Rambling Josh

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-W.B. Yeats-

Dawn asked me a few days ago, “How’s the Christmas letter coming along?” I responded, “It’s fermenting.” Hopefully fermenting like the palate pleasing, mood lifting effervescence of one of my Uncle Tim’s finely crafted beers, and quite unlike the resulting rumblings, south of the border, that said beer sometimes provokes. But(t)…one can rarely have lightening without a bit of thunder. So it goes.

It seems that there is a tipping point somewhere in life where one ceases to desire the type of presents that can be enclosed in boxes and wrapped in paper. A point where all one desires is time. Time with family, time with friends, time…Where does it go?

They say that how we spend our time is how we spend our lives, and just as high-quality items we spend our money on last longer, quality time spent with others does the same. Longer in the moment, longer in memory. Like a one-year prescription to the jelly of the month club, “…the gift that keeps on giving on the whole year.” “That is Edward…that it is indeed.”

Dawn continues to give her prescriptions, knowledge, and skills of physical therapy to those that hobble, limp, and shuffle her way, so that they may hop, skip, and jump back to their lives and the things they enjoy spending their allotted time on.

I’m in my 10th year at Chadron State College, where each and every day of those 10-years, I have stepped on campus and whispered a grateful, “thank you” for the meaning the work I get to do brings to my life.

Sierra is still bumping around New York, making a go of it in the many fits and starts of the film industry. The recent screenwriters and actors strike gave her some time to start a photography business and focus her lens and talents on capturing a bit of her clienteles life and times. With a creative eye, like her Grandma Joann, and the gumption of her Mom, she has built an impressive portfolio of images. Snippets of time.

Jackson has completed an accident-free year of bumping around Rapid City and the Black Hills area in his brown truck, delivering a variety of necessities to the masses (personalized socks, mullet wigs, and things people are too embarrassed to purchase in person). In his free-time, which drivers for UPS are not in large supply of, he can be found “spoiling a good walk” on the golf course.

Wilson, our 2-year-old Shepsky (the apple of Dawn’s eye), is a whimsical turd who continues to test, and to thwart, any and all of my seemingly foolproof attempts at canine containment. The fool appears to be I…he being the proof. He’s a good dog (don’t tell him I said that), and a willing hiking companion with a penchant for chasing deer hither and yon, over hill and many a dale.

So…that’s a bit of how the Ellis Family has spent their time since you threw our Christmas card and letter in the burn barrel last holiday season. I hope it offered a flicker of warmth and perhaps singed an eyebrow.

If we don’t see you between this letter and the next, we wish you a very Merry Christmas, a staggeringly good New Year, and an overflowing cornucopia of time well spent.

The Ellis Family

Josh, Dawn, Sierra, Jackson, and Wilson

Jackson, our son, has been driving for UPS for a little over a year now. Keeping the fine folks of the Black Hills area supplied with all the wants and needs (mostly wants) that their consumer fingers can click upon from the comfort of their padded toilet seat.

He puts in about 10-miles a day, schlepping about hither and yon, hopping in and out of his brown truck, dodging the advances of angry dogs, and lonely housewives. What can Brown do for you?

Last month, Jackson had a week of vacation time that he had to use or lose, so he was pondering what to do and where to go with his allotted time. Dawn and I thought he had settled on New York City for a bit of exploration, an NBA and/or NFL game, and to hangout with his big sister.

That decision was arrived at on a Saturday, with an expected departure day of Monday. He’s never been one to plan very far in advance.

On Sunday morning, around 8:00am I received a text message from Jackson, “Tickets to Dublin are $600 out of Rapid City. Do you think you can get away?” Dublin, Alabama…Dublin, California…Dublin, Florida…Dublin, Georgia…? No, Dublin Ireland. Across the pond. Ireland? Tomorrow?

On Sunday morning, around 10:00am, Jackson and I were booked to depart the next day for the Emerald Isle. You do what you must for your children.

Around noon, that same Sunday that we booked the flights, Dawn and I FaceTimed with Sierra to wish her a happy birthday. Dawn said, “Guess where your Dad and your brother are going tomorrow?” Sierra, who was between gigs, decided to meet us in Dublin.

I suggested that Dawn fake COVID and join us, but as an “essential worker”, contracting actual COVID, during the actual pandemic, wasn’t enough for her employer to grant her a leave of absence, so she begrudgingly stayed behind to keep the dog company and be essential. So it goes.

