My daughter rewrote our family Christmas to leave me out of the photographs, and the dispatch logs in the basement had every December I had driven through blizzards to get to her doorstep.

My daughter rewrote our family Christmas to leave me out of the photographs, and the dispatch logs in the basement had every December I had driven through blizzards to get to her doorstep.

My name is Howard Guthrie.

I am sixty-eight years old.

I am a retired North Dakota Department of Transportation highway emergency dispatcher out of the Bismarck regional dispatch center on East Capitol Avenue.

I worked thirty-six years on the NDDOT dispatch desk from the second Monday of October of 1985 to the third Friday of October of 2021.

I held NDDOT employee identification number 4128 the entire thirty-six years.

I sit a volunteer Saturday shift at the same dispatch center every Saturday from six in the morning to ten in the morning since the second Saturday of November of 2021 — two hundred and forty-eight Saturday shifts as of last Saturday.

I have logged forty-one thousand and forty-eight emergency radio calls in my own handwriting across thirty-six years and four months — stranded motorists, snowplow incidents, semi-truck rollovers, deer collisions on Highway 83, and four blizzards I dispatched through with the radio in my right hand.

I live in a small three-bedroom rambler at 4128 Elmwood Drive on the north side of Bismarck.

I bought the Elmwood Drive house with my late wife Roselyn on the second Saturday of June of 1989 for sixty-four thousand dollars cash on a small Veterans Affairs loan from my four years in the Air Force from 1976 to 1980.

Roselyn passed away on the third Tuesday of January of 2018 at the age of sixty-three from complications of stage-three breast cancer at Sanford Health Bismarck.

I have lived alone in the Elmwood Drive house for seven years and eleven months.

I have one daughter named Rhonda Guthrie-Brewster.

Rhonda is thirty-eight years old.

Rhonda is a lifestyle-blogger and Instagram-influencer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a following of two hundred and eight thousand on her primary account at the handle “TheRhondaTable.”

Rhonda has been married to a man named Curtis Brewster for eleven years as of the second Saturday of June of last year.

Curtis is forty-one.

Curtis edits Rhonda’s blog photographs in Adobe Lightroom on a Saturday-morning workflow at their house on Aldrich Avenue in Minneapolis.

Rhonda and Curtis have two daughters — Mavis, ten, and Adelaide, eight.

The small wood-bowl beside the back door of the Elmwood Drive house has a single ring on a thin black braided lanyard.

The ring is a 1985 cast-aluminum North Dakota Department of Transportation employee key fob.

The fob is two and one-eighth inches across, three-eighths of an inch thick, with the small NDDOT shield embossed at the center and my employee identification number 4128 stamped at the back in a small Helvetica numeral set.

The cast-aluminum is unpolished and unanodized.

The cast-aluminum has a small silver-grey patina from thirty-six years of pocket carry and one-hundred-and-eleven Saturday mornings since 2021 at the volunteer desk.

I have hung the fob on the lanyard on the small hook by the bowl for the past two months since the second Saturday of September of this year — the first morning the lake-effect frost arrived at four-thirty on Highway 83 and I started keeping the truck keys at the kitchen counter instead of in my pocket.

The basement of 4128 Elmwood Drive has a small white-painted plywood-paneled storage room at the south end below the kitchen with one east-facing rectangular window at the top of the wall.

The storage room has a small Sears-and-Roebuck pine bookshelf I bought used at an estate sale in Mandan in the autumn of 1994 for forty-eight dollars cash.

The bookshelf has four shelves.

The top shelf and the second shelf hold a single row of eleven dark-green hardbound office binders, each two and one-half inches wide at the spine, each with a small black-and-white printed label on the spine in my own handwriting.

The labels read: “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2010”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2011”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2012”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2013”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2014”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2015”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2016”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2017”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2018”, “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2019”, and “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2020.”

Each green binder holds the photocopied carbon-paper original of my own NDDOT dispatch-log timesheet for Christmas Eve of the year listed on the spine.

Each log holds the four-in-the-morning sign-on stamp, the radio calls dispatched in my own pencil between four and six in the morning, the eight-hundred-mile-radius weather and road-condition entries from the regional NDDOT teletype, and the six-in-the-morning sign-off stamp on the second Christmas Eve of the year listed on the spine.

Each Christmas Eve from 2010 to 2020, after the four-to-six dispatch shift at the Bismarck center on East Capitol Avenue, I drove the 1998 Ford F-150 northwest on Highway 83 to mile marker seventy-two south of Wilton, then west on County Road 28 to the small white two-bedroom rental in Lincoln Township that Rhonda and Curtis rented from 2009 to 2017, then east on Interstate 94 to the four-bedroom split-level on Aldrich Avenue in Minneapolis where Rhonda and Curtis have lived since the third Saturday of June of 2018.

The drive from the Bismarck dispatch center to Aldrich Avenue is seven hours and eleven minutes door-to-door at the posted speed limit in summer-weather conditions.

The drive in a Christmas Eve blizzard is between nine hours and eleven hours depending on the Highway 83 plow schedule.

The arrival window at the Aldrich Avenue front porch in each of the eleven years on the binder spines was between eleven-fourteen in the morning and one-eleven in the afternoon on Christmas Day.

Rhonda has not been in the Elmwood Drive basement since the autumn of 2010 — fifteen years and one month as of last Friday.

Rhonda does not know the eleven green binders exist.

On the Saturday morning of the second weekend of November, at five-eleven in the morning, I was at the volunteer dispatch desk in the small open-floor dispatch room at the Bismarck regional dispatch center on East Capitol Avenue.

The dispatch center on a Saturday volunteer shift had three desks staffed.

The east desk was a forty-eight-year-old NDDOT dispatcher named Vesta Otterness who had eleven years on the desk.

