Rambling Josh

Welcome to April. The month charged with providing showers to supply May with flowers. The transitional and temperamental conditions of April make for some miserable conditions for athletics in the Dakota’s. Track, baseball, softball, tennis, and golf in April are no fun to play, nor much fun to watch.

Fun or not, we play, and we watch. Is play without fun, really play? It has always miffed me a bit, as a competitor and as a spectator, when the objective of a competition was reduced to a matter of enduring it until it’s over, reduced to going through the motions rather than competing.

It’s akin to “killing time”. Time is not in need of killing, it dies much to readily on its own. So it goes.

Players, coaches, parents, spectators, bus drivers, concession workers, etc., all these people, putting all this time and effort into preparing for, and attending these competitions, in return for what? Frostbite? Windburn? Tepid slushburgers? Frozen licorice whips?

Meeting for the sake of meeting, also falls into this dastardly realm of blindly slaughtering time. In my line of work, the pandemic was useful in curtailing some of this senseless slaughter. Post-pandemic, we meet when we “need” to meet. Novel idea. Thank you COVID-19.

I recently attended a conference in Chicago, a conference consisting of a variety of educational and informational sessions. Meetings that I was pleasantly surprised to find were quite useful, thought-provoking, and interesting. A good use of my time.

I had passed through Chicago before, but had never had the chance to hangout and explore a bit. In comparison to New York City, I found Chicago to be “quaint” and easy to navigate.

Although, it was easy to navigate, whenever I’m in a big city, I always think about chase scenes in movies or television shows. Sadly, I’ve never been chased, or been the chaser, in a big city, but I have a suspicion that the onscreen depictions aren’t a very accurate portrayal of the actuality of the matter.

Cars don’t go very fast when they can’t move. I’ve never found car chase scenes all that interesting, but I suppose an onscreen car chase that consisted of someone leisurely strolling up to a car stuck in traffic wouldn’t be all that exciting for all involved?

Foot chases aren’t much more interesting than car chases, but they are equally improbable. It’s hard enough for two people that are trying to find one another in the hustle and bustle of big city sidewalks to do so, so I don’t understand how one couldn’t successfully evade their pursuer in such mix and mangle of folks?

Besides, either the chaser or the chased would either pull a hamstring or experience so much chafing from running in pants not designed to be ran in, that the chase would be over in about 2-blocks. On a side note, watching people run through airports is one of the greatest pleasures of air travel.

I suppose there’s only one way to answer these questions. Next trip should be exciting. I’m sure the police will understand…if they catch me.

My wife and I just returned home from a trip to visit our daughter, Sierra, in Brooklyn. She’s doing well, but the ebb and flow, and the fits and starts of work in the film industry can be a bit worrisome at times.

Except for a few sprinkles and a bit of wind here and there, New York in March was pleasant and cool, with a smattering of Spring color starting to raise its head from its quiet slumber into the never ending clatter above ground.

If you are planning a visit to the Big Apple, but are concerned your wardrobe may not be of the fashion deemed fashionable among New Yorkers, don’t be. You can drape yourself in as much, or as little, of whatever your heart desires, and nobody…nobody…will bat an eye.

Remember that new bathrobe of mine that I was carrying on about in the last column? I had hunch those things could be a slippery slope, and that hunch was confirmed in NYC.

One day you write a column in it, the next you maybe stroll to the mailbox, and then one day you find yourself marching confidently, almost brazenly, with the hordes through Times Square at two o’clock in the afternoon on a Tuesday, dress shoes, briefcase, and smartly swaddled bathrobe. That guy was having himself a good day. I batted an eye. I was impressed.

I was laid low by some sort of intestinal issue for the entirety of one day of the trip. It’s an accusation that it pains me to make, but I believe that I may have overindulged in the fine selection of cured meats that presents itself at every corner deli, on seemingly every corner. What’s the son of a butcher to do?

There’s no better way to see the city than on foot, and most days my phone, who apparently has nothing better to do than count my steps, informed us that we had taken over 20,000 steps. My phone was also kind enough to inform me that the 35 steps I took during the salami induced sick day was “significantly” less than the 20,000 steps I had taken the day before. Smartphone indeed.

