London is a great city.

 Spent the last five hours walking around Hyde and Kensington Parks - the monuments, the memorials, the history, the wild life, and some pretty good people watching.

The Prince Albert Momument was a highlight - compared to most of the other sites, which are rather sober (bricks, oblisks, etc), the Prince Albert has a gilded roof, a gilded statue of the Prince himself, and much ornation. 

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this momument specifically was the protest directly outside of Kensington Park between the statue and Prince Albert Hall.  There was protest and counter protests over China and its treatment of Tibet.  There were some of the protesters sitting on the steps of the memorial. 

A little back ground on the Prince Albert Memorial.  Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, ruled over the time in history when Great Britian was at it’s peak.  Large swaths of Africa and Asia were under their rule.  So on each corner of this momument, it shows people from each continent bowed down - for “The America’s” - it is a bison, some natives, and what looks like a disgrunted colonist.  For Africa, a camel and various African peoples with special focus on Egypt.  For Europe, it is a cow and the princes and princess of the old world.  For Asia - an elephant with people representing the different cultures of Asia.

 Directly under this statue that showed the Asian culture bowed down before the might of the British Empire, the protesters rested and one lone young child waved his Tibeten flag.

That is irony.

After walking for five hours, a good beverage or two at a local pub and slow roasted lamb was just the ticket.  The French waitress was a bonus too.

I made it.  Safe, sound, in one piece.  Flight landed early, the London train system is fantastic.  I’m checked in and ready for a little nap and a little breakfast…well….I guess here it is now a late afternoon snack.

Maybe I’ll just nap and grab a pint and a bit to eat for supper…

The flight was good.

You would think flying at 30,000 feet in an airplane jammed with 200 people, there wouldn’t be much to see.  I was surprised to look up from my reading about three hours into the flight and look out my window.  The moon, not quite full anymore, was shining directly onto the wing and dancing off the clouds below us.  The shine and luster of that moon and the brightness of the stars made that moment seem surreal.  I shut off my reading light.  I shut off the TV moniter in front of me.  I looked at the wonder of sky and thought about the wonder of flight.

Regardless how much I fly or how much I travel, the magic, the miracle of the flight never seems to get lost.

Slept peacefully.

Arrived in London.  The couple sitting next to me were telling me about the horrors of Heathrow Airport.  You go from the plane, to the tarmac, to a waiting bus to take you to the terminal.  As they were telling me about this, I will admit, I was fearful - airports I’ve traveled through usually have a smoky, seedy underside to them anyway - a lot of glitz and glamor, but a fair amount of smells, sights, and otherwise disgusting things as well.

As soon as I stepped onto the waiting stairway leading down the plane - the first smell hit me.  It smelled just liked fresh cut alfalfa.  It was like I was transported back to the fields of northern Minnesota.   Heathrow isn’t that bad - as a matter of fact, it is now high on my list of favorite airports. 

We’ll see if I’m still singing that tune when I fly out next week…

The tractors were going early, slowly moving across the good earth.

In one field, a tractor was digging up the earth.  Ripping up the left over stalks and stubble from last fall.  Ripping up the early growth of the volunteer crop from last year.  Exposing the rich black earth to the bright morning sunshine.

In the next field, another tractor was planting row upon row of seeds into the good earth. Quickly, but skillfully, the planter dropped a seed into the ground, even spaced apart, and carefully patting the ground down after the seed was safely into the ground.

Patting down the soil as it went, trying to safe guard the seed to prevent the wild wind of the great plains from blowing it away into the fencelines and ditches. 

Patting it down so that the ground would conserve the precious moisture that the little seed will need to sprout and grow. 

Patting down the hopes and dreams of the farmer that will count on that little seed to feed, cloth, and house its family when he sold his crop. 
Patting down the hopes and dreams of the industry that counted on that seed to produce a bountiful crop so that the community would prosper as the farmer used that money to restock his supplies and provide for his family.

Patting down the hopes and dreams of the elevators and processors that were counting on a good crop so that they could move the grain to people that needed it.  The millers, the feed mixers, the exporters.

