I wasn’t sure what I would be fixing, so I took my carpentry toolbox, my plumbing toolbox, and my electrical toolbox. The canvas bag that holds all my power tools was there and also my power washer, because the deck hadn’t had any attention in a decade or two.

I hadn’t taken a welder, because I didn’t know if the house had a 220 plugin. Although, I could have taken the welder and if I’d discovered that there wasn’t a plugin, I could have rented a generator. I guess I didn’t think it through enough.

Number One glanced in my pickup box, looked at me and, “Papa, that’s not normal.

Earlier in the week, there’d been some lip from her brother about the back seat in my pickup being not quite right for sitting, because in the tiny tool compartment underneath there were tarp straps, a tow rope and extra-long jumper cables, along with a few tools.

Here’s the thing. In March of 1975, about three days before our wedding, my girlfriend and I were in the Twin Cities, cleaning out our apartments, and I lost the keys to my dad’s pickup.

Just in case you’ve noticed the twitchy little routine I have whenever I stand up - patting pockets for wallet/keys/phone, wallet/keys/phone - that’s where it started. Anyway, we called a locksmith, he fiddled around for a while and then said, “Yeah, I’m not going to be able to get it.”

We were sleeping on the floor in a bare apartment, all our possessions were in the pickup, there was a blizzard predicted, and there was that wedding coming up in a couple of days, scheduled to be held in a church 200 miles away. I carefully explained that “not going to be able to get it” wasn’t one of the options. Properly motivated, he tried again, and after a few minutes more he was successful, and everything worked out.

But I didn’t ever want to go through something like that again. So, after that, whenever we traded vehicles, I’d take a spare set of keys and tape them to the right tie rod. Keep in mind, that was before a spare key cost $300.00 and came with a chip and a battery. This method worked for years, a decade - maybe two. We never misplaced our keys. Then one day I drove to a mall, thinking about twelve other things, climbed out, bumped the door lock button and too late remembered that the keys were still in the ignition.

I had a flash of irritation and then remembered my twenty years of preparation. But, funny story, the week before we ran the car into a hardened snow drift and got a little damage, including bending the right tie rod. Our local mechanic replaced it with a new one but hadn’t noticed the lump of electrical tape. If he did, there was no investigation to see what was underneath. The old tie rod was still in the car, along with the key, in the trunk, which, of course, was locked.

There are people who say there is such a thing as too much preparation.

I don’t think that’s true.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

The other day I ran into a young woman in a hardware store who was a classmate of Granddaughter Two and we’ve gotten to know her over the years. She has stayed at our house a few times, and we’ve cheered her on at tennis matches.

Or we tried to. Did you know they don’t like you doing the wave at tennis matches, even if there are only two of you?

I have one especially fond memory of her. After the Grand March at the junior prom, we were wandering around the gym looking for our granddaughter but ran into her before our granddaughter. Prior to this, the only times I’d seen her was when she was coming off the tennis court with her hair in a pony tail or roaming around our farm in jeans and a tee shirt. On prom night she was, I believe the technical term is, “all dolled up.” The contrast was significant and I said, “You look beautiful!” She said, “I know!”

It was a sweet and lovely moment. A young woman claimed her indisputable worth, and it makes me happy every time I think about it.

Anyway, she’s off to college in a week. I told her I had a new book coming out and that if she has an English course my wife and I would do a road trip and I’d speak for free in her class. I doubt anything will come of it – she probably won’t mention it to her professor and if she does, I’m not the type of writer who impresses English professors.

The conversation made me a little sad and I talked about it with my wife when I got home. It’s a trend we’ve noticed over the years, first with our kids’ friends and now our grandchildren’s. Our place was always a locale for sleepovers and cast parties after high school musicals - that sort of thing. We’d gotten used to making breakfast for a herd of rumpled twelve-year-olds in pajamas and cleaning up the debris of pizza boxes and pop bottles after late night movie binges. You watch kids grow up, become fond of them, then they graduate and they’re gone out of your life. Unless she runs for governor or runs afoul of the law, we might never hear how this young woman’s life turns out.

That’s okay. You want the young people you cherish to go out in the world, get an education, have adventures, and build a life.

