The contest for President in 2016 may or may not be the ugliest, nastiest or weirdest in American history. 

These links are just a few of what I found doing a simple internet search.

http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-controversial-us-presidential-elections.php

http://www.livescience.com/5194-presidential-elections-nastier.html

https://www.bustle.com/articles/117432-6-presidential-elections-that-were-weirder-than-2016-at-least-so-far

From my perspective I don’t believe it to be the worst contest in our nation’s history although I believe it may be the most divisive in history since Lincoln was re-elected our President in the midst of the Civil War.

The ubiquity of social media in our lives has provided many tremendous benefits to American society.  It has allowed for millions of people to develop and maintain connections with friends, family and others throughout the world.

We’ve learned of ways to improve our lives and those of others as a result of social media. 

Without social media where would I learn the multitude of ways I can fix food using crock pots, car engines and flamethrowers?

But, social media has also resulted in tremendous change in our country with regard to difficult public policy issues that affect and impact our lives.

Make no mistake about it the transformational changes which have broken down barriers with regard to gay marriage, criminal justice reform and other similar cultural and social issues would never have happened without social media networks and the people in them and behind them.

This is something I have learned, though, from this year’s Presidential election.  It also has the capacity to drive us further apart rather than closer together as a country.

The Presidential Election of 2016 has all the earmarks of a campaign that will either lower the bar for the rest of time in American Presidential Politics or force each of us to demand something far better from our candidates – and more importantly, from ourselves.

Without judgement of any kind I have watched my friends and family on the left and the right and everywhere else in between lob rhetorical hand grenades at one another in ways I have never seen in the world before social media was so integrated into our lives.

Harsh, angry words are spewed back and forth about each candidate.  Worse, those words have been thrown at friends and family on places like Facebook where people truly believe they are going to change people’s opinions about Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton.

Trust me, the temptation lurks around every comment on Facebook and Twitter to have me weigh in with my own pithy, nasty and vicious rhetorical broadside.

I definitely think it and imagine it in my mind but I’ve tried hard in this year’s election cycle to avoid engaging anyone directly in politics.

It isn’t that I don’t have an opinion.  I have lots of them. 

I think more of my friends and family than I do of the opinions I have.

I would love to tell them what I think of them and their choices of candidates for the 2016 Presidential race. 

In the end, I love them more than I love the notion of telling them what I think.

I’ve written the Facebook post that I am convinced would change the way they think about everything!

Then.  I delete it. 

I’ve panicked a couple of times thinking I may have accidentally posted my opinion after someone else posted their opinion that got my goat.

So much so that I have taken to writing my posts off on the internet to make sure that I don’t accidentally post something because of an errant key stroke or a fit of self-obsessed and self-righteous indignation.

As a young man I would often find myself walking for hours to contemplate my life.  Or, to smoke cigarettes.  Sometimes to do both.

What I learned from those miles and miles of gravel road walks outside of Fairmount, North Dakota was that sometimes a good walk – a whistle – and a few choice words said out loud where nobody but me and the animals could hear them – did wonders for my perspective of the world around me.

I solved a fair amount of my problems on those walks in the world.  Those I didn’t at least seemed to be less of problem by the time I got back home.

So, that’s my advice to all of us in the waning days of the 2016 race for President in the United States.

Even if you don’t have a gravel road near you, take the time to go for a walk.   Do it especially when you find yourself wanting to weigh in deeply on something a friend or family member posted on social media.

When the urge strikes for you to post your own meme or perspective that you know is going to upset the proverbial applecart on Facebook or Twitter – stop.  Write it somewhere else on a piece of paper and go take a walk.

November’s election will come and it will go as every election in this nation’s history has done before it.

The world continues to spin on its axis.  America continues to wake up in the morning to be the nation God and our Founding Fathers intended it to be.

The only difference in our lives will be whether the friends or the close family relationships we enjoyed, the day before are still there because we found it more important, at the time, to post something about them or their beliefs – or ours – than we found the love and connection we had with them for years longer than our opinion on social media.

I plan to do a lot of walking between now and Tuesday, November 8^th. 

I’d be happy to have your company. 

 

 

One day in July of 1988 I received a call from my sister-in-law Julie that, from my blurred memory of the call, went something like this:

“Willy has been in an accident.  He’s in St. Cloud Hospital.  You need to come quick because it doesn’t look good.”

Willy, my then 15-year-old brother, had been involved in an accident with a car that plowed into him and his bicycle.

He came down hard.  On his shoulder.  And, his head.

Of most of those things during those difficult days I remember with little detail.

I recall the car ride to St. Cloud that took forever in a day and age when cell phones were not ubiquitous in our lives.  Not knowing whether he was dead or alive.  Assuming, of course the worse.

I remember running into the hospital.  Getting to the floor where my family was assembled.  And, simply, and weakly, collapsing into the arms of my brother, Karl.

Those first few days were not my finest hours as a strong and capable brother.  I was an emotional wreck.  Every bit of news that followed seemed worse and worse for Willy.

The swelling was too much.  The shunt wasn’t working.  The extent of the injury too vast.

Slowly, through the grace of God and the talent, dedication and commitment of Willy’s doctors, nurses and others who supported his healing, he survived his injuries.

Throughout the years Willy as grown, flourished and found his place in the world.  In the twenty-eight years he has no long come to be known as Willy.

Just Will.

Unless I want to annoy him.  Which I do from time to time.

This past June Will and I ran in Grandma’s Marathon.  His first marathon.  My fifth.

Ten years younger than I am, Will has worked hard the past few years to develop himself as a runner.

He is, like most of his Mische siblings, someone who rarely does things halfway.

His first foray into running lead him to have hairline fractures in his feet.

He stopped for a while, but continued to work out at the local gym not far from his home.

