Today, Sunday, July 26, 2026, is 100 days from Election Day November 3. My personal message is simple: be sure you are registered to vote, and vote well informed, for every office on your ballot. Every place will have differing specifics about who’s on the ballot, and specific procedures. A website to visit first, wherever you […]
61 years ago today, July 24, 1965, my wife, Barbara, age 22, died at the University of Minnesota Hospital in Minneapolis. She had been hospitalized there for 58 days, awaiting the possibility of a kidney transplant, a condition which had been part of our lives the entirety of our two year marriage. Our son was […]
Lsst Thursday I noted: “I subscribe to Tim Snyder’s Substack and yesterday he gave the first of ten lectures on successive Wednesdays as described here. I watched the first 90 minute segment and it was worth the time. If you have an interest and can access the program, you may find it very worthwhile.” […]
PRENOTE; This post is about Voting. More below this note. It is no coincidence that I am posting before the Presidents speech tonight. We need to be actively engaged. Midday today I went to MN Orchestra performance. This was a fill-in for a previously missed concert, and this was one of last concerts of the […]
If you have Facebook, take the time to watch and listen to this. Here’s a little context from the mid-1930s – a photo taken on a honeymoon trip….
I noticed that the President made a visit to my home state of North Dakota and neighboring South Dakota right before July 4. Best I can gather, he flew into Bismarck, probably helicopter to Medora ND and the new Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library; thence back to Bismarck, to Ellsworth Air Force Base near Rapid City […]
Fred, a long-time friend, and retired teacher and active historian, sent me his part of a conversation with a friend since boyhood – they grew up as schoolmates together. The two men have different points of view and retain close relationship with each other, ‘across the divide’ so to speak. What I share here, with […]
Today promises to be a pleasant day in this area. Backyard picnic at my daughters place across the river. Family gathering of perhaps a dozen or so. Last night watched PBS annual July 4 concert on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. It was a flawless celebration of all of us, several thousand in the […]
What follows are personal reflections on relationships that built the United States of America. Included here are a few others who sent some reflections of their own. Yours will be gladly added if you wish. The other reflections so far: Jim, Larry, Lois, Nancy, Jane, Brian. Yours? See also, Stephanie, and July 4, 2026, and […]
Families! Mine was (and still is) the most dysfunctional middle-class family in America! I dare anyone to match their family’s dysfunction against mine. Ground rules: Your family has to be White, middle class, gainfully employed and have at least two kids. My parents lived in a two-bedroom house and still managed […]