Feeling Reckless and Goofy

I am feeling reckless and goofy today…so watch yourself.  I might even treat myself to an ice cream cone.  Although, as everyone knows, I am much more a root beer float kind of a guy.  Rich, sweet, and frothy…refreshing and cool…and will quench your thirst.

To prove the point — that I am reckless, goofy and like a root beer float — I thought I would experiment with a photo.  This is the thing the kids do.  Pictures in a mirror.  I took two.  And at least for a while it puts a face to A Little Tour in Yellow.  (Consider this a short-running post; one that lasts until I sober up, perhaps.)

A couple things to note.  I am indeed wearing a yellow gingham shirt.  Also note that I am indeed wearing a dark green sock.  Inexplicably.

And inexplicably I felt the need to lean back when taking this picture.  That could still be a symptom of a rib injury suffered a little less than seven days ago, but we don’t want to talk about that.

Do you think I am starting to look like my brother?

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Meandering a Mendota Trail

The leaves have begun to fade, showing distinctly it is late summer.  Even the flies that were an annoyance just a few weeks ago have mostly disappeared.  But there still is plenty of summer to see along the Minnesota River in Mendota, Minnesota.  Flowers, birds, an occasional deer, and always snakes and frogs.  Snakes and frogs, they seem to coexist in a rather unpleasant way…if you’re a frog.

I walk the trail whenever I have a meeting at my office in Eagan.  I make a point to plan an hour for it.  To erase some of the guilt, I bring along my phone and even try to get in one or two calls.   There are picnic tables at the Mendota Historic Site which make for a good outdoor office.

Autumn Sneeze Weed?

But my trail is becoming less dress shoe-friendly and an invasive species of weed — which I think is toxic — is taking over more and more of the trail.  It will take more than some pretty yellow weeds and mud puddles to keep a dedicated walker off the trail, however, and I am dedicated to this trail.  Plus I like to take a leak at point high on the river bank half way through my walk.

Thinking is the real purpose of this walk.  I don’t know why, but this place more than others is good for sorting out heavier issues, perhaps because I am usually very much alone on this trail.  I think about me.

When I walk my neighborhood, I tend to look more at what is going on with other people.  There are lawns and gardens to judge, shops to shop, and a coffee shop to snoop into for a look at who’s talking with whom.

I still think a lot about myself, but I daydream about my past, about my childhood.  My neighborhood reminds me of Matchbox cars and forts built in rows of lilac bushes.  Some of the old houses bring me back to a time when a television wasn’t forever turned on in the living room.  Once upon a time you could walk into an old house and hear only the sound of a floor fan blowing warm summer air through an otherwise quiet space.  I miss that, in fact I must miss that a great deal because walks in my neighborhood have a hard nostalgic twist to them.  I cannot walk there without somehow walking into the past.

Not good for loafers or wingtips.

Down along the river, however, I am neither here nor there.  I am literally between my private life and my public one, the one that involves work, clients, and petty responsibilities.  I am suspended between the two while also in a place I enjoy.  It is a haven of sorts and that is why I think it works well for sorting through thoughts and feelings.

I feel deeply, think deeply but often struggle to be heard.  In this place though I am always heard.  I am the only one listening.  There is something nice about that.

Mendota is a Dakota word for meeting and the name describes the meeting of the Minnesota River and Mississippi River.  And as silly as it might be, it feels like a good place to join and rejoin ideas, too.  Private and public meet, mingle and flow on.

But back to the trail…

Don’t miss the trail…

It is getting late in the summer, but you can still see wild flowers and jump across spring fed rivulets, you can swat some stubborn flies and feel the heat of the August sun.  Best of all, you can pretty much do it all entirely undisturbed along the river in Mendota.  It is one of my favorite urban walks in St. Paul and Minneapolis.  It might even do me some good.