Then, he started running again.

Telling him to pace himself and take it easy is like telling me to stay away from butter brickle ice cream.

It’s a failing task of admonishment.

I’ve watched Will over the past couple of years as he has trained.  I am struck by the determined nature and his seriousness to his craft.

I say “craft” because for him that is what it seems to have become.

I run because I can.

Will seems to run because he must.

I was built to run short distances of about 10 to 12 feet and not too quickly, I might add.

Will was built to run forever.

He has a runner’s body.  Lean, long legs and arms.

His time at Grandma’s Marathon was amazing.

I could not have been more proud of him.

Since then he has run an urban Marathon in St. Paul and this weekend he runs the Twin Cities Marathon.

I can tell he is thinking about his race.  How he will run it.

At Grandma’s he barely slept the night before.   But, when it came time to run he was ready to go.

I know he is ready to go this weekend.

He has become a part of a runner’s community.  It is fun to watch his engagement with that community.

I have five brothers and three sisters.

I am proud of each and everyone one of them.  I consider each of them the smartest, most interesting, kind and remarkable people I have ever met.

Throughout our lives, at one time or another, each of us has leaned on the other for something to keep us moving forward in a world that can all too often be cold and distant.

My mother’s constant admonition to all of us is to “be kind to one another.”

Twenty-eight years after his life nearly ended on a road in St. Cloud, Minnesota, my brother Will hits the road this weekend to run the Twin Cities Marathon.

He does so as someone who has, as my recently departed friend Mary O’Neill would say, “respected the distance.”

He trained for it.  He understood it.  He embraced it.  He is ready for it.

Whatever Will’s time is this weekend.  Wherever he places.  Whenever he crosses the finish line.

This much is true.

My brother Will has earned his place in this race we call life.

My brother, Will.

Runner.

 

The time and distance it takes to grow from zero to sixteen is the blink of an eye.

And, 8,409,600 seconds or so ago Owen Francis Mische came into this world.

It’s a humbling thing to think about – the seconds of our lives.  Because, in a blink of an eye we all go from zero to something.

More than nine months before he came into our world Owen was the topic of a phone call from my wife to me as I drove to my office in St. Paul.  In nearly driving off the road at the news that we were going to have a baby the rest of my drive to the office was a combination of joy, fear, anxiety and terror.

I was ready to have a baby.  Whether I was ready to be a Dad was a different story.

Yet, nine months later when “Sweet Pea” came into our lives there was no turning back.

Not that there weren’t moments when my wife and I desperately wished there was!

Owen was born long after the doctors assured us he would arrive.  He needed substantial prodding to leave the comfort and safety of the womb.

Finally, despite his determined resistance, Owen joined our family on this side of the world.

When the doctor handed me the scissors to cut the umbilical cord I readily admit I was torn between being totally grossed out and relieved that our baby had arrived.

When I finally got down counting the number of toes and fingers on his hands and feet I was struck by how wrinkly my son was.  The vision we all have of babies is that they are cute and cuddly.

This is true – after they grow into those wrinkles.  My Mom, a veteran of having nine children and being a multiple time grandmother and great-grandmother, has often remarked (although I am sure she will now deny it!) that newly born babies are not cute.

I would be telling a fib if I said that Owen was, at his immediate birth, a cute baby.  He was a wrinkly baby.

Worse yet, he had a floppy eye lid and in a moment of new father fear I was certain he was born without a chin!

My son was going to be chinless!

Now, keep in mind that my reaction to most things that don’t look or work right is to immediately figure out how to fix them.

That I had absolutely no experience in fixing chins struck me at that moment to be one of the greatest failings of my life.  If only I hadn’t opted for the easy career path and had applied myself more, studied harder and mastered math and science I could, right then and there, be developing a procedure to create a chin for my son.

Thankfully, science and God and nature stepped in and in short order the floppy eyelid unwrinkled and beneath the wrinkles out popped a chin.

In bringing Owen home I am certain that there were no traffic laws broken for speeding – unless you count driving too slow to be a traffic violation.

Putting him in his crib for the first time my wife and I were struck by the reality that when we had left our home for the hospital we were two – and now we were three – a family.

Sixteen years later we are four – a family.

Along the way Owen tested our resolve and commitment to being parents.

He was a colicky child and dealt in sheer exorcistic dread.

His face would turn purple.  He would not sleep.  He would scream.

Frankly, if his head had spun around on his neck I would have sprinted to our Catholic church and brought home a pail of holy water in which to douse him.

Eventually, those demons decided to find other children to occupy and we finally had a boy who we decided to keep.

We eventually burned the “Baby for Sale” yard signs and deleted the Craigslist ad for “We will barter our baby for your baby” listings.

Today, Owen is blowing past six foot two on his way to six foot three and beyond.

Along the way of his life he has grown into a young man who astonishes me with his unquenchable thirst for knowledge.  He consumes books like a fire takes a forest.  He has treated the vast and untamed frontier of information on the internet as a place of unlimited information but understands that it possesses no wisdom.

Quick witted with a dry sense of humor it can sometimes take a day or so for me to finally go, “Oh, NOW I get it!”

Owen has always worn his feelings on his face.  Anger, fear, uncertainty, concern and joy and a million other emotions emanate from his face.

He was born with his mother’s eyes and smile.  Like his mother when he is happy and joyful the eyes disappear into creases as the smile takes over their face.  There are few things more glorious in my life to behold then when that happens.

Today, Owen turns sixteen.  This young man with a deep voice of a grown man has been one of the greatest gifts of my life.

There’s not enough words to describe what I know about Owen.  Nor are there enough stories to share about how he has already made such a difference in the world we live in.

