Posts Tagged ‘Memories’
Measured Gait
When I was a kid in school, I noticed there were others who walked with their feet angled toes-in or toes out and it led me to think the same thing could happen to me. It didn’t look right to me. I didn’t want to walk like that. As a result, I tried consciously aligning my feet with the seams of the floor tiles as I walked down hallways in hopes the practice would keep my gait from becoming misaligned.
How I place my feet as I walk hasn’t been something I constantly think about, but stepping straight ahead in line with those tiles did become a permanent memory that I’ve returned to thinking about many times over the years.
Fifty-some years and too-many-ankle-sprains-to-count later, I’m beginning to notice my right foot “toes out” a little bit in the prints I leave behind in the snow.
What I found interesting yesterday after I noticed my old footprints on the trail was that when I put conscious effort into paying attention to place my right foot straight, it felt like I was toeing it way too far in.
I’m not talking extremes here. The amount of difference is very small. A fraction of an inch. It’s fascinating to me that such a small percentage of change would feel so much larger than it really is.
This kind of correction reminds me of my never-ending quest to achieve an even pedal stroke on my bicycle. I’m decidedly right-side dominant in my pedaling which contributes to a “wobble” of the bike as I unconsciously push stronger with my right leg.
I dream of expending equal power with the push-pull of each leg, but if I’m not specifically thinking about it or I start to get fatigued, I can sense my effort becomes lopsided.
At least I never have to worry about the position of my feet when I’m clipped into the bike pedals. While I wobble down the road on my bike, my toes on both feet are always pointed straight ahead!
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Fan Mail
It is with great tenacity that Cyndie has undertaken a deep purge of items we have been holding onto for many years. In her case, for more than the years of her life. In addition to things she has from her own lifetime, she has recently processed collections of items and documents from her deceased father and aunt.
Frequently, a question arises about the monetary value of old items. Looking through dozens of old, old books, she found one with a comparable detail that is listed for over $1000.00 in an online rare book site.
The other night, Cyndie opened a box of things she saved that held letters I wrote when we were dating, including when we were contemplating marriage. She saved a great letter I had written when she was away at college. I had found some paper with the classic alternating solid and dashed lines for learning to write the letters of the alphabet. Using a crayon, I precisely shaped each individual letter to write out, “Dear Cyndie, How are you? I am fine.”
In my best infantile handwriting using the crayon, I wrote her name and address on the envelope in too-large, slanting lines.
One of my best efforts.
She found practically ALL of her k-12 report cards. Pretty good grades, but a first-grade teacher lamented that Cyndie falls asleep a lot. Cyndie remembers they were told to put their heads down on their desks after misbehaving and she fell asleep. The rest of the class got up for recess and she missed out, having slept right through it. (For the record, as an adult, Cyndie did a sleep study test and was diagnosed with an uncommon sleep disorder “idiopathic hypersomnolence.”)
The most fun find was mail she had received from TV stars she adored.
The Monkees photo was autographed! I told her it was probably worth money. She looked it up and found the exact image on eBay for $16-17.00. Maybe she should save it a little longer.
If you don’t recognize the black and white headshot, think, “Danger! Danger! Will Robinson!”
That’s Bill Mumy from “Lost in Space.” Cyndie saved the letter and it is such a hoot, I scanned it to share.
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I suggested Cyndie find a current address for him and cut off the bottom portion, fill it out and add the dollar-fifty to give him a laugh of his own.
Finding all this stuff has been entertaining, but keeping it any longer is hard to justify, especially while Cyndie is in the mood to part with it. It has me thinking about people who lose everything in an unexpected fire and suffer such emotional loss of a life’s worth of saved memorabilia. Here we are, voluntarily choosing to purge saved treasures.
Here’s to living in the moment.
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Big Purge
There has been a heroic level of de-cluttering going on around here lately. The credit goes to a burst of energy Cyndie experienced after doing some clean out of her mom’s house in preparation for a pending move. First, she inspired me to jettison a bunch of clothes I haven’t worn for years. Then, she brought me the contents of file cabinets that haven’t been cleaned out in a very long time.
I’d like to know who saved all this stuff in the first place.
The folder of long-term saved receipts was the most entertaining. I really need to remember to take the time to write what the receipt is for whenever that is not obvious. I was finding sales slips that had no clear identification of what the store or items purchased were. Why did we save those?
