Too much information from Harry Welty #2 – Sat. 7/27/2013
It will not be necessary for me to send this as an email to my prospective volunteer. He’s in. He’s now also clued in to read the blog in all its TMI glory. We have sent private emails to each other concerning some of the many points I raised. He, unlike me and perhaps wisely, is not inclined to a TMI life and I will respect his privacy. We knew each other pre-Osama bin Ladin and a lot of water has flowed under the damn for both of us.
I did him a good turn. It wasn’t much really but apparently he’s inclined after a long absence from Duluth to return the favor. I am likely to reap a much greater return on my investment in human decency than I deserve. Hooray for me!
We had a long meeting a few days ago and as in any case were two loquacious people have fifteen years to catch up on we left many “threads” as I called them untied. There was just too much ground to cover and I used the first TMI email/blog post to catch him up. Of course, he could just read my blog from its beginnings in 2006 to the present but if he attempted its several million words he’d be dead from boredom and in no condition to help me campaign. So, I will continue the TMI from HRW posts for the time being to both catch him up and any new readers of the blog as well.
Notes on my MO (Method of Operation)
Note One: I’m addicted to candor. Its not a complete addiction. I am quite inclined to choose what I wish to disclose. I’m also loathe to do anything that I would not want to disclose. I’m not into drama or soap opera. I live a fairly mundane life despite a predilection for running for political offices I generally am unable to attain. But like a lot of folks what snaps and fizzles between my ears doesn’t seem all that mundane to me. My eight loyal readers are aware of that. Goodness look at all the threads listed to the left of this post. I have more opinions than I know what to do with and can’t shut my fingers up about them.
Note Two: As I told my new volunteer I’ve always liked the magician Harry Anderson and not just because we share the same first name. If you’ll recall he starred as the judge in a sitcom called “Night Court.” Not much magic in the series as I recall just comedy. It was his stage act on late shows I admired. Harry would show you how to perform a trick by giving the trick away then he’d perform it and his audience would be just as perplexed with the trick despite apparently having been told how it was performed.
When I am blogging about some political activity of mine this blog gives the impression that I’m disclosing all. Sometimes that is a disadvantage. It was when I was fighting the Red Plan. My allies were all worried that I was giving too much away to our “enemies.” No. I was just being a Harry Anderson. Giving too much info away only hurt our fight once although I must admit it was a crushing blow. I disclosed an anecdote I thought humorous without realizing that I had revealed a possible violation by our lawyer of the State’s judicial rules for attorneys. The enemies got the District Court to strip us of our legal counsel. Talk about fighting with both hands tied behind your back. I had expended great effort to raise $20,000 to hire him and even more to raise $100,000 for a bond to keep our case before the courts. Then nada! The word “Bummer” just can’t cover the injury.
Note Three: I suspect that there are some folks in Duluth who just don’t like me and would go to great lengths to upset my apple cart. When I served on the School Board an anonymous note once disclosed that they really hated my snow sculptures presumably because every body liked them and this person did not want anyone liking me. And that was before the Red Plan! I write this blog to explain myself because that’s not a job I want to leave up to folks who hate my snow sculptures.
Note Four: Many times I do not proof read my blog posts especially when I write a very lengthy one in a stream of conscience fashion like this one and the first TMI post. I’ll do a spell check and fix sentences immediately after typing them but I can live with typos and the odd awkward phrasing. This is a blog not a book ready for publishing. Besides showing my blemishes fits in with Note One’s insistence on candor. I ain’t perfect.
UNFINISHED THREADS
I started writing this post at 3AM after a grandson I hadn’t been expecting to stay with us this evening woke up with a nightmare. I wasn’t the one to go check on him but once awake I began feeling my thigh cramping up again. So, it was off to eat one of the banana’s purchased last night for a fix of potassium. Then I took a couple Advil’s for my back. If I thought Thursday’s six or so hours of work was hard it was nothing compared to the Seven-and-a-half I put in today. I hoisted 119 sixty pound bags of concrete over my shoulder to pour into a mixer to fill many score of wheelbarrow loads to push across a slippery clay mine field and pour into the 17 six foot deep holes I helped dig the day before.
