Huber

Funeral Home & Cremation Services

952-474-9595

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952-443-9888

Victoria’s Corner Bar.  Nightly Specials and Menus.  952-443-9944

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Call Nan Emmer.  612-702-2020

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8 First Street in Waconia.  952-442-2885

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Call 952-443-2121.

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No job is too small.  952-446-9341

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Victoria.  952-908-2215

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The Victoria

GAZETTE

From the Editor

         This is the first time in my lifetime, which is not so very long and not so very short, that I’ve not seen snow falling from the skies during the month of March.  It came in like a lamb, grazed like a lamb, and went out like a lamb.

         It was on the morning of Thursday, March 11th, that I was surprised by what appeared to be lightning outside my office window.  I shrugged it off, however, as reflective light from my flashing television screen but then the rolls of thunder confirmed my first thoughts.  Some of those March lambs obviously had a little bit of indigestion.

         I’ve heard that the first frost of the year appears six months after the first thunder and lightning of the year.  That means your little elementary kids could be waiting for the school bus in sweaters and winter jackets in September rather than t-shirts and flip-flops.  As for old wives’ tales, I’m not an old wife, but considering how Climate Change Scientists play with the facts, I’m more prone to believe the old wives anyway, whoever they are.

***

         For the third consecutive year, several big landmark names are celebrating Earth Hour within Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, India, London, the United States, even within Beijing’s Forbidden City in China.  Celebrating an Earth Hour, can you believe it?  Does anybody realize it’s the opposite of a Holy Hour? 

         Big names connected to prominent structures and monuments, bridges, towers, and museums, are shutting off lights and plunging themselves into darkness for one hour, which is just the opposite of placing themselves in The Light for one hour.  It’s a global campaign in which families and businesses around the world are also partaking. 

         That guy from the environment group World Wildlife Fund states, “In the end we would obviously like Earth Hour to be every hour.”  Just taking his statement at face value should send chills up your spine.  I suspect he and his cohorts are already living in darkness.  Why do they want the world to join them?  Bet you know the answer as well as I do.

***

         Have you heard how newscasters have taken to making the plural of Attorney General into “Attorneys General”?  In one brief day last week, there must have been at least a dozen references from Talking Heads who said “Attorneys General.”  Yes, it sounds strange to my ears which is why I pick up on it.  Maybe you do, too.  The fact that they all do it in sync throughout the day, without even one goof-up, proves they’re all reading from the same source.

         If you had a row of Four Star Generals in your audience, would you refer to them as “Four Stars General”? 

***

         It happened again.  My computer glasses fell apart, probably due to the incessant taking-off and putting-on, so I drove to the one-hour place in Eden Prairie to get a new pair.  This particular set of spectacles is prescriptioned for this huge flat screen that I sit at every day while doing the Gazette.

         So I pick out a new set of frames and sit down with the Frame Lady who takes measurements to ensure that narrow-eyed and wide-eyed people will not be cross-eyed with their new specs.  But I’m immediately informed by the Frame Lady that my prescription in their files is more than two years old.  In fact, it is two years and one month old.  I missed the deadline of the frustrating rule by only one month.

         “But I see fine with my ‘old’ glasses,” I said.  “I don’t need a new prescription.  Everything works.  They’re only reading glasses.  Besides, what’s a month?”

         “It’s $50,000,” said the Frame Lady.  “If I got caught, that’s the fine we’d pay.”

         Of course, money talks so I went home and made an appointment with my ophthalmologist in Waconia because I didn’t have a choice.  I don’t believe for a moment that anyone in the related professions are that interested in my eyesight.  It’s the almighty dollar, don’t tell me otherwise, and one more example of creating unnecessary rules and restrictions in what started out as a free country.  You like to be pulled around by a string?   Fine, but I’ve never been a good pull toy.

***

         One March weekend, the one marking our 40th wedding anniversary, we stopped to see John and  Kathy Oertle who have lived in Stillwater as long as Allan and I have lived in Victoria.  We first met them in that Mound duplex where we lived for a little while until we found Victoria.  Both of us moved out of Mound about the same time and have remained in touch ever since, mostly through Christmas cards.

         Last we saw them was when we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in Stillwater.  Still water runs deep.  It’s a wonderful thing when hearts and souls touch, like a springtime that lasts forever.  That’s probably a good definition of friendship.

April 2010