Football- 1920’s Style

There are two dates and a dash on everyone’s gravestone. The dates are the easy part of doing family genealogy, its reading the dash on the gravestone. The dash is not long or short, nor has high or low points, thus leaving everyone’s life looking the same. It is when we start examining someone’s dash we will find the story of their life.

Joe Kraker was born in 1896 in Virginia Minnesota. Virginia is located in northern Minnesota on the Iron Range and simply known as The Range. The mining of iron ore on The Range is the first raw step in the making of steel for the United States steel industry. Joe is the first-generation son of immigrant parents for Slovenia. His birth, life, and death all took place in Virginia, but part of his “dash in life” took place outside of Virginia Minnesota.

Back in the mid-1940’s, Joe sat down and wrote his life story on tablets and scrolls of register paper. He titled his book of tablets and scrolls “One Man’s Story”. In 1991 his daughter, Fran, and also my mother-in-law, assembled the writings and had them bound into a book in Joe’s handwriting, and gave the book out as a Christmas gift to all of Joe’s grandchildren. Joe passed away in 1958 before any of his grandchildren were born, so this book is our window looking back on their grandfather’s life. Many things were talked about his life. Football, politics and insurance sales, and today’s the story is about football.

Joe loved the game of football. As he wrote in his book, “I’d would rather play football than eat.” He played football in high school, on city teams in northern Minnesota, in the Canadian Football League, and in the National Football League. These were the early years of football when padded plastics and helmets were not used to cushion the hard blows. The men of men played this rough game and some losing their lives due to the internal injuries sustained on the field of play. In 1924 Joe traveled to Rock Island Illinois to play for the Rock Island Independence of the National Football League. The National Football League was formed in 1920 under the name American Professional Football Association. The American Professional Football Association was renamed the National Football League in 1922. Joe would play with and against future Hall of Famers of the NFL, and most notably Jim Thorpe.

Joe’s book doesn’t go into many details of his days on the Rock Island Independence team. The one comment he does say is that his time was too short. His career was cut short when in practice another player, Duke Slater, kicked him in the hand and broke his finger thus ending his NFL career. But never the less, he was a member of the Rock Island Independence of the National Football League.

As I have done research on the Rock Island Independence team to learn more about the team and fill in some of the blanks of Joe’s playing days, I came across the website Rock Island Independence. I started looking thru their information and noticed a photo of the team. I recognized the photo and started reading the names of the players. The photo was of the 1924 team and Joe Kraker’s name wasn’t attached to the photo. I went back and found my copy of the photo where Joe had listed the names and positions of each player. I scanned in my photo and sent the photo to “Contact” on the website. A few days later I received an email back from Simon from the website. He stated he thought the names were wrong but it was the best information he had at the time. He continued and told me he was putting my photo on the website so all the names would be correct. The other thing I found on the website was a link to the Vintage American Football. I started reading their website and found they had just started playing vintage football in 2015. Simon and I exchanged a few more emails and a few more photos. In one of those emails was an invite to come to Rock Island and watch the 2017 vintage football game. It didn’t take much arm twisting being I have a daughter and her family living in the Quad Cities.

One day Simon sent me an email of the game announcement flyer of the game. On the announcement was two photos I had sent to Simon. Jim Thorpe and Joe Kraker graced the announcement. I forwarded the announcement to the Kraker clan and asked if anyone would be interested in attending the game. It didn’t take my mother-in-law too long to respond to the invite. Here was her chance to see her father’s sporting love and played the way he played the game. For other family members, it was a little more difficult to make the game. With the game being played at 3 o’clock on a Sunday afternoon and a 6-hour drive home after the game left a midnight bedtime. For me and Laurel, we vacationed the day from work so we could make the drive home on Monday.

We drove to the Quad Cities on Saturday morning chauffeuring Fran to the big game. Saturday night Simon had a meet and greet at a local bar in Rock Island. Players of the game and family members of former players would be there on Saturday evening.  We had a wonderful time meeting another daughter of a past player. We met others who have been doing research on the Independence teams. I showed Joe’s old football pictures to the others and it brought an excitement to them. One of the pictures was of Joe’s high school playing days. The second was his playing days in the city leagues of northern Minnesota. The third was of Joe when he played in Saskatoon in the Canadian Football League.  One of the gentlemen said he was going to contact one of his friends who does research on the Canadian League and see if he has any information to share. After visiting for a few hours, we headed back to my daughter’s home and got ready for the game on Sunday.

We took a leisure Sunday morning around my daughter’s home sipping coffee and watching the grandchildren play and taunt one another. Ah, the sounds of an active home. The sky was cloudy with a strong wind out of the west. The air was cold and our winter coats would be needed for the watching the game. Before we went to the game we stopped by the John Deere headquarters campus in Moline Illinois for a visit. This is the site of Jeremy’s office and they have a small museum of equipment of today, and memorabilia from over the past 180 years of John Deere history covering one wall of the museum. Jeremy took us to the building where his office is and showed us the atrium courtyard. It is a wonderful green space for workers to take a break from their work and re-energize themselves. From Deere’s campus we made a short drive and had lunch at a small Mexican restaurant.

Game time was nearing and we all loaded back into the cars for the drive across town to Rock Island. Our first stop was to Douglas Park the site of the Rock Island Independence football team back in the 1920’s. This is the place where Joe Kraker played the game of football. Douglas park was an old baseball park and had a grandstand on the south side of the park. Now the old grandstands are gone and the new field has home plate in the outfield and the homerun fence is in the place of the old grandstand. After a brief stop we made the short drive to Hauburg Estates, site of this year’s game.

