Why We Live Here

    The front door after hours of shoveling to get to it.
     We're nearly ready for Christmas.

The snow fell and fell and fell! I shoveled for more than five hours, just to keep the path to the garage open and the walkway up to the house clear. I cussed a few times, but, deep-down, I really loved it. While I shovel snow I have time to think clearly about lots of things.
by Charlie Leck

One thing I know for sure is that I would be nowhere else – well almost nowhere else. I love it here in winter, but I’m always thrilled to see springtime roll in.

Most of my readers are not Minnesotans. Many of them are from places like SC, GA, FL, AZ and CA. The only sense of understanding I get from them comes because nearly all of them were once northerners. They understand. They remember snow and they remember loving it; however, that was when they were young, free spirited and a bit on the crazy side. Now they want warm and dry roads to drive on and driveways that don’t need to be cleared of snow.

Pity them!

Winter has roared back to Minnesota – and this after a nearly snowless and coldless winter last year. What fun to have the season return and settle on the land as it should.

Some of you, reading in other places about the terror of the snow in Minnesota, forget it! Don’t believe it! All is well and beautiful here and those of us who are real Minnesotans are happy as all get out about the return of the real season.

Here are a few pictures that I took on Monday morning right here around the house. Have a nice toddy on the patio for me tonight and shake your head, if you must, about that dumb son-of-a-bitch up there in Minnesota.

    The view from the west side of the house, out into the woods
     that lead down to Pioneer Creek that ambles through our property.

    That's our quarter-mile long driveway that can be a bit
    challenging on a day like today.

    That's a stairway leading up to a little guest apartment
    above our detached garage. It's difficult to get up there
    during a winter like this one.

    An attractive little welcome slate greet guests
    who will stay in our little apartment.

    The view from our kitchen window, looking south toward the
    creek and the farm.

All is well. I am happy! Life is good.

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My Town and the 2012 Election

It’s one thing to see that Minnesota voted for Obama for President and that it returned our Democratic Senator back to Washington, but I always wonder how my own town voted on these election questions. It normally depresses me, but I need to come to grips with it after each election.
by Charlie Leck

I live in Independence, a small semi-suburban and semi-rural community at the far western edge of the Metropolitan Region of the Twin Cities. The majority of the people who live out here are extremely conservative politically, either because they are very rich or stubbornly Republican. So, I go to the polls each election year to vote for the losing team – except in the cases of non-partisan community leadership votes in off-year elections. In those I generally vote for winners.

Minnesota Marriage Amendment
For instance, in this year’s election a constitutional amendment question was very important to me. It was an amendment that would have redefined marriage as between only one man and one woman. To my great happiness the amendment failed to get the 50 percent of the vote they needed to pass the measure. It was opposed statewide by about 54 percent of the voters; yet, here in my town nearly 59 percent of those who voted were in favor of the amendment. I shoulda figured!

For President
My town voted heavily for Mitt Romney. Over 65 percent of my neighbors preferred Romney to President Obama. That, of course is a remarkable landslide number, beating Obama by 20 percentage points. It depresses me. I’d like to know my neighbors better so that I could understand what they’re thinking and why.

For the U.S. Senate
I live in a liberal state and the voters reelected Amy Klobuchar to the U.S. Senate by a landslide. Her name is regularly mentioned as a possible presidential candidate in 2016. I really like her and I’m an avid supporter. Senator Klobuchar lost in my town. She got less than 47 percent of the vote. Bummer!

For the U.S. House of Representatives
Our congressman out here is Erik Paulsen, a serious conservative who has been among those who have stalled the Congress and failed to cooperate with the President. He didn’t have a serious opponent in this election and he won by more than 73 percent of the vote – a super landslide.

It’s no different. It’s been this way for the twenty-some years that I’ve voted out here and for the thirty-some years that we’ve owned this property. They voted big for Richard Nixon and, I imagine, they’re still very proud of it. My neighbors were big George W. Bush supporters and you couldn’t convince any of them that it was Bush who drove us into deep national debt rather than President Obama. Out here, they thought John McCain was the absolute cat’s meow! They also thought that Mitt Romney really cared about them.