I spent another one of the best hours of my life this week having a conversation with him about changing the world.  Where Owen is at in his life is one of my favorite phases of his life journey.  I don’t talk to Owen about the world around us – we talk with one another.  We share ideas.  We debate the pros and cons of solutions.  He challenges me.

He causes me to think outside the outside box I try to think outside of everyday.

Last night my wife and I talked about how proud we are of who Owen has become so far.  He is firmly rooted in his beliefs about fairness, equity, compassion, empathy and sympathy.  He takes nothing for granted.  He works hard at his job – he works (mostly) hard at his school work – and he works hard at learning and knowing about the world around him.

Owen has a strong sense of service, fairness, compassion, responsibility, duty, commitment and loyalty.

Two of my favorites stories about Owen just about sum up who he has become so far in his life.

One has to do with a class that is clearly not his favorite at school, and a project that was even far less his favorite.

Yet, he dutifully applied himself, understanding that as part of a small group project he had an obligation to do the work, to show up and to contribute to the group’s success.

Owen felt that another young man was being disrespectful to the rest of the group by rarely attending or participating or showing up.  By failing to do so he put more burden on everyone else who did show up.

He made it clear to the young man what he thought about his behavior, while at the same time emphasizing his own sense of duty to others.

 “Trust me,” he said. “Nobody hates being here more than I do…but people depend on me so I show up. “

This is the same boy who walked down to the grocery store to buy himself some donuts and when he walked out the door walked into someone who asked him for money.  Owen didn’t give him one of his donuts.  He gave him all his donuts and walked home.

He’s the same boy who feels obligated to put money into the Salvation Army kettle at work because he doesn’t want the bell ringers to think he is “a jerk” for not sharing the tips he makes over the holidays.

Throughout my life on this planet I have been honored and privileged to meet and know and work with some of the finest people I will ever know.  People who, through their work and service, have made a difference in the world.

Owen Francis Mische is one of them.

At sixteen he has made a difference in the world by how he treats and views others around him.

He is committed to finding ideas and solutions that will make the world a better place.  He’s not afraid to take a position.  He believes in things.  He has passion for music, for ideas, for people and for life.

Putting the future of the world on the shoulders of this young man is a tremendous burden.  Yet, there’s no other pair of shoulders I trust more to carry it.

America needs more heroes.

For sixteen years Owen has been mine.

Somewhere between Heaven and Earth there is a baby delivery system that effectively matches the correct baby with the correct family.

On September 30, 2002 the people in charge of this complex system of delivery showed Amazon, FedEx and UPS how it’s done by giving us Margaret Elizabeth Mische.

Or, as she is called – Maisie.

Today, Maisie turns 14 years old.

Putting aside all of the requisite commentary about how kids grow up too fast there is no question that Maisie has been growing up despite my efforts to guard against such unnecessary certainty.

It is said that there is a special bond between a Dad and his Daughter.

I like to believe that to be the case with Maisie.

But, it wasn’t always that way.

Long before she was born her name was “Thumper.”

Lying in bed at night my wife and I would look upon with amazement as “Thumper” made itself (we had no idea if it was a boy or a girl!) known by creating a remarkable series of visual representations of what was to come inside of her Mom’s stomach.

Sometimes it would be a foot – a hand – but Thumper would pound out a series of coded messages from inside my wife’s stomach.

Fourteen years later she is still giving us a series of coded messages.  Sometimes we figure them out.  Sometimes we don’t.

Along the way she has had a series of Dad inspired names.

Maisie-May.  May-May.  Pooch.  Girl.  Sweetie Pie. Ladybug.

Baby.

Fourteen years ago my wife calmly and with determination brought Maisie into the world.  Thumper’s disguise was removed and there, in front of me, was a baby girl.

Trust me, I though the doctor was lying.

I knew we were having a baby.

But, given the odds of it being a boy or a girl it didn’t occur to me that there was a chance it would actually be a girl.

For a minute or so I needed to grasp the consequences of the fact that I hadn’t even remotely — mentally or emotionally– prepared myself for the possibility that the “it” named Thumper would now be a girl named Maisie.

Don’t get me wrong.  We had determined the name for a baby if a baby born was a girl.

We even spent a fair amount of time doing so.

My wife’s Mom’s name is Margaret.  My Mom’s name is Elizabeth.

So, a girl, in the highly unlikely possibility one was delivered to us by God’s Baby Delivery System, would be legally named Margaret Elizabeth.

But, to the world outside of the legal system she would be named Maisie.

From the moment Maisie took her first breath of life outside of the protective custody of her mother’s stomach she smiled.

Well, after we determined that underneath all of the hair covering her body that she was indeed a baby girl and not a baby monkey!

Dark hair and dark eyes this baby was intending to make herself known in the world.

We brought her home and for far too many days I continued to wrestle with the fact that I hadn’t thought about the possibility of having a Daughter.

It wasn’t that I was opposed to it.  In fact, she was such a sweet baby that I spent most of my time enjoying that new baby smell that was invented long before anybody thought of coining the phrase “new car smell.”

Long after her arrival I figured out that I was scared to death of how to raise a girl.

It never occurred to me to wonder whether or not I knew how to raise a boy.

Because, beyond the physical differences, there are clear differences between boys and girls.  Call me politically incorrect for believing that, but I don’t care and frankly your condemnation doesn’t rankle me in the least.

Fourteen years later with a girl and sixteen years later with a boy the evidence of such differences has validated my point.

But, it also validated something else.

I think I figured out how to raise a girl.

Give a girl the ability to be anything she wants to be, can be and needs to be and she will flourish and grow.

Offer her the freedom and the space to know who she is, and what she believes in and how she can achieve success in her life and she will be confident and poised.

Guide her to reach her own conclusions, reinforce the values of kindness, generosity, sympathy and empathy and she will be known by those around her as a friend who can be counted upon and a person who can be trusted.