Yet, the concept isn’t something we’ve truly evolved to handle. Today, the average American moves nearly twelve times in their life, but for most of human existence we lived in little villages, grew up and married the kid across the street, built a hut next to our parents and got advice from the old couple down the alley. When we became the old couple, there was someone right on site to help wash windows and split firewood. We’re built for deep multi-generation connections that make life richer, and most of us just don’t have them anymore.

Fortunately, they haven’t all disappeared. About a year ago, a former nanny called us out of the blue and asked if I would officiate at her wedding, which was really pretty wonderful. In a couple of weeks, two former Sunday School students, accomplished women in their fifties, are going to check into our guest wing for the first time in a few decades.

I don’t know if they still like chocolate chips in their pancakes, but I’m going to have some handy, just in case.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GX2VPFDD

It’s a good day.

Most days I try to say that, even the ones when I’m not quite sure it’s the truth.

I mean, if things look a little shaky, I might say, “It’s a great day to be alive.”

Hard to argue with that one, unless things are really dire. Even then, the worst thing I’m liable to say when the clouds in my world are thick and dark is, “You know...some days are better than others.”

It’s not that my outlook is always sunny, it’s just that most people are carrying a bigger load than you’d expect, and I don’t see much point in adding to it.

But even by my relaxed standards, it’s a good day. First of all, it rained.

Rain really isn’t my problem – everything I have that needs water can be reached by a garden hose, but as long as I live, I doubt I’ll stop watching the clouds and counting the days from the last rain. The weather has always been so important, and so unreliable. When our son was in the Marine Corps, he was stationed in southern California. He’d walk out the door of the barracks and comment on the beautiful morning, only to have everyone stare at him puzzled, because almost every day was beautiful. If they’d grown up where he grew up, they’d have understood.

Plus, what a perfect rain. In about ten hours, we got almost three inches and by morning most of the puddles had already soaked away. It was the kind of storm we rarely have this time of year. I know it’s going to be a challenging year for farmers, but in our part of the world, Mother Nature has certainly done her part.

Then on Sunday, we had Number Five’s birthday party. Most of the family made it home to eat a Sunday dinner based on his menu requests texted to my wife. He’s the baby of the family and just turned twelve, which seems impossible. There’s just something about sitting at a long table with a burly young man and everyone smiling at him had carried him on their hip when he was much smaller. I can’t quite explain it, but I know it when I see it.

Finally, I got the proofs for my new book. It looks good, and any day now I’m looking forward to getting the real thing in my hand. It’s always the cause for some anxiety when you hand off a project to a bunch of people you don’t know, hoping they’ll understand your vision and do it justice. So many decisions need to be made when a book is published, from the cover design to the font, and they all matter. To add to the butterflies, this is the second book of a story that’s been rattling around in my head for almost twenty-five years. It’s really important to me, and I fervently hope people read it.

It’s Monday evening, the skies are sunny and a soft wind is blowing. The crops are growing like wildfire since the rain, Number Five is home, a year older, and wrapping up his baseball season, and I’m waiting for a box of books to arrive in the mail with all the decisions made and nothing but potential ahead.

I’m not an idiot. My life isn’t all kittens and rainbows, just like everyone else’s. But today? Today is a good day.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

Really, what’s there to say? When the weather channel says your home is “96, feels like 106...” that tells the whole story.

My people left Norway only about 150 years ago. That’s not nearly long enough for evolution to make weather like this acceptable. There’s nothing for me to do but whine and hydrate.

So, today I’m writing about paths not taken.

This summer Number 3 and I have been spending a lot of time together. He’s been working around the farm, and I’ve been grateful for the help. He’s 18, about to start his senior year in high school and trying to figure out what to do next. I try to never give specific advice – all three of our kids followed paths I would not have predicted, but they all turned out all right, so I’m perfectly willing to let people stumble in whatever direction they choose. Other than telling him to show up, work hard, keep his word, and treat people well, I’m staying away from any specific career choices.

He’s a good kid. I’ve never sensed a profound commitment to an academic career from him, but I’m not one to talk. My plan in high school was to study just hard enough to not get yelled at, and I didn’t always succeed at that.

