As the train pulled up, I understood what the taxi driver had been talking about.  I was decked out in my best blue jeans and dress shirt, as well as some of my best walking shoes.  The other passengers, clearly heading to Chicago and home for the week were still in their pajama’s and some clearly still suffering from the night before - from their pre-spring break festivities.

As I watched my fellow travelers stumble onto the train in their drowsiness or drunkeness, I was happy that I had a quiet night at the Illini Inn with friends - a famous Bonnie Jean’s Calzone and only two mugs of PBR, just enough to celebrate a semester half way over and still be in bed by ten.

Not only would this be my first major ride on a train, it wouldn’t be just any train - it would be the famous, “City of New Orleans,” the train that went back and forth between Chicago and New Orleans.  Although I’d only be on the train for two hours, it was still riding a piece of history.  I like history.  Meanwhile, my father was already a couple of hours into his trip, on the equally esteemed west coast to Chicago train, “The Empire Builder.”

Getting on the train, I found a seat by myself, away from the drunken revelers and the napping pajama wearers and revelled in the experience.

As the train pulled out of Champaign, it passed through the partially snow covered landscape of Illinois.  It passed through the small towns and the regional cities of Illinois.  Names that had only been names on a map or in the pages of history books suddenly came to life.  The flat, windswept fields of Illinois broken up by the proud little farming towns that gradually gave way to the seemingly bleak industrial suburbs of Chicago.  I remember especially the steel works outside of Bourbonnais - a perfect example of the industrial might with rows of trucks to haul the massive amount of steel sitting in perfect piles of grey and black beyond the chain link fence of the rail yards.  To me it was the dividing line of the country and the city.

Slowly, the trip winds its way through the south suburbs of Chicago, past the historic working class neighborhoods and slums.  Past the weathered churches and the forlorn factories.  Past the projects and the shotgun houses and tennements.  This was the gritty heart of the city.  This was the city of Chicago.  Chi town.  The city of broad shoulders.  The city that works.  This was its heart.

Pulling into the heart of Chicago about eight o’clock that morning and walking into the heart of Union Station, I rented a locker and hit the streets of Chicago - it was going to be a very good day.

My first stop was the Chicago Board of Trade.

 It was snowing.  It was the big, heavy, wet snow of March - and it was piling up.  Not that it bothered me, it could sock in Champaign-Urbana, IL as much as it wanted, I was going on spring break.

Yessir, I was heading towards the warm, balmy, tropical paradise of Middletown, Pennsylvania.  Compared to the winter that central Illinois had suffered that winter of 1998 to 1999, it had to be be better.  But I really couldn’t complain, having spent the prior twenty years of my life in the harshness of northern Minnesota, central Illinois, or even eastern Pennsylvania had to be better then a cold, snowy March in Minnesota.

I was looking forward to the trip.  My first year of graduate school had opened my eyes to both the wider world, as well as to the number of things you could get by with on a tight budget, and this trip would be no exception.  I had been planning it for months - and it was going to be simple.  Take the train from Champaign to Chicago, where I would meet my father who was taking the train down from Fargo.  From Chicago, we would take the train direct into Harrisburg, where Uncle Hank and Aunt Peg (my Dad’s brother and his wife) would pick us up and take care of us for the week.

The logistics were daunting.  First of all - I had no money.  Second, I had never been let loose in a big city.  Third, the schedules didn’t exactly mesh - I would have to spent twelve hours in Chicago before Dad would arrive.  Forth, the trip was long - almost eighteen hours from Chicago to Harrisburg.  Finally, I was traveling as a twenty-two year old filled with piss and vineger with my sixty-eight year old father going to see his sixty-four year old brother, both of who used to be able to have a pretty good time…but now I suspected that their idea of a thrilling evening was a cliff hanger on Matlock.

The first leg of the trip was the simpliest, but also required the greatest decision - how to make it to the train station?  Living about three miles from the train station, I was tempted to walk it.  I had several friends volunteer to take me, but I hated to impose…so I broke down and did something that I still loath to do to this day - call a cab.

As the big white flakes floated down outside of my apartment building on Lotus Street, I waited outside anxiously for the taxi to make its way down the slippery street.  Hoping that I had given it enough time.

“Where are you off to?”  The taxi driver asked as I climbed into the back seat.

“Spring Break.” I said.

