EUROPE!! LOOK OUT!! PART 3

You missed me didn't you. OK, well here we go. After the beers in our room in Luxembourg, Stan and I decided to canvass the town- you know-a sweep of opportunities. We were 16 and we were "HOT"- kinda... Well, we went into a restaurant in the city center- where we expected the action to be. Well, turns out, there is a multi national summit in Luxembourg. Sixteen year old boys were nothing more than street refuse. Well, we met a nice guy who, interestingly was an American. We had a great conversation with him. He was with Dean Rusk, Sec. of State of the U.S. and here for the "whatever they called them then"meetings. We pretended to be nonplussed by this and hoped him the best. Tomorrow, Belgium.... little did we know we would be sleeping on a park bench in Antwerp. How the high and mighty can fall.....

Homemade Ice Cream

Yesterday, Donna made ice cream in our Krups Automatic Ice Cream Maker. Not like the old style bucket with ice and rock salt variety, but easy, clean and noiseless (almost). The container must not have been cooled sufficiently because the ice cream came out too slushy, so we put it in a Tupperware and put it in the freezer. Today, that ice cream is like a brick....tasty, but still the consistency of concrete. It brought back memories of homemade ice cream from childhood....ah yes.....reliving the delight of rock hard vanilla ice cream!

Making vanilla ice cream (was there ever another flavor?) in the crank style freezer was a summertime high point growing up. We may have skimped a bit on the heavy cream, but not the sugar! We would all take a turn cranking the handle for what seemed like hours. Adding ice, adding rock salt, draining some water, adding ice, adding rock salt....you get the idea. All of us, mom included, were a bit over-anxious for the taste of that frozen delight, to actually wait until the cranking got real difficult. Just a bit harder was enough for us! We'd bring the metal container out of the icy brine and pop off the lid, and each would take a spoonful of pure vanilla heaven....a bit like grainy/gritty soft-serve. We would fight for who got to lick the beater. Then mom would put the container in the freezer to let it "finish". By the next day, the ice cream would be like a rock! We'd almost need a chisle and sledge to chip off a few flakes of the golden delight. It didn't deter us, however, and I think we assumed this was how it was supposed to be. The added energy expenditure, I think, kept us slim (?skinny) in spite of the calories consumed. (Well, maybe not EVERYONE). It probably lasted longer that way as well. We'd chip and dig until we would get a small bowl full, and then add the topping of choice - which in our house was Nesquik powder. We never had REAL chocolate syrup, although we would occasionally have butterscotch because it was dad's favorite. Sliced bananas and a little whipped cream from the spritzer can, and we had a banana split!

Summer jobs - part deux

Ken's post reminded me of one of my summer jobs - warehouse and loading dock hand at a company in Elk Grove that manufactured aluminum siding, soffit and shutters. They hired lots of college kids...cheap labor ($2.00/hr). Most, like myself, worked the loading dock and filled orders - loading 30 lb (or more) boxes onto a skid and then loading them into the hold of semi trailers that had been sitting in the hot sun in order to get the inside up to a toasty 110F. However, one kid, Billy, who went to Tulane and whose parents knew one of the owners, was assigned a cushy job making shutters. He got to sit down and never got hot and sweaty....he was a little nuts and bragged about his status at every opportunity. Two memorable things happened to Billy that summer.

Billy always had the same thing for lunch - hot dog and a Mountain Dew -and as he was gulping his drink one day he gagged and reached into his mouth and pulled out a used condom! In those days the drinks were in glass bottles that were reused after sterilizing, so the condom must have passed by the inspection. While Billy was throwing up, we were rolling with laughter.

The other Billy event occurred later that summer. During a break, we were gathered around his work station chatting with him when he pressed the foot pedal on his machine and it made a little tink-tink sound as it bent the aluminum. He said there was no way this was a one ton press making such a wimpy sound, and before we could even react, he put his index finger tip in the press and pressed the pedal. Tink-tink! ...and Viola! a perfectly flattened fingertip! At first he was so surprised he didn't say a word...just stared at it. Then the pain came. He was taken to the hospital and he never came back. Glad I was on the loading dock.......

Summer Jobs

This blog title did not come as a deja vu concept, rather a current situation has dredged up ong forgotten and buried memories.

Growing up Jensen meant that somehow, some way, you spent time in economic activity, i.e. summer jobs. Well, we all had them. Some were good, some, not so good. RJ lucked out with the lifeguard jobs. DJ did a myriad of warehouse and office type work. Lou was involve in retail- but I could be very mistaken here.

