Funeral Services for Jeanette D. Mucha will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, March 16 at Zion Lutheran Church, Albert Lea. The Reverend Paul Causton will officiate. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the services at the church. Interment will take place at Rose Hill Cemetery, in Wells, MN. Online condolences for the family may be made at www.bonnerupfuneralservice.com.

Jeanette passed away at St. John’s Lutheran Home on Thursday, March 12, 2015. She was 80 years old.

Jeanette D. Mucha was born on May 10, 1934 to Andrew E. and Emelie G. (Malakowsky) Mucha in Waseca County, MN. Jeanette was baptized and confirmed at St. Peter Evangelical Lutheran Church in New Richland. She grew up in the New Richland area with her family until 1977 when she moved to Waseca. She has been a resident of Albert Lea for the past six years.

By KATHY PAULSEN

Staff Writer

Life is hard. There is no way around that. It sometimes hands us things we don't really deserve, things we can't possibly understand. But despite how much our hearts are hurting, we have to find a way to believe that sometimes we're not supposed to understand. We just need to accept the circumstances and lean on the people who love us most.

One of the greatest gifts a person can give another is support. Our local communities have been kind and willing to help others when things get tough.

Tough is just one positive reference to describe little miss Dana Standke. Tough because she has taken a serious injury and still smiles and looks at the good things that have occurred instead of the bad.

Eleven-year-old Dana came to Minnesota from Nepal when she was just a baby. She lives on a farm north of Beaver Lake with her parents, Shelly Standke and Dan Enzenauer, and she loves it. So much so she is eager to take part in helping with chores and small jobs that need to be done on the farm, including taking care of the animals, feeding the chickens and picking eggs and such and is a happy influence on her family.

A 55+ Driver Improvement Course is being offered through NRHEG Community Education March 24 and 25 from 5:30-9:30 p.m. in Room D107 at NRHEG High School in New Richland. You must attend both nights.

The eight-hour session is taught by Minnesota Hwy. Safety Center trained instructors. The class will explore changes in laws, the latest vehicle technology, and provide you with easy-to-use defensive driving tips. In addition, we will explore traffic safety and accident prevention. The classroom sessions are the initial eight-hour and four-hour refresher format. First-time participants must complete the two four-hour sessions. Completion of this course allows for a 10% reduction on automobile insurance premiums for those age 55 and over. After completing the eight-hour course, you must take the four-hour refresher every three years to take advantage of the discount.

To register, visit www.mnsafetycenter.org or call 507-417-2667.

Eagles nip NRHEG boys in sub-section title game

By TROY THOMPSON

Sportswriter

The NRHEG boys’ basketball team was looking to avenge two regular-season losses against Gopher Conference champs Maple River on Wednesday, March 4, but the Panthers’ late rally came up heartachingly short as they fell 64-63 in the 2AA South Sub-Section championship ame.

The Panthers have faced their share of adversity in games throughout the season and built a reputation in their 2014-15 campaign of responding well and battling to the end. That character was on display against the top-seeded Eagles at Minnesota State-Mankato.

Both teams were slow out of the gate as it took nearly 11 minutes for the Eagles to build a 10-5 lead. The Panthers would answer with a 10-4 run to take a 15-14 edge before Maple River’s Jonah Brieter began lighting up the scoreboard. Brieter would score the Eagles’ next six points to put Maple River up 21-17 at the half.

Wagner tops 1,000 points in Section 2AA opener

The NRHEG girls’ basketball team split with the WEM Buccaneers during the 2014-15 regular season.

The Bucs broke the tie last Thursday.

WEM ended the Panthers’ season 60-48 in the Section 2AA tournament at Mankato East High School. NRHEG finished the season with a record of 14-12. WEM improved to 18-8 and advanced to the Section 2AA South Sub-Section finals against top seed St. Peter.

The Panthers, seeded third in the sub-section, chased the second-seeded Bucs all night, falling behind 5-0 and 9-1 to start the game.

“We tried to run and push the ball down the floor, but it is hard to run when they make their shots,” said Panthers head coach Onika Peterson. “Offensively, we got off the shots that we wanted, but we couldn't make a basket.”

There are many tremendous people I’ve met in the NRHEG area since I started teaching here in 1996. This past week we lost one, a person who had more of an impact on me than she ever realized. I don’t think I even realized that until Carol Reese passed away following an inspiring battle with cancer.

