A Clown Show for Grandma Daisy

As my mother lay dying of congestive heart failure in her ninety-third year, she started talking to her own mother, who had passed away long ago. Her mother would come to visit as the sun began to set, and they would talk about old troubles and sorrows. I was my mother’s caregiver for those last few months of her life. Of course, I only heard my mother’s side of these conversations. One late afternoon as the last rays of the sun slanted through the venetian blinds of her bedroom, mom perked up and said “Oh mother, I’m glad you came today. Remember when Timmy came to visit you out at the home in New Brighton? Remember he did a show, just for you!”

I couldn’t stay in her bedroom any longer -- for I, too, remembered that performance. It was the last time I saw my grandma Daisy alive.  

It was back in 1973. Finished with the season at Ringling Brothers Circus as a clown, I was staying with my parents in Minneapolis, making final preparations for my two year proselytizing LDS mission in Thailand. There was my passport and visas to get processed; dental work to be done (all LDS missionaries at the time were required to have every one of their wisdom teeth extracted prior to arriving in Salt Lake for indoctrination); banking details to work out at the Farmers & Mechanics Bank; and sober white shirts, dark slack pants, and plain black ties to purchase -- along with a pair of Red Wing mailman shoes, guaranteed to last a minimum of five years (they only lasted me six months in Thailand, and then turned green with mold and disintegrated.)

Poor grandma Daisy was already in the nursing home by then. She was unable to walk up the single flight of stairs to her attic apartment and had gone to live with Aunt Ruby in Edina. They had a very big house. But once there she kept turning on the stove to make tea and then forgetting about it, or wandering out into the street in her bathrobe looking for the vegetable pushcart or fish vendor of seventy years before. Aunt Ruby had no choice but to take her to the nursing home in New Brighton, where she cried herself to sleep every night until her mind mercifully dried up. She became immobile and unsmiling, and my mother took the bus to see her every other day and hand fed her, since she refused to feed herself.

I went to see her with mom a few times, this lovely little lady who used to eat Old Dutch Onion & Garlic Potato chips with me when no one else in the family would touch them with a ten foot pole. Her hugs smelled like lavender and Lipton tea bags. She had a big wobbly smile; her dentures were never too securely anchored. Her false teeth had flown out of her mouth into the punch bowl while laughing at a joke at my brother Bill’s first wedding.

I wanted to reach through that veil to let her know I still cared for her and needed her love in return. It was very hard being the only LDS member in the family; not to mention being a baggy pants buffoon for a living. There was little approval -- but I knew grandma Daisy would have not only approved but given me steady encouragement in that soft, Kentish accent of hers. She was born in Swanscombe, Kent, and sounded for all the world like Stan Laurel.

So I decided to visit her nursing home to do a clown show. I’d done plenty of hospital shows with Ringling. There was an outdoor patio where I set up my props and ran my music -- I used a cassette tape called “E. Power Biggs Plays Scott Joplin Rags on the Pedal Harpsichord.”

That day grandma Daisy lost her glasses -- mom said they were stolen and sold for their silver frames by one of the nursing staff. No one had combed her hair that day. And she was getting a goiter. She and a dozen others were wheeled out onto the patio, where I started into my schtick.

I worked like a Trojan for thirty minutes; juggling, doing pratfalls and a dozen other standard slapstick gambits. The old people sat in their wheelchairs, mummering and grim. One lady kept whimpering “I want to go home -- please take me home -- they’ll be hungry -- I have to go home -- please take me home . . . “

I was covered in flop sweat -- a terrible feeling of drowning when you don’t connect to the audience.

Then I took my musical saw out of its trombone case and began playing. Suddenly the old folks sat up a little and began to smile and nod. Here was something at last that was getting through to them, although in a rather high-pitched and quavery tone. I played “Toyland” by Victor Herbert. Then “Aloha ‘Oe.” I ended with “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.” Now even the staff, who had hitherto been busy smoking and gossiping in the corner, were nodding and smiling their heads.

