Thursday, December 24, 2009

Edgerton Tales, Part 3 

A couple more random (and less tragic) stories for today. First, one about my own father, when he was a young lad. These are the kinds of stories I always begged for before bed as a child, but I've had to wait until now for them all to come trickling out.

The tale started as a discussion about curfews--who has them, who doesn't. At our house, for example, my parents rarely waited up for any of us to come home when we were teenagers. (My guess is, my mom tried to wait up once or twice and ended up asleep on the couch by 9:30 p.m., so she finally gave up altogether.) My cousin Amber swears its the same with her parents. "I stick my head in the door and say their names, but they never wake up. I say it three times: 'Mom and Dad? Mom and Dad? Mom and Dad?' and then I figure, 'Well, I'm home,' and I go to bed."

This opens the door for adult reminiscing. "Well, there was that time when Dave tried to sneak in through the cellar when he came home late." (This, as with all the tales of my parents misdoings, prompts catcalls and teasing from us offspring. "What, Dad?!" "What were you doing out so late, anyway?" "Surely not!")

"No, no," my dad protests. "That was Bob's fault. I wasn't even driving yet."

"Well, they were supposed to be home at 10 o'clock. So at 10 when they weren't home yet, Raymond--your grandpa--he locked the doors."

"We came home at about 10:05, found the doors locked, and your uncle Bob just said, well, we'll get in through the cellar. There was a trap-door in the bathroom leading down to the cellar, see."

"But when they tried to climb up, Raymond was ahead of them, standing on the trapdoor."

"What did you do?"

"We knew we'd been caught. We just had to wait until he let us in."

This is the same uncle Bob whose house we went to for lunch yesterday. He lives on a farm a ways outside of town and was telling us a story about a big farm auction in the area this year. "They were selling equipment from the farm estate of three bachelors. Whenever they bought anything, they bought in threes--three tractors, three combines, three balers. They managed to sell it all in just one day, but they had two auction rings going at once, two auctioneers. I'm sure there were some disappointed folks, though, because they willed all their money to the casino."

"What!!" Everyone reacts at once.

"Well, maybe the sister might get a little. But almost everything was willed to the casino. No one liked them, see. They bought up 150 quarters* out there and they were pushing everybody else out. They didn't have any friends. So when they got old and couldn't drive anymore, everyone pretty much forgot about them. Except the casino sent a limosine out to pick them up every day."

"That turned out to be an investment," my dad mutters.

"Did they all live together?"

"I don't know. They had that farm business together, and one of them had that big nice house out there, but I don't know whether they all three lived in it. They had it in their contract, though, that if one of 'em married, he was out."

"I bet there were a lot of ladies after them too--gold-diggers."

"Guess they just had a lot of girlfriends..."



*This means a square quarter-mile, I learned. 160 acres.

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Posted by: Devon / 5:00 AM
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Edgerton Tales, Part 2 (edited) 

** I had to redo this post because I heard a few more storm stories that really begged to be included.

With the foreboding forecasts of big snow this week, I've been hearing some of the stories of storms long past. My aunt Karen was telling us about a big storm that came up "out of nowhere" years ago that took everybody off guard. Apparently, they announced at the schools around noon that anyone who wanted to go home had better leave immediately, and my uncle Bob took the kids in his pickup and started home right away. Karen was at Grandma V's and didn't even bother trying to go home.

Well, the storm came up so fast ("It was like it just dropped down on us out of the sky") that by the time he was within a half-mile of Grandma's, he couldn't see anything through the windshield. Aunt Karen was almost beside herself, but she happened to be on the phone with a neighbor, who saw a car drive by, so Karen went running out through the field in the wind and snow, yelling their names.

"They never would have heard me, but Bob had the windows down and the kids had their heads out helping him see the road." (All the listeners gasp at this.)

"You could have been lost out in the field yourself--who knows if you could find your way back to the house," says Grandma.

"Well, I could still see the lamp by the house, so I was able to get back, and anyway I saved my family," she says. "You know that hill by the old house was so steep--it still is, you know, people go in the ditch there all the time. And the there's that S curve--if they had missed the driveway, they could have ended up in the pond or who knows where. Because only a few minutes later, it was blowing so you couldn't see the silo from the house."

"There was a boy out by Pipestone that got stuck in his car and froze, didn't he? What was his name? He was a W_______, wasn't he?"

"There were a lot of people that had to stay over that night," Grandma adds. "Everyone has stories about that storm."

