The Long Road back to the Middle

From the desk and mind of M.P. Braget

The following is partially true, two-thirds fictitious, a bit sarcastic, but mostly honest and in places brutally so. Our memories are a bit like that, though lacking a bit in honesty I wager. Larry Woiwode wrote a book called What I Think I Did and in it he discusses the reconstruction of memory. Memories, after all, aren't real, they don't exist in the here and now. That book is also about the North Dakota winter of 1996 which some may remember gave us the flood of '97, both of which were quite brutal. You should read it, it's good. But don't take my word for it. "Take a look/in a book.."

I've been walking in circles which is to say I've been busy, busy, busy living. But I've also been literally walking in circles, breathing in the musty cool air that only a concrete structure can flavor, listing to the click-clack echo of my hard sole boots bounce rhythmically through the automobile hotel, marching me along as I hold a book, of some color or another, up to my nose. This is my lunch hour, or 40 minutes of it, walking in circles reading a book for the physical and mental exercise. Walking and reading. I'm no doctor, so I won't tell you what Americans need but more walking and more reading surely couldn't hurt. I'm not here to tell you that though, I'm just setting the scene.

In this parking structure where I spend my lunch hour, book held to my nose, relying on my peripheral vision to guide me around the metal guests, my hearing to warn me of the occasional arriving/departing metal-soul, I occasionally stop reading long enough to notice the particular breed of the automobiles. This is my temporary escape from the office-rat cubes of corporate America. The cubes where all our dreams comes true.

I'm walking, click-clack, click-clack, and noticing on down the line: Toyota Prius, Lexus, BMW, Prius, Mercedes, non-Prius Toyota, Prius, Nissan Wannabe Prius, Lexus, BMW, Mercedes, Mazda, Prius, Prius, Prius. Californians, myself excluded, don't buy American Metal Souls. They either guzzle too much gas, or just do so unreliably. Either way, "made in America" is too far below the average, and certainly the above-average Californian-American. Thirty-five Million people live in California with 30 Million registered vehicles which have better health care and bathe more often than I do, drought be damned. Life is irony. Irony is God's sense of humor alive and well.

Because aliens will first visit North America and North America has just as many cars as people, and cars can be seen more from space than people, the first alien contacts will attempt communication with a Prius, I'm certain of it. I'm also certain they'll get all the information they came for from the Prius, forgoing the whole "take me to your leader" bit. We don't really have any left, and if we did, Gravitas is dead anyway. One of the old gods discarded like so many others.

Click-clack. I walk in laps, book to my face, surrounded by metal-persons, all with their backs turned to me unless their organic master parks knowing the satisfaction of pulling out of a parking space driving forward. An indifferent audience to an indifferent event, in an indifferent place, of indistinguishable time.

But, maybe not so indifferent to the actor.
I've read, click-clack, in circles:
The Mistborn Trilogy - Brandon Sanderson
The Wisdom of Insecurity - Alan Watts
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Player Piano - Kurt Vonnegut

Vonnegut fans might notice I'm stealing from him here. So it goes.

Click-clack.

Misty cool, walk the circle, read the book, I reflect on America via it's cultural masterpiece: the automobile. The new gods holding concrete court. They've judged me indifferent but what is the point? A question, you, my reader, might be asking. I think I have one but an attempt to make it obvious will kill it. So I can't. I can't because I drank heavily from the Alan Watts kool-aid:

"Only words and conventions can isolate us from the entirely undefinable something which is everything" (The Wisdom of Insecurity, page 49).

You should read this book, experience it. It's teaching me to let go, to be in the now, to stop regretting the past and fearing the future. To Live. Tom Petty said the waiting is the hardest part, I say it's letting go. But I don't have the time, space, or desire to flesh this out more. Watts is part the point.

Click-clack.

Walk the circle, listen the world inside the concrete metal-soul hotel, listen to life outside it, feel the ground, the slight breeze breaking in easily for metal souls require no windows and little for walls.

Click-clack. Here. Now.

What is the meaning?

Some way our's is a short life, or a long road. Shakespeare lamented it's meaningless: all that sound and fury. Again from Watts: "...for they are but men huddling together and shouting to give themselves courage in the dark" (The Wisdom of Insecurity, page 19).

Click-clack.

Life is a long, or short, road back to the middle. Watts' point, or really the jumping off point, is that we fear meaningless so we ascribe meaning to it all which ultimately makes us unhappy by constantly being worried about being happy. Storing up stuff  now to make sure our future is good.

Click-clack.

From Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, his religious prophet, Bokonon, describes the creation:

"In the beginning, God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic loneliness. And God said, 'let Us make living creatures out of mud, so the mud can see what We have done.' And God created every living creature that now moveth, and one was man. Mud as mad alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as man sat up, looked around, and spoke. Man blinked, 'what is the purpose of all this?' he asked politely.
'Everything must have a purpose?' asked God.
'Certainly,' said man.
'Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this,' said God. And He went away."

Some of you might not like this much. Maybe there isn't much to like about it. Watts, I imagine, would say that's his point but without actually saying so. Vonnegut, I imagine, would look upon us with a wry smile and a twinkle in his eye. The only man I can imagine who would be laughing in the face of the apocalypse.

But here I am.

Click-clack.

Walking in circles.

Here you are.

Click-clack.

Reading this in circles.

What is the meaning? I can't say. But hey, fuck it, at least we're getting our exercise.

Basketball and Resiliency...

As I continue to grow older I seem to spend less and less time learning my life lessons at the bars and more just in my everyday life.