As I’ve blabbed about many times to many people misfortunate enough to be conscious in my presence, Ireland has been very near and dear to me since Dawn and I first visited several years ago, and I was excited to share all it has to offer with our children.

In short, it didn’t disappoint.

Jackson got to golf, Sierra got to expand her photography portfolio, and I got to experience our children experiencing the places, people, and music that so often fill my thoughts.

When Abraham Verghese was quoted as saying, “Travel expands the mind and loosens the bowels”, I believe he was speaking of Ireland…and Guinness.

We were in a pub one night (as many a story has begun), listening to a couple of elderly gentlemen sing the songs I’ve subjected my children to for many years, when one of them asked, “How old are your children?” I said, “28 and 24” and he replied, with a knowing smile and a lovely Irish brogue, “Ahh lovely…that’s when they become more like friends than your children. Enjoy your travels.”

My intent when we departed for our trip was to show our children what I love about Ireland, but somewhere along the journey there was a tipping point, a point where I found myself stepping back and I letting them show me what they love about Ireland.

They were tremendous navigators and guides on our journey. Thoughtful, kind, and curious…good travel companions…good tourists…good people.

Each year around this time the college foundation and alumni office organizes a Fall Fund Drive to raise money for student scholarships and such. A few faculty and staff are asked to volunteer to be team leaders, and those team leaders are then asked to assemble a team of six or so of their colleagues to go forth and shake down faculty and staff that are not a part of a Fall Fund Drive team for cash.

Several of these teams have been together for many years and enjoy the friendly competition to be named top fundraiser. This is my tenth year at the college, and early on in my career, before I felt that I had earned the right to say, “no”, I reluctantly agreed to be a team leader for the Fall Fund Drive.

I very much dislike fundraising and lack whatever motivates one to engage in friendly competition to be named top fundraiser, so I organized a team of like-minded colleagues to make the process as painless as possible. Not so surprisingly, for several years, my team aptly avoided the bragging rights, accolades, and general hubbub enjoyed by the top fundraisers.

I’m not real sure where we ever finished in the mix, as we also successfully avoided the Fall Fund Drive Kick-Off Diner and the Fall Fund Drive Award Ceremony. Whatever slacker depth of fundraising ineptitude we accomplished, it was never enough to not get asked to do it again…and again…and again. Perhaps we didn’t try not to try hard enough? Slackers are like that.

This fall, my tenth fall, I said, “no” when asked to be a team leader for the Fall Fund Drive. I said “no” for a couple reasons, firstly, as stated, I don’t like fundraising, and secondly, I know the funds help a lot of students that may have otherwise not been able to afford college, so I thought maybe someone else could do a better job of shaking people down for a good cause.

I thought I’d made a clean break from the Fall Fund Drive, but…a colleague, a nice guy, someone I respect, someone that selflessly and positively contributes to the campus community, asked me to be on his Fall Fund Drive team. He gave me my list of victims and I headed out to track them each down, corner them in their offices, and ask them for money.

My first stop was the campus maintenance office managers office. Despite my lackluster sales pitch, she agreed to donate. Donors get to choose where their funds go, and when I asked her if she had a specific scholarship or fund she’d like to donate to, she said, “The Sgt. Cory Mreck Scholarship.”

Without thinking, I said, “How do you spell that?” Have you ever said something, and while your mouth is saying it your brain attempts, but fails, to put a stop to the stream of words coming out? As I said, “How do you spell that?” I realized it was spelled the same as her last name, and as I realized that, I saw a picture of a young man in a military uniform on her desk.

I said, “Is that your son?” She said, “Yes. He was killed in Iraq in 2004. He’d only been their 8-days.” I said, “I’m sorry for your loss.” She smiled, nodded and said, “Thank you.”

On the walk to her office, I was whining to myself about fundraising and having to take part in the Fall Fund Drive. When I left her office, my mood had changed, things I had taken for granted on the walk across campus from my office to hers suddenly occupied every part of my being. The vividness of the sky, the breeze moving lightly across my face and rustling the autumn leaves. I closed my eyes for a moment, grateful for the day.

That day, I realized that for many it’s not about the funds raised, it’s about keeping the name of a loved one alive for a little while longer. It’s about paying forward opportunities. It’s about gratitude. It’s about being a good human. It’s about time I get over myself and be a useful member of the Fall Fund Drive. Oftentimes, moving towards resistance is the right move. So it goes.

