- [Male Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(loon calling) (upbeat rock music) - [Female Narrator] Cruising your way next "Off 90," we go pubbin' with some bagpipers, we meet a Rochester police officer and his K9 friend, we join shoppers searching for unique items, and we meet a performer who found humor in his disability.

It's all just ahead.

"Off 90."

(upbeat rock music) (bright rock music) Hi.

I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip "Off 90."

You might remember an astronaut who played the bagpipes in 2015 in the International Space Station.

Back on Earth, we joined a group of bagpipers who bring the tradition of the pipes to Southeastern Minnesota.

Let's listen.

(upbeat bagpipe music) - [Man 1] The "Rochester Caledonian Pipe Band" is a group of musicians who play the Great Highland bagpipe, and drummers.

And we try to bring the traditions of the Great Highland pipes to Southeastern Minnesota.

- [Man 2] Well, this band was founded by Dave Thomas who moved here from Montana where he was a member of a pipe band in Billings, Montana.

And that had been put together by a Colonel Monroe who had been with the Canadian Scottish regiment.

- Well, I joined the band about 20 years ago and there were maybe a half a dozen pipers, a couple drummers.

It was vestiges left over from the "Mantorville Grenadiers" and we had a new pipe major at that time.

We began to grow and really change from being a kind of a motley collection to a regular kind of a street band that was organized and we all got the same kilts and started improving the quality of our playing.

- So, when I started, and that was about 22 years ago, we were called the "Rochester Pipes and Drums" and that evolved into the "Rochester Caledonian Pipe Band" in about 2009, 2010 under pipe major Ewan Ferguson.

- The pipe band is a group of friends who love Scottish pipe music, but we're drawn together because we love the pipes and we're basically a family where we support each other, we care about each other, and it's really the major social source for me and as it has been for 50 years.

The Parade of Pubs probably began back with the Mantorville Grenadiers.

Of course, anybody who wants to hear the pipes, we're just showmen, you know?

Yeah, we could play the pipes for you, so of course, St. Patrick's Day, the bar, you know, what's not to like?

Bring on the pipes.

(bright bagpipe music) (patrons cheering) - [Man 3] The first time I saw the Parade of Pubs, it wasn't a parade and there was just a handful of pubs.

And I just was an observer.

There were four or five pipers in a smoky bar and I just fell in love with the idea, and then it evolved, particularly from the efforts of a guy named Craig Mann, who just kept adding pubs to our evening.

And at some point in the last few years, it grew so much that we had kind of created a monster, and it took a lot of organization to get us to every place.

And we got so popular that we couldn't drive to the events and find parking, so we now have to get a bus to go to our own gigs.

And we do that.

We ride a coach bus around town and it's a special feeling.

- [Man 4] It brings either happiness, which is fantastic, we love to see that, but it sometimes brings some tears and it's emotional, and hopefully, it motivates people.

- The thing about bagpipes, if you have a auditory connection between your ears and your emotional centers, which everybody doesn't have, and you hear those pipes, it gets you right here.

Oh man, I gotta do that!

And that's what stimulated me and that's what's kept me going for the last 50 years.

It's just been great fun.

- [Man 4] I think that it takes three things to be a piper.

One is the desire, and that's the way it started out for just about everybody in the band.

So you have desire.

The next is opportunity, and we have great opportunity here in Rochester with our band to learn and enjoy the instrument.

And the third thing is commitment because when you get into the band, you have to make a pretty big commitment.

And, it's just plain fun.

It's a good group of people and you have lots of opportunities and things to be able to tell your grandchildren.

- Playing music and being in a pipe band is all about creating.

We create a sound and that sound evokes an emotion in people.

It evokes an emotion in us and in our audience, and that's kind of magical.

And that's why I think we do it.

That's why I do it.

(bright bagpipe music) (patrons cheering) (upbeat rock music) - Do you find yourself looking for things that are handmade, repurposed, creative, or unique?

You'll find those items at a market called Junkin' Market Days.

Let's see what we can find at the market in Graham Arena in Rochester.

- So Junkin Market Days is a two-day event that's held indoors.

We feature a number of vendors from the six-state area.

So vendors are selling items such as boutique clothing, candles, gourmet food, home decor, furniture.

They set up their booths like boutiques.

