The excitement builds

Milla (Linda and Ron's granddaughter) helped wrap Christmas presents bound for Grandma Bev's house soon. The tree has been trimmed on Kell Avenue in Bloomington. It's all the buzz at today's luncheon. Photos later.

Against all odds. . .

Fifty years ago, M'liss donned this veil to wed Chuck.

 We joined friends of Chuck and M'liss Switzer Sunday to celebrate the couple's fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Theirs is a most remarkable achievement. Renown nationally for their dramatic recovery from their struggle with domestic violence, the couple wrote a book about it ("Called to Account" by M'liss Switzer), have made appearances on television shows (Donahue, Turning Point, Nightline), and teach seminarians and lead public forums, all to put light on this difficult topic.

Chuck retired from the post office a while back

During those years of violence and a healthy recovery from it, the couple raised three beautiful children. The children hosted the golden anniversary party at daughter Rachel's home in south Minneapolis. The enduring bonds of affection were obvious.
"Thank you, Mom and Dad, for raising us to be just dysfunctional enough to continue to need each other," quipped Rachel.
Kathleen and M'liss were childhood chums and Kathleen added her testimony to the many toasts: M'liss helped get Kathleen her first job -- at Woolworth's. "I'm not old enough," 15-year-old Kathleen had protested. "Oh, that's no problem, they never check any of that," her 18-year-old mentor assured her. So Kathleen told her lie, started earning big money. . . and within a month was fired for being too young.
Chuck and M'liss have toured the world, fearlessly going to the most unlikely places at the most unlikely times. Russia, China, Africa, South America, the Third World, but not Antarctica -- yet.
Where were they the week after 9/11?  Afghanistan.
We're sure they got a good deal on the tickets.

From left,  Rachel (party was in her house) ; Elgin (he mugged in all the
photos) and Rebecca (she's an MD; she milked the goats on the family farm,
then delivered a baby boy at the hospital before driving to the party)

Our grandson, Maxwell

It's Senior Photo Time. . .
Maxwell is now a senior at Southwest High School, Minneapolis

Obituary for Mike Bolin

This obituary for Stan's classmate and long-time friend appeared in today's StarTribune.

Bolin, Michael John

Sept. 27, 1947 - Nov. 17, 2012 Alexandria, MN St. Paul, MN 
Beloved Soul Mate, Brother, Uncle & Friend.
Born and raised in Alexandria, MN, Michael graduated from Concordia College, Moorhead, MN 1969 and N.W. Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN 1972. 
Michael was an extraordinary visual artist: easel painter, scenic painter, Trompe l'oeil artist, muralist, designer, and publisher and finder of "Boint" only printed matter. He was freelance scenic charge painter (w/Debra) for Christmas, Flower, and Fashion Shows at Dayton's downtown Mpls store from 1980-2000 and the Minnesota Opera Company from 1990-2005. He also painted many private and public commissions.
 Preceded in death by his loving parents, Floyd & Lois Bolin. Survived by life partner of 32 years, Debra Jensen; brother, Stan (Ginger) Bolin of MT; nephews, Chas Bolin of MT and Brock (Megan) Bolin and their sons Nathan and Cameron of CO; as well as many cousins and friends. 
A celebration of Michael's life will be held Friday, Dec. 14, 5-9 PM, Remembrance at 7 PM at the Acme Academy of Arts, 937 W. 7th St., St. Paul 55102. Memorials to donor's choice. Rest in Peace. Isle of View.

======================
We'll be there, eager to see the life celebration at the Academy of Arts and remember this talented, gifted fellow.

Mike Bolin single-handedly got Stan Rolfsrud elected to the Concordia College Student Senate in 1965. They were both freshmen at the time, no one knew either of them, certainly not enough to cast a vote for Stan. 
Most Senate candidates hung pathetic magic markered signs on tagboard around campus in all the ordinary approved places, beseeching fellow newbies to please vote for them.

Mike painted a commercial-grade mural for his friend, stretched on a huge swatch of canvas purloined from the art department. "Vote for Stan" it shouted in a bold, swashy font. While the paint on the huge letters was still wet, as a final touch, Mike sprinkled on some glitter.
In the dark of night, using ropes and sandbags, Stan and his pal John Seim sneaked to the roof of the Student Union and suspended the masterpiece for all to see on their way to class the following morning. Mike's incredible sign, sparkling in the sunlight, definitely created a buzz for the next few days, and when it came time to vote, enough did what the sign told them to do to put Stan into office as a Student Senator for two years. 
There he voted consistently to make dancing legal on campus, to no effect.

