Return to Fitchburg - Part two

For people who don't know New England milltowns of the 1900s, they have -- or had -- three faces. The bottom rung was the first- or second-generation immigrant who worked the mills, the middle rung was the small business owners and factory bosses, and also the farmers, and the top rung was the mill owner and city entrepreneur.

It's easy, I think, to look at New England's cities and see only one face these days, but that would be wrong. I happen to like the industrial age, so I'm still taken with the architecture and history of the mills. This one used to be a toy manufacturer.


This was a cardboard box plant...

If you had a key on a chain, it probably came through Fitchburg. One of my college summer jobs was working at Independent Lock (Ilco), helping them move stuff out of the plant, on its way to its new home in North Carolina. When John Edwards was running for president and bemoaned the loss of jobs in North Carolina to Mexico, I didn't care much. Whatever Mexico did to North Carolina, North Carolina did to Massachusetts first.

But if you turn your focus from the industrial city, you can drive for 3 minutes out of town, and be in the "country" part of the city, and be reminded about New England's common rural beauty, marred though it presently is from last December's massive ice storm.


Dairy farming was big here, much of it by Finnish immigrants, much of it by a few centuries of colonists. But all of it was on land in which you still can't stick a shovel in the ground without hitting a rock, a fact which led to thousands of miles of stone walls.


The fields are woods now, which makes Fitchburg a great place for people with money looking for their homes on a hill in the woods. You can have a backyard with a view of Mt. Wachusett, the second-largest mountain in Massachusetts. From the top, you can see Boston, just 50 miles away.


If I were in a plane now, and we got up another couple of thousand feet, you'd see the ocean thataway...


On my drive around, I also took note of this:




This is known as "the rock" on Rollstone Hill. For generations, it was tradition for the senior class at Fitchburg High School (that long brick building with the white spire at the center top of the picture at the top of the page was my high school; it's closed now) to paint it with FHS and then the class year underneath -- in my case 1972.

It was a source of great pride and it was a pain in the neck to paint it because that rockface is a sheer drop and it's slick from decades of paint. There were holes for stakes at the bottom along which we'd tie a rope. On the lone time I went up to help paint in my senior year, that rope saved one classmate. He started skidding down the face and grabbed the rope shortly before he would've fallen off.

As loyal Red Raiders, we would defend "the rock" at all costs against the heathens from Leominster High School, who -- around the time of the annual Thanksgiving football game between the two schools -- would try to deface it with gallons of blue paint.

Now, however, it is just another giant hunk of graffiti. When did that change? I'll tell you when. 1972. In that year, not only did we have to defend it against Leominster High School, but also against the Fitchburg High School Class of 1973, who often painted over the "72" and made it a "73." The pricks.

So today, I notice there were a couple of kids up on "the rock."


I'll bet they have no idea of the history upon which they stood.

Return to Fitchburg

After 1,390.5 miles of driving over two days, I arrived in the ancestral homeland -- Massachusetts -- on Tuesday night.

And how do I know I was back in Fitchburg? I could buy a cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee.


... and a copy of the Boston Globe. It might be going broke, but it's still a hell of a paper. Today's editorial page was miles better than the Minneapolis Star Tribune. It actually took a stand on important issues.

Every stop in Fitchburg has a good memory. The Dunkin' is on the site of the old MaryAnn Donuts, where the family would stop for a treat after Friday night swim at the Y. It's right across the street from Crocker Field, where we used to watch the Fitchburg High School Red Raiders football team, from the spot just in front of the WEIM location in the pressbox, the better to have our obscenities broadcast to the world.

Every view is like that. This one. My old elementary school -- the brick building -- and the paper mills that made the city hum back in the day when this country not only had a manufacturing base, but a thriving one. I could tell you, I think, what every building in this city used to be. That yellow one use to be Godroy Wholesalers.


It's a city chiseled into the granite hills, and a welcome antidote to two days of driving across the flatland of the nation's midsection.

