About The Site

This is Big Bob Rose's Blog. Big Bobby Rose (Rosel) is from Rose Creek, MN. This is his new toy and it will provide him with hours of fun. More to come.

And The Record Is…

11 hrs and 45 minutes.

Record for what?

The longest day working at the post office in my 24 plus years.  Punched off the clock at 8 pm after carrying mail in subzero temps all day.  Last week.  Long week.

Let’s hear it…auuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh.

OK.  Pity party over.

To lift my spirits I went to the ole musical library and yanked out T Rex The Slider.  Did the trick.

Of the new music I’m enjoying the latest from Ray Wylie Hubbard and Ziggy Marley.  Took a shot at a Bryan Ferry disc of all Dylan tunes and it is surprisingly good.  The David Rawlings Machine is predictably excellent and I’ve just purchased the latest copy of the Oxford American (I used to be a subscriber) and their always top notch Southern Music issue.  I’ll let you know how it is.

Last night watched the blue-ray version of Roy Orbison’s Black and White Night.  WOW!  What a sound and what a great performance.  Do yourself a favor and rent it.  You’ll see some of our top musicians kicking back into the band and just reveling in the moment of playing with Roy.  Really great show.

Alright.  It’s hi ho off to work I go.  Maybe only a 10 hour day today.  Or, saints be praised, even less.

…but it’s all over now

What a game.  Back and forth.  Up and down.  Too bad the end is down.  Still, from soap opera to reality show to sweet romance to falling out to reconciliation to…the end, the Vikings season was quite a thrill ride.  Hope you don’t take the loss too hard.  It’s only a game.  My biggest question is about the clock management and play calling at the end of regulation.  Now, I’m a Saints fan.  Who Dat?

You know, the Vikes saga is a lot like life.  Ups and downs with some victories and losses and mistakes and misfortune along the way.  Seems change is the only thing that is constant.  More changes to come, I’m sure, at work and with relationships and with our ever revered or reviled (depends on the moment) sports teams.  But, I’m not going to get into that stuff now.

It’s been tough getting enough energy to write these blogs this Winter.  Brutal cold, deep snow, or body breaking ice wear me out almost every day.  By the time I get home I’m ready for sleep.  Last week the work days were 11 hours, 10, 10, 10, 10.  This is not to complain but explain.  Hopefully, once the weather warms a bit I can get on some kind of blogaliscious schedule.

Finally finished John Adams, the book.  Great read.  I really enjoyed it and now I can watch the HBO show without it screwing up my imagination.  I’m going to tackle The Brothers Karamazov next.  And a book on Dylan and the recording of Highway 61 Revisited.  I’m taking bets on which one I’ll finish first.

Bought some new music lately and got some for Christmas.  I’ll be spewing my always pithy and relevant comments on those very soon.  Spoon, Vampire Weekend, and the Eels newest End Times (keeping with my theme) among others are up for review.  Any comments?  Tell somebody who cares.  Like me.

Let me add that yesterday (Monday the 25th)  we worked 11 1/2 hours.  My final letter delivery was after 7 pm.  So, if you don’t have your mail and it’s getting late, leave the light on near your mail box for a while.  The mail may still be on it’s way.

And By The Way…

Oh yeah, Kaya finally got her cone off and she is one happy canine (I can too tell she’s happy.  She told me.).  I wish I could figure out this scanner and I would post a picture or two of her “coned up” but I’m stymied by the device.  I’m not giving up on it yet (but soon).

Interesting couple of days for me.  Last night another church budget meeting to approve the final 2010 budget (talk about a leap of faith).  And today I give our pastor his job review.  Yes, I’m the head of the personnel committee.  This should be interesting.  Could be a new reality show.  Bob and the Reverend.

The weather is warming and some new music is on it’s way so things are looking up.  Figured out who RWH is yet?  Stayed tuned for the answer.

BRRRRRRR!

I know it’s been a while since my last post.  Sorry, but my fingers have just thawed from last weeks vicious cold weather.  I’ll be back on board here soon with some reviews and previews of some, hopefully, new releases by artists who haven’t put out some new music for a few years (hint: RWH).

The End or You Know Where To Put The Cork

This is it.  My last day as fearless leader president of our carrier union.  It would be a lie if I didn’t say there is still a degree of disappointment and hurt over how it all transpired.  Time will help but I doubt if I will ever really trust any of my coworkers again.  My concern is I hope I can keep my big mouth shut and not say everything I really think about everyone.  My catch phrase:  Keep The Peace.  If I can.  I know where to put the cork.  I also know where I would like to.  But enough of that.

