Djurdjevdan

Regular readers will tell you they never know what to expect after this page loads.
Some days I have little to no idea myself.
I try to find the flow.
Then a guy named George rides in on a white horse and slays a dragon who was about to devour a local maiden.

It was a unique sunrise. The lake was calm, there was a bit of heavy ground fog around, there was little flow. I was minding my own business trying to get to the weekend. A Balkan refugee friend called, as she frequently does, to tell me one of her kids was not coming to school today, if I would send an email to the teacher, principal and truancy cop so the police would not show up at her door step.

"Still sick?" I asked.
"Not sick, Djurdjevdan."
"Beg pardon?"
"Djur-djev-dan."
"Oh sure, I remember, Djurdjevdan."

Djurdjev is Serbo-Croatian for George, dan the word for day. After a quick search it all came back to me, St.George's Day, an Orthodox public holiday on the Balkan celebrated more and more by Roma. I sent the email to the school. Child is not sick, Mom is keeping child home to celebrate Djurdjevdan. I quickly located, downloaded and burned a song Pade Sneg na Djurdjevdan. I took it over to her house.

"Stay, drink coffee?"

She had no music especially for Djurdjevdan. She made me two cups of Turkish coffee. I passed on the Old Gold. Her teen age daughter came downstairs. The loud dancing music had woken her.

"What's the loud music about Mom?"
"Djurdjevdan"
"What's that?"
"I'll tell you later, start cleaning the house."

For one short hour I had been jerked out of my boring everyday routine, whipped back in time about 2300 years and then snapped back to 56572 in 2005. The words that came to me then are those now found above in the blog description. It had been a time machine trip. All that before 9:00 a.m. on a Friday morning in May in 56572.

Local Bosnians say the significance of Djurdjevdan is that it's usually the first day of spring when the water in the river is warm enough for Roma to take their first bath of the New Year.


A dragon once lived in a lake near Silena, Libya. Whole armies had fought against this fierce creature and had fallen in painful defeat. The monster devoured two sheep every day in a time when mutton was scarce. In the local villages, lots were drawn and maidens substituted for the sheep. Into this country came Saint George. Hearing the story on a day when a princess was to be the sacrifice, he crossed himself, rode into battle against the serpent, and killed it with a single blow of his lance. George then held forth with a magnificent sermon and converted the local people to Christianity. Given a large reward by the king, George distributed it to the poor and then rode away.

I feel the new spring brush my shoulder,
the lily of the valley blossoms
to everyone but me.
Hey, it's Djurdjevdan (St. George's Day)
and I am not with the one I love.

proljece na moje rame slijece
djurdjevak zeleni
djurdjevak zeleni
svima osim meni drumovi odose a ja osta
nema zvijezde danice
nema zvijezde danice
moje saputnice ej kome sada moja draga
na djurdjevak mirise
na djurdjevak mirise
meni nikad vise evo zore evo zore
Bogu da se pomolim
evo zore evo zore
ej djurdjevdan je
a ja nisam s onom koju volim njeno ime neka se spominje
svakog drugog dana
svakog drugog dana
osim djurdjevdana

Scoops opens tomorrow. Paul will be there.

Shot at stealing two-by-fours

The Otter Tail County Sheriff's Department reported that a firearm was discharged into an abandoned trailer with a person inside it Thursday. The victim was uninjured and was reportedly looking for two-by-fours when he heard five shots hit the trailer. There is one suspect, the sheriff's department said.