Sierra’s cats, JoJo and Fester, who were entrusted with my convalescent care while the humans enjoyed gelato and life among the upright, must have been batting my deli-scented phone around during my cold cut coma, because I definitely did not walk 35 steps that day. When you’re sick like that, it’s hard to remember what it feels like to feel good, you just know you don’t want to feel bad anymore. Thankfully, it was just a 24-hour reminder.

I’ve been a bit sausage-shy since. Hopefully this little intestinal disagreement doesn’t harbor the same results as the one I had with Jack Daniels 20 years ago. Sour mash indeed. Old Number 7 and I haven’t spoken since. So it goes.

Something that I noticed this trip, more so than our other visits, was the days don’t seem to have a “feel” in the big city. Any given day or night has that weekend, Friday and Saturday night feel. Maybe it’s just because when you’re on vacation you don’t pay much mind to what the days name happens to be?

They were good days…even the bad one.

It’s been quite a few years since I owned a bathrobe. Exactly how many years, I can’t recall? Perhaps somewhere around 1980, just before I entered into my double-digit birthday phase of life? Double-digit birthdays, such a milestone. Quite a chasm between double-digit and triple-digit birthdays. That’s a milestone more than a few miles to far for the majority of us human folk.

A quick Google search indicates that there are roughly 92,000 centenarians in the United States, and 85 percent of them are women. It is predicted that by the year 2060, the number of folks in the United States celebrating triple-digit birthdays will be closer to 600,000.

Why such an increase? The majority of experts point to boring old medical advances, but comfortably residing far outside the realm of “experts”, I point to bacon, bathrobes, and backup cameras. Or, as those in my camp refer to it, “The 3-B Effect”. You are more than welcome to join my camp, there’s plenty of room, not an expert in sight, and fistfuls of bacon.

BYOB is the only rule. Actually, it’s not so much a rule as it is a kindly suggestion. You are more than welcome to use my bathrobe, but as I only have one, that will leave me bathrobeless. A precarious condition in which to make bacon. I suppose we could share? If such is the case, I request the right-side, I can’t properly feather my hair with my left hand. So it goes.

Yes, you read that right, after a hiatus of many, many decades, I am once again the proud owner of a bathrobe. I never thought I was the bathrobe type, but as I sit here writing my first bathrobe clad column, I realize that there was this whole other world that I have been missing out on. A world where Obi-Wan Kenobi of Star Wars and The Dude of The Big Lebowski are one.

A world forever bereft of scampering to appear in what society has deemed “dressed” when the doorbell unexpectedly dings and dongs. “My apologies, you caught me in the middle of my Judo training.”

Back to “The 3-B Effect” and its dramatic impact on the quantity, and perhaps quality, of centenarians. Bacon gives many people something to live for, an answer to “why should I get out of bed today?” As German philosopher, Fredrich Nietzsche, once said, “Those who have a why to live can bear most any how.” It is no coincidence that frying bacon sounds like a crowd whipped into a frenzy, wildly cheering you on to rise to the challenge, to face yet another day on the stretch of days towards triple-digit birthdays.

I’ve already expressed a few positive attributes of the bathrobe, but have you ever considered the number of people who totter over and meet their demise while attempting to get dressed? Trousers, socks, underwear, culottes…deathtraps.

This is where the bells and whistles of the modern automobile step in to round out the life-extending impact of the “The 3-B Effect”. Centenarians, in their shrunken state, are easy to miss with a cursory glance in the rearview mirror as one distractedly backs out of their parking spot at the BINGO Palace, contemplating which bathrobe they are going to purchase with their winnings. Velour…terry cloth…sateen…fleece…? BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

May the force be with you.

My wife and I are friends with a couple that lives in Helena, Montana, and every so often we try and meet for weekend getaway somewhere between Rapid City and Helena to hang out, chit-chat, drink a bit, and laugh a lot. There’s quite a bit of “somewhere” between Rapid City and Helena, but we often end up somewhere near Yellowstone National Park.

“My wife and I are friends with a couple”, is not something I often say, as more often than not, “My wife has a friend” is a more accurate assessment of the social connection. Whether that friend has a husband or significant other is of little concern to me, unless my wife makes it my concern.

A few years back, my wife called me and said, “My friend Shelley is in town, and I’m going to meet her and her husband Aaron downtown for dinner. Would you like to join us? I think you’ll like him.” Now it is my concern.