Starting as a young buck fresh out of college in a small town like New Richland can be intimidating. Everyone knows who you are long before you know many of them. However, Carol and her husband Jeff befriended me early on. They made me feel comfortable and welcome, and I found quickly that every time I would see Carol, she’d be wearing that unbelievable smile that was her trademark.

I was fortunate to have their daughter Joy in class my second year and son Jacey shortly after that. (Dusty escaped me, lucky guy.) This only helped increase my confidence, as I always heard a kind, encouraging word from Carol, be it at parent-teacher conferences or Jacey’s baseball games. Her soft-spoken manner really was impactful; it helped a person really pay attention to what Carol had to say.

It was really great to work in Jeff’s baseball program as a coach for 13 years. Even better was seeing the tremendous relationship and understanding he and Carol had about baseball. Baseball is and always will be a passion for Jeff, and Carol understood that. Every wife would like to see more of her husband, but a coach’s wife is a particular kind of special. I know she used to joke that Jeff spent so much time there, she’d probably have to build him a place to stay at Legion Field – at least she’d always know where to find him!

She always knew what was going on in the baseball program. There were so many times I’d see her, and she’d know what was happening with my 7th grade team. Carol didn’t have to know that or pay any attention if Jeff talked about it, but that showed the deep compassion she had for everyone. Just knowing her appreciation for the job I was doing was amazing.

I miss the days when she’d bring her little dancers to perform at halftime of basketball games. She always came over to give me an update on who was performing, so I could introduce them. But she also took the time to ask, no, demand that I show her pictures of my kids. Everything was about others, not her. She told me at one point to announce the kids as the Dance Studio Dancers, after I had called them Carol’s Dance Studio Dancers. There’s always a part of me that feels like I disappointed her because Jayna was never into dance, even though it was such a great activity for so many kids.

As I was leaving her wake, I thought of something else: what a stupendous parent she was. I’ve joked with Joy for ages that she can call me Mark instead of Mr. Domeier. She’s plenty of years removed from my classroom, and we’re only about six years apart in age. Jacey is the same way, but they insist that they can’t do that. That’s a sign of respect that has been instilled in them. And it also dawned on me as I left the church: I don’t think Carol ever called me Mark either; it was always Mr. Domeier. I know she looked younger than me, but that respect carried on to her children, and she and Jeff had a lot to be proud of in their offspring.

I know Carol would be embarrassed by a column about her. However, there are simply so many superlatives about this amazing woman. From the time I found out she was diagnosed with this horrible illness until her death, I thought of her every day, as did so many other people. That, along with her incredible inner strength and the love she garnered from so many people, helped carry her along much longer than anyone might have suspected. Of course, when you have a shining star like Carol Reese, it’s never long enough.

Still, she’s left behind a legacy unlike any other. There have been so many people, young and old, who have and will continue to look to her as inspiration. May God provide her the right music to keep the dance going.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is via dolorosa, which means a distressing journey or experience, as in, “Carol’s via dolorosa was difficult for her but inspirational for others.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!

The scurs tuned the Weather Eye in and in fact, are looking at changing the thermostat again after being warmer than normal. No complaints or hate mail so here goes: Starting Wednesday, sunny with highs in the upper 50’s and lows in the mid-30’s. Mostly sunny on Thursday with highs in the mid-60’s and lows in the mid-40’s. Friday, mostly sunny with highs in the low 60’s and lows in the upper 30’s. Mostly sunny and cooler on Saturday. Highs in the upper 40’s with lows in the low 30’s. Sunday, sunny, with highs in the low 60’s and lows in the low 40’s. Mostly sunny on Monday. Highs again in the low 60’s with lows in the low 40’s. Partly cloudy and slightly cooler on Tuesday the 17th with highs in the mid-50’s and lows in the mid-30’s. The normal high for St. Patrick’s Day is 40 and the normal low is 23. We will go over 12 hours of daylight on the 18th for the first time since last September 25th. The scurs will try to avoid spilling any green beer on the Weather Eye in hopes that our good warm weather fortunes continue.