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Sextons, Cemeteries, and Opportunities [save to drafts]

A job outdoors with cut grass and lush flower beds appeals to me.  I am sure the right job as a grounds keeper might satisfy the appeal of being outdoors digging in plants and dirt.  And one might expect a job as a greens keeper at a high flying country club would be the pinnacle of a gardener’s profession, but I think the edge has to go to the sexton.

A sexton, of course, tends to the grounds and buildings of sacred places, especially cemeteries.  That strikes me as a noble profession with a very justifiably noble title.  In fact a person might confuse a sexton with one of the clergy.  (A sexton doesn’t have any official clerical responsibilities, does he?)  It is an old, dignified position that exudes a sense of place and tradition.  You might expect a sexton to carry engraved calling cards while a greens keeper might have a receipt for a Coke and candy bar ready in his pocket.

While all sextons should share the dignity and obligations of their important calling — we do we have some unsavory sextons in Dickens, correct?  Dark Shadows? Let’s just call them colorful characters — not all cemeteries are alike.

Certainly we should be proud of even the most humble of cemeteries (I have visited quite a few) and they require a special service unique to their fading memory.  Nevertheless, I would want to be the guy responsible for a large, very old cemetery, preferably one with rolling hills, mature oaks and elms, and a pond or two.  It should have an old chapel and mausoleum, built of heavy stone and fitted with thick glass windows.  While impractical, I would prefer the drives in the cemetery be of gravel, nothing more.  Hearses and old sedans sound best crunching gravel.  And of course the grounds of this cemetery should be thickly covered with deep ancient lawns, large overflowing flower beds, and just enough shrubs to break up the rhythm of repeating head stones.

Yes, golf courses are fine, and one would not be wrong to argue that they have thick lawns and so forth, but they are entirely different places.  First off, you get a better mix of people and activities at cemeteries.  At a golf course people golf.  They always move more or less in the same direction and do more or less the same thing over and over and over.  And guess what…in the winter?…no golf!  That just won’t do.

In a cemetery you never know who might show up.  Young and old, happy and sad, fit and feeble…there is room for everyone and let’s face it, when you go to a golf course people pretty much look the same in Cutter & Buck walking shorts and Palm Springs baseball caps.  My sense is golf courses sort of lost their dignity with the introduction of plastic bottles anyway.  Even the most elegant event can be dashed with a plastic bottle of Miller Lite sweating in your lap.  You don’t see bottle beer at cemeteries.  People still sneak in flasks, and with that there is dignity.

I also think people will be a bit more forgiving at a cemetery.  You won’t hear complaints about the condition of grass covering the graves in Section 6 the way you might hear someone gripe about a green or the rough.  People will be grateful old Uncle Dick is resting peacefully under the oaks, just as he wanted it, and the lawn is simply taken for granted.  That’s the way cemeteries should be.

I want to be at a place where I can wander and kick acorns, a place where I can stop and think, and there are few places so well suited for those activities than a cemetery.

And you can have some fun in cemeteries.  When I walk around Lakewood Cemetery in my neighborhood, I like to wander through the forest of giant marble obelisks and monuments marking the plots of Minnesota’s founding families.  If I notice a car coming from around the gate, I quickly adopt a family, stand respectfully before some giant tomb, and bow my head.  If nothing else people certainly appreciate seeing someone visiting a grave, even if I am pulling one on them.  Visiting graves shows continuity and respect, which is the life of a cemetery.  Plus I don’t think the occupant of an adopted tomb would mind the little joke.

Of course these giant head stones do put a bit of giddyup in a guy’s heart.  If you’re going to compete with the Pillsburys or the Fridleys and expect a forty-foot tall tower of marble to mark your grave, you best get a thing or two accomplished.  Otherwise erecting a giant monolith in your honor would just seem vain.

Being vain and being a sexton don’t seem compatible to my way of seeing it.  I’d rather be the guy in khaki pants — pressed of course, because I am a sexton — and blue chambray shirt clipping back the petunias while you bring little Johnny and Sally out to see where Grandpa steps off to heaven.  And when the time comes for you to catch up with Grandpa, I’ll dig a mighty fine place for you to rest, nice and square, carefully cut as to not disturb the neighbors.  Doesn’t that sound nice?