And grandma Daisy . . .

I thought I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. Was that a smile just for me? Could she, would she, say something to me, just to me? I put my saw down and ran over to her, kneeling by her wheelchair.

“Grandma” I whispered, breaking character completely. “Grandma, it’s me -- Timmy. Can you hear me? Tell me you liked the show, grandma. Please . . . “     

But the glimmer was gone, if it had ever been there. Her mouth hung open. Her dentures hadn’t been cleaned in a long time; they were yellow and grimy. She stared out into a gray nothingness -- feeling nothing, thinking nothing, being nothing.

I took one last pratfall before bowing and loping away to a smattering of applause from the staff. Then everyone was wheeled back inside. I used the public restroom in the lobby to take off my costume and makeup. I couldn’t bear to go see grandma Daisy again, so I got the bus and went home, where my Letter from Salt Lake had finally come, telling me to be at the Mission Home by next Monday. Dad drove me to the airport, shook my hand, and told me I was a fool for going.

And while I was knocking on doors in the Kingdom of Thailand, Daisy Ellen Bedelle finally took flight back to that welcoming Home that awaits us all.

Europe was colder than the Arctic this week

It got so cold in Venice that the gondolas all fused

Into a massive iceberg that left tourists quite bemused.

In Paris icicles did grow upon the Eiffel Tower;

Parisiens put on ice skates during afternoon rush hour.

And snow was falling thick and fast in places like Madrid;

Flamenco dancers killed themselves when into walls they slid!

Meanwhile in the Arctic it was balmy as could be;

The polar bears used sunscreen as if way down in Capri.

This topsy turvy weather comes when polar vortex walls

Tumble like at Jericho, producing lusty squalls

That swoop down upon Europe, giving residents chilblains,

And trace post modern doodles with rime frost on window panes.

So next time you’re in Europe, just forget sunglasses, chum,

And bring a fleecy blanket to keep warm your frozen bum.   

Reporters making minimum wage

“The problem is that the money generated by news

audiences is flowing primarily to Google and Facebook,

and not to the reporters and publishers who produce

excellent journalism,” said Chavern.  From Forbes.

With Google and Facebook combined,

Reporters on their daily grind

Will mostly engage

For minimum wage,

While to trending stories confined.

Uncle Jim and the Rat in the Beer Bottle

One of dad’s older brothers, James Lee Torkildson, grew up to be a butcher who worked at the Red Owl Supermarket in New Brighton, Minnesota, for over thirty years. And he was a happy butcher. In fact, I’d say he was, without doubt, the happiest butcher in Minnesota. And here’s why:

One mellow spring day Uncle Jim and my dad, whom he called Barney for reasons now lost in the mists of time and beer, drove over to the Grain Belt Brewery near the Hennepin Avenue Bridge leading into downtown Minneapolis. Their purpose was simple -- their wives each wanted a gallon of the sweet spring water the Brewery had on tap for the public, free of charge, running out of a spigot on the south wall of the building. My mother said it made for the best coffee in the world. And, of course, dad and Uncle Jim would also each pick up a wooden carton with a dozen brown Grain Belt Beer bottles in it. No sane man would drive several miles just for WATER, for gosh sakes!

They filled their water jugs and bought their beer. And then they decided to take advantage of the park-like grounds that surrounded the brewery, complete with large shade trees and picnic tables, to relax and hoist a few lukewarm bottles. It was when Uncle Jim was ready to uncap the second bottle from his carton that he noticed something unusual through the amber glass.

“Hey Barney” he asked my dad, “what the hell does that look like to you?”

Dad, who felt obligated to drink three beers for every one beer that his older brother drank, sent a juicy belch into the spring air before gazing somewhat unsteadily into the depths of Uncle Jim’s bottle.

“Damned if I know” he grunted. “Could be a rat.”

“Holy Hannah, you’re right!” shouted Uncle Jim. “There’s a rotte or mus or something in there!”

