October 15, 2008 by chad.

Everyone has one or maybe I am an exception to the rule. I place a lot of importance on a good coffee cup. It usually has meaning to me otherwise it would be just another cup. I’ve passed on a lot of promotional coffee cups because despite the businesses desire to put their name in front of me every morning, I have no connection.\

This morning in the rush for the door to get Keiran out to the bus stop, I lost an important piece of fanboy memorabilia. While holding up two coats for my daughter to pick from she excitedly flailed her arms wide. In the path of the melee was my official Highlander coffee mug full to the brim with Hills Brothers Original Blend and Cub brand French Vanilla creamer (In the interest of future sponsorship of this blog I am shamelessly making a product placement.).  She tipped it over and it splashed all over the entryway table, 2 pairs of her shoes and anything else in its path. Then, if that was not enough, before I could dive heroically to it’s rescue, that official Highlander mug rolled off the table and met with the immovable and uncaring wood flooring shattering it into bits and pieces. Now, I am thankful that Genevieve was neither burned nor hit by the shattered remains, but…with the destruction of that one piece of memorabilia I have lost my daily reminder than I was once a fanboy of the Highlander movies and series.

Before I started dating my wife I was a fan of the movies but did not start to get really into it until just around the time Robin and I started dating. Well, it was around that time anyway. For x-mas one year my parents bought me a bunch of Highlander stuff from the catalog. The tee-shirts shrunk or met their demise through overuse. The VHS tapes are probably close to dead buried back in the darkest corner of the entertainment center and are dead really only because they are VHS and not DVD. The movie jacket I had got into a fight with battery acid and never was the same. No, the only real constant reminder of my fandom was that mug.

Well, luckily I still have a bunch of other memories to drink from. Not the least of which was a mug I got from a college friend for another x-mas gift back in 1992. (Still got it Jenny!) It is amazing to think that we have things like this coffee cup all around us holding memories. Raise your coffee today and toast the demise of a good cup and the fanboy I once was.

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | No Comments »

September 26, 2008 by chad.

I am going to describe a situation today, but I will refrain from naming names and being specific about the details. Why you ask? Well, this is the internet and I would be a political imbecile to rant about anything that could kneecap my visions of the future. With as little as a few used words or names anyone can and will use your words against you. I constantly chuckle at what I find people saying on the internet because if I can find it, their enemies can too.

What really pisses me off, and a lot of people should agree, is when others choose to see you in a lesser light than you see yourself. You scoff, “What the heck does that mean, Chad?”

The capacity for greatness is a measure best known by those who have it and nurtured by those who can see through its outer trappings. Case in point, you know you are capable of excelling at a task, but others only see where you have been and what you have done. This is by no means a great revelation, but one thing that motivates me more than anything is the perceptions people form of me that are below what I see in myself. It’s that fire. The fire that needs that outside element to stoke it up. Today, someone stoked that fire. It pissed me off, but, rather than take it out on them or direct that energy towards malace, I will turn it into something good. I will excel beyond imagination.

Energy is energy. It is up to you to use it in a way that is either beneficial or hurtful. I have dedicated a great deal of my life to the betterment of those around me. It is what enlivens me and makes me whole. Why would I allow it to harm? No, the one who has stoked my fire may never know they were the cause, but know this…they will know they have underestimated me and in that I will attain prize…begrudged respect.Thanks for the kick in the toosh. I needed that.

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | No Comments »

September 19, 2008 by chad.

This morning while all of us slept in our beds Marie Groetsch passed away without any family members around her. Today is not real. Her death is not real. Not to me yet. I’d expect that Monday will be another story though. Monday we will travel down to the cities and see her funeral. That will be the day of closure, not Friday.

Not much else to say, webizens. It’s time for quiet recollections and for being with my family. We’ll pick up on something else later on.

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | No Comments »

September 18, 2008 by chad.

Just an update to the faithful readers, as of 7:20am, my grandmother is still alive. She has a tenuous grasp on life. Dad called and let me know that her breathing has turned shallow and that the nurses believe she had her last BM. They believe that she is also at her end now and that at some point today she will be joining grandpa.

Spending the last moments of life with someone is an incredibly emotional experience. I told my father to be ready for it and that it is gut wrenching and beautiful at the same time. I have had two opportunities to see someone die. One was the the young gentleman who skidded off the road near our house. He owns the destinction of being the cause of my first mass email by the name of Sherburne County Backroads from which this blog is named.

The other one was my dear friend Marci Olson who came to the end of her days in the company of the friends she held most dear. I was blessed to be counted as one of those friends and was blessed to know her.  I can remember the time just before she passed. We kept watch on her throughout, but when the time neared we all were there. The nurse’s voice still hangs in my mind as she spoke with urgency and passion. “Everyone, come here! She is passing now. Put your hands on her to show her that she is loved as she goes.” Even now a couple years later I am tearing up as I recall the experience. It was emotional beyond belief. After she died, my flee impulse kicked into overdrive. I needed to go right then and there! I drove home through tear soaked vision, walked in the door, and proclaimed to my wife that Marci was gone. Then I went into our bedroom, closed the door, and let all the bottled sorrow flow out of me.

It’s that experience that defines for me the point when the spirit leaves the body. I know that my dad, my uncles, and my aunt will likely be experiencing that today or very soon. I just hope that someone is there to be with her at her end time.

