KELOLAND.com Blogs

Your blogger isn’t as rabid about not flying as John Madden who used to pass on the NFL Pro Bowl because it was either swim to Hawaii or take a very slow boat.  I don’t know what Madden’s demons are.  Mine are simpler. 

I’m not afraid of terrorists.  I’m really not afraid that the plane in and of itself will just fall out of the sky.  As I’ve said before, I’m afraid of the clowns running the airlines, and now of those flying the planes, or not flying them. 

Case in point: that Northwest Airlines crew (or whatever it’s called these days) overflew Minneapolis, giving passengers a bonus tour of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.  I think Eau Claire means “Clear Water” in French although the circumstances of the detour are still anything but clear. 

First the pilots were said to be arguing about company policy.  The later story said they were playing with their laptops.  I’ve even heard it suggested that maybe a stewardess was the laptop, as in the old “Coffee, Tea or Me” days.  I think the more likely explanation is they just fell asleep. 

The fact is, that the main function of a pilot these days is to make sure that the auto pilot is doing its job.  The human pilots turn on the auto pilot almost before the plane leaves the runway.  That was one of the factors in the flight that flew golfer Payne Stewart into the ground near Aberdeen.  Every on board was already dead, but the plane just flew itself.  Conventional wisdom is that something like that happened on the Eau Claire adventure only it ended better. 

This is an easy one to solve.  I saw a documentary about railroad locomotives safety.  Even when it’s on cruise control ripping down the track, the engineer has to touch a specific button or any control at short intervals.  I don’t remember if the train comes to a screeching halt if he falls asleep at the switch.  That obviously wouldn’t work at 30 thousand feet, but such a device could certainly sound an ear piercing or blinding alarm that would awaken anybody but a dead pilot.  It’s simple and it could lead to a lot more “live” passengers and fewer impromptu tours of Eau Claire.  Like the cruise control in your car, auto pilot was devised as an “assist,” not as a substitute for a hands-on pilot. 

My lack of fear of flying used to hinge on the concept that the pilot didn’t want to die…or divert…any more than I did.  Then I met a few…

Hi, I’m Steve Hemmingsen.  Join me in Hawaii…or maybe Midway…or Samoa…

This H1N1 business has been confusing from the start.  First it was Swine Flu, then it wasn’t.  I’ve been having trouble tracking it ever since.  Are we supposed to get shots?  Is there a shot?  Is the shot…if there is one…worse than the ailment?  This one affects kids more than old people? 

Let’s see.  We’re not supposed to inhale, exhale, shake hands, kiss or exchange fluids. 

I’m okay with the handshaking part.  That’s just the human equivalent of canine butt sniffing, anyway. 

We’re supposed to wash our hands in restrooms.  Employees have to.  We don’t.  Did you ever worry about a food place that has to order its workers to wash their hands? 

Worse, I have seen why those signs are there first hand. 

On my recent road trip, I saw stalls where the previous occupant had carefully lined the seat with toilet paper…and left it for the next person who is presumably less worried about H1N1 and sanitation in general. 

All of these extraordinary measures are pointless.  Here’s why. 

When is the last time in a fast food joint you managed to pull just one cup cover from the pile?  What do you do, throw the extras away once you’ve pried them apart?  Not likely, nor has anybody else.  Same deal with the ketchup cups, and jeez, how about the napkins you have to fish out of an under filled dispenser or rip out of an over filled one?  Maybe you will have been first in the sanitary pecking order, but the odds are slim. 

I once asked Bobbi Lower, when she was KELO’s Health Beat reporter, what about those grocery carts where people put their diapered, slobbering kid right on top of their groceries, and subsequently, yours?  That concern was pretty much written off.  Now most big stores have some sort of sanitary wipe so you can de-bacterialize that cart. 

My point is that you can take all the precautions you want, but you can’t escape other people’s transgressions in hygiene.  I also suspect that if we achieve this germ-free existence we’re striving for, we’ll be worse off rather than better.  How will our immune systems get the exercise they need to function when the chips are down? 

Here’s the deal.  Hendricks, Minnesota…the little town by the lake…has a cat problem.  Here’s the solution: Veterans’ Day in Astoria, South Dakota, eight miles away. 

