Rambling Josh

May is here for another go around and has brought with it the typical unpredictable spring weather of the Dakota’s.

You’re an optimist or an idiot if you pack away your mukluks, muffs and mittens before mid-August around here. Idiots don’t know any better and optimists will just grin and bear it, so it’s hard to differentiate sometimes.

Speaking of idiots and optimists it’s Mother’s Day this weekend and behind every idiot is an optimistic mother just hoping that all that pain and suffering wasn’t in vain. For some of our mothers the physical pain of childbirth was merely a warm up for the lifetime of mental anguish to follow. Idiots don’t know any better and our mothers just grin and bare it.

My mother is no exception; she is an eternal optimist but is not content to just grin and bear it when it comes to her idiots. She has been my and my sibling’s mother for as long as I can remember and during that time, she has always been there for us. She was always in the bleachers, always behind the camera, and always willing to call us “idiots” when it was warranted.

It was, and still is, warranted a lot and in the true spirit of idiots it never has stopped us from doing whatever it was that seemed idiotic to her. It’s a pretty sure bet if it seemed idiotic to my mom, it was, because a woman who appreciates the endless entertainment a whoopee cushion provides is no fun hating prude.

As we’ve gotten older it seems Mom’s reference to us as idiots has lessened. This is either due to maturity on our part or acceptance on Mom’s. “Eternal optimist reduced to realism by idiots.” Film at eleven. Swing by our next family gathering and judge for yourself…it’s worth the price of admission…a whoopee cushion and a jug of rum.

I remember my first whoopee cushion. My brother, Jarvis in his zeal to make the loudest fuuuuurrrrp, jumped up and landed on it and blew it out. He rolled around clutching his backside and yelping while I, the concerned brother, ran to check the status of my poor whoopee cushion.

We took it to the gas station to get it patched and nervously paced the floor sipping Coke and eating Corn Nuts waiting for the prognosis. They were able to patch it but it never sounded the same after that. It had a listless half-hearted “fss” sound that just didn’t pack the same humorous punch. So I sat on my brother and produced the real thing to teach him a little lesson.

Mother’s Day is a day set aside for us to drag our mothers and wives to overpriced buffets in an attempt to put our conscious at ease for another year. Don’t you think they deserve more effort than that? They smile and remain optimistic while their kids drag whoopee cushions to the local gas station to get patched.

Let’s strive to make Mother’s Day more of a sustained effort that sounds like, “fuuuuurrrrp” rather than “fss.”

Happy Mother’s Day.

There’s no place like home.

I think I had a wee tear in my eye as I spotted the Black Hills from the airplane on the last leg of my return trip from Japan. I have never been so happy to see those hills and the hundreds of miles of wide-open space between those hills and the Minneapolis airport as I made my journey from concrete to conifers.

Since my last trip to Japan two years ago, I must report that not much has changed. Still a lot of people, a lot of buildings, a lot a lot and too much of everything for this small-town boy.

Apparently “Country Folk” in Japan live in “rural” settings of around 100,000 people and when I explained that I come from a town of about 150 people the usual response was, “Do you know everyone in the town?” Everyone and their dog… and that’s the way I like it. Speaking of “a lot,” the dietary choices haven’t changed much either. You have to be a marine biologist to identify what you’re eating most of the time. The Japanese know their sea creatures, but then again when the sea creature on your plate isn’t much different than its swimming, living, breathing self, it simplifies things a little.

Here in the Midwest, we have to rely on taste and smell to identify our food, well you people who can taste and smell do, I rely on what I’m told. It would be easy to tell the difference between our various meats if a hoof, horn or antler were hanging out of the bun but thankfully we don’t care to have our food resemble its living, breathing self.

Speaking of various meats. Being a good guest I thought I would bring my Japanese associates a little piece of South Dakota and bought about $150 worth of buffalo, elk and deer salami and bacon cheddar cheese to bring with for gifts. I hope the workers in the quarantine station at the Tokyo airport enjoyed the gifts from America.

When we landed in Tokyo, I saw the signs at the airport banning the import of any meat and debated on trying to smuggle the salami past the salami sniffing dogs, but who knows what they do to salami smugglers in Japan, so I came clean. They looked over my stash and politely pointed to the sign, I handed over the salami, and the salami sniffing dogs all smiled.

When I’m in Japan, I have to wear a suit and tie much more than I would like. I don’t mind wearing one for the occasional bar mitzvah but not all day long while sitting in hot stuffy Japanese buildings, eating in hot stuffy Japanese restaurants, and traveling in hot stuffy Japanese trains. It’s hard to be pleasant while developing a heat rash but thankfully my grimace resembles a smile and no one was the wiser.

It takes a lot of self-control to drink hot green tea and eat a big bowl of piping hot miso soup while feeling sweat roll as far as it can roll while you’re sitting on a hot nonporous surface with nary a breeze to speak of. Visions of baby powder danced in my head as I longed for a stiff upstate North Dakota gale to somehow find me and whisk the sweat from my brow before it headed south to take care of more pressing issues.

When I returned to Rapid City, I dropped my suits off at the dry cleaners and I think I saw the people who work there out by the dumpster beating my suits with a dead carp to freshen them up a bit. I think I’ll wear culottes and a tube top if I have to go to Japan next year.

I’ve got the knees for it, but I might have to trim my shoulder hair to a respectable length.

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