I heard a good Minnesota joke yesteday. But you might have to be from here to get it.
Many of our towns and lakes have Indian names, like Wayzata (why-zetta) Minnihaha, Winnibigoshish, Pokekegema and Shakopee (Shock-o-pee).

Shakopee is an old Indian word for “electric fence.”

Busy weekend ahead. I’m deserting my family for Father’s day. Quinn and Rebecca are going up to Duluth to watch Quinn’s BF and bf, Andrew and Chase, run Grandma’s Marathon. I’m headed south to my 35th, that’s right, I’m a fossil, college reunion.

This entry was private because I was going to write more, but the time has passed.

At Quinn’s graduation party, an all night affair at the Blaine Sports Center, I was dealing blackjack. I found it difficult to ad up the numbers. I can do fairly complicated math in my head. But I was having problems with 7+5. I had a group of young girls at my table for about an hour. They kept calling me Bob. Some of them I knew from youth soccer and I thought they knew me through Quinn. I was flattered. Later Quinn was at my table and I mentioned that to her. She rolled her eyes and pointed at my name tag.

I keep forgetting my password at work. Drawing a complete blank. I type it twenty times a day. And every time I have to hesitate.

I left the gas grill on to burn off the crap after I made some ribs this weekend. I never went back out and turned it off. Used up a full tank of propane.

I keep mixing up the names of my daughter’s boyfriends, calling Andrew Patrick and Patrick Andrew. My father used to call me Bill all the time. That’s my brother’s name.

Quinn, my youngest daughter, graduates from High School tonight. She’s off to the U of M Twin Cities in the fall. It’s hard for me to imagine what it’s like going to such a huge school, I went to a college smaller than my high school. She’s going to be one of 5200 or so freshmen, over 2500 applied! I’m sure she will be in the top 1% of coolness. We are going to be empty nesters!

Sadly, one of her friend’s mother died this weekend after a long and courageous battle with breast cancer. That “courageous” thing sounds like a cliche, but in this woman’s case it’s real. I saw her in the grocery store a couple of months ago. She was so upbeat and positive. They are a very religious family, faith has it’s benefits. I didn’t know this couple very well, they were soccer team mates so we spent time on the sidelines and at practices and meetings. You don’t meet nicer folks. I’m so sad for them.

We are in an intractable war, where we are spending huge amounts of money and losing lives daily. The war is getting worse by the day and there is no strategy to get out. We are facing a looming ecological disaster, a possible deadly flu pandemic, inevitable fuel shortages and a precipitous decline in our world status.

And what is the United States Senate doing for the next three or four days? Debating a constitutional amendment to prevent gay people from getting married. One that, even if it were a good idea, has absolutely no chance of going anywhere.

Well any catfish recipe contributions would have gone for naught. We took the horse collar in the fishing department. But we did get to do some infield outboard motor repair. Actually it wasn’t so much a repair job as a transfer the gas from the tank that didn’t work to the one that did job. When you throw in the extra challenge of not spilling too much gas on the inside of the pontoon boat, it became a test of our problem solving abilities as well as a physical workout. With one of us perched on the top of the motor and the other leaning over the back helping tip the full gas can. There were other adventures but I’m sworn to secrecy.

I’m on vacation!

This year the Lutheran’s With Attitude skipped out on the church fishing trip. Things were getting a little wierd. But the Red Eye, now that’s another matter. The LWA has decided to spin off to a new location for our annual spiritual gathering. TC, one of the original LWAs (we met at a men’s fishing trip) has a converted barn on the Crow Wing River, up north as we say. Right across from the National Guard camp. Last year I thing the constant artillary fire spooked the fish. It’s ok though, we’re not all that serious about the fishing.

Actually, just Lon and I fish. The others golf and then we meet up for poker in the evening. This year Lon and I have decided we’re going for catfish. Which means we’ll take the pontoon to a likely spot, put on some stink bait, throw the lines over and get out the guitars. Now this particular river flows into the Mississippi and we all know where that goes. I guess we’re hoping to use that connection to channel some southern soul.  But then I’ve always maintained that Minnesotans are just rednecks with different accents. Besides, both Lon and I have the Scotch-Irish backgrounds and that’s one of the cultures the music came from. Worked it’s way east to the river, met up with the blues in Memphis and the rest is Rock and Roll.

I’m breaking tradition this year. I’m bringing and electric guitar. I have a bit of an urge to show off for these guys and I really need an electric to play my best stuff. My playing has come on so much stronger over the last year. I think it really helped me to start learning country, I was kind of bogged down in the blues for so long. Getting my fingers to dance to the major scale patterns really seemed to open things up for me. I know my way around the majors better than the minor scale that the blues use. Thats after only about a year of playing in that vernacular as opposed to 35 of the other. Anyway my boat has drifted closer to Nashville than Memphis these days.

Know any catfish recipes?

I’ve been lobbying to get a wheelbarrow for about a year now. Last week morning I employed on the “better to ask forgiveness than permission” theory and picked one up at Fleet Farm. One tub, two handles and a box of hardware. Made in China. The parts were in branded Zip Lock bags. Good for Ziplock. The wheelbarrow itself is called an Iron Brigade. Or at least that’s what’s stencilled on it’s side. Along with the silhouette of an eagle. It makes me feel like a hero of the proletariat. I feel like one of those guys in the great communist poster art of the thirties and forties. Only I don’t have the jaw for it.

When I opened up the hardware box I was pleased to discover that the instructions actually made sense and appeared to have been written by someone who had at least a familiarity with the English language. But as I read on I realized this was going to be beyond a simple assembly. It required putting the handles up on sawhorses (like I have sawhorses) and balancing about five pieces and trying to line up the holes for the bolts and getting the bolts to go through the holes. At first inspection it didn’t look like the holes were lined up at all. I’m starting to think that I grabbed the wrong set of handles out in the Fleet Farm yard. There was only one thing to do. Ask my wife for help. She’s about a hundred times handier at that sort of thing than I am. And after years of close brushes with divorce percipitated by similar activities we’ve finally become a pretty good team. She managed to thread the bolts and we got everything put together but not tightened.

That’s when she asked me what the washers in the bag were for. “I don’t know, they don’t mention them in the directions and they’re not in the diagram, I just assumed they were for some assembly that was going to happen later.” Of course there were no assemblies left. Only dissaemblies. It was hot. I’d been digging in the garden all morning. We shut down for the evening, showered up, went to the Sample Room for dinner with some friends and I dealt with the washers this morning. There are only a few left in the bag.