There are signs of summer around: bugs we like (fireflies), bugs we don’t like (mosquitoes), corn tassels soon to shoot out.  And kids on bikes.  In town, even though there are less children than there used to be, kids on bikes are still a common sight.  That means, of course, summer vacation!

Summer vacation is the Great Liberation.  After nine months of a type of captivity, kids are free.  “No more school, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks.”  I’m writing here mostly about children in those years between when they need older eyes on them, and when jobs and other responsibilities begin to appear.  About ages nine to fourteen.  Those are the ones I see buzzing about town on their bikes.

Besides on bikes, you see kids on the fishing shore where the trail runs along Sleepy Eye Lake.  You see others shooting basketballs at hoops in front of garages.  You can hear kids screaming at the water park from blocks away.  (What you seldom see is kids playing catch or pick-up baseball.  That is a sadness among my baseball friends, but a topic for another day.)

Teachers talk about summer slack when children lose some skills and knowledge that those teachers worked hard to instill.  Good parenting tries to minimize that with some time in books and maybe even a worksheet or two.  Part of hanging around with a kid should involve an occasional mental nudge.  “So, what kind of tree is that?”  “How would we figure the area of our deck?”

Summer vacation is by no means wasted time.  We understand kids need spaces of time to fill on their own.  Here is where imagination and creativity can take root.  Play is critical to physical and mental growth as body and mind stretch.  Some play should come from a child’s free-wheeling brain.  This is not to say children should be ignored.  But if given a safe and nurturing environment, some alone-time and empty-time is valuable.

Safe, mostly.  I remember being amazed how summer took its toll on our kids at a certain age.  By this time of July, their arms and legs were adorned with bug bites, bruises, and cuts.  All this, on top of some sunburn.  Summer vacation is not for the timid.

A benefit of the Great Liberation of summer is the chance for brothers and sisters to be brothers and sisters rather than herded to separate classrooms.  Science writer Jeffrey Kluger in his book, The Sibling Effect, talked about these relationships.  “Nobody affects us as deeply as our brothers and sisters, not parents, not children, not friends. From the time we and they are born, our siblings are our collaborators and co-conspirators. They teach us how to resolve conflicts and how not to, how to conduct friendships and when to walk away. Our siblings are the only people we know who truly qualify as partners for life.”

I had brother Dean who was close to my age.  Dean was blind and spent weekdays at Faribault at what was then called the Braille and Sight Saving School.  Most weekends he was home, but summer vacation was our big chance to play, fight, work together, create, imagine, build stuff, fight some more, explore, laugh, and sometimes hit each other.

Dean being blind meant we had to find our own ways to play baseball and football.  We never could come up with a version of basketball that worked for a blind and sighted kid.  That wasn’t a loss as long as we could be Twins and Vikings.  We also came up with things like a kitchen table baseball game with a marble as the ball and toy farm animals to man positions.  The animals had names and unique personalities, and we would conduct pre and post-game interviews.

We seemed to break a lot of stuff, like windows.  Perhaps that was the result of Dean’s lack of vision and my lack of coordination.  Thankfully my parents were forgiving.  It calls to mind the story Harmon Killebrew told in his Hall of Fame speech.  In talking about growing up, Harmon said, “I’ll never forget, we used to play a lot of ball out in the front yard, and my mother would say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass and digging holes in the front yard.’ And my father would say, ‘We’re not raising grass here, we’re raising boys.’”

My other siblings were older, and that meant a steady stream of visiting nieces and nephews to the farm who became playmates and chores-helpers.  My oldest nephew Scott spent a chunk of five summers escaping Burnsville for his grandparent’s farm on the prairie.

Scott became an auxiliary brother, and the family referred to Scott, Dean, and me as the Three Musketeers.  I am sad to report that Scott passed away of a medical condition earlier this summer.  He was sixty.  Rest in peace Scott.  Your spirit will always be a memory on the farm.

I remember being a little jealous of my town friends because they could get together and play ball or play on the Indian trails back behind St. Mary’s School.  The trade-off for a farm kid was a grove to explore, line fences to follow, rock piles to climb, and cows and a farm dog to get to know.

It may not be completely accurate, but in my memory, I didn’t wear shoes during the summer, excepting for church.  I know there was a couple one doctor’s visit for tetanus shots after stepping on nails.  The bottoms of my feet calloused over, and the occasional step on a thistle or into manure wasn’t an issue.  As parents on the same farm, we did promote shoe wearing to our children.  Bare footedness was one of those generational divides.

Even though it has been many years, but I can recall the immense and unadulterated joy that came with the last day of school.  It’s funny, but the school calendar was ingrained in me long after college.  For seventeen years, life fell into nine and three-month patterns that were hard to shake from my conscience.  Years after, I felt an unexplained buoyancy in early June when the sun was out past nine and sense of foreboding in late August as the days grew shorter.

For many of us, summer vacations were our last large swaths of unstructured time.  I have a few friends dipping their toes into retirement, some enjoying unstructured time for the first time in half a century.  It turns out it’s quite a thing to say, “I’m going to do what I want today.”  Of course, there’s a little less energy than that of a twelve-year-old.