Fitchburg has its problems. I could barely see as I drove in last night -- being rainy and all -- because the city has turned off most of its street lights to save money.

It got hit -- bad -- by an ice storm this winter. Residents have cleaned up the debris and put it out by the road where they've been told the city will pick it up. But nobody has picked it up and it's almost May.



I haven't had a chance to look at the damage around my mother's house yet. Yes, this is the roof I fell off of last year (from the peak).


Most of my work today was spent indoors, rewiring a nursery light system for my mother's flowers and vegetable seedlings in the basement. I got to see the route from Ashburnham St., to Home Depot several times, however. And she's good to go and should be in good shape to get a head start on growing other crops if Massachusetts ever legalizes marijuana.

The workout

I'm driving back to Massachusetts from Minnesota starting tomorrow but my currency for renting at Thunderbird Aviation runs out at the end of the month. So today was my last chance to get in the air.

Unfortunately, the atmosphere was extremely unstable, as befits flyover country in the spring. There was rain showers, lows clouds (1400 above ground level --AGL, I'd guess) and wind. Lots of wind. About 19 miles per hour gusting to 30.

In my younger flying days, I'd probably have canceled, but these days I want to be sure I'm up for challenging weather. This isn't a stupid decision, mind you. I remain a conservative pilot. But I also know that flying cross country -- as I hope to do in my RV-7A someday -- means being ready for short bursts of crappy weather, while I head for the safe harbor at a nearby airport.

So I launched from Flying Cloud in a Piper Warrior. They apparently didn't think anyone would be flying today because they were all in the hangar. On climb-out, I realized why. It was a rollercoaster of turbulent air and wind sheer.

With wind out of the northwest at 330, I headed for Airlake in Farmington, around the Minneapolis-St. Paul Class B airspace, with a thought to heading up to Fleming Field, with its runway oriented 340 for some mild crosswind practice on a relatively short field.

Approaching Airlake, I flew a midfield crosswind to check the windsock -- which I couldn't find -- saw a Sundowner in the runup area and considered turning a left downwind to try a more severe crosswind. But a KingAir announcing he was on the ILS approach (note to IFR pilots: This tells the VFR pilot NOTHING. Would it kill you to say how far you are from the airport?), so I decided to continue heading south, gain some altitude and then head northeast to South St. Paul.

As I headed in that direction, however, I saw a raincloud ahead and knew there was no going around it. I'd have to turn. Before I knew it, however, I was in the cloud with no reference outside. I knew what had to be done -- a 180 degree turn while I flew by instruments (no, I'm not instrument rated, but I'm well trained for these sorts of unintentional flights into instrument meteorological conditions). The attitude indicator indicated a right turn of about 30 degrees and when I emerged from the cloud, I was a little steeper than I would've liked. But I was in control, not panicked, and ready for a long straight-in to runway 30 at Airlake.

The problem with the Warrior is their rudders aren't big enough for serious crosswind, and it took all I had to stay lined up with the runway, with all of its lights blazing. The landing wasn't bad at all for someone who hasn't flown since January, so I returned to try another one around the pattern. This time the more stabilized approach yielded a better result. And the gusty conditions abated about a 1/2 mile short of the runway. My airspeed said about 70 knots, the GPS said my groundspeed was around 50. It took me forever to get to the threshold of the runway.

On the second-climb-out, I noticed a bird heading toward my window about 5 seconds before it quickly veered off to my left. He missed me -- or did I miss him -- by about 15 feet. Now I remember why I don't like flying in Minnesota in the spring -- unstable air and lots of birds.

The third takeoff was my mistake. I should've been making sure I was ready for takeoff while I waited for a State Police helicopter to depart. If I had, I would've noticed I hadn't set two notches of flaps for takeoff. And when I bounced off the runway and assumed my normal attitude, the stall horn went off. Again, I knew what to do: push the nose down and then figure out the problem., which made itself apparent pretty quickly.

