Home.  There is just something about the word.  Home.

Thursday was the day I was going home, back to the farm.  Only a few things to take care of, a few friends to visit, a few things to pick up.

My first stop was to see the house mother from my fraterntiy days - our house of thirty guys had one lady, and I don’t use that term lightly, she was a lady, who had an apartment off in the corner of our fraternity house.  She was a friend and a mentor to many of us - and still remains that way today.  It was a quick visit that morning, but good to catch up anyway.

Then it was shopping.

You don’t realize all of things that you miss when you are overseas, the small things, like the the local shops and stores.  Sure they have book stores, but not like Barnes and Nobles, sure they have sporting goods stores, but not like Scheels.  Sure they have shopping malls, but not like West Acres, sure they have fleet stores…actually, I don’t think they have anything like Fleet Farm…

But with what little shopping impulse I had satiated (good for another year), I headed back up north, to the campus of NDSU.  North Dakota State Unversity - the mighty Bison.  My alma mater, and the place where I truly met the world.

My oldest brother works on campus, and in addition to seeing the campus (the in the driving rain), I could meet my brother and sister-in-law for lunch…across town in Moorhead at the Pizza Ranch.  It had been a while since I’ve had good pizza, or soft serve ice cream, so I took full advantage of the opportunity.

Then, finally, with lunch done, my brother dropped off, and my car fueled up, I turned my car to the northeast in the rainy afternoon and headed off.

 The drive to Fargo from Napoleon was misery.  Trucks and semi’s were in the ditch from the high winds.  My Chevy Trailblazer seemed like a mere toy on the highway, being pushed around on the highway by the invisible hand of some invisible giant.

But make it to Fargo I must.  I was making supper.

A good chunk of my family, my fraternity family, live in the Fargo area.  True, fraternities are college endeavors, but inevitably, those friends, those brothers in college, at unversity, in our fraternity, would turn into best friends.  People that laugh at your jokes, and cry at your hurts.  You become friends with their wives.  Godfather to their children.

Occassionally you also wake them up at 4am for breakfast…but that’s just me.

My destination was my home away from in Fargo, Dave and Traci’s.  Dave and Traci have a guest bedroom above their garage that I’ve bunked down at more then once in my short life.  Bachelor parties, baptisms, football games, BBQ’s and random pass throughs.

I also torment their children - little angels both.  Katie is the oldest, and acts the part.  A little nervous, a little playful, a little shy, but a lot of smarts.  Tommy is the younger - quiet, but in a hell on wheels no fear kind of way.  Like a wild horse - wild but intellegent.  I fear for his parents and Godfather…especially since I’m his Godfather…

After a run to the grocery store, it was on to Dave and Traci’s.  Due to inclement weather, and lack of planning on my part, they had offered to open their home to the BBQ tonight.  Arriving early, I was met at the door by Dave.  It had been six months since we had last seen it other.  We started harassing each other like it was only last week.  Over a beverage, we filled each other in on life.

As Traci’s car pulled into the driveway, Dave warned me, “The kids might not warm up to you right away.  They are just at that phase.”

When the door opened up and Traci, Katie and Tommy walked in.  True to form, Katie hid behind her mother.  Tommy, carefully took off his jacket, carefully threw it on the floor, walked up to me and raised it hands.  For the next ten minutes, I held him with his head on my chest.

I think he was happy to see me.

Soon, the other guests starting arriving - Dave and Tracy (Dave and Tracy - not Dave and Traci) and Greg and Melissa and their respective broods.  Throw in Tracy’s mother and we had quite the gathering.  The food was grilled the served, the stories were flying.

Every so often Tommy would halt his play to come up and be held and rest his head on my chest.

Slowly the night wound to an end, as the guests left, as the beer drinking slowed, and the kids were scuttled off to bed.

It was then that Tracy remembered the ice cream cake.

So over beer, ice cream cake, and memories, we recounted the day, the year that was, and retold some of the stories that had made us the friends that we are (I still owe Dave’s dad for a darned lawn chair that ‘accidentily’ was burned the night before his wedding…).

I slept well that night, filled with beer, ice cream cake, and fond memories of good friends.

 It was hard.

As much as I complained about milking those darn cows, as the trucks took the first lot away, suddenly, the barn seemed remarkably empty.

