Our Cupboards Are Bare No More

The final coat of paint is on our kitchen cupboards.

They're no longer bare like this,














but painted in a high-gloss oil base.

I painted the whole room myself. Mike would come in and point out where a second coat was needed or a spot was missed.

Like that bare baseboard at the bottom.

As it did for the walls, the cupboard color palette evolved. At first I thought of doing the trim in yellow, even going so far as to paint the trim of the cupboards above the sink. But I realized how bright the wall was going to be. So I switched to red, to complement the Twister carpet.

One of these days we'll be back up in Bruno. I want to stop at the thrift store because they have the largest collection of curtains I've ever seen. I can visualize the curtains I want, a red and yellow and brown lava lamp–type print. But the poultry valance will do for now.

And to think the kitchen started like this...

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The Day the American Pickers Came

Mike Wolfe and three generations of Maricle Pickers.

When your in-laws have 30 years of acquisitions from garage and antique sales, and they treasure their privacy as much as their acquisitions, the last thing you’d expect them to agree to is a visit from the American Pickers.

But that's what happened back in May. And I couldn't let 2011 go by without writing about it.

Big News in a Small Town
A visit from a show this big in a town this small is huge news. American Pickers is the highest-rated show on The History Channel. Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz crisscross America in their Antique Archaeology van, seeing prized antiques where others might see junk. At least 1,200 people email American Pickers daily. Somehow, my email made it to the top of the heap. (Potential employers, take note.)

Thirty years of acquisitions, including these
1960 scale-model cars, were up for picking.

"You Should Have the Pickers Stop Over."
Our move into Mike’s parents’ house was preceded by clearing out the second story of stuff. Items were sorted into several categories: keepsakes, things to be sold at antique sales, things to be given away or disposed of, and things to be kept for our new household. 

“You should have the American Pickers stop over,” neighbors would tell Mike's parents. We offered to contact the show. To our surprise, his parents agreed. In December I emailed them about the picking potential and rich history of Dodge County, Minnesota. Weeks, then months went by.

Bottoms up: the Pickers paid $30 for these diver shotglasses.

In April we heard from a producer named Jeff. He had a long list of items they wanted in particular, and a request for us to send photos. I did a two-day photo shoot over the Easter weekend, with 120 items prepared, photographed, uploaded, catalogued, downloaded and sent. Thank God we had DSL Internet service instead of the satellite we have today. I’d still be downloading.

"Oh God, Now What Did I Get Us Into?"
What looks like a random pop-in on TV is actually the result of months of military-like planning. My husband Mike talked with producers, production assistants, and location scouts. An assistant wanted to know if there was a deli nearby where the crew could grab lunch.

"Why don't we just throw some brats on the grill?," Mike suggested, knowing how hard it would be for a TV crew to slip in and out of downtown Dodge Center at lunchtime.

“That’s a great idea!,” the assistant said.

Oh God, now what did I get us into, Mike wondered.

So not only was a national television crew stopping by, they were staying for lunch. I was amazed at the aplomb Mike's parents showed. Mike bought brats and buns and sides and plates and plasticware for 18 people. I made three kinds of bars.

At one point, Mike was told the storyline would be about three generations of Pickers in one family: Mike’s dad, Mike, and Wyatt. But in a last-minute call, Mike learned the storyline changed; he would be the only person on camera. Mike's a loquacious sort and has a good command of prices from watching Antiques Roadshow. But flying solo on national TV had him nervous.

Wyatt was disappointed because he wouldn’t be on TV. I was disappointed because I wouldn’t have a meatier blog. But you go with the flow, even if you're going with the flow from the green room.

"Your Mom Has a Good Eye."

Several times during the shoot, Mike would pop in when the Pickers made an offer that he wanted to double check with his mom. Frank Fritz was interested in a Fenton green glass basket. Mike's mom said she'd part with it for $60.

"Your mom has a good eye," Frank told my husband. "But that's what we'd get for it." Their offer of $30 was politely rebuffed.

Picnicking with the Pickers
The crew broke for lunch at about 1. Mike's dad grilled the brats. I helped set up and clear away paper plates and served dessert. I was curious about the Pickers’ experience in Minnesota but figured they needed down time, not to be Pickers but just two guys at a cookout, enjoying lemonade and potato salad and grilled brats that were crusty on the outside, juicy on the inside. One of the cameramen told Mike's dad they were the best brats he'd ever had.

The Pickers nixed the zeppelin photo,
but the producers overrode them. 

