Queens of Summer

FROM WHERE I SIT    “Queens of Summer”    July 21, 2006  pat spilseth

Tell me, girls, doesn’t every woman want to be a queen!  It’s part of a female’s natural psyche.  We want to be queen of something, somewhere, at some time in her life.  We covet those sparkly, though rather tacky, rhinestone tiaras!  All most of us need is one measly day of queenliness.  

I confess.  Yes, I wanted a tiara.   Along with dozens of others, I was one of the smiling queen candidates at my hometown’s water festival.  Waterama queen candidates were posed on hayrack floats decorated in blue crepe paper and shimmering silver flags, fluttering in the fashion of waves.   I remember that blistering July Sunday of forty-some years ago.  Steaming, hot sunshine beat down on the crepe paper float where I sat, red-faced and dripping.  I was embarrassed to be so exposed in that form-fitting swimsuit.  Of course, it was a modest, one piece; I didn’t have the guts to be a “hot number” who flaunted my emerging figure in a revealing two piece swimsuit.  

I settled for the more demure full suit; I knew no mortifying accidents of losing my top would occur when I dove off the tower, performing my favored swan dive.  I’d seen what happened to a pal in a two-piece when she dove off the high dive.  Not a pretty thought.

Friends still tease me today about the fuchsia, Rose Marie Reid, bathing suit that encased my sweaty body like a sausage.  Queen candidates, Linda, Diane and I, were posed on a hay wagon in swim attire and three inch, wobbly, white heel.  “Switch” was the cue to change waving hands, in the standard figure-eight wave pattern, and shift to the opposite hip, in unison.  Being band members, we were used to formation drills; we responded automatically.    

Seductively positioned, one knee up, the other leg resting flat on the hard float floor, I tried to look cool.  Thank goodness, a few of my friends were with me on that float, all with big bouffant hairdos of the day.  Aqua Net hairspray shellacked our curls in place that a tornado couldn’t budge.   “Kiss me Quick” red lipstick enlarged our lip-licking, moistened lips.  “Chantilly” perfume, “Wind Song” or “Opium” sprayed heavily on our sweaty bodies, camophlauged our girly glow of perspiration. Running through my head was Jerry Lee Lewis’ popular tune “Chantilly Lace and a Pretty Face.”  Don’t you fondly recall those raging teenage hormones that we didn’t know quite what to do with in the Sixties!

And do you remember the talent show?   Candidates had to perform some skill: twirling a flaming baton into the air, then miraculously catching it; singing some popular song or warble a classical operatic aria; tap dancing like Debbie Reynolds while flashing a wide grin; playing  an etude by Chopin or Debussy; or toe dancing in a tulle tutu with the ever-present tiara balanced on her twirling head.  As the years progress, my mind seems to embellish the details, but as I recall it was quite a show.

Next came the gangplank walk.   Worries ricocheted in my head as I worried about the platform walk all candidates had to make at the band shell stage.  Running through my head was the persistent question, “What if I trip?  I’d be mortified!”   I remember my staggered walk down the uneven aisle of loose boards to the judges, who stood at a microphone with hazardous, trailing wires, posing tripping problems for the queens.  

The end was near.  The BIG question was posed to each beauty: “If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

No contest!  The obvious answer was “WORLD PEACE!”  Most of us planned to be teachers, beauticians, social workers, wives and mothers.  Being women, we dreamed of jobs that served others before we became wives and mothers, serving our families.  We’d been programmed for duties that didn’t involve great cash rewards.    

No tripping, no fire from the flaming, twirling baton, no fainting marred my summer weekend.  The parade and coronation are over.  For most of us, ever-hopeful queen candidates, there was no queenly, rhinestone tiara and no world peace…but a girl needs to dream.      701 words

GUILTY of PREJUDICE?

FROM WHERE I SIT  Guilty of Prejudice ? JUNE 23, 2014  PAT SPILSETH

Sunni, Schite, or Kurd; Coptic Christian or Muslim, Roman Catholic or Lutheran, black or white, male or female, young or old?  The daily news is filled with angry differences between people, the fear, guilt and violence often occurring because of differences.   

Diversity is relatively new.  Sameness is comfortable.  Norwegians settled near other Scandinavians; Russians, Orientals and Africans found homes and friends in areas of cities with people who looked and spoke like them.   In this country’s early days we feared Indian uprisings so our government put the Indians on reservations, killing their nomadic way of life.  In business it was feared that women rising to power jobs would take away from their mothering and household duties.  Men would feel guilty to be at home and be judged effeminite if they became “house husbands”.  

Anger, fear, guilt and persecution have existed since the world was created.  By this twenty-first century, one would think we would have been been informed, educated and understanding of one another.  Why do some still feel the need to persecute, even kill each other?  Whether we kill with swords, bullets, words or drones, destruction is everywhere.

The Middle East has always been in constant turmoil.  From Sadat’s murder to Saddam’s downfall, Israel’s constant conflict with its neighbors, Syria’s dictator Assad gassing his own people and now another angry uprising in Egypt...when will it ever end?  Sunday night’s 60 MINUTES TV program had an interesting report on the Coptic Christians in Egypt whose churches are now being destroyed by radical Muslims.  Groups of people are being persecuted because they think differently than the ruling part.

When most of us were very young, we rarely noticed differences.  We just wanted to play, eat and sleep.  We were color blind, not conscious of social class, income levels, clothing designers or car models.  Our little world was only about us and our family.  But as kids grew and entered school, we started to notice differences: some kids were bigger, could run faster, had fancy clothes and a bike.   We felt the pain of indifference, unworthiness and inability when it came to choosing teams, friends or being chosen for a date.  Remember how devasting it was to be picked last?  A teacher’s red marks on that paper we’d worked so hard at were soul crushing.  

Growing up in small town Minnesota, our communities were homogeneous.  Race wasn’t an issue.  We knew people of different nations looked different; some thought different, but we rarely encountered those folks.  Almost everyone I knew was pasty white in the winter and burned red in the summer.  Moms worked at home; dads made the money.  In Glenwood had no blacks, Orientals, Mexicans, Russians, or Italians.  Indians and divorced people were rare.  When we disapproved of another’s opinions, it was easy to avoid or shun them.  We Protestants did not date Catholics and vice versa.   As we grew older, our parents, TV, newspapers and even movies pointed out differences that existed in our expanded world.  We learned who was an Indian, a Jew or a Mormon. 

We became aware of differences.  Some individuals tended to become judgmental: a red nose indicates he’s a drunk; he must be rich because he drives a Cadillac; those that get commodities at the welfare office must be poor or have too many kids.  Most of us were light skinned, blondes or brunnettes with a slight Northern European accent.  Uffdas and knee slapping laughs could be heard in every school, church, cafe and bar in town.  We ate meat and potatoes, mostly white food with plenty of sugar and butter.  

When we got to college, we were confronted with radical new ideas of 1960‘s desegregation in cities and schools.  On TV we saw race riots in LA and Milwaukee, but our black classmates from Chicago and the South became good friends.  