After over thirty years of being in the dairy business, only two months shy of his sixty-fifth birthday, and only about a month before my high school graduation, Dad was getting out of the dairy business.  Actually, getting out of farming all together.  He already had an agreement with the neighbors down the road to rent out the farmland.  But this first load of cows, the young ones, still with life left in them, was the first visible sign that the end of an era was coming.  The cows loaded up on that first day would spend the rest of their milking lives at a dairy farm up near Theif River Falls.  The remainder, the last fifteen, would be milked in the same spots they had been milked their entire milking lives.  For some of them, like the one with the spot the shape of Florida, fourth from the end on the short side of the barn, this would be something like eleven years.

I remember the day that she first came in fresh.

Heck, milking cows was all that I’d known too.  As a child, when Mom would have a meeting in town, Dad would make a play pen out of straw bales and put it in the middle of the alley way.  To the wide eyed wonder of a preschooler, it was awesome to see the hustle and bustle of the dairy barn.

To a five year old in kindergarten, it was a bit scary to be given the first real responsibility of feeding the calves.  Frist after school, but as I moved on to the first grade, those jobs extended to the morning too - since my older brother, two years older and I shared the same bed, we might as well get up at the same time.

So morning and night, I’d feed the calves, then work my way up to feeding the cows their ground grain and soybean meal mix, then the hay.  Slowly growing in strength and stamina as I went.

I don’t remember at what age I started milking cows.  It just seemed like one day, it was expected that it had to be done.  We couldn’t drive tractor until we were at least ten, but I don’t remember any such rule for milking cows.  But I do know that I was milking cows alone by the time I was in seventh grade.  With older brothers in sports and folks involved in the community, the work needed to be done.

That was why so many of the cows were also old friends.  That cow, the fourth from the end on the short side with the spot like the shape of Florida - I remember feeding her calf, being terrified as we tied it in the aisle, it was the first calf that I’d help take away from its mother.  In my six year old mind, I was worried about her remembering me and one day, getting paybacks.

But she was always a good cow - those gentle brown eyes never held malice.

And now, it was just her and slightly more then a dozen of the old girls left, waiting their fate, munching their cud, being milked for the last time by Dad and I. 

 Wednesday morning, I got up with a little head ache and keen interest to hit the road.  After a good breakfast with Ryan (breakfast is a fraternity family tradition), I hit the road, destination: Napoleon, North Dakota.

Napoleon is a funny town.  Named after a French emporor, settled by staunch German Catholics, and the Catholic church is named after St. Philip Neri - an Italian.  An international town in the middle of southcentral North Dakota.

The drive down to Napoleon was a tough one.  From the clear blue sky and sunshine of the night before, mother nature had thrown over a cloudy, steel grey sky and a powerful northern plains wind with gusts clocked over fifty-miles per hour…with hardly a tree to stop it.  In addition to the wind, there were the pheasants.  No, not peasants, pheasants.  Birds.  Roosters.  Everywhere.  It was like I was in some video game with random pheasants blowing over the road at certain intervals.  They were beautiful.  They were close.  I wonder if you need a liscence to take them with you car?

Why would I take this drive down into the middle of south central North Dakota?  It was a pilrimage of sorts.  A pilgrimage for prayers, for guidance, for an understanding ear, from a good friend.  Probably the only Frenchman in Napoleon, North Dakota, and ironically enough, the pastor at St. Phillip Neri Catholic Church.

Father Ross and I have been friends for fifteen years.  During college, he was a leader, a scholar, and a scientist.  He was president of our fraternity on college street.  A 4.0 student with a golden ticket to one of the finest schools in the country in science and technology - a fellowship to get his PhD.  He tried it for a while, before he landed where he was suppose to be, in the seminary, studying to become a priest.

And a good one he is.

Father Ross and I had traveled to Europe shortly after his ordination.  We had seen the sights of Paris, Rome, and Switzerland.  We have stories to tell…though for our sakes I probably won’t.  Lets just say that Father Ross was a saint…and I…well, thank goodness we had a priest along for the power of the confessional.

Above all else, Father Ross is a man of perspective, of prayer, and of wisdom, with a sense of humor that allows him to laugh at my jokes, while informing me how very unfunny they are.

