Mark Hayes Peacock – blogs

I’d say I had them rolling on the floor laughing–and they did laugh a lot when I read the two “mangled” fairy tales–but the floor action happened prior to the start of our reading. The White Bear Lake Public Library has a very nice community room with rolling chairs that are easy to set up (because they roll, of course!) Unfortunately, when one fellow went to sit in a chair, it rolled away from him and he landed on the floor. Nothing damaged, except perhaps his sense of decency.

Anyhow, I read “The Great Experiment” from the Kindle collection “Yes, More Break Time Stories!”, “Little Red Hoodie” from the paperback, “The First Gathering of The Break Time Stories”, and by request another “mangled” fairy tale, “Sinner Ella”, from the fifth Kindle book, “Yes, More Break Time Stories!” Three stories in exactly an hour, right on the button.

It was a good gathering, a decent turnout for a rainy night when football was on the TV and it was good to read to some old friends, a few of whom I’ve known for 50 years. I always appreciate anyone who takes the trouble to show up. My thanks to Therese Sonnek and the White Bear Lake Library staff, as well as the Ramsey County Library Board for bringing me into their facility to read.

The rest of this week finds me with a piano lesson, the River Road Ramble at the Wolf Creek church, winterizing the fifth wheel and mowing grass at the cabin, writing another series of 13 ads for a client of 30+ years and somewhere in all that making time for our elder son, Aaron, who flies in from Portugal and who is supposed to have a music gig in North Carolina. With the flooding from Hurricane Florence, I’m guessing that event will be cancelled.

Marina and I just returned from several days on Lake Superior. We set out to visit friends in Duluth and operated out of the Two Harbors campground. We took our fifth wheel and both Seeing Eye dogs (Andy, the working dog and Gretel, the retired dog). Per usual, there just wasn’t quite enough time to cram in all we’d planned, but we had a fine lunch with Judy Breuer, a podcaster and friend to both my short stories and the visually handicapped, at a new place in downtown Duluth, Lyric, located in the lower level of the Holiday Inn Center on Superior Street. The lunch was very good and so was the catching-up. Our old rig worked fine, with the exception of the refrigerator when we started the trip but that got to working as we went. I’d tried to get it going on gas but a flash of flame and billowing smoke quickly ended that idea. I stuck with electric after that.

 

There was road construction on Wisconsin Highway 35 around Moose Junction; other than that we found little heavy traffic. We left the rain behind at our cabin on Bone Lake. Returning last night, we saw that Dennis had the first floor framed up and was ready to start the bedroom level of our addition. Nice going! And, per usual, we got home to Osceola and found we’d left behind several items that should have come with us. I’ll retrieve them tomorrow after church service.

 

It was good to get the fifth wheel on the road again. It’s just the right size for our needs. My only concern is the tow vehicle and when it will need replacing.

Tomorrow night is my story reading at the library in White Bear Lake. I’m hoping for a good turnout.

It has been a week, a very busy one, since my last post. Sunday saw the donation of a large painting by Thomas Graham of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel depiction of God’s finger touching Adam as part of God’s creation actions. Graham’s family donated the large painting to Wolf Creek United Methodist Church. He plans to be buried in the cemetery next door to the church.

The congregation also had a cake for Marina and me to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary. Later in the day we headed to Mango’s, Osceola’s new restaurant where I’d made lunch reservations. When we arrived, it was closed. It turns out they’ve decided to be closed on Sundays. With all the tourists in town on weekends, that may not be the best idea. Anyhow, Marina has been there and loved their fish tacos. The place does seem to be off to a rough start. We then walked down a block to Watershed, which was packed and was  serving only breakfast and out of many items. Also, they closed at 2 and by the time we were there it was 1:40. How far up the line should we go? Dallas House? Our Place? Further? Tangled In Blue was closed, so we settled for Tippy Canoes, where we had the best experience I’ve had there–a very good lunch. Later in the afternoon daughter Britta and husband Mark showed up with a batch of vegetables from their very serious garden. What a treat! Overall, it was a nice and easy day and a low-key but good celebration of a good decision Marina and I both made.

Construction is moving along at the cabin with foundation blocks laid now and piles of dirt everywhere. Framing should be coming soon!