We parked the cars and gathered our chairs and blankets and made the short walk to the field. The air was alive with the sounds of a small jazz band playing near the field. The band members were dressed in white shirts, black pants and red suspenders. As the game neared the band ended their music. The emcee took over the microphone and started innerduseing the players. The two teams represented at the game were the Rock Island Independence and the Moline Universal Tractors. He also acknowledged the three daughters of former players at the game. After a few more words about the game it was time for the National Anthem. One of the ball players played the National Anthem on his saxophone. Then it was game time and time for the kickoff.

Both teams took the field and the ball was teed up. The ball was bigger in circumference than today’s football and had rounder points. The kickoff looked very similar as the ball traveled thru the air. The deep man tried catching the ball and it went thru his hands and hit the ground. As soon as the ball hit the ground the referee blew the ball dead. This was a rule in the 1920’s. The receiving team couldn’t advance the muffed ball and the kicking team couldn’t recover the ball. The game would be played as a flag football game to help reduce the hitting between the players. This was a demonstration football game of the 1920’s rules of play. First downs wouldn’t be awarded for advancing the ball 10 yards as they do today. The first downs would happen when the ball was advanced over the 20-40-20 yard lines. The field was shortened for this game but the 1920’s field was 100 yards as it is today, so there would have been one more first down line. Thus a team may have to advance the ball just 1 yard to 19 yards for their next first down.

The play relied on the running game. With the ball having such a large circumstance throwing the ball was difficult. It would be like you trying to throw a spiral with a basketball or a small child trying to throw a full size football. Not to many spirals nor any distance on the throws. Five to ten yard passes were the extent of the passing game. Thus the backfield was filled with running backs. There was a few runs thru the front line but most runs were sweeps around the ends. In the old days I am sure there were more runs up the middle, but with this game being flag football the runs up the middle thru the front line were held to a minimum. With the game relying on the running game, there were very few first downs and low scoring.

The halftime score was MUT-7, RI-0. The players took advantage of the halftime and sipped some water and mingled with their family members in attendance at the game. After about fifteen minutes the start of the second half began. The second half continued with more grinding out the yards on the ground and exchanging the football on downs. As the second half continued the hitting started picking up and the game became more serious about the competition. They were playing for their home town pride. The final of the game was MUT-17, RI-6. As one of the Rock Island fan’s, we were disappointed in the score, but it was fun to watch football 1920’s style.

The one thing I didn’t see was a drop kick. The rules of his game would have allowed for a player to attempt a drop kick with a “no rush” defense. But the game did remind me of my youth playing football in the backyard. We had modified our rules for our field and equalizing play between the boys and girls. Our backyard games had more passing than running, but we did have one first down line at mid field. Dad had a hard time growing grass for a few years, but we enjoyed our time playing the game from after school until dark under a flood light mounted on the house.

As the 100th anniversary of the NFL is fast approaching in the year 2020, I hope the game continues to find followers of its early history. It would be nice to see the NFL do a story on vintage football and how it shaped the early days of the modern day NFL league. It was great to take a look back into the history of football. These were the “men of men” grinding it out on the field playing for the pride of their cities and communities.

Explain It To Me From My Knowledge Base

I have been following several people on social media over the last few years about agriculture issues.  I have been getting side feeds trying to explain use of glyphosate to the urbanites and suburbanite.  Really do I need to see one more video trying to explain 22 ounces of liquid covering a football field?  Why don’t the farmers explain it from urbanites and suburbanites perspective and knowledge base.  Maybe then, they’ll get it!

First a little background.  I grew up in the suburbs of St Paul Minnesota.  My mom and dad were raised on dairy farms.  After they were married, they moved to the St Paul area and raised their family.  My grandparents, on my dad’s side, continued to dairy farm.  We would go to their place when I was a child and spend the weekends.  My grandparents farm was 160 acres of corn, oats and hay to feed their milking herd of 25 cows and young stock.  Part of the acreage was pasture ground and so the managed acreage was about 120 acres.  My grandpa’s biggest tractor was 60 horsepower and that’s small by todays agricultures standard.

When I was 20 I moved from the big city (so did my parents and family and bought their own dairy farm) back near my grandparents farm I and got a job on a neighboring farm.  This farm was a bigger dairy farm.  On this farm we milked 78 cows and had young stock.  The farm was about 450 acres raising corn, oats and hay.  Some of the acreage was in pasture ground.  The biggest tractor on this farm was 120 horsepower.  This is the small tractor on todays farms.  I worked on this farm for 13 years before I left and went to work in town.

About 15 years ago my youngest daughter took sheep as a 4-H project when she was in her junior year of high school.  She moved on with her life and the sheep stayed.  At first the sheep were urban sheep. When me and Laurel build a new home in the country we moved the sheep to our new home on 13 acres.  We have about 2-1/2 acres of tillable land and the rest is pasture and woods.  I manage my land with a 1952 Ford 8N tractor with a whopping 23 horsepower.  Most of my feed is raised on my dad’s farm.  So there in a nut shell in is my farm knowledge base.

Laurel and I have gardened most of our 35 years of marriage.  At first we gardened like farmers then transitioned to gardening on the square foot method.  The gardening as a framer we would plow with a tractor and use wide row methods so we could till the ground between the rows of plants.  As we learned more about gardening we moved to permanent 4 foot wide raised beds.  I would till the soil with a garden fork and the tiller was idled.  The beds were planted on the square foot method and mulching of the beds was used to suppress weeds and conserve moisture.  At our new home our vegetable garden is the barnyard.  Each spring I clean up the manure pack and reset the fence panels to create the garden.  Back to the days of plowing and wide row plantings.  Today we mostly plant tomatoes green beans for canning.  We also grow a variety of peppers and sweet potatoes.  We gave up on regular potatoes and squash because of the bugs.  We also have a small terraced garden near the house were we plant carrots, beets and spinach.  The terraced garden is heavily enriched with compost.

