Howdy, folks. If you’ve been trailing along on these chronicles of mine—like that time I tried to outwit a muskrat at the county fair and ended up looking like I’d lost a bet with a beehive—you know I’m Glenn Blamstead, purveyor of pole barns and perpetrator of puns that could buckle a load-bearing beam. Here in the piney whispers of central Minnesota, where the lakes lap at your boots like they’re auditioning for a fish fry, life’s a series of glorious trainwrecks wrapped in flannel. And today, I’m yanking open the creaky door to a chapter from 1990, when I reckoned a man’s best friend ain’t just loyal—he’s got a knack for turning every errand into an episode of slapstick symphony.
You see, the title up there? “A Dog Is Always In The Push-up Position.” It’s one of those zingers that hits you sideways, like spotting a deer in your headlights and realizing it’s wearing your neighbor’s missing antler hat. Dogs, bless their furry hearts, are built for action—ears perked, tail wagging like a faulty windshield wiper, and that perpetual crouch that says, “I’m ready to fetch, fight, or flop belly-up for scratches.” But in my case, that position led to more belly laughs than belly rubs. We’re talking about Farfegnugen, my German Shepherd sidekick who joined the Blamstead brigade back when shoulder pads were still a thing and Volkswagen was peddling joyrides on the TV like they were handing out free lutefisk at a Lutheran potluck.
Grab your thermoses of weak coffee and settle in by the virtual campfire. This here’s the tale of how a misspelled ad slogan birthed a four-legged co-pilot who turned my ’87 Ford F-150 into a rolling circus tent. And trust me, if you’ve ever wondered why pole barns need extra ventilation, it’s for stories like this one.
The Day I Traded Hay Bales for Howls
It was the summer of ’90, hot enough to fry a walleye on the hood of my truck, and I was knee-deep in erecting a pole barn for old man Hargrove out by Isle. You remember Isle? That speck on the map where the mosquitoes are unionized and the bars serve beer that’s been aging since the Carter administration. Hargrove wanted a setup big enough to house his antique tractor collection—tractors that looked like they’d lost a mud-wrestling match with a peat bog—and I was the fool tasked with making it happen. Poles in the ground, trusses groaning like a hungover lumberjack, and me, sweat-soaked under my walrus mustache, which by then had achieved legendary status for snagging more gnats than a bug zapper at a family reunion.
But life’s not all plumb lines and pressure-treated lumber. I’d been rattling around solo in that double-wide trailer of mine, the one with the leaky roof that sounds like it’s auditioning for a rain dance symphony. The quiet was getting louder than a snowmobile in a library. So, on a whim—or maybe after one too many Hamm’s at the bait shop—I decided it was time for company. Not the two-legged kind, mind you; those come with opinions and alimony checks. No, I needed a dog. Something sturdy, loyal, and preferably with a bark that could scatter raccoons faster than a tax auditor at a moonshine still.
A German Shepherd Pup Dropped On My Doorstep
Word got around quicker than gossip at a quilting bee. By noon the next day, I had a German Shepherd pup dropped on my doorstep—courtesy of my cousin Earl, who fancies himself a breeder but mostly breeds trouble. There he was, a wriggling furball the color of fresh-sawed pine. I knelt down, mustache twitching like a divining rod over an underground spring, and that’s when I locked eyes with him. He had paws like snowshoes and eyes that said, “Boss, I’ve got your back—now let’s go chew on something expensive.” He didn’t yip or yap; he just plopped down in that classic push-up stance, tail thumping the dirt like a bass drum at a polka fest. Sold, right then and there, for a six-pack.
I scooped him up, all forty pounds of floppy-eared potential, and hauled him into the truck. Little did I know, that was the spark that lit the fuse on three decades of automotive anarchy. But first, he needed a name. And oh boy, did I botch that one worse than a rookie framing a doorjamb.
Fahrvergnügen? More Like Farfegnugen Fiasco
Naming a dog ain’t like picking color swatches for a pole barn siding—there’s no brochure with “Classic Red” or “Barn Board Brown.” It’s gotta roll off the tongue like a well-aged joke at the VFW hall. I was mulling it over while nursing a lukewarm Grain Belt on the porch, the sun dipping low enough to gild the tamaracks like they’d been dipped in fool’s gold. The TV flickered on, that ancient Zenith with the knobs that stuck like they were glued with molasses, and there it was: Volkswagen’s latest ad blitz. “Fahrvergnügen,” they called it—some fancy German word for the sheer bliss of driving their shiny Beetles and Jettas. The jingle wormed into my brain like a tick at a tick farm: “Fahrvergnügen! The joy of driving!”
Now, I ain’t no linguist. Hell, I can barely spell “catastrophe” without picturing a feline in a top hat. English trips me up enough—ask me to diagram a sentence and I’ll end up with a blueprint for a birdhouse. So German? Forget it. That word looked like a drunk elf had danced the polka across my TV screen. But it stuck. “Fahr… ver… gnu… gen?” Close enough. By the time the commercial faded to static, I’d mangled it into “Farfegnugen.” Rolled it around in my mouth like a jawbreaker from the five-and-dime. “Farfegnugen Blamstead,” I muttered to the pup, who was gnawing on my bootlace with the enthusiasm of a beaver at a dam convention. He paused, tilted his head, and let out a woof that sounded suspiciously like agreement. Deal sealed.
