So it goes...

Photo by Francesco Albertazzi on Unsplash I've migrated. Hey, all. I've moved my blogging space to Substack . I hope you'll visit me there and subscribe to my weekly posts (Free). See ya on the flip side! 

Thanksgiving has always been a little bit of the prologue holiday for me. The warm-up act before the headliner Christmas. The holiday with a dash of a letdown. I remember as a kid, appreciating the fact that we were all together as a family, but when all was said and done, what was the point of a big, delicious meal, if there was no gift exchange afterward. Of course, my thinking was antithetical to what Thanksgiving was all about, namely being thankful for everything. Your family, your house, your school, your government and even the food before you. As a kid, those holidays were always big affairs. Of course everything seems bigger when you're young. A couple of times we held it at my grandmother's community room at the Lexington Apartments on Jefferson Avenue. She had some of the affair catered and for some reason, my wife remembers the chef in charge of cutting the turkey had a missing finger, victim of his own knife skills perhaps. My cousins from White Bear Lake came ...

This past weekend I went back to Minnesota to celebrate our family reunion near St. Cloud. The event was held in a cottage/cabin built by my grandfather in the 1930's. It is a dazzlingly unique structure in that the logs used to build it were set vertically, not horizontally like most cabins. I heard this weekend that Adolph (my grandfather) said that was because "that's the way trees grow." It's hard to argue with that logic and a mighty unique structure came out of his thinking, so there's that. A word about my travels to and from Minnesota are in order first. I took the Megabus from Milwaukee to St. Paul, in order to free up cars for my wife and two kids who all had to work. Now, I've been on worse trips, but I did make a few observations. Things like, how about everybody switches their cell phone to vibrate for the duration of the 5 hour trip? It was like the Southern Bell and Telephone switchboard for a while there for crying out loud. One ringy...

This is a picture of my dad's side to the family. It is a classic old photo, one that tells a hundred stories just at  first glance. I'd seen it at my brother Tom's house and asked if I could get a copy. It is one that is far too precious to let slip away. Like much of my dad's side of the family, I don't know all the details behind the photo. I'll tell what I do know and let the family correct the errors as they read it. I believe the picture was taken in my grandparents' house on Pine St.? in St. Cloud, MN. In trying to judge the age of my dad (Far Left) I'm guessing he was about 13 years old, which would put the date of the photo to about 1938. The names of the aunts and uncles in the picture as best I can recall from the faces are: (Left to Right: Roy (Dad),  Tom (Dad's twin), Harry, Dan, Mariette, Jim, Magdalena (Grandma), Will, Jack It's interesting that my grandfather is not in the picture. I don't know if that was by choice, ...

Me and my Niece Gray-Gray. So it's been 3 months since I last blogged. What's a guy to do? I'm a little bit lazy, a little bit busy and my kids dominate the computer. In this busy Christmas season, I wanted to get some of the thoughts from my head onto paper, albeit virtual paper. Did I gripe about last winter on this blog? As I recall, I did...quite a bit. Well, some things never change. Old man winter has struck hard with a vengance this December, and we're still two weeks from being into January. We just dug out from a 12" snowfall yesterday (for 29" in December thus far.) and are looking at another 5-7" tonight into tomorrow. Oh, and Tuesday some more. All I beg for is mercy. Some observations from the storm yesterday. I saw a guy on Fountain Ave. using a shovel on the hood of his car to dig out. A shovel, not a broom. It makes me laugh to think that this may be the same guy that washes his car once a week in the summer. Or, maybe not. Winter seems t...