After watching one American triumph to the cheers of the Australian crowd (who cheered on the underdog until the final result couldn’t be denied), it was going to be interesting to see how they would greet the next American’s to grace the court.

The Bryan brothers, Bob and Mike, from Oxnard, California, have been on the circuit a long time, playing on the world circuits since 2001.  Not only are they brothers, they are twins, with Mike being two minutes older, but Bob being an inch taller. 

But they are also not your normal tennis players - they play in a band.  With their father.  And other tennis players.  They have also walked away from a fair number of matches.  They were forced too.  During their individual careers, their parents made them take turns defaulting if they ever had to play each other.

Playing together through most of their professional tennis career, they have rancke

(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) 

March begins tomorrow.  Fix-up season is already underway.

Last week in was in the local hardware store, killing time on Saturday afternoon, I was just wandering around in there.  I wasn’t looking for anything to buy, I was just admiring the hardware.  Fingering the stove bolds.  Sizing up those strap hinges.  Checking out some hardened-steel, counter-sunk corner braces.

Suddenly, realizing what I was doing, I said, “This is pretty strange.”  I said it to myself.  You don’t just go talking to yourself in the hex-head bolt aisle.

Then I looked outside.  It was sunny and the snow and ice were showing signs of melting.  That’s when it began to make sense.  It was the beginning of fix-up season.

Out on the farm, winter takes its toll on things.  Windows get broken.  Door and gates and fences start sagging.  Things get rusty.  Plenty to fix up before spring field work starts.

So while it’s still cold enough to turn your fingers blue, farmers are out puttering around the farmstead.  “Won’t have time to do all this stuff once we get in the field,” they say.  They have a point.  It’s also therapy for somebody who’s itching for spring planting.

Aside from all those fix up tasks there is a job of bringing all those machines back to life after winter’s idleness.

At home, as fall’s first snow flakes began to drift down, we furiously pumped oil into the carburetors until engines began to flood and exhaust pipes belched blue smoke.

We put old soup cans on the exhaust pipes to keep the snow out.  Disconnected batteries to keep them from going dead.  Took the canvasses off the windrower to keep them from stretching and rotting.  The same goes for the belts on the windrower and combine.   Covered the knotters on the baler.  Greased cutterbars and plow moldboards.  Cleared the summer dust and chaff away to keep it from trapping moisture next to rustable metal.  Drained the water or added anti-freeze to keep engine blocks from cracking.

There wasn’t enough room inside for all those machines so we had to prepare them the best we could for a long winter outside.  It was a big job, but bringing all those machines back to life was always more challenging and exciting.

Would pistons stick inside of cylinders? Did belts rot or will they last another season?  Did moving parts rust solid?  Will the baler tie knots or will it pump out banana bales or little squares of hay with no twine at all?  You just never knew.

The Farmall “Super M” and the “H” would come to life with the help of jumper cables.  Their tinny roar echoed in the clear spring air.  They sputtered a little until electrical contacts cleaned themselves and the remnants of last fall’s oil treatment cleared away.

The big Farmall “806″ cranked over reluctantly, the starter straining to crank the six big cylinders.  It would finally rumble to life with a throaty roar, smelling of diesel fumes.

So, in the early days of March until tractors started crawling in the fields we’d clear away the dust and grit left behind by winter storms.  We’d oil and grease and adjust and fix for days.  It was, and still is, a spring ritual.

Just like browsing through the hardware store.

 In many ways the Australians are like the Americans - we love the under dog.  We cheer for the under dog.  We are both little countries - ok, relatively big countries with small populations when we started - that could.

That carries over into the Australian Open for the Australians.  When it came down to a choice of who to cheer for, the number one ranked American tennis super star who came and dominated the tourneyment the last several years - the impeccable Serena Williams, of the plucky little unranked Belgian, Justine Henin, who had spent the last year in the African bush after being tired of the tennis circuit the year before, the Australians had a clear favorite…and the very vocal Belgians (for a little country - the fifteen of them in the arena made a lot of noise - waving their flags and cheering her on).

As the ladies made their way onto the court, we were served our last round of beverages before the match started (notice tennis novices use of official tennis term).

The first set (ah - notice again), William’s power came through and Henin was on the defensive most of the way through.  She wasn’t making mistakes as much as just countering the power of Williams’s serves and volleys.

The second set was a different story.  Henin’s finesse and style really come through.  Versus the previous set, where she seemed dimuniative compared to Williams, this set, she looked graceful.