I recently paid a visit to my dermatologist, not a social visit, rather my annual visit to pay the piper for years of joyous exposure to life under the sun. Many of such years when “sunblock” was not slathered but sought. Sought by the shade of a tree, or anything or anyone, casting a shadow wide enough for a brief respite.

As a kid, during all the time I spent at the Bowbells pool, playing baseball, hanging out at Mouse River or Van Hook, I can vividly remember one kid being slathered with sunblock by his mom.

It was probably somewhere around 1980? I was lying on the hot cement at the Bowbells pool, a blazing North Dakota July sun high in the sky, my scrawny 8-year-old body quivering uncontrollably. As I lay there, hoping a cloud didn’t drift between myself and salvation from hypothermia, I saw him. I don’t know who he was, but he looked miserable.

He was probably the same age as me, same scrawny body, same thick, yet quite short, polyester swim trunks. The ones with a draw string that was impossible to get undone when wet. I can remember frantically pawing at the drawstring with numbed and wrinkly fingers in the changing room at the pool so I could use the bathroom…sometimes. Other times? Well…“P” is the first letter in pool.

The one major difference between myself and this kid, was that his skin, that wasn’t covered by his little thick polyester swim trunks, was as white as my skin, that was covered by my little thick polyester swim trunks (with the knot in the drawstring). Throughout the pool break, his mom liberally applied a thick white paste, from his wispy strawberry-blonde hair down to his little blanched feet. He looked like a waxed candy bottle.

When he entered the pool, I curiously watched him, adrift in the middle of an ever-widening opaque film of surface water, and I pondered what that thick white paste might be? Maybe it provided a barrier of warmth between himself and the frigid water? No…he’s quivering too.

Now, as I sit in the waiting room of the dermatologist’s office, I know what it was, and I know that maybe I wouldn’t be sitting in the waiting room of the dermatologist’s office if I had applied a fistful now and then. So it goes.

Nowadays, I’m a bit more mindful about sunscreen. A bit. My dermatologist, whose skin is reminiscent of the slathered lad at the pool, doesn’t seem to agree with my position that gradual tanning of the skin from sun exposure is a natural, healthy form of sunblock.

She just frowns. She frowns at me a lot. I need to start scheduling my dermatology appointments for February to give my application of “natural sunblock” a chance to fade a few more shades before she lays her disapproving eyes upon my aging flesh.

I question the sanity of anyone that would willingly spend 12-years in college and medical school to examine people’s nasty skin conditions for a living? I don’t like to look at my own, but those little polyester swim trunks, only cover so much.

On the television, in the waiting room of the dermatologist’s, there was an infomercial, on repeat, for some new Botox injection to treat “mild to severe frown and laugh lines” complete with the obligatory before and after photos. I didn’t find it to be a very compelling sales pitch, as I preferred the “before” pictures. The “after” pictures looked like mannequins attempting human expressions.

A simple injection to blot out the evidence of a lifetime of mild to severe frowning and laughing? No thanks. There’s a lot of living I’d prefer not to forget stored in those lines, folds, and furrows.

For those of you that are completely color blind, I thought I’d inform you that autumn is settling into the trees, and, in a blaze of glory, the leaves are preparing for their yearly departure. If you are her “friend” on Facebook, you likely saw the photos my Mom recently posted of the fall foliage that is spilling over the foothills south of Lignite. Some nice shootin'…as usual.

If you are not her “friend” on Facebook, or any other place, real or virtual, introduce yourself. Like her father, she can, and generally does, talk to most anyone, about most anything, at most any time. The Chrest girls all inherited this gift of gab to some degree, whereas their brother, my Uncle Tim, measures twice and talks once in a while. As any good carpenter should.

This past summer I happened to be home during my Aunt Susie’s birthday, and the Chrest gang decided to all converge in Minot for a birthday lunch. They are good at converging to celebrate one another, a very commendable quality that I have been quite fortunate to be a part of throughout my life.

My Mom asked me if I wanted to ride with Susie, Beth, and herself from Lignite to Minot, where we’d eventually meet with Mary, Tim, Holly, and Sally for lunch. Eventually. Eventually get to Minot…eventually meet for lunch…eventually meet for desert at DQ…eventually return to Lignite. So it goes.

We almost made it to Bowbells when we made a stop at the Twisted JZ, on the Durwood farm, for some smoothies and coffee. Photos were snapped, chit-chat was chatted, all hit the spot, and we eventually continued our journey to Minot.