Hug her and tell her she is loved every time you can and she will hug you back and tell you the same.

From her earliest beginnings Maisie has never been anybody’s pushover, but she has always been the twinkle in everyone’s eyes.

Maisie would seek out people’s eyes as a baby until they would catch her eye.  Then, like a magnet, she would pull them towards her with a smile that lights up the space between them.

She does the same today.  Her big, brown eyes don’t look away.  They look towards you and with the same pull that keeps the earth and the moon in the same place she will change your life perspective with a smile.

One of my favorite memories of Maisie, and there is no danger of having too few of them, is captured on video with her brother, Owen.

She may have been three or four and he about five or six.

The two of them are having some kind of imaginary battle that every adult secretly has in their minds when nobody’s looking.

As they parried back and forth with their play swords Maisie would constantly do a roaring lion sound by saying “RAAAWWWRRRRR”.

After several times of this Owen stopped the action and said, firmly as Owen was inclined to do then, and is still today, “Maisie, STOP RAAAWWWRRRRRing.”

Maisie, without missing a beat pushed back at her brother, without flinching and simply said, “But I like to RAAAWWWRRRRR.”

And, continued to do so.

Today is Maisie’s birthday.  She is fourteen years old.

I’m a proud Dad, of course.

But, I am prouder still of who she has become with the care and tending of parents who have never forgotten that in our hands was delivered – by God’s handpicked team of Baby Delivery System personnel – a baby girl.

Who liked to RAAAWWWRRRRR…and is RAAAWWWRRRRRing even still today.

Thus begins “THE Week” at our home.

Yes, it’s true “the week” starts with Spare Key having more than 650 volunteer slots at the Ryder Cup at Hazeltine thanks to the hard work of Lori from our office.  She has, with considerable grace, patience and good humor, spent the past several months herding cats of volunteers into slots to work at concession stands at the international golf event.

But “THE Week” is not about the Ryder Cup.

THE Week is the period of time that begins with my wife and I celebrating our 20^th wedding anniversary today – followed by The Daughter’s 14^th birthday two days later – followed by The Dude’s 16^th birthday two days after that.

THE Week is a breathtaking time in our household.

And, it all started with a smile.

In a previous life I used to work in Senate Majority Research in the Minnesota Senate.  From time to time we would all wander from our office into the offices of one of the Senators we were assigned to and find out if they needed anything in particular from us.

On one such morning I decided I needed to go to one Senator’s Office for something I am sure was really important then but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was today if my life depended upon it.

This much I do remember as vividly as if it happened today.

I walked into the office and there in front of me some brunette sweet young thing was studiously perusing the most recent edition of “Soap Opera Digest.”

(In her telling of this story years later she claims it wasn’t hers but that a fellow staffer had “loaned” it to her to read.  Whatever.)

Off-handedly I commented about the heavy reading she was doing on behalf of Senator and suddenly, there it was…a smile!

Not, I might add, any smile.

Her smile.

Surrounded by the most intense shade of scarlet face blushing of anyone I had ever met before.

Stricken, I excused myself and walked back to my office.

Along the way I somewhat gathered my composure.

Walking back into the office I strode to a colleagues’ office and told him to follow me.

He didn’t ask why until we were feet from the destination.

The office where the blushing girl with the blinding smile was reading “Soap Opera Digest.”

As I opened the door I said to him, “I want you to meet the girl I am going to marry.”

And, I did.

Much in our life has changed in the past twenty years that we have been married.

But the smile hasn’t gotten any less blinding.  Or my love for her any less encompassing.

From our first date at the old St. Paul Blues Saloon where she commented on my dancing “flair” to the innumerous times we have laughed until we cried to the moment we both laid eyes on both of our children she has been that “…girl I am going to marry.”

I wanted to impress her Dad so much the first time I met him that I sold my crappy Ford Escort and bought a Volkswagen Passat that I could neither afford nor wanted.

The first time her parents met me I know her Mom thought I must have been 53 years old.  The irony of it all is that 20 years later she is finally right!

I come from a family of 9 kids – all with outsize egos and personalities.

She never flinched an eye.

Of all the people I have ever known throughout my life – including some of the most powerful people on Earth – she is the only person who has ever intimidated me.

She has also given me the greatest privilege of my life which is the honor of raising two astonishing children.

My wife and I both marvel at the transition of our lives with our children throughout the years.  Both Owen and Maisie bear a striking resemblance to perfection.

As both of them have entered their teen year phases we admittedly wait for the moment when we can share with others the “horrors” of teenagers!

So far there has been no horror.  Occasional glimpses of it.  Frequent mood swings and crankiness or what I call “Grumpelstiltskin” – but nothing, yet, bordering on wondering where our children went.

Ups and downs. Good days and bad.  Success and failures.  There have been 20 years of all of it.

Somewhere along the way, though, the twenty years flew by in the blink of an eye.

The next twenty years promises to be no less of an adventure.  Along the way the kids may or may not choose to ever leave our home.  Mixed emotions are involved with all of that, to be sure.

It’s difficult enough knowing that both of our kids went from being small enough to hold in our arms to being big enough and learning to live without needing us in their lives every minute of every day.

I love my life.  I love my kids.  I love my wife.

My life on this planet began 53 years ago.

But, living on this planet — truly living — that began 20 years ago.

And, it started with a smile.

When a pistachio gets lodged in your throat there’s not much time to think.

So I have learned.

Yesterday, as I am prone to do, I stopped on my way to my cabin to grab myself a little snack for the last 15 minutes of windshield time.

Leaving the gas station with a little bag of pistachios and a soda I turned my car around and headed north as I have done countless number of times over the past decade since we purchased The Northern Lights Lodge.

