Asked & Answered. Sunday. May 28. 2023.

 

NAME THREE PET PEEVES.

1. old people and their health stories. doctor visits. organs missing. disgusting symptoms.  i can offer mechanical words of sympathy, but that's as far as i go.

2.  soggy hors d'oeuvres.  don't put good stuff on crackers and then leave it to go soggy.  it's got to be crisp and tangy, or crisp and sweet & sour, or crisp and spicy. otherwise it's just mush.  why more people don't throw soggy canapes on the wall at parties i'll never know . . . 

3.  brown shoes.  a lot of people wear brown shoes out here in Provo.  mostly church members.  to me, brown shoes suggest an indecisive character and ineffective thinker. i would never seek financial advice or discuss philosophy with someone wearing brown shoes.  or Hush Puppies.

DO YOU HAVE ANY SKILLS OR TALENTS THAT MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT?

Certainly.  I can wiggle my ears.  I can sneak up on cats.  I can predict the weather, world-wide (It's always raining somewhere . . . )

HOW DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO REMEMBER YOU?

As someone who would rather nap than tell a lie.  as a good cook with bad recipes.  as a poor man with a rich inner life.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU DO TODAY?

kiss my wife Amy on the nape of her neck and smell the goat's milk yogurt in her hair.  develop a healthy appetite before i eat dinner.  nap so deeply that i start to dream.

WHAT PUBLICATIONS DO YOU REGULARLY READ?

i read the new yorker cartoons online -- they're free.  i glance at the new york times headlines for ideas for topical poems.  i read the general conference talks for ideas for my religious poems.  i keep trying to read old bestsellers like 'the agony and the ecstasy' but about a hundred pages in i always lose interest because the writing seems gimmicky.  the last book i really enjoyed reading was probably a terry prather 'flat world' fantasy.

HOW OFTEN DO YOU SEE YOUR FRIENDS?

not very often. sadly.  we live in such a small apartment that having more than one person over at a time is a challenge. besides, if a friend comes over i want to cook for them and they never seem to want to eat anything.  of course, if they want to treat me to a meal that's different.  but i have the kind of friends that just don't do that.  so i don't really see them much. and most live far away.  and want to tell me their health stories.  like i said, health stories give me a heavy feeling -- like after eating a chunk of cement.

WHAT WOULD BE YOUR PERSONAL MOTTO?

a haiku:

eat air fried chicken

whenever you feel the need

to give me advice

Lake Johanna.

 

Mothers are wonderful creatures – whether they’re from Idaho, California, or Minnesota.  

Mothers, like my mother, mostly tended to their homes and family.  My mother didn’t even drive – she depended on my father to take her places that she couldn’t reach by bus or by walking.  She did not attend to the affairs of state, and didn’t like the limelight one little bit. She considered herself demure; a virtue she had been taught by her own mother.  This type of American homemaker may be a dying breed, an anachronism, but lemme tell ya, they could still play Old Harry with the Powers That Be when they wanted to!

On summer weekends it was the practice of the Torkildson tribe to drive to Lake Johanna, twenty miles distant, for a day of picnicking and swimming.  It’s no Coney Island, but it was plenty good enough for us.  My dad always found a nice, shady tree to set up his folding lounge chair under and snooze away the hours, awaking only long enough to pour a Hamm’s beer down his throat before sinking back as if he’d been shot.  My mother worshipped the sun; she slathered on the coconut oil and broiled happily on a blanket on the beach.  We kids, of course, turned into naiads and manatees, splashing and floating in our native element, refusing to come out even for lunch.

There was a whitewashed wooden pylon set up for the lifeguard on the public beach at Lake Johanna.  He, or she, wielded a large tin whistle, frequently tootling on it to gain the attention of some freshwater malefactor who was swimming outside the roped off area or otherwise acting the maritime scofflaw.  The year I turned eight Ramsey County decided not to stock the pylon with lifeguards anymore, no doubt as an economy measure, and neglected to inform patrons of the public beach, outside of a teeny weeny sign, the size of a flyer, that was tacked briefly onto the whitewashed wooden pylon, and fluttered away in the breeze soon after being posted.

That was the year I decided I could swim out to the wooden platform anchored in about twenty feet of water – and nearly drowned in the attempt.  Luckily, there were some adult swimmers nearby; they hauled me back on shore, vomiting water like a disgruntled geyser, and turned me over to my mother – who was incensed to suddenly learn there was no longer any lifeguard on duty.  Ever.  

Her fury at this perceived dereliction of the Ramsey County Park Board’s duty was grim and determined.  After making sure I was reasonably responsive, she clouted me on the ear for being such a dumming and strode over to the concessions shack, where sandy hotdogs and lukewarm soda pop were vended by bored teenagers.  She found the most likely-looking boy in the group, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck, and frog-marched the astonished youth over to the white pylon, where she instructed him in the kind of motherly tones that no one who values their life ever ignores to climb up and keep an eye on things until she relieved him of his duty.  The teenaged boy, seeing the dangerous sparkle in her eye, meekly obeyed – and once again Lake Johanna had a lifeguard, albeit a shanghaied one.  He stayed up there until it started to get dark and we packed up to go home.  Then he quietly slipped off the pylon and skedaddled for all he was worth.  I’d like to know what he told HIS mother when he got home that night.

