What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Random thoughts I had while falling off the deep end of memory lane driving down Robert Street headed past E Upper 55th Street in Inver Grove Heights, thinking to myself I'm cold and sort of lost (where am I heading?).

Excuse the incoherency, and absolute lack of issues here but it's been one of those weeks. After one of those weeks. The first question I have is directed west at either Daryl or Kristina but what the hell does "You're so St. Paul..." mean? I assume it wasn't a compliment but to me calling someone St. Paul has better connotations than calling someone Minneapolis but that's getting back to Catholics and Indians again... Please explain.

Question two is for Denise or Michael. What's the deal with the flying bugs in your office? A guy can't even eat his sausage biscuits (one with egg, one sans egg) in peace. Call the freaking exterminator. (Call him what?)

Thrust number 3: Elsewhere in this issue, Mike Nordgaard (I think it will be page one but I still have to figure that out...) wrote about his experiences at Landfill. I just wanted to add a perspective from the weekend crew. As far as phone calls, the most frequently asked question I have fielded is "I have a bunch of household waste I need to get rid of. Can I dump it there? Oh, you're a record store. Well do you know where I can dump it?" Try a dump pal... Also my experience is opposite of Mike's as far as lunch. I have found Hardees much quicker than McDonalds. Also there is a KFC on University but their customer service is subpar even for a fast food place. One of my biggest book buys was when my sister and her husband and my nephew Eben brought in a ton of ripe, dusty religious books. I paid around $20 and when they left book manager Pete took a look and found one book he said we could probably sell for over $50. So I ripped off my own sister. Quote of the day came from three year old Eben who took a look at the cover of a Sheena Easton album and declared, "Yechhh."

Prong number four: The best summer of my life (a little detour here. Remember when you were a kid and on the first day of school the first assignment would always be what you did with your summer vacation? As they say, I guess school is an ongoing venture.) isn't the flip option/answer/escape clause Mark offered, "It hasn't happened yet," but mine is probably equally flip (surprise!). As in many instances from my life I think I peaked early; way before the "cliceh" years. Actually i can't remember an entire summer I enjoyed from start to finish but there was one where my moods didn't vacillate more than a politician running for the Oval Office (David attempts to be relevant and funny one more time). It was the summer between my junior high and senior high years. The last day of junior high I went on a field trip with several of my classmates to Valleyfair.

After a decent time we were getting set to return home. As we were waiting for our bus to arrive, the skies opened up and the clouds let go of their rain. We were dumped on; a busload of drenched adolescents, what could be more festive? It was a dark and stormy night... Our moods took a turn for the worse when the bus driver arrived and said he had some mechanical problems (I took it he meant the bus' not his own) so we would have to wait for another bus. They let us sit on the borken down bus to get us out of the rain. I didn't care, didn't really ntoice the discomfort because I was facing my own personal distrubance, seated next to me was the young lass who had recently been on my mind both night and day. For three years I hadn't paid much attention to her (and doubly vice versa) but the last few weeks of 9th grade she seemed to be everywhere (mostly in a young poet's heart). I don't know why she chose to sit next to me that evening and I dont' remember saying much to each other. I do remember she touched me knee and her hand remained there for a bit. For a brief moment the possibilities of life seemed endless. I still don't know if her touch was intentional or accidental/incidental but it doesn't really matter.

That evening set the tone for the summer ahead. The promise of my upcoming high school experience seemed full of potential. I spent most of the summer playing wiffle ball with my brother in our backyard, and attending Twins games (back in the days where one could find an empty section and the solitutde to do some writing). But it wasn't so much the events of the summer that I enjoyed. Looking ahead, my mind was in a peaceful, hopeful state I haven't encuontered before or since. Going back to the piece Melodye contributed a couple of weeks back about the importance of attitude, the best summer of my life wasn't special because of what I accomplished but rather because I looked at life in a different way. Sure, I eventually lost the girl, and headed down the road of a jaded cynic but for a brief period I did believe what France Albert sang, "Fairy tales can come true. They can happen to you..."

Another prong... Has anyone seen Paul McCartney recently? His last appearance/piece of work was on Unplugged (sorry to the person who wanted us to print the MTV show's schedule. I forgot this week. Hold on until next week) and he hasn't been seen since. Maybe Paul really is dead this time. I played his Tripping the Live Fantistique backwards and I could have swore he said, "I'm gettin gold and don't have many more discs in me..." Some of my faith in humanity was restored when my favorite mother of two (now qualified as "one of my favorite mothers of two) attended last Monday night's Kathy Mattea concert. I made her a tape of Ms. Mattea's last CD which filled up one side of the tape so I was left to ponder what to fill the second side with. Not knowing her taste in music, I put a hodgepodge of stuff on and the one song she said she really liked was McCartney's "This One" which is one of my all time favorite songs. That she chose that song to single out means there still is hope for all of us.

Final thrust: Our newsletter is about to make history as I sent off several issues to Washington DC where I have directed our correspondent, Alex, to march them straight to the Smithsonian. I hope they have a recycling bin there too...