On old cars and the theory of relativity ~ December 13, 2006

David Heiller

We got a new car recently, and I am thrilled with it. I had been driving a 1996 Taurus, which had 267,400 miles and a multitude of sins. Alan Wunmecka now has it in his scrap heap.

I suppose ours like this when
 it was new, but not by the 
time it became David's.

The new car is a 1993 Taurus with 150,000 miles. It has a good radio and cruise control. The muffler is a little loud, and the check engine light flickers to life every so often, but no problem.

Some people might not be as thrilled as I am with my new car, but it’s a big improvement, and that’s the key to my happiness.

It got me to thinking about how improvements work or don’t work.

Look around in your life—there are improvements everywhere. Start with your car; bet it’s a lot nicer than that 1954 Chevy your family drove when you were a kid. And we haven’t seen anything compared to what’s coming, with navigation systems that tell you how to get to the Christmas party, and satellite radio, got to have that, and of course a DVD player for the kiddies.

Your camera sure beats the old Kodak Brownie or even instamatic. Remember how excited everyone was when that came out? Now we are getting digital models that are built into our cell phones.

Speaking of which, your telephone went from a wall hanger to a cordless to something called a razor: (Probably don’t even have that spelled right.)

Ms. Malika getting a hand from our friend, Kevin, on her
 cool (used) molded skates. 
Another amazing change: cold weather clothing!)

Your house is a lot warmer now, better insulated. It has indoor plumbing! A few people can remember trips to the Johnny House, Cindy and I spent the first 12 years of our married life making that trek. We appreciate indoor plumbing. But we take it for granted too.

I saw a display of old ice skates at The Historical Society’s open house a couple weeks ago. Remember those double runners that got strapped to the bottom of your boots? Not quite the same as today’s modern molded wonders.

Television has gone from tiny black and white screens to color. Wow, I remember going to Stanley Cram’s house in 1966 to watch Star Trek on a color TV. Heaven. Now there are 52-inch, high definition models with about 200 channels to choose from—if we so choose. And pretty soon that will be the ho-hum norm.

Those old clip on skates...
Yikes.

I could go on and on. That’s the thing: we are surrounded by improvements. I'm not sure we need them all, but I’ll leave that judgment to each individual and family.

It’s nice to go through the evolution of things, and think about it on occasion. It’s nice to appreciate the progress we have made, and also to ask ourselves, “Do we really need that?” Especially this time of year when the commercials on TV have greed as their underlying theme.

In the meantime, I’ll keep on driving my “new” car, and do so happily.

An old hero returns ~ May 4, 1995

David Heiller

When our son interviewed Alan Page on April 27, it brought an old hero of mine back to life, only this time it was real life.

Alan Page football card.
 Noah has one that he graciously signed.

Like many 40-somethings, I followed the Vikings through their glory years of the late 1960s and 1970s. It was a team filled with many gritty players, but the real star was Alan Page.

He played defensive tackle. He wasn’t the biggest player or the strongest. He definitely wasn’t the flashiest. But he was the quickest, the cleanest, the most determined. When you needed the big defensive play, Alan Page came through.

In my young mind, Alan Page was quite simply the best football player ever, the heart and soul of a big, strong, honest football team.

Bob Hertz, Willow River, remembered one game on Thanksgiving against Detroit. Page was called for roughing the passer. It was a bad call, and you could tell Page was angry.

A player today would storm around and get called for unsportsmanlike conduct and a 15-yard penalty. Alan Page just got even. He sacked the quarterback on the next two plays, then intercepted a pass and ran it in for a touchdown.

Maybe that’s how it went. Maybe Bob’s fertile mind has improved the legend. But Alan Page was that good.

Noah came to like Alan Page vicariously, through me and through his Uncle Randy. Randy’s middle name is Allen, and he was such a big Alan Page fan as a kid that he preferred to be called Alan.

Noah loves football. He’s a straight A student when it comes to football. When he read about Alan Page, his young football instincts told him that here was perhaps the best defensive tackle that ever played. Better than his modern day Viking hero at the same position, John Randle.

Alan Page, 
Minnesota Supreme Court Justice 

My respect for Alan Page went beyond the football field. I voted for him when he was elected in 1992 for Minnesota Supreme Court justice. I felt proud when he was elected, because he had somehow confirmed my faith in him. But my respect rose even more when Alan Page agreed to an interview with an 11-year old kid.

