Going home usually requires a little bit of elbow grease.  My Dad keeps a pretty clean house overall.  Dishes are usually clean, or at least in the dishwasher, the floors are clean, their are usually few cloths in the hamper, and he does get a little bit of help in making sure the floors are mopped and vacuumed once a month or so.  But usually there is something that needs to be done - but the dishes from the sink in the dishwasher, wash some of the bedding, scrub some pots, dust something.

Nothing out of the ordinary.

I was doing some of those mundane chores this last weekend.  I cleaned off some of the things off the drier.  I made supper.  I was cleaning some of the dishes out of the sink.

A reached over, grabbed the clasp on the dishwasher, opened it slightly, and darn near fainted.

Gagged would probably be the more correct term.

I quickly shut the dishwasher and ran for a corner of the kitchen where I could either get a little fresh air, or quietly die from the fumes that I was sure was eating at my stomach lining.

“What’s wrong with you?” My Dad asked as he shouted over my dry heaves.

“There is something in the dishwasher that doesn’t smell to good.” I said.

“I rinsed everything I put in there.” Stated Dad flatly.

I walked back over to the dishwasher, at least prepared this time and slowly opened it, half expecting to see a dead skunk carass, rinsed perhaps, but decomposing none-the-less.

The smell was definately still there.  Although now it was more like rotten eggs.  But Dad was right too - everything looked thoughly rinsed.  Until I turned over those small tins from the poached egg pan…and saw the nasty remnants of a newly growing egg staring back at me.

“Did you rinse those poached egg tins Dad?”

“I forgot to grease them, the big chunks of egg wouldn’t come off.  It can’t smell that bad.”  He said angrily as he walked into the kitchen.

The angry look of a man that was being doubted changed to one of unpleasant surprise, followed by disgust, followed quickly by embarrassed understanding…

“You know, it is a nice night for a ride around the block.” He said as he made a bee line for the door.  “Lets get out of here.”

I quickly put the tins to soak in some hot soapy water, opened some windows, and was out in the car with Dad as we pulled out of the drive way.

“That really didn’t smell so bad” Dad said, then he followe up with  “But I sure am glad you found them and not me…”

I still can’t get a haircut without it taking me back to Honek’s Barbershop in Mahnomen.

There were a couple of different options for a haircut in my hometown.  A couple of beauty salons, one other barber, but the hub of action was always Frank Honek’s barbershop.

Up until the age of about eight, the standard practice for a haircut was my grandmothers kitchen.  A bowl and her clippers were all that was needed to get us four boys propperly shorn.  She retired the shears when she moved into her appartment in the retirement complex.

That left Honek’s barbershop as the next logical move.

By the time Grandma retired, Frank was already getting pretty old.  He walked with a bit of a stoop.  But he still weilded his shears like a pro.  The old electric shears shone from use - many heads of hair were cut with that shears.  The sciccors were the old fashioned kind, with the little loop on the side for expert precision.

On a rainy day, the farmers would congregate on the hard wooden benches that ran along the north wall.  Frank would keep busy at the front barber chair, an old fashioned one with a foot pump to raise and lower and old leather that smelled of hair tonic and old men.

Frank was always polite and asked how you wanted your hair cut, but he never really cared - he had one specialty - short.  Our standard response when Frank asked how we wanted it cut was “Just like Dad’s, without the hole in the middle.”

When the benches were full with patrons, the talk would be of farming, the weather, local politics, and the local gossip.

When the benches were empty and it was just Frank and a little farm kid, things were a little different.  Those hair cuts used to take a lot longer.

All of sudden, Frank would take us back in time in that baberchair.  He told us stories of storming the beaches at Normandy - good use for a barber on those ships, if men were going to die, they wanted a good haircut when they did.

He talked of the times in my hometown’s glory days.  When dreams were big.  When the town was going to be something.  The big US Centenniel celebration back in ‘76.

He talked of growing up back when our town was literally a frontier town.  Of going off to barber school.  Of settling down.

