It Ain't Fargo, but it's close

Minnesota…land of 10,000 lakes and 10,000 to the 20^th power mosquito’s…. All of which hovered right around me everywhere I went.  It was actually a pretty nice place.  Her uncle’s house was in Bloomington I believe.  She also had other relatives in the area so we would of course make the rounds seeing everyone.  Her Uncle Gale and Aunt Carol were the best.  Gale even took me hunting for deer one season up north.  We messed around a bit and went to the new Mall of America that had just opened up while I put in resumes to several spots.  One temp agency finally called after about a month and offered me a position as a drafter in Crosby.

Crosby was a small town up north and was surrounded by lakes and pines.  This is where the company Riverwood International was located.  I would be working here for the next two years as a temp.  We lived 15 miles from Crosby in another small town named Brainerd.  This town is famous for the big statue of Paul Bunyon and his blue ox Babe.  It was also in the movie Fargo.

We found an old farmhouse to rent.  The house had been converted into 2 different apartments…one upstairs and one downstairs.  We took the downstairs.  It was small but it held the 4 of us just fine.  I worked at Riverwood during the day and took another job at night at the local K-Mart store as a “Prevention Specialist”.  In other words, I caught shoplifters.  Tanya stayed at home with Morgan and the boys. 

Winters here were hard.  It was so cold that you had to remove the car battery at night or it would freeze.  I called it “Square tire cold”.  That’s because when you drove in the mornings, your tires were so cold that the flat spot where the tire sat on the ground would stay there until the rubber warmed up.  Until it did, the car would bounce along like it had square tires for about 5 miles.  The Suzuki had a hard top the leaked air and the defrosters didn’t work to well either.  This was fun.  At this point, I had painted it Camouflage and for some reason I was always trying to see if I could sell it.  If I did…ok.  If not…that was ok to.

After 2 years of putting up with the cold and bugs, we received an off to come to work in Indiana for Tanya’s Uncle Jack.  Tanya’s mom was also working for him and had put in a word for us.  We would be building and running a manufactured housing community for him.  We agreed and took off.  The city we were going to was called Elkhart.

If I seem like I’m whippin’ through here on areas, that’s because nothing much happened or we were just to busy.  Like I said, I’m just touching on the highlights here.  Minnesota has no highlights...the sun hardly comes out from behind the clouds.  If you notice in the picture above…see the tree line?  See the sky behind it?  It always looked like that.

Anyway…on to Indiana

Elkhart was nice.  We stayed with Tanya’s mom for a few days while we got situated and got aquatinted with her Uncle Jack and family.  Jack is the rich uncle who has lots and lots of money and knows how to use it.  He’s a nice enough guy but is always looking on how to take every minute and turn it into a buck.  His priorities are a bit out of whack if you ask me.  Don’t get me wrong…he worked hard to get where he is but after a while…maybe its time to kick back, enjoy life and smell some of the roses that you wheeled and dealed to get in the first place.

His wife Kay was a little kooky.  I’m not sure if her mind was in the room when the rest of her body was.  It was obvious that she enjoyed Jacks Midas touch.  Nothing was too good for her.  She had a beautiful black Jaguar that did nothing but sit in the garage covered up.  She didn’t drive you see.  Every once in a while, she would take it for a spin around the circle in front of the house or use it when there was no other option.  Other than that…it sat.  She liked to give big formal parties to.  I’m not much for fancy things and always felt way out of place when we attended their dinners.

Cindy was the eldest daughter.  She was quick as a whip and had her dads brains when it cam to money.  In fact, she was the clone of Jack…in a girl.  Unfortunately, even all of the money that they had couldn’t fix her health.  Cindy has a disease called RSD.  Doctors don’t know how to cure it.  It basically attacks the nerves and does funky things to you.  She was always in pain somewhere on her body and by the time we left 4 or 5 years later, we left her in a hospital bed in her room.  Was she taking it easy…no.  Like father like daughter, she was going after that almighty buck while she had tubes sticking out of her.

Jonathan was the baby of the family.  He is the epitome of rich spoiled kid in a small town.  If he wanted it, he got it.  When I met him, he was running a clothing shop that daddy bought him to set up and run.  Personally, the store just didn’t fit in with rest of the town.  It would have done better in Chicago or New York somewhere.  Nice clothes and all but the average person here couldn’t afford the hanger that they hung on.  After time, he closed the doors and sold out.  From there he went to work for dad but didn’t like it.  After all, it was work.  If you have ever seen the show “Fraiser”, Jonathan is identical in every way to Niles.  Unfortunately, Jonathan also had a secret.  He was…how shall I say…different.  If they were shooting the sports illustrated swimsuit model catalog on the beach with beautiful women everywhere.  Jonathan would rather watch the men's volleyball competition next beach over.  Nobody in the family knew it except for Tanya and I.

