My 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser A life changing event. I've had asthma all my life and it limited me somewhat until 1972, when after an event on a remote Canadian lake I was rushed to Dryden Area Hospital for emergency treatment of a pneumothorax /lung collapse. Early one morning, my dad and I left Des Moines, Iowa on 1530 mile round trip fishing expedition to Stormy Lake, Ontario; stopping in Roseau, Minnesota to join six family members: My uncle Martin and aunt Irene Davidson of Roseau, their son Jack Davidson and his 8-yr old son, Jeffrey, of Thief River Falls, Minnesota, and Jack's older brother Dean Davidson, and his 11-yr old son, Larry, of Clive, Iowa in addition to their two two vehicles, one with a boat atop it. We were pulling a one-wheeled trailer behind my brand new 1972 Toyota Land Cruiser to handle extra gear. Leaving Roseau as the last vehicle in the three car caravan, we headed off toward the...
An old Liberty trailer house began a new life as a family deer camp. In 1993, after moving our house in from Humboldt, up towards St. Vincent in Kittson County, I sold my trailer home to a family member who wanted it as a family deer camp. It was only four miles away, so we were able to visit it and relive its past glories over the next probably 20 years. By that time, it didn't smell too bad. During its previous days as a semi-vacant tin-covered box, it had served as my artist 'loft' three feet off the ground where, often an easel or two with an unfinished canvas stood in its north light and the odor of oil paint and wet canvas and brushes over-shadowed any unacceptable fragrances. It had been a 24/7 writer's nook where I had written thousands of pages of wild random thought, often in alcohol-induced euphoria--and darkness--and where, in the mid-1980s, thanks to my wife, Jackie Helms, my poetry began to...