WannaskaWriter

     Forklift Track      " I used to drive an electric industrial forklift. It's a job of some skill. Not everyone makes a good forklift driver. I'm not claiming I was the best that ever was by far, but I can say I could back one up using my mirror better than anyone else on my shift at the very least; owing to the many years I drove dairy and freight trucks in Iowa, where I had to back up sometimes long distances, and around various parked vehicles in close confines, using only my side mirrors. I had a lot of practice and safely utilized it on the job.      "The conventionally accepted method of driving a forklift in reverse is turning your body on the seat, left to right, and looking over your left shoulder in the direction you are traveling, as you apply the reverse pedal. The negative issue about that method is, long term, a person taxes their neck and lower back driving a forklift that way, especially on an uneven concrete floor as ...

      "We heard wolves last night. They were 'way out there."     Now these wolves aren't coyotes, they're timbers; big gray wolves whose howls make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, and make big city dogs grow timid in the dark even if they've never heard one before in their lives.      When the deer camp boys say they heard wolves, that's what they mean. And it's those gray wolves that make this land wild, make the darkness ominous; and make the place beyond cellphone reception hallowed ground, even as vapor trails criss-cross the sky 35,000 feet overhead.      I doubt those airline passengers think about that; about the desolate wild areas of NW Minnesota far below that even today rivals Canada's wild claim of untamed land. It's the timber wolves that do that, not the deer, the bear, the fox, the lynx.      Oh, yeah seeing a cougar may set your heart racing to be sure, but it's the wolves that elude y...

     Penning Perspective     " Being employed full-time for the last 27 years; the first five in the toy factory as seasonal/part-time, I'd forgotten idle-time's effect on my psyche over a prolonged winter lay-off, and as a result, how writing became so integral to my everyday; a lifesaver.      During those long isolated days over winter, alone as I was, I was drinking, mostly beer, with a few meals interspersed during the day. Homemade stews and soups, steaks, hamburger, pork chops, fried potatoes, bacon, eggs, and a good amount of bread found its way into my body -- and out of it -- when I started writing if only to keep myself sane.      I had no ambition to do anything with it. No objective to sell my work to magazines or publishers. Being before the time of personal computers and cellphones, and not owning a TV, writing was simply a cheap activity that I could do on a 24/7 basis. All I needed was a pen or pencil, preferably n...

  Adaption     I'll adapt to the world I live in, than try to change it." Originally written in Aug 2018     During the years of the farming boom, of the 1970s, as tens of thousands of acres of woodlands fell before the bulldozers of land speculators and were pushed up into mile-long windrows, like cut and raked hay, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources erected a large wooden sign along the west side of Highway 89 just north of The Nine Mile Corner that I thought was sort of stupid, that read:  “Welcome to Minnesota’s Forest Areas.”        I had grown up in Des Moines, Iowa looking at neighbor’s houses, streets, business buildings and power line poles. By purchasing this farm in 1971, I realized I had the opportunity to change my view by planting trees. I contacted the Soil & Water Conservation District in Roseau and had a conservation plan drawn up in May of 1973, with assistance of the late Harold Grothem. Receiving it, an...

  Cover of Volume 6 Issue 4  2001 "Self-publishing is satisfying work, no matter how its critics demean its value to society, then to have not only a readership for your work, and know subscribers possess physical tactile copies of it and claim they've saved each one, justifies all the time and effort put into it." This note refers to:  THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History, & Humor Journal, 1994-2018, published by Palmville Press & Publishing, Inc., Wannaska, MN.

    What A Ride! Reprint from THE RAVEN: Volume 2 Issue 1 February 1995     In December of 1994, at the Warroad Park, the people of Warroad were introduced to the sport of dogsledding by Millie Kuryliw and Brent Hakala, owners of Anarok Kennels of Middlebro, Manitoba. With their two teams of Alaskan and Siberian huskies, the Canadian mushers treated many people to their first experience on sleds pulled by dogs bred to do the work.     Many of the dogs had been owned by Pete Fugleberg, a Roseau County musher from the Pine Creek area below Minnesota Hill. Pete had sold Millie and Brent a couple of his sleds too, and helped them with their decisions about harnesses, tugs and tow lines -- and the best dog food to buy. Pete and I knew one another for 28 years.     Pete and I have known each other for 12 years. He lead me into the activity by giving a dogsled ride, as a favor to me, to a relative of mine who was visiting from Mordiallac, Australia. Beca...