So, when you see a kid biking wildly down the street this summer, be a little careful with the car.  Know that they’re doing the important work of summer vacationing.  Maybe give them a thumb’s up as they go past.

I was somewhere with longtime friend Billy Moran. I can’t remember where, a bar or a ballgame?  “What a Wonderful World” by Louis Armstrong was playing in the background.  Bill offered casually, “This is a great song.”  Sometimes it is the role of friends to state obvious things that we have missed.  It hit me then as I listened to Armstrong’s soulful crooning: this is a great song.

I’ve never been a fan of oldies.  Living through the music of the Seventies once was enough.   Before that revelatory moment with Bill, “Wonderful World” was in that category of a thousand songs that are on at malls or dentists’ offices that are aural background.  After that, I started picking up on it when I heard it.  I put it on my Pandora app, and it came around more often.  Now, my mind stops what it’s doing to listen.  I sing along with Louis, out loud if I’m on the farm, in my head if I’m in town.  It’s become a life’s anthem.

There are many reasons to feel down about the current state of the world.  If you can’t find a depressing conversation, you can go online and read the comments to any story and be certain the world is going to hell in a handbag.  If you can’t find something bleak or dispiriting, you’re not looking.

But in Armstrong’s simple little song, less than three minutes long, there is full and beautiful reminder that it’s not so bad.  Many artists have covered “What a Wonderful World,” and bless them for trying.  But the gravelly, lilting voice of Armstrong gives the song a quality that is abiding and eternal.

Louis Armstrong was born at the beginning of the twentieth century in New Orleans.  It was a world where slavery may have ended, but America’s freedoms were begrudgingly parsed out to minorities if at all.  Armstrong grew up poor, left school at 11, and got in various troubles.  Early on his talents with the trumpet had him playing in brass bands and on riverboats.

Armstrong went to become one of the first black performers to cross over to white audiences.  “Satchmo” was well known in 1967 when “What a Wonderful World” was offered to him.  It was recorded at 2:00 AM at a studio in Las Vegas after one of his shows.  It had to be re-recorded several times when a train whistle interrupted.

The president of ABC Records was disappointed with the slow-moving song.  He wanted something upbeat.  “Wonderful World” was hardly promoted and sold only 1,000 records in America.  But it became instantly popular in Europe where American jazz had a large following.  That gave it a life that it might not have had otherwise, and it gradually grew in popularity on this continent.  Unfortunately, most of that came after Armstrong’s death in 1971.

“I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you”

Us northerners know the colors of this season that explode when spring/summer return.  Nature swells around us.  If you don’t mind the bugs, these days are magnificent.  But all the seasons have charms, if you give them a chance.  The greens and bright colors of now will be replaced by sparkling white and stark brown six months from now, and that has its own beauty.  All those offerings, they are for me and you.  Me and you and everyone, regardless of wealth or status.  They are a gift from a generous Creator.

“And I think to myself what a wonderful world”

 “I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night”

Blessed and sacred.  Here, the song becomes a benediction of sorts.  We live spiritual lives, whether we are aware or not.  If probably is necessary that we are only part of the time aware of the holy that surrounds us.  We must go about our tasks here on Earth and can’t be constantly overwhelmed by awe.  Still, it is good to step back and let the sacred wash over us sometimes, whether that is in church, in the woods, or listening to a song with a friend.
“And I think to myself what a wonderful world”

 “The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They’re really saying I love you”

From every religion, and even no-religion and natural wisdom, we learn that we are put here to serve others.  Our lives are a tug of selfishness versus the pull of service to our fellow man/woman.  Each of us has people in our lives who are easy to love, and then some who are various degrees of challenging.  Our finest moments aren’t the easy ones; our finest moments are when we dig inside and find hard-to-reach love.

Last week, an article was around about a small group in St. Cloud that meets regularly to do everything they can to fight the influx of Somalis into their community.  It may not be “hate” that compels them. But if you are deathly opposed to someone being near you, it’s certainly a branch of the hate tree.  Each of us has perhaps some moments each day we spend in jealousy or resentment or ill will.  “The faces of people going by,” each one of those created by God, call for continued effort to live in love.

 “I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They’ll learn much more than I’ll never know”

Nearing the end of the song, we look to the future.  It is in these crying babies that our community will carry on.  I love the sound of laughing and playing children.  And as I get older, I mind less the sound of fussing children.

Our time here is short.  Many great and beautiful things are short: the bloom of a peony, a fresh strawberry, Armstrong’s song.  Our lives are like those more than they are like a stone that lasts eons.  We will be replaced.  My replacement is a remarkable little grandson.  But my replacement is also a scared child at the border seeking asylum with desperate parents.  All the planet’s children are my legacy.  They will carry on when I am gone.  They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know, as it should be.

“And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself what a wonderful world

Oh yeah.”

I don’t have a great singing voice.  But there was a time when I had an audience who seemed to like it, even if I put them to sleep.  I sang to our young children in the rocking chair when it was my turn to get them to sleep and into their crib.

My repertoire included the classics: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and Hush Little Baby.  There were contemporary hits: the Barney Song and All I Have to Do Is Dream.  Then there was the one about a dead goose:

“Go tell Aunt Rhody…that the old gray goose is dead.
The goslings are mourning… because their mother’s dead.
She died in the mill pond…from standing on her head.”

