On Friday, August 8th, 2008, I became an uncle for the fifth time in my life.

You would think this would be something that you get used to, but it was as amazing an event as when the very first one was born.

I met young Parker for the first time just the other day while he still in the hostipal.  My brother Jaime and sister-in-law Michelle were clearly tired, but clearly also very, very happy.

Young Parker Henry is quite the kid.  Already 7 lbs, 8 ounces and a whopping 21 inches long - with extremely long toes - he seems destined for something great.

As my brother placed young Parker Henry into my arms a warm sense of peace hit me.  This fragile little guy was my nephew.  The hopes and fears of a generation were represented by this little guy.

In young Parker Henry was the promise of something very new, something very innocent. 

This was a life untouched by the bitter struggle of life.  This was a new life that had not tasted the bitterness of pain and loss.

Young Parker Henry also didn’t yet know the joys of love, of hope, of abiding faith.

Parker Henry has a lot to learn.

But in a sense, so do we.  How can a simple uncle ensure that young Parker Henry learn the lessons of life without the hurt and rejection? How can I help protect young Parker Henry from the pains of growing up?

The answer is simple.  Little Parker Henry is going to fall down and skin his knees.  He is going to know failure.  He is going to know rejection.  He is going to taste the bitter pills in life of loss.

But I can make sure that little Parker Henry always knows that he has an uncle that loves him and cares for him.  I can make sure that he knows that his parents, his other uncles and aunts knows that regardless of what happens and who he turns out to be - our love is unconditional.

As little Parker Henry squirmed in my arms and gurgled and gooed, I said a little prayer for him and said quietly, “Welcome into the world Parker Henry, you are loved.”

 (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 April, 1988)

Some people have all the luck.

My brother is a pretty luck guy.  Unfortunately for him, his luck is all bad.

Like last Sunday, when he was milking cows.  He bent over to take the milk machine off this cow and POW!

She kicked him.

Cows are supposed to be nice quiet animals with big brown eyes. They’re not supposed to be dangerous, and usually they aren’t.

You or I would have gotten a nice purple bruise on an arm or a leg, but not Jamie.  His face got in the way.

Now he has a broken nose.  “Id doesn’t hurd do mush unlesh you tousyh id,” he said.

A swollen red nose probably doesn’t do much for his looks.  He’s at that terrible, awkward age anyway.  You know the age I mean.  When you’re 14, you have just a few little zits, you are 6’4” tall, wear size 14 shoes, and have a 20” waist.

Cute kid, huh?

Actually it’s pretty surprising that he has lived as long as he has.  We figure if he’s lived to be 14, he’s got a pretty good shot at making it to adulthood now.

You see, this run-in with a cow’s foot isn’t the first…minor, accident he’s had.

About two years ago, he went skiing for the first time.  You see it coming, don’t you?  No, not his leg. His thumb.

He fell down, got his hand tangles in his ski pole and broke his thumb,

It took six weeks to heal.  Two days after the cast was off, he fell on the playground and broke the other thumb.

That’s Jaime’s luck.

That’s not to say that he has never broken his leg.  A few years ago he was complaining of severe pains in his leg, so my mother loaded him up in the car and took him to the clinic for his weekly X-rays.

The doctors said he had a hair-line fracture of the leg caused by. Get this.. Growing too fast.  Only Jaime could break his leg by growing too fast.  That’s sort of like tripping over the seam in the linoleum.  He’s done that on occasion too, I think.

He dislocated his shoulder by falling off a haystack, and he broke his wrist when a cow butted him with a horn.  Or maybe the cow dislocated his shoulder.  It’s so hard to keep his injuries straight.  There was also a problem with his ankle that I don’t remember much about.

Eating a meal with Jamie is usually a catastrophe rivaling the Jamestown flood or the San Francisco earthquake.  Every time he moves his long legs, he kicks a table-leg, shaking the whole table, spilling peas and corn and gravy.

When he unfolds his long arms to reach for something, he invariably tips over glasses of milk and water and upsets bowls of potatoes and meat.  This is not to say that eating is a problem foe him.

Early in the morning, he will eat several pieces of toast and a bowl cereal as a snack to hold him until breakfast.  Then at nine or so he will eat more toast, a box of cereal and a gallon of milk.  At 10:30 or so he’s hungry again.  The rest of the day is about the same.

All of this banging around doesn’t seem to have caused him any real problems.  He’s pretty well adjusted kid who watches television and plays junior high basketball just like the other kids his age.

