My Obituary

I must be getting old. I notice that I have recently begun reading the obituaries when perusing the news paper... an amusing habit that I used to attribute only to my elders. Having now read several "obit" collumns I am amazed by "fluffy" B.S. written in them. An axe murdering child molester finally gets put to death in a penetentary and his obituary would probably say that "Chester passed peacfully into the arms of his heavenly father while his hundreds of friends dimmed the lights in thier rooms in honor of his passing....Chester spent his life showing love to children in his own special way..." What a crock of crap!! In order to prevent such an abuse of the English language from taking place at the time of my demise, I have written my own obituary. The following is what I have come up with.

Aurora Beacon News---Obituaries--- Date: xx/xx/xxx

Tom Bachert July 4, 1957 -- xxxx #, ####

Hello people of Aurora. I am writing this to let all of you know that I am now dead. Yep, my body and I had a falling-out and now we're going our separate ways. This happened on (Date) in (Location) because ( a brief reference to what killed me. If it was something interesting like I got eaten by a bear or died of an STD it can be a bit longer, otherwise just a sentence will do).

If you think you might know me but can't quite remember who I am here are a few facts about me that might trigger the old gray matter. ( don't feel bad, its been a long time since I've lived in Aurora). I shared my fantastic parents, Kurt and Shirley Bachert with my older siblings, Tim, Sue (Chudzick) and Barbara. I spent much of my childhood attending St. Paul's Lutheran School and was confirmed into that congregation in 1970. Later, I attended and graduated from East Aurora High School with the class of 1975. I led a pretty typical life in Aurora and don't think I have any great accomplishments to brag about nor any terrible screw-ups to be ashamed about. I might have broken the hearts of a few pretty girls (if so, I am sorry..well, not really, but I probably should at least claim I am). I did make some good friends and certainly I have many good memories of growing up in Aurora with all my relatives and other good people that surrounded me

After graduating high school I attended Northland College in Ashland WI where I earned a degree in Environmental Science in 1979. I returned to Aurora to work for a year and then married my Chicago sweetheart Cindy (Cunningham) in August of 1980. She was never afraid of a little adventure so we made a honeymoon of driving my pick-up with all our belongings to Fairbanks, Alaska. We have lived there ever since. Fairbanks winters are cold and dark so it didn't take us long to produce three children, Jeremiah (1982), Rachel (1985) and Leah (1989). To feed my growing family I worked for a short time as a Fisheries Technician with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and for a much longer time, in the computer networking field, for the University of Alaska and the Arctic Region Super Computer Center. Life in Alaska has been a great adventure and although my occupation has usually had me flying a desk, I have had plenty of free time to enjoy my passion for the outdoors. I have tricked many a fish to strike my fly, have stalked moose and caribou through tundra aflame in autumn colors and have gazed in wonder as the norther lights paint their masterpieces above snow covered mountains. Through it all my wife Cindy has stood at my side and my children's smiles have warmed even the coldest nights.

My future plans are shrouded in mystery as any good adventure should be. My survivors will see to it that my body embarks on its journey back into the earth as they see fit. As for me, I have faith that my creator will show me even greater beauty than I've already experienced along the trail so far. If I'm mistaken, and I don;t think I am, and the trail ahead leads to shall we say a "hotter climate", at least I'll have a chance to thaw-out from all these cold Fairbanks winters!

Fairbanks Daily News---Obituaries--- Date: xx/xx/xxx

Tom Bachert July 4, 1957 -- xxxx #, ####

Hello people of Fairbanks. I am writing this to let all of you know that I am now dead. Yep, my body and I had a falling-out and now we're going our separate ways. This happened on (Date) in (Location) because ( a brief reference to what killed me. If it was something interesting like I got eaten by a bear or died of an STD it can be a bit longer, otherwise just a sentence will do).

