Author Mark Munger (Cloquet River Press)

Jack Munger, Kevin Harris, and Dale “Guitar” Harris waiting on The Boss

When I heard my brother in robes, Dale Harris, talking about getting tickets to the Bruce Springsteen concert in St. Paul early in the summer, I had to butt in.

“You’re taking Kevin?” I asked, referring to his 14 year old son, a kid I’ve coached in soccer and who’s played both soccer and hockey with my son, Jack.

“I am.”

“If you can get two more tickets, I’d love to take Jack.”

Now, some folks might view my intrusion as being a bit pushy. But Dale knows that, by nature, I’m always pushy so the request didn’t strike him as untoward.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Dale came through and we made arrangements to stay overnight so as not to duplicate the foolishness of younger men: Driving from St. Paul to Duluth at o-dark-thirty after three hours of The Boss was something we’d both done in our twenties. A long drive in the dark with two teenagers asleep in the back seats wasn’t something we were interested in attempting. We checked into the Embassy Suites in downtown St. Paul (you know, the one with the cute little wood ducks floating in the fountain) early enough to have a brew and dinner, and then, along with several dozen other fans, the four of us waited for the shuttle to take us to the X.

The X Begins to Fill

While we waited in the lobby of the hotel’s faux Irish pub (any place that runs out of Guinness and tries to claim it’s a pub is a pretender in my book!), Dale and I speculated as to which of the hundreds of Springsteen hits the band would select to start the concert.

Dad and Son Listening to “My City of Ruins”

“”We Take Care of Our Own'”, Dale suggested.

The choice made perfect sense. Springsteen had worked tirelessly, between his horrific concert dates, to show up in Ohio, Wisconsin, and Iowa to sing songs of protest in support of President Obama’s re-election. The populist message of Springsteen’s songs of broken dreams, shuttered factories, and folks trying to get by fit in well with the message of the Prez. Pulling the first song off Wrecking Ball, an album that drips of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan and Neil Young at the height of their collective political consciousness; well, that just seemed so damn logical.

“It’s Veteran’s Day,” a guy who had no connection to us and certainly wasn’t in on our conversation, interjected. “He’ll honor men and women in uniform by playing ‘Born in the USA.'”

Dale and I looked at each other but the shuttle arrived before we could disagree with the stranger.

The Band in Full Flight

My partner was right on the money. The audience burst into screams as the opening chords of “We Take Care of Our Own” shredded the cobwebs that had settled in during the near hour wait. What followed was a display of musical excellence. Many new cuts from Wrecking Ball (as fine as album as Bruce has crafted in years: see my review of the same under the “Reviews” tab of the dashboard above) made the playlist as did some old favorites. A few chestnuts, like “Atlantic City” from the sparse and lonely Nebraska (one of my all-time favorite Springsteen efforts), were completely remixed to bring freshness and originality to the songs. Other classics, like “Born to Run” and “Rosalita” were played straight, as if decades of time hadn’t passed between laying the tunes down on vinyl and wandering onto the X’s stage on a cold November night after the 2012 election.

The five-piece brass section, the three-fold E Street Gospel Choir, the percussionist, and the present E Street standard bearers (Tallent, Van Zant, Lofgren, Weinberg, Bittan, Giordano, Tyrell) worked together in perfection whether the piece was a rocker or a soft ballad (such as “If I Should Fall Behind”). Bruce strutted. He played guitar. He belted out standards, crooned gospel, and dialed it down to sing lovely, lovely slow songs of angst and longing. He crowd surfed. He grabbed a pre-teen boy and dragged him onto the stage in the midst of the pit and had him slap hands alongside The Boss. He sang a duet with a young girl. He brought an 88-year-old birthday girl onto the stage during “Dancing in the Dark” because the sign she waved above her gray head said she wanted to dance with Stevie Van Zant. And, thankfully, after all the mud and slime that was slung by politicians over the past 18 months, there was not one word, despite Bruce’s obvious political leanings, about the election. Not one.

25 songs. Three hours aboard a musical steamroller. Not a break. No warmup band. Just the man and his pals, playing their music. Man, what a night!

