christ is a "...photo of a very old art print that dates back to at least 1915 of a painting that was done in 1874 by Gabriel Max. The image shows the face of Jesus Christ Our Lord with crown of thorns and eyes that seem to open as you watch (click on photo to enlarge). There is a tear on his face." ]

Holy Thursday 2011

2011-04-21T08:00:00.046-05:00

After breaking bread with his disciples and after singing psalms they left for the Mount of Olives.

Matthew 26: 36-40*

"Then Jesus came with them to a small estate called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, 'Stay here while I go over there to pray', He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him. And sadness came over him, and great distress. Then he said to them, 'My soul is sorrowful to the point of death. Wait here and keep awake with me.' And going on a little further he fell on his face and prayed, 'My Father' he said 'if it is possible, let this cup pass me by. Nevertheless, let it be as you, not I, would have it.'"

Jesus Prays in the Garden of Gethsemane

(This photo is of a fine art painting of Jesus © Loveliestdreams | Dreamstime.com)

Palm Sunday 2011

2011-04-17T08:00:00.027-05:00

Matthew 21:1-11*

When they were near Jerusalem and had come in sight of Bethphage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, 'Go to the village facing you, and you will immediately find a tethered donkey and a colt with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, "The Master needs them and will send them back directly".' This took place to fulfill the prophecy:

Say to the daughter of Zion:

Look, your king comes to you;
he is humble, he rides on a donkey
and on a colt, the foal of a beast of burden.

So the disciples went out and did as Jesus had told them. They brought the donkey and the colt, then they laid their cloaks on their backs and he sat on them. Great crowds of people spread their cloaks on the road, while others were cutting branches from the trees and spreading them in his path. The crowds who when in front of him and those who followed were all shouting:

'Hosanna to the Son of David!

Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest heavens!'

And when he entered Jerusalem, the whole city was in turmoil. 'Who is this?' people asked, and the crowds answered, 'This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee'.

Jesus Entering Jerusalem Celebrated on "Palm Sunday"

[This Photo of the Fresco in the Parish Church of Zirl, Austria was taken 11/17/2007 by "Flying Pharmacist" who uploaded it to Wikipedia who considers the image to be in the Public Domain as follows: "This is a faithful photographic reproduction of an original two-dimensional work of art. The work of art itself is in the public domain for the following reason:This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.This applies to Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years."]

Meadowlark Garden: Goodbye

2011-04-13T16:16:00.008-05:00

Humble Blogger and loving wife Rose have decided to quit our "Dave and Rose" organic garden Near Stillwater, MN. We had a good run during our two summers of 2009 and 2010. [Click on the following links in this Blog to see a video of our growing season in 2009 set to music 2009 Meadowlark Garden Video and/or a page of Meadowlark Garden Poetry. Click on "Home" to get back here]. We wanted to give over lease of the garden plot to others in the family but an existing waiting list prohibited this idea.

Humble Blogger visited the garden Monday (4/11/2011) to ready it for the next tenant and snap a few photos. It was an emotional experience. It is one thing to close out a garden in Autumn when the growing season is finished. It is quite another to close out a garden in Spring (after a very long winter) just when it's time to plant again!! Below is a slideshow with some of the photos taken.

The Kiss

2011-04-06T10:04:00.004-05:00

She scrawled "146"
in the summer dust, trusting
he would agree as
she thrust the parasol point
between numbers 1 and 4.

[Celebrating her
birthday, she chose the dusty
numbers carefully,
intending to be honest
but also illegible!]

His smiles affirmed her
aim, as they continued to
share the afternoon
sun by filling each other
with adventures of the day.

In their silences
he thought of years before they'd
met which didn't compare;
which didn't add up. He loved her
much and wished that they were one.

At their leaving, just
before each would pass what the
other passed before
they met, he kissed her and said
"Rose will you marry me?"

"And she said_______!"

This (June 1994) Proposal poem by Humble Blogger ( In Japanese "Tanka" form 5,7,5,7,7 syllables) is based on "Meeting and Passing" by Robert Frost (1874-1963) in "Mountain Interval" 1920

© Ronfromyork | Dreamstime.com
("I Love You" in sand image purchased by Humble Blogger for use Here)

The Tape Recorder

2011-03-30T19:22:00.007-05:00

In June 1996, Humble Blogger, my mom Mary (Bauman) Kubiatowicz and my Loving wife Rose packed up the 1994 Toyota Camry and headed south to Iowa to visit the Bridges of Madison County and the Humboldt, IA area where mom was born. Mom wanted to re-visit memories of her life there as a child. Also, since Loving Wife Rose was something of a genealogist and had already written a book of her family's past, we were now working on mom's Bauman family history which included Frank Gotch, the famous wrestler. I gave mom a a mini-cassette recorder to record her thoughts as we drove along and made our various stops. She was familiar with the concept because she and her sisters exchanged audio tapes in the 1960's to keep up on family news. Mom lived in Minnesota, Wynn was in north Washington state and Marge lived in California. Mom recorded quite a nice narration during our trip. I later made her Humboldt Iowa recording into an mp3 file.

Humble Blogger with Mom at Hogback Bridge in Winterset, IA June 1996

After we returned home, I told mom to keep the small tape recorder and (if she felt motivated to do so) record any additional stories about her childhood or her life as they came to mind.

Mom died August 19, 2004 at age 86, There were quite a few trips to the Mayo Clinic and St. Mary and Methodist hospitals before that. My brother Jim, his wife Judy and Rose and I made many trips to Rochester from the Twin Cities to attend to mom. She was our last parent and it was sad to suddenly become an "orphan"

I had the time, so I was responsible for clearing our her condominium in Rochester. On one of the end tables, I found the tape recorder I had given her in 1996. She must have placed it where I could find it. I hadn't seen it on other visits. There was a full cassette in the machine but the battery compartment had two badly corroded batteries in it. I suspected the worst. Once at home I played the cassette in another machine but heard nothing. I was disappointed because I would miss listening to her voice tell stories I had not heard before! But I understood. She was a private person and had gone through a lot of challenges in her life. Those stories, she must have thought, would be better untold.

Mom at age 19 after winning the "Miss Southern Minnesota" Beauty Contest in 1937 . The Trophy Cup that she is holding is generic for the photo shoot. The inscribed one given to her later is shown below.

The Trophy Cup consists of silver plate over base metal with a Bakelite base. It has developed a dark patina over its 74 years (1937-2011) and has dents and areas where silver plate is missing

Closeup of Inscription on the Trophy Cup

The Trophy Cup was made by Josten's in Owatonna. Its brass tag numbered C15B is located on the inside of the Bakelite base. The screw through the middle of the tag holds the cup to the base.

The Kitchen Crew: Mom next to older brother Mike on left, younger brother Jim and Humble Blogger on Easter 4/4/1999. Mike died at a young age of 62 in May 2003

Humble Blogger, now orphaned and cleaning out Mom's Condo in September 2004, sits alone at the counter making notes in his 139th Journal. Mom often Sat in the same place working Crossword Puzzles while watching the Bill O'Reilly show on the Fox TV network. This was a sad day for the Blogger

The Inner Wall

2011-03-23T13:19:00.002-05:00

How strong it is, that inner wall
built of concrete much too thick
encircled by an iron fence
protected by a chasmed pit.

Butterflies are free but they
lie dead behind that inner wall.
For lack of space to dance and fly
and lack of air to breathe they fall.

Who will dare to fill the pit.
Which can smash the concrete rock.
Who can saw away the fence.
Who dares open the inner lock?

I Can't! I know for it's been tried
many times before. All to fast
the walls rebuild
much stronger than the last!

From outside that mighty fort
all looks calm and right,
but deep inside a heart beats strong
yearning for some light.

Life subsists between the heaps
of hapless butterflies.
someday soon I hope and pray
that life will flutter toward the skies.
_______________
11/1976

© Sean Gladwell | Dreamstime.com

(Photo Purchased by Humble Blogger For Use Here)

Pull Up That Zipper!

2011-03-16T08:00:00.115-05:00

In 1951, I was 9 years old and in Mrs Lewis's 4th grade in Kasson, MN. I really enjoyed school that year because one of our projects was to make paper models of the Columbus ships the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. Another one of our daily (or weekly) exercises was for each child to stand before the class and read a paragraph or two out of a text book. When it was my turn to stand and read, everyone in class started giggling and I didn't know why, I thought I was reading the material quite well. Then I noticed a buddy staring at the wide open zipper in my trousers! Fortunately Mrs. Lewis politely excused me and said I could sit down. I quickly remedied the situation and the giggling stopped. My "incident" must have happened during the winter months because I remember wearing corduroy* trousers and I remember how the ribbed fabric legs on those pants made a noise as they rubbed together when I walked. I find it curious that of all my childhood memories, this particular one stands out in my mind. Maybe it is because of the great embarrassment it caused a young boy who only wanted to be liked and accepted by his classmates.

*From Answers.com: Corduroy pants are trousers or jeans made with corduroy fabric, a cut-pile fabric like velvet with ribs (narrow, medium or wide). From a distance, narrow wales corduroy pants look like velvet pants. Such pants or jeans are usually called corduroys. The word "corduroy" was inspired by the French words "corps du roi" which meant it was an garment of the king. Nowadays, French call that fabric "velours côtelé". Translated in English word for word, it would mean "corded or waled velvet". Corduroy is usually 100% cotton."

Grade School in Kasson, MN

(Photo taken by Humble Blogger in April 1980

Ash Wednesday 2011

2011-03-09T12:06:00.006-06:00

It was a year ago I began this Blog, wanting something to do during Lent. It has been a fulfilling experience even though my entries lagged at times during the summer months. This year Ash Wednesday begins 3 weeks later than last year and we still have snow and ice dams on the roofs and piles of snow waiting to melt when our daily temperatures get above 30F. Moderate or major Spring floods are predicted for most flood plains and places near the Red, Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. The floods may be historic. Many communities have been filling and stockpiling sand bags for a month or more in preparation. It's only a matter of time...

For we Catholics, Ash Wednesday and Fridays are meatless during Lent. We must "sacrifice" and eat fish like the yummy looking grilled salmon and steamed vegetable plate shown below:

© Jacek Chabraszewski | Dreamstime.com

(Photo Purchased by Humble Blogger for Use Here)

Valentine 2011

2011-02-14T10:06:00.027-06:00

"Bird in Love Singing"

I purchased this colorful graphic from Dreamstime.com to put in a poetic Valentine Card intended for Loving wife Rose. We plan to spend a wonderful evening at "Lake Elmo Inn" (Lake Elmo.MN) enjoying their Valentine Dinner for two.

Santa Light Runs

2010-12-17T15:13:00.009-06:00

I started running (jogging) in the winter of 1984. I remember so well because the Winter Olympics were taking place in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia. I figured that at age 42, I should get motivated like the Olympians and get some sort of exercise so I took up running. At that time my running circle was 3 miles round trip from my apartment into White Bear Lake Shopping Center at Highway 96 and White Bear avenue. The shopping center was across the road from the western shore of White Bear Lake and it was a pleasant destination all 4 seasons of the year. In the Shopping Center, along with a number of other stores was Kowalski's Market, an upscale grocery store. When I moved into a townhome in 1989, my distance to the same destination had increased to 7 miles round trip.

With this background , I will explain that in 1989 I thought it would be fun around Christmas time to dress in my winter running suit and and attach (via safety pins) colored, battery-operated miniature lights (including some blinking ones) up, down and around my suit before taking my usual 7 mile jog into the Shopping Center. So I bought the lights (intended for an end table display at home), a bunch of C-cell batteries, and safety pins, a pouch with a belt to hold the batteries. I spent a lot of time pinning the lights to my running suit and headed outside at dusk (4:30 pm) about a week before Christmas. I got a lot of waves from passing motorists, horn honking and stares in disbelief!! The whole experience was a blast!

I continued the Santa Light Runs through 1996 for a total of 7 years. In 1995, I up-scaled my "Santa Light Runs" and bought a Santa Clause suit. I ran in this for two years. In 1995 I bought some $5 Kowalski gift coupons and gave these away as I ran through their grocery store! In 1996 I bought $1 McDonald gift certificates and $5 Kowalski gift coupons and gave these away along my route including the VFW Club at White Bear Lake Shopping Center. Often one or more of my adult children (John, Joe and Julie) and loving wife Rose would follow me in a car and take photos along the way (seen below). When 1997 rolled around there was little snow (which made the whole exercise that much more fun) and I decided not to do my Santa Light Run. Sadly, 1996 marked the end of the Light Runs but, fortunately not my running. For years after, I used my Santa suit to surprise the grandkids at Christmas.

Some notes from my last and 7th Annual Santa Light Run in 1996 were the following:

"Had 80 lights + 20 blinking ones on Santa hat. Had replaced "D cell" battery holders with "C cell" holders I got from Radio Shack. This worked well. Had purchased 5-$5.00 gift certificates from Kowalski's and 10-$1.00 gift certificates (two $5.00 books) from McDonald's to give away. I sealed the Kowalski's certificates in a boil-in-the-bag pouch and had the McDonald's coupons in an envelope. These I carried in a Santa sock velcrowed to belt. Had two bells wired to belt buckle. Used Christmas tree sap on eyebrows to stick starch to them. Had on polypropylene (pp) shorts, then pp top and bottom, then wool/pp top, then Santa pants & suspenders, then Santa "fat" vest, then hunter vest, then Santa top with safety-pinned black belt, Santa sock velcrowed to black belt. Pants and Top had 8 sets of lights (80) safety pinned to them"

Humble Blogger Before Santa Light Run 12-13-1990

Humble Blogger with Wife (To Be) Rose Before Santa Light Run 12-22-1992

Humble Blogger Before Santa Light Run 12-22-1993

Humble Blogger, Now in Santa Suit Before Santa Light Run 12-20-1995

Santa Suit Lights up in Dark Before Santa Light Run 12-20-1995

Humble Blogger With Wife Rose Before Santa Light Run 12-20-1995

Humble Blogger running Through Kowalski's Market in

White Bear Lake Shopping Center 12-20-1995

Humble Blogger running Past Vegetables in Kowalski's Market in
White Bear Lake Shopping Center 12-20-1995

Humble Blogger Before 7th and Last Santa Light Run 12-18-1996

Humble Blogger Before Last Santa Light Run Holding Gift Certificates 12-18-1996

Humble Blogger, at Dusk Running West on County Road E in White Bear Lake 12-18-1996

Passing Motorist Take a Look at Santa Running Along the Road 12-18-1996

Santa Passing The Firestation at Co Rd E and McKnight Toward McDonalds 12-18-1996

Santa Outside McDonalds on Co Rd E 12-18-1996

Santa Greets McDonalds Employees as He Scoots through Store 12-18-1996

Santa Gives out Kowalski's Gift Certificates when He Visits Store 12-18-1996

Minnesota Snow Storm

2010-12-11T14:24:00.009-06:00

I'm taking the opportunity to make a blog post (after 6 months absence) because Rose and I are currently stuck in our White Bear Lake, MN townhome waiting out a snowstorm. This storm promises to dump some 12 to 24 inches of snow today with bitter cold temperatures tonight of -8F with a windchill of -30F!! Luckily, I only need to shovel our deck because the sidewalks and roadways are handled by out Grounds Maintenance Service. Below are a couple photos of the current scene which promises to worsen and a photo of Rose's family Santa face from the 1950's which is currently hung on the deck side of our home. If you recall, these Santa faces were cheaply made even in their day and the rubber power cord is such that it becomes very stiff and inflexible in below freezing temperatures.

View of Townhome Complex. Snowing and Piling Up

View of Our Townhome Deck In Need of Shovelling

Humble Blogger Shoveling Deck Later in Day at 24 inches Depth

1950's Plastic Santa Face Hung on Our Townhome Deck Side

1950's Plastic Santa Face Lit at Night

Meadowlark Garden Poetry

2010-06-08T21:42:00.040-05:00

"Dueling poems" about Meadowlark Garden: The 1st by Humble blogger consisting of 8 verses in haiku format (5,7,5 syllabic content), and the 2nd by Loving wife Rose in free verse. Click on photos to enlarge, then click the browser back arrow to return to this page.

Early and Late Peas Growing in Meadowlark Garden in June 2009

Let's go at midnight

to Meadowlark garden and

kiss in full moonlight.

We'll stand by the peas

while raising our glasses to

celebrate nature

and toast sixty-one!

Critters may break silence as

they forage for food.

Our vegetables will

inch up imperceptibly

as your mandolin

sweeps music across

alfalfa fields to a far

farmhouse dark with sleep.