Now I know your starting to think, this guy has a wide base of knowledge.  Is he conventional or organic?  Is he large scale gardening or small scale farming?  Or is he a hybrid of both systems.  Dad continues to farm raising corn and soybeans and a few acres of hay for me and a neighbor who bought his beef herd.  The corn and soybean seed is Round-up ready, meaning it is GMO seed.  A few years ago I got my applicator license so I could purchase chemicals and apply them to the fields.  As time marches forward and dairy industry has left our area.  The cover crop of hay ground is being replaced with the row crops of corn and soybeans.  This is happening to the hillsides where 30 years ago corn would have been planted for one year and the back to hay ground via oats as a nurse crop.  The farmers were spreading manure back to the fields enriching the fields.  Today the fields are being fed fertilizers to feed the corn and soybeans.

This brings me back to my earlier question.  What is your knowledge base?  I understand gardening and small dairy farming.  But….  Do I understand milking 500 or 1000 cows?  Do I understand managing 1000 or 5000 acres of corn and soybeans.  How about 10 sections of wheat?  Dad’s corn planter is 4 row, and in America’s corn belt farmers are using 24 and 36 row corn planters.  Dad just follows a mark in the soil to keep the corn rows parallel.  The big planters are using GPS to keep their row parallel when they plant.  I have sat in some of the biggest tractors with all their buttons and switches and thought learning to fly a airplane would be simpler.  So if I am overwhelmed with the size and technology, what about a urbanite or suburbanite?  If they have one tomato plant on their deck why can’t 40 acres of tomatoes be managed in the same way?  If they have a grouping of small raised garden beds or a garden 30X30 and they are able to manage after a hard day at work with a hoe and pulling a few weeds so why do the farmers need chemicals?  Can’t they manage the crops in an organic way?

I have though about that.  Laurel and I are sometimes overwhelmed by our garden that is 30X30 with all the weeding.  Lets make the garden bigger.  Let say 320 acres.  For you that are struggling with size, 320 acres is a area 1 mile by a half a mile.  If I wanted to plant a 320 acre field of soybeans and keep it organic, how do I control the weeds?  One method is to walk the fields hoeing out the weeds.  Let stop and do the math.  I first have to determine how wide of a path I can manage weeding.  Lets just say 20 feet.  So I will walk 1 mile weeding a strip of soybeans 20 feet wide.  When I reach the end of the field I will move over 20 feet for the return trip.  I will continue this across the field.  A half a mile is 2640 feet at 20 feet a time is 132 times I would walk a mile.  For all you runners, that’s 10 half marathons!  That’s one field of soybeans in America.  Who’s going to do this all this walking?  You don’t get all summer to weed you maybe get 30 days in the heat of July.

Gardens aren’t small fields and fields aren’t big gardens.  Each has their own style of management.  If as a gardener you  lose your tomato crop you maybe had a financial lose of $100 and will have to buy your canned tomatoes from the store.  If a farmer loses their tomato crop there is no paycheck!  But the bank loan for the plants, fertilizer and fuel still needs to be repaid.

Back to glyphosate.  Why do urbanites and suburbanites think the farmers douse their fields in glyphosate?  Look at their knowledge base.  As I was watching a commercial for Round-up on television and saw how much chemical the homeowner is applying.  He was dousing the poor little plant ensuring its demise.  Maybe that is where the public gets their vision of dousing weeds in chemicals on the farm.  The homeowner could have bent over and pulled the weed with same results, but that would sell product.  If he walked his patio, how many miles would he have walked.  At the end of the commercial it shows the homeowner lying in a hammock enjoying the fruits of his weed free lawn and patio.  Is that how the urbanites and suburbanites see the farmers?  We just spayed our fields with glyphosate and now lying in a hammock wait for the crop to be harvested?

Please stop trying to explain things from a farmers point of view.  Break it down to something I can relate to and is in my knowledge base as an urbanite and suburbanite.  Maybe that will leave me with a better understanding of your choices as a farmer.

I guess that’s how I see it.  Thanks for reading my point of view.

A Quick Post

Yes, I am still alive!  The spring and summer has been filled with endless work and very little time to post blogs.  We just got back from our 4th of July trip and I thought I would drop a quick note.  I thought I would do something a little different with my photos.  Feet and Water.  Enjoy your summer.

Zach’s Trains Come to Life

Easter weekend brought the grandsons home for a visit.  Laurel and I took Good Friday off of work so we could have a long weekend.  Our son-in-law, Jeremy, also did the same.  We made plans to meet Jeremy, Becca and the boys in the Twin Cities about noon at Bandana Square.  We received a text in the morning stating that they were leaving home and we would do the calculation and time our departure. Becca and Jeremy live in Waterloo Iowa and is about a 3-1/2 hour drive to the cities. For us it was a little over an hour.  Laurel and I finished a few last minute cleaning details in the morning before we left home.

Laurel and I made the drive to the cities and found our way to Bandana Square.  We pulled into the parking lot and looked for a stall.  We spotted Becca and Jeremy’s vehicle as they were also looking for a parking stall.  We ended up parking next to each other.   Laurel and I got out of our car and walked over to greet our grandsons and family.  After our greetings we made our way into Bandana Square.

The reason why we made plans to go to Bandana Square is because it is the home of the Twin Cities Model Railroads Museum.  Our grandsons love playing with their wooden train sets at home and Zach is the king of train time.  Zach can spend hours pushing his wooden locomotives around the tracks.  We made our way to the second floor and entered the museum.

