Real Joe

I am beginning to learn that it is the sweet, simple things of life which are the real ones after all. - Laura Ingalls Wilder

I first blogged that quote back on Aug. 29, of 2001.

Last summer, right about this time, I blogged a few more simple pleasures that were apparent in my life, along with some quotes and photos:

June 7: The trouble with simple living is that, though it can be joyful, rich, and creative, it isn’t simple. - Doris Janzen Longacre

June 9: Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. - Robert Brault

June 10: Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires. - Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching

There’s something amazing about living a walkable town or neighborhood. On Saturday, my wife and I walked the 6 blocks from our house to downtown Northfield where we had a beer on The Contented Cow’s outdoor patio.

On the way home, we picked up a few groceries at the Econofoods grocery store and carried them home. We pretended we were a geezerly couple, too old and blind to drive, but spry and fortunate enough to live close to a grocery store so that we could bag the goods home.

Last night, my daughter and I grabbed some ice cream cones at the Hogan Brothers Acoustic Cafe and strolled along the Cannon River in downtown’s Bridge Square, noting all the landscaping and gardening changes that city workers and volunteers had made in the past couple of weeks.

When we got home, we played frisbee in the street in front of our house while watching the big storm that spawned flooding and tornadoes slide off to the north.

In yesterday’s NY Times: Checkmating Alzheimer’s. “Can regular games of bridge or chess or playing a musical instrument ward off the onset of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia? ”

I’d better send this to my mother and mother-in-law. Both complain about not wanting to learn to use a computer because it’s too hard. Of course, it’s also a good reason for me to learn a second language… or to learn play an instrument.

My daughter and I started walk-break running yesterday. I first read about it in a Wall St. Journal article a couple of years ago. It’s gotten popular via a former Olympian and marathoner named Jeff Galloway.

My daughter’s way out of shape, due to a series of Scoliosis-related back surgeries and then a knee dislocation. And I have never run, due to an old cartilage injury to my knee in college. Add to that my current knee woes (I’ll find out more tomorrow), we looked like a couple of gimps out on the track at Carleton College.

But no matter. It’s something athletic that she and I can do together, along with our regular Frisbee sessions.

In her Father’s Day card, she thanked me for, among other things, teaching her how to ice skate when she was little. I barely remember it, but that made it all the sweeter.

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Ben Andreasen on entering the highest plane

My son Graham’s friend, Ben Andreasen, wrote this a few weeks before he died last year. It was handed out at his memorial service.
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I just picked up these magazines. Comments coming, but if you’ve got some of your own, don’t wait. Contact me.

* The June issue of O, the Oprah Magazine has a big section titled Ah Men. Several pieces are online but not all.

* Last week’s issue of Newsweek, with the cover section titled, Men’s Minds, Men’s Bodies.

* The Spring/Summer issue of Men’s Health Best Life, a new magazine for middle-aged guys from Rodale’s Men’s Health.

In last week’s StarTribune: ‘Relationship Took Kit’ offers blueprint for a better marriage.

Ellen Sue Stern bills herself as an “Author, Speaker, Relationship Expert, and Writing Coach.”

“Included in the kit are a Relationship Blueprint, Barter Cards, Thank-You Notes, Sand Timer, and a plethora of sexy games and tools prescribed for the “common colds” of even the best relationships.”

Plethora of sexy games? Okay, I’m interested.

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. - Albert Schweitzer

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