In your wisdom, you

saw a stopping could restart

with a soil's planting

in a garden not

so far away, in earth tilled

by hard working hands

and plants planted with

love? Because you saw, I see

also. We are one!

_________________________________________________

Meadowlark Garden at Harvest in September 2009

Finally the wind has finished

blowing corn stalks into leaning towers.

Now it turns

to drive October leaves into piles

along

the

remnants

of summer gardens.

Now the chipmunks come slow

or not at all.

They scratch their backs

against the drying stems.

Their dialogue

even as they nibble leftover offerings

is low and content.

Probing gophers beneath the fields

venture outside unhurried now

looking for harvest.

The wise among them
stay inside the burrow

switching tails at winter stores

heaped to survive an early freeze

Lie back. Our gathering is not done.

Even the wind is on the move to reap

it's bounty.

Till the tree limbs bare

and stand still again

we've no need to move at all

except to take our due..."

____________

Meadowlark Garden 2009

2010-06-06T13:36:00.023-05:00

Loving wife Rose had a notion in spring 2009 to get back into gardening. She had not gardened since 1990 and Humble Blogger not since 1977!!

She rented a 12.5 ft. by 25 ft plot on a stretch of farmland called Meadowlark Community Organic Garden located near Stillwater, MN. We were among some 20 other gardeners with similar sized or larger gardens. A big plus for the gardens were two 800-1000 gallon water tanks plumbed with pipe and faucets scattered through the gardens. The tanks were filled, when necessary by one of the gardeners trained to operate the well pump some 100 yards away. There was even a garden dedicated to local food shelves.

Our garden required much hard work and produced a lot of vegetables for immediate use or canning. The financial cost was much greater than buying the same vegetables from a road-side stand. But that didn't matter because these were our vegetables! Our greatest single cost was the routine stopping at Dairy Queen for a chocolate covered cherry Blizzard (for Humble Blogger) and a hot fudge Sundae with walnuts (for Loving Wife) on the way home.

Humble Blogger kept carefully written notes and photo records of our garden's progress from May 1st to October 8 (after a surprise frost). The photo record is documented in the musical 6 min 53 sec slide show below.

The slideshow music consists of 3 royalty free original pieces by Keven Macleod at http://incompetech.com/. To be legal, I need only mention his name. I feel that the music fits the photos perfectly. The order of music in the slide show is:

"Somewhere Sunny" (Duet guitars, 1min 55sec)
"Water Droplets on the River" (Piano, "meant to be reminiscent of nice memories from long ago", 1min 45sec)
"Clear Air" (Acoustic steel string guitar and classical guitar, 3min 3sec). As the garden winds down, the music slows.

My Shadow*

2010-06-01T11:18:00.012-05:00

In the rain or the sun, my shadow still clung
as I busied myself with work and with play.
"What can I do, how can I help."
His little voice spoke throughout the day.

We gathered some sticks, raked a few leaves,
dug in the dirt and pulled clumps of weeds,
"What can I do, how can I help."
He said as he spilled radish seeds.

When I stopped now and then for rest or for drink,
my small shadow worked on to please and to learn.
"Dad, is this how I chop the wood?"
"Just fine" as I tried to show no concern.

At the end of the day when tasks were complete,
we both sat on his bed to share our day's feats.
"See what I did, how I could help?"
These, my shadow's last words, for he fell fast asleep.
______________________

* Son Joseph 1976

Heart: Mitral Valve Repair

2010-05-11T16:31:00.034-05:00

It was 4 years ago today that I (your humble blogger) went under the knife at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore for "minimally invasive mitral valve repair" under the skilled hands of heart surgeon James Gammie, MD and a skilled staff of OR personnel.

My mitral valve (separating the heart's left atrium from the left ventricle) was prolapsed defined in Wikipedia as: " Mitral valve prolapse (MVP) is a valvular heart disease characterized by the displacement of an abnormally thickened mitral valve leaflet into the left atrium during systole. There are various types of MVP, broadly classified as classic and nonclassic. In its nonclassic form, MVP carries a low risk of complications. In severe cases of classic MVP, complications include mitral regurgitation, infective endocarditis, congestive heart failure, and—in rare circumstances—cardiac arrest, usually resulting in sudden death."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitral_valve_prolapse)

This was a condition which I inherited at birth and which only worsened as the years rolled by. ( See my blog post 3-A classification and Vietnam in which my murmur was suspected to be residual to having Rheumatic Fever. Only in future years when Ultrasound was available, could the doctors make a specific diagnosis.) Because of excess tissue in the valve flaps, my mitral valve did not close completely when my left ventricle contracted to squeeze oxygenated blood into my body. Consequently blood leaked into my left atrium (regurgitated) and back toward my lungs from whence it came. This leakage causes a "murmur" sound picked up by the physician or cardiologist listening to the heart.

The two short videos below from You Tube are instructive for understanding circulation via the heart (Video 1) and heart valves (video 2)

Video 1 (The Heart and Circulation)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3ZDJgFDdk0&feature=related

Credit: garyparkinson — April 03, 2007 — A simple but effect animation how the heart works Disclaimer: A single copy of these materials may be reprinted for noncommercial personal use only. "Mayo," "Mayo Clinic," "noncommercial use only, provided you include all applicable notices and disclaimers.

Heart Valves

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXwYYsi6z7Q&feature=related
Credit: dizzo95

I had been a runner since 1985 (age 43) which is the subject of a yet unwritten blog post. My internist said I would be able to subjectively judge my mitral valve worsening by slowing of running speed and technically judge it by results of yearly Cardiac Ultrasound scans. In 1985 I was able to run a 10k race in under 7 min/mile and a 15k race in about 7.5 min/mile. By 2004 (Age 62 and I had been retired from 3M Company for 3 years) my average running time per mile was up to over 9 min and Cardiac Ultrasound scans showed worsening leakage of my mitral vale to the point of "severe"

In addition my heart was in full-time "atrial fibrillation" manifesting as fast and/or irregular heart beat. This was caused by disorganized electrical impulses originating in the atria and resulted in the atria behaving like a squiggling bag of worms according to Baltimore heart surgeon James Gammie, MD. Normal behavior was a slight but steady contraction of the atria as the ventricle filled with blood during the resting phase of each cardiac cycle. The lack of incomplete atrial draining could cause pooling of blood in the atria (especially in the left atrial appendage which I liken to an appendix) with the potential of clot formation and subsequent stroke. To reduce the risk of stroke, I was prescribed a daily dose of Coumadin, which slowed blood clotting time. Blood concentration of the drug was important so a monthly test was necessary to monitor Coumadin level and adjust the dose if necessary. I always had to be careful with sharp objects for fear of prolonged bleeding if cut.

My clinical symptoms and cardiac ultrasound tests convinced my Internist and Cardiologist that heart surgery would be a prudent choice for me in the very near future. My options included mitral valve repair or mitral valve replacement with an artificial valve. There would be no promise that surgeons could repair my valve. In addition radio frequency "ablation" (destruction of tissue generating erroneous electrical impulses) could be done at the same time to eliminate or at least minimize my full-time atrial fibrillation.

Back at home while searching the Internet to assess my options, I found a February 3, 2004 video presentation of a minimally invasive mitral valve repair procedure developed at the University of Maryland Medical Center by surgeon James Gammie, MD and others:

www.orlive.com/umm/videos/innovative-mitral-valve-repair

I was impressed with the procedure (no midline incision), a shorter recovery time and the high likelihood that my valve would be repaired rather than replaced. At that time nation-wide valve repairs were about 45% and at Baltimore repair rates had climbed to 90%.

A key attitude for me that was expressed by Dr. Gammie near the front of the video was: "It's better to keep your own valve than to get an artificial valve. No artificial valve is as good as the valve that you were born with. That God gave you."

This sort of minimally invasive surgery was not available in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN area nor at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN nor in nearby states. I ultimately received blessings from my Internist and Cardiologist (who performed a cardiac catheterization procedure to ascertain that blood vessels in and around my heart were not blocked) for the minimally invasive procedure. Fortunately Dr. Gammie's assistant Mary J. Santos, PA-C, M.S. handled all requests for my medical information to insure that I fit their criteria for the minimally invasive procedure, and helped coordinate all arrangements for housing and the surgery. She was invaluable in this regard!!

Thus, on Monday May 8, 2006, I and my loving wife Rose travelled to Baltimore, MD so I could undergo a minimally invasive procedure during which my heart received a cryogenic (cold) MAZE (ablation) treatment for atrial fibrillation followed by mitral valve repair in which excess tissue was cut from the valve flap. At the same time as the valve repair, the left atrial appendage was tied off to reduce stroke risk from pooling blood if there were any residual atrial fibrillation. James Gammie, MD was the chief surgeon. My surgery was May 11, 2006 and we returned to St. Paul Saturday May 20, 2006. It was an anxious time for me but more so for Rose who did the worrying, communicated with family, lived in unfamiliar housing and negotiated an unfamiliar city. Looking back, we wondered how we did it all!

Rose at Edgar Allen Poe's Original Burial Site in Westminster Hall Burial Grounds in Baltimore (His body was moved to another place in the same grounds in 1875) "Quoth the raven (and perhaps Rose) 'nevermore' "!

The Cosmetic results of the surgery on your Humble Blogger's "lovely" 64 year old runner's body are shown below.

6 days Post Surgery Incision 6 cm just to right and above the right nipple.

Two other areas with "holes" were for draining tubes

8 weeks Post Surgery

5.9 months Post Surgery

Dear reader, you have the right to ask Humble Blogger how in the world does one operate inside the heart located in the center-left of the chest from an incision made to the right of the right nipple!! I quote from the Operative Summary:

"An incision of 6 cm in length was made just below the right nipple. This was deepened and the chest [was] entered in the fourth intercostal space. The fourth rib was shingled [a 1 cm section was removed to facilitate tunneling into the chest cavity]. The pericardium was opened and tacked up. The cardiopulmonary bypass was initiated. A cross-clamp was applied. A liter of cold blood cardioplegia [intentional and temporary cessation of cardiac activity, primarily used in cardiac surgery] was administered. There was excellent diastolic arrest to the heart. [An] Interatrial groove was developed, and the left atrium exposed in the standard fashion. Exposure of the [mitral] valve was excellent..."

Note additions in [ ] are added by Humble Blogger. According to Dr. Gammie, tunneling through the chest wall like this to get at the heart with the aid of a tiny camera, affords a better view of the mitral valve than entering the chest cavity through a large incision down the breastbone (sternum).

Dr. Gammie's studies showed that cessation of atrial fibrillation doesn't occur until about 6 months after surgery.   My cessation was about 2 years after my operation. Till then my heart was in and out of atrial fibrillation on a random basis and I took daily doses of Coumadin during this time. With cessation of atrial fibrillation today, 4 years later, I am left with a "tight" mitral valve according to Cardiac Ultrasound scans and with occasional (less than a day in duration) episodes of recurring atrial fibrillation.   Also with cessation of atrial fibrillation my resting heart rate reduced to a regular 45 beats per min (bpm). It should be 60 bpm, but when I exercise it increases normally. As a runner my heart beat was also about 45-50 bpm because of my good physical shape. I am not currently on any cardiac medications.   My running has suffered but that not related to my heart. I am a happy Humble Blogger with respect to my heart. Today, just 4 years later, the minimally invasive procedure is much more common and is done in a number of medical centers.   The research is yours to do.

Dr. Gammie's view on mitral valve surgery, when a valve can be repaired rather than replaced, is that it's better to have the repair done sooner than later.   Better at age 50 rather than 60. By waiting the valve only gets worse, causing the heart to enlarge, which can result in the disruption of electrical signals and the onset of atrial fibrillation and other maladies. I, frankly was afraid that with heart surgery, an artificial valve would replace my mitral valve. I would be on high doses of Coumadin for the rest of my life and there would be the constant worry of a malfunction of the mechanical valve.    I waited longer than I should have. Then I found Dr. Gammie and his Team at the University of Maryland Medical Center!!

Shown below are a couple of 5-line poems of the Japanese form called "Tanka" (having a syllabic content of 5,7,5,7,7) I wrote these celebrating Mary Santos, who facilitated my surgery in Baltimore (and who was also an OR assistant during my operation) and chief surgeon Dr. Gammie. I wrote the poems on my annual July (2006) retreat at Demontreville Retreat House in Lake Elmo, MN.

Mitral Valve Repair*
Unexpectedly
she called wanting history.
Once convinced, she brought
them to Baltimore as if
he were her only patient!

*For Mary Santos, PA

Suddenly**
Suddenly my heart
stopped its decades long pounding
against my chest wall!
"Valve fixed as God intended"
he said, not hesitating.

**For James Gammie, MD

Driver's License

2010-04-21T08:00:00.009-05:00

I was 16 years old on April 18, 1958 and still living in Kasson, MN. I would be moving with my family to Rochester, MN in late summer of 1959 in time for Junior year at Rochester Lourdes High School.

Having reached the magic age of 16, it was time to get my driver's license. I had taken the written test, passed with flying colors, and was issued a permit. I logged the necessary driving time with one or the other parent and maybe even with my older brother Mike who already had a driver's license.

So, on the appointed day, I drove our 1955 Dodge Station Wagon to the testing site, the Mantorville, MN Courthouse, some 3 miles north of Kasson. Mantorville back then had a population of about 500. I suppose mom had gone along as the licensed driver.

The Courthouse is shown below in two 4/5/1980 Photos at different angles. The area to the left in the 2nd photo is (was) a parking lot where my driver's test started.

One end of the Mantorville,MN Courthouse 4-5-1980

The Other end of the Mantorville,MN Courthouse 4-5-1980 (Parking Lot is to the Left in the Photo)

Mom removed herself from the car and the Tester got in the passenger side where she had been sitting. We started the test by exiting from the parking lot onto the road and proceeded with the elements of the test including stopping at a stop sign (there were no traffic lights nor traffic!), turning left, turning right, parallel parking and emergency stopping.

I was doing quite well I thought until we arrived back at the Courthouse parking lot. After a (long) few moments of silence during which my Tester made notes and added up some numbers, he informed me that I had performed quite well on my test but that he "needed" to fail me because I had made a fatal error at the start of the test! Before I exited the courthouse parking lot onto the street, I didn't stop. Even though there was no stop sign there, I was required to stop. I could have caused an accident (had any cars been around).

I was disappointed, but not emotionally crushed that I had failed. The worst I had to endure was breaking the news to buddies I had told about my testing date who might think me a "dummy" But that was not their response. Some of them had failed also.

It was not too long after my failure that I tested again and passed. The second time I did stop at the courthouse parking lot exit exit before entering the road! My reward that evening was to drive by myself to the local Kasson drive-in to get a root beer and hot dog. I remember suddenly having a great feeling of independence and freedom!

1962 Volkswagen Beetle

2010-04-15T14:38:00.019-05:00

Having spent 2 years at Rochester Junior College in Rochester,MN and after landing a job at 3M company in St. Paul, MN as a "Radiochemical Technetian", I was ready for the "Big Time"

Note to dear readers: This is a long post because a VW Beetle cannot be described in a few words!

Thus, at the age of 20 and with steady money coming in, I purchased a new 1962 Volkswagen Beetle at a VW dealership in Rochester, MN. It weighed 1570 lbs and cost about $1 per pound ($1,600). It had a light alloy, 4 cylinder, 40 horsepower rear-mounted engine with a maximum speed of 72 mph (on level ground) and was supposed to get 32 mpg with a carburetor. It also had a nice 4 speed manual transmission, rear-wheel drive and air-cooled engine, independent suspension and telescopic shock absorbers and a 6V electrical system charged by a generator (with brushes). The battery was located under the rear seat cushion. Part of the "Beetle Package" was sun visors for driver and passenger!, coat hooks, an "automatic" windshield washer, overhead light and AM radio. There were no seatbelts. The car could hold 4 adults and had room for luggage in a compartment under the front hood and in a carpeted compartment behind the rear seat.

Below are two photos of Humble Blogger's 1962 VW Beetle and a third photo of Loving Wife Rose's 1957 VW convertible. The Beetle was a rage in the early 60's for young people. It was sporty and fun to drive. It was first a bewilderment then an amusement to our parents who weren't that many years away from fighting the Germans in WWII.

However, once children started to arrive, the Beetle quickly became over crowded! Our 1st born John rode in the little compartment behind the rear seat. In addition, the Beetle's other nuisances and deficiencies soon began to appear!

Humble Blogger's 1962 VW in a June 1963 photo. Color was "Gulf Blau"

Humble Blogger Tuning up the 1962 VW in the Back Yard in Autumn 1964

A Repair Manual Very Much Needed!!