Let me explain the crowd that I was watching this with - they were Australian.  Not just Australian, these were true Australians.  Sports fanatics, polite, yet crude, calm, yet excitable, from the country, but living in the cities, country boys - yet movers and shakers in their industries.

In short - they were representative Australians…and being the only American in the room, they were rubbing my nose in the fact that Henin was giving Williams a run for her money.

The Australian’s image of the average American is being loud mouthed braggards.  As the second set wore on, and the razing continued, and took it without winching, without cringing, passively.

“Why aren’t you cheering now?” one of the Aussie’s asked me.

“Because like most Americans, I’m quiet and retiring.” I replied.

As Willaims struggled through that second set, I knew that she too was an American…and like me, she would take the set back, she would quietly take the jeering crowd, and she would come out in the third set quietly, respectfully, and composed, and kick some butt.

Williams didn’t disappoint.

She came out composed and determined and she did in fact kick butt.  The Belgians didn’t have much to cheer about that last set and the Australians suddenly discovered that they knew that Willaims would win all along, that she was clearly the champion, and that they were in her corner all along.

It was a proud time to be an American…

The Victor

 Every Tuesday afternoon in winters would find me in Ms. Cronin’s classroom after classes, studying, reading, and organizing Newsweek and Time magazines that I pilfered from the library or the senior social class.  Each issue was read and a Post-it was applied to the bag listing the subject matter of the national and international issues that could be found between the covers of those internationally reknown news magazines.

It was all in solemn preparation for the coming events that happened every February and March: The Speech Meet.

After chores almost every Saturday in February and March, I’d drive into town and catch the van to one of the exotic locations where I would compete.  Fosston, Crookston, Bagley, East Grand Forks, and Red Lake Falls were all on the usual route.  Occassionally, we would make the trek to Fargo for one of the big meets.

There was a wide range of different categories that people could participate in - humorous, interpreative, dramatic, prose, poetry, and then there was my topic - extemperaneous speaking. 

Like a gunslinger in the wild west, the extemperous speaker faced the judges each week with no preparations and only their smarts and their wits.

In some ways, I was only filling in a family tradition, my older brother Tom had done the circuit years before me.  But each week as we went from town to town, the same thrill, the same nerves would boil up inside.

While the rest of the speech team staked out their place in the gym or cafeteria, I’d head to the library…where most of my competition would stake out their places, like cowboys in a barroom, fingering their Newsweeks and glaring over their file boxes…into this gauntlet I’d walk with my simple box of magazines under my arm and a small stack of notecards in hand…

Though we were a lonely lot, some of us did grow to be friends.  Tony from Crookston, Peter from Gonvick, and a few other folks that came and went through the season.

Then there were those that were out for blood - Kirsten from Ada, Anthony from Red Lake Falls.

At nine o’clock sharp, the first first name would be called from the list of contestents, randomly chosen - probably drawn out of a hat, the rest of the speakers would watch.  Slowly, the first speaker would stand and walk towards the librarians desk where the contest official was seated….cracking their knuckles and slowly streatching their hands as they approached.

Laying out on the desk were laid small scraps of upside down pieces of paper.

The contest official - usually a college student or some student teacher - and the speaker would look into each others eyes, unblinking, all emotion drained, slowly, waiting for the seconds to pass, listening to the quiet ticking of the clock.

Then, the contest would draw a breath, and speak that fateful word….

“Draw.”

 February on the Northern Great Plains is still cold, but winter was now almost four months in and while the country was still firmly in the grips of old man winter, the power was beginning to wane.

But so too were the supplies stored up for the winter.

No where was this more evident then in the big hay barn.  Sitting above the stanchions below and seperated by stringers made of stuot two by twelves and rows of four by fours, the haybarn was solid.  With thousands of small bales of hay - stacked yards deep, it also proved to be well insulated.

But on a daily basis, hay was thrown down through holes in that floor, stacked around carefully each summer to provide access in the winter.  Day after day, we would throw hay down through the winter.  Fourteen on one side of the barn and eighteen on the other (one side had the milk room, the other no only had more cows, but also access to the lean to where the youngstock were housed.  As winter drew on, the hay supply was slowly drawn down, which meant the insulation gradually waned.

But the cows below continued to give off a lot of heat, and also a lot of humidity.  While the temperature outside could easily be twenty below zero with almost no humidity, the temperature inside the barn could be fifty degrees and eighty percent humidity.

But that humidity would find a place to go out - through those same holes that we used to throw hay down each evening.  Which meant frost would form on the massive wooden rafters inside the barn.