The Maricle house wasn't quite the "honey hole" the Pickers dream about, but they did buy a few things. A leather jacket owned by Mike's uncle Harlan, a set of 1960 scale-model cars from a Ford dealership, a pair of bizarre shot glasses with figures of divers sculpted into them,  a model T steering wheel, and a 1929 photo of a zeppelin taken over Davenport, Iowa. We figured the Pickers would pounce on the zeppelin photo since they’re from Iowa.

You see photos like this everywhere, Mike Wolfe said.

But the producers, who call the shots, said they wanted the photo picked.

The Magical Mystery Bus.

"Oh, You're Good."
The Pickers looked at a beat-up tour bus formerly owned by a country singer named Howie Gamber. The bus was crammed with boxes of stuff from the second floor. Mike offered the Pickers a price of $200 for the bus and its mystery contents.  Frank wasn't interested, but Picker Mike was and husband Mike ran with it. "Just think of how it would look with Antique Archaeology on the side," husband Mike said of the bus.

"Oh, you're good," Picker Mike said. 

Dog lover Mike Wolfe and a wary Jerry.

We were afraid our rescue dog Jerry would freak over the house full of people and bright lights, but he lay placidly on the couch, as usual. Mike Wolfe, a dog lover, flipped over him.

By the end of the day, Mike's parents were surprised by the scripted sense of the show. So was Mike, who realizes the final cut of any program is the result of heavy editing and scripting. “I’m a lot more jaded now,” he said.

A Post-Pickers Antique Sale 
We knew the Pickers' visit wouldn't stay a secret forever, not when a county sheriff stopped in front of the house during filming. Not with the school nurse living down the road and around the corner. The next step is to prepare for a spring antique sale. There's a peck of possibilities that the Pickers didn't pick, and you might discover the honey hole of your own dreams.

Follow me on Facebook so you'll know where and when the sale will be held, and what you'll find.

Want to be on American Pickers? Click here. 

Christmas Creativity from a Frugal Ford Family

I still haven't found my Cutting Corners book, the compilation of 1950s household hints by wives of the Ford Rouge Plant factory workers. (Having grown up during the Great Depression, these clever and creative women were the First Frugalistas, and the subject of popular posts like this and this.)

But creative frugality wasn't limited to the women alone. 

As long as I can remember -- and that goes back to the early 1960s -- the figures for our Nativity set were packaged in FoMoCo auto parts boxes. I don't know whose idea it was, my mom's or dad's. But somewhere along the line, someone had an epiphany.

The 8 3/4 x 2 3/4" Trans. Main Drive Gear boxes are just the right size for Mary and Joseph, a shepherd with lamb, a King, the camel driver, and the infant Jesus. 

The 5 x 5" square Retainer boxes house a kneeling King, a donkey, and a cow. 

And a whole flock of 2 3/4 x 2 3/4" Gear and Bushing Assembly boxes house the lambs.

Here is a photo of my dad, Michael Astor; he's the guy on the right. The photo is taken at the Ford Rouge Frame Plant, located on the Rouge River in Dearborn, Michigan. Dad was born in 1904 in Austria-Hungary, or what is today known as Slovakia. Building hand-made wooden houses with thatched roofs is a Slovak folk art.  After several moves over the years and less-than-careful handling, the manger needs extensive rehabbing. But the boxes which house the Nativity figures still feel substantial and sturdy, even where the tagboard is worn. I wonder if today's auto parts boxes could stand a similar test of time and wear.

The Nativity scene evokes worship, controversy, and sometimes irreverence. (Like a Nativity scene with a G.I. Joe action figure.) What I worship about our Nativity set is it represents the creativity and frugality of my parents. It represents an era of durable American workmanship. And it represents a thriving manufacturing base in which an immigrant with a sixth-grade education could provide a solid middle-class life for his family.

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The Sun Doesn't Shine on This Kentucky Therapy Home

What's not to love about this house?
A Kentucky homeowners association begs to differ.
Photo  by Laura Zimmerman, KTSM News Channel 9.

Paula Lee Bright posted this story on Facebook about a Kentucky family forced by its homeowners association to remove a playhouse from their backyard. The custom-made house was used as a therapy house for the family's three-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy.