Many of you might know me, or at least recognize me as being that big blond guy that likes to wear his hair in all kinds of crazy ways. Maybe you know me as that guy always hanging around Nurse Cindy or that goofy computer nerd up at the university. Anyway, here are some facts about my life that may or may not interest you. On July 4, 1957, at Aurora IL, I was born to Kurt and Shirely Bachert and became the youngest member of a loving family consisting of my brother Tim and sisters Barbara and Susan. I attended grade school at St. Paul's Lutheran School, high school and graduated fro East Aurora High School in 1975. I then traveled to Ashland, Wisconsin where I attended Northland College, earning a degree in Environmental Science in 1979. One year later I married my sweetheart my sweetheart, Cindy (Cunningham) who you probably know as Nurse Cindy. Believe it or not, I was a pretty good looking guy back then and this fact combined with my new wife's adventurous personality led her to agree to the idea of spending our honeymoon driving to Alaska. Fairbanks was still a pretty rough and tumble town back then so we fit in pretty well and have stayed ever since.

The cold, dark Fairbanks winters stimulated the rapid growth of our newly founded family giving rise to three children, Jeremiah (1982), Rachel (1985) and Leah (1989). In order to feed my growing family I worked for a short time as a Fiseries Technician in Pelican for the Alaska Department of Fish and Feathers. I attended UAF to get a teaching certificate and student taught Biology and Chemistry at Lathrop High School (1981-82). Since then I have worked within the computer networking field for the University of Alaska and the Arctic Region Super Computer Center. (the key word here is NETWORKING, so please don't call me if your having trouble with your PC...oh..thats right, I" m dead, so I guess you can't call me anyway.)

I have truly loved my life here in Fairbanks and have met some fantastic people while working and playing in this great land. Hopefully most of you have enjoyed having me around for this time and I have been able to put a smile on your faces occasionally. Likewise I hope the Grayling in the Chena don't hold me forever resoponsible for their sore lips and the moose and caribou are not insulted by my clumbsy attempts at shooting them. ( Truth be known, I always liked the taste of beef better...no insult to your antlered heads intended...its just that a T-bone is hard to beat ) Now its time to bid all of this farwell. Thank-you Alaska for such a great adventure. Thanks for the unbelivable skys, the glistening crystals of your pristine snow and most of all, for your people that are even more colorful than the masterpieces your lights periodically paint above your mountains. Thank-you Cindy, for having to courage to venture with me to this great land and for being forever at my side. Thank-you Jeremiah, Rachel and Leah for brightening even the coldest, darkest night with your radiant smiles.

My future plans are shrouded in mystery as any good adventure should be. My survivors will see to it that my body embarks on its journey back into the earth as they see fit. As for me, I have faith that my creator will show me even greater beauty than I've already experienced along the trail so far. If I'm mistaken, and I don;t think I am, and the trail ahead leads to shall we say a "hotter climate", at least I'll have a chance to thaw-out from all these cold Fairbanks winters!

(this paragraph is to be written by my survivors outlining the specifics of any parties they want to have in celebration of my future adventures.)

Winter Walk

The silver crescent moon fades behind the pastel canvas of a December dawn. I check the laces of my boots and follow the two lines etched into the crystalline snow by the runners of a dog-sled that passed this way sometime during the night. The snow screeches under the tread of my boots. My mind searches momentarily for the Eskimo word for this type of snow but quickly concludes that I never learned the word. I know I have read the word before...In an article about native languages. Was it the Yupik or the Inupiaq Eskimos that have something like a hundred different words to describe the various types of snow? Sheesh, I can't even remember which people the article was talking about let alone the word! I recently read a different article about a savant somewhere who read an enormous number of books and could quote what was written on any given page in any of the books even months after having read it. I wish I could do that. Ya that would be a nice talent to have, but then again, if I was that savant I probably would not be walking along this trail reveling in the rarefied winter light right now. No, I don't think I want to trade places.

The End (Please ignore the "Read More" link below)

Where The Girls Are

Sunday, December 28, 2005...The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner front page headlines read, "Where the girls are". The article which follows discusses a recent study that decries the fact that University of Alaska students are 39% male and 61% female. The study is obviously flawed as everyone knows it is impossible to determine the gender of at least 2% of today's university students. Actually the article is rather interesting and probably exposes some serious deficiencies within this country's educational system. Still, I couldn't help but wish the News-Minus would publish anonymous" Letters to the Editor." I would love to compose a letter written from the perspective one of the whiskered sourdoughs often seen roaming the Fairbanks streets. This post is the letter I would love to send. I hope it makes you smile.

