Broskoff Structures marks 25 years

THEY’VE DONE A LOT — Broskoff Structures of Geneva recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with an open house. (Star Eagle photo by Kathy Paulsen)

By KATHY PAULSEN

Staff Writer

Broskoff Structures held its Customer Appreciation Open House on Friday, November 30. Dave and Diane Broskoff are proud to have been able to experience 25 years of successfully serving our area communities.

More than 725 customers, retired farmers, family and friends attended the open house that featured a banquet table of good country style food and beverages. According to Dave, the party is a nice thing to do for customers when they've been so nice to you. Good business and good customers work well to care for each other.

"It's been 25 years of ‘What are we doing? And look at what we've done,’” was the theme the Broskoffs developed for the celebration.

Wagner hits 2,000 career point milestone

MILESTONE NIGHT — NRHEG junior Carlie Wagner (3) drives past a Bemidji defender in the finals of the St. Peter Holiday Classic Saturday. Wagner scored the 2,000th point of her career in the first half and the Panthers went on to a 58-51 victory. (Star Eagle photo by Chris Schlaak)

By DALE KUGATH

Sportswriter

ST. PETER – The New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva girls’ basketball team won a second straight St. Peter Holiday Tournament championship and ran its winning streak to six games while doing it. 

The Panthers shook off the rust in the first half before cruising to a win against Hutchinson in the opening round. 

NRHEG struggled with its shooting against Bemidji, but still had enough to outlast the Lumberjacks for the championship the following night. 

The Panthers, ranked second in the state in Class AA, raised their overall record to 8-1.

Hutchinson

Class AAA Hutchinson tried to slow NRHEG down, but could not do it and fell to the Panthers 71-47 Friday afternoon. 

By DALE KUGATH

Sportswriter

MANKATO – The New Richland-Hartland-Ellendale-Geneva boys’ basketball team managed one win in three starts to place seventh at the 15th annual Pepsi Holiday Tournament at Mankato Bethany Dec. 27-29. 

Coach Path Churchill’s Panthers were bombarded by Fairmont in the opening round, lost a close contest to St. Clair in the second round and completed the three-day tourney with a solid victory over Minnesota Valley Lutheran. 

NRHEG also lost two of three games in the holiday tourney a year ago, but finished in sixth place. 

NRHEG takes a 2-6 overall record into the new year.

Fairmont

A physical and deep Fairmont squad overwhelmed NRHEG 100-42 in Thursday’s opening round of the tournament. The Cardinals scored the first 14 points of the game and had 15 players reach the scoring column. 

Dorothea Neumann was invited to entertain this holiday season at Emma Krumbie’s in Belle Plaine for their wine and cheese tasting evening on December 13. This event also featured vendors selling their wares and hourly drawings. She has also been recently seen at Rochester Mayo on the grand piano where she has been applauded and invited back as she added some pep into the Christmas holidays with carols and “old fashioned melodies.” Dorothea lives 3 miles from New Richland on the farm she and her late husband Raymond established. She was the former organist at St Peter’s Church in New Richland for over 60 years. She is 86 years old. (Submitted photo)

I recently opened up a puzzle, dumped all 1,000 pieces on the bulletin board that I use as puzzle board so that I could start to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. It was a colorful mess of little pieces waiting to be joined together to provide a pretty picture.

Putting puzzles together is what I use as a diversion when I need to take a break and think. It occurred to me how much putting together a puzzle can be like life’s puzzle. 

My mother and I tend to like puzzles that are colorful, that make us feel happy. There are times when too many pieces of the same color background make it seem dull or tedious to work on.

The same can be true in our everyday life so we tend to leave them for a while, sometimes until the end and look for some of the more vibrant or easier pieces to do first. We start with so many disconnected pieces that we must put together to make something meaningful. It is a big task.

First, there is the border that dictates what and where our life will be contained. Then we start to search for colors and shapes that blend and form a pattern. 

One must find where each one of the pieces come together, or where each piece must fit in our lives. It may be the place we live, the things we do, or the people who play an important part in our life or it could be all of the above.

When working on a puzzle it helps to be able to look at the picture on the box. It helps educates us as to where all the different pieces fit into the puzzle. 

Just as puzzles come in different sizes so do families. Size has little to do with the beauty of the puzzle. There is so much to admire in both large and small puzzles.

There is a tendency to put pieces together that can be seen immediately to fit or be joined together. Sometimes two or maybe more form the nucleus or maybe a beginning of the whole picture. Like a marriage, where pieces are joined together to make an interesting picture, or life. Hopefully the pieces will fit and we find where each piece must fit in or not. 