From The Jump, Furg Was A Road Warrior
Earl about swallowed his chew when he heard. “Far-what-now? Sounds like you sneezed during a sauerkraut supper.” But I was smitten. Farfegnugen—Furg for short—fit him like a glove. Or in his case, like a chew toy. He was all Shepherd: sleek black-and-tan coat that shone like oiled walnut, ears that could pivot like radar dishes, and a gaze that could make a burglar rethink his life choices mid-window jimmy. But the real magic? That ad campaign had nailed it. From the jump, Furg was a road warrior. I’d barely cranked the ignition on that F-150 before he’d vault into the passenger seat, paws braced in push-up position, nose pressed to the glass like he was scouting for the next rest stop potluck.
It started small. A quick run to the co-op for bags of Quikrete, and there he was, tongue lolling like a pink victory flag, fogging up the windows with his hot breath. Folks at the drive-thru would gawk: “Glenn, your dog’s driving you!” I’d chuckle, mustache quivering, and fire back, “Nah, he’s just the navigator—I’m the one who ends up in Wisconsin by mistake.” But as the weeks rolled into months, Furg’s car fixation blossomed into full-blown obsession. He’d hear the jingle of keys from across the yard and come barreling, skidding to a halt in that eternal push-up crouch, eyes pleading: “Take me, boss. Anywhere. Even if it’s just to the edge of the driveway and back.”
Road Trips and Raccoon Rodeos
By fall of ’90, Furg and I were inseparable, a two-man (and one-dog) operation pounding the blacktop from Brainerd to Bemidji, chasing contracts for pole barns that could shelter everything from snowmobiles to secret stills. Sherman Pole Buildings was just a gleam in my overalls back then, but the seeds were planted—literally, in the form of treated posts I’d haul home like a pack mule with a pedigree. Furg rode shotgun on every gig, his push-up perch giving him a vantage point fit for a king. “What’s the rush, boy?” I’d ask, downshifting around a pothole the size of Lake Superior. He’d glance my way, ears flapping in the wind like victory sails, and I’d swear he was grinning wider than the Mississippi at flood stage.
One jaunt stands out, etched in my memory like a bad tattoo from spring break ’72. We were headed to Deerwood to frame up a horse barn for a fella who bred Arabians—fancy horses that pranced like they owned the place. The route wound through tamarack thickets where the shadows played tricks, and the radio crackled with static-laced polka tunes. Furg, ever the sentinel, had his nose tuned to eleven, snuffling every whiff of pine sap and distant diner grease. About halfway, just past the “Welcome to Nisswa—Home of the World’s Largest Walleye Statue” sign, we hit a snag. Or rather, a snarl.
It started with a rustle in the ditch—raccoon central, those masked bandits bolder than a politician at a pork-barrel picnic. One poked its head up, eyes gleaming like stolen hubcaps, and Furg lost his ever-loving mind. From zero to berserk in the time it takes to say “brake lights,” he launched into a frenzy: barking that rattled the toolboxes in the bed, paws scrabbling the dash like he was digging for buried treasure. I swerved, cursed in three dialects (English, Norwegian, and what I call “Blamstead”), and yanked the wheel toward the shoulder. Tires screeched like a cat on a hot tin roof, gravel flew like confetti at a bad wedding, and there we sat, truck idling amid a cloud of dust that could’ve choked a goat.
The Asphalt Ambassador
Furg, undeterred, kept up the symphony—woof-woof-WOOF!—his body rigid in that push-up pose, as if he alone could levitate us after the ‘coon. I killed the engine, pried his jaws off the glove compartment (where he’d embedded teeth marks like a love bite from a timber wolf), and dragged him out for a “cool-down lap.” The raccoon? Long gone, probably laughing its striped tail off in some hollow log, plotting its next raid on the corn crib. By the time we rolled into Deerwood, I was late, Furg was hoarse, and the horse fella eyed us like we’d just escaped a kennel coup. “Rough ride?” he asked, eyebrow arched higher than a gambrel roof. “Nah,” I lied, scratching Furg’s ears till they flopped like wet pancakes. “Just rehearsing for the Iditarod. Your barn’s gonna have a dog door big enough for a sled team.”
That was Furg in a nutshell—or a nutshell with paws. Every trip birthed a brouhaha: the time he “helped” unload posts by herding them like sheep, scattering two-by-twelves across the highway like pickup sticks from hell; or the blizzard run to Grand Rapids where he kept the cab toasty by curling into a fur furnace, only to emerge at the diner looking like a yeti who’d raided the walk-in freezer. Folks started calling him “The Asphalt Ambassador,” and me? I just grinned, because in a world of crooked levels and leaky roofs, a dog who turns mileage into memories is worth more than a fleet of lowboys.