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Tonight’s Walk in the Past

 

Image by Jeff S. Photography via Flickr

 

Tonight when I stepped into the woods, my thoughts wandered from the familiar path of clichés and manic torment to a place of distant memories.  As much as I wanted to gather my thoughts and sort out ideas about work, life, love and all the things walkers should sort out, I just couldn’t go there.

 

 

 

Instead I was overwhelmed by the familiarity of the woods; not so much the woods as I stand in them now, but just the familiarity of it, of it all.  The scents and sounds, the moist colors of green and earth.  It captured me again.  I listened intently — and so very effortlessly — to the sounds of the woods; the birds, wind, and the occasional snap of a twig.

 

 

 

As quickly as I stepped into the woods I as quickly felt I had found myself again, I found myself as a little boy playing in the ravines and hills around my first home.  I was a good kid, smart and, for what I had, somewhat bold, too.  I spent much time alone wandering, exploring.  There must have been a period of years when my clothes were forever stained with grass and mud, my skin scratched and bug-bitten.  The polished set, I did not represent well.  I liked that.  I fancied myself a pioneer.

 

 

 

It wasn’t perfect though.  My tangled mop of bleached blonde hair didn’t quite fit the adventures I sought.  I thought black hair would be more appropriate.  (Look more like an Indian, you know.)  But I certainly did make the best of it.

 

 

 

Like I dd so often then, I wandered off the path tonight, wandered through the brush and the weeds.  I discovered a place where the deer get through the fence and saw a young buck on the hill on the other side and felt as proud of my discovery as I would have felt when I was 10.

 

 

 

Then I returned to the path in the woods and as I put my foot onto a root to step up I felt a break, a pause in it all.  A snap, like the snap of a hypnotist’s fingers to awaken the slumber.  Think of a double-hung window hanging in my chest slipping unexpectedly and slamming shut.  Or think of a guillotine.

 

 

 

A more nervous chap might have feared a heart attack, or at least steadied himself.  But I froze.  I stopped and in that moment I understood exactly what broke.  I wasn’t young anymore.  I wasn’t the little boy playing around in the goddamn woods.  I was just a man on a walk, and not a young man either.  I had reached a point where I can’t say if I am toward the end or just wandering about.

 

 

 

Just shrug it off.  That’s what you do.   And that’s what I did.  There is no reason why I can’t come back to the woods and step off the trail again and wander in the past.  Until then, time spent on ideas about work, life, love and all those other things, well, those are things a little boy doesn’t really understand.  So in the end I am happy I have made it this far and have been given the opportunities, good and bad, that I have had.

 

 

 

One can’t help but wonder what tomorrow’s walk might be.  There is something promising about that.

 

 

 

Maybe If I Write About It

Photo credit: indywidualny

Dear Reader…don’t be embarrassed by anything you find here.  It is all meant to get me from A to B and maybe just beyond a bit.  That’s all.  More fundamentally, this is all about getting ideas down on “paper”, so to speak.  Although…perhaps…writing on a computer might be like taking a ride in a car and calling it a walk.  Writing on a blog — to extend that comparison a bit deeper — is a lot like riding on a public bus and calling that a walk.  Big old Metro Transit — Vroom, vroom, beep, beep, Whssshhh — but what an empty bus we have here, alas!  Much like the lowly Route 8 I would sneak onto sometimes as a boy.

But I have been walking a lot, walking a lot indeed.  My feet finally feel a bit of healing working into them.  The bruises and blisters not so much a problem anymore.  Not quite heel-clicking time, but I seem to be recovering from the malaise a bit more efficiently these days.

What’s there to worry about?  When people don’t read your blog, you can write stuff like this:

If I had lived more

And offered more than this

Much more than lonely sorrow

Would I have lived to be here

To be here with you tomorrow?