Father Ross gave me a full tour of the church, the classrooms, and rectory.  One thing is clear, the people of Napoleon are faithfilled people.  It was evident from the care of the church and the grounds - both sizable and well maintained.

Then we took a grand tour of the town - walking on up through mainstreet.  Saying hello to some of locals, and grabbing a good bite to eat at the Wentz’s Café - the community owned resturant owned and operated by the city - a gem of a place with their signature sandwich the Reuben…traditional reuben, but the name also has significance as the man that donated the money to build the place was Reuben Wentz.

We laughed, we talked, we dreamed, we prayed, we visited with the locals, we ate, we joked, all right there in the little café off mainstreet.

To soon, I had to hit the road, back on the road, back through the pheasants and the wind.  But happy for the pilgrimage behind me.

 I’ve been to Bute, MT, Chyenne, WY, Denver, CO, Amarillo, Fort Worth, and San Antonio, TX, Wichita and Abilene, KS, and dots of the towns in the panhandle of Oklahoma.  Yet none of them seems as much of a western town as Bismarck, North Dakota.

I hadn’t made it out to Bismarck until I was about nineteen years old.  But it was always a spot on the radar map on the weather out of Fargo.  It’s news and sports reported from the television, radio, and newspapers out of Fargo.  It was west.  I imagined it as a western town and as I heard the old country songs on the radio, I envisioned Bismarck as a cattle town on the banks of the Missouri.

Shucks, I even remember one of the “Gambler” movies filmed in a recreated Bismarck, Dakota Territory.

Here I was, fifteen years after that first trip out to Bismarck, making another trip out there.  And with any luck, I’d be having a hot time in the old town tonight.

I was going out to meet some fraternity brothers, younger then me by a couple of years, but with whom I always enjoined sparing with.  Ryan is a bit of a dignatary in the town - one of the movers and shakers, but humble in how he does it.  Barry, a farmer north of town, just moved in after trying to farm and work at a bank in Harvey.  Both men of character.  Both men of wisdom.  Both men of common sense.  Both men of a strong sense of humor.  Both men given a pass from their girlfriends to whoop it up.

Not that we would whoop it up.  We were too old and mature for that…plus I think Barry was still recovering from the last time we whooped it up back in September…

After a hardy meal, we hit downtown Bismarck to a classic Irish bar.  Which is a bit funny, because Bismarck isn’t know for its Irish.  It’s Germans, its Norwegians, its Swedes, but probably not its Irish.

We were joined by another friend and fraternity brother Denver (no relation to the city).  Denver was young and fun loving with a bit of a serious streak.  It had been less then a year since I’d last seen Denver - and some things don’t change.  Thankfully.  He was still relatively young (when compared to me), still fun loving, and still had a bit of a serious streak.

We drank, and talked, and visited, and made plans. Then called it a night.

As we headed home, past the hotels and chain resturants and the Walmart, one of us made the suggestion that we might want to go to the cowboy bar or maybe to Hooters…while we didn’t seriously consider it, it was good to know that those things are still a live and well in this western town.

Even if they aren’t open on a Tuesday night…

 Tuesday, I drove.

There is something theraputic about driving, about riding across the landscape.  Sometimes it seems it is running away from something, other times, it seems as if you are running towards life.  Sometimes, it is just the pleasure of traversing across the countryside - watching out the windows as time and memories float by thick as fog - seeing the countryside through the alternating haze and sharpeness of memory of things that were, and the dreams of things that might be.

But today, I drove.

Having driven little in my time in Australia, my miles driven was down significantly.  I wanted to see the the cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul give way to the suburbs, give way to the trees and hills of central Minnesota, slowly cede way to the pastoral rolling hills and pot holes near Alexandria and Fergus Falls, then on ward to the flat, fertile farm ground of Red River Valley, right through the heart of Fargo-Moorhead.  I wanted to feel that road slip away underneath me as I rolled on through the increasingly vacant land and proud dying towns through the flatlands then gently rolling hills on through the gateway of the west, Valley City.  Then it was on through the rolling, vacant, expanse of stark beauty on through Jamestown, Tappen, Steele and on into the western town of Bismarck, where the country cosmopolitan mix of people and fashion is mocked by the western sky.