The two men looked at each other a moment, completely nonplussed. Then with a shrug Uncle Jim started to uncap the bottle -- rotte or not, he was still thirsty. But my dad stopped him.

“Wait a minute, drittsekk. Don’t open that thing! Let’s take it up to the president of the company and see what he’ll give us to shut up about it.”

A few moments later they were ushered into a wood paneled office that smelled of beeswax and hops. An elderly gentleman, dressed in a salt and pepper suit with a tall batwing collar, bade them sit down and asked to examine the bottle in question. Dad said they never heard what the man’s name was, but since he had not one but two brass spittoons in his office he must have been awful important.  

The spiffy dresser did not take long to make up his mind. After finding out that the bottle was bought by Uncle Jim, not my dad, he offered Uncle Jim a lifetime’s supply of Grain Belt Beer -- as much as he wanted and delivered as often as he wanted right to his doorstep. If Uncle Jim would remain silent. He offered my dad nothing. This upset dad, but nobly thrusting aside any sibling resentment, he demanded the bottled rat back just as the awful important gentleman was easing it into a drawer in his mahogany desk. Reluctantly, he returned it to Uncle Jim.

As my dad never tired of repeating to me and my sisters (my mother never stood around long enough to hear this part -- once he started on this saga she shot her eyes to the heavens with a weary sigh and headed for the nearest exit) he figured that if Uncle Jim kept that thing in the bottle safe and sound the Brewery would never renege on their promise of free suds.

And so it came to pass that Uncle Jim never drank a glass of milk or cup of coffee or a sip of tap water. Ever again. He had beer for breakfast. He had beer for lunch. He had beer for dinner. And when he wanted a nightcap before bed, he had a cold Grain Belt waiting for him on his night stand.

By rights he should have been plastered every day by ten in the morning, but outside of a yeasty miasma that hung over him like swamp gas, he never showed any ill effects from all that beer. He never lost a finger at his job as a butcher. Was never in an auto accident. Never grew argumentative or maudlin with friends and family. I went ice fishing with him on White Bear Lake once and asked him straight out how he kept from becoming a sloppy drunk like my dad did when he hoisted a few too many. With a wink and a grin, he pulled out a package of Ry Krisp crackers and offered me one.

“I snack on this stuff all day long, Timmy. They soak up the alcohol like nobody’s bizness. Your Aunt Annette keeps these all over the house and in the garage and in the car and I got a big box of ‘em at work. I’ll get Barney a big box of his own -- maybe that’ll straighten him out.”

Before he died in 1994 Uncle Jim took me into his basement to show me the famous rat in the bottle. It had sat undisturbed amidst half opened wood putty cans and cankered hand tools for nearly three decades, and when I looked at it there was nothing to see but some indistinct shreds of matter that settled to the bottom after I gave the bottle a gentle shake. Whatever had originally been in that bottle had long ago dissolved. But -- and this is the fairy tale part -- the free beer just kept coming for Uncle Jim. When he finally kicked the bucket I doubt they had to put any formaldehyde in him -- he had been embalming himself for a good thirty years already!

It's Official: The 'news' on Facebook is gossip and hearsay

In doing so, the company becomes the latest

publisher to feel the effects of a decision announced

by Facebook in January to prioritize posts published

by users’ friends and family members and de-emphasize

those posted by news organizations and publishers.

From the Wall Street Journal

The only news people will read

Is gossip and hearsay indeed.