Sometimes you swear that a piece must surely fit. It seems to be the right shape and color, but for some reason, it just doesn't fit into the shape of things. Sometimes you look and look among all the pieces that are supposed to fit in the puzzle and you believe that the piece is missing.

Like puzzles, life is as colorful or complex as we make it. Sometimes by accident. Some times by thought. 

Who doesn't want a colorful, vibrant life? But then sometimes it is good if the puzzle, or one’s life is calming and restful, like large portions of sky or sea when nothing is happening that stresses us.

I remember once doing a puzzle that was a picture of a quilt. It had a wide border, you might say, that was around the original border. 

In life, this could be like adding another personality through a marriage or a new special friend, children or events that could change the original pattern, an extended family. For some, it could be somber with a death, a bad experience as for a born-again Christian recovering from bad habits, a health turn for the best.

Sometimes there are empty spaces that later are filled or maybe never are because the right piece may be missing. It takes time; the pieces don't just fall into place. 

You work hard, looking, turning, trying and you may get disgusted with the process. It is really hard. 

Sometimes it is tempting to throw it all back in the box and start over with a different puzzle, but that is not the purpose of the game or the project that you are working on. By sticking with it and continuing to keep trying all of the different pieces, it takes shape, just as things do in our lives.

How happy we are when there is surge of pieces that fall so easily into place. We are also discouraged when for a long time nothing seems to fit. 

You take a break and usually when you come back to it again most generally you will find pieces that fit. As the puzzle takes shape, many thoughts run through your mind, happy thoughts of success, sometimes failure, but as it all takes shape, you realize such is life.

When you first start the puzzle, there are so many pieces that you have trouble deciding where they are supposed to go, so the initial progress is slow. As the picture comes together and the pieces to be considered become fewer, the puzzle goes together more rapidly, and finally, the last easily discernible pieces are easily placed.  

So too is life when we are young. There are so many pieces that we can’t seem to make the connections. 

But as sections of the puzzle are put together, we have direction.  When the options become fewer, the rate of assembly goes very quickly.

There are bright, happy days, successes, and times spent with little progress, but you acknowledge that all the pieces put together are what shape your life: beautiful, dull, mediocre, and it all depends on picking the right puzzle and putting it together in the right way. That's life.

— — —

Birthdays and Anniversaries:

• Thursday, January 3rd: Jerret Utpadel, Andrea Avery, Stan Nelson

• Friday, January 4th: Sophie Elizabeth Stork, Kelsey Christensen, Delphine Pence, Jeff Cornelius, Dennis Hill, Monty Mrotz, Jeremy Nelson, Corey Johnson, John Butler.

• Saturday, January 5th: Olivia Pauline Christopherson, Devon Mark Born, Pat Simon King, Warren Kelly, Randy Paulson, Jay Neitzel, Amy Kasper, Nash Petranek, Melinda & Ray Talamantes.

• Sunday, January 6th: Mallory Anna Schlinger, Marianne Christensen, Kevin Jensen, Tammy Busho, Todd Nelson.

• Monday, January 7th: Rodney Peterson, Gary Ayers, Stacy Jensen Pirkl,  Karina Thompson.

• Tuesday, January 8th: (Elvis Presley) Cameron Schember, Mike Marcus, Terry Pelzl, Dan Reese, David Jensen, Ryan Benning, Jennifer Rechtzigel, Brandon Borchert, John & Melissa Marlin.

• Wednesday, January 9th: Melinda Hanson Talamanates, Lisa Dunn Wayne, Mark Lee, Adam Deml, Jay Wangsness, Steve Vanden Heuvel, Becky Wayne Clark, Larry Jensen, Allen Dobberstein, Allan Swearingen, Dan & Lavonne Nelson.

With each passing year, grow stronger, grow wiser, grow richer in spirit. May the year ahead be filled with new discoveries!

Looking back over the past few weeks, I have to wonder where the time has gone. As a kid, I used to get excited about Christmas almost before my uncles Harvey and Orville were done picking the turkey out of their dentures. 

Yes, it was an exciting time for me as a kid. I almost think that the anticipation was half of it. Once that magical time arrived, it seemed to go by way too fast and before you knew what had happened, it was time to go back to school.

Now, with my childhood days well behind me, I still find myself getting that little kid feeling when I think about Christmas. I think that I inherited that from my mother who always loved that special time of year. 