The thing about getting older is that things we were once able to accomplish without much effort now seem like they take a lot out of us, or at least can’t be accomplished with as much ease as they once did. One of the largest areas where this seems to come into play is with exercise and keeping in shape. Things we did when we were in our teens, or even early twenties, such as eat or drink ridiculous amounts and have no trouble keeping the pounds off, or even getting the motivation to do some exercise afterwards.

#4 Dusty Neibauer...still has it.

While I was attending college at MSU-Moorhead, a group of friends and me would spend at least four hours every night at Nemzek Hall playing basketball. Once we finished we would either go and get some homework done, or a lot of nights we would head over to my place, play some cards and spend most of the rest of the evening drinking and harassing my poor roommates (Two to Deuce), sorry guys! But the next day most of us (not always me) would get up and go to class, then hit the gym, and start the process all over again.

Not only were we able to put forth a good effort academically, but we also ended up being pretty good basketball players, putting forth a great showing in our pick-up games at Nemzek as well as winning several adult basketball tournaments.

In those days people were always trying to join our team or were worried anytime they saw that they were facing us in a tournament. We didn’t always have the same name, but they could pick us out by looking for the most ridiculous team name on the bracket (such as, That’s a lot of Potatoes), and when they faced us they brought their A-games. Once in all of our glory, we even beat a team comprised of most of the MSU-Moorhead college team. They always put together an intramural basketball team (cheap bastards) and in front of a surprisingly large makeshift crowd, we beat them when Dan Nyberg knocked down a three from about six feet behind the line…a story I will no doubt tell my (or at least someone’s) grandchildren someday, and embellish the hell out of the whole ordeal.

But my life lesson today doesn’t center on how good we were , or how pitiful it is that at 32 I’m already talking about the glory days, no, today’s lesson is centered upon resilience.

#13, Kurt Philion showing off his ball skills.

Back while we were actually a force to be reckoned with people would ask us what we were up to that weekend and we would state that we were going to be playing in a basketball tournament. The standard reply generally went something along the lines of: “Well you boys have fun, and don’t get into too much trouble!”

Fast forward a few years.

We’re now around that 26 – 28 age range, and people ask us, what are you up to this weekend? To which we reply, we’re getting together with our college buddies and playing in a basketball tournament! The puzzled looks on their faces speak more than words can say…but they say them anyway…

     “Friend”: Are you coaching?

     Me: Nope, we’re playing! It’s an adult basketball tournament!

     “Friend”: Aren’t you guys a little old for that stuff, don’t you think it’s time to give up the ghost?

     Me: Are you kidding?! I love basketball, and what better excuse to get together with the guys?!

     “Friend”: OK, well have fun I guess…

It should be noted that at this point we are also starting to lose members of the team, not necessarily because they want to be done playing, just that other things have started to take precedent in their lives, such as work, wives, and kids. We generally only play in about two to three tournaments a year, but the girls who used to join us for these adventures have now become mom’s and have become much more responsible, in many cases either forgetting the amount of fun they used to have, or remembering and worrying what kind of trouble their husband may still get into! Some of my greatest memories of these basketball tournaments are the amount of fun our whole group used to have together, not just the guys, but the girls that would one day become their wives and the mother of their children. I truly knew the brides when they used to rock n’ roll.

TJ Super taking it to the hole, while Jason, Ryan, Kyle, and Pat just watch.

So now we recruit new members or scrap together the guys we can in order to form a team. Some friends get the green light to partake in a weekend of basketball and debauchery, some don’t. We gather up a few younger guys to fill the gaps and still put forth a pretty respectable team. We’re not the feared force we once were, but we’re still having a good time playing the sport we love, getting some exercise and still finishing about the middle of the pack.

Notable changes include; forfeiting games because we can’t get out of bed, losing by 20+ points, having our ankles actually broken, and a noticeable decline in our popularity at the night clubs…

Fast forward to today, or at least this past weekend…

After trying for several years (7 or 8) we were finally able to put back together a good portion of our old team, as well as some guys we’ve been playing basketball with for a few years who are our same age. How do we accomplish this? One of our friends is having a birthday party for his two year old at a Holiday Inn in Fargo, which happens to be happening the same weekend as our basketball tournament! This means that not only will the husbands be allowed to come hang out and play some basketball, but the wives (and kids) will also be in attendance! But in these few years (we’re now 32-34 years old) a few other changes have occurred, starting with that same old conversation…

     Friend: What are you up to this weekend?

     Me: I’m going to play in an adult basketball tournament with my college buddies!

     Friend: Oh really, where’s that at?

     Me: Fargo.

     Friend: Good for you. I’m glad you’re still playing!

The last statement is said with some sadness and is also stated as almost a backward compliment. Just hearing the words come out of their mouth I can hear both that they are kind of sad that they aren’t able to do things like this anymore but they are also impressed that at my age I still can. Society has beat them down to the point where if someone is still doing things such playing in adult basketball tournaments at 32, they should be commended…but when did I get soooo old?

Granted it takes me far longer to heal from an injury now, and even just playing sparingly I usually end up sore the next day, but I find that if I continue to exercise I’m actually a lot better off now than I was a few years ago. I’m generally a lot healthier, drinking less and exercising more than I did in my late twenties. I’m no picture of health but when I do play basketball or go for a run, it really makes me feel pretty darn good. I need to do more of it and eat healthier now than I used to, but I also still play at open gyms where I play with guys in their 50’s who still play against kids who are 18…and they’re still very good.

The saddest part to me is that I’m now at a point where it’s a badge of honor that I’m still playing at all, whereas it seemed like only a few years ago we were at the top of the game.