“I think you’ll like him” is just a pile of words, but it is a pile of words that has most likely been descending upon men and making them cringe for as long as there have been wives with friends who have husbands.

It is a phrase that will send my brain rummaging frantically about, whirling and searching wildly for an excuse, a prior engagement, a medical procedure, a highly contagious or socially awkward illness, absolutely anything that could possibly sternly occupy the sliver of time that specific gathering is to occur.

As my brain searches in vain, my mind reminds me of something Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Cat’s Cradle, “She was ransacking her mind for something to say, finding nothing in it but used Kleenex and costume jewelry.” So it goes.

Once my brain dejectedly drops the rickety bushel basket of used Kleenex and costume jewelry it has feverishly collected, my mind thinks, “I won’t like him, and I know he won’t like me.” The beauty of it all, is that you can rest assured that when you arrive at dinner, smile and shake the other guys hand, that if you look closely you’ll see remnants of Kleenex and costume jewelry clouding his eyes as well.

Social connections are an important component of our healthspan, they impact the quality of our lives just as much as eating right and regular exercise. Perhaps more so? The reserves of my social connections have been enhanced greatly because of my wife.

What constitutes “enough” social connections in ones life is highly individual, and largely dependent upon where one sits on the introverted/extroverted spectrum. That spectrum is generally a sliding scale that shifts with the situation, the company, the mood, or the quantity of libation.

Sometimes scales can be wrong. Sometimes we need more of something we didn’t think we needed. Sometimes we’re a little light in the social connections department, but don’t realize it until we quit rummaging through the used Kleenex and costume jewelry and just indulge.

Finding nothing but used Kleenex and costume jewelry that day, I begrudgingly indulged, and since that indulgence, Shelley and Aaron have become “our” friends. Friends that have made my social reserves deeper and richer.

I still reflexively cringe when my wife drops that particular pile of words on me, and I imagine I always will, but I’ve found a few people I now call “friend” under that pile. People that add to the quality of my life.

Month two, the new year is old news. The “New You”, that you resolved to bring to fruition last month, quarreled and scuffled with Old You. The tussle was brief and decisive, New You never stood a chance against the wily veteran of many such battles. So it goes.

The swift and gleeful rain of noogies and wedgies brought down (and up) upon New You were not out of malice, nor intended to permanently maim or to kill, but rather to test New Yous resolve, resourcefulness, and motivation to change. Old You doesn’t have time for another “one-bunned” attempt at whatever it is New You is proposing. There’s no room in the garage for another hobby.

It’s sort of like when a new employee comes on board with a sack full of grand ideas. They stroll in, shirt-pressed, whimsical socks, shiny shoes, an encouraging laminated note in their pocket from their mommy reminding them that they are “special”, only to have the mates that have been dutifully swabbing the deck day-in and day-out for more years than “Shiny Shoes” has been alive, watch with feigned interest as the contents of the sack of grand ideas are revealed.

As Shiny Shoes reverentially brings forth an idea, one or more of the old mates will kindly and thoughtfully nod as they glance around to the other mates in mock ponderance. Shiny Shoes, clutching the laminated note, is encouraged by the response, and lays out several more ideas for the old mates to behold.

Then, one-by-one, the contents that once filled the sack of grand ideas, are picked up by an old mate, tersely examined, and unceremoniously dropped overboard into the sea of grand ideas gone by. Turning to the dismayed Shiny Shoes, the old mate sighs, smiles a kindly consolatory smile, and says, “We tried that a few years back…didn’t work.”

It’s difficult not to do so, but Shiny Shoes and New You shouldn’t take these defeats and setbacks personal. Rather, they should try and view them as an opportunity to dig a bit deeper, try a bit harder, think thoughts they’ve yet thought. A challenge to rise up and lead Old You and a few curious mates on a voyage beyond the stagnant sea of grand ideas gone by, beyond the comfortable and the familiar.

Beyond to where? Good question. Perhaps the destination isn’t what’s important, maybe it’s good enough that steps were taken, stuff was seen, heard, tasted, smelled, touched, and our body and mind were stretched a bit? Just a bit. Just enough so that when we return to the comfortable and familiar, it’s still comfortable and familiar.