Word must have gotten back to the Park Board, for the next weekend there was an older man glumly perched on the white pylon, gazing about him with bitter resignation.  I can’t say for sure, but I’m willing to bet dollars to donuts that he was a member of the Park Board itself.

 

Note:  I normally post these things on my Facebook page so people can read them there, but I have been sending these mini-essays to some newspapers that demand exclusivity, so I'm not taking any chances that someone will copy one of them off my Facebook and post it where it can be noticed.  This one went to the Christian Science Monitor. 

Fish Story

 

 

I’m glad to see the DNR is stocking local ponds with fish for the kids to catch.

It brings back the lingering aroma of mashed angleworms and the tingle of Eagle Claw fish hooks stuck in my thumb.  It just ain’t summer without that hypnotic waver of light on water as the hours float by while your line gets tangled in the cattails.

I told my kids many a rapturous finny tale, until they grew up and escaped – the Internet-addled brats – but they are having grandkids now, so soon I’ll be able to sit them down with a mug of milk and a stack of Oreos to begin the saga all over again . . .

Wayne and I were riding our bikes to Como Lake for a day of pure, unadulterated fishing.  We raced our Schwinns down Como Avenue, past the State Fairgrounds, and into Como Park, skirting the fine old mansions that circled the lake until we came to the rickety wooden dock, gray with age and worn complaisant with the sandpapering of a thousand bare feet.

The first order of business was to assemble our bamboo poles and string a line on them.  We had one spool of line between the two of us, but that’s the beauty of a bamboo pole – you don’t need much line at all, since you just dangle it over the water.  Admittedly, we were a cheese-paring couple; our allowances were held in sacred trust for drug store Cokes and comic books – anything else of a material nature had to be scrounged, begged or borrowed.  As the darning needles floated in mid-air, we tied on our rusty hooks of various sizes and clamped on some tiny lead shot.  A red and white plastic bobber, slightly cracked, was added, about three feet above the hook.

Then the bait.  We used nothing but worms, worms that we had worked hard to capture by letting the garden hose run on the front lawn for a good hour – forcing the drowning night crawlers up for a breath of fresh air;  we  harvested them like bog cranberries.  They were kept in a coffee can filled with used coffee grounds.  Come to think of it, those little devils seemed awful lively, after spending a few hours in that caffeine-loaded environment; maybe they never even noticed being impaled on our hooks.

Splash!  The line is in the water, the bobber is the center of diminishing ripples, and we settle back to await our prey.  And to discuss matters of importance to nine-year-old boys.  Why was it when we cut those darn night crawlers in half both ends didn’t stay alive and grow whole again, like they were supposed to?  Theoretically, all you needed was one earthworm to keep yourself supplied with bait the rest of your life.  I boasted that over the long summer vacation I had already forgot how to do long division.  That’s nuthin’, said Wayne; he had not only forgot how to do long division but also cursive writing!  I couldn’t top that one.  The awfulness of girls was reviewed for the umpteenth time; their unnatural obsession with combing their hair, their unfortunate tendency to scream when you put a minnow down their back, and their unaccountable regard for clean fingernails.  

And then it happened – it really did happen – I swear on a stack of Izaac Waltons it absolutely did happen.

My pole bent nearly in half, as the head of a great, honking snapping turtle emerged from Como Lake, chewing on my hook and bait.  

A snapper’s head is just about the scariest article you can raise from the depths of a Minnesota lake – it’s baleful glare is pure Bela Lugosi; prognathous jaws slaver; and it’s pink, pointed tongue darts about like a poison dart.  You don’t get to see much more of it, usually, since the rest of it stays underwater. Fortunately my pole broke – since I was hysterically determined to capture the ferocious creature and bring it back to the house for loud acclamations of hero worship on the part of my family and neighbors – “Great Caesar’s ghost, look what Timmy has caught!  It must weigh two-hundred pounds; somebody call the newspaper right away!”  

 

But as I say, with a toss of its warty head the behemoth snapped my pole in two, and then sank back down to the abyss from whence it came.  Wayne had to physically restrain me from jumping in and going after the creature.  

We did little enough fishing after that; people heard the commotion and came over to find out what happened.  I was only too happy to regale them, repeatedly, with my death-defying brush with the antediluvian monster that had cost me my bamboo pole.  

When we returned home that evening I rushed into the kitchen, where mom was putting mayonnaise on a gelatin salad, and breathlessly narrated my narrow escape from death-by-monster.  She absently nodded her head, and reminded me to wash all that wormy slime off my hands.  My younger sisters were no better – they just wrinkled their noses and cooed “Turtles are ucky!”  Dad did not come home for dinner that night; he was working his second job.

You know my story to be true, of course.

Dontcha?

HOW DO YOU SAY SIEMGLUSZ? Memories of Northwest Iowa Radio.

 

I was the News Director at two radio stations in Northwestern Iowa for several years.

I have pleasant memories of my time spent there.  When I worked at KICD AM in Spencer, we broadcast live from the Clay County Fair every year, in the same building as the large, intricate model train display.  I was introduced to my first taste of corn cob jelly while broadcasting at the Clay County Fair.

At KIWA AM in Sheldon I enjoyed the last vestiges of a harmless payola; radio employees got a free pass into the movie theater next door.  (To set the record straight, I always paid for my own popcorn.)  I loved to drive down to the Loess Hills, stopping on the way to snap pictures of weary old barns, frozen in mid-collapse, on deserted farmsteads.