Reporters who write

With truthful insight

Their fam’lies can no longer feed.

message de ma fille missionnaire en Californie

Bonjour tous le monde!! Cette semaine a été super géniale! Je continue d'apprendre chaque jour à quel point je suis imparfait, mais combien Dieu m'aide à devenir la personne qu'Il veut que je sois. Je pensais avant ma mission que j'étais sans moi-même, patient et gentil avec tout le monde; mais j'ai depuis appris combien il me manque dans ces domaines. La vérité est, il y a toujours plus que nous pourrions faire pour aider, aimer, et soutenir les gens autour de nous que ce soit la famille, les amis ou les étrangers. Je ne dis pas ces choses pour me mettre ou pour faire tomber quelqu'un d'autre, mais c'est une bonne chose de reconnaître qu'il y a toujours place à amélioration! :) Et comme c'est merveilleux que nous ayons l'opportunité d'apprendre et de grandir pendant que nous sommes ici sur Terre. Parfois, la croissance est douloureuse, mais elle en vaut toujours la peine à la fin. Et quand nous demandons de l'aide pour trouver la force de changer, Dieu nous la donne. Je sais qu'Il le fera parce qu'Il l'a fait pour moi. Il n'y a aucun moyen que je puisse être là où je suis en ce moment sans Son aide et l'aide du Sauveur. Dieu nous donne tellement plus que ce que nous pourrions Lui donner. Tout ce qu'il demande, c'est que nous le suivions et que Jésus-Christ soit son fils. Soyez gentils avec les autres, aidez les pauvres et les nécessiteux, aimez votre prochain, aimez-vous, servez les autres, enseignez à vos enfants de bonnes manières de vivre et aimez Dieu de tout votre cœur, de tout votre pouvoir et de toute votre force. Parfois, cela semble beaucoup à faire, mais je sais que lorsque nous essayons de faire tout ce que nous pouvons pour faire ces choses, nous recevons l'aide du ciel et de nombreuses bénédictions à compter. Je sais que Dieu voit les efforts que nous faisons chaque jour pour le suivre, et je sais qu'il nous bénit pour eux. Nous avons beaucoup de gens que nous enseignons en ce moment, c'est merveilleux! Obtenir de voir comment Jésus-Christ change la vie des gens est un cadeau que je chérirai toujours. Cathy, une femme que nous enseignons, a eu une crise cardiaque la semaine dernière et est toujours venue à l'église dimanche! Elle est tellement incroyable et si prête à suivre Dieu. Elle a vécu des choses très difficiles, mais sa foi est solide comme le roc. Elle sait ce que c'est que de vivre sans l'évangile de Jésus-Christ, et maintenant ce que c'est que de vivre avec elle et elle dit qu'elle n'a jamais été aussi heureuse. On ne sait jamais quand un acte de gentillesse, un sourire, un câlin ou même des brownies peuvent changer la vie de quelqu'un. Laissez Dieu vous utiliser comme un instrument pour le bien et soyez toujours prêt à atteindre ceux qui vous entourent :) C'est génial d'être en vie, et même plus grand d'être missionnaire! Je vous aime tous tellement, continuez à combattre le bon combat! Amour, soeur Torkildson

Whatever Happened to the Vita-Goodie Lady?

As a younger man I had tremendous powers of persuasion. That’s the only explanation I have as to why my trusting wife Amy allowed me to sell our house in Minneapolis and move us kit and kaboodle to Utah so I could write the Great Mormon Novel back in 1992 -- when we already had six children.

I had been obsessed by this literary willow-the-wisp every since my first ‘real’ job after being blacklisted from Ringling Brothers Circus for brawling with Michu, the World’s Smallest Man. I ended up as news director at radio station KGCX in Williston, North Dakota, with plenty of time on my hands. This was in 1981. So I began a novel on my trusty Olivetti-Underwood portable typewriter. It was called “The Camera Bug,” and it was about a returned LDS missionary on the make for a bride while earning a degree at BYU. A comedy in the classic mold, it ended with the protagonist marrying a beautiful and temple-worthy young lady who loved taking photographs -- hence the title. I meant it as a light-hearted comedy of manners, in the manner of P.G. Wodehouse, and when I showed it to Amy she giggled in all the right places and told me, between makeout sessions on my couch, that I was a pretty good writer. That’s all the encouragement I needed. I applied for and got a small writing grant from BYU, and we spent our honeymoon in Provo getting ready for my undoubtedly imminent academic accolades.