The story prompted me to think of three things:

• Can the Americans with Disabilities Act be invoked? Or are homeowners associations immune from the act?
• That playhouse is pretty darn cute, much nicer than the garish playsets you see in just about every backyard. 
• The playhouse reminded me of a story about Jeanie Mellem from Bloomington, Minnesota. She wanted the city to allow Bloomington residents to keep backyard chickens. Jeanie compiled photos of chicken coops that would earn Martha Stewart's seal of approval, to show city fathers that chicken coops weren't ramshackle buildings straight out of Bugtussle. 

I hope a lawyer takes up this case. Denying therapy to a family with a special-needs child is the first step. What's next? Not allowing families with special-needs children to move into homeowners associations?

Watch the news story here. Follow Paula Lee Bright and Jeanie Mellem on Facebook.

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There's a Place for Everything. I Just Haven't Found It Yet.

Opening the last few packing boxes, and finding homes for the items inside them, is like trying to finish up a Rubik’s Cube.

I have moved dishes from one cupboard to another and back, realizing the most frequently used items need to be in the most accessible places. And those out-of-the-way, pain-in-the-butt cupboards are perfect for storing items that are used maybe once a year. Canning pots. My zucchini chipper. 

Things are coming together. It’s hard to tell from day to day, but looking back from month to month we’ve made huge progress. When all of the boxes were opened and sorted, things disappeared daily. My Garmin. The steel box with all of our important papers. Luckily, both have resurfaced. I was about to call in a psychic to find the steel box.

The one thing that I haven’t been able to find is my Ford Housewives book. That fact is especially vexing, because there’s a chapter in the book on frugal holiday decorating. There’s one more box in the mud room to open. If the book isn’t in that box, it ended up in the attic. Then God help us all.

Such is life on the second floor of a 150-year-old farmhouse with a décor that includes polished wood and barnwood, 1970s carpet from a Holiday Inn, dresser scarves that my grandma embroidered, a kitschy tablecloth from a 1960s vacation to Canada, and antiques peppered throughout.

There’s a place for everything. And eventually, everything will find its place. But just to be safe, Dodge Center–area psychics, please don’t go on vacation just yet.

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Right Foot Red: Meet the Twister Carpet

As the remodeling of the second story continues, my husband Mike figured I'd want to have the carpet replaced with something more subtle.

I've never been crazy about it. But now, perhaps because we'll be living upstairs, I'm starting to like the carpet. Really like it.

Picture the bubbles of a lava lamp, or a Twister mat with all of the spots red. That's the carpet. It's recycled from a Holiday Inn in Rochester which remodeled its conference rooms in 1972. The hotel was giving away carpet to anyone who could cart it away, and Mike's parents carted home a truckload. They carpeted all the rooms on both floors. They gave carpet to a friend whose carpet was ruined by flooding.

Because the upstairs of the farmhouse has been rarely used, the Twister carpet looks new despite being almost 40 years old. (The downstairs carpet has long been replaced.) Mike had a remnant of gold carpet he offered as an alternative. But I liked how the red of the carpet kicked up the energy of the Pretty Good Room, what we call our miniature great room. With a funky 1970s carpet design and a column finished in barn boards, the room has a feel that's frugal and eclectic.

So if you ever come to visit, we'll be ready for a game of Twister (watch the original 1966 commercial here) -- as long as every command ends in the color red.

Looking out from the Pretty Good Room, with barn boards
on the right, and the door to Wyatt's room across the hall.

The bookshelf at the right was once a doorway to the Pretty Good Room, which at one time was two rooms. The room at the end of the hall is the bathroom: another story in itself. 

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The Day Everything Changed

To most people, the day everything changed is September 11 when terrorists attacked.

To our family, the day everything changed is September 8, when our dog Watch was run over last year.

Watch in August of 2010.

My writing changed. My voice became more authentic. Not that my previous voice was false, but after September 8 I was more willing to embrace uncomfortable topics.

I'd walk our dog Jerry down Shady Pine Road in Bruno and people would ask me if he was a new dog, people who I'd never guessed had known Watch.

"Watch was the soul of this house," my husband Mike said. "He was friendly and fearless."

Wyatt, age 4, and his new puppy Watch.

Mike discovered Watch on a back road of deserted vacation cabins, a road Mike was driving on to pass time before a doctor's appointment. The puppy followed him for about a quarter mile. Mike, having grown up in the country, was used to seeing strays and was planning to drive on.

"Dad, you gotta stop," implored four-year-old Wyatt.

Wyatt named the puppy Watch, after the dog in the Boxcar Children books he enjoyed. Watch was with us for nine years. Something changed with Mike. He brought home every stray he came across.