Loving (2nd) wife Rose Standing by her 1957 VW Convertible in a 1967 photo
Humble blogger was not to meet her for another 24 years!

Where's the heat!: The salesman on the showroom floor promised that a fan-controlled, air-cooled engine (not water-cooled) would produce heat very quickly in winter as the engine didn't need to heat up a water/antifreeze mixture. I was to learn otherwise.

1. Turning on the heat inside the car was done by rotating a large knob. This manually closed two metal flaps diverting hot air (generated by the cooling fan blowing air over the hot running engine) from going outside onto the road beneath the car, into the passenger compartment. The volume of air flowing into the car was a function of engine RPM. When the engine idled or when the car was driven at in-town speeds of 30 mph, very little air volume came into the cabin. When travelling at 50 mph however, the air volume was much greater. These limitations worked fine until the outside temperature dropped to about 20F. At this temperature the heat went from hot to tepid. In Minnesota winters, when temperatures often dropped below 0F, there was little or no heat as the outside temperature was cooling the engine by itself!

2. So in winter, there was no way to effectively defrost the interior windshields and the other interior windows. One needed a scraper to remove the frost from the inside of the windshield just to see out! There was no hope of keeping the outside windshield clear as there was little heat to melt snow and/or ice. In order to see out the windshield during the first few miles of driving, until the engine produced some heat to defrost a small see-through window, the driver needed to both scrape the inside of the windshield, open the driver's side window and reach outside to scrape the outside windshield! (Yes it was possible to be in the car and reach to scrape the driver's side of the windshield).

In chatting with the VW salesman about this problem, he suggested keeping a vent window open a crack on the driver's side to keep the air moving. This would help defrost the windows.   That it did, but it didn't make sense to let in more cold air into the passenger compartment when the inside was already so cold!

3. I first resolved some of the heating and defrosting problem by installing an after-market blower in the driver's side heat channel. This connected to the 6V electrical system and was operated by a switch installed in the dash.   Thus at idle speeds when air volume was low, the blower would keep a more constant air flow for heat and for defrosting the driver's side windshield.

4. The second, more expensive (and dangerous!) solution was to install a "gas heater" under the hood of the car. This was done by a professional and included a copper tube hookup to the gas tank (which was located where a radiator would be in a "normal" car). I believe it was also hooked into the car's electrical system. From inside the car one turned a knob which would start gas flow and ignite the gas heater. Soon wonderful hot air would begin to flow into the cabin warming its freezing passengers. The combustion gasses exited through a flexible pipe through a drilled hole in the wheel well. If the heater exhaust pipe in the wheel well got plugged with snow in winter time, the gasses would backup into the passenger compartment!!   One had to act quickly to turn off the heater and unplug the snow from the pipe.   These heaters occasionally exploded, damaging the front hood and sometimes the passengers.   But heat alone, still did not defrost the windows which collected the humid air breathed out by the car's occupants.

5. The car had little or no heat in the winter, because the 40 hp engine simply didn't produce enough heat to counter the cold.  Therefore it didn't get the motor oil hot enough to burn away water formed during fuel combustion which condensed into the motor oil. The oil level on the dipstick would actually rise during cold weather and the oil would take on a yellow-cloudy appearance due to emulsified water.   It was very important at that point to change oil as the water-contaminated oil was not a good engine lubricant!

6. The 1962 VW often didn't start in Winter. There was no garage for the car, so I built a carrying case to hold the 6 volt battery. During the very cold Minnesota winter nights, I lifted the rear seat cushion (easy to do), disconnected the battery terminals, and carried the battery into the house for the night.   In the morning I reinstalled the battery and had a better chance of turning over a very stiff engine. This didn't always guarantee that the car would start but it helped.

"Automatic" windshield washer: The Beetle's windshield washer was inexpensive and innovative involving no electrical pumps. It consisted of a white plastic 1 or 2 liter plastic container (washer unit) inside the hood of the car (remember this is where the luggage compartment was because the engine was in the rear). One unscrewed a cap, filled the container with washer fluid and screwed the cap back on tightly. Near the cap, protruding through the body of the container, was a tire valve stem. The stem stuck out about 3/4 inch. One needed to attach the provided tire pump to the valve stem and pump in a certain amount of pressure. Then, while driving, when the washer was needed, simply pushing a button on the dash, opened a valve allowing pressurize washer fluid to flood the windshield. However, too soon, the fluid and/or the pressure diminished to the point where there was no more washing the windshield. Often the pressure was gone long before the fluid.

I eventually became innovative myself. I removed the interior valve device from the valve stem and force-fitted a 1/4 in. or 3/8 in. (inside diameter) piece of yellow rubber latex tubing over the protruding valve stem. I directed the other end of the tubing into the passenger compartment just under the dash and within reach. I attached to this end of the tubing a black rubber bulb having a one-way valve. Squeezing the bulb put air pressure into the washer unit. Releasing the bulb allowed the bulb fill with air again via the one-way valve while maintaining pressure in the washer unit. Continued squeezing and release of the bulb quickly built up enough pressure to allow the windshield to be cleaned. That is until the washer unit became empty of fluid.

Rust, Rust and more Rust: I'm sure the VW Beetle survived much better in the warmer, drier climates than in the snow belt! In Minnesota the Beetle was exposed to rain, ice, snow and road salt. Regular use of WD-40 rust penetrate and lubricant was a necessity!. The rust caused the hinges to rust so that the doors were very hard to close; caused the muffler to rust and need replacement; caused the running boards and bumpers to fall off; caused the floor pedals, where salt accumulated via a snow laden shoe, to rust; caused the metal flap hinges which diverted warm air into the passenger compartment to freeze open (or closed); caused the bottom of the car to rust to the degree that holes formed and one could see the road beneath the foot pedals (where salt had accumulated). The solution was to place a piece of 1/4 in. plywood over the hole area. Even so, highway water often splashed up onto the floor of the passenger compartment as I was driving myself three other guys in our car pool to work in the morning.

Most annoying was the effect the rust had on the speedometer /odometer. One end of a flexible metal sheath containing a cable was screwed onto a fitting on the back of the speedometer. The other end of the sheath/cable was screwed onto a fitting on the drive shaft of the car. As the drive shaft rotated, the cable within the metal sheath would also rotate. The speed of rotation of the cable turned gears inside the speedometer which was calibrated to convert drive shaft rotations into mph (and kmh). When rust attacked the sheath and cable, the cable would at first begin to whine because of the increased resistance inside the metal sheath. The noise was awful! Then suddenly, the cable snapped, breaking inside the sheath, and the speedometer stopped measuring speed and miles driven. The only solution was to have the cable replace, which was easy but a nuisance. Or to drive the car the way it was and try to guess at the speed.

Loving wife Rose told me the story of driving her 1957 Beetle to pick up her sister Maxine from work one wintry evening. Maxine was riding in the back seat and complained that the seat was getting warm and was smoking! Rose stopped the car and lifted the rear seat cushion (where the battery resided) and saw that it had fallen through the rusted floor and was dragging on the pavement below! Connections were shorting out causing sparks which ignited the seat cushion material and caused the smoke and the heat. They were able to easily put out the fire. The next day she "fixed" the problem by placing a (you guessed it) a 1/4 in. piece of plywood over the hole. Her sister however didn't ask for a ride home any more.

When Rose bought her VW the speedometer didn't work (for the reasons described above) but she never fixed it.

Another time, she was driving her Beetle down University Avenue and the rear bumper fell off. When her passenger wondered aloud if she was going to stop to retrieve it, Rose responded "No, I'm to embarrassed." Also if you study the photo carefully, you will see that the running board had already rusted and fallen off on the passenger side shown. She had her VW convertible about 1-1/2 years until someone dumped sand in the gas tank giving to it an inglorious end!

Unpredictable, Odd Behavior and Other Stories: The beetle had rear-wheel drive and the engine was just above the rear wheels. This made summer driving easy. The weight distribution between the rear and front wheels was such however that on ice, the car was unpredictable.

1. On two occasions, I was driving down a city street on ice/snow and the car suddenly rotated 180 degrees so that the nose of the car was facing the direction it had come from!! It happened in an instant, probably after applying the gas pedal. Fortunately no other cars were near by to crash into.

2/ Another time, I parked in a snow-covered parking lot of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Little Canada, MN to attend Sunday Mass. After church, my Beetle was stuck in the snow. Since the car was easy for one person to push, I put the transmission into low gear and released the clutch allowing the rear wheels of the stationary car to spin in the snow. I then got out of the car, walked behind it, and pushed it out of rut. The car slowly began to move forward gradually picking up speed. I, suddenly realizing the stupid thing I had just done, ran after the moving car and was able to get into the driver's seat and regain control before it hit anything!

3. Since the car was easy to push, when it didn't start (which was often especially in winter with a challenged 6V system with no alternator, only a generator), it was easy to get it moving to "pop the clutch". If there was a passenger, he or she could get out and push the car while the driver popped the clutch. If there was no passenger, the driver could put the car into neutral, open the driver's side door, get out of the car and stand between the open door and car and push forward to get it moving. Once the car was rolling, the driver jumped back into the car, depressed the clutch, shifted from neutral to low gear and released the clutch to engage gears, which got the crankshaft rotating and moved the pistons up and down and thus start the car.

4. A skilled driver could listen to the engine rpm and shift gears without depressing the clutch at all! This was especially true when the clutch began to wear.

5. The car was always needing shock absorbers, "valve job", new clutch plate, rebuilt or new starting motor, rebuilt or new generator, muffler, tune-up job and even a rebuilt engine which could be replaced in one day. For major work, I took my1962 VW to "Willie's Import Auto Repair" located near the University of Minnesota. This was convenient when I was attending the University. Willie had a German accent and likely immigrated from Germany. He a true professional. He was to a VW what a surgeon was to a patient. Willie could press both palms on the two exhaust pipes of a running VW, feel the pressure and diagnose whether the car needed a valve job! When he worked on a VW he first laid a towel on the concrete floor then arranged the metric tools he would be needing on the towel in numerical order. More than once, he saved my VW.

6. I believe the year was about 1970 (the VW was 8 years old). I and the family were driving the 60 miles from St. Paul, MN to Rochester to visit parents when suddenly the car stopped and the passenger compartment filled with smoke! This was the end. Something bad had happened to the engine. This is how it happened I was to learn afterwards. There was no use getting a new engine as the rest of the car was too rusty to salvage.

The next family car was a Dodge Dart with a "straight six" 6 cylinder engine. It had a lot more room and a heater!

Reconciliation

2010-04-13T14:45:00.001-05:00

Son Joseph Spring 1981, 11 years old

         Reconciliation

For reasons unknown to me, he
hid the sack of field corn
beneath the front car seat. A
sort of peace offering to himself.

My memory recalled him clutching
the small brown bag as he walked
near the lake that day. He was
unsure of my love, his friend's
friendship, his sister's honesty
and his own self-worth.

He and I were miles apart in
spirit. Only time was to bridge
the gap.

Days later, when I found the corn
spilled from its broken paper bag,
I visualized a boy feeding ducks
alone, trying to minimize his hurt.

In more joyful times, his sister
and he had splashed along the shore
in bare feet tossing kernels to
chasing families of mallards.

Perhaps in his misery he had tried
to recapture the pleasant feeling
by himself but had failed. Thus he
hid the corn from view until he
reunited with everyone lest the
happiness the corn had previously
brought would be tarnished.

His joy in reconciliation however,
rendered the corn's hiding place
unimportant, and he forgot his
treasure for all time.
      _____________

Autumn 1965

2010-04-10T06:28:00.002-05:00

Below is a B&W photo I like of Humble Blogger (23) and first-born son John (1) sitting in the fallen oak leaves in November 1965. Things seemed much simpler then. Second son Joseph would arrive in November 1969 and daughter Julie in December 1970.

Father and son John November 1965

Essence of Spring

2010-04-09T12:05:00.007-05:00

Lilacs in Full Bloom June 1979

By far the lilacs of spring are (to me) the most impressive flower. Their perfume permeates the air in spite of the cares and worries of the world, to sweeten all who chance to come near them. Even one aromatic molecule suffices me. But two or more may so dull my sense that I take no more notice until I realize that they're gone. Then I bemoan their absence and wait for the passing of months until they blossom again.

Two haiku from August 1979

Lilac 1

Thunderstorm hail stripped

emerging lilac blossoms

stealing part of spring.

___________

Lilac 2

Tenacius lilacs

smashed by thunderstorm fury:

purple carpeting.

___________

"Snoopy" Science Project

2010-04-08T14:29:00.008-05:00

"Snoopy" the Electronic Dog Up Close

Snoopy Display Won 2nd Place

In 1960, my friend Jim and I were Seniors at Lourdes High School in Rochester, MN and needed an entry for the Spring Science Fair. We decided to make an electronic Snoopy dog, based on the "Peanuts" cartoon character, by Charles M. Schultz. Our plan was to construct a "dog" so that when a flashlight was shined into its eyes, its battery operated motors were to start and the dog was to follow the flashlight beam.

Jim and I worked on the project for some time with the result that our "dog" was more a rectangular aluminum box assembly with photoelectric cells for eyes, solenoids for steering front wheels, motors to power the wheels and various other electronic components. The dog needed 110 volts AC to run the motors instead of batteries and a very bright flashlight to activate the "eye" photocells, but it generally did what it was supposed to do.

We won 2nd place. Jim and I couldn't decide what to do with the dog (as it belonged to both of us) so I disassembled it and we split the parts! I wish it were in one piece today.

Grandsons Luke (on left) and Jake By a Replica of the real
Snoopy September 2000 in Downtown St. Paul, MN

Pancho (Our Dog)

2010-04-07T11:27:00.008-05:00

Pancho

While I and my brothers Mike and Jim lived in the apartment above dad's Kraher's meat market on Main Street in Kasson, MN in the 1950's we got a mixed breed dog we named Pancho. "Pancho" was the name of the sidekick of the then popular comics, radio, TV, and movie character "The Cisco Kid" who operated in the Texas-Mexico border country. I remember brother Mike getting the dog from a litter. Mike's friend Gary also got a dog from the same litter which he named (of course) Cisco. The photo shows Pancho in the living room of our apartment sometime early in 1958 . I think this was about the only trick he knew. He would soon be going to "The Farm" as our family would be moving to Rochester, MN before September 1958. (The photo is dated June 1959 because that is likely when the film was developed after we had moved to Rochester.)

To the left of Pancho an upright steam-heat radiator and small portion of a living room window can be seen. The outside of the apartment is shown below in a photo from 1980.

1980 View of Our Apartment on Main Street Kasson, MN

In the 1950's the Apartment was above Dad's "Kraher's Meat Market"

There are two vertical windows shown on the left in the photo of the apartment. These were the living room windows. On Saturday evenings, the stores were open on Main Street till about 9 pm. This was the only day they were open at night. The town was very crowded as local Farmers came to town to do their shopping and also to enjoy an evening out. Their cars were parked up and down the street while they shopped. The 1956 photo of Kasson Main Street below shows how "down town"would have looked.

Kasson, MN Main Street 1956

[Note: Permission for "Minnesota Media Use" of Photo

Granted by the Minnesota Historical Society, Order No. 80758

(Business Section Kasson, Loc # MD4.9 KA p9)]

Saturday evenings afforded we three brothers the opportunity to open the living room windows just a bit, stick our pea shooters out and aim at cars and shoppers!! I think we were able to buy the pea shooters in the local drug store. They were drinking straw-like devices but with a larger diameter and about 12 inches long. They may have been constructed out of metal or wood. One could place dried peas, small navy beans, or small wads of paper in one end and blow the projectile out the other end. With practice our aim could be quite good and unsuspecting shoppers wondered what had "stung" them. We got in trouble several times when we were discovered to be the "pea shooters." We had some degree of protection from the angry shoppers as we were in an upstairs apartment building, but mom and dad soon enough heard about their boy's activity and we had to pay the consequences.

Tuesday After Easter

2010-04-06T10:49:00.003-05:00

Two Disciples and Jesus on the Road to Emmaus

Painting by William Brassey Hole. 1846-1917.

[Note: Photo purchased from www.biblepicturegalley.com/ for use in this post]

Luke 24: 13-35

"That very same day (of the Resurrection), two of them were on their way to a village called Emmaus seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking together about all that had happened. Now as they talked this over, Jesus him self came up and walked by their side, but something prevented them from recognising him. "

[According to The Jerusalem Bible footnotes: In the apparitions described by Luke and John, the disciples do not at first recognise the Lord: they need a word or a sign. this is because the risen body, though the same body that died on the cross, is in a new condition; its outward appearance is therefore changed and it is exempt from the usual physical laws.]