It’s a little morbid.  But babies don’t care about lyrics much.

That song came to me when one of our geese died a couple weeks ago.  We don’t have a mill pond, and cause of death was more old age than standing on its head.  The goose, named Goose, came to the farm some years back.  He was a 4-H project from the Covington and Trebesch families who needed a home.  We had a reputation for being a refuge for wayward animals.

Goose passed during the night in the barn where he and New Goose go in at night.  (We like to keep names simple around here.)  Later that morning I set Goose out in the yard while funeral services were pending.  New Goose came and stood next to him.  It made for a poignant photo, in a poultry sort of way.

I sent a picture of the mourning goose to our kids.  It was seen by three-year-old grandson Levi.  Levi knew Goose from visiting the farm.  He and Grandpa had regular “conversations” with the geese.  Herding them in at night was a routine.

By coincidence, Levi and mom Anna had recently walked through a cemetery.  Anna talked to Levi about things dying, as much as one can with a three-year-old.  She explained that everyone grows old and will die one day.  It was a gentle introduction to the topic.  Anna said you could see Levi’s little mind trying to process that.  He asked about some people they knew and if that was true for them.  But then he stated flatly, “But you won’t get old Mom.”  Hopefully he will have many years to grasp that reality.

Later, Anna sent a picture of Levi with some playdough.  Several little clumps on the table in front of him were animal sculptures.  One of them was the dead goose.  In the way that young children learn how the world works, this was a teaching moment.

It’s not an easy concept to grasp, this thing called death.  At the beginning of life, awareness of self comes gradually as fetus turns to baby turns to child.  It is one of the joys of parenting to watch.  We see them discover they have fingers and toes.  We see them figure out sounds they make mean something.  We see them learn they are themselves.  This takes time.

That’s at the beginning of life.  At the end, there is a moment we are alive followed by a moment when we are not.  There is the gradual climb to consciousness as if climbing foothills to a higher and higher place.  The end of consciousness is not gradual; it is falling off a cliff.  Death is final and abrupt.

Pam and I have spent time lately doing estate work.  With that, we’ve completed health care directives and even talked about a burial plot.  None of this is fun.  I’d rather do anything else than think about this stuff.  All of this presupposes my demise.  Previous planning I have done in my life involved me in it.  End of life planning is for a time I won’t part of.

I understand we’re being responsible.  We’d rather not leave lots of loose ends for our children to make sense of.  It would help if we had some idea how this is going to play out.  Pam and I could both die tomorrow if a meteor hits our house.  We could both live to 100, joining a senior volleyball league in our nineties.  Or one of us could go early and the other late.  There’s something to be said about not knowing, but it complicates planning.

Wakes and funerals are a regular part of my calendar nowadays.  Each gives me an opportunity to reflect on my own mortality.   Despite that, I’m not sure my understanding of death is much better than Levi’s.  I am here; I don’t really know what it’s like to not be here.

The closest to the process of dying I came was my parents’ deaths.  They died six months apart twenty years ago.  I was with my dad when he passed, and I was with my mom hours before her death.  Despite experiencing those along with their wakes, funerals, and burials, it took me a while to accept that they weren’t here.  I found myself thinking, “I should tell my dad this,” or “I have to ask my mom that.”  Then, “Oh.  That’s right.”  That lasted several months.  It was as if my subconscious needed time to catch up.

We say things like, “Every day above ground is a good day,” and “Growing old isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.”  We aren’t so sure about this death thing.  Most of us have said of someone who has passed, “They’re in a better place.”  But I like this place.  Why do I have to leave?

My faith informs me that there is an after-life, a heaven if I earned such a reward.  I believe that, as much as I believe anything that I can’t see or touch.

But there is in me the apostle Thomas, who did not believe what he had not seen.  There are small dark recesses in my mind where doubt lingers.  I’d like to say I’ll give you all a heads-up when I get to the other side, that I’ll write a final column from the beyond.  But that’s not going to happen.  Each of us will see when we get there.  Or not.

We’re going to miss Goose around here.  He joins a long list of creatures who have come and gone.  Knowing that geese are social animals, we have already gotten another goose.  His name?  Newer Goose, of course.  (We have charged Levi with coming up for names for New Goose and Newer Goose.)

Instead of one old goose, we now have two young geese.  There are reports of domestic geese living forty years.  We probably need to put them in our will.

The baseball Twins arrived in Minnesota about five years after me.  I have been a fan as long back as memory goes.  You could say the Twins have been a constant in my life alongside family, the farm, and faith.  At times all of those have given me moments of delight, some disappointment, and periods of drudgery.  Baseball may not be life, but similarities are rampant.

Ten seasons ago, the Twins moved out of that mausoleum and into the fresh air of Target Field.  After one good season there, the team’s been mostly not-so-good.  Beautiful ballpark, ugly team.

Going into this season, there were reasons to be optimistic.  But then, I’m a fan; there are always reasons to be optimistic.  Every March for fifty years I thought they would win the World Series.  I was right twice.

For 2019, there was a core of young players who could be expected to improve.  There were free agent signings who might be good.  You could have made the same observations in seasons past and watched as the best laid plans turned sour by June.