There were receipt slips with no date on them. Receipts for Apple products were printed with disappearing ink.
The types of purchases we intend to save records for a long time would be big-ticket items like furniture, appliances, or items of a high dollar amount. That’s why I would find Apple receipts. They’re not much good long-term if the print fades after two years.
Mixed into valid items in that file, I found silly, incidental low-dollar receipts. Better safe than sorry, we must be thinking at the time. Eight or ten years later, it makes for a laugh that we thought that way, originally.
We found our original marriage certificate tucked inside a folder of financial documents. Glad we haven’t needed to locate that document for decades. We never would have found it there.
After dinner last night, Cyndie sprung a surprise on me of some DVDs she discovered. Neither of us remembers getting old VHS tapes of home movies we’d recorded converted to digital, but there they were.
It went all the way back to 1986 when we made an attempt at recording movies that would chronicle the growth of our children, starting with 18-days-old Elysa up at the lake place. There were movies that neither of us remembers having watched back when they were originally recorded.
With a slice of warm from the oven blueberry/lemon pie for dessert last night, we viewed the first disc of three with Elysa’s name on it and then the first one of two with Julian’s. It was the obvious over-documentation of a firstborn and under-documentation of any child after the first one.
In classic kid form, at two years older than her little brother, Elysa was often seeking to be the center of focus when Mom and Dad were trying to record the boy.
We relived our kids’ first feedings of solid foods, first steps, and first birthdays. It had a significant ’80s vibe. There was a segment recorded at my mom’s small place for a Thanksgiving turkey dinner that included a glimpse of my vibrant (now-deceased) sister, Linda that amped up the already heavily nostalgic rush we were enjoying.
While in the middle of purging a lot of unneeded accumulation, we uncovered a treasure trove of memories we didn’t even know we had.
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Why Wordle
I have been contemplating the rapidly expanding popularity of the online word game, Wordle, and wondering what it is about it that appeals so. Since you can only play one word per day, that seems like it would be a detriment to the ever-expanding popularity. At the same time, it just might be one of the plusses.
The urge to play another round cannot be easily satisfied, so the attraction is maintained?
It seems to me, although individual interpretation will certainly vary widely, the game is rather simple without being too easy. The obvious target audience would be people who are fond of words and playing with words and solving puzzles.
The clues provided and the limitation of 5-letter words offer just enough support to keep the solution within reach of the six guesses available.
The randomness of letter options chosen for each turn creates an exciting mystery that determines the odds for solving on subsequent turns.
What a wonderful surprise it must be for the founder, John Wardle, to see how popular his creation has become.
Something about this game has triggered memories of an old favorite word game our family played in the car when trying to kill time during our frequent 3-hour drives to the lake place when the kids were young. Each player can select a word to be guessed and the first word Julian selected became the name of our made-up game ever after: “labelye” (La [soft A] • bull • yee).
What made the game difficult was that it was played completely in our minds. We had to visualize the letters in our heads to scramble and descramble them. Julian chose the word eyeball and had to scramble them into a pronounceable word clue for us to work with.
We could ask him to spell it, so we had the right letters to decode, but sounding out the scrambled word was one way to keep all the letters in our minds while trying to rearrange them into a solution. It was a trick to do without writing anything down and that probably made it too hard to catch on as a game that we kept playing as time went by, but it worked pretty slick for a while to occupy our attention and distract each of us from the doldrums of being trapped in a vehicle for longer than desired.
None of us were able to solve Julian’s scramble, so he won the round by stumping us and that helped nudge his word to become the name of the game from then on.
I suppose it wouldn’t be too complicated for a skilled game developer to build an app for that old car game so word puzzlers will have something new to play with after Wordle has faded out of the viral game-of-the-moment moment.
“Hey, Alexa! Give me a Labelye word to descramble while I wait for tomorrow’s next Wordle game.”
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Date Night
Cyndie and I were out last night in Excelsior with friends, Eapen and Barb for dinner and some live music in support of singer/songwriter, John Magnuson, from our association of families up at the lake place.
I worked late in Plymouth until the appointed hour of our dinner reservation and Cyndie drove from home after feeding animals and walking Delilah. Then, like ships passing, I drove home and Cyndie went to her mom’s house for the night.
