Kevin Lieder

Born in Robbinsdale in 1955, I lived there, Inver Grove Heights and then Elk River, graduating from Elk River High School. I consider Elk River my hometown, the answer to 'where did you grow up' questions. During high school I worked at George's Super Valu in town, being a bag-boy, and also working the dairy department and produce department. One particular evening I was working the front with another bag boy, Mike Karstens, and a couple of cashiers. There was a guy that came in the store who I had never seen before. He had long hair and wore a jean jacket that was customized with drawings and words of which I cannot remember, other than it was all done charmingly with a Bic pen. I cracked a couple jokes with Mike about 'Jeansjacket' as we went back and forth with grocery bins to the rollers. Our shift came to a close at 10:00pm and as I went to the back of the store where our lockers were to hang up the smocks and stuff, Mike was 'hangin' with me for some reason, which I thought was odd at the moment. I would find out soon enough why. We weren't 'friends' per se and his actions were unusual. As we left the safe confines of the store, Mike makes a beeline for his bicycle that is chained up to a fence. I made my u-turn to the employee parking lot behind the building. Waiting for me were three guys.

I always had considered myself to be a reliable conversationalist, able to be engaging, sometimes witty, sometimes funny, able to leap tall metaphors with a single bound. I'm no William F. Buckley, I'll admit, however, I do occassionally have a way with words. And this is not just in my own element, either. I can be okay with a crowd, in front of people, strangers even, and still do my thing. Like it says above, irreverence everywhere.

Imagine my chagrin when going to Zantigo to get some dinner for the evening, even announcing that I'll treat, the wifely unit brings reading material with her to the restaurant. Like I'm only useful for cash flow, transportation, incidentals, etc. Imagine my astonishment that I, the suave, debonaire, charming host has been upstaged by printed material. And not just any printed material.

So I'm sitting in a Mexican restaurant at LAX airport on Labor Day and a soldier in camo fatigues sits down at the table next to me. He is alone so we strike up a conversation and I find out that he's heading to his first deployment, in Hawaii. He seemed like a farm boy, not having been away from home much. We converse for a little bit. I find out he's from a small town just east of Boise, Idaho. After he finished eating, the waitress left the check with him and as he was opening his wallet I asked him if he could do me a favor. He says "I suppose." I ask him to give me his check. He hands it over, then gets up and shakes my hand. I said "I just want to thank you for your service." At that time a guy sitting at another table next to me reaches back and takes the check off my table and says "Actually, let me take care of that." I says to him, "Well, I'm not going to fight you for it." So the soldier steps over and shakes his hand too and asks where he is from. Sidney, Austrailia is the answer. The three of us chat for a moment and then the soldier heads off to where he is going. The man from Sidney and I talk for a little while longer. I told him I thought it was pretty cool that he took the check and paid the bill. He says "I couldn't let you pay that. We're the ones that owe you."

So I have been having this hip problem for a few weeks. Yeah. I know, yuk, yuk - I haven't been hip for several decades. Went to the doctor, which makes me think of "Doctor, doctor give me the news. I've got a bad case of rumblin' flu..."   At least that's how I remember the words to that song. Told you I had a hip problem. The doctor recommended I undergo a constant regimen of Alleve for seven days to reduce inflammation around the bursa sac of my left hip. That seems like a good idea, however, it is taking quite a while to reduce the pain and actually feel like there is progress being made. Alleve is advertised as a pain reliever and fever reducer. That's cool. I'm glad it's not just a pain killer like Advil seems to be.

The medical establishment has long had a perhaps undeserved reputation of prescribing pain killers for a person's ailment rather than doing something about whatever is causing the pain. I was laying awake in bed the other night pondering that. I imagined the old joke about the guy that goes to the doctor and says "Doc, it hurts when I do this." and the doctor responds "Stop doing that." If you think about the joke some, however, you see the difference between the medical profession that would help resolve the problem of where the pain is coming from versus merely responding with "Take two aspirin and call me in the morning." Different punchline from a different joke which makes the "it hurts when I do this" joke not funny.