How many past or present sports superstars would do that? Most are too busy endorsing tennis shoes, or shunning publicity, or wallowing in it.

And it skyrocketed when I heard a tape of their conversation. Alan Page knew he had an adoring fan at his feet. He had many oppor­tunities to brag and swagger and laugh at Noah’s innocent questions.

But his answers were patient and precise, and they drilled home a central point the way he used to drill running backs: the importance of education.

He must know what comes from the mouth of babes, because some of Noah’s questions beat anything Sid Hartman could throw out, and so did Alan Page’s answers. Two of them stand out.

One was when Noah asked, “What advice would you give kids that play sports?”

Our boy reporter.

Page answered, “Well, the primary advice would be twofold. One, sports are fun. They are very good for health, both mental and physical. And they can be very enjoyable. But it’s far more important to prepare yourself in the classroom, because ultimately no matter how good an athlete you are, no matter how successful you are, at some point your athletic career ends, and you have to become a productive member of society. I would encourage them to enjoy their sports but also to prepare themselves for the future.”

Time and again, Alan Page turned his answer toward the importance of education. I had to smile in admiration. I wanted to shake his hand. Because this is something we struggle with almost every day, with our two kids.

And here was Alan Page, Noah’s hero, MY hero, talking about the very thing WE talk about and work on almost every night. It was so encouraging to hear Alan Page say it so sincerely and clearly.

The other question that stands out was, “Do you think pro athletes of today should be role models?”

Alan Page could have pontificated on that in Charles Barkley fashion. But his answer was as simple as it was wise. “Whether I think they should be or not, we probably treat them that way. I think that professional athletes make reasonably good heroes because of their athletic abilities, but they don’t necessarily make good role models.”

I still don’t really know Alan Page. But he is no longer just my hero. He’s my role model too, and my son’s, and that is good.

Another vehicle tale… ~ September 6, 1984

David Heiller

THE EDSEL, Ford’s greatest fiasco, was introduced to the American public on September 4, 1957, as the first of 110,000 rolled off the assembly lines in Detroit that year and 1958.

Edsel

The Edsel, named after a Ford son, soon became the laughing stock of the country. They were big cars, with a lot of electronic gadgetry, and perhaps ahead of their time. But most people agree that the reason they didn’t catch on is that they just plain looked funny.

It was the round grill on the front end that created the belly laughs, commentator Harry Reasoner said on the radio this week. No car had ever had a round grill before. It made the car look like an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon, Reasoner said.

Ford, I think has the last laugh, though. Just try to buy an Edsel from someone who has one of those originals. They are collector’s items, worth far more than their original purchase price.

Cars are really an important part of our lives. Whether you are one of those people who can curse an engine to life lying on your back in a grease puddle, or you simply write the checks to pay for them, you probably have some stories to tell about a car or truck.

But it seems to be always the negative we remember about autos. Except for those occasional memories of a drive-in movie or a trip to·a Twins game, I can’t think of much good to say about cars. Take my truck, for instance, (Please.) It’s name is Oscar, for my wife’s bachelor uncle, and it shares the Edsel’s reputation for being a laughing stock.

The truck is rusting badly, and leaks air, dust, and snow in the winter. The right door is dented from a tree while hauling wood two years ago. The steering shaft broke last spring, while my wife and son were driving in McGregor at about 10 miles an hour, fortunately. The brakes quit periodically, so that I always carry an extra can of brake fluid. It gets 10 miles to the gallon, going downhill with the wind.

On Monday, while driving about 50 miles an hour on Interstate 35 through Duluth, the latch of the hood came open and the hood flew against the windshield, blocking my vision. I pulled off to the side of the highway, feeling my way like a blind person, and slammed the hood back into place, broken hinge and all.

I’m not complaining. You get what you pay for, and $600 wasn’t a bad price for Oscar. With 90,000 miles, he’ll probably last a good while longer.

But I don’t like to think about Oscar much, because when I do, I think, “What will happen next with this truck?” The answer scares me.

Instead I’ll think about the Edsel, Oscar’s distant older cousin, celebrating its seventieth birthday this week. I knew I should have bought one.

