Settle in, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy your stay here at Shelly's. The pie is great, the coffee pot is always on and soon you will find this to be the best place in town. SOON TO BE AMERICA'S MOST READ BLOG

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

THE SKUNK LAKE LABOR DAY CHURCH PICNIC


Across the Northern Plains, Labor Day signifies the end of summer. Winter looms beyond the colorful hues of autumn and when you live in the Northland, every waking moment is spent concerning oneself with winter's onslaught.

A well worn Minnesota proverb states the Indians always know how bad the winter will be by observing the size of white-man's wood pile. Though the story is overused, but oft repeated in Minnesota bars, there is a grain of truth in it--folks spend an inordinate amount of time worrying if their wood supply is as big as their neighbors. Indians don't.

Truthfully though, Labor Day does send a panic across the wooded fields, farms and lakes regions. Summer vanishes immediately after September 1st. Every God-fearing man knows the crops have to be brought in and the wood pile tended too. Soon the great white male hormones will kick in and the deer, and a few Holsteins, from that point on is in danger of being consumed. It is a fact Labor Day sets off the seasonal clock of which no man can stop.

Olaf Sundine ,who ran the local Deep Rock filling station decided several years ago to break tradition. He declared a week long Labor Day celebration, totally wiping out seven whole productive days of harvesting and chopping wood.

The shocking proclamation angered the local clergy. Sloth is not part of the fabric of Minnesota heritage. The sermons about town reminded the faithful of the horrid consequences of the grasshopper who fiddled away his resourceful days. His woodpile needed tended to and the freezer remained empty as others about busied themselves as the green leaves became golden with nature's first frost. To make matters worse there was not a even single potato put into his empty bin.

The sermons worked and Olaf's banners came down the very next morning. Things were even slow at the Three Bean Cafe as the guilt had most folks going about there business instead of arguing nonsense over a cup of coffee. Years slipped by since the failed week long festival fell to defeat but now this upcoming Sunday was the 17th Annual Skunk Lake Church Picnic, that glorious once a year festival where Catholics, Lutherans, and all the lesser religions were allowed to mix amongst each other without seeking forgiveness.

The Skunk Lake pavilion always promised a 24 foot festive smorgasbord filled with scrumptious casseroles, sandwiches crafted from white bread, fried chicken and desserts beyond one's imagination. To any normal Northlander this event would be an offering from heaven, but a great fog of guilt hung in the midst of Lake City because the local pastors felt among themselves that a repeat of the "Grasshopper Sermon," was in need. Not for any reason in particular, they just wanted to keep their faithfuls on alert. Just the slightest mention in a church sermon about cutting firewood made it sound like a commandment from God. "Go ye into the woods and cut oak, birch and a little poplar and stack it neatly," so saith the Lord. Now, visions of half frozen grasshoppers gripped the imagination of every man in town.

Jim Sweeny was besides himself. He bought a new Husqvarna chainsaw the previous week but was unable to get out in the woods until a defective replacement part arrived from the distributor, who by the way, took a week off for a long Labor Day vacation. Jim overhauled the engine on the Farmall three times trying to fight off his nervous energy. After that dreaded sermon last Sunday there wasn't a chainsaw to be rented in a twenty mile area.

His wife Irma, the chairwoman of the Prairie Women's Quilting Circle, wanted to run him out of the house during Friday's quilting circle, with no luck. Jim stayed on the kitchen phone all afternoon frantically searching every dealer in the state for the lost chainsaw part. Since he was within earshot of the ladies nobody had the freedom to discuss "personal matters of community importance."

After Jim downed three pots of coffee from the stained "I Love Trees," coffee mug, which in turn caused him to make just enough bathroom trips to set Irma on edge, she threw down her quilt pieces, called The Blue Ox Mower and Saw Service and told them to send the damned part airmail from Sweden, Norway or where ever in the name of Samuel H. they made the blasted thing or they would have a murder on their hands.

Sunday finally crept in with everyone miraculously avoiding homicide induced by insanity. All in all the day proved to be rather quiet and, unlike the week leading up to this day, free of guilt. It was, after all a holiday weekend, the Sabbath and a day of feasting and merriment, though the only downside came after the men discovered the firewood for the weenie roast had disappeared. No further comment needed.

As the afternoon sun started to set and the cooler air of sudden-autumn set in, the Mayor, Clyde Overstart, hit the genuine Skunk Lake hollow log with a gavel signaling the days end and the awarding of the much coveted prizes.

To nobody's surprise Clara Ivarson took home the blue ribbon for best edible sculpture. This marked her 7th-first-place award and this year it was a Jell-O likeness of Walter Mondale. Clara felt it expressed her deep hearted condolence for his humiliating defeat four years earlier. She appropriately named it "The Fritz Jello".