On the other hand, this year he’s been taking flying lessons and building a computer, so he’s clearly got more on the ball than I had when I was his age.

I know he’s worried about what he’s going to do the rest of his life, but he needn’t be. Worry about the next five years, ten years tops. It’s kind of a fool’s game to try to plot out the next half century of your working life.

When I was a little older than him, I was finishing up an undistinguished freshman year at Hamline University. My girlfriend worked at the Saint Paul campus of the University of Minnesota, and she and I used to cruise Como Avenue, next to the State Fairgrounds, and admire the neighborhood. It wouldn’t have taken too much of a switch for us to be living there now, with me as a recently retired Social Studies teacher and her as a department head.

When I was growing up, literally all my relatives were farmers, nurses or teachers so I was unsuited for any job that wasn’t also a crusade. I mean, if I’d become a millionaire hedge fund trader I probably still would have been invited home for Christmas, but I would have gotten some teasing.

So, I became a farmer and I loved raising food to feed people. But my default answer to most questions is “yes” and that’s what I said when I was asked to be on the Soil and Water Conservation District Board. I said the same thing when I was asked to serve on the Holy Trinity Hospital Board as their token Protestant. That sowed the seeds for running for county commissioner twenty years later. If I’d just stuck to farming, I’d have a lot more money now, but I would have missed out on a lot of interesting stuff.

If I hadn’t been asked to teach junior high Sunday School, I wouldn’t have ended up repairing hurricane damage at a church in Jamaica, building bonds with a group of teenagers where the letters I wrote to them after they left home became the basis for my weekly column that now has gone on for over thirty years.

I know a few people who plotted the path they were going to take when they were twelve and followed through. Kudos to them. For some people, their career is the defining role of their lives, but for others a job is just a way to put food on the table, and their real lives revolve around friends and family. I’m not willing to judge either one. For many of us, a life well lived involves astonishing twists and turns.

I don’t know if Number 3 is going to listen to any of this. But if he shows up, works hard, keeps his word, and treats people well, he probably doesn’t need to.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

She gave me one of those looks that despite a half century of experience I still cannot decipher and asked, “When was that?”

I said, “1967.”

She said, “Why would you remember that?”

Geez, I don’t know. Look, I’m as puzzled as anyone by the way my mind works. On the other hand, it was a memorable trip. My folks suspected I was sick when my mom made some of those packaged pastries that had plastic envelopes of white goop to squeeze out for frosting, and I declined to eat one. That was certainly new, at least for me. Off to the hospital we went, where they took out my appendix, told me I’d feel a lot better in a couple of days, and a nun showed me how to make a bed with hospital corners. My roommate was an old guy - and I mean really old, like late fifties, maybe even in his sixties - who was suffering from gout. His sore toe stuck up in the air like a sentinel, and he read western magazines with lurid covers about Comanche ambushes.

The doctor was wrong about me feeling better in a couple of days and when he was poking the swollen incision in an effort to figure out why, the stitches popped open, and a cascade of unpleasant fluids poured out. I don’t know how the doctor felt about that, but I was certainly riveted. You know that scene in “Alien” where the little monster pops out of the guy’s stomach and runs away? It was like that, but with less screaming.

The room next door is where I spent a week following a memorable motorcycle accident. I had a refresher course in hospital corners because the sheets had to be changed twice a day as the gravel worked its way out of my somewhat tattered skin. Down the hall to the left is where I recovered from a bout of hog house air induced pneumonia, and a different nun brought me a bowl of popcorn at 3:00 in the morning on the condition that I keep my mouth shut about where it came from. A couple doors in the other direction is where I spent an entire night with my head and shoulders pushed inside an oxygen tent that encased a crib, entertaining a toddler who very much wanted to climb out. And, of course, across the hall from that one is the room where my wife and I and a competent nurse delivered our youngest child when the doctor was delayed on the way to the hospital. Because of that event I had to miss Anna Elvabakke’s funeral, but we gave our little girl Anna as a middle name, so it worked out.

Upon further thought, maybe the question should not be why I would remember those hospital details, but how in the world I could forget any of them.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

I’m 71 years old and I’ve spent roughly half a century outside, in an astonishing assortment of weather conditions.