" He said to them, 'What matters are you discussing as you walk along?' They stopped short, their faces downcast. Then one of them called Cleopas, answered him, 'You must be the only person staying in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have been happening there these last few days'. 'What things?' he asked. 'All about Jesus of Nazareth' they answered 'who proved he was a great prophet by the things he said and did in the sight of God and of the whole people; and how our chief priests and our leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and had him crucified. Our own hope had been that he would be the one to set Israel free. And this is not all; two whole days have gone by since it all happened; and some women from our group have astounded us: they went to the tomb in the early morning, and when they did not find the body, they came back to tell us they had seen a vision of angels who declared he was alive. Some of our friends went to the tomb and found everything exactly as the women had reported, but of him they saw nothing.' "

"Then he said to the, 'You foolish men! So slow to believe the full message of the prophets! Was it not ordained that the Christ should suffer and so enter into his glory?' Then, starting with Moses and going through all the prophets, he explained to them the passages throughout the scriptures that were about himself. "

"When they drew near to the village to which they were going, he made as if to go on; but they pressed him to stay with them. 'It is nearly evening' they said ' and the day is almost over.' So he went in to stay with them. Now while he was with them at table, he took the bread and said the blessing; then he broke it and handed it to them. And their eyes were opened and they recognised him; but he had vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, 'Did not out hearts burn within us as he talked to us on the road and explained the scriptures to us?' "

"They set out that instant and returned to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven assembled together with their companions who said to them, 'Yes, it is true. The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.' Then they told their story of what had happened on the road and how they had recognised him at the breaking of the bread."

Easter Monday

2010-04-05T11:47:00.003-05:00

Easter Lily

Photo Purchased for use in this blog

Matthew 28: 9-14

"And there, coming to meet them, was Jesus. 'Greetings' he said. And the women came up to him, and falling down before him, clasped his feet. Then Jesus said to them, 'Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers that they must leave for Galilee; they will see me there'."

"While they were on their way, some of the guard went off into the city to tell the chief priests all that had happened. These held a meeting with the elders and, after some discussion, handed a considerable sum of money to the soldiers with these instructions: 'This is what you must say, "His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep". And should the governor come to hear of this, we undertake to put things right with him ourselves and to see that you do not get into trouble.' "

Easter Sunday

2010-04-04T05:00:00.005-05:00

Mary Magdalene and the Holy Women at the Empty Tomb (Matt 28:1-8)*

From "The Life of Christ" Paintings by J.J.Tissot, 1896

Jesus Appears to a Frightened Mary Magdalene (John 20:11-18)*

From "The Life of Christ" Paintings by J.J.Tissot, 1896

The Resurrection

"Woman, why
are you weeping
this beautiful day?"

"Oh! Sir you
startled me.
You must be
the gardener.
Do you know
where they've
taken Jesus?

"Sir
I came early.
He told me
to be at His
grave when I
saw Him in
Galilee for the
last time. I
mean before...
before His
horrible death
in Jerusalem
which many
of us witnessed.
Did you also see?

"As I neared
His tomb,
I saw the
huge stone
rolled aside,
and Jesus was
gone, so I
ran to tell
Peter and John.
They came back
with me. Peter
was overjoyed,
sir, he had been
weeping for
several days...
but, not finding
Jesus, they
returned to town.

"Only now have I
realized my
anguish and
frustration and
loneliness
because He
is not here.

"Sir, can you
imagine how
deeply I
loved Him?

"I knew He
was the Messiah
three years ago
when he freed
me from sin
and restored
my health.

"Sir, have you
taken Jesus
somewhere?"

"Mary...
do you remember
my words by the
Galilee sea:
'I'll call your
name softly. Don't
be frightened
be brave.'

"Mary...
Remember?"

"Rabbuni!
Master!
Jesus!"
_________
Poem based on John 20: 11-18
*Note: I purchased all images used in this post from www.biblepicturegalley.com/

Holy Saturday

2010-04-03T08:00:00.006-05:00

Awaiting the Resurrection of Jesus Christ

[Note: Photo purchased from www.biblepicturegalley.com/ for use in this post]

Romans 6: 3-11

"You have been taught that when we were baptised we went into the tomb with him and joined him in death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the Father's glory, we too might live a new life.

If in union with Christ we have imitated his death, we shall also imitate him in his resurrection. We must realise that our former selves have been crucified with him to destroy this sinful body and to free us from the slavery of sin. When man dies, of course he has finished with sin.

But we believe that having died with Christ we shall return to life with him: Christ, as we know, having been raised from the dead will never die again. Death has no power over him any more. When he died, he died, once for all, to sin, so his life now is life with God; and in that way, you too must consider yourselves to be dead to sin but alive for God in Christ Jesus"

Good Friday

2010-04-02T08:00:00.012-05:00

Crucifixion

Abt 1510 by Matthias Grünewald (1470 -1528)

[Note: Photo purchased from www.biblepicturegalley.com/ for use in this post]

The Death*

"Crucify Him! Crucify Him! Crucify Him!"
The people shouted with rising voice,
and they led Him away to Golgotha
though He clearly had made the choice.

For He might have escaped
as He had done several times before,
but the feast had come, His days were gone,
soon the Christ would be no more.

He shouldered a cross of heavy wood
to the summit of the hill.
On the way he fell, reopening wounds,
blood flowed, the crowd yelled "kill!"

Simon helped Him raise the wood.
Mary cleansed His dripping head.
Christ fell again but could not rise.
The Roman soldiers thought Him dead.

They whipped Him till at last He stood
and moved on toward the site.
There they nailed His hands and feet
and stood the cross upright.

Those standing near to the dying Christ
heard His parched lips say:
"Father forgive them, for they know not
what they've done this day."

Then darkness hovered over all the land
and the roar of the crowd became still,
but sounds of weeping and labored breathing
broke the silence with a piercing shrill.

"Woman, behold thy son," He said to Mary.
"Behold thy mother, John, son of Zebedee."
Then in despair He screamed
"Eloi, Eloi Lama Sabachtheni!"

"Father, oh Father, why have you forsaken me
to a world of hate and sin?
Your image has gone, My body's near death,
will I ever be with you again?"

Christ's head dropped, His muscles failed,
He recalled words He once had said:
"Foxes have holes and birds have nests
but I have nowhere to lay my head."

He could not force His legs to push
a weakened frame upright.
He felt as though His lungs were crushed
till air filled them with new life.

The fifth hour passed in silence,
on the sixth Christ whispered "I thirst."
A Roman soldier gave Him gall
but He could not drink, His heart had burst.

The God-Man raised His glassy eyes
and spoke a final phrase:
"Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit
It is finished, the last of my days."

A wave of pain pierced sad hearts
as the tormented body hung still.
Then wailing and weeping filled the air,
surrounding the tree on the hill.

"My child, my son, what have they done."
grieved His mother as she felt her loss.
Mary of Magdala, lifted her eyes
"Dear Jesus, your love has exacted great cost."

His disciples sadly turned away
"Our King has died, we tremble with fear.
Where can we go, who will believe
what He did the past three years!"

Some Roman soldiers stood in awe
at the form upon the cross.
One tossed aside the robe he'd won
for he sensed the meaning of this loss.

The earth trembled as rain poured down
washing traces of His blood away.
Joseph appeared to entomb the body
in preparation for the Sabbath day.
_______________
*Poem based on the gospels of Matthew (27: 32-56), Mark (15: 21-41), Luke (23: 33-46) and John (19: 17-30)

The Burial
John 19: 38:42

"After this, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus though a secret one because he was afraid of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him remove the body of Jesus. Pilate gave permission, so they came and took it away. Nicodemus came as well, the same one who had first come to Jesus at night-time and he brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, following the Jewish burial custom. At the place where he had been crucified there was a garden, and in this garden a new tomb in which no one had yet been buried. Since it was the Jewish Day of Preparation and the tomb was near at hand, they laid Jesus there. "

Holy Thursday

2010-04-01T08:00:00.008-05:00

The Last Supper

by CF Vos*

Matthew 26: 20-25*

"When evening came he was at table with the twelve disciples. And while they were eating he said 'I tell you solemnly, one of you is about to betray me'. They were greatly distressed and started asking him in turn, 'Not I Lord, surely?' He answered, 'Someone who has dipped his hand into the dish with me will betray me. The son of Man is going to his fate, as the scriptures say he will, but alas for that man by whom the son of Man is betrayed! Better for that man if he had never been born!' Judas, who was to betray him, asked in his turn, 'Not I, Rabbi, surely?' 'They are your own words' answered Jesus'"

The Communion of the Apostles

From "The Life of Christ" Paintings by J.J.Tissot, 1896*

Matthew 26:26-29*

"Now as they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and when he had said the blessing he broke it and gave it to the disciples. 'Take it and eat;' he said 'this is my body.' Then he took a cup, and when he had returned thanks he gave it to them. 'Drink all of you from this,' he said 'for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, which is to be poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. From now on, I tell you, I shall not drink wine until the day I drink the new wine with you in the kingdom of my Father.' "

Jesus praying in Gethsemane

By William Brassey Hole. 1846-1917*

Matthew 26: 30-37*

"After psalms had been sung they left for the Mount of Olives. then Jesus said to them, 'You will all lose faith in me this night, for the scripture says: I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered, but after my resurrection I shall go before you to Galilee' At this Peter said , 'Though all lose faith in you, I will never lose faith'. Jesus answered him, 'I tell you solemnly, this very night, before the cock crows, you will have disowned me three times'. Peter said to him, 'Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you'. And all the disciples said the same. "

"Then Jesus came with them to a small estate called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, 'Stay here while I go over there to pray'. He took peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him."

The Garden

The moon shown down on His sweaty hair.
A cooling breeze brushed His cheek.
His figure was slouched near an olive tree.
His apostles were near but asleep.

"Wake up!" He called to them.
"I need your company.
Talk to me, relieve my mind
from this intense agony."

But Peter only rolled about.
James mumbled something deep,
and John the beloved open one eye
but soon fell back to sleep.

Again the Galilean was alone
with the burden of man's needs.
His soul was anguished as His blood
washed clean the world's deeds.

He saw His Father's image there,
compassionate for His Son.
Christ asked "Father, me? Why me!"
The single answer came: "It must be done."

Lying prostrate, Christ professed
to do His Father's will.
Suddenly He heard the din
of men coming for their kill.
___________

[*Note: I purchased all images used in this post from www.biblepicturegalley.com/ . Bible verses used in this post are from The Jerusalem Bible, Copyright 1966, Doubleday and Company, Inc. Garden city, New York.]

Judas Iscariot

2010-03-31T08:00:00.008-05:00

Judas Iscariot bargaining with the chief priests

[Note: Photo purchased from www.biblepicturegalley.com/ for use in this post]

Matthew 26:14-19

"Then one of the Twelve, the man called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said. 'What are you prepared to give me if I hand him over to you?' They paid him thirty silver pieces, and from that moment he looked for an opportunity to betray him.

Now on the first day of Unleavened Bread the disciples came to Jesus to say, 'Where do you want us to make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?' 'Go to so-and-so in the city' he replied 'and say to him,'the Master says: My time is near. It is at your house that I am keeping Passover with my disciples.' The disciples did what Jesus told them and prepared the Passover."

Night Prayer

2010-03-30T16:27:00.006-05:00

Jesus at Prayer

[Note: B&W Image purchased from www.biblepicturegallery.com/ for use in this post.]

Night Prayer

Alone at night in the mountain air
Jesus sang a quiet song,
words of love, expressing care
as gentle breezes tossed His hair.

Now and then He shed a tear
as burdens surfaced in His prayer.
At other times He laughed with joy
recalling days He was a boy.

The night grew cold, Christ felt old.
He longed for the warmth of friends.
But no one was near to ease His fear
of the day He'd be deserted and sold.

He looked as His Father with misty eyes
to confirm once again the plan.
Came the Father's reply in moans and sighs:
"My son, this for the benefit of man"

Jesus wept, then lay and slept.
Later He awoke refreshed.
The wind was gone, dew on the ground,
on the mountain not a sound.

Once again He knelt in prayer
to give praise, His thoughts to share.
He remembered Peter, that childlike man
to who someday He'd give command.

Joy came to His heart as He recalled
when Simon fished all day in vain,
then broke his nets with an abundant catch
and called for help until other boats came.

On through the night the Christ-man prayed
till moonlit shadows fell away.
Then Jesus rose, no longer to stay
and bid goodbye to His Father till another day.

Streaks of sunlight brushed His face
as he started down the crooked path,
prepared to complete His Father's work,
glad to see friends on the trail in race.
________________

Anointing at Bethany

2010-03-29T23:34:00.020-05:00

Bethany at Night

[Note: B&W Image purchased from www.biblepicturegallery.com/ for use in this post. I have colorized it to create a night scene under a full moon.]

John 12:1-11
"Six days before the Passover, Jesus went to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom he had raised from the dead. They gave a dinner for him there; Martha waited on them and Lazarus was among those at table. Mary brought in a pound of very costly ointment, pure nard, and with it anointed the feet of Jesus, wiping them with her hair; the house was full of the scent of the ointment. "

Mary (Lazarus' sister) Anointing the Feet of Jesus

[ Note that Elizabeth Fletcher was so kind to give me permission to use this image from a page of her website: www.bible-people.info/index.htm The specific page for this image is: www.bible-people.info/Martha_and_Mary.htm]

"Then Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples, the man who was to betray him said, 'Why wasn't this ointment sold for three hundred denarii, and the money given to the poor?' He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he was in charge of the common fund and used to help himself to the contributions. So Jesus said, 'Leave her along; she had to keep this scent for the day of my burial. You have the poor with you always, you will not always have me.' "

" Meanwhile a large number of Jews heard that he was there and came not only on account of Jesus but also to see Lazarus whom he had raised from the dead. Then the chief priests decided to kill Lazarus as well, since it was on his account that many of the Jews were leaving them and believing in Jesus"

[Note: Bible verses used in this post are from The Jerusalem Bible, Copyright 1966, Doubleday and Company, Inc. Garden city, New York.]

Palm Sunday

2010-03-28T08:00:00.020-05:00

Jesus' Triumphant entry into Jerusalem

William B. Hole (1846-1917)

This image is in Public Domain. I purchased it from www.biblepicturegallery.com/

John 12:12:16, 19

"The next day the crowds who had come up for the festival heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took branches of palm and went out to meet him, shouting, 'Hosanna! Blessings on the king of Israel, who comes in the name of the Lord' Jesus found a young donkey and mounted it--as scripture says: Do not be afraid, daughter of Zion; see, your king is coming, mounted on the colt of a donkey...Then the Pharisees said to one another, 'You see, there is nothing you can do; look, the whole world is running after him!'"

The Parting

2010-03-27T11:58:00.030-05:00

Mary Magdalene, Oil on wood panel (1858-60)

by English Artist Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys (1829-1904)

Image from [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mariya_Magdalena.jpg] : "This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.This applies to the United States, Australia, the European Union and those countries with a copyright term of life of the author plus 70 years"

The start of Holy Week 2010 begins tomorrow (Sunday 3/28/10) in the Catholic Church (and many other Christian denominations). It arrives on a different calendar date every year according to a complicated formula for the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday. It commemorates the last week of Jesus' life on earth. It begins with Palm Sunday celebrating Jesus' triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a Donkey. It includes Holy Thursday when Jesus celebrates his Last Supper, is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane and goes on trial; Good Friday when Jesus is crucified, dies and is buried; and Holy Saturday, a time of waiting. The celebration of Jesus' resurrection on Easter Sunday starts the beginning of the 50 days until Pentecost (the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles).

The Parting below is mainly about Mary Magdalene, a close follower of Jesus (See references at the end of the poem). In this poem, which is fictional and which takes place in the early morning hour, I "witness" in my mind's eye Jesus saying goodbye to Mary at the Sea of Galilee before he leaves on his fateful trip to Jerusalem some 60 miles south. Mary is upset at first but then is reluctantly accepting of Jesus' fate (more likely she is in a state of shock and/or disbelief). We know from the scripture that Jesus had "cast out seven devils" from Mary. We don't know who or what these "devils" were. There is much discussion about who Mary was and what her relationship to Jesus was. In this poem I depict Mary having a deep love for Jesus. But the love had boundaries because her love was human and His divine. They will see each other again in the poem The Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

The Parting

I saw our Lord upon the beach.
Mary Magdalene was prostrate at His feet.
He beckoned to her to stand up tall,
then He gently embraced her, I saw all.

