THIS IS THE WAY TO SARA'S HOUSE

Sara's house is the middle picture~~well, of course, she doesn't live in a tree or on the water!

Let me ask you this? Have you ever had a co worker that became a friend? You know the kind you ride elephants with, go out to dinner with, and chum with in spirit? Well, that is Sara.

Sara and I were Certified Nurses Aides together along with Neil and Rachel. We ran north hall. At that time, it was thee best run and hardest hall to work in the building. The four of us seemed to flow in and out of one another. We talked to our residents about their lives, not our own. It was a great set up. Then management decided that sort of strength needed to be broken up and passed around. Ours was strength in numbers.

Sara went on to become an RN and is a traveling nurse. For those of us who have laptops, you know we are never farther away then the send button.

On the twenty-sixth of September we went to her lake, although she had previously said that if she told us where they caught those two-eight pound walleye, she would have to kill us.

The leaves were beautiful. We watched a man fish rough species with a tethered bow and arrow. We watched the Coots, again gathering in large flocks as if they were contemplating their fly south. In the last picture, a small portion of the flock was doing the Coot Scoot.

LITTLE SUGAR BUSH LAKE

Little Sugar Bush is in Becker County, MN. It was the twentieth of September. The day was calm and sunny. The trees had begun to turn.

The second picture includes Maplelag. Maplelag is a wonderful resort which I learned off within the last couple of years. The scrap book retreat is held there twice a year in March and October.

By the time the Creative Memories had the retreat last October, the leaves were gone. I wanted to fish the lake to see what it looked like from the water side. As you can see, it is beautiful. For additional pictures from the Maplelag staff, please Google: MAPLELAG. Yes, LAG. The photo above is taken from our boat.

The Canada's took off just as we turned the corner trolling and casting for bass. It was a great fishing lake as well as a splendor to behold.

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FABULOUS FALL LEAVES OF MINNESOTA

As you can see by the graph, revised on October 3, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources offers an updated color run of leaves each business day. According the ranger at Scenic State Park, the numbers are up to the discretion of the ranger.

Old Trunks wonders why the sites don't say things like, "Red Maples brilliant". Or "Tamaracks to turn soon". That would help a daughter who drove from Minneapolis after she learned the leaves at Maplewood State Park were supposed to be PRIME. Imagine the daughter and her father looking for leaves of color when she had driven through much prettier leaves on the way to his town!

We knew when we went to Maplewood we were chancing 50-75% and even though it was on the low side, the run was worth it, although the fishing was on the low, low, low side! The weather was great and we were just one less day of winter in the mid west.

Yesterday we wanted to get into those areas on the map that were 75-100%. It would mean about 500 miles round trip. The kind you face the sun in the morning as it rises and in the evening as it sets. Home is when the moon is up. That didn't seem to matter, we would go to Grand Rapids and beyond.

Over the next few days, I will keyboard less and offer you pictures of what we have seen on our journey's of the last few weeks. For those of you who lived in Minnesota, you will, no doubt, remember the breath taking beauty.

WHAT COMES AROUND GOES AROUND

Now we know that great grandmother probably sent her husband to St. Hilare to carry a 50# sack of flour home on his back. He would have gone for other supplies as well.

Grandpa and Grandpa in later years went to Piggly Wiggly on the first of the month when they got their social security check. Between the two of them, they recieved $60. Not all of it was spent, they saved on that amount.

When my brother and I were little, Mother picked up the phone by the kitchen table and called Riverside Grocery. She wrote her list on the top of the kitchen table in pencil, crossing out as she went. It was NOT a big store but big enough to have meat, some fresh fruit and veggies, and dairy. If you went into the store, it smelled like rotting onions AND there were fruit flies.

I was looking at a site today for Hornbacher's, which is a group of markets here in Fargo. They deliver. It states delivery is free if you spend greater than $50 AND the groceries are delivered in about two hours. I am considering it for the coldest part of winter.

Who does your shopping for you? I did see a cute little gray haired lady with a printed list at the 32nd Street store. She had her hair done up in a French roll, her cheeks were painted pink and she had nail polish. She must have been Mrs. Claus herself. I am thinking she was in her seventies.

It isn't like I need a $50 bag of flour but wouldn't it be great if you ordered cases of soda or water and someone else carried it into the house for you? Do you think the eggs would get to the house unbroken and the bread would not be smushed?

One would hope the dates on dairy would be at least 10 days. Old Trunks is not remembering the milk came from Riverside, rather it was delivered by City Dairy. Mr. Silk was the milkman who clanged the glass quarts. Other milk bottling companies in Thief River Falls were Land O Lakes and Bridgeman.