Patting down the hopes and dreams of the people that would use the toil of the land.  The local farmer, feeding his dairy cows, pigs, beef or chickens.  The man feeding his steers in Colorado or Texas.  The chicken producer in North Carolina, or Ohio.  The baker using the flour to make his bread.

Patting down the hopes and the dreams of the people in the distant land that are counting on that little seed to provide their nutrients, hoping that little seed will help them make it through until the rains come again, until the political strife in their home country is over.  Hold them over until the good earth will yield its bounty for them.

A lot is riding on that tractor guiding through the field, slowly planting the seeds into the good earth.

Who would have thought?

I still remember the trip to Fargo in elementary as I tagged along on my older brothers doctor appointment so that I could have the thrill of riding the escalator at the JC Penney store at West Acres Mall.  That was fun, thrilling, and memorable.

Who could have thought that I would ever be waiting for a plane to take me to London.

I’m fairly widely traveled.  France. Italy. Switzerland. Malaysia. Korea. At least 25 of the 50 states. But there is still something a little strange, a little exciting, and a little scary about the process.

This is a nine hour flight, over the frigid North Atlantic.  The historian in me remembers how almost no one survives the frigid cold waters.  The realist in me realizes that if I meet the cold water, I won’t be alive to feel it.  The rationalist in me realizes that the chances of anything happening is slim to none.

But the fear is there none-the-less.

But so too the excitment.  London - the Tower of London, Trafalger Square, Big Ben, Parliment, World War II war museum and Churchill Museum.  The places that defined our modern world, even here in the new one.

But the old fears rush in again too - I’m just a naive dairly farmers son from Northern Minnesota.  Still more at home with the trees and prairies then the people of the great cities of the world.

But maybe that serves me well too.  Sometimes, we judge things on what we know - London is great, but nothing compared to back (LA, Chicago, New York, Atlanta).  But for someone from a town of 1200 people, the excitment, the sense of newness - even in a city that is thousands of years old - is still there.  The sense of wonder, of trust, of naivette, serves a traveler well.  Are the people rude?  Not if you are genuinely interested in them.  Are the sights better on TV or in a book?  Not if you take in the sounds, the smell, the people and the area around you.

They will be calling my flight soon…the adventure begins…

Cows are a lot like people.  Ninety percent of them, ninety percent of the time are humble, docile creatures that want to do what is right and move along to get along.  They are happy and content as long as they are well fed, well watered, and are milked twice a day.

Scratch that milking part for people and it is almost identical.  But you do have to watch out for that ten percent, ten percent of the time.

It was about this time of the year when we were finishing up with calving.  The Holstein cow is generally seen as a pretty easy cow to handle in labor.  A good cow judge will tell you it is the natural heredity due to the slope between the hooks and the pins.  In laymens terms - generally, the Holstein is big, the birth canal is big, and it is sloped just right so that the calf just slides right on out.

Regardless how easy or how hard the calf came out, you generally wanted the cow in the barn and out of the elements.  It was better for the mother cow and better for the calf.

The problem is, a cow soon to give birth is sometimes less then a docile creature.  Their natural instinct is to find an area far away from everyone and anything else and give birth - in short, she likes her privacy.  I guess another thing that we have in common.

I remember one memorable spring, about this time of year, when we were trying to get a cow into the barn that was only days away from giving birth.  I was about ten at the time and was helping two of my older brothers get the cow in.

My job was simple.  There was only two ways for the cow to go, the big gap to the north of the barn, or a narrow passage to the south between two old piles of manure left over from winter.  My two older brothers would slowly chase her towards the barn door from the north and all I had to do was gaurd that narrow pass.

It worked pretty well.  They were slowly working her towards the barn where the rest of the cows were patiently waiting to be milked.

Then she bolted.

She was headed right for me in that pregnant cow kind of run.  Two thousand pounds of beef on the hoof, late in pregnacy and mad as all get out.  Thoughts of history ran through my head - the Battle of Bunker Hill, The Battle of Little Big Horn, The Battle of North Africa - the odds were against me, but I steeled my nerves, braced myself, and was tempted to yell out, “I WILL NOT YIELD THIS PASS!”

