On this Memorial Day

My family arrived in the U.S. at various times over the past 170 years. Great-Grampa C. brought the families of both his wives (the first having died in childbirth) in 1891 through Montreal, crossing into the states at Buffalo. Great-great Grampa M. came twenty years before that with his young bride, having left Sweden three days after the wedding. On Mom's side, we're not sure when they came over, the records having been lost in various house and church fires in the past 50 years...

Nevertheless...

Since they first came here, they realized that it is sometimes necessary to take up arms to protect the freedoms that are ours through design. I have great-uncles that fought in Cuba and the Phillipines. Others that were with Black Jack Persing chasing Pancho Villa, then, with two of his brothers (my Grampa being one of them), went to France as part of the Rainbow Division.

They all came home with different scars -- some that you could see, others that were well hidden. Grampa had mustard burns on his lungs and fought for years with the VA to get disability benefits, but there was some glitch in the paperwork that allowed the VA to continously deny him. It wasn't until five years before his death, 1966, that he finally received the benefits, along with backpay, allowing him and Gram to do well the last few years. Gram even lived off those and the survivor benefits for a number of years, but that's really not what this post is about.

Recently, I found out that two of Dad's cousins were on their way to Spain via France to join the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but because of a busted fuel pump, missed their ship out of Duluth, and before they could get on another, the International Troops were withdrawn from the battles against Franco. Instead, they joined the Army. One, Michael Johan, fought under Patton through North Africa into Sicily, then into France. The other, Ronald, went to the South Pacific and was killed in the Phillipines, fighting over some of the same battlefields his uncle had 40 some odd years before.

My uncles, Marvin and Art Junior, Dad's older brothers, went to the Navy and Army respectively. Marvin went willingly, Junior was drafted. Dad was too young at the time, having been born in '29. A number of other uncles and a few aunts and cousins were also in the Army, Army Air Corps, and WAC's. With the exception of cousin Ronald and Uncle Marvin, all came home in one piece.

Marvin was on a ship that was hit by a Japanese torpedo. He was climbing a ladder on his way to his battle station. The force of the impact knocked him down six levels, breaking his back and hip on a rail. The VA didn't dink around with his benefits, thank God.

Dad fought in Korea, and was there with one of his good friends and hunting buddies, Clayton. They had known each other for ten years, and Clayton had also served in France as a tanker. In Korea, as a Staff Sergeant, Clayton commanded a tank.

Dad was hit by mortar shrapnal on Oct. 8, 1951, and he said it was the second most miserable moment of his life. The worst came about four years later when he barked up his leg with a chainsaw and the rest of the crew made him drive himself the 30 miles to the nearest hospital for treatment.

During Viet Nam, I had four first cousins and twelve second and third cousins that were in the Army and Air Force, and all but three served at least one tour in 'Nam. One, Mike, went over the hill, but, after talking to Grampa, turned himself back in and did time in the stockade. Another, Jay, spent three tours in special forces -- Rangers, Green Beanies, SOG Groups -- and then, when he returned to Minnesota, wasn't sure he was ready to rejoin society. On a windy June day in '74, Jay got on a northbound Grayhound and went to Ely, MN, where he homesteaded, raising and training sled dogs. It wasn't until '96 that he rejoined the family for more than Christmas supper and funerals. He's since moved back to the home farm, first living in a trailer home, then building a new house a quarter mile through the woods from the house he grew up in. He now works for another cousin doing body work, something he's enjoying and has a natural knack for.

Jeff got out of the Army and joined the National Guard. He also ended up working at the VA hospital in Minneapolis, first as a pharmacist, then as a liason officer, and finally, a division leader. He retired a few years ago so he could help his sister with her son, a young man who became a quadraplegic after diving into an above ground pool.

