Kilt her a squirr'l when she was only three

I've been sitting on this story for two days, trying to come up with a way to tell it that isn't creepy, but I don't think there's a way. So here goes.

On Wednesday, Ava & Johanna were out playing on the deck, and Tami & Thomas were inside. Tami heard crying from outside, and figured that the girls were fighting over a toy or something. Ava came inside, saying "Bird!" Johanna was still outside, crying, so Tami went out to check on her. Johanna was sitting on her little plastic trike with her feet way up in the air, saying "Squirrel!"

Tami thought maybe a squirrel had been running along the handrail of the deck, as they like to do, and scared the girls. But as she approached, Tami saw why Johanna was crying, and why her feet were up in the air: pinned under the front wheel of the tricycle was a small, dead squirrel.

As you might expect, Johanna was a little upset. She seems OK now, though, and has since told us that she thought the squirrel looked like it was wearing a hat (?), and that it also looked like it had a raspberry on it (blood?).

The Wisdom of Committees

Twice a year I run in local relay road races. The next is the Brookings Marathon. We usually have goofy team names, like "Junta," "Andante," "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes," (one of my favorites), "And Hutch," "Starsky" (we had two teams for that race), or "Frank & Beans." We never use the same name twice.

This year, there was no broad agreement, so we just combined every idea we had. We are "Automated External Defibrillator and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Mullet."

Emma Thvedt, 1910-2006

This photo must be about 40 years old. Neither Mom nor Dad could identify the occasion nor even the location.

Reading the credits

I secured control of the remote while on the treadmill the other day, and to the chagrin of my fellow plodders, I surfed channels until I found an old Gunsmoke episode on TV Land. I was just in time for the opening credits, and was reminded of a silly little weekly ritual we had when I was a child.

We'd wait impatiently as the credits listed Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty, Ken Curtis as Festus, etc. Everybody wanted to be the first to say "And James Arness as Matt!"

I don't know why.

After weeks of this, or perhaps months or even years, somebody came up with the brilliant idea of getting the jump on everybody: "And James Arness as Matt for next week!" Then that became the new ritual. I'd be willing to bet that if today you said "And James Arness as Matt" to each of my brothers or sisters, two or three of them would reply with "for next week."

Ava's hat

Darfur

Jambo reminds us of the horror in Darfur. Please read the piece, and write to your representatives. Thanks.

Snow

The first big winter storm of the year is passing through, and this morning, the weather guys at KELO-TV could hardly contain themselves. They really enjoy storms. They're like little kids.

When I was in about the third grade or so, I remember the first snow of the year. We were in school, sitting at our desks, and some kid happened to look out the window. He yelled out "Snow!" and everybody rushed the window to look. I remember thinking "What's the big deal? It's just snow, and we're in class here, people! You can't just get up and... You know, the teacher didn't say... Oh, OK..." I followed the crowd to the window, all the time wondering why. Resistance to peer pressure wasn't my long suit.

Meanwhile, back in the present, the worst of the storm missed us. The 8 to 12 inches of snow in the forecast turned out to be about an inch. It's blowing like crazy, though, and I'm happy to be indoors.