Then there was the "Storm of '75"--not sure if it's the same one as above or not, but my mom remembers it clearly as well. That was the last time there was a storm in this area "so terrible cold" that it killed cattle--always a primary concern for a farm community. My mom worked in Luverne at the time and when she drove to work the day after the storm was over, there were cattle standing in the fields, frozen solid. She even shuddered just talking about it. "It was so eerie."

But that's not even the most disturbing storm story. "Was that the year Harriet DeG____ passed away?" my aunt asked. "Harriet and Daryl were going home on snowmobiles with their two children when that storm hit. He was with one child and she was with the other and they got separated. Daryl and the first child made it home, but the other two never made it. And they found them dead the next day... at the end of their own driveway. They had gotten that close."

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Posted by: Devon / 6:36 PM
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Edgerton Tales, Part 1 

I always hear lots of great stories when I'm in Edgerton, especially when several aunts and uncles and grandparents get together. Usually they're stories about no one I know, but that doesn't make them any less interesting. Sometimes I think Edgerton is a bit like Mitford, if you've ever read those books.

For example, we were talking this afternoon about people getting in each other's business, and my grandma says, "Shall I tell you a humorous story?" Awhile ago, my grandpa was having some health troubles and passed out one evening. Grandma called 911 and the ambulance came to pick him up. "By the time we got to the hospital [in Luverne]," as she put it, "people in Leota already knew we were there." Apparently, there are some people out in the community who have police scanners so they can keep up on local happenings. "Henrietta has hers on twenty-four hours a day, they say, and as soon as she hears anything, she's on the phone right away to her friends. They don't say folks' names anymore because people complained, but they still say the address, and she just looks it up."

That right, she looks it up in the phone book. This is a community so small that a reverse address look up is possible without the internet. My grandmas don't approve, though. "They picked up Mrs. Van S____ a few weeks ago," Grandma W went on, "and you know, she's a real private person. Well, Henrietta looked up her address and told Linda D____ and she worried about it all day, but she didn't dare call because she knew Mrs. Van S___ was so private. That ain't right."

"No," Grandma V replied. "That isn't called for."

"That's exactly the right way to put it. It isn't called for."

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Posted by: Devon / 2:12 PM
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Well, we made it to snowy Minnesota. The roads were totally clear until the last, like, 5 miles, and there's been snow ever since. It snowed several inches last night, and they're predicting a big storm starting tomorrow afternoon. So I might get to see a real Minnesota blizzard. Woohoo. Grandma keeps reassuring us that she has plenty of food and that if we're snowed in we'll just eat and play games. :) No doubt.

Luckily, I'm always perfectly content to be stuck inside for any amount of time, provided I have enough books. What's more, there's a new coffee shop in Edgerton (new--as in, the one and only, ever) that's within walking distance of both my grandmas'. So I really am set for a nice relaxing holiday.
And speaking of great holiday books, I have a couple of recommendations. I really like fantasy books, as you know, but it's sometimes hard to know where to find good ones that the literature critic in me can stomach. For example, I quit after reading the first book in the Eragon series because I couldn't handle the fact that it was such an obvious rip-off of Star Wars. And I'm always wary of fantasy novels set in a Lord of the Rings-type universe because they often seem to be just rehashing old material. That said, there are two books I've discovered recently that fit that genre and are still unique and very compelling. The first, I've recommended before, but I'm going to again because it's that good. I keep trying to explain it, but every description I come up with just sounds tired and blah and this story is definitely neither of those things. Go read the Amazon synopsis if you must, but I suggest just buying it. You won't regret it.
This next one I checked out from the library right before my trip. I had seen it around from time to time, but there wasn't anything all that compelling about the summary so I hadn't gotten around to reading it. However, I started it in the car on Saturday and finished it in bed at Grandma's house Sunday night, that's how good it was. It still incorporates a lot of the standard fantasy tropes--orphan with hidden powers, chosen one, mentor, Light vs Dark, quests--but the main character just really grabbed me, and it messed with enough of the cliches to make me happy. Plus, this is the first fantasy novel that dealt head-on with a particular pet peeve of mine--I'll let you read it and figure out what that might be. Apparently, it's the beginning of a quartet. I'm thinking about checking out the old Edgerton library to see if they have the rest.

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Posted by: Devon / 9:22 AM
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Saturday, December 12, 2009

Time for a few updates. Looking over the last couple months of posts, I've left a few plot points hanging.

First, NaNoWriMo. I wrote about 11,000 words. Not quite 50,000, but I'm cool with it. It's way more than I would have written without the 50K goal. And now I do have my future novel in much clearer focus than it was before. Plus, I had a lot of fun writing and talking about it throughout November.