It proved to be one of those days when I left home in morning darkness and returned during the dark of night. Makes it seem downright wintery already.
I did actually see some daylight during the intermediate drive from Plymouth to Excelsior. I arrived with time to spare which allowed for a stroll down memory lane from my days twenty-some years ago when I worked to co-publish “City’s Tone” from a basement office just off Water Street.
It was a beautiful night for the walk. As for a “date,” it could have used a lot more “we” time.
Now, I’m on morning chore duty before logging in remotely to the day-job tasks and waiting for an appliance repair person to show up and assess the leak in our washing machine.
Nothing like the duties of daily life to all too quickly muddy the memories of being out on the town the night before. Guess we’ll just have to schedule another event. Oh! Look at this! We have another dinner date with friends already on the calendar for tonight.
Pretty good planning, eh?
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Outliving Dad
The reason I easily remember the last time I saw my father alive is that it was my wedding day on September 19, 1981. Forty years ago, October 2nd was a Friday. Just out of college with a degree in education, Cyndie had unexpectedly nabbed a job with the Edina Police Department and I had yet to find employment. That Friday, on our first week home after our honeymoon, she was on a ride-along with a patrol officer.
I was home alone for the first time since we’d been married and the guys at the station found it humorous at first when I needed to contact her in the middle of the shift.
“Is it an emergency?”
“Well, sort of.” I was in a state of shock over having received the news in a phone call from my younger brother. “My dad died.”
Cyndie came home early from that ride-along shift.
Myocardial Infarction. My dad was 62.
On October 2nd, 2021, I am 62, a fact that seems to mean more to my doctor than me when it comes to my ultimate longevity. But I can’t deny a certain level of awareness about reaching this milestone.
I’ve spent the last forty years navigating being married, working a technical career, and raising children without my dad available for advice or guidance. Now I will embark on the rest of my life journey without having had his example of being an old Hays man.
After Cyndie and I returned from honeymooning up in the woods on the North Shore of Lake Superior, with a stop in Hayward for a couple of nights on the way home, we were taking our very first steps navigating life together in an unfamiliar rented duplex on Cedar Avenue near Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis.
A few days into our first week, it occurred to me that I should pay a visit to my parents before my dad took off for his weekend jaunt “to the lake.” The little fishing cottage on the north shore of Lake Mille Lacs was his version of heaven, I think, or simply a place he could go to be away from, well, the rest of what he found depressing at home.
It was Thursday afternoon and Mom said, “You just missed him.” He got a jump ahead of weekend traffic leaving on a Thursday. I would never see my dad again.
The story I was told is that it appeared as if he had pulled the bedcovers back, sat down on the edge of the bed, and fell back, dead.
This was six months after an initial heart attack that he described to me from his hospital bed as being “a pain I would never wish upon my worst enemy.”
That description helped inspire me beyond merely not wanting to be a depressed alcoholic like him, but not wanting to develop that classic beer belly and clog my arteries with an unhealthy diet. My doctor thinks that still might not be enough. He worries about my genes.
Other than having my older brother, Elliott for a sibling reference, I am now in uncharted territory.
I hope you are taking good care of your ticker, E.
Mine is just a little uneasy today over all the remembering. I expect its got plenty of mileage left, though. I work to keep my heart filled with plenty of love, both coming in and going out.
Thanks, Ralph, for everything you have taught me, in life and in your sudden death forty years ago today.
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Outdoor Adventures
I started reading a book about an outdoor adventure last night and as the narration described packing a small plane and the flight they took into a remote wilderness, I was transported to memories of my experience flying to Lukla in the Himalayan mountains. That trip I took to Nepal was over 12-years ago now, enough time that I don’t think about it nearly as often as I used to.
I don’t want the ever-increasing span of time to erase the brilliance of my experience. At the same time, I don’t want to endlessly repeat the stories from that trip just to keep them alive.
Maybe just fragments of the stories.
The drama of navigating our way through the gauntlet of locals around the airport in Katmandu, twice, to wait for our flight to Lukla.
Seeing the mountains from the air for the first time.
Realizing that everywhere we would go beyond the airport at Lukla would be on foot.
Walking the same path as so many others who climbed to the summit of Everest.
