A Collection of Great Dance Songs

Work Stories

For Kim, Emily, Dan, Ashlee and Kacey. They were all my friends, and they died.

Work story #1

Well this is a long time ago...you probably don't remember when recycling aluminum cans was a lucrative business venture. I would compare it to TaskRabbit or Über, those web based applications that have recently given people the incentive to stretch their resources just a little further, under the pretense of making money...but it seems like most people have trouble making ends meet without trying to go out of their way to make a few extra dollars.

So one of the first jobs I ever had was collecting aluminum cans around my hometown, filling up garbage bags full of half empty, rusty, crushed, dirty, sticky, sugary sweet with rotting alcohol and overly fermented beer cans people had thrown into ravines. There was usually a driver, and he'd be the one to scout out the ravine, or ditch, or gully, and then I'd scramble over a fence, through a gate, down a hill side and into someones private dump.

We'd net a few garbage bags full of cans, mostly beer cans, from different sites, and then we'd drive out to an automated recycling machine that would separate out steel cans and pay nine cents a pound for Aluminum cans. It always seemed like fun...but it was nearly thirty years ago.

I used to walk past those ravines and ditches almost every day, walking home from a job that I couldn't get away from without eventually losing my dignity, my productivity, my competence and my ambition. I put everything I had into somebody else's pocket, and they still haven't stopped applauding me for it. I remember looking at that ravine, walking home from that job, wondering if anybody else had ever climbed down there and rooted through the trash for aluminum beer cans to recycle for nine cents a pound, and how smart I was to have a job with so much potential. I reckoned it was all a big misunderstanding, that I'd be the one filling those bags, hauling them out of the ditch, and splitting the money with the driver, but I never forgot that smell.

Time passed and I lost that important job with all of that potential. I dwindled my resources and used every skill I'd ever tried to learn, but there I was, climbing down into somebody's big pit of trash, separating cans and bottles for somebody sitting in a golf cart watching me, and that sugary sweet smell of rotten alcohol all over my hands, my shirt, my pants, my socks and shoes.

Work Story #2

Those ladders you see, the ones that don't make any sense, are for picking apples from trees. You don't need a ladder with a real wide base and a real wide top, like a construction worker or a painter might use - you need a ladder with a fairly regular sized base and a real narrow top, which you prop into a tree limb. A ladder that looks like a big tall Capital A doesn't make any sense if you are using it for painting or roofing, because it is too unstable. But wedge that narrow tip of an orchard ladder into the crotch of a tree and you've got your solid support to pick apples from.

Remember that when you are picking the apples for $1.25 a peck, you need to twist the apple from the stem, to ensure you aren't damaging next years crops, or you'll be charged for damages to orchard. Once you've picked that peck, show it to your crew boss, he'll give you a ticket for a peck - at the end of the day you turn it in and get your pay, on the spot, cash. Load all of the pecks onto the hay wagon at the end of the day, wait for the prisoners on work release to make their jokes, smoke their cigarettes and then spend the rest of the day parking cars in one of four parking lots.

After three years of parking cars and picking apples, I was dispatched to a one man BBQ stand, cooking brats laden with apples; made specially for the orchard by a local butcher. The eponymous apple brat became my lunch, breakfast and dinner. Maybe eight or nine a day, plus occasional apples I'd sample from the barn. The BBQ was just a 50 gallon drum cut in half, with a cookie sheet holding charcoal briquettes; after a full day of cooking brats, marinating onions and sauerkraut and browning wheat butcher buns, the cookie sheet would be completely melted into drops of stainless steel, cooling in the ashes and cinders.

I'd pocket four or five hundred dollars a day, and empty my pockets for the orchards owners, who paid me minimum wage ($4.85) to cook those brats, all day, two days a week, in 1988.

Work Story #3

The first job I had out of high school started when I was still in high school.

A nursing home hired me and paid for my education, giving me full wages while I took classes for two weeks to become a Certified Nursing Assistant. Twenty years later, after spending four years at a liberal arts college learning how to tolerate being the small man at any business, the worn cog at any meeting of gears, the indispensable part of any system that requires one person to feel better about their productivity at the expense of another, it seems strange that all of two weeks were the requisite for learning how to care for our retired, our elderly, our infirm and vulnerable - shuttled away to hallways reeking of stale shit and fresh coffee.

But that's the way it is and don't let anybody tell you different.

I worked there for one summer, returning over the holidays to find nearly three quarters of the sixteen "full care" residents I had taken care of over the summer had died; Bob the bi-polar with a colostomy bag; Birdie the overweight bed wetter; Mike the inveterate masturbator; the other Birdie; the maternal scion of a local family of high regard whose daughter would visit her religiously...were gone except for one clinging desperately to the remains of her life: curled into a fetal position, breathing shallow and labored, brittle as rice paper, she passed away before Christmas.

What was the most memorable thing to take away from this job, I asked myself more than once. What could I learn from watching these people expiring in their own feces and urine, patiently waiting to have their adult incontinence pads changed, their bodies washed, their linens changed; eating dinner away from a group of embittered nursing Assistants laughing at their wards, discussing the most violent and combative patients while slowly puffing away on cigarettes, making their plans for the weekend?

I still ask myself, more often than not when Nursing Homes show up in the news for one abuse of power or another, why more time and money isn't invested in this branch of health care, but more often than not I think it is a question of creative sentencing.

Work Story #4

I went to a four year private arts school, with all of the intention in the world of being a white collar success story. I studied advanced literature, the sciences, the maths, deep thinking philosophies, studied in Europe with the smart kids, but the first job I had after college was in a doughnut shop. Somebody once said to me in college, "Time to make the doughnuts!" and for about a week and half, as I picked up cake doughnuts in groups of four for eight hours, I thought it was ironic.