I've attended several events in Omaha, in Minneapolis, and larger cities, and I thought, why don't we have these types of events in Sioux Falls?

So I started Junkin' Market Days in 2021 during COVID and the whole goal was to connect makers with customers.

And so the first event, I held in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and I held it in the Spring and thousands of customers came and I had 130 vendors that signed up.

So I thought, this is something that both the vendors want as well as the public.

So what's really important with this event is you have to have enough makers in the area that can support a show, so that's something I look for as well.

- I would say this is the largest market that I've ever done and there is a much wider variety at this market compared to some of the other ones that I've done in the past.

Well, I'm definitely going to be doing plenty of shopping myself as well as selling.

I really like some of the merchandise that's actually right next to me.

There's some really cute dresses with a fun vintage vibe and that's definitely up my alley.

- Well, as a vendor, you're always looking for an event that features the types of products that you want to sell.

And so when I'm choosing to become a vendor, I'm always looking for something that has like-minded people that will also be coming because those are the customers that are gonna be coming to buy.

- The Junkin' Market Days event is an event where I hand select the vendors.

So what I do is I go to numerous events around the different states and then I hand select vendors and invite them to come and have a booth at my event.

The vendors that are at my events are vendors that put a lot of time into the quality of their work as well as their display.

So these are items that either they're hand making themselves or they're buying wholesale and reselling them.

So they put a lot of time and energy into their booth.

- I've always had a very creative right brain and the way that I nurture that brain is by going ahead and working on projects that interest me, so I'm able to take things and really look at 'em in a different way.

For instance, I have a light in my booth that's made out of an old meat grinder.

Now, not everybody would look at a meat grinder that way, but people who are creative or repurposers, they tend to look at things a little bit differently.

My grandmother was what I would call a repurposer, but she always just called it making do, but really, it's just a way to try and reuse our resources a little better and maybe not always buying new.

The woodworking I think in particular catches my eye because I am a woodworker.

When somebody can take different types of wood, put them together, perhaps as a cutting board, or maybe as a decorative sort of a sign maybe for a wall, that always interests me.

I love to see how people can take old farm implements and turn them into maybe decor that might go outside.

So those are the types of things that really get me excited and one of the reasons why I like to come.

- [Kerry] Well, I really enjoy supporting other small businesses, local artisans, and I love getting to be able to, you know, kind of talk to other creatives, people who are passionate about what they do and what they make.

I think it's really grown for a couple of reasons.

The first reason is the vendors are sharing it on their different pages, so they have people that are following them, which then they come to the different events.

The other thing is I also partner with the different communities and there's a lot of community support.

So they help sponsor the event, they also help me with marketing the event.

So, finding those community partners have been really important to make this event successful.

(upbeat rock music) - We're familiar with police dogs who help nab the suspect.

Sarge is a police dog in Rochester who has a special mission, finding explosives.

As a destination for dignitaries, Rochester found the need for an officer like Sarge.

Let's meet Sarge and his human.

(bright acoustic guitar music) - His main purpose is to keep our community safe and we wanna find the object before it goes boom and causes the catastrophic injuries that could happen with an explosion.

We've never had a explosive detection dog.

Sarge is much more disciplined than any other dog of his breed.

He's always happy.

You get him in the car, he's ready to go.

You open up that door and he's just ready to do whatever we need to do.

We're looking around for different types of breeds.

We knew we wanted a game dog.

My counterpart, he had just bought his own personal game dog from a game farm over in New London, Minnesota and so he called them up and said, hey, this is what we're doing.

And the guy's like, yep, I've got two dogs that are just too much energy and wild for us to turn 'em into game dogs.

And we said, perfect.

That's what we need for our job.

We get requests all the time from Secret Service, State Department, you know, 'cause we have Mayo Clinic here.

We have a lot of dignitaries and VIPs that come here, so it was something where we had a need for it.

(bright piano music) He's definitely more of the shyer one and just very careful about new environments.

Sarge is just more methodical and just, you know, I'm gonna take my time doing things.

When we're dealing with explosives, we have 30 different odors that the dog learns.

With each of those explosive odors, there's a base odor that is used in that compound.

So, we train on those base odors at first to really imprint that odor into the dog to say this is what you want.

We don't just always look for a bomb.

We also go to a shooting scene because our dogs are better at finding a gun, a casing because that's all they care about.

