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The Joys of a Corn-Fed Class Reunion

3/27/2017

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​By Jim Barker and his twin, Ron Barker

    Many will testify, along with a rich domain of social scientists, that  "coming of age" in a small cohesive agrarian community (Midwest and Northern Midwest harvesting the highest per capita electoral vote), presents boundless opportunities for personal growth and civic participation.  John Deere, Minneapolis Moline, and Big Smith as "Gibraltor icons,” small towns with a homogenous economy offer fertile ground for maximum personal inclusion and strong group and cultural identity. These demographics serve to foster solid values and self-reliance. Heck, even "real farmers and outdoor folk" might eat rutabagas and quiche!
    As transplants from Oregon, twin brother Ron and I discovered our introduction to Iowa Jr. High and High School to be a "Cossack" mix of ruggedness and friendliness. From tackle football (co-ed) on snowy frozen playgrounds, to group joy and caramel apples at class academic and extracurricular activities, school became a complete experience! Numerically, our class stood at about 160 with minimal influx or outflux in a town of twelve thousand population. We all knew each other for “better or worse,” and all were beholden to the same rules and norms in our academic environment.
    Our class was loosely stratified into several categories. Like a classic Clint Eastwood Western, there were the “Super Elite,” the “Good,” the “Regulars,” and the "Socially Challenged." An additional category was the "College Prep" group, where the precocious, and often socially and physically clumsy flourished, and helped ensure the local library shelves were dust-free!  A unique feature in our town was the presence of the VA government hospital. This offered a group of us from family backgrounds of extensive higher education with the expectation we would follow that tradition.
Following graduation, some of us were to stray from Wonder Bread and local fence rows, and those beautiful beckoning perennial verdant waving fields of corn --to seek adventure and service on a national front and distant shores. The "homecoming lure" was deeply implanted and powerful, so in subsequent years the return to class reunions was inevitable!
Being faithful and supportive attendees to several reunions, certain themes and experiences have stood out. Here are a few of them.
 
Name Tags May Be Required
It was our first reunion; it was a Sunday picnic as my girlfriend Helga from Bavaria, Germany and I, bringing two jugs of apple cider strode up to my classmates.  As my appearance was nature-bleached long wavy hair like a San Francisco "flower child,"  I could perceive they looked confused, so politely announced my name. Then stunned silence erupted into hand-pumping fellowship. Presently, I found myself talking with a very pleasant classmate that I frankly couldn't identify. Finally, eureka!  Those eyes imbedded in a visage now the size of a Hoosier pumpkin was Henry! Other classmates were recognizable, however many had undergone horizontal expansion!


Saturday Night Calories
The banquet was held at a converted sale barn. If osmosis works, one could almost detect some lingering fragrance and history of the prior inhabitants! We were served a voluminous meal. Besides the iconic corn, 3/4 of a chicken appeared on our plates. I murmured to Ron, as I scouted for extra napkins, "this is enough to last us a week!"  That meal, with most talking and moving progressively slower, may have at least satisfied the appetite of any testy Norseman!


The Ultimate Accolade
It was the night before the 10 Year Class Reunion. I had put on my training shoes and was enjoying a leisurely and deja 'vu run through the streets of my old hometown. In time, I was joined by a very friendly and accomplished runner, who after a mile stated he was visiting from Ohio. He then asked me what high school I ran for.. Someone, please, say the "Time Machine" is true!!


The Ugly Duckling Is Real:
During her high school years Naomi was quite comely and rather ungainly, somewhat reserved, but a very sweet person. Her Dutch heritage seemed to be accented in her pallid and anorexic appearance. However, in 15th Reunion, this beautiful and cultured creature appeared, to everyone's delight. Her wardrobe was even captivating. Talk and wonderment occurred long after she left, mainly among the ladies of course!!