Frank was still cutting hair into in eighties.  It was a little tougher to go then - most of my family was encouraging me to find a different baber.  Frank was having some health problems, and sometimes, unexpectantly jerked his hand.

I won’t forget the day when I was sixteen and was sitting in Frank’s chair.  Frank was retelling the story about D-Day invasion when I felt a pain behind my ear.  Frank backed away from me with a look on his face that was a combination of fear and surprise.  He calmly said “You had a pimple behind that ear didn’t you?”

“Yep, I had a pimple back there Frank, you must have just nipped it off.” I lied.

“Good deal, let me grab a bandage.”  Frank said.

When I got home, Mom asked, “What is that big bandage doing behind your ear?”

“Frank hit a pimple” I lied.

“Let me see that.” Mom said, then shook her head with a laugh.

Frank didn’t cut hair much longer after that, time took its toll.  But he was cutting hair up until the last of his days on this earth.

I still miss his haircuts.  I still miss his stories.  I still miss the unmistakable smell of tonic and old men that hung in the air.

The only part of me that is happy is the imaginary pimples behind my ears.

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today in the summer of 1988)

I’ve seen three lakes in Iowa.  Clear Lake, Lake Okoboji, and Saylorville Lake.  The  “big three” in a manner of speaking.

I assume that most Iowa fishermen, fisherpeople, for you nongender types, have a wet line in al least one of those lakes.

These Iowa fisherpeople never cease to amaze me.  I grew up in Minnesota.  Within 100 miles there were more lakes than there are corn cribs in all of Boone County- maybe even Boone and Story County combined.

There were never this many fisherpeople around Minnesota.

And Iowans take their fishing seriously.  You get your new graphite pole. You get your new boat.  You get your lures, spinners, spoons and such.  (That’s tackle for us non-fisherpeople.)  You get your 12 –volt, electronic trolling motor.  And you can’t forget to get your high-tech, electronic fish-finder radar and depth finder.

When you get all that stuff together, the Iowa fisherperson is ready to go. (Speaking of trolling motors, do you know the best thing to use if you want to go trolling on one of those pristine northern-Minnesota Lakes?  A snowmobile.)

When all of these Iowa fisherpeople hear that I am from Minnesota, they say,” You must be quite a fisherman, then.”

I smile and say, oh, once in a while.”

It’s tough to explain my love of fishing.

My grandfather and grandmother used to drive up to Mahnomen from South Saint Paul for a week or two every summer while I was growing up.  They parked their little camper out at the Pinehurst resort.

Pinehurst was conveniently located between North Twin Lake and South Twin Lake.  Back then the resort consisted of a few cabins, several rows of campsites and a huge old lodge.

Grandpa would come over to our farm and we would go dig some worms.  No exotic bait for Grandpa.  Just angleworms and a kernel of corn or two.

Grandpa delegated authority, so he actually let me dig his worms for him.  Imagine that.  He’d stand by and keep a close eye on the dirt clods to make sure that I didn’t miss any elusive worms.

I got to dig in the dirt, play with worms, spend time with Grandpa and sometimes he even paid me for it too.  It was a pretty smooth deal for me.

Then he’d take me down to the resort and he’d buy me a treat and then it was down to the lake for some serious fishing.  No fish-finders.  No graphite rods.  No trolling motors.  Just a couple of bamboo poles and an old Evinrude.

“Grandpa, put a worm on my hook.”

“Grandpa, listen to the noise the boat makes when I stomp on the floor.”

“Grandpa, listen to the noise the boat makes when I stomp on the floor.”

“Grandpa, look at that speed-boat.  Can we go that fast?”

“Grandpa, what happened to my worm?”

“Grandpa, can I try your pole, the fish don’t like mine.”

“Grandpa, I dropped my pole in the water.”

“Grandpa, why aren’t the fish biting?”

“I sure like to go fishing with you, Grandpa.”