That first week and a half, I figured out how many different variations there are on the Minnesota license plate in my head. I forget it now, but the calculation was simple...26 cubed equals 17,576, for the alphabetical half, and then three zeros for the numerical part...so that's 17,576,000 different license plates in one state, but then you gotta double that, because sometimes the numbers are first rather then the letters...so that makes it 35,152,000.

That was a long time ago, but one memory really stuck with me:

"What did you Do! Everybody will be four hours late to deliver because of this! You burned everything! What were you doing?"

"We lost our biggest account because of this!"

"You burned a thousand dollars worth of muffins, and you don't remember what you were doing? Do you understand our customers won't stand for being delivered to late, and do you understand you kept everybody here late?"

"Why don't we use both ovens? That oven has timers and programs for everything - I wouldn't have to use one oven for everything and the potential for burning things would be less...why not just use both?"

"WE DON'T KNOW HOW TO USE THAT SECOND FULLY FUNCTIONAL OVEN, BUT IT'S STILL YOUR FAULT WE LOST OUR MOST LUCRATIVE ACCOUNT BECAUSE YOU BURNED EVERYTHING IN THE ONE OVEN WE DO KNOW HOW TO USE!"

"That doesn't make any sense though...why have a second functional oven if you aren't using it, and a production quantity greater than one oven can handle?"

A year and a half later, the second oven was always in use, people still complained about losing that big account because some dumb shit burned everything.

I stayed there four years.

What I think of now is how often people advance doing everything but what they were hired to do, rather than risk appearing incompetent.

Work Story #5

"Whoa...that's great...the floors are so warm!"

"Yep. We got heated floors installed in the basement, because we knew it'd get cold down here."

"A pool table? Wow..."

"Yeah...there's a rec room a couple of doors down, past the guest rooms, if you feel like lifting weights or jumping on the treadmill...sodas in the fridge behind the bar, and the litter boxes are in the furnace room around the corner..."

What a nice place this was. I'd never gotten to house sit in such a beautiful and modern house. A spa tub in the main bathroom, with jacuzzi jets; a swimming pool in the backyard, a computer I could use freely, a stocked kitchen, a huge television with lots of movies, the amenities went on and on. My charges had always been the pets of friends or people I had known growing up, never the kind of pets named after fancy European cars, with custom painted portraits of their hunting prowess adorning the walls of a basement littered with the kind of opulent indulgences I would equate with a wealth forever beyond my means.

One week in paradise is how it was presented to me. Just don't forget the code to the security system, and remember to set the security system. Here are the important phone numbers in case something goes wrong, see you soon...and two of the nicest people to ever drop their home security system into my palm left on a vacation, leaving me with their three dogs and three cats. I got on pretty well, actually. Those dogs were great...big doofus and her cronies, basically. The cats were largely distant and took care of themselves - I even worked my regular hours during the whole week, abandoning my apartment for a lifestyle of passing extravagance. I tripped the alarm, once, and a sheriff's deputy showed up to check on me...I locked the keys in the house and called a sister-in law.

Almost everything was going better than planned really.

Then. (you know there's a punch line waiting around the corner). Then.

I sat in front of the computer and started downloading my personal Compact Disc collection to an iPod. I left the water running. The kitchen floor, the basement ceiling, ruined.

Thousands of dollars in repairs.

Then the old dog died. I stayed up all night driving him to an emergency clinic, cleaning up after his incontinence, leaving him at a vet, who called this nice couple...

Work Story #6

"So...are we timed during the delivery? I mean, how do you know whether or not the papers are delivered on time?"

"Well, for one, your customers will complain for the slightest reasons. A paper being late for some of these paying subscribers is like unplugging their television during their favorite news program...they can't start their day without it...and if you don't get them their paper on time, they will complain about it."

"Alright...I get it, they complain and then what?"

"Well, for starters, your pay gets docked for every complaint...if there are enough complaints, your route is given to somebody else."

Pneumatic tubes.

After the first ten minutes of my interview to deliver newspapers, all I could think of were pneumatic tubes, connecting the paper's printing press, the circulation center and the subscribing residence. Instead of pneumatic tubes though, a station wagon. A couple gallons of gas, a map and over one hundred paying subscribers - any one of whom might complain for a paper delivered inappropriately; too loudly, too close to the front door, too far from the front door, under the deck, on the roof, in the garden, not in the garden, not in the tube at the end of the driveway, in the tube at the end of the driveway...et cetera.

"I like to treat this as my workout...I'll get in and out of my car maybe a hundred times a morning, run up to the front door, drop the paper, run back...it's a good workout."

"Oh, right. What about throwing it from the driver side window? I thought that was how people usually did it."

"That works okay if you can get it to the right spot, or if you just drop it on the driveway, but mostly people are too picky, so I get out and carry it to the front door."

About a year, from 3 AM to 7 AM, except for a few mornings when I got stuck in snowstorms, or locked my keys in my car; every morning. There were tips from customers, and complaints. Somebody left me a bottle of spoiled wine at Christmas, another left me a bottle of almond brandy. I threw them away but kept the cash tips, which were nice.

Somebody's house burned down in the neighborhood.

Two neighborhood teenagers died in a Shakespearean tragedy.

I backed into a tree, near the end, and had to learn about replacing a fender on my car.

People got their papers, they started their days.

Work Story #7

Less than an hour, my first day.

Just cold calls to strangers.