When we left the house on Shady Pine, there were things we didn't need or didn't want. But there was one thing Wyatt insisted on taking.

Watch.

If we didn't dig him up and take him with us, Wyatt said, we would have to come back every April 1, the day that we decided was Watch's birthday, to see his grave.

Watch, or more accurately his remains, is now re-buried on the farm in Dodge Center, near my Doberman Stoney and Mike's hunting dog Lady. I have no idea what will come of the house on Shady Pine Road. It may be bought for a song as a vacation property, or it may be bulldozed someday. Despite the recent upheaval we've experienced, having Watch with us again somehow takes us back to before the day everything changed.

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Accio BobVilatas: the Old House Remodeler's Magic Spell

Oh, how I wish that completing the remodeling of a 100-year-old upstairs was as simple as summoning a Harry Potter–like spell.

Lacking those powers, I will have to be content with showing before and during photos.

This is the north room back in May of this year. Like all rooms on the second floor, it was used as storage for 30 years. Roughly 11 by 18 feet, this room was to become our kitchen,  dining room and living room.

Here it is today. We call it our Pretty Good Room
rather than a great room.

On the other end of the room was a makeshift closet.
This end was to house our dining nook.

Mike and his dad started by removing the wall plaster down to the lath, which is how walls were built 100 years ago. Mike said in some places of the house he found horsehair mixed with the plaster to strengthen the hold. 

New paneling is put up over the laths.

Wyatt's room is his dad's old room. 

It's taking longer than we expected. But it's getting done. 

Moving In with the Parents at Age 50

I’ve pondered a long time about how to write this post. Being a fiftysomething whose family is moving in with the in-laws is never an easy thing to disclose. But after times of feeling despair and times of feeling euphoria, I’ve come to view the decision in five words: it is what it is.

There are many reasons to look forward to the move to Dodge Center in southeastern Minnesota.

• My husband Mike and I will have more job possibilities, as Dodge County has an unemployment rate of 5.5% compared to Pine County's rate of 8.9%. (Minnesota readers, see how your county rates in this cool map.) 
• Our son Wyatt will have a shorter bus ride to a school that offers more academic and athletic choices than his last one.
• Mike will be able to hang out with friends he’s had for decades.
• Wyatt will be able to see his grandparents more often than twice a year. 
• Shopping will no longer take up the entire day. 
• There's a free vanilla softserve with our dog Jerry's name on it. 

An Emerging Demographic Trend
This boomer boomerang trend is happening to more families than ours. Don’t ask me for statistics; moving back in with the parents at age 50 is something you don’t put in status updates or announce to your network. (Blabby bloggers excepted.) Heck, 25-year-olds get the fisheye if they say they’re moving back in with Mom and Dad.

So I say, let’s embrace this demographic trend. We are FIBBERs, or Fiftysomething Boomerang Boomers. Marketers are missing a prime opportunity here.

The Waltons to the Rescue

I became at peace with the move after watching an episode of The Waltons, a 1970s drama about a Depression-era family in Appalachian Virginia. In an episode entitled “The Heritage,” a land developer offered to buy the Waltons’ property because of the mineral springs on their land. After much thought, patriarch John was ready to sell. Then eldest son John-Boy observed that the decision to sell should be made by the two youngest children, Jim-Bob and Elizabeth. The five older children would take with them years of memories -- footfalls on the stairs, sounds and smells of breakfast, chattering voices around the kitchen table -- but the youngest would scarcely remember this heritage.

That’s when I realized that three generations living under one roof doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I don’t have delusions about the move. Life won't always be peach cobbler and homemade ice cream. No professional likes to admit to needing help paying bills, and no older parent likes to admit to needing help around the house. But it's that mutual need, that exchange of value, a willingness to work together, and an unbending love of family that trumps stiff-necked pride, that will pull us through.

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When God Tells a Joke,Ask for the Punchline

The stormy weather of late and this lovely guest post at Marketing Mama^TM  about the spirituality of children made me think of this story.

About eight years ago I was home with my son Wyatt, then six, during a severe thunderstorm. I was afraid we'd have to take cover, and to cover my own nervousness, I lamely told Wyatt not to be nervous, that our guardian angel was watching over us.

"I know," he said. "God talks to me all the time."

"He does?," I asked after a long pause. What does He say?"

"He tells me jokes."

"What KIND of jokes?," I asked, after an even longer pause.

"'Why did the donkey cross the road?"

