UPDATE June 26, 2012: Here is the obituary on Lee Dechert. NOTE: Comments on Lee from Andy Driscoll and Will Shapira can be found at the very end of this post. There may be others, later. Richard Lee Dechert (that’s as in French: pronounced d-share) passed away quietly at home on June 21. Years ago […]
Earlier this week I was sitting in my Caribou Coffee “office” and a friend I see from time to time wandered in and joined me for a few minutes. Talk quickly got around to the political world and the upcoming election. He told me he’s filed for one of those important but seldom noticed positions […]
“Back in the day”, my Grandpa Henry Bernard (born on a farm in Quebec in 1872) spent most of his adult life in Grafton ND. He came to Grafton area with a first grade education and carpentry as a trade but had a particular gift for figuring out how mechanical things work. For years he […]
This is one of those days when nostalgia reigns, and all manner of inspirational stories are related about people who made a difference in one way or another in someone else’s life. Today, the examples will be Dad’s (of which I am one several times over). My thoughts today are to three recent and completely […]
I don’t consider myself a political junkie. I am liberal Democrat but I am not, nor have I ever been, heavily immersed in party decision making. I do think that there is little more important than active involvement in the task of selecting good reasonable people to represent us all in all elective offices, and […]
This afternoon Donna Elling, 88, will be remembered at First Universalist Church in south Minneapolis. We’ll be there, and I expect there’ll be a large crowd. She richly deserves a tribute. I can’t say I knew Donna well, except through others voices and memories. When I met her and her husband, Lynn, five years ago, […]
The weekend just past was hot, at least as for us in this area. The temperature was in the low 90s till Sunday night rainfall moderated it. Some of our grandkids were involved in post-school year athletic activities. Over at the local high school, first-grade Ben competed in several events, including successfully passing the baton […]
As it happened, Tuesday morning June 5 came an unexpected phone call from one of my relatives in Wisconsin. Marion, 95, called to say that her nephew, Dave, had died on Sunday at age 77 “and the funeral is tomorrow at 10:30 in Hazel Green”. They had misplaced my phone number and don’t do computer, […]
I’m writing this post before the polls close in Wisconsin. I haven’t heard any predictions, or talk of the turnout, or any such thing. So the post-mortem won’t be in this post. There’ll be plenty of those without me…. Love it or not, Scott Walker is the face of the contemporary Republican Party in the […]
Today is election day in Wisconsin; five months from today is the United States General Election. There is a serious question embedded in the following: how do we change American political warfare before we are all – winners and losers and, indeed, country – lying dead in the weeds? The past couple of generations of […]