Cowboy movies showed us that the men in black hats were bad; the good guys were in white, like angels.  In the fifties, some folks built bomb shelters, and kids at school hid under their desks when we had drills.  Going to the movies we saw the news “shorts” of Nazi or Russian soldiers and feared the overwhelming power of their menacing black leather coats and boots. Our country entered Cold War diplomacy with the Soviet Union and an era of McCarthyism threated to destroy Hollywood, even our US congress.  Hilter’s Nazis threatened the world and scared us.  Finally we went to war to stop their pervading, destructive power from conquering the world.  Today we fear the spread of Islam radicals spreading their violence and uneducated ideas worldwide.  

Differences can be disturbing.  Life among similar people makes most folks comfortable.  Some people feel terrible guilt if they don’t eat fish on Friday or candy during Lent.  A few churches don’t allow their women to wear makeup.  Some churches meet on Saturday rather than Sunday.   Growing up, upon entering school or driving down to the Cities, we began to learn that people are different. Women used to be considered the weaker sex, but in many educated areas of today’s world, we hold jobs of power and achievement as well as being mothers at home.  Religious, uneducated zealots are trying to curb schooling for girls in some parts of our world, destroying any education or jobs for women.  Their women are to remain in the home providing children, food and care for the ruling menfolk.  

In most parts of the world today people are more educated.  We’re more aware of differences: age, race, sex and ideas are discussed.  Differences can be viewed as interesting: they can stretch our learning and expand our world.  Today’s world is a puzzling dilemna.  We have to decide what prejudices are uneducated and feared?   What ideas are destructive and should never be accepted?   Let’s hope we make good choices.

Goldilocks' Traveling Adventures

FWIS   Goldilocks’ Traveling Adventures  June12, 2014    Pat DeKok Spilseth

Tossing & turning in different beds every night while traveling is not my cup of tea.  My pillow may be too soft; the bed too hard; the sheets scratchy; not enough blankets to keep me warm.  Like Goldilocks, I ‘m fussy about my sleeping accommodations. 

On our road trip out west to Montana, Dakota, Wyoming, New Mexico and Mexico this month, I missed my daily routine.  My stomach wanted coffee, juice and cereal, muffins or an egg for breakfast before 8AM, a light lunch at noon and a hot meal around 6PM.  I’m used to regularity.  I prefer a scheduled life, humdrum though it may appear. 

No longer am I the adventurer who, on the spur of the moment, hit the open road looking for adventure.  I was part of that wacky twosome, Thelma & Louise, during college years in the 60‘s and into my thirties.   Now I’m a senior citizen.  I’ve traded traveling adventures for remaining at home with my books, music and family.  I’m content sitting on the deck overlooking the lake with Buddy, my friendly Beagle, in my lap.   I get my thrills reading the daily newspaper or a good mystery.

For me, traveling is hard work.  I hate early morning alarms rushing me to get on a 6AM flight, cramped airplane seats, no food on flights and no leg room.  Though I enjoy Dave’s traveling privileges flying, being on standby is no longer fun.  We used to plan our destination, but it was OK if we landed in a different place.  Didn’t matter: Disneyland or Philadelphia, Oslo or Amsterdam, Florida beaches or NYC, Paris or Milano...life was full of unexpected adventures.  I could handle that in my 20‘s, 30‘s and 40‘s.  

No longer. I don’t want to end up in Florida with bulky sweaters and boots or in San Francisco with only swimsuits and shorts.  I prefer some routine: a slightly modified schedule is OK, but not a total change of plans.  Last week we rose at 3AM to fly on a 6AM international flight from Mexico City to Dallas, got through customs, but got “bumped” three times trying to fly from Dallas to Mpls.   Flights were full!  Finally we arrived home in Mpls at 10PM.  That trip was too long and stressful.  I’m still tired.

Driving through our vast country, from MN to Dakota to Montana took us through lush lands of newly planted green crops, endless blue skies with puffy clouds, past bobbing oil rigs, towering silos, grazing cows and bison.  We drove Grandma Agnes’ Olds packed with suitcases and boxes toward towering mountains with wildflowers gracing the land.  Driving from Minnesota to Montana is a long haul, through Dakota’s Black Hills to Wyoming into Colorado and finally New Mexico.

Though I don’t remember being there, photos tell me that my folks took me to Mount Rushmore when I was a little girl.  Seeing the stoney faces of Washington Jefferson, Roosevelt and Lincoln carved on the mountain filled Dave & me with patriotism, pride in my country.  

In Montana we stopped at the Little Big Horn National Park where General George Armstrong Custer’s Company met an overwhelming force of Lakota and Chayene.  Mesmirized with a park ranger’s 40 minute talk, we learned about the Battle of Little Bighorn and Sitting Bull, who lived in present day South Dakota.  An accomplished hunter and warrior, Sitting Bull was a political and spiritual leader of traditional Lakota culture.  He resisted the encroaching westward expansion as he tried to preserve their traditional way of life as nomadic buffalo hunters.  

President Grant’s administration had instructed 25 year old General Custer, who had military success in the Civil War, to remove the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne to the Sioux Reservation in Dakota Territory.  In 1876 war broke out between Federal military forces and combined Lakota and Cheyenne tribes.  Riding white horses and wearing wool uniforms in the 92 degree heat, Custer and his 7th Cavalry of 262 men lacked water and were vastly outnumbered.  They met total defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, June 25, 1876.  Although they won the battle, the Indians lost the war against military efforts to end their independent nomadic way of life.

Red granite markers identify fallen Indian warriors at the battle.  In contrast, 265 white marble miliary headstones identify Custer and his men’s graves.  Monuments to both the cavalery and the Indians have been erected on the grounds. The words of Black Elk  “Know the power that is peace” echo at this disquieting scene for those who pause to consider our government’s treatment of native people.

In 1868 the US government believed it “cheaper to feed than to fight the Indians.” Government representatives signed a treaty at Fort Laramie, Wyoming, with the Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes of the Great Plains making a large area in eastern Wyoming into a permanent Indian reservation.  A promise was made to “protect the Indians against all depredations by people of the United States.”

Peace did not last.  In 1874 gold was discovered in the Black Hills, the heart of the new Indian reservation.  News spread quickly.  Gold seekers swarmed into the region in violation of the treaty.  Though the army tried to keep the gold seekers out, they kept coming. The Indians left the reservation and resumed raids on settlements and travelers.  

Coming home is the best part of a trip for me. Traveling is always an adventure, providing new knowledge of history and interesting people to meet.  But like Goldilocks, I’ve found that my big bed at home, sleeping next to Dave & Buddy our Beagle, is just right.  Nothing beats home sweet home.  951

   

FROM WHERE I SIT Main Street Stories

In the small town where I grew up, Main Street offered all the shops one needed in the small town where I grew up. That was the place where everybody congregated on Saturday night.  There was the kids’ favorite, Potters Dime Store; mothers’ grocery shopping was done at Bob’s or Harry’s, and drug needs were filled at Setters or the Corner Drug just off Main Street.  After working in the fields all week, farmers either sat in their cars or on car fenders, smoking and visiting with other men.  Men were waiting for the “little woman” to complete her grocery shopping for the week,  and he might have an “itch” for a bit of recreation.  He could order a beer and shoot a game of pool in the low lit back room at Dick’s Recreation.   