Marina and I have begun the process of adding a second main floor bedroom to our Bone Lake cabin. We figure it will give us options for the future when I can’t run as hard as I can right now. Given the human lifespan, that will happen eventually. One possibility: we rent our town home and move to the cabin, which now will be a two bedroom house. Another possibility: we sell the cabin and remain in Osceola in our town home. It’s easier to sell a two bedroom home than one with a single bedroom–and paltry closet space. Dennis Hall is doing the construction. He owns Milltown Hardware and did good work for me 32 years ago, 27 years ago and about 25 years ago. Together, we can figure out all that will come up. Marina and I drove to Eagan today to an outlet business that our son John did website work for some time ago. We got new windows for a good price. It poured rain on the way into town but nothing on the way back, which was good because the windows were riding in the open truck bed with no moisture protection. (One window is a bump-out, a garden window actually, and it rode upright.) Tomorrow I’ll take the windows to the cabin and unload them into a protected area and maybe even get to mowing the grass if it’s not too wet.

I’ve been doing invitations for my White Bear Lake Library reading and I hope that will bring a good turnout for the event. Writer’s readings don’t tend to draw a crowd, but I’ve been fortunate thus far with more people showing up than the librarians anticipated. I’d like that to continue and to grow. I’d also like to have the next paperback in hand for that September 17th reading, so I’d best get about the work of moving Kindle collections 4 and 5 to print format. That has been a real pain in the past with results I’m not completely happy about, but this time I hope the eventual product will be perfect!

Oh, BTW, this Sunday marks our 50th Anniversary. It’s blown right by our kids, but that’s OK; we’ll celebrate it quietly with an informal lunch–just the two of us. That’s fine with me!

My latest short story collection, “Yes, More Break Time Stories” is out on Kindle today. It’s available for $2.99 and marks the fifth story collection I’ve put out there for readers to enjoy. The next little project? Pulling together collections four and five to create a second paperback, “The Second Gathering of The Break Time Stories”. I hope to have copies available for readers by the time I read at the White Bear Lake Public Library in September.

 

Meanwhile, I’m preaching weekly at Wolf Creek United Methodist Church (8:15 a.m. service) and occasionally elsewhere. (This coming Sunday, for example, I’ll preach at both Wolf Creek and Taylors Falls United Methodist Churches.)  Marina and I have begun adding a bedroom wing to our Bone Lake cabin. We anticipate that this will give us some future options for the time when I can’t run as hard as I’m running these days. We had daughter Britta, her husband Mark and their “child” Jet out on the pontoon last Saturday and had an enjoyable time cruising the lake.

Saturday night saw me reading “Shall We Dance?”, a tale of the inside story of a flamenco dance troupe that was published in the current issue of “Soundings”, a literary magazine put out twice a year by the Northern Lakes Center for the Arts. The story will appear in my forthcoming story collection, tentatively titled “What, More Break Time Stories?” that should be out on Kindle the end of August. The audience was small, which is not unusual for writers reading their works, whether it is in libraries or even arts centers like Saturday’s Northern Lakes Center for the Arts, but the reading went well and of course there were questions on how much research I had to do in order to write that story. I read with Jane Yunker, Julie Smith, LaMoine MacLaughlin, and Brian Beadle.

Sunday we baptized Theodore Daniel Borresen at Wolf Creek United Methodist Church. He did “man up” and didn’t cry, for which I am most grateful. In fact, he is a happy baby and delights in his older sister and brother, who also were baptized at Wolf Creek. They church building has no air conditioning (yet) and it was hot and humid, but Grandma Fisk brought plenty of food, cake and beverages to enjoy after the service and once I got out of my vestments, the place became more comfortable. The Borresens live in Las Vegas, where Theodore’s dad is stationed now, so we won’t see them regularly; but we hope to see them when they come visiting family in this area. Theodore’s mom and dad were in my first confirmation class when I pastored Wolf Creek and St.Croix Falls United Methodist Churches. We had visitors who are not connected with the baptismal party–people who have a cabin on Deer Lake and who usually go to services at either St.Croix Falls UMC or Taylors Falls but who seem to like what I have to offer and how I offer it. For that, all of us at Wolf Creek are grateful. We will pray in the new people who should be part of us and if I’m the initial draw, so be it; the congregation will have to win visitors to become regulars.