I marveled at how the joke either sounded like a) an adult's idea of a kid's idea of what God would say; or b), how God would communicate with a six-year-old boy who loved jokes.

If only I'd had the presence of mind to ask what the punchline was.

Thank you, Missy and Liz, for bringing this memory to mind.

Grandma Was Right:Dogs Like Carrots

Having a dog with anxiety issues, I was intrigued by a recipe called Calming Diet for Your Anxious Dog. You make it with cooked turkey, cooked barley, chamomile flowers made into tea, parsley, olive oil, and cooked carrots.

I could picture my grandma telling her mother, "See, I told you!"

This is one of my favorite stories of Grandma's. It takes place in southwest Detroit in the late 1940s. Grandma would cook carrots for her dog, Tiny, using a small pan only used for the dog's meals, and adding a touch of butter as the carrots cooked. One afternoon Grandma had to take the streetcar downtown, so she asked her mother to feed the dog. "Remember, she likes a little butter with her carrots," Grandma said.

When she got home, she saw that not only had Tiny left the carrots uneaten, but had spit them out on the floor. "Did you cook them in butter?," Grandma asked Baba.

"Butter!? For a dog!? I should say not," said Baba, a strict Slovak-born woman.

So Grandma gathered up the carrots, heated them in Tiny's pan, and cooked them with a pat of butter. Tiny gobbled up every last one and licked her dish clean.

"Nuh! Now I've seen everything," Baba said.

Grandma was right. "Eat your carrots" applies to dogs, too.

I wrote more about my grandma, Mary Pontell, in a guest blog for Brandon Lacy Campos at  My Feet Only Walk Forward. 

Don't Throw Away That Pickle Juice -- and Other Frugal Fifties Hints

“Mom, these berries taste iffy,” my teenage son Wyatt said of the strawberries softening in the fridge.

“That’s okay, I’ll make them into a smoothie,” I said.

“Mom!,” Wyatt admonished.

“What you are witnessing is a new generation of Depression parent,” I explained.

I grew up in a blue-collar family in a working-class suburb of Detroit. My mom was a Depression-era mom: saving string in a ball, reusing aluminum foil, recycling boxes Christmas after Christmas. My dad worked at the Ford Rouge plant, located at the confluence of the Rouge and Detroit Rivers. The weekly employee newspaper was the Rouge News, which in its heyday had a circulation of nearly 90,000. The women’s section had a column called “Cutting Corners,” which featured the household tips of wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters of Ford employees.

Eventually, the hints were collected in a book. My mom punched a hole in her copy and hung it from a string on a hook by the kitchen sink. I keep the book in the same place in my house today. The cover is gone and so is the copyright date, but it’s from the 1950s, judging by the artwork in the book. 

Don’t Throw Away That Pickle Juice

Cleaning a lampshade? Removing a stain from a felt hat? Fixing a cracked vase? The Ford housewives had a better idea. When something wore out, they couldn’t take the car and run out to Wal-Mart and buy another one. Even if they had a second car, or a Wal-Mart, their Depression-era sensibilities wouldn’t have permitted them the extravagance. 

Some hints from the cooking section:

• When you have emptied your catsup bottle, rinse it with a bit of vinegar and use this in your dressing for salad, This is especially good when added to French dressing, says Mrs. Gene Peron.

• Mrs. James Ward has a helpful hint concerning burnt toast. Instead of throwing it away or scraping it with a knife, try rubbing it on a grater. The burnt spots will disappear and so will the burnt flavor.

• Sandra Wenner suggests saving the waxed bags in which gelatin and puddings are packaged. She says they make handy leak-proof containers for lunch box pickles or other juicy foods.

• Mrs. Ralph Campbell says she never throws the sweet pickle juice away when the pickles have been eaten. She uses the vinegar juice in mayonnaise for potato and vegetable salads. It adds zest to the salads and also helps to save on mayonnaise.

Remnants of Gracious Living

The book publishes the household hints exactly as they appeared in the Rouge News, with the household address and the division in which the husband (or son or brother) worked. Today, some of those addresses are more than likely vacant. For that matter, entire neighborhoods of Detroit are gone. This book provides a glimpse of Detroit as a city of prosperity and gracious living, with marquisette curtains and embroidered dresser scarves and gleaming mahogany furniture. (Mrs. M.J. Polakowski cleaned hers with cold tea to keep it looking new.)

