Rambling Josh

All my bags are packed I’m ready to go…

By the time you read this I will have eaten my weight in sushi and rice. No, I didn’t enter an eating contest or attempt to ingest a tapeworm as a form of weight control. On Easter Sunday I was shipped off on another goodwill tour of Japan to bolster relations between the university that graciously provides me employment and an affiliate university in Japan.

This is my second go around in Japan as I was sent to smile, nod and bow a few years ago as well. I guess they figured I have the most experience dealing with foreigners growing up so close to Canada and Minnesota. So, they called in the good-natured North Dakotan, stuck him in a suit and simply said, “Don’t offend anyone.”

As the saying goes, “You can put a North Dakotan in a suit but he’s still a North Dakotan.”

Just smile, wave and tip your little hat like Leroy the monkey at the North Dakota State Fair but don’t bite anyone. If you never got a chance to meet poor Leroy before he was escorted off the midway, my brother Gabe does a spot on impersonation. It’s the wet your pants brand of funny. The kind of funny I’ll need when I get back from the land of little sarcasm.

Seven days of saying, “No..no..I was just joking,” wasted wit, and laughless responses to Caddyshack references will have my funny bone wincing. They are a serious lot, extremely cordial and friendly, but serious. I think it’s the lack of meat and potatoes in their diets.

I enjoyed my last trip to Japan but I’m not looking forward to it as much this go around. A total of about 24 hours in the luxurious accommodations of coach class has me debating on faking the plague. More so than the long flight and the lack of laughter I find myself not wanting to go because it’s a lot of time away from my family. The kids are involved in a lot of stuff nowadays, so it takes two ringmasters to keep the chimps in line.

Pre, our black lab, tries to help out the best he can when I’m gone but not having thumbs limits his effectiveness. So, my wife, with a faithful lab at her side, will be stuck as the Captain of a two-chimp crew while I gallivant around looking like a turd in a punchbowl. As the saying goes, “You can put a suit on a turd but it’s…”

So, if you’re not doing anything feel free to swing by while I’m out and about to make sure the ships still afloat. It may list a little to port or starboard on occasion, but she’s got a good captain and a first-rate crew so I’m sure everything will be just fine and dandy. Fine anyway.

The kids’ only request from me was a shipment of Japanese candy. Of course, Dawn didn’t make any requests because, well, we’re just supposed to know, aren’t we gentlemen.

I’ll have a full report of my journey for you upon my return. I’m sure you’ll bide your time with abated breath until the next column hits the newsstands.

After about four years I finally did it. I got “hate mail” for a column… my friends are surprised it took me this long to irritate people since I’ve been irritating them for years.

I guess “hate mail” may be a bit strong maybe “dismayed mail” or “disappointed mail” would be more accurate. Either way I was informed in a very polite manner that my brand of humor, or attempt at humor, is not welcomed at the altar.

In hindsight maybe it should have been left in the sacristy where Father John told me to leave it when my brother and I were altar boys. Father John always had a few jokes for us while he was getting into the vestments prior to mass and then right before we stepped out onto the altar he would put his serious face on and encourage us to attempt to do the same.

My brother, Jarvis and I could usually hold it together for a while until Grandpa Ardell caught our eye. Grandpa, whose birthday we would have celebrated today on St. Patrick’s Day, is now our patron saint of mischief.

I guess I should have known better than using my conversations with a high school history and shop teacher turned priest as the basis for a column. Leonard Savelkoul taught pretty much everyone in my family during his lengthy tenure at Burke Central High School. Some of us he liked…some of us he didn’t, playing favorites was a weakness of his. He liked me and I enjoyed his unique way of conveying history to a bunch of teenagers who generally could care less about what the Potsdam Conference was all about. After retiring from teaching, he entered the priesthood; and shortly after Father Savelkoul was ordained, I asked if he would marry my wife and me. He agreed and after it was all said and done the people of the parish in Webster, SD didn’t want him to leave. His unique way of conveying history carried over into his new vocation where he knew how to relate religious teachings to a person so they would understand them best.