After a long list of awards for children, dogs and ugly farm implements, the evening concluded with Skunk Lake's most coveted award–the most offensive pair of men's bib overalls, followed by the "ceremonial burial of the OshKoshes." The men folk took this seriously and seized every effort possible to make their bibs worthy of being buried with the "legends."

My Uncle Ernie for instance left his bibs hanging in Tom Henderson's mink shed all year. The pungent smell of mink musk saturated the overalls so bad he had to bring them in a sealed container pulled in a manure spreader behind his tractor to keep them away from his picknicin' bibs.

To keep everything above reproach a different family took the honors of judging and handing out the awards each year. Still, rumors quickly spread that Irma slipped $50 in the offering plate since Pastor Yungfest's family was in charge of the judging. She, if the rumors were true, had hopes of Jim taking home the award of King Stinker, therefore taking his mind off that dreadful chainsaw.

Well, fear of reproach being such as it was back then may have caused Jim to loose, but he took a close second with his nasty fish bucket bibs. The honors instead went to Uncle Ernie's musky mink bibs.

Uncle Ernie felt bad about being King Stinker two years in a row, or so he said. He falsely admitted to cheating, then fabricated a story about digging up last years bibs that hung in the back house for months on end then used as a farrowing blanket in the pig shed. With a wink to Irma, he handed the bronzed Copenhagen box over to Jim.

Though by default, winning the King Stinker award was a good omen for Jim. Tuesday morning his lost chainsaw part arrived first class by airmail. By October Jim had the largest woodpile in the county due to his prized Husqvarna.

The Indians predicted a cold winter based on Jim's huge stack of firewood–or so Uncle Ernie told me and you know what, it turned out to be the fiercest winter in 20 years. You know, ol' Uncle Ernie wasn't so goofy after all.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

AMAZING GRACE HOW LOST I WAS

This story, first published in July of 1997 in a California newspaper, is a promise made to our Scrapple friend Mary Pearce whose son just received his pastorate at this very same church. Small world, eh, I don't know. I think there is a purpose in all things. [Ecclesiastes 3:1] It is important to remember I wrote it from my 1972 religious prospective, so anything that sounds anti-church is not the view held today.


The first killing frost of the season fell upon the birch covered Minnesota lakes region and it seemed I had no more than settled into my peaceful life as Miss One With Nature when some deity tried to rattle my existence.


With the city limits sign of Cleveland still a toxic memory, I, along with a hoard of land-hungry hippies clutching issues of Mother Earth News, settled into a small rural area of Minnesota, raised chickens, goats and eyebrows. Most of us were looking for anything but religion. As a fallen Lutheran who saw God as a cosmic magnet that tugged humanity into oozy blobs of one-religion-fits all, I despised doctrinal chaos. Moving to the country made sense to me and Frank, my once addicted, now clean, but a little paranoid friend, where we could be content to be nothing

That warm fuzzy God theory met a challenge one day in what I seem to remember as being somewhere in the early '70's, as we read a flier taped to the window of a coffee shop. It said Evangelist Milford T. Harrington (name not real to protect my poor memory), guest speaker from Kentucky, would share a testimony on his frightening encounter with Satan. The way I understood the filer, Beelzebub and this Baptist preacher met face to face with each other. I knew Lutherans never talked with the devil so I said to Frank as we sipped on the coffee that cold afternoon, "I'm a little curious on what kind of dialogue took place between this dark sinister figure–and a back home country preacher."

Normally, in our little town we did not stick out much since there were more than a few back-to-nature freaks mixed in with local farmers, jack pine savages and tourists who often smelled of fish. But poor Frank didn't fit in with the church crowd very well. He had a cosmic twin brother named Frank Zappa. The previous winter we traveled to Martha's Vineyard, home of James Taylor, and the buzz about town said Zappa showed up to cut a record with Taylor.

So here we are, celebrity twin of the lanky, long haired Zappa, and me, wire rimmed, tied-dyed blouse, blue jeans and Red Wing boots, sitting like an out-of-place band of gypsies in a Baptist Church in the small town of Park Rapids. The evangelist walked to the podium and after a few hymns, passes the plate and commenced to preaching. Well, we blew it.

Seems like the Reverend Milford T. Harrington started with the dark tales of his demonic conversations on Tuesday, continued through the week with frightening accounts of heathens and idolaters toasting in the great abyss. Friday night climaxed to great crescendo of fire and brimstone to drag in reckless souls, inebriates and other wayward types whom the devil himself would surely make mincemeat out of some day.