A blue moon tonight.  Second full moon of the month.  I hate the snow but I must admit with a bright moon the soft blue glow and fuzzy moon shadows lend the landscape a gentle and warm winter mood.  As long as you can get inside when your cold.  Crunchy snow is fun for only so long.  Trust me.  After walking for hours outside everyday (yesterday was a 11 hour day) a warm hideaway (see Freddie King) is heaven sent.

While on the subject of yesterday.  It was animal day on the mail route, again.  Around 1:30 as I turned the corner to park and start delivery near Ellis school I came upon 2 deer (does a deers) feeding at a bird feeder in someone’s front yard.  We stared at each other for about :30 seconds and off they bounded.  That was a nice treat.  Not long after that, back on my own route in the middle of town, I came face-to-face with a raccoon.  Yes, a raccoon.  As I looked up from my mail at a street corner to cross to the other side (said the chicken) staring at me from the other corner was the raccoon.  Once again I had a short stare down and since the ‘coon wasn’t moving I went out into the street and walked around him/her (how can you tell).  The raccoon stood there for a bit and then crossed the street and continued down the sidewalk.  You see the craziest things carrying mail.

I will get back to discussing music, movies (see Up-it’s good), books and things in the new year.  I hope you have a safe and fun celebration, even if it’s just staying home for a peaceful night.  I pray your 2010 will be a good year for you.  I know i am relieved that this year and decade is drawing to a close.  Of course, there is no guarantee that this next year will bring a change in fortunes but I do hope it has less big tragic changes than the last decade.  I wish the same for you.  So, kiss the one you love at midnight (I’ll probably be kissing the pillow) and hug the dog for me (you can just wave at the cat).  Happy New Year.

Reflections

Very early Christmas morning.  4:45 am.  I usually get up around this time and today is no different.  It seems the brunt of the Winter storm is north of us but the sleet still falls and the wind still blows.  Listening to the murmur of the wind I’m carried back with it to Christmas past.

As a boy, Christmas was a mix of anticipation and trepidation.  I was, as all kids, excited about what I might get for Christmas and I did get caught up in the energy of the holiday.  However, my parents didn’t always get along with each other and usually sometime near the 25th a fight would break out.  Being a only child all I could do was head off to my bedroom and listen waiting for the row to end.  When it did, Dad headed off to the basement and his CB radios and Mom took to the living room couch to read and doze off.  End of holiday cheer for another year.  Still, I retain warm memories of dark snowy Decembers from my youth.

Not much changed for Christmas until after college, marriage, and kids.  After Jesse was born our Christmas celebration took on a whole new feeling.  It was about our kids experience of the holiday and my attempts to not repeat my parents routine.  Watching the excitement in them as Christmas approached gave me a new holiday spirit.  Pretending to be Santa, watching all the old holiday TV specials again thru their eyes, and seeing how the grandkids brought my parents closer together (at Christmas, anyway) gave me a sense of what so many people experience at this time of year.  Those years in Lincoln, Lexington, and back here in Minnesota will remain my favorite holiday memories.  Our full family working out Christmas together each year.  Jesse the cerebral one.  Pondering his gifts as if he was Karnac and able to see into the box with his mind.  Melissa, excited and impatient and ready to open gifts at any moment.  And Dustin.  If anyone in our family loved Christmas (and we do or did) Dustin did.  I think he loved it all, the decorations, the music, the energy, the gift giving (and receiving).  Even as a young man he would lay on the floor head under the tree trying to figure out whose gifts were whose and what they might be.  We would play tricks on him.  Hide presents or box up gag gifts.  Oh, how I loved those years.  Oh, how I miss them now.  I have many specific recollections of those family holidays from my Grandpa Zim to Jesse’s silver boots to the Dukes Of Hazzard to Melissa’s My Little Ponies to Dustin and his various Christmas stunts that made us laugh.  I’m grateful we had some Christmases like that.  Christmas Eve was my favorite night of the year.  I would have to work all day (Bob The Mailman) and would drag home around 5 or 6 pm from a cold day outside.  A bourbon and some warm air combined to guide me into that mellow holiday feeling.  It really was as if time stood still.  My parents would join us and we would have a sumptuous Christmas meal before opening gifts.  Dustin would eat faster than the rest of us and then perch himself next to the tree waiting for us to finish.  All the family, beaming with Christmas love, gathered close in our small living room.  Dogs, too.  Softly, in the background, KNXR FM and the John DeRemus show played glowing Christmas music with a spiritual flavor while we would open presents and laugh and tell stories and make a merry mess.  Around 9 pm my parents would head home and our little family unit would wind down from the glorious furor of a few hours before.  Christmas morning would dawn and I would run around grabbing the well hidden “Santa” gifts and place them under the tree.  With coffee and pajamas the five of us would enjoy a little merry Christmas morning before heading off to the huge family celebration with Madonna’s parents and siblings.  Those years.  I’m not even sure how many we had, but those years were the best.