Mile after mile I barely paid much attention to the scenery passing before me.  I’ve seen it all before.

I suspect hundreds of times over the past ten years.  The KOA campground.  The now shuttered Turks Supper Club.  The Wayside Bar and Grill.  The turn-off to Nelson Lake.

The cemetery right before coming up on the Sawmill and the choice between proceeding further north on Highway 63 or turning right on “OO” near Vortanz Lumber.

Yesterday, I choose to continue north another mile or so before turning off onto Northern Lights Road and then turning into the driveway that leads to my cabin.

As I have done over and over again I anticipate the final few seconds until my bunkhouse comes into full view, followed by my cabin and the water of Pacwawong Springs immediately over the rise.

I turned off the car.  Chewing the last of my pistachios.  Opened the door.

And, I couldn’t breathe.

This was not the air being knocked out of me.

This was me literally not having any air to breathe.

I tried to breathe.  All I got was a horrific sound from my body that I knew wasn’t natural.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t panicking despite my admonition to myself not to panic.

I was at the place I love the most to be and at that moment it was likely to be the place someone would find me alone and dead.

From a pistachio.

I briefly thought about running to my neighbor’s house some 50 yards away and then decided I might run out of air before I got there not to mention the fact he might not actually be there at all.

I grabbed my car keys, thinking I might run into the cabin and grab water and swallow it down.  But, as I lunged out of the car with my keys I glimpsed my face in the side view mirror.

A mixture of purple and blue is not a color I have ever associated with my skin tone.

My knees crumbled at about this point.  Panic had now turned to fear.

And, fear turned to desperation.

For the first time in my life that I can remember I had absolutely no idea about what to do to make it better.

The sheer weight of my powerlessness drove me further to my knees.

I could feel myself losing my consciousness.

I would be lying if I told you that at that moment my life flashed before my eyes.

It didn’t.

What did, however, flash in front of me was my $200 Craigslist rowboat not 20 feet in front of me.

For whatever reason I thought, “Maybe if fling myself over the side of the transom I will dislodge it.”

As I crawled, ran and panicked my way to the boat I stood up – the horrible sound of my own choking to death loud in my ears – and I came up upon the back of the boat.

I stopped.  There in the middle of the boat was a puddle of rain water, sprinkled with leaves and branches and Lord knows what else.

“Maybe I should drink that?”

Before I could answer my own question I literally threw myself down on the back of the boat.

Nothing.

I did it again.

Nothing.

And then, gloriously, something.

Air!

I. Could. Breathe!

I didn’t move for whatever amount of time it was because I just needed to let the air rush into my lungs, but in controlled little bursts.  I didn’t know whether what had gotten between my mouth and my lungs was gone completely and I wasn’t ready to declare victory.

Finally, convinced I was not dead yet, I literally fell down.

As I shared with my wife today when we got home I have never come this close, consciously, to death.

I suspect there have been times when such close calls may have happened and I was not aware of them, or I dismissed the proximity and possibility of my own demise.

Not this time.

I saw it in my own face.  In my own eyes.

My mortality.

I spent almost an hour on the wet ground behind my lifesaving crappy aluminum rowboat.

Too tired to get up.  Too fearful that my legs wouldn’t hold me if I tried to get up.

Grateful that I was struggling with the choices of standing versus sitting.

Since yesterday I have been attempting to come to terms with all of it.  I didn’t sleep well last night.

My mind has been distracted all day and even now as I write this I am determined to find whether or not I should have had an epiphany of some kind that has yet to come to me.

I wasn’t ready to die yesterday.  And, a split second before a pistachio took my breath away I have spent nearly zero-time planning to do so until I am 100 years old.

Frankly, I’d prefer it just happen without me knowing it.  I don’t need a glorious death.  I would prefer it simply be anonymous and without drama.

To be honest, I’m not inclined to dwell on the end of my life.  I’ve got too much of it left to live to wonder when it will ultimately end.

Too many things to do.  This week alone my wife and I celebrate our 20^th wedding anniversary. My Daughter turns 14 and my Dude turns 16 this week. I have the Ryder Cup to work at for Spare Key.  The Packers have a Bye week.  And, wouldn’t you know it, the guy who sold me my hot tub finally got the damn thing to work right!

My vision of my demise is not clear in my head.  But, I have always hoped it would not be in some embarrassing way – like on an escalator – or choking to death on a pistachio.

I beat the pistachio yesterday.

You can bet what I am staying away from for the next 47 years!

Yes, there’s a joke in that headline.  Not a particularly funny one given that the punchline is likely to mean even more taxes for St. Paul residents.

The City of St. Paul is proposing a 7% levy increase in property taxes – Ramsey County is considering a 2.8% and now comes the St. Paul School District proposing a levy of 5%.

So, if a 15% property tax tree grows in the woods of St. Paul is there a Fiscal Conservative of Fiscal Moderate candidate for Mayor who will chop it down?  Or even trim it?

Who knows as there has yet to be a loud public voice of dissent among any of the announced – or talking about announcing – candidates for Mayor.

Yes, I know the current Mayor Chris Coleman has not yet publicly declared he is not running for re-election.

But, most political observers and people who think they know these things don’t believe he will wage another campaign for Mayor.

With that in mind it is becoming more and likely there’s going to be about 57 candidates running for Mayor.

Thus far not a single solitary one of them has said anything publicly about the fact that residents of the City they hope to lead are looking at a nearly 15% increase in their property tax levy!

Think about that.  When was the last time you got anything that was a 15% increase that was good in your life?

A pay raise?  A 15% increase in the amount of weight you lost?  A 15% increase in the size of your bank account?  A 15% increase in the size of the last walleye you caught at the lake?

I thought so.

