Call it what you want, ….
Call it what you want, but it is a sad time of the year. We just got through witnessing one of the nicest and most colorful falls we have had in a long time. And now we must say goodbye to the good times and watch as the trees shed the last of their leaves. We can be thankful for the fact that we aren’t living through another hurricane or watching the countryside burn up. So be thankful for the wonderful and colorful fall we just have had and pray it continues through the combining of soybeans and picking ripe corn. I kind of like it driving around the countryside. It is so easy to spot combines working in soybean fields. Just look for a cloud of dust and here they come making another round.
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My weekly drive around to check things out took a little bit of a change this week. Normally on this weekend I’d be heading north to attend the chicken dinner at the Pipe Lake Lutheran Church north of Turtle Lake. It’s an annual affair started over 80 years ago and my Mom was one of those who helped get it started. This year the event had to be cancelled. So there I sat with the thought I needed to drive up and get the flowers off the graves of my parents and two brothers, Ernest and Harold. Then the telephone rang. It was our daughter Sue and as usual she had a plan. Her husband Mark works for a business run by his brothers in Minneapolis. They also have property and cabins north of the Twin Cities. Last weekend Mark was planning to stay at one of the cabins they own and Sue was going to drive up to spend some time with him. Her plan was to drive up, but avoid going through the cities. So the plan she developed was to drive up the Wisconsin side and cross at St. Croix Falls. She thought we could meet there for lunch. I thought it wasn’t a bad idea and then I could stop at the cemetery on the way home. That’s when Sue came up with a change of plans, like she is pretty good at pulling off. She suggested we meet at the cemetery instead. She said the last time she was there was for Harold’s funeral in 2009, and it wasn’t a pleasant day. It was March and the day before it had rained, then changed to snow. The next morning it was below zero with a terrible northwest wind. Let me tell you it was cold out at the cemetery.
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So the change in plans worked perfect. What a beautiful drive up. The fall colors were at their peak or just beyond and driving north out of the Chippewa River Valley was an almost indescribable sight. Luckily I arrived a bit earlier than Sue so I had lots of time to look things over, something I hadn’t done since my high schools days when I kept the lawn mowed. Something my Mom had volunteered me for after we had cleaned and fixed up around Ernest’s grave after his funeral in December 1943. For once his grave still had the flag placed there by the Cumberland American Legion. I had wondered all summer as there were some flags up when I put the flowers on in late May, but it looked like they had run out of flags. It made it real easy to count the flags which indicated where veterans were buried. I lost count at 20 some. Then tucked away in one corner was the grave of Pastor Otto Braem who had served the congregation before taking over Zion Lutheran Church in Turtle Lake. After his first wife died he had married a member of the Pipe Lake Church, who is also buried there along with his daughter and one son. It was a surprise to me as I noted his death was in 1951, the same year I had left for the service and a few years after my lawn mowing days. Still, with time on my hands, I located someone who was born in 1849, and along with that four other Ottos, including my friend Otto Becker. Perhaps the name Otto helps to understand that the original name of the church was Christ German Lutheran Church. It was for a long time before the word German got dropped. By the way, the location is real easy to find on a Wisconsin highway map. Just follow County Trunk T north from Turtle Lake and where it intersects with County Truck G coming from Cumberland, you can’t miss it.
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When Sue arrived, we ate the lunch she had brought along, then took a tour of the cemetery again. Then we drove over to the farm to check on the damage the tornado had done last summer. The new owner has a gate so we couldn’t drive in, but I was able to notice that the big cottonwood tree which had fallen on the house last summer was still leaning in. It also had leaves on the branches to indicate it was still alive. My Dad always said he had planted it when he was 12, which would make it over 120 years old. Logging crews are still busy trying to salvage some of those trees that were blown down. Such a sad sight.
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Talking about travels, if you are out driving and happen to see all the signs with arrows on them, follow the signs and you might find a real treat somewhere. They were placed on along the highways by the Clark County Economic Corporation to help you find some interesting spots in the county.
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Then I have a pet peeve I want to share with you. That’s something called the television news channel. I have to wonder some days if there isn’t something else going on in the world we ought to know about? Instead we get to see the president walking to the helicopter, or taking a Sunday afternoon ride around the hospital. Once or twice might be the limit, but time after time after time. And what’s the story about the air-tight auto? Wouldn’t the people riding die if there was no air? All I could think of is what all this is costing the taxpayers of our nation. Well, almost nothing as there is no money so we just go farther and farther into debt. Like seven trillion more than what we owed when our president took over. Then he has the nerve to claim he is healed, but not one word about the 215,000 who weren’t so lucky.