Given my pallid Northern European complexion, one of the consequences is that once a year I need to pay a visit to my dermatologist. She valiantly tries not to yell at me as she freezes an assortment of per-cancerous lesions off my noggin.

I rarely went without a hat, but it was always a ball cap given to me by a seed company, which did nothing for my ears and neck. There’s a saying that goes, “Too soon old, too late smart.” That’s me in a nutshell, but I’ve started wearing summer hats with wide brims. That’s a problem, too, since most of the summer hats for sale near me are cowboy hats. I’m not a cowboy, nor do I want to pretend to be one. So, if I’m in a warm part of the world and see a suitable hat, I buy it and keep it long past the point of respectability.

This year I decided to be proactive. About six weeks ago, with my visit to the dermatologist and Number Five’s baseball season both on the horizon, I decided to order a hat online. I found a company that sourced its hats from a small village in Uruguay. The website included a charming story, photos of the company founders and of the villagers who produced the hats, and the price was reasonable. Coming from a small, obscure place myself, I’m a sucker for such stories, so I placed my order and then forgot about it.

A couple weeks ago I realized I still didn’t have my hat, so I searched my email and found the tracking number for the order. I traced the number and discovered that my hat was just leaving Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China.

What the hey?

I did some more research and learned that the company is headquartered in Hong Kong, and rather than the hats being made by plucky villagers in Uruguay, they are made in a factory in China.

Among my many shortcomings, one of my handicaps is a strong strain of Dudley DoRight, Eddie Atta-Boy. I do understand how advertising works, and I get it that there’s nothing wrong with stretching the truth in order to advance your prospects. Let’s face it. If there were a strict code of truth in advertising, odds are I’d still be a bachelor. Having said that, I just don’t think you should be able to flat out lie in order to get ahead.

I’m more or less used to the people I love having their faces buried in their phones more often than not. When I’m stuck in a hotel room watching network tv, I just shake my head at the number of advertisements and the stupidity of much of the programming. The shocking level of unfairness and inequality in the world is like a migraine that never goes away; I’m no longer surprised by that.

But I never get over being shocked at hearing someone lie. Not stretch the truth, not spin a story for entertainment purposes or a favorable outcome, but flat out lie, telling an untruth that anyone can check out. In addition, it’s apparent that not many people care about what’s true and what isn’t.

And our society rewards that.

And that I will never understand.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

Personally, I can’t actually take any credit for that. While some of my wife’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower, most of mine came on a herring freighter a couple hundred years later. We weren’t around for half that time. Although, an ancestor of my mom’s is in a civil war painting titled, “The Death of McPherson.” Mom’s ancestor is shown in the foreground holding a rifle, as General McPherson is killed. Not exactly famous, but as famous as someone in our family is likely to become. When Mom would bring it up, my father would say, “If he’d been tending to business instead of posing for a painting, maybe McPherson wouldn’t have gotten killed.”

Of course, longevity on this good earth we call the USA isn’t everything. For instance, 734 of the people awarded the Medal of Honor were first generation immigrants, many of whom joined up before they were citizens. That’s over 20%. Something to think about in our current kerfuffle about immigrants is the number of people who defended this country despite not having reaped any of the benefits of living here. Just the other day a friend of mine sent me a message that simply read, “Why do the best of men lie in unmarked graves?” So many important people that we don’t spend nearly enough time remembering, because they’re simply not important enough. I love our country; I really do, but I will never understand our country’s tendency to think a loud voice equals leadership or that bravado trumps quiet competence. It isn’t true, it’s hardly ever true, but for some reason we keep falling for it.

I’m writing this in my office on Monday morning. The temperature was already over seventy degrees when I got up, the air was thick and warm, and the prediction had us headed for the high nineties. But suddenly the temperature dropped about ten degrees, the wind picked up, and dark clouds rolled in from the north. A change is coming that I did not anticipate. Might be an inch of gentle rain, might be hail the size of softballs – there’s just no telling. Life is like that.