Anyway…Jack started us in the business by taking out to a 32 acre corn field one day, giving us a set of prints, and telling us to build what’s in them right out there.  It was a community of over 100 home sites and a 444 unit mini storage with outside storage also.

Tanya and I dug in and went to work.  We lived in a farmhouse that was next to the property.  The front half was converted into a small office for doing business.  I did the fieldwork and Tanya took care of setting up the office and renting homes and storage sheds.  Once things started to develop, we were on call 24 hours a day.  At first it was fun and we learned a great deal, but after awhile, it wore on you.  During our stay here, we developed 3 communities, and refurbished several more that Jack owned.  We worked our butts off and basically let our family life sit in the background on hold.  For this we made $30,000 a year.  Jack always said that he would take care of us and not to worry.   Yea…right.  That’s easy for him to say when he’s got money.  During this time, I became a reserve police officer.  It was a good release from work and I always liked that kind of work.  I was put in charge of the river patrol.  Unfortunately, my time here was cut short due to our moving once again.  You see…

Jack had so much money that he had lost some of his moral values.  There were people…friends in the company stealing and doing bad things behind his back.  We couldn’t take it any longer after it started affecting our work and we confronted him and Cindy.  Long story short, they took their friends over family.  Yep, he took care of us all right.  Just not the right way.

Over the years, Tanya and I have become very efficient in packing and moving.  We can do a whole house and three kids in two days.  I mean two days and be driving down the road on the second day before lunch.  And that’s what we did.  I left the company first.  Tanya stayed on awhile.  When she gave her resignation on Friday, The house was stripped bare, and the Koch’s were no where to be seen on Sunday.  We were on our way to Colorado.

 I’m skipping our stay in Colorado.  We were there 9 month’s and had a real bad experience with a corrupt company there…it was bad.  We started to realize just how many rotten people and companies were out there.  Money, money, money was everything to these people.  I just wanted a job that I liked with a company that was loyal and moral, and a little time for family.

The only good thing that came out of Colorado was the fact that we were reunited with our friends from Reno…Gene and Monica.  Though out the years we had kept in touch with them.  They had a baby boy and named him Tyler.

Unfortunately, Gene had gotten into the wrong crowd and started doing some things with drugs.  He was using and used his shop to house a manufacturing ring.  What a dork.  Well, he was caught and at the time we were in Colorado, him and his family had moved to Pueblo.  He was waiting on the official word on what was to become of him.  We had him come on over and help out on the property that we were re-furbishing.  Gene was still Gene…crazy as ever.  He knew he screwed up and got himself back together.  Unfortunately, we all knew that the possibility of him going to prison was pretty good.  Only time would tell.

Well, we had made the decision to move back to where we started…Tucson.  My folks were there and my sister Julie had moved there a while back as well.  She had gotten a divorce from her hubby earlier.  I never did like him.

I don’t know what year this was.  I can ask Tanya later.  The kids were getting bigger though I know that.  It was good that they liked to move around too.

We landed in Tucson and stayed with mom and dad a few days.  The house across the street was being rented out so I got it.  It was a rent with option to buy.  I got a job at ATT as a drafter.  It was good money and seemed to be rather stable.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t.  Soon I was off again looking.  This time I went to “Metal Man” and worked as a designer for a cad cam laser machine.  The money wasn’t that good but it paid some bills.

Soon after, I was offered a job with TG Construction on the south side of town.  They were offering $17.00 an hour so I took it.  Tanya went in and filled my spot at “Metal Man”.  Now we had enough income to get our own house.  We had been looking for awhile and had found a style we liked.  It was in a community up north.

We went through the motions and ended up buying one.  It was the second home we had ever bought.  It wasn’t built yet so we got to design it a bit ourselves in the process.  After several month’s, it was finished and we moved in.

During this time, J.P. had gone to basic training for the Army and had come back on delayed enlistment.  He was soon to go in for his tech school and start his career.  He would start in Germany like most of the new guys and on to other places.

Grant was trying to finish up high school and had moved from one to another.  He finally went to an alternative school where you do everything on computer at your own pace.  This school seemed to be the one that got his attention where it needed to be.  He even graduated High school early and also decided to join the military.  He went for the Marines though.  He had to be one up on J.P. of course.  

Chicken Lady

        Lets see…Tanya and I got involved with Cub scouts and did that for 3 years.  We had Cocker Spaniels for dogs that would stand outside and growl at their food all the time…we had rabbits and chickens which Tanya killed…just kidding…she only killed one rabbit (a baby) and cut the heads off the chickens!  We bought a new (used) car…we got married…Tanya got pregnant…we built a fence in the front yard…you say back up to what?  The Tanya thing and being pregnant?  Yep, we were going to have a baby.  Hang on…in due time.

