R.I.P. HOBIE: December 1996 - November 2009

She made sure we all got up at the crack of dawn for 13 years. Our kitty alarm clock. But she wasn't feeling well any more--poor sick kitty. Tough day at our house.

RIDING WITH MY DAD

I went for a ride to the clinic with my dad yesterday. These days, in order to go for a ride, we have to arrange for a van with a wheelchair lift. He likes the lift—“Hydraulics,” he explained to me as it raised him into the air. He’s still trying to teach me what’s what.

I sat in a seat behind him on the van and looked at the back of his capped head. I thought of another time I’d ridden in the seat behind my dad—back in 1952, I think, give or take a year.

I was little—maybe around four years old—and we had been driving home after dark from Fergus Falls one summer night. My mom thought she remembered we had been to see fireworks. My mom remembers she was in the back seat with a pile of five half-sleeping kids, and my dad was in the front seat driving our 1951 Ford sedan.

Our 1951 Ford

My dad put on the blinker and slowed down to make a left turn off Highway 59 onto the gravel road that led around the slough and home. A car that had been following close behind suddenly decided to pass us, just as my dad started his left-hand turn. Luckily, both cars had slowed way down. All I remember of the crash was that my dad’s head snapped backwards and his hat flew into the back seat.

My dad remembers that he got out of the car right away, and once he saw that his family was unhurt, walked back to the other car. As he approached the driver’s window, the driver was popping his glass eye back into its socket. My dad didn’t know if the glass eye had popped out on impact, or if the driver hadn’t been wearing it to begin with (not that the glass eye would have helped avoid the accident).

As soon as he started talking to the other driver, my dad could tell the man was drunk. We had been creamed by a one-eyed, drunk driver. This was before cell phones, of course, so we were all alone out there in the country. Luckily both cars were still drivable (our car had a damaged fender).

The other driver drunkenly insisted that we both turn around and go back to the Court House in Fergus Falls (that’s where the sheriff’s office was) to report the accident. Evidently, in his drunken state, he believed that the accident was my dad’s fault. My dad was happy to comply, knowing that the other driver was in the wrong.

My mom said that her neck hurt for months after that. When I explained that today, that would mean whiplash, lawsuits, insurance companies, and disability claims, she just looked at me blankly. Back in 1953, it just meant your neck hurt.

Even though the accident was 56 years ago, my dad still remembers the man’s name, but I don’t think I’ll put the name in this story. The man passed away in 1968, but his elderly wife and children still live in the area. Maybe they don’t know what their one-eyed drunken father/husband did back in 1953. It’s not something the average man wants to tell his children. Or maybe even his wife. Chances are, he probably just had to sleep it off in a jail cell over night like Otis, the town drunk from The Andy Griffith Show, used to do back in the 1950s. The laws and public perception of drunk driving were completely different back then.

And that’s the way my mind wanders as I go riding with my dad these days, looking at the back of his head, driving through the countryside.

TOM’S MOONLIGHTING JOB

I think I’ve discovered what Tom does to supplement his retirement pension.

He says he is going off to work at the local Food Shelf or volunteer at the VA Clinic. He says he is going off to referee football games or provide radio color for the high school hockey teams. He says he’s going fishing. He says he’s going biking. He says he’s going for a cup of coffee at a friend’s house.

Naively, I believed all those stories he told me until I read the comics page in yesterday’s newspaper.

Now I think that secretly, on the side, he has a little studio somewhere, complete with sharpened No. 2 pencils and a 64-crayon Crayola box, where he draws The Lockhorns cartoon.

That’s what I think.

THE WORLD REVOLVES AROUND MY BIRTHDAY—AS USUAL

Last year, I turned the big 6-0. My birthday stretched across several days and included a surprise party, flowers, three cakes, 50+ cards, and people singing the “Happy Birthday” song everywhere I went. I was the queen.

It’s only one year later, and how quickly the mighty have fallen.

It was my birthday again in October—the not-so-big 6-1. I was determined to be prepared. After the hullabaloo of last year, I was bracing myself for all the possible festivities.

I got up around 6 a.m. and started out the day with my coffee and crossword puzzle as usual. All of a sudden, I heard a huge THUD. 'What?? Was that a van door slamming? The flower delivery van already???’ I leapt to my feet, anxious to get to the door to collect the bouquet. Roses? A fall arrangement of mums? That’s when I noticed the desperately thrashing robin on the deck.

