The Larson Family

A little background on me. For the first five years of my life, I did not have a prominent father figure in my life. As a matter of fact, I was surrounded by women. My mom, my grandma, and my aunt. And even after my Mom got married, I was still surrounded by women since I soon became big brother to two little sisters. And being the voracious reader that I was, I read everything, including my Mom’s women’s magazines. Don’t get me wrong, my Dad’s stash of Playboys made it into my brain too… but that’s not really reading now, is it?

When I became an adult, I looked back on that and came to the conclusion that there are some advantages to being raised by women. I’ve always felt like I have a better understanding of women than some of my male friends. And I’ve come to discover that I have some skills which are rare in adult males because of it… like shopping.

I shop for my wife all the time. And I’m not talking trinkets and knick knacks, I mean clothes. Somehow, I have a knack for knowing her size — even though she occasionally gets on me for buying them a little too small (I like ‘em tight, what can I say) — and being able to pick out stuff that looks good on her. I’m not saying I never fail, but I do pretty good most of the time. I distinctly remember one time when one of Becky’s friends looked at her and said, “He buys you clothes?” with this look of jealousy. I like it. I’m proud of it.

But recently, I’ve run head-on into a new problem. Becky is eight years younger than me… a young-looking thirty two and she can rock the trendiest clothes and pull it off. But I’m forty, and I look it. Goatee is getting a little gray.

So, not too long ago, I went to a trendy little clothing shop in the mall. I picked out a few things for Becky and went to check out. As the cashier is ringing me up, we’re making small talk, and I gestured to one of the articles I picked out and mentioned how my wife has been wanting one of these. The cashier goes on ringing up my purchases and then she dropped the bomb.

She said, “God, I don’t think my dad has ever bought me clothes.” I stood there for a moment, thinking “What did she just say?” And then she said, “As a matter of fact, I know my dad wouldn’t be caught dead buying me clothes.”

Yep, I heard her right. She thought I was buying clothes for my daughter! Was she even listening when I told her these were for my wife?? I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. I was offended, but mildly amused too. I’m such a sensitive and considerate Dad.

So, she finished ringing up and bagging my purchases, and said, “Here you go. I hope she enjoys them.” And as I walked out the door I said, “Oh, I’m sure she will. She’s gonna look hot in these.”

That’ll teach her.

I would not be surprised to discover that ninety-nine percent of Americans know nothing about this. The Unites States Supreme Court is about to overturn a legal precedent which has stood for over a hundred years.

For some background, research Citizens United vs. FEC. The lawsuit concerns the ban on corporate dollars contributed to Federal elections. And the Supreme Court is expected to overturn the ban in December, effectively opening up future Federal elections — in other words, Presidential elections — to unlimited contributions from corporations.

Imagine the implications. Corporations will soon be able to contribute to any party or candidate with unlimited donations. Consider this… the ten largest companies in the world are as follows: one retailer (WalMart), one automaker (Toyota), one financial firm (ING), and seven oil companies. Let that sink in for a moment.

What effect on the last election — hell, any election — would it have had if oil companies had been able to contribute unlimited sums to the candidate or party of their choice? Which candidate do you think they would have supported? Which party is consistently friendly to corporate interests at the expense of the consumer? I don’t even need to say it.

So, when the next Federal election comes around, keep in mind the advertising messages you see in favor of, or in opposition to, the preferred candidates are subsidized by the corporations who want as much of your money as they can get.

This is my recipe for Dakota Ribs with a Brown Sugar Rub.

Combine all of the following in a large bowl:

2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon pepper
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 Tbsp paprika
2 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp black pepper
1 Tsp dried basil
1 Tsp dried Thyme

Mix it all together until it’s a fine powder. Grab handfuls and rub it thoroughly over two racks of pork ribs, both front and back. Store extra rub in a dark container in a cool place.

Line a large cookie sheet with a single layer of tinfoil. Place ribs on cookie sheet. Bake ribs at 325 degrees for one hour and fifty minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool five minutes. Serve and enjoy!

Tim Mahoney onstage at the House of Rock in Fargo. Call me shallow and mainstream, but my favorite Tim Mahoney song is still “Theme Song.” Photo taken a couple years ago on God knows what kind of camera.

Here’s a photo I took back in 2003. I took a trip to South Dakota with my daughters and we saw this adolescent buffalo standing right on the side of the highway near Crazy Horse monument. I pulled to the side of the road and snapped a picture right out the window of the car. Photo was taken with a Kodak disposable camera.