They care about the odor itself.

There is a kind of training scenario that we do where we just keep walking around in an area and we just drop bags and they just go check and we look for that behavior change.

One of 'em had an odor and inside that odor was an explosive component.

So we used ammonia nitrate.

Ammonia nitrate's a very common ingredient that's used in a lot of different mixtures of explosives.

So, it's something that no matter what the explosive compound could be, if there's ammonia nitrate in it, he's going to alert to it.

We did the agility course.

Again, he's not trained for that, to do that for any type of certification.

It's just more of a confidence booster for him for one, and two, it's just something to break it up.

We try to push the progression to, again, build that obedience and just confidence.

They need to be obedient, especially when we're dealing with explosives.

Just because we're at work doesn't mean we're not training the dog.

When we're at home, we're still training the dog.

There's no off days when you're in the K9 unit.

You're on vacation and the dog's not with you, then yeah, you have an off day, but otherwise, every day is a training day.

We take our training very serious because the city and the department put us in responsibility of this creature and it expects us to do what we're supposed to do and, you know, get their money's worth.

He's an officer, he's part of the police department.

This is just one job in my 18 years that has just has been the most fulfilling and everything's new.

So having him in the car with me, I mean, that's just my bond.

That's my partner, that's my family, that's everything.

When I come to work, I mean, he's always with me.

I spend more time with him than I do with my own family.

(upbeat acoustic guitar music) (upbeat rock music) - Michael J.

Fox is perhaps the most well-known person who lives with Parkinson's disease.

We met a Minnesota teacher and writer with Parkinson's who has found humor in his situation.

He made a live show about it.

Let's take a look.

(inspiring music) - I'm a retired teacher, writer, producer.

I have the disease of Parkinson's and this was my way of dealing with the disease at the same time providing some information about the disease for other people.

(playful jazz music) My name is Pat Ryan and this is "The Humor of Pat Ryan and Parkinson's."

(playful jazz music) The story of Mike, when he went to the new world, he went to New York City.

And he went to New York City, he left his home in County Tyrone, and he went to New York City and he got to the bar and he walked in up on the Upper East Side and he said, "Bartender, if you would please, could I have three Bushmills whiskey right here on the bar, neat?"

So he brings the whiskeys over, shot glasses, and he throws them down, walks out.

"Night.

See you tomorrow."

Leaves.

Next day, he comes back in.

"Bartender, if you would please, could I have two Bushmills whiskey right here, straight up?"

So he brings the two whiskeys over and he throws them down and walks out and he's thinking, "What's that all about?"

So then the next day, he comes in, he goes, "Yeah, bartender, could I have two Bushmills whiskey again, please?"

So he brings 'em over and he throws the two whiskeys down.

He says, "Hey, if you don't mind me asking, you came in here the first day and you wanted three whiskeys and now you only want two."

He says, "Oh no, that's all.

It's no problem.

See, when I left the old country, I told me brothers that every night, I'll have a drink with you.

And so that's why I was coming in and ordering three whiskeys.

Now, it's only two."

"Oh, I see.

Did one of your brothers die?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that.

I quit drinking."

(playful drum music) So that is, in fact, the relative connection between the Irish and whiskey.

(inspiring music) To think less about me and more about if this has helped for anybody else and that's been the driving force for me.

I was hiking in Arizona with a friend of mine.

I was having issues with my balance and he noticed it and I said, "What the hell's going on?"

He said, "I don't know."

When I got back, went up to the Mankato Cinic, and saw the doctor.

So I wasn't just okay with getting, you know, a diagnosis.

I had to be snarky about it and say one more thing.

And I said, "You've been doing this for 35 years.

You think you might have some idea," in a very snarky way.

And she said, "Well, I suspect Parkinson's."

And I was, could've knocked me over with a feather.

I just like, "Are you kidding?"

So that was the road.

- It affects a person's physical vitality, yet also affects your spiritual, emotional, and mental vitality.

- I mean, I went to all the terrible, you know, that I'm gonna be disabled in such a manner that I lay on the couch and shake all day.

I awfulized it to the extreme.

- I had not really noticed any particular change until he mentioned it to me.

- I remember calling her, my neurologist, and she's a former Army doctor.

She was perfect for me because she was just brutally honest.