I realize that not all women in the 1950s lived the life of June Cleaver or Donna Reed. Abuse and addiction were closeted, abuse considered the husband’s prerogative, addiction stifled by stigma. Some women must have been bored silly, wanting to be the breadwinners instead of waxing book covers to make them easier to dust. But what these women did was important. They were the ultimate multitaskers, the first frugalistas, the forerunners of Martha Stewart.

Today the Ford Rouge plant is the Ford Rouge Center. It comprises 600 acres instead of 2,000 and employs about 6,000 people instead of its zenith of 100,000. Its eco-friendly architecture includes a green roof. The Ford housewives would undoubtedly approve of such thriftiness. They’d also agree that iffy strawberries make spiffy smoothies.

What frugalities do we practice today that will make our kids and grandkids say, “Can you BELIEVE they did that?”

Online 101: What I’ve Learned About e-Learning

In the week that my 14-year-old has been attending online school as an alternative to a three-hour roundtrip bus ride, I’ve learned a lot about online learning.

No matter how computer-savvy you think you are, you won’t get the hang of the system overnight. Especially if you’re a Mac person navigating a system that was probably designed by a PC person.

Online school requires a different mindset. The markers that give you breathing space in a brick-and-mortar school—semester breaks, inservice trainings, weekends—don’t necessarily exist in online school. Plan your work accordingly and you’ve got a free weekend. If you need to play catchup, the virtual school doors don’t swing shut on Saturdays and Sundays.

Online school isn’t going away. Researchers from Harvard have predicted that half of all high-school courses could be online by 2019.

Online school isn’t a hands-off proposition for parents. Attendance monitor, lunch lady, and PE aide are some of the roles that you play. Checking student progress through the parent portal. Making sure the student breaks up computer time with physical activity. And preparing two more meals a day that you didn’t before. When filling out the initial paperwork, I was surprised to see the application for reduced-price meals that parents see every year. (This information, I learned, is used to determine school funding.)

“What kind of reduced-price meals are served in an online school?,” I wondered.

“Spam,” said Wyatt, who wants to be a standup comic.

Like online anything in its infancy, online education gets the fisheye from people. Back in the 1990s online dating was considered for losers. Today, match.com and eHarmony have over 29 million and 9 million members respectively. Not that I’m comparing education to dating. But the similarity is this: what was once considered unseemly eventually becomes mainstream.

Controlling costs of education is a hot topic in state politics. During the Gubernatorial debate at the State Fair last September 3, Republican candidate Tom Emmer floated the idea of specializing university offerings by geographic locations: medical careers in Rochester and public safety in Fergus Falls, for example. (The actual words are at 26:22.) Emmer didn’t win. But a lot of candidates who might agree with Emmer did.

Former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty has frequently touted the idea of “iCollege.” But iCollege can’t serve the entire state without iBroadband. Independence Party candidate Tom Horner was an advocate of statewide broadband access. I hope it’s an issue that Governor Dayton takes up.

At the end of Wyatt's first week my husband Mike took him and his buddy Damion to a movie in Hinckley, followed by a stop at DQ. The movie was a comedy, Paul, a fun way to unwind after a sometimes-trying week. 

This summer our family will be moving to southeast Minnesota. Wyatt will finish out this school year online, and next fall will be attending a school that’s six miles away instead of 18 miles away. He's looking forward to it. For now, online school is filling a niche that needed filling. And it's a learning experience for all of us. 

Ninety Minutes on a School Bus: One Way

A ninety-minute one-way school bus ride will make a parent do unexpected things.

Like enrolling your kid in online school when you’ve been a lifelong public school advocate.

My family lives on a five-acre farm outside of Bruno, a town of 102 in the northern part of Pine County, Minnesota. My 14-year-old son attended Willow River School, a K-12 school of about 400 students that comprises the entire Willow River School District. Back in 2001 Willow had a student-to-teacher ratio of 13:1, which is why we open-enrolled there. Depending on the number of students riding that year, pickup time at our house was anywhere from 6:30 to 6:45 a.m., with arrival at the school at 8:10.

Vic Waletzko's bus in our driveway.

The district that we live in is East Central. Through a series of consolidations and bifurcations going back to 1947, East Central consists of four smaller school districts: Askov, Sandstone, Kerrick and Bruno. (Thank you to Deborah Sewell for this piece of research.) At one time, there were three schools within eight miles of our house. Today, the nearest school is 18 miles away. 

