nature – Frank is Emptiness

Unicorn Land

July 19th, 2026

“Grandpa, talk for the stuffies!”

Asher, our grandson, often demands that I speak for his stuffed animals. He has dozens of them, and he will suddenly toss several stuffies at me and then expect me to invent a conversation between them. I do all the voices. He has three unicorn stuffies that he likes to put into the mix. One is white in color and called “Snowflake”. One is pink and known as “Uni”. There is unicorn/llama hybrid that simply goes by “Unicorn Llama”. These three stuffies are the guardians of Unicorn Land, which is the exotic setting for most of these episodes. Asher likes to have other stuffies visit Unicorn Land and I have to include them in the narrative.

This morning’s chapter went like this:

A new character shows up. He is a small, intensely purple elephant named “Purple”. The unicorns welcome him.

Snowflake: “Hi, welcome to Unicorn Land!”

Purple: “Hi. I’m Purple. I live here too.”

Snowflake: “Really? Since when?”

Purple: “I was born here. I’m a unicorn elephant.”

Snowflake: “Oh. That’s odd.”

Purple: “Well, you have a unicorn llama here. Why not an elephant?”

Note: There is apparently birthright citizenship in Unicorn Land.

Snowflake: “Uh, yeah. So, what do you do here?”

Purple: “I’ve been using my unicorn magic to make some improvements.”

Snowflake: “Like what?”

Purple: “I changed the colors on the flowers. I love using different colors. Now, the roses are blue, and the daisies are orange, and the goldenrod blossoms are red.”

Snowflake: “You made the goldenrod red? It’s supposed to be bright yellow. That’s why it’s called goldenrod.”

Purple: “No problem! we can call it redrod, or scarletrod, or crimsonrod!”

Snowflake: “Wait, wait, wait. You can’t just change everything. The animals who come to visit Unicorn Land expect to find things beautiful, but familiar. We welcome guests here and we want them to relax and be happy.”

Purple: “But it’s boring for the guests if it all stays the same. Hey, and you guys have a rainbow waterfall! That’s not normal!”

Snowflake: “Uh yeah, that’s true, but we are magical here, and that is part of our vibe. We try to keep Unicorn Land magical, but not too weird. You know, a few rainbows here and there, and some sparkles and moonbeams scattered around the place.”

Purple: “But I like new colors for things, especially red.”

Uni: “We like new things too, but not too much of them. Change most of the daisies back to white and the orange daisies will stick out more. Visitors will notice the orange flowers better if they are surrounded by a lot of white ones.”

Purple: “Yeah, I guess so. Does the goldenrod have to be yellow?”

Unicorn Llama: “Yes.”

Uni: “You could just brighten up some of the colors that are already in Unicorn Land. That would be magical too.”

Purple: “Aww, I never get to have any fun.”

Snowflake: “How about this? We have a valley in Unicorn Land that we haven’t enchanted yet. It’s all a dull grey. What if you color the rocks to make it look like the Grand Canyon?”

Purple: “Yes! When can I start?”

Snowflake: “Now.”

Purple: “Off I go! It’s magic time!”

There is a short pause.

“Purple: “I’m back! How do you like it!”

Unicorn Llama: “Beautiful!”

Uni: “Nice!”

Snowflake: “You rock!”

Purple: “I didn’t get to use much red. Where can I got use some red color?”

Snowflake: “Ever hear of the planet Mars?”

Things that Go Slurp in the Night

May 10th, 2026

My bedroom window overlooks the patio in the backyard. Near the patio my wife, Karin, has set up several bird feeders on tall hooks. We get sparrows, goldfinches, cardinals, and orange-winged blackbirds. Karin also put a feeder to attract hummingbirds. No luck there yet.

Asher has his own bed, but he has slept with me during the last few nights. Last night, he rested his head on my left bicep until he dozed off. I managed to pull my arm out from under his rather heavy noggin without waking him, and then I tried to get to sleep. There are always night sounds from outside. I have grown used to them, even the yelping of the coyotes on moonlit evenings. Usually, my mind wanders and I fade away.

Two nights ago, I didn’t fall asleep immediately because I heard a new ruckus outside of my window. It was this hideous, B-grade horror movie kind of sucking/slurping sound. I could not make out what it could be. Was it something wrong with the sump pump? Was it a water leak some place? Was it some nasty animal trying to scrounge bird seed? Animals don’t generally slurp bird seed, so that didn’t seem right. I also heard some sound like barking, but not quite.