What happened here — just so you know — is I thought I would take up sonnet writing, specifically Petrarchan sonnets.  All for good fun.  This one got going ok, but I’m not sure I will ever know an iambic pentameter when I see one so it is a stretch to think I might actually write one.  But anyway, that’s what you have there, the fruit of an idea, the idea to write Petrarchan sonnets as a hobby.

Ok, all right.  I will stop, I will stop the bus, but only for the night.  I will seek our more riders.  (Who have you got for me out there?)  Yes, Reader, don’t be afraid of anything you find here, just come along for the fun.  And bring a friend or two.  Invite them to take a little tour in yellow.

 

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Sunday Morning

Could a post titled “Sunday Morning” promise less?  How dull.  But that’s sort of the way it is today.  A smart way to read this post might be to do so in comparison with yesterday’s.  I don’t know.  We’ll see.

Not so long ago Sunday mornings were good around here.  Happy, lively and served with breakfast.  Open windows, birdsong, and curtains billowing in the morning breeze.  All that kind of stuff.

Now the place is sealed tight — like the heart of a lost love — and nothing billows in the wind.  Windows closed, blinds drawn, and the only sound heard is indefinable whir.  The place feels like a tomb, both empty and crowded.  Nothing moves, nothing seems to change.  It really is so much like love lost.

I took today’s walk a little earlier than usual.  First to beat the heat and second to shake the blues.  In mixed measures, it worked.

Weekends can be a challenge down by the lake, however.  The weekend visitors tend to amble along a bit carelessly, if not menacingly, very much like George Ramero’s zombies.

Maybe the worst of the bunch are the Universalists heading toward the band shell for Sunday morning services.  They arrive in packs that move almost imperceptibly, like blobs.  They were generally a wide-bodied set this morning and left little room along the walking path.  The Universalists have room for everyone it seems unless you’re one of God’s children who wants to pass them on the trail.

I was a little wound up by the time I got to the woods.

Lost today was that sense of peace from yesterday.  No wildlife.  Not even a woodpecker.  And the woods are getting buggy.  It was cool back there, even without the breeze, and I was very much alone, which I enjoy.  But I couldn’t shake the malaise.  Even the robins seemed cranky this morning, holding close the ground and running rather than flying out of my way.  (It is easy to tell when a robin is pissed.  If he looks pissed, he’s pissed.  Period.)

Half way through my walk at the point when I begin to look forward to a cold bottle of Orange Crush and a salami and American cheese sandwich on a hamburger bun, I realized I was out of Orange Crush, American cheese, and hamburger buns.  When the Fates see that you’re down, they waste no time taking a kick or two.

So I stopped right there, took a deep breath, and I reminded myself that the day had just begun.  I’ll call someone for lunch, put on a smile and walk with purpose.  That will change things.  Check in with me later.

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Bottle Openers

Something unexpected happened while on today’s walk…I found myself feeling good!  I couldn’t work up a worry or even entertain a blue thought.  I felt whole.  A nice feeling.

And this comes on a day when the state Department of Revenue informed me that I owe them money, or so they claim.  Those revenue guys are funny and it is always a good idea to open their correspondence with a sense of humor.

I am in a rotating file, I believe, every few years it is either the Department of Revenue or the Internal Revenue Service asking for more.  These notices seem to arrive at the final hour, too.  I’ll admit that I don’t always pay much attention to official-looking notices from the state, but I do get around to it eventually.  So I often wonder how I only seem to get these urgent last minute requests.

In this case, the state asserts that I had unclaimed income in 2008.  (Golly, I wish!  2008 was rather bleak.)  Their terse notice left no doubt that they were through fooling around with the likes of me.  I had ten days to pay up or I would end up in real trouble.

It isn’t a large bill — frankly it is among the smallest they have ever sent — but I better call and find out what is going on.  The real depressing part of all of this is the finding out what is going on part.  I’ll spend half of Monday on the phone pressing one and being transferred to hold.