Getting control of the Firewood Supply ~ November 2, 1995

David Heiller

We’ve had a lot of wet weather lately, which has me worried about our Firewood Supply.

Firewood Supply is capitalized because it is a serious subject when you heat with wood.

Most people have their Firewood Supply under control at this point in the year. In fact the true old timer is working on his Firewood Supply for next year, or even 1997, right about now. Maybe someday I’ll be at that point. But things always seem to get in the way, like football games and gardening and an emergency or two.

"Argg"!

So I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll get a cold snap and the rain will cease and the ground will harden and everything will work out fine, like it always does.

In preparation for those perfect conditions, I spent part of Saturday and Sunday in the woods wearing knee-high rubber boots, cutting and splitting several cords of basswood, maple, and red oak.

Two companions helped the time go faster.

On Saturday I worked with the company of our Australian shepherd, Mackenzie. She is a faithful dog. She and our other dog, Ida, walked out with me. Ida split for home after a few minutes, but Mac sat down about 30 feet away and for four hours watched me work.

Kenzie patiently waits,
always alert to any change of plans.

When I would stop for a break and shut off the saw, I would call her over and she would gratefully come, her whole hind end wagging, and we would talk and hug for a few seconds. It’s a good feeling, having a loyal dog like that. It puts a bright spot on what is often a cold and dreary job.

So does working with your son. I asked Noah to help me on Sunday. He came reluctantly. He would rather have spent his time strutting around the yard wearing his football shoulder pads and flexing his muscles and pretending he was John Randle.

His job was to stand the stove-length logs upright, and to split them if he could. If he couldn’t, then at least the logs would be ready for me to split. That saves some bending for me. His 12-year-old back has a few more bends in it than mine. If there is one job that will give you a stiff back, it is splitting wood.

Noah had trouble splitting the green maple. The axe got tangled in the underbrush more than once, and I heard him grumble about it. He is discovering that underbrush is the mortal enemy of making firewood. It nicks your cheeks, catches your saw, steals your hat, and trips your feet.

Dad's worthy assistant.

He did better splitting the oak. When he got tired of standing the wood upright and splitting, he did some tossing.

Tossing a piece of wood gives you a good feeling, especially when you are frustrated with the underbrush. You give a grunt and toss that hunk with an “Aargh!” and you feel better. Don’t ask me why.

At first Noah worked quietly, and when he is quiet, he is not happy. I watched his frustration with trying to split some tough logs. But as the jobs progressed, as he split and tossed and stacked and patiently fought the underbrush, his attitude changed.

He started to feel his body work, his back, his forearms, his triceps and biceps and all those other muscles that he knows by name.

You get a workout making firewood. It’s a hard job. But once you get into the rhythm of the job, you start to feel pretty good.

Then he started talking about the Vikings, and about how this work was helping his muscles and I knew he was doing fine. He talked and I listened. Once in a while I would say “Yeah?” or “Right!” and that was all I needed to say.

He’s going to help me again next Saturday. Mackenzie will too. Then we’ll get the Firewood Supply under control, if the good Lord’s willing and the creek don’t rise.

Let the mystery bee ~ September 21, 1995

David Heiller

Last Saturday I went out to my one bee hive to take their honey. I started the year out with three hives, but two of them died in a cold spell in late April. That was a sign of things to come.

Before I went to the honey bees last week, I made a side trip to a nest of yellow jackets. I discovered them when I was moving an old brush pile about a month ago. They came bub­bling out of the ground so fast I literally ran away.

Bees are a lot of work, especially in a bad year.

But with my bee suit on and a spade in hand, I dug them up on Saturday morning without a sting. I found their eggs and squished them between my fingers, and found the queen and squished her too, and I hate to admit it but it felt good. We play God all the time. It’s just more noticeable with bees and wasps.

It must be man’s baser nature that if it’s a threat to people, it has a lesser value. Those yellow jackets pollinate flowers and vegetables and apple trees just like the honey bees. They sting just like honeybees too. They just don’t make honey, and I just don’t want to have them around.

This is what those bees were supposed
to do for us, but did not in 1995.

Then I went to the bee hive. It had two boxes on top which I thought would be full of honey, after the wonderful summer we had. But I was disappointed to find that the boxes were almost empty. I ended up with just two frames of honey, when I should have had 15 or 20.

