Jennifer Kathleen Blethen

A lovely midsummer Minnesota day sparkled over Jennifer’s Celebration of Life Saturday, the long-awaited acknowledgement of the loss of the youngest child.

Her older sisters carried it out at last, fighting back the challenges of Covid 19 and the occasional tears for one gone too soon and dearly missed.

Friends and relatives came and went, maintaining safe distances, under the huge pavilion reserved for the occasion in Roslund Park, Edina. There were three hours of memories, laughter and tears, videos, photo boards, zoom attendees from as far away as Switzerland, and a fresh buffet lunch, much as Jennifer would have served.

Three bouquets, taken from Jennifer’s floral design past, were imitated from photos given to Bachmann’s, arranged thusly, and admired by guests.

A positive atmosphere prevailed, friends in masks wondered why old acquaintances couldn’t recognize them. Some from grade school days weren't even recognized with their masks off, of course. Renewal and newsy exchanges abounded amidst the fond shared stories from Jennifer's life.

In case you missed it, here’s Jennifer’s vita, put together by her mother, Kathleen:

Jennifer Kathleen Blethen, August 30, 1971  - December 23, 2019.

Captain, Garden, Picture

Captain, Garden, Picture.

I took my annual Medicare wellness exam yesterday and I was just fantastic. The doctor gave me three words to remember, then asked me to draw a clock face and make it say 9:20. I did. It was the best clock face ever. Then he asked me if I remembered my three words.

Captain, Garden, Picture, I said.

The doctor was amazed and said that this had hardly ever been done before. Just outstanding. Then he asked if I had fallen recently. I said yes, I was catching  my granddaughter’s fast pitch and I lunged at one that got away, wide right. We were playing on a sidehill so I took a tumble. No injury. Simply amazing.

Captain, Garden, Picture

I still remember those three fantastic words today. Imagine that. I must be special. Gifted.

Sadly, someday I may join the milions of Americans with some form of dementia and for whom this test is intended to diagnose. But for now, my intelligence test results are so amazing I could be President of the United States!

Starting on a lawn tractor, he's still operating

Chris trained on Dad’s lawn tractor. He’s still operating.

Today he’s ram-rodding a crew through a perilous cut in a magnificent mountain pass, blasting 28 foot boulders and digging a state-sponsored four-step pool, presumably to help salmon in their annual struggle upstream to lay eggs. Normally he supervises from a pickup with his faithful bulldog at his side, but the other day, one of his operators was a no show, so he took over a backhoe, extra large.  The old boy still has it. I have a video to prove it. Don't make me post it.



Chris is my partner from the Big Brother program in the 70s. We’ve stayed in touch, though he has moved to the West. He is still my brother. Once a state champion heavy-weight wrestler, he’s always had a love for heavy-weight equipment and sent us pictures from time to time, putting an ever bigger machine to work. But our favorite picture will always be the one where we’re both astride the little tractor in Alexandria, mowing Dad’s lawn. Who knew? No one can be prouder. Hmm. Wonder if he’d let me try my hand sometime?

When the project is complete, we’ll post another picture.

Club chairs go to south Minneapolis

Sold! We're downsizing and offered a couple of our leather club chairs on Marketplace. With an eye for a bargain, Libbi, a pre-law student from South Minneapolis, snapped them up. She brought along Andy to help her load the heavy furniture. The young couple was going to rent a truck, but Stan felt like a drive today and so delivered the chairs in his van, the couple leading the way in their Honda Fit, a typical Democrat's vehicle. They're delighted with the furniture, we're happy they go to a good home, and the tip was nice too. Libbi is already imagining curling up with law books in one of the chairs. The chairs were originally rescued from vandals at the Stonebrooke Country Club, sanded and redone. They served in the green room for years, occasionally catching a whisky Manhattan.

Out it goes to a good home

Eight feet of poker table was slid into the back of a pickup truck today. We kept the memories, lost a pain to haul around.

Look at those arms. An obvious
choice for a poker table home.

When you're parting with a bulky sentimental item, it's always good to know it's going to a good home. In 2005, at the height of the Texas Hold' Em craze, Stan built this table top for his wife, St. Paul Katie. Many home games were played around it, lots of memories and bad beats and money changing hands. But interest in the game has faded, and it became hard to gather a group big enough to sit around the table to play poker. Of course, Katie's interest never waned, she still enjoys the game at a variety of venues. Nevertheless, we sadly advertised the tabletop for sale during our present down-sizing effort. And what do you know? Among the bidders was Brian B., a professional poker player from South St. Paul, who has taken to offering home games during this pandemic, with Las Vegas games and his livelihood shut down. Brian assures us that the home games on this additional table will start up immediately, with local poker players galore ready to shuffle up and deal! He promises some photos of enthusiastic players gathered around the homemade poker table. Socially distant, of course.

For Sale

Stan built this in 2005 for his poker-playing wife and she hosted numerous parties at it. Interest in poker has waned and we go out for poker now. So today the table top went on the Facebook Marketplace for $50 to anybody who wants to haul it out of the basement.. The honker is heavy and eight feet long; certainly not the item for a couple looking for their next home.

Yellowtail wonder where everyone's been?

Covid restrictions have been lifted on The Liberty, so my man Hai headed three miles out into the Pacific and soon had his limit of five 30-pound yellowtail tuna. Hai doesn't eat fish (that's another story) but was happy to give his up to some newcomers who had immediately gotten sick aboard the ocean-going vessel, and weren't able to dip a line.

Bye, bye Jemima

Quaker Oats is taking Aunt Jemima off the shelf?

First black person I ever saw was a woman paid to depict ever-smiling Aunt Jemima and appear at an all-white Alexandria supermarket to promote sweet syrup on pancakes. Also, summers we’d see an occasional black servant, shopping for some rich white people vacationing in our fair lake city. We gossiped about such an oddity.

That was pretty much the extent of my inter-racial experience. So when our renown choir director proposed that our quartet appear in blackface and sing a blatantly racist song about African Americans caught stealing corn from a white man’s field, I was all for it. Um. We didn’t sing "African Americans." The N word was right there in the lyrics. We memorized them and I enthusiastically sang the bass lines. I could sing it today -- if I had a willing group.

Our sophomore quartet was quickly supplied with the school’s handy black-and -white minstrel show grease paint. We didn’t win the talent show, but we got a big round of applause from a packed gym largely as ignorant as we were.

I am the only surviving member of that black-face, white shoe quartet; Paul, Steve and Mike are gone, as well as our esteemed director. 

But I think they would all agree today that we’ve got a lot to learn about systemic racism.

The toilet paper shortage is over!

The toilet paper shortage is over! Eden Prairie street crews used miles of it again to protect cars from new, wet tar. A small sign, but we are getting out of this pandemic, one thing at a time.