This year, after a few weeks of winning some and losing some, the Twins became almost unrecognizable.  In a good way.  They started playing baseball so well that wins came in bunches.  It was like the exceedingly difficult game of baseball suddenly became easy.

The five starting pitchers were effective, and that never happens.  The worrisome bullpen had success.  Good pitching is nice, and the Twins sure haven’t had much of it lately.  But that became an afterthought.  The hitters started to score runs in volleys.  There were so many runs that games were wrapped up by the middle innings.  Shari Hittesdorf could have thrown the last few innings.

And, oh, the homeruns!  Over a month of games, the Twins hit homeruns at an all-time record rate.  That’s not just for the Minnesota Twins, that’s for Major League baseball.  Ever.  Listening to the games on the radio (still the best way to “watch” a game) has been a steady stream of “YES!” moments.  Totally opposite recent power-hitting teams, they didn’t strikeout much.  It was as if the ghosts of the ’27 Yankees had taken possession of the Twins players’ bodies.

Homeruns are up across the board in baseball, both in number and length.  There were more hit in May than any month in history, leaving the suspicion that the ball has been “juiced.”  But you would have picked twenty other teams to lead that record binge before the Twins.  Target Field has been considered a pitcher-friendly ballpark.    Historically, after Killebrew, the Twins greatest hitters (Oliva, Carew, Puckett) have been known for knocking the ball around the yard rather than homeruns.

Winning begets fun, and this Twins team looks to enjoy each other.  They are a mix of young men from many places.  The Latino players are expressive and play with a passion that stoic Minnesota fans can feed off.  Eddie Rosario points out that, “Everyone is happy when you are hitting a lot of bombas.”  There is something glorious about old white stodgy guys like me cheering wildly this group of excitable, young Latinos.

The players respected last year’s manager Paul Molitor, who is my age.  New manager Rocco Baldelli is my kid’s age and is at the center of the carnival atmosphere.  Reporter Howard Sinker wrote that playing for Paul is like playing for your dad.  Playing for Rocco is like playing for your hipster older brother

It’s likely that 2019 Twins are not the greatest team in the history of baseball, so some return to mean is to be expected.  But a nice ten game lead in the division gives hope that games will matter when days turn shorter.

I think Twins fans have not quite known how to feel about this most unlikely streak.  We’re Midwesterners and not prone to exuberance.  Unfettered joy is meant for the afterlife.  We’re not even sure this is good for us.  Such elation could lead to high blood pressure.  What about gout?  Doesn’t that come from over-doing it?

As Midwesterners, we know good times can’t last.  Remember $15 soybeans?  There’s bound to be a price to pay.  Maybe the Twins won’t score a run in July.  It’s sort of like when Pam or one of the kids is really nice to me.  I start to wonder what they want.

As life goes, this best of Twins’ springs has coincided with the worst of planting seasons.  I should be listening to games on the tractor radio.  But there have been few and precious days to work in conditions that never were good.  I forgot how unfun it is to pull out equipment stuck in the mud.

Last Saturday, I buried my field cultivator and had to unhook it from the tractor to pull it out, then got stuck again just trying to drive out of the field and had to unhook and reattach the digger and the tractor again.  It took a minute to write that.  In real-time, that was about three hours of cussing, a thousand times up and down the tractor, two gigantic trenches in the field, and a thick layer of mud on everything, including me.

There was another blow to my emotional wellbeing.  In April came word that Lee’s Liquor Lounge was closing.  Some years ago, groups of my friends “discovered” Lee’s.  It was a wonderful old-timey bar a few blocks from Target Field where you could park for free with the purchase of a drink.  It was the greatest deal ever, even if we had more than “a” drink.

Amidst Elvis Presley memorabilia and a Johnny Cash poster, one might as well have been sitting in the middle of Brown County.  We became friends with the manager James and got smiles from the bartenders when we came in.  A friend said that Lee’s closing would affect our game day experience.  I replied I always worried the Twins might ruin our Lee’s experience.

Somewhere in the crevices of my head where column ideas jostle around, there was one about a perfect day.  It began with a road trip to the Cities, making our way to Lee’s.  After time there spent in conviviality with a Hamm’s Beer, it was to the ballpark.  With the cheapest ticket you can find, you made your way around the various spots in the park where you can see the game from all angles.  It included a visit with Sue Nelson, the gifted and sweet organist, and a stop in Townball Tavern.  Maybe I’ll write that column someday.  But Lee’s closing leaves a huge gash in it.

All in all, a spring to remember.  With parts I’d rather forget.

Editor’s Note: Dean Brinkman is filling in for Randy Krzmarzick, who is out planting.

This might have an oxymoron-like twist to it, but I have been fortunate to be asked to give many eulogies at friends’ and family’s funerals. It’s truly an honor. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish to do another one for a long time. I like my friends and family alive!

I am calling this a “living eulogy.” A panegyric which can’t wait for the ending. A tribute which can’t wait for the person to die. Let me explain.

I am 55 years old, lucky and blessed in so many ways I can’t count them. I grew up in the era when “My Momma Don’t Dance and My Daddy Don’t Rock & Roll.” We didn’t hug. The words “I love you” were found on Hallmark cards and chalky Valentine’s candies but rarely spoken.