And just like that she turned on a dime.  The victory was mine!

I remember thinking at the time the skill and grace that this bovine showed as they did a four-legged piroutte about three feet in front of me.  It was like a highly coordinated and coreographed four hoofed hamburger ballet as she quickly turned her tail at me.

This feeling of self satisfaction and respect for her quick footedness faded quickly as I noticed her rearing up, her back legs mule kick style and aim directly for my chest.

At that moment, as her two hind legs reared up aiming directly for my chest, I remember thinking: “Huh.”

With a thud, her hind hoofs hit my chest and I went flying.

Everything went black.

I remember waking up a few minutes later, flat on my back in the dust in that narrow pass, about five feet from where I had been standing.  I thought to myself, “huh.”

I slowly opened my eyes and stared into the faces of my two older brothers staring back at me, one on each side of me.

My brother Jaime said in a shaky voice, “Are you OK?”

I wiggled my toes - they moved.  I wiggled my fingers - they moved.  I turned my head and coughed - I couldn’t feel any blood come up.  I look up at them, still trying to catch my breath and managed to wheeze out “yeah…yeah, I think so…”

To which my brother John replied, “You managed to let her get by you, ya know.”

You just gotta look out for that ten percent, ten percent of the time…

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s)

To most people, northern Minnesota and North Dakota seem to be mystic and mythological kingdoms, located in the far-off-snow-covered north. 

They are places that you read about but nobody you know has ever been there and anyone who goes there seems to never return.

As a reporter, it is my job to dispel the myths of the northland.  I grew up and was educated there and now I have shed my furs, buffalo hides and stocking cap and ventured southward to teach the huddled masses of people who huddle in miserable ignorance of the lore of the lands called Minnesota and North Dakota.

Following are some of the most frequently-asked questions about Minnesota and North Dakota and the answers to those questions.

Q:  Isn’t Fargo pretty close to the North Pole?
A:  No. Fargo is at least as far from the North Pole as West Bend is from Algona.  So, it all depends on your definition of “close.”

Q:  Is it true that northern Minnesota has winter all year long?
A:  No. Northern Minnesota hosts one of the most beautiful summer seasons in the entire United States.  In fact, most natives plan a picnic for that day.

Q:  How do North Dakota towns promote tourism when there is nothing to see?
A:  They use slogans.  Mott and Grand Forks, N.D., are prime examples. “Mott- the spot that God forgot and left to rot,” and “Grand Forks- birthplace of the leisure suit.”

Q:  Does Minnesota really have 10,000 lakes?
A:  No.  It has more, but 13,317 lakes is a pretty dumb slogan for a license plate, even by North Dakota standards.

Q:  Was anyone famous ever born in North Dakota?
A:  Yes. Lawrence Welk was born there.
A:   No, Lawrence Welk was born there.

Q:  Are snowshoeing and cross country skiing required courses in all high schools in North Dakota and Minnesota?
A:  No, but ice-fishing is a recommended college preparation course.

Q:  Is Minnesota a good place to pick-up girls?
A:  Yes!  In fact, Detroit Lakes, Minn., was rated the best place in the United States to pick-up girls on July 4th by both Penthouse and Playboy magazines.  (No kidding! and I don’t read them.)

Q:  Why are there so many pine forests in northern Minnesota?
A:  Early pioneers tried asparagus but it caught the dreaded Northern Minnesota Asparagus Blight causing the Great Minnesota Asparagus Famine of 1847.  From then on pine trees were planted.

Q:  Why doesn’t North Dakota have pine forests?
A:  The early pioneers of that state gave up after the Great Zucchini Famine of 1852.

Q:  Are Minnesotans proud to be home state of the rock-star Prince?
A:  Prince makes me proud to be an Iowan.

I hope all of you loyal Minnesotans and North Dakotans reading this don’t take offense at what I’ve written.  It is all I fun. (But the truth hurts, doesn’t it?)  I’m proud to have lived in North Dakota and Minnesota.

Still one has to wonder about what kind of people live in a state where the state bird is… the loon?