What a difference a week makes! Last week if you’ll remember (you’d probably rather forget) we were seeing overnight lows below zero and highs only in the teens some days, not to mention the wind including Tuesday’s blizzard that wasn’t. As of this writing, most recently we were seeing highs in the 50’s and lows just below freezing, with the promise of warmer temps in the near-term. Welcome to Minnesota! The frost is receding in some places and given the forecast, it won’t take long without snow cover for it to be completely gone. It will take a few days however for fields to get into any kind of shape allowing traffic for spring manure applications or other field operations. The mud in the yard from last fall’s manure hauling at the ranch serves as a reminder that it was pretty greasy before freeze-up. Plus there has been some additional moisture added to the top few inches of soil since then with the snow that melted off and on over the winter. No need to get in a hurry just yet.

It is nice to see warmer temperatures on many fronts at the ranch though. The lambing barn was filled to capacity. When one has 15 pens with ewes and lambs crammed in a 16’ x 28’ building, that is the definition of full. It was so cold however that we didn’t dare move some of the newborns to the large barn. Tags, tails and shots were done Friday afternoon, so that happened Saturday forenoon. The lambs were off to the races and the ewes were glad to be out of their cramped quarters. We also got the creep feeder established so the youngsters could get on solid feed more quickly, hopefully meaning earlier weaning dates and ewes on pasture. The two best things though: No more climbing over pens to access pens and no more hauling warm water from the house. (And the crowd goes wild!)

Even the pasture seems to have a greenish tinge to it where the snow left along the fenceline. It won’t take long and the ewes that haven’t lambed yet will be after anything remotely resembling green grass. There was still some snow on the electric fence yet so that will need to melt before charging it again. It shouldn’t take too much longer and it should be one of the earliest dates in recent memory we have let the ewes with lambs out in the small lot in front of the main barn. That always makes for the annual gawker slowdown as people slow down to get a glimpse of the new lamb crop. Don’t blink. They grow pretty fast.

There are also subtle changes happening in the bird population here at the ranch and elsewhere. A bald eagle was seen soaring overhead as I awakened from a cat nap and gazed out the window over the weekend. House sparrows have already built nests in the barn and are no longer monopolizing the birdfeeders. Apparently they have other things on their mind. Along those lines, the wood duck houses were cleaned out and refilled with fresh cedar shavings over the weekend. The wetland is low and lack of snow melt won’t help that situation. Geese were heard overhead on Monday morning making me wonder how far behind the robins might be. That evening I received a call from the male half of the kindly neighbors to inform me that robins had been spotted in their yard. No earthworms yet although it shouldn’t take long. In the meantime there are plenty of crabapples and American cranberry (viburnum) fruit so they won’t starve.    

Leonard Nimoy passed away last week at age 83 marking the loss of another actor from the fabled ‘60s TV show Star Trek. At first as a lad, Star Trek was a scary show even on a black and white TV set. Some of the characters and special effects at the time were more frightening than those on Lost in Space. With time though, the show grew on you. As Spock, Nimoy became a favorite of many Trekkies. Spock was a pointy-eared, green-blooded Vulcan, portraying a character whose function was to provide timely logic and stability in contrast to the emotional and irrational human crew. Bones in particular was always at odds with Spock and his intellect. As kids in college we spent many hours watching Star Trek. The reruns were favorites for years on the local stations and we’d watch it any chance we could. It certainly sparked in many of us an interest in the stars and the evolving space program. It also inspired us to give “Spock bites” and repeat phrases such as “Illogical, captain.” And of course, who can forget the Vulcan salute, “Live long and prosper.” Not bad words to live by.

See you next week…real good then.

Early Thursday morning, February 19, with the GPS on the HHR Chevrolet set for due north, we headed for the 36th International Eelpout Festival at Walker, Minnesota on Leech Lake. (We have attended about 30.) Our first stop was for a fish sandwich, fries and coffee at McDonald’s in Garrison, Minnesota on the shore of Mille Lacs Lakes. (Garrison is the smallest U.S. town to have a McDonald’s.)

Our next stop was the State Farm Insurance office in Brainerd, Minnesota. Most of you have seen the State Farm Insurance ad on TV featuring “Jake” from State Farm. Brainerd is where Jake has his office. Yes, he was wearing khaki slacks! (For real, the State Farm agent in Brainerd answers to the handle of “Jake.”)

We drove through Walker as most of the 15,000 people were arriving on our way to the Palace Hotel where we stayed for four nights in Cass Lake, Minnesota. (It was estimated $3 million was spent in the area.) Kortni greeted us with a hearty welcome back handshake and a big smile as we checked into the Palace Hotel.