Would you buy groceries on line if available in your town?

I wonder if your mother ever asked you to stop at the store on the way home from school to pick something up. Tom relates their family had a charge account at the Red Owl in Sabin, MN. He would walk the rail tracks home, one time the cream he was to get slid through the bag and broke on the tracks. Old Trunks knows he got in trouble.

Old Trunks wonders how many times Mother said to Daddy, "Stannnnnnnnnnnn, would you stop at the store and get ........." And he would forget and have to go get it anyway. :)

DOES THE SALESMAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

This is an essay about my sweet Thomas buying cars. Tom likes to be sold to, although he knows he can't sell a fridge to an Eskimo. He can, however, convince you which glasses are the best for your face. So I guess it must be passion and belief in what you do.

Maybe it is a man thing yet, when we pulled into the Honda dealership in the fall of 1999 and Tom saw 'his salesman', he said, "I will buy from him again. He sold me the Buick" He sold him another car too, but I can't remember what it was. I just know the salesman was selling Honda's now.

Here is a little history: When I moved to Fargo, I was driving a GEO I had bought new in Lawrence. I was proud of my little car, although it was major ugly. I felt like I was a Cadillac lady driving a three cylinder--but that is what I could afford.

Well, Tom had a concern. How would people see that little car with snowbanks along the streets? He was insistent that I should be driving something else. I was not happy about it and after the first winter and the tall snow banks and all the pick up trucks, I agreed to agree with him.

Like Erna, I had my conditions:
A. IT WAS TO BE A GIFT
1. I didn't have to wash it
2. I didn't have to clean it out
3. I could smoke in it
4. It would be serviced according to the manual.
5. I would wear my seat belt if I felt like it.
6. Pay cash, no payments {underline, underline, underline}

Lame? Yes.

And so it was that after dinner out on Thursday nights, we would go to yet another car lot. Jump into the vehicle, see if it felt good, look out the back window for visual, hop out and go home. I didn't need a salesman to tell me if there were blind spots. Often I was out of the car and on the way back to the Buick and Tom was left to talk to the salesperson about why I didn't like it.

When we went to the Chevy dealer, I had one question: Did that red Corvette come with four wheel drive? Of course, it did not but the salesperson went to ask. Could I get that little pick up so it wasn't so close to the ground? Of course not.

On the last night, because that is where the Honda was, I found the SUV. Automatic, all wheel drive, and I could see without as many blind spots. I got in it and Tom went to talk to 'his salesman'. The salesman said there was another couple ahead of us to test it. We waited. We drove it. It felt right, (isn't that a woman's term).

Tom was doing the male thing with the salesperson. I said, "This is it." Expecting him to take out his checkbook. After all, he said when I found what I wanted, he would buy it. Isn't it logically to think that?

And he said, "I don't have my check book with me". Not to embarrass Tom nor myself, I said okay and we went home. I wasn't angry and the discussion of the Honda did not come up again. Women are literal. If you say --I will buy it for you and then say, I don't have my check book--that means the deal is off, right?

The weekend came and went. Monday morning the GEO and I went to work. It was a beautiful October day and I was happy to be helping residents of the nursing home and visiting with their families and my co-workers.

At 2PM, I said good bye to Sara and others and went to the parking lot to go home. The GEO was not there. Where was it? Sara was standing by the edge of the building, she knew what was going on. The two of us went to the front desk, as Sara said maybe they know what has happened to your car.

At the front desk, I asked if anyone knew what happened to my car. A nurse handed me the keys to the Honda and said that Tom had taken it. I didn't recognize the keys and was so upset that Tom had taken the GEO--why had he taken the GEO?

Now those of you who work/worked in a nursing home know that everyone knows everyone elses business. That is just the way it is.

Sara and I, along with a legion of others following, went back out to the parking lot. There in royal majesty, stood the red Honda SUV I had driven the Thursday before, complete with an enormous red bow. The gift car.

The Friday after we had looked at it, Tom called the salesman and bought it. It could not be ready to deliver until Monday. Not even Tom's salesman could do that sort of magic.

Don't you just love it?

And what happened to the GEO? We sold it in the spring. The credit union that financed it called to make sure those were actual miles. I talked to the owners a few years later; they traded it in with 150,000 miles on it because the arm rest fell off.