I’m a sinner.  I drink to much.  I gossip.  I waste time.  I’m not always kind to my friends and family, let alone strangers.  I don’t always make the right decisions.  Often times, I am blinded with my own fear, greed, or conceit.

In short, when Moses asks the Lord to pardon the wickedness and sins of his stiff-necked people, he might have been pointing at me.

The Lord gives us hope, and Paul gives us good advice.  “Rejoice!  Mend your ways, encourage one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

But perhaps John says it even better in his gospel, “God did not send His Son into the world to condemn it, but that the world might be saved through Him.”

We are a stiff-necked people.  We often don’t see our sins, we don’t see how we hurt each other with our words, our actions, or through omission.

We must humble ourselves.  We must bend these stiff necks of ours, we must break our egos, we must break our hearts of stone and open our hearts and minds.

How hard it is to live a life in fear.  Fear of falling behind materially.  Fear of shame through doing or being something outside of the soceital norms.  Fear of leaving our sinful nature behind.  We know it so well…it is fear that sometimes prevents us from shedding it.

But think of how easy it would be to live the prescription that Paul lays out for us. Mend our ways - turn away from sin, turn away from temptation.  Encourage one another - a kind word, a remembered birthday, living our lives for those around us.  Live in peace - the troubles of the world are many, but the Lord will provide when we work hard and look out for those around us.

May we take these words to heart this Trinity Sunday.  And may we know the blessings Paul wished for us: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.”

“You are not wearing that shirt to school today.” Scolded my older brother Tom.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because you are going to Mass today and a college sweatshirt is not appropriate.”  Tom said.

Older brothers, especially home from college, could sure be bossy.

But upstairs I went, to change into a button shirt.  All the other kids would be wearing t-shirts and jerseys, but noooooooo, not me.  I had to wear a stuffy button shirt.

But it was the right thing to do, and while I hate to admit it…my older brother was right.  It might seem like a small thing, but it sure made me think about the service and what it meant.

Twenty-five years later, it should come as no surprise that today, we are celebrating my brother Tom’s ordination to be a deacon in the Catholic Church.  A deacon after is a servant.  In the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles had to focus on preaching the word, spreading the gospel.  They needed faith filled men, well respected to feed the poor, and serve the people.

That discribes my brother darn near perfectly.

Tom is the oldest of us five kids.  Ultimately, when Mom or Dad weren’t around, we were to listen to Tom.  I was pretty young when Tom went off to college, so the memories are little fuzzy compared to my other brothers.

But I remember clearly when I was in high school.

Our mother got sick when I was a junior in high school.  Though Tom and his wife Mary (a real partnership might I add) lived in central Iowa, they made the eight hour trek pretty often to spend a little bit of time with Mom and make sure that things were going ok.

For my graduation, it was Tom and Mary, with the help of some aunts, that made sure that things were done properly, from the food to the decorations.  They were there to help and support my younger sister and I when we needed it through those tough times.  From driving the eight hours to make it to a parents day at college that they knew my parents couldn’t make it to due to Mom’s illness, to making sure that we took a little time at Christmas to enjoy the season by taking us to the Fargo Theater for one of their winter concerts.

If that isn’t being a servant, I don’t know what is.

I’m proud of my brother and his wife.  They are embarking on a very difficult, but worthy journey.  Serving the their parish, serving their fellow man, and serving our Lord.

I guess I better not wear a college sweatshirt to the ordination…

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  Following appeared in the Boone Today paper, September 9, 1987)

He lay shivering in his bed.  The 10 year-old boy was not even conscious of the chill in the air as he strained his ears to hear in the darkness.  It seemed as though he had been in bed for hours. As the room grew cold in the autumn night all he could hear was the wind rustling the bare branches of the tree outside his room.

Then, like a far-off whisper, he heard the sound he had waited so patiently for.  He sprang from his bed and raced to the window.  The sound was gone now.  He cocked his head and cupped his ear and he could hear it again, closer now.