The THUD has been a kamikaze robin, smashing into my sliding glass door. I hurried over to the deck where it had fallen and watched it writhe around convulsively, fluttering, flapping, spinning and reeling. I am so bad at medical emergencies—what does one do for robin traumatic head injuries? Luckily, the bird settled down within a few minutes and flopped down onto the ground to do a little concussion recovery under the deck.

After an hour or two, I gave up my vigil of waiting for the florist’s truck and went for a walk on the trail. Nobody—and I mean nobody—was out walking on the trail that morning. It was one of those eerily quiet, too quiet, walks. Strangely silent. But because it was my birthday, I braced myself for the inevitable friends and relatives jumping out and yelling “Surprise!” at every bend in the trail. It became one of those jumpy walks where I kept looking over my shoulder and peering ahead around the corners. But I made it home without any surprise party trail ambushes.

That afternoon, Tom and I drove down to St. John’s University for a football game. We do it every year. However, this year we came during halftime so we didn’t have to pay to get in (ah, retired people—our cheapness is only topped by our miserliness which is only eclipsed by our tightfistedness).

When we arrived at the football game, the marching band on the field was getting ready to spell something out—H-A-P . . . could it be? H-A-P-P-Y. Oh, how embarrassing! Tom, you shouldn’t have! H-A-P-P-Y F-A-M-I-L-Y W-E-E-K-E-N-D! Oh, right. Family weekend. Heh, heh, um-hum. I knew that.

After the game, we took a walk around the campus, down by Lake Sagatagalan. No balloon-decorated pontoon full of reveling party throwers broke the calm stillness.

We also walked through the St. John’s Monastery cemetery. You should always walk around a cemetery on your birthday in case you are feeling bad about your age. Reminds you of the alternative.

We stopped for dinner at the Captain’s Table on Fairy Lake in Sauk Centre on the way back to Alexandria. We even got a window table. Since I was the one who impulsively suggested eating there, I knew there would not be 30 of my closest friends and relatives waiting to jump out. It’s always a good thing to do on your birthday—pick out the restaurant where you want to eat within a few minutes of eating there. It seriously cuts down on surprise birthday celebrations.

So be forewarned . . . your 61st birthday will likely be fairly low key. Don’t wait for flowers or surprise parties or cakes or candles or people dancing in circles around you. Don’t expect the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to sing the Halleluiah Chorus on your behalf. Expect a quiet little celebration with the person who has quietly celebrated the previous umpteen birthdays with you and doesn’t seem to notice that you’re not as young and cute as you used to be. That’s the guy to celebrate with.

SUFFERING

It’s getting harder and harder to watch my 92-year-old father suffer. He’s been in a wheel chair for the past four years, and even before that, his quality of life was being eroded by that insidious enemy, Parkinson’s disease.

He was someone who worked hard all his life. At the age of 13, he was six feet tall and doing the physical work of a man. He was blessed with a good singing voice, wavy brown hair, twinkling eyees, and a sense of leadership that made others trust and respect him. He worked hard, but he always had a roof over his head, plenty to eat, a family that obeyed and loved him, and a strong faith. His life wasn’t perfect, but he had a good life.

His parents and two sisters lived to old age. He never lost a child to illness or accident. He was never rich, but he prospered through hard work and careful living. He led a successful, full life.

And now, he is suffering. Suffering quietly, but suffering.

I didn’t understand the value of this suffering until at the suggestion of another blogger (Roscommon to Imogene), I read a book called Man’s Search for Meaning by Dr. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who endured years imprisoned at Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. Frankl emerged from the camps with a new vision of life, including the value of suffering. His book examines the idea of transforming tragedy to triumph. “When we are no longer able to change a situation,” he says, “. . . we are challenged to change ourselves.”

Frankl also says, "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

It's incredibly hard to watch someone else’s suffering, especially when that someone is your dad. However, this suffering is not necessarily a negative part of life. It’s what a person does with that suffering—what one learns and how one grows from it, and the attitude with which one faces it.

I’m not too old to still learn a lesson from my dad.

WALKIN’ TEN MILES

Oh, yes I did. This afternoon. Walked ten miles.

Mile marker 140 on the Central Lakes Trail to mile marker 145 and back again. Ten miles—add ‘em up.

Eat your heart out. I’ve still got it.

Ten miles. Took me three hours, but I did it.


Sixty-one years old. It wasn't pretty.

