I attended the celebration for the life of Terry Jenson held at Trinity Lutheran Church in Albert Lea. Terry and his wife Char had a cabin close to ours for a number of years at Beaver Lake. I completely agree with Pastor Eileen Woyen when in her homily she referred to Terry as “a character.”
In our conversation one day at the lake, Terry said, “Hanson, the only thing wrong with you—you were in the wrong branch of the military.”
To Terry, the only good branch of the U.S. Military was the Marines (I served in the Navy), for which Terry lived and breathed. To him, Semper Fidelis (always faithful motto of the U.S. Marines) were the words to live by.
One day, Terry walked over to see us carrying a little Shih Tzu dog. He was rather irate that his family had given him a little dog that barked and barked. “Little dogs were for little kids” was his beef.
Time went by and the little dog was named Barker. Barker transformed a gung-ho old Marine into an old, caring Marine. Before long, Barker took Terry along whenever Barker went some place.
Barker and Terry—thanks for the memories.
If you drop your credit card at a busy store entryway without knowing you did so, your best bet of getting it back is if U.S. Army Afghanistan veteran Adam Kirkpatrick finds it as he enters the store. I dropped my credit card as I entered Dollar General in Albert Lea; Adam found it and turned it in to the store manager who held it, waiting for someone to claim it. I give my thanks to Adam for practicing “Minnesota Nice” even though he is a native of Iowa. The only reward Adam would accept was, “Pay it forward.” I suspect Adam will perform many more random acts of kindness no matter where he is living.
If at all possible, read the article in the June 2018 National Geographic about plastic. It is well written and points out that our love for plastic bags could be the downfall of the human race.
Per the Albert Lea Tribune, a house in a small town in southern Minnesota has many undesirable wild residents of the four-legged variety—namely, feral cats. It most certainly qualifies as a Nimby with all of the residents but the house owner (Nimby means “not in my back yard”).
We have a menagerie occupying two corners of two blocks in Albert Lea: a pair of crows being fed scraps daily, two pairs of house wrens each occupying a birdhouse, two pairs of chickadees visiting the sunflower seed feeders daily, a pair of nuthatch birds flying away with a sunflower seed on a daily basis, a striped gopher planting kernels of corn from a cob in the bird feeder into our pots of flowers as long as kernels of corn are available, a bumble bee heavy into humming, two female hummers drinking hummer juice about every two hours, at least three different sizes of rabbits, a red fox that looks for the rabbits just before dawn, squirrels that know how to multiply as fast as the rabbits, lots and lots of pretty yellow flowers that could be used to make wine, the best thing to come out of Iowa (Genie), an old “uffda” Norwegian (me). Does all this qualify for our neighbors using Nimby to describe our place? The answer is most certainly yes!
Living or deceased, Sunday, June 17 is his day. It is also our daughter’s birthday. Happy birthday, Deb.
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Bob is a retired AAL (Aid Association for Lutherans) agent, currently working on his master’s degree in Volunteering. His wife, Genie, is a retired RN, currently working on her doctor’s degree in Volunteering. They have two children, Deb in North Carolina, and Dan in Vermont. Bob says if you enjoy his column, let him know. If you don’t enjoy it, keep on reading, it can get worse. Words of wisdom: There is always room for God.