As soon as we paid our admission Zach quickly made his way over to the edge of the layout.  The layout is encircled by a metal handrail.  The railing has a 2X6 board attached to it about 16 inches off the floor so the youngsters can stand on and see the layout.  The first train glided by Zach.  His eyes opened wide and he pointed his little finger over the layout and shouted “Train!”

 

The layout had several trains were running at the same time so a train was passing by Zach quite often.  The scale of the layout is O gauge.  The layout’s main focus is on the rail infrastructure of Minneapolis and St Paul in 1880’s.  The layout features the flour mills, the Stone Arch Bridge and the St Anthony Falls Hydroelectric plant.  It also features many other aspects of railroad history in St Paul and Minneapolis.

We spent about an hour and a half at the museum and  the kids had a blast.  Carter had a good time and as did AJ, even at a the age of 1-1/2.  The boys also found an old locomotive bell mounted to the floor for the visitors to play with.  The museum had removed the clapper and replaced the clapper with a hex nut leaving soft bell tones in the air.  The boys had fun ringing the bell.  When we were finished we all head out for lunch and then made the short drive over to iconic Como Zoo to visit the wildlife.

A Day That Will Live in Infamy

I have remembered these words for many years of my life.  I don’t know why they have stuck in my mind, but I think of them every December 7th.  If anyone one asks me the date on December 7th I say “A day that will live in Infamy!”

In 2006 Laurel had some business to attend to in Baltimore.  I said I would like to ride shotgun and take in the sights of Baltimore and do a day trip to Washington D.C.  Baltimore was a wonderful city rich with early America history.  We had made our way out to Fort McHenry to tour the fort.  This is the site where Frances Scott Key penned the poem The Star Spangled Banner.  The sights and hallowed ground has given me a grater understanding of our National Anthem.  On that same trip we took a day trip to Washington D.C.  The one day trip turned into two one day trips to Washington.  The most impressive site in Washington was the World War II Memorial.  The one vision that has stayed with me is the Gold Star Wall.  I tried to take a photo of the wall and I didn’t have a wide enough angle lens to capture the size and scope of the men and women lost in the war.  I don’t know why that vision found a place in my mind and stayed.

In 2013 Laurel had a conference in New Orleans.  Again I rode shotgun.  I hadn’t been to New Orleans since 1976 and so I thought it would be fun to reinvestigate the city.  On my daily outings I came across the WWII museum.  It was an overload of history.  The first display I saw was a comparison of the military size of the three nations in WWII.  It stunned me how small our military was compared to the German and Japanese.   In the display they used a military man to represent 2000 men.  Again that vision has stayed with me.

Last April Laurel’s Uncle Joe passed away.  As the house was being cleaned out of livelong treasures I asked for the photos in the den upstairs.  I wanted them for my genealogy work.  There were 3 boxes of photos.  Many of the photos do not have any information on them.  No names and no dates and leaving me with a guess game.  As I looked thru the photos I came across a black and white photo of a young man in a naval uniform.  I turned the photo over and there was some writing on the back.  Hand written in pencil was “Uncle Joe”.  Figuring the photo was from 1940’s I quickly realized “Uncle Joe” was Laurel’s Grandfather.  Then someone took a marker and added the word “To” before Uncle Joe and in the upper right hand corner wrote “Donald Kraker Died at Pearl Harbor.”  Wow!  In the 34 years of being married into the family I had never heard any stories of Donald.  I had always heard of Laurel’s Uncle Joe joining the Navy and just after he did the Japanese surrendered.  His claim was the Japanese didn’t want to tangle with him!

Questions quickly flooded my mind.  The first and biggest, which ship was he on?  Thank you internet!  So I did a search on the internet and looked of a casualty list of the dead on December 7th, Pearl Harbor day.  I looked under the “K” and sure enough there was the name of Donald J Kraker.  In the next column was where he died and it read “Midway Island, NAS.”  Midway Island, what’s that got to do with Pearl Harbor?  Back to the internet for more research.  Midway Island, NAS stands for Midway Island Naval Air Station.  That’s a long way from Pearl Harbor and why would the casualties of Midway Island be added to the Pearl Harbor casualties list?  More research.  Then I found a article on the “The First Bombardment Of Midway Island”.

On December 7, 1941 The Japanese bombed Midway Island after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  As two Japanese ships passed the Midway they started shelling the small island.  Four men were killed that morning including Ensign Donald J Kraker.  There was the connection.  The information was a reference statement to the day and not exact assignment of Donald.   5 years ago I might have not been able to do this research from home.  I continued to look the internet over to research some questions that were still lingering in my mind.

The Wall of Stars.  How many men does each star represent?  One Hundred.  There were over 2402 names listed in the data base that were killed on December 7th and the first 25 stars were added to the wall.  The final total count on the wall was 4,048 stars.  As I continued to research the memorial I found an area were the general public could make a donation and honor someone in WWII.  I did a search for “Kraker” and several names returned.  I clicked on Donald’s name and found Laurel’s Uncle Joe had made a donation in honor of Donald.  Uncle Joe also did a donation for himself for he too was in WWII.  He joined late in the war effort but was still part of the Navy.

The town of Gilbert Minnesota lost a son this day 73 years ago.  “A Day That Will Live In Infamy!”

 

Responding to The 30 Day Blogging Challenge

Over the last two weeks I have been reading the six blogs I posted about in my last post.  It got me thinking.  What would be my blog posting to each of the titles?  Who would be the Influential Person in Agriculture to me?  What are the things I Love?  I raise Food and I like to cook and grill.  What were the Life Lessons I taught my daughters?  I drove and rode a few  Dirt Roads in my life.  And a Song, to sum up Agriculture in my life.