Now, it’s quiet Christmas Eve’s with just us or an invited guest to share our sumptuous holiday meal.  We still listen to the radio and try to make it to church if the weather holds.  I’ve taken to volunteering with the Christmas meal a family puts on each year in memory of their son who died in an accident.  It is heartwarming and a little sad to see so many people alone at Christmas but what a wonderful gesture for this family to put on such a meal each year.  It also brings me closer to those for whom the holiday season is hard.  Like us since Dustin died.

I remember tinsel on the tree.  The Harry Simione Choir LP (you kids have no idea what an LP is, do you?), the movie White Christmas, candlelight church services, and the quiet of the city.  Pleasant memories of malted milk balls and riced potatoes.  Dutch Master cigars (grandpa Rosel) and many Marreels.  Grandpa Zim taking it all in from the rocking chair without saying a word but filling the room with a comforting glow.  Today, it’s Sydney and William and us going to the metro to spend Christmas with our kids, their spouses, our grandkids, and Olive.  New memories shaped and colored by old ones.  The full spirit of gratitude for all we have tempered by the memory of what has been lost.  And ever present.  The foundation our lives are built on.  The Christ child.  Born to us that we may be saved and live in eternity.  Since the year 2000 I must admit I think about the holiness of the season much more.  I guess the hope of seeing Dustin, my parents, and other friends and family that have passed on has focused me more on Christmas real meaning.  My prayer for you is that in the midst of your Christmas celebration and traditions you will ponder the wonder of Christmas and the meaning behind the birth of Christ.

And so it is for me this early Christmas morn.  The sigh of the wind still beckons.  The threat of fresh snow excites and saddens.  The old decade behind.  The new one ahead with it’s new traditions and adventures.  Some of you we will see again and again in the years ahead.  Some of you, we will see only for awhile longer and you will be gone from our life.  To all of you,  Merry Christmas.  God bless you and those you love.

Enough Already

The decade draws to a close and not soon enough for me.  10 years ago we were preparing to put our much loved Golden Retriever, Shiloh, down.  She had cancer.  The following year both Dustin and my Mom died and 10 years of struggle followed.  Of course, it was also 10 years of new joys.  Both kids married and we welcome Mark and Kristin to our family.  Sydney and William, our grandchildren are born.  And Olive.  Personal missteps, other heartaches for us and those we care about, and the day-to-day struggles with work and life have made this a very rocky 10 year ride.  Now, as we bring this decade to an end, more breakdowns and storm clouds.

So now, as the first decade of the new millennium winds down, we find ouselves on Christmas Eve with a dog in a collar due to surgery, a dishwasher (3 year old dishwasher) broken, and this morning the furnace quit working.  Don’t even get me started on the storm.

I’m not really complaining (but I’d be lying if I told you I don’t mind this shit).  We all have these life bites you in the ass moments.  I’m just bringing the start and finish of this stretch together with a flourish.  The collar will come off Kaya.  Madonna loves to wash dishes by hand (OUCH! Quit hitting me with that dish rag), and the furnace will get fixed (SOON I hope-Today-RIGHT NOW).  And to be honest, I’m grateful we have this stuff to break down.  Many in the world have so much less.

The moral is life can be a pain in the ass but it also has many joys.  I hope this Christmas you will focus on the joys and The Joy of Christ.  Have yourself a merry little Christmas.  And send the furnace guy over to our house right away.

Dog Days Are Over

Alright.   The Vikes win again.  The season of change continues and I’m here drinking wine and listening to whatever the hell I want.  First up…S.F. Sorrow by Pretty Things.  A psychedelic wonder from ‘67 or ‘68.  Strange and wonderful.  Next in the ears is Florence & the Machine.  What a big cinematic sound.  Full and drum heavy and I love it.  Her voice is the sound of fresh cut emotion.   I love the sound of this record.  Could be my best of the year.  A caution…this might not be for everyone.  Do some research before you dive in.  Follow her with some Who.  I don’t know…Tommy?  Who’s Next?  Leeds?  I went with Tommy.  Mostly for the songs I’m Free and We’re Not Gonna Take It.  Sense a theme there?  Finish it off with Ziggy Marley and the disc Family Time.  Think of Summer and better days.  “Keep On Truckin’”.