Knowing that the American Legion lutefisk supper is usually sold out well in advance, I figured I was safe asking my friend Tryg if I could come in a shoot some pictures…and leave before I was overcome.  Wrong!  Tryg scrounged or scalped or something one more ticket, so I had to tough it out.

The Main Street in Astoria, about the only paved one, is only a couple of blocks long, but I have to tell you…and I’m not kidding…you could smell the pot boiling a block away.  Uffdah!

Not knowing the protocol, I sat with Tryg’s brother Phil and his wife Roberta.  Phil documented a gastronomic advenutre worthy of guy on cable, Andrew Zimmern, who will eat anything.   Hold your nose and be glad it isn’t smell-a-vision…

It was like being a smoker among non-smokers.  I just threw my clothes in the hamper as soon as I got home.  As for the cats, just open the door to the Legion Hall and they’ll troop over for the supper to end all suppers.  If you’re an a-fisk-anado, you might want to book ahead for next Veterans’ Day.  The guest list is limited to about 100.  It is served family style, so you can eat all you want, even if you work around the main event.  They have Norwegian meatballs the size of tennis balls. 

Fits and starts.  That’s the story I heard about our almost non-existent summer from Sioux Falls to the tip of Maine, the lobster villages that are the easternmost point in the United States, not the continental United States like the Alaskan and Hawaiian appendages, but the whole United States.  

It occurred to me as I nestled into one of those little villages for a week and got to know some of the fishermen that they are really a coastal version of the Midwest farmers.  They have their booms and busts, their ups and downs, weather angst and the pressure to get bigger. 

The small ones…and there are about 500 of them in Jonesport and Beal’s Island…are more interesting, the guys who run one and two-man boats.




Jonesport and Beal’s Island have 22 hundred people, practically all of them…a lot of Alleys and Beals…fisher folk in one way or another.  Everybody knows how to work a boat and the sea bottom.

A piece of old Sioux Falls is gone, “old” Sioux Falls to a Minnesota kid who hit the ground in 1969, living in the biggest city he had ever lived in. 

Sid Epstein hit that same ground in the 1940s, part of that draft of émigrés from the east coast that also included the likes of Phil and Kathryn Graham.  They came here to train for their roles in World War II.  Most, like the Grahams, went home, in their case to run the Washington Post, becoming household names during the Nixon Watergate scandal and beyond.  Some stayed, and married local, like Sid. 

Sioux Falls, even then, was the biggest city around, but still small enough for an individual to make a difference…and Sid and his late wife Judee Koplow did. 

They weren’t noisy about it.  They just did it.  Much like their liquor store, they were involved in all levels of Sioux Falls society, such as it was.  Sid was involved in everything, often simply lending a quiet helping hand. 

The liquor store he opened in 1947 was something of a 100 proof oasis.  It crossed all social barriers.  At any given time you would see bankers at the counter right alongside the people they wouldn’t lend money to, the top and bottom shelf of the social order, such as it was in Sioux Falls at that time.  There wasn’t that much distance between the castes then. 

Sid was an advisor.  Years ago, a naïve young reporter and customer (me) asked him…he was Jewish…about the mess in the Middle East.  He just said: “We should stay out of it.  They’re all cousins.” 

If you were throwing a party, Sid could tell you how many beers people would drink despite their braggadocio bragging.  “Figure two each.” 

He was right on.  Talk is cheap; whisky costs money.   

One night, after the news, I stopped in to stock up.  There was a gay bar in the next block.  The counter was its usual eclectic mix, including a guy in drag.  The guy standing next to me looks at this…person…and mutters: “I went to school with him…her.”

Sid also knew trouble when it walked in the door and had a knack for heading ‘em off with an eastern-accented: “Hey, you.  Outta here!” 

That was it.  No cops, no problem.  The night I retired, Sid showed up with a bottle of champagne.  Yes, a piece of Sioux Falls’ core, a remnant from an early corps, is gone. 

Lincoln County Minnesota is also minus one of its characters.  Ambrose Citterman was a fixture around the Hendricks and Ivanhoe areas, a retired farmer who talked with a thick Polish accent.  Ambrose’s health started failing several months ago.  Recently it was decided that his time had come.  Ambrose had been mostly unconscious as his doctor and his family discussed the possibilities.  During the conversation, Ambrose’s eyes, I’m told, flickered open briefly.  In that Polish accent he said: “Time to pull da pluck (plug).” 

