The Snow Can Melt Now

February 24, 2025 Shirleyjdietz1 Comment

The 2025 Birkebeiner Nordic Ski Race is over, so now the snow can melt. It was nearly 50 degrees today and water is dripping everywhere outside. Coming off the roof it sounds like an open faucet. I didn’t even bring my skis down from the attic (many reasons) this winter. That didn’t keep me from my own experience with the Birkie.

Volunteers help put up this bridge over our main highway. It’s covered with snow and skiers finish the race up Hayward’s Main Street.

The last few years I have signed up to work the food tent, serving hot soup to tired, cold skiers. I also would get very chilled after hours standing on frozen ground in a breezy tent. This year I chose a volunteer opportunity inside a heated building – the Lost and Found department.

When 11,000 skiers and all their people come into town for this weekend of skiing, lots of stuff gets lost. Zippers don’t get closed and things fall out of backpacks. People pick up something that looks just like theirs, only it isn’t. It gets hot out there skiing and off comes the jacket onto the ground. I’ve heard many variations of these stories in the last couple of days. I got a whole different view of what goes on during a major sporting event this year. It was quite interesting.

On Friday I stopped by my station to orient to my job. I met the couple in charge, my new friends Barb and Morris. Our workplace was a large room filled with banquet tables and a few folding chairs. Nothing had arrived yet. By Saturday afternoon the tables were filled with jackets, sweaters, broken ski poles, hats, and gloves. I was shocked. Didn’t people need their coats? I was told that most of the items would not be reclaimed. Other garments that did get claimed were ones that show up year after year. That was surprising, and led to my first “behind the scenes” revelation.

The Friday and Saturday races start early in the morning and it is normally cold. Everyone starts out quite bundled up. But, no one stays cold very long. Nordic skiing is not just slipping down some slopes and catching a ride up on a lift. It’s skiing up and down hilly terrain over long distances. It creates heat. So, off come the outer layers of clothing. They are usually discarded, picked up by crews of volunteers and transported to Lost and Found. Many skiers get a jacket at a thrift store and don’t care if they ever see it again. Others come looking for their “lucky” jacket and use it year after year.

Only a few of the discarded/lost jackets, shirts and sweaters

The Birkie Association keeps the lost items for one month before donating them back to a thrift store. But initially they are all laid out on the tables where people can search for them. The pockets are searched to remove food or valuables. Before all this clothing is sent to storage it is catalogued. A list is attached to each bag of clothing detailing what is in it.

Breaking a pole is a disaster. You really can’t ski the Birkie without them

Broken ski poles are another common item in Lost and Found. Volunteers at the aide stations tag the broken poles with the bib number of the skier. Believe it or not, skiers want their broken poles back for the parts that come off them. Hand straps can cost $50 to $80. The baskets on the tips can be put on new poles. Skiers usually get a loaner pole at an aide station to finish the race. They return that when they pick up their broken pole.

So, what did I actually do while there? I folded and put items on the tables in their categories. Having done that, I knew what was there and helped people find what they were looking for. I greeted people and answered questions. I called people to let them know their item had been found. I sympathized with people who had lost their car keys, their IPhone, their new prescription glasses, their expensive gloves. I talked with Barb and Morris and found out they were retiring from that job after 13 years. Lost and Found certainly isn’t the most exciting part of the Birkie, but it is a necessary part. Working there gave me a window into volunteer roles that I hadn’t even thought of before.

At the volunteer lunch after the event finished I talked with another volunteer who had an unusual opportunity. His sole job was to take care of one of the winners of the elite group. He accompanied the third place winner through the process of signing paperwork and getting his recognition recorded. That sounded more exciting. Maybe next year?

So there is a lot to learn about this event. I learn at least one new thing every February when Birkie Fever hits our small town. It takes around 4,500 volunteers from several counties around us to put on this event. I am proud to be one of them, even if it’s just in Lost and Found. This year I didn’t get cold, just sayin’…

February Goodness: Finding Lost Things

February 16, 2021 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

It is so good to be able to find things that are lost. Well, not actually “things” plural, but “thing” singular. I’m betting every woman who owns a purse or a bag that goes everywhere with her knows the panic of losing her purse.

This is my purse. I don’t take it everywhere because I carry most of what I really need in my phone wallet. But today I took it along to the husband’s weekly chiropractor appointment. I had it with me in the treatment room and hung it on his cane, like in the picture. After the appointment I had an errand to run for Mom at the hardware store.