Why isn’t there a voice for fiscal conservatism, or even fiscal moderation, raising their voice on the City Council?  The Ramsey County Board?  Or, for that matter, the St. Paul School Board?

Um, because there aren’t any, that’s why.

Now, those who are defending this massive increase point to the fact that all of these increases will “only” increase the actual tax on a $161,200 media-valued home by about $81 a year – or about $7 per month.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?  All these great things government will do for us and it only costs about $7 more per month.

Don’t believe it.  It’s not true.  And, it is beside the point.

The shiny ball in the room you are being shown when it comes to the increase in your property taxes is blocking all of the fee increases we have seen over the past decade in St. Paul.

If you don’t believe that increases in city and county fees, along with the sustained and repeated increases in property taxes over the past decade, don’t add up then you need a new calculator.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I don’t believe in gutting our government, nor do I believe in providing necessary government services with one hand tied behind one’s back.

But I also don’t buy for a moment that any of the three units of government looking to increase our property tax levy by nearly 15% have even scratched the surface of trying to reduce the cost and size of government and still deliver high quality, necessary and vital services to our community.

The threats of firing cops, laying off firefighters or all of the other sky is falling rhetoric from those looking to increase our taxes is, frankly, baloney.

None of that would have to happen if they took a step back and examined the difference between politicians “wants” and taxpayer “needs.”

Somewhere in that review they would understand that we don’t need a 15% property tax levy increase and we would still get the necessary services we need – the investments that are required to have a quality public education system – and keep the social safety net we wish to have for those who are facing hard and difficult times.

Yet, to date, there is not a single voice of a leading politician – or candidate for Mayor – who has stepped up and said “No.”

It’s an easy word – No.

However, for those declared and thinking about declaring candidates for Mayor there appears to not be a single fiscal conservative or moderate.  If there is, or was, one would think we would have heard them saying “No.”

Heard them saying this is outrageous.  This is horrible.

This is bad for taxpayers.  Bad for Senior Citizens.  Bad for business. Bad for jobs. Bad for hard-working middle class families.  Bad for hard-working low income families.

Bad for St. Paul.

Perhaps those candidates who oppose the increases are afraid it will cost them votes for an endorsement for Mayor?  Maybe friendships?

It’s an interesting thought.  It’s also bad politics and underscores why St. Paul is in desperate need of someone to emerge to stand apart from the crowd that seems to believe that money doesn’t just grow on trees – but in our wallets, purses and pocketbooks. 

So, I ask you again, if a 15% property tax tree grows in the woods of St. Paul is there a fiscal conservative candidate for Mayor who will chop it down?

Or even a fiscal moderate candidate for Mayor who will trim it?

The answer seems to be – No.

 

Ryan Lochte and I.

With these four words I’ve begun to create my own little world of adventure, chaos, silliness and incredulity.

Words that I imagine Lochte, if he was predisposed to look them up in the dictionary, would find accurately summarizes the first 32 years of his young life.

Let me be absolutely clear:  Ryan Lochte and I aren’t friends.  I don’t really know that guy.

Okay, I don’t know that guy at all.

Yet, I suspect that guy is far from the caricature that we’ve been treated to when it comes to Ryan Lochte.  Or, from the person I’ve enjoyed gently mocking since the Great 2016 Summer Olympic Bathroom Scandal.

How do I know that?

Honestly, I don’t.

I just hope that he isn’t as far removed from reality – except on purpose – as we have been lead to believe.

My Daughter watches Pug videos on YouTube for hours.

I have watched Lochte videos on YouTube for hours.

Don’t judge us.  We all have our guilty pleasures.

Some of the videos I have seen of Lochte have made me tear up. Laugh out loud.  Shake my head.

Some of them have even had me chuckling because I sense behind the stoner guy image is a brilliant brand marketer who has carved out a lifelong and lucrative career as a loveable idiot.

But, you all should remember I have a C- intellect, received a D- in Geometry only because the teacher didn’t want to hold me back in his class another year and once thought it amusing to relieve myself on an electric fence without understanding the concept of “conductivity.”

There is, I admit, a fascination with Lochte.  Not an obsession, I assure you.  When you see me with a solid set of six-pack abs, a 28 inch waist and a full head of hair then you can call me obsessed.

In the meantime, my firm flabby stomach, 34 inch waist and gracefully receding hairline appreciates a bit of the obsessive fascination the world had with Ryan Lochte in the aftermath of his party antics at the Rio Olympics.

Somewhere between the booze, his memory, his recollection, his anxiety, his fear and his bemusement, Lochte created an international incident at a time when we should have all been enjoying the actual athletic achievements of the world’s finest athletes at the Rio Olympics.

But, the perfect storm of a bored, instantly judgmental and officious media – an athlete who has never spent much time being publicly introspective – a global audience seeking to be fed its daily dose of entertainment – and public officials in Brazil annoyed at the portrayal of their Olympics as nothing but crime and filth ridden – created Lochte Fever.

If we are all being honest with one another we have nobody to blame for it all except ourselves.

According to multiple different sources, “Ryan Steven Lochte is an American competitive swimmer and a 12-time Olympic medalist, which ranks him second in swimming behind Michael Phelps. His seven individual Olympic medals rank near the top in men’s swimming.”

For all of his zany social media posts, inconceivable media interviews (My salute to the Princess Bride) and head turning quotes, Ryan Lochte is actually an accomplished athlete. He is wealthy.  Good looking.

And, one of the best athletes in his sport in a generation.

Those who have been willing to stomach my daily dose of “Ryan Lochte and I” adventures know, I assume, that Ryan Lochte and I have not been fishing, swimming, partying or hanging out together.

What they may not know is that behind those adventures lies my own measure of commentary on the human condition we find ourselves in, in this day and age.

