Here it is, Tom Obert's "Year in Review"

The trailboss was in his basement office drinking whiskey and enjoying big snappy chunks of leftover Christmas peanut brittle when Tom Obert's annual year in review chimed into the electronic mailbox. Blog duties come first, of course, so the trailboss set down the glass and wiped the brittle oils off his hands just long enough to post this annual Class of '65 blog feature. Gentle readers who are offended by these pugnacious liberal outbursts are reminded that there are equal opportunities for those who may take exception to Mr. Obert's candid observations. Peace on Earth, baby.

Post-Christmas photo: "I would like to return this duck," says Mr. Obert's long-suffering spouse.

Tom writes:
JAN 1 – We were in Indiana with Ruth’s family for the start of the new year. Congressman Mark Foley introduced legislation to prohibit gay illegal immigrant congressional pages from performing embryonic stem cell research.
FEB 4 – The Alexandria girls hockey team (a/k/a “Our Little Darlings”) won their first conference title ever with an 18-1-4 record. Rush Limbaugh is pardoned by an activist judge.
FEB 14 - You may have forgotten . . . but if you start with the last letter of Bela Lugosi’s first name and take every other letter, and then do the same thing with his last name, you get: a, e, i, o, u. So take your grandchildren out to an old Dracula movie, and then come home and teach them how to do vowels. Oh, and it was our 5th wedding anniversary, which is Sid Hartman bobblehead dolls.
FEB 25 – “Our Little Darlings” finished 3rd in the girls state hockey tournament. The double OT win against Totino-Grace in the section finals may have been the best game Tom has ever witnessed in any sport.

MAR 7 – Tom was “elected” DFL associate precinct chair – he still has no idea what that means. Activist judges were determined to be at fault.
APR 10 – We spent a wonderful overnight with classmate Tom (and Eleanor) Ellis at their home in Wabasha, home of “Grumpy Old Men” and the National Eagle Center at the southern end of Lake Pepin. Tom, Mikko Cowdery, and this Tom talked into the wee hours of the morning, solving all of the world’s problems with a solid progressive agenda.
MAY 18-22 – Bill and Anne Gross, long-time D.C. friends, colleague, boss, and softball teammate, made their first visit to the Birthplace of America. They are the 30-year product of Tom’s matchmaking abilities.
JUL 2-28 – Rita came for a week & brought grandson Tom, who stayed for 3 weeks. Ruthie then took Tom home by train and stayed in Indiana for a week. Jack Abramoff financed golf trips to Scotland for Congressmen Bob Ney and Tom DeLay where they determined it was morally acceptable to perform medical research on gay stem cells.

JUL 11 –15 – Aunt Mary Kay and Uncle Tom visited from Arizona with three grandkids. We all enjoyed the hilarious play "Don’t Hug Me" at Theatre L’Homme Dieu.

JUL 15 – Thermometer hit 118 on lakeside deck. Al Gore is right! We started perusing lakeside property ads in Canada’s Northwest Territory.
JUL 23 – A cruise with the Skadsbergs on Lake Minnetonka. They somehow managed to overcome Tom’s male sense of indirection when he showed up on the wrong side of the lake. An activist judge ordered Ann Coulter to consume at least 2,000 calories daily, resolving that hunger has made her cranky.
AUG 18 – The class of ’65 Open was held at the Alexandria Golf Club – the other side won (nevertheless, our side looked very impressive in our golf attire). Gay illegal immigrants storm the country’s borders to get married in Massachusetts.
AUG 21-24 – Rose & Dick McMullen paid a visit from wherever they live now. They actually forced us to visit the Kensington Runestone discovery site for the first time in our lives. Hey, we live in the Birthplace of America, you know!

SEP 25–OCT 1 – All the Callecod girls (Ruthie’s Mom and sisters Rita and Faith) from Indiana arrived in time for a final spin of the season on the Moby Obie. Tom marched in the Alexandria homecoming parade on the 29th as the sole representative of the class of ’65! The Callecod girls proudly cheered his performance.
OCT 9-12 – “Marcus” Brown, our best customer from the East, arrived for his annual visit. The Moby Obie was already “to bed” for the season, but we did manage to have the course all to ourselves for a chilly round of golf at the AGC.
OCT 23 – Jeffrey Skilling won a 24-year, all expenses paid visit to Waseca, Minnesota, the very same locale where Tom struck out for the final out in Alexandria’s 12-0 loss to Bloomington in the 1962 VFW State Championship game.
NOV 7 – HALLELUJAH! We won! And Minnesota established two national firsts: The first Muslim U.S. Congressman, Keith Ellison, and the first U.S. Congresswoman from the Twilight Zone, Michele Bachmann.
NOV 21-27 – Jami, Dan, and grandson Tom arrived from Indiana in time to catch the Little Darlings home opener. They also began their grand search to become members of the landed gentry here in Vacationland U.S.A.
NOV 23-DEC 4 – Sister Gretch came to Alexandria to visit Mom for 10 days. Befitting her status as an infrequent traveler, her flight out from D.C. was the proverbial flight from Hell. The highlight of her visit was the water pump going out on Mom’s 20-year old Bonneville (Gretch’s wheels while here), flooding Mom’s garage. Merry Christmas, Gretch!
DEC 11 – As you know, the top 4 Republican candidates for president currently have 9 marriages, 5 divorces, and unknown numbers of extramarital affairs among them. An activist judge ruled that Mary Cheney best defines family-values.
DEC 12 – As we write this, it is the middle of December in Minnesota. It’s 40 degrees. There is no snow. It sucks! Nevertheless . . .

WISHING YOU AND YOURS A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

- Ruth and Tom Obert