He and I were both baseball fans, him rooting for the Orioles and me, the hated Yankees. So, when I had a question about the order of things in the Catholic Church he related it to me in terms of baseball.

We were sitting at the clock in the Dakota Square Mall in Minot, a place you were almost always sure to run into him, and I asked him if he had to give up the Orioles for the Cardinals now that he was a priest. He laughed, and said, “Na..I don’t look good in red…black suits me better.”

Then I asked him if when he became Pope if I could be an elder altar boy in the Vatican. He figured Rome would be better off without a German North Dakotan at the helm.

Then we got to talking about the path from being a priest to becoming the Pope and like a good teacher he related it to me in a way he knew I would understand it. Obviously it worked because I still remember and I also remember that Joseph Stalin, Clement Attlee and Harry Truman were the big cheeses involved in the Potsdam Conference.

When I questioned Father Savelkoul about confession and asked if he and other priests compare notes he simply said, “In one ear and out the other…just like my history lessons.” He explained if he dwelled on everything his flock told him during confession he would end up in the loony bin preaching to the “fruit loops.”

Father Savelkoul passed away a few years back and I miss visiting with him and hearing his unique view of religion and the world in general.

So, to make a short story long, I apologize for offending anyone as that was not my intent. I’m sure Father Savelkoul would have got a kick out of the guff it brought me… he always liked to make people squirm a little.

So back away from the torches and pitchforks and I’ll leave the religious commentary in the Tribune to Ron Nelson while I handle less inflammatory subjects like lobbying to get March 17th changed to St. Mischief Day.

May your frown always be upside down and your laughter be heard throughout the town.

I have been pondering a theory of quasi-conspiracy that confession was devised by the Pope to spice up priests lives a little. You can’t sit around and read the Bible all day every day can you? A few hours here and there sure, that’s good for the soul, but too much of a good thing could be bad.

There are a lot of potentially life changing messages in the Bible, but wouldn’t you get desensitized to the majesty of it all if you over-indulged?

Priest muttering to himself as he reads the Bible, long sigh… “Here we go again, the Lord speaking eternal wisdom… a leper healed with only a touch…I can’t even get rid of a rash with a prescription…”

The Pope, having been a priest at one time, at least I think that’s how it was explained to me in catechism, hatched a plan. Spend a few years in the minors honing your skills with potlucks, bingo, and the occasional youth ski trip and if you don’t mess that up you might make Bishop and get bumped up to the AA club, where you get a nice new ring for people to kiss. Spend a few years there and eventually, if you look good in red, you reach the AAA – Cardinals.

There you bide your time coaching first or third base until the owner (God) decides He wants to shake things up a little and calls the head coach (Pope) up to the big house (Heaven) for some R and R (he’s dead). The assistant coach whacks the head coach on the melon with a silver hammer to make sure he’s not faking his R and R. If the head coach passes this test, by remaining dead, the Cardinals and Bishops have a slumber party and play truth or dare until white smoke billows out of the Vatican.

Now that the, “Was the Pope ever a Priest?” question has been answered, let us move on. The Pope is milling around the Vatican thinking back to his days in the minors, washing down bland food with watered down wine, the constant fear of contracting dandruff…. He decides that since he’s the Pope, he’s going to do something about it before he gets whacked with the above-mentioned silver hammer.

So, what’s he do? Confession. The priests aren’t supposed to be drunkards, murderers, cheaters, lovers, haters, and so forth and so on so why not have them lend an ear to the ‘ers’ and ‘ards’ type people. How can we get these people to share their unsavory activities with the last person on earth they would like to share them with besides their great grandmother? We’ll put a screen between you, so you can’t see each other blush.

You get to brag about your ‘ways’ for the price of a few Hail Mary’s and an Our Father. You feel cleansed the priest feels nauseous, everyone is happy. I have attempted to contact the Pope in regards to my theory but he has chosen to remain silent on the matter. In the world of conspiracy silence is proof of existence…along with denial.

