Wednesday August 12 is a national holiday. It is the birthday of a very important lady in my life for almost sixty years. Birthday cards can be mailed to her at 325 Burr Oak Drive, Albert Lea, MN., 56007-2212. She will accept phone calls at 507-788-0004. How old is she? This year is another year closer to being an octogenarian. Who is this great lady who celebrates a birthday week rather than just one day? Genie is her name! (I will write about her birthday week in another column.)
Genie gave me a “murse” for Father’s Day. Her reasoning was I had a place to store all the notes I’m writing to myself to maybe put in this column. She purchased the murse through an ad in the Wall Street Journal. (A murse is a men’s purse.)
Earwigs have found a home in our mailbox. An earwig is a small black bug with pincers that likes to hide inside your ear. I’m using stuffed cotton to keep them out of my ears.
The boundary waters canoe area wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota is literally SRO. (Standing room only) because of the virus and no travel to Canada due to the border being closed. The virus plus the border being closed have caused an increase in fishing licenses sold and also an increase in the use of Minnesota parks. In other words any business related to the outdoors in Minnesota is busy. I suspect the same thing will happen this deer-hunting season. Genie and I plan on hunting the entire season around Bena, Minnesota or until I get a deer.
Ole and Lena were the program at the local sons of Norway Dinner last week. They told about their recent visit to Disney World.
They told how the lines were about half as long as usual with plenty of room to get around. Their only complaint was the food, because they couldn’t taste anything. They apologized for not giving the program earlier, but they had to wait at least fourteen days when they got home as the public health department had put a sign on their front door of no activity for fourteen days. Ole and Lena thought the restriction had something to do with the relative activity as they had lots of relatives in Minnesota.
Holly Bagley played the pre-recorded piano music, John Ramsey played the live guitar music, and Pastor Matt Briggs led in the attendees singing. We all gathered outside by the tree for the Sunday outside service at East Freeborn Lutheran Church. It was a classic where two or more are gathered.
We look out our window and see eleven pink flamingos in our lawn. We go outside to look at pink plastic flamingos. A message reads: “Surprise you’ve been flocked.” The message goes on to read; “The plastic pink flamingos are very territorial and will stay on your law for a very long time unless removed to someone else’s lawn. The message goes on to say if we give a generous donation to American Cancer Society, the flock will move to the following person for the next flocking. We complied with a generous donation and gave the name of Tom and Jody Nygaard for the next flockee.
The flocking is done by a group from Zion Lutheran Church of Albert Lea known as “Lions beautiful feet.” The group has four sets of flocks. A contact if you want to do this is: Diane Hanson at 373-8584.
Thanks to Doug and Sue Olson for a generous donation to remove the pink plastic flamingos from their lawn to ours as the new flockee.
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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.