Friday, April 16th, 2004

​Words for Today
"There's nineteen men livin' in my neighborhood eighteen of them are fools and the one ain't no doggone good."

One more twist on the men who aren't their women right here in the middle passage comes from that great song-belter, Bessie Smith, who left us far too young just months past her forty-third birthday in 1937. She was born on the day taxes are due - on April 15, although we weren't doing income taxes back. I do believe that I have mentioned Leslie and my taxes as well those of our independent children. I'm the weest bit smug about the fact that I accomplished this a month ago - all in the same breath confess 'twas my spouse' s gentle reminders that motivated me enough to get this done months ago. The modest refund's in the bank. One less nuisance - and the source of a bit of chagrin, I suppose, about the inequity or who pays for America and who benefits most - is getting that information filed - I've been doing it electronically a good long while. The last time I hired a professional to them, he made a mistake and I would up paying penalty and interest. But I must hasten to add that my spouse, not I, really sees to it that I do not - and endures. No getting taxes was not my major worry yesterday or the day before, one of a skirmish with insidious invader from that feeling quite terrific day of Monday, 12th, that brought such optimism and budding spring. After perhaps a too-long day, I tried to sleep through with cramps and pains - 'twas no go. I was having problems hieing myself beyond the computer and my lap - we Leslie arranged for review of the condition by my physicians at Midwestern Medical Center - they have urged (but never dictated) that I come back sooner instead of later, hence we'll be on the road again either sometime late this Friday or early Saturday morn. I've had dressings on the tubes changed by a local nurse here - and I have a great new little blue pill that help stop those sharp abdominal pains - the whole world can share in the memory of such sublime pain with no small amount for moaning and groaning. So, we're off to see the Wizard to check out plumbing - and the rest. I'm gonna make sure they tell me as much as they can about all of this.

Then perhaps we can make a few plans for the future. I nor exaggerate in the weest - this Friday is one of glorious beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuty and a feeling of sheer joy and jubilation. My dear and faithful kola - you are ever-gentle on my mind this one and the less glorious one of Wednesday - just want you to know how your letting me know you're out there in your unselfish outreach and that you are doing for others what you can. Curious observances of the "official" variety today - wonder who successfully pushed through National Eggs Benedict Day.

Check out some great Eggs Benedict recipes.

I'm not quite ready to try to down Eggs Benedict - quite yet. But I'm gonnna there. This is also the day designated as National Stress Awareness Day - I know what I'm gonna do to thwart this - mean rosy-fingered dawn in all her glory, get some projects done, and pack very carefully. My hope is that your day finds love and laughter, music and baskin' in the warmth of spring.

Ev Albers

(Note: Final blog entry. Thank you for reading.)

Tuesday, April 13th, 2004

Words for Today
"I'd love to see Christ come back to crush the spirit of hate and make men put down their guns. I'd also like just one more hit single."

​The words belong to Tiny Tim, that curious American entertainer of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" (in falsetto) fame. Born on April 12, 2004, he made it more than seven months past his sixty-fourth birthday before completing his passage in the middle world in late November 1996. You have to say this much for little Timmy – he was honest and unashamed to put his hope for world peace and personal success in the same short two sentences. Born with moniker Herbert Kaury, Tiny Tim accompanied himself on a ukulele made his big break-through on the "Rowan and Martin Laugh-In" – he became a regular. Tiny Tim loudly proclaimed his virginity and purity, and he caused something of a sensation when he married Victoria May Budinger live on the "Johnny Carson" television show during among the most turbulent of times in the United States and the world as the decades changed from the 1960s to the 1970s. She was his Miss Vicky (she was seventeen when he announced their engagement – thirty years older than she), and the world followed the couple through the birth of their daughter, Tulip, to divorce court eight years later. Born of a Lebanese father and a Jewish mother, Tiny Tim enjoyed great fame for a few years before disappearing from celebrity in the early 1970s. He played Las Vegas – and when things didn't go well there, he played a circus for eight months. He went down to live in Australia for a while before coming back to live in Des Moines, Iowa, and eventually in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he died – with his third wife, "Miss Sue."

Now, dear kola, I'll bet that there's not many North Dakotans woke up in their gloriously beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful place yesterday morning humming "Tiptoe Through the Tulips." There's always something. The Monday after Easter was indeed a grand day here at Arthur Drive and at my office on the eastern edge of Bismarck. 'Twas a very busy day that included a planning meeting for a grand Chautauqua week at the end of the summer at Ft. Abraham Lincoln State Park on west side of the Missouri, a few miles south of Mandan (August 6-10, 2004); lots of catch-up work on publicity for the many fine programs the North Dakota Humanities Council has brought citizens in the state for more than thirty years and various maintenance of the Council's computer system – so I didn't get a chance to write about yesterday's glories. When that happens, I feel that I've somehow not quite accomplished what I must on any given day to continue passage here in the middle world as long as possible – touching base with all of my friends and writing keeps me from dwelling on the insidious invader and Big C's progress – or, what I hope will continue – lack of major progression. 'The late hours of Easter Sunday and the first six of yesterday, the Monday following, were weirder than Tiny Tim – I was awake hourly dealing with reflux from my attempts to keep liquid protein down – and digestible. Eventually – late in the afternoon, I found some relief from the most mundane of maladies – with the help of a weest bit of Maalox. So as grand Monday, the 12th, moves to the first minutes of Tuesday, the 13th, I'm feeling ready to deal with more exciting challenges – especially intellectual ones in my professional work and in my many preoccupations. 'Tis one day at time – and as the days of my life progress, I find myself in ever-greater amazement at our wonderful ability to selectively forget the worst of feeling in the less than the finest of fettle. I do know this for certain, without qualification – although it's against all reason and logic. Critical to my survival heretofore has been the love and friendship that has come my way – and every day, my very soul learns a bit more about the nature of grace, that amazing grace that gives humans this incredible power to help out each other and look out for each other – despite the fact that those, as I, getting receiving such gifts are totally unworthy.

My beloved Minnesota Twins lost late yesterday afternoon to Detroit – and, so far, have lost one more game than they've won this year. Come on boys, 'tis time to focus, FOCUS, FOCUS Over in Minneapolis Twin City, St. Paul, my good friend Jim Smith seems to be doing well after receiving a new heart valve and undergoing bypass surgery on April 1 – he and spouse Cheryl Dickson are among those who so faithfully send the best of healing vibes my way – I'm so happy that Jim will be around for all those who so admire him and his work as a public historian. Cheryl retired from her job as the executive director of the Minnesota Humanities Council a few years past – at a rather tender age. I wish you the very best, this fine day, Jim and Cheryl: may there be years of days of laughter, music, and an awakening of folks to their true salvation – helping out each other as you two have done so well for so many decades. During the most trying of times, many of you, my special kola, have written me notes of encouragement that stir my soul – special kudos today to friends Jerry and Paula Tweton, Jane Ahlin, Jerry and Jean Waldera, Carrol Peterson, Ginny Tisdale, Deb Wallwork, Susan Gordon, Jim Lund, Robyn Neal, Therese Yeaton, Robert and Marilyn Cunningham, Brian Palecek and Arnie Lahren, Alice Thompson, Jeanne Jones Manzer, Ray Wheeler – and so many more (I'll never get them all written down, not even those from a mere week – forgive me if I've neglected any of you, dear kola). Ah, amazing grace you send, dear kola, amazing grace. How all of you find the right words for the most challenging of times 'tis a wonderfully empowering and healing gift you send – in fact, you make me weep for sheer joy – as did those emails and phone calls from my children, my family, and the siblings and children of my lovin' spouses' sisters and brothers.