And when I say frost, I mean frost.

The frost would form long delicate strands that would reach down daintily from the rafters, sometimes ten feet or more from the rafters, like massive snowflakes that slowly built out from the mixture of the wooden and the cold meeting the humidity from down below.  And they would form almost all the way up the roof - so you had frost that hung down not only ten feet, but would sometimes follow the inside of the roof line for thirty feet.

As kids, we would go up into the haybarn together to throw down hay.  It only took one good hit with a fork handle or the good jab with the palm of your hand to get foot of frost crashing down onto an unsuspecting brother.

Being the younger brother, I was usually on the receiving end of these frost falls.  For a couple of reasons, first of all, being the youngest, generally we were trusting.  Second of all, if I went down the barn furious from the cruelty of my older brothers, I was told to suck it up.  If one of my older brothers went down, I’d get in trouble for not respecting my elders….

But in the end, twas still better to give then receive…

(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) 

I was born too late.

And because of my unfortunate timing, I drive a 1987 Mercury Lynx.  It’s dependable.  It’s economical.  It’s comfortable.  But that’s about it.  It’s a dependable, economical, comfortable unromantic, unexciting way to get from point “A” to point “B”.

I want fins.  I want chrome.  I want electrical gadgets, convertible tops and wide tires.  My trip to the Tall Corn Swap Meet and Car Show last weekend left me yearning for the automobiles of yesterday.

I have an old Ford pickup, but it’s not quite old enough.

It doesn’t have enough rounded edges, gentle curves and sweeping expanses of chrome to make it classic or collectible.  I’ve heard that restoring and collecting old cars is like a disease: once you catch the bug it stays with you forever.  It’s no wonder.  Compared to most of today’s cars, yesterday’s Chevys, Fords, Packards, and Studebakers could be compared to works of art.  Thank goodness for people like the members of the Tall Corn Antique Automobile Club who care enough for these old treasures to spend the hours necessary to repair, restore and preserve them.

Their care and dedication was evident at the car show Sunday.  The variety and quality of the cars was spectacular.  The swap meet was interesting too.  Hundreds of enthusiasts nosed around amid piles of rusted and greasy parts, looking for that one special taillight, hubcap or transmission.

I saw a few old pickups there that reminded me of my dad’s old farm truck.  It’s a 1947 Ford.  I used to bounce across the grain fields with it during harvest, trying to keep up with dad on the combine.  The paint was faded by years of sun and the interior smelled like moldy grain.

But there was something special about that old truck.  The huge hood narrowed down to a point.  Pressed into the metal on either side was the word “Ford” in intricate letters.  Great sweeping fenders covered the giant wheels.  The tiny instrument cluster also carried the intricate “Ford” logo among other lines and designs.   And there were gauges there, no idiot lights.

Under that long hood rumbles a fathead V-8 engine.  Although the engine burned oil by the quart, it sounded like I imagine an engine should.  When it idled, the engine rumbled, not loudly, but in a way as to make the ground shake slightly under your feet.  And when you stepped on the gas, it wounded as if it really meant business.

When you step on the gas in my little Lynx it sounds like a beehive or a really loud sewing machine.  There’s not much romance in that.  But it is comfortable and economical and it’s reliable enough so that I know I’ll be able to use it to get to the car show at mchose Park during Pufferbilly Days.

A fellow I know has been forced to play a public version of the name game against his will.  Graig Taylor (pronounced like Greg but spelled almost like Craig) is an All-Star little league pitcher.  Consequently, his name or something close to it, finds its way into the paper fairly often.

Most recently, this newspaper called him Craig instead of Graig on the front page of the sports section in last Saturday’s paper.  I sympathize with you, Graig, I really do.  Try living with a name like Jirik for awhile and see how people mess it up.

My advice is to keep improving you ball game and pretty soon everybody will know how to spell your name.

Either that or get a job at the newspaper so you can write it yourself and deny everybody else the chance to mess it up.

 I still remember going through the exercise.

“OK, before Mass, think really hard about what you want to do or give up for Lent.  This is your chance to improve.  To suffer a little bit.  To make yourself a little better.  To do something for Jesus.  To offer up.” Sister Rosella informed us as we entered the side doors of church for the Ash Wednesday all school Mass.

Afterwards, before morning recess, we were each given a mimeographed third length sheet of paper with a cross on a hill in the top corner.

“I want you each to write down at least two things that you are going to give up, or that you are going to do for Lent.” Sister Rosella informed us.