I only took one break the whole time. At mile No. 7, a black dog wanted to be my best friend. I needed a friend about then, so I let it lick my hand and drool dog drool all over me.

I rule.

I may be old, but I can still walk ten miles.

2 to 4 a day--hah! Smashed that record.

I'm pooped.

WALK INTO DANGER

The Wednesday headline in our local newspaper, the Echo Press, proclaimed, “Lake Carlos State Park to Remain Open During Special Deer Hunt.”

If that isn’t an out-and-out challenge, I don’t know what is.

It almost dares me to go hiking in Carlos State Park this weekend. Something about that headline just calls to me as I wallow in my retired, humdrum, mediocre life. It isn’t very often that I have an opportunity to do something that edgy, that life-threatening, that dad-gum dangerous within just a few miles of my house.

The newspaper story means that we hikers are free to roam throughout the park trails during the four days (November 7-11) that deer hunters will also be prowling to thin out the park's deer herd. The difference is, they will be armed and we will not. (Just like the movie, Human Prey.)

While the difference in armament sounds unfair, park officials tell those of us who still feel a need to hike in the park that we can even out the playing field: “Visitors should be aware of the special hunt and wear blaze orange or brightly colored clothing if they plan to recreate within the park.”

Yea, that really evens it out. Of course, it assumes that all deer hunters look before they shoot, are not color blind, don’t pull the trigger every time they see movement in the woods . . . and did not have a Bud Lite for breakfast.

But in my never-ending quest for danger, I’m planning to take a walk in the park this afternoon. Even though the hunt doesn’t start until tomorrow and technically I should be able to wear my civilian clothing one more day, I decided to dress on the cautious side.

My closet, however, is a dismal mishmash of black or gray clothing, with merry little splashes of mud brown and camouflage olive green.

Since I am too cheap to actually go buy anything blaze orange or glow-in-the-dark red, I scoured my entire house looking for the right colors. I discovered that not only is my wardrobe drab, my entire house is drab. I found only one blaze orange object and one wearable red object in the entire 1,490 square feet of my house. Using every ounce of my Norwegian ingenuity, I came up with this hiking outfit:

Wish me luck as I take what may prove to be my final 2-to-4-mile walk on the highway to the danger zone. (I mentally picture myself as Maverick and sing of Top Gun songs to give myself courage.)

I know what you’re thinking:

“Isn’t she brave?”

“I wish I had her courage.”

“That guy from Into the Wild has nothing on her.”

But be honest. Does the red hat make my head look fat?

FOREIGN FILMS & A RAINY DAY WALKS

My subscription to Netflix continues to be my salvation on rainy days. I would ten thousand times prefer walking outside. (On second thought, make that twenty thousand times.) But sometimes, when the rain is coming down sideways, propelled by a 40 mph northwest wind, common sense tells me to go down the basement and have some quality time with my treadmill instead. That’s where the Netflix subscription comes in.

I have become a huge fan of foreign films. They work perfectly for the treadmill because with all the noise the treadmill makes, I have to run subtitles anyway. It doesn’t matter if a movie is in English or Babylonian Akkadian—I just read the dialogue on the bottom of the screen as I trudge along the conveyor belt, whittling my thighs and expanding my mind.

The latest exceptional foreign film I ran across was a movie made in Afghanistan in 2002, the first movie filmed after the Taliban government (in power from 1996 to 2001) was ousted by NATO forces.

If you can’t figure out why Barak Obama won’t just bring American troops home from Afghanistan, well, you might want to watch the movie, Osama , to understand one reason why. (Click the link to watch the movie trailer.)

I think history will show that in addition to its other evils, the Taliban’s oppression of women is every bit as immoral as the Nazi’s persecution of the Jews and America’s 200-year history of slavery. The Taliban forbids a long, long list of activities we take for granted (and enforces with punishments including arrest, torture, and death in the famous soccer stadium executions). Included in this list are major taboos for women, most importantly bans on education and employment. In addition, any public appearances by a woman must be in a traditional head-to-toe burqa, escorted by a male relative.

Osama tells the desperate story of a household of widowed women (a grandmother and mother) along with a 12-year-old daughter who, because of Taliban laws, are living in poverty and starvation. The writer/director of the film points out that women under the Taliban are not so much protected as they are repressed, powerless, and abused.

