“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right
to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

- George Orwell

When my wife became a police chaplain we knew we could expect some tense calls in the middle of the night since chaplains are commonly called on for death notifications. We didn't expect that the first call she received would be for someone we know.

Joe was the kind of guy for whom guardrails were invented. Life had thrown him a few curves and he had a tendency to get a little wide through these at times, drifting out on the edges where the traction can be treacherous. The same age as me, he was whippet thin and had a look about his eyes that suggested a dog that had been kicked too many times. There was no doubt he had been.

Kick a dog, or a man, often enough and he can get mean. That wasn't Joe. There was still a level of optimism, trust and forgiveness in him despite all that he had been through. Some of it was the rub-your-neck admission of the things he knew he had brought on himself, and some of it was a faith that things were inevitably going to get better. He loved his wife, he loved his kids, he loved riding his motorcycle.

His father left home when Joe was two; he didn't see him again for more than 30 years. Once when he had had the opportunity and inclination to do the same thing he pointed his bike toward the open road, but couldn't, wouldn't do it. Bad company and bad choices had often been his reality, but there had also been a share of good choices when he said, "I'm turning around."

Including that most important time, that time when he looked into Hell and said, "I'm turning around."

Monday night was a lovely night for a ride, and one of the few things he could afford right now. He and a friend set out into the darkness and at some point he found one last, non-metaphorical guard rail. His shattered wrist watch said 12:15. Our phone rang not long after. Another chaplain had received the original call-out and gone to the house, but when he arrived Joe's wife had asked for Marjorie.

Today a wisp of a song played through my mind, over and over. An older song, sung by someone who shares my name, called "Midnight Wind".

There are dreams that fly in the midnight wind
Souls that cry in the midnight wind
Lovers who try in the midnight wind
You and I in the midnight wind

Sometimes...you can see, feel the edge coming. And sometimes it drops away from you without warning. You, and I, in the midnight wind.

Buffy Holt writes of a childhood memory:

Iaeger, West Virginia. Nineteen seventy nine. The old bus terminal that use to sit somewhere along the river bank. Maybe next to Sears & Roebuck? Maybe not. Maybe Sears & Roebuck came after it was already gone? I can’t remember. But I do remember the terminal; the diner it held. And it’s a memory from this diner that’s running away from me.

I keep trying to get my head around it. To see all the things I can already hear and smell and taste. But all I see is a plate. White. With a blue racing stripe around its edge.

The room smells of beef. The real kind. And of lettuce. It sounds like my grandfather. Loud and laughing. He’s sitting beside me. Telling a story. To men or to the air. I can’t see him; all I see is the plate. But he’s there. Just like the sun. Breaking through the windows, fracturing over hands and faces, lighting up the room.

It takes me back. Another bus terminal, another restaurant. Another childhood, mine. The summer after second grade, so what is that — 1966? My family and my mother's parents live in Indianapolis, but my grandfather, Pawpaw, has taken me on a road trip, just the two of us, back to his hometown — Cuba, Missouri. It's a sunny morning and we are sitting in the most exotic place I have ever been in in my whole life: The Midway.

The Midway is a restaurant, bar, hotel and the bus terminal for Crawford County, right smack in the middle of town. Route 66 runs east and west just outside the door, while Highway 19 intersects the Mother Road going north and south. The interstate is just a couple of miles away. People pass through here on their way to St. Louis or Chicago or to exotic ports of call such as Springfield, Little Rock or Tulsa. They stop here to change buses, get a bite to eat, maybe take a room and sleep. Pawpaw and I are sitting at a table in the middle of the large, green dining room with a group of men, including his brother. It's just us men in there. They are talking and smoking (L&M's for Pawpaw). I'm playing with the paper wrapper from a straw, folding it up like an accordion, then using the straw to drip a drop of water on it so I can watch the wrapper expand. The guys are talking about a bunch of people I don't know.

Some of the tables around us still have upside-down chairs set on top of them. Over on the counter by the cash register several pies are under a glass case. I am intoxicated by the thought that you can go over there and look at each pie, point at the one you like and the woman in the white uniform behind the counter will cut you a slice then and there. It's not just one kind of pie, take it or leave it, but cherry, apple, strawberry and lemon meringue. And you get to choose!

Along the far wall there are several pinball machines. I wander over, cautiously. There is a forbidden aura about them. I look over at the table, and no one is paying any attention to me. Cigarette smoke and dust motes hang in the bright sunlight as they tell their stories. One of the games looks like a baseball stadium. 5¢ is painted on the glass. I oh-so-casually take a nickel out of my pocket, from the handful of change Pawpaw had given me earlier in the day, and stand in front of the machine and push the little silver button. A trap door opens at the pitcher's mound and burps out a pinball. Pushing the big silver button causes an oversized bat to swing at the pinball, redirecting it through the infield toward targets that say "single", "double, "triple" or "out". If you're good enough or lucky enough you can send the ball up a little ramp to a target that says "homerun". If you get a hit, little metal base-runners pop up in the infield and follow a circular track around the bases. I make a lot of outs, but somehow cause a runner to make it all the way around to home plate. The bells on the machine literally ring up a run on the scoreboard, and it's loud. Pawpaw looks over at me and gives me a crooked smile and goes back to the conversation.

I finish the game and cross to the other side of the room to where racks of postcards are for sale. The first stand are all pictures of the Ozarks, or the St. Louis Arch. I move a little deeper in and find brightly colored cartoon cards. On one card a voluptuous women is standing waist-deep in water, wearing a bright yellow, polka-dot bikini top. She has a shocked look on her face. Beside her a hairy, fat man with a dumb look on his face is holding up a piece of bright yellow, polka-dot material and asking, "Did someone lose a hanky?" Oh man, this is hot stuff, and much more entertaining than dropping water on a straw wrapper! I read every card on every rack, laughing at the jokes that I get, trying to act as if I get it on the ones where I don't. Most of the humor is not that sophisticated. One card makes me laugh and I decide to buy it and mail it to my uncle back in Indianapolis. It's a cartoon of a hound-dog lifting his leg on some tobacco plants, with the caption, "Do you cigarettes taste funny lately?" I don't even know if my uncle smokes.

I am a boy in a man's world, trying to guess at context. Cigarette smoke, racy cards, pinball games, pie. It looks to me as if everything one needs is right here, but people are passing through. It's the Midway — they're between where they started and where they're going, neither here nor there yet, just going in stops and starts on their tracks like little metal men in a game. At the table someone tells a joke that I don't hear and everyone laughs.