There's simply no adequate homage I can pay to you friends – and all my dear family. Sunday last, for example, my nephew Jay Bleth cleaned the gutters around the roof on a brisk and crisp Easter (even a few snow flurries). We're ready for those April showers – Jay did work that I should have done more than two years past. Sister-in-law Janet, a nurse, redid dressings for me – how I enjoyed her and her three children's visit. Later, good friends Warren and Rose Marie Henke dropped over a little chatter and talk.

This day, April 13, 2004, marks the one-hundredth-sixty-first anniversary of one this nation's greatest wordsmiths, the third president, Thomas Jefferson. His spirit will never die. Of course, there's a huge distance between what Jefferson said so well about so many of the big questions that haven't gone away since the dawn of human consciousness – and the first development of a social conscience among those traveling in the middle world. I think that the 1791 portrait of Jefferson in his forties by Charles Wilson Peale is a glimpse of the troubled, but ever-optimistic soul of Jefferson. He continued to believe in the ability of humans to change for the better without the necessity of resorting to some sort of benign, benevolent government that attempts to deal with personal morality – such as the ilk of the Christian Right in America today and its hypocritical, smug "if you don't do as we say, this country is going to hell, for sure." I've been thinking about a line of Jefferson t-shirts – with such as this from an 1816 letter to Charles Yancey: "Every nation is liable to be under whatever bubble, design, or delusion may puff up in moments when off their guard." We haven't been doing very well, in spite of news coverage and scrutiny the ways of our government and society and its leaders that would completely overwhelm Thomas Jefferson, methinks. Jefferson (also in 1816) wrote to a French friend, "The human character, we believe, requires in general constant and immediate control to prevent its being biased from right by the seductions of self-love." The greatest of human temptations well could be the omnipresent feeling that somehow we're right and the rest of the world is wrong, wrong, wrong – what Jefferson terms the "seductions of self-love." The problem is difficult to address – for we don't see ourselves as selfish or dominated by our needs and ideas. Up until his last year of passage here, Jefferson continued to write about the problem, as he did in a letter to Edward Livingston in 1825 (Jefferson died on the Fourth of July, 1826): "A regard for reputation and the judgment of the world may sometimes be felt where conscience is dormant." Driven by our need for recognition of what we come to think is deserved fame and a special place in the world, we substitute considered ethical judgment that is based upon our reflection and Socratic self-examination – put in its place what the world thinks about us. Beyond this, of course, is even greater self-centeredness – "The world may not agree – but I'm right – to hell with the rest of the world: here's to me."

Yes, indeed, there is enormous distance between what Jefferson said so well and his own conduct – he was most human. From our perspective, a slave-owner offering what Jefferson did in an 1815 letter to A.L.C. Destutt de Tracy this hard-hitting short sentence bespeaks for many hypocrisy of the worst possible ilk: "I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." Despite his valiant efforts, Jefferson had to recognize that no human ever traveled here who was completely rational -- yet he remained convinced that such was something that could be realized through education. Yet his words remain – here's a few candidates from Jefferson's observations for what I would happily wear on a T-shirt and discuss with those who read my shirt:
Bodily decay is gloomy in prospect, but of all human contemplations the most abhorrent is body without mind.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
Tiny Tim's signature song came from the late 1920s – don't know why I should be humming these words – hardly up to that "particular felicity of expression" that John Adams so much respected in Thomas Jefferson's prose. But here 'tis: "Tiptoe Through the Tulips"

1. Tiptoe through the window, by the window that is where I'll be,
come tiptoe through the tulips with me! Oh!

2. Tiptoe on the garden, by the garden of a willow tree,
and tiptoe through the tulips with me!

Knee deep in flowers we’ll stray, we'll keep the showers away.

3. And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me,
and tiptoe through the tulips with me?

Knee deep in flowers we’ll stray, we'll keep the showers away.

4. And if I kiss you in the garden, in the moonlight, will you pardon me,
and tiptoe through the tulips with me?

This is the day, back in 1943 during the worst of World War II, on the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, that that most-magnificent of monuments in our nation's capital city was dedicated by Franklin Delano Roosevelt – 'tis the Jefferson Memorial. I've taken many of my dear North Dakota Humanities Council members to the monument at night after dinner – I was just remembering with great affection the night the group including State Senator Tom Trenbeath from up at Cavalier – that's been a while. 'Twas the last time I had a cigar, walking with Tom down on along the Potomac Riverbank that night. Don't know about you – but I'm looking forward to another spring, damned-near-summer day here in beauuuuuuuuutiful Dakota – a great day to greet the sunrise and stick around for a glorious sunset. Do take good care of yourselves, my kola – may you find joy and delight in watching nature, learning something new and different at least a couple of times and day – and then be about the business of taking care of each other, the reason we're all here in the middle world. We may muddle considerably from time to time – but, like the eternal optimist, Jefferson, we continue to strive for the kind of social equality and justice necessary to truly being alive. Here's a last word from Jefferson: "There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me." Gonna be a good deal of grass shooting up today, methinks – ah, what a great day to be alive!

Ev Albers

Sunday, April 11th, 2004

Words for Today
"When we lose the right to be different, we lose the right to be free."
The words are those from Charles Evans Hughes, the U.S. supreme court justice chief justice who successfully fought F.D. Roosevelt's plan to pack the court. He was also governor of New York, and a secretary of state (Harding and Coolidge). His entire life was devoted to finding alternatives to violence and a road to peace during his more than eighty-two years of passage here in the middle world. At age six, Hughes became so bored with his public education that he submitted a plan for home schooling to his parents, which they accepted. We would do well to remember Hughes observation on this beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Easter morn here in glorious Dakota - simply one of the best days to be alive I've seen in a good long while. Rosy-fingered dawn will come soon, the sun will shine, and 'twill be a day good fellowship, reflection, laughter, and music. 'Tis the holiest of days for Christians - we would do well to remember that those who believe that Jesus of Nazareth emerged from his tomb on this day, resurrected, are in a minority around the middle world - and that his story is but one way of looking at the prospect of eternity. I do indeed respect the deep faith of those reaffirming hope and renewal among the Christian community around the world. I loved sunrise services here at a local Lutheran Church - and singing in the choir - we always did the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's Messiah and at least two or three other songs of rejoicing for three services. But I never thought for a moment that we Lutherans had a corner on the one way to heaven. I will always recall, of course, the greeting and response for this day: "Christ is arisen" to which the greeted responds, "Arisen, indeed."

My good friend, Jane Ahlin, from over in Fargo sent along a great poem for this fine spring day from one of my current passionate preoccupations, the prose and poetry of Kentuckian Wendell Berry - 'may it be my greeting to you this fine day as well - "A Purification"

At the start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after parise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.

Today it is, at long last for my grandnephew, Tyler, at long last his fourth birthday - he's been marking the days of on the calendar for a good long while. Tyler, son of my lovin' spouse Leslie's niece Chrissy - daughter of my ever-lovely sister-in-law Delores Kubik Huss, is a miracle. Born prematurely, weighing but two pounds, four ounces, Tyler is a bright, wise-far-beyond-his years little guy who has completely won the full attention and adoration of Grandpa Wayne and Grandma Delores, who take care of him whilst their daughter works - and he's not in preschool. Allergic to most food as a babe, unable to digest much, he now skis on his own, spends countless hours (with Grandma Delores retrieving and setting it up) hitting a ball off a T (after he carefully spits before he swings each time), loves books, and loves to give advice to any and all on most any subject. Happy birthday, Tyler, happy, happy birthday. Keep a close eye on your mom and dad, Tim, grandpa and grandma, and Aunt Jenny - make 'em tow the line. Enjoy ruling that realm with your charm and intelligence, humor, and winsome ways as long as you possibly can. You deserve it, you spirited fellow who refused to allow physical problems to ever get you down. You inspire us all. Oh me or my, how time passes quickly - how well I remember visiting your home in north Denver when your mom was your age - and enjoying her lilting laughter and mischievous ways when she and her younger sister came to Dakota and Grandpa and Grandma Kubik's home in Dickinson at the edge of the glorious badlands - that's were Grandma Delores met your beloved Grandpa Wayne, who hails from Pennsylvania - he was working for Shell Oil during the great boom. I look forward to seeing you sometime soon, me laddie.