Our world view has been so decidedly altered by the crush of information, speculation, accusation, misinformation, transmogrification, condemnation, heroification and vilification.

Or, as I prefer to call it, Lochtefication.

Really, truly, what difference did Ryan Lochte’s immature party junket with three of his friends one night at the Rio Olympics actually make?

If not for Al Roker and some other guy I don’t know getting into an argument about whether Lochte lied or not – and the indignation of the media that they had been “mislead” by Lochte – this would have been nothing but four boneheads having had too much to drink making up a story to share with their buddies.

Lochte’s problem was he ran into some reporter instead of a houseful of frat boys that he could regale with his evening’s conquest with a soap dispenser and a gas station bathroom.

Our problem is that the media convinced us that this was a problem.

Our bigger problem is that we allowed the media to convince ourselves that this was a problem.

And, in doing so further distanced our lives from a meaningful analysis of the real life challenges and opportunities that we should be focusing on, instead.

I think it speaks volumes that barely a month ago Ryan Lochte dominated the lead story in virtually every major news cycle for days.

Now that he has been suspended and fined for his behavior the story has become simply an afterthought.

The Lochte Episode is not unique.  It is ubiquitous and pervades virtually every aspect of our lives now.

Lochtefication surrounds us.  Distracting us from things that ought to terrify us as well as delight us.

The world is neither as bad as some have said it is, nor is it as well off as others suggest.

But it’s nearly impossible to see the forest for the trees when we are constantly being triggered to chase the next shiny object of something that someone says we should and must consider urgent, important and world altering.

My commitment to ending Lochtefication continues to be to keep my mind and focus on the main thing being the main thing.

Wow, did you just see that squirrel in that tree?

Ryan Lochte and I.  For President and Vice President.

Damn it, I was just Lochtefied!

“I saw on stage three proud American women who love America even if they don’t always agree with what everyone in America has to say, or the decisions it’s leaders make in our names.”

In 2003 the lead vocalist of the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines, expressed her opinion of President George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq by declaring, “We don’t want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas”.

The crowd in Great Britain roared its approval.

In America, the reaction was decidedly different.

Conservative talk radio, country music stations and anybody else who had an opinion opposed to what Maines had said took to their respective platforms to denounce her and her bandmates.

Their CDs were burned, destroyed and public displays of anger and outrage were everywhere.

While I didn’t personally participate in any of these activities I, too, like many Americans was offended by their decision to denounce our President and his decision in a foreign country.

Today, millions of Americans are debating – denouncing and defending – the decision by San Francisco 49’ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick to refuse to stand during the playing of the United States national anthem.

His reasoning was stated by him this way: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

Like millions of Americans my immediate reaction was outrage.  How dare this selfish, overpaid professional athlete sully the sacrifice of millions of Americans who paid the price for our, and his, freedom in their blood and lives! If he’s so concerned about the state of the world why did it take him until he was likely to be cut or relegated to a backup quarterback position to take this “courageous” stand?

I’ve tried to read what I believe to be the more reasonable commentaries by those who have an opinion on Kaepernick’s decision.  Attempting to tune out the racists and bigots of every color and backround is difficult in this day and age of opinion by social media.

So, I finally had to tune into my own perspective on Kaepernick’s decision to come to my own conclusion.

But, I had some help in the form of a Dixie Chicks concert at the Minnesota State Fair this past Sunday.

This is the second time I have been to a Dixie Chick’s concert.  The first time was when my son was an infant nearly 15 years ago – long before the ill-fated evening when the band created a firestorm that ultimately toppled them from the top of the music charts.

I don’t remember much about that concert but I remember nearly everything about this most recent concert.

I would be lying if I said I am the biggest Dixie Chicks fan in America.  I am, however, the biggest fan of my wife who does love the Dixie Chicks.  It wouldn’t be fair to say I was dragged to the concert but it would be accurate to say that I enjoyed the concert largely because my wife enjoyed the concert.

But, I found myself watching and listening to these three women on stage who by all accounts are accomplished and successful musicians, parents, Moms, wives, daughters, business people and Americans.

They represent so much of everything about America that I love.  So much of what America is and has been is why they are on that stage at all.

Their freedom to sing.  To tour.  To be women who make their own choices and decisions about their lives and their future.  To take the talents they have and make a living from it.  To speak their minds.  To have an opinion.  To enjoy their liberty.

I saw on stage three proud American women who love America even if they don’t always agree with what everyone in America has to say, or the decisions it’s leaders make in our names.

I looked around me at a concert filled primarily with women of all ages and backgrounds.  Every single one of them there in ways that they would never be permitted or allowed in so many other countries on the Earth.

Some with cups full of beer, but all with faces filled with joy.

I am 53 years old – and when Natalie Maines called out our President 13 years ago my Daughter was not even a year old.

I wonder now, as I wondered that night at the State Fair, if my reaction to Maine’s comments would have been different had my Daughter been 13 years old in 2003 when a brave young woman with her entire life before her had the courage to speak her mind.

Maybe it’s the perspective that comes with age or being a parent, that changes us and how we view the world and what we find to be important – or what we find that offends us – or inspires us.

Whatever it is, something has changed about my opinion of what the Dixie Chicks did in 2003.  Not because of a single concert at the Minnesota State Fair.  But, that certainly helped me frame what they did in 2003 – and what Kaepernick has done in 2016 – in a different light.

I don’t approve of what Natalie Maines or Colin Kaepernick have said or done.  Not then.  Not now.

But, I do respect their right do say or do what they did and have done.

I have no doubt that around a beer Natalie Maines and Colin Kaepernick and I could go round and round about where we stand on how we view the world we live in and the world around us.

I would hope that if we were having that conversation and discussion it would be intense, passionate, powerful and most of all, respectful.

I have encouraged my children to speak their mind.  To have opinions.  To listen to others.