Job Site Shenanigans and Shepherd Shenanigans
Winter ’90 hit like a hammer on an anvil, blanketing Minnesota in white stuff deeper than a politician’s promises. Pole barn season don’t hibernate, though—farmers need storage for hay bales stacked higher than a Lutheran steeple, and I was the go-to guy for framing ’em sturdy. Furg tagged along to every site, his push-up stance evolving into a full-time vigil: perched on a stump or a stack of pallets, surveying the crew like a foreman with fur. The boys—Swede, Little Jimmy, and that new kid from Duluth who could swing a Skil-Saw like it was a flyswatter—took to him quick. “Hey, Glenn,” Swede’d holler, mid-nail-gun symphony, “your mutt’s critiquing my cuts again.” Furg’d tilt his head, one ear cocked, as if to say, “Tilt that bevel two degrees left, or I’ll pee on your thermos.”
One February frolic at a dairy farm near Crosby turned legendary. We were raising walls on a 40×60 beauty, trusses swaying like tipsy Christmas trees in the wind. Gale-force gusts whipped snow devils across the stubble fields, and visibility? About as clear as mud after a spring thaw. Furg, sensing drama, stationed himself at the build site, push-up ready, barking orders at phantom foes. Then came the cows. Old man Peterson’s Holsteins, spooked by the hammering, busted through a fence like it was made of linguini. Black-and-white bovines stampeding toward our half-erected frame, moos echoing like a barbershop quartet gone rogue.
That’s When I Knew: This Misspelled Marvel Wasn’t Just A Pet
Chaos? Understatement of the decade. Swede dropped his level, Jimmy hollered something unprintable involving lutefisk and lightning, and the Duluth kid froze like a deer in—well, you get it. Me? I was ten feet up on a scaffold, cursing the wind and my frozen mustache hairs. Enter Furg: a black-and-tan blur launching from his perch, herding those heifers with the precision of a border collie on steroids. He nipped at heels, circled flanks, barked in that deep Shepherd timbre that says “Back it up, Bessie, or else.” By the time Peterson arrived with his lasso and a sheepish grin, the cows were corralled in a neat semi-circle, Furg at the apex like a furry traffic cop, still in push-up mode, tail wagging triumph.
We finished the barn late that day, but with a story that fueled the bunkhouse banter for months. Peterson tossed in an extra cord of birch as thanks, and Furg got a steak bone the size of my forearm. “Boy,” I told him that night, toweling slush from his coat in the trailer’s feeble glow, “you’re more builder than half my crew.” He flopped down, belly up for his victory scratches, and I reckon that’s when I knew: this misspelled marvel wasn’t just a pet. He was family. The kind that turns frostbite into folklore and flat tires into field trips.
Heartstrings, Hot Dogs, and Highway Hymns
As the ’90s unspooled like a frayed lanyard, Furg and I logged enough miles to circle the globe twice—okay, maybe just the Boundary Waters a few dozen times. He mellowed some, that push-up stance softening to a regal slouch, but the car love? Eternal. We’d cruise the backroads at dusk, windows cracked to let in the chorus of loons and the scent of smoldering leaf piles. I’d croon off-key to the radio—Springsteen mostly, because nothing says “open road” like a Boss ballad about rust belts and redemption—and Furg’d harmonize with contented sighs, head on my thigh like a pillow with opinions.
Not all rides were rodeos. There were the quiet ones: pulling over at that pull-off near Emily to watch the aurora borealis paint the sky like God’s own watercolor set, Furg’s chin on the sill, eyes reflecting greens and purples brighter than a VFW jukebox. Or the hot-dog runs to Ziggy’s in Crosslake, where he’d wait in the truck, fogging the glass with anticipatory puffs, and emerge triumphant with a contraband wiener I’d “accidentally” dropped. “Don’t tell the vet,” I’d whisper, wiping mustard from his muzzle. He’d wink—or I’d like to think so—and we’d roll on, two souls in sync, chasing horizons that always bent back to home.
Here’s To The Dogs In Push-up Positions
But time, that sneaky varmint, don’t spare even the faithful. By ’05, Furg’s muzzle had gone silver as a fox’s promise, his push-ups more like gentle nods. The rides got shorter, the adventures tamer, but the bond? Forged tighter than a lag bolt in live oak. His last jaunt was a simple loop around Mille Lacs, wind in our whiskers, the lake shimmering like a promise kept. He passed quiet-like that fall, curled in his bed by the woodstove, dreaming of raccoons and open roads.
Looking back, from that ’90 doorstep drop to the sunset spins, Furg taught me more about building than any blueprint. Life’s like a pole barn: you sink the posts deep, weather the storms, and leave room for the joyful chaos. And if you’re lucky, you get a co-pilot who turns every mile into magic—even if his name’s spelled wronger than a kindergartner’s spelling bee.
So here’s to the dogs in push-up positions, the misspelled joys, and the chronicles that keep on chronicling. If this yarn’s got your tail wagging, drop a line or swing by Sherman Pole Buildings. We’ve got barns that’ll stand tall, stories that’ll stand longer, and maybe—just maybe—a pup or two in need of a bad pun for a name. Until next time, keep the rubber side down and the laughter high. Glenn out.