I knew that she loved Him
by the tears in her eyes
as she clung to Him tightly
under Galilee skies.

For the knowledge was hidden
sunk deep in her heart
that the Romans were plotting
to tear Him apart.

She'd born the news well
as reports first sifted back
that this year's Passover feast
would be the Christ's last.

Mary tried not to show Him
that she knew of the plan,
but her tears reached His neck
and rolled down on the sand.

He held her only a moment
then broke the embrace
and with compassionate eyes
looked upon her sad face.

I heard Him say "Mary"
as He brushed off her tears.
"Be trusting, bear with me
you have for three years.

"By my Father's design
this must happen to me.
I'll be taken and scourged,
finally nailed to a tree

"But death will not conquer
I will return!
So cheer up dear Mary
release your concern.

"On the third day of sorrow
be at my grave.
I'll call your name softly.
Don't be frightened, be brave.

"You then will carry
the good news about me
to my friends back in town
and they'll come out to see."

I watched them both closely
as they bid each goodbye.
Christ traveled on southward
Mary looked toward the sky.

"Oh, Yahweh," she said,
"I give you my praise.
I thank Thee for Jesus
On these last of His days."

As Mary lowered her head
and turned away from the sea.
I saw a smile on her lips,
her eyes sparkled with glee.

I listened intently
as she walked out of my view
humming a melody
against a backdrop of blue.
__________

According to Scripture, Mary Magdalene was:

A Follower of Jesus:

Luke 8:1-3 "Now after this he made his way through towns and villages preaching, and proclaiming the Good News of the kingdom of God. With him went the Twelve, as well as certain women who had been cured of evil spirits and ailments; Mary surnamed the Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna the wife of Herod's steward Chuza, Susanna, and several others who provided for them out of their own resources."

Stood at a distance from Jesus' Cross:

Matthew 27: 55-56: " And many women were there, watching from a distance, the same women who had followed Jesus from Galilee and looked after him. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee's sons."

Mark15:40-41 "There were some women watching from a distance. Among them were Mary of Magdala, Mary who was the mother of James the younger and Joset, and Salome. These used to follow him and look after him when he was in Galilee. And there were many other women there who had come up to Jerusalem with him."

Luke 23:49 "All his friends stood at a distance; so also did the women who had accompanied him from Galilee, and they saw all this happen."

John 19:25 " Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother and his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and Mary of Magdala"

Was at the burial of Jesus:
Matthew 27:61 "Now Mary of Magdala and the other Mary were there, sitting opposite the sepulchre."

Mark 15: 47 "Mary of Magdala and Mary the mother of Joset were watching and took note of where he was laid."

Luke 23:55 "Meanwhile the women who had come from Galilee with Jesus were following behind. They took note of the tomb and of the position of the body."

Was among the first to see the Resurrected Christ:

Mark 16:9-11 "Having risen in the morning on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary of Magdala from whom he had cast out seven devils. She then went to those who had been his companions, and who were mourning and in tears, and told them. But they did not believe her when they heard her say that he was alive and that she had seen him."

Luke 24:9-11 "When the women returned from the tomb they told all this to the Eleven and to all the others. The women were Mary of Magdala, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them also told the apostles, but this story of theirs seemed pure nonsense, and they did not believe them."

John 20:1-18 A long narrative about Mary Magdalene going to Jesus' tomb early in the morning. She sees that the stone had been moved and runs to tell Peter and John. They run to the tomb and see linen cloths on the ground and believe something miraculous has happened. They go back home. After they leave Jesus appeared and spoke to Mary, "Woman, why are you weeping?" Mary says "They have taken my Lord away...and I don't know where they have put him". Mary doesn't recognize Jesus, thinking He must be the gardener. Finally Jesus finally said "Mary" and she instantly knew Him and said to him in Hebrew "Rabbuni!" meaning Master.

Six Times Seven

2010-03-26T08:00:00.005-05:00

"Hen Mathematics" Purchased for this blog: © Papepi | Dreamstime.com

Six Times Seven

Six times seven is forty-two.

The root of nine is three.

I wonder though, how the log of ten

ever came to be?

Why does nine to zero power

equal unity.

And how can eight bent on its side

become infinity?

Who says the integral of X

is X squared divisor two.

And how can a decimal point

diminish without leaving a clue?

The answers I don't hope to know.

Math to me was always queer.

But this I'll tell to those who care,

it causes feeble minds to sear!

________________

Sputnik 1

2010-03-25T11:41:00.011-05:00

I was sitting in 10th grade History Class at the new Kasson-Mantorville (MN) High School on Friday October 4, 1957 when word came that the Russians had launched the 1st ever satellite into space and it was orbiting Earth!!! It was called "Sputnik 1" and would be the first of a Sputnik series.

The image above is a replica of Sputnik by NASA and is in the public domain

Note: All the quotes in this blog are from: Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sputnik_1

The satellite's success "...precipitated the Sputnik crisis in the United States and ignited the Space Race within the Cold War."

"The satellite travelled at 29,000 kilometers (18,000 mi) per hour, taking 96.2 minutes to complete an orbit, and emitted radio signals at 20.005 and 40.002 MHz which were monitored by amateur radio operators throughout the world. The signals continued for 22 days until the transmitter batteries ran out on 26 October 1957. Sputnik 1 burned up on 4 January 1958, as it fell from orbit upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, after travelling about 60 million km (37 million miles) and spending 3 months in orbit."

The satellite was 23 inches in diameter and weighed about 184 lb (110 lb of which was batteries). It had a 1 watt transmitter operating a two frequencies: 20.005 MHz and 40.002 MHz. It transmitted an audible "beep-beep" radio pulse. " Directions, provided by the American Radio Relay League were to tune in 20 megacycles sharply, by the time signals, given on that frequency. Then tune to slightly higher frequencies. The 'beep, beep' sound of the satellite can be heard each time it rounds the globe"

I didn't have an amateur radio receiver at the time to pick up these frequencies (I would a year later). I therefore looked through an army surplus catalog and ordered a small black rectangular box which was supposed to receive one or both of Sputnik's frequencies. It came by train a week or two later, in time to hear Sputnik's signals before they stopped transmitting on October 26. Unfortunately the heavy rectangular box, which looked like a module which fit into a larger bay of electronics, had no instructions, no power supply, no speaker or earphones. I was not to hear Sputnik's signals from that piece of equipment!

"The launch of Sputnik both united the people of the Soviet Union and humiliated the United States with its lack of comparable technology"

"However, the United States' temporary status as second-rate technological superpower brought great embarrassment to the American people. Some theorize that this embarrassment provided the much-needed push that accelerated America's moon landing."

Chaos

2010-03-24T13:38:00.027-05:00

I wrote Chaos in 1977, likening certain risk taking to a caterpillar about to spin a cocoon. Once the decision is made there is a time delay, only after which can the results of the the risk taking be evaluated. It is the decision to take the risk and the time delay after doing so that can be scary.

Chaos

Said
the butterfly
to his friend the

caterpillar in a tree:

"Look at me and see what

you could be if you let go.
Declare an end. Be free. Die!!"

:O(|)(|)(|)(|)(|)(|)(|)

"But said he, I am afraid of the time

of chaos between now and then after

I build my cocoon and have

to wonder whether I

should have forged
ahead or stayed
behind."
____________________

Emil and Agnes Bauman

2010-03-23T11:40:00.027-05:00

Your humble blogger doesn't remember Grandpa and Grandma Bauman (grandparents on my mother's side) very well as they died at a young age and I also was young. A photo of them is shown on the left.

Grandma Agnes Amelia (Gotch) Bauman was born on December 9, 1892 in Fort Dodge, IA and died in Seattle, WA on Jan 30, 1946 after a series of strokes. She was only 54 years old. I was 4 years old at the time.

Apparantly the night Agnes died, mom said she heard a voice downstairs in the house in the middle of the night (Owatonna, MN on South Street). The voice sounded like her mother Agnes who was calling mom's name up the stairwell to the second floor where mom, dad and we kids were sleeping!! It was the next morning that mom learned of her mother's death the night before.

Grandpa Emil Friedrick Bauman (sometimes spelled Baumann) was born in Basel Switzerland on January 11, 1888 and died in Seattle, WA of a heart attack in March of 1949 at an age of 61 years. I was 7 years old at the time. His photo as a young man is shown below.

Mom told me that the night her dad died (we were still living in Owatonna, MN in Grandpa Andrew's house on South Street) , the phone rang in the middle of the night but there was silence on the other end when she answered it. She suspected something had happened to her dad and the next morning she learned of his death. Mom and my younger brother Jim took a train to Seattle to attend the funeral.

Grandpa Emil Bauman(n) as a Young Man

Below is a photo of Grandpa Bauman with brother's Mike, Jim and humble blogger in about 1945.

Grandpa Emil Bauman with Mike, Jim and Dave (your humble blogger)

Grandpa Bauman has a fascinating story. Mom (Mary F. Bauman Kubiatowicz) said her dad (Emil Frederic Bauman) called himself Fred H. Bauman because he didn't know what his full name was. He just knew that his mom, Josephine Elizabeth (Lampart) Baumann (wife of Fred's father in Switzerland, Johann Baumann) called him "Freddie". Josephine left her 1st husband Johann in Switzerland and emigrated to New York where she married again. The second husband apparently wasn't kind to Emil so Emil ran away from home several times. There is also some evidence that Josephine sent her son Emil away. Emil eventually ended up on an "Orphan Train" (These were active from 1854 to 1904 and carried children, abandon and neglected, to the West to work on farmer's ranches). Mom said Emil got into a ranch where he had to stay in the barn and wasn't given anything to eat and so to stay alive "sucked eggs". He carried this liking for raw eggs throughout his lifetime.

Grandpa Emil made his way to Humboldt, IA where he met and married Grandma Agnes Gotch. She gave birth to 5 children: Marguerite Josephine, 11/2/1914, Richard Joseph, 1/24/1916 Mary Frances, 5/23/1918 (My mom), Winifred Ellen, 2/9/1922 and Bert Owen, 3/13/1925. All of these brothers and sisters are now deceased in 2010.

Below is a photo of humble blogger and his loving wife Rose having supper in Steinbock Restaurant in Basel, Switzerland Monday June 21, 2004. Other than enjoying the wonderful city, we were researching Baumann genealogy.

Rose and Dave Kubiatowicz enjoying Swiss Fondue in Basel, Switzerland

A couple days later on June 23, 2004 we met up with Rose's sister Maxine and Maxine's daughter Laura in Brussels, Belgium to celebrate Laura's birthday. They were also on vacation with us and had been visiting other sights. We were reconvening for our trip home.

Laura and Maxine on Laura's Birthday in Brussels, Belgium

Light

2010-03-22T09:59:00.011-05:00

I wrote the poem Light in August 1978. A perfect literal image of light is shown in the photo on the left as rays stream through the wndows of the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. How appropriate it is that Spiritual light also fills that holy place. Spiritual light which illuminates all darkness and which no amount of darkness can extinguish!

Light

The people cry out
but no one listens.
They strike, but
the object is dead.
They search, only
nothing is there.

Then suddenly a light
appears from the
sobbings of their
loneliness, which
comforts unaided
and answers questions
not yet asked.
________

Bloody Lariat

2010-03-21T14:53:00.007-05:00

I was six or seven years old in the late 1940's living with my parents and two brothers on South Street in Owatonna. Grandpa Andrew lived on the other side of town on his wife's family farm off St. Paul road. For some reason he made each of us three boys a lariat. Now I defer to Wikipedia for the type of lariat Grandpa made: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lasso)

"A lariat is made from stiff rope so that the noose stays open when the lasso is thrown. It also allows the cowboy to easily open up the noose from horseback to release the cattle because the rope is stiff enough to be pushed a little. A high quality lasso is weighted for better handling. The lariat has a small reinforced loop at one end, called a honda or hondo, through which the rope passes to form a loop. The honda can be formed by a honda knot (or another loop knot), an eye splice, a seizing, rawhide, or a metal ring. The other end is sometimes tied simply in a small, tight, overhand knot to prevent fraying."

[The wonderful cowboy on the rocking horse above is from dreamstime.com. I purchased it for this blog and its copyright notification is: © Dennis Cox| Dreamstime.com ]

I remember Grandpa's lariat rope having a metal ring spliced on one end through which the other end of the rope passed to form a loop. Grandpa even rubbed beeswax across the surface of the rope to reduce friction as it slid through the metal ring which allowed the loop to close easily. The lariat's construction was beautiful. I don't know why he chose to make lariats for us at our young ages, unless he was just exercising a grandparent's prerogative. He thought we boys could use the lariats to do some rope tricks.

It wasn't long after Grandpa presented us with the lariats that I was playing with some friends in the backyard of our house in the late afternoon. One of my friends was sitting on the concrete steps of the house and I was practicing rope tricks with my new lariat. I decided to try to lasso my friend and eventually got the loop around either his neck or his body, I don't remember. I pulled on the rope and this caused his head to strike the sharp foundation stone of the house. Immediately lots of blood started pouring from the cut in his head and my friend started crying.

Hearing the noise a neighbor lady, at least a generation older than my parents, emerged from her house and began loudly announcing to the world that I had done a horrible thing and that I'd be lucky if there wasn't permanent damage to my friend's head. "How could you do such a thing!" Other people gathered around, and mom came outside. Someone got a wet towel to apply pressure to the wound on my friend's head and escorted him home.

I felt badly. Mom assured me that the neighbor lady had over reacted and that the news from my friend's parents was that the cut was small and manageable and that no additional damage had been done.

News spread, and that same evening Grandpa Andrew drove his truck to our home and removed the 3 lariats he so carefully and expertly made for us boys. My brother's were not too happy with me as they had not yet had an opportunity to "play" with their lariats.

This incident would be the talk of the neighborhood for some time. In later years I often wondered what Grandpa Andrew had done with the lariats. There were many times I wished I still had mine!

Crow Hunting

2010-03-20T09:41:00.016-05:00

In 1960 my college friend Larry and I wanted to be good crow hunters. This was going to be a challenge because the birds were very intelligent. We studied up on the creatures and drove to Waseca, MN (About 50 miles west of Rochester, MN) to the famous George Herter's Sports store (closed in 1981). We bought crow calls and a book detailing the crow language and a Raven carcass (from China). The carcass was not stuffed. It was what remained after the dead bird had been gutted and dried. We called it "Corvus" (The raven's scientific classification) and planned to use it as a decoy in a tree. We wanted to get a crow carcass but a raven was all Herter's had.

Above is a nice photo of a raven in a tree. I purchased it from dreamstime.com for this blog [© Irina Bekulova| Dreamstime.com ] The raven looks like a crow except for its smaller size and longer beak. We figured that the crows we were hunting wouldn't see the difference until they had already approached the tree to perch. Then it would be too late because we would have nabbed one or two with our shotguns.

Below is a photo of my vintage 1960 crow call. Beneath it, a closeup of the "Herters Waseca, MINN" logo on the mouth piece.

Herters Crow Call

Logo on Mouth piece

Larry and I learned the crow language which consisted of variations of "Caw, Caw, Caw" depending on whether the crow(s) were searching for food, were coming to another crow's aid, were warning the flock of danger, or were were injured etc. The book was written by someone who had spent a good deal of time studying crows.

Prepared and ready for a crow shoot, Larry and I took our shotguns out into the woods near Rochester, MN. The time of year was autumn. The photo below shows Larry with his shotgun standing by my 48 Chevy we used for transportation.

Larry had a .410 shotgun and I had a double barrel 12 gauge shotgun. My shotgun had belonged to Grandpa Andrew and I got it after he died in 1955. It was dangerous because in order to get ready for a shot, one or both hammers needed to be manually cocked and there was no safety lock to prevent firing if one of the two triggers were accidentally squeezed!

We went into the woods. I climbed a tree and carefully placed our raven carcass high on a tree branch, propping it up to resemble a perching crow. We thought it looked quite real. The photo at the beginning of this blog is a good example of how I remember the scene.

We purposely walked away from our raven decoy, some distance into the woods. Then we started a series of crow calls to entice any neighboring crows to fly into the area and perch in the tree next to our raven decoy. If and when any crows did fly into woods, we planned to sneak near the tree and "bag" a couple.

After 15 minutes of blowing into our Herter crow calls we heard a shotgun blast. Apparently there was another hunter in the woods. We waited before we moved in any direction, being very cautious not to get into a line of fire. When we didn't hear any more shots after 10 minutes, we quickly moved toward the tree where we had perched our raven decoy. It was then we discovered a tattered raven carcass lying on the ground beneath the tree. It had been blasted off the branch by the other hunter!

