(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) 

Two young boys stood in the late afternoon sunshine waiting for the school bus.  Although they rode the same bus morning and night, they were strangers because they attended different schools.

The tot in the baseball cap kicked at the gravel.  “How come ya don’t go to my school?” He asked the young fellow with glasses. “I don’t know.  I guess my mom and dad decided I should go to St. Michael’s,” the kid with glasses replied after a thoughtful pause. “My big brother says it’s a pay-coal school,” said Baseball Cap.  “What’s that mean?”“I don’t know.  My mom and dad said it’s a Catholic school,” said Glasses. “We don’t do anything with coal.”

Snow is not all the same.  I’ve lived in five different states and have yet to incorporate this learning into my life and into my mindset.In Minnesota and North Dakota, snow is a part of life.  It falls from the sky for five months out of the year and you learn to live with it.  You move it.  You play in it.  You work in it.  You adjust your life to it.

You also know that if the snow falls in November, chances are, some of that same snow will still be on the ground in March.

Even as someone that grew up out in the country, I instinctively knew when I bought my first house that the morning after a snowfall, you know that you have to be outside and shoveling off your sidewalk at six in the morning.  Otherwise the neighbors would start to talk.

“Is he lazy?  Doesn’t he know you need to shovel that stuff?” was the imagined conversation.

Or worse, they would shovel you out.  No self respecting Minnesotan would willingly let someone else shovel him out (unless the neighbor has a snow blower, that is a different thing altogether and completely acceptable).

When I moved to Ohio, the first snow fall of the year resulted in about three inches on the ground.  I watched it coming down the night before and was excited.  Setting my alarm for five o’clock in the morning, I was determined that I would be out their shoveling with the neighbors the next morning.

At six o’clock the next morning, I fired up my snow blower.  My driveway and sidewalks were cleared at about fifteen minutes.  So I started on the widow’s driveway and sidewalk to the north of mine.  Then I started blowing out my neighbors on the south side of my house.  About seven o’clock I looked up and realized that no one was out their shoveling yet.  The street was still dark, and empty, and deserted.

In Ohio, there is not race to clean out your driveway.

Found out that there were two reasons for this.  The first was, if there was three inches of snow on the ground, it probably meant that it wasn’t safe, so schools were delayed and people were going to drive in late to work.  The second was, the snow would probably be gone within the next twenty-four hours anyway - why move it if it is going o move itself?

In Minnesota and North Dakota, you also get used to moving your car based on the days of the week (Tuesdays and Thursdays are the nights they clear snow on the avenues, Mondays and Wednesdays are the nights they clear them on the streets).  Or moving your car to accommodate cleaning of parking lots (example: cars need to be moved out of the parking lot from eight am to eleven am the day after snowfall).

When I rented my first apartment in Champaign, IL, after a tour of the apartment, the landlord showed me the parking lot and was telling me what an advantage a space was at the building, after all, their was rarely any room on the streets.

“That’s great!” I said, “But what do you do when you have to clear snow?”

She gave me a confused look and said, “Clear snow? What do you mean?”

“When you get snow, don’t you clean out the parking lot?” I asked.

She smiled at me and said, “Awe, honey don’t worry, God put it there, He’ll take it away.”

Yup, completely different attitude about snow.

 In was tense.  Each of us where choosing our words carefully.  Both wanting the negotiations to proceed, but each believing they were in the right.

My brother was a small engine mechanic, and in that position, he got, or picked up a lot of lawn and garden equipment from curbsides or from people that couldn’t get it to run and bought new, telling my brother just to fix it if he could and keep it.

Someone had given him a Toro, single stage snow blower.  They couldn’t get it to run and decided to go with something bigger and better.

My brother had borrowed parts from a used one and bought a carburetor kit for $35 and had it running like a top.  This was a good piece of equipment.  Seemingly barely used and in fine working order.  He had offered to sell it to me.

I was fresh out of college and living with some friends from college in a house that had a long driveway…that none of us liked to shovel.

