Archive for July 2009
Family and the Farm
A few days ago I enjoyed the pleasure of visiting with cousins that I only get to see on rare occasions, and a couple of my siblings that I see only slightly more often, it seems. One particular bit of history that we share involves a 477 acre farm called “Intervale Ranch” that our grandfather purchased in the early 1950s. Though our grandfather purchased the property as an investment, my father ended up talking his dad into letting him actively farm for a few years. I always describe it as having pretty much been a no-risk proposition. The property was so close to the expanding ring of communities that would become suburbs of Minneapolis (MN), that its days as a farm were numbered. Even if Dad ran the farm into the ground, so to speak, it would not be a failure; in fact, it could actually be framed a success, as that was already the destiny determined.
As bits and pieces of memories from our days on the farm property as kids are shared, the inherent value of our stories get revealed. My sister suggested that we encourage family members to write some of their memories to be compiled together as something of a farm memoir. Lo and behold, guess who already did? I have slowly been in process of writing a variety of memories, from a variety of different angles, some historical, some for more personal reflection and introspection, and some as stories about my parents.
In order to share what I have already written, with cousins spread around the country, and hopefully to inspire others in my family to write their memories, I am going to post some of the stories here at Relative Something… some vignettes from my memory of life on this farm. With luck, I will get around to providing some back-story to provide context for those of you who are less familiar with tales of the Hays Farm. Time will tell.
- These were probably taken sometime in the ’40s or ’50s, first on the left looking northwest and then on the right looking due west.
I did a cursory online search and found a document about the history of Edina’s (MN) Braemar Park & Golf Course, which is what the bulk of the farm acres were to become. It contains some detail that doesn’t match the way I have heard it told, but it is precious for the references it contains about ‘Hays farm.’
Excerpt: The Search For A Permanent Name
Although the Hays farm site had temporarily retained the “Intervale” name, most people continued to refer to the hilly acres as “the Hays farm.” In the five years between the purchase of the land and the opening of the golf course, a number of other possible names were actively discussed and debated. http://www.ci.edina.mn.us/PDFs/AboutTown/L4-91_AboutTown_2007Spring.pdf
Watch for stories here, about the farm, in the days and weeks and probably months that follow, inbetween rantings about the Tour de France and ‘Words on Images’ and whatever else ends up seeming somehow relative at the time. You know the drill.
The Wedding Cake Story
I know this girl that professes to dwell in possibilities. Someone in my family asked her to bake a wedding cake. She said, “Yes.” She said yes, even though she had never, ever baked a wedding cake before in her life. She had never talked to anyone who had baked a wedding cake, decorated a wedding cake, or transported a wedding cake. It’s possible that simply saying yes would lead to more stress than she anticipated dwelling in.
It doesn’t really matter that she could have probably purchased a trouble-free wedding cake from a bakery for the amount of money that she spent on ingredients and accessories for this project. Nor does it add much to the point of this story to reveal the number of ‘test’ cakes baked in practice for the final event, or what one does with so many practice cakes once they have been prepared.
This tale begins with a side-story that helps establish a baseline of stress that provides important perspective. Try to imagine that this girl is a career girl. A ‘meetings long into the night’ type of career girl. Let’s just say that this girl works in a capacity of very high responsibility for a public institution that was recently cited for spending beyond their means and placed in very public reprimand by the laws of the state. While managing that crisis for the, pardon my editorial opinion, ‘buffoon’ who is ultimately responsible, she is also actively pursuing alternative top-level employment options.
On the very Friday that she took leave from work to stay home and bake, she got up early to compose a letter to go with her curriculum vitae formatted late the night before, in order to have it finished with little time to spare for a courier to deliver by the deadline for a job she has her sights on. After that, she has nothing to fret over except making her first-ever attempt at a successful wedding cake for a group of about 200 guests of her husband’s niece’s wedding.
Nothing to fret over, that is, until her daughter gets home from college that afternoon with a fever and flu-like symptoms seeking a sick-bed to crash in and hoping for some tender loving care. And her husband gets home from work suffering with prednisone withdrawal symptoms, useless to the world, and collapses in that same bed for the night. So the girl does the best she can with what she’s got and holds together long enough to finish what was planned for the day and make her way to a bed in the spare room for a night’s sleep before the big wedding day.