Influential.  I can’t name one person, it’s more like a composite of people.  Grandpa, Dad, Uncles, Employer, Friends, 4-H Leaders and may other people.  There are blogs I read today and I see them leaving a mark of influence on me.  As a child I was on my uncle’s knee learning to drive the tractors.  As a teen working for my Grandpa milking cows and learning to operate bigger field equipment.  In my early adult years I worked for a neighbor on their dairy farm for 13 years.  When my youngest daughter was in her junior year of high school she said she was going to take sheep as a 4-H project.  That decision brought us a new learning curve, new people to meet and leading me and Laurel to be the sheep superintends at our county fair.  I still yet today learn history of farming from my Dad thru his love of Red-Bellied Fords and Hit-and-Miss engines powering farm equipment.

Love.  Enjoying a handcrafted beer on the deck on a warm summer evening.  Firing up the grill and having the heat, smoke and meat marinade together and creating a shared dinner with Laurel.  Bonfires with family and friends.  Grandsons being toted around the farm with my tractor pulling a trailer with them riding behind.  Helping Dad do projects on his farm and helping with his field work.  Helping my daughters with needs in their projects on their homes.  Learning new skills in photography.  Working on my genealogy leaving a history of our family for my daughters and grandchildren.  But most of all a love for Laurel.  Spending time with her.  Whether it be as simple as holding her hand, traveling with her or preparing an elegant dinner just because I love her.

Food.  Being around the dairy industry growing up, beef was what was for dinner.  Back in the 70’s when we lived in the Twin Cities, people were outraged by the price of beef in the store.  Mom and Dad’s neighbors were talking about boycotting beef .  When they would talk to Mom she would come back with the statement ” The farmer needs to eat too!”  Over the last few years I have come to love grilling.  Beef, Pork, Lamb and Vegetables.  They are all in need of smoke and I am the guy to add the smoke.  For my 50 birthday my kids threw me a bash complete with a grilled hog.  The next year we celebrated Laurel’s 50 birthday with a grilled hog also.  My cousin was at Laurel’s party and was so impressed with the hog he asked me if I would grill a hog for the family reunion.  Now that I have said yes, he told me the only way I can get out of grilling the hog is to DIE!  I guess I have a date for the next 30 years.

Life Lessons.  I can’t list specific lessons, but as a look at my daughters today they must have learned many lessons from me and Laurel.  All three of my daughters are in their 30’s and are married to wonderful men. It seems they each learned the lessons of hard work, family and love.  They continue to love today the same things we did as a family when they were children.  Gardening, travel, camping and simply gathering as a family.

Dirt Roads.  I always remember the night we ate at the Blue Diamond many years ago when I was a kid.  The Blue Diamond was a supper club near my Grandma and Grandpa’s.  We had gone out for their Friday night fish fry.  I don’t remember who was in the car other the me and Grandma and Grandpa.  As we left the Blue Diamond, Grandpa turn left instead of right and we were off to find our way back to the farm on roads I didn’t know.  Grandpa turned on a township road.  We crossed over the railroad tracks and the road turned to gravel.  Grandpa stated we had crossed into Minnesota.  Everybody knows Minnesota’s roads were all gravel.  About a mile down the road it turned back to asphalt.  He claimed we just crossed back into Wisconsin and would be home soon.  Now I was a little smarter than that.  Growing up in the Twin Cities and traveling to Grandma and Grandpa’s we had to cross the St Croix River.  So Grandpa’s fib didn’t hold much water because I claimed we didn’t cross the St Croix.  He just laughed.

Meet Me in Montana.  Ever since I heard this song from years ago, I have always love this song.  It was originally preformed by Dan Seals and Marie Osmond in 1985.  When I looked it up on YouTube I found a version by countrychloe.  I loved her video. She did a wonderful job interpreting  the song with photos in the video.  It isn’t that I need to meet Laurel in Montana, but I do love meeting  Laurel on top of Prickly Ash Hill each and every day sharing a life together.

St. Paul to Minneapolis Via The Green Line

For the last month Laurel’s family has been talking about taking a day and ride the Green Line.  The Green Line?  It is the newest light rail addition to the Twin Cities.  The line runs from downtown St. Paul following University Avenue thru the University of Minnesota and continuing to downtown Minneapolis making its final stop at Target Field.

After several e-mails among the potential riders, The date and time was set.  The gathering time was set for 11 am on Saturday September 20th and we would meet at the Buttered Tin in St Paul.  Saturday morning when I awoke a thought flashed thru my mind.  I wondered about visiting the Farmers Market in St Paul.  I signed on to the computer and noted the hours of operation of the farmers market.  When Laurel woke up I mentioned to her about stopping at the farmers market.  I said if we left home an hour earlier we could take some time at the market.  Laurel thought that would be a good idea, so we got ready and made our way to the Cities.

The drive to St. Paul was uneventful.  We made our way into downtown St. Paul via Kellogg Boulevard.  We would look for parking near the Union Depot because the Farmers Market and the start of the Green Line are within a couple of blocks.  We found a lot charging a dollar for the visitors of the Farmers Market, so we entered the lot and grabbed a ticket and parked the car.  Laurel and I walked the 4 blocks to the farmers market and on the way we crossed the Green Line tracks on the south side of the farmers market.  We strolled up and down the aisles viewing all the colors of the farmers market.  Fruits, vegetables and flowers filled the farmers market with the sounds of folk music in the back ground.  We did spot some good deals and made a few purchases.  I carried the purchases back to the car while Laurel started walking to the Buttered Tin to meet with her family.  After I put the purchases in the car I started walking to the Buttered Tin.  I had my camera with me and I took pictures along the way of the architecture of St. Paul’s lower side.  The older building have been refurbished into lofts, flats and apartments.  St. Paul has done a wonderful job of revitalizing the downtown.