I never thought I would be one of those people, calling during the middle of somebody's dinner to ask for money, especially if it was money that would go towards something the contribuors may not appreciate in the first place. But there I was, auditioning for the prime role of panhandler with the Minnesota Orchestra, calling local constituencies during their family dinners to ask for money, regardless of their musical background, their musical preferences or their potential for advancement in the clarinet section.

The whole routine was pretty basic, the computer picks the number, dials it, waits for an answer and then patches you through to a fresh fish; your only job is to make the catch. I lasted about two hours in total, never really taking any calls, just interviewing basically, one dude who had been doing it for at least eight years... He was probably the guy who called my parents during the family meal that dissolved into a ruinous debate on politics and religion during Thanksgiving a decade ago.

The calm voice quietly asking for money, everybody around the dinner table enjoying the best meal they'd be having without paying for something they couldn't afford, and here's this guy, intruding, asking for money for musicians like all of us had forgotten how cocksure each and every first chair musician was in elementary school.

"Hey, buddy. You told us in tenth grade you were the best Cello player that would ever breathe oxygen on the face of the planet, and that you didn't need our help, but here you are, working for somebody who calls us during dinner and asks us for help. What's up with that?"

But that was then, and here I was, trying to get into the chair that would be the seat I would inhabit while calling people to ask for money to support the musicians performing the music of Handel, of Mozart, of Beethoven, of dead composers whose compositions meant so much to people who would strive for attending the performances of music created hundreds of years ago; maybe relevant then but hardly relevant now.

Telemarketing. It never panned out, but I did get a pay check for the two hours I spent thinking about it.

Work Story #8

Start at 10:00 PM, work until 7:00 AM, every day, from Monday to Saturday...Sunday is off in case you want to watch football. There are hundreds of loaves of bread to be made every day; fresh scones to be baked, muffins to be mixed and cookies to be baked.

Special orders to be prepped - a cake decorator spent two years in college to learn how to decorate the wedding cake standing in the corner; she spent eight hours prepping it for the big event, and your job is to pick it up and move it out of the way so you can get to your Moline table to sheet your pastry dough - don't drop that cake. Frozen pieces of tomorrows breakfast waiting for you in the freezer, hundreds of dozens of premixed dough waiting for you to thaw and mix and rise and bake before the morning rush. Wake up and start working before you fall behind.

Seven cups of coffee later, a quick sandwich in hand, Working the list of breads to be baked, sliding into the oven dozens of loaves at a time, listening for the bread to cool, the bakery is humming along and the sun is slowly rising. The bread slicer, all thirty serrated edges bouncing up and down simultaneously with each loaf of bread, slicing last nights work in a symphony of aromas and noises, humming and clinking and kicking out crumbs - the morning crew arriving, checking their spots in the morning schedule, looking for their first cup of coffee.

Another 10 hour work shift and I get ready to leave, everything packaged, wrapped, prepped, the ovens cooling, the freezer waiting for tomorrow, the cakes delicately placed aside, their orders and the names carefully presented on tickets waiting for pickup. Somewhere nearby, she arrives to work. She might stop in for a muffin and a cup of coffee, she might ask how I've been, and then she'll leave, and I'll go back to work.

The extent of formalities exhausted, we resume our routine, and the day becomes night.

Work Story #9

"There is a two hundred dollar per diem per semester, and all the free concert tickets you want. Some people work the radio station and the newspaper for a whole years worth of concerts in Minneapolis. It's not a bad gig, but you have to make sure what you are writing is legible and hopefully worth reading."

"What's a per diem?"

"A stipend?"

"...uh...still drawing a blank Coach."

"It's your pay basically. You can't actually be hired for writing for the school newspaper, but there is an operating budget, and every section editor gets a Per Diem. As editor of the Arts and Entertainment section, you'll get a Per Diem every semester."

"Oh, A Stipend. Right. Great. Well I'll just write some concert reviews and maybe interview some people on campus."

"Perfect."

I wrote for the school newspaper in college, for a couple of semesters. I interviewed a couple of local bands, wrote a couple of reviews of concerts, made it through a few deadlines and even sat down with a legendary punk rocker, tape recorder paused skillfully for the interview to start; still paused as he got up to leave twenty minutes later.

The entire interview, the great thoughts of the hardest working man in punk rock music, hung in the air for a minute as I stared idiotically at the pause button, the record button, then the pause button, then the record button again. I got that sick feeling in my stomach, like I'd been punched by a bully, as I realized the entire interview, the one I'd called a record label in Minneapolis to plan, had been lost. I looked desperately for Watt from Ohio, but he'd gone off with Pat Smear, Dave Grohl and a host of famous rock stars to play a legendary 1995 First Avenue concert.

Great concert by the way. Just awesome.

"I AM HERE TO TELL YOU....FLANNEL WAS NOT INVENTED IN SEATTLE!!!!"

Then he blew the roof off, like what happens every time at First Avenue, somebody glues it back together for the next rock stars to tear that roof off again, and so on and so on.

My moment as a journalist, that lucrative Rolling Stone dream slipped through my fingers like lunch money to a bully. I ad-libbed the interview for the paper, put my name on it, collected my stipend and threw away the tape recorder.

Work Story #10

Every summer in Alaska, there is a fishing fleet waiting for temporary employees. There are tourist boats waiting for kids who grew up watching "The Love Boat" to fill in for Gopher, Captain Stubing, Isaac and Julie, there are inland salmon and trout anglers looking for guides...the land teems with wealthy people looking to enjoy the last great American frontier. It is supposedly the last calling of a college student who has made their statement at an educational facility and wishes to make a start on living their life as a capable adult, complete with career and fat paychecks from salmon canneries, or Norwegian Cruise lines luxury boats.