As you read this I will have completed my 50th year on this planet. Yes, I know, hard to believe – at least it is for me. Somehow in my mind’s eye I still kind of picture myself as I was in the 1980s, though that is a man my children never knew and my wife may even have a hard time remembering, which, truth be told, is probably a good thing for all concerned.

As friends and family members, especially the golfers, have reached this milestone in the past I have commonly bestowed upon them a cheerful, “Good luck on the back nine!” Now it is I turning toward the clubhouse. Though I have my share of fairways and bunkers ahead of me I realize that this isn’t necessarily the half-way point. Fifty doesn’t mean there’s a real-life 50-50 balance between the time I’ve lived and the time I have left. Believe me, I’ve worked with enough actuaries over the years to know about that.

Sixteen, eighteen, twenty-one — they couldn't come fast enough.

Thirty — “what the...?”

Forty — “now wait just a minute...”

Fifty. Fifty? Fifty.

Nevertheless I feel good, I feel strong. My blood pressure and cholesterol are low and everything else seems manageable. If I no longer swing a 20-pound post maul all day in the sun, or polish off 27 spare ribs at a sitting, I can still remember what each felt like and believe that I don’t do those things now simply because I’m old enough to know better.

Yet there it is – old enough. To know better. From this vantage point I can look back and see all the faces that helped me get here who are here no longer. And thanks to them, I see the young faces around me now and I can turn and look into the distance and imagine the even younger faces to come.

There's still time for some practice swings, though, and to work on my game. Yeah, the ol' backswing can't help but get longer, though the important thing now is the follow-through. I'm not familiar with all the holes I have left, but I know I've got a wise coach and caddy who has said he'll never leave or forsake me, so I'll take my time and enjoy the round for there's no sense in hurrying.

I do hear the Clubhouse is spectacular, though.

This evening was another late getaway away from the office in the dark, this time so late that all my favorite radio programs were already off the air for my "drive-time." Bummer. Plus it was cold. Damn cold. As I drove along an almost deserted street in the direction of St. Paul, I was surprised to see a train making it's way in the cold, dark night across the battered concrete bridge over Hennepin at 18th Avenue. Though it was a diesel engine, not steam, the frosty air nevertheless produced white clouds and in that moment I was suddenly transported — or "trains-ported" — into a black and white photo that could have been done by O. Winston Link himself. Not only that, I was transported back to another time in my life, and another time in our country's history. What I saw tonight looked very nearly like this, minus the swimmers:



My grandfather was kind of a nut about steam locomotives. He even worked for awhile as a fireman on a steam train during World War II, though that challenging experience apparently didn't sour him on the big engines. Some 25 years ago I happened to read an article about O. Winston Link, a photographer who had set out in the 1950s to capture in the disappearing trains of the Norfolk & Western line, the last steam-powered railroad in the U.S. Photographing trains presented more than a few technical problems, such as lighting. As Link said, "You can't move the sun, and you can't move the tracks, so you have to do something else to better light the engines." As a result he created a sequenced flash lighting system that he would painstakingly set out along the tracks hours in advance to get a shot with his 4 x 5 Graphic camera. Naturally, most of his shots were at night, creating some of the most evocative records of a bygone era. The article I read mentioned that a book of Link's N&W train photos, entitled "Ghost Trains", had been produced, and I knew instantly that I had to track down a copy for my grandfather.

This was way-back in the days before Amazon.com, or even much public awareness of the Internet. I followed some clues in the article, made some calls, wired some money and in a couple weeks' time I owned a handsome, half-tabloid sized paperback of Link's best photos. Plus — bonus! — a thin recording on vinyl of the sound of two steam trains plying their trade across the valley. Link was a gifted technician who had also been able to make several high-quality sound recordings of the locomotives that fascinated him so. My grandfather would insist on playing the floppy record for me, and I can see him sitting in his chair, his eyes closed, his head slightly cocked with that crooked grin of his as the trains chugged and hooted from his stereo. Something about the sound just suggested a cold, snowy night, and how good it felt to be warm and snug inside while our machines soldiered on.

Trains have always been about getting from one place to another. Sometimes it's a raw display of intimidating force, and other times a surprisingly delicate balance of momentum, mass and friction. As my grandfather learned over the course of many hard lessons, there was as much art as there was science to getting a steam locomotive to operate at its best and to come to your hand. And like grandfathers, you can easily take them for granted and then one day they're gone. Yes, trains are about taking you from one place to another, and sometimes you don't even need to get on board.

When my grandfather died, the only thing I asked for was the book.

Here are a couple of O. Winston Link's better known photos, but by all means visit the link above to view a slide show from this great American artist, or here to see even more images. Here's another interesting resource for where you can buy images and recordings.

The house looked all too familiar. My sister and my uncles had removed all the appliances and equipment brought in over the past few months that had never seemed to fit. His chair, his bed, are now as they’ve always been. I know better than his dog, who wanders the house looking up quizzically and runs to the patio door when he thinks he hears someone, but standing in the family room I still half-expected to see him when I turned around, or when I heard a footstep in the kitchen.

What I wasn't expecting at all was to go into the grocery store or the gas station in the small town and see a black-bordered card by the cash register, announcing his passing. I’d forgotten how things were done in a small town where just about everybody knows everyone else. I’d seen, maybe, hundreds of these cards when I lived here but never pictured his name on them, let alone my own in the body copy. Later, driving some things over to the funeral home I was still taken aback to read his name and the times for the visitation and the funeral on the marquis facing the street.

My father passed away Monday night, October 29, due to ... what, exactly? It's kind of complicated, so I suppose you could say he died of "complications." Was it the lymphoma he'd been battling? The chemotherapy itself? The realization that living with the pain only meant yet another day of living with the pain?

I saw him wasting away, of course. In June. In September. Was it only last December that we had all been together and so happy? Thursday morning, October 25th, my mom called me at work (I'd taken to keeping my cell phone on and with me even in the office) from the hospital where he’d been for a week, fighting a kidney infection; where he'd had another torso scan to check on the progress of the cancer. There was to be a consultation with his oncologist the next day, could I be there? How could I not. Plain, but unspoken, was the thought that they would say the cancer was still spreading and there was nothing more they could do. I took an early morning flight Friday, and arrived at the hospital just moments after they’d moved him from his room into the ICU. When I caught up with him he had an oxygen mask covering the lower half of his face, the straps making his ears stick out even further, his head bald as a newborn’s. Despite the oxygen his whole body fought for each breath, filling and releasing in a series of rapid convulsions. I took his hand and could feel his pulse through his palm.

