Happy Birthday Nancy!

Sorry about the belated greeting. Steve was supposed to remind us, but he forgot again. Hope you had a wonderful day!

Village cemetery in Craigellechie

There really is a place like this on the banks of the River Spey.

Closet expansion under way

Kathleen and Stan may have the smallest and worst wardrobe in the greater metropolitan area. No matter. Their closet is getting bigger.

When they built the place eight years ago, something happened in the mad dash to button it up, and the closet space got short-changed in favor of a walk-in shower. At the time, a tiny closet was no problem for a couple of folks with tiny wardrobes.

Kathleen claims Stan won't throw out anything remotely sentimental. (He still has an Army shirt or two.) They built a big old walk-in closet in the basement last summer to store such memorabilia. That's where the Santa Suit, the wedding dress and the bicentennial get-up reside.

But if this old townhouse is ever going to sell, the tiny master closet just won't do. So the dreary Minnesota spring hatched a short-term project: They pulled the door off the closet and moved it out four feet into the bedroom. Suddenly the closet is huge, and befitting the huge clothes collection of the next lucky owners.

Stan applied his homemade "dinosaur dentil" moulding to the top edge of the closet extension. He's too cheap to buy the real stuff. That same pattern will be picked up on the dustboard which is in the works for the bedroom sliding door. That glass has been covered by a "temporary" vertical shade purchased in a hurry at Menard's eight years ago for $20.

It's time.

Texas greeting

Spring has sprung in Texas and Lorlee didn't want us to feel left out in Minnesota so she sent this greeting.

It is still a grey April here, with promises, promises for later this week. Baseball opener tonight. Fortunately, it is in the dumpty dome.

We shall see. Snow's gone. Not sure what the image below is. Looks like Lorlee may have sent us the bird.

Look here, grandma!

Our neighbor, Sandy, is one month and seven days away from retirement. Her grandson, Barrett, turned one-year old yesterday. His latest trick is peek-a-boo. His mom, a blog regular, sends along this cute picture.

Mastering the swing, the flush

Throughout 12 days in Scotland, it was my good fortune to share a room with an honest-to-goodness card-carrying member of the Professional Golfing Association.
Tim Borem, assistant pro at the Summit Golf Club in Cannon Falls, enjoyed "courtesy of the course" and played for free at a half-dozen magnificent venues.
In turn, I enjoyed free private golf lessons from my roommate -- "courtesy of the pro."
Tim is the tender age of my dear nephew, Aaron Rolfsrud. The two chummed at Eden Prairie High where Aaron was dubbed "Double A."
Most of my free instruction occurred during the evening hours, far away from the legendary links courses and closer to an aged bottle of Scotch whisky. As we examined the mystery of the golf swing and related life lessons, discussions often took the tone of a political science or philosophy exercise. However, it wasn't the words of Plato or Churchill, but rather Pennock and Nicklaus that Tim drew upon, as he guided his senior pupil through the vagaries of coordinated physical movement.
This earnest instruction by the young professional resulted in a radical change to the senior's approach to the game and some immediate positive results, mid-tour.
Please don't get the impression that the coaching and advice was a one-way street. Oh no. Our PGA pro, it would seem, had his own struggle: the mastery of the theory and science of Scottish plumbing.

During our 3-day stay on the third floor of the Bell Craig House in St. Andrews, we were introduced to the electric shower and a Scottish two-speed flush toilet. The shower was easier to learn, once you get used to the somewhat disturbing idea of pulling a cord on an electrical box before stepping into a stream of water.

The double-clutch toilet, which requires the operator to make a purposeful choice between a big flush and a wee one, required significantly more practice and concentration. Tim, to his credit, responded admirably to the following instruction:

"Keep your eye on the handle. Lean slightly forward. Keeping your head still, pull the handle back by rotating your shoulders around a consistent spine angle. For a big flush, swing the handle to full top, then shift your weight to your front foot, and, with a slightly downward motion, begin the big flush. Keep your hands behind the point of impact. And don't forget to follow through."

Always glad to do my part, Tim.

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(Left: Carol and Hazel, house mums at the Bell Craig. Breakfast, laundry, bedding, they did it all for their seven American guests... and answered foolish questions about plumbing as well.

Below, Tim Borem swings a fairway wood on the windswept Jubilee Course at St. Andrews.)

Yes, he is

Al's favorite flavor revealed on the Jerdee blog, linked at left. (Photo by Becky Jerdee)

Spring word pictures

Our friend Lorlee lived on a family farm near us in Alexandria. She loves to garden. Now she lives in Dallas, so spring comes earlier. She must be restless right now.
There was a gardening website that had a contest for stories of 100 words --- Lorlee submitted the following two.
"I didn't win the garden book they were giving away," she shrugs. "Mine are more memory photos than stories. People keep telling me to write a book -- but all I have in me are 100 word snippets."

Dad
Dad almost skipped a once in a lifetime trip to Switzerland because it would interfere with the planting of his spring garden. In his farmer's soul, he knew that we are given a finite number of springs – and once a spring is gone, it and its potential can’t be reclaimed. And though, like those springs, he is gone, that wisdom and urgency live on in me. As the springs flit by, I do my best to make each one count. I do it for me – I do it in his memory. And in my mind’s eye, I see him smile.

Grandma Klimek
She unlaced her black heeled shoes, took them off and lined them up perfectly beside her bed. It was the kind of footwear worn by grandmothers in the 50’s and nuns when they still wore habits. She went out the side screen door – used only when the weather was finally warm, past the small coop with the mother duck and her babies, headed toward her garden with its abundant vegetables – and one riotous row of zinnias. The black soil was warm under her bunioned bare feet, the ropey, varicose veins evident below her dress and old fashioned apron. Women of that age and time never wore pants or garden clogs.

Family Coat of Arms

Between rounds of his recent golf and whisky trip to Scotland, Stan was able to research the family tree at genealogical record centers in Edinburgh, St. Andrews and Aberdeen, tracing the lineage of Peter Jackson, the great-great grandfather of Beverly Rolfsrud.
Confirmation was received yesterday that Jackson, who immigrated to New York in 1859, was actually the bastard son of Sir George McDonald and Victoria Walpole, and then was adopted and given his Christian name by Adam and Maybelle Jackson. This discovery makes Beverly's children the rightful heirs to the Royal Bank of Scotland and confers upon her eldest son, by right of primogeniture, the title "Duke of Forada."