13, Thursday February 2025 Just the Weather for a Long Story.

   Back on January 29, J.P.S. (Jack Pine Savage) knowing I'd be interested, emailed me a notice of an upcoming Kent Nerburn Writers Workshop to be held on February 8, 2025, at the Watermark Arts Center in Brrrmidji, Minnesota.   https://watermarkartcenter.org/     https://kentnerburn.com/ 

 

    JPS and I have both read a number of Kent Nerburn's books including: The trilogy of Neither Wolf Nor Dog, the Wolf at Twilight, The Girl Who Sang to the Buffalo. As well as Voices in the Stones; and Chief Joseph: The Flight of The Nez Perce; Letters To My Son; and Nerburn's first book, To Walk The Red Road, a late 1980s compilation of Ojibwe oral history and images as told by Red Lake Annishinaabe elders. (Research as recently as January 25th, 2025, indicate readers were seeking copies of this first book, and are learning there are none to be found.)  I was fortunate to buy mine several years ago.

 

   We had discussed attending an earlier Nerburn workshop conducted within a driving radius of 200 miles, but it wasn't as close as Brrrmidji, being only 118.6 miles, an easy-peasy 4.25-hr round trip for us NW Minnesota drivers. Admittedly, we don't all share that sentiment, but as our larger metropolitan centers with populations exceeding Palmville's of '42', and Wannaska's population purportedly of '388', reside far beyond our borders, we have to either drive, or fly there from Thief River Falls: https://www.visittrf.com/location/thief-river-falls-regional-airport/

 

   Just to almost pinpoint where we live 'in-the-middle-of-nowhere,' we'll start in a vague counter-clockwise radius from Wannaska, first is Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with its 2024 population of 857,000 127.8 miles NW; then Grand Forks, ND has a population of 58,921 a mere 110 miles W;  Fargo, ND/Moorhead, MN combined population stands at 181, 010 is 168 and 169 miles WSW respectively; Thief River Falls' population of 8,816 is merely 57.3 miles SW; Minneapolis/St. Paul, with their combined population of 724, 630 is 338.3 miles and 347.5 miles, SSE, respectively; Duluth with its population of 88,000 is a hop, skip, and a jump of 262 miles, ESE;  and approaching two o'clock is International Falls that rounds it off with their population of 5,603, is 132-miles ESE. Yes, ESE. Over the years there have been many times, when people act incredulous to learn we live farther north than International Falls and still be in Minnesota.

 

   So, we think of Bemidji (or Brrrmidji, as we like to call it) as just a trip to the grocery store, well, in good weather. It's home to https://www.visitbemidji.com/things-to-do/history-culture/paul-bunyan-babe/  Although it's always bothered me that Paul is so much taller than Babe, the blue ox. What? An ox is bigger than that, proportionally-speaking; but then if you think about it, Babe's a she, so no wonder she's depicted diminutively ..." (Hey, I'm just pointing that out)

 

'   'JPS/Catherine' preferred I would drive. I was impressed at once by her confidence that I could maybe get us there and back without undue consternation because we had never gone anywhere together before. But then again, she had probably gone somewhere with Chairman Joe -- and we all know what nerve that entails ... 

 

   And too, Catherine has such a storied legacy of travel action throughout her life, that I venture to think, had we needed to even paraglide onto frozen Lake Bemidji to get there, she would've been up for the chance to fly in and land by the seat of her pants like she used to do as a kid under her father's tutelage. She's daring like that, even today, always willing to support and encourage others in their endeavors. 

 

   Although we were up for a road trip, and the weather looked promising to favorable, there was still a real matter of reliable transportation that we faced. I had just gotten my 27-year old Subaru back from the shop. It had been reliving its mysterious over-heating problem that has baffled more than one mechanic the last couple years; the key being that it wouldn't do this every time I'd drive it. My car's heat gauge would sometimes raise from normal temperature to very high temperature to just about HOT; then fall back to normal and stay there all the while, leaving my radiator cap cold to the touch while dispersing heat through my heater and, appreciably, into the car.  

 

  After purchasing some new testing equipment earlier in the year, my mechanic, an automotive diagnostics analyst quite familiar with my Subaru's spasmodic episodes, confidently said it had either a cracked head or a bad head gasket; and it was leaking antifreeze into the exhaust port, inside the engine, according to his antifreeze sample reader. Even though it doesn't act up all the time, my wife said it'd be one thing if it'd give me problems when I was alone in it, but having Catherine with me and have it break down in the cold weather we've been having was quite another; well, there's always the truck.