I came out of the hardware store with my purchases and as I set them on the floor of the truck, where I usually put my purse, I was aware that my purse was not there. Thinking it must be in the back seat, I got out, opened the door and took a look. The inside of my truck is black too and sometimes the purse is hard to see. It definitely was not there.

No problem. We just went back to the chiropractor’s office a minute or two away. It wasn’t in the waiting room where I thought it had to be. But I could have put it down in the treatment room when I helped the husband up after his adjustment. The receptionist went in and looked. It wasn’t there either.

Back to the truck I went. Everything in it got lifted, opened, felt and thoroughly examined, but there was still no discovery. I went back in the office and waited for ten minutes until the person in the treatment room was finished and came out. I had to see for myself that the purse was not there, although I didn’t think they could have missed it. There was no purse and there was nothing left to do about it except pray that it be found. The chiropractor added his prayer as well, and it was comforting to know he was genuinely concerned.

I went back to the truck to inform the husband, who is also as eager to give lost causes to God as I am.

Husband: “God knows where it is. We’ll pray and keep looking.”

Me: “I know, but there isn’t any place left to look. It wasn’t anywhere in the office and I can’t see it anywhere in here, unless you’re sitting on it.”

Husband: “I am sitting a little bit crooked.”

Me: (looking at him in disbelief) (shoving my hand behind his back and feeling a purse strap) “You’re sitting on my purse! You couldn’t feel that?!”

Husband: (looking sheepish and overjoyed, a very strange combination) “Well, that was quick.”

All good. We were both so relieved that there was instant laughter. Losing things is not fun, but sometimes finding them again makes it all worth it. Just sayin’…

Thank You for the Reminder

September 4, 2015September 4, 2015 Shirleyjdietz3 Comments

Since leaving Seattle I have been bereft (nice word) of a much treasured pair of earrings. Not to make this another “lost jewelry” story I am skipping right to the part this morning where I found them in a pocket as I was preparing clothes to go into the washer. (And it’s another string of stories were I to tell of all the things I’ve washed before I started checking pockets consistently.) As I was feeling a rush of gratitude and relief inwardly, a song that I had not sung for fifty years came to my mind and out of my mouth. Not only the complicated melody with the harmonies in my head, but also all the words!

I was probably 15 or 16 and in the upper stages of 4-H in my rural community. Every summer the state fair in Milwaukee hosted the state 4-H chorus and orchestra and had them perform in midway programs. My friend and I decided to be brave and audition. I don’t think either one of us had ever tried out for anything but we both took piano lessons and were in the high school chorus so it was worth a try.

I remember the audition. We had to travel to a nearby town and wait our turn to go into the room with the chorus director. He talked with me a bit and then had me read some music and match some pitches with my voice. I don’t remember if I actually sang anything, but probably. Then the long wait until a letter in the mail informed me that I’d been accepted into the alto section of the chorus. I was stoked.

The time came a month or so later to make the trip to Milwaukee, a good six hours away, for the four day experience at the state fair. The chorus was a large group, close to 100 I’m guessing, and they were all strangers to me – coming from all parts of the state of Wisconsin. We were housed in a dorm of some kind, but my memory is dim on that aspect probably because we didn’t spend much time doing anything but singing.

The first two days were non-stop practice. All the songs were unfamiliar, ambitious choral pieces. We sang until we were worried we would have no voice left. The words and melodies were burned into our minds until no printed music was needed and all our attention was on the director. I fell in love with the power of being part of a responsive group and having such amazing music pulled out of us by a skilled leader. I fell in love with the music itself and have since found those pieces and used them again.

As often happens, something small, and relatively insignificant triggered this memory and brought the words to one of the songs back to me this morning.

“Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me, uphold me with thy free Spiriit, thy free Spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy way, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.”

The words are from Psalm 51:12, 13. Several songs from our program were from scripture references and there was nothing politically incorrect about doing that in those days. I don’t know how it would go today. We performed on two different days and enjoyed the state fair in between our times on stage. It was an experience of great value for me.

I am not saying that the joy of finding lost jewelry compares to the joy of God’s eternal salvation. But I think that anytime God allows us a joy of any proportion he likes it to remind us of what He has done, and is doing, and will do. Just sayin’, I am reminded and grateful today.