Second, the public library troubles. Remember those? I did end up going in and talking to the head librarian about their interpretation of "for classroom use only." She was very kind and explained her perspective fully, but what I was left with was a sense that they don't really want to be offering this Business Library Card all that much. She talked a lot about how much city residents are paying in their taxes toward the library and how important it is to her to protect their money and be fair to them. When I asked her to explain what "for classroom use only" means to her, she simply said that it was completely on the honor system and that if I said it was for classroom use, the library would believe me.

But, I said, one of your librarians called and left a message on my phone berating me for my choice of books.

Her answer: that's because your list of books didn't look appropriate for a classroom.

Okaaayyyy. What can you say to that logic? So I left.

And then I got busy and didn't go back for awhile, but this week I got itchy for some reading material and went back and checked out a nice big stack. So here we are. Pretty much the same place as before. Guess we'll see what happens next year when I try to renew my card. *sigh*

And now, my friends, I have a tale to tell. A tale of excitement, danger, and lots of flashing lights. It all starts with a truly magnificent stack of ungraded papers. A stack that Hercules himself would blink at. I didn't blink. I cranked up the Christmas music and graded my little heart out until about 7 p.m. last night. Then, the intimidating stack having been reduced greatly, I decided to go home and get me some dinner. I walked outside.

I slid. I skidded. I sprawled. I slipped. I shifted. I skated.

My friends, there was ice. This was troubling. Most of you are familiar with the East Linn hill. If you are not, simply imagine a rather steep, rather curvy, rather narrow, paved downhill driveway that comes to a T at the bottom of an even steeper hill. And also there are lots of trees everywhere. You see why I was nervous. I walked up to the parking lot and discovered that one could carefully work up speed and slide a good ten feet across the surface, even in heels.

I pulled out my cell phone. "Daddy!" I called. "Help!"

My dad offered to come pick me up like the good father he is, but he did agree that it might be best if I waited for him down at the bottom of the hill.

Right. I gathered up my bags and started to shuffle my way across the parking lot. Luckily, I have on my keychain a little LED light from Borders. It's quite dim, but it was a whole lot better than nothing. The parking lot was slippery, but the hill was even worse. I had to walk on the tiny little dirt edge of the road without stepping on the pavement, which would make me slip, or falling over the edge of the hill. In the dark. In heels.

Plus, every few minutes, a car would come slipping and skidding up or down the hill, wheels spinning, engine revving (did I mention there was a basketball game?). So I would wait for them to go by and hope desperately that they wouldn't spin towards me out of control. It was nuts.

Finally I got to the bottom and my dad picked me up. We saw emergency vehicles at least three times on our way home, and then, less than half a mile from my house, we had to stop and wait for about twenty minutes while they cleared away a wreck on my road. (And wow, that car was mushed.) So a fun night for everyone, apparently.

So I got home eventually, made dinner (I was starving), watched Castle (apparently crime shows are my new thing...yes, I'm ashamed), and went to bed. Aaaand, I pretty much just lay around all day today, despite the fact that the remnants of the stack are still waiting for me. I've pretty much decided that in this kind of weather, it's best to just stay horizontal.

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Posted by: Devon / 5:10 PM
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Friday, December 11, 2009

The Best Contest Ever 

Owlhaven is holding an awesome-possum contest over at her blog. Guess what you can win?

A Sony E-book Reader!

How sweet is that?

The rules of the contest are also cool. You get to share your favorite book quote and tell why you love it. Something that I like to do anyway--whether or not people want to hear it, actually.

(Unfortunately, I've been very slow in choosing my quote and getting this blog posted--as usual--so there are only a couple of hours left in the contest. Quick dash over there if you read this in time and get yourself entered.)

So the quote I'm going to share here is from one of the books that I read each spring with my 10th-graders, called Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. It is a beautiful book about a confusing, violent time in the history of South Africa, and the redemption of a Zulu pastor and his son.

This excerpt comes from almost the end of the book, when the pastor begins to see the possibility of restoration for the broken land and people. I love it because it describes--in a way that you can understand and believe--the voice of God speaking in revelation.

"After the Bishop had gone, Kumalo stood outside the church in the gathering dark. The rain had stopped, but the sky was black with promise. It was cool, and the breeze blew gently from the great river, and the soul of the man was uplifted. And while he stood there looking out over the great valley, there was a voice that cried out of heaven, Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, these things will I do unto you, and not forsake you.
Only it did not happen as men deem such things to happen, it happened otherwise. It happened in that fashion that men call illusion, or the imaginings of people overwrought, or an intimation of the divine."

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Posted by: Devon / 8:52 AM
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