And people in that region put a slice of dill pickle in their beer bottles, which I’m still trying to figure out.

One thing I did NOT enjoy about my News Director position in Northwestern Iowa was pronouncing the names of the dead.  A small market radio station, such as the ones I worked at, derives a steady chunk of income from the broadcast of funeral announcements. Each funeral parlor in the home county of the radio station faxes over the announcement, as it is to appear in the local newspaper; it is then the News Director’s job to edit the information for inclusion in the next broadcast.  It is normally done three times a day; on the 8am newscast, the noon newscast, and the 6pm recap of the day’s news.  There are days when the funeral announcements run longer than the local news does – especially during the long, cold winter, when pneumonia settles in as an uninvited guest at all the local nursing homes.  Before coming to Iowa I had done radio news in North Dakota and Minnesota, so I thought I was prepared to do the obituary announcements – but I wasn’t.  Not with those tricky, pretzel-like Dutch names!

In the early 1900’s, according to the local history books, several thousand families, all members of the Dutch Reformed Church, came to settle in Clay and O’Brien counties in Iowa.  They not only brought their rigorous religion with them, but they brought some pretty darn challenging surnames, too!  I was used to dealing with Scandinavian tongue-twisters like Stuhlsted and Thingvold -- but Gontjes, Vander Ploeg, and Imwiehe left me flabbergasted.  My hubris initially did not allow me to ask for help in pronouncing these alphabetically-challenged surnames (after all, I was a graduate of the prestigious Brown College of Broadcasting up in Minneapolis, Minnesota!)  But after the first dozen irate phone calls from the next of kin, demanding to know why I was making fun of the deceased, I humbly began seeking help.  The office secretary was usually a local gal, so she often knew how to pronounce the names.  But even she would get stumped once in a while, glancing at the name on the glossy fax sheet and shaking her flaxen mane in bewilderment.  Then I would have to call the funeral home to see if they knew how to pronounce it.  Sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn’t.  If they didn’t there was nothing for it but to track down the pastor or priest who was to give the eulogy and ask them, for heaven’s sake, how do you pronounce “Baughfman”?

Then there was the great Kneen controversy.  This was a large, spread-out, long-established family, so members were going to meet their maker on a regular basis.  The problem was that some of the family pronounced the name “Neen”, and some of them pronounced it “Kaneen”.  Inevitably, if I said “Keen” on the air, it was supposed to be “Kaneen”, and vice versa.  And in what kind of world does a man go around with the last name of Caauwe?  I honestly and sincerely wanted to get the names right, since this would probably be the last time they would be pronounced in full, besides at the funeral, this side of eternity.  Every human being deserves at least that much respect.

I’m happy to say that as time went by I picked up a smattering of knowledge on Dutch surnames – I even took the trouble to look up the use and pronunciation of tussenvoegsels at the local library in Sheldon (and if you want to know what that is you can go look it up yourself!)  And so my frantic calls to the funeral home became fewer and fewer, and my flubs became fewer and fewer.  But then, one fatal day, I read the obituary of a person with the last name of Snuttjer (it’s pronounced “Snooter”).  I pronounced it correctly, but it struck me as just plain funny.  I came down with an attack of the giggles on the air.  After that I had to be careful, to think really sad thoughts as I read the names of the departed, so I would not desecrate them with a belly laugh.  I met my Waterloo when I had to do the sports one day.  I scanned the script hastily before going on the air, too hastily – since halfway through I read the following:  “The Red Raiders at Northwestern University in Orange City have made two selections so far; Donkersloot and Boogert . . . “

The Program Director rushed in to finish the broadcast for me, as I slid helplessly to the floor, choking on my stifled guffaws.

Not too long after that I left Northwestern Iowa and the radio business, for something that would never have me laughing so hard.  I became the Publicity Director for Culpepper & Merriweather’s Circus . . . 

Thailand Memories

 

I would like to preface the memoir of my mission in Thailand by narrating just how I got the funds to enable me to go.  I was, at the time, a member of the University of Minnesota Student Branch, even though I was not a student.  The branch met in a cavernous former Christian Science church building on University Avenue, across from the University campus.  I lived just a few blocks away, with my parents.

When I told my branch president, Lewis R. Church, that I wanted to go on a mission, his first question to me was “How much do you have in the bank?”  I reported that I had exactly twelve-dollars.  He gently told me I would need much more than that in order to be called.  My parents were not members of the Church, and they made it known in no uncertain terms that they would not contribute a dime to my upkeep as an LDS missionary.  They both told me it was a foolish pursuit.

Having completed a season with Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus as a clown, President Church suggested I might advertise myself as available for birthday parties.  I did not own a car, nor did I know how to drive at the time, but with his help I put together a flyer and stuck copies on every telephone pole in Southeast Minneapolis.

As I was laboring in an area called Prospect Park, a woman called to me from her front door, to know what I was doing.  I told her I was advertising as a birthday party clown.  She came over to me, looked at the poster, looked at me (pretty scrawny and homely at the time) and asked if I would perform at her daughter’s birthday party.  I gladly agreed.  She asked me how much I charged, which floored me – since I hadn’t given that any thought.  I asked if twenty-five dollars would be all right and she agreed.  The party would be the coming Saturday.

