A sad caveat to my usual statement that I have three brothers is now amended: I have two living brothers.
Growing up, the sons of Dean and Dorothy Ormson were a terror to one another and their North Menomonie neighborhood. When people saw us coming, they hid the breakables.
Later in life, as our parents clamped down on us and attempted to control the high energy of four teens, they were no longer just Dean and Dorothy Ormson, but D and D, the masters of Dungeons and Dragons. They were good parents and used all the spells and tricks at their disposal to corral the four horsemen; most of the time, they got the upper hand.
I’m not sure if it was their deliberate strategy, but when my brothers were still in high school, D and D bought a small cabin on a remote lake in Northern Wisconsin. It was a place away from trouble and nervous neighbors.
The cabin had a name, “The Old Style Place,” and its logo was nailed to the shingle siding on an outfacing wall. But to us, it was always just ‘the cabin.’ “Watch out for the bear,” D and D said. It was another clever trick.
Many stories were started, told, and retold at the cabin, often lubricated by an ‘Old Style’ kind of leisure. These stories created and cemented an identity and loyalty among the Ormson boys that was unbreakable, even when strained by time and distance, death, illness, and accident.
It’s the happy times that keep us all going, and the cabin was a place where the howling crescendo and full-bodied belly laughter – louder than a train – signaled that story had been sufficiently told . . . for the time being.
This laughter and joy, amplified by the tight spaces in a small cabin will remain in my ears, even though a strong voice in the chorus has gone silent. Tim loved to laugh when at the cabin, and he was probably the loudest.
Some of the objects at the cabin also took on a life of their own and its part of the reason Tim loved the place. He enjoyed telling tales of the green chair in the corner and how it became, “the tick chair,” the Seven-Up floatie became the bad-luck inflatable, the fireplace was a home for squirrels, and the woodpile a source of unending entanglements. My counsel, ya better pile that wood right or you’ll catch shit from the Ormson boys. I did.
Tim loved fishing on the lake and sharing that with his wife Sue, and their children. Eventually, that sharing included the grandchildren, but much of what he hoped to do with them was cut short by his struggle with COPD and its limiting influence.
Brother Tim, like my other brothers, was a fine athlete. But he possessed an entirely unusual level of strength and speed. Running track, he’d often cross the finish line far ahead of the others. In junior high school, he looked like a man competing with boys, his powerful shoulders stretched the seams of the Menomonie “thinclad uniform.”
When he moved to Corpus Christie after high school, Tim took a job as a steelworker. While there, he decided to try arm-wrestling with coworkers and then at local pubs in smaller contests. Once I asked, how’d you do against some of those big ol’ Texas boys. “I never lost,” he said. I couldn’t tell if this was a cabin tale or not, but his face had the look of truth and his words were hard as steel.
But the truth is that he was physically powerful beyond what anyone would expect from a guy in a 180-pound frame. It was that frame dressed in the maroon football uniform of the Menomonie High School Indians (at that time) that stuck it to the bigger schools in the Big Rivers Conference.
When Tim took the ball, and the Menomonie 34 Ram to the right was called, it was a storm of dust and blizzard of gas hurdling forward for a sure 7-8 yards. The Eau Claire Old Abes, Huskies, and Chippewa Falls Cardinals had no answer. An opposing coach was quoted for a newspaper story. “Menomonie has a bruiser at running back.” It was true, but of course, he took the bruising too.
Tim received accolades and collegiate scholarship offers to play football, but sometimes, time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth,” and what goes up in smoke is not just simmering tobacco, but also the best-laid plans, dreams, and hopes.
And now, the remnants of his rough and rowdy life, his big-hearted goodness, and his boisterous laugh – forever echoing near the small cabin on the lake in the north – have been silenced by that reaper who’s never been defeated. His passing saddens me, and I will miss him.
All are welcome to gather with family and friends to celebrate a life well-lived on Friday at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Spring Valley. The Service is at 11:00 am. There is more, of course, much more.
“Running Bear,” by Jiles Perry Richardson
Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love as big as the sky
Running Bear loved Little White Dove with a love that couldn’t die
Richardson’s Running Bear, verse 3. Running Bear dove in the water, Little White Dove did the same. And they swam out to each other through the swirling stream they came. As their hands touched and their lips met, the raging river pulled them down. Now they’ll always be together in their happy hunting ground.
Leave a Reply