Over the years I got to know the bus drivers very well; anyone who transported my kid that many miles needed to know he was appreciated. At Christmas that meant making pierogi for Vic Waletzko or gifting Harvey with a tin of Burt’s Bees Hand Salve. (Imagine what cold weather does to a driver’s hands on a bus ride that long.)

The Pre-Bus Commute

 It took a 90-minute bus ride to make 
me enjoy the music of Miley Cyrus.

With Vic I worked out an arrangement that cut half an hour off Wyatt’s bus ride. I drove Wyatt eight miles to the Bruno Deep Rock in town, and waited there with him until the 7:15 pickup. We would use that extra half-hour or so to review what Wyatt would be doing that day, practice spelling words, or just hang out and listen to MIX108, the pop radio station out of Duluth/Superior. (Another unexpected consequence of a ninety-minute bus ride: you develop an ear for Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga.)

Our family’s experiences sync up with the findings of an award-winning report by the Rural School and Community Trust. The 2002 study examined the results of school consolidations in West Virginia in 1990. Among the findings:

• ·       In four years the number of children who rode buses longer than two hours a day doubled, even though 25,000 fewer children rode buses.
• ·       In 10 sample rural counties, 100 advanced courses had not been offered in the past two years despite being promised through consolidation.
• ·       Students and parents reported stress and exhaustion. Student grades dropped, as did participation in after-school activities and time spent with family.

I can attest to the stress, especially in winter. Our house is two miles south of state Highway 23, those two miles consisting mostly of gravel and dirt roads. On an unplowed road or on an icy road, I would never know how much time was needed for the pre-bus commute.

But for eight years, we managed. By seventh grade we both began to pay attention to the commercials on MIX for online school. What finally made the bus ride unmanageable was junior high sports.

Away basketball games would mean Wyatt started homework as late as 9 p.m. and had a wakeup time of 5:30 a.m. His grades took the hit. My husband Mike and I tag-teamed driving Wyatt to algebra tutoring at 7 a.m. and picking him up at 5 from drafting tutoring. It was something we gladly did, and are grateful to the Willow River teachers who put in these hours. But 72 extra miles a day, compounded by soaring gas prices, made for an unsustainable course.

The Consolidation Conundrum

I’m sharing this story because I’m sure it’s happening in many other school districts across greater Minnesota. It wouldn’t surprise me if the wave of school district consolidations that occurred in the 1990s occurs again as a perceived cost savings. (The findings don't bear that out, though.)

At one point or another, every parent wrestles with what’s best for the community versus what’s best for his or her child. People have cautioned me and Mike about online school, bringing up the usual warnings: time management, educational standards, socialization. All things we’re keenly aware of. And things I’ll be writing about in future posts.

My response is usually this: “Would you be okay with your kid having a ninety-minute one-way bus ride?”

Picasaweb photo credit: luis alejandro es

Jerry's First Christmas

On Christmas Eve our family left the woods of northern Pine County and ventured down to southeastern Minnesota. Mike's parents live there in a hundred-year-old farmhouse on the edge of the prairie. It was the first extended road trip for our rescue dog Jerry, the first road trip that lasted longer than a trip to the vet's. The eight-hour round trip made me realize how far Jerry has come in the past three months.

When I first started taking Jerry for on-leash walks, he was afraid to walk past my husband Mike's Dodge Ram pickup. Yesterday Jerry clambered right in and lay quietly beside me, bright-eyed and alert.

It's been such a long time since Mike and I traveled with a growing puppy, we not only forgot to bring Jerry's dog food for the day, we forgot his breakfast in the flurry of morning activity. We stopped at a McDonald's to order two hamburgers for Jerry, augmented by French fries that my son Wyatt and I offered him.

At one time Jerry cowered when anyone approached him. Yesterday he basked in the hugs, hand-fed kibble, and turkey scraps which he accepted delicately with a soft mouth.

As I related the story of how Jerry entered our lives to Mike's cousin Carmen, I realized, Jerry is doing well. Though he tries our patience at times with his chewing, he's a sweet dog. And despite whatever abuse or neglect he experienced early in his life, Jerry has never had a housetraining accident: not even after drinking the two bowls of water Aunt Evvie brought him, undoubtedly needed after the salty McDonald's fries.

When we finally said our goodbyes, we left through the front door of the farmhouse and headed to the truck, which was parked at the side of the house. Jerry, though, made a beeline for the side door of the farmhouse, ready to continue the visit.