The subsequent landing had a decent approach, but I bounced back into the air on landing. In gusty winds, getting the airspeed just right is a tricky proposition. Although it wasn't a good landing -- heck, it wasn't any landing at all -- I was proud of what I did next. I firewalled the throttle and retracted a notch of flaps , the tires touched the ground briefly and I was back in the air for a go-around. The decision-making was sound, the execution was good. We pilots tell ourselves we're not supposed to try to save a bounced landing, but we do and there are plenty of accident reports to prove it.

After an uneventful landing, I tried heading up to South St. Paul again. I had to snake between some rainstorms and heavy clouds, and I was right up against the Class B as I made my way to the Mississippi and then a long final for runway 34. I stayed high because there are neighborhoods all around KSGS, and the landing was relatively uneventful. With the headwind I had, flying the glideslope would be a disaster if the engine quit.

I considered stopping in at my hangar to mess with the RV-7A project a bit, but I didn't want to waste a lot of money taxiing around airports, so I headed back and took off for the trip back to Flying Cloud.

The tower said winds were 350 (NNW) for runway 36, but I think it was farther off the nose than that because I again needed quite a bit of rudder. If I hadn't carried extra speed to account for the gusty conditions, I wouldn't have floated quite so far down the runway, perhaps, but since Thunderbird is located off the departure end anyway.

And it's not like there was much traffic around any of theairports I visited today. It's Monday, and some pilots just don't like a good workout that leaves you tired.

Rain, clouds, winds, gusts, birds, stall horns, airspace: $196.

The things we don't know

I'm as cynical as they come, and this is a good test to determine if you are, too.

Tales from the flood

Where's Bob? He's in Moorhead, Minnesota, eye-to-eye with the Red River. Meet my new friends.

Patrick

Son, Patrick, sent this picture along today. Apparently it was picture day. This isn't the "official" picture, but I'm thinking it probably captures him better.

The piano teacher

There aren't a lot of things I'd do differently as a child; only one, really. I'd have paid more attention to the piano. I am not musically inclined to begin with, which is not to say I don't wish I were.

My dad was an insurance agent and one night, I suppose, he got around to selling someone some life insurance in their home up in the Greek Town section of Fitchburg, and I imagine it got mentioned that the gentleman's wife was a piano teacher of some note. (Get it?)

I then imagine that it was suggested while sealing the insurance deal that one of his children -- probably the dimmest bulb in the lot -- would be more than happy to partake of her expertise.

And so it came to pass that I, the dimmest bulb in the lot, got to take piano, which was pretty OK with me. When I was young, my mother was a hell of a piano player and had a beautiful piano, right up until the time my Dad decided to paint it pink in that '50s/'60s splatter paint style.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time, but then the piano was moved into the -- at that time -- "playroom," which was painted pink in that '50s/'60s style. It's a wonder we didn't crash into the damned thing which became invisible.

My mother, whenever she had time, which wasn't often with a brood of five kids and a husband who was frequently out selling insurance and enslaving his children to the piano teacher, would pull out the sheet music and play away and it was beautiful, as I recall.

So the idea of being able to play piano like she did , if not attractive to me, was at least acceptable. So every Tuesday at 2, I'd leave school early and head for her apartment. She'd always be watching "Let's Make a Deal," and it always disappointed me when she turned it off to turn her attention to me. After all, what kid wouldn't be entranced by the possibility of trading in the shiny new car for what Jay Stewart had on the display floor. It was naked greed before we knew its name.

My piano teacher started me off with "Crunchy Flakes," which even a young lad of my academic standing recognized as "Jingle Bells." But I didn't learn piano the way most people did -- by learning notes and reading music. Instead, each note had a number next to it and each note pertained to a different finger. A "3," for example, would be the same finger you'd use when listening to Rush Limbaugh or Al Franken, depending on your persuasion. It was Piano Hero.