Now came the tricky part for both of us, negotiating with a brother over the price.

On the one hand, we both knew the story behind it.  Knew that he had time and effort into it, but also knew that it was a junker to start out with.  We also knew that he could sell it to someone else, that the true value of a working snow blower in a Minnesota winter could be priceless at points.

In the end, I started too low, and he started too high.  We both retreated.  Then we started to reason with each other.

“A new one is going to cost you more then what I’m offering” he said.

“Fine, give me a new one,” I said.

Back and forth, until finally, we agreed on a price - and both walked away happy.

He had gotten closer to his number, I had gotten a lifetime service agreement.  If there was every any problems, he agreed to fix or repair it for parts only.

It was a win-win.

And boy does that thing blow.

Over the last eight years, I’ve blown snow from Minnesota to Ohio with that snow blower and rarely have I had trouble.  Some of that stuff has been almost to the top of the auger, and yet she chews right on through.  I know my neighbors love it too - as the sidewalks normally get a good cleaning too - if I can take two minutes and blow off the sidewalks of the neighbors so that they don’t have to shovel, it seems like the smart, neighborly thing to do.

Before the first snow fall this year, I walked out into the garage.  Filled her up with gas, pulled the choke, primed her a little, crossed my fingers and pulled the rope.

She roared to life on the first pull.

At the rate its going, my brother might not have much servicing to do over the life of this snow blower…and that will be just fine with me.

 (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)

We’ve all heard those stories about Catholic Schools.  From the way some folks talk, you’d think Catholic schools were a scourge to the community.

“Nuns really don’t have hair under those things.”

“You don’t get recesses, you have to pray.”

“You can always tell a Catholic kid by his uniform.”

“All the nuns are Sister Mary Somebody.”

It’s Catholic Schools and I’m here to say it ain’t so.  I spent grades one through six in St. Michael’s Catholic School in Mahnomen.  I knew Sister Sheila, Sister Ricada, Sister Ruth, Sister Mary Charlotte, Sister Eleanor, Sister Baptist, Sister Lucille, Sister Regina and a couple of other nuns along the way.

All of them were thoughtful, religious, devoted teachers.  I was the first of five children in my family to go through St. Michael’s.  If there were five more, I’m sure those five would be going through the school too.  Both of my parents served maximum terms on the School Board at St. Michael’s.

Catholic schools are disappearing across the country.  St. Michael’s is one of the only Catholic grade schools left in Minnesota’s Crookston Diocese.  Sacred Heart in Boone is a survivor as the number of Catholic schools in Iowa dwindles.

Catholic Schools often provided the first form of education in America’s pioneer times.  Catholic immigrants brought their traditions, their religion and their devotion to Catholic education with them to new communities in America.  It was all a part of the Church’s missionary function.

As new, bigger tax supported schools were established by local governments.  Swindling rural populations have taken their toll.   Since Vatican II, changes have swept the church.  More emphasis has been placed on outreach to all of the Church’s people, not just children.  Today, as Catholic schools lock their doors in America, Catholic schools in developing nations are filled to capacity.

But there’s still a place for religious education in communities like Boone.  Sacred Heart School and Trinity Lutheran School give parents a choice.  In many places, if a parent wants his child to have a religious education, that education is confined to home, release-time classes or Sunday School.  For some parents and children, that may be enough.  Others prefer the religious emphasis given during day-by-day instruction by schools like Trinity and Sacred heart.

It’s a worthy goal.  I’ve seen how the public and private school systems here work together to provide the best care and education for children.  Facilities, time and talent are shared among the schools.  The three schools foster an ecumenical spirit of cooperation that is evident beyond the school walls.  It’s a spirit that might not exist without the three separate schools.  Many people are like my parents, giving unselfishly of their time, talent and money to support an ideal they hold dear-religious education.  That kind of devotion and commitment is bound to carry over into the community beyond.

