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When I went to Excelsior Elementary School, they did not see eye-to-eye with me nor I them. Heck, I was only, what, five or six years old when I got switched to there from Deephaven Elementary School as the Minnetonka School District sought to make something of me as a student.

During my stint at Excelsior, half of my day was spent in a regular class, half in a special education class, while lunch and recess still divided my mornings from my afternoons just like for the rest of the kids.

There is a hill with a modest-sized slope on the northeast side of the school closest to the playground. It is pictured above. Today it has a concrete retaining wall with a mural depicting happy or otherwise content students. The mural (which did not exist during my stint) is ironic in the extreme given that I once got caught up in something on that hill which did not leave me as happy a camper as those kids on the mural.

Despite the slope being so tiny as to be of little consequence to a grown-up, it was deemed dangerous for us kids. Maybe it was because for fear of students getting into trouble over at the TCF Bank next door.  But temptation came calling one day toward the end of our outdoor playtime when I spotted several boys on that forbidden slope. Despite the warnings I had heard, curiosity compelled me to join in and I arrived just in time to get busted with them by one of the school staff.

Our punishment was soon handed down: we had to sit quietly with our heads resting on the tables in the lunch room like we were so many hard cases in a prison. Unfortunately for me, I had landed myself in a jam with just about every cut-up in the place.  

Not only did they not sit quietly, they laughed and giggled amongst themselves as they did things like try to eat gum stuck to the bottom of the tables as they collectively thumbed their noses at the lady trying to keep order in the room as the school dispensed with capital punishment.

I did not join in the fun. I was so overwhelmed by it all I just sat there with my head down and let the Cool Hand Luke Jr.’s do their stuff.  Wishing all the while they would just shut up as their antics and noises were not helping my already crushed morale any. Happy to relate, mom read Excelsior Elementary the riot act when she heard about what they had done to me and took me out of there.  

January and February are our bleakest months. We are usually under a blanket of white snow or temperatures are so cold that the thick frost coats the ground for days without melting. Although the seed catalogs will be here, it's still too early for most seed starting. During this time I crave living color and just about any plant will do. I handle this by forcing bulbs in November so they bloom during those colorless days.

Daffodils are my favorite, although hyacinths, tulips and other spring bulbs work just as well. I prefer to force in soil, but you can also force bulbs if bowls of pebbles and water. For my method, I simply plant about five bulbs in a six-inch diameter pot, leaving the tips of the bulbs exposed. I water the soil and cover the pots loosely with a plastic bag before setting them outside for eight weeks. The bulbs need cold temperatures if they are to break dormancy.

After eight weeks I uncover the pots and bring them inside. I place them in an area with bright but indirect light and keep the soil moist. Within a couple weeks, the first shoots emerge and I can move the pots to a brightly lit window. In another two or three weeks I'll have flowers.

I bring in fresh pots every two weeks through spring so I have ongoing color until the ground outside begins to thaw. Once the blossoms fade, I snip them off, feed the plants a soluble fertilizer and continue to water. If you grow your bulbs in soil you can transplant them outdoors in spring after the foliage dies back. Bulbs grown in pebbles won't survive so are usually discarded.

From February of 1985 to May of 2001 I lived at the one-story rambler built at 3606 Croftview Terrace, Minnetonka, Minnesota. This house witnessed the bulk of my childhood and all of my teenage years. Alas, my memories of this place are more like a poison cloud hanging over my mind rather than like a soft, gentle one. Truth be told, I’ve grown to loathe and despise that place which -while its grounds are different, and the house itself extensively remodeled- will always be infamous to me.

Now a husband and father should both provide for his family as well as do his best to protect it. Mine did neither. On the contrary, while he lived off his rich daddy, it was never enough. Also, he glommed on to the inheritance my mother got when my grandma died in 1995.  He wasted all the money he had, which toward the end left us in dire straits, but he did so on purpose, because the man was a conduit for evil of the pettiest sort.

He thought nothing of having tantrums every five minutes over this and that, or on the flip side of the coin talking mean to his wife and sons in order to shove them into the mud mentally and so try to break them emotionally. The scum never got that far, but good God how we bent, and bent, and bent some more to his abusive whims.

Oh sure, often he put on a nice guy act whenever other people were around, but once the door shut behind said visitors it was back to hell for all of us. Even when my grandparents lived with us he still pulled stuff every now and then; stuff hidden from the knowing eyes of grandma and grandpa, to be sure, but still pulled. And once they had passed away, he cranked his insanity up to the point we lived in bedlam.  Doing things like break chairs, smash windows, and be just fine with it even as we cringed or, in my poor brother's case when it came to the broken window, screamed. Among many, many other things best summed up by one word: insane!

Despite all that, while we still bent, and bent, and bent some more, we did not break. This compelled him to further acts of abusive insanity like he had the power, gas, and even the garbage service cut off. The garbage service, for God’s sake! This reduced us to going around in the dead of night dumping our garbage first in dumpsters behind local businesses, and then just leaving it by the side of the road and driving off. All in a day's lunacy for Clyde Krebb's tortured family.

In 2000 our landlord informed Clyde he wanted to sell all his holdings prior to retiring to Florida. Instead of coming up with the money, when the year was up Clyde made sure we instead got evicted, made sure all our stuff went into storage (whose bill soon went unpaid) and that we shuttled around from hotel to hotel, running up a tab until we had to leave due to being unable to afford it, thus carrying his brand of insanity beyond that poor tortured house on Croftview Terrace and out into the open until, finally, mom had enough and got us away from him.

I wonder what the people who bought the Croftview house in 2001 would think if they read this?  If it were me, and I read this, I would have someone come and bless the place to purge it of all the evil karma Clyde pumped into its walls.

Most people may not think of helium-filled balloons as a traditional Thanksgiving décor item, but they provide a much-loved tradition in our home. Every year we select a balloon for each person joining our table for the feast. Often we select balloons in the traditional colors of harvest, while other years we may go all out and get those emblazoned with holiday-appropriate sayings or images.

We fill the balloons at home with one of those small party helium tanks. Before we turn on the gas, though, we prepare some small strips of paper and insert them into the balloon. Each strip contains two directives. The first is a chore, such as clear the table, serve the pie, wash dishes, etc. The second directive is something fun, such as tell one thing you are thankful for, sing a silly song, compliment the person across from you, and other simple things.

We tie a balloon to the back of each chair. We are careful to place balloons so the chore can be carried out by the person receiving it – you don't want a complicated chore in a three-year old's balloon! After the feast, we each pop our balloon then perform the fun directive. After the balloon game is complete, we each do our chores and make short work of Thanksgiving cleanup so we can return to the entertainment of being together as a family.