It worked, at least enough to bang out Jingle Be.... Crunch Flakes. But you can't play the piano without reading music, and I never learned it. Granted, part of this was my own doing. I was supposed to go home and practice, but I never did. Sure, I can blame it on not wanting to be seen at a pink piano, but I'd be lying.

Eventually, I stopped taking lessons and somewhere along the line, when I wasn't looking, the piano disappeared, I'm sure to my mother's dismay.

So whenever I hear someone playing the piano the way I'd like to, I always think of my mother's playing, and the curse of Crunchy Flakes.

Flying with Rey

I was working out at the hangar today when my hangar neighbor, Rey Hurdt, asked me if I wanted to go flying with him to try to warm up the oil. Sure! So we launched. It's been awhile since I've been able to sit in the right seat and just enjoy the scenery.

Snowman Fred

My dad died five years ago today at 84, almost 85. So up in Maine, my older sister made a snowman in his memory. It think it came out pretty well.







My sister couldn't use his old Greek fisherman's hat (although he was more often seen in his feed store hat). I've got it now.



I wrote some more about my father in this 2006 piece.

Pretending

I've enjoyed this winter, as I've written about before, but it gets to be around the middle of February, and when the equipment trucks leave for spring training in Florida, and I start thinking about flowers and gardening and warmer weather.

Today, Carolie and I went to Como Conservatory in St. Paul for a walk through the new Tropics area and a visit to the Flower Show.

Pass the seed catalog, please.

From the land of the long shadows

The last time I got a speeding ticket, was around 1975. I was zipping along through a speed trap in Holden, Massachusetts. I got a ticket, but back then there was a program that if you watch two hours of post-car crash video, you didn't have to pay a fine. I think I was doing 40 in a 35 mph zone.

Oh, wait, did I say the last time? That would actually be... today. I was doing 43 in a 30 mile per hour zone. See, I'm not one of those people who drives 75 to 80 on the freeway. You know, the people who never seem to get stopped for speeding. No, I get stopped for going forty-frickin'-three.

Anyway, I've written up the whole sordid story here.

At the time I got stopped, I was trying to find the hockey rink where Patrick and I played last week. I found it, thanks to the police escort!

The ice queen cometh

Carolie and I had an idea a few months ago to build an ice castle with ice candles from a mold I bought. The weather since December has been perfect for it, except for one day when a couple of candles perished in the warmth of a sunny day and an uninsulated garage.

Then tragedy struck one recent morning when the temperature was below zero. A crack rendered the mold useless.

So this evening, she built what she could with what she had.

Skating, not working

I'm having the most enjoyable winter since I was a kid. I don't mean things are going well and it happens to be winter -- we all know in the big scheme of things, things ain't going that well. I mean that winter -- the season -- is a blast this year. I love the cold weather, I've enjoyed the arctic candle making, and I'm skating more than I have in years, which is to say: twice so far.

Today, a small group of MPR employees and I spent lunch hour in downtown St. Paul, where they've closed off a street near Landmark Center (a beautiful building) and built a skating rink, along with a warming hut.

It was 9 degrees and several Minnesotans said it was "too cold to skate." Nonsense. The sky was blue, it wasn't that windy, and it felt great to skate. You can find some more pictures here.

We're going to do it every Friday afternoon until dreaded spring comes.



Notice those lengthy shadows? It was noon.

Christmas at Casa Collins

Season's Greetings from Minnesota! I am the last person standing. Carolie has gone to bed and the boys have gone back to their respective homes. It was a successful holiday. Sean seems to really enjoy the camera gear. Patrick has a new laptop. I have Guitar Hero World Tour. I gave Carolie a copy of Leif Enger's latest book - So Brave, Young and Handsome.

We got Sean a little r/c helicopter from Brookstone. Here are his early minutes of flight school.



Eventually, he got it working pretty well and was in the process of hovering in an attempt to land on the ceiling fan blades when something went terribly wrong and it crashed head-first into the bowl of sauce for the shrimp. It didn't work after that. Fortunately, Carolie was smart enough to buy a service plan.