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TRYING TO BE ONE TOUGH CUSTOMER

Old Trunks is thinking about the door to door salespeople and parties

Fuller brushes
Vacuum cleaners
Jewel Tea
Stanley Home Products
Watkins
Tupperware
Jewelry
Mary Kay Cosmetics
Girl Scout cookies
Cutco Knives

I asked my sweet Thomas why his mother had so many pieces of Golden Harvest dishes. He laughed. The story is that his mother wouldn't buy an products from Watkins unless she got something else from them. In this case, dishes.

You would have to know Erna to understand she was one tough customer. She was not easily sold, there had to be a way to make her feel she got the best of the deal. Good for her!!!

Old Trunks wonders how annoyed people were when Girl Scouts banged on doors to see cookies, candy, or calendars. As a Scout, I didn't think much about it, it was for the cause! We didn't think about aged people being nearly forced to buy the product. And don't say, "They could have said no." These people didn't say no.

What about the kids selling candy bars for Boy Scouts, corsages for school, collecting money for UNICEF, and people going door to door for money for different illnesses? Where are you on that?

Tell me true.....did you really think you could go to a Tupperware party at Ronna's house and just be there for the socializing? Did you really think you would not feel guilty if you left without ordering a bacon keeper, even though the entire package of bacon was cooked and you didn't need one?

How many of you went to your best friends jewelry party and thought to keep the friendship in tact you must by something only to be scolded when you got home for spending grocery money on nonsense? Do you still have the jewelry? Do you remember what you bought?

Did you let that vacuum salesman in with the idea that you would let him pitch his wares and say no at the end even if your husband said he could buy it wholesale for much less? Did you buy and find you must, no matter what keep using that sweeper even if it was poorer quality than expected? Was it the husband that caught on and softly suggested putting in a vacuum system in the new house? Or did you keep it, even though you had to hand feed the sweeper to pick up the lightest of soil?

How about those Cutco salesman, you know, the guy you went to high school with that you must give the image that you are able to afford the product? Did you keep those knives from 1952 until death when someone else sent them into the company for replacement? Did you actually use those knives for 50 years? The answer in this case is, yes.

What are the standard answers? Are there any? Haven't we all been caught up at one time or another? Would I buy Girl Scout cookies from a door to door salesperson? Yes. But I will not buy from her mother who is circulating the list at work.

Recently I went to a office supply house to get paper for a project. They were collecting money for school supplies for a teacher. We know that teacher's spend a lot of money out of pocket for the bells and whistles not in the budget. Well, so does anyone working with young and old. But the point is this:

The first time I was there, the cashier said what they were doing and asked if I would like to give $5 while she looked at me in a charming way. I will tell you she was NOT charming to look at but had a way. Little Oggie in her, I am certain!

The second time I was at the store, she waited on me again. She remembered me and thanked me for the previous donation.

The third time I was at the store, in another section, doing something else, the salesperson asked if I would like to donate $1. She did not look up from what she was doing. I told her to take what was left of the $20 bill, which was about $1.50. What you need to understand is, I did not give again because she asked, but because the first salesperson remembered me--the charming one.

Have you bought something in the last five years where someone really pitched to you?

Have you bought something in the last five years that made you feel good?

Have you bought something in the last five years you told yourself you needed only to find you didn't?

Welcome to trying to be a tough customer.

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REMEMBERING OGGIE

All of us have known someone in our lives that has been a true salesman. One of mine was Oggie Netland, he worked for Fargo Foundry and had a way about him. I went to dinner with him and my Dad once and it was mostly small talk. I was hooked on the man. Because Oggie listened and knew not what he should sell but heard what Daddy needed.

Oggie was the best he could be, although he made a terrific income, his goal, (because he had a salesman's personality), was selling himself and his product.



Oggie started like everyone else, at the bottom, there had to be rejection and I am convinced he learned how to be a "happy loser." Rejection, it is said, is actually inspiring because it allows the game to continue - and all true salespeople love the game. It is said that getting upset only tarnishes your image as a winner and ruins your chances of closing the sale later.

Oggie did his homework. He was there with the numbers.

In the late 50's, customers expected to be treated as adults. This morning I read "every culture has its own character, and America is essentially adolescent. Too many salespeople believe we buy based on logic and intelligence. But deep down, we really want what teenagers want: extreme excitement and cuddly products. The Mini Cooper is a good example. It's so cute that many owners give their car a name and also join a social network of other Mini owners. BMW understands that these customers are basically adolescents. Do you identify with that statement?


Oggie always followed up. He attended Daddy's needs as if he was his only customer. He was that good. Oggie was also a round house for other information: Sort of an operator that could give you another number and offered other companies he trusted.

Besides, even Mother liked him and that is saying oodles for Oggie!