All we could do was laugh as we imagined the surprise on the hunter's face after realizing what he had done. We never saw the other hunter probably too embarrassed to run into us. We never saw a crow that day either but we felt accomplished that we had created a realistic "crow scene" with our raven decoy and educated crow calls.

Confusion

2010-03-19T14:23:00.011-05:00

The following is a poem I wrote in July 1978. It's interesting for me to read in 2010 because my beard has indeed turned white. I was able to find a nice fireplace (among many) at dreamstime.com, which I purchased for use in this blog.

Confusion

I sit by the fire and wonder why

the flowers have gone and the kittens cry.

Oh to the sun, please return soon

and send us a gift of a saltant moon!

This I pondered as days grew cold,

as my beard turned white

and the years became old.

Though I knew the answer:

Time remains but the years die.

Seasons fall and kite strings fly.

Children replace our aging hearts,

and the universe lives on in isolated parts.

___________________

CS Lewis-Surprised by Joy

2010-03-18T23:42:00.004-05:00

CS Lewis published Surprised by Joy in 1955. The copy I have is a "Harvest" paperback published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, San Diego, new York, London. It was given to my by son Joseph in 1983.

Lewis says in the Preface "This book is written partly in answer to requests that I would tell how I passed from Atheism to Christianity..."

The part of the book I want to focus on in this post is Lewis' description of 3 experiences in his life which resulted in him having "...an unsatisfied desire which is more desirable than any other satisfaction." Lewis labels the experiences "...Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. "

Lewis goes on to say that Joy has only one characteristic in common with happiness and pleasure and that is "...the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again."

Experience 1: Lewis cites standing by a flowering current bush on a summer day. This reminded him of the time he and his brother were in their "Old House". His brother had brought a toy garden into the nursery. At this memory Lewis suddenly felt a sensation come over him.

"It was a sensation of course, of desire; but desire for what? Not, certainly, for a biscuit tin filled with moss, nor even...for my own past, and before I knew what I desired, the desire itself was gone, the whole glimpse withdrawn, the world turned commonplace again, or only stirred by a longing for the longing that had just ceased. It had taken only a moment of time; and in a certain sense everything else that had ever happened to me was insignificant in comparison"

Experience 2: Lewis had been reading Beatrix Potter's children's book Squirrel Nutkin (a story about a red squirrel's (Nutkin) narrow escape from an owl (Old Brown). He experienced what he called the "Idea of Autumn" Lewis said "It sounds fantastic to say that one can be enamored of a season, but that is something like what happened; and as before, the experience was one of intense desire." He goes on to say "And in this experience also there was the same surprise and the same sense of incalculable importance. It was something quite different from ordinary life and even from ordinary pleasure: something, as they would now say, 'in another dimension'"

Experience 3: Lewis was reading Longfellow's poetry Saga of King Olaf (This 1863 poem follows the adventures of King Olaf of Norway avenging his slain father's death and regaining his kingdom).

Lewis says: "...I idly turned the pages of the book and found the unrhymed translation of Tegner's Drapa (a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and read:

I heard a voice that cried,
Balder the beautiful
Is dead, is dead---

"I knew nothing about Balder (The Norse god of light, beauty, happiness and love) ; but instantly I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky. I desired with almost sickening intensity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, severe, pale, and remote) and then, as in the other examples, found my self at the very same moment already falling out of that desire and wishing I were back in it."

If you, dear reader, are still with humble blogger, I'll relate that after my reading this section of Surprised by Joy I was taken back to the 1950's in Kasson, MN. It was a beautiful autumn day and I was riding my bicycle the 3 mile distance from Kasson to Mantorville, MN. I was singing to myself the "Happy Wanderer" song along the way. I neared Mantorville and the entrance to the golf course road where I had gone camping with friends several times. I marveled at the beautiful red and golden trees and breathed in the crisp air. Suddenly I had a feeling of well-being, of reassurance and that everything was fine and all was beautiful. This lasted for maybe a minute, then, just as suddenly the feeling was gone and I was back to riding my bicycle. I could not do anything, or think any thought that would take me back to that experience, that feeling. Whatever happened, I've not forgotten the experience.

The following "Happy Wanderer" song was one of the ingredients leading to my "Surprised by joy" experience. [Sung February 1, 2010 by children at SD36 Elementary Choral Fest song for MJ Norris Elem. It is intended for "instructional use" and was uploaded by "filgerm"].

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bseaBFf-srs

Another time in the 1980's, I was on my annual four-day silent Retreat in July at the Demontreville Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Elmo, MN (see Journals, Journals Everywhere) and was walking the grounds after lunch. I was returning from a visit to the nearby Carmelite Monastery when I happened to look into a culvert along side the road. At that point in time I felt lifted up in spirit and experienced an overwhelming sense of well being. The feeling left just as suddenly as it began. I could walk by that same spot several time the rest of the retreat without the feeling returning. I don't remember what I was thinking or praying about at the time. Not a significant event but I remember it to this day.

Dear reader, you may think "what's all the fuss". Why even write about such insignificant events that cannot be properly articulated and therefore sound mundane! Except, why would I remember the experiences after all the intervening years finally making a connection only after reading CS Lewis some time later. I believe the reason is that I had a taste of Lewis's "unsatisfied desire which is more desirable than any satisfaction", and from that I know for certain that there is much more than me and this cannot be forgotten.

Hopalong Cassidy Cap Guns

2010-03-17T13:56:00.002-05:00

I was in 7th grade and 12 years old in Kasson, MN in 1954. One day during the summer months, I began to experience a particularly tender abdomen with pain concentrated in the lower right side. This got worse over the next couple of days. Mom walked with me in the back door of Dr. Affeldt's office (to avoid all the patients waiting out front). I remember the door was green in color and had a spring closure, just like a homeowner would have.

Dr. Affeldt asked some questions and carefully palpated my abdomen looking for areas sensitive to pain. After asking more questions, he suggested to mom that she should immediately drive me to St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, MN for an appendectomy because he thought if she delayed there was a chance my appendix would rupture.

As mom and dad and I were in the car heading 20 miles to Rochester, I remember feeling considerably better the closer we got! "No, we're not going back home!" my folks said.

The surgery went well, my appendix hadn't burst, and after a time in the hospital I was back at home recovering.

I believe that during my recovery, we made a special trip to Dayton's department store in downtown Minneapolis. I was finally able to buy something I has seen at a previous trip to Dayton's and coveted very much: A set of Hopilong Cassidy pistol cap guns complete with a belt holding fake bullets and two holsters. Hopilong was the cowboy of the era!

When I got home with the guns, I wanted to wear them immediately and so put them on and walked up the street to see a girl friend Jane who had been concerned about the outcome of my surgery and wanted to say hello.

The photo below of the back of a toy cowboy sporting twin pistols illustrates how I looked walking up the street to see my girlfriend. (I purchased this from Dreamstime.com for use in this blog)

Jane and I met on the sidewalk near her house. She was glad to see me and was genuinely concerned about my surgery and subsequent recovery. As we walked together, I suddenly felt embarrassed to be wearing not only one but two shining Hopilong Cassidy cap guns!

After I got home, I removed my prized guns and never wore them again.

Slaughter on Mantorville Avenue

2010-03-16T12:51:00.017-05:00

One 1950's autumn evening just after supper in Kasson, MN, we three brothers heard shotgun blasts nearby!

The Google map below (appropriately displaying Copyright), shows the location of our apartment above Kraher's Meat Market that dad owned. It is shown as a small red rectangle near the intersection of Main Street and Mantorville Avenue. The longer vertical rectangle on Mantorville Avenue between 1st and 3rd street is where the noise was coming from.

In those days, Mantorville Avenue was beautifully lined with tall elm trees (maybe mixed with maple, cottonwood and oaks).

Loving Rose and I were in Kasson on September 17, 2010 (After this Post was written). I photographed the intersection of Main Street and Mantorville Avenue specifically to add to this Post. We are looking north in the photo toward the original (or replacement) trees. Rose is walking north on the right side of the red building on the corner. Kraher's Meat Market (Humble Blogger's home) was a few buildings to the left of the photo on Main Street. The Market is now a "P & P TV & Appliance" store.

Intersection of Main Street (left to right) and Mantorville Ave. 9/17/2010

Back to my story. This particular 1950's evening, grackles collected en masse in the trees on Mantorville Avenue during their migration.  The following You Tube "Grackle Attack" video [from "snowdog" in Garwood, NJ January 2007]  suggests what we saw that evening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45deobOJA2g

The shotgun blasts were from the guns of town fathers shooting up into the grackle filled trees!   As soon as a volley of blasts were fired, several grackles dropped dead onto Mantorville Avenue and the noise caused the rest of the grackles to fly into the air.

A minute or so later, more grackles would alight in the trees only to be blasted once more followed by some of their brethren falling into the street.  The men removed the dead grackles after each volley. I don't remember if there was a total count. People lined the street and cars stopped on either end of the melee to watch. I've got to believe the town policeman was there also.

This continued till dark when most of the birds left for shelter elsewhere. For me this was "A Lucky Shot" amplified many times over. We were astounded that the men took liberty to use shotguns so close to homes in town for the purpose of dealing with the nuisance, noise and droppings of the migrating grackles. Apparently this moment in time had been slowly building over the course of a week as neighbors constantly complained about the grackles. Out of their complaints was born the bright idea that shotguns would be the best way to deal with the problem.

I'm quite certain that evening was the first and last time there was slaughter on Mantorville Avenue (or any other street for that matter) in Kasson, MN. After the ordeal, the town fathers had second thoughts about the safety and effectiveness of their methods. However, I as a kid was glad to have been there as a witness so I could tell the story so many years later!

Ham Radio

2010-03-15T15:03:00.007-05:00

I got interested in Amateur (Ham) Radio about 1957 and when our family moved to Rochester, MN in 1958, I set up a "Ham radio station" in my bedroom. I bought a Model S-85 Hallicrafters Communications receiver which could receive frequencies all the way from 538 kilolcycles to 34 megacycles (now kilo and mega hertz respectively). I also bought a Heathkit DX-20 transmitter kit which needed to be soldered and assembled. It was capable of transmitting 50 watts of continuous wave energy (meaning Morse code only, no voice transmissions). I felt so proud and surprised really, when the transmitter worked the first time I turned it on!

The next step was to learn Morse code and a bit of radio theory to earn a "Novice" license and get issued a "call sign" by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). For the "Novice" license, I needed to be able communicate by Morse Code at least 5 words a minute (5 characters per word). I took the test locally and received my license and call sign by mail from the FCC.

My "Novice" license issued September 25, 1958 is shown below. I was assigned call sign KN0RRR (the 0 being a zero with an angular slash through it to differentiate it from an alphabetic "O" and "N" meaning "Novice" which would disappear when I had upgraded to a "General" license) . Depending where one lived, the numeric component of the call sign changed from 0 to 9 in the US. Outside the US there were different letter and number combinations. As a Novice, I was limited to Morse Code only and 50 watts output power.

I made quite a few "contacts" with my Novice license. Mostly on the 40 meter (7 MHz) and 80 meter (3 MHz) but also on the 2 meter (144 MHz) radio bands. I needed to string long inverted V horizontal antennas in the back yard for the 40 and 80 meter bands and I built a short 2 meter antenna which I could orient from my bedroom window. Radio traffic was so crowded that once a radio contact was established, it was easy to lose the contact. Therefore conversations were short and simple: name, location, weather, equipment.

In the photo below, cousin Rick is on the left and humble blogger on the right. The bulletin board on the left is covered with "QSL" i.e. postcards, each with a ham radio operator's unique call sign printed on it. These were exchanged through the mail after a radio contact. The map on the right has a scattering of red-tipped pins stuck into town and cities in the US whose ham radio operators I had contacted. Clicking on the photo will blow it up enough to see the QSL cards and Map.

My S-85 receiver is shown on the desk at the left and the DX-20 transmitter is shown next it it on the right.

Cousin Rick on left and humble blogger at Ham radio station in bedroom

In summer of 1959 I learned more radio theory and improved my Morse Code skills so I could communicate at 13 words a minute. On the appointed day, I drove to St. Paul, MN to take a code proficiency and written test for my "General" class license. With this I would be able to use code and voice contacts up to 1000 watt output if I wanted to do so. I passed the test and the FCC issued me a new license K0RRR without the "N" classification. Below is a renewal license for 1974. The licenses typically needed to be renewed every 5 years. Renewal frequency is longer today.

The photo below shows 3-year old son John taking a listen on my headphones in 1967.

Humble Blogger and son John in 1967

I never pursued ham radio much after the 1960's. I moved to St. Paul in 1962 to work at 3M and rented a room in a house for a year before I got married. I couldn't erect my antennas at the house. Then when I married, had children, attended college and continued to work at 3M, I was just too busy to pursue the hobby. Later on, I had lost interest. I still keep an active license however. I worked too hard for K0RRR to give it up!

I have a friend John, who has been faithful to ham radio for many years and maintains a home base and mobile capability. Even with the proliferation of cell phones and computers, ham radio is essential if those forms of communication go down in some disaster. It is then that the ham radio operator shines, keeping emergency communication open via mobile and generator powered transmitters and receivers.

Fire Beneath the Porch!

2010-03-14T13:18:00.011-05:00

In 1949, I (your humble blogger) was a mere 7 years old living with my two brothers Mike and Jim in my parent's home on South Street, near the Hospital in Owatonna, MN. My parents married in 1939, then rented the house from dad's father Andrew who had built it. Andrew subsequently moved himself, his wife and grown daughter to his wife's family farm on St. Paul Road in Owatonna.

Andrew's house was between his brother Steve's and brother Martin's house on South Street. This was because years after immigrating from Poland in 1886 with their parents (Joseph Kubiatowicz And Josephine Larokowski), the three brothers Steve, Andrew and Martin built their homes in a row on South Street. There was a fourth home built for brother Joseph, but that one was sold and Joseph lived on the other side of town. I and my two brothers were born in a hospital that was just down the street from our (Andrew's) house.

The photo below shows Andrew Kubiatowicz's home under construction on South Street about 1911. The porch is clearly shown. It was still present when I lived there as a 7 year old kid in 1949.

Andrew Kubiatowicz's Home Being Built circa 1911

The photo below shows thr former Andrew Kubiatowicz home in 2001. The porch has been removed

Andrew Kubiatowicz's Former Home in 2001. Porch Missing

My story starts here: I liked to "play with matches". That is, I enjoyed lighting the matches, blowing them out, lighting some more and perhaps starting a small fire in an ashtray. I was constantly being disciplined for this activity.

One day in autumn 1949, I and my next door neighbor, cousin Doug (Uncle Steve's grandson) decided to crawl under the porch of my (Andrew's) house and burn a small piles of leaves. I remember there being a lattice work around the porch base so we could be unseen and wouldn't get into trouble for lighting matches. As the small flame got bigger, both Doug and I panicked. Fortunately we were able to smother the flame with a pile of wet leaves we found nearby. As the smoke from the extinguished flame poured out from under the porch we were discovered by mom.

Mom sent Doug home and ushered me into our kitchen, which had a cast iron cooking store. There mom insisted that I take a wooden match from a new box (like those shown below, with the phosphorus sulfide tips that would light anywhere), strike it on the side of the stove and let the match burn all the way down to my finger tips. I was allowed to drop the burning match only when my finger tips were about to get burned! I was required to continue this exercise until I had burned all the matches. This took an hour or more. Mom stayed with me the whole time to make sure I didn't actually burn myself or light the kitchen on fire. At least one friend knocked on the kitchen door wanting me to go out and play, but mom insisted I could go nowhere until I had completed my task.

This "punishment" cured me of the desire to carelessly light matches...at least for a few more years.

Permission to use this photo in this blog from

A Short Acting Career

2010-03-13T09:18:00.010-06:00

My short exposure to acting was in 1961 at Rochester Junior College in Rochester, MN. I was one of 5 actors performing the one-act-play "Submerged" by Herman Stuart Cottman and Clay Shaw under the direction of our drama coach, Robert O. Wise, Jr. A photo of the actors is shown below with humble blogger at the far left. I scanned this photo from the RaJuco (Rochester Junior College) yearbook of that year.

"Submerged" was written in 1929. Its premise is a crippled submarine in which the Commander (named Shaw) has decided to launch himself out of the torpedo hold with a note on his body indicating the location of the submarine for would be rescuers to see.   It means certain death for the Commander. The drama revolves around other men wanting to take the Commander's place, a drawing of cards which gives the task to the coward Brice who doesn't want to go. The Commander ultimately sacrifices himself, and the men lock Brice into another compartment which springs a leak and Brice dies.   We never learn if the men are rescued.