The next part of this tale requires another side-story. It probably deserves it’s own telling, and it may seem hard to comprehend, but the point here is how it really throws this cake adventure over the top. On Thursday, the girl’s brother sends out a mass-email announcing he is taking his wife out of the country for over a week to celebrate her birthday and leaving their three young children home with his father-in-law. But grandpa is not from this country and his grasp of the English language, based on listening to his efforts, is pretty much represented in single-syllable, one-word sentences. This presents no real problem for the kids, because they speak his native language. However, for the bulk of care-givers generously included in the mailing as enlistees to provide support, it is an additional challenge.
Shortly after midnight, the phone in the girl’s house is ringing. Her number-one son trudges upstairs with the phone to find she is not in her bed, but soon finds her in the next room. Who could be calling at this hour of the night? It is her 7-year-old nephew to report he is throwing up, over and over, and wants more support than Grandpa can provide. The girl is up in a flash and dashing out the door to head over and help nurse what sounds like the saddest of situations. It lasts all night. Vomiting every 45 minutes or so, and then, diarrhea, too. When he finally seems to be able to sleep at around 6 a.m. she finds that his little brother is now awake and wanting attention for the morning. She goes the whole night with little-to-no sleep.
Eventually, necessity drives her back to her own home where she must frost and decorate cake. She tries to shower off all memory and any trace of the sickness from the wee hours just prior and takes on the most important task before her. By the allotted time she is packed and ready to go: cakes, boxes, flowers, decorations, display components, frosting, and tools. The cakes travel just fine. The setup goes well and it is looking beautiful. And then she hears a “snap”.
While the wedding party poses for the last few pictures and the guests are beginning to arrive, the girl turns to see the tiers of wedding cake tipping and crashing before her eyes. Was she dwelling in this possibility? Let’s just say that she isn’t so naive as to have not prepared for the need of ‘backup’ cakes. But what she probably didn’t plan on was the accumulative buildup of these unrelated stresses all precipitating this not so unlikely situation that she now found herself in. I guess that is the point of this whole story. It is at this point that the reader is supposed to try to imagine what it must have felt like to be the girl at that moment the upper layers of cake smashed to pieces on the table and floor.
It’s quite a spectacle. Who knows what life lessons the girl is destined to learn as a result of all this? We could dwell in the possibilities.
The girl reported that the catering staff that had been busy setting tables and preparing the room seemed to suddenly have a pressing need to be someplace else, but not before one paused to exclaim, “You are so fucked,” before leaving the room. Even the girl’s friend, who was along for support that only true close friends can provide, recognized this moment as beyond category and sought extra-ordinary response. She stole behind the bar and poured a shot of whiskey, offering it to the girl, who, without hesitating, despite never having been a whiskey drinker, downed it for whatever possible assistance it might provide.
By the time the wedding ceremony was complete, the backup cakes were in place and the display modified on the fly to no longer involve plastic towering parts. The uninformed were none-the-wiser. Mother-of-the-bride, who reported making it through the ceremony without crying, suddenly lost her breath and was overcome with teary emotion when she first saw the cake. In the still somewhat shocked state of the sudden aftermath, this is one of the possibilities the girl is allowing herself to dwell in: how moved and amazed the mother of the bride was to see, what to her was, the most beautiful wedding cake ever prepared.
Wedding Cake, The Preface
The following is a little something I composed for my niece and her fiancé shortly before their wedding day…
For Liz and Nick, March 2006.
At first it started as just subtle cake baking smells. There wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary to see in the normal goings on in our kitchen. The smell from the oven was just really enjoyable. Wait–no, that’s not quite accurate. In reality, it started back before the first of the year. We were invited to a New Year’s Eve dinner party and instructed to contribute a dessert.
Cyndie not only baked up one, she did several. The seven couples were presented with a dessert plate loaded with more choices than the main meal. She said she was ‘testing’ some ideas for a wedding cake. Whether they could eat it all or not was not the point. They needed to provide honest feedback as to which they would want for a wedding cake. That was the beginning of the great cake-baking training regimen of 2006.
It’s a miracle there haven’t been any hyperglycemic emergencies in the household since. Well, we have had some help. We sent a cake to Cyndie’s workplace. I took a cake to my workplace. That saved me big time. By late afternoon that day, I was ready to give in and snitch a piece to ward off the day’s doldrums, but by the time I got there, there was no cake left! Thank goodness.