 

   Catherine agreed that was the best answer, not minding at all about taking my 32-year old Chevy Silverado 4x4 farm pickup. She drives a 13 year-old Silverado 4x4 that she has to sit on cushions just to see over the dash, when she drives, so luxury isn't as important as having someone else do the driving. Hooyah!

 

   Catherine lives about sixteen miles east of me, 3.3 miles of it east of Hayes Lake State Park, on broad  icy, snow-covered gravel roads that twist tightly through Beltrami Island State Forest; a beautiful drive really, criss-crossed with thousands of deer trails, and those of coyotes, fox, lynx, bobcat, hapless rabbits, squirrels and timber wolf tracks similar to those at home within the confines of towering conifer and deciduous trees, especially beautiful under a bright full moon as we had last night. Driving through the forest in my truck lends a feeling of confidence and visibility that I don't get driving my Subaru, but as this blog post from a couple years ago attests: https://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2023/02/16-februar-2023-winter-road-trip.html can be illusionary if I don't pay close attention. 

 

   She told me her BLH thinks she over-thinks the possibility of catastrophe whenever they go on occasional road trips anywhere, as she packs everything but the kitchen sink against trouble. I told her my wife thinks the same way about me, so when Catherine cautioned me about it, I went into overdrive cleaning out my truck to make room for all her extra gear, including a walker. I even went as far as laying the folded-up auxilliary back seat down, and reorganizing everything behind the front passenger seat that had accumulated there, as it does every year after deer season; even going as far as fashioning a clean seat cover for her and installing brand new floor mats I remembered seeing months ago, somewhere. Hey, this was our first 'date' and I wanted to make a good impression. I even shoveled about 300 pounds of snow over the back axle to give the truck added weight should it maybe prove beneficial. And an aluminum snow shovel, hand tools, my two sets of cold weather gear including a wool army blanket -- my 500 watt Power Inverter and cellphone charger. 'Check.'

Even fashioned a clean seat cover for her. Check out the new floor mats.

   Fortunately, ever-prepared Catherine brought some food for our voyage, including some East Indian bread, Bri and gouda cheeses, and some exotic chocolates for dessert; I brought a thermos of coffee, and a couple bottles of water as per her request. Facial tissues and paper towels: 'check'.

   When I arrived at her house, about 10 that cold sunny morning, some of her gear was outside ready to be loaded. Her walker went in the bed of the truck, right behind the cab; and her three bags of books and food, she wanted up by her feet, as my wife prefers too. I waited for all her cold weather gear she warned me she packs along, when she handed me just a single snowmobile suit. Her boots, Steger mukluks she pointed out, she was wearing: What? That's all? Good thing I left in a large tarp and tie-downs, along with a fire-starter and a couple sheets of birch bark ... "I thought you said you over-packed. This is nothin'."

 

   Driving through the Red Lake Nation to save time, we arrived in Bemidji about an hour before the writers workshop started so we could get a good seat and maybe meet Kent Nerburn before the workshop started. I helped Catherine get in the building but had to go to my daughter's in-laws, across Lake Bemidji, to pick up a couple Christmas presents she had sent home with them for my wife and I; they lived only a couple miles away. On my return, I arrived at the arts center parking lot just as Nerburn did. 

 

   It seemed natural to greet him as though I had known him for a long time, "Kent Nerburn, as I live and breathe. I'm Steve Reynolds. How ya been, man? "

   Looking at me kindly, smiling, wondering who the heck I was, until I said my name, Kent replied, "I know you from on-line!" and shook my hand, at the same time looking past me, he greeted a man he  recognized from years ago, standing just behind my back. I must have stepped in front of him as I left my truck, never seeing him. Talk about being starstruck.

   Catherine had found a good seat near where Nerburn would likely be seated during the workshop; and true to her suspicion, he did alight, talking amiably to others arriving and finding their seats as well. He reminded me so much of Jerry Solom; longish gray hair, a quick smile, gray beard, and a ready sense of humor that I realized the familiarity I had felt with Kent in the parking lot far beyond recognizing his website image. https://wannaskanalmanac.blogspot.com/2018/06/wannaskan-almanac-for-thors-day-june-14.html

 

Kent Nerburn reminded me of Jerry Solom.

   Kent Nerburn's writers workshop was worth the trip, apart from seeing him in the flesh. For me, it was just about getting among other writers, listening to their stories, and noting their voices. As usual, I've never done my best work in workshops over the years -- and it's been so long since my last one that I can't remember when it was. (Hell, sometimes I can't remember when I took my vitamins that very day, what am I saying?) But, writing the day down, as does Chairman Joe in all his diaries these past 55 or so years, guarantees a record of it, just the story for a cold winter's day.