Now all you non-Catholic kids know what they were teaching us in the basement of the church every Wednesday after school as we dined on scotcharoos and Kool-Aid. “They” being a couple moms, mine included, who were doing their best to give us a little direction in life.

My theory of quasi-conspiracy demonstrates there may have been a bit of a difference between what I was taught and what I learned but as the song goes, “Momma tried… Momma tried…”

The Winter Olympics are upon us. For the next few weeks we have the opportunity to watch athletes compete in events they have spent the better part of their lives striving to achieve perfection in.

Some will come away with a medal and all the accolades that accompany it; two minutes on Letterman, a heart-to-heart with Bob Costas, a book deal, or possibly a commercial pedaling shampoo or lip balm.

The majority won’t come away with anything around their neck except a rash from their snug fitting uniform. They will quietly go home to accept a hug from Grandma and a consolatory pat on the back from everyone and their dog. Not that those things are bad, it’s just not what motivates an 18-year-old to forgo fun for 16 years of rigorous training.

Having Bob Costas paint a heart wrenching picture of all the adversity and heart ache you had to overcome on your journey to win an Olympic medal probably wasn’t a motivating factor during the years of training either, but like lip balm it comes with the territory.

Even if you never had to overcome adversity and heartache Bob will find something…You’ll sit down next to Bob, shiny medal hanging around your neck, the fake fire dancing behind you, and Bob will say, “Despite failing a spelling test in the third grade, a devastating set back, you were able to persevere and win the gold medal in ski jumping…remarkable story and truly a testament to what the human spirit can overcome.”

I enjoy watching the Olympics, but I’ll admit, it lacks the emotion it had back in the Cold War days when the Soviet Union was the evil Olympic athlete empire.

Every few years the Iron Curtain would slide open to turn its genetically enhanced super athletes loose to collect Olympic medals. It had better be gold or you would find yourself scrubbing toilets in the Kremlin. When I was a kid it was almost as enjoyable rooting against the Russians as it was rooting for the United States.

Nowadays we don’t really have a country playing the part of the Big Bad Olympic Wolf. I find myself feeling bad for the athletes from the former Soviet Union for all the hardships in their country and hope a few of them take home medals. The Russians are too tough to use lip balm so I’m not sure what benefits would befall the athlete on their return to their country. Maybe a vodka endorsement spot, “A gold medal makes the perfect coaster for my glass of Smirnoff.”

If only Afghanistan would put together a Taliban bobsled team. Ratings would skyrocket and we would get to see Bob Costas nervously chit chatting with them about the rocky road from Kabul to Canada.

Enjoy the Olympics and sappy Costas stories.

I also wanted to inform all of you that due to issues with lack of snow at some of the Olympic venues I’m proposing that Burke County puts in a bid for the 2014 games.

Does anyone know how to drive a Zamboni?

While watching one of my son’s basketball games the other day in a cramped elementary school gym I was pleased to see this particular gym had not one, but two climbing ropes hanging from its ceiling. In our safety conscious, wrap our children in bubble wrap society, I had assumed all climbing ropes had been removed from gymnasiums and sold to tugboat operators. After all they do present an opportunity for a child to fail and we can’t have that.

As an athletic trainer one of my duties is to prevent injury as much as possible and as a result, I am pretty adept at spotting potentially painful situations. So, looking back at elementary gym class through the eyes of an athletic trainer I have come to the conclusion our gym teachers were under contract from the government to speed up natural selection. No one ever died, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

Gym class was little dangerous and a lot of fun…for some of us. Some could shimmy up the rope like a ring-tailed lemur, slap the beam it was attached to, and shimmy back down without incident. Of course some couldn’t, and as hard as they tried their butt never lifted off the big knot at the bottom of the rope. Face red, veins bulging, teeth gritted, arms quivering and that was just the gym teacher trying to help them.

