WannaskaWriter

Bullying bul·ly1 ˈbo͝olē/ verb: gerund or present participle: bullying; use superior strength or influence to intimidate (someone), typically to force him or her to do what one wants. "a local man was bullied into helping them" synonyms:    persecute, oppress, tyrannize, browbeat, harass, torment, intimidate, strong-arm, dominate.     I think bullying is a rather natural phenomenon. In the animal world, it’s really no different. Why then are some animals naturally camouflaged for concealment? Yes, for ‘bullying of’ and ‘hiding from’ bullies who wish to eat them.     This definition perfectly describes all the birds and animals that frequent our bird feeders, including white tail deer, black bears, squirrels, blue jays, chickadees, grossbeaks, sharptailed grouse, pine siskins, purple finches, juncos, downy woodpeckers, and --oh, raccoons too. Nuthatches seem to just keep to themselves, although there’s no telling about what goes on behind the ...

I shouldn't have done that. Obviously, I'm not as young as I used to be, but my aged jungle yell did generate some real attention along Wannaska's main street on Friday afternoon, I kid you not. Donna peered from her between her living room curtains. Jeff, looked in the direction of the county garage from under Kraig Lee's grain dryer. Arial, the guard dog at Lee's Store, leaped to her feet and began barking to get out--so I heard, just sayin'. But it isn't the hoarseness in my throat that bothers me, it's the soreness of my chest that I beat on with both fists. Good googa mooga, was that dumb or what? Rumors are though a herd of horses thundered through town . .        I recycled in Wannaska on Friday afternoon. Didn't have much, just enough to think about emptying before it over-flowed. I was going to Wannaska anyway so the wife thought she'd make it worth my while. Going to the recycling bins is sort of like going to the town dump, except on a...

                         A New Year A New Script  A new year and a new post, the first here for a long time as I haven't been able to figure out how to get back on here. It was just a matter really of going up to the lefthand corner where the orange B and Blogger are located, after I was signed in, and clicking on it to be able to access it.  Since December 24, 2017 I've been contributing to Wannaskan Almanac, a blog developed by Chairman Joe of The Blogings of Chairman Joe who has been an old friend of mine for over 30 years. We've published THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota's Original Art, History, & Humor Journal together since 1994 and that is coming to the end of its life, probably this June. But in the meantime, my wife and I will continue producing the last issues of our labor of love, in so many respects.  

     Archie Olson was a lifelong bachelor who worked for area farmers spring, summer and fall, then worked in the big woods during the winter cutting pulp wood, as did so many other men in the Wannaska community. Never one to rest on his laurels too long, Archie worked various part time jobs including driving a beer truck into the more remote communities of northwestern Minnesota.            One afternoon, my father was nearly six hundred miles from his home in Des Moines, Iowa, and had stopped for a bit of refreshment in a tiny little gathering log-built place in far northwest Minnesota called ‘Fourtown’ on the edge of Beltrami Island State Forest, when the beer truck pulled in to this unlikely log cabin oasis in the middle of nowhere.            Dad, seldom a disagreeable sort as stories go, sat alone at a table as the beer truck driver walked by him with a stack of beer on ...

As a column about real estate sales and transactions I read suggests, there’s more to the sale than the deeds imply, just as I wonder whenever I hear someone say they just bought ‘an eighty’ or ‘another quarter‘ somewhere. I think about the land’s back story, What is the history of the land purchased? Is it known? Do the buyers care that there was a river crossing on the land that the Ojibwe and Dakota used on their seasonal rounds before the coming of the white man? Or that beaver dams of hundreds of years ago shaped the river and creek basins and remnants of their dams can be found there nine feet below? Or that, on a walk across that field to the mailbox one day the former land owner found an octagonal-shaped barrel of a flintlock pistol of possibly the fur trade era or before? Or that marked on old surveyor maps there is a wagon trail along the sandridge and down through that quarter that followed the river bank toward Wannaska? I doubt that many new owners think about the history ...

 My friend and neighbor, Joe McDonnell, and I take yearly three day trips ‘west’ as part of an autumn regimen, traveling only the blue two-lane highways and as many miles of gravel roads as was necessary to get to our destinations. We are of the mind, that it’s the ‘journey’ not the destination that intrigues us, when most travelers these days just want to get there as soon as possible or, as a tour bus coordinator cousin of mine laments, of passengers on the bus concentrating on their smartphone screens rather than looking out the window at the area they're traveling through. Often our trips begin before sunrise here in Roseau County, Minnesota so that when we cross into North Dakota at Drayton, the sun is just becoming bright in the rearview mirror. The miles west from there are flatland miles, more of them denuded every year, erasing the definition of fencelines, horizon and sky. Miles-long windrows of bulldozed windbreaks, their roots wrenched from the soil they were planted to...

I enjoy reading a column titled, “Rural Reflections” in our local shopper, “The Northern Watch,” published by The Times in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. I find what the author writes is entertaining, informative and thought-provoking. Since I’m a writer too, (Sadly, more of an essayist than a column writer) I thought he might appreciate some feedback, if somewhat long-winded. Brevity isn’t my best suit as I tend to think there’s more to a story than what is told in brief, just as there is more than one piece to a puzzle.       I thought the article he wrote last spring about his grazing service was interesting. He moved his customer’s cattle herd onto his farm, then from pasture to pasture over the summer, correct? That idea was very intriguing. When I look at some of my neighbors cattle grazing, on what I don’t know, I think their pastures could use some rotational practices too. The whole of it always look pretty thin, void of any lush greeness save that of ...