“Born to Run” as an Encore

When a musician has written some of a generation’s most memorable tunes, penned some of its most poignant lyrics, and cut dozens of quality albums, and is still learning his craft and evolving as an artist at age 63, how do you pick one song out of a performance and claim it was “the moment” during the show? There’s never going to be uniformity in such an endeavor. Each fan will have his or her view of what was special, which song soared and tugged at their heartstrings, what struck him or her as the most memorable portion of a very long but very enjoyable ‘coaster ride. For me, when Bruce grabbed a placard bearing a request and spent time with his band, singers, and the horns figuring out what key to do “Savin’ Up” in, well, that blew me away. I’d never heard the song and when Springsteen worked the kinks of the unrehearsed tune in front of us and explained that he’d written it for Clarence Clemons (whom everyone knew as The Big Man, the glue behind the E Street Band and its dynamic, unusual sound: what other rock band from the 70s features a sax player the size of Jupiter?) , well, you just knew something special was about to happen. And it did., especially with Jake Clemons (Clarence’s nephew) blowing the sax in honor of his late uncle.

I sat, I stood, I yelled, I sang, I cheered. And so did my fifteen-year-old son. After a marathon of great music from America’s hardest working musician, the smile that began with “We Take Care of Our Own” was still there when the last chord of “10th Avenue Freeze Out” had faded and The Big Man’s face on the overhead screen disappeared.

Peace.

Mark

You can watch footage of “Savin’ Up” from the concert at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdIwe4XPUks

Apparently, it’s the first time he’s ever done it with the E Street Band!

St. James School and Catholic Church

Thursday. I arranged my schedule at the courthouse so that I could spend some time with budding young writers at St. James Parochial School in West Duluth. The invitation to talk to and interact with Mrs. Lindquist’s 6th, 7th, and 8th grade English classes came fortuitously and in typical 21st century fashion: A Facebook friend sent Mrs. Linqduist my way when the young teacher let folks know she was looking for a published author to talk to her students. Following 21st century protocol, we never spoke on the telephone but simply messaged each other until a date and time for my visit was set.

St. James is typical of many Roman Catholic schools, I imagine, throughout the country. Classes are held in an old, but well maintained building attached to the local parish. After parking my Pacifica and making my way to the one entrance (of a myriad of entrances) that the public is allowed to use to enter the complex, I followed signs leading me down brightly lighted, freshly polished hallways to the school office. After checking in, the office administrator escorted me past clusters of little kids wearing school uniforms: white polo shirts and khaki slacks for both genders. Gone are the powder blue shirts, narrow ties, and black slacks boys who attended Catholic school wore “back in my day”. And the young ladies? Completely absent were the string ties, crisp white blouses, and blue plaid skirts of the 1960s Roman Catholic school girl uniform. In the 21st century, students of both genders dress alike.

Mrs. Linqquist turned out to be a bright eyed, pretty, young lady who whose attention to her charges and her duties as a teacher would do any parent proud. As we talked before the kids filed in for my appearance, I learned that she grew up in Duluth, graduating from Duluth Central and UMD (after a spell at Concordia-Moorhead), and that she teaches English, Composition, Spanish, and Religion. Quite a load but given the small class sizes at the school, it’s a schedule that she finds manageable. We were soon joined, in her basement classroom (a cluttered but inviting space) by another young teacher and 15 or so energetic but polite young men and women between the ages of 11 and 15.

I have to say: I’ve done many, many talks, media interviews, workshops, lectures, signings, and readings concerning my books over the past 20 years but the hour I spent with Mrs. Lindquist’s kids in that small, dark classroom last Thursday, was one of the most rewarding hours I’ve ever spent as an author. Having my own 15 year old at home, I tried to make our discussion lively: less a lecture and more interactive. I welcomed questions from the students, all of which were insightful and well thought. Mrs. Lindquist was quick with the computer mouse when we took the students on a tour of this blog, finding categories and tabs and clicking on them to display areas of interest on an overhead screen as fast as I could think. Ah, the power of youth and technology! In the end, I think I drew more from the kids’ energy and enthusiasm for writing and reading than they learned from me. Our time together ended far too early.

Duluth Congregational Church Art and Craft Sale

After an afternoon of signing search warrants, finishing orders, and returning telephone calls, it was time for me to once again take off my judicial robe and become, as my second son Dylan once labeled me, “a “semi-famous” author. Jack, the only of my four sons left at home, had packed the Pacifica with boxes and storage bins the night before. I’m still recovering from shoulder surgery and, on doctor’s orders, I’m unable to use my left hand and arm for anything more than typing. So, with my judicial duties completed and as a one handed author guy, I headed all the way across town, to Lakeside, where I was scheduled to have a booth at another of WendyUpNorth’s neighborhood art and craft shows.