The gym teacher, not wanting the climbing impaired child to leave with nothing, would then give the kid a big arcing spinning push. Over the top of their classmates, they would sail causing a variety of reactions from the kid seated on the knot. Some would laugh and smile and look down wide eyed at all of their classmates as they swooped over their heads.

Even as a 9-year-old you can tell when someone’s having fun or they’re simply terrified to the point of tears and other bodily leakage. We all like to play in the rain but not in the gym while seated under a terrified tot on a knot that is more concerned with holding on than holding it. No child was left below.

Let’s not forget the most thrilling and cringe worthy attempts at climbing the rope in gym class. Those who mustered every bit of strength they had and focused so intently on the ascent that they forgot about the other part of rope climbing…descending.

Climbing a rope is not like giving everything you’ve got to finish a running race where you reach the end and coast to stop. Some tried to coast to a stop after slapping the beam triumphantly. A coasting rope descent generally doesn’t turn out well.

Not much makes you cringe when you’re nine years old but watching someone slide down a rope and bounce off the knot will do it. You feel bad for the kid as they lay there torn between clutching their burning hands or their smoldering corduroys. You feel so bad you laugh…a lot…so much in fact you’re thankful that you wore dark pants.

I don’t know if climbing the rope in gym class held any educational value, but it is reflective of life. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s painful, and sometimes the knot that was your friend today can be a pain in the butt tomorrow.

Just after Christmas my wife caved into the peer pressure and took a bit of her life public with a shiny new Facebook account. She had been resistant but one can only fight the social wheels of technology for so long. My wife is an intelligent lady, but technological know-how is not her strong suit, it’s not even her leisure suit.

In our household I am responsible for the proper programming, setting up, and day-to-day operation and maintenance of all things electronic. Just one more thing that my mother prepared me for many years ago when she would call me at college and ask how to program the VCR to record Phil Donahue…it’s nice to be needed.

She would call angry at the VCR for not magically doing what it was supposed to do, and I would talk her through the process. “Do you have the remote in your hand?” “Are you pointing the remote at the VCR?” “No, not your middle finger, the VCR doesn’t recognize that signal.” “Are the television and VCR on?” “Okay, now listen close and follow my instructions so nobody gets hurt…namely the VCR.”

Nowadays I get similar calls from my lovely wife and if I do my job with minimum sarcasm and absolutely no remarks about her Polish technological wizardry, she’ll still speak to me when I get home. We’ve had a few technology induced “quiet times” prompting an emailed apology…from me.

I knew she would like Facebook because she enjoys visiting and staying in touch with her friends and had commented that not many people email anymore because they’re on Facebook. Well now she’s on Facebook and her friend list is expanding and she’s in touch with everyone whether she wants to be or not. Due to her and technologies love hate relationship she’s not an addict and Facebooks in moderation.

We all have people who we need to keep in touch with and people who need to keep in touch with us. For various reasons some friends are more than just a friend, they are a best friend and are always there for us as we are for them. When we’re ugly, they’ll be there, when we’re happy, they’ll be there, when the internet crashes and your Facebook friends list gets deleted they’ll be there.

They can’t be deleted and you can’t just pull the plug and walk away. Well, I guess you can literally pull the plug if they’ve given you the legal right to do so, but that’s another matter so we’ll stick with figurative plug pulling.

So as far as Facebook goes I guess it’s good for helping us maintain a little chit chat with acquaintances on occasion. But that friend who calls out of the blue when you’re feeling the same shade or the one you find yourself visiting with over a cup or a pint that’s your real friend’s list.

Most likely a shorter list, but what it lacks in quantity it more than makes up for in quality.

Here we are with another year gone by.

Does your balance scale of accomplishments tip towards the “Did” or the “Didn’t” for all you had planned for 2009? I think my balance scale of accomplishment accidentally got stuck in a box of stuff I hauled to the local goodwill store. It never worked right anyway.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions for the same reason I don’t make a lot of plans in general and that is that you avoid the disappointment of an unaccomplished plan by not making plans. Also, if you have no plans almost anything that happens is potentially a pleasant surprise…a pleasant surprise you didn’t have to break any plans to take part in.

