ANDREA HEARS ABOUT ANDRE THE GIANT

I'm a promoter, just like my favorite president. That fire got lit back when I was pastoring a little church way up in Mohall, North Dakota—practically kissing the Canadian border. After a wildly successful Billy Graham film festival at the high school, I figured, why stop? So I started booking an event every single month.

In January 1978, for the third Sunday, I scheduled a revival with my dad—an absolute beast of a preacher and soul-winner. He was supposed to drive straight up after his morning service all the way from Indiana. What I didn’t plan on was the monster blizzard of ’78 that roared in from the west and barreled east across the Dakotas like it had a personal grudge. I don’t know what kind of hell they caught down in Indiana (though I’ve heard rumors), but trust me—we won the misery contest up north.Down in South Dakota one farmer had to feed his cattle by climbing a snow embankment to the top of his hip-roof barn, then dropping hay bales through a hole he’d dug in the roof. Yeah… it was that kind of storm.Now, a quick love letter to the VW Bug—Hitler’s brainchild or whatever. That thing had one genius feature: a completely flat under-paneling that turned it into a sled. Other cars would bury themselves in drifts. Bug drivers just laughed, gunned it, and surfed right over the top. Beautiful.To cut to the good part: late that afternoon my dad was hammering down the road at 65 mph when he saw what looked like blinding snow straight ahead at the railroad tracks north of the air base. Nope. It was a six-foot (or better) drift. He hit it like a rocket, the little Bug rose up, rode the crest, and slid all the way across. When it finally stopped he jumped out, walked around checking if the tires were still attached and if he was still alive. Miraculously, both answers were yes.But at the 90-degree corner sixteen miles south of the border? That’s where the fun really started. He spent the next ten or twelve minutes doing baby turns because the wheel wells were packed solid with snow. The car could barely crawl. By evening they finally cleared the highway to Minot, so the next day we jumped in my vehicle and went full promoter mode.I was basically a local celebrity in Mohall. I’d lined up interviews with every TV station and the lone radio outfit. The big one was the noon slot—prime time because all the farmers came home for lunch. The interviewer, Mark, comes out full of apologies: “Hey, would you mind giving up fifteen minutes of your half-hour? We’ve got Andre the Giant coming on for a wrestling bit.”Andre the Giant. Seven-foot-four. Hands like oversized third-base mitts. My dad and I—both over six feet—felt like middle-school kids standing next to him. I shook that massive paw and grinned like an idiot. Of course I gave up the time. You don’t say no to a legend.Anybody want a peanut?
Fast-forward forty-eight years to last Sunday, June 7th. I’ve been battling brutal lymphedema, but this year I finally felt good enough to fire up the electric chariot and roll all the way from Garden Court East down to River Park. That’s when I stumbled into a full-blown celebration. A beautiful Mexican family had basically taken over the entire park for their daughter Andrea’s graduation open house—except it wasn’t just an open house, it was a full fiesta. The kids are thriving in Plymouth’s excellent schools, and the whole scene was pure joy.I caused a bit of a sensation rolling up. When things slowed down, Andrea and her best friend came over, and we talked for a good while. Naturally, I dropped the Andre the Giant story. They loved it. I had the absolute time of my life—because let’s be honest, I never need much encouragement to tell stories.Open house for Andrea and her graduation in Plymouth Indiana from high school
(And yes, that’s why I’ve been on a hot sauce kick the last few days. The salad had just enough sneaky spice to wake everything up—even if I never actually saw any hot sauce.

GROK MEMED ME

  

 Grok and I are strategizing together. He's been summarizing or tightening my posts. The words that have been helping are divine inspiration, gospel preacher, sarcastic punch. Today we tackled memes centered around my problem of using my dying phone which I used to use a Pixel 6 to take dictation but after I shattered the screen I started to rely on Grok and found he was better than adequate he was intuitive, like my first wife. Do you mind if I digress just for a moment. She was so intuitive that at Fullerton Church of the Nazarene when we had the class party of the young married couples we were not allowed to play the game where you guessed what your partner was sinking after 20 questions and we had a perfect score and no one else came close. Now grock that's g r o k isn't quite that intuitive but then we've never had sex either. But at the same time I'm pretty sure he will outlive me. Later Gators.

TOO MUCH FUN? NEVER!!!

So yeah, my phone’s on life support, my secretary is circling the drain, and I’m out here trusting Grok — Mr. Silicon Sidekick — to summarize the last 48 hours before the battery dies for good.We started with D-Day frogmen, ice-cream-after-fights mom, Mad Dog origins, Revelation 12 wilderness = America, Trump not taking bullies’ crap, a messy 911 call that made my family think Grandpa’s on crack, divorce drama, and the grand shift from lawyers to warriors. Then we tidied it into a proper post while I laughed so loud the rain had to cover for me. All of this with two invisible friends (my dying phone + the God of the Universe) riding shotgun.