A kids’ allowance and babysitting money was usually enough for a ticket to the movies at the Glenwood Theatre.  Usually there was a kid-friendly Saturday western starring John Wayne, Alan Ladd or Roy Rogers.  Maybe there’d be enough change to buy a box of popcorn and some Mild Duds.  A kid would sit in the balcony of the theatre and watch teenagers making out or view the thriller with a pal downstairs enjoying a double wide aisle seat.  

With a wide smile, Lee Sorset would be standing on the street corner outside Potters.  He knew everyone in town and wanted to hear their latest news.  Sometimes, on the corner of the Minton Hotel several enthusiastic purveyors of the gospel, with Bible in hand, would stop passersby to inquire, “Are You Saved?”  They were a curiousity for me as a kid, but rather frightening.  Was I saved; it was a deep thought for a kid?  Though I attended Sunday School and confirmation classes regularly, I had a few doubts...

On the northeast corner of Main Street Harry’s grocery had the best selection of candy cigarettes, big red waxed lips, tootsie rolls and coconut Neapolitan candies…even better than Potter’s Dime Story at the other end of the city block.  The candies were in cardboard candy boxes from Henry’s Candy Company and stacked just behind Harry’s checkout counter.  I loved the 3 for a nickel deals on Tootsie Roll Pops, especially the grape, orange and cherry flavors.  Sweet tarts, dots of pink, yellow and green on the long white waxed strip of paper, lasted for minutes on my tongue.  Black licorice pipes were fun to smoke, but the big red waxed lips lent a bit of glamour to my life.  Bit of Honey, wrapped in the red and yellow paper, was chewy; the pink, white and chocolate coconut squares tasted so sweet, they sometimes made my teeth ache.  I wasn’t big on visits to the dentist.  Buzzing drills hurt my ears as well as my mouth when they drilled holes in my cavities for those ugly silver fillings that Doc Gilman was big on.

Most of us will remember buying white tennies for gym class and fabric for a sewing project in home economics at Potters’ Dime Store. Wimpy’s cafe was next to the barber shop; across the street were the sweet rolls featured at the Chimes Cafe and the darkened atmosphers at Rodgers Cafe .  There was a grocery store on the southwest corner where Mrs. Sandeen clerked.  Was that grocery store the Red Owl?  Next door to that grocery was a small beer joint where little kids sat on the curb outside waiting for their parents at the bar.  So many stories, but I don’t know if Mrs. Avery, the social columnist ofThe Pope County Tribune back in the fifties and sixties, would have published several of my Main Street memories.  Dona Longaker wrote that my columns remind her of Mrs. Avery’s “Local Briefs”.

Carol Dick told us that when she was a seventh grader, her father bought a business downtown, a beer parlor with swivling stools plus the back room pool hall.  Being a teenager, she remembered how embarassing it was for her that Dad owned Dick’s Recreation.  Dona Longaker’s remembered that her dad often walked from the movie theater, which he owned, up the alley to the back door of the pool hall to play pool and smoke his Old Gold or Chesterfields cigarettes.  Hioajjjvio.l/ng no sons, he asked Dona if she wanted to come with him to the pool/ .lohoall and he would teach her to play pool.  But Dona knew that some of helr classmates might be there, maybe Ray Handorff, Dick Ziminske and others.   She felt she might embarrass herself by ripping the green felt cloth of the pool table with the pool cue.  She turned him down.

Wendy Schaub and I were too young to feel embarassed about riding our bikes in the back alley to the pool hall and going in the back door of the darkened pool hall to say hi to the guys I knew from their days at the jail.  Patiently, they taught  two  pigtailed girls to play a game of pool.  

Everyone was drawn to Main Street on Saturday night!  It was the “Happenning Place” in town.  From the cash drawing to the turkey giveaway at holidays, no one wanted to miss the week’s excitement of a Saturday night in small town America.

FROM WHERE I SIT     Nosy or Friendly Neighbors?   May 12, 2014

Pat DeKok Spilseth

Walking through my neighborhood, I see that Joan and Barb have been in their gardens, and Gayle has hung a spring wreath on her front door.  I hear noisy construction trucks roaring down the street with lumber for three new houses; the school bus is picking up kids for school; Kay and Dave are out walking and a few hoping to lose weight are running hoping to lose weight.  I know almost everyone in my neighborhood.  Buddy, my Beagle, is a magnet for me to meet new neighbors.  

In the small towns my husband and I grew up in, everybody knew everyone in town.  Sometimes, they knew too much.  Some folks would have preferred their business to remain private.  Neighbors were our friends: together we celebrated baptisms and confirmations with the expected treat, an “open Bible cake”.  At weddings, aunts or neighbor ladies poured coffee from the church’s elegant silver coffeepot and served plates of sandwiches of “dollar buns” with a slice of ham, pickles, assorted cake slices and mixed nuts and butter mints in pink, yellow and white.  

Our local weekly newspaper had a society columnist who called townspeople for social news.  She’d print the names of guests visiting local people in the Social column of the weekly paper, which everyone in town avidly read.  We read that paper front to back. What better way to keep up with who won the weekly raffle and meat giveaway, who got married, who died and what names were printed for city and county misdemeanors.  That’s the spot nobody wanted to see their name!  When Dave’s dad Maynard was cited for fishing without a license, he took a trip to Mpls to see his married daughter the day the paper came out.  He didn’t want to face the teasing of his pals.

Sometimes the newspaper editor got “heat” from upset readers.  When Shannon, an Irishman who came to town dressed in a kilt, published “The Green Sheet”, he reported tiffs going on in the city.  He wasn’t afraid of printing all the juicy gossip, no matter if someone important was involved.  He feuded with the editor of the local paper, which had been in existance for many years.  When that established editor/publisher was Ed Barsness, “The Green Sheet” labelled him BarnsMess.  How insulting!  Shannon didn’t garner friends, but he did report the news, at least what he considered news the public should hear.  The public was tantalized, waiting impatiently to read the latest scandal. Shannon didn’t last long in our small town, but while he was local, he caused quite a stir.

When a member of the community passed away, neighbors brought in tuna and hamburger casseroles, jello salads, chocolate, marble or spice cakes, bars and cookies.  Eveyone was a baker who used real butter, sugar and white flour.  Family and friends gathered on these occasions for comfort and support of their loved ones.  Tasty, homemade food was meant to be a comfort for those who had lost a family member or friend.  

When a barn or home burned, a child drowned or was hurt in a car accident, a family member was deathly ill or a spouse died, friends, with accompaning food, gathered to help.  No one in need was left to fend for themselves.  Neighbors gave neighbors rides to the doctor, picked up groceries, cleaned houses, and cared for the children of the afflicted.

