Sometimes it's hurts to remember...

I had received the call fairly early in the morning. Something was wrong with my wife's sister Laurie. All attempts to reach her had failed. We needed to go to her apartment in Champlin and make sure everything was okay. Something told us it was not. I got another call from my mother-in-law Carol, who was staying at our house for two weeks. She had a call from a woman. The woman had been a former girlfriend of Laurie's husband Kurt. She had said that Kurt called her and said he had hurt Laurie. Worse yet, he said he had shot and killed her. Carol called me while I was on my mail route in North Minneapolis. This was not the sort of call one received everyday. The news she shared was something all of us would have heard on some sort of detective show. We needed to go to Champlin. I quickly called my wife Lynell and told her I was on my way. The drive to the apartment took forever. I had my supervisor Mark on the phone and told him that I was sure this was some sort of misunderstanding. I rounded the corner to Laurie's street and assured my boss that nothing could be wrong. There was no sign of fire engines, police cars or anything of the like. This doesn't happen in our lives. This is something out of some newspaper article. No matter how much Laurie and Kurt had fought in the past, he would never be so stupid as to do something that would harm her. As I rounded the corner, things changed oh so quickly. The front yard of the apartment was full of every sort of police car you could imagine. Something had happened. I pulled into the parking spot next to the sliding doors. I was met by a young cop who did not want to give me any information. I finally reassured him it would be between the two of us. I asked" Man to man, is she okay?" "No" he said. "Laurie is dead. She was shot".
I remember that day. It seems so long ago, but yet, in a weird way, it seems like it never happened. I do not handle death very well, and I hope the feeling of losing friends and family close to me will someday go away..... I hope so.

Joe

Free lunches sucked...

I know the world is an ever-changing place and the folks that run it all are trying to make a much friendlier place and I am happy for that. One thing that used to piss me off was how they handed out the free lunch tickets to all of us who needed them so badly.

When I was going to Franklin Elementary in Anoka, we used to get off of our bus in the morning, and while the rest of the kids headed off to the classroom, my sister and I would make our way to the Principal's office to receive our "free" lunch. The secretary would hand us each a quarter and record our names in some stupid ass journal and away we would go. Most times this made us ten minutes or so late for class. I hated her. She was a very stern looking woman with a pointed nose and horned-rimmed glasses. One time, my teacher asked why I was always behind the other kids in reporting to class. "Was I dilly-dallying in the hall" he said. I did not need him to know about our free lunch situation, so I told him I was just slow climbing stairs. Actually I thought it was none of his business. I was told that if it happened again, I would stay in for recess. Well, long story short, I stayed inside quite a bit that school year. I never did tell him what was the reason. Looking back, maybe I should have fessed up, but it didn't happen...Sometimes, some things need to be kept to yourself...

Joe

Grandma's old house...

A long time ago, I might have been about four, we had to move into Grandma Richard's house. I don't know the reasons, but whatever they were, we found ourselves there. It was a big old house on the corner of Branch Street in Anoka. Grandma used to make extra money by taking in boarders. These were some crusty old men that didn't have families to live with so there they were. I remember walking upstairs one time. The hallway leading up was packed with things all along the wall. One time as I was going up, an old man named Mr. Coral came downstairs. We met at the halfway point on the sitars. To my left was a flag rolled up and stuck behind a board. He stopped and looked at the flag and said in a deep voice: "A lot of men died for that flag son". I thought " Wow! And here it is in grandma's hallway and I get to see it". I think he cacked a few years after that.
One of the other men there was named Tony. I remember him as being one of the fattest people I had ever met. He had an old dog whose name seemed to be a different swear word all the time. I used to talk to Tony every day after school. One day, I went downstairs to talk to him and tell him about my day. He was in the bathroom and was just pulling up his drawers from what I now know was probably a huge dump. He didn't know I saw him him and I don't remember talking to him again....

Joe

Grandpa and the Koo-Koos....

Most likely my earliest memory of childhood is when I was about four years old. I would go with Dad out to see his father in what was then, the country. People now know it as "Andover". Years back, Anoka was a whole lot bigger than it is today. It used to stretch west all the way to Elk River and to the north I swear to God, it went to International Falls. Now, dorky names like Andover, Ramsey, Nowthen and others pop out of people's mouths. You can tell the newbies from the old timers though, because they will say things like "Hunter had a hockey game last night in "Leeno Lakes and tonight he plays in Sodderville!". People. It's frickin Lino Lakes and Soderville. Where the hell did they go to school? Coon Rapids?

Anyway, we would go to grandpa's house and he lived in a two room little home with an outhouse. I went into the outhouse once and saw a spider in the window. He was trying to get out. Once I saw what was in an outhouse, I couldn't blame him.

Grandpa used to always, right before we left, reach for my hand and offer me a cookie. But he called it a koo-koo. Maybe he felt by renaming it, I wouldn't be afraid him and his bald head. I never understood what made me afraid of bald guys. Maybe it was one too many Mr. Whipple commercials. I would shove the cookie into my pocket and by the time we got home, it would have turned to crumbs.

I never did get to eat one. Maybe had it been an Oreo, it might had survived the ride...


Joe