On this date I always think of August 11, 1995. I'm not sure why it sticks in my head but I'll lay out the facts. I got up around 3:30 a.m. to get ready to go into work at the Northfield News. A sweltering day, I drove in and took the comp'ny station wagon over to the printing plant. I picked up and sorted the papers and, driving a truck and then a van, delivered them to the vending machines and to the post offices and gas stations of the surrounding towns; New Prague, Webster, Randolph.

Back at the office around 8, I punched out and went for a loaf of bread and a 64 of 100% juicy juice. I sat by the river and ate. Perhaps that was the day I met a traveler who had just rode into town on the train. He told me Northfield people were great, they'd always give you some change or even buy you lunch, but that Northfield cops were some of the worst around for people like him. They drive you right to the train and put you back on it and make sure you get out of town. I appreciated his confiding these things in me. I felt like a cool underground outsider and I may have given him some money. I punched back in at 9 and worked, hanging around the office delivering stuff until around 2.

Perhaps that was the day I was about to leave at 11 or so, having nothing to do or deliver, and I thought I'd walk back into the office and make sure there were no more tasks. I was in the little room in back with the time clock and as soon as I went through the hall out to the office proper (the white collar part) a prescient alarm bell went off. I caught the general manager's eye and immediately wished I had just punched out a driven my actual personal car home.

I was sent to St. Olaf College; to the tiny area behind the 1,500 post office boxes for the students and faculty to put two advertising flyers in each. Working with one other guy, a photographer with a good attitude toward the extra work, it took about three hours. And the drag of it was that I knew exactly where they would all end up. I had attended St. Olaf the previous four years and when we got shit like that it went straight into the recycling bin conveniently placed at the side of the p.o. box room. And not every student was so conscientious. Many would simply drop junk mail on the floor. Nobody wanted to subscribe to the LOCAL PAPER! Who gives a shit? Yeah, perhaps it was that day.

After work I probably got taco bell or some junk like that. Karl and I had a show that night in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. When he was off work too (landscaping) we got together and maybe rehearsed a little, then packed up the huge, heavy, crappy P.A. system we had back then (borrowed from St. Olaf) and drove two and a half hours to the show. We did the show and went to Heckel's truck stop restaurant to eat, hang out, talk about music and the show. That was probably what made the day worth it. It sure wasn't the $40 or so I'd earned for all my work. I got to bed more than 24 hours after getting up. I think that might be why the day sticks in my mind even 8 years later.