The shriek of the train’s whistle wavered in the cold night air.  A shiver tumbled down the boy’s spine.  The whistle screamed again, much closer now, The boy could faintly hear the roaring of the engine as it screamed along the tracks.  He knew from the sound that the train would soon be in sight.  He climbed on a rickety chair by the window for a better view. 

Suddenly, there it was!  Like an explosion it roared out from between two hills and screamed out across the valley.  From the boy’s vantage pint at the window he could see sparks streaming from the smokestack as the long black locomotive roared across the plain.  “It had to be doing 90 tonight,” Bthe boy thought to himself.

He could see the silhouette of the engineer and the fireman in the cab.  He imagined the engineer, his hand on the throttle, staring grimly into the night as the darkened countryside flashed by.  “Got to make up time,” the engineer would say as the mighty fireman shoveled coal into the hungry boiler.  Their faces were both lit by an eerie red glow from the firebox

He saw the Pullman cars.  Some had their lights on.   Some of the windows were dark.  How could people sleep where there was an exciting train ride to enjoy.  The caboose slipped by and the train was gone across the valley.  Only a lonely wail remained.

The boy slipped down from the chair. He quietly closed the window.  His mother would have his hide if he didn’t.  He crawled into bed.

Minutes later his mother opened the door. She looked down at her sleeping son and noticed the room was chilly.  She checked the window.  It was closed.

She noticed that Jr. Casey Jones engineer’s cap on the boy’s head.  She gently removed it and kissed his cheek.

The surgery went well.

The laceration was deep, but not permenant.  A quick stitch job did the trick.  It was a quick seem right up the back.  How it happened was a bit of a guess on my part.  A little rough housing maybe?  My neices playing maybe a little too rough?  Maybe just a quick fall and a little too much pressure, one way or another, it was just a long, broken seem up and down the back.

None-the-less, my neices stuffed rabbit required attention from the skilled hands at the build a bear store that had sold it too her.  Just like that, likety-split, my neice’s stuffed rabbit, Twinkles, was healed, almost as good as new.

I will admit that I laughed a little at my neice as she hugged it good bye on that Saturday.  She is getting older, not the little baby or even the little girl that she seemed just days ago.  No, she is growing up.  So it did cause me to smile just a little more then I should when she squeezed Twinkles just a little more then I thought she should when she handed it to me to bring down to the cities.  We would only be gone a week…and after all, it was just a stuffed animal.

I humored her by carefully buckling Twinkles into the back seat of my car.  No quick stop would cause that darn rabbit to go flying and cause even more damage.

I was still smiling about it a little as I stepped out of my car into the mall parking lot.  Being a big, rough, gruff, bachelor, I wasn’t going to be seen walking into the mall with a stuffed rabbit under my arm, so I had a plastic bag handy - the rabbit would ride in style.

As I was going to place the darn rabbit into the bag, I held it up to my chest as I slipped the sack over it.  A wave of memories slipped along with it.  This rabbit was soft and comforting - not as comforting as my Winnie the Pooh bear, but comforting none-the-less.

As a kid, me and Pooh Bear could not be seperated.  I think Mom got him at Sears when she purchased our automatic dishwasher.  He wasn’t particularly soft and fluffy, but he suited this little farm boy just fine.

We went every where together.

When I got home from the mall, with Twinkles carefully belted into the back of my car, I went and pulled Pooh bear out of storage.  I never had too many toys of my own, being the last of four boys.  The few that I got, I have hung onto. 

Pooh bear hasn’t changed much.  He smells a little musty from the years of neglect.  He seems a little darker, maybe a little grimier then I remember - I guess years of being drug around the farm under the arm of a careless child will do that to you.

One thing that I noticed was the many seems that have been sew up on him over the years as well.  Occasionally, Pooh bear would require a little emergency surgery.  There was the massive chest wound that Mom carefully hand stitched.  There was the same familiar wound to the back that Grandma skillfully repaired.

At that moment, I wanted to tell my neice to cherish that darn rabbit.  Remember her folks who bought it.  Remember her uncle who hugged it in the mall parking lot.

With that, I gave Pooh Bear and quick hug, and put him back on the shelf - secure in the knowledge, that I knew where to find him when I needed him…