I sure did.  In fact fishing never has been as good as going fishing with Grandpa.  Maybe nobody else ever had his patience.

All those teeny-tiny sunfish that I caught and let Grandpa scale and clean sure tasted good after a long afternoon of fishing.  It’s too bad we never caught more.

Since then i’ve grown up and older and I haven’t been fishing in at least six or seven years.

Grandpa’s been getting older too.  Sunday he celebrates his 75th birthday.  The whole family’s going to be there to make it a happy birthday.  I’m going too.

Who knows, maybe we’ll go fishing.

(The following is written by Mr. Mark Johnson, a very good friend of mine, a very good writer, and a pretty perceptive.  Mr. Johnson is a country boy as well and resides in South Dakota with his wife and two sons)

My wife and I have sheep.  We don’t have the space for cattle or the facilities for pigs. Since we are lovers of animals and gluttons for punishment, we have sheep. So somewhere in the racket of our daily routine, we make time for some shepardly husbandry. Although I will admit, they are strange animals that do strange things.

Any time the flock senses we are outdoors, to them, it must be feeding time. They call, begging us with their “baaaah!” Much to their displeasure they are only fed once daily, making it a time of frenzy. When we aren’t going to get the mail or just walking across the yard, and the woolen creatures actually get their way, the frenzy is on!

It starts when they see us go towards the hay. They charge towards us with reckless abandon. And of course, if one of them jumps whether it is something or nothing the thirty-nine followers all jump over the same spot. It is a race to see who can get to the bunk first. The sheep race each other, they also race me. A few rude old gussies will stand in the bunk, while others will lag behind. But they all know it is time.

It is all fun and games when the dry old hay is being fed. It is filling, but not satisfying. When the shake of a pail of corn occurs, it stokes the emotion of the flock. Some show rage, others enlightened euphoria. Make no mistake about it the corn is king! I wade through, struggling to get the grain to the feed trough, but I am always met by knee-high wooly hit men, struggling to be the first to get their sweet fix.

So why would I chronicle the life and times of a hungry old sheep? Because I had a realization that sheep and mankind really aren’t that different.

People are never happy. We want what we don’t have. We often follow, even though we’re not always sure who we’re following or what obstacles we will be jumping over. We push to get what we want. And we don’t care who is in our way.

I’m postponing my vacation.

But I’d like to put it in perspective.

I feel bad about postponing it 10 days.  I’m tired.  I need a little R and R.

The poor people in Iowa need a little R and R too.

The poor people in Iowa need a little comfort.

The poor people in Iowa, who have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their memories and momento’s, need a little peace.

Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers this weekend.

June 13, 2008

St. Louis Park, MN - Negotiations are continuing well into the night after a last minute flaw in schedules today lead to a potential postponement of a Minnesota man’s vacation plans.

“It was a simple oversight.  My back up had a work conference this coming week and we never double checked the schedules.  Really should have been something that I double checked.”  Stated the man whose vacation plans are in doubt.

Negotiations are continuing well into the night as the partisan’s try to settle the differences.

“We have no problem with him taking vacation, and we are sure that nothing will go wrong that would cause us to call him on his phone.” Stated the pro vacation side as ominous music played in the background

“Lets see, enjoy vacation…not enjoy vacation…enjoy vacation…not enjoy vacation…” Stated the proponents of postponing the vacation 10 days.

In the end, it is believed that commonsense will prevail.

“As long as I get my vacation, that is the important thing” stated the man in question as he gnawed on a cheeseburger in a local resturant.

“As long as I get my vacation…soon…that is the important thing” stated the man in question.

A clearly visibly shaken spokes person for the state of North Dakota released this statement:

“While we respect the rights of this anonymous traveler, we are a little disappointed ya know, I mean, uffda, ve vere really kinda looking forward to the bugger crossing dat border.  But hey, vat can ya do.”

A spokesman for National Geographic said that a recent article that displayed North Dakota as a barren wasteland unsuitable for human habitation, while potentially true, was not to blame to for this postponement.