So we put together this team, and in the build up to the tournament I kept thinking to myself, and telling anyone that would listen, that we should have a really good team for the first time in a long time. That it was actually one of the best teams I’ve put together in years…and then we proceeded to lose every game in our tournament.

Dan Nyberg getting ready to audition for the AND1 Mixed Tape tour.

It turns out that none of us are afforded the opportunity to play four hours of basketball everyday still and we’re playing against people who can. We’re craftier now that we’re older and can still put points up on the board, just not with as much consistency as we once did. We’re getting older, there’s no doubt about that…but I truly hope we all keep playing and getting together to act as if we are still as good as we once were.

Even if we can’t hang on the basketball court, the group was all back together (for the most part, except for the ones without babysitters) at the bars…and once or twice a year, we can still hang with the best of them there!

Basketball and sports in general, aren’t something reserved for the young. Recently our sports teams from my little town all ended their seasons and for some of them their high school careers. These are kids who I remember from being the little tag-alongs who would accompany their parents to our Sunday night open gym and we would let them shoot shots over us to make them feel special. These same kids are now making us all look like old men out there, but it’s safe to say that they have great parents who introduced them to an activity that they can do for a very long time. Sports are something that can bring us together, young and old alike and that’s certainly something we should all fight to try and hold onto.

Don’t expect this to be the last blog centered on basketball, it’s taught me many lessons in my life and I look forward to continuing to play and learn. For all of those high school seniors who are now moving on from their organized sports, as long as you love the sport and are passionate about playing, keep it up. Someday it’ll be your kids who learn to love the sport by watching their parents out there, and they’ll learn a ton of life lessons along the way. It’s a great way to teach them how to be passionate about something and how life can always be fun.

Gun Control, Racism...and other things that made up 2015

Happy New Year’s Eve everyone!

After a blockbuster 2014 where we wrote around 50 blog posts, we drastically dropped off this year with this being only our 9^th post of the entire year. It was a very dismal year for our little project here, but hopefully the New Year will see a reinvigorated effort on our part, only time will tell.

But as today is New Year’s Eve, I’d like to look back at the year that was while enjoying a nice Apple Crown that I decided to have before my old man stole it all!

As a country I would have to say that we did not have an overall good year. We saw more senseless shootings of individuals, by individuals, terrorist groups, and even some of our different factions of law enforcement. These shootings have become so common place in our society that we once again are seeing the idea of gun control enter into the national conversation. The best part about that is that the second someone mentions the term “gun control” the NRA and every other extreme individual or group goes right to the idea that the President is going to try and take back all of our guns…which is a disappointing thought process considering we are supposed to be an educated populace.

I recently spoke with a friend who is serving in the armed forces. He’s just getting going and he was telling me that most of the accidents that occur have to do with firearms and I told him that it was understandable because despite the fact that these kids are all at least 18 years old, they’re still pretty much kids and are given a lot of responsibility with arms that I will probably never shoot…then I got thinking about when I got my firearm certificate. I was 12 years old and this little piece of paper I received after a few hours of class time and one session shooting down at our local range, allowed me to pretty much wield any firearm…at 12! Now (in Minnesota at least) we allow kids to go hunting with their parents starting at 10 years old. My friend is 19 and in the armed forces and the most accidents they have (serious ones) are with firearms. They literally spend a huge portion of their day learning how to use these and know the weapons essentially as well as themselves and it’s still the biggest source of accidents.

The press conference I watched with President Obama talking about gun control made it sound like that he didn’t want individuals who were on the “No Fly” list to be able to purchase firearms, and he also proposed making the purchase of firearms more difficult with ideas such as having to be a registered member of a local gun club or shooting range…none of that seemed so drastic to me.

Reading the above you may already be saying to yourself that this guy must not be a hunter, he just doesn’t get it. Well, you’d be wrong. I enjoy hunting immensely. I love being able to go out during deer season and sit and watch the wild life and hopefully find myself a big buck to add to my trophy’s (it’s more like one nice deer in 20 years!), I also purchased my dog because she was supposed to be a great bird dog (hip dysplasia ended her career early, but still a great companion). I’ve been hunting in places like Wyoming, and Kansas as well as Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota and I’d truly love to go Elk hunting someday as well. I love hunting, I grew up doing it and I’d be very saddened if someday I was no longer able to do it. But I have a hard time believing that individuals such as me are the ones that the government and other agencies are worried about when they talk about gun control.

But we’ve become a country of one thing or the other…no in-betweens. A black person is shot by a police officer, and we deem every police officer to be bad. And when an individual retaliates and murders a police officer then we determine that all members of that particular skin tone are to blame.

We, in the majority, see ourselves as either Republican or Democrat and when it comes time to vote we generally stick with our party line. Not sure who’s running for this particular office? Oh well, this guy says democrat after his name so I’ll just vote for them.

Is it any wonder why groups like ISIS can gain traction by attacking a country such as ours? We’re already divided and prone to racism, sexism, ageism, or whatever else we can use to divide ourselves, so when a group is attempting for countries to alienate the Muslim factions of a population, we’re an easy target. The best part is; we absolutely know that ISIS is attempting to drive Muslims to their cause by showing them that the rest of the world hates them…and we put buffoons like Donald Trump up in front of world news stations as a possible head of our country! We know that they love having someone as narcissistic and naïve as Trump who also happens to have this following in the US where people just like that he says what he’s thinking, even if it’s racist, bigoted bullshit.

So we have a jack ass who very likely may end up being our next president and a population who takes the second amendment as a law that states that each individual should be allowed to have enough guns to start their very own militia, and forget that the law that their using as backing, is by definition something that has been written into something else which changes the original…do you see the irony? It’s already changed something else…it certainly could be changed again. On top of that, when the last mass shooting took place in San Bernardino, news stations around the world reported it as, “Just another day in the United States.”