In a grand Kentucky Baptist style, Milford T. Harrington wasted no time moving into the grand finale of alter calls. He jumped, yelled, sweated and cried. With a white handkerchief in one hand and the Bible in the other, he orchestrated a wonderful show of good old fashioned Bible thumping. He continued this plea for souls until the veins popped from his forehead. Soon his cold steely eyes locked on to Frank's, then he glanced over to me. To drown out the fear my mind started singing, "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz."

The clock on the wall ticked slowly while he brought down the gates of Hell. An hour later half the county was pleading for mercy. Poor Frank was blind sided and never blinked an eye. Truthfully I must admit he never looked so pale.

If a confession is needed here I almost went forward and probably should have, but my knees were so weak I never would have made it and the act of falling to the floor may not have been seen as a Baptist tradition like some churches I have visited over my many years. There was no doubt that I had danced about the devils playground and needed to set things right with the Almighty, but not right then. I never move when fear is present.

Meanwhile, poor Harrington was turning hoarse, he quoted 16 more passages, wiped the sweat from his brow, gave one more alter call for good measure and finally gave up on the hippie couple from Pequot Lakes. It was nearly midnight and most of the old women had fallen off to sleep in the nursery.

After the last hymn and closing prayer (one more chance to get in the kill) we politely shook hands with the pastor and traveling evangelist. Two lost souls never to be notched into his gospel gun walked out into the cool Minnesota night air.

So what happened on that cold night in 1972? The drive home to our farm was rather quiet. I felt cheated I didn't get to hear his tales of devilish conversations. The Northern lights seem to flicker a solemn good-by to an evening nobody anticipated. Many would ask if God gave up on us. I can't answer for Frank since our ways parted not long after but for myself the answer would no.

There would be many arguments over my soul from that day onand finally on another cold Minnesota night three years later a decision was made by myself as I drove home in my old ‘48 Dodge pickup. The moon was full and no headlights were needed as I stared into the night where the northern sky held the majesty of His artwork. How could I say no to such a God.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

LIFE, CAMPING AND OTHER STUPID THINGS

With thoughts of The Scrapplefest running through my mind I am reminded of this story composed not long after a disastrous weekend back in '98. Ihope this isn't an omen of things to come. Nah, those days are gone--I pray.

I am a hopeless romantic. Not in the area of creating tender relationships or imagining endless evenings of drifting thoughts folding into a fantasy world of senseless love built around heroes that look a bit overly effeminate with their locks of golden tresses. Perhaps some would just call me overly optimistic. While I may see a glass of water and say it is half full, not half empty, if I stare long enough, it becomes a glass of rare champagne bubbling away in a crystal glass.

If you haven't caught my drift perhaps this may clarify my statement. When I plan an event, contemplate a trip, or as far as that goes, just about anything that has a chance to rattle about in my brain soon goes out of control. Thought patterns soon turn mental anthills into something more gargantuan than the Wall of China.

It is easy to recall numerous instances of this destructive mental condition which resides in my psyche. Stories of misshapen grandeur can rattle off my memory bank leaving me with a repertoire of nightmares incubated from simple dreams, most leaving me downcast and humiliated. Now you ask, "can a lesson be learned from all this higgeldy piggeldy." Never. Remember I am hopeless.

This is an example. After I arrived back in Ohio in 1998, I decided two take up two hobbies, Bluegrass music and camping. After falling in with a group of roving musicians I decided to book a weekend at a ritzy resort where the musicians were playing. Well, really it was a campground. (You see how easy I build things up). Now mind you the last time I went tent camping gas was 29 cents a gallon. Later in life, when I wore a band about my finger, we invested in a real camper with all the luxuries of home, mostly, somewhat. But now times were different and without said camper I opted for a tent purchased at K-Mart plus numerous accessories to enhance this upcoming wilderness experience.

Still in possession of at least half my brain I asked my younger neighbor to help me set up this blazing orange prefab-nylon housing unit in my backyard, so when presented with a pile of aluminum tubing, yellow spikes and assorted hardware there would not be a sudden brain collapse at the campsite.

Now perched comfortably in my backyard with an adult beverage in hand, a perfect mental scenario was set in place for my wilderness experience, ala Bluegrass concert. Thoughts of experiencing a Euell Gibbons moment stalking a wild Rosemary plant, then later immersing myself in the rustic surroundings wearing expensive yuppie Eddie Bauer slacks, sitting by the fire with a frosty glass of micro-brewed ginseng tea and nibbling on a high-bush cranberry filled croissant. Above, the distant mournful cry of a loon flying off into the night sky and below, in my tent, lie unfinished manuscripts of neglected writings and unfinished plays under my Smith Corona. Then, sadly, the phone rang and the Lady Walter Middy had to run home.