I walked to her house on Saturday, carrying a suitcase with all my costumes, makeup, and equipment – a distance of about three miles.  At the party I played my musical saw, made animal balloons, and did a silly little pantomime with a golf club and a marshmallow.  This good woman had been inspired to call a friend of hers who worked on the Minneapolis Star newspaper, to ask if she, the reporter, would be interested in covering her daughter’s birthday party with the clown there.  As a favor to her friend, the reporter showed up, with a photographer in tow.  The reporter interviewed me about my career as a birthday party clown; I made sure to mention that I was doing it to save money to go on an LDS mission.  This lady reporter then did something that to this day I can only explain as being directed by the hand of the Lord – she asked me for my telephone number to include in her newspaper article.  This, I later learned, was strictly against the newspaper’s policy, as it smacked too much of free advertising. 

The piece, with plenty of photos, appeared in the Minneapolis Star newspaper the next day, with plenty of photographs, and my phone number.  My parent’s phone rang like a fire alarm all that day.  I had more offers than I could handle.  But since I did not drive, I decided to knock down the price of doing parties to twelve-dollars, if the client would give me a ride to and from the party.  I did dozens of parties, and was even hired to do a few weddings!  Larry Lopp, the owner and operator of Paul Bunyan Land up in Brainerd, Minnesota, hired me for several weeks in the summer to clown at his theme park.

I had made a good start on my savings, but by late summer the work fell off – since I did nothing more to publicize myself, not wanting to spend any of my money on advertising.  By the end of August my career as a birthday party clown had ground to a standstill.  Dusty the Clown was not the hot commodity he had been back in May!

I hit the streets, looking for any kind of a job, while I put up more birthday party flyers, but found no one willing to hire me.

In early September, just before my twenty-first birthday, I was contacted by an old circus friend, Steve Smith.  We had performed together as clowns on the Ringling Blue Unit, and had then gone down to Mexico to study pantomime with Sigfrido Aguilar in Patzcuaro, Michoacán.  Steve had been offered the position of advance clown with the circus – traveling ahead of the show to perform at hospitals, schools, and libraries, as well as to do media interviews.  But circus management didn’t want him alone – they wanted a clown duo out ahead of the circus.  Once again, the Lord intervened; moving Steve, who was completely irreligious, to reach out to me to see if I wanted to work the season as his partner, our salary to be split 50-50.  I was overjoyed to accept such a wonderful offer, but made sure he knew upfront that I could only commit to one season.  After that, when I had the money saved up, I would be at the beck and call of my Church leaders to serve a mission wherever they happened to call me.  He was fine with that.

And so the team of Dusty & TJ Tatters was born.  The circus provided us with a handsome salary and gave us a large motorhome to travel and live in.  We crisscrossed the United States for the next nine months, having a hilarious time doing our own pantomime routines at hundreds of schools, colleges, hospitals, libraries, even prisons!

I saved my salary like a miser, eschewing eating out or going to movies.  I even turned down the few pretty girls I met along the way (sometimes at church and sometimes through work) who indicated they would like to go out with me.  Like Scrooge, I could not bear to part with a penny.  Not even for a date.  (Truth be told, that is the only part of my savings program I now regret!)

After the season was over, with a fat bank account, I proudly went back to my old branch and told president Church I was ready to go.  The papers were filled out and soon I received my call to Thailand – a place I had never heard of before in my life.

I have no doubt that once I had made up my mind and committed myself to serving a mission as the Lord wanted me to, He made it possible for me to earn the necessary funds.

When I arrived in Salt Lake City to enter the Mission Home, I was first greeted by a professor from BYU.  I am sorry to say I no longer remember his name, but he taught a correspondence course on Missionary Preparation, which I took while on the road as advance clown.  He welcomed me into his home and took me through my first temple session at the Provo temple.  He drove me back up to the Mission Home, with a passenger in the front seat, another professor at BYU.  This one I DO remember by name: Hugh Nibley.  When my professor friend asked Dr. Nibley to explain his latest project to me during the drive, the good Doctor gave me a long and hard look, then dismissed me by saying “I doubt he would understand it.”  Having dipped into some of Nibley’s books, I silently concurred. 

At that time the mission home, where all missionaries received their initial training, was located in Salt Lake City.  It was a large converted mansion, belonging, I believe, in the past, to some mining magnate.  I arrived with my one missionary suit, which I had purchased out in Burbank, California.  It was a robin’s egg blue seersucker.

The president of the mission home was a gruff old specimen, not much given to coddling his eager young charges.  Needless to say, I stood out amidst the sea of ZCMI-bought dark suits like a zircon in a pile of coal.  I was immediately called into his office on my first day there.  He looked at me with thunder in his visage, then asked me to tell him something of myself.  As I narrated my story, his visage softened.  At the end, he told me, in a kindly tone, that my suit was not appropriate to my calling as a representative of the Lord, and I would have to buy a regular dark suit.  He reached into his pocket, offering to pay for my new suit, but I told him I had sufficient for such a purchase, and thanked him.  I went to ZCMI and bought the ‘missionary special’ suit – dark navy blue, made of indestructible fiber guaranteed to last through Armageddon.  It cost $129.00.  In the event, I never used my suit coat.  When I got to Thailand we were told to hang up the coat in a closet at the Mission Office, to retrieve when we went home.  It was just too hot and humid to ever wear a suit coat.  We worked in our shirt sleeves. 