You know, I nevertheless still really like all these folks – well, at least most of them – and I’d like to understand them better. I’d also like them to understand me better, but neither of these things is going to happen. It’s difficult to talk to most of the neighbors about politics. They’re way too attached to the Rush Limbaugh Show and they won’t give it up in order to have a little conversation with a neighbor.

I like doing things for my town. I try to volunteer to help with projects and work on little tasks. I’ve always been involved in the Harvest Festival and I will be in the future. I help out with the food shelf needs. I designed a letterhead for the city (that I think looks pretty neat). I helped build a little garden in front of city hall years ago. It’s been improved since way back then, but those of us who did it planted the idea anyway. I like standing up there in the northwest corner of town when the Canadian Pacific’s Christmas Train rolls through with the holiday music blaring and the beautiful, decorative lights covering the entire train. I’m very supportive of our terrific police department and the volunteer fire department and I try to cooperate with them when they’re on a venture or trying to raise funds.

In spite of these election results, I love this little town with its winding creeks and rolling meadows. I’d love to get the President to come on up here so I could show him around. I’d take him to Lake Rebecca and then to lunch at the Ox Yoke Inn. I’d drive him by a few of the beautiful horse farms and the Polo Grounds. I’d tell him about Wheelock Whitney – one of our town’s most remarkable citizens and one of Minnesota’s most generous guys (and a life-long Republican) and a good friend of mine. We could have an after-work gathering at City Hall, where folks could get to know America’s first African-American president and an astonishingly nice guy.

I’m really happy about the way the election turned out. I wish my neighbors were, too.

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If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Down Some Country Road

My town is very unusual and plenty of my friends wonder why I live out here, so far from the excitement of life!
by Charlie Leck

My dog and I took a little ride yesterday. The Gopher (University of Minnesota) football game was over and they lost again – this time to the Michigan State University Spartans – after playing tough for three quarters. I needed to shake some cob webs from my head, as they say, and I cranked up the old car and drove out our gravel driveway and up our gravel road and just roamed around my town, looking here and there at pretty much nothing.

What is it that inveigles me so much about this town? When one realizes that it is part of the metropolitan complex – a virtually suburban community – only 25 miles from the heart of Minneapolis – one is then caught up in its wonder. How can there be such opens spaces – these meadows, rolling hills, wetlands and beautiful farms – in such a large and populated urban setting?

Someone did something right a number of years ago and I owe them a lot of gratitude. This land and these opens spaces, you see, are protected. Housing developments and commercial or industrial complexes are forbidden out here.

I drove straight north on our tidy, but graveled, road. I passed two handsome golf courses, at least five pretty, little farms, acres and acres of pastureland and a couple dozen cozy houses nestled on very large plats of land. At the highway I zigged right and then quickly zagged north again on another gravel road. I looked out at two or three more small farms neatly fenced and maintained, a few houses sitting on the shores of a small lake and a nursery where a fellow grows trees to sell. After a couple miles the road climbed a small hill and wound this way and then that and I found myself in a very attractive county park.

I pushed the car slowly through the park. There were still some colorful leaves clinging to oak, maple and elm trees, but the wind was strong today and the leaves were falling gently all around the open land. A large lake was at the center – the heart – of the parkland. As I drove on, I saw the bike trails and hiking trails snaking through the park hither and yon.

There are plenty of people out here who want to put an end to all of this. They think they missed out on the American dream – the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. They figure there should be housing developments over here and an industrial park right there. At the southwest corner of this fantastic parkland there should be a Super Target complex with a big, macadam parking lot with those white lines into which ones squeezes a thousand cars. I visualize the big lamps that give light to the commercial corner at night. The sign for the Target Store is bright red and lit up at night and the field of black soil that gives birth to yearly crops is no longer there. Kentucky Fried Chicken will want to put a drive-through nearby and someone will figure we need a fitness center and a bigger gas station and convenience market. And then the roads will need to be paved because who wants to drive his black Lexus over dusty roads on a dry summer day. (Should there be a question-mark here? I don’t think so!)