However, there was so much unconditional and assumed love. That era was full of generation gaps divided by hair styles, the music, the slang, and the clothes that the different ages wore. Heck, my brothers were nine and ten years older than me, so WE were a generation apart. My heroes, Rod Carew, Reggie Jackson and Alan Page, hung on the walls of my bedroom.

I often told my brothers, “You were lucky to have known our grandpas, grandmas, and mom and dad ten years longer than me.” Consequently, I was fortunate that I had more one-on-one time with each of them after my brothers went off to college and moved from home.

My chiropractic father, Don, and his high school sweetheart soul mate, Donna, were born in 1930. They grew up with very little during the Depression. Dad served in the Air Force for four years during the Korean war. Then he finished college and went on to chiropractic college.

They set sail from western Wisconsin looking for a small town-setting with a strong Catholic school and church. You could say they were “steeple chasers.” They chose Sleepy Eye and settled on the “Protestant” side of town where they turned a big old apartment house on Summit Street into a home.

Like many homes in the four-TV channel era, mom was a homemaker. A green thumb gardener, washer and sewer of clothes, baker of blue-ribbon cookies and goodies, and master chef of the 6:00 supper. Dad was the “provider of the family,”up at six, gone by seven, home for a half-hour at noon.

He had the steps on route timed out down to the minute to be at the supper table by six. He arrived just as mom was wrapping up her kitchen time to WCCO’s “Going Home with Cannon.” All this routine was taken for granted. I was pretty sure that every kid grew up like this.

Dr. Donald Brinkman did not bring his work home with him. He was dad the second he set foot in the door. As a kid, I really didn’t know that much about chiropractic. I chose chiropractic as my 7th grade “career assignment” homework project knowing that a pro athlete report was not going to get me an “A.” I didn’t know that was planting the seed to follow in my father’s footsteps.

Fast forward to the Eighties when youthful hopes and dreams crashed into the adolescent reality of “What are you going to do with your life?” I was going to college to play baseball and thought I had plenty of time to figure out what secondary profession would fall into my hands. My professional baseball goals remained a single candle lit in a dark room of my cranium.

Going off to college for knowledge seems to turn the boy into a man. Like many of you, I started to miss what I had taken for granted. Some things the hard way. Others by reasoning with the solid faith and family lessons learned back home. The simple upbringings of a small-town kid who was “never going to come back to MY hometown” became the things that I craved. I ended up being accepted to chiropractic college before my last year of baseball eligibility was used up.

In 1988, I came “home” to start my chiropractic practice in the clinic that my father started in 1958. I had some idea that I was in the midst of a legend, but I didn’t realize that his footsteps were going to be this big to follow. Dr. Matt Kirschstein and I practiced together with this legend for a couple years before he decided to retire.

My dad is too humble to share any of this and I am too proud not to. I always tell people that I will consider myself a huge success if I get half the compliments when I retire that my father got. Back in the Fifties and Sixties, Dad sent many people on to Rochester with a diagnosis that was spot-on, and the MD would ask the patient “Who diagnosed this for you? A chiropractor?” I was told that when the late Michael Ecker, MD got a referral from dad, he would say “Well, if Doc Brinkman says you have something then I damn well better check that out.”

I could go on and on with chiropractic stories and lessons learned. To this very day, patients ask about my father, tell me to say “Hi” to him, and proceed with a smile to share some fabulous story about what a great chiropractor and caring person he was to their whole family. The respect behind his legacy means he is still known as “Doc.” He retired over 28 years ago! Not only was he my dad, but I got to work with and learn from him.

I have met Carew, Page and Jackson about thirty total minutes of my life. Now, I know that all along I lived in the same house with my real hero, my father. Doc to all of you, Dad to me.

Recently, I received a beautiful father-to-son saying which read “I can’t promise to be here for the rest of your life, but I can promise to love you for the rest of mine.” I told Mom and Dad, that if they die before me, my world will NOT be a better place without them. And they should know this: even if they are physically gone, they will be with me every day I have on earth in mine. I owe everything to this man and the woman he married.

The life I’ve lived was because of a life worth following. Like a home run in baseball, it starts at home and ends at home. Some people are born to become what they are, and I was born into a faith-filled, family first, chiropractic legacy. The man that started his life with next to nothing, growing up poor in the Depression, has given me everything in mine.

Oh, by the way, I even have him hugging and saying, “I love you.” Old Doc, new tricks.

People come up to me and ask, “Randy, should we have a baby or get an animal?”  I’ve raised three human beings and a variety of other species, so am something of an expert.  Kids or pets?  Either can bring you joy and satisfaction.  A lot of inanimate objects can for a lot less work.  But we’re going to ignore that here.

At various times, we’ve had cats, dogs, horses, chickens, ducks, geese, a hamster, a guinea pig, a gerbil, a gecko, pot bellied pigs, pygmy goats, a hedgehog, two girls, and a boy.  Currently, we are down to a cat, two geese, and an occasional grandkid.  We think coyotes got some of them.  The animals, I mean, not the kids.

Right up front, you should know children are going to cost more.  You can run a budget on an animal quickly: feed, vet bills, pet carrier.  I’d like to give you some final numbers on what a child costs.  We’re still working on that.