All events in this low-budget movie are based on real-life events related by newspapers and personal interviews to the Afghani writer/director, Siddiq Barmak. The “stars” in this movie are like those in Slumdog Millionaire: Afghani children found in refugee camps and the street and asked if they wanted to be in a movie.

This movie doesn’t give a black and white answer to the question of what role the United States should play in Afghanistan. But it certainly gives a face to the enemy—the Taliban—and the perverted, radical interpretation of Islam ideology that sentences women to lives of hopeless desperation.

It's surprising what you can learn on a treadmill.

OUT OF THE GREEN AND GOLD CLOSET

On Sunday afternoons for years, Tom has made a point of being available to watch the Vikings games. However, it was always painful for whoever watched with him. It seemed like the Vikings were always so—well, so disappointing to him. Even when they won, he’d seem disappointed by the way they won.

On Sunday, it finally hit me. The reason for all the Viking negativity over the years is that in reality, I am married to a closet Green Bay Packers fan. Stupid me—I had just been ignoring all the signs for the past 36 years.

Sign No. 1: He grew up in Fargo, North Dakota, watching the Green Bay Packers throughout his formative years. His idols were Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr, who led the Packers to two Superbowl wins in 1967 and 1968. Everybody in Fargo, North Dakota, was a Green Bay fan during the ‘60s. Everybody.

Sign No. 2: Even after Tom moved to Minnesota in 1972, he still had trouble getting fired up about the Vikings. In retrospect, Tom was just going through the motions of being a Vikings fan, mostly because we only had three television stations and the Vikings were all that were on. Sometimes he didn’t even bother to go through the motions.

Sign No. 3: In the summer of 2001, Tom and I drove from Alexandria, Minnesota, to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. It should have been a pretty straight-forward trip. But no—we had to drive approximately 8 million miles out of our way so that Tom could have his picture taken in front of Lambeau Field in Green Bay.

He even talked his way past some maintenance guy so he could get his picture taken inside the empty stadium. An empty football stadium. 8 million miles out of our way.

Sign No. 4: From 1992 until 2007, when Bret Favre was the Green Bay quarterback, Tom always spoke about Favre in reverent terms. He stopped short of genuflecting when he mentioned Favre’s name, but he had a special hushed voice reserved only for Favre. He never used that tone when he talked about Fran Tarkenton (that no-good *!#) or Tommy Kramer (that worthless *^$#@) or Randall Cunningham or Daunte Culpepper or Tavaris Jackson (a series of $#@&! quarterbacks). Oh, no. That voice was saved for his very special friend, Bret Favre.

Sign No. 5: On Monday night football a couple of weeks ago, when the Vikings played the Packers, Tom seemed oddly subdued when Favre and the Vikings won. It must be how Selena and Venus Williams’ family feels when they play tennis against each other. Who do you cheer for? Favre vs. Green Bay—an emotionally wrenching event for Tom, I see now.

And finally, Sign No. 6: On Sunday night, there were a couple of minutes left in the Vikings-Packer game and dinner was ready. Everything was out of the oven and the table was set. Usually, it’s me in the kitchen calling to please come and eat, but yesterday, I was sitting on the edge of a chair in front of the TV, hoping the Vikings wouldn’t blow it in the last five minutes like they did the week before. Tom, on the other hand, was in the kitchen quietly dishing up squash and salmon. “The Packers will come out on top,” he called to me in the other room when I failed to show up for dinner.

“Typical negative Vikings fan,” I thought to myself.

And then the lightbulb went on in my head. “No, he’s not a negative Vikings fan. He’s a gosh-darn closet Green Bay Packers fan.”

Don’t ever say you can’t learn something new about the guy you’ve been living with for 36 years. Some of it’s pretty and some of it’s not. And in this case, I believe the cheesehead has finally come out of the closet.

HONKIN’ HUGE FAMILY TREE

A year ago, when my daughter started a new job, she was being introduced to a co-worker for the first time. When that co-worker heard her last name, she asked my daughter, “Are you related to Robin?” My daughter shrugged in immediate defeat. How could she possibly know if she’s related to a Robin? She comes from one of the most prolific families on the face of the earth. Later, when she asked me, I told her that yes, Robin is the wife her first cousin David.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been working on updating my husband’s family tree. His family had a reunion back in 1988 (just Tom’s brothers and sisters and their families) and a family tree was printed up at that time. Are you ready for this? In those 21 years, from 1988 to 2009, Tom’s immediate family has grown from 89 living family members to an astounding 203. That includes the children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren of Tom’s parents, Tillie and Leone.