So I called her and they put me through to her and first line she said was, "Well, you're not falling down yet, are you?"

And I thought, well, hey, you know?

Is there some level before that?

- You know, when I hear his experiences and those kinds of things, I think he is approaching it the best way.

- It was kind of a joke, running gag for awhile.

If something didn't work right, I'd go, "Well, it must be the Parkinson's."

- On his own terms and straightforward and kind of how he wants to do it.

And I feel privileged that he's allowed me to kind of peek in on this journey.

- Two years ago, I went cross-country skiing.

I had my skis in the car and I went out to, Henderson has a really beautiful groomed cross-country trail.

And it was just a, you know, a January day and it just happened to be 20 below.

And I just didn't factor that stuff in, but I thought, well, you know, I got my phone and, you know.

So I went out there skiing by myself in the park.

Nobody was in the park.

And once again, I could feel, you know, that I'm starting to lose it a little bit and I'm thinking, "Well, I don't wanna fall down."

You know, I was on my skis.

I didn't fall because of my skiing, I was adept at skiing, but I can truly say that was the Parkinson's 'cause next thing I know, I'm just on my face and 20 below in the park, nobody around.

And I said I had my phone, but actually, I didn't that day.

Another one of those hubris things where, what am I thinking?

Cross-country ski, I got Parkinson's.

And I said to my friend later, I was like a living, breathing Jack London story.

You know, I was gonna die in that park frozen to death.

So I saw a picnic bench and I was able to, my skis wouldn't come off, of course, so I crawled over to that picnic bench, pried myself up and got myself standing, and then I was able to recover enough so I could ski to the parking lot, which wasn't very far away.

Got my skis in the car and said, well, that's it.

Not gonna do that again, certainly not alone.

I'm reading Fox's book right now and that most Parkinson's people realize that what it's about is not falling.

And it does two things.

One, you can obviously hurt yourself, but it's also an indication that you could quickly lose your independence.

Michael J.

Fox has done some shows with Larry David from "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

They are fricking hilarious, you know, because he doesn't shy away from using the Parkinson's line.

- Can I get you a soda or something?

- Oh, sure.

That'd be great.

You know, I mean, the thing is, Hitler the really ruined that mustache for everybody because it's really, it's an interesting mustache, and now, nobody could wear it, you know.

Oh, thanks.

Oh (bleep)!

What the (bleep)!

- [Pat] Hey, well, you shook that up.

- Did you shake that up on purpose?

- Parkinson's.

- You know, Larry, sorry, I got Parkinson's.

(Pat chuckling) A friend of mine said, "You're a victim of Parkinson's."

And I thought, no, I'm not a victim of Parkinson's.

This is a journey I'm on and I get to share it with this particular malady and that's part of my learning curve as I go through this, to try to understand who I am based on what's happening to me.

I really think the bottom line is the impermanence and that by doing the show and some of the experiences I've had, it's making me more aware of what I have, not what I don't have.

(upbeat jazz music) - Finally, we look at an item from the vault at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona.

- Hello and welcome.

I'm John Swanson, Curator of Collections and Exhibitions at the Minnesota Marine Art Museum in Winona.

I'm gonna share with you a rare and unusual item from the vault of the museum.

(mysterious music) What we have here is called a "Sailor's Valentine."

These were popular objects in the 19th century amongst sailors, particularly working in the New World, in the Caribbean, the West Indies.

The story goes that sailors who were often at sea for months and years at a time would gather shells and create these intricate creative patterns and put them in boxes.

And then upon return to their home port, to their wives and girlfriends, give them this gift of a valentine.

Although this may be partly true, it's come to light over recent years that many of these were purchased retail at shops in the West Indies.

Native women gathered similar shells and created these designs and sold them to visiting sailors.

There's been evidence of Barbados newspapers as part of the backing to some of these to support this theory.

Either way, it's still a nice token of affection for sailors to give to their loved ones upon returning home.

Oftentimes, these intricate patterns use dozens of different colored shells.

Common themes are nautical themes; anchor, ships, hearts, fish, and then sometimes the name of the loved one, or the name of the their port city, was included in these valentines.

(dreamy violin music) From the vault of the Minnesota Marine Art Museum.

(mysterious music) - That's all for this episode.

See you next time "Off 90."

(bright rock music) - [Male Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(loon calling)