I realize sometimes it can be dangerous not to have a plan. For instance, on Christmas Day the Chrest and Stevens family got together to celebrate Christmas at the Lignite Senior Center…as planned. If this event had not gone through any sort of planning process, we may have all starved or shown up on Boxing Day instead, but we all enjoyed too much good food and the company of family.

Following the Christmas dinner we didn’t really have much planned because generally the food part is of greatest concern and everything else is left to chance. This is when things can get dangerous…especially in Lignite.

Some had gone home to lapse into a food coma while some of us pushed on and visited, put together jigsaw puzzles, ate some more, and had no plans. That’s when somebody said, “There’s a bunch of people coming with masks on.”

Sometimes when somebody says something it confuses you for a second. A bunch of people with masks? How many is a bunch? What kind of masks?

I briefly thought it may be a hostile takeover and glanced around the senior citizen center for a weapon to defend our supply of leftover turkey and juneberry pie. I found a cane someone must have forgotten during a moment of spryness and pried the non-slip rubber tip off to make it look more menacing.

Then as the first few of the “bunch of people in masks” started to enter the building it all started to make sense….Julebukking. These were Norwegian terrorists disguised in old bridesmaid dresses, leisure suits, and muskrat coats, wearing a variety of masks to hide their identity. If I wasn’t in Lignite I may have been frightened. If they weren’t in Lignite they may have been shot at.

You hate to try and guess who people are and run the chance of upsetting them. It’s kind of like being stuck in a room with a bunch of irritated women and being asked to walk up to each of them and guess what size underwear they wear. When faced with Norwegian terrorists in leisure suits and irritated women it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

We waited them out and the Julebukkers finally gave into the relentless heat of the senior citizen center and removed their masks to reveal their identity. I was right… they would have been upset with any guesses I had. Thank you to the Nielsen, Bloom and McEvers families (my aunt, Suzie slipped in amongst them as well) for making an unplanned visit and keeping the tradition of Julebukking alive.

According to my research the tradition of Julebukking is still observed in parts of North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Ketchikan, Alaska. They say the practice of Julebukking is dying out…they also say there is never anything to do in a small town. They’ve never been to Lignite.

Happy New Year.

October 17, 2007

The kids and I kicked off our school year a few weeks ago. Back to the scheduled life of academia we go for another 9 month tour. I don’t care much for schedules and routines so it’s always hard for me to get back into the having to be places at certain times mind set.

I much prefer the flip-flop frame of mind I dawdle in over those glorious summer months. It’s a tough monkey to get off your back. Well actually that’s not a monkey I just haven’t had time to get my back waxed with all this work stuff going on and with the winter months approaching I may just hold off until spring.

For those poor souls that don’t know or have never experienced a “flip-flop frame of mind” you have some homework. I know summers has drained away like the public pool water leaving nothing but 3 months of sunscreen sludge and lord only knows what else clinging to the sides, but there’s still a few warm days left to complete your assignment.

Here’s the assignment: Put on your normal lace up, pull-on, Velcro, whatever you normally constrain your feet to shoes, and go for a walk, either around town, out in the yard, do some yard work, some house work, mow the lawn, walk the dog, go door-to-door collecting dryer lint and old toothbrushes, whatever just move for awhile. Once complete take note of your frame of mind and proceed to step two.

Step two entails slipping those nasty bunion riddled fungus fortresses into a lovely pair of flip-flops. It may feel strange at first with that strap between your first two toes but just like the thong underwear you dabbled in last year you’ll get used to it.

Now repeat whatever form of “walk about” you performed in part one of this assignment only this time with your knew friends Flip and Flop along for the mosey. Stop scrunching up your toes they won’t fall off if mind your speed and keep the hustle and bustle to a minimum.

Don’t fight it or you’ll end up with Flip or Flop lying lifeless behind you while your tender feet attempt to navigate the rocky road back to the scene of their spontaneous removal. They fell off for a reason, you need to slow down, you need to access your “flip-flop frame of mind” and become one with the thingy between your toes and let Flip and Flop be your guide to leisureness.