Growing up on a farm, Dave’s dad would take the family on a Sunday drive to check out neighbors’ fields.  Who had already been planting or harvesting?  Who had new farm equipment?  Who had a brand new car?  Tongues really wagged if they’d bought a Cadillac!  My folks took a Sunday family drive to visit relatives and friends who lived in Starbuck or Brooten or out in the country near Glenwood.  Serving lunch to visiters was always expected.  We ate sandwiches with pickles; kids drank Kool-Aid, and parents drank coffee with Norwegians, tea among the Dutch relatives.  Pastries had been baked, not bought at the store.  Moms were stay-at-home moms who cooked meat and potato dinners, baked cakes and cookies, sewed our skirts and aprons, washed, ironed and cleaned the house. 

A few busybodies knew everything about their neighbors.  Country folks had certain “rings” for their phone calls.  Some “rubberneckers” listened in on other’s phone calls when they heard a certain ring, not their own.  Soon everyone knew who was dating the neighbor girl or boy, if some kid got in trouble at school or with the law, and if someone was drinking too much.   I wonder if at the fast-growing Friendship Villages in Florida neighbors are as informed as we were in small towns and the country?  

Today I live in a metropolitan city where life is different from life in the small towns where we grew up.  We don’t know everyone; many work quite a distance away from the neighborhood and are rarely home.  We found a home on a lake with friendly neighbors who worship with us at a small church closeby and shop at the local grocery, hardware and drug stores.  The public library, restaurants and banks are five minutes away.  All our needs are supplied nearby.  Like many neighborhoods, mine has a few odd ducks and some people who don’t speak to anyone; they’re very private, rather unfriendly.  In a way, that’s fortunate for those living next door.  There are no obligations.   Some neighbors are only summer residents, using their lake house as a getaway from the city’s heat.  We like living in this neighborhood near friends we enjoy and whose support we can count on, but we still have privacy.  962 words

FROM WHERE I SIT    SENSING CHANGES APRIL18, 2014    Pat DeKok Spilseth

April showers bring May flowers and glorious sunshine, breaking up ice, opening the lake for boats to speed across the water.  Neighbors are putting docks into the lake.  Yesterday, shirtless guys in yellow, red, and green kayaks paddled across our shoreline dodging ducks in their path.  

Rhubarb tips and tulips are peeking through the dusty grass and dried leaves.  Creeping Charlie has begun its yearly takeover in the lawn and gardens.  Time to get out the rakes, fertilizer and week killer.  

My most treasured reminders of spring are the blue wild hyacinth and sprouting spring beauties in the wooded park across from our house, the mottled leaves of trout lilies and dutchman’s breeches as well as the teensy purple, white and pink violets.  

The maples in our yard are budding and the willow’s branches are sprouting yellow tendrils, which will soon be waving in the breeze.  Fat raccoons are prowling the woods: a few are probably sleeping in holes in our aged maple trees and under the deck.  Buddy is in a barking frenzy with spring’s eruption of hopping bunnies and teasing squirrels.  He’d love a playmate to chase around the yard, but the bunnies and squirrels are not interested.  The ticks are out, and soon pesky mosquitoes will buzz and strike at our white winter skin.  

Our wooden Adirondack chairs are scaling, drastically in need of sanding and repainting.  The wood deck and house need a power wash and oiling.  Weekend rains cleaned our folding lawn chairs so we could sit outside on the deck at Easter, enjoying the company of relatives and friends.  Soon the loons will join the ducks and geese on the lake, and we will, once again, hear their haunting cries.  

Spring brings so many changes.  Soon I’ll not have the time to enjoy reading books as often as I had this winter.  Our long MInnesota winter days let me enjoy entering other worlds in books, which I love to explore.  “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested,” wrote Francis Bacon.  That’s exactly how I felt last week as I read and thought about many ideas in Julian Barnes’ THE SENSE OF AN ENDING. a page-turning meditation on aging, memory and regret.  I was enraptured with Barnes’ insights about youthful insecurities, aged regrets and false recollections.  “In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you,” wrote M.J. Adler.   I identified with Barnes’ teenage characters suffering the insecurities of dating, body changes, and shifting friendships as well as his aging character stewing about a boring past and humdrum present life.   As I read, I agreed with John Kieran’s words, “I am a part of all I have read.” 

Sometimes I wonder about the authenticity of my memories.  Barnes wrote, “History is that certainity produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.”    As we age, there are fewer people to document the certainity of our memories.  Perhaps things were not as good nor as bad as we remember.  Was my life at the jail with Blackie, Verdie and Paul, the Dancing Decorator, as terrific as I remember?  Maybe it’s all about how we interpret those events, which may change as we age.  

As we change, easing into middle age, Barnes wrote that “Middle aged man contends with a past he never thought much about.”  Mindlessly, most of us plod through our daily lives not identifying causes and effects.   Barnes writes “Every day is Sunday”.   Boredom goes on from generation to generation.  We tend to live years of stagnancy, waiting for our lives to begin.  How many of us are still waiting for moments of inspiration, hoping to find a new passion, wanting more excitement in our lives?  

More changes come as we enter dreaded old age.  Our fears compound.  We might not be as independent; we may need the services provided by a nursing home.  We don’t like being old where there is often too much overfamiliarity.  We still want to be viewed as a dignified person, a person of value...who wants to be invisible?

When we’re young we invent different futures for ourselves; but when we’re old, we invent different pasts.   As a teen, many feel we can be anyone we want to be.  We might have dreamed of being a movie star, some wildly successful, important person.  But life became real: job hunting, marriage, kids and paying bills became our day to day existence.  Maybe that’s the time when the worlds in books entered our lives, giving us a means of escaping from our “Sunday” lives to a life filled with excitement.  

Barnes has me thinking: time first grounds us, then confounds us.   Am I being realistic to settle for safety, avoiding change, not facing certain things I want to avoid?

Most of us are average.  We have to reconcile that life may not be all it’s cracked up to be.  Our youthful idealism, those pie-in-the-sky dreams of who we could be, are rarely achieved.   We may never be the person we wished to be, but we’re always changing, and the way we live does affect others.  We make impressions on those around us.  If not now, when will you and I begin to fully live?

Springtime brings changes: new life in nature; renewed energy and ideas in us.   Like Minnesota’s changing seasons, books bring interesting people, other worlds, new ideas, wonder and joy into my life.  “Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.”  Kathleen Norris

“A HOUSE WITHOUT BOOKS IS A ROOM WITHOUT A SOUL.”  MARCUS TULLIUS CICERO”   981 words

Easter on Parade

FROM WHERE I SIT  EASTER ON PARADE MARCH 29, 2014 PAT SPILSETH

The Easter Bunny will soon be hopping his way to our house with baskets of candy eggs decorated for the holiday.  It’s taken many years, but it’s finally dawned on me that it’s crazy to believe a hopping bunny on two legs will carry a basket of chocolate eggs  to my house on Easter.  It’s almost as bizarre as a flying white stork bringing babies to houses with pregnant women!  What salesperson imagined this strange idea to market Easter candy?  Why didn’t we question these ideas when we first heard them?  On Easter, christians celebrate the risen Christ, who died for our sins and rose again.   Many of us also enjoy other Easter festivities...egg hunts, spring flowers, candy, fuzzy bunnies, straw bonnets and an Easter parade.