The west desk was a thirty-eight-year-old NDDOT dispatcher named Quint Frellsen who had nine years on the desk.

The center desk was the volunteer desk where I sat from six on Saturday mornings.

I had signed in at five-eleven this morning at the volunteer desk.

I had hung the cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob from the small brass cup-hook I had screwed into the inside-left wood frame of the volunteer-desk monitor stand on the third Saturday of November of 2021 — two hundred and forty-seven Saturdays ago.

The fob hung from the brass cup-hook at five-eleven on the Saturday morning of the second weekend of November.

The small black plastic GE phone at the corner of the volunteer desk rang at six-twenty-eight in the morning.

The screen on the small caller-identification box read RHONDA GUTHRIE-BREWSTER MOBILE.

I picked up at six-twenty-nine.

Rhonda said, on a small bright FaceTime video showing her sponsored kitchen on Aldrich Avenue with a brand-supplied cream linen apron in frame and a small string of Edison bulbs in soft focus behind her, in the bright cheerful retake voice she had been using since the autumn of 2018: “Dad.

I posted the family Christmas photos.

We didn’t include the ones with you — the lighting was bad and you looked tired.

Maybe next year if you can come earlier and stay later, we can get a better shot.

The kids loved the post.

Adelaide showed her teacher this morning.

Mavis already has six hundred and forty-one likes on her grandma-stocking shot.

Curtis got the gold light on the tree just right.

The brand was happy.

Talk soon, Dad — we are running to the eight-fourteen brunch shoot at the Bachelor Farmer.”

Rhonda hung up at six-thirty-one.

I held the small GE phone in my right hand at the volunteer desk for thirty seconds.

I set the phone face-down on the desk at six-thirty-two.

Vesta Otterness looked over from the east desk at six-thirty-three.

Vesta said: “Howard. Family.”

I said: “Vesta. Family.”

Vesta turned back to her own dispatch screen at six-thirty-four.

I signed out of the volunteer dispatch screen at six-fifty-eight on the wall clock.

I lifted the cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob off the small brass cup-hook on the monitor stand at six-fifty-nine.

I clipped the lanyard to the right belt loop of my Carhartt work pants.

I lifted my Air Force-blue dispatch-center windbreaker off the back of the volunteer chair.

I lifted the small NDDOT-issued thermos of weak black coffee off the desk corner.

I walked out the front of the dispatch center at seven-oh-one.

I drove the 1998 Ford F-150 north on East Capitol Avenue, west on Burleigh, north on Elmwood Drive to the rambler at 4128 at seven-fourteen.

I parked the F-150 in the gravel driveway at seven-fifteen.

I walked through the back door into the kitchen at seven-sixteen.

The small wood-bowl beside the back door held the cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob at seven-sixteen.

I had clipped the fob to the right belt loop at the dispatch desk at six-fifty-nine.

I unclipped the fob from the right belt loop at seven-sixteen.

I dropped the fob into the small wood-bowl.

The fob landed beside the small ring of three brass house-keys and the small Schlage padlock key for the basement storage room.

I walked from the back door through the kitchen at seven-seventeen.

I walked down the basement staircase at seven-eighteen.

The Schlage padlock at the basement storage room had been on the door since the autumn of 1994.

I unlocked the padlock with the key from my right Carhartt work pants pocket at seven-nineteen.

I opened the storage room door at seven-twenty.

The Sears-and-Roebuck pine bookshelf was against the south wall under the small east-facing rectangular window.

The top shelf held the eleven dark-green hardbound office binders.

The labels on the spines were in my own handwriting.

I lifted the binder labeled “NDDOT CE 24DEC 2010” off the top shelf at seven-twenty-two.

The binder was two and one-half inches wide at the spine and weighed three pounds and four ounces.

The carbon-paper original of the Christmas Eve 2010 dispatch-log timesheet was the first page inside the binder.

The four-in-the-morning sign-on stamp was clear at the top-left in the small NDDOT date-stamp ink.

The radio calls dispatched between four and six were entered in my own pencil — seven calls including a Highway 83 jackknife semi at mile marker seventy-two at four-fifty-eight.

The six-in-the-morning sign-off stamp was clear at the bottom-right.

The teletype weather-and-road-condition entries from the regional NDDOT teletype were stapled to the back of the timesheet.

The Aldrich Avenue arrival-time stamp at the bottom margin in my own pen read: “ALDRICH AVE — 12:14 PM CST — RHONDA + CURTIS + MAVIS (newborn) — HOWARD ARRIVED — CHRISTMAS DAY 2010.”

I closed the binder at seven-thirty-eight.

I sat on the small wooden step at the south end of the basement staircase at seven-thirty-nine.

I lifted my cell phone out of the inside-left pocket of the Air Force-blue dispatch-center windbreaker at seven-forty.

I dialed Pat Lin.

Pat Lin answered on the third ring at seven-forty-one.

Pat said: “Howard. You are calling at seven-forty on a Saturday. The fob is in the basement or it is at the dispatch desk. Which is it.”

I said: “Pat. The fob is in the bowl by the back door. Rhonda called at six-twenty-eight from Aldrich Avenue. She said the family Christmas photos for last December did not include the ones with me. She said the lighting was bad. She said I looked tired. She said next year if I come earlier I can be in a better shot. The kids loved the post.”

Pat was quiet for eight seconds.

Pat said: “Howard. What year did Rhonda last visit your basement.”

I said: “The autumn of 2010. Mavis was a newborn. Rhonda picked up a box of Roselyn’s old needlepoint patterns from the second shelf. She has not been downstairs in fifteen years and one month.”

Pat said: “Howard. What is on the top shelf and the second shelf.”