This photo was taken on the corner of 14th Avenue North and 10th St in Fargo. It’s a time lapse with a Kodak Easyshare ten megapixel camera, the moon rising over our neighbor’s house, the taillights of passing cars creating streaks of orange and amber.

Enjoy.

I’ve been giving our Netflix a workout, preparing for a quickly approaching day when my wife no longer works at the Cable Company. Soon, our free cable will be disconnected and we’ll be back to watching a lot of movies.

So I recently decided to start ordering all the old movies I loved. I’m here to tell you, there’s a vast conspiracy going on in Hollywood right now. Someone is running around replacing all the great movies I loved as a teenager with weak facsimiles full of bad acting, hokie plots, and abrupt endings.

For example, The Last American Virgin. Remember this movie? A high school outcast, still a virgin, falls in love with the pretty girl. His friends make it their mission to get him some action, and yet somehow he always misses out. I remember this movie as being good. So who replaced it with this crappy B-movie?

You want another example? How about Hot Dog: The Movie? I remember the first time I saw Out Cold, I thought to myself, “Hot Dog: The Movie was much better.” I was wrong. More bad acting, weak action sequences… and the music… Oh God, the eighties synth music is maddening. Laughter inducing. Somehow, Rhonda Shear made these movies more tolerable on USA’s Up All Night. Either that, or someone has replaced all the original movies with these shoddy adaptations. I’m now scared to move Weekend at Bernies to the top of my rental queue.

My lovely wife Rebecca set up a birthday date for me last month and not only did she pull off a surprise party with a bunch of my former co-workers, but she suggested we try a new restaurant — Stella’s in downtown Fargo. Let me tell you, it was delicious.

The ambience is authentic mixed with historic. Original brick walls and arches, soft lighting, and they weren’t too busy either. The clientele seemed to be a mixture of young and old; a good cross-section.

I ordered the Ravioli, and it was fantastic. A very light marinara sauce on a cheese ravioli — not heavy at all like some of the other Italian joints people “speak” of. Rebecca ordered a Balsamic chicken which was so good, she’s now fixated on balsamic everything. Anytime we go somewhere that has a balsamic anything on the menu, she orders it. But I don’t think anyone has measured up to Stella’s yet.

Stella’s had a nice selection of wines and Italian beers to choose from, and the price of the meal was just north of forty bucks. We highly recommend you check it out.

Stella’s is on First Avenue, right across from the Fargo Avalon. Their dress code is “casual but don’t be a slob.” — Troy

Have you ever had an experience that you can’t explain? My life seems to be full of these. Anyone who listened to Y94 when I was on the morning show heard plenty of stories about a haunting which seems to come and go in my house. But I have dozens of strange experiences in my life — experiences many would call supernatural — that go back as far as I can remember.

I’m gonna tell some of these stories in this blog, and I’ve decided I’ll tell them chronologically. So for this first installment of the unexplained category, I’ll start with the earliest ones I can remember.

I was about six or seven years old. My parents had a trailer house in a park called Minot Mobile Estates about five miles east of Minot, on the outskirts of Surrey. This was the first real home I remember. Before the trailer, we had lived in a string of rental properties.

I distinctly remember having a lot of weird sleep-related episodes when we lived in our trailer. I walked in my sleep. I talked in my sleep. And sometimes more.

I remember one time waking up in the middle of the night, not feeling good, and calling for my mom. It’s weird that I can remember it, because I’m pretty sure I was sleeping. Anyway, I recall my Mom coming into my bedroom to ask me if I wanted a drink of water. I don’t remember what was said, but I do remember my Mom yelling for my Dad. I also remember her telling him, “He freaked me out. His eyes were open but it was like he was looking right through me.” Then I remember my Dad came in and tucked me back in. When I woke up in the morning, my Dad gave me a good ribbing about how my eyes had looked black as oil in the dark room (I can only assume because my pupils were dilated in the dark) and how I’d scared the hell out of both of them. He drew the conclusion that I was in some kind of waking sleep state.

There were many other times I did strange things in my sleep, and one story I’m just too embarrassed to tell. But there were lots of them when we lived in this trailer. There was one thing though, that didn’t have anything to do with sleep.