I bought Patrick a cookbook (he doesn't cook) called "Beer is not a food group." The word beer was in large letters and as he unwrapped it, he exclaimed, "Coool!" I figured then and there that I was the world's best Christmas shopper. But, alas, he thought it was a cookbook of beer recipes or a book on how to make or drink beer. It wasn't.



Here's some pictures:

Six Degrees of Mary Lucia

A Christmas present to ourselves and a curiosity have led me to invent a new game -- Six Degrees of Mary Lucia.

The 4th Season of Rescue Me -- my wife and I are big fans -- was tucked in between the doors this morning. It must've come yesterday. So we watched the first episode which ended with the song, "Backseat Nothing."

"Who does that?" I asked my wife. "It sounds very Elvis Costelloey."

She didn't know so I logged on and did some research and found it was the Del Fuegos, a Boston-area band in the '80s. Dennis Leary, the Emerson College grad (as am I) is from the area.

Anyway, the description said the Del Fuegos were an up-and-coming alternative band that had garned some celebrity support including Tom Petty and the Replacements.

The Replacements were fronted by Paul Westerberg. Paul Westerberg is the brother of -- wait for it -- Mary Lucia (on whose show I do waht can loosely be called the news in the afternoons).

So to recap

Christmas Day ==> Rescue Me ==> Del Fuegos ==>Replacements ==>Paul Westerberg ==> Mary Lucia.

This game is going places, I tell you.

The Christmas miracle

No, not the miracle you think. I am legend in my family for many attempts at projects that collapsed. I was known as the "Scotch Tape kid." Years ago, my attempt to fix a lawnmower didn't go so well, either. I hoped that I wouldn't need the parts that were left over when I rebuilt the engine, but when I started it, it exploded. I guess they were needed.

This is my latest "project," an arctic ice candle. OK, you can't really screw these up, but I've lived out here for 16 years and I've always wanted to make one. Some listeners on The Current gave me some tips which were too hard for me to follow, so I bought a "mold," a simple plastic bucket with an indentation in the bottom (which becomes the top of the candle). Freeze for 12 hours and pop it out. The unfrozen part becomes the part where you put the candle. Even the Scotch Tape Kid couldn't screw it up.

We don't do big holiday lights at our house; it just doesn't seem a wise use of electricity (although I think LEDs change the equation on that). We go for the simple Pagan approach: wreathes and boughs.

So tonight the arctic ice candles lining the driveway fit perfectly. Add -3 degree weather and a ton of fluffy, powdery snow and, well, it doesn't get much better. The only thing missing is Lex Luthor and Superman.



Maybe if you click that and look at the bigger photo it'll make more sense. In the background is the picture window with our illuminated tree. Trust me, the person that brings the morning paper on Christmas morning is going to love it -- and the tip.

(Update 7:47 a.m. 12/15 - I think they look even better just before sunrise. By the way, sunrise this morning is at 7:50 a.m.)



So we're wrapping presents for the kids who will stop by tomorrow. Carolie is showing me a wrapping bag that says "no peeking," when you pick it up, a siren goes off and a voice says "put the present down and back away slowly. Nice.

Some of Sean's presents for us arrived today, but the apartment complex office was closed so he can't get at them. That frustrates him, I assume, as it does all young people.

When we were kids, our parents would always say 'you don't need to get me any presents' and we just figured they were saying that because everyone says that and nobody could possibly mean it. But I'm pretty sure they did. Because I know Carolie and I have everything we need, and when our two kids walk in the door on Christmas Day, they will have given us the best presents ever.... again.

