Say What?

On this night 50 years ago I was 5 weeks shy of my 12th birthday and about to enter 7th grade. Our family was vacationing in Michigan's Upper Peninsula where we spent at least two weeks each summer. My parents had recently purchased the farmhouse my mother grew up in and its 200 acres of land—a mix of prairie grass and forest with a small stream and a strawberry field. Our nights were usually spent in the company of aunts, uncles, and cousins at either our farmhouse or Eva and Elvin's home in Winona, about 35 minutes away . I made a lot of memories during our summers in the U.P. but none more lasting than the night we'd gathered at Eva and Elvin's home (50 years ago tonight) to watch TV coverage of Apollo 11 and man's first step onto the surface of the moon. The actual event of Neil Armstrong stepping off the ladder of the landing module that brought them to the surface isn't what stays with me all these years later, though. Rather, it's the memory I hav...

I can handle the heat; it's the humidity I can do without! I wanted to powerwash our concrete driveway today in preparation for sealing it but it's too uncomfortable outside. So here I am, catching up on my blog with plans to go for a walk once the sun inches closer to the horizon. Workers at the Black Dog power plant along the Minnesota River in Burnsville are in the process of dismantling their tallest smokestack . I'm sad to see it go. It's been a looming presence over hundreds (maybe more than 1000) of my workouts over the years, both cycling and running. I can't explain what it is about it that resonates with me—just that it's been there since I can recall. There were times I would pass by and nonverbally say a few words to it—a greeting of sorts until the next time. The running/bike trails have been flooded over since spring with not much relief in sight, leaving torn up and displaced slabs of asphalt strewn about. There's no telling when the area wi...

After more than 15 years, I'm going to let my domains www.kevinandtammy.net and www.grapevineartglass.net expire. I haven't done anything with either site in years and I can't justify the cost to keep them. Plus, I built the sites with Microsoft's Frontpage program which my GoDaddy host no longer supports—meaning, I can no longer use the program to update the sites if I wanted to. The one problem for me, though, is that I've got so many links from my blog directed at my kevinandtammy.net site where I've archived photos. I'm in the process of archiving those photos on my Google Photos site and I'll link to them there. It's going to be dozens of hours of work. I had a close call on my road bike a little more than a week ago on only my 2nd road ride of the year. It was Saturday mid-morning and I was coming out of St. Paul on a 4-lane divided highway when a driver proceeded through an intersection and appeared to not see me until the last second. I ...

I was walking Charlie the other day when we came across a memorial to a recently departed pup along our route. I never knew his name until seeing his memorial but he was Toby's favorite of any of the pups we'd routinely encounter. Toby would get up next to the fence and survey the yard for Snoop, and if he was out, Snoop would come by and mark a few spots along the fence while our pups would respond in kind. It was sad to learn that Snoop had died. We've been trying to get to the dog park nightly with Charlie. He enjoys his time there as do we. It's great socializing for all involved—pups and their owners. This little guy had us all laughing! He would take his tennis ball and bring it over to various people for them to throw it for him. If they didn't notice him at their feet or if they weren't fast enough, he'd bark to hurry them along. He was so funny to watch . I went out for a longish walk on Father's Day on a route I hadn't taken in maybe...

A construction company rep came by our home recently when I was out working in our yard and asked if it would be okay if he went up on our roof to look for hail damage from a storm one year ago. I told him I was fairly certain he wouldn't find anything because none of our flower gardens were damaged in the storm. He still wanted to have a look and I told him that would be fine. He found me a half-hour later and showed me some photos he took of what he said was hail damage but what looked to me like 21-year-old shingles. He wanted to file a claim on our behalf. I gave him our insurance company info and within 5 minutes the ball was rolling on a claim for a new roof. I phoned our insurance agent a few days later and told him that a new roof would be nice but the claim I filed wasn't my idea and that if their inspection showed no hail damage, I was fine with that. My insurance company sent a claim adjuster out to have a look and they actually agreed that our roof had suffered dama...

I was just two weeks shy of my 17th birthday when Richard Nixon resigned from the office of the Presidency in August 1974. I can still see images in my head of the Senate hearings that led to his downfall playing out on our TV but honestly, I didn't follow it all that closely. I was too busy learning how to shotgun beers and trying not to sabotage my life beyond repair than I was concerned about current events. I would develop an interest years/decades later. There's an excellent podcast called Slow Burn by Leon Neyfakh that details much of what led up to Nixon's demise and the shifting support for him along the way. It's fascinating listening. Had Alexander Butterfield (during the Senate Watergate hearings) never mentioned the tape recording system that Nixon had installed in the Oval Office, it's likely Nixon never would've had to resign in disgrace. And had there been a Fox News with the likes of Fox and Friends or Sean Hannity to bolster support for Nixon...

This is a blog post I've not looked forward to writing. Toby is gone, and with him, a huge piece of my heart is gone as well. The feeling of emptiness that follows a loss like this is profound for me. The color drains from my world and a mild depression takes hold. There's nowhere I can go in our home without some small reminder that he's no longer with us and with each small reminder I feel my heart sink a little more. I was out on a walk with Charlie the day after Toby's passing and imagining that he was with us and recalling all of his special places he liked to pause and sniff. I talked to him as though he could hear me and I told him how much I loved and missed him. My sunglasses hid my tears from passers-by. I wish we'd had one more walk together where I let him sniff as long as he wanted and where I didn't try and hurry him along in the slightest. In the end, I didn't want to let him go, thinking that we could keep him comfortable and that the incre...