Have you heard of the Two Ships Theory? The Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, holding a bunch of Pilgrims who wanted religious freedom and a chance to make better lives for their children and children’s children. But in 1619, a ship called The White Lion brought twenty slaves to Virginia, the first enslaved people in the colonies. Those two events, the theory goes, set up a conflict between people who cherished liberty and those who cherished wealth and control. Yet, it’s not that simple. Keep in mind, they burned witches in Massachusetts, not in Virginia and many of the ships that brought enslaved people from Africa were financed in New England. Some rain, some hail, and you never know which is coming.

Ken Burns has said that the American Revolution is the most important event in world history since the birth of Christ. His point is that prior to our revolution, almost everyone in the world, for almost all of time, was subject to some type of authoritarian rule, that we introduced the concept of a citizen beholden to no one, and the world was never the same.

That’s quite an ideal, and oceans of blood, sweat, and tears have been spent trying to bring that ideal to fruition. Of course, we’ve certainly wavered from it many, many times over the past 250 years. Not only wavered – enslaved people, Native Americans, and women of any creed or color didn’t make the cut as citizens for a long time. We can’t forget that.

But here’s the thing. There’s a quote, attributed to Ernest Hemingway (as it turns out, it probably predates him) that goes, “There is nothing noble about being superior to your fellow man. True nobility comes from being superior to one’s former self.”

There it is. It’s nice to look back and admire the many good and great things that have happened in this strange, wonderful place known as the United States of America, and essential to learn from the bad. But it isn’t the previous 250 years that matters. It’s what happens next.

It’s always what happens next that really matters.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

Obviously, I don’t know where. Since I don’t wear them around home, they sit in the case to the right of my computer until I’m driving some place where I need to be able to read street signs. But yesterday, I reached for them and they weren’t there and I don’t even know where to look. I’m so used to having them right...there.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge issue. My prescription hasn’t changed for over a decade, so several older pairs with various levels of scratchedness do the trick. But I gotta tell you, it’s annoying.

Loss is a constant for most of us. Misplacing eye glasses is the least of it. I’m losing friends and relatives on an increasing basis. The other day I started to tell a story, the facts of which a reasonable person might dispute, but then I realized there was no one alive in the world who was in a position to cast doubt on my truth-telling. That was a relief, knowing there was no buzz killing truth teller around.

I’ve certainly lost a step or two, or three, along with the usefulness of most of the holes on my belt.

All of that is more or less inevitable. Some of the losses are actually a win. I noticed this with my parents as they got older and the same thing is happening to me. I’ve lost a little of my judgmental attitude toward fellow human beings, I’m a little more generous, a little more forgiving. When you’re in your seventh decade, you’ve seen, and done, enough dumb things that it’s easier to cut the rest of humanity some slack.

Some of the losses on the horizon are bigger and more serious, and they’re not just my problem. An old saying is that the United States is the only country based not on geography, but on an idea. Our Constitution knit together ideas taken from sources as far reaching as ancient Greek philosophers and the League of the Iroquois. Geniuses took those ideas and put them together in one document and then realized they didn’t know everything, so left a mechanism for adding amendments as time changed. And add amendments we did, including ones recognizing that everyone, including former enslaved people and even women were actual human beings with rights and responsibilities. That document, those ideas, would be a lot to lose. Amazingly, people all over the country have lost the concept of those ideas, lost the thread of what makes America America, and don’t see the need for all those checks and balances, for the rights and processes that give everyone some say, that give everyone security and protection.

I can get new glasses, but I don’t think I could live in a place willing to lose something so valuable, so irreplaceable.

Just something I’m thinking about, as I look for my glasses and summer winds its way toward the Fourth of July.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

This is a problem. Not just for me, but for the universe.

I hadn’t budgeted much time for paint shopping. My plan was to walk in the door, find the spray paint aisle (second on the right), pick up some black spray paint, pay, and walk out. Throw in a 30-second conversation about the weather with whoever was running the till, and we’re talking two minutes, tops. Instead, I was almost locked up by indecision. It reminded me of the time a few decades ago when we had a Russian physicist working on our farm for the summer (don’t ask) and we sent him to get some coffee at the grocery store. When he hadn’t come back long after a reasonable time had passed, we finally tracked him down in the coffee aisle, completely frozen in place by the choices. Apparently in Russia, at that time, there were two choices if you wanted coffee – coffee or no coffee.