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  This column originally appeared in the The Boone Today on February 24, 1988)

It’s kind of sad.

As I drive around the countryside I see all these empty dairy barns.  Their empty silos reach to the sky and only sparrows make their home in the structures.   Community creameries have disappeared along with all those cows.

Years ago, nearly every town had a creamery or diary.

Most farmers brought their milk or cream to town in ten-or eight-gallon cans.  At home we had a giant cooler that had water in the bottom and a pump that sprayed the cold water over the cans.  The cooler looked more like a giant bank vault than a milk cooler.

Unfortunately, the lids on the cans did not seal tightly and water was able to leak into the cans and dilute the milk.

To remedy the problem we simply placed shower caps over the tops of the cans. If you opened up the big double doors of the cooler, the cans looked like squat little old ladies taking a shower.

Everyday or so, dad would load the full cans into the back of the old Jeep pickup and haul them to town.  As a youngster it was always a treat to go with dad to “haul milk.”  We’d drive to town, wait in line if necessary, back up to the creamery and unload the milk.

Dad would unload the cans onto a conveyor and they would roll away on the rollers into the gloom of the creamery.  The creamery fascinated me.  There was always a great deal of clanging and banging coming form inside and the air that came out of tiny door where the cans went smelled hot and steamy.

Once in a while we would get to go inside where Dad would buy butter or cheese or some farm supplies.  The inside of the creamery was well lit and everything that wasn’t stainless steel was painted white.  Giant hoses snaked across the floor and steam seemed to be escaping from everywhere.

A giant of a man would be at work pulling cans off the conveyor, he would bop the tops off the cans with a rubber pallet and then dump the milk where it would be weighed, tested.  He would place the cans on another conveyor where jets of steam and hot cleaned them for the next filling.

The machines and the cans made a great deal of noise.  It was all very fascinating and a bit scary for a little farm boy.

There was a window in the room at the front of the creamery where you see into the rear where giant tanks stretched to the ceiling and trucks backed in on a ramp to drain their loads of milk.

 Then someone decided that milk stored and hauled in cans was not the most sanitary way to handle milk.  I suppose they were right, but it sounded the death knell for many small dairy farmers and creameries.

Farmers who were near to retirement quit milking rather buy the expensive new equipment.  Creameries that had handled canned milk for decades closed or consolidated with larger creameries.

The creamery at home was closed and used for storage for a few years. 

Then the grain cooperative purchased the property.  The old brick creamery with its vine-covered walls was torn down to make room for a driveway to the co-op’s new 100,000 bushel grain elevator.

Dad’s milk now was hauled by a big tanker to a dumping station where an even larger truck picks it up and hauls it to Fargo.

At harvest time when truck after truck grinds up the drive to the elevator the gravel turns to dust.  The hot August wind blows it away and it is only then that you can see any remnant of the Mahnomen’s Farmers’ Cooperative Creamery.

It started out a nice early summer day. Blue sky. Warm. The kind of day that made you glad you were alive. And a Saturday no less.

I was pretty young, but you remember these days.  They were made for a little work, and a little play.

For a little farm hand, sometimes that meant exploring the cool recesses of the woods or machinery next to the slough.  Or sometimes just farming with the Ertle farm toys.

But this afternoon, right after lunch, the ground started to rumble. 

It was coming out the northwest.  Something unusual, like a herd of cows stampeding to the west.  The house shook.  The rest of the family came out of the house - disrupting the last few minutes of lunch.

And then it lumbered overhead.

We were buzzed by a B-52 bomber.

This was the biggest, most immense thing that I had ever seen in my life.  It shadowed the entire ground.  It came it low, it came in slow, and it made the ground quake beneath it.

As a kid, I loved it.

Our herd of cattle didn’t.

My dad and older brothers quickly bolted for the pasture in the pick up, if the cows were making a run for it, better to be in front of them.

Our neighbors herd of cattle two miles and a river away liked it even less.