Let’s go back to the whole “gun control” phrase. There’s a scene from the Adam Sandler movie, Big Daddy which talks about when he allows his son to become the “stinky kid” in class. He decides it’s time for a change and I think if you can remember back when you were going through high school you may remember the first time you decided to start using deodorant, because quite frankly…you were becoming that stinky kid. So when we realize that we’re becoming something we don’t want, in this case stinky…we use something some may call, odor control…see where I’m going?

As a country, with our mass shootings and overall violence we have now become one of the world’s stinky kids. An educated population should begin to realize that there are other options of gun control other than just taking all guns away from everyone. Say what you will about President Obama, but I wouldn’t mind having to be a registered member of my local Sportsman’s Club (I already am, as are most citizens who hunt around me) in order to purchase a fire arm. Is this going to stop mass shootings? More than likely not on its own, but by getting more people to pay dues to their local gun clubs, they may be afforded greater education and that’s certainly not going to hurt anything.

Christ, I just took up most of your time blabbing on about gun control and racism…but this is a year in review and I’d say we as a country spent a good portion of the year dealing with these issues and as 2016 is the big election year…grab a seat because we’ll continue to deal with it throughout next year, and until we get a grasp on it, we’ll be dealing with it for quite a bit longer than that.

2015 made me a little sad to be a member of a country that can turn on itself so easily, especially when I think back to how we were founded and how we didn’t want oppression because of our choice of religion and the founding fathers didn’t even think we should have political parties because they knew they would be a source of division. Quite frankly, they’d be pretty disappointed in America today as well.

The good news is that despite all of these bad things that occurred in 2015, for the most part they still make up a minority of the individuals that make up our country. There are still a million people out there that are making the world a better place every year. It’s important for us to look for the good in these bad times. Luckily it’s not that hard to find. Be it with your good friends, loving family, or just a random person that for some reason, made your day.

SoulPancake is a web site I turn to a lot when I’m feeling down. They have some very uplifting videos, poetry, and a hundred other things that are designed to show you the good in the world when it appears you’re surrounded by the bad.

I also hope to reinvigorate BD&LL in the New Year. I recently began watching the show, Mozart in the Jungle, on Amazon and have found it a bit inspiring as it deals with musician, artists, and dancers who have said (as my dad would say) “damn the torpedoes, full steam ahead” to chasing their dreams. It’s refreshing to see, and inspiring to boot. So 2016 should hopefully bring with it more posts from this author and I will actually get to hang out with Mike on Saturday so I’ll see if I can’t persuade him to be more active in 2016 as well! Some of the other writers are in-between kids right now as well, so hopefully we can come back together as a group and start putting forth our positive footprint back on the interweb!

There was a lot of bitching in this post, I’m well aware of it, but I recently saw something that said that the things we think about most are the ones we talk about least…I’ve spent a good portion of 2015 overthinking and not getting my thoughts out in the open…I don’t plan on spending 2016 the same way. I don’t generally make New Year’s Resolutions…but writing more this year would definitely fall into that category!

I hope you all have a fantastic New Year’s Eve and 2016! Enjoy the celebration and all the wonderful opportunities that are brought forth by each New Year…and day!

The Haves and The Have Nots

I’ve had an issue that’s been seriously bothering me for quite some time but I haven’t really had time to sit down and write about it which may not cure my ills, but at least lets me unload a bit. It’s kind of like a journal, but because I totally overestimate my importance, I put it out on the internet for the world to see! It’s just my way.

Now after that, it’s probably going to be hard to turn this back towards the serious side, but here it goes…and you’re all going to be like, “that turned dark way too fast,” but once again…it’s our blog and I’ll write what I want because I’m oh so very important…

Two weeks ago, a co-worker of mine, a 34 year old guy, died. We found out on a Sunday night and from all accounts and hearing people speak at his funeral/wake, it was more than likely from a drug overdose, more than likely Meth. He had a history of drug use, but not one that we thought he was continuing. He had been a reliable and very capable worker, which means a lot to me because he worked with me but more importantly for my best friend.

Workers aren’t always easy to find in the landscaping business, at least reliable ones. It’s tough work, and often requires long hours. But when this guy first showed up he was having a few difficulties getting his life in order, he had worked about a week before he had to call my boss/friend to see if he would possibly bail him out of jail for driving without a license. And because of things like that, when I first started working with him, both my friend and I had the intentions of working him so hard that he would eventually just quit.

But that little son of a gun didn’t quit. He worked his ass off, taking several breaks at first but as soon as he got going in the trade, he was easily one of the hardest workers that my friend has ever had working for him (which I took offense to, of course). He not only busted his butt daily but he also showed initiative. So often we work with guys who are handy with a shovel when prodded, but very rarely does someone actually attempt to learn how to lay block, or set up a patio…but he did.

My dad met him exactly twice. The first time was when he first started working. We were all at the café in the little town we work at eating, and this guy was sitting in a truck at the shop sleeping. The second time he met him was about a week before he passed away (my co-worker) at which point we were going to fix some landscaping at my dad’s house. Our co-worker jumped out of the truck as soon as we stopped and was over trying to see what the problem was and was attempting to fix it. Needless to say, my dad was pretty impressed with the transition.

Working with him taught me a lot about not judging a book by its cover and also about addiction.

By the time he passed away, I would have said we weren’t just co-workers anymore but that we were teetering on the verge of being friends…but when I found out about the possibility that he had died of a drug overdose…I began to realize just how little I knew about his situation and also, how lucky I was to grow up how I did.