This glorious day on Arthur Drive - and yesterday, a day of feeling good - has been graced with the presence of Leslie's youngest sister, Janet - a nurse who changed the dressings around those tubes on my chest bypassing my bile ducts - she's one of my favorite people here in the middle world - maker of the those great blankies that have comforted me for a year or so. Here's a salute to you, Janet, dear heart. Later today, her children are likely to come visit - and just maybe, if I feel as good as I did yesterday and hope to repeat today - we'll all go along with lovin' spouse Leslie to see the movie The Alamo -- I could become accustomed to this life of Riley, especially on these days I feel so fine. Happy Easter, my kola - please do take care of yourselves - be a different as you wish - and look out for each other, especially those different from you.

Ev Albers

Saturday, April 10th, 2004

Words for Today
"Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being."
The words come from Gahlil Gibran, who completed his passage here in the middle world on this day in 1931. Born in 1883, he left far too early, but not before he wrote on of the most treasured books in the world, The Prophet, a collection of humble wisdom that was something of scripture to us struggling for why we're here and what we're supposed to be up while were here back in the 1960s. Methinks it should be an eighth-grade graduate present to every child in the world. Born in Lebanon to Christian parents, he came with them to Boston in 1895, returned to study at Beirut in 1898, and eventually settled in New York City in 1912. A painter, poet, essayist, and writer of fiction, Gibran was deeply religious yet always respectful of other opinions and ideas, and always humble. He would be deeply troubled by both the arrogance of the United States in its actions over the last year in Iraq and about the presumptive, zealous nature of the far too much of Christianity in America today. Just the other day, for example, an evangelical church put a little twist on the passion of Christ – they whupped up on the Easter Bunny and broke eggs – mama don't 'llow no Easter egg rolling round here. Children were taught in no uncertain terms that there is not Easter bunny -- he's a creation of the Devil – and that it's a mighty sin for parents to observe the Resurrection of Christ with such satanic rights. Well!

Wonder what they would have thought of my six-toed-on-one-foot Uncle Roy and his clan driving through the mud (sometimes snow) into our yard with his station wagon with those magnificent Easter baskets for all of us – along with his five. Roy, my father's youngest brother, lived way down in Wahpeton – and he made it a point to come our way every Easter he possibly could with lovin' spouse Gladys, Don, Lynn, David, Paul, and Faith. Or the great fun we had decorating and dyeing eggs. 'Tis a beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day this one in Dakota – yes, there may be a few flurries, and the temperature will soar to a sizzlin' 21 degrees – but there'll be plenty of sunshine heading our way tomorrow, with a high of at least 33 – and warming once more. One day soon, the trees will just suddenly blossom – we're not much for long, lingering springs here -- soon will simply be summer.

The last couple of weeks of my battle with the insidious invader have brought the same kind of rapid change and disconcerting stuff that could try one's spirit – a week ago, I was at my son Albert and his dear wife Bobbi's abode in Madison – after finally being released from a week that left me bagged – an abdominal tube removed after draining ten or twelve pounds of fluid, full of antibiotics, and tubes running through the liver and – if all is going well – directly to the duodenum, thus bypassing my useless bile stuffed up, quad-stented bile ducts – accomplished with considerable discomfort in a procedure called percutaneous transhepatic cholangiography (PTC for short). Sedated, but totally conscious, I was told that it would be quite painful. The good doctor, a man who punctuated his efforts to get the guiding wires to where they were supposed to go with such mutterings as "Come on, you son-of-a-bitch, come on." That was Thursday, April 1 – April Fool's Day. The next morning, I was on the table for a check to see if the tubes had reached their destination. Nope. So more sedation – and the master tube pusher of St. Luke's in Milwaukee got them there. More IV antibiotics. Back to Zion and the Midwestern Regional Medical Center, removal of abdominal tube (no fun, because it was corkscrewed in), and an overnight at the place where Morty and Ollie, the cats that own my son and his wife, before the flying trip home with my lovin' spouse at the wheel of the old Subaru. I've discovered that I'm not as tough as I thought, so yesterday after receiving via Fed Ex prescriptions for pain killers, I started taking them. They work! I had a long peaceful night of rest sans pain last night after managing no more than doing maintenance on the servers that connect the office as well as this site to the Internet – they need more. I did squeeze in an inadequate tribute to my darlin' daughter (see entry for 4/09/04 if you missed it) on her birthday – and then came home nothing but R & R until an early-morning descent from bed to recliner about 5:00 A.M. Ah, but 'tis indeed a glorious day to be alive – and free from the cramps and pain – now all I have to do is to find a way to keep some food down and digested, for I'm fading fast. But I'm here – thinking of all of you, dear kola, who have sent notes of concern about this journal coming up with error messages and missing days – if I don't watch out, I'll become another Meriwether Lewis simply not writing – but out by himself wandering the woods with his faithful friend, Seaman the great Newfoundland – perhaps the only one who loved the famed explorer unconditionally, for Captain Lewis was not an easy man to like or love. Amazing what a little pain killer can do! It does, course, produce minor hallucinations – even when one is awake – which is not all that unpleasant – and tends to make one the weest bit drowsy – but for the first time in about a week, I'm feeling that, perhaps, there's more than a handful of sunrises and sunsets ahead, for there's work to be done before I take what my father-in-law Alfons Kubik referred to as a "one-way train trip to Missoula, Montana" – a phrase he heard a priest use at a funeral quite a few years back. It always cracked up Alfons to repeat this curious euphemism for the completion of one's journey in the middle world. This one I didn't hallucinate – nor the beating up of the poor old Easter bunny. At least I don't think that I did.

There's much to remember with joy and the weest indication that we humans are capable of doing what Gibran said was our reason for being here in "Today's Words." For example, forty-four years ago on this day, the Senate passed the landmark Civil Rights bill that would begin a movement in earnest to recognize the dignity and humanity of people of color – a long time acomin'. 'Twas the beginning of the sit-in movements and nonviolent protests. 'Tis the spring I graduated from high school – thinking I knew everything and not knowing much of anything. Heady times – a presidential election ahead, the last year of service for Dwight David Eisenhower -- Ike, whom we very much liked out in Hannover Township in Oliver County, the Center of the Universe – just a few miles from the center of civilization back in 1804-1805 when the Corps of Discovery wintered with the village-dwelling farmers of the great Mandan and Hidatsa nations. If the Ike we so much liked out there in Hannover Township were alive today, he would probably be rolling over in his grave – for he would not particularly like our use of violence as first response to those who seek to bring us low. 'Twas Ike who said, "I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it." He also said, "I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity." And, an observation first strongly suggested by George Washington long before the enormous profits the privileged reap from war: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." The appropriateness of Ike's concern are obvious in 2004 – an election year, a year past of what so many Americans thought was the swift and triumphal war with Iraq. We're still there – and there's no end in sight. The good news is that it has become increasingly more difficult to revise the past – the fourth estate, the press, has become omnipresent, make it mightily to do what Ike said was that which we should avoid at all costs: "Don't join the book burners. Do not think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed."

I cannot express my gratitude for your concern and love, dear kola – if anything will bring more sunrises like the magnificent one this morning in glorious Dakota, 'twill be because of the amazing grace extended by you and my family – I thank you, my kola. Lest we forget, we in this society of getting and spending are not doing very well at putting people before power – one more observation from Ike – "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." We're stealing from those we are here in the middle world to look out for. Ah, my dear kola – there's work to be done – together – as kola, that special kind of friend. We leave the last word today to Gibran – "In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed."