In our practice for the one-act-play, director Mr. Wise wanted us to be smoking cigarettes during the tense conversation.   I suggested that since our crew was confined to a small compartment in the submarine it didn't make sense to use up the remaining oxygen by smoking cigarettes!! He took my suggestion and tossed the cigarettes out of the play.

In doing a little research for this post, I was astonished to learn that Clay Shaw, one of the authors of "Submerged" was the only person actually charged and prosecuted in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy! He had attended the same High School in New Orleans as Lee Harvey Oswald and had other suspicious connections.   [Note: A fascinating account of Clay's personal and literary life including his prosecution (found not guilty) was written by Michael Snyder and can be downloaded as a document at: www.und.nodak.edu/instruct/jfkconference/JFKChapter81.doc ]

Pinsetter

2010-03-12T16:55:00.010-06:00

As a 12 year old boy in 1954 in Kasson, MN I followed my older brother Mike into the occupation of "Pinsetter". Our Kraher's Market on main street had, adjacent to it, a bar,restaurant/bowling alley called "Clare Lynard's." Clare owned the place and he was quite a respectable bowler who was often invited to bowl in various tournaments. Getting to "work" for us was easy.

I found a nice photo of a bowling lane (not Clare Lynard's), at Dreamstime.com and purchased it for use as a reference in this pinsetting blog.

Clare Lynard's bowling lanes had semi-automatic pinsetting machines which would nicely set down 10 bowling pins. This was a massive step-up in technology from the days when pinsetters (or "pin boys") had to position each pin on a spot on the lane! The sepia image below was snapped at 1 A.M. at "Subway Bowling Alley", Brooklyn, NY April10, 1910.

Early "pin boys"

[Note: The photographer is Lewis Wickes Hine, 1874-1940. There are "No known restrictions" on using the photo according to http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?pp/nclc:@field(NUMBER+@band(nclc+04636)) The photograph is part of a collection of Photographs from the records of the National Child Labor Committee (U.S.) ]

Whereas, the machines of the early 1950's would set down 10 bowling pins, they were not yet completely automatic. This would come a few years later. Therefore, a human (usually boys or young men) would need to sit behind a machine to return the bowling ball, pick up the felled pins and pull a lever so the machine could set the pins in place.

This is how the pinsetter would work: The pinsetter would announce to the bowler that all was ready to go. This meant that the pins were in place and that the pinsetter was out of the "pit" and safely sitting on a ledge behind the machine. After the bowler's 1st throw,the machine would lower and pickup the pins that were not knocked down, meanwhile another part of the machine would rake the lane and gutter of felled pins pulling them into a "pit" behind the machine. The machine would then replace the non-felled pins in place on the lane.

The pinsetter then jumped into the pit, lifted the ball onto a concave platform and pushed the ball down a ramp where it fell through a chute and rolled in a trough back to the bowler. Next the pinsetter quickly picked up the felled pins and tossed them into the appropriate empty slots on top of the machine exactly above where the pins had been felled.   After a while a good pinsetter could pick up 2 pins with each hand squeezing the necks between the fingers and toss the pins into the correct slots quite accurately.

Finally, the pinsetter quickly jumped onto the brick ledge behind the machines, and carefully watched the 2nd ball of the bowler so that flying pins didn't hit a shin.    After the pins fell from the 2nd ball, and the machine had swept the still standing and felled pins into the pit, the pinsetter lifted the ball to return it, picked up the pins and tossed them into the appropriate slots on the top of the machine and pulled a lever to set down all 10 pins again.

If the 2nd ball wasn't a spare (not all the pins had been knocked down) and if the previously felled pins hadn't been tossed into the correct slots, pins would try to set on top of standing pins and the machine would jam until the pins were manually removed very much irritating the bowlers.

A starting pinsetter would set pins on one lane only.   An experienced pinsetter (which I was after a while), set pins on two adjacent lanes, for example, for men's and women's bowling leagues. The men's leagues were most dangerous because the balls were thrown with great speed and hit pins flew everywhere, especially on spare throws. However the 3 game league series moved at a nice rapid pace.

On the other hand, the women's bowling leagues were frustratingly slow because their bowling balls took forever to reach the pins and because they were prone to do more socializing between throws. We always admired those women who threw a fast ball. The 3 game series for women's teams lasted some 30 to 60 minutes longer than a men's series.  Setting pins for the women, however, was usually not dangerous.

At the end of a 3 hour evening, I was tired and thirsty.   I received a $5.00 bill for my work, and with part of it, bought a quart of regular and a quart of chocolate milk at the bar. I took these to my apartment home above Kraher's meat marked next door, mixed the two quarts of milk together in a glass pitcher and over the course of the next hour drank all the milk!!

There weren't many positives to pinsetting other than to say to someone you had a job. The negatives were the sometimes unsavory environment, low pay, the heat next to the machines, the constant odor of grease and cigarettes and the constant worry of getting hit by a ball or bowling pin. Usually we could get out of the way of a ball if we were in the pit, by listening for the sound of the ball hitting the wood as it was thrown. In this case, we quickly jumped on the ledge. Other annoyances were machines breaking down angering bowlers, and pinsetters getting sick in the middle of a 3 game bowling league or not showing up at all.

It was a great day when fully automatic pinsetters started arriving in about 1955.   They still needed close attention because they often broke down, but human pinsetters were (fortunately) out of a profession!

Transition

2010-03-11T10:29:00.014-06:00

Early June 1962, Larry Bob and I (your humble blogger) decided to go "camping" on some land near Eyota, MN and close to Bob's farm (The farm was in Eyota, MN about 12 miles east of Rochester, MN on Hwy 14). I discuss the farm in the blog "Shooting a Fox Under a Full Moon" We had two years of Rochester Junior College under our respective belts and we would be going our separate ways to work and/or continue earning a 4-year degree.

We planned to pitch our sleeping bags in an abandoned house on the land shown in the photo below. The whole setting was like a page out of the year 1850. We were staying in an old settler's home. There was a stream nearby and a spring where we could get fresh water.

Abandoned "Settler's" House

We brought our guns in case we had an opportunity to shoot something. We carried plenty of food and looking at the photo below of Bob on the left and Larry on the right, we may have had some moonshine. Maybe even some of the "White Mule" that Larry had brewed and distilled in chemistry class.

Bob on left and Larry

Bob brought along his "pet" Raccoon on a leash. I put "pet" in quotes for a reason. I believe Bob found it as a baby (called a "kit") and decided to nurture it and keep it as a pet. The raccoon probably had had a name but I don't recall. I also don't remember if it was male or female. The photo below shows Bob with his raccoon.

Bob and his pet raccoon

The photo below, shows your humble blogger with a pipe in his mouth, his trusty Winchester across his lap and the raccoon on his head . Bob is on the right.

Dave (humble blogger) on left, raccoon and Bob

The raccoon was nothing but a nuisance, as you might expect a tamed, wild animal to be! Since the animals are nocturnal we got little sleep as it moved around the inside of the house within the limits of its leash, disturbing every can or piece of junk that was in reach.

In the morning I took the raccoon "for a walk" on its leash down to the stream where I had dug a hole the night before and had laid a wrapped slab of bacon in it, covering the hole with dirt to keep the bacon cool. If you recall a slab of bacon usually comes from pork belly or back and is cured with salt and smoke. Slices of bacon are cut from the slab. We brought along a slab so it would not spoil quickly. I have an example a slab of bacon below. I purchased the photo (inexpensive) from dreamstime.com for use on this blog:

As we got to the stream the raccoon took advantage of the opportunity to wash its paws in the water while I was unearthing the bacon for the trip back to camp and a nice breakfast. Suddenly the raccoon lunged at the slab, grabbing it from my hands. A tugging match ensued as it dug its claws deeper into the bacon as I tried to pull the bacon away. It got the advantage because of unfairly using its teeth on my hands!!   Either Bob or Larry heard my yelling and came over to help regain custody of our bacon from the raccoon.

Other than the the unruly raccoon,  our 1962 camping trip was unremarkable. A notable exception was the sight and sound of June bugs hitting our lantern as we sat on the steps of the house in the evening.

That was our last outing together. I came to realize in writing this post some 48 years later, that our camping trip was not about 3 friends camping.   It also was not about the beautiful late spring days and nights following a long winter. It also was not about Bob's pesky raccoon (I originally planned to call this post "Leave the Raccoon Home") It was all about saying goodbye. Just as spring was transitioning into summer, we three were transitioning from college pals into citizens of the world. Soon we would be gone, scattered in all directions, trying to find our way...

Daydream

2010-03-10T11:17:00.007-06:00

Below is a June 30, 1980 poem in cinquain format (2,4,6,8,2 syllables in the lines). The poem is set in summer. My explanation for the poem out of Journal #32 was that of a woman (daughter Julie 20 years into the future?)  daydreaming about her life as a child when there were no stresses, only the anticipation of catching a butterfly amidst beautiful summer colors! The child in the poem was adopted and was intending to pick a bouquet of flowers for her adoptive parents but she got sidetracked chasing the monarch. Then a noise startled the woman and she was drawn away from her daydream, returning to the present.

        Daydream

In mind
she danced through fields
of trumpet daffodils,
violets, crimson clover and
daisies.

A child
of yesteryear
chasing an elusive
monarch beneath the summer sun
alone.
       __________

The April 1980 photo below shows daughter Julie and her friend JoLee, both adopted and both age 10, holding a single bouquet of lilacs amidst a field of emerging dandelions. Today's "children of yesteryear".   I suspect humble blogger got the bouquet as JoLee was Julie's guest over the weekend.

3-A Classification and Vietnam

2010-03-09T12:13:00.008-06:00

I did not serve in the military because I wasn't drafted nor did I join. I didn't join because of the belief I wouldn't have the fortitude and physical stamina to be a military man.

As a child I had suspected Rheumatic Fever which is an inflammatory disease that can develop after a bout with strep throat or scarlet fever. The disease can affect heart valves, joints, skin, and brain. Today it is treated with antibiotics which we didn't have when I was 7 and in 2nd grade in 1949. I was not allowed to finish 2nd grade at the Catholic grade school in Owatonna, MN because the current thought of the day was to minimize damage to the body by laying in bed!!   This I did for the last 2 weeks of the school year and for most of the summer. In fact, I even took Catholic First Communion in bed.

Our family moved to Kasson, MN from Owatonna in about 1950.   In later years, Dr. Affeldt, the local doctor there, gave me a physical examination when I was in 7th grade because I needed it to play some sports. He listened very carefully to my heart, moved his stethoscope around and listened some more.

Then he sat quietly in his chair for a moment inhaling smoke from a lit cigarette.  He appeared very professional with his head of grey hair and white coat but he looked exhausted from a busy day. He took a couple more puffs as he looked over my chart. (I can still see in my mind's eye, the white smoke rising in his office that day.) Finally he said to mom who was with me, that he heard a murmur which could be residual from my suspected Rheumatic Fever. He recommended that I either not play sports or do so very carefully. A subsequent full examination by the Mayo Clinic Doctors in Rochester, MN revealed that they also heard the murmur but that it was probably congenital and not much to worry about at my age. After all, many people had a slight murmur.

So there I was with two conflicting views and no cardiac ultrasound in those days, to pinpoint the location and extent of the defect.   After this diagnosis, I never did feel confident in exerting myself in football or basketball or track for fear of making my heart worse, so I quit all sports early in the seasons and resigned myself to be the "water boy" or "gofer" person during the games.

Subsequently, I had programmed myself to be afraid of any kind of prolonged physical exertion.   I reasoned that when I got very tired running a four-man relay in track, it was due to my compromised heart rather than my lack of training!

In the end, I believed I would never have the physical stamina for the military service.   I also believed I was too emotionally fragile to endure all that was necessary to make a good military man. I was young and afraid to more forward. Fortunately there were other men who weren't!

I did register with the Selective Service within 30 days on either side of my 18th birthday as required. A photo of my card is below:

Regarding the draft, I would have been 1-A status "Available immediately for military service". Then, I married young at the age of 21 in 1963, had a child a year later and was reclassified 3-A which meant at that time a "dependency deferment." The 3-A classification became more restrictive in later years when A-3 took on the definition "hardship deferment" .
There is no draft now in 2010 but if there were, the Classifications would be those shown below according to the US Government web site: http://www.sss.gov/classif.htm

1-A - available immediately for military service.
1-O Conscientious Objector- conscientiously opposed to both types (combatant and non-combatant) of military training and service - fulfills his service obligation as a civilian alternative service worker.
1-A-O Conscientious Objector - conscientiously opposed to training and military service requiring the use of arms - fulfills his service obligation in a noncombatant position within the military.
2-D Ministerial Students - deferred from military service.
3-A Hardship Deferment - deferred from military service because service would cause hardship upon his family.
4-C Alien or Dual National - sometimes exempt from military service.
4-D Ministers of Religion - exempted from military service.
Student Postponements - a college student may have his induction postponed until he finishes the current semester or, if a senior, the end of the academic year. A high school student may have his induction postponed until he graduates or until he reaches age 20. Appealing a Classification - A man may appeal his classification to a Selective Service Appeal Board.

Even had I been 1-A, I would have missed the 1969 and later Vietnam lottery because I was born in 1942 and the lottery started with birthdays in 1944. The lottery was a random method of choosing who would be inducted for duty. The following chart is from: http://www.sss.gov/lotter1.htm.
.

My hunting friend Larry joined the Marines in 1966. He sent a Christmas card from Okinawa posted December 5, 1966. His message said:

Fortunately Larry came back home from Vietnam and we have been exchanging Christmas greetings since.

My wife Rose, born in 1948 had several friends who went off to the Vietnam war which had begun to ramp up in 1965. Not all came back.

I never thought much about missing the draft, Vietnam war and possible death. I should have been more thankful at the time!

Sawing Down the Barn!

2010-03-08T08:30:00.007-06:00

Grandpa Andrew Kubiatowicz died of a heart attack on Sunday July 24, 1955 at the age 71. He was in his home on the Learch Farm* in Owatonna, MN. He had recently had prostate TUR surgery at the Mayo Clinic and had finally recovered enough to eat a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs. He was sitting on the sofa chatting with his visiting brother Martin about baseball when his words fell silent. He left his wife Margaret Learch Kubiatowicz (68) and daughter Margaret (39), who would never marry. Andrew's son Eugene (my dad) was 44 at the time and lived in Kasson, MN with wife Mary Bauman (my mom) age 37, and 3 children: brother Michael (15) David (13) your humble blogger, and brother James (11).

*The Learch Farm is detailed in my blog "A Lucky Shot"

Wife Margaret and daughter Margaret continued to live on the Learch Farm for 20 more years before moving in with mom and dad in their home in Rochester, MN in 1975 The two Margaret's followed mom and dad when they moved to Byron, MN (located between Kasson and Rochester) in 1979.

Andrew's wife Margaret died in 1991, living to be 104! Dad and Daughter Margaret died in the summer of 1993 at ages 82 and 77 respectively. There must have been some sort of spiritual connection between the two siblings because Margaret died just two months after dad. Mom died in 2004 at age 86.

After laying this ground work, I can now get to the story about sawing down the barn.

Since Grandma Margaret and her daughter (my aunt) Margaret would be vacating the Learch Farm in 1975, Mom and dad and we three boys held Family Trust Meetings beginning in 1972 to discuss what to do with the Learch Farm. It eventually would be sold to developers who would name part of it the "Kubiatowicz Addition".

Thus, in the latter half of th 1970's we were responsible for razing the farm buildings to make way for the developers. Always thinking economically and with profit in mind, someone in the family had the bright idea that the vintage wood in the old barn should be salvaged and sold to home owner(s) who wanted to finish off their basement with rustic-looking wood.

Below is a nice old red barn photo that I bought from Dreamstime.com to represent the barn on the Learch property. It's hard for me to believe that I can find no photo of the actual Learch barn when there were so many opportunities to take one!! In my mind's eye, I don't even remember its shape except for the sloped-roof shed attached on the left. The Learch barn had a garage with a door (where the shed is in this photo). It also had a hay loft and door leading into the barn. The front to back of the barn was along an east-west line with the front of the barn east, the sun hitting it first thing in the morning.

To this end, mom and dad and we three boys, showed up one day at the Learch Farm with at least one (if not more) chain saws, hammers, nail pullers, etc. etc.   Your humble blogger took first turn systematically sawing through one or more corner posts while the brothers pitched in for the rest. The sawing was no easy task and the blade soon dulled making the job go slow.