“Ah, sunshine!” He replied, “Must be nice to escape this stuff.”

“Ahhh, actually, I’m going to Pennsylvania…with my father…to see my uncle and aunt.” I replied.

“What type of college student are you?” The taxi driver asked in astonishment.

“I sometimes wonder that myself.” I replied as I paid the man his money and headed inside the Champaign train station to catch the 6 am train that blustery Friday morning.

 Sydney is a beautiful city.  I had spent days roaming the streets and sights before Christmas - from the light covered buildings on MacQuarie Street to the little museums in the old part of the city, the Rocks.

But never from the water.

Sydney, being built on one of the largest and best, when measured in depth and protection, harbors in the world, has a tremedous ferry system.  Most suburbs and major attractions are built on or near the water, to facilitate the movement of people, they have an elaborate ferry system that moves thousands of people.

Cheaper then a cab ride, and covering greater distances, I hoped on the ferry to Manly Beach, the narrow strip of land close to the mouth of Jackson Harbor famous for its beach, though second to the more famous Bondi Beach.

I grabbed a seat close to the front of the ferry.  As it pulled out of the bearth at Circular Quay (pronounced ‘Key’), and immediately, a different side of Sydney opened up to me - as wonderful as the city looked from the street, it looked down right magical from the waves of Jackson Harbor.

Carefully the ferry slide past the Harbour Bridge and the world famous Opera House, then it turned at the fortifications of Rock Island - complete with its ninteeth century cannon, and headed straight towards the the mouth of the mighty harbor.

The ocean waves, the smell of the salt air, the movement of the ferry across the choppy waters was nothing short of spectacular.  The city was meant to be seen from the waves.

Pulling up to the berth at Manly Beach, I followed the crowds across the narrow strip of land to the beach that faced the open Pacific.  The bright sunshine shining across the sandy beach and hundreds of people playing in the surf and sand was like a sight out of a postcard.

Following the pathway that wound around the hillsides on either side of the beach, I followed from the main beach and  to the smaller beaches farther down the shoreline - with some rock pools in between.

It was the little things along the trail that were remarkable - the statues of the animals that were hidden upon the rocks along the trail, the carvings and statues that were around the bends in the path, the beautiful ladies that seemed to be everywhere.

As dusk started to overtake the land, I made my way back to ferry and back to the city center of Sydney.

 ”Get ready for a really hot and dry summer!” Those are the words that greated me the first day in Melbourne.  First I had to remember that the seasons are flipped in the Southern Hemisphere, so while August is the hottest and driest month in the Northern Hemisphere, in the Southern, it is February.

Over the last ten years, Australia has been gripped with a terrible drought, of almost biblical proportions.  With an average rainfall in Melbourne of 22 inches, only two of the last fifteen years have been above that long term average.  The last two have been below the 10^th percentile.

And it has been hot.

Looking at the averages, it can be a bit deceiving.  On a yearly basis, the average high is a comfortable room temperture 69 degrees Fahrenheit.  But is the numbers inside the numbers that are alarming.

2009 saw the absolute highest temperature on record (some say about 120 degrees Fahrenheit last February.).  Over the last fifteen years, the average temperature has increased by over three degrees Fahrenheit….which over a hundred years of yearly averages is saying something.

When I hit the tarmac in November, Melbourne was going through the longest warm streatch in November.  Ever.  The temperature was over ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

Five days on the ground, it rained.  It rained hard.  And the hot temperatures broke.  About three days later, there was another good soaking rain.  The temperatures remained moderate.

“Its been raining since I came here!” I exclaimed one day.  “Maybe I brought it with me.”

“Mate, if the rain follows you, there will always be a warm bed for you at my father’s house.” A co-worker, born and raised on a farm, replied a bit mockingly, but with a hit of sincerety in his voice.

November rainfall was the highest in ten years.  In the 90% percentile overall.  Dispite a wet December (light rain seemed to be falling all the time), December was realatively dry on average for the last ten years.  January and February were below average, but in the upper end of the range over the last ten to fifteen years.

And March?

In the first nine days, we are in the 95% percentile for rainfall, double the average, and the second wettest over the last fifteen years…the third wettest over the last forty.

Most of that rain came in one large deluge that flooded streets and was accompianed by large hail and driving winds.  Streets ran like rivers.  And its not alone.  Even the driest of the interior is suffering some of the worst flooding on record.  The parched, dry, interior has been almost tropical.  The wet season in Queensland, far to the north has been down right Biblical.