In 1988, it took 4 pages to document his family. In 2009, it takes 3 times as many pages to chart this whole family into a tree—one honkin’ huge giant redwood tree.

Last summer, we had a reunion of my side of the family—my parents and their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. We marveled at our size—60 family members at that time (not to mention the “buns in the oven”).

Ha! Compared to Tom’s side of the family, my own family members are procreation amateurs—a skinny little oak next to their giant redwood.

So my poor children have around 250 immediate family members, not going beyond first cousins. Two years ago, when my daughter got married, we agonized over the guest list. We considered not allowing the groom to invite anybody, but that didn’t seem to be a fair way to start a marriage. So to accommodate the groom’s side of the family plus everyone’s friends, the relative list was pared down and pared down until we knew were offending somebody. But unless we were prepared to buy a chicken dinner for 500 people, we just had to stop somewhere.

Having a large family is a blessing, but it’s also overwhelming. It’s nearly impossible to keep track of everyone. There’s always a wedding or a funeral or a birth or an anniversary or a high school graduation or a college graduation or an illness or a new job or a layoff or a military deployment or . . .

With the lives of over 250 family tree branches and twigs--and yes, a few nuts-- to think about, life’s celebrations and sufferings are always with us.

END OF AN ERA

This morning when I went to get our garbage bin ready to bring out to the curb, I knew I had to go back in and get my camera. There lying on the top of the bags of garbage was a pair of black football referee shoes, circa 1980.

He really did it. He said he was going to, and he really did it. “This is my last season refereeing football,” Tom said numerous times this fall. He would look glumly out the window at the rain falling as he laced up his antique cleats. It really was a miserable October in Minnesota this year. “I’m getting too old for this,” he would mutter. “It cuts into my fishing time.” But then he’d come home after the game, quietly satisfied that at age 65, he could still outrun the other referee who was 20 years younger and he could still keep up with a 14-year-old receiver as he ran 60 yards for a touchdown.

Tom started out back in the mid-70s coaching junior high football. Yes, he was very cute. All the 8th grade girls had a crush on him. He coached at that level for about four years.

Then, in 1981, he joined a team of officials who worked 9- and 11-man football games throughout west central Minnesota. He was the field judge on that four-man team. Every Friday night, he’d head out for some place like Battle Lake or Wheaton or Morris.

The highlight of his refereeing career was when his four-man team was chosen to work at the 1987 State Class A Prep Bowl at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. Everybody has their 15 minutes of fame, right?

He laughs about another night when an irate father from Morris, Minnesota, yelled at him during a game, “Throw that flag, you striped runt!” It became the standing joke of the crew.

The low point came in the fall of 1988 after a game in Wheaton, Minnesota. The coach of the Wheaton team was a loud, abusive yeller who verbally rode the referees from the start of the game to the finish. The crowd picked up on the coach’s tone and were merciless to the referees, too. After the game, as the referees were leaving the field, a fan followed them, shouting and swearing. When Tom just kept walking and didn’t respond, the fan shoved Tom from behind. It was at that moment that Tom decided he wouldn’t referee at the high school level any more.

There’s something about a man in uniform! (1990)

When our son became involved in sports, it was more fun for Tom to just go to his son’s games as a spectator than referee someone else’s. So Tom took a break until about 1994 when he returned to refereeing junior high games—which he did for 15 years until he threw his cleats in the garbage this week.

Over the years, the referee gear was rained on, snowed on, and washed a million times. Polyester—the miracle material. There were a few injuries and slips in the mud (crowds love when the referee takes a dive).

It was even used as a Halloween costume back in 1983.

1983: Superman, Football Referee, and Witch

Now it’s 2009. For the past several years, Tom only took 7th and 8th grade games. Less pressure down at those levels, he said, although sometimes he still ran into coaches and parents who forgot that the game was about the kids, not about them.

It was a great run—but there’s something kind of sad about those antique 25-year-old ref shoes in the garbage this morning. I think he just didn’t want to be tempted again next fall when the phone call came from the Athletic Department to just ref “one more season.” He needs to be able to say, “Gee, I’d love to, but I threw away my shoes.”

And if you need him next fall, he’ll be out fishing. But probably missing football just a bit.

LAKE COWDRY MYSTERY SOLVED

I just knew there had to be a reason why someone posted all those antisocial signs along West Lake Cowdry Road.