I have sampled frostings till I can’t discern a difference. I have used the bathroom sink when I couldn’t find one in the kitchen under all the baking pans, bowls, measuring cups, spoons and display trays.
Throughout it all, one fact stands out the most. There is this magical abundance of joy and love floating about our home. It is permeating the kitchen. I think even the pizzas coming out of the oven have tasted sweeter.
It seems brighter here, too. When Cyndie is working, there seems to be this angelic glow around her. For all the projects she buries herself in, I cannot recall one that has made her appear nearly as satisfied.
For as long as I have known her, I have been trying to convince Cyndie that you cannot have your cake and eat it, too. That is going to have to change now. For the last few months of my life I’ve been able to do just that!
Musings about le Tour
The thing about watching television every night to see the Tour de France is that my mind gets filled with the commercials and that weird collection of information starts to show up in my head against my will. It just forces me to counter by recognizing when it happens and replace it with images of riders and the scenic views of the landscapes of France.
Actually, I have discovered an online source that provides uninterrupted views of the racing and I have seen more of the countryside than ever before. I find it really fascinating to see the variety of backdrops for the race as they speed down straight roads surrounded by farm fields and then come into quaint little villages, but also reach populated areas and ride a bridge over an expressway with all the regular traffic passing underneath and I become aware that not every one there is actually watching the race. There are brief glimpses of the citizens going about their normal activity, regardless the race happening.
It is obvious that their lives are impacted because of the level of interruption to traffic on roads the tour uses is extreme. I like seeing the variety of places they move through, seeing them navigate metropolitan areas that look strange to be so closed to autos and now dominated by the circus of activity that is the racers and their team cars and the motorcycles with television cameras and photographers and the cars of the race officials and the medical personnel. For some reason it doesn’t look so out of place on the rural roads and mountain passes as it does in the populated areas to me.
The one challenge I have when watching the uninterrupted coverage is tearing myself away to accomplish anything while the race is running. This is a big deal because the races can take 3 or 4 hours. I struggle to get myself to take bathroom breaks, even as the riders, themselves, are pulling over to, as the commentators say, take a “nature break”.
I completely understand how this would lack appeal to others, but I find myself absolutely mesmerized by every view they provide. Overall, the changes to the General Classification each day are rarely visible. People ask me each day what there is to report, and for the most part, there is nothing new to offer. But each day there are little dramas that I find exciting. There is always someone to attack out of the group and try to get an insurmountable lead, and the peloton needs to monitor the time gap the breakaway achieves and speed up to control the lead and then calculate when to put in the concerted effort to reel them back in before reaching the finish line, where specialist in the art of sprinting battle it out for the victory of a stage.
There are many things to watch: the way teams are working, how they execute getting through feed zones and eat while they race, how team members take water bottles from the manager driving the car behind all the racers and stuff them in their jersey and ride back up to the rest of the team to pass them out, how riders who have crashed receive treatment from race doctors in cars while racers are still on their bikes, holding onto the car. Meanwhile, there is all the scenery, and the spectacle and artistry of the fans, and the informative and educational narration by Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett.
Imagine if that didn’t need to be so frequently interrupted to sell me things I don’t want or need or will ever choose to watch. But at least that provides opportunity for tending to nature calls. Bring on the next mountain stages. There’s a little over a week to go. Enjoy it while you can.
Random Ranting
Remember that post a few days back where I was envisioning how things would be if I ran the world? Well, I would see to it that there would be no need to brush and floss teeth. Nuisance. The whole hygiene thing is dreary annoyance. Talk about repetition over and over again.
And another thing: Why do we allow ourselves to view reality programming without constantly wondering about the elephant in their room with the camera pointed at them? Why is Bear Grylls’ “Man vs. Wild” show so compelling even though it is obvious there is a camera crew with him the whole time? How would your behavior be altered if someone were constantly recording your every move? I think I would suck in my gut more and try to sit up a little straighter. Don’t ever forget that what you are watching was recorded, most of the time by people with cameras, standing next to the subjects trying to pretend they are not part of what is going on.