After he passed away we spent quite a bit of time reliving how crazy he was and how we had all been introduced to him for the first time, and I also learned a lot about his back story, how he grew up…how his mom had been a drug addict, and how she had also more than likely died of an overdose. How, essentially, he was doomed from the get go.

Now a lot of people will read that statement and say that, “we all make our own choices.” Which is true, but 9 times out of 10, that statement comes from individuals a lot like me.

I grew up with two loving parents who had their differences and we had our problems. Not enough money to feed all the kids or keep the lights/heat on. We ate a lot of spam as a kid, and I kind of thought it was a delicacy! Times were tough in the Brumwell household for a while…but we always had love and we always had each other. I literally don’t know shit about tough.

My co-worker’s mom was dead by the time she was around 35. He held the record in our area for minors which stood (and stands) at 20 (a fact he told me the week he passed away). He once got two minors in the same night because his parents didn’t really care since all it was, was a fine. He was just told that he had to get a job or find a way to pay the fines, and you know a great way to get quick money…selling drugs apparently!

While he was working with us he was busy taking care of an uncle who apparently is such a bad alcoholic that our co-worker would often get calls to come pick him up from various bars because he had passed out there.

This was his life.

The one bright point that I saw was that he was one hell of a worker. He had once been a welder for several companies and exceeded at that position and as previously mentioned, he had potential to be one of the best workers that my friend had ever had working for him. One thing I keep thinking about is that we were about to build a block bar for an individual and he was so excited to get to attempt to design it…but he never got to, and he never will.

Why do people turn to drugs? Is it for recreation, because their friends are doing it, because it makes them feel good, or perhaps it’s just to escape their normal everyday lives?

I’ve smoked pot exactly one time. I also sold it that one time, because I was drunk in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area and I thought that what this group of individuals was doing was just another business venture. They had a product that they were trying to sell and they weren’t trying to force it down anyone’s throats…they were just letting them know that it was available. Me, being me, had a very in-depth conversation with this group and then proceeded to join their ranks for about five minutes and share a joint with a random businessman who said his wife didn’t let him touch the stuff anymore…the crew was alright with it, and after I had blown the sale I went on with my night. I didn’t get high, I was probably already too drunk for that, but it was a story to tell the grandkids one day…but probably not really.

That was my experience with drugs. I mean I’ve been around several, mostly pot, but haven’t attempted any at any other time. But alcohol is something I enjoy and partake in from time to time…probably too many times when I really think about it (I don’t really have to think about it). But a lot of people partake in alcohol and don’t think much about it, and most people can probably handle it alright…but some can’t and for those people it can be as big of a problem as drugs.

Luckily I grew up with parents who questioned me when they thought I was getting out of hand, and because I knew they were doing it out of love, I knew that I had to seriously stop and think about what I was doing…If they hadn’t cared, if they had used as heavily as I was, who knows where I’d be?

The title of this post is, “The Haves and The Have Nots,” it’s based off of a book I read in college which talked about the drastic difference between growing up with money and without it. It was an interesting read for sure, but when I went to the prayer service for my co-worker it was the first thing that came to mind. Not because I grew up with money and my co-worker hadn’t…because I grew up with a certain kind of love that was not only missing in my co-workers life, but in many of the people who were in that room with us.

The stories they told about growing up with my co-worker were heartwarming in the fact that they were stories of some of their most fond memories of a guy I had gotten to know and grew to really like…but they were some of the saddest stories I had ever heard as well. They were about stealing cars and getting away with it because no one really cared that they had done it. About getting caught drinking or doing drugs, and one of the saddest was the individual who got up two different times to remind people that if they know someone who needs help, to reach out to them…without a doubt, he was asking for help with this statement…and I’m sure he wasn’t the only one there that could have used it.

The saddest part of the whole experience was that I got to know one of this “crew,” and I didn’t know him from drugs, I didn’t know him because we got in trouble together…I got to just know him, the person he could be, the potential he had…if he had grown up with my parents, or maybe yours? Where would he be today?

Sure. We all get to make our own decisions in this life. But when it comes down to it, most of those decisions are based off of past experiences and the thought of how those decisions effect the ones we love…some of us have that certain kind of love in our lives that helps us choose the “right” path…and others have not.

Regardless…I’ll miss my co-worker, I’ll miss my friend.

“Even though we don’t know where we’re going, we always end up somewhere.”

This is a quote I heard recently, not from some great philosopher or self-help guru, but from one of my best friends I had growing up. It wasn’t said about any particular life problem or situation, just about his trip back home from where he grew up to where he currently calls home. Given the context it really just seems like something someone may say when they’re headed out on a road trip with no particular destination, (which is exactly what he meant) but given our history and my uncanny ability to read way too much into things, the quote stuck and for reasons far greater than a simple road trip.

My friend’s journey is definitely one worth writing about, but as I have not asked for his permission to write about it, for now his journey will be his own, but just know that the somewhere he ended up is a long ways from where he began, or any of his closest friends would have imagined for him. A rough start in life does not guarantee a rough life, and his somewhere is something to be genuinely proud of today.

None of us truly know where we’re going in this life, we have ideas and plans and that’s generally where it all comes crashing down. As they say, “Life’s what happens while you’re busy making other plans.” So we plan to do this or that, and life has its own plan. It throws you this way or that, gives you opportunities where you never thought you’d have them and tears away the futures you had so neatly crafted for yourself, and that’s not always a bad thing.