Today, I drove.

The sites, the drive, is one of even more contrast through the early spring.  In the heart of Minneapolis and on through central Minnesota, spring in out in full force with trees budding, grass greening, and animals rousing from their slumber - birds hovor in the trees, rabbits play in the fields, calves munch on grass next to their mothers.  On through the valley, through Fargo-Moorhead, the trees were not quite as forthcoming, the stands of birch alone wearing the lush green of spring, the land seemed a little more barren, the earth, yawning from slumber was only now bursting forth.  Farther on the prairies, the earth stilled seemed drowsy with the grey of winter, but the signs were there, the tractors planted the seeds, the lone cottonwoods reaching out towards the blue spring sky had that faint shade of spring, spring was there - ready to burst forth.  On through Bismarck, the smell, the feel of spring, less pronounced then Minneapolis, but more beautiful in its expectedness, in its anticipation.

Today, I drove.

The road, this road, is a familiar on to me.  Through St. Louis Park, the place where I’ve owned two houses, on onto Highway 169, past my old house where I lived with my friend from college so many years ago in Plymouth, up through Maple Grove - sight of some of the best Christmas parties on record at my good friend’s Jeff and Kris’s house - moved up with them the same time from Wichita.  Up on I-94, through Rogers, where I bought my camping and hiking gear for Colorado and Death Valley, up through Clearwater - one of the stopping points for all of my trips back and forth from home and Fargo, for FFA, for college trips, to see girls, state fair, and work.  Up through Alexandria, near my brother’s home, where my brother Jaime and his wife met so many years ago - this is where we departed for Iowa so many years ago.  Up through Barnesville (bought a t-shirt for one of my best friends when he was dating a girl from Barnesville…now they are married and she is one of my best friends too), up through Moorhead and Fargo - the biggest town to my home out on the Minnesota prairie, where I was educated…and went to school, where laughter was rampant, antics ruled, but also the place where I watched my mother waste away to cancer, and saw the pain in my father’s eyes.  Out past West Fargo - the Red River Valley Fair - memories of friends and beer and music.  Out onto the prairie - through Mapleton and past the exits where countless friends live, parties helds, dreams shared.  In Jamestown, my friend Jason and his wife Heather live, it has been ages since I’ve stopped, it was here too that I’d turn north to make it to New Rockford, where I lived and worked for a summer.  Out past Tappen, home of my good friend Jed.  I remember driving brother’s to brother’s house back in my fraternity days - from from Dave’s place in Devil’s Lake, on to Tappen, and stopping in the dead of winter and staring up and wondering at the vastness of the stars.  Onward into Bismarck - memories of pontooning in the summer, weddings in the winter, and good friends all the way around.

I drove.

With the memories too I drove.  The thoughts of what could be and the dreams of the tomorrow.  The thoughts of the faults of the fears of the potential yet to be realized.

I drove.

 Changing into my suit and driving across town for my next stop was a bit surreal.  It had only been about sixteen years earlier that I had made that first drive to the University of Minnesota campus.  At that time, I was a student on a bus on my way to the Minnesota State FFA (formerly the Future Farmers of America) convention.

It was a different time, and I a different man.

I was young and innocent.  Living at home with my Mom and Dad, brothers and sister.  The world was different too, filled with hope and possiblities.  Though I had traveled little beyond our little farmstead, in my mind and in my imagination, in the pages of books, I’d traveled the world.

Who knew that those foundations laid down sixteen years earlier would bring me back this year, from Australia no less.

I was going to see the man that helped to guide part of that journey, our local FFA advisor, Dale Erickson, inducted into the Minnesota FFA Hall of Fame.

I was no stranger to the Minnesota State FFA Conventions, coming down four years as a student and several times in college, for the last several years, I had been there as a volunteer.  But this was the first year in many years that I would attend the honors banquet.

Years ago, the banquet wasn’t much of a banquet - it was BBQ’s and milk in a cafeteria room.  Now, it is an impressive display where the high honors and awards are handed out for those making a difference in the lives of students.

There was a host of the impressive and impactful people in the FFA - Joel Larsen, Jim Ertl, Val Aarvold, then those in industry and business, Dave Ladd, Sheryl Meshke, Lisa Moorhouse, then the young, the future of the organization - people like Mike Sheely.