Sadly, the money ran out long before any kind of accolades or degree hove into sight, and there were no more grants to be had. So I shelved the novel and we took off for North Dakota, where I worked in radio again and then went back to work as a circus clown. But I never forgot the fine feeling of coasting along on my typewriter, creating characters and dialogue full-blown as if I were Zeus and the smithy were opening my skull to bring forth Athena. (That’s the kind of overripe stuff my writing was full of back then -- and still is today, come to think of it.)

Ten years into our marriage I’d had enough of sawdust and sorry temp jobs to see us through the winter months when the circus laid off. I had a new idea for the Great Mormon Novel. A biting satire on the cult of supplements and nostrums that LDS women love to dabble in. Over the years I’d noticed time and time again that if you scratched a stalwart LDS lady, you’d find an Amway or Shaklee dealer underneath. Even my beloved, level-headed Amy had succumbed to the blandishments of an MLM scheme involving Melaleuca oil products. I finally convinced her to drop it, but only after we’d been mulcted of several hundred dollars worth of useless inventory purchases. Too bad you couldn’t cook with the damn stuff.

I told Amy that all I needed was time and a typewriter in a quiet corner, and in six months I’d be sure to have a masterpiece that would win a Pulitzer and set us up for life. Instead of boxing my ears for spouting such arrant nonsense, she got the moving van and arranged for us to stay with her sister in Orem -- for the local LDS color and to save on rent -- while I sold our house and put the money (not as much as I’d hoped) in our joint checking account.

Once settled in Orem I scampered into the basement, set up my typewriter, and sailed into my magnum opus with unmitigated enthusiasm. No such thing as writer’s block for me! Each day saw the production of twenty or more pages of sparkling dialogue, compelling plot twists, and ever more engaging characters. As promised, in six months’ time “The Vita-Goodie Lady” was done.  It detailed the adventures of a newly wed couple, Brad and Cindy West. He was studying to be an engineer at BYU and his loyal wife Cindy was bound and determined to help pay the bills by consorting with a variety of discombobulated supplement sales schemes, finally settling on the Vita-Goodie Company as her main source of hoped-for income. Needless to say, comedic complications ensue.

Meanwhile Amy’s sister was unsubtly indicating that our carefree days of loafing about her house were drawing to an end. She changed the lock on the front door without telling us. An ugly note appeared in the bathroom Amy and I used, informing us in no uncertain terms that tp cost money and that if we wanted any more we could jolly well buy it ourselves. It was time to move out. Obviously. But first I had to get a hefty advance on my novel.

With breathtaking audacity and even more remarkable naivete, I simply handed the manuscript over to Amy, telling her blithely to find a publisher PDQ -- because, you see, I already had another book swelling up inside me like a bad case of indigestion.

That’s the thing about writing -- once you get going you can’t stop yourself. After finishing “The Vita-Goodie Lady” I couldn’t just sit around twiddling my thumbs -- I had a habit to feed, an obsession to surrender to. So I wrote my clown memoirs, all two-hundred-and-ten pages of them, in a matter of six weeks. Just for something to do, to keep busy, mind you -- I expected nothing from such a minor taradiddle -- which I called “Clown Notes.” Just for a lark I entered “Clown Notes” in the Utah Original Writing Competition under the category of autobiography -- and dang if it didn’t win Honorable Mention and a brunch invite from then Governor Norman H. Bangerter up in Salt Lake. Amy and I enjoyed his company, although neither one of us knew what to make of the skimpy little broiled lamb chops we were served that had white paper cuffs on them.

Amy has always been nothing if not enterprising. When traditional publishers like Deseret Books and Sunstone refused to be overwhelmed by my obvious genius, she took a less traditional route. She got her brother Ben to simply buy the rights to my book outright, for cold, hard, cash. Ben had been at BYU when WordPerfect got its start and was one of its first investors and employees. So he was loaded to the gunwales with the green stuff. He wrote me out a check for a cool 17 thousand dollars. And took ownership of the manuscript. Which he has to this day. And which he never intended to have published by anyone. It was just a tax write off engineered by his accountant, done as a favor to his sister. But I’m not complaining -- that money got us a place of our own and a new van. Once the family was all settled in I went back on the road with the Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus out of Delano, Florida. I just wasn’t cut out to be a bestselling author. Like the shoemaker in the old proverb, I’d stick to my last.