I was considering some of the alternatives: love affair gone sour, constipation, dog died, wife left, truck broke down . . . all the usual bad luck, gloom and doom reasons you hear on your local country western station.

Normal people just don't have that many stay-out-of-my-business and keep-on-moving signs in a stretch of road that short. There had to be more to the story.

Today when I hiked West Lake Cowdry Road again, I saw it. Like an epiphany. A bolt from the blue. I had missed it before because I was fixating on a sign across the road from it. But today, there it was--the simple explanation for all that hostility and ill will:

Duh! Of course! It all makes perfect sense now. I live with this every day. I'm married to a fisherman, for cripes sake. If the fish bite, happy days are here again. If the fish don't bite, Mr. Pessimistic comes home to commiserate.

Except in the case of the Lake Cowdry depressed fisherman, he doesn't just sigh. He puts up signs. "Stay out. Leave me alone. Don't park here. Don't loiter here. Don't fish here. Don't hunt here. Don't walk here."

I should have been a detective. Elementary, my dear Watson.

SIGNS OF DANGER

One of my favorite places to do an easy, scenic three-mile walk is along West Lake Cowdry Road. I park near the Lake Darling/Lake Cowdry bridge and hike along the road next to the lake.

Normally all the road signs along West Lake Cowdry Road are tucked behind long grass and tree foliage. But yesterday, because most of the fall leaves have already blown off the trees, the road signs stuck out like neon-lighted sore thumbs.

That’s when I realized what an incredibly hostile place West Lake Cowdry Road really is. Hostile and scary and downright intimidating.

Inviting little paths warned of dire consequences if I trespassed or hunted (I often hike with a shotgun, but luckily I left it at home yesterday).

And if just one sign isn’t intimidating enough, be sure to stick another one next to it that has the words "criminal" and “forbidden” and “prosecuted” in it. That’ll keep us curious hikers out of your inviting little country lane.

We can walk on the pavement, but wander six feet from the asphalt? Well, we’ve been warned. There are plenty of places to dispose of a body out here in long-grass country.

Another leaf-strewn lane announces that we might go in, but we’ll never come out.

Slow down for kids (not to mention little old ladies) who might be walking on this road. I was grateful for that one.

No parking—and if you don’t believe that sign, there’s another one reminding you twenty feet away. And twenty feet from that one. And twenty feet from that one.

Let me guess. You don’t want me to go here either.

As intriguing as this little creek looks, don’t be tempted. No loitering, no fishing. The whole time I was taking this picture, I marched in place to avoid that classic loitering look of slouching and leaning.
Oops, can’t loiter or fish by this culvert either. ‘Scuse me, I’ve got to keep moving.Along this little stretch, you can’t do anything as the four signs warn “no parking, no fishing, no loitering, no parking (again), and no speeding.” Whew—that’s a lot of signs in a row, even for West Lake Cowdry Road.

Every hundred feet or so, one of these yellow signs warns the uninformed that we shouldn’t be digging. I was grateful for the reminder because like most hikers, I was carrying a shovel.

The Cowdry/Darling creek bridge sported a big “Caution” sign, so I took the little path down the bank (cautiously, of course), curious to see what I was supposed to be cautious about.

This is all I found. It didn’t look too fraught with danger to me. (Fraught? Is fraught a word? If it isn’t, it should be.)

Ah, finally, a friendly gesture. As a passerby, it made me feel mighty welcome. I was, however, by this time suspicious that it was just a trick. I may be naive, but I wasn't about to fall for the old "Rest Stop" con game. I just kept moving along.

When I got back to my car, I realized that I had inadvertently parked right next to green high voltage box. Expecting the worst, I cautiously touched the metal handle of my car to open the door. Luckily the high voltage must have been momentarily turned down because I didn’t even get one of those carpet-shock jolts. I narrowly averted danger once again.

I think I like it better when all the leaves and grass of summer cover the hostile West Lake Cowdry Road signs. By the time I got home, I felt like I had risked my life to walk those dangerous three miles.

IN SEARCH OF KRANE BLOOGER, ACTS 5, 6, AND EPILOGUE

(Ok, by now you know the routine. You've got to go back and read Acts 1 and 2, Act 3, and Act 4 before you read this. Beginning to end--front to back--you know it's only right.)

ACT 5

The Scene: Tom’s Google-addicted wife is working at her laptop one day in September and decides to search “Krane Blooger” to see if he is showing up as a famous artist, thereby making the painting worth more than just a traveling gag gift between old college buddies.