Anyway, one day we decided to have chicken.  Tanya went to the garage and got the dullest ax that she could find to do the job.  I don’t know why I didn’t do anything but watch, but it was fun. 

        She grabbed a poor chicken and laid him down in the dirt.  My dad had told her that you could hypnotize a chicken by laying them down on something, and drawing a line from their beak straight out and away from them.  They would then stare at the line and not move.  Tanya decided that the soft dirt was a good place to scratch a line for the bird. 

        Low and behold, the stupid chicken just lay there like a bump on a log.  Up went the dull blade high into the air and then…Whump!  Lets see…soft dirt with a bunch of feathers lying on top with a big dull piece of metal slamming down on top of that.  It didn’t work to well.  The blade of course did nothing more than bounce off the feathers and dirt, cut the bird, and bounce back at Tanya.

        Now the stupid chicken…dumb cluck…was hurt and running around like chicken with its head cut…no…almost cut off!  Tanya’s screaming, I’m running around trying to catch it, it’s clucking, and now the kids are joining in by running around screaming and laughing.  When I do catch it, Tanya tries again and has the same results.  I run and get the machete from my Suzuki.  This did it…finally.  It was dull to.  Blood, feathers, and chicken parts everywhere.

        This was too much.  I called dad on the phone to have him help.  Meanwhile, Tanya hung the now dead stupid chicken up on the fence.  She heard that you should “Bleed” them before cooking.

        Dad came over with his trusty “Ginsu” knife and a coat hanger.  He bent the coat hanger in a hook type fashion and simply caught a chicken by the leg as it ran by.  We had like 7 chickens by the way.  Once caught.  He merely held the chicken under one arm, pulled its neck out a little, and “WISK” quick as a wink, you had chicken heads lying in the yard still clucking, chicken bodies running around headless, and J.P. and Grant running around playing with the heads.

        As soon as that was done, dad said we had to stick them in a large boiling pot of water to aid in the plucking of the feathers.  Tanya grabbed the first one she had done off the fence where it had been hanging for an hour or so and was now stiff.  She boils the water up and sticks the bird into the pot.  Besides the horrific smell that arose and filled the kitchen, only half of the bird fit in the pot.  It was so stiff that the bottom half and its straight stiff chicken legs were sticking into the air.  You had to bleed them first huh?  Ah the joy of rigormortis.       

        Long story short, we finished the deed with the rest of the chickens.  The kitchen smelled for weeks.  What’s worse is the fact that no one would eat the things when Tanya cooked them.  They were more pets than anything.  I would tell you about the baby bunny incident but I’m upset enough as it is…heh, heh, heh.

        So anyway, yes Tanya and I got married.  Well you know, she kept bugging me and bugging me to get married.  I can understand since I was such a big hunk and all.  It was a curse.

        Actually, remember back on page whatever…I promised myself that I wouldn’t get mushy or serious with a woman until I was at least 30 years old?  OK, well, That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.  I still remember the day.  She told me to marry her or get out!  I had already bought the ring of course so I was prepared.  I was the day after my 30^th birthday.

       Now the whole wedding, honeymoon thing you don’t want to know about.  What I will do to save time though is scan the original list that Tanya and I made up of everything that went wrong.  It’s like 3 pages front and back of tablet paper.  In the mean time, here is a picture of that fateful day.

My sister julie, Tanya, Me, my dad August 10, 1990

Well, what else happened in Reno? Oh yeah, Tanya got pregnant.  This happened right about the time we were thinking of moving.  The project was winding down at work and we have the habit of getting itchy feet every once in awhile.  Because of the fact that we were going to have a baby made us put off plans for just a bit.

Everyone was in a hustle and getting things ready.  We made the extra room into a nursery.  Tanya and I decided that we wanted to know what the baby was going to be…boy or girl.  That way we could plan better.  When the time came, the doctor told us it was to be a girl…perfect!  I had wanted a girl to begin with.  Tanya had two boys so this was going to work out great.  Of course right then that she was going to be spoiled.  My sister had two boys also so this baby was the only girl in the family.  I couldn’t wait.  Now we needed a name.

We of course did the baby name books and stuff.  It finally came down to either Morgan or Reno.  We chose Morgan.  For the middle name, we chose a name that started with a B.  My mom is Betty, and Tanya’s mom is Barb.  We didn’t tell them the middle name for years to keep up the suspense and also so we could have the “family secret”.  Her middle name is Brittany by the way.  Had I have thought more about it, I think I would have made her middle name Reno…it’s cool sounding. 

 OK, well, with Morgan in a suitcase, literally, we took off around the Christmas holiday to Minnesota.  Why Minnesota you ask?  No reason in particular.  Tanya had grown up there and thought it might be nice to go back.  Tanya’s Aunt and uncle were in Egypt at the time and said we could stay at their place until they got back.  That worked for us.  I had never been there before so I was up for an adventure.  Tanya said it was nice.