Friday night was a conflicted one for me. In Havana, the Minnesota Orchestra was playing its first concert; out in Eden Prairie, a relative, Mickey, was graduating from Dakota County Technical College; over in South St. Paul, 8th grade granddaughter Kelly was part of the year-end Choirs concert for the St. Paul Public Schools. I […]
POSTNOTE May 30 10:42 am.: Just now I am listening to Jay Ungar’s Ashokan Farewell, made famous in Ken Burns Civil War. Give it a listen. I was working on a project at home, yesterday, when an e-mail came in from our friend Catherine. I saw it at 12:30. “I have two tickets to see […]
Today was the annual Recognition Dinner of Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota, and as I’ve done since the first one, in 2001, I always attend. And when I get home, I’m always glad I made the trip to the north suburbs of Minneapolis, to some venue in the Anoka-Hennepin School District. It was a rainy late afternoon, […]
UPDATE May 14, 2015: from the Minnesota Orchestra on landing in Cuba. Save Our Symphony has an excellent ongoing compilation of news from/about the Orchestra in Cuba. Monday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune had as its lead story the Minnesota Orchestra’s pending visit to Cuba. Wherever you are, you can listen to the live performances in Cuba […]
On my frequent trips to LaMoure ND, I’ve always passed by a road-side historical marker on the edge of Milnor (about 40 miles west of Wahpeton on Highway 13). Markers like these are “magnets” for me, but this one I would always pass by – enroute, and too tired – though I think I read […]
Today we did what has come to be an annual trip, possibly four miles to the Ramsey County Correctional Facility (RCCF) to purchase Mother’s Day Flowers. (More here.) The seasonal business is staffed by inmates at this place once called the Workhouse; 25% of the proceeds count as a donation. It is a pleasant task, […]
Today I’m 75. “Just a kid” to great numbers of my contemporaries; nonetheless, a very noticeable birthday, to me at least. Each person has their own story, along life’s road. And life’s journey is, indeed, a new “road” we all travel, with the attendant surprises any trip down a previously untraveled road or path has […]
PRE-NOTE FROM DICK: For some time I’ve been thinking of having an ancestry DNA analysis done. A short while ago, the inclination racheted up quite a bit with this e-mail from an out-of-the-blue e-mail from Kathy (Corey) Valdez, an Oregonian whose Mom Ellie Lemire Corey was (she thought) from primarily French-Canadian roots from Quebec to […]
This evening our friend Annelee Woodstrom speaks about growing up in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. I’ve heard her speak several times, and she is always thought provoking. She was 7 years old when Hitler came to power, and 18 when his dream of a 1,000 year “Third Reich” ended, after only 11 years, with the German […]
A few days ago a short-notice invitation came to attend a Monday afternoon talk by Canada’s Governor General, David Johnston. His brief bio is here: Gov Gen’l David Johnston001. I RSVP’ed, and at 5 p.m. yesterday about 150 of us spent a most pleasant hour with the Gov. General in a small auditorium within the […]