I got some of my planned activities done yesterday. I cranked out the email/blog post and got a positive reply from my volunteer. It was while writing it that my wife told me she was headed to the Mall of America with my daughter and the boys for a day of fun. I’d been vaguely aware that she had talked about something like this the day before but it still was a nice surprise. I would be able to do stuff without apron springs. I thought I might get a campaign bank account opened.
I managed as anticipated in the first TMI post to get my Not Eudora column written and emailed into the publisher. I visited my Mother and sang for a short hour. I came home and saw that one of my fellow at-large candidates was unhappy with KBJR/KDLH television. He wasn’t the only one. I’m not sure why I got Henry Bank’s email. Perhaps it was to let his other challengers know that he suspected the channel was doing someone a favor and he was not happy. Here’s the background.
Someone who is not employed by the station contacted all the at large candidates for an interview a week ago. There are six of us who responded and he set interviews up for two groups of three candidates each. I had explained that I would be out of town in St. Louis, Missouri on Aug 1 and he gave three of us Annie Harala, Henry and me an interview for 1 PM on Thursday. I dutifully showed up at the station only to learn after cooling my heels in the waiting room for fifteen minutes that there was no such interview scheduled. When i was told Nick didn’t work at the station I got worried that I was at the wrong station.
When I realized that no one had told me the interview had been canceled I pointedly emailed “Nick” and reminded him that I had told him that an August 1 date would not work. He emailed back to tell me I was right. That’s when he tried to set up a new date with Annie and Henry. I suspect that what will happen is that I will end up being the only candidate not included in the KBJR interviews. Do you hear that KBJR? You will owe me if you shaft me – not that I’ll expect to collect anything.
My neighbor’s lawn still sits torn up waiting for me to get back to sodding it.
I have glimpsed the tall ships during my comings and goings but mostly I have been coming and going.
I got a call this morning from my daughter’s contractor wondering if I could help mix concrete today. I told him I would try to get there by two which was the deadline for my Reader Weekly column. I got there a little ahead of schedule wearing cast offs. I worked like a twenty-year old fullback non-stop for 7 and a half hours until all the humor was pretty well beaten out of me. I went home to cast off my dusty cast offs and shower. I dearly wanted someone to come back from their holiday at the Mall of America and praise my hard labors. Indeed as I showered I heard a door open and a thundering herd of two excited small boys. They wondered where the invisible man was who had cast of his cloths in the patio.
it turned out that the drive home was a four hour (it should have been two and a half hours) nightmare and my wife was not terribly interested in hearing about my tortured back. She hadn’t eaten either. I sullenly got some fast food and munched it while my shaky arm knocked over my large chocolate shake spilling it out on the table next too the bright yellow lilies I’d brought home the night before. I uttered “Oh fudge” or something less gentile and told my wife I had hoped for praise and was in no mood to offer condolances to anyone else. I suggested we eat in silence rather than risk talking. I stuck my half shake in the freezer and got a bottle of wine. I did it without asking. I thought its presence might help transition us into a better frame of mind. It worked. I went to bed. I have yet to get enough sleep.
Tomorrow I will likely spend my Saturday plucking up pats of clay from my daughter’s newly sodded yard to prevent it from turning brown and dying. Yippee!
Oh, and I got an email that said my Reader column had failed to be delivered electronically. Rats! I made a call and left a message to the publisher suggesting that his webpage being down might have something to do with the problem. I sent the column out twice more by email and got them back as undeliverable.
There were a lot of other things I was going to write but I’ve already passed the TMI high tide. Its almost 5AM and I’m going to bed. I hope the bananas have kicked in.