Also not funny is that this concept is the same in other areas, too. "Bureaucrat, I don't want to work, but I need money." The bureaucrat responds "Here's six hundred bucks, call me next month." "Gubmint, I'm havin' a baby, but can't afford it." The government says "Here's yer EBT card. Next." "Mortgage lender, I knows I won't be able to make da payments, but can I haz me a house, too?" And the banker says "Sure thing. Just sign with an X right here." There were more that I thought of the other night, but I can't remember them. I've slept since then, so of course the memory ain't what it used to be. I think you feel my pain, right?

In keeping with my theme of maintaining a well kept lawn, boulevard, and sidewalks, of which I am proud to proclaim my proud, deep and long heritage, I was yet again spending my Sunday afternoon toiling in the front yard. (I think I'll put out an RFC for having an <s> and </s> tag added to the HTML5 specification. I think it will have to have a thickness attribute, too, kind of like the horizontal rule tag with it's size attribute. So the tag would look like <s thickness="4">Sarcasm!</s>  Oh, and maybe have style attributes like "sardonic" and "mordant") Anyway, </digress> I have to admit the property does look much better when it's been spiffed up. Much more work needed, too, but we have a good start. Need to get rid of the nasty weeds and other items that squelch the good things like the graminoids. I can see now that the graminoids don't have much of a chance with the "others." I personally like and enjoy taraxacum officinale, but who am I? It was yet again another particularly hot Minnesota August afternoon and I was sweating pretty good, so an occasional pause was necessary to wipe saltyness from my eyelids. During a pause, I see some activity down the street. There is a couple taking some items out of a green SUV and going into the fourth house down the street. And they were white people. That in itself is interesting. We have lived in our house for over ten years now and fourth house down the street has had a never-ending stream of ne'er-do-wells occupying it in an on-again/off-again fashion. They would either get kicked out or perhaps wind up incarcerated, I don't know. Eventually the couple sat on the front steps for a little bit. I wanted to go over and say hi and maybe do a little Gladys Kravitz type scrutiny. Before I was able they left in the green SUV. I certainly hope they are in the house to stay, as the change would be good. Hmmph. Back to the neighborhood improvement...

What's wrong with America? I think it can be boiled down to one thing: no testicles. Which makes sense because America is referenced as a 'she' much like sailboats and the like, so, of course 'she' wouldn't have her eggs in one basket. But we're going down with the ship. What I'm really talking about is the idea of making a stand. Like The Dude in The Big Lebowski. "This will not stand, man." We've lost the ability to draw a line in the sand and say no. That ability has been taken away by the concept of civility. We can't be confrontational to other citizenry. We can't tell them what we really think. Somebody's wronged you in some way? Authorities tell you to call 911. Then the cops will mosey around in forty-five minutes or so and tell you that there's not much they can do. It's their word against yours. The degeneration of the ability to tell people how to behave has led to the kind of behavior that degrades the culture. Prime example: sagging. Fifty years ago that idea would have been nipped in the butt (sicftpos - spelling incorrect for the purpose of sarcasm), because somebody would have called them on it and said NO. What should have happened then and happen now is laughing out loud. Does anybody laugh out loud anymore? I wonder. It certainly is texted a bazillion times a day around the cel phone world, but I wonder if the person that does a text message or Facebook posting with LOL in it actually did laugh out loud? When I see some grown man walking bowlegged down the sidewalk, pants sagging, one arm being rendered useless because he's using it like half a pair of suspenders, empty wallet down somewhere near the back of his knees, I actually do LOL. What an ass. I don't mean the butt cheeks hanging over the north side of a belt line. I mean the idiot occupying the space between the ears. Fifty years ago more than one person would say "Hey man, you look really stupid." They say you hear that often enough, there might be some effect. Today? Nothing. Then there's the girls. "I want to have that man's baby!" Does anybody say "Ah, yeah, maybe not a good idea."? Nope. Theys all gettin sited 'cuz Loquacia gonna be havin' a baby! Brilliant. And it's her second! And she's seventeen! A future we can all build on! Years ago there was a thing called stigma. Girls that got 'into trouble' went off somewhere out of town. Boys that got 'into trouble' were sent off somewhere to a school for boys that taught them how to be men. Or the military got them into shape. Oddly the past in America has become the stigma. I'll have a big bowl of upside down America, please, and hold the nuts.