Let there be laughter, music and great pleasure in your day as you take care of yourselves to be about our work.

Ev Albers

Friday, April 9th, 2004

"One doesn't understand the nature of unconditional love until a man has a daughter"
The words are mine, I think. Today, April 9, 2004, is the twenty-fourth birthday of my darlin' daughter, Gretchen, who pursues a degree in history and works at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and London Press. In spite of my many failings, shortcomings, and the ways in which I have failed my children - they love me, without condition. I'm flooded with memories of her remarkable childhood, her creativity, her work ethic, her love. She was very young when she started her own newspaper, The Teddy Bear Scroll, for distribution in the neighborhood and among friends. It was a true delight.

Always a smile, Gretchen Alene ('twas I who spelled her middle name wrong for the birth certificate - it was to have been Alena) and her brother made up games and were the best of friends - Albert Otto is three years her senior. We spent many a wonderful afternoon and early evening in the park next door to our condo.

What a reader this young woman was! Now she reads - not skims -- four or five books a week and can write a better paper than I ever could in my wildest dreams. A dual English-History major at the University of Minnesota-Morris, Gretchen also spent semester in Galway at the National University. She's completing the first year of her rigorous program at Lincoln. The sweetest smile of any human who has ever passed through this middle world has not changed - from her tender, precious preschool years on to her high school and college graduation. Ah, just thinking of her brings such joy to my heart that it leaves me breathless. She deserves nothing but less than a man who will reciprocate her incredible loyalty, good nature, and capacity for love. I talk a pretty good game about living for others and looking out for each other - Gretchen does it every day of her life.

Today, on her twenty-fourth birthday, I wish Gretchen all the happiness, health, and cheer she deserves. Daddio has but one word of advice for her dear daughter - have more fun. You are precious, love, and as ever close to me as the wonderful hand-printed sign above my bed - "I love my Daddio." Darlin, I love you. Kola, my words cannot express how it feels to be the recipient of such amazing grace, the unconditional love of daughter. I do hope you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other - the way my darlin' Gretchen does.

Ev Albers

Wednesday, April 7th, 2004

Words for Today
"Whether we be young or old,
Our destiny, our being's heart and home,
Is with infinitude, and only there;
With hope it is, hope that can never die,
Effort and expectation, and desire,
And something evermore about to be."

​The words are those of the long-lived English poet William Wordsworth, born on this day in 1770, three decades before the turn of the twentieth century, he lived on for five more in the 1800s, dying just a couple of weeks past his eightieth birthday. 'Twas Wordsworth, as I wrote last year in this journal a year ago(go to 04/07/03), who observed the way of the world and its materialistic bent ("The World is too much with us; late and soon,/ Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:/ Little we see in Nature that is ours;"), and said, "We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" I have far too much - and been far too preoccupied with matters, that, all things considered, were best done after the more important part of passage here in the middle world is taken care of - looking out for each other with greater respect.

No matter how dark my mood on the most beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful of Dakota days, as 'twas yesterday, my kola, here in this glorious place, there's always hope that tomorrow will be brighter for the spirit regardless of the cloud cover or temperature outside. 'Twas a good day, this one past - for my good friend Jerry Tweton and his lovely wife Paula came down and we enjoyed the shipment of our new book, The Townspeople, which completes the series of six books in the The Way It Was: The North Dakota Frontier Experience. We had a little repast at Kroll's Kitchen, the local restaurant that features the best of German-Russian cuisine at diner or less prices - even had the weest bit of sour-cream raisin pie. Then was off to meet with a nurse who does dressings and maintenance on biliary prothesis - the big bags hanging from my abdomen are gone to be replaced with pocket-sized little ones just in case. And the day was windlessly warm and wonderful - so why the hints of a darker mood that kept me abed and the weest bit glum? I suppose, in part, it's new reminders of my morality - and the shock of the five days of hell bypassing my now-useless bile ducts - and with that, all that I've failed to do to with the long stretch of time I had this past year - there are so many things I want to finish here in the middle world - so much "effort, expectation, and desire" ala Wordsworth I want to fulfill.

For a good while, I was deeply despondent last night about the shoddy way I treat those who have given me love so unconditionally, especially my lovin' spouse, Leslie, on whom all too often I take out my frustrations and fears by raising my voice. Intellectually, one can understand how much more difficult this is for her than it is for me - she's an incredibly remarkable woman - few would do for a spouse what she continues to do for me. The answer, of course, is to recognize the amazing grace, accept it, and vow to be more understanding. I do.

Another contributor to my mood after all went so well yesterday, methinks, was the overwhelming recognition that my independence has inexorably, relentlessly, been curtailed. At least for right now, I can't jump into a car and go where I want - be it but a half-block away. I don't think that I've ever felt in less control of my own destiny - there's nothing I could possibly do to open my bile ducts, there is little I can do to make myself more comfortable - but what I can do is to use my mind and spirit to make the most of every sunrise and sunset and all those hours in between - from the long nights to the delightful days like yesterday's - spring will soon be here - 'tis the season of renewal and new hope. I firmly believe that my correspondence with you, dear kola, and your outreach to me, is worth five courses of depression medicine - which I'm sleepy enough without, right now. So, in the spirit of my mascot, the magnificent six-inch American bison, Charger, I say "Charge! Say nay to time-wasting self-pity and paltry matters, conquer that strange contrary human penchant for borrowing enough trouble from tomorrow to make this one miserable. Find as much as you possibly can to rejoice and be glad in at any given moment."

Yo, ho, kola, the Minnesota Twins are 2 and 0 - a perfect season, so far. Of course, it's Cleveland - but still, a great start. There's one thing to celebrate. Much more importantly, I just heard from both of my loving children and had a delightful talk on the phone - Albert and Gretchen. Now there's something to celebrate, indeed!

Today is also the birthday of Billie Holiday - some would argue the greatest of American female vocalists. Born on this day in 1915, she lived hard and died far too young nine months before her fiftieth birthday in July 1959. In between, however, she sang like no other - I'm thinking today of her rendition of "You Showed Me the Way" and dedicate it to my long-suffering lovin' spouse:

You showed me the way
When I was someone in distress
A heart in search of happiness
You showed me the way

My sky was so gray
I never knew I'd feel a thrill
I couldn't dream a dream until
You showed me the way
The moment you found me
The shadows around me
Just disappeared from view
The world became rosy
Each corner so cozy
Darling, all because of you
You showed me the way

And if I've learned that love can be a paradise
For you and me
Here's all I can say
You showed me the way

You did, indeed, Leslie, you did indeed. Trust you are enjoying this very moment, kola - and that your spirit soars in spite of all that ails our social compact, especially the fact that we're not taking very good care of each other.

Ev Albers

Monday, April 5th, 2004

"Words for Today"
There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?
The word today from the English author George Barrow born in 1803. A great rambler and traveler, he was interested in all people, especially wanderers.

They are for my Big Brother Jim Albers – Donald James Albers – but he's always been Big Brother Jim to me. Jim turned sixty-eight on Saturday last, April 3, 2004. He acts and looks like a fifty-something – fishing almost daily, summer and winter, hunting, taking care of his granddaughters – enjoying every moment to the limit – including his naps.

Tell you this, kola, my Bib Brother Jim is one hell of a guy. He called me everyday last week as I was going through the weest bit of despair and no small discomfort with my little fight with the insidious invader, but Big Brother Jim helped pull me through along with those brothers who have adopted me – brothers Dave and Don of my ever-lovin', long-suffering spouse Leslie and her sister's husband Wayne. Without my spouse, of course, I would not have made it more than a month or so. Without Leslie, I would not be here to today actually sitting in my office taking a bit of time off from actually getting some work done. Without my brothers – especially my Big Brother Jim, and Cousin Norm, whom I love as a brother as well, life would not be very much fun.