My mother, my brother, my mother's brother and I met with the oncologist. Good news: the cancer was stable, it had not spread further. Bad news: he had developed blood clots in his lungs from the chemo. This was dire. He might not live through the weekend. By the afternoon, however, he was better, breathing easier, able to talk, still able to understand. He thirsted, and I put the tiny sponge to his lips so he could drink. I, his first child, shared some news of his first grandchild, and the monitor showed his heart-rate spiking. “That … was … your … heart … then,” he said. Yes. Yes it was.

Saturday morning I held my phone to his ear so he could talk to my youngest daughter, Tiger Lilly; as always, he teased her a little. Saturday afternoon my brother and I picked up our sister at the airport, just 15 minutes from the hospital. Saturday evening my father and I said our good-byes. They were brief because there wasn't much left unsaid between us. Sunday morning I had an early flight back to St. Paul because there were things I had to do, first. Then calling my mother when I got home, hearing he had asked to be disconnected from everything except what was dripping into him for the pain. Monday evening my mother was at his bedside, talking on the phone to my sister back at the house, saying that he had been breathing much easier for the past five minutes and was resting peacefully, and then, as she said it, he stopped. “Say good-bye to your father,” she cried, thrusting the cellphone toward his ear as the nurse rushed in. Then the phone was ringing at my house, and once again I was on the road, toward a familiar place that was never going to be the same again.

********

In a time like this you really appreciate the “commune” of community: prayers and condolences come in from friends, co-workers and the blogging community just as the food showed up at my mom's house: hams, chili, soups, cakes, pies, more ham, doughnuts, fruit – the bread of life as friends and even acquaintances near and far stretch out their hands to hold you up. Some because they share your memories of the departed, all of them because they share the knowledge or the experience that this is a time common to all of us; this week it was you, last week or next week, them. I could feel the thoughts and prayers of those far away, nearly as tangibly as the line of those who brought the embrace of communal comfort: hug, pat, pat. Sometimes, three pats.

When I was younger I couldn't quite understand why people went to visitations or funerals. You only had a few moments with the family before moving on, and wasn't it hard for them to stand there having to greet all those people when they'd rather be off grieving somewhere in private? I've had a different understanding and appreciation, though, for the last ten years or so. "Paying your respects," always sounded like such a cliche until I experienced how important and comforting it was to see and hear from people what my father had meant to or done for them; there were a lot of friends and family of course, and many, many people I did not recognize.

The funeral was a "celebration of life," and several of my father's friends from the Masonic Lodge and/or the golf course shared moving and often hilarious stories. Men of a generation not known for crying wept openly nonetheless. With tight lips and throat I somehow kept it (mostly) together through the eulogy I offered, perhaps because in a way I had been preparing for it all my life. After we rode out to the cemetery my wife, an ordained minister and police chaplain, spoke the scripture and the prayer and then my oldest daughter stood in the bright sunlight beside the casket and on that hillside in the great, open air absolutely filled every ear (and I hope every heart) as she sang a cappella, an old hymn:

There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.
Lose all their guilty stains, lose all their guilty stains;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains.

E’er since, by faith, I saw the stream Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.
And shall be till I die, and shall be till I die;
Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die.


Related posts:
In My Father's House, Part 1
In My Father's House, Part 2
In My Father's House, Part 3
Turning Toward the Mourning
Shifting the Sun

Business took me over to the Walker Art Center today. Afterwards, since we'd parked the car over by the Parade Stadium parking lot, we decided to take a walk through the Sculpture Garden on the way back to our ride.

It wasn't the nicest day outside; gray skies, temperature around 40 and a light but cold wind. Nevertheless, there was something very appealing about walking down the paved lane toward the famous Spoon and Cherry bridge.

On a summer day, the view from the lane toward the sculpture is like unto a rich oil painting:



On a day like today the effect is very much pen and ink. In summer the leaves on the trees soften the lines and obscure the trunks of the trees. Today the trees looked like stark, straight columns converging on the sculpture, echoed in miniature by the parallel hand rails, as the red orb of the cherry became the focal point against the gray sky and the dull grass. The leaves were now dry, gold flakes pushed by the wind into a long ribbon that meandered the lane more or less in a diagonal.

I know the view is no accident. Someone with vision and precision laid these lines with precisely this effect in mind and I sense the subtle harmony of balance and perspective. Behind me, inside the Walker, are some beautiful works — and many that are tortured executions of an artist's self-absorption, intended to resonate only in some critical echo chamber, to be praised for bringing us face to face with some existential ugliness or dissonant reality or other such twaddle. In this moment outside, however, and in this light, there is a beauty and grace and a palpable, pervasive resonance, despite the bitterness of the day.

Or I suppose you could just say it was pretty.

Crisp, sunny autumn days like last Saturday are great — and as refreshing as biting into a Honeycrisp apple, but there's a special seasonality to an overcast day in early fall like today.

This morning the sun rose but never shook off its blanket and the gray backdrop was the perfect canvas for the prima donna colors, helping the grass in my yard take on an extra-deep and lush green while the reds, yellows and oranges of the various leaves on the ground and still on the trees competed for attention. I enjoyed driving through my neighborhood, looking at the leaves that had fallen since last weekend's rakings and, like the children at the bus-stop, resplendent in their new jackets, just waiting.

On days like these it is hard to keep your eyes on the road, but even at that I was rewarded. As I pulled up behind the line of cars waiting to turn left off of the Ayd Mill Road I broke into smile when I recognized the autumnal glory of red taillights and flashing orange turn-signals in gleaming clarity that would not have been possible on a sunny day. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

1989 was my first Father's Day as a dad myself (thanks, Mall Diva). As a first-timer that June I wrote a letter to my father that included the following:

There are things about growing up that can’t be explained to — or understood by — the emerging adult. At those times the elders can only say “Wait until you have kids of your own” to indicate the unseen forces and emotions that will one day come into play. It is an enigmatic, somewhat ominous, prophecy born of instinct, experience and intuition. Given enough words, it can be described but not experienced. Given enough experience, it no longer needs to be described.