We spent most of our time paired off to learn the discussions, which, we were told, should be learned by rote and then recited to investigators – during recitation the Spirit would take over at some point, hopefully make it less deadly dull than I initially thought it was.

We also heard from many General Authorities, as well as some practical lectures on how to live without our parents cooking and fussing over us.  Since I had been on the road with the circus for the past several years, that part of it didn’t really interest me.  I knew how to take care of myself.  The one lecture I do remember was on driving safety.  It was given by a blind man from Holland. 

The LTM (Language Training Mission) for all Asian-bound missionaries was located on the BYU campus in Hawaii.  President Snow ran it with scriptures in one hand, a lei in the other, and a laid back smile that proved more infectious than measles. 

Most of our time was spent learning the Discussions in Thai, by rote.  We also received a smidgeon of Thai grammar and vocabulary, with a dollop of Thai culture.  But the days droned by mostly with recitation.  We took one break to climb a nearby inactive volcano, another break to attend the Hawaii temple for one endowment session, and, at president Snow’s request, I did an hour pantomime show for the entire LTM one Monday evening.  We also attended a performance at the BYU Cultural Center.  But otherwise it was strictly business, with no breaks except to eat and sleep. Many a pretty girl walked sedately by our windows, some walked by as if they were soldiers on sentry duty, but we never took our eyes off our studies.  Except, of course, in the evenings, when the geckos liked to hang on our screens and gobble up unwary moths attracted by the light – that was pretty entrancing to us entertainment-starved Elders! 

Eventually our eight weeks of study were up and we boarded our 20-hour flight to Bangkok.  President Morris met us at Don Muang Airport, escorted us to our hotel rooms, and let us sleep for the next eighteen hours.  We then had dinner at the Mission Home with his lovely wife Betty and their kids, and were given our assignments.  I went to Bangkapi, a part of Bangkok, where my senior companion was Elder Barton J. Seliger.

We hit it off right from the start.  His two passions in life were preaching the Gospel, and golf.  Mine were preaching the Gospel, and clowning.  President Morris had given me a special assignment before I had even arrived; he had charged me in a letter to use my performing abilities to create goodwill for the Church in Thailand. Elder Seliger was pretty long-suffering with me when we had a show to do --- he would basically tag along, moving my props for me, while I was in the limelight.  He never seemed to mind.

We did manage to spend one P day doing what he wanted, playing golf.  At the time there was only one main golf course in Bangkok.  It had been built by the British while they were building the Thai rail system in the 1890’s.  Never having played golf before in my life, I was somewhat of a trial to Elder Seliger, who had gotten a golf scholarship in Texas to go to college.  My balls consistently went into the klongs, or canals, or else wound up in the tall grass – where signs warned the unwary duffer that cobras did not take kindly to their tramping about.  Determined to make at least one decent shot, I at last took a vicious swipe at my ball, causing it to slice like a boomerang and bounce off the bell of a steam locomotive that was permanently parked nearby as a monument.  The peal of that bell, which had not been rung for the past fifty years, caused a dozen or so members to pop out of the clubhouse to see what was amiss.  For some reason, Elder Seliger became discouraged at this point, so we went back to our rented quarters early . . .

In addition to all this, Elder Seliger had to put up with my apparent allergy to the tropics.  The first six weeks I was in Thailand I had to stay in the hospital twice.  Once for a severe gastrointestinal attack of some kind that left me unable to eat so much as a spoonful of rice.  The second time was for a scorpion bite, which caused my foot to swell up until it looked like a pale watermelon with toes.  This took a very long time to heal, forcing Elder Seliger to spend long, long hours at my bedside, reading the scriptures and reviewing the discussions.  I never heard him murmur about my indispositions.  He was a great Elder to have as my first companion.  He and I are still good friends to this day.

 

 

 

These memoirs are strictly my own, original writing, which I freely give to the Church History Department without expectation of any sort of recompense.  They reflect my own views and opinions only; I alone am responsible for their content and meaning.

Tim Torkildson.

An email to Nathan Draper. Monday, May 15. 2023.

 

yes, this email is composed only for you and sent only to you.

because i miss the days when i would spend a leisurely afternoon on my typewriter composing letters to friends.  many of them dead now, like tim holst (who baptized me) and kevin bickford, a.k.a. rufus t. goofus (who once threw me into the hippo's wading pool.)  so many others i have lost track of like peter willden and bart seliger and michael nebeker and elder day (my comp at the LTM in hawaii -- i can't even remember his first name now.  but when we were comps in thailand for a few weeks when i was touring doing grade school clown shoes he got really bored and kinda resentful that we weren't doing any regular missionary work so at the end of one of my shows he pied me with a shaving cream pie. it got a big laugh and he thought we should include it in all my shows but i told him no thanks.)

by the way, this looks to be a long string of drool, so i will break it up with lines of asterisks so you can stomach it easier. just read one section at a time. then take a break to go get some som tum or take a nap. then come back for the next section.  on the other hand, i only had five hours of sleep last night and i may nod off at any minute here. so there won't be anymore to read.  i'm just waiting for amy to finish the laundry here at her sister's house in idaho before we go into town to the dollar store to get a shower curtain and sardines.  if they don't have any sardines i'm going to make amy stop at the arctic circle burger for an order of french fries for my lunch.