As an athlete, what he lacks in coordination, he makes up for in size and strength.  I think he bench-presses calves.

But he does make these funny noises every once in a while.  For example, we’ll be playing cards and suddenly he will make his lips vibrate as if he is trying to imitate a tractor.  Or he will be working in the barn and he will start screaming, “La, la, la, nala, nala, na.”

‘What,” a bystander will ask, “are you doing?”

Then he will look at you with this incredible blank stare through his nearly opaque glasses and say, “Who, me?”  Then he will think about it a little more and say something like, “good echoes.”

Good echoes?

Good grief, I hope he lives long enough to grow out of this.
?

I get frustrated easily.

It seems we always have something to be frustrated about.  I remember when I was in second grade and was moved from the “advanced reading” section of my class to the “regular reading” section of my class.  I was ashamed.  I was embarrassed.  But I was also determined to do better.  In hindsight, it was one of the best things that happened to me.

When I was in high school, farming kept me away from a lot of things my senior year.  During most of my high school years I was on the track and field team, but my mother’s illness forced me to drop out the middle of my junior year - so instead I focused on other activities that fit my schedule better and managed to serve as the president of our local FFA Chapter, Band, National Honor Society, and the Speech team. 

When I was looking at graduate schools, the University of Illinois was an after thought - it was going to be NDSU for sure, or maybe Purdue.  But I went to look at Illinois as a favor to a friend and a professor.  Am I ever glad that I did for that experience was a life changing one and gave me more confidence then ever in my ability.

It seems sometimes when we get doors slammed in our faces, when the paths we take lead to dead ends, when we are dejected, humiliated, and sometimes flat out defeated - that is when we realize those moments are the crossroads that lead us on to better and bigger things.

Sometimes those moments are hard to see.  We pray and we pray asking for the big sign, the large miracle to point us in the right direction and are disappointed when it never comes.  We forget to look to the small things - the things in everyday life.

The Lord points us in the right direction.  Sometimes not with the big sign, sometimes not with the firm hand, sometimes, it is like Elijah on Mount Horeb and the Lord comes to us in the small whispering wind.  Sometimes, it is like the the apostles in the fishing boat in the storm and the Lord comes to us walking on the waters - in a way that his apostles never would have guessed.

It happens like that for us too.

At some of my lowest, loneliest points in my life, I have felt the loving hand of God reach down and give me support.  Sometimes it is in friend that provides comfort.  Sometimes it is a stranger that provides a kind word.  Sometimes it is that warm feeling that you get letting you know that everything is going to be already.

In the end, our God is alive and active among us, sometimes as a whisper in our hearts and sometimes walking across the chaos of our lives daring us to walk with him.

 (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 February 3, 1988)

Right here, right now, there fashion are trendsetters in Mid-Iowa.

A few years ago, the preppie look blossomed out of the Ivy-League colleges and universities of the East Coast.  Yuppies and preppies thrived on the newest fashions that gave them distinction as part of an elite financially powerful group.

Now Wall Street has crashed.  Cash is short.  Greed is out.  The Land Grant Look is in.

This austere, functional look was fostered in the famous agricultural land-grant universities of the nations such as Iowa State University, North Dakota State University and the University of Minnesota.  For 10 years the ag economy has been floundering.  While business colleges have been filled with rich preppies dressed in button-down collars and penny-loafers, financially strapped ag students have developed their own mode of dress.

Now as corporate giants turn to economic and cost cutting measures that farmers adopted years ago students and other fashion conscious folk are looking to see what the best-dressed farmers, agribusinessmen and ag students are wearing.

The basic uniform consists of a good pair of jeans, a button shirt and a pair of cowboy boots.

The jeans must be relatively new, and still bear much of the original blue dye.  Faded or badly worn jeans are O.K. for work in the barn, shop or during finals week, but are never acceptable in a social or formal setting.

A belt is a must.  A woven “cowboy belt “ is common as are wide cowhide belts.  For an added touch of personality have your name stamped on the back of your belt.

Buckles can also add character.  Horses, turquoise, cow, coins and names are popular.   My own favorite features a John Deere combine.

The shirt should have long sleeves.  In casual settings the shirt can be worn open at the collar and the sleeves can be rolled up. For more formal occasions the cuffs should be buttoned and a tie or sweater can be worn.  These accessories add a nice contrast to the jeans.

Silk shirts and shirts with eagles or bulls embroidered on them are no longer acceptable except at rodeos.  Pearl snaps instead of buttons on a shirt are O.K..