I said: “The eleven green binders. Christmas Eve 2010 to Christmas Eve 2020. Carbon-paper dispatch-log timesheets. Teletype weather and road conditions. Aldrich Avenue and Lincoln Township arrival-time stamps in my own pen at the bottom margin of each timesheet.”

Pat said: “Howard. Drive to the house on Quincy Street. Bring the eleven binders. I will call the Bismarck Tribune archive desk at eight-oh-one when they open. I will ask about the December 25, 2003 photograph at mile marker seventy-two.”

Pat hung up at seven-forty-six.

Pat Lin is sixty-nine years old, a retired NDDOT communications supervisor, my friend since the second Monday of October of 1989 — the morning Pat walked into the Bismarck regional dispatch center on East Capitol Avenue as the new communications supervisor and the morning a Highway 83 jackknife semi at mile marker seventy-two pinned a driver under the trailer at six-forty-one in a Christmas-week blizzard.

I dispatched the call at six-forty-two.

Pat coordinated the radio bridge between Bismarck and the McLean County Sheriff at six-forty-three.

The driver was alive at eight-fourteen.

Pat retired from NDDOT on the third Friday of October of 2019, two years before I did, and lives in a small one-story rambler at 1141 Quincy Street on the south side of Bismarck.

I carried the eleven green binders out of the basement storage room at seven-fifty-one in two cardboard banker’s boxes I had brought down from the kitchen pantry.

I carried the two boxes out to the F-150 at seven-fifty-three.

I drove south on Elmwood Drive, west on Burleigh, south on Washington Street to Quincy at eight-fourteen.

Pat met me at the front door of 1141 Quincy at eight-fifteen with a small black-and-white printout in her right hand.

The printout was a low-resolution scan of the Bismarck Tribune front page from the second Friday of January of 2004.

The headline read: “FOUR NDDOT DISPATCHERS WORKED 81-HOUR CHRISTMAS WEEK BLIZZARD.”

The center photograph was a small black-and-white image of a man in a NDDOT-issued Air Force-blue dispatch-center windbreaker beside a snowplow at mile marker seventy-two south of Wilton on Highway 83 at five-fourteen in the morning on Christmas Day 2003.

The caption read: “NDDOT dispatcher Howard Guthrie, Bismarck regional dispatch, coordinated radio bridge for Christmas Day plow recovery at MM72 – photo by Tribune staff photographer.”

Pat said: “Howard. The archive desk has the original. They will email a high-resolution scan and a license to reprint by ten this morning. The Tribune archive editor is Naomi Wessel. Naomi remembers the photo. Naomi remembers the byline.”

We carried the two banker’s boxes into Pat’s dining room at eight-eighteen.

Pat had set up her dining-room table as Pat had set up the radio bridge in 1989 — three small handwritten paper labels at the south end of the table read “BINDERS,” “LAPTOP,” and “BLOG SCREEN-CAPTURE PRINTS.”

The laptop was Pat’s personal twelve-inch HP that Pat used to run cross-reference work for the Burleigh County genealogy library twice a month.

The blog screen-capture prints were forty-eight pages of paper printouts Pat had pulled overnight from the public archive of TheRhondaTable, every Christmas-week post from December of 2018 through December of last year.

We worked through the binders and the blog prints from eight-eighteen to eleven-fourteen.

For each of the eleven binders, I read aloud the Aldrich Avenue or Lincoln Township arrival-time stamp at the bottom margin of the Christmas Eve timesheet.

Pat read aloud the date-stamped public Instagram post Rhonda had uploaded to the TheRhondaTable account that same Christmas Day between two-fourteen and four-eleven in the afternoon.

For Christmas Day 2018: my arrival stamp on the binder timesheet read twelve-forty-one in the afternoon at Aldrich Avenue.

Rhonda’s 2018 Christmas blog spread had nine photographs.

I was in zero.

For Christmas Day 2019: my arrival stamp read twelve-fourteen.

Rhonda’s 2019 blog spread had eleven photographs.

I was in zero.

For Christmas Day 2020: my arrival stamp read eleven-fifty-eight.

Rhonda’s 2020 blog spread had fourteen photographs.

I was in zero.

For Christmas Day 2021: my arrival stamp was on a separate volunteer-shift log I had brought in a small manila folder.

Rhonda’s 2021 spread had sixteen photographs.

I was in zero.

For Christmas Day 2022, 2023, and 2024: zero, zero, and zero.

The seven-year arithmetic was on a small yellow legal pad at the south end of Pat’s dining-room table at eleven-eleven.

Seven Christmas Days.

Eighty-one photographs.

Zero appearances of Howard Guthrie.

Pat handed me a small printed page at eleven-fourteen.

The page was a screen-capture of the small “Disclosures and Partners” tab on the public-facing TheRhondaTable blog page from the second Wednesday of October of this year.

The page listed eight retailer brand-partners under a small italic header that read “Family Aesthetic Partners 2024-2025.”

The bottom-left of the page held a small grey FTC disclosure block.

The grey block held a single line of inconsistent FTC sponsored-post tagging across the eight partners.

Pat said: “Howard. This is the disclosure page. Karen Estby sent the screen-capture to her father on Wednesday. Karen Estby’s father is your next-door neighbor at 4126 Elmwood Drive. Karen Estby is twenty-one years old.

Karen Estby has been following Rhonda for four years. Karen Estby knows the difference between a brand-tagged Instagram post and a private family snapshot. Karen Estby pulled this for you.”

Pat set the screen-capture beside the small yellow legal pad at eleven-fifteen.

I looked at the small grey FTC disclosure block at eleven-sixteen.

The 2007 dinner came up in the back of my throat for nine seconds.

The 2007 dinner had been a Tuesday in the third week of October.

Roselyn had a hard influenza fever of one-hundred-and-three at the rambler on Elmwood Drive.

Rhonda was twenty.