Do you know anyone who says they have to watch the television news? It is not true. They don’t have to. You don’t have to. I grew up in a household that seemed like it always had WCCO radio on. I have memories of seeing the 6 and 10 o’clock news on WCCO channel 4 on television pretty regularly. I do know that if it was on, it was tuned to 830 AM or channel 4. I’m sure the orientation toward ‘CCO was a result of Mom and Dad personally knowing Dean Montgomery who was on the air. I first discovered there was an alternative viewpoint when I was across the road at the Fullerton’s house when they put the news on the television and it was KSTP. It seemed totally foreign to me, but somehow fitting for them. I was associating tv news programs with the people who chose to watch which one. I bet they preferred Pepsi to Coke, as well.
I remember the early days after moving out of my parent’s house and into my own and that we didn’t have a television right away and it felt very disconcerting to not be able to check the news. I felt lost. However, whenever I go on a vacation and am away from the daily news, it is not strange at all. I actually like it. More than once, I have returned home and made a conscious decision to continue to avoid the news even though I was back to my home routine.
Currently I’m on a pretty long run. Being free from the daily blah, blah, blah of their broadcasts is something that I find to be very refreshing. It’s a bit like still being on vacation, even though I’m home. I tend to peek at the newspaper at work and read news online now. When I really want to get away from it all, I don’t read any of it. It works wonderfully. I successfully get away from it all. And I survive! I recommend it. Better that than skipping your daily hygiene routine.
Multiple Truths
Imagine if something wasn’t actually as important as we thought it was. How could that be?
.
Have you noticed how two different things can be true at the same time? It can already be the middle of July, and at the same time, it is hardly past the middle of the year 2009. Why is it such a universal feeling, being shocked at how quickly the days pass? It seems as if everyone shares that exclamation. “It’s already July 15th!? Where does the time go?”
Well, it’s all relative. You knew that.
It’s relative something.
Extra credit goes to the person who knows which comedian does a pretty good rant about how we revere nature and ooh and aah over seeing deer and bunny rabbits and cute little raccoons and put feeders out to attract birds and how we like to feel as if we live in the woods, yet we then go to the hardware store where there are aisles of chemical weapons and devices to exterminate or eradicate the same problem critters that pester our gardens and lawns and shrubs and we spend a lot of money to fight against that which we want to live near.
Last night, as I walked by the front door and noticed movement just outside, I found a doe standing right on our sidewalk, looking like it was ready to step in the front door. I called to Cyndie, hoping she would be able to see, but that startled the deer and off it went. Cyndie reported that the hibiscus bush with over 20 blossoms that her mother gave her and was left out in the yard to catch some rain around the beginning of June, and then subsequently chomped to stubs by deer overnight when it got left out, has miraculously recovered to sprout one new blossom and was by the front sidewalk right now. She went out to see if that is what brought the deer so close to the front door, and finding that it was only a close call and no new chomping was apparent, pulled it inside for the night.
We want the animals and we don’t want the animals, it all depends on how you frame it.
Timelessness
If you remember a time
when the Smothers Brothers
surpassed Bonanza in viewers
why is it that you remember?
Was there a heart of the matter?
.
.
.
This is timeless, I think…
(johnw.hays) Sep 12, 2002 17:20
Meanwhile, his partner is wandering around randomly through the catacombs of my brain, purposefully dragging his feet to snag wires and cables, breaking connections, holding his arms in the air simultaneously to do the same. In his feigned lack of concentration he blows air through pursed lips as if to whistle, except just short of that so the sound is really only air. About as nonchalant as anyone with a hint of a purpose could ever possibly appear.
IF, for some amazing reason, any fragment of an intentional, productive thought were to be maintained for more than a few hundred seconds, he deftly stumbles hard against the nearest surface to render the focus suddenly askant and significantly altered from the previous depth of view.
Just for good measure, he then quickly begins plugging connections back in, though certainly not in the same receptacles from which they were yanked moments earlier.
Makes me tired just reading it.
Monday, Monday
Yesterday was a fine transition from the crazy world of post-flood recovery, niece & nephews mania, lost drain caps, and glorious lake and woods, to the calm normalcy of house, yard & garden, Kitty, mail pile and phone messages. It is an off-day for the riders of the Tour and I think I am ready for the break. A little morning soccer and then a day of work will put me back into a routine that allows me to be prepared for the next adventure life throws my way.
For some reason, I feel very ready for a Monday day. Maybe it’s that great dose of playing guitar on the beach I was able to do yesterday. Priceless. I know we need the rain, but the beautiful sunny weather was really a treat. The moon was awesome over the lake the last few nights and the clouds in the sky on the ride home were somethin’ else. That’ll get me through a few days stuck inside a work environment, I hope.
