Huber

Funeral Home & Cremation Services

952-474-9595

Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic.

Occupational Therapy.  Speech Therapy.

952-443-9888

Victoria’s Corner Bar.  Nightly Specials and Menus.  952-443-9944

Weinzierl

Jewelers

8 First Street in Waconia.  952-442-2885

MVT Excavating

No job is too small.  952-446-9341

The Key

The Key to advertisers

in the Victoria Gazette. 

Located at www.VictoriaGazette.com.

Specialized assisted living for those

with memory challenges. 

Victoria.  952-908-2215

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GAZETTE

         How do you spend ten days away from the office and not write about it?  Especially if writing is what you do.  And especially if the place you're visiting is kind of like the Klondike.  And so, good people, you must bear with me or simply flip the page and bear with others. 

         As I responded to Mayor Mary Thun from across the vast Dakota expanse, I am now able to do the Gazette from anywhere in the world and I was working in January from Tioga, North Dakota.  I've purchased an outstanding laptop which Allan synchronized with my home office computer.  The Gazette has been requiring more and more instantaneous communications in order to "keep up" when I am away, which is where I sometimes prefer to be.

         Maybe next time we'll choose a more exotic location from which to keep up.  Yes, indeed, we were not relaxing on the white sand beaches of Florida or southern California nor the black sand beaches of Maui.  We were not playing on a luxury cruise liner and we did not hit a reef in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy.

         Our days away from the office in January were spent working mainly and mostly in the realm of physical labor.  For ten days we didn't know what else was going on in the world, as that labor took us away from current events of the day.  We barely watched TV or listened to the radio or read newspapers.  Except for my time on the Gazette in the wee hours while everyone else was still sleeping, we worked on an old farm house from morning till night.

         With all the stampeders moving to Tioga, our kids decided to move out of their  nice new home in downtown Tioga and into the country where they purchased an eight-acre farm site surrounded with evergreen trees.  Allan and Christopher installed over 1,500 square feet of beautiful hardwood flooring on the main level of that home while Jenny and I pulled up staples left in the floor after ripping out carpeting and removed wallpaper in the master bedroom.  Chris and Jenny had already knocked out walls and have now renovated the kitchen into a magazine showpiece.  The transformation is amazing.

         The main reason Allan and I assisted with this carpentry work is that the kids can't find  tradesmen out there to help them.  Men, both skilled and unskilled, prefer the wages of the oil fields.

***

         When we got back to Victoria, and a different kind of civilization, I thought I had quite a story to tell my parents -- but Mom called first and her story beat mine.

         After a couple decades of enjoying the Alamo Country Club down in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas, Dad sold their beautiful home which had been designed and built just for them.  I knew about the sale before we left for Tioga, and I knew they were driving down to pick up a few personal belongings before the closing.  As Mom had said to me, "It's the end of an era."

         I'm thinking Mom's open heart surgery last fall triggered the sale, but Dad had  been talking about it for a while anyway.

         So here's the story that beat mine.  Mom calls from Texas and says, yes, it was hard to pack up things and walk away from that house and all of the good times and memories it had given them.  But then she tells me they're not coming back to Minnesota for at least a month.  They decided to rent a suite at the brand new Drury Inn and had already met up with a bunch of old friends and even went to a dance.  A dance!  And Mom has not fully recovered yet from the heart surgery.

         "But we only danced three dances and we didn't do any polkas," she says to me. 

         And so now they're living in a fancy suite "not doing anything."  They don't have to wash windows, take care of the yard, prune their plants, or sweep the front walk or the back patio.  They don't have to cook meals, stock the refrigerator, or shop for groceries.  They don't have to vacuum or mop the floors, dust the furniture, wash their towels, or even make their bed. 

         "How wonderful!" I said.  It sounds like heaven.  I don't remember the last time I wasn't doing anything.

         Although I was shocked to hear that my parents were staying in Texas for a while this winter, I was not as surprised as they were.  They had planned on retrieving some clothes and knickknacks -- they sold it otherwise fully furnished -- and then head back up north.  Their friends squealed upon hearing the news.  How fun that "the era" continues.

***

     Rick Leuthner stopped at our house shortly after our return to Victoria, selling tickets for the Fire Department's Ice Fishing Contest on Sunday, February 5th.  With all the nice weather we've had this winter, I wondered how there could be enough ice.  He said the ice may not be thick enough for hundreds of vehicles, but it's definitely thick enough for hundreds of people, and that we can catch a bus to the lake from downtown.  See you there!

February 2012

In-Town Auto Repair  952-443-2868

942-443-2078

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