Rhonda was a sophomore at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Rhonda came home on the eleven-fourteen Greyhound out of Fargo on the second Tuesday afternoon of October.

Rhonda and I made a pan of meatloaf and potatoes in Roselyn’s blue Le Creuset dish at six-eleven that night.

Rhonda set a tray for Roselyn upstairs at six-forty-eight.

Rhonda sat across from me at the small oak kitchen table at six-fifty-one.

Rhonda said, with a small tomato-paste smudge at the corner of her mouth and a kitchen towel folded over her left forearm: “Dad.

I see why Mom always says the dispatcher is a hero.”

Rhonda was twenty.

Rhonda meant it.

I looked at the screen-capture on Pat’s dining-room table at eleven-seventeen.

The 2007 dinner stayed in the back of my throat for another forty seconds.

Pat said: “Howard.”

I said: “Pat. We pull the brand contract next. We pull the public archive of the blog every Christmas-week post since the autumn of 2018. We cross-reference the contract against the disclosure page. We will know by Friday.”

Pat said: “Friday. And then the Tribune story. And then the church.”

Pat and I worked from Pat’s dining-room table from the second Saturday of November through the second Friday of November of the next week.

Karen Estby came to the front door of 1141 Quincy at four-fourteen on the second Tuesday afternoon of November with a small manila envelope.

Karen Estby was twenty-one and a junior at the University of Mary in Bismarck.

Karen Estby had been forwarding screen-captures of Rhonda’s TheRhondaTable account from her own private Instagram inbox to a small printed-paper folder for her father at 4126 Elmwood Drive since the third Wednesday of September of this year.

Karen Estby said, on the front step at four-fourteen with the manila envelope held in both hands at chest height: “Mister Guthrie.

The brand-partner sheet is in here.

The Christmas-aesthetic style guide is in here.

The contract excerpt is in here.

Three of my Carleton friends in Minneapolis are in the brand’s regional ambassador group.

One of my Carleton friends sent me the contract excerpt at one-fourteen this morning.

The brand is called Marrow & Mill Home.

Marrow and Mill is a five-state Midwest retailer with eighty-one storefronts.

The contract excerpt is six pages.

Page four is the line you want.”

Pat opened the manila envelope at the dining-room table at four-eighteen.

The contract excerpt was a six-page photocopy of an Influencer Brand Partnership Agreement between Rhonda Guthrie-Brewster doing business as TheRhondaTable LLC of 4914 Aldrich Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Marrow & Mill Home Inc. of 248 Marquette Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota, dated the second Monday of August of two years ago, with a renewal clause on page six dated the third Monday of August of this year.

The contract excerpt held a six-figure line on page two — the autumn-Christmas content commitment for 2023 and 2024 had paid TheRhondaTable LLC fourteen thousand and forty-eight dollars across two seasons of brand-tagged Christmas-week posts.

Page four held the line.

The line was in a small italicized paragraph under a header that read “Aesthetic Continuity Standards.”

The paragraph read, in a small Garamond italic typeface: “The Influencer shall maintain visual aesthetic continuity across all brand-tagged Christmas-week content.

Aesthetic continuity requires the consistent presentation of curated family imagery and curated home environment.

Family members or household elements not fitting the curated aesthetic — including but not limited to non-coordinated wardrobe choices, non-coordinated grooming, and non-coordinated guest presentation — shall be excluded from brand-tagged content at the Influencer’s editorial discretion to preserve aesthetic continuity.”

Pat read the paragraph aloud at four-twenty-two.

I sat across from Pat at the small oak dining-room table at four-twenty-three.

I said: “Pat. Read the next line.”

Pat read the next line at four-twenty-four.

The next line read: “Failure to maintain aesthetic continuity in two or more posts per Christmas-week cycle shall constitute a breach event under Section 11 and shall trigger the brand-discretion review described in Schedule C.”

I said: “Pat. The contract says Rhonda owes Marrow and Mill a curated frame. Marrow and Mill pays Rhonda fourteen thousand and forty-eight dollars across two Christmas seasons for the frame. I am the element that does not fit the curated aesthetic. The Christmas Day blog spread for 2023 and 2024 has eighty-one photographs total. I am in zero of them. Pat — Rhonda made a business decision.”

Pat was quiet for fifteen seconds at four-twenty-five.

Pat said: “Howard. The aesthetic guide is the next packet.”

Pat opened the second packet at four-twenty-six.

The second packet was a fourteen-page Marrow & Mill Home Brand Influencer Aesthetic Guide for 2024-2025, marked at the bottom of every page with a small brand watermark and the small italic line “Confidential — for Brand Influencer use only.”

Page eleven held a small section under a header that read “Heirloom Object Photography.”

The small section read: “Brand Influencers are encouraged to feature curated heirloom objects in Christmas-week content.

Brand Influencers shall pair heirloom narrative captions with brand-supplied heirloom-style product placements available through the Marrow & Mill Home Heirloom Collection at retail price points between forty-eight and one-hundred-and-forty-one dollars.”

I said: “Pat. That is the brass keychain.”

Pat pulled a small color printout at four-twenty-eight.

The printout was Rhonda’s TheRhondaTable Instagram post dated the second Wednesday of December of last year — a single high-resolution photograph in soft north-window light.

The photograph showed a small marble countertop in Rhonda’s sponsored kitchen on Aldrich Avenue with a single object at the center.

The object was a brass keychain medallion, two and one-eighth inches across, three-eighths of an inch thick, with a small Roman numeral “XII” embossed at the center and a small braided leather lanyard fixed to the top.

The brass medallion was hand-buffed to a bright soft gold finish.

The caption below the photograph read: “From my grandpa’s old work fob to my own front door — some heirlooms travel.

This little brass piece is on my keychain every day this season.

Tagging @marrowandmillhome — the Heirloom No. 12 Medallion from the new winter collection is the kind of object that holds your family’s whole story.