I like doing these smaller, indoor shows. In fact, as I’ve said before, I’ve sworn off doing the big summertime outdoor festivals that once were the bread and butter of my book sales. Being indoors has the advantage of dispensing with the need for an EZ Up tent, worrying about the weather, and makes for a less stressful existence. In addition, the cost of renting a table at these events is modest in comparison to the fees charged at larger festivals. And there is usually music, as there was on Thursday. There’s nothing better than acoustic music playing in the background to tame the savage breast, right? On Thursday, longtime Duluth-Superior folk icon Jim Hall played his guitar and sang his songs off in a corner of the event, adding a wisp of melancholy to the evening.

The One-Armed Author Guy

Though there weren’t crowds of customers, the folks who wandered in were interested in art and literature and, by the end of the night, I’d done fairly well in the sales department. I also renewed acquaintances with a woman I went from kindergarten through high school with (thanks, Monica for stopping by and buying some books!), chatted with a young woman who recently served on a jury in my courtroom, and talked music with an old acquaintance; Duluth folkie John Ward.

Towards the end of the night, I thought I’d made a sale to a woman whose husband, according to her, was 100% Finnish and likely interested in my two historical novels about the Finns.

“My husband would love these books, ” she told me. “I’ll bring him over to take a look.”

Like many folks who browse and say they will be back to buy, she didn’t return. The next time I saw her, her husband, and their teenaged daughter, I was on my way to the restroom and they were leaving the church.

“I wonder how we get out of here,” the woman said.

“Right down the hall,” I said, pointing to the exit as I entered the restroom, a bit disappointed that she hadn’t come back to my table.

From the restroom, I could hear the woman say to her husband:

“Oh, that’s the man who had the Finn books for sale. You should really take a look.”

I could sense that they’d stopped short of the exit.

“You’ll give me a few minutes to look them over?”

“Sure.”

I did what needed doing, washed my hands, and scurried back towards my table. Sure enough, the family was standing over my display, the father and husband reading the back of Suomalaiset. After some preliminaries, he bought both Suomalaiset and a manuscript copy of Sukulaiset. It’s not often that a prospective customer fulfills his or her promise to return and buy something once they’ve passed by. The fact someone came back and bought two books, was, in addition to the great time I had in Mrs. Lindquist’s class at St. James, the perfect end to a perfect day.

Mark’s Books

Peace.

Mark

In the end, half of us  (the Midwest and the coasts) voted for a man who raised himself up from his bootstraps, became the first African American editor of the Harvard Law Review, launched the greatest political campaign of our lifetimes, and served admirably (without scandal or serious misstep) for four years as our president. The other half of our nation (most of the West and nearly all of the South) voted for a man who was raised in privilege, served his business interests, his family, and his church with distinction, and served one term as the governor of a state that didn’t even vote for him in the presidential race. To say that we are a divided nation is an understatement. To say that we face challenges is to minimize the schism in our neighborhoods, cities, states, and country. Still, I think some basic truths from the past eighteen months of rancor should not be ignored.

First, Americans have now rejected a political philosophy based upon theological arguments: one which chooses to ignore dinosaurs, evolution, climate change, medicine, science, and commonly understood human biology. As an example, in Minnesota, a state of great teachers, great public and private universities and colleges, and thoughtful (for the most part) politicians, voters soundly rejected amendments to the Minnesota Constitution which sought to define marriage based upon theological principles and which would have turned the right to vote into something akin to cashing a check.

However you feel about same sex marriage, the failure of the recent amendment regarding that issue deserved its fate: Minnesota law (statutes passed by our elected representatives) already define marriage as the union of one man, one women. Defeating the amendment did nothing to change that legal definition.

With respect to the Voter ID proposal, I was puzzled by the debates surrounding the issue. Lost in the passion displayed by both sides was this fundamental truth: Voting is a right, not a privilege. Putting on my lawyer’s hat for a moment, my argument against the amendment is very simple: Every man or woman living in Minnesota has the right to cast his or her vote unless someone can establish that the person attempting to vote is unqualified to do so. Period. Voting is not akin to obtaining a hunting license, a license to drive, or seeking public benefits. Those are all privileges that may or may not be accessed by Minnesotans upon showing suitable qualifications. Casting a vote; a basic, fundamental right of any adult Minnesotan who has not had his civil rights taken from him due to a felony conviction or a finding of incompetency by a court of law; should not require anything more than the voter’s attestation that the voter is who he says he is and that he lives in the precinct where he is casting his vote. Think about this: any felon released from prison can attain a license to drive. A photo ID (driver’s license) doesn’t establish that a felon has had his civil rights (including the right to vote) restored. Presenting a photo ID at the polls in no way “prevents” the voter fraud that is claimed to be at the root of the proposed amendment.

