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| 9/20/2006 1:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Sad to say, it's the end of the road
 | Rob Crowe
Columnist
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The other day Management and I went down to Aitkin for a candidate forum put on by the Aitkin Chamber. One of the attendees happened to be a local radio celebrity who I spoke to briefly and as Management and I left the parking lot, I saw him giving the old Aerostar van a long, hard look.
I'm not sure what he was looking at, maybe it was the crinkled left front fender with a solitary bulb hanging out serving as the turn signal, but it reminded me that you all are probably waiting for an update on that trusty vehicle.
Sad to say, but I think it is time to retire it. Shortly after we got back from our Kentucky trip, Management was making a late trip to Grand Rapids when a deer attacked the fender while she was driving just north of Shoal Lake. You know how those deer are. I happened to be at the other end of the map, almost to Palisade on my way back from McGregor when I got her call that the deer had lost the fight, the fender was crinkled and the headlight gone.
She did make it home, I wired in another headlight off the parts van and a couple of days later unhooked the alarm because it kept going off. I did stop at the site of the crime and pulled the deer into the ditch the next day, not much else I could do. I wanted to swipe the fender off the parts van but I didn't have the time.
Management has been helpful to me in my ill-fated campaign for 5th District Commissioner. The other day she was west of Hill City distributing some flyers and I got another call from her saying that the van smelt hot but she was only a mile from home so would try to make it home. I said OK, and a short time later she called saying that she was at home, the left rear tire was shot just like the tire on the pickup she ruined last winter. I didn't do anything about it that night but the next morning pulled the van over to the garage to change it.
I looked to see what could have gone wrong and found the left rear coil spring was horizontal instead of vertical, it had broken and something had happened to turn it into the tire where it had machined a one inch strip out of the sidewall of the nearly new tire. I quizzed Management on what had happened. She told me she had turned around in one of the neighbor's yards, the turn around wasn't too smooth and she had felt a bump but couldn't tell what was wrong. I have a mental picture of the van going off one of those jumps that you see on a motocross event, flying a few feet and landing to cause that much damage. I've heard reports from the older kids that it happens often, the younger ones think it is standard operating procedure, they don't know any better.
I welded up the spring and re-installed it, put on an old tire but I think the van is at the end of the road.
Like the van, my commissioner campaign is at the end of the road. It was fun while it lasted. I especially liked having the excuse to take my homebuilt parade vehicles to the parades. I think parades should be fun.
Congratulations to Galen Tveit and Mike Murphy for making it through the primary. I appreciate Reggie Lee and Annie Marcotte participating in the political process. The campaign was a friendly one; at the aforementioned candidate forum put on by the Chamber several of us sat at the same table and had a good time.
It should have been a friendly campaign. I've done business with the Tveits, my daughter was friends with Annie's daughter in school, Reggie's son took another daughter to the prom, and Murphy, well, you always want to be friendly with someone who wears a policeman's uniform on occasion. I'd like also to take the occasion. Hats off to Reggie for serving as commissioner for the district for the last four years. It is not always an easy task.
Many residents supported and voted for me and I appreciate it. To reader Jerry Feucht: I'm back in the slot and, whether you agree or disagree, my aim is to make my columns, as well as my life, as entertaining and interesting as possible.
Rob Crowe chairs the Aitkin County Republicans and raises kids and cows on a farm near Hill City.
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