I had a similar moment not long ago. I’d been sent to purchase, among other things, a box of Cheez-Its. I reached the cracker aisle and counted twenty-three varieties of Cheez-Its. I’m lucky I made it out alive.

Before I started writing this, I thought I’d better doublecheck to make sure I knew what I was talking about and found out that there are, in fact, nearly seventy varieties of Cheez-Its. I have a friend who stocks shelves part time in this store, and he was grumbling a little about the cracker aisle. I can’t wait to tell him that things could be far worse.

Here’s the thing. Having a quarter mile of cracker choices doesn’t make us happier. There’s an actual term for it: The Paradox of Choice. Faced with a near infinite amount of choice makes us overthink and can utterly paralyze us. When I served on the Board of Ordained Ministry for the United Methodist Church, one of the requirements for ordination was to film or record a sermon. One young woman was anxious about it and asked me if she should record a sermon when the church was full, like Easter or Christmas Eve, or whether it should be one where she tackled a tough bit of scripture, or perhaps a personal favorite. I said, “Just pick one. You shouldn’t overthink this.”

She said, “I have a master’s in divinity. I can overthink anything!” That was a while ago, but I still think about her words. She has a lot of company in this world. Too many times, I’ve climbed on the treadmill for twenty minutes of exercise and my time expires before I’ve decided what I want to watch on the tv while I walk.

Next time you’re faced with a cascade of possibilities, try saying this under your breath. “Take what you can get, closest to what you want, and move on.” Then do it.

When my wife and I were youth leaders in our church, we chaperoned work projects in Jamaica, back in the 80s, and it seemed there were only four colors of paint in the country - a teal green, a soft red, yellow and blue. That’s it. If you wanted to paint your house, those were your choices. Maybe it was because they were living in a tropical paradise, but most people seemed pretty happy to me. I don’t know if black was one of the other choices. If it was, I bet there was only one shade.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

There is so much of it around me, and I’m trying to do what I can to reduce it, for the benefit of me and the universe.

For instance, the other day in a restaurant the young man waiting on me had a very low voice, one that blended seamlessly with the sound of the kitchen fans. When I didn’t understand what he was saying the second time, I said, “I’m sorry, but I have a little bit of a hearing problem. Can you speak up?”

He said, “My mom is deaf, too,” and then he spoke in a clear and distinct voice.

Now, my hearing is fine, or as fine as any 71-year-old who’s spent his life around loud machinery. There are a half dozen things I could have said to the young man, ranging from what I did say, to trying to profoundly humiliate him, to me being carried off in handcuffs screaming, “All I wanted was a piece of chicken with a side of ranch!”

What I said didn’t cost me anything, made him feel a tiny bit better about helping out a geezer, AND got me my piece of chicken.

Another example? At this point in my life if a young woman smiles at me it feels like a gift, like a whiff of apple blossoms when walking down a forest path. Doesn’t matter whether she’s copying my insurance information at the doctor or telling me what my root beer is going to cost at a gas station. If it feels appropriate, I’ll say, “You have a lovely smile,” and then quickly add, “You look like one of my granddaughters.”

Why do I do that? Because while I’m old enough that I’m no longer seen as dangerous, I still have the capacity to be considered creepy. Sometimes men follow, “you have a lovely smile,” with things like, “In ten years I’ll be dating you.” That’s outright creepy, which is a path I don’t want to go down, ever. But, the finest compliment I can give is, “...you look like one of my granddaughters.” Once in a while there’s a fleeting look in response that lets me know that they know what a compliment that is, that they know how grandfathers feel about their granddaughters.

I even extend my friction reduction to telemarketers. When someone calls on our landline it is so very seldom anyone I want to talk to, but I answer the phone. After they give me their name and launch into their spiel, I say, “Well, Bob, I never do stuff like this on the phone. But you have a good day.” And then I hang up.

Again, it doesn’t cost me anything, and if some scammer in a far away part of the world is on the other end of the line, no harm, no foul. And if the person calling me is working their third job trying to get through college, at least I haven’t made them hate their life more.

