![\"\"](\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51743209033_e25a657c34_z.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTurn 71 on a friday and just maybe the first weekend of your eighth decade will be a nice one. Mine was. Here is me tonight at my delayed birthday dinner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My Daughter’s family gave me a lunch box. I’ll explain my delight in a moment after a brief iteration of other things about the weekend that were swell.<\/p>\n
On Friday I decided on a snow sculpture facing four days of warmth that will give me perfect snow to sculpt…….if enough of it survives the next four days. I also worked on my column for the Duluth Reader a bit about my jaded attitude towards the recently deceased Senator Bob Dole. I had the day off from teaching which barely gave me time to finish the last bit of organization before I begin the next phase of book writing. An eight hour day teaching will severely cut into my writing time but so far the rewards have outweighed this loss of freedom.<\/p>\n
On Saturday I made a preliminary clay model for my next snow sculpture. Its absolutely non political and seasonal. It will be a challenge since I’ll be subbing during the warmth of both Tuesday and Wednesday when the warm front ends. Its perhaps my most complicated design ever.<\/p>\n
On Sunday. Our church choir sang for the first time in over two years. I sang tenor and could reach all the notes. We sang masked. Then I finished a very different Reader column that was more seasonal and personal. Its called “Christmas by George.”<\/strong> Bob Dole can wait. Then I went to a Duluth Depot play with my grandson in two minor roles one of them as a buddy of Snoopy’s little pal Woodstock. Then I had my birthday dinner. My other son asked me what the French word “desole” meant and I knew. I got the present above. And now the story about the present.<\/p>\n As we ferried our neighbors across the street to a doctor’s appointment they teased that I should take a lunch box with me to the schools I sub at. Claudia told my Woodstock Grandson who told his parents. Mad shopping at local antique stores ensued. Someone discovered this vintage 1970 Johnny Lightening lunch pail. When I opened it it was stocked with chocolates for my next few meals at school. I look forward to taking it to School with me.<\/p>\n Our neighbors will be delighted to hear how their suggestion has been acted on. I am too. Je n’est pas desole! <\/em> I’m not sorry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turn 71 on a friday and just maybe the first weekend of your eighth decade will be a nice one. Mine was. Here is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32637"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32641,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32637\/revisions\/32641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lincolndemocrat.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}