As a kid, I thought that decorating Easter eggs would be fun.  I bet Moms think differently after they’re stuck with cleaning up the mess of cracked eggs, colored dyes, and messes on the table and floor.   One year I persuaded Mom to dye hard boiled eggs into pink, aqua, blue and violet colors for Easter.  That happened only once at my house.   We tried dipping the eggs in bowls of various dyes at the kitchen table, but our results were not pretty.  Since nobody in our family liked to eat hard boiled eggs, after a few days sitting on the kitchen table in the sun, the eggs begin to smell rotten.  They ended up in the garbage.  Not even the dog would eat those eggs.

When my own kids were little, we tried having Easter egg hunts a few years. Usually either Andy or Kate would end up crying because they didn’t get the most eggs in their basket.  These kids are so competitive!  We gave the hunt a final try when Kate must have been about eight and Andy five.  We invited our St Louis, MO. friends, the McAdams, with their little kids Patrick and Sarah to join us for the holiday.  To get into the spirit, Dave put on a gray and white Easter Bunny costume, with cottontail and long ears.  We parents rose early on the frosty Easter morning to hide the eggs among the trees and bushes in our lawn before the kids awakened.   After getting the kids into their Easter outfits so they’d be ready for church, we distributed pink, purple and yellow  straw baskets to all four kids and said GO!  Find the hidden eggs.  Dave got the movie camera ready to roll...

It was a race to disaster.

Dressed in pretty Easter dresses, their winter boots and jackets, Kate and Sarah raced to the tall maple trees and bushes in our yard, where the girls had spied a pink and yellow egg.  Andy saw it at the same time!  Dashing to the treasure, they collided and began hitting each other with their straw baskets, fighting to claim the egg for their baskets.  Eggs flew out of the baskets and scattered on the lawn still wet with dew.  Kate wildly scratched Andy’s face and his chubby cheeks turned beet red with tears of frustration; sweet Sarah stared open-mouthed..she’d never seen such chaos; Patrick, the youngest kid, checked out another tree for a different egg.   Kate dove on Andy’s back, wallopped him, and snatched the prized egg!   As their bellowing cries echoes through the neighborhood, their heads smacked and both started bawling.

Meanwhile, up on the deck Dave in his warm Bunny outfit was filming the egg hunt as kids scattered on the yard.  Everybody, but the kids, was laughing.  I had to separate the fight before someone ended up with a concussion.  Already several faces were streaked with tears and bloody noses.  Their Easter outfits were ruined, torn with grass stains and blood.  That was the end of Easter hunts at our house. 

When you think about it, isn’t it strange bunnies have anything to do with chocolate eggs?  In the 18th century, the Easter Bunny idea came to the U.S. when German Lutheran immigrants in the Pennsylvania Dutch area told their children about the “Osterhase”, meaning hare, not rabbit.  Legend tells us that only good children received gifts of colored eggs in nests that they made in their caps and bonnets before Easter. Sometimes the bunny is depicted with clothes, carrying colored eggs in a basket with toys to the homes of children, much like Santa Claus.  

Personally, I haven’t given up on Easter egg hunts.  It’s so much fun to hide the eggs and watch little kids race to fill their baskets with eggs.  If I ever have grandchildren, I’ll want to host an Easter egg hunt, happily dye Easter eggs with the tiny tots, even clean up the mess.  I’m hope Easter will be warm this year so we can celebrate with lilies, tulips and hyacinths not only in our churches but also outdoors.  We Minnesotans desperately need warm spring weather.  Wouldn’t it be great to enjoy Easter without wool coats and ear muffs?     846words

COFFEE CREATIVITY

FROM WHERE I SIT  COFFEE CREATIVITY  March 25, 2014 Pat DeKok Spilseth

As Dr. Seuss wrote in his book that I used to read to my children,

 “How did it get so late so soon? 

It’s night before it’s afternoon.  

December is here before it’s June.  

My goodness how the time has flown.  

How did it get so late so soon?”  

Where did the time go?  Some days I feel that I’m mindlessly drifting on an endless treadmill, going nowhere.  I find myself shuffling worn cards, playing solitare to pass the time.  Though the sun is shining today, I have little energy to try something new or tackle a task that needs to be done.  My energy seems to be dissipating with each new year, especially during the winter months when the sun doesn’t shine so brightly.   Darkened hours take over my days, sending me to bed with a good book in the early evening.

It’s winter.  That’s the problem.  I’ve got to shake myself out of this lethargy.  Maybe another cup of strong, black coffee will help.   Coffee helps energize me, but I often wonder how could a cup of tasty coffee be good for me?  Doctors are now saying that dark chocolate and red wine are good for our health.  Who knows what they’ll discover about coffee!   I just read an article by Sanjiv Chopra, MD, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who wrote that ”Coffee is truly a lifesaving miracle drug.”

According to Dr. Chopra, it’s still a scientific mystery how a simple cup of  coffee works wonders in the body.  In The Readers’ Digest, epidemiological studies repeatedly verify coffee’s astonishing benefits: 

*More than three cups a day lowers women’s risk of developing the most common skin cancer by 20%.

*More than six cups a day cuts men’s risk of dying from prostate cancer by 60 percent.

*Drinking at least one cup of coffee a day lowers women’s risk of stroke by up to 25%.

*Consuming at least two cups daily reduces women’s chances of becoming depressed by up to 20%.

I feel new energy from a strong cup of java!   Coffee recharges my energy and creativity: I’m back writing columns at the computer, baking cookies, and I just popped a casserole in the oven.  WOW!   

Read Mark Walton’s Boundless Potential: Transform Your Brain Unleash Your Talents, Reinvent Your Work in Midlife and Beyond.  National Institute on Aging’s director Sunil Iyengar said.   “Enhanced creativity is associated with greater satisfaction,” Though dementia or brain damage can affect creative output, in a healthy brain, decline is not a given.”  

There’s no reason to assume that people lose their energy and stop being creative just because  we get gray hair.  Check out those energetic, aging rockers Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, both 69.  They’re still strutting across stages around the world and draw huge crowds for their concerts.  

Doris Lessing, the Nobel Prize-winning writer on racism, colonialism, feminism and communism wrote about her own creativity: “Don’t imagine you’ll have it forever.  Use it while you’ve got it because it’ll go; it’s sliding away like water down a plug hole.”