The Toad In The Pond

What has more lives than a cat?  A toad.  It croaks every night.  Which reminds me of a story.

There once was a toad.  A rather simple toad living in a small pond.  The toad liked his small pond life but being in a small pond did not keep the toad from trouble and sorrow.  The toad spent part of his life just mucking around the pond gathering flies and bugs and trying to make himself a nice little home in the pond.

One day one of his tadpoles died and the toad felt very sad.  Fly catching just didn’t seem as important any more.  The toad floundered for a time (years really) looking for ways to give his life in the pond meaning.  He helped get flies for other toads in the pond.  He started to look for other lily pads for toads to rest on.  And he tried to help his fellow toads live a more fair life in the pond as they worked.  It was in this endeavor  that the toad learned a lesson.

As the toad worked to make life more fair he found out that some of his fellow worker toads were really quite lazy and ungrateful.  They wanted some other toad to do most of their work and they wanted the supervisor toads to leave them alone even if they were not doing the work they agreed to do.  They would croak about this and croak about that and the toad tried to help and instruct them to make their life better and life in the pond more fair.  He saved one toads job.  He prevented the supervisor toads from using bad pads for fly catching.  He helped make the pad sizes more fair for each worker toad (even though some toads still did most of the fly catching work).  Along came another toad that smiled and befriended our head toad.  He would invite the head toad over for fun fly fries and Bar-B-Que  bug  parties.  He even asked to borrow the  head toad’s fly truck to move some flies.  When a new supervisor toad came along and tried to manage, this other toad would croak and complain that he was being treated unfair.  He was not, but he liked to whine about his life in the pond.  One day, as the toads of the pond were getting ready to elect a head toad to help them the other toad hatched an idea.  He could get the supervisor toads to leave him alone if HE became the head toad.  He hopped around from lily pad to lily pad complaining about the head toad.  He did this behind the head toad’s back all the while smiling and befriending the head toad.  The head toad thought he was doing a good job and if he was not the other worker toads would have the courage to tell him. They did not.  The night of the election for head toad came and much to the toad’s surprise he lost to the sneaky toad.

The toad only wanted to help.  The task of trying to keep things fair in the pond gave the toad meaning and he thought he was helping his friends.  The betrayal and secret sneaky besmirching of the head toad hurt.  The toad wondered what happened.  Had he not worked for years in the toad union?  Had he not stood up for the other toads?  He learned some lessons from this.  So, here comes the moral of our story…

Trust no toad.  Or, at least, most toads.  Be suspicious if another toad is being overly friendly.  Realize most toads don’t respect you and are only interested in themselves (what have you done for me lately).  And, finally, look at yourself in the mirror from time to time.  Maybe, just maybe, your a toad and most everyone else in the pond is a frog (some are bull frogs).

So the toad (feeling betrayed and quite stupid-even foolish) kept more to himself in the pond.  Let the frogs take care of themselves.  The pond was starting to dry up, anyway, and the toad needed to concentrate on keeping his flies dry and helping the toads and frogs that really needed help.  He knew life in the pond would never be the same.  Besides, the toad was starting to dream up ways he could go to a southern pond for a time in the winter when his pond froze and fly catching was hard.  He heard you can catch flies year round down south.  AND the flies are bigger down there.  MMM MMM good.

Time Is Right (for once)

Have you seen the latest issue of Time magazine?  Headline:  The Decade From Hell.  Yes.  For me, anyway.  But this blog is not going to be a repeat of the Don Knotts character in the bar in his classic (academy award caliber) film The Reluctant Astronaut.  What!  You have not seen it?  Netfix, baby.  I should delete that last blog as being over-the-top whiny.  I was feeling a bit down from the season and a few glasses of wine turned me into a puddle of pity.  Sorry.  The season is tough for us and for many but come on, Bob, enough of the boo hoo hoo.

OK.  A happy birthday to Sydney yesterday (when I was young).  6 years old and rising.  And a real special girl.

Went to a show at the Varsity the other night and no I was not the oldest one there.  Close.  I’ll have more to say on the concert in a day or two.  And I have a new arrival of music.  A few Christmas discs and also Florence + the Machine (my roll the dice pick of the week), Joshua James, Pretty Things, and Ziggy Marley.  Haven’t listened to any of them, yet.  Keep the monitor on for updates.  Downloading soon to a blog near you.