First fast-food fries, first long road trip, first Christmas, first visit with extended family. Every day is filled with mundane moments that in some small way are exciting firsts. To you lovely readers who have stumbled upon this little blog,  I wish for you a year filled with those moments.

5 Favorite Memories of Watch

I’ve been avoiding writing about my dog Watch.
Sometimes you feel you shouldn’t talk about the loss of someone you love, even the someone is a dog. But I’d like to share this with you, my readers, because you barely had the chance to know him. And the time that our family had with him was a gift.
Here are my five favorite memories of Watch.


His first 24 hours with us  My husband Mike and son Wyatt found Watch abandoned on a back road nine years ago. Wyatt named the puppy after the Alden children's pet in The Boxcar Children stories. We fed Watch, bathed him, removed no fewer than three dozen ticks, and flea-dipped him. He slept for most of the first three days. It only took one "Watch, NO!" for him to learn that he was to go outside, not in the living room, for bathroom breaks. And that dining room tables aren’t for jumping up on.


Tooting his own horn Watch found an old bicycle horn on the ground, picked it up in his mouth and ran around the yard with it, biting down the bulb, honking as he ran. That was one of the reasons he earned…


The name “Doofus” Watch is the only dog I know who came to two different names: “Watch” and “Doofus.”


Clunking heads We have a small house, so two people can often see the same thing when standing at the front door and the back patio door. One day, with Watch at the patio door and Tipper at the front door, both saw the same squirrel. We let them out. They converged. And we could hear the "clunk" of heads from inside the house.


His love of the chain saw Watch loved to go with Mike on his jaunts to the woods to cut firewood. Hunting dogs get excited when their master picks up his shotgun. Watch would get excited when Mike picked up his chain saw. One Sunday afternoon Watch was asleep on the floor as I was listening to A Prairie Home Companion. Sound effects guru Tom Keith imitated a chain saw, and the sound was so authentic Watch jerked his head up, rarin' to go to the woods.

Though he tries my patience at times, I love Jerry. And loving a new dog doesn’t negate the existence of the old one. As the mother of one child, I know what women with several children mean when they say “I love all my children equally.”

Full court press

“Mom, do you have an iron?” my 14-year-old son Wyatt asked.

Oh-oh, I thought. Busted.

“I need my tie ironed for the game.” Wyatt’s on the Willow River junior high basketball team, and the players are required to wear dress shirts and ties on game day.

I defaulted into “Sprinkle it with water, then run it through the dryer on touch-up.”

“That doesn’t work.”

I squirm.

“I know!” he said after a moment of thought. “I’ll go to FACS class and iron it there.”

I was impressed. Problem solving skills, a willingness to do domestic work, and looking snazzy while doing it. A three-pointer!

The Pentagon Takes Shape

“No it won’t,” I told my husband Mike.

“Yes it will,” he insisted.

The issue being debated is the completion date of the Pentagon, the five-sided chicken coop that Mike is building. When the calendar hits November, a race begins to see which reaches the finish line first, December 31st or whatever major project is on the table.

To my way of thinking, progress is slow. If you can’t track it on an Excel spread sheet, it’s not happening.  Mike says progress in construction occurs in baby steps and giant leaps. Putting up the frame, filling in the corners and caulking up cracks are the baby steps. Putting up walls and installing windows are the giant leaps.

One of the rules on our farm, outside of No Mean Animals, is Don’t Throw Anything Away Because The Minute You Do You’ll Wish You Hadn’t. The drawback being, it’s easy for your property to lose curb appeal. The benefit, you can throw together a chicken coop for roughly fifty bucks.

The former owner of our house also believed in the No Throwaway Rule. Mike was rummaging in the garage and found a stash of small windows and a couple of sliding patio windows, making the Pentagon a chicken coop with a picture-window view.  All windows either slide or crank open to keep the interior from becoming a broaster.

The finishing touch is a set of 1960s-era monkey bars that will be joined to the Pentagon by a chicken run made of orange plastic snow fencing. The monkey bars are from the old Kerrick School and are close cousins of the monkey bars from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Our set will be entirely covered with snow fencing during Phase Two of construction.

Our farm has been a diploma mill for foxes earning a Ph.D.: Pilfering Hens Daily. But no more. Whenever the Pentagon will be completed, it'll be "better than new," an expression my Dad used whenever he finished a repair job. He'd be proud of Mike's work. The Pentagon's skeleton has withstood winds of fifty miles an hour. It will be sunny and spacious. Add WiFi and I might commandeer it for a writer's office!