*******************************************************************

Idaho is a state of mind -- that's why it needs a psychiatrist.

hmmm.  that needs work.  let's try another one:

Minnesota is the land of ten thousand lakes and ten million bait shops.

naw, not very good.  dump it.

Utah has the greatest snow on earth -- but the worst drivers on the freeways.

decent. i like it.

i should write a haiku about writing emails:

the cursor highlights

how impersonal we get

with our blinking words.

not too shabby. think I'll copy it to put on facebook and my twitter account.

amy wants me to change my shirt so she can wash it.  this is important to write down because why?  because i once again have someone in my life who cares about how i look (and smell.)   going without that kind of person for 26 years was depressing.

unlike writing a personal letter, writing a personal email means the content is liable to be shared with everyone and their dog at some time in the future. so i have to be careful what i say about the people around me, cuz there's a chance they may read it.  with a personal letter, once you sealed it and mailed it it was just between you and the person you sent it to.  unless they chose to share it with others.

i wish i had saved the thousands of letters i received over the years from friends and family.  i still have a sack full of postcards from my kids while i was out of their lives. but otherwise i threw away beautiful letters from old clown friends and missionary companions and old girlfriends and my old minneapolis pals who knew me when i first joined the church.  i'm going to be leaving very little of anything behind when i pass on.  nothing of material value except an insurance policy for amy.  and all the stuff i've written.  which i suspect won't matter an iota to any of my kids. but i've said that before.  who cares?  i hope to be so busy in the next life that i'll forget my obsession with fame in this world.

i wonder if famous people in this world are still famous in the next?  did lincoln meet with a standing ovation when he crossed over?  what happened with hitler?  or charlie chaplin?

all i know for sure is that when i get over there i'll see my little boy Irvin.

the wind is always blowing here in idaho.  it stunts the lilac bushes, which are no higher than your knee. the wind carries odors a long way.  i can smell the water treatment plant five miles away, and the cheese factory just outside of Rupert.

**************************************************************************

in May the roadkill

attracts fell things of the night --

unhealthy to meet.

we saw a lot of roadkill on the way to Buhl this morning for ice cream. their creamery is superb. we got killer chocolate and lemon curd. now that we're back at the house we'll probably take a nap and then drive over to Twin Falls to eat at a curry house that specializes in lamb dishes. but if you get there after 6 p.m. they're usually out of lamb and you have to settle for chicken or paneer.

**************************************************

Well, my fine feathered friend, you're in luck.  i seem to be coming down with something.  my throat is on fire and i can barely see straight.  hope it's just a throat infection and not that blankity-blank covid.  anywho, i shall end my email here for the nonce so i can go spray my throat with otc Phenol and gulp more aspirin.  i only ate a third of my curry, which is a sure sign with me that i'm ill.  i'll try to choke down some Buhl ice cream to keep my throat soothed and then sit in my La-z-Boy for the rest of the day and night and dream of winning the nobel prize in literature for my haiku.

toodles, tt.

Prose Poem: No Connection. (Dedicated to Jason DeRusha.)

 

I want to state for the record that I categorically deny any connection between myself and Mr. Jason DeRusha, the food critic and part-time bon vivant. 

There is no truth to the rumor that he and I opened a restaurant in Seattle during the late 90s that featured a fried green tomato souffle.

An affidavit is on file at the Hennepin County Courthouse affirming that we do not share any of the same DNA. A copy of this affidavit is held by the Mayo Clinic.

He is not now nor ever has been and never will be my consigliere.  We have never met. He and I are not classmates, contemporaries, or even inhabit the same plane of existence. We do not speak the same language.  I don't even listen to him on the radio.

After a careful and impartial investigation conducted by the Pinkerton Agency, it now appears that various parties, who shall remain nameless if not blameless, began to link our names together on social media during the fall of 2019.  Their motivation in making these baseless claims remains obscure.  But I believe it has something to do with the Hurricane Dorian coverup.  Or the rising price of chicken feet. 

Be that as it may, I contend that Mr. DeRusha and I have no basis for a meeting of any kind.  Either now or in the foreseeable future.  If our paths happen to cross by accident I will be wearing blinders.  

I hope this lays to rest, once and for all, any further speculation about our relationship.  He and I are like two nights passing on a ship. 

Haiku from Idaho

 

a curtain of rain

obscures the green mountainside --

Road Work next ten miles.

After the disappointing turnout for my makdi on Saturday I wanted to put the obsession for cooking big meals behind me.  Put it in perspective.  See if I couldn't quit doing it cold turkey.  When Amy went shopping Saturday morning and then called to say she would also be getting the tires rotated I took this as a sign we should take a road trip.  So we left Provo for Wendell, Idaho that afternoon to visit her sister's farm.

We arrived at 8:30 that evening, only to discover that Amy's sister had given away the rocker recliner we had brought up last year -- the only comfortable chair for me in the house and where I slept part of each night. Not only that, but the only available bedroom was upstairs, up nearly two flights of stairs.  My knees would not take me up and down those steps more than once a day.  I said nothing, but the stark look of disappointment on my face moved Amy's sister to have one of her football-playing sons pull an abandoned La-Z-Boy out of a storage shed and put it in the living room for me.  I am writing this from the comfort of that chair, happy and grateful to admit being pampered and catered to. I sleep very well in it.