Six years my elder, Jim always know all the ways of the world long before I did. 'Twas he who taught me so many things a little brother takes for granted. 'Twas he who passed on to me the '48 Ford maroon-colored flat-head eight after he had one hell of a time with the car – he was still running three years later when I passed it on to a young friend for some $25.00. Jim was soldier – I was a draft-dodger – howbeit under quite different circumstances, for he went to Korea to do much what troops are doing in Iraq today – with a bit less danger. I was supposed to go to Vietnam, and I said, "Hell, no, I won't go!" Big Brother was off working in California and I was in college and then graduate school at Colorado State in Fort Collins. Big Brother Jim never faulted me for my draft-dodgin' ways – in fact, he approved. In the early sixties, before I really got started on a college career that took forever, he took me out to Barstow, California to live with me and his wife Lucille, and their infant son Jimmy John, a.ka. Little Jim. I had the time of my life. Jim worked at a big marine depot – and we would go fishing on the weekends. 'Twas there that I worked one of the hardest jobs of my life, but that's another story for another time. When I go on the bus to go home a month or so later, he slipped me some money for the trip back – which took one hell of a lot longer than the one to Barstow, for on the way there, we drove nonstop except for taking on fuel and changing drivers. Big Jim is generous to a fault, sentimental as can be, and everything anyone could possible want a big brother to be. He didn't say much about his experience in South Korea during the occupation of the 1950s – beyond the fact that he had a great job. He was the chauffeur for a Colonel, I think, who was into army football – so his major duties involved going to football games -–or at least taking the Colonel there and doing what he willed otherwise. No one has a more infectious laugh than my brother – God, but how he enjoys life! To tell you the truth – and I worked for a summer where he spend decades as a loyal employee of Basin Electric Cooperative in Stanton – I have never met a man or woman who did not like Big Jim Albers. That's saying some.

Among the great times we had were those we spent fishing at the Missouri, Knife – and even tiny Square Butte Creek, the great waterway of Oliver County that does go through the heart of Hannover Township in the Center of the Universe. Most memorable were a couple of times at Catfish Bay just west of Pick City, where Big Jim and Lucille have a wonderful home near the water. Lake Sakakawea (we North Dakotans stubbornly refuse to spell it any other way) is down – in fact, Catfish Bay is gone now – but I'll never forget using the Big Brother's deep-sea fishing outfit baited with a whale of a minnow one day. We were playing pinocle on the bank – Cousin Norm was there along with Jim and our friend, Larry Borneman – along with spouses and children. All of a sudden the entire deep-sea fishing outfit disappeared. I jumped to my feet, took off shoes, and waded into the shallow water. This huge (well, at least eight pounds in weight) had wrapped itself around a sunken tree. Back in those days, I was strong like horse, so I grabbed the tree and emerged with the fish dangling from a limb and the deep-sea outfit as well. Another experience I'll never forget is fishing in my brother's boat on the tailrace of Garrison Dam – but that stories only for the three of us to tell to each other.

I introduced my Big Brother to all my hunting pals – none of whom would get out of the car if I were carrying a gun, because I simply was the most absent-minded of fellows. One friend was Ken Peterson, who rented a room from me when I was teaching at Dickinson State. Ken lived hard and died far too young of mouth cancer. He hailed from up at Flaxton on the Canadian border. On this occasion, they actually allowed me to carry a shotgun. We were crouched on a hillside, and a huge flock of snow geese flew high overhead – my brother and I shot in total vain, but eagle-eyed Ken Peterson brought down three or four from a dizzying height. I think that was the last time I shouldered a shotgun – or shot a gun of any kind.

Big Jim has found a fishing and hunting companion in the teen-aged granddaughter, Victoria – and, of course, with his son Little Jim who as followed his ways from infancy. A beauty, Victoria reminds me of the Greek goddess Diana.

Well, my dear kola, 'tis truly a gloriously beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful day in Dakota – in the sixties, shirt-sleeve weather. You can be sure that Big Brother Jim is out fishing. I wish I were with you – but I'm there in spirit. One of the few advantages of sharp reminders of mortality is being able to say "Thank you," and "I love you," to people who have made all the difference in one's passage here in the middle world – no one in quite the same way as you, my dear Big Brother Jim. Happy sixty-eight years and two-day birthday of one of the best days in the history of humankind, the day you were born. And bless the day you came along, dear kola of mine, one and all. Hope you are taking care of yourselves and looking out for each other.

Ev Albers

Sunday, April 4th, 2004

Words for Today
"In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways."

So observed Edith Wharton, the rich American born in 1862 who went to Europe with her family to be educated by governesses. Married to Boston banker a dozen years her senior who went insane, she had an affair with a journalist named Merton for a few years – he became the love of her life. Best known for such novels as Ethan Frome, the Wharton was in France during World War II from which she wrote newspaper articles and did such charity work as bring 600 Belgian children out before the Germans advanced. She was writing right up until her death in 1987 and left her publisher four novels to be published posthumously. Whether or not Mrs. Wharton (one wouldn't call her Edith to her face, me thinks) believed what she said in "Today's Words," I think that she was on to a glimmer of truth. Of course, it only goes the so far – being deeply involved in the business of this middle world and the needs of our neighbors, the need we ourselves have for leaning more before we are prepared to meet whatever may be coming, cannot not forestall forever an end to our passage here. 'Tis Sunday, April 4, 2003 – five long days four days into the longest journey of my battle with the insidious invader, fraught with near pratfalls and snafus that 'twill take just a bit to recall with much laughter. 'Tis an hour late this early Sunday morning – gotta save that daylight, you know. Last night,Oklahoma State went down in a last-second basket to Georgia Tech – twas back in 1988 that another Oklahoma team was defeated in the championship game for Kansas. Monday night, the end of "March Madness," comes with NAAC Final between George Tech and the University of Connecticut. Oklahoma State went down on something of bizarre day in the history of our troubled social compact: yesterday, a jury acquitted a woman was acquitted of murdering her young sons by beating with a rock – insanity. She says she did it because God told her to. More than a year after his take-off on U.S. Ambassador's famous speech during the Cuban Missile Crisis when he showed photographs of the missiles and stood and said he would wait "Until Hell Freezes Over" from an answer from the Soviet Ambassador – yesterday President Bush' Secretary of State took a fall-guy part in revising history and admitted that his show-and-tell bit before the United Nations was probably based on bad intelligence – his little models of weapons of mass destruction and how they worked were not probably true. California Catholic priests marched in protests against gay marriages, and Pope John Paul's pronouncement that vegetative, brain-dead patients must never be denied food and water inject has turned upsideside the whole question of the right to die once more. 'Tis really time, kola, for the fervently religious believers who believe so deeply in an insure to stop short of making such the way of life for the rest of the society we does not necessary subscribe. 'Tis time for us to arise enmass and say, "We're sick as hell of this and we're not gonna take it any more."