Talking to a wise, older gentleman at work today over the phone, I made the comment that it was amazing to see the country go from horrible drought to raging floods.

Without prompting, he started reciting the poem, ‘My Country’ by Dorothea Mackellar:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

How very fitting.  How very, very fitting.  But I still hope that warm bed is waiting for me.

 When the speech contest official - usually the local head speech coach at what ever town the contest was in - would walk out with results in hand, the gym would erupt into cheers.  As she took her place at the head of the room - usually flanked by a few chosen people next to a big table filled with ribbons, trophies or medals.

With much fanfare, each speaking category was announced and the top six individuals were called up and an award was presented with hooting and hollaring from the crowd.

When all of the awards were presented, each school was given a large envelop that had the judges comments - the critiques sheets.

As we climbed into the van after the award ceremony, each revilved in the triumph…or comisurrated in the loss.  It was always a challenge because there was always a mix of the happy and the deflated on the van ride home.

It was my job on those van rides to provide the comedic relief.  Driving to the contest, I’d be cracking one liners and telling the latest Ole and Lena joke.  On the way home, some cleaverly turned phrase or some antic would get all but the lowest people laughing outloud.

Dispite the fact that on the way to the contest - my heart was pumping and my hands were shaking.  In typical Northern Minnesota fashion, I would prepare myself for failure - hoping for victory, but knowing it may be too much to ask, after all, I was just a simple country boy.

On the way home from the contest, it was trying to discern how I could have medaled.  Because, not to brag, but I usually left with a little hardware.  There is only two contests where I didn’t walk away with a showing in the top three.  But there was always a bit of that feel of the ancient Roman legend of Ceasar riding triumphantly with servant riding behind him, telling him that his glory was fleeting…

If we were really lucky, we would get to pass through Crookston on the way home from the contests and we would stop at Happy Joe’s Pizza.

It was the perfect tension releiver.

The pizza wasn’t just good, it was really good.  The atmosphere wasn’t just fun, it was really fun.  The ice cream at the end wasn’t just tasty - it was REALLY tasty.  You could peer inside the kitchen to see them make the pizza through a glass wall - really!

As pull back into the school parking lot, with hardware in hand, I make my way back to the pick up truck.  Cows still need to be milked, and while the speaking skills and the hardware won’t help with that…the sense of humor just might.

 Moving to Australia for a year, I packed light.  Two suitcases light.  And two small carry on bags.  So technically, two big suitcases, one backpack, and one computer bag light.  In addition to the clothes, there were a host of other things that I packed - an assortment of books, a few files, two laptops, a host of other small electronics, and a few other random odds and ends.

But about seventy-five percent of the lugage was dedicated to shoes and clothes.

Three pairs of shoes, one pair of sandals, twelve button up shirts, four polo shirts, eight white t-shirts, two grey t-shirts, four miscelaneous other t-shirts, four tank tops, three pair of dress pants, two pair of dockers, two pair of jeans,  three pair of cargo shorts, three pair of sports shorts, about twelve pair of underwear, eight pair of white socks, eight pair of black socks, two pair of swimming trunks, one zip up jacket, one pull over sweatshirt, and one long sleeve t-shirt.

In short, well thought out and a broad range of clothes that should suit me well on my adventures and journeys.

I want to be very clear - I did no shopping for this trip.  It was all about what was in my closet and dresser.  Some of this stuff was well aged.

When I unpacked on that warm November day, the first thing that I noticed was the unexplained red blotches on one of my polo shirts and one of my button up shirts.  Then my socks started wearing through.  The collar frayed on two of my white t-shirts…almost down to the chest, one of my tank tops got ripped while getting out, no escaping, from a bar called, and I’m not kidding, the ‘Snake Pit.’

This was all in the first forty-five days.

Since then, one pair of cargo shorts was snagged (ripped), one pair of dockers was snagged (ripped), one more t-shirt was frayed beyond recognition, one tank top was ripped (while taking it off for the night), and a hand full of socks (some new since arriving) have been lost to shredded toes.

One polo was lost thanks to a fantastic, but greasy, breakfast at Victoria Market (one of the few grease stains I’ve been unable to get out).  One button shirt had a loose thread…that has been slowly unraveling to a point where I could no longer in decenty wear it. 