I will cook nothing while we are here.  I'm asking Amy to fix me bacon and eggs for breakfast each morning.  For lunch I want to eat nothing but a can of sardines and a fresh tomato.  Dinner will be eaten out at Thai or Indian places twenty miles away in Twin Falls.

And when we come back to Provo I hope, I pray, that my cooking mania will finally be put to rest. Like Prospero I will break my wooden stirring spoon and throw my cookbooks into the ocean.

Asked & Answered. Part Two.

 

How would you describe a perfect day when you were young?

 

Waffles.  Summer.  Como Zoo.  Hot dogs.  Comic books.  Bike along the Mississippi.  

Steaks on the grill.  Toasted marshmallows.  Bats chasing my sisters.  No bed until dark.

 

What have you learned about yourself from being a parent?

You're never too old to wish they'd bring you a jar of pickled herring. 

What is your earliest memory?

I remember a horse in our garage on 18th Avenue S.E. in Minneapolis, before we moved to our home on 19th Avenue S.E.  But nobody else remembers that -- my parents and older siblings are vociferous in denying there was ever any horse in the garage.  I think it's a cover up.   

How would you like to be remembered?

As a dandelion on the putting green. 

What advice do you have for young couples?

Don't try to paint the same picture. 

 

What lessons has your work life taught you?

Stay out of offices and factories.  Always picture your boss naked. 

Have you experienced any miracles?

Amy is my continuing miracle, like the burning bush. Giving off heat and light yet never consumed. 

When you meet God, what do you want to say?

What happened to all those socks I lost? 

How do you imagine your death?

Final. 

Moving Advertising for 'Poet for Hire.'

 

so, for those of you following my 'poet for hire' strategy, the donut giveaway was a bust.  one young couple stopped for donuts, asked what i was doing, so i gave them my business card.  and that was it.  nothing else happened.  so amy and i ate the rest of the donuts.  the best way to eat a stale donut is to nuke it in the microwave for 12 seconds. oh yeah, i started the idea as a chicken salad giveaway -- me with a sign that said 'free chicken salad.'  but i didn't want to hassled with bowls and spoons and sloppy chicken salad. so i switched to donuts.  stale donuts.  2 dozen for three dollars.

today i decided to step up my poet for hire game by taking my sign out onto State Street, right next to the Fresh Market corner where the traffic turns to go to the airport.

it was hot and windy and i didn't get any money or work.  but here's what DID happen:

 first a 12 year old girl came up to me to ask: "what are you doing?'  

i said:  'i write poetry for money.'

'that's weird' she said and walked away.

then a young man with light brown hair and beard, wearing a dirty black t-shirt, demanded:  'do you know me?'

'nope' i said.

'i'm the town punching bag' he replied proudly.

'you want me to punch you?' i asked him politely. as he walked away he said 'good luck -- i hope they treat you better than me.'

i didn't have time to puzzle that out before a kindly woman said to me: 'i don't have any money, but here's a rice krispy treat.'  i accepted it gratefully.  then she said: 'my grandfather had a favorite poem. this is how it went --

'the higher up the mountain slope the greener grows the grass.'

'and down it cam a billy goat, sliding on its overcoat.'

i told her that was a very nice poem and i might steal it someday.

a few minutes later another kindly lady came up to me with a slim jim and a bag of doritos.  she also had written the address of a homeless shelter where i could stay for the night. when i told her i had an apartment and social security and was just holding the sign for kicks and giggles she started to walk away, taking the slim jim and doritos with her.

'wait a minute!' i said.  'i still want the snacks!'  so she left them with me.

by then my bladder informed me it was time to go home.

i think i'll go back to that corner tomorrow, but earlier before the sun gets hot.

The Marketing of 'Poet for Hire.'

 

so i've been out on the boulevard in front of my apartment building off and on for the past 2 months.

holding up a sign that reads 'poet for hire.'  the first five weeks were amazing -- i made around 200 dollars and was gifted a box of chocolates and a dozen roses. but the past few weeks have seen interest plummet. apparently i'm old news now. people want something different, something exciting, something for nothing. and i'm going to give it to them.

i've decided that from now on instead of sitting out front on the boulevard with my 'poet for hire' sign, i'll be holding a different sign.  today's sign will read:  'free chicken salad!'  anyone who stops will get a free bowl of chicken salad. no strings attached. and when people stop to check it out I will give them one of my 'poet for hire' business cards. they can have the chicken salad for nothing, but if they'd like a unique original poem from me they'll have to pay.  i believe that this gambit should skirt all the city ordinances about serving food w/o a license, panhandling, and sales tax, etc.  I'll only be serving cold salads, and only doing it for an hour at most.

Amy is rather cool to the whole idea. she suggested i do this over at pioneer park, a block away, because that's where the city's homeless congregate. but they don't have any money or any interest in paying for poetry. and i'm trying NOT to run a charity, but a literary business.  still and all the same, she has offered to make my signs for me.  her penmenship is much better than mine.

so we'll see how it goes.  today i'm offering chicken & brown rice salad.  Future offerings, if this thing works out, will include:

krab salad

tuna salad

3 bean salad

 beet salad

celery victor

cobb salad

macaroni salad

potato salad

 

and many others that i haven't invented yet. 

i'm really hoping this will kick start my career as 'poet for hire.'  and if not, well, i'll just enjoy improvising a different kind of salad every day with ingredients on hand!