I also think that what Minnesota, what America affirmed last night is this: We celebrate and hold nearly sacred stories of Americans of modest means who have followed their dreams and made something of their lives. President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are sterling examples of such hard-earned success. Despite the birther and other crazed voices to the contrary, they have done nothing to diminish the level of their accomplishments in either their private or public lives.

Finally, what Minnesota and America also affirmed last night is that personal integrity: being true to one’s moral and ethical compass; can defeat, in the end, distortion and deliberate falsehood. Contrast President Obama’s obvious personal integrity with Mitt Romney’s response to the racially coded (or not so coded) venom injected into the campaign by Trump, Gingrich, Limbaugh, and a host of others on the Right. Not once during a very strained and heated campaign did the president point to Gov. Romney’s faith as being out of the mainstream or an impediment for the Governor to be president. No surrogate of the president went there either. But on the other side of the equation, Governor Romney was remarkably silent. He did nothing to challenge or rein in the nonsense being spewed by his crowd. Nothing.

John McCain, when confronted with right wing commentary about candidate Obama’s race, religion, and place of birth in 2008 stood far taller. He said loudly and clearly: “Knock it off.” He showed that, even in a losing effort, ethics and integrity matter. Unfortunately, Mitt Romney never displayed similar fortitude.

The way I see it, the legacy of this election is not so much a story of the division of our beloved nation based upon red and blue states. It is more a reminder to us all that personal integrity matters even when the flames of politics are hot and the race for high office is razor close.

It was heartening to see America vindicate our president, his wife, and their family as being indeed, not just one of us, but the best of us.

Peace.

Mark

Duluth Heights Community Club

The crowd was meager from the get go and didn’t change much over the course of time. Seven hours. Six books sold. Not a very productive way to spend a Saturday. I know. Even J.K. Rowling may have had a day, somewhere long ago in her past, where she sat by herself at a book store or a public signing event. Maybe. I know many other nationally known writers, including Jane Hamilton (Map of the World) and Jacquelyn Mitchard (Deep End of the Ocean) have written about such occasions despite their literary success and having large publishing houses behind their work. Still, I am, by nature, an optimistic man and when the Duluth Heights Hockey Association emailed me a notice that they had room for an author at their first ever fundraising carnival and craft show, I looked at the calendar, saw an open date, and jumped at the chance to try to hawk some books.

My Table at Duluth Heights

I was pushing my recovery from shoulder surgery to be lugging around boxes of Laman’s River, Mr. Environment, Suomalaiset, and my novel-in-progress (Sukulaiset, of which I have a few extra review copies I sell at such events) but I figured it was the opening day of Minnesota’s firearms deer hunting season and there would be women (the half of American society that buys and reads fiction) out for a day of shopping and diversion while their menfolk stalked whitetail. I was wrong. Oh, there were indeed a few women about, lugging infants or with toddlers in tow, who came for the carnival in the basement of the community center. And a few of them lingered upstairs to look at the wares of the various vendors. But on this glorious late autumn day, with slight rain giving way to sunshine and balmy temperatures, I saw very few ladies digging for cash in their purses at my booth or any other booth at the event.

My ever diligent wife showed up with lunch for me sometime after tedium turned to boredom. My old man called about a personal problem while I was occupied with selling a book to a young man who had served on a jury a few months back in my courtroom. I had to brush Dad off so I could make the sale, which I did. I returned Dad’s call, gave him the best advice I could, and chatted with Rene’ for a time as I munched on a McDonald’s wrap. Rene’ said adieu and then it was just me and the empty space of the hall, or so it seemed to my now less-than-optimistic eye.

Don’t get me wrong. The exposure was likely a good thing despite the lack of sales. I managed to chat with a few folks who, though they didn’t buy a book directly from me, were interested in the Nook or Kindle version of Laman’s River. And I did other work while I sat in my chair, my left arm immobilized in a sling, Lortab coursing through my veins. I managed to select the textbooks for my environmental law course at UWS next semester. And I finished reading the most recent issue of Poets and Writers Magazine. So, despite the scarcity of sales and the infrequency of patrons, the day was productive.