I didn’t sleep for a while. I hoped that my ever-increasing short term memory loss would erase the record of this din. By morning I had forgotten the whole episode.

Last night, I heard the slurping again. I was very wound up. I peeked out of the curtains, and in the dim light I saw some furry, fat animal lumber across the patio. That wasn’t really comforting, but I had an idea of who was responsible for the noise.

This morning I walked outside and looked around the patio. Karin had hung the hummingbird feeder on a low hook. It was full of sugar water. To be more accurate, it had been full of sugar water but was now completely empty.

I’m guessing that a raccoon came to the feeder after sunset and wrapped its feral lips around the opening near the bottom. Then it sucked that thing dry over the course of two nights. The evil slurping sound was probably the raccoon getting a massive sugar buzz to start its night adventures.

Karin is getting a much taller hook tomorrow morning.

It should be quieter tomorrow evening.

Waddle

February 4th, 2026

Asher wants stories. He does not want to hear stories from books. He wants my wife and I to make up stories extemporaneously. We try to oblige. Often, he asks for a story when one of us is busy. It’s difficult to come up with coherent tale when you are driving on the freeway or cooking supper. So, we do our best and Asher is sometimes dissatisfied with our feeble efforts.

He hit me up for a story this morning just before breakfast. That was poor timing in that we are always in a rush at breakfast. The boy needs to eat, take his vitamins, brush his teeth, and dress within a half hour timeframe. It’s hard to squeeze a story into that schedule. I agreed to give it a try.

Asked him, “What do you want the story to be about?”

He grinned and said, “A penguin!”

“Okay, this penguin…”

“Grandpa, you have to start a story with ‘Once upon a time’.”

“Okay, so, once upon a time this penguin…”

“Grandpa, what was the penguin’s name?”

I made up a name for the penguin. It was wrong. I asked Asher,

“So, what should his name be?”

“Waddle.”

“Okay, so once upon a time, Waddles the Penguin….”

“No, no, no! Not ‘Waddles‘! It’s just ‘Waddle’! That’s what penguins do!”

“Okay, so once upon a time, Waddle the Penguin came from the South Pole to some place warm. He didn’t like it because he was too hot, so he went to a grocery store and snuck into a freezer display case and started eating Cherry Garcia ice cream. Waddle didn’t have a spoon, so it was kind of messy. He had to eat with his flipper. Then a customer came and got freaked out and the customer yelled, ‘I don’t want to buy a penguin! I just want a carton of Cherry Garcia!’. Waddle left the store.”

Asher asked me, “Then what happened?”

“Hmmmm, he walked back to the South Pole.”

“That’s a long way, Grandpa.”

“Yeah, it took him a while. When he got to the South Pole, he looked fo his best friend named Fisher.”

“Why was his friend named Fisher?”

“Because that’s what penguins do. They fish.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, Waddle gazed around at all the other penguins, but they all looked alike to him. So, he yelled out, ‘Fisher!’, but none of the other penguins answered him. Then he went to the edge of the ice and saw a penguin in the water fishing. Waddle asked him, ‘Are you named Fisher?’, but the penguin in the water said, ‘No, I’m just fishing’. Waddle wandered for a long time, but he finally found his friend, and they were both really happy.”

Asher asked, “That’s it?”

“Yeah.”

He wasn’t satisfied, but it was time for him to eat his oatmeal with strawberries and bananas in it.

He begged me for a new and better story after school. I told him about a man who sailed to the South Pole to sell refrigerators to the Waddle and his penguin friends.

Asher didn’t like that story either.

Stupid Cold

December 9th, 2025

I hate the cold. I really do. However, for reasons that even I can’t understand, I live in Wisconsin. Despite the effects of climate change, winter in this state can be brutal. Just an hour ago, I shoveled snow off the driveway. There is probably a good foot of snow on the ground from all the storms that rolled through here in the past two weeks. It’s not even the middle of December yet. We have already had a couple days/nights with temperatures in the teens or single digits (I am talking terms of the Fahrenheit scale). We have months to go before the first hint of spring. I grow weary.

