Whenever I get up to Duluth, I like to visit the galleries down on Canal Street.  I always visit the Art Dock.  There are racks and racks of photos and paintings of the north shore and shipping and the city of Duluth.

Every year I flip through the artwork, seeing which paintings and photos are “still there” and think about the ones that I remember but can’t find; the ones that may have found a home.

This is one of my favorites!!

It’s been in the shop for a few years. It’s lovely. $195.00. Too expensive for me; I’m selfishly glad it was still there this week — I liked seeing it again, but I moved it up front so it can — maybe — find a home.

I’ll visit it again today, perhaps for the last time.

Art Dock

394 Lake Avenue South (DeWitt-Seitz Marketplace)
Duluth, MN 55802
(218) 722‑1451

It’s easy to show up after a meaningful weekend at the Jesuit retreat house at DeMontreville, outside Lake Elmo Minnesota; spending the time stumbling through a sliver of the “Exercises” Ignatius Loyola wrote centuries ago; three days ‘disposed’ to solitude, silence, self-reflection.

Half-way through coffee with a fellow pilgrim on the Monday morning after, a breakthrough occurred — why am I going through the regular routine this morning feeling completely odd with no clue about why? I was relaxed, reflective and really in an amazing place — but oddly uncomfortable.

Then it hit me, I left whatever resentment, anger and  fear I had back there, in the retreat center. So I’m uncomfortable with what I received; which was what I was hunting for, only I didn’t know it; I don’t know how to be comfortable in the present. I’m adjusting, still feeling great today although I know it’s like one of my pals said about all the fear and resentment being gone, “Don’t worry, it’ll be back before You know it!”

True enough.

It’s deer hunting season, so over the retreat weekend before anyone goes out on the grounds they grab an orange vest to avoid being accidentally mistaken for a four-legged buck. During my walk on Saturday I spotted a fellow ‘pilgrim’ across the field; in a blazing orange vest searching — hunting — for what the retreat might offer — blazing orange and in the hunt!

I know I received more than I expected at DeMontreville and everything I needed.
I hope he did too.

This is a great time of the year for me to take a little extra time and do some reflecting on what’s going on, where are things headed, what I have to be grateful for. Maybe it is for You too.

If so, good hunting!

If there’s one thing You can count on in the fall in Minnesota; it’s boats — for sale.

There’s boats all over the place — like this green one.
Hand painted green.

Good time to be looking, and maybe buying.

This little walking stick was on the wall on the front porch yesterday.

Strange creatures.

It was only about 5 inches long and I somehow caught a glimpse out the corner of my eye. In Borneo they grow to 13 inches in length. More Info...

I don’t know how old this one is; Must be a young, fit one. No love handles.

In San Diego last week I ran headlong in California; it was awesome.

Beaches, great shopping, 75 degrees, personalized license plates and all the easy-going business that I associate with this great state.

I took some photos I really like. The zoo, real estate, the beach.

I found some ‘meetings’ in the University Heights district not far from our rental.  The meetings were awesome; the people were amazing; open, willing and  honest. I left the gatherings unusually refreshed and feeling full of gratitude.

It’s a great neighborhood.
There were quirky, classic cars all throughout — none so much as this one.

Sometime in the last ninety years, somebody was designing a logo for a business; an extermination business; Western Exterminators.

This week in San Diego, I awoke to the sight of the house across the street completely covered with huge sheets of canvas, held tightly together with clips and weighed down along the bottom with sandbags.  A big banner on one end told the story — the house was being fumigated.

I tried to imagine an artist mentally going through the process; putting the guy in a tux and top hat, deciding to boink the mouse with a sledge-hammer. But give the mouse a knife, fork and…a bib!

Awesome.

Not sure how much better it could be for a kid that loves trains and cheeseburgers than an hour or so playing with little wooden trains at Choo Choo Bob’s Train Store in St Paul, followed by a visit to McDonald’s.

My cell phone didn’t work in Choo Choo Bob’s.

An unexpected gift.

May means fishing. Fishing means boats. Boats mean outboard motors. And there is no better place to take an old outboard for the repair You put off last fall than Twin City Outboard down in Savage, MN.

Twin City is an old joint packed to the rafters with motors dating back to 1906. Gas motors, trolling motors, duck hunting motors, 2-stroke motors; You name it.

This is the third time I’ve taken the motor down there. It’s a 1964 Johnson 9.5 which I bought used about 10 years ago. It takes a lot of abuse, so, it needs a lot of help. But it’s a good horse and a good second motor for a small boat if You don’t need to go too very far too very fast. Every time I get it fixed it costs around two hundred dollars and takes about two weeks and lasts for about two years.

Nice to know there are things You can still count on.

There is a long, tall slender pine on the back nine of what, over the last 18 years, had become my favorite place to play golf; not far from where one brother threw a pitching wedge far into the woods in disgust, another hit a 290 yard drive and where last Sunday, I played what might be the last round I ever will at the Lake Course at Kingwood Country Club.

We have met there the second week in April every year for the last 18.

Next year our annual outing will be up in the hill country so getting back to Houston not be an annual event anymore, if I get back there at all.

Pulling away yesterday in the jet, looking down on my former home, thinking about what my life was like 30 years ago when I lived there, what has happened, and what its like now, I had a pretty savage sadness well up; I was flying in a small jet, hemmed in by a large dude in the next seat. I had to breathe like crazy — like someone in labor or a sprinter — to keep from panic.  It was odd.

I finally was saved from trying to claw my way off the plane, by gratitude — that was the only way to find my way out of the morass of emotion I was drowning in.

Gratitude worked thank goodness. And though I wasn’t completely sure what was going on, I guess now I know it had to do with the fact that there’s more time behind me than ahead of me. But, that doesn’t have to mean I’m on the back nine.

Yet.

Last Sunday at the Minneapolis Institute of Art we happened by this bust — Roman? — that caught me completely off guard. At first glance I actually thought it was a joke!!

I’ve never notice a classical statue or bust with hair like this and a mustache to boot! I thought, “Wow, 1974.”  Son-in-law Matt said, “What it is Romans!”

I don’t know why I kept the photo as the background on my phone for four days. I usually have a sky or some great graffiti. I guess I’m just shocked at the look — and that’s probably because I wore sideburns and a mustache exactly like this Dude — in 1974.

It looks a lot better on him than me. No doubt.

Proves once again that everything in fashion just keeps coming around again.