You can find guides to getting hired, with lists of employers throughout Alaska, hostels to stay at, places to go for free food until you start making the big checks. Interesting enough, after being there for nearly six weeks, I made money as a photographer, a fish cleaner and janitor at a salmon cannery and spent one night as a cook on a fishing boat. The photography was pretty simple, a group photo of four stewards on a luxury cruise ship, parked in Kenai fjord. They had climbed to the top of Mount Marathon, where I was also enjoying the view. A group photo, an address to send their picture to and twenty dollars later, I had made my first cold hard Alaskan currency.

In Seward I spent a few days knocking doors on boats, trying to find somebody who would hire a greenhorn cook for the summer, despite the reasons not to. The liability issue of somebody dying on a fishing boat cuts into the productivity of everybody else on the boat, so hiring a potential fatality wasn't something most people were interested in. I did find one boat, and auditioned for the part - hot dogs with macaroni and cheese weren't good enough though, so that didn't pan out.

After a week in Seward I made it to Kenai, scraping the guts out of salmon flowing past on a conveyor belt, thick as apples in a game of "bobbing for apples" each larger than the next, nearly two feet or more, freshly caught from the Bering Sea. I lived in a tent, those weeks, and spent the last ten days at the salmon factory living in a campsite with other cannery workers.

I joined a group on July 4th that hiked to a glacier field. Then I flew home.

The experience didn't cover my flight.

Work Story #11

I was about nineteen, the year after my freshman year in college. I was going on a field study course in August, shortening my summer by four weeks and giving me an extra four credits that would eventually, years later, make the difference between completing my Bachelor's degree or not. I worked in a restaurant I had been warned away from by friends and family, but it was the only job I could find. I learned how to slice potatoes, the little red ones that roll around too fast not to be a danger to anybody with a sharp knife and short attention span.

I met some great people here and there. People I had been friends with in high school were there too, some people I had been nervous to address as my friends, for whatever reason. We were on equal footing in the slippery, hot, confined kitchen of the restaurant. Desserts and salads became my responsibilities, and though I was only there for eight weeks or less, I felt like I had learned something by the end of the summer. I forgot all of the jokes and the point-counterpoint witticisms and references that passed so easily from chef to chef as they prepared expensive meals for tourists and local gaddabouts.

I had never even seen cured salmon before, and didn't understand why it had to be called gravlaxx. If squid was called calamari, couldn't they both be called appetizers and be done with it?

I usually got in trouble with management for making salads that were too big, and going over the portion control set up to more accurately moderate the amount of wholesale purchases being made and converted into finished meals - something I guess I had never understood either. Like gravlax or calamari, inventory control seemed like something that just happened - I understood dishwashing pretty well from having worked at a separate restaurant years prior to this one, but having to make certain one bag of potatoes yielded enough perfectly diced cubes for 100 plates of American potatoes was something I hadn't even considered.

There was music and late nights cleaning up after really busy summer weekends, just like the famous chefs write about; everybody rowdy and hyped up on adrenaline, waitresses changing out of their uniforms into casual attire and the sous chefs trying to take them home.

It was two decades ago, but I still cut potatoes the same way.

Work Story #12

I couldn't believe it when I saw it.

Every route, mapped out plainly on his phone.

The GPS enabled bicycle messenger of the fictional Gordon Love Hewitt movie Premium Rush.

If you've ever done it, I salute you. It's gotta be a tough gig, riding around like that, sliding on your cleats under semis, swinging a chain around street signs and locking your bike in one smooth motion. I mean whoa. Hard core brah.

But what really got me about it was the GPS routing. Every delivery, mapped out with instructions from Siri along the way. Do kids even understand the significance of zip codes, the odd numbers on one side of the street and the even numbers on the other side of the street? The paper maps of old, crumbling in glove boxes, that used to be so essential to finding your way to anywhere, even if you could only follow the line of one highway from one city to another, it got you close enough for a phone call and verbal instructions.

But to map each and every route out before hand, race there, sign the invoice, check the manifest, launch off again...it all seemed a little surreal. I delivered pizzas for about two months, and the area was about one school district - half an hour to make it there, no GPS, no instructions from the pizza buyer, just a map and an address.

Of course the experienced drivers knew the routes, who would order what on Friday night and who would have a house numbered differently than every other house on the street; so almost as a precursory lesson in why delivering pizzas is a bad job, I'd get the worst deliveries - the ones furthest away from one another and closest to the edge of the delivery boundary. Having no way to make the deliveries on time, I'd at least try to deliver the pizzas before they got cold, or without crashing my car. Portable CD player sliding on the dashboard, cigarette lighter Ac adapter dangling in space, stereo playing something bad loudly, it was almost preordained that I'd get lost at least once or twice per delivery, arriving on the wrong street, knocking on the wrong door, giving the wrong person the wrong pizza...

Tips were supposed to be the redeeming quality of working as a pizza delivery driver, but with only half an hour to find each address, a folding map fluttering in space while cruising at 70 MPH along rural roads, it's fortunate I quit.

Work Story #13

"Look for the shine."

"What?"

"Look for the shine, as you pull the file across the tooth. Ignore the rakers, they're probably alright. But work each tooth just until you see the shine."

"Okay...the shine."