Question and challenge New You and Shiny Shoes to determine and varify their depth of resolve and their motivation for change. If the intensions are deemed honorable, authentic, and worthwhile why not hop on and see where they take you?

Our just bump them overboard. Accidents happen. There’s always next year…until there isn’t.

My wife informed me that the Mega Millions Lottery had climbed pretty high the other day, and that if I was feeling lucky, I should buy a ticket or two. I’m lucky enough to “feel lucky” most every day, not the winning the lottery sort of lucky, but the sort of lucky that feels like contentment. Content with life, yet curious enough to tinker with it a bit while tinkering remains an ability within my possession.

I don’t pay much attention to the lottery. It’s not that I feel as though I’m above such things, I just have a very large blind spot for numbers (arithmophobia), so I was oblivious to the dollar amount “pretty high” was in reference to. Also, since my wife only requests me to buy a lottery ticket once every decade or so, I don’t know the socially agreed upon lottery ticket purchasing lingo or procedure, so I feel like an idiot when I go up to the counter to purchase the ticket.

“Ahhh…I’m supposed to buy a lottery ticket. Can I do that here?” I feel like an idiot, because the person behind the counter looks at me the same way I look at people when the words “what an idiot” go traipsing through my consciousness. “There’s no such thing as a dumb question.” What an idiotic thing to say. I’ve been teaching for over 20-years, there is most definitely such a thing as a dumb question. Mostly in faculty meetings. So it goes.

“Yeah, you can buy lottery tickets here. Which one do you want?” Which one do I want? That’s a dumb question, I want the winning one. “Ahhh…the one that my wife said was pretty high.” There’s that look again. “That would be the Mega Million. Do you want a quick pick?” As I ponder what a “quick pick” might be (we had quick pick plays in baseball), I see that look again on the attendance face, and on the faces of those accumulating in the line behind me.

“Do you want a megaplier?” I think my grandpa had a megaplier for fencing, or was that Hacksaw Jim Duggans signature move?

I don’t know if I got his “quick pick” or “megaplier” stuff, but his questions mercifully ceased, and I left with two tickets. Two tickets that prompted the question, “If I won the lottery, what would I do?” It also prompted the question, “How do I know if I won the lottery?”

I’d ask the guy behind the counter, but the lady with purple bouffant hair behind me in line clutching the can of Easy Cheese and a bouquet of licorice whips, looks menacingly at me as I approach the counter, so I retreat. I’ll just Google it.

Speaking for myself, I think the best use of such a pile of money would be the ability to buy time by not being obligated to have to do the tasks that take time day after day, but don’t replace the time taken with much.  Such things like cooking, sock darning, shopping, cleaning, laundry, bikini waxing, oil changes, and other general errands, could be outsourced to a well-paid personal assistant. Perhaps Alice, from The Brady Bunch, or Alfred from Batman?

What would I do with the time Alice, Alfred, and the pile of money helped us acquire? My wife probably has a more sensible plan, but I would read, write, and play guitar more, roam around the world untethered from the chores of domestication, and make it my personal mission to take “farting around” to an unprecedented level. Basically, a megaplier of my current preferred existence.

I’d also like to help others buy the time they desire. No strings attached. No questions asked. Instant life megaplier. I’ve heard that many people that win a pile of money end up wishing they hadn’t, so it might be kind of fun to see how each of these “experiments” turns out?

I’m sure piles of money can knock things sideways in life if you’re not vigilant and sensible, but I’m quite positive that the massive sums of money I would disperse to a vast network of eccentric musical type folks to go out among the masses and lead singalongs would be a sensible use of a large portion of the pile of money. Singalongs make people happy. Booze helps too.

Perhaps I’ll entrust my wife with the “vigilant and sensible” portion of our new megaplied life?

Travel, music, reading, writing and time, that is what I’m going to buy when we win the lottery. The guy behind the counter should arrive with our pile of money any day now.

Maybe you won? What would you do with a megaplied life?

Another year come-and-gone. They seem to be picking up speed? The years, not me. Thank you for spending a few minutes with me the first and third Monday of each month. Before we fall completely into the new year, here’s what my family, my muses, were up to in 2022.

