Todd Swank: Somewhere Between Boating and Loitering on the St. Croix River

July 26, 2026

Somewhere Between Boating and Loitering on the St. Croix River

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for July 26, 2026

We celebrated my 56th birthday on Sunday night at the Porterhouse in Lakeville. Getting older sucks, but at least it keeps giving me a legitimate excuse to eat steak and gather my favorite people on the planet around one table. I’ll gladly take the extra year when it comes with a night like this.

My actual birthday was Monday, and since we’ve been pretty active lately, I decided I wanted a quieter night. So Luke, Miss Sheri, and I went to play bingo at Mystic Lake Casino. Luke and I got free bingo packs for our birthday month, which sounded generous right up until none of us won squat. You’d think the birthday boy might get one pity victory, but Mystic has apparently decided character-building is cheaper than prize money.

On our family chat, my sister called me “Ernie” on my birthday, a name I hadn’t heard in a long time. It started in elementary school in Mason City when Mom bought me an Ernie football shirt. I cried because I thought it made me look like a baby and refused to wear it anywhere. Eventually I gave in, including at J4 Rollermania, where third-grade Todd was a roller-skating fiend. After that, kids and plenty of adults called me Ernie for years. My brother-in-law recreated the shirt, and it was disturbingly accurate. Thanks for the shirt, Mom, and for teaching me that if I’m going to look like a baby, then I need to own that shit.

Saturday brought us to the St. Croix River for a ride on our good friends Karl and Tina Zitzewitz’s boat. I thought the cloudy morning might keep things cooler, but apparently the clouds were just there to trap the humidity and turn the whole river into a sauna. Luckily, unlike most saunas, this one came with a giant body of water we could jump into whenever we started melting.

It was us, the Browns, and the Zitzewitzes with nothing major planned, which is usually when the best days happen. Just some fun in the sun, or at least the cloudy, humid version of it, along with good food, cold drinks, and even better conversation with people we genuinely enjoy. No agenda, no pressure, no reason to leave early. Just one of those simple days that quietly reminds you how lucky you are.

On the week I turned 56 years old, I was reminded that life gets better when you stop pretending every day needs to be productive. Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is find something strong enough to hold your weight, climb aboard, and float around with people who make you laugh. The river was warm, the drinks were cold, and nobody accomplished anything measurable. Moral of the story: aging may be unavoidable, but acting your age remains completely optional.

This guy was flipping around nearby and I thought it was pretty cool. I grabbed the camera and caught this impressive video of him doing 9 backflips in a row. I had Luke edit the video for me because that boy has a knack for it and in the past 24 hours it's had more than a half million views on TikTok.

And that plus $5 will buy me a coffee at McDonalds!