Those mornings, I'd be looking forward to getting started. The coffee, the breakfast sandwich, the orange juice from the bagel shop, a short drive to another county and half an hour getting the tools ready for a day of tree trimming. The proprietor had hired me on as a part time third man, dragging brush, tree branches and buckthorn. I'd been there about a year when he started to teach me how to sharpen his chainsaws, maybe two or three each morning, sometimes just the single hand saws he used while climbing trees, sometimes the 076 chainsaw with an engine the size of a moped's.

I would never get it right, the sharpening.

You think it might not have consequences, because once something is sharp, and if it has a moped engine running it, it's going to cut anything it comes across. But let me tell you, as somebody once told me, the most dangerous tool in the tool box is a dull chainsaw. So I'd run that pencil sized file across the teeth of those chains, and ignore the rakers, and I would "...look for the shine..." but I never got the complexity of it.

Despite the bad days when I'd feel uncertain and copper pennies would be swimming in my mouth I climbed and trimmed as well. Even when the chains I sharpened in the morning would be stuck in a branch by mid-day; me hanging upside down with a handsaw, trying to cut my saw free, the chain improperly sharpened, having pulled left or pulled right, I liked being there. Me, cursing myself from a branch perilously close to snapping, halfway trimmed.

The owner / operator was a good guy. Hard work was never judged solely on the results, and lunch was never missed. I'd never eaten so many good lunches in a single week. Not even in college, when I was still smoking, would I routinely sit down to lunch at a couple different restaurants every week.

That might have been my favorite part about each day, about learning how to sharpen those chains, how to tie those prusiks and bowlines, learning how to load the chipper properly or the process of surgically dismantling a fifty foot hardwood or conifer into chips; sitting down in the midst of it all for a decent lunch.

Work Story #14

"I don't want to though! Everybody is making fun of me and saying I can't do it....I want to go home!"

"Don't you do this now. Don't you try this now, here, in front of all of your friends. Don't be a baby because they're better than you."

"Please though dad....*sobbing*......it's MY birthday, not YOURS!"

The indoor climbing wall was forty feet high, with large plastic hand holds, sculpted from resin and silica, to create a more authentic sensation of clinging desperately to the side of Yosemite's El Capitan, the Boulder Flat Irons or somewhere deep in Muir Valley.

Local rock climbers would stop in, form tight knit communities of "On-Belay? Off-Belay!", climb for a couple hours, go home, plan new adventures to geographies more vertical than their homestate, maybe order certain books or clothes, and then complain about the music or the lack of new designated patterns, "routes" of holds on the walls. Some got jobs, or were hired part time in exchange for their talent, knowledge and seemingly endless rhetoric of government institutions that did not rely on capitalism to support a stable economy.

I had started at this job, an outdoor retailer known for cross country skiing, rock climbing, sea kayaking, outdoor apparel and knowledgable staff as a part time employee; only needing enough hours to satisfy gas and insurance payments while commuting to school as a non-traditional student completing his second post graduate degree.

"It's easy. You fit the harness, you tie the knot, you use the belay device and then act real encouraging. Sometimes people ask about credentials, just point them to the brochure. You'll do fine." Nobody had told me that twenty minutes into the first Birthday Party at the indoor climbing gym that I was now an experiential educator, that there would be a forty year old father berating his son for not climbing as fast or as high as his friends, that this kid, maybe ten years old, would cry and ask to leave. The birthday boy, now in tears, and his friends, and me, and the other belayers, and basically everybody was staring slack jawed at the spectacle of his father, nearly choking on the words "We are not doing this here.”

Somehow, an attractive, social, witty and confident young staffer distracted the son from the dad, or the dad from the son, and the whole thing ended with a photograph. A large group of kids, the climbers, the dad, me, the belayers...all standing happily together between ropes and plastic climbing holds, as if the entirety of summiting Mount Everest could be encapsulated with "...because it's there".

A few months later, I got the same crash course in sea kayaking; "Just roll out of the boat, swim for the surface, kick your feet out of the boat, stick this on the paddle, climb back in and pump out the water. It's easy. If anybody asks about your credentials, just point them to the brochure. You'll do fine." and a few days later I was teaching sea Kayaking to groups of six or more, drifting on large lakes and rivers, sometimes shouting at kids lost in their happiness, sometimes shouting at adults lost in their paddle stroke. It was not all bad. The college education never got me the average salary, the average relationship, the 2.2 televisions, the house, the car, the garage or the retirement savings I'll probably need when I'm too old to work. It didn't remind the college girlfriend who forget to tell me her forwarding address what she missed out on, and it didn't alert any single young professional women what a monumental "fixer-upper with room for structural improvement" I am.

I got the opportunity to climb up and down a forty foot synthetic wall for eight years in exchange for giving up on all of it, and that is exactly what I did.

"I keep seeing this rusty mountain bike chained up to a fence, just down the street. Have you seen it?"

"No. Why?"

"If I give you a pair of bolt cutters, will you move it? It's just sitting there and it's been there for at least a year and half. I don't think it belongs to anybody."

"I don't want to do that."

"There's nothing to it. I'll get you the bolt cutters. Just go cut the chain and bring me the bike. You'll do fine."

There were some nights I'd borrow a sea kayak and go eleven miles down river, by myself, just the moon and the water. The quiet of the river couldn't be described accurately with the eight synonyms I know or the hundreds I could find in a dictionary.

Along the way I was occasionally alone, campfires on the shoreline with people carrying on quiet conversations or fractured groups with people wandering on the beach receded into sections of the river completely abandoned and so still it was like riding a bicycle through a long train tunnel - the minuscule point of light at the entrance behind you or the exit in front of you look equidistant from each other, despite your direction, your rate of travel, your intent or the amount of inertia you generate. You are standing still as time passes in either direction.

