The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them, emptied them.
Song of Myself – Walt Whitman
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Kind greetings from Monster and girl – welcome, bienvenue, and willkommen to our humble abode on the interwebs. Pull up a spot around the virtual fire, and we’ll share stories.
My name is Monster (a name I was given, but not by my parents) and I’ll be your host. Your hostess is named girl (for rather obvious reasons I would think) and our regular guest star is named Buddy. He’s our wonderful companion and partner in adventuring, not to mention being the most photogenic of the bunch. My heritage is at least partially Scandinavian (I’m probably a bit abdomible too if you ask around), Girl is Portuguese on her Grandmother’s side, and Buddy’s a Malinois / American Staffordshire Terrier mix.
Quite obviously (If you are as old as dirt like me) you’ll know the title of this post is borrowed from the opening for Cabaret, one of the few musicals that doesn’t offend my delicate sensibilities. (Bet you didn’t know Monsters had delicate sensibilities? – Well, they do!) With that said, all the words and sentiments are sincere, we really would like to welcome you to the online space where we’ll document our adventures (and the inevitable misadventures too).
I should probably take a quick moment here to explain our names…
Buddy is nicknamed ‘wonderdog’ because it’s a real wonder that he ever found his way into our hearts and home. Best we can tell, Buddy was originally from Texas south of San Antonio. We were told by the shelter where we adopted him that he was originally from Texas, and after one of the genetic panels available today for dog owners we know he has a brother in Corpus Christi, and a sister in Michigan. Girl has researched still more on Buddy’s history, so she can tell the rest of his somewhat sad story in a future post.
I’m Monster because, well just because. I could tell you it’s for this reason, or that reason, but it’s really for one simple reason – because girl calls me Monster. I’ve been called a monster before – once after a 18 mile day on Isle Royale, probably at least once at the Grand Canyon while hiking with a fellow named Crispy, and I very likely was called monster again at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, all of those within a 5 year period. It was 20 years later, when girl called me Monster that the name really stuck. Go figure!
When I say it’s “just because” that I’m named Monster, it really is just because that girl is actually called girl. I doubt it will ever be explained here either. Some things just are the way they are, and that’s girl in a nutshell!
Our family is physically located in Eastern Central Iowa, so the Wapsipinicon River, Iowa River, Cedar River, Des Moines River, Rock River, Illinois River, and the Upper Mississippi River valleys are home. The reason I say ‘valleys” almost exclusively is because the ‘uplands’, the actual prairies that covered the rolling plains of the midwest are almost exclusively farm land today. To be quite honest, a lot of the midwest is dedicated to agriculture. In terms of total acreage, the set aside for recreation and wildlife in state parks, forests and preserves is a very small percentage of land. But this is home, and it’s an affordable home base for our travels.
We’re approximately halfway between Minneapolis and St. Louis, and something close to halfway between Chicago and Omaha. Looked at another way, we’re halfway between the Albuquerque and Quebec, and midway between Orlando and Yellowstone. Sitting just south of Interstate 80, we can hop onto the Eisenhower Interstate System and appear (only somewhat worse for wear) on either coast three or four days later – (just two days riding on amphetamines – or so I am told). We have all the attractions of the Midwest, Great Plains, and Great Lakes regions not far from our doorstep.
Now there are plenty of folks who think nothing happens in our neck of the woods, and they are at least partially correct. There are no tropical storms or hurricanes here, and we are also somewhat immune to many of the other calamities that man or Mother Nature throws at other regions.
I am told that there is earthquake risk where I live from the New Madrid Fault. I’ve felt an earthquake exactly once in my sixty odd years on the planet, it was not much more powerful than what I felt every time a large semi-truck drove by in front of my house. I was only 100% sure it was actually an earthquake when it appeared on the TV news. New Madrid is a ways away from my home, more than 6 hours away by car, I think I’m safe.
We do get high winds here, but we are from the Great Plains and we are used to them, so they don’t do much. Pretty much every year we have what’s called a ‘derecho’ sweep through the region. You may never have heard of a dericho, but they aren’t little events. To meet the Weather Service Standards, winds for a Derecho must exceed 57 miles per hour across an extended area.
In some cases derecho winds here have exceeded 100 mph. They can leave a wide swath of destruction far wider than a tornado, but we shelter in place and go back to work (if we left at all!) within an hour or two. When I lived in an an old house built by German bricklayers in Davenport, Iowa; a storm (dericho) with 85+mph winds blew through the area, and I didn’t even wake up. I credit that to the quality of German-American craftsmanship in 1872, as well as my natural Midwestern pluck.
For the record, a tropical depression becomes a Hurricane at 74 miles per hour.
We do get tornado’s here, but were not talking regular blow the cow and neighbors away kinda stuff like in the movies. A tornado bounced down the street of my Mother’s house something like 20 years ago. It took out a big weeping willow in our backyard, and drove an errant two-by-four thru the wall of a neighbor’s shower like an arrow, as if it had been shot out of an amazing bow. Our tornado busted up a few trees in the city cemetery too. No big whoop. The Red Cross came by in case we might be in need of their services, we were not. I took a few bottles of water from them, and then gave them back, it just didn’t feel right to take a handout.
Of course we get winter here, but we are always prepared because folks from the Midwest know how to drive in inclement weather. We know how to drive in snowfall, ice storms, super cell thunderstorms, viciously driving rain, derechos, we do get a wide variety of precipitation in the midwest, but we deal with it. No big whoop! I don’t think I’m a cruel man, but I do enjoy it a little to watch places south of the Mason-Dixon line navigate in the snow. With that in mind, it should also be considered that Eskimos entertain easily. Very easily, or so I’m told.
Arctic cold will hit once every year, dropping our temperatures to the range of -20 and -30 Fahrenheit. I used to go out door-to-door for Citizen Action back when too, and I’ve been out in the field under those conditions. The weather was brutal, but the people I talked to all seemed enthusiastic. When asked what I was doing out in such weather, I told them that lobbyists for big business wasn’t taking the night off, not with their chauffeured vehicles and $100 a plate rubber chicken dinners.
They already had enough advantages: money, power, and influence: and all we had was a few folk going door-to-door and the power of the citizenry. If they are organized, the citizenry can always win, but organizing them is a difficult, tedious, and sometimes dangerous task. Most folk don’t have the patience or the time to do what I’ve done, everything from going door-to-door near Chicago, to climbing out of the Grand Canyon with a pack, and wading in bogs on the Minong trail at Isle Royale.
When asked how I did such things – I don’t know what to say, except that I’d felt the need, and then inevitably scratched the itch. It was there…
So, before sending you off to read other tales of glory and woe, I simply want to say one more time – welcome, bienvenue, and willkommen, thanks for stopping by, we sincerely hope you will enjoy yourself here. Happy trails!
— *** *** —