My Mom was having some kind of get together at the trailer. I don’t remember if it was a birthday party or what. But there were a lot of people there, and some had brought their kids. So I was doing my regular thing, trying to be the center of attention, when the party ended. People were coming and going, carrying packages and food trays to their cars. And as she often did, my Mom put me on door duty — opening and closing the door for people whose hands were full.

There was a knock on the door and when I opened it, there was a woman standing there. I still remember what she looked like. She had very long, straight blonde hair. She was young, in her twenties I’d guess, and had the thin wire-rimmed glasses with oval lenses — like John Lennon used to wear. I didn’t recognize her, and I didn’t remember seeing her at the party. So I asked her, “Are you Missy’s mom?” And she said, “No. Can I use your bathroom?” I let her in.

She took off her sandals in our shed and went back to the bathroom. I remember it was odd that she was wearing sandals, because it was snowing outside. I went back to doing whatever I was doing.

Some time later my Mom called me into the entry and said “Whose shoes are these?” The woman’s sandals were still there. I said, “The lady in the bathroom.”

There was no lady in our bathroom.

Who was the lady? And where did she go without her sandals… in the snow? I don’t know, but it’s the first time I remember having an experience that I would call truly unexplained. — Troy

The most recent near-death experience I can think of happened in about 2005. Somewhere around there.

A co-worker and I have a project to photograph North Dakota ghost towns, and we went on a trip to Central North Dakota to check out a few towns. It was late fall, but it hadn’t snowed yet, so we took a chance. Well, it began to snow. Ten miles from our first destination, we had to turn back. The gravel roads were getting slippery and muddy, and we were in a little Ford Escort station wagon.

Ten miles outside of Devil’s Lake, the engine on the little Escort seized up. For good. We got a tow back to our hotel and pondered what to do. We had about a hundred bucks between us, and no vehicle.

That’s when I went to my hole card… my cousin Brad. He’s actually my ex-wife’s cousin, but we get along well, and he’s always been there for me when I’m in a jam. I called him and asked if he would drive from Fargo to Devil’s Lake and pick us up. I heard him say “You wanna go on a road trip, Chris?” Two hours later, Brad and his friend Chris showed up in Devil’s Lake to pick us up. Brad was driving his wife’s brand new Subaru WRX All-Wheel Drive.

It had started to snow pretty good by that time, and the wind was blowing it horizontally across the highway. Plus, the sun had gone down, so it was freezing on the road. Conditions weren’t the best.

Now, a little background on Brad. He’s a motor-head — likes cars, and likes to go fast in cars. I wouldn’t say he’s reckless, but if you ride with him, don’t be afraid of a little excitement.

So, we’re zipping down Highway 2 toward Grand Forks, Chris in the front with Brad, and me and my friend, Rat, in the back. The headlights are illuminating two swaths of glazed road in the horizontal blizzard. Brad’s pretty confident considering we’re in an all-wheel drive, and driving about the same speed you would on a normal sunny day.

Suddenly, there’s a very slight rise in the highway. As we go over it, you could feel the car squat down on it’s suspension, and when the suspension springs back on the far side of the hump, all four tires broke loose. My stomach turned over at the feeling of the car sliding down the slippery highway, slowly rotating clockwise. If we were to hit a patch of dry pavement, we would be in danger of rolling over.

I’ll never forget this. The car had rotated clockwise about twenty degrees. The headlights were shining at the ditch. And my cousin Brad, both hands on the wheel, shrugged his shoulders and in a real low voice said, “Well…” A moment later, he turned the wheel, stepped lightly on the gas, and drove the car down into the ditch. First lucky circumstance — it was a wide, flat-bottomed ditch with a slight grade. Second lucky circumstance — it hadn’t snowed much yet, and there was only about a half inch of snow on the ground.

Next thing you know, we’re in the ditch going sixty. Rat and I are both leaning to the center, staring out the windshield from between the bucket seats. I distinctly remember thinking, “This could be it. Is this the end?” It was dead silent in the car. A second later, Brad let off the accelerator and very gently turned the wheel back to the left. The little blue Subaru went right back up onto the road. The rear end fishtailed a little bit before Brad got it under control, but he did. Suddenly, we were back on the road and driving along like nobody’s business. It was still dead silent in the car.

I said the only thing that came to my mind. “Good drivin’ Brad.” And he said, “Thank you.” The silence returned for a few moments until our adrenaline caught up with all of us. Soon, we were laughing nervously and thanking God. Oh my God dude, I thought that was it. Me too!

It’s been a couple years. I hope that doesn’t mean I’m due. — Troy