The revelation of being a Father, to accept the title that has always belonged to someone else, is almost dizzying. The family armor, passed on for generations, has been taken off the wall and handed to you with your banner. It is your turn.

Some find their armor rusty and decrepit. Corroded by years of venom, its surface has been marred by each coat of blame and accusation they have applied over the years. These men will always find their armor ill-fitting and uncomfortable. Never having learned or cared where the weak points are, they don’t know what parts need to be reinforced, what parts need extra care, what parts need to be protected the most. They clank and creak into battle already spiritually defeated, blaming the previous owner, and scarcely able to defend themselves, let alone carry out their sacred charge. Some even abandon the field completely, leaving it (and the next generation) to the enemy!

Others will be blessed and even surprised to find their armor in good shape, and not nearly as big on them as they thought it would be. Oh, there’s a scratch here, a small dent there, but these only serve to reinforce the necessity of such gear. These men are properly outfitted and equipped, and where necessary they have taken it upon themselves to repair or replace whatever they see missing. Respect, and a good teacher, have kept the pieces oiled and in good working order.

I have been thinking about armor lately; thinking about how it's something worn on the outside as protection against the things that would pierce or cut us, the mortal thrust to our vitals from an external foe. But what about the poisoned blade that comes from inside?

Think about the wonderful design of our bodies; how they easily and automatically handle the vital chores of our survival: respiration, digestion, circulation, even healing and restoration. From the time we're in the womb our bodies perform countless tasks dedicated to our survival, including resisting infections and toxic interlopers. In today's vernacular, you could say our bodies "have our back." How cruel and crushing, then, for our closest friend and ally to turn on us, for our very own cells to go rogue, even to the point of using our own defenses against us.

And how quickly it can happen! The doctors estimate that from the time my father's mutinous lymphocytes first went over the wall to the time he was diagnosed with Stage 4 lymphoma (lymphoma in multiple locations above and below the diaphragm) was only about two months; this in a person who was undergoing nearly constant check-ups and monitoring due to a previous bout with prostate cancer and a heart-valve replacement a couple of years ago. What can you do?

Then again, maybe there is an internal armor and a toughness after all. Cancer is an insidious foe that, along with the measures used to combat it, strips away virtually every visible vestige of one's dignity. I know heart attacks can be devastating and life-changing and leave you weak as a baby, but at least they leave you with your hair. The chemo takes your hair and your appetite and nearly every illusion you have about being in control of your own body. When I was down to see my dad in June he still pretty much looked like himself, but the stress of the pain and the effects of the pain-killing medication caused him to throw up — much to his dismay. "I haven't thrown up in more than 30 years," he said. At one point when I went to see him in September he was throwing up every 30 minutes. Rather than lurching into the bathroom each time he had fashioned a bucket from a one-gallon plastic milk jug and used that. The first time I went in to assist my mother he was sitting up in bed, spitting up into the bucket. He was well past the point of feeling embarrassed, he just gave me a matter-of-fact look over the lip of the jug and went about his business.

He's lost his hair, and more that 40 pounds from a frame that can barely spare it. He's been poked with needles and IVs so many times the nurses can barely find a vein that won't collapse and there's scarcely a bodily function he can perform without an audience, yet he still jokes with the nurses even if his voice sometimes sounds more like his 100-year-old mother's than his own. He struggles to swallow his food, and to keep it down even when he does, yet he's drawing sustenance from his will and a determination not to give up no matter what fresh hell the day brings, and doing it with a grace that I never would have expected in him.

We think of armor as being made of metal. Apparently, it has more to do with mettle.

A childhood memory: waking up in the pre-dawn winter hours to the muffled thrumming of my father’s car warming up in the driveway. In my mind I can picture the clouds of crystalline exhaust illuminated by the back porch light. I would lie snug in my bed and listen to the sounds of my father preparing to go to work: his step (the heaviest in the house) in the hallway, the jingle of the dozen or so keys on the big ring on his belt, the clink of a coffee cup being set down on the counter; finally the closing of the back door to mark his passing. It was familiar and unremarkable, and I would go back to sleep.

When I awoke again my mind was filled with my own thoughts and plans for the day. In this time my father owned his own business and was rarely home for supper. My brother and sister and I would eat with our mother, and go about our evening routine. I would often be in bed again when I heard him return. There would be the sounds of my mother frying him a steak, and of talking; their voices distinct, but not the words. Sometimes the tone was obviously my mother reciting the sins of the day, and if they were heinous enough, we would be summoned from our beds for the promised retribution of When Our Father Gets Home.

As a father now myself, I understand how this had to have been as unpleasant for him as it was for us.

During this time our father was a seldom seen force in our lives, operating outside our understanding, toward ends unknown. We would see him mostly on Sundays, and there was a feeling of awkwardness as if none of us were quite certain about how we should act. And yet there was always food on the table, a comfortable house, and clothes for every season, even though we gave little thought, or saw little connection, to how these things came to be.

It wasn’t until I was 11 or 12 and old enough to go to work with my father that I really started to get to know him, and learn what a just and wonderful man he was. I admit he never seemed to be at a loss for things for me to do: pick up rocks and litter, sweep the drive, clean the restrooms for the rest of the workers and the guests. As I learned more about how to please him, my responsibilities and privileges grew. I came to know the special feeling of joining him in the early morning while everyone else was asleep as we got ready to go to “our” work.

The day before Father's Day this year I happened to be parked at the far pumps at a BP gas station and convenience store in Ottumwa, Iowa, filling up. As I squeegeed my windshield I heard a commotion behind me and turned to see a large pickup rock to a sudden stop in front of the convenience store. It wasn't the sound of the approaching truck that had caught my attention, however, but the not-so-muffled shouting coming from inside the cab.

A man was yelling at a boy, waving his arms and perhaps throwing some litter around. Outside of several f-bombs it was hard to make out what was being said, but it was a one-sided exposition. I casually and automatically looked away as the man got out of the truck, continuing the barrage. "Happy Father's Day," I thought, as he stalked off into the convenience store, my own thoughts suddenly dizzy in my head. A couple of minutes later I hung the nozzle back on the pump, and made my way toward the store as well. I had to walk in front of the truck on my way. Not wanting to embarrass the young man further I glanced sideways at him through the windshield and was impressed to see that, though tears were rolling down his cheeks, he had his head up. I turned my head fully toward him, made eye-contact, and winked.

