Living near water

Sunset on Middle Jefferson

Earlier this week I walked a favorite trail. Nine Mile Creek in suburban Minneapolis stretches through a quiet valley surrounded by nice homes. The portion I most enjoy follows a creek from a small park to the Minnesota River - about two and a half miles each way. What I like most about the park and the walk is that it follows a lovely creek nearly the entire distance. (see below)

There is something about being near natural water sources that has alway appealed to me. Since moving to Minnesota in the late 1980s, I have lived in lake homes for all but five years. My townhouse I purchased for retirement living has a pond outside its back door. 

I owe my love of lake life to a trip my family took to Minnesota from Iowa when I was a kid. We visited former neighbors who had a farm in the western part of the state. What I loved about the farm was that it sat on one of Minnesota’s 10,000 (some say 15,000) lakes. Just behind the barn was a dock and boat with enough horsepower to pull a water skier. While I had enjoyed swimming in lakes and gravel pits in Iowa, I had never considered actually living on a lake. After this trip, I had a life goal. I wanted to be able to walk out of my house and jump off a dock.

Memories of living on the shallow, mud bottom lake of Middle Jefferson are among my favorites. Pelicans, seasonal loons, geese, egrets, ducks, and herons were common. Muskrats played on the shore in the cattails. Turtles laid eggs in the lawn. Sunsets were lovely viewed from the screen porch and, after a long day of work, restorative.

Among the best memories are those that were made with my kids and the grandkids. Cruising and tubing in the pontoon boat. Surviving trips to Dinosaur Island and past the Pirate’s Tree*. Swimming off the boat. Cross country skiing and snowshoeing on the lake in the winter was great. Snowmobile tracks made good skiing trails. The slope down to the lake was a great sledding hill.

In my travels, I often seek out waterways to hike and bike. The Great Glenn Way in Scotland. The coast of Portugal. Havasu Creek in Arizona. The Blue Lagoon on Malta’s Comino Island. Isle Royale in Lake Superior. The Mekong and Danube rivers. The Superior Hiking Trail on Minnesota’s North Shore. The water helped make the adventures memorable.

While I wish my current residential pond was larger and didn’t occasionally dry up during droughts, I am fortunate to be living in a place where it is virtually impossible to walk without circling a lake or following a creek. My nearest city park has miles of hiking trails leading past wildlife filled ponds. I don’t need to go far to satisfy my love of water.

While I hope it won’t happen for a few years, I have my “senior living” apartment building already chosen. It sits on a small lake around which there are walking and biking paths. Surprised?

* A small island sat near my home.  It was where dinosaurs lived. Thankfully they couldn’t swim and in the winter when the lake iced over, they hibernated. We were safe. The Pirates tree sat near a small passage from Middle Jefferson to Big Jefferson Lake. From its branches, pirates would drop and seize unsuspecting pontoon boats. We were very lucky that the pirates were alway on coffee breaks when we passed through.

Morning on Nine Mile Creek

Once again a time to reflect; the family calendar

I put the family calendars in the mail yesterday. One sent to the Philippines; one to Iowa. Off to those I’ll not be seeing at Christmas in person this year. A few years ago, I wrote the following about these calendars:

I’ve spent some time this week putting together the family calendar - something I've done now since about 2004. Originally I created it in a calendar program and then printed it at a Kinkos on cardstock, but I now use Shutterfly. I've kept the same content formula - "scanned photos of long-gone relatives and baby pictures of my siblings and I are mixed with digital photos from family events from the past year."

Creating a calendar is a powerful form of reflection for me. The end of the year, familiar gatherings, new children and friends, and the loss of people who may have been a long part of my life, all put me in a bittersweet mood. We cannot, of course, stop the world from turning and would not want it to stop revolving even if we could. As much as I loved my children and grandchildren as babies, I love them even more now as adults, fast growing children, and adolescents. Some old and treasured traditions continued; some became impractical; and new ones were forged.

I expect Christmas 2016 will not be dissimilar because not only do those around us change, but we ourselves do as well: becoming wiser or more foolish, healthier or less abled, more giving or more selfish, and braver or more fearful. Opportunities will arise, as will disappointments. Most years I am lucky enough to find a book or take a trip that impacts my life and thinking in a very substantial, personal, permanent way. And I am happy for that.

The family calendar this year, I hope, fills the same purpose that it always has - to give my family members pleasant reminders of the previous year. My niece's growing family, my grandson’s marching band experiences, and a “who’s who” of cats in the family are among this year’s monthly topics.

Get to work on your calendar and your reflections. I need to start my other Christmas shopping!

As always, this has been a year of change for my family. We moved my 91-year-old mother into a senior care apartment. My grandson Miles earned his Eagle Scout rank. His brother got his first “real” job. My son is making plans to move back to Minnesota. I personally had a good year of travels with my friend Heidi, my son-in-law Aaron, and by myself. My daughter’s family and I honored our years-long tradition of getting together for a week in Minnesota and over Labor Day weekend. My buddy Cary and I took our weekly therapy walks and suppers. I personally had a surprising health condition that made me reflect on mortality and what I need to get done so that when I go to my great reward, my children will not be left with a mess.

When I look back on this year’s calendar in five or ten years, I am sure it will bring a smile to my heart. Luckily, I am one of those people who tend to remember the good more so than the bad. Here’s hoping that stays true.

Sometimes it’s better just to rip off the bandaid

Image source

 Malta, being a former British colony, drives on the left side of the road. Even as a passenger (who has a tough time remembering not to try to get into the driver’s seat on the right side of the car), I found car and bus trips there unnerving, especially the roundabouts. Entering them, I feel clueless.

I’ve driven twice before in countries that drive on the left - Australia and New Zealand. I suspect I am still banned from renting a car in both. 

When my son Brady was working in Wellington, I flew over to visit him for a couple weeks. I flew into Auckland on the northern tip of the North Island, met him, rented a car, and took a leisurely drive south, down through Rotorua, winding up in Wellington on the southernmost tip of the North Island. I am guessing Brady still has nightmares about my driving. “Dad! You are way too close to the edge of the road! Watch out for traffic from the left! Slow down!” We did survive and did not damage the rental car.

Whenever I am in a country that drives on the left, I am reminded of a story told to me by a fellow ARAMCO employee back in the 1980’s. He was a Brit and had worked (military or police, as I remember) in an African country that was becoming self-governing after colonial rule. As a symbol of their newly achieved independence, the leaders chose to change from left hand drive to right hand drive. 

But to do so gradually.

On the first week, cars would start driving on the right.
On the second week, trucks would start driving on the right.
On the third week, bicycles etc…

I could find no verification of this happening in a relatively short Google search, although I found many countries did change from left to right after colonial rule ended. So this story may well have been just a rude, rather racist joke about the ability to self-rule. 

But it does seem to offer a lesson that some changes are best made all at once, not gradually. Changing large tech systems like student information systems, email applications, etc. were best done all in one fell swoop. Chaos often erupted, but it usually died down in a week or so. Should the change have been made over the course of weeks, the chaos, I’m sure, would have lasted much, much longer.

Rip the bandaid off - it’s less painful in the long run.