In the neatest hand writing…or rather, printing, possible, each of us first graders slowly wrote out the things that we wanted to give up.  Some people took a little extra time and colored the hillside and the cross.  Others were focusing on their handwriting.  Others on the actual items on the piece of paper.

Once we were all done, we were free to go outside for our first recess of the day.  Sister Rosella, who normally came out with us, stayed behind today.

Maybe she gave up recess for Lent we shuddered…who would want to give up recess?

After spending time in the cold and snow of the northern Minnesota playground, we came running at the sound of the hand bell that Sister Rosella used to call us back into the school.

As we took off our jackets, hats, and gloves and made our way to our seats, we saw that those things that we had given up, those written pledges we had made, we now safely laminated to the top of our desks.  For the next forty days, we be looking directly at those promises, those pledges we had made.

And perhaps worst of all, Sister Rosella knew them too.

“Didn’t you give up candy?”  She would inquire as one of my classmates picked up a sucker.

“Didn’t you say you would be nice to people?” She would say to another.

It was pretty clear it was going to be a long forty days.

But what a great lesson to learn, a combination of leadership, goal setting, and faith.  To this day, my best lents are those where I write down what I’m going to do or give up.  The best goals that I set are ones that I keep in front of me.  The most success comes from those that I prayerfully and thoughtfully think about.

I’m not sure what happened to that laminated piece of mimeograph paper that graced my first grade desk all those Lents ago, but I know where that lesson went, right to my head, and to my heart.

(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) 

There was anger and outrage over what was allowed to happen at a “puppy mill” near Madrid.  When law enforcement authorities and volunteers removed the remaining dogs from the facility on June 2, they were amazed and horrified by what they saw.

Animals crouched in small, filthy cages.  There was little shelter for them from the elements.  Some of the dogs were sick, most were extremely dirty and all had been deprived of the care and love that most people provide for their pets.

Since then, two of the nine dogs taken to the Boone County Humane Society’s Shelter have been euthanized.  The dogs were too terrified and disturbed to ever be able to adapt to a  “normal” pet’s existence.

“How could anyone treat animals like that?” Was a common question.  People were stunned and amazed that anyone could treat animals so cruelly.

The publicity surrounding the event obviously stirred deep feelings in Boone.  The week after the Boone County Humane Society participated in the removal of the dogs, 10 dogs were adopted from the shelter by local families.  That’s at least twice the normal level of weekly adoptions.

Sadly, “puppy mills” like the one near Madrid represent only a small portion of the animal cruelty that occurs in Boone County.  Perhaps the largest example of that cruelty is the reluctance of pet owners to have their pets spayed or neutered.

Each year hundreds of unwanted puppies and kittens are brought to the Humane Society’s shelter.  They are the lucky few.  They receive daily feedings and care.  The society’s employees work hard to keep the healthy and to find good homes for them.  Unfortunately there are far more unwanted kittens and puppies than there are good homes.

But even in death, the animal’s brought to the shelter are fortunate.  After a relatively painless injection, the animals drift off to sleep.

Many unwanted pets are not so lucky.  Many are eventually abandoned.  They create traffic and health hazards.  They scavenge for what food and water they can find.  The can terrorize livestock.  They can carry diseases to other livestock or other pets.

Many die under the wheels of cars and trucks.  Others meet their end in the jaws of predators.  Still others die a slow death by starvation or sickness.  Some are sealed in boxes and left by the side of the road.  Others are killed by gunshots, clubs or drowning.

Daniels Woodland had about 200 dogs at his Madrid “puppy mill.”  Last year more than 1,000 animals were brought to the Boone County Humane Society or captured up by the society’s employees.  Many others never made it that far.  Who committed the larger crime, Woodland or the negligent pet owners of Boone County?

 Rod Laver Arena was built and designed for tennis, in a country that is small in population, but where tennis holds a special place on the pedestal of sports.  Constructed in 1988 with seating for almost 17,000 people, it was renamed in honor of Australian tennis great Rod Laver, who won three Australian opens, four times at Wimbledon, two US Opens, and several French opens, and a host of other titles in his almost three decades on the tennis courts of the world, seven of which (1964 to 1970), where he was ranked the number one player in the world.

Not bad for a boy from Queensland.

While built for tennis, Rod Laver Arena is used for a host of other events - concerts from Taylor Swift to Swiftknot, Motorbike races and World Wrestling events, once it was even used as an aquatic center for the commonwealth games.  In short, it is adaptable, but the place was built for tennis.

Which is why I was there - for the grand slam of the Asia Pacific, the Australian Open Womens Finals and the Men’s Double Championships.