When I got to the Buttered Tin I started looking for Laurel.  She was inside along with her mother and sister Chantal.  I was in there for only  brief moment when the suggestion was made to go outside and wait for the rest of the gang.  The outdoor weather was superb.  Clear skies and a breeze weaving its way thru the streets of St. Paul.  We sat on a curb of a garden chitchatting as we waited.  A few minutes later Laurel’s bother and family appeared.  Jay, Karen and their two daughter joined in on the chitchat.  Now we were waiting for one more person, Naomi, Chantal’s daughter.  As the traffic flowed in the street before us we spotted Naomi in one of the cars.  She went a found a parking spot and joined the group and we were complete and ready to start touring on the Green Line.

We made our we down the street to the first stop of the Green Line known as the Union Depot.  We made our way onto the platform and bought our tickets and boarded the train.  We found a grouping of open seats and sat down.  We started talking about our first stop and the decision was made to go to the Black Sheep for pizza.   We departed the light rail on the 10th and Cedar stop and walked 3 blocks to the Black Sheep.  The Black Sheep serves artisan pizzas baked in a coal fired oven.  We made our way inside and the wait staff asked we would like to sit outside.  We said yes.  It was hot and stuffy inside and the waiter said their air conditioning was broken. But remember, this was a glorious day and sitting outside was refreshing.  As others chitchatted I looked all around noting architecture of the neighborhood.  Across the street there was a small green space and old building wall created into a work of art.  I studied the wall and took some photos of the artwork.  I am with a online photography group and this week topic was “Lines and Patterns”.  The building and artwork fit the description and with a few photos we walked back to the train platform and waited for the next train to Minneapolis.

We re-board the train and made our way to our next stop.  The Cupcake in the Prospect Park neighborhood on University Avenue.  We exited the train at the Westgate stop and walked the 3 blocks to the Cupcake.  We stepped inside looked over the tasty treats trying to make a decision on which cupcake was going to be our treat.  Laurel decided on the Kahlua cupcake.  I wasn’t up for a whole cupcake, so Laurel and I shared one.  It tasted every bit as good as they looked.  After a we finished the cupcake I told Laurel I was going next door and do a little shopping at an antique shop.  The shop was filled with household antiques.  Old windows, heat grates, door knockers and old lighting.  If you were restoring an older home, this was your shop.  They also had hand tools to old maps of St. Paul, Minneapolis and other areas of Minnesota.  Endless shopping and vision overload.  After a short stay I made my way outside to the sidewalk in front on the building.

I had spotted a small colorful wooden structure on the sidewalk when we entered the Cupcake.  I wanted too know what they were doing.   As we ate our cupcakes I was watching two guys at the structure print postcards.  I walked up to the structure and saw they were printing cards of the Prospect Park neighborhood.  The structure was equipped with  3 antique printers and each printer was a different color layer of the print.  They asked me if I wanted to make my own card and I said yes.  I told the one guy I remembered doing so of this style of block printing back in school.  After I finished my card the guys told me about a felting project down the street.  They tried to give me directions to the area were the project was, but we found ourselves wondering down the street.  We crossed University Avenue more times that a squirrel.

On the way we found the Textile Center.  We all went in and explored the exhibit at the center.  They had a small gift shop and some of the people did a little shopping.  For me, I looked over the exhibits and sat at a small table near the entrance.  On the table was a display of booklets.  I grabbed one of the booklets titled The Other Green Line and started paging through.  The booklet broke down the Green Line into the small neighborhoods writing of their natural history and walking tours to explore.  As the others finished headed outside and said goodbye to Jay’s family.  They headed back to their car because of they some other things they were doing that evening.  The rest of us continued to Prospect Park Community Gardens to visit the felting project.

As we entered the garden area was saw a young lady stirring a pot on an open fire.  We walked over to see what she was brewing and it turned out to be she was natural dying a scane yarn.  Another woman approached us and asked if we wanted to be part of the felting project.  We slipped over and joined in.  Some of us grabbed some wool and added it to the work of art.  I circled the work space taking photos of the project and the people working on the project.  The leader of the project directed people and prepped each step.  We worked on the project for over an hour and the project was far from complete.  We left the project to others and slipped over to a local coffee shop and grabbed a refreshment.  We re-boarded the train and made our way to the end of the line in downtown Minneapolis.  The last stop on the Green Line is Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins.  We had to change trains for our return trip.

As we headed back we made the decision to stop and have dinner along the Green Line supporting a local business.  An older couple boarded train and sat across from Laurel and I.  The lady pulled out her cell phone and look up the weather report.  She softly read the report to her husband.  I strained to listen to the report.  There were severe storms just west of Minneapolis.  I leaned over to Laurel and asked if we really wanted to stop and eat dinner.   Laurel asked the others and they still wanted to stop and eat dinner.  We road the train to the Victoria stop and exited the train.  The restaurant was right there on the corner.  The Best Steak House, simply named and decorated with a Greek décor.  The first person we met was the fry cook.  He asked us what we wanted and we ordered our meals.  Saturday night’s special, steak and shrimp.   The cook took our order for the cooking instructions for our steaks, we proceeded to collect the rest of our meal and pay.  We found a table and sat down and started on our salads and let our eyes take in the décor.  In a few minutes our main course was set in front of us.  We pushed our salad bowls aside and started on our steak dinners.  That was a great choice.  We had enough food left over, Laurel and I were able save some of the steak for Fajitas a couple of nights later.