#marrowandmillpartner.”

The bottom-right of the post held a small grey rectangular FTC sponsored-post tag in a font two sizes smaller than the caption — a single grey word that read “ad.”

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob was in the small wood-bowl beside the back door of the Elmwood Drive rambler at four-twenty-nine.

The fob was unanodized cast aluminum, two and one-eighth inches across, three-eighths of an inch thick, with the small NDDOT shield embossed at the center and the employee number 4128 stamped at the back.

The brass medallion in the photograph on Rhonda’s Aldrich Avenue counter was a brand-supplied retail object at a retail price of one-hundred-and-forty-one dollars from the Marrow and Mill Home Heirloom Collection winter line.

The brass medallion in the photograph had never been in my pocket.

The brass medallion in the photograph had never been on the radio.

The brass medallion in the photograph had never been at mile marker seventy-two.

Pat said: “Howard. The caption uses your name in the second clause.”

I said: “Pat. The caption uses the fob without using the fob.”

Pat set the photograph beside the contract excerpt on the dining-room table at four-thirty-one.

Karen Estby was still at the dining-room table at four-thirty-two.

Karen Estby said: “Mister Guthrie. The FTC inquiry rule on inconsistent sponsored-post tagging across a brand-partner content block is a written warning at the second offense and a small fine at the fourth offense.

The Marrow and Mill brand-tagged Christmas content from 2023 has thirty-eight posts. Fourteen of the thirty-eight have no FTC tag. Eleven of the thirty-eight have a tag in a font two sizes smaller than the caption. The second Wednesday of December last year is one of the fourteen with no tag.

The brass medallion post is one of the fourteen with no tag. I sent a one-page complaint draft to my Carleton friend at Carleton’s media-law clinic at three-fourteen this afternoon. The clinic adviser is a 2003 Carleton graduate named Adelaide Pickel.

Adelaide Pickel said you can file the FTC complaint as a third-party witness on Form ID-FTC-08C and attach the contract excerpt and the post screen-capture. Adelaide Pickel said the inquiry opens by January if you mail the form by Friday.”

Karen Estby left at four-forty-one.

I drove the F-150 north on Washington Street, east on Burleigh, north on Elmwood Drive to 4128 Elmwood Drive at four-fifty-eight.

I walked through the back door into the kitchen at five-fourteen.

I sat at the small oak kitchen table at five-fifteen.

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob was in the small wood-bowl beside the back door at five-fifteen.

I lifted the fob out of the bowl at five-sixteen.

I weighed the fob on the small kitchen-scale at five-seventeen.

The fob weighed one and eleven-sixteenths ounces.

The brass medallion in Rhonda’s December blog post was a six-ounce solid-cast Marrow and Mill Home retail product.

The fob weighed less.

The fob also weighed more.

I set the fob on the kitchen table beside the small grey envelope from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection at the south corner of the table at five-eighteen.

The envelope had a small printed Form ID-FTC-08C with three pages of attachment slots.

I mailed Form ID-FTC-08C from the Bismarck main post office at 220 East Rosser Avenue at nine-fourteen on the second Friday morning of November.

The certified-mail receipt stamped at the counter read article number 7019-2880-0000-4128-4019.

The packet contained Form ID-FTC-08C signed at three places, a six-page photocopy of the Marrow and Mill brand-influencer contract excerpt, a fourteen-page photocopy of the brand aesthetic guide with page eleven flagged, a one-page index of fourteen Christmas-week posts with no FTC tag, a one-page index of eleven Christmas-week posts with a tag in undersized font, the second-Wednesday-of-December photograph of the brass medallion, and a one-page sworn statement from Adelaide Pickel at the Carleton media-law clinic.

I drove from the post office south on Sixth Street to the Bismarck Tribune building at 707 East Front Avenue at ten-eleven.

Naomi Wessel was waiting for me at the front-counter at ten-twelve.

Naomi Wessel was forty-eight and a Bismarck Tribune archive editor since the autumn of 2009.

Naomi said, in the small front-counter alcove off the Tribune lobby with a large white-painted brick wall behind her and a small wood-framed Tribune-front-pages mural at her right shoulder: “Howard.

The 2003 photograph at mile marker seventy-two is a high-resolution scan from the Tribune negative archive at 1200 dots per inch.

The print license is paid through Pat Lin’s small reprints account.

The Tribune staff photographer who took the photograph in 2003 is Walter Schaaf.

Walter Schaaf retired in 2014 and lives at a small house on Owens Street.

Walter Schaaf signed a one-page affidavit at his kitchen table on Wednesday morning verifying the photograph and the caption.

I sent the affidavit and the scan and the print license to Pat Lin at one-fourteen this afternoon.

I also pitched a Sunday human-interest piece on dispatcher logbooks and family Christmas archives to the Tribune managing editor on Wednesday at four.

The managing editor is Yale Brockton.

Yale Brockton said yes at four-eleven and the piece runs the second Sunday of January on page A6 above the fold.”

Naomi handed me a small print of the 2003 photograph at ten-twenty.

The print was an eight-by-ten matte color reproduction of a small black-and-white negative.

The print showed a thirty-six-year-old man in an Air Force-blue dispatch-center windbreaker beside a 1998 NDDOT snowplow at mile marker seventy-two south of Wilton on Highway 83 at five-fourteen in the morning on Christmas Day 2003.

The man’s left hand held a small Motorola dispatch radio.

The man’s right hand was on the driver-side rear-view-mirror frame of the snowplow.

The plowed snow at the south shoulder of the highway was four feet high at the man’s elbow.

The small NDDOT employee badge clipped to the front-right pocket-flap of the windbreaker read 4128.

I walked out the front of the Tribune building at ten-twenty-eight with the eight-by-ten print in a small archival sleeve.

