Carpe Turkem....

Turkey Day is just around the corner and with each passing day we seem to get busier and busier. Basketball is in full swing now for the boys and with that I've been drafted to help coach both the 2nd and 4th graders, the most difficult task being the 2nd graders as it's a constant raised voice for the full hour over the noise of all the kids talking at the same time. We spent the first week going over pretty much only the fundamentals including passing, dribbling, defense, and only minimal shooting. Daniel appears to have a knack for shooting, getting I'd bet at least 80 percent of his free throws. I think it's a fantastic opportunity thus far for Aaron to learn eye/hand coordination and understand that basketball isn't all about "shooting." It was kind of funny when we went the first couple of practices and some of the other coaches were asking about my experience to which I would reply, "1978 St. Hilaire boys' "B" Squad." Now that they're in basketball, though, they have to split time on Thursdays so they go to Kingdom Kids for the first hour after school and the second hour is Aaron's practice. Daniel thankfully only has practice once a week.

I think the most time-consuming activity at this point for me is all the singing. I've been attending Messiah rehearsals very regularly at Northland lately with Jerry and Marilyn joining in the last week. I spoke with Les Torgerson last Wednesday who is presently directing the area honor band in place of Linda Samuelson, my director from Trinity Choir who is presently on Sabbatical from her position as band director at Northland. Les is actually retired from his former position as band director at Northland. Linda's son, coincidentally, is in basketball with Aaron. We're down to about three weeks now until the performance, which will be in the Lincoln High auditorium. We start our combined choir rehearsals next Wednesday for the combined Thanksgiving service at Trinity, including Redeemer, Zion, and Trinity.

Today has been more leisurely than most days. I took the boys out for brunch at Dee's and then we drove out to Black River Lutheran to join in the celebration of Donald and Ruthie Mosbeck's 50th wedding anniversary. We watched a very nice computer slide show with many pictures of the Mosbeck clan, mostly Diane, Alan, and Marcie and all the grand and great grandkids. In the midst of watching the slide show, Melvin Meline came up to the area leading to the sanctuary and sat down so I had a nice chat with him. He complained his "recall isn't quite what it used to be," but with minimal prompting he was able to come up with the location of our old farm and mom's name, etc. After talking with him a while, I went back downstairs to the fellowhip hall and Diane Mosbeck Johnson introduced me to Alan (a little different than I had remembered him) and I had her introduce me to Melvin's wife Rayma. Rayma is now confined to a wheelchair and is living at Oakland Park while Melvin remains on his farm, though one of the Mosbeck clan now farms the land there. Rayma, although getting up there in years is still pretty alert and clearly recognized me, though it has been quite a long time since I last saw her on their farm. Donald and Ruthie were standing near the entrance of the fellowship hall and I walked up and asked if they were the guests of honor and Ruthie looks up at me with a big smile and wonders, "Who is this?" It was instant recognition when she heard my last name, though, and they were both very pleased to see me again. They mentioned visiting quite often with Phyllis these days and how they've enjoyed Bob's cooking (I gotta make my way over there sometime...). Sam Mosbeck from Daniei's grade and a few other Mosbeck kids we recognized were there as well. I think we stayed and visited about an hour before heading home. We're now inside on this cold autumn afternoon/evening watching some quality family entertainment on TV (will be the original Wizard of Oz tonight followed by Home Alone).

Almost forgot... This week was also momentous for one significant thing: I voted for the first time ever as a Minnesotan in the midterm elections. I'm still learning the political landscape of Minnesota, i.e. not the Democratic Party here, but "Democrat-Farmer-Labor" Party. We voted in a new mayor of TRF, Steve "Beaver" Nordhagen who had radio ads the past few weeks with the theme music of Leave it to Beaver in the background. I voted for a councilman who used to be a custodian at Washington Elementary. I didn't really know much about the council candidates there not being much of them, but Mr. Folger said he was a good guy, so.... The polls were at Zion and I brought the boys with me. They have something really neat here in Minnesota where the children are allowed to vote in their own mini-election of sorts. I went one direction and they went the other at Zion and each got a certificate that they had voted, so it was a nice learning experience for them about democracy and elections.

I think that's most of the highlights of things going on around here the past two weeks or so. I don't think I'll be on here much until after Thanksgiving, so I wanted to get at least this update done before then.