The next day rains of Biblical proportions fell upon my backyard cabana. After bailing out nearly three gallons of water, I stood disgusted with the whole idea of tent camping. I'm sure Euell could have handled the situation well, so therefore go I. Soon my kitchen held the aroma of homemade granola and chocolate chip cookies, which along with everything imaginable found a place in the back of my creamy white F-150. (Sorry, it was an Eddie Bauer edition Ford).

Upon arrival late that afternoon the campground owner drew me a map to my campsite, a deserted remote spot on the hill. Nobody else was within sight. Could this be, me alone to brave the wilds. A million what-if's soared through my mind, but with brave determination I threw the orange multi-pieced monster to the ground and broke camp. Sort of. I knew I could lick the problem of tent erection because I had a brand new roll of duct tape. Darkness started to creep in, first through the woods then across the meadow.

I was still spread eagle across the tent attempting to shove the aluminum tubes into the hidden loops when a senior citizen out for a stroll happened by. He rescued me by actually following the directions. Exhausted, I ran the power cord from the pole and plugged in all my electrical appliances. Don't laugh, even Euell would have enjoyed freshly ground coffee to go with his whole wheat, alfalfa bagel.

About midnight Beulah, my basset hound, retired to her comfortable cage. My sleeping accommodations left a little to be desired. Every bump on the ground dug deep into my back, even though I was on my cot. About 2 a.m. a horrid smell penetrated my nostrils. The undomesticated surroundings caused my dog to forget the fundamentals of being housebroke. A quick clean-up took place and soon, cold and damp, I found the little emergency space heater and sought out sleep.

The next morning the sun burned through the fog. Everything was soaked by the heavy dew left by the cool night air. I no longer felt like the lady in the Eddy Bauer magazine. Instead I felt humiliated that my first night in the "wild" turned out so creepy. Disgustedly I walked to the campground cafe for breakfast. When I returned I discovered new neighbors had moved in. Of the 50 some empty campsites spread all over the hill, an elderly Old Church Mennonite couple decided to settle in right next to me.

By noon the dew dried off and the campsite started to fall in place once again. My old Coleman propane stove had not seen service since the ‘95 Northridge earthquake, so after a search in the junk box I managed to find all the parts to fire it up. A can of beans was opened and quietly set on the burner--three minutes later the stove exploded, sending flames of perdition all about my body. Fortunately the worse part of the experience was singed hair. My new neighbors just sat and shook their heads and although they spoke low German, it was obvious to me what they were saying.

The spot I wanted to set up camp soon opened to new campers, though I was told that area would remain closed for the weekend. Everyone who came to enjoy the festival all settled into the new campsite leaving me alone with the Mennonites, who hurried to the phone booth in order to call their friends to come watch the crazy lady. The sounds of laughter and merriment of the other campground did little to cover the low German tongue wagging.

Later that afternoon I walked down to the Bluegrass festival. A grand time was had by all but myself. At last count I had one wet sleeping area, one blown up Coleman stove, one dog who forgot she was housebroke, one empty rumbling stomach and of course one nosy set of neighbors complete with German talking friends. After the festival I walked back to my campsite, built a bonfire, then it rained.

The next morning arrived with the promised sunshine. The solar warmth felt like such a blessing since jungle rot started to set in on my soaked feet. A look about my campsite was depressing. The clothes were wet and dirty and looked like they belonged to a vagrant who slept under a bridge. Uncooked food sat about for the flies to feast on and for myself, well the smell of burnt hair still followed me around. My dignity fell to an all time low so I headed into the nearest large town and found a Wal Mart to replace my stove and to pick up a hot pizza.

Eternally optimistic, my spirit continued onward now that hot food had been reintroduced into my weekend diet. Another day of camping had yet to unfold before me. Things will change I promised myself. The rest of the day became painfully insufferable as I found ants had moved into the tent looking for crumbs of potato chips. I had it up to here (can you see my hand) so like any calm camper I gleefully went to the pay phone to call about a camper I saw for sale. The owners came down to the campground but a price offered was not a price accepted so I returned to my much hated tent, cooked supper and returned to the festival and hob-nobbed till late into the night.

Midnight found me back at the campsite. The Mennonite couple and their crowd of onlookers had pulled sometime during the evening. I sat there feeling down and alone. What a weekend. This lady never took out her mandolin, never wrote a story, never cracked a book and certainly never foraged for high-bush cranberries. With no regrets I broke camp a day early. Still God had mercy on me. On my way out the owner booked a fall show and plans were laid for a storytelling festival for the next summer.

The leaky tent and camping gear were once again packed in the back of my Eddie Bauer Edition Ford. My basset dog and I took a leisurely ride home following back roads, the only compass was the sun. It gave me time to think about the next storytelling festival and the book deal that would likely come about if I could just...see there I go again. Sigh, a legend in my own mind.