We are lucky to have religious education available in Boone.  It’s something that makes Boone the closely-knit, vibrant community that it is.

Catholic students do get recesses.

Not all schools require uniforms and more often than not, the teacher is not a sister, brother or priest at all, but a dedicated lay teacher.

And yes, nuns have hair under those things.  In fact, those things are called habits and most nuns don’t even have to wear them anymore.

 (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)

Last week’s weather was fantasist.  You could almost smell April in those 50-degree breezes that were blowing.

The weather just about wiped out our substantial snow cover.  Only the deepest drifts and snow piles remain as a reminder of December and January.

But there is a disturbing message in last week’s snow melt.  Did you notice how dirty those snowdrifts along the road were?  As they melted they turned blacker and blacker as the dirt in the snow became more and more concentrated.

What you are seeing in those dirty snowdrifts was the devastating effects of soil erosion.  Each year state and local governments spend millions of dollars to clean out ditches and drainage ways that have been clogged topsoil that was washed or blown from Iowa’s rich fields.  The damage to Iowa’s future agricultural productivity is incalculable.  To the credit of Iowa’s farmers, there’s some good news.  The U.S. Soil Conservation Service reported last week that in 1990 Iowa ranked second in the nation in the number of cropland acres tilled with conservation tillage.

The information, gathered by the SCS and the Conservation Technology Information Center showed that 7.3 million acres in Iowa were maintained with the soil-saving techniques know as conservation tillage.  In Illinois, with 8.4 million acres, ranked number one.

Farmers who use conservation tillage plant their crops in fields littered with residue from the previous year’s crop.  That residue or “trash” helps hold soil in place against whipping winter winds and pounding spring rains.

Meanwhile, the news is not so good in the Great Plains states to our west.  From North Dakota to Texas, winter winds damaged more than 1.8 million acres during November and December alone. According to the SCS.  Officials say a continuing drought in the 10-state region and lack of crop residue are contributing to the damage.

Despite the comparatively good news from Iowa, the problem continues.  Studies show that in many areas, Iowa’s topsoil continues to sift away faster than it can be regenerated.  We’re far from winning the war against erosion.  The snowdrifts tell us that.

Some of the earliest agricultural research in Iowa was focused on limiting erosion.  Iowa farmers and researchers found ways to put ridge-tilling, terracing, minimum till, no-till and other conservation tillage systems to work in the battle to save the state’s soil.  Those studies continue on private farms and in university fields and research plots.

As scientists, farmers and policy makers continue to discuss new techniques for making agriculture “sustainable,” the dirty snow drifts along Iowa’s roads should remind them that soil erosion should continue to be a very important part of those discussions.

It was a little bit warmer.  That was always the first sign.  While you welcomed the warmth, you knew it wouldn’t last, and you knew what was coming behind it.  A January warm spell always seemed to be followed by a major storm.Listening to the radio in the barn doing chores, you could hear it move in from the west.  Jamestown, North Dakota usually had the first reports of snow.  That was the farthest west that the Fargo station reached.  Depending upon how fast the storm was moving, Valley City, North Dakota was the next to report the arrival, followed by Fargo itself.  At that point, we knew it was only a matter of time before the flurries would fly.

Sometimes, inches would pile upon inches - sometimes a foot of snow in a twenty-four hour period or less would fall.

But the snow wasn’t the only concern, there was the wind.

It is a little known fact that Chicago is the second windiest city in the United States, Fargo, ND is first.  And since we were just out of the Red River Valley, that two hundred mile long, sixty mile across, natural wind tunnel that seemed to channel the wind directly from the Arctic, we usually got the wind too.

Our farmyard was protected, the combination of mature elms, oaks, and box elders along with a large contingent of outbuildings made for a safe haven in the bluster of winter, and only the rarest of storms would prevent us from seeing the barn from the big window in the living room.  In the end, the cattle were always fed, the cows always milked.