Certainly that isn’t the reason for feeling good, but — tut, tut — it isn’t much of a bother now either.

Of course there is the small chance that I felt good this afternoon because I was still a little drunk.  My favorite little bar serves a new wine that is a lot like drinking Nyquil.  It is strong and clinging, it hangs down your throat for a moment or two before settling.

I believe I had five glasses of the stuff last night which would add up to just over a bottle.  I am comfortable with a bottle serving, by the way.  I was told once that the ministry in France that would declare such things set the 750 ml bottle size because represented a standard, everyday serving of wine with a meal for your everyday French adult.  Special events, however, justify — and even require — more.  There are many special occasions in my life and so I choose to life like a Frenchman.

Woodpecker Tree

But wow!  Maybe I should say Pow Wow…The new stuff at Amore Victoria has some pow-wow-power and it hits hard.  I complain about it and nobody listens, not even me.  I plan to head back there soon and, guess what, I’ll have a glass or two of that heavy wine.  (In truth I am craving pasta again.)  And, for what it is worth, I had a very nice time last night.

I should get back to my walk here.  Let’s see.  No wildlife to report.  I did hear something rolling in the woods, however, and saw a woodpecker.  I took a photo of the broken tree the bird pecked.  If you look closely you can sort of see the woodpecker, too, but I am using my camera phone (I really need a new camera) so I decided to get a picture of the tree and call it good.

Plenty of weddings in Lyndale Park, too.  I counted five, and none of them small.  In fact one young girl — and she was young and appeared to be a girl — seemed to have her entire high school class dressed up as attendants.  Other brides were much less ambitious, holding to more sensible numbers like 10 or 12.  Ten or 12?  Come on people!  I don’t even think I know ten or twelve people, at least not ten or twelve who would want to be in my wedding.

I didn’t get many pictures of the weddings unfortunately.  A single guy in straw fedora and sunglasses taking pictures makes people nervous.  I did ask two young women if they wouldn’t mind me taking a picture of them and their picnic.  They had the perfect picnic spot — a place I likely passed dozens of times and never noticed — so I wanted to get picture.

I didn’t linger long.  It was getting hot and I was getting thirsty.  Which brings me to the point of this post.  One of the best birthday gifts I have received in many years is a simple church key bottle opener.  (Engraved with my name on it.)

Since receiving this gift I have opened many bottles of Orange Crush and root beer.  It brings me back to childhood.  I think that’s why I like the gift so much.

One summer when I was a boy, my parents must have found some extra cash because we went from being a Kool Aid family to being a bottled pop family.  In South St. Paul we had a soda pop company called Viking Pop down on Concord at the very south end of town.  I remember the family station wagon always hauling crates in the summer…crates of peaches, berries, and Viking Pop.

You could mix and match as you liked.  I preferred blackberry and orange.  My brothers and sisters tended to like red pop and the super sickly sweet lemon lime Viking sold.  Mom always picked up creme soda, probably because she knew none of us would touch it.  Dad had the occasional Viking, but he was still a North Star Beer guy at heart.

Viking Pop was special, too, because it was the same pop they sold at Verrip’s Resort on Big Sandy Lake.  Back in those days my family’s big reunion was held each summer on Big Sandy.  Imagine the pride when I could point out to my cousins that Viking Pop was from South St. Paul and that in fact we could have Viking Pop pretty much anytime we wanted one at home.

My cousins seemed to shrug it off as no big deal, but I like to think they were impressed nonetheless.

I wonder whatever happened to Viking Pop.  Everything is controlled by large corporations these days, increasingly owned by upstarts overseas.  I imagine the rich variety of Viking Pop simply couldn’t compete with the simple bland plainness of multinational cola.  It is a shame.

Hell, you can’t find glass bottles with steel bottle caps anymore either!  But when I do, I use my simple church key, just like I did when I was a kid, and immediately I feel at home and I feel good.

