Archives
My first home. Before the log and plaster addition, before fruit trees and spruce trees and willow trees grew into place. Before gardens. Then it lived as a home for a very long time. But eventually after 80 or so years and many many summers and winters and Christmases, it nearly died. But with living trees growing through the walls and roof, it surely would not ever die until the last vestiges… Read More
Mizpah Elementary School. Granduating Class. 1951. And there I am. Between Carol and Larry. We were the tallest kids in the class all the way through school so consistently in the back row. Probably why none of the three of us achieved great fame and fortune. And over to the left, Pat. Whom, just last week, I just met for lunch in International Falls and spent a pleasant afternoon reminescing on why,… Read More
Terri’s woods My immediate family is small, even when cousins are included—but many of my first and some of my second cousins and their children feel very immediate to me. I visit every year or two and they grow older, bigger, wiser, with new additions every now and then—Robert and I are the last Nesets in this U.S. branch so guess the name goes away here soon. Fortunately the Nesets in Norway… Read More
I just drove 2,000 miles, mostly on two-lane roads, small towns far apart, little traffic and few rescuers if things fell apart car-wise or otherwise. No problem. Then. Almost immediately after I pulled into in bro Robert’s driveway in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Ghost’s battery ‘gave up the ghost’ so to speak. Died dead away. If it weren’t for a world full of homeless people including millions of refugees, war, famine, glaciers melting,… Read More
Cousin Audrey’s youngest daughter, Terri, is the lure that will always bring me back to MInnesota…even if Robert and Marsha permanently decamp to Florida some day. Terri seems to be a center around which the extended family of Hahns, Nesets, Tacks and more can revolve. Audrey is nearby in a nursing home but no longer able to be active physically or very present mentally. The eldest son Randy died some years ago,… Read More
The Old Place is the 80 acres of woods and swamp and fields where I was born: actually I was born ten miles down the road in Blackduck but Robert was born on this very land. It is, for reasons I cannot exactly explain, the most important place in my life. I was a very happy young child there, free to roam the woods with book in hand, or walk up and… Read More
That time of year thou mayst in me beholdWhen yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hangUpon those boughs which shake against the cold,Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.In me thou see’st the twilight of such dayAs after sunset fadeth in the west;Which by and by black night doth take away,Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest … Said Shakespeare, just in time for the birthday party. … Read More
It was May 3, 2021 and we were emerging from the pandemic—when last I wrote. Now it is August 1, 2021 and we are…what? I am as confused by life as everyone one else right now. So here’s a back-to-blog-world post about my very own pandemic-free month…kind of like ‘what I did on my summer vacation’ but with the expectation that I’m returning to the new-normal…you know, the socially-distanced, when can-I-take-another-trip normal…. Read More
My friend Bob and I were going to be at the Other Bob’s concert last night. Damn virus. Since we’re all playing ‘Shelter From the Storm’ these days as a wishful-thinking exercise…here it is. Shelter From the Storm ‘Twas in another lifetime, one of toil and blood When blackness was a virtue the road was full of mud I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of form Come in, she… Read More