Insight Out

Unraveling while traveling

Milktoast and a toast to milk

In lieu of  life’s more challenging events, today’s subject will span a world war and the evolution of tasteless milk.  But first, an observation from Fountain, MN, home to the geology of sinkholes, I have uncovered what might be the only church on earth, or the universe for that matter, which has an adjacent above ground swimming pool.

Nice touch, if  John the Baptist and the Jordan River are unavailable

Fifteen miles away on the outskirts of Chatfield, MN, a sign from the 1950’s, but still available today.


The sign is real.
If you are a baby boomer or newer, i.e., born after 1946, this may be an illusion.  However, for the more mature, we can recall when milk came in a glass bottle, delivered by the ‘milkman’, and it was not homogenized, the process which rendered milk a uniform emulsion.  No, the bottle was sealed with a paper cap, the cream separated to the top, and it was a treat to be able to lick the cap when opened.  The cream could be used in coffee, cooking, whipped for a dessert topping, or beat down to butter and whey.  Pasteurization, the flash heating of the milk to render bacteria harmless, was unnecessary if consumed shortly after delivery.  Milk had a taste, it tasted like milk.

So what is this leading to ?  An article in the USA Today stated that each day welcomes 10,000 new baby boomers reaching age 65, and everyday we lose 700 more veterans from World War II.  Over a three week span, I had an opportunity to interview three veterans:

Neal N., 92 y/o, retired U.Notre Dame physics department


Melvin G., retired farmer, Byron, MN, age 93


Bob O., Lanesboro, MN, 94 y/o drove milk tanker truck and still has a way with the ladies

Here are a few recollections they agreed upon:

    None considered themselves a hero; they were all drafted and felt a duty to their country.
    The real heroes never made it home.
    They all fathered children and were, in part, responsible for the baby boomer generation.
    You never forget four consecutive days on a troop train.
    Religion was an easy sell in a foxhole; no baptism necessary.
    Milk tasted much better then.

©insightout2011

Festival Shopping

Dateline: Pine Island, Minnesota

As newcomers to southeast MN, our curiosity is piqued by local summer ‘festival’ events, those special moments that allow direct contact with local culture, so last weekend, as you might anticipate, we stayed home and gave consideration to a sexual encounter.  Wait, wait, of course that’s not true, because this IS a family blog, but the point is you’ve got to get out and live a little, NOT outlive and get a little.

With the anticipation of two dogs in heat, we head north from Rochester, 20 miles, to attend the Pine Island Cheesefest.  The weekend prior we had hit the jackpot visiting the Lanesboro Rhubarb Festival and thought this might be another winner, and from here forward, the day slowly turned downhill, like sasquatch in snowshoes attempting an escape from the beef jerky papparazzi.

It’s 10 AM, a Saturday morning, and the town, Pine Island is nearly deserted.

Jack and Chas stop in the local park to take “manly relief”

Flood stage, 24Sept2010,

Lynn takes note of the high water mark, easily five feet above the ladies room floor.

And nearby, on the outdoor patio of the Pine Island Cheese Company, Jack perches on the picnic table quietly anticipating a cheesey treat.

Beautiful building, locked, and nearly empty

Walking into town we take note of the ‘arts and crafts’ fair, in the auditorium of the middle school.  Lynn ventures in, and then out, in less than ten minutes……”old ladies, card tables, garage sale castoffs, cheap trinkets from China, and not from the generals of Tao, the active and holistic conception of nature, but rather, the Dollar General store”.

The main street is closed to traffic by diligent civil patrol officers, swollen with importance and backup; orange barrels, do not cross tape, one whistle, and wooden horse barricades.  The street is lined with food vendors, prepared it seems for an invasion of famished Sumo wrestlers….deep fried Oreo cookies, Indian Fry Bread, Funnel Cakes, Elephant ears, and 96 oz servings of iced slurpees.  No cheese of any kind.  Three hours here for ‘snacking’ + three hours in a tanning bed and you could go home looking like OPrah™.

If you happen to schedule this outing, the Pine Island Cheesefest for 2012, note the following:

  • there is no cheese
  • very few pine trees
  • no island

And should one of your companions be of the female persuasion, make sure she has a bathing suit to swim into the restroom.  The only water in sight is the north branch of the middle fork on the Zumbro River, whose sole function is to flood the ladies room in the park every fall, where it is said, No Man is an Island.  So the summary of this blog is very much like the Seinfeld theme, a show about nothing.  Pine Island provided us a proper balance to Lanesboro, and we left feeling we were batting .500, good in any league.