That was Ambrose.  Right to the point, a class act in the rough. 

Ambrose was 86, Sid was 95.  Their spirit will be missed. 

Your trusty blogger has long held that the only difference between Blue Dog Democrats and main stream Republicans is that the Blue Dogs believe in abortion.  A “woman’s right to choose” is the tactful catchphrase. 

Princess Stephanie has just thrown a little more proof in the file with her announcement that she can’t vote for the Nancy Pelosi health reform plan in the House.  “It’s not right for South Dakotans,” is her reasoning and she goes into taxes and this and that.  Hell, she sounds like John Thune.  They could sing harmony on most issues as far as I can tell. 

The Princess, of course, doesn’t offer an alternative that would be “right” for our right wing bastion except for offering feeble support for that feeble plan in the Senate that has suddenly sprouted a public option that states can…an would, I suspect…opt out of. 

Steph is so in line with Republican thinking in South Dakota I don’t know why she doesn’t just jump the fence over and win with 100 percent of the vote next time out. 

Sometimes the right thing to do isn’t necessarily what the home folks think is right. 

We are so bombarded with propaganda on both sides of the health issue that nobody except somebody square in the eye of the storm can make the right choices.  Instead, the choices have more to do with the next election and the popular perception of right than what is actually right.  And you can’t go wrong drifting right in South Dakota. 

Here’s an unrelated tidbit.  Researchers at the University of Minnesota say they have found startling similarities between the DNA of horses and that of humans.  Maybe that would explain an anomaly that I have been curious about: why there are so few horses and so many horses’ butts. 

Coming home from a road trip and sorting through three weeks of mail is boring; or it was until I came across this little item from my doctor. 

 

Far be it from me to criticize the medical profession (Ha!) but I think there is a case to be made that there are too many tests and too much paperwork.  It’s the best laugh straight out of the bill pile in a long time.  

Why, of course, it was Sanford.  Do they call it the Sanford Smear, now?  I’m kind of looking forward to my visit, too, just out of curiosity.  I couldn’t resist calling the nurse who is, I’m sure, still laughing.  I also give them permission to forego my privacy rights on this one and pass it around the office.  

Definitely LOL!

Today our economy is looking up because things aren’t falling as quickly.  Tomorrow, who knows?  If you want a good gauge of where our country has been, the top of the mountain, I suggest a visit to Dearborn, Michigan…Detroit. 

There are company towns, like Lead, South Dakota, used to be in the Homestake gold mining heyday.  The company owned the town, literally.  Then, there are company cities, and that would be Dearborn, the birthplace of the Ford Motor Company, the company that put America on wheels and in the air and put tractors in the fields.  I have to admit awe as I sought out the Henry Ford Museum, as I drive past mile after mile of Ford: Ford offices, Ford factories, Ford test facilities.  I had no grasp of how big this industry was…is, not even when Ford turned in a one billion dollar profit for the last three months.  No matter how far it has fallen, the American auto industry is still a huge presence.  Huge.  Titanic.  Overwhelming.   I’m told the GM and Chrysler complexes on the other side of town are equally overpowering. 

The Ford Museum isn’t just a collection of Fords.  Henry was an admirer of engineering.  Most of the exhibits, like the Kennedy presidential limo are the real deal.  Yes, that Kennedy limo, the one from Dallas.  I wonder what the CSI chicks with a QTip could find in that automobile. 

There’s the biggest steam locomotive I have ever seen, that I have ever stood next to, designed to haul big loads of coal over the Allegheny Mountains. 

 
The Allegheny locomotive and coal tender weigh 600 tons.  I weigh somewhat less.

There are airplanes, if not the real thing, precise replicas. 

And there are more cars, including what is possibly the most expensive car in history, a rare Hispano Suisa that the museum docents…retired Ford workers…fire up for parades from time to time. 
 

The Rosa Parks bus that lit a fire under the civil rights movement is here someplace.

Charles Kuralt’s last “On The Road” RV is here, a 1975 model powered by a Chrysler engine.  The odometer has to include some miles across KELOLAND; Crazy Horse and Korczak, a bill ball of baler twine in western Minnesota, probably even Sioux Falls. 