A clear advantage to a pet is that you can return it if it doesn’t work out.  Or give them away on Craigslist.  Once you bring that baby home, you own it.  Sure, there is a short amount of fun that goes into making a baby.  But that’s about twenty minutes.  Twenty minutes of fun in proportion to eighteen years of commitment is a ratio of 20 to 9,460,000.  Think about it.

Since kids and pets are in fact animate objects, you’re going to have to feed them.  It’s easier to feed animals.  Steve’s Feed (now Springfield Creamery Co-op) always had what we needed: cat food, dog food, horse feed, chicken feed, etc.  Steve had something in the warehouse to feed anything that Noah had on the boat.  Okay, he did have to special order in penguin feed that one time.

Children are more complicated, nutritionally speaking.  They need variety.  You can’t just reach for a bag of Purina Natural Select Human Food every morning.  Plus, they can be fussy.  Animals aren’t fussy.  The gecko was excited whenever a mealworm showed up in his tank.  He didn’t look at us and say, “Mealworms?  Again?”

Animals don’t badger you for junk food either.  Kids will spend November eating Halloween candy and December eating Christmas candy if you let them.  So you have to hide the candy.  Or at least eat all the good stuff.  For sure the Snickers and Kit Kats.

Children and pets both need to be vaccinated.  Neither likes it especially, but veterinarians are gentler than doctors.  An advantage cats and dogs have over children is there are no knuckleheads on YouTube telling you that vaccinations cause afflictions like liberal thought and chronic socialism.  The good news is kids don’t get distemper, whatever that is.  Unfortunately, they do get every cold and flu bug going through daycare and bring it home to pass to you.

Another common trait that children and pets share are certain bodily functions.  These are commonly referred to as p** and p**p.  (I checked the Journal Stylebook, and the use of p** and p**p is discouraged.  But I think you get my drift.)

There is no way to sugar coat two or three years of diapers.  Here’s where having a good and useful spouse can make all the difference.  Still, there will come a time when child is particularly reeksome, and you will look at your spouse and realize both of you just now thought of some pressing task that can’t be put off.  Marriages are made or broken in just such moments as these.

Cats have litter boxes which aren’t exactly pleasant.  Dogs can be trained to go outside.  You might be tempted to do that with your toddler.  House-breaking a kid would save on diapers for sure.  But you’d still have to pick up after them with a p**p scoop.  (Or should it be p**p sc**p?)  Hamsters, horses, chickens, etc. only need to be mucked out every so often.  You can wait till you’re in the proper mood for that duty.

At some point, a child will be marched off to school to learn things like algebra and all the stuff you knew once but forgot.  Depending on how long your kid stretches out this school-thing, it can be quite costly.  Here, animals have a distinct advantage.  They have instincts.  There will be times when your kid is a teenager, you’re going to wish he had some of those.  Or even the brains that God gave an earthworm.

There is really nothing comparable to the human teen years in the animal world.  Oh, there are days you might wonder why your hamster did something stupid like getting his food dish stuck in the wheel.  Teenagers do stupid stuff every day.  Animals also don’t talk back to you while they roll their eyes.  Geckos roll their eyes to moisten them, but they mean no malice.  And they won’t follow an eye-roll with “DA-AD!”

You won’t have to teach your pet how to drive a car.  That could add years to your life in reduced stress.  An animal is not going to start bugging you to get them a cell phone when they’re eight years old.  You aren’t going to have to listen to a whiny gerbil say, “I’m the only gerbil in my grade without a phone!”

As I said, we have a grandkid now, and that is fun.  Here’s an advantage for having children vs. getting a pet: a grandkid might even look a little like you.  If your guinea pig looks like you, that’s not a good sign.  It probably means you should get a haircut or drop a few pounds.

In an attempt to answer once and for all the important question of whether it is better to have a child or get an animal, I have graphed out all the positives and negatives of each option.  You can see that at our website babyorpet-smackdown.com.    A comprehensive consideration of all the factors leads to a clear conclusion: get chickens.  I’ve always loved chickens and am not surprised to see them come out on top.

That said, a lot of you are going to have a baby anyway.  And once you get past the drool and spit-up and diapers, they can be highly entertaining.  One point heavily in the favor of having a child is snuggling with them before bedtime while reading a book.  You can sort of do this with a dog.  But it’s not something I’d even try with a chicken.

A final point in favor of children is they might visit you when you’re old and in the nursing home.  If your chicken comes to see you, staff might not let them in.

It was Monday of Holy Week past. I was hoping to end Lent on a high note, wanting to get my soul in a better place for Easter. It hadn’t been my greatest Lent. I gave up some beer and spent some time with scripture. Should have been less of one and more of the other. A bit of guilt, I was having a Catholic moment.

Here we go.  It will soon be a time to plant, according to the calendar and Ecclesiastes.  Farmers are greasing, fixing, and praying for cooperating weather.  It is only one step on the way to growing a crop.  But you can’t get to Z (harvest) without starting at A.

It’s exciting to use the skills we have acquired to get seeds in the ground.  There is no better feeling than being bone-tired after a day of planting.  After forty-some years of these, I have had near-perfect springs and dreadful ones.  My wife will vouch that I am as happy or as grumpy as soil conditions dictate.