Large pools of inert carp, caught in fright by the displacement of the kayak would alert and jump in their gravel beds, ripples of water arcing out from under me as I drifted slowly back to reality, the forty foot wall, the pair of bolt cutters waiting for me on the glass counter top of the retail shop known for cross country skiing, rock climbing and sea kayaking.

Work Story #15

"Are you hungry?"

"What?"

"If you are hungry I can let you eat something before you get started."

"Really?"

"Sure...how about a sandwich and a cookie? I won't charge it from your paycheck."

"Okay."

In 1988 I rode a skateboard to Junior High. I think it was a John Grigley, then a Christian Hosoi and then a Per Wellinder Street deck. My board had Gullwing trucks and 64 MM Powell Peralta wheels. After school I'd ride downhill to a cafe and wash dishes. Dishwashing has changed a lot, but in the small cafe I worked at, there were three bins in the kitchen sink. One scalding hot with soap, one scalding hot with bleach and the third with cold and clean water. The soapy scrubbing lasted a few minutes per pan, kitchen tool or plate then everything was dipped and sat in the diluted bleach for at least a minute and finally it was rinsed clean in the final water bath.

Minimum wage was three dollars and twenty five cents. If I had worked for eight hours a day, at that rate, for ten days, I'd make just over 5 tanks of gas in 2006, when gas was over five dollars a gallon. Now, gas is back to less than two dollars a gallon, like in 1988.

The cafe, the cookies, the sandwiches and the pizza were phenomenal. The actual kitchen itself changed hands around 1991, but retained a large stone fired pizza oven that was one of the first of its kind in the area. People wondered about the crusts and the simple margherita pizza with no toppings because Dominos was right down the street, but it remained a competitive business establishment for twenty years or so.

I once got thrown in the back of a police car for riding my skateboard there; sitting among a group of kids I had just met, a police officer informed us we were breaking the law joyriding. There was a warning, a citation, the threat to retain my skateboard, a few moments of interrogation and then a ride home in the back of the police car.

The best part about working there was the after school snack.

Impermanence

"If only they had had Pee Wee hockey when I was a lad."

I got into a discussion during a game of pick-up ultimate frisbee awhile ago, about the idea of impermanence. How often we take for granted something that is not meant to last. I think the discussion focused on being at peace with the struggle, or at least learning to tolerate the fact that things break, fall apart, perish or graduate into irrelevant obsequity long before our appreciation and use for them ends. I still have a favorite backpack that I want repaired, but Timbuk2 sent it back to me because it was too dirty to repair, so I'll wash it, pay to ship it to California, pay again to have it repaired, and then set it aside because I have been happy as a clam with my Exped backpack.

I tell myself I need the reserve, and I often do, but it would be more efficient to buy a new bag than repair this old one, (again.) So I fail, I guess. I don't realize the banality of pursuing happiness in a familiar object that should be discarded, or a trinket that will eventually be forgotten if lost. I think tattoos also figured into the discussion somehow; that maybe a tattoo's permanence was a way of reminding someone of their own impermanence, and grounding that person to a tangible and relevant feeling of self worth over covetting some material object that could be lost or discarded without any immediately tangible consequence.

So what have I been doing in the past year?

I haven't been reading as much, or catching as many carp, I know that. I haven't caught a carp on a fly rod since 2020, when I found a few schooling in a feeder stream to the Minnesota River. It wasn't the most adventurous catch but there it was, a carp on a fly rod. As far as reading goes .... pfffft. Maybe a dozen books in all of 2021, at best. I did read Isabel Wilkerson's book "Caste", and "The Coyote's Bicycle: The Untold Story of 7,000 bicycles and the Rise of a Borderland Empire", by Kimball Taylor - both of which I enjoyed. "Fat of the Land" by Langdon Cook had some pretty amazing stories of foraging and fishing; I'd recommend any of them if those things interest you.

I upgraded my bicycle last year, and have been enjoying it immensely. It turns out my old bicycle had a cracked fork, and after getting a second opinion on it, I am now waiting, (probably until ice cream melts in Hell) to hear if Felt will warranty that 2011 carbon fork. I rode a single speed mountain bike all winter, and going back to a bike with gears has been great.

Compared to the studded tires I had been riding since 2013, (I'd guess they were 38 MM and washed out on me three times in 2020 and once in 2019) the 45 NRTH Khava tires, (29 X 2.25") were solid, a little floaty on some conditions but definitely worked better than the skinnier studded tires.

Prior to winter, I got to Colorado again and visited Gunnison and Crested Butte. I stayed at a hostel in Gunnison called The Wanderlust and it was great, though my bed was a cotton mattress on a sheet of plywood. The fishing and sight seeing was fantastic - I didn't do much bike riding even though Crested Butte sounds like it was neck and neck with Marin County for ownership to the Clunker Hall of Fame. Check out that documentary Clunkerz, if you haven't already, it's pretty rad.

I am, and have been gainfully employed as a footwear specialist at Midwest Mountaineering for almost 42 months now... that's 3.5 years. Adittedly I have never disclosed much about my personal life here because there is Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr and Flickr and if even 1 person wanted to contact me directly you could have at this point, and only my cousin Maureen (Hi Mo!) has, which is okay. Suffice to say I had an extended period of self-reflection and inactivity I would like to never experience again.

