Author Topic: A personal note  (Read 5892 times)

kenberg

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A personal note
« on: May 15, 2018, 12:34:13 PM »
I might be online less for a while. I live in Maryland but I will be going back to Minnesota for the 80th birthday of a childhood friend.   We both graduated from Randolph Heights Elementary School, in St. Paul, in 1952.  I have a group photo of the 40 or so kids that graduated that year and I will bring it with me so that we can play "Guess who is who". I am wallowing in a bit of nostalgia!

My wife Becky pointed out a feature that is unusual in modern life. I went to exactly three schools: Randolph Elementary for K-8, Monroe High for 9-12, University of Minnesota for undergraduate school and graduate school. On the same thought, the old neighborhood is remarkably stable. On a recent trip Becky and I stopped by the old playground that is half a block from my old house. The warming house for ice skating has been enlarged a bit and so some things are in a different place but that's about all. We chatted with a woman whose 3 year old was playing in the sandbox, she was much like any neighbor from the 1940s. My old house looks as it did.

For contrast, Becky was born in St. Jo Missouri,  moved when she was 5 to Eugene Oregon, moved when she was 12 to San Francisco, California, first one house and then to another, and went to college in Ohio. Many kids now move around at least that much.  Me, I went to Chicago once when I was 8, otherwise we stayed in Minnesota or perhaps just barely into Wisconsin.

I am very much looking forward to this gathering.

Anyway, I said this was a personal note and indeed it is. I'll be online, but probably not as much for a couple of weeks.
Ken

Curls77

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #1 on: May 15, 2018, 05:41:53 PM »
 !H Enjoy Ken!!  :)

Masse24

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #2 on: May 15, 2018, 07:45:21 PM »
Ya, hey dere, Ken. Be shur you have yerself a good time back in Minnesooota. You betcha by golly!

Have yerself some hot dish, and Walleye, and maybe some Lefse, too!  ;) You can wash it all down with a Grain Belt.

Don't forget to go "up north." Wave to Paul Bunyan when you drive by!
“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.” Abraham Lincoln

kenberg

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #3 on: May 15, 2018, 08:42:28 PM »
Thanks. We probably will be up near Brainerd for a day or so, there is a Paul Bunyan statue there.

I called the parks guy in St. Paul to ask if it was totally stupid or just a bit weird to plan on swimming in the lakes. He didn't  phrase it that way but he did say he planned to wait a couple  more weeks. He mentioned that Bass season opened last weekend if I really felt the need to get put on a lake.

Ok, as I was writing this  I got a phone call from someone near Brainerd area and she said the ice just broke on the nearby lakes two weeks or so ago. Probably swimming is out. 

Minnesota does have its own style. Some years back I was there in January, it was colder than a, well, it was cold and I was on a city bus to somewhere for a night out. It stopped to let on some new passengers and as the door closed a guy came out of a bar, no doubt it was much warmer in there, waving his hands. The bus had not yet started moving and one of the new passengers pointed to the guy with the waving hands. The bus driver assured everyone that the guy was actually waving for a cab, and  started the bus. As an afterthought, he said "Well he is now".

You want a bus? You stand at the bus stop. Otoh, I once watched a bus driver there be extremely accommodating to a young mother in difficulty.
Ken

ggriffin0

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #4 on: May 16, 2018, 02:16:22 AM »
Having spent a few seasons in Bloomington, and playing around the 4 lakes on the right-side of the tracks  ;) . Hope you have a great opportunity to touch-base with roots and have fun. Maybe even a trip up to Bemidji :) .

kenberg

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #5 on: May 16, 2018, 09:13:12 PM »
Bemidji is quite a trek. Probably something on the St. Croix is closer and simpler. I'm impressed that people seem to be at least a little familiar with Minnesota. When I moved from Minneapolis out to  the Washington D.C. area I soon noticed a difference. People might come to D.C as part of a trek to many other places. Almost nobody comes to Minnesota on their way to somewhere else. For example, Becky had never been to Minnesota before she married me.  Now she has even been, briefly, ice fishing.


Ha! Just checked. 86 degrees in Mpls.. Off to the lakes.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2018, 09:38:32 PM by kenberg »
Ken

Masse24

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #6 on: May 17, 2018, 03:07:36 AM »
I'm a native, Ken. Born and raised. St. Cloud. Uff da!
“Kindness is the only service that will stand the storm of life and not wash out. It will wear well and will be remembered long after the prism of politeness or the complexion of courtesy has faded away.” Abraham Lincoln

kenberg

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #7 on: May 18, 2018, 02:50:28 PM »
I'm a native, Ken. Born and raised. St. Cloud. Uff da!

As someone once observed, contrary to popular belief the population of the world is about 300,00. How else to explain all of these "Isn't it a small world" experiences.

It's hot, I maybe was out in the sun without protection a little too long yesterday, but it is all going well. Continuing my nostalgia quest we went to both the Minnesota Historical Society and the Ramsey County Historical Society yesterday, searching for small things rather than large. At the RCHS the (very very helpful)  research guy found a newspaper article from c.1950 about a historical re-enactment at my elementary school. Four kids were mentioned. I once had a  car-pool with one of the girls, she was "churning butter".  One of the boys, he was "lifting a bucket of water from a well" was a fairly close friend. I had a '47 Plymouth, he had a '40 Ford, our garage in the back yard had a pit for working on cars, we both used it. I have always thought that overhauling an engine, which I did when I was 15 or 16, took far more care and planning than anything I had to do in school. Sort of like a compound squeeze.

This  looking back is probably more for those of us of later years, but I am getting a great kick out of it.
Ken

kenberg

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Re: A personal note
« Reply #8 on: May 27, 2018, 01:33:30 PM »
Berg is Back. The gathering was everything I could have hoped for. There was live music, reprising history from Nat King Cole (Straighten Up and Fly Right) to Dave Brubeck (Take Five, of course). And an impromptu trio including the birthday boy singing Ripple.  The  musicians were good, especially the sax. And we did go swimming in Lake Nokomis. A bit cold, but warm enough for half an hour or so.

I didn't play any bridge but I did watch some of the USBC on vugraph. Board 28, which would be board 118 out of the 120 for the full match,  brought things to a tie at 225-225. At one table NS are in 1NT, EW have six running spades and the !D A for off 1. At the other table EW are in 3 !S.  Technically 3 !S can be made but lacking double dummy insight I don't see how declarer could find the winning line. He took a reasonable line that was unsuccessful. 4 imps. All very impressive. There is a reason why those guys were in the finals.
Ken