To stay creative and original in later years, we have to be willing to try new things.    Self-help columns tell us to take up a new hobby, learn another language, travel...  Salvador Dali switched from painting in the classical art style he was trained in to surreal painting and sculptured objects.  Remember seeing those crazy clocks of his with sagging faces?  Matisse, my favorite artist, went from painting lovely, serene family and landscape scenes to assembling colorful cutout shapes on paper.  When Norman Mailer lost his teeth and was walking with two canes, he was still writing.   Grandma Moses didn’t start painting until she was in her seventies, but when she died at 101, she had created 1600 works of art.

Rex Jung, assistant professor  of neurosurgery at the University of New Mexico, thinks that older people have lots of data  and fewer brakes inhibiting their thoughts. They’re able to put things together in more novel and useful ways.  He said, “When you see an increase in people’s creative undertakings in retirement, it may not be just because they’re retired and have more time on their hands; it may be because the brain organization is different.”  

Age can bring diminished energy, but also there’s a greater urgency to the creative process.   We don’t want to run out of time before completing a project that consumes our interest.  Writer Valerie Trueblood wrote, “...you just see the brevity of life more acutely when you’re older, and I think it makes you work harder and be interested in making something exact and completing it.”

It could be that society’s stereotypes about aging may be the biggest creativity killers.

When we begin to sense the lengthening shadows of age, we need to shake off that midlife shiver and try something new and different.  Give your brain a jolt.  We may be getting gray, but coffee can help spur our brains to keep working.  Have another cup of java.  847 words

SPRING YEARNINGS march 22, 2014

Tulips, daffodils and crocus...where are you?  I want to smell sweet breezes drifting over the lake and across a freshly mown lawn; I NEED sunshine and warmth.  I’ve had it with  winter’s cold temps and icy, potholed streets!  I’ve been dreaming of Florida’s sandy beaches, and how I long to eat fresh fish on an outdoor patio.

As I write my weekly column, I’m listening to a classical music station.  It just interrupted my thoughts with more alarming news: twenty degree temps are forecasted for tomorrow!  ENOUGH!  It’s almost time for Easter dresses and straw bonnets.  LIttle girls will freeze in their finery if this obnoxious weather continues...

What’s a girl to do?  

Walking Buddy, my Beagle, around the neighborhood yesterday, a neighbor stopped to chat.  Max noted, “Have you noticed our recent alpine landscape?  Have we been time-traveled on a magic carpet to Austria’s snowcapped mountains?” 

The snowbanks must look like mountains to Buddy too.  Bravely, he climbs the treacherous inclines, often sinking into the melting pile, then struggles to regain his ascent to see what’s over the top, on the other side of the mountain.  He’s oblivious to the fact that he could sink deeper and have to push and shove snowbanks to get through the piled snow.   He doesn’t seem to mind slippery, icy spots nor the swarming mud on the street from all the trucks hauling lumber into our neighborhood.  Obstacles are a challenge to my dog.  He mounts the biggest, dirtiest, plowed chunks on the roadside to see what’s on the other side.  

Gardening catalogues are arriving in the mail, plastered with blooming iris, clematis, peonies and ferns.  I’m not a gardener; instead, I’m thinking about plowing down any remaining plants and returning the ground to grass.  Summer’s heat and humidity ruins any gardening wishes I harbor in the spring.  And weeding...who enjoys that?  Some invasive plant has taken over one garden; the other garden doesn’t get enough sunshine.  

April arrives this week.  I can almost sniff SPRING in the air...some days.  It’s an intoxicating time for Buddy.  He gets literally drunk on spring scents, tossed Dairy Queen cones and fast food wrappings abandoned by the crews building new homes on the Point.  Anything with a scent of food gets his immediate attention.

It’s time to clean the garage.  I’m eager to unveil my tiny MIata, with the red racing stripe, which has been sleeping all winter in the garage.  It might need to have a jolt from Dave’s battery charger.  I’ll have to wade through the stacked wood chunks, croquet balls and mallets, swim rafts and old tennis racquests that line the walls and rafters of our garage to get to the Miata.  Our garage is a menagerie of coffee cans with nails and screws, rusty staples and assorted boxes of scrapbooks and old toys the kids have outgrown.  They need to come and get their teenage letter jackets, graduation and sports uniforms still stored in their closets.  Andy’s snowboard, his baseball cards and electronic games might be worth something on Craigs’ list.  Kate will want her treasured books and numerous framed photographs of friends lining the bookcases in her room.

In the rafters are wooden cross country skiis, the old ones that needed waxing, as well as Andy’s baby crib, the red wagon Grandma Esther gave the kids, discarded rugs, probably stained with various dog markings.  Bikes are hanging on the walls of the garage along with assorted pieces of lumber, which Dave says he’s certain to use some year in the distant future.  

It’s spring break time at the schools.  No kids are playing in the park or riding bikes around the neighborhood.  Everyone has abandoned the neighborhood to fly to warmer temperatures in the South.  I’m still waiting for sidewalk puddles, a sure sign of spring.  Soon I have to find my tall water boots to walk Buddy on his daily constitutional.  Pot holes dug by thundering snowplows and construction trucks have plowed dirty banks and smashed ice chunks, destroying the surface of our roads around Casco Point.  Spring brings new construction and potholes every year.

By this time, I expect to hear the sound of trickling water.  I can’t wait for spring to wash away our gray skies and frozen lakes.  Like broken eggshells, ice chunks will soon push up and over each other onto the shore.  Slowly, the ice will crack and settle among dirty deposits of stringy sod, random stones, grass clippings, tree branches, dead bugs and frozen rodent carcass.  AHhhh, spring’s a rejuvenating, but messy time of year...I can’t wait!  Warmer weather would do a lot for my physical as well as mental health.  Perhaps the flower show downtown at Macy’s will inspire me and lift my spirits.   798 words

FROM WHERE I SIT      Neighborhood Influences             March 17, 2014  P.D. Spilseth

BUDDY, my friendly Beagle, and I have been taking walks most days around our neighborhood.  It’s noisy and crowded with lumber and cement trucks; vans and pickups are roaring down the road and parked along our narrow street.    There’s constant hammering and sawing at the three new houses rapidly rising, like Jack’s beanstalk.

My neighborhood is changing.  When we moved here in 1980, there was a wide assortment of cabins, large older homes in need of restoration, lake houses and a few modern homes.  Neighbors welcomed us with smiles, freshly baked pies and invitated us to their homes.  Early on we got to know most everyone in the neighborhood.  Dogs and little kids are always magnets to meet neighbors.

New residents say that they’ve found it too expensive to restore the older homes; it’s cheaper and more efficient to build new structures with updated electrical wiring, efficient windows, furnaces and air conditionning.  The latest look on the Point is large homes with fat pillars adorning expansive entrances.  I haven’t seen any screened in porches on these newer homes...just wait until the mosquitos arrive and buzz their open porches! 

Former cabins and grand, historic homes that gave Casco Point such character have been demolished.  One of the few remaining boat houses has been removed.  We still have the Grand Hotel, a former fisherman’s lodge with room numbers above the door and a lovely Victorian lake house, with a wide, screened in porch, next door to our home.  Further down the Point, three lake homes, built in the late 1800’s, are set high on a hill with sprawling lawns leading to the water.  They’re built like farm houses, tall, narrow and painted a pristine white.  As bigger, new homes are built, property values will rise, but taxes will also climb.  It’s not cheap to live on the water, but we lake lovers would have a hard time moving elsewhere.