Our cows stayed in.  Theirs did not.

Several hours later, we started having cows come into our yard and our pasture, by ones and twos.  Still shaken by the massive bird that flew over them.

Our neighbors borrowed a stock trailer and it didn’t take too long for my dad and our neighbor to sort out the stock.  By milking time, all cows were where they were suppose to be.

Turns out, our neighbors nephew was an airforce pilot flying in an airshow less about 80 miles away…70 miles as the crow…er…airplane flies.

He thought he was surprise his relatives.

Boy did he.

And about one hundred normally mild mannered Holsteins to boot.

June 12, 2008

Caracas, Venezuela - As the world continues to investigate high prices for petroleum, including potential tampering by oil rich nations, Iran and Venezuela has condemn the United States, and has taken the unusual step of both condemning and supporting a man planning on taking a vacation next week.

The Minnesota man is planning a vacation that will take him as far west as Miles City, Montana.  Most people, especially the state of North Dakota, are supporting his trip.

Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez released the following statement:

“We condemn the materialistic, capitalist dogs in America who refuse to give us money to spread our socialistic, inefficient economic society around the globe with aid.  We also condemn the commodity trading scum who is planning on traveling through Minnesota and throughout North Dakota next week, even though we support this effort and wish him the best of luck in his travels on $5 gasoline.  May he die a thousands deaths and travel safely.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was even more blunt in their assessment of the situation:

“We condemn this American who is planning his vacation.  We condemn his country and all it stands for.  We condemn the way of life that they live.  We condemn that society that lives on freedom and hope.  We condemn everything that we don’t believe is true.  But we wish to thank the infidel for willingly driving the 500 miles one way and wish him a Dairy Queen may great him at his destination.”

Diplomatic tensions, while tense, should not interfere with the mans planned vacation.  The only exception being Canada which was less then happy by the news that the man would not be crossing the border.

“We got everything they got in North Dakota eh.  Flat land eh? Check eh.  Farms eh? Check eh.  Red River Valley eh?  Check eh.  Oh sure eh, we don’t got some of the sites, but its not so bad eh.  We got putain and toques.  Plus our moneys more colorful eh.  North Dakota ain’t even got no colorful money eh.”  Stated the Canadian consulate.

The official reply from the soon to be vacationing was equally clear:  “As our dear friends to the north would say, take off you hosers.”

June 11, 2008

Minneapolis, MN - As a local man prepares for his trip northwest through Minnesota and across North Dakota, composers, musicians, and fans are lobbying for their creation, or at least favorite travel song to be listed as his “vacation theme song.”

“Some of the songs are quite obvious,” Stated the traveler. “On the Road Again, Ramblin Man, Roll on Down the Road, Lonesome Road Blues, Everyday Is a Winding Road - they are all classics.  Creedence Clearwater Revival, Willy Nelson, Sheryl Crow, Allman Brothers - they are classics too.”

Minnesota Native and folk singer Bob Dylan has as many as 21 songs in the running and rumors abound that he is composing at least five more to be considered in contention before Friday.

The songs range from the very new by such artists such as 3 Doors Down and Miranda Lambert to the classics by Led Zeppelin and Roger Miller.

“Its a tough decision, really,” stated the traveler.  “Though offering to mow my yard or clean my gutters is nice - throwing rocks at my windows at 3 o’clock in the morning is unacceptable - and I may or may not be directing my comments towards specific bands (Foghat, Rolling Stones).”

But luckily there is help.  The Federal Highway Administration keeps a full list of all “Road Songs” on record to help travelers.  Located online at: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/infrastructure/roadsong.htm to ensure that all songwriters and musical acts get a fair shake in the competitive world of vacation songs.

In the end, who is leading?  Rumor has it Dierks Bentley’s song “Free and Easy Down the Road I Go” and the Beach Boys Classic “I Get Around” are in top contention.

“Though I’ve only made it through the ‘B’ section” stated the travelor.