Me? Well, as indicated before, I worked ramp at O'Hare Airport, but also dabbled in painting addresses on curbs, camp counselor for the YMCA, but the most poignant job- an likely not equalled- was the summer I worked for Louie Frappier Construction. "Construction" , I found out too late, is a loosely termed word meaning : sewer and septic service. Yep, you got it. Like the kids in Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss movie, this was the job to propel me into the mega body I wanted- abs, .. well, you get the picture- manly stuff for the summer. Instead, being rather slight of build, I was the perfect hire to go down into septic tanks. Also, as the "grunt", I was the guy they left at a job site for a day to dig out and replace old septic tile fields. Mom would make me a bag lunch that I could only eat by taking the external side of the bag and hopefully chew through any wrappings to the food. All day, I was alone with my thoughts while plowing through my work. Everytime I ran into a broken pipe or a tough dig, I thought "Oh, crap" . Little did I know, my thoughts COULD became reality!

Character builder job? Nope, don't think so, except that I did spend a heck of a lot more time studying the next year at ASU for a "desk job".

To Grandmother's House We Go....

The house that Nana and Bubbub built for the family in Junction is a special place, a unique place.  I have always referred to it as where I would rather be more then anywhere other then the house I grew up in.  Driving up Tiara Drive, making the familiar turns, and seeing the monument for the first time evokes a feeling much stronger then what the idea of coming home is.  The ride is so much more exiting and anxiety ridden then the night before Christmas for a five year old.  It's a place of safety, of familiarity, and of love.  There's no place in this world that's more welcoming or serves as a center of being.  I know that no matter what growing pains or troubles I have, there is nothing that ginger snaps and biscotti with Nana over coffee can't fix.  The place is filled with history from Bubbub putting in a swimming pool before the house to Nana's 'rasberry' front door.  If chocolate ice cream is somewhere in the house, the place becomes that much better! 
EMILY

Jensen Firsts

Dad always taught us to be supportive of each other. That's why we were never competitive between ourselves, rather, supportive and coached each other to the next level. BUT, to set the record straight, I have some stats to present:

1. First out of country trip: KJ
2. First to Europe : KJ
3. First to ski with their own skis: KJ
4. First to dance with lady with boa: KJ- but this may be disputed
5. First to walk through a sewer after a great night at "Dirty Nellies": KJ
6. First to go to school out of state (Not a requirement of legal proceedings): KJ
7. First to marry an NFL cheerleader- let me redeem that to office personnel: KJ
8. This list could go on, but you get the gist.... there is always a trendsetter to each family................................

Camp Augustana Midnight Run

The Lutheran church in Rockford also had an affiliation with Camp Augustana in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. This meant that our church youth group would get to spend two weeks at “Auggie” every summer….boys and GIRLS! It was a blast! One camp experience, however, stands out above the rest.

The camp had a beautiful location on the shores of Lake Geneva. There was a large dining hall, an arts and crafts building, a chapel, and cabins. There were 8 cabins: 4 for boys and 4 for girls on either side of a large athletic field. My best friends, Gary Johnson, Terry Downey and I were in a cabin in which the senior boys included Ron and his friend John Cook. They took a perverse pleasure in lording over us at every opportunity, and punishing us when we screwed up….which was often. So we plotted our revenge.

We would wait until the last night of camp and then short-sheet their beds. This meant pulling the foot of their bottom sheet back up to look like it was the top sheet. They’d only discover this when went to slide in and their legs would only be able to go half way. The only way to fix it was to re-make your bed. We decided to embellish the trick by putting sawdust and some dirt in the bed at the same time……devilishly crafty!

So that night, after the final campfire, everyone went to their cabins. Gary, Terry and I got into our beds and were trying hard not to let anyone hear our giggles as the seniors got into beds. Suddenly, there was loud cursing and yelling, and we dug our heads beneath our pillows to squelch our body-jerking laughter. It didn’t take a Sherlock Holmes for them to figure out who did it, and they came over and literally rolled us out of our beds and tore our beds apart. Then they made us make their beds correctly. When we were almost done, they asked if we wanted to go for a little run. “What? It’s 11 o’clock at night”, we said. They told us to strip down to our underpants, and while one guarded us the other went across to the girls cabins to wake them up and tell them to watch from their porch while a couple of knuckleheads ran by.

Silhouetted by the full moon, we took off at full speed. I was fast, Terry next, but Gary was portly and slow, and took the majority of the abuse and catcalls from the girls as he lumbered by. For months, we were referred to as the “Midnight Raiders” or the “Midnight Streakers”. Ahhhh, adolescent humiliation.