Hey Boogs,

It was a day not unlike today, a brilliant bright sunny sky belied the true depths of the cold outside. The hospital staff saw fit to let us depart with this new little human swaddled in blue and bathed in the love that only parents can know.

From that day forward you have been my everything— my light in the darkness— my smile in the blind.

I’ve watched a baby who became a boy, and a boy who became a man. A good man. A kind man. A man that will make a difference in this world when this world so desperately needs difference makers.

I am so proud of you Charlie, and I am in awe of all the possibility before you. There is so much magic in this world, and if you can tune out the populism and chase that magic, you’ll be better for it.

I hated seeing you go to Montana, but big dreams deserve big skies. I’ve told you time and again, your mom and I are here in the woods cheering you on, but really— all you need to do is close your eyes, touch your heart, and know we are always with you wherever your adventures take you.

Happy birthday my Boy!

Love,
The Squiz.

Cookie Monster

I had heard a crashing in the wood behind me, I waited silently hoping to hear more while chewing a particularly crunchy coconut cookie. The sound trailed off, I returned to the business of my particularly crunchy cookie.  

A short time latter he materialized to my left, having not made any more sounds as he escaped the thicket and meandered through the wet clearing.  A mid sized spike buck, the first I’ve seen afield this season, he followed the trail in a semi circle around me. 

He paused for a moment, surveying his surroundings in the middle of my first shooting lane, he tensed and shook the morning’s rain from his coat. Oblivious to any danger, he continued his journey around me, stopping yet again in yet another shooting lane to shake away the morning cobwebs.

This old man has grown too soft over the years to take a spike— sure I took a similar specimen last year, but that unfortunate fellow had walked past my stand on three separate occasions and that seems more like an invitation than any anything else. I suppose he would have seen that differently?

Suffice it to say, there is a spike buck out there with one count against him, but who’s to say there aren’t any counts against me? For now I’ll wish him well and safe travels, as other old men I know won’t discriminate as much as I. 

Now, back to those particularly crunchy coconut cookies.

Big Sky Moment

Hey Boy,

I can feel it more than I can see it. It’s a pressing on my chest, a stolen breath, a glimpse from the edges that is your path away from us. I always thought we had more time. More time for trap shooting, more time for choir concerts, more time for lullabies and super jumps.

Those days are behind us now, as is our summer of trap shooting. You missed some clays this season and it made you mad.  It’s ok to be mad Son, it’s even ok to miss. The challenge is how you choose to respond the next time. Whether it’s with clays, or friends, or love and war, you will be challenged in ways that you cannot possibly imagine. The measure of your character will be how willing you are to grow and learn from these challenges.

You’ve experienced so much these past few years, whether it be a pandemic or an insurrection. When I was your age, the most we had to contend with was a white stain on an intern’s blue dress. We are seeing both ends of a spectrum that is divided by mistrust and anger.  Rest assured; cooler heads will someday prevail. We will find the better part of center, and while we may not, and should not get everything we want, we will find common ground to move our community and our country forward.  You can be part of this change, please be part of this change. 

I could never find a particular brand of religion that suited my sense of the supernatural. For me, there was too much judgment and condescension clouding the experience. But those are the trappings of people, and while most of them are well intentioned, their words and actions tend to cut the deepest. This world and the universe that surrounds it is infinite in splendor and that realm between science and spirituality holds so many mysteries. It is not something to fear nor is it something that must be solved. Never temper your curiosity or settle simply for what you’ve been told to follow. Instead, find a path that works for you, and choose wholeheartedly to believe in it.

I know you are incredulous to college grades, but I want you to understand they are the simplest way to measure how far you have come from where you began. We may be Goodenough’s, but I challenge you to be better than good enough in everything that you do. This isn’t a challenge to be better than anyone else, it is a challenge to be better than what you were yesterday. Never settle for mediocrity. This is a lesson my father taught me, and one I hope I taught you. Learn how to jump rope, it might sound silly, but there’s nothing more ridiculous than a grown man that can’t jump rope. When you learn how, please teach me.

I love you Son, every part of you that ever was or ever will be. I cannot be with you on this adventure, nor would you want me to. This is your time, and Big Sky is your place. Graduation may be fresh in your mind, but that memory is no more tangible than the last lullaby or that last super jump when you flew into my arms. I didn’t want to let go then— I sure as hell don’t want to let go now.

But it’s time.

Just know that Mom and I will be here in the woods cheering on your every success and always ready to offer a kind word and a hug should there be a missed clay along the way. 