The boots are the foundation of the look.  Tony Lama boots are nice and wear well. But are a bit pricey for the frugal aggie.  Dingo and Acme brands are relatively inexpensive and complete the look.
The boots should bear stitching on the foot and on the shank (the part that covers the ankle and lower shin).  Shank stitching is not visible while walking because it is not acceptable to tuck your jeans into your boots.  However, it is important because a counterfeit land grant ensemble becomes painfully evident when the legs are casually crossed and the boot shank is visible.

As with the shirt, colored stitching or colored leather depicting eagles, bulls, or other animals on the boots is passe’.

The boots are equally at home in the office, classroom or barn. Their versatility makes them acceptable in a wide variety of fashion habitats.

A hat can be added to the look.  Here in Iowa, seed corn or herbicide caps are commonly worn.  In other states such as Nebraska, the Dakotas, Montana and Texas, a cowboy or “ten-gallon” hat may be worn. Snake-skin hat bands are in.  Indian-bead hat bands are out.

Clip this column out, take to your nearest clothier and outfit yourself in the Land Grant look Further information on the Land Grant Look can be found in fashion magazines such s Farm Journal, Wallace’s Farmer and Successful Farming.

Aside from the little farmstead on the windswept plains of northwestern Minnesota, the place that I have lived the longest is being torn down and a new home build in its place.

The four years that I spent at North Dakota State University represented some the happiest moments in my life, but also some of the lowest points.  Through it all, the FarmHouse Fraternity house at the corner of 12th Ave North and College Street was my home base.

For three and a half years, I called that rickety old house home.

And what a home it was.

The building was orginally a Copper Kettle resturant back in 1911.  FarmHouse moved in and called it home starting back in the late 1950’s.  By the time I lived there, it had gone through three or four major additions and numerous renovations.  Because FarmHouse is one of the only dry fraternities in the United States..it luckily was spared some of the abuse of some of the other fraternity houses on campus.

The house could hold about thirty-five guys.  On warm spring and fall days, you could walk up and find at least a handfull - and sometimes a majority - of the guys sitting on the front porch, visiting, laughing, and just having a good time.

Walking into the house was the foyer - a large message board was on one side, a stairways leading upstairs on the other.  Straight ahead was the living room - the formal room in the house.  Off the living room was the House Mother’s apartment - a place where lived our female advisor who could advise us on etiquette, social skills, women, and just life in general.

Under the living room was the kitchen and dining room.  FarmHouse gave you a good two square meals a day (you fixed your own breakfast) and for most of its history, the cook was the same - Gladys - and what a cook she was.  Most freshmen complained of the freshmen 15 - at NDSU FarmHouse it was the freshmen 50.  Her cooking was outstanding.

The balance of the house was hallways and bedrooms where people slept, studied, watched television, atempted to solve the worlds problems, or just talked.

Picturing the rooms in my mind, each one has a legend prescribed to it.  Each one has a personal memory.  The stories told.  The wrestling matches.  The pranks.  The hopes and dreams talked about.  The study sessions that ended with a pizza at one o’clock in the morning.  The bible studies.  The root beer socials.  The dances in the basement.

In the end, the memories, the house, the fraternity are not about the building - it is about the people, the friendships, the brotherhood that was born and developed there. 

It is about FarmHouse’s tradition of building the whole man.  The morals, the principles, the attributes of a good man.

The bricks and morter don’t matter…it is the heart that counts.

I don’t know of a child that enjoys going to the dentist.  Lets face it, an old guy (no offense to dentists - at six years old, anyone over the age of 20 is an old guy) taking sharp metal instruments and scrapping and poking your teeth.

Growing up, this was then followed by a torture known as “The Floride Treatment.”  “The Floride Treatment” was adminstered by an assistant and the conversation was usually the same:

“Looks like you need a little more help with your brushing.  You will work on that won’t you?”  Said the assistant as she strapped you down into the dental chair.

“Well young man, would you like your floride that tastes like the underside of a shoe that has a slight hint of strawberry, floride that tastes like rotten meat that has a slight hint of chocolate, or our new rotten egg vanilla floride?”  Smiled the assistant.

“Well Golly-Gee,” I’d respond “They all sound so scrumptious,” now chewing on the restraints, “but I guess I’ll go with strawberry.”  as the tears flowed down my checks. 

“Would it help if I confessed to something now?” I’d ask.

“No.” She would respond.