But once you left the safety of the farmyard, there was little to stop the wind between the farm and town two miles away.  Even an inch or two of snow could spell major trouble with a forty mile an hour wind blowing it across the flat near tree-less landscape.

Often, we would judge the power of the storm by the light factor.  A storm would be classified as mild if all it did was block out the lights of town two miles away.  A medium strength storm would block out Liebl’s yard light one mile to the south.  A good storm would block the view of Otto’s yard light half a mile down the road.  A powerful storm would prevent us from seeing the neighbors light, a quarter of a mile down the driveway.  That was a lot of wind, a lot of snow, or both.

We had all heard the stories growing up about people that tempted Mother Nature and lost - there was the family that had died in the haystack only yards from a home.  There were the people in Fargo that died on the city street leading to the airport - the weather was so bad, rescuers couldn’t reach them for days and exposure or suffocation from the car exhaust leaking back into the cars got to them first.

Only once can I remember seriously tempting the elements anyway.  One Sunday morning, I can remember piling into our station wagon and heading to town.  About a half mile down the road, Dad turned to Mom and said, “I can hardly see the road.”

Mom said, “Let’s just pray at home this Sunday and watch Mass on television.”

Dad turned the car around at the ‘T’ in the round next to Otto’s, turned to Mom and said, “We just came down this road and its snowing so hard I can’t see the tracks we made, they are already buried.”

Mom turned to us in the backseat, “We are praying right now kids.”

After years of near death experiences in the red plastic toboggan tethered by a long rope to our overpowered Honda three-wheeler, it seemed like I was invincible - sure, their were cuts, bruises, lacerations, dizzy spells, near misses, bumps, aches, pains, and countless days where I hobbled into the house to stiff and sore to move, but nothing really serious.We were also getting more adventurous as we got older.

In our younger years, we usually stayed confined to the farmyard, the slough next to it, or the row of old machinery that lay rusting just beyond the slough (Machinery Hill).

But with age, I was now in seventh grade and Jaime was now in ninth, came a bigger sense of the world.  Suddenly, the pasture behind Machinery Hills looked less threatening and more welcoming.  The ditches that led to Uncle Hanks woods about a half mile down the road were less scary and while their was the risk of getting stuck, we were getting big enough to man-handle the three-wheeler if needed and get ourselves un-mired if needed.

In short, like all good explorers, we were pushing the bounds.

That winter of my seventh grade year, Jaime and I had opened a fresh route - beyond the slough and into the pasture behind the farmstead.  The trees, weeds and ditches made for strange contours of snow that rose and fell like mountains with peaks and valleys.  If Jaime kept between the drifts, he could prevent getting stuck while still getting me swinging back and forth up the sides of the drifts and sometimes over them into the waiting valley on the other side of the drifts.

It was fun.  It was thrilling. It was dangerous.

The other side of those drifts might not be a gentle slope.  It could be a buried manure spreader or a big drop-off into the pit where they dug the fill out for the machine shed, or a bared wire fence - any of which could cause some major damage.

Luckily, I was invincible and while there were collisions, most of them resulted in little damage.

One day, Jaime was starting me through the gauntlet, through the snow drifts in the pasture, sliding me this way and that way, up the sides and over top of massive snow drifts - first this way, then that way, then this way, then that way, then - CRACK.

There was a bit of shock.  Then there was surprise.  Then there was pain.  Sharp, agonizing pain.  It felt like someone had hit me in the back with fence pole.  I looked around, and spotted what I had hit squarely with the lower part of my back…a fence post sticking out of the last snow drift before leaving the pasture.

I looked up, hoping to see Jaime coming back to rescue me…Instead I watched him drive the three-wheeler with the now empty suicide sled bouncing jauntily behind it around the big slough, through the yard, and stop far away in front of the house.  The empty suicide sled sliding up and past him as he stopped.  At this point, the memories become fuzzy.  While the distance from where I lay to the front of the house is a great distance, I swear I saw the look on Jaime’s face at that moment, as he watched that empty sled slide past him - it was one of confusion and wonder as he reached up to scratch his head.