From Walker to Cass Lake we saw three road kill deer in the ditch. Each deer was surrounded by ravens with a huge bird in the middle eating the deer. The bird was all black with a white head and white tail feathers.

Kristin, in security, asked if I was going to mention the old-timers at the Palace in this article, I said yes. She then told me change is normal and I should change. Just like the NCAA Basketball Tournament of the Elite Eight, there are Eight Elite new employees at the Palace that would like to see their name in this article.

Not being one to try and correct a lady, the Elite Eight are as follows: Lowell and Sandy – vault; Brad and Kuna – shipping and receiving; Brian – drop team; Alice – shift manager; Brady – security; Susan – table games.

We attended the Eelpout Festival Friday and Saturday. There were more fish houses than any other year – even Yetti fish houses with white Yetti-dressed sales people. Ice castle fish houses were the most popular with financing on the spot.

An interesting first time we’ve seen it was six small airplanes flew in and lit on the lake. There were also drones at the Polar Plunge.

We attended Trinity Lutheran Church, Cass Lake, on Sunday morning. As usual a warm greeting by four of the church decons (namely Larry Glass, Jane Christianson, Gene Patten and Bev Larson.) Bev is the mother of NRHEG wrestling coach Shawn Larson. Two of the decons even treated us to lunch after church (Grace and Charlie Nason.)

The weather was just great until Saturday afternoon, when it turned cold with a rapidly dropping temperature. Sunday morning low was -30 with a high of -11, and -21 Monday morning as we left.

The hotel has a higher ceiling you can look over that gives a great echo. Excellent sounds as Genie played her good bye song on her flute just before we departed. Awesome.

How cold was it Sunday morning? It was so cold that my teeth froze in place and I couldn’t get my frozen mouth open to sing in church. 

———

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.

Echoes from the Loafers’ Club Meeting

I worry about what my doctor told me.

What did he say?

He told me not to worry.

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: we often hear, "That was the final straw." What was the first straw? My father chopped wood. I wasn’t very old, but I helped. Each time he swung the axe, I grunted from the stump I sat upon. That might have been the first straw.

Cafe chronicles

He told me that he reads the obituaries each day just to monitor his peer pressure. He had driven through my hometown. He called it a bite-sized town. I told him that it wasn’t, at least not since the cafe closed. We had met at a cafe between us to eat pie.

It’s Pi Day every year on March 14 — or 3.14. Pi, 3.14, expresses the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. Because Pi Day falls on 3/14/15, it matches the first four numbers that follow the decimal point — 3.1415. It’s a day worth celebrating by eating pie in its honor.

Memories of Louisiana lurking in the cobwebbed corners of my mind

I was speaking at some things in Louisiana when I felt a need to eat. I pulled into an eatery displaying a familiar sign. I parked my rental Chevy safely between the lines. I pay attention to those lines and I like people who look at the lines when parking cars.

I was in a Waffle House in Morgan City, Louisiana. The Waffle House is an icon of the south with about 1700 restaurants, some as close as Missouri and Illinois. It’s a place built for breakfast. I was enjoying a waffle covered in maple syrup. The Waffle House doesn’t offer french fries (hashbrowns are served many ways), but I thought about a woman seated near me during a meal the day before at Bayou Delight restaurant in Houma, Louisiana. She had a hamburger and a sensible number of french fries. She ate every fry before she took a single bite out of her burger. I couldn't do that. I need to eat a bit of each in an attempt to make them last equally. I know that some people eat their desserts first, reasoning that life is short.

We are creatures of habit. I suspect that most of us put a sock on the same foot first each time we get dressed.

Oh, Waffle House hashbrowns are available smothered in sauteed onions, covered in melted cheese, chunked with grilled hickory smoked ham, diced with grilled tomatoes, peppered with spicy jalapeno peppers, capped with grilled button mushrooms, topped with chili and a country style of being covered in sausage gravy. 

I finished my waffle as I listened to a fellow complain stridently about all politicians, past and present.

I was second in line to the cashier. The man ahead of me flashed a wallet and a smile as he said, "I hope they have a Waffle House in heaven."

Customer comments

• Chris Kamrud of Tracy had this to say about lutefisk, "If you put enough butter on a shingle, it’s good eating."

• Larry Crabtree of New Richland said this about Daylight Saving Time, "It’s like cutting a foot off one end of a rug and sewing it on the other end to make it longer."