Synopsis: Sure enough, within minutes she hits pay dirt. She is breathless with anticipation. However, the excitement slowly turns to disappointment as she checks each Google search site. Krane Blooger does not appear to be a world-famous artist. On the contrary, he currently lives on the East Coast and works in the public relations department of a community college. He dabbles in his art on the side. One site even shows a sample of his work. Although his art seems to have improved quite a bit in the past 40 years, he’s no Picasso. But it’s worth one more shot . . .

Tom’s wife screws up her courage, composes an email, revises it eight dozen times, and finally hits the “send” button. Her email reads as follows:

If you are the Krane Blooger who attended NDSU in the late 1960s/early 1970s, I believe we have one of your oil paintings from your early period.

Could you please give us some information about this painting (see attached photograph)?

Seven minutes later, she received his response:

You found me.

I believe that painting was done as part of a painting class at NDSU.

You’re trusting to my failing memory, but as I recall it is of the Red River in Fargo near Plumtree Road. Area has probably changed completely by now.

Hope this helps,
Krane Blooger

Not willing to give up completely, she sends another email:

Krane: Thanks for responding so quickly! We've had the painting for so long that it's interesting to find out a little information about it.

Just out of curiosity, I have one more question for you. (I'm trying to trust your failing memory one more time!)

The painting was originally found in an apartment closet at the Bison Arms Apartments in Fargo approximately 40 years ago. Do you have any idea how your painting would have ended up there? Did you give it to someone or sell it to someone who may have forgotten or left it in that apartment?

His response:

Holy cow!

I don’t even remember the Bison Arms Apartments...

I probably gave it away as I rarely sold anything in those days. To whom? I haven’t the foggiest notion.

Krane

ACT 6

The Scene: Tom’s wife’s living room, slumped dejectedly over her laptop computer.

Synopsis: Here are the questions Tom’s wife had been asking herself all this time: Was Krane Blooger a noteworthy artist? Was the picture, done in his early period, now worth thousands—or millions? Was there international intrigue including art theft and black market fencing involved? Is it better to know the truth? Or is it better to live life in La-La Land, with just a tiny ray of hope that you may have the golden ticket, the winning numbers in the lottery?

The answers to the questions above are no, no, no, no, and maybe.

The mysterious Krane Blooger turned out to be just an ordinary guy who works in an office at a community college. He doesn’t really remember painting Red River at Plumtree Road (at least there’s now a name for the painting). He doesn’t remember what he did with it after he painted it, and doesn’t really seem interested in where the painting is now.

EPILOGUE

Krane Blooger, you are a big fat disappointment. Not only am I disappointed, but the people who have been anxiously reading these blog entries are disappointed, too.

The next time Morrie repaints the fence around his yard or John reshingles his roof, we will not be sneaking in the Krane Blooger oil painting housewarming present with nearly as much enthusiasm as we have done in the past. Now we know for certain that the painting really is bad and that it really isn’t worth anything, just like we probably knew in the bottom of our hearts all along. Or at least, we were 99 percent sure.

But it was that 1 percent of uncertainty that made it seem intriguing all these years.

Bummer.

IRISH OMENS AND SIGNS

If I were a believer in omens and signs, I would start packing my suitcase, certain I should be leaving for Ireland on tomorrow morning’s bus.

I sometimes don’t go out for weeks—no months—at a time, and now I’ve seen two live Irish performances within the span of four days.

Coincidence?!?!? I think not.

On Wednesday, I saw a live performance of Celtic Woman—Isle of Hope. And last night, our community theater had a performance by local musician Mikko Cowdery, freshly back from Ireland, playing all the new songs he learned while crawling through pubs in the land of leprechauns.

One of the great things about Mikko’s show is the troupe of area musicians he brings to the stage with him. Their ages range from 6 to 66, and he has a talent for spotting brand new talent—from the little 6-year-old river dancer with her bobbing blonde curls to the 16-year-old phenomenon fiddler to the guitar-playing retired orthopaedic surgeon to the “Wild Rover” singing 12-year-old boy whose changing voice makes the song even more endearing.

So I’m packing my bags and waiting for my tickets to County Cork to arrive. I am mighty sure, firmly convinced, that this can’t be a coincidence.

And sure as me name is Granny O’Blogger, I’ll be in Dublin afore ye.