Reconciliation and Restored Ego:
Years hence, there was a dance for our 7th Grade held in the Junior High Gymnasium. The guys and gals were nervously seated on those black folding chairs  on separate sides of the dance floor. as the music picked up, my confidence grew, as my wavy hair looked right and Dad had presented the surprise of a new sport coat. After a few slow dances, which did not require 'Fred Astaire' finesse, I spied Ruby looking more bashful and cuter than ever, adorned in a beautiful dark blue dress. I walked up and asked her for a dance. She then giggled, and replied "no."  Stunned, I smiled and moved away. (Actually, I considered vainly I was doing her a favor to dance together). Around the 20th Reunion, it was great to see Ruby as a strong class event facilitator. I couldn't hold back while we were sharing Mexican food at the only such restaurant in town with class leaders. "Do you remember the 7th Grade Dance? And what was it about your refusing to dance with me that exciting evening?”  She religiously confessed the reality:  " I came to the dance to be with my friends, but since I am a Seventh Day Adventist, I am not allowed to dance."  So I retorted in mirth, and nearby friends likewise; "forty years of rejection now completely healed!" We hugged, and went on to higher subjects!


Recall of Crushes
Upon review of high school teachers, some of us came to the admission that we tended to blush and stammer around a few certain teachers, and tended to have attention lapses while in impossible fantasies about those lovely creatures! As a senior, I walked a specific route returning home from school. This junior named Paula had a magic quality and design, and would emit the sweetest 'hello' as we passed. Somehow, my system got into meltdown, as each time we passed, and the best I could muster was a muted "hi." I felt to be a living example of the English duo, Peter and Gordon, with their hit song, "I get so shaky and can't hold my feet, every time my baby passes by."  If these feminine mystics only knew the planets they moved!


Enduring Companionship
At the 25 Year Reunion,  one very likeable classmate who was known to miss more answers on tests than most, proudly introduced her husband at the main banquet: "He's all ah got, but ah think all keep him after all,"  while leading him around by the neck like a prize bull at the Iowa State Fair. As the years tumble forward, it is observed that many of the classmates with their long-term marriages seem to look, talk and ambulate the same. As Twin Ron concludes:  "The years seem to make for similarities and differences among classmates in general. There is a downhome friendliness to a Midwest gathering."


Universal Truths
Psychologists say the core personality steadfastly remains the same through the years. Our class exemplified that point--the hearty laughers still bellowed out a broadside or ten, the complainers still complained, and the moody bluers were still meandering in melancholia.  "The humanness of it all in our small hometown makes it all the more colorful and delightful."


A Sage Summary: Ten Reassuring Commandments for Mitigating Midwest Reunion Jitters

* Not necessary to have an extra pail of university degrees.
* Not necessary to get a new job.
* Not necessary to drop that extra tonnage.
* Not necessary to have a facelift or radical new hairstyle.
* Not necessary to acquire companionship (if single) that rivals Kim Kardashian or George Clooney. (A facsimilie of Elvira or Mickey Rooney will suffice!)
* Not necessary to arrive at the main banquet in a limo from a converted hearse.
* Not necessary to show up with a pot-bellied bullfrog or gay gecko!
* Not necessary to display a real estate dossier of more condos on Kodiak Island.

* Just the transparent authentic you is good enough.
* We are valued for who we are.

 Yours,
 Jim and Ron Barker
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So You Think You're a Local in the Northwoods?

3/20/2017

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By John Wetrosky
Many have moved to the North Country in the past decade or two. They seek the calm, silent woods, the sound of waves gently lapping at a rocky shoreline, the sound of a loon echoing across a pristine lake. They come here from all parts of the country, and some even come from lands across the ocean. They’re all seeking that idyllic place where they can live unburdened by the stress of the big city or the pressure of high paying corporate jobs. They come here to the North Country.

After a time, these folks begin to imagine that they are a part of the fabric of their environment. That would be wrong. They must first prove themselves to be worthy of being called a "local." Some of them never achieve that goal. Some of them become somewhat enmeshed in the local system. Some of them are embraced. Some of them flounder.

I moved to the North Country at the early age of twenty-two. I was bred and born on the plains of western Iowa. Cornfields and hay fields were my playpens. The wildest wildlife I experienced in those years was a rogue cow that tried to escape through a barn's window. Most wild critters in that part of the country had been poisoned or shot long before I came on the scene.

Moving to northern Minnesota was a change of gears. We moved on March 1, the day that most people moved if they had sold the farm the previous year. Our family hired a local livestock trucker to haul our belongings up to our new abode on Pelican Lake. Snow lay three feet deep in the driveway when we pulled in to unload. At first glance, it was beautiful. That was until we toted the piano off the truck, through the three foot deep snowdrifts and into the house. That night the temp dropped to minus forty degrees. My Dad frostbit his ears hauling wood into the cook stove. He was not yet a local.