It was humbling.

Slowly the list of those people who made a difference in hundreds of lives were rattled off, and there, Dale Erickson was recognized (and behind every good man is his good wife - so of course Mrs. Erickson was there too).

The big awards ceremony started shortly after - the big one, with four thousand students, hundreds of people crossing the stage, and all the honoree’s being reintroduced to screaming and appreciative students.

But I made my way to my car.  I’d seen the people I’d come to see, those people making a positive difference in the lives of students.  Students not that different then me, sixteen years earlier.

 He had his eyes set on me as a seventh grader, recruiting me into the organization formerly known as the Future Farmers of America.  As the Ag Teacher, part of it was his job.  Still, as a little seventh grader it was a bit of an honor to have a teacher harass you and invite you along to the winter shows in Crookston to jugde dairy cattle.  Technically, you needed to be in ninth grader to be in the ag classes and FFA.  But for the winter shows, the contests didn’t care.

I didn’t judge that year, mainly because I knew more about milking them then judging them.

The FFA and Erickson’s ag classes were well known in my family.  He was one of the favorite teachers of my older brothers and had a reputation for being tough but understanding.  Firm, but fair.  My brother’s used to speak almost in hushed tones about the knowledge that they learned…but also the fun they had in his class.

My ninth grade year, I found all they had to say to be true.

We were a rowdy bunch that year.  But Erickson could calm us down with a simple turn of a phrase: “OK people, lets settle down just a touch.” Or “Alright folks, that was the bell.”

I’m not sure how he did it, but he always managed to keep us under control and regardless if you were a straight ‘A’ student or the most marginal, you always respected Mr. Erickson, mainly because he treated all with respect and equally.

Erickson’s classroom skills would have been enough to make him a good teacher.  His demeanor, his skill of working the room and keeping students engaged, his ability to make students work hard to get a grade.

But there was another side of him too.

Students that had little else where slowly sucked into the activities of the FFA.  Students that might not excell at sports or music, had an outlet where just good old fashioned hard work would pay off - with really hardware - trophy’s and ribbons, trips, and recognition.  He believed in the students that other people had written off.  He pushed his students to be better then they believed themselves to be. 

And he worked hard it.

For years, he pushed to change the system of how one of the highest honors, the State FFA Degree, was awarded.  He wanted it to be just that - a degree, rather then a contest.  One advisor from anther school once mocked him in front of a couple of us, “I know Erickson, all of your kids deserve the state degree.”

Erickson shot back, “Only the ones that earn it - and the ones that earn it ought to get it.”

Those comments were the reason that we loved him.

I will admit, he pushed me too.  From state degree to American degree, to being Minnesota State FFA Vice President.  All were things that I wouldn’t have achieved without Erickson.  All of them changed my life in ways that I can hardly comprehend.

Those are the things that took Erickson out of the realm of good teacher and planted him firmly in the camp of remarkable, extraordinary, and exemplary.

In a couple of weeks, Mr. Erickson is going to be retiring, with probably little fanfare, he will walk out of the school doors and into what I’m sure will be something less then a retiring retirement.

I hope that he knows that though there is little fanfare, there are hundreds of students whose lives are little better who are quietly prayer for him and wishing him well.  Godspeed Mr. Erickson, Godspeed.

 On Monday, I slept. 

OK, so I tried to sleep.  Jet lag and a burned out headlight forced me up early and after dropping off my car at the local service station in St. Louis Park, I headed back home to doze, clean, sort, and ponder.

It was good to get a little quiet time.

But soon, I was on the move again.

My brother, a small engine mechanic by trade, had taken a new job at one of the old swank golf courses in one of the oldest, swankiest suburbs of Minneapolis.  Most people don’t realize that most golf courses have a small engine mechanic on staff, but when you stop to ponder, there are literally hundreds of small engines on the massive courses.  Lawn mowers, trimmers, blowers, carts, and an entire hodge podge of machines and equipment used to keep the rough, fairways, and greens looking manicured and pristine…and a whole host of other equipment used for the other duties - ponds, hedges, trees, flower beds - all take equipment.