To me, it’s no longer about what I am getting, but about what I am giving. I can remember saying that I always wanted my kids to have the things that I could only wish for as a kid. 

Although I don’t feel that I spoiled them, I did try to make Christmas as good as possible. As a kid, I don’t ever think I felt that I’d had a bad Christmas because my folks always made it seem special even if I didn’t always get the things on my wish list. I know that my mother had a certain gift when it came to making Christmas feel warm and cozy no matter what material things you did or didn’t have. 

Now that Christmas is officially in the books and the Mayan Apocalypse, for those of you that were worried, is behind us, I can look back on the year and appreciate all the things that went on.

I had to overcome a few health issues, but now it’s “full speed ahead” or at least as speedy as a guy my age can go. I had the opportunity to spend a lot of time at the cabin this past year which I really enjoyed. 

Jean and I especially enjoyed spending time there with our grandkids and having our granddaughter, Emma visit the cabin for the very first time. I couldn’t believe how she took to the cabin life.

Although the walleye fishing was a little slow this year, it didn’t bother me that much because the majority of my time is spent fishing for northern, bass and crappie. The fishing was some of the best that I can remember for nice sized bass, but the crappie fishing wasn’t as good as in other years. We did get a lot of work done on the inside of the cabin this past summer, and with the help of my friend Mark, we were able to get it sheet rocked in the spring.

As far as spending time in the outdoors, I think that I did my share of fishing again this year. Brian and his family took their annual October hunting trip to the cabin and the boys did all right grouse hunting.

There didn’t seem to be as many ducks around as in previous years.  It’s not always about numbers when it comes to hunting and fishing. It’s really about time spent in the outdoors and doing what you enjoy.

— — —

On Christmas Day, Jean and I were enjoying a quiet drive to Bricelyn to visit our son Brad and his family. There is a sort of peaceful feeling that I get whenever I drive on a country road in the winter time. 

On the way over, it was sunny and the Christmas music that was playing on the radio gave it a cozy, “just right” sort of feeling. On the trip back, we decided to take the road straight east out of Bricelyn, which is gravel most of the way and goes past the north end of Bear Lake ending at Hwy. 69 just south of Twin Lakes. 

I always enjoy that drive as there is always a chance of spotting wildlife along the way. It was late afternoon and the sun was slowly sinking in the west.

At the same time, the moon was high in the eastern sky. We actually didn’t spot any wildlife until we drove past Bear Lake where we spotted some deer in a clearing by some woods.

The drive was peaceful and except for the three cars that we met along the way, we seemed to have the whole countryside to ourselves. If you’ve ever driven the road that goes over what some call “Kiester Mountain,” you know what a sight that is to behold. You can see for miles and take in the whole countryside from atop that hill; what a view that was on a super clear, crisp and sunny winter afternoon.

When we arrived at Brian’s, he and his family had just came from playing a little “pond hockey” on Pickerel Lake. Grandson Trevor set up a portable fish house to use as a warming house and they spent the afternoon playing hockey. 

It’s really hard to imagine Trevor putting a fish house on a lake without wetting a line. What they did that Christmas Day reminded me of my youth and how we made our own entertainment. You could call that “old school” because it was just good old fashioned family fun.

It sounds like the early ice fishing has been pretty good on the channel, but while the fishing was good for a while it tapered off, temporarily, I hope. I do believe that when there is a lot of traffic on a lake your chance for success decreases. With the low water levels this year, we can only wish for the best when it comes to freeze-outs of some of our area waters.

Until next time, take a little time to enjoy the winter outdoors even if it’s something as simple as a drive in the country.

Please remember to keep our troops in your thoughts and prayers in the New Year because they are the reason we are able to enjoy all the freedoms that we have today.

Predictions are an inexact science at best. There are specialists in the field called Futurists and companies pay them big bucks. Their forecasts of the future may decide a company’s failure or success. They use many tools including paradigms and scenarios.

I don’t have near that sophisticated of an approach and must rely on common sense, a little knowledge and maybe a subconscious insight or two.

My first stab at the unknown is that the Vikings will defeat the Green Bay Packers. I’m writing this on Christmas day and the big game doesn’t occur until Sunday. 

Did I mention that forecasts take courage also? I don’t expect the Vikes to go far in playoffs, for that takes a better quarterback than the Vikings have this year. But, this has been a good season and next year should be better.

As I write this, our Minnesota basketball Gophers are ranked 11th in the national poll. Tubby Smith’s team is loaded this year with four year seniors, one fifth-year and one sixth-year senior, Trevor Mbakwe. They will have one of the best front lines in college basketball when Mo Walker joins Mbakwe and Rodney Williams.