I like my job. It has rewarding moments as well as temporary setbacks. I try to focus on the positive interactions, and tolerate the uncertainty of actually knowing if they are indeed, positive. As the great Irish writer George Bernard Shaw once said, "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”

All photos by Michael McKinney

Winter Cycling and 30 Days of Biking, version 11

The good news is winter is probably over. I mean it snowed yesterday, but not enough to ski on or anything. There has been a lot of news lately; besides President Biden getting elected, the vaccine distribution for the Covid-19 virus and yours truly moving once again, Derek Chauvin was just found guilty on all three counts against him - Keith Ellison said it well: "George Floyd's life mattered."

Peyton Scott Russell mural, Lake Street, Minneapolis, 3-21. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Since October I have been riding my bicycle and keeping busy, probably not reading as much as I would like, (I read The Goldfinch last year and loved it, so far this year The Rub of Time is a big favorite), and still working on getting a few good bread recipes together for myself. 

Lake of the Isles ski trail, Minneapolis. 2-21. Photo by Michael McKinney.

The fishing has been good for me this spring, maybe a bit of redemption after not doing as well as I would have liked in Colorado. The fishing could always be better, but it is funny how quickly 6 hours of not catching anything can turn into the best day of the year. I read some author who said all fishermen are unwilling optimists, in that they eternally expect to catch something more significant than their last day on the water - most never do, but that never stops them from trying.

Sabo Bridge Sunset, 11-20. Photo by Michael McKinney

Hiawatha Bike Trail, 12-20. Photo by Michael McKinney

Selfie, Houlton WI, 12-20. Photo by Michael McKinney

In any case, the winter cycling was not without some challenges this year. I got caught in a pretty gnarly blizzard, and needed to commute about 5 miles through it on the night before Christmas Eve. My studded tires are great for some winter conditions, (packed snow on road surfaces, infrequent ice patches, fresh snow less than 2" deep), but this was a substantial snow fall with high winds. I came off my bike three or four times on the way home, either to dismount and carry the bike over snowdrifts or sliding out on areas where wind had pushed away all of the snow and left a solid ice surface over the roadway. 

Sky blue sky, Minneapolis, MN. 12-20. Photo by Michael McKinney

Anyway, that was one commute home. On another commute, a familiar bike path had frozen over completely, with solid ice rutted and deep enough to thwart my studded tires. I washed out pretty hard that night, and on one other occasion as well.

Sunset, North Cedar Trail, Minneapolis, MN. 11-20. Photo by Michael McKinney

After 8 years of trusting the studded tires on my cyclocross bike to get me through winter commuting, I think I will try something different next year - outfitting my 29er mountain bike with studded tires is probably the right choice.

As far as the here and now goes, it is April again, and that means 30 Days of Biking. Today is day 20 and I am not riding nearly as much as last year's furlough-enabled 1,000 miles. Being back at work has been rewarding and challenging, and I feel fortunate to be able to do the things I enjoy while being employed. There was a recent traffic ticket for "entering an intersection on a red light", but maybe I will talk about that some other day.

Chonky brown trout; Rush River, Pierce Country, WI, 4-21. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Today is a pretty good day.

Did you say "Moab?"

Arriving at the airport, very early. 10-6-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

“ Sometimes I wonder if the world's so small

Can we ever get away from the sprawl.” - Arcade Fire

After cancelling plans for an early summer flyfishing and hiking trip to Boulder, Colorado, I thought I'd not have an opportunity to do any travelling this year.

I had been fortunate enough to rent a car and find some quiet spaces in Wisconsin, but getting an opportunity to see something new seemed untenable and very unlikely. With the 2020 Presidential election going in full gear, and work slowing down a bit, it seemed like there was a window of opportunity for some time off, and early October became a potential time frame.

NCAR; Boulder, Colorado, 10-6-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Blue Lake, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Colorado. 10-7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

I tied some new flies, borrowed some camping gear, found a local Colorado fly tier on Etsy, purchased some of his flies for insurance, readied myself for a third Covid-19 examination and crossed my fingers.

A couple of days later, there I was, settling into a one person tent in my cousin's backyard, reveling in the first of nine days of camping, fishing and cycling. Having rented a car from Denver I had enough time to stop at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and appreciate its amazing gemology exhibit before forging on into Boulder. 

After a day trip to the Brainard Lakes Recreation Area and a hike into the Indian Peaks Wilderness to see Blue Lake, we made the long drive through SouthWest Colorado to Moab, Utah.

Campsite, Boulder, Colorado, 10-8-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Leaving Summit County, Colorado; 10-8-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Sunrise, Willow Springs Road, Moab, Utah. 10-9-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Thanks Chuck! Moab, Utah. 10-9-2020. Photo by Peter McKinney.

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

If you have ever mountain biked there, you already know what I am going to say about riding over the massive rocks, through the deep sand, next to the steep vertical faces, admiring the expansive vistas, noticing the lizard tracks in the sand, learning to pay attention to the painted trail markers on the slick rock trails and the sand.

It's great. 

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020.

Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

The Three of us, Arches National Park. 10-10-2020. Photo by Peter McKinney.

Petroglyphs at Arches National Park, 10-10-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Dead Horse State Park selfie, 10-11-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

I stopped on the return drive to stay at an Airbnb, (something else I have never tried), and spent three days and two nights in Carbondale, Colorado, fishing on the Roaring Fork and Frying Pan Rivers. I did not capture that massive late summer brown trout I was hoping, (hyping?) for but I did have an exceptional stay and revisited some favorite fishing spots. I felt fortunate catching a few fish and enjoyed a leisurely drive back to Boulder with some fishing on Crystal Creek.

If you ever visit the Roaring Fork Valley and Carbondale, I suggest visiting The White House Pizzeria. I tried the Pad Thai pizza and it was very good. 

