WannaskaWriter

 

    Aurora Borealis over Palm Camp. Image by Gene Palm  1951-2026 On April 5, 2026 Easter morning, my cousin Gene Palm 'walked on,' with relief from all the suffering he had been enduring for six long months, and a smile on his face knowing he had provided his wife and children and grandchildren with the very best of everything he had to give of his love and respect. I spent three of his last days in his home talking and joking about the past; his memory coming and going between his silent gasps of pain, his ever-present smile fading then slowly coming back.    Gene was always a guy with a smile on his face and a cigarette, Diet Coke, coffee, or sometimes beer in hand. He made time to listen when necessary; withheld advice until asked, and always admitted when he was wrong. He seemed genuinely buoyed by a life of charity which he bestowed on his friends and family throughout Minnesota; one example being that he periodically visited the city dump in...

  It was one of those,"Do you see what you're looking at?" episodes. Okay, he was really, like ten feet away from me, not four feet. The telephoto lens on my camera might have compressed the distance in reality, I admit. BUT, he did eventually -- several eventual minutes -- squeeze by me about three inches from my boots: a close encounter. David said, "I'll be darned! That's a Palmville Rust Grouse there! Pretty rare!"     I had texted my wife that I was going for a stroll, meaning a meandering walk of no real destination or direction. I had thought to take the four-wheeler, but it was a nice evening and I didn't want to spoil its ambience driving something noisy. Besides, I wanted to move slowly, as well as look for fresh bear tracks along a firebreak where I saw bear sign last year.    I was thinking about an old friend of mine in California who used to send me some of the wildlife photos he took along the American River at Sacramento. He had a Can...

  Storm clouds entering Roseau County on June 10, 2002 preceding the county-wide flood of June 11.       On January 14, 2026, I found the above image buried away in a file cabinet. I had completely forgotten it and even now as I reexamine it wonder where I was when I took it. As old images often do, they can enable one to remember at least what we think happened, (before AI & Photoshop, etc) as photographic fact. And whereas, I can't recall the immediate hours following this image, I can recall to some degree of accuracy, how the flood affected me personally some of the days because I took many many pictures and published a good number of them in our magazine, THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History, & Humor Journal, 1994-2018. The flood issue being Volume 7 Issue 1A.   Unknown to me at the time, if but briefly before Joe McDonnell called me to meet them in Wannaska to help sandbag around the church, threatened as it was by flood wate...

     What a beautiful night just to be alive and outdoors dressed so warmly! I thank the universe for my being in its entirety of no wont nor regret, wholly appreciative of the immediate all around me.

     There were 3-sun dogs earlier; one overhead, but using my cellphone to attempt to capture it proved fruitless. A cranky elderly neighbor once bellered at me after I said I had seen three sun dogs during some bitterly cold days,    "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I'VE ONLY EVER SEEN TWO!!!