 

Asked & Answered. Part One.

 

Do you have any nicknames?

I grew up being called Tim by everyone, except my Uncle Louie, who called me 'Bow Tie' because I once wore a little red bow tie to his house one Sunday right after church.   My mother called me Timmy when she was pleased with me, and Timothy when she was about to lower the boom.  As for my dad, I could use the old Henny Youngman joke: "I thought my name was Shut Up until I was seven years old."  When I joined the circus I was christened with several nicknames. Because I wore a stark white face makeup and had prominent canines I was dubbed 'Dracula."  Prince Paul, the famous dwarf clown, called me either 'Schmutz Finger' or 'Heim Potz."  Swede Johnson, a lion-tamer turned clown, called me 'Pinhead.'   Sometimes I was referred to as 'Pete the Pup' in reference to the dog in the Our Gang series, because I had a black circle painted under my right eye.  By the end of my first season with Ringling most everyone was calling me 'Tork.'  That is the name I prefer to be called by friends and acquaintances.  My kids and grand kids now call me 'Grandpa Tim' -- which I like a lot.  For several years, when I worked in radio, I used the name 'Tim Roberts.'  I've also used that as a pen name on some of my earliest writing work.

Where have you lived?

I lived in Minneapolis for the first 18 years of my life.  Most of that time was spent at 900 19th Avenue S. E.  I can still remember our phone number:  612-331-7441.  I kept my legal residence in Minneapolis when I traveled with the circus.  I lived in Patzcuaro, Michoacan, Mexico, when studying pantomime with Sigfrido Aguilar.  Then Laie, Hawaii, and Thailand, during my 2 year proselytizing mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Williston, North Dakota, where I was news director for KGCX Radio and met Amy. Provo, Utah, several times over the years -- and now it's our permanent home.  Wichita, Kansas, when I was Ronald McDonald.  Haines City, Florida, when I worked at Circus world.  Bottineau, North Dakota.  Tioga, North Dakota.  Spencer, Iowa.  Sheldon, Iowa.  Detroit Lakes, Minnesota.  Park Rapids, Minnesota. Woodbridge, Virginia.  Of all the places I visited during my years traveling with the circus, there are two I would especially enjoy living in.  In summer, Duluth, Minnesota -- because of the magnificent Lake Superior. And in winter, Venice, Florida, because of the public fishing pier and public beaches.  But those are only dreams.  During the past few months, as Amy and I have thought about moving out of Valley Villa here in Provo, I have had several very vivid dreams that warned me that we should stay where we are. So we will.

How would you describe your cultural identity?

I've already written about the 'Law of Janten' in a previous post, but I want to repeat it here. Because it is really the cultural environment I grew up in, and the environment I encountered in several places I've lived in as an adult. It was created by the Norwegian novelist Aksel Sandemose to describe the mindset of a rural society:

1. You're not to think you are anything special.
2. You're not to think you are as good as we are.
3. You're not to think you are smarter than we are.
4. You're not to imagine yourself better than we are.
5. You're not to think you know more than we do.
6. You're not to think you are more important than we are.
7. You're not to think you are good at anything.
8. You're not to laugh at us.
9. You're not to think anyone cares about you.
10. You're not to think you can teach us anything.

 I grew up in a culture where having a dog or a cat for a pet was considered a normal middle-class thing. But my folks wouldn't stand for either animal in the house.  Too much mess and too much work, they claimed.  So I was limited to the little green turtles you could buy for a dime at the Woolworth Five & Dime. I think a dog would have been good for me, and I've always felt somehow cheated of one of the rights of boyhood because of that lack.  

I grew up in a fog of cigarette smoke and beer fumes. American culture in the 1950s and early 60s encouraged and glorified tobacco and alcohol as wonderful additions to any adult life. Adult gatherings always featured smoking and beer. Until I joined the LDS Church at 18, I looked forward to puffing and guzzling my way through life as well. 

I identified the culture that surrounded me as American, where communists were the enemy. By communists we meant Russians and Chinese. Both nationalities were suspect.  They would keep trying to take over the world, to nuke us Americans into submission, if we didn't keep eating our spinach and voting Republican. Because the Democrats were soft on communism. Everybody knew that. 

Each night as a child mom would hear my prayers as I knelt by my bed. It was  always the same rote prayer, memorized by the time I was four:

Now I lay me down to sleep.

I pray the Lord my soul to keep.

And if I die before I wake,

I pray the Lord my soul to take.

Mom took us to St Lawrence Catholic Church for Mass every Sunday morning, but other than that a few halfhearted attempts at going to confession, the Catholic culture did not impact my life very much.  Before I the LDS Church was introduced to me, I was learning towards becoming a Quaker. 

In some of the classes I took at the U of M the younger white students occassionally admitted that they had no traditions, no culture, to ground them. They said this mournfully, as if their parents had abused them somehow.  They referred to it as 'white bread culture.'  I think they got all that hooey from sociology books.  Me, I never gave any thought to the culture or milieu I was raised in -- I grew up in it, I thought I had escaped it, then found myself back in the same stew of prejudices and preconceptions.  But finally the Gospel of Jesus Christ has worked most of the cultural knots out of me.