I hope what was communicated was encouragement, a friendly contact and a silent assurance that things will get better.

Yeah, I've been there. My own father's temper has been known to be ... expressive. I absorbed my share of it growing up, though I can't remember now any particular incident or cause, no more than I remember a particular thunderstorm. I mean, I know there were thunderstorms when I was growing up but I don't remember any specific ones. What does come back to me now, however, is a time when I was in second or third grade and my dad was trying to get his business launched, working long hours away from the house. He must have felt some need to spend some time with me, however, and out of the blue one Sunday afternoon he took me for a special treat: to play miniature golf. I don't remember where my brother and sister were, but I'm sure I was delighted that I was the only one to get this attention. The problem was, it was an especially hot day and the putt-putt course was laid out on what seemed like acres of cement, none of which could have been very far from my head given my height then.

I don't know how long we played, but at some point I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I didn't know heat stroke from heat rash then but I was definitely sick and my dad was definitely scared. He got me off of the premises, carrying me to his car and laying me down with a wet handkerchief on my face. We went home and he put me in front of the window a/c unit until I recovered. I'm sure he felt bad that his great plan to spend some time with his son had almost ended in disaster; I know I did, though for different reasons. I remember the concern on his face, however, at a time when I might have expected him to be angry.

Another time when he could have gotten angry and didn't was when I was 16 or 17 and we were anchoring a mobile home. He was steadying the 4-foot anchoring rods in their crosspiece while I swung the 8-lb. sledge to drive them in. At one point I accidentally clipped the upper part of his ear with the handle of the hammer as I repositioned myself for another swing. It drew blood but no explosion, though I'm sure he didn't like it. (Which also reminds me of a time when we were trying to level and anchor a trailer on the side of a steep hill near Steelville, Missouri. He wouldn't let me get under the unit as he delicately worked with hydraulic jacks, concrete blocks and wooden shims along the underframe. Just as he was placing a shim and lightly tapping it into place with a hammer a sonic-boom rocked the valley. I had heard of greased lightning up until that time, but I had never seen it until I saw him crab sideways out from under that trailer!)

Family lore has it that my father's father was known for a volatile temper. I saw a little of it growing up, but other than a couple of years when he lived near us I wasn't around him that much. Most of the accounts are from stories my uncles would tell at family gatherings. Most folks today will accept that a temper can be passed on to each generation whether by nature or nurture or a spiritual manifestation. Whichever, my father received his inheritance and passed it on. My brother and I heat up about as quickly as he did, though expressing it is an indulgence that I have tried hard to limit and thankfully haven't seen it in my children.

Anyway, I survived with minimal trauma and with greater memories such as the ones I've just described taking precedence. I don't know what the future holds for the young man and father I saw in Iowa, but I hope the incident was an isolated one that one day will be acknowledged yet set aside in favor of ones happier and more plentiful, for both their sakes.

As I entered the store I tried to think of something to say to the father; something encouraging, in just a few words, that might give him a different perspective. I could come up with nothing in the moment and even now, months later, I still can't think of the perfect sentence to calm the situation and allay my own fears. My fears were not for the future of that family, or that whatever I said might provoke an additional outburst. My concern was that in speaking to that father I might end up telling him why I was in Iowa that day and telling him where I was going and why, and that neither of us would want to hear that outloud.

You see, the reason I was standing in that gas-station was because my daughters and I were on our way to Missouri to see my dad as a Father's Day surprise. He had been feeling sick for weeks and experiencing a lot of back pain. Though we could barely breathe the word, our family was concerned that cancer had returned. Thoughts of the past and the future had been folding themselves constantly in my mind during the drive. If it was cancer, would he need chemo? If he needed chemo, would he put himself through that ordeal or — after what had happened to friends of his — say, "To hell with that"?

He was surprised and pleased to see us when we got there, twisting stiffly in his swivel chair to see what the dog was barking at. He got up for hugs all around, his golf shirt stretching a little around the bit of gut his cardiologist had been after him to lose. He didn't look much different since I had seen him back in December, but I could tell he was in pain from a fractured vertebrae and the subsequent bone biopsy he'd had the day before. We talked some over the weekend about the pain and the possible implications, but tried to keep things light and positive. The test results would be back on Tuesday, I was heading back on Monday.

The girls and I stood around him and prayed before we left. He acquiesced, but it felt to me as if I was throwing a saddle on a newly busted bronco for the first time. I have personally seen and experienced great, even miraculous, results from prayer, and have prayed many times for people, standing on scripture and faith, the words usually come easily as I follow the leading that comes. This was harder, though; so much I wanted to pour into it, so little that seemed to want to come out. Through the long drive home I took some comfort from the knowledge that it is the power in the words, not the eloquence that makes the difference. We arrived home Monday night.

Tuesday brought the word. Lymphoma, stage four. He would start chemo on Wednesday, no fuss. "Let's get it done."

I awoke easily last Sunday morning to the tramping sound of Lake Superior shoving repeatedly against the shore just 80 feet from the screened door of the cottage. It had been the same sound I had fallen asleep to the night before, and I looked at the clock and was half-stunned to realize that for the first time in months I had just spent eight glorious, uninterrupted hours dead to the world.

I also noted with some relief that the mental checklist of the day’s chores, challenges and deadlines was not, for the first time in months, floating just behind my eyes, trying to push them open. Instead the invisible slate was hanging back, humble and nearly bare like the marquis of a Dairy Queen closed for the season, the only lettering in my head a casual scrawl: Grand Marais, On Vacation.

Without much urgency I chalked the most pressing agenda item for the day: Breakfast.


On Saturday my family and I had driven up to the North Shore from the Cities. I hadn't been able to get away much this past summer and had had to miss some of the picnics and canoe trips my wife and daughters had already taken, so I was really ready for this trip. By coming this late in the season, and before the fall leaves were at their peak, we had enjoyed a less crowded road, though the cars were still packed as thick as flies around a sweet roll at Tobies in Hinckley. Instead we had a picnic lunch outside the Hinckley Fire Museum and then kept bearing north to Duluth and the southwestern tip of the great lake, whereupon we hugged its sprawling shore as we passed the familiar totems of our trip: Two Harbors, Castle Danger, Gooseberry Falls, the Split Rock Lighthouse. We turned off at Palisade Head in order to walk along the the towering cliffs that for so long have told the mighty lake, “This far and no further” (a testament that even a natural balance isn’t necessarily an easy one). Driving up the steep, narrow road up to the parking lot at the rocky edge of Palisade, the “I ride ATVs and I Vote” bumper sticker on our borrowed mini-van contrasted nicely with the many “Wellstone!” stickers already there. After some clambering around and the usual jelly-kneed sensations we were back on Hwy. 61, with the hills, woods and great root beer rivers of the Superior National Forest on our left, the lake always on our right, past the Tettegouche State Park, and the Temperance and Cascade Rivers, crashing down the gorges and over the rocks in a great foamy rush to keep their standing appointments with Gitchee-Gumee. Then we were at last into Grand Marais, and still a bit further, past 5-Mile Rock and to the Croftville Road Cottages.