For the last five days, I've been wondering how much of the effort I've been making to stay alive of late is worth it – is the pain worth the gain? My loving' spouse and I arrived at the Midwestern Regional Medical Center on Last Monday noon after a delightful day with my dear daughter-law- Bobbi and her hubby, my son, Albert at their home in Madison. We returned here last night – never have I have happier to reach a more human place than yesterday – not even all of the times we returned to exile from more than a year of traveling to Zion. I had had the usual – weighing in at what approaches fly-weight trim, offer my skinning arm for a blood draw of a gallon, EKG, etc – and then yet to visit with Doc Levin, who more or less said he had good news and bad news – the bad news was that my bile ducts have completely clogged (hence the less that stunningly handsome jaundice) and that the gastroenterologist who had been overselling keeping they open was out of town a week. Noticing that my blood levels were down significantly – and dropping, he suggested that I be checked into the hospital for transfusions – frozen plasma and whole blood, followed by the good news, which would bring relief to the enormous amount of abdominal fluid trapped behind the blockage with was causing the distended stomach of considerable discomfort for a week or so – 'twas'nt just gas of the kind that we used to release from the fourth stomach of cows in the spring when they overindulged in green grass by poking a hole in their side least they explode – although I would have exploded had I not accepted a remedial procedure. I was to have an abdominal prosthesis – I was taken down to the lab, told to lay on my side, whilst a tube was inserted to tap the trapped crap into a big bag – with a little help from a local anesthetic. Drained it did – for about twenty-hour. I literally lost ten pounds of fluid, and indeed feel a bit of relief – not to the extent of being about eat anything or still roll mourned with craps and stomach pains, but considerable relief. All this while – and throughout Friday morning when a Left St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee to whence we hied to treatment of the blocked ducts – I was on a constant course of a broad band on antibiotics in an attempt to stave off some little bacteria, know or unknown, doing me in. All Wednesday afternoon, the last day of March, I lay in the bed at the Zion Hospital taking blood and plasma and antibiotics in preparation for a trip to St. Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee where the blocked ducts would be addressed on the morning of April Fool's Day. Even before our departure by ambulance – and no knows who ordered the ambulance or told the drivers to wait for a short procedure – we were perplexed. We had been in Milwaukee two months past to lave the steel stints in the ducts sleeved by Dr. Schamlz, who is one of the country's leading gastroenterologists. He gave us great hope that this could be repaired once by with ERCP. Dr. Levin insisted that we had been sent by the vacationing Dr.Vashi to the radiological interventionist, Dr. Olson. Here's a big snafu – aside from the fact that we rode in the most unfordable vehicles imaginable, a bouncing ambulance we really didn't need – and the attendants had all the papers. The night shift at the Zion Hospital is an energetic team of immigrants who have yet to be more than barely literate in the English language, and they were trying to communicate the transfer.

We arrived at St. Luke's early in the morning and did the usual hour or two of paper work. Then we are told that Dr. Olson has no record of us ever seeing him. Well, surprise, surprise, and surprise! We hadn't -- we had seen Dr. Schlitz. Once that was established (about two and one-half hours), a delightfully downhome, earthy doc named Minor had to order up another CAT scan because I one I had taken the day before was left at Zion -–or was never given to ambulance drivers, whoever ordered them. Finally, Dr. Minor came in and explains that I have indeed outlived my beleaguered bile ducts – they've been plastic-stinted, steel-stinted (steel can't be removed, expanded, and sleeved.When the on gastroenterologist in Bismarck replaced the plastic with the steel last January (2002), he cautioned me that we would last no long than the year. He and I both thought that I would have passed this world by know. Dr. Minor showed Dr. Shmatz the film – no more go with ERCP in keeping 'em open. Dr. Minor, one of the radiological interventists, said that' the bad news – the good news is that he could bypass the stents in a rather painful and complicated procedure involving running wires through the skin from the bottom (including directly through the liver) followed by tubes which are wiggled all the way down to the duodenum, hence getting around the stuck duct. Milnor warned it would be painful, but said I would be mildly sedated. Took two hours, I was awake to hear the curses of the physician in his frustration to get the wires to the two different places. Dr. Olson himself came in to lend a hand, although I did not see him mildly sedated as I as flat on my back with that big old abominable turbo still filling. The prodding and the reaming of that wire and those tubes were, in fact, more excruciatingly painful that the world tooth ache I've add, and I've had some duzzies, including impacted wisdom teeth.

I was then taken upstairs – after a few twenty-minute breaks in hallways because of full room and limited staffs that precluded immediate admittance – and put a bed with two new bags for bile garbage hanging from the front of my abdomen to join that abdominal prosthesis in my side. There was no tossing from side to side, not that one could have stayed awake long enough to think about it – constant (at one point, every fifteen-minutes) taking of vitals. A poor young lass even came in to get me out of bed to weigh me – I dismissed her with perhaps less than kindness. All things considered – including increasing soreness from the procedure, the first couple of shifts went all right, although all those bags were getting in the way. We had hoped to leave St. Luke's to return to Zion by noon, but they I was told I would be having another test to make sure the tubes had hit the duodenum – this time by interventionist Dr. Hurst – they weren't, so they were stuffed, pulled, manipulated, and place once more – with that old mild sedation that doesn't put you under along with local anesthetic. Back with my three bags full to the room, knowing I'm gonna be a hell of a lot sorer. More antibiotics fed through my port. A watch of a couple of hours. Now? Now? We call down to Zion to have the hospital room cleaned there and arrange for a final appointment on yesterday morning to pull the abdominal tube – AND – to pick up extra bags for the biliary tubes and instructions on capping, cleaning, etc. We had waited for two hours in the room at St. Lukes to get them, and than one of the most apparently over-worked shifts finally showed up to say that those would have to be picked up at Zion because they sent us. When we got to Zion, we were told they had no such supplies, and that St. Luke's should have provided as promised. Calls will be made tomorrow. The good news is that I'm down to two drainage bags that actually can be more or less hidden – and that I feeling a bit better in spite of all the stuff that's gone down. I declined chemo on top of everything else this week – enough's enough. Besides this rather irritating business of great inconvenience in terms of keeping alive – including, by the was, a final twiddling of thumbs yesterday as we waited for the on-call physician to discharge us and the fact that a disgruntled ambulance crew came back to get us in spite our telling them otherwise – I really be stuffed in the Subaru for 2,000 miles than ride once more in the back of an ambulance – there were other snafus – I couldn't connect to the Internet at Zion because of phone lines so dirty one could barely hear voice, and the servers at the main office in Bismarck where I usually maintain them both went down – but my good friend Ken Glass went over to get 'em running yesterday.

Let us leave this saga with what has to be funny -- otherwise a grown man might throw a tantrum. The ever-vigilant dietitian at St.Luke's, even though she knew we were trying to leave – kept trying to plan meals for us for a week and to have my fill out an extensive questionnaire. Finally, in exasperation over my long-rang planning, she said, what do you want for lunch? Jello and a Chocolate Shake along with Prosure." We waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, a waiter in a full Tuxedo brought a full-course dinner that, to my sensitive nostrils – seemed to smell worse that the stuff that was coming out of those biliary tube sacks. Anther hour and one-half passed before the jello, shake and Prosure arrived. Finally, our departure from St. Luke's as delayed for two hours because a too-busy nurse could not find time to simply unhook the IV the empty antibiotic bottle in spite of more than an hour and one-half of my fervent pleadings. Oh, yea, there was the constant mistaking of the abdominal tube for a catheter – and great wonderment about passing so much urine. To one who insisted I was wrong, I bared my chest and genitals long enough so she could see the source of the tube. Then there was the air-headed young nurse who came to work with an enormous hangover and never did follow through on a single request – she would wander into the room and watch television for a couple of hours.

'Twas five days I'll never forget – I come away with new visible and tactile reminds of my morality – tubes and bags for the rest of my life.

But, for a time at least, I'm free at last, free at last. Getting back to beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuufiul Bismarck this trip will be among the most delicious ever, methink. I awake this more less sore. Most important, I awake by almost a conscious choice that this little interlude of unpleasantness shall not defeat – 'twill be set behind in continued quest to get on with those things in life most important – you, my dear kola, my family – and all those neighbors traveling with us here in the middle world who need our help. Have the greatest of days,

Ev Albers

Wednesday, March 31st, 2004

"The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic than to love others."
So said that gifted artist – perhaps among the five most gifted in the history of humankind – and lonely man, Vincent Von Gogh, born on the 30th day of March (yesterday) in 1853, gone from the middle world in his thirties. Some say his life was a desperate search for love with few bright days – he condemned himself for whatever dark reason to being less than the "artist" be wanted to be because he could not find love.