Roaring Fork River Access, 10-12-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Roaring Fork Rainbow Trout, 10-12-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Frying Pan River, 10-13-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Frying Pan River Valley, 10-13-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

So where does that leave me - back in Boulder and ready for a 6,000 foot ascent on a borrowed bicycle, back to the Mitchell Lake Trailhead, through Ward, Colorado. A favorite ride for local cyclists through Left-Hand Canyon. I saw a number of cyclists the next day, either grinning enthusiastically on their descent or wordlessly nodding as they ascended.

Thanks Pete! Mitchell Lake Trailhead, 10-14-2020. Photo by anon.

The total ride distance was just over fifty miles, the elevation gain was more than 6,000 feet, the total time was about 3 hours and forty minutes, with a solid hour of descent. 

Huge appreciation post here to my cousin who took me out that night to meet some of his mountain biking friends, and his wife whose hospitality and culinary skills were graciously shared during my visit.

So that’s it I guess, I didn’t have insurance on my rental car, I fell over quite a few times while mountain biking and lost a few good fish.

I did hike into the Indian Peaks Wilderness, set a PR for ascent and descent, caught one nice 20” brown, fished 6 different bodies of water, visited Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and got a breather from the daily grind.

Unfortunately multiple wildfires were present during my visit and engulfed the canyon I rode through mere days after I left.

It wasn’t an easy fix but if you can swing it, I’d highly recommend taking that time off.

Minneapolis, 10-15-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

July 30th update

"And you wanted to be my latex salesman."

What can I say, it's been a minute.

Five months? Six months? 

It's not like a bunch of stuff could have happened in that time, right?

Ha ... anyway I am alive and well, getting through the pandemic, the civil unrest, the usual accoutrements of not owning a car, riding a bicycle into disrepair, keeping my head on straight and finding employment.

I was furloughed, like a lot of Americans, and re-hired a week before George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis; eventually the National Guard arrived and this year of unprecedented surprises rolled on as if it was all scripted.

In April I rode a hair over 1,000 miles - I broke another derailleur hanger on a cold and snowy afternoon ride on Easter Sunday, and spent a week getting my 2012 Felt F75x back into ridable condition, only to mistakenly replace a Campagnolo chain without using the master pin ... for those who are not familiar, that led to some problems and I would not recommend it.

After the temperature warmed up a bit and it stopped snowing, there was some good fishing; during Minnesota's lock-down, I tied over a gross of flies, ranging from big wooly buggers and deceivers to itty bitty bead head flash back pheasant tail nymphs. So far they have all been productive, except the deceiver patterns, which I improved slightly with a secondary size 12 hook tied to the bend of the size 6 hook carrying the body of the fly.

The hottest days of summer have come and gone, and hopefully there won't be a lot more 90 degree days with 70 percent relative humidity. On my bicycle commutes I see more and more tents in the city parks and green spaces of Minneapolis, and I try to be grateful for the living situation I have, such as it is. 

While getting tested for the Corona Virus today, (I have no symptoms but after working for the past six weeks I thought it might be prudent), I listened to the memorial service of John Lewis. Between all of the people talking about his origins and influence on people, I was constantly struck by the courage he had to continue his march to Montgomery.

"You have a moral obligation, a mission and a mandate to do what you can to help make our own country, to help make the world, a better place."

RIP John Lewis

Cycling through Minnetonka, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Martin Olav Sabo Bridge, Minneapolis, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney

Uptown Minneapolis Mural, 5-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Washington Avenue Pedestrian bridge, Minneapolis, 7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

On the Saint Croix, 7-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Minnesota River Bottoms, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Michael McKinney and a very large Tiger Musky, Minnehaha Creek 5-2020. Photo by anon.

Quarantine lock-down fly tying bench, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Sourdough loaves, 4-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

Smallmouths on the Mississippi, 5-2020. Photo by Michael McKinney.

More winter cycling, Version 2o2o

Back in 2008, when I had a job as an overnight baker, a guy I worked with used to watch me biking home at 6:00 AM, sometimes through the snow, and he'd say, "I have to see this shit!!"

I think about that sometimes. More than ten years later, I get the same response from people.

I can't say I've ridden every day of the year, or what number of days ridden during the winter qualifies as having earned enough credit to call myself "a year-round cyclist", but I don't think it matters. When I sold my car it wasn't to save the environment or to influence people into advocacy. I wasn't trying to address the infrastructure of city planning or earn a merit badge in any glorified scout group.

I simply couldn't afford a car.

So now, when people try to encourage me by telling me how I'm somehow ethically better than the truck driver who cut me off, or the distracted woman who veered into the bike path, or the bystander who gapes in slack-jawed bemusement at my conundrum because I don't need a car, because I make ends meet without relying on fossil fuels, because I somehow cheated the system out of a stressful car ride into a daily workout that benefits my mental health and the environment, I remind myself I live in a city populated with more cyclists, more boutique cycling studios, more nationally recognized cycling wholesale distributors and more Tour De France champions than any other city in America.

It's not a responsibility as much as a privilege, and dealing with the expectations of that is as much a learning process as learning how to change a flat tire at 8:50 in the morning when you have a scheduled 9:00 AM breakfast meeting two miles away.

Anyway, this is my February 2020 winter cycling update.

Minneapolis Skyline from the North Cedar Trail, photo by Michael McKinney

Selfie on the Martin Sabo bridge, Minneapolis Greenway, Photo by Michael McKinney

Bde Maka Ska chairs, Photo by Michael McKinney

Winter sunset, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney

North Cedar Trail, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney

Lyndale Avenue bike bridge, Minneapolis, Photo by Michael McKinney