• Wayne Brock of Tracy had just moved as a young man to the area. He asked a fellow he met on his first day if there were any women worth looking at in town. Little did he know that he was speaking to his future father-in-law.

• Norm Eckart of New Richland told me that he’d found the easiest way to plant walnut trees. Pour a five-gallon bucket of walnuts onto the ground and let the squirrels plant them.

• I had struggled with the pronunciation of some Finnish names. It bothers me when I butcher someone’s family label. My wife consoled me by saying that her aunt Ingeborg Rugroden would have solved the problem by saying, "That name is spelled incorrectly."

Talking with the Holstein

The Holstein is a retired dairy cow, so she has time to talk. I told her that I was trying to become a better listener. Listening is difficult for most humans. Listening gives us something to do while we wait for our turn to talk.

The Holstein chewed her cud thoughtfully before saying, "Listening is the rent paid for friendship."

Meeting adjourned

Kindness attracts kindness.

As we inch closer and closer to that magical first day of spring, I find myself getting antsy and drifting off into thoughts of warm summer days spent relaxing by or on any body of water that holds fish. They say it is healthy to have a vivid imagination so I guess that would make me mentally healthy but physically maybe not so much.

As a kid I always had a good imagination and would daydream from time to time about my heroes like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hoppy, Sgt. Preston of the Yukon and other cowboy heroes along with Tarzan and Superman. These folks along with my favorite football players gave me someone to look up to. I am not sure that in this day and age there are actually any real heroes except for sports figures. It seems as if TV kid’s shows have actually become pretty complicated; whatever happened to the simple cartoons like Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny?

Television has replaced the good old sitcoms with shows that don’t really make you laugh but tend to relay some message. When I watch a comedy I want something that will make me laugh out loud and not make me look for some hidden meaning. Being the old guy that I am I still remember fondly going to the movies to see Abbott and Costello, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, Ma and Pa Kettle, Francis the Talking Mule and many more. These shows weren’t made to make you think but to make you laugh.

I always enjoyed late night TV as a kid because you could, from time to time, see movies with Jack Benny, Red Skelton, Mickey Rooney and others. Granted, there have been a few good sitcoms over the years but in today’s world they are being replaced by more and more reality shows. A few years ago I had watched about 5 minutes of some reality show and stated that they couldn’t possibly get any worse. Boy was I ever wrong; but enough said about that.

The other night as I was looking out into my backyard with a full moon — making it seem almost like daylight — a peaceful and relaxed feeling came over me. We have a little brush pile in the backyard that I didn’t get a chance to clean up last fall and it has now become home to a pair of rabbits. Even though I live in the city, there is still plenty of wildlife to entertain me. The rabbits are always fun to watch and of course there are the neighborhood squirrels. Over the years I have not been a big fan of those bushy tailed rats that seem to want to get into everything. Because of these two squirrels that reside in the area I no longer am feeding the birds.

Earlier this winter they figured out how to get into one feeder and could empty it in about a day. After they had emptied the first feeder, they turned their attention to the other feeder and eventually totally destroyed it. I know that a lot of folks enjoy feeding the squirrels and watching them play. I am all for that (the playing part), but when they start getting into my garage, shed and destroy my feeders, I have visions of watching these particular squirrels in the sight of my BB gun. The other vision I have is more realistic: a live trap with those two critters inside riding in the back of my pickup to their new home far, far away from the neighborhood.

I have always enjoyed watching critters in the outdoors and am amazed at how wild animals adjust to living in the city around humans. Over the years I have seen an occasional deer running through the backyards of the neighborhood, a woodchuck, and a few blocks away I spotted a fox trotting down the middle of Newton Avenue like it owned the street. There have been the aforementioned rabbits and squirrels, and of course numerous birds, not to mention a pair of mallards that seem to drop by every spring. My sense of smell has also warned me from time to time when a skunk was nearby.

Yes, living in town can give you plenty of chances to observe wildlife, and the best thing about it is you won’t even have to leave the house. I plan on doing a little shopping and hopefully I will find that squirrel-proof feeder that I am looking for so that I can once again start feeding my feathered friends and not those busy-tailed rodents.

As the weather warms and the birds begin chirping and are busily building their nests, we have to remember to keep our cats indoors. Baby birds and rabbits are easy prey for a house cat that is left to roam freely about a neighborhood.

Until next time, take some time to enjoy the outdoors and remember; spring is just around the corner.

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