“The death of an old person is like the burning of a library.” —

an Old African saying

I’m afraid this is all subject to change, thanks to the advancement of computers, cell phones and text messaging. I tend to prefer the stories of the elderly and many of the ones I used to look up to are not here anymore.

While I was visiting my niece and her family last week in Cloquet, Jana pulled out a box of old letters that somehow ended up in her hands. She was leaving for work in Duluth, and I was going to head that way after having breakfast, but first read a few letters from the box.

There was a letter from my father to Jana, who died in the 90s; letters from my sister, Jana’s mother, who died in the 80s; letters to my brother, who then was soldiering in Alaska; and there was a letter from my brother to my sister. I read the four and then headed out. I drove back to Duluth and had lunch with Jana before driving back to Austin.

Jana and I sat down to look at the editing she had completed on my story the first night there. She had edited the first five pages I assumed were “errorless” and low and behold there must have been 100 pencil marks on those first five pages, far more than I expected. If I am figuring right that could mean roughly 2,800 corrections to make. I will be an old person by the time I get this done.

I suspect that I am already perceived as an “old person.” We had lunch with the boys in Dinky Town in a very busy place on the edge of it. It was packed. And of course there weren’t any parking places around, so I parked in a lot where there was no one on duty in the parking lot office leading me to think I wouldn’t have to pay the $5. It’s not that I’m cheap; I just try not to spend money.

We went to a used clothing store down wind of the upstairs restaurant and did some shopping. I think everyone came away with some items except me. After the shopping, Jeanne transported Skyler back to Moorhead, and Casey and I went to my favorite Dinky Town used bookstore where I found a used copy of “The Tao of Pooh and Cancer Ward” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

The back cover of “The Tao of Pooh” tells the readers: “while Eyeore frets … and Piglet hesitates … and Rabbit calculates … and Owl pontificates … Pooh just is. “And that’s a clue to the secret wisdom of Taoists.”

Casey is taking a philosophy class so I bought him a used book he requested that had some link to philosophy.

Now Jeanne’s back in session, the boys are in school, Lydia is living and working and going to school in Des Moines, and the cats and I are watching out for each other. Echo is still out-eating Ptolemy, and occasionally they are seen tearing through the house. Ptolemy occupies the second floor, and Echo the first floor most of the time.

The big news today is that I got our 1957 Electrolux back from the vacuum doctor. It required a new motor. The vacuum doctor said she thought it was a 1957 model. In 1957 I was in eighth grade not being a very serious student. I had other things on my mind like most eighth graders. Scholastics I don’t think made it to the top 10.

A highlight for me back then was making a board squeak while standing on the wooden floor in what’s-her-name’s English class until she caught me. I think eighth grade was where the early signs of romance float into being even if you are bashful. It is probably the most awkward age of one’s travel through life. I thought confirmation could wait until one has aged a bit for that, then every grade from seventh to 12th was in the high school or at Pacelli. Ellis came later and then the junior college moved out of the high school.

I wonder how many custodians it took to clean the nicotine from the windows in the old “Junior College.”