On Thursday of last week I went to go see her. If she was going to go, she was not going to go without seeing me and I was not going to let her go until I saw her. She was gaunt, mumbling, and agitated, all the while with her eyes closed. Uncles Bill and Bob were there the whole time I was and God only knows how much they were there before and after I left. Most of what she spoke was beyond understanding. She shouted “Billy” a couple times and cursed at least once. She told someone “that they should just shut-up”. We can only assume she meant us.

Before I got up to leave, I went up to grandma and touched her hand. For a second her mumbling was clear… for just two words. Candy bar. I then got the opportunity to do something with my grandma that I had not for a couple years. We had a conversation about nothing. Here is what we said.”

Chad- Grandma, do you want a candy bar?

Grandma - No…no…i don’t want a candy bar…Can I get you something?

Chad - No thanks, grandma. I don’t want a candy bar right now, but I really think you should have a candy bar.

Grandma - No…I don’t want one.

Actually, even though she was nearing the end, she was still ever the superior hostess. In the end she did give me something. The something that I longed for. She spoke to me one last time.

I missed Marci Olson’s last words by a few hours. I missed grandpa’s last words by minutes. Grandma, in her own way, gave me something finite that I can always remember. She spoke to me. Thanks, Grandma.

Aunt Donna said the last she spoke was on Friday. My cousin Heather was there when the clergy came in to pray with her. Even in her limited capacity she dropped into prayer and signed the cross. She always struck me as a devout catholic so it does not surprise me. I think that maybe she was truly there then and this was one of her last preparations for the end. Soon there after she went to sleep and has not really spoken since.

That is where we stand right now on a Thursday afternoon. As far as I know she yet breaths, so I will not refer to her in the past tense yet.

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | No Comments »

September 10, 2008 by chad.

I got some hard news today. It seems my only surviving Grandmother who was dealing with issues of dementia has been admitted to the hospital with hemorrhaging on the brain. She is in a hospice unit right now.

Since my Grandfather’s death, Grandma has slipped futher and further away from us to the point where she seemed unable to exist in the here and now. Its been some years since his death. My son is 4 now and he was not yet born when he passed on. Last time I saw Grandma I knew I looked into the eyes of someone else, someone almost oblivious to the world around her.

In a way, if she passed on it would be a mixed blessing. She lived with her husband 50 years. These last few years have been hard for her to take. She had a tenacious talent to make things work. She had to be. Both her parents died when she was young as she was oft to tell us (Even after dementia was clutching at her psyche). She traveled so many places and did so many things in her life. She lead a full life. Everyone in the family has been grieving her loss for some time. Knowing that Grandma really was not there anymore.

I am torn. This is the mixed part. For some time I have known the only thing that was left to me of my old Grandma was memories. The almost somber finality of realizing she may indeed leave us in body, as she previously has done in spirit, puts a cap on everything. My Grandmother and I had a special relationship. She was the maker of amazing sweets. She was the woman who would hold my hand when I was preparing to leave from a visit because she was trying to sneak me money without Grandpa seeing it.(She always failed, but Grandpa looked the other way because it was always her money to spend.) She was the woman who dragged Grandpa to my first communion even though it pained her that I was not Roman Catholic. She was my friend and guide though many youthful adventures. I cannot say how much this hurts, but… damn it…I miss her. And even though she is not that person in my memory, she is still my Grandmother.

If this is her last days on this orb I am only happy for her because she will be reunited with her soul mate again. Death is never the concern of the departed, but those they leave behind. At least she will be at peace.

As I stand on the cusp of losing the last of my grand generation, remember to cherish your grands if they are still with you, because it’s a bitch to lose them. Every one of them.

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | No Comments »

July 30, 2008 by chad.

Bloggers tend to read other bloggers so I think the audience to this site is wide enough for me to discuss one bloggers dirty little secret. I do not aspire to fame, but one must bend a knee to this amazing disseminator of information known as a search engine. I am sure I am not the only person that does this, but…I google myself. Yes, I am a googler. I google everything, but often I find that I google things I talk about in this blog and track how fast it gets listed. The answer is… between 5 minutes and a half hour. That’s how long it takes to get the word out to the masses. Simply incredible.

This was ever more evident when I was at a St Cloud Area Chamber of Commerce Chamber Connections meeting and talking to  Ray Cook, the owner of Mi Famiglia Restaurant.  I mentioned that I had reviewed his restaurant for my blog. He already knew that I did. In fact, he astutely pointed out that I said I was going to post a review and never got it up there. (Sorry, Ray, it really is coming!) As a business owner it is in Ray’s best interest to find out what other people say about you and there is nothing more accessible than words on the screen. Its what businesses spend millions of dollars for. The downside is that more often than not what you see on the web is more b*tching than complimenting. It’s definitely easy to find out when you did something wrong and not so easy to find when you did something right.

Back to my self-professed google addiction. I normally google my name, my business, and subjects that I talk about just to see where they fall in listing. There are times that I find my posts about a restaurant actually fall higher than the actual restaurants site. I have found food sites that have linked back to my reviews and the occasional owner has printed our posts and shown them in their restaurant (Thanks Zizzorts!) or told me what they thought of what I said. (I have yet to get any nasty 4 letter words thrown at me.) From a business standpoint, I like to see where the name lands. From a personal standpoint it probably gives me a glimmer of satisfaction knowing that my life is well lived through my civic involvement. Anyway, try googling yourself or your business. Do it often. After all, Edgar Watson Howe put it best when he said, “What people say behind your back is your standing in the community.”

end of line

Posted in Rubish Bin | Print | 2 Comments »