When we’re young we believe we can do anything, we’re told we have the ability we just need the drive. But then reality sets in and we find that although we’ve always wanted to do something spectacular (such as write a world class blog), we find that our talents lie in other fields and even though we still partake in some of these other things, we see that our true talent lie elsewhere. For me, writing has always been a passion of mine. I’m not exactly world class at it by any means but it’s something I always enjoyed doing and if I could choose one thing to do for the rest of my life and actually make a living at it, it would most likely be telling stories and attempting to leave the world a little better off because of the life I lived and the stories I passed on. Big aspirations, but in reality my biggest accomplishment may end up being that I once got a report from The Washington Post to come visit my home town… It’s a huge deal for our community, but in my grand scheme of things…very far off from my life goals.

After attempting to find my passion in several different majors throughout my college experience, I finally found something I loved (Mass Communications) at the same point I lost the thing I loved the most (my mom to ovarian cancer in 2006). After she passed away I attempted to go back to school the following semester to continue my education but every time I sat in class and tried to concentrate on learning, I was filled with sadness about my loss and the whole concentration thing just didn’t seem to work.

I spent the following few month living, working, and dating in the town I hoped to eventually get back on track in and finish off my degree but after a bad break up I traveled down to spend some time with my brother and sister who convinced me that taking a road trip with my brother while we were still young enough to just go, was more important than what I had waiting for me back where I had come from…so we jumped in my mom’s old car, fueled by funds she had left to give us one last great Christmas (her favorite holiday) and traveled a huge portion of the U.S. We saw a ton of friends and family along our path, as well as some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen.

I’m not a religious person by any means, but I am a person of great faith…if that makes any sense to you. On this trip, I would get up every morning before sunrise and just walk around, sometimes with a good book, often with my camera, but more time than not, simply with my own thoughts. It was on one of these mornings while walking around the desert of Arizona that I got this overwhelming feeling that somewhere my mom was alright. I can’t quite explain the feeling, and this is the first time I’ve told anyone really about it, but for a brief moment there I was overjoyed with the fact that she, and everything else, was going to be alright. I had never had the feeling before then, and I haven’t had that feeling again, that’s how I knew it was something special.

Despite this moment of “awakening” I still remain unfazed by the fact that faith and going to church aren’t synonymous. I didn’t and don’t need a building to show me that there’s something bigger than myself, I just need good friends, a loving family, and the ability to see the good in all the individuals I meet along the way (a smile from a beautiful girl every now and again never hurts either!).

Faith, after all, can easily be summed up with the statement that began this post.

But the point of this post is that statement. We often find ourselves in anguish because this or that didn’t work out. I wanted to be a journalist one day, but instead I’m a business owner/landscaper/bus driver. None of these were really on my career aspirations list, but for the most part today they make me happy. I still get an opportunity to indulge my writer dream through a little blog post here and there, and even though not many people read it, it’s an outlet for me to keep those creative juices flowing. I may not be where I intended to be, but I’m certainly somewhere…and this somewhere currently works for me.

The remainder of my journey is as unknown as the beginning, but as usual I look forward to the ups and am better prepared than ever for the downs…life has a way of helping us with that. When I’ve reached my final somewhere, I hope that even though I never quite knew where I was going…I made the places I’ve been a little better with my presence, and that they’ve done the same for me. 

A Big Win for Small Town, USA

Recently an article was written based off of information collected by the USDA’s natural amenities index which lists the factors that are most desirable to people when they’re looking for a place to live. Through that information a reporter from the Washington Post was able to determine that Ventura County in sunny California was the number one place to live…and my county, Red Lake County in the frozen tundra of Northwest Minnesota, ranked dead last…3,111 out of 3,111 counties in the United States.

Having read the article, as well as the follow up (Thickcoats, thin skins), I decided that this was an ideal opportunity to shine some light on what I already knew was a beautiful county. My business being largely based on the natural beauty of our area, I get to spend my summers listening to people from all over the world (mainly U.S.) tell me how beautiful our area is. So, when the articles were published I felt like we could certainly use the publicity for our business, but also for our county.

The most logical way to go about this was to invite the writer of the article, Christopher Ingraham, to come visit our beautiful county for himself and then make his decision on whether or not it was a good or bad place. It must be noted that he wasn’t claiming that it was or wasn’t, he was just stating that based off of the data, we were the worst…so really, it’s the USDA we should all be upset with.

The day after I had sent an email to Mr. Ingraham, I received a response…the very next day! He had mentioned it to his editors and they seemed to think it was a good idea, so to strike while the iron was hot, I quickly put it out that I had contacted him and that he was possibly coming to come see the county for himself. Later Chris would tell me that even before they had fully committed to the trip he was getting calls from our regional paper asking if the rumors of him coming to the worst county were true, the ploy had worked!

Shortly after I received another email confirming that he would be coming our way the following week, which only gave me a few days to plan the best approach to show him the county.

I wanted to give him the whole picture of every part of our county and give residents from all of our towns a crack at showing him why they loved to live here. After putting out some information via Facebook, I quickly got in contact with different individuals from the various communities which friends had told me would be fantastic representatives as well as extremely upbeat individuals. We wanted Chris to judge for himself about our county, but we didn’t want him to receive any truly harsh, closed minded individuals, and every areas has those. We wanted to use it as an opportunity to show why people not only live in our area, but why they start and keep businesses here, and why they raise children here as well.

Visiting the Tri River Pioneer Museum in Plummer, MN

The plan was to get representatives from every town, as well as individuals that would represent some of the major factors as to why people live or move to a community (safety, good schools, employment) onto a tour bus and give them an opportunity to speak to Mr. Ingraham about what they love about living in our county while showing him all of the natural beauty of it as well.

