Winter Weather, Last Minute Shopping and Al

Here in the Southeastern tip of Minnesota we got more than the one inch of snow that was supposed to dust the area yesterday. Tramping out to the car it varied from three to four inches deep and made cleaning the Subaru off a bit of a chore. But my father and I had good reason to go out despite the snow. It had suddenly dawned on me that he hadn’t done any of his Christmas gift shopping – not even online. I checked and sure enough that was the case, so something needed to be done about that.

Heading for La Crosse, the situation reminded me of my late friend Al Ulven. Al was the proprietor of a drug store and a variety store in the small town of Spring Grove. Many believed he made a great deal more money than he actually did, so it was always amusing to watch him around Christmas time.

Though thought of as a miser, Al really didn’t have extravagant sums to throw around. His adult children were often in need of help and the profit margins of his businesses were pretty slim. Did all this make him a Scrooge?

No, he was a giving person, if frugal. But it was the nature of his Christmas gifts that made me shake my head in wry amusement. You see, Al would always wait to the last possible minute to get Christmas presents. Usually this was on Christmas Eve and he wasn’t willing to travel to the nearest city of La Crosse to shop.

Instead, he would put out the least amount of effort possible. Once he claimed that he wanted to keep it local to help the community, but I called him on that since he almost always bought the gifts from his own store. The truth was he was too lazy and would put the shopping off until he was backed into a corner.

So some of the oddest presents would be given with little tailoring to the individual. Knick knacks aimed at elderly women were presented to bachelors, office supplies to kids, and so forth. The thing is he would give the gifts with a twinkle in his eye and you couldn’t get offended even if you wanted to.

Another Christmas time memory of Al was triggered by noticing the lights festooned by the City of La Crescent on some of their trees along the highway. He was always involved in the city council in Spring Grove, plus the Ballard House and other town institutions. Sometimes he would shanghai me into assisting in some of the tasks involved and one time it involved replacing light bulbs.

How hard could replacing a few light bulbs be?

Said light bulbs turned out to be on decorative strings meant to festoon the trees in the town’s biggest park. Many long strings of lights that had been subjected to the worst that Minnesota winters could throw at them were stored away waiting for winter to come again. This was before LED bulbs and so many feet of had to be checked for bad bulbs.

Untangling Christmas lights is tough enough for decorating trees in the house, now imagine industrial sized lines determinedly knotting together. It was tempting to use Alexander the Great’s solution to the Gordian knot, but these were expensive items. The size of the them meant it would be difficult to work on them, but fortunately the Fest Building was available to do so if a little chilly.

There Al, his friend Ted, and I worked on untangling and laying out lights, then plugging them in. Searches for broken and burnt out bulbs followed with many a light needing replacing. Al would be in and out running errands during the work which took hours. Eventually all the strings that were fully functional were carefully wound into bundles for others to put up on the trees. That entailed bucket crane work and I’m glad it wasn’t my job.

I miss those misadventures with Al.