Tonight I listened to the second of my pre-recorded broadcasts of stories on WPCA-FM. My diction is sloppy; I need to work on it. Words get “slid” into. This, in addition to the fact I sound like a geezer. It’s a far cry from the day when, in my late teens, I hosted Tuesday Night on KUSC-FM and my diction was precise. Better next month!

Today marked my return as its pastor a decade after I retired from the Wolf Creek United Methodist Church. It was a hot, humid morning, even at 8:15 a.m. but I wore an alb for Holy Communion. I did concede something and came without a tie. We had a good turnout and it was a good homecoming. They had a cake for coffee hour that read “Welcome back Mark and Marina”. Andy, Marina’s Seeing Eye dog, decided to chime in with whines as I preached and I’m not sure what he was thinking or trying to convey. We had problems with the portable mike so I was “tethered” for most of the service–something I don’t like.

Wolf Creek UMC is small and our challenges are several. First, we need to create structure that has not existed, such as a post office box, phone and email contacts, and other things where an office has not existed solely for this congregation. Second, we need to decide on what we want our future to be and then decide on the steps that we need to take to get us there. We need to be “praying in” the people who should be part of our congregation.  Third, we need to become more of what our Lord expects us to be. All of this can be done!

This coming week Marina and I mark the 50th anniversary of our first date. We went to lunch–a long lunch that got Marina into trouble at the office–at Gates of Spain, a Santa Monica restaurant atop a tall apartment building. The view from there was powerful: you could see all the way from Palos Verdes up the coast to Malibu and beyond. The way to the restaurant was via an elevator, a glass-walled one that slid up and down the beach-side wall of the building. Marina was pushing back against me and I, who hate heights and am paralyzed by them, was jammed against the back wall of the elevator. My hero! We were married the end of August and I can’t believe where life has flown. But it was the best decision I’ve ever made! Easy? No. Good for both of us? Yes!

Today saw me at Holy Trinity United Methodist Church. It’s just outside Balsam Lake but has a Centuria address. The congregation added a new sanctuary almost two years ago and it is a nice space. Today was my first time in it. Once we got the sound system figured out, it was clear sailing. I knew many people there–more up in Frederic later–and I was well received. They had a good turnout and the congregation was very responsive. They also have a choir, something not every church can boast about. My message went very well, better I think than at St.Luke’s in Frederic.

The later service was at St.Luke’s, Frederic. Today’s turnout was small but the congregation is smaller than it used to be. No kids (there was one child and a teenager at Holy Trinity). Kordi Kurkowski used her guitar and voice to lead the music since their pianist was ill. I seem to do better with a full house. In addition, most of the people sat in the back so there was a big gulf between the lectern/pulpit and the people. I used Kordi’s mike to get down among them and that helped. After the service I enjoyed conversation with some old friends.

After the service, because I was in Frederic and it would not be much out of my way, I swung by the cabin to pick up my phone charger. I’d charged the phone while driving but it helps to have a charger in the office and at home, too. Marina is concerned about my forgetting things like that but I don’t believe I’m “losing it” yet.

Diane Stelton’s family called me to see if I could pray with her as she was dying. Diane is a former member of the St.Croix Falls United Methodist Church where I pastored from 1997-2008. I can’t go as clergy, but I can go as a friend. That the family sees me as clergy can’t be helped. I’d planned to stop in on Thursday but managed to work in a visit on Tuesday late in the afternoon. She died that evening.

The family asked me to do Diane’s funeral, but it turned out that Shannon, Diane’s daughter, is an active member of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Almelund, Minnesota and the funeral was to be held there. Rev.Marla Amborn was most gracious and invited me to participate, although in reality I was being shoved into her service. I ended up doing the sermon, which for me really was more of a sharing that ended with John 14 aimed directly at the widower and his children and grandchildren.

Immanuel Lutheran is a majestic space in the middle of just about nowhere. All it needs is air conditioning, perhaps for some old person to say, “That’s enough! I’ll loan you the money for a/c; pay me back as you are able.” Save for the lack of a/c, the building is beautiful and an honoring to God. Driving there you just watch out for deer.

The service went well and people told me that my message spoke to them, as well as celebrating Diane’s life. I thank God for the opportunity and for the help that made up for a decade of being out of touch with Diane and her family.