Mark with His Magazine

Dad wandered in near closing time. We talked a bit and then he waved his hand and went home to watch talking heads on MSNBC. I sold another book: Then it was time to leave. One of the vendors, a nice older woman (who had bought a copy of Sukulaiset) offered her four wheeled dolly and the services of her husband to help me load out. The kindness of strangers, the charitable intent of the show (and the friendliness of the folks who put on it on) might tempt me to come back in spite of disappointing sales. I have a year to think about it.

Peace.

Mark

The Hall Near Closing Time

Matt and Chris Munger with Lexie

OK. So the photo doesn’t exactly show how flat the terrain outside Ashley, ND is.  It shows a hill: A big mother of a hill that we climbed last week in search of pheasants. For the 6th year in a row, my sons Matt and Chris and I have joined my old man, Harry, in a rental house in downtown diminutive Ashley (population 882 but I think the census folks counted the cats too!) to hunt pheasants, the occasional sharptail grouse, and ducks. Normally, the boys and I stick to upland birds and leave the ducks to Grandpa (he’s 85 today!) and his 80 year old buddy, Bruce. But this year, there was no Bruce. Only grandpa, me, the two boys, and Lexie, my son Matt’s affectionate and hardworking red Labrador.

Matt and Chris and the Big Slough

Generations

We’re as dedicated in the field as my kid’s dog. We’re just not very good shots. Oh, we had our moments this year, don’t get me wrong. There were a couple of double roosters, where Chris and I, or Matt and Chris, hit the big beautiful male birds as they took to the sky. There was at least one triple: Chris hit two pheasants and I hit one from the same flurry but we lost my bird when poor Lexie couldn’t make up her mind which of the three downed, but still running birds, to track. In the end, for our four days of hunting, we downed nearly twenty roosters, saw some impressive corn fed deer, watched flight after flight after flight of geese and ducks and swans and cranes fly over head, and only argued a time or two. Grandpa managed a few flurries into the field. even bagging a sharpie and a rooster in the bargain. But we all knew, in the undercurrent  of irritability that surfaced from time to time when trivial things got Grandpa’s goat, that he really wanted, more than anything on Planet Earth, to be a young man tromping through the cattails with his hunting buddies. Problem is, he’s not a young man and, truth be told, other than Bruce, who missed the trip due to an upcoming medical procedure, there aren’t any hunting buddies left to take the field.

Still, and this came through as we downed good beer and shots of Jamison during the 3rd presidential debate after another hard day on the Great Plains, I knew how much Dad enjoyed being with us. Despite his gruff demeanor (and even gruffier beard!), an aura of love emanated from the Old Man even when he was yelling at the President to stand up to the man Dad calls “the empty suit”.

You can tell how happy Grandpa was to be along for the trip (a trip that he organized for years: a duty Matt has now assumed) from the photograph of Harry and Lexie on the couch after a long day in the field. See, Grandpa came out a few days early with Lexie to “scout” out the terrain, to get the lay of the land, and learn the local hunting scuttlebutt. His last Labrador, Cleo, died a few years back: The best damn hunting dog he ever owned. There’s a point in life as a bird hunter when you realize you’ve had your last dog. To Harry’s credit, when Cleo passed, he recognized she was the end of an era. But Matt and his wife Lisa are generous with Lexie. The dog often spends respite time at Grandpa’s house for no other reason than because she’s loved. So, while Harry may be dogless, he is not without a dog. Anyway, Lexie and Harry spent a few days bonding in North Dakota before we arrived. Their connection is clearly shown below.

Lexie and Harry

No man knows his own destiny, nor the time of his passing, nor the true impact of his life upon others. Walking the windy fields, the dry marshes, and the rolling hills of southern North Dakota last week called these truths to mind. No father is perfect. Lord knows, I’ve tried to be there for my four sons and likely succeeded in some ways, failed in others. So has my father. But one thing is certain: Dad passed on a love for this earth, for the thrill of the hunt, and a reverence for wildlife to not only me, his eldest son, but also to his grandsons. How many hunts remain for any of us? Who can say.

Matt, Chris, Lexie, and Harry (and a few pheasants for good measure!)