As we finished we exited the Best Steak House the thunderstorm had hit.  Heavy rain and strong winds.  Not knowing when the next train was going to be a the station, we made a mad dash for the platform.  We tucked ourselves into a protective corner and waited.  The rain started to let up and the wind calmed.  I guess we could have waited in the restaurant, but that is hind sight.  After 15 minutes of waiting, the train appeared on the horizon.  We got back on the train and it had more rides than other times of the day.  The Gopher football fans had left the game and were returning home.  The cars was hot and muggy with smell of wet clothing.  We found ourselves standing for a couple stops before some seats opened up for us to sit.  We got back to the Union Depot stop and exited the train.  The rain was done and a rainbow was bright in the south sky as the storm continued its trek to the east.  We said our goodbye’s as we split up to walk back to our cars.

If you are ever in the Twin Cities for a visit I highly recommend taking the Green Line for an overview of the Cities.

Week of the 4th of July: PartII

As I continue my tales from the Land of Sky Blue Waters and Paul Bunyan.

Thursday we awoke with sunshine and some wind, but I wanted to travel to Hackensack Minnesota to see the statue of Lucette. Who is Lucette you ask. Why she is Paul Bunyan’s sweetheart. With the years growing up in Minnesota I had never heard of Lucette. It was only recently I came to hear of the name Lucette. There is a microbrewery in Menomonie Wisconsin named Lucette. On their web page they posted they named their brewery after Lucette in honor the hard working men of the lumber industry that built the Midwest. Interesting but still didn’t lead me to Hackensack. But what did lead me was the day before when we were in Park Rapids I found a story book about Lucette. When I was purchasing the book the clerk told me of the statue in Hackensack. So with that comment it lead me on a journey to meet the sweetheart of Paul Bunyan. Not knowing where to find Lucette, I looked for a city park in the middle of town. As we started going through town on the main drag a I spotted a big yellow sign pointing the way. As I turned the down the street, there she was standing in the middle of the street a couple of blocks away. I parked the car and took a couple of photos and went and visited the chamber of commence office which was next to Lucette. The lady in the office started telling me about Lucette. She told me she was constructed in 1950 as a tourist attraction between Brainerd and Bemidji. Brainerd had Paul Bunyan and Bemidji had Babe the Blue Ox. So the artist constructed Lucette and started the tales of Paul Bunyan’s sweetheart.

We headed back to camp and got our swimsuits on and met up with Becca and Jeremy. It was time to play in the water as we hadn’t yet that week. The week was as nice as it was going to be. We went out in the deeper part of the lake and Jeremy decided to take a loop with his wakeboard. They asked me if I wanted to wakeboard but I declined because the board isn’t set up for my stance. I did say I would surf. They set the boat up for surfing and I jumped in the water and set my feet on the board. I gave the ok and Jeremy hit the power and out of the water lifted standing on the surfboard. If you are able to do the surfing correctly you will ride the wake of the boat. I haven’t found the sweet spot of the wake. so I have to continue holding the rope so I don’t fall off the wake. But there are portions of time when the rope has slack and I am surfing. Then Becca took her turn and we headed back to shore and picked up the tube. I took a trip around the lake being whipped around behind the boat. It is fun to see if you can out duel centrifugal force and most of the time you loss.

Friday, the Fourth of July and our day started with wind. There is a tradition on Lake Belle Taine of doing a boat parade along the south shore. Boats are decorated in Red, White and Blue and so are the mates on board. There are many types of boats in the parade. Pontoons, speed boats and fishing boats. All parading the colors of our Independence. After all the boats gather the boats start slowly parading across the water waving at the people on shore. The people on shore are also wearing the Red, White and Blue and waving back. After the parade we wisked back to the cabin to continue watching the wind blow her lungs out. Dinner that evening was to be beer butt chicken on the grill. As we waited for the chicken to cook we continued in conversation with a main topic of whether the wind was going to let up so the firework would be displayed. We called over to the campgrounds and they stated the fireworks would be displayed at 10 pm. What the campground does is close the causeway from 10-11 pm. and they set the trailer with the fireworks on the causeway and launch the fireworks over the water. We were at the cabin and enjoyed about a 25 minute show then we headed back to our campsite at the campground.

Saturday we broke camp. Our week was over and it was time to go back to our real lives. After we had everything packed we headed off to a lumberjack breakfast. Now that is some serious eating! You get to order your eggs once and as many as you want. If you want two, order two. If you want six, order six. You can have them scrambled of easy-over. You get one order of hash browns and all the meat you want. Just keep eating, there is timber to be harvested! Paul Bunyan set the timber bar really high!

It was a great week even though the wind was blowing keeping us off the water. Laurel and I found land loving activities to investigate to fill our time. Maybe next year the week will be more welcoming to water activities.

Week Of the Fourth Of July

This week we are in Nevis Minnesota.  I think this is going to be a annual vacation for Laurel and I.  Our grandson, Zach, will be celebrating his second birthday.  His birthday is the fifth but the party will be the fourth.  The kid will grow up thinking his birthday is celebrated with fireworks and others don’t get such festivities.  The start of the week started with clouds, wind and rain.  Total gloom!  But Laurel and I tried to make the best of the situation and we took a couple of day trips in the area.

Sunday was a windy day at the cabin where Becca, Jeremy and the family stay. The cabin belongs to Jeremy’s parents. It was so windy that one of the neighbors trees had blown down.  Laurel and I did a grocery run into Park Rapids and a look around town.  There wasn’t much to see as the shops were all closed.  Small towns close on Sundays and early if they do open.  But there was time to do some loon watching and play with the grandsons.

On Monday we drove up to Itasca State Park to take another look at the headwaters of the Mississippi River.   Becca, Jeremy and family joined us on the trip.  The water was flowing swiftly over the rocks giving New Orleans plenty of water to float the worldly ships coming up river.  We checked out some of the other attractions and vista in the park before heading back to camp.