I didn’t always have this aversion to snow and cold. Back in June of 1978, courtesy of the U.S Army, I spent a week on a glacier near Fairbanks, Alaska. Granted, I was there in June, but walking all day on top of a gargantuan ice cube is still kind of brisk. Overall, the experience was fun. It was an adventure of sorts. That week was the only time in my military career when I was required to wear sunglasses. The glare off the ice was intense. I managed to get sunburned under my nose and chin from the UV light reflected off the glacier. I remember distinctly how blue the ice was. When I looked down a deep crevasse, it was as if the ice below me was glowing an azure blue. It was cold up on the ice, but it was something worth doing.

Fast forward a few decades. I worked on the dock of a trucking company for almost twenty-eight years. The building had a roof and well over one hundred doors. The doors were for there for the trucks to back into. That means that these doors were usually open. That means that the ambient temperature on the dock was exactly the same as the temperature outside. In winter it was cold. I mostly worked a night shift, so it got really cold.

Working in the cold is at best miserable. It can also be harmful to a person’s health. Hypothermia and frostbite are not fun. A person learns to dress properly to function in a cold environment, but the truth is that sometimes you simply cannot stay warm. Eight to ten hours in below freezing temperatures sucks the energy out of person. After working my shift in the depths of winter, I often went home, ate supper, took a shower, and crashed in bed. When I woke up, I got dressed to do it all over again. That kind of job wears on a person. It leaves a mark.

Working in the cold is a young man’s game. Now that I am old and retired, I don’t want to go out in frigid weather unless I absolutely must. My body doesn’t tolerate the cold like it did forty or fifty years ago. When my little grandson wants to play in the snow, I go with him, but with great reluctance. I just can’t handle it like he does.

I read once that the Tibetans imagined hell to be a very cold place.

They might be right.

When the Flood Comes

August 10th, 2025

“When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You’re a thousand minds, within a flash
Don’t be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there’s only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they’ll
use up what we used to be.

Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive”

Lyrics from Here Comes the Flood from Peter Gabriel

I woke up at around 11:00 PM when I fell out of bed. There was a moment of utter confusion before my mind cleared. The bedroom lit up with a flash of lightning. I could see my little grandson, Asher, asleep in the bed. He was lying there crosswise, as he usually does. He was dead to the world, but the crack of thunder that accompanied the lightning made him roll over and moan. The room was filled with the machine gun patter of rain beating on the skylight. I didn’t bother to look out the window. I knew that I wouldn’t see anything with wind and rain.

My wife and I built our house thirty-four years ago. We live in an area close to Lake Michigan that is relatively flat. It’s not a flood plain, but rainwater tends to drain slowly. We don’t have storm sewers here. The water flows from yards and fields into deep ditches that hug the sides of the roads. Sometimes, when massive thunderstorms roll through, the ditches aren’t quite deep enough to handle the flow of rainwater. Last night was one of those times.

During severe weather, I always check to see if we have electricity. That is the first thing I do. This part of Wisconsin often has power failures. Nearly everyone in our neighborhood has a generator at the ready. Mostly, we need the generators to keep the sump pump (or sump pumps running). We’ve had a flooded basement in the past, and that is a distinctly unpleasant experience. We currently have two sumps in the basement, and last night they both ran almost continuously.

I could hear the sounds of the pumps from the bedroom.

“Click. Wirrrrrrrrrr. Flush. Water rushing from the drain tiles into the sump. Repeat.”

Every fifteen seconds, I heard the cycle of water being pumped out of the basement sumps through a PVC pipe out to the ditch. The outlet of the pipe was already submerged by the water in the ditch, but the force of the pump pushed the water from the basement out of the pipe. The pipe has a one-way valve to prevent water from backing up again.

The noise from the pumps is oddly soothing. It’s when I don’t hear the pumps that I worry. It doesn’t take long for water to slip through cracks and crevices in the basement floor and walls. Once that happens, there’s hell to pay.

I’ve never been in a serious, life-threatening flood, and I hope that I never experience that. Back in 2008, I went with my youngest son’s 8th grade class to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding of the city after Katrina. Keep in mind that we went to New Orleans three years after the hurricane hit. The city was still devastated. My son’s classmates were assigned assist a local family finish working on their home. The owners had to strip the house all the way down to the studs and completely remodel it. In that neighborhood, one out of every three houses were abandoned. I don’t know if that part of New Orleans ever really recovered from the flood.

I don’t ever want to be in that situation.

I didn’t sleep much last night.