I did self-publish “Clown Notes,” by the way. Sold about fifty copies over the years, all told. Last time I checked, it was still listed on Amazon.com, under the heading “Out-of-Print: Limited Availability.” I don’t even have a copy of it myself -- most of my manuscripts and personal copies were destroyed by a basement flood years ago.

Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping decided that his country needed most

A leader who could lead so well all others would be toast.

He looked among his countrymen for such a pioneer;

At last he said unto himself “It must be me -- oh dear!”

“For no one else doth understand the subtle Chinese folk;

I peel back all their secrets like the layered artichoke.”

And so he gathered up the politicians made of wax,

The soldiers and industrialists and literary hacks --

To rubber stamp his policies and keep him screwed in place.

His photo was on walls, latrines, and Samsonite suitcase.

If there was but a whisper of dissent from men or girls

They’d disappear as quietly as oysters making pearls.

He ruled his country steadily for many, many years --

Producing lots of protocols and many, many tears.

At last the day arrived when he no longer could conduct

The bizness of a strongman -- like a chicken he was plucked.

As he faced the gallows for malfeasance and bad breath,

He said “I wish the rule of law replaced the rule of death!”

Ledes & Limericks. Monday February 26 2018

Police Chief spits swear words on journalist

From Ghana Web

Cops and reporters don’t mix;

The first gives the second rough kicks.

They’re natural foes

Who always oppose

Each others’ procedures and tricks.

How Do Pundits Never Get It Wrong?

Call a 40% Chance

A pundit is someone who picks

His words with discerning chopsticks;

He don’t really say

What is the right way --

Which seems to impress all the hicks.

Railroads Embark on Apology

Tour to Make Amends for

Hunter Harrison’s Ways

It isn’t the money you make

That drives customers to forsake

Your services, but

The fact that you butt

Heads with them till they all break.

L'UPS américain demande 2 milliards de dollars à l'UE pour une décision antitrust renversée

Les avocats du siège d'United Parcel Service Incorporated à Atlanta, en Géorgie, viennent d'annoncer qu'ils ont intenté une action contre l'Unité antitrust de l'Union européenne pour 1,74 milliard d'euros (2,15 milliards de dollars), avec intérêts et frais de justice, pour décision à Bruxelles il y a cinq ans, qui a mis Kibosh sur les plans d'UPS de fusionner avec le géant néerlandais de la livraison de colis TNT Express. Les documents judiciaires ont été officiellement déposés ce matin, le 26 février, à Bruxelles.

La Commission européenne, qui supervise toutes les activités antitrust de l'Union européenne, a exprimé sa profonde inquiétude quant au fait que le système de livraison de colis pendant la nuit serait la proie de la fixation des prix par UPS et TNT Express. Le seul autre service de livraison de nuit disponible pour la plupart des expéditeurs européens aurait été Deutsche Post, qui n'est pas équipée pour gérer plus qu'une fraction de l'activité de livraison de nuit en Europe occidentale et n'est pas équipée pour effectuer des livraisons rapides à l'étranger.

Mais cette décision d'interdire la fusion a été annulée par la cour d'appel de l'Union européenne à la fin de 2017, invoquant des erreurs procédurales commises par la Commission européenne dans sa gestion de la décision initiale. La Commission européenne fait appel de la décision de la cour inférieure, mais les experts sur les lois antitrust européennes disent qu'il y a peu d'espoir que la décision sera jamais rétablie.

Les avocats d'UPS affirment que la décision initiale de la Commission a eu un effet négatif sur les stocks de la société et ont considérablement réduit leurs marges bénéficiaires au cours des trois dernières années.