I was dangerously close to approaching my daily word limits, and it wasn’t yet 9am, but, as I’ve known my entire life, I was in good hands, these women can carry a conversation. Carry it to places you have never imagined. Places that make you think, places that teach you something, and of course, places that make you laugh and smile. Good places.

A few stops had to be made prior to our eventual return trip, and at each of those stops my aunts and my Mom always ran into someone they knew and chatted for a bit. Sometimes they ran into people they didn’t know and chatted a bit. From Lignite to Minot and back, a master class in cordial conversation. I took notes, and I’ll try and be a better student. Maybe I’ll try to stop avoiding people I know when I’m at the store in Rapid City…maybe?

On our eventual return trip, we made a stop at St. Anthony’s Cemetery, just outside of Donnybrook. We stopped to pay our respects to Betty Schettler, Grandma Rose’s roommate during her time at the nursing home in Kenmare. Betty and Grandma became best of friends, making the most of their final years in their ever-contracting worlds of existence.

At our final stop, St. Joseph’s Cemetery, by Bowbells, we tidied up around the headstone of the ones that were responsible for all this.

Grandpa and Grandma would be happy to know that their family is carrying on as a family. Sharing in one another’s lives, celebrating all that is good, providing kindness, comfort, and care to those in need. Talking, as Grandpa talked, listening, as Grandma listened. Being good people through the many seasons of life.

Carry on.

We’ve lived in Rapid City for about 25-years, and every few months or so of each of those years, I’ve found myself strolling and perusing the odds, ends, and whatnots of The St. Joe Antique Mall. A hobby of sorts, or more so, a form of meditation that stirs up nostalgia for times past, gratitude for the present, and contemplation of the future.

I’ve never been much of the lotus position “ooohhhmmm” type of meditator, I prefer more of the various body-in-motion forms of meditation, such as walking, biking, and strumming the guitar. I guess my body and brain aren’t limber enough for the lotus position. So it goes.

Although I frequent the antique mall, I rarely buy anything, that’s not why I’m there. That’s obviously not why a lot people are there, as there are many items that have avoided purchase for as long as I’ve strolled the store.

The same guy has worked in the store all this time as well, and I often see him visiting with folks that frequent the store, but that’s not why I’m there. We always exchange the basic socially expected greetings in a pleasant and kindly manner. This seems to be enough for each of us? His son has joined him running the store in the past few years, he’s a bit chattier than his father, but he’s quite kind, so I politely give him a listen on occasion.

There are certain items that catch my eye and corral my attention more than others, for reasons unknown, wooden pulleys, wing-tips, phones, typewriters, suitcases, and hats always pull me in for a closer look. We generally can’t control that which we desire, but we can control whether or not we act on that desire, and most of the time I am able to resist the act of purchasing such items. Most of the time.

Often times I spot an old phone amongst the shelves, pick up the phone receiver and spin the rotary dial…933-2516…I see my Grandma Rose or Grandpa Ardell reaching for the phone at the farm, and hear the voices I hope I am always able to hear. I reluctantly hang up, spin the dial…933-2359…and see my Grandpa Fritz, standing in his woodshop, set down his hammer to answer the phone. Grandma Helen is occupied with Wheel of Fortune. I should’ve known not to call at that time.

A few years ago, I stopped in for a bit of meditative rambling amongst the antiques and came upon an old cowboy hat. I am well aware of the existence of head lice. Snagging a classmates stocking cap to clown around in the fourth grade got me out of week or so of school. That memory vividly floats through, but, as usual, I cannot overcome the desire to place the cowboy hat upon my head.

It settles into place like it was where it was always meant to be. If it contains head lice, they are coming home with me and the hat. Just an old cowboy hat, a dead man’s hat I suppose, well-worn and sweat stained.

I hope that many moons from now, when my time draws to an end, someone else picks up this dead man’s hat and moves it a little further along the trail. Lice and all.

Happy trails.

Have you ever fell down a rabbit hole? You go to the World Wide Web in search of some quick little tidbit of information only to emerge from a click-and-scroll marathon several hours later flanked by a cold cup of coffee and half-eaten caramel roll. Okay…the caramel roll is gone. As Alice taught us in her foray to Wonderland, one can’t properly descend into and bump around a rabbit hole with low blood sugar. That would be Crankyland.