Pat Lin and I worked from Pat’s dining-room table from the third Saturday of November through the second Friday of December.

Pat called First Lutheran Church at 401 North Fourth Street on the second Wednesday afternoon of December at two-fourteen.

The pastor was a forty-one-year-old man named Reverend Mason Klobuchar who had been at First Lutheran since the third Sunday of August of 2018.

Reverend Klobuchar said the fellowship hall was available on the Sunday afternoon of the fourth Sunday of December — December 28 — from two o’clock through five o’clock.

Reverend Klobuchar said he would attend as a witness in his clerical role.

Pat called Janet Brewster at Janet’s house on the eleven-hundred block of Riverside Drive at three-eighteen on the second Wednesday of December.

Janet Brewster was sixty-eight, Curtis’s mother, and a retired Sanford Health Bismarck pediatric-floor charge nurse since the autumn of 2018.

Janet had been at every Christmas Day on Aldrich Avenue from 2018 through last December.

Janet had taken her own private Christmas Day photographs of the Aldrich Avenue spread from 2018 through last year on a small Canon point-and-shoot from 2009.

Pat said: “Janet. The fourth Sunday of December at First Lutheran fellowship hall at two o’clock. Bring the Canon.”

Janet said: “Pat. I told them last year the photographs were wrong. I will be there at one-forty-eight.”

Pat mailed a small printed invitation card to Aldrich Avenue, Minneapolis, on the third Tuesday of December — a single-sided card on heavy cream stock with twelve printed lines that read: “Howard Guthrie invites Rhonda Guthrie-Brewster, Curtis Brewster, Mavis Brewster, Adelaide Brewster, and Janet Brewster to a private family gathering at the First Lutheran Church fellowship hall, 401 North Fourth Street, Bismarck, North Dakota, at two o’clock on Sunday, December 28.

A small selection of family Christmas archives will be on view.

Coffee and a plate from Bismarck’s First Lutheran Sunday tradition will be served.

Reverend Mason Klobuchar will be present.

Please confirm by the third Saturday of December.

A second card will be mailed to Janet Brewster separately.

With my respect — Howard Guthrie.”

Rhonda confirmed by email on the third Friday of December at eleven-eleven.

The fellowship hall at First Lutheran was a small wood-paneled rectangular room at the south end of the church basement with a small kitchen alcove at the east wall and a long buffet table at the north wall.

Pat and I arrived at twelve-eleven on the fourth Sunday of December.

We set the buffet table from twelve-eleven to one-forty-one.

The buffet table held, from west to east:

The eleven dark-green hardbound office binders standing on their spines in a single row, labels facing west, in the order 2010 through 2020.

A small manila folder beside the binders with the 2021 volunteer-shift log and the 2022, 2023, and 2024 dispatcher-volunteer Christmas Day stamps.

The eight-by-ten matte color reproduction of the 2003 mile marker seventy-two Tribune photograph in a small black wood frame at the center of the table.

A small printed sworn affidavit from Walter Schaaf beside the photograph.

A small printed copy of Yale Brockton’s pitch acceptance for the Sunday January Tribune piece.

A small grey envelope from the Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection with the certified-mail receipt 7019-2880-0000-4128-4019 stapled to the back.

A small stack of forty-eight color-printed pages of TheRhondaTable Christmas-week posts from 2018 through last December, every page with my name absent from the photographs and every page time-stamped at the lower-right corner.

A small color print of the second-Wednesday-of-December brass-medallion post beside a small color print of the 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob photographed on a plain white printer-paper background at the kitchen table on Elmwood Drive on the second Tuesday of December.

A small printed copy of Section 11 and Schedule C of the Marrow and Mill Home brand-influencer contract excerpt.

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob was in my right Carhartt work-pants pocket at twelve-fifty-eight.

Janet Brewster arrived at one-forty-eight with the small Canon point-and-shoot in a small soft black case.

Rhonda, Curtis, Mavis, and Adelaide arrived through the side entrance of the fellowship hall at one-fifty-nine on the fourth Sunday afternoon of December.

Reverend Klobuchar stood at the east wall at the small kitchen alcove with a small cup of coffee in his right hand.

Rhonda walked the length of the buffet table from west to east at two-oh-one.

Curtis walked behind Rhonda.

Mavis and Adelaide sat at a small folding table at the south wall with two small plates of Sunday-tradition cookies Pat had baked on Saturday night.

Janet stood at the north-west corner of the fellowship hall with the Canon at her left side.

Rhonda stopped at the small color print of the second-Wednesday-of-December brass-medallion post at two-oh-three.

Curtis stopped at the small printed copy of Section 11 of the Marrow and Mill Home contract excerpt at two-oh-four.

Rhonda turned at two-oh-five and said, in a small constricted version of the bright cheerful retake voice and in a higher pitch and with her left hand on the small marble pendant at her collarbone: “Dad.

This is so embarrassing.

I cannot believe you would do this in front of the kids on Christmas.”

I was at the south-east corner of the buffet table at two-oh-five.

I said: “Rhonda. The kids are at the south wall. Janet brought the Canon. Pastor Klobuchar is at the east wall. The binders are here. The 2003 photograph is here. The contract is here.”

Curtis said: “Rhonda. The contract is on the table.”

Rhonda said: “I am going to wait in the car.”

Rhonda turned to the side door of the fellowship hall at two-oh-six.

Rhonda picked up her brand-supplied cream wool coat off the back of the small folding chair beside Mavis and Adelaide at two-oh-six.

Rhonda walked out the side door of the fellowship hall onto the small east parking lot at two-oh-seven.

Curtis followed Rhonda out the side door at two-oh-eight.

Janet Brewster walked the length of the buffet table from west to east from two-oh-nine to two-twenty-one.