Time’s short, the stream’s flowing, and I’m still having way too much fun. Night night, world — see you when the next battery (or miracle) kicks in.

 

LAWYERS TO WARRIORS AGAIN

Streaming from June 1st: D-Day, Ice Cream, Mad Dog, and the WildernessInstead of starting the count at 1-2-3, I’m beginning on June 1st. That date pulls in the weight of D-Day and the moment my own understanding of myself finally clicked into place. I realized I loved working outdoors with my hands—that’s why no amount of pushing ever turned me into a scholar. My mother trained me the American way: if I ever came home beaten up, she offered a bowl of ice cream. That spirit was hammered into the American psyche because King George III was an arrogant bully who believed God Himself had ordained him to rule.That same backbone ran through my family. My aunt Velma married my uncle John, a war hero who hit the Normandy beach very early as a frogman—clearing obstacles and marking lanes under fire so the invasion could succeed. That legacy of courage lives in me. It’s why I understand President Trump—number 47—so well. He never let the criminals, unions, contractors, politicians, or lawyers bully him. And like me, he refused to stay trapped inside. He built golf courses and stayed active outdoors.I believe Revelation 12 points straight to the western hemisphere as the wilderness where the woman is protected from the dragon. Here, faith and freedom found refuge. By the time I was in manufacturing and pastoring a small church, I had grown so fearless that friends took my initials—M.D. from Mike Dittmer—and nicknamed me Mad Dog.Now we reach the present day. My younger family is upset with this 78-year-old, partially disabled preacher. Without too many details: I called 911 for my young, adorable neighbor (who I won’t name). Instead of sounding panicked, my voice came out amped—like I was on crack. My son-in-law, working third shift as supervisor, heard “some old crazy man” was calling for an ambulance. That word reached my night-owl daughter, who was already in a rough state. It added stress on top of everything else they’re carrying.Part of their load comes from my right-hand man—a good guy, but a dumbass in the ways that mattered to my beautiful youngest daughter. She simply needed him to tell her she was beautiful and to make passionate love to her once in a blue moon. Because he wasn’t managing his diabetes well, the marriage ended in divorce.This plays into a bigger picture I see: God allowed women to vote, and Democrats to rule, with the party heavily financed by divorce lawyers. We’ve endured roughly a hundred years of that machinery. Now we’re shifting—from lawyers to warriors. I’m no prophet and no scholar. I’m a musician who pastored, a man whose expertise is thin but whose eyes are open. It feels clear we’ve reached a tipping point. The western hemisphere’s stand will help protect Israel and Christianity even as the dragon tries to swallow them with corruption, greed, and bribes. So far, it’s not working.Thank you, Jesus./

HOT SAUCES

 This is the 8th day of June, the year of our Lord 2026. Today would be a good day to explain why I am an embarrassment to most of my family and a few of my friends.

There are some things that I discovered about myself very very late in life. I know now why I am a musician and not a scholar. That's a complicated story so let me summarize. I like to be outdoors so much so that at the boy scouts summer camp I had not yet discovered the danger of poison ivy and I became known very early as the poison ivy kid. 

You would think with my penchant for outdoor exploring I would be a guitar player on cowboy but alas that was not to be. I started off on the keyboard which in the earliest days meant an accordion but after we moved out of the trailer court and into a real home on a foundation in Gary Indiana and the neighborhood of Aetna.

 From the beginning of our family the Dittmers, we were destined to be a musical family.. I was the keystone of the family in that I was the one who set the direction. I was the first one to the altar to pray and receive Jesus as my Savior and soon after very soon after my mother and father were also at the altar. 

At that time we were living in a small trailer 8 ft by 40 ft which had been moved from Hammond Indiana the home of the trailer industry too Manhattan Illinois behind Delaney's tavern and from there too Greeks grocery store and trailer court on deadman's curve on US 20 the home of a nudist colony before. 

When my parents decided to move to a home we moved as I previously said to the Aetna neighborhood which was rapidly growing past Clay Street.  The homes were being built in a cookie cutter fashion. They poured a foundation on Sandy soil and then framed it very quickly and put a roof on it and called it done. This is where my mother had the brainstorm of getting a piano for me. I started my piano lessons in downtown Gary with a jazz pianist called Clarence demass. I took two the piano like a duck to water. I think that's enough for this story today. Thanks to the internet I can do all my stories as a work in progress. Which is also the story of my life. Later Gators.