I learned then that it takes a certain type of character to live and like it in the North Country. And to be considered a true "local" by the existing residents, the following goals must be attained.

1. Regardless of how low the thermometer gets, you make it into town for coffee. It matters not if your car tires are flat on one side, if your car battery needs a "jump" or if your garage door is welded to the floor with ice, you get into town. Your arrival at the coffee shop shows you can "make it."

2. To be considered a "local" you never run out of wood for the furnace. Only those with bad planning need to restore their woodpile in the middle of February. Not having enough wood means you didn't plan correctly and when you run out you are thought of as not knowing how to survive. Most northern people in the past had woodpiles larger than their house. That was before dual fuel, but having enough wood would qualify you in some cases to be considered a "local."

3. North Country "locals" know the hot fishing spots but never admit they've even had a nibble. Those who blab out where they caught a bunch of sunfish or crappies are looked on with disdain. The locals know that once a spot is divulged, you will no longer fish alone. It's like bees to honey. If you are to be considered a true "local", keep your secret honey holes to yourself or pay the price.

4. The same rule above pertains to those hunting blueberries or morel mushrooms or wild cranberries. Even the best of friends will send you on a wild goose chase to protect their cache. They will lie to you and I have proof. A friend of mine, who has since passed this life, sent me seven miles east to a cranberry bog when he went seven miles west to a cranberry bog. I returned with a dozen berries rattling in the bottom of my five gallon bucket while he returned with two five gallon buckets full of the prize. Enough said about friendship. But, I didn't complain. I knew that was part of being considered a "local."

5. My wife is one of the few people I know who was actually born here. She has attained her "local" status not by anything she has done, but just for the fact that she entered the world here. People confide in her things they would never confide in me because she is a part of the original fabric. I'm but a dangling thread that may be lopped off at any time. I have accepted my fate in that respect.

6. If you now live in Minnesota and want to be considered a local, you are going to be judged if you can list at least three songs written by Bob Dylan. You know, the Nobel Prize winner for literature? He was born in Minnesota and you get extra points for knowing he was born in Duluth, but moved to Hibbing. Bob is a true local, although some in the Gopher State tend to ignore this fact.

6. Taking on the cape of North Country "local-ism" takes time. You must drink countless cups of coffee, attend uncountable basketball games, eat lutefisk and learn to like it, buy your firewood from your neighbor, root for the Vikings no matter how painful that is, shoot and dress out a deer yourself, pound down at least one shallow well point and trap enough beaver to make a full length coat. Do those things and you may at some time be thought of as a North Country “local.”

I don't know if I'll ever be considered a true North Country "local" even though I've done most of the things mentioned previously over my 40 year stint. But, I'll tell you that I've learned to appreciate the tough, do-it-yourself, can-do attitudes of those who have crossed my path here where the North Star sits directly overhead.

So, pile your wood high, check your beaver traps, hide your blueberry patch and eat your lutefisk. You could have a chance at some far off time to be considered a real Minnesota "local." Just keep in mind that one other way thought to qualify is to have at least two people buried in the local cemetery.

Life as a "local" is not an easy path.
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Chris Wohler: The Sharpest Tool in the Shed!

3/13/2017

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​By Kate Perkins
Editor

Inside Chris Wohlers’ Breezy Point shop are more than 30 different grinders used for sharpening just about any kind of blade- from saw blades for cabinet shops, to household scissors, to restaurant chefs’ cooking knives.

“It’s easier to count the things I don’t sharpen,” Wohlers said. He’s the owner of Chris’s Ideal Sharpening. He jokes that about the only thing he won’t sharpen is a disposable razor. Ever heard of a sickle bar mower? Ideal Sharpening  has a device for sharpening their blades. The business sharpens router bits, chainsaw chains, drill bits, scissors, lawnmower blades, ice auger blades, and, more than anything else, carbide saw blades.

He estimates that in the last 8.5 years that he’s been full-time in the sharpening business, Ideal Sharpening has sharpened more than 10,000 carbide saw blades. While diamond is the hardest natural substance on Earth, carbide comes in a close second. It’s what does the cutting on carbide saw blades. Over time, though, the carbide tips become dull, or sometimes chip or break. Rather than buying a whole new blade, which can cost well over $100, commercial companies of all kinds turn to Ideal Sharpening.