Our daughter, Sierra, is still chewing on The Big Apple. She lives in Brooklyn, a quaint little village east of NYC, and is making a go of it in various behind the scenes arenas of the film industry. We swung by her neighborhood for a visit in October, and had an enjoyable week doing what folks do in The City. Central Park was looking lovely draped in its fall foliage, Dawn and Sierra took in “Wicked” on Broadway, while I took in a few pints at McSorley’s Old Ale House. To each their own.

Our son, Jackson, had to stay in SD to work, so the three of us ventured to the Bronx for a playoff game in honor of The Boy. Although Mr. Judge went 0-for-5, and the home team lost, playoff baseball in Yankee Stadium was rowdy and raucous. Like Iris, in The Natural, as Judge struggled at the plate, I rose from my seat, silhouetted by the sun, but alas, the bum grounded weakly to third.

As if that wasn’t horrifying enough, we went to the movie Smile, a horror flick Sierra worked on as the Assistant to the Director. Horror is far from my genre of choice, but as parents, we often do things for our children that are not of our choosing. Sierra still holds it against me that I chose to never ever take them to Disneyland…ever, so I owed her one. There’s something special about seeing your child’s name roll by in the credits on the big screen…while you discretely check to ensure you didn’t soil yourself to a noticeable extent during the movie.

Speaking of brown, as I said, “Jackson had to work.” For several months, The Boy paid his dues, loading boxes, large and small, filled with the various wants and needs (mostly wants) of the consumers that dwell in and around Rapid City, into UPS trucks during the wee hours. Then one day, he emerged from the warehouse clad in an assortment of brown attire, and stepped off the loading docks and into the driver’s seat. Honk…honk…what can Brown do for you?

It can provide you with a fairly solid reason to decline an offer from your parents to go hiking. “I walk 10-miles a day at work, why would I want to stroll around the woods on my day off?” Fair enough, but old people fall down a lot. Who’s going to take you and your sister to Disneyland if I break a hip?

As has been the case since he was a lad, Jackson spent the summer swinging bats and throwing balls, but this summer he did it without dear old dad. Retirement from baseball finally stuck. The Yankee’s dilly-dallied too long, the tattered old jockstrap was hung up for good…talk about brown.

Jackson enjoys his new gig, the workday rolls by quickly, and the job provides funds for all things young people want or need (mostly want)…haircare products, libation, and overdue library book fines. He’s making a go of this thing they call adulthood, and finding out a little more about himself day-by-day. So it goes.

Us elders are getting along as well as can be expected for people with both feet east of 50. The first 50 were a joy, but I have a suspicion that the next 50 could get ugly. For me anyway, Dawn’s purebred Polish bloodline will keep her in tip-top form much longer than the cholesterol riddled system I’ve been saddled with.

Dawn is still helping bent and busted folks mend and move through the magic of physical therapy and her sunny disposition, and I’m still at Chadron State College, waiting for the president of the college to knock on my office door one day, and say, “The gig is up. There’s been a mistake, you don’t belong here. Time to go get a real job.” Until then, I can’t imagine doing anything else, or, that I’d be much good at anything else.

We lost a few loved ones this year, and our thoughts are often with them, and the ones they left behind to carry on. Our days are not guaranteed, enjoy the company of family and friends, the sun on your face, the wind through the trees, the cool grass or crunch of snow underfoot, or whatever it is that might nudge a little joy your way. Happy New Year…Carry on.

“Every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.” That’s fine and dandy little miss Zuzu Bailey, but in our house, every time a bell rings the dog wants to go out, and he ain’t no angel. We have a Christmas bell that was hung on the door handle of our backdoor several years of decorating ago, that for one reason or another, was never undecorated.

Who needs The Ring Home Security System? Ours rings, it’s low-cost, low-tech, and in the event of a home invasion, its “dingalingringaling” gives me ample enough warning to limber up a bit before grabbing my baseball bat and bum rushing the burglar in my birthday suit. In my experience, baseball bat or not, most people run away from, rather than towards, a naked man.

I have my dads old 30-30 lever-action rifle next to the bed as well, but I’d hate to wake up the dog. Besides, the click-clack of the lever-action, snap of the hammer, and the hot shell casings flying about, could potentially leave one in a state of undress in duress. There’s a reason that a shirt was optional, but pants were standard issue for John Rambo. Once bitten, twice shy.