Tuesday I get to return to the wonderful distractions of the Tour de France.
Bring on a Monday!
(…Monday the 13th isn’t a bad thing, is it?)
An Atypical Day
Things started out smoothly enough for a Saturday at the lake. I lingered in bed watching stage 8 of the Tour until breakfast was announced and afterward, I was doing a bit of reading as Cyndie and her mom were getting ready to take kids to Wilderness Walk in town to see some animals. What could go wrong? Well, the 5-year-old boy could disappear.
First, I notice his name being called, then soon after, Cyndie is seeking my help to find a missing child. My first question was whether all the bathrooms had been checked (yes) and then whether she had checked with the family with kids his age (she got no answer to a phone call there). I would walk down to their place. But that allowed plenty of time for others to get pretty stressed and I am amazed how quickly minds race to worst-case scenarios. Even with my intuition that he was just playing at the neighbors, my mind went immediately to thinking of the fact of the parents leaving us with their children and a tragedy under this situation would be a really tragic tragedy. But I found the boy playing with the kids there, safe and sound and happy as could be. I did my best to prepare him for the wrath he was about to face. He claimed to me to have told Gramma where he was going, but in the end, his story had some holes in it. The lesson appears to be well-learned about properly reporting his intentions on wandering anywhere on his own here.
When they returned from their excursion to pet animals, I joined them down at the beach where I found some shade to work on my sculpture. We were having a great time visiting with friends there and I’m sure it was over an hour when Cyndie ran up to get boat keys and returned to whisper something to me. Either I could take the kids out in the boat or I could go up and work on cleaning up the flood she discovered in the basement. When she got up there she found the washing machine was overflowing and there was about 2 inches of water on the floor in the laundry room and it had seeped in the carpet through most of the basement back rooms and inside the doorway of both bedrooms. We had a full fledged disaster on our hands.
I got a start on the cleanup immediately and then realized I shouldn’t waste any more time and needed to alert her parents and figure out the ultimate fix to the situation. The guy next door had just purchased a new wet/dry shop vac and I procured it and got to work. It filled fast and when I opened the plug to drain it, there was so much pressure it was not all going down the drain and I scrambled to control my flood within a flood. When I got ready to get back to vacuuming, the drain plug for the shop vac was nowhere to be found. Why does this kind of thing happen? Seriously, I don’t care about anything else at this point, I just want to know why the drain plug needs to disappear and totally interrupt the one thing that was working well to help us solve our flood dilemma.
There was a bunch of laundry on the floor by the drain and Cyndie was rushing to get it up off the floor as I was suddenly struggling to contain my mini disaster of water draining from the vacuum at a pretty high pressure. My hope and my assumption was that in her haste to get everything picked up off the floor, she accidentally scooped up that drain cap. We went through the baskets of that laundry multiple times, to no avail. My only other thought is that it somehow was swept down the drain, which had been left uncovered to allow for a drain hose from the dehumidifier. I have no idea how, because I was sitting there watching the water go down that drain, and can’t believe I wouldn’t have noticed if something went down the drain.
I just borrowed this thing from the neighbor. It was brand new. How am I going to face them with this knucklehead problem? How could it disappear? We needed to remove a lot of water still! How could this be happening!? Where could it be!!?? What do I do now? I spotted a little foam ball. I grabbed it, stuffed it in the hole and turned on the vacuum. It worked, for a while anyway. I heard a THWUP! and looked to see it was missing. I rushed to get back to the drain and eventually found the ball had been sucked inside the tub of the vacuum. I was worried it would pop out under the pressure of the water collecting in the tank, but instead, needed to leave more of the ball on the outside to keep it from getting sucked in. It worked enough to allow me to pull many gallons of water out of the carpet. But there is no way I am returning this with a toy ball stuck in the drain. How did I lose that cover and where in the heck did it go!!?
I just don’t understand.
After dark, I stepped out on the ground-level deck to bring in a couple of things we had out drying and was met by a very brave little raccoon that was happily helping to clean up bird seed that had spilled. In all my years of being up here, I have never stepped out and seen a raccoon an arm’s length from me, just going about eating as if I wasn’t there. It was a very atypical day.
Relative Something 