Eric Mickelson greets Chris Ingraham in front of TJ's Tavern in Oklee, MN

The process of getting the individuals together exposed me to people from around the county that I had never had the pleasure of getting to meet, and planning where the tour was going to take us had me exploring areas of our little county that I had never seen, or had not made an effort to travel to in quite some time. The planning stage of this whole ordeal seemed to me like it was going to be the greatest part. I had opened myself up to all the great people in our area and was so happy to hear their stories of why they love our area, as well as several stories which people passed along to me from individuals who had grown up here and eventually continued their lives elsewhere.

The main take away from this part of the experience was that when someone backs one or all of us into a corner, we have each other’s backs. People who probably hadn’t had their cameras out in years were rediscovering the natural beauty of our area by shooting photos of everything, and ones who hadn’t given much thought to their childhood home or the place where they now call home, were rediscovering why Red Lake County was a great place to live. I don’t even want to get into all the tweets and Facebook comments that Mr. Ingraham received (I actually apologized for some of those in my email to him).

Touring Paradis, Inc. in Brooks, MN

I wasn’t able to get people from all of the different towns to join us on the bus, which was truly too bad because the purpose was not only to show Mr. Ingraham everything the county had to offer, but to also show the residents of the different towns everything each town had to offer, feeling like they, like me, might have been missing out on some of these great things. Some of the best examples of this for me were the Community Center in Brooks, the live music in Oklee, and the museum as well as the shooting range in Plummer. All of these things I knew existed but had never explored them and once I did, I wondered why it had taken me this long to do so, I wanted to share that experience with our whole county.

Even though representatives from every town weren’t on the bus, we were greeted at every stop by residents of the different areas we stopped at. The looks on the faces of these individuals, as well as how we were able to actually see their pride in their town as well as the county was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been a part of. The citizens were proud of these things that they had come together and built, as had been stated in Chris’s most recent article…we quite literally build our communities together, be it the Red Lake Falls Swimming Pool, the Brooks Community Center, the Oklee Veterans Memorial, or the Plummer Museum, these projects were built with funds and labor donated by the individuals of these towns and this county…no wonder we have so much pride in it.

The Schindler's (Joe - holding Isaac, Carl, and Brenda) showing
off all of their hard work on their Dairy Farm, just outside
Red Lake Falls, MN

So in two days (36 hours actually) we were able to show Christopher Ingraham a huge portion of the county, as well as explain to him why we love living here. After we finished out bus tour, Chris was pretty well exhausted. I had pretty much planned out every second of his time from when he arrived in Red Lake County to now and I could tell he probably couldn’t survive another mass onslaught of people, despite the fact that everyone had been unbelievably nice that he had encountered, at some point you just need a break. So for the last meal of his time in Red Lake County, we had one of the best fisherman around, Justin Carriere, prepare him a dish he had never tried…Walleye. If this blog ever gets any wide spread readers they probably won’t find this strange, but around here we eat walleye, and it’s a delicacy and a staple all in one, and for someone to come to our area to see why we love living here and never get an opportunity to try it would be a crying shame. Luckily Justin was able to scrape up enough to feed a small group of us and we had a bit of a fish fry to end Chris’s trip. We had a nice conversation about his entire trip, and I even filmed him telling me that Red Lake County truly was beautiful and that the USDA needed to reevaluate their standards…then I lost the video.

The county waited patiently for Ingraham’s follow up article, where he could have said anything. We felt like he had had a good time on his little trip, but you never know exactly just how you appear from another person’s perspective. He had said all the right things while he was here but we had met the man for all of 36 hours, and we had exposed ourselves so that whatever he had thought of us would once again put our little county into a national publication…good or bad.

I had been extremely busy the week following Chris’s trip with friends who came to visit from Arizona whom I hadn’t seen for over 8 years…so there may have been a late night or two in there which allowed me to be a little less worried about the outcome, plus…I truly felt like he had a great time, so I wasn’t worried.

Then I got a message from our little “Baking Prodigy,” wondering if I had read the article yet…next my notifications started buzzing with people tagging me on Facebook and Twitter with links to the article and much of this was to be expected as it was a huge deal in our area…but then messages started coming from all over the state and country, as well as from abroad…all people who had read Chris’s article and thought that it was amazing. They told me how it had been such a great thing for the whole state, and others how it made them long for their small town home or relish the fact that the little guys were getting some much deserved attention for once.

The end of the Kayak trip (Sportsmans Park, Red Lake Falls, MN)

I finally got an opportunity to read the article towards the end of the day that it came out. The majority of the day had been a pretty big build up for what I read, but at no point (not even the beat up Buick comment) was I disappointed. The article was extremely well written in my opinion, and three days later I received a message from Chris stating that in the past three days the article had gone toe-to-toe with the nationwide big issues and articles such as those dealing with Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton…and that the Red Lake County article was still the most read.

The messages I received from all over weren’t the only ones out there. Comments on Facebook posts, tweets, emails, and so many other forms of communication were all stating the same thing, people loved the article. They were cheering for the underdog, the one that was featured in the Washington Post, the one which they lived in, or had come from, for this brief moment we’re all from Red Lake County, Small Town, USA.

So in the end, I guess I’d like to thank the guy who called us the worst county in America. He reported on some old data from the USDA, which he himself didn’t truly believe, but when someone told him to get his butt out of the office and come check it out for himself, he did it, and made a lot of people remember their roots and start to be proud of the place they live once again. So thank you Chris Ingraham, you’ll always have a place to come home to, right here in Red Lake County!



Thank You Christopher Ingraham, for coming to see the beauty of
Red Lake County!