And then, Glen, the other I know well enough to actually write about. Glen was drafted at the time when 'Nam was winding down, and instead of going to Southeast Asia, he ended up in Colorado and Hawaii. Something happened during that time, soemthing he won't discuss, that made him a social misfit within the family. At one family reunion at his father's farm, Glen and Jeff (who are brothers) got into an argument that ended up in a thrown beer bottle, a few black eyes, and a broken nose. Jeff may have been an officer in the National Guard and served two tours in 'Nam, but, for pure fury, he couldn't handle Glen.

*****

I joined the Marines in '83 while I was still in high school. I was pretty certain I'd end up serving in the military at some point from the time I was a kid, and there was always something about the Corps that...

fascinated...

me. Maybe it's because I was told for so long that I was basically worthless. Perhaps it was because they had/have the longest, and by reports from others, the toughest initial training. Or, it might have been something to do with the fact that no one in the family before me had ever been a Marine.

Regardless, I joined the Corps. Signed the contract on April 11, 1983, and went to boot camp in September. We were on the rifle range, Edson Range at Camp Pendleton, at the end of October when I realized for the very first time that my decision could kill me. One of our Drill Instructors, Staff Sgt. Johnson, a Viet Nam vet, woke us at 2:10 a.m. to tell us that the Marine Barracks the Beirut International Airport, housing members of the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) had just been bombed.

"Fuckin' rat bastard drove a truck right into the building. Blew himself up to Allah. Think about that tomorrow, fucknuts, as you're puttin' rounds down range."

A few days later, he also informed us of the attack on Grenada that the 22 MAU played a role. We cheered until he chastised us with words I still remember to this day.

"Anytime a Marine is in battle it means that someone, somewhere, failed in their job to solve a problem peacefully. Anytime that we are in battle, we...you...could die. Remember that."

Staff Sgt. Johnson served three tours in Viet Nam. He had 6 Purple Hearts along with the Navy Cross. If you don't know what a Navy Cross is, well, it's the second highest award for valor you can earn in the Marine Corps (or the Navy for that matter).

I got lucky. While I was in the Corps, the closest I came to being put into harm’s way occurred in ‘85 when my unit was placed on alert after four Marines on embassy duty in Nicaragua were killed while drinking coffee in a café. We spent a week on the football field in front of the General’s Building at Camp Pendleton waiting for the word to go!! For all the bravado we displayed that week, inside, I think we were all relieved we didn’t have to get on choppers that would fly us out to the ships.

*****

I’m not a pacifist. I believe that there are times we as a country must make sacrifices to protect our country and our interests. I also believe that once committed, we need to support our Marines, soldiers, swabbies, and airmen.

I believe we also need to hold the leaders responsible for what’s done with our troops.

This morning, I listened to the account of what happened in Haditha, Iraq last November after a young Marine, Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas, Jr., was killed in an insurgence ambush. How the Marines, and in this case I use the term loosely, retaliated against the civilians, killing over 20. And how the family of the young warrior have been struggling with the news. Lcpl. Terrazas was from a family of Marines, and they are in denial over what was done in his name. Personally, I think everyone involved in that action needs to be held responsible.

Unfortunately, four of the main leaders won’t be. Four people who took us into this unwinnable conflict.

And it’s not just the troops that are currently serving are being screwed over by the powers that be. Last week it was announced that the records of 26 MILLION Veterans were stolen because some mid-level pogue decided to take the information home on a laptop. I can’t even express how much that angers me, especially when this information was hushed up for two weeks. I still haven’t received my letter from the VA, but I know others who have. But, what sticks deep in my craw is the fact that Bush has stated he has confidence in the head of the VA.

But, do the Veterans? Do we have confidence in the head of the VA? Do we have confidence in Bush?

Last weekend when I was home, my father, an ardent supporter of Bush, even said a few things that surprised me about Bush. The war. The current state of affairs around the world in general.

On this Memorial Day, I woke early, and I said prayers. Prayers of peace. Prayers of protection. Prayers for guidance. Prayers for my brother and sister Marines. Prayers for those that have been lost. Prayers for those that are in Harm’s Way. And prayers for us.

Peace.

Second Chances

I call my friend Tove the Queen of Second Chances. I’ve learned a lot from her in the years that I’ve known her, especially about giving people the benefit of the doubt the first time around.