Mark, Lexie and a pair of roosters

Happy 85th Birthday, Dad!

Looking north, towards the Cloquet River

Discernible snow on October 11th? I can’t remember, in my nearly 58 years of kicking about NE Minnesota, when there’s been appreciable snow on the ground this early. But, photos don’t lie and there you are! I’ll leave it to the scientists and science haters on the House Committee on Science and Technology (isn’t it funny that we have a bunch of guys and gals from one side of the aisle on that committee who disavow the age of the Earth, dinosaurs, mastodons, and yet, supposedly serve the interests of science?) to debate why it’s snowing in NE Minnesota when the leaves haven’t even fallen off the trees. I’m not smart enough to guess the cause. But it happened.

Looking east.

Looking west.

Maybe, as they say on “Garage Logic” global warming is all a bunch of mysterian hooey, which is a polite way of saying it’s bull shit. (Or, if you’re a Joe Biden fan, malarkey.) Or maybe, just maybe, there’s something to the whole notion that we are doing something weird to our atmosphere and hence, our climate. None of us, of course, will likely live long enough to know who’s right and who’s wrong in this debate but it sure is a curious thing to wake up a few days after stream trout season has closed to see a blanket of white across the fields.

Whatever it’s source, the pristine covering was, to this old downhill and cross country skier, a welcome reminder that sometimes, we actually get real, non-man-made snow, in our “neck of the woods”. I’m hoping for a big snow year, whatever the cause, so that once I heal from my upcoming shoulder surgery, I can take to the woods and the hills and enjoy our winter.

Really.

Mark

Park Point Community Center

Saturday. My son Jack and his U15 soccer team is starting playoffs and I’m going to miss the game. Not just as a parent but as one of the coaches. Before I agreed to coach the team with Tim and Gary, I’d signed up to be at the Park Point Community Center for the “Get to the Point” craft show, selling my books. The fact that I’m going to miss the first game (it’s at 9:00am-right when I’ll be setting up my book display) but make the second game at 3:00pm by closing down my sales efforts an hour early sits in my stomach like bad beef.

Choices.

I’ve coached all four of my sons in soccer and, on occasion, two of the four in hockey. I’ve been a confirmation instructor at our church for all four boys. I’m currently active in Jack’s scout troop. I try to be a good example, to be there when our sons need their dad. But, from time to time, my desire, my drive to succeed as an author gets in the way of parenting. There’s only so much time in the week, only so many days to be shared. Today is one of those days when I have to be in two places at once.

My wife Rene’ calls me as I am setting up in the cozy space of the Community Center. It’s her job, since I’m pursuing John Grisham-like recognition, to drive Jack in to his game.

“The car won’t start.”

It’s the second time this week her Matrix won’t start. Last time, she left the dome light on. This time, the starter clicks but nothing more happens.

“Did you leave the light on again?”

My wife isn’t happy with my suggestion. She informs me that she’s perfectly capable of diagnosing a car problem and that the present defect is not, repeat, is not due to her, but a mechanical malfunction.

“Why do you always have to place blame on someone?” she asks.

Because I’m a judge. It’s what I do.

I hold my tongue. Eventually, our eldest son, Matt, his wife and infant son arrive and give Rene’ and Jack a ride to the game. Our faithful mechanic Woody is on his way to diagnose the issue: It’s a good thing he lives just up the road.

I settle into my chair, ready for customers, and try to keep up-to-date on the soccer game through technology. I don’t text often but I find myself receiving and sending texts to Matt as he watches the game. The second text I get is disturbing.

Jack’s hurt.

I try to get more information. Matt ignores my texts. Customers stop by. I sell a few copies of my work. I have a few manuscript copies of my novel-in-progress, Sukulaiset: The Kindred, the sequel to my best selling historical novel, Suomalaiset, for sale. The rest of the copies are in the hands of my pre-readers. Once I get their feedback, I’ll make my final edits and then send the book off to a professional editing service. From there, if all goes well, the book will see print sometime next summer. A professor from UMD stops by and we talk about the book. I sell her a copy. She promises to email me with her thoughts and criticisms.

Matt finally updates me. Jack is out of the game with a pulled hamstring. I try calling Matt, Rene’, and even Jack, who has his own iPhone (though it’s unlikely he has it on the sidelines). Nothing. I feel depression, a sense of failure at not being there for my son, weigh heavy.