As I explained a few columns ago, in a state of confusion, delusion, and general dimwittedness, we got a dog. We trained that dog to ring the jingle bell on the door knob with his nose when he wants or needs to go outside. Yeah…cute.

In hindsight, it seems more likely that he has trained us to stop relaxing on the couch and get up to open the door at the simple ring of a bell. It’s kind of like when your child first begins to speak, it’s cute, and then they start lodging complaints and demands. The bell may be part of the undecorating this holiday season?

I am a very patient person, a patients that Wilson has taken upon himself to test regularly. To date, I’d say I have a tenuous C-minus on his tests. Not failing, not passing with flying colors, just a fair bit below middling. Room to rise, room to fall. We shall see which way the tail wags.

Wilson’s predecessor, Pre, was an obedient Black Lab ruled by his stomach, that was perfectly content to roam and laze about in his ample area of confinement in our fenced backyard. Wilson is not content with the ample area of confinement in our fenced backyard. His hobby, climbing the previously mentioned fence to chase deer around the neighborhood, has pitted man against beast.

The man has spent several lovely days, days that wanted to be viewed from the seat of his mountain bike, installing an extension to the existing fence to thwart the beast’s hobby. The beast is content to laze about and watch the man, and borrow one of the man’s favorite leather gloves to chew on while the man is concerning himself with fence construction and muttering words that sound vaguely like “sit” to the beast.

Smugly satisfied with his efforts to outsmart the beast with his superior human intellect, the man heads out to enjoy what’s left of a lovely day from the seat of his mountain bike. While the man and his mountain bike drive to a trail to ride, a text from a kindly neighbor finds its way to the man’s phone, “Wilson’s chasing deer through the neighborhood.”

The man grits his teeth, changes course, and heads to the hardware store. Buys more fencing, a fresh pair of leather gloves, and a bag of jerky to mash mirthlessly between his gritted teeth and pacify his bruised superior human intellect.

The beast, happy to see the man return, greets him playfully, eagerly “sits” and “shakes” for a piece of jerky, sniffs the new gloves, and contently lazes about while the man attempts to engage the fence in conversation. So it goes.

Don’t tell the beast, but the man secretly admires his intrinsic motivation, ingenuity, and problem-solving skills in overcoming any and all societally generated and arbitrarily constructed obstacles specifically designed to stifle the expression of who the beast truly is.

Who are you…truly? Happy Holidays.

As humans, we are aware of our precarious finitude within the infinite expanses of time. We know that there is a day, somewhere down the road, that will be marked as our last. No two roads are the same in length, their ease and joy of travel, nor the scenery they afford the traveler.

Although our road can merge and intersect other roads for varying lengths of time, resulting in varying degrees of construction and/or destruction of one or both roads involved, our road is largely our own. It is partly what we make of it, and partly a cobbled patchwork of circumstance, happenstance, black ice, and rouge critters of all shapes and sizes. So it goes.

The end of the road for one, inevitably leaves us to contemplate the end of the road for us, especially, when they were taken too soon, taken when they had so much more to give.

Tim Schmelz was taken too soon, and although he had given so much of himself in the time he had, he undoubtedly had much more to give. My condolences to Tim’s family, a good man gone to soon.

I knew Tim from our time together at Burke Central High School. He, a member of the class of 1992, and myself, the class of 1991. As was the case in our small high school, mostly the same people participated in mostly all the sports, so Tim and I were often teammates.

Sports reveals a lot about an individual’s character, and in sharing the backfield with him on the 1990 Panther football team, I learned that he was someone to be counted on. Someone that was selfless and kind, someone that was always where he was needed, when he was needed…with a smile.

Our paths didn’t cross much after high school, but Facebook allowed for many of us that shared time and space in our youth to maintain some semblance of contact. Through pictures, messages, and various emoticons, we are able to remain connected, to remain a part of one another’s lives.

Through this connection, I could see that Tim was still selfless and kind, still someone to be counted on, still someone that was always where he was needed, when he was needed…with a smile. A person that gave so much of their life to help others, that it made me question whether I could or should give more of my time? I could, and should, many of us can, but Tim did.

I would like to share Tim’s words from his final post on Facebook.