My prediction of the "Sweet Sixteen" for the Gophers, is more in keeping with conventional wisdom than the Vikings triumphing over the Packers, but we will see if Tubby can take the team that far. If not, there will be grumbling in Gopher land.

The outlook for the University of Minnesota football team is encouraging. They’ve got a couple of extra weeks of practice this year as they prepare for their bowl game. That should stand them in good stead for next year. The Gophers won’t rise above mediocrity, but should be a solid team.

The Minnesota Timberwolves have put together a fine team and have a good upside with playoff potential. Forward Kevin love is a proven all-star. Ricky Rubio is the catalyst and gives the Wolves a playmaker. Newcomer Andre Kirilenko has been a surprise, providing the team with passing, rebounding and shooting. He also plays tenacious defense. 

What more can you ask? He reminds me of long time all-pro John Havlicek. 

Nicola Pekovic has shown he can measure up with the best centers in the NBA. If the Timberwolves can find a shooting guard, which may be Brandon Roy, they will be tough down the stretch. They have the bench to do it with J.J. Barea and others helping out. If, and this is a big if, they can escape injuries, they will go deep into the playoffs.

The Minnesota Twins are trying to dig themselves out of the cellar and it appears that they have taken steps to achieve that lengthy process under the direction of Terry Ryan. They desperately needed pitching and have garnered a number of arms. Some for the future and some for now. 

There are many question marks for the 2013 pitching. Many of the signed pitchers are recovering from surgery and some weren’t that good when they were healthy. 

They did get young power arms, but not for this year. A guy has to wonder that if instead of Ryan spending $5 million here and $5 million there for mediocre pitchers, he had taken all the millions, and spent them on an ace, the Twins wouldn’t be better off. Ryan went for quantity, not quality.

Our Twins should climb one rung in the standings and escape the cellar, but we will have to wait until 2014 to see real improvement. There you have it and no matter what, it looks like a fun year for Minnesota fans.

Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

"Knock, knock."

"Who’s there?"

"The doorbell repairman."

Driving by the Bruces

I have two wonderful neighbors — both named Bruce — who live across the road from each other. Whenever I pass their driveways, thoughts occur to me, such as: Chewbacca made a lot of Wookiee mistakes.

The news from Hartland

The Eat Around It Cafe offers a Too Much Information booth where people can talk about their most recent medical procedures.

The Lucky Charms leprechaun tells police that everyone is after his Social Security check.

CSI Hartland discovers that the mime really was trapped in an invisible box.

Hartland’s walk/don’t walk lights become coin-operated.

Christmas past

My nephew Neal Batt got a Magic 8-Ball for Christmas. He’ll never need to make another decision. He’ll rely on the Magic 8-Ball’s advice that says one of the following: As I see it, yes. It is certain. It is decidedly so. Most likely. Outlook good. Signs point to yes. Without a doubt. Yes. Yes–definitely. You may rely on it. Reply hazy, try again. Ask again later. Better not tell you now. Cannot predict now. Concentrate and ask again. Don't count on it. My reply is no. My sources say no. Outlook not so good. Very doubtful.

Contrary to my popular belief, there is no, "What are you looking at?" Ten of the answers are affirmative, five are negative, and five are unrevealing. Who knows, maybe the device is the secret to Warren Buffet’s success.

My three-year-old grandson Crosby was acting his age when it came time to open Christmas presents. Some suggested he was being a pain in the posterior. His grandmother, The Queen B, warned him that if he didn't shape up, he’d be the last one to open presents. Crosby replied instantly, "I like being last."

Basketball diaries

I watched my granddaughter Joey play ball. Her team was shutting out its opponent. I’ve seen many fastpitch softball games and a shutout isn’t that unusual. What made it odd was that it was a basketball game. The score was New Ulm a lot, the Sleepy Eye contingent nothing. As the final seconds ticked off the clock, a player from Sleepy Eye heaved the ball from well past midcourt. It swished as the final buzzer sounded. A three-pointer. Everyone cheered.

Deb Kenison of Ellendale told me that when her father played high school basketball for Emmons, he and a friend were caught smoking cigarettes. Both boys were booted from the team. A problem soon arose. Being a small school, Emmons didn’t have enough players to field a team without the smokers. The coach went to Deb's father to ask him to rejoin the varsity. He was hesitant, but agreed to return if the coach bought him a pair of basketball shoes. Deb's father became a rare individual — a high school basketball player with a shoe contract.