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Walking Without Glasses

I have been out more often without my glasses recently.  And it isn’t without it’s advantages.

For one, everything has a bit of an impressionistic feel about it.  My eyes really are not that bad, but bad enough to erase sharp edges and make colors blend in the light.  Impressionism suits my walks nicely, too.

The real fun occurs when I start seeing people I know.  I will always error on being friendly so when I don’t have my glasses, I am waving a lot.

I saw my Uncle Lloyd, for example, sitting by the Lake Harriet boat launch.  Never mind that Uncle Lloyd doesn’t come over the Minneapolis and the woman he was with looked nothing like my aunt.  I waved just in case.  When I got close…well, I was mistaken.

I thought I saw the mother of a childhood friend who lived next door to me when I was a boy.  I waved, squinted, and got a little closer.  Wrong again.

Interestingly, I seem to only see people I like when I think I am seeing someone I know.  Although I did think I saw an ex-wife and of course an old girlfriend or two, but you know…I don’t really hold a grudge.

Then there was Cousin Phillip coming toward me on the path wearing a pink madras baseball cap.  Now I am almost certain Phillip would never wear anything in pink madras, but I figure if he were going to wear something in pink madras it would be a baseball cap.  So I walked up:  ”Hey, Phillip!  Oh, never mind…”

Disadvantages exist, of course.  I probably did walk right past people who I did in fact know.  And I’ll never know if the fish I saw jump was a bass or a carp.  Let’s be thankful I wasn’t witness to a crime, too.

I also worry a little about my eyes.  I spend a lot of time out in the sun.  I am told eye color doesn’t really mean much when it comes to tolerance to brightness, but I worry.  Although I am sure back in my family tree there were people who chased reindeer across glaciers in Europe.   I imagine that was a glaring business.  But blue eyes survived the genetic washout.

I planned to convert one of my walk pictures into an impressionist painting using Photoshop or something, but trying to figure that out gave me a nasty headache.  (What the the hell are “layers” , “overlays,” and Command-E??)  ’So I included the painting above, Allée of Chestnut Trees by English painter Alfred Sisley.  It does not take much of an imagination to see the north side of Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, looking toward the band shell area on the northwest corner of the lake.

Who needs Photoshop?

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Down by the Lake and through the Woods

It is a quiet night in the woods.  There are plenty of robins, but no crows or owls.  The cardinals and jays were quiet, too.  But I did see a few deer along the trail.  They’re almost as common as squirrels and twice as tame.

I missed a great photo along the lake.  (Parents tend to give a guy a stern eye when he wants a  photos of the kids.)  A young girl — probably not yet in school — was leading a large dog on leash.  The dog looked absolutely humiliated…After all this was a child half the dog’s weight tugging him along and screeching in his ear.  The dog’s pride was just a bit bruised.  It didn’t help when I chuckled a bit when they passed me.

The dog would be happy to know he wasn’t the only one who would be laughed at tonight.

The north side of Lake Harriet is a great spot for watching planes taking off from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.  I stopped to watch a few planes fly overhead, as I usually do, when I heard some laughter.  I turned and saw two couples looking my way quickly turn away.  A few “shhhes” and embarrassed looks on the girls gave me a clue.

They probably saw me and thought they saw a cute old guy impressed by the big fancy plans.  That’s very odd because I am neither cute nor old, I just look that way.

You just shrug off that sort of stuff and I did.  I resumed my walk.

Note the photo of the two young boys and the ducks.  Looks like a sweet photo, doesn’t it?  Sure.  The kids are spitting on the ducks.  I’m sure it is harmless enough — what will a duck care — but there was something dastardly about boys.  Cute boys, for certain, but not very respectful of ducks.

So that’s it.  This is all I have tonight.  A few bad pictures and hastily written explanations.  Kind of off my game.  It is Sunday.  I think I’ll watch an episode of Columbo and read something from Philip Dick.