'Tis not my problem, kola – if my little battle with this insidious invader, pancreatic cancer, which most lately has brought back a most curiously yellow condition, I have learned that nothing is so worthy of all one's energy and effort than accepting oneself and loving each other.

'Twas a long day's journey on Monday, day before yesterday (seems like more than a week) – from the comfort of my son's and Bobbi's home in Madison and the purring laziness of Mortimer and Oliver – to my appointment at the Midwestern Regional Medical Center, the Cancer Treatment Center and Dr. Robert Levin, chief oncologist, who continues to try to help me wrest weeks and months of useful passage here in the middle world. Aye, but what a glorious Sunday 'twas, what a grand and beautiful day! We arrived here by 10:00 A.M. for the preliminary stuff done before every session with the good Doc Levin – lots of blood drawn for tests from the arm, electrocardiogram, interviews with nutritionists and nurses about general health and welfare during the past week. I was eager to get on with things – for the afternoon wore on, and I wanted to join my lovin' spouse in that bastion of civility and the good life, the fabulous Hawthorne Suites across town

I new got there, for I was still more than the weest yellow-bellied – jaundiced from plugged bile ducts – with belly distended, general weakness, shortness of breath, and etc., etc., etc. Instead I was admitted here to the hospital facility to be treated – after a CAT Scan to determine just how plugged those vital little ducts of the bile were – and possible determine what the hell to do about it, anyway. One thing is certain – they're plugged enough so that body fluids isn't passing through – hence the distention of stomach that hasn't seen that much solid food. Next on the agenda was assignment to a room – a double, but I've had it to meself – right next to the nurse's station, so I get lots of attention. Since the gastroenterologist her at Zion is out of town, my crack team of caregivers had to wait to contact the group that sleeved the steel stents in my ducts up in Milwaukee last month. In the afternoon yesterday, about twenty-four hours after our arrival, I found myself on an operating table to have a hose stuck into the side of my belly to drain the fluid – I had sent my wife off at an office supply because I've not been about to connect to the Internet from this room – still can't, but I'm hoping to find a work around later this morning – so she was the weest surprised to see me return with a tube hanging out my side draining liquid – since then, 'tis drained gallons, and except for a sore side where the tube was inserted with a little help from a local anesthetic, I'm feeling quite a bit less full – on my other side, the antibiotics continue to pump, so getting up to go the bathroom is the weest bit of a challenge – grab the fluid bag, unhook the machine from the wall --- and get around the corner – asap. Now, in the thirty-sixth hour of all of this here at this fine facility, I'm feeling alive once more.

Aye, in fact, 'tis indeed the greatest days to be alive, aside from a few cramps caused, I'm told, by my stomach trying to readjust after its distention. Tomorrow, my lovin' spouse will join me in the back of an ambulance to take me up to Milwaukee where Dr. Olson will have a look at the situation and try to open the ducts from above – the old rotor-rooter routine – or from below – don't know yet how that works. One of the problems of staying alive so far beyond expectations is that I've effectively outlived the usefulness of the stents – and steel stents supposedly cannot be replaced. The other possibility is that the insidious invader has been more aggressive, getting inside the stents.

But all of that is this afternoon – and this is a morning's tale of the last day of March. I'm up and at 'em in the smallest hour of this morn trying to get connected over a phone line to the Internet – can't be done long enough to do anything – might as well string cans with strings to all of you I would greet this morning. Has to do with the load on the old phone system – not much oommmpf left when the signal goes out from one of these room – good enough for voice, but not for transmission of data. I haven't been able to send birthday greetings for the 30th of March to my darlin' niece Jessica Bleth, daughter of my lovin' spouse's sister Janet. Jessie turned four and twenty today – the age me own darling' daughter Gretchen will be a week or so. The two of them, along with my son, Albert, and his older cousin, Jay (Jessie's brother) spend a good deal of time together when they were youngsters – I have hours of wonderful (well, 'tis to us, of course) video of the four of them in constant action. Jessie graduates with a four-year degree in nursing from the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks this spring, so she's entering the great world beyond gloriously beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota, where 'tis gonna be a truly great one to be alive. With all apologies to the great physicians out there – nurses are the heart and soul of medicine that works – have been since Clara Barton and Florence Nightingale. Jessie, my dear, you're going to be a great one. I hope for you as you begin your twenty-fifth year joy on this, your 24th birthday, laughter, love and happiness as you pursue the greatest of professions in the footsteps of your ever-carin' mom. You're beauty and brains – but even more important, you have that carin' way of the kind I mean when I talk about "looking out for each other" and "watching out for your neighbor." Happy birthday, Jessie!

I also failed to note one of the greatest March 28 nights ever, the day forty-six years past that my big brother Jim married Lucille Bickel out in New Salem, some nineteen miles south of the heart of the heart of the universe in our home township, Hannover, in Oliver County. Jim, who will turn sixty-eight this next Sunday, was on his way to Korea back in 1956 when he and Lucille decided to hitch up as a team. 'Twasn't easy, because it was during Lent, and there weren't marriages during Lent because you couldn't rent a hall for the mandatory dance. But people who knew people – and a premium for the rental of the memorial hall, I suspect, prevailed, and there was a wedding in New Salem – not in the Missouri-Synod Lutheran in Hannover or New Salem which in 1956 certainly had a corner on the one true way to heaven – but in a more flexible (and friendly) church named the big church, both because of its size and number of congregates. I was sixteen that day – and I did indeed get at least a taste of redeye, that area drink made up of grain alcohol cut with burnt sugar. My father, who was not a drinker, had more than one – after all, I think he bought some of it to hand out, along with the obligatory keg of beer to get people going. There was a dinner – and then plenty of food for a huge lunch after the dance. Finally, we started for home – Dad, Mom, sisters Faye & Linda and I – with my brother's 48 Ford V8 flathead, bought from a Barchenger from Hannover. Jim and Lucille were given the family Chevy to have a brief honeymoon. Well, kola, 'twas a long, long nineteen miles. My father drove about three miles an hour, just off the ditch on the right side of the road. He wouldn't her of allowing me drive – or, God forbid! – my mother. Women didn't drive back from wedding dances. I had had my license for three years and knew the road by heart, because I had traveled it back and forth daily as a freshman attending New Salem High, home of the Holsteins (I transferred to Center, just six miles from Hannover, in my sophomore year. But my father would hear none of any of this. He was going to drive. I think we got home in time to milk the cows in the morning – barely. And I do know that it was a long, long time before I saw Dad take another alcoholic drink. And I do remember that my mother spoke up a bit on that long trip home. Something about it being longer than the 28th of March in 1942 when there was this great blizzard and my father had to hire men to shovel the car to New Salem so that Mom could catch a train to Bismarck to give birth to me in a hospital – Dad even had to put the men up in a New Salem motel that night.

March will leave North Dakota and April begin this weekend with just maybe a flake or two of snow during the some welcome rain. Don't need a whole lot more rain in North Dakota – flood up in Grafton. But 'tis spring – time to flood the world with good cheer, good will, and love. Take care of yourselves, kola – and do look out for each other.