Love,
The Squiz

Tear Drops

It was raining the other night with the sun shinning.

Lately, I've been struggling to put words to it all, an anxious melancholy— that sunny rain proved more perfect than the most perfect words.

Our Boy is graduating soon, I can feel our time with him fleeting. It steals my breath. I want to hold onto him so damn tight, but his path is before him and it sure is amazing.

He is the greatest thing we have ever made. I see in him all of your strength and kindness, I see in him my curiosity and independence. I am so proud of him, and yet my heart selfishly aches for what our world becomes when he ventures west. We are like a puzzle with a missing piece?

There was always going to be more time for us, more choir concerts, more trap competitions, just more of us. It feels like that moment before the roller coaster drops, I'm hanging there in space and I can see all the faces of my little boy as he has journeyed to become the wonderful man he is today.

The rain makes me sad, but the sun brings with it an infinite hope for all that our son has to offer this world, and the understanding that we'll be here in the woods forever cheering on his every success.

Damn, I love that boy.

Love Letters…

Hey Mama,

I wanted to write about our anniversary last night.

But I miss you when you're gone, so I thought maybe I'd write you a love letter instead.

I remember meeting you for lunch at Ridgedale years ago, I saw you first as you entered the mall. I didn't wave, I just watched you. It took you a moment to find me in the crowd. Your demeanor changed, your smile became deeper, your eyes more piercing.

You loved me then. Long before we knew what love really was.

Tonight when I met you at that little tap house, I came around the corner, and you shot out of the booth with that same smile and those same piercing eyes. You still love me.

Twenty-three years is a long time together, or maybe not? Has it been years or maybe just long enough to whisper to each other "I love you".

You let me be me, you are unashamed of my broken pieces. And when I am with you, you heal the broken, soften my edges, and let me have this so silly mustache.

All these memories, all that we have seen our boy achieve, all the memories that are left to be made.

I wanted to write you a love letter, but then I realized...you are my love letter.

See you soon Mama.

Low Tide

We had discussed hunting the little creek for nearly two years. Beavers had worked diligently to slow the waters flow, transforming a lazy cut between properties into criss-crossing channels and quiet pockets perfect for dabbling ducks and clucking geese.

Last week, armed with a Chainsaw and 34" brush cutter I zig-zagged my way under the canopy of an Aspen grove to reach the creeks edge. The remnants of an old hay wagon lay to the side of my new path, a reminder of different times, slowly dissolving into the forest floor.

I stood on the creeks edge with a child's delight, it was so deliciously peaceful. I had seen birds and I could hear nothing of the man made world. It was me and the call of a raven, the lowing from a bossy cow, and the beating of my own heart. A growing anticipation and yearning for cool mornings and gentle sunrises played through my mind.

I bought a little Jon boat last night from a 16 year old boy who had hunted mallards out of it with his Grand Father. It is a little nondescript Jon boat, a perfect platform for my dog and I to waste away a gorgeous fall day in a little creek, and maybe for my boy too, in those rare opportunities when his girlfriend is otherwise occupied and he wants to be with his dad.

My boy helped me haul the little Jon boat to the little creek, and I was so excited to share all that beauty with him. I wanted him to taste the anticipation as I had for days. He walked towards the creek bank and yelled back to me, "Where is the water?". Amusingly I yelled "It's right there buddy", as I broke through the forest wall to find all of it had been for naught.

Unbeknownst to me, a local farmer had visited the little creek the night before and pulled the beaver damn asunder. Like pulling a plug from a tub, the water was all but gone. The criss-crossing channels made way to mud stained grass, the quiet pockets left no trace save for a faded waterline, reminiscent of the pencil marks we leave behind as our children grow away from us.

I was speechless, all my anticipation drained away.

Later in the evening my boy and I sat in our usual chairs, at our usual little bar, he with a soda and me with a brew. The first song to play on the jukebox was Merle Haggard's Kern River, a tragic song about lost love. What seemed so cosmically mocking at the time, resonates now as I write this. I know the beavers will bring my little creek back, and the ducks and the geese will return, but time will take my boy away and this moment for which I was so excited, was never meant to be.

Harvest Stroll

I was on a sunset stroll with my pup tonight. She had been out for training for what seemed like an eternity, and while she may have pooped in my boat our first time out, she has taken quite fondly to walks off leash.

It was a beautiful night in Bullmoose township and we were walking down our quiet country road. I might have brought a delicious pumpkin ale along with me. After all, it’s pumpkin ale season.