Reminds of when I was in Winnipeg, being pummeled with questions by that crazy ass book reviewer at Chapters (the Canadian equivalent of Barnes and Noble), who it turns out was the only reviewer to pan Suomalaiset. Chris was playing in the All Star game back home while I tried to gain recognition as an author. I missed that game too. And for what? So some ass could pillory me? Sometimes I don’t know why the hell I’m doing this.

Despite the fact that its drizzling and cold outside, I decide to take a walk to see what Lake Superior is doing. I follow a wooden boardwalk set in sand to an

observation platform overlooking the big water. I find relief and peace in feeling the familiar embrace of October wind and mist. I’d like to pack up my books and find a bar to drown my lament but realize that getting tanked won’t erase my melancholy. In truth, my soul craves melancholy. It’s in my DNA to persevere against angst and downheartedness and guilt. So I turn on my heels and head back to the craft show.

1-0.

That’s the text Matt sent me while I was contemplating the lake.

Who won?

Telling me the score, without putting it into perspective, really doesn’t help much. And it doesn’t tell me where the game is at in terms of time.

Is the game over? Is that a final score?

I don’t text these questions but they linger in my mind. Matt doesn’t text back. I finally call and find out that Jack’s team won. I put my phone away and have a nice chat with a young woman and her husband manning the booth next to mine. He’s a scientist with the Wisconsin DNR: She’s a “reformed” attorney, practicing her art and no longer appearing in court. Because she’s from out east, I describe our court system for her and she describes her work as a prosecutor and former Assistant AG. I glance at the clock. It’s 2:00 and the crowd is dwindling. Time to go.

I make it to the second game in time to help coach a group of fine young men. Despite his injury, Jack is determined to play. It takes him the better part of an hour to stretch out his hamstring to the point he can run at all. I yield to his petitions and, against my better judgment as a coach, I put him in. It’s clear from his limited speed that he’s still hurting. But he tries, as do his teammates, to win their second game of the playoffs. Despite hammering away at the Grand Rapids net for most of the game, the last fifteen minutes of the contest is all Rapids. We hang on and the game ends in a tie. There’s a question as to whether Jack’s team will advance further in the playoffs. My son and I head home, boxes of books stacked to the ceiling and a soccer ball rolling around in the cargo area of the Pacifica.

Peace.

Mark

Indian Lake

My wife was insistent. She was determined that we were going to take a road trip to view the colors. Complicating her Saturday desire was our 15 year old son. Jack was supposed to go with his church youth group on a paintball expedition, which meant that we had to drive him to and from town. But when Jack wandered home from a sleep over at a friend’s house, Jack did what teens often do: He changed his mind. Instead of firing balls of paint at other Lutheran kids, he chose to stay home.

“This is where Chris and I launched the canoes,” I said to Rene’ as we stood on the dock at the public landing on Indian Lake, the oranges and golds and greens of early autumn surrounding the crisp blue waters of the small ox bow off the Cloquet River.

My reference was to a trip my third son Chris and I made a decade ago. We put in our canoe at Indian Lake and paddled downstream, towards home, over the course of three nights and days. It was a great trip.

“Very pretty,” Rene’ said, looking out over the tiny teardrop of water. “Very pretty.”

Rene’ at Indian Lake

After a quick pit stop at Hugo’s in Brimson, a local watering hole noted for its friendly atmosphere and constantly revolving ownership, I put the Pacifica in gear and headed east, towards Highway 2. The maples flamed. The birches and aspen waved golden fingers in the breeze. The tamaracks hinted color. And the white pines, the sentinels of the North Woods, stood green against the painted backdrop.

Highway 1 proved arduous. Minnesota’s fifth season, road construction season, was in full swing. Fifteen miles of detour took us to Babbitt, a mining town on the far eastern edge of the Vermilion Range, where we caught County 21 and headed north, towards our ultimate destination, Ely, Minnesota.

“There’s the sign for the resort,” I observed as the car rumbled over pavement.

I was directing my wife’s attention to a large sign that read: Timber Wolf Lodge.

“Susanne says that they’ve really cleaned up the place,” Rene’ replied, referencing my beloved aunt, my mom’s only sibling. Susanne and my mom grew up working the resort on Bear Island Lake built by my grandfather Jack and my grandmother Marie. Grandpa hired the strong backs and clever hands of Finnish carpenters to build the cabins, store, ice house, and other structures of the fish camp. That all of the original buildings still stand says something about the abilities of immigrant craftsmen.