Word has it that the sculpture and the wordsmith spent a couple of convivial days before getting down to work on that story, and that for one moving shot of the monument-yet-to-be the photographer was pulled in a kids’ coaster wagon.  Don’t know if it’s true, but it makes good lore. 

I’m a museum breezer, I don’t spent a lot of time reading every word, every statistic, but I’m still in this one building for three hours.  I ponder the two hour tour of the famous River Rouge plant where they make F150 pickups, the most popular truck on the road.  I sit in my Chevy Silverado and ponder a trip through the legendary Greenfield Village, but I’ve had enough museum.  They will still be there for another trip by your Road Warrior; reason for another trip, another time.   The open road…peppered with toll booths...is calling.

You can hardly look into any corner of our arcane health care system without finding something that needs fixin.’  Money spent on kids’ castles…albeit donated…that could be better spent on cures, overpriced insurance and drugs and on and on. 

Here’s one more twig for this fire of reform that glows hopefully and then dims depending on the day and who is handing out the biggest campaign contributions; bribes.   This one isn’t even high on my personal list of things that needs doing, just one more twig. 

On the way home from my recent New England road trip, I stopped to visit an old friend who is battling cancer.  I mean “old” in the sense of life-long friend, not age.  Age has never been a factor with her.  She’s in home health care, which is a great program, but with a catch.  Isn’t there always a catch in our health system?

As I understand it, if you’re in health homecare you are, more or less, under medical house arrest.  If you’re seen outside your home, you could lose your home health care. 

The intent is clear.  There are people who would take advantage and flat out commit fraud, people who would use home health care as a cleaning service and party on.

This is hardly the case with my friend.  She is very sick, very, but that is not to say that she is immobile on good days.  She has been very active in her community, the same community in which she has lived and raised her children since I was a third grader…or was it fourth…the same house? 

Knowing her as I do, I would think a short field trip on a good day, a cup of coffee uptown instead of in bed, maybe a lunch with friends, would be therapeutic.  But, under the rules, as I understand them, such an event could leave her high and dry on the bad days; a real life Catch 22.  The solution seems simple since we’re so big on decisions being made by doctors and patients.  Couldn’t a doctor point out that the patient would have difficulty tending to her or himself fulltime, but could stand a little uplift, a bit of R and R, a furlough from time to time? 

Isn’t this an exact example of what the right wing nuts are worried about if the government gets deeper into our health care, the loss of individual freedom and judgment?  Yes, it is.  But I’m still willing to risk it and fix it as opposed to leaving the medical privateers in charge.  A privateer was a pirate who operated with a government license.  In the end, a lot of them still wound up on a gallows. 

Anyway, my friend an I still had a good visit, talking about the politics of medicine and education and the lunacy of life in general.  As gripes go, I doubt if this one is very high on either of our lists at the moment, just another good program that needs some tweaking. 

Hey, folks.  Just a note to let you know I’m still here, just moving so fast…for a guy my age and inclination…that I haven’t taken the time to keep you up to date. 

I’m moving faster than a speeding…computer.  That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

I am also suffering from lobster withdrawal; back to road food and burgers, low energy, low inspiration stuff. 

The Pilgrims’ Monument on the tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown.

P Town, as they call it, seems to be made up of elderly straight couples and young gay couples…and it’s still a working commercial fishing port. 

Since my last communiqué, I have driven across:

Maine

New Hampshire

Vermont

Upstate New York

Niagara Falls

Visited my cousins whom I haven’t seen in 30 years or so

Dipped into Canada twice

Been stopped by U.S. Customs because of the derelict lobster traps in the back of the pickup

and

Have stayed in enough Mom and Flop motels to become a shareholder by default in a leading South Dakota corporation.

The harbor in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  NH got screwed on waterfront property.  It has only 20 miles of shore, much of it Navy and nuclear power. 

I have lots of video and pictures, including the lobster boats unloading their catch, but I have been moving too fast to download them, so stand by. 

Today, I…and a million semis…are closing in on Detroit.  I want to see the legendary Henry Ford Museum.  Greenfield Village, is it?  Suppose I’d better Google that up. 

In the meantime, here are a couple of pictures to tide you over. 

Thanks for you patients…patience. 

How is health care reform doing, anyway?  Maine seems to be okay with Senator Olympia Snow jumping over to the common sense side of the fence.