After that my wife prepared some lamb stew in our kitchen for dinner. Then, in the gathering twilight, a campfire and toasted marshmallows as we watched the bats chase down the remaining insects of the season and finally into bed, the tramping sound in my ears of Superior shoving against the shore, just 80 feet from the screened door of my cottage.


Our cottage. It was beautifully remodeled and very comfortable with two gas fireplaces, and at a great price.

Sunday, when breakfast had been duly scratched off of the to-do list, we went back into Grand Marais, parking in a lot beside the harbor where I could see a yellow sailboat moored 50 yards from shore, crisp in the morning sun and nodding to us on the gentle waves. We walked through the small town, browsing at the many gift shops and quaint attractions. I’m sure that the Indians, and later the first explorers, trappers and lumbermen through this area, would be stupefied at the many opportunities available today to partake of the comforts of pie and caffeine.

While the girls admired jewelry and scarves, beneath rustically-lettered signs informing them that they were under video surveillance, I scouted around and discovered the apparently sole location where that afternoon’s Vikings-Lions football game could be seen. That was still several hours away, however, so we got back in the van and headed north to the Devil’s Kettle Falls and State Park. We “tail-gated” with chicken- and egg-salad sandwiches from our cooler before setting off on the somewhat stiff 1.4 mile hike to the falls. The path is relatively wide and well-maintained, but persistently uphill and even in the mild temperatures we got pretty warm. There are some very nice look-outs along the way, however, and we admired the cascading river and the vistas of trees still mostly green but already seasoned with explosive swathes of red and orange.

After steady climbing we were then at a series of wooden steps and railings leading us down to the titular “Devil’s Kettle.” The relief in the descent was greatly mitigated by the knowledge that every one of the 179 steps would have to be negotiated in reverse order and direction on our way back. On the way back up, however, we did get to see an eagle circling directly above us (though at first I thought it might be a buzzard). The girls dropped me back at the bar in time for the game and then they headed for the bay with their sketch books.

I thought the bar would have more than a few tourists inside to catch the game, but it was all locals who knew each other and didn't seem to mind my presence. It was a congenial, cozy group. One of the patrons sitting at the bar, who was wearing open-toed flip-flop sandals, apparently felt so at home that he started picking at his toenails, dropping his scrapings on the carpet. Well, I wasn't planning on eating anyway, as I only wanted to watch the game, but I ordered a draft Bock for medicinal purposes. The pedicurist and one of the female customers were soon intent on a discussion about why the TV kept showing a "DET 6, MIN 3" score from time to time in the upper corner of the screen, especially when the current score was Lions 7, Vikings 0. I cautiously submitted for their consideration that the strange score might, in fact, be the score of the Tigers-Twins game that was also going on that afternoon. Their reaction gave credence to the adage that the definition of "expert" means someone who lives more than 50 miles away. A little later I felt comfortable enough to take sides between two groups disputing the interpretation of a certain play. One of the members of the "other" group, an older gentleman, loudly insisted his version was correct because he "used to play this game." To which I replied, "And did they wear helmets back then?" Fortunately, this was well received by the group as a whole and the gentleman in particular, and while I was on a "one-beer-per-half" pace, a third Bock appeared in front of me in the fourth quarter.

I'd nursed my way through about a third of it with about a minute and a half to go in the game, when my wife pulled up in the parking lot and sent the kids in to get me. "Paw," they said, "Ma says it's time to come home!" Well, actually, they didn't say anything like that, but they did let me know that they and my supper were waiting for me down the street a little ways at a place called the Crooked Spoon. Therefore, even though the game looked to be heading for overtime, I settled my tab and left after Longwell's kick clanked off the upright. Besides, with two 16-oz. glasses of beer, plus a little bit more, in me I was starting to feel a little tingly in my extremities. A brisk walk in the cool evening air was the perfect remedy, however, and I arrived at the restaurant hungry and invigorated. The Crooked Spoon had been recommended to us by friends who admired its sophisticated menu. I believe I acquitted myself with grace and aplomb while dining — an opinion that the Mall Diva threatens to dispute in a post of her very own if I'm not careful (or she gets the slightest encouragement from anyone).

Whatever. The food was absolutely delicious, from the melted cheese and spinach appetizer, through the pulled pork with beans and greens soup and the barbequed ribs, and including two delectable pieces of carrot cake — each the size of some of the boulders we'd seen along the shore earlier — that my family fell upon with flashing cutlery like ninjas. We left the restaurant well satisfied with the meal and the day, but even more "dessert" was in store: an enormous crescent moon, looking so perfect that if you saw it in a movie you'd think it was a painted backdrop for sure, had risen over the bay and was reflecting a golden beam across the still waters directly at us, and the beam followed us nearly all the way to the car.

Yep, it had been a great day.

I often think about how much I enjoy living indoors. Usually these thoughts come on Monday mornings when I try to remember why I'm getting out of bed. Coincidentally, the thought also came to me as I lay in bed last night, absorbing one of the most unusual thunderstorms I've ever experienced.

The typical Minnesota thunderstorm features sporadic flashes of lightning, followed by the thunder. I automatically find myself counting the seconds between the flash and the bang. Sometimes you get that kind of fireworks-like thrill on the close ones where the boom crashes down on you in the split second immediately after the flash. Is it the electric-charge in the air or the startle reflex that makes those hairs stand up on the back of your neck when that happens?

Last night, however, was a non-stop flash and roll that went on seemingly forever. The vibrations were so fierce and persistent that I could feel them coming up from the floor and into the bed. The lighting was constant, flickering like a flourescent bulb that is going bad. If I'd had my reading glasses on I think I could have read by it, though the effort probably would have made me nauseous. Meanwhile the thunder was a continuous tympani of rolling rumbles that made it impossible to determine which bark went with which bite. Except for the one time, that is, when the sheet of light shocked the east window of our bedroom at the same time the thunder came through the north window like Kong looking for Fay Wray.