Tuesday was a cloudy day and I said I would like to go to the town of Walker Minnesota.  Walker lays on the edge of the iconic lake of Leech Lake.  Becca and two of the boys went with and our first stop was at The Piggy BBQ.  Smoked barbeque served from 11 am until gone.  The service was slow but worth the wait.    I had a Carolina Pork sandwich which had coleslaw on top.  It hit the spot with full flavor.  I will have to continue perfecting my smoking skills to get great tasting pork like the Piggy BBQ.  After lunch we looked thru a few shops and stopped by Reed’s Sporting Goods.  A sportsman’s dream store.  Then we went looking for the lake front icon.  As it turns out it is a lighthouse.  I was expecting a giant walleye, but it was a newly constructed lighthouse in the city park.  A few photos and on our way back to camp wiping the rain from the windshield.  Back at camp we had fire grilled pork chops with the smoky flavor of north woods birch.

Wednesday brought back the sun, but with wind and cool temperatures.  Laurel and I went to the town of Park Rapids to check out their downtown.  Up one side of Main Street, in and out of shops and back down Main Street on the other side.  The Candy stores….Time  to load up and spoil the grandsons.  We stopped by the little town of Dorset for an ice cream cone before heading back to camp.  And supper…steaks on an open fire with birch smoke.  Life is good in the north woods of Minnesota.

As a note on the campsite, we are staying at Campers Paradise.  This camp is located on an island in Lake Belle Taine.  The only way onto this island is a causeway.  One lane.  The sign reads, “Stop and look for cars on the causeway”.  The causeway is about a half mile long.  At camp our site is on the lake looking to the north.  On the west is a small pond with a large white pine standing tall on the .  The top of the tree is gone but a Bald Eagle has built a nest in the top.  This year there is a pair of eaglets perched in the nest waiting for mom and dad to bring back a fresh catch of the day.

Here is a first look at the travels into the Land of Sky Blue Waters.  I hope to past more tales of the Land of Paul Bunyan.

Western Minnesota

This past weekend Laurel and I traveled to western Minnesota.  Laurel was doing training at two vet clinics.  She is doing freelance work for a dental radiography company teaching clinics how to use their new equipment.  We left home Friday morning and met up with a veterinarian technician peer in Victoria Minnesota for lunch.  We had good conversation with her catching up on her work life and family.  We load back into the car and headed westward to Granite Falls Minnesota where our motel room awaited our arrival.

The trip across the state on U S Highway 212 went well.  I marveled at the snow drifts created by the windbreaks around the farmsteads.  They have had so much wind the fields had a shallow covering of snow and top soil covered the snow everywhere.  Back home our fields are coved with 2 feet of snow.  We arrived at our motel in Granite Falls and got checked in and to took a little down time before we head out to Cottonwood to the Lakeside Vet Clinic.  Laurel grabbed her training supplies headed into the clinic.  That left me with 3 1/2 to 4 hours of alone time.

Fear not, I had my camera with me and I had not been in southwest Minnesota in almost 19 years.  The last time I was in Marshall Minnesota was when my brother got married.  I did a little drive around Marshall and saw a large steeple on the far west end of Highway 19.  I followed the landmark and I found the church where he was married.  I noticed they added on to the front of the church covering the front steps.  They did such a wonderful job of matching the brick the addition looked as though it had been there from the first days of construction.  I took a few photos and headed to McDonalds for a little free internet time.  I tweeted out I was in Marshall and got received a tweet back from CarolynCares who lives in the area.  She wasn’t home but it would have been great to meet her.  I follow her blog on WordPress and I really enjoyed her 30 Days of Thanksgiving she wrote in November.  As the sun set in the west I took the back roads back to Cottonwood and photographed the prairie sunset of southwest Minnesota.  For those of you wondering how flat is the land in the area. Well, I thought I could see Mt Rushmore silhouetted in the sunset 😉  As the sun faded below the horizon I made my way back to Cottonwood enjoying the quite of a small town on the prairie land of America.  I headed back to the clinic and picked up my Valentine and made our way back to Granite Falls for dinner at Dallas II and a little shut eye.

 

The next morning we awoke with snow flurries and had a small detour.  We headed up the road to Montevideo for a funeral.  The funeral was for the mother of Laurel’s boss.   As I read about her life and heard the story of her life, Montevideo has lost a great person in their town.  We had to leave early because Laurel had to be in Olivia for Olivia Pet Clinic’s training.

Again I dropped her off and headed out exploring the area.  I remembered a news story on Kare11 about a church that went thru a restoration project.  I asked the clinic staff and they pointed me to the catholic church in town.  So I drove over and found the church, St Aloysius Catholic Church.  I drove around the building taking pictures.  I saw a worker clearing snow from the sidewalks and asked about the church.  He didn’t seem to know what I was talking about but he told me if I wanted to go in and take a look it was ok.  He lead me to the sanctuary and opened the door.  It was breath taking!  I asked him if I could take some photos.  Sure, and he said he would go and turn on the lights for me.  I want back to the car and grabbed my camera.  I found myself in awe of the beauty in the sanctuary.

I spent almost an hour photographing and trying to take in all the details of the restoration.  If you find yourself traveling thru Minnesota on 212, stop in Olivia and enjoy the oasis of God beauty.  I spent next few hours driving around town and down the road to Morton Minnesota.  In Morton I stopped by the Lower Sioux Agency site.  I told Laurel we will need to go back in the summer so we can walk the trails of the site and read its history.  Laurel finished her training and we headed home.  We chased the snow down Highway 212 to Minneapolis when we caught up to the snow just before we hit the cities.  We made ourselves thru the cities and homeward with a dusting of snow.  Good we didn’t any more, but today the snow is back.  4-7 inches by 3 pm  I guess my butt will be caressed by the 8n seat tonight as I clear the driveway.