The old maples still give

Fifty years ago we raked and mowed around the same maple trees
that gave up their syrup last spring for this homemade delight.

Almost lost in the excitement over the sexy new vineyard on the old place in Alexandria was the syrup. Traditional maple syrup.
Growing up on our seventeen acre hobby farm on Lake Andrew, we were always aware of the many big maple trees shading the property, most keenly when raking their dead leaves into big, crisp piles for burning. We observed their distinctive palmately-veined leaf structures -- only after learning in Mr. Madson's 10th grade science class what palmate means, of course.
It wasn't until the Fernholz's bought our place around 1980 that the sugar maples were tapped. The new owners went at it industriously, drilling and collecting pails of syrup from the dozens of maples surrounding the house, boiling the raw drippings in a big evaporator, reducing them to a precious elixir, worthy of a Christmas morning breakfast.

Stacks of pails beside the evaporator in Rollie's maple shed.
That's a  garden tiller in the foreground, nothing like that
appeared during our indenture on the weed-riven soil.
We gardened the old-fashioned way.

That's our plan for this year.
When we visited the old place this summer for a dose of nostalgia and a look-see at what was new on the old place, Rollie showed us his five-year-old vineyard, at that time just bursting with shiny, mature varietals soon ready for harvest. A sharp-eyed hawk guarded against winged marauders.
We admired the neat vegetable garden, beehives, new walnut trees planted by the squirrels, and the bright legacy flowers everywhere. As we departed, our kind hosts graciously presented a gift of their prize homemade maple syrup.
We haven't cracked the jar open yet, we were waiting for the right occasion to enjoy its treasure. That's going to be on Christmas morning, we have decided, when we make a breakfast for our family, topping our waffles with an actual product from Stan's boyhood home.
One more reason to anticipate the big day.

The Fernholz's in front of our old homestead.
Notice the lightning rods. They must work --the house is still there.

From the archives. . .

It's our twenty-something Marcy, not Kathleen Turner, silly.

Bored aliens

I have an idea! Let's go to the Mall!

Thank you, Bill, Sosie and Virg

It is always helpful when you are struggling with the longest below freezing stretch since January to get a thoughtful note from kinfolk in Florida.

Yesterday Sosie and Bill went kayaking on Virg's river. They sat very still and were bumped by a pod of curious manatee. They don't have an underwater camera so we borrowed this image from Manatees.net.
Manatees are now quite rare. Perhaps only 2,500 are left in the USA. In ancient times, sailors mistook them for mermaids or sirens on account of their long tails. Today, they often bear scars on account of their collisions with boats, a major hazard.
Manatees spend most of their time feeding, resting or travelling. They prefer shallow saltwater bays, slow-moving rivers, canals, estuaries and coastal waters. Manatees are quite agile creatures. A manatee uses its flippers and tail to steer itself. It moves its tail up and down to propel its body forward through the water. Manatees can swim vertically and upside down; they can do rolls and perform aquatic somersaults. Their extra-dense bones enable them to stay suspended at or below the water's surface.
Manatees eat over 60 different species of aquatic and semi-aquatic plants. Their diet includes manatee grass, turtle grass, various species of algae, mangrove leaves, and water hyacinths. They may consume 10% of their body weight daily in vegetation. Their digestive system allows the bacterial breakdown of cellulose in the hind-gut. To accommodate the great volume of high-fiber food they eat, manatatees have intestines up to 150 feet long.
The jointed bones of manatee's flipper serve a function similar to a human hand. Their structure helps the manatee move through the water, bring food to its mouth, and hold objects. Three or four nails are found at the end of each flipper. Manatees can't turn their heads: unlike most mammals, they have six rather than seven cervical vertebrae, so they must turn their whole bodies to look round.

Material from www.manatees.net.

Some assembly required

New location for the Dickens Village setup this year is the unused basement work station space. Bob Cratchit's cheery house is over on the lower right. Ebenezer Scrooge's gloomy suite of rooms is at upper left. . . on the edge of the fiscal cliff.