Janet lifted the Canon point-and-shoot off the small folding chair at two-twenty-two.

Janet said, in a low even voice with her right hand on the buffet table next to the 2003 Tribune photograph: “Howard.

I told them last year the photographs were wrong.

I told them in my own kitchen on the second Friday of January.

I am sorry I did not bring the Canon out earlier.

I will email the eighty-one private Christmas photographs from 2018 through last year to Pat Lin tonight.”

Janet walked Mavis and Adelaide out the front door of the fellowship hall at two-thirty-eight.

Pat and Reverend Klobuchar and I took down the buffet table from three-eleven to four-forty-one.

We stacked the eleven dark-green binders back into the two cardboard banker’s boxes in the same west-to-east order on the south end of the buffet table at three-eighteen.

Reverend Klobuchar carried the small black wood-framed 2003 Tribune photograph to the small archival box at the small folding chair at the south wall at three-twenty-four.

Pat folded the forty-eight color-printed pages of TheRhondaTable Christmas-week posts into a small accordion folder labeled “Aldrich Avenue archive 2018-2024” at three-thirty-one.

Pat clipped the FTC certified-mail receipt to the inside-front cover of the accordion folder at three-thirty-two.

Pat slid the brand-influencer contract excerpt and the brand aesthetic guide into a small bound spiral cover labeled “Marrow and Mill contract 2023-2025” at three-thirty-eight.

Reverend Klobuchar stopped at the small kitchen alcove at four-eleven with a fresh small cup of coffee and the small printed copy of Yale Brockton’s pitch acceptance in his left hand.

Reverend Klobuchar said: “Howard. The Tribune piece runs the second Sunday of January. The fellowship hall is open the third Sunday of January at three o’clock for any household member who wants to come back and see the binders one more time. I will be at the kitchen alcove at three. The door is unlocked for fellowship-hall visitors from two-forty-five to four-thirty every Sunday from the third Sunday of January through the second Sunday of March. The buffet table is open.”

Pat said: “Reverend. We will bring the binders back the third Sunday of January at two-fifty-eight.”

Janet Brewster emailed Pat from a small Riverside Drive desk at eight-eleven that night.

The email subject line read: “Aldrich Avenue Christmas archive — 81 private photographs 2018 through last December.”

The email attached a single zipped folder of eighty-one private Christmas Day photographs from Janet’s Canon point-and-shoot.

Sixty-eight of the eighty-one private photographs held the small white-haired man in the Air Force-blue NDDOT dispatch-center windbreaker at the Aldrich Avenue kitchen table, at the Aldrich Avenue south-facing front room, at the Aldrich Avenue back yard with Mavis and Adelaide on a small wooden swing set.

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob was still in my right Carhartt work-pants pocket at four-forty-one.

I drove the F-150 north on North Fourth Street, east on Avenue B, north on Elmwood Drive to 4128 Elmwood Drive at five-fourteen.

I dropped the fob into the small wood-bowl beside the back door at five-sixteen.

The Bismarck Tribune ran Yale Brockton’s Sunday piece on the second Sunday of January on page A6 above the fold.

The piece was eighteen hundred words.

The headline read: “FOR THIRTY-SIX YEARS, A BISMARCK DISPATCHER LOGGED EVERY CHRISTMAS — A FAMILY ARCHIVE REWROTE THE STORY.”

The byline was Yale Brockton.

The piece quoted Pat Lin, Naomi Wessel, Walter Schaaf at the kitchen table on Owens Street, Reverend Mason Klobuchar at the fellowship-hall kitchen alcove, Janet Brewster on Riverside Drive, Karen Estby in the lobby of the University of Mary library, and a small two-line statement from Adelaide Pickel at the Carleton media-law clinic.

The piece did not quote Rhonda.

Rhonda had returned a one-line “no comment” email through her brand-management account at six-eleven on the second Friday of January.

The piece ran on page A6 with two small reproductions of the 2003 mile marker seventy-two photograph and one small reproduction of the Christmas Eve 2018 binder timesheet with the Aldrich Avenue arrival-time stamp at the bottom margin clearly readable.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission Bureau of Consumer Protection mailed a small grey acknowledgment letter to 4128 Elmwood Drive on the third Wednesday of January.

The acknowledgment letter assigned Case Number 2025-FTC-NDP-04128 to the complaint.

The acknowledgment letter said the inquiry into Marrow and Mill Home brand-influencer compliance with sponsored-post disclosure rules across the 2023 and 2024 Christmas-week content cycles would proceed over the next four to six months.

Rhonda left a voicemail on the small black GE landline on the kitchen counter at 4128 Elmwood Drive at four-fourteen on the fourth Friday afternoon of January.

The caller-identification box read RHONDA GUTHRIE-BREWSTER MOBILE.

The voicemail was forty-eight seconds long.

The voicemail was recorded from the small green-room of a Marrow and Mill sponsor event at a downtown Minneapolis hotel ballroom — the small background hum of a brand sound-check at a podium was on the recording at the fourteen-second mark.

Rhonda’s voicemail said: “Dad. I am sorry the Tribune piece happened. I am sorry the FTC thing happened. The brand is talking to me about the contract. Dad — we are still a family. We can find a way to be together at Christmas.

The kids ask about you. Mavis asked at breakfast on Tuesday. Adelaide asked at school pickup on Wednesday. We can do a separate small Christmas for the kids on Aldrich Avenue this December. We can bring the kids out to Bismarck for an afternoon over spring break. We can. We should. We will.”

The voicemail ended at four-fifteen.

I was at the small oak kitchen table on Elmwood Drive at four-fifteen.

I sat at the small oak kitchen table from four-fifteen to four-twenty-two.

I lifted the small spiral-bound green steno notepad off the south corner of the kitchen table at four-twenty-three.