Dear Editor:

Sunday's front page article, "Where the girls are" is just another example of those egg-heads up on the hill wasting tax payer dollars on stupid and unneeded studies. If those Lilly-faced, limp-wristed professors had any testosterone or common sense left in their veins they would know that, "Where the girls are" boys will soon be! You don't even need to pass Bio 101 to know this fact...Just ask any father of a daughter and he will tell you I am correct. They need some multi-million dollar super duper computer to tell them that they have more girl than boy students?? Now they need to have multiple lavish and expensive conferences to figure out how to fix the problem?

I say all those over educated pansies should pull there heads out of the pot clouds that drift among their ivy towers and look around. Have they ever looked at some of their students? A good many of that 61% female population are uglier than last fall's moose gut-pile during break-up! They got cheap jewelry (not even gold) piercing through their noses,lips and God knows where else. They adorn their fat roles with kindergarten smears of tattoos and wear jeans that a grub-stake miner would be embarrassed to wear. Christ, any male student engaging in a panty raid on that campus better come with a fork-lift and gas mask if he expects to carry off any of those girl's under-garments. Yes, it is true that boys will appear wherever the girls are but first, you need girls that can be recognized as being girls! If the University wants to get more boys paying tuition then they should institute an acceptance policy for girls that weeds out ones resembling hemorrhoids on the back side of a grizzly. The university could also plan social events and activities which showed off their coeds...Maybe start a tradition of "bra-less Tuesdays" or some such thing. A good old fashioned dress code would also do wonders in getting boys to shell out some dollars for tuition. Maybe they could ban all piercing (unless actively being administered by a member of the male student body of course!) and ban girls from wearing those baboon-butt fanny packs.

Of course my common sense plan will only work in getting good ole red-blooded Alaskan men. If the University persists stupidly recruiting estrogen fed momma boys from the east coast preppie schools and homo infested California even the finest ice princesses won't entice them to go to school here. Hell, I understand that the University currently wastes thousands of tax payer dollars doling out scholarships to students from France and other penis challenged countries. It's no wonder that those scientists spend so much time researching "male enhancing drugs". Maybe if the University spent a little more time recruiting students from the mining camps and fishing boats here in Alaska they would be able to sell "Trojan Magnums" at Wood Center's condom counter instead of those "MiniAsian Flashes". Converting those girlie European style soccer fields into real American style football fields might also attract some non-homo boys to campus...at least if you could keep those California Frisbee fondlers off the grass.

Ya, I know, I don't have an alphabet soup of letters following my name so I surely don't have the credentials to be advising all those smart guys up on the hill how to attract more male students. (ever wonder why those "guys" really want to attract more MALE students in the first place?? I think the Democrats probably laced their wacky-tabacky with a little too much estrogen myself ! ) But hey, there is hope. General Hamilton is now running the place and you know he has experience recruiting young men. He knows the importance of building and maintaining a good infrastructure. He recognizes the importance of good "breeding stock." Maybe he will adopt some of my ideas...if not...He can always just institute a draft!

Sincerely,

Woody Longfello

Our First Meeting---the real story

Recently my eldest daughter Rachel, posted on her blog (Rachels Posting) two versions of the same story.The story describes how my wife and I first met and goes on to describe our later engagement. The first version is told from my wife's perspective and the second is told from my perspective, Taken together they show the rather humerous differnces between how men and women might view the same events. However, I am afraid there are several factual errors in my daughter's translation of these horrifying events that took place some 28 years ago. This post will hopefully clarrify some of the mis-translations pertaining to our first meeting. Perhaps I will add subsequent posts about our eventual enagement and early romance.

Mom, tell me about the first time you met daddy...

