IT WAS THE 60's

How well I remember that summer day. Late June or early July. We had been in the habit of renting a cabin for about 6 weeks each summer at M&M Hayes Resort on Gull Lake, North East of Bemidji Minnesota. I was in my early teens and life was yet to be discovered. We always got cabin #4. I wish we could have gotten cabin #6 because it had an indoor flush toilet, but dad just didn't want to spend the extra money. It seems to me that it cost about $155.00 for the total summer stay. Mom loved it because she didn't have to do all the packing and unpacking. The fridge was stocked and the beds were made with our sheets and everything was in it's place. We had a 1959 Oldsmobile Super 88. A big heavy clunker of a car, huge by todays standards! Kind of a pinkish red with a white top. A hard top that was so cool when you rolled down the windows cause there was no pillar just a lot of open space. So it had to be before 1965 cause that year the Supper 88 with 44,000 miles on it became "old" all of a sudden and a visit to the repair shop resulted in a new 1965 Dynamic Oldsmobile, blue, sedan arriving with no notice. Most of the regulars that stayed with Marvin and Mildred were from their home state of Iowa and it was really the first time that I had run into a "foreign accent!" I'll never forget one Sunday as I and a bunch of the Iowa men were standing around a boat on a trailer and one of them was holding out his hand to show the group a couple of shear pins that he had gotten at the boat dealer in Bemidji. He was most impressed that the dealer was open on a Sunday morning, and even more impressed that the guy just gave him two shear pins. One to use and a spare. All the men were nodding their agreement to his surprise when he finished his story by saying,(in his best Iowa accent) "Course AH dn't tell him Ah's from OUDA Stayte!" I broke out laughing harder than I can ever remember laughing at any moment in my life up to that very minute. All the men looked at me like I was an alien who had just been delivered a secret message by an unseen friend. What he said to them made perfect sense...but to me it was the funniest thing I had ever heard. I don't think any of them ever caught on that they had such accents that you could pick them out of a crowded park of people at 100 paces. I only wish I could have shared it with a Minnesotan when it was happening!

I believe that was the first moment that I realized that I was going to be traveling a LOT in my life. I had to hear every different phrase that folks would utter, I had to learn every accent there was to be learned in the USA, in the World, so that no matter where I went, I could fit in like a local! The adventure begins.