PRE-NOTE: Too rarely, in this age of sound-bites, Twitter feeds, Text messaging, analysis by headline and screen crawlers, and similar shorthand, and other often blatantly false “forwards”, comes a breath of fresh air, an actual ‘back-and-forth’: an e-mail between two friends with acknowledged expertise about their topic of conversation. What follows is such an e-mail […]
We just returned from a week “up north” – for us, at a time share at Breezy Point Resort near Pequot Lakes MN. You’re not far from the “madding crowd” at a place like Breezy – “Elvis” does his thing, pretty expertly, each Saturday in the summer, but nonetheless it was a change of pace, […]
(click to enlarge all photos) Yesterday afternoon, enroute to a meeting, I stopped to take a couple of photos: Fifty years ago today I lived in a rented upstairs room in this house, just a block from KSTP-TV; and my wife, Barbara, was in the University Hospital less than two miles away, my memory says […]
(click to enlarge) If one follows national politics at all, one staple is obvious: the cult of American superiority as played out by its military “warriors” and “heroes”. It has most recently erupted in the Republican political debate, largely brandished by candidates and members of the political echo chamber who never served in the military, […]
Thursday I published a piece that included a family photo taken 72 years ago, in the summer of 1943, in rural North Dakota. Everyone was in that picture, except for the Mom, and I observed that “[t]he entire family is in the photo, save their mother, Clara, who was probably taking the picture”. The family […]
POSTNOTE, July 18: see “The Women in the Yard. Looking for Clara”, here. Going through old papers and photos of a deceased relative can be tedious, but occasionally something pops up, as did this photo a few days ago. (click to enlarge) While not of my town, or my family tree either, I have some […]
Here is the video we all saw at Orchestra Hall on Sunday afternoon (see below) (click on all photos to enlarge them) July 1 found me heading east after a tiring three days in North Dakota. I stopped in Valley City, and decided to refresh by stopping at my alma mater, now Valley City State […]
“God bless America, Land that I love. Stand beside her, and guide her, Thru the night, with a light from above….” Thus Irving Berlin wrote, in 1918, the song that has become an anthem of the United States. “…From the mountains, to the prairies, To the oceans white with foam, God bless America, My home […]
At some points in our lives we all experience an “as good as it gets” moment or two. For me, one of those times happened five minutes from our house, on June 25, when the local Community Theatre staged a magnificent version of Les Miserables. Here’s the program for the evening: Les Miserables002, and below […]
(click to enlarge) Last night I saw on television much of the remarks of South Carolina State Senator Paul Thurmond, son of Strom Thurmond, making a strong argument for removal of the Confederate Flag from the South Carolina Capitol grounds. He seemed somewhat nervous, but sincere and impassioned. A distillation of his remarks was in […]