WannaskaWriter

  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!!!

I've had quite the time purchasing 'battery-powered lanterns' as of late. This is my 3rd battery-powered lantern, er, flashlight, of different brands  that I have purchased (two of which I returned for refund, to no fault of the store). I had to record this one because it seemed to beg noting.   The bright-yellow and black flashlight I purchased is a Eveready Readyflex Floating Lantern , I guess, for it was only upon very close examination of the label after I got the product home, that I noted there was a facsimile of one floating in water. I don't think I'll test it. I just thought, judging by its low price of five bucks, including two batteries, that it was a no-brainer easey-peasey, plunk the 2 batteries-in job. How difficult could it be?   It has a single 80 lumen LED light and a 4-inch diameter screw-on cap. Two size D SUPER HEAVY DUTY batteries came with it wrapped in adhesive plastic on which was printed two images; one of two batteries side by side, belo...

    Two True Stories 1990-1993 " We didn’t make her fearful, we made her brave."     Bag O' Bonny           Turning in at Bemis Hill, in Roseau County, Minnesota, I snapped a few images of the nicely maintained CCC-era log cabin and its immediate sledding hill. Leaving, I turned west on the road I came in on, then a half mile or so, took the Bemis Hill Forest Road north along the bottom of the Hill when my daughter Bonny called from Ankeny, Iowa, where she lived then, several hundreds of miles away.     I always thought how amazing it was to be in the middle of nowhere and get a phone call. I was  leaning against my car along a remote northwest Minnesota forest road in Beltrami Island State Forest with the steep legendary sledding hill behind me and a 700,000 acre forest around me, possibly making me its sole human occupant for five square miles, conservatively speaking, the thought of which is just aw...

     "OH MY GOD! SVEN IS DEAD!" the new neighbor Jack Krag said, running from his car to the swing set in Sven's yard where Sven Guyson laid prone on the ground, one foot still afloat in the seat of the swing, his face against the sod, his cap ajar.      "SVEN! SVEN!" Krag repeated plaintively, gently turning Sven over onto his back; the imprint of grass and dirt stuck to Sven's open-eye slobbery face.      " HE'S JUST A'FOOLIN' YOU, bon ami! " shouted Monique, Sven's wife of two years and some months from the porch. "He's just workin' up to his expiration date and wants his death to be just a part of our normal routine. He doesn't want to surprise anyone by dyin' unexpectedly. You know what a shock a death can be. He's just tryin' to ease us all into it, one act at a time.       "WHAT??" Krag fairly hollered in disbelief, looking at Monique, then back st Sven, and back to Monique...