I don’t know why. A friend, Sandy Lourey, Moose Lake, had gathered 30 full frames of honey from her two hives the previous weekend. She extracted nine gallons of honey from them.

When I told Sandy about my situation, she asked how old the queen was. I told her three years. “Too old,” she said. She learned in a class that you shouldn’t even try to raise bees with a three-year-old queen. We both agreed we had to learn how to re-queen a hive. Maybe, someday.

Then I called Lee Anderson, who lives five miles away, to see how his bees had done. Maybe I was looking for bad news in the back of my mind. Misery loves company.

But Lee had mostly good news. The first thing he told me was that his son, Chris, age 16, got first place at the Carlton County Fair for a bee display that he made with a frame full of live bees in a plastic box. He went to the state fair with it and got a blue ribbon there. Lee and his wife, Karen, sounded pretty proud of their son, and rightfully so. Chris belongs to the Happy Hour 4-H Club of Kettle River.

Lee hadn’t extracted his honey yet, but he thinks it’s going to be a good year. When he and Chris were gathering bees for the fair display, they found that the frames were full of honey right out to the edges.

He figures his two hives should each yield 20 to 30 frames, depending on whether he kills them off or not. Killing a hive is a sad occasion, Lee said. He does it only when he needs the ex­tra honey, which he did during two recent rainy summers when the bees didn’t produce much and his supply dwindled. He kills them by vacuuming them up with a Shop Vac, then bury­ing them.

Not only is it sad to kill off a hive of bees that worked hard for themselves, and consequently for you, it can be counter-productive. If a hive makes it through the winter, it is healthier the following spring, and gets a head start on honey production, and therefore gives you more honey, unless the queen gets old. This beekeeping stuff is complicated. It’s a guessing game whether to kill off a bee hive, and a moral dilemma too.

One of Lee’s hives did bomb out, which made me feel better. He had put a new queen into a hive this spring, and she kept walking out. Lee stayed there for two hours, putting her back in the box, watching her come out, and putting her in again. Finally she stayed.

But Lee was suspicious of that queen. When his partner, Erv Prachar of Willow River, came out a month later, they checked that hive and found only 50 bees, when they should have found maybe 20,000.

“They hadn’t made one drop of honey,” Lee said with disgust.

Bees are interesting, even for a lazy beekeeper like me. I’m not serious about bees. I want to check them in the spring, put out a new swarm or two, check on them once or twice in the summer, add a box of frames if they need it, and take the honey in the fall.

It’s an approach that usually works. Usually I get honey like Sandy and Lee, enough to eat for a year or two, enough to give away a few jars to friends. Enough to justify the cost of a new swarm, which is about $35.

But this year the hobby didn’t pay off. It bothers me a little. But life is full of mysteries, and in this case I’ll let the mystery bee.

Some good old fair memories ~ August 18, 2004

David Heiller

It must be about 1963 that my Houston County Fair memories begin.

They are all jumbled together now, and I’m not sure how accurate they are. But a few things stand out that I’d like to share, in the hope that they strike a chord with you.

New blue jeans went hand-in-hand with the fair. The smell of new denim has ever since reminded me of the fair. Of course they were about four inches too long, a concession Mom made to the growth spurt that was sure to come before the jeans wore out.

I tried to roll the legs of the new jeans into a respectable cuff, but they never looked right. They were all wrinkled and bulky. It wasn’t cool, man, and already at age 10 I knew what cool was. Mom would work her magic on them and quickly get the perfect cuffs. Cool cuffs. Wearing those blue jeans was kind of like wearing two stove pipes. The legs were stiff!

We bought our tickets for the fair rides in advance at Bissen’s Tavern. They were a bargain, something like 12 for $2. Mom always gave me a little money too, so I was set.

Oh, the excitement of going to the fair in the big city of Caledonia on a gorgeous August afternoon. My sisters and brother and a couple friends and me, and Mom at the wheel of the blue 1958 Chevrolet. We always had a car full. It’s a good thing those old cars had so much room.

David (middle) and his brothers Glenn and Danny
 overlooking the river.