There’s so much friction around us. It’s death for machinery, leading to bad bearings and blown gaskets. It’s not good for society, either. I’m not just talking about good manners or common courtesy, although we certainly could have a conversation about those two underused skills. I just think that in most conversations there’s a way to frame your words to turn down the temperature just a bit. I’m writing this in the corner of a car dealership waiting room where I’ve been sitting for hours. My wife got a different car, and shortly after we drove it home, a warning light started to flash. It was a two-hour drive to take it to be looked at, a four-hour wait for the diagnosis, and then a two-hour drive home. The diagnosis was that they didn’t have the part needed to fix the problem. I had to go back a week later, losing another entire day. I looked at the service manager when she told me this news, took a deep breath and then said, “I think one of the biggest problems in the universe is that you so seldom get to yell at the person who deserves it. It’s not your fault the part isn’t here, but you’re the one standing in front of me.” She agreed, the dealership gave me a coupon for a free car wash, and I headed home.

It’s a basic rule of the universe that you can’t get rid of all friction, but I’m going to keep trying to reduce it.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson

A large doe was ambling back and forth on the edge of the lawn. I couldn’t figure out what she was doing; she’d graze on the fresh grass for a couple moments, then bounce into the air and sniff something a few feet away. Maybe she was searching for more succulent grazing, maybe she was just enjoying the morning. I am no expert on deer psychology.

Over her shoulder, I saw eight pelicans gliding across the water of Olson Lake. The sun was behind them, so they appeared black instead of their usual glistening white. They were doing that pelican thing, flying single file and so low to the water that you expected their wings to splash water on the downstroke.

I wandered over to a west facing window and watched two rabbits scampering around. I used to be pretty hard on the rabbit population, but now the fruit trees are fenced off and the garden is mainly raised beds, so I’m feeling a little more of a live and let live vibe.

Other than the light over the stove, the house was dark and quiet. The cat was outside, the little dog was still asleep, and no other humans were stirring. It was one of those times that would have been great to share, but not quite great enough to justify dragging someone out of bed.

The house smells great because yesterday Number 5 brought in a bouquet of plum blossoms, and this morning when I went to do chicken chores, I noticed the crabapple trees were budding.

Later in the day the minnow trap guy stopped by to give me a check and complain that he couldn’t hire any help. I’m not surprised, because it seems like a challenging job. You’re outside all day in every kind of weather, wearing rubber waders and hauling heavy minnow traps around. His mom has cancer, his dad had a stroke, and his little dog is getting older. It was a pretty in-depth conversation considering I only see him once a year, and his name often slips my mind. Before that my longest conversation with someone outside my immediate family was two weeks ago when a neighbor stopped by for a few minutes to pick up some books I was donating to a worthy cause. And that was a banner week...usually my longest conversations are with the clerk at the gas station while I’m entering my PIN.

It sometimes makes me smile. Henry David Thoreau is famous because he retreated from modern life to a cabin on Walden Pond in order to think great thoughts. Except, his cabin was only a mile from town, his mom still did his laundry, and when he walked to town for lunch he traveled on the railroad right of way on the edge of his property. By his standards I live in a howling wilderness, especially since when I’m in my office, I’m out of reach of the internet unless I hold my phone right up to the window.

Even though I have a deadline, I’m having trouble finishing this, because for the last twenty minutes there has been a young otter frolicking twenty feet away at the edge of the water. Otters are relatively new to our area. I’ve seen them before, but usually just while driving, getting enough of a glimpse to make you say, “Wait, was that an otter?” This is the first time I’ve ever just sat and watched one, doing somersaults, munching on vegetation, basically just frolicking. I don’t have the lights on in my office so even though I’m sitting in plain view behind a picture window I’m basically invisible. It is, honestly, as much fun as I’ve had in quite a while.

We live in such an inconvenient place. Tomorrow I have to take my wife’s car in for warranty work, and the dealer is a two-hour drive away, so it will use up my entire day. The closest movie theatre is forty minutes, and eclectic dining options are a little spotty. You give up a lot, living in a place like this.

But you get something, too.

Copyright 2026 Brent Olson