To all of my Facebook friends:

If this is being posted that means I am no longer of this world. You are my Facebook friends for many different reasons; some of you are my relatives, some are lifelong friends, some are friends from childhood, some are new friends from adulthood & I’m sure I have a few friends I’ve just met once, but we shared enough to become FB friends! For whatever reason, I am happy to have been your friend in the real world and also the virtual world. I only ask three things on this day: 1. Have a warm thought for my family at this time. 2. Do a random act of kindness on this day as a final memory to me. 3. Donate any memorials to any non-profit that is involved with sick children, a few of my favorites are Give Kids The World, Kissimmee, FL; Make-A-Wish North Dakota; Ronald McDonald Houses; Mercy Kids, Springfield, MO; St Jude, Memphis. It has been a pleasure my friends. I wish you all a long life filled with happiness and overflowing with friends. When you wake up in the morning and your only goal for the day is to make a child smile, then it can’t be a bad day.

Tim

Like many of you, the day I was born, I had four grandparents to welcome me into this world. Four individuals, that many years prior to my arrival, had become two couples. Two couples that started as couples do…they fell in love. Love…the beginning of many stories and many lives. So it goes.

My Grandma Helen, the last of those four grandparents that welcomed me into this world, was nearing the end of her time in this world, so I ventured home to say goodbye. With morphine easing the pain of 92-years of living, she silently peered up at me from her hospital bed, as I held her hand and told her that I loved her. About six hours later word came that she had died peacefully. Dying, just as she had lived…on her terms.

The youngest of her children, Lonny, was at her side while she took her final breath around 3:00am on November 10th. Her children always took good care of their mother, something she often expressed appreciation for. They also liked to rile her up, but she appreciated that too.

Helen Elizabeth Kraft was born December 20th, 1929 in Selz North Dakota. On July 23rd 1949 she married Fritz Ellis, in Parshall North Dakota, and of this union, nine children, five boys and four girls, were born.

Standing by my Grandma’s bed, holding her soft warm hand, as she breathed softly in a quiet calm state of irreversible bodily decline, after so many years of perpetual motion, I pondered her life.

Her life. Her husband died June 1st, 1987, at the age of 59, leaving her over 35-years of life to live on her own. She, of course, wasn’t ever entirely alone. Her loving children, and an ever-expanding gaggle of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren were appreciatively present more often than not.

When I ponder her life, I of course, am pondering it from my point of view. The point of view of one who came along third of 20 grandchildren. One who came along when she was in her early 40s, tirelessly working a variety of jobs to make ends meet. One who was 4-years old when she lost her 18-year old daughter, Julie, to a drunk driver in May of 1977. A loss, I imagine, that weighed on Grandma every day in the many days since.

One such limited point of view is woefully inadequate to effectively and accurately paint a worthy portrait of her 92 years of life. One can only tell you what they know.

I can tell you that I know that I loved my Grandma, and I can tell you that I know that she loved me. This love was not the kind of love one would describe as the “doting” grandmother type of love. Everyone loves differently, but love is love. Grandma Helen was a strong-willed, solitary woman, who mostly did as she wished, when she wished. To the very end, she was her own woman. I respect that.

Patients, is a virtue, it was, however, not one of Grandma Helens virtues, but she was kind, thoughtful, appreciative, and never one to leave work that needed to be done, undone. She was not all that interested in reminiscing about days gone by, or wishfully anticipating the possible life and times to come. Rather, she very much lived in the moment, and was especially fond of any moment that found pinochle cards in her hands or BINGO cards spread a dozen deep in front of her.

Although it was concerning to find that she had let my children drive her back to Lignite from BINGO in Minot when they were about 12-years old, I am thankful that they wanted to, and got to, experience BINGO with their Great-Grandma, just as I did when I was child.

One of my fondest memories of my Grandma Helen occurred in 1990, during my senior season of high school football, at a game in Sherwood. I had broken into the open on a kickoff return, and as I sprinted down the sidelines, with an eye on the two remaining defenders I needed to outrun for a touchdown, I heard a very distinct voice scream, in very close proximity to me, “GO JOSH!” I glanced to my left to see my Grandma Helen, running and yelling, not much out of arm’s length from me.

Go Grandma…you had quite a run.