Experiencing the gift of being guided by the Sherpa people.
Exchanging Namaste greetings with locals and other foreign trekkers as we pass on the narrow trail.
Crossing the deep river gorges on swinging suspension bridges.
Seeing eagles soaring in rising circles on a thermal column of air, while standing above them at a higher elevation.
The mantra om mani padme hum.
The incredible views of Everest, Ama Dablam, Nuptse, Lhotse.
Overnight snow that covered our tents in Namche Bazaar.
Taking a side trail to avoid congestion because our guide was from the region and knew the “backroads.”
The sound of an evacuation helicopter climbing the thin air up the valley between high peaks.
Laughing with fellow trekkers in our group and our Sherpa guides and porters.
Hauling school supplies in our backpacks to donate to small schools along the way.
Finding a property with electricity and paying a modest fee to charge my camera batteries.
Warm milk tea.
The variety of locals, yaks (dzo), and travelers who shared the main trails.
Mani stones with carved prayer inscriptions along the trail.
Witnessing a day of activity when I stayed put on an off-day in Monju.
Prayer flags flapping in the wind.
It all made for a mighty good dose of outdoor adventures that I really enjoy remembering.
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Cabinet Customization
The slide-out racks Cyndie found for our kitchen cabinets were not an exact match for the openings, but close enough that we could make them work.
I needed to use the full-width limit of what the door covers to create clearance for the full extension of the metal insert to slide out, but I accomplished it so few people will ever notice the notches.
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This will make it so much easier for Cyndie to access items stored in the back of the deep cabinets close to the floor.
While she had everything removed for the installation, we also made some decluttering decisions that will reduce the number of things crammed into those spaces, too.
Sure, those quirky kitchen devices meant to solve unusual challenges seem valuable, but if we’ve never used them in all the time they have been in our possession, how valuable are they to us?
It can be a tough call. If I applied the same scrutiny to many things out in the shop and adjacent garage, I would be hard-pressed to defend keeping much of what has accumulated out there. It felt a little hypocritical to be telling her to get rid of things from the kitchen.
At the same time, I am a big fan of de-cluttering, so wherever we find ourselves practicing the philosophy, I am willing to rally and play along.
Maybe it is a factor of having grown up in a home where we almost never stored a car in the garage because there was no room for one among all the other variety of things taking up that space. We rarely used the porch or the main basement room for anything but storage, either.
It has been a long-term goal of mine to always keep our garage clear enough to fit cars. On the few occasions when situations dictated a need to park outside overnight, it becomes important for me to not let the setup last any longer than necessary. I think that comes from an underlying sense that I could too easily succumb to the pattern I am so familiar with from my formative years.
I mostly reserve that skill for the top of my dresser in the bedroom and any flat surface in the shop or garage.
Maybe I should look into getting some pull-out racks to better organize the debris that accumulates on the surfaces I allow to become cluttered. At least I can park my cars in the garage.
It’s all relative, you know.
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Remembering Jim Klobuchar
Among the most influential people in my life, Jim Klobuchar holds one of the top spots. When I learned last night of the news of his passing, my memories instantly jumped to the two treasured connections I enjoyed with Jim: annually participating in his June “Jaunt with Jim” biking and camping adventures around Minnesota for years, and participating in one of his guided treks in the Himalayan mountains of Nepal.
However, the more profound impact Jim had on me was probably his influence as a writer. It’s a bit of a double-edged sword. I read his columns and sports reporting in the Minneapolis Star Tribune for most of my life. My style of wordsmithing is a reflection of how his writing made me feel as a reader. I wanted to write about people and places in the way Jim did. At the same time, it is very intimidating to compare my compositional aspirations with his professional accomplishments.
Reading Jim’s columns describing the bike and camping adventures he led inspired me to sign up the next year to try my first-ever long-distance cycling expedition. It was in 1994, the 20th year of his leading the June event, and I’ve been doing it ever since, minus a few scattered years when I was unable.
After one spectacular week, I wrote out some lyrics to memorialize the annual adventure. I expected it to be a song, but I couldn’t get all the words to fit a consistent rhythm, so I decided it was a poem, instead. I brought it along the next year to share with the group. On the first night, I told Jim about the poem and my desire to read it for everyone. He asked to see it and when I handed the paper over to him, he tucked it in a pocket, then moved on with first-night greetings and leadership duties.