What will happen to our wild turkeys and the red fox who like it here? To the white tailed deer who frolic over the lands and through the trees? To the bald eagles who nest in the tree-tops along the lake shore? To the fellow who nurses beautiful trees to just the right size and shape? To the creek that runs with clear, clean water all the way through our town to the little known lake on its south boundary?

I drive past John and Kathy’s pleasant horse farm, with the red and white jumps neatly set up in their riding ring. There’s Whee’s remarkable place on nearly 600 acres of lovingly cared-for, heavily forested land. Virgil’s house is at the end of that pretty driveway lined with drooping willows.

There are no gated communities and no sprawling housing complexes. I don’t pass a single blinking light trying to convince me I’m hungry or thirsty. If I want fast-food, I need to drive east toward the city – to where the suburban sprawl spreads its ugliness across the land. Or, I can drive west six miles to where the sprawl once again commences. But here – here in the same county that is home to Minneapolis – there is nothing to distract the eye from the beauty of the land – from the rolling meadows, patches of forest, streams and creeks, fence-lined farms and long, long driveways leading to hidden homes.

I suddenly realize that I’ve been driving for nearly two hours. The sun is very low and the shadows that spread across the open fields are very, very long. The autumn sky in the west is painted in marvelous hues of red, pink, blue, yellow and orange. Some incredible artist did this work. I pull the car to the shoulder and climb from it. The sunset is spectacular and I wish that I’d brought my camera.

“You don’t need to capture it,” I tell myself. “Just enjoy it.”

This is my town and I love it here. The dog’s head and shoulders are sticking out of the car’s rear window. He is watching me and wondering, I think, why I am so melancholy. I don’t how to explain it to him. I free him from the car and he sits at my feet and we watch the sunset together.

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Why not become a follower?
If you read my blog regularly, why not become a follower? All you have to do is click in the upper right hand corner and establish a simple means of communication. Then you'll be informed every time a new blog is posted here. If all that's confusing, here's Google's explanation of how to do it! If you don’t want to post comments on the blog, but would like to communicate with me about it, send me an email if you’d like.

Evidence Again

Two new City Councilpersons are sworn in!

A new Councilperson (right) hard at work next to a continuing member of the Council.

An extremely pleased and happy Mayor laughs with one of the new
Councilpersons as they prepare to begin a new session of the Council.

Evidence again that all politics is local!

by Charlie Leck

Politics works at the grass roots. A republic, such as the one established in the United States of America, will only work properly if its people are alert, informed and involved. What happens at the bottom in our nation -- in its communities -- has a mighty impact on what happens at the top.

This principle was evidenced again last night, in our little town, in the swearing in of two elected officials who were chosen by the people to serve them honestly, openly and courteously. That is all that we who worked for them asked of the candidates in return. There were no bargains struck and no political, social or community agendas.

"Serve us honestly, openly and courteously," we asked.

We shall now watch to make certain their promises are kept.

Politics at Home

When I go more than two days without posting a blog, there's usually a pretty good reason!
by Charlie Leck

I'm having a difficult time keeping up with my blog these days and there's a good reason for it, I'm overwhelmed with "stuff" to do and my head is spinning.

It all has to do with local politics. I'm running a campaign for a fellow in our community who is running for a seat on the City Council. I'm also trying to support another of the candidates as much as I can. I sometimes pour 12 hours a day into the work. There's so much to do and it is difficult to find people to help with the grunt work -- or, I just don't know how to ask for help (I really don't know which it is).

I'm taking a couple of days off from the campaign (Saturday and Sunday) and I look forward to doing some serious writing. There's plenty to talk about -- including the distant rumble of another possible war for the U.S.. Can you imagine? Isn't that just what we need now?

Don't give up on me! In the end, all this work I'm doing now will make for some mighty good blogs.

And don't forget to vote in your local city elections. Inform yourself about the candidates and vote. Your local elections, in the end, are far more important to your immediate life than the big money campaigns for national candidates. Vote! Vote! Vote!