The "for sale" sign

I've put 7 -- almost 8 -- years of work into the RV-7A project and I intend to continue working on it, but I have to prepare for the obvious -- that I'll have to sell it. The economy is bad -- a dozen folks got gassed at my place today and more are due -- my health and that of my wife have been deteriorating to the point where it's obvious my plans for how we'd spend our senior years are not in sync and not really possible, and the economy has pretty much destroyed our retirement funds and although there's enough time before we retire (I hope) to get them back where they were, there's nowhere near enough time for the fund to get anywhere near our being able to live at the level we'd hoped.

I'd hoped to be able to finance the engine purchase but that hasn't worked out well either and this is not a good time to carry debt.

I've sketched out roughly what I've put into it and that's what I'd likely sell it for -- what I put into it. No profit, no charge for the work and no discount.

Here's what I've put into it:

Tru Trak single axis autopilot = $1,500
Icom A210 Radio - $1,200
Artex 406 mxh ELT - $950
Whelen System 6 Strobe package - $950
GRT EIS - $1500
VP-50 - $1,500
Dynon D100 Super Bright pkg - $2500
Garmin 327 Transponder $2,300
Airflow high-performance boost pump - $415
Equipment Subtotal --> $12,815

==Interior==
Seats (Flightline) $507
Hooker harness w/ crotch strap - $750
Oregon aero cushion core -$580
Interior subtotal -->$1,837

Mattituck IO-360 FP engine (but can be a CS) fuel injected with one Lightspeed ignition - $24,500
Engine subtotal --> $24,500

RV-7A project
On landing gear (nosewheel breakout force has not been set), canopy frame is done and the front fairing completed. Tip-up. Tops skins not riveted on (I need access to the tail). 1,800 hours of work invested so far
Total -->$20,000

I get about $60,000 in my calculation and that's about what I'd sell the project for. No tools are included because I need to hang onto the hope that I can build an RV-12 and do the kind of flying that I'm more likely to be doing -- by myself, in the daytime, in the vicinity of the airport.

Alternatively, I'd consider taking on a partner in the plane, although I have to admit I have no idea how such a partnership works. So you'll have to supply the brains.

If you'd like to take a look at things, I would encourage you to plan to come up to the hangar at South St. Paul (KSGS) and assess it for yourself.

Like I said, I'm not anxious to sell it and cash out, but at the moment I'm willing to and I probably should before I absolutely have to.

Don't hit the cow

I'd love to tell you that one of the first things they teach us in flight school is "don't hit the cows." But it's not.



(h/t: Michael Wells)

The Christmas shopping trip

Today was the annual Christmas shopping trip for Carolie and me. We both take the day off and head to the Mall of America for people-watching and gift buying. There weren't, as you might expect, as many people this year as in years passed, but there's still plenty of buying going on.

And we also got the annual goofy picture of Carolie. Check out the sign(click on the image to enlarge it).

You Are My Sunshine

It was a bittersweet day in my "career." I live-blogged the end of The Morning Show on Minnesota Public Radio. I dare say there was no place else in the galaxy this morning where someone was singing "Getting to Know You" on a live radio broadcast. And there will be no more.

But people started lining up in 9 degree weather at 2:30 in the morning to hear it. And an overflow crowd at the Fitzgerald Theater spilled into the Central Presbyterian Church. It was a remarkable moment in broadcast time and a real highlight of the 35 years I've spent in the business.

At the same time, it was a funeral; a passing of an era. And later in the day we got a budget update. We have millions of dollars to cut like every other media company and I suspect there'll be a layoff for many people in the future. For me? Maybe. Maybe not.

I just know that no matter how bad things get, I'll always be able to hold onto the feeling I had when hundreds of people sang along with Peter Ostroushko on "You Are My Sunshine" in the pre-dawn darkness of Minnesota. A theater full of people were doing more than singing words; they were comforting themselves and others with a reminder that all is not lost as long as get tears in our eyes when someone plucks a mandolin.

Things get bad, life goes on and will get better.

An occasional chill up your spine is a good thing to regain perspective. So here it is. Have a box of Kleenex ready.

Here's the blog:



And here's the entire show.