The one benefit to going to our dentist (aside from the part of him preventing our teeth from falling out of our mouths), was the dental clinic was located in a town about 35 miles away that also had the nearest Dairy Queen.

How they could get that chocolate to stick to the sides of the dipped cones was amazing to me.  Their blizzards were good - in hind sight, not as good as the homemade malts we would make on a warm summer night - but these were different, exotic, and thrilling to get once a year.

It was that special treat once a year that you knew you would get once the horrors of the dentists chair was behind you.

Recently I went back home.  One of my Dad’s favorite past times is “Going for a little ride.”

In this case, it was a little ride about thirty miles northeast of the hometown looking at a blossoming Amish community.

I gathered we were about four miles outside of the town were the dentist office…and the Dairy Queen was located.

“Gee Dad,” I said.  “How about we go to Dairy Queen?”

My Dad let out a little protest.  “The town has a festival this weekend and it will be swamped.  Those cones are too expensive.  We are a long way away yet.  Its getting late and we need to get home.  I don’t want to get out of car.  This is MY car and I’LL say where it goes.  We are not going to the Dairy Queen.”

“Great” I said, “It is a good thing I’m drivin’ and I’m buying, and we are only three miles away.”

“Hurrummp.”  Said Dad.

It was still there.  Right off the main highway.  The drive through was wide open and we were in and out in no time.  I got a cherry dipped cone.  Dad got a chocolate dipped cone.

It brought back a lot of memories.  Not about the dentist, but about the trips up to the dentist with Mom or Dad and my brothers and sisters.  Talking about life.  Talking about hopes.  Talking about dreams.

“Gee that wasn’t too bad.”  Said Dad.

You got that right thought smiling, and I didn’t even have to go to the dentist to get it.

 (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 Boone Today, November 18, 1987)

It’s not all that different. 

Working on a newspaper compared to working on a farm I mean.

All the while I was growing up, I wanted to be a farmer.  I never even thought of becoming a banker, a mechanic, a doctor and, certainly not a reporter.  Then as I began to get older, I realized I just didn’t have the patience to be a farmer.

Cows just didn’t cooperate with what I wanted to do.  Farm machinery broke down and we were always waiting for the weather.  “I wish it would rain so the corn would come up,” or “I wish it would stop raining so we could get the hay baled.”
So off I went to college.  I didn’t want to be a farmer any more ;I wanted to have an “agricultural career.”  Marketing, research, teaching extension work and banking were fields that were wide open in agriculture, the experts said.

Consequently, I became a reporter. I’m living life in the fast lane, rushing from deadline to deadline.  No need for patience in this job, right?

“I’m sorry, I thought our interview was at 11 not 10; can you wait for me?  I’ll be finished in a second.”

So I wait. I wait for interviews.  I wait for meetings to finish.  I wait for court cases and I wait for verdicts. The only thing I’m not waiting for anymore is cows and the weather.

This week the computer system went down.  You know about computers, don’t you?  They are those marvelous machines that make life easy for businessmen, bankers and reporters. 

The big one in Ames where Boone TODAY is put together and printed broke a drive shaft or something, so the little computer that I do most of my writing on was confiscated to try to jump start the big computer.

It didn’t work.

Deadline was approaching.

Suddenly, I felt like I was back home trying to fix a broken baler with storm clouds rolling in from the west. Some days I’d rather wait for the cows to come home.

Since you are reading this, you realize we fixed the baler enough to put out a paper before it started raining… or something like that.

So I had to be patient.  I didn’t escape my lack of patience by leaving the farm and becoming a news reporter.  I wait for computers and interviews no instead of cows and the weather.

Computers break down just like balers and combines.  It’s really no all that much different.

Except cows, unlike editors, don’t yell back at me.

Growing up, we weren’t poor, we just didn’t have much money.

There was a big garden for fresh vegetables in the summer and ample canning to get us through winter.  There were 30 head of dairy cows that were milked twice a day, so there was always a good supply of good milk.

The feedlot was filled with the youngstock, heifers and steers.  The heifers to replace the cows.  The steers for market or our dinner table.  In addition, there were usually a couple of pigs in the small pen in the lean-to.  There was never a shortage of meat.

Some how, some why, our folks managed to raise five kids and send them all off for higher education, not with a lot of money, but with a good sense of hard work, common sense, and values.

As I went out into the world, it always amazed me that regardless how bad things seemed or how dark the days, a ray of light would shine down.