I’ve worked for Tove since 1990, and over time, we’ve become friends as well as coworkers, and it’s a friendship that I cherish. We often tease each other about the fact that she keeps hiring me back to camp...

”Why do you keep hiring me?”

“Why do you keep applying?”

“Because you keep hiring me.”

“And I will if you keep applying.”

Like I said, I’ve learned a lot from her. Especially about the value of giving people a second chance. Because, you know, if you look someone in the eyes and tell them that they have let you down and outline what you expect from them ... they will often pull through.

On the other side of the coin, there’s my friend, Kerry. We’ve just finished our third year of teaching together. He taught in the local public school system for 25 years before he joined our school. He has a second chance philosophy as well. With him, however, it’s a bit different.

”Give ‘em enough rope and they’ll either pull themselves up...

... or hang themselves quite nicely.”

At the moment, I’m finishing an accelerated pre-summer Intro to Psychology class. I have 11 students enrolled, and on the very first day, I tell them what is expected.

1) Read your text and come to class prepared.
2) Do your own work.
3) Be prepared to move fast – this is a take-no-prisoners type course.

This is the second year I’ve taught the course. Last year, I had a few difficult students, but, for the most part, it was an exciting experience. This year, for the most part, I have good students as well, but, I have one.

He’s a jock. Self-described and labeled. He told me Tuesday “you can’t expect much from me. I’m just a dumb jock.”

He missed the complete irony of his next statement ... “I need a ‘B’ in this class so I can play football.”

I can’t expect much from him...but...hmmmm...that equation doesn’t quite balance.

What brought this about was the paper he turned in on Monday. I read it, well, tried to read it, but, the first paragraph was so poorly written that I just couldn’t make heads nor tails of what he was trying to say. Because of this, I decided to have him rewrite it instead of just giving him a failing grade. Especially when I noticed that a vast majority of the paper was “borrowed” from various web sites. Three quick Google searches and I had assembled most of his paper. When I spoke with him Tuesday, I dropped a subtle hint about how I’m making a name for myself around the college as someone that has an easy time finding plagiarism.

He turned it in today. I read it. He fixed a few of the punctuation problems in the first paragraph – the only one he’d actually written, but, the rest was still cut and paste jobs straight from the Internet. I shook my head as I wrote “0/50 – F” on the paper, and made a note that he needed to come see me on a break. Didn’t matter – he was late getting to class, so, while he was making excuses about his tardiness (he still hasn’t figured out that it’s his problem that he’s missing so much information, not mine, because he’s always late), I handed him the paper.

He couldn’t figure out why I failed him. I said, “I didn’t. You failed yourself.”

“But, I cited all the info from the web pages.”

“Yeah, but did you even write any of this except for the first and last paragraphs which are still so bad that I can’t consider it college-level work.”

“But, I cited all the info...”

“No. What you did was cut and paste all sorts of stuff straight from web pages. That’s NOT writing. All that is is assembling.”

Statistically speaking, he can still get the “B” he needs to play ball in the fall. Most likely ... he’ll be on the bench. We’ll have to wait until Tuesday to see....

What I thought was ordinary

The things I did as a kid that I thought of as ordinary are increasingly becoming anything but. We played in barn rafters, scooting across the doubled-up 2x12's that stretched across the open maw of the hay loft fearlessly. Our bikes we rode hard up hills and through gullies; no matter the abuse they took us faithfully where we needed to go. The price we paid was the infrequent popped inner tube. In cut-off jeans my friends and I would walk the crick – creek for those uninitiated types – our sneakers sinking into the thick loamy mud as we searched out the deep, shaded pools where northerns and bullheads lurked and the swimming was the best.

It wasn’t just play. We worked, too. Hard. It wasn’t uncommon that when my friends and I first drove our fathers’ tractors, we had to jump off the seat and balance on the clutch and brakes to bring it to a stop. Rocks were picked (anything bigger than an orange, softball, bread loaf, depending on the field), wood was hauled, snow and corn and silage and oats and manure all needed to be shoveled. And if we didn’t do it right the first time...