We head eastward on MN 60, to and thru Mazeppa, presumably named after Zeppa’s mother, and a two hour drive drifting through the Richard Dorer Memorial Hardwood Forest, > 1,000,000 acres of forest-savanna transition, so serene and peaceful that we are back up to batting a thousand.

Reminiscent of the Allan Funt production mantra of the 1950s…..sometimes, when you least expect it, “smile, you’re on Candid Camera”, this glorious ride had all three of us, me, Jack, and Lynn, grinning from ear-to-ear.

Now pass me another one of those Oreos.

 

insightout©2011

Motel Hell by night, Vanna White for a day

From a prior entry promising pornography, be prepared for disappointment.  There are no gentleman clubs in western Kansas, not that I was looking.  We’d be more likely to catch a glimpse of Judy Garland, Toto, or Elvis. What we did not find, as the compass honed in on Liberal, KS, was a single motel with a ‘pet-friendly’ policy. After several rebuffs, (even though Jack is a service dog) we were directed to The Kansan, a cheap, dilapidated motel that was first class in 1957 when it offered “air conditioning”, TV in every room, and a swimming pool the size of a pregnant thimble.

Alas, after five decades, the pool is filled with concrete, the clientele is construction workers on per diem driving utility trucks, locals on a two hour romantic tryst, and one idiot with his twenty pound dog.

Entering the office I am overwhelmed by the pungent aroma of curry, I ring the counter bell, and the maharajah appears.  “Eeese your dog housebroken ?”  Desperate to find a room, the hour is late, I answer like Dr Seuss,

“he does not bark, he does not bite,

no need for a scoop, he will not poop,

he is not armed, he does not shed,

he does not smoke in bed”.

I request a non-smoking room, which, as my friend Rich observed, only means the room will not be on fire when you arrive. Sri ‘no problem’ Patel assigns us room 14 (between 12 and 15, as there is no room 13 to avoid angst among the superstitious).  “Paying in cash ?”, he smiles broadly, “forty dollahs puleeze”.

As many as 60% of mid-sized motels and hotel properties, all over the US, are owned by the people of Indian origin. Of this nearly one-third have the surname Patel – a popular one among Indian Guajaratis. To sidestep suspicion or racial bias, many adopt names like “America’s Best Value Inn”, or “Lodge USA”, or proclaim, American-owned (a truism as most are naturalized citizens). I did not make this up; information provided by the American Hospitality Association.

The room is dank, stale, miniscule, and home to all the common variants of mildew.

dscn6062.JPGThe closet, 16″ wide and six feet deep, a vertical gravesite

If I were to light up a King Edward Imperial and let it smolder all night, the air quality index would improve. Without a black light, I am unable to detect any bed bugs, although I assumed they left here years ago.  I recalled back in 1954, my mother found a Playboy magazine under my mattress and shrieked, “pornographic filth”.  The words rolled off her tongue like shards of broken glass, ground by a mortar and pestle.  The abyss of eternal damnation.  My father, the ex-Marine, demanded, “let me see that, I want to read the articles”.  

My mattress check on this night revealed no contemporary literature, pulp-grade or otherwise, only stains of anonymous DNA and a few dust bunnies.

dscn6065.JPGGet me outta here, it’s worse than the pound

Unsettled, we carried in fast food, angus burgers proclaimed to be a tastier grade of meat, rather than the standard fare of lesser quality. Mark this down, I’m not “lovin’ it”.  Jack and I share fries and a Michelob Original from our stash in anticipation of our favorite TV program, Wheel of Fortune.  

They are announcing a viewer contest vying to “Become Vanna for a Day”.  The temptation to submit an entry creates an inner turmoil. I can visualize myself gliding across the podium, deftly touching the letters, resplendent in a couture chiffon cocktail gown, smiling with perfect white teeth, displaying ample cleavage.  

This could be the chance of a lifetime, alas, I no longer fit into a size 6. Would they accept an entry from a 70 y/o male, unshaven legs, in a spaghetti strap dress, shaped like a jar of Ragu sauce covering an inadequate bosom ?  Now that, pasta lovers, that would be pornographic.

We are off to Albuquerque at 5 AM, anxious to leave town before sunrise in search of the nearest laundromat to wash the odor out of my size twelves.  

Below, a rare, unauthorized photo taken by papparazzi.

The dress and garden hat had been left by a weekend guest, DeTour cabin, August, 2007dscn0146.JPG