Lets see...it was back in June of 1977 when I first met your father. I am 18, fresh out of Catholic high school and a good girl still confused about this business of love. I had a boyfriend or two before ...the last one of which turned out to be gay! I had no idea until he took me to a party one night and it turned out to be a rather "queer" event if you know what I mean. I about puked and my dad was ready to kill the guy when he took me home, but thats another story. After that I consider being a nun but decide to stick with my dream of becomng a nurse. I am scheduled to start nursing school at the end of the summer but on the day in question I am starting my first day on a summer job at the Gas company where my dad works. The company hires college kids of employees as meter readers to fill-in for the permanent meter readers who often take vacation during the summer months. I am sitting in the supervisor's office waiting for another summer hire to show up so we can begin our orientation. We are about to begin, figuring the other person is going to be a "no-show" when the door burst open and this BIG blonde guy with hair almost to his sholders comes waltzing in. His ice-blue eyes give my body a good scanning and then he turns to the supervisor, shakes his hand, and introduces himself. His presence gives me such a jolt that I don't even catch his name. The supervisor begins the orientation and I do my best at paying attention to what the new job involves but this blond guy just seems bored except for the occasions when I catch him staring at my butt...which by the way...looked pretty nice under the tight white jeans I was wearing...if I may say so myself. Anyway, the orientation finally ends and the supervisor offers to take us both out to lunch. We pile into a company car, the supervisor and the blond guy in the front and me in the back. We get to this cafe and we approach the door to go inside. The blond steps out ahead and holds the door open for me. Well, I figure we are going to be working together and thus should be equals, so I say, "We are going to work together so you don't need to open doors for me!" The next thing I know the door is b slammed in my face. It is a rather rough start but there is something different about that guy. Everytime my eyes lock with his ice-blues, my legs feel all rubbery and my face flushes. Somehow I sense an intertwined fate. That evening when I get home my mom asks me how the job went. I turn to her and reply, "I met the man that I am going to marry!" Grandma gives me kind of a wierd smile and says, "Oh ya, what's his name?" Suddenly I realize that I don't even remember his name!

The rest of June is filled with the hum drum of work. Every morning all the meter readers meet in a big room to be issued our "book" of meters to read for the day. Every morning the blond guy shoots rubber bands at my butt and teases me mercilessly. I do learn his name is Tom and that he goes to college in Wisconsin but he never asks me out and I am to scared to ask him. Every evening I go home talking endlessly about him and dreaming him...especially his cute, tight rear end and playful smile. My chance finally arrives over the Fourth of July weekend. I learne that July 4th is Tom's birthday and also that he has scheduled an appointment to get his wisdom teeth removed prior to the holiday weekend. I summon my courage and call him at home to wish him Happy Birthday. His mother answers the phone and agrees to put him on the line after warning me that he can't talk very well. When he picks up the phone I blurt out "Happy Birthday...I have a birthday kiss for you." (god..I couldn't believe I actually said it!) He mumbles something almost unitelligable but I finally figure out he is saying something about needing to take a rain-check on my offer because his mouth is swelled almost shut and smells like a rat's hemmroid. (such romantic words!) The next week he cashes in on his rain check and we go on our first date...out for Pizza and then to the first Star Wars movie. (maybe this event deserves a seperate posting) Anyway...the rest is history.

Dad, tell me about the first time you met mommy...