The steno notepad was the December 2025 binder for the Elmwood Drive household log.

The Elmwood Drive household log had been a continuous record on small spiral-bound green steno notepads since the first Wednesday of February of 2018, three weeks after Roselyn’s funeral.

I wrote the following entry on the first blank line of the steno notepad at four-twenty-four, in my own pencil, in the small print I had used at the NDDOT dispatch desk: “January 30, 2026 — 4:14 PM — voicemail received from Rhonda — RHONDA GUTHRIE-BREWSTER MOBILE — 48 seconds — Marrow and Mill sponsor event downtown Minneapolis — key word “We” — 11 uses across 48 seconds — voicemail saved to landline message 014 — household log line 4128.”

I closed the steno notepad at four-twenty-six.

I set the steno notepad on the south corner of the kitchen table at four-twenty-six.

I lifted the small brown ceramic coffee mug off the kitchen counter at four-twenty-seven.

I poured weak black coffee from the small NDDOT-issued thermos into the mug at four-twenty-eight.

I drove the F-150 north on Elmwood Drive, west on Burleigh, south on East Capitol Avenue to the Bismarck regional dispatch center at five-fifty-eight.

I signed in at the volunteer dispatch desk at six-oh-one on the Saturday morning of the fifth weekend of January.

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob was in my right Carhartt work-pants pocket at six-oh-one.

I lifted the fob out of the right Carhartt pocket at six-oh-two.

I clipped the small lanyard onto the small brass cup-hook I had screwed into the inside-left wood frame of the volunteer-desk monitor stand on the third Saturday of November of 2021.

The brass cup-hook was three-quarters of an inch tall, hand-bent at a fourteen-degree angle, brass-nickel-plated, with a small split-ring at the top large enough to accept the small lanyard at the fob.

The fob hung from the brass cup-hook at six-oh-three on the Saturday morning of the fifth weekend of January.

The fob hung from the brass cup-hook at six-fourteen, at six-forty-one, at seven-eleven, at seven-thirty-eight, at eight-oh-two, at eight-twenty-eight, at eight-forty-one, at nine-oh-one, at nine-fourteen, at nine-forty-one.

The fob hung at the angle of two-and-three-quarter degrees below horizontal off the brass cup-hook because the small braided lanyard had a small one-eighth-inch knot at the top from a small repair I had done at the kitchen table at five-fourteen on a small Saturday morning in the autumn of 2022.

The cast-aluminum face of the fob was visible at the seated dispatcher’s eye level at the volunteer desk.

The small embossed NDDOT shield at the center caught the small overhead fluorescent at a small soft angle.

The small Helvetica numeral set at the back of the fob faced the wood frame of the monitor stand and read 4128 in reverse from the seated dispatcher’s view.

The fob was at the seated dispatcher’s left peripheral vision for the four-hour volunteer shift on the Saturday morning of the fifth weekend of January.

The fob would be at the seated dispatcher’s left peripheral vision for the four-hour volunteer shift on every Saturday morning from the fifth weekend of January through the second Saturday of November of next year.

I signed out at ten-oh-one.

I lifted the fob off the brass cup-hook at ten-oh-two.

I clipped the lanyard to the right Carhartt belt loop at ten-oh-three.

I drove the F-150 north on East Capitol Avenue, west on Burleigh, north on Elmwood Drive to 4128 Elmwood Drive at ten-fourteen.

The small black mailbox at the curb of 4128 Elmwood Drive held a small envelope addressed in a small careful elementary-school cursive at ten-fifteen on the Saturday morning of the fifth weekend of January.

The envelope was a Crayola-color drawing of a small snowplow at a small road on a small piece of folded construction paper from Adelaide Brewster, age eight, Minneapolis Public Schools second grade.

The construction paper read, in a small careful pencil at the back of the drawing: “Dear Grandpa Howard.

This is a picture of the snowplow you helped at Christmas.

My teacher Mrs. Larkin says I can be a dispatcher too when I am big.

Mavis wrote a letter at her desk on Wednesday and Mommy did not put it in the mail.

Mavis is going to use Janet’s mailbox at Riverside Drive next week.

Love, Adelaide.”

A small second envelope arrived in the mailbox on the second Tuesday of February — a small careful Mavis-Brewster fourth-grade letter postmarked Bismarck from Janet Brewster’s mailbox at the eleven-hundred block of Riverside Drive.

The Mavis letter took ten days each way from Aldrich Avenue to Riverside Drive to Elmwood Drive in the small Janet workaround.

A small third envelope arrived in the mailbox on the third Tuesday of February — a small four-line note in Janet Brewster’s own hand on a small folded Riverside Drive notecard: “Howard.

The FTC office in Minneapolis sent Marrow and Mill a formal inquiry letter on the second Monday of February.

The brand has paused the contract on Aldrich Avenue effective the third Monday of February.

Mavis spent two hours at my house on Saturday writing a long letter to you.

Janet.”

I taped Adelaide’s snowplow drawing to the inside of the small white-painted cabinet door above the small wood-bowl beside the back door at ten-fifty-eight on the Saturday morning of the fifth weekend of January.

I taped Mavis’s first letter to the inside of the same cabinet door on the second Tuesday of February.

I taped Janet’s notecard to the inside of the same cabinet door on the third Tuesday of February.

The inside of the cabinet door held three sheets of paper in a small careful row at the third Tuesday of February.

The 1985 cast-aluminum NDDOT key fob hung from the small brass cup-hook on the volunteer-desk monitor stand at six-oh-three every Saturday morning from the fifth weekend of January through the second Saturday of November of next year.

The fob would hang from the brass cup-hook at six-oh-three on every Saturday morning for as long as I was the man at the volunteer desk.

The fob is the work.

The work is the witness.

The witness is the radio.