What two words in my native tongue can incite such unbridled laughter to the fortunate few who have tasted of the nectar of nonsense? Napoleon Dynamite. Rarely have I seen the same movie twice in three days and laughed harder the second time. Clean, (we took our seven and ten year old) and incredibly raunch free, it's simply the most enjoyable film I've seen all year. I was surrounded, in the theater, by a crowd of people who had seen this thing enough times to be able to quote it and still they were struck with epileptic fits of giddiness. In the wacky vein of the Coens or Waters, Nap D was shot in 22 days for a budget of less than a million and there is nere a computer effect in sight, even in the opening credits. Raw, refreshing, and unrelenting in an early 80's onslaught of geek fashion, music, and hilarious frustration. You know how there are nine or ten good lines in a decent comedy that you quote amonst friends for years to come? In this movie there are no less than 50 of those kind of lines. But you can't quote them for people who haven't seen the film because by themselves, from anyone elses mouth, they just aren't that funny. "Gosh!" "Whatever I want to do!" "Are you gonna eat your tots?" "Are you drinking 1 percent because you think you're fat?" "I worked for three hours on the shading of your upper lip." "The defect in this one is bleach. Yesssss." "I can't fit my nunchucks in my locker." "Vote for Pedro." "...our underwater ally." "That one looks like a medieval warrior." "You got like three feet of air that time." "Do the chickens have large talons?" "I will build a cake for her." "Sweet!!!" "It tastes like this cow got into an onion patch. Yessssss." "My lips hurt really bad." "Vote for me and all of your wildest dreams will come true." "It's a Liger." "Pedro offers you his protection." "Lucky!"
And the dancing, oh the dancing.

The age of 12-15 is a Minnesota thunderstorm, the thought of which makes me want to run for cover. But if I had it to live over again I would but I don't think I would change much. Those were good times. In Lake Benton I had a measure of freedom that I can't give to my own children in this city we live in. And that's a sad state of affairs. For it's in the ability to go wrong that you find whether or not you posess the fortitude to go right. For me that was a good thing because I had some good training by a couple of great parents. I wonder if, in the same situations, would my own children choose wisely? Anyhow, I had a great friend by the name of Zoe Peterson. A firecracker of a girl with a hard right hook to go with her sensitive feminine self. She lived on the edge of town which meant that she had things us city kids didn't have. Horses, a pet racoon, and a fourwheeler. Ahhhh the fourwheeler. It came out of the box clean and was never that way again. The sign (no fourwheelers) that's posted in the park across the street is there today as a memorial to our destructive driving skills. We had some spectacular mishaps and are fortunate to be intact today. Riding back to the Peterson house one day covered in mud from head to toe and too tired to laugh, I had a realization. That danger and fun and risk and pleasure and terror and ecstasy are hard to separate. Often you find one surgically connected to the other. The older I get the more I realize that I'm avoiding the risks, the terror, the danger, and I think this is wisdom. At least common sense tells me to be 'safe'. So we do one of two things. We learn to enjoy those things that made adults seem so boring when we were kids, like sitting around the living room to visit. Or talking to the cat. Or doing crossword puzzles. Or reading the obituary page. Or planting a garden. Or sitting on the toilet with a readers digest til your thighs go numb. Engage in these things and you're likely to never know the sting of having stitches removed again. Unless your cat is like mine and doesn't enjoy casual conversation...
I think, as with most things, that balance is the key. Like Zoe's hard right hook balancing out her sensitive side, we need balanced growth. Don't grow elderly in the process of growing old. Remember the thunderstorm of youth and, instead of running for cover, dance in the rain. At least it'll help your circulation.

Lake Benton, Minnesota. The name means nothing except to me, some old residents, and the 703 people who currently call the community 'home'. It was my home, but it's been awhile. Crossing over the windy plains of Buffalo Ridge travelling west, it surprises a smile on your face when your road suddenly drops and winds through the trees into one of the most peaceful valley towns you ever saw. As you descend, the trees draw back like a curtain to reveal the lake to the left and to the right, the steep roofs of the houses, churches, and buildings just peek through the leafy blanket of green that covers them. To the right is a small ski resort that boasts an old rope tow to the top of a hill that, in the summer, makes room for brave youngsters to roll and run down though the soft bermuda grass. We have dinner at the Country House, where the recipe for French Onion soup, thankfully hasn't changed. I went to school with Julie, our waitress. We catch up briefly yet affectionately. Last I saw her, 16 years ago, she was smiling. Still is. It's hard not to smile around here. Tonight a group of locals makes up the cast of the play, 'Annie' which will draw sell out crowds into the 100 year old opera house. This town is not dead, neither is it dying. It's as alive as Andy Griffith reruns on cable and every bit as familiar. You feel like you've been here before and that you could stand to be here longer than you plan to stay. The play is excellent. Not just a decent bit of community theater. It's good enough to make you glad you left the TV off tonight. These players will go back to family, farms, fields, a mere diversion from the normality of growning corn and soybeans. I take my kids to the park behind my old house. The park I used to play in. The park that still has a merry go round and those dangerous metal jungle gyms in the shape of a dome. No rubbermaid playgroud equipment here. I got the wind knocked out of me on this merry go round at the age of 9. More than once as I recall. I can still hear mom's alto voice climbing the entire musical scale saying the phrase, "Billlllllyyyy, time for supppeeerrrrrrr!" I hated it then. I love its memory now. I went to the school where I found the back door cracked open. I reach for the handle and the door jars open without my help. I step back and look up at Bob, the janitor. "It's been a long time." I say. I say that alot around here. He says, "Henry's boy." Can I look around? (It's good to see him) Sure. I lead my children straight to the 5th grade classroom. (The school runs 1st grade through 12th grade) This was Mrs Haugen's room. Affectionately known as Mrs. H, there was never a better teacher in any school anywhere. The desks are the same. The smell is the same. The marks I made in the wood are still there. (My inner artist trying to express himself) The hall seems smaller. Everything seems smaller.
Back outside, we wander to the old house. The current owners, the Carpenters, are not only glad to see me, but offer ice cream cones to my kids while I look around. Again, everything looks smaller. The house, built in the late 1800s is still solid enough to hold out the biting cold of winter. I walk up the oak staircase to my room. The floor still creaks in the same places. Every solid wood door has a real key hole. I wonder what my current house will look like in 100 years. I laugh. This is the stage upon which played out many a scene that taught me many lessons. Some of the following stories are totally true. Some are as true as I remember them to be. Like I said, It's been awhile.

(Stories about life in Lake Benton will appear after this date, not literally 'below')

I'm on vacation in Minnesota/South Dakota. I think the high is around 72 today.