I don’t remember if it was the next day, but some amount of time passed before he finally acknowledged the poem again. He said he liked it and wanted to read it to the group himself.
Here come those mixed feelings again. “Why you controlling SOB...” I thought. “Wait, Jim Klobuchar wants to read my words to a large group of people?” I was more honored than miffed. Of course, I wanted it read as soon as possible, but Jim had his own agenda. One day passed, then two, three, four… I eventually gave up thinking about it. Whatever.
Jim picked post-lunch on the second-to-last day and his timing was impeccable. He called me up to stand next to him while he more than admirably recited the lyrical lines. A couple years on and I was able to forge the poem into a song that tends to get new air-time each successive month of June. Ultimately, I recorded a version and combined it with images from a couple of year’s rides.
At the time, Jim was living close to where I worked, in Plymouth, MN. I burned a copy of the video onto an optical disk (remember those?) and dropped it off in a surprise morning visit. He met me at the door wearing a robe and somewhat dumbfoundedly accepted the mysterious media.
I received the best response in an email a short time later that morning. He implied he wouldn’t have let me leave without joining him in the viewing if he had known what was on that disc.
The year I flew to Nepal for the trek, Jim and I were lone travel companions with a day-long layover in LA. It was a rare treat to have so much uninterrupted attention from this man whom I considered a mentor. I remember thinking how much he and my dad would have enjoyed each other, especially when Jim regaled me with detailed memories of his days covering the Minnesota Vikings football team.
He was a consummate listener and allowed me to tell him more about myself than anyone needed to hear.
Jim turned 81 while we were in Nepal and he was one of only two trekkers who reached the highest elevation planned. Already showing signs of his fading mental acuity, but not a speck of giving in to it, there were some poignant moments on that trip. Our relationship was cemented forever after.
Here’s hoping Jim has already regained his full mental capacities for the remainder of eternity. Those of us he has left behind will cherish our memories of him at his very best.
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Remembering Cayenne
Cayenne was a most elegant Arabian mare and a particularly precious member of our initial herd of four horses that christened our new Wintervale property as a horse ranch back in the fall of 2013. Yesterday, she departed this world to join Legacy’s spirit in the world beyond our knowing.
Cayenne was foaled from Dezirea in 2005 and lived 16 years, which can roughly be translated to the equivalent of 48 human years of age. For the five years she lived with us, she seemed to split her time equally between palling around with geldings Legacy and Hunter, but Hunter was her lifelong buddy.
In the image on the right, the two of them were giving me a wonderful reception upon my return from a week of biking and camping one summer.
That’s Cayenne on the right.
Last night, Cyndie and I reminisced about the time Cayenne scolded Hunter after he petulantly farted his displeasure toward Legacy for being driven off a preferred grazing spot. She amped up her energy and pushed Hunter twice as far as he wanted to go, making her point very clear and assuring he got the message.
Cayenne always looked well kept. When others had rolled in the mud or tangled their mane into a knot, Cayenne looked ready for show. The aroma of her hide was always sweet. I loved to bury my face in her neck and inhale her healthy horse scent.
The word that often came to mind when thinking of Cayenne was, royalty.
One other word that came to mind was, magical. As in, magician. One morning we found her calmly grazing all by herself inside the web-fenced arena space despite the gate being closed. She somehow either jumped or high-stepped her way over that webbing without tipping a post or tangling a hoof.
Cayenne also maintained the neatest stall out of all four horses. Despite her penchant for painting the back wall with her poop, the rest of the shavings on her floor basically remained clean. I guess she reserved her mess for the water bucket in that stall. She had a habit of soaking her mouthfull of hay or feed pellets in the water as she ate. Made her bucket a murky disaster by the time we came around to refill them.
Wednesday morning the horse manager discovered Cayenne on the ground and in bad shape from an overnight episode of colic that the equine veterinarian assessed as beyond treatment.
Hunter was already grieving and they gave him an additional moment to come close to pay his respects. He brought his head down to the flank of her lifeless body and took a breath to confirm she was no longer in there. As he picked up his head, he smacked his lips in acknowledgement and turned to look out over the distance beyond.
Cayenne is gone but she will never be forgotten.
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Relative Something 