Growing up in the jail, when Dad was Pope County sheriff, I knew almost everyone in every house in my neighborhood.   They knew me too, and kept an eye on me and my sister.   In Glenwood, we had older homes with wooden staircases and bannisters, a rooming house, stately two story homes with green shutters, stores with apartments above and small bungelows.  Many houses had front porches that were screened in, perfect for visiting with neighbors walking by.  Everyone was friendly: we knew where we could borrow a cup of sugar or a pound of butter.

Mama and Papa Stevens lived across the street from the jail, on Green Street, a convenient refuge for my little sister Barbie when she felt slighted and decided to run away from home.  She’d pack a little suitcase with her underwear and PJ’s , stick her comforting thumb in her mouth, grab Daisy Mae (the jail watch dog) and run to the Stevens’ house.  Regina and Earl would comfort her with cookies and milk at their kitchen table and telephone Mom to say Barbie was fine.  Daisy and Ike, Earl’s English bulldog, would sit at their feet hoping for crumbs from the table.

Next door to the Stevens house was Mrs. Peterson’s quiet home with the entrance porch where she usually sat.  She’d survey the passing parade of people coming to the library down the street, to the red brick Lutheran church to the North, or to the courthouse and jail across the street.  Mom taught her daughters that it was important to visit the elderly, like the widowed, sickly Mrs. Peterson who was lonely for company.  After school several times a week, Mom sent me over to the Peterson home to “visit” with her on the porch and suck on lemon drops, my reward in the glass candy jar.  We must have been at least 70 years apart with little in common, but we sat across from one another, me in a rocker, she resting on a lounge.  I gave her the latest school news and jail gossip.

From our kitchen window, we could see Earl and LaVanche Solvie’s garden with the tall tomato plants, onions, carrots and raseberry bushes.  Mr. Solvie was an avid gardener;  La Vanche worked at the Courthouse in Social Services.  They were often at Mom’s kitchen table, along with the Courthouse gang, for coffee and sweets at 10AM and 3PM.  Next door to the Solvie’s was Pearl, a widow, and her daughter. Next door was another Solvie family.  Vera and her daughter were my source of play clothes, full-skirted tulle bridesmaids’ dresses, veils and hats.  

Across the street was another elderly widow Mrs. Nyhammer, who rented rooms to young teachers in Glenwood.   Barb Kranch, sister Barbie’s second grade teacher, and teacher-roommate Maureen lived in rooms upstairs.  Walking home from school, Mom would yell to Miss Kranch, “Yahoo, got time for a cup of coffee?”   They would visit, drink coffee from china cups and munch on Mom’s latest batch of cookies, still warm from the oven.  Next door to Mrs. Nyhammer, was the Moens’ two-story home, which was sold to the Leafs, whose two little kids I babysat.  Mr. Leaf was my English teacher at the high school.

Up the street and down the block were lots of kids to play with. The Kvale girls, JoRae, red-headeds Rosalie and Muriel lived across the street from the Zimma house where we gathered to play dolls in Jeannie’s playhouse.  Across the alley lived the Graves girls, Wallace Ogdahl and her brother Bill.  The Ogdahls had a candy drawer in their kitchen filled with treats for kids in the neighborhood.  Across the street and up the block lived the Femrites with Mary, Sophie, Margaret, Sylvia, Joann and their two tall, handsome, older brothers Eddie and Arnie.  Also on Green Street were three more girls, whose folks owned Dick’s Recreation downtown, where I learned to play pool.  On the corner lived my best pal Luania Lewis, her little brother Johnny, and older sisters who taught us all we knew about the “facts of life.”

LIfe is different today: not better or worse, just different.  When I was growing up, mothers stayed at home to raise their kids, bake cookies, sew clothes, and do household chores.  Neighbors knew if kids were misbehaving or not.  KIds could walk or bike to their neighborhood friends and feel safe.  Unsupervised, we played in the woods by the ski chalet, built tree houses, rode our bicycles to the beach, the tennis courts and ball diamonds.  When the whistle blew at noon, six and ten, we knew to dash home for meals and bed at 10. 

Today, especially in a larger city, often people don’t know who lives next door or down the block.  It seems that people are more concerned with privacy, or they simply don’t have time to interact with neighbors.  Parents are more concerned about their kids’ safety, kidnappings and child molesters.  Many mothers work outside their homes, and stay at home dads are becoming more common.  Kids are closely supervised in day cares and are driven to lessons for music, sports, language, art... 

Neighborhoods are changing, but they’re still the best place for adults and kids to meet friends.  I love to see neighbors gathering together to enjoy a summer afternoon or families sledding on a winter day.  What could be better than kids sprawling on the lawn    picking dandelions, braiding into golden crowns and searching for four leaf clovers?    Remember how we knew they would bring good luck?  1259 words

A Post-Book World

FROM WHERE I SIT      A POST-BOOK WORLD?    FEB. 19, 2014     PAT SPILSETH

A lit-up NOOK appeared at our book club last evening!  Several club members sheepishly admitted ordering books on their Nooks and Kindles.  They justified their behavior by claiming it’s easier to travel with the lightweight digital marvels.  Another insisted that she could read in bed with her Kindle’s tiny light and not disturb her husband.  

Amazed and aghast, I wondered what was happening to my group of diehard book lovers, who usually read 3 or 4 books at the same time.  At my house, books are on my nightstand, on a table by my reading chair, even in the bathroom.  I seriously began to wonder, is technology taking over my friends’ lives?  What’s happenned to these previously devoted fans of hard-bound books in local libraries and book stores?  I dread to think of what’s happennng to our little bookstores.  Will they disappear like so many individually owed shops?  Is technology taking over bookstores and libraries, like texting and emails have replaced good grammar and complete sentences with subjects and verbs?  

It’s a bit embarassing, but I haven’t read a book on the Kindle I received a year ago.  I love real books, feeling their weight in my hands as I read.  Turning the pages, I move from my world of freezing Minnesota winter temperatures into imagined worlds of romantic Paris or exotic St. Petersberg or Carnival time in Rio.  I can be dining on the Champs Elysee, riding a polo pony across the pampas of Argentina or perhaps I’ll become a brilliant Swedish journalist solving some gruesome crime in the hinterlands.   Oh, the worlds I can inhabit!  Magic enters my world because of books and my vivid imagination.  

I know the same magical possilities are in my little, light-empowered Kindle, but I haven’t adjusted to its technology at this point.  I’m still a dinosaur when it comes to changing my reading habits, hanging clothes on a clothesline outdoors and baking calorie-laden chocolate treats..., but I’ m fhappy and content.

