It is not hard for me to remember Pearl Harbor Day. Seventy years ago my Dad’s brother, my Uncle Frank, near the end of his 6th year on the USS Arizona, lost his life aboard the ship. I’m old enough to have “met” him, in Long Beach CA, five months before he died. The caption […]
UPDATE Related December 2011 posts can be seen here, here and here. (click on photos to enlarge) The first Christmas letter for 2011 arrived shortly after November 1 from Fargo ND. I don’t keep track of such things, but this one had to be the earliest I’ve ever received. The correspondents were long, long-time Christmas […]
There was a bit of synchronicity at work for me a few days ago. It began with conversation with Brett, one of the staff at City Centre Caribou Coffee in Woodbury. Apollo 11 had come up as a trivia question, and I noted my memories of that astonishing July 20 in 1969: of stopping along […]
In the very recent past an incident at University of California at Davis (UCD) went viral. A policeman was filmed from many angles pepper-spraying students doing a sit-in on campus in support of the Occupy movement. I have a good friend who has lived in Davis for over 30 years and he presumably knows his […]
I’m an addictive walker, and when I moved to this suburb 11 years ago one of the first priorities was to find a good walking route. Windwood Passage and Carver Lake paths filled the bill nicely then, and still do. Two and a half miles each and every day (except when ice and snow drive […]
My family letter for this Thanksgiving included this photo, and the content which follows. This began with a very recent correspondence with my relative JoAnn, who I’ve never met in person, and who had sent me the photo with a request to help identify the date it was taken. (click on photo to enlarge) “As […]
UPDATE Nov. 29, 2011: A video of Dr. Axworthy’s talk is accessible here. (It will take a short while to load as it is a long presentation.) How does one recap nearly 50 years of a career in public service presented in under two hours? How does one recap that two hours in 700 words […]
Sunday, while doing my ’rounds’ as an usher at Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis I happened to notice a piece of religious sculpture on the wall (click to enlarge photos). (Photos of all of the art on exhibit can be seen here, and are posted with the permission of the artist.) The creation was […]
Sunday afternoon, after the Vikings lost, I watched the endless rerun about the coming end of the world on the History Channel. For those who’ve missed it, the end is scheduled for December 21, 2012. All that is certain is the date: exactly what, or who goes where, is open for endless debate. Idle speculation […]
Tonights edition of 60 Minutes on CBS had a segment about anti-tax guru Grover Norquist. The segment is accessible here. It is well worth watching. Norquist is an immensely powerful non-elected actor in national tax policy. He claims to represent the consensus of anti-tax Americans, and his record shows in the the composition of the […]