Both my brother had I have expereince in this type of work.  Both of us had our first hourly employment at the Mahnomen Country Club.  We both worked their two years.  Both experiencing the back breaking labor involved in an understaffed nine hole course where labor was cheap but equipment was hard to come by.

Jaime had gotten his degree and had worked for a wide range of courses since then - moving his way up from our little nine hole course up to the premier courses in the state.

And where he is at now, ranks up there, not just in the state, but in the nation.

After grabbing a bite to eat, we hopped in a cart and took a tour of the place.

It is impressive.

The machinery, the staff, the grounds, all are impressive.  Even for a cold spring day, even on a day when they were aereating the greens, even on a day when some things weren’t going right, the course was immaculate.

We explored the paths and the nooks and crannies.  Jaime took me to the concrete shed hidden away in one of the corners to show me the hidden gem of his job, the Willis Zamboni.  Which to a hockey fan like me, and the family that I grew up in (Willis Overland fans all) made it almost pilgrimage like.

Yes, the course was impressive, and most people wouldn’t have realized that the two brothers, one with two summers of grounds keeping experience under his belt, the other with more then a decade of experience on golf courses hid a dark secret. 

Ah yet, they seemed happy in the cold sunlight of early spring…

But most people wouldn’t know, the rest of the story….neither of these men touring this world class course, appreciating the lies of the green and the fineness of the grass…neither of these men with experience mowing the greens, one of whom literally sharpened the blades of his profession…neither of them…are golfers…

And now you know…the rest of the story…

My next stop in my journey was Claremont, Minnesota.  A town of about four hundred people, an ethonal plant, my insurance agent, and my good friends Jed and Shannon.Jed is one of my fraternity brothers.  Well, more then just any brother, he is one of my little brothers.  When a man joins the fraternity, he is asked to pick an older member to show him the ropes, and Jed chose me.  At the time, I wondered why he would pick me…today, I think Jed is asking that same question.

Jed’s wife Shannon knows very well why he picked me as his big brother.  We are both nuts.  We both enjoy the same level of humor.  We both have similar values.  Luckily, Shannon is a pretty tolerate person, so she can handle Jed and I getting together and wrecking havoc in their little house…which usually also means tormenting their four children.

I’m not sure why, but whenever I show up at their house, Jed and Shannon’s children, polite, well mannered, angelic children (Gavin, Kyra, Carley and Reagan), tend to get a little crazy.

Perhaps it is me wrestling with them.  Throwing them in the air.  Telling them jokes.  And all around being a bad influence.

But who am I to judge.

Add to the mix my other good friend, Tobin (also a FarmHouse brother), Karen (his lovely wife), and their son Carter (who I’m also trying to corrupt) - who made the hour plus drive to meet us and things get a little crazy.  Yelling, screaming, and laughing - and that’s just Jed, Tobin and myself.

Anytime the group of us get together, it is always a good time.  We laugh, we talk, we reminsce.  There are a lot of very funny stories to relive, as well as to share between previous visits.  There is the “Great Ice Cream Run of ‘98,” the “Breakfast of ‘02,” “Fake Drunk of ‘96,” “Ripplinger Wedding of ‘02,” “Red River Valley Fair of ‘99,” “Jed’s Bachelor Party,” “The Stray Spagetti Noodle (the creation of ‘Mark’s Mark) of ‘04,” “The Miss Piggy and Ozzy Osborne Fiasco of ‘03,” The Longest Road Trip Ever (ie HAY! Tour) of ‘03,” “The Highway 101 and 10 Incident of ‘02,”

We even have our own language from which we are banned from speaking (Shannon and Karen are very patient and very tolerant, but even they have a breaking point).

And for the bachelor of the group, luckily for me, in additon to being outstanding friends and very tolerant of their husbands and my shenanigans, Shannon and Karen are outstanding cooks, so regardless where we gather, I’m always extremely well fed.

All to soon, the day came to an end, and the road was beckoning back up to the cities.  Driving out of their driveway, as always, was a little bittersweet…time and distance makes the time precious on these visits, but it is a blessing to have friends that know and understand what makes you tick…and accept you anyway.  With a smile on my face, thankfulness in my heart, and a chuckle on my mind, I turned my car back north towards the cities.