We did it again.

On muggy summer nights, after the work was done, we played croquet, badminton, lawn darts, horse shoes, or softball as the ice cracked after being dropped into a picture of Kool-Aid or Schwann’s 6-n-1 or nectar, whatever the hell nectar was. I asked Gramma Spears who lived up the hill what it was once, and I think I decided I really didn’t need to know after all. We’d beg Mom to let us run barefoot in the creeping Charlie that overtook our yard before I was born, and were always told ‘no! There might be nails or glass!’ And there was.

The woods were there, inviting us to get lost for days in the span of hours. We became Daniel Boone or Billy the Kid or Zeb Pike, exploring every inch of that 12 acre wood. There was the big white pine up on the north line that had been topped by a passing twister, and it was flat enough to sit upon if you dared climb that high. I did. Often. I could see for days from the top of that tree, and no one ever saw me watching the world. Or singing songs of happiness that erupted from my heart when I sat there so contentedly. I had to quit when one day, I got up there, and found the beginning of a nest. The last time I drove by, the nest was still there, but, I bet it’s a new pair of eagles up there.

The corn would start to reach high about the first of June, stretching until it the tassels would paint the sky by the end of July. Sweet corn was always planted on the outside four rows where the planter turned around, and we’d sneak out and pluck it and eat it off the stalk raw. Soon, ever supper would include fresh picked corn, shucked as it was picked, our hands sticky with corn milk, arms and jeans covered with silk. Tossing out the cobs with borer worms.

We’d race the sun all day and sneak out into the night, welcoming the cool embrace after wicked humid heat, sitting on the roof watching approaching thunder storms as they marched over the hills and fields and forests. Feeling the teasing tendrils of the first feathery cold front fingers that brought the gourmet scents of the thunderous feast soon served. The first sky tears falling from the torn clouds, Madonna weeping on us. For us.

The world slid past slow as we flowed on the current in large black inner tubes, wearing ineffective suntan lotion and feeling the deep burn as it scorched us. Not caring that we’d be lobster red for a day or three. It was worth it.

When you got old enough, the neighbor’s started coming around looking to expand their labor pool. There was hay to bale, row crops to cultivate, machinery to service and move from place to place, calves to take to the sales barn. It made us strong. It made us lean. It taught us the value of an honest day’s labor for an honest day’s pay. And we worked hard – you didn’t want it to get back to Mom and Dad that one of the neighbors thought you didn’t do quite enough. Worse than that, you didn’t want them telling the other neighbor’s not to call you.

I always had work.

Sudden rain falling on cut hay, three days off to let the sun have her way. One day up, next day racked, don’t want to put wet hay away. Stand in the loft as the heavy bales drop with a muffled thud, pack them in tight, feel the heat build. Watch for smoke. So much pressure can cause the green, wet to spontaneously combust. Better wait a bit more, lets head to the lake and wet a line, I hear the walleyes are hitting out on the reef at mile nine.

Summer days and summer daze and summer laze in the summer haze. What I thought of as ordinary was so extraordinary.

TAG!

Kelli 'tagged' me on her blog -- the bitch. *grin* So, here I go:

Four jobs I have had in my life:
1. Farm worker
2. U. S. Marine
3. Camp Counselor/Lifeguard
4. Teacher

Four movies I would watch over and over:
1. Fight Club
2. Full Metal Jacket
3. Raising Arizona
4. I'll come back to this one later

Four places I have lived:
1. On da' Farm
2. Southern Californa
3. Grand Forks
4. Telemark, Norway

Four TV shows I love to watch:
1. Monster Garage
2. American Chopper
3. South Park
4. The Sopranos

Four places I have been on vacation:
1. Norway
2. Atlanta
3. Seattle
4. Flin Flon, Manitoba

Four websites I visit daily:
1. My home page
2. Dagbladet (Norwegian news)
3. Email
4. Fun places

Four of my favorite foods:
1. Steak
2. Mashed taters
3. Ravioli
4. Swedish oven pancakes

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. Bemidji
2. Home
3. Norway
4. On a road trip

Four Memorable Restaurants:
1. Hell's Kitchen, Minneapolis
2. Dick's Last Resort, Chicago
3. Patrick Dugan's Irish Joint, Atlanta
4. Murray's, St. Paul

Four friends who I have tagged that I think will respond:
1. Colleen
2. Catherine
3. Hmmmm....good question
4. ?