Slowly, he started the three-wheeler back up and came out to look for me.

When he got out to me, I hollered at him for leaving me out there, for swinging me into the fence post, and begged him to go slow.  Then I rolled into the sled.

I was in pain and agony for the next twelve hours - chores that night were painful.  Chores the next morning were almost unbearable.  At school the next day, I could hardly sit down in my desk.

For the second time in my life, I surrendered and went to the doctor…

“Well you dumb SOB, what did you think was going to happen.  Go home and lay flat on your back for ten days.” Said Doc Ladue.

So for the next ten days, there I laid on the floor of our living room, my feet in the air, trying to repair the damage to my lower back.

My back never fully heeled after that.  In college, I got a free examination at a chiropractic clinic in Fargo that included my first every x-ray of my back.  The doctor stuck it up on the light board, looked at me with a bit of awe in his voice, and pointed at the weird bump in my spinal column.

“It looks like someone hit you in the back with a fence post!” he said.

I lived to tell the perils of the suicide sled, though that was the last ride that I took on her.  And where is the old girl now that vanquished me and ruined my back?

I melted her down the next time we burned garbage.

 (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) 

Do you remember life before Casey’s, Quik Trip and Kum and Go, back when full-service was the only kind of service there was? As roads evolved from dirt wagon tracks to paved highways, thousand of independent entrepreneurs set up business as service station owners.  You could find them just about anywhere two roads crossed.  Often there was a repair shop out back and a stack of oil cans in the window,

 (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) 

Jan. 15 was still several days away when we met some friends for dinner at a local restaurant.  It didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to the Persian Gulf situation.  The debate went back and forth without much comment from me.  Finally, my friends across the table demanded to know what I thought the United States should do about the Persian Gulf situation.

I am a newspaper columnist and so I suppose they thought I should have an opinion.  I mumbled something to them about giving sanctions more time to work but also understanding the urgency of the situation.  Then I excused myself to go to the restroom.

It was a cop-out, I suppose, but this if my first war.  My only memories of America at war are fuzzy, grade school recollections of Vietnam television was footage and radio reports.  I don’t know what to think or how to feel.

I feel a mixture of fear, pride, anger, helplessness and confusion.  I suspect there are others who are experiencing their first war and feel the same way.

My fears stem from the unknown.  How long will it last?  Will my brothers and friends be called to fight?  Are we a doing the right thing?   Is killing ever justified?

I am proud of the men and women in Saudi Arabia.  I know a few of them personally.  So far, they are doing their jobs admirably and bravely.  They see firmly convinced that the job at hand is worth the cost.  Could I face the situation with such calmness and conviction if I were in their combat boots?

I am angry that in a world so filled with scientific and technical wonders, we can’t solve our differences without killing one another.  We can splice genes but we can’t resolve cultural and economic differences without resorting to cruise missiles and tanks.

That anger leads to the helplessness I feel.  I spend hours each day listening to the radio and watching television.  I see first-hand the destruction in Bagdad and the fear in the eyes of people in Tel Aviv.  I hear analysts and experts debate this possibility and that possibility.  But there is nothing I can do except go to work, prepare my taxes, do what would do normally.

And all of these feelings come at once.  Sometimes the anger, the pride, the fear of helplessness is much stronger than all the other feelings.  Sometimes one feeling fades until it is almost gone.  But most often they come all at once and the knot I feel inside of me tightens until I can barely speak.

So silently I pray for a swift conclusion.  I pray for safety for the soldiers in Saudi Arabia and for the children of Bagdad. But mostly I pray that when I have a child, words like “SCUD missile,” and “stealth bomber” and “carpet bombing” will be found only in history books and not the nightly news.

For those interested, you will now find a link to subscribe on the colume listed under “pages.”  Recieve an email notification everytime there is an update to this website (or anyone of the categories you enjoy the most!).