At the fair we would usually split up, Danny off with his cool friends, and me tagging along if I was lucky. My sisters would promenade around the midway, looking for the likes of Danny Holland and Bruce Dennison and Duane Thomford.

I would usually make the rounds with Mom and my sister, Lynette. It wasn’t a bad thing. Mom was a good companion in the vast fair-grounds. I could wander off here and there, and usually pick her out in the crowd. Her red hair came in handy. She liked the building with fish and wild animals, and I would drag her through the livestock buildings too.

We would go on boring rides like the Merry Go Round, which Lynette could handle. The Tilt-A-Whirl was a must too and the Ferris Wheel if we were lucky.

My brother or sisters would intercept us once in a while, like foraging animals, to check in and get money from Mom and do something with Lynette, who had cerebral palsy and could not use her arms.

I remember once a kid about my age stared at Lynette a little too long. I gave him a quick punch to the stomach when no one was looking. It felt so good! Now I feel a bit guilty about it. He didn’t know any better, and I don’t know if my lesson was the right way to make the point.

David with his dazzling bear, Nicky.

One of the fair booths offered prizes if you could throw a nickel and land it on a dot. One year I brought five nickels and made my tosses. One of them landed dead center on a dot.

The huckster at the booth wasn’t such a huckster after all. He gave us a long look, then told me I could have anything I wanted. I picked the biggest bear that hung from the ceiling. It was white, so white it was almost dazzling.

Lynette was even more excited than I was, so I made the difficult decision to give her the bear. We couldn’t decide what to call it, but Mom came up with the perfect name: Nick.

Nick stayed in the house for many years, although he gradually changed colors. White wasn’t such a good choice after all.

My fair memories have faded, and I’ll probably even be challenged on these.

Now that the Houston County Fair is this week. I hope you can relive a few of your own memories, and that your kids and grandkids can make some of their own.

Vacation is question of sanity ~ August 27, 1987

David Heiller

“I’m going on vacation next week,” I told people last week.

“Where are you going?” they asked.

I braced myself. “Texas.”

“Texas! Why in the world would anyone go to Texas in August?”

Mary Ellen and Emily, one half of the reason
for an August trip to Texas.

“You see, I have a sister there, and my wife is a teacher, so it’s now or never,” I answered with a nervous laugh.

“Oh,” they responded with an uneasy look, and edged away.

I discovered that people do not go to Texas in August. People who have been to Texas know that. It would be like people from Minnesota going to the Canadian wilderness in January to get away from the cold.

Even my sister, who I love dearly (remember, I’m going to Texas in August to see her), seemed a bit surprised to hear we were coming to visit. “What should we bring to wear,” I remember asking her.

There was Texas-sized cousin fun for this trek.

“Don’t worry about any cold weather clothes,” she answered simply. “A cold snap here is eighty degrees.”

That should have sounded warning signals.

I mentioned the vacation to Ed and Gloria Bohaty at the Willow River Mercantile. “Oh, we were in Texas in June to visit our daughter,” Ed said. “It was hot then.” He stopped short of saying the next obvious sentence: “And it’s even hotter now, you idiot.” But I could sense it in his voice.

Once my sanity was firmly established, the next question was, “You’ve flying, huh?”

“No we’re driving,” I answered, steeling myself again.

“Don’t you have a couple kids?” they asked. “How long a trip is it?”

“Yeah, we’ve got two kids, ages four and two,” I replied, “and it’s only a 20 hour trip. They live in the north of Texas, Dallas area.”

It is always good to hang out
with nieces and nephews, even in Texas.

“Well, have a good ‘vacation’,” would be the final reply. The way most people said the word “vacation” made me think they did not consider driving to Texas in August with two kids under the age of five much of a vacation.

Time will tell on that. But as you read this, don’t pity me. Because as I write this my imagination soars. All those wonderful images of Texas. John Wayne fighting to the death at the Alamo. Sure, it was hot and dusty at the Alamo. But what a great day in American history, fighting to defend a fort from land we stole from Mexico. Reminds me of Oliver North.

All that Texas heat and fun and family PLUS Malika got
 a new kitty to "love". 