Talking Texas

I spoke in the Rio Grande Valley and visited Mission, Texas. My mother, who knew nothing about football, liked the Dallas Cowboys because of their coach, Tom Landry. She liked his hat. A mural on a building located, oddly enough, on Tom Landry Drive, is a tribute to Landry. It portrays Landry’s years as a player with the New York Giants and as a coach of the Cowboys. Don Perkins, Don Meredith, Danny White, Ed LeBaron, Craig Morton, and Too Tall Jones are players depicted in the mural. It illustrates Landry on the shoulders of Rayfield Wright after a Super Bowl victory. It shows his involvement with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and ends with his induction into the Football Hall of Fame. Mom would have smiled at the images of that fedora.

A winter day in the RGV offered an outside temperature warmer than that in my bedroom at home. Sandra Skrei of Cedar Creek moved to Texas from the Midwest to teach. She told one of the students in her first class that he was on thin ice. The boy, who had lived his entire life in the RGV, had no idea what his teacher was talking about.

Nature notes

"What are the chances of hitting a deer while driving?" Much better than winning the lottery. According to State Farm Insurance, your greatest chance of bumping into Bambi with a Buick is in West Virginia — 1 in 40. South Dakota drivers are second at 1 in 68, Iowa third — 1 in 71.9, Michigan — 1 in 72.4, and Pennsylvania fifth at 1 in 76. Wisconsin ranked 7th at 1 in 79 and Minnesota with a 1 in 80 chance of hitting a deer with a vehicle was 8th.

Meeting adjourned

Wherever there’s another living thing, there’s an opportunity for kindness.

After leaving the old year behind, the scurs New Year’s resolution is on getting back on track in the new one. Will they get off on the right foot? 

Starting Wednesday, partly cloudy becoming mostly cloudy in the afternoon with a modest chance of snow. Highs of 15–20 and lows of 5–10. Partly cloudy for Thursday with a high near 15 and lows of zero to 5 above. Clear on Friday with highs back up to 20 and lows around 5 above. 

Partly cloudy and warmer on Saturday with highs of 20–25 and lows near 10. Mostly sunny on Sunday with highs of 25 and lows of 10–15. Mostly cloudy on Monday with highs of 25 and lows of 15. 

Partly sunny and warmer on Tuesday with highs above freezing at 35 and lows of 15. The normal high on January 8 is 22 and the normal low is 4. On the 8, we will also see 9 hours and 7 minutes of daylight, having gained 13 minutes since the winter solstice. The scurs will be getting the patio furniture out before you know it.

At the ranch, December tallied 1.29” of liquid equivalent with 13.35” worth of that falling as snow. At the SROC in Waseca, typical December snowfall is about 14.” We received .55” of liquid precip in November and 1.19” of precip for December of 2011. We recorded 7.5” of snow a year ago at the ranch. 

The one noticeable difference is that a much larger proportion of the precip in December last year fell as rain. While that’s still a long way from breaking out of the drought, we are still receiving some moisture. As pointed out before, we generally don’t make much of a dent on recharging the soil profile as the soils are frozen. 

And they are frozen. At the SROC as of the 28, there was 11” of frost in the ground on bare soil.

On the bird feeding front, the winter weather and conditions to our north appear to be producing an irruption of sorts. There was one redpoll noted on Friday at the feeders. On Saturday, there were several in the upper branches on the row of ash trees south of the house. By Sunday, the numbers had swelled to around 15 that suddenly descended to the feeders in the crabapple tree. 

The last time there was an irruption, they outnumbered the house sparrows and seemed to actually drive them off. Bird activity this past weekend was brisk and it will be interesting to see how many more of the redpolls arrive. For little guys they can really put it away.

The winter sports diet on TV has been superb lately and promises more of the same for much of the long winter nights. The Gophers football team went down to defeat in the last minute but they were competitive after being 13-point underdogs. The football program has been below mediocre for so long it was just refreshing to see them get into a bowl game. 

The Viqueens beat the Packers last Sunday, something sure to warm the cockles of any MN sports fan’s heart. Even if Adrian Peterson didn’t quite break the all-time rushing record, it has been interesting to watch him, especially in light of the ACL injury he sustained at the end of last season. 

My beloved Gopher hockey team continues to roll, causing Ruby to hide behind the couch as we cheered during the tattooing they gave #1 Boston college. Tubby’s charges take on Michigan State on New Year’s Eve Day and begin what should prove to be an interesting Big Ten  season. 