All of us farmers share this work.  We cross paths at the parts counter, our seed dealer’s warehouse, and the line fence.  There is natural optimism that comes with planting a new crop.  We gladly talk about receding snow banks and drying fields.

If conversation goes deeper though, it gets less cheery.  Spring-planting sunshine clouds over.  The facts: net farm income has been halved since 2013.  Farming returns are at their lowest level since the Eighties.  Costs trickle down; meanwhile commodity prices fell off a cliff.  Markets were already weak; tariffs put on by trading partners pounded them further.  Farm foreclosures are rising.

Behind facts and numbers are real people, people you and I know.  Some farmers are renting out the land, not seeing a reason for putting such time and money into iffy returns.  Others who hoped to bring a kid into the operation are encouraging them to get a job where they know they’ll get paid at the end of the pay-period.

The last few years have been particularly difficult for dairy farmers.  The use of the word “crisis” is not hyperbole.  Minnesota/Wisconsin were the center of the dairy industry for decades.  Last year, a thousand dairy farmers quit in those two states.  Several friends sold their cows.

In The World That I Grew Up In, our farm, like most farms, had chickens, pigs, and cows.  Poultry became concentrated in large facilities in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Pork production followed in the 80’s and 90’s.  And now dairy.  It doesn’t seem to make much sense when returns are negative, but several giant dairy farms are being built in Minnesota.  There will be cows in Minnesota.  Only most will be in CAFO’s―concentrated animal feeding operations―not “barns.”

Dairy farming is still the best way to treat the land.  Field to feed to cow to manure to field is a perfect loop.  The rotation can be other than corn and soybeans.  There has been attrition of dairy farms since my dad sold his cows in 1975.  The ones that remained in this century were the best, the most committed.  The crazy thing is, there are people who enjoy that work and lifestyle.  If there were profits, dairy farmers’ kids would be taking over.

Crop farming has remained widely dispersed.  Around Sleepy Eye and New Ulm that has been especially true, as families with deep roots worked the fields.  There are a number like me who farm some land, maybe have off-farm work, maybe have some livestock.  Many are on the farms we grew up on.

I look around and a lot are my age, or older.  What does this look like in twenty years?  I’ve had this conversation with a couple farmers this winter.  There are a few sons coming home to farm, but not many.  I enjoy talking with the young people who are.  They are enthusiastic and smart. They even know how to program a planter monitor, which I struggle with.

But there are less sons entering than fathers leaving.  That has been the trend my whole life.  Every time we have one of these downturns, it means less farmers.  Ten jump off the boat, for every eight who climb back on.

Ag technology continues its march from horses to hydraulics to auto-steer to self-driving tractors.  One sees a future with less people.  These remarkable machines aren’t and won’t be cheap.  It makes sense to run them over more acres.  Take down line fences, pattern tile fields, bulldoze groves, suddenly there’s a lot less people in the picture.

In previous eras when low prices prevailed there were protests.  During the Depression, the Farmer’s Holiday Association rose up to demand help from newly-elected President Roosevelt.  The American Agriculture Movement organized a tractorcade on Washington.  In Minnesota, Groundswell held rallies at the Capital in the Eighties.

You don’t hear much now.  No one is driving a tractor to Washington.  Looking back on earlier hard times, there were more of us out here, more of us to care.  In the Thirties, a majority of Americans were tied to farms.  Even into the Eighties, most maintained a familial connection to a piece of land, grandparents to visit, maybe a cousin on the home place.  Readers who have such ties now are in a minority.

I hate to say this, but there is a sense of resignation I don’t remember when I was younger.  Back then, there were questions whether pigs in confinement or hens in cages would work.  For sure, cows needed too much attention to be raised in large herds.  Fields needed someone to go out and hoe the cockleburs.  Now there are 48-row planters and robot milkers.  Robots don’t need a coffee/doughnut break at 10:00 AM.

I want to say here, I know people who own and work for the large livestock operations.  They are good people, responsible employers, and important drivers to our rural economy.  They took advantage of what was given in a changing agriculture, when many of us would have been frightened to take such risks.  It has never been useful to pit small farmers against large farmers.

But I think it is fair to ask, could things have been different?  You look at the Farm Bill and see that has done more to promote consolidation than prevent it.  There have never been effective limits on subsidies, so it reduced risk for expansion.  Maybe our land grant colleges could have focused research on farms of a moderate size.  Maybe politicians could have enforced anti-trust laws that were on the books but largely ignored.

I love this job.  The work is a blend of physical and smarts.  I know these acres like family.  Some are easy to get along with, others are difficult.  If it were up to me, I’d do this forever: planting seeds each spring, watching them grow, caring for plants, bringing the harvest six months from now.   A Krzmarzick has been doing something like that for 120 years on this place.  It begins to look possible that will end.  That makes me a little sad.

It’s a little sad to see less of us sharing in this ancient art of growing things.  When I’m done writing, I’m going to go outside and try not to think about any of this.  There’s a crop to plant.

I was trying to find a time to donate a pint of my AB Positive blood to the Red Cross. I saw there was a blood drive at Martin Luther College. It turned out to be one of those miserable days for driving, as a northwester blew snow across the prairie. It let up some toward evening, and I decided to head east.