Now some activities are not safe for flip-flops, such as mowing the lawn, but strolling past the lawn mower to the hammock is a perfectly safe pursuit. I know there are also times you may feel the need to rush about and hurry, hurry, hurry and flip-flops just wouldn’t be practical. As a certified Flipflopologist I recommend you avoid those times.

Just like the above mentioned thong underwear, over time you will learn to love this form of footwear and the frame of mind it will produce. Another reason I support the flip frame of mind movement is that while wearing them you can’t sneak up on anyone, creep around in the dark, or flee the scene so flip-flops would also decrease crime rates.

Lower crime rates and decreased stress levels. What more can you ask from modest footwear?

You’ve got your assignment now go forth and flip-flop.

On August 17th through the 19th 27 riders participated in the 2nd annual “Highway 212 Gut Check.” The “Gut Check” is an endurance race across SD, via Hwy 212, to raise funds and awareness for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America.

Participants have 48 hours to make it from the SD/WY border to the SD/MN border which is “normally” 412 miles. This year the SD Department of Transportation and Mother Nature teamed up to “dampen” the spirits of more than a few of the participants.

As fate would have it, on that very same weekend South Dakota got more rain than it had all summer, three days worth. As fate would have it, SDDOT decided it was time to replace a bridge along Highway 212 creating a 22 mile detour.

Twenty-two miles may not seem like much to the “normal” person, that’s smart enough to drive a car instead of a bicycle, but on a bike, in the rain, against the wind it adds up to about 2 extra hours of butt numbing fun.

Oh, alright it didn’t rain the entire race; the first 50 miles were dry and hot with a STRONG head wind. Then it began to sprinkle, then it began to rain, then it began to come down like the tears of a bike rider who’s trying to ride across South Dakota…against the wind.

Did I mention the wind? When I organized this event last year I checked all the available resources to find the predominant wind direction for the middle of August was from west to east. For three fateful days in August of 2007, the 17th through the 19th to be exact, the wind howled from east to west.

For those of you that don’t know and don’t care to find out a tail wind will allow a knucklehead on a bicycle to travel along leisurely at about 20 miles an hour. For those of you that don’t know and don’t care to find out a head wind will allow a knucklehead on a bicycle to travel along painfully at about 12 miles an hour.

When I crawled out of bed and gimped down the stairs on Monday August 20th I looked out the window to see my fickle old friend the West wind back from his three day hiatus. If you could kick the wind I know right where I’d kick it.

Jay Stevens, formerly of Lignite, also participated in the event. His sister Terri and Joyce (formerly Morgel) of Portal came from Bismarck to be his SAG. My wife and kids accompanied me as my SAG. SAG stands for Support And Guidance and Jay and myself had and needed plenty of both.

Seventy-five miles into the race at Mudd Butte SD, in the dark, in the rain, in the wind, in the lightening, Jay and myself decided to form the Mudd Butte Leapfrog Team A.K.A The Mudd Butte Merger. From that point on one of us would ride about 10 miles while the other dined and rested in the dry warmth of one of our SAG wagons and then switch.

The Mudd Butte Leapfrog Team, a rocket scientist and a college professor, made it about 300 miles before our backsides told are brains to knock it off.

Of the 27 riders, 19 were in the solo division, and of those 19 three finished the race. The rest of us tried, and most plan on trying it again next year. Trying and failing is much more gratifying than not trying at all. All in all we raised about $4,600.00 for the CCFA. Jay raised over a thousand himself, and found himself a permanent place on the Mudd Butte Leapfrog Team.

Thank you to all that donated to the cause and helped spread the word about the event. I was very pleased going from 4 participants in 2006 to 27 this year. For more information on this years “Gut Check” visit: <sdata.national.edu/GutCheck2…>

Dust off your bike and get it and yourself ready for next year. The Mudd Butte Leapfrog Team is currently accepting members.