And Dallas, the bright lights and big city captured on television for the last ten years or so. I’ve only seen the show one time, out of respect for my mother, who had me watch the opening episode last year. Bobby Ewing, whoever he is, was coming back from the dead, and sure enough, he stepped out of the shower, and not a bit emaciated. The viewer was then led to believe that Bobby had not been dead at all, that the previous year’s shows had been a dream. That was the last Dallas episode I watched, and the last for my mother too.

No. I have a feeling we’re enjoying this vacation. Like a true Minnesotan, I’m curious whether Dallas is fact or fancy, whether we can survive the car ride and the weather once we get there.

It’s a Texas-sized challenge.

A misty night on the cobble-stoned streets of Fez ~ August.8,1985

By David Heiller

The night was cool. A heavy mist, just short of a fog, hung in the air. Buildings seemed covered in a light, light gauze. The cobblestone street shined, slippery, reflecting light from shop windows, doorways.

David in Sidi Kacem, Morocco in the Peace Corps

The place was Morocco, the city of Fez, the year 1979. Four Americans walked up the steep street of cobblestone, streets so narrow an American car would barely pass through. But there were no American cars here, not even during the bustling days when horses and drivers would crash through, shouting “red bellick, red bellick!”—“look out, look out!”

Now, on this misty spring night, even the bustling crowds were gone, sitting in their homes, talking, or watching the single channel on Moroccan TV, eating hirara, the soup made from leftovers on Sunday night.

The four Americans had rendezvoused in Fez for some fellowship. Each lived in different parts of the country, in smaller cities. They taught English to Moroccan students. They spoke Arabic, after a fashion. They were glad to be together for a day and a night, glad to eat at a restaurant together, glad to speak English and act American.

A Moroccan street.

The damp Fez night gave them even more freedom. With the near-deserted streets, they could walk without stares, without kids pestering them for money, without shop owners crooking a finger and shouting out special prices, which were three times higher than what Moroccans paid.

The Americans had spent nearly two years now, living in this North African country, up to their eyebrows in Islam and its countless differences from their grass-mowing, Christian childhood. So much of this country baffled the Westerners. As teachers, they were treated with respect, and had ultimate control in the classroom. What the teacher said, happened. If it didn’t, students were booted out, sometimes flung through the door like a barroom brawl. Students knew their one chance at making it was to stay in school, pass their Baccalaureate exam, and get an education. Or join the Army if they failed. Or live below the poverty level crammed into a box in the city, or in a dirt-floored hut in the country.

A Moroccan girl running through the streets.

The poverty level was a relative term to these four Americans, as they wound their way up the narrow, misty streets of Fez. By American standards, they were dirt poor. Each earned $250 a month, teaching with the Peace Corps. Out of that came food, and rent, and everything else. But most Moroccans would have grinned and thanked Allah for a salary of $250 a month. Like the bricklayers who worked in the 110-degree sun for $3 a day. Or the men who rode their donkeys through town selling bottles of water gathered at a local spring, shouting “I-ma h-loo, I-ma h-loo”—“sweet water, sweet water!”

Then there was the bottom rung, the beggars. These four Americans had seen them in all shape and size. Some little kids who sucked the tourists in Fez, Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech. Some toothless old ladies who had no family, who lived and died on the street, mumbling rough their gums for pennies and nickels, pleading with their eyes more than their words. Some without legs, or arms, some with polio, or disease.

Some who had used cooking oil that had been laced with jet fuel from leftover American supplies, and now had crippled wrists and feet. No lawsuits or government help for those peasants. The king could spend 40 percent of his budget on the military, but nothing for the poor. No welfare here, except for the kindness in the heart of the passerby.

The four Americans knew all this, as they trudged and talked their way up the shiny, misty streets of Fez. They knew it firsthand. They had seen enough beggars.

This little girls family was so poor they could not keep her. She lived with and worked for another family that could feed her. Her name was Haifida.

And they was another, up ahead, on the left. A man sat on the curb of the cobblestone, shrouded by the mist. He was huddled on his haunches, not sitting or kneeling, bit hunched like a baseball catcher. His eyes were downcast. He did not look at the four well-fed Americans as they approached, though he knew they were coming, could hear their shuffle and strange language. He could hear them as they turned their voices low, then off completely. But he did not look up. He looked down, at the baby he clutched to his chest with one arm. The other arm, bent at the elbow, palm up, asked for help. The man said nothing.