Life Lesson #2: Life is an Experiment

Ahh.. BD&LL, I feel like I'm writing to a long lost friend. My notebooks, admittedly less full these days, are dotted here and there with very and not so very partial attempts/seed-ideas for blog posts. I just never seem to get them completed or transferred to the digital medium. The mind, the incredible result of this cosmic experiment of life, "is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master." In order to drive out this master, I've been sending in the special forces: music and philosophy. Which is what brings us here. Now. Today's lesson from a completely unqualified but unordinary teacher.

The TL;DR ('too long, didn't read' for those of you not into the whole brevity thing) version is this: read philosophy, it's exercise for your brain. Also stuff about the cosmos, life, stardust and humanity.

I've picked up reading the works of a very unique individual lately by the name of Paolo Soleri. He was an architect, builder, philosopher, dreamer, prophet; a man of the Renaissance mind set living in modern times. I was introduced to his work through one of his one time protege, Doug Lee who became Chief Architect and worked Soleri's Arcosanti project. I was introduced to Doug because he is my beautiful and apprentice architect wife's boss. Anyway, after reading the entirety of the Wheel of Time Series it was time for me to put the fiction down. Soleri's words have dusted off a few other rooms in my brain containing similar works that I've read. All that lead to this idea for BD&LL. Enjoy.

Life Lesson #2: Life is an Experiment

Reading philosophy, studying it, is truly an exercise of the mind. As such it can be difficult, frustrating, and extremely rewarding. It can also lift you out of a bad mood, give you a new perspective: a filter in which to interpret the reality that surrounds us. I would like to share some if it but I'll do my best to do the majority of the heavy lifting and offer a more "10-minute abs version."

Perhaps you've noticed that I've assigned arbitrary #'s to my "life lessons." This is because the "lessons" thus far are extremely specific and removed from the more basic necessities of life. They have been lessons in navigating the tributaries of a much larger sphere of life. But much thought over what would be the most basic lessons lead me to these two. First lesson: survive. It is the self-containing truth of life to survive. Without life, there are no 'life' lessons. Maybe more on that in a later post. Here, I want to share life lesson #2: Life is an experiment.

My life, your life, all preceding life in entirety of history, the cosmos, etc. - i.e. human life and the entirety of all living things past and present, has been and will be an experiment of life. Billions of years of evolution can be looked at as an incredibly long experiment in survival. That's pretty epic. Have a drink. Stay seated and let your brain chew on that one - that human brain which is probably the most impressive result of those billions of years of cosmic transformation. Stardust assembling itself into a consciousness that can be aware of its own existence. Sorry. I did say I'd do the heavy lifting, on we go.

Like good philosophy is apt to do, this one requires thought and reflection, but once you get a grasp on just a part of it, you see it in the world around you and begin to understand the larger implications of those ideas. Something similar to what we call the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. My own reflections on this cosmic-level philosophical filter coupled with my own hubris of assigning hierarchy to life lessons is this: You can ponder the actual consequences of this philosophy, the scientific understanding of how life originated, how it processes, how it creates, how it persists, etc. But you can sort of turn the philosophy inside out and think of it as way in which to live life. Which I believe is what we're all trying to do here at this fine establishment we call Banana Daiquiris and Life Lessons; that is, impart what little wisdom we may have gained through our own experiment in living.

The basic philosophical questions are something like this: (1) What is nature of existence? - Or more simply "What exists?" (2) How do I know that? or How do I know what I think exists actually does exist the way I think? (3) What should I do?

The third one is important and the answers are many. But these are the types of things that guide the way in which we live. What is right and wrong? What is the ultimate purpose of life? What is the ultimate purpose of my life? etc. etc. ad absurdum.

In answering this question our species has created moral code, culture, religion, philosophy which then breeds more philosophy, law, social norms, common sense. The diversity of the human species means a diversity of answers and combinations of the answers. We all subscribe to some set of philosophical consequences: some established law, nation, culture, religion, morals, manners, and means of interacting with each other. We build our personal ethos and directions for living through our experiences with these "answers" through our life. Our families, friends, churches, nations, towns, cities, heroes and heroines, have all had a say in what we have established as way to live and also ways in which not to live.

I'm not here to argue for the rightness or wrongness of any of these ways to live. My point is simply this: with so many answers available to "what should I do?" and "how should I live?", we can view our own life, and that of others, as an experiment - one testing the validity of our life lessons. I think this is quite liberating. As a species we are still trying to figure out what the best answers are. As individuals we spend the entirety of our lives figuring out our answers. The point of life is not finding the best answer, it's to keep questioning, keep experimenting, keep testing. It's the journey, not the destination.

If I treat my life as an experiment in living it opens up the possibilities of true liberty, understanding, tolerance - of myself, of others. While I have a core set of beliefs that make up who I am, what I hold important, what I deem appropriate, etc, simply knowing that it's still imperfect allows me to be open to the viewpoint of those around me; to attempt understanding while reigning in judgement; to open the door to honestly and dialogue instead of fear, hate, and cruelty (all too real demons).

It can be uncomfortable to take on this perspective and use it to explore and experiment with what life has to offer. I also know that many of those reading will not and maybe cannot take it on because you subscribe to a set of answers that prevent you from doing so. And if that set of answers leaves you content, happy, and an active, functioning, contributor to the betterment of human society than who am I to tell you that you should do otherwise? I wouldn't and I won't. But this perspective is what's working for me. Here. Now.

Listening to: Rival Sons; Black Crowes; Rolling Stones
Reading: Paolo Soleri
Playing music, living, learning, stumbling, and coasting through life.

Take care,

Mikey

p.s.

Here's something I've been part of (taking and adding to the ether): Whiskey & the Wolves - an experiment all its own.