For an American, it was proud moment, the two favorites for the night were American, Serena Williams and the Byron Brothers.

I had managed to get tickets in one of the box seats - in the upper reaches of the stadium, but air conditioned with free food and beverages.  And lets face it, the view wasn’t bad.

The arena sits within the Melbourne Sports complex, in the shadow of several other stadiums, including the world famous “G,” - the Melbourne Cricket Grounds.  Showing up early, I made my way through the grassy grounds in front of the arena where I met several others from the party.  We commented on some of the free entertainment that was performing over the next couple of days, specifically a group known as the “Rogue Traders” which for a group of commodity traders found a special part of our sense of humor.

Walking into the arena, it was impressive.  The retractable roof allowed players to play under the bright sunshine of the Australian sky, but protected it if the heat became too much to bear, or if rain, normally welcomed in drought plagued Melbourne, should try to interrupt play.

The concourse area was not just clean, it was spotless.  The ladies final was the second to the last of the events that stretched out over two weeks, and the place almost seemed to shine with the grey and bright blue hues, seemingly polished each night by an unseen army of cleaners.

Taking the elevator up to the suite level, we were met by a slightly older lady that immediately offered us refreshment - some of Australia’s finest beverages.  Mixing and mingling with the crowd in the small suite, eating an assortment of appetizers of cheese and seafood, followed by a good meal of beef, chicken, and lamb, we visited and discussed the play and the finesse of the two players that would meet on the floor of the arena this evening.

I must admit at this point, that I’m not a tennis fan.  Haven’t played the game, and have only sparingly watched the events as I scanned through the television set.  But I did my best to bluff my way through the conversations, which tended to be easy as the others in the suite either were in the same boat that I was, or where so die hard fans, they wouldn’t even let me get a word in edgewise.

With the early stages of twilight showing through the opening in the roof, the big windows in front of the suite were opened and the greatest ladies tennis players in the world made their way onto the court.

 President’s Day weekend usually meant a variety of things - usually it was the first good thaw of winter, a sign that spring was truly on its way…even if it still might be two months away…we knew that winter wouldn’t be far away.

It usually also meant the yearly butchering.  The time when we would stock the families freezers (including grandma’s and a few other folks) with beef and pork, enough to last the balance of the year until the next President’s Day.

If we were lucky and the meat was aging in the cooler at the butcher shack…not ready for final processing for another couple of days, it might be that the Monday of President’s Day might be free.  Usually, that Sunday night before, we would wait for the sign from our Dad:

“Well, since the butchering is done, maybe we could head to Crookston to the winter show.”

The die was cast, and we were happy.

Usually Dad and us boys, this was primarily male bonding time, would pile into the car and make the sixty mile drive to the Northwest to the Winter Show buildings on the outskirts of the large farming center of Crookston, Minnesota.

We knew that the drive up there would hold some of the same traditions.  Watching for wildlife as we passed through the barren landscape north of Twin Valley, through Gary Pines, and on into Fertile.  Dad would regal us with stories of when he and our great Uncle Charlie would go up the winter shows when he was a young man in the fifties.  Driving into Crookston, he would point out the landmarks - the old Cathedral, the little civic center, which was the orignal home of the winter shows.  Then we would approach what seemed to us to be the sprawling, multi-building sight of the winter show.

After parking, we would each get a couple of dollars to spend on juke - at the time they sure seemed like treasures, today….not so much - and away we would go.

When we were small, we would have to stay with Dad and Mom, not straying too far from the safety of their hands.  When we were older, we were free to roam the grounds outselves, looking at the equipment, looking at the toy displays, seeing the latest in the agricultural world.

In hindsight, it all seems relatively amazing - sugar beet lifters, barn cleaners, tractors, combines, harrows, the latest in computer technology, seeds, chemicals, toys, mowers, haying equipment, plows, cattle chutes, dairy equipment, livestock, and a mixed in were a host of food and beverages interspersed.

And it was packed.

Part of the fun was just the people watching.  The families walking down the crowded aisles, maybe one of the only times they would make it to a ‘big city’ from such far away places as Gonvick, or Shelley.  Young men and women there to participate in the FFA and 4-H stock shows.  Old couples holding hands.  Moms and Dads, boys and girls, sometimes three generations of farmers looking over the same piece of machinery and debating its merits.

It was clear even as a boy that the agricultural world of the upper Red River Valley was changing with larger and more concentration, but something about the Winter Show  seemed so simple, so innocent, that you hoped it would last forever.