(I should get a real camera…)

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Regrouping: Day 2

Cover of Coraline (Single-Disc Edition w/ 3D)

 

(For those of you looking for Sweet Lake:  Part 2, have faith.  I have more pictures to share.)   

Today was not a bad day…sales-wise.  The problem here is we need better than “not bad,” we need great!  Last night I watched Coraline, a delightful film about a young girl overcoming incredible — even supernatural — odds.  Inspiring!  If Coraline could outsmart a dead old witch or whatever it was that she was doing, you’d think that an above average guy could have an average sales day, wouldn’t you?  Well…today’s goal was to get out and stay busy.  And I accomplished that.   

Today was another beautiful day along the St. Croix River Valley.  A brilliant day.  Bright blue skies and changing fall colors, trees in muted and subtle browns, oranges, and golds…but mostly yellow.  This really hasn’t been the best year for color yet.  A few trees really shine, but most are slowly giving up the summer green and we’re a long way from anything postcard-worthy.   

On a day like today, it can be a challenge to remain focused so I let the day steer my attention.  That isn’t always a bad thing.  A sales guy should clear his head every so often.  In my line of work true vacations are rare and costly.  If you’re not selling, you’re not making money; you need to be ahead by a few days to give up a few days and even then it can be very difficult to let go.  This is an important thing for anyone truly wired for sales to keep in mind.  If you are driven to sell, you’ll be feeling anxious about time away from the beat.  So what about the rest of us?   

Well, for those of us not truly wired for sales, downtime is no less anxious.  If you have time off and are not prepared for it, you’ll feel like you squandered go time and cheated yourself.  If you’re ahead of the curve and feel like you earned a day or two, you might feel guilty about giving it up to vacation.  Now of course I am speaking in the generalized “you, you, you” when it is really me, me, me…but I challenge a sales person to tell me it is different.   

Today will likely be chalked up to one of those squandered days, but not altogether a bad one to squander.  I mentioned that the day was gorgeous and that it truly was.    

River Level Falling. St. Croix River. Stillwater, MN. October 2010.

 

 I walked along the river in Stillwater.  It has been in flood, but if you look at this picture you’ll see by the line of floatsam that the water is receding…we are post-crest, kind of like my career!  

 

But not all of the day felt crestfallen.  Hardly.  I drove up toward my beloved Marine on St. Croix under the pretense of scouting out new leads.  Lo and behold, I found a few.   Actually met a couple of smart and professional business owners.  One in particular impressed me.  A young guy with a new garage right on the highway.  He isn’t set up with any advertising other than a decent and tasteful sign on the highway, but he appears to be doing all right.  He could do more and he understands that.  He seems to understand that he knows how to repair cars and is prepared to let people with other expertise help him grow.  I hope he chooses to do business with me.  I can help him.

 

In fact I met a few other smart professionals today.  No one came charging at me, knuckles dragging and mouth foaming to tell me what a fucking idiot I am.  I kind of a appreciate that, to be honest.  It feels good.  I talked with a manager of a bookstore, an attorney, a beauty salon owner, an antique dealer, and a roofer today…

 

Oh, the roofer.  Bad news there.  The guy can’t pay his bill.  Awfully polite about it, but that doesn’t do a hell of a lot for my bottom line.  I’ll lose this account and the commissions.  This is a bigger account, too.  I am doing what I can to coach him through this (something that I actually have some skill at doing) and find a way to keep his account alive, but it is not looking good.  My guess is the lights will be out come winter. 

 

It shouldn’t be that way.  I know from my sources alone he is getting flooded with leads.  He says he is getting work, too, but claims that the market is undercut by low bids from competitors.  Yes…and no.  Over the weeks I have tried calling this guy and he never answers his phone!  How can you do business when you don’t answer your phone?  And I have some of his competitors on my books.  They claim to be on a recovery now, making money again, hiring again, and I see yard signs from those businesses out around the market quite often. 