Ideal Sharpening uses its machinery to replace broken tips and sharpen each one so the blade is back to its maximum potential. The company welds new tips onto the blade, and then uses machinery to ensure that the blade is as close to perfectly round as possible. In fact, Wohlers grinds each tip to within two to three thousandths of an inch of each other. To put that into perspective, a sheet of paper is four thousandths of an inch thick. A special gauge helps him ensure accuracy. He then sharpens each carbide tip with a grinding disk, which uses tiny industrial diamonds to achieve a razor edge.

Every Tuesday, Ideal Sharpening hits the road on a 200-mile route around the area, making more than 40 stops at clients. Ideal Sharpening drops off sharpened blades, which are dipped in plastic to protect the edges, and picks up blades to be sharpened, which are fastened to wood carrying boards for safe handling. Wohlers and Ideal Sharpening are the go-to sharpener in a radius of at least 30 miles of Breezy Point.

Before he bought his sharpening business, Wohlers was a certified contractor for 20 years. Back in high school, Wohlers, his brother and their friends added four advanced placement shop classes to the curriculum, just so they could get more time in the school’s shop.

He attended votech on machine trades and has been building and fixing ever since. After years as a contractor, Wholers changed directions in his career as the economy took a downturn, and he’s found it’s been a good fit. He enjoys working in his wood-heated Breezy Point shop, and enjoys the diversity of the work he does. Each job requires different tools and a different set of skills and experience. Wohlers never knows what he’ll pick up week to week, or who will come to his door.

While restaurant chefs are often picky about their knives, Wohlers has found that if a chef will let Ideal Sharpening sharpen one knife, he’s soon being asked to sharpen the entire set. He prides himself on his ability to put a factory edge blade back on a knife.

Some of the equipment in the Ideal Sharpening shop is so unique that the parts aren’t made anymore. But, because those tools have served him so well, Wohlers has been able to make or find parts in the Ideal Sharpening shop to keep his equipment running its best. He’s had special tools and parts made at local manufacturers so that he can achieve better sharpening results on a wider variety of items.

In addition to sharpening blades, Ideal Sharpening also sells chainsaw chains and repairs small engines, such as chainsaws, lawn mowers, or other small household machines.

Whether it’s drill bits, router bits, hand held saws, mower blades, axes, knives, paper cutters, scissors, saw blades, rotary mowers, joiner blades, planer blades, Forstner bits, or, well, you get the idea, Ideal Sharpening is the go-to. Many of Ideal Sharpening’s customers are cabinetmakers or woodworkers, so some might say that customers come out of the woodwork. Others might say that Ideal Sharpening splits hairs to get the sharpest cutting edge possible- so that if they want to, customers can split hairs.

Chris’s Ideal Sharpening can be reached at 218-562-4107.

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The Local 218 Plans to Enhance Brainerd’s Culinary Scene

