WannaskaWriter

    I write an old friend of mine who chose to trade 25 years of his life for 25 years in the pen for reasons that defied common sense. Emotions were riding high and he let them write the recipe for disaster, plus I suspect he may have cooked in a little alcohol to boot. Though no one was hurt, his addition of a firearm to spice things up, did not set well within the bowels of the justice system, who concluded his rash behaviors warranted long term correction.       My friend was never someone who respected law enforcement personnel anyway, as I recall a time when we attempted to cross into Canada many years ago and when asked by the border guard if he had been arrested, he said yes, he had, for a DUI. The officer asked him to step into the office with him, leaving me to wait patiently in the vehicle. Very soon, the officer came to the car with my friend in tow and told me to take him back to the United States as he was denied entry, and if I should ...

    I am amazed, totally blown away, at the fortune of living so long to see women, especially Afro-American women, as well as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., dominate the designs on U.S., $20, $10 and $5 currency.     My only regret is that, is although Sacajawea's likeness graced the one dollar coin in 2000, a Native American woman is not included among these women chosen. Reading through the brief biographies of all these noted people, in a New York Times on-line article, I think there was room for her inclusion, even through omission of one of the lesser known chosen.     That being said, I understand to some degree, as a result of the article, the great difficulty Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew encountered redesigning the currency--and the fact that they couldn't please everybody. But wow! This is quite a step forward for American women, given today's apparent climate of global suppression of women's rights. You go girl!

  Wannaska hadn't seen a whole day of sunshine for a good month, and April 16 wasn't any different. Although overcast and windy here in NW Minnesota, the day was a bit warmer, relatively speaking, temperatures were in the high forties hovering to almost fifty. It was so nice in comparison to all the other days, that Dale had finally opened the ice rink equipment shed, and put the Zamboni away for another ninety-days. (R umor had it they were going to open the pool in town should temps edge toward sixty.)   Lawnmowers had replaced snowblowers at Knute's Hardware Store; they had buried the 40# bags of sunflower seed and softener salt with so many charcoal grills, bicycles and pushmowers, that I had nearly set up a nice display outside the building, before I managed to access a few bags. Then, I had to put it all back in, 'just the way it had come out,' (learning the hard way over the years that there's a method to everything), so says my wife and likely anyone el...

                                                                 True North Minnesota When I bought my farm in 1971, I sought solitude and escape from a city environment that I felt alien to my nature. I did not seek places of social activity, but places of tranquility with semblances of wilderness; not lakes with boaters and water skiing, but tree-lined lakes and rivers, canoe waters, few people. My wife and I take pleasure planting trees, noting their growth and resulting beauty of forty-one years, photographing the landscape. This must be the most photographed farm in all of Minnesota. So this separates us from those in our families whose lives center wonderfully at liv...

                                                                    DREAM ON     I have a re-occurring dream that I own a huge warehouse of old phonograph records: long-play 78s, and 45s. I don’t have a history of these things so they aren’t intimately familiar to me, although my folks had a very modest collection and I bought one or two as a teenager- - and I accidentally broke an old record at the Larson Brothers sale. I have a digital image of that somewhere.      The building is a metal, a steel-framed building; its description isn’t detailed, but sometimes I’m inside of it, perusing with both wonder and frustration that...

    My wife and I watched the Robert Redford movie, "The Company You Keep," in which a former member of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) turns herself in to the FBI after thirty years on the run; the story unfolds from there. The film is an American history lesson that occurred during our era of the 1960s and 1970s. The geo-political issues of war and inequality, the violence that accompanied the protests nation-wide, generated action from a few aggressive groups seeking to affect change. The dialogue in the movie articulates exactly the angst of so many of my generation. I remembered I felt the same way.      I didn't go through a period of 'enlightenment' until I moved from Iowa (and if one recalls all the jokes about Iowa and being Iowan, enlightenment is exactly what happens when you leave it) but that being said, I didn't live in a vacuum either. It was difficult to hide your head in the sand during that time with all the newspapers and tel...

    One reason, I moved to northwestern Minnesota was to get away from all the hatred and violence that was happening all over the country. I was tired of living under lock and key; tired of watching riots and demonstrations on television; just fed up with society at large. Northwest Minnesota seemed just the place to go where there wasn't any of all that. No racism, no prejudice, everybody is happy, yada yada yada. What a dope!    I had spent a few winters laid-off from various jobs I had and began writing journals, reading and studying American history. I've always been bookish and possessed a penchant for reading and writing versus watching TV or whatever the rest of the world is doing in their spare time; I don't mind isolation or quiet places. Outside stimulation, like video games, is out: a brilliant display of the northern lights is in. I lean toward the natural, fade from the artificial, that sort of thing.      I learned year...