To tell you the truth, I don't know how long the storm ultimately lasted. There's just something so comforting about being snug and dry when something like that is going on — even under these extreme conditions — that I went to sleep before the show was over. Can anybody tell me how it turned out?

Late Sunday evening I packed my bag and got in my car to head to the company event that has been consuming my waking (and a few non-waking) hours for the past several weeks.

It was a warm summer evening, in the gathering twilight that I like best when it is still light but the sky is beginning to gray and the lights of the cars and houses really seem to pop. I swung out onto the almost deserted highway and flipped over from radio to CD and was rewarded with a couple of songs from Springsteen's Born to Run album.

The quality of light, the open road in front of me, a couple of anthems from my youth...it was as if a screen door slammed in my mind, a dress waved, and a vision danced across the porch as the radio played.

I put the pedal down and off I screamed into the night.

"Finishing a book is just like you took a child out in the yard and shot it."
— Truman Capote

I don't have the experience, yet, of being an author finishing a book so I don't know if Capote's words are apt. It seems to me the writing-publishing experience is more like being a parent and having a child leave the nest. As the parent of a soon to be 19-year-old still in the nest but beginning to make her own way I marvel at how what I’ve “created” has taken on a life of her own; how the countless hours spent shaping and imagining and agonizing over just the right word has inspired dialogue with subtleties, nuances and complexities I never realized were possible, and how a true character has emerged fully-formed and bursting to go forth.

For years this book was mainly blank pages; pages that consumed my life and were never far from my thoughts no matter what else I happened to be doing. Day by day those pages were filled, and while there are things I’d like to go back and rewrite there’s no guarantee that the story would be even better than it is now; even so I wrestle with the temptation/obsession to continue to tweak and polish.

Will anyone else understand the humor of page 112, or appreciate how difficult it was to write Chapter 19? Certainly not at the level I do, but that knowledge is for my own book, the one written on my heart. Now, though, it is time to see this through; to be proud to see all the time, work and love realized in a tangible package; to admire not just the cover but the spine; to breathe deep the aroma of the fresh pages and the glue that holds them together.

It is good.

I've made passing mention here a couple of times that I used to be a scoreboard operator at the Metrodome, working games for the Twins, Vikings and Gophers as well as working the odd (some odder than others) concert, tractor-pull or pro-wrasslin' match. I only mentioned it before to add context to whatever else I was writing about at the time, figuring some time I'd get around to dedicating a post to the experience and offering a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes at major sporting events. I don't know that there's ever a perfect time to write something like that, but an e-mailer did ask for more Dome details the other day, so here goes.

Back in early 1982 I was an over-extended single guy looking for a part-time job to supplement my income, but I didn't want to work at McDonald's or someplace where someone I knew might see me. Perusing the want ads one day I saw an ad that went something like this: "Part-time opportunity, evenings and week-ends. Must be knowledgeable about football and baseball, able to type 50+ wpm and not afraid to perform in front of large crowds. For more info contact..." There was no mention of what the job was, and I almost dismissed it. The more I thought about it, though, I realized that there wasn't anything in the ad that didn't apply to me...even the large crowds thing. I applied, was interviewed, given a typing test and, obviously, hired.

There were 8 scoreboard operators plus Dick Davis from the Metropolitan Sports Commission who was in charge of the scoreboard and us. We were divided into two four-person teams and I was the only person who wasn't a school teacher; six of the others, in fact, where coaches or had experience coaching as well. The system was all computer operated (though our first computers were very large and almost primitive) and there was a minor stink in the Strib before the season started because the new computerized system meant replacing the old groundskeepers from the Met who had been hanging the signs for the old board. Whatever.

The two crews alternated games, and within the crews we rotated through the four scoreboard positions on a game-by-game basis. Originally the job required someone to register balls, strikes, runs and the line score; someone to type in and display advertising and other messages during the course of the game; someone to keep track of and update out of town games; and someone to operate the sole video camera, perched on the second-deck fascia above third base. Unless the game was televised (and a lot of Twins games then weren't) this was the stadium's replay camera, beaming images to the black and white (black and yellow, actually) board, to be displayed through thousands of lightbulbs ("fuzz-dots" we called 'em). Resolution wasn't very good, but you could see things well enough to recognize yourself if a crowd shot was put on the board.

The first balls & strikes console was a twitchy piece of dreck that didn't have all the bugs worked out. Often you'd push the button for a ball or strike and it would delay the display long enough that you'd think it hadn't registered the input, so you'd push again - only to see double strikes or balls suddenly go up. Push the button too hard to ensure it was registered and the same thing could happen. This was very frustrating to the operators and to the people in the press box, who were always looking for something to criticize.

Sid Hartman, the grand old man of Minnesota sportswriting, was especially incensed by this type of malfunction. The press box was immediately outside the door of our room and any time a "double-clutch" occurred he'd jump up and storm in to announce that the count was wrong, as if we didn't know it. I was working the out-of-town board one evening when Sid made about six trips into our "office". When another glitch occurred he was on his way in again. I happened to be standing by the door, however, so I innocently turned my back to it as if to look over the shoulder of the guy working the message board, while casually flipping the door lock into place. There was much door rattling and cursing; muffled as it was by our air-conditioned booth, but I think I did hear mentions of my parentage and my own capability to ever father children, but he finally went away and didn't come back the rest of the game.

That was actually kind of a fun memory. One of my worst moments, however, came before a game against the Blue Jays. Tony Kubek had recently been demoted from the "Game of the Week" and was working the back-up GOTW. He was also the main broadcaster for the Jays, which I didn't know at the time. Anyway, I'm walking through the press box and here comes Tony Kubek! I say, with some amazement, "Hey, Tony Kubek!" He smiles. I then blurt, "Are we the back-up game today?" I wasn't trying to bust his chops; I was just surprised that the Twins of that era might be considered for a national broadcast (even if as a back-up). Mr. Kubek was not pleased. Dick Davis, however, witnessed the scene and thought it was one of the funniest things he'd ever seen and would never let me forget it, especially any time Kubek returned to the Dome.