Highway 14 wasn’t the best, but I made it to New Ulm and back.

I was feeling good about myself when I walked into the house about 8:30: mission accomplished, blood donated, home safe. Before I got my coat off, the landline rang. Usually it’s some solicitor that time of night. But I answered.

It was a farmer I’ve met, but don’t know much. He wanted to ask about an article in The Journal about a Brown County DFL meeting I attended. There was a brief quote from me saying that the tariffs put on by the president could have lasting negative impact on agriculture. It is an opinion held by people a lot smarter than me, like most economists.

My caller (I’ll call him Bob, not his real name) wanted to know how I could support Democrats. He seemed genuinely interested in a discussion. Even though I was looking forward to a late supper, I decided to talk with him. I enjoy politics and even a good-hearted debate.

I gave him the short version of how I came to be at that meeting. I have voted for a lot of Republicans. Many of my beliefs would be considered traditional conservative ones. Other positions I hold are more aligned with the Democratic Party. I don’t especially like the nothingness of the “independent” label. I guess you could call me a Democrat-Republican.

When I do get involved locally, it has been with the Democrats. I like the little band of uphill-fighters who make up that group in Brown County. I have many friends who are Republicans, but they certainly don’t need my help.

I told Bob that with the current state of things, I feel compelled to fall back into the Democratic camp. You might guess by the “current state of things,” I mean Donald Trump. No doubt, you have a strong opinion about him. Everyone does.

I’m not a fan. I don’t see in him those conservative principles that led me to vote for Republicans in the past. Championing human rights, respect for others, a moral compass, basic decency, free trade, support for allies, standing up to dictators: these are all things Republicans used to stand for. As one Republican opposed to Trump said, “For years Republicans insisted that character matters and words matter. And now they don’t.”

I’ll give it to Bob, he let me talk for a couple minutes. Then he brought up the tax cut. He asked if I was going to benefit from that? “I suppose. Some.” But I said it seems ill conceived, slanted toward the rich. Bob said he was going to save $50,000. I thought to myself, Bob runs in different circles than I do.

Bob asked if I accepted the government payment going to farmers impacted by the trade dispute? I said yes. That seemed to liberate Bob. He said I was a hypocrite for taking that money. That led to a hearty defense of Trump’s tariffs and how they are going to make everything great.

After that, Bob brought up a series of issues. On each he listened to me just long enough to attack whatever I said and some things I didn’t say. It seemed as if every point of his was taken whole-cloth from a Fox News broadcast. Bob’s voice was rising in volume and velocity.

At some point, it wasn’t much of a discussion. I still had my coat on and was really wanting supper. I squeezed into the barrage, “Bob, I’m glad you like this president. It’s good you support him so enthusiastically. But I’m going to eat some supper now.”

Bob insisted that I tell him how I could support Democrats. I said I didn’t think it mattered what I said. He responded, “I’m going to write a letter to The Journal and say that you refused to answer my question!” Now he was yelling. I’m not sure it would have made a difference if I yelled back, “Trump is the greatest president ever! Democrats are swill!”

Pam was nearby. She could hear the inflamed Bob even without speaker phone. She whispered that I should hang up. Cupping the phone, I said I don’t hang up on people. Soon after, in the middle of some point about how ignorant Democrats are, Bob hung up on me.

Well.

It took me a while to decompress. Later I wondered why Bob really called me. Maybe he intended for an honest discussion, but it didn’t end that way. Perhaps I said something that sent the conversation off the rails? I was feeling deflated. Was Bob feeling good?

Sadly, it was an accurate sample of what passes for dialogue in this country right now. I know in my heart we are still a nation of mostly well-meaning people who want the best for our families and communities. But we aren’t very good at talking to each other. I know from 37 years of marriage, those times Pam and I aren’t very good at talking to each other have been the worst.

How did we get here? Democrats blame Newt Gingrich who said Republicans would never compromise, and Mitch McConnell who said making Obama a one-term president was his main goal, and now a president who brags of never admitting fault and taunts people like an obnoxious sixth-grader. Republicans blame the Clintons, Obama, and Pelosi. Blame goes back and forth like a tennis volley.

Blame is easy, cooperation is not.

There was a debate on public radio recently between Israeli Jews and Israeli Palestinians. I had a Palestinian professor in college when I first began to follow that ancient and ongoing dispute over land that both claim. The debate I listened to was predictable on both sides. The participants talked over, under, and around each other. There was not a moment when anyone listened to the other side. It was depressingly the same as they’ve said for forty years, with nary a hope for resolution.

Is this what we’ve become in America: two sides talking over, under, and around each other? Many problems could be dealt with if Republicans and Democrats would listen, talk, and compromise. There is sensible middle ground on gun control, health care, and immigration.

Most of us aren’t politicians. We may or may not be part of the problem. But we can darn well be part of the solution. We can begin by being respectful, listening, even honoring each other despite our differences. It’s got to start somewhere.

Maybe I should call Bob.

You often hear someone say that the people-watching was good at a certain place. I think of malls, ballgames, parks, anywhere there are multiple representatives of our species. Urban Dictionary says people-watching is like bird watching except with people. Sounds about right.