You're looking at a picture of it .... the "Best" Christmas gift. So what is DOC and what is this all about?
This gift concerns repayment of a couple of dollars owed to me. It turns out that I grew up in a small country village, East Union, MN, with a population of about 50 and about 25 miles from Minneapolis. Most of the folks living there had lived there "forever" and were second, third or even fourth generation (like me). That meant that outsiders were looked upon with suspicion and generally not spoken to, i.e. the complete opposite of "Minnesota friendly". Or maybe that IS Minnesota friendly? Ignoring weather extremes, it was a pretty idyllic place.
Then one day some new folks moved into the area. Marge and Phil Johnson bought a farm about half a mile from where I lived. They had a couple of small kids, and my mother got to know Marge quite well because she did some babysitting for her. Phil worked somewhere in "the cities" and was a gentleman farmer on nights and weekends. It didn't take much of his time because he chose to grow grass for sod, which doesn't take much effort once it is planted. I hardly knew Phil (remember, you don't talk to strangers).
When I was perhaps 20 years old, I got a call from Phil one evening asking if I could come and work for him that evening doing some sod work. It was about the last thing I wanted to do because I was working my way through college by flagging traffic for the Minnesota Highway Department. That looks like an easy job, but after standing on hard pavement for 10 hours my legs typically felt like wooden sticks underneath my body. But when working one's way through college, every last dollar counts so I went and did a couple hours of work for Phil. At the end of the evening, he said "I will pay you later". Minnesota nice dictates that you say something like "okay, thank you". Well, later turned out to be much later, and I did not get paid my $2 by the time I went back to college.
That winter back at school I received some shocking news. Phil Johnson had murdered his wife Marge. What?! That kind of stuff absolutely DOES NOT happen in East Union. But it did. So much for my $2 (never mind Marge and the kids).
I told Amy this story a couple months ago, and it set her to thinking. A week before Christmas she placed a package under our Christmas tree and told me that it was the best Christmas gift. When I opened the package, you can see a copy of what I found at the top of this page. She had gone to the Minnesota Department of Corrections (DOC) and gotten the commissioner's name. Using their letterhead, she composed a letter to me from the commissioner and from Phil Johnson. After lots of years, I finally got my $2. The letter and the dollars are framed and hung on our wall. I guess you could say it is a conversation piece.
