Frank: It’s a common expression but Lucas, remember Lucas? Jerry Lucas? He used to say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” Almost everything is small stuff.

Barbara: And we’ve talked around about that for a long time because they are very troubled times now.

My dad lived to be 95 and when he was in his 80s he used to say, “I don’t know what you guys are going to do. Things are really getting squirrelly,” and he’d be scratching his head.

Now here was a guy who went from a horse-drawn carriage to people landing on the moon. He was just, you know, befuddled by it when he got into his 80s. I think to some degree, even though we’re not there yet, we’re kind of agitated by what’s going on in the world today. You can’t figure out what’s happening.

Frank: We were talking just yesterday. Our daughter lives in Northern Wisconsin in Lake Superior, population 8,000; income is probably $30,000 a year. If you make $16 an hour you’re happy.

They don’t worry about the things that are happening in the world. We were saying there are places you go in the United States where the people aren’t fretting about the politics in Iraq. They just sort of live their lives. We sort of get sucked up in that.

Barbara: Well, sometimes you know we think maybe we’ll both go back to Chicago. Even though you’ve been gone for over 40 years and you go back to Chicago it’s like going to another country. That’s where you innately feel that your roots are. When we talk seriously about going someplace else it’s like, I don’t want to leave here. While you are somewhere else you’ll say, “Hey! I could live here!”

Frank: Sort of off the subject, but where she lives the winter are cruel but the people are into ice fishing. There are ice villages. They are into snowmobiling. If the bay doesn’t freeze by December they are out of sorts. We were there at Thanksgiving, right? Everybody hunts. Nobody is in school; moms, dads, brothers, sons and daughters, they are all out hunting! Come fishing season you go to a restaurant, I mean, people our age are all talking about…It’s a different thing! All this other crap that’s going on in the world and they are like in their own little world.

Barbara: I think basically now, in our time in life, we try to tell our grandkids and even our kids sometimes, but they’re not children anymore they’re about 40 years of age, but you try to tell them that life is supposed to be fun.

You are not supposed to have all this worry and stuff. Alisha our grandchild is the first child I ever saw born and so she and I have a special, special attachment and we try to corrupt her as much as we can! (Laughter) She just turned 21 and we took her to a casino! (Laughter)

Frank: We flew into Minneapolis and she’s going to a Christian college there, she’s now going to University of Wisconsin.

She said, “If I meet you at the airport will you drive me to Ashland?” which is a four hour drive. So we said, “Yeah, but we’re going to stop in the casino.” So we stopped at the casino and get a hotel room and take her in, set her down at the table, get a few drinks, playing cards.

Barbara: She had more fun.

Frank: She had more fun.

Barbara: We had more fun. It was incredible. That table was really – the people across the table were putting bets on her and bets for her! (Laughter)

Frank: One guy wanted to do the wave at the table! Then he bought a round of drinks. I just drink beer and he didn’t know what to drink and she said, “Why don’t you get this stuff?”

Okay!” anyway…but you know, Floyd Kvamme, this is 20 years ago, I remember he told me one time he quit looking at the news and reading the paper because it was so depressing. But you get sucked into this stuff! Life is really pretty damn simple.

Barbara: When I started talking back to the television was during OJ’s…I would be furious when that trial would be preempted because, you know, I was so upset by that. That started the whole thing I think for me.

Frank: Her. (Frank is pointing at Barbara. Laughter)