I’m a fairly even keeled individual, but like most mouth hole owning morsal munching mortals, I am susceptible to occasional bouts of hangriness, and the less than even keeled behavior that lurks in its famished depths. Depths ugly and murky enough to prompt one to wrestle a loaf of marble rye from the arthritic grasp of a blue haired, ordained member of the Fraternal Order of the Elders.

I’ve never stooped to that level…I prefer sourdough, and I’m not one iota reticent to reveal to the masses that I am a shameless, even gleeful, bread groper. If you have ever been in a place that peddles fresh bread after my roaming hands have made their rounds, there is a very good chance that if you bought bread, it was a well groped loaf. Enjoy your sandwich.

I know that there are more of my kind out there. I’ve seen you. Your filthy sausages gently squeezing a soda bread, ever so lightly pressing a pumpernickel, laying hands upon the unleavened. Weirdo…

I hope you were able to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor riddled life on Labor Day, and that you took the opportunity to don your favorite white or seersucker garments while it was still socially acceptable.

Tragically, sometime around 1989, my beloved white Levi 501 jeans had to be permanently taken out of social rotation after an unfortunate accident that occurred while I was taking my mullet for a stroll through the hallowed halls of Burke Central High School as my intestines were having a spirited disagreement with the “Cooks Choice” that was served in the cafeteria that day.

I’ll spare you the grizzly details, but, in short, never trust a fart while clad in bun hugging white denim. Triple-acting, fabric penetrating, stain lifting? Uh huh…SHOUT was reduced to a whimper.

I also hope you were able to catch a glimpse of the Super Blue Moon this past week. My wife and I went out for an evening stroll to take a gander at the Super Blue Moon, and while she was snapping photos of it, she mentioned that it wouldn’t grace the sky again until 2037.

As I peered toward the east, watching the moon rise above the hills, I wondered how life would look for my wife and I and our family in 2037? I pondered what that wave of time might take, and what it might give? I’m in no hurry to find out, the present has plenty of its own ponderances. Day-to-day…so it goes.

On November 3rd, 2004, the Ramblings column made its debut here in the Burke County Tribune. Pert near 19-years and roughly 450 columns submitted on time, every time, until last time. I always keep my column deadlines in the same place in the back of my mind, so my mind knows exactly where to look and when to start pondering something to write about.

Both my mind and myself were surprised to get an email from the managing editor, Lyann Olson, a few hours prior to the submission deadline that said, “Will you have a column for this week?” My mind and myself thought, “This week? I don’t have a column due until next week.” My mind and myself were both wrong.

All streaks must end, otherwise they wouldn’t be streaks, they’d be lines. Nothing against lines, but streaks keep you on your toes, they keep your jazz hands jazzing (I have no idea). Speaking of streaks, white is the only color underwear should not be. I have a theory that the Fruit of the Loom cartel strongarmed the white skivvy agenda to force the purchase of more of their product.

They obviously failed to take into consideration that the tattered, weathered, and repulsive condition of such garments literally and figuratively flies below the radar of men. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s why clothes lines are always in the backyard.

But I digress…the underwear sidetrack was not intended to distract you from the fact that I messed up. I’m not sure what its intention was? I’m just as surprised as anyone when I go back and read what my mind has written. So…I apologize for the oversight. I apologize to Lyann who graciously replied to my oversight with, “No worries. I will fill your spot.”

The more time I spend on earth the more I’ve realized that in one’s absence their “spot” is very rarely unable to be filled by another. Often, with hardly a soul noticing that there was a spot in need of filling. So it goes.

This first weighed on my mind when one of my colleagues, who had spent 38-years teaching at the college, retired. The incoming freshman the following academic year had no knowledge of my colleagues existence, nor of her 38-year career and many contributions to the college. It was a stark reminder of the sentiment put forth by Saxon White Kessinger’s poem “The Indispensable Man”.

Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego ’s in bloom;
Sometime when you take it for granted,
You’re the best qualified in the room:
Sometime when you feel that your going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions,
And see how they humble your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how much you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you’ll find that in no time,
It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example,
Is to do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.

As we move through life, experiences accumulate, some we would like to experience again, some we would prefer to avoid, and some settle indifferently into the expanse between the extremes. This expanse between the extremes is most likely where the majority of our experiences get laid to rest, collecting dust like that flyrod hanging on the wall in the garage.

We eventually find ourselves reaching for, and making time for, the experiences, people, and stuff that we find meaningful, enjoyable, and a worthwhile use of our time. The dusty flyrod collects more dust, and the guitar gets a daily strumming. Maybe I’ll just sing about fishing?