Not to be afraid to have their own perspectives from their peers – and their parents – but to express those perspectives with respect for those who may not share their beliefs and ideas.

I know it’s easier said than done.  It’s much harder to do in a world in which we can express an opinion with 142 characters or the click of a button that lets us give a “Thumbs Up” or “Thumbs Down” on anything and everything that someone has said or done.

I don’t agree with Colin Kaepernick or his reasoning behind his decision to not stand during the nation’s national anthem.  I didn’t agree with the Dixie Chicks or the reasoning behind their decision to denounce our President in a foreign land.

But I hope I am finding my way to better defending their right to have those opinions and make those decisions as Americans.

With the Dixie Chicks it took me 13 years to make myself right with their rights.

With Colin Kaepernick it has taken me 3 days.

Maybe it is possible to teach this Old Dog new tricks.

My morning didn’t start exactly the way I planned. 

Waking up, having coffee, I envisioned a remarkable day out on Lake Namekagon with my 30-year-old non-classic Sunbird 18’ boat with an ancient inboard motor. 

The sun had burned through the clouds and though there was wind my spirits were high and I was eager to explore a new lake with nothing to do today but relax.

Twenty-minutes and a full tank of gas in the boat later I removed the boat from its trailer, parked my car and got into the boat with my life jacket on and all of my preparations completed.

And, then I flooded the motor and drained the battery.

Ten minutes later I was back in my truck for a twenty-minute ride back to my cabin.

Pondering my options, I decided I would try to fix the boat myself. 

(It is at this point that my wife, children, my Mom, all three of my sisters and my five brothers would be screaming, “For the love of God and all that’s Holy, Erich, what are you thinking?”)

Ignoring those mental screams, I dutifully removed the “hood” from the inboard motor of the boat and stared at it.

Because staring at things is the first step to fixing them.

I imagined what I might possibly do to unflood (because I think you would do the opposite of flooding, right?) the motor.

I know enough about batteries to know that the charger I own requires that the red clamp goes on the positive thing and the black clamp goes on the negative thing.

So, I started with that.  I clamped the things and turned the charger on.

It worked.  Relieve, I watched the digital screen show that the battery was charging as expected.

Now, to unflood the flooded motor.

My approach was simple.  I needed to think about it.

So I decided to mow the lawn first.

I do some of my best thinking when I am not dealing with what it is that I am trying to deal with.

So, mowing at that moment allowed me to deal with what I was dealing with by not dealing with it.

Got it?  Good.

As I mowed I realized I knew nothing about taking spark plugs out from a motor and drying them.  In between my mowing I was googling things like “How to unflood a motor?” and “Can a flooded motor blow up and kill you?”

There were some YouTube videos and other helpful tools but all of them seemed really difficult and well outside my range of capability.

So, I did what any 53-year-old guy who knows how to put gas in a car, a boat and a mower would do – I got a fan and set it up in the boat and turned it on the spark plugs.

Or, what I assumed to be the spark plugs.

It’s at this point I need to interject with some portion of the moral of this story.

Through this entire adventure I could have found myself annoyed, angry, frustrated or just over all of it.

Here I was, at my cabin, with an old boat that I flooded, mowing my lawn, charging my battery and wondering if I was going to get out on the lake at all or not.

Except I wasn’t any of those things.

Because, here I was, at my cabin, with an old boat that I flooded, mowing my lawn, charging my battery and wondering if I was going to get out on the lake at all or not.

I wasn’t in the middle of a war zone.  My big brother wasn’t killed by a bomb blast in the middle of a civil war.  Nobody in my family is in want of food.

I’m not wondering where I will sleep tonight, or if anybody cares where I am – or if I am. 

And, before you think this is another one of those stories where my entire life changed today I want to assure you that it did not.

God, I am blessed, and grateful for that.

Surprisingly – some may say shockingly – I got the boat started. 

I got it back out on the lake and I spent two glorious hours exploring a new lake listening to Johnny Cash and enjoying the wonderful big and little homes and cabins that must be filled with love and memories and joy of others.

Two hours later my old boat was back on its old trailer being pulled by my old truck with a new big dent on the passenger side door back to my cabin.

Two miles from my cabin a “poof” what sounded like a sigh made me look at my side view mirror to see that the trailer had blown a tire.

I thought of making the two miles back on the rim.  But, some craggy (and totally terrifying) dude with a dog I am sure was named Cujo drove up and said “You know, you break the rim and you’re screwed!” and that convinced me not to screw myself.

I unhitched my boat and drove back to the cabin where I thought I might find a trailer tire laying around.

Nope.

I also realized that had I found such a tire I had not jack.

But, I have a neighbor at the cabin.  A good and nice and considerate and generous neighbor.

He had a tire.  A jack.  And, a wonderful heart that insisted he go with me to fix my trailer.

Twenty minutes later we were back at the cabin with the boat and the trailer.

He came in for a drink so I could thank him.  And, as we sat in my family’s little cabin around our little table looking through the windows at our little lake with our little dock my neighbor and I talked about how lucky we both are.

We have people who love us.  We have people we love.

We have a place to call home and things that are old, and broken and worn out and not pretty to look at that work well enough for us to realize just how lucky we are to have the lives we have.

My morning didn’t start as planned and my day surely didn’t end as I imagined it would.

Sitting in my cabin after my neighbor went back home to make dinner for his family I looked out at the blown trailer tire laying on the deck.

So much of this day today resembled nothing like I wanted it to be.  In fact, nearly all of it went exactly the opposite of what I was planning to have happen today.

I could have found today to be a horrible and wasted day and frowned about the ill fortune that befell me at every turn.

I could have.

Instead, I smiled. 

Because, on my deck lies a blown trailer tire.