I had done some roof work earlier, and the precarious nature of the roof with the natural imbalance of a “Matthew” had left my nerves a little shaken.

So we walked our quiet dusty road. With a delicious pumpkin ale. Halfway through our walk, I started think’n about all the things I was supposed to be doing on a Monday night.

Rush hour, a trip to the gym, a trip to Home Depot, or some other mundane todo in a place I wasn’t supposed to be.

It was then I realized that I was drinking a 9% beer and while I’m no Walt Whitman, there’s little shame and much room for introspection when the alcohol content is this high.

I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to. Lost to the world on my quiet dusty road in a township named for a long dead president, here for my pup, and she here for me.

In Awe

My son shot a perfect 100.  I’m in awe of him.

For those of you not familiar with American Trap, a single round consists of 5 stations with a competitor shooting five times from each station for a total of 25 shots. The trap thrower is set 16 yards in front of the shooter and oscillates from left to right within a 54 degree arc. The shooter is not aware of the clays trajectory until it is released at speeds up to forty mph and traveling as far as fifty yards.

Sounds simple enough, but let’s add wind, let’s add rain, and for this Minnesota boy, let’s add snow because he has shot in all of it this season. Charlie has been shooting for seven years and during that time he has never seen the same shot in the same place. The variability of this sport is nearly infinite as the snow flakes in a winter storm.  

Adding to the pressure, success is measured by perfection; 4 rounds of 25 with zero misses With all of these challenges stacked against him, my son shot a perfect 100.

None of this came easy.  We started the “Spring” high school season with shovels rather than shotguns to find the field. He finished as top shooter for his team, he competed throughout the summer in the high school Rodeo Trap league and finished as the Minnesota State Champion.  We traveled to Michigan and Wyoming to compete in national events, and while he came up short of his goals, he came back with a drive to improve.  

He shot his first 98 at the local shooting range in August, and followed that with a first place finish in the youth category of a local shooting competition.  His exploits even earned him a spot in the local paper. And tonight, with all of this accomplishment behind him and nothing but possibility before him, my son shot a perfect 100.  

My son will always be perfect to me. Tonight he was perfect for the world, and most importantly, he was perfect for himself.  And so I will continue watching him grow; I will keep his scores, I will cheer his successes, and I will help him learn from his failures. I’m not sure what is next for my son, but I will follow him wherever the wind and the clays may take him.

Pushing North

Pushing ever further north. 

Freeways to highways, highways to county roads, county roads to township roads, township roads to dirt paths, a dirt path to a scratch in the woods and onto the water. So it was, every October weekend for as long as I can remember.

We lived our city lives, all the while growing a deep love for the woods and the water. What was a casual getaway on a weekend, grew into a yearning for something different. A longing for the peace and the serenity of a quieter life.

I saw ducks this morning, I didn’t shoot any of them and that is ok. I was able to be here in this place, and know that my adventures will be spent in the woods or on the water rather than behind a steering wheel chasing back and forth between the man I was and the man I get to be.

A Cart Boy & Cashier

I was a sixteen year old boy, not much older than my son is today. I had been working at our local Menards as a carryout, a fancy way of saying 'cart boy'. My job was simple, bring the carts in from the parking lot, help customers load oversized items, and if working the closing shift, empty the register trash. It was the perfect job for me, at sixteen I did my best to melt into my surroundings rather than being part of them.

I was working the late shift on a nondescript summer Saturday night, what seemed unlimited in those days, now seems so fleeting the older that I get. I had spent most of that particular evening outside, as I did most of the time. With the store closed, I began collecting the trash. Reaching under the register of lane three, I heard something behind me, I turned and found my path blocked and my life forever changed.

I can’t remember what she was wearing, but I do remember her blue apron and her smile. I know there was more, but it was her smile that drew me in. It was infectious. And terrifying. She introduced herself and asked me how old I was, then asked if I wanted to go dancing. I was speechless. And terrified. Cornered in lane 3, it was impossible for me to melt away, it was impossible for me to be anything but hers.

It has been that way for twenty five years now, and today we celebrate 20 years of marriage. Our wedding day was a lot like it is now as I write this…cold, cloudy, with the anticipation of warmer days ahead. Karen and I have literally grown up together and I would not be the man I am without the woman she has become. We have laughed, we have cried, we have lost, and we have won. We love a son who makes us laugh everyday, and we have found the narrative to our story deep in the woods of Minnesota. I can’t imagine our life being any different, and I am so excited for the next twenty years and more.