The Pacifica slowed as we approached the Chocolate Moose in downtown Ely. I found a parking spot and we clambered from car to sidewalk, intent upon lunch. I had the BLT. Rene’ had a salad and a bacon and cheese Quesadilla. We ate our fill and paid the tab before going next door to Piragis to shop. Predictably, Rene’ found clothing and I bought a book. The same pattern was repeated at Mealy’s across the street. I kept eyeballing a new CD by Eliza Gilkyson as my wife studied beautiful Arts and Crafts furniture. I finally broke and bought the music.

“I couldn’t resist,” I told Rene’ as we headed towards the car.

“I can see that,” was my wife’s only comeback.

“They had five copies of Laman’s River at the bookstore,” I added as my wife left me on the street corner to search for a restroom, pointing to the Piragis sign above her head.

“Nice. Did you send an announcement?”

“Yup. But they must have bought them from my distributor,” I replied as Rene’ headed into the store. “They didn’t order from me.”

I like to visit bookstores whenever we’re out and about to see if they are stocking my books. The bookstore at Piragis didn’t disappoint me. They had copies of my latest book as well as my best selling historical novel, Suomalaiset, on their shelves.

Waiting for Rene’, I called our friends, Ron and Nancy McVean who were staying in their motor home at Bear Head State Park a few miles down the road. I reached Nancy and confirmed we’d be stopping by for a visit. Our plan was to have a brief chat and then have dinner in town before heading home. Didn’t work out quite that way.

Ron McVean, Bear Head Lake

Ron and I took a long walk around the bucolic and peaceful state campgrounds. We skirted the lakeshore and ended up standing on a fishing pier, doing what old friends do: shooting the breeze. Nancy and Ron were camping with the Kuntzs, the Chesneys, and Greg Kaneski, each family in its own motor home or trailer, making a last-of-the-season camping trip to Bear Head, a trip they’ve been making as a group for nearly a decade.

“You guys want to stay for supper?” Nancy asked when Ron and I finally wandered back. “Pork chops on the grill.”

I looked at Rene’. She looked at me.

“Sure.”

Nancy got on her cell phone and caught Greg Kaneski coming out of Mass at the Catholic church in downtown Ely.

“Mark and Rene’ are staying for dinner,” she told her longtime boss and friend. “I need you to pick up two more pork chops.”

Bear Head Lake

There ensued, shortly after Nancy got off the phone, an intense discussion between Ron and me about the proper methods of campfire building. Ron is a sort of “pile it all on guy”, believing that leaving too much space between dry logs invites sputtering inefficiency. I, being an Eagle Scout, like a smartly stacked, evenly spaced column of dry wood which allows air to foster combustion.

“You’ve got too much open space, too much air between the logs,” Ron critiqued as I built the campfire pyre in the steel fire pit. “It’ll never burn.”

I ignored Ron.

“Never gonna burn.”

Someone, I think Nancy, noted that there was a wisp of smoke rising from the fire pit. I hadn’t put match to birch bark so there shouldn’t have been any heat or smoke coming from my masterpiece.

“Must be hot coals left over, ” I noted, getting down on my hands and knees to blow.

“Never gonna start that way,” Ron advised, producing a blowtorch, his weapon of choice for starting gas grills, campfires, or anything else needing a helping hand.

Much like the proverbial little engine, I huffed and I puffed. I placed a slender piece of bark on the glowing coal and blew and blew but I couldn’t create flame. Picking up a handful of dry maple leaves (we’ve had no rain for weeks and the forest is as dry as a bone), I touched an edge of the red leaf to a glowing coal. A  fragile flame appeared. I blew to encourage heat.

“You’re getting ashes all over yourself,” Rene’ advised.

“And all over my picnic table,” Nancy noted.

On the verge of vindication, Ron added a piece of dry birch bark to the flame.

“I suppose you’re gonna claim you helped start this fire,” I said as I stood up.

“You’ve got an uneven flame,” Ron noted, touching his blow torch to pieces of bark strategically placed under the pyre. Soon, the entire stack of wood was crackling.

“You’re gonna claim ownership after I knelt on the dirt and blew and blew and blew, aren’t you?”

Ron made no reply.

We ate a fine meal and talked until after dark while the fire danced. Stars came out and our fifteen year old son called and wondered where his parents were.

The fire Mark made!

Peace.

Mark