It's a good thing I'm comfortable with my baldness

I was going to write about something else, but it now escapes me as I see all of my Google ads are for baldness remedies. If I weren't secure in both my femine side and the fact that I've been bald for years, I'd be way upset.

But, as it is, I think it's funny!

Music of my youth -- the first of a continuing series

Music has always been a big part of my life, ever since Mom took $400 from the money earned off an auction that sold off the livestock and most of the farming equipment when I was 3. Dad was sick of 20 hour days (chores at 4:30, on the road to work by 5:30, home by 5:00, then farm work until it was done), and he wanted to build up some cash for remodeling/rebuilding the house where I spent a big chunk of my life.

Anyway, Mom walked into the kitchen where Dad was counting money, counted out the $400, an over Dad's protests, walked out. I really have to wonder if he thought she was leaving. She had threatened it often throughout my childhood. I wasn't even in kindergarten and I knew that theirs wasn't the healthiest of relationships.

A few hours later, Mom came home and started rearranging the furniture in the living room. Dad kept asking her where she had been and where the money was. Mom ignored him, until finally, she said, "If I have to live on this damn farm, then I'm going to have something that's MINE!"

Dad knew when it was time just to back off.

It was also about that time we heard the rumble and bang of a delivery truck coming up the rutted track that was our driveway at the time. It was from a furniture and home electronics store in Mora, and at the sight of it, Dad almost flipped. Instead, he stormed out and went to the barn.

When the back of the truck opened, my sisters and I saw a large wooden crate. The driver and his assistant pulled it out, took out a crowbar, and pulled the lid free with the the squeak of long nails. Some, it gave birth to a RCA console stereo with AM/FM/FM stereo, turntable, and a state-of-the-art 8-track player. Once it was put in place, Mom told us that we could only touch it when she was home, and if she found us messing with it without her permission, we'd get our butts whooped.

It was a different time, wasn't it?

Anyway, the next day, Mom jumped into the car and drove to St. Cloud and went music shopping. She went to all the different record shops and bought a wide selection of albums. Johnny Cash and Johnny Mathius. Ray Charles and Etta James. Three Dog Night and James Reeves. Music, basically, from a wide selection. She also picked up a number of albums for children. A reading of "The Jungle Book" stories by Sebastian Cabott (Mr. French from "Family Affair"), The Crickets and The Chipmunks, the soundtracts to "Mary Poppins" and Disney's "The Jungle Book."

*****

A few weeks ago, while I was on the Thief River Falls campus, I slipped into the men's room. Over the urinal and over the toilet, they have those damn advertisement things (a rant about those coming in the near future! I just wanna pee when I'm in there; not be sold something!). As I was getting ready to do my bizniz, I noticed that I was being observed by Tom Jones. And as soon as I saw his picture and his name, I started singing softly (and thankfully, I was alone in the bathroom):

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone (bahda da da da dum),
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone (bahbahda da da dum),
but when I see you hanging about with anyone
It's not unusual to see me cry,
oh I wanna' die...


Mom had a thing for Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink. She had all the albums from those early years. She played them as much as I played Johnny Cash's Live from San Quentin. (Hell, the first song I knew how to sing was Folsum Prison Blues). All I had to see was Tom and that song popped into my head. And stayed there for days. When I got back to my office, one of the people in my cluster asked a question, and my answer was:

It's not unusual to believe the things you do (bahda da da da dum)
It's not unusual to think the way you do...

She looked at me like I was possessed, and turned and walked away.

*grin*