The four Americans did not speak either. They did not stop. The misty night again swallowed the man and his child. And the Americans continued on their way.

Lots to see in Kentucky ~ July 26, 2001

David Heiller

Our family spent a few days in Kentucky two weeks ago. It was an interesting experience. It’s hard to come to any conclusions about a state after only four days, so call these impressions very preliminary.

Roger, Maria, David, Cindy and Noah walking in Kentucky.

A land of tobacco. A lot of people smoke in Kentucky. I saw more smokers in four days than I have in the last year, and that is not an exaggeration. In Somerset, where we stayed, there was a drive-through store for discount cigarettes.

I can only imagine using that. A tinny voice mumbles through a speaker, “May I take your order, please?”

The man says, “Yeah, I’d like a carton of Winston, a pack of Red Man Chaw, and two Swisher Sweets for dessert.”

“Honey,” his wife says in a reminding tone.

“Oh yeah, a pack of Virginia Slims for the missus.”

“Daddy!” comes a voice from the back seat.

“All right,” the old man sighs. Then he says into the microphone, “And a tin of Copenhagen, mint flavored.”

“Would you like to super-size that?” the speaker voice squawks.

“No thanks,” the man answers.

“Drive up to the second window, please.”

One reason a lot of people smoke could be that many folks raise tobacco. We saw hundreds of fields of tobacco while driving the back roads. Some were big, like fields of corn around here. Others were as small as your potato patch.

I asked a local guy if people raised their own tobacco to smoke. He said no, the tobacco we saw was planted by people who had licenses to grow and sell it, to help supplement their income.

My theory is that if you or your neighbors grow tobacco, you might be more likely to use tobacco. People in Minnesota eat a lot of dairy products partly because their friends and neighbors are dairy farmers. We live in a culture that encourages people to “get milk.” Kentucky has a tobacco culture. I always look for the Real Seal on dairy products. I didn’t see any equivalent to the Real Seal for tobacco, unless it was the one that warned about cancer and heart disease.

Lots of religion. There were churches everywhere. The radio was full of religious programming, gospel music, and earnest preachers. I didn’t listen to it much, but one man caught my attention when he told of the “eels of the world.” I thought he was giving an ad about an aquarium until I realized he meant the “ills” of the world.

Related to that was the sale of alcohol, or lack of it. The county we stayed in, Pulaski, was a dry county. You could not buy an alcoholic beverage in the entire county, at least not legally. I wouldn’t bet against someone having a still in the hills. We went to a music festival, and the announcers would periodically remind us, almost with a wink, that we were in a dry county. It was obvious that some of the people at the festival had crossed the county line.

Cheap gas and lots of logging. We saw gasoline as low as $1.12 per gallon. Minnesota could learn something from Kentucky in that department. Why is gas 20 cents more per gallon a thousand miles to the north?

The timber industry is big. We saw a lot of lumber yards, sawmills, and many trucks hauling logs. The hills and mountains are thick with hardwood trees.

There are many horse farms and horses. We drove past numerous homes with huge fields bordered by split rail fences and sprinkled with beautiful horses.

The natural bridge in Natural bridge state park, Kentucky.

The mountains were impressive. We spent a day and a night at Natural Bridge State Park. It is named after a place where wind and water have worn a hole in the mountain big enough to dive a train through. It’s a huge span that gives the park its name. People can walk across it. We rode up to it in a ski lift, which really offered some spectacular views. I got up earlier that morning and walked up to it, 3/4 of a mile. The trail was steep but very well maintained. It was foggy and damp, and I kept expecting to meet a grizzled mountain man at every corner, guarding his aforementioned moonshine factory.

When I got to the natural bridge, I couldn’t see much. Then the mist slowly lifted, revealing mountains and valleys as far as my eyes could strain. It looked so dense and wild. I thought how it must be an isolated life in the mountains, at least in the old days before modern roads and transportation. I bet people that grow up in those mountains have a hard time leaving them. They hold so much power and pull.

Maria and Malika at Natural Bridge State Park.

The award for most catchy cafe name in

Kentucky went to the “Chat and Chew.” That prompted a catchy name contest in the car. My favorite: “Gag and Gossip.”

We only saw a small slice of Kentucky, and only for a short period. But it was an interesting visit, smoke and all.