Circulation of books is falling at libraries throughout the country.  My local library has shortened its hours.  Sadly, they decided to close on Sunday, the lonelinest day of the week for many.  I think Sunday might be the most important day for libraries to be open.  Folks gravitate to local libraries to be among others reading the newspaper and magazines, checking out a good read, typing on a computer, or seeking a quiet spot to meditate away from the chaos of everyday life.  People look to libraries for inspiration, research, instruction and new ideas.  Those without a computer or the internet can use the library’s machines with no charge except a small printing charge.  

It’s been difficult for many people to get out of their homes this winter with the endless snowfalls, icy roads, and freezing temperatures.  The available technology of Nooks and Kindles, computers and iPads have helped readers find books, magazines and newspapers to read without going outside their homes.  Electronic downloads have more than doubled since 2011.  Minnesota is filled with historic Carneige libaries, vital to every community for many years; however, fewer people are visiting these buildings to check out books.  

With visitor numbers plumeting, libraries are exploding with new programs seeking creative ways to get people in their doors.  Musical performances, talks by local authors, computer classes and more are available to library users.  One of the more important programs is computer training aimed at adults needing computers for job hunts and other research.  Some libraries provide 3-D printers for resume printing; some see their role as a communal gathering place.  In per capita e-books, Minnesota ranks in the top five.  E-book availability is expanding.  Digital downloads could bring in a whole new group of people, those who hate carrying heavy books and those who prefer to purchase their books.

Libraries have an identity crisis as they try to be all things to all consumers and figure out a niche.  We’ve done away with card catalogues and bespeckled librarians forbidding kids to check out books, which she didn’t think are acceptable for that age and maturity level.  Today’s libraries have added playlands and interactive activities for kids, drive-up windows and eye-catching programming such as lectures on beer, with samples at a nearby pub, and classes on writing your memoirs, mysteries or romances.  Modern day librarians don’t shush patrons anymore, but the area for lIttle kids can be noisy with all their activities.  Usually one can find quiet and soft chairs in a reading area among walls of books.  Libraries of today provide a cornecopia of activities.

Whether you’re a heavy book devotee or a KIndle, iPad or Nook reader, enjoy the magic that reading books can bring to our everyday lives.  810 words

ARCHIE & VERONICA…AGAIN?

FROM WHERE I SIT  ARCHIE & VERONICA...AGAIN?  FEB. 20, 2014  PAT SPILSETH

Did you read comic books when you were growing up?  Among old photos and saved papers, I found comic books from 1972 with curling pages, slightly brown and tattered, of ARCHIE, WENDY WITCH WORLD, JOSIE and RICHIE RICH.  They’re probably collector items worth some cash!  Who knows?  The memories are priceless.

Today’s morning newspaper had an article about Archie Comics, known for its rather conservative views.  “Now it’s gaining a reputation for being the most experiemental comics publisher in America,” according to McClatchy News writer Andrew A.Smith. 

Archie Comics has entered the digital comics market with its own app, seeking projects for its characters in TV and movies.  This comic company made national headlines in 2009 exploring what would happen if Riverdale’s redhead Archie married.   Readers would probably say that this perpeturally grinning guy would marry either Betty or Vernonica, his two girlfriends.  They’d be happy forever after...that’s the way their lives always turned out way back then...everything had to have a happy ending. 

The comics tried out some modern attitudes when Principal Mr Weatherbee was charged with having a Male Chauvinist Attitude.   He had banned boys, namely Archie, from being in the girls’ only cooking class: Archie was a distraction for the girls.  The teacher, in her apron and earrings, reminded me of my Home Economics instructor Mrs. LaMasters.  She charmed the principal, calling him a gourmet whose opinion on the cooking class would be valued.  When Archie was introduced as the most outstanding student, Weatherbee rescinded his orders.  Archie broke the ice: jocks, nerds and greasers all wanted to join the class, leaving little class room for girls.

In an October issue of 1972, Archie encountered Costrophobia, the fear of high prices. Archie and his adoring bathing beauties at the beach are aghast with the prices on the restaurant’s  menu.  In another episode, Reggie tried to get a rise out of Archie by calling him “Carrot-Top”, the same name that Bob Savage, my junior high math teacher, called Jimmy Gilman, another redhead.  Savage could have added stories to the Archie comics.  He began singing “The FIrst Noel” when Noel Anderson entered his classroom.  I thought Mr. Savage was a stitch, but I bet he embarassed several other classmates.  

Remember ads for building an Atlas Body in 7 days?  The “American Physique Chest Developer” was guaranteed to increase chest measurements 2-4 inches in 14 days or your money back.  Did any of you buy those self-defense kits promising “you’ll never be afraid again”?  These Home Courses promised to teach fighting secrets in less than 15 minutes a day.  One ad promised “Your hands will have the power of an axe and you can use your elbows, knees and feet as death-dealing clubs.”  The ads featuring how to build muscles were inserted throughout the comic pages and repeated on the backcover.  I remember one ad showing some big muscled, bully kicking sand into the face of a skinny guy with no muscles, a weakling in need of muscle building.  Another ad, from BLAIR company in Lynchburg, VA., asked readers to send in 25 cents in coin for a spray perfume, a $4 value.  Extra money could be earned by introducing Blair beauty and home products to friends and neighbors.  A 40% commission could be earned on each order.  Union Sales Club of American of Springfield, Mass., offered prizes for orders of All Occasion Greeting Cards costing $2.00 for 12 boxes of 21 greeting cards.  That’s less than 10 cents a card.  Salespeople could keep 70 cents for each box sold.  What a deal!  Guess who bought into that offer as well as the “fast selling American Vegetable and Flower Seeds” where I had to sell one 50 pack order, at 30 cents a pack.   Mom ended up buying numerous packages of seeds, even though she had no time to garden as she was cooking for the jail prisoners 3 meals a day plus forenoon, afternoon and evening snacks 3 times a day.  That busy job didn’t earn her a cent in pay.

Movie producer Michael Uslan wrote the stories for the comics, but they’re being continued in “Life With Archie” written and drawn by veterans of superhero books.  The magazines of “Life With Archie” are aimed at adults as well as kids.

In 2010, this modern-day gang of Archie’s introduced Kevin Keller, Riverdale’s first openly gay character.  When some companies threatened to stop selling Archie comics, the publisher continued to produce the comics, and the furor died down.  Now Keller is one of the most popular members of Archie’s gang, the star of his own book.

Another shocker for Archie Comics is the release of a paperback whose story is an interracial romance between Archie and Valerie, a black guitarist in “Josie & the Pussycats”.  Currently, the gang is struggling to survive in a new genre, the zombie apocalypse.

“Afterlife With Archie” came out recently with Jughead’s canine pal Hot Dog being run over by a car.  Juggie turns to Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, who tries to help, but the results are not good.  Hot Dog returns to life as a zombie, bites Jughead and zombie fans know what comes next.

In the past Archie Comics featured characters and events that never changed much. Nothing spectacular happened to the kids. Today Archie Comics Company has gone from romance to superhero to horror...and it’s successful.   Has anyone seen these comics and know a store where the comics are sold?  931 words