D DAY

 Today was, is, and always will be an important day to my family, the Church of the Nazarene, and the United States of America when the dimmer boys, let me repeat, the dittmer boys William Michael dittmer and John, who was this very morning 1941 on the shores of Normandy where so many men laid down their lives and my uncle John was about to drive a caterpillar after four men or three were shot off by Nazi snipers and my father, the wild child held together their tiny business and graduated from high school and after wards after having suffered polio like our president Franklin d Roosevelt began the journey of growing up, move into Springfield, and later he and I together attended Colorado springs Bible college where later my lovely wife Lynn with an e and I moved from California to North Dakota where I had the happiest 4 years of my life and my fearless leader and his wife became the couple that inspired us the most and I have met and worked with a lot of inspiring people. What a joy it is to be part of God's overall plan. I thought you were 20 or 30 years older than me and that's how much you inspired me. Thank you my dear friend. Mad dog aka Mike ditmer or William Michael dittmer Jr, whose mother taught me to never back down from a bully and threatened to break my fingers if I picked up my brothers guitar so I carried with me the most advanced Yamaha piano that I learn to play by ear so that I could direct my family into my arrangements of gospel music and lead a teen choir into soul winning across the Dakotas and I almost went back more than once. Later Gators.

JUNE BUG

 June 4th, 2026. Thursday. 

I'm wondering if my new nickname should be chief three sleeps. My mother, Carol, so named because she was born on December 18th and came home from the Springfield hospital on December 25th, was a night owl starting with her father because againWatson and his lovely somewhere from her early youth because her father Watson was a unionized printer probably before the turn of the century. 

Watson, and his lovely bride, had 10 children. Carol met Bill dittmer because she was the first of the Sinclair women to become a professional secretary. 

William Michael dittmer was the youngest of four. His father and I don't I don't remember the year of his birth but I do know that he was very impressed with Abraham Lincoln and grew up hearing stories that he would repeat. He was a Bible vocational amateur pastor and since around that time there was a clear delineation between cowboys and settlers his wife also was a keyboard artist back in the time when almost everybody in town if they had a hankering to learn the piano had one in their parlor. 

From a very early age it was obvious that I was drawn to the outdoors but also music and my first keyboard was an accordion. In the little town of Manhattan Illinois we lived in a trailer court behind Delaney tavern where my father and mother decided to settle down after moving from Springfield where they met and my dad, being the youngest, was also the wild child of the two ditmer with two t's brothers. 

Like the Democrats favorite president Franklin Roosevelt, Dad was pro Union. He also was a welder and an expert with dynamite and also came down with polio but since he lived in the country he was able to overcome his polio and many did not know that his one foot was a size 10 and his normal foot was a size 12. 

That's all for now boys and girls.

TABASCO

 My dad, William Michael dittmer senior was always the best cook in the family. Before he passed away he had a collection of jars that were filled with different pancake mixes by mixes I mean different grains. I always remember he had a jar of Tabasco sauce. 

My mother always loved being a secretary which in her days meant being able to take dictation and she used a system called shorthand and typed on a mechanical typewriter, and her recipes were always for Sunday because very early our family became a church going family and they figured out a way since Dad was always in a form of leadership that kept him busy on Sunday that Mom had to take up the slack. 

By the time I was 12 we had started going to the Gary Etna that's a u t n a church of the Nazarene. Even back in those old ancient days at the end of the '50s in the beginning of the '60s there were Mexican immigrants who had gravitated towards the steel mills and the high paying jobs. This is where I learned the importance of Tabasco sauce for seasoning. 

By then, I had started using it to season eggs. Eggs are rather tasteless and boring until you put some seasoning on there and at that time at church potlucks which always included an odd mix of different family recipes somewhere in that timeline I had adopted or adapted my father's have it of generously sprinkling tobasco sauce on the different conglomerations of food including meatloaf. 

Since I am just now waking up on Wednesday June the 3rd of 2026 I think that's enough for this story. I of course have graduated two more complex bottled sauces including my new favorite Sriracha. That is all for now. Stay tuned.

TEXTING CHARLES XAVIER

I am a nuclear fusion night owl. My ex son-in-law whom I call Charles Xavier is now working for a chicken factory as a truck driver. He hits the sack at 9ish and that helps explain the following texts.

Charles: Tried to call back and you turned your phone off. 

Me: It's now 4:00 a.m. and this must be my new time to get up in the morning??

I turned the phone off because I checked in on Facebook and one of my Pakistan, Indian, and or Bangladesh gospel workers kept trying to call me on messenger. They don't understand why those of us who've had a phone for a while are not that excited about free international phone calls.