I’ve got two more button shirts that are seeming to be wearing out, one polo whose collar is getting frayed, two white t-shirts whose collars are frayed (and armpits worn out), one pair of dress pants whose hemm is starting to blow out, and the last pair of dockers that is in intense rotation, starting to show a lot of wear.

Needless to say, the more clothes that get thrown away…the more that the remaining close get put into heavier and heavier rotation, meaning that even clothes that two months ago seemed brand new, are now seeming, well, a little worn.

I’m planning a trip home in late April - and I’m bringing both suitcases home with me…and it is a good thing, if I’m not able to replenish my wardrobe, I may be naked by the end of May…

 The time in between the rounds at the speech tournaments were, well, excruciating.  When you participate in the extemperanous speaking contest, the people were serious.  These were the people that thought of themselves as the intellectuals of the speech contest world.  While the people in the humor category were reciting the latest Dave Barry colume to themselves and the dramatic speakers were lamenting the fate of the late ninteeth century bongo drum player in the American Southwest, we were pacing the library stacks wondering what the latest tax rate hikes were going to do to the world economy.

Well, most of us.

A couple of us would drink a Mountain Dew and make flatuance jokes in the corner.

But we needed to, first to work off the stress, second, we were teenagers and flatuance jokes were the only polite things we could really make jokes about in the library.

As the third contest wound up, we made our way to the cafeteria where we would eat and drink, sometimes with other extemp speakers from other schools (contestants, but also friends), or sometimes with the other speakers from our school….sometimes trying to meet the cute, normal speakers from others schools, always seemingly in short supply.

Then we would wait.

The results from the contest were carefully tabulated in the smoke filled back rooms of the schools.

Each judge would turn in their sheet with their scores (usually ten categories such as voice, posture, content, body structure - of the speech, OF THE SPEECH), with the ranking of each contestant - then those rankings would be added up and the lowest number would be the winner.

So if you were ranked 1^st in the 1^st round, 2^nd in the 2^nd round, and 1^st in the 3^rd round - your score would be 4 - and the winner of the competition.

So we would all sit and wait in the auditorium or gymnasium, listing to bad pop music, hyped up on adrenaline and sugar.

And there were some interesting people, strange people.  There were people like me - in our suits and ties.  There were some of the other people that would change into sweatsuits and track gear, still others in their best goth atire.  Some of the people would be clutching their stuffed animals.  Others reading some ancient tome.

In the end, waiting for the result.

“Wearing your butt kicking boots again today?” One of the coaches from the neighboring towns would ask, looking down at my black cowboy boots.

“Well, we’ll see.  You know your guy is pretty good.” I’d reply.

“Yeah, I know, but you are wearing your butt kicking boots.” He’d laugh.

 As soon as that contest official behind that library counter said draw, my hand reached for the topics laid face down on the counter between us.  Quickly, I’d draw up three of the fifteen to twenty-five slips of paper that were between us.

My eyes would scan them…

“What impact does the proposed nuclear agreement have on Russian/US relations?”

“Can Democracy take hold in the Eastern European countries after the fall of communism?”

“What can be done to control the rising health care costs in America?”

Remember these were different…and not so different times of twenty years ago.

My general rule of thumb was - take the international topics.  They were generally less controversial then the domestic topic (agruing a conservative viewpoint in front of liberal leaning judge was usually a death sentence and vice-versa).

With the topic selected, I would nod at the contest official…and make my way to my seat.

Forty-five minutes.  That was the time that I would have to research, write, and practice my speak.

The first fifteen minutes was spend reading and rereading articles about the topic that I drew…trying to decipher the information and trying to scrape enough together…or paring pack the information depending upon the topic. 

The second fifteen minutes was organizing and being creative.  It was a simple formula:  Introduction (attention grabber, topic, tell them what you are going to tell them), Body (three clear points, three clear sub points) and conclusion (tie back to intro, tell them what you told them, end it).

The next fifteen minutes was spent changing, adding, deleting, and practicing it - taking my notes down to one notecard with about twenty words on it….

Usually with about two minutes to go, I’d go to the door of the room, sometimes an office, sometimes a classroom, sometimes an auditorium to give my five to seven minute speech - any less then five and points were deducted, any more then seven, and points were deducted.