We had the expectation that once the corner posts were severed, a group push on one end would collapse the barn, breaking the 2 x 4's or 2 by 6's between the corner posts as it fell.    Once sawing was done however, we realized that there was no way the barn would budge with a simple push. I seem to remember using one of our cars and a rope to assist in the process to no avail.

Looking at the inside structure and at all the 2 by 4's (or 6's) that would need to be cut to to have better success at felling the barn, we lost our desire to saw it down.   Instead we would collect as much wood as we could.    This idea too, soon fell aside as we discovered the effort required to remove all the nails, even with a manual nail puller, from one length of board to pull it free.

We ended the day, at least having a nice picnic lunch, some heavy sweating and some good laughs. It would be some months, on a very still day that the Owatonna Fire Department would have a challenging fire practice drill.

I remember that in the late 1970's or early 1980's some apartments had been built on the Learch land surrounding where the farm buildings had been. But finally in 1985, the land where the former buildings had stood, would be developed. Mom and Dad summoned, your humble blogger, with son Joe and brother James to help remove some residual trash on June 22, 1985. The whole task took a mere two hours.   When we left, only memories remained....   See photos below of our final task:

The Junk including a hand pump from a well!

Dad (Eugene Kubiatowicz)

Mom (Mary Bauman Kubiatowicz)

Dave Kubiatowicz (humble blogger)

Brother James Kubiatowicz and Joe Kubiatowicz (16) humble blogger's son.

In the photo below,a lonely willow tree stands near the place Grandpa Andrew had built a fireplace/grill and where picnics were held. The photo is from our last day there, June 22, 1985. The tree had an enormous trunk and limbs had broken off over the years.

Willow Tree 1985

Picnic by the same (but smaller) willow tree in 1952. Left side: brothers David (humble blogger), Mike, & Jim Kubiatowicz; Grandpa Andrew Kubiatowicz and his daughter, Margaret; Right side: Uncle Martin Kubiatowicz and his wife Frances (Roiger) Kubiatowicz and Dad Eugene Kubiatowicz Mom (Mary Bauman Kubiatowicz) was probably sitting between Eugene and Frances. Andrew's wife Margaret was probably taking the photo. The fireplace/grill is seen at the right. The soda was likely grape and/or strawberry. These were the only two types Grandpa Andrew bought.

A Summer Picnic by the willow tree 1952

A Pipe Smoking Man

2010-03-06T10:12:00.011-06:00

I never smoked cigarettes during my High School years. This was something you did when you got older, like drinking coffee. The only thing I smoked as a kid was rolled up fallen oak leaves in the autumn as I and other kids played outside after supper in Kasson, MN.

At Rochester Junior College in Rochester, MN in Fall of 1960, I was learning that the transition from Lourdes High School to college (even a Junior College) was not as seamless as I thought. Much more work was required in the college glasses to keep one's head above water.

So about one-third into the school year I decided I should improve my image and perceived intelligence by smoking a pipe. Cigarettes would not do the job. If I just needed the nicotine, cigarettes would be fine, but smoking a pipe was not about the nicotine, it was all about image. Therefore, I needed to smoke a pipe.

It was well known that some great men (and some brave great women) smoked a pipe. The most notable men to me were the physicists Albert Einstein (of E = MC^2 fame) and J. Robert Oppenheimer ("Father of the Atomic Bomb"). A photo of them working together (but not smoking pipes) is shown below.

[Note: I got this photo from Wikipedia which stated that : "This image is a work of a US Military, or the Department of Defense employee, taken or made during the course of the employee's official duties. As a work of the Federal Government, the image is in the public domain"]

What I hadn't figured out yet, however, was that just because some great men smoked a pipe, smoking a pipe didn't make a great man!

None-the-less, I dove deep into the art of smoking a pipe, complete with leather tobacco pouch, various brands of aromatic tobacco, tobacco tampers, special matches, a special pipe lighter, and of course a variety of nice pipes. One needed a "man purse" to carry all the stuff around. At first I started out with one inexpensive pipe but soon added to my collection, pipes made of brier, clay, ceramic, corncob and meerschaum. I also got my friend Larry interested. Below is a collection of pipes similar to ones I would be collecting and nurturing.

This photo is from Wikipedia released into the "Public Domain" by Daniel Halton on January 31,2009

Larry and I would make our way to the college "smoking" lounge between classes and go through the ritual of carefully tamping tobacco into the bowl of the pipe so it would burn evenly. Then after lighting the tobacco, and blowing the aromatic smoke into the surrounding air, we waited for another student to say "That smells like, cherries" or "What kind of tobacco is that? It smells great!" We were especially pleased if we got an affirmative comment from a female student. The pipe would always extinguish after several minutes and we needed to light it again and again. Also, the more tobacco that had burned, the more foul smelling was the smoke that would emanate from the top of the bowl.

One day Karl Dubbert, our much feared mathematics instructor came into the lounge, staying a while, maybe to smoke a cigarette and/or to talk to a student. On leaving, after watching Larry and me smoke our pipes, he wondered out loud: "If you guys spent as much time studying instead of smoking your pipes, your grades might be better!"

Larry and I continued smoking our pipes and occasionally had "smoking contests" in which we each chose our favorite pipe, agreed on a specific amount of the same brand of tobacco, tamped our pipes, and allowed ourselves only 3 matches to see who could keep their pipe burning the longest. One such contest was around a campfire one day (see photo below) when we were out "hunting" crows. The hunting is in quotes, because we never killed anything (nor really wanted to) while hunting. It was just an excuse to get out into nature.

Larry (Left) and Humble Blogger having a smoking contest.

In the 1965 photo below, your Humble Blogger is reading the news with first-born son John in his lap. Smoking pipes collected thus far are shown on the fireplace mantel. The water pipe to the right was not used for its intended purpose and was for display only!

Another photo below, shows your Humble Blogger smoking a pipe at a December 1967 graduation party in Minneapolis, MN after having received a undergraduate diploma from the University of Minnesota. Because of my extended time in earning a degree (while working at 3M), my younger brother Jim also graduated at the same ceremony and we celebrated together. Except for the glare ice on all the roads that night, we had a great time.

This bad habit stayed with me until 1980 when I moved into an apartment and didn't want to smell up the place. I smashed all my 20-30 pipes that I had lovingly managed for 20 years, and tossed them out with little consideration. Times were a changing. It was getting harder and harder to smoke at 3M Company and in other places around town. In addition, I was part of a Medical Products Division at 3M and I was getting more health conscious. I could hardly justify smoking anymore. This was all preparation for taking up running in 1984 when smoking would have been anathema to that activity.

Most important of all was that I finally realized that smoking a pipe had not made me great!

Carnival

2010-03-05T11:27:00.006-06:00

In July 1981, I and my two sons, John and Joe went to the Carnival in North St. Paul, MN (You guessed it. A small town north of St. Paul, MN). The annual event ended not too many years later and was replaced by another summer festival.

We always liked to play the "Diggers", those crane devices housed in a glass cages with lots of prizes scattered beneath the crane to grab if the player was skillful enough. After putting in a quarter, the player turned a crank, always clockwise, to move the crane's jaws through a round trip which included a changing swing distance over the floor of prizes, a drop with open jaws, a closure of the jaws over the prize, a pull-up and a jerky swing over a drop hole. If a prize had been captured in the the jaws, the jerky swing usually insured that it was dropped before being delivered to the hole.

The "best" prizes were always placed just beyond the reach of the crane's jaws, but a skillful and observant player could get the jaws swinging to drop on the valued prize and navigate it to the drop hole. The concessions operator behind the diggers either took money and started the game, or made change so the player could insert money into the coin slot. The operator also handed out the won prize to the player (in the diggers we played) or the prize slid through a slot into the player's hands.

Below are two images of a digger I photographed at "Luther Auctions" in North St. Paul, Mn (with permission) June 28, 2010 some 3 months after I published this post. I was very excited that I had finally found a Digger to photograph! I still regret not snapping a photo of one at a carnival or county fair in the "old days"

$0.50 Digger with Prize Slot (left) and Crank (middle)

Closeup of Crane and Jaws

Imagine the carpeted floor of the glass cages filled with small trinket "prizes" Click on the link below to see some other photos of vintage diggers. [Note: Ken, of that site, has given me permission to provide this link to his digger photos. Click the back arrow on your browser to return to this page. ]

http://www.pinballrebel.com/game/crane/digger.htm

The day I and my sons were at the Carnival, I was saddened to see a little girl behind the array of diggers taking people's money and handing won prizes to them. I thought of how well cared for my kids were and how neglected this little girl looked. I'd played many diggers in my life but had never seen this. I wanted to capture the event in free verse:

Carnival

Alone in a cage of "diggers."

She was barely ten, I guessed;
dirty face, soiled clothes,
disheveled sun-bleached hair.

Her smallness required a
soft-drink case (or was it beer)
beneath ragged tennis shoes.

Scrambling, she dismounted,
moved and mounted, reaching
over glass-walled machines
taking quarters from eager
faces on the other side.

Handles cranked wildly, swinging
steel jaws above worthless
trinkets positioned precisely
beyond reach. Some snagged
by luck dropped into a bin.
These she retrieved for the
skilled operators, passing
dice, glass mugs, and plastic
rings outside her cage.

Exchanging hands were of
similar size but neglected
ones stayed within and
attended ones without.

"I'll tell my dad!" she whined
when a player accused her of
causing his prize to fall
from the grip of a jaw. Tears
followed wiping clean a dusty
path down each of her cheeks.

Momentarily her hardness had
broken, transforming an adult
child back into a child.

Meanwhile, odors of fried onions,
pronto-pups, popcorn and stale
beer blended with the carnival din.
____________

White Mule

2010-03-04T08:00:00.281-06:00

In 1961 (or 62) I and my friend Larry took a chemistry lab together at Rochester Junior College in Rochester, MN. An example of how the lab looked at that time is shown by the photo below scanned from the 1961 "RaJuco" yearbook for the college.

The "In Memoriam" photo is honoring Mr. Charles E. Singley who had recently died after teaching chemistry at the College for 37 years. Notice Mr. Singley is working a Slide Rule* to make calculations as two other students watch a third student titrating liquid into a beaker. Larry isn't in this photo.

[* Since there were no electronic calculators at the time, Slide Rules made use of the fact that once numbers were converted to "logarithms" (powers of 10) , the numbers could be multiplied by simply adding the logarithms together. One could find the resulting product by taking the "anti-logarithm" (a number) of the addition. Numbers could similarly be divided by subtracting one logarithm from the other. All this was easy to do using the slide rule and the resulting calculations were surprisingly accurate.]

Over the course of the year, Larry and I were getting skilled in the practical art of using lab equipment to run our assigned experiments. One day Larry announced that he was going to make some moonshine. He had found a small, little used closet in the lab that was also vented. This would be the perfect place to to hide a fermenting glass jug because the yeasty, alcoholic odor would go up the stack and not be noticed by anyone in the lab. All one needed was sugar, water, yeast and yeast nutrient to get a brew going. Other ingredients such as barley or wheat could also be added. For Larry this would be just another non-required "extra credit" experiment.

I wasn't so hot on this idea for fear of the consequences if "we" got caught.

Larry assembled all the hardware and ingredients anyway and started his fermentation in a glass carboy in the vented closet. He showed me progress of the bubbling mash over the course of one week to 10 days at which time the carbon dioxide bubbles subsided because the yeast had used up all the sugar in producing a liquid containing 8% to 14% ethanol by volume. He let the mash settle for a week or two so he could siphon off the "wash" from the settled yeast dregs.

For several evenings, after school hours, Larry set up a glass retort still complete with a water-cooled condenser column, and proceeded to distill the "wash" . As the liquid was heated in the round bottom flask, ethanol, boiling at a lower temperature than water, was first to leave the flask. Its vapor traveled through the condenser column where is became liquid again and dripped into a receiving flask as concentrated ethanol.

Once all the "wash" was distilled, the resulting ethanol would be distilled again to purify it from the non-ethanol (higher molecular weight alcohols) components responsible for hangover headache. It was during this second distillations that the whole glass assembly caught fire! Fortunately, the lab was well equipped with fire extinguishers and Larry was able to quickly put out the fire, thus protecting the lab and minimizing his loss of distilled brew. I don't know how he later explained to the lab instructor that he had to use one of the CO2 extinguishers and that the lab would need a replacement for the next student's fire.

Larry called his brew "White Mule" ( because it kicked like a mule) and stored it in a couple flat, clear glass pint bottles he had carried from home.

On those mornings after the moonshine "experiment" when Larry and I met in the lab to brew tea, we occasionally added a shot of "White Mule" to the tea to get a good start on the day!

A Lucky Shot?

2010-03-03T08:55:00.006-06:00

Between 1950 and 1953 ( I would have been 8 to 11 years old) It was my week to stay on my Grandpa Andrew's " farm" in Owatonna, Minnesota. The time of the year was late summer to autumn. The farm's location on this Google map, is marked by the red asterisk on St. Paul Road. Today it is developed with apartments, townhouses and residential homes. The Owatonna Jr. High School just across St. Paul Road to the east. Click the photo to enlarge, then click the "back" arrow to return here.

One night after supper, grandpa and I went outside to get a little fresh air before nightfall and our retreat back to the house for cookies, milk and bed (for me anyway). We stood in the middle of the yard with the house to our backs (east), and a barn with a hay loft and attached slant-roof garage straight ahead (west), a utility shed with a metal roof to our left (south), and to our right was a pig pen, grain shed, chicken coop and dog kennel (north).

This Photo by Dave Kozlowski at http://dallasphotoworks.com/ is used with permission

As Grandpa lit a cigar, a swarming/migrating flock of grackles passed overhead. They were flying high. [Similar to the photo above by Dave Kozlowski taken in Fort Worth, TX January 22, 2010] Grandpa Andrew quickly got out his bolt action .22 rifle and loaded it with a 22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge. He aimed the gun upward for 20 seconds or so leading the movement of the birds with the gun's barrel. He shot only once and about 30 seconds later, a grackle came fluttering to the ground several feet away from us! The bullet had hit its wing. He dispatched it quickly by breaking its neck. I stood there in disbelief but also with great admiration for my grandpa's shooting skills!

Grandpa Andrew Kubiatowicz
Andrew spent his entire life in the nursery business, with the Mitchell Nursery Company, Owatonna Nursery Company, and the longest time with Cashman Nurseries Inc. He was an expert at grafting and one particular tree by the house contained 3 different varieties of apples! He and his brothers were avid hunters and fishermen.

Andrew and his wife Margaret (Learch) Kubiatowicz, daughter (also named Margaret) and son Eugene (my father) , moved to the farm in 1939 to take care of Margaret's ailing father Charles Learch, who owned the farm. Everyone except Eugene would stay at the farm which Andrew regarded as a "Hobby" farm. He kept a few cows (for milk), steers (for meat), hogs (for meat), and chickens (for eggs and meat) and butchered them at appropriate times.

My father Eugene left the farm after he married my mother Mary Bauman in May 29, 1939 and the two of them rented and lived in Andrew's home on South Street in Owatonna.

Andrew's house was between brother Steve and brother Martin's house on South Street. This was because years after immigrating from Poland in 1886 with their parents (Joseph Kubiatowicz And Josephine Larokowski), the three brothers Steve, Andrew and Martin built their homes in a row on South Street. There was a fourth home built for brother Joseph, but that one was sold and Joseph lived on the other side of town. I and my two brothers were born in a hospital that was just down the street from our (Andrew's) house.

The photo below shows Andrew Kubiatowicz's home under construction on South Street circa 1911.

The 1945 garden photo below (the house is to the left) shows Eugene (my dad), Andrew holding James(my younger brother), Margaret (Andrews wife) and Margaret (Andrew's daughter). In the Front is my older brother Michael (now deceased) and behind him David (your humble blogger). Shown behind the group is St. Paul Road (gravel at that time) it runs north and south. If a car drove on the road from the left to the right of the photo, it would be heading south.

The 1942 photo below shows Andrew with a firm grip on the halter of one of his "hobby" Steers while holding my older brother Michael. They're in the pasture behind the barn (west of the house).

The 1945 photo below shows Andrew with older brother Michael to his right and David (your humble blogger) on his left wearing a kid's version of a US Army "garrison" cap. Youngest brother James is in the center. I don't remember the name of the beagle but Andrew did, at one time, have a dog he kept in the barn with the name of "Rusty". The backdrop is the farm's chicken coup which was north.