There were other hero-sightings as well. In the early days we actually had to go down to the locker rooms to get the lineups, which were posted on a corkboard in the home and visitor clubhouses. I remember that Reggie Jackson, in boxers, tank-top and beat-up flip-flops, looked really old and that his calves seemed impossibly skinny. Ted Simmons wearing nothing but a jock is not a sight I'd wish on anyone. Another time I was writing down the visiting lineup, my piece of paper pressed against the wall under the corkboard. I finished and turned around to leave - and almost hit Sparky Anderson in the nose with my elbow. He'd walked up behind me and was eating a bowl of vegetable soup and watching me write down the lineup, or was perhaps just pondering making a change, and I'd never heard him approach. At least he laughed about it.

Another time I got the hairy eyeball from Don Drysdale when the White Sox were in town. He was standing in the back of the press box eating a hot dog when I came out of the scoreboard room about 20 feet from him. All of a sudden a fan in the row in front of the press box reached over the divider and grabbed my shoulder, shoved a baseball at me and said, "Hey, buddy - get Drysdale's autograph for me." It happened so quickly that I just obeyed, somewhat stupefied. I approached DD with the ball (he was close enough to hear what was going on) and he glared at me but took the ball and signed it (later I'd hear from others what a tough autograph he was). I barely got a "thanks" from the guy who gave me the ball. I should have kept it.

In addition to working World Series and ALCS games and an All Star game I also had the privilege of working Scott Erickson's no-hitter and I got paid to see Dave Winfield's and Eddie Murray's 3,000th hits. I was also there the night Dave Kingman hit a monstrous foul ball straight up that never came down. The ball went into one of the holes stitched into the underlining of the Dome roof and disappeared. The funniest thing was all the Twins infielders (including shortstop Houston Jiminez - all 5' 3" inches of him) gathered in the middle of the infield, looking up at the roof in the hopes of fielding the pop-up. As the seconds went by, though, they started to get really nervous. All of a sudden they all simultaneously ducked and scattered in different directions expecting to be struck by the phantom ball that was never there. The next day someone in the Twins front office got the bright idea that before the first pitch of the game they'd have someone drop a ball from the ceiling and Mickey Hatcher would catch it and the umpire would call "Out". Someone got up on the catwalk, Mickey and the ump positioned themselves near home plate, and the ball was dropped - by the guy above and by the guy with the glove.

One of my all-time favorite memories, however, came when I was working the camera back in the fuzz-dot days and doing crowd shots between innings. As I panned over a boy that was about 10 years old he saw he was on the board and then thought it would be funny to flip me off. Dick was in my headset saying, "Get off him! Get off him!" but I said, "No, just stick with me here" and I zoomed in on the kid, who immediately got very shy and embarrassed. He walked over a few seats and sat down low, trying to get out of sight. He looked up at the board and saw he was still up there. He slunk down even further and moved over several more seats, and I again followed him. By this time the crowd was laughing so the kid got up and ran up the stairs to the concourse. About that time the inning was beginning and Dick said, "OK, back to the game" but I suggested he take the camera shot off the board but to stay with me. He agreed and sure enough, a few minutes later the kid stuck his head back in from the concourse and looked to see if the coast was clear. Seeing the line score on the board he stepped back into the aisle. "Now!" I said and Dick immediately put the camera shot back on the board — the crowd roared, the players on the field (I was told) started turning around trying to figure out what was going on, and the kid high-tailed it back out to the concourse and has probably never gone to a ballgame since.

The camera also helped me get published in Sports Illustrated! Back in the day when Bob Uecker was doing his "I must be in the front rooow" commercials for Miller Lite, the Brewers came to the Dome for a series. Ueck's commercials, if you recall, ended with him way out by himself in center field, hollering to the nearest guy, "Great seats, eh, buddy?" As the game went on I saw some guy sitting in the upper deck, center field, all by himself. I zoomed in on him (showing plenty of empty seats) and asked Dick through the headset, "Is that Bob Uecker?" He thought that was pretty funny so he told the guy working the message board to create a 1/3 board message with the words "Is that Bob Uecker?" to go alongside my camera shot. A couple of weeks later SI came out with a story about Ueck and the article started off by referring to my caption and camera shot from the Dome.

Well, those are some of the baseball memories. There's more I could write about some of the amazing things I did and saw at football games, tractor-pulls and the Pink Floyd and Rolling Stones concerts, but I'll save those for another time.

"Some love the sound of the loon or the teal,
but I love the voice of Herb Carneal."

That's a snippet from a song I heard Garrison Keillor sing a long time ago. I don't remember what the song or the context was, but that couplet always stuck with me because it also expressed the pleasure and comfort I took from listening to Herb call a Twins game. There was just something so natural about the way he described the action; you could tell he enjoyed what he was doing, even in the most wretched of seasons - and there were enough of those over the years to have made a lesser man long for laryngitis.

It's kind of funny, but when I think of his voice now I don't think of baseball as much as I do night driving on a warm summer's evening; of settling back in my seat, the windows half open, letting the dark air and the golden tones eddy about me. Baseball is about the only sport I enjoy listening to on the radio. I can barely stand to watch the NBA, let alone listen to it and the college game isn't much more compelling. Hockey and football have so much going on that, while I'll listen to a game on radio, it's only until I can get to a TV, whereupon I'll dash inside to watch the rest. Many times, however, while on my way home and listening to Herb call a Twins game, I'd sit out in the driveway or garage and wait until the end of the inning before going inside and turning on the set. With Herb there was never any rush.

Herb and former Cardinals announcer Jack Buck were as much of the sound of baseball to me as the crack of the bat, and their style and grace was always a pleasure, and now they are both gone. There are other announcers who are alright, and some who are annoying (it took me awhile to appreciate John Gordon, and I can't stand Buck's son, Joe). In recent years I could hear Herb's voice getting weaker, but it was still a baseball voice and the few innings he'd work each game were like getting the last piece of cake: you knew it was going to be good, but soon gone. Last week when the newspaper had the story that he didn't feel strong enough to work the Opening Day game, Twins fans knew it wasn't a good sign. Herb said he hoped his voice would be strong enough to return soon, and even though I read his words in the paper — rather than hearing them — they struck me as having the same note of plucky optimism he'd use when saying "Wait until next year" after another 90-loss season. Like the Twins mantra, he always seemed to know that you can't take any one loss too hard.

This one, though, is going to be a toughie.

The StarTribune has a collection of some of Herb's classic calls here.