 

But that really is not my concern, I suppose, and I do feel badly for the struggling roofer.  Perhaps things will come around and it will not become a total loss for me.

 

eventually I made it to a nearby park for a stroll.  I chose Sunfish Lake Park in Lake Elmo, a point between my early door-swinging activity and a later appointment.  I like to take a walk at this park and it seemed like a good place to make some calls and get my papers organized.

 

The colors here were disappointing.  Still a lot of change to occur, but washed out yellows look like they will dominate the autumn landscape this year.  Not to be discouraged, I got out for a walk.  On this walk I loaded up my GPS so I could share my wanderings.  This is the first attempt to transfer a Garmin map to WordPress so not only is it exciting, but it is a bit uncertain, too.

Muted October Colors.

 

 

Hmmm…well, that was rather disappointing.  It seems that the GPS route has been saved as a separate post.  I’ll have to play with that a bit.  GPS makes me a little nervous anyway.  I feel vulnerable to CIA predator drones, but since no remotely-fired rockets have disrupted my walks yet, I walk on fearlessly. 

 

I did encounter two birds I am struggling to identify.  I would say they were quail, but I don’t think we have quail here and I am too far south for grouse; they looked too small anyway.  Perhaps they were grey partridge, but the colors seemed wrong.  These birds had a beautiful almost chocolate brown … what do you call it?…plumage?  (I almost thought foilage…been looking at too many faded trees.)   They were very easy going quail/partridge.  I thought I better sneak up on them for a good photo, but that effort was all in vain.  They didn’t do anything but squeak, chirp, and cluck as they outsmarted me and casually pidgeon-walked into the underbrush.  Why don’t birds fly for the camera! 

 

On my GPS map you might see where I went into the woods outfitted in an expensive suit and shoes  to outflank the little birds.  Cordovan leather actually does quite well in the brush.

 

I walked 1.55 miles and decided it was too hot to sit around the park and make calls.  I drove to Mendota, Minnesota, instead.  Now there is a park for making calls!  I went down by the old Faribault House and found a picnic table, brought out my laptop computer and my cell phone and started calling clients.  Now THIS might have been the most productive part of my day.  I am completely convinced that a peripatetic approach to making phone calls is the best way to do it.  Hell, there wasn’t an objection or an angry client that I could not handle while on my feet strolling through the sun-dappled shade of old Faribault’s historic back yard!  It was brilliant!  I was brilliant.  I really got a lot done.  Damn near made a sale, in fact, over the phone, but that seemed sloppy.  I scheduled to meet the client Friday morning.

Alexander Faribault's Back Yard. Mendota, MN.

 

This really was a highlight.  The day was slogging along, but in a pleasant sunshiney kind of a way.  Nevertheless, I was starting to feel a bit discouraged.  This was feeling like one of those days I would later recall as one squandered, although it never was all that bad.  Good things happened today.  But better things happened in Mendota.    

 

I even put pennies on the rail road tracks.  I used to think that flattened pennies would make great blades for spinning fishing lures.  I still think they would.  And if I get a chance to retire, I think I might even make a lure or two with flattened pennies as spinners. 

 

I also like trains and Mendota rarely disappoints.  Stay near the tracks long enough and a train will come by.  I enjoy standing near the train when it cars pass.  I get a sort of vertigo sensation that can make me feel a little motion sick.  Still, a train is an impressive sight.   (Hard to call clients from the side of noisy tracks, however.)

Choo! Choo! Trains are Cool!

 

 

 Your tour guide rambled on a bit.  The take aways today?  Bodies in motion stay in motion.  My approach to the day was not particularly graceful, but I kept finding ways to stay busy, even when it is most difficult for me to do so.  I really do love my strolls in the parks, watching trains, and driving down county highways.  It is hard to stay focused on sales.  But if I let my sales responsibilities share my day, I seem to get it done.  (Kind of a childlike approach.  Look at it that way.)

 

Now let’s see what we can do with this work.  Nothing matters if there isn’t a signature on an order.

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