When I was called in, most of the time it was just the judge and me - sometimes a few spectators to see the potential blood bath.  Compared to most of the other speaking evens, there was little preparations and little practice, which meant the speech didn’t have the phony preparedness of some of the other categories, and it also had the potential to go very, very wrong…what happens if the speech only goes two minutes?  Or ten?  What happens if there is a swear word?  Or the person stumbles, spits, and sputters through it?  What happens if the speaker is just an idiot?

Walking into that room and facing the judge was, for lack of a better word, terrifying.  It was a massive adreneline rush.  This was competition, this is where you would live or die in the competition.  This is where the trophies were won or lost.

Five to seven minutes later, the speech was done - the judge was thanked, and back into the hallway we would proceed.

Whew.

But this was only round one…there were still two more to go…

 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 rancked up an impressive performance - over 96 grand slam finals with 58 wins.

With that record, they were clearly the favorite to win, but not of the fans.  The fans at the start were firmly behind Canadian Daniel Nestor and Serbian Nenad Zimonjic.  The underdogs of the competition.

Though I do have to talk about the fans.  They left.  After the Women’s Finals, the place cleared out.  And I mean cleared out.  Maybe 20% of the orginal fans were there - and that might be streatching it.  The place held only the hardest fans, or those too drunk to drive home.

I was amazed.

I was even more amazed as the match started.  It made the speed of the singles seem, well, slow.

Instead of one person on each side volleying back and forth to each other, this was a blur of rackets swinging and hitting with the ball seemingly to rarely touch the ground.  Like some big, fast, ballet on a tennis court being played out in high speed.

While at the start, the crowd seemed to be with the underdogs, it was clear soon after the first match started that the tide was turning against the underdogs, both from the court and from the fans.

They Byran brothers were doing things that only brothers could do: chest bumping, high fiving, playing around on the court.  Regardless if they were ahead or behind, they looked like they were, well, for lack of a better phrase…having fun.

As the beer, pop, and water flowed, what was left of the crowd cheered them on to their ultimate victory.  And they were gracious about it in the end.  Taking their trophy graciously with the one hundred camera men, the twenty people in the stands, and the eight of us left in the sky box watching on.

You go boys.  Go USA.  Even the Aussies were impressed.

 Seasoned homeowners look at our new home, shake their heads and mutter, “It’ll be a lot of work.”

They look at the old three-story home we purchased last month and see hours of fixing, maintaining and improving ahead.  “It’s a never-ending job,” they warn.  Their comments aren’t very encouraging, but they’ve done little to dampen my enthusiasm for home-owning.

I’ve already done a little do-it-yourselfing.  I fixed a toilet, took care of some leaking shower faucets and replaced a bracket on a drawer glide.  I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

I spend all week writing and rewriting and editing.  It’s my job and I enjoy it and take pride in it.  But there are days when I come home with a compelling urge to make something with my hands, to fix a sticky door or to repair a flickering light.

For years, i’ve been stifled by landlords who kept our rental homes in good repair.  I’ve done as much tinkering as i’ve dared, but always with the nagging concern, “What will the landlord think?”  Also, tinkering costs cash and investing in somebody’s else’s property goes against my better judgment.

But now I’m a homeowner and free at last to tinker to my heart’s delight.

Last weekend Mary and I tackled our biggest project to date.  We built and installed some new doors on our garage.  They are simple plywood doors and designed to serve only until we can afford to fix the entire garage up properly.  Still, I had loads of fun.  I hauled a load of lumber home from the lumber yard on Saturday and spent the rest of the weekend measuring, cutting and screwing all the pieces together.  When the job was finished, there was little lumber scraps scattered about and sawdust covered everything.  It was hard work and the humidity didn’t help any, but when I swung those doors closed for the first time, I felt wonderful.

Mary and I brushed a coat of pain on them late Sunday afternoon.  As the sun settled behind the horizon, we stepped back to admire our handiwork.  Even the neighbors said they were impressed.  Call me a sentimental fool, but that was a beautiful moment.

I guess that‘s what people mean when they talk about pride in ownership.

I’m looking forward to our other plans. We want to add a bathroom and remodel the existing one.  The house has a huge attic that cries out to be finished and the basement could use some new wiring and a few other improvements.  Then there are all those sticky doors, flickering lights and leaky faucets.

Visitors look at it all and mutter,” It’ll be a lot of work.”

I smile and say,” I know.”