WannaskaWriter

    Late April renders up another fine Joe tradition hereabouts, the Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge) Lions Annual Smelt Fry, in Gud-drudge’ (Goodridge), Minnesota, seventeen miles east and a mile north of Tuff Rubber Balls (Thief River Falls), Minnesota. ‘Gud-drudge’ is the local vernacular for ‘Goodridge,’ and its proper annunciation, is the separation between towners and tourists.     A small rural town, with a population of about 150 people, is an agricultural community residing within and well beyond the city limits. Often several miles apart, resident farmsteads dot the remote flatland topography of northwestern Minnesota, whose inhabitants often share the lifelong experiences of church, school, employment, and/or family relation.    The smelt fry is a community event that brings people home from across the region. Beginning in the morning, and in combination with area garage sales, auctions begin around town selling consignment items from boats to barret...

   No, it was February when I went over to a neighbor’s place and found the LP gas truck stuck just off a their road. It was on approach to a little steel country bridge that it couldn’t cross because of weight restrictions. It was a single axle truck, weighing about 35,000 pounds empty plus its load of liquid propane on it.  It wasn’t the first time I had seen a propane truck stuck on the edge of a ditch that imperiled it.    The single lane road was packed with snow, and its narrow shoulders were sloped to the wetland on either side bordering the road. It appeared the driver had backed up to the bridge as he was supposed to do, but found himself not quite centered on the road. When he tried to correct it, the rear wheels on the drivers side slid sideways a few inches onto the shoulder and soon he was stuck.    The driver was down to his shirtsleeves, shoveling snow. He said nothing. I had no shovel with me, and even so couldn’t help him because I had...

Beaver Lodge 4    It became a sunny day; the snow was melting. I took a ride to deer camp on my four-wheeler; the first of its kind for us as a team; me and the ATV. I had started out on it last summer when our 11-year old grandson was visiting us from Red Cliff, Wisconsin, but we only made it a mile when it started to stall, so I quickly turned around and went back home before it happened somewhere far from any assistance, like near this old place about 3-miles away.     Vehicles bought 2nd or 3rd hand, like the 2011 four-wheeler now in my possession, are bound to have some bugs in them that the former owners didn't want to fix, otherwise they would've kept them. Add to the fact I was a reluctant purchaser in the first place (the wife just insisted I buy it to save on my old legs, joints, and heart) I could've saved money to boot not buying it; but I did. It's been a learning experience.     It is a four-wheel off-road motorcycle really; not a very big one...

  June 9, 2022    Notes on Aging: Things Your Parents Never Told You. (Page 1 missing.) ... was that while his nose grew larger on the outside of his face, it also grew larger on the inside of his face, and therein developed, as I have, a labyrinth of fluted cavities for nasal debris and secretions to alight; to affix to; to secure upon; to linger, that weren't there a few short years ago.     What used to take less than a few seconds to vacate with reasonable assurance that I had removed or expelled said obstruction, either by protrusion of a singular exploratory digit using handkerchief or toilet paper; or the more grotesque forcible nasal expulsion has become  a virtual minefield of antagonism, as I now have to constantly examine my nasal orifices carefully, practically turning my nostrils inside out, in order to locate and remove hangers-on, hiders, new forestations of nasal-wall lichen and fungi; soil-laced chunks, sawdust, soot, bark, or bugs that hav...

 June 23, 2015     Useless     My daughter is leaving for Bemidji after spending four days with us going through 'her life' in the upstairs-under-the-roof dormers. It was just time that she do it and reduce/organize some room in them that we could utilize, now that she was living her own life after college.      Her visit was timed to coincide with a Palm Family Reunion on the 20th. She tackled the last unexplored dormer in the house. I had hauled three big garbage bags of stuff to Joe's, just before work, so his garbage man could haul it away.      Tomorrow, he's coming over for coffee to discuss the KJ102 radio interview for a "Friends & Neighbors," segment about THE RAVEN. Don't know what good it'll do. We've had a good number of renewals and new gift subscriptions lately, but once again the "What's the point?" feeling has come over me that seeped into other aspects of my life.      Daughter had gone thro...

  June 23, 2015     Heat Exchangers     Sort of an in-between day; the building is unusually warm. My upper body is soaked with perspiration, so I've taken off my cap to soak it in cold water. With my long hair and full beard, I've learned to deal with the energy-sapping heat at work by wetting down my head and neck, and letting the cool water just soak it. People think beards are hot, when the reality, for me, is that when they're wet they act like heat exchangers and cools my face as I drive.      Appearance-wise, you can't tell the difference what moisture is outside your clothes, coming in, or outside your clothes coming out. Further, it isn't like an employee can wear anything they want in a factory setting -- least here in Minnesota -- because of OSHA safety regulations. Long sturdy pants, steel-toed shoes or boots, upper body shirts; sleeves optional depending on what you are doing; as well as safety glasses that tend to hold the heat ...

  June 25, 2015     Effective Communication      Found out that our evening shift supervisor ‘Clint Eastwood’ is going to day shift and two other supervisors are going to other shifts. I haven’t heard why. It’s disappointing to be sure because I liked Clint and had high hopes he would do some good for the department. He helped me with some issues I had too, as he had let me know I could talk to him.     But that’s the way it is at the toy factory, everything is temporary except insanity [and old timers like me with all the seniority, which may be close to the same thing].     Insanity is a constant element in all that we do here; a place where no common sense or initiative exists except in extremely rare forms. I’ve given up trying to recognize its face in either males or females; some days you just shake your head.