We only have so much time, and as we move through life, our awareness of this limitation of time, and our approaching horizon, becomes more and more clear. With this clarity often comes contentment with that which we often reach for, and possibly a bit of disinterest, or healthy skepticism, in the search for or accumulation of more. Maybe the idea of getting a sailboat should remain pleasantly adrift in our sea of consciousness, rather than having one languish in the driveway?

As a parent, as a teacher, as someone looking back at middle-age surrounded by young people that “have all the time in the world”, I often have to remind myself that their accumulation of experiences is a necessary component in their discovery of what they may find meaningful, enjoyable, and a worthwhile use of their time. Maybe their flyrod will bring them a lifetime of joy and meaning while their guitar gathers dust? Maybe they’ll sail around the world?

As a kid, when you’ve just popped the top off a fresh can of Pringles, the shiny, crumb littered bottom of the empty can seems so far away as to not be worthy of concern. You give chips away without a second thought…a few for the dog, one or two for the birds, a small stack for that annoying kid in exchange for a chance to ride his cool bike…

You stack them higher than your mouth can accommodate, crunch…cough…laugh, sending chip fragments cascading to the shag carpet where they will be ground deeply into the fabric as you and your brother tussle over who gets to dump the can crumbs directly into their Orange Crush stained mouth.

It’s kind of a half-hearted tussle, because you know there’s another can of Pringles in the cupboard, and a shelf full at the Red Owl. As a kid, there’s very little sense of the end of anything, especially time. When I was a child, many moons ago, the siren was the only semblance of time that existed, blaring a reminder that it was time to eat or time to come home for the night. The latter being more likely to be ignored than the former.

“Didn’t you hear the siren?” I learned when I became a parent that you ask your children questions that you know the answer to mostly out of curiosity regarding the story they will attempt to make up.

Of course, there are no guarantees when it comes to our allotment of time, but, in general, there is a timeframe in which we are aware, that on average, many humans tend to expire. A time when the cupboard is bare and the Red Owl’s shelves have been depleted. No more. So it goes.

I suppose it is only natural for those of us nearer that average expiration date to lack a complete understanding of those that are statistically far enough removed from that horizon to fully comprehend or care that it exists. To bemoan and denigrate their willy-nilly “wasting time” while we are peering into the can in hopes of a few more crumbs.

As some bitter, Pringleless, old fart once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

In the accumulation of experiences, we are bound to waste, misuse, or misplace some time, try and fail, love and lose, perm a mullet, but this personal classroom is where we learn about ourselves and bump into things that may serve to sustain us deep into life…or not. Some of us ain’t very good students.

The other day I realized that I am closer in age to those that are 60 than to those whippersnapper 40-year-olds. I wish I’d stop realizing such things. As Tracy Lawrence once sang, “Time marches on.” We can drag our feet, but we’ll just ruin our orthopedic shoes.

In the book “Life is Hard”, the author, Kieran Setiya, speaks about the age-old question, “What’s the meaning of life?” He posits that a more useful question is, “What does it mean to live a good human life?” Good question.

From July 1st through July 17th, I was fortunate enough to have had the time to hang out in Lignite. Celebrating Independence Day, taking in several of my nephew Otto’s baseball games, overindulging in all that a Lignite street dance has to offer, playing, singing, and learning a bit at the 109 Club, and trying to be of use around the house while my mom recovers from a triple bypass tune-up.

During my stay in Lignite, I witnessed many times what it means to live a good human life, and see firsthand what the writer, Zina Hitz, meant when she said that “the little human things” are the point of being alive. The little human things are plentiful in upstate ND.

All is going well with my mom’s recovery, and part of that success can be attributed to all the kindness and caring that surrounds her from so many. All the little human things that friends and family have done mean a lot to all of us.

By this time in my life, I shouldn’t be surprised by the way so many go out of their way for one in towns like Lignite. It is a pleasant and heartwarming site to behold, and I want to thank all who unexpectedly put me on the receiving end of such thoughtfulness and kindness with an early birthday celebration during the singalong at the 109 Club.

To have friends, one must be a friend, and it is obvious that my mom is a friend to many. As Cindy Lautenschlager-Hysjulien said, “Did that cardiologist confirm that there is a heart of gold in there?” He did, and it’s good to go for many more sunsets, fairs, photo shoots, and all the little human things she loves to be a part of.

Good human lives…keep living them. So it goes.