Hmm...Lets see...that was back there around 1978 or 1977 I think. "Hey, Cindy...what year was it when we first met?" Ya, mom says it was 1977 so that must be when it was. I think it was June because it was the first day of a summer job I had that summer. It was a job reading meters for the gas company that my dad worked for. I had done the same job the previous summer but based out of a different city back in Illinois. It was fun summer work and I could tell you many stories about working those summers but that is not what you asked me so I will try to stay on topic. I was a bit of a "wild child" back in those days. I had just finished my Freshman year of college and was feeling like or at least trying to act like a real man of the world. During the previous year my long time high school sweetheart had broken up with me and although that had broken my heart for a few days when it happened by the time June rolled around I was on a mission to conquer the world. I had car pooled to work that morning with another guy that I had worked the previous summer with. He owned a delapidated old VW Beetle and we had started the morning by making a "party" of the hour long commute on the Eisenhower Expressway. When we got to the office I learned that I was supposed to go to an orientation in some guy's office so I made my way there and went in the door. There was this chic already there talking to the supervisor. She looked kind of scared and rather "proper" so I flashed her a smile and introduced myself to the boss. The boss launched into rambling on about the job which was rather boring since I had already done a similar job the previous summer so I passed the time by checking the chick out a bit more when she wasn't looking. (this was easy because her attention was pretty focused on the boss man) I noticed that she wasn't bad looking. She had brownish,blondish hair with red undertones, was slim, had nice boobs that she kept hidden too well and a real nice ass. Not a bad prospect at all. I wondered how many other young ladies would also be working there for the summer. Before to long the boss finished his spiel and offered to take us out to get something to eat. The real reason he was offering the free meal was that he wanted to make his daily rounds of the nearby reseraunts to see if he could catch any of the other meter readers gooffing off drinking coffee and eating doughnuts. The company had a policy that no more than 2 company cars could be at any eating establishment's parking lot at one time. If there were more than 2 cars the boss would go inside and "write up" all the meter readers present and they would face discipinary measures. (Ask your mom about this. She has a funny story relating to it.) We drove over to a nearby cafe in a giant Pymoth Fury company car that was about as big as today's pick-up trucks...and which my car-pooling buddy totaled later that summer while I was riding with him. (another story which I will tell you later) Anyway, we got to this cafe and much to the boss man's chagrin there were no other meter readers gooffing off so we decided to go in and get something to eat. By now I was pretty hungry as at that stage in my life I had a perpetual case of the munchies but my mother had taught me well and my hunger didn't cause me to forget my manners. When we got to the door I opened it and held it open for the female in my presence. To my amazement this chick looked me in the eye and blurted out something stupid about us working together and thus she being able to open doors for herself. I thought "Oh God...a woman libber who doesn't even have the decentcy to burn her bra!" and quickly closed the door before I could further offend her.

The next few weeks were pretty run-of-the-mill summer days spent working a summer job. Every morning I would drive through the rush-hour traffic to work, either in my buddies old VW or my dad's extra Odsmobile cutlass. We would spend the first hour in a big room getting our meter reading routes in order. I learned that the chic from the first day was named Cindy and I took great joy in shooting her butt with rubber bands and making her blush. She was cute, the cutest girl working there that summer. I wasn't too sure what to make of her. She was fun but seemed kind of straight-laced which didn't fit the steryotype I had built in my mind of girls from the "city". She rode to and from work everyday with her dad who worked out of the same office and she rarely if ever hung-out with the other meter readers after we finished our "days" work and retired to the nearby parks and forrest preserves to party and play baseball or frisbee. I didn't quite know what to make of her. I never really got around to asking her out as there were other prospects around that seemed to hold a higher promise of success for less effort but she seemed kind of special just the same so I always teased and harrassed her the most when we were together. Around the Fourth of July things changed. I had gone in to get my wisdom teeth removed and the phone rang about the second day after I had them yanked. I was feeling really miserable because the first day after they had been pulled I felt great and ignored my mother's advice and walked the mile or so downtown in the blazing hot sun. That night I got deathly sick and spent the night curled up around the toilet puking my guts up through a mouth that I couldn't even open. So when my mother handed me the phone the next day and told me it was a girl calling for me I was torn between my desire to pursue any and all female possibilities and my fear of sounding like mumbling mummy through my swollen mouth. When I picked up the reciever I was greeted by your mother's sweet voice wishing me a Happy Birthday and then, quite uncharacterisically, promising me a Birthday kiss! "Wow...maybe I had mis-read this chic...maybe she was a 'big city' hottie in disguise!" Not wanting to pass up such an unexpected offer I quickly mumbled something about if I could take a rain-check. She agreed and our conversation continued for several minutes. She spoke sweet comforting words about the agony I was experiencing and I perodically grunted my appreciation. The next week I asked her to go to the Star Wars movie with me. Little did I realize that "the Force" was with her and that my "Evil Empire" was destined for doom. (or is it the other way around...life is so confusing sometimes!! )