3/6/2017

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Picture
By Chris Haugene

With a culinary career that reaches back across three decades, Chef PJ Severson has brought his experience, training and expertise to plant some roots in northeast Brainerd. This neighborhood is one of the oldest in town, and it grew up around the railroad. You’d be hard pressed to find any longtime locals that didn’t have a connection to the railyard at some point in time. Over the years a slow change has drifted across northeast, however. Local retailers have succumbed to larger businesses bringing in dozens of jobs, and a local school has been converted into a small business emporium after a new school facility opened in Baxter. Small shifts like these have altered the surface-area of the neighborhood while the psyche has remained blue-collared over the years, and Severson connects the two quite well. The Local is both paying homage to the earthy working-class roots of the neighborhood while at the same time elevating the typical northeast dining experience without pretension.
As you walk in, the ambiance of this new restaurant follows Severson’s professional past and conjures the industrial east coast, where he was trained at L’Academie de Cuisine. While he studied he worked at La Miche, in Bethesda, Maryland. Black and white photos adorn the walls paying homage to everything from the building’s past as a grocer; ‘50s and ‘60s era pics of old downtown Brainerd; and a beautiful picture of his parents on their wedding day, as well as an old friend that had recently passed away: Riley, the family dog.
This new restaurant’s decor also summons subtle psychic winks at the rust-belt’s industrial city-scape, invoking Severson’s experiences in Detroit working at The Whitney. The Whitney, a late nineteenth century mansion turned fine dining standard, was where Severson honed his craft out of culinary school, expanding his real-world expertise.
The inflections of the restaurant’s experiential foundation are rife with subtle comfort and warmth, enveloping you as you sit and absorb your surroundings. Soft illumination replaces bright intrusive lighting of restaurants of the past, opening a laid-back atmosphere which details another haunt of the owner’s previous experience from when he worked in southern California. Rainwaters restaurant, regarded among the city’s business elite as the place to go for that special business meeting, was yet another fine dining lens from his experience that could be connected to his new space. Not every nuance reveals itself immediately, however. Like a good book or an encapsulating painting, it needs to be experienced more than once to harness the full understanding. This is not the case, however, with the immaculate bathrooms, but those you’ll have to see for yourself.  
While beckoning a southern Californian insouciance with a rustic industrial edge, Severson built his restaurant to fit the vision of a “Home Town Stomping Ground” – his tagline for the space. At the same time, he introduces a couple of menu items that could bring the locals a bit out of their comfort zone – that some would say has turned into more of a rut on the Brainerd culinary scene.
“Being a restaurateur has been a lifelong goal for me,” said Severson. “I am so very fortunate to have a shot at it. Not many people get to touch their dream. This is mine, and I am treating it with respect every single day. There will be a lot to come from The Local menu, hopefully a patio, and always the best food in town. I would like to take a part in changing the face of Brainerd’s food scene and bring it up to speed with the culinary trends of the world.”
While comfortable, calm and inviting may be the unspoken mantra emanating from the physical experience, the menu brings you in even closer to the plate and his vision for deeply flavored classics and a couple dishes that gently move you from the same old items that have been plaguing other local menus for years.
The classics: The local burger, buffalo chicken sandwich, and French dip may seem like classics, and they most certainly are, but they are created from the best local ingredients that make them stand strong against any in the area. Other classics include the Reuben, chicken wings and a spinach artichoke dip that all outshine the greasy spoons of old. These items do two things: They remember, and they envision. They bring you back to an experience from before, while their quality makes you look forward to the possibilities for the future of the food scene in the Brainerd Lakes Area that Severson is creating in real time.
On the other side of the coin, his menu does bring in selections that gently push the ways of old into a new time, but in a very approachable way. No foams or mullet roe here. The more forward looking items also play two ways. The adult grilled cheese with cheddar, swiss, tomato, and basil harkens back with a new style bravado. The seafood po’ boy and the pasta carbonara join the same category with the scallops and seared tuna as items found on menus of the past but treated in such a way as to invoke the future through small flavorful changes. These are just a few of the gems you’ll find on the food menu at The Local, while the bar anchors the center of the room in its place with favorites of old and new offerings such as a local brew, a roundhouse porter, and some specialty cocktails such as the blue warrior, an homage to Severson’s days on the local football team, and a family cocktail called The Golden Gopher.   
As with any new venture there will be pangs of growth as well as a time of adjustment while the inevitable bugs are worked from a system with several moving parts. His menu has been molded to have the plates at the table at the perfect times. A lot of items take a similar time to create and thus find themselves at the table at the right temperature. This is no easy task when it comes to prep-time, cook time, and the server staff’s time from taking food orders, placing them, taking drink orders, placing them, and making sure everything comes together at the table at the right time, to the correct people - all of it done in a matter of minutes. It has been described as a juggling match of sorts, but Severson has the equation dead to rights. He’s got everything in place and timed to a point at which the experience is more akin to a dance than a math equation. Not every step is perfect all the time, and sometimes toes get stepped on during a dance, but when it’s busy and things come together the place hits on all cylinders.
Sitting down to a nice meal in a relaxing establishment is something we have come to mostly ignore, if not take for granted in our collective past. However, with the rise of the culinary world hitting television and now exploding onto the internet, a shift in knowledge and a shift in expectation has been more the rule than the exception. In a complicated business with ever expanding ideals surrounding the product, the plate, and the space, we are seeing more trends toward the simple ingredient taking the lead and the Local brings it home.
You might come in a stranger, but the feeling you get when pulling out of the parking lot will leave you feeling like a Local.
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