Ev Albers

Monday, March 29th, 2004

Words for Today
"I keep my nose out of their business and mind my own - unless they need something."
So said my dear friend, Dorothy Goth Kubik, whose life will be celebrated this morning over in Dickinson on the edge of the badlands in beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful Dakota where 'twill be the grandest of days, for eighty-four-year-old Dorothy is free at last. I'll miss her down-home philosophy and sheer exuberance - I've missed it for years as she sunk deeper into a world we know as little about as death, the great mystery - the lonely world of the sufferer of Alzheimer's. Here's what my nephew, son of my lovin' spouse Leslie's sister, Janet, will say this morning on my behalf. It falls far short of what I remember of this extraordinary woman's giving nature:

Gramma Dorfy's Free at Last,

Her Spirit Will Live Forever

​This is a day to rejoice, for, indeed, free at last is the most loving and unselfish of mothers, grandmothers, wives - and a mother-in-law who proved wrong every joke ever made about the mother of our spouses. The breath left Dorothy Goth Kubik's body and a spirit imprisoned and bruised by the ravages of Alzheimer's this past week, and she passed peacefully into a place where she's certainly to be welcomed warmly by her husband Alfons, son Joe, mother and father and all those whose lives she touched so deeply and went beyond this world before her.

Her spirit will never die - her twinkling smiling eyes and lilting laughter that so delighted her children and grandchildren lives on in two great-grandchildren Tyler and Anna Louise and their children's children on into centuries to come. Gramma Dorfy, as so many of her grandchildren so lovingly called her as they were served up with another treat and encouraged to rattle those pots and pans in the bottom drawer of the stove from whence came thousands of meals. I didn't met this woman until 1975 - she was the youngest of fifty-six-year olds imaginable. She and her Alfons went for supper and dancing every Saturday night at the Eagles - followed by hamburgers and home around 1:30 in the morning. They danced every dance. A modest woman of great intelligence, a book reader, the nineteen-year-old miller's daughter, Dorothy, was teaching in a country school and boarding at the home of Alfons' parents up in Dunn County. Alfons' youngest brother Tony was keeping the fire going in the coal stove in the school - until one day older brother, Alfons, handsome, unmarried, and waiting for the perfect wife at age thirty-two, looked Dorothy over more than a few times and decided that he should really be handling the business of keeping the fire going. He started one - and won Dorothy's heart and loyalty; they married in 1939, began farming, moved to Dickinson with three children and one on the way - my dear spouse Leslie -- in the mid-1940s so those children who were the center of their lives could get the best possible education, There were two more children - six in all - all sent to college from Alfons' frugal farming and Dorothy's never-ending sacrifices. Then came the grandchildren - every one special, each lavished with love and praise by grandpa and gramma - fourteen in all. Every year, the latest photograph of each grandchild replaced last year's in a special frame. Gramma Dorfy was never bashful about talking about the accomplishments of her grandkids - I've watched in amazement as she began conversations with total strangers in a restaurant while on a trip and having them nod in astonishment as she spoke about her grandchildren.

In my sixty-two years, I have never met a more unselfish, completely giving woman than Dorothy Kubik. She changed my life, lifted my spirits, and welcomed me as son. We talked often of this and that - always, of course, about those grandkids - but also of books and ideas and those things that mattered most, after all was said and done. For Dorothy, it was giving - always giving. She brought Alfons back to life - literally - with a squeeze of his hand when he suffered a stroke the doctors said was the end. She rehabilitated him by playing cards every day - and Alfons returned for many a good year of enjoying her company and those precious grandchildren before his spirit - as hers would later - was submerged by that insidious Alzheimers. For years, Dorothy would go each day to the same nursing home where her spirit was released last week where she would sit by his side for almost ten years - knitting and talking. No wife in the history of humankind was more fiercely loyal than Dorothy.

Was she human? Of course - delightfully so. 'Tis no secret that she knew how to cuss, that she was the family enforcer and knew how to let her children know when they weren't exactly acting the way a Kubik kid ought. Among my favorite stories of Kubik family lore was the time those kids were left alone. There was a bit of madness - pillow fights that had feathers flying everywhere. The kids thought they had cleaned everything in a frantic effort to put things in order before the return of Dorothy and Alfons. Upon entering the living room, Dorothy looked immediately to the light fixture and plucked a single feather from the edge - she didn't have to say a word - her kids knew that she knew all.

But she never interfered with their lives - among her favorite sayings was, "I keep my nose out their business and mind my own." If they ever needed anything, however, they knew where to go, and she was ready to help them in anyway she could. She minded her own business until they needed help.

Gramma Dorfy will never leave us - especially those grandkids. Imagine her laughing and cooking while those kids tear around those entries to the kitchen from the living room, opening the bottom drawer of that kitchen stove and welcoming them to bang around her pots and pans, nodding in agreement as Alfons from the couch would say "Such a good boy, such a good girl." So what if a turkey is so overcooked that it collapses when it's finally taken out of the oven? Who cares if there's fifty turkey breasts in the freezer just in case?

We celebrate a spirit of the kind only the luckiest have ever called mom, gramma --or mother-in-law - and honor her by giving each other a small bit of what she gave everyday. Free at last, Gramma Dorfy - but you'll never leave us. The best of what we are is -- in no small part -- because of you.

That you would want me and Leslie to be about the business of staying alive and would understand why we can't be there to honor you is yet another indication of your giving spirit. Thank you to nephew, Jay Bleth, for offering my inadequate praise of your extraordinary life.

A better person because I knew you,
Son-in-Law Everett Albers
Husband of Dorothy's Daughter Leslie
Father of grandkids Albert and Gretchen

And I'm a far better person for knowing all of you, my dear kola. My life is sustained and continues almost entirely because of the love of friendship of family and folk of your extraordinary ilk - I do hope that you are taking the best possible care of yourselves - I know you are, because you're about the business of looking out for your neighbors. Be well - may it be as gorgeously beauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful wherever you are as 'tis in Madison, Wisconsin this morn - from whence my lovin' spouse will sally us forth down to the Cancer Treatment Center of America and yet another shot at continued hope.

I would leave thee this morn with a bit of wisdom from that great voice for justice and peace, Holly Near - a song a friend reminded me of this weekend - it addresses the kind of world Dorothy believed in, for she was fiercely Democratic and unabashedly - and quite vocally - against war and violence caused by a group of old men sitting around and sending young women and men off to be killed. Her father came to this country to avoid the wars of Europe from Prussia. All five of his sons, Dorothy's brothers, served with great bravery in World War II - all five at the same time. Like John Kerry, none of them had much good to say about war - they weren't the kind of fellows to flash their Silver Stars. Only one sister and a brother still travel here in the middle world of that remarkable family of the Prussian miller and his Irish-Canadian-American wife, Bertha, who lived to be ninety-nine. I think Dorothy would say a loud "Amen" to Holly Near's song, "1000 Grandmothers"

Send in a thousand grandmothers
They will surely volunteer
With their ancient wisdom flowing
They will lend a loving ear
First they'll form a loving circle
Around the wounded wing
Then contain the brutal beasts of war
Sweet freedom songs they'll sing
A lullaby much stronger
Than bombs and threats to kill
A force unlike we've ever known
Will break the murderer's will
To the prisons we'll invite them
The most violent men will weep
When a thousand women hold them strong
And pray their souls to keep
Let them rock the few who steal the most
And rule with youthful charm
So they'll see the damage that they do
And will fall into grandma's arms
Two thousand loving arms
If you think these women are too soft
To face the world at hand
Then you've never known the power of love
And you fail to understand
An old woman holds a powerful force
When she no longer needs to please
She can cut your shallow lie to bits
And bring you to your knees
We best get down on our knees
And pray for a thousand grandmothers
Will you please come volunteer
No longer tucked deep out of sight
Will you bring your power here
Will you bring your power here

Available on Holly's CD Edge
© 1999 Hereford Music (ASCAP)
all rights reserved

That's what we need, kola - an uprising of the grandmothers of the world

Ev Albers