When they were ready to kick me out of school for failure of payment, my brother gave me a $200 loan.  When I got a flat tire in the middle of the night on a desolate highway, the next car was a highway patrolman who held a flashlight for me.  When I needed comfort and advice, there was usually a friend around to grant me comfort and counsel.  When my soul was at its lowest, there was a word or comment that usually roused me out of my spiritual desert.

Call it fate.  Call it destiny.  Call it creative thinking or coming to conclusions.

Or call it one more example of the love of our Lord.

Now, I have heard two different interpretations of the story of the loaves and fishes in my life.  The wonderful words from the gospel where Jesus served over five thousand people with five loaves and two fish.

The first was that through the blessing of the bread the fish, he performed a miracle where the bread would not run out, like manna in the desert.  A holy and recognizable miracle.

The second is a little more practical.  This massive group of people wondered out into the middle of nowhere - most of them would have packed something to eat.  But it was their food, not to be shared.  All of a sudden, they see Jesus giving a blessing and handing out his food.  Out from their packs and clothing came the meals they had prepared for the journey to share with the people around them.  So in the end, those five loaves became twelve baskets of scraps.

The first explanation certianly sounds like something that an all knowing and all powerful God would do.  But the second is no less miraculous, no less difficult, for instead of simply snapping his fingers and multiplying loaves and fish, it required a conversion of heart.

As we live our lives, may we too feel this miracle of the loaves and fish.  May our hearts be opened.  May we give without regarding the cost.  May we be the wheat, the bread, the gift.  May God’s grace and love fill us and act as a beacon so that regardless of anguish, distress, persecution or all tribulation, we may never lose sight of the undeniable - and undying - love of our Lord.

(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 August, 1988)

A savage winter storm sent temperatures plummeting to –10 degrees and dumped up to 13 inches of snow on areas of Boone County yesterday, but weather officials say the worst may be on its way,

Snow began falling gently just after midnight, but by dawn the surprise blizzard was displaying it’s ferocity with winds gusts up to 58 miles per hour.  By noon Boone County Sheriff’s Department and the Iowa Highway Patrol had closed down U.S. Highways 30 and 169 and Iowa Highways 210 and 17.

Highway officials pulled sanding and plowing units off the Highways at 9 a.m..  City crews were called in shortly after.  “We just couldn’t see anything out there and the streets were filling in as fast as we could plow them,” Boone Public Works Director Jim Bustad said.

He added that yesterday’s severe temperatures –10 degrees with wind-chills down to –45 degrees was especially hard on men and equipment.

“We had several trucks just freeze up on us,” Bustad said.

Local plumbers spent the day working overtime to repair furnaces and pipes that burst after freezing.

Not a single student was in school in Boone County yesterday.  Every school district in the county had cancelled classes in the face of the impending storm.  “There was no question in our minds.  We decided to cancel classes at 5:30 a.m.,” said Boone Superintendent Don Hansen.  “I drove out of town about two miles to check conditions and barely made it back,” he said.

Flurries were still in the air this morning and the temperatures had barely climbed above zero.  Local officials were still advising no travel until crews could clear and sand highways.  The Boone County Sheriff’s department reported four- and five- foot drifts still clogged some parts of U.S. Highway 30.

The national weather service said temperatures in the mid-to-upper 30’s tomorrow could help to clear ice on the state’s highways.  But forecasters warned Iowans to expect another blast this weekend.

A second winter storm is on its way from Canada.   The storm is currently passing through northern Minnesota and North Dakota. Weather reporters in Fargo, N.D. and International Falls, Minn. Reported temperatures of –35 degrees with up to 6 inches of snow.  Another 5 inches of snow is expected in those areas before the storm moves south.

That storm is expected to intensify before reaching Mid-Iowa early Saturday morning.  “Yesterday’s storm was mild compared to what we could get out of this next one,” said Climatologist Tom Uchsno of the National Weather Service in Des Moines.

“This baby has the potential to be the worst storm we’ve seen in Iowa in 75 years.  Stock up on groceries and blankets and just sit tight,” he said.

Mid-Iowa including Boone County could see wind chills in the –100 degrees range and snow falls of up to 12 inches.

“After this one moves through we may be buried until March,” Uchsno said with a half-hearted laugh.

Note:  The preceding column is intended to take your mind off of the dog days of August and the accompanying heat wave.  Also note that today’s fiction could appear as a factual news story in three months or less.  Shine up those snow shovels, change oil in your snow-blower and turn up your air conditioner while there’s still time.