Time to get the chores done early so we can watch the Gophers. Ruby cocks her head wondering what the strange connection is between “chores” and “gophers.” Fortunately, they are not called the “squirrels” or she’d go through the sliding glass door. 

With the holidays coming in the middle of the week this year, it seems tough to tell what day of the week it actually is. There’s no rhyme of reason to it. Monday seems like Saturday which in some respects is kinda O.K., given Monday’s propensity to suck. The sad part is Wednesdays have felt like Mondays for the past couple weeks. 

Eventually, we’ll get back to a normal existence, although we still have a couple Christmas celebrations to go yet as of this writing. No reason to step on a bathroom scale anytime soon. Nothing to see here, move it along. 

The Bernard family Christmas was this past weekend. The way things were going I was almost afraid it was going to turn out like Christmas Vacation. 

Mrs. Cheviot had booked a wedding she had to decorate for. That meant having to be extra well prepared for both events. 

We had people coming in from all over the country and one can never be sure when Cousin Eddie might show up in a beater RV. Luckily, it came off without a hitch. No trees were torched even though I had the chainsaw at the ready just in case. Ruby really doesn’t do a very good Snots impersonation either, hoarding as much attention as everyone would lavish upon her. 

Grilled food was ready about when we had guessed it would be even with the cold weather. It still seems amazing how fast a turkey cooks on a grill. An 18 lb. bird took about two and a half hours even in the cold weather. In the oven, that’s about a four hour process. Best of all, it didn’t hiss and collapse when I cut into it.

See you next week…real good then. 

Match.com, eHarmony, Zoosk, Chemistry.com, and PerfectMatch.com are ranked as the top five dating sites on the Internet. Many of us look askance at sites like these; what kind of desperate person goes to these sites to find a date? How often do those situations work out anyway?

In a sense, these are a form of a blind date, right? And we all know how those turn out. 

Most people would look at a blind date as either you are being set up with someone undesirable to others or that you agreeing to this smacks of desperation on your part. Many times, both parties go into a blind date this way, and it puts a damper on a potential relationship. Both people just want to get it over with and move on to more reliable ways of finding a mate, like bar hopping. Oh, wait.

Think about your dating history. When I was in high school, my dating pool was basically the girls in my school. 

We didn’t have social networking back then, and interaction with kids in other schools was very limited. Since all these girls knew me from my horrid middle school years, I really had zero chance at anything meaningful.

In college, the horizons expanded dramatically. Here was a fresh batch of women (not girls…WOMEN!) who knew nothing about that terrible moment in 8th grade or that horrible outfit my mom made me wear in 10th grade for pictures or the legendary zit from 11th grade. There were so many WOMEN in college that the odds were favorable to find someone who might like you.

But how would you meet these WOMEN? Sometimes you would know somebody who would know somebody else who could set you up on a… blind date. 

Or you would head out for a night on the town to meet WOMEN, which essentially was like speed dating. If you met a WOMAN who deigned to speak to you, you didn’t have much time to impress her before she moved on.

Once you get a job out of college, you are now in a new position: possibly a new town where you know nobody. How will you meet people? 

You certainly can’t date someone from work. Will you get set up with someone’s sister? The tragic possibilities are endless.

So many of these situations are just different forms of a blind date. Why are we so petrified of them? I speak from experience since that’s how I met Michelle.

My cousin Marlys went to college with my mother-in-law Mary. She wrote Mary in her Christmas letter way back in 1996 (my first year at NRHEG) that she had a young cousin who had just gotten a teaching job nearby, and if one of Mary’s daughters (apparently, it didn’t matter which one) was available, here was my phone number and address in New Richland.

We were able to get together on December 30, 1996, for our first date, and the rest is history. I freely admit I was intimidated when I first saw Michelle. She had this black leather jacket and flowing blonde hair, and I figured that here was a woman who was way too good looking for a guy whose face is made for radio.

We went to George’s for supper and then watched a movie. Something really clicked, and I knew that here was a WOMAN that could be my lobster (sorry, Friends reference). 

I know it’s cliché, but I really knew on that first date that Michelle and I were a perfect match. After all, she had really good grammar when she spoke; who wouldn’t fall in love with that?

They say that love is blind, so a blind date would seem an appropriate mechanism for finding love. Seventeen years later, I would have to agree!

Word of the Week: This week’s word is ugsome, which means dreadful or loathsome, as in, “He thought for sure his blind date would be ugsome until he saw the ravishing beauty step through the door.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!